11099	----	MORE SEEDS OF KNOWLEDGE; OR, ANOTHER PEEP AT CHARLES. BEING, AN ACCOUNT OF CHARLES'S PROGRESS IN LEARNING. ABOUT BLACK SLAVES; A CONVERSATION ON HISTORY; AND MISSIONARIES. BY MISS JULIA CORNER. EMBELLISHED WITH SEVEN ELEGANT COLOURED ENGRAVINGS. LONDON: [Illustration: THE INCA'S SURPRISE AT SEEING A WATCH.] MORE SEEDS OF KNOWLEDGE; OR, ANOTHER PEEP AT CHARLES. CHAP. I. CHARLES'S PROGRESS IN LEARNING. You have heard a great deal about Charles in the Seeds of Useful Knowledge; perhaps you would like to hear a little more about him; for, as he was never tired of learning good things, I might fill many books, if I were to speak of every thing that his papa and mamma taught him. But I dare say all the boys and girls who read this, have kind parents or friends who teach them, as well as Charles's papa and mamma taught him; so I will only mention such things as they may not perhaps yet have heard. But first of all, I must tell you what Charles has been doing, since you heard of him last. He was now a year older than he was then, and he was also wiser, for he could write pretty well, and read without spelling the long words; he knew the multiplication table, and the pence table too; and could do sums in multiplication without a mistake, when he took pains; but sometimes, when he was careless, or in a hurry, the sums were wrong: however, I am happy to say that did not happen very often. Besides all these things, Charles learned grammar, and geography, and could decline many Latin nouns; which was very well for a little boy not quite seven years old. But of all his lessons he liked geography best, he liked to find out places in the maps, and to know whereabouts the different countries were that he heard people talk of; and then his papa was often kind to tell him amusing stories about the inhabitants of those countries, and he also told him what things are brought from them: for instance, Charles knew that tea grows in China, which is in Asia; and sugar in the West-Indies; that the rose-wood that his mamma's chairs and card tables were made of, grew in a country called Brazil in South America; and that the raisins in the plum-pudding on Christmas day, were dried grapes, and came from Spain. "Papa," said Charles one night, when he was, as usual, telling his papa what he had done in the course of the day,--"I wish I might learn more geography, instead of any grammar; I like it so much better: I like geography very much, but I do not like grammar at all." "What is your objection to grammar, Charles?" said his papa. "Oh, why--there is nothing amusing in it." "And do you not think there is some other reason for learning, besides being amused?" "Yes; I think we learn that we may grow wise; but I don't want to leave off learning, papa; I only want to learn something else, instead of grammar?" Mr. Barber laughed, and told Charles, that no other kind of knowledge would be of much use to him without grammar, since nothing else would teach him to speak or write like a gentleman. "Don't I speak like a gentleman now, papa?" "You speak pretty well for a little boy, my dear; but you often make mistakes, which we think nothing of now, because we know that when you have learnt a little more grammar, you will know better; but if you were to make such mistakes when you are a man, you would be thought an ignorant person, and not be treated with respect." "Can you tell me of any mistakes I make now papa?" [Illustration: LITTLE CHARLES LEARNING GEOGRAPHY.] "Oh yes, I think I could very soon tell you of a great many. Just now, when you were standing at the window, I heard you say,--'There goes two white horses!' now that was a very great blunder, Charles." "Was it, papa;--why?" "Because it showed that you did not know the difference between singular and plural." "But I do know the difference--singular means one thing, and plural means more than one." "Exactly, so now try to find out the blunder." Charles repeated the words two or three times, "there goes two white horses;" but he could not find out what was wrong, and after puzzling for a long while, he was obliged to give it up, and his papa said,--"Suppose you had been talking about those horses before you saw them go by, should you have said, 'there they goes?'" "No," said Charles. "I should have said--'there they go.'" "And why should you have said so?" "Because it is not right to say--'there they goes'; nobody says so, but very ignorant people indeed; I heard the butcher's boy say so one day; but then, you know, he is a poor ignorant boy and I dare say has never learnt any thing." "How did you know that he was an ignorant boy, Charles?" "I knew it by his speaking wrong, papa." "Then you see it was true what I told you that if you speak wrong, people will directly think you are an ignorant person, as you thought the butcher's boy." "But I should never say, 'there they goes,'" said Charles, "I know better than that." "Ah, Charles," said his papa, "you must learn a little more grammar, and then you will know that you made exactly the same blunder as the butcher's boy, when you said, 'there _goes_ two white horses,' you should have said, 'there _go_ two white horses.'" "Should I? I did not know that," said Charles. "Which shews how necessary it is, that you should learn grammar, my boy, and then you will know that go is plural, and goes is singular, so that if you are speaking of more than one horse, it is proper to say go, because we say, 'they go;' but if you are speaking of only one, it is proper to say goes, because we should say, 'he goes.'" "Thank you, papa, I think I shall remember that, and I will not wish to leave off grammar, for I see that geography would not teach me to speak properly; and I should not like to be thought an ignorant man when I grow up." "I hope not, my dear, and I also hope there is no danger of such a misfortune, for you have a great many years to learn in; and if you make good use of them, you will know a great deal by the time you are twenty." "So I shall," said Charles, "I will learn as much as I can every day." "A very good resolution," said his papa; "education is one of the best things in the world. I will tell you an entertaining story on this very subject." "Do, papa, I should like to hear it very much; I am so fond of stories." "But this is a true one, Charles, which makes it all the better. You have seen in your map of America, a country called Peru?" "Yes," answered Charles; "I saw it this morning, when I was saying my geography lesson to mamma; I had to say all the countries in South America, and Peru was one of them." "Well, this country was once governed by a king who was called an Inca, and his name was Atabalipa; but although he was a king, he knew neither how to read nor write, for reading and writing were arts that were not known in America at that time." "What are arts, papa?" "Arts are those things which men have taught themselves to do by their own skill and invention; making tables and chairs, is an art; Printing is an art, and a very clever art it is; building is an art; and reading and writing are arts; but at the time I am speaking of, there were very few arts known in America, for it was mostly inhabited by savages; and even in Peru, where they were not savages, they were quite ignorant; they had no books, and would not have known how to read them if they had, and they thought they were the only people in the world besides the savages." "Then, I dare say, they thought themselves very clever fellows," said Charles, "for all they could not read or write; for you know, papa, if they thought there was nobody in the world but them and the savages, they would not know there were any people cleverer than themselves." "No, I have no doubt they were quite satisfied with themselves, my dear, and not without reason, for they had taught themselves many useful things; but at last they found out that there were people in the world who were cleverer than they were as you shall hear. There was a Spanish soldier, named Pizarro, who happened to hear that there was a great deal of gold and silver to be found in Peru; so he thought he would go there, and try if he could not make himself rich. Pizarro was a fierce, cruel man, but he had been brought up in total ignorance; for his mother was a very poor woman, and could not afford to send him to school, therefore he had never learned to read or write. However he could fight, and so he took a number of other soldiers with him, and went to Peru, where the people were so surprised at the sight of him and his men, who were not like any men they had seen before, that they were afraid; therefore the Spaniards very easily conquered them, and robbed them of their gold, and at last took the Inca prisoner, and kept him confined in a small room, where he would have been very unhappy; but that he was very much amused, by observing how many things the Spaniards knew that he had never before heard of. "He was astonished to see that they could tell the hour of the day by their watches, and thought the Europeans must be very wonderful people indeed, to make such clever things; but what pleased him more than all, was the art of writing. He could not imagine how one person could know what another meant by looking at a few black marks, and he thought that men who could do this, must be far superior to the Peruvians, and therefore felt a respect even for the common soldiers who guarded him; for he saw that they had more knowledge than he had, although a king. "Now Pizarro was the general of the soldiers, and of course the greatest man among them; and he had also become very rich by conquering the Peruvians, and plundering their towns, that is, taking away all the gold and silver he found: and Atabalipa supposed that, as he was the chief of the Spaniards, he must be the cleverest of them too; but one day he happened to find out by accident, that Pizarro could neither read nor write, and this discovery made him think so meanly of his conqueror, that from that moment he treated him with great contempt, saying that Pizarro, though a general, could not be a person of any consequence in his own country; since his common soldiers were better taught than himself." "Thank you, papa," said Charles, "that is just such a story as I like, and I see that it is of no use to be rich and great, if we are not wise also." [Illustration: THE AFRICAN TORN FROM HIS HOME BY WHITE-MAN.] CHAP. II. BLACK SLAVES. Charles used to go every fine day after his lessons were finished, to play in the square gardens; and as all the other boys whose parents lived in the square went there too, he had several friends, and amongst them one a little older than himself, named Peter Ross, whom he liked better than any of the rest. Peter was not an English boy, he was a West-Indian: his father and mother lived in Jamaica, but they had sent him to England to be educated, so he lived with his uncle in Euston-square, and went every day to the London University school. Charles was very fond of talking to Peter, because Peter told about the slaves that worked on his father's plantations, for his father was a sugar planter, and had a large estate in Jamaica, so he was obliged to keep a great many negro slaves, for all the plantations in the West-Indies, are cultivated by negroes. "I wish I had a slave," said Charles to his papa one evening, after he had been playing with Peter. "Do you know, papa, when Peter was at home in the West-Indies, he had a slave of his own, a black boy, to wait upon him, and do every thing he wanted; and Peter was his master, and he was not older, then, than I am. What a nice thing it must be to have a slave of one's own; I should get him to carry my kite, and my hoop and stick, when I don't want to bowl it, and mend my toys when I break them, and do a great many things for me. He could move my rocking horse, and that great wooden box where I keep my bats and balls, for it is too heavy for me to lift myself, and I often want it moved: really a slave would be very useful to me, papa." Mr. Barker could not help laughing at Charles's idea of the usefulness of a slave, and asked him if he knew exactly what slaves were. "Yes," replied Charles; "they are black people." "A great many slaves are black, certainly," said his papa, "but is not being black, that makes a man a slave, and there have been many unfortunate white people sold for slaves, as well as the poor blacks." "Sold!" said Charles, "what, do they sell people, I never heard of that before." "Then I will tell you now, my dear, and I think you will never again wish to have a slave. When America was first discovered, which is about three hundred and fifty years ago, there were many gold mines found in the West-Indies, all the mountains contained a vast quantity of gold, but it was very hard work to dig for it, and the natives of the country, who were savages, were not strong, and had never been used to work; so that the Spaniards who had discovered the country, could not get as much gold as they wished, although they were cruel enough to force the poor savages to work in the mines, and chained them together; that they might not run away; poor creatures! they were much to be pitied, and numbers of them died every day, for they had not strength to bear such hard labour. So when the Spaniards found that the Indians could not do as much work as they wanted done, they employed sailors to go to Africa and bring them a number of black men from that country; for they knew the Africans were strong, and that they could make them work as hard as they pleased." "But why did the Africans go, papa?" said Charles, whose eyes were full of tears at this sad tale. "Why did they not send the sailors away again, and say they would not go with them?" "They most likely would have done so," replied his papa; "if they had known how they would be treated; but the sailors said they would take them to a fine country, where they would get plenty of food without any trouble, and live much better than they did in their own country; so the simple negroes believed them, and went on board their ships; but they soon found out how wrong they had been to trust these wicked men; for when they came to the place where they expected to be so happy, they were all sold as if they had been beasts, instead of men, and sent to work in the mines; where they led a very miserable life indeed, for the cruel masters who had bought them, did not care what they suffered, so long as they got plenty of gold. "This was the beginning of what is called the slave trade, and a dreadful trade it has been ever since; for when the captains of ships found how much money the Spaniards would give for negroes, they went again to Africa; and when the black men refused to go with them, they took them by force, and carried them on board the ships, where they tied them together, so that it was impossible for them to escape. You would think it a very hard case, Charles, if you were walking by the sea shore, and two or three men were to come and carry you away by force to a distant land, and sell you to somebody who would make you work hard for him all the rest of your life, and consider you as much his property, as if he had bought a horse or a dog." "But they would have no right to sell me," said Charles, "I do not belong to them." "Neither do those poor Africans belong to the men who sell them; they have as much right to be free and happy, as you or I have." "Then how is it, papa, that Peter's father has slaves? he is an Englishman." "Yes, Charles, I am sorry to say, that Englishmen, as well as Spaniards, have traded in slaves, for when some of the West-India islands came into the possession of the English, they found the negroes so useful, and made so much money by their labour, that they forgot how unjust it was to keep them in slavery. However, I am happy to say, that a law is now in operation which will soon set all the slaves free. In a very short time, the negroes will be at liberty like other working men; and the masters, instead of buying them, must hire them like servants, and pay them wages; and they will be able to leave their master if he does not treat them well, and get another place, as our servants do." "Ah, how glad I am," said Charles, "that will be a good thing for the poor blacks. I do not wish to have a slave now, papa; I would not have one for the world. But Peter's father's slaves do not work in the gold mines, they make sugar: why is that?" "Because there are no gold mines now in the West-Indies worth working," said Mr. Barker; "the Spaniards took care to get all the gold there was, but people still make large fortunes there, by growing sugar; and there are still gold mines in other parts of America, where negro slaves work." "How does sugar grow?" enquired Charles. "It is made from the juice of reeds, called sugar canes," said his papa.--"A plantation of sugar canes is very pretty, they grow very high, and are of a beautiful gold colour, streaked with red; and at the top of this yellow cane are long green leaves, which hang down round it: but this is not all, for out of the midst of these leaves, there grows a long stem, like a thin silver wand; and at the top of it, is something that looks like a plume of white feathers, edged with lilac." "Oh, how beautiful!" exclaimed Charles:--"I should like to go to the West-Indies, if it was only to see a sugar plantation; but how do they get the sugar, papa?" "When the canes are ripe, Charles, the negroes cut them down, and tie them up in bundles, and carry them to a mill, where the juice is pressed out. "This juice is boiled several times in large coppers, and the coarse parts separated from the fine, which at last dries into sugar. It is all brown at first, or what you call moist sugar; but by mixing different things with it, and boiling it again in a particular manner, they can make lump sugar, and sugar candy; and this is done by the black slaves, who have been dragged away from their own country to be sold to the planters: so you see Charles, that even so simple a thing as a lump of sugar, is the cause of a vast deal of cruelty and injustice." [Illustration: Man (Drawing).] CHAP. III. A VISIT TO THE THEATRE. Charles had never seen a play; but his papa and mamma had always promised him that when he was seven years old, they would take him to Covent-Garden Theatre, and as that time had now nearly come, he did not forget to remind them of their promise. His birth-day was the fifteenth of January, which was lucky, because they always perform pantomimes in the Christmas holidays, and he was very desirous of seeing harlequin and columbine, and the clown, as he had heard a great deal about them from his young friends in the square, who had been to see them. As the day approached, Charles could think of nothing but the play, and said he thought it would be the happiest day of his life; but his mamma told him she hoped he would have much greater cause to be happy many days of his life, than going to a theatre; however Charles did not think there could be any greater cause for happiness, and his mamma said, it was as well for him to think so: The night before his birth-day, he went to bed in high spirits, saying he was sure he should not be able to sleep all night; but that was a mistake, for he went to sleep almost directly; and did not wake till the morning. [Illustration: LITTLE CHARLES SEEING A CHRISTMAS PANTOMIME.] As soon as he was dressed, he ran down stairs to breakfast, with a smiling face. "Here is the day come at last!" he said, "I am so glad mamma, I wish it was night; I am seven years old to-day." "Yes, my dear," said his mamma, "and I wish you many happy returns of the day." "Thank you, mamma, but I have a great favour to ask you." "What is it? Charles." "I am afraid you will not do it." "If it is any thing very unreasonable, perhaps I shall not," said his mamma; "but if it is not very unreasonable, I think, as it is your birth-day, I may venture to promise that I will do it." "Then this is it," said Charles; "Peter has never been to the play in his life, and he said yesterday, he should like to go with me; so I wish you would take him with us; he would be so pleased." "Well then, we will take him with us," said Mrs. Barker; "and I am glad to find that you think of other people's pleasure, as well as your own; it shows that you are not selfish." A message was then sent to Peter's uncle, who readily gave his consent, which made Charles happier than he was before. At six o'clock Peter came; and very much delighted he looked, as well he might, for he had not expected so great a pleasure; and then both the boys watched at the window for Mr. Barker, who had not yet come home; but he soon came, when they all got into a coach, and away they drove. The play was to be Macbeth, which Charles said was very fortunate, because he had read about him in 'Tales of a Grandfather,' but Peter had never read 'Tales of Grandfather,' nor any history of Scotland, so he did not know who Macbeth was, therefore Mr. Barker was kind enough to tell him the whole story as they went along; that he might be able to understand what he was going to see. Perhaps some other little boys would like to hear it too, so I will tell it. "There was once a king of Scotland, named Duncan, who was a good man, and much beloved by his subjects. This king had a cousin named Macbeth, who being the bravest general in Scotland, was employed by Duncan to fight all his battles for him, when he was too old to fight them himself; but Macbeth, although a brave man, was not a good man, and besides that, he had a very wicked wife, who wanted to be a queen, and therefore she tried to persuade her husband to kill Duncan, that he might be made king in his stead. "At this time the Danes, who came from Denmark, invaded Scotland; that is, they came there to fight the Scots, and try to conquer the country: but they were disappointed, for Macbeth went with a large army to the place where they had landed, and having killed a great number of them in a battle, he forced the rest to return to Denmark. "When Duncan heard that Macbeth had gained this victory, and driven his enemies out of Scotland, he was so much pleased, that he went, with his two sons, to pay him a visit at his castle; but he little thought, poor old man, what was going to happen, for in the middle of the night, when he was fast asleep, Macbeth went softly into his room, and killed him with a dagger. So in the morning, when it became known that the king was murdered, Macbeth pretended to be very much surprised and grieved at it, and although the people all thought he had done it himself, they were afraid to say so; and he was made king of Scotland. But wickedness is sure to be punished, as you shall hear; for the two young Princes, Malcolm and Donald Bane, as soon as they heard their father was dead, escaped from the castle, fearing that if they staid they might be killed too. "Now happened that at that very time there was in England a very good king, called Edward the Confessor, who was an enemy to all bad men; therefore the Scottish princes determined to go to his court, and tell him what Macbeth had done; for they did not doubt that when he heard of it, he would render them some assistance; and they were not mistaken. The English king declared that he would revenge the death of Duncan, and place Malcolm on the throne; so he sent a large army into Scotland, to fight for the young prince, and Macbeth was killed in a battle, which gave great joy to the people, who were very glad to have Malcolm for their king. All this happened nearly eight hundred years ago, and Malcolm, who is called in the history of Scotland, Malcolm Canmore, was one of the best kings that ever reigned over that country." By the time Mr. Barker had finished this story they had arrived at the theatre, and were just seated in the front row of a box, as the curtain drew up. The two boys liked the play very much, although it made them rather dull; but they were merry enough when the pantomime began, for it was full of fun, from beginning to end, and Charles could not help exclaiming every now and then, "Oh, what capital fun!" He was very much astonished at the wonderful tricks performed by harlequin with his magic sword, for to those who have never seen a pantomime before, it must be rather surprising to see a wheelbarrow turned into a steam carriage, and an umbrella into an arm chair. But what amused Charles and Peter more than all the rest, was a large pie which was brought in and placed on a table, where the king and queen, with several lords and ladies were sitting at dinner, all seemingly very anxious to taste of this pie. But the moment it was cut, a whistling noise was heard, and a number of little birds hopped out of the pie, and flew away, leaving the dish quite empty, to the great amusement of all the boys and girls in the theatre, who laughed very loud indeed. But pleasure cannot last for ever. The pantomime was soon over, and as Charles went home, he said he should like to go to the play every night, all the rest of his life--"Ah, Charles,"--said his papa, "we are all apt to like what is new to us, but you will find out, my boy, that people get tired even of pleasure, if they have too much of it." CHAP. IV. CONVERSATION ON HISTORY. On the morning after the play, Charles was thinking about the king of Scotland, and he asked his mamma why there was no king of Scotland now, as there used to be, and she told him that England and Scotland were now considered only as one kingdom, and called Great Britain. "Yes," said Charles, "I know that the queen of England is queen of Scotland too; but I want to know how it came to be so; because you see, mamma, that when Duncan was king of Scotland, there was a king of England as well." "Yes, my dear," and for five hundred years after Duncan was murdered, there were kings of Scotland and England also; but when Queen Elizabeth died, her nearest relation happened to be the king of Scotland, James the sixth; he was her cousin, and as she left neither brothers nor sisters, nor children, James became king of England as well as of his own country; and since that time there has been but one king to govern both kingdoms." "Thank you, mamma," said Charles, "I could not think how it was before; but do you think it is best to have one king or two?" "I think it is best to have but one, because, if you look at your map, you will see that England and Scotland together make one large island; and while they were separate kingdoms, they were frequently at war with each other." "What did they go to war for, mamma?" "I believe, Charles, the true cause generally was, that the English king thought he should like to have the whole island for himself; but what made the matter worse was, that as the people who were fighting against each other, all lived in the same island, it was almost as bad as a civil war." "What is a civil war, mamma?" "It is when the people of any country cannot agree among themselves, and so make war upon each other: there have been civil wars in all countries at different times; they are the most dreadful of all wars, because relations and friends are often fighting in battle against each other." "Oh, what a shocking thing!" said Charles; "But why do they do it mamma? I cannot think why people should fight battles with one another." "I will try to explain it, my dear: There is at present a civil war in Spain, because when the last king died, some of the people said that his daughter should be queen, and others said his brother should be king; so the daughter was placed on the throne and crowned; but the brother, whose name is Don Carlos, is very angry at this, because he thinks he has the greatest right to the crown; so he has persuaded all who are on his side, to go to war with all who are in favour of the queen, therefore the Spaniards are now fighting against each other." "Which do you think will win?" said Charles. "I cannot possibly say, my dear. But I wish to show you, Charles, the terrible consequences of a civil war. It may happen that fathers and sons are of different opinions, and that one fights for the queen, and the other for the king; and then it is possible that in battle the son may kill his father, or the father his son." "Oh, that would be shocking!" said Charles. "And yet it has sometimes happened," said his mamma; "there have been brothers too, who have fought against each other, and many persons who were friends before, have become the bitterest enemies." "Was there ever a civil war in England, mamma?" "Yes, my dear, more than once. The last was because many people thought they should like to have no king at all; I am going to buy you a little history of England, and then you will read about it." "I shall like to read about it," said Charles, "but what did the people do when they thought they should like to have no king?" "They said the king had done a great many things that were wrong, and so they put him in prison, and at last had his head cut off; do you know, Charles, which king it was who was beheaded?" "Yes, mamma; it was Charles the first." "Well, after Charles the first was beheaded, some of the people declared that his son should be king, and others said they would have no king at all, but that they would have somebody instead to manage the affairs of the country." "And I know who that was, mamma," said Charles, "it was Oliver Cromwell, I know he was not a king, but I did not understand how it was before." "And I suppose you also understand now, why this caused a civil war?" said his mamma. "Of course I do," replied Charles; "some people fought for the king, and some for Oliver Cromwell." "Yes," replied Mrs. Barker, "and for a long time the country was in a very unhappy state. The king was obliged to hide himself, for if he had been caught he would perhaps have been beheaded, as his poor father was. But at last he got away in a ship, and went to Holland, where he lived for some years; but at last his party was victorious, and he came back to England." "Then there was a king again," said Charles. [Illustration: CONVERSATIONS ON HISTORY: CHARLES IInd.] "Yes, then there was a king again, he was Charles the second; and now every year on the day that he returned, the bells ring, and the guns are fired, it is the 29th of May, and is called king Charles's restoration. When May comes, if you listen on that day, you will hear the bells ringing very merrily, and then you will know what it is for." "So I shall," said Charles, "I am glad of that, I like to know things, I wish I knew the history of every country in the world." "It is a very good thing to know a great deal of history," said his mamma; "and the best way of gaining this knowledge, is to read with attention the books that have been written on purpose to teach little boys history; they are the best for you to read now; then, when you are older, you will be able to understand the large books that are in your papa's book-case, and you may become acquainted with the history of the whole world, if you like." CHAP. V. MISSIONARIES. "Papa," said Charles, "I should like to know what a missionary is." "Your desire can very easily be gratified," replied his papa; "but what has made you think of missionaries just now?" "Because I read in the newspaper, this morning, that the day before yesterday there was a great crowd at St. Katharine's docks to take leave of a missionary who was going to one of the South Sea islands; and it said that a great deal of money had been given to him, and that when the ship began to sail, all the people waved their hats, and wished him success. Now I want to know what he was going for, and why every body was so glad?" [Illustration: THE GOOD MISSIONARY GOING ABROAD.] "Then I will tell you, Charles. Missionaries are good and religious men, who go out to different parts of the world, on purpose to benefit those poor ignorant creatures whom we call savages, by teaching them religion, and also such arts as they are capable of learning." "That is very kind of them," said Charles; "for it cannot be very pleasant to live among savages." "No, my dear; but these good men do not consider what is pleasant, they only consider what is right; and that is the proper way to think, is it not?" "Oh yes, papa, I know that we ought all to do what is right, whether it is pleasant or not." "Certainly, Charles, and in the end it is sure to be the most pleasant, because it is a great pleasure to know that we have done what is right. But we were talking of missionaries. For several hundred years the people of England and Germany, and other Christian countries, have considered it a part of their duty to teach the Christian religion in all parts of the world; for in many nations, Charles, they are so ignorant that instead of praying to God, they worship images, which they make themselves." "They are very wicked, then?" said Charles. "No, they are not wicked," replied his papa, "because they know no better; they do what they believe to be right; and as long as we do what we think is right, we cannot be wicked, although we may be mistaken." "Then the missionaries go to teach them better, I suppose?" said Charles. "Yes, my dear, these good men are so anxious to do good to their fellow creatures, that they do not mind the difficulties and dangers they meet with; and it is no easy matter I assure you Charles, for many of them have been cruelly murdered by the barbarians they were trying to instruct." "Poor men," said Charles, "how sorry I am for them; but why do any more of them go, papa, if they are so badly treated?" "Because though some have been unfortunate, others have done a great deal of good; for instance, the missionary you read about this morning, went out a great many years ago to some of the South Sea islands, which he found inhabited by savages who knew nothing, and lived more like wild beasts than men; but he contrived to make friends of them, and has taught them to build houses, cultivate the earth, build ships, and make many useful articles of furniture, and tools to dig and plant the ground; and although all these things are of a very rough kind, it is better than not knowing how to make them at all, you know." "To be sure it is," replied Charles; "besides, perhaps they will go on making them better and better, till at last they will make very good things indeed." [Illustration: THE GOOD MISSIONARY TEACHING THE SAVAGES TO BUILD.] "Yes, my boy, that is the right way, not only with the savages, but with ourselves: When once we know the manner of doing a thing, we may then improve upon it as much as we can, the same as with your writing, each copy ought to be done better than the last." "But now you have not told me why they have given money to the missionary, papa." "Because he has come to England to buy clothes, tools, seeds, and other things for the use and improvement of the South Sea Islanders. The English people are always ready to assist in any good work; and so numbers of persons have given money, till it has amounted to several hundred pounds, which has enabled the good missionary to take back with him a large store of useful articles." "Well, that is an excellent plan," said Charles, "I should not wonder if these poor savages in time become very clever fellows, and make their island a capital place, and all through this good missionary." "Yes, Charles, so we see how much may be done by one person alone, if he will take the pains. But there is one thing that the missionary has taught the savages, which is better than all the rest; he has taught them to know that there is a God, who made the world, and all that is in it, and that those who love him, and keep his commandments, will be rewarded in the world to come." 
11151	----	THE LOST TRAIL BY EDWARD S. ELLIS AUTHOR OF "SETH JONES," "THE FOREST SPY," ETC., ETC. 1911 [Illustration: "THAT INDIAN HAS CARRIED CORA AWAY!"--_Frontispiece_.] CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Shadow II. The Adventures of a Night III. The Jug Acquaintances IV. An Ominous Rencounter V. Gone VI. The Lost Trail VII. A Hibernian's Search for the Trail VIII. The Trail of Death IX. The Dead Shot X. Conclusion LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. He held his long rifle in his right hand, while he drew the shrubbery apart with his left, and looked forth at the canoe. "A purty question, ye murtherin haythen!" "Where does yees get the jug?" Dealt the savage a tremendous blow "Well, At-to-uck," said he, kindly, "you seem troubled." The trail was lost! "And so, Teddy, ye're sayin' it war a white man that took away the missionary's wife." "It's all up!" muttered the dying man. "I am wiped out at last, and must go under!" "Harvey Richter--don't you know me?" he gasped. THE LOST TRAIL. CHAPTER I. THE SHADOW. Ye who love the haunts of nature, Love the sunshine of the meadow, Love the shadow of the forest, Love the wind among the branches, And the rain-shower and the snow-storm, And the rushing of great rivers. Listen to these wild traditions.--HIAWATHA. One day in the spring of 1820, a singular occurrence took place on one of the upper tributaries of the Mississippi. The bank, some fifteen or twenty feet in height, descended quite abruptly to the stream's edge. Though both shores were lined with dense forest, this particular portion possessed only several sparse clumps of shrubbery, which seemed like a breathing-space in this sea of verdure--a gate in the magnificent bulwark with which nature girts her streams. This green area commanded a view of several miles, both up and down stream. Had a person been observing this open spot on the afternoon of the day in question, he would have seen a large bowlder suddenly roll from the top of the bank to bound along down the green declivity and fall into the water with a loud splash. This in itself was nothing remarkable, as such things are of frequent occurrence in the great order of things, and the tooth of time easily could have gnawed away the few crumbs of earth that held the stone in poise. Scarcely five minutes had elapsed, however, when a second bowlder rolled downward in a manner precisely similar to its predecessor, and tumbled into the water with a rush that resounded across and across from the forest on either bank. Even this might have occurred in the usual course of things. Stranger events take place every day. The loosening of the first stone could have opened the way for the second, although a suspicious observer might naturally have asked why its fall did not follow more immediately. But, when precisely the same interval had elapsed, and a third stone followed in the track of the others, there could be no question but what human agency was concerned in the matter. It certainly appeared as if there were some _intent_ in all this. In this remote wilderness, no white man or Indian would find the time or inclination for such child's play, unless there was a definite object to be accomplished. And yet, scrutinized from the opposite bank, the lynx-eye of a veteran pioneer would have detected no other sign of the presence of a human being than the occurrences that we have already narrated; but the most inexperienced person would have decided at once upon the hiding-place of him who had given the moving impulse to the bodies. Just at the summit of the bank was a mass of shrubbery of sufficient extent and density to conceal a dozen warriors. And within this, beyond doubt, was one person, at least, concealed; and it was certain, too, that from his hiding-place, he was peering out upon the river. Each bowlder had emerged from this shrubbery, and had not passed through it in its downward course; so that their starting-point may now be considered a settled question. Supposing one to have gazed from this stand-point, what would have been his field of vision? A long stretch of river--a vast, almost interminable extent of forest--a faint, far-off glimpse of a mountain peak projected like a thin cloud against the blue sky, and a solitary eagle that, miles above, was bathing his plumage in the clear atmosphere. Naught else? Close under the opposite shore, considerably lower down than the point to which we first directed our attention, may be descried a dark object. It is a small Indian canoe, in which are seated two white men and a female, all of whom are attired in the garb of civilization. The young man near the stern is of slight mold, clear blue eye, and a prepossessing countenance. He holds a broad ashen paddle in his hand with which to assist his companion, who maintains his proximity to the shore for the purpose of overcoming more deftly the opposition of the current. The second personage is a short but square-shouldered Irishman, with massive breast, arms like the piston-rods of an engine, and a broad, good-natured face. He is one of those beings who may be aptly termed "machines," a patient, plodding, ox-like creature who takes to the most irksome labor as a flail takes to the sheafs on the threshing-floor. Work was his element, and nothing, it would seem, could tire or overcome those indurated muscles and vice-like nerves. The only appellation with which he was ever known to be honored was that of "Teddy." Near the center of the canoe, which was of goodly size and straight, upon a bed of blankets, sat the wife of the young man in the stern. A glance would have dissipated the slightest suspicion of her being anything other than a willing voyager upon the river. There was the kindling eye and glowing cheek, the eager look that flitted hither and yon, and the buoyant feeling manifest in every movement, all of which expressed more of enthusiasm than of willingness merely. Her constant questions to her husband or Teddy, kept up a continual run of conversation, which was now, for the first time, momentarily interrupted by the occurrence to which we have alluded. At the moment we introduce them the young man was holding his paddle stationary and gazing off toward his right, where the splash in the water denoted the fall of the third stone. His face wore an expression of puzzled surprise, mingled with which was a look of displeasure, as if he were "put out" at this manifestation. His eyes were fixed with a keen, searching gaze upon the river-bank, expecting the appearance of something more. Teddy also was resting upon his paddle, and scrutinizing the point in question; but he seemed little affected by what had taken place. His face was as expressionless as one of the bowlders, save the ever-present look of imperturbable good-humor. The young woman seemed more absorbed than either of her companions, in attempting to divine this mystery that had so suddenly come upon them. More than once she raised her hand, as an admonition for Teddy to preserve silence. Finally, however, his impatience got the better of his obedience, and he broke the oppressive stillness. "And what does ye make of it, Miss Cora, or Master Harvey?" he asked, after a few moments, dipping his paddle at the same time in the water. "Arrah, now, has either of ye saan anything more than the same bowlders there?" "No," answered the man, "but we may; keep a bright look-out, Teddy, and let me know what you see." The Irishman inclined his head to one side, and closed one eye as if sighting an invisible gun. Suddenly he exclaimed, with a start: "I see something now, _sure_ as a Bally-ma-gorrah wake." "What is it?" "The sun going down in the west, and tilling us we've no time to shpare in fooling along here." "Teddy, don't you remember day before yesterday when we came out of the Mississippi into this stream, we observed something very similar to this?" "An' what if we did, zur? Does ye mane to say that a rock or two can't git tired of layin' in bed for a thousand years and roll around like a potaty in a garret whin the floor isn't stiddy?" "It struck us as so remarkable that we both concluded it must have been caused _purposely_ by some one." "Me own opinion was, ye remember, that it was a lot of school-boys that had run away from their master, and were indulging themselves in a little shport, or that it was the bears at a shindy, or that it was something else." "Ah! Teddy, there are times when jesting is out of place," said the young wife, reproachfully; "and it seems to me that when we are alone in this vast wilderness, with many and many a long mile between us and a white settlement, we should be grave and thoughtful." "I strives to be so, Miss Cora, but it's harder than paddling this cockle-shell of a canoe up-shtream. My tongue will wag jist as a dog's tail when he can't kape it still." The face of the Irishman wore such a long, woebegone expression, that it brought a smile to the face of his companion. Teddy saw this, and his big, honest blue eyes twinkled with humor as he glanced upward from beneath his hat. "I knows yees _prays_ for me, Misther Harvey and Miss Cora, ivery night and morning of your blessed life, but I'm afeard your prayers will do as little good for Teddy as the s'arch-warrant did for Micky, the praist's boy, who stole the praist's shirt and give it away because it was lou--" "_Look!_" From the very center of the clump of bushes of which we have made mention, came a white puff of smoke, followed immediately by the faint but sharp report of a rifle. The bullet's course could be seen as it skipped over the surface of the water, and finally dropped out of sight. "What do you say, now?" asked the young man. "Isn't that proof that we've attracted attention?" "So it saams; but, little dread need we have of disturbance if they always kaap at such a respictable distance as that. Whisht, now! but don't ye saa those same bushes moving? There's some one passing through them! Mebbe it's a shadow, mebbe it's the divil himself. If so, here goes after the imp!" Catching up his rifle, Teddy discharged it toward the bank, although it was absolutely impossible for his bullet to do more than reach the shore. "That's to show the old gintleman we are ready and ain't frightened, be he the divil himself, or only a few of his children, that ye call the poor Injuns!" "And whoever it is, he is evidently as little frightened as you; that shot was a direct challenge to us." "And it's accepted. Hooray! Now for some Limerick exercise!" Ere he could be prevented, the Irishman had headed his canoe across stream, and was paddling with all his might toward the spot from which the first shot had been fired. "Stop!" commanded his master. "It is fool-hardiness, on a par with your general conduct, thus to run into an undefined danger." Teddy reluctantly changed the course of the boat and said nothing, although his face plainly indicated his disappointment. He had not been mistaken, however, in the supposition that he detected the movements of some person in the shrubbery. Directly after the shot had been fired, the bushes were agitated, and a gaunt, grim-visaged man, in a half-hunter and half-civilized dress, moved a few feet to the right, in a manner which showed that he was indifferent as to whether or not he was observed. He looked forth as if to ascertain the result of his fire. The man was very tall, with a face by no means unhandsome, although it was disfigured by a settled scowl, which better befitted a savage enemy than a white friend. He held his long rifle in his right hand, while he drew the shrubbery apart with his left, and looked forth at the canoe. [Illustration: He held his long rifle in his right hand, while he drew the shrubbery apart with his left, and looked forth at the canoe.] "I knew the distance was too great," he muttered, "but you will hear of me again, Harvey Richter. I've had a dozen chances to pick you off since you and your friends started up-stream, but I don't wish to do _that_. No, no, not that. Fire away; but you can do me no more harm than I can you, at this moment." Allowing the bushes to resume their wonted position, the stranger deliberately reloaded his piece and as deliberately walked away in the wood. In the meantime, the voyagers resumed their journey and were making quite rapid progress up-stream. The sun was already low in the sky, and it was not long before darkness began to envelop wood and stream. At a sign from the young man, the Irishman headed the canoe toward shore. In a few moments they landed, where, if possible, the wood was more dense than usual. Although quite late in the spring, the night was chilly, and they lost no time in kindling a good fire. The travelers appeared to act upon the presumption that there were no such things as enemies in this solitude. Every night they had run their boat in to shore, started a fire, and slept soundly by it until morning, and thus far, strange as it may seem, they had suffered no molestation and had seen no signs of ill-will, if we except the occurrences already related. Through the day, the stalwart arms of Teddy, with occasional assistance from the more delicate yet firm muscles of Harvey, had plied the paddle. No attempt at concealment was made. On several occasions they had landed at the invitation of Indians, and, after smoking, and presenting them with a few trinkets, had departed again, in peace and good-will. Not to delay information upon an important point, we may state that Harvey Richter was a young minister who had recently been appointed missionary to the Indians. The official members of his denomination, while movements were on foot concerning the spiritual welfare of the heathen in other parts of the world, became convinced that the red-men of the American wilds were neglected, and conceding fully the force of the inference drawn thence, young men were induced to offer themselves as laborers in the savage American vineyard. Great latitude was granted in their choice of ground--being allowed an area of thousands upon thousands of square miles over which the red-man roamed in his pristine barbarism. The vineyard was truly vast and the laborers few. While his friends selected stations comparatively but a short distance from the bounds of civilization, Harvey Richter decided to go to the Far Northwest. Away up among the grand old mountains and majestic solitudes, hugging the rills and streams which roll eastward to feed the great continental artery called the Mississippi, he believed lay his true sphere of duty. Could the precious seed be deposited there, if even in a single spot, he was sure its growth would be rapid and certain, and, like the little rills, it might at length become the great, steadily-flowing source of light and life. Harvey Richter had read and studied much regarding the American aborigines. To choose one of the wildest, most untamed tribes for his pupils, was in perfect keeping with his convictions and his character for courage. Hence he selected the present hunting-grounds of the Sioux, in upper Minnesota. Shortly before he started he was married to Cora Brandon, whose devotion to her great Master and to her husband would have carried her through any earthly tribulations. Although she had not urged the resolution which the young minister had taken, yet she gladly gave up a luxurious home and kind friends to bear him company. There was yet another whose devotion to the young missionary was scarcely less than that of the faithful wife. We refer to the Irishman, Teddy, who had been a favorite servant for many years in the family of the Richters. Having fully determined on sharing the fortunes of his young master, it would have grieved his heart very deeply had he been left behind. He received the announcement that he was to be a life-long companion of the young man, with an expression at once significant of his pride and his joy. "Be jabers, but Teddy McFadden is in luck!" And thus it happened that our three friends were ascending one of the tributaries of the upper Mississippi on this balmy day in the spring of 1820. They had been a long time on the journey, but were now nearing its termination. They had learned from the Indians daily encountered, the precise location of the large village, in or near which they had decided to make their home for many and many a year to come. After landing, and before starting his fire, Teddy pulled the canoe up on the bank. It was used as a sort of shelter by their gentler companion, while he and his master slept outside, in close proximity to the camp-fire. They possessed a plentiful supply of game at all times, for this was the Paradise of hunters, and they always landed and shot what was needed. "We must be getting well up to the northward," remarked the young man, as he warmed his hands before the fire. "Don't you notice any difference in the atmosphere, Cora?" "Yes; there is a very perceptible change." "If this illigant fire only keeps up, I'm thinking there'll be a considerable difference afore long. The ways yees be twisting and doubling them hands, as if ye had hold of some delightsome soap, spaaks that yees have already discovered a difference. It is better nor whisky, fire is, in the long run, providin' you don't swaller it--the fire, that is." "Even if swallowed, Teddy, fire is better than whisky, for fire burns only the body, while whisky burns the soul," answered the minister. "Arrah, that it does; for I well remimbers the last swig I took a'most burnt a hole in me shirt, over the bosom, and they say that is where the soul is located." "Ah, Teddy, you are a sad sinner, I fear," laughingly observed Mrs. Richter, at this extravagant allusion. "A _sad_ sinner! Divil a bit of it. I haven't saan the day for twinty year whin I couldn't dance at me grandmother's wake, or couldn't use a shillalah at me father's fourteenth weddin'. Teddy _sad_? Well, that is a--is a--a mistake," and the injured fellow further expressed his feelings by piling on the fuel until he had a fire large enough to have roasted a battalion of prize beeves, had they been spitted before it. Darkness at length fairly settled upon the wood and stream; the gloom around became deep and impressive. The inevitable haunch of venison was roasting before the roaring fire, Teddy watching and attending it with all the skill of an experienced cook. While thus engaged, the missionary and his wife were occupied in tracing the course of the Mississippi and its tributaries upon a pocket map, which was the chief guide in that wilderness of streams and "tributaries." Who could deny the vastness of the field, and the loud call for laborers, when such an immense extent then bore only the name of "Unexplored Region!" And yet, this same headwater territory was teeming with human beings, as rude and uncultivated as the South Sea Islanders. What were the feelings of the faithful couple as their eyes wandered to the left of the map, where these huge letters confronted them, we can only surmise. That they felt that ten thousand self-sacrificing men could be employed in this portion of the country we may well imagine. As the evening meal was not yet ready, the missionary folded the map and fell to musing--musing of the future he had marked out for himself; enjoying the sweet approval of his conscience, higher and purer than any enjoyment of earth. All at once came back the occurrence of the afternoon, which had been absent from his thoughts for the hour past. But, now that it was recalled, it engaged his mind with redoubled force. Could he be assured that it was a red-man who had fired the shot, the most unpleasant apprehension would be dissipated; but a suspicion _would_ haunt him, in spite of himself, that it was not a red-man, but a white, who had thus signified his hostility. The rolling of the stones must have been simply to call his attention, and the rifle-shot was intended for nothing more than to signify that he was an enemy. And who could this enemy be? If a hunter or an adventurer, would he not naturally have looked upon any of his own race, whom he encountered in the wilderness, as his friends, and have hastened to welcome them? What could have been more desirable than to unite with them in a country where whites were so scarce, and almost unknown? Was it not contrary to all reason to suppose that a hermit or misanthrope would have penetrated thus far to avoid his brother man, and would have broken his own solitude by thus betraying his presence? Such and similar were the questions Harvey Richter asked himself again and again, and to all he was able to return an answer. He had decided who this strange being might possibly be. If it was the person suspected, it was one whom he had met more frequently than he wished, and he prayed that he might never encounter him again in this world. The certainty that the man had dogged him to this remote spot in the West; that he had patiently plodded after the travelers for many a day and night; that even the trackless river had not sufficed to place distance between them; that, undoubtedly, like some wild beast in his lair, he had watched Richter and his companions as they sat or slumbered near their camp-fire--these, we may well surmise, served to render the missionary for the moment excessively uncomfortable, and to dull the roseate hues in which he had drawn the future. The termination of this train of thought was the sudden suspicion that this very being was at that moment in close proximity. Unconsciously, Harvey rose to the sitting position and looked around, half expecting to descry the too well remembered figure. "Supper is waiting, and so is our appetites, be the same token in your stomachs that is in mine. How bees it with yourself, Mistress Cora?" The young wife had risen to her feet, and the husband was in the act of doing the same, when the sharp crack of a rifle broke the stillness, and Harvey plainly heard and felt the whiz of the bullet as it passed before his eyes. "To the devil wid yer nonsense!" shouted Teddy, furiously springing forward, and glaring around him in search of the author of the well-nigh fatal shot. Deciding upon the quarter whence it came, he seized his ever-ready rifle, which he had learned to manage with much skill, dashed off at the top of his speed, not heeding the commands of his master, nor the appeals of Mrs. Richter to return. Guided only by his blind rage, it happened, in this instance, that the Irishman proceeded directly toward the spot where the hunter had concealed himself, and came so very near that the latter was compelled to rise to his feet to escape being trampled upon. Teddy caught the outlines of a tall form tearing hurriedly through the wood, as if in terror of being caught, and he bent all his energies toward overtaking him. The gloom of the night, that had now fairly descended, and the peculiar topography of the ground, made it an exceedingly difficult matter for both to keep their feet. The fugitive, catching in some obstruction, was thrown flat upon his face, but quickly recovered himself. Teddy, with a shout of exultation, sprung forward, confident that he had secured their persecutor at last, but the Irishman was caught by the same obstacle and "floored" even more completely than his enemy. "Bad luck to it!" he exclaimed, frantically scrambling to his feet, "but it has knocked me deaf and dumb. I'll have ye, owld haythen, yit, or me name isn't Teddy McFadden, from Limerick downs." Teddy's fall had given the fugitive quite an advantage, and as he was fully as fleet of foot as the Irishman, the latter was unable to regain his lost ground. Still, it wasn't in his nature to give in, and he dashed forward as determinedly as ever. To his unutterable chagrin, however, it was not long before he realized that the footsteps of his enemy were gradually becoming more distant. His rage grew with his adversary's gradual escape, and he would have pursued had he been certain of rushing into destruction itself. All at once he made a second fall, and, instead of recovering, went headlong down into a gully, fully a dozen feet in depth. Teddy, stunned by his heavy fall, lay insensible for some fifteen or twenty minutes. He returned to consciousness with a ringing sensation in his ears, and it was some time before he could recall all the circumstances of his predicament. Gradually the facts dawned upon him, and he listened. Everything was oppressively still. He heard not the voice of his master, and not even the sound of any of the denizens of the wood. His first movement was to feel for his rifle, which he had brought with him in his descent, and which he found close at hand. In the act of rising, he caught the sound of a footstep, and saw, at the same instant, the outlines of a person that he knew at once could be no other than the man whom he had been pursuing. The hunter was about a dozen feet distant, and seemed perfectly aware of the Irishman's presence, for he stood with folded arms, facing his pursuer. The darkness prevented Teddy's discovering anything more than his enemy's outline But this was enough for a shot to do its work. Teddy cautiously brought his rifle to his shoulder, and lifted the hammer. Pointing it at the breast of his adversary, so as to be sure of his aim, he pulled the trigger, but there was no response. The gun either was unloaded, or had been injured by its rough usage. The dull click of the lock reached the ear of the target, who asked, in a low, gruff voice: "Why do _you_ seek me? You and I have no quarrel." "A purty question, ye murtherin' haythen! I'll settle with yees, if yees only come down here like a man. Jist play the wolf and belave me a sheep, and come down here for your supper." [Illustration: "A purty question, ye murtherin haythen!"] "My quarrel is not with you, I tell you, but with your psalm-singing _master_--" "And ain't that _meself_?" interrupted Teddy. "What's mine is his, and what's his is mine, and what's me is both, and what's both is me, barring neither one is my own, but all belong to Master Harvey, and Miss Cora, God bless their souls. Don't talk of quarreling wid _him_ and being friendly to _me_, ye murtherin' spalpeen! Jist come down here a bit, I say, if ye's got a spick of honor in yer rusty shirt." "My ill-will is not toward you, although, I repeat, if you step in my way you may find it a dangerous matter. You think I tried to shoot you, but you are mistaken. Do you suppose I could have come as near and _missed_ without doing so on _purpose_? To-night I could have brought you and your master, or his wife, and sent you all out of the world in a twinkling. I've roamed the woods too long to miscarry at a dozen yards." Teddy began to realize that the man told the truth, yet it cannot be said that his anger was abated, although a strong curiosity mingled with it. "And what's yer raison for acting in that shtyle, to as good a man as iver asked God's blessing on a sunny morning, and who wouldn't tread on one of yer corns, that is, if yer big feet isn't all corns, like a toad's back, as I suspict, from the manner in which ye leaps over the ground." "_He_ knows who I am, and he knows he has given me good cause to remind him of my existence. _He_ can tell you, if he chooses; I shall not. But let yourself and him take warning from what you already know." "And be the same token, let yourself be taking warning. As sure as I'm the ninth son of the seventh mother, I'll--" The hunter was gone! CHAPTER II. THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT. The echoing rock, the rushing flood, The cataract's swell, the moaning wood; The undefined and mingled hums-- Voice of the desert never dumb! All these have left within this heart A feeling tongue can ne'er impart; A wildered and unearthly flame, A something that's without a name.--ETTRICK SHEPHERD. With extreme difficulty, Teddy made his way out of the ravine into which purposely he had been led by the hunter. He was full of aches and pains when he attempted to walk, and more than once was compelled to halt to ease his bruised limbs. As he painfully made his way back to the camp he did a vast deal of cogitation. When in extreme pain of body, produced by a mishap intentionally conceived by another, it is but following the natural law of cause and effect to feel a certain degree of exasperation toward the evil-doer; and, as the Irishman at every step experienced a sharp twinge that ofttimes made him cry out, his ejaculations were neither conceived in charity nor uttered in good-will toward all men. Still, he pondered deeply upon what the hunter had said, and was perplexed to know what could possibly be its meaning. The simple nature of the Irishman was unable to fathom the mystery. He could not have believed even had Harvey Richter himself confessed to having perpetrated a crime or a wrong, that the minister had been guilty of anything sufficient to give cause of enmity. The strange hunter whom they had unexpectedly encountered several times, must be some crack-brained adventurer, the victim of a fancied wrong, who, most likely, had mistaken Harvey Richter for another person. What could be the object in firing at the missionary, yet taking pains that no harm should be inflicted? That was another impenetrable mystery; but, let it be comprehensible or not, the wrathful servitor inwardly vowed that, if the man crossed the path of himself or his master again, and the opportunity offered, he should shoot him down as he would a wild animal. In the midst of his absorbing reverie, Teddy suddenly paused and looked around him. He was lost. Shrewd enough to understand that to attempt to extricate himself would only lead into a greater entanglement, from which it might not be possible to escape at all, he wisely concluded to remain where he was until daylight. Gathering a few twigs and leaves, with his well-stored "punk-box" he soon started a small fire, by the light of which he collected a sufficient quantity of fuel to last until morning. Few scenes of nature are more impressive than a forest at night. That low deep roar, born of silence itself--the sad sighing of the wind--the tall, column-like trunks, resembling huge sentinels keeping guard over the mysteries of ages--the silent sea of foliage overhead, that seems to shut in a world of its own--all have an influence, peculiar, irresistible and sublime. The picket upon duty is a prey to many an imaginary danger. The rustling of a leaf, the crackling of a twig, the flitting shadows of the ever-changing clouds, are made to assume the guise of a foe, endeavoring to steal upon him unawares. Again and again Teddy was certain he heard the stealthy tread of the strange hunter, or some prowling Indian, and his heart throbbed violently at the expected encounter. Then, as the sound ceased, a sense of his utter loneliness came over him, and he pined for his old home in the States, which he had so lately left. A tremulous wail, which came faintly through the silence of the boundless woods, reminded him that there were other inhabitants of the solitude besides human beings. At such times, he drew nearer to the fire, as a child would draw near to a friend to shun an imaginary danger. But, finally the drowsy god asserted himself, and the watcher passed off into a deep slumber. His last recollection was a dim consciousness of hearing the tread of something near the camp-fire. But his stupor was so great that he had not the inclination to arouse himself, and with his face buried in the leaves of his bushy couch, he quickly lost cognizance of all things, and floated off into the illimitable realms of sleep--Sleep, the sister of Death. He came out of his heavy slumber from feeling something snuffing and clawing at his shoulder. He was wide awake at once, and all his faculties, even to his anger, were aroused. "Git out, ye owld sarpent!" he shouted, springing to his feet. "Git out, or I'll smash yer head the same as I smashed the assassin's, barring I didn't do it!" The affrighted animal leaped back several yards, as lightly as a shadow. Teddy caught only a glimpse of the beast, but could plainly detect the phosphorescent glitter of his angry eyes, that watched every movement. The Irishman's first proceeding was to replenish the fire. This kept the creature at a safe distance, although he began trotting around and around, as if to seek some unguarded loophole through which to compass the destruction of the man who had thus invaded his dominions. The tread of the animal resembled the rattling of raindrops upon the leaves, while its silence, its gliding motion, convinced the inexperienced Irishman of the brute's exceedingly dangerous character. His rifle was too much injured to be of use and he could therefore only keep his precocious foe at a safe distance by piling on fuel until the camp-fire burned defiantly. There was no more sleep for Teddy that night. He had received too great a shock, and the impending danger was too imminent for him to do any thing but watch, so long as darkness and the animal remained. Several times he thought there was evidence of the presence of another beast, but he failed to discover it, and finally believed he had been mistaken. It was a tiresome and lonely occupation, this incessant watching, and Teddy had recourse to several expedients to while away the weary hours. The first and most natural was that of singing. He trolled forth every song that he could recall to remembrance, and it may be truly said that he awoke echoes in those forest-aisles never before heard there. As in the pauses he heard the volume of sound that seemed quivering and swaying among the tree-trunks, like the confined air in an organ, he was awed into silence. "Whist, ye son of Patrick McFadden; don't ye hear the responses all around ye, as if the spirits were in the organ loft, thinkin' ye a praist and thimselves the choir-boys. I belaves, by me sowl, that ivery tree has got a tongue, for hear how they whispers and mutters. Niver did I hear the likes. No more singin', Teddy my darlint, to sich an audience." He thereupon relapsed into silence, but it was only momentary. He suddenly looked out into the darkness which shrouded the still watchful beast from sight, and exclaimed: "Ye owld shivering assassin, out there, did yees ever hear till how Tom O'Reilly got his wife? Yees never did, eh? Well, then, be aisy now, and I'll give yees the truths of the matter. "Tom was a great, rollicking boy, that had an eye gouged out at the widow Mulloney's wake, and an ugly cut that made his mouth six inches wide: and, before he got the cut, it was as broad as yer own out there. Besides, his hair being of a fire's own red, you may safely say that he was not the most beautiful young man in Limerick, and that there wasn't many gals that were dying of a broken heart for the same Tom. "But Tom thought a mighty sight of the gals and a great deal more of Kitty McGuire, that lived close by the brook as yees come a mile or two out of this side of Limerick. Tom was possessed after that same gal, and it only made him the more determined when he found that Kitty didn't like him at all. He towld the boys he was bound to have her, and any one who said he wasn't would get his head broke. "There was a little orphan girl, whose father had gone to Ameriky and whose mother was dead, that was found one night, years before, in front of old Mrs. McGuire's door. She was about the same age as Kitty, and the owld woman took her out of kindness and brought them up together. She got to be jist as ugly a looking a gal as Tom was a man. Her hair was redder than his, and her face was just that freckled that yees couldn't tell which was the freckle and which was the skin itself. And her nose had a twist, on the ind of it, that made one think it had been made for a corkscrew, or some machine that you bore holes with. "This gal, Molly Mulligan, used to encourage Tom to come to the house, and was always so mighty kind to him that he used to kiss and shpark her by way of compinsating her for her trouble. She used to take this all _very_ well, for she was a great admirer of Tom's, and always spoke his praise. But Tom didn't make much headway with Kitty. It wasn't often that he could saa her, and when he did; she was mighty offish, and was sure to have the owld woman present, like a dumb-waiter, to be sure. She come to tell him at length that she didn't admire his coming, and that he would greatly plaise her if he would make his visits by staying away altogether. The next time Tom went he found the door locked, and, after hammering a half-hour, and being towld there was no admittance, he belaved it was meant as a kind hint that his company was not agreeable. Be yees listening, ye riptile? "Tom might have stood it very well, if another chap hadn't begun calling on Kitty about this time. He used to go airly in the evening, and not come out of the house till after midnight, so that one might belave his visits were welcome. This made Tom feel mighty bad, and so he hid behind the wall and waylaid the chap one night. He would have killed the chap, his timper was so ruffled, if the man hadn't nearly killed him afore he had the chance. He laid all night in the gutter, and was just able to crawl home next day, while the fellow went a-courting the next night, as if nothing had happened. "Tom begun to git melancholy, and his mouth didn't appear quite as broad as usual. Molly Mulligan thought he had taken slow poison and it was gradually working through his system; but he could ate his pick of praties the same as iver. But Tom felt mighty bad; that fact can't be denied, and he went frequently to consult with a praist that lived near this ind of Limerick, and who was knowed to cut up a trick or two during his lifetime. When Tom came out one day looking bright and cheery, iverybody belaved they had been conspiring togither, and had hit on some thavish trick they was to play on little Kitty McGuire. "When the moon was bright, Kitty used to walk to Limerick and back again of an evening. Her beau most likely went with her, but sometimes she preferred to go alone, as she knowed no one would hurt a bonny little gal as herself. Tom knowed of these doings, as in days gone by he had jined her once or twice. So one night he put a white sheet around him as she was coming back from Limerick, and hid under the little bridge over the brook. It was gitting quite late, and the moon was just gone down, so, when she stepped on the bridge, and he came out afore her, she gave one shriek, and like to have fainted intirely. "'Make no noise, or I'll ate ye up alive,' said Tom, trying to talk like a ghost. "'What isht yees want?' she asked, shaking like a leaf, 'and who are yees?' "'I'm a shpirit, come to warn ye of your ill-doings.' "'I know I'm a great sinner,' she cried, covering her face with her hands; 'but I try to do as well as I can.' "'Do you know Tom O'Reilly?' he asked, loud enough to be heard in Limerick. 'You have treated him ill.' "'That I know I have,' she sobbed, 'and how can I do him justice?' "'He loves you.' "'I know he does!' "'He is a shplendid man, and will make a much bitter husband than the spalpeen that ye now looks on with favor.' "'Shall I make him my husband?' "'Yis; if ye wish to save yourself from purgatory. If the other man marries yees, he'll murder yees the same night.' "'Oh!' shrieked the gal, as if she'd go down upon the ground, 'and how shall I save meself?' "'By marrying Tom O'Reilly.' "'Is that the only way?' "'Ay. Does yees consint?' "'I do; I must do poor Tom justice.' "'Will ye marry him this same night?' "'That I will.' "'Tom is hid under this bridge; I'll go down and bring him up, and he'll go to the praist's with yees. Don't ye shtir or I'll ate yees.' "So Tom whisked under the ind of the bridge, slipped off the sheet, all the time kaaping one eye cocked above to saa that Kitty didn't give him the shlip. He then came up and spoke very smilingly to the gal, as though he hadn't seen her afore that night. He didn't think that his voice was jist the same. "Kitty didn't say much, but she walked very quiet by his side, till they came to the praist's house at this ind of Limerick. The owld fellow must have been expecting him, for before he could knock, he opened the door and let him in. The praist didn't wait long, and in five minutes he towld them they were man and wife, and nothing but death could iver make them different. Tom gave a regular yell that made the windys rattle, for he couldn't kaap his faalings down. He then threw his arms around his wife, gave her another hug, and then dropped her like a hot potato. For instead of being Kitty McGuire, it was Molly Mulligan! The owld praist wasn't so bad after all. He had told Kitty and Molly of Tom's plans, and they had fixed the matter atween thim. "Wal, the praist laughed, and Tom looked melancholier than iver; but purty soon he laughed too, and took the praist's advice to make the bist of the bargain. Whisht!" Teddy paused abruptly, for he heard a prolonged but faint halloo. It was, evidently, the call of his master, and indicated the direction of the camp. He replied at once, and without thinking one moment of the prowling brute which might be upon him instantly, he passed beyond the protecting circle of his fire, and dashed off at top of his speed through the woods, and ere long reached the camp-fire of his friends. As he came in, he observed that Mrs. Richter still was asleep beneath the canoe, while her husband stood watching beside her. Teddy had determined to conceal the particulars of the conversation he had held with the officious hunter, but he related the facts of his pursuit and mishap, and of his futile attempt to make his way back to camp. After this, the two seated themselves by the fire, and the missionary was soon asleep. The adventures of the night, however, affected Teddy's nerves too much for him even to doze, and he therefore maintained an unremitting watch until morning. At an early hour, our friends were astir, and at once launched forth upon the river. They noted a broadening of the stream and weakening of the current, and at intervals they came upon long stretches of prairie. The canoe glided closely along, where they could look down into the clear depths of the water, and discover the pebbles glistening upon the bottom. Under a point of land, where the stream made an eddy, they halted, and with their fishing-lines, soon secured a breakfast which the daintiest gourmand might have envied. They were upon the point of landing so as to kindle a fire, when Mr. Richter spoke: "Do you notice that large island in the stream, Cora? Would you not prefer that as a landing-place?" "I think I should." "Teddy, we'll take our morning meal there." The powerful arms of the Irishman sent the frail vessel swiftly over the water, and a moment later its prow touched the velvet shore of the island. Under the skillful manipulations of the young wife, who insisted upon taking charge, their breakfast was quickly prepared, and, one might say, almost as quickly eaten. They had now advanced so far to the northward that all felt an anxiety to reach their destination. Accordingly no time was lost in the ascent of the stream. The exhilarating influence of a clear spring morning in the forest, is impossible to resist. The mirror-like sparkle of the water that sweeps beneath the light canoe, or glitters in the dew-drops upon the ashen blade; the golden blaze of sunshine streaming up in the heavens; the dewy woods, flecked here and there by the blossoms of some wild fruit or flower; the cool air beneath the gigantic arms all a-flutter with the warbling music of birds; all conjoin to inspire a feeling which carries us back to boyhood again--to make us young once more. As Richter sat in the canoe's stern, and drank in the influence of the scene, his heart rose within him, and he could scarcely refrain from shouting. His wife, also, seemed to partake of this buoyancy, for her eyes fairly sparkled as he glanced from side to side. All at once Teddy ceased paddling and pointed to the left shore. Following the direction of his finger, Richter saw, standing upon the bank in full view, the tall, spare figure of the strange hunter. He seemed occupied in watching them, and was as motionless as the tree-trunks behind him--so motionless, indeed, that it required a second scrutiny to prove that it really was not an inanimate object. The intensity of his observation prevented him from observing that Teddy had raised his rifle from the canoe. He caught the click of the lock, however, and spoke in a sharp tone: "Teddy, don't you dare to--" His remaining words were drowned in the sharp crack of the piece. "It's only to frighten him jist, Master Harvey. It'll sarve the good purpose of giving him the idee we ain't afeard, and if he continues his thaiving tricks, he is to be shot at sight, as a shaap-stalin' dog, that he is, to be sure." "You've hit him!" said his master, as he observed the hunter leap into the woods. "Thank the Lord for that, for it was an accident, and he'll l'arn we've rifles as well as himself. It's mighty little harm, howiver, is done him, if he can travel in that gay style." "I am displeased, for your shot might have taken his life, and--but, see yonder, Teddy, what does that mean?" Close under the opposite bank, and several hundred yards above them was discernible a long canoe, in which was seated at least a dozen Indians. They were coming slowly down-stream, and gradually working their way into the center of the river. Teddy surveyed them a moment and said: "That means they're after us. Is it run or fight?" "Neither; they are undoubtedly from the village, and we may as well meet them here as there. What think you, dear wife?" "Let us join them, by all means, at once." All doubts were soon removed, when the canoe was headed directly toward them, and under the propulsion of the many skillful arms, it came like a bird over the surface of the waters. A few rods away its speed was slackened, and, before approaching closer, it made a circuit around the voyageurs' canoe, as if the warriors were anxious to assure themselves there was no decoy or design in this unresisting surrender. Evidently satisfied that it was a _bona fide_ affair, the Indians swept up beside our friends, and one of the warriors, stretching out his hands, said: "Gib guns me--gib guns." "Begorrah, but it would be mighty plaisant to us, if it would be all the same to yees, if ye'd be clever enough to let us retain possission of 'em," said Teddy, hesitating about complying with the demand. "They might do ye some injury, ye know, and besides, I didn't propose to--" "Let them have them," said Richter. The Irishman reluctantly obeyed, and while he passed his rifle over with his left hand, he doubled up his right, shaking it under the savage's nose. "Ye've got me gun, ye old log of walnut, but ye hain't got me fists, begorrah, but, by the powers, ye shall have them some of these fine mornings whin yer eyes want opening." "Teddy, be silent!" sharply commanded the missionary. But the Indians, understanding the significance of the Irishman's gestures, only smiled at them, and the chief who had taken his gun, nodded his head, as much as to say he, too, would enjoy a fisticuff. When the whites were defenseless, one of the savages vaulted lightly into their canoe, and took possession of the paddle. "I'm highly oblaiged to ye," grinned Teddy, "for me arms have been waxin' tired ever sin' I l'arned the Injin way of driving a canoe through the water. When ye gets out o' breath jist ax another red-skin to try his hand, while I boss the job." The canoes were pulled rapidly up-stream. This settled that the whites were being carried to the village which was their original destination. Both Harvey and his wife were rather pleased than otherwise with this, although the missionary would have preferred an interview or conversation in order to make himself and intentions known. He was surprised at the knowledge they displayed of the English language. He overheard words exchanged between them which were as easy to understand as much of Teddy's talk. They must be, therefore, in frequent communication with white men. Their location was so far north that, as Richter plausibly inferred, they were extensive dealers in furs and peltries, which must be disposed of to traders and the agents of the American Fur and Hudson Bay Companies. The Selkirk or Red river settlement also, must be at an easily accessible distance. It may seem strange that it never occurred to the captives that the savages might do them harm. In fact, nothing but violence itself would have convinced the missionary that such was contemplated. He had yielded himself, heart and soul, to his work; he felt an inward conviction that he was to accomplish great good. Trials and sufferings of all imaginable kinds he expected to undergo, but his life was to be spared until the work was accomplished. Of that he never experienced a moment's doubt. Our readers will bear in mind that the period of which we write, although but a little more than forty years since, was when the territory west of the Mississippi was almost entirely unknown. Trappers, hunters and fur-traders in occasional instances, penetrated into the heart of the mighty solitude. Lewis and Clarke had made their expedition to the head-waters of the Columbia, but the result of all these visits, to the civilized world, was much the same as that of the adventurers who have penetrated into the interior of Africa. It was known that on the northwest dwelt the warlike Blackfeet, the implacable foes of every white man. There, also, dwelt other tribes, who seemed resolved that none but their own race should dwell upon that soil. Again, there were others with whom little difficulty was experienced in bartering and trading, to the great profit of the adventurous whites, and the satisfaction of the savages; still, the shrewd traders knew better than to trust to Indian magnanimity or honor. Their reliance under heaven, was their tact in managing the savages, and their own goodly rifles and strong arms. The Sioux were among the latter class, and with them it was destined that the lot of Harvey Richter and his wife should be cast. The Indian village was reached in the course of a couple of hours. It was found to be much larger than Richter could have anticipated. The missionary soon made known his character and wishes. This secured an audience with the leading chief, when Harvey explained his mission, and asked permission for himself and companions to settle among them. With the ludicrous dignity so characteristic of his people, the chief deferred his reply until the following day, at which time he gave consent, his manner being such as to indicate that he was rather unwilling than otherwise. That same afternoon, the missionary collected the dusky children of the forest together and preached to them, as best he could, through the assistance of a rude interpreter. He was listened to respectfully by the majority, among whom were several whom he inferred already had heard the word of life. There were others, however, to whom the ceremony was manifestly distasteful. The hopeful minister felt that his Master had directed him to this spot, and that now his real life-work had begun. CHAPTER III. THE JUG ACQUAINTANCES. With that dull, callous, rooted impudence, Which, dead to shame and every nicer sense, Ne'er blushed, unless, when spreading Vice's snares, He stumbled on some virtue unawares.--CHURCHILL. A YEAR has passed since the events recorded in the preceding pages, and it is summer again. Far up, beside one of those tributaries of the Mississippi, in the western portion of what is now the State of Minnesota, stands a small cabin, such as the early settlers in new countries build for themselves. About a quarter of a mile further up the stream is a large Sioux village, separated from the hut by a stretch of woods through which runs a well-worn footpath. This arrangement the young missionary, Harvey Richter, preferred rather than to dwell in the Indian village. While laboring with all his heart and soul to regulate these degraded people, and while willing to make their troubles and afflictions his own, he still desired a seclusion where his domestic cares and enjoyments were safe from constant interruption. This explains why his cabin had been erected at such a distance from his people. Every day, no matter what might be the weather, the missionary visited the village, and each Sabbath afternoon, when possible, service was held. This was almost invariably attended by the entire population, who now listened attentively to what was uttered, and often sought to follow the counsels uttered by the good man. A year's residence had sufficed to win the respect and confidence of the Indians, and to convince the faithful servant that the seed he had sown was already springing up and bearing fruit. About a mile from the river, in a dense portion of the wood, are seated two persons, in friendly converse. But a glance would be required to reveal that one of these was our old friend Teddy, in the most jovial and communicative of moods. The other, painted and bedaubed until his features were scarcely recognizable, and attired in the gaudy Indian apparel, sufficiently explains his identity. A small jug sitting between them, and which is frequently carried to the mouth of each, may disclose why, on this particular morning, they seemed on such confidential terms. The sad truth was that the greatest drawback to Harvey Richter's ministrations was his own servant Teddy. The Indians could not understand why he who lived constantly with the missionary, should be so careless and reckless, and should remain "without the fold," when the good man exhorted them in such earnest language to become Christians. It was incomprehensible to their minds, and served to fill more than one with a suspicion that all was not what it should be. Harvey had spent many an hour with Teddy, in earnest, prayerful expostulation, but, thus far, to no purpose. For six months after the advent of the missionary and his wife, nothing had been seen or heard of the strange hunter, when, one cold winter's morning, as the former was returning from the village through the path, a rifle was discharged, and the bullet whizzed within an inch or two of his eyes. He might have believed it to be one of the Indians, had he not secured a fair look at the man as he ran away. He said nothing of it to his wife or Teddy, although it occasioned him much trouble and anxiety of mind. A month or two later, when Teddy was hunting in the woods, and had paused a moment for rest, a gun was discharged at him, from a thick mass of undergrowth. Certain that the unknown hunter was at hand, he dashed in as before, determined to bring the transgressor to a personal account. Teddy could hear him fleeing, and saw the agitation of the undergrowth, but did not catch even a glimpse of his game. While prosecuting the search, Teddy suddenly encountered an Indian, staggering along with a jug in his hand. The savage manifested a friendly disposition, and the two were soon seated upon the ground, discussing the fiery contents of the vessel and exchanging vows of eternal friendship. When they separated it was with the understanding that they were to meet again in a couple of days. Both kept the appointment, and since that unlucky day they had encountered quite frequently. Where the Indian obtained the liquor was a mystery, but it was an attraction that never failed to draw Teddy forth into the forest. The effect of alcoholic stimulants upon persons is as various as are their temperaments. The American Indian almost always becomes sullen, vindictive and dangerous. Now and then there is an exception, as was the case with the new-made friend of Teddy. Both were affected in precisely a similar manner; both were jolly. "Begorrah, but yees are a fine owld gintleman, if yer face does look like a paint-jug, and ye isn't able to lay claim to one-half the beauty meself possesses. That ye be," said Teddy, a few moments after they had seated themselves, and before either had been affected by the poisonous liquid. "I loves you!" said the savage, betraying in his manner of speech a remarkable knowledge of the English language. "I think of you when I sleep--I think of you when I open my eyes--I think of you all the time." "Much obleeged; it's meself that thinks and meditates upon your beauty and loving qualities all the time, barring that in which I thinks of something else, which is about all the time--all the same to yer honor." "Loves you very much," repeated the savage; "love Mister Harvey, too, and Miss Harvey." "Then why doesn't ye come to hear him preach, ye rose of the wilderness?" "Don't like preaching." "Did yees ever hear him?" "Neber hear him." "Yer oughter come; and that minds me I've never saan ye around the village, for which I axes yees the raison?" "Me ain't Sioux--don't like 'em." "Whinever yees are discommoded with this jug, p'raps it wouldn't be well for yees to cultivate the acquaintance of any one except meself, for they might be dispoused to relave yees of the article, when yees are well aware it's an aisy matter for us to do that ourselves. Where does yees get the jug?" [Illustration: "Where does yees get the jug?"] "Had him good while." "I know; but the contents I mean. Where is it ye secures the vallyble contents?" "Me get 'em," was the intelligent reply.. "That's what I've been supposing, that yees was gitting more nor your share; so here's to prevint," remarked Teddy, as he inverted the jug above his head. "Now, me butternut friend, what 'bjections have yees to that?" "All right--all be good--like Miss Harvey?" Teddy stared at the savage, as if he failed to take in his question. "Like Miss Harvey--good man's squaw--t'ink she be good woman?" "The loveliest that iver trod the airth--bless her swate soul. She niver has shpoken a cross word to Teddy, for all he's the biggest scamp that iver brought tears to her eyes. If there be any thing that has nigh fotched this ould shiner to his marrowbones it was to see something glistening in her eyes," said the Irishman, as he wiped his own. "God bliss Miss Cora," he added, in the same manner of speech that he had been wont to use before she became a wife. "She might make any man glad to come and live alone in the wilderness wid her. It's meself that ought to be ashamed to come away and l'ave her alone by herself, though I thinks even a wild baste would not harm a hair of her blissid head. If it wasn't for this owld whisky-jug I wouldn't be l'aving her," said Teddy, indignantly. "How be 'lone?--Mister Harvey dere." "No, he isn't, by a jug-full--barring the jug must be well-nigh empty, and the divil save the jug, inny-how; but not until it's impty." "Where Mr. Harvey go, if not in cabin?" asked the savage, betraying a suspicious eagerness that would have been observed by Teddy upon any other occasion. "To the village, that he may preach and hould converse wid 'em. I allers used to stay at home when he's gone, for fear that owld thaif of a hunter might break into the pantry and shtail our wines--that is, if we had any, which we haven't. Blast his sowl--that hunter I mane, an' if iver I cotch him, may I be used for a flail if I don't settle _his_ accounts." "When Mister Harvey go to village?" "Whin he plaises, which is always in the afternoon, whin his dinner has had a fair chance to sittle. Does ye take him for a michanic, who goes to work as soon as he swallows his bread and mate?" said the Irishman, with official dignity. "Why you not stay with squaw?" "That's the raison," replied Teddy, imbibing from the vessel beside him. "But you will plaise not call Miss Cora a _shquaw_ any more. If ye does, it will be at the imminent risk of havin' this jug smashed over yer head, afther the whisky is all gone, which it very soon will be if a plug isn't put into your mouth." "Nice woman--_much_ good." "You may well say that, Mister Copperskin, and say nothing else. And it's a fine man is Mister Harvey, barring he runs me purty close once in a while on the moral quishtion. I'm afeard I shall have to knock under soon. If I could but slay that thaif of a hunter that has been poking around here, I think I could go the Christian aisy; but whin I thinks of _that_ man, I faals like the divil himself. They's no use tryin' to be pious whin _he's_ around; so pass the jug if ye don't mane to fight meself." "He bad man--much bad," said the savage, who had received an account of him from his companion. "I promised Master Harvey not to shoot the villain, excipt it might be to save his life or me own; but I belave if I had the chance, I'd jist conveniently _forgit_ me promise, and let me gun go off by accident. St. Pathrick! _wouldn't_ I like to have a shindy wid the sn'akin, mean, skulkin' assassin!" "Does he want kill you?" "Arrah, be aisy now; isn't it me master he's after, and what's the difference? Barring I would rather it was meself, that I might sittle it gintaaly wid him;" and Teddy, "squaring" himself, began to make threatening motions at the Indian's head. "Bad man--why not like Mr. Harvey?" said the savage, paying no attention to Teddy's demonstrations. "There yees has me. There's something atween 'em, though what it might be none but Mr. Harvey himself knows, less it mought be the misthress, that I don't belave knows a word on it. But what is it yer business, Mr. Mahogany?" "Mebbe Mr. Harvey hurt him some time--do bad with him," added the Indian, betraying an evident interest in the subject. "Begorrah, if yees can't talk better sinse nor that, ye'd bist put a stopper on yer blab. The idaa of me master harming any one is too imposterous to be intertained by a fraa and inlightened people--a fraa and inlightened people, as I used to spell out in the newspapers at home. But whisht! Ye are a savage, as don't know anything about Fourth of July, an' all the other affections of the people." "You dunno what mebbe he done." "Do ye know?" asked Teddy, indignantly. "Nebber know what he do--how me know?" "Thin what does ye mane by talking in that shtyle? I warns ye, there's some things that can't be passed atween us and that is one of 'em. If ye wants to fight, jist you say that again. I'm aching for a shindy anyhow: so now s'pose ye jist say that again." And Teddy began to show unmistakable signs of getting ready. "Sorry--didn't mean--feel bad." "Oh blarney! Why didn't ye stick to it, and jist give me a chance to express meself? But all's right; only, be careful and don't say anything like it again, that's all. Pass along the jug, to wash me timper down, ye know." By this time Teddy's ideas were beginning to be confused, and his manner maudlin. He had imbibed freely, and was paying the consequences. The savage, however, had scarcely taken a swallow, although he had made as if to do so several times. His actions would have led an inexperienced person to think that he was under the influence of liquor; but he was sober, and his conduct was feigned, evidently, for some purpose of his own. Teddy grew boisterous, and insisted on constantly shaking hands and renewing his pledges of eternal friendship to the savage, who received and responded to them in turn. Finally, he squinted toward the westering sun. "I told Mr. Harvey, when I left, I was going to hunt, and if I expects to return to-day, I thinks, Mr. Black Walnut, we should be on our way. The jug is intirely impty, so there is no occasion for us to remain longer." "Dat so--me leave him here." "Now let's shake hands agin afore we rise." The shaking of hands was all an excuse for Teddy to receive assistance in rising to his feet. He balanced himself a moment, and stared around him, with that aimless, blinking stare peculiar to a drunken man. "Me honey, isn't there an airthquake agitatin' this solitude?" he asked, steadying himself against a sapling, "or am I standing on a jug?" "Dunno--mebbe woods shake--feel him a little--earth must be sick," said the savage, feigning an unsteadiness of the head. "Begorrah, but it's ourselves that's the sickest," laughed Teddy, fully sensible of his sad condition. "It'll niver do to return to Master Harvey in _this_ shtyle. There'd be a committee of investigation appointed on the spot, an' I shouldn't pass muster excipt for a whisky-barrel, och hone!" "Little sick--soon be well--then shoot." "I wonder now whether I could howld me gun straight enough to drop a buffler at ten paces. There sits a bird in that tree that is grinning at me. I'll t'ach him bitter manners." The gun was discharged, the bullet passing within a few inches of the head of the Indian, who sprung back with a grunt. "A purty good shot," laughed Teddy; "but it _would_ be rayther tiresome killing game, being I could only hit them as run behind me, and being I can't saa in that direction, I'll give over the idaa; and turn me undivided attention to fishing. Ah, divil a bit of difference is it to the fish, whin a worm is on the right ind, whether a drunken man or a gintleman is at the other." The Indian manifested a readiness to assist every project of the Irishman, and he now advised him to fish by all means, urging that they should proceed to the river at once. But Teddy insisted upon going to a small creek near at hand. The savage strongly demurred, but finally yielded, and the two set out, making their way somewhat after the fashion of a yoke of oxen. Upon reaching the stream, Teddy, instead of pausing upon the bank, continued walking on until he was splashing up to his waist in water. Had it not been for the prompt assistance of the Indian, the poor fellow most probably would have had his earthly career terminated. This incident partially sobered Teddy, and made him ashamed of his condition. He saw the savage was by no means so far gone as himself, and he bewailed his foolishness in unmeasured terms. "Who knows but Master Harvey has gone to the village, and Miss Cora stands in the door this minute, 'xpacting this owld spalpaan?" "No go till arternoon," said the savage. "What time might it be jist now?" "'Tain't noon yit--soon be--bimeby." "It's all the same; I shan't be fit to go home afore night, whin I might bist stay away altogether. And you, Mr. Copperskin, was the maans of gittin' me in this trouble." "_Me_ make you drink him?" asked the savage. "You not ax for jug, eh? You not want him?" "Yes, begorrah, it was me own fault. Whisky is me waikness. Its illigant perfume always sits me wild fur it. Mister Harvey was belaving, whin he brought me here, that I wouldn't be drinking any of the vile stuff, for the good rais'n that I couldn't git none; but, what'll he say now? Niver was I drunker at Donnybrook, and only once, an' that was at me father's fourteenth weddin'." "Don't want more?" "NO!" thundered Teddy. "I hope I may niver see nor taste another drop so long as I live. I here asserts me ancient honor agin, an' I defy the jug, ye spalpeen of a barbarian what knows no better." Teddy's reassertion of dignity was very ludicrous, for a tree had to support him as he spoke; but he evidently was in earnest. "Neber gib it--if don't want it." "They say an Indian never will tell a lie to a friend," said Teddy, dropping his voice as if speaking to himself. "Do you ever lie, Mr. What's-your-name?" "No," replied the savage, thereby uttering an unmitigated falsehood. "You give me your promise, then, that ye'll niver furnish me anither drap?" "Yis." "Give me yer hand." The two shook hands, Teddy's face, despite its vacant expression, lighting up for the time with a look of delight. "Now I'll fish," said Teddy. "P'raps it is best that ye l'ave these parts; not that I intertains inmity or bad-will toward you, but thin ye know----hello! yees are gone already, bees you?" The Indian had departed, and Teddy turned his attention toward securing the bait. In a few moments he had cast the line out in the stream and was sound asleep, in which condition he remained until night set in. CHAPTER IV. AN OMINOUS RENCOUNTER. "I will work him To an exploit now rich in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but fall." The sun passed the meridian, on that summer day in 1821 and Harvey Richter, the young missionary, came to the door of his cabin, intending to set forth upon his walk to the Indian village. It was rather early; the day was pleasant and as his wife followed him, he lingered awhile upon the steps, loth to leave a scene of such holy joy. The year which the two had spent in that wilderness had been one of almost unalloyed happiness. The savages, among whom they had come to labor, had received them more kindly than they deemed it right to anticipate, and had certified their esteem for them in numberless ways. The missionary felt that a blessing was upon his labor. An infant had been given them, and the little fellow brought nothing but gladness and sunlight into the household. Ah! none but a father can tell how precious the blue-eyed image of his mother was to Harvey Richter; none but a mother can realize the yearning affection with which she bent over the sleeping cherub; and but few can enter into the rollicking pride of Teddy over the little stranger. At times, his manifestations were fairly uproarious, and it became necessary to check them, or to send him further into the woods to relieve himself of his exuberant delight. Harvey lingered upon the threshold, gazing dreamily away at the mildly-flowing river, or at the woods, through which for a considerable distance, he could trace the winding path which his own feet had worn. Cora, his wife, stood beside him, looking smilingly down in his face, while her left hand toyed with a stray ringlet that would protrude itself from beneath her husband's cap. "Cora, are you sorry that we came into this wild country?" The smile on her face grew more radiant, as she shook her head without speaking. She was in that pleasant, dreamy state, in which it seems an effort to speak--so much so that she avoided it until compelled to do so by some direct question. "You are perfectly contented--happy, are you?" Again the same smile, as she answered in the affirmative by an inclination of the head. "You would not change it for a residence at home with your own people if you could?" The same sweet denial in pantomime. "Do you not become lonely sometimes, Cora, hundreds of miles away from the scenes of your childhood?" "Have I not my husband and boy?" she asked, half reproachfully, as the tears welled up in her eyes. "Can I ask more?" "I have feared sometimes, when I've been in the village, that perhaps you were lonely and sorrowful, and often I have hurried my footsteps that I might be with you a few moments sooner. When preaching and talking to the Indians, my thoughts would wander away to you and the dear little fellow there. And what husband could prevent them?" said Harvey, impulsively, as he drew his wife to him, and kissed her again and again. "You must think of the labor before you." "There is scarcely a moment of my life in which I don't, but it is impossible to keep you and him from my mind. I am sorry that I am compelled to leave you alone so often. It seems to me that Teddy has acted in a singular manner of late. He is absent every afternoon. He says he goes hunting and yet he rarely, if ever, brings anything back with him." "Yesterday he returned shortly after you left, and acted so oddly, I did not know what to make of him. He appeared very anxious to keep me at a distance, but once he came close enough for me to catch his breath, and if it did not reveal the fumes of liquor then I was never more mistaken in my life." "Impossible! where could he obtain it?" "The question I asked myself and which I could not answer; nevertheless his manner and the evidence of his own breath proved it beyond all doubt to my mind. You have noticed how set he is every afternoon about going away in the woods. Such was not his custom, and I think makes it certain some unusual attraction calls him forth." "What can it all mean?" asked the missionary of himself. "No; it cannot be that he brought any of the stuff with him and concealed it in the boat. It must have been discovered." "Every article that came with us is in this house." "Then some one must furnish him with it, and who now can it be?" "Are there not some of your people who are addicted to the use of liquor?" "Alas! there are too many who cannot withstand the tempter; but I never yet heard of an Indian who knew how to _make_ it. It is only when they visit some of the ports, or the Red river settlement, that they obtain it. Or perhaps a trader may come this way, and bring it with him." "And could not Teddy have obtained his of such a man?" "There has been none here since last autumn, and then those who visited the village had no liquor with them. They always come to the village first so that I could not avoid learning of their presence. Let me see, he has been away since morning?" "Yes; he promised an early return." "He will probably make his appearance in the course of an hour or so. Watch him closely. I will be back sooner to-day, and we shall probe this matter to the bottom. Good-by!" Again he embraced his wife, and then strode rapidly across the Clearing in the direction of the woods. His wife watched his form winding in and out among the trees, until it finally disappeared from view; and then, waiting a few moments longer, as if loth to withdraw her gaze from the spot where she had last seen him, she finally turned within the house to engage in her domestic duties. The thrifty housewife has seldom an idle moment on her hands, and Cora passed hither and thither, performing the numerous little acts that were not much in themselves, but collectively were necessary, if not indispensable, in her household management. Occasionally she paused and bent over her child, that lay sleeping on the bed, and like a fond mother, could not restrain herself from softly touching her lips to its own, although it was at the imminent risk of awaking it. An hour passed. She went to the door and looked out to see whether Teddy was in sight; but the woods were as silent as if they contained no living thing. Far away over the river, nearly opposite the Indian village, she saw two canoes crossing the stream, resembling ordinary-sized water-birds in the distance. These, so in harmony with the lazy, sunshiny afternoon, were all that gave evidence that man had ever invaded this solitude. Cora Richter could but be cheerful, and, as she moved to and fro, she sung a hymn, one that was always her husband's favorite. She sung it unconsciously, from her very blithesomeness of spirits, not knowing she was making music which the birds themselves might have envied. All at once her ear caught the sound of a footstep, and confident that Teddy had come, she turned her face toward the door to greet him. She uttered a slight scream, as she saw, instead of the honest Hibernian, the form of a towering, painted savage, glaring in upon her. Ordinarily such a visitor would have occasioned her no surprise or alarm. In fact, it was rare that a day passed without some Indian visiting the cabin--either to consult with the missionary himself, or merely to rest a few moments. Sometimes several called together, and it often happened that they came while none but the wife was at home. They were always treated kindly, and were respectful and pleased in turn. During the nights in winter, when the storm howled through the forest, a light burned at the missionary's window, and many a savage, who belonged often to a distant tribe, had knocked at the door and secured shelter until morning. Ordinarily we say, then, the visit of an Indian gave the young wife no alarm. But there was something in the appearance of this painted sinewy savage that filled her with dread. There was a treacherous look in his black eyes, and a sinister expression visible in spite of vermilion and ocher, that made her shrink from him, as she would have shrunk from some loathsome monster. As the reader may have surmised, he was no other than Daffodil or Mahogany, who had left Teddy on purpose to visit the cabin, while both the servant and his master were absent. In spite of the precaution used, he had taken more liquor than he intended; and, as a consequence, was just in that reckless state of mind, when he would have hesitated at no deed, however heinous. From a jovial, good-natured Indian, in the company of the Hibernian, he was transformed into a sullen, vindictive savage in the presence of the gentle wife of Harvey Richter. He supported himself against the door and seemed undecided whether to enter or not. The alarm of Cora Richter was so excessive that she endeavored to conceal it. "What do you wish?" she asked. "Where Misser Richter?" "Gone to the village," she replied, bravely resolving that no lie should cross her lips if her life depended upon it. "When come back?" "In an hour or so perhaps." "Where Ted?" "He has gone hunting." "Big lie--he drunk--don't know nothing--lay sleep on ground." "How do you know? Did you see him?" "Me gib him fire-water--much like it--drink good deal--tumble over like tree hain't got root." "Did you ever give it him before?" asked the young wife, her curiosity supplanting her alarm for the moment. "Gib him offin--gib him every day--much like it--drink much." Again the wife's instinctive fear came back to her, and she endeavored to conceal it by a calm, unimpassioned exterior. "Won't you come in and rest yourself until Mr. Richter returns?" "Don't want to see him," replied the savage, sullenly. "Who do you wish to see then?" "You--t'ink much of you." The wife felt as if she would sink to the floor. There was something in the tones of his voice that had alarmed her from the first. She was almost certain this savage intended rudeness, now that he knew the missionary himself was gone. She glanced up at the rifle which was hung above the fireplace. It was charged, and she had learned how to fire it since her marriage. Several times she was on the point of springing up and seizing it and placing herself upon the defensive. Her heart throbbed wildly at the thought, but she finally concluded to resort to such an act only at the last moment. She might still conciliate the Indian by kindness, and after all, perhaps he meditated no harm or rudeness. "Come and sit down then, and talk with me awhile," said she, as pleasantly as it was possible. The savage stumbled forward a few feet, and dropped into a seat, where he glared fully a minute straight into the face of the woman. This was the most trying ordeal of all, especially when she raised her own blue eyes, and addressed him. It seemed impossible to combat the fierce light of those orbs, although she bore their scrutiny like a heroine. He had seated himself near the door, but he was close enough for her to detect the fumes of the liquor he had drank, and she knew a savage was never so dangerous as when in a half-intoxicated condition. "Have you come a long distance?" she asked. "Good ways--live up north." "You are not a Sioux, then?" "No--don't like Sioux--bad people." "Why do you come in their neighborhood--in their country?" "'Cause I want to--_come see you_." "You must come again--" At this juncture, the child in the cradle awoke and began crying. The face of the savage assumed an expression of ferocity, and he said, abruptly: "Stop noise--me tomahawk if don't." As he spoke he laid his hand in a threatening manner upon his tomahawk, and the mother sprung up and lifted the infant in her arms for the purpose of pacifying it. The dreadful threat had almost unnerved her, for she believed the savage would carry it out upon the slightest pretext. But before that tomahawk should reach her child, the mother must be stricken to the earth. She pressed it convulsively to her breast, and it quickly ceased its cries. She waited until it closed its eyes in slumber and then some impulse prompted her to lay it upon the bed, and to place herself between it and the Indian, so that she might be unimpeded in her movements if the savage should attempt harm to her or her offspring. Several moments now passed without the Indian speaking. The interval was occupied by him in looking around the room and examining every portion upon which it was possible to rest his gaze. The survey completed, he once more fixed his scrutiny upon the young wife, and suddenly spoke in his sententious, abrupt manner. "Want sunkin eat." This question was a relief, for it afforded the wife an opportunity of expressing her kindness; but, at the same time, it caused a more rapid beating of her heart, since to procure what was asked, she would be compelled to pass out of the door, and thus not only approach him much more closely than she was willing, but it would be necessary to leave him alone with her infant until her return. She was in a painful dilemma, to decide whether it was best to refuse the visitor's request altogether or to comply with it, trusting to Providence to protect them both. A casual glance at the Indian convinced her that it would be dangerous to thwart his wishes longer; and, with an inward prayer to God, she arose and approached the door. As she passed near him, he moved and she involuntarily quickened her step, until she was outside. The Indian did not follow, and she hurried on her errand. She had gone scarcely a yard, when she heard him walking across the floor, and detected at the same moment, the cry of her infant. Fairly beside herself with terror, she ran back in the house, and saw the savage taking down her husband's rifle. The revulsion of her feelings brought tears to her eyes, and she said: "I wish you would go away, I don't like you." "Kiss me--den I go!" said he, stepping toward her. "Keep away! keep away!" she screamed, retreating to the door and yet fearing to go out. "Kiss me--tomahawk pappoose!" said the savage, placing his hand upon the weapon. The young wife placed her hands over her face and sobbed aloud. She did not hear the cat-like footsteps of the savage, as he approached. His long arm was already stretched forth to clasp her, when the door was darkened, a form leaped into the room, and with the quickness of lightning, dealt the savage a tremendous blow that stretched him limp and lifeless upon the floor. [Illustration: Dealt the savage a tremendous blow.] "Move a limb and I will kill you!" shouted the young missionary, his face all ablaze with passion. "Cora, has he harmed you?" "No, no, no, Harvey; have you not already killed him?" "Pity that I haven't. He is not fit to live." "Dear Harvey, you are carried away by your passion. Do restrain yourself." Woman-like, the only emotion of Cora Richter was that of commiseration for the poor wretch that had been stricken down by the hand of her husband. She saw the blood trickling from his face and knew that he was dreadfully injured. The missionary, too, began to become more calm and collected; and yet, while regretting the occasion, he could but think he had done his simple duty to his insulted wife. Had he been prepared as he entered the door, he would have shot the savage dead in his tracks. Harvey picked up his rifle that lay in the middle of the floor, and approached the prostrate Indian. After pushing and shaking, he gave signs of returning consciousness, and at length arose to his feet. His nose had bled copiously, and one eye was "closed," as if he had been under the manipulation of some pugilist. The wife brought a basin of water, and offered a bandage, while Harvey proffered his assistance. But the Indian, without speaking, motioned them aside, and made his way out the door. On the threshold he paused a moment and looked back--and that look Harvey Richter will remember to his dying day. Both breathed freer when he had gone. They then looked in each other's faces a moment and the wife sunk into her husband's arms. "Did I not do right, Cora?" "Yes; oh, yes; but, Harvey, this will not be the last of it. You have made an enemy of that Indian, and he can never be made a friend." "Such is often the result of doing your simple duty. Let us therefore trust to God and say no more about it. Ah! here comes Teddy." The Irishman at this moment entered the door. He was still under the influence of liquor though he made ludicrous efforts to conceal it. The wife found opportunity to communicate to her husband all that had been told her, before the conversation had progressed far. The peril which she had so narrowly escaped decided the missionary to be severely just with his servant. "Teddy, where have you been?" "Won't that spake for itself?" he replied, holding up a handsome string of fish. "Begorrah, but it was mighty poor luck I had hunting." "I should judge you had discovered something unusual from your strange actions." The face of the Irishman flushed scarlet, and his confusion was distressing. "Teddy," he continued, "I am displeased at the manner in which you have acted for the last week or two. Had it not happened that I left the village sooner than usual to-day, most probably my wife and son would have been killed." The fellow was completely sobered. "What is it ye say, Mister Harvey?" "For several days you have failed to return in the time you promised, so that I have been compelled to leave them alone and unprotected. This afternoon, an Indian came in the house and threatened the life of both my wife and child--" "Where the divil is he?" demanded Teddy, springing up; "I'll brake ivery bone in his body." "He is gone, never to return I trust." "Be the powers! if I could but maat him--" "Do not add falsehood to your conduct. He said that you and he have met constantly and drank liquor together." The expression of blank amazement was so genuine and laughable that the missionary could hardly repress a smile. He felt that his last remark was hardly fair. Teddy finally burst out. "'Twas that owld Mahogany copperskin; but did I iver 'xpact he was up to _sich_ a trick and he would niver have l'aved me a-fishing. Oorah, oorah!" he muttered, gnashing his teeth together. "What a miserable fool I _have_ been. He to come here and insult me mistress after professin' the kindest regards. May I be made to eat rat-tail files for potaties if iver I trust red-skin honor again!" "It strikes me that you and this precious savage had become quite intimate. I suppose in a few weeks longer you would have left us and lived with him altogether." The tears trickled down Teddy's cheeks, and he made answer in a meek, mournful tone: "Plaise forgive me, Mister Harvey, and Miss Cora. Yees both knows I would die for yees, and it was little I dr'amed of a savage iver disecrating this house by an ungentlemanly act. Teddy never'll sarve yees the like agin." "I have no faith in the promises of a man who is intemperate." The Irishman raised his hand to heaven: "May the good Father above strike me dead if I iver swallow another drop! Do yees belave me now. Mister Harvey?" "You must not place the reliance in your own power, Teddy. Ask His assistance and you'll succeed." "I'll do so; but, ye saa, the only mill where I could get the cursed stuff was of this same Indian, and as I politely towld him I'd practice wid me gun on him if he offered me anither drop, and, as I'd pick him off now, after this shine, as quick as I would a sarpent, it ain't likely he'll bother me agin." "I hope not, but I have the same apprehension as Cora that he will return when we least expect him. We must manage so that we are never both away from the house at the same time. It is now getting well along in the afternoon, Teddy; you may prepare your fish for supper." The Irishman obediently moved away, and the young missionary and his wife were left together. CHAPTER V. GONE! Alas, alas, fair Inez, She went away with song, In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell To her you've loved so long.--HOOD. Alertness or watchfulness is sure to succeed the accomplishment of an enemy's designs. The moment danger is over, then the most vigilant preparations against it are made. The burglar knows better than to visit the same house two nights in succession. He is wise enough to wait until time has lulled the inmates into fancied security. With such an interest at stake as had Harvey Richter, one may well believe that no precaution was neglected which could operate to defeat the designs of the savage whom he had driven in anger from his door. He changed his hour of visitation from the afternoon to the forenoon. Teddy needed no admonition against leaving the house during his absence. He kept watch and ward over the house as if he would atone by vigilance for past shortcomings. The missionary had dwelt long enough among the Indians to gain a pretty accurate estimate of their character. What troubled him most, therefore, was a conviction that the savage's revenge, though delayed for ten years, for want of the convenient opportunity, was sure to be accomplished. He might have gone immediately to the north or east, there to remain with his own tribe until convinced that the moment had come to strike the blow--a blow, which no human influence, no personal danger, no suffering, could persuade him from inflicting upon the offending white man. But there was no certainty even of delay. Did the savage believe the moment to strike propitious, he would be ready for the trial. Even then, he might be skulking in the woods, with his black eyes fixed upon the cabin. It will be perceived, that, did he contemplate the death of either of the parties concerned, he could have compassed it without difficulty. Opportunities offered every day for the fatal bullet to reach its mark; but the _insult_ to the Indian was so great, that he contemplated a far sweeter compensation than death itself. Whatever that might be, time would be sure to develop it, and that, too, at the moment when least expected. This fear became so ever-present and troublesome, that the missionary made it known in the village, where he could command the services of half a hundred warriors. A dozen at once made search through the woods to ascertain whether the savage was concealed anywhere in the vicinity. One of these chanced upon a trail, which, after following some distance, was lost in the river. This, however, he pronounced to be the trail of a _white man_. The suspected Indian evidently, had fled, and no trace was discovered of him. Another source of annoyance was opened to Harvey. Since the shot at Teddy, nothing had occurred to remind them of the existence of the strange hunter, whose mysterious warnings had accompanied their advent into the country. Richter could not believe that the man had left altogether, but regarded his actions with considerable equanimity, as it was apparent that his warning shots were intended rather to frighten than to kill. Harvey never would converse with his wife about this white foe, and had cautioned Teddy not to allude to him in her presence. The missionary had a strong hope that, some day, he would be brought face to face with this stranger, when an explanation would be secured and the annoyance ended. He therefore repeated his warning to the Irishman not to shoot the hunter, unless compelled to do so to save his own life; but rather to use every effort to secure him and bring him to the cabin. About a week after the occurrence narrated, Teddy went fishing, leaving the husband and wife together. He followed the shore of the river about a half-mile downward, when he settled himself by a huge rock that projected a few feet into the water. He had just thrown his line into the stream, when he heard the crackling of bushes behind him, and, turning, saw the hunter walking in a direction parallel with the river, with his head bent, as if in thought. Apparently he was unsuspicious of the presence of any one. Teddy at once sunk down to screen himself as he watched the movements of his old foe, out of all manner of patience with himself that he had left his rifle at home, and possessed only the arms that nature had furnished him. Still, he resolved that the man should be secured, if possible. "Arrah, now, be aisy!" he whispered, "and yees may cotch a fish that didn't nibble at yer bait. Whisht! but do ye _saa_ him? But _isn't_ he a strappin' fellow, to be sure--a raal shark ten foot long, with claws like an alligator!" The hunter walked but a few rods, when he seated himself upon a fallen tree, with his back toward the Irishman. This was the coveted opportunity. "Yees have got the fellow now, Teddy, barring yees haven't got him at all, but that ain't saying ye won't get him. Be aisy now, and don't get excited! Jist be as wise as a rat and as still as a mouse, and ye'll catch the catamount, if he don't catch you, that is." These self-admonitions were much needed, for the fellow was all tremulous with excitement and scarcely able to restrain himself. Waiting a few moments until he could tone down his nerves, he commenced making his way toward his victim. He exercised extreme caution until within a rod, when a twig snapped under his foot. He made ready to spring, for he was certain of being discovered; but, to his surprise, the hunter made no motion at all. He evidently was so absorbed in some matter as to be unconscious of what was passing around. Slowly and stealthily Teddy glided toward the man, until he arose almost to the standing position, not more than a foot distant. Then slowly spreading out his arms, so as to inclose the form of the stalwart woodsman, he brought them together like a vise, giving utterance at the same time to an exultant "whoop." "Yer days of thramping _this_ country, and alarming paceable inhabitants are done wid, Mister Anaconda. So jist kaal over gracefully, say tin Ave Marias, and consider yourself in the hands of Gabriel sint for judgment." All this time Teddy had been straining and hugging at the hunter as if determined to crush him, while he, in turn, had taken it very coolly, and now spoke in his gruff bass voice: "Let go!" "Let go! Well now, that's impudint, ye varlet. As if Teddy McFadden would let go hook and line, bob and sinker, whin he had got hold of a sturgeon. Be aisy now; I'll squaze the gizzard and liver iv ye togither, if ye doesn't yield gracefully." "Let go, I say! Do you hear?". "Yis, I hears, and that is the extint--" Teddy's next sensation was as if a thunderbolt had burst beneath his feet, for he was hurled headlong full half a rod over the head of the hunter. Though considerably bruised, he was not stunned by the fall, and quickly recovered. Scratching his head, he cried: "Begorrah, but yees can't repate _that_ trick!" making a rush toward his antagonist, who stood calmly awaiting his onset. "By heavens, I'll give you something different then!" said the man, as he caught him bodily in his arms, and running to the edge of the river, flung him sprawling into it. The water was deep, and it required considerable struggling to reach the shore. This last prodigious exhibition of strength inspired the Irishman with a sort of respect for the stranger. Teddy had found very few men, even among frontiersmen and Indians, who could compete with him in a hand-to-hand struggle; yet, there was now no question but what he was overmatched, and he could but admire, in a degree, the man who so easily handled his assailant. It was useless to attack the enemy after such a repulse; so he quietly seated himself upon the shore. "Would ye have the kindness, ye assassinating disciple of the crowner's jury, whin yees have jist shown how nately ye can dishpose of a man like meself, to tell me why it was you run so mighty harrd whin I took once before after yees? Why didn't ye pause, and sarve me then jist as ye have done? I'd jist like to know that before we go any further wid _this_ matter." "It wasn't because I feared you!" said the hunter, turning sullenly away, and walking into the wood. "Farewell!" called out Teddy, waving his hand toward him. "Ye're a beauty, and yees have quite taking ways wid ye; but it wouldn't be safe for me to find yees lurking about the cabin, if I had a rifle in me hand. You'd have trouble to fling a bullet off as ye flung me. Be jabers, but _wasn't_ that a nate thing, to be sure. I'll bet a thousand pounds which I niver had, that that fellow could draw the Mississippi up-stream if he was fairly hitched on to it. Ah, Teddy, you ain't much, afther all," he added, looking dolefully at his wet garments. Teddy had been so completely outwitted that he was unwilling any one should know it. So he resolved to continue fishing until his clothes were thoroughly dry, and until he had secured enough fish to repay him for his journey. It was near the middle of the afternoon, and, as he had remained at home until the return of the young missionary from the village, there was nothing to disturb his labor, or sport as it might be called, except darkness itself. During this same afternoon, Harvey Richter and his wife were sitting on a bench in front of their cabin. The day was warm, but, as the bench always was shaded, it was the ordinary resort of the young couple when the weather was sultry. The missionary had been reading, but the volume was laid aside, and he was smilingly watching his wife as she sported with the boy in her lap. The little fellow was in exuberant spirits, and the parents, as a matter of course, were delighted. Finally he betrayed signs of weariness, and in a few moments was asleep in his mother's arms. "I think it was a wise thing, for several reasons--that of changing your hour from the afternoon to the forenoon," said the wife. "Why do you think so?" "We all feel more wearied and less inclination at this time of day for work than we do during the earlier hours. We could then be little together, but now nothing interferes with our afternoon's enjoyment of one another's society." "That is true; but you see the Indians are more likely to be off fishing or hunting during the earlier part of the day. They have willingly conformed, however, to the change." "I think it is more in accordance with your own disposition," smiled the wife, "is it not?" "Yes; I am free to admit that my lazy body inclines to quiet and rest after partaking of a hearty dinner, as I have done to-day." "If we think of rest at this early stage in our lives, how will it be when we become thirty or forty years older?" "I refer only to the temporary rest of the body and mind, such as they must have after periods of labor and excitement. Such rest the youngest as well as the oldest requires. Be careful, Cora, you don't drop the little fellow!" "Never fear," laughed the mother, as the youngster woke and commenced several juvenile antics more interesting to the parents than to any one else: "How lively!" remarked the proud father. "It seems to me I never saw a child at his age as bright and animated." And what father does not hold precisely the same opinion of his young hopeful? "Look!" exclaimed the mother, "some one must be coming to see you." An Indian woman was discernible among the trees, walking along the path at a rapid walk, as if she were greatly hurried. Her head was bent, but now and then she raised it and glanced toward the cabin, showing that that was her destination. Passing from the shadow of the wood into the Clearing, the missionary recognized one of the worst women of the tribe. She had scoffed at his preaching, had openly insulted him, and during the first month or two had manifested a disposition approaching violence. To this Richter only answered by kindness; he used every means to conciliate her good-will, but thus far with indifferent success. Her husband, The-au-o-too, a warrior favorably inclined toward the white man, was thoughtful and attentive; and the good minister wondered that the savage did not restrain these unwomanly demonstrations upon his squaw's part. She approached with rapid step, until she stood directly in front of them. Harvey saw that her countenance was agitated. "Well, At-to-uck," said he, kindly, "you seem troubled. Is there anything I can do for you?" [Illustration: "Well, At-to-uck," said he, kindly, "you seem troubled."] "Me ain't trouble," she answered, using English as well as her very imperfect knowledge would admit. "Me ain't trouble--_me_ ain't." "Who may it be then?" "The-au-o-too--he _much_ trouble. Sick--in woods--die--_berry_ sick." "What do you mean, At-to-uck?" asked the missionary, his interest strongly awakened. "Has anything befallen your husband?" "He fall," she answered, eagerly, catching at the helping word, "he fall--much hurt--die--die--won't got well." "Where is he?" She spun around on one foot, and pointed deeper into the woods. "He dere--lay on back--soon die." "And he wishes me to see him; is that it?" She nodded her head vigorously, but made no answer for a moment. Then she suddenly broke forth: "Send At-to-uck to git good man--hurry--berry hurry--he die--won't live. The-au-o-too say hurry--die soon--won't see good man--Riher." Harvey looked at his wife. "What must I do, Cora? It will not do to leave you, as Teddy may not return for several hours, and yet this poor Indian should be attended in his dying moments." "You should go, Harvey; I will not fear." He turned to the squaw in perplexity. "How far away is The-au-o-too?" "Not much far--soon find--most dead." "It may be," he said in a low tone, "that he can be got to the house, although it would be no easy matter for us two to bring him." "I think your duty calls you to the dying man." "I ought to be there, but I tell you, Cora, I don't like this leaving you alone," said he, impressively. "You know we made up our minds that it should never occur again." "There must be occasions when it cannot be avoided, and this is one of them. By refusing to attend this man, you may not only neglect a great duty, but incur the ill-will of the whole tribe. You know the disposition of this woman." The latter, at this point, began to give evidence of agitation, and to remark in her broken accents that The-au-o-too was dying and would be dead before they could reach him. The missionary, in sore perplexity, looked at his wife. "Go," she said, or rather signified without speaking. "I will," he said, rising with an air of decision. "God grant I may never regret this." "I trust you never will." He kissed the infant, embraced his wife and then signified to the squaw to lead the way. "Keep up a good heart," he added, turning, as he moved away. The wife smilingly nodded her head but said nothing. It did not escape the notice of her husband that there were tears in her eyes, and he half resolved to remain with her after all, but the next moment he moved on. The squaw took the well-beaten track, walking very rapidly and often looking back to see that she was followed. Her strangeness of manner the missionary attributed to her excitement regarding her husband. Several times she exhibited hesitation, and once or twice muttered something that was unintelligible to him. When they were about half-way to the village, she paused. "Well, At-to-uck, what is the matter now?" "Mebbe dead." "Oh, I hope not," he answered, cheerfully. "Do you turn off here?" She answered in the affirmative and asked him to lead the way. "No; I am unacquainted, and you ought certainly to know where to find your dying husband better than I do." She took the duty of guide upon herself again, and advanced but a rod, when she abruptly paused. "Hark! hear groan? Me hear him." Harvey listened intently but heard nothing. Knowing that the hearing of the Indians is marvelously acute, he believed the squaw had heard sounds of distress; but, instead of quickening her steps, she now moved more slowly than ever. "Have you lost your way, At-to-uck?" "No," she answered, in a significant voice. The suspicions of the missionary that had been slumbering were now fully roused. "What do you mean then?" The squaw turned full around and gave a leer which, if possible, made her face more hideous than ever. Without thinking Harvey caught her by the arm and shook her sharply. "Explain this, At-to-uck. What is the meaning of this?" "He-he-e-e-e! _big_ fool. The-au-o-too hunt--_no hurt_!" A sharp reproof arose to the missionary's lips, but deeming it would be lost upon such a person, he merely turned his back upon her and walked away. She called and taunted him, but he was the last man who could have been roused to anger by such means, and he walked, with his arms folded, slowly and deliberately away toward the path. It had not occurred, as yet, to the mind of Richter that anything more than a simple annoyance to himself was contemplated by this proceeding; but, as he resumed his steps homeward, a suspicion flashed upon him which almost checked the beating of his heart. "God save it being so!" was his mental prayer, as he hurried forward. A moment later he was on a full run. The afternoon was well advanced, but he soon caught a glimpse of his cabin through the trees. Before this, however, he had detected the outcries of his infant, which struck him as a favorable omen, and he abated his speed somewhat. But, as he came into the Clearing, his heart gave a great bound, as he saw his child lying upon the ground some distance from the house. His anxiety was so distressing that he dashed by it into the cabin. "Cora, Cora, what is the matter? Where have you concealed yourself? Why this untimely pleasantry?" He came out again, caught up the infant and attempted to soothe it, all the time looking wildly about in the hope of seeing the returning mother. "CORA! CORA!" he again called in agonized tones, but the woods gave back only the hollow echo. For a few moments he was fairly beside himself; but, at the end of that time, he began to reason more calmly. He attempted to persuade himself that she might return, but it was useless; and with a sort of resigned despair, he looked about him for signs of the manner in which she was taken away. The most convincing evidence was not wanting. The ground was trampled and torn, as if there had been a violent struggle; and, inexperienced as were his eyes, he detected the unmistakable impress of a moccasin upon the soft earth, and in the grass. The settle, too, was overturned and the baby lay in the grass as if tossed there by the act of some other arm, than a mother's. CHAPTER VI. THE LOST TRAIL. "'Twas night--the skies were cloudless blue, And all around was hushed and still, Save paddle of the light canoe, And wailing of the whippowill." On that sunny afternoon, the fish in a particular locality of a tributary of the Mississippi did not take the bait very well. The spot to which we refer was that immediately surrounding Teddy, whose patience was well-nigh exhausted. There he sat for several tedious hours, but had secured only two nibbles at his line, neither of which proved to be anything more. "Begorrah, but it must be they'se frightened by meself, when that ould scalliwag give me a fling into the stream. Jabers! _wasn't_ it done nately. Hallo! there's a bite, not bigger, to be sure, than a lady's fut, but a bull-pout it is I know." He instantly arose to his feet, as if he were about to spring in the water, and stood leaning over and scanning the point where his line disappeared in the stream, with an intense interest which the professional angler alone can appreciate. But this, like all others, proved a disappointment, and he soon settled down into his waiting but necessary attitude of rest. "A half-hour more of sunshine, and then these same pants will be the same as if they've niver saan water, barring it's mighty seldom they have or they wouldn't be in this dirty condition. Arrah! what can be the m'aning of that?" Faintly but distinctly through the long stretch of woods came the sound of his name. It was repeated again and again until the Irishman was convinced beyond all possibility of mistake. "What is up now?" he asked of himself as he drew in his line. "That is Mister Harvey's voice sure, and he is calling as though he was in a mighty hurry. Faith, and I must not linger! If anything _should_ happen whin I was away I'd feel wus'n old Boney at Watherloo whin he lost the day an' his crown." The line was soon stowed away, and Teddy made his way at a half-walk and ran in a homeward direction. He had gone about a hundred rods when he paused and listened. Clearer and more distinctly came his name in tones whose earnest entreaty could not be mistaken. Teddy rose on his heels and made reply to the hail, to assure his master, if possible, that he was approaching with all speed. The Irishman's words were yet lingering in his mouth, when another and more terrible sound reached his ears. It was that of a suppressed, half-smothered woman's scream--a sort of gasp of terror. It was so short and so far away that it was impossible to tell its direction. He stopped, his heart beating like a hammer, but he heard no more. "God protect me, but there's something gone wrong at the cabin!" he exclaimed, dashing forward through the wood at a reckless rate. A few moments later it came in view, and he then saw his master walking to and fro, in front of the house, with the child in his arms. His manner and deathly pale face confirmed the forebodings of Teddy's heart. "What's the matter, Mister Harvey? What's the matter?" "_That Indian has carried Cora away_!" was the agonized reply. "Where has the owld divil carried her?" very naturally asked the Hibernian. "I do not know! I do not know! but she has gone, and I fear we shall never see her again alive." "May me owld head be scraped wid a scalping-knife, an' me hands be made into furnace-grates for being away," ejaculated the servant, as the tears streamed down his cheeks. "No, Teddy, you are not in the least to blame, nor is it my fault," impetuously interrupted the missionary. "Till me how it was, Mister Harvey." The husband again became composed and related what is already familiar to the reader. At its close, Teddy dashed into the house and brought out his rifle. "I'll murther that At-to-uck, be me sowl, and then I'll murther that haythen assassinator, an' iverybody that gits in me way. Be the powers of the saints and divils, but I'll murther somebody. May the divil roast me if I--" "Hold!" said the missionary, who by this time was himself again. "The first thing to be attended to is pursuit. We must not lose a second. We can never follow them ourselves through the wood. Hold the child, while I go to the village and get some of the Indians to help us." Teddy took the child that had cried itself asleep, and the missionary started on a full run up the river. When he reached the settlement, it required but a moment to make his errand known. A dozen warriors volunteered at once, for these dozen would have laid down their lives for their faithful instructor. Many of the squaws also gave utterance to dismal howls upon learning what had befallen their pale-faced sister. Had the missionary chosen to tell the part taken by At-to-uck in the affair, it may be reasonably doubted whether her life would have been spared. But he was not the man to do such a thing. Knowing how anxious Teddy would be to participate in the pursuit, he secured the wife of one of the Christian Indians to return with him, and take charge of the boy during their absence. At the time of the missionary's visit, the chief and his principal warriors were absent on an expedition to the north. Although holding little interest himself in the mission of the minister among his people, he would undoubtedly have led a party to the search for the audacious savage who had abducted the respected white woman; and, had he been overtaken, a swift and merciless retribution would have fallen upon the trangressor's head. Harvey Richter deemed it best to take but a few Indians with him. Accordingly he selected five that he knew to be skillful, and with them hurried at once in the direction of his cabin. He saw with a sinking heart, as he returned, that the sun was already low in the horizon, and the woods were becoming dark and gloomy. Teddy was at his post chafing like a confined lion. "This woman, Teddy, will take care of the boy, so that you may join us in the search." "Bliss you for that! It would be the hardest work of me life to stay here when I thought there's a chance of gitting a whack at that thaiving villian. Oh, _if_ I could only git howld of him, I wouldn't l'ave a piece of him big enough to spit on." "I think there's little probability of either of us obtaining a glimpse of him. We must rely upon these Indians to take the trail and follow it to the end." "They're like the hounds in the owld country, barring they go on two legs an' don't stick their noses in the ground, nor howl whin they git on trail. They're mighty handy to have around ye at such a time as this, if they be savages wid only a spark of Christianity in 'em not bigger than a tobaccy pipe." "It will be impossible, I think, for the savage to conceal traces of his flight, and, if there be any chance of coming up with him, these men will surely do so." "But suppose Miss Cora should be tomahawked and--" "Don't mention it," said the missionary, with a shudder. While these words were interchanged, the Indians had employed the time more profitably in solving the meaning of the footsteps upon the ground. A slight whoop announced the trail's discovery, and when the missionary turned, he saw the whole five gliding off in a line through the woods. They went in "Indian file," and resembled a huge serpent making its way with all swiftness toward its prey. Our two friends started at once after them. On reaching the edge of the Clearing Teddy asked, abruptly: "If the haythen comes back to the cabin while we's be gone?" "Impossible! he cannot." "Spowsen he hides his track in that manner, he may take a notion to gobble up the little boy." "He would not dare--" Nevertheless, the remark of his servant alarmed the missionary, and he hesitated. There might be foundation for what had been said. The savage finding the pursuit too close to escape with his prey, might slay her and then return stealthily to the cabin and dispatch the boy. It would not do to leave him alone with the Indian woman. "I can afford little assistance in the hunt, and will remain behind. Hurry on, Teddy, or they will be too far away for you to follow." The Hibernian shot off through the trees, at a rate that soon exhausted him, while Harvey Richter returned within his cabin, there to keep company with his great woe, until the return of the pursuers brought tidings of the lost one. An Indian on the trail is not likely to permit any trivial cause to turn him aside, and the five Sioux made rapid progress so long as the light in the wood allowed them to do so. This, however, was a comparatively short time; and, after progressing fitfully and uncertainly for several hundred yards, they finally drew up to wait until the morrow. The trail, instead of taking the direction of the river, as the pursuers believed it would, ran precisely parallel to it. So long as the savage kept away from the stream--that is, so long as he did not take to a canoe--his trail could be followed with absolute certainty, and he be overtaken beyond doubt. Impeded by an unwilling captive, he could not avoid a rapid gain upon him by his pursuers; and to escape certain capture, he must either abandon his prey or conceal his flight by resorting to the river. It might be, and the pursuers themselves half believed, that the fleeing Indian did not fear a pursuit by any of his own race, in which case he could make a leisurely escape, as the unpracticed white men could not have followed him for a half-mile through the wilderness. If this were really the case, the Sioux were confident of coming up with him before the morrow's sun should go down. The Indians had paused but a few moments, when a great tearing and scrambling was heard, and Teddy came panting upon them. "What be yees waiting for?" he demanded. "Tired out?" "Can't go furder--dark--wait till next day." "I'm sorry that yees didn't stand it bitter. I can go some ways further meself if yees'll be kind enough to show me the trail. But, yees don't pant or blow a bit, so I can't think ye're too much tired." "Too dark--can't see--wait till sun." "Oh, begorrah! I didn't understand ye. The Injin 'l' git a good start on us, won't he though?" "Ain't Injin--_white man_!" "A white man, does ye say, that run off wid Miss Cora?" Two of the Indians replied in the affirmative. Teddy manifested the most unbounded amazement, and for a while, could say nothing. Then he leaped into the air, struck the sides of his shoes with his fingers, and broke forth: "It was that owld hunter, may purgatory take him! Him and that owld Mahogany, what made me drunk--blast his sowl--have been hid around in the woods, waiting for a chance to do harm, and one is so much worse than t'other yees can't tell both from which. Och! if I but had him under the sight of me gun." The spot upon which the Indians and Teddy were standing was but a short distance from the village, and yet, instead of returning to it, they started a small fire and lay down for the night. _They were upon the trail_, and nothing was to turn them aside from it until their work was completed, or it was utterly lost to them. Teddy was more loth than they to turn his face backward, but, under the circumstances, he could not forget the sad, waiting husband at home. So he returned to the cabin, to make him acquainted with the result of their labors thus far. "If the Indian only avoids the river, he may be overtaken, but if he takes to that, I am fearful he can never be found." "Be me sowl, Mr. Harvey, but thim savages says he's not an Injin, but a _white man_, and yees know they cannot be mistook fur they've got eyes like hawks, and sinses sharper than me only needle, which, begorrah, hasn't got a point." "Can it be that Bra--that that hunter has done me this great wrong?" said the missionary, correcting himself so dextrously that his servant failed to observe it. "Has such been the revenge that he has been harboring up for so many years? And he has followed us these hundreds of miles for the purpose of striking the blow!" "The owld haythen assassinator! The bloodthirsty beast, the sneakin' dog, the dirthy jail-bird, the--" "He has not shot either of us when we were at his mercy, for the purpose of lulling us into security, the better to obtain his revenge, and oh, he has succeeded how well!" The strong man, who still sat in the front of his cabin, where he might catch the first sound of returning footsteps, now covered his face, and his whole form heaved with emotion. Teddy began to feel uncomfortable. He arose, walked to and fro, and wiped the tears from his own cheeks. Despite his tears, however, he recognized in the exclamations of his master a reference to some mystery which he had long suspected, but which had never been cleared up. The missionary must have met this strange hunter before this encounter in the wilderness, and his identity, and the cause of his deadly enmity, must, also, be known. Teddy had a great curiosity; but, as his master had repulsed his inquiries upon a previous occasion, he forbore to make any reference to it. He walked backward and forward until the good man's emotion had subsided somewhat, and then he said: "Good Master Harvey, the owld cabin is so lonely wid the form of Miss Cora gone, that it's meself that couldn't very well stay here till morning. So, wid yer leave jist, I'll return to the Injins, so as to be ready to folly the trail bright and early in the mornin'." "And how do you suppose I feel, Teddy?" "God save us! It can be no worse than meself." "I am willing that you should go." The missionary had need, indeed, for the sustaining power which can come only from above. The faithful Indian woman remained with his child through the night, while he, with bare head, and hands griped together, paced backward and forward until the morrow's sun had risen. How he prayed and agonized in spirit during those long, lonely hours, God and himself only know. When the day had fairly dawned, he entered the house, lay down wearily, and slept a "long and troubled sleep." With a heavy heart Teddy made his way back through the woods to where the Indians were congregated. They were seated around the camp-fire engaged in smoking, but did not exchange nor utter a syllable. They all understood each other, and therefore there was no need of talk. The Irishman seated himself beside them, and joined an hour or two in smoking, when they all lay down and slumbered. All with the exception of Teddy, who could not sleep. He rolled hither and thither, drew deep sighs, and took new positions, but it availed nothing. The events of the past day had driven sleep far from his eyelids, and he soon gave over the effort altogether. Rising to a sitting position, he scratched his head (which was significant only of abstraction of thought), and gazed meditatively into the smoldering embers. While seated thus, an idea suddenly came to him which brought him instantly to his feet. The fact that it had not occurred to the Indians he attributed to their inferior shrewdness and sagacity. He recalled that the abduction of the young wife took place quite late in the afternoon; and, as she must be an unwilling captive of course, she would know enough to hinder the progress of the man so as to afford her friends a chance to overtake them. Such being the case, the hunter would find himself compelled to encamp for the night, and therefore he could be but a short distance away. The more the Irishman reflected, the more he became convinced that his view was right; and, we may state, that for once, at least, his supposition had a foundation to stand upon. The matter, as has been evident from the first to the reader, rested entirely upon the impossibility of following the trail at night. Thus far it had maintained its direction parallel with the river, and he deduced that it must continue to do so. Such being the case, the man could be reached as well during the darkness as daylight. Teddy concluded not to awaken the savages, as they would hardly coincide with him. So he cautiously rose to his feet, and walking around them, made off in the darkness. He was prudent enough to obtain an idea of the general direction before starting, so as to prevent himself going astray; after which he pressed the pursuit with all possible speed. At intervals he paused and listened, but it seemed as if everything excepting himself was asleep. He heard no sound of animal or man: He kept his eyes flitting hither and thither, for he had hopes of chancing upon the camp-fire of the abductor. It is always a difficult matter to keep one's "reckoning" in the woods. If they be of any extent, it requires extraordinary precautions upon the part of an inexperienced person to prevent himself from being lost. Should he endeavor to travel by night, it would be almost a miracle indeed if he could save himself from going totally astray. Teddy had every disadvantage to contend against, and he had not journeyed a half-hour, when his idea of his own position was just the opposite of truth. As he had not yet become aware of it, however, it perhaps was just as well as if he had committed no error. He was pressing forward, with that peculiar impelling feeling that it was only necessary to do so ultimately to reach his destination, when a star-like glimmer caught his eye. Teddy stopped short, and his heart gave a great bound, for he believed the all-important opportunity had now come. He scanned the light narrowly, but it was only a flickering point, such as a lantern would give at a great distance at night. The light alone was visible, but no flame. It was impossible to form any correct idea of its location, although, from the fact that the nature of the wood must prevent the rays penetrating very far, he was pretty certain it was comparatively close at hand. With this belief he commenced making his way toward it, his movements certifying his consciousness that a mis-step would prove fatal. To his dismay, however, he had advanced but a dozen steps or so when the light disappeared, and he found it impossible to recover it. He moved from side to side, forward and backward, but it availed nothing, and he was about to conclude it had been extinguished, when he retreated to his starting-point and detected it at once. Keeping his eye fixed upon it, he now walked slowly, but at the same point as before it disappeared. This, he saw, must arise from some limb, or branch or tree interfering, and it only remained for him to continue advancing in the same line. Having proceeded a hundred rods or so, he began to wonder that he still failed to discover it. Thinking he might be mistaken in the distance, he went forward until he was sure he had passed far beyond it, when he turned and looked behind him. Nothing but the dim figures of the tree-trunks rewarded his gaze. Fully a half-hour was spent in wandering to and fro in the further efforts to locate the light that had caught his eye, and he finally sought to obtain his first stand-point. Whether he succeeded or not Teddy never could tell, but he never saw nor learned anything more regarding the camp-fire to which he was confident that he had been in such close proximity. About this time, which was in the neighborhood of midnight, Teddy made the discovery that he was lost, and, like a sensible person, gave up all efforts to right himself. He was so wearied that he did not awake until daylight, when he was aroused by the five Indians, whose trail-hunt led them to the spot where he lay sleeping. The trail was now followed rapidly for a half-mile when, as the pursuers had feared all along, it made a sudden bend to the river, upon the banks of which it was totally lost. Not to be baffled in this manner, a canoe was produced with which three crossed the river. The entire day was spent by these upon one bank, while the two other Indians and Teddy pursued the search for traces of the hunter's landing upon their own side of the stream. Not the slightest evidence was discovered that he had touched shore after embarking. The man had escaped, and even the eagle-eyed Sioux were compelled on the second night to return to their village with the sad announcement that the TRAIL WAS LOST! [Illustration: THE TRAIL WAS LOST.] CHAPTER VII. A HIBERNIAN'S SEARCH FOR THE TRAIL. "Oh I let me only breathe the air, The blessed air that's breathed by thee; And, whether on its wings it bear Healing or death, 'tis sweet to me." At the close of a windy, blustering day in 1821, two men were seated by a camp-fire in the depths of the wilderness of the northwest. The wind howled through the branches with a moaning sound such as often heralds the approach of bitter cold weather; and a few feathery flakes of snow that sailed along on the wind, proved that the season of storms was close at hand. The fire was built down deep in a sort of gorge, where its cheery, crackling blaze could not be seen by any one until he was nearly upon it. The men sat with their pipes in their mouths, their rifles beside them and their feet toward the fire. From appearances they were on the best of terms. One of them needs no introduction, as he is our old friend Teddy, who evidently feels at home in his new situation. The other is a man of much the same build although somewhat older. His face, where it is not concealed by a heavy, grizzly beard, is covered by numerous scars, and the border of one eye is disfigured from the same cause. His dress and accouterments betray the hunter and trapper. "And so, Teddy, ye're sayin' it war a white man that took away the missionary's wife, and hain't been heard on since. Let me see, you said it war nigh onto three months ago, warn't it?" [Illustration: "And so, Teddy, ye're sayin' it war a white man that took away the missionary's wife."] "Three months, come day after to-morrow. Begorrah, but it's not I that'll forgit that same date to my dying day, if, indade, I forgit it at all, at all, even whin somebody else will be wearin' me clothes." "It was a dirty trick, freeze me if it wasn't; but you can _allers_ find a white man to do a mean trick, when you can't a copperskin; _that_ you may set down as a p'inted fact, Teddy." "I belaves ye, Mister Tim. An Indian is a poor mean thing at the bist, an' their squaws--kah! they are the dirtiest beasts that iver jabbered human lingo; an' their babies, I raaly belaves, is caught with a hook an' line in the muddy creeks where the catfish breed; but, fur all that, I don't think they could have been equal to this piece of wickedness. May the divil git howld of his soul. Blazes, but won't there be a big squeal in purgatory when the divil gits howld of him!" And Teddy seemed to contemplate the imaginary scene in Hades with a sense of intense satisfaction. "But it's powerful strange you could never git on the trail. I don't boast of my own powers, but I'll lay if I'd been in the neighborhood, I'd 've found it and stuck to it like a bloodhound, till I'd 've throttled that thievin' wretch." "The Sioux spent the bitter part of the day in the s'arch, an' meself an' siveral other savages has been looking iver since, and none of us have got so much as a scint of his shoe, bad luck to him." "But, Teddy, what made him do it?" asked the trapper, turning his keen, searching eyes full upon him. "There's where I can't answer yees." "There be some men, I allow, so infarnal mean they'll do a mean thing just 'cause they _like_ to do it, and it might be he's one of them." "It's meself that belaves he howlds some spite agin Mister Harvey for something done in years agone, and has taken this means of revinging himself upon the good man, as I am sure niver did one of his fellow-creatures any harm." "It may be there's been ill-blood a long time atween 'em, but the missionary couldn't a done nothin' to give the rapscallion cause to run off with his wife, 'less he'd run off with this hunter's old woman before, and the hunter was paying him for it." "Git out wid yer nonsense!" said Teddy, impatiently. "It couldn't been a great deal, or if it was, it couldn't been done purposely, for I've growed up wid Mister Harvey, and knowed him ever since he was knee high to a duck, and he was _always_ a boy that did more praying than fighting. The idea of _his_ harming anyone, is _pre-pos-te-trous._ After the haythen had fired at us, the good man actilly made me promise not to do the wretch hurt if the chance was given me; and a mighty foolish thing, for all it was Master Harvey who towld me, fur I've had a chance or two at the spalpaan since. Oh blissed Virgin, why _didn't_ I cut his wizzen for him whin I could have done it--that is, if I could!" "And you've been huntin' 'im these three or four months be you?" "The same, yer honor, huntin' constantly, niver losing a day rain or shine, wid Indians an' widout 'em, cold, hungry and tired, but not a day of rist." "Freeze me then, if you haven't got _grit_. Thar ain't many that would track through the woods that ar long. And ye haven't caught a glimpse of the gal nor heard nothin' of her?" "Not a thing yet; but it's meself that 'xpacts to ivery day." "In course, or ye wouldn' keep at the business. But s'pose, my friend, you go on this way for a year more--what then?" "As long as I can thravel over the airth and Miss Cora isn't found, me faat shall niver find rest." The trapper indulged in an incredulous smile. "You'd be doing the same, Tim, if yees had iver laid eyes on Miss Cora or had iver heard her speak," said Teddy, as his eyes filled with tears. "God bliss her! she was worth a thousand such lives as mine--" "Don't say nothin'" interrupted the trapper, endeavoring to conceal his agitation; "I've l'arned years ago what that business is. The copperskins robbed me of a prize I'll never git agin, long afore you'd ever seen one of the infarnal beings." "Was she a swateheart?" "Never mind--never mind; it'll do no good to speak of it now. She's _gone_--that's enough." "How do you know she can't be got agin, whin--" "She was tomahawked afore my eyes--ain't that enough?" demanded the trapper, indignantly. "I axes pardon, but I was under the impression they had run away with her as they did with Miss Cora." "Hang 'em, no! If they'd have done that I'd have chased 'em to the Pacific ocean and back agin afore I'd give 'em up." "And that's what meself intends to do regarding Miss Cora." "Yer see, yer don't know much about red-skins and their devilments, and therefore, it's my private opine, instead of getting the gal, they'll git you, and there'll be the end on't." "Tim, couldn't yees make the s'arch wid me?" asked Teddy, in a deeply earnest voice. The trapper shook his head. "Like to do't, but can't. It's time I was up to the beaver runs this night and had my traps set. Yer see I'm _compelled_ to be in St. Louey at the end of six months and hain't got a day to spare." "Mister Harvey has money, or, if he hasn't, he has friends in St. Louis, be the same token, that has abundance of it, and you'd find it paid you bitter in the ind than catching poor, innocent beavers, that niver did yees harm." "I don't foller sich business for money, but I've agreed to be in St. Louey at the time I was tellin' you, and it's allers a p'int of honor with me to keep my agreements." "Couldn't yees be doing that, and this same thing, too?" "Can't do't. S'pose I should git on the trail that is lost, can yer tell me how fur I'd have to foller it? Yer see I've been in that business afore, and know what it is. Me and three others once chased a band of Blackfeet, that had carried off an old man, till we could see the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, and git a taste of the breath of wind that comes down from their ice and snow in middle summer." "Didn't yees pursue the subjact any further?" "We went fur enough to find that the nimble-footed dogs had got into the mountains, and that if we wanted to keep our ha'r, we'd only got to undertake to foller 'em thar. So we just tramped back agin, havin' our trouble for nothin'." "Wasn't that about as poor a business, for yees, as this be for me, barring yees was hunting for an old man and I'm hunting for a young woman?" "It warn't as foolish by a long shot, 'cause we _war on the trail_ all the time, and kept it, while you've lost yours, and never'll be able to find it agin. We war so close more nor once that we reached their camp-fires afore the embers had died out and from the tops of two, three hills we got a glimpse on 'em on thar horses. We traveled all night a good many times, but it done no good as they done the same thing, and we found we war further away, if anything, next morning than we war at sundown. If we'd ever lost the trail so as not to find it we'd guv up and come home, but we never done that nor never lost more nor an hour in lookin' for it. You see," added the trapper, impressively, "you never have found the trail, and, therefore, there ain't the shadder of a chance." "Begorrah, yees can't blame us whin we tried to the bist of our indeavor to find it and wasn't able." "Yer done the best yer knowed, I s'pose; but why didn't four on 'em divide so as to let one go up one side the river and one t'other, and the same way down-stream. Yer don't s'pose that feller was able to keep paddlin' forever in the river, do yer? and jist so soon as he landed, jist so sure would one of them Sioux find the spot where he touched land, and foller him to his hole." "Begorrah, if wees had only thought of that!" "A Sioux is as cunning a red-skin as I ever found, and it's jist my opine every one of 'em _did_ think of that same thing, but they didn't try it for fear they might catch the varmint! They knew their man, rest assured o' that." Teddy looked up as if he did not comprehend the meaning of the last remark. "'Cordin' to yer own showin', one of them infarnal copper-gals was at the bottom of the hull business, and it's like as not the men knowed about it, too, and didn't _want_ to catch the gal!" "There's where yees are mightily mistook, as Pat McGuire said whin his landlord called him honest, for ivery one of them same chocolate-colored gintlemen would have done their bist for Master Harvey. They would have cut that thaif's wizzen wid a mighty good will, I knows." "Mebbe so, but I don't believe it!" said the hunter, with an incredulous shake of his head. "Would ye have me give up the s'arch altogether?" "Can't say that I would; howsumever, the chance is small, and ye'd better go west with me, and spend the winter in l'arning how to trap fur beaver and otter." "What good might result from that?" "None, as I knows on." "Then it's meself that thanks yees for the offer and respectfully declines to accept the nomination. I'll jist elict meself to the office of sheriff an' go about these regions wid a s'arch-warrint in my shoes that'll niver let me rist until Miss Cora is found." "Wal, I 'spose we'll part in the mornin' then. As yer say this are the first time you've got as fur north, I'll say I think you're nearer the trail than yer ever war yit." "What might be the reason for that?" eagerly asked Teddy. "I can't say what it is, only I kind o' feel it in my bones. Thar's a tribe of copperskins about a hundred miles to the north'ard, that I'll lay can tell yer _somethin'_ about the gal." "Indians? An' be what token would they be acquaint with her?" "They're up near the Hudson Bay Territory line, and be a harmless kind of people. I stayed among 'em two winters and found 'em a harmless lot o' simpletons that wouldn't hurt a hair o' yer head. Thar's allers a lot of white people staying among 'em." "I fails yit to see what they could be doing with Miss Cora." "Mind I tells yer only what I _thinks_--not what I _knows_. It's my private opine, then, that that hunter has took the gal up among them Injins, and they're both living thar. If that be so, you needn't be afeard to go right among 'em, for the only thing yer'll have to look out fur will be the same old hunter himself." This remark made a deep impression upon Teddy. He sat smoking his pipe, and gazing into the glowing embers, as if he could there trace out the devious, and thus far invisible, trail that had baffled him so long. It must be confessed that the search of the Hibernian thus far had been carried on in a manner that could hardly be expected to insure success. He had spent weeks in wandering through the woods, sleeping upon the ground or in the branches of some tree, fishing for awhile in some stream, or hunting for game--impelled onward all the time by his unconquerable resolve to find Cora Richter and return her to her husband. On the night that the five Sioux returned to the village, and announced their abandonment of the pursuit, Teddy told the missionary that he should never see him again, until he had gained some tidings of his beloved mistress, or had become assured that there could be no hope of her recovery. How long this peculiar means of hunting would have gone on, it is impossible to tell, but most probably until Teddy himself had perished, for there was not the shadow of a chance of his gaining any information of the lost one. His meeting with the trapper was purely accidental, and the hint thrown out by the latter was the reason of setting the fellow to work in the proper way. The conversation was carried on for an hour or so longer, during which the trapper gave Teddy more advice, and told him the best manner of reaching the tribe to which he referred. He cautioned him especially against delaying his visit any longer, as the northern winter was almost upon them, and should he be locked in the wilderness by it, it would be almost impossible for him to survive its rigor; but if he should be among the tribe, he could rest in security and comfort until the opening of spring. Teddy concluded to do as his companion advised, and, after more unimportant conversation, both stretched themselves out by the camp-fire and slept. Just as the earliest light was breaking through the trees, the trapper was on his feet, rekindling the fire. Finding, after this was completed, that Teddy still slumbered, he brought him to his senses by several forcible applications of his foot. "Begorrah, it's meself that's thinking yees 'av a mighty gintle way of coming upon one unawares, barring it's the same as a kick from a wild horse. I was dr'aming jist thin of a blast of powder in a stone quarry, which exploded under me feet, an' sint me up in the ship's rigging, an' there I hung by the eaves until a lovely girl pulled me in at the front door and shut it so hard that the chinking all fell out of the logs, and woke me out of me pleasint delusions." The trapper stared at the Irishman incredulously, thinking him demented. Teddy's gaping and rubbing of his eyes with his fists, and, finally, his stretching of arms and legs, reassured Tim of the fellow's sanity, and he added: "If yer hadn't woke just now, I'd tried ef lammin' yer over the head would've done any good." "Yees might have done that, as long as ye plaised, fur me sconce got used to being cracked at the fairs in the owld country." "I thought yer allers lived in this country." "Not always, or how could I be an Irishman? God plaise I may niver live here long enough to forgit owld Ireland, the Gim of the Sea. What's the matter with yees now?" The trapper having wandered a few yards from the camp-fire, had paused suddenly and stood gazing at the ground. Teddy was obliged to repeat his question. "What is it yees have diskivered?" "Sign, or ye may shoot me." "Sign o' what?" "Injins, ye wood-head! What else could I mean?" Teddy now approached and narrowly examined the ground. His knowledge of wood-craft had been considerably increased during the past month or two, and he had no difficulty in distinguishing the imprint of a moccasin. "Look at the infarnal thing!" exclaimed the trapper, in disgust. "Who'd a thort there'd 've been any of the warmints about, whin we took sich pains with our fire. Why the chap didn't send a piece of cold lead into each of our bread-baskets is more nor I can tell. It would've sarved us both right." "P'raps thim tracks there was made fornenst the night, and that it's ourselves that was not here first." "Don't yer s'pose I know all about _that_?" demanded the trapper, savagely. "Them tracks was made not more'n three or four hours ago." As he spoke. Tim turned and followed it a rod or two, and then, as he came back, said: "If I had the time I'd foller it; but it goes just t'other way from what I want to go. I think like 'nough it leads to the village that you want to find; so if yer'd like one of 'em to introduce yer to the rest on 'em, drive ahead and make his acquaintance. Maybe he kin tell yer something about the gal." Teddy determined to follow the trail by all means. He partook of the morning meal with the trapper, exchanged a pleasant farewell, and then the two parted never to meet again. The footprints were distinct and easily followed. Teddy advanced with long, loping strides, at a gait considerably more rapid than his usual one. He indulged in curious reveries as he followed it, fancying it to be an unfriendly Indian with whom a desperate collision must inevitably take place, or some friendly member of the tribe, of whom the trapper had told him, that would prove a boon companion to him. All at once he reached a small, marshy tract, where the trail was much more palpable; and it was here that he either saw or fancied the toes of the footprints turned _outward_, thus demonstrating that, instead of an Indian, he was following a white man. The Hibernian's heart throbbed at the thought that he was upon the track of the strange hunter, with all probability of overtaking him. It caused his heart to throb violently to reflect how close he was upon the critical moment. Drawing a deep breath and closing his lips tightly, he pressed on ready for the conflict. The trail continued as distinct as ever, and the pursuit suffered no interruption until it entered a deep swamp into which Teddy hesitated to enter, its appearance was so dark and forbidding. As he gazed into its gloomy depths, he was almost certain that he had discovered the _home_ of the hunter. That at that moment the criminal was within its confines, where perhaps the beloved Cora was imprisoned, a miserable and pining captive. The thought maddened him, and he pressed forward so rashly that he soon found himself completely entrapped in a network of briers and brambles. Carefully withdrawing into the open wood, it suddenly occurred to him, that if the hunter had passed through the thicket, there was no earthly necessity of his doing it. He could pass around, and, if the footprints were seen upon the opposite side, it only remained to follow them, while, if they were not visible, it certified that he was still within the thicket and he could therefore shape his actions accordingly. Teddy therefore made his way with patience and care around one end of the thicket. He found the distance more considerable than he at first supposed. It was full an hour before he was fairly upon the opposite side. Here he made a careful search and was soon rewarded by finding unmistakable footprints, so that he considered it settled that the hunter had passed straight through the thicket. "It's a quaar being he is entirely, when it's meself that could barely git into the thicket, and he might have saved his hide by making a short thramp around, rather than plunging through in this shtyle." Teddy pressed on for two hours more, when he began to believe that he was close upon the hunter, who must have traveled without intermission to have eluded him thus far. He therefore maintained a strict watch, and advanced with more caution. The woods began to thicken, and the Hibernian was brought to a stand-still by the sound of a rustling in the bushes. Proceeding some distance further, he came upon the edge of a bank or declivity, where he believed the strange hunter had laid down to rest. The footprints were visible upon the edge of the bank, and at the bottom of the latter was a mass of heavy undergrowth, so dense as effectually to preclude all observation of what might be concealed within it. It was in the shrubbery, directly beneath him, that Teddy believed the hunter lay. He must be wearied and exhausted, and no doubt was in a deep sleep. Teddy was sure, in his enthusiasm, that he had obtained a glimpse of the hunter's clothes through the interstices of the leaves, so that he could determine precisely the spot where he lay, and even the position of his body--so eagerly did the faithful fellow's wishes keep in advance of his senses. And now arose the all-important question as to what he should do. He might shoot him dead as he slept, and there is little question but what Teddy would have done it had he not been restrained by the simple question of expediency. The hunter was alone, and, if slain, all clue to the whereabouts of Mrs. Richter would be irrecoverably lost. What tidings that might ever be received regarding her, must come from the lips of him who had abducted her. If he could desperately wound the man, he might frighten him into a confession, but then Teddy feared instead of wounding him merely with his rifle, he would kill him altogether if he attempted to shoot. After a full half-hour's deliberation, Teddy decided upon his course of action. It was to spring knife in hand directly upon the face of the hunter, pin him to the ground and then force the confession from his lips, under a threat of his life, the Irishman mercifully resolving to slay him at any rate, after he had obtained all that was possible from him. Teddy did not forget his experience of a few months before when the hunter gave him an involuntary bath in the river. He therefore held his knife firmly in his right hand. Now that he had concluded what to do, he lost no time in carrying his plan into execution. He took a crouching position, such as is assumed by the panther when about to spring upon its prey, and then drawing his breath, he leaped downward. A yelping howl, an impetuous scratching and struggling of the furious mass that he attempted to inclose in his arms, told Teddy that instead of the hunter, he had pounced down upon an innocent, sleeping bear! It was well for the Irishman that the bear was peaceably inclined, else his search for the lost trail might have terminated then and there. The brute, after freeing itself from its incubus, sprung off and made all haste into the woods, leaving Teddy gazing after it in stupefied amazement. He rose to his feet, stared at the spot where it had last appeared and then drew a deep sigh, and sadly shook his head. "I say nothing! Be jabers! it's meself that can't do justice to the thame!" Harvey Richter stood in his cabin-door, about five months after his great loss, gazing off toward the path which led to the Indian village, and which he had traveled so many, many times. Sad and weary was his countenance, as he stood, at the close of the day, looking into the forest, as if he expected that it would speak and reveal what it knew of his beloved partner, who was somewhere concealed within its gloomy depths. Ah, how many an hour had he looked, but in vain. The forest refused to give back the lost, nor did it breathe one word of her, to ease the gloom which hung so heavily upon his soul. A footfall caught his ear, and turning, he saw Teddy standing before him. The face of the Irishman was as dejected as his own, and the widowed man knew there was scarce need of the question: "Have you heard anything, Teddy?" "Nothing, sir, saving that nothing is to be learnt." "Not my will, but thine, oh God, be done!" exclaimed the missionary, reverently, and yet with a wailing sadness, that proved how unutterable was his woe. CHAPTER VIII. THE TRAIL OF DEATH. These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence; Therefore, I pray you, stay not to discourse, But mount you presently.--SHAKESPEARE. The trapper, after separating from the Irishman, pursued his way through the woods with a slow tread, as if he were deliberating some matter with himself. Occasionally he muttered and shook his head, in a manner that showed his conscience was getting the better of the debate, whatever it might be. Finally he paused. "Yas, sir; it's a mean piece of business in me. 'Cause I want to cotch a few beavers I must let this gal be, when she has been lost to her husband already for three months. It's ongenerous, and _can't be done_!" he exclaimed, emphatically. "What if I does lose a few peltries when they're bringing such a good price down in St. Louey? Can't I afford to do it, when there's a gal in the matter?" He resumed his walk as slowly and thoughtfully as before, muttering to himself. "If I go, I goes alone; least I don't go with that Teddy, for he'd be sartin to lose my ha'r as sure as we got onto a trail. There's no calc'latin' the blunders of _such_ a man. How he has saved his own scalp to this time is more nor I can tell, or himself neither, for that matter, I guess. I've been on many a trail-hunt alone, and if I goes--if I goes, why, _in course_ I does!" he added, impetuously. The resolution once taken seemed to afford him unusual pleasure, as it does with us all when the voice of conscience is a monitor that is heeded. He was tramping toward the west, and now that the matter was decided in his own mind, he paused again, as if he could better debate other matters that must in the circumstances necessarily present themselves. "In the first place, there's no use of going any further on _this_ track, for I ain't gettin' any nigher the gal, that's pretty sartin. From what that Teddy told me of his travels, it can't be that she's anywhere in these parts, for if she war, he couldn't have helped l'arning something of her in all this time. There's a tribe up north that I've heard was great on gettin' hold of white gals, and I think I'll make a s'arch in that direction afore I does anything else." Nothing more remained for Tim but to carry out the resolution he had made, and it was characteristic of the man that he did it at once. Five minutes after the above words had been muttered, he was walking rapidly along in a northern direction, his rifle thrown over his arm, and a beaming expression of countenance that showed there were no regrets at the part he was acting. He had a habit of talking with himself, especially when some weighty or unusual matter obtruded itself. It is scarcely to be wondered, therefore, that he became quite talkative at the present time. "I allers admire such adventur's as this, if they don't bring in anything more nor thanks. The style in which I've received them is allers worth more money nor I ever made trapping beavers. The time I cotched that little gal down on the Osage, that had been lost all summer, I thought her mother would eat me up afore she'd let me go. I believe I grinned all day and all night for a week after that, it made me think I was such a nice feller. Maybe it'll be the same way with this. Hello!" The trapper paused abruptly, for on the ground before him he saw the unmistakable imprint of a moccasin. A single glance of his experienced eye assured him upon that point. "That there are Injins in these parts is a settled p'int with me, and that red and white blood don't agree is another p'int that is settled. That track wasn't made there more nor two hours ago, and it's pretty sartin the one that made it ain't fur away at this time. It happens it leads to the north'ard, and it'll be a little divarsion to foller it, minding at the same time that there's an Injin in it." For the present the trapper was on a trail, and he kept it with the skill and certainty of a hound. Over the dry leaves, the pebbly earth, the fresh grass, the swampy hollow--everywhere, he followed it with unerring skill. "That Injin has been on a hunt," he muttered, "and is going back home agin. If it keeps in this direction much longer, I'll believe he's from the very village I'm hunting after. Heigh! there's something else up!" He suddenly checked himself and began snuffing the air, as though it was tainted with something suspicious. "I hope I may be shot if there ain't a camp-fire within two hundred yards of where I am standing." He looked sharply around in every direction, but saw nothing of the camp, although positive that his olfactories could not have deceived him. "Whether it belongs to white or red can't be said, _sartin_; but it's a great deal most likely that it's red, and it's just about as sartin that that Injin ahead of me has gone pretty close to the camp, so I'll keep on follering him." A short distance further he became assured that he was in close proximity to the fire, and he began to use extreme caution in his movements. He knew very well how slight an inadvertence would betray his approach, and a betrayal was almost fatal. Advancing some distance further, he suddenly came in full view of the camp-fire. He saw three Indians seated around it, smoking, and appearing as if they had just finished their morning meal. It seemed, also, as if they were discussing some matter that deeply interested all. The mumbling of their voices could be heard, and one of them gesticulated quite freely, as though he were excited over the conference. There was not even the most remote possibility that what they were saying was of the least concern to the trapper; and so, after watching them a few moments, he moved cautiously by. It was rarely that Tim ever had a mishap at such perilous times as these, but to his dismay something caught his foot so dextrously, that in spite of himself he was thrown flat upon his face. There was a dull thump, not very loud, it is true, but he feared it had reached the ears of the savages. He lay motionless, listening for a while, but hearing nothing of their voices or footsteps, he judged that either they had no suspicion of the true cause, or else had not heard him at all. He therefore rose to his feet and moved on, occasionally glancing back, to be sure he was not pursued. The trapper proceeded in this manner until noon. Had the case been urgent, he would not have paused until nightfall, as his indurated muscles demanded no rest; he could go a couple of days without nourishment, and experience little inconvenience. But there was no call for haste. He therefore paused at noon, on the banks of a small stream, in quest of some water-fowl. Tim gazed up and down-stream, but saw nothing that would serve as a dinner. He could have enticed a fish or two from their element, but he had set his heart upon partaking of a bird, and was not willing to accept anything else. Accordingly, he began walking down the bank of the creek in search of one. In such a country as was Minnesota forty years ago, the difficult matter would have been to _avoid_ game rather than to find it. The trapper had searched but a short distance, when he caught sight of a single ptarmigan under the opposite bank. In a twinkling Tim's rifle was raised, and, as it flashed forth its deadly messenger, the bird made a single struggle, and then floated, a dead object, down the current. Although rather anxious for his prize, the trapper, like many a hunter since that day, was not willing to receive a wet skin so long as it was possible to avoid it. The creek could be only of inconsiderable depth, yet, on such a blustering day, he felt a distaste toward exposing himself to its chilling clasp. Some distance below he noticed the creek narrowed and made a curve. At this point he hoped to draw it in shore with a stick, and he lost no time in hurrying to the point. Arrived there, the trapper stood on the very margin of the water, with a long stick in hand, waiting for the opportune moment. He naturally kept his eye upon the floating bird, as any animal watches the prey that he is confident is coming directly into his clutches. From the opposite bank projected a large, overhanging bush, and such was the bird's position in the water, that it was compelled to float within a foot, at least, of this. Tim's eyes happened to be fixed intently upon it at this moment, and, at the very instant it was at the point named, he saw a person's hand flash out, seize the ptarmigan by the neck, and bring it in to shore in a twinkling. Indignation upon the part of the trapper was perhaps as great as his surprise. He raised his rifle, and had it already sighted at the point where he was confident the body of the thief must be concealed, when a second thought caused him to lower his piece, and hurry up-stream, to a spot directly opposite where the bird had disappeared. Here he searched the shore narrowly, but could detect no sign of the presence of any person. That there was, or had at least been, one there, needed no further confirmation. The trapper was in no mood to put up with the loss of his dinner, and he considered it rather a point of honor that he should bring the offending savage to justice. That it was an Indian he did not doubt, but he never once suspected, what was true, that it was the identical one he had been following, and who had passed his camp-fire. In a few moments he found a shallow portion of the creek across which he immediately waded and made his way down the bank, to where the Indian had first manifested his presence. Here the keen eye of Tim at once detected moccasin prints, and he saw that the savage had departed with his prize. There was no difficulty in following the trail, and the trapper did so, with his long, loping, rapid walk. It happened to lead straight to the northward, so that he felt it was no loss of time for him to do so. It was morally certain the savage could be at no great distance; hence the pursuer was cautious in his advance. The American Indian would rather seek than avoid an encounter, and he was no foe to be despised in a hand-to-hand contest. The trapper was in that mood that he would not have hesitated to encounter two of them in deadly combat for the possession of the bird which was properly his own, and which he was not willing to yield until compelled to do so by physical force. About a hundred rods brought the trapper to a second creek of larger size than the first. The trail led directly into this, so he followed without hesitation. Before doing so, he took the precaution to sling his rifle to his back, so that his arms should be disencumbered in any sudden emergency. The creek proved to be of considerable depth, but not sufficient to cause him to swim. Near the center, when it was up to his armpits, and he was feeling every foot of the way as he advanced, he chanced by accident to raise his head. As he did so, he caught a movement among the undergrowth, and more from habit than anything else, dodged his head. The involuntary movement allowed the bullet that was discharged at that moment to pass harmlessly over his crown and bury itself in the bank beyond. The next instant the trapper dashed through the water, reaching the shore before the savage could reload. To his disappointment and chagrin, the Indian was gone. Tim, however, was not to be baffled in this manner, and dashed on as impetuously as before. He was so close that he could hear the fugitive as he fled, but the nature of the ground prevented rapid progress upon the part of either, and it was impossible to tell for a time who it was that was gaining. "There's got to be an end to this race _some time_," muttered Tim, "or I'll chase you up the north pole. You've stole my dinner, and tried to steal my topknot, and now you shall have it or I shall have yours." For some time this race (which in many respects resembled that of Teddy and the strange hunter) continued, until the trapper found it was himself that was really losing ground, and he sullenly came down to a walk again. Still, he held to the trail with the unremitting perseverance of the bloodhound, confident that, sooner or later, he must come up with the fugitive. All at once, something upon the ground caught his eye. It was the ptarmigan, and he sprung exultingly forward and picked it up. It was unharmed by the Indian, and he looked upon it as a tacit surrender, on the part of his adversary, of the matter of dispute between them. At first Tim was disposed to keep up the pursuit; but, on second thought, he concluded to partake of his dinner, and then continue his search for his human game. In order to enjoy his dinner it was necessary to have it cooked, and he busied himself for a few moments in collecting a few dried sticks, and plucking the feathers from the fowl and dressing it. While thus occupied, he did not forget to keep his eyes about him, and to be prepared for the Indian in case he chose to come back. He discovered nothing suspicious, however, and came to believe there was no danger at all. At length, when the afternoon was well advanced, the trapper's dinner was prepared. He took the fowl from the blaze, and cutting a piece with his hunting-knife, was in the very act of placing it in his mouth, when the sharp crack of a rifle broke the stillness, and he fell backward, pierced through the body by the bullet of the Indian whom he had been pursuing. "It's all up!" muttered the dying man. "I am wiped out at last, and must go under!" [Illustration: "It's all up!" muttered the dying man. "I am wiped out at last, and must go under!"] The Lost Trail had been the means of Tim, the trapper, discovering what proved to him _the trail of death!_ CHAPTER IX. THE DEAD SHOT. And now 'tis still I no sound to wake The primal forest's awful shade; And breathless lies the covert brake, Where many an ambushed form is laid. I see the red-man's gleaming eye, Yet all so hushed, the gloom profound, That summer birds flit heedlessly, And mocking nature smiles around.--LUNT. Five years have passed. It is the summer of 1825. In that comparatively brief period, what vast changes have taken place! How many have come upon and departed from the stage of life! How many plans, intentions and resolutions have been formed and either failed or succeeded! How many governments have toppled to the earth, and followed by "those that in their turn shall follow them." What a harvest it has been for Death! The missionary's cabin stands on the Clearing where it was first erected, and there is little change in its outward appearance, save that perhaps it has been more completely isolated from the wood. The humble but rather massive structure is almost impervious to the touch of time. It is silent and deserted within. Around the door plays a little boy, the image of his mother, while some distance away, under the shadow of the huge tree, sits the missionary himself. One leg is thrown over the other, an open book turned with its face downward upon his lap, while his hands are folded upon it, and he is looking off toward the wood in deep abstraction of thought. Time has not been so gentle with Harvey Richter. There are lines upon his face, and a sad, wearied expression that does not properly belong there. It would have required full fifteen years, in the ordinary course of events, to have bowed him in this manner. The young man--for he is still such--and his little boy are the only ones who now dwell within the cabin. No tidings or rumors have reached him of the fate of his wife, who was so cruelly taken from him four years before. The faithful Teddy is still searching for her. The last two winters he has spent at home, but each summer he has occupied in wandering hither and thither through the great wilderness, in his vain searching for the lost trail. Cast down and dejected, he has never yet entirely abandoned hope of finding traces of her. He had followed out the suggestion of the trapper, and visited the Indians that dwelt further north, where he was informed that nothing whatever was known of the missing woman. Since that time his search had been mostly of an aimless character, which, as we have already stated, could be productive of no definite results. The missionary had become, in a degree, resigned to his fate; and yet, properly speaking, he could not be said to be resigned, for he was not yet convinced that she was entirely lost to him. All traces of the strange hunter seemed irrecoverably gone, but Richter still devoutly believed the providence of God would adjust everything in due time. It is true, at seasons, he was filled with doubt and misgiving; but his profession, his devotedness to his work, brought him in such close communion with his divine Master that he trusted fully in his providences. On this summer afternoon, thoughts of his wife and of the strange hunter occupied his mind more exclusively than they had for a year past. So constant and preoccupying, indeed, were they, that he once or twice believed he was on the eve of learning something regarding her. While engaged in reading, the figures of his wife and the hunter would obtrude themselves; he found it impossible to dismiss them, so he had laid down the book and gone off into this absorbing reverie. An additional fear or presentiment at times haunted the mind of the missionary. He believed this hunter who could resort to such diabolical means to revenge himself, would seek to inflict further injury upon him, and he instinctively looked upon his boy as the vulnerable point where the blow would be likely to fall. For over a year, while Teddy was absent, Richter had taken the boy with him, when making his daily visits to the village, and made it a point never to lose sight of him. During these years of loneliness, also, Harvey Richter had hunted a great deal in the woods and had attained remarkable skill in the use of the rifle--an accomplishment for which he had reason to be thankful for the remainder of his life, as we shall presently see. On a pleasant afternoon, he frequently employed himself in shooting at a target, or at small game in the lofty trees around him, until his aim became so unerring that not a warrior among the Sioux could excel him. It may seem singular, but our readers will understand us when we say that this added to his popularity--and, in a manner, paved a way for reaching many a heart that hitherto had remained unmoved by his appeals. The year preceding, an Indian had presented the missionary with a goat, to the neck of which was attached a large cow-bell, that probably had been obtained of some trader. Where the animal came from, however, he had never been able to tell. It was a very acceptable present, as it became a companion for his Charley, who spent many and many an hour in sporting with it. It also afforded for a while a much-valued luxury in the shape of milk, so that the missionary came to regard the animal as an indispensable requirement in his household. The goat acquired a troublesome habit of wandering off in the woods, with an inclination not to return for several days. From this cause the bell became useful as a signal to indicate the animal's whereabouts. It rarely wandered beyond hearing, and caused no more trouble than would have resulted from a cow under the same circumstances. For the last few weeks it had been the duty, or rather privilege, of Charley to bring his playmate home, and the child had become so expert that the father had little hesitation in permitting him to go out for it. The parent had misgivings, however, in allowing him to leave the house, so near dark, to go beyond his sight if not beyond his hearing; and for some time he had strenuously refused to permit the boy to go upon his errand; but the little fellow plead so earnestly, and the father's ever-present apprehensions having gradually dulled by their want of realization, he had given his reluctant consent, until it came to be considered the special province of the boy to bring in the goat every evening just before nightfall. The afternoon wore away, and still the missionary sat with folded hands, gazing absently off in the direction of the wood. The boy at length aroused him by running up and asking: "Father, it is getting late. Isn't it time to bring Dolly home?" "Yes, my son; do you hear the bell?" "Listen!" The pleasant _tink-a-link_ came with faint distinctness over the still summer air. "It isn't far away, my son; so run as fast as you can and don't play or loiter on the way." The child ran rapidly across the Clearing in the direction of the sound, shot into the wood, and, a moment later, had disappeared from his father's sight. The father still sat in his seat, and was looking absently toward the forest, when a startled expression flashed over his face and he sprung to his feet. What thus alarmed him? _It was the sound of the goat-bell._ All of my readers who have heard the sound of an ordinary cow-bell suspended to the neck of an animal, have observed that the natural sound is an _irregular one_--that is, there is no system or regularity about the sound made by an animal in cropping the grass or herbage. There is the clapper's tink-a-link, tink-a-link--an interval of silence--then the occasional tink, tink, tink, to be followed, perhaps, by a repetition of the first-named sounds, varied occasionally by a compound of all, caused by the animal flinging its head to free itself from troublesome flies or mosquitoes. The bell in question, however, gave no such sounds _as these_, and it was this fact which filled the missionary with a sudden, terrible dread. Suppose a person take one of these bells in his hand, and give a steady, _uninterrupted_ motion. The consequence must be a regular, unvarying, monotonous sound, which any ear can distinguish from the natural one caused by the animal itself. It was a steady tink, tink, tink, that the bell in question sent forth. The missionary stood but a moment; then dashing into the house, he took down his ever-loaded rifle and ran in the direction of the sound. In his hurry, he forgot powder-horn and bullet, and had, as a consequence, but a single charge in his rifle. He had gone scarcely a hundred yards, when he encountered the goat returning home. One glance showed there was _no bell_ to its neck, while that ominous tink, tink, tink, came through the woods as uninterruptedly as before. The father now broke into a swifter run, almost losing his presence of mind from his great, agonizing fear. The picture of the Indian, whom he had felled to the floor, when he insulted his wife years before, rose before him, and he saw his child already struggling in the savage's merciless grasp. Nearer and nearer he approached the sound, until he suddenly paused, conscious that it was but a short distance away. Hurrying stealthily but rapidly several rods to the right, the whole thing was almost immediately made plain to him. Two trees, from some cause or other, had fallen to the ground in a parallel direction and within a yard of each other. Between the trunks of these an Indian was crouched, who held the goat-bell in his left hand, and caused the sound which so startled the father. The savage had his back turned toward the missionary, and appeared to be looking in the opposite direction, as if he were waiting the appearance of some one. While the father stood gazing at this, he saw his boy come to view about fifty feet the other side of the Indian, and, as if wearied with his unusual hunt, seat himself upon a log. As soon as the boy was visible, the savage--whom Richter recognized at once as the same man that he had felled to the floor of his cabin, four years before--called into use a little common sense, which, if it had been practised somewhat sooner, must have completely deluded the father and accomplished the design meditated. If, instead of giving the bell the monotonous tink, the Indian had shaken the clapper irregularly, it would have resulted in the certain capture of the child, beyond the father's power of aid or rescue. The missionary, we say, penetrated the design of the Indian almost instantly. Although he saw nothing but the head and top of one shoulder, he recognized, with a quick instinct, the villain who had felt the weight of his hand years before, and who had now come in the fullness of time, to claim his revenge. Directly in front of the savage rose a small bush, which, while it gave him a view of the boy, concealed himself from the child's observation. The object of the Indian seemed to be to lure the boy within his reach, so as to secure him without his making an outcry or noise. If he could draw him close to the logs, he would spring upon him in an instant, and prevent any scream, which assuredly must reach the father, who, with his unerring rifle would have been upon the ground in a few moments. It was an easy matter for the savage to slay the boy. It would not have done to shoot his rifle, but he could have tomahawked him in an instant; hence it was plain that he desired only to take him prisoner. He might have sprung upon his prey in the woods, but there he ran the risk of being seen by the child soon enough for him to make an outcry, which would not fail of bringing immediate assistance. His plan, therefore, was, to beguile the little fellow on until he had walked directly into the snare, as a fly is lured into the web of a spider. This, we say, was the plan of the Indian. It had never entered into his calculations that the goat, after being robbed of her bell, might go home and tell a tale, or that there were other ways in which the boy could be secured, without incurring half the peril he already had incurred. The moment the father comprehended what we have endeavored to make plain, he raised his rifle, with the resolve to shoot the savage through the head. As he did so, he recalled the fact that he had but a single charge, and that, as a consequence, a miss would be the death-warrant of himself as well as of his child. But he knew his eye and hand would never fail him. His finger already pressed the trigger, when he was restrained by an unforeseen impediment. While the deadly rifle was poised, the boy stretched himself up at full length, a movement which made known to the father that his child was exactly in range with the Indian himself, and that a bullet passing through the head of the savage could not fail to bury itself in the little fellow's body. This startling circumstance arrested the pressure of the trigger at the very moment the ball was to be sped upon its errand of death. The missionary sunk down upon one knee, with the intention of bringing the head of the savage so high as to carry the bullet over the body of his boy, but this he found could not be done without too seriously endangering his aim. He drew a bead from one side of the tree, and then from the other, but from both stand-points the same dreadful danger threatened. The ground behind the tree was somewhat elevated, and was the only spot from which he could secure a fair view of the bronze head of the relentless enemy. Two resorts were at the command of Richter. He could leave the tree altogether, and pass around so as to come upon the savage from a different direction; but this involved delay during which his boy might fall into the Indian's power and be dispatched, as he would be sure to do when he found that the father was close at hand; and from the proximity of the two men, it could hardly fail to precipitate a collision between them. The Indian, finding himself at bay, could not fail to prove a most troublesome and dangerous customer, unarmed, as Richter was, with weapons for a close encounter. The father might also wait until the boy should pass out of range. Still, there was the possibility of his proceeding directly up to the spot where the savage lurked, thus keeping in range all the while. Then the attempted rescue would have to be deferred until the child was in the hands of the savage. These considerations, passing through Richter's brain much more rapidly than we have narrated them, decided him to abandon both plans, and to resort to what, beyond question, was a most desperate expedient. The Indian held the bell in his left hand. It was suspended by the string which had clasped the neck of the goat, and, as it swayed gently back and forth, this string slowly twisted and untwisted itself, the bell, of course, turning back and forth. The father determined to slay the Indian and save his son by _shooting this bell_! It is not necessary to describe the shape and make of the common cow-bell in general use throughout our country; but it is necessary that the reader should bear them in mind in order to understand the manner in which the missionary proposed to accomplish this result. His plan was to strike the bell when in the proper position, and _glance the bullet into the head of the savage_! The desperate nature of this expedient will be seen at once. Should the gun be discharged when the flat side of the bell was turned toward him, the ball would pass through, and most probably kill his child without endangering the life of the Indian. If it struck the narrow side, it accomplished neither harm nor good; while, if fired at the precise moment, and still aimed but an inch too low, the bell would most likely be perforated. Consequently, it was requisite that the rifle be discharged at the precise instant of time when the signal brass was in the correct position, and that the aim should be infallibly true. All this Richter realized only too painfully; but, uttering an inward prayer, he raised his rifle with a nerve that knew no faltering or fear, holding it pointed until the critical moment should arrive. That moment would be when the string was wound up, and was turning, to unwind. Then, as it was almost stationary, he fired. No sound or outcry betrayed the result; but, clubbing his rifle, the father bounded forward, over the trees, to the spot where the Indian was crouching. There he saw him in his death-struggle upon the ground the bell still held fast in his hand. In that critical moment, Harvey Richter could not forbear glancing at it. Its top was indented, and sprinkled with white by the glancing passage of the lead. The blood, oozing down the face of the savage, plainly showed how unerringly true had been the aim. Something in the upward look of the dying man startled the missionary. "Harvey Richter--don't you know me?" he gasped. [Illustration: "Harvey Richter--don't you know me?" he gasped.] "I know you as a man who has sought to do me a wrong that only a fiend could have perpetrated. Great Heaven! Can it be? Is this you, Brazey Davis?" "Yes; but you've finished me, so there isn't much left." "Are you the man, Brazey, who has haunted me ever since we came in this country? Are you the person who carried away poor, dear Cora?" "Yes--yes!" answered the man, with fainting weariness. Such, indeed, was the case. The strange hunter and the Indian known as Mahogany were one and the same person. "Brazey, why have you haunted me thus, and done me this great wrong?" "I cannot tell. When I thought how you took her from me, it made me crazy when I thought about it. I wanted to take her from you, but I wouldn't have dared to do that if you hadn't struck me. I wanted revenge then." "What have you done with her?" "She is gone, I haven't seen her since the day after I seized her, when a band of Indians took her from me, and went up north with her. They have got her yet, I know, for I have kept watch over her, and she is safe, but is a close prisoner." This he said with great difficulty. "Brazey, you are dying. I forgive you. But does your heart tell you you are at peace with Him whom you have offended so grievously?" "It's too late to talk of that now. It might have done years ago, when I was an honest man like yourself, and before I became a vagabond, bent on injuring one who had never really injured me." "It is never too late for God to forgive--" "Too late--too late, I tell you! _There!_" He rose upon his elbow, his eyes burning with insane light and his hand extended. "I see her--she is coming, her white robes floating on the air. Oh, God, forgive me that I did her the great wrong! But, she smiles upon me--she forgives me! I thank thee, angel of good----" He sunk slowly backward, and Harvey Richter eased the head softly down upon the turf. Brazey Davis was no more. CHAPTER X. CONCLUSION. Heart leaps to heart--the sacred flood That warms us is the same; That good old man--his honest blood Alike we frankly claim.--SPRAGUE. The missionary gazed sadly upon the inanimate form before him. He saw the playmate of his childhood stricken down in death by his own hand, which never should have taken human life, and although the act was justifiable under the circumstances, the good man could but mourn the painful necessity that occasioned it. The story, although possessing tragic interest, was a brief one. Brazey Davis, as he had always been termed, was a few years older than himself, and a native of the same neighborhood. He was known in childhood as one possessing a vindictive spirit that could never forgive an injury--as a person who would not hesitate at any means to obtain revenge. It so happened that he became desperately enamored of the beautiful Cora Brandon, but becoming aware, at length, that she was the betrothed of Harvey Braisted, the young missionary in embryo, the disappointed lover left the country, and was never heard of by the missionary until he made himself known in the singular manner that we have related at the opening of our narrative. He had, in fact, come to be a sort of monomaniac, who delighted in annoying his former rival, and in haunting his footsteps as if he were his evil shadow. The abduction of his wife had not been definitely determined upon until that visit to the cabin, in the garb and paint of an Indian, when he received the tremendous blow that almost drove the life from his body. Davis then resolved to take the revenge which would "cut" the deepest. How well he succeeded, the reader has learned. The missionary's child stood pleading for an explanation of the strange scene before him. Loosening the bell from the grasp of the dead man, the minister took the little hand, and, with a heart overflowing with emotion, set out for his cabin. It was his wish to give the hunter a Christian burial; but, for the present, it was impossible. These dying words rung in his ears: "The Indians took her from me, and went up north with her, where she now is, _and safe_!" Blessed thought! She was then living, and was yet to be restored to his arms. The shadow of death passed away, and a great light illuminated his very being. The lost was found! When the missionary came to be more collected, he concluded that this must be the tribe of which Teddy had once spoken, but which had been visited by him without success. The prize was too great to be intrusted in the hands of another, and Harvey determined to make the search in person, to settle, if possible, once and forever, the fate of his beloved wife. He soon proceeded to the Indian village, where he left his boy and gave notice that he should not be back for several days. He then called one of the most trusty and skillful warriors aside, and asked for his company upon the eventful journey. The savage cheerfully complied, and the two set out at once. It was a good distance to the northward, and when night came down upon them, many miles yet remained to be passed. There was little fear of disturbance from enemies, and both lay down and slept until daylight, when they were immediately on their way again. This journey through the northern wilderness was unvaried by any event worthy of record, and the details would be uninteresting to the reader. Suffice it to say that, just as the fourth day was closing in, they struck a small stream, which pursued a short distance, brought them directly upon the village for which they had been searching. The advent of the Indian and missionary among them created considerable stir, but they were treated with respect and consideration. Harvey Richter asked immediately for the chief or leading man, and shortly stood in his presence. He found him a short, thick-set half-breed, whose age must have been well-nigh three-score years, and who, to his astonishment, was unable to speak English, although many of his subjects spoke it quite intelligibly. He understood Sioux, however, and the missionary's companion acted as interpreter. Our friend made a full statement of his wife's abduction, years before, and of the assertion of the dying man that she had been taken from him by members of this tribe, who had retained her ever since. The chief waited sometime before replying; he seemed debating with himself as to the proper course to pursue. Finally he said he must consult with one of his warriors, and departed abruptly from the lodge. Ten minutes later, while the missionary, with a painfully-throbbing heart, was gazing around the lodge, with that minute scrutiny of the most trifling objects peculiar to us at such times, he caught the sound of returning footsteps, and turned to the lodge door. There stood the Indian, and, directly beside him, his own lost Cora! The next day at noon, a camp-fire might have been seen some miles south of the northern village of which we have made mention. An Indian was engaged in cooking a piece of meat, while the missionary and his reclaimed jewel, sitting side by side, her head reclining upon his shoulder and his hand dallying with her hair, were holding delightful communion. She looked pale and somewhat emaciated, for these years of absence had indeed been fraught with suffering; but the old sweet look had never departed. It was now changed into an expression of perfect joy. The wife's great anxiety was to reach home and see the child she had left an infant, but who was now a frolicksome boy, and she could hardly consent to pause even when night overtook them, and her lagging limbs told her husband how exhausted she had become. Cora never had suspected the identity of the Indian and the hunter, until on that sad day when he sprung from behind the cabin and hurried her off into the wood. There was something, however, in his look, when he first felt the weight of her husband's blow, that never left her remembrance. While hurrying her swiftly through the wood he said nothing at all, and at night, while she pretended to sleep, he watched by the camp-fire. It was the light of this fire which had puzzled Teddy so much. On the succeeding day the abductor reached the river and embarked in his canoe. A half-hour later he leaned over the canoe and washed the paint from his face and made himself known in his true character, as Brazey Davis, her former lover. He had scarcely done so, when an Indian canoe rounded a bend in the river, and, despite his earnest protestations, the savages took the captive from him, and carried her with them to their village, where she had been ever since. Retained very closely, as all prisoners among Indians are, she had heard nothing of Teddy's visit. She was treated with kindness, as the destined wife of a young chief; but the suit for her consent never was pressed by the chief, as it is in an Indian's code of honor never to force a woman to a distasteful marriage. The young brave, with true Indian pertinacity, could wait his time, confident that his kindness and her long absence from home would secure her consent to the savage alliance. She was denied nothing but her liberty, and her prayers to be returned to her husband and child. At this point in her narration, an exclamation from the Indian arrested attention. All listened and heard but a short distance away: "Begorrah, Teddy, it's yerself that's entitled to a wee bit of rist, as yees have been on a mighty long tramp, and hasn't diskivered anything but a country that is big enough to hide the Atlantic ocean in, wid Ireland on its bosom as a jewel. The chances are small of yees iver gitting another glimpse of heaven--that is, of Miss Cora's face. The darlint; if she's gone to heaven, then Teddy McFadden don't care how soon somebody else wears out his breeches--that is, on the presumption that St. Peter will say, 'Teddy, me lad, ye can inter an' make yerself at home, to be sure!'" The husband and wife glanced at each other significantly as the fellow rattled on. "Wait a moment," said Harvey, rising to his feet, and carefully making his way in the direction of the sound. It was curious that the Irishman should have paused for his noonday rest in such close proximity to our friends; but, he had learned from a trader who had recently visited the Red River country, that there _was_ a white woman, beyond all question, among the tribe in the north, and he was on his way to make them a second visit. The missionary found his servant seated by a tree. Teddy looked up as he heard a footstep. It seemed as if his eyes would drop from their sockets. His mouth opened wide, and he seemed, for the moment, confounded. Then he recovered his presence of mind in a measure, and proceeded to scratch his head vigorously. That, with him, ever was a sign of the clearing up of his ideas. "How do you do, Teddy?" at length the missionary said, after having enjoyed the poor fellow's confusion. "Faith, but ye sent the cold shivers over me. _Is_ it yerself, Mister Harvey, out in these woods, or is it yer ghost on the s'arch for Misthress Cora? I sometimes thinks me own ghost is out on the s'arch without me body, an' I shouldn't be surprised to maat it some day. But I'm mighty glad it's yerself an' not yer ghost, for, to till the thruth, I don't jist like ghosts--they makes a body feel so quare in the stomach." "Come with me; I have an Indian as company, and you may as well join us." The Hibernian followed, a few paces behind, continually expressing his astonishment at seeing his master so far away from home. He did not look up until they were within a few paces of the camp-fire, when Richter stepped from before him. "Save us! save us! but if there isn't the ghowst of Miss Cora come to haunt me for not finding her afore!" exclaimed Teddy, retreating a step or two in genuine terror. "Saint Patherick, Saint Pether, Saint Virgin Mary, protict me! I didn't mane to get dhrunk that day, ye know, nor to make a frind of--" "I am no ghost but my own self, Teddy, restored to my husband in safety. Can you not welcome me?" "Oorah! Oorah!" and he danced a moment in uncontrollable joy. Then he exclaimed: "God bliss yer own swate self!" taking her in his brawny arms. "God bliss you! No ghost, but yer own swate self. Oh, I feel like a blast of powder ready to go off!" And again he danced a singular commixture of the jig and cotillion, much to the Indian's amazement, for he thought him crazy. "I knew that I should look upon your face again; but, till me where it is yees have come from?" he finally subsided enough to ask. Teddy was soon made to understand all that related to the return of the young wife. When he learned that Mahogany, with whom he had so often drank and "hobnobbed," was only the hunter disguised, who was thus plotting his crime, the Irishman's astonishment can hardly be described. He was irritated, also, at his own stupidity. "That Teddy McFadden iver should have been so desaved by that rascal of purgatory!" he exclaimed; but, as the evil man had gone to the great tribunal above, there was no disposition, even in Teddy's heart, to heap curses on his memory. A few days more, and the three whites passed through the Indian village on their way to the Clearing. The joy of the savages at the return of their sweet, pale-faced sister was manifested in many ways, and she once feared they would never allow her to leave them and go to her own humble home. Finally, however, they reached the Clearing, and, as they walked side by side across it, opened the door and sat down within the cabin, and the fond mother took the darling boy in her lap, the wife and husband looked in each other's faces with streaming eyes, and murmured "Thank God! thank God!" THE END. * * * * * Reasons why you should obtain a Catalogue of our Publications 1. You will possess a comprehensive and classified list of all the best standard books published, at prices less than offered by others. 2. You will find listed in our catalogue books on every topic: Poetry, Fiction, Romance, Travel, Adventure, Humor, Science, History, Religion, Biography, Drama, etc., besides Dictionaries and Manuals, Bibles, Recitation and Hand Books, Sets, Octavos, Presentation Books and Juvenile and Nursery Literature in immense variety. 3. 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10022	----	WHITE QUEEN OF THE CANNIBALS _The Story of Mary Slessor of Calabar_ by A.J. BUELTMANN _Contents_ 1. A Drunkard's Home 2. A Brave Girl 3. In Africa 4. On Her Own 5. Into the Jungle 6. A Brave Nurse 7. Witchcraft 8. The Poison Test 9. Victories for Mary 10. A Disappointment 11. Clouds and Sunshine 12. Among the Cannibals 13. Blessings Unnumbered 14. Journey's End #1# _A Drunkard's Home_ "On the west coast of Africa is the country of Nigeria. The chief city is Calabar," said Mother Slessor. "It is a dark country because the light of the Gospel is not shining brightly there. Black people live there. Many of these are cannibals who eat other people." "They're bad people, aren't they, Mother?" asked little Susan. "Yes, they are bad, because no one has told them about Jesus, the Saviour from sin, or showed them what is right and what is wrong." "Don't they have any missionaries out there, Mother?" asked blue-eyed Mary. "Yes, there are a few and they are doing wonderful things for Jesus, but there are still thousands and thousands of people who have never heard a missionary. They need many, many more missionaries." "When I get to be a big man, I'm going to be a missionary," said Robert, "and preach to the black people of Calabar and Nigeria." "I want to be a missionary; too," cried Mary, tossing her red hair about. "Girls can't be preachers," said Robert. "I want to preach to the black people," said Mary, the tears racing down her cheeks. "When I'm a missionary," said Robert, "I'll take you into the pulpit with me." This made Mary happy and she was much happier when Mother Slessor said, "Perhaps you can be a teacher and teach the little black children of Calabar. Now, children, I want to be sure you know your memory verse for Sunday school tomorrow. Let's all say it together." And Mother Slessor and her six children joined in saying: Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. As they finished reciting the memory verse they heard a hoarse voice singing: Gin a body-hic, meet a body-hic, Coming-hic, through the rye-hic. "It's your father, children. Off to bed with you quickly now. Oh, I do hope Robert has brought some money home with him so that we can buy some food for tomorrow." "Where'sh the shteps? Somebody alwaysh moving the shteps," said the father, Robert Slessor, as he staggered drunkenly to the door. Mother Slessor took hold of him and led him to a chair. "Hello, dear," he said thickly. "Howsh my, besht gurl? There ish no shoemaker's got a prettier wife-hic-than I have. Yesh shir, we drank a li'l toash to you, my dear." "Oh, Robert," said Mother Slessor to her husband, "I do hope you brought home some of your paycheck. We need it badly for food. We don't have any money in the house. All the food we have is what I kept back from the children's supper so you could eat." "Shure, I brought money home," said Father Slessor. "All I did wash buy my friendsh a few drinksh." Mother Slessor's face brightened. At least they would be able to buy food. Her husband reached his hand into one pocket and brought it out empty. Then into another pocket and again brought it out empty. Finally trying several other pockets, he held out his hand with a small coin in it. "Shee, there ya' are, I brought money home. There'sh a thrippence for ye." "Oh, Robert!" said Mother Slessor in dismay as the tears filled her eyes. "Oh, Robert!" Then because she was used to these things, Mother Slessor heaved a sigh and said quietly, "Come and eat supper, Robert." The father staggered over to the table where Mrs. Slessor had placed the plate of food which the children had saved out of their own small helpings, that he might have something to eat. "Who wants shupper?" said Father Slessor, and he threw the precious food into the fire. He staggered to his bed and fell into drunken sleep. With a deep sigh Mother Slessor put out the light and she, too, retired for the night. Early the next morning she was up, preparing breakfast. Carefully she scraped every bit of oatmeal out of the container and boiled it for breakfast. "Come, children, it's time to get up. Sunday school this morning," called Mrs. Slessor. Up jumped the six little Slessors. The older ones helped the smaller ones get dressed. When they had eaten the little oatmeal that Mrs. Slessor had for breakfast, they lined up for inspection. "John," declared Mrs. Slessor, "you did not wash behind your ears. Go with Mary and let her scrub the dirt away. Now I'll put a bit of perfume on your hankies, and here's a peppermint for each of you. There, off we go to Sunday school and church." Father Slessor snored in his drunken sleep, while the family went off to hear God's Word and to sing His praises. When they returned, Father Slessor was awake. He was sitting on the side of the bed and holding his head. He had "morning after" sickness. "Come, Robert," said Mrs. Slessor, "and sit up to the table. Good Elder McDougal has given us a bit of meat and some bread, so we can eat this day." Father Slessor groaned, but sat up to the table and ate dinner with his family. It wasn't much of a dinner. It would have been even less were it not for the kindness and charity of friends, because Father Slessor had spent all their money for drink. After dinner the children did the dishes and ran out to play. When they were alone, Father Slessor hung his head and said, "Oh, my dear, what can I say? I am so ashamed. I did so want to bring my wages home that we might have food for the children. And well--before I knew it, my wages were spent." "Robert," said Mrs. Slessor, "you have said again and again that 'tis your friends who lead you astray. Would it not be well to move away to some other town where you can find new friends who will not drink and who will not tempt you to drink?" "Aye, my dear, that no doubt would be the best. But where shall we go?" "I have heard that there is plenty of work in Dundee, with the mills and all. Let's sell our things here and move to Dundee." "Aye, let us do that. 'Tis certain it won't be worse than here for you and the children." "Very well, then. I shall tell the children and we shall move before the week is out." When Mother Slessor went outside to call the children, she found Mary seated on the steps with her stick dolls about her. "Well, Mary dear, what are you doing?" "I am the teacher and these are the black children of Calabar. I am teaching them about Jesus. I am telling them that He saved them from their sins." Mother Slessor hugged her little teacher and told her about the move they planned to make. Then the other children were called and told, too. There was much excitement, especially when the furniture was sold and the Slessors with their remaining possessions took the train to Dundee. It did not take long to find a place and get settled. Mother Slessor at once looked for a church they might attend. She found the Wishart Church, named for the famous preacher, George Wishart, who in 1544 had preached near the place where the church was built. Shortly afterward he was killed for preaching about Jesus. But Father Slessor did not do better in the new home. He could not overcome the drink habit, and probably did not try very hard to overcome it. In the meantime a new baby came to the Slessor home. They called the baby Janie. How happy her brothers and sisters were to welcome Janie! Mother Slessor was not altogether happy because she knew there was another mouth to feed. Father Slessor promised to give up drinking, but that did not mean anything, because he never kept those promises. The money they got from selling their furniture in Aberdeen slowly melted away. Sickness came to the Slessor home. Robert Junior, who was going to be a missionary to Calabar, became sick and died. Two other of the children also died, and only Mary, Susan, John, and Janie were left. But even that did not make Father Slessor give up his drinking. The Slessors had less and less money to buy food. At last Mrs. Slessor went to work in one of the factories. Mary had to take care of the home. But the wages Mrs. Slessor received were very small. Somehow they had to find ways of getting more money. When she was eleven years old Mary went to work in the factory, too. Would she ever get a chance to be a missionary or must she give up that dream? "Mary, Mary," called Mrs. Slessor, "it's five o'clock. Time to get up and go to work." "Ho, hum," said Mary, "I'm still tired, but I'll get right up. I don't want to be late!" At six o'clock in the morning Mary was at work. She had to tend to the shuttles on the weaving machines. The weaving sheds where Mary worked were damp and dark. All morning long she heard the whirring of the belts and the clacking of the looms. In the afternoon she went to school. By the time she was fourteen years old she was an expert weaver. She now began to work full time. The hours were long. Twelve hours every day for six days a week the fourteen-year-old girl worked in the factory. And the pay was very small. But it was a joy when she received her pay on Saturday night. Mary hurried home. "Mother, Mother," she called happily as she hurried into the house, "here is the money I earned this week." "Oh, Mary, that is so good of you," said Mother Slessor. She wiped tears from her eyes with the end of her apron. She felt sad that Mary had to work in a factory. She thought of her own childhood in a happy home where there was always plenty to eat and plenty of money to buy things that were needed. She quickly hid Mary's wages in the same place where she hid her own wages, so that her husband would not find the money and spend it for drink. Mary did not lose courage by the long hours in the factory. She remembered that David Livingstone, the great missionary, had worked in a weaving factory, too. "If I want to be a missionary, I must study," said Mary. "When can I find time?" Again Mary remembered something David Livingstone did when he was a boy. He would take books to work and read them when the weaving shuttles were working right and did not have to have someone attend to them. Mary did the same thing. She read many books from the Sunday school library. She read books like Milton's _Paradise Lost_. But most of all she read the Bible. Conditions at home grew worse. Mary's drunken father became meaner and meaner. Saturday nights were the worst. Mary and her mother would sit waiting, after the younger children had been put to bed, for the father to stumble home. One night he was so mean to Mary, she had to run out of the house to get away from him. The whole family was unhappy because of Mr. Slessor's sinful habit. Finally, one morning he did not waken from the drunken sleep. In the night his soul fled to face the Judge in Heaven. The death of the father was really a great blessing to the family, for he had brought them only sorrow and trouble. Now the family felt free. The load they had borne was lifted. Mary at once began to take a more active part in church work. "If I want to be a missionary, I better have some practice. I know what I can do, I'll ask the Sunday school superintendent for a class to teach." She did, and was given a class of girls. She enjoyed teaching the girls very much. She called them her "lovable lassies." But Mary was not satisfied. She wanted to get more practice. On her way home from the factory Mary passed through the slums of the city. Mary herself did not live in a fine house; in fact, it was a very poor one. But in the slums the children lived in small, dark apartments. The streets on which they played were narrow and dirty. The children here did not know about the Saviour. They grew up rough and tough, cursing, swearing, stealing, and doing many mean things. Mary's heart ached for these children of the slums. She wanted to teach them that Jesus could make them happy. She talked with many people about it. At last her church opened a mission in the worst part of the slums. Mary went to the superintendent. "I want to teach a class in our mission," said Mary. "I am sure you can use me better there than you can here." "But Mary," said the superintendent, "you are doing a fine job here in the church; why do you want to go to the mission?" "There are many who will gladly teach a class here at the church, but not so many who are willing to teach at the mission. I am willing. I will teach there if you will give me a class. Please do." "But Mary, those children are tough and mean. You couldn't handle them. You could not make them behave. You are hardly more than a child yourself." "Oh, please let me try," said Mary, "I do so want to tell those boys and girls about my Saviour. Please let me try. Then if I don't make good, you can get someone else in my place." "Very well," said the superintendent, "I will give you a class, but I warn you those children are tough and mean and hard to handle." #2# _A Brave Girl_ "Quit pestering us to come to church. If you don't let us alone, we'll hurt you," shouted Duncan, the leader of a group of tough boys in the slums. Mary prayed God to make her brave and then said, "I will not stop trying to get you to come to church. I will not stop trying to tell you about Jesus, the Saviour. Do whatever you like." These boys had often tried to interrupt and break up the services, but Mary went out into the streets and tried to persuade and coax the young people to come and hear the Word of God. "All right then," said Duncan. "Here goes." He took a piece of lead from his pocket and tied it to a long string. He began to swing it around his head. Each time he whirled the lead, it came closer to Mary's face. Mary did not move. The gang watched. They held their breath as it came closer and closer to her blue eyes. Mary did not blink. Finally, it grazed her forehead. Still Mary did not move. Duncan dropped the piece of lead to the ground. "We can't scare her, boys," he said. "She's game." "There is Someone who is far braver than I am. He's the One who makes me brave. Won't you come to the services and hear about Him?" asked Mary. "All right, Spunky, I will," said Duncan. "And the rest of the fellows will, too. Come on, boys, we're going to the church tonight and no funny business." This was not the only time that Mary had to face the tough boys and girls of the slums. But she had a Friend who was closer to her than even her dear mother. He made her strong and brave and true. Mary loved her Saviour, and was ready to do whatever He might want her to do. Her class grew larger all the time. She visited the members in their slum homes. She fitted herself into the family. If the baby needed tending, she tended to it. If someone was sick, she helped to nurse the sick person. Always she told the family about Christ and His power to save. The people of the slums came to love this home missionary and many of them were won to Christ through her work. The years went by. Did Mary still remember she wanted to be a missionary in Calabar? Yes, she remembered, but now she had all she could do to support her family. Since Robert, the would-be missionary, had died, Mother Slessor hoped that her youngest son John would be a missionary. But God had other plans. John became sick. He was sent to New Zealand for his health, but died when he arrived in that country. Was there to be no missionary from the Slessor family? Whenever missionaries came to the Wishart Church or to Dundee, Mother Slessor, Mary, Susan and Janie would go to hear them. At home they would read the stories of missionaries and their work. They read missionary magazines. They read about the missionaries in China, Africa, Japan, India, and even Calabar. One day William Anderson, a missionary to the West Coast of Africa, came to the little church. He told of the great need for missionaries in Africa. He told of the bad things which the people did who did not know Jesus. Sitting in church, listening to the missionary, Mary saw in her mind a picture of Africa. It was not a beautiful picture. She saw captured Negroes being taken to other lands as slaves. She saw alligators and crocodiles swimming in the muddy waters, ever ready to eat black children who would come too close to the river. She saw cannibal chiefs at their terrible feasts and fearful battles with spears and arrows. She saw villages where trembling prisoners dipped their hands in boiling oil to test their guilt; where wives were killed to go with their dead chief into the spiritland. But these things did not frighten the Scottish girl who was afraid to cross a field if a cow was in it. She longed to go to Africa. "Why don't I become a missionary?" Mary asked herself as she worked the looms in the factory. "Can I leave my home? Does Mother still need my help? Susan and Janie are working now. They could get along without me. But will I be brave enough? There are tropical jungles, and black men who eat people. There are wild animals, sicknesses, and death. God can make me brave to face all of these things." Mary prayed, "O God, if it is Your will, let me go as a missionary to Calabar. Let me be a teacher to teach these black people the story of salvation. You have commanded us, Your disciples, to carry the Gospel to the farthest parts of the earth. Use me, O Lord, to help carry it to Calabar. Hear me, for the sake of Jesus, my Saviour." It was 1874. The news flashed around the world: "Livingstone is dead." The great missionary had died on his knees in Africa. Everywhere people were talking of this great man who had given his life to tell the people of Africa about the Saviour. Mary made up her mind! She must go to Calabar! But what would her mother say? And if her mother agreed, would her church send her out to that field? Mary went to her mother. "I want to offer myself as a missionary," said Mary Slessor to her mother. "Are you willing?" "My child, I'll willingly let you go. You'll make a fine missionary, and I'm sure God will be with you." "Thank you, Mother," said twenty-six-year-old Mary. "I know God will be with me and will make me strong and brave to serve Him." Mother Slessor was very happy. There was going to be a missionary in the family after all. But there were some people who did not agree with Mother Slessor. They shook their heads in doubt. Others thought Mary was very foolish to risk her life in that way. "You're doing real well at the factory," said one of them. "And you're doing missionary work right down there at the mission. Why rush away to those people way off in Africa? Seems to me missionary work ought to begin at home." "Yes," said Mary, "it should begin there, but not end there. There are some who cannot go to Africa. They can do the work at home. If God lets me, I want to take His Word to those people who have never heard of Him or His love." The next year, 1875, Mary offered herself to the Foreign Mission Board of her church. She asked to be sent to Calabar. Then she waited. Waiting is hard sometimes. Mary had to wait until the Board had a meeting. Then when the meeting was over, she had to wait for the secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions to write her a letter. Early in 1876 the letter came. How excited Mary was! Her hands shook as she tried to open the letter. Had they accepted her offer or refused it? "Mary dear," said her mother, "you are so nervous, you had better let me open that letter." "I'll manage, Mother," said Mary. She finally got it open, and she read: Dear Miss Slessor, I take great pleasure in informing you that the Board of Foreign Missions accepts your offer to serve as a missionary, and you have been appointed teacher to Calabar. You will continue your studies for the teaching profession at Dundee. May God richly bless you in His service. "Oh, Mother, I'm accepted! They're going to send me to Calabar!" "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," said Mother Slessor. "That is wonderful news indeed. To Calabar! Oh, I'm so happy I could shout for joy!" In March another letter came. This letter told her that she was to spend three months at a teachers' college in Edinburgh. All Mary's friends in Dundee gathered at the train as she got ready to leave for Edinburgh. "Come, Mary," said Duncan, the tough boy from the slums, who was now a grown man and a faithful worker at the mission, "give us a speech." "I can't make a speech," said Mary, "but I'll just ask you this: Pray for me." While Mary was at the school in Edinburgh, some of the other girls she met there tried to talk her out of being a missionary. They did not want her to go off to Africa where there were wild animals and man-eating heathen, and all kinds of terrible sicknesses. "Don't you know that Calabar is the white man's grave?" asked one of her school friends. "Yes," answered Mary. "But it is also a post of honor. Since few volunteer for that section, I wish to go because my Master needs me there." At last the time had come for Mary to leave for Africa. For fourteen long years she had worked at the looms in the weaving factory. As she worked, she had dreamed of Calabar. Now her dream was going to come true. Mary went to the city of Liverpool. There she went on board the ship, the "S. S. Ethiopia." As she got on board she looked around. Everywhere were barrels of whiskey. "Hundreds of barrels of whiskey, but only one missionary," said Mary sadly. The boat whistle blew. The engines chugged. The "S. S. Ethiopia" was on its way. It was August 5, 1876. Mary saw the shoreline of Scotland become dimmer and dimmer. She looked forward to seeing the coast of Africa and the land of Calabar. "At last I am on my way to Calabar," said Mary Slessor as the "S. S. Ethiopia," sailed southward. "How Mother would like to be with me! How often she prayed that God would send more missionaries to Calabar. I didn't think then that I would really be one of them." It did not take Mary long to make friends on board the ship. Among the friends she made were Mr. and Mrs. Thomson. "So you are going to Calabar," said Mr. Thomson. "Aren't you afraid of that wild country?" "Oh, no," said Mary, "because God is with me. He will take care of me. Jesus said, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,' and I am trusting in His promise." "Do you know what this country is like?" asked Mrs. Thomson. "Only what I have read about it," said Mary. "You've been there before, haven't you?" "Yes, we have," said Mrs. Thomson. "My husband wants to build a home where tired missionaries can rest and rebuild their strength for their wonderful work. He has explored the West Coast and chosen the Cameroon Mountains as the place for that home. We are going there now to build this home for missionaries. Missionary work in Africa is so hard that missionaries need a place where they can rest from time to time." "I think that's wonderful of you!" said Mary. "I know the Lord will bless the work you are doing. Won't you tell me about Africa?" "Well," said Mr. Thomson, "the climate is very hot. The sun is so strong and hot that white people don't dare go out without a hat to protect their heads. The rivers are very muddy and often flow through dark, gloomy swamps that white people can hardly get through." "But often," broke in Mrs. Thomson, "there are beautiful green banks with the most beautiful flowers. You will see the prettiest birds in all the world dressed in the brightest reds and greens and blues and purples. You will see the long-legged cranes and the funny pelicans with their big beaks." "And don't forget the man-eating crocodiles that are swimming in the river or lying on the banks. They look like an old log, but if you get near them, look out! They seem lazy and slow, but they can snap off a leg or drag you into the river as quick as a wink. Then in the jungles are the lions, and elephants, and other wild animals." "I am most frightened of the swift and terrible tornadoes," said Mrs. Thomson. "And, Miss Slessor," said Mr. Thomson, "don't forget that the natives are wild and fierce and many of them are cannibals who would be glad to eat you." "I shall not fear," said Mary. "God is leading me. He is my good Shepherd. He can protect me from fierce beasts and the wild people. I am happy He has chosen me to bring the messages of the Saviour to these wild people. He will call me home to Him when the work He has for me is done. Till then nothing can really harm me." Four weeks passed. The ship was plowing through the tropical sea. The air was warm, but the sea breezes made it very pleasant. The ship turned landward and soon Mary could see the shore of Africa. How thrilled and happy she was--Africa at last! On September 11 the ship entered the tumbling, whirling waters of the Cross and Calabar Rivers which here joined and poured into the sea. Mary had read about these rivers, and now she actually saw them. She saw, too, the pelicans and the cranes. She saw crocodiles, about which Mr. Thomson had told her, lazily slide off the sandbanks into the muddy waters of the river. Mr. and Mrs. Thomson stood with Mary at the rail of the ship as it sailed up the river. They would point out to her interesting sights as they passed along. "Look," said Mrs. Thomson, "there is Duke Town. That is where your mission is." Mary saw clay cliffs. She saw mud houses with roofs of palm leaves. Duke Town did not look in the least like Dundee or the other cities in Scotland which Mary knew. Duke Town did not look pretty, but Mary did not care. To her it looked beautiful, because here she would have the chance to serve the Lord. Soon native canoes came out to the steamer. Then the boats of the traders. All was hurry and bustle as the great ship anchored and prepared to unload the part of its cargo that had been sent to Duke Town. Mary looked about, wondering how she was going to go ashore. A tall Negro came up to Mary. He bowed and said, "Are you the new white ma that is coming to the mission?" By ma the native meant lady. They called all white ladies "ma." "Yes, I am," said Mary. "Mr. Anderson sent me to bring you ashore and take you to the mission house." Mary was lowered from the great ship into a large canoe. Her baggage was brought down and placed in the boat. Then with powerful strokes the rowers sent the boat skimming across the water toward Duke Town. Mary was helped ashore by the tall Negro who had come for her. "At last," she said to herself, "at last I am in Calabar." #3# _In Africa_ "Welcome, welcome, Mary," said "Mammy" Anderson, as she hugged Mary. Mammy Anderson and her husband, William Anderson, were among the first missionaries at Duke Town in Calabar. "This is Daddy Anderson," said Mammy Anderson, "and Daddy, this is Mary Slessor, just come from bonny Scotland to help us." Daddy and Mary shook hands. "Long ago you preached in our church in Dundee," said Mary. "You told how many missionaries were needed. I wished then I could help you. I hope I can." Mary liked this fine Christian couple from the start. The mission house where they lived was high on a hill above the town. Mammy took Mary around the house and the yard, which they called a compound. She showed Mary where the workers stayed who helped at the mission house. She showed her the school where the little black children were taught to read and write and told of the dear Saviour who had died for them, too, that they might be saved from sin and Hell and go to Heaven. "And here," said Mammy, "is the bell. I am putting you right to work. One of your jobs will be to ring the rising bell for morning prayers. You ring this at six o'clock. Then everyone will get up, and we will have prayers in the chapel." That was Mary's first job, but alas! Mary often overslept and did not ring the rising bell in time. One morning she awoke and saw that it was very bright outside. "Dear me," said Mary, "I've overslept again." She jumped out of bed, slipped into her clothes and rang the bell, loud and long. Soon the workers began coming, rubbing their eyes and yawning. "What's the idea of ringing the bell now?" asked one of them. "It's much too early." "But look how bright it is," said Mary. Daddy Anderson laughed. "Mary, Mary," he said, "it's only two o'clock in the morning. The light you see is our bright tropical moon. It's not the sun." And all the workers laughed, and Mary laughed with them. "I guess I'm not a very good bell-ringer," she said. Mary's real job was to teach the children in the school on Mission Hill. She remembered how she had played when she was a little girl that she was teaching the children of Calabar. Now she was really doing it. She loved the little black children. After school she would take long walks with them into the bush. There they saw beautiful birds of many bright colors, and beautiful flowers of all kinds. Mary ran races with the black children. How they loved that! She climbed trees as fast as any boy. The black children loved their white ma who taught them and played with them. But playing with the children often made Mary late for meals. "Mary, Mary," scolded Mammy Anderson gently, "you are late again. I am going to punish you. You go to your room. Since supper is over, you'll just have to go to bed without it." Mary went to her room. In a little while she heard a knock at her door. "It's Daddy, Mary," said a deep voice. "Please open your door." Mary opened the door. There stood Daddy Anderson with his hands full of biscuits and bananas which he was bringing to her with Mammy's consent. "I thought you might be hungry," said Daddy Anderson. "You and Mammy are perfect dears," said Mary. "I don't deserve all your kindness." Mary soon began to visit the different yards or compounds in Duke Town. Missionaries had been here for thirty years, but there weren't many of them. They worked chiefly in Duke Town, Old Town, and Creek Town--three towns at the mouth of the Calabar River. They also had opened a station at Ikunetu and Ikorofiong on the Cross River. One day Mary was at one of the stations with another missionary. When he finished his talk, he said, "Mary, won't you speak to these people?" Mary stood up. "Please read John 3:1-21," she said. The missionary did. Then Mary told the people how they could be born again. She told them of the joy that they would have if they took Jesus into their hearts. She told them of the hope of life after death with God in Heaven. The natives listened. They liked her talk. After that whenever she came to that district, crowds would come to hear her speak. "Mammy," said Mary, after she had come from a trip to the outstations, "it hurts my heart to see how cruel these people are. And those awful, ugly, cruel gods they pray to. The chiefs are so cruel and mean and have no mercy. And then that terrible secret society, the Egbo. I saw some of their runners dressed in fearful costumes scaring the people and whipping them with long whips. I saw a poor man whom they had beaten almost to death. Then there is that horrible drinking. They are worse than wild animals when they become drunk. And worst of all is that they have slaves and sell their own people as slaves." "Ah, lassie," said Mammy Anderson, "you haven't seen anything yet. There are millions of these black people in the bush and far back in the interior. Most of them are slaves. They don't treat a slave any better than a pig. The slaves sleep on the ground like animals. They are branded with a hot iron just as animals are. And just as the farmers back home fatten a pig for market, so the girls are fattened and sold for slave wives. The slaves can be whipped or sold or killed. When a chief dies, the tribe cuts off the heads of his wives and slaves and they are buried with him. The tribes are wild and cruel. Many of them are cannibals, who eat people. They spend their lives in fighting, dancing, and drinking. But the way they treat twins is one of the worst things they do." "What do they do to twins?" asked Mary. "They kill them," said Mammy Anderson. "Sometimes they bury the twins alive and sometimes they just throw them out into the bush to die of hunger. The mother is driven into the bush. No one will have anything to do with her. She is left to die in the jungle or to be eaten by the wild animals." "But why do they do such cruel, wicked things to harmless babies?" asked Mary. "They believe that the father of one of the twins is an evil spirit or devil. But they don't know which one's father was a devil, so they kill both to be sure of getting the right one." "That must be stopped," said Mary. "I will fight it as long as I live. I will never give up. Jesus loves twins just as much as other children. The natives must learn that. They must learn that God said, 'Thou shalt not kill.' I'll teach them." Mary made many friends, not only among the children whom she taught, but also among the grown-up natives. One day she heard a chief speaking to his people about God and His love. He was a Christian. Mary thought that he made a very fine talk. She could tell he was very sincere. He talked so that everyone could understand him. "Who is that chief?" asked Mary of the man standing next to her. "That is King Eyo Honesty VII," said the man. "King Eyo Honesty? I must talk to him." As soon as she could, Mary went up to the chief. "King Eyo Honesty," said Mary, "I am Mary Slessor. Many years ago the missionaries told my mother about you. They told her what a fine Christian you were. She told us. She will be very happy when I tell her that I have met you." "I am very happy to have met you," said King Eyo Honesty. "Perhaps I could write a letter to your mother and tell her how happy I am that I have met you. I would tell her how happy I am that her daughter has come to teach my people about God." "Mother would be very happy, I know, to get a letter from you." For many years the African chief and Mary's Scottish mother wrote letters to one another. Every day when school was over, Mary went to visit the natives in their homes. She would tell them about Jesus and how He loved them. She told them Jesus wanted to save them. She told them that Jesus had paid for their sins by dying for them. If they loved and trusted in Jesus, He would take their sins away. One Sunday morning as she was walking through the village, she saw one of the old men who came to church all the time sitting at the door of his mud house. He looked very sad. "Ekpo," said Mary, "why aren't you on your way to God's house? Mr. Anderson will be looking for you. He will miss you." "If your heart were sad, would you go any place?" asked Ekpo. "But why is your heart sad?" "My son, my only son, is dead. Even now he is buried in the house." "Ekpo, let me tell you a story," said Mary. "A long time ago there were two sisters. They had a brother. They loved him very much. They loved him like you loved your son. He became sick. The two sisters sent a messenger to Jesus to tell Him. When Jesus came, the brother was dead. Martha, the one sister, said to Jesus, 'Lord, if You had been here my brother would not have died. I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask Him.' "Jesus said, 'Your brother will get up from the grave.' "Martha said, 'I know that he will get up from the grave in the resurrection at the last day when all the dead shall come out of their graves.' "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, even though he dies, he will live. Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.'" "Did the brother get up from the grave?" "Yes, Jesus went to the grave and said, 'Lazarus, come out,' and Lazarus did. But, Ekpo, later Lazarus died again. Then his body stayed in the grave, but his soul was with God. He was happy. All Christians are happy with God. Your son was a Christian, wasn't he?" "Oh, yes, Ma, he was," said Ekpo's wife, who had come to the door while Mary was talking. "Then don't you see, God has taken him. He is with God. He is happy. If you believe in Jesus, then some day you, too, will be with God and will see your son again." "Well," said Ekpo, "if God has taken him, it is not so bad." "Come, then," said Mary, "let's go to God's house and thank Him that your son was a Christian and is now with God in Heaven." Mary knew there was a great deal to do. There were so many people who did not know about Jesus. There were so many who were terribly mean and cruel. But Mary knew that with the Lord on her side she would not lose in the fight against sin and wickedness. Every day she would tell the natives about Jesus. Every day she would show them their sins and the Saviour. For three years Mary worked hard. Then she became sick. It was the terrible coast fever. Sometimes she was so sick, she did not know what was happening. She was very tired. She wished that she could see her mother and sisters. "Calabar needs a brave heart and a strong body," said Mary. "I don't have much of a brave heart, but I often feel the need of it when I am sick and lonely." "Mary, you must go home to Scotland and rest," said Mammy Anderson, "then you will get well from the fever. You will never get well here." "That's true, Mammy," said Mary, "but you know that I cannot leave my field of work was until the Board of Missions says I may." "That's right, but you have a furlough coming. I do hope we hear from the Board soon." In June, 1879, the letter came. Mary read it gladly. It told her that she could come home for a year's vacation. It did not take Mary long to pack. She left for Scotland on the next steamer. There were tears in her eyes as she stood on the deck. There on the shore were her black friends waving good-by to their white ma. They were crying, too. "Come back again! Come back again! God bless you and keep you!" they said. Mary waved to them. "I will be back," she said. Mary loved Africa. She loved the people there, but she knew if she wanted to get well she would have to go home. Then, too, she was anxious to see her mother and sisters again. The ocean trip did Mary much good. The cool ocean breezes blew the fever away. It made her cheeks pink again. Every day she prayed for the people of Africa. She prayed that she might go back again. She prayed that more missionaries would be sent out to show these poor people the way to Heaven. How happy Mary's mother and two sisters were to have her with them again! And how happy Mary was to be with them! They could not hear enough about Calabar. It made Mary's mother very happy to know that her daughter had taught the black children the way to Heaven. She was glad to hear about the other missionary work which Mary had done. But other people, too, were anxious to hear about Calabar. So Mary had to speak at Wishart Church and other churches. Mary told about the heathen, the wicked things the heathen natives did to twins, the mean way they treated slaves, and the many other cruel, wicked things these people did. "There is only one thing that will change these people," said Mary. "There is only one thing that will turn these heathen from their sins. That is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news about the Saviour. But who will tell these people about Jesus? We need many, many more missionaries. If you cannot go yourself, you can send gifts and offerings for this work. We need money so the missionaries can buy food and clothing. We need money so that they can build homes and churches and hospitals. Have pity on these poor people! Pity the poor little children! Help them now! Above all, pray for these people, and pray for your missionaries that God will bless their work with these lost souls." Everywhere Mary went she won friends for Calabar. The people who heard Mary wanted to help make Christians of the heathen people. Many prayed. Many gave. Men and women gave gifts of money for the work. Boys and girls brought their little gifts, too. They knew the hymn: If you cannot give your thousands You can give the widow's mite. And each gift you give for Jesus Will be precious in His sight. Mrs. Slessor was not well. Living in the crowded, dusty, smoky city made her sick. Mary found a little home out in the country. Here were clear blue skies and pleasant fields. Mary's mother was much better after they moved her. Mary's sisters enjoyed it also. The months passed quickly. Soon the year would be over. "What do you want to do when you go back?" asked Mrs. Slessor. "I want to go on up the river. I want to go where missionaries have never been. I want to go to Okoyong and tell the people there about Jesus. I am praying God that sooner or later He will let me go and work there." "Isn't it much more dangerous there?" asked Mrs. Slessor. "Yes, it is," answered Mary, "but I am not afraid because I know that God is with me and His angels are watching over me." June came. Mary had been home a year. Now she was in good health again. She wanted to get back to Africa. July, August, September went by and then the good news came. Mary was to leave in October for Calabar. It was a happy day for her when she got on the ship that would take her back to the Africa she loved. On the ship she found the Rev. and Mrs. Hugh Goldie. They, too, had been missionaries in Calabar for many years, and now after a short vacation were going back once more. All the way to Africa the friend talked about the great work of winning souls for Jesus, especially the souls of the people of Calabar. At last the big steamship entered the mouth of the Calabar and Cross Rivers. It was not far now to Duke Town. Soon Mary would learn what work she should do. Would it be work she wanted to do? Would it be work in the jungles? Mary would soon know. #4# _On Her Own_ "Mary, how would you like to have a mission station of your own?" asked Daddy Anderson. "Why, I'd love it," answered Mary. "It is hard work and very unpleasant at times," said Daddy Anderson. "I don't care how hard or unpleasant it is," said Mary, "as long as I can work for my Lord." "Good, then you will be in charge of the Old Town Station, two miles up the river." It did not take Mary long to pack her things and move to Old Town. But what a sight greeted her when she arrived! The first thing she saw as she came into the village was a man's skull hanging from the end of a pole and swinging slowly in the breeze. "Where is the mission house?" asked Mary of one of the natives. "Down that way at the end of the road, Ma," he answered. Mary found the mission house. It was an old tumble-down shack. It was made of long twigs and branches, daubed over with mud. The roof was made of palm leaves. It was not nearly as nice a home as the one on Mission Hill in Duke Town. When Mary went inside, she found that it was whitewashed and somewhat clean. Mary got busy cleaning up her house, and as she did, she began to make her plans. "I don't care if my house is not so fine. I am nearer to the jungles. I want to get into the jungles sometime and win those poor, ignorant heathen people for Jesus. I am going to live in a house like the natives and use the tools and things they do--only I'll be a lot cleaner. Then they will feel that I am one of them and I'll be better able to win them for Jesus. Then, too, it's cheaper to live that way and to eat bananas. I will be able to send more money home to my poor mother in Scotland. Living this way will also help me get ready for the time when I can go into the jungles. Then I will have to live that way." Mary held services every Sunday. She started a day school for the children. The grownups came, too. Mary was so friendly and kind that the natives loved her. More and more came to hear about Jesus. Mary showed them that He was the Saviour of the blacks and whites alike. Many came from faraway places to hear the white ma and go to her school. Mary soon visited all the villages in the neighborhood and every place she went she would tell the people about Jesus. At one place the king of that part of the country came regularly to hear the white ma. He would sit on the bench with the little children and listen to Mary tell about the Saviour who loves all people. One thing still bothered Mary very much. This was the way the natives treated twins. As soon as twins were born, they would break the babies' backs and stuff the little bodies into a jar made out of a big gourd. Then they would throw the jar out into the jungle. The mother would be sent away out into the jungle to die. "It is very wicked for you to kill these twin babies," said Mary to the people. "It is a sin against God, who said, 'You shall not kill people.' Jesus loves all children. He loves the twin babies, too." The natives would not listen to her. They were afraid of the evil spirits. One day Mary heard about some twins that were born. She rushed over to the house and took the babies before they were killed. She brought them to her house and took care of them. "She will have lots of trouble taking an evil spirit into her house," said one of the natives. "Just you wait and see." "Maybe she is a friend of the evil spirit," said another. But weeks and months went by and nothing happened. The people began to see that Mary was right. Everywhere the people began to call Mary "the white ma who loves babies." Another wicked thing the people did was to kill the babies of slaves who died. They did not want to bother taking care of them so they killed them. Mary began to take these little orphans into her home and take care of them. But it began to be too much work for Mary alone. She wrote a letter to the Mission Board asking for someone to take care of these children. One day a trader came and knocked at Mary's door. He was carrying a little black baby in his arms. "I found this twin out in the bush," said the trader. "The other one was killed. This baby would have died, but I know how you love these little ones, so I brought it to you." "Thank you," said Mary, taking the tiny baby in her arms. "I shall call her Janie, after my sister." Mary adopted the little baby and the baby brought Mary much joy and happiness. One time Mary took a baby six months old into the mountains. The baby was sick. In the valley it was very hot. "This child shall not die if the cold can save him," said Mary. Up in the mountains it was much cooler than in the valley. Mary pitched her tent and stayed there for a time so the baby could get well. One night Mary woke up. She heard a growling noise. She looked around. A panther was in the tent! He had the baby in his mouth! He was going to carry it away! Mary jumped up. She grabbed a burning stick from the fire and rammed it into the panther's face. With a wild howl the panther dropped the baby and ran off. Mary picked up the baby who was crying now. She looked him over, carefully. He was not hurt. Softly she sang to the baby and rocked him to sleep. After the baby was well, Mary went back to the mission station in the valley. Another time news came that twins had been born. All the people had thought a lot of the mother, even though she was a slave. Now everyone hated her. The other women in the house cursed her. They broke up the few dishes she owned. They tore up her clothes. They would have killed her but they were afraid of Mary Slessor and what she would do. They took the two babies and stuffed them into an empty gin box and shoved it at the woman. "Get out! Get out!" they said, "you have married the Devil. You have a devil in you." They threw rocks at her and drove her out of the village. Mary met the poor woman carrying her babies in the box on her head. The screaming, howling crowd of people were following her. "Go back! Go back to your village," Mary told the crowd. Then turning to the woman she said, "Give me the box and come with me to my house." When Mary opened the box, she found one child dead. The baby's head had been smashed when it was jammed into the box. Mary buried the poor little baby. Soon the owner of the woman came and took her back. She was willing to do this as long as she had no children. The little baby stayed with Mary and became another of her family. One evening Mary was sitting on the porch of her mission house talking to the children. Suddenly they heard a loud noise. They heard the beating of drums. Then they heard men singing loudly. "What's that?" asked Mary. She took the twin boys that were with her and rushed down to the road to see what was going on. Here she found a crowd of people. They were all dressed up. Some wore three-cornered hats with long feathers hanging down. Some had crowns. Some wore masks with animal heads and horns. Some put on uniforms with gold and silver lace. Some just covered their bodies with beadwork and tablecloths trimmed with gold and silver. When Mary came, the shouting stopped. The king came forward to meet her. "Ma," said the king, "we have had a palaver. We have made new laws. The old laws were not God's laws. Now all twins and their mothers can live in town. If anyone kills twin babies or hurts the mothers, he shall be hung." "God will bless you for making those wise laws," said Mary. The mothers of the twins who lived at the mission and other mothers, too, gathered around Mary. They laughed and shouted. They clapped their hands, and with tears running down their cheeks, cried: "Thank you! Thank you!" They made so much noise that Mary asked the chief to stop them. "Ma, how can I stop these women's mouths?" asked the chief. "How can I do it? They be women." Mary was happy, but after a while some of the people began to forget the new laws. Quietly and underhandedly they began to go back to doing the old bad things again. This was because they were not Christians. They did not love and trust the Saviour. Mary knew that the main thing to do if she were to get them to live right and do right was to change their hearts. New laws could not really change them. Only faith in Jesus could do that. "I must help them more. I must lead more of them to Jesus," said Mary. "Many are sick. I will give them medicine, and at the same time tell them about Jesus who makes the soul well and the body, too." As Mary gave out medicine, many people would often crowd around her to hear her "Jesus talk." She told them of Jesus' love for them. She told them how He had died that they might be saved from everlasting death and be made pure. Mary had her hardships. Often she would not be able to get home at night and would have to sleep in the open. It was not easy to be a missionary, but Mary was gladly willing to do it because she was working for Jesus and saving souls. One day a man came to the mission house. "I am the servant of King Okon. King Okon has heard of the white Ma. King Okon has heard how the white Ma loves our people and is kind to them. King Okon invites the white Ma to come and visit our country." "I shall be glad to come if I may tell your people about Jesus, the Saviour," said Mary. "Sure," said the messenger, "you come and make Jesus-talk." When King Eyo Honesty VII, Mary's old friend, heard of this invitation, he said: "Our Ma must not go as an ordinary traveler to this savage land and people. She must go as a lady and our mother, one whom we greatly respect and love." He brought his own canoe to Mary and said, "The canoe is yours to use as long as you wish." Mary's eyes filled with tears of thankfulness. "King Eyo," she said, "I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I accept the offer of your canoe in Jesus' name. I know God will bless you for your kindness." "God has blessed me," said the king. "He has sent our white Ma to us." The canoe was long and slim. It was painted in bright colors. At the front end bright-colored flags were flying. In the middle of the canoe was a sort of tent to protect Mary from the sun. The Christian natives had brought gifts of rice and these were put in the boat. Crowds of people came to say good-by to the white Ma. At last it began to get dark. The thirty-three natives who were going to row climbed into the boat. Torches were lit and the boat started upstream. As Mary lay down in her tent in the middle of the boat, she heard the rowers singing as they rowed. "Ma, our beautiful beloved mother, is on board," they sang, "Ho! Ho! Ho!" She thanked God that He had protected her in Old Town. She prayed that He would protect her still as she went into a part of the country where no one had yet brought the news about a loving Saviour. She prayed that He would bless her speaking, so that many people would believe in the Lord Jesus and be saved forever. As she prayed, the rowers continued singing their made-up song: "Ma, our beautiful beloved mother, is on board. Ho! Ho! Ho!" Mary fell asleep and the canoe carried her silently through the night to a new part of the country and to new adventures. When the sun arose the following morning, the canoe carrying Mary Slessor arrived at King Okon's village. A great shout went up from the people when they heard the white Ma had come. "You have my room," said the chief. "It is the best room in the village." It may have been the best room, but it was not a very comfortable one. Rats and big lizards were running back and forth across the floor. There were insects and fleas and lice everywhere. The people were much interested in the white Ma. They had never seen a white woman before. They crowded into the yard. Many of them touched and pinched Mary to see if she were real. Some were afraid. Their friends laughed at them and pulled them into the yard. They watched Mary eat. They watched everything she did. Mary did not care. She used their interest in her to tell them about Jesus who loved them. She told them that they must love Jesus and trust in Him for salvation. Twice a day she held services and great crowds came to hear her. She cut out clothes for the people and taught the women how to sew. She gave medicine to the sick and bandaged the wounds of those who got hurt. "King Okon," said Mary, "I would like to go into the people's homes in the jungle. May I go?" "No, white Ma, I cannot let you go. This is elephant country. The elephants go wild and run over everything in the jungle. These stampedes have been so bad my people have had to leave off farming and make their living by fishing. I cannot let you go. You might get hurt or killed." One night Mary saw that the people looked very angry. Some were sad. "What is the matter?" asked Mary. "Two of the king's young wives have done wrong. They have broken a law," answered one of the natives. "They thought nobody was looking and went into a room where a young man was sleeping. Each of them will be hit a hundred times with a whip." Mary went to the king. She asked him to be kinder to these girls. She begged him not to beat them so much. "Ma, you are right," said the king. "I will call palaver of all the chiefs. If you say we must not whip girl, we must listen to you as our guest and Ma. But the people will say God's Word be no good, if it keeps the law from punishing those who do wrong." Mary saw the king was right. She turned to the girl-wives of the king. "You have brought shame to the king and the tribe by the silly foolish things you did. God's Word teaches men to be kind and merciful and generous, but it does not pass over sin or permit it. I cannot ask the king not to punish you. Ask God to help you in the future, so that you will not do bad or foolish things." All the chief men of the tribe grunted their approval of what Mary had said to the girls. But then Mary turned to the chief men and said: "You are to blame. Your custom of one man marrying many wives is wrong and cruel. These girls are only sixteen years old and still love fun and play. They are too young to be married. They meant no real harm." The men did not like to hear that. They did not like to hear that their ways were wrong. "If punishment is hard," said the old men, "wife and slave will be afraid to disobey." "King Okon," said Mary, "show that you are a good king by being kind and merciful. Don't be too hard on these young girls." "All right, Ma," said the king, "I will make it only ten blows with the whip. Also we will not rub salt into the wounds to make them sting." When the whipping was over, Mary took the girls into her room. There she put healing medicine on their backs while she told them about Jesus who could heal their souls. At last it was time for Mary to go back to Old Town. The king and the people were sorry to see her go. On her homeward way a tropical storm struck the canoe and the people in it. Mary was soaked. The next morning she was shaking with sickness and fever. The rowers feared their white Ma would die. They rowed as fast as they could for Old Town. Mary was so sick that she had to take a long rest. A few months later a big storm tore off the roof of her house and again she was soaked as she worked to save the children. Again she became very sick. "You must go home to Scotland," said Daddy Anderson. "You must go home and rest and get well." "Since you tell me to do that and the Board has ordered it, too, I can only obey," said Mary. "I am going to take my little black Janie with me. It is too dangerous to leave her here where some of the heathen might steal her and kill her because she is a twin." With a heart that was sad at leaving Calabar, but glad to have a chance to see her dear ones in Scotland again, Mary sailed for Dundee in April, 1883. #5# _Into the Jungle_ "Oh, Mary, it is good to see you again," said Mother Slessor when Mary arrived once more in Scotland. "And this is little Janie about whom you have written us so often! We are happy to have you with us, Janie." "I am glad to be home, Mother," said Mary, "but I am anxious to go back to Africa as soon as I can. There are so many souls there to be won for Jesus." Mary soon got over her sickness and was well and strong again. Now she went to the churches in Scotland to tell about the missionary work in Calabar. She made many friends. Some of the young people who heard her wanted to become missionaries. Miss Hoag, Miss Wright and Miss Peabody decided to become missionaries and later worked in Calabar, too. Mary was so successful in interesting the people in mission work that the Board of Missions asked her to stay longer and visit more churches. Mary did what the Board asked, although she was anxious to get back to Africa. At last this work was finished. Now she could go back. Mary was getting ready to go back to Africa when her sister Janie became sick. "You will have to take her to a warmer climate," said the doctor. "That is the only way she will get well." Mary could not afford to take her sister to Italy or southern France. "I will ask the Board of Missions if I can take my sister with me to Africa." Anxiously Mary waited for an answer to her letter. At last the letter came. We are sorry, but we must answer your question with a No. We feel that to take your sick sister along to Africa would be an unwise mixing of family problems and missionary work. What should Mary do now? A friend told her to take her sister to southern England where the climate was warmer than in Scotland. She wrote to the Board to ask whether they would let her be a missionary if she took out the time to take care of her sister. The Board of Missions wrote: Dear Miss Slessor: When the way is clear for you to return to Calabar we will be glad to send you out again as our missionary. In the meantime we will be glad to pay your missionary salary for three more months. Mary was glad that she could go back again, but she would not take the missionary salary when she was not working as a missionary. This left her with a sick sister and no salary. She took her sister Janie and her mother to southern England. They had been there only a short time when Mary's sister, Susan, in Scotland, died. It made her sad to lose a sister, but she was happy in the thought that Susan was now with Jesus her Saviour in Heaven. After a while Janie was better and Mary packed up and got ready to sail once more to Africa. Just as she got ready to go, her mother became sick. What should Mary do now? She took her troubles to God in prayer. As she prayed, a thought came to her which showed her a way out of her problem. "I will send for my old friend in Dundee to come and take care of Mother and then I can go to Africa." Mother Slessor agreed that this was the thing to do. Soon the friend came and now Mary was free to go to Africa. The weeks at sea were a good rest for her and she was in the best of health when she landed once more at Duke Town. Ten years had gone by since she first came to Africa. "Where should I go now?" asked Mary of Daddy Anderson after she was once again in the mission house on Mission Hill. "This time you are being sent up to Creek Town," said Daddy Anderson. "Oh, I'm glad," said Mary. "That is the settlement farthest up the river." "You will work with the Rev. and Mrs. H. Goldie," continued Daddy Anderson. "That makes me happy, too. They are old friends. I met them on the trip the time before this one." As soon as she was settled in Creek Town, Mary worked harder than ever for the salvation of the natives. She did not care about her health. The only thing she could think of was how she could win more of the natives to Christ. She spent very little on herself because the money from her salary was needed back home in Scotland. One day very sad news came from Scotland. Mother Slessor had died. Mary was very sad. Her mother was the one who had interested her in missionary work by telling her stories about it when she was only a little girl. Her mother had always encouraged her in her work. Her mother was willing to do anything and suffer anything so that Mary could be in the work of saving souls. Her mother was always interested in everything that Mary did. No wonder Mary was sad even though she knew that her mother was now with the Saviour in Heaven. "There is no one to write and tell my stories and troubles and nonsense to. All my life I have been caring and planning and living for my mother and sisters. I am now left stranded and alone." But she was not alone. The words of Jesus, "Lo, I am with you alway," came as sweet comfort to her heart. "Heaven is now nearer to me than Scotland," she said. "And no one will be worried about me if I go up country into the jungles." Mary was very anxious to go to the deep jungles to Okoyong, but every time she mentioned it the Board and the Andersons said, "No, not yet." The tribes were cruel and wicked. They were always fighting among themselves and with other tribes. They did more bad and nasty things than any of the tribes she had ever worked with. They killed twin babies. They stole slaves and when they caught some stranger they made him a slave. They would hide along jungle paths and when someone went by, they would kill him. They hated the people of Calabar and the British government. At different times missionaries had tried to get into this land, but always they had to run for their lives. The natives of Okoyong trusted no one. It was to that country that Mary wanted to carry the love of Jesus and the story that He died for them. Every day she would pray: "Lord, if this is Your time, let me go." Meanwhile Mary worked hard at Creek Town. Besides her missionary work she was taking care of a number of native children. Some were twins she had saved from death, some were the children of slaves. Mary took care of these children at her own expense. In order to take care of them and have enough food for them, she ate only the simplest of foods, sometimes nothing but rice for a long time. One day a man came to Creek Town to see Mary. "I am the father of Janie, the twin," he said. "I am glad you have taken care of her." "Come and see her," said Mary. "No, no!" said the man, "the evil spirit will put a spell on me." "You won't be hurt if you stand far away and look at her," said Mary. As he watched Janie, Mary took him by the arm and dragged him to the little girl. She put his strong black arms around her little shoulders. At last the man took the little girl on his lap and played and talked with her. After this he came often to visit his little girl and brought her food and presents. At last the time came when word reached Calabar that the Mission Board had decided that the Gospel should be preached in Okoyong and that Mary could go. Mary was very happy. At last God had answered her prayer. She was going into a wild country. She was going to go ahead of the other missionaries to find a place where they could build a mission house and church. When King Eyo Honesty VII heard of it, he came to see Mary. "So you are going into the wild country, to Okoyong," he said. "Yes, and I am so happy. Those people need to have their hearts and lives changed. I am happy that I shall be able to tell them about the Saviour." "Aren't you afraid to go among these wicked men? What if they should go on the warpath when you arrive?" "I am not worried. God is on my side. If it is His will, He can keep me from all harm. If it is His will that I should die, then His will be done. If giving my life will help open Okoyong to the Gospel, I will gladly give it." "God bless you, Ma. I am going to let you use the king's canoe for this trip. My rowers can take you there swiftly. They will do anything you ask, because they love you." "Thank you, King Eyo; that will help me very much." King Eyo fixed up his canoe for Mary, as though she were a queen. He put a carpet in it, and many cushions. He put a sort of tent on it so that Mary could be alone when she wanted to be. The boat was loaded with homemade bread, canned meat, rice, and tea. At last everything was ready for the trip into the wild country. Mary said good-by to her friends, the missionaries, and to her native friends. Then the thirty-five rowers pushed out from the shore and headed upstream toward the wild country. On both sides of the river were banana and palm trees. There were beautiful plants and flowers of many colors. The light shimmered on the flowing river as the rowers pulled the oars and sang their songs. "What will happen if the Okoyongs are on the warpath?" Mary asked herself. "What will I do then?" Mary knew the answer. "I will put my trust in God and not in man." She lay back on the cushions and prayed to God to protect her in the wild country and to lead her in His way. The rowers rowed swiftly and sent the canoe shooting up the river toward the wild country. "There is the landing place," said the chief rower. "Now we must walk the rest of the way to Ekenge." Mary got out of the boat. The rowers followed her. They carried the packages Mary had brought with her. They began to walk through the jungle. It was four miles to Ekenge where Chief Edem lived. As they came near to the little village of mud huts, the chief rower whispered to Mary, "There is Chief Edem. Praise God, he is at home and sober." Mary, too, thanked God that the Okoyongs were not on the warpath and she asked God's blessing on her visit with them. When the people of Ekenge saw Mary they began to jump up and down and shout, "Welcome, Ma. Welcome to Ekenge." Chief Edem bowed to her and said, "You are welcome Ma Mary. It is an honor to have you come to us. We are happy because you did not come with soldiers. We know now that you trust us. I have set aside a house for you as long as you stay with us." "Thank you, Chief Edem. I am happy to be here." "This is my sister, Ma Eme," said the chief. Mary liked Ma Eme at once and Ma Eme liked Mary. They were friends as long as they lived. "I want to go to visit the next village now," said Mary. "I want to go to Ifako." "Oh, no, Ma," said Chief Edem. "The chief is a very bad man. He is not fit for you to meet. Besides he is drunk now and he doesn't know what is going on. You must stay at Ekenge." "Very well," said Mary, "I will stay, but call the people together so that I can have a Jesus-talk." When the people had all come together, Mary told about God's great love for them. She told them about Jesus who died that they might be saved. She told them about the happiness Jesus would bring to their village by changing their lives when they came to Him. That night Mary did not sleep very much. The chief had given her one of the best houses in the village, but we would not think it was much of a house. Her bed was made of a few sticks with some corn shucks thrown over them. In the room all night were plenty of rats and insects. But Mary's heart was happy. Later Mary went to Ifako. The chief there liked Mary very much. He and Chief Edem agreed to let her start a mission in their villages. Each one promised to give her ground for a schoolhouse and a mission house. Mary chose the places for the buildings. They were a half-hour's walk apart. "Now I must go back to Creek Town," said Mary. "When I come back again, it will be to stay." "Come soon, Ma," said Chief Edem. "It will make us very happy to have you stay with us." As they rode down the river, Mary could not sleep at first because the rowers kept whispering, "Don't shake the canoe or you will wake Ma," or "Don't talk so loud so Ma can sleep." At last, however, tired from her days of work in Ekenge and Ifako, she fell asleep and did not wake up until she came back to Creek Town. Now she was very busy getting ready to move to Ekenge. One of the traders heard about her going to Ekenge. "Do you trust those wild people?" he asked. "Do you think you can change them? What they need more than a missionary is a gun-boat to tame them down." "No, my friend," answered Mary, "they need the same thing that every person in the world needs and that is the Saviour Jesus Christ. Only Jesus can change the hearts of sinful people." At last Mary was packed up. She was taking with her the five children she had saved from death. Another missionary, Mr. Bishop, was going along with her. Now at last Mary was going to work in the jungles as she had wanted to do. She had been in Africa for twelve years. She was now forty years old. When Mary was ready to leave, all the people of Creek Town gathered around her. They told her good-by and wished her God's blessing. "We will pray for you," they said. One of the young men she had taught in school said, "I will pray for you, but remember you are asking for death when you go to that wild country." It was getting dark when Mary's boat landed near Ekenge. The rain was pouring down. It was a four-mile walk to Ekenge. Mary and the five children started out. Mr. Bishop and the men who carried the baggage were to follow. An eleven-year-old boy was in the lead. He was the oldest of the five children. He carried on his head a box filled with tea, sugar, and bread. An eight-year-old child followed him carrying a teakettle and cooking pots. Next came a three-year-old who held tight to little Janie's hand. Then came Mary carrying a baby girl and a bundle of food. The children slipped in the mud. They became soaked by the rain. The jungle was dark around them and strange noises came from all sides. The children began to cry. They were hungry and scared. "Don't cry children," said Mary. "Remember Jesus is watching over us. He will take care of us. Soon we will be in the village and then we can have something to eat and we can put on dry clothes." They marched on. At last they came to the village. The village was dark and still. "Hello, hello," called Mary. "Is anyone here?" No one answered. Mary called again. At last two slaves came. "Ma," said the oldest slave, "the chief did not know you were coming today. The mother of the chief at Ifako died and all the people have gone to Ifako for the burying." "All right," said Mary. "We will wait here then for Mr. Bishop and the baggage carriers." "I will send a messenger to Chief Edem," said the slave, "to tell him that you have come." Mary took some of her food and cooked it over an open fire in the pouring rain. She fed the children and put them to bed. At last Mr. Bishop came to the village. "I am sorry, Miss Slessor," he said. "The carriers will not bring anything until tomorrow. They are tired. They are afraid of the jungle trail." "But tomorrow is Sunday," said Mary. "It would be a bad example for them to do work for us on Sunday. I will not have them work tomorrow." "John," said Mary, turning to a young man who had come with Mr. Bishop, "you go back and tell the carriers they must come tonight for we need food and dry clothing." After the young man had gone, Mary decided she should go and help. She took off her muddy shoes and started back through the dark and fearful jungle. Mary was afraid when she heard the snarls of animals in the jungle, but she put her trust in God and went on. As Mary came near to the beach she met John. "Ma Mary," he said, "the men will not come. They will not bring the things until the daylight chases away the hidden dangers of the jungle." "I will talk to them," said Mary. She plodded on through the mud. She came to the canoe. The men were all sound asleep. Mary woke them and put them to work. In the meantime Mr. Bishop had coaxed some of the slaves from Ekenge to help. Soon all the things Mary had brought were being carried to Ekenge. Sunday morning was cloudy. Mary got things ready for church. Church time came. But where were the people? Mary and Mr. Bishop and the children began to sing hymns as loud as they could. Still no one came. How discouraging! All the people had been at the burying. When they buried somebody, especially somebody important like the chief's mother, they would have a wild party. The people would get drunk and do many other wicked things. The next day they would be too tired and sick to do anything. Mary and the children and Mr. Bishop kept on singing. At last a few women came. Mary gathered them around her and told them the story of Jesus and His love. The women listened but they did not say anything. After the service was over and the women had gone to their huts, Mary knelt down and prayed. "O God, my heavenly Father, with Your help I have made a beginning in the jungles of Okoyong. Things look black and discouraging now, but I know that if it is Your will You can change all that. If it is not Your will that my work is successful here, then send me wherever I can work best for You. Forgive my sins. Make me a better and more faithful worker for You. And bless the work here in Okoyong. I ask this for Jesus' sake. Amen." Would the work in Okoyong be a failure or a success? Time would tell. Mary knew that it depended on God. At last Chief Edem and his people came back from the wild, drunken party at Ifako. "Welcome Ma Mary," said Chief Edem. "I am glad you have come. I have a place for you. You take this room here in my women's yard. It is for you." "Thank you, Chief," said Mary. It was a dirty, filthy room, but it was the kind of room all the people of Okoyong used. Mary cleaned out the dirt. She had a window put in. She hung a curtain over the door. While she was working a boy came up to her. "Ma Mary," he said, "I am Ipke. I want to help you." Ipke worked hard. He helped Mary as much as possible. Whatever there was to do, Ipke was ready to do it. A few days later Mary looked out of her room. She saw Ipke. He was standing near a pot of boiling oil. A crowd of people stood around yelling and shouting. Chief Edem came up to the crowd. Then a man took a dipper and filled it full of boiling oil. Ipke stretched out his hands in front of him. Suddenly Mary knew what was happening. She rushed out of her house, but she was too late. Already the man had poured the boiling oil over Ipke's arms and hands. "Why have you done this?" asked Mary. Chief Edem said nothing. He turned and walked away. The other people also kept still. Mary took Ipke to her room. She put medicine on the burns. "Why did they do this to you, Ipke?" she asked. "It is because I helped the white Ma. The people say I do not follow the old ways. It is bad to follow new ways. I must be punished. The bad spirit must be burned out." "O God," prayed Mary, "heal this boy and help me to change the wicked heathen ways." #6# _A Brave Nurse_ It was strangely quiet in the village of Chief Okurike. The chief was sick. All the magic of the witch doctors could not make him better. If he died, many of his wives, slaves and soldiers would be killed to go with him into the spirit-world. A woman from a neighboring village came to the house of Chief Okurike's wives. "You are sad because Chief Okurike is dying," said the woman. "I know someone who can help him. Far away through the jungle at Ekenge lives the white Ma. With her magic she can make devils go out of your chief. My son's child was dying. The white Ma saved her. She is well today. The white Ma has done many wonderful things by the power of her juju. Let your chief send for her. Then he will not die." The wives talked it over. "We must tell the chief," said the head wife. "He must send for the white Ma. If he dies, many of us must die too. We do not want to die." They told the chief about the strange white Ma at Ekenge. "Let her be sent for," said the chief. "Send swift runners to ask her to come." All day long the men hurried through the jungle along the narrow paths. They went through many villages but they did not stop. At last after eight hours, they came to the village of Ekenge. "We are the men of Chief Okurike," said the men to Chief Edem. "Chief Okurike is very sick. We want the white Ala who lives in your village to come and heal him." "She will say for herself what she will do," said Chief Edem. He sent a man to tell Mary some men from Chief Okurike wanted to see her. Mary came at once to see what was wanted. "Ma," said the men, "Chief Okurike sent us. He is very sick. Come and bring your magic medicines and make him well." "What kind of sickness does your chief have?" asked Mary. "Maybe I can send the medicine with you." They shook their heads. They did not know what the sickness was. "I must help," said Mary to herself. "If the chief dies, then according to their heathen way the tribe will kill all his wives and slaves so he will have company on the long trip to the spirit-world. I must go and teach them about the Good Shepherd who is with us even in the valley of the shadow of death. If the chief should die and the tribe think that it is because of witchcraft it will be even worse. Many people will be killed because the tribe will think they used witchcraft to kill the chief." "I will go with you," said Mary. "There are warriors out in the jungle and you will be killed. You must not go," said Chief Edem. "It is a long journey," said Ma Eme. "There are deep rivers to cross. It is raining very hard. You will never get there." "If Chief Okurike dies, there will be fighting and killing. You will be in great danger," said Chief Edem. "Don't go." Mary knew that if anything happened to her, Chief Edem would go to war against the tribe of Chief Okurike, because she was his guest, and a chief must protect his guest. Mary prayed to God about it. Then she said to Chief Edem, "I am sure that God wants me to go. It will be a chance to tell these people about Jesus who heals the soul-sickness. God will take care of me." "Well, Ma, I do not like it, but you may go if you wish. I will send women with you to look after you. I will send men to protect you." Early the next morning they started on the journey. It was raining hard. After they had left Ekenge, it began to pour. The jungle was flooded and steaming hot. It was hard to go, but Mary and the guard pushed on. Soon Mary's clothes were soaked through. They became so heavy she could hardly walk. Her boots became water soaked. She took them off and threw them in the bush. Soon her stockings wore out and she walked through the jungle mud barefooted. She knew she was doing God's work, and even fearful rainstorms were not going to stop her. After three hours the weather began to clear, but now Mary's head began to ache from fever. As Mary and the guard passed through the jungle villages, the people looked at Mary with surprise. But nothing would stop Mary. She pushed on, and after walking through the jungle for eight hours, she stumbled into the village of the sick chief. Some of the people were crying. They expected to be killed when the chief died. Others were laughing and shouting. They were going to have "fun" when the chief died. They were going to kill people and have a wild party. Mary was tired and sick, but she went at once to the chief's house. He was stretched out on a dirty bed. His face was gray with sickness. He was moaning and groaning. He was very near death. Mary examined the chief to see what his sickness was. She opened her little medicine chest and took out some medicine. She gave the chief a dose. It made the chief a little better. "I don't have enough of this medicine with me," said Mary. She knew that away on the other side of the river another missionary was working. She knew he had some of the medicine. She went to the men of the village. "You must go across the river to Ikorofiong for more medicine," said Mary. "No, no, we cannot go," said the men of the village. "Our enemies are on the other side of the river. They will kill us if we go there." "But I must have the medicine," said Mary. "There is a man from that village down the river a little ways. He is living in his canoe on the river. Maybe he will go," said one of the men. Some of the men ran down to the river. They found the man. They promised him many things. At last he said he would go. The next day he brought the medicine to Mary. For days Mary nursed Chief Okurike. She taught one of his wives how to help her. She also told the chief and his family about Jesus. Whenever she could leave the chief for a short time she would talk to the tribe about the Saviour and how He would change their lives if they believed in Him. Day after day Mary prayed for Chief Okurike. At last prayer won out. Chief Okurike got well. The people were very happy. "Ma Mary," they said, "we want to learn book." They meant that they wanted to learn about the Bible. "I am glad you do," said Mary, "but then you must do what the Book says." "We will," said the people. "We will make peace with Calabar. We will not kill the traders who come to our land or the other white people." "Then I will always be your worker and I will send you a teacher as soon as I can, who will teach you of the Saviour who died for you to pay for your sins." Mary went back to Ekenge. Here she found that Chief Edem was very sick. He had some very bad boils on his back. Mary put medicine on the boils. Every day she came to his house and took care of him. One day when she came in she saw feathers and eggs lying around the room. This was witch doctor "medicine." On the Chief's neck and around his arms and legs were witch charms. "Oh, Chief Edem," said Mary, "how could you do this? Surely you know that doing witchcraft is a sin against God. I do not see how you could go back to it after you had learned to know about Jesus." "Ma, you don't know all about these things. Someone is the cause of this sickness. You don't know all the badness of the black man's heart. Look, here are the proofs that someone is working witchcraft against me. The only one who can fight that is the witch doctor. He is the only one who can make me well. See, here are the things that were taken from my back." Chief Edem pointed to a collection of shot, egg shells, seed and other things which the witch doctor said had come from his back. He believed the witch doctor. He believed that someone using witchcraft had sent them into his back. Mary knew what would happen. Everybody whom the chief thought might have done the witchcraft would have to take poison. The people thought that if the person who took the poison died, he was guilty, but if he was not guilty he would live. The tribe would also use other tortures like pouring boiling oil on people to get them to confess. "That is all wrong," said Mary. "The sickness is because you have not eaten good things or taken care of yourself and kept as clean as you should have. Don't believe the bad witch doctor." (God said something about that in Exodus 22:18.) Chief Edem would not listen. He had everyone he thought might have the witchcraft made a prisoner. The witch doctor took the chief and his wives and chief men and prisoners to a nearby farm. Mary was not allowed to come to this farm. Mary knew of Someone who could help her. She prayed to God again and again to keep these people from doing the bad things they planned. Days went by. Mary prayed that Chief Edem might get well. God heard Mary's prayers. He did what she asked. He made Chief Edem well again. When Chief Edem was well again he decided not to kill the prisoners, the people he thought might have done witchcraft against him. He let them go free. Then the chief and his wives and the chief men came back to the village. The tribe had a big party to celebrate. They were happy the chief was well. It was the wildest party Mary had ever seen. The people stuffed themselves with food until they became sick. They got drunk. They had wild dances. They did many wicked things. Mary had often prayed that God would turn the heathen people from their wicked ways, but here they were carrying on worse than ever. The only answer to her prayers that she could see was that the prisoners who were going to be killed had been set free. "Am I doing anything for my Saviour?" Mary asked herself. "Am I having any success in winning people for Jesus?" #7# _Witchcraft_ One day Chief Njiri and his warriors came to visit Chief Edem. They stayed several days. They had wild parties every day. They drank native beer until they became drunk. Then they would quarrel and fight. They asked Mary to settle their quarrels and decide who was right. Mary was praying every day that there would not be bad fights and that no one would be killed. Finally it was the last night of the visit. The men were so drunk that Mary knew there would be trouble. When the chief and his men were ready to leave, everyone was excited. The people were shouting and pushing. Some shots were fired and the men began stabbing with their swords. They were too drunk to know what they were doing. Mary ran into the crowd. She went up to Chief Njiri. "Chief," said Mary, "your visit is over. Go now before trouble starts." She took hold of the chief's arm and led him out of the village and his men followed him. They started for their own village. "I'm glad that's over," said Mary, but she had spoken too soon. On their way home, as they were staggering along, Bakulu, one of Njiri's men, cried out, "Look!" and pointed with his finger. The chief and his men stopped. "It is witchcraft," said Bakulu. "See the little banana plant with palm leaves, nuts and a coconut shell close by!" "Don't go past it," said one of the other men. "It is bad medicine. You will get sick and die." "It is the people in the last village we passed through. They did it. Let us punish them," said Chief Njiri. "Yes, let's punish them," shouted the men. Mary had been following the men to make sure they would go home. She heard the shouting. Now the men started running past her. She tried to stop them, but they slipped away. Mary took a short cut through the jungle. She reached the road to the village before the men did. "God, our Father in Heaven," prayed Mary, "help me for Jesus' sake to stop these men, so there will not be a bloody battle." "Stop," she cried as the first men came in sight. "Stop, I want to talk to you." The men stopped. The others soon came running up. They had to stop, too. "You men are planning to do something bad. You do not know that the people of this village did bad things to you. You only think they did. You have drunk too much beer. You do not know what you are doing. Go home." "But Ma," said Njiri, "they have made bad medicine against us. They made witchcraft. They must be punished before we are hurt." Njiri and his men argued with Mary, but finally they listened to her. They turned around and once more started for home. Mary went with them to make sure they would get there. At last they came again to the banana plant and the witch medicine. They were afraid to pass it. "If we pass it, we will get sick and die," said Njiri. "That is sinful foolishness," said Mary. "That banana plant and those other things will not hurt you. I am not afraid of them." Mary picked up the banana plant, the palm leaves, nuts and coconut shell and threw them into the jungle. "Now, brave men, come on. I have cleared the path. Let us go to your village." Timidly the men tiptoed past the place where the "medicine" had been. Then they went on to their own village. Once more Mary thought that all would be peaceful now for a while. She started for the village of Ekenge. No sooner was Mary gone than the people of Njiri began drinking again. Then they started quarreling and fighting. One of the men in the village ran and told Mary. "I will fix that," said Mary. She took some of the men of Ekenge with her. She went to the village of Njiri. With the help of the men of Ekenge and some of the people of the village, they tied some of the most drunken men and the wildest fighters to the trees. They left them there to cool themselves in the breezes of the jungle. After several hours Mary untied them because she was afraid that some lions might come and kill and eat them. Now that things were quiet, Mary again started for home. On the way she picked up the little banana plant that had caused so much trouble and took it with her. "I will plant it in my own yard and see what witchcraft can do!" said Mary. Early the next morning, a man from Njiri's village came running into Ekenge. He went to Mary's house. "Ma," said the runner, "Chief Njiri was very sick last night. He suffered very much. The witch doctor took sticks and shells and shot from his leg. It is because he walked past the banana plant and other magic medicine. Give me the little banana plant for the chief." "No, I cannot do that," said Mary. She knew that if the banana plant was taken to the chief, someone would die because of the witchcraft belief. "But you must send it," said Chief Edem. "If you do not send it, he will make war on us." "Very well," said Mary, "I will send it. But I know there will be much trouble." So he took the banana plant to Chief Njiri. When he received it, he and his warriors went to the village which he thought was working witchcraft against him. He made all the people of the village come to him. In great fear they came. "Every one of you must swear that you did not make that bad medicine against me. I am going to find out who is working that witchcraft to hurt me." All the people of the village swore they had not done it. "I am going to take one of your finest young men with me. If I find that you have told me a lie, I will kill him." Njiri's warriors captured a young man and took him along. If the villagers had tried to rescue him, he would have been killed, and many of them would have been killed also. They sent a man to Mary. "Ma," said the man, "please help us. Please get Njiri to free Kolu." "I don't like to have anything to do with Njiri. He is very wicked. But I will go and try to get Kolu free." Mary went to the village of Chief Njiri. She walked right up to the chief. The warriors of Chief Njiri looked at her with angry faces. They shook their spears at her. "Chief Njiri," said Mary, "why have you taken this young man? He has done you no harm. You are doing a bad thing." "Ha, ha," laughed Chief Njiri. "Do you think I am so foolish, Ma? I know these people put bad medicine in my path. I saw the sticks and shells which the witch doctor took from my leg. If sickness comes, I will kill this man." "The village people have sworn to you that they did not put those things in your path," said Mary. "Perhaps they are lying." "They are not lying, but you have lied. You promised to go home and not harm these people. You lied to me. You have made trouble. You went to their village and made them swear. You stole this young man. It is wrong to lie. God will surely punish those who speak with a lying tongue. Please set this young man free so that he may return to his village and his people." "Ma," answered Chief Njiri, "you do not understand these things. You do not know the badness in the hearts of these people. You do not know the bad things they want to do against me. You do not know about witchcraft." "Oh, yes, I do," said Mary. "I know that God will punish those who do witchcraft. He will punish those who are foolish enough to believe in it. The people who trust in Jesus do not fear witchcraft. Why do you not trust in Jesus?" "I don't need Jesus. I am a strong chief. I have many warriors. No one can harm me." "If no one can hurt you, why don't you set this young man free?" "I will not set him free. If I keep him, his people will be afraid even to try hurting me." "But think, Chief, how you would feel if you were captured and taken away from your people? Think how sad this young man feels. Great chiefs show mercy and kindness to the weak. Will you show mercy and kindness to the people of the village and free this young man?" "A great chief is not weak. He does not act like a woman. A woman shows kindness and love. I am not weak. I will punish. I will revenge myself on those who would do evil to me." "Revenge belongs to the true and powerful God. He will punish those who do evil. I beg you, Chief Njiri, to set this man free." "Ma, if I were not a good chief I would have killed you a long time ago. But go now. I do not want to hear your talk. I will not set this young man free. Maybe I will kill him. Maybe I will not kill him. But I will not set him free. Go, before I become angry with you." "I will go, but remember Chief Njiri, the great and powerful God who sees and knows the badness in your heart. He knows the evil you do. Please turn to Him and believe in Him before it is too late and you end in Hell, the place where bad people suffer forever." "Go," said Chief Njiri angrily, "get out of my village. Go back to Ekenge." Sadly Mary started back to Ekenge. "I have failed these people who asked for my help. O God, soften the heart of Chief Njiri and keep Your protecting hand over the young man Kolu." When Chief Edem heard that Njiri would not set the man free, he said, "Njiri has insulted our Ma. Let the warriors get their spears and shields. Let us get ready for war." The women slipped quietly into Mary's room to tell her the latest news. It made Mary sad that these men were getting ready for a war, but neither one of the chiefs would listen to her. Mary knew where to go for help. She prayed to God. "O God," prayed Mary, "You can stop this war. You can soften the hearts of these cruel chiefs. Please stop this war so that the warriors may not be killed and their wives made widows and their children orphans. Hear me for the sake of Jesus, my Saviour." A man knocked on the door of Mary's hut. "Ma, Ma," he cried, "Kolu has been set free. Chief Njiri let him go, and he is back at the village. There will be no war!" "Thank You, Father in Heaven," prayed Mary. "Thank You that You heard my prayers and that peace and quiet will again be in the villages." Mary had a true friend in Ma Eme, the sister of Chief Edem. She helped Mary often. She did everything she could to help Mary and the mission, but one thing she never did, that was to confess Christ openly. She and Mary talked of many things as they worked together. One day Ma Eme said, "When my husband died, I had to go through the chicken test." "What is that?" asked Mary. "All of my husband's wives, I too, were put on trial. The witch doctors were trying to find who caused my husband, a great chief, to die. Each of us had to bring a chicken. The witch doctor chopped off the heads of the chickens one at a time. If the headless chicken fluttered one way, the witch doctor said the wife was innocent. If it fluttered the other way, he said she was guilty." "What happened when they cut off the head of your chicken?" asked Mary. "It fluttered wildly in the right direction. The witch doctor said I was innocent. But the strain had been so great I fainted and had to be carried to my hut. But many of the other wives were killed." "You do not believe in the witch doctors, do you?" asked Mary. Ma Eme looked all around. Then she stepped close to Mary and whispered, "No, but I would not tell anyone else. They are too strong and tricky. They could cause me much trouble if they knew I was against them." "I shall fight the witch doctors as long as God gives me strength. God is against the witch doctors who do such evil things." Chief Edem had promised Mary a house, and the people of the village had said they would build it. But whenever Mary wanted to start, they would say, "Tomorrow, we will start, Ma." But tomorrow just did not come. At last Mary and the children she had adopted and the native children cleared the ground. They stuck sticks in the ground for the wall. They began to make the roof. Then some of the lazy people of the village began to help, and at last the house was built. Mary also wanted to build a church and school at Ifako. The chief there had promised to help. But the people of that village were lazy, too. They were always putting off doing the building. One morning a man came from Ifako. "My master wants you," he said. Mary went to Ifako. The chiefs were together at a cleared piece of ground. "See, Ma, here is your ground. Here are the sticks, and mud, and palm leaves and other things we need to build. Shall we build the church today?" It did not take long for Mary to say yes. The people of the village forgot to be lazy. They were having fun building the church. When it was finally finished it was twenty-five feet wide by thirty feet long. We would not think that was a very big building, but it was the biggest in the village. "See," said the Chief of Ifako, "it is much better than the house at Ekenge." "It is a fine church," said Mary. "Now we must keep it clean and nice. There should be no dirty things in or around God's house." We would not think it was such a fine church. The walls were made of dry mud and sticks. The roof was made of palm-leaf mats. The floors were made of mud and so were the seats. But everything was polished and rubbed as smooth as possible. There were no windows or doors in the building. There were just holes in the wall to let in the light for windows and a larger hole to serve as an entrance. But Mary thought it was a fine church because it was the best in that part of the country and because it was a place where people could hear about the Saviour and learn "book." "We will hold our first service in the new church next Sunday," said Mary. "I want you all to come." "We will come, Ma," promised the natives. #8# _The Poison Test_ "Tomorrow we will have our first service in our new church. You must dress right for it," said Mary. She took out of her mission boxes clothes of all kinds and colors which the people in the homeland had sent to her. "You must wear these to church tomorrow," said Mary. "In God's house you must be clean. You must be dressed. You must not bring your spears into church." "Can we come?" asked the children. "Indeed you can," said Mary. "The children can come and the slaves can come. God's house is open to everyone." The next day was indeed a happy day for Mary. The church was filled with people. Many of them came just out of curiosity, but there were many who had learned to know and love and trust in Jesus. Mary now started day classes and these too were crowded because many wanted to learn "book." They wanted to learn about Ma's God and about the Saviour who took away sins. It was not long before a change could be seen in many of these people. They had become Christians. The look of fear was gone from their eyes. They no longer feared the demons because they had a Saviour who loved them and took care of them. They did not do the wicked things they had done before. They tried to live as God wanted them to live. Mary was happy. Now she wanted to build a larger and better mission house in Ekenge. Chief Edem wanted that too. He felt that the church schoolhouse in Ifako quite outshone the little two-room house in Ekenge. Mary wanted doors and windows in the new house. She could not make them. The natives could not. They had never seen any. Mary wrote to the Mission Board about it. The Mission Board put a notice in the magazine they published asking for a practical carpenter who was willing to go to Calabar. Mr. Charles Ovens saw the notice. "This is God's call to me," he said. "I have wanted to be a missionary ever since I was a little boy. I could not study to be a minister. I learned to be a carpenter. Now I can be a carpenter for God. I can build mission houses and churches and while I build I can tell the people about my Saviour." It was in May, 1889, that Mr. Ovens started for Calabar. In Duke Town he found a native helper and the two of them went to Ekenge. Mary was very glad to have him come. He was a very jolly man. He sang at his work. Everyone liked him and the natives gladly helped him in building the houses. For a long time Mary had been trying to get the chiefs of Okoyong to trade with the traders on the coast. They would not listen. Now she invited them to her new house. She showed them the things she had and how useful they were. The chiefs looked at the door and windows. They liked them. The women looked at the clothes and at the sewing machine. They liked them. They looked at the clock on the mantel. They liked it, too. "We will trade with coast people," said Chief Edem. Mary wrote to the traders and invited them to Okoyong. She told them to bring dishes, dress goods, mirrors, clocks, and the like to trade for ivory, oil, and bananas and other things in the jungle. "It is too dangerous to come up-country," answered the traders. "We are afraid the native guards on the jungle paths will kill us." Mary wrote to good King Eyo, of Duke Town. She asked him to invite the Okoyong chiefs for a conference. She promised they would bring jungle goods to trade. King Eyo invited the chiefs. They did not want to go. Mary told them of the interesting things they would see on the coast. She told them of the good things they could get by trading. At last they agreed to go. They collected two canoeloads of bananas, barrels of oil and other jungle crops. Then the chiefs and warriors came marching down to the river to go to the coast. "Wait," said Mary. "You cannot take those spears and swords and guns along. You will only get into trouble. You must leave your swords and spears, your guns and knives at home." When Mary said this, many of the natives disappeared into the jungle. They would not go without their weapons. "Ma, you make women of us," argued those who remained. "Would a man go among strangers without arms?" "You may not take arms," said Mary. "You are not going to war. You are going for a friendly visit." "If we cannot take our swords and guns we will not go. We will stay home." "But you promised and I promised King Eyo that you would come. Will you go back on your word and make me a liar?" For two hours they argued with Mary. The beach filled with natives from the village who wanted to see the chiefs start on their trip. The chiefs did not want to look like cowards to the people of the village. At last they took off their swords and gave their guns to their white Ma. Those who had run away to the jungle came back and decided to go along. "We do not like this," said the chiefs, "but we will go. We will not make you a liar, Ma." They got off into their boats. As one of the boats rowed off, one of the bags shifted. Mary saw the gleam of flashing swords. "Stop!" cried Mary. The rowers stopped. Mary took the swords and threw them into the river. "Shame on you," said Mary. "I did not think you would try to fool me like that." The chiefs said nothing. They just rowed down the river. The chiefs who went to Duke Town had a wonderful time. They went to the church services. King Eyo Honesty talked with them about the Gospel and what it meant for their lives. He took them to his house and had a big dinner for them. They traded the bananas, oil, and other things which they had brought for things to take home like mirrors, clocks, and white people's clothes. Then the next day they rowed back to Ekenge. The village people were all gathered down at the landing place to welcome the chiefs home. They watched patiently for the boats. When the boats came the people shouted for joy. "Welcome home, Chief Edem," said Mary. "How was your trip? Did you enjoy your visit at Duke Town?" "The trip was fine, Ma," said Chief Edem. "Duke Town is a big village. They have a big churchhouse. We saw many things." "Did you need your guns and swords?" asked Mary. "No, Ma, you were right. We did not need guns or swords. King Eyo was good to us. We have many fine things." "If you work hard and get things to trade, you can get many more fine things," said Mary. "We are going to work hard. We want many of those fine things we saw." The men did work. Because they were busy they had less time and less desire to get drunk and quarrel. Mary's missionary work was having its effect on the lives of the people. Slowly they were changing from their heathen ways, but there was still much to do. One day while Mary and Mr. Ovens were working on the mission house they heard a wild scream from the nearby jungle. Mary jumped up. "Something is wrong in the jungle," said Mary. "Johnny, go and see what it is." One of her orphan boys ran off to find out what was wrong. In a few minutes he came back. "Ma, Ma," he cried, "a man is hurt. Maybe he is dead. Come quick." Mary grabbed her case of medicines and followed Johnny into the jungle. When she reached the place where the young man was lying, she looked into his face. "It is Etim, the son of our chief, Edem. He is going to get married soon and is building his house. A tree fell the wrong way and hit him. He cannot move his arms or legs. This means bad trouble. The people will say it is witchcraft." Mary with her helpers quickly made a stretcher to carry Etim. They carried him to his mother's home at Ekenge. "I will nurse him," said Mary to Etim's mother. For two weeks Mary took care of him night and day. She prayed God to spare the young man's life. She did everything she knew to help him. Etim did not get better. Day by day he became worse. Sunday morning came. Mary could see that he did not have long to live. She left him for a short time to arrange for Mr. Ovens to take care of the church services. Hearing Etim groaning and crying out, she rushed back to the house where he was. The natives were blowing smoke into his nose. They were rubbing pepper into his eyes. His uncle, Ekponyong, shouted into his ears. They thought they were helping him to get well. Instead they made him die sooner. In a moment he gave a cry and fell back dead. "Etim is dead!" cried the people in the house. "Witches have killed him! They must die! Bring the witch doctor at once!" The people who were in the house quickly disappeared, and soon only Mary and Etim's relatives were left. When the witch doctor came, he did all kinds of queer things, which he said would tell him who had made the young man die. He pretended to be listening to the dead boy talk. "It is the people of Payekong. They are to blame. They put a spell on him," said the witch doctor. Chief Edem called for the leader of his soldiers. "Take my warriors and go to Payekong," said Chief E'dem. "Capture the people and burn down the houses. Quickly now!" The warriors were too late. Chief Akpo, the chief of Payekong, had heard the news. He and his people had run off into the jungle. Only a few people were left in the village. Those were captured by Edem's soldiers and brought to Ekenge. Mary was sure that Chief Edem would make the people take the poison bean test. This is how the test was made: A small brown bean full of poison was crushed and put into water. The person who was tested had to drink the poison water. The natives thought that if the person drank the water and died, he was guilty; if he lived, he was innocent. "That is no way to honor your son, Chief Edem," said Mary. "You know it is wrong and sinful to kill people." "But they are bad people. They deserve to die." "You do not know that. That water is poison. Anyone who drinks it would die." "Oh, no, Ma, if the one who drinks it is innocent he will live." "I do not agree with you. Come, let us honor your son in a better way." Mary wrapped the young man's body in silk. She dressed him in the finest suit she could find. She wrapped a silk turban around his head and then placed a high red and black hat with bright colored feathers on his head. No chief had ever been dressed so fine for his burial. The body was carried out into the yard and seated in a large chair under an umbrella. A silver-headed stick and a whip was placed in his hand. This showed he was a chief's son. A mirror was also put in his hand so he could see how wonderful he was. On a table beside him were placed all his treasures. Those included skulls he had taken in war. Then the people were let into the yard to see Etim. The people shouted. They were so happy they danced around. They called for whiskey to drink. Chief Edem gave them much whiskey to drink. They became wilder and wilder. Mary and Mr. Ovens took turns watching the prisoners. They were afraid the people would kill them. As Mary was going to her house for a little rest, she saw some poison beans on the pounding stone. This filled her with fear. She was not afraid for herself, but for the poor prisoners. She fell on her knees and prayed. "Dear Father in Heaven," prayed Mary, "watch over these poor people. Do not let harm come to these prisoners. Keep the other people from doing murder. Give me the courage to face the chiefs and tell them they are wrong. In all these things may Thy will be done. I ask this in Jesus' name." After she had prayed Mary got up and went to Chief Edem and his brother Ekponyong. "You must forbid the poison bean test," said Mary. "It is wrong and sinful. God is watching what you do. Do not do that sinful thing." "That is my business," said Chief Edem. "I am the chief of this tribe. I will do what seems good to me." Mary argued with the chief, but he would not listen. Ekponyong, his brother, encouraged Edem to make the prisoners take the poison bean test. Mary then went to the yard where the prisoners were kept. She sat down in the gateway. She was not going to let anyone get the prisoners. This made the chiefs very angry. The crowd of village people howled and yelled. Chief Edem's warriors shook their swords and guns at her and stamped the ground angrily. "Raise our master from the dead," shouted the people, "and we will free the prisoners!" Mary kept her place. She wrote a note to Duke Town asking for help and sent it off secretly by one of her orphan boys. Still she watched over the prisoners. She would not leave her place in the gate. The people were angry with her, but still many of them loved and respected their white Ma and would not hurt her. Suddenly a man pushed his way through the crowd. He shoved Mary aside. He grabbed one of the women prisoners. He dragged her in front of the body of Etim. He handed her the cup of poison. "Drink!" he cried. "Drink and prove that you are innocent, or drink and die!" #9# _Victories for Mary_ "Oh ma, do not leave us. Please do not leave us," begged the other prisoners as the poor woman prisoner got ready to drink the poison. "Lord, help me and help these poor people," prayed Mary. Mary went up to the woman. The woman raised the cup of poison to her lips. Mary grabbed her arm. "Run," she whispered. "Run to the mission house." Before the crowd knew what was happening, Mary and the woman had run far into the jungle. They went to the mission house. No one would dare to harm anyone in the mission house. Mary then went back to the other prisoners. "O God, I thank Thee that I was able to help this poor woman get away. Help me to save these other prisoners also." When Mary got back to the other prisoners, the argument with the chiefs started again. "An innocent person will not die if he drinks the poison," said Ekponyong. "Only a bad, guilty person will die." "That is not right," answered Mary. "Poison will kill anyone, good or bad. Chief Edem, you know it was an accident that your son died. It was not the fault of any of these people. Please let them go free." "I want my son to be buried in a box like the white people," said Chief Edem. "Will Bwana Ovens make a fine box for my son?" "I will make a coffin for your son if you will let the prisoners go free," said Mr. Ovens. "No, no," said Chief Edem. "Then I will not make a box for you." "Well, then I will let some go free," said Chief Edem. "No, you must not let them go free," said Ekponyong. "If I want to let them go free, I can," said Chief Edem. "I am chief, don't forget that." "Show that you are a great and wise chief," said Mary. "Let them all go free." Chief Edem thought a while. Then he spoke. "If Bwana Ovens will make a fine box for my son then I will let all go free but Mojo, Otinga, and Obwe," said Chief Edem. "But why keep them?" asked Mary. "Mojo and Otinga are related to Etim's mother. They planned bad things against my boy. Obwe is related to Chief Akpo who has run away because he is guilty. Now if I let these others go will you build me a box Bwana Ovens?" "Yes, I will build you a box," said Mr. Ovens. "Please let the three go free, too," said Mary. "They have done you no wrong." "We have done more for you than we have ever done before. We will do nothing else," said Chief Edem. He turned his back on Mary and walked away. People from other villages came to take part in the wild parties that were always held when there was a funeral. Mary tried again and again to get Edem to free the three prisoners. Mary and Mr. Ovens managed to take Mojo and Otinga to the mission house where they were safe. Again Mary pleaded for Obwe. Chief Edem was very angry. "Will you not have me honor my son? You have run off with my prisoners. I will burn down the mission house. I will send you back to Duke Town. Then you cannot trouble me any longer." "Brother, you do not speak wisely," said Ma Eme, E'dem's sister. "The white Ma has done many good things for us. If we burn down the mission house you will have a bad name among all tribes. Chain Obwe in the white Ma's yard so that the village people cannot harm her. She cannot get away and you can find out later whether she is guilty or not." "Very well," said Chief Edem, "I will do that. But the three must be killed for the funeral. What kind of a funeral will that be for a chief's son if no one is killed? He will have no one to go with him on the way to the dark land." The next day two missionaries came from Duke Town in answer to Mary's note. It was a great honor to have so many white people at a funeral. Chief Edem was no longer as angry as he had been. The missionaries showed slide pictures. The natives had never seen anything like it before. It pleased them very much and it also quieted them down. The next day when the funeral was held, a cow was killed and put in the coffin with Etim instead of the people who were thought to have worked witchcraft against him. Mary was glad and thankful to God that she had been able to save the prisoners. The last of the prisoners was let go free on the promise that if Chief Akpo was caught he would take the poison test. Mary heard that Etim was the only chief in Okoyong ever to be buried without some people being killed as a human sacrifice. The people of the jungle thought Mary was wonderful indeed. Mary thought that this trouble was over, but a short time later Etim's uncle, who lived in a nearby village, was accused of having killed the young man. He came to Ekenge and met with the village chiefs. "I am willing to take the poison bean test," said the uncle, "if all of the chiefs will take the test. That means you, too, Edem. Those who are innocent will not be hurt. I will take the test, but all the other chiefs must, too." When Mary heard that Etim's uncle was going to take the poison bean test if the other chiefs would, she rushed to the village. The men were arguing. They were shaking their swords and guns at one another. Mary looked around until she found the bag of poison beans. She took them and ran off with them. The chiefs could not find the poison beans. Finally, they quieted down. Chief Edem went to Mary. "Give me the poison beans," he said. "I know you have taken them." "Yes, I took them," said Mary, "but I will not give them to you. There has been enough trouble and sadness and fear. When will you be satisfied that your son's death was an accident?" Chief Edem turned around and went back to the village. He sent all the chiefs home. Nothing more was said about the poison bean test. Now Mary began to plead for Akpo, the chief of the village which the witch doctor had said had caused Etim to be killed. "Chief Edem, let him come home. Forgive him. He has done you no wrong." God softened Edem's heathen heart. After several weeks he agreed to let Akpo come home. "You may tell him," Edem said to Mary, "that all thought of revenge is gone from my heart. If he wishes to return to his own village, he may do so, or he may go anywhere in Okoyong in safety." Nothing like that had ever been done before in the jungle. The heathen people did not forgive. They always took revenge. Akpo did not believe Edem had forgiven him. He did not want to trust Edem. At last Mary convinced him that Edem meant just what he said and that Akpo could really go home. Mary and Akpo came to his home village of Payekong. The houses had been burned. The cattle had been stolen. But it was still home. Tears came to Akpo's eyes. Thankfully the chief kneeled at Mary's feet. "Oh, Ma, thank you, thank you for what you have done for me and my people. I and my people will always do whatever you ask." Akpo kept his promise. Other chiefs often argued with Mary and threatened to hurt her, but Akpo and his people always helped her and did whatever she wanted them to do. Chief Edem now was kind to Akpo and his people. He built houses for them and helped them get their gardens started again. He gave them some cattle, too. After some time had gone by, Chief Edem came to Mary. He kneeled down before her. "Thank you, Ma, for being brave. Thank you for keeping after me until I let those prisoners go. I am glad that people were not killed at the time of Etim's death. Your ways are better than ours. We are tired of the old ways." Many other people came and told her how glad they were that the old ways were changing. They said that they knew the old ways were bad. Mary had had a very hard time in the jungles, but now things were going better. She was busy all the time, teaching and preaching and nursing. She journeyed through the jungle where the wild animals were, but she did not fear. She was trusting God to take care of her as He had taken care of Daniel in the lions' den. Always she told the people of the loving Saviour who had died for their sins. After a time Mary fell sick. She caught the jungle fever. She became very weak. "Mary," said Ovens, "you must take a vacation. You must get away from the jungle for a while. You must go to England for a long rest. That way you can get well and come back to work here at Okoyong." "You are right," said Mary. "Much as I hate to leave my work here, I know I must go. I will ask for a furlough at once." For three years Mary had worked in Okoyong. But already there was a change among the heathen people. The Gospel of Jesus has a wonderful power to change hearts and lives. As soon as word came that another worker was being sent to take her place, Mary got ready to leave for England. At last the day came that Miss Dunlop, the new worker, arrived. Mary was ready to leave. Her friends carried her trunk and suitcases down to the Ekenge landing. A great crowd had come to the landing to tell her good-by and wish her a safe journey. Mary was telling them to help Miss Dunlop and to remain true to the Bible teaching. Suddenly a man was seen running through the crowd. He ran up to Mary. "Come, white Ma, a young man has been shot in the hand, and he wants your medicine!" "Don't go Ma," said Ma Eme, Mary's friend. "You are tired and sick. You must get back to England. If you go with this man you may miss your boat. Let someone else go." "It is a bad tribe. They are always fighting. It is dangerous to go," said Chief Edem. "Do not go with the man." "You cannot go," said her other friends at Ekenge. "You are too sick to walk. The wild animals in the jungle will kill you. The wild warriors are out. They will kill you in the dark, not knowing who you are." "But I must go," said Mary. "If you must go," said Chief Edem, "then you must take two armed men with you. You must get the chief of the next village to send his drummer with you. When the people hear the drum, they will know that a protected person is traveling who must not be hurt." It was night. Mary Slessor and the two men marched out into the darkness. The lanterns threw strange shadows that looked like fierce men in the darkness. At last Mary and her guard came to the village where they were to ask for the drummer. They told the chief what Chief Edem had said, but the chief did not want to help them. "You are going to a fighting tribe," said the chief. "They will not listen to what a woman says. You had better go back. I will not protect you." "You don't think a woman can do much. Maybe you are right," said Mary to the chief. "But you forget what the woman's God can do. He can do anything. I shall go on." Mary went on into the darkness. The natives watched her go. She must be crazy, they thought. She had talked back to their chief who had the power to kill her. She had walked on into a jungle where wild leopards were ready to jump on her. She was going where men were drinking and making themselves wild. But Mary was not afraid. Once in talking about her trips through the jungle Mary said, "My great help and comfort was prayer. I did not used to believe the story of Daniel in the lions' den until I had to take some of those awful marches through the jungle. Then I knew it was true. Many times I walked alone, praying, 'O God of Daniel, shut their mouths!' and He did." After pushing on through the darkness, Mary saw the dim outlines of the huts of the village. All was quiet. Suddenly she heard the swift patter of bare feet. She was surrounded by warriors shouting, pushing and shaking their spears. "What have you come for?" asked the chief. "I have heard a young man is hurt. I come to help him. I also heard that you are going to war. I have come to ask you not to fight," said Mary. The chief talked with some of his men. Then he came up to Mary. "The white Ma is welcome," he said. "She shall hear all we have to say before we fight. All the same we shall fight. Here is my son wounded by the enemy. We must wipe out the shame put on us. We must get even for this bad thing. Now Ma you may give my son your medicine. Then you must rest. Women, you take care of the white Ma. We will call her at cockcrow when we start." Mary fixed the young man's hand. Then she laid down in one of the huts for an hour's sleep. It seemed as though her eyes were hardly shut, before she heard a voice calling her. "Ma, they are going to battle. Run, Ma, run!" The warriors were on the warpath. Mary could hear their wild yells and the roll of the war drums. Mary ran after them. She was tired from the hard trip to their village. She was weak from the sickness she had. But nothing could stop her. She caught up with the warriors just as they were getting ready to attack an enemy village. "Behave like men," she yelled, "not like fools. Be quiet now. Do not yell and shout." The warriors became silent. "God says that revenge is wrong," said Mary. "He will pay back wicked people for the wrong things they do. You should not try to get even. Leave that to God." "No, no," said the chief. "If we do not pay back for the wrong done us, the tribe will not be afraid of us. They will do more bad things to us." "Yes, yes," shouted the warriors. They kept shouting and shaking their swords and guns. "Did the whole village hurt you? Did the whole village shoot the young man? When you fight against the village you will hurt many women and children. They are innocent. They have done nothing. Let us pray to God about it." All the warriors were quiet as Mary prayed. She asked God to please stop the war if it was His will. She prayed for the young man who had been hurt. She prayed for whoever it was that hurt him, that he might turn away from his wickedness and become a Christian. She prayed for the people of the village. Then Mary spoke to the warriors. "You stay here," she said, "I am going over to the village." Fearlessly she walked over to where the line of village warriors were drawn up with their swords and spears. "Hello," said Mary. The warriors said nothing. Mary looked over the angry faces. Then she laughed. "Nice bunch," she said. "Is this the way you welcome lady visitors?" The warriors stirred uneasily. They did not say anything. "Where is your chief?" asked Mary. "Surely he is not afraid to talk to me." An old chief stepped out from behind the village warriors. To Mary's surprise he kneeled down in front of her. "Ma," he said, "we thank you for coming. It is true we shot the young man, the young chief of those who have come to fight us. But it was one man who did it. The whole village was not at fault. Please make peace. Tell us what we must do." Mary looked into the face of the chief. It was Chief Okurike. Long ago she had made a hard trip through the jungle in pouring rain to help when he was deathly sick. Because of what she had done then, he was now at her feet asking her to make peace. Mary shook hands with Chief Okurike. Then she spoke to his warriors. "Stay where you are," she said. "Some of you find a place where I can sit in comfort. I am hungry. Bring me breakfast. I will not starve while men fight." The warriors did as she told them. "Now," she said, "choose two or three men to speak for you. We shall have a palaver. In that way we will settle this thing." The four men met and talked with one another while Mary ate breakfast. "Why do you want to fight and kill because one drunken man wounded your young chief?" Mary asked the men from the fighting tribe. "Let the tribe of the drunken youth pay a fine." A long talk followed. Sometimes it became very exciting. The arguing grew loud. The father of the young man wanted to have the man who had shot him punished hard. When the men became angry, Mary would stop them. "Let us pray about this," Mary would say. After she had prayed they would settle the point. Finally Mary and her God won out. The fighting tribe at last agreed to be satisfied with a fine. The village paid the fine. They did not use money. So the fine was paid in barrels and bottles of trade gin. Now Mary was worried. What should she do? She knew the warriors would drink the gin right away. She knew this would make them fight after all in spite of their promises. A quick thought came to her. According to the law of these people, clothes thrown over anything gave it the protection of your body. No one else could touch it. Mary snatched off her skirt. She took off all the clothes she could spare. She spread them over the barrels and bottles. Now no one could touch them. Mary took the one glass the tribe had. She gave one glassful to each chief to show that there was no trick and that the barrels and bottles were really filled with gin. Then she spoke to them about fighting. "If all of you go to your homes and don't fight," said Mary, "I'll promise to send the stuff after you. I must go away. I have been sick and I must go where I can get strong again. I am going across the great waters to my home. I shall be away many moons. Will you promise me that you will not fight while I am gone? It will make me very happy if you will make that promise. It will make me sad if you don't, for I will always be wondering whether you are fighting and hurting one another." "I will promise," said the chief of the village, "if the other chief will." All the warriors looked at the chief whose son had been hurt. For a long time he said nothing. His tribe had always been fighters. It would be hard for them to give up fighting. The chief rubbed his chin. He scratched his head. "Yes, Ma," he said finally, "I will promise that we will not fight while you are gone." The two villages kept the promise made by their chiefs. When Mary came back the two chiefs could say, "It is peace." Mary was very tired. Slowly she tramped through the hot jungle. After many hours she came to Ekenge. "We have sent your trunks and things on ahead," said Chief Edem. "Here are my best rowers and best soldiers. They are ready to take you to Duke Town." Mary once more stepped into the canoe. This time there was no one to call her back. Little black Janie, whom Mary had adopted, was with her. "Good-by, good-by, Ma," shouted the crowd. "God keep you safe and bring you back to us again." The rowers pulled their oars strongly, and swiftly down the slow moving river went the canoe. Three years Mary had spent in Okoyong. Already she had seen a change in the heathen people. A greater change was still to come. Mary was going to see more of the power the Gospel has to change heathen hearts and lives. #10# _A Disappointment_ Mary wrote to the Mission Board; Charles and I are very much in love. We would like to be married. Charles is a wonderful Christian and a very fine teacher. He would be a very great help in my jungle work. We hope that you will agree to our marriage and let Charles go into the jungle with me. I am ready to do what you say. I lay the whole matter in God's hands and will take from Him what He sees best for His work in Okoyong. My life was laid on the altar for that people long ago, and I would not take one jot or tittle of it back. If it be for His glory and the advantage of His cause there to let another join in it, I will be grateful. If not, I will be grateful anyway, for God knows best. The Board was very much surprised to get this letter. If the Board members had thought about it at all, they had thought that Mary would never marry. She was forty-three years old and Charles Morrison, her sweetheart, was twenty-five. He was a mission teacher at Duke Town. The difference in their ages did not bother the sweethearts. They met and had fallen in love. They wanted to marry. "I will marry you if the Mission Board will agree to letting you work in the jungle with me," said Mary. "But suppose the Board will not let me go into the jungle, wouldn't you be willing to come back to Duke Town with me?" asked Charles. "No, Charles, I couldn't. I love you very much, more than anyone I have ever known, but my work for God is in the jungles. There no one else has yet planted the Gospel seed. To leave a field like Okoyong without a worker and go to one like Duke Town with ten or a dozen workers where the people have the Bible and plenty of privileges--that's foolish. If God does not send you into the jungle with me, then you must do your work and I must do mine where we have been placed." It was not long after Mary had returned to England that the Mission Board gave its answer to her request. The answer was no. "What the Lord decides is right," said Mary. "I believe that the Mission Board is giving me God's answer because they are His servants." What Mary suffered no one knew. She longed to have a life's partner by her side in the great work of bringing the Gospel to the jungle, but having given her life to God, she felt that He must be her first love. Charles Morrison, however, took the refusal very hard. He became sick and had to go home. Later he went to America where he died. Now that Mary was home in England, she soon got over the jungle fevers. People wanted to hear about the missionary work in Africa. Mary went from church to church telling about her work. She did not like to do this. She would rather be in the jungle telling the natives about Jesus. "It is hard for me to speak," said Mary, "but Jesus has asked me to do it, and it is an honor to speak for Him. I wish to do it cheerfully." Everywhere people were thrilled to hear about the work for Jesus in the jungle. They wanted to do something, too. They gave money. They sent boxes of clothes and food and other things out to Africa to help the heathen. Then Mary got sick with influenza and bronchitis. She could not go around speaking any more. Instead, she wrote some articles for a missionary paper. "The Gospel must be preached to the people of Calabar," she said. "Then the people ought to be taught some trades. They should learn to be carpenters and farmers and the like. We ought to send out people who can teach them these trades so that they can make a living." This was a new idea to many people. They wrote to other missionaries to find out what they thought about it. Later a school, "The Hope Waddell Training Institute," was started. This school taught the boys and girls of Calabar many trades. Mary was slow in getting well. She and Janie, the black girl she had brought with her, went to the southern part of England, where the climate was milder. It was hoped that the sea breezes and the mild climate would bring back her health. Days and weeks went by. Little by little Mary got better. The year 1891 came to an end. The bells rang in the New Year. "Soon we can go back to dear Calabar," said Mary. "Oh, how I want to get back and tell more people there about the Lord Jesus." In February, 1892, Mary and Janie sailed for Calabar. What new adventures awaited them in Africa? "Welcome home, Ma, welcome," shouted the people of Okoyong. "God bless you. Praise the Lord for sending you back to us!" When Mary came back to Okoyong, things were much different from what they had been the first time she came. Now there was a fine mission house. Churches and schoolhouses had been built in many of the villages. The people were slowly but surely turning away from their heathen customs. Formerly no chief ever died without the sacrifice of many human lives, but this was not done any more. One of the chiefs said, "Ma, you white people are God Almighty. No other power could have done this." There were still many chiefs who liked to go to war and to fight with other tribes. But Mary had friends who would tell her of the plans of these chiefs. She would have to go to them and persuade them not to fight. One of Mary's dearest friends was Ma Eme. When she would hear of trouble, she would send a messenger to Mary with a medicine bottle. This would mean, "Be ready for trouble." Mary was so good at settling the arguments between the chiefs that the British government made her a vice-consul. This was something like a governor and judge. The jungle people would not let the white men come and make new laws or settle their arguments, but they did listen to Mary. She was a very fair and honest judge. The people loved and obeyed her. But life was not easy. Not all the natives were Christians. Even those who were, were not always good Christians but would sometimes slip back into the old heathen ways. Then it was hard for Mary and her helpers to get to the different places. There were no easy roads through the jungles, and wild animals were always there ready to kill the careless traveler. Mary received many gifts both from the natives and from her friends in England and Scotland. One of the gifts she loved the best was a little steamboat, which the natives called "smoking canoe." The boys and girls in Scotland had given the money to buy this boat. But Mary was not satisfied. She did not want to take life easy. As soon as she had built a church and the people were beginning to become civilized, she wanted to move on to wilder places. "I want to start new work," said Mary. "Let those who are younger and who have not been in this work as long as I have, take the places where the work has been begun." Many of Mary's friends among the natives had gone to Akpap, which was a village south of Ekenge. This village was about six miles from the Cross River. It was a large trading center. Many heathen came to this village to trade their goods for other things they wanted. Mary wrote to the Mission Board and asked them to let her begin work in this new place. "We cannot at this time let you start work at Akpap," wrote the Mission Board. "To start there we would have to build a mission house, and we do not have the money for that. Besides the nearest landing place is Ikunetu. This is six miles from Akpap. The forests are wild and hard to get through. We believe you should continue the work at Ekenge." Mary wrote again and again, trying to persuade the Board to let her start work at Akpap. At last the Mission Board agreed to let her start work there. They promised to build a mission house and a boathouse for her steamboat. Mary did not wait for the house to be built. In 1896 she built a two-room native shed. Here she began her work. The house was not as good as the first house she built in Ekenge. This did not bother Mary. She was more concerned about bringing the Gospel to the heathen. The work here was like that in Ekenge. The chiefs came with the troubles they were having in their tribes. They wanted her advice. The people came with their family problems and wanted her to tell them what to do. There were many heathen people who came from the jungle to visit her. Mary taught her classes. She conducted Sunday services. She was busy all the time. Then one day the smallpox sickness broke out. "You must all be vaccinated," said Mary to the natives. "I will scratch your arm with this medicine and the smallpox will stay away from you." Hour after hour, far into the night, day after day, Mary vaccinated the natives. When her medicine ran out, she took blood from the arms of those who had been vaccinated to use as vaccination medicine. One day a man came running to the house where Mary was living in Akpap. He had run a long way. He was scratched up and sweating. He had run through the jungle without stopping. "Ma, Ma," he cried, "the smallpox sickness has come to Ekenge. Chief Ekponyong and Chief Edem are sick and many, many more. Come quick, oh, come to Ekenge or we shall all die." "I will come with you at once," said Mary to the messenger from Ekenge. "I will help your people fight the smallpox sickness." Mary went back to Ekenge. The smallpox sickness was very bad. Nearly the whole village was sick. "We must have a hospital," said Mary. "I know what we will do. We will make my house here a hospital." Soon the house was filled to overflowing with sick people. She had to be doctor, nurse, and undertaker. Many of her close friends died. Chief Ekponyong, who at first had worked against Mary and then had become her friend, died. Chief Edem, the chief of Ekenge, was very sick. The tired missionary did everything she could to save the old heathen's life. But one dark night he died. Mary was all alone. Mary made a coffin for the chief. She put his body in it. Then she dug a grave. She dragged the coffin to the grave and buried it. Completely tired out she dragged herself back to Akpap. Just at this time Mr. Ovens and another missionary came up from Duke Town. They came to Mary's hut at Akpap. All was still and quiet. Mr. Ovens looked at the other missionary. "Something is wrong," he said. He knocked loudly at the door. He knocked and knocked again. Finally Mary awoke and opened the door. The missionaries saw how tired and sick she looked. "What is wrong?" asked Ovens. Mary told them about the sickness at Ekenge. She told them of what she had done. "I don't see how you could have done that work alone," said Mr. Ovens. "Won't you go and bury the rest of the dead?" asked Mary. "I was just too tired to do it." "Yes, we will," said Mr. Ovens. The two missionaries went to Ekenge. There they found the mission house filled with dead bodies. They buried these people and preached to those who were still living about the Saviour. Mary was weak and sick, but she kept right on working. In one of her letters to a friend she tells about some of her work: Four are at my feet listening. Five boys outside are getting a reading lesson from Janie. A man is lying on the ground who has run away from his master, and is staying with me for safety until I get him forgiven. An old chief is here with a girl who has a bad sore on her arm. A woman is begging me to help her get her husband to treat her better. Three people are here for vaccination. Every evening she would have family worship. Mary sat on the mud floor in one of the shed rooms. In front of her in a half-circle were the many children she had adopted and was taking care of. Behind them were the baskets holding the twin babies she had recently rescued. The light from a little lamp shone on the bright faces. Mary read slowly from the Bible. Then she explained the Bible reading to the children and prayed. Then she sang a song in the native language. The tune was a Scottish melody and as she sang she kept time with a tamborine. If any of the children did not pay attention, Mary would lean forward and tap his head with the tamborine. Mary did not get her strength back. She was not well. The mission committee at Calabar decided that even though they had no worker to take her place, she must go home on a vacation which was long overdue. "But who will take care of the work at Akpap?" asked Mary. "Mr. Ovens, the carpenter, who is building the mission house at Akpap, can do the work until we find someone to take your place," answered the chairman of the committee. "But what shall I do with my many black children? I don't want them to go back to heathen ways of living while I am gone. I don't like to ask the other mission workers to take care of them for me." "Don't worry, Mary. We will find places for them." Places were found for all the adopted children except the four black children whom she planned to take along with her. These were Janie, who was now sixteen years old, Mary was five, Alice three, and Maggie was only eighteen months old. Now Mary had to find ways of clothing the children. The rags they wore in the jungle would not do for the trip to Scotland. Mary took her trouble to the Lord, and He wonderfully answered her prayer. When she reached Duke Town, she found that a missionary box had just come, and it had just the things she needed. Mary took her children on board the big ship. It was the biggest "canoe" that any of the children except Janie had ever seen. "We're on our way to bonny Scotland," said Mary. #11# _Clouds and Sunshine_ "The other missionaries at Calabar," said Mary, "work as hard, if not harder, than I do. We need more workers to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ for your lost black brothers and sisters. They have souls just as you do. Jesus loves them just as He does you. We must tell them of His love. I would like to go farther inland to people who have never heard the Gospel and make a home among the cannibals." Mary was giving a talk at one of the churches. As soon as she was well enough to make speeches, many of the churches wanted to hear her. The people were very much interested in the black children she had adopted and brought with her. Many of them had never seen black people before. Mary had some trouble speaking in English. For many years now she had been speaking almost all the time in the African language. It was sometimes hard for her to say the right English words, but the Holy Spirit helped her, and the people remembered her talks and gave generously for the work in Africa.. Late in the year 1898 Mary and the black children got on the big "canoe" and sailed back to Africa. They spent a happy Christmas on the ship. Once more strong and well, Mary went back to work in Akpap. She taught the children and grownups. She healed the sick. She visited in the bush and in the jungle. During this time Mary had the joy of seeing six young men become Christians. These young men she trained and sent to the neighboring villages as Gospel workers. She had hoped for more helpers, but was grateful that God had given her these. More and more of the jungle people heard about her. Bushmen traveled hundreds of miles to see the white Ma who told them about Jesus. Mary used every chance she had to tell the Gospel to heathen who had never heard it. The stories the visiting people told about their lands and the inland tribes filled Mary with the desire to explore other parts of the country. Often in the mission boat or in a canoe she traveled to villages farther away. On one trip the canoe in which Mary was riding was attacked by a hippopotamus. Mary thought her end had come. Nevertheless, she bravely fought off the animal, using metal cooking pots and pans as weapons. In the southern part of Nigeria was a strong, wild tribe called the Aros. They were a proud but wicked people. They made war on peaceful tribes. They would steal people from peaceful villages and make them slaves. They prayed to the Devil, and they killed people as human sacrifices to please their idols. They were cannibals who ate people. The government decided to make this tribe stop doing these bad things. A small band of soldiers was sent against this tribe to make them obey. This made Mary sad. She knew that sending soldiers to fight against these people would not change them. She knew that only the Gospel could change the black men's hearts. She wished she could go to this tribe with the Gospel of Jesus, but the government said no. The government officers feared there might be a tribal war which would even come to Okoyong. They decided that Mary would be safer in Creek Town than Akpap. Sadly Mary left her friends and spent three months in Creek Town. Her Okoyong friends did not forget her. They came often to visit her and brought her gifts. They also brought their quarrels to her to settle. They called her their queen. Finally, Mary was allowed to go back to Akpap. Three years went by. It was now fifteen years since Mary had first come to Okoyong. On the anniversary of the day that she came a celebration was held. Seven young men whom Mary had won for Christ were baptized. The Rev. W.T. Weir, a missionary from Creek Town, helped in organizing the first Okoyong Christian Church. The following Sunday the church was filled to overflowing. Mary presented eleven children for baptism. The Lord's Supper was served for the first time to natives and white workers who had accepted Christ as their Saviour. After songs had been sung and speeches made by others, Mary got up to speak. "You must build a church large enough to take care of all who come to hear God's Word. Okoyong now looks to you who have accepted Christ as your Saviour and who have joined the church for proof of the power of the Gospel, more than it looks to me. I am very happy over all that has been done these past fifteen years, but it is God who did it. To Him belongs all the glory. Mission houses, schools, and a church have been built. Wicked heathen customs have been stopped. Chiefs have quit fighting, and women are much better off than they were when I came. Let us praise God for this and let us go on and do greater things. The Lord will help us and will bless our work." Mary was happy the way the work was going, but she was not satisfied. She wanted to go to other places. "This cannibal land of deep darkness with woods of spooky mystery is like a magnet," said Mary Slessor. "It draws me on and on." "Where is this country where you want to work?" asked Miss Wright, one of the teachers at the Girls' Institute at Calabar. "It lies to the west of the Cross River. It stretches for miles and miles toward the Niger River." "Haven't any missionaries been there?" "None have gone into the forest. Missionaries and traders have gone along the edge of it when they went up the Cross River." "What tribes live in this dark and mysterious country?" asked Miss Wright. "The Ibo tribe lives in most of the country, but they are ruled by the Aros clan," said Mary. "Who are they? Tell me something about them, Mary. I know so little about the tribes, except those who come to Calabar or send their girls to our Institute." "The Aros clan are a wise but tricky people. They live in thirty villages near the district of Arochuku, where I would like to begin a mission. They are strong and rule the Ibo tribe because of their trade and religion. They trade slaves, which their religion furnishes. When they cannot get enough slaves that way, they raid Ibo villages and capture the people who live there and sell them." "You say their religion furnishes them with slaves? How is that possible?" "The Ibo tribe and the Aros pray to the juju god. They believe the juju god lives in a tree. They think this tree is holy. Each village has its own god and sacred tree, but the main juju used to be about a mile from Arochuku." "But you haven't told me about the slaves," interrupted Miss Wright. "I am just coming to that," said Mary. "This main juju, called the Long Juju, was reached by a winding road that goes through a dense jungle and leads at last to a lake. In the center of the lake is an island on which was the Long Juju. Here hundreds of people came to ask advice from the priests and to worship. When the people came here, the Aros clan had captured them. Then they were either sold as slaves, sacrificed to juju, or eaten by the tribe." "How terrible!" "The Aros are tricky. One of their tricks, was to throw some of the people they captured into the water. The water at once turned red. The priests would tell the people that juju had eaten the men. The people believed it, but really the red was only coloring the priests had thrown into the river." "Is the juju still there?" asked Miss Wright. "No. The British soldiers went over the Cross River. They had a battle with the natives and beat them. They captured Arochuku. Then they chopped down the Long Juju. But of course the natives still have their village jujus. They still do many wicked things." "And you want to work among those terrible people?" "Yes, don't you think they have a great need for the Gospel?" "Oh, they do! But I would not have the courage to work among them." "I have no courage," said Mary, "except what God gives me." "Tell me, Mary, have you gone into that country at all?" "I have made some short exploration trips. I told the traders to tell the chiefs that some day I would come to their country to live, but their only answer was, 'It is not safe.' That is what the people told me when I wanted to go to Okoyong. I trust in my heavenly Father and I am not afraid of the cannibals no matter how fierce and cruel they may be." "But Mary, did you know that when a chief died recently, fifty or more people were eaten at the funeral ceremonies, and twenty-five others had their heads cut off and were buried with the chief?" "Yes, I heard that. But things were almost as bad when I came to Okoyong. God blessed my work, and He can protect me in this strange new land of the cannibals. I do hope the Mission Board will let me go and work among the Aros and Ibos." The missionaries in Calabar wanted Mary to work at Ikorofiong and at Unwana, which were two towns farther up the Cross River from Akpap. But Mary did not think these were good places for her work. She wanted to be where she could reach the most people. She wanted to work at Arochuku, the chief city of Aros which was also near the Efik, Ibo and Ibibio tribes. She wanted to open her first station at Itu, which was on the mouth of Enyong creek, her second station at Arochuku and a third at Bende. The missionaries at Calabar did not agree, but they decided to wait until a worker could be found to take Mary's place at Akpap. Mary would not reave these people until they could be taken care of by Christian workers. "Send a minister to take care of a station. I cannot build up a church the way a minister can," said Mary. It looked as though Mary would not get to go to the land of Aros. Then Miss Wright, the teacher from the Girls' Institute, asked to be sent to Akpap as an assistant. This request was sent to Scotland for the Board to approve. Mary now decided to start work at once. In January, 1903, with two boys, Esien and Efiiom, and a girl, Mana, whom she had carefully trained, she loaded her canoe with food and other supplies and set off for the land of the cruel cannibals. They did not know how the people there would treat them, but they trusted in God to take care of them and help them in their work. Mary found a house for them. "I am leaving you here," said Mary to the three natives, "to begin a school and hold church services for the people of Itu. I must go back to Akpap but I will come again as soon as I can." But Mary had to stay at Akpap longer than she expected. At last she was able to come again to Itu and to visit the school and the church services. "You have done wonderfully well," she told the three workers. "God has blessed your work. My heart was filled with joy when I saw so many people, young and old, at the services. And your school is filled with people who want to learn book and learn the will of God. Now we must build a church and a schoolhouse." Mary began mixing the mud and doing the other work that was necessary for building a building in Africa. The native workers and the people of Itu helped her gladly. It did not take long with many willing hands to build a church and school. Two rooms were added to the church building. "These two rooms are for you, Ma," the people said. "You must have a place to stay when you come to us." After the church and school were built, Mary went back to Akpap. Here she heard good news. "The Board in Scotland has given me permission to be your assistant at Akpap," said Miss Wright. "Wonderful!" said Mary. "Now I can spend more time at Itu and more time in the jungle." On a beautiful morning in June, 1903, Mary packed her clothes and supplies and marched the six miles down to the landing beach at Ikunetu. Here she waited for the government boat which would take her to Itu. She waited and waited. At last she found one of the natives and asked, "Where is the government boat? Is it late?" "No, Ma, it long time gone." So Mary had to walk back six miles through the jungle to the mission house at Akpap. "Why, Mary," said Miss Wright, "what are you doing here? I thought that by this time you would be traveling on the government boat to Itu." "I am in God's hands," said Mary, "and He did not mean for me to travel today. I have been kept back for some good purpose." The next week when she again made the trip to board the boat, Colonel Montanaro who commanded the government soldiers in that part of the country, was on the boat. "I will be happy to have you travel with me and my soldiers," said the colonel. "You will be safer that way. I am going to Arochuku." "That is just what I would like to do," said Mary. "Now I see why God did not let me travel last week. I have been wanting for a long time to visit the chief city of the Aros. I want to see more about this juju religion." Some time before, the government had sent soldiers into the country to make the chiefs stop the juju worship. The chiefs had promised to stop it, but it still went on secretly. After reaching Arochuku, Mary followed the jungle paths over which the slaves had been made to walk for hundreds of years. She came to the place of the Long Juju. There Mary saw the human skulls, the bones and the pots in which the bodies had been cooked. Mary shivered when she thought of the cannibal feasts. Mary thought the people might be against her, but instead they welcomed her. They had heard about the good things she had done in the jungle. "O God," prayed Mary, "I want to bring the Gospel to these man-eaters for whom Christ died. Please, dear God, make the home church and the Mission Board see the great need here so that they will let me win this part of the country for Christ." Mary promised the people of Arochuku she would come again and open a school. Then she returned to Akpap and wrote the Mission Board for permission to open a station at Arochuku. Soon the answer came back! We are sorry, but it will be impossible at this time to open work at Arochuku. We do not have the money or the workers. #12# _Among the Cannibals_ "The mission Board says that they cannot open a mission station at Arochuku now," said Mary. "I have asked God to give me a mission station where His Gospel can be preached to the Aros. I trust in Christ who is able to do more than I am able to ask or think. I know God will give me what I have asked." "What are you going to do now?" asked Miss Wright. "I am going to do what I believe God wants me to do. I am going to take some native Christians and make a beginning in the land of the Aros." Mary took some native boys whom she had trained. They were able to help with school-work and church services. Mary and the boys went to Amasu, a little village which was nearer the creek than Arochuku. Here she opened a school. It was soon filled with boys and girls thirsty for book and the loving God. She held church services for the people, and many of them came to hear the white Ma teach about Jesus. At last it was time for Mary to go back to Akpap. She left the native Christians to carry on the work of the school and church. The people of the village gathered around her. They said, "Come again soon, white Ma. If you do not care for us, who will care for us?" As Mary went down the river in her canoe, she thanked God that He had let her open this new field to the Gospel. Suddenly there was a canoe barring her way. In it was a tall native. "I have been waiting for you. My master at Akani Obio sent me to stop you and bring you to his house." Mary told her rowers to follow the native to his master's place. Soon they came to a trading place. Here Mary was greeted by a handsome young man. "I am Onoyom Iya Nya, the president of the court and the chief of this district. This is my wife. Won't you please honor us by coming into our house?" Onoyom and his wife led Mary to a European-type house, which was very nicely furnished. Onoyom's wife invited Mary to have some food with them. While they ate, Onoyom talked. "Many times I have sent my servants to find you," said Onoyom, "but they never found you until today. I am happy that you have come." "But why did you seek me? Why did you want me to come to you?" asked Mary. "When I was a boy," said Onoyom, "I served as a guide to a missionary. He told me the Gospel story. I wanted Jesus for my Saviour. But my tribe beat me and punished me in other ways until I gave up the white man's religion and followed the juju religion of the tribe. I took part in Arochuku feasts where we ate 'long pig,' that is, men and women." "But why do you want to talk to me?" asked Mary. "I never forgot what the missionary told me about Christ. Later I had troubles and sickness. I tried witchcraft to find the person who placed the troubles and sickness on me. Instead, I met a white man. He said to me, 'How do you know it is not the God of the white man who is angry with you? He is all-powerful.' I said, 'How can I find this God?' I hoped he would tell me, but he said, 'I am not worthy to tell you. Find the white Ma who goes to Itu and she will tell you.' O Ma, please tell us about your God." Tears of joy ran down Mary's cheeks. Onoyom called all the members of his family and the servants together. Mary told them of Jesus and His power to save them. She read from the Bible, prayed with the people, and promised to come back again on her next trip. "I will build a church for you," said Chief Onoyom. "I have money. I will give $1,500 for a mission house and school." As Mary rode down the Enyong creek she thought of the new missionary work that was opening up. "O God," she prayed, "I thank You for the new places at Itu and Amasu. I thank You for the chance to build a church at Akani Obio. Please let me open a station soon at Arochuku. There with Your blessing I hope to conquer the cannibals for Christ." "I do hope," she said to herself, "that the Board will soon send an ordained minister to take over the Akpap station. I must persuade Miss Wright to go with me to Itu. I am sure God will give her courage to come with me. This Enyong creek region will give us all the work for Christ we can handle and more. We must go forward for Christ." Mary made many trips to Akpap, to Itu and Amasu. She stopped at many little villages and lonely huts along Enyong creek to tell the people about the Saviour who had died also for those with black skins. Often she slept on mud floors. She ate yams and native fruits. God blessed the work at Itu and Amasu. The people of Itu built a church and more than three hundred of them attended the services. At Amasu the school pew fast. The natives were learning to read. The natives at Itu started to build a six-room house at Itu for Mary. It was to be one of the finest homes in which the missionary had ever lived. "I am afraid it is too much work for you," said Mary to the natives. "It is too big." "No, it is not too much." said the people of Itu. "Nothing is too much to do for you. We shall do it." Another time a native woman knelt at Mary's feet. She washed Mary's tired feet in warm water. "You are so kind to me," said Mary thanking her. "I have been so afraid, Ma, that you would think us unworthy of a teacher and take her away," said the woman. "I could not live again in darkness. I pray all the time. I lay my basket down and pray on the road." "That is good," said Mary. "Prayer can do anything. I know. I have tested it. Of course, God does not always answer our prayers the way we want them answered, but He does answer them and in the way that is best for us. Trust God always." One day Mary thought of a new plan she wanted to try out. She had been in the jungle for five years. She was due to get a year's vacation at home in Scotland. Instead of this she asked for something else. She wrote to the Mission Board: I would like to have leave from the mission station at Akpap for six months. This time I would spend traveling between Okoyong and Amasu. I would visit many places which I do not have time to visit now. Already I have seen a church and a mission house built at Itu, and a school and a couple of rooms at Amasu. I have visited several towns at Enyong and have found good enough places to stay. I shall find my own canoe and crew. I shall stay at any one place just as long as I think wise. The members of my family [she meant the twins and slave children and other unwanted children she had adopted] shall help in teaching the beginners in the schools. I plan to live at Itu as my headquarters. I will look after the small schools I have started at Idot and Eki. I will visit and work for Jesus in the towns on both sides of Enyong creek all the way to Amasu. I will live there for a while or travel among the Aros telling them of Jesus. Then I will come back by easy stages to Itu and home. Please send an assistant to help Miss Wright at Akpap, so I will be free to do this new work in the jungle. I would like Miss Wright to help me with some work among the cannibals, in some places, so that I will have more time for pioneer work in the places farther away. Itu should be our main station. We can reach the various tribes best from it. It is the gateway to the Aros and the Ibibios and near many other tribes. That is why it became a slave market. It could be reached so easily. It is only a day's journey from the seaport of the ocean steamers, having waterway all the year round and a good beach front. Itu is a natural place for our upriver and downriver work to come together. Mary was now fifty-six years old. She had suffered much from sickness and from the lack of many things. Now she wanted to go on a "gypsying tour of the jungle," as she called it. This was hard and difficult work. There were many dangers from wild animals and wild people. These tribes she wanted to visit did not know anything about the Saviour, or God's Word, but they did know how to do many wicked things like killing and eating people. Many a younger and stronger person than Mary would be afraid to tackle the job she had planned to do. Mary was not afraid. God had given her the chance to reach the wild cannibals. She was willing to die trying to bring the Gospel to them. "I am willing to go anywhere," said Mary, "provided it be forward among the cannibals." Mary anxiously waited for the answer from the Mission Board giving her permission to work for six months in the cannibal country. The answer did not come and did not come. At last she decided to go on a short trip through that country to encourage the black workers she had sent there. She went to see the Wilkies and Miss Wright. "I am going on a short trip through the cannibal country," said Mary. "I am inviting you to be my guests on this trip. I want you to see what God is doing among the cannibals. Won't you come with me?" "We'll be glad to go with you," said Mr. Wilkie. Mary and her friends first visited Itu, where they met Colonel Montanaro, who had first taken Mary to Itu. Then they went to Akani Obio. Here Chief Onoyom had a big party for them. "Ma, when are you going to come and stay a long time with us?" he asked. "I want you to bring the Gospel to me and to my people." "I hope it will be soon," said Mary. "I am praying every day that the Mission Board will let me work in your country." Mary and her friends now went to Amasu to see the Gospel work that was being done there. Then they visited the villages around Arochuku where the Long Juju was. Then they started back to Akpap. They visited many very small villages on the way back. Everywhere the people said to them, "We want to learn book." They meant they wanted someone to teach them to read the Bible. At last they arrived at Akpap. Here there was the letter from the Mission Board. Mary's hands shook as she opened the long-awaited letter. Would it give her permission to go to cannibal land or would it tell her to come home and take her furlough in the usual way? You may make the jungle trip that you plan, but you will have to pay your own expenses during this time. We do not have any money for that work. Mary was happy. Mary took the little money she had and bought supplies at Duke Town. Then she got her canoe ready. She took a crew of black rowers to row the canoe and a group of the black children she had adopted. "It seems strange to be starting with a family on a gypsy life in a canoe," wrote Mary, "but God will take care of us. Whether I shall find His place for me upriver or whether I shall come back to my own people again, I do not know. He knows and that is enough." At last Mary and her group of travelers came to Itu, which was deep in cannibal land. Mary had started the work here and then left native workers to carry on. Now there were three hundred people in the church. Mary found that the mission house at Itu was not finished. Mary herself mixed the cement for the floor while Janie did the whitewashing. Someone asked Mary how she learned to make cement. "I just stir it like oatmeal, then turn it out smooth with a stick and all the time I keep praying, `Lord, here's the cement. If it is to Your glory, set it,' and it has never gone wrong." Every day Mary made calls and helped to solve the problems of the people of Itu. In the evenings she would hold prayer in the yards of many of the people. Always Mary told the people of the Saviour who died for them. The news that Mary the white Ma was in cannibal land soon spread far and wide. The tom-toms calling through the jungle told the different tribes where Mary was. From Ibibio southward, the natives sent messages to Mary. "Please, Ma," they said, "send us a teacher." "It is not `book' I want," said a chief in his message, "I want God." "We have three in hand for a teacher," said Chief Onoyom of Akani Obio. "Some of the boys have already finished the books Mr. Wilkie gave us. We can do no more until you send us help." Mary spent the night praying to God to send more workers to Africa. "O Britain," said Mary, "filled full of ministers and church workers, but tired of Sunday and of church, I wish that you could send over to us what you are throwing away!" #13# _Blessings Unnumbered_ God blessed Mary's work in cannibal land and more and more people were won for Jesus. Chief Onoyom stayed true to his faith. "Come," he said to his people, "we must build a church here at Akani Obio. Let us go to the jungle and cut down trees for the house of God." Chief Onoyom and his people went to the woods. The chief went to a tree and got ready to cut it down. "Chief," they cried, "you are not going to cut that tree, are you? You know that is the juju tree." "I know it is the juju tree," said Onoyom, "and I am going to chop it down." "The juju will be angry. He will not let us. He will kill us," cried the people. "Ma's God is stronger than our juju," said Chief Onoyom. "Cut it down." The people began to chop. The trunk of the tree was thick. After a while they stopped. "See, we cannot cut it," they said. The heathen natives were glad. "Aha," they said, "our juju is stronger than Ma's God." The next morning Chief Onoyom took some men who wanted to be Christians. Before beginning to chop at the tree they knelt and prayed that the white Ma's God would prove stronger than the juju. Then they got up and began to chop. Soon the tree fell with a mighty crash. Ma's God had won! The juju tree was used for a pulpit and seats in the church building. A large group of people came to the dedication services. They were quiet and well-behaved. What a great change the Gospel had made! Only two years before the people were wild savages. Mary had to hold services at Arochuku out-doors, but now the people built a church and a schoolhouse. At other villages along Enyong creek congregations were organized, and churches and schoolhouses were built. In 1905 Mary had to go to the Mission Council meeting at Calabar. During the meeting Mary was called on to tell about her work. "God has done great things in cannibal land. We have congregations at Itu, Arochuku, Oko, Akani Obio, Odot, Amasu, and Asang. In all of these places churches have been built. In many of them we have built schoolhouses too. Many of the cannibals are being won for Christ. But we need more workers. In all this wide country of the Aros, I am the only white missionary. My six months' leave is almost up. Who will take care of these people who are as dear to God as you or I? Now they are being taken care of by native workers, but these have only little training. Send workers to cannibal land to change these man-eaters into Christians." The Council was thrilled by Mary's report. They voted that she could spend six more months in cannibal land, but again they said she would have to pay her own expenses. This did not bother Mary. She had never been paid, much salary. In the first years she sent most of it back home to take care of her mother and sister. After they had died she used me most of it for her colored Christians. She had adopted many black children whose parents had thrown them out. But money never bothered Mary. She had a little bit saved up. She was happy that she could go to cannibal, land and win souls for Christ. "But where shall I work now?" Mary asked herself. "Shall I keep on working on upper Enyong creek or shall I go south to the Ibibios? The Ibibios are the worst heathen in this part of Africa. The worse the people are, the more they need help. I should go to the Ibibios." Meanwhile the Mission committee in Scotland decided to build a hospital at Itu. Dr. Robertson was to be the head of it. The Mission committee chose a name for the hospital. They named it, "The Mary Slessor Mission Hospital." The people in Scotland gave the money so the hospital could be built. "It seems like a fairy tale," said Mary when she was told about it, "and I don't know just what to say. I can just look up into the blue sky and say, 'Even so, Father; let me live and be worthy of it all.' It is a grand gift and I am so glad for my people." Now that Itu was taken care of, Mary had all the more reason to go south to the Ibibios. In their country the government was building roads and setting up courts. The government people wanted Mary to come to that country too, because she knew so much more about the people and customs in cannibal land. "Get a bicycle, Ma," said one of the government men. "Here is the road. Come as far as you can. And we'll soon have a motorcar for you." Mary started out. She took along one of the boys she had adopted. It was twelve-year-old Etim. He could read and she needed his help. Once more Mary was beginning mission work in a new part of the country where Christians had never been. Mary and Etim went to Ibibio-land. Mary started a school and a small congregation. Etim was made the teacher of the school. He proved to be a very good teacher. Soon he had a class of fifty children. "It is my hope," said Mary, "that Ikotobong will be the first of a chain of stations stretching across the country." Mary went to visit the old chief of Ikotobong. "What do you think of our work here?" "It is good," said the chief. "I am happy you came. There are many things that are strange to me and my people. We do not understand them. I am glad for the light. We will give Etim food as pay for teaching. We will help build a schoolhouse and a church." Mary was happy that the people were willing and anxious to learn. But she wanted to go to a new part of the country and start more places. The government officer at Ikot Expene gave Mary a bicycle. "I think it's God's will that I learn to ride this bicycle. Think of an old lady like me on a bicycle!" said Mary. "The new road makes it easy to ride, and I'm running up and down and taking a new work in a village two miles off. It has done me all the good in the world, and I will soon be able to do even more work." The treatment of the women in Ibibio was very bad. They were treated worse than slaves. The men could do whatever they wanted to do with them. They were often beaten. They were bought and sold like cattle. Mary wanted to help the poor women. "I want to build a home for girls, orphans, twins and their mothers, and those who have run away from harems," said Mary. "I also want to start a school where trades and skills can be taught. All the women know how to farm. They know how to weave baskets and make simple sandals. But I want them to know many more things so that they can take care of themselves. I am going to look for a place with good land and pure water near the roads and the markets. Then I will write to my friends and to the Mission Board for help." Mary's furlough had first been for six months and then was made six months longer. In April, 1906, it came to an end. She was supposed to go back to Akpap, because the Mission Council expected her to settle down in one place and work there. They appointed her to work at Akpap and that is where they expected her to work. "I do not want to settle in one place," said Mary. "God gives me different gifts; I think my gift is to explore and start new congregations. Others are better fitted to take care of them after they are started than I am. God is pushing me onward. I don't dare look backward. Even if my dear church turns against me and will not have me as its missionary, I must go forward. I can find food for myself and the children. That is all I need. God will help me." Mary thought and prayed much over this matter. She thought of starting a store or taking a government job so she could earn money to take care of the missionary work. She wrote a long letter to the Mission Board. She told how God had blessed the work at Itu and the villages on Enyong creek. Then she wrote: In all this how plainly God has been leading me. I did not think of doing these things in my lifetime, but God has led me on. First Itu, and then the Creek, then back from Aro, where I had set my heart, to a lonely, spooky, wilderness. There no one ever went, but now miles of roads are being built. The Board says I am to go back to Akpap in April. I love no other place on earth so well. But I dare not think of leaving the crowds of untamed, unwashed, unlovely savages, and take away the little sunlight that has begun to flicker out over its darkness. I know that I am pretty old for this kind of work. But God will help. Whether the church permits or not, I feel that I must stay here. I must even go farther as the roads are made. I cannot walk now and I must be careful of my health. But I can get four wheels made and set a box on them and the children can pull me. I dare not go back. If the Board insists, I will risk finding some other way to support myself and my family. As April drew closer day by day, Mary anxiously waited for the Mission Board's answer. The Mission Board wrote to Mary: We are sending John Rankin to look over the field where you have been working. After he has made his report we will decide what you should do. Mr. Rankin visited the different places in cannibal land where Mary had started congregations. He talked with the chiefs and the people. One chief talking about Mary and the other women missionaries said, "Them women be the best men for the mission." He wrote to the Board: Close to Arochuku, within a circle of less than three miles in diameter, there are nineteen large towns. I visited sixteen of these. Each of them is larger than Creek Town. Most of the people are anxious to help. Already many of them have begun to live in God's way. Even the head chief of all the Aros wants us to do mission work in his country. He told the other chiefs he is going to rule according to God's way. He wants missionaries to be sent to his people. He offers to build a house at Arochuku for any missionary who will come. The Mission Board was thrilled when they read this report. They agreed to give the money for the work which Mary had planned. They appointed Rankin to take charge of the stations at Itu and Arochuku. They agreed to let Mary go into the new territory. She did not have to go back to Akpap. This made Mary very happy. Now she could work full time among the Ibibios. She offered to pay for the building of a mission station among the Ibibios if there was no money in the homeland treasury. In May the government appointed Mary to take charge of the courts in the Ibibio district as she had done in Okoyong. It paid her for this work so now she had money to carry on her mission work whether the Board paid her or not. Court was held at Ikotobong. Three chiefs and a jury helped Mary in trying the cases, but Mary's word was law. Mary was fair and kind, but at the same time she saw to it that those who did bad things were punished. In a letter to a friend she wrote: God help those poor helpless women. They are treated worse than animals. Today I had a crowd of people. How wicked they were! I have had a murder, a poison bean case, a suicide, a man branding his slave wife all over her face and body, a man with a gun who shot four people. It is all horrible. But her work as judge did not stop her from doing her mission work. Everywhere she went she told the natives of Jesus' death for them. She opened schools and churches for natives. She also was thinking about the other missionaries. She planned a place for them where they could spend weekends or where they could rest when they were getting over sickness. She chose a place half-way between Itu and Ikotobong on Enyong Creek. It was high above the lowlands where most of the sickness was. A friend sent her a check for $100 and Mary used it as a start for this rest home. She had the ground cleared and a small English house built. Although Mary was busy she was not well. During most of 1906 she had been ailing. "If you want to keep on with your missionary work," said the government doctor, "you must go home to Scotland where you can rest up and get the fever out of your system." Mary did not want to leave her work. A few days after her talk with the doctor, when he came to see her again, she was much better. "It looks as if God wants me to stay. Does that sound like He could not do without me! I do not mean it so. How little I can do! But I can at least keep a door open for missionary work so others can come and do more." The year 1907 came. Mary was much worse. She could walk only a few steps. When she wanted to go anywhere, she had to be carried. At last she decided to do as the doctor told her and go to Scotland for a vacation. "Oh, the dear homeland!" she said with tears in her eyes. "Shall I really be there and worship in the churches again? How I long for a look at a winter landscape, to feel the cold wind, and the frost in the cart ruts! How I want to take a back seat in a church and hear the congregation singing, without a care of my own! I want to hear how they preach and pray and rest their souls in the hush and silence of our home churches." Mary took her six-year-old Dan, one of the many children she had adopted. The government officers were kind and helpful to her in getting ready for her trip. "God must repay these men," said Mary, "because I cannot. He will not forget that they did it to a child of His, unworthy though she is." Mary was now a wrinkled, shining-eyed old lady, almost sixty years old. She was carried on board the ship that would take her to Scotland. Her friends, both white and native, cried and wondered if she would ever come back to Africa again. #14# _Journey's End_ "Send us workers for dark Africa," said Mary. "If I can get the Board to send us one or more workers, I will give half my salary to add to theirs. I will give the house for them to live in and find the servants. You who have so much, won't you do something for these poor people of Africa?" Mary was speaking in the churches of Scotland telling about her work in Africa. After she had returned to Scotland, she felt much better. The air and climate was much better than in the steaming jungles of Africa. As soon as she was strong enough, she began to go about telling about her work. She urged the people to give money and to send workers to Africa. Above all, she wanted to get money to support the industrial home for women which she had planned. From May until October she went among the churches telling about the "African sheep" whom the Good Shepherd Jesus wanted brought in. In October Mary asked to be sent back to Africa. She wanted to carry on her work there. "I am foolish, I know," said Mary, "but I just feel homeless without any relatives here in Scotland. I am a poor, lonesome soul with only memories." Back in Africa Mary was busier than ever, holding court, looking after her home, and doing missionary work. On Sundays she held a half-dozen or more services in the nearby villages in which lived the people with whom she worked during the week. On some of these trips she brought back orphan children to join her already "overstuffed" household. But all this work was too much for her. She became sick again and very weak. Now her eyes began to get weak, so that she could not see as well. But nothing could stop her. She started the building of the industrial home for women and girls. She planted fruit trees there and planned to raise rubber and cocoa and cattle. Mary wanted to move again. Some natives had come from Ikpe to see her before she went on her vacation to Scotland. They asked her to bring the Gospel to them. Now they came again. "We have heard of the great white Mother and we want to learn to be God's men," they said. Mary made a two-day canoe trip to their town. Ikpe was a large town with many people in it. But the people were very wicked. They did all the wicked heathen things that were against God's commandments. But there were people in it who wanted to become Christians. They had begun to build a small church building to which they had added two rooms for the missionary. Mary held a service in the church. Many people had gathered to hear for the first time the news of how Jesus saves us. After the end of the service Mary decided that it was God's will for her to move to Ikpe. But she had to arrange for someone to take care of her other work first. When she came home from this trip she was sick again. As soon as she was a little better she busied herself with the women's home. She wanted to get that running well before she left for Ikpe. The natives of Ikpe sent some more of their people to visit her and beg her to come to Ikpe. Whenever she could, she made trips to that village. Often she took other missionaries with her. In November, 1909, she resigned from her court work. The government did not like to lose her because she knew so much about the natives and their customs. But the government knew that Mary's first love was her missionary work. They let her give up her court work and thanked her for all she had done. "Just a few more things to take care of," said Mary, "and I will be ready to start for Ikpe. Those faithful people deserve a worker. They are holding services even though they know very little of Christianity. I must go there. I know God wants it." It was the year 1910 and Mary was sure that now she could begin her work in the new territory that looked so promising. Suddenly Mary became very, very ill. The government sent its official automobile to take her to the Mary Slessor Hospital at Itu. Did God want Mary to work at Ikpe? Or would someone else preach the Gospel there? For many weeks Mary lay sick in the hospital at Itu. At last she was much better. "You must go to Duke Town for a longer rest," said the doctor. "But, Doctor," said Mary, "I have my work to do, I cannot spend my time lying in bed." "If you are unwilling to rest at Duke Town, I shall have to send you to Scotland on a long vacation." "Very well," sighed Mary, "I will go to Duke Town." The next day the government sent its boat, the "Maple Leaf," to take Mary down the river to Duke Town. Here she spent many weeks resting and gaining her strength. At last the doctor agreed that she could go back to her work at Ikotobong. Once more the government sent its boat to take her back to her mission station. "I want to go to Ikpe soon," said Mary, "but first I want to establish a station at Ikot Expene and at other places along the way." Whenever she felt strong enough, she rode her bicycle through the jungle to Ikot Expene choosing places for schools and churches along the way, talking to chiefs, and getting the things ready for more places where the Gospel could be preached. The people at Ikpe were holding services even though they knew very little about Christianity. "Soon the white Ma will come," they said. "She will tell us more about Jesus." A native teacher from another station, who had received training from Mary, taught the people what he knew about the Gospel. "Oh, why cannot the church send two workers to Ikpe?" said Mary. "Why don't they use the money on hand for that? If there isn't enough money left after two years, let them take my salary. I shall be only too glad to live on native food with my children." Mary was busy collecting building materials and other things for the church of Ikpe. At last the time came. God wanted Mary at Ikpe. How happy Mary was! How happy were the faithful people at Ikpe who had waited so long! Mary at once was busy with much work. She quieted mobs, she calmed quarreling chiefs, she held meetings with the crowds, and on Sundays conducted services. One day the smallpox broke out. The government sent down men to vaccinate the natives so the sickness would not spread. Mary heard shouting and yelling in the streets. She looked out of her house. The natives were yelling and shouting and waving guns and swords. Mary went up to the crowd. "What is this?" asked Mary. The crowd kept yelling. "Be quiet," shouted Mary and held out her hands. "Let your chief speak." "Ma," said the chief, "my people are afraid of the white man's juju. It makes the people sick." He meant the vaccination. "The vaccination may make a little sickness, but it keeps you from getting the big sickness," said Mary. Then she told them how vaccination had helped other tribes. She showed them her vaccination. After a long talk with the chiefs and the people the matter was peaceably settled. Mary wanted to keep in touch with her former headquarters at Ikotobong. She made many canoe trips back and forth. These trips were very hard on her and she did not rest well. Many people wondered how Mary could keep on working, but she trusted God who made her strong to carry on. During 1911 a tornado struck Mary's house at Use, one of the stations. She fixed the house herself. During this she strained herself and had a heart attack which was followed by a severe fever. Sometimes the fever was so great she was delirious. But still she would not stop working. She continued to teach school and hold worship services on Sunday. Dr. Hitchcock of the Slessor Hospital came to see her every week. "You must not go to Ikpe again," he said. "You must not ride your bicycle. You must spend more time resting." But Mary disobeyed the doctor and held services the following Sunday. It was too much for her. She almost fainted before the service was over. "You must stay in bed," said Dr. Hitchcock, "until you are well enough to get up." "All right, doctor," said Mary. "And you must eat meat twice a day," said the doctor. "But I'm not a meat-eater," answered Mary. "You're going to be, or I will send you to Duke Town for a long rest." Mary laughed. "I've all my plans made and I must not draw a salary without doing something for it." At last the doctor sent her to the Slessor Hospital for a rest. Because of her hard work, she had a bad fever sickness. Now Mary saw that she was foolish in not listening to the doctor. "Life is hardly worth living," she said, "but I am doing what I can to help the doctor to help me, so I can be fit again for another spell of work." The Christians at Ikpe sent some men to see Mary to ask her when she would be back. "Seven weeks," said Dr. Hitchcock. "I may run up sooner than that," said Mary. "I'm very well if the doctor would only believe it." Near the end of 1911 Mary was allowed to leave the hospital. She hurried to her friends at Ikpe. But Mary still was not very strong. Her friends in Calabar and in Scotland urged her to take a long-earned furlough. While thinking about this, Mary decided to have a box on wheels made so that she could get around since the doctor would not let her use her bicycle. Some friends heard about this and they sent her a light cart which could be wheeled by two boys or girls. "Now I don't need a furlough," said Mary. "Instead of going home as I had planned, I shall stay here and enjoy going over ground in my cart that I couldn't get over otherwise." A new government road was being built between Ikpe and Ikot Expene. Mary wanted to start schools and churches all along this road. But she was not strong enough to carry out her idea. Her heart was very weak now and she had to rest often. If there had been someone to take her place, she would have gone home for a rest. Mary wrote to a friend: We were never so shorthanded, and I can do what others cannot, what indeed, doctors would not allow them to try. No one meddles with me and I slip along and do my work using less strength than many would have to use. Mary knew if she took a furlough her work at Ikpe and the other stations would stop because there was no one to take her place. This she did not want to happen. She worked on through the summer of 1912. In September she completed thirty-six years as a missionary in Africa. "I'm lame and feeble and foolish," said Mary, "but I grip on well." Her friends were very much worried about her health. It was suggested that she be sent on an expense-paid trip to the Canary Islands. There the climate was milder than it would have been in Scotland during the winter. She was glad to go. Mary wrote: What love is wrapped around me! It is simply wonderful. I can't say anything else. Oh, if I only get another day to work. I hope it will be fuller of earnestness and blessing than the past. This vacation was a real blessing to Mary. The fevers left her. With no committee meetings, no court cases or other problems to worry about, she grew stronger very quickly. It was not many months before she was back at Duke Town. The doctor gave her an examination. "You're as sound as an elephant's ivory tusk," said the doctor. "You are good for many years, if you will only take care." Mary did not like that. She had never been willing to sit and twiddle her thumbs. Now her mind was full of new plans for more work. She wanted to get busy with her work for the Lord. For the next two years Mary worked hard at Use and Ikpe. She traveled between these two places, sometimes in a canoe, sometimes in the government boat, but mostly in her two-wheeled cart. There was still much to do. She was still fighting the juju worship, the sinful practice of eating people and the murdering of twins. Eight years had gone by since Mary had left Akpap. A new church was being finished and the missionaries who now worked there invited Mary to attend the dedication service. Mary wanted to see the dear friends she had loved for years. She decided to go and take her adopted children with her. From all over Okoyong the people had come to see their Ma, their White Queen. Ma Eme, the missionary's old friend, was there. When they met tears filled their eyes, they were so happy to see one another again. But Mary was sad, too, because Ma Eme had never openly accepted Christianity. Speaking of Ma Eme, Mary said, "My dear and old friend and almost sister, she made the saving of life so often possible in the early days. It is sad that she would not come out for Christ. She could have been the honored leader of God's work. Hers is a foolish choice. And yet God cannot forget all she was to me and how she helped me in those dark and bloody days." Hundreds of people crowded into the new church at Akpap. Mary remembered the wild parties and drunken fights of the first days of her work among the people. How they were changed! How God had changed them through His Gospel! It was wonderful! Mary thanked God for His wonderful blessings. Shortly after her trip to Akpap, Mary was honored by the king of Great Britain. She was chosen by him to be a member of the order of St. John of Jerusalem. This was an honor given only to English Christians who had done great things for God. The government people of Calabar decided that they must have a public celebration of this great honor. They sent the government boat for Mary. The little old missionary, now nearly sixty-five, was brought to Duke Town. Here a great crowd filled the biggest hall in town. The governor made a speech and pinned the cross on Mary's left shoulder. During the speech Mary sat with her head in her hands. When it came time for her to speak, she found it hard to talk. Turning to the boys and girls who were in the hall she said, "Be faithful to the government. Be Christians. Be friends of the mission and be followers of Jesus." Later she wrote to her friends in Scotland: Don't think there is any change in me because I received this honor. I am Mary Slessor, nothing more and none other than the unworthy, unprofitable but most willing servant of the King of kings. The only change the honor made in Mary was that she worked harder than ever. A government road was opened to Odoro Ikpe. Mary at once started a mission there and reached out into the small jungle settlements. There she talked with the chiefs and the natives. At last she won their consent to build schools and churches. They gave her the land to do this. Now she was beginning all over in a new territory. She had the same hard work, the same troubles, the same heathen customs to fight. But Mary was glad to do it. She thanked God for the chance to bring the Gospel to people who had never heard about it. Mary saw to it that a house was built and then began teaching in the school, holding services, settling quarrels, winning souls for Jesus. In August, 1914, rumors reached her that Europe was rushing into war. This made her feel sick. She knew that this war would not only bring suffering, horror, and death to many of her dear friends, but it would also hinder the work in Calabar. Several months went by. The mail came. Mary opened the newspaper. There she read the headlines: Russia declares war! France declares war! England declares war! Mary fainted. The trouble and excitement were too much for her. For two weeks more she carried on her work but it was too much for her. She became weaker and weaker. On Sunday, January 10, 1915, she held her usual church service. After the church meeting she fainted. Dr. Robertson arrived from the Slessor Hospital at Itu. He was able to bring her to, but on January 12 she found it almost impossible to talk. Her last words were a prayer in the African language called Efik. "O Abasi, sana mi yok," said Mary. "O God, release me!" Janie, the first twin Mary had saved, was now a beautiful black woman. She and other children Mary had saved and adopted were watching beside Mary's bed through the night. A rooster crowed. "Day must be dawning," said one of the girls. Day was dawning for Mary, God's eternal day. She slipped away from the earth to be with her Saviour in Heaven. "Our Mother is dead, and we shall be slaves now that our Mother is dead," cried the natives. The news that the white Ma was dead spread rapidly. Natives came from all over the country to see the woman they loved. Mary's body was taken to Itu where services were held. Then it was taken to Duke Town. Here another service was held. Then the coffin was carried to the beautiful cemetery on Mission Hill. From this place could be seen a large part of the city where Mary had begun her faithful missionary work in Africa. Around her grave the grateful natives gathered and wept for her who had wept and prayed over them. "Do not cry, do not cry," said old Ma Fuller, Mary's native friend through the years. "Praise God for His blessings. Ma was a great blessing." First the Africans called her "the white Ma who lives alone." Then they called her "the Ma who loves babies." But lastly they called her "#eka kpukpru owo#," "everybody's Mother." THE END Books on Women Missionaries * * * * * WHITE QUEEN OF THE CANNIBALS The Story of Mary Slessor By A.J. Bueltmann When Mary was young, she heard her mother read about the dangers and rewards of missionary work in Calabar, Africa. This challenged Mary Slessor's young heart and she determined to serve her Lord there. _White Queen of the Cannibals_ records her courage as a missionary to the worst of pagans. The story is simply told that it might inspire children to Christian service. NOT ALONE By Eunice V. Pike Many hundreds of languages in the world today have never been reduced to writing. Uncounted thousands of people cannot read God's Word. The work of Wycliffe Bible Translators is to master the language of a tribe, reduce it to writing, and then teach the people to read the Scriptures--in their own tongue. Eunice Pike recounts her years spent with the Mazatec Indians in Mexico, giving them God's Word. CLIMBING By Rosalind Goforth After returning home from many years of missionary service in China, Rosalind Goforth reflects on those incidents that most affected her life for Christ. Written to display the mercy of the Lord and "to help others face life's hard problems," the author recalls her experiences from childhood to retirement--a life of constant _climbing_. 
23992	----	None 
23271	----	Sunk at Sea, by R.M. Ballantyne. ________________________________________________________________________ This story starts with the childhood of one of Ballantyne's perpetual heroes, Will Osten. Will would love to have a career at sea, but his father, a very successful businessman, thinks otherwise, so eventually Will agrees to study medicine. However, before his studies are over he decides that he really _must_ go to sea, and he joins a friend of his, Captain Dall, on his ship. They travel to the Pacific, where they encounter some very heavy weather as a result of which a plank is started in the ship's hull, and she starts to sink. All attempts to find and stop the leak fail, and she does indeed sink, with the crew taking to the boats. Eventually they reach a small coral island, but they have not been there long before a visiting native war-canoe perceives them and takes them to another much larger island, where preparations are made to kill and eat them. Luckily there is an old white man there who has long been accepted by the natives and who gets our heroes and his friends off this rather dire treatment, but was too late for some of the crew. A visiting sandalwood trader, who does not wish to pay for the cargo he has taken on board, fires on the natives, causing our heroes to flee for their lives. A hunt is set up for them. Luckily a missionary ship comes in a few days later, and manages to restore peace. Our heroes return to the village. A mission is set up, and a small church, complete with a spire, is built. Another vessel calls for water, and would have opened fire, just for spite, but they see the spire and restrain themselves. Our heroes persuade the captain to take them on board. Will has fallen in love with the missionary's daughter, but nevertheless joins the party leaving for the ship, the "Rover". For the sequel see "Lost in the Forest". ________________________________________________________________________ SUNK AT SEA, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE. CHAPTER ONE. TREATS OF OUR HERO'S EARLY LIFE, AND TOUCHES ON DOMESTIC MATTERS. William Osten was a wanderer by nature. He was born with a thirst for adventure that nothing could quench, and with a desire to rove that nothing could subdue. Even in babyhood, when his limbs were fat and feeble, and his visage was round and red, he displayed his tendency to wander in ways and under circumstances that other babies never dreamt of. He kept his poor mother in a chronic fever of alarm, and all but broke the heart of his nurse, long before he could walk, by making his escape from the nursery over and over again, on his hands and knees; which latter bore constant marks of being compelled to do the duty of feet in dirty places. Baby Will never cried. To have heard him yell would have rejoiced the hearts of mother and nurse, for that would have assured them of his being near at hand and out of mischief--at least not engaged in more than ordinary mischief. But Baby Will was a natural philosopher from his birth. He displayed his wisdom by holding his peace at all times, except when very hard pressed by hunger or pain, and appeared to regard life in general in a grave, earnest, inquiring spirit. Nevertheless, we would not have it understood that Will was a slow, phlegmatic baby. By no means. His silence was deep, his gravity profound, and his earnestness intense, so that, as a rule, his existence was unobtrusive. But his energy was tremendous. What he undertook to do he usually did with all his might and main--whether it was the rending of his pinafore or the smashing of his drum! We have said that he seldom or never cried, but he sometimes laughed, and that not unfrequently; and when he did so you could not choose but hear, for his whole soul gushed out in his laugh, which was rich, racy, and riotous. He usually lay down and rolled when he laughed, being quite incapable of standing to do it--at least during the early period of babyhood. But Will would not laugh at everything. You could not make him laugh by cooing and smirking and talking nonsense, and otherwise making an ass of yourself before him. Maryann, the nurse, had long tried that in vain, and had almost broken her heart about it. She was always breaking her heart, more or less, about her charge, yet, strange to say, she survived that dreadful operation, and ultimately lived to an extreme old age! "Only think," she was wont to say to Jemima Scrubbins, her bosom friend, the monthly nurse who had attended Will's mother, and whose body was so stiff, thin, and angular, that some of her most intimate friends thought and said she must have been born in her skeleton alone--"Only think, Jemimar, I give it as my morial opinion that that hinfant 'asn't larfed once--no, not once--durin' the last three days, although I've chirruped an' smiled an' made the most smudgin' faces to it, an' heaped all sorts o' blandishments upon it till--. Oh! you can't imagine; but nothink's of any use trying of w'en you can't do it; as my 'usband, as was in the mutton-pie line, said to the doctor the night afore he died--my 'art is quite broken about it, so it is." To which Jemima was wont to reply, with much earnestness--for she was a sympathetic soul, though stiff, thin, and angular--"You don't say so, Maryhann! P'raps it's pains." Whereupon Maryann would deny that pains had anything to do with it, and Jemima would opine that it was, "koorious, to say the least of it." No, as we have said, Baby Will would not laugh at everything. He required to see something really worth laughing at before he would give way, and when he did give way, his eyes invariably disappeared, for his face was too fat to admit of eyes and mouth being open at the same time. This was fortunate, for it prevented him for a little from seeing the object that tickled his fancy, and so gave him time to breathe and recruit for another burst. Had it been otherwise, he would certainly have suffocated himself in infancy, and this, his veracious biography, would have remained unwritten! To creep about the house into dangerous and forbidden places, at the risk of life and limb, was our hero's chief delight in early childhood. To fall out of his cradle and crib, to tumble down stairs, and to bruise his little body until it was black and blue, were among his most ordinary experiences. Such mishaps never drew tears, however, from his large blue eyes. After struggling violently to get over the rail of his crib, and falling heavily on the floor, he was wont to rise with a gasp, and gaze in bewilderment straight before him, as if he were rediscovering the law of gravitation. No phrenologist ever conceived half the number of bumps that were developed on his luckless cranium. We make no apology to the reader for entering thus minutely into the character and experiences of a baby. That baby is the hero of our tale. True, it is as a young man that he is to play his part; but a great philosopher has told us that he always felt constrained to look upon children with respect; and a proverb states that, "the child is the father of the man." Without either pinning our faith to the philosopher or the proverb, we think it both appropriate and interesting to note the budding genius of the wanderer whose footsteps we are about to follow. Baby Will's mother was a gentle and loving, but weak woman. His father, William Horace Osten by name, was a large, hearty, affectionate, but coarse man. He appreciated his wife's gentle, loving nature, but could not understand her weakness. She admired her husband's manly, energetic spirit, but could not understand his roughness. He loved the baby, and resolved to "make a man of him." She loved the baby, and wished to make him a "good boy." In the furtherance of their designs the one tried to make him a lion, the other sought to convert him into a lamb. Which of the two would have succeeded can never be known. It is probable that both would have failed by counteracting each other, as is no uncommon experience when fathers and mothers act separately in such a matter. If the one had succeeded, he would have made him a bear. The other, if successful, would have made him a nincompoop. Fortunately for our hero, a higher power saved him, and, by training him in the school of adversity, made him both a lion and a lamb. The training was very severe and prolonged, however. It was long before the lion would consent to lie down in the same breast with the lamb. Certainly it was not during the season of childhood. The lion appeared to have it all his own way during that interesting epoch, and the father was proportionately gratified, while the mother was dismayed. Boyhood came, and with it an increased desire to rove, and a more fervent thirst for adventure. At school our hero obtained the name that stuck to him through life--"Wandering Will." The seaport town in the west of England in which he dwelt had been explored by him in all its ramifications. There was not a retired court, a dark lane, or a blind alley, with which he was unfamiliar. Every height, crag, cliff, plantation, and moor within ten miles of his father's mansion had been thoroughly explored by Will before he was eight years of age, and his aspiring spirit longed to take a wider flight. "I want to go to sea, father," said he one evening after tea, looking in his father's face with much more of the leonine gaze than the father had bargained for. His training up to that point had been almost too successful! This was not the first time that the boy had stated the same wish; his gaze, therefore, did not quail when his father looked up from his newspaper and said sternly--"Fiddlesticks, boy! hold your tongue." "Father," repeated Will, in a tone that caused Mr Osten to lay down his paper, "I want to go to sea." "Then the sooner you give up the idea the better, for I won't let you." "Father," continued Will, "you remember the proverb that you've often told me has been your motto through life, `Never venture never win?'" "Certainly; you know that I have often urged you to act on that principle at school. Why do you ask the question?" "Because I mean to act on it now, and go to sea," replied Will firmly. "What? without permission, without clothes, and without money; for you shan't have a six-pence from me?" "Yes," replied Will. Mr Osten was one of those stern, despotic men who cannot bear to be thwarted. He was a rich merchant, and almost the king of the little town in which he dwelt. His greatest ambition was to make his only son a thorough man of business. To be spoken to in such a tone by that rebellious son was too much for him. He lost his temper, leaped up, and, seizing Will by the collar, thrust him out of the room. The boy ran to his own bedroom, and, seating himself in front of the dressing-table, hit that piece of furniture with his clenched fist so violently that all its contents leaped up and rattled. "Dear, dear Will," said a gentle voice at his side, while a loving hand fell on his shoulder, "why do you frown so fiercely?" "How can I help it, mother, when he treats me like that? He is harsh and unfair to me." "Not so unfair as you think, dear Will," said his mother. We will not detail the arguments by which the good lady sought to combat her son's desires. Suffice it to say that she succeeded--as only mothers know how--in lulling the lion to sleep at that time, and in awakening the lamb. Wandering Will went back to school with a good grace, and gave up all idea of going to sea. CHAPTER TWO. RECORDS A SUDDEN DEPARTURE, AND MARYANN'S OPINION THEREON. There is a fallacy into which men and women of mature years are apt to fall--namely, that the cares and sorrows of the young are light. How many fathers and mothers there are who reason thus--"Oh, the child will grow out of this folly. 'Tis a mere whim--a youthful fancy, not worthy of respect,"--forgetting or shutting their eyes to the fact, that, light though the whim or fancy may be in their eyes, it has positive weight to those who cherish it, and the thwarting of it is as destructive of peace and joy to the young as the heavier disappointments of life are to themselves. True, the cares and sorrows of the young are light in the sense that they are not usually permanent. Time generally blows them away, while the cares of later years often remain with us to the end. But they are not the less real, heavy, and momentous at the time on that account. Those troubles cannot with propriety be called light which drive so many young men and women to rebellion and to destruction. Well would it have been for Mr Osten if he had treated his son like a rational being, instead of calling him a "young fool," and commanding him to "obey." Will, however, was not an untractable young lion. He went through school and entered college, despite his unconquerable desire to go to sea, in obedience to his father's wishes. Then he resolved to study medicine. Mr Osten regarded the time thus spent as lost, inasmuch as his son might have been better employed in learning "the business" to which he was destined; still he had no great objection to his son taking the degree of MD, so he offered no opposition; but when Will, at the age of eighteen, spoke to him of his intention to take a run to the north or south seas, as surgeon in a whaler, he broke out on him. "So, it seems that your ridiculous old fancy still sticks to you," said Mr Osten, in great wrath, for the recurrence of the subject was like the lacerating of an old sore. "Yes, father; it has never left me. If you will listen for a few moments to my reasons--" "No, boy," interrupted his father, "I will _not_ listen to your reasons. I have heard them often enough--too often--and they are foolish, false, utterly inconclusive. You may go to Jericho as far as I am concerned; but if you do go, you shall never darken my doors again." "When I was a boy, father," said Will earnestly, "your speaking sharply to me was natural, for I was foolish, and acted on impulse. I am thankful now that I did not give way to rebellion, as I was tempted to do; but I am not now a boy, father. If you will talk calmly with me--" "Calmly!" interrupted Mr Osten, growing still more angry at the quiet demeanour of his son; "do you mean to insinuate that--that--. What do you mean, sir?" "I insinuate nothing, father; I mean that I wish you to hear me patiently." "I _won't_ hear you," cried Mr Osten, rising from his chair, "I've heard you till I'm tired of it. Go if you choose, if you dare. You know the result." Saying this he left the room hastily, shutting the door behind him with a bang. A grave, stern expression settled on the youth's countenance as he arose and followed him into the passage. Meeting his mother there, he seized her suddenly in his arms and held her in a long embrace; then, without explaining the cause of his strong emotion, he ran down stairs and left his father's house. In a dirty narrow street, near the harbour of the town, there stood a small public-house which was frequented chiefly by the sailors who chanced to be in the port, and by the squalid population in its immediate neighbourhood. Although small, the Red Lion Inn was superior in many respects to its surroundings. It was larger than the decayed buildings that propped it; cleaner than the locality that owned it; brighter and warmer than the homes of the lean crew on whom it fattened. It was a pretty, light, cheery, snug place of temptation, where men and women, and even children assembled at nights to waste their hard-earned cash and ruin their health. It was a place where the devil reigned, and where the work of murdering souls was carried on continually,-- nevertheless it was a "jolly" place. Many good songs were sung there, as well as bad ones; and many a rough grasp of hearty friendship was exchanged. Few people, going into the house for a few minutes, could have brought themselves to believe that it was such a _very_ broad part of the road leading to destruction: but the landlord had some hazy notion on that point. He sat there day and night, and saw the destruction going on. He saw the blear-eyed, fuddled men that came to drown conscience in his stalls, and the slatternly women who came and went. Nevertheless he was a rosy, jocund fellow who appeared to have a good deal of the milk of human kindness about him, and would have looked on you with great surprise, if not scorn, had you told him that he had a hand in murdering souls. Yes! the Red Lion might have been appropriately styled the Roaring Lion, for it drove a roaring trade among the poor in that dirty little street near the harbour. The gas was flaring with attractive brilliancy in the Red Lion when Will Osten entered it, and asked if Captain Dall was within. "No, sir," answered the landlord; "he won't be here for half-an-hour yet." "A pot of beer," said Will, entering one of the stalls, and sitting down opposite a tall, dark-countenanced man, who sat smoking moodily in a corner. It was evident that our hero had not gone there to drink, for the beer remained untouched at his elbow, as he sat with his face buried in his hands. The dark man in the corner eyed him steadily through the smoke which issued from his lips, but Will paid no attention to him. He was too deeply absorbed in his own reflections. "A fine night, stranger," he said at length, in a slightly nasal tone. Still Will remained absorbed, and it was not until the remark had been twice repeated that he looked up with a start. "I beg pardon; did you speak?" he said. "Well, yes," drawled the dark man, puffing a long white cloud from his lips, "I did make an observation regardin' the weather. It looks fine, don't it?" "It does," said Will. "You're waitin' for Captain Dall, ain't you?" "Why, how did _you_ come to know that?" said Will. "I didn't come to know it, I guessed it," said the dark man. At that moment the door opened, and a short thick-set man, in a glazed hat and pea-jacket, with huge whiskers meeting under his chin, entered. His eye at once fell upon the dark man, whom he saluted familiarly--"All ready, Mr Cupples?" "All ready, sir," replied the other; "it's now more than half-flood; in three hours we can drop down the river with the first of the ebb, and if this breeze holds we'll be in blue water before noon to-morrow." "Hallo, doctor, is that yourself?" said the captain, whose eye had for some moments rested on Will. "It is," said the youth, extending his hand, which the other grasped and shook warmly. "What! changed your mind--eh?" "Yes, I'm going with you." "The governor bein' agreeable?" inquired the captain. Will shook his head. "Hope there ain't bin a flare-up?" said the captain earnestly. "Not exactly," said Will; "but he is displeased, and will not give his consent, so I have come away without it." At this the jovial skipper, who was styled captain by courtesy, sat down and shook his head gravely, while he removed his hat and wiped the perspiration from his bald forehead. "It's a bad business to run agin the wishes of one's parents," he said; "it seldom turns out well; couldn't you come round him nohow?" "Impossible. He won't listen to reason." "Ah, then, it's of no manner of use," said the captain, with a pitying sigh, "when a man won't listen to reason, what's the consequence? why he's unreasonable, which means bein' destitoot of that which raises him above the brutes that perish. Such bein' the case, give it up for a bad job, that's my advice. Come, I'll have a bottle o' ginger-beer, not bein' given to strong drink, an' we'll talk over this matter." Accordingly the beer was ordered, and the three sat there talking for a couple of hours in reference to a long, long voyage to the southern seas. After that they rose, and, leaving the Red Lion, went down to the pier, where a boat was in waiting. It conveyed them to a large ship, whose sails were hanging in the loose condition peculiar to a vessel ready to set sail. An hour after that the anchor was raised, and wind and tide carried the ship gently down to the sea. There seemed to Will something very solemn and mysterious in the quiet way in which, during these still and dark hours of the night, the great ship was slowly moved towards her ocean cradle. At length she floated on the sea, and, soon after, the moon arose on the distant horizon, streaming across the rippling surface as if to kiss and welcome an old friend. The wind increased; the ship became submissive to the breeze, obedient to the helm, and ere long moved on the waters like "a thing of life," leaving Old England far behind her. It was then that young Osten, leaning over the taffrail and looking wistfully back at the point where he had seen the last glimpse of the chalk cliffs, began to experience the first feelings of regret. He tried to quiet his conscience by recalling the harsh and unjustifiable conduct of his father, but conscience would not be quieted thus, and faithful memory reminded him of the many acts of kindness he had experienced at his father's hands, while she pointed to his gentle mother, and bade him reflect what a tremendous blow this sudden departure would be to her. Starting up and shaking off such thoughts, sternly he went below and threw himself into his narrow cot, where conscience assailed him still more powerfully and vividly in dreams. Thus did Wandering Will leave his native land. Commenting on his sudden departure, two days afterwards, Maryann said, in strict confidence, to her bosom friend "Jemimar," that she "know'd it would 'appen--or somethink simular, for, even w'en a hinfant, he had refused to larf at her most smudgin' blandishments; and that she knew somethink strange would come of it, though she would willingly have given her last shilling to have prevented it, but nothink was of any use tryin' of w'en one couldn't do it, as her 'usband, as was in the mutton-pie line, said to the doctor the night afore he died,--and that her 'art was quite broken about it, so it was." Whereupon Jemima finished to the dregs her last cup of tea, and burst into a flood of tears. CHAPTER THREE. TELLS OF THE SEA, AND SOME OF THE MYSTERIES CONNECTED THEREWITH. For many days and nights the good ship _Foam_ sailed the wide ocean without encountering anything more than the ordinary vicissitudes and experiences of sea-life. Dolphins were seen and captured, sharks were fished for and caught, stiff breezes and calms succeeded each other, constellations in the far north began to disappear and new constellations arose in the southern skies. In fact, during many weeks the voyage was prosperous, and young Will Osten began to experience those peculiar feelings with which all travellers are more or less acquainted--he felt that the ship was "home"; that his cabin with its furniture, which had appeared so small and confined at first, was quite a large and roomy place; that all the things about him were positive realities, and that the home of his childhood was a shadow of the past-- a sort of dream. During all this time the young doctor led a busy life. He was one of those active, intelligent, inquiring spirits which cannot rest. To acquire information was with him not a duty, but a pleasure. Before he had been many days at sea he knew the name and use of every rope, sail, block, tackle, and spar in the ship, and made himself quite a favourite with the men by the earnestness with which he questioned them in regard to nautical matters and their own personal experiences. George Goff, the sail-maker, said he "was a fust-rate feller;" and Larry O'Hale, the cook, declared, "he was a trump intirely, an' ought to have been born an Irishman." Moreover, the affections of long Mr Cupples (as the first mate was styled by the men) were quite won by the way in which he laboured to understand the use of the sextant, and other matters connected with the mysteries of navigation; and stout Jonathan Dall, the captain, was overjoyed when he discovered that he was a good player on the violin, of which instrument he was passionately fond. In short, Will Osten became a general favourite on board the _Foam_, and the regard of all, from the cabin-boy to the captain, deepened into respect when they found that, although only an advanced student and, "not quite a doctor," he treated their few ailments with success, and acted his part with much self-possession, gentleness, and precision. Larry O'Hale was particularly eloquent in his praises of him ever after the drawing of a tooth which had been the source of much annoyance to the worthy cook. "Why, messmates," he was wont to say, "it bait everything the way he tuk it out. `Open yer mouth,' says he, an' sure I opened it, an' before I cud wink, off wint my head--so I thought--but faix it wor only my tuth--a real grinder wi' three fangs no less--och! he's a cliver lad intirely." But Will did not confine his inquiries to the objects contained within his wooden home. The various phases and phenomena of the weather, the aspects of the sky, and the wonders of the deep, claimed his earnest attention. To know the reason of everything was with him a species of mania, and in pursuit of this knowledge he stuck at nothing. "Never venture never win," became with him as favourite a motto as it had been with his father, and he acted on it more vigorously than his father had ever done. One calm evening, as he was leaning over the side of the ship near the bow, gazing contemplatively down into the unfathomable sea, he overheard a conversation between the cook and one of the sailors named Muggins. They were smoking their pipes seated on the heel of the bowsprit. "Larry," said Muggins, "I think we have got into the doldrums." "Ye're out there, boy," said Larry, "for I heerd the capting say we wos past 'em a long way." The men relapsed into silence for a time. Then Muggins removed his pipe and said-- "Wot ever caused the doldrums?" "That's more nor I can tell," said Larry; "all I know about them is, that it's aisy to git into them, but uncommon hard to git out again. If my ould grandmother was here, she'd be able to tell us, I make no doubt, but she's in Erin, poor thing, 'mong the pigs and the taties." "Wot could _she_ tell about the doldrums?" said Muggins, with a look of contempt. "More nor ye think, boy; sure there isn't nothin' in the univarse but she can spaik about, just like a book, an' though she niver was in the doldrums as far as I knows, she's been in the dumps often enough; maybe it's cousins they are. Anyhow she's not here, an' so we must be contint with spekilation." "What's that you say, Larry?" inquired the captain, who walked towards the bow at the moment. The cook explained his difficulty. "Why, there's no mystery about the doldrums," said Captain Dall. "I've read a book by an officer in the United States navy which explains it all, and the Gulf Stream, and the currents, an' everything. Come, I'll spin you a yarn about it." Saying this, the captain filled and lighted his pipe, and seating himself on the shank of the anchor, said-- "You know the cause of ocean currents, I dare say?" "Niver a taste," said Larry. "It's meself is as innocent about 'em as the babe unborn; an' as for Muggins there, _he_ don't know more about 'em than my ould shoes--" "Or your old grandmother," growled Muggins. "Don't be irriverent, ye spalpeen," said Larry. "I ax her reverence's pardon, but I didn't know she wos a priest," said Muggins.--"Go on, Cap'n Dall." "Well," continued the captain, "you know, at all events, that there's salt in the sea, and I may tell you that there is lime also, besides other things. At the equator, the heat bein' great, water is evaporated faster than anywhere else, so that there the sea is salter and has more lime in it than elsewhere. Besides that it is hotter. Of course, that being the case, its weight is different from the waters of the cold polar seas, so it is bound to move away an' get itself freshened and cooled. In like manner, the cold water round the poles feels obliged to flow to the equator to get itself salted and warmed. This state of things, as a natural consequence, causes commotion in the sea. The commotion is moreover increased by the millions of shell-fish that dwell there. These creatures, not satisfied with their natural skins, must needs have shells on their backs, and they extract lime from the sea-water for the purpose of makin' these shells. This process is called secretin' the lime; coral insects do the same, and, as many of the islands of the south seas are made by coral insects, you may guess that a considerable lot of lime is made away with. The commotion or disturbance thus created produces two great currents--from the equator to the poles and from the poles to the equator. But there are many little odds and ends about the world that affect and modify these currents, such as depth, and local heat and cold, and rivers and icebergs, but the chief modifiers are continents. The currents flowin' north from the Indian Ocean and southern seas rush up between Africa and America. The space bein' narrow--comparatively--they form one strong current, on doublin' the Cape of Good Hope, which flies right across to the Gulf of Mexico. Here it is turned aside and flows in a nor'-easterly direction, across the Atlantic towards England and Norway, under the name of the Gulf Stream, but the Gulf of Mexico has no more to do with it than the man in the moon, 'xcept in the way of turnin' it out of its nat'ral course. This Gulf Stream is a _river of warm water_ flowing through the cold waters of the Atlantic; it keeps separate, and wherever it flows the climate is softened. It embraces Ireland, and makes the climate there so mild that there is, as you know, scarcely any frost all the year round--" "Blissin's on it," broke in Larry, "sure that accounts for the purty green face of Erin, which bates all other lands in the world. Good luck to the Gulf Stream, say I!" "You're right, Larry, and England, Scotland, and Norway have reason to bless it too, for the same latitudes with these places in America have a rigorous winter extendin' over more than half the year. But what I was comin' to was this--there are, as you know, eddies and stagnant places in ornary rivers, where sticks, leaves, and other odds and ends collect and remain fixed. So, in this great ocean river, there are eddies where seaweed collects and stagnates, and where the air above also stagnates (for the air currents are very much like those of the sea). These eddies or stagnant parts are called sargasso seas. There are several of them, of various sizes, all over the ocean, but there is one big one in the Atlantic, which is known by the name of the `Doldrums.' It has bothered navigators in all ages. Columbus got into it on his way to America, and hundreds of ships have been becalmed for weeks in it since the days of that great discoverer. It is not very long since it was found out that, by keeping well out of their way, and sailing round 'em, navigators could escape the Doldrums altogether." The captain paused at this point, and Larry O'Hale took the opportunity to break in. "D'ye know, sir," said he, "that same Gulf Strame has rose a lot o' pecooliar spekilations in my mind, which, if I may make so bowld, I'll--" Here the mate's voice interrupted him gruffly with-- "Shake out a reef in that top-gall'n s'l; look alive, lads!" Larry and his comrades sprang to obey. When they returned to their former place in the bow, the captain had left it, so that the cook's "pecooliar spekilations" were not at that time made known. CHAPTER FOUR. A STORM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. In course of time the _Foam_, proceeding prosperously on her voyage, reached the region of Cape Horn--the cape of storms. Here, in days of old, Magellan and the early voyagers were fiercely buffeted by winds and waves. In later days Cook and others met with the same reception. In fact, the Cape is infamous for its inhospitality, nevertheless it shone with bright smiles when the _Foam_ passed by, and a gentle fair-wind wafted her into the great Pacific Ocean. Never, since that eventful day when the adventurous Castilian, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, discovered this mighty sea, did the Pacific look more peaceful than it did during the first week in which the _Foam_ floated on its calm breast. But the calm was deceitful. It resembled the quiet of the tiger while crouching to make a fatal spring. Will Osten reclined against the top of the mainmast, to which he had ascended in order to enjoy, undisturbed, the quiet of a magnificent evening. The sun was setting in a world of clouds, which took the form of mountains fringed with glittering gold and with shadows of pearly grey. Oh what castles young Osten did build on these mountains, to be sure! Structures so magnificent that Eastern architects, had they seen them, would have hung their heads and confessed themselves outdone. But you must not imagine, reader, that the magnificence of all of these depended on their magnitude or richness. On the contrary, one of them was a mere cottage--but then, it was a pattern cottage. It stood in a palm-wood, on a coral island near the sea-shore, with a stream trickling at its side, and a lake full of wild fowl behind, and the most gorgeous tropical plants clustering round its open windows and door, while inside, seated on a couch, was a beautiful girl of fifteen (whom Will had often imagined, but had not yet seen), whose auburn hair shone like gold in the sun, contrasting well with her lovely complexion, and enhancing the sweetness of a smile which conveyed to the beholder only one idea--love. Many other castles were built in the clouds at that time by Will, but the cottage made the most lasting impression on his mind. "Sleepin'?" inquired Cupples, the mate, thrusting his head through that orifice in the main-top which is technically called the "lubber's hole." "No, meditating," answered Will; "I've been thinking of the coral islands." "Humph," ejaculated the mate contemptuously, for Cupples, although a kind-hearted man, was somewhat cynical and had not a particle of sentiment in his soul. Indeed he showed so little of this that Larry was wont to say he "didn't belave he had a sowl at all, but was only a koorious specimen of an animated body." "It's my opinion, doctor, that you'd as well come down, for it's goin' to blow hard." Will looked in the direction in which the mate pointed, and saw a bank of black clouds rising on the horizon. At the same moment the captain's voice was heard below shouting--"Stand by there to reef topsails!" This was followed by the command to close-reef. Then, as the squall drew rapidly nearer, a hurried order was giving to take in all sail. The squall was evidently a worse one than had at first been expected. On it came, hissing and curling up the sea before it. "Mind your helm!--port a little, port!" "Port it is, sir," answered the man at the wheel, in the deep quiet voice of a well-disciplined sailor, whose only concern is to do his duty. "Steady!" cried the captain. The words had barely left his lips, and the men who had been furling the sails had just gained the deck, when the squall struck them, and the _Foam_ was laid on her beam-ends, hurling all her crew into the scuppers. At the same time terrible darkness overspread the sky like a pall. When the men regained their footing, some of them stood bewildered, not knowing what to do; others, whose presence of mind never deserted them, sprang to where the axes were kept, in order to be ready to cut away the masts if necessary. But the order was not given. Captain Dall and Will, who had been standing near the binnacle, seized and clung to the wheel. "She will right herself," said the former, as he observed that the masts rose a little out of the sea. Fortunately the good ship did so, and then, although there was scarcely a rag of canvas upon her, she sprang away before the hurricane like a sea-gull. Terrible indeed is the situation of those who are compelled to "scud under bare poles," when He who formed the great deep, puts forth His mighty power, causing them to "stagger and be at their wits' end." For hours the _Foam_ rushed wildly over the sea, now rising like a cork on the crest of the billows, anon sinking like lead into the valleys between. She was exposed to double danger; that of being cast upon one of the numerous coral reefs with which the Pacific in some parts abounds, or being "pooped" and overwhelmed by the seas which followed her. During this anxious period little was said or done except in reference to the working of the ship. Men snatched sleep and food at intervals as they best might. At length, after two days, the gale began to abate, and the sea to go down. "It was sharp while it lasted, captain, but it seems to have done us little harm," said Will Osten, on the evening of the second day. "True," said the captain heartily; "we'll soon repair damages and make all snug.--Is there much water in the hold, Mr Cupples?" The mate answered gloomily that there was a good deal. It must not be supposed that Mr Cupples' gloominess arose from anxiety. Not at all. It was simply his nature to be gloomy. If it had been his duty to have proclaimed the approach of his own marriage, he would have done it as sadly as if it had been the announcement of his death. His thoughts were gloomy, and his tones were appropriate thereto. Even his jokes were grave, and his countenance was lugubrious. "It is gaining on us, sir," added Mr Cupples. "Then get all the spare hands to work with buckets immediately," said the captain, "and send the carpenter here; we must have the leak discovered." "Yes, sir," sighed Mr Cupples, as if he had given way to despair; nevertheless, he went off actively to obey the order. "A strange man that," said the captain, turning to Will; "he is a capital seaman, and a kind-hearted, honest fellow, yet he is melancholy enough to throw a man into the blues." "He and I get on famously notwithstanding," said Will, with a laugh. "See, he is running aft--with bad news I fear, for his face is longer if possible than--" "Leak's increasing, sir," said the mate hurriedly; "we must have started a plank." This seemed to be too true. All hands were now plying pumps and buckets vigorously, and every effort was being made to discover the leak, but in vain. Hour by hour, inch by inch, the water gained on them, and it soon became apparent that the ship must sink. It is difficult for those who have never been at sea to realise the feelings of men who are thus suddenly awakened to the awful fact that the vessel which has been their home for many weeks or months can no longer be counted on, and that, in a few hours, they shall be left in open boats, far from land, at the mercy of the wide and stormy sea. So terrible was the thought to those on board the _Foam_, that every man, from the captain to the cabin-boy, toiled for hours at the pumps in silent desperation. At last, when it was found that the water gained on them rapidly, and that there was no hope of saving the ship, the captain quietly left off working and put on his coat. "Avast pumping, my lads," said he, in a grave, earnest tone; the good ship is doomed, and now it behoves us to bow to the will of the Lord, and do the best we can to save our lives. Stand by to hoist out the boats. Get up bread and water, steward, and stow in them as much as you can with safety. Mr Cupples, see my orders carried out, and have the provisions properly divided among the boats. I want you, doctor, to come below, and help me to get up a few things that will be of use to us. The prompt energy of the captain infused confidence into the men, who soon executed the orders given them. Ere long the boats were ready to be launched over the side, but this was a matter of the greatest difficulty and danger, for the sea was still running high, and the ship rolled heavily. And now the great evil of not being provided with proper tackling to launch the boats became apparent. One of the quarter-boats was the first to be lowered; it was full of men. The order was given to lower, and it dropped on the water all right. Then the order to unhook the tackle was given. The man at the stern tackle succeeded in unhooking, but the man at the bow failed. The result was fatal and instantaneous. When the ship rose on the next wave, the boat was lifted by the bow out of the water until she hung from the davits, and a terrible cry was uttered as all the men were thrown out of her into the sea. Next moment the boat was plunged into the waves, the tackle snapt, and she was swept away. "Lower away the long-boat!" shouted the captain. This was eagerly and quickly done, and the mate with a number of men leaped into it. The lowering was successfully accomplished, but when they pulled to the spot where the quarter-boat had gone down, not one of those who had manned her could be found. All had perished. The remaining four boats were lowered in safety, and all of them pulled away from the sinking ship, for latterly she had been settling down so deep that it was feared every pitch would be her last, and had she sunk while the boats were alongside, their destruction would have been inevitable. They were rowed, therefore, to a safe distance, and there awaited the end. There was something inexpressibly sad in this. It seemed like standing at the death-bed of an old friend. The sea was still heaving violently; the gale, although moderated, was still pretty stiff, and the sun was setting in wild lurid clouds when the _Foam_ rose for the last time-- every spar and rope standing out sharply against the sky. Then she bent forward slowly, as she overtopped a huge billow. Into the hollow she rushed. Like an expert diver she went down head foremost into the deep, and, next moment, those who had so lately trod her deck saw nothing around them save the lowering sky and the angry waters of the Pacific Ocean. CHAPTER FIVE. ADRIFT ON THE WIDE OCEAN. For some time after the disappearance of the ship, the men in the boats continued to gaze, in a species of unbelief, at the place where she had gone down. They evidently felt it difficult to realise the truth of what they had seen. The suddenness of the change and the extreme danger of their position might have shaken the stoutest hearts, for the sea still ran high and none of the boats were fitted to live in rough weather. They were, as far as could be judged, many hundreds of miles from land, and, to add to the horror of their circumstances, night was coming on. "My lads," said Captain Dall, sitting down in the stern of his boat, and grasping the tiller, "it has pleased the Almighty to sink our ship and to spare our lives. Let us be thankful that we didn't go to the bottom along with her. To the best of my knowledge we're a long way from land, and all of us will have to take in a reef in our appetites for some time to come. I have taken care to have a good supply of salt junk, biscuit, water, and lime-juice put aboard, so that if the weather don't turn out uncommon bad, we may manage, with God's blessing, to make the land. In circumstances of this kind, men's endurance is sometimes tried pretty sharply, and men in distress are occasionally driven to forgetting their duty to their comrades. I tell you beforehand, lads, that I will do all that in me lies to steer you to the nearest port, and to make your lot as comfortable as may be in an open boat; but if any of you should take a fancy to having his own way, I've brought with me a little leaden pill-box (here the captain drew aside the breast of his coat and exposed the handle of a revolver) which will tend to keep up discipline and prevent discord. Now, lads, ship your oars and hoist the foresail close-reefed, and look alive, for it seems to me that we'll have a squally night." The effect of this speech was very striking. There is nothing that men dislike so much, in critical circumstances, where action is necessary, as uncertainty or want of decision on the part of their leader. The loss of their ship, and their forlorn, almost desperate condition, had sunk their spirits so much that an air of apathetic recklessness had, for a few minutes, crossed the countenances of some of the boldest among the sailors; but while the captain was speaking this expression passed away, and when he had finished they all gave one hearty cheer, and obeyed his orders with alacrity. In a few minutes the sails, closely reefed, were hoisted, and the long-boat rushed swiftly over the waves. At first the four boats kept company--the other three having also made sail--but as darkness set in they lost sight of each other. The first mate had charge of the jolly-boat, and the second mate and carpenter had the two others. In the captain's boat were Will Osten, Larry O'Hale, Goff, Muggins, and several of the best seamen. Soon after the sails were set, a heavy sea broke inboard and nearly filled the boat. "Bail her out, lads," shouted the captain. There was no occasion for the order, the men knew their danger well enough, and every one seized anything that came to hand and began to bail for life. There was only one bucket on board, and this was appropriated by the cook, who, being one of the strongest men in the boat, thought himself entitled to the post of honour, and, truly, the way in which Larry handled that bucket and showered the water over the side justified his opinion of himself. "We must rig up something to prevent that happening again," said Captain Dall; "set to work, Goff, and cut a slice out of the tarpaulin, and nail it over the bows." This was done without delay, and in less than an hour a sort of half-deck was made, which turned off the spray and rendered the task of bailing much lighter--a matter of considerable importance, for, in such a sea, there was no possibility of an open boat remaining afloat without constant bailing. At first the men talked a good deal in comparatively cheerful tones while they worked, and the irrepressible Larry O'Hale even ventured to cut one or two jokes; but when night began to cover the deep with thick darkness, one after another dropped out of the conversation, and at last all were perfectly silent, except when it became necessary to give an order or answer a question, and nothing was heard save the whistling of the wind and the gurgling of the waves as they rushed past, their white crests curling over the edge of the boat as if greedy to swallow her, and gleaming like lambent fire all around. "This is a terrible situation," said Will Osten, in a low tone, with an involuntary shudder. "Do you think there is much chance of our surviving, captain?" "That's not an easy question to answer, doctor," replied Captain Dall, in a tone so hearty that our hero was much cheered by it. "You see, there is much in our favour as well as much against us. In the first place, this is the Pacific, and according to its name we have a right to expect more fine weather than bad, especially at this time of the year. Then we have the trade winds to help us, and our boat is a good one, with at least two weeks' provisions aboard. But then, on the other hand, we're a terrible long way off land, and we must count upon a gale now and then, which an open boat, however good, is not calc'lated to weather easily. See that now," added the captain, looking back over the stern, where, from out of the darkness, Osten could just see a huge wave, like a black mountain with a snowy top, rolling towards them. "If we were only a little more down in the stern, that fellow would drop on board of us and send us to the bottom in half a minute." Will felt that, although the captain's tones were reassuring, his words were startling. He was ill at ease, and clutched the seat when the billow rolled under them, raising the stern of the boat so high that it seemed as if about to be thrown completely over, but the wave passed on, and they fell back into the trough of the sea. "Musha! but that was a wathery mountain no less," exclaimed Larry. "You've heard of Captain Bligh, Larry, I suppose?" said the captain, in a loud voice, with the intention of letting the men hear his remarks. "May be I have," replied Larry with caution, "but if so I misremimber." "He was the captain of the _Bounty_, whose crew mutinied and turned him adrift in an open boat in the middle of the Pacific. What I was goin' to tell ye was, that his circumstances were a trifle worse than ours, for he was full four thousand miles from the nearest land, and with short allowance of provisions on board." "An' did he make out the voyage, sur?" asked Larry. "He did, and did it nobly too, in the face of great trouble and danger, but it's too long a yarn to spin just now; some day when the weather's fine I'll spin it to 'ee. He weathered some heavy gales, too, and what one man has done another man may do; so we've no reason to get down-hearted, for we're nearer land than he was, and better off in every way. I wish I could say as much for the other boats." The captain's voice dropped a little in spite of himself as he concluded, for, despite the strength and buoyancy of his spirit, he could not help feeling deep anxiety as to the fate of his companions in misfortune. Thus, talking at intervals in hopeful tones, and relapsing into long periods of silence, they spent that stormy night without refreshment and without rest. The minutes seemed to float on leaden wings, and the weary watchers experienced in its highest degree that dreary feeling--so common in the sick room--that "morning would _never_ come." But morning came at length--a faint glimmer on the eastern horizon. It was hailed by Larry with a deep sigh, and the earnest exclamation-- "Ah, then, there's the blessed sun at last, good luck to it!" Gradually the glimmer increased into grey dawn, then a warm tint brightened up the sky, and golden clouds appeared. At last the glorious sun arose in all its splendour, sending rays of warmth to the exhausted frames of the seamen and hope to their hearts. They much needed both, for want of sleep, anxiety, and cold, had already stamped a haggard look of suffering on their faces. As the morning advanced, however, this passed away, and by degrees they began to cheer up and bestir themselves,--spreading out their clothes to dry, and scanning the horizon at intervals in search of the other boats. About eight o'clock, as nearly as he could guess, the captain said-- "Now, lads, let's have breakfast; get out the bread-can. Come, Larry, look alive! You've no cooking to do this morning, but I doubt not that your teeth are as sharp and your twist as strong as ever." "Stronger than iver, sur, av ye plaze." "I'm sorry to hear it, for you'll have to go on short allowance, I fear." "Ochone!" groaned the cook. "Never mind, Larry," said Will Osten, assisting to spread the sea-biscuit and salt junk on one of the thwarts; "there's a good time coming." "Sure, so's Christmas, doctor, but it's a long way off," said Larry. "Fetch me the scales; now then, doctor, hold 'em," said the captain, carefully weighing out a portion of biscuit and meat which he handed to one of the men. This process was continued until all had been supplied, after which a small quantity of water and lime-juice was also measured out to each. The breakfast was meagre, but it was much needed, and as the sea had gone down during the night and the morning was beautiful, it was eaten not only in comfort, but with some degree of cheerfulness. While they were thus engaged, Goff looked up and exclaimed suddenly, "Hallo! look here, boys!" Every one started up and gazed in the direction indicated, where they saw something black floating on the water. The captain, who had taken the precaution before leaving the ship to sling his telescope over his shoulder, applied it to his eye, and in a few seconds exclaimed, "It's the jolly-boat capsized! Out with the oars, boys--be smart! There's some of 'em clinging to the keel." It need scarcely be said that the men seized the oars and plied them with all their might. Under the influence of these and the sail together they soon drew near, and then it was distinctly seen that three men were clinging to the boat--it followed, of course, that all the rest must have been drowned. Silently and swiftly they pulled alongside, and in a few minutes had rescued Mr Cupples and the steward and one of the sailors, all of whom were so much exhausted that they could not speak for some time after being taken on board. When they could tell what had happened, their tale was brief and sad. They had kept in sight of the long-boat while light enabled them to do so. After that they had run before the gale, until a heavy sea capsized them, from which time they could remember nothing, except that they had managed to get on the bottom of the upturned boat, to which they had clung for many hours in a state of partial insensibility. CHAPTER SIX. DESCRIBES A BOAT VOYAGE, AND TOUCHES ON CORAL ISLANDS. The gale moderated to a fresh breeze, and all that day the long-boat of the ill-fated _Foam_ flew over the sea towards the west. "You see," said Captain Dall, in answer to a question put to him by Will Osten, "I don't know exactly whereabouts we are, because there was a longish spell of dirty weather afore the _Foam_ went down, and I hadn't got a sight o' the sun for more than a week; but it's my belief that we are nearer to some of the coral islands than to the coast of South America, though how near I cannot tell. Five hundred miles, more or less, perhaps." "A mere trifle, sure!" said Larry, filling his pipe carefully--for his was the only pipe that had been rescued from the sinking ship, and the supply of tobacco was very small. Small as it was, however, the captain had taken the precaution to collect it all together, causing every man to empty his pockets of every inch that he possessed, and doled it out in small equal quantities. The pipe, however, could not be treated thus, so it had to be passed round--each man possessing it in turn for a stated number of minutes, when, if he had not consumed his portion, he was obliged to empty the pipe and give it up. "It's my turn, Larry," cried Muggins, holding out his hand for the coveted implement of fumigation. "No, ye spalpeen, it's not," said Larry, continuing to press down the precious weed, "owld Bob had it last, an' ivery wan knows that I come after him." "It's the first time I ever heard ye admit that you comed after anybody," answered Muggins with a grin; "ye ginerally go before us all-- at least ye want to." "Not at all," retorted the cook; "whin there's dirty work to be done, I most usually kape modestly in the background, an' lets you go first, bekase it's your nat'ral callin'. Arrah! the sun's goin' to set, boys," he added with a sigh, as he commenced to smoke. This was true, and the knowledge that another long night of darkness was about to set in depressed the spirits which had begun to revive a little. Silence gradually ensued as they sat watching the waves or gazing wistfully towards the gorgeous mass of clouds in which the sun was setting. For a considerable time they sat thus, when suddenly Will Osten started up, and, pointing towards the horizon a little to the left of the sun, exclaimed-- "Look there, captain; what's that?" "Land ho!" shouted Larry O'Hale at that moment, springing up on the thwart and holding on to the foremast. All the rest leaped up in great excitement. "It's only a cloud," said one. "It's a fog-bank," cried another. "I never seed a fog-bank with an edge like that," observed old Bob, "an' I've sailed the salt sea long enough to know." "Land it is, thank God," said the captain earnestly, shutting up his telescope. "Get out the oars again, lads! We can't make it before dark, but the sooner we get there the better, for landing on these coral islands isn't always an easy job." The oars were got out at once, and the men pulled with a will, but it was late at night before they drew near to the land and heard the roar of the surf on the coral reef that stood as a sentinel to guard the island. "Captain," said Will Osten, "the wind has almost died away, yet it seems to me that the surf roars as violently as if a storm were raging." "That surf never goes down in those seas, doctor. Even in calm weather the swell of the big ocean gathers into a huge billow and bursts in foam upon the coral islands." "Surely, then," said Will, "it must make landing both difficult and dangerous." "It is, sometimes, but not always," replied the captain; "for a channel of safety has been provided, as you shall see, before long. Take the boat-hook, Goff, and look out in the bows." The man rose and stood up with the boat-hook ready to "fend off" if necessary. A word or two here about the coral islands--those wonderful productions of the coral insect--may perhaps render the position of the boat and her subsequent proceedings more intelligible. They are of all sizes and shapes. Some are small and low, like emeralds just rising out of the ocean, with a few cocoa-nut palms waving their tufted heads above the sandy soil. Others are many miles in extent, covered with large forest trees and rich vegetation. Some are inhabited, others are the abode only of sea-fowl. In many of them the natives are naked savages of the most depraved character. In a few, where the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ has been planted, the natives are to be seen, "clothed and in their right minds." Wherever the gospel has taken root, commerce has naturally sprung up, and the evils that invariably follow in her train have in too many cases been attributed to Christianity. Poor indeed must be that man's knowledge of the influence of Christianity, who would judge of its quality or value by the fruit of its _professors_. "By their fruits ye shall know _them_," truly--_them_, but not Christianity. The world is an hospital, and life the period of convalescence. Christianity is the one grand and all-sufficient medicine. Shall we, the afflicted and jaundiced patients, still suffering from the virulence and effect of sin, condemn the medicine because it does not turn us out cured in a single day? Still, even to fruits we can appeal, mingled and confounded with crab-apples though they be. Come, sceptic, make a trial of it. Go to the Fiji Islands; get yourself wrecked among them. Be cast into the stormy deep; buffet the waves manfully, and succeed in struggling exhausted to the shore. The savages there, if not Christianised, will haul you out of the sea, roast you, and eat you! They do this in compliance with a humane little law which maintains that all who are shipwrecked, and cast on shore, are thus to be disposed of. Ha! you need not smile. The record of this fact may be read, in unquestionable authorities, in every public library in the kingdom. Search and see. On the other hand, go and get cast on one of the Fiji group where Christianity holds sway, and there, despite the errors, inconsistencies, and sins of its professors and enemies, the same natives will haul you out of the sea, receive you into their houses, feed and clothe you, and send you on your way rejoicing. There is one peculiarity which applies to most of the coral islands-- each is partially surrounded by a coral reef which lies at a distance from the shore varying from less than one to two miles. Outside of this reef the sea may heave tumultuously, but the lagoon within remains calm. The great breakers may thunder on the reef, and even send their spray over, for it is little above the level of the sea, and nowhere much more than a few yards in breadth, but inside all is peaceful and motionless. In this reef there are several openings, by which a ship of the largest size may enter and find a safe, commodious harbour. It is found that these openings occur usually opposite to any part of the islands where a stream flows into the sea; and the openings have frequently a little herbage, sometimes a few cocoa-nut palms growing on either side, which form a good natural land-mark to the navigator. Towards one of these openings the long-boat of the _Foam_ was rowed with all speed. The night was dark, but there was light sufficient to enable them to see their way. As they drew near they came within the influence of the enormous breakers, which rose like long gigantic snakes and rolled in the form of perpendicular walls to the reef, where they fell with a thunderous roar in a flood of milky foam. Here it was necessary to exercise the utmost caution in steering, for if the boat had turned broadside on to one of these monstrous waves, it would have been rolled over and over like a cask. "Pull gently, lads," said the captain, as they began to get within the influence of the breakers. "I don't quite see my way yet. When I give the word, pull with a will till I tell ye to hold on. Your lives depend on it." This caution was necessary, for when a boat is fairly within the grasp of what we may term a shore-going wave, the only chance of safety lies in going quite as fast as it, if not faster. Presently the captain gave the word; the men bent to their oars and away they rushed on the crest of a billow, which launched them through the opening in the reef in the midst of a turmoil of seething foam. Next moment they were rowing quietly over the calm lagoon, and approaching what appeared to be a low-lying island covered with cocoa-nut trees; but the light rendered it difficult to distinguish objects clearly. A few minutes later the boat's keel grated on the sand, and the whole party leaped on shore. The first impulse of some of the men was to cheer, but the feelings of others were too deep for expression in this way. "Thanks be to God!" murmured Captain Dall as he landed. "Amen!" said Will Osten earnestly. Some of the men shook hands, and congratulated each other on their escape from what all had expected would prove to be a terrible death. As for Larry O'Hale, he fell on his knees, and, with characteristic enthusiasm, kissed the ground. "My best blissin's on ye," said he with emotion. "Och, whither ye be a coral island or a granite wan no matter; good luck to the insict that made ye, is the prayer of Larry O'Hale!" CHAPTER SEVEN. HOPES, FEARS, AND PROSPECTS ON THE CORAL ISLAND. Few conditions of life are more difficult to bear than that which is described in the proverb, "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." Day after day, week after week passed by, and every morning the unfortunate men who had been cast on the coral island rose with revived hope to spend the day in anxiety, and to lie down in disappointment. The island proved to be a low one, not more than four miles in length by about half a mile in breadth, on which nothing grew except a few cocoa-nut palms. These afforded the wrecked crew a scanty supply of food, which, with the provisions they had brought, enabled them to live, but the prospect of a residence on such a spot was so hopeless, that they would have left it immediately had not an accident happened which deprived them of their boat. A few mornings after landing, several of the men rose early, and, without obtaining the captain's permission, went to fish in the lagoon, intending to surprise their comrades by bringing a supply of fresh fish. They were unsuccessful, but, supposing that their chance would be better in the open sea, they rowed through the opening in the reef. They had, however, miscalculated the size and power of the breakers that continually thundered there. The boat was heavy and unmanageable except by a strong crew. She turned broadside to the breakers, and, in a few seconds, was hurled upon the reef and dashed to pieces. The men were saved almost by a miracle. They succeeded in landing on the reef, and afterwards, with the aid of broken pieces of the wreck, swam across the lagoon to the island. The loss was irreparable, so that they had now no hope left except in the passing of a ship or a native canoe. This latter contingency they were led to hope for by the discovery, one very clear morning, of what appeared to be the mountain tops of a cluster of islands, barely visible on the horizon. But as day after day passed without the appearance of a canoe, they came to the conclusion that these islands were not inhabited. As weeks passed by and no sail appeared, their hearts began to fail them, for the small stock of provisions was rapidly diminishing. One morning Captain Dall ascended to the highest point on the island, where he was wont to spend the greater part of each day on the lookout. He found Will Osten there before him. "Good-morning doctor," said the captain, with a dash of the old hearty spirit in his voice, for he was not easily depressed; "anything in sight?" "Nothing," replied Will, with a degree of energy in his tone that caused the captain to look at him in surprise. "Hallo, doctor, have you made a discovery, or have you made up your mind to swim off the island, that you speak and look so resolute this morning?" "Yes, I have made a discovery. I have discovered that the provisions will not last us another week; that our vigour is not what it used to be; that a sort of apathy is stealing over us all; that the sands of life, in short, are running out while we are sitting idle here making no effort to help ourselves." "What can we do, lad?" said the captain sadly, supposing that the youth was merely giving vent to a spirit of desperation. "I'll tell you what we can do," said Will, rising; "we can cut down most of the trees and make a huge pile of them, which, with the broken pieces of the long-boat to kindle them, will create a blaze that will attract the attention of the people who live on yonder island--if there be any. I know the character of South Sea islanders, but it is better to live in captivity or die by the hand of savages than to perish of hunger and thirst. Come, Captain Dall, we _must_ stir the men up to make a last effort. Rather than die here, I will make a raft and hoist a sail on it, and commit myself to the winds and waves. What say you? Shall we try?" "There is something in what you say, doctor," replied the captain, pondering the subject; "at all events, no harm can come of making the attempt. I'll go speak to the men." In pursuance of this intention he left the place of outlook accompanied by Will, and the result of their consultation with the men was, that in a few minutes Larry O'Hale and Mr Cupples set to work with all the energy in their natures to fell trees with the two axes they possessed. When they were exhausted, Will Osten and Goff relieved them, and then the captain and old Bob took the axes. Thus the work went on all day, and in the evening a pile of logs was raised almost as large as a medium-sized cottage. There was something hopeful in the mere act of working with a view to deliverance that raised the spirits of the men, and when the sun began to sink towards the western horizon, they sat down to their slight meal of biscuit and cocoa-nut milk with more appetite and relish than they had experienced for many days. "I've bin thinkin'," said Larry, pausing in the midst of his supper. "Well, wot have 'ee bin thinkin', lad?" said Muggins, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his coat and wishing for more food--but wishing in vain, for he had finished his allowance--"you're a good deal given to thinkin', but there's not much ever comes on it, 'xcept wind in the shape o' words." "And what's words," retorted the cook, in supreme contempt, "but the expression o' sintiment, widout which there wouldn't have bin nuthin' wotsomediver in the univarse? Sintiment is the mother of all things, as owld Father O'Dowd used to say to my grandmother whin he wanted to come the blarney over her. It was a philosopher sintimentilisin' over a tay-kittle, I'm towld, as caused the diskivery o' the steam-ingine; it was a sintimintal love o' country as indooced Saint Patrick to banish the varmin from Ireland, an' it was religious sintiment as made Noah for to build the Ark, but for which nother you nor me would have bin born to git cast upon a coral island. Sintiment is iverything, Muggins, and of that same there isn't more in your whole body than I cud shove into the small end of a baccy-pipe. But to return to the pint: I've bin thinkin' as to whether it would be best to set a light to this here little pile in the daylight or in the dark, bekase, in the wan case it's the smoke that would call attintion, an' in the other case it's the flame." "That is true, Larry," said the captain; "I'm inclined to think it would be better seen at night, fire being more powerful than smoke." "But they're more likely to be asleep at night, and to miss seein' it," observed Cupples, in a hollow tone. It may be remarked in passing, that the mate's voice had become much more sepulchral and his aspect more cadaverous since his arrival on the island. "True for ye," chimed in Larry; "an' who knows, if they did see it, but they might take it for the moon in a fog--or for a volkainy?" "Wouldn't the best way to settle the matter be to kindle the fire just now, before it grows dark," suggested Will Osten, "so that they will have a chance of seeing the smoke, and then, when it grows dark, the fire will be getting brighter?" "Right, doctor, you're right. Come, we'll put the light to it at once," cried the captain, rising. "Hand me the match-box, Mr Cupples; it's in the head o' the bread cask." The whole party rose and went to the pile of timber, which was on the highest part of the islet and towered to a height of nearly twelve feet. Captain Dall applied a match to the tarry pieces of the long-boat, which had been placed at the foundation, and the flames at once leaped up and began to lick greedily round the timber, winding through the interstices and withering up the leaves. Soon a thick smoke began to ascend, for much of the timber in the pile was green, and before the sun had set a dense black cloud was rising straight up like a pillar and spreading out into the sky. As the fire gathered strength, a great tongue of flame flashed up ever and anon into the midst of the rolling cloud and rent it for a single instant; by degrees those tongues waged fierce war with the smoke. They shot through it more and more frequently, licked and twined round it--in and out--until they gained the mastery at last, and rose with a magnificent roar into the heavens. Then it was that Larry O'Hale gave vent to his excitement and admiration in an irrepressible shout, and his comrades burst into a mingled cheer and fit of laughter, as they moved actively round the blazing mass and stirred it into fiercer heat with boat-hooks and oars. When night had closed in, the brilliancy of the bonfire was intense, and the hopes of the party rose with the flames, for they felt certain that any human beings who chanced to be within fifty miles of them could not fail to see the signal of distress. So the greater part of the night was passed in wild excitement and energetic action. At last, exhausted yet hopeful, they left the bonfire to burn itself out and sat down to watch. During the first half-hour they gazed earnestly over the sea, and so powerfully had their hopes been raised, that they expected to see a ship or a boat approaching every minute. But ere long their hopes sank as quickly as they had been raised. They ceased to move about and talk of the prospect of speedy deliverance. The hearts of men who have been long exposed to the depressing influence of "hope deferred," and whose frames are somewhat weakened by suffering and insufficient food, are easily chilled. One after another they silently crept under the sail, which had been spread out in the form of a tent to shelter them, and with a sigh lay down to rest. Weariness and exposure soon closed their eyes in "kind Nature's sweet restorer--balmy sleep," and the coral island vanished utterly from their minds as they dreamed of home, and friends, and other days. So, starving men dream of sumptuous fare, and captives dream of freedom. Will Osten was last to give way to the feeling of disappointment, and last to lie down under the folds of the rude tent. He was young, and strong, and sanguine. It was hard for one in whose veins the hot blood careered so vigorously to believe in the possibility of a few days reducing him to the weakness of infancy--harder still for him to realise the approach of death; yet, when he lay meditating there in the silence of the calm night, a chill crept over his frame, for his judgment told him that if a merciful God did not send deliverance, "the end" was assuredly drawing very nigh. CHAPTER EIGHT. IN WHICH OUR HERO SUGGESTS A PLAN WHICH GETS THE PARTY OUT OF ONE DIFFICULTY BUT PLUNGES THEM INTO ANOTHER. How long Wandering Will would have lain in the midst of his slumbering comrades, indulging in gloomy reveries, it is impossible to say, for he was suddenly startled out of them by the appearance of a black object on the sea, at a considerable distance from the shore. Will's couch was near the open entrance to the tent, and from the spot where his head lay pillowed on his coat, he could see the lagoon, the opening in the reef, and the ocean beyond. He rose softly, but quickly, and went out to assure himself that his disturbed fancy had not misled him. No--there could be no doubt about it. Grey dawn was already breaking, and enabled him to see it distinctly--a dark moving speck on the sea far outside the reef. It could not be a gull or sea-bird, he felt persuaded; neither was it a ship, for his eye during the voyage had become a practised one in observing distant vessels. It might be a boat! Full of this idea, and trembling with hope and anxiety, he returned to the tent, and gently awoke the captain. "Sh! don't speak," he whispered, laying his hand on the captain's mouth. "I'm convinced it is a boat," continued Will, as he stood beside the now smouldering fire, while the captain gazed long and earnestly through his telescope at the object on the sea. "You're only half-right," said the other, with unusual seriousness, as he handed the glass to his companion; "it's a canoe--a large one, I think, and apparently full of men; but we shan't be left long in doubt as to that; our fire has evidently attracted them, and now we must prepare for their reception." "Do you then doubt their friendliness?" asked Will, returning the glass to the captain, who again examined the approaching canoe carefully. "Whether they shall turn out to be friends or foes, doctor, depends entirely on whether they are Christians or heathens. If the missionaries have got a footing amongst 'em, we are saved; if not--I wouldn't give much for our chance of seeing Old England again." The captain's voice dropped as he said this, and his face was overspread with an expression of profound gravity. "Do you _really_ believe in all the stories we have heard of the blood-thirstiness of these savages, and their taste for human flesh?" asked Will, with some anxiety. "Believe them!" exclaimed the captain, with a bitter, almost ferocious laugh; "of course I do. I have _seen_ them at their bloody work, lad. It's all very well for shore-goin' folk in the old country to make their jokes about `Cold missionary on the sideboard,' and to sing of the `King of the Cannibal Islands;' but, as sure as there is a sky over your head, and a coral island under your feet, so certainly do the South Sea savages kill, roast, and eat their enemies, and so fond are they of human flesh that, when they can't get hold of enemies, they kill and eat their slaves. Look, you can make out the canoe well enough now without the glass; she's makin' straight for the opening in the reef. The sun will be up in half an hour, and they'll arrive about the same time. Come, let us rouse the men." Hastening down to the tent, the captain raised the curtain, and shouted hoarsely-- "Hallo, lads, turn out there--turn out. Here's a canoe in sight--look alive!" Had a bomb-shell fallen into the midst of the sleepers, it could scarcely have produced more commotion among them. Every one sprang up violently. "Hooroo!" shouted Larry O'Hale, "didn't I say so? Sure it's mysilf was draimin' of ould Ireland, an' the cabin in the bog wi' that purty little crature--" He stopped abruptly, and added, "Och! captain dear, what's wrong?" "Hold you tongue, Larry, for a little, and keep your cheerin' till you have done fightin', for it's my opinion we may have something to do in that way ere long." "Faix, it's mysilf as can enjoy a taste o' that too," said Larry, buttoning his jacket and turning up his cuffs. By this time the canoe was approaching the passage in the reef, and the whole party hastened to the beach, where they held a hasty council of war, for it was now clear that the canoe was one of the largest size-- capable of holding nearly a hundred men--and that it was quite full of naked savages. In a few words the captain explained to the men the character of the islanders, as ascertained by himself on previous voyages, and showed how hopeless would be their case if they turned out to be heathens. "Now," said he, "we are fifteen in number, all told, with two muskets, one pistol, three or four cutlasses, and a small supply of ammunition. If these men prove to be enemies, shall we attack them, and try to take their canoe, or shall we at once lay down our arms and trust to their generosity? Peace or war, that's the question?" Larry at once declared for war, and several of the more fiery spirits joined him, among whom was Will Osten; for the young doctor shrank with horror from the idea of being roasted and eaten! "I vote for peace," said the mate gloomily. "Sure, Mr Cupples," exclaimed Larry, "I wonder at that, for it's little pace ye gave us aboord the _Foam_." "It's not possible," continued the mate--taking no notice of the cook's remark, nor of the short laugh which followed it--"it's not possible for fifteen men, armed as we are, to beat a hundred savages, well supplied with clubs and spears--as I make no doubt they are--so I think we should trust to their friendliness." "Bah!" whispered Larry to the man next him; "he knows that he's too tough and dry for any savage in his siven sinses to ait _him_, cooked or raw, and so he hopes to escape." "Mr Cupples is right, lads," said the captain; "we'd have no chance in a fair fight, an' though I make no doubt we should kill double our number in the scrimmage, what good would that do?" Some of the men here seconded the captain; the others began to waver, and it was finally decided that they should at least begin with pacific advances. When the council broke up, the sailors went down to the water's edge and awaited her arrival. As she came nearer, it became apparent that she was a war-canoe fill with warriors. Steadily and swiftly she advanced to within a short distance of the shore. Then the paddlers suddenly ceased, and she was allowed to drift slowly in, while a splendid looking savage stood up in the bow with a shield on his left arm and a javelin in his right hand. The chief, for such he evidently was, wore no clothing, except a piece of native cloth round his loins; but his whole body was elaborately tatooed with various devices; and this species of decoration, coupled with the darkness of his skin, did away very much with the appearance of nakedness. He seemed as if he had been clothed in a dark skin-tight dress. But the most conspicuous part about him was the top of his head, on which there seemed to be a large turban, which, on closer inspection, turned out to be his own hair curled and fizzed out artificially. Altogether he was an imposing and gigantic fellow. When about fifty yards from the shore, the savages checked the canoe's progress and stood up. Now was the time for action, so, according to previous arrangement, the sailors laid their weapons down on the beach, and held up their hands, at the same time making such signs of friendship as they thought would be understood. The savages, who were quick-witted fellows, at once ran the canoe ashore, leaped out, and hastened towards the white men. As they did so, Captain Dall put his telescope to his eye for a moment, wishing to scan closely the features of the chief. Instantly the whole band turned with a howl, and, making towards the canoe, jumped in and pushed off. "Ha!" exclaimed the captain, with a smile, "these fellows have been fired at by Europeans before now. They evidently mistook my telescope for a musket." The savages paused, and again faced about at a short distance from the beach, and the captain sought by every imaginable sign and gesticulation to remove the bad impression he had so innocently created. He succeeded. In a short time the natives again landed and advanced towards them. On drawing near, the chief stopped and made a short speech--which, of course, none of the white men understood. To this Captain Dall replied in a short speech--which, of course, none of the natives understood. Both parties looked very amiably, however, at each other, and by degrees drew closer together, when the natives began to manifest much curiosity in reference to the costume of the sailors. Soon they became more familiar, and the truth of the proverb, that, "familiarity breeds contempt," was quickly illustrated by one of the savages seizing hold of the musket which Larry O'Hale carried. The hot blood of the Irishman instantly fired. "Let go, ye dirty bit o' mahogany," he cried, holding the musket tight with his left hand, and clenching his right in a threatening manner. Captain Dall, foreseeing what would be the result of a blow, sought to create a diversion by raising his telescope to his eye. The quick-sighted savage observed the motion, let go his hold of the musket and shrank behind his comrades, who, however, did not appear disposed to screen him, for they all began to dodge behind each other until the telescope was lowered. The temporary distraction of attention which this incident caused emboldened another savage to pounce upon the other musket, which was carried by old Bob. He wrenched it out of the sailor's hand and bounded away with a shout, swinging it over his head. Unfortunately his fingers touched the trigger and the piece exploded, knocking down the man who held it, and sending the ball close past the chief's ear. Instantly there followed a loud yell, clubs were brandished, cutlasses gleamed, and blood would certainly have been spilt had not Captain Dall suddenly seized the chief by the shoulders and rubbed noses with him. He knew this to be the mode of salutation among some of the South Sea tribes, and sought to make a last effort at conciliation. The act was reciprocated by the chief, who signed to his men to forbear. Captain Dall now felt convinced that any undecided course of action would only render their case more desperate, so he turned to his men with a look of authority and said sternly-- "My lads, we have only one hope left to us, and that is, submission. Throw down your weapons, and put your trust in the Almighty." The men obeyed--some with hesitation and others sullenly; they flung their cutlasses on the sand and crossed their arms on their breasts. No sooner was this done than the savages rushed upon them in overwhelming numbers, and they were instantly overpowered. Larry O'Hale and Will Osten, with some of the younger men, struggled fiercely, and knocked down several of their opponents before they were subdued, but against such overwhelming odds they had no chance. It would have been better for them had they acted on the captain's advice. Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well, and this truth is not less applicable to the act of submission than to that of resistance. The only result of their ill-timed display of valour was the tighter fastening of the cords with which the savages bound them hand and foot, and somewhat rough handling when they, with their comrades, were tossed into the bottom of the canoe. After the sailors were secured, the natives collected the provisions that had been brought by them to the island, and stowed these also in the canoe. This occupied a considerable time, for they were so careful to avoid missing anything, that they ranged over the whole island, examining every part minutely, and leaving nothing behind that had the slightest appearance of value in their eyes. During all this time the white men were left lying in the water which had leaked into the canoe. Indeed, the valiant Larry would certainly have been drowned, but for the aid extended to him by our hero, for he chanced to have been thrown into the canoe with his face downwards near the stern, and as the water gradually settled down there from the prow, which was raised on the sand, it covered his mouth. Fortunately Will, who was near him, managed to assist the unfortunate man in his struggles so as to enable him to rest his head on the blade of a paddle! When everything belonging to the crew of the _Foam_ had been collected, the savages returned to their canoe, re-launched her, paddled out to sea, and ere long left the little coral island out of sight behind them. CHAPTER NINE. CONTAINS AN ACCOUNT OF THE DESPERATE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE PRISONERS. Five hours passed away, during which the savages continued to paddle almost without intermission, and our hero with his friends lay fast bound in the bottom of the canoe. They suffered great pain from the swelling of their limbs and the tightening of the cords that bound them; but although Larry O'Hale, in the exasperation of his spirit, gave vent to one or two howls, accompanied by expressions that were the reverse of complimentary, no attention was paid to them until the island towards which they steered was reached. The instant the canoe touched the sand the captives were lifted out-- their hands and feet were tied together in a bunch, and, each being slung on a stout pole as one might sling a bundle, they were carried up to a native village on the margin of a wood. On the way, Wandering Will could see that the beach swarmed with natives--a fact, however, of which his ears had already assured him, for the air was filled with yells of delight as the captives were successively lifted out of the canoe. He also observed that the island appeared to be a large one, for he got a glimpse of a huge mountain rising over the tree tops. Neither he nor any of his comrades, however, had time to make many observations, for they were hurried up the beach and into the village, where they were thrown down under a rudely built hut which was covered with broad leaves. Here the cords that fastened them were unloosed; but if this for a moment raised the hope that they were about to be set free, they were quickly undeceived by the savages, who rebound their hands behind them. Our hero, Captain Dall, Mr Cupples, Larry O'Hale, and Muggins, were then fastened with cords of cocoa-nut fibre to the several posts of the hut in such a manner that they could stand up or lie down at pleasure. George Goff, old Bob, and the others were led away. Seeing that they were about to be separated, Captain Dall suddenly called out, "Farewell, lads," in a tone so sad, that Goff looked back at him in surprise, but his captors forced him away before he could reply. "You think we won't see them again?" said Osten, when they were left alone. "I think not. From what I know of those savages, I fear they have taken our comrades away to be sacrificed, and that our own time will soon come." Something between a groan and a growl escaped from O'Hale when this was said. "Cudn't we break thim ropes, and run amuck amongst the murtherin' blackguards," he exclaimed, seizing the rope that bound him with his teeth and endeavouring to tear it--an effort which it is needless to say was futile, and nearly cost him a tooth. "It's of no use, Larry," said the captain; "we can't help ourselves. If the Lord don't help us, we're dead men." Although Will Osten was much depressed, not to say alarmed, by what he heard, he could not help wondering why the captain had so suddenly lost his buoyant spirit. At the time when a slow death by starvation had stared him in the face, he had not only retained his own heartiness of spirit, but had kept up wonderfully the spirits of his companions. Now, however--when, as Will thought, they had the chance of escaping by stratagem or by force from their captors, or, at the worst, of selling their lives dearly--his spirit seemed to have utterly forsaken him. Yet the captain was only despondent--not despairing. He had seen the deeds of savages in former years, and knew that with them there was seldom a long period between the resolve to kill and the accomplishment of the crime. He feared for the lives of his shipmates, and would have given his right hand at that moment to have been free to aid them, but the attempts of himself and his comrades to break their bonds were fruitless, so, after making one or two desperate efforts, they sat down doggedly to await their fate. It might have been a curious study to have noted the different spirit in which these unfortunate men submitted to their unavoidable doom on that occasion. The captain sat down on a log of wood that chanced to be near him, folded his hands quietly on his knees, allowed his head to sink forward on his chest, and remained for a long time quite motionless. Will Osten, on the other hand, stood up at first, and, leaning his head on his arm against the wall of the hut, appeared to be lost in reverie. Doubtless he was thinking of home; perhaps reproaching himself for the manner and spirit in which he had quitted it--as many a poor wanderer has done before when too late! He quickly changed his thoughts, however, and, with them, his position: sat down and got up frequently, frowned, clenched his hands, shook his head, stamped his foot, bit his lips, and altogether betrayed a spirit ill at ease. Mr Cupples, whose soul had from the moment of their capture given way to the deepest possible dejection, lay down, and, resting his elbow on the floor and his head on his hand, gazed at his comrades with a look so dreadfully dolorous that, despite their anxiety, they could hardly suppress a smile. As for Muggins and O'Hale, the former, being a phlegmatic man and a courageous, sat down with his back against the wall, his hands thrust into his pockets, and a quid in his cheek, and shook his head slowly from side to side, while he remarked that every one had to die once, an' when the time came no one couldn't escape and that was all about it! Poor Larry O'Hale could not thus calm his mercurial spirit. He twisted his hard features into every possible contortion, apostrophised his luck, and his grandmother, and ould Ireland in the most pathetic manner, bewailed his fate, and used improper language in reference to savages in general, and those of the South Seas in particular, while, at intervals, he leaped up and tried to tear his bonds asunder. Thus several hours were spent. Evening approached, and darkness set in; still no one came near the prisoners. During this period, however, they heard the continual shouting and singing of the savages, and sometimes caught a glimpse of them through crevices between the logs of which the hut was built. It was not possible for them to ascertain what they were about, however, until night set in, when several large fires were lighted, and then it could be seen that they were feasting and dancing. Suddenly, in the midst of the din, an appalling shriek was heard. It was quickly succeeded by another and another. Then the yells of the revellers increased in fury, and presently a procession of them was observed approaching the hut, headed by four men bearing a sort of stage on their shoulders. The shrieks had struck like a death-chill to the hearts of the prisoners. No one spoke, but each had recognised familiar tones in the terrible cries. For the first time some of them began to realise the fact that they were really in the hands of murderers, and that the bloody work had actually begun. Great drops of sweat rolled down the face of Muggins as he gazed in horror through one of the crevices, and his broad chest heaved convulsively as he exclaimed, "God be merciful to us, it's George Goff!" This was too true. On the stage, carried by four natives, sat the unfortunate seaman. It required no second glance to tell that his spirit had fled, and that nothing but a corpse sat swaying there, supported by means of a pole, in a sitting posture. The cannibals were conveying it to their temple, there to cut it up and prepare it for that dreadful feast which is regarded as inexpressibly repulsive by all the human race except these islanders of the South Seas, who, incredible though it may appear, absolutely relish human flesh as a dainty morsel. At sight of this, poor Will Osten, who had never quite believed in such terrible things, sank down on his knees with a deep groan, and, for the first time in his life, perhaps, prayed _earnestly_. O'Hale's spirit blazed up in ungovernable fury. Like a wild beast, he tore and wrenched at the rope which bound him, and then, finding his efforts unavailing, he flung himself on the ground, while deep sobs burst at intervals from his oppressed heart. A few minutes elapsed; then there was a rush of footsteps without, accompanied by fierce yells and the waving of torches. The prisoners leaped up, feeling almost instinctively that there hour had come. A moment later and the hut was filled with natives. All were naked, with the exception of a small piece of cloth round their loins. They were tatooed, however, and painted nearly from head to foot. The prisoners were instantly seized and overpowered, and preparations were being rapidly made to carry them away, when a shout was heard outside, and a remarkably tall, powerful, and thickly painted savage sprang in. He pushed the natives violently aside, and gave some stern orders to those who held the prisoners. The immediate result was, that the latter were released and allowed to rise, although their hands were still bound behind them. Meanwhile the tall savage, standing beside them, harangued his comrades with great energy of tone and action. While this was going on, Larry O'Hale whispered excitedly to his companions-- "Howld on, lads, a bit. Sure I've burst the ropes at last. The moment I git howld o' that blackguard's knife I'll cut yer lashin's. Stand by for a rush." As Larry spoke, the tall savage drew the knife referred to from his girdle, and, glancing over his shoulder, said in English-- "Keep quiet, lads. I'll do my best to save 'ee; but if you offer to fight, you're dead men all in five minutes." Amazement, if no other feeling had operated, would have rendered the prisoners perfectly quiet after that. They waited in deep anxiety and wonder, while the tall savage continued his harangue, at the conclusion of which his hearers uttered an expressive grunt or growl, as if of assent, and then they all filed out of the hut, leaving the prisoners alone with their deliverer. CHAPTER TEN. OUR HERO AND HIS COMRADES IN DISTRESS BECOME SAVAGE WARRIORS FOR THE NONCE. "Friend," said Captain Dall, taking the hand of the tall savage in his and speaking with some emotion, "you have been sent as our deliverer, I know, but how a South Sea islander should happen to befriend us, and how you should come to speak English as well as ye do, is more than I can understand." "Onderstand!" exclaimed Larry; "it's past belaif. It baits cock-fightin' intirely." A grim smile crossed the painted face of the savage, as he said somewhat hurriedly:-- "I'm no more a South Sea islander than you are, lads, but this is not the time for explanations. It's enough for you to know, in the meantime, that I'm an Englishman, and will befriend you if you agree to obey me." "Obey ye!" cried Larry with enthusiasm, "blissin's on yer painted mug, it's warship ye we will, av ye only git us out o' this scrape." "That's so," said Muggins, nodding his head emphatically, while Mr Cupples, in tones of the most awful solemnity, and with a look that cannot be described, vowed eternal friendship. "Well, then," said the tall man, "we have no time to waste, for you are in a greater fix just now than ye think for. About myself it's enough to know that I'm a runaway sailor; that I made my way among these fellers here by offering to join 'em and fight for 'em, and that I won their respect at first by knocking down, in fair stand-up fight, all the biggest men o' the tribe. I don't think they would have spared me even after that, but I curried favour with the chief and married one of his daughters. Now I'm a great man among them. I didn't hear of your having been brought here till half an hour ago, havin' bin away with a war party in canoes. I returned just too late to save your comrades." "What! are they all dead?" asked Will Osten. "Ay, all, and if you don't follow them it will only be by attending to what I tell you. My name is Buchanan, but the savages can only manage to make Bukawanga out o' that. The word means fire, and ain't a bad one after all!" The man smiled grimly as he said this, and then resumed, more rapidly and sternly than before:-- "You have but one chance, and that is to join us. I have come to the village with the news that a neighbouring tribe is about to attack us. If you agree to help us to fight, I may manage to save you; if not your case is hopeless. There is no time for consideration. Ay or no, that's the word." "Sure I'll jine ye, Mr Bukkie Whangy," said Larry O'Hale, "wid all the pleasure in life. It's always for fightin' I am, at laist whin--" "I don't like to shed human blood," said Captain Dall, interrupting, "where I've no quarrel." "Then your own must be shed," said Bukawanga firmly. "There's no help for it, captain," said Will Osten. "'Tis better to fight for these men than to be murdered by them. What say you, Mr Cupples?" "War," replied the mate emphatically. "Ditto," said Muggins, nodding his head and buttoning his jacket. "Then strip, and we'll paint you right off," said Bukawanga; "look alive, now!" He fastened the torch which he held in his hand to a beam of the hut, and cut the bonds of the prisoners; then, going to the door, he summoned two men, who came in with a basket made of leaves, in which were several cocoa-nut shells filled with red, white, and black earth, or paint. "What!" exclaimed Will Osten, "must we fight without clothing?" "An' wid painted skins?" said Larry. "Yes, unless you would be a special mark for the enemy," replied Bukawanga; "but you have no chance if you don't become in every way like one of us." Seeing that the man was in earnest, they were fain to submit. After removing their clothes, the natives began diligently to paint them from head to foot, laying on the colours so thickly, and in such bold effective strokes, that ere long all appearance of nudity was removed. Man is a strange being. Even in the midst of the most solemn scenes he cannot resist giving way at times to bursts of mirth. Philosophy may fail to account for it, and propriety may shudder at it, but the fact is undeniable. With death hovering, they knew not how near, over them, and the memory of the fearful things they had just witnessed strong upon them, they were compelled, now and then, to smile and even to laugh aloud, as the process of painting went on. There was some variety in the adornment of each, but let that of Larry O'Hale serve as an example. First of all his legs were rubbed all over with white earth, and his body with yellow. Then, down each lower limb, behind, a palm-tree was drawn in red--the roots beginning at his heels, and the branches above spreading out on his calves. Various fanciful devices were drawn on his breast and arms, and some striking circles on his back. Last of all, one-half of his face was painted red, and the other half black, with a stripe of white extending from the root of his hair down to the point of his nose. It is needless to say that during the process the enthusiastic Irishman commented freely on the work, and offered many pieces of advice to the operator. Indeed, his tendency to improve upon existing customs had well-nigh put an end to the friendly relations which now subsisted between the white men and the natives, for he took a fancy to have a red stripe down each of his legs. Either the native did not understand him, or would not agree to the proposal, whereupon Larry took the brush and continued the work himself. At this the savage indignantly seized him by the arm and pinched him so violently that he lost temper, and, thrusting the red brush into the native's face, hurled him to the ground. There was a yell and a rush at once, and it is probable that blood would have been shed had not Bukawanga interposed. When the painting was completed, their protector led the white men (now no longer white!) to the hut of the chief. Bukawanga was received somewhat coldly at first. The chief, a large, fine-looking old man, named Thackombau, with an enormous head of frizzled hair, looked askance at the newcomers, and was evidently disposed to be unfriendly. Observing this, and that the warriors around him scowled on them in a peculiarly savage manner, most of the prisoners felt that their lives hung, as it were, upon a thread. The aspect of things changed, however, when their friend stood up and addressed the assembly. Bukawanga had not yet said a word about the cause of his sudden return from the war expedition. It was, therefore, with much concern that the chief and his men learned that a neighbouring and powerful tribe, with which they had always been at enmity, were actually on the way to attack them; and when Bukawanga talked of the needful preparations for defence, and, pointing to the prisoners, said that they were his countrymen, able to fight well, and willing to help them, there was a perceptible improvement in the looks of the party. Finally, Thackombau condescended to rub noses with them all, and they were ordered off to another hut to have supper. This latter arrangement was brought about by their deliverer, who knew that if they remained to sup with the natives they would be shocked, and, perhaps, roused to some act of desperate violence, by the horrible sight of portions of the bodies of their poor comrades, which, he knew, were to be eaten that night. He therefore sought to divert their thoughts from the subject by sitting down and relating many anecdotes connected with his own adventurous history, while they partook of a meal of which they stood much in need. The dishes, although new to them, were by no means unpalatable. They consisted of baked pig and yams served on banana leaves, and soup in cocoa-nut shells. Also a dish made of taro-tops, and filled with a creamy preparation of cocoa-nut done in an oven. Bread-fruits were also served, and these tasted so like the crumb of wheaten loaf, that it was difficult to believe them to be the fruit of a tree. For drink they had the juice of the young cocoa--a liquid which resembles lemonade, and of which each nut contains about a tumblerful. There was also offered to them a beverage named ava, which is intoxicating in its nature, and very disgusting in its preparation. This, however, Bukawanga advised them not to touch. "Now, Mr Bukkie Whangy," said Larry, after having appeased his appetite, "if I may make so bowld as to ax--how came ye here?" "The story is short enough and sad enough," replied his new friend. "The fact is, I came here in a sandal-wood trader's ship; I was so disgusted with the captain and crew that I ran away from them when they touched at this island for water. 'Tis eight years ago now, and I have bin here ever since. I have regretted the step that I took, for the devilry that goes on here is ten times worse than I ever saw aboard ship. However, it's too late for regret now." "Ah! _too late_," murmured Will Osten, and his thoughts leaped back to England. "The worst of it is," continued the runaway sailor, "that I have no chance of gettin' away, for the cruelty of sailors to the natives of this island has rendered them desperate, and they murder every white man they can get hold of. Indeed there would have been no chance for you but for the breaking out of war, and the fact that they are somewhat short of fightin' men just now. Not long after I landed on the island, an American whaler sent her boats ashore for water. They quarrelled, somehow, with the natives, who drove them into their boats with tremendous hooting and yells and some hard blows, although no blood was spilt. Well, what did the scoundrels do but pulled aboard their ship, brought their big guns to bear on the people, and fired on several villages--killing and wounding a good many of 'em, women and children among the rest. That's the way these fellows set the natives against white men. It was all I could do to prevent them from knocking out my brains after the thing happened." While Bukawanga was speaking, a great commotion was heard outside. "They're gettin' ready for action," he said, springing up. "Now, lads, follow me. I'll get you weapons, and, hark-'ee," he added, with a somewhat peculiar smile, "I heerd some of 'ee say ye don't want to spill blood where ye have no quarrel. Well, there's no occasion to do so. Only act in self-defence, and that'll do well enough; d'ye understand?" The man gave vent to a short chuckle as he said this, and then, leading his countrymen from the hut, conducted them towards a temple, near to which a large band of warriors was busily engaged in making preparations for the approaching fight. CHAPTER ELEVEN. A FIGHT, WHICH RESULTS IN A MISTAKE AND A HASTY FLIGHT. The horrors of war are neither agreeable to write about nor to reflect upon. However much, therefore, it may disappoint those readers whose minds delight to wallow in the abominations of human cruelty, we will refrain from entering into the full particulars of the sanguinary fight that ensued just after the arrival of Wandering Will and his friends in the island. It is sufficient to say that many lives were lost. Of course the loss of life bore no proportion to that which occurs in civilised warfare. One roar from the throats of our terrific engines of destruction will sometimes send more souls into eternity in one moment than all the fierce fury of a hundred savages can accomplish in an hour. But what the savage lacks in power he more than makes up for in cruelty and brutality. During the few days in which the fight raged, the sights that met the eyes of the white men, and the appalling sounds that filled their ears, turned their hearts sick, and induced a longing desire to escape. The war was carried on chiefly in the way of bush fighting. Our sailors found this mode of warfare convenient, for it enabled them to act very much as spectators. Passing over the details of the brief campaign, we touch only on those points which affected the subsequent movements of the whites. Bukawanga, who virtually acted the part of commander-in-chief, although all the chiefs considered themselves above him, moved about actively at all times to make sure that the village was properly guarded at every point. While thus employed he had, on one occasion, to pass through a piece of scrub, or thick bush, in which he heard the shriek of a woman. Turning aside he came to an opening where a man was endeavouring to kill a little boy, whose mother was doing her best to defend him. He evidently wished to kill the child and to spare the woman, but she stooped over the child and warded off the blows with her arms so cleverly, that it was still uninjured, although the poor mother was bleeding profusely from many wounds. Bukawanga instantly rushed to the rescue, and raised his club to deal the savage a deadly blow. Unobserved by him, however, another savage had been attracted to the spot, and, seeing what was about to happen, he ran up behind Bukawanga and felled him with a blow of his club. During the scuffle the woman snatched up her boy and escaped. The two savages then began to dispute as to which had the best right to cut off the head of their fallen foe and carry it away in triumph. Both of them were much fatigued with fighting, so they sat down on the back of the prostrate seaman to conduct the discussion more comfortably. The point was still undecided when Bukawanga recovered consciousness, felt the heavy pressure on his back and loins, and heard part of the interesting dialogue! It chanced, at this point, that Will Osten and Larry O'Hale, who, from natural affinity or some other cause, always kept together, came to the spot and peeped through the bushes. Seeing two men sitting on the body of a third and engaged in an animated dispute, they did not see cause to interfere, but remained for a few minutes almost amused spectators of the scene, being utterly ignorant, of course, as to the purport of their dispute. Suddenly, to their great surprise, they beheld the two men leap into the air; the supposed dead body sprang up, and, before either savage could use his weapons, each received a strong British fist between his eyes and measured his length on the sward, while the conqueror sprang over them into the bush and disappeared. "Man alive!" exclaimed Larry, "if it isn't Bukkie Whangy himself! Och, the murtherin' daimons!" With that Larry leaped over the bushes flourishing his club and yelling like a very savage. But Will Osten was before him. Both savages had risen immediately after being knocked down, and now faced their new enemies. They were no match for them. Being expert in all athletic exercises, young Osten found no difficulty in felling the first of the men, while Larry disposed of the other with equal celerity. The Irishman's blood had fired at the thought of the narrow escape of his deliverer, and, still whirling his club round his head, he looked about eagerly as if desirous of finding another foe on whom to expend his fury. At that moment he caught sight of a pair of savage eyes gleaming at him from the bushes. "Hah! ye dirty polecat," he cried, throwing his club at the eyes with all his force. Never was there a worse aim or a better shot! The club flew high into the air and would have fallen some fifty yards or more wide of the mark, had it not touched the limb of a tree in passing. It glanced obliquely down, and, striking the owner of the eyes between the shoulders felled him to the earth. Larry sprang upon him with a yell of triumph, but the yell was changed into a howl of consternation when he made the discovery that he had knocked down, if not killed, one of the principal chiefs of the village! To say that poor O'Hale wrung his hands, and wished bad luck to fightin' in general, and to himself in particular, gives but a feeble idea of the distress of his mind at this untoward event. "D'ye think I've kilt him intirely, doctor dear?" he asked of Will Osten, who was on his knees beside the fallen chief examining his hurt. "No, not quite. See, he breathes a little. Come, Larry, the moment he shows symptoms of reviving we must bolt. Of course he knows who knocked him down, and will never forgive us." "That's true, O murther!" exclaimed Larry, with a mingled look of contrition and anxiety. "Depend upon it they'll kill us all," continued Osten. "And bake an' ait us," groaned Larry. "Come," said Will, rising hastily as the stunned chief began to move, "we'll go search for our comrades." They hurried away, but not before the chief had risen on one elbow and shaken his clenched fist at them, besides displaying a terrible double row of teeth, through which he hissed an unintelligible malediction. They soon found their comrades, and related what had occurred. A hurried council of war was held on the spot, and it was resolved that, as a return to the village would ensure their destruction, the only chance of life which remained to them was to take to the mountains. Indeed, so urgent was the necessity for flight, that they started off at once, naked though they were, and covered with blood, paint, and dust, as well as being destitute of provisions. All that night they travelled without halt, and penetrated into the wildest fastnesses of the mountains of the interior. Bukawanga had already told them, during intervals in the fight when they had met and eaten their hasty meals together, that the island was a large, well wooded, and fruitful one--nearly thirty miles in diameter; and that the highest mountain in the centre was an active volcano. There were several tribes of natives on it, all of whom were usually at war with each other, but these tribes dwelt chiefly on the coast, leaving the interior uninhabited. The fugitives, therefore, agreed that they should endeavour to find a retreat amongst some of the most secluded and inaccessible heights, and there hide themselves until a ship should chance to anchor off the coast, or some other mode of escape present itself. The difficulties of the way were greater than had been anticipated. There was no path; the rocks, cliffs, and gullies were precipitous; and the underwood was thick and tangled, insomuch that Mr Cupples sat down once or twice and begged to be left where he was, saying that he would take his chance of being caught, and could feed quite well on cocoa-nuts! This, however, was not listened to. Poor Cupples was dragged along, half by persuasion and half by force. Sailors, as a class, are not celebrated for pedestrian powers, and Cupples was a singularly bad specimen of his class. Muggins, although pretty well knocked up before morning, held on manfully without a murmur. The captain, too, albeit a heavy man, and fat, and addicted to panting and profuse perspiration, declared that he was game for anything, and would never be guilty of saying "die" as long as there was "a shot in the locker." As for Larry O'Hale, he was a man of iron mould, one of those giants who seem to be incapable of being worn out or crushed by any amount of physical exertion. So far was he from being exhausted, that he threatened to carry Mr Cupples if he should again talk of falling behind. We need scarcely say that Wandering Will was quite equal to the occasion. Besides being a powerful fellow for his age, he was lithe, active, and hopeful, and, having been accustomed to hill-climbing from boyhood, could have left the whole party behind with ease. Grey dawn found the fugitives far up the sides of the mountains--fairly lost, as Muggins said, in a waste howlin' wilderness. It was sunrise when they reached the top of a high cliff that commanded a magnificent view of land and sea. "A good place this for us," said the captain, wiping his forehead as he sat down on a piece of rock. "The pass up to it is narrow; two or three stout fellows could hold it against an army of savages." "Av there was only a cave now for to live in," said Larry, looking round him. "Wot's that?" exclaimed Muggins, pointing to a hole in the perpendicular cliff a short distance above the spot where they stood.--"Ain't _that_ a cave?" Will Osten clambered up and disappeared in the hole. Soon after he re-appeared with the gratifying intelligence that it _was_ a cave, and a capital dry one; whereupon they all ascended, with some difficulty, and took possession of their new home. CHAPTER TWELVE. SHOWS HOW SOUTH SEA MISSIONARIES DO THEIR WORK, AND THAT IF THE WHITES CAN SURPRISE THE NATIVES THE LATTER CAN SOMETIMES ASTONISH THE WHITES! For three months did Wandering Will and his friends remain concealed in the mountains. Of course they were pursued and diligently sought for by the natives, and undoubtedly they would have been discovered had the search been continued for any length of time, but to their great surprise, after the first week of their flight, the search was apparently given up. At all events, from that period they saw nothing more of the natives, and gradually became more fearless in venturing to ramble from the cave in search of food. They puzzled over the matter greatly, for, to say the least of it, there appeared to be something mysterious in the total indifference so suddenly manifested towards them by the savages; but although many were the guesses made, they were very far from hitting on the real cause. During this period they subsisted on the numerous fruits and vegetables which grew wild in great abundance on the island, and spent their days in gathering them and hunting wild pigs and snaring birds. As Larry was wont to observe with great satisfaction, and, usually, with his mouth full of victuals-- "Sure it's the hoith o' livin' we have--what with cocky-nuts, an' taros an' bananas, an' young pigs for the killin', an' ginger-beer for the drinkin', an' penny loaves growin' on the trees for nothin', wid no end o' birds, an' pots ready bilin', night an' day, to cook 'em in--och! it would be hiven intirely but for the dirty savages, bad luck to 'em!" There was more truth in Larry's remark than may be apparent at first sight. Vegetation was not only prolific and beautiful everywhere, but exceedingly fruitful. The bread-fruit tree in particular supplied them with more than they required of a substance that was nearly as palatable and nutritious as bread. Captain Dall fortunately knew the method of cooking it in an oven, for the uncooked fruit is not eatable. The milk of the young cocoa-nuts was what the facetious Irishman referred to under the name of ginger-beer; but his remark about boiling pots was literally correct. The summit of that mountainous island was, as we have already said, an active volcano, from which sulphurous fumes were constantly issuing--sometimes gently, and occasionally with violence. Several of the springs in the neighbourhood were hot--a few being almost at the boiling point, so that it was absolutely possible to boil the wild pigs and birds which they succeeded in capturing, without the use of a fire! Strange to say, they also found springs of clear _cold_ water not far from the hot springs. There is a species of thin tough bark round the upper part of the stem of the cocoa-nut palm--a sort of natural cloth--which is much used by the South Sea islanders. Of this they fashioned some rude but useful garments. "It seems curious, doesn't it," said Will Osten to Captain Dall, one day, referring to these things and the beauty of the island, "that the Almighty should make such a terrestrial paradise as this, and leave it to be used, or rather abused, by such devils in human shape?" "I'm not sure," answered the captain slowly, "that we are right in saying that _He_ has left it to be so abused. I'm afraid that it is _we_ who are to blame in the matter." "How so?" exclaimed Will, in surprise. "You believe the Bible to be the Word of God, don't you?" said Captain Dall somewhat abruptly, "and that its tendency is to improve men?" "Of _course_ I do; how can you ask such a question?" "Did you ever," continued the captain pointedly, "hear of a text that says something about going and teaching all nations, and have, you ever given anything to send missionaries with the Bible to these islands?" "I--I can't say I ever have," replied Will, with a smile and a slight blush. "No more have I, lad," said the captain, smiting his knee emphatically; "the thought has only entered my head for the first time, but I _do_ think that it is _we_ who leave islands such as this to be abused by the human devils you speak of, and who, moreover, are not a whit worse--nay, not so bad--as many _civilised_ human devils, who, in times not long past, and under the cloak of religion, have torn men and tender women limb from limb, and bound them at the stake, and tortured them on the rack, in order to make them swallow a false creed." This was the commencement of one of the numerous discussions on religion, philosophy, and politics, with which the echoes of that cavern were frequently awakened after the somewhat fatiguing labours of each day's chase were over, for a true Briton is the same everywhere. He is a reasoning (if you will, an argumentative) animal, and our little band of fugitives in those mountain fastnesses was no exception to the rule. Meanwhile, two events occurred at the native village which require notice. Their occurrence was not observed by our friends in hiding, because the summit of the mountain completely shut out their view in that direction, and they never wandered far from their place of retreat. The first event was very sad, and is soon told. One morning a schooner anchored off the village, and a party of armed seamen landed, the leader of whom, through the medium of an interpreter, had an interview with the chief. He wished to be permitted to cut sandal-wood, and an agreement was entered into. After a considerable quantity had been cut and sent on board, the chief wanted payment. This was refused on some trivial ground. The savages remonstrated. The white men threatened, and the result was that the latter were driven into their boats. They pulled off to their vessel, loaded a large brass gun that occupied the centre of the schooner's deck, and sent a shower of cannister shot among the savages, killing and wounding not only many of the men, but some of the women and children who chanced to be on the skirt of the wood. They then set sail, and, as they coasted along, fired into several villages, the people of which had nothing to do with their quarrel. Only a week after this event another little schooner anchored off the village. It was a missionary ship, sent by the London Missionary Society to spread the good news of salvation through Christ among the people. Some time before, a native teacher--one who, on another island, had embraced Christianity, and been carefully instructed in its leading truths--had been sent to this island, and was well received; but, war having broken out, the chief had compelled him to leave. A second attempt was now being made, and this time an English missionary with his wife and daughter were about to trust themselves in the hands of the savages. They could not have arrived at a worse time. The islanders, still smarting under a sense of the wrong and cruelty so recently done them, rushed upon the little boat of the schooner, brandishing clubs and spears, the instant it touched the land, and it was with the utmost difficulty that the missionary prevailed on them to stay their hands and give him a hearing. He soon explained the object of his visit, and, by distributing a few presents, so far mollified the people that he was allowed to land, but it was plain that they regarded him with distrust. The tide was turned in the missionary's favour, however, by the runaway sailor, Buchanan, or Bukawanga. That worthy happened at the time to be recovering slowly from the effects of the wound he had received in the fight, which had so nearly proved to be his last. On hearing of the arrival of strangers he feared that the savages would kill them out of revenge, and hastened, weak and ill though he was, to meet, and, if possible, protect them. His efforts were successful. He managed to convince the natives that among Christians there were two classes--those who merely called themselves by the name, and those who really did their best to practise Christianity; that the sandal-wood traders probably did not even pretend to the name, but that those who had just arrived would soon give proof that they were of a very different spirit. The result of this explanation was, that the chiefs agreed to receive the missionary, who accordingly landed with his family, and with all that was necessary for the establishment of a mission. Those who have not read of missionary enterprise in the South Seas can form no conception of the difficulties that missionaries have to contend with, and the dangers to which they are exposed on the one hand, and, on the other, the rapidity with which success is sometimes vouchsafed to them. In some instances, they have passed years in the midst of idolatry and bloody rites, the mere recital of which causes one to shudder, while their lives have hung on the caprice of a volatile chief; at other times God has so signally blessed their efforts that a whole tribe has adopted Christianity in the course of a few weeks. Misunderstand us not, reader. We do not say that they all became true Christians; nevertheless it is a glorious fact that such changes have occurred; that idolatry has been given up and Christianity embraced within that short period, and that the end has been the civilisation of the people; doubtless, also, the salvation of some immortal souls. In about two months after their arrival a marvellous change had taken place in the village. The natives, like very children, came with delight to be taught the use of the white man's tools, and to assist in clearing land and building a cottage. When this was finished, a small church was begun. It was this busy occupation that caused the savages to forget, for a time, the very existence of Wandering Will and his friends; and if Bukawanga thought of them, it was to conclude that they had taken refuge with one of the tribes on the other side of the island. That which seemed to amuse and delight the natives most in the new arrivals was the clothing which was distributed among them. They proved very untractable, however, in the matter of putting it on. One man insisted on putting the body of a dress which had been meant for his wife on his own nether limbs--thrusting his great feet through the sleeves, and thereby splitting them to the shoulder. Another tied a tippet round his waist, and a woman was found strutting about in a pair of fisherman's boots, and a straw bonnet with the back to the front! One of the chiefs thus absurdly arrayed was the means of letting the fugitive white men have an idea that something strange had occurred at the village. This man had appropriated a scarlet flannel petticoat which had been presented to his mother, and, putting it on with the waist-band tied round his neck, sallied forth to hunt in the mountains. He was suddenly met by Larry O'Hale and Will Osten. "Musha! 'tis a ow-rangy-tang!" cried the Irishman. His companion burst into a fit of loud laughter. The terrified native turned to flee, but Larry darted after him, tripped up his heels, and held him down. "Kape quiet, won't ye?" he said, giving the struggling man a severe punch on the chest. The savage thought it best to obey. Being allowed to get on his legs he was blindfolded, and then, with Will grasping him on one side, and the Irishman on the other, he was led up to the mountain-cave, and introduced to the family circle there, just as they were about to sit down to their mid-day meal. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. REMARKABLE CHANGES FOR THE BETTER. It will not surprise the reader to be told that the savage with the red flannel petticoat tied round his neck was received with shouts of laughter by the inmates of the cave, and that his costume filled them with mingled feelings of astonishment and curiosity. The information obtained from him by signs did not enlighten them much, but it was sufficient to convince them that something unusual had occurred at the native village, and to induce Will Osten to act in accordance with his favourite motto. "I tell you what, comrades," said he, after a few minutes' deliberation, "I have made up my mind to go back to the village with this red-coated gentleman, and see whether they are all decked out in the same fashion. To tell the truth, I have been thinking for some time back that we have been living here to no purpose--" "Only hear that, now," said Larry O'Hale, interrupting; "haven't we bin livin' like fightin' cocks, an' gettin' as fat as pigs? Why, Mr Cupples hisself begins to throw a shadow on the ground whin the sun's pretty strong; an' as for Muggins there--" "You let Muggins alone," growled the seaman; "if we _are_ fatterer, p'raps it'll only be for the good o' the niggers when they come to eat us." "Well, well," said Will; "at all events we shall never escape from this place by remaining here--(`True for ye,' said Larry)--therefore I shall go to the village, as I have said. If they receive me, well and good; I will return to you. If not--why, that's the end of me, and you'll have to look out for yourselves." As usual an energetic discussion followed this announcement. The captain said it was madness, Mr Cupples shook his head and groaned, Muggins thought that they should all go together and take their chance, and Larry protested that he would sooner be eaten alive than allow his comrade to go without him; but in time Will Osten convinced them all that his plan was best. What would be the good of the whole of them being killed together, he said--better that the risk should fall on one, and that the rest should have a chance of escape. Besides, he was the best runner of the party, and, if he should manage to wriggle out of the clutches of the savages, would be quite able to outrun them and regain the cave. At length the youth's arguments and determination prevailed, and in the afternoon he set off accompanied by his sable friend in female attire. On nearing the village, the first thing that greeted the eyes of our hero was a savage clothed in a yellow cotton vest and a blue jacket, both of which were much too small for him; he also had the leg of a chair hung round his neck by way of ornament. This turned out to be the principal chief of the village, Thackombau, and a very proud man he obviously was on that occasion. To refrain from smiling, and embrace this fellow by rubbing noses with him, was no easy matter, but Will Osten did it nevertheless. While they were endeavouring to converse by signs, Will was suddenly bereft of speech and motion by the unexpected appearance of a white man--a gentleman clothed in sombre costume--on whose arm leaned a pleasant-faced lady! The gentleman smiled on observing the young man's gaze of astonishment, and advancing, held out his hand. Will Osten grasped and shook it, but still remained speechless. "Doubtless you are one of the party who escaped into the hills lately?" said the gentleman. "Indeed I am, sir," replied Will, finding words at last, and bowing to the lady; "but from what star have _you_ dropt? for, when I left the village, there were none but savages in it!" "I dropt from the _Star of Hope_," answered the gentleman, laughing. "You have hit the mark, young sir, nearer than you think, for that is the name of the vessel that brought me here. I am a missionary; my name is Westwood; and I am thankful to say I have been successful in making a good commencement on this island. This is my wife--allow me to introduce you--and if you will come with me to my cottage--" "Cottage!" exclaimed Will. "Ay, 'tis a good and pretty one, too, notwithstanding the short time we took to build it. The islanders are smart fellows when they have a mind to labour, and it is wonderful what an amount can be done when the Lord prospers the work. These good fellows," added the missionary, casting a glance at the two natives, "who, as you see, are somewhat confused in their ideas about dress, have already done me much service in the building of the church--" "Church!" echoed Will. Again the missionary laughed, and, offering his arm to his wife, turned towards the village, saying-- "Come, Mr Osten--you see I know your name, having heard of you from your friend Buchanan--come, I will show you what we have been about while you were absent; but first--tell me--how fares it with your comrades?" Will Osten at once entered into a full account of the doings of himself and his friends, and had just concluded, when he was once more rendered speechless by the sight of the missionary's cottage. It was almost the realisation of the waking dream which had captivated him so much on the evening when the storm arose that proved fatal to the _Foam_. He was still gazing at it in silent admiration, listening to an enthusiastic account of the zeal and kindness of the natives who helped to build it, when a young girl, apparently bordering on seventeen or eighteen years of age, with nut-brown curls, rosy cheeks, and hazel eyes, sprang out and hastened to meet them. "Oh, father," she exclaimed, while the colour of her face came and went fitfully, "I'm so glad you have come! The natives have been so--so--" "Not rude to you, Flora, surely?" interrupted the missionary. "No, not exactly rude, but, but--" Flora could not explain! The fact turned out to be that, never having seen any woman so wonderfully and bewitchingly beautiful before, the natives had crowded uninvited into the cottage, and there, seated on their hams round the walls, quietly gazed at her to their hearts' content--utterly ignorant of the fact that they were violating the rules of polite society! Will Osten, to his disgrace be it said, violated the same rules in much the same way, for he continued to gaze at Flora in rapt admiration until Mr Westwood turned to introduce her to him. That same evening Bukawanga, accompanied by Thackombau, went to the mountain-cave, and, having explained to its occupants the altered state of things at the village, brought them down to the mission-house where they took up their abode. It need scarcely be said that they were hospitably received. Mr Westwood had not met with countrymen for many months, and the mere sight of white faces and the sound of English voices were pleasant to him. He entertained them with innumerable anecdotes of his experiences and adventures as a missionary, and on the following morning took them out to see the church, which had just been begun. "Already," said Mr Westwood, as they were about to set forth after breakfast, "my wife and Flora have got up a class of women and girls, to whom they teach needle-work, and we have a large attendance of natives at our meetings on the Sabbath. A school also has been started, which is managed by a native teacher who came with me from the island of Raratonga, and most of the boys in the village attend it." "But it does seem to me, sir," said Captain Dall, as they sauntered along, "that needle-work and book-learning can be of no use to such people." "Not of much just now, captain, but these are only means to a great end. Already, you see, they are beginning to be clothed--fantastically enough at present, no doubt--and I hope ere long to see them in their right mind, through the blessed influence of the Bible. Look there," he added, pointing to an open space in the forest, where the four walls of a large wooden building were beginning to rise; "there is evidence of what the gospel of Jesus Christ can do. The labourers at that building are, many of them, bitter enemies to each other. Only yesterday we succeeded in getting some of the men of the neighbouring village to come and help us. After much persuasion they agreed, but they work with their weapons in their hands, as you see." This was indeed the case. The men who had formerly been enemies were seen assisting to build the same church. They took care, however, to work as far from each other as possible, and were evidently distrustful, for clubs and spears were either carried in their hands, or placed within reach, while they laboured. Fortunately, however, they restrained their passions at that time, and it is due to them to add that before that church was finished their differences were made up, and they, with all the others, ultimately completed the work in perfect harmony, without thinking it necessary to bring their clubs or spears with them. The reader must not suppose that all missionary efforts in the South Seas have been as quickly successful as this one. The records of that interesting region tell a very different tale; nevertheless there are many islands in which the prejudices of the natives were overcome almost at the commencement, and where heathen practices seemed to melt away at once before the light of the glorious gospel. During two months, Wandering Will and the wrecked seamen remained here assisting the missionary in his building and other operations. Then an event occurred which sent them once more afloat, and broke the spell of their happy and busy life among the islanders. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. CONTAINS MORE THAN ONE SURPRISE, AND TOUCHES ON "LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM." One quiet and beautiful Sabbath morning, the inhabitants of the South Sea Island village wended their way to the House of God which they had so recently erected. Among them were Will Osten and his friends, with the clergyman's wife and daughter. Poor Wandering Will was very unhappy. The sunshine was bright, the natives were blithe, and the birds were joyous, but our hero was despondent! The fact was that he had fallen head and ears in love with Flora Westwood, and he felt that he might as well have fallen in love with the moon--as far as any chance of getting married to her was concerned. Will was therefore very miserable, and, like all ardent and very youthful lovers, he hugged his misery to his bosom--rather enjoyed it, in fact, than otherwise. In short, if truth must be told, he took pleasure in being miserable _for her sake_! When he allowed himself to take romantic views of the subject, and thought of the heights of bliss that _might_ be attained, he was, so to speak, miserably happy. When he looked the stern realities in the face, he was miserably sad. That Sabbath morning poor Will felt more impressed than ever with the hopelessness of his case, as he walked slowly and silently to church beside the modest Flora and her mother. He also became impressed with the ridiculousness of his position, and determined to "overcome his weakness." He therefore looked at Flora with the intention of cutting a joke of some sort, but, suddenly recollecting that it was Sunday, he checked himself. Then he thought of getting into a serious talk, and was about to begin, when his eye happened to fall on Thackombau, who, in honour of the day, had got himself up with unusual care, having covered his shoulders with a cotton jacket, his loins with a lady's shawl, and his head with a white night-cap--his dark tatooed legs forming a curious and striking contrast to the whole. Before Will could think of another mode of opening the conversation, they had arrived at the church, and here, in front of the open door, there lay the most singular contribution that ever was offered to the cause of Christianity. Many dozens of church-door plates rolled into one enormous trencher would have been insufficient to contain it, for it was given not in money (of course) but in kind. There were a number of lengths of hollow bamboo containing cocoa-nut oil, various fine mats and pieces of native cloth, and sundry articles of an ornamental character, besides a large supply of fruits and vegetables, with four or five baked pigs, cold and ready for table! The entire pile was several feet in diameter and height, and was a freewill offering of the natives to the church--the beginning of a liberality which was destined in future years to continue and extend--a species of liberality which is by no means uncommon among the South Sea Islanders, for there are some of those who were savage idolators not many years ago who now give annually and largely to the support of the missions with which their churches are connected. Larry O'Hale had just made a remark in reference to "the plate" which was not conducive to the gravity of his companions, when the echoes of the mountains were awakened by a cannon-shot, and a large ship was seen to round the point of land that stretched out to the westward of the island. Instantly the natives poured out of the church, rushed down to the shore, launched their canoes and paddled over the lagoon to meet the vessel, which, running before a stiff breeze, soon entered the natural gateway in the reef. The congregation having dispersed thus unceremoniously, the clergyman and his friends were compelled to postpone service for a time. The ship which had created such a sensation in the village, was also the means of causing great disturbance in sundry breasts, as shall be seen. She had called for water. Being in a hurry, her captain had resolved not to waste time by conciliating the natives, but, rather, to frighten them away by a cannonade of blank cartridge, land a strong party to procure water while they were panic-stricken, and then up anchor and away. His surprise was great, therefore, when the natives came fearlessly off to him (for he had been warned to beware of them), and he was about to give them a warm reception, when he caught a glimpse of the small spire of the new church, which at once explained the cause of the change. With rollicking good humour--for he was a strong healthy man with a sleeping conscience--Captain Blathers, on landing, swaggered up to the clergyman and shook him heartily and gratefully by the hand, exclaiming, with a characteristic oath, that he had not much opinion of religion in his own country, but he was bound to say it was "a first-rate institootion in the South Seas." Mr Westwood rebuked the oath and attempted to correct the erroneous opinion, but Captain Blathers laughed, and said he knew nothing about these matters, and had no time for anything but getting fresh water just then. He added that he had "a batch of noosepapers, which he'd send ashore for the use of all and sundry." Accordingly, off he went about his business, and left the clergyman and natives to return to church, which they all did without delay. That night the missionary went on board the ship to see the captain and preach to the crew. While he was thus engaged, our friends, Captain Dall, Mr Cupples, O'Hale, Muggins, and Wandering Will, in a retired part of the forest, held an earnest conversation as to whether they should avail themselves of the arrival of the ship to quit the island. Captain Dall had already spoken with Captain Blathers, who said he was quite willing to let them work their passage to England. "Now, you see, comrades," said Captain Dall, thrusting his right fist into his left palm, "the only trouble is, that he's not goin' direct home--got to visit the coast of South America and San Francisco first, an' that will make it a long voyage." "But, sure," said Larry, "it won't be so long as waitin' here till next year for the missionary schooner, and then goin' a viage among the islands before gettin' a chance of boording a homeward-bound ship?" "That's so," said Muggins, with a nod of approval. "I says go, ov coorse." Mr Cupples also signified that this was his opinion. "And what says the doctor?" asked Captain Dall, turning to Will Osten with an inquiring look. "Eh? well, ah!" exclaimed Will, who had been in a reverie, "I--I don't exactly see my way to--that is--if we only could find out if she is--is to remain here _always_, or hopes some day to return to England--" Poor Will stopped in sudden confusion and blushed, but as it was very dark that did not matter much. "What _does_ the man mean?" exclaimed Captain Dall. "How _can_ she remain here always when she's to be off at daybreak--?" "True, true," interrupted Will hurriedly, not sorry to find that his reference to Flora was supposed to be to the ship. "The fact is, I was thinking of other matters--of _course_ I agree with you. It's too good an opportunity to be missed, so, good-night, for I've enough to do to get ready for such an abrupt departure." Saying this, he started up and strode rapidly away. "Halloo!" shouted Larry after him; "don't be late--be on the baich at daybreak. Arrah he's gone mad intirely." "Ravin'," said Muggins, with a shake of his head as he turned the quid in his cheek. Meanwhile Wandering Will rushed he knew not whither, but a natural impulse led him, in the most natural way, to the quiet bay, which he knew to be Flora's favourite walk on moonlight nights! The poor youth's brain was whirling with conflicting emotions. As he reached the bay, the moon, strange to say, broke forth in great splendour, and revealed-- what!--could it be?--yes, the graceful figure of Flora! "Never venture," thought Will, "never--" In another moment he was by her side; he seized her hand; she started, suppressed a scream, and tried to free her hand, but Will held it fast. "Forgive me, Flora, dearest girl," he said in impassioned tones, "I would not dare to act thus, but at daybreak I leave this island, perhaps for ever! yet I _cannot_ go without telling you that I love you to distraction, that--that--oh! say tell me--" At that moment he observed that Flora blushed, smiled in a peculiar manner, and, instead of looking in his face, glanced over his shoulder, as if at some object behind him. Turning quickly round, he beheld Thackombau, still decked out in his Sunday clothes, gazing at them in open-mouthed amazement. Almost mad with rage, Will Osten rushed at him. The astonished savage fled to the woods, Will followed, and in a few minutes lost himself! How he passed that night he never could tell; all that he could be sure of was that he had wandered about in distraction, and emerged upon the shore about daybreak. His appointment suddenly recurring to him, he ran swiftly in the direction of the village. As he drew near he observed a boat pushing off from the shore. "Howld on!" shouted a well-known voice; "sure it's himself after all." "Come along, young sir, you're late, and had well-nigh lost your passage," growled Captain Blathers. Will jumped into the boat and in a few minutes found himself on board the _Rover_, which, by the time he reached it, was under weigh and making for the opening in the reef. Another hour, and the island was a mere speck on the horizon. Gradually it faded from view; and the good ship, bending over to the freshening breeze, bounded lightly away over the billows of the mighty sea. THE END. 
1759	----	THE BLACK-BEARDED BARBARIAN by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor (AKA Marion Keith) THE BLACK BEARDED BARBARIAN (1) (1) The name by which George Leslie Mackay was known among the Chinese of north Formosa. CHAPTER I. SPLITTING ROCKS Up in the stony pasture-field behind the barn the boys had been working all the long afternoon. Nearly all, that is, for, being boys, they had managed to mix a good deal of fun with their labor. But now they were tired of both work and play, and wondered audibly, many times over, why they were not yet called home to supper. The work really belonged to the Mackay boys, but, like Tom Sawyer, they had made it so attractive that several volunteers had come to their aid. Their father was putting up a new stone house, near the old one down there behind the orchard, and the two youngest of the family had been put at the task of breaking the largest stones in the field. It meant only to drag some underbrush and wood from the forest skirting the farm, pile them on the stones, set fire to them, and let the heat do the rest. It had been grand sport at first, they all voted, better than playing shinny, and almost as good as going fishing. In fact it was a kind of free picnic, where one could play at Indians all day long. But as the day wore on, the picnic idea had languished, and the stone-breaking grew more and more to resemble hard work. The warm spring sunset had begun to color the western sky; the meadow-larks had gone to bed, and the stone-breakers were tired and ravenously hungry--as hungry as only wolves or country boys can be. The visitors suggested that they ought to be going home. "Hold on, Danny, just till this one breaks," said the older Mackay boy, as he set a burning stick to a new pile of brush. "This'll be a dandy, and it's the last, too. They're sure to call us to supper before we've time to do another." The new fire, roaring and snapping, sending up showers of sparks and filling the air with the sweet odor of burning cedar, proved too alluring to be left. The company squatted on the ground before it, hugging their knees and watching the blue column of smoke go straight up into the colored sky. It suggested a camp-fire in war times, and each boy began to tell what great and daring deeds he intended to perform when he became a man. Jimmy, one of the visitors, who had been most enthusiastic over the picnic side of the day's work, announced that he was going to be a sailor. He would command a fleet on the high seas, so he would, and capture pirates, and grow fabulously wealthy on prize-money. Danny, who was also a guest, declared his purpose one day to lead a band of rough riders to the Western plains, where he would kill Indians, and escape fearful deaths by the narrowest hairbreadth. "Mebbe I'm goin'to be Premier of Canada, some day," said one youngster, poking his bare toes as near as he dared to the flames. There were hoots of derision. This was entirely too tame to be even considered as a career. "And what are you going to be, G. L.?" inquired the biggest boy of the smallest. The others looked at the little fellow and laughed. George Mackay was the youngest of the group, and was a small wiry youngster with a pair of flashing eyes lighting up his thin little face. He seemed far too small and insignificant to even think about a career. But for all the difference in their size and age the bigger boys treated little George with a good deal of respect. For, somehow, he never failed to do what he set out to do. He always won at races, he was never anywhere but at the head of his class, he was never known to be afraid of anything in field or forest or school ground, he was the hardest worker at home or at school, and by sheer pluck he managed to do everything that boys bigger and older and stronger could do. So when Danny asked, "And what are you going to be, G. L.?" though the boys laughed at the small thin little body, they respected the daring spirit it held, and listened for his answer. "He's goin' to be a giant, and go off with a show," cried one, and they all laughed again. Little G. L. laughed too, but he did not say what he intended to do when he grew big. Down in his heart he held a far greater ambition than the others dreamed of. It was too great to be told--so great he scarcely knew what it was himself. So he only shook his small head and closed his lips tightly, and the rest forgot him and chattered on. Away beyond the dark woods, the sunset shone red and gold between the black tree trunks. The little boy gazed at it wonderingly. The sight of those morning and evening glories always stirred his child's soul, and made him long to go away--away, he knew not where--to do great and glorious deeds. The Mackay boys' grandfather had fought at Waterloo, and little George Leslie, the youngest of six, had heard many, many tales of that gallant struggle, and every time they had been told him he had silently resolved that, some day, he too would do just such brave deeds as his grandfather had done. As the boys talked on, and the little fellow gazed at the sunset and dreamed, the big stone cracked in two, the fire died down, and still there came no welcome call to supper from any of the farmhouses in sight. The Mackay boys had been trained in a fine old-fashioned Canadian home, and did not dream of quitting work until they were summoned. But the visitors were merely visitors, and could go home when they liked. The future admiral of the pirate-killing fleet declared he must go and get supper, or he'd eat the grass, he was so hungry. The coming Premier of Canada and the Indian-slayer agreed with him, and they all jumped the fence, and went whooping away over the soft brown fields toward home. There was just one big stone left. It was a huge boulder, four feet across. "We'll never get enough wood to crack that, G. L.," declared his brother. "It just can't be done." But little George answered just as any one who knew his determination would have expected. In school he astonished his teacher by learning everything at a tremendous rate, but there was one small word he refused to learn--the little word "can't." His bright eyes flashed, now, at the sound of it. He jumped upon the big stone, and clenched his fist. "It's GOT to be broken!" he cried. "I WON'T let it beat me." He leaped down, and away he ran toward the woods. His brother caught his spirit, and ran too. They forgot they were both tired and hungry. They seized a big limb of a fallen tree and dragged it across the field. They chopped it into pieces, and piled it high with plenty of brush, upon the big stone. In a few minutes it was all in a splendid blaze, leaping and crackling, and sending the boys' long shadows far across the field. The fire grew fiercer and hotter, and suddenly the big boulder cracked in four pieces, as neatly as though it had been slashed by a giant's sword. Little G. L. danced around it, and laughed triumphantly. The next moment there came the welcome "hoo-hoo" from the house behind the orchard, and away the two scampered down the hill toward home and supper. When the day's work of the farmhouse had been finished, the Mackay family gathered about the fire, for the spring evening was chilly. George Leslie sat near his mother, his face full of deep thought. It was the hour for family worship, and always at this time he felt most keenly that longing to do something great and glorious. Tonight his father read of a Man who was sending out his army to conquer the world. It was only a little army, just twelve men, but they knew their Leader had more power than all the soldiers of the world. And they were not afraid, though he said, "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves." For he added, "Fear ye not," for he would march before them, and they would be sure of victory. The little boy listened with all his might. He did everything that way. Surely this was a story of great and glorious deeds, even better than Waterloo, he felt. And there came to his heart a great longing to go out and fight wrong and put down evil as these men had done. He did not know that the longing was the voice of the great King calling his young knight to go out and "Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King." But there came a day when he did understand, and on that day he was ready to obey. When bedtime came the boys were asked if they had finished their work, and the story of the last big stone was told. "G. L. would not leave it," the brother explained. The father looked smilingly at little G. L. who still sat, dangling his short legs from his chair, and studying the fire. He spoke to his wife in Gaelic. "Perhaps the lad will be called to break a great rock some day. The Lord grant he may do it." The boy looked up wonderingly. He understood Gaelic as well as English, but he did not comprehend his father's words. He had no idea they were prophetic, and that away on the other side of the world, in a land his geography lessons had not yet touched, there stood a great rock, ugly and hard and grim, which he was one day to be called upon to break. CHAPTER II. A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY The steamship America, bound for Hongkong, was leaving the dock at San Francisco. All was bustle and noise and stir. Friends called a last farewell from the deck, handkerchiefs waved, many of them wet with tears. The long boom of a gun roared out over the harbor, a bell rang, and the signal was given. Up came the anchor, and slowly and with dignity the great vessel moved out through the Golden Gate into the wide Pacific. Crowds stood on the deck to get a last glimpse of home and loved ones, and to wave to friends as long as they could be distinguished. There was one young man who stood apart from the crowd, and who did not wave farewell to any one. He had come on board with a couple of men, but they had gone back to the dock, and were lost in the crowd. He seemed entirely alone. He leaned against the deck-railing and gazed intently over the widening strip of tumbling waters to the city on the shore. But he did not see it. Instead, he saw a Canadian farmhouse, a garden and orchard, and gently sloping meadows hedged in by forest. And up behind the barn he saw a stony field, where long ago he and his brother and the neighbor boys had broken the stones for the new house. His quick movements, his slim, straight figure, and his bright, piercing eyes showed he was the same boy who had broken the big rock in the pasture-field long before. Just the same boy, only bigger, and more man than boy now, for he wore an air of command and his thin keen face bore a beard, a deep black, like his hair. And now he was going away, as he had longed to go, when he was a boy, and ahead of him lay the big frowning rock, which he must either break or be broken upon. He had learned many things since those days when he had scampered barefoot over the fields, or down the road to school. He had been to college in Toronto, in Princeton, and away over in Edinburgh, in the old homeland where his father and mother were born. And all through his life that call to go and do great deeds for the King had come again and again. He had determined to obey it when he was but a little lad at school. He had encountered many big stones in his way, which he had to break, before he could go on. But the biggest stone of all lay across his path when college was over, and he was ready and anxious to go away as a missionary. The Presbyterian Church of Canada had never yet sent out a missionary to a foreign land, and some of the good old men bade George Mackay stay at home and preach the gospel there. But as usual he conquered. Every one saw he would be a great missionary if he were only given a chance. At last the General Assembly gave its consent, and now, in spite of all stones in the way, here he was, bound for China, and ready to do anything the King commanded. Land was beginning to fade away into a gray mist, the November wind was damp and chill, he turned and went down to his stateroom. He sat down on his little steamer trunk, and for the first time the utter loneliness and the uncertainty of this voyage came over him. He took up his Bible and turned to the fly-leaf. There he read the inscription: Presented to REV. G. L. MACKAY First missionary of the Canadian Presbyterian Church to China, by the Foreign Mission Committee, as a parting token of their esteem, when about to leave his native land for the sphere of his future labors among the heathen. WILLIAM MACLAREN, Convener. Ottawa, 9th October, 1871. Matthew xxviii: 18-20. Psalm cxxi It was a moment of severe trial to the young soldier. But he turned to the Psalm marked on the fly-leaf of his Bible, and he read it again and again. "My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth" "The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand." "The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night." The beautiful words gave him comfort. Homesickness, loneliness, and fears for the future all vanished. He was going out to an unknown land where dangers and perhaps death awaited him, but the Lord would be his keeper and nothing could harm him. Twenty-six days on the Pacific! And a stormy voyage it was, for the Pacific does not always live up to her beautiful name, and she tossed the America about in a shocking manner. But the voyage did not seem long to George Mackay. There were other missionaries on board with whom he had become acquainted, and he had long delightful talks with them and they taught him many things about his new work. He was the same busy G. L. he had been when a boy; always working, working, and he did not waste a moment on the voyage. There was a fine library on the ship and he studied the books on China until he knew more about the religion of that country than did many of the Chinese themselves. One day, as he was poring over a Chinese history, some one called him hastily to come on deck. He threw down his book and ran up-stairs. The whole ship was in a joyous commotion. His friend pointed toward the horizon, and away off there against the sky stood the top of a snow-capped peak--Fujiyama!--the majestic, sacred mountain of Japan! It was a welcome sight, after the long ocean voyage, and the hours they lay in Yokahama harbor were full of enjoyment. Every sight was thrilling and strange to young Mackay's Western eyes. The harbor fairly swarmed with noisy, shouting, chattering Japanese boatmen. He wondered why they seemed so familiar, until it suddenly dawned on him that their queer ricestraw coats made them look like a swarm of Robinson Crusoes who had just been rescued from their islands. When he landed he found things still funnier. The streets were noisier than the harbor. Through them rolled large heavy wooden carts, pulled and pushed by men, with much grunting and groaning. Past him whirled what looked like overgrown baby carriages, also pulled by men, and each containing a big grown-up human baby. It was all so pretty too, and so enchanting that the young missionary would fain have remained there. But China was still farther on, so when the America again set sail, he was on board. Away they sailed farther and farther east, or was it west? He often asked himself that question in some amusement as they approached the coast of China. They entered a long winding channel and steamed this way and that until one day they sailed into a fine broad harbor with a magnificent city rising far up the steep sides of a hill. It was an Oriental city, and therefore strange to the young traveler. But for all that there seemed something familiar in the fine European buildings that lined the streets, and something still more homelike in that which floated high above them--something that brought a thrill to the heart of the young Canadian--the red-crossed banner of Britain! It was Hongkong, the great British port of the East, and here he decided to land. No sooner had the travelers touched the dock, than they were surrounded by a yelling, jostling crowd of Chinese coolies, all shouting in an outlandish gibberish for the privilege of carrying the Barbarians' baggage. A group gathered round Mackay, and in their eagerness began hammering each other with bamboo poles. He was well-nigh bewildered, when above the din sounded the welcome music of an English voice. "Are you Mackay from Canada?" He whirled round joyfully. It was Dr. E. J. Eitel, a missionary from England. He had been told that the young Canadian would arrive on the America and was there to welcome him. Although the Canadian Presbyterian Church had as yet sent out no missionaries to a foreign land, the Presbyterian Church of England had many scattered over China. They were all hoping that the new recruit would join them, and invited him to visit different mission stations, and see where he would like to settle. So he remained that night in Hongkong, as Dr. Eitel's guest, and the next morning he took a steamer for Canton. Here he was met on the pier by an old fellow student of Princeton University, and the two old college friends had a grand reunion. He returned to Hongkong shortly, and next visited Swatow. As they sailed into the harbor, he noticed two Englishmen rowing out toward them in a sampan. (*) No sooner had the ship's ladder been lowered, than the two sprang out of their boat and clambered quickly on deck. To Mackay's amazement, one of them called out, "Is Mackay of Canada on board?" * A Chinese boat from twelve to fifteen feet long, covered with a house. "Mackay of Canada," sprang forward delighted, and found his two new friends to be Mr. Hobson of the Chinese imperial customs, and Dr. Thompson of the English Presbyterian mission in Swatow. The missionaries here gave the stranger a warm welcome. At every place he had visited there had awaited him a cordial invitation to stay and work. And now at Swatow he was urged to settle down and help them. There was plenty to be done, and they would be delighted to have his help. But for some reason, Mackay scarcely knew why himself, he wanted to see another place. Away off the southeastern coast of China lies a large island called Formosa. It is separated from the mainland by a body of water called the Formosa Channel. This is in some places eighty miles wide, in others almost two hundred. Mackay had often heard of Formosa even before coming to China, and knew it was famed for its beauty. Even its name shows this. Long, long years before, some navigators from Portugal sailed to this beautiful island. They had stood on the deck of their ship as they approached it, and were amazed at its loveliness. They saw lofty green mountains piercing the clouds. They saw silvery cascades tumbling down their sides, flashing in the sunlight, and, below, terraced plains sloping down to the sea, covered with waving bamboo or with little water-covered rice-fields. It was all so delightful that no wonder they cried, "Illha Formosa! Illha Formosa!" "Beautiful Isle! Beautiful Isle." Since that day the "Beautiful Isle," perhaps the most charming in all the world, has been called Formosa. And, somehow, Mackay longed to see this "Beautiful Isle" before he decided where he was going to preach the gospel. And so when the kind friends at Swatow said, "Stay and work with us," he always answered, "I must first see Formosa." So, one day, he sailed away from the mainland toward the Beautiful Isle. He landed at Takow in the south of the island, just about Christmas-time. But Formosa was green, the weather was hot, and he could scarcely believe that, at home in Oxford county, Ontario, they were flying over the snow to the music of sleigh-bells. On New Year's day he met a missionary of this south Formosa field, named Dr. Ritchie. He belonged to the Presbyterian Church of England, which had a fine mission there. For nearly a month Mackay visited with him and studied the language. And while he visited and worked there the missionaries told him of the northern part of the island. No person was there to tell all those crowded cities of Jesus Christ and His love. It would be lonely for him there, it would be terribly hard work, but it would be a grand Thing to lay the foundations, to be the first to tell those people the "good news," the young missionary thought. And, one day, he looked up from the Chinese book he was studying and said to Dr. Ritchie: "I have decided to settle in north Formosa." And Dr. Ritchie's quick answer was: "God bless you, Mackay." As soon as the decision was made, another missionary, Dr. Dickson, who was with Mr. Ritchie, decided to go to north Formosa with the young man, and show him over the ground. So, early in the month of March in the year 1872, the three men set off by steamship to sail for Tamsui, a port in north Formosa. They were two days making the voyage, and a tropical storm pitched the small vessel hither and thither, so that they were very much relieved when they sailed up to the mouth of the Tamsui river. It was low tide and a bare sand-bar stretched across the mouth of the harbor, so the anchor was dropped, and they waited until the tide should cover the bar, and allow them to sail in. This wait gave the travelers a fine opportunity to see the country. The view from this harbor of the "Beautiful Island" was an enchanting one. Before them, toward the east, rose tier upon tier of magnificent mountains, stretching north and south. Down their sloping sides tumbled sparkling cascades and here and there patches of bright green showed where there were tea plantations. Farther down were stretches of grass and groves of lovely feathery bamboo. And between these groves stretched what seemed to be little silvery lakes, with the reflection of the great mountains in them. They were really the famous rice-fields of Formosa, at this time of the year all under water. There were no fences round their little lake-fields. They were of all shapes and sizes, and were divided from each other by little green fringed dykes or walls. Each row of fields was lower than the last until they came right down to the sea-level, and all lay blue and smiling in the blazing sunlight. As the young missionary stood spellbound, gazing over the lovely, fairylike scene, Mr. Ritchie touched his arm. "This is your parish, Mackay," he whispered smilingly. And then for the first time since he had started on his long, long journey, the young missionary felt his spirit at peace. The restlessness that had driven him on from one Chinese port to another was gone. This was indeed his parish. Suddenly out swung a signal; the tide had risen. Up came the anchor, and away they glided over the now submerged sand-bar into the harbor. A nearer view showed greater charms in the Beautiful Isle. On the south, at their right, lay the great Quan Yin mountain, towering seventeen hundred feet above them, clothed in tall grass and groves of bamboo, banyan, and fir trees of every conceivable shade of green. Nestling at its feet were little villages almost buried in trees. Slowly the ship drifted along, passing, here a queer fishing village close to the sandy shore, yonder a light-house, there a battered Chinese fort rising from the top of a hill. And now Tamsui came in sight--the new home of the young missionary. It seemed to him that it was the prettiest and the dirtiest place he had ever seen. The town lay along the bank of the river at the foot of a hill. This bluff rose abruptly behind it to a height of two hundred feet. On its face stood a queer-looking building. It was red in color, solid and weather worn, and above it floated the grand old flag of Britain. "That's an old Dutch fort," explained Mr. Ritchie, "left there since they were in the island. It is the British consulate now. There, next to it, is the consul's residence." It was a handsome house, just below the fort, and surrounded by lovely gardens. But down beneath it, on the shore, was the most interesting place to the newcomer, the town of Tamsui proper, or Ho Be, as the Chinese called it. The foreigners landed and made their way up the street. To the two from south Formosa, Tamsui was like every other small Chinese town, but Mackay had not yet become accustomed to the strange sights and sounds and stranger smells, and his bright eyes were keen with interest. The main thoroughfare wound this way and that, only seven or eight feet wide at its best. It was filled with noisy crowds of men who acted as if they were on the verge of a terrible fight. But the older missionaries knew that they were merely acting as Chinese crowds always do. On each side were shops,--tea shops, rice shops, tobacco shops, and many other kinds. And most numerous of all were the shops where opium, one of the greatest curses of Chinese life, was sold. The front wall of each was removed, and the customers stood in the street and dickered with the shopkeeper, while at the top of his harsh voice the latter swore by all the gods in China that he was giving the article away at a terrific loss. Through the crowd pushed hawkers, carrying their wares balanced on poles across their shoulders. Boys with trays of Chinese candies and sugar-cane yelled their wares above the din. The visitors stumbled along over the rough stones of the pavement until they came to the market-place. Foreigners were not such a curiosity in Tamsui as in the inland towns, and not a great deal of notice was taken of them, but occasionally Mackay could hear the now familiar words of contempt --"Ugly barbarian"--"Foreign devil" from the men that passed them. And one man, pointing to Mackay, shouted "Ho! the black-bearded barbarian!" It was a name the young missionary was destined to hear very frequently. Past opium-dens, barber shops, and drug stores they went and through the noise and bustle and din of the market-place. They knew that the inns, judging by the outside, would be filthy, so Mr. Ritchie suggested, as evening was approaching, that they find some comfortable place to spend the night. There was a British merchant in Tamsui named Mr. Dodd, whom the missionaries knew. So to him they went, and were given fine quarters in his warehouse. They ate their supper here, from the provisions they had bought in the market, and stretching themselves out on their grass mats they slept soundly. The next day was Sunday, but the three travelers spent it quietly in the warehouse by the river, studying their Bibles and discussing their proposed trip. They concluded it was best not to provoke the anger of the people against the new missionary by preaching, so they did not go out. To-morrow they would start southward and take Mackay to the bounds of their mission field, and show him the land that was to be "his parish." CHAPTER III. RECONNOITERING THE TERRITORY Early Monday morning Mackay peeped out of the big warehouse door at the great calm mountain shrouded in the pale mists of early dawn. The other two travelers were soon astir, and were surprised to find their young companion all ready. They were not yet well enough acquainted with him to know that he could do with less sleep at night than an owl. He was in high spirits and as eager to be off as he had ever been to start for a day's fishing in the old times back in Ontario. And indeed this was just a great fishing expedition he was commencing. For had not One said to him, long long ago when he was but a little boy, "Come follow me, and I will make you to become a fisher of men"? and he had obeyed. The first task was to go out and buy food for the journey, and to hire a couple of coolies to carry it and what baggage they must take. Dr. Dickson went off on this errand, and being well acquainted with Formosan customs and language, soon returned with two Chinese carriers and plenty of food. This last consisted of canned meats, biscuits, coffee, and condensed milk, bought at a store where ships' supplies were kept for sale. There was also some salted water-buffalo meat, a Chinese dish with which the young missionary was destined to become very familiar. They started out three abreast, Mr. Ritchie's blue serge figure capped by a white helmet on the right, Dr. Dickson on the left in his Scotch tweed, and between them the alert, slim figure of the newcomer, in his suit of Canadian gray. The coolies, with baskets hung to a pole across their shoulders, came ambling along behind. The three travelers were in the gayest mood. Perhaps it was the clear spring morning air, or the breath of the salt ocean, perhaps it was the intoxicating beauty of mountain and plain and river that surrounded them or it may have been because they had given their lives in perfect service to the One who is the source of all happiness, but whatever was the cause, they were all like schoolboys off for a holiday. The coolies who trotted in the rear were very much amazed and not a little amused at the actions of these foolish foreign devils, who laughed and joked and seemed in such high spirits for no reason at all. They swung along the bank of the river until they came to the ferry that was to take them to the other side. They sprang into the boat and were shoved off. Before they reached the other side, at Dr. Dickson's suggestion, they took off their shoes and socks, and stowed them away in the carriers' baskets. When they came to the opposite bank they rolled up their trousers to their knees and sprang out into the shallow water. For a short distance they had the joy of tramping barefoot along the hard gleaming sand of the harbor. But shoes and stockings had to be resumed, for soon they turned inland, on a path that wound up to the high plain above the river. "Do you ever use a horse on your travels?" asked young Mackay as they climbed upward. Mr. Ritchie laughed. "You couldn't get one in north Formosa for love or money. And if you could, he wouldn't be any use." "Unless he was a second Pegasus, and could soar above the Formosan roads," added Dr. Dickson. "Wait a bit and you'll understand." The young missionary waited, and kept his eyes open for the answer. The pathway crossed a grassy plain where groups of queer-looking, mouse-colored animals, half ox, half buffalo, with great spreading horns, strayed about, herded by boys, or lay wallowing in deep pools. "Water-buffaloes," he said, remembering them as he had seen them in the south. "The most useful animal on the island," remarked Mr. Ritchie, adding with a laugh, "except perhaps the pig. You'll have a taste of Mr. Buffalo for your dinner, Mackay." And now they were up on the heights, and the lovely country lay spread out before them. Mackay mentally compared this walk to many he had taken along the country roads of his native land. It was early in March, but as there had been no winter, so there was no spring. It was summer, warm, radiant summer, like a lovely day in June at home. Dandelions, violets, and many gay flowers that he did not recognize spangled the grassy plain. The skylark high overhead was pouring out its glorious song, just as he had heard it in his student days in Scotland. Here and there were clumps of fir trees that reminded him of Canada, but on the whole the scene was new and wonderful to his Western eyes. They were now on the first level of the rice-fields. The farms were tiny things, none larger than eight or ten acres. They were divided into queer-shaped little irrigated fields, separated not by fences, but by little low walls of mud. Every farm was under water now, and here and there, wading through his little flooded fields, went the farmer with his plough, drawn by a useful water-buffalo,--the latter apparently quite happy at being allowed to splash about in the mud. These rice-farms soon became a familiar sight to the newcomer. He liked to see them at all times--when each field was a pretty blue or green lake, later when the water was choked with the fresh green growth, or in harvest days, when the farmers stripped the fields of their grain. Just now they were at their prettiest. Row above row, they went up the mountainside, like a great glass stairs, each row reflecting the green hills and the bamboo groves above. And from each terrace to the one below, the water tumbled in pretty little cascades that sparkled in the sunlight and filled the air with music. For travelers there were only narrow paths between farms, and often only the ridge of the dykes between field and field. As they made their way between the tiny fields, walking along the narrow dykes, and listening to the splashing sound of the water, Mackay understood what Dr. Dickson meant, when he remarked that only a flying horse could be of use on such Formosan cross-country journeys. Soon the pathway changed once more to the broader public highway. Here there was much traffic, and many travelers carried in sedan-chairs passed them. And many times by the roadside Mackay saw something that reminded him forcibly of why he had come to Formosa--a heathen shrine. The whole countryside seemed dotted with them. And as he watched the worshipers coming and going, and heard the disdainful words from the priests cast at the hated foreigners, he realized that he was face to face with an awful opposing force. It was the great stone of heathenism he had come to break, and the question was, would he be as successful as he had been long ago in the Canadian pasture-field? The travelers ate their dinner by the roadside under the shade of some fir trees that made Mackay feel at home. They were soon up and off again, and, tired with their long tramp, they arrived at a town called Tionglek, and decided to spend the night there. The place was about the size of Tamsui, with between four and five thousand inhabitants, and was quite as dirty and almost as noisy. They walked down the main street with its uneven stone pavement, its open shops, its noisy bargains, and above all its horrible smells. With the exception of an occasional visit from an official, foreigners scarcely ever came to Tiong-lek, and on every side were revilings and threatenings. One yellow-faced youngster picked up a handful of mud and threw it at the hated foreigners; and "Black-bearded barbarian," mingled with their shouts. Mackay's bright eyes took in everything, and he realized more and more the difficulties of the task before him. They stopped in front of a low one-story building made of sun-dried bricks. This was the Tiong-lek hotel where they were to spend the night. Like most Chinese houses it was composed of a number of buildings arranged in the form of a square with a courtyard in the center. Dr. Dickson asked for lodgings from the slant-eyed proprietor. He looked askance at the foreigners, but concluded that their money was as good as any one else's, and he led them through the deep doorway into the courtyard. In the center of this yard stood an earthen range, with a fire in it. Several travelers stood about it cooking their rice. It was evidently the hotel dining-room; a diningroom that was open to all too, for chickens clucked and cackled and pigs grunted about the range and made themselves quite at home. The men about the gateway scowled and muttered "Foreign devil," as the three strangers passed them. They crossed the courtyard and entered their room, or rather stumbled into it, in semi-darkness. Mackay peered about him curiously. He discovered three beds, made of planks and set on brick pillars for legs. Each was covered with a dirty mat woven from grass and reeking with the odor of opium smoke. A servant came in with something evidently intended for a lamp--a burning pith wick set in a saucer of peanut oil. It gave out only a faint glimmer of light, but enough to enable the young missionary to see something else in the room,--some THINGS rather, that ran and skipped and swarmed all over the damp earthen floor and the dirty walls. There were thousands of these brisk little creatures, all leaping about in pleasant anticipation of the good time they would have when the barbarians went to bed. There was no window, and only the one door that opened into the courtyard. An old pig, evidently more friendly to the foreigners than her masters, came waddling toward them followed by her squealing little brood, and flopping down into the mud in the doorway lay there uttering grunts of content. The evil smells of the room, the stench from the pigs, and the still more dreadful odors wafted from the queer food cooking on the range, made the young traveler's unaccustomed senses revolt. He had a half notion that the two older men were putting up a joke on him. "I suppose you thought it wise to give me a strong dose of all this at the start?" he inquired humorously, holding his nose and glancing from the pigs at the door to the crawlers on the wall. "A strong dose!" laughed Mr. Ritchie. "Not a bit of it, young man. Wait till you've had some experience of the luxuries of Formosan inns. You'll be calling this the Queen's Hotel, before you've been here long!" And so indeed it proved later, for George Mackay had yet much to learn of the true character of Chinese inns. Needless to say he spent a wakeful night, on his hard plank bed, and was up early in the morning. The travelers ate their breakfast in a room where the ducks and hens clattered about under the table and between their legs. Fortunately the food was taken from their own stores, and in spite of the surroundings was quite appetizing. They started off early, drawing in great breaths of the pure morning air, relieved to be away from the odors of the "Queen's Hotel." Three hundred feet above them, high against the deep blue of the morning sky, stood Table Hill, and they started on a brisk climb up its side. The sun had not risen, but already the farmers were out in their little water-fields, or working in their tea plantations. The mountain with its groves of bamboo lay reflected in the little mirrors of the rice-fields. A steady climb brought them to the summit, and after a long descent on the other side and a tramp through tea plantations they arrived in the evening at a large city with a high wall around it, the city of Tek-chham. That night in the city inn was so much worse than the one at Tionglek that the Canadian was convinced his friends must have reserved the "strong dose" for the second night. There were the same smells, the same sorts of pigs and ducks and hens, the same breeds of lively nightly companions, and each seemed to have gained a fresh force. It was a relief to be out in the fields again after the foul odors of the night, and the travelers were off before dawn. The country looked more familiar to Mackay this morning, for they passed through wheat and barley fields. It seemed so strange to wander over a man's farm by a footpath, but it was a Chinese custom to which he soon became accustomed. The sun was blazing hot, and it was a great relief when they entered the cool shade of a forest. It was a delightful place and George Mackay reveled in its beauty. Ever since he had been able to run about his own home farm in Ontario his eyes had always been wide open to observe anything new. He had studied as much out of doors, all his life, as he had done in college, and now he found this forest a perfect library of new Things. Nearly every tree and flower was strange to his Canadian eyes. Here and there, in sheltered valleys, grew the tree-fern, the most beautiful object in the forest, towering away up sometimes to a height of sixty feet, and spreading its stately fronds out to a width of fifteen feet. There was a lovely big plant with purple stem and purple leaves, and when Dr. Dickson told him it was the castor-oil plant, he smiled at the remembrance of the trials that plant had caused him in younger days. One elegant tree, straight as a pine, rose fifty feet in height, with leaves away up at the top only. This was the betel-nut tree. "The nuts of that tree," said Mr. Ritchie, standing and pointing away up to where the sunlight filtered through the far-off leaves, "are the chewing tobacco of Formosa and all the islands about here. The Chinese do not chew it, but the Malayans do. You will meet some of these natives soon." On every side grew the rattan, half tree, half vine. It started off as a tree and grew straight up often to twenty feet in height, and then spread itself out over the tops of other trees and plants in vine-like fashion; some of its branches measured almost five hundred feet in length. The travelers paused to admire one high in the branches of the trees. "Many a Chinaman loses his head hunting that plant," remarked Mr. Ritchie. "These islanders export a great deal of rattan, and the head-hunters up there in the mountains watch for the Chinese when they are working in the forest." Mackay listened eagerly to his friends' tales of the head-hunting savages, living in the mountains. They were always on the lookout for the farmers near their forest lairs. They watched for any unwary man who went too near the woods, pounced upon him, and went off in triumph with his head in a bag. The young traveler's eyes brightened, "I'll visit them some day!" he cried, looking off toward the mountainside. Mr. Ritchie glanced quickly at the flashing eyes and the quick, alert figure of the young man as he strode along, and some hint came to him of the dauntless young heart which beat beneath that coat of Canadian gray. Two days more over hill and dale, through rice and tea and tobacco-fields, and then, in the middle of a hot afternoon, Mr. Ritchie began to shiver and shake as though half frozen. Dr. Dickson understood, and at the next stopping-place he ordered a sedan-chair and four coolies to carry it. It was the old dreaded disease that hangs like a black cloud over lovely Formosa, the malarial fever. Mr. Ritchie had been a missionary only four years in the island, but already the scourge had come upon him, and his system was weakened. For, once seized by malaria in Formosa, one seldom makes his escape. They put the sick man into the chair, now in a raging fever, and he was carried by the four coolies. They were nearing the end of their journey and were now among a people not Chinese. They belonged to the original Malayan race of the island. They had been conquered by the Chinese, who in the early days came over from China under a pirate named Koxinga. As the Chinese name every one but themselves "barbarians," they gave this name to all the natives of the island. They had conquered all but the dreaded head-hunters, who, free in their mountain fastnesses, took a terrible toll of heads from their would-be conquerors, or even from their own half-civilized brethren. The native Malayans who had been subdued by the Chinese were given different names. Those who lived on the great level rice-plain over which the missionaries were traveling, were called Pe-po-hoan, "Barbarians of the plain." Mackay could see little difference between them and the Chinese, except in the cast of their features, and their long-shaped heads. They wore Chinese dress, even to the cue, worshiped the Chinese gods, and spoke with a peculiar Malayan twang. The travelers were journeying rather wearily over a low muddy stretch of ground, picking their way along the narrow paths between the rice-fields, when they saw a group of men come hurrying down the path to meet them. They kept calling out, but the words they used were not the familiar "foreign devil" or "ugly barbarian." Instead the people were shouting words of joyful welcome. Dr. Dickson hailed them with delight, and soon he and Mr. Ritchie's sedan-chair were surrounded by a clamorous group of friends. They had journeyed so far south that they had arrived at the borders of the English Presbyterian mission, and the people crowding about them were native Christians. It was all so different from their treatment by the heathen that Mackay's heart was warmed. When the great stone of heathenism was broken, what love and kindness were revealed! The visitors were led in triumph to the village. There was a chapel here, and they stayed nearly a week, preaching and teaching. The rest did Mr. Ritchie much good, and at the end of their visit he was once more able to start off on foot. They moved on from village to village and everywhere the Pe-po-hoan Christians received them with the greatest hospitality. But at last the three friends found the time had come for them to part. The two Englishmen had to go on through their fields to their south Formosan home and the young Canadian must go back to fight the battle alone in the north of the island. He had endeared himself to the two older men, and when the farewells came they were filled with regret. They bade him a lingering good-by, with many blessings upon his young head, and many prayers for success in the hard fight upon which he was entering. They walked a short way with him, and stood watching the straight, lithe young figure, SO full of courage and hope until it disappeared down the valley. They knew only too well the dangers and trials ahead of him, but they knew also that he was not going into the fight alone. For the Captain was going with his young soldier. There was a suspicion of moisture in the eyes of the older missionaries as they turned back to prepare for their own journey southward. "God bless the boy!" said Dr. Dickson fervently. "We'll hear of that young fellow yet, Ritchie. He's on fire." CHAPTER IV. BEGINNING THE SIEGE The news was soon noised about Tamsui that one of the three barbarians who had so lately visited the town had returned to make the place his home. This was most unwelcome tidings to the heathen, and the air was filled with mutterings and threatenings, and every one was determined to drive the foreign devil out if at all possible. So Mackay found himself meeting every kind of opposition. He was too independent to ask assistance from the British consul in the old Dutch fort on the bluff, or of any other European settlers in Tamsui. He was bound to make his own way. But it was not easy to do so in view of the forces which opposed him. He had now been in Formosa about two months and had studied the Chinese language every waking hour, but it was very difficult, and he found his usually ready tongue wofully handicapped. His first concern was to get a dwelling-place, and he went from house to house inquiring for some place to rent. Everywhere he went he was turned away with rough abuse, and occasionally the dogs were set upon him. But at last he was successful. Up on the bank of the river, a little way from the edge of the town, he found a place which the owner condescended to rent. It was a miserable little hut, half house, half cellar, built into the side of the hill facing the river. A military officer had intended it for his horse-stable, and yet Mackay paid for this hovel the sum of fifteen dollars a month. It had three rooms, one without a floor. The road ran past the door, and a few feet beyond was the river. By spending money rather liberally he managed to hire the coolie who had accompanied him to south Formosa. With his servant's help Mackay had his new establishment thoroughly cleaned and whitewashed, and then he moved in his furniture. He laughed as he called it furniture, for it consisted of but two packing boxes full of books and clothing. But more came later. The British consul, Mr. Frater, lent him a chair and a bed. There was one old Chinese, who kept a shop near by, and who seemed inclined to be friendly to the queer barbarian with the black beard. He presented him with an old pewter lamp, and the house was furnished complete. Mackay sat down at his one table, the first night after he was settled. The damp air was hot and heavy, and swarms of tormenting mosquitoes filled the room. Through the open door came the murmur of the river, and from far down in the village the sounds of harsh, clamorous voices. He was alone, many, many miles from home and friends. Around him on every side were bitter enemies. One might have supposed he would be overcome at the thought of the stupendous task before him, but whoever supposed that did not know George Mackay. He lighted his pewter lamp, opened his diary, and these are the words he wrote: "Here I am in this house, having been led all the way from the old homestead in Zorra by Jesus, as direct as though my boxes were labeled, `Tamsui, Formosa, China.' Oh, the glorious privilege to lay the foundation of Christ's Church in unbroken heathenism! God help me to do this with the open Bible! Again I swear allegiance to thee, O King Jesus, my Captain. So help me God!" And now his first duty was to learn the Chinese language. He could already speak a little, but it would be a long time, he knew, before he could preach. And yet, how was he to learn? he asked himself. He was a scholar without a teacher or school. But there was his servant, and nothing daunted by the difficulties to be overcome, he set to work to make him his teacher also. George Mackay always went at any task with all his might and main, and he attacked the Chinese language in the same manner. He found it a hard stone to break, however. "Of all earthly things I know of," he remarked once, "it is the most intricate and difficult to master." His unwilling teacher was just about as hard to manage as his task, for the coolie did not take kindly to giving lessons. He certainly had a rather hard time. Day and night his master deluged him with questions. He made him repeat phrases again and again until his pupil could say them correctly. He asked him the name of everything inside the house and out, until the easy-going Oriental was overcome with dismay. This wild barbarian, with the fiery eyes and the black beard, was a terrible creature who gave one no rest night nor day. Sometimes after Mackay had spent hours with him, imitating sounds and repeating the names of things over and over, his harassed teacher would back out of the room stealthily, keeping an anxious eye on his master, and showing plainly he had grave fears that the foreigner had gone quite mad. Mackay realized that the pace was too hard for his servant, and that the poor fellow was in a fair way to lose what little wits he had, if not left alone occasionally. So one day he wandered out along the riverbank, in search of some one who would talk with him. He turned into a path that led up the hill behind the town. He was in hopes he might meet a farmer who would be friendly. When he reached the top of the bluff he found a grassy common stretching back toward the rice-fields. Here and there over these downs strayed the queer-looking water-buffaloes. Some of them were plunged deep in pools of water, and lay there like pigs with only their noses out. He heard a merry laugh and shout from another part of the common, and there sat a crowd of frolicsome Chinese boys, in large sun hats, and short loose trousers. There were about a dozen of them, and they were supposed to be herding the water-buffaloes to keep them out of the unfenced fields. But, boylike, they were flying kites, and letting their huge-horned charges herd themselves. Mackay walked over toward them. It was not so long since he had been a boy himself, and these jolly lads appealed to him. But the moment one caught sight of the stranger, he gave a shout of alarm. The rest jumped up, and with yells of terror and cries of "Here's the foreign devil!" "Run, or the foreign devil will get you!" away they went helter-skelter, their big hats waving, their loose clothes flapping wildly. They all disappeared like magic behind a big boulder, and the cause of their terror had to walk away. But the next day, when his servant once more showed signs of mental exhaustion, he strolled out again upon the downs. The boys were there and saw him coming. Though they did not actually run away this time, they retired to a safe distance, and stood ready to fly at any sign of the barbarian's approach. They watched him wonderingly. They noticed his strange white face, his black beard, his hair cut off quite short, his amazing hat, and his ridiculous clothes. And when at last he walked away, and all danger was over, they burst into shouts of laughter. The next day, as they scampered about the common, here again came the absurd-looking stranger, walking slowly, as though careful not to frighten them. The boys did not run away this time, and to their utter astonishment he spoke to them. Mackay had practised carefully the words he was to say to them, and the well-spoken Chinese astounded the lads as much as if one of the monkeys that gamboled about the trees of their forests should come down and say, "How do you do, boys?" "Why, he speaks our words!" they all cried at once. As they stood staring, Mackay took out his watch and held it up for them to see. It glittered in the sun, and at the sight of it and the kind smiling face above, they lost their fears and crowded around him. They examined the watch in great wonder. They handled his clothes, exclaimed over the buttons on his coat, and inquired what they were for. They felt his hands and his fingers, and finally decided that, in spite of his queer looks, he was after all a man. From that day the young missionary and the herd-boys were great friends. Every day he joined them in the buffalo pasture, and would spend from four to five hours with them. And as they were very willing to talk, he not only learned their language rapidly, but also learned much about their homes, their schools, their customs, and their religion. One day, after a lengthy lesson from his servant, the latter decided that the barbarian was unbearable, and bundling up his clothes he marched off, without so much as "by your leave." So Mackay fell back entirely upon his little teachers on the common. With their assistance in the daytime and his Chinese-English dictionary at night, he made wonderful progress. He was left alone now, to get his own meals and keep the swarms of flies and the damp mold out of his hut by the riverside. He soon learned to eat rice and water-buffalo meat, but he missed the milk and butter and cheese of his old Canadian home. For he discovered that cows were never milked in Formosa. There was variety of food, however, as almost every kind of vegetable that he had ever tasted and many new kinds that he found delicious were for sale in the open-fronted shops in the village. Then the fruits! They were fresh at all seasons--oranges the whole year, bananas fresh from the fields--and such pineapples! He realized that he had never really tasted pineapples before. Meanwhile, he was becoming acquainted. All the families of the herd-boys learned to like him, and when others came to know him they treated him with respect. He was a teacher, they learned, and in China a teacher is always looked upon with something like reverence. And, besides, he had a beard. This appendage was considered very honorable among Chinese, so the black-bearded barbarian was respected because of this. But there was one class that treated him with the greatest scorn. These were the Chinese scholars. They were the literati, and were like princes in the land. They despised every one who was not a graduate of their schools, and most of all they despised this barbarian who dared to set himself up as a teacher. Mackay had now learned Chinese well enough to preach, and his sermons aroused the indignation of these proud graduates. Sometimes when one was passing the little hut by the river, he would drop in, and glance around just to see what sort of place the barbarian kept. He would pick up the Bible and other books, throw them on the floor, and with words of contempt strut proudly out. Mackay endured this treatment patiently, but he set himself to study their books, for he felt sure that the day was not far distant when he must meet these conceited literati in argument. He went about a good deal now. The Tamsui people became accustomed to him, and he was not troubled much. His bright eyes were always wide open and he learned much of the lives of the people he had come to teach. Among the poor he found a poverty of which he had never dreamed. They could live upon what a so-called poor family in Canada would throw away. Nothing was wasted in China. He often saw the meat and fruit tins he threw away when they were emptied, reappearing in the market-place. He learned that these poorer people suffered cruel wrongs at the hands of their magistrates. He visited a yamen, or court-house, and saw the mandarin "dispense justice," but his judgment was said to be always given in favor of the one who paid him the highest bribe. He saw the widow robbed, and the innocent suffering frightful tortures, and sometimes he strode home to his little hut by the river, his blood tingling with righteous indignation. And then he would pray with all his soul: "O God, give me power to teach these people of thy love through Jesus Christ!" But of all the horrors of heathenism, and there were many, he found the religion the most dreadful. He had read about it when on board ship, but he found it was infinitely worse when written in men's lives than when set down in print. He never realized what a blessing was the religion of Jesus Christ to a nation until he lived among a people who did not know Him. He found almost as much difficulty in learning the Chinese religion as the Chinese language. After he had spent days trying to understand it, it would seem to him like some horrible nightmare filled with wicked devils and no less wicked gods and evil spirits and ugly idols. And to make matters worse there was not one religion, but a bewildering mixture of three. First of all there was the ancient Chinese religion, called Confucianism. Confucius, a wise man of China, who lived ages before, had laid down some rules of conduct, and had been worshiped ever since. Very good rules they were as far as they went, and if the Chinese had followed this wise man they would not have drifted so far from the truth. But Confucianism meant ancestor-worship. In every home was a little tablet with the names of the family's ancestors upon it, and every one in the house worshiped the spirits of those departed. With this was another religion called Taoism. This taught belief in wicked demons who lurked about people ready to do them some ill. Then, years and years before, some people from India had brought over their religion, Buddhism, which had become a system of idol-worship. These three religions were so mixed up that the people themselves were not able to distinguish between them. The names of their idols would cover pages, and an account of their religion would fill volumes. The more Mackay learned of it, the more he yearned to tell the people of the one God who was Lord and Father of them all. As soon as he had learned to write clearly, he bought a large sheet of paper, and printed on it the ten commandments in Chinese characters. Then he hung it on the outside of his door. People who passed read it and made comments of various kinds. Several threw mud at it, and at last a proud graduate, who came striding past his silk robes rustling grandly, caught the paper and tore it down. Mackay promptly put up another. It shared the fate of the first. Then he put up a third, and the people let it alone. Even these heathen Chinese were beginning to get an impression of the dauntless determination of the man with whom they were to get much better acquainted. And all this time, while he was studying and working and arguing with the heathen and preaching to them, the young missionary was working just as hard at something else; something into which he was putting as much energy and force as he did into learning the Chinese language. With all his might and main, day and night, he was praying--praying for one special object. He had been praying for this long before he saw Formosa. He was pleading with God to give him, as his first convert, a young man of education. And so he was always on the lookout for such, as he preached and taught, and never once did he cease praying that he might find him. One forenoon he was sitting at his books, near the open door, when a visitor stopped before him. It was a fine-looking young man, well dressed and with all the unmistakable signs of the scholar. He had none of the graduate's proud insolence, however, for when Mackay arose, he spoke in the most gentlemanly manner. At the missionary's invitation he entered, and sat down, and the two chatted pleasantly. The visitor seemed interested in the foreigner, and asked him many questions that showed a bright, intelligent mind. When he arose to go, Mackay invited him to come again, and he promised he would. He left his card, a strip of pink paper about three inches by six; the name on it read Giam Cheng Hoa. Mackay was very much interested in him, he was so bright, so affable, and such pleasant company. He waited anxiously to see if he would return. At the appointed hour the visitor was at the door, and the missionary welcomed him warmly. The second visit was even more pleasant than the first. And Mackay told his guest why he had come to Formosa, and of Jesus Christ who was both God and man and who had come to the earth to save mankind. The young man's bright eyes were fixed steadily upon the missionary as he talked, and when he went away his face was very thoughtful. Mackay sat thinking about him long after he had left. He had met many graduates, but none had impressed him as had this youth, with his frank face and his kind, genial manner. There was something too about the young fellow, he felt, that marked him as superior to his companions. And then a sudden divine inspiration flashed into the lonely young missionary's heart. THIS WAS HIS MAN! This was the man for whom he had been praying. The stranger had as yet shown no sign of conversion, but Mackay could not get away from that inspired thought. And that night he could not sleep for joy. In a day or two the young man returned. With him was a noted graduate, who asked many questions about the new religion. The next day he came again with six graduates, who argued and discussed. When they were gone Mackay paced up and down the room and faced the serious situation which he realized he was in. He saw plainly that the educated men of the town were banded together to beat him in argument. And with all his energy and desperate determination he set to work to be ready for them. His first task was to gain a thorough knowledge of the Chinese religions. He had already learned much about them, both from books on shipboard and since he had come to the island. But now he spent long hours of the night, poring over the books of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, by the light of his smoky little pewter lamp. And before the next visit of his enemies he knew almost more of their jumble of religions than they did themselves. It was well he was prepared, for his opponents came down upon him in full force. Every day a band of college graduates, always headed by Giam Cheng Hoa, came up from the town to the missionary's little hut by the river, and for hours they would sit arguing and talking. They were always the most noted scholars the place could produce, but in spite of all their cleverness the barbarian teacher silenced them every time. He fairly took the wind out of their sails by showing he knew quite as much about Chinese religions as they did. If they quoted Confucius to contradict the Bible, he would quote Confucius to contradict them. He confounded them by proving that they were not really followers of Confucius, for they did not keep his sayings. And with unanswerable arguments he went on to show that the religion taught by Jesus Christ was the one and only religion to make man good and noble. Each day the group of visitors grew larger, and at last one morning, as Mackay looked out of his door, he saw quite a crowd approaching. They were led, as usual, by the friendly young scholar. By his side walked, or rather, swaggered a man of whom the missionary had often heard. He was a scholar of high degree and was famed all over Formosa for his great learning. Behind him came about twenty men, and Mackay could see by their dress and appearance that they were all literary graduates. They were coming in great force this time, to crush the barbarian with their combined knowledge. He met them at the door with his usual politeness and hospitality. He was always courteous to these proud literati, but he always treated them as equals, and showed none of the deference they felt he owed them. The crowd seated itself on improvised benches and the argument opened. This time Mackay led the attack. He carried the war right into the enemy's camp. Instead of letting them put questions to him, he asked them question after question concerning Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. They were questions that sometimes they could not answer, and to their chagrin they had to hear "the barbarian" answer for them. There were other questions, still more humiliating, which, when they answered, only served to show their religion as false and degrading. Their spokesman, the great learned man, became at last so entangled that there was nothing for him but flight. He arose and stalked angrily away, and in a little while they all left. Mackay looked wistfully at young Giam as he went out, wondering what effect these words had upon him. He was not left long in doubt. Not half an hour after a shadow fell across the open Bible the missionary was studying. He glanced up. There he stood! His bright face was very serious. He looked gravely at the other young man, and his eyes shone as he spoke. "I brought all those graduates and teachers here," he confessed, "to silence you or be silenced. And now I am convinced that the doctrines you teach are true. I am determined to become a Christian, even though I suffer death for it." Mackay rose from his seat, his face alight with an overwhelming joy. The man he had prayed for! He took the young fellow's hand--speechless. And together the only missionary of north Formosa and his first convert fell upon their knees before the true God and poured out their hearts in joy and thanksgiving. CHAPTER V. SOLDIERS TWO And now a new day dawned for the lonely young missionary. He had not a convert but a helper and a delightful companion. His new friend was of a bright, joyous nature, the sort that everybody loves. Giam was his surname, but almost every one called him by his given name, Hoa, and those who knew him best called him A Hoa. Mackay used this more familiar boyish name, for Giam was the younger by a few years. To A Hoa his new friend was always Pastor Mackay, or as the Chinese put it, Mackay Pastor, Kai Bok-su was the real Chinese of it, and Kai Bok-su soon became a name known all over the island of Formosa. A Hoa needed all his kind new friend's help in the first days after his conversion. For family, relatives, and friends turned upon him with the bitterest hatred for taking up the barbarian's religion. So, driven from his friends, he came to live in the little hut by the river with Mackay. While at home these two read, sang, and studied together all the day long. It would have been hard for an observer to guess who was teacher and who pupil. For at one time A Hoa was receiving Bible instruction and the next time Mackay was being drilled in the Chinese of the educated classes. Each teacher was as eager to instruct as each pupil was eager to learn. The Bible was, of course, the chief textbook, but they studied other things, astronomy, geology, history, and similar subjects. One day the Canadian took out a map of the world, and the Chinese gazed with amazement at the sight of the many large countries outside China. A Hoa had been private secretary to a mandarin, and had traveled much in China, and once spent six months in Peking. His idea had been that China was everything, that all countries outside it were but insignificant barbarian places. His geography lessons were like revelations. His progress was simply astonishing, as was also Mackay's. The two seemed possessed with the spirit of hard work. But a superstitious old man who lived near believed they were possessed with a demon. He often listened to the two singing, drilling, and repeating words as they marched up and down, either in the house or in front of it, and he became alarmed. He was a kindly old fellow, and, though a heathen, felt well disposed toward the missionary and A Hoa. So one day, very much afraid, he slipped over to the little house with two small cups of strong tea. He came to the door and proffered them with a polite bow. He hoped they might prove soothing to the disturbed nerves of the patients, he said. He suggested, also, that a visit to the nearest temple might help them. The two affected ones received his advice politely, but the humor of it struck them both, and when their visitor was gone they laughed so hard the tea nearly choked them. The missionary was soon able to speak so fluently that he preached almost every day, either in the little house by the river, or on the street in some open square. There were other things he did, too. On every side he saw great suffering from disease. The chief malady was the terrible malaria, and the native doctors with their ridiculous remedies only made the poor sufferers worse. Mackay had studied medicine for a short time while in college, and now found his knowledge very useful. He gave some simple remedies to several victims of malaria which proved effective. The news of the cures spread far and wide. The barbarian was kind, he had a good heart, the people declared. Many more came to him for medicine, and day by day the circle of his friends grew. And wherever he went, curing disease, teaching, or preaching, A Hoa went with him, and shared with him the taunts of their heathen enemies. But the gospel was gradually making its way. Not long after A Hoa's conversion a second man confessed Christ. He had previously disturbed the meetings by throwing stones into the doorway whenever he passed. But his sister was cured of malaria by the missionary's medicine, and soon both sister and mother became Christians, and finally the stone-thrower himself. And so, gradually, the lines of the enemy were falling back, and at every sign of retreat the little army of two advanced. A little army? No! For was there not the whole host of heaven moving with them? And Mackay was learning that his boyish dreams of glory were truly to be fulfilled. He had wanted always to be a soldier like his grandfather, and fight a great Waterloo, and here he was right in the midst of the battle with the victory and the glory sure. The two missionaries often went on short trips here and there into the country around Tamsui, and Mackay determined that when the intense summer heat had lessened they would make a long tour to some of the large cities. The heat of August was almost overpowering to the Canadian. Flies and mosquitoes and insect pests of all kinds made his life miserable, too, and prevented his studying as hard as he wished. One oppressive day he and A Hoa returned from a preaching tour in the country to find their home in a state of siege. Right across the threshold lay a monster serpent, eight feet in length. A Hoa shouted a warning, and seized a long pole, and the two managed to kill it. But their troubles were not yet over. The next morning, Mackay stepped outside the door and sprang back just in time to escape another, the mate of the one killed. This one was even larger than the first, and was very fierce. But they finished it with sticks and stones. When September came the days grew clearer, and the many pests of summer were not so numerous. The mosquitoes and flies that had been such torments disappeared, and there was some relief from the damp oppressive heat. But he had only begun to enjoy the refreshing breaths of cool air, and had remarked to A Hoa that the days reminded him of Canadian summers, when the weather gave him to understand that every Formosan season has its drawbacks. September brought tropical storms and typhoons that were terrible, and he saw from his little house on the hillside big trees torn up by the root, buildings swept away like chaff, and out in the harbor great ships lifted from their anchorage and whirled away to destruction. And then he was sometimes thankful that his little hut was built into the hillside, solid and secure. But the fierce storms cleared away the heavy dampness that had made the heat of the summer so unbearable, and October and November brought delightful days. The weather was still warm of course, but the nights were cool and pleasant. So early one October morning, Mackay and A Hoa started off on a tour to the cities. "We shall go to Kelung first," said the missionary. Kelung was a seaport city on the northern coast, straight east across the island from Tamsui. A coolie to carry food and clothing was hired, and early in the morning, while the stars were still shining, they passed through the sleeping town and out on the little paths between the rice-fields. Though it was yet scarcely daylight, the farmers were already in their fields. It was harvest-time--the second harvest of the year--and the little rice-fields were no longer like mirrors, but were filled with high rustling grain ready for the sickle. The water had been drained off and the reaper and thrasher were going through the fields before dawn. There was no machinery like that used at home. The reaper was a short sickle, the thrashing-machine a kind of portable tub, and Mackay looked at them with some amusement, and described to A Hoa how they took off the great wheat crops in western Canada. The two were in high spirits, ready for any sort of adventure and they met some. Toward evening they reached a place called Sek-khau, and went to the little brick inn to get a sleeping-place. The landlord came to the door and was about to bid A Hoa enter, when the light fell upon Mackay's face. With a shout, "Black-bearded barbarian!" he slammed the door in their faces. They turned away, but already a crowd had begun to gather. "The black-bearded barbarian is here! The foreign devil from Tamsui has come!" was the cry. The mob followed the two down the streets, shouting curses. Some one threw a broken piece of brick, another a stone. Mackay turned and faced them, and for a few moments they seemed cowed. But the crowd was increasing, and he deemed it wise to move on. So the two marched out of the town followed by stones and curses. And, as they went, Mackay reminded A Hoa of what they had been reading the night before. "Yes," said A Hoa brightly. "The Lord was driven out of his own town in Galilee." "Yes, and Paul--you remember how he was stoned. Our Master counts us worthy to suffer for him." But where to go was the question. Before they could decide, night came down upon them, and it came in that sudden tropical way to which Mackay, all his life accustomed to the long mellow twilights of his northern home, could never grow accustomed. They each took a torch out of the carrier's bag, lighted it, and marched bravely on. The path led along the Kelung river, through tall grass. They were not sure where it led to, but thought it wise to follow the river; they would surely come to Kelung some time. Mackay was ahead, A Hoa right at his heels, and behind them the basketbearer. At a sudden turn in the path A Hoa gave a shout of warning, and the next instant, a band of robbers leaped from the long reeds and grass, and brandished their spears in the travelers' faces. The torchlight shone on their fierce evil eyes and their long knives, making a horrible picture. The young Canadian Scot did not flinch for a second. He looked the wild leader straight in the face. "We have no money, so you cannot rob us," he said steadily, "and you must let us pass at once. I am a teacher and--" "A TEACHER!" he was interrupted by a dismayed exclamation from several of the wild band. "A teacher!" As if with one accord they turned and fled into the darkness. For even a highwayman in China respects a man of learning. The travelers went on again, with something of relief and something of the exultation that youth feels in having faced danger. But a second trouble was upon them. One of those terrible storms that still raged occasionally had been brewing all evening, and now it opened its artillery. Great howling gusts came down from the mountain, carrying sheets of driving rain. Their torches went out like matches, and they were left to stagger along in the black darkness. What were they to do? They could not go back. They could not stay there. They scarcely dared go on. For they did not know the way, and any moment a fresh blast of wind or a misstep might hurl them into the river. But they decided that they must go on, and on they went, stumbling, slipping, sprawling, and falling outright. Now there would be an exclamation from Mackay as he sank to the knees in the mud of a rice-field, now a groan from A Hoa as he fell over a boulder and bruised and scratched himself, and oftenest a yell from the poor coolie, as he slipped, baskets and all, into some rocky crevice, and was sure he was tumbling into the river; but they staggered on, Mackay secure in his faith in God. His Father knew and his Father would keep him safely. And behind him came brave young A Hoa, buoyed up by his new growing faith, and learning the lesson that sometimes the Captain asks his soldier to march into hard encounters, but that the soldier must never flinch. The "everlasting arms" were around them, for by midnight they reached Kelung. They were drenched, breathless, and worn out, and they spent the night in a damp hovel, glad of any shelter from the wind and rain. But the next morning, young soldier A Hoa had a fiercer battle to fight than any with robbers or storms. As soon as the city was astir, Mackay and he went out to find a good place to preach. They passed down the main thoroughfare, and everywhere they attracted attention. Cries of "Ugly barbarian!" and oftenest "Black-bearded barbarian" were heard on all sides. A Hoa was known in Kelung and contempt and ridicule was heaped upon him by his old college acquaintances. He was consorting with the barbarian! He was a friend of this foreigner! They poured more insults upon him than they did upon the barbarian himself. Some took the stranger as a joke, and laughed and made funny remarks upon his appearance. Here and there an old woman, peeping through the doorway, would utter a loud cackling laugh, and pointing a wizened finger at the missionary would cry: "Eh, eh, look at him! Tee hee! He's got a wash basin on for a hat!" A Hoa was distressed at these remarks, but Mackay was highly amused. "We're drawing a crowd, anyway," he remarked cheerfully, "and that's what we want." Soon they came to an open square in front of a heathen temple. The building had several large stone steps leading up to the door. Mackay mounted them and stood facing the buzzing crowd, with A Hoa at his side. They started a hymn. All people that on earth do dwell Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. The open square in front of them began to fill rapidly. The people jostled each other in their endeavors to get a view of the barbarian. Every one was curious, but every one was angry and indignant, so sometimes the sound of the singing was lost in the shouts of derision. When the hymn was finished, Mackay had a sudden inspiration. "They will surely listen to one of their own people," he said to himself, and turned to A Hoa. "Speak to them," he said. "Tell them about the true God." That was a hard moment for the young convert. He had been a Christian only a few months and had never yet spoken in public for Christ. He looked desperately over the sea of mocking faces beneath him. He opened his mouth, as though to speak, and hesitated. Just then came a rough and bitter taunt from one of his old companions. It was too much. A Hoa turned away and hung his head. The young missionary said nothing. But he did the very wisest thing he could have done. He had some time before taught A Hoa a grand old Scottish paraphrase, and they had often sung it together: I'm not ashamed to own my Lord Or to defend his cause, Maintain the glory of his cross And honor all his laws. Mackay's voice, loud and clear, burst into this fine old hymn. A Hoa raised his head. He joined in the hymn and sang it to the end. It put mettle into him. It was the battle-song that brought back the young recruit's courage. Almost before the last note sounded he began to speak. His voice rang out bold and unafraid over the crowd of angry heathen. "I am a Christian!" he said distinctly. "I worship the true God. I cannot worship idols," with a gesture toward the temple door, "that rats can destroy. I am not afraid. I love Jesus. He is my Savior and Friend." No, A Hoa was not "ashamed" any more. His testing time had come, and he had not failed after all. And his brave, true words sent a thrill of joy through the more seasoned soldier at his side. That was not the only difficult situation he met on that journey. The two soldiers of the cross had many trials, but the thrill of that victory before the Kelung temple never left them. When they returned to Tamsui they held daily services in their house, and A Hoa often spoke to the people who gathered there. One Sunday they noticed an old woman present, who had come down the river in a boat. Women as a rule did not come out to the meetings, but this old lady continued to come every Sunday. She showed great interest in the missionary's words, and, at the close of one meeting, he spoke to her. She told him she was a poor widow, that her name was Thah-so, and that she had come down the river from Go-ko-khi to hear him preach. Then she added, "I have passed through many trials in this world, and my idols never gave me any comfort." Then her eyes shone, "But I like your teaching very much," she went on. "I believe the God you tell about will give me peace.. I will come again, and bring others." Next Sunday she was there with several other women. And after that she came every Sunday, bringing more each time, until at last a whole boat-load would come down to the service. These people were so interested that they asked the missionary if he would not visit them. So one day he and A Hoa boarded one of the queer-looking flat-bottomed river-boats and were pulled up the rapids to Go ko-khi. Every village in Formosa had its headman, who is virtually the ruler of the place. When the boat landed, many of the villagers were at the shore to meet their visitors and took them at once to their mayor's house, the best building in the village. Tan Paugh, a fine, big, powerfully-built man, received them cordially. He frankly declared that he was tired and sick of idols and wanted to hear more of this new religion. An empty granary was obtained for both church and home, and the missionary and his assistant took up their quarters there, and for several months they remained, preaching and teaching the Bible either in Go-ho-khi, or in the lovely surrounding valleys. CHAPTER VI. THE GREAT KAI BOK-SU The missionary was now becoming a familiar figure both in Tamsui and in the surrounding country. By many he was loved, by all he was respected, but by a large number he was bitterly hated. The scholars continued his worst enemies. They could never forgive him for beating them so completely in argument, in the days when A Hoa was striving for the light, and their hatred increased as they saw other scholars becoming Christians under his teaching. There was something about him, however, that compelled their respect and even their admiration. Wherever they met him--on the street, by their temples, or on the country roads--he bore himself in such a way as to make them confess that he was their superior both in ability and knowledge. These Chinese literati had a custom which Mackay found very interesting. One proud scholar marching down the street and scarcely noticing the obsequious bows of his inferiors, would meet another equally proud scholar. Each would salute the other in an exceedingly grand manner, and then one would spin off a quotation from the writings of Confucius or some other Chinese sage and say, "Now tell me where that is found." And scholar number two had to ransack his brains to remember where the saying was found, or else confess himself beaten. Mackay thought it might be a good habit for the graduates of his own alma mater across the wide sea to adopt. He wondered what some of his old college chums would think, if, when he got back to Canada, he should buttonhole one on the street some day, recite a quotation from Shakespeare or Macaulay, and demand from his friend where it could be found. He had a suspicion that the old friend would be afraid that the Oriental sun had touched George Mackay's brain. Nevertheless he thought the custom one he could turn to good account, and before long he was trying it himself. He had such a wonderful memory that he never forgot anything he had once read. So the scholars of north Formosa soon discovered, again to their humiliation, that this Kai Bok-su of Tamsui could beat them at their own game. They did not care how much he might profess to know of writers and lands beyond China. Such were only barbarians anyway. But when, right before a crowd, he would display a surer knowledge of the Chinese classics than they themselves, they began not only to respect but to fear him. It was no use trying to humiliate him with a quotation. With his bright eyes flashing, he would tell, without a moment's hesitation, where it was found and come back at the questioner swiftly with another, most probably one long forgotten, and reel it off as though he had studied Chinese all his life. He was a wonderful man certainly, they all agreed, and one whom it was not safe to oppose. The common people liked him better every day. He was so tactful, so kind, and always so careful not to arouse the prejudice of the heathen. He was extremely wise in dealing with their superstitions. No matter how absurd or childish They might be, he never ridiculed them, but only strove to show the people how much happier they might be if they believed in God as their Father and in Jesus Christ as their Savior. He never made light of anything sacred to the Chinese mind, but always tried to take whatever germ of good he could find in their religion, and lead on from it to the greater good found in Christianity. He discovered that the ancestral worship made the younger people kind and respectful to older folk, and he saw that Chinese children reverenced their parents and elders in a way that he felt many of his young friends across the sea would do well to copy. One day when he and A Hoa were out on a preaching tour, the wise Kai Bok-su made use of this respect for parents in quieting a mob. He and his comrade were standing side by side on the steps of a heathen temple as they had done at Kelung. The angry crowd was scowling and muttering, ready to throw stones as soon as the preacher uttered a word. Mackay knew this, and when they had sung a hymn and the people waited, ready for a riot, his voice rang out clear and steady, repeating the fifth commandment "Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." A silence fell over the muttering crowd, and an old heathen whose cue was white and whose aged hands trembled on the top of his staff, nodded his head and said, "That is heavenly doctrine." The people were surprised and disarmed. If the black-bearded barbarian taught such truths as this, he surely was not so very wicked after all. And so they listened attentively as he went on to show that they had all one great Father, even God. He sometimes found it rather a task to treat with respect that which the Chinese held sacred. Especially was this so when he discovered to his amusement and to some carefully concealed disgust, that in the Chinese family the pig was looked upon with affection, and as a young naval officer, who visited Mackay remarked, "was treated like a gentleman." Every Chinese house of any size was made up of three buildings joined together so as to make three sides of an enclosure. This space was called a court, and a door led from it to another next the street. In this outer yard pigs and fowl were always to be found. Whenever the missionary dropped in at a home, mother pig and all the little pigs often followed him inside the house, quite like members of the family. Every one was always glad to see Kai Bok-su, pigs and all, and as soon as he appeared the order was given--"Infuse tea." And when the little handleless cups of clear brown liquid were passed around and they all drank and chatted, Mrs. Pig and her children strolled about as welcome as the guest. The Chinese would allow no one to hurt their pigs, either. One day as Mackay sat in his rooms facing the river, battling with some new Chinese characters, he heard a great hubbub coming up the street. The threatening mobs that used to surround his house had long ago ceased to trouble him. He arose in some surprise and went to the door to see what was the matter. A very unusual sight for Tamsui met his gaze. Coming up the street at a wild run were some half-dozen English sailors, their loose blue blouses and trousers flapping madly. They were evidently from a ship which Mackay had seen lying in the harbor that morning. "Give us a gun!" roared the foremost as soon as he saw the missionary. Mackay did not possess a gun, and would not have given the enraged bluejacket one had he owned a dozen. But the Chinese mob, roaring with fury, were coming up the street after the men and he swiftly pointed out a narrow alley that led down to the river. "Run down there!" he shouted to the sailors. "You can get to your boats before they find you." They were gone in an instant, and the next moment the crowd of pursuers were storming about the door demanding whither the enemy had disappeared. "What is all this disturbance about?" demanded Kai Bok-su calmly, glad of an opportunity to gain time for the fleeing sailors. The aggrieved Chinese gathered about him, each telling the story as loud as his voice would permit. Those barbarians of the sea had come swaggering along the streets waving their big sticks. And they had dared--yes actually DARED--to hit the pet pigs belonging to every house as they passed. The poor pigs who lay sunning themselves at the door! This was indeed a serious offense. Mackay could picture the rollicking sailor-lads gaily whacking the lazy porkers with their canes as they passed, happily unconscious of the trouble they were raising. But there was no amusement in Kai Bok-su's grave face. He spoke kindly, and soothingly, and promised that if the offenders misbehaved again he would complain to the authorities. That made it all right. Heathen though they were, they knew Kai Bok-su's promise would not be broken, and away they went quite satisfied. One day he learned, quite by accident, a new and very useful way of helping his people. He and A Hoa and several other young men who had become Christians, went on a missionary tour to Tek-chham, a large city which he had visited once before. On the day they left the place, Kai Boksu's preaching had drawn such crowds that the authorities of the city became afraid of him. And when the little party left, a dozen soldiers were sent to follow the dangerous barbarian and his students and see that they did not bewitch the people on the road. The soldiers tramped along after the missionary party, and with his usual ability to make use of any situation, Mackay stepped back and chatted with his spies. He found one poor fellow in agony with the toothache. This malady was very common in north Formosa, partly owing to the habit of chewing the betel-nut. He examined the aching tooth and found it badly decayed. "There is a worm in it," the soldier said, for the Formosan doctors had taught the people this was the cause of toothache. Mackay had no forceps, but he knew how to pull a tooth, and he was not the sort to be daunted by the lack of tools. He got a piece of hard wood, whittled it into shape and with it pried out the tooth. The relief from pain was so great that the soldier almost wept for joy and overwhelmed the tooth-puller with gratitude. And for the remainder of the journey the guards sent to spy on the missionary's doings were his warmest friends. After this, dentistry became a part of this many-sided missionary's work. He went to a native blacksmith and had a pair of forceps hammered out of iron. It was a rather clumsy instrument, but it proved of great value, and later he sent for a complete set of the best instruments made in New York. So with forceps in one hand and the Bible in the other, Mackay found himself doubly equipped. Every second person seemed to be suffering from toothache, and when the pain was relieved by the missionary, the patient was in a state of mind to receive his teaching kindly. The cruel methods by which the native doctors extracted teeth often caused more suffering than the toothache, and sometimes even resulted in death through blood-poisoning. A Hoa and some of the other young converts learned from their teacher how to pull a tooth, and they, too, became experts in the art. Whenever they visited a town or city after this, they had a program which they always followed. First they would place themselves in front of an idol temple or in an open square. Here they would sing a hymn which always attracted a crowd. Next, any one who wanted a tooth pulled was invited to come forward. Many accepted the invitation gladly and sometimes a long line of twenty or thirty would be waiting, each his turn. The Chinese had considerable nerve, the Canadian discovered, and stood the pain bravely. They literally "stood" it, too, for there was no dentist's chair and every man stood up for his operation, very much pleased and very grateful when it was over. Then there were quinine and other simple remedies for malaria handed round, for in a Formosan crowd there were often many shaking in the grip of this terrible disease. And now, having opened the people's hearts by his kindness, Kai Bok-su brought forth his cure for souls. He would mount the steps of the temple or stand on a box or stone, and tell the wonderful old story of the man Jesus who was also God, and who said to all sick and weary and troubled ones, "Come unto me,... and I will give you rest." And often, when he had finished, the disease of sin in many a heart was cured by the remedy of the gospel. And so the autumn passed away happily and busily, and Mackay entered his first Formosan winter. And such a winter! The young man who had felt the clear, bright cold of a Canadian January needed all his fine courage to bear up under its dreariness. It started about Christmas time. Just when his own people far away in Canada were gathering about the blazing fire or jingling over the crisp snow in sleighs and cutters, the great winter rains commenced. Christmas day--his first Christmas in a land that did not know its beautiful meaning--was one long dreary downpour. It rained steadily all Christmas week. It poured on Newyear's day and for a week after. It came down in torrents all January. February set in and still it rained and rained, with only a short interval each afternoon. Day and night, week in, week out, it poured, until Mackay forgot what sunlight looked like, his house grew damp, his clothes moldy. A stream broke out up in the hill behind and one morning he awoke to find a cascade tumbling into his kitchen, and rushing across the floor out into the river beyond. And still it poured and the wind blew and everything was damp and cold and dreary. He caught an occasional glimpse of snow, only a very far-off view, for it lay away up on the top of a mountain, but it made his heart long for just one breath of good dry Canadian air, just one whiff of the keen, cutting frost. But Kai Bok-su was not the sort to spend these dismal days repining. Indeed he had no time, even had he been so inclined. His work filled up every minute of every rainy day and hours of the drenched night. If there was no sunshine outside there was plenty in his brave heart, and A Hoa's whole nature radiated brightness. And there were many reasons for being happy after all. On the second Sabbath of February, 1873, just one year after his arrival in Tamsui, the missionary announced, at the close of one of his Sabbath services, that he would receive a number into the Christian church. There was instantly a commotion among the heathen who were in the house, and yells and jeers from those crowding about the door outside. "We'll stop him," they shouted. "Let us beat the converts," was another cry. But Mackay went quietly on with the beautiful ceremony in spite of the disturbance. Five young men, with A Hoa at their head, came and were baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When the next Sabbath came these five with their missionary sat down for the first time to partake of the Lord's Supper. It was a very impressive ceremony. One young fellow broke down, declaring he was not worthy. Mackay took him alone into his little room and they prayed together, and the young man came out to the Lord's Supper comforted, knowing that all might be worthy in Jesus Christ. Spring came at last, bright and clear, and Mackay announced to A Hoa that they must go up the river and visit their friends at Goko-khi. The two did not go alone this time. Three other young men who wanted to be missionaries were now spending their days with their teacher, learning with A Hoa how to preach the gospel. So it was quite a little band of disciples that walked along the river bank up to Go-ko-khi. Mackay preached at all the villages along the route, and visited the homes of Christians. One day, as they passed a yamen or Chinese court-house where a mandarin was trying some cases, they stepped in to see what was going on. At one end of the room sat the mandarin who was judge. He was dressed in magnificent silks and looked down very haughtily upon the lesser people and the retinue of servants who were gathered about him. On either side of the room stood a row of constables and near them the executioners. The rest of the room was filled with friends of the people on trial and by the rabble from the street. The missionaries mixed with the former and stood watching proceedings. There were no lawyers, no jury. The mandarin's decision was law. The first case was one of theft. Whether the man had really committed the crime or not was a question freely discussed among the onlookers around Mackay. But there seemed no doubt as to his punishment being swift and heavy. "He has not paid the mandarin," a friend explained to the missionary. "He will be punished." "The mandarin eats cash," remarked another with a shrug. It was a saying to which Mackay had become accustomed. For it was one of the shameless proverbs of poor, oppressed Formosa. The case was soon finished. Nothing was definitely proven against the man. But the mandarin pronounced the sentence of death. The victim was hurried out, shrieking his innocence, and praying for mercy. Case followed case, each one becoming more revolting than the last to the eyes of the young man accustomed to British justice. Imprisonment and torture were meted out to prisoners, and even witnesses were laid hold of and beaten on the face by the executioners if their tale did not suit the mandarin. Men who were plainly guilty but who had given their judge a liberal bribe were let off, while innocent men were made to pay heavy fines or were thrown into prison. The young missionary went out and on his way sickened by the sights he had witnessed. And as he went, he raised his eyes to heaven and prayed fervently that he might be a faithful preacher of the gospel, and that one day Formosa would be a Christian land and injustice and oppression be done away. The next scene was a happier one. There was an earnest little band of Christians in Go-ko-khi, and two of the young people were about to be married. It was the first Christian marriage in the place and Kai Bok-su was called upon to officiate. There was a great deal of opposition raised among the heathen, but after seeing the ceremony, they all voted a Christian wedding everything that was beautiful and good. CHAPTER VII. BESIEGING HEAD-HUNTERS When they returned from their trip, Mackay and A Hoa with the assistance of some of their Christian friends set about looking for a new house in a more wholesome district. It was much easier for the missionary to rent a place now, and he managed to secure a comfortable home upon the bluff above the town. It was a dryer situation and much more healthful. Here one room was used as a study and every morning when not away on a tour a party of young men gathered in it for lessons. Sometimes, what with traveling, preaching, training his students, visiting the sick, and pulling teeth, Mackay had scarcely time to eat, and very little to sleep. But always as he came and went on his travels, his eyes would wander to the mountains where the savages lived, and with all his heart he would wish that he might visit them also. His Chinese friends held up their hands in dismay when he broached the subject. To the mountains where the Chhi-hoan lived! Did Kai Bok-su not know that every man of them was a practised head-hunter, and that behind every rock and tree and in the darkness of the forests they lay in wait for any one who went beyond the settled districts? Yes, Kai Bok-su knew all that, but he could not quite explain that it was just that which made the thought of a visit to them seem so alluring, just that which made him so anxious to tell them of Jesus Christ, who wished all men to live as brothers. A Hoa and a few others who had caught the spirit of the true soldier of the cross understood. For they had learned that one who follows Jesus must be ready to dare anything, death included, to carry the news of his salvation to the dark corners of the world. But the days were so filled with preaching, teaching, and touring, that for some time Mackay had no opportunity for a trip into the head-hunters' territory. And then one day, quite unexpectedly, his chance came. There sailed into Tamsui harbor, one hot afternoon, a British man-of-war, named The Dwarf. Captain Bax from this vessel visited Tamsui, and expressed a desire to see something of the life of the savages in the mountains. This was Mackay's opportunity, and in spite of protests from his friends he offered to accompany the captain. So together they started off, the sailor-soldier of England and the soldier of the cross, each with the same place in view but each with a very different object. It took three days journey from Tamsui across rice-fields and up hillsides to reach even the foot of the mountains. Here there lived a village of natives, closely related to the savages. But they were not given to head-hunting and were quite friendly with the people about them. Mackay had met some of these people on a former trip inland, and now he and Captain Bax hired their chief and a party of his men to guide them up into savage territory. The travelers slept that night in the village, and before dawn were up and ready to start on their dangerous undertaking. Before them in the gray dawn rose hill upon hill, each loftier than the last, till they melted into the mountains, the territory of the dreaded head-hunters. They started off on a steady tramp, up hills, down valleys, and across streams, until at last they came to the foot of the first mountain. Before them rose its sheer side, towering thirty-five hundred feet above their heads. It was literally covered with rank growth of all kinds, through which it was impossible to move. So a plan of march had to be decided upon. In front went a line of men with long sharp knives. With these they cut away the creepers and tangled scrub or undergrowth. Next came the coolies with the baggage, and last the two travelers. It was slow work, and sometimes the climb was so steep they held their breath, as they crept over a sheer ledge and saw the depth below to which they might easily be hurled. The chief of the guides himself collapsed in one terrible climb, and his men tied rattan ropes about him and hauled him up over the steepest places. During this wearisome ascent the most untiring one was the missionary; and the sailor often looked at him in amazement. His lithe, wiry frame never seemed to grow weary. He was often in the advance line, cutting his way through the tangle, and here on that first afternoon he met with an unpleasant adventure. The natives had warned the two strangers to be on the lookout for poisonous snakes, and Mackay's year in Formosa had taught him to be wary. But he had forgotten all danger in the toilsome climb. He was soon reminded of it. They were passing up a slope covered with long dense grass when a rustling at his side made the young missionary pause. The next moment a huge cobra sprang out from a clump of grass and struck at him. Mackay sprang aside just in time to escape its deadly fangs. The guides rushed up with their spears only to see its horrible scaly length disappear in the long grass. That was not the only escape of the young adventurer, for there were wild animals as well as poisonous snakes along the line of march, and the man in the front was always in danger. But at the front Mackay must be in spite of all warning. Nobody moved fast enough for him. At last they reached the summit of the range. They were now on the dividing line between Chinese ground and savage territory, and the men who dared go a step farther went at terrible risk. The head-hunters would very likely see that they did not return. But Mackay was all for pushing forward, and Captain Bax was no less eager. So they spent a night in the forest and the next day marched on up another and higher range. As they journeyed, the travelers could not but burst into exclamations of delight at the loveliness about them. Behind those great trees and in those tangles of vines might lurk the head-hunters, but for all that the beauty of the place made them forget the dangers. The great banyan trees whose branches came down and took root in the earth, making a wonderful round leafy tent, grew on every side. Camphor trees towered far above them and then spread out great branches sixty or seventy feet from the ground. Then there was the rattan creeping out over the tops of the other trees and making a thick canopy through which the hot tropical sun-rays could not penetrate. And the flowers! Sometimes Mackay and Bax would stand amazed at their beauty. They came one afternoon to an open glade in the cool green dimness of the forest. On all sides the stately tree-ferns rose up thirty or forty feet above them, and underneath grew a tangle of lovely green undergrowth. And upon this green carpet it seemed to their dazzled eyes that thousands of butterflies of the loveliest form and color had just alighted. And not only butterflies, but birds and huge insects and all sorts of winged creatures, pink and gold and green and scarlet and blue, and all variegated hues. But the lovely things sat motionless, sending out such a delightful perfume that there could be no doubt that they were flowers,--the wonderful orchids of Formosa! Mackay was a keen scientist, always highly interested in botany, and he was charmed with this sight. There were many such in the forest, and often he would stop spellbound before a blaze of flowers hanging from tree or vine or shrub. Then he would look up at the tangled growths of the bamboo, the palm, and the elegant tree-fern, standing there all silent and beautiful, and he would be struck by the harmony between God's work and Word. "I can't keep from studying the flora of Formosa," he said to Captain Bax. "What missionary would not be a better man, the bearer of a richer gospel, what convert would not be a more enduring Christian from becoming acquainted with such wonderful works of the Creator?" At last they stood on the summit of the second range and saw before them still more mountains, clothed from summit to base with trees. They were now right in savage territory and their guide clambered out upon a spur of rock and announced that there was a party of head-hunters in the valley below. He gave a long halloo. From away down in the valley came an answering call, ringing through the forest. Then far down through the thicket Mackay's sharp eyes descried the party coming up to meet them. Just then their own guide gave the signal to move on, and the missionary and Captain Bax walked down the hill--the first white men who had ever come out to meet those savages. Half-way down the slope the two parties came face to face. The head-hunters were a wild, uncouth-looking company, armed to the teeth. They all carried guns, spears, and knives and some had also bows and arrows slung over their backs. Their faces were hideously tattooed in a regular pattern, while they wore no more clothes than were necessary. A sort of sack of coarse linen with holes in the sides for their arms, served as the chief garment, and generally the only one. Every one wore a broad belt of woven rattan in which was stuck his crooked pointed knife. Some of the younger men had their coats ornamented with bright red and blue threads woven into the texture. They had brass rings on their arms and legs too, and even sported big earrings. These were ugly looking things made of bamboo sticks. The head-hunters were all barefooted, but most of them wore caps--queer-looking things, made of rattan. From many of them hung bits of skin of the boar or other wild animals they had killed. They stood staring suspiciously at the two strangers. Never before had they seen a white man, and the appearance of the naval officer and the missionary, so different from themselves, and yet so different from their hated enemies, the Chinese, filled them with amazement and a good deal of suspicion. After a little talk with the guides, however, the visitors were allowed to pass on. As soon as they began to move, the savages fell into line behind them and followed closely. The two white men, walking calmly onward, could not help thinking how easy it would be for one of those fierce-looking tattooed braves to win applause by springing upon both of them and carrying their heads in triumph to the next village. As they came down farther into the valley, they passed the place where the savages had their camp. Here naked children and tattooed women crept out of the dense woods to stare at the queer-looking Chinamen who had white faces and wore no cue. The march through this valley, even without the head-hunters at their heels, would not have been easy. The visitors clambered over huge trunks blown across the path, and tore their clothes and hands scrambling through the thorny bushes. The sun was still shining on the mountain-peaks far above them, but away down here in the valley it was rapidly growing dark and very cold. They had almost decided to stop and wait for morning when a light ahead encouraged them to go on. They soon came upon a big camp-fire and round it were squatted several hundred savages. The firelight gleaming upon the dark, fierce faces of the head-hunters and on their spears and knives, made a startling picture. They were round the visitors immediately, staring at the two white men in amazement. The party of savages who had escorted them seemed to be making some explanation of their appearance, for they all subsided at last and once more sat round their fire. The newcomers started a fire of their own, and their servants cooked their food. The white men were in momentary danger of their lives. But they sat on the ground before the fire and quietly ate their supper while hundreds of savage eyes were fixed upon them in suspicious, watchful silence. The meal over the servants prepared a place for the travelers to sleep, and while they were so doing, the young missionary was not idle. He longed to speak to these poor, darkened heathen, but they could not understand Chinese. However, he found several poor fellows lying prostrate on the ground, overcome with malaria, and he got his guide to ask if he might not give the sick ones medicine. Being allowed to do so, he gave each one a dose of quinine. The poor creatures tried to look their gratitude when the terrible chills left them, and soon they were able to sink into sleep. Before he retired to his own bed of boughs, the young missionary sang that grand old anthem which these lonely woods and their savage inhabitants had never yet heard: All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. But these poor people could not "sing to the Lord," for they had never yet so much as heard his name. All night the missionary lay on the ground, finding the chill mountain air too cold for sleep, and whenever he looked out from his shelter of boughs he saw hundreds of savage eyes, gleaming in the firelight, still wide open and fixed upon him. Day broke late in the valley, but the travelers were astir in the morning twilight. The mountain-tops were touched with rosy light even while it was dark down in these forest depths. The chilled white men were glad to get up and exercise their stiffened limbs. There were several of their party who could speak both Chinese and the dialect of these mountaineers, and through them Mackay persuaded the chief of the tribe to take them to visit his village. He seemed reluctant at first and there was much discussion with his braves. Evidently they were more anxious to go on a head-hunt than to act the part of hosts. However, after a great deal of chatter, they consented, and the chief and his son with thirty men separated themselves from the rest of the band and led the way out of the valley up the mountainside. The travelers had to stop often, for, besides the natural difficulties of the way, the chief proved a new obstacle. Every mile or so he would apparently repent of his hospitality. He would stop, gather his tattooed braves about him and confer with them, while his would-be visitors sat on the ground or a fallen tree-trunk to await his pleasure. Finally he would start off again, the travelers following, but no sooner were they under way than again their uncertain guide would stop. Once he and his men stood motionless, listening. Away up in the boughs of a camphor tree a little tailor-bird was twittering. The savages listened as though to the voice of an oracle. "What are they doing?" Mackay asked of one of his men, when the head-hunters stopped a second time and stared earnestly at the boughs above. "Bird-listening," explained the guide. A few more questions drew from him the fact that the savages believed the little birds would tell them whether or not they should bring these strangers home. They always consulted the birds when starting out on a head-hunt, he further explained. If the birds gave a certain kind of chirp and flew in a certain direction, then all was well, and the hunters would go happily forward. But if the birds acted in the opposite way, nothing in the world could persuade the chief to go on. Evidently the birds gave their permission to bring the travelers home, for in spite of many halts, the savages still moved forward. They had been struggling for some miles through underbrush and prickly rattan and the white men's clothes were torn and their hands scratched. Now, however, they came upon a well-beaten path, winding up the mountainside, and it proved a great relief to the weary travelers. But here occurred another delay. The savages all stopped, and the chief approached Mackay and spoke to him through the interpreter. Would the white man join him in a head-hunting expedition, was his modest request. There were some Chinese not so far below them, cutting out rattan, and he was sure they could secure one or more heads. He shook the big net head-bag that hung over his shoulder and grinned savagely as he made his proposal. If the white men and their party would come at the enemy from one side, he and his men would attack them from the other, he said, and they would be sure to get them all. The incongruity of a Christian missionary being invited on a head-hunt struck Captain Bax as rather funny in spite of its gruesomeness. This was a delicate situation to handle, but Mackay put a bold front on it. He answered indignantly that he and his friend had come in peace to visit the chief, and that he was neither kind nor honorable in trying to get his visitors to fight his battles. The interpreter translated and for a moment several pairs of savage eyes gleamed angrily at the bold white man. But second thoughts proved calmer. After another council the savages moved on. They were now at the top of a range, and every one was ordered to halt and remain silent. Mackay thought that advice was again to be asked of some troublesome little birds, but instead the savages raised a peculiar long-drawn shout. It was answered at once from the opposite mountain-top, and immediately the whole party moved on down the slope. Here was the same lovely tangle of vines and ferns and beautiful flowers. Monkeys sported in the trees and chattered and scolded the intruders. Down one range and up another they scrambled and at last they came upon the village of the head-hunters. It lay in a valley in an open space where the forest trees had been cleared away. It consisted of some half-dozen houses or huts made of bamboo or wickerwork, and the place seemed literally swarming with women and children and noisy yelping dogs. But even these could not account for the terrible din that seemed to fill the valley. Such unearthly yells and screeches the white men had never heard before. "What is it?" asked Captain Bax. "Has the whole village gone mad?" Mackay turned to one of his guides, and the man explained that the noise came from a village a little farther down the valley. A young hunter had returned with a Chinaman's head, and his friends were rejoicing over it. The merrymaking sounded to the visitors more like the howling of a pack of fiends, for it bore no resemblance to any human sounds they had ever heard. Fortunately they were invited to stop at the nearer village and were not compelled to take part in the horrible celebration. They were taken at once to the chief's house. It was the best in the village, and boasted of a floor, made of rattan ropes half an inch thick. All along the outside wall, under the eaves, hung a row of gruesome ornaments, heads of the boar and deer and other wild animals killed in the chase, and here and there mingled with them the skulls of Chinamen. The house held one large room, and, as it was a cold evening, a fire burned at either end of it. At one end the men stood chatting, at the other the women squatted. The visitors were invited to sit by the men's fire. There were several beds along the wall, two of which were offered to the strangers. But they were not prepared to remain for the night, and had decided to start back before the shadows fell. The whole village came to the chief's house and crowded round the newcomers, men first, women and children on the outskirts, and dogs still farther back. Several men came forward and claimed Mackay as a friend. They touched their own breasts and then his, in salutation, grinning in a most friendly manner. The young missionary was at first puzzled, then smiled delightedly. They were some of the poor fellows to whom he had given quinine the evening before in the valley. This greeting seemed to encourage the others. They became more friendly and suddenly one man who had been circling round the visitors touched the back of Mackay's head and exclaimed, "They do not wear the cue! They are our kinsmen." From that moment they were treated with far greater kindness, and on several other visits that Mackay made to the head-hunters, they always spoke with interest of him as kinsman. But all danger was not over. The savages were still suspicious, and at any moment the newcomers might excite them. So they decided to start back at once, while every one was in a friendly mood. They made presents to the chief and some of his leading men; and left with expressions of good-will on both sides. By evening they had reached the valley where they had first met the savages and here they prepared to spend the night. They had no sooner kindled their fires than from the darkness on every side shadowy forms silently emerged,--the savages come to visit them! They glided out of the black forest into the ring of firelight and squatted upon the ground until fully five hundred dusky faces looked out at the travelers from the gloom. It was rather an unpleasant situation, there in the depths of the forest, but Mackay turned it to good account. First he and Captain Bax made presents to the headmen and they were as pleased as children to receive the gay ornaments and bright cloth the travelers gave them. And then Mackay called their interpreter to his side and they stood up together, facing the crowd. Speaking through his interpreter, the missionary said he wished to tell them a story. These mountain savages were veritable children in their love for a story, as they were in so many other ways, and their eyes gleamed with delight. It was a wonderful story he told them, the like of which they had never heard before. It was about the great God, who had made the earth and the people on it, and was the Father of them all. He told how God loved everybody, because they were his children. Chinese, white men beyond the sea like himself and Captain Bax, the people of the mountains,--all were God's children. And so all men were brothers, and should love God their Father and each other. And because God loved his children so, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to live among men and to die for them. He told the story simply and beautifully, just as he would to little children, and these children of the forest listened and their savage eyes grew less fierce as they heard for the first time of the story of the Savior. The next day, after a toilsome journey, the travelers reached the plain below. They had made their dangerous trip and had escaped the head-hunters, but as fierce an enemy was lying in wait for both, an enemy that in Formosa devours native and foreigner alike. Captain Bax was the first to be attacked. All day, as they descended the mountain, the rain came down in torrents, a real Formosan rain that is like the floodgates opening. The travelers were drenched and chilly, and just as they emerged from the forest Captain Bax succumbed to the enemy. Malaria had smitten him. Shaking with chills and then burning with fever, he was placed in a sedan-chair and carried the remainder of the way, three days' journey, to the coast, where the medical attendants on board his ship cured him. Mackay was feeling desperately ill all the way across the plain, but with his usual determination he refused to give in until he almost staggered across the threshold of his home. The house had been closed in his absence. It was now damp and chilly and everything was covered with mold. He lay down in his bed, alternately shivering with cold and burning with fever. In the next room A Hoa, who had gone to bed also, heard his teeth chattering and came to him at once. It was a terrible thing to the young fellow to see his dauntless Kai Bok-su overcome by any kind of force. It seemed impossible that he who had cured so many should become a victim himself. A Hoa proved a kind nurse. He stayed by the bedside all night, doing everything in his power to allay the fever. His efforts proved successful, and in a few days the patient was well. But never again was he quite free from the dreaded disease, and all the rest of his life he was subject to the most violent attacks of malaria, a terrible memento by which he was always to remember his first visit to the headhunters. CHAPTER VIII. CITIES CAPTURED AND FORTS BUILT Up the river to Go-ko-khi! That was always a joy, and whenever Mackay could take a day from his many duties, with A Hoa and one or more other students, he would go up and visit old Thah-so and the kindly people of this little village. One day, after they had preached in the empty granary and the rain had come in, Mr. Tan, the headman, walked up the village street with them, and he made them an offer. They might have the plot of ground opposite his house for a chapel-site. This was grand news. A chapel in north Formosa! Mackay could hardly believe it, but it seemed that there really was to be one. There were many Christians in Go-ko-khi now, and each one was ready for work. Some collected stones, others prepared sun-dried bricks, others dug the foundation, and the first church in north Formosa was commenced. Now Go-ko-khi was, unfortunately, near the great city of Bang-kah. This was the most hostile and wicked place in all that country, and A Hoa and Mackay had been stoned out of it on their visit there. The people in Bang-kah learned of the new church building, and one day, when the brick walls were about three feet high, there arose a tramp of feet, beating of drums, and loud shouts, and up marched a detachment of soldiers sent with orders from the prefect of Bang-kah to stop the building of the chapel. Their officers went straight to the house of the headman with his commands. Mr. Tan was six feet two and he rose to his full height and towered above his visitor majestically. The "mayor" of Go-ko-khi was a Christian now, and on the wall of his house was pasted a large sheet of paper with the ten commandments printed on it. He pointed to this and said: "I am determined to abide by these." The officer was taken aback. He was scarcely prepared to defy the headman, and he went away to stir up the villagers. But everywhere the soldiers met with opposition. There seemed no one who would take their part. The officer knew he and his men were scarcely within their rights in what they were doing; so, fearing trouble, he marched back to the city, reporting there that the black-bearded barbarian had bewitched the villagers with some magic art. The prefect of Bang-kah next sent a message to the British consul. The missionary was building a fort at Go-ko-khi, he declared in great alarm, and would probably bring guns up the river at night. He was a very bad man indeed, and if the British consul desired peace he should stop this wicked Kai Bok-su at once. And the British consul down in his old Dutch fort at Tamsui laughed heartily over the letter, knowing all about Kai Bok-su and the sort of fort he was building. So, in spite of all opposition, the little church rose steadily up and up until it was crowned with a tiled roof and was ready for the worshipers. That was a great day for north Formosa and its young missionary, the day the first church was opened. The place was packed to the doors, and many stood outside listening at the windows. And of that crowd one hundred and fifty arose and declared that from henceforth they would cast away their idols and worship only the one and true God. Standing up there in his first pulpit and looking down upon the crowd of upturned faces, and seeing the new light in them which the blessed good news of Jesus and his love had brought, Kai Bok-su's heart swelled with joy. He stayed with them some time after this, for, though so many people had become Christians, they were like little children and needed much careful teaching. Especially they must learn how to live as Jesus Christ would have his followers live. Many heathen as well as the Christians came to his meetings and listened eagerly. At first the people found it almost impossible to sit quiet and still during a service. They had never been accustomed to such a task, and some of the missionary's experiences were very funny. When they had sung a hymn and had settled down to listen to the address, the preacher would no sooner start than out would come one long pipe after another, pieces of flint would strike on steel, and in a few minutes the smoke would begin to ascend. Mackay would pause and gently tell them that as this was a Christian service they must not do anything that might disturb it. They were anxious to do just as he bade, so the pipes would disappear, and nodding their heads politely they would say, "Oh, yes, we must be quiet; oh, yes, indeed." One day when the congregation was very still and their young pastor was speaking earnest words to them, one man less attentive than the others happened to glance out of the window. Instantly he sprang to his feet shouting, "Buffaloes in the rice-fields! Buffaloes in the rice-fields!" and away he went with a good fraction of the congregation helter-skelter at his heels. The missionary spoke again upon the necessity of quiet, and his hearers nodded agreeably and murmured, "Yes, yes, we must be quiet." They were very good for the next few minutes and the minister had reached a very important point in his address, when there was a great disturbance at the door. An old woman came hobbling up on her small feet and poking her head in at the church door screamed, "My pig has gone! Pig has gone!" and away went another portion of the congregation to help find the truant porker. But, in spite of many interruptions, the congregation at Go-ko-khi learned much of the beautiful truth of their new religion. Their indulgent pastor never blamed his restless hearers, but before the church was two months old he had trained them so well that there was not a more orderly and attentive congregation even in his own Christian Canada than that which gathered in the first chapel in north Formosa. But the day came at last when he had to leave them, and the question was who should be left over them. The answer seemed very plain,--A Hoa. The first convert placed as pastor over the first church! It was very fitting. Some months before, down in Tamsui, when A Hoa had been baptized and had taken his first communion, he had vowed to give his life more fully to his Master's service. So here was his field of labor, and here he began his work. He was so utterly sincere and lovable, so bright and jovial, so firm of purpose and yet so kindly, that he was soon beloved by all the Christians and respected by the heathen. And one of his greatest helpers was widow Thah-so, who had been instrumental in bringing the missionary with his glad tidings to her village. Mackay missed A Hoa sorely at first, but he had his other students about him, and often when bent upon a long journey would send for his first convert, and together they would travel here and there over the island, making new recruits everywhere for the army of their great Captain. The little church at Go-ko-khi was but the first of many. Like the hepaticas that used to peep forth in the missionary's home woods, telling that spring had arrived, here and there they came up, showing that the long cruel winter of heathenism in north Formosa was drawing to an end. Away up the Tamsui river, nestled at the foot of the mountains, stood a busy town called Sin-tiam. A young man from this place sailed down to Tamsui on business one day and there heard the great Kai Bok-su preach of the new Jehovah-God, he went home full of the wonderful news, and so much did he talk about it that a large number of people in Sin-tiam were very anxious to hear the barbarian themselves. So one day a delegation came down the river to the house on the bluff above Tamsui. They made this request known to the missionary as he sat teaching his students in the study. Would he not come and tell the people of Sin-tiam the story about this Jesus-God who loved all men? Would he go? Kai Bok-su was on the road almost before the slow-going Orientals had finished delivering the message. It was the season of a feast to their idols in Sin-tiam when the missionary and his party arrived. Great crowds thronged the streets, and the barbarian with his white face and his black beard and his queer clothes attracted unusual attention. The familiar cry, "Foreign devil," was mingled with "Kill the barbarian," "Down with the foreigner." The crowd began to surge closer around the missionary party, and affairs looked very serious. Suddenly a little boy right in Mackay's path was struck on the head by a brick intended for the missionary. He was picked up, and Mackay, pressing through the crowd to where the little fellow lay, took out his surgical instruments and dressed the wound. All about him the cries of "Kill the foreign devil" changed to cries of "Good heart! Good heart!" The crowd became friendly at once, and Mackay passed on, having had once more a narrow escape from death. The work of preaching to these people was carried on vigorously, and before many months had passed the Christians met together and declared they must build a chapel for the worship of the true God. So, close by the riverside, in a most picturesque spot, the walls of the second chapel of north Formosa began to rise. It was not without opposition of course. One rabid idol-worshiper stopped before the half-finished building with its busy workmen, and, picking up a large stone, declared that he would smash the head of the black-bearded barbarian if the work was not stopped that moment. Needless to say, the missionary, standing within a good stone's throw of his enemy, ordered the workers to continue. George Mackay was not to be stopped by all the stones in north Formosa. This stone was never thrown, however, and at last the chapel was finished. Once more a preacher was ready to be its pastor. Tan He, a young man who had been studying earnestly under his leader for some time, was placed over this second congregation, and once more there blossomed out a sure sign that the spring had indeed come to north Formosa. Tek-chham, a walled city of over forty thousand inhabitants, was the next place to be attacked by this little army of the King's soldiers. The first visit of the missionary caused a riot, but before long Tek-chham had a chapel with some of the rioters for its best members, and a once proud graduate and worshiper of Confucius installed in it as its pastor. Ten miles from Tek-chham stood a little village called Geh-bai. The missionary-soldiers visited it, and to their delight found a church building ready for them. It was quite a wonderful place, capable of holding fully a thousand people without much crowding. Its roof was the boughs of the great banyan tree; its one pillar the trunk, and its walls the branches that bent down to enter the ground and take root. It made a delightful shelter from the broiling sun. And here Kai Bok-su preached. But a banyan does not give perfect shelter in all kinds of weather, so when a number of people had declared themselves followers of the Lord Jesus, a large house was rented and fitted up as a chapel, with another native pastor over it. Away over at Kelung a church was founded through a man who had carried the gospel home from one of the missionary's sermons. Here and there the hepaticas were springing up. From all sides came invitations to preach the great news of the true God, and the young missionary gave himself scarcely time to eat or sleep. He worked like a giant himself, and he inspired the same spirit in the students that accompanied him. He was like a Napoleon among his soldiers. Wherever he went they would go, even though it would surely mean abuse and might mean death. And, wherever they went, they brought such a wonderful, glad change to people's hearts that they were like slave-liberators setting captives free. The most lawless and dangerous region in all north Formosa was that surrounding the small town of Sa-kak-eng. In the mountains near by lived a band of robbers who kept the people in a constant state of dread by their terrible deeds of plunder and murder. Sometimes the frightened townspeople would help the highwaymen just to gain their good-will, and such treatment only made them bolder. Bands of them would even come down into the town and march through the streets, frightening every one into flight. They would shout and sing, and their favorite song was one that showed how little they cared for the laws of the land. You trust the mandarins, We trust the mountains. So the song went, and when the missionary heard it first he could not help confessing that after all it was a sorry job trusting the mandarins for protection. The first time he visited the place with A Hoa they were stoned and driven out. But the missionaries came back, and at last were allowed to preach. And then converts came and a church was established. The robber bands received no more assistance from the people, and were soon scattered by the officers of the law. And Sa-kak-eng was in peace because the missionary had come. But there was one place Mackay had so far scarcely dared to enter. Even the robber-infested Sa-kak-eng would yield, but Bang-kah defied all efforts. To the missionary it was the Gibraltar of heathen Formosa, and he longed to storm it. North, south, east, and west of this great wicked city churches had been planted, some only within a few miles of its walls. But Bang-kah still stood frowning and unyielding. It had always been very bitter against outsiders of all kinds. No foreign merchant was allowed to do business in Bang-kah, so no wonder the foreign missionary was driven out. Mackay had dared to enter the place, being of the sort that would dare anything. It was soon after he had settled in Formosa and A Hoa had accompanied him. The result had been a riot. The streets had immediately filled with a yelling, cursing mob that pelted the two missionaries with stones and rotten eggs and filth, and drove them from the city. But "Mackay never knew when he was beaten," as a fellow worker of his once said, and though he was taking desperate chances, he went once more inside the walls of Bangkah. This time he barely escaped with his life, and the city authorities forbade every one, on pain of death, to lease or sell property to him or in any way accommodate the barbarian missionary. But meanwhile Kai Bok-su was keeping his eye on Bang-kah, and when the territory around had been possessed, he went up to Go-ko--khi and made the daring proposition to A Hoa. Should they go up again and storm the citadel of heathenism? And A Hoa answered promptly and bravely, "Let us go." So one day early in December, when the winter rains had commenced to pour down, these two marched across the plain and into Bang-kah. By keeping quiet and avoiding the main thoroughfare, they managed to rent a house. It was a low, mean hovel in a dirty, narrow street, but it was inside the forbidden city, and that was something. The two daring young men then procured a large sheet of paper, printed on it in Chinese characters "Jesus' Temple," and pasted it on the door. This announced what they had come for, and they awaited results. Presently there came the heavy tramp, tramp of feet on the stone pavement. Mackay and A Hoa looked out. A party of soldiers, armed with spears and swords, were returning from camp. They stopped before the hut and read the inscription. They shouted loud threats and tramped away to report the affair to headquarters. In a short time, with a great noise and tramping, once more soldiers were at the door. Mackay waked out and faced them quietly. The general had given orders that the barbarian must leave this house immediately, the soldier declared in a loud voice. The place belonged to the military authorities. "Show me your proof," said Mackay calmly. His bold behavior demanded respectful treatment, so the soldier produced the deed for the property. "I respect your law," said Mackay after he examined it, "and my companion and I will vacate. But I have paid rent for this place, therefore I am entitled to remain for the night. I will not go out until morning." His firm words and fearless manner had their effect both on the soldiers and the noisy mob waiting for him outside, and the men, muttering angrily, turned away. That night Mackay and A Hoa lay on a dirty grass mat on the mud floor. The place was damp and filthy, but even had it been comfortable they would have had little sleep. For, far into the night, angry soldiers paraded the street. Often their voices rose to a clamor and they would make a rush for the frail door of the little hut. Many times the two young fellows arose, believing their last hour had come. But the long night passed and they found that they were still left untouched. They rose early and started out. Already a great mob filled the space in front of the house. Even the low roofs of the surrounding houses were covered with people all out early to see the barbarian and his despised companion driven from Bang-kah, and perhaps have the added pleasure of witnessing their death. The two walked bravely down the street. Curses were showered upon them from all sides; broken tiles, stones, and filth were thrown at them, but they moved on steadily. The mob hampered them so that they were hours walking the short distance to the river. Here they entered a boat and went down a few miles to a point where a chapel stood, and where some of Mackay's students awaited them. But the man who "did not know when he was beaten" had not turned his back on the enemy. He gathered the group of students around him in the little room attached to the chapel. Here they all knelt and the young missionary laid their trouble before the great Captain who had said, "All power is given unto me." "Give us an entrance to Bang-kah," was the burden of the missionary 's prayer. They arose from their knees, and he turned to A Hoa with that quick challenging movement his students had learned to know so well. "Come," he said, "we are going back to Bang-kah." And A Hoa, whose habit it was to walk into all danger with a smile, answered with all his heart: "It is well, Kai Bok-su; we go back to Bang-kah." And straight back to this Gibraltar the little army of two marched. It was quite dark by the time they entered. A Formosan city is not the blaze of electricity to which Westerners are accustomed, and only here and there in the narrow streets shone a dim light. The travelers stumbled along, scarcely knowing whither they were going. As they turned a dark corner and plunged into another black street they met an old man hobbling with the aid of a staff over the uneven stones of the pavement. Mackay spoke to him politely and asked if he could tell him of any one who would rent a house. "We want to do mission work," he added, feeling that he must not get anything under false pretenses. The old man nodded. "Yes, I can rent you my place," he answered readily. "Come with me." Full of amazement and gratitude the two adventurers groped their way after him, stumbling over stones and heaps of rubbish. They could not help realizing, as they got farther into the city, that should the old man prove false and give an alarm the whole murderous populace of that district would be around them instantly like a swarm of hornets. But whether he was leading them into a trap or not their only course was to follow. At last he paused at a low door opening into the back part of a house. The old man lighted a lamp, a pith wick in a saucer of peanut oil, and the visitors looked around. The room was damp and dirty and infested with the crawling creatures that fairly swarm in the Chinese houses of the lower order. Rain dripped from the low ceiling on the mud floor, and the meager furniture was dirty and sticky. But the two young men who had found it were delighted. They felt like the advance guard of an army that has taken the enemy's first outpost. They were established in Bang-kah! They set to work at once to draw out a rental paper. A Hoa sat at the table and wrote it out so that they might be within the law which said that no foreigner must hold property in Bang-kah. When the paper was signed and the money paid, the old man crept stealthily away. He had his money, but he was too wary to let his fellow citizens find how he had earned it. As soon as morning came the little army in the midst of the hostile camp hoisted its banner. When the citizens of Bang-kah awoke, they found on the door of the hut the hated sign, in large Chinese characters, "Jesus' Temple." In less than an hour the street in front of it was thronged with a shouting crowd. Before the day was past the news spread, and the whole city was in an uproar. By the next afternoon the excitement had reached white heat, and a wild crowd of men came roaring down the street. They hurled themselves at the little house where the missionaries were waiting and literally tore it to splinters. The screams of rage and triumph were so horrible that they reminded Mackay of the savage yells of the head-hunters. When the mob leaped upon the roof and tore it off, the two hunted men slipped out through a side door, and across the street into an inn. The crowd instantly attacked it, smashing doors, ripping the tiles off the roof, and uttering such bloodthirsty howls that they resembled wild beasts far more than human beings. The landlord ordered the missionaries out to where the mob was waiting to tear them limb from limb. It was an awful moment. To go out was instant death, to remain merely put off the end a few moments. Mackay, knowing his source of help, sent up a desperate prayer to his Father in heaven. Suddenly there was a strange lull in the street outside. The yells ceased, the crashing of tiles stopped. The door opened, and there in his sedan-chair of state surrounded by his bodyguard, appeared the Chinese mandarin. And just behind him--blessed sight to the eyes of Kai Bok-su--Mr. Scott, the British consul of Tamsui! Without a word the two British-born clasped hands. It was not an occasion for words. There was immediately a council of war. The mandarin urged the British consul to send the missionary out of the city. "I have no authority to give such an order," retorted Mr. Scott quickly. "On the other hand you must protect him while he is here. He is a British subject." Mackay's heart swelled with pride. And he thanked God that his Empire had such a worthy representative. Having again impressed upon the mandarin that the missionary must be protected or there would be trouble, Mr. Scott set off for his home. Mackay accompanied him to the city gate. Then he turned and walked back through the muttering crowds straight to the inn he had left. He stopped occasionally to pull a tooth or give medicine for malaria, for even in Bang-kah he had a few friends. The mandarin was now as much afraid of the missionary as if he had been the plague. He knew he dared not allow him to be touched, and he also knew he had very little power over a mob. He was responsible, too, to men in higher office, for the control of the people, and would be severely punished if there was a riot, he was indeed in a very bad way when he heard that the troublesome missionary had come back, and he followed him to the inn to try to induce him to leave. He found Mackay with A Hoa, quietly seated in their room. First he commanded, then he tried to bribe, and then he even descended to beg the "foreign devil" to leave the city. But Mackay was immovable. "I cannot leave," he said, touched by the man's distress. "I cannot quit this city until I have preached the gospel here." He held up his forceps and his Bible. "See! I use these to relieve pain of the body, and this gives relief from sin,--the disease of the soul. I cannot go until I have given your people the benefit of them." The mandarin went away enraged and baffled. He could not persuade the man to go; he dared not drive him out. He left a squad of soldiers to guard the place, however, remembering the British consul's warning. In a few days the excitement subsided. People became accustomed to seeing the barbarian teacher and his companion go about the streets. Many were relieved of much pain by him too, and a large number listened with some interest to the new doctrine he taught concerning one God. He had been there a week when some prominent citizens came to him with a polite offer. They would give him free a piece of ground outside the city on which to build a church. Kai Bok-su's flashing black eyes at once saw the bribe. They wanted to coax him out when they could not drive him. He refused politely but firmly. "I own that property," he declared, pointing to the heap of ruins into which his house had been turned, "and there I will build a church." They did everything in their power to prevent him, but one day, many months after, right on the site where they had literally torn the roof from above him, arose a pretty little stone church, and that was the beginning of great things in Bang-kah. And so Gibraltar was taken,--taken by an army of two,--a Canadian missionary and a Chinese soldier of the King, for behind them stood all the army of the Lord of hosts, and he led them to victory! CHAPTER IX. OTHER CONQUESTS. Away over on the east of the island ran a range of beautiful mountains. And between these mountains and the sea stretched a low rice plain. Here lived many Pe-po-hoan,--"Barbarians of the plain." Mackay had never visited this place, for the Kap-tsu-lan plain, as it was called, was very hard to reach on account of the mountains; but this only made the dauntless missionary all the more anxious to visit it. So one day he suggested to his students, as they studied in his house on the bluff, that they make a journey to tell the people of Kap-tsu-lan the story of Jesus. Of course, the young fellows were delighted. To go off with Kai Bok-su was merely transferring their school from his house to the big beautiful outdoors. For he always taught them by the way, and besides they were all eager to go with him and help spread the good news that had made such a difference in their lives. So when Kai Bok-su piled his books upon a shelf and said, "Let us go to Kaptsu-lan," the young fellows ran and made their preparations joyfully. A Hoa was in Tamsui at the time, and Mackay suggested that he come too, for a trip without A Hoa was robbed of half its enjoyment. Mackay had just recovered from one of those violent attacks of malaria from which he suffered so often now, and he was still looking pale and weak. So Sun-a, a bright young student-lad, came to the study door with the suggestion, "Let us take Lu-a for Kai Bok-su to ride." There was a laugh from the other students and an indulgent smile from Kai Bok-su himself. Lu-a was a small, rather stubborn-looking donkey with meek eyes and a little rat tail. He was a present to the missionary from the English commissioner of customs at Tamsui, when that gentleman was leaving the island. Donkeys were commonly used on the mainland of China, and though an animal was scarcely ever ridden in Formosa, horses being almost unknown, the commissioner did not see why his Canadian friend, who was an introducer of so many new things, should not introduce donkey-riding. So he sent him Lu-a as a farewell present and leaving this token of his good-will departed for home. Up to this time Lu-a had served only as a pet and a joke among the students, and high times they had with him in the grassy field behind the missionary's house when lessons were over. In great glee they brought him round to the door now, "all saddled and bridled" and ready for the trip. The missionary mounted, and Lu-a trotted meekly along the road that wound down the bluff toward Kelung. The students followed in high spirits. The sight of their teacher astride the donkey was such a novel one to them, and Lu-a was such a joke at any time, that they were filled with merriment. All went well until they left the road and turned into a path that led across the buffalo common. At the end of it they came to a ravine about fifteen feet deep. Over this stretched a plank bridge not more than three feet wide. Here Lu-a came to a sudden stop. He had no mind to risk his small but precious body on that shaky structure. His rider bade him "go on," but the command only made Lu-a put back his ears, plant his fore feet well forward and stand stock still. In fact he looked much more settled and immovable than the bridge over which he was being urged. The students gathered round him and petted and coaxed. They called him "Good Lu-a" and "Honorable Lu-a" and every other flattering title calculated to move his donkeyship, but Lu-a flattened his ears back so he could not hear and would not move. So Mackay dismounted and tried the plan of pulling him forward by the bridle while some of the boys pushed him from behind. Lu-a resented this treatment, especially that from the rear, and up went his heels, scattering students in every direction; and to discomfit the enemy in front he opened his mouth and gave forth such loud resonant brays that the ravine fairly rang with his music. A balking donkey is rather amusing to boys of any country, but to these Formosan lads who had had no experience with one the sound of Lu-a's harsh voice and the sight of his flying heels brought convulsions of merriment. "He's pounding rice! He's pounding rice!" shouted the wag of the party, and his companions flung themselves upon the grass and rolled about laughing themselves sick. With his followers rendered helpless and his steed continuing stubborn, Mackay saw the struggle was useless. He could not compete alone with Lu-a's firmness, so he gave orders that the obstinate little obstructer of their journey be trotted back to his pasture. "And to think that any one of us might have carried the little rascal over!" he cried as he watched the donkey meekly depart. His students looked at the little beast with something like respect. Lu-a had beaten the dauntless Kai Bok-su who had never before been beaten by anything. He was indeed a marvelous donkey! So the journey to the Kap-tsu-lan plain was made on foot. It was a very wearisome one and often dangerous. The mountain paths were steep and difficult and the travelers knew that often the head-hunters lurked near. But the way was wonderfully beautiful nevertheless. Standing on a mountain height one morning and looking away down over wooded hills and valleys and the lake-like terraces of the rice-fields, Mackay repeated to his students a line of the old hymn: Every prospect pleases and only man is vile. Around them the stately tree-fern lifted its lovely fronds and the orchids dotted the green earth like a flock of gorgeous butterflies just settled. Tropical birds of brilliant plumage flashed among the trees. Beside them a great tree raised itself, fairly covered with morning-glories, and over at their right a mountainside gleamed like snow in the sunlight, clothed from top to bottom with white lilies. But the way had its dangers as well as its beauties. They were passing the mouth of a ravine when they were stopped by yells and screams of terror coming from farther up the mountainside. In a few minutes a Chinaman darted out of the woods toward them. His face was distorted with terror and he could scarcely get breath to tell his horrible story. He and his four companions had been chipping the camphor trees up in the woods; suddenly the armed savages had leaped out upon them and he alone of the five had escaped. At last they left the dangerous mountain and came down into the Kap-tsu-lan plain. On every side was rice-field after rice-field, with the water pouring from one terrace to another. The plain was low and damp and the paths and roads lay deep in mud. They had a long toilsome walk between the ricefields until they came to the first village of these barbarians of the plain. It was very much like a Chinese village,--dirty, noisy, and swarming with wild-looking children and wolfish dogs. The visitors were received with the utmost disdain. The Chinese students were of course well known, for these aborigines had long ago adopted their customs and language. But the Chinese visitors were in company with the foreigners, and all foreigners were outcaste in this eastern plain. The men shouted the familiar "foreign devil" and walked contemptuously away. The dirty women and children fled into their grass huts and set the dogs upon the strangers. They tried by all sorts of kindnesses to gain a hearing, but all to no effect. So they gave it up, and plodded through the mud and water a mile farther on to the next village. But village number two received them in exactly the same way. Only rough words and the barks of cruel dogs met them. The next village was no better, the fourth a little worse. And so on they went up and down the Kap-tsu-lan plain, sleeping at night in some poor empty hut or in the shadow of a rice strawstack, eating their meals of cold rice and buffalo-meat by the wayside, and being driven from village to village, and receiving never a word of welcome. And all through those wearisome days the young men looked at their leader in vain for any smallest sign of discouragement or inclination to retreat. There was no slightest look of dismay on the face of Kai Bok-su, for how was it possible for a man who did not know when he was beaten to feel discouraged? So still undaunted in the face of defeat, he led them here and there over the plain, hoping that some one would surely relent and give them a hearing. One night, footsore and worn out, they slept on the damp mud floor of a miserable hut where the rain dripped in upon their faces. In the morning prospects looked rather discouraging to the younger members of the party. They were wet and cold and weary, and there seemed no use in going again and again to a village only to be turned away. But Kai Bok-su's mouth was as firm as ever, and his dark eyes flashed resolutely, as once more he gave the order to march. It was a lovely morning, the sun was rising gloriously out of the sea and the heavy mists were melting from above the little rice-fields. Here and there fairy lakes gleamed out from the rosy haze that rolled back toward the mountains. They walked along the shore in the pink dawn-light and marched up toward a fishing village. They had visited it before and had been driven away, but Kai Bok-su was determined to try again. They were surprised as they came nearer to see three men come out to meet them with a friendly expression on their faces. The foremost was an old man who had been nicknamed "Black-face," because of his dark skin. The second was a middleaged man, and the third was a young fellow about the age of the students. They saluted the travelers pleasantly, and the old man addressed the missionary. "You have been going through and through our plain and no one has received you," he said politely. "Come to our village, and we will now be ready to listen to you." The door of Kap-tsu-lan had opened at last! The missionary's eyes gleamed with joy and gratitude as he accepted the invitation. The delegation led the visitors straight to the house of the headman. For the Pepo-hoan governed their communities in the Chinese style and had a headman for each village. The missionary party sat down in front of the hut on some large flat stones and talked over the matter with the chief and other important men. And while they talked "Black-face" slipped away. He returned in a few moments with a breakfast of rice and fish for the visitors. The result of the conference was that the villagers decided to give the barbarian a chance. All he wanted it seemed was to tell of this new Jehovah-religion which he believed, and surely there could be no great harm in listening to him talk. In the evening the headman with the help of some friends set to work to construct a meeting-house. A tent was erected, made from boat sails. Several flat stones laid at one end and a plank placed upon them made a pulpit. And that was the first church on the Kap-tsu-lan plain! There was a "church bell" too, to call the people to worship. In the village were some huge marine shells with the ends broken off. In the old days these were used by the chiefs as trumpets by which they called their men together whenever they were starting out on the war-path. But now the trumpet-shell was used to call the people to follow the King. Just at dark a man took one, and walking up and down the straggling village street blew loudly--the first "church bell" in east Formosa. The loud roar brought the villagers flocking down to the tent-church by the shore. For the most part they brought their pews with them. They came hurrying out of their huts carrying benches, and arranging them in rows they seated themselves to listen. Mackay and the students sang and the people listened eagerly. The Pe-po-hoan by nature were more musical than the Chinese, and the singing delighted them. Then the missionary arose and addressed them. He told clearly and simply why he had come and preached to them of the true God. Afterward the congregation was allowed to ask questions, and they learned much of this God and of his love in his Son Jesus Christ. The wonder of the great news shone in the eyes upturned to the preacher. In the gloom of the half-lighted tent their dark faces took on a new expression of half-wondering hope. Could it be possible that this was true? Their poor, benighted minds had always been held in terror of their gods and of the evil spirits that forever haunted their footsteps. Could it be possible that God was a great Father who loved his children? They asked so many eager questions, and the story of Jesus Christ had to be told over and over so many times, that before this first church service ended a gray gleam of dawn was spreading out over the Pacific. It was only the next day that these newly-awakened people decided that they must have a church building. And they went to work to get one in a way that might have shamed a congregation of people in a Christian land. This new wonderful hope that had been raised in their hearts by the knowledge that God loved them set them to work with glad energy. Kai Bok-su and his men still preached and prayed and sang and taught in the crazy old wind-flapped tent by the seashore, and the people listened eagerly, and then, when services were over, every one,--preacher, assistants, and congregation,--set bravely to work to build a church. Brave they certainly had to be, for at the very beginning they had to risk their lives for their chapel. A party sailed down the coast and entered savage territory for the poles to construct the building. They were attacked and one or two were badly wounded, though they managed to escape. But they were quite ready to go back and fight again had it been necessary. Then they made the bricks for the walls. Rice chaff mixed with clay were the materials, and the Kap-tsu-lan plain had an abundance of both. The roof was made of grass, the floor of hard dried earth, and a platform of the same at one end served as a pulpit. When the little chapel was finished, every evening the big shell rang out its summons through the village; and out from every house came the people and swarmed into the chapel to hear Kai Bok-su explain more of the wonders of God and his Son Jesus Christ. Mackay's home during this period was a musty little room in a damp mud-walled hut; and here every day he received donations of idols, ancestral tablets, and all sorts of things belonging to idol-worship. He was requested to burn them, and often in the mornings he dried his damp clothes and moldy boots at a fire made from heathen idols. For eight weeks the missionary party remained in this place, preaching, teaching, and working among the people. It was a mystery to the students how their teacher found time for the great amount of Bible study and prayer which he managed to get. He surely worked as never man worked before. Late at night, long after every one else was in bed, he would be bending over his Bible, beside his peanut-oil lamp, and early in the morning before the stars had disappeared he was up and at work again. Four hours' sleep was all his restless, active mind could endure, and with that he could do work that would have killed any ordinary man. One evening some new faces looked up at him from his congregation in the little brick church. When the last hymn was sung the missionary stepped down from his pulpit and spoke to the strangers. They explained that they were from the next village. They had heard rumors of this new doctrine, and had been sent to find out more about it. They had been charmed with the singing, for that evening over two hundred voices had joined in a ringing praise to the new Jehovah-God. They wanted to hear more, they said, and they wanted to know what it was all about. Would Kai Bok-su and his students deign to visit their village too? Would he? Why that was just what he was longing to do. He had been driven out of that village by dogs only a few weeks before, but a little thing like that did not matter to a man like Mackay. This village lay but a short distance away, being connected with their own by a path winding here and there between the rice-fields. Early the next evening Mackay formed a procession. He placed himself at its head, with A Hoa at his side. The students came next, and then the converts in a double row. And thus they marched slowly along the pathway singing as they went. It was a stirring sight. On either side the waving fields of rice, behind them the gleam of the blue ocean, before them the great towering mountains clothed in green. Above them shone the clear dazzling sky of a tropical evening. And on wound the long procession of Christians in a heathen land, and from them arose the glorious words: O thou, my soul, bless God the Lord, And all that in me is Be stirred up his holy name To magnify and bless. And the heathen in the rice-fields stopped to gaze at the strange sight, and the mountains gave back the echo of that Name which is above every name. And so, marching to their song, the procession came to the village. Everybody in the place had come out to meet them at the first sound of the singing. And now they stood staring, the men in a group by themselves, the women and children in the background, the dogs snarling on the outskirts of the crowd. The congregation was there ready, and without waiting to find a place of meeting, right out under the clear evening skies, the young missionary told once more the great story of God and his love as shown through Jesus Christ. The message took the village by storm. It was like water to thirsty souls. The next day five hundred of them brought their idols to the missionary to be burned. And now Mackay went up and down the Kap-tsu-lan plain from village to village as he had done before, but this time it was a triumphal march. And everywhere he went throngs threw away their idols and declared themselves followers of the true God. He was overcome with joy. It was so glorious he wished he could stay there the rest of his life and lead these willing people to a higher life. But Tamsui was waiting; Sin-tiam, Bang-kah, Kelung, Go-ko-khi, they must all be visited; and finally he tore himself away, leaving some of his students to care for these people of Kap-tsu-lan. But he came back many times, until at last nineteen chapels dotted the plain, and in them nineteen native preachers told the story of Jesus and his love. Sometimes, in later years, when Mackay was with them, tears would roll down the people's faces as they recalled how badly they had used him on his first visit. It was while on his third visit here that he had a narrow escape from the head-hunters. He was staying at a village called "South Wind Harbor," which was near the border of savage territory. Mackay often walked on the shore in the evening just before the meeting, always with a book in his hand. One night he was strolling along in deep meditation when he noticed some extremely large turtle tracks in the sand. He followed them, for he liked to watch the big clumsy creatures. These green turtles were from four to five feet in length. They would come waddling up from the sea, scratch a hole in the sand with their flippers, lay their eggs, cover them carefully, and with head erect and neck out-thrust waddle back. Mackay was intensely interested in all the animal life of the island and made a study of it whenever he had a chance. He knew the savages killed and ate these turtles, but he supposed he was as yet too near the village to be molested by them. So he followed the tracks and was nearing the edge of the forest, when he heard a shout behind him. As he turned, one of his village friends came running out of his hut waving to him frantically to come back. Thinking some one must be ill, Mackay hurried toward the man, to find that it was he himself who was in danger. The man explained breathlessly that it was the habit of the wily savages to make marks in the sand resembling turtle tracks to lure people into the forest. If Kai Bok-su had entered the woods, his head would certainly have been lost. It was always hard to say farewell to Kaptsu-lan, the people were so warm-hearted, so kind, and so anxious for him to stay. One morning just before leaving after his third visit, Mackay had an experience that brought him the greatest joy. He had stayed all night at the little fishing village where the first chapel had been built. As usual he was up with the dawn, and after his breakfast of cold boiled rice and pork he walked down to the shore for a farewell look at the village. As he passed along the little crooked street he could see old women sitting on the mud floors of their huts, by the open door, weaving. They were all poor, wrinkled, toothless old folk with faces seamed by years of hard heathen experience. But in their eyes shone a new light, the reflection of the glory that they had seen when the missionary showed them Jesus their Savior. And as they threw their thread their quavering voices crooned the sweet words: There is a happy land Far, far away. And their old weary faces were lighted up with a hope and happiness that had never been there in youth. Kai Bok-su smiled as he passed their doors and his eyes were misty with tender tears. Just before him, playing on the sand with "jacks" or tops, just as he had played not so very long ago away back in Canada, were the village boys. And as they played they too were singing, their little piping voices, sweet as birds, thrilling the morning air. And the words they sang were: Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so. They nodded and smiled to Kai Bok-su as he passed. He went down to the shore where the wide Pacific flung long rollers away up the hard-packed sand. The fishermen were going out to sea in the rosy morning light, and as they stood up in their fishing-smacks, and swept their long oars through the surf, they kept time to the motion with singing. And their strong, brave voices rang out above the roar of the breakers: I'm not ashamed to own my Lord, Or to defend his cause. And standing there on the sunlit shore the young missionary raised his face to the gleaming blue heavens with an emotion of unutterable joy and thanksgiving. And in that moment he knew what was that glory for which he had so vaguely longed in childish years. It was the glory of work accomplished for his Master's sake, and he was realizing it to the full. CHAPTER X. REENFORCEMENTS Some of Mackay's happiest days were spent with his students. He was such a wonder of a man for work himself that he inspired every one else to do his best, so the young men made rapid strides with their lessons. No matter how busy he was, and he was surely one of the busiest men that ever lived, he somehow found time for them. Sometimes in his house, sometimes on the road, by the seashore, under a banyan tree, here and there and everywhere, the missionary and his pupils held their classes. If he went on a journey, they accompanied him and studied by the way. And it was a familiar sight on north Formosan roads or field paths to see Mackay, always with his book in one hand and his big ebony stick under his arm, walking along surrounded by a group of young men. Sometimes there were as many as twenty in the student-band, but somewhere in the country a new church would open, and the brightest of the class would be called away to be its minister. But just as often a young Christian would come to the missionary and ask if he too might not be trained to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether at home or abroad, pupils and teacher had to resort to all sorts of means to get away for an uninterrupted hour together. For Kai Bok-su was always in demand to visit the sick or sad or troubled. There was a little kitchen separate from the house on the bluff, and over this Mackay with his students built a second story. And here they would often slip away for a little quiet time together. One night, about eleven o'clock, Mackay was here alone poring over his books. The young men had gone home to bed except two or three who were in the kitchen below. Some papers had been dropped over a pipe-hole in the floor of the room where Mackay was studying, and for some time he had been disturbed by a rustling among them. At last without looking up, he called to his boys below: "I think there are rats up here among my papers!" Koa Kau, one of the younger of the students, ran lightly up the stairs to give battle to the intruders. What was his horror when he saw fully three feet of a monster serpent sticking up through the pipe-hole and waving its horrible head in the air just a little distance from Kai Bok-su's chair. The boy gave a shout, darted down the stair, and with a sharp stick, pinned the body of the snake to the wall below. The creature became terribly violent, but Koa Kau held on valiantly and Mackay seized an old Chinese spear that happened to be in the room above and pierced the serpent through the head. They pulled its dead body down into the kitchen below and spread it out. It measured nine feet. The students would not rest until it was buried, and the remembrance of the horrible creature's visit for some time spoiled the charm of the little upper room. The rocks at Kelung harbor were another favorite spot for this little traveling university to hold its classes. Sometimes they would take their dinner and row out in a little sampan to the rocks outside the harbor and there, undisturbed, they would study the whole day long. They always began the day's work with a prayer and a hymn of praise, and no matter what subjects they might study, most of the time was spent on the greatest of books. After a hard morning's work each one would gather sticks, make a fire, and they would have their dinner of vegetables, rice, and pork or buffalo-meat. Then there were oysters, taken fresh off the rocks, to add to their bill of fare. At five in the afternoon, when the strain of study was beginning to tell, they would vary the program. One or two of the boys would take a plunge into the sea and bring up a subject for study,--a shell, some living coral, sea-weed, sea-urchins, or some such treasure. They would examine it, and Kai Bok-su, always delighted when on a scientific subject, would give them a lesson in natural history. And he saw with joy how the wonders of the sea and land opened these young men's minds to understand what a great and wonderful God was theirs, who had made "the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is." When they visited a chapel in the country, they had a daily program which they tried hard to follow. They studied until four o'clock every afternoon and all were trained in speaking and preaching. After four they made visits together to Christians or heathen, speaking always a word for their Master. Every evening a public service was held at which Mackay preached. These sermons were an important part of the young men's training, for he always treated the gospel in a new way. A Hoa, who was Mackay's companion for the greater part of sixteen years, stated that he had never heard Kai Bok-su preach the same sermon twice. On the whole the students liked their college best when it was moving. For on the road, while their principal gave much time to the Bible and how to present the gospel, he would enliven their walks by conversing about everything by the way and making it full of interest. The structure of a wayside flower, the geological formation of an overhanging rock, the composition of the soil of the tea plantations, the stars that shone in the sky when night came down upon them;--all these made the traveling college a delight. Although his days were crammed with work, Mackay found time to make friends among the European population of the island. They all liked and admired him, and many of them tried to help the man who was giving his life and strength so completely to others. They were familiar with his quick, alert figure passing through the streets of Tamsui, with his inevitable book and his big ebony cane. And they would smile and say, "There goes Mackay; he's the busiest man in China." (*) * See CHAPTER XIII, Formosa becomes Japanese territory. The British consul in the old Dutch fort and the English commissioner of customs proved true and loyal friends. The representatives of foreign business firms, too, were always ready to lend him a helping hand where possible. His most useful friends were the foreign medical men. They helped him very much. They not only did all they could for his own recovery when malaria attacked him, but they helped also to cure his patients. Traveling scientists always gave him a visit to get his help and advice. He had friends that were shipcaptains, officers, engineers, merchants, and British consuls. Everybody knew the wonderful Kai Bok-su. "Whirlwind Mackay," some of them called him, and they knew and admired him with the true admiration that only a brave man can inspire. The friends to whom he turned for help of the best kind were the English Presbyterians in south Formosa. They, more than any others, knew his trials and difficulties. They alone could enter with true sympathy into all his triumphs. At one time Dr. Campbell, one of the south Formosan missionaries, paid him a visit. He proved a delightful companion, and together the two made a tour of the mission stations. Dr. Campbell preached wherever they went and was a great inspiration to the people, as well as to the students and to the missionary himself. One evening, when they were in Kelung, Mackay, with his insatiable desire to use every moment, suggested that they spend ten days without speaking English, so that they might improve their Chinese. Dr. Campbell agreed, and they started their "Chinese only." Next morning from the first early call of "Liong tsong khi lai," "All, all, up come," not one word of their native tongue did they speak. They had a long tramp that morning and there was much to talk about and the conversation was all in Chinese, according to the bargain. Dr. Campbell was ahead, and after an hour's talk he suddenly turned upon his companion: "Mackay!" he exclaimed, "this jabbering in Chinese is ridiculous, and two Scotchmen should have more sense; let us return to our mother tongue." Which advice Mackay gladly followed. His next visitor was the Rev. Mr. Ritchie from south Formosa, one of the friends who had first introduced him to his work. Every day of his visit was a joy. With nine of Mackay's students, the two missionaries set out on a trip through the north Formosa mission that lasted many weeks. But the more pleasant and helpful such companionship was the more alone Mackay felt when it was over. His task was becoming too much for one man. He was wanted on the northern coast, at the southern boundary of his mission field, and away on the Kap-tsu-lan plain all at once. He was crowded day and night with work. What with preaching, dentistry, attending the sick, training his students, and encouraging the new churches, he had enough on his hands for a dozen missionaries. But now at last the Church at home, in far-away Canada, bestirred herself to help him. They had been hearing something of the wonderful mission in Formosa, but they had heard only hints of it, for Mackay would not confess how he was toiling day and night and how the work had grown until he was not able to overtake it alone. But the Church understood something of his need, and they now sent him the best present they could possibly give,--an assistant. Just three years after Mackay had landed in Formosa, the Rev. J. B. Fraser, M. D., and his wife and little ones arrived. He was a young man, too, vigorous and ready for work. Besides being an ordained minister, he was a physician as well, just exactly what the north Formosan mission needed. Along with the missionary, the Church had sent funds for a house for him and also one for Mackay. So the poor old Chinese house on the bluff was replaced by a modern, comfortable dwelling, and by its side another was built for the new missionary and his family. One room of Mackay's house was used as a study for his students. After the houses were built and the new doctor was able to use the language, he began to fill a long-felt want. Mackay had always done a little medical work, and the foreign doctor of Tamsui had been most kind in giving his aid, but a doctor of his own, a missionary doctor, was exactly what Kai Bok-su wanted. Soon the sick began to hear of the wonders the missionary doctor could perform, and they flocked to him to be cured. It must not be supposed that there were not already doctors in north Formosa. There were many in Tamsui alone, and very indignant they were at this new barbarian's success. But the native doctors were about the worst trouble that the people had to bear. Their medical knowledge, like their religion, was a mixture of ignorance and superstition, and some of their practises would have been inexcusable except for the fact that they themselves knew no better. There were two classes of medical men; those who treated internal diseases and those who professed to cure external maladies. It was hard to judge which class did the more mischief, but perhaps the "inside doctors" killed more of their patients. Dog's flesh was prescribed as a cure for dyspepsia, a chip taken from a coffin and boiled and the water drunk was a remedy for catarrh, and an apology made to the moon was a specific for wind-roughened skin. For the dreaded malaria, the scourge of Formosa, the young Canadian doctor found many and amazing remedies prescribed, some worse than the disease itself. The native doctors believed malaria to be caused by two devils in a patient, one causing the chills, the other the fever. One of the commonest remedies, and one that was quite as sensible as any of the rest, was to tie seven hairs plucked from a black dog around the sick one's wrist. But when the barbarian doctor opened his dispensary in Tamsui, a new era dawned for the poor sick folk of north Formosa. The work went on wonderfully well and Mackay found so much more time to travel in the country that the gospel spread rapidly. But just when prospects were looking so fair and every one was happy and hopeful, a sad event darkened the bright outlook of the two missionaries. The young doctor had cured scores of cases, and had brought health and happiness to many homes, but he was powerless to keep death from his own door. And one day, a sad day for the mission of north Formosa, the mother was called from husband and little ones to her home and her reward in heaven. So the home on the bluff, the beautiful Christian home, which was a pattern for all the Chinese, was broken up. The young doctor was compelled to leave his patients, and taking his motherless children he returned with them to Canada. The church at home sent out another helper. The Rev. Kenneth Junor arrived one year later, and once more the work received a fresh impetus. And then, just about two years after Mr. Junor's arrival, Kai Bok-su found an assistant of his own right in Formosa, and one who was destined to become a wonderful help to him. And so one bright day, there was a wedding in the chapel of the old Dutch fort, where the British consul married George Leslie Mackay to a Formosan lady. Tui Chhang Mai, her name had been. She was of a beautiful Christian character and for a long time she had been a great help in the church. But as Mrs. Mackay she proved a marvelous assistance to her husband. It had long been a great grief to the missionary that, while the men would come in crowds to his meetings, the poor women had to be left at home. Sometimes in a congregation of two hundred there would be only two or three women. Chinese custom made it impossible for a man missionary to preach to the women. Only a few of the older ones came out. So the mothers of the little children did not hear about Jesus and so could not teach their little ones about him. But now everything was changed for them. They had a lady-missionary, and one of their own people too. The Mackays went on a wedding-trip through the country. Kai Bok-su walked, as usual, and his wife rode in a sedan-chair. The wedding-trip was really a missionary tour; for they visited all the chapels, and the women came to the meetings in crowds, because they wanted to hear and see the lady who had married Kai Bok-su. Often, after the regular meetings when the men had gone away, the women would crowd in and gather round Mrs. Mackay and she would tell them the story of Jesus and his love. It was a wonderful wedding-journey and it brought a double blessing wherever the two went. Their experiences were not all pleasant. One day they traveled over a sand plain so hot that Mackay's feet were blistered. Another time they were drenched with rain. One afternoon there came up a terrific wind storm. It blew Mrs. Mackay's sedan-chair over and sent her and the carriers flying into the mud by the roadside. At another place they all barely escaped drowning when crossing a stream. But the brave young pair went through it all dauntlessly. The wife had caught something of her husband's great spirit of sacrifice, and he was always the man on fire, utterly forgetful of self. For two years they worked happily together and at last a great day came to Kai Bok-su. He had been nearly eight years in Formosa. It was time he came home, the Church in Canada said, for a little rest and to tell the people at home something of his great work. And so he and his Formosan wife said good-by, amid tears and regrets on all sides, and leaving Mr. Junor in charge with A Hoa to help, they set sail for Canada. It was just a little over seven years since he had settled in that little hut by the river, despised and hated by every one about him; and now he left behind him twenty chapels, each with a native preacher over it, and hundreds of warm friends scattered over all north Formosa. He was not quite the same Mackay who had stood on the deck of the America seven years before. His eyes were as bright and daring as ever and his alert figure as full of energy, but his face showed that his life had been a hard one. And no wonder, for he had endured every kind of hardship and privation in those seven years. He had been mobbed times without number. He had faced death often, and day and night since his first year on the island his footsteps had been dogged by the torturing malaria. But he was still the great, brave Mackay and his home-coming was like the return of a hero from battle. He went through Canada preaching in the churches, and his words were like a call to arms. He swept over the country like one of his own Formosan winds, carrying all before him. Wherever he preached hearts were touched by his thrilling tales, and purses opened to help in his work. Queen's University made him a Doctor of Divinity; Mrs. Mackay, a lady of Detroit, gave him money enough to build a hospital; and his home county, Oxford, presented him with $6,215 with which to build a college. He visited his old home and had many long talks of his childhood days with his loved ones. And he was reminded of the big stone in the pasture-field which he was so determined to break. And he thanked his heavenly Father for allowing him to break the great rock of heathenism in north Formosa. He returned to his mission work more on fire than ever. If he had been received with acclaim in his native land, his Formosan friends' welcome was not less warm. Crowds of converts, all his students who were not too far inland, and among them, Mr. Junor, his face all smiles, were thronging the dock, many of them weeping for joy. It was as if a long-absent father had come back to his children. The work went forward now by leaps and bounds. Mackay's first thought, after a hurried visit to the chapels and their congregations, was to see that the hospital and college were built. All day long the sound of the builders could be heard up on the bluff near the missionaries' houses, and in a wonderfully short time there arose two beautiful, stately buildings. Mackay hospital they called one, not for Kai Bok-su--he did not like things named for him--but in memory of the husband of the kind lady who had furnished the money for it. The school for training young men in the ministry was called Oxford College, in honor of the county whose people had made it possible. Oxford College stood just overlooking the Tamsui river, two hundred feet above its waters. The building was 116 feet long and 67 feet wide, and was built of small red bricks brought from across the Formosa Channel. A wide, airy hall ran down the middle of the building, and was used as a lecture-room. On either side were rooms capable of accommodating fifty students and apartments for two teachers and their families. There were, besides, two smaller lecture-rooms, a museum filled with treasures collected from all over Formosa by Dr. Mackay and his students, a library, a bathroom, and a kitchen. The grounds about the college and hospital were very beautiful. Nature had given one of the finest situations to be found about Tamsui, and Kai Bok-su did the rest. The climate helped him, for it was no great task to have a luxurious garden in north Formosa. So, in a few years there were magnificent trees and hedges, and always glorious flower beds abloom all the time around the missionary premises. But all this was not accomplished without great toil, and Kai Bok-su appeared never to rest in those building days. It seemed impossible that one man should work so hard, he was in Tamsui superintending the hospital building to-day, and away off miles in the country preaching to-morrow. He never seemed to get time to eat, and he certainly slept less than his allotted four hours. A great disappointment was pending, however, and one he saw coming nearer every day. The trying Formosan climate was proving too much for his young assistant, and one sad day he stood on the dock and saw Mr. Junor, pale and weak and broken in health, sail away back to Canada. But there was always a brave soldier waiting to step into the breach, and the next year Kai Bok-su had the joy of welcoming two new helpers, when the Rev. Mr. Jamieson and his wife came out from Canada and settled in the empty house on the bluff. Yes, and in time there came to his own house other helpers--very little and helpless at first they were--but they soon made the house ring with happy noise and filled the hearts of their parents with joy. There were two ladies now to lead in the work for girls and women. Their sisters in Canada came to their help too. The young men had a school in Formosa, and why should there not be a school for women and girls? they asked. And so the Women's Foreign Missionary Society of Canada sent to Dr. Mackay money to build one. It took only two months to erect it. It stood just a few rods from Oxford College, and was a fine, airy building. Here a native preacher and his wife took up their abode and with the help of Mrs. Mackay and two other native Christian women they strove to teach the girls of north Formosa how to make beautiful Christian homes. And now to the two missionaries every prospect seemed bright. The college, the girls' school, the hospital, were all in splendid working order. Mr. and Mrs. Jamieson were giving their best assistance. A Hoa and the other native pastors were working faithfully. God's blessing seemed to be showering down upon the work and on every side were signs of growth. And then, right from this shining sky, there fell a storm of such fierceness that it threatened to wipe out completely the whole north Formosan mission. CHAPTER XI. UNEXPECTED BOMBARDMENT An enemy's battle-ships off the coast of Formosa! During all the spring rumors of trouble had been coming across the channel from the mainland. France (*) and China had been quarreling over a boundaryline in Tongking. The affair had been settled but not in a way that pleased France. So, without even waiting to declare war, she sent a fleet to the China Sea and bombarded some of her enemy's ports. Formosa, of course, came in for her share of the trouble, and it was early in the summer that the French battle-ships appeared. They hove in sight, sailing down the Formosa Channel or Strait one hot day, and instantly all Formosa was in an uproar of alarm and rage. The rage was greater than the alarm, for China cordially despised all peoples beyond her own border, and felt that the barbarians would probably be too feeble to do them any harm. But that the barbarians should dare to approach their coast with a war-vessel! That was a terrible insult, and the fierce indignation of the people knew no bounds. Their rage broke out against all foreigners. They did not distinguish between the missionary from British soil and the French soldiers on their enemy's vessels. They were all barbarians alike, the Chinese declared, and as such were the deadly foe of China. This Kai Bok-su was in league with the French, and the native Christians all over Formosa were in league with him, and all deserved death! * War in 1844. So hard days came for the Christians of north Formosa. Wherever there was a house containing converts, there was riot and disorder. For bands of enraged heathen, armed with knives and swords, would parade the streets about them and threaten all with a violent death the moment the French fired a shot. In some places near the coast the Christian people dared not leave their houses, and whenever they sent out their children to buy food, often a heathen neighbor would catch them, brandish knives over the terrified little ones' heads and declare they would all be cut to pieces when the barbarian ships came into port. Every hour of the day and often in the night, letters came from all parts of the country to Dr. Mackay. They were brought by runners who came at great peril of their lives, and were sent by the poor Christians. Each letter told the same tale; the lives and property of all the converts were in grave danger if the enemy did not leave. And they all asked Kai Bok-su to do something to help them. Now Kai Bok-su was a man with great power and influence both in Formosa and in his far-off Canada, but he had no means of bringing that power to bear on the French. And indeed his own life was in as great danger as any one's. He wrote to the Christians comforting them and enthusing them with his own spirit. He bade them all be brave, and no matter what came, danger or torture or death itself, they must be true to Jesus Christ. He went about his work in the college or hospital just as usual, though he knew that any day the angry mob from the town below might come raging up to destroy and kill. The French had entered Kelung harbor and the danger was growing more serious every day when Mackay found it necessary to go to Palm Island, a pretty islet in the mouth of the Kelung river. It was almost courting death to go, but he had been sent for, and he went. He found the place right under the French guns and in the midst of raging Chinese. Some of the faithful students were there, and they were overcome with joy and hope at the sight of him. He gathered them about him in a mission house for prayer and a word of encouragement. Outside the Chinese soldiers paraded up and down. Sometimes indeed they would burst into the room and threaten the inmates with violence should the French fire. Kai Bok-su went on quietly talking to his students. He urged them to be faithful and reminded them of what their Master suffered at the hands of a mob for their sake. But, in spite of their brave spirits, the little company could not help listening for the boom of the French guns. It was fully expected that the enemy would soon fire, and when they did, the Christians well knew there would be little chance for them to escape. But God had prepared a way out of the difficulty. The meeting was scarcely over when a messenger came in, asking for the missionary. A Christian on the mainland was very ill and wanted Kai Bok-su to visit him. Mackay with his students left the island at once and went to the home of the sick man. They had been gone but a short time when the thunder of the French cannon broke over the harbor. The guns from the Chinese fort answered, and had the missionary been on Palm Island he and his converts would surely have been killed. The Chinese were no match for the French gunners. The bombardment destroyed the fort and killed every soldier who did not manage to get away. A great shell crashed into the magazine of the fort, and the explosion hurled masses of the concrete walls an incredible distance. The city about the fort was completely deserted, for the people fled at the first sound of the guns. As soon as the firing was over, the rabble broke loose and a perfect reign of terror prevailed. The mob carried black flags and swept over town and country, plundering and murdering. The Christians were of course the first object of attack, and to tear down a church was the mob's fiercest joy. Seven of the most beautiful chapels were completely destroyed and many others injured. In the town of Toa-liong-pong was the home of Koa Kau, one of Kai Bok-su's most devoted students. Here was a lovely chapel built at great expense. The crowd tore it to pieces from roof to foundation. Then, out of the bricks of the ruin they erected a huge pile, eight feet high; they plastered it over with mud, and on the face of it, next the highway where every one might see it, they wrote in large Chinese characters: MACKAY, THE BLACK-BEARDED BARBARIAN, LIES HERE. HIS WORK IS ENDED. They knew that the first was not true, but they firmly believed the latter statement, for they understood little of the power of the gospel. At Sin-tiam the crowd of ruffians smashed the doors and windows of the church. Then they took the communion roll and read aloud the names of the Christians who had been baptized. As each name was announced, some of the murderers would rush off toward the home of the one mentioned. Here they would torture and often kill the members of the family. The native preacher and his family barely escaped with their lives. One good old Christian man with his wife, both over sixty, were dragged out into the deep water of the Sin-tiam river. Here they were given a choice. If they gave up Jesus Christ, their lives would be saved. If they still remained Christians, they would be drowned right there and then. The brave old couple refused to accept life at such a cost. "I'm not ashamed to own my Lord," was a hymn Kai Bok-su had taught them, and They had meant every word as they had sung it many times in the pretty chapel by the river. And so they were "not ashamed" now. They were led deeper and deeper into the water, and at every few feet the way of escape was offered, but they steadily refused, and were at last flung into the river--faithful martyrs who certainly won a crown of life. These were only two among many brave Christians who died for their Master's sake. Some were put to tortures too horrible to tell to make them give up their faith. Some were hung by their hair to trees, some were kicked or beaten to death, many were slashed with knives until death relieved their pain. And on every side the most noble Christian heroism was shown. In all ages there have been those who died for their faith in Jesus Christ; and these Formosan followers of their Master proved themselves no less faithful than the martyrs of old. And where was Kai Bok-su while the mob raged over the country? Going about his work in Tamsui as of old. Only now he worked both night and day, and the anxiety for his poor converts kept him awake in the few hours when he might have snatched some sleep. He was here, there, everywhere at once, it seemed, writing letters to encourage the Christians in distress, visiting those who were wavering to strengthen their faith, teaching his students, praying, preaching, night and day, he never ceased; and always the mob surged about him threatening his life. The French ships now sailed out of Kelung harbor and took up their position opposite Tamsui. Every one knew this probably meant bombardment, and Dr. Mackay and Mr. Jamieson, standing on the bluff before their houses, looked at each other and each knew the other's thought. Bombardment would mean that the mob would come raging up and destroy both life and property on the hill. But just as they expected the roar of guns to open, there sailed into Tamsui harbor a vessel that flew a different flag from the French. Mackay, looking at her through a glass, made out with joy the crosses on the red banner of Britain! England had nothing to do with this Chinese-French war, but as a British vessel can be found lying around almost any port in the wide world, there of course happened to be one near Tamsui. She gained a passport into the harbor and sailed in with a very kindly mission; it was to protect the lives of foreigners, not only from the French guns, but from the Chinese mobs. The ship had been in the harbor but a short time when a young English naval officer, carrying the British flag, came up the path to the houses on the bluff. Dr. Mackay was in the library of Oxford College, lecturing to his students, when the visitor entered. The missionary made the sailor welcome and the young man told his errand. Dr. Mackay was invited to bring his family and his valuables and come on board the vessel to be the guest of the captain until the disturbance was over. It was a most kindly invitation and Dr. Mackay shook his visitor's hand warmly as he thanked him. He turned and translated the message to his students, and their hearts stood still with dismay. If Kai Bok-su, their stay and support, were to be taken away, what would become of them? But Kai Bok-su had not changed with the changing circumstances. He was still as brave and undaunted as though trouble had never come to his island. He turned to the officer again with a smile. "My family would not be hard to move," he said, "but my valuables--I am afraid I could not take them." He made a gesture toward the students standing about him. "These young men and many more converts scattered all over north Formosa, are my valuables. Many of them have faced death unflinchingly for my sake. They are my valuables, and I cannot leave them." It was bravely said, just as Kai Bok-su might be expected to speak, and the English officer's eyes kindled with appreciation. The words found a ready response in his heart. They were the words of a true soldier of the King. The officer went back to his captain with Mackay's message and with a deep admiration in his heart for the man who would rather face death than leave his friends. So the British man-of-war drew off, leaving the missionaries in the midst of danger. And almost immediately, with a great bursting roar, the bombardment from the French ships opened. Sometimes the shells flew high over the town and up to the bluff, so Dr. and Mrs. Mackay put their three little ones in a safe corner under the house; but they themselves as well as Mr. and Mrs. Jamieson, went in and out to and from the college, and the girls' school as though nothing were happening. Every day Mackay's work grew heavier and his anxiety for the persecuted Christians grew deeper. He ate very little, and he scarcely slept at all. It was not the noise of the carnage about him that kept him awake. He would have fallen asleep peacefully amidst bursting shells, but he had no opportunity. The whole burden of the young Church, harassed by persecution on all sides, seemed to rest upon his spirit. Anxiety for the Christians in the inland stations from whom he could not hear weighed on him night and day, and his brave spirit was put to the severest test. Only his great strong faith in God kept him up and kept up the spirits of the converts who looked to him for an example. And a brave pattern he showed them. Often he and A Hoa paced the lawn in front of the house while shot and shell whizzed around them. During the worst of the bombardment they came and went between the college and the house as if they had charmed lives. One day there was a great roar and a shell struck Oxford College, shaking it to its foundations. The smoke from fort and ships had scarcely cleared away when, crash! and the girls' school was struck by a bursting shell. Next moment there was a fearful bang and a great stone that stood in front of the Mackays' house went up into the air in a thousand fragments. But when the firing was hottest, Kai Bok-su would repeat to his students the comforting Psalm: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day." But in spite of his brave demeanor, the strain on the shepherd of this harassed flock was beginning to tell. And when the bombardment ceased and the intense anxiety for his loved ones was over, Kai Bok-su suddenly collapsed. Dr. Johnsen, the foreign physician of Tamsui, came hurriedly up to the mission house to see him. His verdict sent a thrill of dismay through every heart that loved him, from the anxious little wife by the patient's side, to the poorest convert in the town below. Their beloved Kai Bok-su had brain fever. "Too much anxiety and too little sleep," said the medical man. "He must sleep now," he added, "or he will die." But now that Kai Bok-su had a chance to rest, he could not. Sleep had been chased away too long to stay with him. Night and day he tossed about, wide awake and burning with fever. His temperature was never less than 102 during those days, and all the doctor's efforts could not lower it. The awful heat of September was on, and the great typhoons that would soon sweep across the country and clear the air had not yet come. The glaring sun and the stifling damp heat were all against the patient. At last one day the doctor saw a crisis was approaching. He stood looking down at the hot, flushed face, at the burning eyes, and the restless hands that were never still, and he said to himself, "If the fever does not go down to-day, he will die." The doctor went along "College Road" toward his home, answering the eager, anxious questions that met him on all sides with only a shake of his head. A Hoa followed him, his drawn face full of pleading. Was he no better? he asked with quivering lips. It was the question poor A Hoa asked many, many times a day, for he never left the house when not away on duty. The doctor's face was full of sympathy and his own heart weighed down as he sadly answered, "No." "If I only had some ice," he muttered, knowing well he had none. "If there was only one bit of ice in Tamsui, I'd save him yet." Over in the British consulate Dr. Johnsen had another patient. Mr. Dodd lay sick there, though not nearly as ill as the missionary, and the physician's next visit was to him. When he entered he found a servant carrying a tray with some ice on it to the sick room. "Ice!" cried the doctor, overjoyed. "Where did it come from?" The servant explained that the steamship Hailoong had just arrived in Tamsui harbor with it that morning. The doctor entered Mr. Dodd's room. Would he give him that ice to save Mackay's life? was the question he asked. To save such a life as Mackay's! That was an absurd question, Mr. Dodd declared, and he immediately ordered that every bit of ice he had should be sent at once to the missionary's house. The doctor hurried back up the hill with the precious remedy. He broke up a piece and laid it like a little cushion on poor Kai Bok-su's hot forehead; that forehead beneath which the busy brain, resting neither day nor night, was burning up. It had not been there a great while before the restless eyes lost their fire, the eyelids drooped and, wonderful sight, Kai Bok-su sank into a sleep! The doctor hardly dared to breathe If he could only be kept asleep now, he had a chance. Dr. Mackay had never been a sleeper, he well knew. He was too restless, too energetic, to allow himself even proper rest. When Dr. Fraser, his first assistant, had been with him, he had struggled to persuade him to stay in bed at least six hours every night, but not always with success. But now he was to show what he could do in the matter of sleeping. All that night he lay, breathing peacefully, the next day he slept on from morning till night, and little by little the ice melted away on his forehead. He did not move all the next night, and A Hoa and Mrs. Mackay and the doctor took turns at his bedside watching that the precious ice was always there. Morning came and it was all finished. The patient opened his eyes. He had slept thirty-six hours, and a thrill of joy went through every Christian heart in Tamsui, for their Kai Bok-su was saved! But though the crisis was over, he was still very weak, and such was the state of affairs through the country that he was in no condition to cope with them. Riot and plunder was the order of the day. News of churches being destroyed, of faithful Christians being tortured or put to death, were still coming to the mission house, and no one could tell what day would bring Kai Boksu's turn. And now came an order from the British consul which the missionaries could not disobey. He commanded that their families must be moved at once from Formosa, as he could not answer for their protection. So at once preparations for their departure were made, and Mr. Jamieson took his wife and Mrs. Mackay and her three little ones and sailed away for Hongkong. But once more Kai Bok-su stayed behind. It cost him bitter pain to part with his loved ones, knowing he might never see them again; he was weak and spent with fever, and his poor body was worn to a shadow, but he stubbornly refused to leave the men who had stood by him in every danger. The consul commanded, the doctor pleaded, but no, Kai Bok-su would not go. If the danger had grown greater, then all the more reason why he should stay and comfort his people. And if God were pleased to send death, then they would all die together. But he was so weak and sick that the doctor feared that if he remained there would be little chance for the mob to kill him: death would come sooner. So he came to his stubborn patient with a new proposition. The Fukien, a merchant steamship, was now lying in Tamsui harbor. She was to run to Hongkong and back directly. If Mackay would only take that trip, his physician urged, the sea air would make him new again, and he would return in a short time and be ready to take up his work once more. It was that promise that moved Mackay's resolution. His utter weakness held him down from work, and he longed with all his soul to go out through the country to help the poor, suffering churches. So he finally consented to take the short journey and pay a visit to his dear ones in Hongkong. He did not get back quite as soon as he intended, for the French blockade delayed his vessel. But at last he stepped out upon the Tamsui dock into a crowd of preachers, students, and converts who were weeping for joy about him and exclaiming over his improved looks. The voyage had certainly done wonders for him, and at once he declared he must take a trip into the country and visit those who were left of the churches. It was a desperate undertaking, for French soldiers were now scattered through the country, guarding the larger towns and cities and everywhere mobs of furious Chinese were ready to torture or kill every foreigner. But it would take even greater difficulties than these to stop Kai Bok-su, and he began at once to lay plans for going on a tour. He first went to the British consul and came back in high spirits with a folded paper in his hand. He spread it out on the library table before A Hoa and Sun-a, who were to go with him, and this is what it said: British Consulate, Tamsui, May 27th, 1885. To THE OFFICER IN CHIEF COMMAND OF THE FRENCH FORCES AT KELUNG: The bearer of this paper, the Rev. George Leslie Mackay, D.D., a British subject, missionary in Formosa, wishes to enter Kelung, to visit his chapel and his house there, and to proceed through Kelung to Kap-tsu-lan on the east coast of Formosa to visit his converts there. Wherefore I, the undersigned, consul for Great Britain at Tamsui, do beg the officer in chief command of the French forces in Kelung to grant the said George Leslie Mackay entry into, and a free and safe passage through, Kelung. He will be accompanied by two Chinese followers, belonging to his mission, named, respectively, Giam Chheng Hoa, and Iap Sun. A. FRATER, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul at Tamsui. They had all the power of the British Empire behind them so long as they held that paper. Then they hired a burdenbearer to carry their food, and Mackay cut a bamboo pole, fully twenty feet long, and on it tied the British flag. With this floating over them, the little army marched through the rice-fields down to Kelung. It was an adventurous journey. But, wonderful though it seemed, they came through it safely. Poor Kai Bok-su's heart was torn as he saw the ravages the mob had made on his churches. But what a cheer his heart received when he found that persecution had strengthened the converts that were left and everywhere the heathen marveled that men should die for the faith the barbarian missionary had taught. They were taken prisoners once for German spies, and led far out of their way. But they came back to Tamsui safely, having greatly cheered the faithful Christians who still were true to their Master, Jesus Christ. It was early in June, just one year from the opening of the war, that the French sailed away. They were disgusted with the whole affair, the commander of one vessel told Dr. Mackay, and they were all very glad it was over. Mr. and Mrs. Jamieson and Dr. Mackay's family returned to their homes on the bluff, and work started up again with its old vigor. But everywhere the heathen were in great glee. Christianity had been destroyed with the chapels, they were sure. Wherever Mackay went, shouts of derision followed him, and everywhere he could hear the joyful cry "Long-tsong bo-khi!" which meant "The mission is wiped out!" But strange though it may seem, the mission had never been stronger, and it soon began to assert itself. Dr. Mackay went at the work of repairing the lost buildings with all the force of his nature. First, he and Mr. Jamieson and A Hoa sat down and prepared a statement of their losses. This they sent to the commander-in-chief of the Chinese forces, who had been responsible for law and order. Without any delay or questioning of the missionaries' rights, the general sent Dr. Mackay the sum asked for--ten thousand Mexican dollars. (*) *About $5000. The next thing was to plan the new chapels and see to the building of them. And before the shouts of "Long-tsong bo-khi" had well started, they began to be contradicted by walls of brick or stone that rose up strong and sure to show that the mission had not been wiped out. Three of the chapels were commenced all at once--at Sintiam, at Bang-kah and at Sek-khau. Before anything was done Dr. Mackay and a party of his students went up to Sin-tiam to look over the site. They stood up on the pile of ruins, surrounded by the Christians, and a crowd of heathen came around gleefully to watch them in the hopes of seeing their despair. But to their amazement the little company of Christians led by the wonderful Kai Bok-su, suddenly burst into a hymn of praise to God who had brought them safely through all their troubles: Bless, O my soul, the Lord thy God, And not forgetful be Of all his gracious benefits He hath bestowed on thee! The heathen listened in wonder to the words of praise where they had expected lamentation, and they asked each other what was this strange power that made men so strong and brave. And their amazement grew as the chapels, the lovely new chapels of stone or brick, began to rise from the ruins of the old ones. And not only did the old ones reappear, new and more beautiful, but as Dr. Mackay and his native preachers went here and there over the country others peeped forth like the hepaticas of springtime, until there were not only the forty original chapels, but in a few years the number had increased to sixty. The triumphant shout that the mission had been wiped out ceased completely, and the people declared that they had been fools to try to destroy the chapels, for the result had been only bigger and better ones. "Look now," said one old heathen, pointing a withered finger to the handsome spire of the Bang-kah chapel, that lifted itself toward the sky, "Look now, the chapel towers above our temple. It is larger than the one we destroyed." His neighbors crowding about him and gazing up with superstitious awe at the spire, agreed. "If we touch this one he will build another and a bigger one," remarked another man. "We cannot stop the barbarian missionary," said the old heathen with an air of conviction. "No, no one can stop the great Kai Boksu," they finally agreed, and so they left off all opposition in despair. Yes, the cry of "Long-tsong bo-khi" had died, and the answer to it was inscribed on the front of the splendid chapels that sprang up all over north Formosa. For, just above the main entrance to each, worked out in stucco plaster, was a picture of the burning bush, and around it in Chinese the grand old motto: "Nec tamen consumebatur" ("Yet it was not consumed.") CHAPTER XII. TRIUMPHAL MARCH Up and down the length and breadth of north Formosa, seeming to be in two or three places at once, went Kai Bok-su, during this time of reviving after the war. He would be in Kelung to-day superintending the new chapel building, in Tamsui at Oxford College the next day, in Bangkah preaching a short while after, and no one could tell just where the next day. But every one did know that wherever he went, Christians grew stronger and heathen gave up their idols. The Kap-tsu-lan plain, away on the eastern coast, seemed to be a sort of pet among all his mission fields, and he was always turning his steps thither. For the Pe-pohoan who lived there, while they were simple and warm-hearted and easily moved by the gospel story, were not such strong characters as the Chinese. So the missionary felt he must visit them often to help steady their faith. Not long after the close of the war, he set off on a trip to the Kap-tsu-lan plain. Besides his students, he was accompanied by a young German scientist Dr. Warburg had come from Germany to Formosa to collect peculiar plants and flowers and to find any old weapons or relics of interest belonging to the savage tribes. All these were for the use of the university in Germany which had sent him out. The young scientist was delighted with Dr. Mackay and found in him a very interesting companion. They met in Kelung, and when Dr. Warburg found that Dr. Mackay was going to visit the Kap-tsu-lan plain, he joined his party. The stranger found many rare specimens of orchids on that trip and several peculiar spear and arrow heads to be taken back as curios to Germany. But he found something rarer and more wonderful and something for which he had not come to search. He saw in one place three hundred people gather about their missionary and raise a ringing hymn of praise to the God of heaven, of whom they had not so much as heard but a few short years before. He visited sixteen little chapels and heard clever, brightfaced young Chinese preachers stand up in them and tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. And he realized that these things were far more wonderful than the rarest curios he could find in all Formosa. When he bade good-by to Dr. Mackay, he said: "I never saw anything like this before. If scientific skeptics had traveled with a missionary as I have and witnessed what I have witnessed on this plain, they would assume a different attitude toward the heralds of the cross." Not many months later Dr. Mackay again went down the eastern coast. This time he took three of his closest friends, all preacher students, Tan be, Sun-a, and Koa Kau. With a coolie to carry provisions, their Bibles, their forceps, and some malaria medicine, they started off fully equipped. By steam launch to Bang-kah, by a queer little railway train to Tsui-tng-kha and by foot to Kelung was the first part of the journey. The next part was a tramp over the mountains to Kap-tsu-lan. The road now grew rough and dangerous. Overhead hung loose rocks, huge enough to crush the whole party should they fall. Underneath were wet, slippery stones which might easily make one go sliding down into the chasm below. As usual on this trip they had many hairbreadth escapes, for there were savages too hiding up in the dense forest and waiting an opportunity to spring out upon the travelers. Dr. Mackay was almost caught in a small avalanche also. He leaped over a narrow stream-bed, and as he did so, he dislodged a loose mass of rock above him. It came down with a fearful crash, scattering the smaller pieces right upon his heels; but they passed all dangers safely and toward evening reached the shore where the great long Pacific billows rolled upon the sand. They were in the Kap-tsu-lan plain. Their journey through the plain was like a triumphal march. Wherever a chapel had been erected, there were converts to be examined; wherever there was no chapel, the people gathered about the missionary and pleaded for one. They often recalled the first visit of Kai Bok-su when "No room for barbarians" were the only words that met him. But Dr. Mackay wished to go farther on this journey than he had ever gone. Some distance south of Kap-tsu-lan lay another district called the Ki-lai plain. The people here were also aborigines of the island who had been conquered by the Chinese like the Pepo-hoan. But the inhabitants of Ki-lai were called Lam-si-hoan, which means "Barbarians of the south." Dr. Mackay had never been among them, but they had heard the gospel. A missionary from Oxford College had journeyed away down there to tell the people about Jesus and had been working among them for some years. He was not a graduate, not even a student--but only the cook! For Oxford College was such a place of inspiration under Kai Bok-su, that even the servants in the kitchen wanted to go out and preach the gospel. So the cook had gone away to the Ki-lai plain, and, ever since he had left, Dr. Mackay had longed to go and see how his work was prospering. So at one of the most southerly points of the Kap-tsu-lan plain he secured a boat for the voyage south. The best he could get was a small craft quite open, only twelve feet long. It was not a very fine vessel with which to brave the Pacific Ocean, but where was the crazy craft in which Kai Bok-su would not embark to go and tell the gospel to the heathen? The boat was manned by six Pe-po-hoan rowers, all Christians, and at five o'clock in the evening they pushed out into the surf of So Bay. A crowd of converts came down to the shore to bid them farewell. As the boat shoved off the friends on the beach started a hymn. The rowers and the missionaries caught it up and the two groups joined, the sound of each growing fainter and fainter to the other as the distance widened. All lands to God in joyful sounds Aloft your voices raise, Sing forth the honor of his name, And glorious make his praise! And the land and the sea, answering each other, joined in praise to him who was the Maker of both. And so the rowers pulled away in time to the swing of the Psalm, the boat rounded a point, and the beloved figure of Kai Bok-su disappeared from sight. Away down the coast the oarsmen pulled, and the four missionaries squeezed themselves into as small a space as possible to be out of the way of the oars. All the evening they rowed steadily, and as they still swept along night came down suddenly. They kept close to the shore, where to their right arose great mountains straight up from the water's edge. They were covered with forest, and here and there in the blackness fires twinkled. "Head-hunters!" said the helmsman, pointing toward them. Away to the left stretched the Pacific Ocean, and above shone the stars in the deep blue dome. It was a still, hot tropical night. From the land came the heavy scent of flowers. The only sound that broke the stillness was the regular thud, thud of the oars or the cry of some wild animal floating out from the jungle. As they passed on through the warm darkness, the sea took on that wonderful fiery glow that so often burns on the oceans of the tropics. Every wave became a blaze of phosphorescence. Every ripple from the oars ran away in many-colored flames--red, green, blue, and orange. Kai Bok-su, sitting amazed at the glory to which the Pe-po-hoan boatmen had become accustomed, was silent with awe. He had seen the phosphorescent lights often before, but never anything like this. He put his hand down into the molten sea and scooped up handfuls of what seemed drops of liquid fire. And as his fingers dipped into the water they shone like rods of red-hot iron. Over the gleaming iridescent surface, sparks of fire darted like lightning, and from the little boat's sides flashed out flames of gold and rose and amber. It was grand. And no wonder they all joined--Chinese, Malayan, and Canadian--in making the dark cliffs and the gleaming sea echo to the strains of praise to the One who had created all this glory. O come let us sing to the Lord, To him our voices raise With joyful noise, Let us the rock Of our salvation praise. To him the spacious sea belongs, For he the same did make; The dry land also from his hand Its form at first did take. Dawn came up out of the Pacific with a new glory of light and color that dispelled the wonders of the night. It showed the voyagers that they were very near a low shore where it would be possible to land. But the helmsman shook his head at the proposal. He pointed out huts along the line of forest and figures on the shore. And then with a common impulse, the rowers swung round and pulled straight out to sea; for with Pe-po-hoan experience they saw at once that here was a savage village, and not long would their heads remain on their shoulders should they touch land. The scorching sun soon poured its hot rays upon the tired rowers, but they pulled steadily. They too, like Kai Bok-su, were anxious to take this great good news of Jesus Christ to those who had not yet learned of him. When safely out of reach of the headhunters, they once more turned south, and, about noon, tired and hot, at last approached the first port of the Ki-lai plain. Every one drew a sigh of relief, for the men had been rowing steadily all night and half the day. As they drew near Dr. Mackay looked eagerly at the queer village. It appeared to be half Chinese and half Lam-si-hoan. It consisted of two rows of small thatched houses with a street between nearly two hundred feet wide. The rowers ran the boat up on the sloping pebbly beach and all stepped out with much relief to stretch their stiffened limbs. They had scarcely done so when a military officer came down the shore and approaching Dr. Mackay made him welcome with the greatest warmth. There was a military encampment here, and this was the officer as well as the headman of the village. He invited Dr. Mackay and his friends to take dinner with him. Dr. Mackay accepted with pleased surprise. This was far better than he had expected. He was still more surprised to hear his name on every hand. "It is the great Kai Bok-su," could be heard in tones of deepest respect from fishermen at their nets and old women by the door and children playing with their kites in the wide street. "How do they know me?" he asked, as he was greeted by a rice-seller, sitting at the open front of his shop. "Ah, we have heard of you and your work in the north, Pastor Mackay," said his host, smiling, "and our people want to hear of this new Jehovah-religion too." The cook-missionary had evidently spread wonderful reports of Kai Bok-su and his gospel and so prepared the way. He was preaching just then in a place called Ka-le-oan, farther inland. When the officer learned that Dr. Mackay wanted to visit him he turned to his servant with a most surprising order. It was to saddle his pony and bring him for Kai Bok-su to ride to Ka-le-oan. The pony came, sleek and plump and with a string of jingling bells adorning him. A pony was a wonderful sight in Formosa, and Dr. Mackay had not used any sort of animal in his work since that disastrous day when he had tried in vain to ride the stubborn Lu-a. But now he gladly mounted the sedate little steed and trotted away along the narrow pathway between the rice-fields toward Ka-le-oan. Darkness had almost descended when he rode into the village and stopped before a small grass-covered bamboo dwelling where the cook-preacher lived. For years the people here had looked for Kai Bok-su's coming, for years they had talked of this great event, and for years their preacher had been writing and saying as he received his reply from the eager missionary in Tamsui, "He may come soon." And now he was really here! The sound of his horse's bells had scarcely stopped before the preacher's house, when the news began to spread like fire through the village. The preacher, who had worked so hard and waited so long, wept for joy, and before he could make Dr. Mackay welcome in a proper manner the room was filled with men, all wildly eager for a sight of the great Kai Bok-su, while outside a crowd gathered about the door striving to get even a glimpse of him. The ex-cook of Oxford College had preached so faithfully that many were already converted to Christianity, many more knew a good deal of the gospel, and crowds were ready to throw away their idols. They were weary of their heathen rites and superstitions. They were longing for something better, they scarcely knew what. "But the mandarin will not let them become Christians," said the preacher anxiously. "It is he who is keeping them from decision. He has said that they must continue in idolatry, as a token of loyalty to China." "Are you sure that is true?" cried Dr. Mackay. The converts nodded. They had "heard" it said at least. But Kai Bok-su was not the man to accept mere hearsay. He was always wisely careful to avoid any collision with the authorities. But remembering the kindness shown him back in Hoe-lien-kang, he could not quite believe that the mandarin who had been so kind to him could be hostile to the religion of Jesus Christ. To think was to act, and early the next morning, he was riding back to the seacoast, to inquire how much of this rumor was true. His reception was very warm. It was all right, the officer declared. Whatever had been said or done in the past must be forgotten. Kai Bok-su might go where he pleased and preach his Jehovah-religion to whomsoever he would. It was a very light-hearted rider the pony carried as he galloped back along the narrow paths, with the good news for the villagers. The word went round as soon as he arrived. Kai Bok-su wanted to know how many were for the true God. All who would worship him were at once to clear their houses of idols and declare that they would serve Jehovah and him only. At dark a great crowd gathered in an open space in the village. Representatives from five villages were there, chiefs were shouting to their people, and when Dr. Mackay and his students arrived, the place was all noise and confusion. He was puzzled. It almost looked as if there was to be a riot, though the voices did not sound angry. He climbed up on a pile of rubbish and his face shone clear in the light of the flaring torches. His voice rang out loud and commanding above the tumult. "What is this noise about?" he cried. "Is there a difference of opinion among you as to whether you shall worship these poor toys of wood and stone, or the true God who is your Father?" He paused and as if from one man came back the answer in a mighty shout: "No, we will worship the true God!" The tumult had been one of enthusiasm and not of dispute! Kai Bok-su's heart gave a great bound. For a moment he could not speak. He who had so often stood up fearless and bold before a raging heathen mob, now faltered before this sea of eager faces, upturned to him. It seemed too good to be true that all this crowd, representing five villages, was anxious to become followers of the God of heaven. His voice grew steady at last, and standing up there in the flickering torchlight he told those children of the plain what it meant to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It was a late hour when the meeting broke up, but even then Dr. Mackay could not go to bed. Never since the day that A Hoa, his first convert, had accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior, had he felt such joy, and all night he walked up and down in front of the preacher's house, unable to sleep for the thankfulness to God that surged in his heart. Morning brought a wonderful day for the Ki-lai plain. It was like a day when freedom from slavery was announced. Had there been bells in the village they would certainly have been rung. But joy bells were ringing in every heart. Nobody could work all day. The rice-fields and the shops and the pottery works lay idle. There was but one business to do that day, and that was to get rid of their idols. Early in the morning the mayor of the place, or the headman as he was called, came to the house to invite the missionary and his party to join him. Behind him walked four big boys, carrying two large wicker baskets, hanging from poles across their shoulders; and behind them came the whole village, men, women, and children, their faces shining with a new joy. The procession moved along from house to house. At every place it stopped and out from the home were carried idols, ancestral tablets, mock-money, flags, incense sticks, and all the stuff used in idol worship. These were all emptied into the baskets carried by the boys. When even the temple had been ransacked and the work of clearing out the idols in the village was finished, the procession moved on to the next hamlet. The villages were very near each other, so the journey was not wearisome; and at last when every vestige of the old idolatrous life had been taken from the homes of five villages, the happy crowd marched back to the first village. There was a large courtyard near the temple and here the procession halted. The boys dropped their well-filled baskets, and their contents were piled in the center of the court. The people gathered about the heap and with shouts of joy set fire to these signs of their lifelong slavery. Soon the pile was blazing and crackling, and all the people, even the chiefs of the villages, vied with each other in burning up the idols they had so lately besought for blessings. And then they turned toward the heathen temple and delivered it over to Kai Bok-su for a chapel in which he and his students might preach the gospel. And so the temple was lighted up for a new kind of worship. It had been used for worship many, many times before, but oh, how different it was this time! Instead of coming in fear of demons, dread of their gods' anger, and determination to cheat them if possible, these poor folk crowded into the new-old temple with light, happy hearts, as children coming to their Father. And was not God their Father, only they had not known him before? The heathen temple was dedicated to the worship of the true God by singing the old but always new, one hundredth Psalm. The Lam-si-hoan were not very good singers. They had not much idea of tune. They had less idea of just when to start, and there was very little to be said about the harmony of those hundreds of voices. But in spite of it all, Kai Bok-su had to confess that never in the music of his homeland or in the more finished harmonies of Europe, had he heard anything so grandly uplifting as when those newly-freed people stood up in their idol temple and with heart and soul and voice unitedly poured forth in thunderous volume of praise the great command: All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. For a whole week with his pony and groom, which were still his to do with as he pleased, the busy missionary rode up and down this plain, visiting the villages, preaching, and teaching the people how to live as Jesus Christ their Savior had lived; for it was necessary to impress upon their childlike minds that it would be of no use to burn up the idols in their homes and temple unless they also gave up the still more harmful idols in their hearts. But at last the day came when the pony had to be returned to its owner and the missionary and his helpers must leave. It was a sad day but a joyous one--the day that great visit came to an end. Crowds of Christians, fain to keep him, followed him down to the shore, and many kindly but reluctant hands shoved the little boat out into the surf. And as the rowers sent it skimming out over the great Pacific rollers, there rose from the beach the parting hymn, the one that had dedicated the heathen temple to the worship of the true God: All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. and from the rowers and the missionaries in the boat, came back the glad echo: Know that the Lord is God indeed Without our aid he did us make. They were soon out of sight. The rowers pulled hard, but a stiff northeaster straight from Japan was blowing against them, and they made but little headway. Night came down, and they were again skirting those dark cliffs, where, here and there, along the narrow strip of sand, the night-fires of the savages flamed out against the dark tangle of foliage. All night long the rowers struggled against the wind. They were afraid to go out far for the waves were wild, they dared not land, for, crueler than the sea, the head-hunters waited for them on the shore. And so all that night, taking turns with the rowers, the missionary and his students toiled against the wind and wave. The dawn came up gray and stormy, and they were still tossing about among the white billows. No one had touched food for twenty-four hours. They had rice in the boat, but there was no place where they dared land to have it cooked. There was nothing to do but to pull, pull at the oars, and a weary task it seemed, for the boat appeared to make little headway, and the rowers barely succeeded in keeping her from being dashed upon the rocks. They were becoming almost too weak to keep any control over their boat, when about three o'clock in the afternoon they managed to round a point. There before them curved a beautiful bay. Behind it and on both sides arose a perpendicular wall several hundred feet high. At its foot stretched a narrow sandy beach. It was an ideal spot, secure from savages both by land and sea. A shout of encouragement from Kai Bok-su was the one thing needed. Tired arms and aching backs bent to the oars for one last effort, and when the boat swept up on the sandy beach every one uttered a heartfelt prayer of thankfulness to the Father who had provided this little haven in a time of such distress. The rest of the journey was made safely, and just forty days after their departure the four missionaries returned, worn out, to Tamsui. CHAPTER XIII. THE LAND OCCUPIED But Kai Bok-su had no sooner returned than he was off again. He was not one of that sort who could settle down after an achievement, content to rest for a little. He seemed to forget all about what had been done and was "up and at it again." If he "did not know when he was beaten," neither did he seem to know when he was successful; and like Alexander the Great he was always sighing for new worlds to conquer, yes, and marching off and conquering them too. But every time he returned to his work at Tamsui from one of these tours, it was borne in upon him more forcibly every day that his faithful assistant who was left in charge, could not long shoulder his work. Mr. Jamieson was fighting a losing battle with ill health. The terrible experiences during the war year, the hard work, and the trying Formosan climate had all combined against him. His brave spirit could not always sustain the body that was growing gradually weaker, and one day, a dark, sad day, the devoted soul was set free from the poor pain-racked body. He had given eight years of hard, faithful work to the study of the language and to the service of the Master in the mission. Mrs. Jamieson returned to Canada, and once more Dr. Mackay faced the work, unaided except by native preachers. But he was not daunted even by this bereavement, for he always lived in the perfect faith that God was on his side. And then, he had by this time three new assistants in the mission-house on the bluff. They did not even guess that they were any help to him, for they could never go with him on his mission tours. But by their sweet merry ways and their joyous welcome to father, when he returned, they did help him greatly, and made his home-comings a delight. "How many did you baptize, father?" was baby George's inevitable question on his father's return. For already the wise toddler had learned something of the bitter enmity of the heathen world, and knew that converts meant friends. Then father's home-coming meant presents too, wonderful things, bows and arrows, rare curios for the museum in the college, and, once, a pair of the funniest monkeys in the world, which proved most entertaining playthings for the little boy and his two sisters. Another time the father brought home a young bear to keep the monkeys company, but they were not at all polite to their guest, for they made poor bruin's life miserable by teasing him. They would torment him until he would stamp with rage. But he was not always badly used, for when the three children would come out to feed him, he was very happy, and he would show his pleasure by putting his head between his paws and rolling over and over like a big ball of fur. And he always seemed quite proud of his performance when his three little keepers shrieked with laughter. The next year after Mr. Jamieson's death the empty mission-house was once more filled. In September the Rev. Mr. William and Mrs. Gauld sailed from Canada, and with their arrival Dr. Mackay took new heart. The new missionaries had learned the language and their work was well under way when the time came round once more for Dr. Mackay to go back to Canada for a year's rest. This time there was quite a little party went with him: his wife, their three children, and Koa Kau, one of his students. Among those left to assist Mr. Gauld, there was none he relied upon more than A Hoa. Mr. Gauld, at the close of his second year's work, wrote of this fellow worker: "The longer and better I know him, the more I can love him, trust his honesty, and respect his judgment. He knows his own people, from the governor of the island to the ragged opium-smoking beggar, and has influence with them all." There were many others besides A Hoa to render the missionary faithful help; among them Sun-a and Tan He, the latter pastor of the church of Sin-tiam; and just because Kai Bok-su was away they worked the harder, that he might receive a good report of them on his return. The separation was longer this time, for Dr. Mackay wished to send his children to school, and he decided that they would remain in Canada two years. He was made Moderator of the General Assembly, too, and the Church at home needed him to stir them up to a greater desire to help those beyond the seas. While he was working and preaching in Canada, his heart turned always to his beloved Formosa, and letters from the friends there were among his greatest pleasures. A Hoa's of course, were doubly welcome. Pastor Giam, the name by which he was now called, was Mr. Gauld's right-hand helper in those days, and once he went alone on a tour away to the eastern shore. While there he had an adventure of which he wrote to Kai Bok-su. "The other morning while walking on the seashore I saw a sailing-vessel slowly drifting shoreward and in danger of being wrecked, for there was a fog and a heavy sea. I hastened back to the chapel and beat the drum to call the villagers to worship. As soon as it was over I asked converts and heathen to go in their fishing-boats as quickly as possible and let the sailors know they need not fear savages there, and if they wished to come ashore a chapel would be given them to stay in. The whole crew came ashore in the boats at once. I gave your old room to the captain, his wife and child, and other accommodation to the rest. I then hurried away to a mandarin and asked him to send men to protect the ship." When Kai Bok-su read the story and remembered that, twenty-five years earlier, the crew of that vessel would have been murdered and their ship plundered, he exclaimed with joy, "Blessed Christianity! Surely, Blessings abound where'er He reigns!" A Hoa had another tale to tell. One afternoon he had a strange congregation in that little chapel. There were one hundred and forty-six native converts and twenty-one Europeans. These were made up of seven nationalities, British, American, French, Danish, Turkish, Swiss, and Norwegian. Their ship was from America and was bound for Hongkong with coal-oil. They were amazed at seeing a pretty, neat chapel away in this wild, remote place, which they had always supposed was overrun by head-hunters, and indeed it was just that little chapel that had made the great change. These men now entered it and joined the natives in worshiping the true God, where, only a few years before, their blood would have stained the sands. A Hoa told them something of the great Kai Bok-su and the struggles he had had with savages and other enemies, when he first came to this region. The visitors were very much interested and did not wonder that the name "Kai Bok-su" was held in such reverence. When they left, the captain presented the little chapel with a bell, a lamp, and a mirror which were on board his ship. The long months of separation were rolling around, when something happened that brought Kai Bok-su back to his island in great haste. Once more war swept over Formosa. This time the trouble was between China and Japan. The big Empire proved no match for the clever Japanese, and everywhere China was forced to give in. One of the places which Japan set her affections on was Formosa. She must have the Beautiful Isle and have it at once. China was in no position to say no, so the Chinese envoy went on board a Japanese vessel and sailed toward Formosa. When in sight of its lovely mountains, without any ceremony he pointed to the land and said, "There it is, take it." And that was how Formosa became a province of Japan. At noon on May 26, 1895, the dragon flag of China was hauled down from Formosan forts and the banner of Japan was hoisted. Of course this was not done without a struggle. The Formosans themselves fought hard, and in the fight the Christians came in for times of trouble. So Kai Bok-su, hearing that his "valuables" were again in danger, set sail for Tamsui. When he arrived the war was practically over, but everywhere were signs of strife. As soon as he was able, he took A Hoa and Koa Kau and visited the chapels all over the country. Everywhere were sights to make his heart very sad. The Japanese soldiers had used many of the chapels for military stables, and they were in a filthy state. At one place the native preacher was a prisoner, the Japanese believing him to be a spy. At another village the Christians sadly led their missionary out to a tea plantation and showed him the place where their beloved pastor had been shot by the Japanese soldiers. Mackay stood beside his grave, his heart heavy with sorrow. But his courage never left him. The native Christians everywhere forgot their woes in the great joy of seeing him once more; and he joined them in a brave attempt to put things to rights once more. The Japanese paid for all damages done by their soldiers and in a short time the work was going on splendidly. "We have no fear," wrote Dr. Mackay. "The King of kings is greater than Emperor or Mikado. He will rule and overrule all things." His faith was rewarded, for when the troublous time was over, the government of Japan proved better than that of China, and on the whole the trial proved a blessing. Oxford College had been closed while Dr. Mackay was away, and the girls' school had not been opened since the war commenced, for it was not safe for the girls and women to leave their homes during such disturbed times. But now both schools reopened, and again Kai Bok-su with his cane and his book and his crowd of students could be seen going up to the lecture halls, or away out on the Formosan roads. He had conquered so often, overcome such tremendous obstacles, and faced unflinchingly so many awful dangers for the sake of his converts, that it was no wonder that they adored him, their feeling amounting almost to worship. "Kai Bok-su says it must be so" was sufficient to compel any one in the north Formosa Church to do what was required. Surely never before was a man so wonderfully rewarded in this life. He had given up all he possessed for the glory of his Master and he had his full compensation. A few happy years sped round. The time for him to go back home again was drawing near when there came the first hint that he might soon be called on a longer furlough than he would have in Canada. At first, when the dread suspicion began to be whispered in the halls of Oxford College and in the chapel gatherings throughout the country, people refused to believe it. Kai Bok-su ill? No, no, it was only the malaria, and he always arose from that and went about again. It could not be serious. But in spite of the fact that loving hearts refused to accept it, there was no use denying the sad fact. There was something wrong with Kai Bok-su. For months his voice had been growing weaker, the doctors had examined his throat, and attended him, but it was all of no use. At last he could not speak at all, but wrote his words on a slate. And everywhere in north Formosa, converts and students and preachers watched and waited and prayed most fervently that he might soon recover. Those who lived in Tamsui whispered to each other in tones of dread, as they watched him come and go with slower steps than they had been accustomed to see. "He will be well next month," they would say hopefully, or, "He will look like himself when the rains dry." But little by little the conviction grew that the beloved missionary was seriously ill, and a great gloom settled all over north Formosa. There was a little gleam of joy when the doctor in Tamsui advised him finally to go to Hongkong and see a specialist He went, leaving many loving hearts waiting anxiously between hope and fear to hear what the doctors would say. And prayers went up night and day from those who loved him. From the heart-broken wife in the lonely house on the bluff to the farthest-off convert on the Ki-lai plain, every Christian on the island, even those in the south Formosa mission, prayed that the useful life might be spared. But God had other and greater plans for Kai Bok-su. He came back from Hongkong, and the first look at his pale face told the dreaded truth. The shadow of death lay on it. Those were heart-breaking days in north Formosa. From all sides came such messages of devotion that it seemed as if the passionate love of his followers must hold him back. But a stronger love was calling him on. And one bright June day, in 1901, when the green mountainsides, the blue rivers, and the waving rice-fields of Formosa lay smiling in the sun, Kai Bok-su heard once more that call that had brought him so far from home. Once more he obeyed, and he opened his eyes on a new glory greater than any of which he had ever dreamed. The task had been a hard one. The "big stone" had been stubborn, but it had been broken, and not long after the noontide of his life the tired worker was called home. They laid his poor, worn body up on the hill above the river, beside the bodies of the Christians he had loved so well. And the soft Formosan grass grew over his grave, the winds roared about it, and the river and the sea sang his requiem. Gallant Kai Bok-su! As he rests up there on his wind-swept height, there are hearts in the valleys and on the plains of his beloved Formosa and in his far-off native land that are aching for him. And sometimes to these last comes the question "Was it well?" Was it well that he should wear out that splendid life in such desperate toil among heathen that hated and reviled him? And from every part of north Formosa, sounding on the wind, comes many an answer. Up from the damp rice-fields, where the farmer goes to and fro in the gray dawn, arises a song: I'm not ashamed to own my Lord, Or to defend his cause. Far away on the mountainside, the once savage mother draws her little one to her and teaches him, not the old lesson of bloodshed, but the older one of love and kindness, and together they croon: Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so. And up from scores of chapels dotting the land, comes the sound of the old, old story of Jesus and his love, preached by native Formosans, and from the thousand tongues of their congregations soars upward the Psalm: All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice! These all unite in one great harmony, replying, "It is well!" But is it well with the work? What of his Beautiful Island, now that Kai Bok-su has left for a greater work in a more beautiful land? Yes, it is well also with Formosa. The work goes on. There are two thousand, one hundred members now in the four organized congregations, and over fifty mission stations and outstations. But better still there are in addition twenty-two hundred who have forsaken their idols and are being trained to become church-members. The Formosa Church out of its poverty gives liberally too. In 1911 they contributed more than thirty-five hundred dollars to Christian work. "Every year," writes Mr. Jack, "a special collection is taken by the Church for the work among the Ami--the aborigines of the Ki-lai plain." This is the foreign mission of the north Formosa Church. A Hoa lately followed his pastor to the home above, but many others remain. Mr. Gauld and his family are still there, in the front of the battle, and with him is a fine corps of soldiers, comprising fifty-nine native and several Canadian missionaries, including the Rev. Dr. J. Y. Ferguson and his wife, the Rev. Milton Jack and Mrs. Jack, the Rev. and Mrs. Duncan MacLeod, Miss J. M. Kinney, Miss Hannah Connell, Miss Mabel G. Clazie, and Miss Lily Adair. Miss Isabelle J. Elliott, a graduate nurse, and deaconess, will join the staff shortly, and a few others will be sent when secured, in order that the force may be sufficient to evangelize the million people in north Formosa. Mrs. Mackay and her two daughters, Helen and Mary, the latter having married native preachers, Koa Kau and Tan He, are keeping up the work that husband and father left. A new hospital is being built under Dr. Ferguson, and plans are on foot for new school and college buildings. And the latest arrived missionary? What of him? Why his name is George Mackay, and he has just sailed from Canada as the first Mackay sailed forty-one years earlier. He has been nine years in Canada and the United States, at school and college, and now with his Canadian wife, has gone back to his native land. Yes, Kai Bok-su's son has gone out to carry on his father's work, and Formosa has welcomed him as no other missionary has been welcomed since Kai Bok-su's day. But these are not all. From far across the sea, in the land where Kai Bok-su lived his boyhood days, comes a voice. It is the echo from the hearts of other boys, who have read his noble life. And their answer is, "We too will go out, as he went, and fight and win!" 
16657	----	[Transcriber's note: Some Footnotes in this text contain special characters, including a, e, and o with superior macron, represented by [=a], [=e], and [=o], and a and u with superior breve, represented by [)a] and [)u], to indicate pronunciation of native-language words.] THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES BY BASIL MATHEWS, M.A. _Author of "The Argonauts of Faith," "The Riddle of Nearer Asia," etc._ NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY _Copyright, 1922,_ _By George H. Doran Company_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS PAGE PROLOGUE THE RELAY RACE 9 BOOK I: THE PIONEERS CHAPTER I THE HERO OF THE LONG TRAIL (_St. Paul_) 19 II THE MEN ON THE SHINGLE BEACH (_Wilfrid of Sussex_) 30 III THE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE (_Raymond Lull_) 36 IV FRANCIS COEUR-DE-LION (_St. Francis of Assisi_) 47 BOOK II: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS V THE ADVENTUROUS SHIP (_The Duff_) 65 VI THE ISLAND BEACON FIRES (_Papeiha_) 72 VII THE DAYBREAK CALL (_John Williams_) 80 VIII KAPIOLANI, THE HEROINE OF HAWAII (_Kapiolani_) 86 IX THE CANOE OF ADVENTURE (_Elikana_) 92 X THE ARROWS OF SANTA CRUZ (_Patteson_) 103 XI FIVE KNOTS IN A PALM LEAF (_Patteson_) 108 XII THE BOY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART (_Chalmers_) 113 XIII THE SCOUT OF PAPUA (_Chalmers_) 118 XIV A SOUTH SEA SAMARITAN (_Ruatoka_) 126 BOOK III: THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA XV THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON (_Livingstone_) 131 XVI A BLACK PRINCE OF AFRICA (_Khama_) 136 XVII THE KNIGHT OF THE SLAVE GIRLS (_George Grenfell_) 150 XVIII "A MAN WHO CAN TURN HIS HAND TO ANYTHING" (_Mackay_) 158 XIX THE ROADMAKER (_Mackay_) 164 XX FIGHTING THE SLAVE TRADE (_Mackay_) 172 XXI THE BLACK APOSTLE OF THE LONELY LAKE (_Shomolakae_) 186 XXII THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS (_Mary Slessor_) 196 BOOK IV: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT XXIII SONS OF THE DESERT (_Abdallah and Sabat_) 213 XXIV A RACE AGAINST TIME (_Henry Martyn_) 224 XXV THE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS (_Dr. Shedd_) 236 XXVI AN AMERICAN NURSE IN THE GREAT WAR (_E.D. Cushman_) 249 XXVII ON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL (_Archibald Forder_) 260 XXVIII THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB (_Archibald Forder_) 271 THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES PROLOGUE THE RELAY-RACE The shining blue waters of two wonderful gulfs were busy with fishing boats and little ships. The vessels came under their square sails and were driven by galley-slaves with great oars. A Greek boy standing, two thousand years ago, on the wonderful mountain of the Acro-Corinth that leaps suddenly from the plain above Corinth to a pinnacle over a thousand feet high, could see the boats come sailing from the east, where they hailed from the Piræus and Ephesus and the marble islands of the Ægean Sea. Turning round he could watch them also coming from the West up the Gulf of Corinth from the harbours of the Gulf and even from the Adriatic Sea and Brundusium. In between the two gulfs lay the Isthmus of Corinth to which the men on the ships were sailing and rowing. The people were all in holiday dress for the great athletic sports were to be held on that day and the next,--the sports that drew, in those ancient days, over thirty thousand Greeks from all the country round; from the towns on the shores of the two gulfs and from the mountain-lands of Greece,--from Parnassus and Helicon and Delphi, from Athens and the villages on the slopes of Hymettus and even from Sparta. These sports, which were some of the finest ever held in the whole world, were called--because they were held on this isthmus--the Isthmian Games. The athletes wrestled. They boxed with iron-studded leather straps over their knuckles. They fought lions brought across the Mediterranean (the Great Sea as they called it) from Africa, and tigers carried up the Khyber Pass across Persia from India. They flung spears, threw quoits and ran foot-races. Amid the wild cheering of thirty thousand throats the charioteers drove their frenzied horses, lathered with foam, around the roaring stadium. One of the most beautiful of these races has a strange hold on the imagination. It was a relay-race. This is how it was run. Men bearing torches stood in a line at the starting point. Each man belonged to a separate team. Away in the distance stood another row of men waiting. Each of these was the comrade of one of those men at the starting point. Farther on still, out of sight, stood another row and then another and another. At the word "Go" the men at the starting point leapt forward, their torches burning. They ran at top speed towards the waiting men and then gasping for breath, each passed his torch to his comrade in the next row. He, in turn, seizing the flaming torch, leapt forward and dashed along the course toward the next relay, who again raced on and on till at last one man dashed past the winning post with his torch burning ahead of all the others, amid the applauding cheers of the multitude. The Greeks, who were very fond of this race, coined a proverbial phrase from it. Translated it runs: "Let the torch-bearers hand on the flame to the others" or "Let those who have the light pass it on." * * * * * That relay-race of torch-bearers is a living picture of the wonderful relay-race of heroes who, right through the centuries, have, with dauntless courage and a scorn of danger and difficulty, passed through thrilling adventures in order to carry the Light across the continents and oceans of the world. The torch-bearers! The long race of those who have borne, and still carry the torches, passing them on from hand to hand, runs before us. A little ship puts out from Seleucia, bearing a man who had caught the fire in a blinding blaze of light on the road to Damascus. Paul crosses the sea and then threads his way through the cities of Cyprus and Asia Minor, passes over the blue Ægean to answer the call from Macedonia. We see the light quicken, flicker and glow to a steady blaze in centre after centre of life, till at last the torch-bearer reaches his goal in Rome. "Yes, without cheer of sister or of daughter, Yes, without stay of father or of son, Lone on the land and homeless on the water Pass I in patience till the work be done." Centuries pass and men of another age, taking the light that Paul had brought, carry the torch over Apennine and Alp, through dense forests where wild beasts and wilder savages roam, till they cross the North Sea and the light reaches the fair-haired Angles of Britain, on whose name Augustine had exercised his punning humour, when he said, "Not Angles, but Angels." From North and South, through Columba and Aidan, Wilfred of Sussex and Bertha of Kent, the light came to Britain. "Is not our life," said the aged seer to the Mercian heathen king as the Missionary waited for permission to lead them to Christ, "like a sparrow that flies from the darkness through the open window into this hall and flutters about in the torchlight for a few moments to fly out again into the darkness of the night. Even so we know not whence our life comes nor whither it goes. This man can tell us. Shall we not receive his teaching?" So the English, through these torch-bearers, come into the light. The centuries pass by and in 1620 the little _Mayflower_, bearing Christian descendants of those heathen Angles--new torch-bearers, struggles through frightful tempests to plant on the American Continent the New England that was indeed to become the forerunner of a New World.[1] A century and a half passes and down the estuary of the Thames creeps another sailing ship. The Government officer shouts his challenge: "What ship is that and what is her cargo?" "The _Duff_," rings back the answer, "under Captain Wilson, bearing Missionaries to the South Sea." The puzzled official has never heard of such beings! But the little ship passes on and after adventures and tempests in many seas at last reaches the far Pacific. There the torch-bearers pass from island to island and the light flames like a beacon fire across many a blue lagoon and coral reef. One after another the great heroes sail out across strange seas and penetrate hidden continents each with a torch in his hand. Livingstone, the lion-hearted pathfinder in Africa, goes out as the fearless explorer, the dauntless and resourceful missionary, faced by poisoned arrows and the guns of Arabs and marched with only his black companions for thousands of miles through marsh and forest, over mountain pass and across river swamps, in loneliness and hunger, often with bleeding feet, on and on to the little hut in old Chitambo's village in Ilala, where he crossed the river. Livingstone is the Coeur-de-Lion of our Great Crusade. John Williams, who, in his own words, could "never be content with the limits of a single reef," built with his own hands and almost without any tools on a cannibal island the wonderful little ship _The Messenger of Peace_ in which he sailed many thousands of miles from island to island across the Pacific Ocean. These are only two examples of the men whose adventures are more thrilling than those of our story books and yet are absolutely true, and we find them in every country and in each of the centuries. So--as we look across the ages we "See the race of hero-spirits Pass the torch from hand to hand." In this book the stories of a few of them are told as yarns to boys and girls round a camp-fire. Every one of the tales is historically true, and is accurate in detail. In that ancient Greek relay-race the prize to each winner was simply a wreath of leaves cut by a priest with a golden knife from trees in the sacred grove near the Sea,--the grove where the Temple of Neptune, the god of the Ocean, stood. It was just a crown of wild olive that would wither away. Yet no man would have changed it for its weight in gold. For when the proud winner in the race went back to his little city, set among the hills, with his already withering wreath, all the people would come and hail him a victor and wave ribbons in the air. A great sculptor would carve a statue of him in imperishable marble and it would be set up in the city. And on the head of the statue of the young athlete was carved a wreath. In the great relay-race of the world many athletes--men and women--have won great fame by the speed and skill and daring with which they carried forward the torch and, themselves dropping in their tracks, have passed the flame on to the next runner; Paul, Francis, Penn, Livingstone, Mackay, Florence Nightingale, and a host of others. And many who have run just as bravely and swiftly have won no fame at all though their work was just as great. But the fame or the forgetting really does not matter. The fact is that the race is still running; _it has not yet been won_. Whose team will win? That is what matters. The world is the stadium. Teams of evil run rapidly and teams of good too. The great heroes and heroines whose story is told in this book have run across the centuries over the world to us. Some of them are alive to-day, as heroic as those who have gone. But all of them say the same thing to us of the new world who are coming after them: "Take the torch." The greatest of them all, when he came to the very end of his days, as he fell and passed on the Torch to others, said: "I have run my course." But to us who are coming on as Torch-bearers after him he spoke in urgent words--written to the people at Corinth where the Isthmian races were run: "Do you not know that they which run in a race all run, but one wins the prize? So run, that ye may be victors." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: See "The Argonauts of Faith" by Basil Mathews. (Doran.)] Book One: THE PIONEERS CHAPTER I THE HERO OF THE LONG TRAIL _St. Paul_ (Dates, b. A.D. 6, d. A.D. 67[2]) _The Three Comrades._ The purple shadows of three men moved ahead of them on the tawny stones of the Roman road on the high plateau of Asia Minor one bright, fresh morning.[3] They had just come out under the arched gateway through the thick walls of the Roman city of Antioch-in-Pisidia. The great aqueduct of stone that brought the water to the city from the mountains on their right[4] looked like a string of giant camels turned to stone. Of the three men, one was little more than a boy. He had the oval face of his Greek father and the glossy dark hair of his Jewish mother. The older men, whose long tunics were caught up under their girdles to give their legs free play in walking, were brown, grizzled, sturdy travellers. They had walked a hundred leagues together from the hot plains of Syria, through the snow-swept passes of the Taurus mountains, and over the sun-scorched levels of the high plateau.[5] Their muscles were as tireless as whipcord. Their courage had not quailed before robber or blizzard, the night yells of the hyena or the stones of angry mobs. For the youth this was his first adventure out into the glorious, unknown world. He was on the open road with the glow of the sun on his cheek and the sting of the breeze in his face; a strong staff in his hand; with his wallet stuffed with food--cheese, olives, and some flat slabs of bread; and by his side his own great hero, Paul. Their sandals rang on the stone pavement of the road which ran straight as a strung bowline from the city, Antioch-in-Pisidia, away to the west. The boy carried over his shoulder the cloak of Paul, and carried that cloak as though it had been the royal purple garment of the Roman Emperor himself instead of the worn, faded, travel-stained cloak of a wandering tent-maker. The two older men, whose names were Paul the Tarsian and Silas, had trudged six hundred miles. Their younger companion, whose name was "Fear God," or Timothy as we say, with his Greek fondness for perfect athletic fitness of the body, proudly felt the taut, wiry muscles working under his skin. On they walked for day after day, from dawn when the sun rose behind them to the hour when the sun glowed over the hills in their faces. They turned northwest and at last dropped down from the highlands of this plateau of Asia Minor, through a long broad valley, until they looked down across the Plain of Troy to the bluest sea in the world. Timothy's eyes opened with astonishment as he looked down on such a city as he had never seen--the great Roman seaport of Troy. The marble Stadium, where the chariots raced and the gladiators fought, gleamed in the afternoon light. The three companions could not stop long to gaze. They swung easily down the hill-sides and across the plain into Troy, where they took lodgings. They had not been in Troy long when they met a doctor named Luke. We do not know whether one of them was ill and the doctor helped him; we do not know whether Doctor Luke (who was a Greek) worshipped, when he met them, Æsculapius, the god of healing of the Greek people. The doctor did not live in Troy, but was himself a visitor. "I live across the sea," Luke told his three friends--Paul, Silas and Timothy--stretching his hand out towards the north. "I live," he would say proudly, "in the greatest city of all Macedonia--Philippi. It is called after the great ruler Philip of Macedonia." Then Paul in his turn would be sure to tell Doctor Luke what it was that had brought him across a thousand miles of plain and mountain pass, hill and valley, to Troy. This is how he would tell the story in such words as he used again and again: "I used to think," he said, "that I ought to do many things to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. I had many of His disciples put into prison and even voted for their being put to death. I became so exceedingly mad against them that I even pursued them to foreign cities. "Then as I was journeying[6] to Damascus, with the authority of the chief priests themselves, at mid-day I saw on the way a light from the sky, brighter than the blaze of the sun, shining round about me and my companions. And, as we were all fallen on to the road, I heard a voice saying to me: "'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goad.' "And I said, 'Who are you, Lord?' "The answer came: 'I am Jesus, whom you persecute.'" Then Paul went on: "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision; but I told those in Damascus and in Jerusalem and in all Judæa, aye! and the foreign nations also, that they should repent and turn to God. "Later on," said Paul, "I fell into a trance, and Jesus came again to me and said, 'Go, I will send you afar to the Nations.' That (Paul would say to Luke) is why I walk among perils in the city; in perils in the wilderness; in perils in the sea; in labour and work; in hunger and thirst and cold, to tell people everywhere of the love of God shown in Jesus Christ."[7] _The Call to Cross the Sea._ One night, after one of these talks, as Paul was asleep in Troy, he seemed to see a figure standing by him. Surely it was the dream-figure of Luke, the doctor from Macedonia, holding out his hands and pleading with Paul, saying, "Come over into Macedonia and help us." Now neither Paul nor Silas nor Timothy had ever been across the sea into the land that we now call Europe. But in the morning, when Paul told his companions about the dream that he had had, they all agreed that God had called them to go and deliver the good news of the Kingdom to the people in Luke's city of Philippi and in the other cities of Macedonia. So they went down into the busy harbour of Troy, where the singing sailor-men were bumping bales of goods from the backs of camels into the holds of the ships, and they took a passage in a little coasting ship. She hove anchor and was rowed out through the entrance between the ends of the granite piers of the harbour. The seamen hoisting the sails, the little ship went gaily out into the Ægean Sea. All day they ran before the breeze and at night anchored under the lee of an island. At dawn they sailed northward again with a good wind, till they saw land. Behind the coast on high ground the columns of a temple glowed in the sunlight. They ran into a spacious bay and anchored in the harbour of a new city--Neapolis as it was called--the port of Philippi. Landing from the little ship, Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke climbed from the harbour by a glen to the crest of the hill, and then on, for three or four hours of hard walking, till their sandals rang on the pavement under the marble arch of the gate through the wall of Philippi. _Flogging and Prison._ As Paul and his friends walked about in the city they talked with people; for instance, with a woman called Lydia, who also had come across the sea from Asia Minor where she was born. She and her children and slaves all became Christians. So the men and women of Philippi soon began to talk about these strange teachers from the East. One day Paul and Silas met a slave girl dressed in a flowing, coloured tunic. She was a fortune-teller, who earned money for her masters by looking at people and trying to see at a glance what they were like so that she might tell their fortunes. The fortune-telling girl saw Paul and Silas going along, and she stopped and called out loud so that everyone who went by might hear: "These men are the slaves of the Most High God. They tell you the way of Salvation." The people stood and gaped with astonishment, and still the girl called out the same thing, until a crowd began to come round. Then Paul turned round and with sternness in his voice spoke to the evil spirit in the girl and said: "In the Name of Jesus Christ, I order you out of her." From that day the girl lost her power to tell people's fortunes, so that the money that used to come to her masters stopped flowing. They were very angry and stirred up everybody to attack Paul and Silas. A mob collected and searched through the streets until they found them. Then they clutched hold of their arms and robes, shouting: "To the prætors! To the prætors!" The prætors were great officials who sat in marble chairs in the Forum, the central square of the city. The masters of the slave girl dragged Paul and Silas along. At their heels came the shouting mob and when they came in front of the prætors, the men cried out: "See these fellows! Jews as they are, they are upsetting everything in the city. They tell people to take up customs that are against the Law for us as Romans to accept." "Yes! Yes!" yelled the crowd. "Flog them! Flog them!" The prætors, without asking Paul or Silas a single question as to whether this was true, or allowing them to make any defence, were fussily eager to show their Roman patriotism. Standing up they gave their orders: "Strip them, flog them." The slaves of the prætors seized Paul and Silas and took their robes from their backs. They were tied by their hands to the whipping-post. The crowd gathered round to see the foreigners thrashed. The lictors--that is the soldier-servants of the prætors--untied their bundles of rods. Then each lictor brought down his rod with cruel strokes on Paul and Silas. The rods cut into the flesh and the blood flowed down. Then their robes were thrown over their shoulders, and the two men, with their tortured backs bleeding, were led into the black darkness of the cell of the city prison; shackles were snapped on to their arms, and their feet were clapped into stocks. Their bodies ached; the other prisoners groaned and cursed; the filthy place stank; sleep was impossible. But Paul and Silas did not groan. They sang the songs of their own people, such as the verses that Paul had learned--as all Jewish children did--when he was a boy at school. For instance-- God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change, And though the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. As they sang there came a noise as though the mountains really were shaking. The ground rocked; the walls shook; the chains were loosened from the stones; the stocks were wrenched apart; their hands and feet were free; the heavy doors crashed open. It was an earthquake. The jailor leapt to the entrance of the prison. The moonlight shone on his sword as he was about to kill himself, thinking his prisoners had escaped. "Do not harm yourself," shouted Paul. "We are all here." "Torches! Torches!" yelled the jailor. The jailor, like all the people of his land, believed that earthquakes were sent by God. He thought he was lost. He turned to Paul and Silas who, he knew, were teachers about God. "Sirs," he said, falling in fear on the ground, "what must I do to be saved?" "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," they replied, "and you and your household will all be saved." The jailor's wife then brought some oil and water, and the jailor washed the poor wounded backs of Paul and Silas and rubbed healing oil into them. The night was now passing and the sun began to rise. There was a tramp of feet. The lictors who had thrashed Paul and Silas marched to the door of the prison with an order to free them. The jailor was delighted. "The prætors have sent to set you free," he said. "Come out then and go in peace." He had the greatest surprise in his life when, instead of going, Paul turned and said: "No, indeed! The prætors flogged us in public in the Forum and without a trial--flogged Roman citizens! They threw us publicly into prison, and now they are going to get rid of us secretly. Let the prætors come here themselves and take us out!" Surely it was the boldest message ever sent to the powerful prætors. But Paul knew what he was doing, and when the Roman prætors heard the message they knew that he was right. They would be ruined if it were reported at Rome that they had publicly flogged Roman citizens without trial. Their prisoner, Paul, was now their judge. They climbed down from their marble seats and walked on foot to the prison to plead with Paul and Silas to leave the prison and not to tell against them what had happened. "Will you go away from the city?" they asked. "We are afraid of other riots." So Paul and Silas consented. But they went to the house where Lydia lived--the home in which they had been staying in Philippi. Paul cheered up the other Christian folk--Lydia and Luke and Timothy--and told them how the jailor and his wife and family had all become Christians. "Keep the work of spreading the message here in Philippi going strongly," said Paul to Luke and Timothy. "Be cheerfully prepared for trouble." And then he and Silas, instead of going back to their own land, went out together in the morning light of the early winter of A.D. 50, away along the Western road over the hills to face perils in other cities in order to carry the Good News to the people of the West. _The Trail of the Hero-Scout._ So Paul the dauntless pioneer set his brave face westwards, following the long trail across the Roman Empire--the hero-scout of Christ. Nothing could stop him--not scourgings nor stonings, prison nor robbers, blizzards nor sand-storms. He went on and on till at last, as a prisoner in Rome, he laid his head on the block of the executioner and was slain. These are the brave words that we hear from him as he came near to the end: +-----------------------------+ | I HAVE FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT; | | I HAVE RUN MY COURSE; | | I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH. | +-----------------------------+ Long years afterward, men who were Christians in Rome carried the story of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ across Europe to some savages in the North Sea Islands--called Britons. Paul handed the torch from the Near East to the people in Rome. They passed the torch on to the people of Britain--and from Britain many years later men sailed to build up the new great nation in America. So the torch has run from East to West, from that day to this, and from those people of long ago to us. But we owe this most of all to Paul, the first missionary, who gave his life to bring the Good News from the lands of Syria and Judæa, where our Lord Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: The dates are, of course, conjectural; but those given are accepted by high authorities. Paul was about forty-four at the time of this adventure.] [Footnote 3: The plateau on which Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and Antioch-in-Pisidia stood is from 3000 to 4000 feet above sea-level.] [Footnote 4: The aqueduct was standing there in 1914, when the author was at Antioch-in-Pisidia (now called Yalowatch).] [Footnote 5: A Bible with maps attached will give the route from Antioch in Syria, round the Gulf of Alexandretta, past Tarsus, up the Cilician Gates to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch-in-Pisidia.] [Footnote 6: Compare Acts ix. I-8, xxvi. 12-20.] [Footnote 7: St. Paul's motive and message are developed more fully in the Author's _Paul the Dauntless_.] CHAPTER II THE MEN OF THE SHINGLE BEACH _Wilfrid of Sussex_ (Date, born A.D. 634. Incidents A.D. 666 and 681[8]) Twelve hundred and fifty years ago a man named Wilfrid sailed along the south coast of a great island in the North Seas. With him in the ship were a hundred and twenty companions. The voyage had started well, but now the captain looked anxious as he peered out under his curved hand, looking first south and then north. There was danger in both directions. The breeze from the south stiffened to a gale. The mast creaked and strained as the gathering storm tore at the mainsail. The ship reeled and pitched as the spiteful waves smote her high bow and swept hissing and gurgling along the deck. She began to jib like a horse and refused to obey her rudder. Wind and current were carrying her out of her course. In spite of all the captain's sea-craft the ship was being driven nearer to the dreaded, low, shingle beach of the island that stretched along the northern edge of the sea. The captain did not fear the coast itself, for it had no rocks. But the lines deepened on his weather-scarred face as he saw, gathering on the shelving beach, the wild, yellow-haired men of the island. The ship was being carried nearer and nearer to the coast. All on board could now see the Men of the Shingle Beach waving their spears and axes. The current and the wind swung the ship still closer to the shore, and now--even above the whistle of the gale in the cordage--the crew heard the wild whoop of the wreckers. These men on the beach were the sons of pirates. But they were now cowards compared with their fathers. For they no longer lived by the wild sea-rover's fight that had made their fathers' blood leap with the joy of the battle. They lived by a crueller craft. Waiting till some such vessel as this was swept ashore, they would swoop down on it, harry and slay the men, carry the women and children off for slaves, break up the ship and take the wood and stores for fire and food. They were beach-combers. An extra swing of the tide, a great wave--and with a thud the ship was aground, stuck fast on the yielding sands. With a wild yell, and with their tawny manes streaming in the wind, the wreckers rushed down the beach brandishing their spears. Wilfrid, striding to the side of the ship, raised his hand to show that he wished to speak to the chief. But the island men rushed on like an avalanche and started to storm the ship. Snatching up arms, poles, rope-ends--whatever they could find--the men on board beat down upon the heads of the savages as they climbed up the ship's slippery side. One man after another sank wounded on the deck. The fight grew more obstinate, but at last the men of the beach drew back up the sands, baffled. The Men of the Shingle Beach might have given up the battle had not a fierce priest of their god of war leapt on to a mound of sand, and, lifting his naked arms to the skies, called on the god to destroy the men in the ship. The savages were seized with a new frenzy and swept down the beach again. Wilfrid had gathered his closest friends round him and was quietly kneeling on the deck praying to his God for deliverance from the enemy. The fight became desperate. Again the savages were driven back up the beach. Once more they rallied and came swooping down on the ship. But a pebble from the sling of a man on the ship struck the savage priest on the forehead; he tottered and fell on the sand. This infuriated the savages, yet it took the heart out of these men who had trusted in their god of war. Meanwhile the tide had been creeping up; it swung in still further and lifted the ship from the sand; the wind veered, the sails strained. Slowly, but with gathering speed, the ship stood out to sea followed by howls of rage from the men on the beach. * * * * * Some years passed by, yet Wilfrid in all his travels had never forgotten the Men of the Beach. And, strangely enough, he wanted to go back to them. At last the time came when he could do so. This time he did not visit them by sea. After he had preached among the people in a distant part of the same great island, Wilfrid with four faithful companions--Eappa, Padda, Burghelm and Oiddi--walked down to the south coast of the island. As he came to the tribe he found many of them gathered on the beach as before. But the fierceness was gone. They tottered with weakness as they walked. The very bones seemed ready to come through their skin. They were starving with hunger and thirst from a long drought, when no grain or food of any kind would grow. And now they were gathered on the shore, and a long row of them linked hand in hand would rush down the very beach upon which they had attacked Wilfrid, and would cast themselves into the sea to get out of the awful agonies of their hunger. "Are there not fish in the sea for food?" asked Wilfrid. "Yes, but we cannot catch them," they answered. Wilfrid showed the wondering Men of the Shingle Beach how to make large nets and then launched out in the little boats that they owned, and let the nets down. For hour after hour Wilfrid and his companions fished, while the savages watched them from the beach with hungry eyes as the silver-shining fish were drawn gleaming and struggling into the boats. At last, as evening drew on, the nets were drawn in for the last time, and Wilfrid came back to the beach with hundreds of fish in the boats. With eager joy the Men of the Beach lit fires and cooked the fish. Their hunger was stayed; the rain for which Wilfrid prayed came. They were happy once more. Then Wilfrid gathered them all around him on the beach and said words like these: "You men tried to kill me and my friends on this beach years ago, trusting in your god of war. You _failed_. There is no god of war. There is but one God, a God not of war, but of Love, Who sent His only Son to tell about His love. That Son, Jesus Christ, Who fed the hungry multitudes by the side of the sea with fish, sent me to you to show love to you, feeding you with fish from the sea, and feeding you with His love, which is the Bread of Life." The wondering savages, spear in hand, shook their matted hair and could not take it in at once. Yet they and their boys and girls had already learned to trust Wilfrid, and soon began to love the God of Whom he spoke. * * * * * Now, those savages were the great, great, great grandfathers and mothers of the English-speaking peoples of the world. The North Sea Island was Britain; the beach was at Selsey near Chichester on the South Coast. And the very fact that you and I are alive to-day, the shelter of our homes, the fact that we can enjoy the wind on the heath in camp, our books and sport and school, all these things come to us through men like Wilfrid and St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. Ninian, St. Augustine and others who in the days of long ago came to lift our fathers from the wretched, quarrelsome life, and from the starving helplessness of the Men of the Shingle Beach. The people of the North Sea Islands and of America and the rest of the Christian world have these good things in their life because there came to save our forefathers heroic missionaries like Wilfrid, Columba, and Augustine. There are to-day men of the South Sea Islands, who are even more helpless than our Saxon grandfathers. To get without giving is mean. To take the torch and not to pass it on is to fail to play the game. We must hand on to the others the light that has come to us. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 8: The chief authority for the story of Wilfrid is Bede.] CHAPTER III THE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE _Raymund Lull_ (Dates, b. 1234, d. 1315) I A little old man, barefooted and bareheaded, and riding upon an ass, went through the cities and towns and villages of Europe, in the eleventh century, carrying--not a lance, but a crucifix. When he came near a town the word ran like a forest fire, "It is Peter the Hermit." All the people rushed out. Their hearts burned as they heard him tell how the tomb of Jesus Christ was in the hand of the Moslem Turk, of how Christians going to worship at His Tomb in Jerusalem were thrown into prison and scourged and slain. Knights sold lands and houses to buy horses and lances. Peasants threw down the axe and the spade for the pike and bow and arrows. Led by knights, on whose armour a red Cross was emblazoned, the people poured out in their millions for the first Crusade. It is said that in the spring of 1096 an "expeditionary force" of six million people was heading toward Palestine. The Crusades were caused partly by the cruelty of the followers of Mohammed, the Moslem Turks, who believed that they could earn entrance into Paradise by slaying infidel Christians. The Moslems every day and five times a day turn their faces to Mecca in Arabia, saying "There is no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God." Allah (they believe) is wise and merciful to His own, but not holy, nor our Father, nor loving and forgiving, nor desiring pure lives. On earth and in Paradise women have no place save to serve men. The first Crusade ended in the capture of Jerusalem (July 15, 1099), and Godfrey de Bouillon became King of Jerusalem. But Godfrey refused to put a crown upon his head. For, he said, "I will not wear a crown of gold in the city where Our Lord Jesus Christ wore a crown of thorns." The fortunes of Christian and Moslem ebbed and flowed for nearly two hundred years, during which time there were seven Crusades ending at the fall of Acre into the hands of the Turks in 1291. The way of the sword had failed, though indeed the Crusades had probably been the means of preventing all Europe from being overrun by the Moslems. At the time when the last Crusade had begun a man was planning a new kind of Crusade, different in method but calling for just as much bravery as the old kind. We are going to hear his story now. II _The Young Knight's Vision_ In the far-off days of the last of the Crusades, a knight of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea, stood on the shore of his island home gazing over the water. Raymund Lull from the beach of Palma Bay, where he had played as a boy, now looked out southward, where boats with their tall, rakish, brown sails ran in from the Great Sea. The knight was dreaming of Africa which lay away to the south of his island. He had heard many strange stories from the sailors about the life in the harbours of that mysterious African seaboard; but he had never once in his thirty-six years set eyes upon one of its ports. It was the year when Prince Edward of England, out on the mad, futile adventure of the last Crusade, was felled by the poisoned dagger of an assassin in Nazareth, and when Eleanor (we are told) drew the poison from the wound with her own lips. Yet Raymund Lull, who was a knight so skilled that he could flash his sword and set his lance in rest with any of his peers, had not joined that Crusade. His brave father carried the scars of a dozen battles against the Moors. Yet, when the last Crusade swept down the Mediterranean, Lull stood aside; for he was himself planning a new Crusade of a kind unlike any that had gone before. He dreamed of a Crusade not to the Holy Land but to Africa, where the Crescent of Mohammed ruled and where the Cross of Christ was never seen save when an arrogant Moslem drew a cross in the sand of the desert to spit upon it. It was the desire of Raymund Lull's life to sail out into those perilous ports and to face the fierce Saracens who thronged the cities. He longed for this as other knights panted to go out to the Holy Land as Crusaders. He was rich enough to sail at any time, for he was his own master. Why, then, did he not take one of the swift craft that rocked in the bay, and sail? It was because he had not yet forged a sharp enough weapon for his new Crusade. His deep resolve was that at all costs he would "Be Prepared" for every counter-stroke of the Saracen whose tongue was as swift and sharp as his scimitar. What powers do we think a man should have in order to convince fanatical Moslems, who knew their own sacred book--the Koran--of the truth of Christianity? Control of his own temper, courage, patience, knowledge of the Moslem religion and of the Bible, suggest themselves. III _The Preparation of Temper_ So Lull turned his back on the beach and on Africa, and plunged under the heavy shadows of the arched gateway through the city wall up the narrow streets of Palma. A servant opened the heavy, studded door of his father's mansion--the house where Lull himself was born. He hastened in and, calling to his Saracen slave, strode to his own room. The dark-faced Moor obediently came, bowed before his young master, and laid out on the table manuscripts that were covered with mysterious writing such as few people in Europe could read. Lull was learning Arabic from this sullen Saracen slave. He was studying the Koran--the Bible of the Mohammedans--so that he might be able to strive with the Saracens on their own ground. For Lull knew that he must be master of all the knowledge of the Moslem if he was to win his battles; just as a knight in the fighting Crusades must be swift and sure with his sword. And this is how Lull spoke of the Crusade on which he was to set out. "I see many knights," he said, "going to the Holy Land beyond the seas and thinking that they can acquire it by force of arms; but in the end all are destroyed before they attain that which they think to have. Whence it seems to me that the conquest of the Holy Land ought not to be attempted except in the way in which Christ and His Apostles achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears and blood." Suddenly, as he and the Saracen slave argued together, the Moor blurted out passionately a horrible blasphemy against the name of Jesus. Lull's blood was up. He leapt to his feet, leaned forward, and caught the Moor a swinging blow on the face with his hand. In a fury the Saracen snatched a dagger from the folds of his robe and, leaping at Lull, drove it into his side. Raymund fell with a cry. Friends rushed in. The Saracen was seized and hurried away to a prison-cell, where he slew himself. Lull, as he lay day after day waiting for his wound to heal and remembering his wild blow at the Saracen, realised that, although he had learned Arabic, he had not yet learned the first lesson of his own new way of Crusading--to be master of himself. IV _The Preparation of Courage_ So Raymund Lull (at home and in Rome and Paris) set himself afresh to his task of preparing. At last he felt that he was ready. From Paris he rode south-east through forest and across plain, over mountain and pass, till the gorgeous palaces and the thousand masts of Genoa came in sight. He went down to the harbour and found a ship that was sailing across the Mediterranean to Africa. He booked his passage and sent his goods with all his precious manuscripts aboard. The day for sailing came. His friends came to cheer him. But Lull sat in his room trembling. As he covered his eyes with his hands in shame, he saw the fiery, persecuting Saracens of Tunis, whom he was sailing to meet. He knew they were glowing with pride because of their triumphs over the Crusaders in Palestine. He knew they were blazing with anger because their brother Moors had been slaughtered and tortured in Spain. He saw ahead of him the rack, the thumb-screw, and the boot; the long years in a slimy dungeon--at the best the executioner's scimitar. He simply dared not go. The books were brought ashore again. The ship sailed without Lull. "The ship has gone," said a friend to Lull. He quivered under a torture of shame greater than the agony of the rack. He was wrung with bitter shame that he who had for all these years prepared for this Crusade should now have shown the white feather. He was, indeed, a craven knight of Christ. His agony of spirit threw him into a high fever that kept him in his bed. Soon after he heard that another ship was sailing for Africa. In spite of the protestations of his friends Lull insisted that they should carry him to the ship. They did so; but as the hour of sailing drew on his friends were sure that he was so weak that he would die on the sea before he could reach Africa. So--this time in spite of all his pleading--they carried him ashore again. But he could not rest and his agony of mind made his fever worse. Soon, however, a third ship was making ready to sail. This time Lull was carried on board and refused to return. The ship cast off and threaded its way through the shipping of the harbour out into the open sea. "From this moment," said Lull, "I was a new man. All fever left me almost before we were out of sight of land." V _The First Battle_ Passing Corsica and Sardinia, the ship slipped southward till at last she made the yellow coast of Africa, broken by the glorious Gulf of Tunis. She dropped sail as she ran alongside the busy wharves of Goletta. Lull was soon gliding in a boat through the short ancient canal to Tunis, the mighty city which was head of all the Western Mohammedan world. He landed and found the place beside the great mosque where the grey-bearded scholars bowed over their Korans and spoke to one another about the law of Mohammed. They looked at him with amazement as he boldly came up to them and said, "I have come to talk with you about Christ and His Way of Life, and Mohammed and his teaching. If you can prove to me that Mohammed is indeed _the_ Prophet, I will myself become a follower of him." The Moslems, sure of their case, called together their wisest men and together they declaimed to Lull what he already knew very well--the watchword that rang out from minaret to minaret across the roofs of the vast city as the first flush of dawn came up from the East across the Gulf. "There is no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God." "Yes," he replied, "the Allah of Mohammed is one and is great, but He does not love as does the Father of Jesus Christ. He is wise, but He does not do good to men like our God who so loved the world that He gave His Son Jesus Christ." To and fro the argument swung till, after many days, to their dismay and amazement the Moslems saw some of their number waver and at last actually beginning to go over to the side of Lull. To forsake the Faith of Mohammed is--by their own law--to be worthy of death. A Moslem leader hurried to the Sultan of Tunis. "See," he said, "this learned teacher, Lull, is declaring the errors of the Faith. He is dangerous. Let us take him and put him to death." The Sultan gave the word of command. A body of soldiers went out, seized Lull, dragged him through the streets, and threw him into a dark dungeon to wait the death sentence. But another Moslem who had been deeply touched by Lull's teaching craved audience with the Sultan. "See," he said, "this learned man Lull--if he were a Moslem--would be held in high honour, being so brave and fearless in defence of his Faith. Do not slay him. Banish him from Tunis." So when Lull in his dungeon saw the door flung open and waited to be taken to his death he found to his surprise that he was led from the dungeon through the streets of Tunis, taken along the canal, thrust into the hold of a ship, and told that he must go in that ship to Genoa and never return. But the man who had before been afraid to sail from Genoa to Tunis, now escaped unseen from the ship that would have taken him back to safety in order to risk his life once more. He said to himself the motto he had written: +--------------------------------------+ | "HE WHO LOVES NOT, LIVES NOT! HE WHO | | LIVES BY THE LIFE CANNOT DIE." | +--------------------------------------+ He was not afraid now even of martyrdom. He hid among the wharves and gathered his converts about him to teach them more and more about Christ. VI _The Last Fight_ At last, however, seeing that he could do little in hiding, Lull took ship to Naples. After many adventures during a number of years, in a score of cities and on the seas, the now white-haired Lull sailed into the curved bay of Bugia farther westward along the African coast. In the bay behind the frowning walls the city with its glittering mosques climbed the hill. Behind rose two glorious mountains crowned with the dark green of the cedar. And, far off, like giant Moors wearing white turbans, rose the distant mountain peaks crowned with snow. Lull passed quietly through the arch of the city gateway which he knew so well, for among other adventures he had once been imprisoned in this very city. He climbed the steep street and found a friend who hid him away. There for a year Lull taught in secret till he felt that the time had come for him to go out boldly and dare death itself. One day the people in the market-place of Bugia heard a voice ring out that seemed to some of them strangely familiar. They hurried toward the sound. There stood the old hero with arm uplifted declaring, in the full blaze of the North African day, the Love of God shown in Jesus Christ His Son. The Saracens murmured. They could not answer his arguments. They cried to him to stop, but his voice rose ever fuller and bolder. They rushed on him, dragged him by the cloak out of the market-place, down the streets, under the archway to a place beyond the city walls. There they threw back their sleeves, took up great jagged stones and hurled these grim messengers of hate at the Apostle of Love, till he sank senseless to the ground.[9] It was word for word over again the story of Stephen; the speech, the wild cries of the mob, the rush to the place beyond the city wall, the stoning.[10] Did Lull accomplish anything? He was dead; but he had conquered. He had conquered his old self. For the Lull who had, in a fit of temper, smitten his Saracen slave now smiled on the men who stoned him; and the Lull who had showed the white feather of fear at Genoa, now defied death in the market-place of Bugia. And in that love and heroism, in face of hate and death, he had shown men the only way to conquer the scimitar of Mohammed, "the way in which Christ and His Apostles achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears and blood." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 9: June 30. 1315.] [Footnote 10: Acts vi. 8-vii. 60.] CHAPTER IV FRANCIS COEUR-DE-LION (_St. Francis of Assisi_) A.D. 1181-1226 (Date of Incident, 1219) I The dark blue sky of an Italian night was studded with sparkling stars that seemed to be twinkling with laughter at the pranks of a lively group of gay young fellows as they came out from a house half-way up the steep street of the little city of Assisi. As they strayed together down the street they sang the love-songs of their country and then a rich, strong voice rang out singing a song in French. "That is Francis Bernardone," one neighbour would say to another, nodding his head, for Francis could sing, not only in his native Italian, but also in French. "He lives like a prince; yet he is but the son of a cloth merchant,--rich though the merchant be." So the neighbours, we are told, were always grumbling about Francis, the wild spendthrift. For young Francis dressed in silk and always in the latest fashion; he threw his pocket-money about with a free hand. He loved beautiful things. He was very sensitive. He would ride a long way round to avoid seeing the dreadful face of a poor leper, and would hold his nose in his cloak as he passed the place where the lepers lived. He was handsome in face, gallant in bearing, idle and careless; a jolly companion, with beautiful courtly manners. His dark chestnut hair curled over his smooth, rather small forehead. His black twinkling eyes looked out under level brows; his nose was straight and finely shaped. When he laughed he showed even, white, closely set teeth between thin and sensitive lips. He wore a short, black beard. His arms were shortish; his fingers long and sensitive. He was lightly built; his skin was delicate. He was witty, and his voice when he spoke was powerful and sonorous, yet sweet-toned and very clear. For him to be the son of a merchant seemed to the gossips of Assisi all wrong--as though a grey goose had hatched out a gorgeous peacock. The song of the revellers passed down the street and died away. The little city of Assisi slept in quietness on the slopes of the Apennine Mountains under the dark clear sky. A few nights later, however, no song of any revellers was heard. Francis Bernardone was very ill with a fever. For week after week his mother nursed him; and each night hardly believed that her son would live to see the light of the next morning. When at last the fever left him, he was so feeble that for weeks he could not rise from his bed. Gradually, however, he got better: as he did so the thing that he desired most of all in the world was to see the lovely country around Assisi;--the mountains, the Umbrian Plain beneath, the blue skies, the dainty flowers. At last one day, with aching limbs and in great feebleness, he crept out of doors. There were the great Apennine Mountains on the side of which his city of Assisi was built. There were the grand rocky peaks pointing to the intense blue sky. There was the steep street with the houses built of stone of a strange, delicate pink colour, as though the light of dawn were always on them. There were the dark green olive trees, and the lovely tendrils of the vines. The gay Italian flowers were blooming. Stretching away in the distance was one of the most beautiful landscapes of the world; the broad Umbrian Plain with its browns and greens melting in the distance into a bluish haze that softened the lines of the distant hills. How he had looked forward to seeing it all, to being in the sunshine, to feeling the breeze on his hot brow! But what--he wondered--had happened to him? He looked at it all, but he felt no joy. It all seemed dead and empty. He turned his back on it and crawled indoors again, sad and sick at heart. He was sure that he would never feel again "the wild joys of living." As Francis went back to his bed he began to think what he should do with the rest of his life. He made up his mind not to waste it any longer: but he did not see clearly what he should do with it. A short time after Francis begged a young nobleman of Assisi, who was just starting to fight in a war, if he might go with him. The nobleman--Walter of Brienne, agreed: so Francis bought splendid trappings for his horse, and a shield, sword and spear. His armour and his horse's harness were more splendid than even those of Walter. So they went clattering together out of Assisi. But he had not gone thirty miles before he was smitten again by fever. After sunset one evening he lay dreamily on his bed when he seemed to hear a voice. "Francis," it asked, "what could benefit thee most, the master or the servant, the rich man or the poor?" "The master and the rich man," answered Francis in surprise. "Why then," went on the voice, "dost thou leave God, Who is the Master and rich, for man, who is the servant and poor?" "Then, Lord, what will Thou that I do?" asked Francis. "Return to thy native town, and it shall be shown thee there what thou shall do," said the voice. He obediently rose and went back to Assisi. He tried to join again in the old revels, but the joy was gone. He went quietly away to a cave on the mountain side and there he lay--as young Mahomet had done, you remember, five centuries before, to wonder what he was to do. Then a vision came to him. All at once like a flash his mind was clear, and his soul was full of joy. He saw the love of Jesus Christ--Who had lived and suffered and died for love of him and of all men;--that love was to rule his own life! He had found his Captain--the Master of his life, the Lord of his service,--Christ. Yet even now he hardly knew what to do. He went home and told his friends as well as he could of the change in his heart. Some smiled rather pityingly and went away saying to one another: "Poor fellow; a little mad, you can see; very sad for his parents!" Others simply laughed and mocked. One day, very lonely and sad at heart, he clambered up the mountain side to an old church just falling into ruin near which, in a cavern, lived a priest. He went into the ruin and fell on his knees. "Francis," a voice in his soul seemed to say, "dost thou see my house going to ruin. Buckle to and repair it." He dashed home, saddled his horse, loaded it with rich garments and rode off to another town to sell the goods. He sold the horse too; trudged back up the hill and gave the fat purse to the priest. "No," said the priest, "I dare not take it unless your father says I may." But his father, who had got rumour of what was going on, came with a band of friends to drag Francis home. Francis fled through the woods to a secret cave, where he lay hidden till at last he made up his mind to face all. He came out and walked straight towards home. Soon the townsmen of Assisi caught sight of him. "A madman," they yelled, throwing stones and sticks at him. All the boys of Assisi came out and hooted and threw pebbles. His father heard the riot and rushed out to join in the fun. Imagine his horror when he found that it was his own son. He yelled with rage, dashed at him and, clutching him by the robe, dragged him along, beating and cursing him. When he got him home he locked him up. But some days later Francis' mother let him out, when his father was absent; and Francis climbed the hill to the Church. The bishop called in Francis and his father to his court to settle the quarrel. "You must give back to your father all that you have," said he. "I will," replied Francis. He took off all his rich garments; and, clad only in a hair-vest, he put the clothes and the purse of money at his father's feet. "Now," he cried, "I have but one father. Henceforth I can say in all truth 'Our Father Who art in heaven.'" A peasant's cloak was given to Francis. He went thus, without home or any money, a wanderer. He went to a monastery and slaved in the kitchen. A friend gave him a tunic, some shoes, and a stick. He went out wandering in Italy again. He loved everybody; he owned nothing; he wanted everyone to know the love of Jesus as he knew and enjoyed that love. There came to Francis many adventures. He was full of joy; he sang even to the birds in the woods. Many men joined him as his disciples in the way of obedience, of poverty, and of love. Men in Italy, in Spain, in Germany and in Britain caught fire from the flame of his simple love and careless courage. Never had Europe seen so clear a vision of the love of Jesus. His followers were called the Lesser Brothers (Friars Minor). All who can should read the story of Francis' life: as for us we are here going simply to listen to what happened to him on a strange and perilous adventure. II About this time people all over Europe were agog with excitement about the Crusades. Four Crusades had come and gone. Richard Coeur-de-Lion was dead. But the passion for fighting against the Saracen was still in the hearts of men. "The tomb of our Lord in Jerusalem is in the hands of the Saracen," the cry went up over all Europe. "Followers of Jesus Christ are slain by the scimitars of Islam. Let us go and wrest the Holy City from the hands of the Saracen." There was also the danger to Europe itself. The Mohammedans ruled in Spain as well as in North Africa, in Egypt and in the Holy Land. So rich men sold their lands to buy horses and armour and to fit themselves and their foot soldiers for the fray. Poor men came armed with pike and helmet and leather jerkin. The knights wore a blood-red cross on their white tunics. In thousands upon thousands, with John of Brienne as their Commander-in-Chief (the brother of that Walter of Brienne with whom, you remember, Francis had started for the wars as a knight), they sailed the Mediterranean to fight for the Cross in Egypt. They attacked Egypt because the Sultan there ruled over Jerusalem and they hoped by defeating him to free Jerusalem at the same time. As Francis saw the knights going off to the Crusades in shining armour with the trappings of their horses all a-glitter and a-jingle, and as he thought of the lands where the people worshipped--not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ--but the "Sultan in the Sky," the Allah of Mahomet, his spirit caught fire within him. Francis had been a soldier and a knight only a few years before. He could not but feel the stir of the Holy War in his veins,--the tingle of the desire to be in it. He heard the stories of the daring of the Crusaders; he heard of a great victory over the Saracens. Francis, indeed, wanted Jesus Christ to conquer men more than he wanted anything on earth; but he knew that men are only conquered by Jesus Christ if their hearts are changed by Him. "Even if the Saracens are put to the sword and overwhelmed, still they are not saved," he said to himself. As he thought these things he felt sure that he heard them calling to him (as the Man from Macedonia had called to St. Paul)--"Come over and help us." St. Paul had brought the story of Jesus Christ to Europe; and had suffered prison and scourging and at last death by the executioner's sword in doing it; must not Francis be ready to take the same message back again from Europe to the Near East and to suffer for it? "I will go," he said, "but to save the Saracens, not to slay them." He was not going out to fight, yet he had in his heart a plan that needed him to be braver and more full of resource than any warrior in the armies of the Crusades. He was as much a Lion-hearted hero as Richard Coeur-de-Lion himself, and was far wiser and indeed more powerful. So he took a close friend, Brother Illuminato, with him and they sailed away together over the seas. They sailed from Italy with Walter of Brienne, with one of the Crusading contingents in many ships. Southeast they voyaged over the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Francis talked with the Crusaders on board; and much that they said and did made him very sad. They squabbled with one another. The knights were arrogant and sneered at the foot soldiers; the men-at-arms did not trust the knights. They had the Cross on their armour; but few of them had in their hearts the spirit of Jesus who was nailed to the Cross. At last the long, yellow coast-line of Egypt was sighted. Behind it lay the minarets and white roofs of a city. They were come to the eastern mouth of the Nile, on which stood the proud city of Damietta. The hot rays of the sun smote down upon the army of the Crusaders as they landed. The sky and the sea were of an intense blue; the sand and the sun glared at one another. Francis would just be able to hear at dawn the cry of the muezzin from the minarets of Damietta, "Come to prayer: there is no God but Allah and Mahomet is his prophet. Come to prayer. Prayer is better than sleep." John of Brienne began to muster his men in battle array to attack the Sultan of Egypt, Malek-Kamel, a name which means "the Perfect Prince." Francis, however, was quite certain that the attempt would be a ghastly failure. He hardly knew what to do. So he talked it over with his friend, Brother Illuminato. "I know they will be defeated in this attempt," he said. "But if I tell them so they will treat me as a madman. On the other hand, if I do not tell them, then my conscience will condemn me. What do you think I ought to do?" "My brother," said Illuminate, "what does the judgment of the world matter to you? If they say you are mad it will not be the first time!" Francis, therefore, went to the Crusaders and warned them. They laughed scornfully. The order for advance was given. The Crusaders charged into battle. Francis was in anguish--tears filled his eyes. The Saracens came out and fell upon the Christian soldiers and slaughtered them. Over 6000 of them either fell under the scimitar or were taken prisoner. The Crusaders were defeated. Francis' mind was now fully made up. He went to a Cardinal, who represented the Pope, with the Crusading Army to ask his leave to go and preach to the Sultan of Egypt. "No," said the Cardinal, "I cannot give you leave to go. I know full well that you would never escape to come back alive. The Sultan of Egypt has offered a reward of gold to any man who will bring to him the head of a Christian. That will be your fate." "Do suffer us to go, we do not fear death," pleaded Francis and Illuminato, again and again. "I do not know what is in your minds in this," said the Cardinal, "but beware--if you go--that your thoughts are always to God." "We only wish to go for great good, if we can work it," replied Francis. "Then if you wish it so much," the Cardinal at last agreed, "you may go." So Francis and Illuminato girded their loins and tightened their sandals and set away from the Crusading Army towards the very camp of the enemy. As he walked Francis sang with his full, loud, clear voice. These were the words that he sang: Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. As they walked along over the sandy waste they saw two small sheep nibbling the sparse grass growing near the Nile. "Be of good cheer," said Francis to Illuminato, smiling, "it is the fulfilling of the Gospel words 'Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.'" Then there appeared some Saracen soldiers. They were, at first, for letting the two unarmed men go by; but, on questioning Francis, they grew angrier and angrier. "Are you deserters from the Christian camp?" they asked. "No," replied Francis. "Are you envoys from the commander come to plead for peace?" "No," was the answer again. "Will you give up the infidel religion and become a true believer and say 'There is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet?'" "No, no," cried Francis, "we are come to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ to the Sultan of Egypt." The eyes of the Saracen soldiers opened with amazement: they could hardly believe their ears. Their faces flushed under their dark skins with anger. "Chain them," they cried to one another. "Beat them--the infidels." Chains were brought and snapped upon the wrists and ankles of Francis and Illuminato. Then they took rods and began to beat the two men--just as Paul and Silas had been beaten eleven centuries earlier. As the rods whistled through the air and came slashing upon their wounded backs Francis kept crying out one word--"Soldan--Soldan." That is "Sultan--Sultan." He thus made them understand that he wished to be taken to their Commander-in-Chief. So they decided to take these strange beings to Malek-Kamel. As the Sultan sat in his pavilion Francis and Illuminato were led in. They bowed and saluted him courteously and Malek-Kamel returned the salute. "Have you come with a message from your Commander?" said the Sultan. "No," replied Francis. "You wish then to become Saracens--worshippers of Allah in the name of Mahomet?" "Nay, nay," answered Francis, "Saracens we will never be. We have come with a message from God; it is a message that will save your life. If you die under the law of Mahomet you are lost. We have come to tell you so: if you listen to us we will show all this to you." The Sultan seems to have been amused and interested rather than angry. "I have bishops and archbishops of my own," he said, "they can tell me all that I wish to know." "Of this we are glad," replied Francis, "send and fetch them, if you will." The Sultan agreed; he sent for eight of his Moslem great men. When they came in he said to them: "See these men, they have come to teach us a new faith. Shall we listen to them?" "Sire," they answered him at once, "thou knowest the law: thou art bound to uphold it and carry it out. By Mahomet who gave us the law to slay infidels, we command thee that their heads be cut off. We will not listen to a word that they say. Off with their heads!" The great men, having given their judgment, solemnly left the presence of the Sultan. The Sultan turned to Francis and Illuminato. "Masters," he said to them, "they have commanded me by Mahomet to have your heads cut off. But I will go against the law, for you have risked your lives to save my immortal soul. Now leave me for the time." The two Christian missionaries were led away; but in a day or two Malek-Kamel called them to his presence again. "If you will stay in my dominions," he said, "I will give you land and other possessions." "Yes," said Francis, "I will stay--on one condition--that you and your people turn to the worship of the true God. See," he went on, "let us put it to the test. Your priests here," and he pointed to some who were standing about, "they will not let me talk with them; will they do something. Have a great fire lighted. I will walk into the fire with them: the result will shew you whose faith is the true one." As Francis suggested this idea the faces of the Moslem leaders were transfigured with horror. They turned and quietly walked away. "I do not think," said the Sultan with a sarcastic smile at their retreating backs, "that any of my priests are ready to face the flames to defend their faith." "Well, I will go _alone_ into the fire," said Francis. "If I am burned--it is because of my sins--if I am protected by God then you will own Him as your God." "No," replied the Sultan, "I will not listen to the idea of such a trial of your life for my soul." But he was astonished beyond measure at the amazing faith of Francis. So Francis withdrew from the presence of the Sultan, who at once sent after him rich and costly presents. "You must take them back," said Francis to the messengers; "I will not take them." "Take them to build your churches and support your priests," said the Sultan through his messengers. But Francis would not take any gift from the Sultan. He left him and went back with Illuminato from the Saracen host to the camp of the Crusaders. As he was leaving the Sultan secretly spoke with Francis and said: "Will you pray for me that I may be guided by an inspiration from above that I may join myself to the religion that is most approved by God?" The Sultan told off a band of his soldiers to go with the two men and to protect them from any molesting till they reached the Crusaders' Camp. There is a legend--though no one now can tell whether it is true or not--that when the Sultan of Egypt lay dying he sent for a disciple of Francis to be with him and pray for him. Whether this was so or not, it is quite clear that Francis had left in the memory of the Sultan such a vision of dauntless faith as he had never seen before or was ever to see again. The Crusaders failed to win Egypt or the Holy Land; but to-day men are going from America and Britain in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi the Christian missionary, to carry to the people in Egypt, in the Holy Land and in all the Near East, the message that Francis took of the love of Jesus Christ. The stories of some of the deeds they have done and are to-day doing, we shall read in later chapters in this book. Book Two: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS CHAPTER V THE ADVENTUROUS SHIP _The Duff_ (Date of Incident, 1796) A ship crept quietly down the River Thames on an ebb-tide. She was slipping out from the river into the estuary when suddenly a challenge rang out across the grey water. "What ship is that?" "_The Duff_," was the answer that came back from the little ship whose captain had passed through a hundred hairsbreadth escapes in his life but was now starting on the strangest adventure of them all. "Whither bound?" came the challenge again from the man-o'-war that had hailed them. "Otaheite," came the answer, which would startle the Government officer. For Tahiti[11] (as we now call it) was many thousands of miles away in the heart of the South Pacific Ocean. Indeed it had only been discovered by Captain Cook twenty-eight years earlier in 1768. _The Duff_ was a small sailing-ship such as one of our American ocean liners of to-day could put into her dining saloon. "What cargo?" The question came again from the officer on the man-o'-war. "Missionaries and provisions," was Captain Wilson's answer. The man-o'-war's captain was puzzled. He did not know what strange beings might be meant by missionaries. He was suspicious. Were they pirates, perhaps, in disguise! We can understand how curious it would sound to him when we remember that (although Wilfrid and Augustine and Columba had gone to Britain as missionaries over a thousand years before _The Duff_ started down the Thames) no cargo of missionaries had ever before sailed from those North Sea Islands of Britain to the savages of other lands like the South Sea Islands. There was a hurried order and a scurry on board the Government ship. A boat was let down into the Thames, and half a dozen sailors tumbled into her and rowed to _The Duff._ What did the officer find? He was met at the rail by a man who had been through scores of adventures, Captain Wilson. The son of the captain of a Newcastle collier, Wilson had grown up a dare-devil sailor boy. He enlisted as a soldier in the American war, became captain of a vessel trading with India, and was then captured and imprisoned by the French in India. He escaped from prison by climbing a great wall, and dropping down forty feet on the other side. He plunged into a river full of alligators, and swam across, escaping the jaws of alligators only to be captured on the other bank by Indians, chained and made to march barefoot for 500 miles. Then he was thrust into Hyder Ali's loathsome prison, starved and loaded with irons, and at last at the end of two years was set free. This was the daring hero who had now undertaken to captain the little _Duff_ across the oceans of the world to the South Seas. With Captain Wilson, the man-o'-war officer found also six carpenters, two shoemakers, two bricklayers, two sailors, two smiths, two weavers, a surgeon, a hatter, a shopkeeper, a cotton factor, a cabinet-maker, a draper, a harness maker, a tin worker, a butcher and four ministers. But they were all of them missionaries. With them were six children. All up and down the English Channel French frigates sailed like hawks waiting to pounce upon their prey; for England was at war with France in those days. So for five weary weeks _The Duff_ anchored in the roadstead of Spithead till, as one of a fleet of fifty-seven vessels, she could sail down the channel and across the Bay of Biscay protected by British men-o'-war. Safely clear of the French cruisers, _The Duff_ held on alone till the cloud-capped mountain-heights of Madeira hove in sight. Across the Atlantic she stood, for the intention was to sail round South America into the Pacific. But on trying to round the Cape Horn _The Duff_ met such violent gales that Captain Wilson turned her in her tracks and headed back across the Atlantic for the Cape of Good Hope. Week after week for thousands and thousands of miles she sailed. She had travelled from Rio de Janiero over 10,000 miles and had only sighted a single sail--a longer journey than any ship had ever sailed without seeing land. "Shall we see the island to-day?" the boys on board would ask Captain Wilson. Day after day he shook his head. But one night he said: "If the wind holds good to-night we shall see an island in the morning, but not the island where we shall stop." "Land ho!" shouted a sailor from the masthead in the morning, and, sure enough, they saw away on the horizon, like a cloud on the edge of the sea, the island of Toobonai.[12] As they passed Toobonai the wind rose and howled through the rigging. It tore at the sail of _The Duff,_ and the great Pacific waves rolled swiftly by, rushing and hissing along the sides of the little ship and tossing her on their foaming crests. But she weathered the storm, and, as the wind dropped, and they looked ahead, they saw, cutting into the sky-line, the mountain tops of Tahiti. It was Saturday night when the island came in sight. Early on the Sunday morning by seven o'clock _The Duff_ swung round under a gentle breeze into Matavai[13] Bay and dropped anchor. But before she could even anchor the whole bay had become alive with Tahitians. They thronged the beach, and, leaping into canoes, sent them skimming across the bay to the ship. Captain Wilson, scanning the canoes swiftly and anxiously, saw with relief that the men were not armed. But the missionaries were startled when the savages climbed up the sides of the ship, and with wondering eyes rolling in their wild heads peered over the rail of the deck. They then leapt on board and began dancing like mad on the deck with their bare feet. From the canoes the Tahitians hauled up pigs, fowl, fish, bananas, and held them for the white men to buy. But Captain Wilson and all his company would not buy on that day--for it was Sunday. The missionaries gathered together on deck to hold their Sunday morning service. The Tahitians stopped dancing and looked on with amazement, as the company of white men with their children knelt to pray and then read from the Bible. The Tahitians could not understand this strange worship, with no god that could be seen. But when the white fathers and mothers and children sang, the savages stood around with wonder and delight on their faces as they listened to the strange and beautiful sounds. But the startling events of the day were not over. For out from the beach came a canoe across the bay, and in it two Swedish sailors, named, like some fishermen of long ago, Peter and Andrew. These white men knew some English, but lived, not as Christians, but as the natives lived. And after them came a great and aged chief named Haamanemane.[14] This great chief went up to the "chief" of the ship, Captain Wilson, and called out to him "Taio."[15] They did not know what this meant, till Peter the Swede explained that Haamanemane wished to be the brother--the troth-friend of Captain Wilson. They were even to change names. Captain Wilson would be called Haamanemane, and Haamanemane would be called Wilson. So Captain Wilson said "Taio," and he and the chief, who was also high priest of the gods of Tahiti, were brothers. Captain Wilson said to Haamanemane, through Peter, who translated each to the other: "We wish to come and live in this island." Haamanemane said that he would speak to the king and queen of Tahiti about it. So he got down again over the side of the vessel into the canoe, and the paddles of his boatman flashed as they swept along over the breakers to the beach to tell the king of the great white chief who had come to visit them. All these things happened on the Sunday. On Tuesday word came that the king and the queen would receive them. So Captain Wilson and all his missionaries got into the whale-boat and pulled for the shore. The natives rushed into the water, seized the boat and hauled her aground out of reach of the great waves. They were startled to see the king and queen come riding on the shoulders of men. Even when one bearer grew tired and the king or the queen must get upon another, they were not allowed to touch the ground. The reason was that all the land they touched became their own, and the people carried them about so that they themselves might not lose their land and houses by the king and queen touching them. So at that place, under the palm trees of Tahiti, with the beating of the surf on the shore before them, and the great mountain forests behind, these brown islanders of the South Seas gave a part of their land to Captain Wilson and his men that they might live there. The sons of the wild men of the North Sea Islands had met their first great adventure in bringing to the men of the South Sea Islands the story of the love of the Father of all. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 11: Ta-hee-tee.] [Footnote 12: Too-b[=o]-n[=a]-ee.] [Footnote 13: M[=a]-t[)a]-v[)a]-ee.] [Footnote 14: Haa-m[)u]-n[=a]y-m[)a]-này.] [Footnote 15: Ta-ce-[=o].] CHAPTER VI THE ISLAND BEACON FIRES _Papeiha_[16] (Date of Incident, 1823) The edge of the sea was just beginning to gleam with the gold of the rising sun. The captain of a little ship, that tossed and rolled on the tumbling ocean, looked out anxiously over the bow. Around him everywhere was the wild waste of the Pacific Ocean. Through day after day he had tacked and veered, baffled by contrary winds. Now, with little food left in the ship, starvation on the open ocean stared them in the face. They were searching for an island of which they had heard, but which they had never seen. The captain searched the horizon again, but he saw nothing, except that ahead of him, on the sky-line to the S.W., great clouds had gathered. He turned round and went to the master-missionary--the hero and explorer and shipbuilder, John Williams, saying: "We must give up the search or we shall all be starved." John Williams knew that this was true; yet he hated the thought of going back. He was a scout exploring at the head of God's navy. He had left his home in London and with his young wife had sailed across the world to the South Seas to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people there. He was living on the island of Raiatea: but as he himself said, "I cannot be confined within the limits of a single reef." He wanted to pass on the torch to other islands. So he was now on this voyage of discovery. It was seven o'clock when the captain told John Williams that they must give up the search. "In an hour's time," said Williams, "we will turn back if we have not sighted Rarotonga." So they sailed on. The sun climbed the sky, the cool dawn was giving way to the heat of day. "Go up the mast and look ahead," said Williams to a South Sea Island native. Then he paced the deck, hoping to hear the cry of "Land," but nothing could the native see. "Go up again," cried Williams a little later. And again there was nothing. Four times the man climbed the mast, and four times he reported only sea and sky and cloud. Gradually the sun's heat had gathered up the great mountains of cloud, and the sky was clear to the edge of the ocean. Then there came a sudden cry from the masthead: "Teie teie, taua fenua, nei!"[17] "Here, here is the land we have been seeking." All rushed to the bows. As the ship sailed on and they came nearer, they saw a lovely island. Mountains, towering peak on peak, with deep green valleys between brown rocky heights hung with vines, and the great ocean breakers booming in one white line of foaming surf on the reef of living coral, made it look like a vision of fairyland. They had discovered Rarotonga. But what of the people of the island? They were said to be cannibals. Would they receive the missionaries with clubs and spears? Who would go ashore? On board the ship were brown South Sea men from the island where John Williams lived. They had burned their idols, and now they too were missionaries of Jesus Christ. Their leader was a fearless young man, Papeiha. He was so daring that once, when everybody else was afraid to go from the ship to a cannibal island, he bound his Bible in his loin cloth, tied them to the top of his head, and swam ashore, defying the sharks, and unafraid of the still more cruel islanders. So at Rarotonga, when the call came, "Who will go ashore?" and a canoe was let down from the ship's side, two men, Papeiha and his friend Vahineino,[18] leapt into it. Those two fearlessly paddled towards the shore, which was now one brown stretch of Rarotongans crowded together to see this strange ship with wings that had sailed from over the sea's edge. The Rarotongans seemed friendly; so Papeiha and Vahineino, who knew the ways of the water from babyhood and could swim before they could walk, waited for a great Pacific breaker, and then swept in on her foaming crest. The canoe grated on the shore. They walked up the beach under the shade of a grove of trees and said to the Rarotongan king, Makea,[19] and his people: "We have come to tell you that many of the islands of the sea have burned their idols. Once we in those islands pierced each other with spears and beat each other to death with clubs; we brutally treated our women, and the children taken in war were strung together by their ears like fish on a line. To-day we come--before you have destroyed each other altogether in your wars--to tell you of the great God, our Father, who through His Son Jesus Christ has taught us how to live as brothers." King Makea said he was pleased to hear these things, and came in his canoe to the ship to take the other native teachers on shore with him. The ship stood off for the night, for the ocean there is too deep for anchorage. Papeiha and his brown friends, with their wives, went ashore. Night fell, and they were preparing to sleep, when, above the thud and hiss of the waves they heard the noise of approaching crowds. The footsteps and the talking came nearer, while the little group of Christians listened intently. At last a chief, carried by his warriors, came near. He was the fiercest and most powerful chief on the island. When he came close to Papeiha and his friends, the chief demanded that the wife of one of the Christian teachers should be given to him, so that he might take her away with him as his twentieth wife. The teachers argued with the chief, the woman wept; but he ordered the woman to be seized and taken off. She resisted, as did the others. Their clothes were torn to tatters by the ferocious Rarotongans. All would have been over with the Christians, had not Tapairu,[20] a brave Rarotongan woman and the cousin of the king, opposed the chiefs and even fought with her hands to save the teacher's wife. At last the fierce chief gave in, and Papeiha and his friends, before the sun had risen, hurried to the beach, leapt into their canoe and paddled swiftly to the ship. "We must wait and come to this island another day when the people are more friendly," said every one--except Papeiha, who never would turn back. "Let me stay with them," said he. He knew that he might be slain and eaten by the savage cannibals on the island. But without fuss, leaving everything he had upon the ship except his clothes and his native Testament, he dropped into his canoe, seized the paddle, and with swift, strong strokes that never faltered, drove the canoe skimming over the rolling waves till it leapt to the summit of a breaking wave and ground upon the shore. The savages came jostling and waving spears and clubs as they crowded round him. "Let us take him to Makea." So Papeiha was led to the chief. As he walked he heard them shouting to one another, "I'll have his hat," "I'll have his jacket," "I'll have his shirt." At length he reached the chief, who looked and said, "Speak to us, O man, that we may know why you persist in coming." "I come," he answered, looking round on all the people, "so that you may all learn of the true God, and that you, like all the people in the far-off islands of the sea, may take your gods made of wood, of birds' feathers and of cloth, and burn them." A roar of anger and horror burst from the people. "What!" they cried, "burn the gods! What gods shall we then have? What shall we do without the gods?" They were angry, but there was something in the bold face of Papeiha that kept them from slaying him. They allowed him to stay, and did not kill him. Soon after this, Papeiha one day heard shrieking and shouting and wild roars as of men in a frenzy. He saw crowds of people round the gods offering food to them; the priests with faces blackened with charcoal and with bodies painted with stripes of red and yellow, the warriors with great waving head-dresses of birds' feathers and white sea-shells. Papeiha, without taking any thought of the peril that he rushed into, went into the midst of the people and said: "Why do you act so foolishly? Why do you take a log of wood and carve it, and then offer it food? It is only fit to be burned. Some day soon you shall make these very gods fuel for fire." So with the companion who came to help him, brown Papeiha went in and out of the island just as brave Paul went in and out in the island of Cyprus and Wilfrid in Britain. He would take his stand, now under a grove of bananas on a great stone, and now in a village, where the people from the huts gathered round, and again on the beach, where he would lift up his voice above the boom of the ocean breakers to tell the story of Jesus. And some of those degraded savages became Christians. One day he was surprised to see one of the priests come to him leading his ten-year-old boy. "Take care of my boy," said the priest. "I am going to burn my god, and I do not want my god's anger to hurt the boy. Ask your God to protect him." So the priest went home. Next morning quite early, before the heat of the sun was great, Papeiha looked out and saw the priest tottering along with bent and aching shoulders. On his back was his cumbrous wooden god. Behind the priest came a furious crowd, waving their arms and crying out: "Madman, madman, the god will kill you." "You may shout," answered the priest, "but you will not change me. I am going to worship Jehovah, the God of Papeiha." And with that he threw down the god at the feet of the teachers. One of them ran and brought a saw, and first cut off its head and then sawed it into logs. Some of the Rarotongans rushed away in dread. Others--even some of the newly converted Christians--hid in the bush and peered through the leaves to see what would happen. Papeiha lit a fire; the logs were thrown on; the first Rarotongan idol was burned. "You will die," cried the priests of the fallen god. But to show that the god was just a log of wood, the teachers took a bunch of bananas, placed them on the ashes where the fire had died down, and roasted them. Then they sat down and ate the bananas. The watching, awe-struck people looked to see the teachers fall dead, but nothing happened. The islanders then began to wonder whether, after all, the God of Papeiha was not the true God. Within a year they had got together hundreds of their wooden idols, and had burned them in enormous bonfires which flamed on the beach and lighted up the dark background of trees. Those bonfires could be seen far out across the Pacific Ocean, like a beacon light. To-day the flames of love which Papeiha bravely lighted, through perils by water and club and cannibal feast, have shone right across the ocean, and some of the grandchildren of those very Rarotongans who were cannibals when Papeiha went there, have sailed away, as we shall see later on, to preach Papeiha's gospel of the love of God to the far-off cannibal Papuans on the steaming shores of New Guinea. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 16: P[)a]-pay-ee-h[)a].] [Footnote 17: Tay-ee-ay: ta-oo-a: fay-noo-[)a]: nay-ee.] [Footnote 18: Va-hee-nay-ee-n[=o].] [Footnote 19: M[)a]-kay-[)a].] [Footnote 20: T[)a]-p[=a]-ee-roo.] CHAPTER VII THE DAYBREAK CALL _John Williams_ (Date of Incident, 1839) Two men leaned on the rail of the brig _Camden_ as she swept slowly along the southern side of the Island of Erromanga in the Western Pacific. A steady breeze filled her sails. The sea heaved in long, silky billows. The red glow of the rising sun was changing to the full, clear light of morning. The men, as they talked, scanned the coast-line closely. There was the grey, stone-covered beach, and, behind the beach, the dense bush and the waving fronds of palms. Behind the palms rose the volcanic hills of the island. The elder man straightened himself and looked keenly to the bay from which a canoe was swiftly gliding. He was a broad, sturdy man, with thick brown hair over keen watchful eyes. His open look was fearless and winning. His hands, which grasped the rail, had both the strength and the skill of the trained mechanic and the writer. For John Williams could build a ship, make a boat and sail them both against any man in all the Pacific. He could work with his hammer at the forge in the morning, make a table at his joiner's bench in the afternoon, preach a powerful sermon in the evening, and write a chapter of the most thrilling of books on missionary travel through the night. Yet next morning would see him in his ship, with her sails spread, moving out into the open Pacific, bound for a distant island. "It is strange," Williams was saying to his friend Mr. Cunningham, "but I have not slept all through the night." How came it that this man, who for over twenty years had faced tempests by sea, who had never flinched before perils from savage men and from fever, on the shores of a hundred islands in the South Seas, should stay awake all night as his ship skirted the strange island of Erromanga? It was because, having lived for all those years among the coral islands of the brown Polynesians of the Eastern Pacific, he was now sailing to the New Hebrides, where the fierce black cannibal islanders of the Western Pacific slew one another. As he thought of the fierce men of Erromanga he thought of the waving forests of brown hands he had seen, the shouts of "Come back again to us!" that he had heard as he left his own islands. He knew how those people loved him in the Samoan Islands, but he could not rest while others lay far off who had never heard the story of Jesus. "I cannot be content," he said, "within the narrow limits of a single reef." But the black islanders were wild men who covered their dark faces with soot and painted their lips with flaming red, yet their cruel hearts were blacker than their faces, and their anger more fiery than their scarlet lips. They were treacherous and violent savages who would smash a skull by one blow with a great club; or leaping on a man from behind, would cut through his spine with a single stroke of their tomahawks, and then drag him off to their cannibal oven. John Williams cared so much for his work of telling the islanders about God their Father, that he lay awake wondering how he could carry it on among these wild people. It never crossed his mind that he should hold back to save himself from danger. It was for this work that he had crossed the world. "Let down the whale-boat." His voice rang out without a tremor of fear. His eyes were on the canoe in which three black Erromangans were paddling across the bay. As the boat touched the water, he and the crew of four dropped into her, with Captain Morgan and two friends, Harris and Cunningham. The oars dipped and flashed in the morning sun as the whale-boat flew along towards the canoe. When they reached it, Williams spoke in the dialects of his other islands, but none could the three savages in the canoe understand. So he gave them some beads and fish-hooks as a present to show that he was a friend and again his boat shot away toward the beach. They pulled to a creek where a brook ran down in a lovely valley between two mountains. On the beach stood some Erromangan natives, with their eyes (half fierce, half frightened) looking out under their matted jungle of hair. Picking up a bucket from the boat, Williams held it out to the chief and made signs to show that he wished for water from the brook. The chief took the bucket, and, turning, ran up the beach and disappeared. For a quarter of an hour they waited; and for half an hour. At last, when the sun was now high in the sky, the chief returned with the water. Williams drank from the water to show his friendliness. Then his friend, Harris, swinging himself over the side of the boat, waded ashore through the cool, sparkling, shallow water and sat down. The natives ran away, but soon came back with cocoa-nuts and opened them for him to drink. * * * * * "See," said Williams, "there are boys playing on the beach; that is a good sign." "Yes," answered Captain Morgan, "but there are no women, and when the savages mean mischief they send their women away." Williams now waded ashore and Cunningham followed him. Captain Morgan stopped to throw out the anchor of his little boat and then stepped out and went ashore, leaving his crew of four brown islanders resting on their oars. Williams and his two companions scrambled up the stony beach over the grey stones and boulders alongside the tumbling brook for over a hundred yards. Turning to the right they were lost to sight from the water-edge. Captain Morgan was just following them when he heard a terrified yell from the crew in the boat. Williams and his friends had gone into the bush, Harris in front, Cunningham next, and Williams last. Suddenly Harris, who had disappeared in the bush, rushed out followed by yelling savages with clubs. Harris rushed down the bank of the brook, stumbled, and fell in. The water dashed over him, and the Erromangans, with the red fury of slaughter in their eyes, leapt in and beat in his skull with clubs. Cunningham, with a native at his heels with lifted club, stooped, picked up a great pebble and hurled it full at the savage who was pursuing him. The man was stunned. Turning again, Cunningham leapt safely into the boat. Williams, leaving the brook, had rushed down the beach to leap into the sea. Reaching the edge of the water, where the beach falls steeply into the sea, he slipped on a pebble and fell into the water. Cunningham, from the boat, hurled stones at the natives rushing at Williams, who lay prostrate in the water with a savage over him with uplifted club. The club fell, and other Erromangans, rushing in, beat him with their clubs and shot their arrows into him until the ripples of the beach ran red with his blood. The hero who had carried the flaming torch of peace on earth to the savages on scores of islands across the great Pacific Ocean was dead--the first martyr of Erromanga. * * * * * When _The Camden_ sailed back to Samoa, scores of canoes put out to meet her. A brown Samoan guided the first canoe. "Missi William," he shouted. "He is dead," came the answer. The man stood as though stunned. He dropped his paddle; he drooped his head, and great tears welled out from the eyes of this dark islander and ran down his cheeks. The news spread like wildfire over the islands, and from all directions came the natives crying in multitudes: "Aue,[21] Williamu, Aue, Tama!" (Alas, Williams, Alas, our Father!) And the chief Malietoa,[22] coming into the presence of Mrs. Williams, cried: "Alas, Williamu, Williamu, our father, our father! He has turned his face from us! We shall never see him more! He that brought us the good word of Salvation is gone! O cruel heathen, they know not what they did! How great a man they have destroyed!" John Williams, the torch-bearer of the Pacific, whom the brown men loved, the great pioneer, who dared death on the grey beach of Erromanga, sounds a morning bugle-call to us, a Reveillè to our slumbering camps: "The daybreak call, Hark how loud and clear I hear it sound; Swift to your places, swift to the head of the army, Pioneers, O Pioneers!"[23] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 21: A-oo-ay.] [Footnote 22: M[)a]-lee-ay-to-[)a].] [Footnote 23: Walt Whitman.] CHAPTER VIII KAPIOLANI, THE HEROINE OF HAWAII _Kapiolani_ (Date of Incident, 1824) "Pélé[24] the all-terrible, the fire goddess, will hurl her thunder and her stones, and will slay you," cried the angry priests of Hawaii.[25] "You no longer pay your sacrifices to her. Once you gave her hundreds of hogs, but now you give nothing. You worship the new God Jehovah. She, the great Pélé, will come upon you, she and the Husband of Thunder, with the Fire-Thruster, and the Red-Fire Cloud-Queen, they will destroy you altogether." The listening Hawaiians shuddered as they saw the shaggy priests calling down the anger of Pélé. One of the priests was a gigantic man over six feet five inches high, whose strength was so terrible that he could leap at his victims and break their bones by his embrace. Away there in the volcanic island[26] in the centre of the greatest ocean in the world--the Pacific Ocean--they had always as children been taught to fear the great goddess. They were Christians; but they had only been Christians for a short time, and they still trembled at the name of the goddess Pélé, who lived up in the mountains in the boiling crater of the fiery volcano, and ruled their island. Their fathers had told them how she would get angry, and would pour out red-hot rivers of molten stone that would eat up all the trees and people and run hissing into the Pacific Ocean. There to that day was that river of stone--a long tongue of cold, hard lava--stretching down to the shore of the island, and here across the trees on the mountain-top could be seen, even now, the smoke of her anger. Perhaps, after all, Pélé was greater than Jehovah--she was certainly terrible--and she was very near! "If you do not offer fire to her, as you used to do," the priests went on, "she will pour down her fire into the sea and kill all your fish. She will fill up your fishing grounds with the pahoehoe[27] (lava), and you will starve. Great is Pélé and greatly to be feared." The priests were angry because the preaching of the missionaries had led many away from the worship of Pélé which, of course, meant fewer hogs for themselves; and now the whole nation on Hawaii, that volcanic island of the seas, seemed to be deserting her. The people began to waver under the threats, but a brown-faced woman, with strong, fearless eyes that looked out with scorn on Pélé priests, was not to be terrified. "It is Kapiolani,[28] the chieftainess," murmured the people to one another. "She is Christian; will she forsake Jehovah and return to Pélé?" Only four years before this, Kapiolani had--according to the custom of the Hawaiian chieftainesses, married many husbands, and she had given way to drinking habits. Then she had become a Christian, giving up her drinking and sending away all her husbands save one. She had thrown away her idols and now taught the people in their huts the story of Christ. "Pélé is nought," she declared, "I will go to Kilawea,[29] the mountain of the fires where the smoke and stones go up, and Pélé shall not touch me. My God, Jehovah, made the mountain and the fires within it too, as He made us all." So it was noised through the island that Kapiolani, the queenly, would defy Pélé the goddess. The priests threatened her with awful torments of fire from the goddess; her people pleaded with her not to dare the fires of Kilawea. But Kapiolani pressed on, and eighty of her people made up their minds to go with her. She climbed the mountain paths, through lovely valleys hung with trees, up and up to where the hard rocky lava-river cut the feet of those who walked upon it. Day by day they asked her to go back, and always she answered, "If I am destroyed you may believe in Pélé; if I live you must all believe in the true God, Jehovah." As she drew nearer to the crater she saw the great cloud of smoke that came up from the volcano and felt the heat of its awful fires. But she did not draw back. As she climbed upward she saw by the side of the path low bushes, and on them beautiful red and yellow berries, growing in clusters. The berries were like large currants. "It is chelo,"[30] said the priests, "it is Pélé's berry. You must not touch them unless we ask her. She will breathe fire on you." Kapiolani broke off a branch from one of the bushes regardless of the horrified faces of the priests. And she ate the berries, without stopping to ask the goddess for her permission. She carried a branch of the berries in her hand. If she had told them what she was going to do they would have been frenzied with fear and horror. Up she climbed until the full terrors of the boiling crater of Kilawea burst on her sight. Before her an immense gulf yawned in the shape of the crescent moon, eight miles in circumference and over a thousand feet deep. Down in the smoking hollow, hundreds of feet beneath her, a lake of fiery lava rolled in flaming waves against precipices of rock. This ever-moving lake of molten fire is called: "The House of Everlasting Burning." This surging lake was dotted with tiny mountain islets, and, from the tops of their little peaks, pyramids of flame blazed and columns of grey smoke went up. From some of these little islands streams of blazing lava rolled down into the lake of fire. The air was filled with the roar of the furnaces of flame. Even the fearless Kapiolani stood in awe as she looked. But she did not flinch, though here and there, as she walked, the crust of the lava cracked under her feet and the ground was hot with hidden fire. She came to the very edge of the crater. To come so far without offering hogs and fish to the fiery goddess was in itself enough to bring a fiery river of molten lava upon her. Kapiolani offered nothing save defiance. Audacity, they thought, could go no further. Here, a priestess of Pélé came, and raising her hands in threat denounced death on the head of Kapiolani if she came further. Kapiolani pulled from her robe a book. In it--for it was her New Testament--she read to the priestess of the one true, loving Father-God. Then Kapiolani did a thing at which the very limbs of those who watched trembled and shivered. She went to the edge of the crater and stepped over onto a jutting rock and let herself down and down toward the sulphurous burning lake. The ground cracked under her feet and sulphurous steam hissed through crevices in the rock, as though the demons of Pélé fumed in their frenzy. Hundreds of staring, wondering eyes followed her, fascinated and yet horrified. Then she stood on a ledge of rock, and, offering up prayer and praise to the God of all, Who made the volcano and Who made her, she cast the Pélé berries into the lake, and sent stone after stone down into the flaming lava. It was the most awful insult that could be offered to Pélé! Now surely she would leap up in fiery anger, and, with a hail of burning stones, consume Kapiolani. But nothing happened; and Kapiolani, turning, climbed the steep ascent of the crater edge and at last stood again unharmed among her people. She spoke to her people, telling them again that Jehovah made the fires. She called on them all to sing to His praise and, for the first time, there rang across the crater of Kilawea the song of Christians. The power of the priests was gone, and from that hour the people all over that island who had trembled and hesitated between Pélé and Christ turned to the worship of our Lord Jesus, the Son of God the Father Almighty. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 24: Pay-lay.] [Footnote 25: Hah-wye-ee.] [Footnote 26: Discovered by Captain Cook in 1778. The first Christian missionaries landed in 1819. Now the island is ruled by the United States of America.] [Footnote 27: Pa-h[=o]-è-h[=o]-è.] [Footnote 28: Kah-pèe-[=o]-l[)a]-nèe. She was high female chief, in her own right, of a large district.] [Footnote 29: Kil-a-wee-[)a]. The greatest active volcano in the world.] [Footnote 30: Chay-lo.] CHAPTER IX THE CANOE OF ADVENTURE _Elikana_ (Date of Incident, 1861) "I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care." I Manihiki Island looked like a tiny anchored canoe far away across the Pacific, as Elikana glanced back from his place at the tiller. He sang, meantime, quietly to himself an air that still rang in his ears, the tune that he and his brother islanders had sung in praise of the Power and Providence of God at the services on Manihiki. For the Christian people of the Penrhyn group of South Sea Islands had come together in April, 1861, for their yearly meeting, paddling from the different quarters in their canoes through the white surge of the breakers that thunder day and night round the island. Elikana looked ahead to where his own island of Rakahanga grew clearer every moment on the sky-line ahead of them, though each time his craft dropped into the trough of the sea between the green curves of the league-long ocean rollers the island was lost from sight. He and his six companions were sailing back over the thirty miles between Manihiki and Rakahanga, two of the many little lonely ocean islands that stud the Pacific like stars. They sailed a strange craft, for it cannot be called raft or canoe or hut. It was all these and yet was neither. Two canoes, forty-eight feet long, sailed side by side. Between the canoes were spars, stretching across from one to the other, lashed to each boat and making a platform between them six feet wide. On this was built a hut, roofed with the beautiful braided leaves of the cocoa-nut palm. Overhead stretched the infinite sky. Underneath lay thousands of fathoms of blue-green ocean, whose cold, hidden deeps among the mountains and valleys of the awful ocean under-world held strange goblin fish-shapes. And on the surface this hut of leaves and bamboo swung dizzily between sky and ocean on the frail canoes. And in the canoes and the hut were six brown Rakahangan men, two women, and a chubby, dark-eyed child, who sat contented and tired, being lapped to sleep by the swaying waters. Above them the great sail made of matting of fibre, strained in the breeze that drove them nearer to the haven where they would be. Already they could see the gleam of the Rakahanga beach with the rim of silver where the waves broke into foam. Then the breeze dropped. The fibre-sail flapped uneasily against the mast, while the two little canvas sails hung loosely, as the wind, with little warning, swung round, and smiting them in the face began to drive them back into the ocean again. Elikana and his friends knew the sea almost like fish, from the time they were babies. And they were little troubled by the turn of the breeze, save that it would delay their homecoming. They tried in vain to make headway. Slowly, but surely they were driven back from land, till they could see that there was no other thing but just to turn about and let her run back to Manihiki. In the canoes were enough cocoa-nuts to feed them for days if need be, and two large calabashes of water. The swift night fell, but the wind held strong, and one man sat at the tiller while two others baled out the water that leaked into the canoes. They kept a keen watch, expecting to sight Manihiki; but when the dawn flashed out of the sky in the East, where the island should have been, there was neither Manihiki nor any other land at all. They had no chart nor compass; north and south and east and west stretched the wastes of the Pacific for hundreds of leagues. Only here and there in the ocean, and all unseen to them, like little groups of mushrooms on a limitless prairie, lay groups of islets. They might, indeed, sail for a year without ever sighting any land; and one storm-driven wave of the great ocean could smite their little egg-shell craft to the bottom of the sea. They gathered together in the hut and with anxious faces talked of what they might do. They knew that far off to the southwest lay the islands of Samoa, and Rarotonga. So they set the bows of their craft southward. Morning grew to blazing noon and fell to evening and night, and nothing did they see save the glittering sparkling waters of the uncharted ocean, cut here and there by the cruel fin of a waiting shark. It was Saturday when they started; and night fell seven times while their wonderful hut-boat crept southward along the water, till the following Friday. Then the wind changed, and, springing up from the south, drove them wearily back once more in their tracks, and then bore them eastward. For another week they drove before the breeze, feeding on the cocoa-nuts. But the water in the calabashes was gone. Then on the morning of the second Friday, the fourteenth day of their sea-wanderings, just when the sun in mid heaven was blazing its noon-heat upon them and most of the little crew were lying under the shade of the hut and the sail to doze away the hours of tedious hunger, they heard the cry of "Land!" and leaping to their feet gazed ahead at the welcome sight. With sail and paddle they urged the craft on toward the island. Then night fell, and with it squalls of wind and rain came and buffeted them till they had to forsake the paddles for the bailing-vessels to keep the boat afloat. Taking down the sails they spread them flat to catch the pouring rain, and then poured this precious fresh water--true water of life to them--into their calabashes. But when morning came no land could be seen anywhere. It was as though the island had been a land of enchantment and mirage, and now had faded away. Yet hope sprang in them erect and glad next day when land was sighted again; but the sea and the wind, as though driven by the spirits of contrariness, smote them back. For two more days they guided the canoe with the tiller and tried to set her in one steady direction. Then, tired and out of heart, after sixteen days of ceaseless and useless effort, they gave it up and let her drift, for the winds and currents to take her where they would. At night each man stood in his canoe almost starving and parched with thirst, with aching back, stooping to dip the water from the canoe and rising to pour it over the side. For hour after hour, while the calm moon slowly climbed the sky, each slaved at his dull task. Lulled by the heave and fall of the long-backed rollers as they slid under the keels of the canoes, the men nearly dropped asleep where they stood. The quiet waters crooned to them like a mother singing an old lullaby--crooned and called, till a voice deep within them said, "It is better to lie down and sleep and die than to live and fight and starve." Then a moan from the sleeping child, or a sight of a streaming ray of moonlight on the face of its mother would send that nameless Voice shivering back to its deep hiding-place--and the man would stoop and bail again. Each evening as it fell saw their anxious eyes looking west and north and south for land, and always there was only the weary waste of waters. And as the sun rose, they hardly dared open their eyes to the unbroken rim of blue-grey that circled them like a steel prison. They saw the thin edge of the moon grow to full blaze and then fade to a corn sickle again as days and nights grew to weeks and a whole month had passed. Every morning, as the pearl-grey sea turned to pink and then to gleaming blue, they knelt on the raft between the canoes and turned their faces up to their Father in prayer, and never did the sun sink behind the rim of waters without the sound of their voices rising into the limitless sky with thanks for safe-keeping. Slowly the pile of cocoa-nuts lessened. Each one of them with its sweet milk and flesh was more precious to them than a golden chalice set with rubies. The drops of milk that dripped from them were more than ropes of pearls. At last eight Sundays had followed one upon another; and now at the end of the day there was only the half of one cocoa-nut remaining. When that was gone--all would be over. So they knelt down under the cloudless sky on an evening calm and beautiful. They were on that invisible line in the Great Pacific where the day ends and begins. Those seven on the tiny craft were, indeed, we cannot but believe, the last worshippers in all the great world-house of God as Sunday drew to its end just where they were. Was it to be the last time that they would pray to God in this life? Prayer ended; night was falling. Elikana the leader, who had kept their spirits from utterly failing, stood up and gazed out with great anxious eyes before the last light should fail. "Look, there upon the edge of the sea where the sun sets. Is it--" He could hardly dare to believe that it was not the mirage of his weary brain. But one and another and then all peered out through the swiftly waning light and saw that indeed it was land. Then a squall of wind sprang up, blowing them away from the land. Was this last hope, by a fine ecstasy of torture, to be dangled before them and then snatched away? But with the danger came the help; with the wind came the rain; cool, sweet, refreshing, life-giving water. Then the squall of wind dropped and changed. They hoisted the one sail that had not blown to tatters, and drove for land. Yet their most awful danger still lay before them. The roar of the breakers on the cruel coral reef caught their ears. But there was nothing for it but to risk the peril. They were among the breakers which caught and tossed them on like eggshells. The scourge of the surf swept them; a woman, a man--even the child, were torn from them and ground on the ghastly teeth of the coral. Five were swept over with the craft into the still, blue lagoon, and landing they fell prone upon the shore, just breathing and no more, after the giant buffeting of the thundering rollers, following the long, slow starvation of their wonderful journey in the hut on the canoes among "the waters of the wondrous isles." "Wake: the silver dusk returning Up the beach of darkness brims, And the ship of sunrise burning Strands upon the eastern rims." II Thrown up by the ocean in the darkness like driftwood, Elikana and his companions lay on the grey shore. Against the dim light of the stars and beyond the beach of darkness they could see the fronds of the palms waving. The five survivors were starving, and the green cocoa-nuts hung above them, filled with food and drink. But their bodies, broken and tormented as they were by hunger and the battering breakers, refused even to rise and climb for the food that meant life. So they lay there, as though dead. * * * * * Over the ridge of the beach came a man. His pale copper skin shone in the fresh sunlight of the morning. His quick black eyes were caught by the sight of torn clothing hanging on a bush. Moving swiftly down the beach of pounded coral, he saw a man lying with arms thrown out, face downward. Turning the body over Faivaatala[31] found that the man was dead. Taking the body in his arms he staggered with it up the beach, and placed it under the shade of the trees. Returning he found the living five. Their gaunt bodies and the broken craft on the shore told him without words the story of their long drifting over the wilderness of the waters. Without stopping to waste words in empty sympathy with starving men, Faivaatala ran to the nearest cocoa-nut tree and, climbing it, threw down luscious nuts. Those below quickly knocked off the tops, drank deep draughts of the cool milk and then ate. Coming down again, Faivaatala kindled a fire and soon had some fish grilling for these strange wanderers thrown up on the tiny islet. They had no time to thank him before he ran off and swiftly paddled to Motutala, the island where he lived, to tell the story of these strange castaways. He came back with other helpers in canoes, and the five getting aboard were swiftly paddled to Motutala. As the canoes skimmed over the surface of the great lagoon Elikana and his friends could see, spread out in a great semi-circle that stretched to the horizon, the long low coral islets crowned with palms which form part of the Ellice Islands. The islanders, men, women, and children, ran down the beach to see the newcomers and soon had set apart huts for them and made them welcome. Elikana gathered them round him, and began to tell them about the love of Jesus and the protecting care of God the Father. It all seemed strange to them, but quickly they learned from him, and he began to teach them and their children. This went on for four months, till one day Elikana said: "I must go away and learn more so that I can teach you more." But they had become so fond of Elikana that they said: "No, you must not leave us," and it was only when he promised to come back with another teacher to help him, that they could bring themselves to part with him. So when a ship came to the island to trade in cocoa-nuts Elikana went aboard and sailed to Samoa to the London Missionary Society's training college there at Malua. * * * * * "A ship! A ship!" The cry was taken up through the island, and the people running down the beach saw a large sailing vessel. Boats put down and sculls flashed as sailors pulled swiftly to the shore. They landed and the people gathered round to see and to hear what they would say. "Come onto our ship," said these men, who had sailed there from Peru, "and we will show you how you can be rich with many knives and much calico." But the islanders shook their heads and said they would stay where they were. Then a wicked white man named Tom Rose, who lived on the island and knew how much the people were looking forward to the day when Elikana would come back to teach them, went to the traders and whispered what he knew to them. So the Peruvian traders, with craft shining in their eyes, turned again to the islanders and said: "If you will come with us, we will take you where you will be taught all that men can know about God." At this the islanders broke out into glad cries and speaking to one another said: "Let us go and learn these things." The day came for sailing, and as the sun rose, hundreds of brown feet were running to the beach, children dancing with excitement, women saying "Goodbye" to their husbands--men, who for the first time in all their lives were to leave their tiny islet for the wonderful world beyond the ocean. So two hundred of them went on board. The sails were hoisted and they went away never to return; sailed away not to learn of Jesus, but to the sting of the lash and the shattering bullet, the bondage of the plantations, and to death at the hands of those merciless beasts of prey, the Peruvian slavers. * * * * * Years passed and a little fifty-ton trading vessel came to anchor outside the reef. One man and then another and another got down into the little boat and pulled for the shore. Elikana had returned. The women and children ran down to meet him--but few men were there, for nearly all had gone. "Where is this one? Where is the other?" cried Elikana, with sad face as he looked around on them. "Gone, gone," came the answer; "carried away by the man-stealing ships." Elikana turned to the white missionary who had come with him, to ask what they could do. "We will leave Joane and his wife here," replied Mr. Murray. * * * * * So a teacher from Samoa stayed there and taught the people, while Elikana went to begin work in an island near by. To-day a white lady missionary has gone to live in the Ellice Islands, and the people are Christians, and no slave-trader can come to snatch them away. So there sailed over the waters of the wondrous isles first the boat of sunrise and then the ship of darkness, and last of all the ship of the Peace of God. The ship of darkness had seemed for a time to conquer, but her day is now over; and to-day on that beach, as the sunlight brims over the edge of the sea, and a new Lord's Day dawns, you may hear the islanders sing their praise to the Light of the World, Who shines upon them and keeps them safe. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 31: F[)a]-ee-v[)a] t[)a] l[=a].] CHAPTER X THE ARROWS OF SANTA CRUZ _Bishop Patteson_ (Date of Incident--August 15th, 1864) The brown crew of _The Southern Cross_ breathed freely again as the anchor swung into place and the schooner began to nose her way out into the open Pacific. They were hardened to dangers, but the Island of Tawny Cannibals had strained their nerve, by its hourly perils from club and flying arrow. The men were glad to see their ship's bows plunge freely again through the long-backed rollers. As they set her course to the Island of Santa Cruz the crew talked together of the men of the island they had left. In his cabin sat a great bronzed bearded man writing a letter to his own people far away on the other side of the world. Here are the very words that he wrote as he told the story of one of the dangers through which they had just passed on the island: "As I sat on the beach with a crowd about me, most of them suddenly jumped up and ran off. Turning my head I saw a man (from the boat they saw two) coming to me with club uplifted. I remained sitting and held out a few fish-hooks to him, but one or two men jumped up and, seizing him by the waist, forced him off. "After a few minutes I went back to the boat. I found out that a poor fellow called Moliteum was shot dead two months ago by a white trader for stealing a bit of calico. The wonder was, not that they wanted to avenge the death of their kinsman, but that others should have prevented it. How could they possibly know that I was not one of the wicked set? Yet they did.... The plan of going among the people unarmed makes them regard me as a friend." Then he says of these men who had just tried to kill him: "The people, though constantly fighting, and cannibals and the rest of it, are to me very attractive." The ship sailed on till they heard ahead of them the beating of the surf on the reef of Santa Cruz. Behind the silver line of the breakers the waving fronds of her palms came into sight. They put _The Southern Cross_ in, cast anchor, and let a boat down from her side. Into the boat tumbled a British sailor named Pearce, a young twenty-year-old Englishman named Atkin, and three brown South-Sea Island boys from the missionary training college for native teachers on Norfolk Island, and their leader, Bishop Patteson, the white man who, having faced the clubs of savages on a score of islands, never flinched from walking into peril again to lead them to know of "the best Man in the world, Jesus Christ." These brown boys were young helpers of Bishop Patteson. And one of them especially, Fisher Young, would have died for his great white leader gladly. They were like father and son. The reef, covered at mid-tide with curling waters mottled with the foam of the broken waves, was alive with men; while the beach beyond was black with crowds of the wild islanders who had come down to see the strange visitors from the ship. The four men sculled the boat on to the edge of the reef and then rested on their oars as Patteson swung himself over the side into the cool water. He waded across the reef between the hosts of savages, and in every hand was a club or spear or a six-foot wooden bow with an arrow ready to notch in its bamboo string. Patteson had come to make friends with them. So he entered a dark wattled house and sat down to talk. The doorway was filled with the faces of wondering men. As he looked on them a strange gleam of longing came into his eyes and a smile of great tenderness softened the strength of his brown face--the longing and the tenderness of a shepherd looking for wandering sheep who are lost on the wild mountains of the world. Then he rose, left the house, and went back to the boat. The water was now one seething cauldron of men--walking, splashing, swimming. Some, as Patteson climbed into his boat, caught hold of the gunwale and could hardly be made to loosen their hold. The four young fellows in the boat swung their oars and got her under way, but they had made barely half a dozen strokes when, without warning, an arrow whizzed through the air into the boat. A cloud of arrows followed. Six canoes were now filled with savage Santa Cruzans, who surrounded the boat and joined in the shooting. Patteson, who was in the stern between his boys and the bowmen, had not shipped the rudder, so he held it up, as the boat shot ahead of the canoes, to shield off arrows. Turning round to see whither his now rudderless boat was being pulled, he saw that they were heading for a little bay in the reef, which would have wrecked their hopes of safety. "Pull, port oars, pull on steadily," shouted Patteson; and they made for _The Southern Cross_. As he called to them he saw Pearce, the young British sailor, lying between the thwarts with the long shaft of an arrow in his chest, and a young Norfolk Islander with an arrow under his left eye. The arrows flew around them in clouds, and suddenly Fisher Young--the nineteen-year-old Polynesian whom he loved as a son--who was pulling stroke, gave a faint scream. He was shot through the left wrist. "Look out, sir! close to you," cried one of his crew. But the arrows were all around him. All the way to the schooner the canoes skimmed over the water chasing the boat. The four youths, including the wounded, pulled on bravely and steadily. At last they reached the ship and climbed on board, while the canoes--fearing vengeance from the men on the schooner--turned and fled. Once aboard, Bishop Patteson knelt by the side of Pearce, drew out the arrow which had run more than five inches deep into his chest, and bound up his wound. Turning to Fisher, he found that the arrow had gone through the wrist and had broken off in the wound. Taking hold of the point of the arrow where it stood out on the lower side of the wrist, Patteson pulled it through, though the agony of the boy was very great. The arrows were wooden-headed and not poisoned. The wounds seemed to be healing, but a few days later Fisher said, "I can't make out what makes my jaws feel so stiff." Fisher Young was the grandson of fierce, foul Pitcairn Island cannibals, and was himself a brave and pure Christian lad. He had faced death with his master many times on coral reefs, in savage villages, on wild seas and under the clubs of Pacific islanders. Now he was face to face with something more difficult than a swift and dangerous adventure--the slow, dying agony of lockjaw. He grew steadily worse in spite of everything that Patteson could do. Near to the end he said faintly, "Kiss me; I am very glad I was doing my duty. Tell my father that I was in the path of duty, and he will be so glad. Poor Santa Cruz people!" He spoke in that way of the people who had killed him. The young brown hero lies to-day, as he would have wished, in the port that was named after the Bishop whom he loved, and who was his hero, Port Patteson. "I loved him," said Patteson, "as I think I never loved anyone else." Fisher's love to his Bishop had been that of a youth to the hero whom he worships, but Patteson had led that brown islander still further, for he had taught the boy to love the Hero of all heroes, Jesus Christ. CHAPTER XI FIVE KNOTS IN A PALM LEAF _The Death of Patteson_ (Date of Incident, September 20th, 1871) The masts of the schooner _The Southern Cross_ swung gently to and fro across the darkening sky as the long, calm rollers of the Pacific slipped past her hull. Her bows spread only a ripple of water as the slight breeze bore her slowly towards the island of Nukapu.[32] On deck stood a group of men, their brown faces turned to a tall, bearded man. As the light of the setting sun gleamed on his bronze face, it kindled his brave eyes and showed the grave smile that played about the corners of his mouth. They all looked on him with that worship which strong men give to a hero, who can be both brave and kindly. But "he wist not that his face shone" for them. Patteson read to these young men from a Book; and the words that he read were these: "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' And he knelt down and cried, with a loud voice, 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge'; and when he had said this, he fell asleep." When he had spoken to them strongly on these words and said how it may come to any man who worships Jesus to suffer so, Bishop Patteson and all except the man on watch went to their sleep. The South Sea Island men and the young Englishman who were there remembered all their lives what Patteson had said that evening; partly because these men themselves had seen him brave such a death as Stephen's again and again, and, indeed, they had themselves stood in peril by his side face to face with threatening savages, but even more because of the adventure that came to them on the next day. At dawn they sighted land, and by eleven o'clock they were so near that they could see, shimmering in the heat of the midsummer sun, the white beach of coral sand and the drooping palms that make all the island of Nukapu green.[33] Looking out under their hands to the island, the men aboard _The Southern Cross_ could see four great canoes, with their sails set, hovering like hawks about the circling reef which lay between them and the island. On the reef the blue waves beat and broke into a gleaming line of cool white foam. The slight breeze was hardly strong enough to help the ship to make the island. It was as though she knew the danger of that day and would not carry Patteson and his men into the perils that lay hidden behind the beauty of that island of Nukapu. Patteson knew the danger. He knew that, but a little time before their visit, white men had come in a ship, had let down their boats and rowed to the men of the island, had pretended to make friends, and then, shooting some and capturing others, had sped back to the ship, carrying off the captives to work for them on the island of Fiji. The law of the savages of the islands was "Blood for blood." And to them all white men belonged to one tribe. The peril that lay before Patteson was that they might attack him in revenge for the foul crime of those white traders. Just before noon the order was given to lower a boat from _The Southern Cross_. Patteson went down into it, and sat in the stern, while Mr. Atkin (his English helper), Stephen Taroniara, James Minipa, and John Nonono came with him to row. The boat swung toward the reef. Between the reef and the island lay two miles of the blue and glittering lagoon. By the time the boat reached the reef six canoes full of warriors had come together there. The tide was not high enough to float the boat across the reef. The Nukapuan natives said they would haul the boat up on to the reef, but the Bishop did not think it wise to consent. Then two of the savages said to "Bisipi," as they called the Bishop: "Will you come into our canoe?" Without a moment's hesitation, knowing that confidence was the best way to win them, he stepped into the canoe. As he entered they gave him a basket with yams and other fruit in it. As the tide was low, the Bishop and the savages were obliged to wade over the reef, dragging the canoe across to the deeper lagoon within. The boat's crew of _The Southern Cross_ stopped in the outer sea, drifting on the tide with the other four Nukapu canoes. They watched the Bishop cross the lagoon in the canoe and land far off upon the beach. Then he went from their sight. The brown men and the white man in the boat were trying to talk to the islanders in the remaining canoes outside the reef, when suddenly a savage jumped up in the nearest canoe, not ten yards from them, and called out in his native language: "Have you anything like this?" He drew his bow to his ear and shot a yard arrow. His companions in the other canoes leapt to their feet and sent showers of arrows whizzing at the men in the boat, shouting as they aimed: "This for New Zealand man, this for Bernu man, this for Motu man." Pulling away with all their speed, Patteson's men were soon out of range, but an arrow had nailed John Nonono's cap to his head. Stephen lay in the bottom of the boat with six arrows in his chest and shoulders. Mr. Atkin, the white man, had one in his left shoulder. They reached the ship and were helped on board. The arrow head was drawn out from Mr. Atkin's shoulder, and was found to be made of a sharpened human bone. No sooner was the arrow head out than Mr. Atkin leapt back into the boat, insisting on going back to find Patteson. He alone knew how and where the reef could be crossed on the tide that was now rising. So they got a boat's crew from the ship, put a beaker full of water and some food in the boat, and pulled toward the reef. At half-past four the tide was high enough to carry them across, and they rowed over, looking through their glasses anxiously at the white shore which was lined with brown figures. A canoe rowed out towards them bringing another canoe in tow. As the boat went towards the island, one canoe cast off the other, and went back; the second canoe drifted towards them slowly on the still waters of the blue lagoon. As it came nearer they saw that in the middle of it lay Something motionless, covered with matting. They pulled alongside, leaned over the canoe, and lifted into their boat--the body of Patteson. The empty canoe now drifted away. A yell went up from the savages on the shore. The boat was pulled towards the ship and then the body lifted up and laid on the deck. It had been rolled in the native matting as a shroud, tied at the head and feet. They unrolled the mat, and there on the face of the dead Bishop was still that wonderful, patient and winning smile, as of one who at the moment when his head was beneath the uplifted club said, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," and had then fallen asleep. There was a palm leaf fastened over his breast. In its long leaflets five knots were made. On the body, in the head, the side, and the legs were five wounds. And five men in Fiji were at work in the plantations--men captured from Nukapu by brutal white traders. It was the vengeance of the savage--the call of "blood for blood"; and the death of Patteson lies surely upon the head of those white traders who carried death and captivity to the white coral shore of Nukapu. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 32: Noo-k[)a]-poo.] [Footnote 33: Midsummer day on the Equator, September 21.] CHAPTER XII THE BOY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART _Chalmers, the Boy_ (Born 1841, martyred 1901) The rain had poured down in such torrents that even the hardy boys of Inverary in Scotland had been driven indoors. Now the sky had cleared, and the sun was shining again after the great storm. The boys were out again, and a group of them were walking toward the little stream of Aray which tumbled through the glen down to Loch Fyne. But the stream was "little" no longer. As the boys came near to the place called "The Three Bridges," where a rough wooden bridge crossed the torrent, they walked faster towards the stream, for they could hear it roaring in a perfect flood which shook the timbers of the bridge. The great rainfall was running from the hills through a thousand streamlets into the main torrent. Suddenly there came a shout and a scream. A boy dashed toward them saying that one of his schoolmates had fallen into the rushing water, and that the full spate of the Aray was carrying him away down to the sea. The boys stood horrified--all except one, who rushed forward, pulling off his jacket as he ran, leapt down the bank to the lower side of the bridge, and, clinging to the timber, held to it with one arm while he stretched out the other as the drowning boy was being carried under the bridge, seized him, and held him tightly with his left hand. James Chalmers--the boy who had gone to the rescue--though only ten years old, could swim. Letting go of the bridge, while still holding the other boy with one arm, he allowed the current to carry them both down to where the branches hung over the bank to the water's surface. Seizing one of these, he dragged himself and the boy toward the bank, whence he was helped to dry land by his friends. The boy whom young James Chalmers had saved belonged to a rival school. Often the wild-blooded boys (like their fierce Highland ancestors who fought clan against clan) had attacked the boys of this school and had fought them. James, whose father was a stonemason and whose mother was a Highland lassie born near Loch Lomond, was the leader in these battles, but all the fighting was forgotten when he heard that a boy was in danger of his life, and so he had plunged in as swiftly to save him as he would have done for any boy from his own school. We do not hear that James was clever at lessons in his school, but when there was anything to be done, he had the quickest hand, the keenest eye, the swiftest mind, and the most daring heart in all the village. Though he loved the hills and glens and the mountain torrent, James, above everything else, revelled in the sea. One day a little later on, after the rescue of his friend from drowning, James stood on the quay at Inverary gazing across the loch and watching the sails of the fishing boats, when he heard a loud cry. He looked round. There, on the edge of the quay, stood a mother wringing her hands and calling out that her child had fallen into the water and was drowning. James ran along the quay, and taking off his coat as he dashed to the spot, he dived into the water and, seizing the little child by the dress, drew him ashore. The child seemed dead, but when they laid him on the quayside, and moved his arms, his breath began to come and go again and the colour returned to his cheeks. Twice Chalmers had saved others from drowning. Three times he himself, as the result of his daring adventures in the sea, was carried home, supposed to be dead by drowning. At another time he, with two other boys, thrust a tarred herring-box into the sea from the sandy shore between the two rocky points where the western sea came up the narrow Loch Fyne. "Look at James!" shouted one of the boys to his companions as Chalmers leapt into the box. It almost turned over, and he swayed and rolled and then steadied as the box swung out from the shore. The other boys, laughing and shouting, towed him and his boat through the sea as they walked along the shore. Suddenly, as they talked, they staggered forward. The cord had snapped and they fell on the sand, still laughing, but when they stood up again the laughter died on their lips. James was being swiftly carried out by the current to sea--and in a tarred herring-box! He had no paddle, and his hands were of no effect in trying to move the boat toward the shore. The boys shouted. There came an answering cry from the door of a cottage in the village. A fisherman came swinging down the beach, strode to his boat, took the two boys into it, and taking an oar himself and giving the other to the two boys, they pulled out with the tide. They reached James and rescued him just as the herring-box was sinking. He went home to the little cottage where he lived, and his mother gave him a proper thrashing. Some of James' schoolfellows used to go on Sundays to a school in Inverary. He made up his mind to join them. The class met in the vestry of the United Presbyterian Church there. After their lesson they went together into the church to hear a closing address. Mr. Meikle, the minister, who was also superintendent of the school, one afternoon took from his pocket a magazine (a copy of the "Presbyterian Record"). From this magazine he read a letter from a brave missionary in the far-off cannibal islands of Fiji. The letter told of the savage life there and of how, already, the story of Jesus was leading the men no longer to drag their victims to the cannibal ovens, nor to pile up the skulls of their enemies so as to show their own bravery. The writer said they were beginning happier lives in which the awful terror of the javelin and the club, and the horror of demons and witches was gone. When Mr. Meikle had finished reading the magazine he folded it up again and then looked round on all the boys in the school, saying: "I wonder if there is a boy here this afternoon who will become a missionary, and by and by bring the Gospel to other such cannibals as those?" Even as the minister said those words, the adventurous heart of young Chalmers leapt in reply as he said to himself, "Yes, God helping me, I will." He was just a freckled, dark-haired boy with hazel eyes, a boy tingling with the joy of the open air and with the love of the heave and flow of the sea. But when he made up his mind to do a thing, however great the difficulties or dangers, James usually carried it through. So it came about that some years later in 1866, having been trained and accepted by the London Missionary Society, Chalmers, as a young man, walked across the gangway to a fine new British-built clipper ship. It had been christened _John Williams_ after the great hero missionary[34] who gave up his life on the beach of Erromanga. This boy, who loved the sea and breathed deep with joy in the face of adventure and peril, had set his face towards the deep, long breakers of the far-off Pacific. He was going to carry to the South Seas the story of the Hero and Saviour Whom he had learnt to love within the sound of the Atlantic breakers that dashed and fretted against the rocks of Western Scotland. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 34: See Chapter VII.] CHAPTER XIII THE SCOUT OF PAPUA[35] _Chalmers, the Friend_ (Date of Incident, about 1893) The quick puffing of the steam launch _Miro_ was the only sound to break the stillness of the mysterious Aivai[36] River. On the launch were three white people--two men and a woman. They were the first who had ever broken the silence of that stream. They gazed out under the morning sun along the dead level of the Purari[37] delta, for they had left behind them the rolling breakers of the Gulf of Papua in order to explore this dark river. Away to the south rolled the blue waters between this vast island of New Guinea and Northern Australia. They saw on either bank the wild tangle of twisted mangroves with their roots higher than a man, twined together like writhing serpents. They peered through the thick bush with its green leaves drooping down to the very water's edge. But mostly they looked ahead over the bow of the boat along the green-brown water that lay ahead of them, dappled with sunlight under the trees. For they were facing an unknown district where savage Papuans lived--as wild as hawks. They did not know what adventure might meet them at the next bend of the river. "Splendid! Splendid!" cried one of the white men, a bearded giant whose flashing eyes and mass of brown hair gave him the look of a lion. "We will make it the white woman's peace. Bravo!" And he turned to Mrs. Abel, whose face lit up with pleasure at his happy excitement. "No white man has even seen the people of Iala,"[38] said Tamate--for that was the native name given to James Chalmers, the Scottish boy who had now gone out to far-off Papua as a missionary.[39] "Iko there"--and he pointed to a stalwart Papuan who stood by the funnel--"is the only one of us who has seen them and can speak their tongue. "It is dangerous for your wife to go among these people," he went on, turning to Mr. Abel, "but she will help us more than anything else possibly can to make friends." And Mr. Abel nodded, for he knew that when the Papuans mean to fight they send their women and children away; and that when they saw Mrs. Abel they would believe that the white people came as friends and not enemies. As the steamer carried this scouting party against the swift current up the river toward Iala, Tamate wanted to find how far up the river the village lay. So he beckoned Iko to him. Tamate did not know a word of the dialect which Iko spoke, but he had with him an old wrinkled Papuan, who knew Iko's language, and who looked out with worshipping eyes at the great white man who was his friend. So Tamate, wishing to ask Iko how far away the village of Iala was, spoke first to old Vaaburi,[40] and then Vaaburi asked Iko. Iko stretched out his dark forefinger, and made them understand that that finger meant the length of their journey to Iala. Then with his other hand he touched his forefinger under the second joint to show how far they had travelled on their journey--not a third of the distance. Hour after hour went by, as the steamer drove her way through the swiftly running waters of Aivai. And ever Iko pointed further and further up his finger until at last they had reached his claw-like nail. By three o'clock the middle of the nail was reached. The eyes of all looked anxiously ahead. At every curve of the river they strained their sight to see if Iala were in view. How would these savage people welcome the white men and woman in their snorting great canoe that had no paddles, nor oars? There came a sharp bend in the river, and then a long straight reach of water lying between the forest-covered banks. Suddenly Iko called out, and Tamate and Mr. and Mrs. Abel peered ahead. The great trees of the river nearly met above their heads, and only a narrow strip of sky could be seen. There in the distance were the houses of Iala, close clustered on both banks of the steaming river. They stood on piles of wood driven into the mud, like houses on stilts, and their high-pointed bamboo roofs stood out over the river like gigantic poke-bonnets. "Slow," shouted Tamate to the engineer. The _Miro_ slackened speed till she just stemmed the running current and no more. "It will be a bit of a shock to them," said Tamate to his friends, "to see this launch. We will give them time to get their wits together again." Looking ahead through their glasses, the white men and Mrs. Abel could see canoes swiftly crossing and re-crossing the river and men rushing about. "Full speed ahead," cried Tamate again, and then after a few revolutions of the engine, "Go slow. It will never do," he said, "to drop amongst them while they are in that state. They will settle down presently." And then, as he looked up at the sky between the waving branches of the giant trees, "we have got a good two hours' daylight yet," he said. Life and death to Tamate and his friends hung in the balance, for they were three people unarmed, and here were dark savage warriors in hundreds. Everything depended on his choosing just the right moment for going into the midst of these people. So he watched them closely, knitting his shaggy eyebrows together as he measured their state of mind by their actions. He was the Scout of Christ in Papua, and he must be watchful and note all those things that escape most men but mean so much to trained eyes. Tamate seemed to have a strange gift that made him able, even where other men could tell nothing, to say exactly when it was, and when it was not, possible to go among a wild, untouched tribe. Now the bewildered Ialan savages had grown quieter. Tamate called to the engineer to drive ahead once more. Slowly the launch forged her way through the running waters and drew nearer and nearer to the centre of Iala. There on either side stood the houses in long rows stretching up the river, and on the banks hundreds of men stood silent and as still as trees. Their canoes lay half in and half out of the water ready for instant launching. In each canoe stood its crew erect and waiting. All the women and children had been sent away, for these men were out to fight. They did not know whether this strange house upon the water with the smoke coming from its chimney was the work of gods or devils. Still they stood there to face the strange thing and, if need be, to fight. Brown Iko stood in the bows of the _Miro_; near him stood Tamate. Then the engine stopped and the anchor was dropped overboard. The savages stood motionless. Not a weapon could be seen. The engineer, hearing the anchor-chain rattle through the hole, blew the steam-whistle in simple high spirits. As the shriek of the whistle echoed under the arches of the trees, with the swiftness of lightning the Ialan warriors swung their long bows from behind their bodies. Without stooping each caught up an arrow that stood between his toes and with one movement fixed it and pulled the bamboo strings of their black bows till the notch of the arrows touched their ears. A hundred arrows were aimed at the hearts of Tamate and Mr. and Mrs. Abel. Swiftly Iko stood upon the bulwark of the _Miro_, and shouted just one word at the top of his voice. It was the Ialan word for "Peace." And again he shouted it, and yet again "Peace, Peace!" Then he cried out "Pouta!"[41] It was the name of the chief of these savages. They had but to let the arrows from their bows and all would have been over. There was silence. What order would Pouta give? Then from the bank on their right came the sound of an answering voice. In a flash every arrow was taken from its bow, and again not a weapon was to be seen. Iko then called out again to Pouta, and Tamate told Iko what he was to say to his friend, the savage chief. For some minutes the conversation went on. At last Iko came to the point of asking for a canoe to take them ashore. Chief Pouta hesitated. Then he gave his command, and a large canoe was launched from the bank into the river and slowly paddled towards the _Miro_. As the canoe came towards them, Tamate turned to Mrs. Abel, who had stood there without flinching with all the arrows pointed toward the boat; and he spoke words like these: "Your bravery is our strength. Seeing you makes them believe that we come for peace. You give them greater confidence in us than all our words." By this time the canoe had paddled alongside the launch. Tamate went over the side first into the canoe, then Mrs. Abel, then Mr. Abel, Iko, and Vaaburi. The canoe pushed off again and paddled toward the landing place, where a crowd of Ialan savages filled every inch of space. As soon as the bow of the canoe touched the bank, Tamate, without hesitating a second, stepped out with Iko. Together they walked up to the chief Pouta, and Tamate put his arms around him in an embrace of peace. Pouta, standing on a high place, shouted to all his warriors. But none of the white people knew a word of his meaning. Look where they would, in every direction, this white woman and the two men were completely surrounded by an unbroken mass of wild and armed savages, who stood gazing upon the strange apparitions in their midst. Tamate, without a pause, perfectly calm, and showing no signs of fear, spoke to Pouta and his men through old Vaaburi and Iko. "We have come," he said, "so that we may be friends. We have come without weapons. We have brought with us a woman of our tribe, for we come in peace. We are strangers. But we come with great things to tell. Some day we will come again and will stay with you and will tell you all our message. To-day we come only to make friends." Then Iko closed his eyes and prayed in the language of the people of Iala. Turning to his friends when the prayer was over, Tamate said quietly: "Now, we must get aboard as quickly as we possibly can. My plan for a first visit is to come, make friends and get away again swiftly. When we are gone they will talk to one another about us. Next time we come we shall meet friends." So they walked down through an avenue of armed Papuans to the bank, and got into the canoe again: the paddles flashed as she drove swiftly through the water toward the launch. As they climbed her side, the anchor was weighed, the _Miro_ swung round, her engines started, and, carried down by the swift stream, she slipped past the packed masses of silent men who lined the banks. It is a great thing to be a pathfinder through a country which no man has penetrated before. But it is a greater thing to do as these missionary-scouts did on their journey up the Aivai and find a path of friendship into savage lives. To do that was the greatest joy in Tamate's life. For he said, when he had spent many years in this work: "Recall the twenty-one years, give me back all its experiences, give me its shipwrecks, give me its standings in the face of death, give it me surrounded with savages with spears and clubs, give it me back again with spears flying about me, with the club knocking me to the ground, give it me back, and I will still be your missionary." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 35: Pa-poo-[)a].] [Footnote 36: A-ee-v[)a]-ee.] [Footnote 37: Poo-r[)a]-ree.] [Footnote 38: Ee-[)a]-l[)a].] [Footnote 39: He had spent some sixteen years in the South Sea Island of Rarotonga and had in 1877 become a pioneer among the cannibals of Papua (New Guinea).] [Footnote 40: V[=a][=a]-boo-ree.] [Footnote 41: Poo-o-t[)a].] CHAPTER XIV A SOUTH SEA SAMARITAN _Ruatoka_ (Date of Incident, about 1878) It was a dark night and silent. The swish and lapping of the waters on the Port Moresby beach on the southern shore of the immense island of New Guinea, filled the air with a quiet hush of expectation. In a little white house sat a tall, dark man with his wife. The man was Ruatoka. If you had asked "Who is Ruatoka?" of all the Papuans for miles around Port Moresby, they would have wondered at your ignorance. "Ruatoka," they would have told you, was a "Jesus man." He walked among their villages, and did not fear them when they threatened him with spears and clubs. He gave them medicines when they were ill, and nursed them. He spoke strong words to them which made their hearts turn to water within them when he showed that they did wrong. He often stopped them from fighting. Ruatoka, with his wife, had sailed from the South Sea Islands with Tamate,[42] who was to them their great hero. "My fathers of old were heathen, savage men on the island of Mangaia," he would say. "The white men came to them and brought the story of Jesus. Now we are happy. But we, too, must go to the men of New Guinea, just as the white men came to us. To-day the New Guinea Papuans are savage cannibals and heathen. To-morrow they will know Jesus and be as happy as we are." So Ruatoka had been trained as a teacher and preacher as well as a house-builder and carpenter; and his wife was taught how to teach children as well as good housekeeping. This was the brown man, Ruatoka, who sat that night in his little house at Port Moresby on the shore behind the great reef of Papua. Suddenly there came a knock at his door. The door opened, and the black, frightened faces of Papuans, with staring eyes, looked at him. "What is the matter?" he asked. And they told him that, as they came at sunset along the path from the people of Larogi to Port Moresby, they found by the side of the path a white man. "He was dying," they said. "We were afraid to touch him. If we touched him and he died, his ghost would haunt us for evermore." Ruatoka stood up at once and reached for his lantern, and turning to the men said: "Come and guide me to the place." They said, "No, we are afraid of the demon spirit. It is night. The man will die. We are afraid of the spirits. We will not go." Ruatoka's father had told him when he was a boy how his own people in the years before had dreaded the spirit-demons of Mangaia, but that he must learn that there were no spirits to be dreaded; that one great Father-Spirit ruled above all, and would take care of His children, and that all those children must love one another. So Rua, as they called him, knowing that the white man who lay sick by the roadside in the night, though of another colour, was yet a brother, and knowing that no demon spirit could harm him in the dark, lighted his lantern, poured water into a bottle, took a long piece of cloth, folded it up, and started out under the stars. He walked for mile after mile up steep hills and down into valleys along the path; but nothing did he hear save the cry of a night bird. At last he had gone five miles, and was wondering whether he could ever find the sick man (for the long grass towered up on either side and all was still), when he heard a low moaning. Listening intently he found the direction of the sound, and then moved towards it. He found there, at the side of the path, a white man named Neville, nearly dead. He was moaning with the pain of the fever, yet unconscious. Taking his bottle, Ruatoka poured a little water down the throat of the man. He then took the long piece of cloth, wound it round Neville, took the two ends in his hands, and stooping, he pulled and strained with all his great strength, until at last Neville lay like a sack upon his shoulders. Staggering along, Ruatoka climbed the hills that rose 300 feet high. Again and again he was bound to rest, for the man on his shoulders was as heavy as Ruatoka himself. He tottered down the hill path, and at last, just as the first light of dawn was breaking over the eastern hills, Ruatoka staggered into his home, laid the sick man upon the only bed he had, and then himself laid down upon the floor, wearied almost to death. There he slept while his wife nursed and tended the fever-stricken Neville back to life. * * * * * Over a thousand years before that day Wilfrid[43] had brought life and joy to the starving Saxons of the South coast of England. A hundred years before that day white men, the great-great-grandchildren of those Saxons, had started out in _The Duff_ and, sailing across the world, had taken life and joy in the place of the terror of demons and the death by the club to the men of the Islands of the Seas. Now Ruatoka, the South Sea islander, having in his heart the same brave spirit of the Good Shepherd--that spirit of the Good Samaritan, of help and preparedness, of courage and of chivalry, had carried life and joy back to the North Sea islander, the Briton who had fallen by the roadside in Papua. Ruatoka was a brown Greatheart. It was with him as it must be with all brave sons who serve that great Captain, Jesus Christ: he wanted to be in the front of the battle. When the great Tamate was killed and eaten by the cannibals of Goaribari, Ruatoka wrote a letter to a missionary who lived and still lives in Papua. This is the end of the letter: "Hear my wish. It is a great wish. The remainder of my strength I would spend in the place where Tamate was killed. In that village I would live. In that place where they killed men, Jesus Christ's name and His word I would teach to the people that they may become Jesus' children. My wish is just this. You know it. I have spoken. RUATOKA." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 42: James Chalmers: see Chapter XIII.] [Footnote 43: See Chapter II.] Book Three: THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA CHAPTER XV THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON _David Livingstone_ (Dates born 1813, died 1873) There was a deathly stillness in the hot African air as two bronzed Scots strode along the narrow forest path. The one, a young, keen-eyed doctor,[44] glanced quickly through the trees and occasionally turned aside to pick some strange orchid and to slip it into his collecting case. The other strode steadily along with that curious, "resolute forward tread" of his.[45] He was David Livingstone. Behind them came a string of African bearers carrying in bundles on their heads the tents and food of the explorers. Suddenly, with a crunch, Livingstone's heel went through a white object half hidden in the long grass--a thing like an ostrich's egg. He stooped--and his strong, bronzed face was twisted with mingled sorrow and anger, as, looking into the face of his younger friend, he gritted out between his clenched teeth, "The slave-raiders again!" It was the whitening skull of an African boy. For weeks those two Britons had driven their little steamer (the _Asthmatic_ they called her, because of her wheezing engines) up the Zambesi river and were now exploring its tributary the Shiré. Each morning, before they could start the ship's engines, they had been obliged to take poles and push from between the paddles of the wheels the dead bodies of Africans--men, women, and children--slain bodies which had floated down from the villages that the Arab slave-raiders had burned and sacked. Livingstone was out on the long, bloody trail of the slaver, the trail that stretched on and on into the heart of Africa where no white man had ever been. This negro boy's skull, whitening on the path, was only one more link in the long, sickening shackle-chain of slavery that girdled down-trodden Africa. The two men strode on. The forest path opened out to a broad clearing. They were in an African village. But no voice was heard and no step broke the horrible silence. It was a village of death. The sun blazed on the charred heaps which now marked the sites of happy African homes; the gardens were desolate and utterly destroyed. The village was wiped out. Those who had submitted were far away, trudging through the forest, under the lash of the slaver; those who had been too old to walk or too brave to be taken without fight were slain. The heart of Livingstone burned with one great resolve--he would track this foul thing into the very heart of Africa and then blazon its horrors to the whole world. The two men trudged back to the river bank again. Now, with their brown companions, they took the shallow boat that they had brought on the deck of the _Asthmatic_, and headed still farther up the Shiré river from the Zambesi toward the unknown Highlands of Central Africa. _Facing Spears and Arrows_ Only the sing-song chant of the Africans as they swung their paddles, and the frightened shriek of a glittering parrot, broke the stillness as the boat pushed northward against the river current. The paddles flashed again, and as the boat came round a curve in the river they were faced by a sight that made every man sit, paddle in hand, motionless with horror. The bank facing them in the next curve of the river was black with men. The ranks of savages bristled with spears and arrows. A chief yelled to them to turn back. Then a cloud of arrows flew over the boat. "Go on," said Livingstone quietly to the Africans. Their paddles took the water and the boat leapt toward the savage semi-circle on the bank. The water was shallower now. Before any one realised what was happening Livingstone had swung over the edge of the boat and, up to his waist in water, was wading ashore with his arms above his head. "It is peace!" he called out, and waded on toward the barbs of a hundred arrows and spears. The men in the boat sat breathless, waiting to see their leader fall with a score of spears through his body. But the savages on the bank were transfixed with amazement at Livingstone's sheer audacity. Awed by something god-like in this unflinching and unarmed courage, no finger let fly a single arrow. "You think," he called to the chief, "that I am a slave-raider." For Livingstone knew that he had never in all his wanderings been attacked by Africans save where they had first been infuriated by the cruel raiders. The chief scowled. "See," cried Livingstone, baring his arm to show his white skin as he again and again had done when threatened by Africans, "is this the colour of the men who come to make slaves and to kill?" The savages gazed with astonishment. They had never before seen so white a skin. "No," Livingstone went on, "this is the skin of the tribe that has heart toward the African." Almost unconsciously the man had dropped the spear points and arrow heads as he was speaking. The chief listened while Livingstone, who was now on the bank, told the savages how he had come across the great waters from a far-off land with a message of peace and goodwill. Unarmed and with a dauntless heroism the "white man who would go on" had won a great victory over that tribe. He now passed on in his boat up the river and over rapids toward the wonderful shining Highlands in the heart of Africa. _"Deliverance to the Captives"_ Dr. Kirk was recalled to England by the British Government; but Livingstone trudged on in increasing loneliness over mountains and across rivers and lakes, plunging through marshes, racked a score of times with fever, robbed of his medicines, threatened again and again by the guns of the slave-raiding Arabs and the spears and clubs of savage head-hunters, bearing on his bent shoulders the Cross of the negroes' agony--slavery, till at last, alone and on his knees in the dead of night, our Greatheart crossed his last River, into the presence of his Father in heaven. Yet still, though his body was dead, his spirit would go on. For the life Livingstone lived, the death he died, and the record he wrote of the slave-raiders' horrible cruelties thrilled all Britain to heal that "open sore of the world." Queen Victoria made Dr. Kirk her consul at Zanzibar, and told him to make the Sultan of Zanzibar order all slave-trading through that great market to cease. And to-day, because of David Livingstone, through all the thousands of miles of Africa over which he trod, no man dare lay the shackles of slavery on another. To-day, where Livingstone saw the slave-market in Zanzibar, a grand church stands, built by negro hands, and in that cathedral you may hear the negro clergy reading such words as-- "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight," and African boys singing in their own tongue words that sum up the whole life of David Livingstone. "He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, To preach deliverance to the captives." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 44: Dr Kirk, now Sir John Kirk, G.C.M.G., who, leaning upon his African ebony stick and gazing with his now dimmed eyes into the glow of the fire, told me many stories of his adventures with Livingstone on his Zambesi journeyings, including this one. See next chapter.] [Footnote 45: A friend of mine asked a very old African in Matabeleland whether--as a boy--he remembered Dr. Livingstone. "Oh, yes," replied the aged Matabele, "he came into our village out of the bush walking thus," and the old man got up and stumped along, imitating the determined tread of Livingstone, which, after sixty years, was the one thing he remembered.] CHAPTER XVI THE BLACK PRINCE OF AFRICA _Khama_ (Dates 1850--the present day) One day men came running into a village in South Africa to say that a strange man, whose body was covered with clothes and whose face was not black, was walking toward their homes. He was coming from the South. Never before had such a man been seen in their tribe. So there was great excitement and a mighty chattering went through the round wattle of mud huts with their circular thatched roofs. The African Chief, Sekhome--who was the head of this Bamangwato tribe and who was also a noted witch-doctor--started out along the southward trail to meet the white man. By his side ran his eldest son. He was a lithe, blithe boy; his chocolate coloured skin shone and the muscles rippled as he trotted along. He was so swift that his name was the name of the antelope that gallops across the veldt. Cama is what the Bamangwato call the antelope. Khama is how we spell the boy's name. He gazed in wonder as he saw a sturdy man wearing clothes such as he had not seen before--what we call coat and hat, trousers and boots. He looked into the bronzed face of the white man and saw that his eyes and mouth were kind. Together they walked back into the village. Chief Sekhome found that the white man's name was David Livingstone; and that he was a kind doctor who could make boys and men better when they were ill, with medicines out of a black japanned box. When evening came the boy Khama saw the strange white man open another box and take out a curious thing which seemed to open yet was full of hundreds and hundreds of leaves. Khama had never seen such a thing in his life and he could not understand why Livingstone opened it and kept looking at it for a long time, for he had never seen a book before and did not even know what letters were or what reading was. It seemed wonderful to him when he heard that that book could speak to Livingstone without making any sound and that it told him about the One Infinite, Holy, Loving God, Who is Father of all men, black or brown or white, and Whose Son, Jesus Christ, came to teach us all to love God and to love one another. For the book was the Bible which Livingstone all through his heroic exploring of Africa read each day. So Livingstone passed on from the village; but this boy Khama never forgot him, and in time--as we shall see--other white men came and taught Khama himself to read that same book and worship that same God. _The Fight with the Lion_ Meanwhile strange adventures came to the growing young Khama. This is the story of some of them: The leaping flames of a hunting camp-fire threw upon the dark background of thorn trees weird shadows of the men who squatted in a circle on the ground, talking. The men were all Africans, the picked hunters from the tribe of the Bamangwato. They were out on the spoor of a great lion that had made himself the terror of the tribe. Night after night the lion had leapt among their oxen and had slain the choicest in the chief's herds. Again and again the hunters had gone out on the trail of the ferocious beast; but always they returned empty-handed, though boasting loudly of what they would do when they should face the lion. "To-morrow, yes, to-morrow," cried a young Bamangwato hunter rolling his eyes, "I will slay _tau e bogale_--the fierce lion." The voices of the men rose on the night air as the whole group declared that the beast should ravage their herds no more--the whole group, except one. This young man's tense face and the keen eyes that glowed in the firelight showed his contempt for those who swaggered so much and did so little. He was Khama, the son of Sekhome, the chief. The wild flames gleamed on him as he stood there, full six feet of tireless manhood leaning on his gun, like a superb statue carved in ebony. Those swift, spare limbs of his, that could keep pace with a galloping horse, gave him the right to his name, Khama--the Antelope. The voices dropped, and the men, rolling themselves in the skins of wild beasts, lay down and slept--all except one, whose eyes watched in the darkness as sleeplessly as the stars. When they were asleep Khama took up his gun and went out into the starry night. The night passed. As the first flush of dawn paled the stars, and the men around the cold ashes of the fire sat up, they gazed in awed amazement. For they saw, striding toward them, their tall young chieftain; and over his shoulders hung the tawny skin and mane of a full-grown king lion. Alone in the night he had slain the terror of the tribe! The men who had boasted of what they meant to do and had never performed, never heard Khama--either at that time or later--make any mention of this great feat. It was no wonder that the great Bamangwato tribe looked at the tall, silent, resolute young chieftain and, comparing him with his crafty father Sekhome and his treacherous, cowardly younger brother Khamane, said, "Khama is our _boikanyo_--our confidence." _The Fight with the Witch-doctors_ The years went by; and that fierce old villain Sekhome plotted and laid ambush against the life of his valiant son, Khama. Men who followed David Livingstone into Africa had come as missionaries to his tribe and had taught him the story of Jesus and given him the knowledge of reading and writing. So Khama had become a Christian, though Sekhome his father was still a heathen witch-doctor. Khama would have nothing to do with the horrible ceremonies by which the boys of the tribe were initiated into manhood; nor would he look on the heathen rain-making incantations, though his father smoked with anger against him. Under a thousand insults and threats of death Khama stood silent, never insulting nor answering again, and always treating with respect his unnatural father. "You, as the son of a great chief, must marry other wives," said old Sekhome, whose wives could not be numbered. Young Khama firmly refused, for the Word of God which ruled his life told him that he must have but one wife. Sekhome foamed with futile rage. "You must call in the rain-doctors to make rain," said Sekhome, as the parched earth cracked under the flaming sun. Khama knew that their wild incantations had no power to make rain, but that God alone ruled the heavens. So he refused. Sekhome now made his last and most fearful attack. He was a witch-doctor and master of the witch-doctors whose ghoulish incantations made the Bamangwato tremble in terror of unseen devils. One night the persecuted Khama woke at the sound of strange clashing and chanting. Looking out he saw the fitful flame of a fire. Going out from his hut, he saw the _lolwapa_ or court in front of it lit up with weird flames round which the black wizards danced with horns and lions' teeth clashing about their necks, and with manes of beasts' hair waving above their horrible faces. As they danced they cast charms into the fire and chanted loathsome spells and terrible curses on Khama. As a boy he had been taught that these witch-doctors had the power to slay or to smite with foul diseases. He would have been more than human if he had not felt a shiver of nameless dread at this lurid and horrible dance of death. Yet he never hesitated. He strode forward swiftly, anger and contempt on his face, scattering the witch-doctors from his path and leaping full upon their fire of charms, stamped it out and scattered its embers broadcast. The wizards fled into the darkness of the night. _The Fight with the Kaffir Beer_ At last Khama's treacherous old father, Sekhome, died. Khama was acclaimed the supreme chief of all the Bamangwato.[46] He galloped out at the head of his horsemen to pursue Lobengula, the ferocious chief of the Matabele who had struck fear into the Bamangwato for many years. Even Lobengula, who to his dying day carried in his neck a bullet from Khama's gun, said of him, "The Bamangwato are dogs, but Khama is a man." Khama had now freed his people from the terror of the lion, the tyranny of witch-doctors, and the dread of the Matabele. Yet the deadliest enemy of Khama and the most loathsome tyrant of the Bamangwato was still in power,--the strong drink which degrades the African to unspeakable depths. Even as Khama charged at the head of his men into the breaking ranks of the Matabele, his younger brother, Khamane, whom he had put in charge of his city in his absence, said to the people: "You may brew beer again now." Many of the people did not obey, but others took the corn of the tribe and brewed beer from it. At night the cries of beaten women rose, and the weird chants of incantations and of foul unclean dances were heard. Khamane called the older men together around his fire. Pots of beer passed from hand to hand. As the men grew fuddled they became bolder and more boastful. Khamane then spoke to them and said, "Why should Khama rule you? Remember he forbids you to make and to drink beer. He has done away with the dances of the young men. He will not let you make charms or throw enchanted dice or make incantations for rain. He is a Christian. If I ruled you, you should do all these things." When Khama rode back again into his town he saw men and women lying drunk under the eaves of their huts and others reeling along the road. At night the sounds of chants and drinking dances rose on the air. His anger was terrible. For once he lost his temper. He seized a burning torch and running to the hut of Khamane set fire to the roof and burned the house down over his drunken brother's head. He ordered all the beer that had been brewed to be seized, and poured it out upon the veldt. He knew that he was fighting a fiercer enemy than the Matabele, a foe that would throttle his tribe and destroy all his people if he did not conquer it. The old men of the tribe muttered against him and plotted his death. He met them face to face. His eyes flashed. "When I was still a lad," he said, "I used to think how I would govern my town and what kind of a kingdom it should be. One thing I determined, I would not rule over a drunken town or people. I WILL NOT HAVE DRINK IN THIS TOWN. If you must have it you must go." _The Fight with the White Man's "Fire-water"_ Khama had conquered for the moment. But white men, Englishmen, came to the town. They set up stores. And in the stores they began to sell brandy from large casks. The drinking of spirits has more terrible effects on the African than even on white men. Once he starts drinking, the African cannot stop and is turned into a sot. The ships of the white man have been responsible to a terrible extent for sending out the "fire-water" to Africa. Khama called the white traders in the tribe together. "It is my desire," he said, "that no strong drink shall be sold in my town." "We will not bring the great casks of brandy," they replied, "but we hope you will allow us to have cases of bottles as they are for medicine." "I consent," said Khama, "but there must be no drunkenness." "Certainly," the white men replied, "there shall be no drunkenness." In a few days one of the white traders had locked himself into his house in drunken delirium, naked and raving. Morning after morning Khama rose before daybreak to try and get to the man when he was sober, but all the time he was drunk. Then one morning this man gathered other white men together in a house and they sat drinking and then started fighting one another. A boy ran to Khama to tell him. The chief went to the house and strode in. The room was a wreck. The men lay senseless with their white shirts stained with blood. Khama with set, stern face turned and walked to the house where he often went for counsel, the home of his friend, Mr. Hepburn, the missionary. Mr. Hepburn lay ill with fever. Khama told him what the white men had done. Hepburn burned with shame and anger that his own fellow-countrymen should so disgrace themselves. Ill as he was he rose and went out with the chief and saw with his own eyes that it was as Khama said. "I will clear them all out of my town," cried the chief. It was Saturday night. _Khama's Decisive Hour_ On the Monday morning Khama sent word to all the white men to come to him. It was a cold, dreary day. The chief sat waiting in the _Kgotla_[47] while the white men came together before him. Hepburn, the missionary, sat by his side. Those who knew Khama saw as soon as they looked into his grim face that no will on earth could turn him from his decisions that day. "You white men,"[48] he said to them sternly, "have insulted and despised me in my own town because I am a black man. If you despise us black men, what do you want here in the country that God has given to us? Go back to your own country." His voice became hard with a tragic sternness. "I am trying," he went on, "to lead my people to act according to the word of God which we have received from you white people, and yet _you_ show them an example of wickedness such as we never knew. You," and his voice rose in burning scorn, "you, the people of the word of God! You know that some of my own brothers"--he was referring to Khamane especially--"have learned to like the drink, and you know that I do not want them to see it even, that they may forget the habit. Yet you not only bring it in and offer it to them, but you try to tempt _me_ with it. "I make an end of it to-day. Go! Take your cattle and leave my town and _never come back again_!" No man moved or spoke. They were utterly shamed and bewildered. Then one white man, who had lived in the town since he was a lad, pleaded with Khama for pity as an old friend. "You," said the chief with biting irony, "my friend? You--the ringleader of those who despise my laws. You are my worst enemy. You pray for pity? No! for you I have no pity. It is my duty to have pity on my people over whom God placed me, and I am going to show them pity to-day; and that is my duty to them and to God.... Go!" And they all went. Then the chief ordered in his young warriors and huntsmen. "No one of you," he said, "is to drink beer." Then he called a great meeting of the whole town. In serried masses thousand upon thousand the Bamangwato faced their great chief. He lifted up his voice: "I, Khama, your chief, order that you shall not make beer. You take the corn that God has given to us in answer to our prayers and you destroy it. Nay, you not only destroy it, but you make stuff with it that causes mischief among you." There was some murmuring. His eyes flashed like steel. "You can kill me," he said, "but you cannot conquer me." * * * * * _The Black Prince of Eighty_ If you rode as a guest toward Khama's town over seventy years after those far-off days when Livingstone first went there, as you came in sight of the great stone church that the chief has built, you would see tearing across the African plain a whirlwind of dust. It would race toward you, with the soft thunder of hoofs in the loose soil. When the horses were almost upon you--with a hand of steel--chief Khama would rein in his charger and his bodyguard would pull up behind him. Over eighty years old, grey and wrinkled, he would spring from his horse, without help, to greet you--still Khama, the Antelope. Old as he is, he is as alert as ever. He heard that a great all Africa aeroplane route was planned after the Great War. At once he offered to make a great aerodrome, and the day at last came when Khama--eighty-five years old--who had seen Livingstone, the first white man to visit his tribe--stood watching the first aeroplane come bringing a young officer from the clouds. He stands there, the splendid chief of the Bamangwato--"steel-true, blade-straight." He is the Black Prince of Africa--who has indeed won his spurs against the enemies of his people. And if you were to ask him the secret of the power by which he has done these things, Khama the silent, who is not used to boasting, would no doubt lead you at dawn to the _Kgotla_ before his huts. There at every sunrise he gathers his people together for their morning prayers at the feet of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Captain and King of our Great Crusade for the saving of Africa. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 46: In 1875.] [Footnote 47: The chiefs open-air enclosure for official meetings.] [Footnote 48: These are Khama's own words taken down at the time by Hepburn.] CHAPTER XVII THE KNIGHT OF THE SLAVE GIRLS _George Grenfell_ (Dates, b. 1849, d. 1906) _The Building of the Steamship_ When David Livingstone lay dying in his hastily-built hut, in the heart of Africa, with his black companions Susi and Chumah attending him, almost his last words were, "How far away is the Luapula?" He knew that the river to which the Africans gave that name was only a short distance away and that it flowed northward. He thought that it might be the upper reaches of the Nile, which had been sought by men through thousands of years, but which none had ever explored. Livingstone died in that hut (1873) and never knew what Stanley, following in his footsteps, discovered later (1876-7), viz., that the Luapula was really the upper stretch of the Congo, the second largest river in the world (3000 miles long), flowing into the Atlantic. The basin of the Congo would cover the whole of Europe from the Black Sea to the English Channel. In the year when Livingstone died, and before Stanley started to explore the Congo, a young man, who had been thrilled by reading the travels of Livingstone, sailed to the West Coast of Africa to the Kameruns. His name was George Grenfell, a Cornish boy (born at Sancreed, four miles from Penzance, in England), who was brought up in Birmingham. He was apprenticed at fifteen to a firm of hardware and machinery dealers. Here he picked up, as a lad, some knowledge of machinery that helped him later on the Congo. He had been thrilled to meet at Bristol College, where he was trained for his missionary work, a thin, worn, heroic man of tried steel, Alfred Saker, the great Kamerun missionary, and Grenfell leapt for joy to go out to the dangerous West Coast of Africa, where he worked hard, teaching the Africans to make tables and bricks and to print and read, healing them and preaching to them. When Stanley came down the Congo to the sea and electrified the world by the story of the great river, Grenfell and the Baptist Missionary Society which he served conceived the daring and splendid plan of starting a chain of mission stations right from the mouth of the Congo eastward across Africa. In 1878 Grenfell was on his way up the river--travelling along narrow paths flanked by grass often fifteen feet high, and crossing swamps and rivers, till after thirteen attempts and in eighteen months he reached Stanley Pool, February 1881. A thousand miles of river lay between Stanley Pool and Stanley Falls, and even above Stanley Falls lay thirteen hundred miles of navigable river. Canoes were perilous. Hippopotami upset them, and men were dragged down and eaten by crocodiles. They must have a steamer right up there beyond the Falls in the very heart of Africa. Grenfell went home to England, and the steamer _Peace_ was built on the Thames, Grenfell watching everything being made from the crank to the funnel. She was built, launched, and tried on the Thames; then taken to pieces and packed in 800 packages, weighing 65 lbs. each, and taken to the mouth of the Congo. On the heads and shoulders of a thousand men the whole ship and the food of the party were carried past the rapids, over a thousand miles along narrow paths, in peril of snakes and leopards and enemy savages, over streams crossed by bridges of vine-creepers, through swamps, across ravines. Grenfell's engineer, who was to have put the ship together, died. At last they reached Stanley Pool. Grenfell with eight negroes started to try to build the ship. It was a tremendous task. Grenfell said the _Peace_ was "prayed together." It was prayer and hard work and gumption. At last the ship was launched, steam was up, the _Peace_ began to move. "She lives, master, she lives!" shouted the excited Africans. A thousand thrilling adventures came to him as he steamed up and down the river, teaching and preaching, often in the face of poisoned arrows and spears. We are now going to hear the story of one adventure. _The Steamer's Journey_ The crocodiles drowsily dosing in the slime of the Congo river bank stirred uneasily as a strange sound broke the silence of the blazing African morning. They lifted their heavy jaws and swung their heads down stream. Their beady eyes caught sight of a Thing mightier than a thousand crocodiles. It was pushing its way slowly up stream. The sound was the throb of the screw of the steamer from whose funnel a light ribbon of smoke floated across the river. An awning shaded the whole deck from bow to stern. On the top of the awning, under a little square canopy, stood a tall young negro; the muscles in his sturdy arms and his broad shoulders rippled under his dark skin as the wheel swung round in his swift, strong hands. The steamer drove up stream while the crocodiles, startled by the wash of the boat, slid sullenly down the bank and dived. A short, bearded man, dressed in white duck, stood on deck at the bows, where the steamer's name, _Peace_, was painted. He was George Grenfell. His keen eyes gleamed through the spectacles that rested on his strong, arched nose. By his side stood his wife, looking out up the river. They were searching for the landing-place and the hut-roofs of some friendly river-side town. At last as the bows swung round the next bend in the river they saw a village. The Africans rushed to the bank and hurriedly pushed out their tree-trunk canoes. Grenfell shouted an order. A bell rang. The screw stopped and the steamer lay-to while he climbed down into the ship's canoe and was paddled ashore. The wondering people pushed and jostled around them to see this strange man with his white face. _The Slave Girls_ As they walked up among the huts, speaking with the men of the town, Grenfell came to an open space. As his quick eyes looked about he saw two little girls standing bound with cords. They were tethered like goats to a stake. Their little faces and round eyes looked all forlorn. Even the wonder of the strange bearded white man hardly kept back the tears that filled their eyes. "What are these?" he asked, turning to the chief. The African pointed up the river. Grenfell's heart burned in him, as the chief told how he and his men had swept up the river in their canoes armed with their spears and bows and arrows and had raided another tribe. "And these," said the chief, pointing to the girls, who began to wonder what was going to happen, "these are two girls that we captured. They are some of our booty. They are slaves. They are tied there till someone will come and buy them." Grenfell could not resist the silent call of their woeful faces. Quickly he gave beads and cloth to the chief, and took the little girls back with him down to the river bank. As they jumped into the canoe to go aboard the S.S. _Peace_, the two girls wondered what this strange new master would do with them. Would he be cruel? Yet his eyes looked kind through those funny, round, shining things balanced on his nose. The girls at once forgot all their sorrows when they jumped on board this wonderful river monster. They felt it shiver and throb and begin to move. The bank went farther and farther away. The _Peace_ had again started up stream. The girls stood in wonder and gazed with open eyes as the banks slid past. They saw the birds all green and red flashing along the surface of the water, and the huge hippopotami sullenly plunging into the river like the floating islands of earth that sail down the Congo. Their quick eyes noted the quaint iguana, like giant lizards, sunning themselves on the branches of the trees over the stream and then dropping like stones into the stream as the steamer passed. _The Slave Girl's Brother_ Then, suddenly, as they came round a bend in the river, all was changed. There ahead Grenfell saw a river town. The canoes were being manned rapidly by warriors. The bank bristled with spears in the hands of ferocious savages, whose faces were made horrible by gashes and loathsome tattooing. In each canoe men stood with bows in their hands and arrows drawn to the head. The throb of the engines ceased. The ship slowed up. But the canoes came on. The men of this Congo town only knew one thing. Enemies had, only a few weeks earlier, come from down-river, had raided their town, burned their huts, killed many of their braves, and carried away their children. Here were men who had also come from down the river. They must, therefore, be enemies. Their chief shouted an order. In an instant a score of spears hurtled at the ship and rattled on the steel screens around the deck. The yell of the battle-cry of the tribe echoed and re-echoed down the river. Grenfell was standing by the little girls. Suddenly one of them with dancing eyes shouted and waved her arms. "What is it?" cried Grenfell to her. "See--see!" she cried, pointing to a warrior in a canoe who was just poising a spear, "that is my brother! That is my brother! This is my town!" "Call to him," said Grenfell. Her thin childish voice rang out. But no one heard it among the warriors. Again she cried out to her brother. The only answer was a hail of spears and arrows. Grenfell turned rapidly and shouted an order to the engineer. Instantly a shriek, more wild and piercing than the combined yells of the whole tribe, rent the air. Again the shriek went up. The warriors stood transfixed with spear and arrow in hand like statues in ebony. There was a moment's intense and awful silence. They had never before heard the whistle of a steamer! "Shout again--quickly," whispered Grenfell to the little African girl. In a second the child's shrill voice rang out in the silence across the water, crying first her brother's name, and then her own. The astonished warrior dropped his spear, caught up his paddle and--in a few swift strokes--drove his canoe towards the steamer. His astonishment at seeing his sister aboard overcame all his dread of this shrieking, floating island that moved without sails or paddles. Quickly she told her story of how the strange white man in the great canoe that smoked had found her in the village of their enemies, had saved her from slavery, and--now, had brought her safely home again. The story passed from lip to lip. Every spear and bow and arrow was dropped. The girls were quickly put ashore, and as Grenfell walked up the village street every warrior who had but a few moments before been seeking his blood was now gazing at this strange friend who had brought back to the tribe the daughters whom they thought they had lost for ever. Grenfell went on with his work in face of fever, inter-tribal fighting, slave-raiders, the horrors of wife and slave-slaughter at funerals, witch-killing--and in some ways worse still, the horrible cruelties of the Belgian rubber-traders--for over a quarter of a century. In June 1906, accompanied by his negro companions, he lay at Yalemba, sick with fever. Two of the Africans wrote a letter for help to other missionaries: "We are very sorrow," they wrote, "because out Master is very sick. So now we beging you one of you let him come to help Mr Grenfell please. We think now is near to die, but we don't know how to do with him. Yours, DISASI MAKULO, MASCOO LUVUSU." To-day all up the fifteen hundred miles of Congo waterway the power of the work done by Grenfell and the men who came with him and after him has changed all the life. Gone are the slave-raiders, the inter-tribal wars, the cruelties of the white men, along that line. There stand instead negroes who cap make bricks, build houses, turn a lathe; engineers, printers, bookbinders, blacksmiths, carpenters, worshipping in churches built with their own hands. But beyond, and among the myriad tributaries and the vast forests millions of men have never yet even heard of the love of God in Jesus Christ, and still work their hideous cruelties. So Grenfell, like Livingstone, opened a door. It stands open. CHAPTER XVIII "A MAN WHO CAN TURN HIS HAND TO ANYTHING" _Alexander Mackay_ (Dates 1863-1876) The inquisitive village folk stared over their garden gates at Mr. Mackay, the minister of the Free Kirk of Rhynie, a small Aberdeenshire village, as he stood with his thirteen-year-old boy gazing into the road at their feet. The father was apparently scratching at the stones and dust with his stick. The villagers shook their heads. "Fat's the minister glowerin' at, wi' his loon Alic, among the stoor o' the turnpike?"[49] asked the villagers of one another. The minister certainly was powerful in the pulpit, but his ways were more than they could understand. He was for ever hammering at the rocks on the moor and lugging ugly lumps of useless stone homeward, containing "fossils" as he called them. Now Mr. Mackay was standing looking as though he were trying to find something that he had lost in the road. If they had been near enough to Alec and his father they would have heard words like these: "You see, Alec, this is the Zambesi River running down from the heart of Africa into the Indian Ocean, and here running into the Zambesi from the north is a tributary, the Shiré. Livingstone going up that river found wild savages who ..." So the father was tracing in the dust of the road with the point of his stick the course of the Zambesi which Livingstone had just explored for the first time. On these walks with his father Alec, with his blue eyes wide open, used to listen to stories like the Yarn we have read of the marvellous adventures of Livingstone.[50] Sometimes Mr. Mackay would stop and draw triangles and circles with his stick. Then Alec would be learning a problem in Euclid on this strange "blackboard" of the road. He learned the Euclid--but he preferred the Zambesi and Livingstone! One day Alec was off by himself trudging down the road with a fixed purpose in his mind, a purpose that seemed to have nothing in the world to do with either Africa or Euclid. He marched away from his little village of Rhynie, where the burn runs around the foot of the great granite mountain across the strath. He trudged on for four miles. Then he heard a shrill whistle. Would he be late after all? He ran swiftly toward the little railway station. A ribbon of smoke showed over the cutting, away to the right. Alec entered the station and ran to one end of the platform as the train slowed down and the engine stopped just opposite where he stood. He gazed at the driver and his mate on the footplate. He followed every movement as the driver came round the engine with his long-nosed oil-can, and opened and shut small brass lids and felt the bearings with his hand to see whether they were hot. The guard waved his green flag. The whistle of the engine shrieked, and the train steamed out of the station along the burnside toward Huntly. Alec gazed down the line till the train was out of sight and then, turning, left the station and trudged homeward. When he reached Rhynie he had walked eight miles to look at a railway engine for two and a half minutes--and he was happy! As he went along the village street he heard a familiar sound. "Clang-a-clang clang!--ssssssss!" It was irresistible. He stopped, and stepped into the magic cavern of darkness, gleaming with the forge-fire, where George Lobban, the smith, having hammered a glowing horseshoe into shape, gripped it with his pincers and flung it hissing into the water. Having cracked a joke with the laughing smith, Alec dragged himself away from the smithy, past the green, and looked in at the stable to curry-comb the pony and enjoy feeling the little beast's muzzle nosing in his hand for oats. He let himself into the manse and ran up to his work-room, where he began to print off some pages that he had set up on his little printing press. At supper his mother looked sadly at her boy with his dancing eyes as he told her about the wonders of the railway engine. In her heart she wanted him to be a minister. And she did not see any sign that this boy would ever become one: this lad of hers who was always running off from his books to peer into the furnaces of the gas works, or to tease the village carpenter into letting him plane a board, or to sit, with chin in hands and elbows on knees, watching the saddler cutting and padding and stitching his leather, or to creep into the carding-mill--like the Budge and Toddy whose lives he had read--"to see weels go wound." It was a bitter cold night in the Christmas vacation fourteen years later.[51] Alec Mackay, now a young engineering student, was lost to all sense of time as he read of the hairbreadth escapes and adventures told by the African explorer, Stanley, in his book, _How I found Livingstone_. He read these words of Stanley's: "For four months and four days I lived with Livingstone in the same house, or in the same boat, or in the same tent, and I never found a fault in him.... Each day's life with him added to my admiration for him. His gentleness never forsakes him: his hopefulness never deserts him. His is the Spartan heroism, the inflexibility of the Roman, the enduring resolution of the Anglo-Saxon. The man has conquered me." Alexander Mackay put down Stanley's book and gazed into the fire. Since the days when he had trudged as a boy down to the station to see the railway engine he had been a schoolboy in the Grammar School at Aberdeen, and a student in Edinburgh, and while there had worked in the great shipbuilding yards at Leith amid the clang and roar of the rivetters and the engine shop. He was now studying in Berlin, drawing the designs of great engines far more wonderful than the railway engine he had almost worshipped as a boy. On the desk at Mackay's side lay his diary in which he wrote his thoughts. In that diary were the words that he himself had written: "This day last year[52] Livingstone died--a Scotsman and a Christian--loving God and his neighbour, in the heart of Africa. 'Go thou and do likewise.'" Mackay wondered. Could it ever be that he would go into the heart of Africa like Livingstone? it seemed impossible. What was the good of an engineer among the lakes and forests of Central Africa? On the table by the side of Stanley's _How I found Livingstone_ lay a newspaper, the Edinburgh _Daily Review_. Mackay glanced at it; then he snatched it up and read eagerly a letter which appeared there. It was a new call to Central Africa--the call, through Stanley, from King M'tesa of Uganda, that home of massacre and torture. These are some of the words that Stanley wrote: "King M'tesa of Uganda has been asking me about the white man's God.... Oh that some practical missionary would come here. M'tesa would give him anything that he desired--houses, land, cattle, ivory. It is the practical Christian who can ... cure their diseases, build dwellings, teach farming and turn his hand to anything like a sailor--this is the man who is wanted. Such a one, if he can be found, would become the saviour of Africa." Stanley called for "a practical man who could turn his hand to anything--_if he can be found_." The words burned their way into Mackay's very soul. "If he can be found." Why here, here in this very room he sits--the boy who has worked in the village at the carpenter's bench and the saddler's table, in the smithy and the mill, when his mother wished him to be at his books; the lad who has watched the ships building in the docks of Aberdeen, and has himself with hammer and file and lathe built and made machines in the engineering works--he is here--the "man who can turn his hand to anything." And he had, we remember, already written in his diary: "Livingstone died--a Scotsman and a Christian--loving God and his neighbour, in the heart of Africa. 'Go thou and do likewise.'" Mackay did not hesitate. Then and there he took pen and ink and paper and wrote to London to the Church Missionary Society which was offering, in the daily paper that lay before him, to send men out to King M'tesa. The words that Mackay wrote were these: "My heart burns for the deliverance of Africa, and if you can send me to any one of those regions which Livingstone and Stanley have found to be groaning under the curse of the slave-hunter I shall be very glad." Within four months Mackay, with some other young missionaries who had volunteered for the same great work, was standing on the deck of the S.S. _Peshawur_ as she steamed out from Southampton for Zanzibar. He was in the footsteps of Livingstone--"a Scotsman and a Christian"--making for the heart of Africa and "ready to turn his hand to anything" for the sake of Him who as "... the Carpenter of Nazareth Made common things for God." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 49: "What is the minister gazing at, with his son Alec, in the dust of the road?"] [Footnote 50: See Chapter XV.] [Footnote 51: December 12, 1875.] [Footnote 52: May 1, 1873.] CHAPTER XIX THE ROADMAKER _Alexander Mackay_ (Date, 1878) After many months of delay at Zanzibar, Mackay with his companions and bearers started on his tramp of hundreds of miles along narrow footpaths, often through swamps, delayed by fierce greedy chiefs who demanded many cloths before they would let the travellers pass. One of the little band of missionaries had already died of fever. When hundreds of miles from the coast, Mackay was stricken with fever and nearly died. His companions sent him back to the coast again to recover, and they themselves went on and put together the _Daisy_, the boat which the bearers had carried in sections on their heads, on the shore of Victoria Nyanza. So Mackay, racked with fever, was carried back by his Africans over the weary miles through swamp and forest to the coast. At last he was well again, and with infinite labour he cut a great wagon road for 230 miles to Mpapwa. With pick and shovel, axe and saw, they cleared the road of trees for a hundred days. Mackay wrote home as he sat at night tired by the side of his half-made road, "This will certainly yet be a highway for the King Himself; and all that pass this way will come to know His Name." At length, after triumphing by sheer skill and will over a thousand difficulties, Mackay reached the southern shore of Victoria Nyanza at Kagei, to find that his surviving companions had gone on to Uganda in an Arab sailing-dhow, leaving on the shore the _Daisy_, which had been too small to carry them. On the beach by the side of that great inland sea, Victoria Nyanza, in the heart of Africa, Mackay found the now broken and leaking _Daisy_. Her cedar planks were twisted and had warped in the blazing sun till every seam gaped. A hippopotamus had crunched her bow between his terrible jaws. Many of her timbers had crumbled before the still greater foe of the African boat-builder--the white ant. Now, under her shadow lay the man "who could turn his hand to anything," on his back with hammer and chisel in hand. He was rivetting a plate of copper on the hull of the _Daisy_. Already he had nailed sheets of zinc and lead on stern and bow, and had driven cotton wool picked from the bushes by the lake into the seams to caulk some of the leaks. Around the boat stood crowds of Africans, their dark faces full of astonishment at the white man mending his big canoe. "Why should a man toil so terribly hard?" they wondered. The tribesmen of the lake had only canoes hollowed out from a tree-trunk, or made of some planks sewn together with fibres from the banana tree. At last Mackay had his boat ready to sail up the Victoria Nyanza. The whole of the length of that great sea, itself larger than his own native Scotland, still separated Mackay from the land of Uganda for which he had left Britain over fifteen months earlier. All through his disappointments and difficulties Mackay fought on. With him, as with Livingstone, nothing had power to break his spirit or quench his burning determination to carry on his God-given plan to serve Africa. Every use of saw and hammer and chisel, every "trick of the tool's true trade," all the training in the shipbuilding yards and engineering shops at Edinburgh and in Germany helped Mackay to invent some new, daring and ingenious way out of every fresh difficulty. _The Wreck of the "Daisy"_ Now at last the _Daisy_ was on the water again; and Mackay and his bearers went aboard[53] and hoisting sail from Kagei ran northward. Before they had gone far black storm clouds swept across the sky. Night fell. Lightning blazed unceasingly and flung up into silhouette the wild outlines of the mountains to the east. The roar of the thunder echoed above the wail of the wind and the threshing of the waves. All through the dark, Mackay and those of his men who could handle an oar rowed unceasingly. Again and again he threw out his twenty-fathom line, but in vain. He made out a dim line of precipitous cliffs, yet the water seemed fathomless--the only map in existence was a rough one that Stanley had made. At last the lead touched bottom at fourteen fathoms. In the dim light of dawn they rowed and sailed toward a shady beach before the cliffs, and anchored in three and a half fathoms of water. The storm passed; but the waves from the open sea came roaring in and broke over the _Daisy_. The bowsprit dipped under the anchor chain, and the whole bulwark on the weatherside was carried away. The next sea swept into the open and now sinking boat. By frantic efforts they heaved up the anchor and the next wave swung the _Daisy_ with a crash onto the beach, where the waves pounded her to a complete wreck, wrenching the planks from the keel. But Mackay and his men managed to rescue her cargo before she went to pieces. They were wrecked on a shore where Stanley, the great explorer, had years before had a hairbreadth escape from massacre at the hands of the wild savages. But Stanley, living up to the practice he had learned from Livingstone, had turned enemies into friends, and now the natives made no attack on the shipwrecked Mackay. For eight weeks Mackay laboured there, hard on the edge of the lake, living on the beach in a tent made of spars and sails. With hammer and chisel and saw he worked unsparingly at his task. He cut the middle eight feet from the boat, and bringing her stern and stem together patched the broken ends with wood from the middle part. After two months' work the now dumpier _Daisy_ took the water again, and carried Mackay and his men safely up the long shores of Victoria Nyanza to the goal of all his travelling, the capital of M'tesa, King of Uganda. The rolling tattoo of goat-skin drums filled the royal reception-hall of King M'tesa, as the great tyrant entered with his chiefs. M'tesa, his dark, cruel heavy face in vivid contrast with his spotless white robe, sat heavily down on his stool of State, while brazen trumpets sent to him from England blared as Mackay entered. The chiefs squatted on low stools and on the rush-strewn mud-floor before the King. At his side stood his Prime Minister, the Katikiro, a smaller man than the King, but swifter and more far-sighted. The Katikiro was dressed in a snowy-white Arab gown covered by a black mantle trimmed with gold. In his hard, guilty face treacherous cunning and masterful cruelty were blended. M'tesa was gracious to Mackay, and gave him land on which to build his home. More important to Mackay than even his hut was his workshop, where he quickly fixed his forge and anvil, vise and lathe, and grindstone, for he was now in the place where he could practise his skill. It was for this that he had left home and friends, and pressed on in spite of fever and shipwreck to serve Africa and lead her to the worship of Jesus Christ by working and teaching as our Lord did when on earth. One day the wide thatched roof of that workshop shaded from the flaming rays of the sun a crowded circle of the chiefs of Uganda with their slaves, who loved to come to "hear the bellows roar." They were gazing at Mackay, whose strong, bare right arm was swinging his hammer "Clang-a-clang-clang." Then a ruddy glow lit up the dark faces of the watchers and the bronzed face of the white man who in the centre of his workshop was blowing up his forge fire. Gripping in his pincers the iron hoe that was now red-hot, Mackay hammered it into shape and then plunged it all hissing into the bath of water that stood by him. Hardly had the cloud of steam risen from the bath, when Mackay once more gripped the hoe, and moving to his grindstone placed his foot on the pedal and set the edge of the hoe against the whirling stone. The sparks flew high. A murmur came from the Uganda chiefs who stood around. "It is witchcraft," they said to one another. "It is witchcraft by which Mazunga-wa-Kazi makes the hard iron tenfold harder in the water. It is witchcraft by which he sends the wheels round and makes our hoes sharp. Surely he is the great wizard." Mackay caught the sound of the new name that they had given him--Mazunga-wa-Kazi--the White-Man-at-Work. They called him by this name because to them it was very strange that any man should work with his own hands. "Women are for work," said the chiefs. "Men go to talk with the King, and to fight and eat." Mackay paused in his work and turned on them. "No," he said, "you are wrong. God made man with one stomach and with two hands in order that he may work twice as much as he eats." And Mackay held out before them his own hands blackened with the work of the smithy, rough with the handling of hammer and saw, the file and lathe. "But you," and he turned on them with a laugh and pointed to their sleek bodies as they shone in the glow of the forge fire, "you are all stomach and no hands." They grinned sheepishly at one another under this attack, and, as Mackay let down the fire and put away his tools, they strolled off to the hill on which the King's beehive-shaped thatched palace was built. Mackay climbed up the hill on the side of which his workshop stood. From the ridge he gazed over the low-lying marsh from which the women were bearing on their heads the water-pots. He knew that the men and women of the land were suffering from fearful illnesses. He now realised that the fevers came from the poisonous waters of the marsh. He made up his mind how he could help them with his skill. They must have pure water; yet they knew nothing of wells. Mackay at once searched the hill-side with his spade and found a bed of clay emerging from the side of the hill. He climbed sixteen feet higher up the hill and, bringing the men who could help him together, began digging. He knew that he would reach spring water at the level of the clay, for the rains that had filtered through the earth would stop there. The Baganda[54] thought that he was mad. "Whoever," they asked one another, "heard of digging in the top of a hill for water?" "When the hole is so deep," said Mackay, measuring out sixteen feet, "water will come, pure and clean, and you will not need to carry it up the hill from the marsh." They dug and dug till the hole was too deep to hurl the earth up over the edge. Then Mackay made a pulley, which seemed a magic thing to them, for they could not yet understand the working of wheels; and with rope and bucket the earth was pulled up. Exactly at the depth of sixteen feet the water welled in. The Baganda clapped their hands and danced with delight. "Mackay is the great wizard. He is the mighty spirit," they cried. "The King must come to see this." King M'tesa himself wondered at the story of the making of the well and the finding of the water. He gave orders that he was to be carried to view this great wonder. His eyes rolled with astonishment as he saw it and heard of the wonders that were wrought by the work of men. Yet M'tesa and his men still wondered why any man should work hard. Mackay tried to explain this to the King when he sat in his reception-hall. Work, Mackay told M'tesa, is the noblest thing a man can do, and he told him how Jesus Christ, the Son of the Great Father-Spirit who made all things, did not Himself feel that work was a thing too mean for Him. For our Lord, when He lived on earth at Nazareth, worked with His own hands at the carpenter's bench, and made all labour forever noble. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 53: August 23, 1878.] [Footnote 54: The people of Uganda.] CHAPTER XX FIGHTING THE SLAVE TRADE _Alexander Mackay_ (Date, 1878) In the court of King M'tesa, Mackay always saw many boys who used to drive away the flies from the King's face with fans, carry stools for the chiefs and visitors to squat upon, run messages and make themselves generally useful. Most of these boys were the sons of chiefs. When they were not occupied with some errand, they would lounge about playing games with one another in the open space just by the King's hut. Often when Mackay came to speak with the King, he had to wait in this place before he could have audience of M'tesa. He would bring with him large sheets of paper on which he had printed in his workshop the alphabet and some sentences. The printing was actually done with the little hand-press that Mackay had used in his attic when he was a boy in his old home in Rhynie. He had taken it with him all the way to Uganda, and now was setting up letters and sentences in a language which had never been printed before. The Baganda boys who had gathered round the White-Man-of-Work with wondering eyes, as he with his "magic" printed the sheets of paper, now crowded about him as he unrolled one of these white sheets with the curious black smudges on them. Mackay made the noise that we call A and then B, and pointed to these curious-shaped objects which we call the letters of the alphabet. Then he got them to make the noise and point to the letter that represented that sound. At last the keenest of the boys really could repeat the alphabet right through and begin to read whole words from another sheet--Baganda words--so that at length they could read whole sentences. Two of these pioneer boys became very good scholars. One named Mukasa became a Christian and was baptised with the name Samweli (Samuel); another called Kakumba was baptised Yusufu (Joseph). A third boy had been captured from a tribe in the north, and his skin was of a much lighter brown than that of the Baganda boys. This light-skinned captured slave was named Lugalama. Each of these boys felt that it was a very proud day when at last he could actually read a whole sheet of printing from beginning to end in his own language--from "Our Father" down to "the Kingdom, the power and the glory, Amen." One morning these page-boys leapt to their feet as they heard the familiar rattle of the drums that heralded the coming of King M'tesa. They bowed as he entered the hall and sat heavily on his stool, while his chiefs ranged themselves about him. On a stool near the King sat Mackay, the White-Man-of-Work. His bronzed face was set in grim determination, for he knew that on that morning he had a difficult battle to fight. Another loud battering of drum-heads filled the air. The entrance to the hut was darkened by a tall, swarthy Arab in long, flowing robes, followed by negro-bearers, who cast on the ground bales of cloth and guns. The Arab wore on his head a red fez, round which a coloured turban scarf was wound. He was a slave-trader from the coast, who had come from the East to M'tesa in Uganda to buy men and women and children to carry them away into slavery. King M'tesa was himself not only a slave-trader but a slave-raider. He sent his fierce gangs of warriors out to raid a tribe away in the hills to the north. They would dash into a village, slay the men, and drag the boys and girls and women back to M'tesa as slaves. The bronze-skinned boy, Lugalama, was a young slave who had been captured on one of these bloodthirsty raids. And M'tesa, who often sent out his executioners to slay his own people by the hundred to please the dreaded and horrible god of small-pox, would also sell his people by the hundred to get guns for his soldiers. The Arab slave-trader bowed to the earth before King M'tesa, who signalled to him to speak. "I have come," said the Arab, pointing to the guns on the floor, "to bring you these things in exchange for some men and women and children. See, I offer you guns and percussion caps and cloth." And he spread out lengths of the red cloth, and held out one of the guns with its gleaming barrel. King M'tesa's eyes lighted up with desire as he saw the muskets and the ammunition. These, he thought, are the things that will make me powerful against my enemies. "I will give you," the Arab slave-trader went on, "one of these lengths of red cloth in exchange for one man to be sold to me as a slave; one of these guns for two men; and one hundred of these percussion caps for a woman as a slave." Mackay looked into the cruel face of M'tesa, and he could see how the ambitious King longed for the guns. Should he risk the favour of the King by fighting the battle of a few slaves? Yet Mackay remembered as he sat there, how Livingstone's great fight against the slave-traders had made him, as a student, vow that he too would go out and fight slavery in Africa. The memory nerved him for the fight he was now to make. Mackay turned to M'tesa and said words like these:[55] "O King M'tesa, you are set as father over all your multitude of people. They are your children. It is they who make you a great King. "Remember, O King, that the Sultan of Zanzibar himself has signed a decree that no slaves shall be taken in all these lands and sold to other lands down beyond the coast, whither this Arab would lead your children. Therefore if you sell slaves you break his law. "Will you, then, sell your own people that they may be taken out of their homeland into a strange country? They will be chained to one another, beaten with whips, scourged and kicked, and many will be left at the wayside to die; till the peoples of the coast shall laugh at Uganda and say, 'That is how King M'tesa lets strangers treat his children!'" We can imagine how the Arab turned and scowled fiercely at Mackay. His heart raged, and he would have given anything to plunge the dagger hidden in his robe into Mackay's heart. Who was this white man who dared to try to stop his trade? But Mackay went on. "See," he said, pointing to the boys and the chiefs, "your children are wonderfully made. Their bones, which are linked together, are clothed with flesh; and from the heart in their breasts the blood that gives men life flows to and fro through their bodies, while the breath goes in and out of their lungs and makes them live. God the Father and Maker of all men alone can create such wonders. No men who ever lived could, if they worked all through their lives, make one thing so marvellous as one of these boys. Will you, then, sell one of these miracles, one of your children, for a bit of red rag which any man can make in a day?" All eyes turned to King M'tesa to learn what he would say. The King with a wave of his hand dismissed the scowling Arab, while he took counsel with his chiefs, and came to this decision: "My people shall no more be made slaves." A decree was written out and King M'tesa put his hand to it. The crestfallen Arab and his men gathered up their guns and cloths, marched down the hill to buy ivory instead of slaves for their bales of red cloth, and went out of the dominions of King M'tesa, across the Great Lake homeward. Mackay had won the first battle against slavery. His heart was very glad. Yet he knew that, although he had scored a triumph in this fight with the slave-dealer, he had not won in his great campaign. The King was generally kind to Mackay, for he was proud to have so clever a white man in his country. But he could not make up his mind to become a Christian. M'tesa's heart had not really changed. His slave-raiding of other tribes might still go on. The horrible butcherings of his people to turn away the dreaded anger of the gods would continue. Mackay felt he must press on with his work. He was slowly opening a road through the jungle of cruelty and the marshes of dread of the gods that made the life of the Baganda people dark and dreadful. All Uganda waited breathless one day as though the end of the world had come. "King M'tesa is dead!" the cry went out through all the land. The people waited in dread and on tiptoe of eagerness till the new king was selected by the chiefs from the sons of the dead ruler. At last a great cheer went up from the Palace. "M'wanga has eaten Uganda!" they shouted. By this the people meant that M'wanga, a young son of M'tesa--only eighteen years old--had been made King. He was, however, a boy with no power--the mere feeble tool of the Katikiro (the Prime Minister) and of Mujasi, the Captain of the King's own bodyguard of soldiers. Both of these great men of the kingdom fiercely hated Mackay, for they were jealous of his power over the old King. So they whispered into the young M'wanga's ears stories like this: "You know that men say that Uganda will be eaten up by an enemy from the lands of the rising sun. Mackay and the other white men are making ready to bring thousands of white soldiers into your land to 'eat it up' and to kill you." So M'wanga began to refuse to speak to Mackay. Then, because the King was afraid to attack him, he began to lay plots against the boys. One morning Mackay started out from his house with five or six boys and the crew of his boat to march down to the lake. Among the boys were young Lugalama--the fair-haired slave-boy, now a freed-slave and a servant to Mackay--and Kakumba, who had (you remember) been baptised Joseph. The King and the Katikiro had given Mackay permission to go down to the lake and sail across it to take letters to a place called Msalala from which the carriers would bear them down to the coast. Down the hill the party walked, the crew carrying the baggage and the oars on their heads. Mackay and his colleague Ashe, who had come out from England to work with him, walked behind. To their surprise there came running down the path behind them and past them a company of soldiers. "Where are you going?" asked Mackay of one of the soldiers. "Mujasi, the Captain of the Bodyguard," he replied, "has sent us to capture some of the King's wives who have run away." Another and yet another body of soldiers rushed past them. Mackay became more and more suspicious that some foul plot was being brewed. He and his company had walked ten miles, and the lake was but two miles away, divided from them by a wood. Suddenly there leapt out from behind the trees of the wood hundreds of men headed by Mujasi himself. They levelled their guns and spears at Mackay and his friends and yelled, "Go back! Go back!" "We are the King's friends," replied Mackay, "and we have his leave to travel. How dare you insult us?" And they pushed forward. But the soldiers rushed at them; snatched their walking-sticks from them and began to jostle them. Mackay and Ashe sat down by the side of the path. Mujasi came up to them. "Where are you walking?" he asked. "We are travelling to the port with the permission of King M'wanga and the Katikiro." "You are a liar!" replied Mujasi. Mujasi stood back and the soldiers rushed at the missionaries, dragged them to their feet and held the muzzles of their guns within a few inches of their chests. Mackay turned with his boys and marched back to the capital. He and Ashe were allowed to go back to their own home on the side of the hill, but the five boys were marched to the King's headquarters and imprisoned. The Katikiro, when Mackay went to him, refused to listen at first. Then he declared that Mackay was always taking boys out of the country, and returning with armies of white men and hiding them with the intention of conquering Uganda. The Katikiro waved them aside and the angry waiting mob rushed on the missionaries yelling, "Mine shall be his coat!" "Mine his trousers!" "No, mine!" shouted another, as the men scuffled with one another. Mackay and Ashe at last got back to their home and knelt in prayer. Later on the same evening, they decided to attempt to win back the King and the Prime Minister and Mujasi by gifts, so that their imprisoned boys would be freed from danger. Mackay spoke to his other boys, telling them to go and fly for their lives or they would be killed. In the morning Mackay heard that three of the boys who had been captured on the previous day were not only bound as prisoners, but that Mujasi was threatening to burn them to death. The boys were named Seruwanga, Kakumba, and Lugalama. The eldest was fifteen, the youngest twelve. The boys were led out with a mob of howling men and boys around them. Mujasi shouted to them: "Oh, you know Isa Masiya (Jesus Christ). You believe you will rise from the dead. I shall burn you, and you will see if this is so." A hideous roar of laughter rose from the mob. The boys were led down the hill towards the edge of a marsh. Behind them was a plantation of banana trees. Some men who had carried bundles of firewood on their heads threw the wood into a heap; others laid hold of each of the boys and cut off their arms with hideous curved knives so that they should not struggle in the fire. Seruwanga, the bravest, refused to utter a cry as he was cut to pieces, but Kakumba shouted to Mujasi, who was a Mohammedan, "You believe in Allah the Merciful. Be merciful!" But Mujasi had no mercy. We are told that the men who were watching held their breath with awed amazement as they heard a boy's voice out of the flame and smoke singing, "Daily, daily sing to Jesus, Sing, my soul, His praises due." As the executioners came towards the youngest and feeblest, Lugalama, he cried, "Oh, do not cut off my arms. I will not struggle, I will not fight--only throw me into the fire." But they did their ghastly work, and threw the mutilated boy on a wooden framework above the slow fire where his cries went up, till at last there was silence. One other Christian stood by named Musali. Mujasi, with eyes bloodshot and inflamed with cruelty, came towards him and cried: "Ah, you are here. I will burn you too and your household. You are a follower of Isa (Jesus)." "Yes, I am," replied Musali, "and I am not ashamed of it." It was a marvel of courage to say in the face of the executioner's fire and knife what Peter dared not say when the servant-maid in Jerusalem laughed at him. Perhaps the heroism of Musali awed even the cruel-hearted Mujasi. In any case he left Musali alone. For a little time M'wanga ceased to persecute the Christians. But the wily Arabs whispered in his ear that the white men were still trying to "eat up" his country. M'wanga was filled with mingled anger and fear. Then his fury burst all bounds when Mujasi said to him: "There is a great white man coming from the rising sun. Behind him will come thousands of white soldiers." "Send at once and kill him," cried the demented M'wanga. A boy named Balikudembe, a Christian, heard the order and he could not contain himself, but broke out, "Oh, King M'wanga, why are you going to kill a white man? Your father did not do so." But the soldiers went out, travelled east along the paths till they met the great Bishop Hannington being carried in a litter, stricken with fever. They took him prisoner, and, after some days, slew him as he stood defenceless before them. Hannington had been sent out to help Mackay and his fellow-Christians. Then the King fell ill. He believed that the boy Balikudembe, who had warned him not to kill the Bishop, had bewitched him. So M'wanga's soldiers went and caught the lad and led him down to a place where they lit a fire, and placing the boy over it, burned him slowly to death. All through this time Mackay alone had not been really seriously threatened, for his work and what he was made the King and the Katikiro and even Mujasi afraid to do him to death. Then there came a tremendous thunderstorm. A flash of lightning smote the King's house and it flamed up and burned to ashes. Then King M'wanga seemed to go mad. He threatened to slay Mackay himself. "Take, seize, burn the Christians," he cried. And his executioners and their minions rushed out, captured forty-six men and boys, slashed their arms from their bodies with their cruel curved knives so that they could not struggle, and then placed them over the ghastly flames which slowly wrung the lives from their tortured bodies. Yet the numbers of the Christians seemed to grow with persecution. The King himself beat one boy, Apolo Kagwa, with a stick and smote him on the head, then knocked him down, kicked and stamped upon him. Then the King burned all his books, crying, "Never read again." The other men and boys who had become Christians were now scattered over the land in fear of their lives. Mackay, however, come what may, determined to hold on. He set his little printing press to work and printed off a letter which he sent to the scattered Christians. In Mackay's letter was written these words, "In days of old Christians were hated, were hunted, were driven out and were persecuted for Jesus' sake, and thus it is to-day. Our beloved brothers, do not deny our Lord Jesus!" At last M'wanga's mad cruelties grew so frightful that all his people rose in rebellion and drove him from the throne, so that he had to wander an outcast by the lake-side. Mackay at that time was working by the lake, and he offered to shelter the deposed King who had only a short time before threatened his life. * * * * * Two years passed; and Mackay, on the lake-side, was building a new boat in which he hoped to sail to other villages to teach the people. Then a fever struck him. He lay lingering for some days. Then he died--aged only forty-one. If Mackay, instead of becoming a missionary, had entered the engineering profession he might have become a great engineer. When he was a missionary in Africa, the British East Africa Company offered him a good position. He refused it. General Gordon offered him a high position in his army in Egypt. He refused it. He held on when his friends and the Church Missionary Society called him home. This is what he said to them, "What is this you write--'Come home'? Surely now, in our terrible dearth of workers, it is not the time for anyone to desert his post. Send us only our first twenty men, and I may be tempted to come to help you to find the second twenty." He died when quite young; homeless, after a life in constant danger from fever and from a half-mad tyrant king--his Christian disciples having been burned. Was it worth while? To-day the Prime Minister of Uganda is Apolo Kagwa, who as a boy was kicked and beaten and stamped upon by King M'wanga for being a Christian; and the King of Uganda, Daudi, M'wanga's son, is a Christian. At the capital there stands a fine cathedral in which brown Baganda clergy lead the prayers of the Christian people. On the place where the boys were burned to death there stands a Cross, put there by 70,000 Baganda Christians in memory of the young martyrs. Was their martyrdom worth while? To-day all the slave raiding has ceased for ever; innocent people are not slaughtered to appease the gods; the burning of boys alive has ceased. Mackay began the work. He made the first rough road and as he made it he wrote: "This will certainly yet be a highway for the King Himself; and all that pass this way will come to know His name." "And a highway shall be there and a way; and it shall be a way of holiness." But the Way is not finished. And the last words that Mackay wrote were: "Here is a sphere for your energies. Bring with you your highest education and your greatest talents, and you will find scope for the exercise of them all." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 55: There is no record of the precise words, but Mackay gives the argument in a letter home.] CHAPTER XXI THE BLACK APOSTLE OF THE LONELY LAKE _Shomolekae_ In the garden in Africa where, you remember, David Livingstone plighted troth with Mary Moffat, as they stood under an almond tree, there lived years ago a chocolate-skinned, curly-haired boy. His name was Shomolekae.[56] His work was to go among the fruit trees, when the peaches and apricots were growing and to shout and make a noise to scare away the birds. If he had not done this they would have eaten up all the fruit. This boy was born in Africa over seventy-five years ago, when Victoria was a young queen. In the same garden was a grown-up gardener, also an African, with a dark face and crisp, curly hair. The grown-up gardener one day stole some of the fruit off the trees, and he went to the little boy, Shomolekae, and offered him some apricots. Now, Shomolekae had learned to love the missionary, Mr. Mackenzie, who had come to live in the house at Kuruman. He knew that it was very wrong of the gardener to steal the fruit and throw the blame on the birds. So he said that he would not touch the fruit. He went to an old black friend of his named Paul and said to him: "The gardener has stolen the apples and plums and has asked me to eat them. He has robbed Mr. Mackenzie. I do not know what to do." And old Paul went and told John Mackenzie, who took notice of the boy Shomolekae and learned to trust him. Many months passed by; and two years later John Mackenzie was going to a place further north in Africa than Kuruman. The name of this town was Shoshong, where Mackenzie would live and teach the people about Jesus Christ. So he went to the father of Shomolekae, whose name was Sebolai. "Sebolai," said John Mackenzie, "I want to take your son, Shomolekae, with me to Shoshong." Sebolai replied: "I am willing that my son should come to live with you, but one thing I desire. It is that he should be taught his reading and to know the stories in the Bible and such things." To this John Mackenzie quickly agreed, for he too desired that the boy should read. So the sixteen oxen were yoked to the big wagon, and amid much shouting and cracking of whips and lowing of oxen and creaking of wagon-joints, John Mackenzie, Shomolekae, and the others, started from Kuruman northward to Shoshong. Now, at Shoshong the chief was Sekhome, who, you remember, in our last story, was father to Khama. So when they were at Shoshong, Shomolekae, the young man who was cook, and Khama, the young man who was the son of the chief, worshipped in the same little church together. It was not such a church as you go to in our country--but just a little place made of mud bricks that had been dried in the sun. There were holes instead of windows, and there was no door in the open doorway; and on the top of the little building was a roof of rough, reedy grass. These were the days that you heard of in the last story, when Khama, seeing his tribe attacked by the fierce Lobengula, rode out on horseback at the head of his regiment of cavalry and fought them and beat them, and drove away Lobengula with a bullet in his neck. For two years Shomolekae, learning to read better every day, and serving John Mackenzie faithfully in his house, lived at Shoshong. Sometimes Shomolekae took long journeys with wagon and oxen, and at the end of two years he went with Mackenzie a great way in order to buy windows, doors, hinges, nails, corrugated iron, and timber with which to build a better church at Shoshong. When Shomolekae came back again with the wagons loaded up there was great excitement in the tribe. Hammers and saws, screw-drivers and chisels were busy day after day, and the missionary and his helpers laid the bricks one upon another until there rose up a strong church with windows and a door--a place in which the people went to worship God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again Shomolekae went away by wagon, and this time he travelled away by the edge of the desert southward until at last he reached the garden at Kuruman where as a boy he used to frighten the birds from the fruit trees. He was now a very clever man at driving wagons and oxen. This, as you know, is not so easy as driving a wagon with two horses is in Britain. For there were as many as sixteen and even eighteen oxen harnessed two by two to the long iron chains in front of the wagon. There were no roads, only rough tracks, and the wagon would drag through the deep sand, or bump over great boulders of rock, or sink into wet places by the river. But at such times one of the natives always led the two front oxen through the river with a long thong that was fastened to their horns. So, in order to drive a wagon well, Shomolekae needed to be able to manage sixteen oxen all at once, and keep them walking in a straight line. He needed to know which were the bad-tempered ones and which were the good, and which pulled best in one part of the span and which in another; and how to keep them all pulling together and not lunging at one another with their horns. Shomolekae also had to be so bold and daring that, if lions came to eat the oxen at night, he could go with the gun and either frighten them away or actually shoot them. So you see Shomolekae was very clever, and was full of good courage. While he was living at Kuruman a man came to him one day and said: "John Mackenzie is alone at Shoshong, and there is no one who can drive his wagon well for him." The man who told him this was, as it happened, going by wagon to Shoshong, where John Mackenzie lived. "Let me go with you," said Shomolekae. So he got up into the wagon, and away they went day after day northward on the same journey that Shomolekae had taken when he was a boy. So Shomolekae served Mackenzie for years as wagon driver at Shoshong. At last the time came when Mackenzie himself left the tribe at Shoshong--left Khama and all his people--and travelled southward to build at Kuruman a kind of small school where he could train young black men to be missionaries to their own people. And Shomolekae himself went to Kuruman with Mackenzie. He set to work with his own hands, and he helped to make and lay bricks, to put in the doors and windows, and to place the roof on the walls, until at last the little school was built. And when it was actually built Shomolekae himself went to be a student there, and Mackenzie began to train him to be a preacher and a teacher to his own people. For three years Shomolekae worked hard in the college, learning more and more about Jesus Christ, preparing himself to go among his own people to tell them about Him. At last the time came when he was ready to go; and he started out, and travelled long, long miles through sandy places, and then by a river, until at last he reached a town of little thatched huts called Pitsani, which means "The Town of the Little Hyena." In that town he gathered the men and women and the boys and girls together and taught them the things that he knew. While Shomolekae was at Pitsani there came into that part of Africa a new missionary, whose name was Mr. Wookey. It was decided that Mr. Wookey should go a long, long journey and settle down by the shores of Lake Ngami, which, you remember, David Livingstone had discovered long years before. Shomolekae wished to go out with Mr. Wookey into this country and to help. So he took the wagon and yoked the oxen to it, loaded it up with food and all the things needed for cooking as they travelled along, and drove the oxen dragging the wagon over many hundreds of miles of country in which leopards barked and lions roared, until at last they came to the land near Lake Ngami. When they came into this land, and found a place in which to settle down, clever Shomolekae mixed earth into mud just as boys and girls do in order to make mud-pies, but he made the mud into the shape of bricks, and then placed the bricks of mud out into the sun to dry. The sunshine was very, very hot indeed--so hot that the bricks became hard and dry and strong. Day after day Shomolekae worked until he had made a big heap of bricks. With these he built a little house for Mr. Wookey to live in. But these sun-dried bricks soon spoil if they get wet, so he had to build a verandah to keep the rain from the walls. When the house was built and Mr. Wookey was settled in it, they travelled still further up the river to learn what people were living there. After a while it was decided that Shomolekae should go and live in a small village by the river, and there again begin his work of telling the men and women of Jesus Christ, and teaching the boys and girls to read. In his satchel, which was made of odd bits of calico print of different patterns, Shomolekae had a hymn-book with music. The hymn-book was written in the language of the people--the Sechuana language--and Shomolekae taught them from the book to sing hymns. The music was the sol-fa notation. This is one of the hymns: 1. "Yesu oa me oa nthata, Leha ke le mo dibin; A re yalo mo kwalon, A re yalo mo pedun. E, Yesu oa me, E, Yesu oa me, E, Yesu oa me, Oa me, mo loraton. 2. "Yesu oa me oa nthata, O ntehetse molato; O mpusitse timelon, O ntlhapisa mo pedun. "E, Yesu oa me," etc. This is what these words mean in English. I expect you know them very well. 1. "Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so; Little ones to Him belong, They are weak, but He is strong. "Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me-- The Bible tells me so. 2. "Jesus loves me, He who died Heaven's gate to open wide; He will wash away my sin, Let His little child come in. "Yes, Jesus loves me," etc. But, you see, the missionary had to alter the words sometimes so as to make the Sechuana lines come right for the music; and the second verse really means: "My Jesus loves me; He has paid my debt; He has brought me back from where I strayed; He has washed my heart. Yes, my Jesus, Yes, my Jesus. Yes, my Jesus. Mine in love." They would learn the words off by heart because there was only the one hymn-book, and they would sing them together, Shomolekae's voice leading. They learned them so well that sometimes when the mothers were out hoeing in the fields, or the little boys were paddling in their canoes and fishing in the marshy waters, you would hear them singing the hymns that they learned in Shomolekae's little school hut. Then on Sunday they would have Sunday-school, and when that was over Shomolekae would gather the chocolate-faced men and women and boys and girls together--all who would come--and he would teach them to kneel down and pray to the one God, Who is our Father, and they would sing the hymns that they had learned, and then he would speak to them a simple little address, telling them of the Lord Jesus. But Shomolekae desired always to go further and further, even though it was dangerous and difficult. So he got a canoe and launched it in the river by the village and paddled further and further up the stream, under the overhanging trees, and sometimes across the deep pools in which the big and fierce hippopotami and crocodiles lived. He paddled up the River Okanvango, though many times he was in danger of his life. The river was not like rivers in our own country, deep and with strong banks; it was often filled all over with reeds, and as shallow as a swamp, and poor Shomolekae had to push his way with difficulty through these reeds. Always at night the poisonous mosquitoes came buzzing and humming around him. The evil-tempered hippopotamus would suddenly come up from the bottom of the river with his wicked beady eyes, and great cavernous mouth, with its enormous teeth, yawning at Shomolekae as though he quite meant to swallow him whole. On the banks at night the lions would roar, and then the hyenas would howl; but Shomolekae's brave heart held on, and he pushed on up the river to preach and teach the people in the villages near the river. So through many years, with high courage and simple faith, Shomolekae worked. A good many boys and girls in England before they are ten years old own many more books than Shomolekae ever had and have read more than he. They also have better homes than he, for he pushed on from one mud hut to another along the rivers and lakes, and all the possessions that he had in the world could be put into the bottom of his canoe. But our Heavenly Father, Who loves you and me, went with him every step of the way. When Shomolekae taught the boys and girls to sing hymns in praise of Jesus, even in a little mud hut, He was there, just as He is in the most beautiful church when we worship Him. Now God has taken Shomolekae across the last river to be with Himself. Shomolekae was a negro with dark skin and curly hair. We are white children with fair faces and light hair. But God is his Father as well as ours and loves us all alike and wishes to gather us together round Him--loving Him and one another. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 56: Pronounce Shoh-moh-leh-kei.] CHAPTER XXII THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS _Mary Slessor_ (Dates, b. 1848, d. 1915) I. THE MILL-GIRL _The Calabar Girls at the Station_ As the train from the south slowed down in Waverley Station, Edinburgh, one day in 1898, a black face, with eyes wide open with wonder, appeared at the window. The carriage door opened and a little African girl was handed down onto the platform. The people on the station stopped to glance at the strange negro face. But as a second African girl a little older than the first stepped from the carriage to the platform, and a third, and then a fourth black girl appeared, the cabmen and porters stood staring in amused curiosity. Who was that strange woman (they asked one another), short and slight, with a face like yellow parchment and with short, straight brown hair, who smiled as she gathered the little tribe of African girls round her on the railway platform? The telegraph boys and the news-boys gazed at her in astonishment. But they would have been transfixed with amazement if they had known a tenth of the wonder of the story of that heroic woman who, just as simply as she stood there on the Waverley platform, had mastered cannibals, conquered wild drunken chiefs brandishing loaded muskets, had faced hunger and thirst under the flaming heat and burning fevers of Africa, and walked unscathed by night through forests haunted by ferocious leopards, to triumph over regiments of frenzied savages drawn up for battle, had rescued from death hundreds of baby twins thrown out to be eaten by ants--and had now brought home to Scotland from West Africa four of these her rescued children. Still more would those Scottish boys at Waverley Station have wondered, as they gazed on the little woman and her group of black children, if they had known that the woman who had done these things, Mary Slessor, had been a Scottish factory girl, who had toiled at her weaving machine from six in the morning till six at night amid the whirr of the belts, the flash of the shuttles, the rattle of the looms, and the roar of the great machines. Born in Aberdeen, December 2, 1848, Mary Slessor was the daughter of a Scottish shoemaker. Her mother was a gentle and sweet-faced woman. After her father's death Mary was the mainstay of the home. Working in a weaving shed in Dundee (whither the family moved when Mary was eleven) she educated herself while at her machine. _The Call to Africa_ Like Livingstone, she taught herself with her book propped up on the machine at which she worked. She read his travels and heard the stories of his fight against slavery for Africa, till he became her hero. One day the news flashed round the world: "Livingstone is dead. His heart is buried in Central Africa." Mary had thrilled as she read the story of his heroic and lonely life. Now he had fallen. She heard in her heart the words that he had spoken: "I go to Africa to try to make an open door....; do you carry out the work which I have begun. I LEAVE IT WITH YOU." As Mary sat, tired with her week's work, in her pew in the church on Sunday, and thought of Livingstone's call to Africa, she saw visions of far-off places of which she heard from the pulpit and read in her magazines--visions of a steaming river on the West Coast of Africa where the alligators slid from the mud banks into the water; visions of the barracoons on the shore in which the captured negroes were penned as they waited for the slave-ships; pictures of villages where trembling prisoners dipped their hands in boiling oil to test their guilt, and wives were strangled to go with their dead chief into the spirit-land; visions of the fierce chiefs who could order a score of men to be beheaded for a cannibal feast and then sell a hundred more to be hounded away into the outer darkness of slavery--the Calabar where the missionaries of her church were fighting the black darkness of the most savage people of the world. Mary Slessor made up her mind to go out and give her whole life to Africa. So she offered herself, a timorous girl who could not cross a field with a cow in it, as a missionary for cannibal Calabar, in West Africa. For twelve years she worked at the centre of the mission in Calabar and then flung herself into pioneer work among the terrible tribe of Okoyong. No one had ever been able to influence them. They defied British administration. For fifteen years she strove there, and won a power over the ferocious Okoyong savages such as no one has ever wielded. "I'm a wee, wee wifie," she said, "no very bookit, but I grip on well none the less." To-day over two thousand square miles of forest and rivers, the dark savages, as they squat at night in the forest around their palaver-fires, tell one another stories of the Great-White-Ma-Who-Lived-Alone, and the stories they tell are like these. II. THE HEALING OF THE CHIEF _Through the Forest in the Rain_ A strange quiet lay over all the village by the river. For the chief lay ill in his hut. The Calabar people were waiting on the tip-toe of suspense. For if the chief died many of them would be slain to go with him into the spirit-world--his wives and some of his soldiers and slaves. Suddenly a strange African woman, who had come over from another village, entered the chief's harem. She spoke to the wives of the chief, saying, "There lives away through the forest at Ekenge a white Ma who can cast out by her magic the demons who are killing your chief. My son's child was dying, but the white Ma[57] saved her and she is well to-day. Many other wonders has she done by the power of her juju. Let your chief send for her and he will not die." There was silence and then eager chattering, for the women knew that their very lives depended on the chief getting well. If he died, they would be killed. They sent in word to the chief about the strange white Ma. "Let her be sent for," he ordered. "Send a bottle and four rods (value about a shilling) and messengers to ask her to come." All through the day the messengers hurried over stream and hill, through village after village and along the forest paths till at last, after eight hours' journey, they came to the village of Ekenge. Going to the courtyard of the chief they told him the story of their sick chief, and their desire that the white Ma who lived in his village should come and heal him. "She will say for herself what she will do," said the chief. So he sent a messenger to Mary Slessor. She soon came over from her little house to learn what was needed of her. The story of the sick chief was again told. "What is the matter with your chief?" asked Mary Slessor. Blank faces and nodding heads showed that they knew nothing at all. "I must go to him," she declared. She knew that the way was full of perils, and that she might be killed by warriors and wild beasts; but she knew too that, if she did not go and if the chief died, hundreds of lives might be sacrificed. Chief Edem said, "There are warriors out in the woods and you will be killed. You must not go." Ma Eme, a tall fat African widow of Ekenge village, who loved Mary Slessor, said, "No, you must not go. The streams are deep; the rains are come. You could never get there." But Mary Slessor said, "I _must_ go." "Then I will send women with you to look after you, and men to protect you," said Chief Edem. Mary Slessor went back to her house to prepare to start on her long dangerous journey in the morning. She could not sleep for wondering whether she was indeed right to risk her life and all her work on the off-chance of saving this distant sick chief. She knelt down and asked God to guide her. Then she felt in her heart that she must go. In the morning at dawn a guard of Ekenge women came to her door. "The men will join us outside the village," they said. The skies were grey. The rain was falling as they started. When the village lay behind them the rain began to pour in sheets. It came down as only an African rain can, unceasing torrents of pitiless deluge. Soon Mary Slessor's soaked boots became impossible to walk in. She took them off and threw them into the bush; then her stockings went, and she ploughed on in the mud in her bare feet. They had walked for three hours when, as the weather began to clear, Mary Slessor came out into a market-place for neighbouring villages. The hundreds of Africans who were bartering in the market-place turned and stared at the strange white woman who swiftly passed through their midst and disappeared into the bush beyond. So she pressed on for hour after hour, her head throbbing with fever, her dauntless spirit driving her trembling, timid body onward till at last, when she had been walking almost ceaselessly for over eight hours, she tottered into the village of the sick chief. _The Healing Hand._ Mary Slessor, aching from head to foot with fever and overwhelming weariness, did not lie down even for a moment's rest, but walked straight to the chief who lay senseless on his mat on the mud floor. Having examined him she took from her little medicine chest a drug and gave a dose to the chief. But she could see at once that more of this medicine was needed than she had with her. She knew that, away on the other side of the river, some hours distant, another missionary was working. "You must go across the river to Ikorofiong for more medicine." "No, no!" they said, "we dare not go. They will slay any man who goes there." She was in despair. Then someone said, "There is a man of that country living in his canoe on the river. Perhaps he would go?" They ran down to the river and found him. After much persuading he at last went, and returned next day with the medicine. The chief, whom the women had believed to be almost dead, gradually recovered consciousness, then sat up and took food. At last he was quite well. All the village laughed and sang for joy. There would be no slaying. They gathered round Mary Slessor in grateful wonder at her magic powers. She told them that she had come to them because she worshipped the Great Physician Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father--God who made all things. Then she gathered them together in the morning and evening, and led them as with bowed heads they all thanked God for the healing of the chief. III. VALIANT IN FIGHT Years passed by and Mary Slessor's name was known in all the villages for many miles. She was, to them, the white Ma who was brave and wise and kind. She was mad, they thought, because she was always rescuing the twin babies whom the Calabar people throw out to die and the mothers of twins whom they often kill. But in some strange way they felt that her wisdom, her skill in healing men, and her courage, which was more heroic than that of their bravest warriors, came from the Spirit who made all things. She would wrench guns from the hands of drunken savage men who were three times as strong as she was. At last she used to sit with their chief as judge of quarrels, and many times in palavers between villages she stopped the people from going to war. _Through the Forest Perilous_ One day a secret message came to her that, in some villages far away, a man of one village had wounded the chief in another village and that all the warriors were arming and holding councils of war. "I must go and stop it," said Mary Slessor. "You cannot," said her friends at Ekenge, "the steamer is coming to take you home to Britain because you are so ill. You will miss the boat. You are too ill to walk. The wild beasts in the woods will kill you. The savage warriors are out, and will kill you in the dark--not knowing who you are." "But I must go," she answered. The chief insisted that she must have two armed men with lanterns with her, and that she must get the chief of a neighbouring village to send out his drummer with her so that people might know--as they heard the drum--that a protected person was travelling who must not be harmed. It was night, and Mary Slessor with her two companions marched out into the darkness, the lanterns throwing up strange shadows that looked like fierce men in the darkness. Through the night they walked till at midnight they reached the village where they were to ask for the drum. The chief was surly. "You are going to a warlike people," he said. "They will not listen to what a woman says. You had better go back. I will not protect you." Mary Slessor was on her mettle. "When you think of the woman's power," she said to the chief, "you forget the power of the woman's God. I shall go on." And to the amazement of the savages in the villages she went on into the darkness. Surely she must be mad. She defied their chief who had the power to kill her. She had walked on into a forest where ferocious leopards abounded ready to spring out upon her, and where men were drinking themselves into a fury of war. And for what? To try with a woman's tongue to stop the fiery chiefs and the savages of a distant warlike tribe from fighting. Surely she was mad. _Facing the Warriors_ She pressed on through the darkness. Then she saw the dim outlines of huts. Mary Slessor had reached the first town in the war area. She found the hut where an old Calabar woman lived who knew the white Ma. "Who is there?" came a whisper from within. But even as she replied there was a swift patter of bare feet. Out of the darkness leapt a score of armed warriors. They were all round her. From all parts dark shadows sprang forward till scores of men with their chiefs were jostling, chattering and threatening. "What have you come for?" they asked. "I have heard that you are going to war. I have come to ask you not to fight," she replied. The chiefs hurriedly talked together, then they came to her and said-- "The white Ma is welcome. She shall hear all that we have to say before we fight. All the same we shall fight. For here you see are men wounded. We _must_ wipe out the disgrace that is put upon us. Now she must rest. Women, you take care of the white Ma. We will call her at cock-crow when we start." This meant an hour's sleep. Mary Slessor lay down in a hut. It seemed as though her eyes were hardly shut before she was wakened again. She stood, tottering with tiredness, when she heard the cry-- "Run, Ma, run!" The warriors were off down the hill away to the fight. She ran, but they were quickly out of sight on the way to the attack. Was all her trouble in vain? She pressed on weak and breathless, but determined. She heard wild yells and the roll of the war drum. The warriors she had followed were feverishly making ready to fight, a hundred yards distant from the enemy's village. She went up to them and spoke sternly. "Behave like men," she said, "not like fools. Do not yell and shout. Hold your peace. I am going into the village there." She pointed to the enemy. Then she walked forward. Ahead of her stood the enemy in unbroken ranks of dark warriors. They stood like a solid wall. She hailed them as she walked forward. There was an ominous silence. She laughed. "How perfect your manners are!" she exclaimed. She was about to walk forward and force them to make way for her when an old chief stepped out toward her and, to her amazement, knelt down at her feet. "Ma," he said, "we thank you for coming to us. We own that we wounded the chief over there. It was only one of our men who did it. It was not the act of all our town. We ask you that you will speak with our enemy to bring them to peace with us." _The Healed Chief_ She looked into the face of the chief. Then she saw to her joy that this was the very chief whom she had toiled through the rain to heal long ago. Because of what she had done then, he was now at her feet asking her to make peace. Should she run back and tell the warriors, who a hundred yards away were spoiling for a fight? That was her first joyful thought. Then she saw that she must first make her authority stronger over the whole band of warriors. "Stay where you are," she said. "Some of you find a place where I can sit in comfort; and bring me food. I will not starve while men fight. Choose two or three men to speak well for you, and we will have two men from your enemies." These grim warriors, so sullen and threatening a few moments ago, obeyed her every word. At length two chiefs came from the other side and stood on one side of her, while the two chiefs chosen in the village came and threw down their arms and knelt at their feet. "Your chief," they said, "was wounded by a drunken youth. Do not let us shed blood through all our villages because of what he did. If you will cease from war with us, we will pay to you any fine that the white Ma shall say." She, too, pressed them to stop their fighting. Word went back to the warriors on both sides, who became wildly excited. Some agreed, others stormed and raged till they were in a frenzy. Would they fight even over her body? Furious warriors came moving up from both sides. But by arguing and appealing at last she persuaded the warlike tribe to accept a fine. _The Promise of Peace_ The town whose drunken youth had wounded the enemy chief at once paid a part of the fine. They used no money. So the fine was paid in casks and bottles of trade gin. Mary Slessor trembled. For as the boxes of gin bottles were brought forward the warriors pranced with excitement and made ready to get drunk. She knew that this would make them fight after all. What could she do? The roar of voices rose. She could not make her own voice heard. A daring idea flashed into her mind. According to the law of these Egbo people, clothes thrown over anything give it the protection of your body. She snatched off her skirt and all the clothing she could spare and spread them over the gin. She seized the one glass that the tribe had, and doled out one portion only to each chief to test whether the bottles indeed contained spirit. At last they grew quieter and she spoke to them. "I am going," she said, "across the Great Waters to my home, and I shall be away many moons. Promise me here, on both sides, that you will not go to war with one another while I am away." "We promise," they said. They gathered around her and she told them the story of Jesus Christ in whose name she had come to them. "Now," she said, "go to your rest and fight no more." And the tribes kept their promise to her,--so that when she returned they could say, "It is peace." * * * * * For nearly forty years she worked on in Calabar, stricken scores of times with fever. She rescued her hundreds of twin babies thrown out to die in the forest, stopped wars and ordeal by poison, made peace, healed the sick. At last, too weak to walk, she was wheeled through the forests and along the valleys by some of her "twins" now grown to strong children, and died there--the conquering Queen of Calabar, who ruled in the hearts of even the fiercest cannibals through the power of the Faith, by which out of weakness she was made strong. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 57: The African uses the word "Ma" as mother, (_a_) to name a woman after her eldest son, _e.g._ Mrs. Livingstone was called Ma-Robert; and (_b_) as in this case, for a woman whom they respect.] Book Four: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT CHAPTER XXIII SONS OF THE DESERT _Abdallah and Sabat_ (Time of Incidents, about 1800-1810) _Two Arab Wanderers_ One day, more than a hundred years ago, two young Arabs, Abdallah and Sabat, rode on their camels toward a city that was hidden among the tawny hills standing upon the skyline. The sun was beginning to drop toward the edge of the desert away in the direction of the Red Sea. The shadows of the long swinging legs of the camels wavered in grotesque lines on the sand. There was a look of excited expectation in the eyes of the young Arabs; for, by sunset, their feet would walk the city of their dreams. They were bound for Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, the Holy City toward which every man of the Mohammedan world turns five times a day as he cries, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah." To have worshipped in Mecca before the sacred Kaaba and to have kissed the black stone in its wall--this was to make Paradise certain for them both. Having done that pilgrimage these two Arabs, Sabat and Abdallah, would be able to take the proud title of "Haji" which would proclaim to every man that they had been to Mecca--the Holy of Holies. So they pressed on by the valley between the hills till they saw before them the roofs and the minarets of Mecca itself. As darkness rushed across the desert and the stars came out, the tired camels knelt in the courtyard of the Khan,[58] and Sabat and Abdallah alighted and stretched their cramped legs, and took their sleep. These young men, Sabat and Abdallah, the sons of notable Arab chiefs, had struck up a great friendship. Now, each in company with his chum, they were together at the end of the greatest journey that an Arab can take. As the first faint flush of pink touched the mountain beyond Mecca, the cry came from the minaret: "Come to prayer. Prayer is better than sleep. There is no God but Allah." Sabat and Abdallah were already up and out, and that day they said the Mohammedan prayer before the Kaaba itself with other pilgrims who had come from many lands--from Egypt and Abyssinia, from Constantinople and Damascus, Baghdad and Bokhara, from the defiles of the Khyber Pass, from the streets of Delhi and the harbour of Zanzibar. We do not know what Abdallah looked like. He was probably like most young Arab chieftains, a tall, sinewy man--brown-faced, dark-eyed, with hair and a short-cropped beard that were between brown and black. His friend Sabat was, however, so striking that even in that great crowd of many pilgrims people would turn to look at him. They would turn round, for one reason, because of Sabat's voice. Even when he was just talking to his friend his voice sounded like a roar; when he got excited and in a passion (as he very often did) it rolled like thunder and was louder than most men's shouting. As he spoke his large white teeth gleamed in his wide mouth. His brown face and black arched eyebrows were a dark setting for round eyes that flashed as he spoke. His black beard flowed over his tawny throat and neck. Gold earrings swung with his agitation and a gold chain gleamed round his neck. He wore a bright silk jacket with long sleeves, and long, loose-flowing trousers and richly embroidered shoes with turned-up toes. From a girdle round his waist hung a dagger whose handle and hilt flashed with jewels. Abdallah and Sabat were better educated than most Arabs, for they could both read. But they were not men who could stay in one place and read and think in quiet. When they had finished their worship at Mecca, they determined to ride far away across the deserts eastward, even to Kabul in the mountains of Afghanistan. So they rode, first northward up the great camel-route toward Damascus, and then eastward. In spite of robbers and hungry jackals, through mountain gorges, over streams, across the Syrian desert from oasis to oasis, and then across the Euphrates and the Tigris they went, till they had climbed rung by rung the mountain ranges that hold up the great plateau of Persia. At last they broke in upon the rocky valleys of Afghanistan and came to the gateway of India--to Kabul. They presented themselves to Zeman Shah, the ruler of Afghanistan, and he was so taken with Abdallah's capacity that he asked him to be one of his officers in the court. So Abdallah stayed in Kabul. But the restless, fiery Sabat turned the face of his camel westward and rode back into Persia to the lovely city of Bokhara. _Abdallah the Daring_ In Kabul there was an Armenian whose name we do not know: but he owned a book printed in Arabic, a book that Abdallah could read. The Armenian lent it to him. There were hardly any books in Arabic, so Abdallah took this book and read it eagerly. As he read, he thought that he had never in all his life heard of such wonderful things, and he could feel in his very bones that they were true. He read four short true stories in this book: they were what we call the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As he read, Abdallah saw in the stories Someone who was infinitely greater than Mohammed--One who was so strong and gentle that He was always helping children and women and people who were ill; so good that He always lived the very life that God willed; and so brave that He died rather than give in to evil men--our Lord Jesus Christ. "I worship Him," said Abdallah in his heart. Then he did a very daring thing. He knew that if he turned Christian it would be the duty of Mohammedans to kill him. Why not keep quiet and say nothing about his change of heart? But he could not. He decided that he must come out in the open and confess the new Captain of his life. He was baptized a Christian. The Moslems were furious. To save his life Abdallah fled on his camel westward to Bokhara. But the news that he had become a Christian flew even faster than he himself rode. As he went along the streets of Bokhara he saw his friend Sabat coming toward him. As a friend, Sabat desired to save Abdallah; but as a Moslem, the cruel law of Mohammed said that he must have him put to death. And Sabat was a fiery, hot-tempered Moslem. "I had no pity," Sabat told his friends afterward. "I delivered him up to Morad Shah, the King." So Abdallah was bound and carried before the Moslem judges. His friend Sabat stood by watching, just as Saul had stood watching them stone Stephen nearly eighteen centuries earlier. "You shall be given your life and be set free," they said, "if you will spit upon the Cross and renounce Christ and say, 'There is no God but Allah.'" "I refuse," said Abdallah. A sword was brought forward and unsheathed. Abdallah's arm was stretched out: the sword was lifted--it flashed--and Abdallah's hand, cut clean off, fell on the ground, while the blood spurted from his arm. "Your life will still be given you if you renounce Christ and proclaim Allah and Mohammed as His prophet." This is how Sabat himself described what happened next. "Abdallah made no answer, but looked up steadfastly toward heaven, like Stephen, the first martyr, his eyes streaming with tears. He looked at me," said Sabat, "but it was with the countenance of forgiveness." Abdallah's other arm was stretched out, again the sword flashed and fell. His other hand dropped to the ground. He stood there bleeding and handless. He bowed his head and his neck was bared to the sword. Again the blade flashed. He was beheaded, and Sabat--Sabat who had ridden a thousand miles with his friend and had faced with him the blistering sun of the desert and the snow-blizzard of the mountain--saw Abdallah's head lie there on the ground and the dead body carried away. Abdallah had died because he was faithful to Jesus Christ and because Sabat had obeyed the law of Mohammed. _The Old Sabat and the New_ The news spread through Bokhara like a forest fire. They could hardly believe that a man would die for the Christian faith like that. As Sabat told his friends afterward, "All Bokhara seemed to say, 'What new thing is this?'" But Sabat was in agony of mind. Nothing that he could do would take away from his eyes the vision of his friend's face as Abdallah had looked at him when his hands were being cut off. He plunged out on to the camel tracks of Asia to try to forget. He wandered far and he wandered long, but he could not forget or find rest for his tortured mind. At last he sailed away on the seas and landed on the coast of India at Madras. The British East India Company then ruled in India, and they gave Sabat a post in the civil courts as mufti, _i.e._ as an expounder of the law of Mohammed. He spent most of his time in a coast town north of Madras, called Vizagapatam.[59] A friend handed to him there a little book in his native language--Arabic. It was another translation of those stories that Abdallah had read in Kabul--it was the New Testament.[60] Sabat sat reading this New Book. He then took up the book of Mohammed's law--the Koran--which it was his daily work to explain. He compared the two. "The truth came"--as he himself said--"like a flood of light." He too began to worship Jesus Christ, whose life he had read now for the first time in the New Testament. Sabat decided that he must follow in Abdallah's footsteps. He became a Christian.[61] He was then twenty-seven years of age. _The Brother's Dagger_ In the world of the East news travels like magic by Arab dhow (sailing ship) and camel caravan. Very quickly the news was in Arabia that Sabat had renounced Mohammed and become a Christian. At once Sabat's brother rose, girded on his dagger, left the tents of his tribe, mounted his camel and coursed across Arabia to a port. There he took ship for Madras. Landing, he disguised himself as an Indian and went up to Vizagapatam to the house where his brother Sabat was living. Sabat saw this Indian, as he appeared to be, standing before him. He suspected nothing. Suddenly the disguised brother put his hand within his robe, seized his dagger, and leaping at Sabat made a fierce blow at him. Sabat flung out his arm. He spoilt his brother's aim, but he was too late to save himself. He was wounded, but not killed. The brother threw off his disguise, and Sabat--remembering the forgiveness of Abdallah--forgave his brother, gave him many presents, and sent loving messages to his mother. Sabat decided that he could no longer work as an expounder of Moslem law: he wanted to do work that would help to spread the Christian Faith. He went away north to Calcutta, and there he joined the great men who were working at the task of translating the Bible into different languages and printing them. This work pleased Sabat, for was it not through reading an Arabic New Testament that all his own life had been changed? Because Sabat knew Persian as well as Arabic he was sent to help a very clever young chaplain from England named Henry Martyn, who was busily at work translating the New Testament into Persian and Arabic. So Sabat went up the Ganges to Cawnpore with Henry Martyn. Sabat's fiery temper nearly drove Martyn wild. His was a flaming Arab spirit, hot-headed and impetuous; yet he would be ready to die for the man he cared for; proud and often ignorant, yet simple--as Martyn said, "an artless child of the desert." Sabat's knowledge of Persian was not really so good as he himself thought it was, and some of the Indian translators at Calcutta criticised his translation. At this he got furiously angry, and, like St. Peter, the fiery, impetuous apostle, he denied Jesus Christ and spoke against Christianity. With his heart burning with rage and his great voice thundering with anger, Sabat left his friends, went aboard ship and sailed down the Bay of Bengal by the Indo-Chinese coast till he came to Penang, where he began to live as a trader. But by this time the fire of his anger had burnt itself out. He--again like Peter--remembered his denial of his Master, and when he saw in a Penang newspaper an article saying that the famous Sabat, who had become a Christian and then become a Mohammedan again, had come to live in their city, he wrote a letter which was published in the newspaper at Penang declaring that he was now--and for good and all--a Christian. A British officer named Colonel MacInnes was stationed at Penang. Sabat went to him. "My mind is full of great sorrow," he said, "because I denied Jesus Christ. I have not had a moment's peace since Satan made me do that bad work. I did it for revenge. I only want to do one thing with my life: to spend it in undoing this evil that has come through my denial." Sabat left the house of the Mohammedan with whom he was living in Penang. He found an old friend of his named Johannes, an Armenian Christian merchant, who had lived in Madras in the very days when Sabat first became a Christian. Every night Johannes the Armenian and Sabat the Arab got out their Bibles, and far into the night Sabat would explain their meaning to Johannes. _The Prince from Sumatra_ One day all Penang was agog with excitement because a brown Prince from Acheen, a Malay State in the island of Sumatra, had suddenly sailed into the harbour. He was in flight from his own land, where rebels had attacked him. The people of Acheen were wild and ferocious; many of them were cannibals. "I will join you in helping to recover your throne," said Sabat to the fugitive Prince. "I am going," said Sabat to Colonel MacInnes, "to see if I can carry the message of Christianity to this fierce people." So Sabat and the Prince, with others, went aboard a sailing ship and crossed the Strait of Malacca to Sumatra. They landed, and for long the struggle with the rebels swayed from side to side. The Prince was so pleased with Sabat that he made him his Prime Minister. But the struggle dragged on and on; there seemed to be no hope of triumph. At last Sabat decided to go back to Penang. One day he left the Prince and started off, but soldiers of the rebel-chief Syfoolalim captured him. Great was the joy of the rebels--their powerful enemy was in their hands! They bound him, threw him into a boat, hoisted him aboard a sailing ship and clapped him in the stifling darkness of the hold. As he lay there he pierced his arm to make it bleed, and, with the blood that came out, wrote on a piece of paper that was smuggled out and sent to Penang to Colonel MacInnes. The agonies that Sabat suffered in the gloom and filth of that ship's hold no one will ever know. We can learn from the words that he wrote in the blood from his own body that they loaded worse horrors upon him because he was a Christian. All the scene is black, but out of the darkness comes a voice that makes us feel that Sabat was faithful at the end. In his last letter to Colonel MacInnes he told how he was now ready (like his friend Abdallah) to die for the sake of that Master whom he had in his rage denied. Then one day his cruel gaolers came to the hold where he lay, and, binding his limbs, thrust him into a sack, which they then closed. In the choking darkness of the sack he was carried on deck and dragged to the side of the ship. He heard the lapping of the waves. He felt himself lifted and then hurled out into the air, and down--down with a crash into the waters of the sea, which closed over him for ever. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 58: The inn of the Near East--a square courtyard with all the doors and windows inside, with primitive stables and bunks for the camelmen, and sometimes rooms for the well-to-do travellers.] [Footnote 59: Pronounce Vi-zah'-ga-pat-ahm.] [Footnote 60: The Arabic New Testament revised by Solomon Negri and sent to India by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in the middle of the eighteenth century.] [Footnote 61: Baptized "Nathaniel" at Madras by the Rev. Dr Kerr.] CHAPTER XXIV A RACE AGAINST TIME _Henry Martyn_ (Dates, b. 1781, d. 1812. Time of Incident 1810-12) In the story of Sabat that was told in the previous chapter you will remember that, for a part of the time that he lived in India, he worked with an Englishman named Henry Martyn. Sabat was almost a giant; Henry Martyn was slight and not very strong. Yet--as we shall see in the story that follows--Henry Martyn was braver and more constant than Sabat himself. As a boy Henry, who was born and went to school in Truro, in Cornwall, in the West of England, was violently passionate, sensitive, and physically rather fragile, and at school was protected from bullies by a big boy, the son of Admiral Kempthorne. He left school at the age of fifteen and shot and read till he was seventeen. In 1797 he became an undergraduate at St. John's College, Cambridge. He was still very passionate. For instance, when a man was "ragging" him in the College Hall at dinner, he was so furious that he flung a knife at him, which stuck quivering in the panelling of the wall. Kempthorne, his old friend, was at Cambridge with him. They used to read the Bible together and Martyn became a real Christian and fought hard to overcome his violent temper. He was a very clever scholar and became a Fellow of Jesus College in 1802. He at that time took orders in the Church of England. He became very keen on reading about missionary work, e.g. Carey's story of nine years' work in _Periodical Accounts_, and the L.M.S. Report on Vanderkemp in South Africa. "I read nothing else while it lasted," he said of the Vanderkemp report. He was accepted as a chaplain of the East India Company. They could not sail till Admiral Nelson gave the word, because the French were waiting to capture all the British ships. Five men-of-war convoyed them when they sailed in 1805. They waited off Ireland, because the immediate invasion of England by Napoleon was threatened. On board Martyn worked hard at Hindustani, Bengali and Portuguese. He already knew Greek, Latin and Hebrew. He arrived at Madras (South India) and Calcutta and thence went to Cawnpore. It is at this point that our yarn begins. A voice like thunder, speaking in a strange tongue, shouted across an Indian garden one night in 1809. The new moon, looking "like a ball of ebony in an ivory cup,"--as one who was there that night said--threw a cold light over the palm trees and aloes, on the man who was speaking and on those who were seated around him at the table in the bungalow. Beyond the garden the life of Cawnpore moved in its many streets; the shout of a donkey-driver, the shrill of a bugle from the barracks broke sharply through the muffled sounds of the city. The June wind, heavy with the waters of the Ganges which flows past Cawnpore, made the night insufferably hot. But the heat did not trouble Sabat, the wild son of the Arabian desert, who was talking--as he always did--in a roaring voice that was louder than most men's shouting. He was telling the story of Abdallah's brave death as a Christian martyr.[62] Quietly listening to Sabat's voice--though he could not understand what he was saying--was a young Italian, Padre Julius Cæsar, a monk of the order of the Jesuits. On his head was a little skull-cap, over his body a robe of fine purple satin held with a girdle of twisted silk. Near him sat an Indian scholar--on his dark head a full turban, and about him richly-coloured robes. On the other side sat a little, thin, copper-coloured Bengali dressed in white, and a British officer in his scarlet and gold uniform, with his wife, who has told us the story of that evening. Not one of these brightly dressed people was, however, the strongest power there. A man in black clothes was the real centre of the group. Very slight in build, not tall, clean-shaven, with a high forehead and sensitive lips, young Henry Martyn seemed a stripling beside the flaming Arab. Yet Sabat, with all his sound and fury, was no match for the swift-witted, clear-brained young Englishman. Henry Martyn was a chaplain in the army of the East India Company, which then ruled in India. He was the only one of those who were listening to Sabat who could understand what he was saying. When Sabat had finished his story, Martyn turned, and, in his clear, musical voice translated it from the Persian into Latin mixed with Italian for Padre Julius Cæsar, into Hindustani for the Indian scholar, into Bengali for the Bengal gentleman, and into English for the British officer and his wife. Martyn could also talk to Sabat himself both in Arabic and in Persian. As Martyn listened to the rolling sentences of Sabat, the Christian Arab, he seemed to see the lands beyond India, away across the Khyber Pass, where Sabat had travelled--Mesopotamia, Arabia, Persia. Henry Martyn knew that in all those lands the people were Mohammedans. He wanted one thing above everything else in the world: that was to give them all the chance of doing what Sabat and Abdallah had done--the chance of reading in their own languages the one book in the world that could tell them that God was a Father--the book of letters and of biographies that we call the New Testament. _The Toil of Brain_ There was not in the world a copy of the New Testament in good Persian. To make one Henry Martyn slaved hard, far into the hot, sultry Indian nights, with scores of mosquitoes "pinging" round his lamp and his head, grinding at his Persian grammar, so that he could translate the life of Jesus Christ into that language. Even while he was listening to Sabat's story in the bungalow at Cawnpore, Martyn knew that he was so ill that he could not live for many years more. The doctor said that he must leave India for a time to be in a healthier place. Should he go home to England, where all his friends were? He wanted that; but much more he wanted to go on with his work. So he asked the doctor if he might go to Persia on the way home, and he agreed. So Martyn went down from Cawnpore to Calcutta, and in a boat down the Hoogli river to the little Arab coasting sailing ship the _Hummoudi_, which hoisted sail and started on its voyage round India to Bombay. Martyn read while on board the Old Testament in the original Hebrew and the New Testament in the original Greek, so that he might understand them better and make a more perfect translation into Persian. He read the Koran of Mohammed so that he could argue with the Persians about it. And he worked hard at Arabic grammar, and read books in Persian. Yet he was for ever cracking jokes with his fellow travellers, cooped up in the little ship on the hot tropical seas. From Bombay the governor granted Martyn a passage up the Persian Gulf in the _Benares_, a ship in the Indian Navy that was going on a cruise to finish the exciting work of hunting down the fierce Arab pirates of the Persian Gulf. So on Lady Day, 1811, the sailors got her under weigh and tacked northward up the Gulf, till at last, on May 21, the roofs and minarets of Bushire hove in sight. Martyn, leaning over the bulwarks, could see the town jutting out into the Gulf on a spit of sand and the sea almost surrounding it. That day he set foot for the first time on the soil of Persia. _Across Persia on a Pony_ Aboard ship Martyn had allowed his beard and moustache to grow. When he landed at Bushire he bought and wore the clothes of a Persian gentleman, so that he should escape from attracting everybody's notice by wearing clothes such as the people had never seen before. No one who had seen the pale, clean-shaven clergyman in black silk coat and trousers in Cawnpore would have recognised the Henry Martyn who rode out that night on his pony with an Armenian servant, Zechariah of Isfahan, on his long one hundred and seventy mile journey from Bushire to Shiraz. He wore a conical cap of black Astrakhan fur, great baggy trousers of blue, bright red leather boots, a light tunic of chintz, and over that a flowing cloak. They went out through the gates of Bushire on to the great plain of burning sand that stretched away for ninety miles ahead of them. They travelled by night, because the day was intolerably hot, but even at midnight the heat was over 100 degrees. It was a fine moonlight night; the stars sparkled over the plain. The bells tinkled on the mules' necks as they walked across the sand. All else was silent. At last dawn broke. Martyn pitched his little tent under a tree, the only shelter he could get. Gradually the heat grew more and more intense. He was already so ill that it was difficult to travel. "When the thermometer was above 112 degrees--fever heat," says Martyn, "I began to lose my strength fast. It became intolerable. I wrapped myself up in a blanket and all the covering I could get to defend myself from the air. By this means the moisture was kept a little longer upon the body. I thought I should have lost my senses. The thermometer at last stood at 126 degrees. I concluded that death was inevitable." At last the sun went down: the thermometer crept lower: it was night and time to start again. But Martyn had not slept or eaten. He could hardly sit upright on his pony. Yet he set out and travelled on through the night. Next morning he had a little shelter of leaves and branches made, and an Arab poured water on the leaves and on Martyn all day to try to keep some of the frightful heat from him. But even then the heat almost slew him. So they marched on through another night and then camped under a grove of date palms. "I threw myself on the burning ground and slept," Martyn wrote. "When the tent came up I awoke in a burning fever. All day I had recourse to the wet towel, which kept me alive, but would allow of no sleep." At nine that night they struck camp. The ground threw up the heat that it had taken from the sun during the day. So frightfully hot was the air that even at midnight Martyn could not travel without a wet towel round his face and neck. As the night drew on the plain grew rougher: then it began to rise to the foothills and mountains. At last the pony and mules were clambering up rough steep paths so wild that there was (as Martyn said) "nothing to mark the road but the rocks being a little more worn in one place than in another." Suddenly in the darkness the pony stopped; dimly through the gloom Martyn could see that they were on the edge of a tremendous precipice. A single step more would have plunged him over, to be smashed on the rocks hundreds of feet below. Martyn did not move or try to guide the beast: he knew that the pony himself was the safest guide. In a minute or two the animal moved, and step by step clambered carefully up the rock-strewn mountain-side. At last they came out on the mountain top, but only to find that they were on the edge of a flat high plain--a tableland. The air was pure and fresher; the mules and the travellers revived. Martyn's pony began to trot briskly along. So, as dawn came up, they came in sight of a great courtyard built by the king of that country to refresh pilgrims. Through night after night they tramped, across plateau and mountain range, till they climbed the third range, and then plunged by a winding rocky path into a wide valley where, at a great town called Kazrun, in a garden of cypress trees was a summer-house. Martyn lay down on the floor but could not sleep, though he was horribly weary. "There seemed," he said, "to be fire within my head, my skin like a cinder." His heart beat like a hammer. They went on climbing another range of mountains, first tormented by mosquitoes, then frozen with cold; Martyn was so overwhelmed with sleep that he could not sit on his pony and had to hurry ahead to keep awake and then sit down with his back against a rock where he fell asleep in a second, and had to be shaken to wake up when Zechariah, the Armenian mule driver, came up to where he was. They had at last climbed the four mountain rungs of the ladder to Persia, and came out on June 11th, 1811, on the great plain where the city of Shiraz stands. Here he found the host Jaffir Ali Khan, to whom he carried his letters of introduction. Martyn in his Persian dress, seated on the ground, was feasted with curries and rice, sweets cooled with snow and perfumed with rose water, and coffee. Ali Khan had a lovely garden of orange trees, and in the garden Martyn sat. Ill as he was, he worked day in and day out to translate the life of Jesus Christ in the New Testament from the Greek language into pure and simple Persian. The kind host put up a tent for Martyn in the garden, close to some beautiful vines, from which hung lovely bunches of purple grapes. By the side of his tent ran a clear stream of running water. All the evening nightingales sang sweetly and mournfully. As he sat there at his work, men came hundreds of miles to talk with this holy man, as they felt him to be. Moslems--they yet travelled even from Baghdad and Bosra and Isfahan to hear this "infidel" speak of Jesus Christ, and to argue as to which was the true religion. Prince Abbas Mirza invited him to come to speak with him; and as Martyn entered the Prince's courtyard a hundred fountains began to send up jets of water in his honour. At last they came to him in such numbers that Martyn was obliged to say to many of them that he could not see them. He hated sending them away. What was it forced him to do so? _The Race against Time_ It was because he was running a race against time. He knew that he could not live very long, because the disease that had smitten his lungs was gaining ground every day. And the thing that he had come to Persia for--the object that had made him face the long voyage, the frightful heat and the freezing cold of the journey, the life thousands of miles from his home in Cornwall--was that he might finish such a translation of the New Testament into Persian that men should love to read years and years after he had died. So each day Martyn finished another page or two of the book, written in lovely Persian letters. He began the work within a week of reaching Shiraz, and in seven months (February, 1812) it was finished. Three more months were spent in writing out very beautiful copies of the whole of the New Testament in this new translation, to be presented to the Shah of Persia and to the heir to the throne, Prince Abbas Mirza. Then he started away on a journey right across Persia to find the Shah and Prince so that he might give his precious books to them. On the way he fell ill with great fever; he was so weak and giddy that he could not stand. One night his head ached so that it almost drove him mad; he shook all over with fever; then a great sweat broke out. He was almost unconscious with weakness, but at midnight when the call came to start he mounted his horse and, as he says, "set out, rather dead than alive." So he pressed on in great weakness till he reached Tabriz, and there met the British Ambassador. Martyn was rejoiced, and felt that all his pains were repaid when Sir Gore Ouseley said that he himself would present the Sacred Book to the Shah and the Prince. When the day came to give the book to Prince Abbas, poor Henry Martyn was so weak that he could not rise from his bed. Before the other copy could be presented to the Shah, Martyn had died. This is how it came about. _The Last Trail_ His great work was done. The New Testament was finished. He sent a copy to the printers in India. He could now go home to England and try to get well again. He started out on horseback with two Armenian servants and a Turkish guide. He was making along the old track that has been the road from Asia to Europe for thousands of years. His plan was to travel across Persia, through Armenia and over the Black Sea to Constantinople, and so back to England. For forty-five days he moved on, often going as much as ninety miles, and generally as much as sixty in a day. He slept in filthy inns where fleas and lice abounded and mosquitoes tormented him. Horses, cows, buffaloes and sheep would pass through his sleeping-room, and the stench of the stables nearly poisoned him. Yet he was so ill that often he could hardly keep his seat on his horse. He travelled through deep ravines and over high mountain passes and across vast plains. His head ached till he felt it would split; he could not eat; fever came on. He shook with ague. Yet his remorseless Turkish guide, Hassan, dragged him along, because he wanted to get the journey over and go back home. At last one day Martyn got rest on damp ground in a hovel, his eyes and forehead feeling as though a great fire burnt in them. "I was almost frantic," he wrote. Martyn was, in fact, dying; yet Hassan compelled him to ride a hundred and seventy miles of mountain track to Tokat. Here, on October 6th, 1812, he wrote in his journal: "No horses to be had, I had an unexpected repose. I sat in the orchard and thought with sweet comfort and peace of my God--in solitude my Company, my Friend, my Comforter." It was the last word he was ever to write. Alone, without a human friend by him, he fell asleep. But the book that he had written with his life-blood, the Persian New Testament, was printed, and has told thousands of Persians in far places, where no Christian man has penetrated, that story of the love of God that is shown in Jesus Christ. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 62: See Chapter XXIII.] CHAPTER XXV THE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS _William Ambrose Shedd_ (1865-1918) I A dark-haired American with black, penetrating eyes that looked you steadily in the face, and sparkled with light when he laughed, sat on a chair in a hall in 1918 in the ancient city of Urumia in the land of Assyria where Persia and Turkey meet. His face was as brown with the sunshine of this eastern land as were the wrinkled faces of the turbaned Assyrian village men who stood before him. For he was born out here in Persia on Mount Seir.[63] And he had lived here as a boy and a man, save for the time when his splendid American father had sent him to Marietta, Ohio, for some of his schooling, and to Princeton for his final training. His dark brown moustache and short beard covered a firm mouth and a strong chin. His vigorous expression and his strongly Roman nose added to the commanding effect of his presence. A haunting terror had driven these ragged village people into the city of Urumia, to ask help of this wonderful American leader whom they almost worshipped because he was so strong and just and good. For the bloodthirsty Turks and the even more cruel and wilder Kurds of the mountains were marching on the land. The Great War was raging across the world and even the hidden peoples of this distant mountain land were swept into its terrible flames. For Urumia city lies to the west of the southern end of the extremely salt lake of the same name. It is about 150 miles west from the Caspian Sea and the same distance north of the site of ancient Nineveh. It stands on a small plain and in that tangle of lakes, mountains and valley-plains where the ambitions of Russia, Persia and Turkey have met, and where the Assyrians (Christians of one of the most ancient churches in the world, which in the early centuries had a chain of missions from Constantinople right across Asia to Peking), the Kurds (wild, fierce Moslems), the Persians, the Turks and the Russians struggled together. In front of Dr. William Ambrose Shedd there stood an old man from the villages. His long grey hair and beard and his wrinkled face were agitated as he told the American his story. The old man's dress was covered with patches--an eyewitness counted thirty-seven patches--all of different colours on one side of his cloak and loose baggy trousers. "My field in my village I cannot plough," he said, "for we have no ox. The Kurds have taken our possessions, you are our father. Grant us an ox to plough and draw for us." Dr. Shedd saw that the old man spoke truth; he scribbled a few words on a slip of paper and the old man went out satisfied. So for hour after hour, men and women from all the country round came to this strange missionary who had been asked by the American Government to administer relief, yes, and to be the Consul representing America itself in that great territory. They came to him from the villages where, around the fire in the Khans at night, men still tell stories of him as one of the great hero-leaders of their race. These are the kind of stories that they tell of the courage and the gentleness of this man who--while he was a fine American scholar--yet knew the very heart of the Eastern peoples in northwestern Persia as no American has ever done in all our history. "One day," says one old village Assyrian greybeard, "Dr. Shedd was sitting at meat in his house when his servant, Meshadi, ran into the room crying, 'The Kurds have been among our people. They have taken three girls, three Christian girls, and are carrying them off. They have just passed the gate.' The Kurds were all bristling with daggers and pistols. Dr. Shedd simply picked up the cane that he holds in his hand when he walks. He hurried out of the house with Meshadi, ran up the hill to the Kurd village that lies there, entered, said to the fierce Kurds, 'Give back those girls to us.' And they, as they looked into his face, could not resist him though they were armed and he was not. So they gave the Assyrian girls back to him and he led them down the hill to their homes." So he also stood single-handed between Turks and five hundred Assyrians who had taken refuge in the missionary compound, and stopped the Turks from massacring the Christians. But even as he worked in this way the tide of the great war flowed towards Urumia. The people there were mostly Assyrians with some Armenians; they were Christians. They looked southward across the mountains to the British Army there in Mesopotamia for aid. But, as the Assyrians looked up from Urumia to the north they could already see the first Turks coming down upon the city. Thousands upon thousands of the Assyrians from the country villages crowded into the city and into the American missionary compound, till actually even in the mission school-rooms they were sleeping three deep--one lot on the floor, another lot on the seats of the desks and a third on the top of the desks themselves. "Hold on; resist; the help of the British will come," said Dr. Shedd to the people. "Agha Petros with a thousand of our men has gone to meet the British and he will come back with them and will throw back the Turks." The Turks and the Kurds came on from the north; many of the Armenian and Assyrian men were out across the plains to the east getting in the harvest; and no sign of succour came from the south. II Through the fierce hot days of July the people held on because Dr. Shedd said that they must; but at last on the afternoon of July 30th there came over all the people a strange irresistible panic. They gathered all their goods together and piled them in wagons--food, clothes, saucepans, jewelry, gold, silver, babies, old women, mothers,--all were huddled and jumbled together. The wagons creaked, the oxen lurched down the roads to the south, the little children cried with hunger and fright, the boys trudged along rather excited at the adventure yet rather scared at the awful hullabaloo and the strange feeling of horror of the cruel Kurdish horsemen and of the crafty Turk. Dr. Shedd made one last vain effort to persuade the people to hold on to their city; but it was impossible--they had gone, as it seemed, mad with fright. He and his wife went to bed that night but not to sleep. At two o'clock the telephone bell rang. "The Turks and Kurds are advancing; all the people are leaving," came the message. "It is impossible to hold on any longer," said Dr. Shedd to his wife. "I will go and tell all in the compound. You get things ready." Mrs. Shedd got up and began to collect what was needed: she packed up food (bread, tea, sugar, nuts, raisins and so on), a frying pan, a kettle, a saucepan, water jars, saddles, extra horse-shoes, ropes, lanterns, a spade and bedding. By 7.30 the baggage wagon and two Red Cross carts were ready. Dr. Shedd and Mrs. Shedd got up into the wagon; the driver cried to his horses and they started. As they went out of the city on the south the Turks and Kurds came raging in on the north. Within two hours the Turks and Kurds were crashing into houses and burning them to the ground; but most of the people had gone--for Dr. Shedd was practically the last to leave Urumia. Ahead of them were the Armenians and Syrians in flight. They came to a little bridge--a mass of sticks with mud thrown over them. Here, and at every bridge, pandemonium reigned. This is how Mrs. Shedd describes the scene: "The jam at every bridge was indescribable confusion. Every kind of vehicle that you could imagine--ox carts, buffalo wagons, Red Cross carts, troikas, foorgans like prairie schooners, hay-wagons, Russian phaëtons and many others invented and fitted up for the occasion. The animals--donkeys, horses, buffaloes, oxen, cows with their calves, mules and herds of thousands of sheep and goats." All through the day they moved on, at the end of the procession--Dr. Shedd, planning out how he could best get his people safely away from the Turks who--he knew--would soon come pursuing them down the plain to the mountains. Night fell and they were in a long line of wagons close to a narrow bridge built by the Russians across the Baranduz river. They had come some eighteen miles from Urumia. So they lay down in the wagons to try to sleep. But they could not and at two o'clock in the night they moved on, crossed the river and drove on for hour after hour toward the mountains that rose in a wall before them. The poor horses were not strong so the wagon had to be lightened. Assyrian boys took loads on their heads and trudged up the rocky mountain road while the wagon jolted and groaned as it bumped its way along. The trail of the mountain pass was littered with samovars (tea urns), copper kettles, carpets, bedding; and here and there the body of someone who had died on the way. At the very top of the pass lay a baby thrown aside there and just drawing its last breath. So for two days they jolted on hardly getting an hour's sleep. At last at midday on the third day they left Hadarabad at the south end of Lake Urumia. Two hours later the sound of booming guns was heard. A horseman galloped up. "The Turks are in Hadarabad," he said. "They are attacking the rear of the procession." "It seemed," said Mrs. Shedd, "as if at any moment we should hear the screams of those behind, as the enemy fell upon them." The wagons hurried on to the next town called Memetyar and there Dr. Shedd waited, lightening his own wagons by throwing away everything that they could spare--oil, potatoes, charcoal, every box except his Bible and a small volume of Browning's Poems. Then they started again, along a road that was littered with the discarded goods of the people. Then they saw on the road-side a little baby girl that had been left by her parents. She was not a year old and sat there all alone in a desolate spot. Left to die. Dr. Shedd looked at his wife and she at him. He pulled up the horse and jumped down, picked up the baby and put her in the wagon. They went along till they came to a large village. Here they found a Kurdish mother. "Take care of this little girl till we come back," said Dr. Shedd, "and here is some money for looking after her. We will give you more when we come back if she is well looked after." III Suddenly cannon were fired from the mountains and the people in panic threw away their goods and hurried in a frenzy of fear down the mountain passes. They passed on to the plain, and then as they were in a village guns began to be fired. Three hundred Turks and Persians were attacking under Majdi--Sultana of Urumia. Dr. Shedd, riding his horse, gathered together some Armenian and Assyrian men with guns and stayed with them to help them hold back the enemy, while the women drove on. He was a good target sitting up there on his horse; but without thinking of his own danger he kept his men at it. For he felt like a shepherd with a great flock of fleeing sheep whom it was his duty to protect. Panic seized the people. Strong men left their old mothers to die. Mothers dropped their babies and ran. "One of my school-girls," Mrs. Shedd says, "afterward told me how she had left her baby on the bank and waded with an older child through the river when the enemy were coming after them. She couldn't carry both. The memory of her deserted baby is always with her." The line of the refugees stretched for miles along the road. The enemy fired from behind boulders on the mountain sides. The Armenians and Syrians fired back from the road or ran up the mountains to chase them. It was hopeless to think of driving the enemy off but Dr. Shedd's object was to hold them off till help came. So he went up and down on his horse encouraging the men; while the bullets whizzed over the wagons. "I feared," said Mrs. Shedd, "that the enemy might get the better of us and we should have to leave the carts and run for our lives. While they were plundering the wagons and the loads we would get away. I looked about me to see what we might carry. There was little May, six years old (the daughter of one of their Syrian teachers) who had unconcernedly curled herself up on the seat for a nap. I wrapped a little bread in a cloth, put my glasses in my pocket, and took the bag of money so that I should be ready on a moment's notice for Dr. Shedd if they should swoop down upon us." All day long the firing went on from the mountain side as the tired horses pulled along the rough trail. The sun began to sink toward the horizon. What would happen in the darkness? Then they saw ahead of them coming from the south a group of men in khaki. They were nine British Tommies with three Lewis guns under Captain Savage. They had come ahead from the main body that had moved up from Baghdad in order to defend the rear of the great procession. The little company of soldiers passed on and the procession moved forward. That tiny company of nine British Tommies ten miles farther on was attacked by hundreds of Turks. All day they held the road, like Horatius on the bridge, till at night the Cavalry came up and drove off the enemy, and at last the Shedds reached the British camp. "Why are you right at the tail end of the retreat?" asked one of the Syrian young men who had hurried forward into safety. "I would much rather be there," said Dr. Shedd with some scorn in his voice, "than like you, leave the unarmed, the sick, the weak, the women and the children to the mercy of the enemy." He was rejoiced that the British had come. "There was," said Mrs. Shedd, "a ring in his voice, a light in his eyes, a buoyancy in his step that I had not seen for months." He had shepherded his thousands and thousands of boys and girls, and men and women through the mountains into the protection of the British squadron of troops. IV Later that day Dr. Shedd began to feel the frightful heat of the August day so exhausting that he had to lie down in the cart, which had a canvas cover open at both ends and was therefore much cooler than a tent. He got more and more feverish. So Mrs. Shedd got the Assyrian boys to take out the baggage and she made up a bed for him on the floor of the cart. The English doctor was out with the cavalry who were holding back and dispersing the Turkish force. Then a British officer came and said: "We are moving the camp forward under the protection of the mountains." It was late afternoon. The cart moved forward into the gathering darkness. Mrs. Shedd crouched beside her husband on the floor of the cart attending to him, expecting the outriders to tell her when they came to the British Camp. For hours the cart rolled and jolted over the rough mountain roads. At last it stopped, it was so dark they could not see the road. They were in a gully and could not go forward. "Where is the British camp?" asked Mrs. Shedd. "We passed it miles back on the road," was the reply. It was a terrible blow: the doctor, the medicines, the comfort, the nursing that would have helped Dr. Shedd were all miles away and he was so ill that it was impossible to drive him back over that rough mountain track in the inky darkness of the night. There was nothing to do but just stay where they were, send a messenger to the camp for the doctor, and wait for the morning. "Only a few drops of oil were left in the lantern," Mrs. Shedd tells us, "but I lighted it and looked at Mr. Shedd. I could see that he was very sick indeed and asked two of the men to go back for the doctor. It was midnight before the doctor reached us. "The men," Mrs. Shedd continues, "set fire to a deserted cart left by the refugees and this furnished fire and light all night. They arranged for guards in turn and lay down to rest on the roadside. Hour after hour I crouched in the cart beside my husband massaging his limbs when cramps attacked him, giving him water frequently, for while he was very cold to the touch, he seemed feverish. We heated the hot water bottle for his feet, and made coffee for him at the blaze; we had no other nourishment. He got weaker and weaker, and a terrible fear tugged at my heart. "Fifty thousand hunted, terror-stricken refugees had passed on; the desolate, rocky mountains loomed above us, darkness was all about us and heaven seemed too far away for prayer to reach. A deserted baby wailed all night not far away. When the doctor came he gave two hypodermic injections and returned to the camp saying we should wait there for him to catch up to us in the morning. After the injections Mr. Shedd rested better but he did not again regain consciousness. "When the light began to reveal things, I could see the awful change in his face, but I could not believe that he was leaving me. Shortly after light the men told me that we could not wait as they heard fighting behind and it was evident the English were attacked, so in his dying hour we had to take him over the rough, stony road. After an hour or two Capt. Reed and the doctor caught up to us. We drew the cart to the side of the road where soon he drew a few short, sharp breaths--and I was alone." So the British officers, with a little hoe, on the mountain side dug the grave of this brave American shepherd, who had given his life in defending the Assyrian flock from the Turkish wolf. They made the grave just above the road beside a rock; and on it they sprinkled dead grass so that it might not be seen and polluted by the enemy. * * * * * The people Dr. Shedd loved were safe. The enemy, whose bullets he had braved for day after day, was defeated by the British soldiers. But the great American leader, whose tired body had not slept while the Assyrians and Armenians were being hunted through the mountains, lies there dreamless on the mountain side. These are words that broke from the lips of Assyrian sheiks when they heard of his death: "He bore the burdens of the whole nation upon his shoulders to the last breath of his life. "As long as we obeyed his advice and followed his lead we were safe and prosperous, but when we ceased to do that destruction came upon us. He was, and ever will be, the Moses of the Assyrian people." He lies there where his heart always was--in that land in which the Turk, the Assyrian, the Armenian, the Persian, the Russian and the Arab meet; he is there waiting for the others who will go out and take up the work that he has left, the work of carrying to all those eastern peoples the love of the Christ whom Dr. Shedd died in serving. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 63: Born January 25th, 1865. Graduated Marietta College, Ohio, 1887, and Princeton Theological Seminary, 1892.] CHAPTER XXVI AN AMERICAN NURSE IN THE GREAT WAR _E.D. Cushman_ (Time 1914-1920) _The Turk in Bed_ The cold, clear sunlight of a winter morning on the high plateau of Asia Minor shone into the clean, white ward of a hospital in Konia (the greatest city in the heart of that land). The hospital in which the events that I am going to tell in this story happened is supported by Christian folk in America, and was established by two American medical missionaries, Dr. William S. Dodd, and Dr. Wilfred Post, with Miss Cushman, the head nurse, sharing the general superintendence: other members of the staff are Haralambos, their Armenian dispenser and druggist, and Kleoniki, a Greek nurse trained by Miss Cushman. The author spent the early spring of 1914 at the hospital in Konia, when all the people named above were at work there. The tinkle of camel-bells as a caravan of laden beasts swung by, the quick pad-pad of donkeys' hoofs, the howl of a Turkish dog, the cry of a child--these and other sounds of the city came through the open window of the ward. On a bed in the corner of the ward lay a bearded man--a Turk--who lived in this ancient city of Konia (the Iconium of St. Paul's day). His brown face and grizzled beard were oddly framed in the white of the spotless pillow and sheets. His face turned to the door as it opened and the matron entered. The eyes of the Turk as he lay there followed her as she walked toward one of her deft, gentle-handed assistant nurses who, in their neat uniforms with their olive-brown faces framed in dark hair, went from bed to bed tending the patients; giving medicine to a boy here, shaking up a pillow for a sick man there, taking a patient's temperature yonder. Those skilled nurses were Armenian girls. The Armenians are a Christian nation, who have been ruled by the Turks for centuries and often have been massacred by them; yet these Armenian girls were nursing the Turks in the hospital. But the matron of the hospital was not a Turk, nor an Armenian. She had come four thousand miles across the sea to heal the Turks and the Armenians in this land. She was an American. The Turk in bed turned his eyes from the nurses to a picture on the wall. A frown came on his face. He began to mutter angry words into his beard. As a Turk he had always been taught, even as a little boy, that the great Prophet Mohammed had told them they must have no pictures of prophets, and he knew from what he had heard that the picture on the wall showed the face of a prophet. It was a picture of a man with a kind, strong face, dressed in garments of the lands of the East, and wearing a short beard. He was stooping down healing a little child. It was our Lord Jesus Christ the Great Physician. As Miss Cushman--for that was the name of the matron--moved toward his bed, the Turk burst into angry speech. "Have that picture taken down," he said roughly, pointing to it. She turned to look at the picture and then back at him, and said words like these: "No, that is the picture of Jesus, the great Doctor who lived long ago and taught the people that God is Love. It is because He taught that, and has called me to follow in His steps, that I am here to help to heal you." But the Turk, who was not used to having women disobey his commands, again ordered angrily that the picture should be taken down. But the American missionary-nurse said gently, but firmly: "No, the picture must stay there to remind us of Jesus. If you cannot endure to see the picture there, then if you wish you may leave the hospital, of course." And so she passed on. The Turk lay in his bed and thought it over. He wished to get well. If the doctors in this hospital--Dr. Dodd and Dr. Post--did not attend him, and if the nurses did not give him his medicine, he would not. He therefore decided to make no more fuss about the picture. So he lay looking at it, and was rather surprised to find in a few days that he liked to see it there, and that he wanted to hear more and more about the great Prophet-Doctor, Jesus. Then he had another tussle of wills with Miss Cushman, the white nurse from across the seas. It came about in this way. Women who are Mohammedans keep their faces veiled, but the Armenian Christian nurses had their faces uncovered. "Surely they are shameless women," he thought in his heart. "And they are Armenians too--Christian infidels!" So he began to treat them rudely. But the white nurse would not stand that. Miss Cushman went and stood by his bed and said: "I want you to remember that these nurses of mine are here to help you to get well. They are to you even as daughters tending their father; and you must behave to them as a good father to good daughters." So the Turk lay in bed and thought about that also. It took him a long time to take it in, for he had always been taught to hate the Armenians and to think low thoughts about their womenfolk. But in the end he learnt that lesson also. At last the Turk got well, left his bed, and went away. He was so thankful that he was better that he was ready to do just anything in the world that Miss Cushman wanted him to do. The days passed on in the hospital, and always the white nurse from across the seas and the Armenian nurses tended the Turkish and other patients, and healed them through the heats of that summer. _War and Massacre_ As summer came near to its end there broke on the world the dreadful day when all Europe went to war. Miss Cushman's colleagues, the American doctors at the hospital, left Konia for service in the war. Soon Turkey entered the war. The fury of the Turks against the Armenians burst out into a flame. You might see in Konia two or three Turks sitting in the shadow of a little saddler's shop by the street smoking their hubble-bubble water-pipes, and saying words like these: "The Armenians are plotting to help the enemies of Turkey. We shall have to kill them all." "Yes, wipe them out--the accursed infidels!" The Turks hate the Armenians because their religion, Islam, teaches them to hate the "infidel" Christians; they are of a foreign race and foreign religion in countries ruled by Turks, though the Armenians were there first, and the Armenians are cleverer business men than the Turks, who hate to see their subjects richer than themselves, and hope by massacre to seize Armenian wealth. Yet all the time, as the wounded Turks were sent from the Gallipoli front back to Konia, the Armenian nurses in the hospital there were healing them. But the Turkish Government gave its orders. Vile bands of Turkish soldiers rushed down on the different cities and villages of the Armenians.[64] One sunny morning a troop of Turkish soldiers came dashing into a quiet little Armenian town among the hills. An order was given. The Turks smashed in the doors of the houses. A father stood up before his family; a bayonet was driven through him and soldiers dashed over his dead body; they looted the house; they smashed up his home; others seized the mother and the daughters--the mother had a baby in her arms; the baby was flung on the ground and then picked up dead on the point of a bayonet; and, though the mother and daughters were not bayoneted then, it would have been better to die at once than to suffer the unspeakable horrors that came to them. And that happened in hundreds of villages and cities to hundred of thousands of Armenians, while hundreds of thousands more scattered down the mountain passes in flight towards Konia. _The Orphan Boys and Girls_ As Miss Cushman and her Armenian nurses looked out through the windows of the hospital, their hearts were sad as they saw some of these Armenian refugees trailing along the road like walking skeletons. What was to happen to them? It was very dangerous for anyone to show that they were friends with the Armenians, but the white matron was as brave as she was kind; so she went out to do what she could to help them. One day she saw a little boy so thin that the bones seemed almost to be coming through his skin. He was very dirty; his hair was all matted together; and there were bugs and fleas in his clothes and in his hair. The hospital was so full that not another could be taken in. But the boy would certainly die if he were not looked after properly. His father and his mother had both been slain by the Turks; he did not know where his brothers were. He was an orphan alone in all the world. Miss Cushman knew Armenian people in Konia, and she went to one of these homes and told them about the poor boy and arranged to pay them some money for the cost of his food. So she made a new home for him. The next day she found another boy, and then a girl, and so she went on and on, discovering little orphan Armenian boys and girls who had nobody to care for them, and finding them homes--until she had over six hundred orphans being cared for. It is certain that nearly all of them would have died if she had not looked after them. So Miss Cushman gathered the six hundred Armenian children together into an orphanage, that was half for the boys and half for the girls. She was a hundred times better than the "Woman who Lived in a Shoe," because, though she had so many children, she _did_ know what to do. She taught them to make nearly everything for themselves. In the mornings you would see half the boys figuring away at their sums or learning to write and read, while the other boys were hammering and sawing and planing at the carpenter's bench; cutting leather and sewing it to make shoes for the other boys and girls; cutting petrol tins up into sheets to solder into kettles and saucepans; and cutting and stitching cloth to make clothes. A young American Red Cross officer who went to see them wrote home, "The kids look happy and healthy and as clean as a whistle." _The People on the Plain_ As Miss Cushman looked out again from the hospital window she saw men coming from the country into the city jogging along on little donkeys. "In the villages all across the plain," they said to her, "are Armenian boys and girls, and men and women. They are starving. Many are without homes, wandering about in rags till they simply lie down on the ground, worn out, and die." Miss Cushman sent word to friends far away in America, and they sent food from America to Turkey in ships, and a million dollars of money to help the starving children. So Miss Cushman got together her boys and girls and some other helpers, and soon they were very busy all day and every day wrapping food and clothes into parcels. Next a caravan of snorting camels came swinging in to the courtyard and, grumbling and rumbling, knelt down, to be loaded up. The parcels were done up in big bales and strapped on to the camels' backs. Then at a word from the driver the camels rose from their knees and went lurching out from Konia into the country, over the rough, rolling tracks, to carry to the people the food and clothes that would keep them alive. The wonderful thing is that these camels were led by a Turk belonging to the people who hate the Armenians, yet he was carrying food and clothes to them! Why did this Turk in Konia go on countless journeys, travelling over thousands of miles with tens of thousands of parcels containing wheat for bread and new shirts and skirts and other clothes for the Armenians whom he had always hated, and never lose a single parcel? Why did he do it? This is the reason. Before the war when he was ill in the hospital Miss Cushman had nursed him with the help of her Armenian girls, and had made him better; he was so thankful that he would just run to do anything that she wished him to do. _To Stay or not to Stay?_ But at last Miss Cushman--worn out with all this work--fell ill with a terrible fever. For some time it was not certain that she would not die of it; for a whole month she lay sick in great weakness. President Wilson had at this time broken off relations between America and Turkey. The Turk now thought of the American as an enemy; and Miss Cushman was an American. She was in peril. What was she to do? "It is not safe to stay," said her friends. "You will be practically a prisoner of war. You will be at the mercy of the Turks. You know what the Turk is--as treacherous as he is cruel. They can, if they wish, rob you or deport you anywhere they like. Go now while the path is open--before it is too late. You are in the very middle of Turkey, hundreds of miles from any help. The dangers are terrible." As soon as she was well enough Miss Cushman went to the Turkish Governor of Konia, a bitter Mohammedan who had organised the massacre of forty thousand Armenians, to say that she had been asked to go back to America. "What shall you do if I stay?" she asked. "I beg you to stay," said the Governor. "You shall be protected. You need have no fear." "Your words are beautiful," she replied. "But if American and Turkey go to war you will deport me." If she stayed she knew the risks under his rule. She was still weak from her illness. There was no colleague by her side to help her. There seemed to be every reason why she should sail away back to America. But as she sat thinking it over she saw before her the hospital full of wounded soldiers, the six hundred orphans who looked to her for help, the plain of a hundred villages to which she was sending food. No one could take her place. Yet she was weak and tired after her illness and, in America, rest and home, friends and safety called to her. "It was," she wrote later to her friends, "a heavy problem to know what to do with the orphans and other helpless people who depended on me for life." What would you have done? What do you think she did? For what reason should she face these perils? Not in the heat of battle, but in cool quiet thought, all alone among enemies, she saw her path and took it. She did not count her life her own. She was ready to give her life for her friends of all nations. She decided to stay in the heart of the enemies' country and serve her God and the children. Many a man has had the cross of Honour for an act that called for less calm courage. That deed showed her to be one of the great undecorated heroes and heroines of the lonely path. So she stayed on. From all over the Turkish Empire prisoners were sent to Konia. There was great confusion in dealing with them, so the people of Konia asked Miss Cushman to look after them; they even wrote to the Turkish Government at Constantinople to tell them to write to her to invite her to do this work. There was a regular hue and cry that she should be appointed, because everyone knew her strong will, her power of organising, her just treatment, her good judgment, and her loving heart. So at last she accepted the invitation. Prisoners of eleven different nationalities she helped--including British, French, Italian, Russian, Indians and Arabs. She arranged for the nursing of the sick, the feeding of the hungry, the freeing of some from prison. She went on right through the war to the end and beyond the end, caring for her orphans, looking after the sick in hospital, sending food and clothes to all parts of the country, helping the prisoners. Without caring whether they were British or Turkish, Armenian or Indian, she gave her help to those who needed it. And because of her splendid courage thousands of boys and girls and men and women are alive and well, who--without her--would have starved and frozen to death. To-day, in and around Konia (an Army officer who has been there tells us), the people do not say, "If Allah wills," but "If Miss Cushman wills!" It is that officer's way of letting us see how, through her brave daring, her love, and her hard work, that served everybody, British, Armenian, Turk, Indian, and Arab, she has become the uncrowned Queen of Konia, whose bidding all the people do because she only cares to serve them, not counting her own life dear to her. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 64: In reading this part of the story to younger children discretion should be exercised. Some of the details on this page are horrible; but it is right that older children should realize the evil and how Miss Cushman's courage faced it.] CHAPTER XXVII ON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL _Archibald Forder_ (Time of Incident 1900-1901) _The Boy Who Listened_ An eight-year-old schoolboy sat one evening in a crowded meeting in Salisbury, his eyes wide open with wonder as he heard a bronzed and bearded man on the platform telling of his adventures in Africa. The man was Robert Moffat. It was a hot summer night in August (1874). The walls of the building where the meeting was held seemed to have disappeared and the boy Archibald Forder could in imagination see "the plain of a thousand villages," that Livingstone had seen when this same Robert Moffat had called him to Africa many years before. As the boy Archibald heard Moffat he too wished to go out into the foreign field. Many things happened as he grew up; but he never forgot that evening. At the age of thirteen he left home and was apprenticed to the grocery and baking business. In 1888 he married. At this time he read in a magazine about missionary work in Kerak beyond the River Jordan--in Moab among the Arabs--where a young married man ready to rough it was needed. He sailed with his wife for Kerak on September 3, 1891, and left Jerusalem by camel on September 30, on the four days' journey across Jordan to Kerak. Three times they were robbed by brigands on this journey. Mr. Forder worked there till 1896. He then left and travelled through America to secure support for an attempt to penetrate Central Arabia with the first effort to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ there. The story that follows tells how Forder made his pioneer journey into the Arabian desert. _The Adventure into the Desert_ Two pack-horses were stamping their hoofs impatiently outside a house in Jerusalem in the early morning a week or two before Christmas.[65] Inside the house a man was saying good-bye to his wife and his three children. He was dressed as an Arab, with a long scarf wrapped about his head and on the top the black rope of twisted goats' hair that the Arab puts on when he becomes a man. "Will you be long, Father?" asked his little four-year-old boy. The father could not answer, for he was going out from Jerusalem for hundreds of miles into the sun and the thirst of the desert, to the land of the fiercest Arabs--Moslems whose religion tells them that they must kill the infidel Christians. It was difficult to tear himself from his wife and his children and go out to face death in the desert. But he had come out here to carry to the Arab the story of Jesus Christ, who Himself had died on a Cross outside this very city. So he kissed his little boy "good-bye," wrenched himself away, climbed on top of the load on one of the pack horses and rode out through the gate into the unknown. He thought as his horses picked their way down the road from Jerusalem toward Jericho of how Jesus Christ had been put to death in this very land. Over his left shoulder he saw the slopes of the Mount of Olives; down below across the ravine on his right was the Garden of Gethsemane. In a short time he was passing through Bethany where Mary and Martha lived. Down the steep winding road amongst the rocks he went, and took a cup of cold water at the inn of the Good Samaritan. Then with the Wilderness of Desolation stretching its tawny tumbled desert hills away to the left, he moved onward, down and down until the road came out a thousand feet below sea-level among the huts and sheepfolds of Jericho, where he slept that night. With his face toward the dawn that came up over the hills of Moab in the distance, he was off again over the plain with the Dead Sea on his right, across the swiftly flowing Jordan, and climbing the ravines that lead into the mountains of Gilead. That night he stayed with a Circassian family in a little house of only one room into which were crowded his two horses, a mule, two donkeys, a yoke of oxen, some sheep and goats, a crowd of cocks and hens, four small dirty children and their father and mother; and a great multitude of fleas. The mother fried him a supper of eggs with bread, and after it he showed them something that they had never seen before. He took out of his pack a copy of the New Testament translated into Arabic.[66] He read bits out of it and talked to them about the Love of God. Early next morning, his saddle-bag stuffed with a batch of loaves which the woman had baked first thing in the morning specially for him, he set out again. How could a whole batch of loaves be stuffed in one saddle-bag? The loaves are flat and circular like a pancake. The dough is spread on a kind of cushion, the woman takes up the cushion with the dough on it, pushes it through the opening and slaps the dough on the inner wall of a big mud oven (out of doors) that has been heated with a fire of twigs, and in a minute or two pushes the cushion in again and the cooked bread falls on to it. So Forder climbed up the mountain track till he came out on the high plain. He saw the desert in front of him--like a vast rolling ocean of glowing gold it stretched away and away for close on a thousand miles eastward to the Persian Gulf. Forder knew that only here and there in all those blazing, sandy wastes were oases where men could build their houses round some well or little stream that soon lost itself in the sand. All the rest was desert across which man and beast must hurry or die of thirst. He must follow the camel-tracks from oasis to oasis, where they could find a well of water, therefore drink for man and camel, and date-palms. So turning north he pressed on[67] till on the sixth day out from Jerusalem the clouds came up with the dawn, and hail and rain, carried by a biting east wind, beat down upon him. Lifting his eyes to the horizon he saw ahead the sturdy castle and thick walls of the ancient city of Bosra. Stumbling through the storm, along the narrow winding streets, he met, to his disgust, a man whose dress showed that he was a Turkish Government official. He knew that the Turkish Government would be against a Christian and a foreigner going into their land. "Who are you?" asked the official, stopping him. "Where are you from? Where are you going?" Forder told him, and the man said. "Come with me. I will find you and your horses shelter at the Governor's house." Forder followed him into a large room in the middle of which on the floor a fire was burning. "I must examine all your cases," said the official. "Get up. Open your boxes." "Never," said Forder. "This is not a custom-house." "Your boxes are full of powder for arming the Arabs against the Turkish Government," replied the official. "I will not open them," said Forder, "unless you bring me written orders from the Turkish Governor in Damascus and from the British Consul." Off went the official to consult the headman (the equivalent of the Mayor) of the city. The headman came and asked many questions. At last he said: "Well, my orders are to turn back all Europeans and not to let any stay in these parts. However, as you seem to be almost an Arab, may God go with you and give you peace." So Forder and the headman of the ancient city of Bosra got talking together. Forder opened his satchel and drew out an Arabic New Testament, and together they read parts of the story of the life of Jesus Christ and talked about Him till ten o'clock at night. As the headman rose to go to his own rooms Forder offered to him, and he gladly took, the copy of the New Testament in Arabic to read for himself. _Saved by the Mist_ Next morning early, Forder had his horses loaded and started off with his face to the dawn. The track now led toward the great Castle of Sulkhund, which he saw looming up on the horizon twenty-five miles away, against the dull sky. But mist came down; wind, rain, and hail buffeted him; the horses, to escape the hail in their faces, turned aside, and the trail was lost. Mist hid everything. Forder's compass showed that he was going south; so he turned east again; but he could not strike the narrow, broken, stony trail. Suddenly smoke could be seen, and then a hamlet of thirty houses loomed up. Forder opened a door and a voice came calling, "Welcome!" He went in and saw some Arabs crouching there out of the rain. A fire of dried manure was made; the smoke made Forder's eyes smart and the tears run down his cheeks. He changed into another man's clothes, and hung his own up in the smoke to dry. "Where are we?" he asked. The men told him that he was about two and a half hours' ride from the castle and two hours off the track that he had left in the mist. The men came in from the other little houses to see the stranger and sip coffee. Forder again brought out an Arabic New Testament and found to his surprise that some of the men could read quite well and were very keen on his books. So they bought some of the Bibles from him. They had no money but paid him in dried figs, flour and eggs. At last they left him to curl up on the hard floor; and in spite of the cold and draughts and the many fleas he soon fell asleep. As dawn came up he rose and started off: there (as he climbed out of the hollow in which the hamlet lay) he could see the Castle Sulkhund. He knew that the Turks did not want any foreigner to enter that land of the Arabs, and that if he were seen, he would certainly be ordered back. Yet he could not hide, for the path ran close under the castle, and on the wall strode the sentry. The plain was open; there was no way by which he could creep past. At last he came to the hill on which the castle stood. At that very moment a dense mist came down; he walked along, lost the track, and found it again. Then there came a challenge from the sentry. He could not see the sentry or the sentry him. So he called back in Arabic that he was a friend, and so passed on in the mist. At last he was out on the open ground beyond both the castle and the little town by it. Five minutes later the mist blew away; the sun shone; the castle was passed, and the open plains lay before him. The mist had saved him. In an hour he came to a large town named Orman on the edge of the desert sandy plains; and here he stayed for some weeks. His horses were sent back to Jerusalem. Instead of towns and villages of huts, he would now find only the tents of wandering Arabs who had to keep moving to find bits of sparse growth for their few sheep and camels. While he was at Orman he managed to make friends with many of the Arabs and with their Chief. He asked the Chief to help him on toward Kaf--an oasis town across the desert. "Don't go," the Chief and his people said, "the Arabs there are bad: when we go we never let our rifles out of our hands." So the old Chief told him of the dangers of the desert; death from thirst or from the fiery Arabs of Kaf. "I am trusting God to protect and keep me," said Forder. "I believe He will do so." So Forder handed the Chief most of his money to take care of, and sewed up the rest into the waistband of his trousers. (It is as safe as a bank to hand your money to an Arab chief who has entertained you in his tent. If you have "eaten his salt" he will not betray or rob you. Absolute loyalty to your guest is the unwritten law that no true Arab ever breaks.) _The Caravan of Two Thousand Camels_ At last the old Chief very unwillingly called a man, told him to get a camel, load up Forder's things on it, and pass him on to the first Arab tent that he found. Two days passed before they found a group of Bedouin tents. He was allowed to sleep in a tent: but early in the morning he woke with a jump. The whole of the tent had fallen right on him; he crawled out. He saw the Arab women standing round; they had pulled the tent down. "Why do you do this so early?" he asked. "The men," they replied, "have ordered us to move to another place; they fear to give shelter to a Christian--one that is unclean and would cause trouble to come on us." So the tribesmen with their women and flocks made off, leaving Forder, his guide, and the camel alone in the desert. That afternoon he found a tent and heard that a great caravan was expected to pass that night on the way to Kaf to get salt. Night fell; it was a full moon. Forder sat with the others in the tent doorway round the fire. A man ran up to them. "I hear the bells of the camels," he said. Quickly Forder's goods were loaded on a camel. He jumped on top. He was led off into the open plain. Away across the desert clear in the moonlight came the dark mass of the caravan with the tinkle of innumerable bells. Arabs galloped ahead of the caravan. They drew up their horses shouting, "Who are you? What do you want?" Then came fifty horsemen with long spears in their hands, rifles slung from their shoulders, swords hanging from their belts, and revolvers stuck in their robes. They were guarding the first section made up of four hundred camels. There were four sections, each guarded by fifty warriors. As they passed, the man with Forder shouted out the names of friends of his who--he thought--would be in the caravan. Sixteen hundred camels passed in the moonlight, but still no answer came. Then the last section began to pass. The cry went up again of the names of the men. At last an answering shout was heard. The men they sought were found. Forder's guide explained who he was and that he wanted to go to Kaf. His baggage was swiftly shifted onto another camel, and in a few minutes he had mounted, and his camel was swinging along with two thousand others into the east. For hour after hour the tireless camels swung on and on, tawny beasts on a tawny desert, under a silver moon that swam in a deep indigo sky in which a million stars sparkled. The moon slowly sank behind them; ahead the first flush of pink lighted the sky; but still they pushed on. At last at half-past six in the morning they stopped. Forder flung himself on the sand wrapped in his _abba_ (his Arab cloak) and in a few seconds was asleep. In fifteen minutes, however, they awakened him. Already most of the camels had moved on. From dawn till noon, from noon under the blazing sun till half-past five in the afternoon, the camels moved on and on, "unhasting, unresting." As the camels were kneeling to be unloaded, a shout went up. Forder looking up saw ten robbers on horseback on a mound. Like the wind the caravan warriors galloped after them firing rapidly, and at last captured them and dragged them back to the camp. "Start again," the command went round, and in fifteen minutes the two thousand camels swung grumbling and groaning out on the endless trail of the desert. The captured Arabs were marched in the centre. All through the night the caravan went on from moonrise to moonset, and through the morning from dawn till ten o'clock--for they dared not rest while the tribe from whom they had captured the prisoners could get near them. Then they released the captives and sent them back, for on the horizon they saw the green palms of Kaf, the city that they sought. The camels had only rested for thirty minutes in forty hours.[68] With grunts of pleasure they dropped on their knees and were freed from their loads, and began hungrily to eat their food. Forder leapt down and was so glad to be in Kaf that he ran into some palm gardens close by and sang "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow," jumped for joy, and then washed all the sweat and sand from himself in a hot spring of sulphur water. Lying down on the floor of a little house to which he was shown, he slept, with his head on his saddlebags, all day till nearly sunset. At sunset a gun was fired. The caravan was starting on its return journey. Forder's companions on the caravan came to him. "Come back with us," they said. "Why will you stay with these cursed people of Kaf? They will surely kill you because you are a Christian." It was hard to stay. But no Christian white man had ever been in that land before carrying the Good News of Jesus, and Forder had come out to risk his life for that very purpose. So he stayed. What made Forder put his life in peril and stand the heat, vermin, and hate? Why try to make friends with these wild bandits? Why care about them at all? He was a baker in his own country in England and might have gone on with this work. It was the love of Christ that gave him the love of all men, and, in obeying His command to "Go into all the world," he found adventure, made friends, and left with them the Good News in the New Testament. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 65: Thursday morning, December 13, 1900.] [Footnote 66: Recall Henry Martyn and Sabat at work on this.] [Footnote 67: Passing Es-Salt (Ramoth Gilead), Gerash and Edrei in Bashan.] [Footnote 68: It took the caravan six days to go back.] CHAPTER XXVIII THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB _Archibald Forder_ (Date of Incident, 1901) _The Lone Trail of Friendship_ So the two thousand camels swung out on the homeward trail. Forder now was alone in Kaf. "Never," he says, "shall I forget the feeling of loneliness that came over me as I made my way back to my room. The thought that I was the only Christian in the whole district was one that I cannot well describe." As Forder passed a group of Arabs he heard them muttering to one another, "_Nisraney_[69]--one of the cursed ones--the enemy of Allah!" He remembered that he had been warned that the Arabs of Kaf were fierce, bigoted Moslems who would slay a Christian at sight. But he put on a brave front and went to the Chief's house. There he sat down with the men on the ground and began to eat with them from a great iron pot a hot, slimy, greasy savoury, and then sipped coffee with them. "Why have you come here?" they asked him. "My desire is," he replied, "to pass on to the Jowf." Now the Jowf is the largest town in the Syrian desert--the most important in all Northern Arabia. From there camel caravans go north, south, east, and west. Forder could see how his Arabic New Testaments would be carried from that city to all the camel tracks of Arabia. "The Jowf is eleven days' camel ride away there," they said, pointing to the south-east. [Illustration: FORDER'S JOURNEY TO THE JOWF.] "Go back to Orman," said the Chief, whose name was Mohammed-el-Bady, "it is at your peril that you go forward." He sent a servant to bring in the headman of his caravan. "This _Nisraney_ wishes to go with the caravan to the Jowf," said the Chief. "What do you think of it?" "If I took a Christian to the Jowf," replied the caravan leader, "I am afraid Johar the Chief there would kill me for doing such a thing. I cannot do it." "Yes," another said, turning to Forder, "if you ever want to see the Jowf you must turn Moslem, as no Christian would be allowed to live there many days." "Well," said the Chief, closing the discussion, "I will see more about this to-morrow." As the men sat smoking round the fire Forder pulled a book out from his pouch. They watched him curiously. "Can any of you read?" he asked. There were a number who could; so Forder opened the book--which was an Arabic New Testament--at St. John's Gospel, Chapter III. "Will you read?" he asked. So the Arab read in his own language this chapter. As we read the chapter through ourselves it is interesting to wonder which of the verses would be most easily understood by the Arabs. When the Arab who was reading came to the words: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," Forder talked to them telling what the words meant. They listened very closely and asked many questions. It was all quite new to them. "Will you give me the book?" asked the Arab who was reading. Forder knew that he would only value it if he bought it, so he sold it to him for some dates, and eight or nine men bought copies from him. Next day the Chief tried to get other passing Arabs to conduct Forder to the Jowf, but none would take the risk. So at last he lent him two of his own servants to lead him to Ithera--an oasis four hours' camel ride across the desert. So away they went across the desert and in the late afternoon saw the palms of Ithera. "We have brought you a Christian," shouted the servants as they led Forder into a room full of men, and dumped his goods down on the floor. "We stick him on to you; do what you can with him." "This is neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor an infidel," shouted one of the men, "but a pig." He did not know that Forder understood Arabic. "Men," he replied boldly, "I am neither pig, infidel, nor Jew. I am a Christian, one that worships God, the same God as you do." "If you are a Christian," exclaimed the old Chief, "go and sit among the cattle!" So Forder went to the further end of the room and sat between an old white mare and a camel. Soon a man came in, and walking over to Forder put his hand out and shook his. He sat down by him and, talking very quietly so that the others should not hear, said: "Who are you, and from where do you come?" "From Jerusalem," said Forder. "I am a Christian preacher." "If you value your life," went on the stranger, "you will get out of this as quickly as you can, or the men, who are a bad lot, will kill you. I am a Druze[70] but I pretend to be a Moslem." "What sort of a man is the Chief of Ithera?" asked Forder. "Very kind," was the reply. So the friendly stranger went out. Forder listened carefully to the talk. "Let us cut his throat while he is asleep," said one man. "No," said the Chief. "I will not have the blood of a Christian on my house and town." "Let us poison his supper," said another. But the Chief would not agree. "Drive him out into the desert to die of hunger and thirst," suggested a third. "No," said the Chief, whose name was Khy-Khevan, "we will leave him till the morning." Forder was then called to share supper with the others, and afterwards the Chief led him out to the palm gardens, so that his evil influence should not make the beasts ill; half an hour later, fearing he would spoil the date-harvest by his presence, the Chief led him to a filthy tent where an old man lay with a disease so horrible that they had thrust him out of the village to die. The next day Forder found that later in the week the old Chief himself was going to the Jowf. Ripping open the waistband of his trousers, Forder took out four French Napoleons (gold coins worth 16s. each) and went off to the Chief, whom he found alone in his guest room. Walking up to him Forder held out the money saying, "If you will let me go to the Jowf with you, find me camel, water and food, I will give you these four pieces." "Give them to me now," said Khy-Khevan, "and we will start after to-morrow." "No," replied Forder, "you come outside, and before the men of the place I will give them to you; they must be witnesses." So in the presence of the men the bargain was made. In the morning the camels were got together--about a hundred and twenty of them--with eighty men, some of whom came round Forder, and patting their daggers and guns said, "These things are for using on Christians. We shall leave your dead body in the sand if you do not change your religion and be a follower of Mohammed." After these cheerful encouragements the caravan started at one o'clock. For four hours they travelled. Then a shout went up--"Look behind!" Looking round Forder saw a wild troop of Bedouin robbers galloping after them as hard as they could ride. The camels were rushed together in a group: the men of Ithera fired on the robbers and went after them. After a short, sharp battle the robbers made off and the men settled down where they were for the night, during which they had to beat off another attack by the robbers. Forder said, "What brave fellows you are!" This praise pleased them immensely, and they began to be friendly with him, and forgot that they had meant to leave his dead body in the desert, though they still told him he would be killed at the Jowf. For three days they travelled on without finding any water, and even on the fourth day they only found it by digging up the sand with their fingers till they had made a hole over six feet deep where they found some. _In the Heart of the Desert_ At last Forder saw the great mass of the old castle, "no one knows how old," that guards the Jowf[71] that great isolated city with its thousands of lovely green date palms in the heart of the tremendous ocean of desert. Men, women and children came pouring out to meet their friends: for a desert city is like a port to which the wilderness is the ocean, and the caravan of camels is the ship, and the friends go down as men do to the harbour to meet friends from across the sea. "May Allah curse him!" they cried, scowling, when they heard that a Christian stranger was in the caravan. "The enemy of Allah and the prophet! Unclean! Infidel!" Johar, the great Chief of the Jowf, commanded that Forder should be brought into his presence, and proceeded to question him: "Did you come over here alone?" "Yes," he answered. "Were you not afraid?" "No," he replied. "Have you no fear of anyone?" "Yes, I fear God and the devil." "Do you not fear me?" "No." "But I could cut your head off." "Yes," answered Forder, "I know you could. But you wouldn't treat a guest thus." "You must become a follower of Mohammed," said Johar, "for we are taught to kill Christians. Say to me, 'There is no God but God and Mohammed is His prophet' and I will give you wives and camels and a house and palms." Everybody sat listening for the answer. Forder paused and prayed in silence for a few seconds, for he knew that on his answer life or death would depend. "Chief Johar," said Forder, "if you were in the land of the Christians, the guest of the monarch, and if the ruler asked you to become a Christian and give up your religion would you do it?" "No," said Johar proudly, "not if the ruler had my head cut off." "Secondly," he said to Johar, "which do you think it best to do, to please God or to please man?" "To please God," said the Chief. "Johar," said Forder, "I am just like you; I cannot change my religion, not if you cut off two heads; and I must please God by remaining a Christian.... I cannot do what you ask me. It is impossible." Johar rose up and went out much displeased. _"Kill the Christian!"_ One day soon after this there was fierce anger because the mud tower in which Johar was sitting fell in, and Johar was covered with the debris. "This is the Christian's doing," someone cried. "He looked at the tower and bewitched it, so it has fallen." At once the cry was raised, "Kill the Christian--kill him--kill him! The Christian! The Christian!" An angry mob dashed toward Forder with clubs, daggers and revolvers. He stood still awaiting them. They were within eighty yards when, to his own amazement, three men came from behind him, and standing in front of Forder between him and his assailants pulled out their revolvers and shouted, "Not one of you come near this Christian!" The murderous crowd halted. Forder slowly walked backwards toward his room, his defenders doing the same, and the crowd melted away. He then turned to his three defenders and said, "What made you come to defend me as you did?" "We have been to India," they answered, "and we have seen the Christians there, and we know that they do no harm to any man. We have also seen the effect of the rule of you English in that land and in Egypt, and we will always help Christians when we can. We wish the English would come here; Christians are better than Moslems." * * * * * Other adventures came to Forder in the Jowf, and he read the New Testament with some of the men who bought the books from him to read. At last Khy-Khevan, the Chief of Ithera, who had brought Forder to the Jowf, said that he must go back, and Forder, who had now learned what he wished about the Jowf, and had put the books of the Gospel into the hands of the men, decided to return to his wife and boys in Jerusalem to prepare to bring them over to live with him in that land of the Arabs. So he said farewell to the Chief Johar, and rode away on a camel with Khy-Khevan. Many things he suffered--from fever and hunger, from heat and thirst, and vermin. But at last he reached Jerusalem once more; and his little four-year-old boy clapped hands with joy as he saw his father come back after those long months of peril and hardship. Fifteen hundred miles he had ridden on horse and camel, or walked. Two hundred and fifty Arabic Gospels and Psalms had been sold to people who had never seen them before. Hundreds of men and women had heard him tell them of the love of Jesus. And friends had been made among Arabs all over those desert tracks, to whom he could go back again in the days that were to come. The Arabs of the Syrian Desert all think of Archibald Forder to-day as their friend and listen to him because he has proved to them that he wishes them well. +------------------------------------------------------------------+ | "SEEING THEN THAT WE ARE COMPASSED ABOUT WITH SO GREAT A | | CLOUD OF WITNESSES, LET US LAY ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT AND THE | | SIN WHICH DOTH SO EASILY BESET US, AND LET US RUN WITH PATIENCE | | THE RACE THAT IS SET BEFORE US, LOOKING UNTO JESUS, THE AUTHOR | | AND PERFECTER OF OUR FAITH, WHO FOR THE JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE | | HIM ENDURED THE CROSS, DESPISING THE SHAME." | +------------------------------------------------------------------+ FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 69: That is _Nasarene_ (or _Christian_).] [Footnote 70: The Druzes are a separate nation and sect whose religion is a kind of Islam mixed with relics of old Eastern faiths, _e.g._, sun-worship.] [Footnote 71: The Jowf is a large oasis town with about 40,000 inhabitants, about 250 miles from the edge of the desert. The water supply is drawn up by camels from deep down in the earth.] 
23190	----	Mary Liddiard, by W.H.G. Kingston. ________________________________________________________________________ Mary is the daughter of a missionary somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. It is towards the end of the eighteenth century. Some but not all of the natives on the island have been converted. The author expounds at great length on the central truth of Christianity. There is an attack by the natives of another island, which Mary and her friends survive by hiding in a cave. Later they are obliged to leave the island by canoe. There is a great storm, but they survive it, being picked up by an English missionary vessel. There is a happy ending, with a great family reunion. ________________________________________________________________________ MARY LIDDIARD, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON. CHAPTER ONE. A MISSIONARY STATION IN AN ISLAND OF THE PACIFIC DESCRIBED.--THE GIRLS' SCHOOL SUPERINTENDED BY MRS LIDDIARD, HER DAUGHTER MARY, AND LITTLE MAUD.--MARY LIDDIARD'S NARRATIVE.--INTRODUCE TO MY READERS LISELE, THE CHIEF'S DAUGHTER, ONE OF OUR PUPILS.--MY MOTHER EXPLAINS THE GOSPEL TO HER. "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." These words were ascending from the lips of a number of dark skinned girls assembled round a fair haired English lady in a building thickly thatched with the leaves of the sugar cane, beneath the shade of a grove of tall cocoanut trees, in one of the many far off beautiful islands of the wide Pacific. The building, erected by the natives after their own fashion, was the school-house of a missionary station lately established by Mr Liddiard, and the lady was his devoted wife. It stood upon a platform of coral-stone, raised about two feet from the ground, while the roof projected a considerable distance beyond the walls, and was supported by stout posts formed of the bread-fruit tree, tightly bound to the rafters by ropes of sinnet. After the conclusion of the hymn of praise--a sound unwonted in that long benighted region, whose groves had hitherto echoed only with the shouts and wild laughter of the savage heathens, as they performed their barbarous rites, and the shrieks and groans of their victims--the pupils grouped themselves round Mrs Liddiard on the mats with which the floor was spread. They were of various ages; some were children, others full grown young women. All kept their eyes fixed on her attentively, as if anxious to understand every word she said. Some were clothed in light cotton dresses, their black hair neatly braided and ornamented with a few sweet scented wild flowers, while others were habited in garments of native cloth, formed from the paper mulberry tree. By the side of Mrs Liddiard sat, on low stools, two young girls, whose light complexions contrasted with that of their dark skinned sisters. Though she spoke in the native language, the two English girls understood her perfectly, and appeared to be as attentive as their companions, and anxious to set a good example to the rest. One of them, with black hair, called little Maud, who seemed to be about eleven years old, had a grave expression of countenance; the other, Mrs Liddiard's daughter Mary, was very like her mother, with light hair and blue eyes, full of animation and intelligence. On one side of the house the ground sloped away down to a beach seen between the Pandanus and cocoanut trees, of fine white sand fringing a calm lagoon of the deepest blue, beyond which appeared a long line of foaming breakers, ever dashing against a coral reef, which extended parallel with the coast as far as the eye could reach. On the other side rose the steep sides of a range of rocky and picturesque mountains, clothed to their summits with the richest and densest foliage, numberless creepers climbing up the trees, and hanging from branch to branch, while here and there, amid openings of the forest, several sparkling cascades came rushing down from the far off heights, now falling in sheets of glittering foam, now dashing from ledge to ledge, and at length making their way into the lagoon. Near the girls' school-house was a building of considerably larger dimensions, and of much greater height, with numerous windows and a porch. It was the mission chapel erected by the native Christians. At a short distance from it was Mr Liddiard's residence, a neat cottage with a broad verandah in front, partaking more of the European style than any of the other edifices. Under the shade of the trees were numerous huts, inhabited by the converts, who had left their former homes and gathered round their pastor. Among them was a hut somewhat larger than the rest, which had been built by the zealous native teacher Nanari, who had come from a distant island to bring the glad tidings of salvation to the people; and undaunted by the opposition of the heathens, had long laboured alone, until the arrival of Mr Liddiard, under whom he now acted as catechist and assistant. Notwithstanding the unceasing exertions and prayers of Nanari, aided by his faithful wife, and of Mr and Mrs Liddiard, comparatively few of the natives had as yet been gathered into Christ's fold. The greater part of the island was inhabited by fierce heathens, who still carried on frequent wars against each other; and angry with their countrymen for having abandoned the faith of their forefathers, constantly threatened them and the missionaries with destruction. In spite of the dangers which surrounded him, Mr Liddiard continued dauntlessly to labour to win souls to Christ, knowing well in whom he trusted; and that although it might not be allowed to him while on earth to see the fruit of his toils, yet that a rich harvest would some day be reaped. The missionary's life was not an idle one. When not engaged in preaching the gospel or in giving instruction to his converts, he was compelled to work with his hands to obtain his daily food, and he and Nanari, with the young men who had become Christians, were engaged in the taro grounds or in their gardens, attending to the cultivation of the bread-fruit tree, yams, casavas, sweet potatoes, and other vegetables. He had also built his own house, and manufactured his furniture, and had every day some manual work to perform besides being engaged in studying the language and translating the Bible and other works, for the instruction of the natives. Thus, from morning till night, he and his wife were actively employed. Although Mary and little Maud could now give them some assistance in household matters, the young girls themselves required instruction, which also occupied a portion of their time. Maud was not their own child, though they had educated her, for she was friendless and destitute, and they loved her as a daughter. To return to the school-house I have described. I should say that I was the Mary I have mentioned, the missionary's daughter. I will tell more about little Maud by-and-by. We used to act as assistant teachers to my mother. As soon as the address she had given was over we went among the girls to answer any questions they might put to us, or to help in their tasks. "Malay," said a girl at the further end of the room, near whom I had seated myself (`Malay' was the name the natives always called me). "I wish to know if your God always sees you." "Yes, indeed, He does," I answered. "He sees and knows everything I think and say and do." "Then I would rather not _lotu_," she said. "Because I don't think that the gods of my people know what they do, or what they think or say, and I am very sure that I shall wish to do many things which might displease them. Not long ago I laughed and jeered at them, and I am sure that they did not find me out." The term "_lotu_," I should explain, is used by the natives to signify changing their religion, or becoming Christians. "But our God, Jehovah, is above all gods. He made the world and all the human race, and He therefore knows everything that you and all heathen people do and say and think. The darkness is no darkness with Him, and the day and night to Him are both alike," I answered. "But come to mother, Lisele, and she will explain the matter to you more clearly than I can do." Lisele was the daughter of a heathen chief, who was very well disposed towards the Christians; and although he would not _lotu_ himself, he allowed Lisele, who was very intelligent, and possessed an inquiring mind, to attend the school. She was about two years older than I was, and I think any one who had seen her dressed in her costume of native cloth of the finest texture, with a wreath of white flowers in her raven hair, would have thought her very pretty. She was as yet imperfectly instructed in Christian truth, and possessed of high spirits and an independent will--a mere child of nature. It was evidently necessary to treat her with the greatest caution to prevent her running away from us and rejoining her former heathen associates. Lisele, taking my hand, came and sat down at my mother's feet, and I then put the question that she had asked me. "Yes, indeed, Lisele," said my mother. "Jehovah not only sees all you do, and hears all you say, but knows every thought which is passing through your mind, and if you think anything that is wrong, and utter even a careless word, He is grieved at it. He is so pure and holy that even the bright heavens are not clean in His sight; and were He to treat us as we deserve, when we indulged for a moment in an evil thought, or departed in the slightest degree from the truth, He might justly punish us; but He is merciful, kind, and long-suffering, and thus He allows sinners to continue in life, to give them an opportunity of repenting and turning to Him." "Then there would be no use for my father and all the chiefs and people whom I know to _lotu_, for they have done over and over again all sorts of things which you have told me Jehovah hates," remarked Lisele. "My dear Lisele," said my mother, taking her hand, "Jehovah has said in His holy Book, that He will receive all who turn from their sins and come to Him in the way He has appointed, through faith in His dear Son; and He also tells us that the blood of Jesus His Son `cleanseth from all sin.' Likewise He says, `Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.' Believe this blessed promise yourself, Lisele, and tell your father that though Jehovah knows all the murders he has committed, and every crime he has been guilty of, if he will but turn from them and trust to the perfect sacrifice which Christ offered up on Calvary when He was punished, by dying that cruel death on the cross instead of us, then all will be forgiven and blotted out of God's remembrance. `The blood of Jesus Christ,' I repeat, `cleanseth from all sin.'" The Indian girl stood with her eyes open, gazing at my mother, and lost with astonishment at what she had heard. "But surely we must do something to gain this great favour from God. We must labour and toil for Him. We must pay Him all we have in recompense for the bad things we have done, that have offended Him so much," she exclaimed. "No! we poor weak creatures have nothing to do. We could do nothing to make amends for the ill we have done, to blot out our sins; and all the wealth we possess could not recompense God, for all things are His. But the debt has been paid for us by Jesus, he became our surety, and when we go to Him, and trust to Him, and pray to Him, as He is now seated at the right hand of God, He acts the part of our advocate, and pleads for us with God, urging that He Himself paid the debt, and, therefore, that we have nothing to pay and nothing to do. God in His mercy has promised a free and full pardon to all who trust to Him. `Pardon for sin is the gift of God,' and the King who makes the present requires nothing in return but gratitude and love and obedience." "I think I understand," said Lisele. "If my father was to conquer another tribe who had offended him, and, instead of putting them to death, was to pardon them all, and to give them a country rich in bread-fruit trees and taro grounds, they would be bound to love and serve Him, and give Him the best produce of their lands." "Exactly," said my mother. "But Jehovah does not require the fruits of the earth, for `all things are His.' What He wants is the willing obedience of His creatures. He wishes them to obey His laws, to be kind, and merciful, and courteous, and pitiful, to all their fellows, not returning evil for evil, but good for evil, and endeavouring to make known His name and His power and goodness to all those who do not know it. That we may know His will, when Jesus Christ came into the world to die for man, He set us the example we are to follow. Then as our hearts are prone to evil, and Satan is ever going about seeking to mislead us, He has sent His Holy Spirit to instruct our minds, to support us and help us to withstand the deceits of Satan." "Then I think it must be Satan who makes my people fight with each other, and do all sorts of things that you tell me God's Book says are so wrong," exclaimed Lisele. "I must try and persuade my father to worship Jehovah, and then, perhaps, the Holy Spirit you tell me of will prevent him from spending his life in fighting and killing people. It has always seemed to me a very bad thing to do, and that it would be much better if people would live together in peace, and dance and sing and amuse themselves without the constant fear of being attacked by their enemies and killed." "Undoubtedly, my dear girl, if anyone turns to Jehovah, trusting to Jesus Christ, and seeks the aid of the Holy Spirit whom He has promised to send, he will be enabled to do His will. God cannot lie. Everything He has promised He will fulfil," answered my mother. "I pray that you will be enabled to explain this matter to the chief, your father." "Yes! yes! that I will," cried Lisele. "Till this moment I did not understand it. I thought that it must be a very difficult thing to serve Jehovah, and that those who had done anything to offend Him were to toil and work to the end of their days, and even then have very little chance of being received into favour." "Satan tries to persuade man that such is the case, that he may turn his eyes away from the all-sufficient atonement made by Christ on Calvary, and prevent him from trusting to that, and that alone," said my mother. "Satan hates the atonement, because it is that which destroys his power, and he cares nothing when people try to be good, and try to please God, trusting to themselves, provided they have no faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, in the all-cleansing power of His blood," observed my mother. "If you will reflect, my dear girl, on the fact that God made us and gives us all the blessings we enjoy, and that consequently we owe Him everything, you will see that nothing we do can make amends to Him for the sins we have committed, because if we were to devote every moment of our lives to His service we should only be doing our duty. Then again, a sin which has been committed cannot be undone; so it is written against us in the great book prepared for the day of judgment. God is so pure and holy that even the heavens are not clean in His sight, and He is so just that He cannot forgive sin; we only mock Him when we ask Him to forgive us our sins, if we plead our own merits, because, as I have shown you, we cannot possibly have any merits to plead--all our merits are but as filthy rags, they cannot cover up our vileness and sinfulness. But then Jehovah is all merciful as well as just, and He has, therefore, formed that blessed plan of salvation, the gospel plan, just suited to our wants, by which we can take advantage of the all perfect merits of Jesus Christ, and make them our own--our vileness being covered up by His righteousness, our nakedness clothed with His pure and spotless robes, so that Jehovah does not see our sins; they are put away as far as the east is from the west; they are blotted out of the great book of remembrance. This is done immediately the sinner trusts in the Saviour. It is not _to be done_. All the work _was_ done on Calvary, when Jesus cried, `It is finished!' All that God requires is that the sinner should take advantage of that work finished by Jesus, by trusting to Him alone, thus becoming completely qualified for heaven. May God, the Holy Spirit, enable you to understand this truth." The Indian girl sat down, and for some time appeared lost in thought; then starting up with the impetuous manner which her ardent disposition made her assume, she asked, in her native tongue, "Then if I believe that Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of Jehovah, left the glories of heaven, and became man, and suffered a fearful death on the cross, His precious blood being then shed, and that He suffered this punishment instead of me, and that God's justice is thereby satisfied, am I no longer to fear punishment? Does God no more look at my sins? Am I received into His favour? Oh then how grateful ought I to be to God, how much ought I to love Jehovah's kind Son, how ought I to try to serve and obey and please Him!" "Yes, indeed, Lisele, if you thus trust in Christ, if you believe that His blood was shed for you, that you are sprinkled with it, you may be assured that God has taken you into favour, that He has blotted out all your sins, and that when you leave this world you will be received into that glorious heaven which He has prepared for all those who love Him." "Oh, I am sure what you tell me is true," exclaimed the Indian girl, clasping her hands, while a look of joy irradiated her countenance. "I long to know more of that kind and merciful Jesus, and love Him and serve Him. I must go and tell my father all you have said, and get him to come and hear himself about Jehovah. Your religion is just what we want in this country, for nothing else will prevent the people from fighting and murdering each other, which cannot be pleasing to a good God, though our priests tell us that our gods delight in war and in the human sacrifices offered to them, and encourage our warriors to kill and burn their prisoners." "Our religion is not only suited to the inhabitants of these islands, but to people of all countries, and at all times," said my mother. "It is the only true religion, because it is the only one which God has given to man, and He has sent us the Bible that we may learn what His will is, and He pours out the Holy Spirit that we may understand and be enabled to perform it. And the time will come when `all kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him,'" (Psalm 72 verse 11.) All the other girls had returned to their homes. Lisele remained, eager to gain more information about the wonderful things she had heard. What a happy thing it would be if boys and girls in Britain were as anxious to obtain spiritual knowledge as was the young savage girl in that Pacific island! CHAPTER TWO. OUR STATION THREATENED BY HEATHEN NATIVES.--LISELE, ACCEPTING THE TRUTH, DESIRES THE CONVERSION OF HER FATHER, AND OBTAINS PERMISSION FROM HER AUNT AND ABELA TO VISIT HIM.--I DESCRIBE OUR VOYAGE, WHEN LITTLE MAUD WAS FOUND.--CONDITION OF THE STATION AT THE TIME WHEN MY NARRATIVE COMMENCES. Our little Christian settlement was truly an oasis in the wilderness. We were closely beset by heathens, and frequently we could see them assembling on the hill side, performing their savage dances, or threatening our destruction with fierce gestures--shaking their clubs and spears, and shrieking and hooting wildly. Most of the converts settled round us belonged to the tribe of Masaugu, Lisele's father; for although he himself still remained a heathen, he did not oppose those of his people who wished to lotu, or become Christians. Among them was Lisele's aunt, the sister of her mother, with whom she resided, and through her influence Lisele had first been induced to attend the school. On the day I have spoken of, when it was time for Lisele to return to her aunt's house, she invited me to accompany her, which my mother gave me permission to do. She wanted me to assist her in persuading her aunt to allow her to return to her father. "I have been so long accustomed to speak falsehoods, that if I tell her that I wish to go she will not believe my object," said Lisele. "Besides, she will not think it possible that so fierce a warrior as my father will consent to lotu; but I heard your mother say the other day, that with Jehovah nothing is impossible, and therefore I believe that if I pray that my father's heart may be changed, he will, notwithstanding his fierceness, become a Christian." "I am very sure that Jehovah will hear your prayers," I remarked, "if you offer them up according to His own appointed way, through Jesus Christ; but still He will take His own good time to bring about what you desire. My father often says we must not expect to have our prayers answered exactly in the way we wish. God knows what is best, and oftentimes He does not accomplish that which we desire; and though we cannot comprehend His reasons, still it is our duty to pray on in faith, without ceasing. Jehovah, too, often allows those He loves to suffer; and though they may complain that the sufferings are very hard to bear, He will assuredly lift them up and support them, for He has said, `My strength is made perfect in weakness,'" (2 Corinthians 12 verse 9). This conversation lasted till we reached the house of Abela, Lisele's aunt. Abela was a woman of about forty, her face, though not handsome, and with a serious expression, was mild and pleasing. She was dressed in an ample petticoat, made from the fibres of the hibiscus, while over her shoulders she wore a tippet somewhat resembling a small poncho, which completely shrouded the upper part of her form. Having finished the labours of the day (for although of high rank, she was compelled, like others, to work for her support), she was seated on a mat, with a book open on her knees, from which she was endeavouring to read. Not having long been a convert, she had as yet made but little progress in her studies. She affectionately welcomed her niece and me as we took our seats near her. Lisele then eagerly poured forth what she had been hearing, so rapidly, that I could scarcely follow her. "It is all true," said Abela, when her niece at length ceased speaking. "I praise Jehovah that you know it." When, however, Lisele told her of her wish to go back to her father, Abela hesitated. "He will not understand you, my child," she exclaimed, "and perhaps will not allow you to return to people whom he may think so foolish." "Oh, but I'll pray for him," answered Lisele. "I'll ask Jehovah to help me, and I know He will hear me, so I shall not have to trust to my own strength." Abela remained silent for some time, and I saw that she was engaged in prayer. "You shall go, my child," she said at length. "Jehovah will take care of you, and may He prosper your undertaking." Delighted at having obtained this permission, Lisele returned to spend the evening with us, for my father wished to have an opportunity of speaking to her. He warned her of the opposition she must expect to meet with from her people, and of the dangers she would have to encounter, especially as he knew that she had been sought in marriage by a young heathen chief, who might wish to detain her. "But now I know the truth. I will never consent to marry one who is a heathen," she answered. "And I do not intend to remain. I will only try to persuade my father to visit you, and then I will return." Lisele set off the next day, accompanied by two Christian people of her tribe, who promised to protect her from the heathens, and aid her return should it be opposed, even although they might risk their lives in so doing. We were very sorry to lose her, as we feared that efforts would be made to prevent her returning among us. Maud could not restrain her tears. "I know too well how cruelly these heathens can act," she said. "They will not hesitate to carry her off to some distant island, whence she cannot possibly escape; or, if she offends them by what she says, they may even kill her." Dear Maud had indeed had bitter experience of the barbarities often committed by the savage islanders. My father had for some years been a missionary in another part of the Pacific, when it was settled that he should occupy the Station where we now were. I was too young at the time to remember much about what occurred, so I can describe only what I have heard. As there was then no missionary vessel to convey us, we embarked on board a whaler, the Christian captain of which undertook to carry us to our destination. He was, however, unable to make a direct passage, as he had in the prosecution of his business first to visit several other places, still, as no other means of getting where we wished to go were likely to occur, my father was glad to embrace the opportunity thus offered. We had been for some time at sea when a fearful storm arose, which compelled us to run before it under bare poles, and carried us a long way out of our course. The vessel received also considerable damage, losing one of her masts and several spars. At length a beautiful island appeared in sight, covered thickly with trees, and directly ahead was seen a commodious harbour. The captain therefore ran into it and came to an anchor, that the damages which the vessel had received might be repaired. He soon found that it was inhabited by numerous savages, who pushed off in their canoes to visit the strange ship. He, however, had so long been acquainted with the treacherous character of the natives of most of the Pacific islands, that he would allow no one to come on board, and he had also boarding-nettings triced up to guard against any sudden attack they might venture to make. We had on board a Sandwich islander, who managed to make himself understood by the natives. Through his means our good captain let them know that he wished to cut down some trees, and that he was ready to pay for permission to do so. The captain then inquired for their chief, and said that if he would come off and receive part of the payment, the remainder would be given after the spars had been brought on board, and as a proof of his good intentions, he sent the chief a present of an axe and a piece of cloth. This had the desired effect; and in a short time an old warrior came alongside in his canoe, and announced himself as the chief of the district. The Sandwich islander then explained what the captain wished, and certain articles which had been agreed on were given to him, he undertaking, while the trees were being cut down and carried off, to keep his people at a distance to prevent the possibility of any dispute arising. As soon as the chief and his followers had returned to the shore, two boats' crews, well armed, put off, and while one party were engaged in felling the trees, the other remained drawn up to guard against any attack which the natives might treacherously venture to make. The spars having been brought on board, the old chief returned for the promised remainder of the payment. He seemed highly pleased with the transaction. "I see that you are wise and just people," he observed. "If all whites who come to our shores acted in the same way, we would be their friends; but it has not been always so, and after they have ill-treated and cheated us, we have been tempted to take advantage of their folly and carelessness to revenge ourselves." This remark induced the captain, through the interpreter, to make inquiries as to what the chief alluded to. At length he learned that some time before a vessel, with white people on board, had come into the harbour to obtain sandal wood; that after the natives had supplied a large quantity, sufficient to fill her, the captain had refused the promised payment; but, in spite of this, that the crew were allowed to go on shore and wander about in small parties, when some of them had quarrelled with the natives and ill-treated them. In consequence the sailors had been set upon, and killed every man of them. A party of warriors then put off for the ship, and pretending they had come to trade, clambered up her sides before the part of the crew who had remained on board had heard of the massacre, or suspected their intentions. The savages thus taking them at a disadvantage, put every person to death, with the exception of a woman and child, who were saved by the intervention of the old chief. The vessel, it appeared, by some accident, caught fire, and had been utterly destroyed. The captain, on hearing this, made eager inquiries about the poor woman and the child. The former, however, had, he found soon afterwards, died, leaving the little girl in possession of the chief. Instead of threatening the old chief with the vengeance of his people, as some might have done, he spoke to him gently, saying that he himself had not come there as a judge, or to take vengeance for injuries which other white men might have received, but that we wished to know whether he would be ready to give up the little girl he had under his care. The old man seemed very much struck by this style of address, and confessed that the child was still living with him, but that he was very fond of her, and that when she grew up he hoped that she might become the wife of one of his sons. This of course made the captain still more anxious to recover her, and he used every argument he could think of to induce the old man to give her up. He told him that, unaccustomed to the mode of life of his people, she would probably die, as her mother had done, and that if he really loved her, he would be anxious for her safety, and that though he had paid him liberally for the trees, he would give him twice the amount of goods if he would, without delay, bring the little girl on board. This last argument seemed to weigh greatly with the chief, and he said he would think about it, and returned on shore, leaving us in doubt, however, what he would do. Our anxiety about the poor girl was, as may be supposed, very great. The men, on hearing of the matter, came aft, and each one said that he would be ready to contribute some article to induce the chief to give her up. Some even proposed, that should he refuse, to land and compel him to do so by force of arms. The captain thanked them for their zeal, but told them that that was not the way he conceived Christian men should act. I well remember that evening, when we were assembled to worship God as usual, in the cabin, how my father lifted up his voice in prayer, that the heart of the chief might be moved to restore the little Christian damsel to those who would bring her "up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," and that she might be saved from the fearful fate the old man intended for her. God never fails to listen to the prayers of believers. The next morning, as we anxiously turned our eyes towards the shore, the chief's canoe was seen coming off. "Our prayer has been answered," exclaimed my father, who was watching it through a spy-glass. "There is a child by his side." The sailors sprang into the rigging, and every one on board eagerly watched the approach of the canoe. It was soon alongside, and the little girl we had been looking for was handed up on deck, followed by the old chief. She was dressed in a clean white frock, and her hair was neatly braided, and ornamented with flowers and feathers; but she looked thin and ill, and sadly scared. When my mother approached the gangway she flew towards her, and threw herself into her arms, as if she was sure that she should find in her a loving friend. "Mamma! mamma!" she exclaimed; but she could utter no other words; and had it not been for those sounds we should have supposed that she had lost the power of speech. My mother could not restrain her tears, as she held the forlorn little creature to her heart. Such was the way in which we met with little Maud. Nothing would induce her to leave my mother while the old chief remained on board; and although he and his people might have treated her kindly, they certainly had not won her love. Having received the promised reward, to which the captain added a few other articles, the chief prepared to take his departure, evidently very well satisfied with the transaction. The captain, however, warned him, that should he venture to attack another vessel he would not escape a severe punishment; but that if he would promise to behave well towards white people in future, they would come and trade with him, and bring him a greater blessing than he could at present comprehend. The captain said this, because he hoped that some day he might be able to convey a missionary to the place, that he might spread the blessings of the gospel among the heathen inhabitants. After the ship was refitted we put to sea, but she was some time engaged in catching whales, so that our voyage was a very long one. The little girl who had been rescued from the savages was utterly unable to explain anything that had happened to her. Weeks passed away, and not a word did she utter, and my father and mother began to fear that the hardships she had gone through had deprived her of her senses. For a long time she could not be induced to leave my mother's side, and seemed to mistrust every one else. If separated from her, even for a few moments, she would run back again, and seizing her gown, glance up with an imploring look, as if begging to be protected from some imaginary danger--she would not even trust herself with me, and seemed to fancy that I might hurt her. Possibly she might have been ill-treated by the native children, and was unable to distinguish the difference. Gentle and careful treatment, however, had its due effect on her, and her fears were gradually allayed. At length one day she, of her own accord, took my hand, and looking into my face said, "Girl not hurt poor Maud." These were the first words we had heard her utter. Until then also we were ignorant of her name. Putting my arms round her neck I kissed her, and answered, "No indeed I will not hurt you, but I will treat you as a dear sister, and love you very very much." A faint smile passed over her countenance, as if she comprehended my answer. After that she would remain contentedly with me--still her mind, for some time longer, continued apparently in the same state as at first. My father and mother, however, felt sure that her senses would ultimately be restored. They were not mistaken; but even when she had begun to speak, she made no allusion to the circumstances of the massacre, or her life among the natives, and we forbore to ask her any questions. When at last we landed here, her alarm at seeing the natives was very great, and my father was afraid that it would cause her mind to relapse into its former state. By doing all we could to re-assure and cheer her, no ill effects occurred. When once we were settled, and she had got accustomed to the scenery, and the appearance of the people, her improvement was more rapid. In course of time her mind and bodily health were perfectly restored. On seeing me at my lessons, she showed a strong wish to join me, and though she had forgotten even her letters, if she had ever known them, she made rapid progress, so that she was soon able to read fluently, when she eagerly perused every book my father would allow her to have from his library. Even then, however, she could give no account of her former life, and we knew no more of little Maud than at first. My father and mother treated her as they would a daughter, while I looked upon her and loved her as a younger sister. We had now been upwards of three years at the Station. My father had laboured on in faith, as a missionary in all regions must be prepared to do, for as yet only the comparatively small body of Christians as I have mentioned, who had settled round us, had been brought out of heathenism, while the larger number of the population appeared even more hostile to the new faith than at first. Still my father would often say, when he felt himself inclined to despond, "Let us recollect the value of one immortal soul, and all our toils and troubles will appear as nothing." Such was the state of things at the mission station when my history commences. CHAPTER THREE. THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC DESCRIBED.--MY MOTHER'S ILLNESS.--NASILE, A MESSENGER FROM LISELE, COMES TO THE SETTLEMENT, FOLLOWED SHORTLY BY LISLETE AND MASAUGU, WHO PROMISES TO LOTU AFTER HE HAS DEFEATED HIS ENEMIES.--MY FATHER WARNS HIM IN VAIN OF THE FEARFUL DANGER HE RUNS BY PUTTING OFF BECOMING A CHRISTIAN. The vast Pacific--in one of the islands of which the events I am describing occurred--presents a wide and hopeful field for missionary enterprise. It is scattered over with numberless islands--in most cases so clustered together as to form separate groups--some rising in lofty mountains out of the sea, surrounded by coral reefs, beautiful and picturesque in the extreme, while others are elevated but a few feet above the ocean, generally having palm trees growing on them. These latter are known more particularly as coral and lagoon islands. The islands of the character I have last mentioned have been produced by the gradual sinking of the land beneath the ocean, when on its reaching a certain depth, countless millions of coral insects have built their habitations on it, and have continued building till they reached the surface--the new islands consequently keeping the forms of the submerged lands which serve as their foundations. The lagoon islands have been formed by the insects building round the edge of some submerged crater. As the land sank the creatures have continued to build upwards, and thus a ring of coral rock has arisen in the ocean--sometimes complete, at others with a break or opening in it. In other instances the coral insects have built near the shore, and as the land has sunk they have continued to build upwards, but in consequence of requiring the pure salt water, have not advanced towards the land, which, however, still sinking, a wide space of water has appeared between it and the structure raised by them. This is the cause of the numerous encircling reefs which are found around so many of the islands of the Pacific--affording harbours within them, and sheltering the shore from the fury of the waves. Many of the islands are also of volcanic origin; some contain active volcanoes, and while the land in some instances has sunk, in others it has risen, and is broken into the most curious and fantastic shapes, bringing up also with it the coral rocks which were formed on it while it lay beneath the sea. Most of these islands are clothed with a varied and rich vegetation. The climate of those at a distance from the equator is generally healthy, but that of others near the line, especially to the westward, is unhealthy in the extreme, so that even the natives of other islands of the same ocean cannot live on them throughout the year. The eastern groups are inhabited by a brown skinned and generally handsome race, often not darker than Spaniards, and supposed to be descended from a common stock, as in general appearance and language there is a great resemblance. The groups of the large islands to the westward on either side of the equator are peopled by a black and savage race, in many respects resembling the negroes of Africa, and sunk even still lower in barbarism. Such are the inhabitants of the Fijis, New Caledonia, and New Hebrides, the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and others to the northward of them. When Captain Cook sailed over the Pacific, and till many years afterwards, the people of these beautiful islands were sunk in the grossest idolatry and barbarism. Towards the end of the last century, when the Christian Churches awoke to their responsibilities for making known the glad tidings of salvation to their heathen fellow-creatures--societies were formed to send missionaries to various parts of the world. A band of twenty-nine missionaries, some of them unhappily untried, were sent out by the London Missionary Society in 1796, to the Pacific islands. They made slow progress, but at length, in 1815, idolatry was overthrown at Tahiti, and the gospel firmly established in that island. Two years afterwards, the Rev. J. Williams and the Rev. W. Ellis, two of the most distinguished missionaries who have laboured among the islands of the Pacific, arrived at Tahiti. The former took up his abode at Raiatea, one of the Society islands, and afterwards going alone to the island of Rarotonga, though not bred a shipwright, built there, with his own hands, aided only by the natives, a vessel of about seventy tons burden. Having rigged her with sails of matting, he and a native crew returned to Raiatea, and thence he proceeded to Samoa with a large party of missionaries, for the purpose of leaving them at different islands on the way. He sailed in her afterwards over many thousand miles of ocean, visiting missionary stations--the little craft truly performing her duty as the "Messenger of Peace." She was the first of many missionary vessels which have since been sent out by different societies to the Pacific. Some have been lost, but their places have been supplied by others; indeed it is only by means of such vessels that the now numerous missionary stations scattered throughout that wide ocean, can be properly maintained. How well might some of the beautiful yachts which float idly on the waters of the Solent, be employed, if their owners, influenced by the love of immortal souls, would hoist the banner of peace at their mast-heads, and go forth to those distant islands, to sail here and there visiting the isolated stations, or conveying fresh missionaries to the numberless groups still in heathen darkness. I cannot help saying this when I recollect how often, for long months, and even for years together, we were left without a visit from any European Christian, and how eagerly we watched the approach of each sail which appeared in the horizon, hoping that she might bring us news of distant friends, or necessaries of which we stood greatly in need, or still more, that a brother might be on board who might afford counsel and encouragement in the difficulties by which we were surrounded. My dear father often felt the want of the assistance I have spoken of. My mother was indeed a helpmate meet for him, and was a source of comfort and consolation; but especially when the heathens threatened our lives and those of the native converts, oh, how thankful he would have been for the advice and support of an experienced Christian friend. My mother had for some time been a sufferer from illness, and though she still continued her usual duties, we watched her form grow thinner, and her cheek paler, day by day. My father, strange as it may seem, did not appear to remark the change, but Maud and I, when we were together, could not help speaking about it. Still, as my mother did not complain, we could only hope that, should her anxiety about the condition of the mission decrease by its prospects becoming more promising, her health would improve. We did all we could to lessen her cares by assisting her in her household duties. Maud and I learned to cook, and we also cleaned and swept out the house and kept it in order, with the help of a native girl, who, though not very expert, was willing to learn and to follow the example we set her. We were anxiously expecting the return of Lisele, and Maud and I paid frequent visits to Abela, to inquire whether she had received any message from her niece. She shook her head sorrowfully, saying she was afraid that Masaugu was too much wedded to his heathen practices to be induced to abandon them by any arguments Lisele could use, and that he was far more likely to prevent her from returning. This made us very sad, for we had had hopes that Lisele had really become a Christian, and would remain faithful to the truth. Abela guessed by our looks what was passing in our minds, and she added, "though the chief's heart is very hard, I have been praying that it may be changed, and I know that with Jehovah nothing is impossible." While we were still seated in the hut, a native arrived whom we knew, from his scanty dress and his wild savage look, to be still a heathen. He brought a message to Abela from her niece, saying that she hoped shortly to return to the settlement, as her father had consented to pay the English missionary a visit. "I shall rejoice to see her again," said Abela to the native. "And has she spoken to you, my friend, of the true religion?" "Yes, she has told me that we cannot see the great Jehovah who made the world and all things in it, but that He sees us and knows everything we think of, say, and do; and that He hates all sin, but that He loves the sinner, and wishes all human beings to come and live with Him for ever and ever in the beautiful place He has prepared for them," was the prompt and unexpected answer. "But has she told you that you are a sinner, and that your sins must be wiped away before you are fit to go to that pure and beautiful heaven she spoke of? Has she told you how you can become fit for heaven, and has she pointed out to you the only way you can go there?" asked Abela. "Yes, she told me that many things I thought right are very wrong in the sight of Jehovah, and that I cannot undo what I have once done, and that the only way by which those things can be blotted out, is by believing that Jehovah's dear Son came down upon earth and was punished by a cruel death instead of me, and that if I believe this, and trust to Him, I shall be received into that glorious place above the blue sky, which He has prepared for all who love Him," answered the native. "But do you believe this?" asked Abela. "Do you believe that Jehovah is satisfied that another was punished instead of you, and that He therefore has set you free?" "I did not understand it, but it seemed very good," answered the native. "I should like to remain and learn more about the matter." "Oh yes, do remain," exclaimed Abela. "Go not back to worship again the blocks of stone in which our countrymen put their trust. The English missionary will explain matters more clearly to you than I can." I assured Nasile--for such the native told us was his name--that my father would gladly explain the truth to him, and leaving him in conversation with Abela, we hastened homewards with the satisfactory intelligence. In a short time we saw a party coming across the hill. At first their appearance caused some consternation, it being supposed that they were heathens intending to attack the village. As they drew nearer, however, Masaugu was distinguished at their head, accompanied by Lisele. The chief was a tall fine man, with ample folds of native cloth round his waist and over his shoulders. My father hastened out to meet him, and welcome him to the Station, and Maud and I followed. As soon as Lisele saw us she ran forward and threw her arms round me, and then embraced Maud, calling us her dear sisters, and telling us how rejoiced she was to come back. "I was afraid at first that my father would not listen to me," she said. "But I prayed and prayed, and at length, to my joy, he said that he would go and hear more of the strange things I had told him of." My father at first intended to conduct the chief into the chapel; but though he was willing to go, several of his followers were afraid of entering it, believing that some incantations would be used, and that they might be compelled to _lotu_ against their will. The whole party therefore seated themselves in a shady place outside. Here my father addressed the chief; and he hoped that while speaking to him, what he said might be attended to and understood by many of his followers. Not saying a word about the false gods he worshipped, my father told him of the greatness and power and love and mercy of Jehovah, and explained to him the simple plan of salvation which He has offered to sinful man. The chief appeared much interested. "I understand," he answered, "that the white man's God is greater and more powerful than my gods, and I am resolved soon to worship Him, as I am sure He can do more for me than they can; but I have some enemies who have offended me, and I am about to set out on an expedition to punish them, and when I have obtained the victory, I will return and do as I have promised." "Oh! my friend," exclaimed my father, "I should have told you of Satan, who is allowed--we know not why--to go about the world to deceive men, and he it is who has made you resolve to do this. Jehovah does not allow you to say that you will serve Him by-and-by. He requires you and all men to obey Him at once. Satan, on the contrary, ever strives to persuade people to put off serving Jehovah till by-and-by, that he may get them altogether into his own power before they can do so. Thus it is that he deceives men and destroys their souls in all parts of the world, and thus he has done at all times. Jehovah has told us that He will not allow us to punish our enemies, but that we are to love them and do good to them. Oh! let me warn and entreat you not to go on the expedition you propose." The chief was silent for some time. Lisele and Abela, who had arrived, united with my father in entreating him to remain and hear more of the truth. "What you say may be very right and good for those who profess to follow Jehovah," he answered at length, "but I have not yet abandoned my gods, and they will, I am sure, help me to gain the victory. What I say is wise, is it not?" he added, turning to his heathen attendants. Of course they all applauded him, and greatly to my fathers grief, he arose to take his departure. "Remember, oh chief, that I have warned you," said my father. "We cannot pray that you may gain the victory, because Jehovah will give it as He thinks fit; but we will pray that your heart may be changed, and that you may still worship Him whom you now reject." "Alas! how many act as this poor heathen is doing," said my father, after Masaugu and his companions had gone away. "They believe in God, and yet, blinded by Satan, fancy in their folly that they can safely put off the time to begin serving and obeying Him." CHAPTER FOUR. OUR ANXIETIES INCREASE ON THE DEPARTURE OF MASAUGU.--MY FATHER IS SUMMONED TO VISIT A SICK MISSIONARY AT ANOTHER ISLAND, AND WE ARE LEFT UNDER THE CHARGE OF NANARI, THE NATIVE MISSIONARY.--MY MOTHER'S SUDDEN DEATH.--A VESSEL APPEARS OFF THE COAST, AND AT KANARI'S SUGGESTION I SEND OFF A NOTE, WARNING THE CAPTAIN OF THE DANGER TO WHICH HE IS EXPOSED FROM THE NATIVES. We rejoiced to find that Lisele was allowed to remain with her aunt at the settlement. She had tried, even before her return to the settlement, to persuade her father to abandon his intentions of going to war. The tribe he intended to attack inhabited an island some leagues away to the south, and as we stood on the shore we could see its blue outline rising out of the ocean. Lisele had reminded her father that he had professed to wish us well, and that by going away he would leave us exposed to the attacks of other heathen tribes, who would now venture without hesitation through his territory, to attack us. He replied that they would not dare to do so, as he had threatened them with punishment on his return should they molest them. "Alas!" said Lisele, who told us this when we went to see her at her aunt's house. "Suppose he is defeated, what protection shall we then have from our enemies?" "We must trust in Jehovah, my child," said Abela. "Or, if he thinks fit to allow us to be afflicted, we must submit without murmur to His will. We know that we can but suffer here for a short season, and that He has prepared a glorious and happy home for those who love Jesus, and obey His commandments down on earth. Oh yes! since I have known the truth, I have learned to understand that this world is a place of trial, and that we must not look for peace and happiness and rest while we are in it. God indeed made the world beautiful, and intended it to be happy, but Satan persuaded man to sin, and sin has caused man to depart from God, and brought all the disorder and misery and suffering which we see around us. Faith in Jesus Christ can alone remedy all these evils, and I am sure that they will exist till all the world learns to love and obey Him." These remarks of Abela will show that she had made great advances in Christian knowledge, and was well able to instruct her young niece. Lisele came back with us to the school, which my mother, although weak and suffering still, insisted on superintending. I think that she herself was not aware how ill she really was. We used to go down every morning to the sea to bathe in a little sheltered cove, almost surrounded by high rocks, where there was no danger of a visit from a shark. Here my father had built a small hut in which Maud and I might dress. The native girls dispensed with any such accommodation, and while we were content to swim about in the bay, they would boldly strike out a long distance from the land. Even when the wind blew strong on the shore, and the surf came rolling in, they would dash through it, now diving under a huge breaker, now rising to its foaming summit, and playing about as securely as if they were on the dry land. Two mornings after the chief had paid us a visit we went down as usual to bathe, when we saw a large fleet of canoes, propelled by paddles, gliding over the smooth water of the lagoon towards the passage which communicated with the open sea. On first seeing them we were about to hurry home, fearing that they might be enemies, but Lisele quieted our alarm, by telling us that they were her father's fleet, starting on his proposed expedition. They were curious looking vessels. Each consisted of two long narrow canoes placed side by side, but at some distance from each other, and united by strong beams, on which a platform or stage was erected, thus making one vessel. The rowers sat with long paddles on either side, while on the deck stood the warriors in their war-paint and feathers, and flourishing their lances and whirling their clubs, inciting each other to the deeds of valour, or rather of cruelty, which they intended to perform. Instead of a mast in the centre, there was a triangle with the ends fixed on either side, on which the mat-formed sail extended on a long yard ready to be hoisted. As they glided by the sound of the wild shouts and shrieks they uttered reached our ears. "May my poor father be protected," said Lisele to me, as we watched them. "Once I should have thought what we see very fine, and should have sung and clapped my hands with joy. Now that I know how wicked it is to go and fight and kill other human beings, I feel inclined to weep with sorrow." "We must pray for your father, Lisele," I said, "that God will turn his heart and make him see the crime of warfare." "Yes, yes; that is my comfort," she answered. When the canoes reached the outlet from the lagoon the sails were hoisted, and at a rapid rate they glided away over the ocean, while Lisele, Maud, and I, knelt down on the sand and prayed, not that God would give the victory to the chief, but that He would turn his heart and make him to know the truth. As we were leaving the beach we saw another canoe coming round a headland through the lagoon, which she had entered by a further off passage. Had the strange canoe been a little sooner she would have encountered the fleet, and very likely have been stopped and compelled to accompany the war party. Her appearance caused us some anxiety. If she had heathens on board, they might land and rob us, or cause us even more serious annoyance. We continued to watch her, as we knew that we should have plenty of time to escape and give warning at the village before she could come to shore. At length we discovered a flag flying from the end of her yard, and great was my joy to see that on it was worked a dove with the olive branch of peace--I consequently hoped that a missionary might be on board coming to visit us. We waited therefore for the arrival of the canoe. We could distinguish, however, as she drew near, only natives on her deck. They all were in the dress adopted by Christian converts--in shirts and trousers. The canoe soon ran up on the beach, when a native stepped on shore with a letter in his hand. He told me that he had been sent by Mr Hilton, a missionary stationed on an island about fifty miles off. Mr Hilton was very ill, and entreated my father to come and see him; for, believing that he should not recover, he was anxious to commit his motherless children to his charge. We accordingly conducted the messenger up to the house. The letter caused my father much grief and perplexity. He sorrowed to hear of his friend's illness, and felt anxious to go to him, and yet he was unwilling to leave my mother and us for so long a time, when the settlement might possibly be annoyed by heathens. Still he knew that he could with confidence leave the instruction of the people to Nanari, who would also protect my mother and us to the best of his power. He sent for Nanari, and spoke to him on the subject. "God helping me, I will do all that man can do," answered Nanari. "And nothing shall tempt me to quit the post you have committed to my charge." My mother, feeling for our poor friend and for the young ones who might soon be deprived of his protection, sacrificing her own wishes, urged my father to go as he was requested. As there was no time to be lost if he would see his friend alive, bidding us a tender, and it seemed to me a peculiarly solemn farewell, he went on board the canoe, which immediately set sail on her return. We accompanied him to the beach, and watched the vessel till she was lost to sight in the distance. On our return home we found my mother suffering greatly. The agitation of parting from my father had been more than she could bear. Oh, how I longed to recall him! Little could he have known her dangerous state. My father had a knowledge of medicine, and he might have applied remedies of which we were ignorant. Good Abela came up on hearing how ill my mother was, though she could afford us but little assistance. Suddenly, as I gazed at my mother, a fearful conviction came upon me that she was dying. She knew herself that such was the case. I cannot even now bear to dwell upon the sad scene, for sad indeed it was to us, though my mother's heart was lifted up with joy and hope. "God's will be done, my children," she said, taking Maud's and my hand in hers. "He will care for and protect you though troubles arise which may seem overwhelming." Abela and Nanari assured her that they would devote themselves to our service, yet the absence of my father must have been a sore trial to her. During that night she breathed her last, and I was left motherless; so, indeed, was dear Maud, to whom she had been truly a mother. Then quickly followed the funeral. All the Christians of the settlement stood round the grave, in a beautiful spot which had been set apart for the purpose, at a short distance from the chapel, when Nanari offered up a prayer that God's Holy Spirit would influence the hearts of all present, and enable them to possess the same hope of a joyous resurrection as that in which my mother died, he then addressed the people, urging them to put faith in God's goodness and wisdom, and telling them that though troubles might come, not therefore to suppose that He had forgotten to be gracious, but to go on praying and trusting in Him, till He might think fit to call them out of this world, to be with Him in glory and happiness unspeakable. Maud and I spent that sad evening with our hands clasped together, often weeping but seldom speaking. My heart bled for my poor father, as I thought of his grief and anguish, when, on his return he would find that my mother had been taken from him. "Still," said Maud, looking up in my face, "he will know that she is in joy surpassing human understanding, and we cannot tell from what trials and sufferings she may thus have escaped." With the last thought I was greatly comforted. As we stood together in the verandah that evening, gazing up into the sky and thinking of the glories now revealed to my mother, we saw a bright star with a long tail of light, such as we had never before beheld. I knew at once from its appearance that it was a comet. Many of the natives had seen it too, and we heard their voices uttering exclamations of surprise and terror. Soon afterwards we saw Lisele approaching. She hesitated, as if unwilling to intrude on our grief, but I called to her, and she came up to us. I told her what I knew about comets, and begged her to try and calm the alarm of her people, and to assure them that it was but a luminous mass, and that it betokened neither good nor evil to the inhabitants of this world, though Jehovah directed its course, as He orders everything else in the universe. "Ah, but the heathens will not think so," she exclaimed, "and we know not what effect it may have upon their minds. Perhaps they will think it is sent through the incantations of the Christians, and will come in consequence and attack us." I scarcely thought this possible, but Lisele was positive that it would have a bad effect. She went, however, to tell the Christian natives what I had said, and to assure them that the comet would do them no harm. Oh, how sad was that night and the next morning, when we looked on the bed on which my mother had slept, and knew that we should never again see her dear face there, so calm and beautiful. We had, however, our duties to perform, and we set about them as we knew she would have desired. While we were thus engaged Nanari appeared to learn if there was anything he could do for us, saying that the people would bring us all the food we might require, and begging that we would not be anxious on that score. He then told us that a vessel was off the coast, and by going to the front of the house we saw her. We hoped that she might have friends on board coming to visit our Station, or that where my father and Mr Hilton were, as we knew how gladly she would be welcomed there. As we watched her, we saw at length, to our disappointment, from the course she was steering, that she was not coming to our Station, but was apparently about to enter a harbour further down the coast. "I would that I could warn those on board of the character of the natives where she is going," said Nanari, when he saw this. "Unless they are on their guard I fear that they may be treated as others have been." We had only one small canoe at the Station, but Nanari said that if we would write a message he would induce two of the Christian natives to carry it off. I accordingly hastily wrote a note, warning the captain of the vessel against any treachery which might be intended, and with much satisfaction saw the canoe paddle off towards her. The breeze, however, was strong, and it seemed doubtful whether the canoe would reach the stranger before she came to an anchor. CHAPTER FIVE. WE RECEIVE THE SAD TIDINGS OF THE MASSACRE OF THE CREW OF THE VESSEL.--I STILL HOPE THAT SOME MAY HAVE ESCAPED, AND LISELE TAKES MEANS TO RESCUE THEM.--SHE SENDS HER COUSIN TOFA, TO MAFOA, THE YOUNG CHIEF TO WHOM HER FATHER HAS BETROTHED HER.--A FEARFUL HURRICANE.--THE HEATHEN NATIVES PREVENTED BY IT FROM ATTACKING THE SETTLEMENT AND SEIZING US. We could scarcely hope that my father would have had time to return, yet we anxiously looked for his arrival. The canoe with the two natives had been unable to reach the vessel, and information was brought to Lisele that they had been seized and killed by the heathens, who had gone out in chase of them. A bright light was also seen at night in the direction of the harbour in which the vessel was supposed to have anchored; and the next day the dreadful rumour reached us that Nanari's worst apprehensions had been realised, that she had been surprised by the treacherous natives, and that every person on board had been put to death. At first we could not believe so fearful a story, but Lisele assured us that she had no doubt of its truth. "Is it not possible that some may have escaped?" I exclaimed, when Lisele gave me the account. "Have all the people on board the beautiful vessel, sailing by so proudly the other day, been killed? Should any have escaped could we not take means to let them know that there are Christian friends here who would welcome them? If my father was at home I am sure he would make all effort to rescue the unhappy people." Lisele replied that although the tribe who had committed the deed were at present at peace with her people, that even should any white man have escaped it would be difficult to get them out of the heathens' hands, but that she would try what could be done. "There is a young chief among them who is more inclined than the rest of the people to be friendly with my father," she observed. "Although he is a brave warrior, he is neither fierce nor cruel; and if, by chance, any of the white men have fallen into his power he may possibly have spared their lives. I will try to send a message to him and ask him to protect them, and to give them up to your father. Yet I fear there is very little probability of any having escaped." Lisele's answer gave me very little hope that any had escaped the massacre; but I was sure that she would take every means to ascertain the truth. Nanari, when he heard the account, was willing to go himself, but both Abela and Lisele entreated him not to make the attempt--urging that the heathens were so enraged at him for having caused so many people to _lotu_, that they would be certain, should he venture among them, to put him to death. He at length was persuaded to abandon his design, and Lisele undertook to send a young relative, who, although a heathen, was attached to her, and would do whatever she desired. Being still a boy he had not accompanied her father, but he was more likely to succeed than anybody she could think of. In the course of the day Tofa, the lad of whom Lisele spoke, made his appearance. He was a fine intelligent-looking youth, and I could not help hoping that through the means of his cousin he might be brought to know the truth. He seemed proud of the mission given to him, though he was well aware of the danger he incurred. "Tell Mafoa that if he really regards me as he professes, he will act according to my wishes, and treat the white men as friends," said Lisele. Mafoa was the young chief of whom she had spoken, and who, I had no doubt, from this remark, entertained hopes of making her his wife. Recollecting that should any seamen have escaped, they would have a difficulty in understanding young Tofa, I wrote a short note which I hoped would prove of more service than the last I had sent, mentioning the missionary station, and saying that we and the Christian natives would gladly afford them all the assistance in our power. Several other messages having been given to Tofa, he set off on his expedition; and we kneeling down, offered up a prayer for his success. Notwithstanding our anxiety, with the assistance of Lisele and Abela, we held school as usual, while Nanari conducted the service in the chapel, and instructed the young men and boys, as was his custom. The night was as calm as the preceding one. The comet could be seen winding its solitary course through the heavens, appearing even brighter than before. After Maud and I had gazed at it for some time we retired to our beds. I heard her sobbing, giving way at length to the sorrow she had restrained in my presence--not that she could have felt my mother's loss more than I did, but I was older, and had endeavoured, though the strife was a hard one, to command my feelings. At length I heard her sobs cease, and I in time forgot my sorrow in sleep. We were both suddenly awakened by a fearful noise. We started up--all was dark. There came the sound of the wind howling in the trees and falling timber, and the roaring of the sea, as it dashed upon the reef with tremendous force, and rocks crashing down from the mountain heights. A hurricane was raging. We sat up trembling with alarm. My first thought was for my dear father, should he now be at sea returning to us. Then other dreadful sounds, like thunder breaking overhead. Something else terrific besides the hurricane was occurring, it seemed to us, yet we dared not leave the house for fear of being blown away by the wind. After some time we assisted each other to dress, as well as we could, in the dark, for we expected every moment that the roof would be carried off, or the house itself blown down. We remembered several hurricanes, but this appeared more violent than any that had before occurred. We had been protected during former ones, and we knew that the same power would take care of us now. I had proposed lighting the lamp, when Maud observed, should the house be blown down, it might set the thatch on fire, and the whole village would be burnt. "Let us remain in darkness, for remember God sees us as if it was light, she said. Darkness is no darkness with Him--the day and night to Him are both alike." I agreed with Maud, and together we knelt down side by side to pray for protection. Although the tempest continued to rage without, our house, built by my father's hands, stood firm. It was, like his own faith, well knit and bound together. He had not forgotten, when erecting it, that such hurricanes were likely to occur, and he had accordingly prepared for them. So should we go through life, not trembling with the fear of misfortunes, but ready to encounter them should they overtake us. Hour after hour seemed to pass by as we thus knelt and prayed. Every now and then we could not help starting up, as a more fearful crash than usual sounded in our ears. Still the wished-for daylight did not appear. The truth was, that since the commencement of the storm but a short time only had elapsed, though in our desolation and solitude it had appeared very long. At length we heard a knocking at the door. I made my way, followed by Maud, to open it, when two figures appeared, and I heard the voices of Nanari and Lisele. During the moment the door was open I observed a bright glare in the sky above the waving and bending trees, but it was only for a moment, as immediately they were inside they closed the door behind them. "Are you safe, are you uninjured?" they exclaimed. "We could not bear to leave you all alone, and, trusting to Jehovah's protection, we ventured up here, hoping to comfort you." We thanked them for coming, and I led the way into our sitting-room. "What dreadful event is occurring in addition to the hurricane?" I asked. "Can the forest be on fire?" "The mountain has burst forth, and is sending up stones and ashes into the air, while hot streams of lava are flowing down its sides," answered Nanari. "Not one but many forests may be burned, but we are in the hands of Jehovah, and should not fear, my daughter." I inquired whether he thought that the ashes or streams of lava might reach as far as the settlement, he believed that, shut in as we were, by a separate range of hills, that the lava at all events would not run down towards us; though, with regard to the ashes and stones, how far they might be carried, he could not say, and again he added the same consolation he had before offered. Poor Lisele was in much affliction. Her father might probably be at sea--as I feared mine was--and exposed to the dreadful tempest, and she could not hope that he, having set forth against the warnings of his Christian friends, would be under the protection of Jehovah. "Alas! alas!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands, should he be driven out over the ocean and lost, he will not have known the good and merciful God who would--had he listened to the advice given him--have received him as a son, and taken him to dwell with Him for ever in the glorious country you have told me of beyond the skies. "We have prayed for your father, and may continue to pray for him, my child," said Nanari. "And Jehovah may still find a way to preserve him from the danger in which he is placed." Thus conversing, and often kneeling down to pray, we passed the hours of darkness. As dawn approached, the hurricane began to abate; and by the time the sun rose out of the eastern ocean, it had entirely ceased. As we opened the door and gazed forth we had reason to be more than ever thankful that we had escaped destruction. Several tall trees, a short distance from the house, lay torn up by the roots, and huge boughs strewed the ground in every direction. The chapel and school-house had escaped injury; but Nanari, who went out to ascertain whether any of the people had suffered, came back with a sad report. Several of the cottages had been blown down, two people had been killed, and many more injured. Leaving Maud and Lisele to attend to the house, I accompanied Nanari to visit the sufferers. While receiving instruction as a missionary he had been taught the simple methods to be pursued under such circumstances. Abela, I was thankful to find, had escaped, and she assisted us in bathing and binding up the wounds and setting the limbs of those who had been hurt. There was sorrow for those who had been killed, but it was not such sorrow as the heathen would have shown who have no hope. "Jehovah is merciful, and has called our brothers to a better and happier land than this," exclaimed those who stood around, preparing to carry the dead to their graves. We were not aware of it at the time--but we learned afterwards--that on that very night a band of savage heathens were on their way to attack the settlement with the intention of killing Nanari, and carrying off Lisele and us as prisoners. How dreadful would have been our fate had they succeeded, and, unwarned as we were, we should have been taken by surprise without the possibility of escaping. The volcano continued raging during the day, but the natives, accustomed to see its fires burst forth from time to time, were less alarmed at it than they were at the appearance of the comet. As I watched it, I conceived the hope that a stream of lava, flowing down between us and the more hostile heathen tribes, might prevent them from approaching to attack us. CHAPTER SIX. LISELE AND I FEEL GREAT ANXIETY ON ACCOUNT OF OUR FATHER'S NOT RETURNING.--TOFA ALSO HAS NOT APPEARED.--WE ARE ASSEMBLED IN THE CHAPEL, WHEN TOFA, WITH A WHITE STRANGER, ARRIVES AND WARNS US THAT THE HEATHENS THREATEN AN ATTACK.--TOFA TAKES CHARGE OF HIS COMPANION.--WE FLY TO THE MOUNTAINS, AND WITNESS THE BURNING OF OUR VILLAGE. WE LIE CONCEALED IN A CAVE, WHILE THE SAVAGES SEARCH FOR US. The hurricane had caused sad damage to the cocoanut groves and plantations in our little settlement, and we had no doubt that it, in addition to the eruption of the volcano, had produced still more destructive effects throughout the island, but I own that my thoughts were far more occupied with my anxiety about my father. In vain we watched for the return of his canoe. No sail appeared in the blue ocean in the direction of the island to which he had gone. Lisele too was overwhelmed with grief at the non-appearance of her father; her only hope was that he had conquered his enemies and remained in possession of their country. Still he would, she thought, before this, have despatched a canoe to announce his victory. Two days passed away, and we began to look for the return of young Tofa; but on the third day, when he did not come, fears for his safety were added to our other troubles. The chief, indeed, the only refuge from our sorrows, was prayer; how great was the comfort that brought to our hearts none but those who have experienced it can tell. We continued to attend to our usual duties. Though the younger girls and boys assembled for school, the older people were too much agitated and alarmed to attend to their studies; they were also chiefly employed during the day in repairing the damages caused by the storm. In the evening, however, they all assembled in the chapel for public prayer. Nanari was addressing them, when the noise of feet was heard without, and directly afterwards Tofa appeared, followed by a young white man. The latter took off his hat when he saw how we were engaged, and stood reverentially at the door for a moment, as if unwilling to interrupt us, though evidently in a state of great agitation. Tofa, however, influenced by no such feelings, exclaimed loudly, "Fly! fly! and hide yourselves. Your enemies are approaching, and will be here anon. Mafoa tried to prevent them, but he could not prevail." "My friends!" exclaimed Nanari, "the warning has been sent that you all may seek for safety. For myself, I will remain with the aged and wounded people, who cannot fly; but you, my daughters," turning to Maud and me, "who have been committed to my charge, I must see that you are placed in a secure hiding-place, where the heathens cannot find you." "We will place ourselves under your guidance," I answered, "but you must also take care that this stranger does not again fall into the hands of the heathens," I added, turning to the young man who was standing at the door, and who appeared to be above the rank of a common sailor. "Tell me," I asked, "are you the only person who has escaped from the vessel, which we heard was burned the other day along the coast?" "I fear that such is the case, and why my life was spared I cannot tell you," he answered. "I jumped overboard, and was swimming towards the shore, when I was taken up by a canoe, in which was a young chief, who made signs that he would protect me, and faithfully kept his word. I should have remained with him had I not received a note sent, I presume, by you." This was said in a hurried tone, while Nanari was arranging a plan for our safety. I told the stranger of the warning we had just received from Tofa of the threatened attack by the heathens, supposing that he might not have understood what the lad might have said to him. While some of our friends ran off to the huts to obtain provisions, Abela and Lisele taking our hands, told us that we must set off at once to the mountains, till the fury of the heathens had ceased. Three or four of our other friends also prepared to accompany us. "But what will this stranger do?" I asked. "Surely if the heathens find him when no longer under the protection of Mafoa, they will put him to death." "He is under my care," exclaimed Tofa. "I promised Mafoa that I would protect him, and I will show them that I am clever enough to hide him away even although the whole tribe come to look for him." I explained this to the young stranger, and advised him to put himself under Tofa's guidance. Nanari having commended us to the care of Jehovah, we and our friends, not stopping even to obtain anything at the house, hurried off towards the mountains, while Tofa led the stranger by a more direct way up a precipice, which was too steep for us to climb. As we were quitting the chapel, turning my eyes seaward for a moment, I caught sight of several sails dotting the ocean in the far distance. I pointed them out to Lisele. "They may be my father's canoes," she exclaimed, "and he might arrive in time to protect us." "Alas! even should they be Masaugu's fleet, they may be too late for that," said Abela. "We must not delay on such a chance; perhaps, too, they may prove more deadly foes than those from whom we fly. Let us hasten on, and we may be able to learn what they are when our charge is in safety." Thus urged, Lisele no longer hesitated. Night was coming on, but provided we could make our way, the darkness would assist us in eluding our savage foes should they pursue us. The path towards the mountains, at all times difficult, was rendered doubly so by the number of fallen trees across it, thrown down by the hurricane. Sometimes we had to climb over the trunks, at others to creep under the branches. "The heathens will be less able to discover our tracks," observed Lisele, "than if the path had been open." "Ah yes! my child," said Abela, "all is ordered for the best." Now we went on and on, now clambering over wild rocks, now proceeding along a narrow valley, now climbing its steep sides till we reached a height whence we could look back upon our settlement. "Hark!" said Lisele, "what cries are those?" We listened; the Indian girl's quick ear had detected sounds which neither Maud nor I had till then perceived. "Alas! alas!" she exclaimed, "they are the shouts of the savage heathens as they rush in among those we have left behind, and rage at finding that we have escaped them." That she was right in her conjecture we had too soon painful evidence. Several bright lights appeared, and presently fierce flames burst forth from amid the trees. The savages had set the houses on fire to revenge themselves on the inhabitants who had for the present escaped their fury. Our friends, not stopping to watch the progress of the flames, hurried us on. Proceeding along a narrow ridge, we once more descended down a ravine thickly covered with trees. The natives knew their way, but so dense was the foliage that to my eyes all appeared dark around. We could hear the roar of a torrent close to us. Now they led us along slippery rocks, tightly holding our hands; now we found ourselves ascending, now descending, steep precipices. At length they stopped, and drawing aside the thick foliage, Abela led us into a small cavern, the front of which appeared to be completely concealed by underwood and numberless creepers with which it was entwined. A portion of the provisions, and some water which had been brought, were placed by our sides. "Here, my daughters, you will remain safe till the heathens, having searched for you in vain, take their departure," said Abela. "I know this spot well, for before Masaugu's father conquered the territory he now holds, I and my family dwelt in the neighbourhood. I discovered it as a girl when rambling about the mountains with my brothers, who are dead, and no one else is acquainted with it. We ourselves propose to find concealment in different directions, for should the heathens search for us, some may thus have a better prospect of escaping, and the faith of Jehovah will still remain in the land." Abela and her companions, having carefully allowed the shrubs to regain their natural position, left Maud and me alone, and we soon lost the sound of their footsteps. The cavern was perfectly dry, and sufficient air found its way through the boughs to prevent the atmosphere from feeling close. Some mats had also been left for us, on which we could recline; but, as may be supposed, the fearful events that had occurred, and the grief and anxiety which weighed on our hearts, prevented us for many hours from sleeping. No sound except that of the ceaseless roar and splash of the neighbouring waterfall, reached our ears. While we sat, shrouded in darkness, it was difficult to avoid giving way to despondency. We did not, I need scarcely say, forget to pray, while we had cause to be thankful at having received sufficient warning to escape from the cruel fate which would have overtaken us had we been at the settlement. At last we slept, and the light of day was making its way through the dense foliage when we awoke. Our cavern, we now found, was even smaller than we had supposed. There was no room to walk about; indeed, it afforded us just space sufficient to lie down at full length. As we peered out between the bushes, we could see the opposite sides of the ravine rising up in a perpendicular precipice directly before us. This gave us an assurance that there was little probability of our being discovered by the savages, even though they might search diligently for us through the mountains. Our friends had left us an ample supply of provisions so that if necessary we might remain many days there without fear of starvation. But what was to be our future lot it was impossible to say. "It is a great comfort to know that God will decide it for us," said Maud, putting her arms round my neck. "He knows what is best, and He will find a way of escape for those who trust Him, out of all difficulties. See," she added, "I have brought His word to comfort us," and she produced a small Bible from her pocket, which she had thoughtfully put there when leaving the chapel. What consolation did that book give us! We read and prayed, and then read again in a low voice, and strange as it may seem to some, the time did not appear to drag heavily along; but calmness came ever our minds-- our hearts were at peace, we no longer feared what man could do to us. We had been reading together, when suddenly we both started. A wild cry readied our ears; it was echoed by others in different directions, some coming up the ravine, others sounding, it seemed, overhead. I felt Maud tremble as she clung to me. "Can those cries come from the heathens, who have discovered our footsteps?" she whispered. "If so, we are lost." "Not lost, dear Maud," I answered. "They can but take our lives, and I trust that though they may be near they will not find us. Our friends felt sure of our safety in this concealment, so let us not despair, but it will be prudent not to speak." We remained silent, clinging to each other. Again the wild shrieks and cries echoed around us, some of the voices appeared to be quite close. We sat listening anxiously--now the sounds appeared to proceed from a greater distance. Yes, we trusted that the savages were at length passing by us, their shrieks grew fainter and fainter, and ultimately altogether ceased. We had been again preserved from a threatened danger. We could scarcely believe that it was over when darkness once more crept up the ravine. CHAPTER SEVEN. WE REMAIN CONCEALED, NONE OF OUR FRIENDS APPEARING.--MAUD SEES A PERSON ON THE HILL.--OUR ALARM.--WE AGAIN HEAR VOICES AND FOOTSTEPS.--OUR NATIVE FRIENDS RETURN AND BRING US SAD TIDINGS; YET WE HAVE CAUSE TO BE THANKFUL THAT SOME HAVE ESCAPED.--WE ARE MAKING OUR WAY TO A CANOE, WHEN THE HEATHENS PURSUE US.--ESCAPE.--CHARLES NORTON GIVES ME HIS HISTORY. Two more days passed away, and none of our friends had come near us. We began to fear that they had been seized by the heathens. Should such be the case, what must be our fate! "We will wait where we are till our provisions are exhausted, and then we must make our way down to the sea-shore, and perhaps we may be seen by some passing ship and taken off," said Maud. "Anything will be better than trusting ourselves to the savage heathens." I agreed with her that this was the only plan we could follow, that, indeed, was almost a hopeless one. "But suppose papa has been detained longer than he expected with Mr Hilton, and returns to the settlement. If so, we may see him and reach his canoe," said Maud. She always called my father papa. This idea of Maud's gave me new hope, and then I thought how sad must be our meeting when I should have to tell him of our mother's death. Our chief want in our cavern was water; but Maud managed, by creeping under the bushes, where she was sure she could not be seen, to reach a pool filled by the never ceasing spray from the cascade. I entreated her, however, not to go out often, for I was afraid of her foot slipping, or, notwithstanding her assertion, that some native passing over the mountain above us might catch a glimpse of her. She agreed, therefore, to wait till just after dawn, when no one was likely to be at so great a distance from any habitation. She went out one morning to fill the gourd, which held our store of water, and when she came back she told me that she had seen a person looking down towards her from a point a long way up above the top of the waterfall. "I did not stop to look a second time," she said, "but, crouching down, crept back, in the hopes that he might not have discovered me." This circumstance caused us great alarm; still we hoped that even had any one seen her, he might not be able to discover the entrance to our cavern. "Perhaps the person I saw may have been Tofa, or the young Englishman," exclaimed Maud, as if the thought had suddenly struck her. "They would naturally come to look for us, especially should they know that any of our friends had been discovered by the heathens, and they might assist us greatly." "I trust that our friends have escaped," I said. "Though it seems strange that they should be so long in returning to us, and as Tofa and the young Englishman are strangers, I would rather trust myself to those whose fidelity has been well tried." "Oh, but I am sure that the Englishman would defend us with his life," said Maud. "I was struck by the good expression of his countenance, and the way he behaved during the few moments we saw him. I do trust that he has escaped, and I long to know who he is, for I am sure that he is not a common sailor." In this I agreed with Maud: indeed, had I not known that it is imprudent to trust strangers, I should have been _very_ thankful to obtain his assistance. Although he might be the person Maud had soon, we knew that it would be very unwise to venture out of our concealment. "Still I should like to try and look out through the brushwood, and then should we see him approaching, and be sure that it is him, we might make ourselves known," said Maud. As Maud was sure that she could do as she proposed without being discovered, I did not forbid her, though I felt that it might be wiser to remain as closely concealed as we had been hitherto. Still no one approached. "After all, I may have been mistaken," said Maud, coming back and sitting down by my side. We were employed as usual in reading, when the sound of voices at a distance reached our ears, coming apparently up the ravine. "Can they be the savages returning to look for us," whispered Maud. "I think that their voices would sound very differently to those we hear," I answered. "They would be wildly shrieking and shouting, unless they intended to attack an enemy unprepared for them. Still, as the persons may possibly be strangers, we will keep concealed." We remained seated on the ground, hoping that should enemies be approaching, they would pass by without discovering us. The footsteps grew nearer. We could hear them climbing up the precipice to the ledge on which the cavern opened. Maud, notwithstanding her usual courage, trembled violently. The boughs were drawn aside, when several natives appeared in front of us. A second glance showed us that they were entirely clothed according to the custom of the converts, and then, to our joy, we saw that Abela was among them. We sprang up and threw ourselves into her arms. "My children," she said, "we have left you long; but we have had many difficulties to encounter, and, alas! disasters have overtaken our friends. But come, we have no time to lose, we will tell you more as we go along." We were thankful to find that besides Abela, those who had accompanied us to our hiding-place had likewise escaped. Our friends having taken the baskets, and the remainder of our provisions, we set off down the ravine, which led, as we supposed, towards the sea-shore. I immediately inquired of Abela if she had heard of my father. "Alas! no, my child," she answered, "Our good pastor's canoe has not returned; we have anxiously kept watch for him, and he could scarcely have reached the shore without having been observed." I then inquired for Nanari, who might, I hoped, have escaped. "He died faithfully at his post with those whom he would not desert," she answered. "He was entreated by the sick and wounded to fly, but would not, and then, alas! the savage people rushed in and slew him." She then told me that Lisele was safe, although she had run great risk of being captured by the heathens. The fleet we had seen was the remnant of that with which Masaugu had set sail. Though at first victorious in his expedition, he had been attacked by overwhelming numbers of his enemies, and, with the loss of a large portion of his warriors, and many of his canoes, had with difficulty reached the island. On his arrival he found a large party of the heathens, who had heard that he intended to lotu, arrayed against him, and once more he had to put to sea. He had, however, reached the end of the island where we now were. There Lisele had joined him, and, at her earnest entreaties, he had left a canoe to convoy us away. Abela told us also that Tofa and the young Englishman had been communicated with, and she hoped that they would be found already on board the canoe. "Oh then we will proceed at once to Mr Hilton's station," I exclaimed. "What joy it will be if we find that my father has not yet quitted it." "Such are Masaugu's intentions," said Abela. "He has seen the folly of his conduct in going to attack his enemies when so earnestly warned by your father, and now he wishes to remain with the Christian missionary, that he may receive instruction in the truths he before despised." The news we thus received caused us many conflicting feeling's. We deeply grieved for the loss of the faithful Nanari, while my anxiety about my father was still unrelieved. Yet we rejoiced that Masaugu, through the severe lesson he had received, should have been induced to seek for Christian instruction. Our path down the ravine was extremely difficult, and often dangerous, and we could make but slow progress. Abela, however, hurried on as fast as we could venture to proceed, for she feared that the heathens, knowing that many of the Christians had escaped, would be searching for us, and that although they might not dare to follow Masaugu's fleet, they would not hesitate to attack the single canoe, with only a small party on board. At length we caught sight of the blue ocean, but the sparkling white lines of foam I saw dancing over it, made me fear that the canoe would have a hard buffet with the waves. We were already not far from the beach, when we saw two persons running towards us--they were Tofa and the young Englishman. "Hasten," they exclaimed; "a large band of our enemies are coming along the shore, and we have been in dread that you would be cut off." The latter, who of course spoke in English, took Maud and me by the hands to assist us, and helped along by him we soon reached the boat. The crew stood ready with poles to urge on the canoe into deep water. We were speedily on board, and launching forth; the wind being favourable, a large triangular mat sail was set, and we glided away from the beach. Scarcely had we got beyond the reach of their spears, than the savages arrived at the spot we had left. Several were hurled at us, but happily no one was hit, and the next shower, which the vindictive savages darted from their hands, fell short of our canoe. Abela and every Christian with her knelt down on the deck and offered up an earnest prayer--in which we joined--that the hearts of our foes might be changed, and that they would ere long be brought to know the truth. The savages continued shrieking and shouting at us till we had got outside the reef. Happily no canoe was near, or they would undoubtedly have followed us. We could see Masaugu's fleet in the far distance; but as our canoe was smaller than any of his we could not hope to overtake him. I was thankful, however, to find that he was steering towards Mr Hilton's station, where we hoped in time to arrive. The sea was, as I had feared, very rough, and though our canoe was strong and buoyant, she was tossed much about, and had it not been for the assistance of the young Englishman and Tofa, we should have had great difficulty in clinging to the deck. In the centre was a small house or cabin, generally used by the chief or owner of the canoe, and this we found was to be devoted to our use at night as a sleeping place. Still, as I surveyed the curiously-constructed and apparently weak vessel, I could not help feeling that a voyage on board her of the length we were about to attempt, must be attended with much danger. Happily we could say at sea as on shore, "We will trust ourselves to the care of One all-powerful to save." As I now had a better opportunity of observing the young stranger more particularly than before, I felt more convinced than at first that he was a person of education. His manner towards Maud and me especially, was retiring and reserved, and he seemed unwilling to intrude himself upon us. After some time, however, he came and sat near us, and thanked me for the note I had written, which, as he supposed, had not only been the means of obtaining his freedom, but of his life being preserved. "I wrote merely on the possibility of any European having escaped the massacre which I understood had taken place," I answered. "I can therefore claim no thanks from you." "I am not the less grateful," he answered. "I had so fully expected to be killed, that I feel like one risen from the dead." "I trust that you have risen to newness of life," I ventured to say, for I am sure it was a remark my father would have made, and I felt anxious to be assured that the young man was under religious impressions. It was an opportunity indeed I dare not let pass by. "Yes, Miss Liddiard, I do feel that," he exclaimed. "And with what horror do I reflect what would have been my doom had I died with my companions. I knew the truth when I was a boy, for I had been brought up by a pious father and mother, but I became careless and wild, and neglected all their precepts and warnings. I went on from bad to worse, and at length, believing that if I could get out to the Pacific--of which I had read--I could enjoy unfettered liberty and licence, I shipped on board a vessel bound out, round Cape Horn. Having knocked about in the way I proposed for some time, though, as may be supposed, I did not find the life among rough seamen and fierce savages as agreeable as I had expected, I at length reached Sydney in New South Wales. I there joined the sandal wood trader, which has been so fearfully destroyed. "Just before going on board I met an old friend of my father's, a missionary, whom I had known at home. He spoke to me seriously, and warned me against joining the vessel, knowing as he did, the lawless character of her crew. He offered to obtain my discharge if I would come and live with him. His words made a deep impression on my heart, although I was too self-willed to follow his advice. During the voyage, while we were sailing from island to island, those words often and often recurred to my mind. I in vain attempted to drive them from me. When I saw my companions being put to death--expecting to meet the same fate-- how earnestly I wished that I had followed my friend's counsels. I could only utter, `Lord be merciful to me a sinner,' and entreated God to protect me. When I found myself so unexpectedly preserved, I remembered the prayer I had uttered, and resolved to give myself to the service of God in any way He might open out for me. You now know my brief history, Miss Liddiard. I felt bound to give it you, but I am unwilling to trouble you with more than I have already told you about myself. My name is Charles Norton." "You can have no difficulty in finding opportunities of serving God, Mr Norton," I exclaimed. "When we see thousands and tens of thousands of human beings scattered about this broad Pacific ignorant of Him, and given over to abominable heathen practices, all requiring to be fed with the bread of life. Why should you not prepare yourself to go forth as a missionary among them?" "I feel that I am too unworthy and sinful to undertake so serious an office," he said humbly. "No human being could be qualified to go forth as a missionary of the gospel trusting alone to his own merits, and no one would be found to undertake the office were all influenced by the opinion you express," I observed. "All must feel their unworthiness and we must take God at His word, and believe that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, and then go forth and declare what great things He has done for us. I repeat what I have heard my father say:--We must not trust to our feelings, but we must believe that God is a rewarder of those who diligently serve Him, not only of those who have all along done so." "You have given me new life and hope," exclaimed the young man. "Henceforth, if my life is spared, after having prepared myself for the task, I will devote it to making known the gospel to the poor heathens of these regions." CHAPTER EIGHT. WHILE ON OUR PASSAGE IN THE CANOE A STORM ARISES.--WE ARE DRIVEN FAR AWAY TO LEEWARD OF THE ISLAND.--ABELA INSTRUCTS TOFA IN THE TRUTH.-- SCARCITY OF FOOD AND WATER.--OUR SUFFERINGS BECOME INTENSE.--THE NATIVE CREW GIVE WAY TO DESPAIR. Although the sea was rough the canoe had made good progress towards our destination when night came on. The wind had been increasing, and I saw the natives looking anxiously at the sky, which had become overcast. The darkness was intense, and we had no compass in the canoe by which to direct our course. The native boatmen, however, continued steering on, trusting to the wind, which had remained steadily blowing from one quarter. Still, as the waves rose, and our frail canoe pitched and tossed about, it seemed to me that she would be unable to accomplish the passage. Abela was sitting by us. "Alas," she exclaimed, "we have escaped the fury of our enemies only, I fear, to perish in the waves." "Nay, nay, Abela," said Maud. "God, who has protected us heretofore, can protect us still. He will find a way for us to escape if it is His will that we should do so." "Ah, you are right," answered Abela, "and I am weak and faithless to doubt His love." Still I must confess that it required much strong faith not to feel nervous and alarmed while we saw the dark foaming seas rising up around us, and apparently every moment about to overwhelm our little vessel. The crew had lessened the sail, but yet it seemed scarcely capable of withstanding the furious blasts which struck it. Maud and I, with Abela and the other women, sat close together in the little hut on deck. I observed that Mr Norton and Tofa had come nearer us as if to try and prevent us from being washed away should a sea break on board, which it appeared too probable would occur. The canoe was excessively buoyant, or she could not have escaped being overwhelmed. Onward she continued to fly over the tumbling waters, and we at length, becoming accustomed to the movement of the vessel, began to hope that she would reach the shore in safety, and already the crew were looking out in the expectation of seeing it ahead. All our hopes were to be disappointed. A furious blast struck the sail, and before it could be lowered it was torn away, with the spars which supported it, and we were left helpless on the wild ocean. To attempt to use the paddles in such a sea was useless. The helmsman had turned the head of the canoe away from the wind, and all that now could be done was to fly before it. The gale increased. On we went, expecting every moment that the seas would overwhelm us. We could sit quiet and pray, but I felt much for our poor heathen crew, who had no such consolation. Abela had called young Tofa to her side, and was endeavouring to explain to him the glorious truths of the faith she held, he seemed greatly struck by her calm resignation. "Formerly you would have shrieked out, and trembled with fear," he observed. "Now you seem as brave as the boldest of our warriors." "I am brave, because I know in whom I trust," answered Abela. "I have the support of the Holy Spirit sent by Jehovah. Though I am by myself still very weak, my soul is at peace, and I know if I am taken away from this world that I shall go to a better and more glorious land, where I shall live with my Saviour, who has redeemed me, and bought me with the price of His most precious blood." "Oh, how I wish I could go with you to that glorious land," said the lad. "But I am not fit; I could not be received there, if Jehovah is the pure and holy Being you say He is." "You will be fit to go the moment you accept the offers Jesus makes you, and you are sure to be received there," answered Abela, and once more she explained to him the simple plan of salvation. "You see, my son, that you have nothing to do; but all has been done for you, to satisfy God's justice. You are bought by the blood of Jesus. God makes you a free gift of salvation. If He required anything in return it would not be a free gift. If you had anything to pay it would show that the purchase was not completed by Christ. Now God says that the purchase was completed on Calvary, and He tells us that eternal salvation is a free gift; we, therefore, offend God when we want to pay anything to Him in return, and we dishonour the purchase made by Christ when we fancy that it is insufficient. Still, after you have become the servant of Christ, if life is spared you, you will desire to obey Him, and please Him, and do His will by every means in your power. This will show that you have a living faith, and that you are really, as you profess to be, His disciple." "Oh, I am sure what you say is true," exclaimed Tofa. "Although I cannot yet understand it all I believe in Jesus, I trust to Him, I will never never again worship the foolish idols I have till now trusted in. You must tell me all you have said over and over again, for I wish to know all I can about Jesus, that should the canoe be overwhelmed by the sea, I may be ready to go and dwell with Him." The young Englishman occasionally spoke to us. He was not ignorant of gospel truth, but, alas, he had long sinned against light and knowledge, and rejected what he knew in his heart to be true. His merciful preservation had been the means of changing that heart, he was really born again, and now the knowledge he possessed seemed to come back to him. Notwithstanding the fearful danger in which we were placed, his manner was calm and composed. He did not speak to us as many a brave worldly man would have done, urging us to keep up our spirits, expressing a hope that the storm would soon abate, and that we should be able to return to the land; he observed only, "we must trust in God's merciful protection; let us remember that we are in His hands." Maud and I responded to what he said. "Those days I spent in solitude in the mountains have, indeed, been precious days to me, Miss Liddiard," he continued. "I felt like the prodigal son, who had returned to his father, and the bright gleam of His smile seemed to rest on me. My only regret was, that I had not His word to apply to, but many precious verses which I had learned as a child came back to me, and afforded me comfort and consolation, and then I could pray as I had never prayed before." I told him that we had been employed in the same way, and that happily having a Bible we could turn to the sacred page, and draw comfort from the ever flowing fountain. Thus the hours of darkness passed away. The canoe, from the lightness of her construction, rode easily over the seas, driving, as she now was, directly before the gale, and we were not pitched and tumbled about as we had been when the wind was on her side, and we were attempting to steer for the island. When morning dawned the foaming waters were around us on every side, and we could just distinguish in the far distance, almost astern, the dim outline of the island which we had hoped to reach. Had the weather been moderate the canoe men might have attempted to make their way towards it, but that, was now impossible, and we continued to drive on, leaving it further and further behind. Where we were going we could not tell. The natives knew of no islands in that direction, and I heard them reminding each other of several canoes which had been blown off the land and had not again been heard of. We asked Mr Norton his opinion. He had, he said, during the last day he was on board examined a chart, and he could afford us but little hope that we should reach any shore where we might obtain a new mast and sail and be able to return the way we had come. "There are islands a long way off; but as the inhabitants, I fear, are savage in the extreme, it would be dangerous to land amongst them," he added. "Still, though we speak of the dangers we may have to encounter, let us continue, trusting firmly that God is watching over us, and though we cannot yet see the way by which He intends to save us--if such is His good will--He has nevertheless got it ready, while we on our part are bound to make every exertion to preserve our lives. As we may not for a considerable time reach land, I must therefore, in the first place, strongly urge the people to place themselves on an allowance of food and water. We should use as little as will suffice to sustain life, that we may the longer be able to hold out." I explained what the young Englishman said to Abela; and she and Tofa spoke to their countrymen, and persuaded them to do as he advised. The wind had somewhat abated, but as it was still too strong to permit of our making head against it, we continued to drive on as before. We read the Bible, and prayed several times during the day, and occasionally some of the heathen crew came, and, kneeling down near us, listened while I read. Abela, although she had not begun her studies till about two years before this, read very fairly, but she was especially powerful in prayer, and her whole heart and soul seemed lifted up as she poured forth her petitions--seldom failing to exclaim, "Lord be merciful to me a sinner." The hours passed on, and we felt that an all-powerful hand was protecting our frail bark from the fury of the seas. When the water washed into the canoe beneath the platform, it was quickly bailed out again, and everything was so firmly secured, that in spite of the tossing and tumbling of the vessel she held as tightly together as at first. Another day and another and another passed by, and still the strong wind prevented us from attempting to return. Many of the heathen crew appeared to have resigned themselves to their fate, and had it not been for the influence Abela exerted over them--supported as she was by the young Englishman and Tofa--I believe that they would quickly have consumed all the provisions, and have then laid down to die. We were already feeling the ill effects of the small amount of food we could venture to eat. The sun too, burst forth, and its burning rays striking down upon us; we now, in addition to hunger, began to feel the fearful sufferings of thirst. What must it be should a calm come on! And although the crew might then use their paddles with effect, their strength would be gone, and very many days must pass before we could regain the island from which we had been driven. Often and often I thought of my poor father. I persuaded myself that he had certainly remained with Mr Hilton, and that had we arrived in safety we should have had the happiness of seeing him. Now should he return to the settlement, what would be his feelings to find it desolate, and to suppose, as he must, that we had shared the fate of the other inhabitants. Our condition was also becoming, humanly speaking, fearful in the extreme. As I looked at Maud's pale countenance I feared that she could not long endure such suffering. I was not aware that I looked equally ill. The young Englishman treated us with the most gentle and constant attention; he even insisted on our taking a portion of his scanty allowance of food and water, and when we refused to deprive him of it I am sure that he took means to add it unseen to our shares. At length the gale ceased, the canoe no longer tumbled about, and the heat of the sun's rays--as they shone upon the glass-like surface of the ocean on which we floated--was intense in the extreme. Abela urged the crew to get out their paddles, but they answered, as I had expected, "we cannot live to reach the island, and when our food and water are exhausted, we will lie down and die. There is nothing else for us to do." CHAPTER NINE. A CALM.--THE CANOE FLOATS MOTIONLESS ON THE OCEAN.--MANY OF OUR NUMBER APPEAR TO BE DYING FOR WANT OF WATER.--I FEAR CHIEFLY FOR MAUD, WHEN A SAIL IS SEEN, AND, WITH A RISING BREEZE, SHE APPROACHES.--WE ARE RECEIVED ON BOARD THE "TRUE LOVE," AND KINDLY TREATED BY CAPTAIN HUDSON AND HIS WIFE. The canoe still floated motionless on the calm ocean, which shone like a sheet of burnished gold. Maud and I lay in each other's arms, expecting thus to die. Still we could whisper together, and talk of the glories of that heaven we hoped soon to reach. Abela sat like a mother watching over us, but she too was sinking. Of the heathen crew several appeared to be dying, if they were not already dead; but others, who had listened to the Word of Life, gathered round us that they might hear the instruction which Abela, as long as she had the power of speech, afforded them. Young Tofa bore up bravely, and Mr Norton struggled wonderfully with his sufferings. He occasionally rose to his feet and gazed around, as if he still hoped help would come ere it was too late. Another day I felt sure must terminate the existence of most of those on board. I closed my eyes, feeling a faintness coming over me, when I was aroused by Mr Norton's voice. I saw him standing up, with his arms outstretched, and his dim eye lighted up. "A sail! a sail!" he exclaimed. "She is bringing up the breeze--she is standing this way." This announcement gave me a strength I did not believe that I possessed--I raised Maud in my arms. "We shall be saved, dearest; our prayers have been heard," I whispered. She opened her eyes, and seemed to comprehend me. "We must make a signal, or the vessel may pass us," said Mr Norton. "Can you direct the natives to assist me? The broken spars, if lashed together, will answer for a flagstaff." I explained what the young Englishman required, and Tofa and a few others, although scarcely able to lift themselves from the deck, secured the spars, and fastened them together as he desired. A piece of matting answered for a flag, and the flagstaff was held up on the deck. How eagerly we watched the distant sail. "She looks like a whaler, and if so, a bright look-out is certain to be kept on board," observed Mr Norton. On she came. Unless our small flag was observed, as the deck of the canoe rose but a few feet above the water, should she pass only a mile or two on either side she might sail away without noticing us. We did not forget to pray that we might be seen. She came nearer and nearer. At length, to our joy, we saw a flag run up to her mast-head as an answer to our signal. We were seen. Still the breeze was light, and the ship seemed to be a long time coming up to us. Every moment was of consequence. I dreaded lest aid should come too late for dear Maud, while several others appeared unable to last much longer. How often do we mistrust God's mercy. The vessel came close to us, and heaving-to, a boat was lowered. "She is a whaler," exclaimed Mr Norton. "Water, water--bring water with you," he shouted; but his voice was faint and hollow, he pointed to his lips. The sign was understood, for the boat put back, and a cask was lowered into it. In another minute, with sturdy strokes, the boat's crew dashed alongside. We heard the sound of English voices. "You seem in a sad plight, my lad," said the officer of the boat. "We thought you were all savages. Are there any more of you on board?" Mr Norton pointed to where Maud and I lay. The cask of water was lifted on deck, and the officer approached us with a cup. I begged him to give Maud some. He poured a few drops down her throat. "Come, young lady, you must take some now," he said. How delicious was that draught--it almost instantly revived me. I gave Maud some more, and then offered the cup to Abela. Those of the crew who could move crawled towards the cask. The young seaman poured it out from the cask into their hands, that they might obtain it sooner. I remember thinking it a fearful waste that any of the precious liquid should be spilled. Not till all the rest had received some water would Mr Norton take the cup which the mate offered him. "Now, young ladies, the sooner we get you on board, where our captain and his good wife will look after you, the better," exclaimed the mate, as he offered to carry us to the boat. I begged that Abela might be brought with us. He lifted me up in his arms as if I had been a feather, and others followed, with Maud and Abela. Mr Norton had scarcely strength to reach the boat. I explained that Tofa was a chief's son, and that having rendered us great service, I begged that he might be treated with attention. In a few minutes we were on board the "True Love," and in Captain Hudson's cabin, under the care of his kind motherly wife. She almost shed tears as she saw us; Maud especially excited her sympathy. "Poor dear child, she could not have lasted another hour, and she now will require all the care we can bestow on her. And we must look after you too," she added, addressing me. "I wonder you have held out so well. You must tell me all about it by-and-by. You are too weak to talk now. I cannot get a word out of any one else--not even from the young Englishman. He fainted on reaching the deck, and my husband is attending to him; but you need not be alarmed, he will come round in time." I inquired for Abela. "The native woman is in one of the mate's cabins. I will go and attend to her directly, and all the rest who are alive are safe on board; but five or six of the poor Indians were dead, I am told, before they could be lifted from the deck of the canoe." I grieved much to hear this, for I had entertained hopes that all when brought under Christian instruction would have accepted the truth; but God's ways are inscrutable--we only know that they are just and right. Soon after Mrs Hudson had placed me in bed, I sank into a state of almost insensibility, and was conscious only that I was attended by a kind hand. I could neither speak nor think, and knew not to what place the ship was carrying us. My first inquiry on coming to myself, when I saw Mrs Hudson standing over me, was for dear Maud. My heart leaped with joy when I heard her voice saying, "I am here Mary--I am so very very glad to hear you speaking again." I found that she was lying on a sofa outside my cabin, to which Mrs Hudson said she had entreated to be brought, that she might be near me. Abela, I found was also recovering, and Mr Norton was well, and devoted himself to the care of the sufferers, some of whom were still in a precarious state. "He is trying to learn their language, and the young prince is never weary in giving him instruction," said Mrs Hudson. "They call Tofa the young prince, because the rest of his people pay him so much respect," observed Maud. I was truly thankful to hear this of Mr Norton. I should have trembled for him, lest after getting safely on board the ship had he shown that he had forgotten his good resolutions. "That young Englishman is a very superior person indeed," observed Mrs Hudson. "He has made inquiries about you and your sister every hour in the day, and I really believe had you been taken from us it would have broken his heart; he looked so anxious when I told him how ill you were. He constantly also speaks to our crew, and reads the Bible to them, and prays with them in the forecastle. They seem very well pleased to hear him, and though my husband has prayers every Sunday, he cannot go among them and talk to them in the familiar way this young man does. He tells me, though I am sure he is a gentleman born by his manners, that he has served before the mast, and therefore knows their habits and ways, and that there is nothing like being on an equality with people to win their hearts." "Yes, that is what a missionary must be if he follows the example of his Master," I said. "Jesus made Himself equal to the poorest, and of no reputation, that He might gain souls to Himself." "Ah yes, my dear young lady, if all ministers of the gospel as well as missionaries acted thus, His blessed religion would make more progress in the world than it now does." In addition to my other causes of gratitude I thanked God that we had been taken on board a ship commanded by a believing captain, with a kind excellent wife. Through His mercy we were greatly indebted to Mrs Hudson's constant and affectionate care for our recovery. CHAPTER TEN. MAUD AND I WITH MOST OF OUR PARTY RECOVER.--MR NORTON INSTRUCTS THE CREW, AND PROVES THAT HE IS REALLY CONVERTED.--THE GREAT KINDNESS OF CAPTAIN AND MRS HUDSON.--THEY OFFER TO TAKE US TO ENGLAND, BUT WE RESOLVE TO REMAIN ON AN ISLAND INHABITED BY CHRISTIANS, ON WHICH WE LAND, THAT WE MAY DEVOTE OURSELVES TO MISSIONARY WORK.--MAUD IS RESTORED TO HER PARENTS.--CAPTAIN HUDSON, ON A SUBSEQUENT VOYAGE, BRINGS MY FATHER TO US, AND I, HAVING BECOME THE WIFE OF MR NORTON, WE RETURN TO OUR ISLAND, WHERE MASAUGU HAVING BECOME A CHRISTIAN, WITH LISELE AND HER HUSBAND, ARE RESIDING.--THE WHOLE OF THE INHABITANTS BEFORE MY FATHER'S DEATH BEING ALSO CONVERTED TO THE TRUTH. We had been many days on board, and Maud and I were able to enjoy the fresh air on deck, where Captain Hudson warmly congratulated us, in his fatherly manner, on our recovery; arranging cushions on which we could recline--for we were still too weak to sit up--and kindly doing all he could for us. How glad we were again to see Abela and her companions, and to comfort them in their sorrow, for they believed that they should never again see their native land. Young Tofa, however, was perfectly content. "I shall learn more about the religion of Jehovah, and that will be my support wherever I am," he observed. Mr Norton came up and spoke to us so gently, and yet with unmistakable earnestness in his mariner. "Oh Miss Liddiard," he said, "I am now more than ever sure that our merciful Father in heaven hears the prayers of the greatest of sinners who have returned to Him. I have never ceased beseeching Him that you might be restored to health, and that while you may enjoy happiness yourself, you may prove a blessing to many of our fellow-creatures." "I do indeed hope that I may be of use to some," I answered. "I desire no greater happiness than to be employed in God's service." "Such will, I believe, be the occupation of the blessed throughout eternity, although He has not revealed to His creatures the way in which they are to be employed. That surpasses human comprehension," he observed. A few days after this we came in sight of a high and picturesque island, even more beautiful than the one we had left. "My dear young lady," said Captain Hudson, "I should be very sorry to part with you, and would gladly have carried you with me to old England, but the poor natives are, I am sure, anxious to be put on shore, and as an English missionary resides on yonder island, and all the inhabitants are Christians, I thought it best to go there to land those who desire to land. Will you and your sister remain with us? The ship's time in these seas will soon be up, and when we get to England our house shall be your home. We have no children of our own, and my wife and I will do our best to act the part of the parents you have lost." My heart swelled with gratitude to the kind captain and his wife. I could scarcely speak. I had often thought of England, and how delightful it would be to see it, but I had resolved to devote myself, as my dear father and mother had done, in endeavouring to make known the gospel among the heathen islanders. I knew their language and customs, and felt that I was suited for the task. I was sure also that Maud would not consent to leave me; still, I did not wish to bias her should she desire to accept Captain and Mrs Hudson's offer. My eyes filled with tears as I took the captain's hand, and expressed my gratitude for his generous proposal. I told him the object on which my heart was set, and had it not been for that, how thankful I should have been to accept his offer. I then explained that Maud was not my sister, and gave him her history, adding, that she would indeed be fortunate to have such kind protectors as I was sure he and Mrs Hudson would prove. "I will ask her," said the captain. "But I should like to have had you both." I waited anxiously to hear what Maud would say, earnestly praying meantime that she would be directed aright. I had closed my eyes, when I felt Maud's arms round me. "I cannot, no I cannot leave you, dear Mary, where you go I will go," she whispered. "If you had said yes to the good captain I would gladly have accompanied you. If you remain out here I will remain also." As we neared the harbour a canoe, manned by natives in white jackets and trousers and straw hats, came off. One of them, in good English, announced himself as a pilot, and under his charge the "True Love" was safely conducted into a secure and beautiful harbour, where her anchor was dropped. Neat white-washed houses lined the shore; beyond them rose several buildings of good size, the largest of which was a stone church with tower and belfry. Plantations extended on every side as far as the eye could reach. Everything wore an aspect of peace and contentment. How different from that of the heathen island we had left! Yet a short time before the numerous dark skinned natives, well clothed and in their right minds, were naked heathen savages, such as those among whom we had dwelt, and often despaired would ever be brought to know the truths of the gospel. The boat was lowered, and Maud and I, with Mr Norton, Abela, and Tofa, were seated in her, accompanied by Captain and Mrs Hudson, on our way to the house of Mr Arnold, the missionary of which they had before spoken, and to whom, they had told us, they were well-known. On landing we proceeded along a well made clean road, at the further end of which, some way from the shore, stood Mr Arnold's house. How neat and beautiful it looked, with its garden full of flowering shrubs, and a broad verandah in front! Mr Arnold came out to meet us, followed by his wife. A few words from Captain Hudson served to explain who we were. "Indeed you are welcome, most welcome," he exclaimed, taking our hands. "We have enough and to spare, and there is work for all of you if, as I trust, you are willing to labour in the Lord's vineyard." We were soon seated around the missionary's hospitable board, for Captain Hudson's ship was well-known, and Mrs Arnold had been preparing for the guests she was sure would come before they left the Pacific. She was an interesting looking lady, but there was an expression of sadness in her countenance, which at once struck me. Our host and hostess had, of course, many questions to ask, and we gave them an account of the dreadful events which had occurred to us. Captain Hudson told them of his wish to carry us on with him to England. "We only desire to have willing labourers," observed Mr Arnold, "and they having counted the cost must decide for themselves. They have some experience what it is; and you, Mr Norton, do you intend to return home?" he asked. "My desire is, the Lord helping me, to prepare myself for a missionary among the heathen islanders of these seas," he answered. "I have counted the cost, and with God's grace I hope not to turn back." Mr Arnold warmly pressed his hand. "We will pray that His grace will ever continue with you," he said. I felt an infinite satisfaction at hearing this. While the gentlemen went out to walk we remained with Mrs Arnold, who gave us much interesting information about their island, and her account raised my hopes that our own poor savages, as I called them, might some day enjoy the same inestimable blessings, and that smiling villages and churches and schools might appear throughout the island. On Mr Arnold's return I saw that he was greatly agitated, and cast an eager inquiring glance at Maud. He advanced towards her, but seemingly restrained himself, and taking his wife by the hand, led her from the room. During their absence Captain Hudson, sitting down by Maud, to my great surprise said, "Do you think, my dear, that the poor lady you supposed was your mother was really so?" Maud started, then seemed lost in thought. "She was very, very kind to me, and I used to call her `mamma,' because I had no other mamma then, but I have a faint idea that there was some one else whom I loved still better, and who had given me to her, saying, that we should meet again." "Then I think there is no doubt it," exclaimed Captain Hudson. "Suppose you were to find your real father and mother, could you bear the joy of meeting them?" he asked. Maud trembled all over, and I now began to suspect the truth. In a few minutes Mr and Mrs Arnold re-entered the room. I was surprised at the wonderful command which Mr Arnold had over himself. He placed his wife on a sofa, and then led Maud up to her. "It may be that we are in error," he said, "but God's goodness is great, and such as this dear girl is might have been our child." Mrs Arnold gazed at Maud's features for a few moments, then hastily took off her tippet. On her neck was a well-known mark which assured her that her hopes were realised. She drew her to her bosom and sobbed aloud. We truly grieved to part with good Captain and Mrs Hudson, but we were to meet ere long again. Our heathen crew were soon distributed among the inhabitants, and all of them earnestly desired to be instructed in the truth. Tofa made rapid progress in his studies under Mr Arnold, and expressed his ardent wish to return as a missionary to his native land. Mrs Norton laboured devotedly as a catechist, and rendered the greatest service to Mr Arnold in his work, while Maud and I assisted Mrs Arnold in the girls' school, as we had been accustomed to do under my dear mother, while Abela was of great use among the older women. Two years passed by, when it was announced that the "True Love" was once more entering the harbour. We hastened down to the landing-place to meet our kind old friend. We saw the boat coming with the captain and his wife and a gentleman with them. Captain Hudson assisted him to land. He gazed anxiously at us as we approached, then tottered towards me with arms outstretched. My joy was full. He was my dear father. He had supposed we had all perished, till Captain Hudson, a short time before, had put in to visit Mr Hilton's station. His former faith had supported him through all his afflictions, and now, how full was his heart with gratitude at having me restored to him. I saw by his thin and wasted figure and pale countenance how much he required a daughter's care. He brought glorious intelligence from our island. Masaugu had become a devoted Christian, and having made peace with his former foes, had, accompanied by Lisele, returned home, many of his people having also cast aside their idols. I have not hitherto said that a short time before Mr Norton had asked me to become his wife. My father, hearing of his character from Mr Arnold, gave his full consent. Captain Hudson was bound in the direction of our island. With my devoted husband and father, accompanied by Abela and Tofa and several of our formerly heathen crew, we embarked on board the "True Love." I could not have borne parting with Maud had I not known that she was left with loving parents, who would amply supply my place as my husband supplied hers in my heart. I need not say how joyfully we were welcomed by Lisele and her Christian husband, the young chief. We had, notwithstanding, many difficulties to encounter. The heathens offered all the opposition in their power, but at length they were conquered,--not by force of arms, but by the power of gospel truth, and ere my dear father was laid beside my mother's grave, he had the happiness of seeing the once heathen inhabitants of our island, as also of many others in the Pacific, cast aside their idols and become faithful worshippers of Jehovah, trusting to the all-cleansing of the blood of the Lamb slain on Calvary for sinners. FINIS. 
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21244	----	By Canoe and Dog-Train By Egerton Ryerson Young ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ BY CANOE AND DOG-TRAIN BY EGERTON RYERSON YOUNG CHAPTER ONE. THE SUMMONS TO THE INDIAN WORK--THE DECISION--THE VALEDICTORY SERVICES-- DR. PUNSHON--THE DEPARTURE--LEAVING HAMILTON--ST. CATHERINE'S--MILWAUKEE CUSTOM-HOUSE DELAYS--MISSISSIPPI--ST. PAUL'S--ON THE PRAIRIES--FRONTIER SETTLERS--NARROW ESCAPE FROM SHOOTING ONE OF OUR SCHOOL TEACHERS--SIOUX INDIANS AND THEIR WARS--SAVED BY OUR FLAG--VARIED EXPERIENCES. Several letters were handed into my study, where I sat at work among my books. I was then pastor of a Church in the city of Hamilton. Showers of blessing had been descending upon us, and over a hundred and forty new members had but recently been received into the Church. I had availed myself of the Christmas holidays by getting married, and now was back again with my beloved, when these letters were handed in. With only one of them have we at present anything to do. As near as I can remember, it read as follows:-- "Mission Rooms, Toronto, 1868. "Reverend Egerton R. Young. "Dear Brother,--At a large and influential meeting of the Missionary Committee, held yesterday, it was unanimously decided to ask you to go as a missionary to the Indian tribes at Norway House, and in the North-West Territories north of Lake Winnipeg. An early answer signifying your acceptance of this will much oblige, "Yours affectionately, "E. Wood, "L. Taylor." I read the letter, and then handed it, without comment, across the table to Mrs Young--the bride of but a few days--for her perusal. She read it over carefully, and then, after a quiet moment, as was quite natural, asked, "What does this mean?" "I can hardly tell," I replied; "but it is evident that it means a good deal." "Have you volunteered to go as a missionary to that far-off land?" she asked. "Why, no. Much as I love, and deeply interested as I have ever been in the missionary work of our Church, I have not made the first move in this direction. Years ago I used to think I would love to go to a foreign field, but lately, as the Lord has been so blessing us here in the home work, and has given us such a glorious revival, I should have thought it like running away from duty to have volunteered for any other field." "Well, here is this letter; what are you going to do about it?" "That is just what I would like to know," was my answer. "There is one thing we can do," she said quietly; and we bowed ourselves in prayer, and "spread the letter before the Lord," and asked for wisdom to guide us aright in this important matter which had so suddenly come upon us, and which, if carried out, would completely change all the plans and purposes which we, the young married couple, in all the joyousness of our honeymoon, had just been marking out. We earnestly prayed for Divine light and guidance to be so clearly revealed that we could not be mistaken as to our duty. As we arose from our knees, I quietly said to Mrs Young, "Have you any impression on your mind as to our duty in this matter?" Her eyes were suffused in tears, but the voice, though low, was firm, as she replied, "The call has come very unexpectedly, but I think it is from God, and we will go." My Church and its kind officials strongly opposed my leaving them, especially at such a time as this, when, they said, so many new converts, through my instrumentality, had been brought into the Church. I consulted my beloved ministerial brethren in the city, and with but one exception the reply was, "Remain at your present station, where God has so abundantly blessed your labours." The answer of the one brother who did not join in with the others has never been forgotten. As it may do good, I will put it on record. When I showed him the letter, and asked what I should do in reference to it, he, much to my surprise, became deeply agitated, and wept like a child. When he could control his emotions, he said, "For my answer let me give you a little of my history. "Years ago, I was very happily situated in the ministry in the Old Land. I loved my work, my home, and my wife passionately. I had the confidence and esteem of my people, and thought I was as happy as I could be this side [of] heaven. One day there came a letter from the Wesleyan Mission Rooms in London, asking if I would go out as a missionary to the West Indies. Without consideration, and without making it a matter of prayer, I at once sent back a positive refusal. "From that day," he continued, "everything went wrong with me. Heaven's smile seemed to have left me. I lost my grip upon my people. My influence for good over them left me, I could not tell how. My once happy home was blasted, and in all my trouble I got no sympathy from my Church or in the community. I had to resign my position, and leave the place. I fell into darkness, and lost my hold upon God. A few years ago I came out to this country. God has restored me to the light of His countenance. The Church has been very sympathetic and indulgent. For years I have been permitted to labour in her fold, and for this I rejoice. But," he added, with emphasis, "I long ago came to the resolve that if ever the Church asked me to go to the West Indies, or to any other Mission field, I would be careful about sending back an abrupt refusal." I pondered over his words and his experience, and talked about them with my good wife, and we decided to go. Our loving friends were startled at our resolve, but soon gave us their benedictions, united to tangible evidences of their regard. A blessed peace filled our souls, and we longed to be away and at work in the new field which had so suddenly opened before us. "Yes, we will go. We may no longer doubt To give up friends, and home, and every tie, That binds our heart to thee, our country. Henceforth, then, It matters not if storms or sunshine be Our earthly lot, bitter or sweet our cup. We only pray, God fit us for the work, God make us holy, and our spirits nerve For the stern hour of strife. Let us but know There is an Arm unseen that holds us up, An Eye that kindly watches all our path, Till we our weary pilgrimage have done. Let us but know we have a Friend that waits To welcome us to glory, and we joy To tread that drear and northern wilderness." The grand valedictory services were held in the old Richmond Street Church, Toronto, Thursday, May 7th, 1868. The church was crowded, and the enthusiasm was very great. The honoured President of the Conference for that year, the Reverend James Elliott, who presided, was the one who had ordained me a few months before. Many were the speakers. Among them was the Reverend George McDougall, who already had had a varied experience of missionary life. He had something to talk about, to which it was worth listening. The Reverend George Young, also, had much that was interesting to say, as he was there bidding farewell to his own Church and to the people, of whom he had long been the beloved pastor. Dr Punshon, who had just arrived from England, was present, and gave one of his inimitable magnetic addresses. The memory of his loving, cheering words abode with us for many a day. It was also a great joy to us that my honoured father, the Reverend William Young, was with us on the platform at this impressive farewell service. For many years he had been one of that heroic band of pioneer ministers in Canada who had laid so grandly and well the foundations of the Church which, with others, had contributed so much to the spiritual development of the country. His benedictions and blessings were among the prized favours in these eventful hours in our new career. My father had been intimately acquainted with William Case and James Evans, and at times had been partially associated with them in Indian evangelisation. He had faith in the power of the Gospel to save even Indians, and now rejoiced that he had a son and daughter who had consecrated themselves to this work. As a long journey of many hundreds of miles would have to be made by us after getting beyond cars or steamboats in the Western States, it was decided that we should take our own horses and canvas-covered waggons from Ontario with us. We arranged to make Hamilton our starting-point; and on Monday, the 11th of May, 1868, our little company filed out of that city towards St. Catherine's, where we were to take passage in a "propeller" for Milwaukee. Thus our adventurous journey was begun. The following was our party. First, the Reverend George McDougall, who for years had been successfully doing the work of a faithful missionary among the Indians in the distant Saskatchewan country, a thousand miles north-west of the Red River country. He had come down to Canada for reinforcements for the work, and had not failed in his efforts to secure them. As he was an old, experienced Western traveller, he was the guide of the party. Next was the Reverend George Young, with his wife and son. Dr Young had consented to go and begin the work in the Red River Settlement, a place where Methodism had never before had a footing. Grandly and well did he succeed in his efforts. Next came the genial Reverend Peter Campbell, who, with his brave wife and two little girls, relinquished a pleasant Circuit to go to the distant Mission field among the Indians of the North-West prairies. We had also with us two Messrs. Snyders, brothers of Mrs Campbell, who had consecrated themselves to the work as teachers among the distant Indian tribes. Several other young men were in our party, and in Dacota we were joined by "Joe" and "Job," a couple of young Indians. These, with the writer and his wife, constituted our party of fifteen or twenty. At St. Catherine's on the Welland Canal we shipped our outfit, and took passage on board the steamer _Empire_ for Milwaukee. The vessel was very much crowded, and there was a good deal of discomfort. In passing through Lake Michigan we encountered rough weather, and, as a natural result, sea-sickness assailed the great majority of our party. We reached Milwaukee on Sabbath, the 17th of May. We found it then a lively, wide-awake Americo-German city. There did not seem to be, on the part of the multitudes whom we met, much respect for the Sabbath. Business was in full blast in many of the streets, and there were but few evidences that it was the day of rest. Doubtless there were many who had not defiled their garments and had not profaned the day, but we weary travellers had not then time to find them out. Although we had taken the precaution to bond everything through to the North-West, and had the American Consular certificate to the effect that every regulation had been complied with, we were subjected to many vexatious delays and expenses by the Custom House officials. So delayed were we that we had to telegraph to head-quarters at Washington about the matter and soon there came the orders to the over-officious officials to at once allow us to proceed. Two valuable days, however, had been lost by their obstructiveness. Why cannot Canada and the United States, lying side by side, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, devise some mutually advantageous scheme of reciprocity, by which the vexatious delays and annoyances and expense of these Custom Houses can be done away with? We left Milwaukee for La Crosse on the Mississippi on Tuesday evening at eight o'clock. At La Crosse we embarked on the steamer _Milwaukee_ for St. Paul's. These large flat-bottomed steamers are quite an institution on these western rivers. Drawing but a few inches of water, they glide over sandbars where the water is very shallow, and, swinging in against the shore, land and receive passengers and freight where wharves are unknown, or where, if they existed, they would be liable to be swept away in the great spring freshets. The scenery in many places along the upper Mississippi is very fine. High bold bluffs rise up in wondrous variety and picturesque beauty. In some places they are composed of naked rock. Others are covered to their very summit with the richest green. Here, a few years ago, the war-whoop of the Indians sounded, and the buffalo swarmed around these Buttes, and quenched their thirst in these waters. Now the shrill whistle of the steamer disturbs the solitudes, and echoes and re-echoes with wondrous distinctness among the high bluffs and fertile vales. "Westward the Star of Empire takes its way." We arrived at St. Paul's on Thursday forenoon and found it to be a stirring city, beautifully situated on the eastern side of the Mississippi. We had several hours of good hard work in getting our caravan in order, purchasing supplies, and making all final arrangements for the long journey that was before us. For beyond this the iron horse had not yet penetrated, and the great surging waves of immigration, which soon after rolled over into those fertile territories, had as yet been only little ripples. Our splendid horses, which had been cooped up in the holds of vessels, or cramped up in uncomfortable freight cars, were now to have an opportunity for exercising their limbs, and showing of what mettle they were made. At 4 PM we filed out of the city. The recollection of that first ride on the prairie will live on as long as memory holds her throne. The day was one of those gloriously perfect ones that are but rarely given us, as if to show what earth must have been before the Fall. The sky, the air, the landscape--everything seemed in such harmony and so perfect, that involuntarily I exclaimed, "If God's footstool is so glorious, what will the throne be?" We journeyed a few miles, then encamped for the night. We were all in the best of spirits, and seemed to rejoice that we were getting away from civilisation, and more and more out into the wilderness, although for days we were in the vicinity of frontier villages and settlements, which, however, as we journeyed on, were rapidly diminishing in number. After several days' travelling we encamped on the western side of the Mississippi, near where the thriving town of Clear Water now stands. As some of our carts and travelling equipage had begun to show signs of weakness, it was thought prudent to give everything a thorough overhauling ere we pushed out from this point, as beyond this there was no place where assistance could be obtained. We had in our encampment eight tents, fourteen horses, and from fifteen to twenty persons, counting big and little, whites and Indians. Whenever we camped our horses were turned loose in the luxuriant prairie grass, the only precaution taken being to "hobble" them, as the work of tying their forefeet together is called. It seemed a little cruel at first, and some of our spirited horses resented it, and struggled a good deal against it as an infringement on their liberties. But they soon became used to it, and it served the good purpose we had in view--namely, that of keeping them from straying far away from the camp during the night. At one place, where we were obliged to stop for a few days to repair broken axle-trees, I passed through an adventure that will not soon be forgotten. Some friendly settlers came to our camp, and gave us the unpleasant information, that a number of notorious horse-thieves were prowling around, and it would be advisable for us to keep a sharp look- out on our splendid Canadian horses. As there was an isolated barn about half a mile or so from the camp, that had been put up by a settler who would not require it until harvest, we obtained permission to use it as a place in which to keep our horses during the nights while we were detained in the settlement. Two of our party were detailed each night to act as a guard. One evening, as Dr Young's son George and I, who had been selected for this duty, were about starting from the camp for our post, I overheard our old veteran guide, the Reverend George McDougall, say, in a bantering sort of way, "Pretty guards they are! Why, some of my Indian boys could go and steal every horse from them without the slightest trouble." Stung to the quick by the remark, I replied, "Mr McDougall, I think I have the best horse in the company; but if you or any of your Indians can steal him out of that barn between sundown and sunrise, you may keep him!" We tethered the horses in a line, and fastened securely all the doors but the large front one. We arranged our seats where we were partially concealed, but where we could see our horses, and could command every door with our rifles. In quiet tones we chatted about various things, until about one o'clock, when all became hushed and still. The novelty of the situation impressed me, and, sitting there in the darkness, I could not help contrasting my present position with the one I had occupied a few weeks before. Then the pastor of a city Church, in the midst of a blessed revival, surrounded by all the comforts of civilisation; now out here in Minnesota, in this barn, sitting on a bundle of prairie grass through the long hours of night with a breech- loading rifle in hand, guarding a number of horses from a band of horse- thieves. "Hush! what is that?" A hand is surely on the door feeling for the wooden latch. We mentally say, "You have made too much noise, Mr Thief, for your purpose, and you are discovered." Soon the door opened a little. As it was a beautiful starlight night, the form of a tall man was plainly visible in the opening. Covering him with my rifle, and about to fire, quick as a flash came the thought, "Better be sure that that man is a horse-thief, or is intent on evil, ere you fire; for it is at any time a serious thing to send a soul so suddenly into eternity." So keeping my rifle to my shoulder, I shouted out, "Who's there?" "Why, it's only your friend Matthew," said our tall friend, as he came stumbling along in the darkness; "queer if you don't know me by this time." As the thought came to me of how near I had been to sending him into the other world, a strange feeling of faintness came over me, and, flinging my rifle from me, I sank back trembling like a leaf. Meanwhile the good-natured fellow, little knowing the risk he had run, and not seeing the effect his thoughtless action had produced on me, talked on, saying that as it was so hot and close over at the tents that he could not sleep there, he thought he would come over and stop with us in the barn. There was considerable excitement, and some strong words were uttered at the camp next morning at his breach of orders and narrow escape, since instructions had been given to all that none should, under any consideration, go near the barn while it was being guarded. At another place in Minnesota we came across a party who were restoring their homes, and "building up their waste places" desolated by the terrible Sioux wars of but a short time before. As they had nearly all of them suffered by that fearful struggle, they were very bitter in their feelings towards the Indians, completely ignoring the fact that the whites were to blame for that last sanguinary outbreak, in which nine hundred lives were lost, and a section of country larger than some of the New England States was laid desolate. It is now an undisputed fact that the greed and dishonesty of the Indian agents of the United States caused that terrible war of 1863. The principal agent received 600,000 dollars in gold from the Government, which belonged to the Indians, and was to be paid to Little Crow and the other chiefs and members of the tribe. The agent took advantage of the premium on gold, which in those days was very high, and exchanged the gold for greenbacks, and with these paid the Indians, putting the enormous difference in his own pocket. When the payments began, Little Crow, who knew what he had a right to according to the Treaty, said, "Gold dollars worth more than paper dollars. You pay us gold." The agent refused, and the war followed. This is only one instance out of scores, in which the greed and selfishness of a few have plunged the country into war, causing the loss of hundreds of lives and millions of treasure. In addition to this, these same unprincipled agents, with their hired accomplices and subsidised press, in order to hide the enormity of their crimes, and to divert attention from themselves and their crookedness, systematically and incessantly misrepresent and vilify the Indian character. "Stay and be our minister," said some of these settlers to me in one place. "We'll secure for you a good location, and will help you get in some crops, and will do the best we can to make you comfortable." When they saw we were all proof against their appeals, they changed their tactics, and one exclaimed, "You'll never get through the Indian country north with those fine horses and all that fine truck you have." "O yes, we will," said Mr McDougall; "we have a little flag that will carry us in safety through any Indian tribe in America." They doubted the assertion very much, but we found it to be literally true, at all events as regarded the Sioux; for when, a few days later, we met them, our Union Jack fluttering from the whip-stalk caused them to fling their guns in the grass, and come crowding round us with extended hands, saying, through those who understood their language, that they were glad to see and shake hands with the subjects of the "Great Mother" across the waters. When we, in our journey north, reached their country, and saw them coming down upon us, at Mr McDougall's orders we stowed away our rifles and revolvers inside of our waggons, and met them as friends, unarmed and fearless. They smoked the pipe of peace with those of our party who could use the weed, and others drank tea with the rest of us. As we were in profound ignorance of their language, and they of ours, some of us had not much conversation with them beyond what could be carried on by a few signs. But, through Mr McDougall and our own Indians, they assured us of their friendship. We pitched our tents, hobbled our horses and turned them loose, as usual. We cooked our evening meals, said our prayers, unrolled our camp-beds, and lay down to rest without earthly sentinels or guards around us, although the camp-fires of these so-called "treacherous and bloodthirsty" Sioux could be seen in the distance, and we knew their sharp eyes were upon us. Yet we lay down and slept in peace, and arose in safety. Nothing was disturbed or stolen. So much for a clean record of honourable dealing with a people who, while quick to resent when provoked, are mindful of kindnesses received, and are as faithful to their promises and treaty obligations, as are any other of the races of the world. We were thirty days in making the trip from St. Paul's to the Red River settlement. We had to ford a large number of bridgeless streams. Some of them took us three or four days to get our whole party across. We not unfrequently had some of our waggons stuck in the quicksands, or so sunk in the quagmires that the combined strength of all the men of our party was required to get them out. Often the ladies of our company, with shoes and stockings off, would be seen bravely wading across wide streams, where now in luxurious comfort, in parlour cars, travellers are whirled along at the rate of forty miles an hour. They were a cheerful, brave band of pioneers. The weather, on the whole, was pleasant, but we had some drenching rain- storms; and then the spirits of some of the party went down, and they wondered whatever possessed them to leave their happy homes for such exile and wretchedness as this. There was one fearful, tornado-like storm that assailed us when we were encamped for the night on the western bank of Red River. Tents were instantly blown down. Heavy waggons were driven before it, and for a time confusion reigned supreme. Fortunately nobody was hurt, and most of the things blown away were recovered the next day. Our Sabbaths were days of quiet rest and delightful communion with God. Together we worshipped Him Who dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Many were the precious communions we had with Him Who had been our Comforter and our Refuge under other circumstances, and Who, having now called us to this new work and novel life, was sweetly fulfilling in us the blessed promise: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." CHAPTER TWO. STILL ON THE ROUTE--FORT GARRY--BREAKING UP OF OUR PARTY OF MISSIONARIES--LOWER FORT--HOSPITABLE HUDSON'S BAY OFFICIALS-- PECULIARITIES--FOURTEEN DAYS IN A LITTLE OPEN BOAT ON STORMY LAKE WINNIPEG--STRANGE EXPERIENCES--HAPPY CHRISTIAN INDIAN BOATMEN--"IN PERILS BY WATERS." At Fort Garry in the Red River settlement, now the flourishing city of Winnipeg, our party, which had so long travelled together, broke up with mutual regrets. The Reverend George Young and his family remained to commence the first Methodist Mission in that place. Many were his discouragements and difficulties, but glorious have been his successes. More to him than to any other man is due the prominent position which the Methodist Church now occupies in the North-West. His station was one calling for rare tact and ability. The Riel Rebellion, and the disaffection of the Half-breed population, made his position at times one of danger and insecurity; but he proved himself to be equal to every emergency. In addition to the many duties devolving upon him in the establishment of the Church amidst so many discordant elements, a great many extra cares were imposed upon him by the isolated missionaries in the interior, who looked to him for the purchasing and sending out to them, as best he could, of their much-needed supplies. His kindly laborious efforts for their comfort can never be forgotten. The Revs. George McDougall and Peter Campbell, with the teachers and other members of the party, pushed on, with their horses, waggons, and carts, for the still farther North-West, the great North Saskatchewan River, twelve hundred miles farther into the interior. During the first part of their journey over the fertile but then unbroken prairies, the only inhabitants they met were the roving Indians and Half-breeds, whose rude wigwams and uncouth noisy carts have long since disappeared, and have been replaced by the comfortable habitations of energetic settlers, and the swiftly moving trains of the railroads. From Fort Garry Mrs Young and myself performed the rest of our journey by water, going down the Red River to its mouth, and then along the whole length of the stormy Lake Winnipeg, and beyond, to our own far-off northern home. The trip was made in what is called "the Hudson's Bay inland boat." These boats are constructed like large skiffs, only each end is sharp. They have neither deck nor cabin. They are furnished with a mast and a large square sail, both of which are stowed away when the wind is not favourable for sailing. They are manned by six or eight oarsmen, and are supposed to carry about four tons of merchandise. They can stand a rough sea, and weather very severe gales, as we found out during our years of adventurous trips in them. When there is no favourable wind for sailing, the stalwart boatmen push out their heavy oars, and, bending their sturdy backs to the work, and keeping the most perfect time, are often able to make their sixty miles a day. But this toiling at the oar is slavish work, and the favouring gale, even if it develops into a fierce storm, is always preferable to a dead calm. These northern Indians make capital sailors, and in the sudden squalls and fierce gales to which these great lakes are subject, they display much courage and judgment. Our place in the boat was in the hinder part near the steersman, a pure Indian, whose name was Thomas Mamanowatum, familiarly known as "Big Tom," on account of his almost gigantic size. He was one of Nature's noblemen, a grand, true man, and of him we shall have more to say hereafter. Honoured indeed was the missionary who led such a man from Paganism to Christianity. We journeyed on pleasantly for twenty miles down the Red River to Lower Fort Garry, where we found that we should have to wait for several days ere the outfit for the boats would be ready. We were, however, very courteously entertained by the Hudson's Bay officials, who showed us no little kindness. This Lower Fort Garry, or "the Stone Fort," as it is called in the country, is an extensive affair, having a massive stone wall all around it, with the Company's buildings in the centre. It was built in stormy times, when rival trading parties existed, and hostile bands were ever on the war path. It is capable of resisting almost any force that could be brought against it, unaided by artillery. We were a little amused and very much pleased with the old-time and almost courtly etiquette which abounded at this and the other establishments of this flourishing Company. In those days the law of precedents was in full force. When the bell rang, no clerk of fourteen years' standing would think of entering before one who had been fifteen years in the service, or of sitting above him at the table. Such a thing would have brought down upon him the severe reproof of the senior officer in charge. Irksome and even frivolous as some of these laws seemed, doubtless they served a good purpose, and prevented many misunderstandings which might have occurred. Another singular custom, which we did not like, was the fact that there were two dining-rooms in these establishments, one for the ladies, and the other for the gentlemen of the service. It appeared to us very odd to see the gentlemen with the greatest politeness escort the ladies into the hall which ran between the two dining-rooms, and then gravely turn to the left, while the ladies all filed off into the room on the right. As the arrangement was so contrary to all our ideas and education on the subject, we presumed to question it; but the only satisfaction we could get in reference to it was, that it was one of their old customs, and had worked well. One old crusty bachelor official said, "We do not want the women around us when we are discussing our business matters, which we wish to keep to ourselves. If they were present, all our schemes and plans would soon be known to all, and our trade might be much injured." Throughout this vast country, until very lately, the adventurous traveller, whose courage or curiosity was sufficient to enable him to brave the hardships or run the risks of exploring these enormous territories, was entirely dependent upon the goodwill and hospitality of the officials of the Hudson's Bay Company. They were uniformly treated with courtesy and hospitably entertained. Very isolated are some of these inland posts, and quite expatriated are the inmates for years at a time. These lonely establishments are to be found scattered all over the upper half of this great American Continent. They have each a population of from five to sixty human beings. These are, if possible, placed in favourable localities for fish or game, but often from one to five hundred miles apart. The only object of their erection and occupancy is to exchange the products of civilisation for the rich and valuable furs which are to be obtained here as nowhere else in the world. In many instances the inmates hear from the outside world but twice, and at times but once, in twelve months. Then the arrival of the packet is the great event of the year. We spent a very pleasant Sabbath at Lower Fort Garry, and I preached in the largest dining-room to a very attentive congregation, composed of the officials and servants of the Company, with several visitors, and also some Half-breeds and Indians who happened to be at the fort at that time. The next day two boats were ready, and we embarked on our adventurous journey for our far-off, isolated home beyond the northern end of Lake Winnipeg. The trip down Red River was very pleasant. We passed through the flourishing Indian Settlement, where the Church of England has a successful Mission among the Indians. We admired their substantial church and comfortable homes, and saw in them, and in the farms, tangible evidence of the power of Christian Missions to elevate and bless those who come under their ennobling influences. The cosy residence of the Venerable Archdeacon Cowley was pointed out to us, beautifully embowered among the trees. He was a man beloved of all; a life-long friend of the Indians, and one who was as an angel of mercy to us in after years when our Nellie died, while Mrs Young was making an adventurous journey in an open boat on the stormy, treacherous Lake Winnipeg. This sad event occurred when, after five years' residence among the Crees at Norway House, we had instructions from our missionary authorities to go and open up a new Indian Mission among the then pagan Salteaux. I had orders to remain at Norway House until my successor arrived; and as but one opportunity was offered for Mrs Young and the children to travel in those days of limited opportunities, they started on several weeks ahead in an open skiff manned by a few Indians, leaving me to follow in a birch canoe. So terrible was the heat that hot July, in that open boat with no deck or awning, that the beautiful child sickened and died of brain-fever. Mrs Young found herself with her dying child on the banks of Red River, all alone among her sorrowing Indian boatmen, "a stranger in a strange land;" no home to which to go; no friends to sympathise with her. Fortunately for her, the Hudson's Bay officials at Lower Fort Garry were made aware of her sorrows, and received her into one of their homes ere the child died. The Reverend Mr Cowley also came and prayed for her, and sympathised with her on the loss of her beautiful child. As I was far away when Nellie died, Mrs Young knew not what to do with our precious dead. A temporary grave was made, and in it the body was laid until I could be communicated with, and arrangements could be made for its permanent interment. I wrote at once by an Indian to the Venerable Archdeacon Cowley, asking permission to bury our dead in his graveyard; and there came promptly back, by the canoe, a very brotherly, sympathetic letter, ending up with, "Our graveyards are open before you; `in the choicest of our sepulchres bury thy dead.'" A few weeks after, when I had handed over my Mission to Brother Ruttan, I hurried on to the settlement, and with a few sympathising friends, mostly Indians, we took up the little body from its temporary resting-place, and buried it in the St. Peter's Church graveyard, the dear archdeacon himself being present, and reading the beautiful Burial Service of his Church. That land to us has been doubly precious since it has become the repository of our darling child. As we floated down the current, or were propelled along by the oars of our Indian boatmen, on that first journey, little did we imagine that this sad episode in our lives would happen in that very spot a few years after. When we were near the end of the Indian Settlement, as it is called, we saw several Indians on the bank, holding on to a couple of oxen. Our boats were immediately turned in to the shore near them, and, to our great astonishment, we found out that each boat was to have an addition to its passenger list in the shape of one of these big fellows. The getting of these animals shipped was no easy matter, as there was no wharf or gangway; but after a good deal of pulling and pushing, and lifting up of one leg, and then another, the patient brutes were embarked on the frail crafts, to be our companions during the voyage to Norway House. The position assigned to the one in our boat was just in front of us, "broadside on," as the sailors would say; his head often hanging over one side of the boat, and his tail over the other side. The only partition there was between him and us was a single board a few inches wide. Such close proximity to this animal for fourteen days was not very agreeable; but as it could not be helped it had to be endured. At times, during the first few days, the ox made some desperate efforts to break loose; and it seemed as though he would either smash our boat to pieces or upset it; but, finding his efforts unsuccessful, he gracefully accepted the situation, and behaved himself admirably. When storms arose he quietly lay down, and served as so much ballast to steady the boat. "Tom," the guide, kept him well supplied with food from the rich nutritious grasses which grew abundantly along the shore at our different camping-places. Winnipeg is considered one of the stormiest lakes on the American Continent. It is about three hundred miles long, and varies from eighty to but a few miles in width. It is indented with innumerable bays, and is dangerous to navigators, on account of its many shoals and hidden rocks. _Winnipeg_, or _Wenipak_, as some Indians pronounce it, means "the sea," and _Keche Wenipak_ means "the ocean." The trip across Lake Winnipeg was one that at the present day would be considered a great hardship, taking into consideration the style of the boat and the way we travelled. Our method of procedure was about as follows. We were aroused very early in the morning by the guide's cry of _Koos koos kwa_! "Wake up!" Everybody was expected to obey promptly, as there was always a good deal of rivalry between the boats as to which could get away first. A hasty breakfast was prepared on the rocks; after which a morning hymn was sung, and an earnest prayer was offered up to Him Who holds the winds and waves under His control. Then "All aboard" was the cry, and soon tents, kettles, axes, and all the other things were hurriedly gathered up and placed on board. If the wind was favourable, the mast was put up, the sail hoisted, and we were soon rapidly speeding on our way. If the oars had to be used, there was not half the alacrity displayed by the poor fellows, who well knew how wearisome their task would be. When we had a favourable wind, we generally dined as well as we could in the boat, to save time, as the rowers well knew how much more pleasant it was to glide along with the favouring breeze than to be obliged to work at the heavy oars. Often during whole nights we sailed on, although at considerable risks in that treacherous lake, rather than lose the fair wind. For, if there ever was, in this world of uncertainties, one route of more uncertainty than another, the palm must be conceded to the voyages on Lake Winnipeg in those Hudson's Bay Company's inland boats. You might make the trip in four days, or even a few hours less; and you might be thirty days, and a few hours over. Once, in after years, I was detained for six days on a little rocky islet by a fierce northern gale, which at times blew with such force that we could not keep up a tent or even stand upright against its fury; and as there was not sufficient soil in which to drive a tent pin, we, with all our bedding and supplies, were drenched by the pitiless sleet and rain. Often in these later years, when I have heard people, sitting in the comfortable waiting-room of a railway station, bitterly complaining because a train was an hour or two late, memory has carried me back to some of those long detentions amidst the most disagreeable surroundings, and I have wondered at the trifles which can upset the equanimity of some or cause them to show such fretfulness. When the weather was fine, the camping on the shore was very enjoyable. Our tent was quickly erected by willing hands; the camp fire was kindled, and glowed with increasing brightness as the shadows of night fell around us. The evening meal was soon prepared, and an hour or two would sometimes be spent in pleasant converse with our dusky friends, who were most delightful travelling companions. Our days always began and closed with a religious service. All of our Indian companions in the two boats on this first trip were Christians, in the best and truest sense of the word. They were the converts of the earlier missionaries of our Church. At first they were a little reserved, and acted as though they imagined we expected them to be very sedate and dignified. For, like some white folks, they imagined the "black-coat" and his wife did not believe in laughter or pleasantry. However, we soon disabused their minds of those erroneous ideas, and before we reached Norway House we were on the best of terms with each other. We knew but little of their language, but some of them had a good idea of English, and, using these as our interpreters, we got along finely. They were well furnished with Testaments and hymn-books, printed in the beautiful syllabic characters; and they used them well. This worshipping with a people who used to us an unknown tongue was at first rather novel; but it attracted and charmed us at once. We were forcibly struck with the reverential manner in which they conducted their devotions. No levity or indifference marred the solemnity of their religious services. They listened very attentively while one of their number read to them from the sacred Word, and gave the closest attention to what I had to say, through an interpreter. Very sweetly and soothingly sounded the hymns of praise and adoration that welled up from their musical voices; and though we understood them not, yet in their earnest prayers there seemed to be so much that was real and genuine, as in pathetic tones they offered up their petitions, that we felt it to be a great privilege and a source of much blessing, when with them we bowed at the mercy-seat of our great loving Father, to Whom all languages of earth are known, and before Whom all hearts are open. Very helpful at times to devout worship were our surroundings. As in the ancient days, when the vast multitudes gathered around Him on the seaside and were comforted and cheered by His presence, so we felt on these quiet shores of the lake that we were worshipping Him Who is always the same. At times delightful and suggestive were our environments. With Winnipeg's sunlit waves before us, the blue sky above us, the dark, deep, primeval forest as our background, and the massive granite rocks beneath us, we often felt a nearness of access to Him, the Sovereign of the universe, Who "dwelleth not in temples made with hands,"--but "Who covereth Himself with light as with a garment; Who stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain; Who layeth the beams of His chambers in the waters; Who maketh the clouds his chariot; Who walketh upon the wings of the wind; Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever." Our Sabbaths were days of rest. The Christian Indians had been taught by their faithful missionaries the fourth commandment, and they kept it well. Although far from their homes and their beloved sanctuary, they respected the day. When they camped on Saturday night, all the necessary preparations were made for a quiet, restful Sabbath. All the wood that would be needed to cook the day's supplies was secured, and the food that required cooking was prepared. Guns were stowed away, and although sometimes ducks or other game would come near, they were not disturbed. Generally two religious services were held and enjoyed. The Testaments and hymn-books were well used throughout the day, and an atmosphere of "Paradise Regained" seemed to pervade the place. At first, long years ago, the Hudson's Bay Company's officials bitterly opposed the observance of the Sabbath by their boatmen and tripmen; but the missionaries were true and firm, and although persecution for a time abounded, eventually right and truth prevailed, and our Christian Indians were left to keep the day without molestation. And, as has always been found to be the case in such instances, there was no loss, but rather gain. Our Christian Indians, who rested the Sabbath day, were never behindhand. On the long trips into the interior or down to York Factory or Hudson Bay, these Indian canoe brigades used to make better time, have better health, and bring up their boats and cargoes in better shape, than the Catholic Half-breeds or pagan Indians, who pushed on without any day of rest. Years of studying this question, judging from the standpoint of the work accomplished and its effects on men's physical constitution, apart altogether from its moral and religious aspect, most conclusively taught me that the institution of the one day in seven as a day of rest is for man's highest good. Thus we journeyed on, meeting with various adventures by the way. One evening, rather than lose the advantage of a good wind, our party resolved to sail on throughout the night. We had no compass or chart, no moon or fickle Auroras lit up the watery waste. Clouds, dark and heavy, flitted by, obscuring the dim starlight, and adding to the risk and danger of our proceeding. On account of the gloom part of the crew were kept on the watch continually. The bowsman, with a long pole in his hands, sat in the prow of the boat, alert and watchful. For a long time I sat with the steersman in the stern of our little craft, enjoying this weird way of travelling. Out of the darkness behind us into the vague blackness before us we plunged. Sometimes through the darkness came the sullen roar and dash of waves against the rocky isles or dangerous shore near at hand, reminding us of the risks we were running, and what need there was of the greatest care. Our camp bed had been spread on some boards in the hinder part of our little boat; and here Mrs Young, who for a time had enjoyed the exciting voyage, was now fast asleep. I remained up with "Big Tom" until after midnight; and then, having exhausted my stock of Indian words in conversation with him, and becoming weary, I wrapped a blanket around myself and lay down to rest. Hardly had I reached the land of dreams, when I was suddenly awakened by being most unceremoniously thrown, with wife, bedding, bales, boxes, and some drowsy Indians, on one side of the boat. We scrambled up as well as we could, and endeavoured to take in our situation. The darkness was intense, but we could easily make out the fact that our boat was stuck fast. The wind whistled around us, and bore with such power upon our big sail that the wonder was that it did not snap the mast or ropes. The sail was quickly lowered, a lantern was lit, but its flickering light showed no land in view. We had run upon a submerged rock, and there we were held fast. In vain the Indians, using their big oars as poles, endeavoured to push the boat back into deep water. Finding this impossible, some of them sprang out into the water which threatened to engulf them; but, with the precarious footing the submerged rock gave them, they pushed and shouted, when, being aided by a giant wave, the boat at last was pushed over into the deep water beyond. At considerable risk and thoroughly drenched, the brave fellows scrambled on board; the sail was again hoisted, and away we sped through the gloom and darkness. CHAPTER THREE. ARRIVAL AT NORWAY HOUSE--OUR NEW HOME--REVEREND CHARLES STRINGFELLOW-- THUNDERSTORM--REVEREND JAMES EVANS--SYLLABIC CHARACTERS INVENTED-- DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME--HELP FROM ENGLISH WESLEYAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY-- EXTENSIVE USE OF THE SYLLABIC CHARACTERS--OUR PEOPLE, CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN--LEARNING LESSONS BY DEAR EXPERIENCE--THE HUNGRY WOMAN--THE MAN WITH THE TWO DUCKS--THE FIRST SABBATH IN OUR NEW FIELD--SUNDAY SCHOOL AND SABBATH SERVICES--FAMILY ALTARS. We reached Norway House on the afternoon of the 29th of July, 1868, and received a very cordial welcome from James Stewart, Esquire, the gentleman in charge of this Hudson's Bay post. This is one of the most important establishments of this wealthy fur-trading Company. For many years it was the capital, at which the different officers and other officials from the different districts of this vast country were in the habit of meeting annually for the purpose of arranging the various matters in connection with their prosecution of the fur trade. Here Sir George Simpson, for many years the energetic and despotic Governor, used to come to meet these officials, travelling by birch canoe, manned by his matchless crew of Iroquois Indians, all the way from Montreal, a distance of several thousand miles. Here immense quantities of furs were collected from the different trading posts, and then shipped to England by way of Hudson's Bay. The sight of this well-kept establishment, and the courtesy and cordial welcome extended to us, were very pleasing after our long toilsome voyage up Lake Winnipeg. But still we were two miles and a half from our Indian Mission, and so we were full of anxiety to reach the end of our journey. Mr Stewart, however, insisted on our remaining to tea with him, and then took us over to the Indian village in his own row- boat, manned by four sturdy Highlanders. Ere we reached the shore, sweet sounds of melody fell upon our ears. The Wednesday evening service was being held, and songs of praise were being sung by the Indian congregation, the notes of which reached us as we neared the margin and landed upon the rocky beach. We welcomed this as a pleasing omen, and rejoiced at it as one of the grand evidences of the Gospel's power to change. Not many years ago the horrid yells of the conjurer, and the whoops of the savage Indians, were here the only familiar sounds. Now the sweet songs of Zion are heard, and God's praises are sung by a people whose lives attest the genuineness of the work accomplished. We were cordially welcomed by Mrs Stringfellow in the Mission house, and were soon afterwards joined by her husband, who had been conducting the religious services in the church. Very thankful were we that after our long and adventurous journeyings for two months and eighteen days, by land and water, through the good providence of God we had reached our field of toil among the Cree Indians, where for years we were to be permitted to labour. Mr and Mrs Stringfellow remained with us for a few days ere they set out on their return trip to the province of Ontario. We took sweet counsel together, and I received a great deal of valuable information in reference to the prosecution of our work among these Red men. For eleven years the missionary and his wife had toiled and suffered in this northern land. A goodly degree of success had attended their efforts, and we were much pleased with the state in which we found everything connected with the Mission. While we were at family prayers the first evening after our arrival, there came up one of the most terrific thunderstorms we ever experienced. The heavy Mission house, although built of logs, and well mudded and clap-boarded, shook so much while we were on our knees that several large pictures fell from the walls; one of which, tumbling on Brother Stringfellow's head, put a very sudden termination to his evening devotions. Rossville Mission, Norway House, was commenced by the Reverend James Evans in the year 1840. It has been, and still is, one of the most successful Indian Missions in America. Here Mr Evans invented the syllabic characters, by which an intelligent Indian can learn to read the Word of God in ten days or two weeks. Earnestly desirous to devise some method by which the wandering Indians could acquire the art of reading in a more expeditious manner than by the use of the English alphabet, he invented these characters, each of which stands for a syllable. He carved his first type with his pocket-knife, and procured the lead for the purpose from the tea-chests of the Hudson's Bay Company's post. His first ink he made out of the soot from the chimney, and his first paper was birch bark. Great was the excitement among the Indians when he had perfected his invention, and had begun printing in their own language. The conjurers, and other pagan Indians, were very much alarmed, when, as they expressed it, they found the "bark of the tree was beginning to talk." The English Wesleyan Missionary Society was early impressed with the advantage of this wonderful invention, and the great help it would be in carrying on the blessed work. At great expense they sent out a printing press, with a large quantity of type, which they had had specially cast. Abundance of paper, and everything else essential, were furnished. For years portions of the Word of God, and a goodly number of hymns translated into the Cree language, were printed, and incalculable good resulted. Other missionary organisations at work in the country quickly saw the advantage of using these syllabic characters, and were not slow to avail themselves of them. While all lovers of Missions rejoice at this, it is to be regretted that some, from whom better things might have been expected, were anxious to take the credit of the invention, instead of giving it to its rightful claimant, the Reverend James Evans. It is a remarkable fact, that so perfectly did Mr Evans do his work, that no improvement has been made as regards the use of these characters among the Cree Indians. Other missionaries have introduced them among other tribes, with additions to meet the sounds used in those tribes which are not found among the Crees. They have even been successfully utilised by the Moravians among the Esquimaux. On our arrival at Rossville the Indians crowded in to see the new missionary and his wife, and were very cordial in their greetings. Even some pagan Indians, dressed up in their wild picturesque costumes, came to see us, and were very friendly. As quickly as possible we settled down to our work, and tried to grasp its possibilities. We saw many pleasing evidences of what had been accomplished by faithful predecessors, and were soon convinced of the greatness of the work yet to be done. For, while from our church, and the houses of our Christian people, the songs of Zion were heard, our eyes were saluted by the shouts and yells of old Indian conjurers and medicine-men, added to the monotonous sounds of their drums, which came to us nightly from almost every point in the compass, from islands and headlands not far away. Our first Sabbath was naturally a very interesting day. Our own curiosity to see our people was doubtless equalled by that of the people to see their new missionary. Pagans flocked in with Christians, until the church was crowded. We were very much pleased with their respectful demeanour in the house of God. There was no laughing or frivolity in the sanctuary. With their moccasined feet and cat-like tread, several hundred Indians did not make one quarter the noise often heard in Christian lands, made by audiences one-tenth the size. We were much delighted with their singing. There is a peculiar plaintive sweetness about Indian singing that has for me a special attractiveness. Scores of them brought their Bibles to the church. When I announced the lessons for the day, the quickness with which they found the places showed their familiarity with the sacred volume. During prayers they were old-fashioned Methodists enough to kneel down while the Sovereign of the universe was being addressed. They sincerely and literally entered into the spirit of the Psalmist when he said: "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker." I was fortunate in securing for my interpreter a thoroughly good Indian by the name of Timothy Bear. He was of an emotional nature, and rendered good service to the cause of Christ. Sometimes, when interpreting for me the blessed truths of the Gospel, his heart would get fired up, and he would become so absorbed in his theme that he would in a most eloquent way beseech and plead with the people to accept this wonderful salvation. As the days rolled by, and we went in and out among them, and contrasted the pagan with the Christian Indian, we saw many evidences that the Gospel is still the power of God unto salvation, and that, whenever accepted in its fulness, it brings not only peace and joy to the heart, but is attended by the secondary blessings of civilisation. The Christian Indians could easily be picked out by the improved appearance of their homes, as well as by the marvellous change in their lives and actions. We found out, before we had been there many days, that we had much to learn about Indian customs and habits and modes of thought. For example: the day after Mr and Mrs Stringfellow had left us, a poor woman came in, and by the sign language let Mrs Young know that she was very hungry. On the table were a large loaf of bread, a large piece of corned beef, and a dish of vegetables, left over from our boat supplies. My good wife's sympathies were aroused at the poor woman's story, and, cutting off a generous supply of meat and bread, and adding thereto a large quantity of the vegetables and a quart of tea, she seated the woman at the table before the hearty meal. Without any trouble the guest disposed of the whole, and then, to our amazement, began pulling up the skirt of her dress at the side till she had formed a capacious pocket. Reaching over, she seized the meat, and put it in this large receptacle, the loaf of bread quickly followed, and lastly, the dish of vegetables. Then, getting up from her chair, she turned towards us, saying, "Na-nas-koo-moo-wi-nah," which is the Cree for thanksgiving. She gracefully backed out of the dining-room, holding carefully onto her supplies. Mrs Young and I looked in astonishment, but said nothing till she had gone out. We could not help laughing at the queer sight, although the food which had disappeared in this unexpected way was what was to have been our principal support for two or three days, until our supplies should have arrived. Afterwards, when expressing our astonishment at what looked like the greediness of this woman, we learned that she had only complied with the strict etiquette of her tribe. It seems it is their habit, when they make a feast for anybody, or give them a dinner, if fortunate enough to have abundance of food, to put a large quantity before them. The invited guest is expected to eat all he can, and then to carry the rest away. This was exactly what the poor woman did. From this lesson of experience we learnt just to place before them what we felt our limited abilities enabled us to give at the time. One day a fine-looking Indian came in with a couple of fat ducks. As our supplies were low, we were glad to see them; and in taking them I asked him what I should give him for them. His answer was, "O, nothing; they are a _present_ for the missionary and his wife." Of course I was delighted at this exhibition of generosity on the part of this entire stranger to us so soon after our arrival in this wild land. The Indian at once made himself at home with us, and kept us busy answering questions and explaining to him everything that excited his curiosity. Mrs Young had to leave her work to play for his edification on the little melodeon. He remained to dinner, and ate one of the ducks, while Mrs Young and I had the other. He hung around all the afternoon, and did ample justice to a supper out of our supplies. He tarried with us until near the hour for retiring, when I gently hinted to him that I thought it was about time he went to see if his wigwam was where he left it. "O," he exclaimed, "I am only waiting." "Waiting?" I said; "for what are you waiting?" "I am waiting for the _present_ you are going to give me for the _present_ I gave you." I at once took in the situation, and went off and got him something worth half-a-dozen times as much as his ducks, and he went off very happy. When he was gone, my good wife and I sat down, and we said, "Here is lesson number _two_. Perhaps, after we have been here a while, we shall know something about the Indians." After that we accepted of no presents from them, but insisted on paying a reasonable price for everything we needed which they had to sell. Our Sunday's work began with the Sunday School at nine o'clock. All the boys and girls attended, and often there were present many of the adults. The children were attentive and respectful, and many of them were able to repeat large portions of Scripture from memory. A goodly number studied the Catechism translated into their own Language. They sang the hymns sweetly, and joined with us in repeating the Lord's Prayer. The public service followed at half-past ten o'clock. This morning service was always in English, although the hymns, lessons, and text would be announced in the two languages. The Hudson's Bay officials who might be at the Fort two miles away, and all their _employes_, regularly attended this morning service. Then, as many of the Indians understood English, and our object was ever to get them all to know more and more about it, this service usually was largely attended by the people. The great Indian service was held in the afternoon. It was all their own, and was very much prized by them. At the morning service they were very dignified and reserved; at the afternoon they sang with an enthusiasm that was delightful, and were not afraid, if their hearts prompted them to it, to come out with a glad "Amen!" They bring with them to the sanctuary their Bibles, and very sweet to my ears was the rustle of many leaves as they rapidly turned to the Lessons of the day in the Old or New Testament. Sermons were never considered too long. Very quietly and reverently did the people come into the house of God, and with equal respect for the place, and for Him Whom there they had worshipped, did they depart. Dr Taylor, one of our missionary secretaries, when visiting us, said at the close of one of these hallowed afternoon services, "Mr Young, if the good people who help us to support Missions and missionaries could see what my eyes have beheld to-day, they would most cheerfully and gladly give us ten thousand dollars a year more for our Indian Missions." Every Sunday evening I went over to the Fort, by canoe in summer, and dog-train in winter, and held service there. A little chapel had been specially fitted up for these evening services. Another service was also held in the church at the Mission by the Indians themselves. There were among them several who could preach very acceptable sermons, and others who, with a burning eloquence, could tell, like Paul, the story of their own conversion, and beseech others to be likewise reconciled to God. We were surprised at times by seeing companies of pagan Indians stalk into the church during the services, not always acting in a way becoming to the house or day. At first it was a matter of surprise to me that our Christian Indians put up with some of these irregularities. I was very much astounded one day by the entrance of an old Indian called Tapastonum, who, rattling his ornaments, and crying, "Ho! Ho!" came into the church in a sort of trot, and gravely kissed several of the men and women. As my Christian Indians seemed to stand the interruption, I felt that I could. Soon he sat down, at the invitation of Big Tom, and listened to me. He was grotesquely dressed, and had a good-sized looking-glass hanging on his breast, kept in its place by a string hung around his neck. To aid himself in listening, he lit his big pipe and smoked through the rest of the service. When I spoke to the people afterwards about the conduct of this man, so opposite to their quiet, respectful demeanour in the house of God, their expressive, charitable answer was: "Such were we once, as ignorant as Tapastonum is now. Let us have patience with him, and perhaps he, too, will soon decide to give his heart to God. Let him come; he will get quiet when he gets the light." The week evenings were nearly all filled up with services of one kind or another, and were well attended, or otherwise, according as the Indians might be present at the village, or away hunting, or fishing, or "tripping" for the Hudson's Bay Company. What pleased us very much was the fact that in the homes of the people there were so many family altars. It was very delightful to take a quiet walk in the gloaming through the village, and hear from so many little homes the voice of the head of the family reading the precious volume, or the sounds of prayer and praise. Those were times when in every professed Christian home in the village there was a family altar. CHAPTER FOUR. CONSTANT PROGRESS--WOMAN'S SAD CONDITION IN PAGANISM--ILLUSTRATIONS-- WONDROUS CHANGES PRODUCED BY CHRISTIANITY--ILLUSTRATIONS--NEW YEAR'S DAY CHRISTIAN FESTIVAL--THE AGED AND FEEBLE ONES FIRST REMEMBERED--CLOSING THANKSGIVING SERVICES. We found ourselves in a Christian village surrounded by paganism. The contrast between the two classes was very evident. Our Christians, as fast as they were able to build, were living in comfortable houses, and earnestly endeavouring to lift themselves up in the social circle. Their personal appearance was better, and cleanliness was accepted as next to godliness. On the Sabbaths they were well dressed, and presented such a respectable and devout appearance in the sanctuary as to win the admiration of all who visited us. The great majority of those who made a profession of faith lived honest, sober, and consistent lives, and thus showed the genuineness of the change wrought in them by the glorious Gospel of the Son of God. One of the most delightful and tangible evidences of the thoroughness and genuineness of the change was seen in the improvement in the family life. Such a thing as genuine home life, with mutual love and sympathy existing among the different members of the family, was unknown in their pagan state. The men, and even boys, considered it a sign of courage and manliness to despise and shamefully treat their mothers, wives, or sisters. Christianity changed all this; and we were constant witnesses of the genuineness of the change wrought in the hearts and lives of this people by the preaching of the Gospel, by seeing how woman was uplifted from her degraded position to her true place in the household. My heart was often pained at what I saw among some of the wild savage bands around us. When, by canoe in summer, or dog-train in winter, I have visited these wild men, I have seen the proud, lazy hunter come stalking into the camp with his gun on his shoulder, and in loud, imperative tones shout out to his poor wife, who was busily engaged in cutting wood, "Get up there, you dog, my squaw, and go back on my tracks in the woods, and bring in the deer I have shot; and hurry, for I want my food!" To quicken her steps, although she was hurrying as rapidly as possible, a stick was thrown at her, which fortunately she was able to dodge. Seizing the long carrying strap, which is a piece of leather several feet in length, and wide at the middle, where it rests against the forehead when in use, she rapidly glides away on the trail made by her husband's snow-shoes, it may be for miles, to the spot where lies the deer he has shot. Fastening one end of the strap to the haunches of the deer, and the other around its neck, after a good deal of effort and ingenuity, she succeeds at length in getting the animal, which may weigh from a hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds, upon her back, supported by the strap across her forehead. Panting with fatigue, she comes in with her heavy burden, and as she throws it down she is met with a sharp stern command from the lips of the despot called her husband, who has thought it beneath his dignity to carry in the deer himself, but who imagines it to be a sign of his being a great brave thus to treat his wife. The gun was enough for him to carry. Without giving the poor tired creature a moment's rest, he shouts out again for her to hurry up and be quick; he is hungry, and wants his dinner. The poor woman, although almost exhausted, knows full well, by the bitter experiences of the past, that to delay an instant would bring upon herself severe punishment, and so she quickly seizes the scalping knife and deftly skins the animal, and fills a pot with the savoury venison, which is soon boiled and placed before his highness. While he, and the men and boys whom he may choose to invite to eat with him, are rapidly devouring the venison, the poor woman has her first moments of rest. She goes and seats herself down where women and girls and dogs are congregated, and there women and dogs struggle for the half-picked bones which the men, with derisive laughter, throw among them! This was one of the sad aspects of paganism which I often had to witness as I travelled among those bands that had not, up to that time, accepted the Gospel. When these poor women get old and feeble, very sad and deplorable is their condition. When able to toil and slave, they are tolerated as necessary evils. When aged and weak, they are shamefully neglected, and, often, put out of existence. One of the missionaries, on visiting a pagan band, preached from those blessed words of the Saviour: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." In his sermon he spoke about life's toils and burdens, and how all men had to work and labour. The men of the congregation were very angry at him; and at an indignation meeting which they held, they said, "Let him go to the squaws with that kind of talk. They have to carry all the heavy burdens, and do the hard work. Such stuff as that is not for us men, but for the women." So they were offended at him. At a small Indian settlement on the north-eastern shores of Lake Winnipeg lived a chief by the name of Moo-koo-woo-soo, who deliberately strangled his mother, and then burnt her body to ashes. When questioned about the horrid deed, he coolly and heartlessly said that as she had become too old to snare rabbits or catch fish, he was not going to be bothered with keeping her, and so he deliberately put her to death. Such instances could be multiplied many times. Truly "the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." In delightful contrast to these sad sights among the degraded savages around us, were the kindly ways and happy homes of our converted Indians. Among them a woman occupied her true position, and was well and lovingly treated. The aged and infirm, who but for the Gospel would have been dealt with as Moo-koo-woo-soo dealt with his mother, had the warmest place in the little home and the daintiest morsel on the table. I have seen the sexton of the church throw wide open the door of the sanctuary, that two stalwart young men might easily enter, carrying in their arms their invalid mother, who had expressed a desire to come to the house of God. Tenderly they supported her until the service ended, and then they lovingly carried her home again. But for the Gospel's blessed influences on their haughty natures they would have died ere doing such a thing for a woman, even though she were their own mother. Life for the women was not now all slavery. They had their happy hours, and knew well how to enjoy them. Nothing, however, seemed so to delight them as to be gliding about in the glorious summer time in their light canoes. And sometimes, combining pleasure with profit, many a duck was shot by these young Indian maidens. This changed feeling towards the aged and afflicted ones we have seen manifested in a very expressive and blessed way at the great annual New Year's Feast. It was customary for the Indians, long before they became Christians, to have a great feast at the beginning of the New Year. In the old times, the principal article of food at these horrid feasts was dogs, the eating of which was accompanied by many revolting ceremonies. The missionaries, instead of abolishing the feast, turned it into a religious festival. I carried out the methods of my worthy predecessors at Norway House, and so we had a feast every New Year's Day. The Crees call this day "Ooche-me-gou Kesigow," which literally means "the kissing day," as on this day the men claim the right to kiss every woman they meet; and, strange to say, every woman expects to be kissed. It used to amuse me very much to see thirty or forty Indians, dressed up in their finest apparel, come quietly marching into the Mission House, and gravely kiss Mrs Young on her cheek. When I used to rally her over this strange phase of unexpected missionary experience, she would laughingly retort, "O, you need not laugh at me. See that crowd of women out there in the yard, expecting you to go out and kiss them!" It was surprising how much work that day kept me shut in my study; or if that expedient would not avail, I used to select a dear old sweet-faced, white-haired grandma, the mother of the chief, and say, "Now I am going to kiss grandma; and as I kiss her you must all consider yourselves kissed." This institution is more ancient among them than shaking hands, about which they knew nothing until it was introduced by the whites. For weeks before New Year's Day great preparations were made for the feast. A council would be called, and the men would have recorded what they were willing to give towards it. Some, who were good deer-hunters, promised venison. Others promised so many beavers. Perhaps there were those who knew where bears had made their winter dens, and they agreed to go and kill them for the feast. Others, who were good fur-hunters, stated their willingness to exchange some of the furs they would catch for flour and tea and sugar at the trading post. Thus the business went on, until enough was promised, with the liberal supplies given by the Hudson's Bay Company's officials and the missionary, to make the affair a great success. An outbuilding of the Mission, called "the fish house," was the place where all these various things, as they were obtained, were stored. Months were sometimes consumed in collecting the meat. But Jack Frost is a good preservative, and so nothing spoiled. A few days before the feast, Mrs Young would select several of the Indian women, and under her superintendency the various supplies would be cooked. Very clever were these willing helpers; and in a short time a quantity of food would be piled up, sufficient for all, although it is well known that Indians have good appetites. When the great day arrived, the men quickly removed the seats out of the church, and there put up long tables. Great boilers of tea were made ready, and every preparation was completed for a good time. But, before a mouthful was eaten by any of the eight hundred or thousand persons present, the chief used to ask me for a pencil and a piece of writing paper; and then, standing up on a box or bench, he would shout out, "How many of our people are aged, or sick, or afflicted, and cannot be with us to-day!" As one name after another was mentioned, he rapidly wrote them down. Then he read over the list, and said, "Let us not forget any one." Somebody shouted out, "There is an old woman ten miles up the river towards the old Fort." Somebody else said, "Have you the name of that boy who was accidentally shot in the leg?" Their names were both put down. Then somebody says, "There are two or three left behind in the tent of the pagans, while the rest have come to the feast." "Let us feed those who have come, and send something with our kind greetings to the others," is the unanimous response. When it was certain that none had been overlooked, request was made to me for all the old newspapers and packing paper I could give them, and soon loving hands were busily engaged in cutting off large pieces of different kinds of meat and arranging them with the large flat cakes in generous bundles. To these were added little packages of tea and sugar. In this way as many large bundles--each containing an assortment of everything at the feast--would be made up as there were names on the paper. Then the chief would call in, from where the young men were busily engaged in playing football, as many of the fleet runners as there were bundles, and giving each his load, would indicate the person to whom he was to give it, and also would add, "Give them our New Year's greetings and sympathy, and tell them we are sorry they cannot be with us to-day." Very delightful were these sights to us. Such things paid us a thousandfold for our hardships and sufferings. Here, before a mouthful was eaten by the healthy and vigorous ones, large generous bundles, that would last for days, were sent off to the aged and infirm or wounded ones, who in all probability, but for the blessed influences of the Gospel, if not quickly and cruelly put out of existence, would have been allowed to linger on in neglect and wretchedness. Even the young runners seemed to consider that it was an honour to be permitted to carry these bundles, with the loving messages, to the distant homes or wigwams where the afflicted ones were. It was quite amusing to watch them tighten up their belts and dash off like deers. Some of them had several miles to go; but what cared they on this glad day? According to seniority the tables were filled, and the feast began as soon as the "Grace before Meat" had been sung. Mrs Young had her own long table, and to it she invited not only the Hudson's Bay Company's people, but as many of the aged and worthy from among the poor Indians as we wished specially to honour. Sometimes we filled one table with wild pagans who had come in from some distant forest home, attracted by the reports of the coming great feast. Through their stomachs we sometimes reached their hearts, and won them to Christ. Thus for hours the feast continued, until all had been supplied. None were neglected, and everybody was happy. Then with a glad heart they sang: "Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow." When all the guests were satisfied, what was left was carried off by the needy ones, among whom it was generously divided; the tables were quickly taken down by the men, and the church was speedily swept clean by some active women. The seats and pews were replaced, and every arrangement was made for the great annual New Year's Meeting. The church was lit up; and when the audience had gathered, a chairman was appointed, and, after singing and prayer, speeches were made by several of the Indians. Many pleasant and many sensible things were said. Some of the sober- minded ones reviewed the year just gone, with all its blessings and mercies, and expressed the hope that the one on which they had entered would be crowned with blessings. Some of the speeches referred to Treaty matters with the Government, and others were in reference to their huntings and fisheries. Some were bright and witty, and were received with laughter and applause. Others were of a serious, religious character, and were equally welcome, and touched responsive hearts. With pleasure I noticed that in them all the most frequent word was "Na-nas-koomoo-win-ah," which means "Thanksgiving," and for this my heart rejoiced. Thus ended, with the Doxology and Benediction, these happy days, in which we saw so many evidences that the preaching of the Gospel had not been in vain. CHAPTER FIVE. OXFORD HOUSE MISSION--VISITED BY CANOE--DESCRIPTION OF THIS USEFUL CRAFT-INDIAN SKILL--OXFORD LAKE--DR. TAYLOR--EDWARD PAPANEKIS--STILL ON THE TRAIL BY BIRCH CANOE--NARROW ESCAPE FROM BEING CRUSHED BY THE ICE-- ON STORMY LAKE WINNIPEG--PIONEERING FARTHER NORTH--SUCCESSES--"SHOW US THE FATHER, AND IT SUFFICETH US"--CHRIST ACCEPTED IN THE PLACE OF IDOLS. I had received instructions from the Missionary Secretaries to visit Oxford Mission as soon as possible, and to do all I could for its upbuilding. This Mission had had a good measure of success in years gone by. A church and Mission house had been built at Jackson's Bay, and many of the Indians had been converted. But the village was too far from the Hudson's Bay Company's Post, where the Indians traded, and where naturally they gathered. For several years the work had been left in charge of a native teacher. The people regretted the absence of an ordained Missionary, and the place suffered accordingly. Making all the arrangements I could for the successful prosecution of the work in my absence, I left Norway House in a small canoe, manned by two of my Christian Indians, one of whom was my interpreter. With this wonderful little boat I was now to make my first intimate acquaintance. For this wild land of broad lakes and rapid rivers and winding creeks, the birch- bark canoe is the boat of all others most admirably fitted. It is to the Indian denizen here what the horse is to his more warlike red brother on the great prairies, or what the camel is to those who live and wander amidst Arabian deserts. The canoe is absolutely essential to these natives in this land, where there are no other roads than the intricate devious water routes. It is the frailest of all boats, yet it can be loaded down to the water's edge, and, under the skilful guidance of these Indians, who are unquestionably the finest canoe men in the world, it can be made to respond to the sweep of their paddles, so that it seems almost instinct with life and reason. What they can do in it, and with it, appeared to me at times perfectly marvellous. Yet when we remember that for about five months of every year some of the hunters almost live in it, this may not seem so very wonderful. It carries them by day, and in it, or under it, they often sleep by night. At the many portages which have to be made in this land, where the rivers are so full of falls and rapids, one man can easily carry it on his head to the smooth water beyond. In it we have travelled thousands of miles, while going from place to place with the blessed tidings of salvation to these wandering bands scattered over my immense Circuit. Down the wild rapids we have rushed for miles together, and then out into great Winnipeg, or other lakes, so far from shore that the distant headlands were scarce visible. Foam-crested waves have often seemed as though about to overwhelm us, and treacherous gales to swamp us, yet my faithful, well- trained canoe men were always equal to every emergency, and by the accuracy of their judgment, and the quickness of their movements, appeared ever to do exactly the right thing at the right moment. As the result, I came at length to feel as much at home in a canoe as anywhere else, and with God's blessing was permitted to make many long trips to those who could not be reached in any other way, except by dog-trains in winter. Good canoe-makers are not many, and so really good canoes are always in demand. Frail and light as this Indian craft may be, there is a great deal of skill and ingenuity required in its construction. Great care is requisite in taking the bark from the tree. A long incision is first made longitudinally in the trunk of the tree. Then, from this cut, the Indian begins, and with his keen knife gradually peels off the whole of the bark, as high up as his incision went, in one large piece or sheet. And even now that he has safely got it off the tree, the greatest care is necessary in handling it, as it will split or crack very easily. Cedar is preferred for the woodwork, and when it can possibly be obtained, is always used. But in the section of the country where I lived, as we were north of the cedar limit, the canoe-makers used pieces of the spruce tree, split very thin, as the best substitute for cedar that our country afforded. All the sewing of the pieces of birch bark together, and the fastening of the whole to the outer frame, is done with the long slender roots of the balsam or larch trees, which are soaked and rubbed until they are as flexible as narrow strips of leather. When all the sewing is done, the many narrow limber pieces of spruce are crowded into their places, giving the whole canoe its requisite proportions and strength. Then the seams and weak spots are well covered over with melted pitch, which the Indians obtain from the spruce and balsam trees. Great care is taken to make the canoe watertight. To accomplish this, the boat is often swung between trees and filled with water. Every place where the slightest leak is discovered is marked, and, when the canoe is emptied, is carefully attended to. Canoes vary in style and size. Each tribe using them has its own patterns, and it was to me an ever interesting sight, to observe how admirably suited to the character of the lakes and rivers were the canoes of each tribe or district. The finest and largest canoes were those formerly made by the Lake Superior Indians. Living on the shores of that great inland sea, they required canoes of great size and strength. These "great north canoes," as they were called, could easily carry from a dozen to a score of paddlers, with a cargo of a couple of tons of goods. In the old days of the rival fur-traders, these great canoes played a very prominent part. Before steam or even large sailing vessels had penetrated into those northern lakes, these canoes were extensively used, loaded with the rich furs of those wild forests, they used to come down into the Ottawa, and thence on down that great stream, often even as far as to Montreal. Sir George Simpson, the energetic but despotic and unprincipled governor of the Hudson's Bay Company for many years, used to travel in one of these birch canoes all the way from Montreal up the Ottawa on through Lake Nipissing into Georgian Bay; from thence into Lake Superior, on to Thunder Bay. From this place, with indomitable pluck, he pushed on back into the interior, through the Lake of the Woods, down the tortuous river Winnipeg into the lake of the same name. Along the whole length of this lake he annually travelled, in spite of its treacherous storms and annoying head winds, to preside over the Council and attend to the business of the wealthiest fur-trading company that ever existed, over which he watched with eagle eye, and in every department of which his distinct personality was felt. His famous Iroquois crew are still talked about, and marvellous are the stories in circulation about many a northern camp fire of their endurance and skill. How rapid the changes which are taking place in this world of ours! It seems almost incredible, in these days of mighty steamships going almost everywhere on our great waters, to think that there are hundreds of people still living who distinctly remember when the annual trips of a great governor were made from Montreal to Winnipeg in a birch-bark Canoe, manned by Indians. Of this light Indian craft Longfellow wrote:-- "Give me of your bark, O Birch tree! Of your yellow bark, O Birch tree! Growing by the rushing river, Tall and stately in the valley! I a light canoe will build me, Build a swift canoe for sailing. "Thus the Birch canoe was builded In the valley, by the river, In the bosom of the forest; All its mystery and its magic, All the brightness of the birch tree, All the toughness of the cedar, All the larch trees supple sinews; And it floated on the river Like a yellow leaf in autumn, Like a yellow water-lily." We left for Oxford Mission on the 8th of September. The distance is over two hundred miles, through the wildest country imaginable. We did not see a house--with the exception of those built by the beavers--from the time we left our Mission home until we reached our destination. We paddled through a bewildering variety of picturesque lakes, rivers, and creeks. When no storms or fierce head-winds impeded us, we were able to make fifty or sixty miles a day. When night overtook us, we camped on the shore. Sometimes it was very pleasant and romantic. At other times, when storms raged and we were drenched with the rain so thoroughly that for days we had not a dry stitch upon us, it was not quite so agreeable. We generally began our day's journey very early in the morning, if the weather was at all favourable, and paddled on as rapidly as possible, since we knew not when head-winds might arise and stop our progress. The Oxford route is a very diversified one. There are lakes, large and small, across which we had to paddle. In some of them, when the wind was favourable, our Indians improvised a sail out of one of our blankets. Lashing it to a couple of oars, they lifted it up in the favouring wind, and thus very rapidly did we speed on our way. At times we were in broad beautiful rivers, and then paddling along in little narrow creeks amidst the reeds and rushes. We passed over, or, as they say in that country, "made" nine portages around picturesque falls or rapids. In these portages one of the Indians carried the canoe on his head. The other made a great load of the bedding and provisions, all of which he carried on his back. My load consisted of the two guns, ammunition, two kettles, the bag containing my changes of raiment, and a package of books for the Indians we were to visit. How the Indians could run so quickly through the portages was to me a marvel. Often the path was but a narrow ledge of rock against the side of the great granite cliff. At other times it was through the quaking bog or treacherous muskeg. To them it seemed to make no difference. On they went with their heavy loads at that swinging Indian stride which soon left me far behind. On some of my canoe trips the portages were several miles long, and through regions so wild that there was nothing to indicate to me the right direction. When we were making them, I used to follow on as long as I knew I was in the right way. When I lost the trail, I at once stopped and patiently waited until one of my faithful men, having carried his load safely to the end, would come back for me. Quickly picking up my load, he would hurry off, and even then, unencumbered as I was, it was often as much as I could do to keep up with him. Oxford Lake is one of the most beautiful and picturesque lakes I ever saw. It is between twenty and thirty miles long and several miles wide. It is studded with islands of every imaginable variety. Its waters are almost as transparent as the clear, fresh air above it. When no breath ripples its surface, one can look down into its crystal depths and see, many feet below, the great fish quietly moving about. To visit the Indians who fish in its waters, and hunt upon its shores, I once brought one of our Missionary Secretaries, the eloquent Reverend Lachlin Taylor, DD. The trip down had not been one of the most pleasant. The rains had drenched him, and the mosquitoes had plagued him with such persistency, that he loudly bemoaned his lot in being found in a country that was cursed with such abominable animals. One night I heard him muttering between his efforts to get them out of his tent, where he declared they were attacking him in battalions:-- "They throng the air, and darken heaven, And curse this Western land." However, when we reached Oxford Lake, the mosquitoes left us for a time. The sun came out in splendour, and we had some days of rarest beauty. The good doctor regained his spirits, and laughed when I rallied him on some of his strong expressions about the country, and told him that I hoped, as the result of his experience, he, as all Missionary Secretaries ought, would have a good deal of sympathy for the Missionaries who live in such regions for years together. We camped for the night on one of the most picturesque points. We had two canoes, and to man them four Indians from our Norway House Mission. As the doctor was an enthusiastic fisherman, he decided that we must stop there during the forenoon, while he tried his hand. His first haul was a splendid pike over two feet long. Great was his excitement as his success was assured. Eloquence poured from him; we were flooded with it. The Indians looked on in amazement while he talked of the beauties of the lake and islands, of the water and the sky. "Wait a moment, doctor," I said. "I can add to the wild beauty of the place something that will please your artistic eye." I requested two fine-looking Indians to launch one of the canoes, and to quietly paddle out to the edge of an island which abruptly rose from the deep, clear waters before us, the top of which had on it a number of splendid spruce and balsams, massed together in natural beauty. I directed the men to drop over the side of the canoe a long fishing line, and then, posing them in striking attitudes in harmony with the place, I asked them to keep perfectly still until every ripple made by their canoe had died away. I confess I was entranced by the loveliness of the sight. The reflections of the canoe and men, and of the islands and rocks, were as vivid as the actual realities. So clear and transparent was the water, that where it and the air met there seemed but a narrow thread between the two elements. Not a breath of air stirred, not a ripple moved. It was one of those sights which come to us but seldom in a lifetime, where everything is in perfect unison, and God gives us glimpses of what this world, His footstool, must have been before sin entered. "Doctor," I said quietly, for my heart was full of the Doxology, "tell me what you think of that vision." Standing up, with a great rock beneath his feet, in a voice of suppressed emotion he began. Quietly at first he spoke, but soon he was carried away with his own eloquence:-- "I know well the lochs of my own beloved Scotland, for in many of them I have rowed and fished. I have visited all the famed lakes of Ireland, and have rowed on those in the Lake counties of England. I have travelled far and oft on our great American lakes, and have seen Tahoe, in all its crystal beauty. I have rowed on the Bosphorus, and travelled in a felucca on the Nile. I have lingered in the gondola on the canals of Venice, and have traced Rob Roy's canoe in the Sea of Galilee, and on the old historic Jordan. I have seen, in my wanderings in many lands, places of rarest beauty, but the equal of this mine eyes have never gazed upon." Never after did I see the lake as we saw it that day. On it we have had to battle against fierce storms, where the angry waves seemed determined to engulf us. Once, in speeding along as well as we could from island to island, keeping in the lee as much as possible, we ran upon a sharp rock and stove a hole in our canoe. We had to use our paddles desperately to reach the shore, and when we had done so, we found our canoe half-full of water, in which our bedding and food were soaked. We hurriedly built a fire, melted some pitch, and mended our canoe, and hurried on. On this lake, which can give us such pictures of wondrous beauty, I have encountered some of the greatest gales and tempests against which I have ever had to contend, even in this land of storms and blizzards. Then in winter, upon its frozen surface it used to seem to me that the Frost King held high carnival. Terrible were the sufferings of both dogs and men on some of those trips. One winter, in spite of all the wraps I could put around me, making it possible for me to run--for riding was out of the question, so intense was the cold--every part of my face exposed to the pitiless blast was frozen. My nose, cheeks, eyebrows, and even lips, were badly frozen, and for days after I suffered. Cuffy, the best of my Newfoundland dogs, had all of her feet frozen, and even Jack's were sore for many a day after. My loyal Indians suffered also, and we all declared Oxford Lake to be a cold place in winter, and its storms worse than the summer mosquitoes. The Indians of Oxford Lake were among the finest in all the great North- West. It was ever a joy to meet them as I used to do once in summer by canoe trip, and then again in winter by dog-train. God blessed my visits to them. The old members were cheered and comforted as the Gospel was preached to them, and the Sacraments administered. Some pagans were induced to renounce their old lives, and the cause of religion was more and more established. The Reverend Mr Brooking, and, later, the studious and devoted Reverend Orrin German, did blessed service in that lonely Mission. At the present time the Reverend Edward Papanekis is the acceptable Missionary there. Long years ago I found Edward a careless, sinful young man. Once he rushed into the Mission house under the influence of liquor, and threatened to strike me. But the blessed truth reached his heart, and it was my joy to see him a humble suppliant at the Cross. His heart's desire was realised. God has blessedly led him on, and now he is faithfully preaching that same blessed Gospel to his countrymen at Oxford Mission. In responding to the many Macedonian cries my Circuit kept so enlarging that I had to be "in journeyings often." My canoes were sometimes launched in spring, ere the great floating ice-fields had disappeared, and through tortuous open channels we carefully paddled our way, often exposed to great danger. On one of these early trips we came to a place where for many miles the moving ice fields stretched out before us. One narrow channel of open water only was before us. Anxious to get on, we dashed into it, and rapidly paddled ourselves along. I had two experienced Indians, and so had no fear, but expected some novel adventures--and had them with interest. Our hopes were that the wind would widen the channel, and thus let us into open water. But, to our disappointment, when we had got along a mile or so in this narrow open space, we found the ice was quietly but surely closing in upon us. As it was from four to six feet thick, and of vast extent, there was power enough in it to crush a good-sized ship; so it seemed that our frail birch-bark canoe would have but a poor chance. I saw there was a reasonable possibility that when the crash came we could spring on to the floating ice. But what should we do then? was the question, with canoe destroyed and us on floating ice far from land. However, as my Indians kept perfectly cool, I said nothing, but paddled away and watched for the development of events. Nearer and nearer came the ice; soon our channel was not fifty feet wide. Already behind us the floes had met, and we could hear the ice grinding and breaking as the enormous masses met in opposite directions. Now it was only about twenty feet from side to side. Still the men paddled on, and I kept paddling in unison with them. When the ice was so close that we could easily touch it on either side with our paddles, one of the Indians quietly said, "Missionary, will you please give me your paddle?" I quickly handed it to him, when he immediately thrust it with his own into the water, holding down the ends of them so low horizontally under the canoe that the blade end was out of water on the other side of the boat. The other Indian held his paddle in the same position, although from the other side of the canoe. Almost immediately after the ice crowded in upon us. But as the points of the paddles were higher than the ice, of course they rested upon it for an instant. This was what my cool-headed, clever men wanted. They had a fulcrum for their paddles, and so they pulled carefully on the handle ends of them, and, the canoe sliding up as the ice closed in and met with a crash under us, we found ourselves seated in it on the top of the ice. The craft, although only a frail birch-bark canoe, was not in the least injured. As we quickly sprang out of our canoe, and carried it away from where the ice had met and was being ground into pieces by the momentum with which it met, I could not but express my admiration to my men at the clever feat. After some exciting work we reached the shore, and there patiently waited until the wind and sun cleared away the ice, and we could venture on. My plan was to spend at least a week in each Indian village or encampment, preaching three times a day, and either holding school with the children, or by personal entreaty beseeching men and women to be reconciled to God. When returning from the visit, which was a very successful one, we had to experience some of the inconveniences of travelling in such a frail bark as a birch canoe on such a stormy lake as Winnipeg. The weather had been very unsettled, and so we had cautiously paddled from point to point. We had dinner at what the Indians call Montreal Point, and then started for the long crossing to Old Norway House Point, as it was then called. It is a very long open traverse, and as lowering clouds threatened us we pulled on as rapidly as our three paddles could propel us. When out a few miles from land the storm broke upon us, the wind rose rapidly, and soon we were riding over great white-crested billows. My men were very skilful, and we had no fear; but the most skilful management was necessary to safely ride the waves, which soon in size were rivalling those of the ocean. A canoe is a peculiar craft, and requires an experienced hand in these great storms. We were getting on all right, and were successfully climbing the big waves in quick succession, alert and watchful that no sudden erratic move should catch us off our guard and overturn us. At length we met a wave of unusual height, and succeeded in climbing up into its foaming crest all right. Then down its side our little craft shot with the apparent velocity of a sled down a toboggan slide. When we reached the bottom of this trough of the sea, our canoe slapped so violently upon the water that the birch bark on the bottom split from side to side. Of course the water rushed in upon us with uncomfortable rapidity. The more we paddled the worse the water entered, as the exertion strained the boat and opened the rent. Quickly folding up a blanket, I carefully placed it over the long rent, and kneeled down upon it to keep it in place. The man in the front of the canoe put down his paddle, and, taking up the kettle, baled as rapidly as he could, while the Indian in the stern, and myself in the middle, plied our paddles for dear life. We turned towards the Spider Islands, which were over a mile away, and by vigorous work succeeded in reaching one of them, although our canoe was half full of water. Then could we enter into David's words, as for life we struggled, and our little craft was tossed on the cross sea in our efforts to reach a place of safety: "They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses." We paddled up as far as we could on a smooth granite rock that came out gradually in the water. Then out we sprang, and strong hands dragged our little canoe up beyond the reach of the waves. We hastily pulled out our dripping blankets and soaked food and other things, and then, overturning the canoe, emptied it of water; and as we saw the large break in the bottom, we realised as we had not before the danger we had been in, and the providential escape which had been ours. So, with glad hearts, we said, "We do `praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men.'" We quickly built a fire, and melted some pitch, a quantity of which is always carried ready for such emergencies. The long rent was covered over with a piece of cloth well saturated in the boiling pitch, a quantity more was poured over, and the whole was carefully smoothed out over the weak place. Soon it cooled and hardened, and the work was done. We ate a little food, and then launched our frail craft and pushed on. No serious accidents again troubled us, and we ended this long canoe trip, as we had done many others, thankful that we had such blessed opportunities to go to the remote places as heralds of the Cross, and doubly thankful when we were safe at home again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On one of my canoe trips, when looking after pagan bands in the remote Nelson River District, I had some singular experiences, and learned some important lessons about the craving of the pagan heart after God. We had been journeying on for ten or twelve days when one night we camped on the shore of a lake-like river. While my men were busily employed in gathering wood and cooking the supper, I wandered off and ascended to the top of a well wooded hill which I saw in the distance. Very great indeed was my surprise, when I reached the top, to find myself in the presence of the most startling evidences of a degraded paganism. The hill had once been densely covered with trees, but about every third one had been cut down, and the stumps, which had been left from four to ten feet high, had been carved into rude representations of the human form. Scattered around were the dog-ovens, which were nothing but holes dug in the ground and lined with stones, in which at certain seasons, as part of their religious ceremonies, some of their favourite dogs--white ones were always preferred--were roasted, and then devoured by the excited crowd. Here and there were the tents of the old conjurers and medicine men, who, combining some knowledge of disease and medicine with a great deal of superstitious abominations, held despotic sway over the people. The power of these old conjurers over the deluded Indians was very great. They were generally lazy old fellows, but succeeded nevertheless in getting the best that was going, as they held other Indians in such terror of their power, that gifts in the shape of fish and game were constantly flowing in upon them. They have the secret art among themselves of concocting some poisons so deadly that a little put in the food of a person who has excited their displeasure will cause death almost as soon as a dose of strychnine. They have other poisons which, while not immediately causing death to the unfortunate victims, yet so affect and disfigure them that, until death releases them, their sufferings are intense and their appearance frightful. Here on this hill top were all these sad evidences of the degraded condition of the people. I wandered around and examined the idols, most of which had in front of them, and in some instances on their flat heads, offerings of tobacco, food, red cotton, and other things. My heart was sad at these evidences of such degrading idolatry, and I was deeply impressed with my need of wisdom and aid from on high, so that when I met the people who here worshipped these idols I might so preach Christ and Him crucified that they would be constrained to accept Him as their all-sufficient Saviour. While there I lingered, and mused, and prayed, the shadows of the night fell on me, and I was shrouded in gloom. Then the full moon rose up in the East, and as her silvery beams shone through the trees and lit up these grotesque idols, the scene presented a strange weird appearance. My faithful Indians, becoming alarmed at my long absence--for the country was infested by wild animals--were on the search for me, when I returned to the camp fire. We ate our evening meal, sang a hymn, and bowed in prayer. Then we wrapped ourselves up in our blankets, and lay down on the granite rocks to rest. Although our bed was hard and there was no roof above us, we slept sweetly, for the day had been one of hard work and strange adventure. After paddling about forty miles the next day we reached the Indians of that section of the country, and remained several weeks among them. With the exception of the old conjurers, they all received me very cordially. These old conjurers had the same feelings toward me as those who made silver shrines for Diana of Ephesus had toward the first preachers of Christianity in their city. They trembled for their occupation. They well knew that if I succeeded in inducing the people to become Christians their occupation would be gone, and they would have to settle down to work for their own living, like other people, or starve. I visited them as I did the rest of the encampment, but they had enmity in their hearts toward me. Of all their efforts to injure or destroy me of course I knew not. That their threats were many I well understood; but He Who had said, "Lo, I am with you alway," mercifully watched over me and shielded me from their evil deeds. My two Indian attendants also watched as well as prayed, with a vigilance that seemed untiring. Very pleasant, indeed, are my memories of my faithful Indian comrades on those long journeys. Their loyalty and devotion could not be excelled. Everything that they could do for my safety and happiness was cheerfully done. We held three religious services every day, and between these services taught the people to read in the Syllabic characters. One day, in conversing with an old fine-looking Indian, I said to him, "What is your religion? If you have any clear idea of a religion, tell me in what you believe." His answer was; "We believe in a good Spirit and in a bad spirit." "Why, then," I said, "do you not worship the good Spirit? I came through your sacred grounds, and I saw where you had cut down some trees. Part you had used as fuel with which to cook your bear or deer meat; out of the rest you had made an idol, which you worship. How is one part more sacred than the other? Why do you make and worship idols?" I can never forget his answer, or the impressive and almost passionate way in which the old man replied:-- "Missionary, the Indian's mind is dark, and he cannot grasp the unseen. He hears the great Spirit's voice in the thunder and storms. He sees the evidences of His existence all around, but neither he nor his fathers have ever seen the great Spirit, or any one who has; and so he does not know what He looks like. But man is the highest creature that he knows of, and so he makes his idols like a man, and calls it his `Manito.' We only worship them because we do not know what the great Spirit looks like, but these we can understand." Suddenly there flashed into my mind the request of Philip to the Lord Jesus: "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us;" and the wonderful answer: "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?" I opened my Indian Bible at that wonderful chapter of disinterested love, the fourteenth of John, and preached unto them Jesus, in His two natures, Divine and human. While emphasising the redemptive work of the Son of God, I referred to His various offices and purposes of love and compassion, His willingness to meet us and to save us from perplexity and doubt, as well as from sin. I spoke about Him as our elder Brother, so intimately allied to us, and still retaining His human form as He pleads for us at the throne of God. I dwelt upon these delightful truths, and showed how Christ's love had so brought him to us, that with the eye of faith we could see Him, and in Him all of God for which our hearts craved. "Whom having not seen, we love; in Whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." For many days I needed no other themes. They listened attentively, and the holy Spirit applied these truths to their hearts and consciences so effectively that they gladly received them. A few more visits effectually settled them in the truth. They have cut down their idols, filled up the dog-ovens, torn away the conjurers' tents, cleared the forest, and banished every vestige of the old life. And there, at what is called "the Meeting of the Three Rivers," on that very spot where idols were worshipped amidst horrid orgies, and where the yells, rattles, and drums of the old conjurers and medicine men were heard continuously for days and nights, there is now a little church, where these same Indians, transformed by the glorious Gospel of the Son of God, are "clothed and in their right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus." My visits to Nelson River so impressed me with the fact of the necessity of some zealous missionary going down there and living among the people, that, in response to appeals made, the Reverend John Semmens, whose heart God had filled with missionary zeal, and who had come out to assist me at Norway House, nobly resolved to undertake the work. He was admirably fitted for the arduous and responsible task. But no language of mine can describe what he had to suffer. His record is on high. The Master has it all, and He will reward. Great were his successes, and signal his triumphs. At that place, where I found the stumps carved into idols, which Brother Semmens has so graphically described, the church, mainly through his instrumentality and personal efforts, has been erected. In the last letter which I have received from that land, the writer says: "The Indians now all profess themselves to be Christians. Scores of them by their lives and testimonies assure us of the blessed consciousness that the Lord Jesus is indeed their own loving Saviour. Every conjuring drum has ceased. All vestiges of the old heathenish life are gone, we believe for ever." "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." Grandly has this prophecy been fulfilled, and dwarfs into insignificance all the sufferings and hardships endured in the pioneer work which I had in beginning this Mission. With a glad heart I rejoice that "unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." CHAPTER SIX. THE WILD NORTH LAND--THE TWO METHODS OF TRAVEL, BY CANOE AND DOG-TRAIN-- THE NATIVE DOGS--ST. BERNARD AND NEWFOUNDLAND DOGS--THE DOG SLEDS--THE GUIDE--THE DOG DRIVERS--THE LONG JOURNEYS--NIGHT TRAVELLING--WONDROUS VISIONS OF THE NIGHT. So destitute are these wild north lands of roads that there are really no distinct words in the languages of these northern tribes to represent land vehicles. In translating such words as "waggon" or "chariot" into the Cree language, a word similar to that for "dog-sled" had to be used. No surveyor, up to the years about which I am writing, had visited those regions, and there were literally no roads as understood in civilised lands. So numerous are the lakes and rivers that roads are unnecessary to the Indian in the summer time. With his light birch canoe he can go almost everywhere he desires. If obstructions block up his passage, all he has to do is to put his little canoe on his head, and a short run will take him across the portage, or around the cataracts or falls, or over the height of land to some other lake or stream, where he quickly embarks and continues his journey. All summer travelling is done along the water routes. Naturally the various trading posts and Indian villages or encampments are located on the edges of the lakes or rivers, or very near them, so as to be most conveniently reached in this way. So short are the summers that there are only about five months of open water to be depended upon in these high latitudes. During the other seven months the dog sled is the only conveyance for purposes of travelling. So rough and wild is the country that we know of no vehicle that could take its place, and no animals that could do the work of the dogs. As the years of toil rolled on, my Mission field or Circuit so enlarged that it extended irregularly north and south over five hundred miles, with a width in some places of over three hundred. In summer I travelled over it in a birch canoe, and in winter with my dog-trains. At first it seemed very novel, and almost like child's play, to be dragged along by dogs, and there was almost a feeling of rebellion against what seemed such frivolous work. But we soon found out that we had travelled in worse conveyances and with poorer steeds than in a good dog sled, when whirled along by a train of first-class dogs. The dogs generally used are of the Esquimaux breed, although in many places they have become so mixed up with other varieties as to be almost unrecognisable. The pure Esquimaux sled dogs are well-built, compact animals, weighing from eighty to a hundred and twenty pounds. They are of various colours, and have a close, warm, furry coat of hair. They have sharp-pointed ears and very bushy, curly tails. They are the most notorious thieves. I never could completely break an Esquimaux dog of this propensity. It seemed ingrained in their very natures. I have purchased young puppies of this breed from the natives, have fed them well, and have faithfully endeavoured to bring them up in the way in which they ought to go, but I never could get them to stay there. Steal they would, and did, whenever they had an opportunity. This serious defect may have been the result of the constant and unremitting neglect with which Indians generally treat their dogs. They are fond of them in a way, and are unwilling to part with them, except at a good price; yet, except when working them, they very seldom feed them. The dogs are generally left to steal their living, and some of them become very clever at it, as more than once I found to my sorrow. When the fisheries are successful, or many deer have been killed, the dogs, like their owners, are fat and flourishing. When food is scarce, the dogs' allowance is the first cut off. We could always tell at a glance, when a band of wild, wandering pagan Indians came in to visit our village from their distant hunting grounds, how they had prospered. If they and their dogs were fat and good-natured, they had had abundance of food. If, while the people looked fairly well, the dogs were thin and wolfish, we knew they had fared but moderately. If the dogs were all gone and the people looked gaunt and famine-stricken, we knew they had had hard times, and, as a last resort, had eaten their poor dogs to keep themselves alive. Some of the Indians who make a pretence to feed their dogs in winter never think of doing so in summer. The result is that, as they have to steal, hunt, or starve, they become adepts in one or the other. Everything that is eatable, and many things apparently uneatable, are devoured by them. They fairly howled with delight when they found access to such things as old leather moccasins, dog harness, whips, fur caps, mitts, and similar things. They greedily devoured all they could, and then most cunningly buried the rest. Many of them go off in summer- time on long fishing excursions. I once, when away on a canoe trip, met a pack of them up a great river over a hundred miles from their home. When we first saw them at a long distance, we mistook them for wolves, and began to prepare for battle. The quick eyes of my Indian canoe men soon saw what they were, and putting down our guns, we spent a little time in watching them. To my great surprise I found out that they were fishing on their own account. This was something new to me, and so I watched them with much interest. On the side of the river on which they were was a shallow, reedy marsh, where the water was from a few inches to a foot in depth. In these shallow waters, at certain seasons of the year, different varieties of fish are to be found. The principal is the Jack fish, or pike, some of which are over three feet long. As they crowd along in these shallows, often with their back fins out of the water, they are observed by the dogs, who quietly wade out, often to a distance of many yards, and seize them with such a grip that, in spite of their struggles, they are carried in triumph to the shore, and there speedily devoured. Sometimes the dogs will remain away for weeks together on these fishing excursions, and will return in much better condition than when they left. During the winter of the first Riel Rebellion, when all our supplies had been cut off, my good wife and I got tired of dining twenty-one times a week on fish diet, varied only by a pot of boiled musk rats, or a roast hind-quarter of a wild cat. To improve our bill of fare, the next summer, when I went into the Red River Settlement, I bought a sheep, which I carefully took out with me in a little open boat. I succeeded in getting it safely home, and put it in a yard that had a heavy stockade fence twelve feet high around it. In some way the dogs got in and devoured my sheep. The next summer, I took out a couple of pigs, and put them into a little log stable with a two-inch spruce plank door. To my great disgust, one night the dogs ate a hole through the door and devoured my pigs. There seemed to be a good deal of the wolf in their nature. Many of them never manifested much affection for their masters, and never could be fully depended upon. Still I always found that even with Esquimaux dogs patience and kindness went farther than anything else in teaching them to know what was required of them, and in inducing them to accept the situation. Some of them are naturally lazy, and some of them are incorrigible shirks; and so there is in dog-driving a capital opportunity for the exercise of the cardinal virtue of patience. As my Mission increased in size, and new appointments were taken up, I found I should have to be on the move nearly all the winter if those who longed for the Word of Life were to be visited. Do the best I could, there were some bands so remote that I could only visit them twice a year. In summer I went by canoe, and in winter by dog-train. After a few wretched experiences with native dogs, where I suffered most intensely, as much on account of their inferior powers as anything else, I began to think of the many splendid St. Bernard and Newfoundland dogs I had seen in civilised lands, doing nothing in return for the care and affection lavished upon them. These thoughts, which came to me while far from home, were promptly followed by action as soon as that terrible trip was ended, in which every part of my face exposed to the intense cold had been frozen, even to my eyebrows and lips. Missionary Secretaries were amused at the requisition for dogs, and had their laugh at what they called "my unique request," and wrote me to that effect. Thanks, however, to the kindness of such men as the Honourable Mr Sanford, of Hamilton, the Honourable Mr Ferrier, of Montreal, and other friends, I had in my possession some splendid dogs before the next season opened, and then the work went on with increasing interest and satisfaction. With splendid, well-trained dogs, I could so shorten the time of the three hundred miles' trip, that, instead of shivering seven or eight nights in a hole dug in the snow, we could reduce the number to four or five. Those who have experienced the sufferings and hardships of camping out in the forest with the temperature ranging from thirty to sixty degrees below zero, will agree that to escape two or three nights of it meant a good deal. I found by years of experience that the St. Bernard and Newfoundland dogs had all the good qualities, and none of the defects, of the Esquimaux. By kindness and firmness they were easily broken in, and then a whip was only an ornamental appendage of the driver's picturesque costume. Of these splendid dogs I often had in my possession, counting old and young, as many as twenty at a time. The largest and best of them all was Jack, a noble St. Bernard. He was black as jet, and stood over thirty-three inches high at his fore shoulder. When in good working trim, he weighed about a hundred and sixty pounds. He had no equal in all that northern land. Several times he saved my life, as we shall see further on. No whip ever ruffled his glossy coat; no danger ever deterred him from his work, when he with his marvellous intelligence once got to know what was expected of him. No blizzard storm, no matter how fickle and changeful, could lead him off from the desired camping place, even if the courage of other dogs failed them, and even though the guides gave up in despair. The distance we could travel with dogs depended of course very much on the character of the trail or route. On the frozen surface of Lake Winnipeg, when no blinding gales opposed us, and our dogs were good and loads not too heavy, we have made from seventy to ninety miles a day. One winter I accomplished the journey from Fort Garry to Norway House in five days and a half--a distance of nearly four hundred miles. When we were toiling along in the dense forests, where the snow lay deep and the obstructions were many, and the country was broken with hills and ravines, we often did not make more than a third of that distance, and then suffered much more than when we had made much greater journeys under more favourable auspices. The dog sleds are made of two oak or birch boards, about twelve feet long, eight or nine inches wide, and from half an inch to an inch thick. These two boards are fastened securely together, edge to edge, by crossbars. Then one of the ends is planed down thin, and so thoroughly steamed or soaked in hot water that it can easily be bent or curved up to form what is called the head of the sled. It is then planed smooth, and fitted out with side loops. The front ones are those to which the traces of the dogs are attached, and the others along the sides are used to fasten the load securely. When finished, allowing two or three feet for the curled-up head, a good dog sled is nine or ten feet long, and from sixteen to eighteen inches wide. Sometimes they are fitted with parchment sides and a comfortable back. Then they are called carioles. When the dogs were strong enough, or the trail was a well beaten one, or we were travelling on the great frozen lakes, I was able to ride the greater part of the time. Then it was not unpleasant or toilsome work. But as many of my winter trails led me through the primeval forests, where the snow was often very deep, and the hills were steep, and the fallen trees many, and the standing ones thickly clustered together, on such journeys there was but little riding. One had to strap on his snow shoes, and help his faithful Indians to tramp down the deep snow in the trail, that the poor dogs might drag the heavily loaded sleds along. Four dogs constitute a train. They are harnessed in tandem style, as all this vast country north of the fertile prairies is a region of forests. The Esquimaux style of giving each dog a separate trace, thus letting them spread out in a fan-like form, would never do in this land of trees and dense under-bush. The harness, which is made of moose skin, is often decorated with ribbons and little musical bells. Singular as it may appear, the dogs were very fond of the bells, and always seemed to travel better and be in greater spirits when they could dash along in unison with their tinkling. Some dogs could not be more severely punished than by taking the bells off their harness. The head dog of the train is called "the leader." Upon him depends a great deal of the comfort and success, and at times the safety, of the whole party. A really good leader is a very valuable animal. Some of them are so intelligent that they do not require a guide to run ahead of them, except in the most dense and unbeaten forest trails. I had a long-legged white dog, of mixed breed, that ever seemed to consider a guide a nuisance, when once he had got into his big head an idea of what I wanted him to do. Outside of his harness Old Voyager, as we called him, was a morose, sullen, unsociable brute. So hard to approach was he that generally a rope about sixty feet long, with one end fastened around his neck, trailed out behind him. When we wanted to catch him, we generally had to start off in the opposite direction from him, for he was as cunning as a fox, and ever objected to being caught. In zigzag ways we moved about until he was thrown off his guard, and then by-and- by it was possible to come near enough to get hold of the long rope and haul him in. When once the collar was on his neck, and he had taken his place at the head of the party, he was the unrivalled leader. No matter how many trains might happen to be travelling together, no one thought of taking first place while Old Voyager was at hand. Lake Winnipeg is very much indented with deep, wide bays. The headlands are from five to thirty miles apart. When dog-travelling on that great lake in winter, the general plan is to travel from headland to headland. When leaving one where perhaps we had slept or dined, all we had to do was to turn Old Voyager's head in the right direction, and show him the distant point to which we wished to go; and although it might be many miles away, a surveyor's line could not be much straighter than the trail our sleds would make under his unerring guidance. I have gone into these details about this mode of travelling, because there is so little known about it in the outside world. Doubtless it will soon become a thing of the past, as the Indians are settling down in their Reservations, and, each tribe or band having a resident Missionary, these long, toilsome journeys will not be essential. The companions of my long trips were the far-famed Indian runners of the north. The principal one of our party was called "the guide." To him was committed the responsibility of leading us by the quickest and safest route to the band of Indians we wished to visit with the good news of a Saviour's love. His place was in front of the dogs, unless the way happened to lead us for a time over frozen lakes or well-beaten trails, where the dogs were able to go on alone, cheered by the voice of their drivers behind. When the trail was of this description, the guide generally strode along in company with one of the drivers. As the greater part of my work was in the wild forest regions, there were many trips when the guide was always at the front. Marvellously gifted were some of these men. The reader must bear in mind the fact that there were no roads or vestiges of a path. Often the whole distance we wished to go was through the dense unbroken forest. The snow, some winters, was from two to four feet deep. Often the trees were clustered so closely together that it was at times difficult to find them standing far enough apart to get our sleds, narrow as they were, between them. In many places the under-brush was so dense that it was laborious work to force our way through it. Yet the guide on his large snowshoes was expected to push on through all obstructions, and open the way where it was possible for the dog-sleds to follow. His chief work was to mark out the trail, along which the rest of us travelled as rapidly as our loaded sleds, or wearied limbs, and often bleeding feet, would allow. Wonderfully clever and active were these guides in this difficult and trying work. To them it made but little difference whether the sun shone brightly, or clouds obscured the sky. On and on they pushed without hesitancy or delay. There were times when the sun's rays were reflected with such splendour from the snowy wastes, that our eyes became so affected by the glare, that it was impossible to travel by sunlight. The black eyes of the Indians seemed very susceptible to this disease, which they call "snow blindness." It is very painful, as I know by sad experience. The sensation is like that of having red-hot sand thrown on the eyeballs. Often my faithful dog-drivers used to suffer so from it that, stoical as they naturally are, I have known them to groan and almost cry out like children in the camp. Once, in travelling near Oxford Lake, we came across a couple of Indians who were stone-blind from this disease. Fortunately they had been able to reach the woods and make a camp and get some food ready ere total blindness came upon them. We went out of our course to guide them to their friends. To guard against the attack of this disease, which seldom occurs except in the months of March and April, when the increasing brightness of the sun, in those lengthening days, makes its rays so powerful, we often travelled only during the night-time, and rested in the sheltered camps during the hours of sunshine. On some of our long trips we have travelled eight nights continuously in this way. We generally left our camp about sundown. At midnight we groped about as well as we could, aided by the light of the stars or the brilliant auroras, and found some dry wood and birch bark, with which we made a fire and cooked a midnight dinner. Then on we went until the morning light came. Then a regular camp was prepared, and breakfast cooked and eaten, and the dogs were fed, instead of at night. Prayers said, and ourselves wrapped up in our blankets and robes, we slept until the hours of brilliant sunshine were over, when on we went. It always seemed to me that the work of the guides would be much more difficult at night than during the daytime. They, however, did not think so. With unerring accuracy they pushed on. It made no matter to them whether the stars shone out in all the beauty and brilliancy of the Arctic sky, or whether clouds arose and obscured them all. On the guide pushed through tangled underwood or dense gloomy forest, where there were not to be seen, for days, or rather nights, together, any other tracks than those made by the wild beasts of the forest. Sometimes the wondrous auroras blazed out, flashing and scintillating with a splendour indescribable. At times the whole heavens seemed aglow with their fickle, inconstant beauty, and then various portions of the sky were illumined in succession by their ever-changing bars, or columns of coloured light. Man's mightiest pyrotechnic displays dwarfed into insignificance in the presence of these celestial visions. For hours at a time have I been entranced amidst their glories. So bewildering were they at times to me that I have lost all ideas of location, and knew not which was north or south. But to the experienced guide, although, like many of the Indians, he had a keen appreciation of the beauties of nature, so intent was he on his duties that these changing auroras made no difference, and caused him no bewilderment in his work. This, to me, was often a matter of surprise. They are very susceptible in their natures, and their souls are full of poetry, as many of their expressive and beautiful names indicate. To them, in their pagan state, those scintillating bars of coloured light were the spirits of their forefathers, rank after rank, rushing out to battle. Yet, while on our long trips I have had Indians as guides who became intensely interested in these wondrous visions of the night, I never knew them to lose the trail or become confused as to the proper route. Very pleasant are my memories of different guides and dog-drivers. With very few exceptions they served me loyally and well. Most of them were devoted Christian men. With me they rejoiced to go on these long journeys to their countrymen who were still groping in the darkness, but most of them longing for the light. Many of them were capable of giving exhortations or addresses; and if not able to do this, they could, Paul- like, tell the story of their conversion, and how they had found the Saviour. My heart warms to those faithful men, my companions in many a storm, my bed-fellows in many a cold wintry camp. Memory brings up many incidents where they risked their lives for me, and where, when food was about exhausted, and the possibilities of obtaining additional supplies for days were very poor, they quietly and unostentatiously put themselves on quarter rations, for days together, that their beloved missionary might not starve. Some of them have finished their course. Up the shining trail, following the unerring Guide, they have gone beyond the auroras and beyond the stars right to the throne of God. CHAPTER SEVEN. ON THE TRAIL WITH THE DOGS, TO FIELDS RIPE FOR THE REAPER--THE PLACE-- THE TRIP--THE WINTER CAMP--THE BITTER COLD--ENDURING HARDNESS--DEATH SHAKING HANDS WITH US--MANY DAYS ON THE TRAIL. In January, 1869, I started on my first winter trip to Nelson River, to visit a band of Indians there, who had never yet seen a missionary or heard the glad tidings of salvation. Their principal gatherings were at the little trading post on the Burntwood River. Their hunting grounds extended so very far north that they bordered on those of the Esquimaux, with whom, however, the Indians have no dealings. Between these two races, the Indian and the Esquimaux, there is no affinity whatever. They differ very materially in appearance, language, customs, and beliefs. Though they will seldom engage in open hostilities, yet they are very rarely at peace with each other, and generally strive to keep as far apart as possible. The weather was bitterly cold, as the temperature ranged from thirty- five to fifty-five below zero. Our course was due north all the way. The road we made, for there was none ahead of the snow-shoe tracks of our guide, was a rugged, unbroken forest path. As the country through which we passed is rich in fur-bearing animals, we saw many evidences of their presence, and occasionally crossed a hunter's trail. We passed over twenty little lakes, averaging from one to thirty miles in diameter. Over these our dogs drew us very fast, and we could indulge in the luxury of a ride; but in the portages and wood-roads our progress was very slow, and generally all of us, with our snow-shoes on, and at times with axes in hand, had to tramp on ahead and pack the deep snow down, and occasionally cut out an obstructing log, that our dogs might be able to drag our heavily laden sleds along. Sometimes the trees were so thickly clustered together that it was almost impossible to get our sleds through them. At times we were testing our agility by climbing over fallen trees, and then on our hands and knees had to crawl under reclining ones. Our faces were often bleeding, and our feet bruised. There were times when the strap of my snowshoes so frayed and lacerated my feet that the blood soaked through the moccasins and webbing of the snowshoes, and occasionally the trail was marked with blood. We always travelled in Indian file. At the head ran or walked the guide, as the roads would permit. On these trips, when I got to understand dog- driving, I generally followed next; and behind me were three other dog- trains, each with an Indian driver. Sometimes the snow was so deep that the four dog-drivers went ahead of the dogs, immediately behind the guide, and, keeping in line with him, industriously packed down the snow, that the dogs might the more easily drag the heavy sleds along. The reason why our loads were so heavy was this. We were not in a country where, when night overtook us, we could find some hospitable home to welcome us. Neither were we where there were hotels or houses in which for money we could secure lodgings. We were in one of the most desolate and thinly inhabited parts of the world, where those who travel long distances see no human beings, except the Indian hunters, and these but rarely. Hence, in spite of all our efforts to make our loads as light as possible, they would be heavy, although we were only carrying what was considered absolutely essential. We had to take our provisions, fish for our dogs, kettles, tin dishes, axes, bedding, guns, extra clothing, and various other things, to meet emergencies that might arise. The heaviest item on our sleds was the fish for the dogs. Each dog was fed once a day, and then received two good white fishes, each weighing from four to six pounds. So that if the daily allowance for each dog averaged five pounds, the fish alone on each sled would weigh one hundred and twenty pounds, when we began a trip of a week's duration. Then the bitter cold and the vigorous exercise gave both the drivers and the missionary good appetites, and so the food provided for them was of no insignificant weight. We generally stopped about half an hour before sundown in order to have time, ere darkness enshrouded us, to prepare our camp. As we journeyed on we had observed that the guide who had been running along in front had been, for the last half hour or so, carefully scanning the forest to the right and left. At length he stopped, and as we came up to him we said, "Well, Tom, what is the matter?" His answer is, "Here is a capital place for our camp." "Why do you think so?" we ask. He replies, "Do you see those balsams? They will furnish us with a bed, and this cluster of dry, dead small trees will give us the wood we need for our fire." So we quickly set to work to prepare for our all-night stay in the woods. The dogs were soon unharnessed, and seemed thankful to get their heads out of their collars. They were never tied up, neither did they ever desert us, or take the back track for home. Some of the younger ones often organised a rabbit hunt on their own responsibility, and had some sport. The older and wiser ones looked around for the most cosy and sheltered spots, and there began to prepare their resting-places for the night. They would carefully scrape away the snow until they came to the ground, and there, with teeth and paws, would make the spot as smooth and even as possible. They would then curl themselves up, and patiently wait until they were called to supper. After unharnessing our dogs, our next work was with our axes, and there was a good sharp one for the Missionary, to cut down some of the green balsams and dry dead trees. Then using our snowshoes as shovels, from the place selected for our camp we soon scraped away the snow, piling it up as well as we could to the right, left, and in rear of where we were to sleep. On the ground thus cleared of snow we spread out a layer of the balsam boughs, and in front, where the wind would blow the smoke from us, we made up a large fire with the small dry trees which we had cut down. On this blazing log fire we put our two kettles, which we had filled with snow. When it melted down, we refilled the kettles, until enough water was secured. In the large kettle we boiled a piece of fat meat, of goodly size, and in the other we made our tea. On my first trip I carried with me a tin basin, a towel, and a cake of soap. At our first camp-fire, when the snow had been melted in our kettle, I asked the guide to give me a little of the water in my basin. Suspecting the purpose for which I wanted it, he said, "What are you going to do with it?" "Wash my face and hands," I replied. Very earnestly he answered, "Please, Missionary, do not do so." I was longing for a good wash, for I felt like a chimney-sweep. We had been travelling for hours through a region of country where, in the previous summer, great forest fires had raged, leaving many of the trunks of the trees charred and black. Against some of them we had often rubbed, and to some of them, or their branches, we had had to cling as we went dashing down some of the ravines. The result of these weary hours of toil amidst charred trunks was very visible, and I rejoiced that an opportunity had arrived when I could wash off the sooty stuff. Great indeed was my surprise to hear this strong protest on the part of my guide against my doing anything of the kind. "Why should I not wash?" I said, holding up my blackened hands. "You must not let water touch you out in the open air, when it is so very cold as it is to-day," was his answer. I was very inexperienced then, and not willing to lose my wash, which I so much needed, I did not heed the warning. Having a blazing fire before me and a good dry towel, I ventured to take the wash, and for a minute or two after felt much better. Soon, however, there were strange prickling sensations on the tops of my hands, and then they began to chap and bleed, and they became very sore, and did not get well for weeks. The one experiment of washing in the open air with the temperature in the fifties below zero was quite enough. In the following years I left the soap at home and only carried the towel. When very much in need of a wash, I had to be content with a dry rub with the towel. Mrs Young used to say, when I returned from some of these trips, that I looked like old mahogany. The bath was then considered a much-needed luxury. For our food, when travelling in such cold weather, we preferred the fattest meat we could obtain. From personal experience I can endorse the statements of Arctic explorers about the value of fat or oil and blubber as articles of food, and the natural craving of the system for them. Nothing else seemed to supply the same amount of internal heat. As the result of experience, we carried the fattest kind of meat. As soon as the snow was melted down in the larger of our kettles, meat sufficient for our party was soon put on and boiled. While it was cooking, we thawed out the frozen fish for our dogs. Such is the effect of the frost that they were as hard as stone, and it would have been cruel to have given them in that state to the noble animals that served us so well. Our plan was to put down a small log in front of the fire, so close to it that when the fish were placed against it, the intensity of the heat would soon thaw them out. The hungry dogs were ever sharp enough to know when their supper was being prepared; and as it was the only meal of the day for them, they crowded around us and were impatient at times, and had to be restrained. Sometimes, in their eagerness and anxiety for their food--for it often required a long time for the fire to thaw the fishes sufficiently for us to bend them--the dogs in crowding one before the other would get into a fight, and then there would be trouble. Two dogs of the same train very seldom fought with each other. Yoke-fellows in toil, they were too wise to try to injure each other in needless conflict. So, when a battle began, the dogs quickly ranged themselves on the sides of their own comrades, and soon it was a conflict of train against train. At first I thought it cruel not to feed them more frequently, but I found, as all experienced dog-drivers had told me, that one good meal a day was the best for them. So great were my sympathies for them that sometimes I would give them a good breakfast in the morning; but it did not turn out to be of any real benefit. The additional meal made them sluggish and short-winded, and they did not seem to thrive so well. Good white fish was the best food we could give them, and on this diet they could thrive and work as on no other. A goodly number of _dog-shoes_ were very necessary on these wild, rough trips. Dogs' feet are tender, and are liable to injury from various causes. On the smooth glare ice the pads of the feet would sometimes wear so thin that they bled a good deal. Then on the rough roads there was always the danger of their breaking off a claw or running a sliver through the webbing between the toes. Many of the wise old dogs that had become accustomed to these shoes, and thus knew their value, would suddenly stop the whole train, and by holding up an injured foot very eloquently, if mutely, tell the reason why they had done so. The dog-shoes are like heavy woollen mits without the thumbs, made in different sizes. When a foot is injured, the mit is drawn on and securely tied with a piece of soft deer-skin. Then the grateful dog, which perhaps had refused to move before, springs to his work, often giving out his joyous barks of gratitude. So fond do some of the dogs become of these warm woollen shoes that instances are known where they have come into the camp from their cold resting-places in the snow, and would not be content until the men got up and put shoes on all of their feet. Then, with every demonstration of gratitude, they have gone back to their holes in the snow. Our dogs having been fed, we next make our simple arrangements for our own supper. A number of balsam boughs are spread over the spot near the fires, from which the snow has been scraped away by our snowshoes. On these is laid our table-cloth, which was generally an empty flour bag, cut down the side. Our dishes, all of tin, are placed in order, and around we gather with vigorous appetites. It is fortunate that they are so good, as otherwise our homely fare would not be much prized. The large piece of fat meat is served up in a tin pan, and our pint cups are filled up with hot tea. If we are fortunate enough to have some bread, which was far from being always the case, we thaw it out and eat it with our meat. Vegetables were unknown on these trips. Our great staple was fat meat, and the fatter the better; morning, noon, and night, and often between times did we stop and eat fat meat. If we did vary the _menu_, it would be by making a raid on the dogs' supply, and in the evening camp cooking ourselves a good kettle of fish. As we dared not wash our hands or faces, of course such a thing as washing dishes was unknown. When supper was in progress, Jack Frost made us busy in keeping ourselves and provisions warm. I have seen the large piece of meat put back into the pot three times during the one meal, to warm it up. I have seen the ice gather on the top of the cup of tea that a few minutes before was boiling vigorously in the kettle. After supper wood was cut, to be in readiness for the morning's fire; and every break in clothes or harness was repaired, that there might be no delay in making a good start. Then the guide, who always had charge of all these things, when satisfied that all was arranged, would say, "Missionary, we are ready for prayers." The Bible and Hymn-book were brought out, and the Indians gathered round me, and there together we offered up our evening devotions. Would that our readers could have seen us! The background is of dense balsam trees, whose great drooping branches, partially covered with snow, sweep the ground. Above us are the bright stars, and, it may be, the flashing auroras. In front of us is the blazing fire, and scattered around us, in picturesque confusion, are our dog-sleds, snow-shoes, harness, and the other essentials of our outfit. A few of the dogs generally insisted on remaining up until their masters had retired, and they were now to be seen in various postures around us. With uncovered heads, no matter how intense the cold, my Christian Indians listened reverently, while in their own language I read from the precious volume which they have learned to love so well. Then together we sang a hymn. Frequently it would be the Evening Hymn, the first verse of which in their beautiful Cree language is as follows:-- "Ne mahmechemon ne muntome Kahke wastanahmahweyan, Kah nah way yemin Kechabyah Ah kwah-nahtahtah-kwahnaoon." After singing we bow in prayer. There is there, as there should be everywhere, a consciousness of our dependence upon the great Helper for protection and support, and so the prayer we sang:-- "Keep me, O keep me, King of Kings, Beneath Thine own Almighty wings." is indeed our heart's desire. Sometimes we are a hundred and fifty miles from the nearest human habitation. We are camping out in the woods in a hole dug in the snow. We have no walls around us but the snow thrown out of the place in which we are huddled, with perhaps the addition of some balsam boughs. We have no roof above us but the stars. There in that place we are going to lie down and try to sleep during that bitter cold night. The light fire will soon go out. A foot of snow may fall upon us, and its coming will be welcomed, as its warmth will lessen our shivering. Prowling grey wolves may come near us, but the terrible Frost King is more to be feared than they. Does anybody, who knows the efficacy of prayer, wonder that, as we draw near to God, "by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving," we crave the assurance of His favour and smile, and that He, Who never slumbers or sleeps, will be our Guardian and our Friend? After prayers we soon _retire to rest_. The guide's familiar words soon after prayers used to be, "Now, Missionary, I will make your bed." This was his work, and he was an adept at it. He first spread out a layer of evergreen boughs, and then on these he laid a large buffalo robe, and upon this a heavy blanket. Then, placing my pillow so that my head would be farthest away from the fire, he would say to me, "Now, if you will get into bed, I will cover you up and tuck you in." Such a thing as disrobing out there in a wintry camp is unknown, unless, as the result of the violent exercise of running all day, a person's underclothing has become very damp by perspiration, and it is not safe to sleep in it in that condition. Some travellers sleep in a fur bag, in which they manage to insert themselves, and then have it tightened around their necks. Then a large fur hood over the usual head-gear completes their sleeping apparel. I used to wrap myself up in a heavy overcoat over my usual apparel, and then putting on long buffalo-skin boots, fur mits, cap, cape, and big mufflers, considered myself rigged up for retiring. When thus wrapped, I used to have some difficulty in getting down into the bed, although it was only on the ground. When in position, the guide would throw over me another heavy blanket and fur robe. Then very skilfully, and in a way most motherly, he would begin at my feet and carefully tuck me in. Rapidly and deftly did he proceed with his work, and almost before I was aware of what he was doing, he had reached my head, which he began to cover completely up with the heavy robe which he seemed to be crowding down under my back and shoulders. The first time he packed me in in this manner I was only able to stand it for a minute or two, as I thought I should be smothered. So I very suddenly threw up my arms and sent the whole upper covering off in a hurry. "Do you wish to smother me, man?" I said. "I cannot live with my head covered up like that!" Without any annoyance at my having so quickly undone his work, he replied very kindly, "I know it must be hard work for you white people to sleep with your heads completely covered up, but you will have to do it here, or you will freeze to death. You must be very careful, for this seems to be a very cold night indeed." Then he called my attention to the distant thunder-like sounds which we had been hearing occasionally during the evening. That, he told me, was the ice, from four to six feet thick, on the great lake, cracking in the bitter cold. "Look at the smoke," he added. "See how it keeps very near the ground. It does that in the bitter cold nights." From the trees around us we heard occasionally a sharp pistol-like report, loud enough at times to make a nervous person fancy that lurking enemies were firing at us. The observant Indians say these loud reports are burstings in the trees caused by the freezing of the sap. Admiring his cleverness and kindness, I told him that I had been taught that every person requires so many cubic feet of fresh air; and, cold or no cold, how did he think I could get my share with my head covered up as he desired? "You must do with less out here," he said, as he proceeded to cover me up again, while I tried to arrange myself so that I could at least have a small portion of air. Kindly and patiently he humoured me, and then, when he had finished tucking me in, he said, "Now, Missionary, good-night; but don't stir. If you do, you may disarrange your coverings while you sleep, and you may freeze to death without waking up." "Don't stir!" What a command, I thought, to give a tired traveller whose bones ache from his long snow-shoe tramping in the woods, whose nerves and muscles are unstrung, and who, like others when thus fatigued, has even found it helpful to his rest and comfort to turn occasionally and stretch his limbs! In this frame of mind, and under this order, which, after all, I felt must be obeyed for fear of the dire results that might follow, I at length managed to fall asleep, for I was very weary. After a while I woke up to a state of semi-consciousness, and found myself tugging and pulling at what I thought in my dreamy condition was the end of an axe handle. The vague impression on my mind was, that some careless Indian had left his axe just behind my head, and in the night the handle had fallen across my face, and I had now got hold of the end of it. Fortunately for me, I very quickly after this woke fully up, and then found out that what I had imagined to be the end of an axe handle was my own nose; and a badly frozen one it was, and both of my ears were about in the same condition. With the guide's last orders in my ears, I think I must have gone to sleep all right, but I suppose, from the unusual smothering sensation, unconsciously I must have pushed down the robes from my face, and uncovered my head and my hand, and then gradually returned to consciousness with the above results. However, after a few nights of this severe kind of discipline, I at length became as able to sleep with my head covered up as an Indian. When a foot or eighteen inches of snow fell upon us, we rejoiced, for it added to our comfort, and caused us to sleep the better. Under this additional covering we generally rested a couple of hours longer than usual, often to make up for the loss of sleep of the previous nights, when we had found it impossible, or had considered it dangerous, to go to sleep. The hardest work and the most disagreeable is the getting up from such a bed in such a place. Often, in spite of the intense cold, we are in a kind of a clammy perspiration, on account of the many wraps and coverings about us. As we throw off these outer garments, and spring up in our camp, Jack Frost instantly assails us in a way that makes us shiver, and often some are almost compelled to cry out in bitter anguish. Fortunately the wood is always prepared the night before, and so, as quickly as possible, a great roaring fire is built up, and our breakfast of strong tea and fat meat is prepared and eaten with all speed. There were times when the morning outlook was gloomy indeed, and our position was not an enviable one. On one of my trips, of only a hundred and eighty miles, in order to save expense, I only took with me one companion, and he was a young Indian lad of about sixteen years of age. We each had our own train of dogs, and as Old Voyager was leader we guided him by voice alone, and he did not disappoint us. One morning, when we sprang up from our wintry camp-bed, we found that several inches of snow had fallen upon us during the night. As soon as possible we arranged our wood in order and endeavoured to kindle our fire. We had been late the previous evening in reaching this camping place, and so had to grope around in the rapidly increasing darkness for our wood. It was of very inferior quality, but as we had succeeded in cooking our suppers with part of it, we had not anticipated any trouble with the rest. The snow which had fallen upon it had not improved it, and so, as we lighted match after match, we were at first disgusted, and then alarmed, at finding that the poor stuff persistently refused to ignite. Of course we had to take our hands out of our big fur mits when trying to light the matches. Before we had succeeded in our attempts to start the fire our hands began to chill, and soon they were so powerless that we were not able to hold a match in our fingers. Very naturally we became alarmed, but we persevered as long as possible. I remember that, taking one of the matches between my teeth and holding up an axe before me, I tried to jerk my head quick enough to light it in that way, but the experiment was not a success. Suddenly there came the consciousness that we were not far from perishing if we could not make a fire. I quickly turned to my young comrade, and saw by the look in his face that he also grasped the situation, and was terrified at the outlook. "Alec," I said, "this is a serious thing for us." "Yes, Missionary," said he. "I am afraid we die here. If we can make no fire and have no breakfast, I am afraid we will freeze to death." "Not so bad as that yet, Alec," I said. "God is our refuge and help. He has given us other ways by which we can get warm. As quickly as possible get on your snow-shoes, and up with your hood and on with your mits, and I will do likewise, and now see if you can catch me." In much less time than I have taken to describe it, we were rigged up for rapid snow-shoe running, and were off. Away I rushed through the woods as rapidly as I could on my snow-shoes. The lad followed me, and thus we ran chasing and catching each other alternately as though we were a couple of boisterous schoolboys instead of a Missionary and his Indian companion striving to save themselves from freezing to death. After about half an hour of this most vigorous exercise, we felt the warmth coming back to our bodies, and then the hot blood began working its way out to our benumbed hands, and by-and-by we could bend our fingers again. When we felt the comfortable glow of warmth over our whole bodies, we rushed back again to the camp, and, gathering a quantity of birch bark which we found loosely hanging from the trees, and which is very inflammable, we soon had a good fire and then our hot breakfast. At our morning devotions which followed there was a good deal of thanksgiving, and the grateful spirit continued in our hearts as we packed up our loads, harnessed up our dogs, and sped on our way. It was a very narrow escape. The King of Terrors looked us both in the face that cold morning, and very nearly chilled us into death by the icy fingers of the Frost King. As the hours of daylight in the winter months in these high latitudes are so few, we generally roused ourselves up several hours before daylight. Often my kind-hearted men endeavoured to get up first, and have a rousing fire made and breakfast cooked, before I would awake. This, however, did not occur very often, as such a bed was not conducive to sleep; so, generally, after about four or five hours in such a state of suffocation, I was thankful to get up the instant I heard any one stirring. I would rather freeze to death than be suffocated. There were times not a few when I was the first to get up, and kindle the fire and cook the breakfast before I called my faithful wearied companions, who, long accustomed to such hardships, could sleep on soundly, where for me it was an absolute impossibility. Sometimes my men, when thus aroused, would look up at the stars and say "Assam weputch," _i.e._, "Very early." All I had to do was to look gravely at my watch, and this satisfied them that it was all right. The breakfast was quickly eaten, our prayers were said, our sleds loaded, dogs captured and harnessed--with the Esquimaux ones this was not always an easy task--and we were ready to start. Before starting we generally threw the evergreen brush on which we had slept on the fire, and by its ruddy, cheerful light began our day's journey. When some mornings we made from twenty-five to forty miles before sunrise, the Indians began to think the stars were about right after all, and the Missionary's watch very fast. However, they were just as willing to get on rapidly as I was, and so did not find fault with the way in which I endeavoured to hurry our party along. I paid them extra whenever the record of a trip was broken, and we could lessen the number of nights in those open-air camps in the snow. We were six days in making our first winter trip to Nelson River. In after years we reduced it to four days. The trail is through one of the finest fur-producing regions of the North-West. Here the wandering Indian hunters make their living by trapping such animals as the black and silver foxes, as well as the more common varieties of that animal. Here are to be found otters, minks, martens, beavers, ermines, bears, wolves, and many other kinds of the fur-bearing animals. Here the black bears are very numerous. On one canoe trip one summer we saw no less than seven of them, one of which we shot and lived on for several days. Here come the adventurous fur traders to purchase these valuable skins, and great fortunes have been made in the business. If, merely to make money and get rich, men are willing to come and put up with the hardships and privations of the country, what a disgrace to us if, for their souls' sake, we are afraid to follow in these hunters' trail, or, if need be, show them the way, that we may go with the glad story of a Saviour's love! CHAPTER EIGHT. NELSON RIVER--A DEMONSTRATIVE WELCOME--FIRST RELIGIOUS SERVICE--A FOUR HOURS' SERMON--THE CHIEF'S ELOQUENT REPLY--THE OLD MAN WITH GRANDCHILDREN IN HIS WIGWAM--"OUR FATHER"--"THEN WE ARE BROTHERS"--"YES"--"THEN WHY IS THE WHITE BROTHER SO LONG TIME IN COMING WITH THE GOSPEL TO HIS RED BROTHER?"--GLORIOUS SUCCESSES. It was at my second visit to Nelson River that the work really commenced. Through some unforeseen difficulty at the first visit, many of the natives were away. Hunting is even at the best a precarious mode of obtaining a livelihood. Then, as the movements of the herds of deer, upon the flesh of which many of these Indians subsist for the greater part of the year, are very erratic, it is often difficult to arrange for a place of meeting, where food can be obtained in sufficient abundance while the religious services are being held. It used to be very discouraging, after having travelled for several days together, either by canoe in summer, or dog-trains in winter, to reach a certain place which had been arranged for meeting, and find very few present. The deer, and other animals on which they had expected to live, had gone in another direction, and the Indians had been obliged to follow them. Everything, however, favoured us on our second visit. We found over fifty families camped at the place of meeting, and full of curiosity to see the Missionary. They had all sorts of strange notions in their minds. When Mr Rundle, of the English Wesleyan Church, first went among some of the wild tribes of the great Saskatchewan country, with his open Bible, preaching the wonderful Gospel truths, great was the excitement of the people to know where this strange man had come from. So a great council was summoned, and the conjurers were ordered to find out all about it. After a great deal of drumming and dreaming and conjuring, they gravely reported that this strange man with his wonderful book had been wrapped up in an envelope, and had come down from the Great Spirit on a rainbow! The Nelson River Indians welcomed me very cordially, and were much more demonstrative in their greetings than were any of the other tribes I had visited, although I had had my share of strange welcomes. Here the custom of handshaking was but little known, but the more ancient one of kissing prevailed. Great indeed was my amazement when I found myself surrounded by two hundred and fifty or three hundred wild Indians, men, women, and children, whose faces seemed in blissful ignorance of soap and water, but all waiting to kiss me. I felt unable to stand the ordeal, and so I managed to put them off with a shake of the hand, and a kind word or two. At eight o'clock the next morning we called the Indians together for the first public religious service which most of them had ever attended. They were intensely interested. My Christian Indians from Norway House aided me in the opening services, and, being sweet singers, added very much to the interest. We sang several hymns, read a couple of lessons from the Bible, and engaged in prayer. At about nine o'clock I read as my text those sublime words: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." They listened with the most enrapt attention, while for four hours I talked to them of some of the truths of this glorious verse. They had never heard a sermon before; they were ignorant of the simplest truths of our blessed Christianity; and so I had to make everything plain and clear as I went along. I could not take anything for granted with that audience. So I had to take them back to the Creation and Fall. Then I spoke of God's love in providence and grace; and of His greatest act of love, the gift of His only begotten beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who died that we might live. I dwelt on the benefits which come to us from the personal acceptance of this Saviour. I tried hard to show how we, who had wandered so far away, were invited back to actual adoption into God's great family, as a conscious reality. I spoke of the universality and impartiality of God's love; of His willingness to receive all, to fill our hearts with joy and peace, to comfort us all through life, to sustain us in death, and then to take us to everlasting life in a world of light and glory. The ever-blessed Spirit most graciously applied the truth, as I tried, in the simplest and plainest way, to bring it down to their comprehension. The attention they gave showed that my words were being understood. Their bright eyes glistened and at times were suffused with tears, and as I closed the long-pent-up silence gave place to loud exclamations of delight. Then we translated into their language and sang part of the good old hymn:-- "O for a thousand tongues to sing My great Redeemer's praise, The glories of my God and King, The triumphs of His grace!" Again we bowed in prayer, and, at my request, they repeated after me all the petitions which in short easy sentences we offered up to Him Who is the Hearer and Answerer of prayer. A spirit of awe and solemnity seemed to rest upon us. It was the first time the great majority had ever attempted to pray in the Name of Jesus, and I felt a sweet assurance that those simple petitions, from the hearts and lips of those poor Indians, were not despised by Him Whose great heart of love beats so true to all. After prayer I requested them all to again seat themselves on the ground, as I wished to hear from them about these great truths which I had come so far to tell them of. I wanted to know what were their wishes and determinations about becoming Christians. When I had finished, every eye turned towards the principal chief, as these Indians, like the other tribes, have their unwritten laws of precedence. He rose up from his place among his people, and, coming near me on my right hand, he made one of the most thrilling addresses I ever heard. Years have passed away since that hour, and yet the memory of that tall, straight, impassioned Indian is as vivid as ever. His actions were many, but all were graceful. His voice was particularly fine and full of pathos, for he spoke from his heart. Here is the bare outline of his speech, as, with my interpreter to aid me, I shortly afterwards wrote it down. "Missionary, I have long lost faith in our old paganism." Then pointing down to the outer edge of the audience, where some old conjurers and medicine men were seated, he said, "They know I have not cared for our old religion. I have neglected it. And I will tell you, Missionary, why I have not believed in our old paganism for a long time. I hear God in the thunder, in the tempest, and in the storm; I see His power in the lightning that shivers the tree into kindling wood; I see His goodness in giving us the moose, the reindeer, the beaver, and the bear; I see His loving-kindness in giving us, when the south winds blow, the ducks and geese; and when the snow and ice melt away, and our lakes and rivers are open again, I see how He fills them with fish. I have watched these things for years, and I see how during every moon of the year He gives us something; and so He has arranged it, that if we are only industrious and careful, we can always have something to eat. So thinking about these things which I had observed, I made up my mind years ago, that this Great Spirit, so kind and so watchful and so loving, did not care for the beating of the conjurer's drum, or the shaking of the rattle of the medicine man. So I for years have had no religion." Then turning towards me and looking me in the face, he said, in tones that thrilled me, "Missionary, what you have said to-day fills up my heart and satisfies all its longings. It is just what I have been expecting to hear about the Great Spirit. I am so glad you have come with this wonderful story. Stay as long as you can; and when you have to go away, do not forget us, but come again as soon as you can." Loud expressions of approval greeted these words of the chief. When he had finished, I said, "I want to hear from others, and I want your own views on these important things." Many responded to my request, and, with the exception of an old conjurer or two, who feared for their occupation, all spoke in the same strain as did the head chief. The last to speak was an old man with grizzly hair, and wild, excited movements. He was a queer, savage-looking man, and came from the rear of the company to the front with strange springy movements. His hair was braided, and reached to his knees. Threading his way through the audience, he came up close to me, and then, pushing his fingers into his hair as far as its braided condition would allow, he exclaimed in a tone full of earnestness, "Missionary, once my hair was as black as a crow's wing, now it is getting white. Grey hairs here, and grandchildren in the wigwam, tell me that I am getting to be an old man; and yet I never before heard such things as you have told us to-day. I am so glad I did not die before I heard this wonderful story. Yet I am getting old. Grey hairs here, and grandchildren yonder, tell the story. Stay as long as you can, Missionary, tell us much of these things, and when you have to go away, come back soon, for I have grandchildren, and I have grey hairs, and may not live many winters more. Do come back soon." He turned as though he would go back to his place and sit down; but he only went a step or two ere he turned round and faced me, and said, "Missionary, may I say more?" "Talk on," I said. "I am here now to listen." "You said just now, `Notawenan.'" ("Our Father.") "Yes," I said, "I did say, `Our Father.'" "That is very new and sweet to us," he said. "We never thought of the Great Spirit as Father: we heard Him in the thunder, and saw Him in the lightning, and tempest; and blizzard, and we were afraid. So, when you tell us of the Great Spirit as Father, that is very beautiful to us." Hesitating a moment, he stood there, a wild, picturesque Indian, yet my heart had strangely gone out in loving interest and sympathy to him. Lifting up his eyes to mine, again he said, "May I say more?" "Yes," I answered, "say on." "You say, `Notawenan'." ("_Our_ Father"). "He is your Father?" "Yes, He is my Father." Then he said, while his eyes and voice yearned for the answer, "Does it mean He is my Father--poor Indian's Father?" "Yes, O yes!" I exclaimed. "He is your Father too." "Your Father--missionary's Father, and Indian's Father, too!" he repeated. "Yes, that is true," I answered. "Then we are brothers?" he almost shouted out. "Yes, we are brothers," I replied. The excitement in the audience had become something wonderful. When our conversation with the old man had reached this point, and in such an unexpected, and yet dramatic manner, had so clearly brought out, not only the Fatherhood of God, but the oneness of the human family, the people could hardly restrain their expressions of delight. The old man, however, had not yet finished, and so, quietly restraining the most demonstrative ones, he again turned to me, and said,-- "May I say more?" "Yes, say on; say all that is in your heart." Never can I forget his answer. "Well, I do not want to be rude, but it does seem to me that you, my white brother, have been a long time in coming with that great Book and its wonderful story, to tell it to your red brothers in the woods." This question thrilled me, and I found it hard to answer. This is the question that millions of weary, longing, waiting souls, dissatisfied with their false religions, and craving for that soul rest which only can be found in the hearty acceptance of the glorious Gospel of the Son of God, are asking. I tried to apologise for the slowness of the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom, and the apathy of those who, while acknowledging the brotherhood of humanity, so often forget that they are their brother's keeper. We closed the service for a brief period, and then, as soon as a hurried dinner had been eaten, we all assembled again for the afternoon service. This second service lasted for five hours. After singing and prayer, I read the beautiful story of the Ethiopian eunuch, and the Baptismal Service. I endeavoured to explain what we meant by becoming Christians, and stated that I was willing to baptize all who would renounce their paganism, with its polygamy, conjuring, gambling, and other vices, and from that time begin to worship the true God. Polygamy was the greatest stumbling-block among them, as some of them had three or four wives. Intemperance here is but little known, on account perhaps of the great difficulty of importing liquor into a region so remote from civilisation. After I had spent a long time in making clear the doctrines or the blessed Book, and had answered many questions, I invited all who were willing to comply with these conditions, and desired baptism, to come to the front of the audience, where I was standing. About forty men and women immediately responded, and came forward and seated themselves at my feet. Some were trembling, others were weeping: all seemed deeply moved. Then I read the beautiful Scripture lessons in connection with the baptismal service for children, and dwelt upon the love of Jesus for children, and His willingness to receive them. I invited the parents to consecrate their children to God, even if they themselves were as yet undecided. We had a solemn and impressive time. All desired new names, and for the great majority I had to make the selection. While baptizing them and selecting Christian names as additions to their generally poetic and expressive Indian names, my constant prayer was, that they might "see His face, and His name" be Written "in their foreheads." Still there was some opposition. Satan would not thus easily be dispossessed or driven out. Old conjurers and medicine men, faithful followers of the enemy, quickly began their opposition. Their selfish natures were aroused. They were shrewd enough to see that if I succeeded, as I was likely to do, they, like Demetrius, the shrine-maker of Diana, would soon be without an occupation. So at this afternoon gathering they were there to oppose. But they were in such a helpless minority that they dared do no worse than storm and threaten. One savage old conjurer rushed up to me, just as I was about to baptize his wife, who, with many others, had come for this sign and seal of her acceptance of Christ. Before I had perceived his purpose, or had power to stop him, he seized and shook her roughly, and, looking at me, in his impotent wrath, said in an insulting manner,-- "Call her Atim," ("dog"). "No," I said, looking kindly at the poor trembling woman, "I will do nothing of the kind; but I will give her the sweetest name ever borne by woman, for it was the name of the mother of Jesus." So I baptized her Mary. We spent several days in giving lessons in the Syllabic characters between the religious services, three of which we endeavoured to hold each day. Sometimes we assembled all the people together, and, with these characters marked on the side of a rock with a burnt stick, we taught them as best we could. At other times we went from tent to tent, and gave them lessons, and had religious conversation and prayer. It was on one of these rounds of wigwam visitations that I came across Pe-pe-qua-na-pua, or Sandy Harte, the story of whose life and conversion has been so widely circulated. Several acquired such a knowledge of these characters that, by persevering for a few weeks, they were able to read very nicely in the blessed Book. I left with them several dozen copies of the New Testament, Hymn-books, and Catechisms, in their own language. So great was their anxiety for religious instruction, that many of them remained for three days after they had eaten all of their provisions. When I first heard this, I could hardly credit it, but found out by personal investigation that it was the actual fact. With tears in their eyes they bade me farewell, and said, that on account of their famishing children they must start off for their fishing and hunting grounds. But they added, "What we have heard from you will make us glad and thankful all the time." With my faithful travelling companions, I made a trip out from Nelson River to another small band about thirty miles away. We spent the Sabbath in a miserable wigwam, where the snow and sleet dashed in upon us, making us shiver in spite of all we could do. Still, as the poor Indians were anxious to hear the Gospel, we soon forgot our physical discomforts in the joy of preaching this great salvation. Nineteen of them accepted Christ as their Saviour, and were baptized. We held a meeting for the purpose of hearing them tell of their wishes as to this blessed religion. Many very interesting things were said. We here record only one. A fine-looking man said, "What has fully decided me to endeavour to be a good Christian all my days is this. The Missionary has told us many reasons, all sufficient to decide us; but the one that came very near to my heart was, that all the little children who have died have been taken to that better land, and there they are with the loving Saviour in heaven. My little ones have passed away, leaving my heart sore and bleeding. I yearn after them; I long to meet them again. So I want so to live that when I die Jesus will permit me to embrace them, and never be separated from them again." On this trip, we found at another small encampment a young girl, about twelve years of age, dying of consumption. I talked to her of Jesus and heaven, and prayed with her several times. When the closing scene drew near, she said to her sorrowing mother, "I am glad the praying man has told me such words of comfort. I have lost that dread of death I had. I believe that dear Jesus will take me to that better land; but, mother, when you come, will you look for me until you find me? for I do wish to see you again." Is it any wonder that I became deeply attached to these Nelson River Indians? I visited them twice a year, and by pen and voice pleaded for them until my heart's desire was obtained, and a brother beloved volunteered to go and live among them. Of him with joy I write. CHAPTER NINE. A WELCOME ACCESSION--THE REVEREND JOHN SEMMENS--A DEVOTED YOUNG MISSIONARY--FIRST TO RESIDE AT NELSON RIVER--IN LABOURS AND IN PERILS OFT--IN JOURNEYINGS OFT BY DOG-TRAINS TOGETHER--THE CENTENARIAN OLD CHRISTIAN--WILLIAM PAPANEKIS--HIS GODLY LIFE AND WONDROUS TRANSLATION. One cold wintry morning we were gladdened by the arrival of a dear brother and colleague in the work, the Reverend John Semmens, who had left a comfortable charge in Ontario, and had come out to help me in the prosecution of the blessed work. Brother Semmens had to taste, early in his missionary work among the Indians, some of the dangers incident to such a life. He came to us at Norway House in the depth of the winter, and suffered much from the intense cold and blizzard storms. One night, while trying to rest in the camp in the woods on his way out, a fierce storm blew down a large tree, which fell very close to him. Providentially no one was hurt. He soon became very popular among the Indians, for whom he subsequently gave many years of successful, self-denying toil. His presence with us in our home was a great joy. None but those who have been deprived of the pleasure of the society and fellowship of kindred spirits can realise what a benediction this sweet-spirited and devoted young brother was in our home. With one great object before us, that of doing the greatest possible good we could to the Indians among whom we were called to labour, and fortunately seeing "eye to eye" as to the methods of our work, we spent some months and broken years in harmony in doing what we could. Brother Semmens' name will ever be associated with the Nelson River Mission, as he was the first missionary to go and live in that region of country and among those wandering Aborigines, who had received me with such expressions of joy when on my visits, so few, alas! and far between. Very many indeed were Mr Semmens' hardships. Their wandering life made his work slow and at times discouraging. He had not at first a knowledge of their language, and could not always get an interpreter. However, as the love of Christ was the constraining motive, he persevered, and great indeed was his success among them. We will not here insert any of the many thrilling incidents of his romantic pioneer work among them. We hope that from his fluent pen will come his own record, which will be a very valuable addition to missionary literature. Often did we, like the early ones sent out by the Master in pairs, go together on some long and difficult exploring tours. At many a camp-fire and in many a wigwam have we talked and pleaded with the wandering Indians, and have besought them to be reconciled to God. Hundreds of miles have we tramped on together, until our limbs were cramped and our feet were bleeding; and then, in the cold camp after supper and prayers, have we crowded in close together under the same robes and tried to sleep. Will either of us ever forget the trip in to District Meeting at Winnipeg, where on the great Lake we got separated from the rest of our party, but by rapid travelling reached the comfortable home and cordial welcome of our beloved Chairman, the Reverend George Young, thus escaping the terrible blizzard in which so many suffered? Then the return trip was equally exciting and perilous. We left Winnipeg on the Saturday afternoon with our heavily loaded dog sleds. At Mr Sifton's, near Selkirk, we were cordially welcomed, and here we remained in quiet rest and joyous worship during the Sabbath day. When the clock struck the hour of midnight, we exchanged our black clothes for our leather suits. We harnessed up our dogs, and then, after eating a midnight meal, we bade our host and hostess farewell, and pushed out under the stars on our long journey to the far North. Mr Semmens' journey would not be finished until he was six or seven hundred miles nearer the North Pole. Mr Sifton told me in after years, that they could only sit there and weep as they thought of our starting off in the bitter cold and gloom of that midnight hour on such a journey. Missionary work to them from that hour took on itself additional interest, and ever after much greater, if possible, was their love for those who for His sake were willing to endure hardness in extending the knowledge of His Name. Ere the sun rose, we were near the Willow Islands, and there we had our breakfast. It was getting late in the winter season, and so the reflection of the brilliant rays of the sun on the dazzlingly white snowy waste of Winnipeg gave us both a touch of snow-blindness. Still, as we could see a little, we only stopped when it was necessary, and rapidly hurried on. When about twenty miles from Beren's River night came down upon us; but I could not bear the idea of having again to sleep in a miserable camp when home was so near, for at this time I was in charge of the new work among the Saulteaux. So I said to Brother Semmens, and to our two well-disciplined dog-drivers, "Courage, men, a little longer; let us not stop here in the bitter cold when our homes are so near." The Indians responded with a will, and rejoiced that we were to go on. But my beloved Brother Semmens was completely tired out, and my heart was filled with sorrow as I saw how utterly exhausted he was. Throwing himself down on the cold, icy surface of the lake, he said, "Throw me out a blanket and a piece of pemmican, and leave me here. I cannot go a step further. The rest of you have wives and children to lure you on to your homes; I have none. I can go no farther. My feet are bleeding from the straps of my snowshoes. I will stay here. Never mind me." Thus the dear fellow talked, for he was exhausted and discouraged. I did not feel much better, but I tried to put a bold face on the matter, and I said, "No, indeed, we will not leave you here. We are going on, and we are going to take you with us; and a good supper under a roof, and then a warm bed, are to be yours before morning comes." One of my dogs, called Muff, a magnificent but over-ambitious St. Bernard, the gift of Mrs Andrew Allen, of Montreal, had broken her collar-bone during this trip. The plan generally adopted, when such an accident happens to one of the dogs, was to kill it at once, and then push on with the diminished train. However, as Muff was such a valuable dog, and there was a possibility of her recovering, I decided to carry her home, although we were a long distance from it. I so arranged my sled that she could ride upon it, and she soon became quite reconciled to her place. But it meant a good deal of hard running for me. Before the accident occurred, I could ride a great part of the time, although we had over six hundred pounds weight upon the sled. However, as Jack was one of the train, I was able to ride when the ice was good. Now, however, with one dog less in the train, and that one as so much additional weight on the sled, it meant the end of my riding for that trip. Very quickly did I decide how to act in order to help my dear companion in tribulation. With our axes my Indians and myself chopped a hole in the solidly packed snow and ice near the shore of the lake. In this we spread out a buffalo robe, and on it we placed the injured dog. Then around her we placed the greater part of the load of the dog-sled, and then covered all up as well as we could with the large deer-skin sleigh wrapper. Giving the dog orders to guard well the supplies from prowling wild animals, and making a large number of tracks as an additional precaution, we left Muff there with her goods. Then we drove the dogs over to the spot where Mr Semmens lay, and, wrapping him well up in robes and putting a little pillow under his head, we tied him on the sled, and started off on the last stage of our journey. We were all so weary that we made but slow progress, and it was after midnight ere the welcome Mission House was reached, and we were within the walls of home. Mr Semmens had fortunately slept most of the way. A good supper, after a warm bath, and then a long, sweet, dreamless sleep, that lasted until nearly noon of the next day, wonderfully refreshed his spirits, and as he came down and greeted us, his first words were, "O Egerton, I am so glad you did not leave me there to perish on the ice!" Still in his prime, with a noble wife and precious children around him, he is in that land doing good service for the Master. From him we yet expect to hear good tidings, for in physical strength and mental equipment and thorough consecration to his work he is the peer of any who there toil. THE CENTENARIAN. One of the first Indians to attract our attention at Norway House was a venerable-looking old man of more than usual height. His appearance was quite patriarchal. His welcome had been most cordial, and his words seemed to us like a loving benediction. He called us his children, and welcomed us to our home and work in the name of the Lord Jesus. As he was very aged, and had to come a long distance from his home to the Sunday morning service, we invited him, on the first Sunday after our arrival at the Mission, to dine with us. He was very grateful, and said this would enable him to remain for the afternoon native service, which he dearly prized. He was not only a blessed Christian, but a natural gentleman. We were so drawn towards him that we invited him to dine with us, and then rest awhile, each Sabbath between the services. Like all the old Indians, his age was unknown, but it must have been over a century, as men above fifty said he was called an old man when they were boys. The fact that his name had been on the Hudson's Bay Company's book for eighty years, as a skilful hunter, makes it quite safe to class him as a centenarian. His testimony to the blessedness of the Gospel was very clear and delightful. He "knew Whom he had believed," and ever rejoiced in the blessed assurance that he would have grace given to keep him to the end. He was one of the first converts of the early Missionaries, and had remained true and steadfast. He had been a successful Class Leader for many years, and faithfully and well did he attend to his duties. If any of his members were not at the meeting, he knew the reason why before the next evening, if they were within five or six miles of his home. As he lived a couple of years after we reached the Mission, we got to be very well acquainted, and it was ever a blessing to talk to him of spiritual things. I had a very convincing evidence one day of the thoroughness with which he had renounced his old pagan life and its sinful practices. We had been talking on various subjects, and the matter of different kinds of beliefs came up. As he had a very retentive memory, and I had been told that he was the best authority on old Indian religions and superstitions, I took out of my pocket a note- book and pencil, and said, "Mismis" (English, "Grandfather"), "I want you to tell me some things about your old conjurings and religions. I may want to write a book some time, and put some of these things in it." The dear old man's face became clouded, and he shook his head and remained silent. I urged my request, saying I felt certain he, from his great age, must have much to talk about. For his answer, he sat down in his chair, and, putting his elbows on his knees, buried his face in his hands, and seemed lost in a kind of reverie. I waited for a few minutes, for all was hushed and still. His family had heard my question, and they had become intensely interested. The silence became almost painful, and so I said in a cheery strain, "Come, grandfather, I am waiting to write down what you have to say." Suddenly he sprang up in a way that startled us all, and, stretching out his hand like an orator, he began:-- "Missionary! the old wicked life is like a nightmare, like a bad dream, like a terrible sickness that made us cry out with pain. I am trying to banish it, to forget it, to wipe it out of my memory. Please do not ask me to talk about it, or to bring it up. I could not sleep; I should be miserable." Of course I put up my book and pencil, and did not further trouble the dear old man, who seemed so loth to talk about his old belief. The next Sunday after this interview we had a Fellowship Meeting in the church. One of the first to speak was this venerable grandfather. He said, "The Missionary wanted me to talk to him about my old religion. I could not do it. It was my enemy. It only made me miserable. The more I followed it, the more unhappy I was. So I have cast it out of my life, and from my heart. Would that I could wash it out of my memory!" Then he added, "But perhaps the memory of it helps to make me love my Saviour better, as I can remember from what He has saved me. I was so far from him, and so dark and sinful He reached down His strong arm and lifted me out of the dark place, and put me into the light. O, I am so thankful Jesus saves me, and I love to talk about it." And he did talk about it, and our hearts rejoiced with him. Of him it could be truthfully said, "What he once loved he now hates, and does it so thoroughly that he does not even wish to talk about it." While writing these pleasant memories, perhaps I cannot do better than here record the remarkable closing scenes of the life of this venerable old man, the patriarch of the village. His family was a large one. He had several sons. Worthy, excellent men they were. About some of them we shall have interesting things to say. The youngest, Edward, it was my joy to lead into the sweet assurance that his sins were all forgiven. In July, 1889, he was ordained, in Winnipeg, to the office and work of the Christian ministry. Martin, another of his sons, was one of my most loved and trusted guides, and my companion, for thousands of miles, in birch canoe by summer, and dog-trains by winter. We have looked death in the face together many times, but I never knew him to flinch or play a coward's part. Supplies might fail, and storms and head-winds delay us, until starvation stared us in the face, and even the Missionary himself began to question the wisdom of taking these wild journeys where the chances were largely against our return, when from Martin, or one of the others, would come the apt quotation from the Sacred Word, or from their musical voices the cheering hymn which said,-- "Give to the winds thy fears; Hope, and be undismayed: God hears thy sighs, and counts thy tears, God shall lift up thy head. "Through waves and clouds and storms He gently clears thy way: Wait thou His time, so shall this night Soon end in joyous day." Very precious and very real were many of the blessed promises, and their fulfilment, to us in those times of peril and danger, when death seemed to be so near, and we so helpless and dependent upon the Almighty arm. Another son of this old saint was Samuel, the courageous guide and modest, unassuming Christian. He was the one who guided his well-loaded brigade up the mighty Saskatchewan river to the rescue of the whites there, and having safely and grandly done his work, "holding on to God," went up the shining way so triumphantly that there lingered behind on his once pallid face some radiance of the glory like that into which he had entered; and some seeing it were smitten with a longing to have it as their portion, and so, then and there, they gave themselves to God. Of him we shall hear more farther on. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ One day when the venerable father met his class, he told his members that his work was nearly done, and very soon indeed he expected to pass over to the better land. Although as well as he had been for months, yet he had a premonition that the end of his life was near. Very lovingly and faithfully did he talk to them, and exhorted them to be faithful to the end. The next day he sent for me, and requested me to appoint one of his sons as leader of his class, if I thought him worthy of the place. I said, "We do not want to lose you. Your class members all love you. Why resign your position?" A strange look in his face told me that he had set his heart on joining another company, and that it seemed as though he were only postponing his departure until his little affairs on earth were set in order. "I am going very soon now, and I want to have everything settled before I go; and I shall be so glad to see my son William leader of my class, if you think it best." As the son was a most excellent man the appointment was made, much to the aged father's delight. The next day he had assembled all the old members who had renounced paganism and become Christians at the same time as he did, over thirty years before. There were enough of them to fill his house, and all came who possibly could. They sang and prayed together, and then he stood up before them and addressed them in loving and affectionate words. As I sat there and looked upon the scene, while, for about an hour, he was reviewing the past, and talking of God's goodness in bringing them out of paganism, and conferring so many blessings upon them, I thought of Joshua's memorable gathering of the elder people at Shechem to hear his dying charge. At his request I administered to them all, and those of his many relations who were worthy, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It was a most impressive time. He Whose dying we celebrated seemed in Spirit very blessedly near. Then perhaps another hour was spent, at his desire, in singing his favourite hymns and in prayer. He entered with great spirit into the devotions, and many said afterwards, "Heaven seemed very near." I shook hands with him and said, "Goodbye," and returned to my home. With the exception of a little weariness on account of the exciting services through which he had passed, I saw no change in him. His voice was just as cheery, his eye as bright, his grip as firm as usual, and I saw no reason why he should not live a good while yet. About an hour after, while talking the matter over with Mrs Young, and giving her some of the specially interesting incidents of the memorable services with our dear old friend, there was a sudden call for me by an Indian, who, rushing in without any ceremony, exclaimed, "Come quickly; grandfather is dead!" I hurriedly returned with him, and found that the aged patriarch had indeed passed away. They told me that after I had left them he continued for a time to speak loving words of counsel and advice to them. Then, as had been his habit, he lay down on his bed, and drew his blanket around him, as though prepared for rest. As they knew he must be weary, they kept very still, so as not to disturb him. Not hearing him breathe, one of them touched him, and found that he had fallen into that sleep which here knows no waking. He was not, for God had taken him. It was a remarkable death. The great difficulty among us seemed to be, to realise the presence of death at all. He suffered from no disease, and never complained of pain. His mind was unclouded till the last. In his humble position he had done his work, and done it well; and so now, with all the confidence of a loving child resting in the arms of a mother, he laid his head down on the bosom of his Lord. With rejoicings, rather than weepings, we laid in the little graveyard all that was mortal of William Papanekis. We missed him very much, for his presence was like the sunshine, and his prayers were benedictions upon us all. CHAPTER TEN. REVEREND JAMES EVANS, THE PEERLESS MISSIONARY--HIS JOURNEYS BY CANOE AND DOG-TRAIN--THE CREE SYLLABIC CHARACTERS, HIS INVENTION--LORD DUFFERIN'S WORDS CONCERNING HIM--HIS SUCCESSES--HIS TRIALS--ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING OF HIS INTERPRETER--SURRENDERING HIMSELF TO THE AVENGERS--ADOPTED INTO A PAGAN FAMILY--VISIT TO ENGLAND--SUDDEN DEATH. Without any question, the Reverend James Evans was the grandest and most successful of all our Indian Missionaries. Of him it can be said most emphatically, "While others have done well, he excelled them all." In burning zeal, in heroic efforts, in journeyings oft, in tact that never failed in many a trying hour, in success most marvellous, in a vivacity and sprightliness that never succumbed to discouragement, in a faith that never faltered, and in a solicitude for the spread of our blessed Christianity that never grew less, James Evans stands among us without a peer. If full accounts of his long journeys in the wilds of the great North- West could be written, they would equal in thrilling interest anything of the kind known in modern missionary annals. There is hardly an Indian Mission of any prominence to-day in the whole of the vast North- West, whether belonging to the Church of England, the Roman Catholic, or the Methodist Church, that James Evans did not commence; and the reason why the Methodist Church to-day does not hold them all is, because the apathetic Church did not respond to his thrilling appeals, and send in men to take possession and hold the fields as fast as they were successfully opened up by him. From the northern shores of Lake Superior away to the _ultima Thule_ that lies beyond the waters of Athabasca and Slave Lakes, where the Aurora Borealis holds high carnival; from the beautiful prairies of the Bow and Saskatchewan Rivers to the muskegs and sterile regions of Hudson's Bay; from the fair and fertile domains of Red and Assinaboia Rivers, to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, enduring footprints of James Evans may still be seen. At many a camp-fire, and in many a lonely wigwam, old Indians yet linger, whose eyes brighten and whose tongues wax eloquent as they recall that man whose deeds live on, and whose converts from a degrading paganism are still to be counted by scores. Many a weary hour has been charmed away, as I have listened to Papanekis the elder, or Henry Budd, or some other old Indian guide or dog-driver, or canoe-man, while they rehearsed the thrilling adventures, the narrow escapes, the wonderful deliverances, and also some of the tragic events, through which they passed in company with the "Nistum Ayumeaookemou," the "first Missionary." The dog-drivers loved to talk about Mr Evans' wonderful train of half dogs, half wolves, with which for years he travelled. With great enthusiasm they would talk of their marvellous speed and endurance, of their fierceness and sagacity; of how, when the nights in the wintry camps were unusually cold--say fifty or sixty degrees below zero--these fierce animals would crowd into the camp, and, lying on their backs, would hold up both their fore and hind feet, and thus mutely beg for some one to have compassion upon them and put on the warm woollen dog- shoes. His canoe trips were often of many weeks' duration, and extended for thousands of miles. No river seemed too rapid, and no lake too stormy, to deter him in his untiring zeal to find out the Indian in his solitudes, and preach to him the ever-blessed Gospel. Ever on the look- out for improvements to aid him in more rapid transit through the country, Mr Evans constructed a canoe out of sheet tin. This the Indians called the "Island of light," on account of its flashing back the sun's rays as it glided along propelled by the strong paddles in the hands of the well trained crew. With them they carried in this novel craft solder and soldering-iron, and when they had the misfortune to run upon a rock they went ashore and quickly repaired the injured place. Mr Evans had been for years a Minister and Missionary in the Canadian Methodist Church. With the Reverend William Case he had been very successfully employed among the Indians in the Province of Ontario. When the English Wesleyan Society decided to begin work among the neglected tribes in the Hudson's Bay Territories, the Reverend James Evans was the man appointed to be the leader of the devoted band. In order to reach Norway House, which was to be his first principal Mission, his household effects had to be shipped from Toronto to England, and thence reshipped to York Factory on the Hudson Bay. From this place they had to be taken up by boats to Norway House in the interior, a distance of five hundred miles. Seventy times had they to be lifted out of these inland boats and carried along the portages around falls and cataracts ere they reached their destination. Mr Evans himself went by boat from Toronto. The trip from Thunder Bay in Lake Superior to Norway House was performed in a birch bark canoe. Hundreds of Indians listened to his burning messages, and great good was done by him and his faithful companions in arms, among them being the heroic Mr Barnley, and Mr Rundle, of the English Wesleyan Church. The great work of Mr Evans' life, and that with which his name will be ever associated, was undoubtedly the invention and perfecting of what is now so widely known as the Cree Syllabic Characters. What first led him to this invention was the difficulty he and others had in teaching the Indians to read in the ordinary way. They are hunters, and so are very much on the move, like the animals they seek. To-day their tents are pitched where there is good fishing, and perhaps in two weeks they are far away in the deep forests, where roam the reindeer, or on the banks of streams where the beavers build their wonderful dams and curious homes. The constant thought in this master Missionary's mind was, "Can I possibly devise a plan by which these wandering people can learn to read more easily?" The principle of the characters which he adopted is phonetic. There are no silent letters. Each character represents a syllable; hence no spelling is required. As soon as the alphabet is mastered, and a few additional secondary signs, some of which represent consonants, and some aspirates, and some partially change the sound of the main character, the Indian student, be he a man or woman of eighty, or a child of six years, can commence at the first chapter of Genesis and read on, slowly of course at first, but in a few days with surprising ease and accuracy. Many were Mr Evans' difficulties in perfecting this invention and putting it in practical use, even after he had got the scheme clear and distinct in his own mind. He was hundreds of miles away from civilisation. Very little indeed had he with which to work. Yet with him there was no such word as failure. Obtaining, as a great favour, the thin sheets of lead that were around the tea-chests of the fur traders, he melted these down into little bars, and from them cut out his first types. His ink was made out of the soot of the chimneys, and his first paper was birch bark. After a good deal of effort, and the exercise of much ingenuity, he made a press, and then the work began. Great indeed was the amazement and delight of the Indians. The fact that the bark could "talk" was to them most wonderful. Portions of the Gospels were first printed, and then some of the beautiful hymns. The story of this invention reached the Wesleyan Home Society. Generous help was afforded. A good supply of these types was cast in London, and, with a good press and all the essential requisites, including a large quantity of paper, was sent out to that Mission, and for years it was the great point from which considerable portions of the Word of God were scattered among the wandering tribes, conferring unnumbered blessings upon them. In later years the noble British and Foreign Bible Society has taken charge of the work; and now, thanks to their generosity, the Indians have the blessed Word scattered among them, and thousands can read its glorious truths. All the Churches having Missions in that great land have availed themselves, more or less, of Mr Evans' invention. To suit other tribes speaking different languages, the characters have been modified or have had additions to them, to correspond with sounds in those languages which were not in the Cree. Even in Greenland the Moravian Missionaries are now using Evans' Syllabic Characters with great success among the Esquimaux. When Lord Dufferin was Governor-General of the Dominion of Canada, hearing that a couple of Missionaries from the Indian tribes were in Ottawa, where he resided, he sent a courteous request for us to call upon him. With two or three friends, Mr Crosby, our successful and energetic Missionary from British Columbia, and I, obeyed the summons. The interview was a very pleasant and profitable one. Lord Dufferin questioned Mr Crosby about British Columbia and his work, and was pleased to hear of his great success. After a bright and earnest conversation with me in reference to the Indians of the North-West Territories, in which his Excellency expressed his solicitude for the welfare and happiness of the aboriginal tribes of red men, he made some inquiries in reference to missionary work among them, and seemed much pleased with the answers I was able to give. In mentioning the help I had in my work, I showed him my Cree Indian Testament printed in Evans' Syllabic Characters, and explained the invention to him. At once his curiosity was excited, and, jumping up, he hurried off for pen and ink, and got me to write out the whole alphabet for him; and then, with that glee and vivacity for which his lordship was so noted, he constituted me his teacher, and commenced at once to master them. As their simplicity, and yet wonderful adaptation for their designed work, became evident to him--for in a short time he was able to read a portion of the Lord's Prayer--Lord Dufferin was much excited, and, getting up from his chair and holding up the Testament in his hand, exclaimed, "Why, Mr Young, what a blessing to humanity the man was who invented that alphabet!" Then he added, "I profess to be a kind of a literary man myself, and try to keep posted up in my reading of what is going on, but I never heard of this before. The fact is, the nation has given many a man a title, and a pension, and then a resting-place and a monument in Westminster Abbey, who never did half so much for his fellow-creatures." Then again he asked, "Who did you say was the author or inventor of these characters?" "The Reverend James Evans," I replied. "Well, why is it I never heard of him before, I wonder?" My reply was, "My lord, perhaps the reason why you never heard of him before was because he was a humble, modest Methodist preacher." With a laugh he replied, "That may have been it," and then the conversation changed. Mr Evans was ever anxious that the Indian converts should at once be made to understand all the duties and responsibilities of the new life on which they were entering, he was a fearless man, and boldly declared unto them the whole counsel of God. Knowing the blighting, destroying influences of the "fire water" upon the poor Indian race, he made the Church a total abstinence society, and, as all missionaries should, he set them the example of his own life. Then, as regards the keeping of the Sabbath, he took his stand on the Word of God, and preached the absolute necessity of the one day's rest in seven. In after years we saw the good results of the scriptural lessons which he and his worthy successors taught in reference to the holy day. Many and severe were the trials, and mysterious some of the persecutions, which this glorious man had to bear. Because of his unswerving loyalty to truth, and his conscientious and fearless teaching of all the commandments of God's Word, some in high authority, who at first were supposed to be friendly, turned against him, and became his unprincipled foes. The trouble first seemed to begin when Mr Evans taught the Indians to "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." At his request, they, when hunting or fishing or tripping in the months of open water, rested on the Lord's day. Short-sighted employers, unconscious of the fact, so often demonstrated, that they who rest the one day in seven can do more work in the other six, opposed this teaching, and, when they could not stop it, assailed the Missionary in a way that must have caused a jubilee in hell. I shall not go into particulars. Most of the principal actors are in the presence of the Judge of all the earth. He Who suffered for a time the name of this devoted servant of His to be so shamefully clouded has cleared all the mists away; and like the silver refined by the furnace, so has it been in this case. But persecutions, and even these bitter assaults upon his character, could not turn him from the most intense activity in his blessed life- work. Like an Apostle Paul in primitive times, or like a Coke or Asbury in the early years of this century, so travelled James Evans. When we say he travelled thousands of miles each year on his almost semi- continental journeys, we must remember that these were not performed by coach or railroad, or even with horse and carriage, or in the saddle or sailing vessel, but by canoe and dog-train. How much of hardship and suffering that means, we are thankful but few of our readers will ever know. There are a few of us who do know something of these things, and this fellowship of his suffering knits our hearts in loving memory to him who excelled us all, and the fragrance of whose name and unselfish devotion to his work met us almost everywhere, although years had passed away since James Evans had entered into his rest. "He being dead yet speaketh." To write about him and his work is a labour of love. Would that the pen of some ready writer might give us a biography of this Missionary of such versatility of gifts, and such marvellous success in his work! Room only have I here, in addition to what has already been written, to give some account of the sad event of his life, the accidental shooting of his interpreter, Joseph Hasselton, and the after consequences. Word reached Mr Evans one year, that the priests were endeavouring to crowd up into the Athabasca and Mackenzie River country, and get a foothold among some very interesting Indians whom Mr Evans had visited and found very anxious for the truth. Desirous that they should not be led away from the simplicity of the Gospel, he felt that the best plan was for him to hurry up by light canoe and get into that country and among his Indians before the priests arrived. They had gone the usual route up the Saskatchewan, and from thence were to go over the height of land, and then by boat down the streams which from those regions run towards the Arctic Ocean. Mr Evans' plan was to take what is called "the back route," that was, to go partly down the Nelson River, and then, turning westward through an almost endless succession of lakes and rivers and portages, arrive before the other parties, although several weeks of severest toil would be passed in making the long journey. With his beloved interpreter, who was one of the most remarkable Indians of his day, a man who could talk almost every Indian language spoken by the natives of the land, and, what was better, a devoted Christian, full of zeal and enthusiasm for the work, and with another reliable native from whom I received my information as to what occurred, the long journey was commenced. For several days they made good progress, and were rejoicing at the prospect of success. One morning, very early, while they were paddling along in the great Nelson River, Hasselton, the interpreter, who was in the front of the canoe, said, "I see some ducks in those reeds near the shore. Hand me the gun." In these small canoes the guns are generally kept in the stern with the muzzles pointing back, so as to prevent accidents. The man who was in the stern quickly picked up the gun, and foolishly drew back the trigger. With the muzzle pointing forward he passed the gun to Mr Evans, who did not turn his head, as he was earnestly looking if he also could see the ducks. As Mr Evans took the gun passed to him he unfortunately let the trigger, which had no guard around it, strike against the thaft of the canoe. Instantly it went off, and the contents were discharged into the head of the poor man in front. He turned his dying eyes upon Mr Evans, and then fell over, a corpse. It was an awful accident, and doubly painful on account of the unfortunate surroundings. Here the two survivors were, about two hundred miles from any habitation. They could not take the body back with them. For days they would meet none to whom they could tell their story. They went ashore, and, when their first paroxysm of grief was over, they had to dig, as best they could, a grave in the wilderness, and there bury their dead. They turned their faces homeward, and very sorrowful indeed was the journey. Great was the grief at the village, and greater still the consternation when it was discovered what Mr Evans had resolved to do. His interpreter was the only Christian among his relatives. The rest of them were wild pagans with bad records. Life for life was their motto, and many had been their deeds of cruelty and bloodshed in seeking that revenge which occupies so large a place in the savage Indian's heart. They lived several hundred miles away, and Mr Evans resolved to go and surrender himself to them, tell them what he had done, and take all the consequences. Many friends, knowing how quick the Indian is to act when aroused by the news of the death of a relative--for often before he hears all the circumstances does he strike the fatal blow--urged him not to go himself, but to send a mediator. To this suggestion he turned a deaf ear, and, having made his will and left all instructions as to the work if he should never return, and bidden farewell to his stricken family, who never expected to see him alive again, he started off on his strange and perilous journey. Reaching the distant village, he walked into the tent of the parents of his interpreter, and told them that his heart was broken, and why. Angry words were uttered, and tomahawks and guns were freely handled, while he described the tragic scene. Feeling so utterly miserable that he little cared whether they killed him or let him live, there he sat down on the ground in their midst, and awaited their decision. Some of the hot-headed spirits were for killing him at once; but wiser counsels prevailed, and it was decided that he must be adopted into the family from which he had shot the son, and be all to them, as far as possible, that their son had been. This had been a good deal. Becoming a Christian had made him kind and loving, and so all that he could spare of his wages, earned while interpreting for Mr Evans, had been faithfully sent to his parents. The ceremony of adoption lasted several days. Mr Evans assumed as his Indian name that of this family, and a good son indeed they found in him. When he left to return to his Mission they kissed him, and acted towards him with as much affection as such people can show. Many were the gifts which were sent them by their adopted son, who took good care of them as long as he lived. But while this difficulty was thus tided over, the memory of it never faded away from Mr Evans. He was never the same man after. Yet he did not allow it to deter him from the most vigorous prosecution of his work: indeed, it seemed to his people as though he tried to bury his sorrow in incessant toil, and labours so abundant, that but few even of the Indians "in journeyings oft" could equal him. To aid the further prosecution of his labours, and to excite greater interest in the well-being of the Red Indians of British North America, Mr Evans went to England to speak about his work and its needs. His story of marvellous incidents and varied experiences in this land of which so little was known, produced a deep impression, and great crowds came out to hear him, and insisted on his continuing at great length his wonderful descriptions of travelling by canoe and dog-train, and the longing desire there was in the hearts of the Indians for the Gospel. On November 23rd, 1846, after having spoken at Keelby in Lincolnshire, he returned with his wife, who was in every respect a devoted helpmate for such a work, to the home of the gentleman and lady with whom they were stopping. While chatting on various subjects, Mrs Evans turned to her husband, who was comfortably seated in a large arm-chair, and said, "My dear, I have had such a strange presentiment--that we shall never see Norway House and our faithful Indians again." He turned to her and said, with something of his old enthusiasm, "Why should that thought trouble you, my dear? Heaven is just as near from England as from America." The two ladies said, "Good night!" and retired, leaving Mr Evans and the gentleman of the house to chat together a little longer. Shortly after, the gentleman said something to Mr Evans, and, receiving no answer, he turned from the fire and looked at him. At first he thought he had fallen asleep, but this was only for an instant. Springing up and going to him, he found that the immortal spirit had so quietly and gently flitted away, that there had not been the slightest sob or cry. The noble Indian Missionary was dead. The eloquent tongue was hushed for ever. For his return hundreds of anxious weeping Indians in those northern wilds would long and wait, but wait in vain. He had been conveyed by angel bands to that innumerable company of redeemed, blood- washed saints around the throne of God, which even then had received many happy converted Indians, who, brought to God by his instrumentality, had finished their course with joy, and before him had entered in through the gates into the city, and were there to welcome him. Hundreds, since then, of his spiritual children have had the "abundant entrance ministered unto" them, and they have joined him in that rapidly increasing throng. And although many years have passed away since he preached to them his last sermon, at many a camp-fire, and in many a wigwam, still linger old men, and women too, whose eyes glisten, and then become bedimmed with tears, as they think of him who so long ago went on before. But while they weep, they also rejoice that that salvation, which, as the result of his preaching, they accepted, is still their solace and their joy, and, clinging to it and its great Author, they shall by-and-by meet their Missionary and loved ones who have finished their course and gained the eternal shores. On the previous page are the Syllabic Characters, as invented by Mr Evans; and on this we give the Lord's Prayer in Cree, as printed in them. Perhaps the following explanations will help the student who may have a wish to master this wonderful invention. In the Alphabet the first line of characters, the equilateral triangle in four positions, reads as follows, a e oo ah. The addition of the little dot, as seen in the second line, adds to any character after which it is placed the sound of w. So this second line reads wa, we, woo, wah. The following lines read thus: pa pe poo pah; ta te too tah; ka ke koo kah; cha che choo chah; ma mee moo mah; na ne noo nah; sa se soo sah; ya ye yoo yah. With a little patience the Lord's Prayer can be read even without a teacher. I have gone to a pagan band far away in the northern wilderness, and after they have become willing to receive the truth, I have commenced to teach them to read the Word of God. Very limited indeed were our appliances, for we were hundreds of miles from the nearest school house. But from the camp-fire, where we had cooked our bear's meat or beaver, I would take a burnt stick, and with it make these Syllabic Characters on the side of a rock, and then patiently repeat them over and over again with my school of often three generations of Indians together, until they had some idea of them. Then I would give them the copies of the Bible I had brought, and at the first verse of Genesis we would begin. It paid for the hardships of the trip a thousandfold to see the looks of joy and delight on their faces as they themselves were able to read that wonderful verse. By Canoe and Dog-Train--by Egerton Ryerson Young CHAPTER ELEVEN. SOWING AND REAPING--BEAUTIFUL INCIDENT--"HELP ME TO BE A CHRISTIAN!"-- THIRTY YEARS BETWEEN THE SOWING AND THE REAPING--SORROWING, YET STUBBORN, INDIANS INDUCED TO YIELD BY THE EXPRESSION, "I KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE!" While in our every-day missionary life there were dark hours, and times when our faith was severely tried, there was, on the other hand, much to encourage us to persevere in the blessed work among these Cree Indians. An incident that occurred to us brought up very forcibly to our minds the couplet: "Whate'er may die and be forgot, Work done for God, it dieth not." I was sitting, one pleasant day in June, in my study at Norway House, absorbed in my work, when I was startled by a loud "Ahem!" behind me. I quickly sprang up, and, turning round, discovered that the man who had thus suddenly interrupted me in my thoughts was a big, stalwart Indian. He had come into the room in that catlike way in which nearly all of the Indians move. Their moccasined feet make no sound, and so it is quite possible for even scores of them to come into the house unheard. Then, as Indians have a great dislike to knocking, they generally omit it altogether, and unceremoniously enter, as this man had done, and as quietly as possible. My first glance at him told me that he was an entire stranger, although I had by this time become acquainted with some hundreds of the natives. I shook hands with him and said a few commonplace things to him, to which I thought he paid but little heed. I pointed to a chair, and asked him to be seated; but, instead of doing so, he came up close to me and said with great earnestness: "Missionary, will you help me to be a Christian?" Surprised and pleased by this abrupt question, I replied, "Certainly I will; that is my business here." "Will you help my wife and children also to become Christians?" he added with equal emphasis. "Of course I will," I answered again. "It was for just such work as that my good wife and I came from our far-away home to live in this land." Naturally I had already become very much interested in this big, bronzed Indian; and so I said to him, "Tell me who you are, and from what place you have come." I made him sit down before me, and he told me the following remarkable story. I wish I could put into the narrative his pathos and his dramatic action. He did not keep his seat very long after he began talking, but moved around, and at times was very much excited. He said,-- "Many years ago, when I was a little boy, I was kindly cared for by the first Missionary, Mr Evans. I was a poor orphan. My father and mother had died, leaving none to care for me; so the good Missionary took me to his own house and was very kind to me. 'Tis true I had some relatives, but they were not Christians and so there was not much love in their hearts towards a poor orphan boy. So Mr Evans took me to his house, and was very kind to me. He gave me clothes and food, and a home. He taught me to read the new letters he had made for our people, and told me much about the Great Spirit and His Son Jesus. He taught me and other children to pray to God, and he often talked to us about Him, and how kind and good He was. He kept me with him two or three years, and I was very well off indeed in having such a home and such a friend, if I had only known it. "One summer, among the many Indians who came to trade their furs at the Company's store, was one family who lived very far away. They seemed to take a liking to me, and often would talk to me. They had no little boy, they said, in their wigwam, and they told me a lot of foolish stuff about how much happier I would be, if I lived with them, than I was here, where I had to obey the white man. Like the foolish child that I was, I listened to this nonsense, and one night, when they had got everything ready to start, I slipped quietly out of the house and joined them. We paddled hard most of the night, for we felt that we had done wrong, and did not know but we should be followed. "After travelling many days we reached their hunting grounds and wigwams. I did not find it as pleasant as they had told me it would be. Often they were very cruel to me, and sometimes we did not have much to eat. But I dared not run away, for there was no place to which I could go, except to other wicked Indians; and they would only make things worse. They were all very bad Indians, and very much afraid of the medicine men. All the worship they did was to the bad spirit. They were afraid of him, and so they worshipped him, so that he might not do them much harm. I became as bad as any of them. I tried to forget all that the good Missionary had told me. I tried to wipe all his teachings and prayers from my memory. All he had told me about the Good Spirit and His Son I tried to forget. "I grew up to be a man. I had become a wicked pagan; but I was a good hunter, and one of the men sold me one of his daughters to be my wife. We have quite a family. Because I had seen, when I was a little boy, how Christian Indian men treat the women better than the pagan Indians treat theirs, I treated my wife and children well. I was never cruel to them. I love my wife and children. "Last winter, you remember, the snow was very deep. I had taken my family and gone out into the region of deer and other animals, and there had made my hunting lodge for the winter. There we set our traps for the fur-bearing animals. We took a good many of the smaller animals that have got furs, but the larger ones, that are good for food, were very few. We had a hard time, as food was very scarce. I could not find any deer to shoot, and we had come far from the great lakes and rivers, and so had no fish. "At length it seemed as though we must starve. I tried hard to get something, but I seemed to fail every time. Sometimes, when I did manage to get within range of the moose or reindeer, and I fired, my gun, which is only a flintlock, would only flash the powder in the pan, and so the charge would not go off. The noise, however, had so frightened the deer that he had rushed away before I could get ready to fire again. "At length it got so bad with us that I became completely discouraged, and I said, `I will only try once more; and if I do not succeed in shooting a deer, I will shoot myself.' So I took up my gun and hurried into the forest away from my half-starved family. I cautiously tramped along on my snowshoes all the first day, and did not see even a track. I made a little camp and lay down cold and hungry. I hunted all the next day and only got a rabbit. This I ate in the little camp I made the second night in the snow. On the third day I hunted until about noon. Then feeling very weak and hungry, I got so discouraged that I said, as I sat down on a log covered with snow, `I will die here. I am weak with hunger, I can go no further.' I was cross and angry, and I said, as I talked to myself, `No use trying any more.' Then I loaded my gun with a heavy charge of powder and two bullets, and, drawing back the trigger, my plan was to put the muzzle of the gun against the side of my head, and then press on the trigger with my big toe, which, you know, moves easily in the moccasin. Just as I was getting ready thus to kill myself, something seemed to speak to me, `William!' I pushed the gun away, for I was frightened. I looked all around, but could not see anybody. Then I found that the voice was in me, and it began to talk to me out of my heart; and as I listened it seemed to say, `William, do you not remember what the Missionary told you long ago about the Great Spirit? He said He was kind and forgiving, and that even if we did wander far away from him, if we became sorry and would come back, He would forgive. Do you not remember, William, he said that if we ever got into great trouble, the Great Spirit was the best Friend to Whom to go to help us out? You are in great trouble, William. Don't you think you had better come back to him?' "But I trembled and hesitated, for I was ashamed to come. I thought over my life, how I had run away from the kind Missionary who had taken me, a poor orphan boy, into his home, and fed and clothed me, and taught me so much about the true way. Then I remembered so well how I had tried to wipe out from my memory all I had learned about the Great Spirit and His Son, and the good Book. I had denied to the pagan people that I knew anything about the white man's religion. I had been very bad, and had got very far away; how could I come back? Still all the answer I got was, `You had better come back.' "There I sat and trembled, and I felt I was too mean to come back. But all the answer I got was, `It is meaner to stay away, if what the Missionary said is true.' While I was hesitating what to do, and all trembling in the cold, I seemed to hear my wife and children in the wigwam far away crying for food. This decided me. So I turned round, and kneeled down in the snow by the log, and began to pray. I hardly know what I said, but I do remember I asked the Great Spirit to forgive the poor Indian who had got so far away from Him, and had been so wicked, and had tried to wipe Him out of his memory. I told him I was sorry, and wanted to do better; and there in the snow I promised, if He would forgive and help me in my trouble, and give something for my wife and children to eat, I would, just as soon as the snow and ice left the rivers and lakes, go and find the Missionary, and ask him to help me to be a Christian. "While I prayed I felt better; I seemed to feel in my heart that help was coming. I got up from my knees, and it seemed as though that prayer had strengthened me like food. I forgot I was cold and hungry. I took up my gun with a glad heart, and away I started; and I had not gone far before a large reindeer came dashing along. I fired and killed him. I was very glad. I quickly skinned him, and I soon made a fire and cooked some of the meat. Then I pulled down a small tree, and fastened part of the meat into the top of it, and let it swing up again, so as to keep it from the wolves and wolverines. Then I took the rest on my back and hurried home to my hungry wife and children. Soon after I went back for the rest of the venison, and found it all right. "Since that hour we have always had something. I have hunted hard, and have had success. None of us have been hungry since. The Great Spirit has been all that the Missionary said He would be to us. He has cared for us, and given us all that we have needed. "I have not forgotten my promise made while kneeling in the snow beside the log in the woods. The snow has gone, and the ice has left the lakes and rivers. I have launched my canoe, and have come with my wife and children to ask you to help us to be Christians." We were very much pleased to hear such a wonderful experience, which was thus leading him back to God; and we told him so. When we learned that all this time he had been talking, his wife and children were patiently sitting in the canoe outside at the shore, we hurried out with him and brought them into the Mission House. Mrs Young, and one or two others, attracted by William's earnest words, had come into my study, and had heard most of his story, and of course were also deeply interested. Out of our scant supplies we gave the whole family a good hearty meal, and we both did what we could by words and actions to make them feel that we were their friends, and would do all we could to help them to be Christians. We were delighted to find that since that memorable day when at the snow-covered log in the forest William had bowed in prayer, he had been diligent in teaching his family all that he could remember of the blessed truths of the Gospel. They had gladly received it and were eager for more. I called together some of the head men of the village, and told them the story of this family, and what William had said about his early life. A few of the older people remembered the circumstance of his adoption by Mr Evans after the death of his parents, whom they remembered well. Happy Christians themselves, and anxious that others should enjoy the same blessedness, they rejoiced at William's return, and especially with such a desire in his heart. So they at once gave the exile a place among themselves, and some needed help. Thorough and genuine were the changes wrought in the hearts of that family by Divine grace, and they have remained firm and true. In their house was a family altar, and from the church services they were never absent, unless far off in distant hunting grounds. Various were the arguments which the Good Spirit gave us to use in persuading men and women to be reconciled to God. Here is a beautiful illustration:-- "WHERE ARE OUR CHILDREN?" On the banks of a wild river, about sixty miles from Beaver Lake, I visited a band of pagan Indians, who seemed determined to resist every appeal or entreaty I could make to induce them to listen to my words. They were so dead and indifferent that I was for a time quite disheartened. The journey to reach them had taken about eight days from home through the dreary wilderness, where we had not met a single human being. My two faithful canoemen and I had suffered much from the character of the route, and the absence of game, which had caused us more than once to wrap ourselves up in our blankets and lie down supperless upon the granite rocks, and try to sleep. The rain had fallen upon us so persistently that for days the water had been dripping from us, and we had longed for the sunshine that we might get dry again. We had met with some strange adventures, and I had had another opportunity for observing the intelligence and shrewdness of my men, and their quickness in arriving at right conclusions from very little data. Many think of the Indians as savages and uncivilised, yet in some respects they are highly educated, and are gifted with a quickness of perception not excelled by any other people in the world. We had the following illustration of it on this trip. As most of the Indians had gone away in the brigades to York Factory, to carry down the furs and to freight up the goods for the next winter's trade, I could not find any canoemen who were acquainted with the route to the pagan band which I wished to visit. The best I could do was to secure the services of a man as a guide who had only been as far as Beaver Lake. He was willing to go and run the risk of finding the Indian band, if possible, although so far beyond the most northern point he had ever gone before. As I could do no better I hired him and another Indian, and away we went. After several days of hard work--for the portages around the falls and rapids were many, and several times we had to wade through muskegs or morasses up to our knees for miles together, carrying all our load on our heads or backs--we at length reached Beaver Lake. Here we camped for the night and talked over our future movements. We had come two hundred and forty miles through these northern wilds, and yet had about sixty miles to go ere we expected to see human beings, and were all absolutely ignorant of the direction in which to go. We spent the night on the shore of the lake, and slept comfortably on the smooth rocks. Early the next morning we began to look out for signs to guide us on our way. There were several high hills in the vicinity, and it was decided that we should each ascend one of these, and see if from these elevated positions the curling smoke from some distant Indian camp-fire, or other signs of human beings, could be observed. Seizing my rifle, I started off to ascend the high hill which had been assigned me, while my Indians went off in other directions. This hill was perhaps half a mile from our camp-fire, and I was soon at its foot, ready to push my way up through the tangled underbrush that grew so densely on its sides. To my surprise I came almost suddenly upon a creek of rare crystal beauty, on the banks of which were many impressions of hoofs, large and small, as though a herd of cattle had there been drinking. Thoughtlessly, for I seemed to have forgotten where we were, I came to the conclusion that as the herd of cattle had there quenched their thirst, they and their owner must be near. So I hurried back to the camp, and signalled to the men to return, and told them what I had seen. There was an amused look on their faces, but they were very polite and courteous men, and so they accompanied me to the creek, where, with a good deal of pride, I pointed out to them the footprints of cattle, and stated that I thought that they and their owners could not be far off. They listened to me patiently, and then made me feel extremely foolish by uttering the word "Moose." I had mistaken the footprints of a herd of moose for a drove of cattle, much to their quiet amusement. We looked around for a time, and, getting no clue, we embarked in our canoe, and started to explore the different streams that flowed into or out of this picturesque lake. After several hours of unsuccessful work we entered into the mouth of quite a fine river, and began paddling up it, keeping close to one of its sandy shores. Suddenly one of my Indians sprang up in the canoe, and began carefully examining some small tracks on the shore. A few hasty words were uttered by the men, and then we landed. They closely inspected these little footprints, and then exclaimed, "We have got it now, Missionary; we can take you soon to the Indians!" "What have you discovered?" I said. "I see nothing to tell me where the Indians are." "We see it very plain," was the reply. "You sent word that you were coming to meet them this moon. They have been scattered hunting, but are gathering at the place appointed, and a canoe of them went up this river yesterday, and the dog ran along the shore, and these are his tracks." I examined these impressions in the sand, and said, "The country is full of wild animals; these may be the tracks of a wolf or wolverine or some other beast." They only laughed at me, and said, "We can see a great difference between these tracks and those made by the wild animals." Our canoe was soon afloat again, and, using our paddles vigorously, we sped rapidly along the river. With no other clue than those little footprints in the sand my men confidently pushed along. After paddling for about twenty miles we came to the camp-fire, still smouldering, where the Indians had slept the night before. Here we cooked our dinner, and then hurried on, still guided by the little tracks along the shore. Towards evening we reached the encampment, just as my canoemen had intimated we should. The welcome we received was not very cordial. The Indians were soured and saddened by having lost many of their number, principally children, by scarlet fever, which for the first time had visited their country, and which had been undoubtedly brought into their land by some free- traders the year before. With the exception of an old conjurer or two, none openly opposed me, but the sullen apathy of the people made it very discouraging work to try to preach or teach. However, we did the best we could, and were resolved that, having come so far, and suffered so many hardships to reach them, we would faithfully deliver the message, and leave the results to Him Who had permitted us to be the first who had ever visited that Land to tell the story of redeeming love. One cold, rainy day a large number of us were crowded into the largest wigwam for a talk about the truths in the great Book. My two faithful Christian companions aided me all they could by giving personal testimony to the blessedness of this great salvation. But all seemed in vain. There the people sat and smoked in sullen indifference. When questioned as to their wishes and determinations, all I could get from them was, "As our fathers lived and died, so will we." Tired out and sad of heart, I sat down in quiet communion with the Blessed Spirit, and breathed up a prayer for guidance and help in this hour of sore perplexity. In my extremity the needed assistance came so consciously that I almost exulted in the assurance of coming victory. Springing up, I shouted out, "I know where all your children are, who are not among the living! I know, yes, I do know most certainly where all the children are, whom Death has taken in his cold grasp from among us, the children of the good and of the bad, of the whites and of the Indians, I know where all the children are." Great indeed was the excitement among them. Some of them had had their faces well shrouded in their blankets as they sat like upright mummies in the crowded wigwam. But when I uttered these words, they quickly uncovered their faces, and manifested the most intense interest. Seeing that I had at length got their attention, I went on with my words: "Yes, I know where all the children are. They have gone from your camp-fires and wigwams. The hammocks are empty, and the little bows and arrows lie idle. Many of your hearts are sad, as you mourn for those little ones whose voices you hear not, and who come not at your call. I am so glad that the Great Spirit gives me authority to tell you that you may meet your children again, and be happy with them for ever. But you must listen to His words, which I bring to you from His great Book, and give Him your hearts, and love and serve Him. There is only one way to that beautiful land, where Jesus, the Son of the Great Spirit, has gone, and into which He takes all the children who have died; and now that you have heard His message and seen His Book, you too must come this way, if you would be happy and there enter in." While I was thus speaking, a big, stalwart man from the other side of the tent sprang up, and rushed towards me. Beating on his breast, he said, "Missionary, my heart is empty, and I mourn much, for none of my children are left among the living; very lonely is my wigwam. I long to see my children again, and to clasp them in my arms. Tell me, Missionary, what must I do to please the Great Spirit, that I may get to that beautiful land, that I may meet my children again?" Then he sank at my feet upon the ground, his eyes suffused with tears, and was quickly joined by others, who, like him, were broken down with grief, and were anxious now for religious instruction. To the blessed Book we went, and after reading what Jesus had said about little children, and giving them some glimpses of His great love for them, we told them "the old, old story," as simply and lovingly as we could. There was no more scoffing or indifference. Every word was heard and pondered over, and from that hour a blessed work began, which resulted in the great majority of them deciding to give their hearts to God; and they have been true to their vows. CHAPTER TWELVE. ON THE TRAIL TO SANDY BAR--SLEEPING ON THE ICE--THIEVISH ESQUIMAUX DOGS--NARROW ESCAPE OF JACK--JOYOUS WELCOME--SOCIETY FORMED--BENJAMIN CAMERON, ONCE A CANNIBAL, NOW A LAY HELPER--PLUM-PUDDING--A STRIKING INSTANCE OF HONESTY. In December, 1877, I made a journey to the Indians living at Sandy Bar. As there were some experiences quite different from those of other trips, they shall here be recorded. Sandy Bar, or White Mud, as some call it, is over a hundred miles south of Beren's River, where we then resided. We made the usual preparations for our journey, getting sleds loaded with supplies for ourselves and fish for our dogs, with all the cooking arrangements necessary for a month's absence from home. As the people among whom we were going were poor, we ever felt that, Paul-like, for the furtherance of the Gospel, the wisest course among those bands who had not fully accepted salvation was to keep ourselves as far as possible from being burdensome unto them. So my good wife cooked a generous supply of meat and buns, made as rich with fat as possible. Fortunate indeed were we in having supplies sufficient for this to be done. It was not always so. At this very Mission, all we had one morning for breakfast was a hind-quarter of a wild cat! All our preparations were completed, and we were ready to start at one o'clock in the morning. To our great regret a fierce storm arose, and so we were obliged to wait until the day dawned, ere we could harness our dogs and venture out. When we had gone about twenty miles, the storm swept with such power over the great Lake Winnipeg, driving the recently fallen snow before it, with such a stinging, blinding effect, that we were forced to give up the struggle, and run into the forest and camp. We cleared away the snow from a space about eight feet square. At one side of this we built up our fire, and over the rest of the cleared space we spread some evergreen boughs, on which we placed our beds. We unharnessed our dogs, and thawed out for them some frozen fish. As this was one of my short trips, I had with me but two dog-trains and two good Indians. We melted snow in our kettles, and made tea, and cooked some meat. This, with the bread, of which we were on this trip the happy possessors, constituted our meals. About sundown we had prayers, and then, as we had been up most of the previous night, we wrapped ourselves in our robes and blankets, and went to sleep to the lullaby of the howling tempest. About ten o'clock that night I woke up, and, uncovering my head, found that the storm had ceased. I sprang up and kindled the fire, but my fingers ached and my body shivered ere I succeeded in getting it to blaze brightly. I filled the tea-kettle with snow, and while it was melting I called up my two travelling companions, and also a couple of young natives, who, with their dog-trains, had joined us. The Indians can tell with marvellous accuracy the hour of the night by the position of the Great Bear in the heavens. This is their night clock. I saw by their puzzled looks, as they gazed at the stars, that they wanted to tell me I had made a great mistake, if I thought it was near morning. But I did not give them the opportunity, and only hurried up the breakfast. After prayers we harnessed our dogs, tied up our loads of bedding, food, kettles, and other things; and then, throwing the boughs on which we had slept on the fire, by the light which it afforded us, we wended our way out through the forest gloom to the frozen lake. Taking the lead with my own splendid dogs, we travelled at such a rate that, ere the sun rose up to cheer us, over forty miles of Winnipeg's icy expanse lay between us and the snowy bed where we had sought shelter and slept during the raging storm. After stopping at Dog's Head, where were a few Indians, under the eccentric chief, Thickfoot, onward we travelled, crossing the lake to what is called Bull's Head, where we camped for the night. The face of the cliff is here so steep that we could not get our heavy loads up into the forest above, so we were obliged to make our fire and bed in the snowdrift at the base of the cliff. It was a poor place indeed. The snow, from the constant drifting in from the lake, was very deep. There was no shelter or screen from the fierce cold wind, which, changing during the night, blew upon us. We tried to build up the fire, but, owing to our peculiar position, could not change it. In the woods, at our camps, we build the fire where the smoke will be driven from us. If the wind changes, we change our fires. Here at the base of this cliff we could do nothing of the kind; the result was, we were either shivering in the bitter cold, or blinded by the smoke. While in this uncomfortable plight, and trying to arrange our camp beds on the snow, for we could not get any balsam boughs here to put under us, we were joined by several wild Indians, who, coming down the lake, saw our camp-fire. They had a number of thin, wild, wolfish, half- starved Esquimaux dogs with them. They made a great fuss over me, which here meant so much tea and food. I treated them kindly, and, fearing for our supplies, and even our dog harness, and the other things for which the terrible Esquimaux dog has such an appetite, I politely informed them that I thought they would be more comfortable if they travelled on a little further. This hint was met with loud protestations that they could not, under any circumstances, think of denying themselves the pleasure of at least stopping one night in the camp of the Missionary, about whom they had heard so much as the great friend of the Indian. Of course I could not go back on my record, or resist such diplomacy; but I saw trouble ahead, and I was not disappointed. In order to save something, I gave to their wolfish dogs all the fish I had, which was sufficient for my eight for several days. These the Esquimaux speedily devoured. I made the men bring the dog harness into the camp, and with the sleds, to save the straps and lashings, they built a little barricade against the wind. In addition to the food supplies for the trip, I had a bag of meat, and another of buns, for my use when I should reach the village, where I was going to preach and to teach. I gathered a pile of clubs, which I cut from the driftwood on the shore, from which we had also obtained that for our fire. Then, putting the bag of meat, which was frozen hard, under my pillow, and giving the bag of buns to one of my Indians, with orders to guard it carefully, I lay down and tried to go to sleep. Vain effort indeed was it for a long time. No sooner were we down than in upon us swarmed the dogs. They fought for the honour of cleaning, in dog fashion, our meat kettle, and then began seeking for something more. Over us they walked, and soon, by their gathering around my head, I knew they had scented the meat. Up I sprang, and, vigorously using my clubs, a number of which I sent among them, I soon drove them out into the darkness of the lake. Then under my robes again I got, but not to sleep. In less than ten minutes there was an _encore_, which was repeated several times. At length my supply of clubs gave out. My only consolation was that the dogs had received so many of them that they acted as though they were ready to cry quits and behave themselves. As it looked as though they were settling down to rest, I gladly did the same. Vain hope, indeed! I went to sleep very quickly, for I was very weary, but I woke up in the morning to find that there was not an ounce of meat left in the bag under my head, nor a single bun left in the bag which the Indian had orders so carefully to guard. Our condition the next morning was not a very pleasant one. The outlook was somewhat gloomy. Our camp was in an exposed snow-drift. We had no roof over us. The fire was a poor one, as the drift-wood with which it was made was wretched stuff, giving out more smoke than heat, which, persisting in going the wrong way, often filled our eyes with blinding tears. Our generous supply of meat, that we so much require in this cold climate, and our rich buns, so highly prized, were devoured by the dogs which, with the most innocent looks imaginable, sat around us in the snow and watched our movements. Fortunately one of the Indians had put a few plain biscuits in a small bag, which he was taking, as a great gift, to a friend. These were brought out, and with our tea and sugar were all we had, or could get, until we were sixty miles further south. No time for grumbling, so we prepared ourselves for the race against the march of hunger, which we well knew, by some bitter experiences, would, after a few hours, rapidly gain upon us. After the light breakfast we knelt down in the snow and said our prayers, and then hurried off. My gallant dogs responded to my call upon them so nobly that ere that short wintry day in December had fled away, and the lake was shrouded in darkness, the flying sparks from the tops of the little cabins of the friendly Indians told us we had conquered in the race, although not without some narrow escapes and scars. While crossing a long traverse of at least twenty-five miles, my largest dog, Jack, went through a crack in the ice up to his collar. These ice cracks are dangerous things. The ice, which may be several feet thick, often bursts open with a loud report, making a fissure which may be from a few inches to several feet wide. Up this fissure the water rushes until it is level with the top. Of course, as the cold is so intense, it soon freezes over, but it is very dangerous for travellers to come along soon after the fissure has been made. I have seen the guide get in more than once, and have had some very narrow escapes myself. On this occasion I was riding on the sled; the two foremost dogs of the train got across the thinly frozen ice all right, but Jack, who was third, broke though into the cold water below. The head dogs kept pulling ahead, and the sled dog did his work admirably, and so we saved the noble St. Bernard from drowning, and soon got him out. The cold was so intense that in a few minutes his glossy black coat was covered with a coat of icy mail. He seemed to know the danger he was in; and so, the instant I got the sled across the ice crack, he started off direct for the distant forest at such a rate that he seemed to drag the other dogs as well as myself most of the time. We were about twelve miles from the shore, but in a little more than an hour the land was reached, and as there was abundance of dry wood here, a good fire was soon kindled, before which, on a buffalo skin, I placed my ice-covered companion. He turned himself around when necessary, and, ere the other sled arrived, Jack was himself again. As two of the Indians behind us had fallen into this same fissure, we were delayed for some time in getting them dry again. We boiled our kettle and had some more tea, and then on we hurried. I met with a very warm welcome from the people. The greater part of them were Indians I had met in other years. Many were from Norway House. To this place they had come, attracted by the stories of its valuable fisheries and productive soil. So rapidly had the Mission at Norway House increased that fish and game were beginning to fail. Hence a large number emigrated to this and other places. To this place they had come late in the summer, and so the little houses they had built were small and cold. Then, to make matters worse, the fisheries had not proved to be what they had been represented. They crowded round me as I drove into their village, and told me of their "hungerings oft," and other hardships. As some sleds were ready to start for Manitoba, I hurried into one of the little homes to pencil a note to my Chairman, the Reverend George Young, but found it to be almost an impossibility, as the four fingers of my right hand were frozen. These, and a frozen nose, reminded me for several days of that sixty miles' run on short rations. I found, in addition to the Christian Indians, quite a number of others who had been attracted to this place. I spent eight days among them. They had about a dozen little houses, in addition to a large number of wigwams. For their supplies they were depending on their rabbit snares, and their nets for fish, which were obtained in but limited quantities. As my food had been stolen from me by the dogs, I had nothing but what they gave me; but of their best they supplied me most cheerfully, and so I breakfasted, dined, and supped on rabbit or fish, and fared well. I preached, as was my custom, three times a day, and kept school between the services. I organised a class or society of thirty-five members, ten of whom for the first time now decided for Christ, and resolved henceforth to be His loyal followers. It was a great joy to be gathering in those decided ones, as the result of the seed sown amidst the discouragements of earlier years. I was very fortunate in securing a good leader, or spiritual overseer, for this little flock in the wilderness. Benjamin Cameron was his name. He had had a strange career. He had been a cannibal in his day, but Divine Grace had gone down into the depths of sin into which he had sunk, and had lifted him out, and put his feet upon the Rock, and filled his lips with singing, and his heart with praise. He was emphatically "a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost." The hours I spent with the children were very pleasant and profitable. I was pleased to hear the elder children read so well, and was especially delighted with their knowledge of the Catechism in both Cree and English. I distributed a fresh supply of books which I had brought them, and also gave to the needy ones some warm, comfortable garments sent by loving friends from Montreal. If the dear friends, into whose hearts the good desire to send these very comfortable garments had been put, could only have seen how much misery was relieved, and happiness conferred, they would have felt amply rewarded for their gifts. In connection with one of the Sunday services I administered the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. We had a most solemn and impressive yet delightful time. The Loving Saviour seemed very near, and fresh vows and covenants were entered into by all, that to Him they would be true. I spent Christmas among them, and as one of them had succeeded in getting some minks in his traps, and for the skins had obtained from some passing "free-traders" some flour and plums, they got up, in honour of my visit, a plum-pudding. It haunts me yet, and so I will not here describe it. As beautiful weather favoured us on our return, we took the straight route home, and arrived there in two days, rejoicing that the trip, as regarded its spiritual aspects, had been a great success. One day an Indian came into my house and threw down a fine haunch of venison upon the table. As we were poorly off for food, I was very much pleased, and said to him, "What shall I give you for this meat?" "Nothing," he replied; "it belongs to you." "You must be mistaken," I said. "I never had any dealings with you." "But I had with you," he answered. "And so this meat is yours." Being unacquainted with the man, I asked him to tell me who he was, and how he made it out that this meat belonged to me. Said he, "Did you not go to Nelson River with dogs and Indians about two moons ago?" "Yes," I replied, "I did." "Well, I was out hunting deer, but I did not have much luck. The snow was deep, the deer were very shy, and I had no success. One day, when very hungry, for I had only taken a little dried rabbit meat with me from my wigwam, I came across your trail, and I found where your Indians had made a _cache_, that is, a big bundle of provisions and other things had been tied up in a blanket, and then a small tree had been bent down by your men, and the bundle fastened on the top, and let spring up again to keep it from the wolves. I saw your bundle hanging there, and as I was very hungry I thought, `Now if the kind-hearted Missionary only knew the poor Indian hunter was here looking at his bundle of food, he would say, "Help yourself;"' and that was what I did. I bent down the tree, and found the large piece of pemmican. I cut off a piece big enough to make me a good dinner, then I tied up the bundle again, and let it swing up as you had it. And now I have brought you this venison in place of what I took." I was pleased with his honesty, and had in the incident another example of the Indian quickness to read much where the white man sees nothing. The reason why we had made the _cache_ which the Indian had discovered was, that we had taken a large quantity of pemmican for our food, as the people we wore going to see were poor, and we did not wish to be a burden to them; but we had been caught in a terrible storm, and as the snow was very deep, making the travelling heavy, we were obliged to lighten our loads as soon as possible. So we left a portion, as the Indian has described, on the way. When we returned to the _cache_, and my men pulled it down and opened the bundle, one of them quickly cried out, "Somebody has been at our _cache_." "Nonsense," I replied; "nobody would disturb it. And then there were no tracks around when we reached here to-night." Looking at the largest piece of pemmican, the Indians said, "Missionary, somebody has taken down our bundle and cut off a piece just here. That there are no tracks, is because there have been so many snow-storms lately. All tracks made a few days ago are covered up." As I knew they were so much quicker along these lines of education than white men, I did not argue any more with them. The coming of the old hunter with the venison was the proof of the cleverness of my men, and also a very honourable act on his part. I kept the old man to dinner, and among other things I asked him how he knew it was the Missionary's party that passed that way. He quickly replied, "By your tracks in the snow. Indians' toes turn in when they walk, white men's toes turn out." CHAPTER THIRTEEN. AN INDIAN LOVEFEAST--MANY WITNESSES--SWEET SONGS OF ZION--THE LORD'S SUPPER--MEMOIR OF WILLIAM MEMOTAS, THE DEVOTED CHRISTIAN. Our Lovefeasts and sacramental services were always well attended, if it were within the range of possibility for the Indians to be present. To come in on Saturday from their distant hunting grounds sixty miles away, that they might enjoy the services of the Lord's house on His own day, was no unusual thing. Then on Monday morning we have seen them again strap on their snowshoes, and with glad hearts and renewed zeal start off to return to their lonely hunting camps in the distant forests. They are able to express themselves clearly, and often quite eloquently. When their hearts are full of the love of God, and they are rejoicing in the blessed assurance of the Divine favour, they are willing to speak about it. "What they have felt and seen With confidence they tell." Here are some of their testimonies. Those are the living words of men and women who were once the slaves of a debasing paganism. But on their hearts the blessed Spirit shone, and to His pleading voice they responded, and now, happy in the consciousness that they are the children of God, they love to talk about what wonderful things have been done for them and wrought in them. Timothy Bear said: "It is such a joy to me, that I can tell you of great things done for me. Great is the joy I have in my heart to-day. I rest in the consciousness that He is my own reconciled Heavenly Father, and so I feel it good to be here in the Lord's house, and with those that love Him. The good Spirit gives me to see how good and kind my heavenly Father is; and so I can say that the greatest anxiety of my heart and life is to serve God better and better as I grow older. To do this I have found out that I must have Divine help. But He is my Helper for everything, and so I need not fail. So I am encouraged that I shall love God more and more, and, with that, I want to love His cause and people, and those who have not yet become His people, that they may soon do so, more and more. For the conversion of the unsaved, let us, who feel that Jesus saves us, pray more earnestly than ever, and may God help us to live our religion, that the heathen around us may see in our lives what a wonderful thing it is." Timothy's burning words produced a deep impression, and some one began to sing: "Ayume-oo-we-nah," "The praying Spirit breathe." Half a dozen were on their feet when the verses were sung, but Thomas Walker spoke first. He said: "When I first heard the Gospel long winters ago, as brought to us by Mr Evans, I was soon convinced that I was a sinner and needed forgiveness. I found I could not of myself get rid of my sins, so I believed in Christ, and found that He had power to forgive. I was very wretched before I was forgiven. I was afraid I should be lost for ever. I mourned and wept before God on account of my sins. In the woods alone, I cried in my troubles, and was in deep distress. But I heard of the love and power, and willingness to save, of this Jesus of the great Book, and so I exercised a living faith in Him; and as I believed, God's voice was heard, saying, `My son, I have forgiven your sins; I have blotted them out. Go in peace.' I am sure I was not mistaken; I felt filled with peace and joy. I felt that I, Thomas Walker, was cleansed from my many sins, and clothed with the garments of salvation. That was a blessed day when the Spirit of God shone into my heart and drove out the darkness. Since then, my way in Him has been like the sunlight on the waters. The more waves, the more sunshine. I am happy in His love to-day. I am confident that, because He aids me, I am growing in grace. "I rejoice at being spared to come to another celebration of the Lord's Supper; and in view of partaking of the emblems of the dying, loving Jesus, I feel that my soul is feeding on Christ, the true Bread of Life." Earnest yet suppressed words of praise and adoration quietly dropped from many lips as Thomas ended. Then dear old Henry Budd succeeded in getting a hearing. Henry was Mr Evans' marvellous dog-driver over twenty-five years before the date of this blessed lovefeast. He had had many wonderful adventures and some narrow escapes. Once, when running ahead on a treacherous river, where in places the current was very rapid, and consequently the ice was thin, he broke through into the current underneath. He quickly caught hold of the edge of the ice, but it was so weak it would not hold him up. His only comrade could not get very near him as the ice was so bad, and so had to run about a mile for a rope. When he returned, so intense was the cold that both of Henry's hands, with which he had been holding on to the ice, were frozen. He was utterly unable to close them on the rope. George shouted to him to open his mouth. The rope was then thrown, lasso-like, so skilfully, that the poor half-frozen man seized it in his teeth, and was thus dragged out, and rushed off to the nearest wigwam. He was literally saved by the "skin of his teeth." Thus Henry Budd had, like many others, much for which to praise God. He spoke on this occasion as follows: "I rejoice in God my Saviour, Who has done such wonderful things for me. I feel very happy. I am His child. He is my reconciled Father. How can I help being happy? "When I first began to get my poor blind eyes opened, and there came to me a desire to seek God, and to obtain salvation for my soul, I was troubled on account of my sins. My many transgressions rose up before me like a cloud. I was ignorant, and so my mind was full of doubts and fears. Yet with all my doubts there was the anxious desire to be saved. But the victory came at last. I was enabled to hear enough about the Almighty Friend, and so, as I had confidence in His power and love, and believed in Him, I was at last enabled to rejoice in the knowledge of sins forgiven through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. From those sad doubts and fears I am now happily delivered. I feel I love God, and that God loves me. I am growing in grace, and in the knowledge of God my Saviour. My hopes are brightening all the time. I am getting old, but not unhappy, for I am cheered with the blessed assurance of one day meeting, in my Father's house in heaven, with many who are safely there, and many more who, like me, will soon enter in. That this may be a blessed certainty, I desire to be faithful unto the end, that no man take my crown." When Henry sat down, before another one could be heard, the large congregation were singing:-- "Pe teh-na-mah-me cha-te yak Ke ehe ne-ka-mo-yak," etc. "O for a thousand tongues to sing My great Redeemer's praise." The next to get the floor was one of the sweetest, purest Christians it was ever my lot to become acquainted with in any land. His name was William Memotas. He was a very happy Christian. As he was a Local Preacher and a Class Leader, I was much in his society, and I can say, as many others have said, that William, since the day of his conversion, was never heard to utter an unkind word about any one, or do anything that could give the enemies of the Lord Jesus an opportunity to scoff at his profession of loving the Lord with all his heart. He was never a very strong man physically while we knew him, and so was unable to go on the long tripping or hunting expeditions with him more vigorous comrades. He suffered much from inward pain, but was ever bright and hopeful. When he stood up to add his testimony, the sick, pallid face caused a wave of sympathy to pass over the audience, but his cheery words quickly lifted the cloud, and we seemed to look through the open door into the celestial city, into which he was so soon to enter. His obituary, which I wrote at the time of his death, is added at the close of this chapter. He said:-- "For many years I have now been walking in this way, and proving this great salvation. It is a blessed way, and it is getting more delightful all the time. Every day on it is a day's walk nearer Jesus. It is not like the trails in our country, sometimes rocks, and then more often muskegs and quaking bogs; but it is the solid rock all the time, and on it we may always be sure of our footing, and it leads us up to Him Who is the Rock of Ages. I am not now a strong man, as you know I once was. This poor weak body is like the old wigwam. It is breaking up. As each storm tears fresh rents in the old wigwam, so each attack of disease seems to tear me, and bring me nearer the time when what is immortal of me shall slip away from the worn body into the everlasting brightness of that land where the happy people never say, `I am sick.' I am very glad and happy in the service of this Jesus, and will serve Him as long as He lends me health. But I do want to go home. I cannot do much more here. Our Missionary, Mr Young, said to me, `William, don't talk so much about leaving us. How can we spare you?' I thank him for his love and friendship, but there is another Friend I am getting such a longing in my heart to see, and that is Jesus, my Saviour, my Redeemer. I am praying for patience, but by-and-by I shall be with Him, with him for evermore. There I shall have no pain, and I will praise my Jesus for evermore. So, while waiting, I ask God to be with me here, and to let me serve Him in some way every day." With suppressed emotion, for many eyes were full of tears, the people sang-- "Tapwa meyoo ootaskewuk, Ispemik ayahchik," etc. "There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign." William was a sweet singer, and joined heartily with the rest in singing several verses of that grand old hymn. We had a presentiment that the end was not far off, but we little thought, as we looked into his radiant face, and heard his clear scriptural testimony, and his longings for rest and heaven, that this was to be the last Lovefeast in which our dear brother was to be with us. Ere another similar service was held, William Memotas had gone sweeping through the gates, washed in the blood of the Lamb. James Cochrane, a Class Leader, said,-- "I have great reason to bless God for the privileges and mercies I have had from him. I am so glad to be with you to-day in his house. I try to arrange all my huntings and journeys so as to be present at all of these love-feasts and sacraments. Since I decided, many years ago, to give up paganism and become a Christian, I have never missed one of these meetings, though sometimes I have had to take several days and travel hundreds of miles to get here. I only had to travel sixty miles on my snow-shoes to be here to-day. It has paid me well to come. I rejoice that God has enabled me to be faithful all these years since I started in His service. When I first began, I had a great many doubts and fears. The way seemed very long ahead of me. I felt so weak and so prone to sin. It seemed impossible that such a weak, unworthy creature as I could stand true and faithful; but trusting in God, and constantly endeavouring to exercise a living faith in Christ, I have been kept to this day, and I can say I realise a daily growth in grace. I ask God to give me His Holy Spirit to help me to follow Christ's example and to keep all of God's commandments. May I, too, prove faithful." Mary Cook, a very old woman, who has had to endure persecution for Christ's sake, spoke next. She said: "I am very glad to be here once more. I have many pagan relatives who have no feeling of friendship towards me, because I am a follower of Jesus. But He is my Friend, so it is all right. I have been very sick, and thought that God was going to take me home to heaven. That thought made me very happy in my sickness. My poor little room often seemed light with the presence of my Lord. I love to dwell with God's people. It is my chief joy. I refused to go and live with my relatives in the woods, even though I should be better off, because I love the house of God, and because I so love to worship with God's people." Mary Oig said: "Very happy do I feel in my heart to-day. My heart is filled with his love. I knew I love Him and his people; and His service is to me a great delight. Once, like many others, I was in the great darkness, wandering in sin; but God sought me by His Holy Spirit, and convinced me of my lost condition, and shewed me Himself as my only Hope, and enabled me to rejoice in his pardoning mercy through faith in the Atonement. May God keep me faithful, that with you I may join around the Throne above." Thomas Mamanowatum, generally known as "Big Tom," on account of his almost gigantic size, was the next to speak. He is one of the best of men. I have used him to help me a good deal, and have ever found him one of the worthiest and truest assistants. His people all love and trust him. He is perhaps the most influential Indian in the village. Tom said: "I, too, desire to express my gratitude to God for His great blessings and mercies to me. I am like David, who said, `Come, all ye who fear the Lord, and I will tell you what He hath done for my soul.' He has taken me out of the pit of sin, and set me on the rock. So I rejoice, for I have felt and tasted of His love. When I think of what he has done for me, and then think of what I have been, I feel that I am not worthy even to stand up in such a place as this. But He is worthy, and so I must praise Him. I have a comfortable assurance that He, my good Father, is contented with me. But it is only because the grace of God is sufficient to keep me. I am growing in grace, and I desire more than ever to glorify God in all I think, or speak, or do. I have been helping our Missionary at Beren's River in the good work among the people there. I often felt happy while endeavouring to point my heathen brethren to Jesus Christ, Who takes away the sins of the world. My first consecration was of myself, when converted to Christ. My second was of my family to Him. My third is of my class. I am often very happy while trying to lead them on in the way to heaven. To-day I renew my vows of consecration. I offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving, for He is my God and my portion for ever. As He is the Source of Love and Light and Safety, I want to be continually drawing nearer to Him." Very appropriate was the hymn which was next sung,-- "Ke-se-wog-ne-man-toom Ke-nah-te-tin," etcetera, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." After three verses of this beautiful hymn were sung, we had a large number of short testimonies. Some of the people beautifully expressed themselves by quoting passages from their Indian Bibles. For example, one said: "The joy of the Lord is my portion." Another: "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." Another: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see him as He is." Thus delightfully passed away two hours. Perhaps fifty or sixty gave their testimonies, or quoted passages of Scripture. The speaking was up to the average of a similar gathering among white people, as these examples we have given would indicate. They were faithfully translated by two of our best interpreters, and then compared. And yet many of the beautiful Indian images are lost in the translation into English. The best of all has also to be left out. The Divine power, the holy emotions, the shining faces, the atmosphere of heaven, cannot be put down on paper. Many of my readers know what I mean as thus I write, for they have been in those hallowed gatherings where "they that feared the Lord spake often one to another." Then followed the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. To the Christian Indians this service is, as it ever should be, the most solemn and impressive in the Church. Our custom was to hold four Communion services during the year. In addition, we sometimes gave a dying devoted member this sacrament, if so desired. Here there were a few other very important occasions, when we celebrated in this way the dying of the Lord Jesus. As, for example, when several scores of our people were going off on a dangerous trip in a plague-infected district with but very poor prospects of all returning home again. WILLIAM MEMOTAS. William Memotas was converted from the darkness of paganism to the light of the Gospel soon after the introduction of the glad tidings of salvation among the Cree Indians by that most useful and godly man, the Reverend James Evans. William's conversion was so clear and positive that he never had any doubts about it. His progress in the Divine life was marked and intelligent, and soon he became a useful and acceptable worker in the Church. He was a Class Leader and Local Preacher of great power and acceptability. He was pre-eminently a happy Christian. His face seemed full of sunshine. There was a genial sweetness about him that caused his very presence to act as a charm. His coming into our Mission home was like the sunshine, in which even our little ones basked with great delight. He was an every-day Christian. Although I was often in his company, and was thrown in contact with him on some occasions calculated to severely test him, yet I never heard from him an improper word, or heard of his having in any way gone contrary to his Christian profession during the thirty years that he had professed to be a follower of the Lord Jesus. His greatest aim in life seemed to be to get to heaven; and next to that he strove to induce others to follow in the same course. When some of the Indians were getting excited about their lands, and the treaties which were soon to be made with the Government, William, in writing to a friend, said: "I care for none of these things; they will all come right. My only desire is to love Jesus more and more, so as to see Him by-and-by." He was a useful Christian, possessing a good knowledge of the roots and herbs of his native forests, and also having had some instruction given him in reference to some of the simpler medicines of the whites, he was often styled our "village doctor." Although seldom remunerated for his services, he was always ready to listen to the calls of the afflicted, and, with Heaven's blessing, was instrumental in accomplishing some marvellous cures. He believed in using a good deal of prayer with his medicines. His skill in dressing and curing gun-shot wounds could not be excelled. Yet, while doing all he could to cure others, his own health was very poor for several years. He suffered frequently from violent headaches that caused intense pain. Yet he was never heard to murmur or complain, but would say to us, when we tried to sympathise with him, "Never mind, by-and-by I shall get home, and when I see Jesus I shall have no more pain." About nine days before his departure he caught a severe cold that settled upon his lungs, which seemed to have been diseased for a long time. He had from the beginning a presentiment that his sickness was "unto death," and never did a weary toiler welcome his bed of rest with greater delight than did William the grave. The prospect of getting to heaven seemed so fully to absorb his thoughts that he appeared dead to everything earthly. In life he had been a most loving and affectionate husband and father, but now, with a strong belief in God's promises of protection and care over the widow and fatherless, he resigned his family into the Lord's hands, and then seemed almost to banish them from his thoughts. Being very poor on account of his long-continued ill health, which had incapacitated him for work, he had, when his severe illness began, nothing to eat but fish. We cheerfully supplied him with what things our limited means would allow, to alleviate his sorrows and poverty. One day, when my beloved Brother Semmens and I had visited him, we had prayer and a blessed talk with him. As we were leaving him, after giving him some tangible evidences of our love, Brother Semmens said, "Now, Brother William, can we do anything else for you? Do you want anything more?" The poor sick man turned his radiant face towards us and said, "O no, I want nothing now, but more of Christ." He often conversed with us about his glorious prospects and the joy and happiness he felt as the pearly gates of the Golden City seemed to be opening before him. Here are some of his dying words whispered either to my beloved colleague or to myself. Would that we could portray the scene, or describe the happy, shining face of the dying man, lying there on a bed of blankets and rabbit skins in his little dwelling! He said, "While my body is getting weaker, my faith is getting stronger, and I am very happy in Jesus' love. Very glad am I that I responded to Mr Evans' invitations, and gave my heart to Him Who has saved me and kept me so happy in His love. I am so glad I was permitted to do some little work for Jesus. He used to help me when I tried to talk about His love and recommend Him to others. I used to get very happy in my own soul when thus working for Him. I am happier now than ever before. I am resting in His love." Thus would the happy man talk on as long as his strength permitted. It was ever a blessing to visit him. It wonderfully encouraged and strengthened us in our work. One day, as we came from one of these blessed visits, Brother Semmens burst out in almost ecstatic delight,-- "O may I triumph so When all my warfare's past!" When we administered to him the emblems of the broken body and spilt blood of the Redeemer, he was much affected, and exclaimed, "My precious Saviour! I shall soon see Him. `That will be joy for evermore.'" Once, when conversing with him, I happened to say, "I hope you will not leave us. We want you to remain with us. We need you to help us to preach. We need you in the Sunday School and in the Prayer Meetings. Your sixty class members are full of sorrow at your sickness. They think they cannot spare you. Do not be in a hurry to leave us, William. We want your presence, your example, your prayers." He listened patiently while I talked, and then he looked up at me so chidingly, like a weary, home-sick child, and exclaimed, in a voice that showed that earth had lost all its charms, "Why do you wish to detain me? You know I want to go home." Shortly after, his heart's desire was his in actual possession. Triumphantly he went home. While we felt that our Mission was much the loser by his departure, we knew it was better for him, and an accession to heaven's glorious company of one who was worthy to mingle with the white-robed throng around the throne of God. There is nothing that more roots and grounds us in this blessed Gospel, and more stimulates us to labour on, even amidst hardships and sufferings, than the consistent lives and triumphant deaths of our Indian converts. Ignorant as many of them are of the non-essentials of our religion, yet possessing by the Spirit's influence a vivid knowledge of their state by nature, and of the Saviour's love for them, they cling to Him with a faith so strong and abiding, that the blessed assurance of His favour abides with them as a conscious reality through life; and when the end draws near, sustained by His presence, even the Valley of the Shadow of Death is entered with delight. The Missions among the Indians of North America have not been failures. The thousands converted from different tribes, and now before the throne of God, and the many true and steadfast ones following after, tell us that although many of the toilers among them, as they went with the seed, literally went forth weeping, yet the harvest has been an abundant one, and has more than compensated for the tears and toils of the sewers. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. VARIED DUTIES--CHRISTIANITY MUST PRECEDE CIVILISATION--ILLUSTRATIONS-- EXPERIMENTAL FARMING--PLOUGHING WITH DOGS--ABUNDANCE OF FISH--VISITS FROM FAR-OFF INDIANS--SOME COME TO DISTURB--MANY SINCERE INQUIRERS AFTER THE TRUTH--"WHERE IS THE MISSIONARY?"--BEREN'S RIVER MISSION BEGUN-- TIMOTHY BEAR--PERILS ON THE ICE. Very diversified were our duties among these Indians. Not only were there those that in all places are associated with ministerial or pastoral work, but there were also many others, peculiar to this kind of missionary toil. Following closely on the acceptance of the spiritual blessings of the Gospel came the desire for temporal progress and development. Christianity must ever precede a real and genuine civilisation. To reverse this order of proceedings has always resulted in humiliating failure among the North American Indians. Sir Francis Bond Head, one of the early Governors of Canada, took a great interest in the Indians. He zealously endeavoured to improve them, and honestly worked for their advancement. He gathered together a large number of them at one of their settlements, and held a great council with them. Oxen were killed, and flour and tea and tobacco were provided in large quantities. The Indians feasted and smoked, and listened attentively to this great man who represented the Queen, and who, having also supplied them with food for the great feast, was worthy of all attention. The Governor told them that the great object of his coming to see them, and thus feasting them, was to show his kindness to them, and interest in their welfare. Then, with much emphasis he told them how the game was disappearing, and the fish also would soon not be so plentiful, and, unless they settled down and cultivated the soil, they would suffer from hunger, and perhaps starve to death. He got them to promise that they would begin this new way of life. As they were feeling very comfortable while feasting on his bounties, they were in the humour of promising everything he desired. Very much delighted at their docility, he said he would send them axes to clear more of their land, and oxen and ploughs to prepare it for seed; and when all was ready he would send them seed grain. Great were their rejoicings at these words, and with stately ceremony the council broke up. In a few days along came the ploughs, oxen, and axes. It was in the pleasant springtime, but instead of going to work and ploughing up what land there was cleared in their village, and beginning with their axes to get more ready, they held a council among themselves. These were their conclusions: "These axes are bright and shine like glass. If we use them to cut down trees, they will lose their fine appearance. Let us keep them as ornaments. These oxen now are fat and good. If we fasten them up to these heavy ploughs, and make them drag them through the ground, they will soon get poor and not fit for food. Let us make a great feast." So they killed the oxen, and invited all of the surrounding Indians to join them, and as long as a piece of meat was left the pots were kept boiling. Thus ended, just as many other efforts of the kind have ended, this effort to civilise the Indians before Christianising them. We found that almost in proportion to the genuineness of the Indian's acceptance of the Gospel was his desire to improve his temporal circumstances. Of course there were some places where the Indians could not cultivate the land. We were four hundred miles north of the fertile prairies of the great western part of the Dominion of Canada, where perhaps a hundred millions of people will yet find happy times. From these wondrously fertile regions my Nelson River Indians were at least six hundred miles north. As hunters and fishermen these men, and those at Oxford Mission, and indeed nearly all in those high latitudes, must live. But where there was land to cultivate the Indians had their gardens and little fields. I carried out with me four potatoes. I did not get them in the ground until the 6th of August. Yet in the short season left I succeeded in raising a few little ones. These I carefully packed in cotton wool and kept safe from the frost. The next year I got from them a pailful. The yield the third year was six bushels, and the fourth year one hundred and twenty-five bushels; and before I left the Indians were raising thousands of bushels from those four potatoes. They had had some before, but there had been some neglect, and they had run out. One summer I carried out, in a little open boat from Red River, a good Scotch iron beam plough. The next winter, when I came in to the District Meeting, I bought a bag of wheat containing two bushels and a half; and I got also thirty-two iron harrow teeth. I dragged these things, with many others, including quite an assortment of garden seeds, on my dog-trains, all the way to Norway House. I harnessed eight dogs to my plough, and ploughed up my little fields; and, after making a harrow, I harrowed in my wheat with the dogs. The first year I had thirty bushels of beautiful wheat. This I cut with a sickle, and then thrashed it with a flail. Mrs Young sewed several sheets together, and one day, when there was a steady, gentle breeze blowing, we winnowed the chaff from the wheat in the wind. There were no mills within hundreds of miles of us; so we merely cracked the wheat in a hand coffee-mill, and used some of it for porridge, and gave the rest to the Indians, who made use of it in their soups. Thus we laboured with them and for them, and were more and more encouraged, as the years rolled on, at seeing how resolved they were to improve their temporal circumstances, which at the best were not to be envied. The principal article of food was fish. The nets were in the water from the time the ice disappeared in May until it returned in October; and often were holes cut in the ice, and nets placed under it, for this staple article of food. The great fall fisheries were times of activity and anxiety, as the winter's supply of food depended very much upon the numbers caught. So steady and severe is the frost at Norway House, and at all the Missions north of it, that the fish caught in October and the early part of November, keep frozen solid until April. The principal fish is the white fish, although many other varieties abound. Each Indian family endeavoured to secure from three to five thousand fish, each fall, for the winter's supply. For my own family use, and more especially for my numerous dogs, which were required for my long winter trips to the out Mission appointments, I used to endeavour to secure not less than ten thousand fish. It is fortunate that those lakes and rivers so abound in splendid varieties of fish. If it were not so, the Indians could not exist. But, providentially,-- "The teeming sea supplies The food the niggard soil denies." Deer of several varieties abound, and also other animals, the flesh of which furnishes nutritious food. But all supplies of food thus obtained are insignificant in comparison with the fish, which the Indians are able to obtain except in the severest weather. As with the natives, so it was with the Missionaries; the principal article of food upon their tables was fish. During the first Riel Rebellion, when all communication with the interior was cut off, and our supplies could not as usual be sent out to us from Red River, my good wife and I lived on fish twenty-one times a week, for nearly six months. Of course there were times when we had on the table, in addition to the fish, a cooked rabbit, or it may be a piece of venison or bear's meat. However, the great "stand-by," as they say out in that land, was the fish. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Every summer hundreds of Indians from other places visited us. Some came in their small canoes, and others with the Brigades, which in those days travelled vast distances with their loads of rich furs, which were sent down to York Factory on the Hudson Bay, to be shipped thence to England. Sometimes they remained several weeks between the trading post and the Mission. Very frequent were the conversations we had with these wandering red men about the Great Spirit and the Great Book. Some, full of mischief, and at times unfortunately full of rum, used to come to annoy and disturb us. One summer a band of Athabasca Indians so attacked our Mission House that for three days and nights we were as in a state of siege. Unfortunately for us our own loyal able-bodied Indian men were all away as trip men, and the few at the Mission village were powerless to help. Our lives were in jeopardy, and they came very near burning down the premises. Shortly after these Athabasca Indians had left us I saw a large boatload of men coming across the lake towards our village. Imagining them to be some of these same disturbers, I hastily rallied all the old men I could, and went down to the shore, to keep them, if possible, from landing. Very agreeable indeed was my surprise to find that they were a band of earnest seekers after the Great Light, who had come a long distance to see and talk with me. Gladly did I lead them to the Mission House, and until midnight I endeavoured to preach to them Jesus. They came a distance of over three hundred miles; but in that far-off district had met in their wanderings some of our Christian Indians from Norway House, who, always carrying their Bibles with them, had, by reading to them and praying with them, under the good Spirit's influence, implanted in their hearts longing desires after the great salvation. They were literally hungering and thirsting after salvation. Before they left for their homes, they were all baptized. Their importunate request to me on leaving was the same as that of many others: "Do come and visit us in our own land, and tell us and our families more of these blessed truths." From God's Lake, which is sixty miles from Oxford Lake, a deputation of eleven Indians came to see me. They had travelled the whole distance of two hundred and sixty miles in order that they might hear the Gospel, and get from me a supply of Bibles, Hymn-books, and Catechisms. One of them had been baptized and taught years ago by the Reverend H. Brooking. His life and teachings had made the others eager for this blessed way, and so he brought these hungry sheep in the wilderness that long distance that they might have the truth explained to them more perfectly, and be baptised. As it had been with the others who came from a different direction, so it was with these. Their earnest, oft- repeated entreaty was, "Come and visit us and ours in our far-away homes." A few weeks after, another boatload of men called to have a talk with me. They seated themselves on the grass in front of the Mission House, and at first acted as though they expected me to begin the conversation. I found out very soon that they were Saulteaux, and had come from Beren's River, about a hundred and fifty miles away. After a few words as to their health and families had passed between us, an old man, who seemed to be the spokesman of the party, said, "Well, Ayumeaookemou" ("praying master," the Missionary's name), "do you remember your words of three summers ago?" "What were my words of three summers ago?" I asked. "Why," he replied, "your words were that you would write to the Keche- ayumeaookemou" (the great praying masters, the Missionary Secretaries) "for a Missionary for us." When I first passed through their country, they with tears in their eyes had begged for a Missionary. I had been much moved by their appeals, and had written to the Mission House about them and for them, but all in vain. None had come to labour among them. For my answer to this old man's words I translated a copy of my letter, which had been published, and in which I had strongly urged their claims for a Missionary. They all listened attentively to the end, and then the old man sprang up and said, "We all thank you for sending that word, but _where is the Missionary_?" I was lost for an answer, for I felt that I was being asked by this hungering soul the most important question that can be heard by the Christian Church, to whom God has committed the great work of the world's evangelisation. "WHERE IS THE MISSIONARY?" The question thrilled me, and I went down before it like the reed before the storm. I could only weep and say, "Lord, have mercy upon me and on the apathetic Christian world." That was the hardest question a human being ever asked me. To tell him of a want of men, or a lack of money, to carry the glad tidings of salvation to him and his people, would only have filled his mind with doubts as to the genuineness of the religion enjoyed by a people so numerous and rich as he knew the whites were. So I tried to give them some idea of the world's population, and the vast number yet unconverted to Christianity. I told him the Churches were at work in many places and among many nations, but that many years would pass away before all the world would be supplied with Missionaries. "How many winters will pass by before that time comes?" he asked. "A great many, I fear," was my answer. He put his hands through his long hair, once as black as a raven's wing, but now becoming silvered, and replied: "These white hairs show that I have lived many winters, and am getting old. My countrymen at Red River on the south of us, and here at Norway House on the north of us, have Missionaries, and churches, and schools; and we have none. I do not wish to die until we have a church and a school." The story of this old man's appeal woke up the good people of the Churches, and something was soon done for these Indians. I visited them twice a year by canoe and dog-train, and found them anxious for religious instruction and progress. At first I sent to live among them my faithful interpreter, Timothy Bear. He worked faithfully and did good service. He was not a strong man physically, and could not stand much exposure. To live in, he had my large leather tent, which was made of the prepared skins of the buffalo. One night a great tornado swept over the country, and Timothy's tent was carried away, and then the drenching rains fell upon him and his. A severe cold resulted, and when word reached me several weeks after at Norway House, it was that my trusted friend was hopelessly ill, but was still endeavouring to keep at his duties. So great was my anxiety to go and comfort him that I started out with my dog-trains so soon after the winter set in that that trip very nearly proved to be my last. The greater part of that journey was performed upon Lake Winnipeg. Very frequently on the northern end of that lake the ice, which there forms first, is broken up by the fierce winds from the southern end, which, being three hundred miles further south, remains open several days longer. I had with me two Indians,--one was an old experienced man, named William Cochran; the other a splendid specimen of physical manhood, named Felix. When we reached Lake Winnipeg, as far as we could judge by the appearance of the ice, it must have formed three times, and then have been broken up by the storms. The broken masses were piled up in picturesque ridges along the shore, or frozen together in vast fields extending for many miles. Over these rough ice-fields, where great pieces of ice, from five to twenty feet high, were thrown at every angle, and then frozen solid, we travelled for two days. Both men and dogs suffered a great deal from falls and bruises. Our feet at times were bruised and bleeding. Just about daybreak, on our third day, as we pushed out from our camp in the woods where we had passed the night, when we had got a considerable distance from the shore, Felix was delighted to find smooth ice. He was guiding at the time. He put on his skates and bounded off quickly, and was soon followed by the dogs, who seemed as delighted as he that the rough ice had all been passed, and now there was a possibility of getting on with speed and comfort. Just as I was congratulating myself on the fact of our having reached good ice, and that now there was a prospect of soon reaching my sick Indian brother, a cry of terror came from William, the experienced Indian who was driving our provision sled behind mine. "This ice is bad, and we are sinking," he shouted. Thinking the best way for me was to stop I checked my dogs, and at once began to sink. "Keep moving, but make for the shore," was the instant cry of the man behind. I shouted to my splendid, well-trained dogs, and they at once responded to the command given, and bounded towards the shore. Fortunately the ice was strong enough to hold the dogs up, although under the sled it bent and cracked, and in some places broke through. Very grateful were we when we got back to the rough strong ice near the shore. In quiet tones we spoke a few words of congratulation to each other, and lifted up our hearts in gratitude to our great Preserver, and then hurried on. If we had broken in, we could have received no earthly aid, as there was not even a wigwam within a day's journey of us. That night at the camp-fire I overheard William saying to Felix, "I am ashamed of ourselves for not having taken better care of our Missionary." We found Timothy very sick indeed. We ministered to his comfort, and had it then in our power so to arrange that, while the work should not suffer, he could have rest and quiet. His success had been very marked, and the old Saulteaux rejoiced that he and the rest of them were to be neglected no longer. He had made such diligent progress himself in spiritual things that I gladly baptized him and his household. There were times when our supplies ran very short, and hunger and suffering had to be endured. During the first Riel Rebellion, when we were cut off from access to the outside world, we were entirely dependent upon our nets and guns for a long time. Our artist has tried to tell a story in three pictures. At the breakfast table we had nothing to eat but the hind-quarter of a wild cat. It was very tough and tasteless; and while we were trying to make our breakfast from it, Mrs Young said, "My dear, unless you shoot something for dinner, I am afraid there will be none." So I took down my rifle, and tied on my snow-shoes, and started off looking for game. See Picture I. Pictures II and III tell the rest of the story. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. SMALL-POX PESTILENCE--HEROIC CONDUCT OF CHRISTIAN INDIANS--WHITES SUPPLIED WITH PROVISIONS BY RED MEN--THE GUIDE SAMUEL PAPANEKIS--HIS TRIUMPHANT DEATH--NANCY, THE HAPPY WIDOW--IN POVERTY, YET REJOICING. We were very much shocked, during the early spring, to hear that that terrible disease, the small-pox, had broken out among the Indians on the great plains of the Saskatchewan. It seems to have been brought into the country by some white traders coming up from the State of Montana. When once it had got amongst them, it spread with amazing rapidity and fatality. To make matters worse, one of the tribes of Indians, being at war with another, secretly carried some of the infected clothing, which had been worn by their own dead friends, into the territory of those with whom they were at war, and left it where it could be easily found and carried off. In this way the disease was communicated to this second tribe, and thousands of them died from it. Every possible precaution against the spread of this terrible destroyer was taken by the Missionaries, Messrs. McDougall and Campbell, aided by their Christian people. But, in spite of all their efforts, it continued cutting down both whites and Indians. To save some of his people Mr McDougall got the Indians of his Victoria Mission to leave their homes and scatter themselves over the great prairies, where, he hoped, they would, by being isolated, escape the contagion. The pagan Indians, rendered desperate under the terrible scourge which was so rapidly cutting them off, and being powerless to check it, resolved to wreak their vengeance upon the defenceless whites. So they sent a band of warriors to destroy every white person in the country. The first place they reached, where dwelt any of the pale-faces, was the Victoria Mission on the Saskatchewan River. Indian-like, they did not openly attack, but, leaving the greater number of their warriors in ambush in the long grass, a few of them sauntered into the Mission House. Here, to their surprise, they found that the small-pox had entered, and some of the inmates of the home had died. Quickly and quietly they glided away, and told their comrades what they had seen. A hasty consultation was held, and they decided that it could not have been the Missionary who had control of the disease; for, if he had, he would not have allowed it to have killed his own. They then decided it must have been the fur-traders, and so they started for the trading post. Here they pursued the same tactics, and found to their surprise that a Mr Clarke, the gentleman in charge of that place, had fallen a victim. Another hasty council made them think that they had been mistaken, and so they quickly returned to their own country without having injured any one. But the Missionary and his family were surrounded by perils. The Indians were excited and unsettled, and their old pagan conjurers were ever ready to incite them to deeds of violence. The restraining power of God alone saved them from massacre. Once the Missionary's wife and some of the family were at work in the garden, while secreted in the long grass not a hundred yards from them lay eleven Blackfeet, who had come to murder and pillage the place, but, as they afterwards acknowledged, were strangely restrained from firing. At another time some of the fierce warriors of this same bloodthirsty tribe crawled through a field of barley, and for a long time watched the movements of the family, and then noiselessly retired, doing no harm to any one. To hear the ping of a bullet as it passed in close proximity to the head was no very rare event in the lives of several of the early Missionaries among the excited pagans. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ While the small-pox was raging in the Great Saskatchewan country, strenuous efforts were made to prevent it spreading to other districts. Manitoba had now been formed into a province, and was filling up with white settlers. The old name, Fort Garry, had been changed to Winnipeg, and this place was rapidly growing into a prosperous town. From Fort Garry long trains of Red River carts had been in the habit of going for years with the supplies needed in the far-off Saskatchewan country. These carts were made without having in their construction a single piece of iron. The Half-breeds or Indian drivers never oiled or greased them, and the result was they could be heard about as far as seen, even on the level prairies. Each cart was drawn by one ox, and was supposed to carry from eight to twelve hundred pounds of supplies, in addition to the food and outfit of the driver, who was always expected to walk. This freighting by carts on the prairies is the counterpart of transporting goods by open boats or canoes in the northern rivers, to which we have elsewhere referred. The arrival of the brigade of carts with the supplies, and the news from the outside world, was the great event of the year in the early times at those lonely prairie settlements. But stern measures had to be adopted in this year of the small-pox plague. A proclamation was issued by the Governor of the Province of Manitoba, absolutely prohibiting any trade or communication in any way with the infected district. Not a single cart or traveller was permitted to go on the trail. This meant a good deal of suffering and many privations for the isolated Missionaries and traders and other whites who, for purposes of settlement or adventure, had gone into that remote interior country. As it was, only twice a year in many places did the lonely Missionaries hear from the outside world. Then the mail-carrier was very welcome, whether he came by canoe or dog-train. Although there were still plenty of buffalo on the plains, it was well known that the ammunition was about exhausted, as well as all other supplies, including medicines, now so much needed. Some interested parties vainly urged the Governor to relent and allow some supplies to be sent in. But, conscious of the risks that would be run of the pestilence reaching the province over which he governed, he remained firm, while he felt for those who necessarily must suffer. "What can be done to aid those unfortunate ones, who, in addition to their sorrows and troubles incident to the ravages of the small-pox among them, are now to be exposed to pinching famine and want?" was the question that sympathising friends were asking each other. As a last resort it was decided to appeal to the Norway House Christian Indians, and ask them to form a brigade of boats, and take the much-needed supplies up the mighty Saskatchewan River, where they could be reached by those needing them. To me, as Missionary of these Indians, Mr Stewart, the highest official of the Hudson's Bay Company, came; and we talked the matter over, and the risks which the Indians, not one of whom had been vaccinated, must run in going on such a perilous journey. They would have to go hundreds of miles through the disease-stricken land where hundreds had died. But it seemed essential that something must be done, and there were possibilities that the Indians, by acting very wisely, could escape infection: so we decided to call them together, and see what they would do in this emergency. When the church bell was rung, and the people had assembled together in their Council house, wondering what was the matter, I described the sad circumstances to them, and then presented the request, that one hundred and sixty of them should take twenty boats loaded with supplies, and go up the Saskatchewan, to save these white people from starving. I said to these converted Indians, my own people: "I know your race on this continent has not always been fairly treated; but never mind that. Here is a grand opportunity for you to do a glorious act, and to show to the world and to the good Lord, Whose children you are, that you can make sacrifices and run risks when duty calls, as well as the whites can." We told them that there was a possibility that they, by keeping in the middle of the great river all the time, and _never_ going ashore, might all escape. They would be provided with abundance of food; so they need not go ashore to hunt. Then we asked, "Are you willing to run the risk, and avail yourselves of this chance to do a glorious act?" Turning to one of the most trusted guides in the country, one of my best Class- Leaders, I said: "Samuel Papanekis, you are to be the guide and leader of this party." He was a son of the old centenarian, and brother of the Reverend Edward Papanekis, now our Missionary at Oxford House Mission. He seemed at first a little startled by the responsibility of the position, and after a moment's thought quietly said: "Will you give us a little time to talk it over?" So we left them to discuss the matter among themselves. When they sent us word that they had their answer ready, we returned, and he said: "Missionary, we have talked it over, and have decided to go to take the supplies to our suffering white brothers and their families. But will you let us have one more Sunday at the church, and will you give us the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, ere we start upon the dangerous journey?" "Yes," I said, "it will take several days to get your loads and boats ready, and so we will have another blessed day of rest and hallowed worship together." It was a memorable Sabbath. Every man, woman, and child who could come to church, seemed to be there. Some of the women wept as they thought of the risks their husbands, or brothers, or sons were running. Others of them seemed to catch the spirit of the men, and felt proud that those they loved were willing to undertake so brave and noble a work. At the close of the morning service we had the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It was very solemn and impressive. As they came forward and partook of the emblems of their dear Lord's dying love, the recollection of His self-sacrifice and disinterested kindness seemed to come very vividly before us all, and there was in many hearts a kind of exultant joy that they were counted worthy to run some risks for the sake of doing good. No foolish boastfulness, or desire to seek for sympathy, characterised their utterances at the afternoon service, at which we met again in a Testimony or Fellowship Meeting. Some made no reference at all to the work before them; others asked for our prayers for them; and others, well taught in the Word of God, with the hallowed influences of the morning sacramental service still resting upon them, thought that they ought to rejoice when there were chances for getting into this spirit, so as to be partakers of Christ's sufferings, or companions in tribulation with such a Friend, so that when His glory should be revealed, they also might rejoice, as He has taught us: "If we suffer with Him," we shall "also be glorified together." Two or three days after this they started on their long, dangerous journey. They had twenty boats well loaded with supplies, each manned by eight Indians, and all under the guidance of Samuel Papanekis, whom they were expected to implicitly obey. They went up the fine river that passes by Norway House, until they entered into Lake Winnipeg. From this place they skirted around the north-western shore of this great lake, until they reached the mouth of the Saskatchewan River. Up this great river they had to row their beats against the current for many hundreds of miles. That summer was an exceedingly hot one, yet for weeks together these gallant fellows tugged away at their heavy oars. For a few short hours of rest during the night they anchored their boats in mid-stream, and then at first blush of morning they continued their journey. Wild beasts were sometimes seen walking on the shores or quenching their thirst in the river. The hunting instincts of the younger Indian boatmen were so strong that they begged to be allowed to fire; but Samuel, ever on the alert, and seeing the danger, always positively refused. When the Sabbaths came they anchored their boats as close together as possible near the middle of the river on some shoal or shallow spot, such as abound in this great river of shifting sand bars. Here they spent their quiet, restful days, having prayers and a couple of religious services each Sunday. Ere they reached the place where they were to deliver their precious cargoes, the river passed through many miles of the plague-stricken country. They could see on the shores the deserted wigwams, in which all the inmates had fallen victims to the fell destroyer, or had, panic- stricken, fled away. Very long seemed that summer, and great indeed was our solicitude, and many were our prayers for these noble men, from whom we did not hear a single word during the whole time of their absence. After being away for about ten weeks, they came back amidst a doxology of thanksgiving and gratitude. All of them were happy and in vigorous health, with the exception of the guide. The strain and anxiety upon him had been too much, and he was never the same man after. The others said, "Samuel seemed to be everywhere, and to watch every movement with almost sleepless vigilance." Realising how great the responsibilities were upon him, he determined, if untiring devotion to his work would enable him to rescue those suffering whites, and then return with his large brigade uncontaminated by the disease, it should be done. He succeeded, but at the price of his own life, for he only came home to linger a while and then to die. His indomitable will-power kept him up until he saw the last boat safely moored in our quiet harbour, and witnessed the loving greetings between his stalwart crews and their happy families. He joined with us all in the blessed thanksgiving service in our overflowing sanctuary, where with glad hearts we sang together: "And are we yet alive, And see each other's face? Glory and praise to Jesus give For His redeeming grace: Preserved by power Divine To full salvation here, Again in Jesu's praise we join, And in His sight appear." Then he began to droop and wither, and in spite of all that we, or the kind Hudson's Bay officials, who were very much attached to him, could do for him, he seemed almost visibly to slip away from us. By-and-by the end drew near. It was a beautiful day, and as he had some difficulty in breathing, at his own request a wigwam was prepared, and he was well wrapped up and gently lifted out of his house and placed upon a bed of balsam boughs covered with robes. He seemed grateful for the change, and appeared a little easier for a time. We talked of Jesus, and heaven, and "the abundant entrance," and "the exceeding great and precious promises." Then he dropped off in a quiet slumber. Soon after, he awoke with a consciousness that the time of his departure had come, and laid himself out to die. Bending over him, I said, "Samuel, this is death that has come for you! Tell me how it is with you." His hearing had partly left him, and so he did not understand me. Speaking more loudly I said, "Samuel, my brother, you are in the Valley of the Shadow of Death; how is it with you?" His eye brightened, and his look told me he had understood my question. He lifted up his thin, emaciated arm, and, seeming to clasp hold of something, he said, "Missionary, I am holding on to God; He is my all of joy and hope and happiness." Then the arm fell nerveless, and my triumphant Indian brother was in the Better Land. Perhaps I cannot find a better place than here to refer to Samuel's widow and children, and an interview I had with them. They moved away, shortly after his death, from his house in the Mission village, and took up their abode with several other families up the river beyond the Fort, several miles from the village. We had visited them and substantially aided them up to the time of their moving away, but for a while I had not met them, except at the services, and so did not know how they were prospering. When the cold winter set in, I arranged with my good Brother Semmens that we would take our dog-trains and go and make pastoral visits among all the Indian families on the outskirts, and find out how they were prospering, temporally and spiritually. It was ever a great joy to them when we visited them, and by our inquiries about their fishing and hunting, and other simple affairs, showed we were interested in these things, and rejoiced with them when they could tell of success, and sympathised with them when they had met with loss or disaster. Then they listened reverently when we read from the blessed Word, and prayed with them in their humble homes. One bitterly cold day towards evening we drove up to a very poor little house. We knocked at the door, and in answer to a cheery "Astum,"--the Indian for "Come in,"--we entered the little abode. Our hearts sank within us at the evidences of the poverty of the inmates. The little building was made of poplar logs, the interstices of which were filled up with moss and clay. The floor was of the native earth, and there was not a piece of furniture in the abode, not a table, chair, or bedstead. In one corner of the room was an earthen fireplace, and, huddled around a poor fire in it, there sat a widow with a large family of children, one of whom was a cripple. We said a few words of kindly greeting to the family, and then, looking round on the destitute home, I said sorrowfully, "Nancy, you seem to be very poor; you don't seem to have anything to make you happy and comfortable." Very quickly came the response,--and it was in a very much more cheery strain than my words had been,-- "I have not got much, but I am not unhappy, Missionary." "You poor creature," I replied, "you don't seem to have anything to make you comfortable." "I have but little," she said quietly. "Have you any venison?" "No!" "Have you any flour?" "No!" "Have you any tea?" "Have you any potatoes?" When this last question of mine was uttered, the poor woman looked up at me, for she was the widow of Samuel Papanekis, and this was her answer: "I have no potatoes, for, don't you remember, at the time of potato planting Samuel took charge of the brigade that went up with provisions to save the poor white people? And Samuel is not here to shoot deer, that I may have venison; and Samuel is not here to catch mink and marten and beaver and other things to exchange for flour and tea." "What have you got, poor woman?" I said with my heart full of sorrow. She replied, "I have got a couple of fish-nets." "What did you do when it was too stormy to visit the nets?" "Sometimes some of the men from the other houses visited them for me, and would bring me the fish. Then we sometimes get some by fishing through the ice." "What about when it was too stormy for any one to go?" She quietly said, "If nothing were left, we go without anything." As I looked at her and her large family of fatherless children, and then thought of her husband's triumphant death, and his glorious transfer to that blest abode, where "they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more," and where "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes," the contrast between the husband and father in his felicity, and the sorrow of the widow and children in their poverty, so affected me that, to hide my emotion and keep back my tears, I hurried out of the room, following my loving Brother Semmens, who was, if possible, more deeply moved than I was. We had gone into that house to pray, but we could not. There must be tangible sympathy given ere we could look to a higher source. My brother had reached the cariole, which was a few yards away, and I was not far behind, when the word, "Ayumeaookemou," ("Praying master,") arrested my hurrying steps. I turned back, and there, just outside of the door, was Nancy. With a woman's quick intuition to read the feelings of the heart from the face and voice, she had followed me out, and her words, as nearly as I can recall them, were these: "Missionary, I do not want you to feel so badly for me; it is true I am very poor; it is true, since Samuel died, we have often been hungry and have often suffered from the bitter cold; but, Missionary," and her face had no trace of sorrow upon it, "you have heard me say that as Samuel gave his heart to God, so have I given God my heart, and He Who comforted Samuel and helped him, so that he died so happily, is my Saviour; and where Samuel has gone, by-and-by I am going too; and that thought makes me happy all the day long." There came a blessed exultation into my soul, but I could find no answer then. So I hurried on and joined my weeping brother, and shouting, "Marchez!" to our dogs, we were soon rapidly speeding over the icy trail to our Mission home. That night our bed was a blanket thinner, and on our limited supplies there was a heavy drain. I told the Indians who were better off about her straitened condition, and she and hers were made more comfortable. Many of them gave very generously indeed to help her. The grace of liberality abounds largely among these poor Christian Indians, and they will give to the necessities of those who are poorer than themselves until it seems at times as though they had about reached the same level. The triumphant death of Samuel, and then Nancy's brave words, very much encouraged us in our work. We could not but more than rejoice at the Gospel's power, still so consciously manifested to save in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and also to make a humble log-cabin a little heaven below. We pitied her in her poverty, and yet soon after, when we had thought it all over in the light of eternity, we could only rejoice with her, and in our spirits say, "Happy woman! Better live in a log hut without a chair or table or bedstead, without flour or tea or potatoes, entirely dependent upon the nets in the lake for food, if the Lord Jesus is a constant Guest, than in a mansion of a millionaire, surrounded by every luxury, but destitute of His presence." It is a matter of great thankfulness that not only spiritually but temporally thousands of the Indians in different parts of Canada are improving grandly. The accompanying picture (page 209) is from a photograph taken at the Scugog Lake Indian Mission. The fine barn, well filled with wheat, as well as all the surrounding vehicles and agricultural implements, belong to one of the Christian Indians. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. A RACE FOR LIFE IN A BLIZZARD STORM--SAVED BY THE MARVELLOUS INTELLIGENCE OF JACK--"WHERE IS THE OLD MAN, WHOSE HEAD WAS LIKE THE SNOW-DRIFT?" Blizzard storms sometimes assailed us, as on the long winter trails, with our gallant dogs and faithful companions, we wandered over those regions of magnificent distances. To persons who have not actually made the acquaintance of the blizzard storms of the North-Western Territories, or Wild North Land, it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory description. One peculiarity about them, causing them to differ from other storms, is that the wind seems to be ever coming in little whirls or eddies, which keep the air full of snow, and make it almost impossible to tell the direction from which the wind really comes. With it apparently striking you in the face, you turn your back to it, and are amazed at finding that it still faces you. Once, when on Lake Winnipeg, we saw one coming down upon us. Its appearance was that of a dense fog blowing in from the sea. Very few indeed are they who can steer their course correctly in a blizzard storm. Most people, when so unfortunate as to be caught in one, soon get bewildered, and almost blinded by the fine, dry, hard particles of snow which so pitilessly beat upon them, filling eyes, nose, and even ears and mouth, if at all exposed. Once, when crossing Lake Winnipeg, to visit some wild Indians, whom we found on our arrival in the midst of the hideous ceremonies of a dog feast, I got caught in a terrible storm. My men had gone on ahead with all the dogs, to have dinner ready in the camp on the distant shore, leaving me miles behind, tramping along on snow-shoes. Down from the north, with terrific fury, came the gale. I tramped on as rapidly as possible, until I got bewildered. Then I took off one of my snow-shoes, and, fastening it in a hole cut in the ice, I got ready to tramp in a small circle around it to keep from freezing to death, when fortunately I heard the welcome whooping of my Indians, who, seeing my danger, had quickly turned round, and risking their own lives for mine, for they could have reached the woods and shelter, aided by the dogs, had fortunately reached me. There we stopped for hours, until the blizzard had spent its fury, and then on we went. I had a remarkable experience in a blizzard, which I will more fully describe, as our escape was under Providence so much indebted to my wonderful dog Jack. I had started on one of my long winter trips to visit the few little bands of Indians who were struggling for an existence on the Eastern coast of Lake Winnipeg, and who were always glad to welcome the Missionary, and to hear from him of the love of the Great Spirit, and of His Son Jesus Christ. Their country is very wild and rough, very different from the beautiful prairie regions of the North-West. To keep down expenses, which in those Northern Missions are very heavy, I had started out on this long trip with only this young Indian lad as my companion. But as he was good and true, I thought we could succeed, since I had been several years in the country, and had faced many a wintry storm, and slept many nights in the snow. We had with us two splendid trains of dogs. My leader was a lively, cunning Esquimaux dog, as white as snow. His name was Koona, which is the Indian word for "snow"; and he was well named. The other three dogs of my train were my favourites from Ontario. Two of them were gifts from Senator Sanford, of Hamilton; the other was kindly sent to me by Dr Mark, of Ottawa. The other train, driven by Alec, was composed of some sagacious St. Bernards obtained for me by the kindness of Mr Ferrier, of Montreal. The largest and most enduring of the eight was Jack from Hamilton, whose place was second in my train, and who is to be the hero of this adventure. We had left our camp-fire in the woods early in the morning, and, turning our faces towards the north, had hoped that ere the shadows of night had fallen around us, at least sixty miles of the frozen surface of Lake Winnipeg would have been travelled over. For a time we were able to push on very rapidly, keeping the distant points of headlands well in view for our guidance. Lake Winnipeg is very much indented with bays, and in travelling we do not follow the coast line, but strike directly across these bays from point to point. Some of them run back for many miles into the land, and several of them are from ten to thirty miles wide. The dogs get so accustomed to these long trips and to their work, that they require no guide to run on ahead, but will, with wonderful intelligence, push on from point to point with great exactness. On and on we had travelled for hours; the cold was very great, but we could easily jump off from our dog-sleds and run until we felt the glow and warmth of such vigorous exercise. After a while, we noticed that the strong wind which had arisen was filling the air with fine dry snow, and making travelling very difficult and unpleasant. Soon it increased to a gale, and we found ourselves in a real North-West blizzard on stormy Lake Winnipeg, many miles from shore. Perhaps our wisest plan would have been, at the commencement of the storm, to have turned sharply to the east, and got into the shelter of the forest as quickly as possible. But the bay we were crossing was a very deep one, and the headland before us seemed as near as the other end of the bay; and so we thought it best to run the risk and push on. That we might not get separated from each other, I fastened what we call the tail rope of my sled to the collar of the head dog of Alec's train. After Alec and I had travelled on for several hours, no sign of any land appearing, we began to think that the fickle blizzard was playing us one of its tricks, and that we had wandered far out into the lake. We stopped our dogs out there in the blinding, bewildering storm. "Alec!" I shouted, "I am afraid we are lost." "Yes, Missionary," he replied, "we are surely lost." We talked about our position, and both had to confess that we did not really know where we were or which way we ought to go. The result of our deliberation was that we could do no better than trust in the good Providence above us, and in our dogs before us. As it was now after midday, and the vigorous exercise of the last few hours had made us very hungry, we opened our provision bag, and, taking out some frozen food, made a fairly good attempt to satisfy the keen demands of appetite. We missed very much the good cup of hot black tea we should have had if we had been fortunate enough to reach the shore, and find some wood with which to make a fire. After our hasty meal we held a short consultation, in which the fact became more and more evident to us, that our position was a very perilous one, as we were becoming blinded by the driving particles of fine snow that stung our eyeballs and added much to our bewilderment. We found that we did not know east from west, or north from south, and would have to leave the dogs to decide on their own course, and let them go in any direction they pleased. I had a good deal of confidence in my dogs, as I had proved their sagacity. To Jack, the noblest of them all, I looked to lead us out of our difficulty; and he did not disappoint our expectations. I suppose I acted and talked to my dog in a way that some folks would have considered very foolish. When travelling regularly, the dogs are only fed once a day, and that when the day's work is done. However, it was different that day, as in the blinding gale Alec and I tried to eat our dinner. As Jack and the others crowded around us, they were not neglected, and with them we shared the food we had, as there was a great uncertainty whether another meal would ever be required by any one of us. As usual in such emergencies, Jack had come up close to me, and so, while he and Alec and I, and the rest of us, men and dogs, were eating our dinners, I had a talk with him. "Jack, my noble fellow," I said, "do you know that we are lost, and that it is very doubtful whether we shall ever see the Mission House again? The prospect is that the snow will soon be our winding sheet, and that loving eyes will look in vain for our return. The chances are against your ever having the opportunity of stretching yourself out on the wolf rug before the study fire. Rouse up yourself, old dog, for in your intelligence we are going to trust to lead us to a place of safety." The few arrangements necessary for the race were soon made. Alec wrapped himself up as comfortably as possible in his rabbit-skin robe, and I helped him to ensconce himself securely on his dog-sled. I tied a rope from the end of my sled to the collar of his leader dog, so that our trains might not get separated. Then I straightened out the trains, and, wrapping myself up as well as I could on my sled, I shouted "Marchez!" to the dogs. I had as leader dog the intelligent white Esquimaux, "Koona." As I shouted the word for "Go," Koona turned his head and looked at me, as though bewildered, and seemed to be waiting for "Chaw" or "Yee," the words for "right" and "left." As I did not know myself, I shouted to Jack, who was second in the train, "Go on, Jack, whichever way you like, and do the best you can, for I do not know anything about it." As Koona still hesitated, Jack, with all the confidence imaginable, dashed off in a certain direction, and Koona with slackened traces ran beside him, very willing in such an emergency to give him all the honour of leadership. For hours the dogs kept bravely to their work. The storm raged and howled around us, but not for one moment did Jack hesitate or seem to be at fault. Koona had nothing to do but run beside him; but the other two splendid dogs in the traces behind Jack seemed to catch his spirit, and nobly aided him by their untiring efforts and courage. The cold was so intense that I had grave fears that we should freeze to death. We were obliged so to wrap ourselves up that it was impossible with so much on us to run with any comfort, or to keep up with the dogs whilst going at such a rapid rate. Frequently would I shout back to my comrade, "Alec! don't go to sleep. Alec, if you do, you may never wake up until the Judgment morning." Back would come his response, "All right, sir; then I'll try to keep awake." Thus on we travelled through that wintry storm. How cold, how relentless, how bitter were the continuous blasts of the north wind! After a while the shadows of night fell upon us, and we were enshrouded in the darkness. Not a pleasant position was that in which we were situated; but there was no help for it, nor any use in giving way to despondency or despair. A sweet peace filled my soul, and in a blessed restfulness of spirit my heart was kept stayed upon God. While there is life there is hope; and so, with an occasional shout of warning to Alec to keep awake, and a cheering call to the dogs, who required no special urging, so gallantly were they doing their work, we patiently hung on to our sleds and awaited the result. We were now in the gloom of night, dashing along I knew not where, and not even able at times to see the dogs before us. About three hours after dark the dogs quickened their pace into a gallop, and showed by their excitement that they had detected evidences of nearness to the shore and safety, of which as yet I knew nothing. Soon after they dragged us over a large pile of broken ice and snow, the accumulations of ice cut out of the holes in the lake, where the Indian families had for months obtained their supply of water for cooking and other purposes. Turning sharply on the trail towards the shore, our dogs dashed along for a couple of hundred yards more; then they dragged us up a steep bank into the forest, and, after a few minutes more of rapid travelling, we found ourselves in the midst of a little collection of wigwams, and among a band of friendly Indians, who gave us a cordial welcome, and rejoiced with us at our escape from the storm, which was the severest of the year. We had three days of religious services with them, and then went on our way from encampment to encampment. Very glad were the poor people to see us, and with avidity did they receive the word preached. I felt that it was very slow work. My Circuit or Mission-field was larger than all England. I was the only Missionary of any Church in this large field. By canoe or dog-train I could only get around to all my appointments or out-stations twice a year. Six months the poor souls had to wait for the messenger and the message. At one of these Indian encampments on one of these visits I had the following sad experience. Before I closed the first service I asked, "Where is the old man whose head was like the snow-drift?" for I had missed a white-haired old man, who had ever been at all the services, and had from the time of his conversion manifested the greatest anxiety to hear and learn all he could about this great salvation. At first he had opposed me, and was annoyed at my coming among his people. Ultimately, however, he became convinced of the error of his ways, and was an earnest, decided Christian. When I arrived at his village, whether by canoe in summer, or dog-train in winter, I was always received by this venerable old man with great delight. Not satisfied with attending all the services held, and being at hand whenever I taught the Syllabic Characters, that the Indians might be able to read the blessed Word, he used to follow me like my shadow, and listen very attentively to all I had to say. It was rather startling, indeed, when one night, after a hard day of preaching and teaching and counselling, I kneeled down to pray, ere I wrapped myself up in my camp-bed to get a little rest, to hear whispered in quiet tones beside me, "Missionary, pray in Indian, and so loud that I can hear you." In the morning he was there again, and as I bowed to say my quiet morning prayers there came into my ears from this old man the pleading words again, "Missionary, please pray in Indian, and pray out loud, so that I may hear what you say." Is it any wonder that I became very much attached to my old friend with the snow-white hair, who was so hungering and thirsting for the teachings of the Word? Only twice a year could I then visit him and his people. I used to remain a few days at each of these visits, and very busy ones indeed they were. For six months these poor sheep in the wilderness had been without the Gospel, and as soon as I left they would have to get along as well as they could on what they had heard. Now that they had, under the good Spirit's influence, a longing desire to receive the truth, can any one wonder at their anxiety to learn all they could from the Missionary during his short stay among them? This intense desire on their part filled my heart with thankfulness, and amply compensated for all the sufferings and hardships of the long, cold, dangerous journeys. On my arrival at this place, as usual, the Indians had crowded around to welcome me. I was disappointed at not seeing my old friend. So it was that at our first meeting, held as soon as possible after my arrival, I asked the question, "Where is the old man whose head was like the snow- drift?" To my question there was no response, but every head was bowed as in grief and sorrow. Again I asked: "Tell me, what have you done with the old man with the snow-white hair?" Then there was a little whispering among them, and one of them, speaking out softly, said in the Cree language, "Non pimmatissit;" the English of which is, "He is not among the living." The poor Indians, who have not as yet come to understand that death is a conquered foe, never like to use the word; and so, when speaking of those who have gone, they say they are "not among the living." When in this expressive way I learned that my old friend was dead, my heart was filled with sorrow, as I saw also were theirs. After a little pause I said, "Tell me how he died." At first there was a great deal of reluctance to answer this question; but when they saw I was not only anxious but resolved to know all about it, they took me into a wigwam where most of his relatives were, and there a young man, a grandson, got up and told me this pathetic story. He said: "Missionary, you had not been long gone with your canoe last summer before Mismis," (the Indian word for "grandfather"), "got very sick, and after some weeks he seemed to know that he was going to leave us. So he called us all around him, and said a great many things to us. I cannot remember them all, as he spoke many times; but I do remember that he said, `how I wish the Missionary would soon come again to talk to me and comfort me! But he is far away, and my memory is bad, and I have forgotten what he used to say to me. My body is breaking up, and so also is my memory getting bad. Tell him his coming was like the sunlight on the waters; but it was so seldom that he came that all in my mind has got so dark, and my memory is so bad, that I have forgotten all he used to say to me. The good things he used to tell us about the Good Spirit and His Son, and what we ought to do, have slipped away from me. O that he were here to help me! Tell him, as long as I was able; I used to go up to the point of land that runs out into the lake, and watch if I could see his canoe returning. But it came not. Tell him I have, since the winter set in, listened for the sound of the bells on his dog- trains. But I have not heard them. O that he were here to help me! He is far away; so get me my old drum and medicine bag, and let me die as did my fathers. But you, young people, with good memories, who can remember all the Missionary has said to you, listen to his words, and worship the Great Spirit and His Son, as he tells you, and do not do as I am doing!' "Then, as we saw his mind was weak, or he would not have asked for his old things, we got him the old drum, and put it before him where he was sitting upon the ground. We also hung up a medicine bag before him in the wigwam, and he drummed. As he drummed he fell, and as he fell he died. But his last words were to the young people with good memories to be sure and listen to the Missionary, and to give up all their old Indian sinful paganism." When the young man ceased and sat down again, a deep silence fell upon us all, as there we were huddled that cold, stormy day in that little bark tent. An occasional sob from some sorrowing relative was the only sound heard for several minutes. My own heart was deeply affected when they told me these and other things, which I cannot now call up, about the old Indian's death. After a while I broke the silence by saying, "Where have you buried him?" They showed me the place. It was where his wigwam had stood. So terrible is the power of the Frost King in that land in winter, that to dig a grave out in the open places is like cutting through a granite rock. And so in his tent, where burned his fire, thus keeping the ground unfrozen, there they dug his grave and buried him. The wigwam was removed, and soon the fierce storms swept over the place, and the snow fell deeply upon it, and there was nothing to indicate that there, so shortly before, had been a human habitation. When they had pointed out the place where, underneath the snow-drift, rested all that was mortal of my old friend, I lingered until the Indians had sought the shelter of their wigwams from the bitter cold, and then all alone, except with Him Who hears His people's cry, I knelt down in the snow and prayed, or tried to pray. But I could only weep out my sorrow as I thought of this old man's precious soul passing into eternity under such strange circumstances. With his waning strength he exhorted his loved ones to be Christians, and yet he himself was performing some of the foolish and unmeaning rites of paganism, not because he had much faith in them, but because there was no Missionary or teacher to keep in his memory the story of Jesus and His wondrous love! Never before did the wants and woes of the weary, waiting, wailing millions of earth's perishing ones rise up so vividly as I knelt there in the snow. Before me, through my blinding tears, I seemed to see them pass in dense array,--a dark world, to be illumined; an enslaved world, to be set free; a sinful world, to be made holy; a redeemed world, to be saved. In a spirit that perhaps savoured too much of unbelief I cried out, "How long, O Lord, how long? Why do Thy chariot wheels delay?" Saving me from further gloom, came some of the sweet promises of the Word: and so I prayed for their speedy fulfilment. Earnestly did my feeble petitions ascend, that the time would soon come when not only all the poor Indians of the great North-West, but also all the unnumbered millions of earth's inhabitants who are going down from the darkness of paganism and superstition to the darkness of the grave, might soon have faithful teachers to whisper in their ears the story of the Cross, and point them to the world's Redeemer. Making all the visits we had arranged for that trip, we returned home. Months after, when the packet arrived from Manitoba, the sad news, that had so filled the Church with sorrow, of the death of the heroic George McDougall reached us. Out on the wild prairies he had been caught in a blizzard storm. Horse and man seem to have become bewildered, and there the noble Missionary to the Indians on the great plains laid himself down to die, and his frozen body was not found until after fourteen days of diligent search. After my dear wife and I had read the story, and talked and wept about his death, so sad, so mysterious, so inscrutable, she said to me, "Where were you during that week?" The journal was searched, and we were not a little startled at finding that the race for life we have in this chapter described was in all probability on the same day as that on which the Reverend George McDougall perished. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. WORK OUTSIDE THE PULPIT--POLYGAMY AND ITS EVILS--FAMILY RE- ARRANGEMENTS--DANGEROUS WORK AT TIMES--PRACTICAL PASTORAL DUTIES--A FISH SERMON--FIVE MEN WON TO CHRIST. While the blessed work of preaching "the glorious Gospel of the Son of God" was ever recognised as the most important of our duties, and we were permitted to rejoice that, as in Paul's time, still "it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe," yet there was a great deal to be done outside of the pulpit ere these Indians could shake off the fetters of a degrading paganism with its attendant evils. The slavish fear of the old conjurers deterred some from openly avowing themselves as willing to accept the truths of Christianity. Others were polygamists, and were unwilling to comply with the Scriptural requirements. To have several wives is considered a great honour in some of the tribes. For a man to separate from all but one is to expose himself to ridicule from his pagan friends, and also to the danger of incurring the hostility of the relations of the discarded wives. Some of the most perplexing and trying duties of my missionary life have been in connection with this matter of re-organising, on a Christian basis, the families of once heathen polygamists, who, desirous to do what was right, have left the matter entirely in my hands. At first my convictions and views were that the first wife should always be the one to remain with the man, and the others should go away. Like all the other Missionaries in the country, I had to modify these ideas, and decide differently in some peculiar cases. For example, a man came to me who was much impressed by the truth, and desired to be a Christian. I questioned him closely, and found him very sincere and earnest in his resolves. The Spirit was undoubtedly working in his heart and conscience. He told us he had two wives, but was willing to put one away. Which one should go, he said he would leave to the Missionary to decide. His first wife was much the older woman, but she had no children, while the younger wife had quite a family of little ones around her. So poor are they in this cold northern land that it is hard for the best of them at times to get along. Very sad is the condition of the widow, or those women who have no able-bodied men as husbands, fathers, or sons, to hunt and work for them. Worse still is it if they have helpless little children to be cared for. So the decision we came to was, that the wife with the family of little ones should remain with the man, and the one who had no children should leave him. We tried to arrange that a certain quantity of help should be rendered to the wife, or wives, put away by the husband. But we found that there was a certain amount of danger in this, the nature of which will be evident to the reader; and so, while we insisted on the one or more who left receiving as large a share as possible of the man's "worldly goods," we endeavoured to make the separation complete and final. To help those who for conscience sake thus acted was often a very heavy tax upon our limited means. Often the women themselves were the first to insist on a change from the old polygamous style, which, they were quick to see very soon after the Gospel was proclaimed to them, was antagonistic to its teachings. There was one most thrilling case that moved our hearts, and yet caused us to rejoice, for it showed us the depth of the religious convictions which impelled them to have the matter set right, even though one must be cast out and exposed to the ridicule of her heathen friends, and to the loss of a fairly good-natured husband, considering his pagan surroundings. Two women came to our Mission House, and asked to have a talk with my good wife and myself. After talking about different things, at length they told us, with much trepidation, that they had attended our services, and had a great desire in their hearts to become Christians. We found they were the two wives of an Indian whose wigwam had been pitched in our vicinity a few weeks before. These women and others had quietly come to our services at the church, and their hearts and consciences had been touched by the truth. We had had some experiences on these lines, and so with entire strangers we had learned to be a little cautious. In that country, as well as in civilised lands, it is sometimes a dangerous matter to interfere in the domestic affairs of other people. So we questioned them closely, and found that they were resolved to have the matter settled. I asked them if they had spoken to their husband about it, and they answered in the affirmative; also that he had left it to them to settle which should go, as he likewise had begun to think they ought to live as the Christian Indians did. We asked them what they wanted us to do, and they said that they had decided that they would leave the matter to the Missionary and his wife, and whichever we thought ought to leave, would go away, and try to get her own living. They returned to their wigwam, and with the consent of their husband made an equal division of the few things which constituted their possessions, such as nets, traps, blankets, kettles, and axes. Then, accompanied by their children, they came again to our house, and sat down apart from each other, and patiently awaited our decision. My wife and I deeply felt the responsibility of deciding; yet, as it had come to us because of the awakening of their hearts to desire a better life, we could not do otherwise than accept the situation, and do the best we could. We had talked the matter over, and had asked Divine guidance; and so now, when summoned to give our decision, we quickly but kindly said to the woman with five children, "You are to stay with your husband;" and to the other woman, who had four children, we said, "You are not to return to the wigwam, but must be from this hour as an entire stranger to it." The first woman sprang up, her eyes flashing with joy, and gathering her children and property around her she uttered her hasty words of farewell, and was gone. For a few moments the other woman, who had drawn her blanket over her head, remained perfectly still, with the exception of a suppressed sob, which seemed to make the whole body quiver. Soon, with that wonderful will-power which these Indian women, as well as the men, possess, she appeared to have obtained the mastery over herself again, and, uncovering her head, she began to make preparations for leaving. As she turned her large black eyes dimmed with tears towards us, while there was no malice in them, there was a despairing sorrow that pierced us like a knife. She seemed to see the lonely, neglected, contemned, suffering life before her; but she had counted the cost, and had taken the step for conscience' sake, and she would not flinch now. We entered into conversation with her, and it seemed almost cruel that we, who had given a decision that had shut up against her the only home she had, should begin to talk to her about where she would go and what she would do. She told us she did not know where to go or what to do. Her husband had bought her from her father, but he was dead; and as her girlhood home was far away, and she had not been there since her husband took her away, she knew nothing about any of her relatives. But even if she did, and could find some of them, it was very likely they would treat her with contempt, and perhaps persecute her. So she had not the slightest idea as to the future. Need I write that our hearts were full of sorrow, and we saw that this was a case which must have help, no matter how straitened might be our financial circumstances! We had but lately read the story of the little oil in the cruse, and the handful of meal in the barrel; and so this woman and her children must be helped. While Mrs Young fed them and talked kindly to them, I went out and got some of my Christian Indians together, and we talked the matter over, and then took off our coats and went to work, and made her a wigwam for the present, as it was in the pleasant summer-time. A canoe was obtained for her, and her nets were set where white fish could be caught readily. She was an industrious woman, willing to do everything she could; and so, with the help we gave her and the tangible sympathy manifested by the Christian Indians, she took heart and got along very well, and became a good Christian woman. As the result of the looseness of the marriage tie in their old sinful lives, we found many strange complicated tangles, some of which it was impossible to straighten. To deal with some of them would have caused endless difficulty, without any possibility of improving matters. To refuse to interfere gave offence to some, who, I am afraid, were more pharisaical than wise. Here, for example, was one case. A couple had been married years ago. After living together for several years and having three children, the man went off to Red River as a boatman for the Hudson's Bay Company. Delayed there for a time, he married a wife in the Indian settlement, and made that place his home, only returning with his second family about the time I went there. His first wife, a year or two after he left, not hearing from him, married another man, who supposed she was a widow, and they had several bright, interesting children. As the result of the faithful preaching of the Word, these families were converted, and became good Christians. They felt keenly their position, but, after pondering it over and listening to many solutions, I gave it up; and as the two families were living happily, I left them as I had found them. Paganism, not Christianity, was responsible for the difficulty. At Nelson River I was accosted one day by an old man, who said he had listened carefully to what I had said, and wanted to become a Christian and be baptised. I was very much pleased with his talk, but, suspecting him to be a polygamist, I asked him as to the number of his wives. His answer was that he had four. I had a long conversation with him as to our views, and explained to him the teachings of God's Word, and candidly told him that I could not baptize him until he put three of them away. He seemed grieved at my decision, and said that he did want to be a Christian, but he and his wives were getting old, and they had got along fairly well; and now if he went and told them what he would have to do, he was afraid there would be trouble. As I saw the man was really in earnest, and it was evident that the good Spirit was working upon his heart, I encouraged him to make the effort, and I told him everything would work out all right. He went to his large tent, and, getting his large family around him,-- for three of these wives had stalwart sons,--he told them of his desire to become a Christian, and what he would have to do before the Missionary would consent to baptize him. At once there was a "row." The women began to wail, and the sons, who generally treated their mothers with neglect and indifference, now declared, with a good deal of emphasis, that their mothers should not be sent away, and thus degraded in the eyes of the people. From what I afterwards learned, there must have been a rough time. At length one of the sons spoke up and said, "Who is causing us all this trouble?" The answer was, "Why, it is the Missionary, whom we have all heard, and who refuses to baptize our father unless he puts away all of his wives but one." "Let us go for that Missionary," said several of them, and seizing their arms, they came for me. Fortunately for me I was outside of the trading post on the green, and saw them coming, and, not liking their suspicious movements, and imagining the cause, I speedily decided on my course of action. Calling one of my reliable Christian Indians, I went quickly towards them, and, ignoring their angry looks, I began talking to them as though we were the best of friends. Something like the following were my words to them:-- "Men, you have heard me talk to you out of the great Book. You have listened attentively. You are thinking about what I have said to you. I wish we could do something, or find out some way, by which you and your mothers and father could all resolve together to give up the old bad life, and accept the new one, and become Christians together. I have been thinking it over since I had a little talk with your father, and I have a plan that I think will work well." While I went on in this way, they listened attentively; and when I came to mention a plan by which the difficulty could be overcome, the wicked looks began to fade from their eyes, for they were not anxious to kill me if any other solution of the difficulty could be found. They were eager to know what I had to suggest, and listened very attentively when I told them it would not be humiliating to any one. I told them I was pleased to find some young men who were willing to stand up for their mothers, while the great majority treated them worse than they did their dogs. My suggestion was, that the sons of each mother should form a wigwam of their own, and take their own mother with them and care for her. They were good hunters and strong men, and could do well. Then I added, "Let your father remain with the wife who has no children, no strong sons or daughters. Do this, and the Great Spirit will be pleased, and when you are further instructed there will be nothing to prevent you all being baptized and becoming Christians together." They were much pleased with the suggestion, and went away to talk it over. I did not succeed in getting the scheme immediately carried out, but my successor, the devoted and heroic Reverend John Semmens, was so successful in following up the work thus begun, that these Indians, with many scores of others, have become sincere, consistent Christians. Various were the plans adopted by my zealous, devoted wife and myself to help the people up to a better and happier life. In their old ways there were but few efforts made by the women to keep their homes neat and tidy, and their children or themselves clean. They had no encouragements to do anything of the kind. Kicked and cuffed and despised, there was left in them no ambition to do anything more than would save them from the rough treatment of those who considered themselves their lords and masters. The result was, when they became Christians, there was a great deal to learn ere their simple little homes could be kept decently, and in order. Fortunately, with a great many of them there was a desire to learn. A novel plan that we adopted, as one among many that did much good, was occasionally to go and dine with some of them. Our method was something like this. On the Sabbath from the pulpit I would announce that on Monday, if all was well, Mrs Young and I would dine with such a family, mentioning the name. On Tuesday we would dine with some one else, and on Wednesday with some other family, and so on for the week. This was, of course, the first intimation any of these families had received that, without waiting for an invitation, the Missionary and his wife were coming to dine with them. After service they waited to ask us if they could believe their own ears. "Yes, certainly," I replied. "Why, we have nothing to set before you but fish," they would say. "Never mind if you have but little; we will see to the food. All we are anxious for you to do is to have your little house as clean as you can possibly make it, and yourselves and children as clean and nice as possible." In this way we would talk to the half-frightened women, who were at first really alarmed at the prospect of having to entertain us; however, our words comforted them, and they went off delighted. Our plan was generally as follows. I would start off after breakfast and make several pastoral visits, or attend to some other matters, and so arrange my forenoon work that I should be able to reach the Indian home, where that day we had announced to dine, about noon. Mrs Young would have her own train of dogs harnessed up about ten o'clock. In her cariole she would put dishes, tablecloth, and provisions, with everything else requisite for a comfortable dinner considering our limited circumstances. A faithful young Indian acted as her dog-driver, and soon she and her load were at the home of the expectant family, who were all excitement at the coming of the Missionary and his wife. Very clean and tidy looked the little house and family. The floor had been scrubbed and rubbed until it could not be made whiter, and everything else was similarly polished up. As but very few of the houses had tables in those days, the floor was ever used as the substitute. On it the tablecloth was spread, and the dishes and knives and forks were arranged in order, and the dinner prepared. If the family had fish and potatoes, some of them would be cooked; but if not, sufficient was always taken in the cariole. We ever found it best to let them contribute to the dinner if they had abundance of either fish or potatoes. About the time I arrived dinner would be ready, and after cheering words of greeting to all, even to the fat papoose in the board cradle, we sat down, picnic style, on the floor to dinner. It would be called in civilised lands a plain dinner, and so it was; yet it was a feast to them, a banquet to us. Cheery conversation added to our enjoyment, and a very happy hour was thus spent. Then the Bible and hymn-books were brought out, and together we sang and read and talked about the blessed truths of that glorious Book. Then together we kneeled down, and "by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving" made our requests known to God; and to us came the sweet fulfilment, "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," filled our hearts. I generally hurried off to other duties. Mrs Young directed in the washing of the dishes and in putting them away, and then helped the woman of the house in some things about which she was longing for assistance. Perhaps it was a dress to be cut out for herself, or some garments fitted on some of the girls, or other similar things too intricate or difficult for my obtuse mind to be able to grasp. Thus from house to house we would go, and by our presence and cheery words encourage them to become more industrious and tidy. Those families never forgot these visits. With many of them there was a marked change in their homes, and with many also there was a marked improvement in their religious life. Once, in preaching from the text, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in," I tried to describe the blessed Redeemer coming to our hearts and knocking for admittance. I told them, all He wanted was a welcome to come in. As they made their little houses so clean, and gave the Missionary and his wife such a welcome, so the Saviour asked us to drive all sin out, and give Him all the place. "Some of you said, `We cannot entertain the Missionary; we have no food, so there will be no dinner.' But the Missionary and his wife brought abundance, and there was a good dinner. Better far is it when Jesus comes. He spreads out the feast, and He invites us to sit down and feast with Him. O let Him in!" Such talks as these, after practical illustrations, opened many hearts to the Heavenly Guest. So many and importunate had been the pleading calls for visits to different places, to tell the wonderful story of the Great Spirit and his Son, and to teach the people to read His Book, that one year my canoe trip to Oxford House Mission had to be delayed until the summer was nearly ended. But my comrades were splendid fellows, and we started off in good spirits, anticipating a successful visit; and we were not disappointed. We preached several times to the Indians, and baptized a large number of children; some young couples were married, and we had a solemn and blessed time when celebrating the dying of the Lord Jesus. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is very much prized by the Indians, and the greatest reverence is always manifested during the service. The fellowship meeting was a very good one, and some of the testimonies given by the men and women, so happily rescued by the Gospel's power, were of great interest. When travelling, if the weather was good, we generally rose with the first blush of morn, and so were often on the way by four o'clock. Sometimes our route was across fine lakes, or along majestic rivers; and then we were in narrow, sluggish streams, that were destitute of beauty or interest. One morning our way was down a large river, on the shores of which the fog had settled, completely hiding us from land. The early morning air was invigorating, and so in unison we were plying our paddles vigorously, and rapidly speeding along. We had seen no signs of human beings for days, and so were surprised and startled when several reports of firearms in quick succession sounded sharp and clear through the fog on our right. Nothing was visible through the gloom, but we quickly hove to, and turned our canoe in the direction from which the _feu-de-joie_ had sounded. As we approached the shore human forms began to appear in ghostly outline, more and more distinct, until they resolved themselves into a company of Indians, who were delighted to see us, and had been on the look-out for days. They had come sixty miles from the interior, and had camped on that point jutting out into the river, for the purpose of having a visit from us as we passed. The fact that they detected us as we were passing was another evidence of the marvellous education, in certain lines, of these Indians. It was very early in the morning; our canoe was some hundreds of yards from the shore; a dense fog hid us completely from each other. All the noise we made was the dip of our paddles in the water. Yet these wide-awake, alert Indians heard that sound, and by the rapid firing of the guns drew us to them. We shared their hospitality, as they had abundance of game. We had service with them, married a young couple, baptized several children, and had a pleasant time. Then on we hurried, since the time of open navigation was drawing to a close, and we did not wish to be caught in the ice, and have to walk perhaps scores of miles with our bedding, provisions, kettles, axes, and other things strapped on our backs. We made the greater part of the return trip all right, had reached Harry Lake early in the forenoon, and were rapidly paddling out of the river which entered into it, when again we heard the report of guns. So anxious were we to get on that we hesitated about stopping. It was now later in the season than often in some other years. Fierce storms had raged, and the ice had formed on the lake and rivers. We were dreading these fierce fall storms, which come down very suddenly, and stir up those northern lakes, so that in a very short time where all was calm and still, great foam-crested waves go rushing madly by. The lake before us, into which we had just entered and which was several miles in diameter, was now as placid as a pond. To cross it now, as in wondrous beauty it spread before us, would be but a pleasure jaunt. The poetry of motion is to be found in the Indian's birch canoe, when the water is calm and the sky is clear. Cold-hearted prudence said, "Go on, and never mind those Indians' signals for you to land." Our better natures said, "They may be in need, and have good reason for asking you to stop. Perhaps you can do them good." So we turned the head of our canoe to the shore, and were soon alongside the rock on which we saw them standing. They were five hunters. Without getting out of the canoe, we asked why they had signalled to us to come ashore. Their answer was one we had often heard before. They were hungry, and wanted help. Finding they had only been a few days away from the Fort, where they had got supplies, I asked how it was that they were so badly off. Their reply was that they had unfortunately left their powder, which they were carrying in a canvas bag, out on the rock a few nights before. While they slept the rain came down upon them and ruined it, and so they could not shoot anything. I quickly said to one of my men, "How much food have we?" He examined our limited supply, and then said there was about one square meal. We found these men were pagan Indians, whom I had met before, and had talked with about becoming Christians; but all I could get from them was the characteristic Indian shrug of the shoulders, and the words, "As our fathers lived, so will we." Our dinner was the last of a bear we had shot a few days before. While it was cooking the storm which we feared began to gather, and ere our dinner was finished the lake looked very different from what it was an hour before. If we had not stopped, we could have easily got across it. As it was now, it would have been madness to have ventured out upon it. So we had to pull up our canoe, and there, as contentedly as possible, wait for the storm to cease. It raged furiously all that day and the next. The third day it began to moderate. What made it worse for us was the scarcity, or rather the entire absence, of food. We were unfortunately storm-bound in about the worst part of that country for game. It was so late in the season that the ducks and geese had gone south, the beaver and musk-rats were in their houses, and we could find nothing. On some of our trips we carried fishing-tackle, but this time we had nothing of the kind. Fortunately we had some tea and sugar. Without breakfast, dinner, or supper, we had to live on as best we could. Before we lay down to sleep there had to be a considerable tightening of the belts, or there would be no sleep at all, so keen were the gnawings of hunger. I found it helpful to sleep to roll up my towel as hard as possible, and then crowd it under my tight belt over the pit of my stomach. Nearly three days without food was no pleasant ordeal even in missionary work. We held several religious services, even though our congregation was a small one. We also found out that it was not at all helpful to piety to try to worship on an empty stomach, and have been ever since in great sympathy with these who would feed the poor first, and then preach to them. The third day one of the Indians, while walking along the shore, found the old bleached shoulder-blade of a bear. With his knife he carved out a rude fish-hook, and, taking the strings of his moccasins, and those of others, he formed a line. A piece of red flannel was used as bait, and a small stone served as a sinker. With this primitive arrangement he began fishing. His method was to stand on a rock and throw the hook out as far as his line would permit, and then draw it in rapidly, like trolling. Strange to say, with this rude appliance he caught a fish. It was a pike weighing six or eight pounds. Very quickly was it scaled, cleaned, and put in the pot. When cooked, about a third of it was put on my tin plate, and placed before me with these words: "Please, Missionary, eat." I looked at the hungry men around me and said, "No, that is not the way." And then I put back the third of the fish with the rest, and, taking out my hunting knife, I counted the company, and then cut the fish into eight pieces, and gave each man his eighth, and took an equal portion myself. It was right that I should thus act, and it seemed to be a little thing to do, but it was a sermon that led those five men to become Christians. As soon as they had finished their portions they lit their pipes, and as they smoked they talked; and as near as I and my men could make out, here is what they said: "We must listen with both ears to that Missionary. He is here without food, suffering from hunger, because he stopped to share with us his last meal. We caught a fish, and when we offered him a large piece he refused it, and divided equally with us all. He has been anxious to do us good and to have us to listen to his words. He has not once scolded us for asking him to stop, although he could have got across the lake before the storm arose, and, as the rest of the way is in the river, he could have gone on home. He has shown himself to be our friend, and we must listen to what he has to say." Thus they went on, and I must confess I paid but little attention to what they were saying. After a few hours more the storm went down, and we gladly embarked that evening in our canoe and pushed on. The next day we reached the Mission village of Rossville, making our last portage at Sea River Falls, near Norway House; and as we saw the fish and venison hanging on the stagings around the houses of the people, my patient fellows cried out, "We should like to laugh at the sight of food, but we are too empty altogether." We paddled the last mile as quickly as we had any other, and kept up our courage until we were home. As I entered the house, a strange faintness came over me, and all the welcome words I could give to my loved ones were, "My dear, we are starving; please get us some food." Then I sank down exhausted. Loving care from one of the best and bravest of wives quickly brought me round again, and I was soon ready to be off on another trip. The long winter passed away, and the welcome summer came at last. We have really very little of spring in that northern land. The transition from winter to summer is very rapid. With the disappearance of the ice from the lakes and rivers came the Indians in their birch canoes, from various quarters where they had spent the winter in trapping the fur- bearing animals. As usual they came to see the Missionary in goodly numbers. Among those who thus honoured us were five big men, who, after a few words of greeting, said, "We hope you have not forgotten the fish; we have not, and we want to have a talk with you." "Fish?" I said. "Why, we have fish twenty-one times a week, boiled, baked, fried, salt, dried,--good, bad, and indifferent. I have seen so many fishes, I cannot think of any one in particular." Then they told me about the long delay by the storm, when I had stopped and fed them, at the time when they had not kept their powder dry; and how, when one of them caught a fish and offered me a good-sized piece, I divided it equally among them. As they brought the incident back to my memory, for there were so many strange adventures occurring in the wild life that this one had partly faded, I said: "Yes, I now remember there did happen something of the kind." Very earnestly spoke up one of them and said: "We have never forgotten it, and all through the moons of the winter we have talked about it and your lessons out of the great Book. And while up to that time we had decided not to be Christians, but to die as did our fathers, we have changed our minds since that time you divided the fish, and we want you to teach us more and more of this good way." They were intensely in earnest and fully decided for Christ. So five more families settled down in the Christian village, and are giving evidence by their lives and conversation that the change wrought in them was real and abiding. Their conversion in this peculiar way was very cheering to us, and it was another lesson to be "instant in season, out of season." CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. EXPLORING NEW FIELDS--THE GOSPEL BEFORE TREATIES--BIG TOM'S NOBLE SPIRIT OF SELF-SACRIFICE. In 1873 I received a most urgent request from a deputation of Indians to go and visit a band of their countrymen who lived on the western side of Lake Winnipeg at a place called Jack Head. They were getting unsettled and uneasy in their minds in reference to their lands. Treaties were being made with other tribes, but nothing as yet had been done for them; and as surveyors and other white men had been seen in their country, they were suspicious, and wanted to know what they had better do. So, after many councils among themselves, they decided to send over into the land of the Crees and Salteaux for their Missionary to come and give them advice, in order that they too might make a treaty with the Government of the Queen. I felt much pleased on receiving this deputation; and as it would give me a grand opportunity to preach the Gospel to a people who had not as yet heard it, I consented to go. With two dog-trains, and accompanied by a couple of trusty Indians, we left the Eastern side of the great Lake Winnipeg about sunrise. We dug a hole in the snow at Pigeon Point, and there made a fire of some dry young willows, and enjoyed our breakfast. From that point we struck out in a south-west direction across the great lake. The day, although cold, was a very bright one. The ice was good, and our dogs were magnificent fellows; and so we sped along at a rapid rate. We reached a chain of little islands out in the middle of the lake early in the afternoon. On the shore of one of them we gathered some dry wood, cleared away the snow, made a fire, melted some snow, and made ourselves a good kettle of tea. This, with some pemmican and flat cakes, made us a capital dinner. From this island the western shore of the lake was just visible, over thirty miles away. Towards it we pushed as rapidly as possible, considering that one of our Indians was quite an old man. When within about three miles of the shore, the report of fire-arms reached our ears, telling us that the Indians had observed our coming. Our noble dogs seemed to rejoice at the sound as much as ourselves, and, well knowing that their day's journey of over sixty miles was nearly ended, changed their swinging trot into a gallop; and very soon we were at Jack head, and among its plumed and painted inhabitants, by whom we were received in a most extraordinary manner. At some other places where I have gone as the first Missionary who ever visited them, I have had two or three hundred men, women, and children trying to see who could be the first to kiss me; but here the reception was very different. Night was just falling upon us as we drew near the shore, but there was light enough to observe that the narrow trail, up from the lake into the dark recesses of the forest, along which we must pass with our dog-trains, was lined with men armed with guns. When we were about a hundred yards from them, the foremost ones began firing. This _feu-de-joie_ continued until we had reached them and had dashed through the lines of fire, for they continued loading and firing as rapidly as possible. Our ears were almost deafened with the continuous reports, and our nerves were somewhat tried, as the younger braves especially consider it great fun to fire off their heavy charges of powder as close to their visitors' heads as possible. But a well- singed fur cap was the only evidence of harm having been done. To increase the welcome, they courteously brought out for our special benefit the few English and French words of which they were masters. Some of them were most ludicrously out of place. It did require a good deal of nerve to keep my face straight when a grave and dignified chief, who wished to inquire politely as to my health, for the moment dropped his own language, and in good English said, "Does your mother know you're out?" I found out afterwards that a roguish fur-trader had taught him the expression, as a very polite one to use to distinguished strangers. We quickly unharnessed and fed our faithful dogs. We hung up in the trees our sleds and harness beyond the reach of the wolfish curs, which in large numbers prowled around. If they could get the opportunity, they would make short work of the deer-skin and raw-hide fastenings of the sleds, and the harness would entirely disappear, with perhaps the exception of the buckles. We waited until our big dogs had given a few of the most impudent and saucy of these brutes a good thrashing, so that there was some prospect of peace; and then, feeling that our outside work was attended to, and that the Indians had had time to get arranged in their council room, we went to the door, and were ceremoniously ushered in. The council house was a large square log building of much better construction than I had expected to see. It was without partitions, and was lighted by the brilliant council fire, and a number of fish oil lamps hanging from the walls. At the places of honour were seated the chiefs of the band. Their "thrones of state" were curiously woven mats of rushes made by the Indian women. Their head-dresses were gorgeous masses of feathers, and their costume was very picturesque. Some of them had not yet adopted the pantaloons of civilisation, but wore instead the scant leggings of native manufacture. From the chiefs on either side and extending around the room in circles, were the old men and warriors and hunters, ranged according to their rank and standing. Behind these were the young men and boys. All were seated on the ground, and all were silent, as I entered. The chiefs were fine-looking men, and there was that indescribable _hauteur_ now so rarely seen among this interesting people. Crowded out behind the men and boys, and in many places packed against the walls of the house, were the women and girls. While the men were in many instances well and often brilliantly dressed in their finery, the women and girls were wretchedly clothed, and miserable in appearance. The house was filled, with the exception of a small space reserved at the right hand of the principal chief for the visitors. With a good deal of ceremony we were escorted to our seats. For me they had obtained a little box, on which a fur robe was placed, as they said afterwards, that they had heard that white men cannot sit comfortably on the ground. On this I seated myself next to the chief, and my attendant Indians ranged themselves beside me. During the profound silence that lasted for several minutes after our entrance, I had a good opportunity to grasp the situation. I breathed an earnest prayer to God for the much-needed wisdom, and that I might here preach the Gospel in such a way that it might be understood and accepted by this people, the majority of whom had not as yet heard the glad tidings of salvation. Then I rose up and, addressing the chief, I said: "I have come at your request from across the great Winnipeg, to visit you and to meet you at your council fire. I will preach to you and discuss treaty matters with you, and will help you all I can with the Government. I want to find out your views about giving up your old paganism and becoming Christians. I also want to know how many children you have among you, and if you desire a school for them. So I am here for these reasons." When I sat down, the calumet, the pipe of peace, was gravely lit, and after the chief had puffed away at it, he handed it to me. As I have not as yet acquired the art of smoking, I adopted the plan of taking hold of the long stem, which is over a yard in length, by the middle. The result was that when my hand was near my mouth, the mouthpiece of the pipe was a foot or so behind my head. As previously arranged, one of my obliging Indians was always on hand to do my smoking. After the pipe ceremony was over, the chief began his address of welcome. He said a good many kind things, and told me of their anxieties as to their future and that of their children. The fire-canoe (the steamboat) was rushing through the waters, destroying their fisheries. The white hunters, with their fire guns and steel traps, were fast killing off the game. The surveyor was driving his lines of stakes into the ground, and the white people, more numerous than mosquitoes, were crowding in on the prairies. They had nothing but peace in their hearts, but still he could not help thinking that a treaty ought to be made with them before the fire canoe or the surveyor came. They were powerless themselves to speak before the Queen's representative, the Governor. They had heard of the Missionary's love for the Indian, and so they had sent across the great Winnipeg for him, and their hearts were glad that he had come. With their right hands they had fired off their guns, which all said, "Welcome!" With his left hand he had handed the pipe of peace, which also from the heart again said, "Welcome!" Their hearts were all glad that with their eyes they saw the Missionary among them. Their ears were now open to hear what he had to say about their future, and what he thought the Queen's men would do for them. Then he sat down on his mat, and I rose up and in reply said: "Before I dare talk to you about treaties, and lands, and your future for this life, and that of your children, I must speak about something more important." This seemed to astonish them, and they said: "What has he got to talk about that is more important than the treaty?" "Yes," I answered, "I have something more important than the treaty, and something to say about One greater than the Queen, or the Governor she sends; for I must first talk about our great God, Whom the Queen and we all must love if we would be happy. The Great Spirit, our good Father in heaven, wants to make a treaty with us; and if we will be willing to comply with His conditions, it will be the best treaty ever made, for it will bring us joy and happiness for this life and the life to come." Loud were their words of approval that I should thus speak to them; and so I preached to them, making use of my trusted and careful interpreter, Timothy Bear, who is as thorough a master of the Saulteaux language as he is of the Cree. Considering that it was the first sermon they had ever heard, and that their ideas of our worship were very crude, they behaved remarkably well, seeing they were a crowd of plumed and painted savages, and Saulteaux besides. They kept up a constant smoking through all the service, except when we were singing or at prayer. Men, women, and children were all at it, and it seemed as though they were always at it. Before I got through my sermon I was almost suffocated by the smoke. The cloud, not that for which we had prayed, overwhelmed us, blinded us, and nearly smothered us. It was the cloud of their vile weeds and tobacco. As well as I could I talked to them of God and his love, and of the way of salvation, and the blessings which would come to them if they would cheerfully and heartily accept Him. We then sang the Jubilee hymn,-- "Blow ye the trumpet, blow." This hymn has been translated into their language. The tune we used was "Lennox," and I urged them to help us to sing. I gave out the hymn verse by verse, and said, "Sing as well as you can." Some followed very well, and others, while trying to follow the words, seemed to have substituted for the tune one of their Indian lilts. After the religious service was over, we hastily boiled our kettles, made tea, and had our suppers, for we had travelled far, and were very hungry. The Indians had nothing themselves but tea, fish, and tobacco. I never saw such smokers. Even little unweaned children were adepts in the use of the pipe. After tea the ceremonious speeches were delivered. The head chief was of course the first to speak again. His address was very complimentary. He said he had been gazing all day long across the great lake watching for my coming. Although it was several moons since, I had promised that in this one, if possible, I would be on hand. My coming just at the time I did, showed that I was a man of my word, and could be depended upon. "We feel," he said, "that we Indians are but children in the presence of the whites. Great changes are taking place. The buffalo and deer once so abundant are fast disappearing. Our fathers told us long ago that the buffalo was the special gift of the Great Spirit to the Indian, and that when it disappeared the Indian must go also. But in your words you tell us good things about the Great Spirit, and we are thankful that you have come. We wish you could live among us and thus talk to us." Thus he and others talked for a long time. We went over the business of the approaching treaty, and I told them all I knew about the matter, and assured them that they need have no fear or alarm. The Dominion Government would treat them honourably and fairly. More tobacco was smoked, and extra kettles of tea were made and drunk, and then I was told that as an additional mark of their thankfulness to me for thus coming with these assuring and quieting words, they now wished to give me the tribal ceremony of the greatest welcome, which was only given at rare intervals, and then only when the best of news came to them. The room was quickly rearranged for the ceremony. The crowd in the centre of the room was moved back, much to the discomfort of the women and girls, some of whom were roughly ejected to make room for their tyrants and masters. Then some drums were brought in, and between twenty and thirty of the most active and agile young men, dressed, or rather undressed, in their picturesque way, seated themselves closely around the men who were to act as drummers. The first part of the ceremony was supposed to be a kind of a concert, part musical and part pantomime. To describe it with its monotonous drumming and shrill songs, which they said were words of welcome, is altogether beyond my powers. At certain places in the songs, ten or twenty of the young men would spring up in their places, and without moving their feet from the ground would go through such strong, undulating, graceful motions, and yet all in such perfect unison with each other and with the music, that I was almost fascinated by the strange weird beauty of the scene. Then their programme changed, and rapidly they glided around in simple and intricate movements, but all in perfect time to the songs and drums. Not satisfied with giving me the welcome of their own tribe, they also gave me the still more exciting Sioux welcome, and also that of the wild Crees in the Saskatchewan. Until long after midnight these scenes were being enacted. Then word was passed round that the supply of tobacco devoted to the welcome ceremonies was exhausted, for through all of these scenes the pipes were only out of the mouths of the performers. All the rest of the crowd smoked without apparent cessation. This intimation of the exhaustion of the supply of tobacco abruptly closed the ceremony. Such is their custom. Some more tea was made and drunk by the chiefs. Then the Missionary's hand was shaken, and the people quickly flitted away to their wigwams. A supper, consisting of beautiful fish, called "gold eyes," which are caught by the young Indians in the rapid river at the foot of the Rude Water Slide, was then much enjoyed. One of my faithful Indians brought in my camp bed, and unrolled it near the council fire. I rolled myself up in a blanket and buffalo robe, and there on the ground I soon fell asleep, for I was very weary. At daybreak we arose, and had our breakfast cooked at the council fire. While eating it, many of the Indians crowded in to see us ere we left for our home across Lake Winnipeg. With them we held another religious service. I talked kindly and faithfully to them, and urged them to decide speedily to forsake their old pagan habits and become Christians; telling them that now, as they were making treaties and entering upon a new way of obtaining a living, they should adopt the religion of the great Book. With them we sang a hymn, and then kneeled down and prayed. Devoutly and reverently did they bow with us at the Mercy-seat. When we rose up from our knees, a young man spoke up on behalf of the young people. He said they were glad I had come, and hoped I would come again. Their minds were dark; would I soon come back and bring in the light? I said all I could to encourage them to seek after the great Light, and promised to come again. We harnessed up our dogs, and, in company with my attendant Indians, I started for home. A wild blizzard storm came down upon us from the north when we were far out from land. We toiled on through it as well as we could, although at times unable to see a dozen feet ahead of us. Often we got bewildered by its fury, as it seemed to circle and eddy around us; but Jack was in the foremost train, and so we safely reached the other shore, and did not for many a day cease to think about some of the strange features of this adventurous trip, in which in after years we found much real good had been done. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ As we have been referring to treaties and the excitement there was in the minds of the Indians in reference to the new relationship in which they would stand to the Government, it may be well here to put upon record the noble spirit of one of our Indians, on whom honours were desired to be conferred by his people. When the Dominion Government of Canada took possession of the territories so long held by the Hudson's Bay Company, they began to make arrangements for treaties with all the Indian tribes. Word came out to us at Rossville Mission House, that the Government wished the Indians to elect one of their number as chief, with whom they could make a treaty, and whom they could confer with if difficulties arose in the future. They wished the people to select a wise, judicious man, in whom all confidence could be placed. Naturally the Indians were very much excited at this new order of things, and so there were many councils and much speech-making. A good deal of curiosity was expressed to know what benefits would result, and how much money would be received by each of them. While there was still much uncertainty about these things, it had become well known that the one selected to be chief would fare very well. He would have more money and presents than any other. He would be presented with a silver medal with the face of the "Great Mother," the Queen, upon it, and would be honoured with the personal friendship of the Governor, and with other honours naturally dear to the Indian. After many councils the people came to the almost unanimous conclusion that Big Tom should be their chief. In a full council, with much ceremony, they offered him the position. Instead of seizing the proffered honours with avidity, his face became very grave, and it was evident he was full of suppressed emotion. When he arose, as all supposed, to indicate his acceptance of the position, and to express his thanks, they were very much surprised to hear him quietly say that he could not answer fully now, but desired a day to think it over. So he asked the council to adjourn until the following morning. Of course this request was complied with, and, full of curiosity, the people thronged the building the next day. I had naturally taken a deep interest in the matter, as, next to their spiritual interests, I was anxious to do all I could for their temporal welfare. So I attended many of their meetings. The council was opened in due form, and then Big Tom arose to give his answer. He began quietly and slowly, but warmed up a good deal before he ended. He spoke, in substance, as follows:-- "Long ago, when the Missionaries came and preached to us, for a time we refused to listen to them, and would not become Christians. Then, after a while, many of us who had been in the darkness began to feel in our hearts that what they told us was for our good; and so we accepted of these things, and they have done us good. When I got the assurance in my heart that I was a child of God, and had a soul that should live for ever, I found that in working out its salvation I had something great to live for. To do this was the great object of my life. By-and-by I married, and then, as my family increased and began to grow up around me, I found I had another object for which to live. To help them along in the way to heaven, as well as to work for their comfort here, was my second great work. Then, after a while, the Missionary gave me the charge of a class. I was to meet with them, and we were to talk together about our souls and God's love to us, and to do all we could to help each other on to the better land. To do my duty as the leader was a great and important work. While attending to these duties, I found I had another object for which to live. These three things,--1. My own soul's salvation; 2. The salvation of my family; and 3. To do all I can to help and encourage the members of my class to be true and faithful to Him Who died for us, that we may see him by-and-by,--are the uppermost things in my heart. "I am thankful for your confidence in me in asking me to be your chief. I know it is a great honour, but I see it will have many responsibilities, and that whoever has the position will have to attend to many other things than those which I have my mind set upon. So you must appoint some one else, for with those three things I cannot let anything else interfere. I thank you, my brothers, and love you all." In this strain he went on for a long while, and then sat down. No one thought any the less of the noble Christian man; and David Bundle, who was appointed, ever found in Big Tom a wise and judicious counsellor and friend. I was thrilled by the address and the spirit manifested. How few white men in like circumstances would have had grace and self-denial enough to have acted in a similar manner! CHAPTER NINETEEN. THE MISSION AMONG THE SAULTEAUX ESTABLISHED--NELLY'S DEATH--MISSIONARY ANNIVERSARIES ATTENDED--REVEREND THOMAS CROSBY--TRAVELLING ADVENTURES-- MORE WORKING WITH DOGS--OUR NEW HOME--VISIT FROM A CHIEFTAINESS--CLOSING WORDS. After a great deal of correspondence it was decided that I should begin the work at Beren's River among the Saulteaux Indians who lived there, and in little bands scattered along the eastern shores of that great lake, and in the interior, most of them in extreme poverty and superstitious degradation. A few of them, as the result of acquaintance with our Christian Indians of other places, were groping after the great Light, and trying to lift themselves up socially in life. The Reverend John H Ruttan was appointed to Norway House, the Reverend Orrin German to Oxford House, and I was put down for Beren's River. As it was advisable that I should remain at Norway House until my successor, Brother Ruttan, arrived, and as there was only one opportunity for a long time for Mrs Young and the children to return to Red River, they availed themselves of it, poor and miserable as it was. With loving "farewells" I wished them success on their journey, and saw them off. Sandy Harte, our adopted Indian lad, and I sailed down to the old Norway House, about twenty miles from our home, and there saying "Good-bye," we returned to our lonely home. Mrs Young had with her our three darling children, Eddie, Lilian, and Nelly. All were well and full of the best of spirits as the sail was hoisted, and we saw them glide away before the favouring gale. Precious Nelly we never saw again. So terrible was the heat, and so miserable were the accommodations in that little open boat, without deck or awning or cabin, that the child sickened and died. As we have referred to this sad event in an earlier chapter, we need not dwell upon it here. What the poor mother felt and suffered as, sick herself, she saw her beautiful child attacked by brain fever, and then droop and die amidst surroundings so sad and trying, can be realised by but few. God knows all about it. As mentioned, the venerable Archdeacon Cowley's sympathy did much to raise up Mrs Young's crushed spirits and dry her bitter tears. I remained at Norway House until Brothers Ruttan and German arrived; and then, after having spent a Sabbath with them, and seen Mr Ruttan and his noble young wife cheerfully and hopefully entered upon their blessed work among the people, to whom I had become very much attached, I started off for Beren's River. Sandy Harte, the Nelson River lad, went with me as far as my first camping place, and spent the night with me. We read the sacred Word together, and then, after singing a Hymn, we bowed in prayer. We lay down together, but we had so much to say, that hours passed away ere we slept. Early the next morning we were aroused from our slumbers by the cry of "Fair wind," and so no time must be lost. I was very much surprised to find that during the night some scores of Indians had come on in their canoes from the Mission, although it was many miles away, to shake hands with their Missionary once more, and say a final "Farewell." After a hasty breakfast we assembled on the shore for prayers. We sang in Cree a favourite hymn:-- "Jesus, my All, to heaven is gone, He Whom I fix my hopes upon. His path I see, and I'll pursue The narrow way till Him I view." We closed by singing the Doxology, and then, after prayers, I sadly said "Good-bye," and shook hands again with them all. I found it hard to break away from them. Many of them were in tears, who seldom wept before. Coming to my beloved Sandy last, I put my arm around his neck and kissed him as there he stood, weeping as though his heart would break. With a "God bless you all," I sprang into the boat, which was quickly pushed off from the shore, and then the long journey to the land of the Saulteaux was begun. After some of the usual incidents of travel I reached Beren's River, and was most enthusiastically received by the Indians. The man who had said, "Our eyes were dim from long watching," now said that they were dim with tears of joy that he had lived to see the day when a Missionary of their own lived among them. As I was to leave before the lake froze up, every day was precious. I pitched a canvas tent, and in it lived for several weeks. All assembled once every week-day for religious worship, and then, when that was over, the Missionary and men took off their coats and went to work. The spot for the Mission was decided upon, and then acre after acre of the forest from this place, and also from where each Indian had decided to build, was rapidly being cleared of the forest trees. We held three services every Lord's day, and saw that the school for the children was faithfully kept up. Getting everything in good shape, and leaving Martin Papanekis, a devout and trusty Christian Indian from the Norway House Mission, in charge, I started in a birch canoe, with Big Tom as principal canoe-man, for Red River. Of our adventures and dangers I need not write, although there were several on that long journey in such a frail craft. One complete upset chilled me most thoroughly, as the water was about down to freezing point. At one place, where we tried to push on all night, we were tantalised by some most brilliant "Will-o'-the-wisp" lights, which our experienced Indians thought were decoy signals put out by wicked Indians to bewilder or injure us. Canoe travelling on this great lake is risky business. The storms come up with surprising rapidity, and the waves rise up like those of the ocean. However, we had a good canoe, and Big Tom was in charge; and He Who holds the winds and the waves in His fists was our Father and our Friend. At Red River I called on the Reverend Archdeacon Cowley at his Indian Mission home. Very cordial and sympathetic was he, as I introduced myself, and told him I had come to accept of his kind offer, and seek in some part of the quiet graveyard of his Mission Church a little place where I could bury the body of my darling child. He at once went with me and showed me all kindness and help, as also did Mr Flett and his family, of the Hudson's Bay Company's Service. As we laid away the beautiful child, and the solemn words, "Earth to earth, dust to dust," were uttered, we felt that there was now an additional tie holding us to that country and work. In due time I reached Toronto, and there met the Missionary Secretaries, and obtained from them an outline of the work before me. Here it was my great joy to meet for the first time the Reverend Thomas Crosby, the energetic and successful Missionary from British Columbia, who has been wonderfully owned of God in his glorious work. Uncalled by any Church, but impelled by the good Spirit, shortly after his conversion he made his way to British Columbia at his own expense, and offered himself to one of the Missionaries there as a volunteer teacher among the poor, neglected Indians, who, uncared for by any one, were prowling around the cities and towns of that new Province, living lives of shame and sin. Great indeed was his success. He has also established flourishing Missions at Fort Simpson and elsewhere in the north of that land, and through his labours a blessed work began among the Indians in Alaska. Some of them, hearing wonderful stories about the black-coated man and his mysterious Book, came hundreds of miles, that they might have their curiosity satisfied. They returned with more than they anticipated. They reached the Mission, and from Mr Crosby, and also from some of their own tribes who lived there, they heard the "old, old story" for the first time in their lives. It was indeed wonderful news to them, but they accepted it with a simple faith that was pleasing to God, and brought into their hearts the consciousness of His smile and benediction. Rejoicing in this new-found treasure they returned to their own land, and there they published the glad tidings of God's love, and added the testimony of their own personal experience that they had a new joy in their hearts, the result of their having accepted this Saviour. Great indeed was the excitement among the people. Some mocked, and some opposed and tried to persecute, but many were affected by what their companions had brought them, and believing their testimony entered into their joy. Of course the new converts could give but little instruction; and so, as the work proceeded, it was decided that a deputation must go for the Missionary and bring him into their land. Mr Crosby responded, and went over to Alaska, and spent some time among them. God blessed his labours, and many of the Indians gave up their paganism and became Christians. Convinced that a grand opening was here for Missionary triumph, Mr Crosby wrote to the Methodist Episcopal Mission Rooms, New York, urging the officials there to enter this open door and begin work here. The answer was that it was impossible; that their other fields absorbed all their income, and so there was no prospect of their being able to respond to his appeal. Not to be discouraged very easily, Mr Crosby next wrote to the Presbyterian Board at Philadelphia, and told of these poor sheep in the wilderness; and here, thank God, he met with success, and there was a glad response; and the successful Presbyterian Missions and Indian Schools in that land to-day are the outgrowth of that work. In company with this heroic Brother Crosby, who had so much to tell, I spent several months in attending Missionary Meetings. We had blessed times. Immense crowds came out to hear us, and, if I am not mistaken, the increase in the Missionary income that year was the greatest in its history. In all, we attended eighty-nine Missionary Anniversary Services in different Canadian towns and cities between Sarnia and Quebec. A very happy week was spent with my family at "Oaklands," Toronto, the beautiful residence of the Honourable Senator Macdonald, the Lay Treasurer of our Missionary Society. Of Senator Macdonald's great kindness, and tangible evidences of sympathy, neither few nor slight, if I should here write, I should only be mentioning what scores of Ministers and Missionaries could say had been their own fortunate experiences with this large-hearted philanthropist. Eternity alone will be able to reveal the full measure of what, with a glad heart, he has been constantly and unostentatiously doing for many of Christ's ambassadors, and among the different Churches. As soon as the season for holding Missionary Meetings ended, I returned to my Indian work. I left the Province of Ontario on the 6th of April, and reached Beren's River after twenty-three days of continuous travelling. On the railroads in Minnesota and Dacota we were detained by snowdrifts, which so blocked up our way that we had some very unpleasant experiences. After leaving the railroad I had to travel two hundred and fifty miles in a stage on runners over the snowy prairies. We had some blizzards to encounter, and one night, when we were fortunate enough to have reached one of the stopping places, the storm raged like a hurricane. The house was built of logs, and not well finished, and the snow sifted in through the wide cracks between these logs and on to our beds. My experiences in wintry camps served me a good purpose now, and so pulling up the hood of my overcoat, and then completely covering myself up under the bedclothes, I slept soundly through the raging storm and driving snow. When we were called up to eat a hasty breakfast and resume our journey, I found several inches of snow on the top of my bed, but I had suffered no inconvenience from it. With my travelling companions in the other beds it was very different. The upper storey, in which our beds were placed, was all one room, and so the snow had equally assailed us all. But, not being able to sleep with their heads completely covered up, they had suffered much, and were in anything but an amiable mood when we resumed our journey. At Winnipeg I was cordially welcomed by my beloved Chairman, the Reverend George Young, who had ever taken the deepest interest in my work, and done all he could to add to our comfort and efficiency in its prosecution. Fortunate indeed were we, poor Missionaries in the interior, whether it was north or west, that we had such a man to look after our supplies, and see that we were not cheated or swindled by those who once a year sent them out to the poor toilers in their lonely fields. For years we had no money in our northern Missions. Our plan was, once a year to receive from Winnipeg all that our salary would purchase for us in the shape of supplies that were needed in our own home, and also with which to pay teacher, interpreter, guides, canoe- men, dog-drivers, and others who might be employed in the prosecution of the work. As all the work of purchasing and packing these things depended very much upon the Chairman, fortunate indeed did all of us, who had Dr Young as our Chairman, consider ourselves to be. My dogs and Indians were waiting for me, having come down from the north to meet me, as arranged months before. We purchased our supplies, loaded our sleds, and away we started by dog-train on the last part of the long journey. We had left Toronto in a splendid railroad carriage; we ended the trip of over twenty days' duration with dog sleds. Very quickly did I come back to the wild life of the North after the six months of incessant pleading the cause of the Indians before the large and enthusiastic audiences in our towns and cities. The days of hard and rapid travelling over the frozen surface of Lake Winnipeg,--the bitter cold that often made us shiver in spite of the violent exercise of running,--the intense and almost unbearable pain caused by the reflection of the brilliant rays of the sun upon the snowy waste,--the bed in the hole in the snow with no roof above us but the star-decked vault of heaven,--were all cheerfully endured again and successfully passed through. Very cordial was my welcome by the Saulteaux at my new field. I was very much gratified to find that they had had a successful winter, and that those left in charge had worked faithfully and well. A little log house, twelve by twenty-four feet, had been put up, and in one end of it I was installed as my present home. My apartment was just twelve feet square, but to me it was all-sufficient. It was kitchen, bedroom, dining-room, study, reception-room, and everything else. Two of my grandest dogs, Jack and Cuffy, shared it with me for months, and we had a happy and busy time. With several hard-working Indians, two of them being Big Tom and Martin Papanekis from Norway House, we toiled hard at getting out the timber and logs for our new church, school-house, and parsonage. We had to go a distance of twelve or fourteen miles over the frozen lake ere we reached the large island on which we found timber sufficiently large for our purpose. Here we worked as hard as possible. Often we had to go in miles from the shore to find what we wanted. To make our work more difficult, we found but few large trees growing close together. So, for nearly every large stick of timber, we had to make a new trail through the deep snow to the lake. The snow was from three to four feet deep. The under-brush was thick, and the fallen trees were numerous. Yet under these discouragements we worked. We cut down the trees, measured them, squared them, and got them ready for their places. Then we hitched one end on a strong dog sled, and attached one dog to this heavy load. How four dogs could drag these heavy sticks of timber was indeed surprising. The principal pieces were thirty-six feet long and ten inches square. Yet my gallant St. Bernards and Newfoundlands would take these heavy loads along at a rate that was astounding. We had thirty-two dogs at work, and rapidly did our piles of timber and logs accumulate. Dressed as one of the natives, with them I toiled incessantly for the material upbuilding of the Mission. We had delightful services every Sabbath. Nearly every Indian within some miles of the place attended, and good results were continually cheering our hearts. Although it was so late in the season when I arrived, yet there was not, for weeks after, any sign of the spring, except in the lengthening days and increasingly brilliant sun. For a long time the vast snowy wastes remained crisp and hard. Very glorious was the atmosphere, for there were no fogs, no mists, no damps. The sky seemed always cloudless, the air was always clear. Nearly every morning during those weeks of hard toil we were treated to the strange sights which the beautiful and vivid mirage brought to us. Islands and headlands, scores of miles away, were lifted up from below the horizon, and shown to us as distinctly as though close at hand. With but few exceptions our nights also were very glorious, especially when the Northern Lights, taking this vast Lake Winnipeg as their field of action, held one of their grand carnivals. Generally beginning in the far north, with majestic sweep they came marching on, filling the very heavens with their coloured bars, or flashing, ever-changing, yet always beautiful clouds of brightness and glory. Sometimes they would form a magnificent corona at the zenith, and from its dazzling splendour would shoot out long columns of different coloured lights, which rested upon the far-off frozen shores. Often have I seen a cloud of light flit swiftly across these tinted bars, as if a hand were sweeping the strings of some grand harp. So startling was the resemblance, that there was an instinctive listening for the sound that we used to think ought to come. Sometimes I have suddenly stopped my dogs and men, when we have been travelling amidst these fascinating and almost bewildering glories of the heavens above us, and we have listened for that rustling sound of celestial harmony which some Arctic travellers have affirmed they have heard, and which it seemed to me so evident that we ought to hear. But although for years I have watched and listened, amidst the death stillness of these snowy wastes, no sounds have I ever heard. Amidst all their flashing and changing glories these resplendent beauties ever seemed to me as voiceless as the stars above them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When spring arrived, and with its open water came our first boats, we brought out from Red River a quantity of building material and two experienced carpenters. Then actively went on the work of building a Mission House, and also a large school-house, which for a time was to serve as a church also. We called it "the Tabernacle," and for a good while it served its double purpose admirably. Leaving the carpenters and Indians at work, I went into the then small village of Winnipeg for Mrs Young and our two little children, who were now returning from Ontario, where they had remained among friends, until I, who had so long preceded them, should have some kind of a habitation prepared for them in the wilderness. For weeks we had to live in my little twelve-by-twelve log-cabin. It was all right in cold or dry weather, but as its construction was peculiar, it failed us most signally in times of rain and wet. The roof was made of poplar logs, laid up against the roof pole, and then covered very thickly with clay. When this hardened and dried, it was a capital roof against the cold; but when incessant rains softened it, and the mud in great pieces fell through upon bed, or table, or stove, or floor, it was not luxurious or even comfortable living. One morning we found that during the night a mass, weighing over five pounds, had fallen at the feet of our youngest child, as she, unconscious of danger, slept in a little bed near us. However, after a while, we got into our new house, and great were our rejoicings to find ourselves comfortably settled, and ready for undivided attention to the blessed work of evangelisation. While there was a measure of prosperity, yet the Mission did not advance as rapidly as I had hoped it would. My hopes had been that the surplus population at Norway House would have settled there, and that many from the interior directly east would, as they had stated, come out and help to build up the Mission. Opposition in various quarters arose, and the Norway House Crees preferred to go farther south; and finally seventy families preferred that place, and there they have formed a flourishing additional Mission. Thus the work advanced, although not all along the lines which some of us had marked out. With patient endurance my noble wife and I toiled on. There was room for the exercise of the graces of courage, and hope, and faith, and patience; but a measure of success was ever ours, and we saw signs of progress, and had every now and then some clear and remarkable cases of conversion from the vilest degradation and superstition into a clear and conscious assurance of Heaven's favour and smile. One summer there came from the east to visit us a chieftainess with several of her followers. Her husband had been the chief of his people, and when he died she assumed his position, and maintained it well. Her home was several days' journey away in the interior, but she had heard of the Missionary who had come to live among the Saulteaux and teach them out of the great Book. Was not she a Saulteaux, and had not she a right to know of this new way, about which so much was being said? With these thoughts in her mind she came to see us. When she came to the Mission, we saw very quickly that here was an interesting woman. We had several interviews, and Mrs Young and myself did all we could to lead this candid, inquiring mind into the right way. Before she left I gave her a sheet of foolscap paper, and a long lead pencil, and showed her how to keep her reckoning as to the Sabbath day. I had, among many other lessons, described the Sabbath as one day in seven for rest and worship; and she had become very much interested, and promised to try to keep it. As she pushed out in her canoe from our shore, her last importunate request was, that as soon as possible I would visit her and her people in their own land. So many were my engagements that I could not take up this additional one until about the middle of the winter following. When, with a couple of Indian attendants, with our dog-trains, we dashed into her village, great indeed was her joy at seeing us, and very demonstrative was the welcome given. She had put up on a staging outside in the cold a couple of reindeer heads, keeping them there preserved by the frost until I should arrive. Very quickly were they taken down to cook. The hair was singed off, and then they were cut up with an axe into pieces weighing about two pounds each. Soon they were in the pot, boiling for our dinner. I furnished some tea, and while everything was being got ready by a few, the rest of us sat down and talked. They were indeed anxious for instruction in spiritual things. I read and, through my interpreter, explained truth after truth, to which they gave the most earnest attention. Then we stopped a little while, that we might have dinner. As I and my men were the guests of this chieftainess I did not get out my tin plates, and cups, and knives and forks, but sat down beside her in her wigwam with the rest of the people, completing a circle around the big wooden dish, in which the large pieces of cooked reindeer heads had been thrown. I asked a blessing on the food, and then dinner began. The plan was for each person to help himself or herself to a piece of the meat, holding it in the hand, and using hunting knife or teeth, or both together, to get off the pieces and eat them. I am sorry to say my lady friend on the right, this chieftainess, had very dirty-looking hands, and long, strong, brilliant teeth. She took her piece of meat, and, turning it over and over in her hands, began tearing and cutting at it in a way that was not very dainty, but extremely otherwise. After biting off a few mouthfuls, she threw it down on the dirty ground of the wigwam before her, and, inserting one of her greasy hands in the bosom of her dress, she pulled out a large piece of soiled paper, and, unfolding it before me, she began in excited tones to tell me how she had kept the tally of the "praying days," for thus they style the Sabbath. Greatly interested in her story, and in her wild joyous way of describing her efforts to keep her record correct, I stopped eating and looked over her paper, as she talked away. Imagine my great delight to find that through the long months which had passed since I had given her that paper and pencil, she had not once missed her record. This day was Thursday, and thus she had marked it. Her plan had been to make six short marks, and then a longer one for Sunday. "Missionary," she said very earnestly, "sometimes it seemed as though I would fail. There were times when the ducks or geese came very near, and I felt like taking my gun and firing. Then I remembered that it was the praying day, and so I only put down the long mark and rested. I have not set a net, or caught a fish, or fired a gun, on the praying day since I heard about it at your house so far away." Of course I was delighted at all this, and said some kind words of encouragement. Then we resumed our dinner. I had my piece of meat in one hand, and with the knife in the other was endeavouring to cut off the pieces and eat them. The good woman replaced the precious paper and pencil in her bosom, and then picked up her piece of meat from the dirty ground, and, after turning it over and over in her hands, began with her strong teeth to tear off the large mouthfuls. All at once she stopped eating, and, looking intently at my piece, she said, "Your piece is not a very good one, mine is very fine," and before I could protest, or say a word, she quickly exchanged the pieces; and from her portion, which she put in my hand, I had to finish my dinner. As what she did is considered an act of great kindness, of course I would not grieve her by showing any annoyance. So I quietly smothered any little squeamishness that might naturally have arisen, and finished my dinner, and then resumed the religious service. Soon after, she became a decided Christian. The following extracts are from the last letter which I sent to the Mission Rooms, ere, owing to the failure of Mrs Young's health, we left the land of the Saulteaux for work in the Master's Vineyard elsewhere. The Mission had now been fully established, a comfortable parsonage built and well furnished. A large school-house had been erected, which answered also for the religious services until the church should be finished. Many had been our trials and hardships, and there had been a great deal of opposition, much of it from places not expected. But to be enabled to send such tidings from such a place, where I had gone as the first Missionary, and among such a wicked and degraded tribe as were these Saulteaux, so different from the more peaceful Crees, caused my heart to rejoice, that He Who had permitted me to go and sow the seed had also given me the honour of seeing some golden sheaves gathered in for the heavenly garner:-- "Last Sabbath was perhaps the most interesting and encouraging one we have spent on the Mission. Our place of worship was crowded, and many had to remain outside. Some of the old Indians who, in spite of our pleadings, had clung to their paganism, renounced it on that day in a most emphatic manner. Seven of them, after being questioned as to their thorough renunciation of their old superstitions, and as to their present faith in Christ, were then and there baptized. "At the afternoon service several more were baptized; among them an old man, perhaps seventy years of age, with his wife and grandchild. He had never been inside a Christian sanctuary before. He had just arrived from the vast interior eastward of this place, the country I visited under so many difficulties last April. "The old man brought down with him the Bible and hymn-book which I had given him months ago. He stated that although he could not read them very well, yet he kept them close to him by day, and under his pillow by night, and tried to keep in his memory all he had heard of what was written in them, as I had told him. "I have been teaching the school myself for months, as my faithful teacher, Timothy Bear, is poorly. Among the scholars I have none more attentive than the old man and his wife. Seated on the ground with the Reverend James Evans' Syllabic Characters marked out with a pen on a piece of paper in their hands, and the open Bible on the grass before them, they are striving hard to read fluently in their own language the wonderful works of God. "If this old man had presented himself for baptism a little better clothed, we should have been pleased. All he had on was a dirty cotton shirt and a pair of deer-skin leggings. However, as such fashions occur here, his appearance created no remark, but all were deeply moved at his coming forward and so emphatically renouncing his old paganism. "The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper on the same day was also a service of great interest, as several new members, baptized a few months ago, were admitted to the Lord's Table for the first time. In two instances the decided stand for Christ taken by the women has led to the conversion of their husbands. Until lately they were careless, reckless men; but they have now come and declared that they are convinced that the religion of their wives is better than the old, and they desire to have it too. Thus the work goes on; but how slowly! When shall the time arrive when `nations shall be born in a day'? Haste, happy day!" "We are toiling through the darkness, but our eyes behold the light That is mounting up the eastern sky and beating back the night. Soon with joy we'll hail the morning when our Lord will come in might, For Truth is marching on. "He will come in glorious majesty to sweep away all wrong; He will heal the broken-hearted and will make His people strong; He will teach our souls His righteousness, our hearts a glad new song, For Truth is marching on. "He is calling on His people to be faithful, prompt, and brave, To uplift again the fallen, and to help from sin to save, To devote themselves for others, as Himself for them He gave, For Truth is marching on. "Let us fight against the evils with our faces towards the light; God is looking through the darkness, and He watches o'er the fight And His joy will be our recompense, His triumph crown the right, For Truth is marching on." 
19308	----	Transcribed from the 184 Macmillan & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org PIONEERS AND FOUNDERS, or Recent Workers in the Mission field. BY C. M. YONGE, _Author of_ "_The Heir of Radclyffe_." {i:Portrait of Reginald Heber: p0.jpg} London: MACMILLAN & CO 1874. INTRODUCTION. It has been my endeavour in the ensuing narratives to bring together such of the more distinguished Missionaries of the English and American nations as might best illustrate the character and growth of Mission work in the last two centuries. It is impossible to make it a real history of the Missions of modern times. If I could, I would have followed in the track of Mr. Maclear's admirable volume, but the field is too wide, the material at once too numerous and too scattered, and the account of the spread of the Gospel in the distant parts of the earth has yet to be written in volumes far exceeding the bulk of those allotted to the "Sunday Library." Two large classes of admirable Missions have been purposely avoided,--namely, those of the Jesuits in Japan, China, and North and South America, and those of the Moravians in Greenland, the United States, and Africa. These are noble works, but they are subjects apart, and our narratives deal with men exclusively of British blood, with the exception of Schwartz, whose toils were so entirely accepted and adopted by the Church of England, that he cannot but be reckoned among her ambassadors. The object, then, has been to throw together such biographies as are most complete, most illustrative, and have been found most inciting to stir up others--representative lives, as far as possible--from the time when the destitution of the Red Indians first stirred the heart of John Eliot, till the misery of the hunted negro brought Charles Mackenzie to the banks of the fever-haunted Zambesi. We think it will be found that, so far from being the talking, exaggerating, unpractical men that the critical and popular mind is apt to suppose, these labourers were in general eminently practical and hard- working. They seem to us to range themselves into three classes: one, stirred up by the sight of the destitution before their eyes, and quietly trying to supply those needs; one, inspired by fervid zeal to devote themselves; and one, selected by others, taking that selection as a call, and toiling as a duty, as they would have toiled at any other duty set before them. Each and all have their place, and fulfil the work. The hindrances and drawbacks are generally not in the men themselves, nor in the objects of their labour, but first and foremost in the almost uniform hostility of the colonists around, who are used to consider the dark races as subjects for servitude, and either despise or resent any attempt at raising them in the scale; and next, in the extreme difficulty of obtaining means. This it is that has more than anything tended to bring Mission work into disrepute. Many people have no regular system nor principle of giving--the much-needed supplies can only be charmed out of their pockets by sensational accounts, such as the most really hard-working and devoted men cannot prevail on themselves to pour forth; and the work of collection is left to any of the rank and file who have the power of speech, backed by articles where immediate results may be dwelt upon to satisfy those who will not sow in faith and wait patiently. And the Societies that do their best to regulate and collect the funds raised by those who give, whether on impulse or principle, are necessarily managed by home committees, who ought to unite the qualities of men of business with an intimate knowledge of the needs and governments of numerous young churches, among varied peoples, nations, and languages, each in an entirely abnormal state; and, moreover, to deal with those great men who now and then rise to fulfil great tasks, and cannot be judged by common rules. Thus it is that home Societies are often to be reckoned among the trials of Missionaries. But we will not dwell on such shortcomings, and will rather pass on to what we had designed as the purpose of our present introduction; namely, to supplement the information which the biographical form of our work has necessitated us to leave imperfect, respecting the Missions as well as the men. Of the Red Indians who first stirred the compassion of John Eliot, there is little that is good to tell, or rather there is little good to tell of the White man's treatment of them. Self-government by the stronger people always falls hard on the weaker, and Mission after Mission has been extinguished by the enmity of the surrounding Whites and the corruption and decay of the Indians. A Moravian Mission has been actually persecuted. Every here and there some good man has arisen and done a good work on those immediately around him, and at the present time there are some Indians living upon the reserves in the western part of the continent, fairly civilized, settled, and Christianized, and only diminishing from that law of their physical nature that forbids them to flourish without a wilderness in which to roam. But between the long-settled States of America and those upon the shores of the Pacific, lies a territory where the Indian is still a wild and savage man, and where hatred and slaughter prevail. The Government at Washington would fain act a humane part, and set apart reserves of land and supplies, but the agents through which the transactions are carried on have too often proved unfaithful, and palmed off inferior goods on the Indians, or brought up old debts against them; and in the meantime mutual injuries work up the settlers and the Red men to such a pitch of exasperation, that horrid cruelties are perpetrated on the one side, and on the other the wild men are shot down as pitilessly as beasts of prey, while the travellers and soldiers who live in daily watch and ward against the "wily savage" learn to stigmatize all pity for him as a sort of sentimentalism sprung from Cooper's novels. Still, where there is peace, good men make their way, and with blessed effect. We wish we had room for the records of the Bishopric of Minnesota, and the details of the work among the Indians; more especially how, when a rising was contemplated to massacre the White settlers all along the border, a Christian Indian travelled all night to give warning; and how, on another occasion, no less than four hundred White women and children were saved by the interposition of four Christian Indian chiefs. Perhaps the Church has never made so systematic an effort upon the Indians as in Minnesota, and it is to be hoped that there may be some success. For the need of system seems to me one of the great morals to be deduced from the lives I have here collected. I confess that I began them with the unwilling belief that greater works had been effected by persons outside the pale of the Church than by those within; but as I have gone on, the conviction has grown on me that even though the individuals were often great men, their works lacked that permanency and grasp that Church work, as such, has had. The equality of rank in the ministry of other bodies has prevented the original great founders from being invested with the power that is really needed in training and disciplining inferior and more inexperienced assistants, and produces a want of compactness and authority which has disastrous effects in movements of emergency. Moreover, the lack of forms causes a deficiency of framework for religion to attach itself to, and this is almost fatal to dealing with unintellectual minds. On the whole, the East Indian Missions have prospered best. Schwartz was the very type of a founder, with his quiet, plodding earnestness, and power of being generally valuable; and the impression he made had not had time to die away before the Episcopate brought authority to deal with the difficulties he had left. Martyn was, like Brainerd before him, one of the beacons of the cause, and did more by his example than by actual teaching; and the foundation of the See of Calcutta gave stability to the former efforts. Except Heber, the Bishops of the Indian See were not remarkable men, but their history has been put together as a whole for the sake of the completion of the subject, as a sample of the difficulties of the position, and likewise because of the steady progress of the labours there recorded. The Serampore brethren are too notable to be passed over, if only for the memorable fact that Carey the cobbler lighted the missionary fire throughout England and America at a time when the embers had become so extinct that our Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had to borrow workers from Denmark and Germany. Indeed, Martyn's zeal was partly lighted by Carey, though the early termination of his labours has forced me to place his biography before that of the longer-lived Baptist friends--both men of curious and wonderful powers, but whose history shows the disadvantages of the Society government, and whose achievements were the less permanent in consequence. The Burmese branch of their work is chiefly noticeable for the characters and adventures of Dr. Judson and his three wives, and for the interesting display of Buddhism in contact with Christianity. According to the statistics in an American Missionary Dictionary, the work they founded has not fallen to the ground either at Moulmein or Rangoon; while there has also sprung up a hopeful English Church Mission in the same quarter. The last thing I saw about it was a mention of the neatness and dexterity of Burmese girls as needlewomen. Samuel Marsden may be called the patriarch of Australasian Christianity. There is something grand in the bravery of the bullet-headed Yorkshireman, now contending with the brutality of the convicts and their masters, now sleeping among the cannibals of New Zealand. His foundations, too, have received a superstructure on which we cannot dwell; because, happily, the first Bishop of New Zealand is not yet a subject for biography, and the Melanesian Mission, which has sprung out of it, has not yet seen its first generation. The Polynesian work, of which John Williams was the martyr and the representative man, has chiefly been carried on by the London Mission. It has always been a principle with the Missionaries of the Anglican Church, whose centre has been first New Zealand, then Norfolk Island, never to enter upon any islands pre-occupied by Christian teachers of any denomination, since there is no lack of wholly unoccupied ground, without perplexing the spirit of the natives with the spectacle of "our unhappy divisions;" and thus while Melanesia is for the most part left to the Church, Polynesia is in the hands of the London Mission. Much good has been effected. The difficulty is that, for want of supervision, individual Missionaries are too much left to themselves, and are in danger of becoming too despotic in their islands. At least such is the impression they sometimes give to officers of the navy. French aggression has much disturbed them both in Tahiti and in the Loyalty Islands, and the introduction of Roman Catholic priests into their territory is bitterly resented. On the whole, observers tolerably impartial think that the civilization which these married teachers bring with them has a happier effect as an example and stimulus to the natives than the solitary ascetic priest,--a true, self-devoted saint indeed but unable to win the attention of the people in their present condition. In India, where asceticism is the test of sanctity even among the heathen, the most self-denying preacher has the best chance of being respected; but in those luxurious islets, poverty and plainness of living, without the power of showing the arts of life, get despised. If the priests could bring their pomp of worship, and large bands of brethren or sisters to reclaim the waste, they might tell upon the minds of the people, but at present they go forth few and poor, and are little heeded in their isolation. Unfortunately, too, the antagonism between them and the London Mission is desperate. The latter hold the tenets perhaps the most widely removed from Catholicism of any Protestant sect, and are mostly not educated enough to understand the opposite point of view, so that each party would almost as soon see the natives unconverted as joining the hostile camp: and precious time is wasted in warrings the one against the other. The most real enemies to Christianity in these seas are, however, the lawless traders, the English and American whalers and sandal-wood dealers, who bring uncontrolled vice and violence where they put in for water; while they, on the one hand, corrupt the natives, on the other they provoke them into reprisals on the next White men who fall in their way. That the Polynesians are good sailors and not bad workmen, has proved another misfortune, for they are often kidnapped by unscrupulous captains to supply the deficiency of labour in some of the Australasian settlements. Everywhere it seems to be the unhappy fact that Christian men are the most fatal hinderers of God's word among the heathen. Yet most of the more accessible of the isles have a resident missionary, and keep up schools and chapels. Their chiefs have accepted a Christian code, and the horrid atrocities of cannibalism have been entirely given up, though there is still much evil prevalent, especially in those which have convenient harbours, and are in the pathway of ships. The Samoan islanders have a college, managed by an English minister and his wife, where teachers are educated not only to much good discipline, but to much real refinement, and go forth as admirable and self-devoted heralds of the Gospel into other isles. They have furnished willing martyrs, and many have been far beyond praise. One lack, however, seems to be of that definite formularies, a deficiency which leaves the teaching to depend over much on the individual impressions of the teacher. The chief remnants of cannibalism are to be found in the New Hebrides. The leader of the attack on John Williams is still alive at Erromango, and the savage defiant nature of this people has never been subdued. They belong more to the Melanesian than the Polynesian races. The first are more like the Negro, the second more like the Malay. The Melanesian Missions are in the charge of the Missionary Bishop, John Coleridge Patteson, who went out as a priest with the Bishop of New Zealand in 1855. The New Zealand story, as I have said, cannot be told in the lifetime of the chief actor in it. It is a story of startling success, and then of disappointment through colonial impracticability. In some points it has been John Eliot's experience upon a larger scale; but in this case the political quarrel led to the rise of a savage and murderous sect among the Maories, a sort of endeavour to combine some features of Christianity and even Judaism with the old forgotten Paganism, and yet promoting even cannibalism. It is memorable, however, that not one Maori who had received Holy Orders has ever swerved from the faith, though the "Hau- Haus" have led away many hundreds of Christians. Still, a good number remain loyal and faithful, and hold to the English in the miserable war which is still raging, provoked by disputes over the sale of land. The Melanesian Mission was begun from New Zealand; but whereas the isles are too hot for English constitutions, they can only be visited from the sea, and lads are brought away to be educated for teachers. New Zealand proved too cold for these natives of a tropical climate, and the college has been transplanted to Norfolk Island, where Bishop Patteson has fixed his head-quarters. One of his converts from Banks's Island has received Holy Orders, and this latter group seems in good train to afford a supply of native ministers to islands where few Englishmen could take up a permanent abode. The African Missions would afford much detail, but want of space has prevented me from mentioning the Rev. George Leacock, the West Indian clergyman, who gave up everything when already an old man to pave the way of the Gospel in the Pongas. And the Cape still retains its first Bishop, so that it is only on the side of Natal and Zululand, where the workers have passed away, that the narrative can be complete. But the African Church is extending its stakes in Graham's Town, Orange River, Zululand, and Zanzibar; and while the cry from East, West, and South is still "Come over and help us," we cannot but feel that, in spite of many a failure, many a disappointment, many a fatal error, still the Gospel trumpet is being blown, and not blown in vain, even in the few spots whose history, for the sake of their representative men, I have here tried to record. Of the Canadian and Columbian Indian Missions, of the Sandwich Isles, and of many more, I have here been able to say nothing; but I hope that the pictures of these labourers in the cause may tend to some understanding, not only of their toils, but of their joys, and may show that they were men not easily deceived, and thoroughly to be trusted in their own reports of their progress. CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. _March_ 16_th_, 1871. CHAPTER I. JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE OF THE RED INDIANS. Since the great efforts that Britain had made between the years 500 and 1000 to bring the knowledge of the truth into the still heathen portions of the Continent,--since the days of Columban and Gal, of Boniface and Willibrord,--there had been a cessation of missionary enterprise. The known portions of the world were either Christian, or were in the hands of the Mahommedans; and no doubt much of the adventurous spirit which, united with religious enthusiasm, forms the missionary, found vent in the Crusades, and training in the military orders. The temper of the age, and the hopelessness of converting a Mahommedan, made the good men of the third 500 years use their swords rather than their tongues against the infidel; and it was only in the case of men possessing such rare natures as those of Francis of Assisi, or Raymond Lull, that the possibility of trying to bring over a single Saracen to the faith was imagined. It was in the revival from the Paganism with which classical tastes had infected the Church, that the spirit of missions again awoke, stimulated, of course, by the wide discoveries of fresh lands that were dawning upon the earth. If from 1000 to 1500 the progress of the Gospel was confined to the borders of the Slavonic nation, the space of time from 1500 onwards has been one of constant and unwearied effort to raise the standard of the Cross in the new worlds beyond the Atlantic. Spain, Portugal, France, as nations, and the great company of the Jesuits as one mighty brotherhood, were the foremost in the great undertaking; but their doings form a history of their own, and our business is with the efforts of our own Church and country in the same great cause. Our work was not taken up so soon as theirs, partly because the spirit of colonization did not begin amongst us so early as in Spain and Portugal, and partly because the foundations of most of our colonies were laid by private enterprise, rather than by public adventure, and moreover some of the earlier ones in unsettled times. It may be reckoned as one peculiarity of Englishmen, that their greatest works are usually not the outcome of enthusiastic design, but rather grow upon them by degrees, as they are led in paths that they have not known, and merely undertake the duty that stands immediately before them, step by step. The young schoolmaster at Little Baddow, near Chelmsford, who decided on following in the track of the Pilgrim Fathers to New England, went simply to enjoy liberty of conscience, and to be free to minister according to his own views, and never intended to become the Apostle of the Red Indians. Nothing is more remarkable than the recoil from neglected truths. When, even in the earliest ages of the Church, the Second Commandment was supposed to be a mere enhancing of the first, and therefore curtailed and omitted, there was little perception that this would lead to popular, though not theoretical, idolatry, still less that this law, when again brought forward, would be pushed by scrupulous minds to the most strange and unexpected consequences, to the over-powering of all authority of ancient custom, and to the repudiation of everything symbolical. This resolution against acknowledging any obligation to use either symbol or ceremony, together with the opposition of the hierarchy, led to the rejection of the traditional usages of the Church and the previously universal interpretation of Scripture in favour of three orders in the ministry. The elders, or presbytery, were deemed sufficient; and when, after having for many years been carried along, acquiescing, in the stream of the Reformation, the English Episcopacy tried to make a stand, the coercion was regarded as a return to bondage, and the more ardent spirits sought a new soil on which to enjoy the immunities that they regarded as Christian freedom. The _Mayflower_ led the way in 1620, and the news of the success of the first Pilgrim Fathers impelled many others to follow in their track. Among these was John Eliot. He had been born in 1604 at Nasing in Essex, and had been bred up by careful parents, full of that strong craving for theological studies that characterized the middle classes in the reign of James I. Nothing more is known of his youth except that he received a university education, and, like others who have been foremost in missionary labours, had a gift for the comparison of languages and study of grammar. He studied the Holy Scriptures in the original tongues with the zeal that was infused into all scholars by the knowledge that the Authorized Version was in hand, and by the stimulus that was afforded by the promise of a copy of the first edition to him who should detect and correct an error in the type. The usual fate of a scholar was to be either schoolmaster or clergyman, if not both, and young Eliot commenced his career as an assistant to Mr. John Hooker, at the Grammar School at Little Baddow. He considered this period to have been that in which the strongest religious impressions were made upon him. John Hooker was a thorough-going Puritan of great piety and rigid scruples, and instructed his household diligently in godliness, both theoretical and practical. Eliot became anxious to enter the ministry, but the reaction of Church principles, which had set in with James I., was an obstacle in his way; and imagining all ceremonial not observed by the foreign Protestants to be oppressions on Christian liberty, it became the strongest resolution of the whole party to accept nothing of all these rites, and thus ordination became impossible to them, while the laws were stringent against any preaching or praying publicly by any unordained person. The instruction of youth was likewise only permitted to those who were licensed by the bishop of the diocese; and Mr. Hooker, failing to fulfil the required tests, was silenced, and, although forty-seven clergy petitioned on his behalf, was obliged to flee to Holland. This decided Eliot, then twenty-seven years of age, on leaving England, and seeking a freer sphere of action in the newly-founded colonies of New England, which held a charter from Government. He took leave of his betrothed, of whom we only know that her Christian name was Anne (gracious), and that her nature answered to her name, and sailed on the 3rd of November, 1631, in the ship _Lyon_, with a company of sixty persons, among whom were the family of Governor Winthrop. They landed at Boston, then newly rising into a city over its harbour, and there he found his services immediately required to conduct the worship in the congregation during the absence of the pastor, who had gone to England finally to arrange his affairs. On his return, Mr. Eliot was found to be in such favour, that the Bostonites strove to retain him as an assistant minister; but this he refused, knowing that many friends in England wished to found a separate settlement of their own; and in less than a year this arrangement was actually carried out, a steep hill in the forest-land was selected, and a staunch band of East Saxons, bringing with them the gracious Anne, came forth. John Eliot was married, elected pastor, ordained, after Presbyterian custom, by the laying on of the hands of the ministers in solemn assembly, and then took possession of the abode prepared for him and of the building on the top of the hill, where his ministrations were to be conducted. These old fathers of the United States had found a soil, fair and well watered; and though less rich than the wondrous alluvial lands to the west, yet with capacities to yield them plentiful provision, when cleared from the vast forest that covered it. Nor had they come for the sake of wealth or luxury; the earnestness of newly-awakened, and in some degree persecuted, religion was upon them, and they regarded a sufficiency of food and clothing as all that they had a right to seek. Indeed, the spirit of ascetiscism was one of their foremost characteristics. Eliot was a man who lived in constant self-restraint as to both sleep and diet, and, on all occasions of special prayer, prefaced them by a rigorous fast--and he seems to have been in a continual atmosphere of devotion. One of his friends objected (oddly enough as it seems to us) to his stooping to pick up a weed in his garden. "Sir, you tell us we must be heavenly-minded." "It is true," he said, "and this is no impediment unto that; for, were I sure to go to heaven to-morrow, I would do what I do to-day." And, like many a good Christian, his outward life was to him full of allegory. Going up the steep hill to his church, he said, "This is very like the way to heaven. 'Tis up hill! The Lord in His grace fetch us up;" and spying a bush near him, he added, "And truly there are thorns and briars in the way, too." He had great command of his flock at Roxbury, and was a most diligent preacher and catechiser, declaring, in reference to the charge to St. Peter, that "the care of the lambs is one-third part of the charge to the Church of God." An excellent free school was founded at Roxbury, which was held in great repute in the time of Cotton Mather, to whom we owe most of our knowledge of this good man. The biography is put together in the peculiar fashion of that day, not chronologically, but under heads illustrating his various virtues, so that it is not easy to pick out the course of his undertakings. Before passing on to that which especially distinguished him, we must give an anecdote or two from the "article" denominated "His exquisite charity." His wife had become exceedingly skilful in medicine and in dealing with wounds, no small benefit in a recent colony scant of doctors, and she gave her aid freely to all who stood in need of help. A person who had taken offence at something in one of his sermons, and had abused him passionately, both in speech and in writing, chanced to wound himself severely, whereupon he at once sent his wife to act as surgeon; and when the man, having recovered, came to return thanks and presents, he would accept nothing, but detained him to a friendly meal, "and," says Mather, "by this carriage he mollified and conquered the stomach of his reviler." "He was also a great enemy to all contention, and would ring a loud _Courfew Bell_ wherever he saw the fires of animosity." When he heard any ministers complain that such and such in their flocks were too difficult for them, the strain of his answer was still: "Brother, compass them;" and, "Brother, learn the meaning of those three little words, 'bear, forbear, forgive.'" Once, when at an assembly of ministers a bundle of papers containing matters of difference and contention between two parties--who, he thought, should rather unite--was laid on the table, Eliot rose up and put the whole upon the fire, saying, "Brethren, wonder not at that which I have done: I did it on my knees this morning before I came among you." But that "exquisite charity" seems a little one-sided in another anecdote recorded of him, when "a godly gentleman of Charlestown, one Mr. Foster, with his son, was taken captive by his Turkish enemies." {f:6} Public prayers were offered for his release: but when tidings were received that the "Bloody Prince" who had enslaved him had resolved that no captive should be liberated in his own lifetime, and the distressed friends concluded, "Our hope is lost;" Mr. Eliot, "in some of his prayers before a very solemn congregation, very broadly begged, 'Heavenly Father, work for the redemption of Thy poor servant Foster, and if the prince which detains him will not, as they say, release him so long as himself lives, Lord, we pray Thee kill that cruel prince, kill him, and glorify Thyself upon him.' And now behold the answer. The poor captiv'd gentleman quickly returns to us that had been mourning for him as a lost man, and brings us news that the prince, which had hitherto held him, was come to an untimely death, by which means he was now set at liberty." "And to turn their hearts" was a form that did not occur to the earnest suppliant for his friend. But the "cruel prince" was far away out of sight, and there was no lack of charity in John Eliot's heart for the heathen who came into immediate contact with him. Indeed, he was the first to make any real effort for their conversion. The colonists were as yet only a scanty sprinkling in easy reach of the coast, and had done little at present to destroy the hunting-grounds of the Red man who had hitherto held possession of the woods and plains. The country was inhabited by the Pequot Indians, a tall, well-proportioned, and active tribe, belonging to the great Iroquois nation. They set up their wigwams of bark, around which their squaws cultivated the rapidly growing crop of maize while the men hunted the buffalo and deer, and returning with their spoil, required every imaginable service from their heavily-oppressed women, while they themselves deemed the slightest exertion, except in war and hunting, beneath their dignity. Their nature had much that was high and noble; and in those days had not yet been ruined either by the White man's vices or his cruelty. They were neither the outcast savages nor the abject inferiors that two hundred years have rendered their descendants, but far better realized the description in Longfellow's "Hiawatha," of the magnificently grave, imperturbably patient savage, the slave of his word, and hospitable to the most scrupulous extent. It was in mercy and tenderness that the character was the most deficient. The whole European instinct of forbearance and respect to woman was utterly wanting,--the squaws were the most degraded of slaves; and to the captive the most barbarous cruelty was shown. Experience has shown that there is something in the nature of the Red Indian which makes him very slow of being able to endure civilization, renders wandering almost a necessity to his constitution, and generally makes him, when under restraint, even under the most favourable conditions, dwindle away, lose all his fine natural endowments, and become an abject and often a vicious being. The misfortune has been that, with a few honourable exceptions, it has not been within the power of the better and more thoughtful portion of man to change the Red Indian's vague belief in his "Great Spirit" to a more systematic and stringent acceptance of other eternal verities and their consequent obligations, and at the same time leave him free to lead the roving life of the patriarchs of old; since, as Scripture itself shows us, it takes many generations to train the wandering hunter to a tiller of the soil, or a dweller in cities; and the shock to the wild man of a sudden change is almost always fatal both to mental and bodily health. This conclusion, however, has been a matter of slow and sad experience, often confused by the wretched effects of the vice, barbarity, and avarice of the settler and seaman, which in many cases have counteracted the effects of the missionary, and accelerated the extinction of the native. In John Eliot's time, there was all to hope; and the community of Englishmen with whom he lived, though stern, fierce, intolerant, and at times cruel in their intolerance, did not embarrass his work nor corrupt the Indians by the grosser and coarser vices, when, in his biographer's words, "our Eliot was on such ill terms with the devil as to alarm him with sounding the silver trumpets of Heaven in his territories, and make some noble and zealous endeavours towards ousting him of his ancient possessions." The Pilgrim Fathers had obtained their land by fair purchase, _i.e._ if purchase could be fair where there was no real mutual understanding; and a good deal of interest had been felt in England in the religious state of the Red men. The charter to the colony had enforced their conversion on the settlers, and Dr. Lake, Bishop of Bath and Wells, declared that but for his old age and infirmities he would have headed a mission to America for the purpose. Had he done so, perhaps something systematic might have been attempted. As it was the new colonists had too severe a struggle with their own difficulties to attend to their heathen surroundings, even though the seal of their colony of Massachusetts represented an Indian with the label in his mouth, "Come over and help us." A few conversions had taken place, but rather owing to the interest in the White men's worship taken by individual Indians, than to any efforts on the part of the settlers. Sixteen years, however, passed without overt aggression, though already was beginning the sad story that is repeated wherever civilized man extends his frontiers. The savage finds his hunting-ground broken up, the White man's farm is ruined by the game or the chase, the luxuries of civilization excite the natives' desires, mistrust leads to injury, retaliation follows, and then war. In 1634, only two years after Eliot's arrival, two gentlemen, with their boat's crew, were killed on the Connecticut river, and some of the barbarities took place that we shall too often have to notice--attacks by the natives on solitary dwellings or lonely travellers, and increasing anger on the part of the colonists, until they ceased to regard their enemies as fellow-creatures. However, the Pequots were likewise at war with the Dutch and with the Narragansets, or river Indians, and they sent a deputation to endeavour to make peace with the English, and secure their assistance against these enemies. They were appointed to return for their answer in a month's time; and after consultation with the clergy, Mr. Dudley and Mr. Ludlow, the Governor and Deputy-Governor, decided on making a treaty with them, on condition of their delivering up the murderers of the Englishmen, and paying down forty beaver and thirty otter skins, besides 400 fathoms of wampum, _i.e._ strings of the small whelks and Venus-shells that served as current coin, a fathom being worth about five shillings. It surprises us that Eliot's name first appears in connection with the Indians as an objector to this treaty, and in a sermon too, at Roxbury; not on any grounds of injustice to the Indians, but because it had been conducted by the magistrates without reference to the people, which was an offence to his views of the republican rights to be exercised in the colony. So serious was his objection deemed, that a deputation was appointed to explain the principles on which Government had acted, and thus convince Mr. Eliot, which they did so effectually that he retracted his censure in his next sermon. Probably this was what first awakened John Eliot's interest in the Red- skins; but for the next few years, in spite of the treaty, there was a good deal of disturbance on the frontier, and some commission of cruelties, until the colonists became gradually roused into fury. Some tribes were friendly with them; and, uniting with these the Mohicans and river Indians, under the conduct of Uncas, the Mohican chief, seventy- seven Englishmen made a raid into the Pequot country and drove them from it. Then, in 1637, a battle, called "the Great Swamp Fight," took place between the English, Dutch, and friendly Indians on the one hand, and the Pequots on the other. It ended in the slaughter of seven hundred of the Pequots and thirteen of their Sachems. The wife of one of the Sachems was taken, and as she had protected two captive English girls she was treated with great consideration, and was much admired for her good sense and modesty; but the other prisoners were dispersed among the settlers to serve as slaves, and a great number of the poor creatures were shipped off to the West India Islands to work on the sugar plantations. Those who had escaped the battle were hunted down by the Mohicans and Narragansets, who continually brought their scalps in to the English towns, and at last they were reduced to sue for peace when only 200 braves were still living. These, with their families, were amalgamated with the Mohicans and Narragansets, and expelled from their former territory, on which the English settled. An annual tribute of a length of wampum, for every male in the tribe, varying according to age and rank, was paid to the English, and their supremacy was so entirely established that nearly forty years of peace succeeded. Eliot's missionary enterprise, Mather allows, was first inspired by the "remarkable zeal of the Romish missionaries," by whom he probably means the French Jesuits, who were working with much effect in the settlements in Louisiana, first occupied in the time of Henri IV. Another stimulus came from the expressions in the Royal Charter which had granted licence for the establishment of the colony, namely, "To win and incite the natives of that country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind and the Christian faith, in our Royal intention and the Adventurers' free profession, is the principal end of the Plantation." That the devil himself was the Red men's master, and came to their assistance when summoned by the incantations of their medicine men, was the universal belief of the colonists, in corroboration of which the following story is given:--"The Indians in their wars with us, finding a sore inconvenience by our dogs, which would make a sad yelling if in the night they scented the approaches of them, they sacrificed a dog to the devil, after which no English dog would bark at an Indian for divers months ensuing." In the intended contest Mr. Eliot began by preaching and making collections from the English settlers, and likewise "he hires a native to teach him this exotick language, and, with a laborious care and skill, reduces it into a grammar, which afterwards he published. There is a letter or two of our alphabet which the Indians never had in theirs; though there were enough of the dog in their temper, there can scarce be found an R in their language, . . . but, if their alphabet be short, I am sure the words composed of it are long enough to tire the patience of any scholar in the world; they are _Sesquipedalia verba_, of which their linguo is composed. For instance, if I were to translate our Loves, it must be nothing shorter than _Noowomantamoonkanunonush_. Or to give my reader a longer word, _Kremmogkodonattootummootiteaonganunnnash_ is, in English, our _question_." The worthy Mr. Mather adds, with a sort of apology, that, having once found that the demons in a possessed young woman understood Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, he himself tried them with this Indian tongue, and "the demons did seem as if they understood it." Indeed, he thinks the words must have been growing ever since the confusion of Babel! The fact appears to be, that these are what are now called agglutinate languages, and, like those of all savage tribes, in a continual course of alteration--also often using a long periphrastic description to convey an idea or form a name. A few familiar instances will occur, such as _Niagara_, "thunder of water." This formidable language Mr. Eliot--the anagram of whose name, Mather appropriately observes, was _Toils_--mastered with the assistance of a "pregnant-witted Indian," who had been a servant in an English family. By the help of his natural turn for philology, he was able to subdue this instrument to his great and holy end,--with what difficulty may be estimated from the sentence with which he concluded his grammar: "Prayer and pains through faith in CHRIST JESUS will do anything." It was in the year 1646, while Cromwell was gradually obtaining a preponderating influence in England, and King Charles had gone to seek protection in the Scottish army, that John Eliot, then in his forty-second year, having thus prepared himself, commenced his campaign. He had had a good deal of conversation with individual Indians who came about the settlement at Roxbury, and who perceived the advantages of some of the English customs. They said they believed that in forty years the Red and White men would be all one, and were really anxious for this consummation. When Eliot declared that the superiority of the White race came from their better knowledge of God, and offered to come and instruct them, they were full of joy and gratitude; and on the 28th of October, 1646, among the glowing autumn woods, a meeting of Indians was convoked, to which Mr. Eliot came with three companions. They were met by a chief named Waban, or the Wind, who had a son at an English school, and was already well disposed towards them, and who led them to his wigwam, where the principal men of the tribe awaited them. "All the old men of the village, All the warriors of the nation, All the Jossakeeds, the prophets, The magicians, the Wabenos, And the medicine men, the medas, Came to bid the strangers welcome. 'It is well,' they said, 'O brothers, That you came so far to see us.' In a circle round the doorway, With their pipes they sat in silence, Waiting to behold the strangers, Waiting to receive their message, Till the Black Robe chief, the pale face, From the wigwam came to greet them, Stammering in his speech a little, Speaking words yet unfamiliar." Mr. Eliot prayed in English, and then preached on the 9th and 10th verses of the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, where the prophet is bid to call the Breath of God from the four winds of heaven to give life to the dry bones around. It so happened that the Indian word for breath or wind was _Waban_, and this made a great impression, and was afterwards viewed as an omen. The preacher worked up from the natural religion, of which this fine race already had an idea, to the leading Christian truths. Then the Black Robe chief, the prophet, Told his message to the people, Told the purport of his mission, Told them of the Virgin Mary, And her blessed Son, the Saviour: How in distant lands and ages He had lived on earth as we do; How He fasted, prayed, and laboured; How the Jews, the tribe accursed, Mocked Him, scourged Him, crucified Him; How He rose from where they laid Him, Walked again with His disciples, And ascended into heaven." The sermon lasted an hour and a quarter, but the Indians are a dignified and patient people, prone to long discourses themselves, and apt to listen to them from others. When he finally asked if they had understood, many voices replied that they had; and, on his encouraging them to ask questions, many intelligent inquiries were made. The whole conference lasted three hours, and Mr. Eliot was invited to come again, which he did at intervals of about a fortnight, and again with good promise. In one of these meetings they asked, very reasonably, why the English called them Indians, a question it could not have been easy to answer. The Powaws, or priests, began to make some opposition, but Waban was continually going about among the people, repeating portions of the instructions he had received, and teaching his friends to pray--for some had at first supposed that the English God might not be addressed in the native tongue, but only in English. After some little time, he thought the Indians ripe for being taught to live a settled life, and obtained for his congregation--"the praying Indians," as they were commonly called--a grant of the site of his first instructions. The place was named "Rejoicing,"--in Indian, a word that soon got corrupted into Nonantum; and, under Mr. Eliot's directions, they divided their grounds with trenches and stone walls, for which he gave them tools to the best of his ability. They built wigwams of a superior construction, and the women learnt to spin; there was a continual manufacture of brushes, eel-pots, and baskets, which were sold in the English towns, together with turkeys, fish, venison, and fruits, according to the season. At hay and harvest times they would hire themselves out to work for their English neighbours, but were thought unable or unwilling to do what sturdy Englishmen regarded as a fair day's work. A second settlement of praying Indians followed at Neponset, around the wigwam of a Sachem named Cutshamakin, a man of rank much superior to Waban. He had already been in treaty with the English, and had promised to observe the Ten Commandments, but had unhappily learnt also from the English that love of drink which was the bane of the Indian; and while Mr. Eliot was formally instructing the family, one of the sons, a boy of fifteen, when learning the fifth commandment, persisted in saying only "honour thy mother," and, when admonished, declared that his father had given him fire-water, which had intoxicated him, and had besides been passionate and violent with him. The boy had always been a rude, contumacious fellow, and at the next lecture day Mr. Eliot turned to the Sachem, and lamented over these faults, but added that the first step to reforming him would be for his father to set the example by a confession of his own sins, which were neither few nor light. The Sachem's pride was subdued. He stood up and openly declared his offences, lamenting over them with deep sincerity. The boy was so touched that he made humble confession in his turn, and entreated forgiveness. His parents were so much moved that they wept aloud, and the board on which Cutshamakin stood was wet with his tears. He was softened then, but, poor man, he said: "My heart is but very little better than it was, and I am afraid it will be as bad again as it was before. I sometimes wish I might die before I be so bad again!" Poor Cutshamakin! he estimated himself truly. The Puritan discipline, which aimed at acting on the conduct rather through the conscience and feelings than by means of grace, never entirely subdued him, and he remained a fitfully fierce, and yet repentant, savage to the end of his life. His squaw must have been a clever woman; for, being publicly reprimanded by the Indian preacher Nabanton, for fetching water on a Sunday, she told him after the meeting that he had done more harm by raising the discussion than she had done by fetching the water. Sunday was impressed upon the natives with all the strictness peculiar to the British Calvinists in their reaction from the ale-feasts, juggleries, and merry-makings of the almost pagan fifteenth century. It is never hard to make savage converts observe a day of rest; they are generally used to keep certain seasons already, and, as Mr. Eliot's Indians honestly said, they do so little work at any time that a weekly abstinence from it comes very easily. At Nonantum, indeed, they seem to have emulated the Pharisees themselves in their strictness. Waban got into trouble for having a racoon killed to entertain two unexpected guests; and a case was brought up at public lecture of a man who, finding his fire nearly gone out, had violated the Sabbath by splitting one piece of dry wood with his axe. But the "weightier matters of the law" were not by any means forgotten, and there was a continual struggle to cure the converts of their new vice of drunkenness, and their old habit of despising and maltreating their squaws, who in the Christian villages were raised to a state far less degraded; for any cruelty or tyranny towards them was made matter of public censure and confession in the assembly. Several more distant journeys were taken by Mr. Eliot, some of them to the Merrimac River to see a powerful old Sachem of a great age, named Passaconaway, who his people believed to be able to make green leaves grow in winter, trees dance, and water burn. He was so much afraid of the Missionary that he fled away the first time he heard he was coming, probably thinking him a great sorcerer; but the next time he remained, listened eagerly, expressed his intention of praying, and tried to induce Mr. Eliot to settle in his district. He lived to a great age, and left a charge with his children never to contend with the English, having convinced himself that the struggle was hopeless. Several other Sachems gave a sort of attention: and it appeared that the way had been in some degree prepared by a French priest, who had been wrecked on Cape Cod, had been passed from one tribe to another, and had died among them, but not without having left a tradition of teaching which was by some identified with Eliot's. Of one Sachem, Mather tells a story: "While Mr. Eliot was preaching of Christ unto the other Indians, a demon appeared unto a Prince of the Eastern Indians in a shape that had some resemblance of Mr. Eliot or of an English minister, pretending to be the Englishman's God. The spectre commanded him 'to forbear the drinking of rum and to observe the Sabbath- day, and to deal justly with his neighbours;' all which things had been inculcated in Mr. Eliot's ministry, promising therewithal unto him that, if he did so, at his death his soul should ascend into a happy place, otherwise descend unto miseries; but the apparition all the while never said one word about Christ, which was the main subject of Mr. Eliot's ministry. The Sachem received such an impression from the apparition that he dealt justly with all men except in the bloody tragedies and cruelties he afterwards committed on the English in our wars. He kept the Sabbath-day like a fast, frequently attending in our congregations; he would not meddle with any rum, though usually his countrymen had rather die than undergo such a piece of self-denial. That liquor has merely enchanted them. At last, and not long since, this demon appeared again unto this pagan, requiring him to kill himself, and assuring him that he should revive in a day or two, never to die any more. He thereupon divers times attempted it, but his friends very carefully prevented it; however, at length he found a _fair_ opportunity for this _foul_ business, and hanged himself,--you may be sure without his expected resurrection." This story, grotesque as it sounds in the solemn simplicity of the worthy Puritan, is really only an instance of what takes place wherever the light of the Gospel is held up to men capable of appreciating its standard of morality, but too proud to bend the spirit to accept the doctrine of the Cross. The Sachem was but a red-skinned "seeker after God," an "ape of Christianity," like Marcus Aurelius, and like the many others we shall meet with who loved darkness rather than light, not so much because their deeds were evil as because their hearts were proud. Like all practical men, Eliot found it absolutely necessary to do what he called "carrying on civility with religion," _i.e._ instructing the converts in such of the arts of life as would afford them wholesome industry; but want of means was his great difficulty, and in the middle of a civil war England was not very likely to supply him. Still he made his Indians at Nonantum hedge and ditch, plant trees, sow cornfields, and saw planks; and some good man in England, whose name he never knew, sent him in 1648 ten pounds for schools among the natives, half of which he gave to a mistress at Cambridge, and half to a master at Dorchester, under whom the Indian children made good progress, and he catechized them himself most diligently by way of teaching both them and the parents who looked on. He had by this time translated the Bible, but it remained in manuscript for want of the means of printing it; and his favourite scheme of creating an Indian city, with a scriptural government, well out of the way of temptation from and interference by the English, was also at a standstill, from his poverty. He likewise sustained a great loss in his friend Mr. Shepard, who had worked with him with equal devotion and enthusiasm, but this loss really led to the fulfilment of his wishes, for Mr. Shepard's papers were sent home, and aroused such an interest in Calamy and others of the devout ministers in London, that the needs of the Indians of New England were brought before Parliament, and an ordinance was passed on the 27th of July, 1649, for the advancement of civilization and Christianity among them. Then a corporation was instituted, entitled the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, of which Judge Street was the first president, and Mr. Henry Ashurst the first treasurer, with powers to receive the collections that the ministers in every parish were exhorted to make by authority of Parliament, backed up by letters from the two Universities. There was a good deal of opposition; people fancied it a new plan of getting money for Government, and were not at all interested about the Indians, but money enough was collected to purchase lands worth about 500_l._ or 600_l._ a year, by way of foundation, at a time when the property of Cavaliers was going cheap, and the Society was able to undertake the cost of printing Eliot's Bible, as well as of building him an Indian college, of paying his teachers, and of supplying the greatly needed tools and other necessaries for his much-desired station. Still there was a great deal of difficulty and opposition, from the English dislike and contempt for the Indians, who were judged _en masse_ by the degraded ones who loitered about the settlements, begging and drinking; as well as from the Powaws or medicine men who found their dupes escaping, and tried to terrify them by every means by which it was possible to work upon their superstition. The Sachems, likewise, were finding out that Christians were less under their tyranny since they had had a higher standard, and many opposed Eliot violently, trying to drive him from their villages with threats and menacing gestures, but he calmly answered, "I am engaged in the work of God, and God is with me. I fear not all the Sachems in the country. I shall go on with my work. Touch me if you dare;" nor did he ever fail to keep the most angry in check while he was present, though they hated him greatly. Uncas, the chief of the Mohicans, made a regular complaint to Government that Eliot and his colleagues prayed by name for the conversion of the Mohicans and Narragansets. Even Cutshamakin, when he heard of the project of an Indian town, broke out against it with such fury, that all the men in favour of it cowered and slunk away from his furious howls and gesticulations. Mr. Eliot was left alone to confront him, and looking steadily at him told him that, as this was God's work, no fear of him should hinder it. The savage quailed before him, but afterwards came to him and stated that his objection was that the praying Indians did not pay him their tribute. Eliot kindly answered that this had been complained of before, and that he had preached a sermon enforcing this duty upon the tribe. The words were good, said Cutshamakin, but the Indians would not obey them. So Mr. Eliot, after consultation with the ministers and elders in Boston, invited the Indians who understood English to hear a sermon there, and in it the duty of rendering to all their due was fully enforced. Afterwards, however, the Indians came forward declaring themselves much surprised and mortified at being accused of not paying their just duty to their chief; and they specified the service and gifts: each had rendered twenty bushels of corn, six bushels of rye, fifteen deer, days spent in hunting, the building of a wigwam, reclaiming two acres of land; and the amount when added up amazed Mr. Eliot. At his next lecture, then, he took for his text the rejection by the Saviour of all the kingdoms of the world, and personally applied it to Cutshamakin, reproaching him with lust of power and worldly ambition, and warning him that Satan was tempting him to give up the faith for the sake of recovering his arbitrary power. The discourse and the conversation that followed again melted the Sachem, and he repented and retracted, although he continued an unsafe and unstable man. At length, in 1651, Mr. Eliot was able to convene his praying Indians and with them lay the foundation of a town on the banks of Charles River, about eighteen miles to the south-west of Boston. The spot, as he believed, had been indicated to him in answer to prayer, and they named it Natick, or the place of hills. The inhabitants of Nonantum removed thither, and the work was put in hand. A bridge, eighty feet long and nine feet wide, had already been laid across the river, entirely by Indian workmen, under Mr. Eliot's superintendence; and the town was laid out in three streets, two on one side of the river and one on the other; the grounds were measured and divided, apple-trees planted, and sowing begun. The cellars of some of the houses, it is said, remain to the present day. In the midst was a circular fort, palisaded with trees, and a large house built in the English style, though with only a day or two of help from an English carpenter, the lower part of which was to serve as a place of worship on Sunday, and for a school on other days, the upper part as a wardrobe and storehouse for valuables, and with a room partitioned off, and known as "the prophet's chamber," for the use of Mr. Eliot on his visits to the settlement. Outside were canopies, formed by mats stretched on poles, one for Mr. Eliot and his attendants, another for the men, and a third for the women. These were apparently to shelter a sort of forum, and likewise to supplement the school-chapel in warm weather. A few English-built houses were raised; but the Indians found them expensive and troublesome, and preferred the bark wigwams on improved principles. The spot was secured to the Indians by the Council of Government, acting under the Commonwealth at home; but the right of local self-government was vested in each township; and Eliot, as the guide of his new settlers, could lead them to what he believed to be a truly scriptural code, such as he longed to see prevail in his native land. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "the blessed day in England, when the Word of God shall be their Magna Carta and chief law book, and all lawyers must be divines to study the Scripture." His commencement in carrying out this system was to preach Jethro's advice to Moses, and thence deduce that the Indians should divide themselves into hundreds and into tens, and elect rulers for each division, each tithing man being responsible for the ten under him, each chief of a hundred for the ten tithings. This was done on the 6th of August, 1651; and Eliot declared that it seemed to him as if he beheld the scattered bones he had spoken of in his first sermon to the Indians, come bone to bone, and a civil political life begin. His hundreds and tithings were as much suggested by the traditional arrangements of King Alfred as by those of Moses in the wilderness; and his next step was, in like manner, partly founded on Scripture, partly on English history,--namely, the binding his Indians by a solemn covenant to serve the Lord, and ratifying it on a fast-day. His converts had often asked him why he held none of the great fast-days with them that they saw the English hold, and he had always replied that there was not a sufficient occasion, but he regarded this as truly important enough. Moreover, a ship containing some supplies, sent by the Society in England, had been wrecked, and the goods, though saved, were damaged. This he regarded as a frown of Providence and a fruit of sin. Poor Cutshamakin also was in trouble again, having been drawn into a great revel, where much spirits had been drunk; and his warm though unstable temper always made him ready to serve as a public example of confession and humiliation. So when, on the 24th of September, 1651, Mr. Eliot had conducted the fast-day service, it began with Cutshamakin's confession; then three Indians preached and prayed in turn, and Mr. Eliot finally preached on Ezra's great fast. There was a pause for rest; then the assembly came together again, and before them Mr. Eliot solemnly recited the terms of the Covenant, by which all were to bind themselves to the service of the Lord, and which included all their principal laws. He asked them whether they stood to the Covenant. All the chiefs first bound themselves, then the remainder of the people; a collection was made for the poor; and so ended that "blessed day," as the happy apostle of the Indians called it. When Governor Endicot shortly after visited the place, he was greatly struck with the orderliness and civilization he found there. "I account this one of the best journeys I have made for many years," he says. Many little manufactures were carried on, in particular one of drums, which were used for lack of bells in some of the American settlements, as a summons to come to church. There was a native schoolmaster, named Monequassum, who could write, read, and spell English correctly, and under whom the children were making good progress. Promising lads were trained by Mr. Eliot himself, in hopes of making them act as missionaries among their brethren. All this time his praying Indians were not baptized, nor what he called "gathered into a Church estate." He seems to have been determined to have full proof of their stability before he so accepted them; for it was from no inclination to Baptist views that he so long delayed receiving them. However, on the 13th of October, 1652, he convened his brother- ministers to hear his Indians make public confession of their faith. What the converts said was perfectly satisfactory; but they were a long-winded race, accustomed to flowing periods; and as each man spoke for himself, and his confession had to be copied down in writing, Mr. Eliot himself owns that their "enlargement of spirit" did make "the work longsome." So longsome it was, that while the schoolmaster was speaking every one got restless, and there was a confusion; and the ministers, who had a long dark ride through the woods before them, went away, and were hard to bring back again, so that he had to finish hearing the declarations of faith alone. Still, he cut off the baptism and organization of a church till he had sent all these confessions to be considered by the Society in England, printed and published under the title of "Tears of Repentance," with a dedication to Oliver Cromwell. Then came other delays; some from the jealousy and distrust of the English, who feared that the Indians were going to ally themselves to the Dutch; some from the difficulty of getting pastors to join in the tedious task of listening to the wordy confessions; and some from the distressing scandal of drunkenness breaking out among the Indians, in spite of the strict discipline that always punished it. It was not till 1660 that Mr. Eliot baptized any Indians, and the next day admitted them to the Lord's Supper, nine years after he had begun to preach. The numbers we do not know, but there is no doubt that he received no adults except well proved and tried persons coming up to the Puritan standard of sincerity and devotion. At this time the Society at home was in great danger; for, on the Restoration, the charter had become void, and, moreover, the principal estate that formed the endowment had been the property of a Roman Catholic,--Colonel Bedingfield,--who resumed possession, and refused to refund the purchase money, as considering the Society at an end. It would probably have been entirely lost, but for the excellent Robert Boyle, so notable at once for his science, piety, and beneficence. He placed the matter in its true light before Lord Clarendon, and obtained by his means a fresh charter from Charles II. The judgment in the Court of Chancery was given in favour of the Society, and Boyle himself likewise endowed it with a third part of a grant of the forfeited impropriations in Ireland which he had received from the king. But all the time there was a great disbelief in the efficacy of the work among the Indians both at home and in New England. It was the fashion to call all the stories of Indian conversions mere devices for getting money, and the unhappy, proud hostility that almost always actuated the ordinary English colonist in dealing with natives, was setting in in full force. However, at Massachusetts, the general court appointed an English magistrate to hold a court of judicature in conjunction with the chiefs of the Christian Indians, and to be in fact a sort of special member of government on their behalf. The first so appointed was Daniel Gookin, a man of great piety, wisdom, and excellence, and a warm friend of Mr. Eliot, with whom he worked most heartily, not only in dealing with the Indians of Natick, but with all those who came under English jurisdiction, providing schools, and procuring the observance of the Sunday among them. It was also provided that the Christian Indians should set apart a tenth of all their produce for the support of their teachers--a practice that Mr. Gookin defended from the charge of Judaism. It seems as if these good men, who went direct to the Old Testament for their politics, must have been hard set between their desire of scriptural authority and their dread of Judaizing. It was well for Eliot that he had friends, for in the first flush of the tidings of the successes of the Puritans in England, he had written a set of papers upon Government, entitled the "Christian Commonwealth," which had been sent to England, and there lay dormant for nine or ten years, until in the midst of all the excitement on the Restoration, this speculative work, the theory of a scholar upon Christian democracy, was actually printed and launched upon the world at home, whether by an enemy or by an ill-advised friend does not appear, and without the author's consent. Complaints of this as a seditious book came out to New England, and John Eliot was forced to appear before the court, when he owned the authorship, but disowned the publication, and retracted whatever might have declared the Government of England, by King, Lords, and Commons, to be anti-Christian, avowing it to be "not only a lawful but eminent form of government, and professing himself ready to conform to any polity that could be deduced from Scripture as being of Divine authority." The court was satisfied, and suppressed the book, while publishing Mr. Eliot's retractation. Some have sneered at his conduct on this occasion as an act of moral cowardice; but it would be very hard if every man were bound to stand to all the political views expressed in an essay never meant for the general eye, ten years old, and written in the enthusiasm of the commencement of an experiment, which to the Presbyterian mind had proved a grievous disappointment. He had a much more important work in hand than the defence of old dreams of the reign of the saints--for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England had just finished printing his translation of the New Testament, _Wusku Wuttestermentum_ as it was called, and in two years more the Old Testament was finished. A copy was presented to Charles II., to the Chancellor Clarendon, and to the two Universities in England, as well as to Harvard College. It was in the Mohican dialect, which was sufficiently like that of the neighbouring tribes to serve for them, and had all the correctness that the scholarship and philology of the time could furnish. There is a story that Eliot wrote the whole with a single pen. It went through a good many editions, but is now very rare, and with Eliot's Catechism, and translations of Baxter's chief works, and a metrical version of the Psalms, remains the only vestige of the language of the Mohicans. There were now several Indian congregations, one in especial at the island called Martha's Vineyard, under the charge of an Indian pastor, John Hiacoomes, who is said to have been the first red-skinned convert, and who had made proof of much true Christian courage. Once in the act of prayer he received a severe blow from a Sachem, and would have been killed if some English had not been present; but all his answer was, "I have two hands. I had one hand for injuries, and the other for God. While I did receive wrong with the one, the other laid the greater hold on God." When some of the Powaws, or medicine men, were boasting that they could, if they would, destroy all the praying Indians at once, Hiacoomes made reply: "Let all the Powaws in the island come together, I'll venture myself in the midst among them all. Let them use all their witchcrafts. With the help of God, I'll tread upon them all!" By which defiance he wonderfully "heartened" his flock, who, Christians as they were, had still been beset by the dread of the magic arts, in which, as we have seen, even their White teachers did not wholly disbelieve. Such a man as this was well worthy of promotion, and Mr. Eliot hoped to educate his more promising scholars, so as to supply a succession of learned and trained native pastors. Two young men, named Joel and Caleb, were sent to Harvard College, Cambridge, where they both were gaining distinguished success, and were about to take their degree, when Joel, who had gone home on a visit, was wrecked on the Island of Nantucket, and, with the rest of the ship's company, was either drowned or murdered by the Indians. The name of Caleb, Chee-shah-teau-muck, Indus, is still to be seen in the registers of those who took their degree, and there are two Latin and Greek elegies remaining, which he composed on the death of an eminent minister, bearing his signature, with the addition, Senior Sophister. How curiously do the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin proclaim themselves the universal languages, thus blending with the uncouth Mohican word! Caleb's constitution proved unable to endure College discipline and learning, and he died of decline soon after taking his degree. Consumption was very frequent among the Indians, as it so often is among savages suddenly brought to habits of civilization, and it seems to have mown down especially the more intellectual of the Indians; Monequassum, the first schoolmaster at Natick, among them. An Indian College, which had been established at Cambridge, failed from the deaths of some scholars and the discouragement of others, and had to be turned into a printing house, and the energetic and indefatigable Eliot did the best he could by giving courses of lectures in logic and theology to candidates for the ministry at Natick, and even printed an "Indian logick primer." It was a wonderful feat, considering the loose unwieldy words of the language. From 1660 to 1675 were Eliot's years of chief success. His own vigour was unabated, and he had Major Gookin's hearty co-operation. There had been time for a race of his own pupils to grow up; and there had not been time for the first love of his converts to wax cool. There had been a long interval of average peace and goodwill between English and natives, and there seemed good reason to suppose that Christianity and civilization would keep them friends, if not fuse them together. There were eleven hundred Christian Indians, according to Eliot and Gookin's computation, with six regularly constituted "churches" after the fashion of Natick, and fourteen towns, of which seven were called old and seven new, where praying Indians lived, for the most part, in a well-conducted, peaceable manner, though now and then disorderly conduct would take place, chiefly from drunkenness. Several Sachems had likewise been converted, in especial Wanalanset, the eldest son of the famous old chief Passaconnaway. After four years of hesitation whether he should, as he said, quit his old canoe and embark in a new one, he came to the conclusion that the old canoe was floating down the stream of destruction, and manfully embraced the faith, although at the cost of losing many of his tribe, who deserted him on his profession of Christianity. But there is always a period of check and disappointment in every great and holy work. The tide of evil may be driven into ebb for a time, but it always rallies and flows back upon the servant of God, and usually when the prime of his strength is past, and he is less able to withstand. Most good and great men have closed their eyes upon apparent failure and disappointment in what is especially their own task, and, like the first great Leader and Lawgiver, have had to cry, "Show Thy servants Thy work, and their children Thy glory." Often the next generation does see the success, and gather the fruits; but the strong, wise, scholarly, statesman-like Apostle of the Indians was destined to see his work swept away like snow before the rage and fury of man, and to leave behind him little save a great witness and example. At least he had the comfort of knowing that the evil did not arise among his own children in the faith, but came from causes entirely external, and as much to be preferred as persecution is better than corruption. The Sachem nearest to Plymouth had been at the first arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers, Massasoiet, chief of the Wampanongs, who had kept the peace out of fear. His son Alexander had followed his example, but it was current among the English that he had died of "choler," on being detected in a plot against them, and his successor, Philip, was a man of more than common pride, fierceness, cunning, and ability. These were only names given them by the English; none of them were Christians. Mr. Eliot had made some attempts upon Philip, but had been treated with scorn. The Sachem, twisting a button upon the minister's coat, told him he cared not _that_ for his Gospel; but Major Gookin had some hopes of having touched his heart. However, there were indications that he was endeavouring to unite all the surrounding tribes in an alliance against the colony. A murder of an Englishman had taken place, and the Government at Plymouth required all natives to surrender the fire-arms they had obtained from the English. Even Philip consented to deliver them up until the English should see no further cause for detaining them. Upon this, in June 1671, Eliot wrote a remarkable letter to Mr. Prince, the Governor of Plymouth, requiring him not to detain the arms, especially of Philip. "My reasons are," he says, "first, lest we render ourselves more afraid of them and their guns than indeed we are or have cause to be. Alas! it is not the gun, but the man; nor, indeed, is it the man, but our sin that we have cause to be afraid of. Secondly, your so doing will open an effectual door to the entertainment of the Gospel." Probably Mr. Eliot was right, and the keeping the arms only irritated the high-spirited chief, who said to the messenger of the Governor of Massachusetts, "Your governor is but a subject. I will not treat but with my brother, King Charles of England." For four years enmity smouldered on. The rights of the dispute will never be known. The settlers laid all upon Philip's machinations, except those who lived near his wigwams and knew him best; and they said that so far from entering into a conspiracy, he always deplored the war, but was forced on by the rage and fury of the young braves, over whom the Sachems had no real power, and who wanted to signalize their valour, and could not fail to have their pride insulted by the demeanour of the ordinary English. One instance of brutality on the river Saco is said to have been the immediate cause of the war in that district. Some English sailors, seeing a canoe with an Indian woman and her infant, and having heard that a papoose could swim like a duck, actually upset the canoe to make the experiment. The poor baby sank, and the mother dived and brought it up alive, but it died so soon after, that the loss was laid to the charge of the cruel men by the father, who was a Sachem named Squando, of considerable dignity and influence, a great medicine man. On Philip's border to the southward, a plantation called Swawny was attacked and burnt by the Indians in the June of 1675. He is said to have shed tears (impassible Indian as he was) at the tidings, foreseeing the utter ruin of his people; and, twenty days after, Squando's influence led to another attack 200 miles off, and this was viewed as a sign of complicity with Philip. There was deadly terror among the English. The Indians swarmed down at night on lonely villages and farmhouses, slew, scalped, burnt, and now and then carried off prisoners to be tortured to death, and children to tell by and by strange tales of life in the wigwams. The militia were called out, but left their houses unprotected. At Newich-wannock, the farmhouse of a man named Tozer was attacked by the Indians when only tenanted by fifteen women and children. A girl of eighteen, who was the first to see the approach, bravely shut the door and set her back against it; thus giving time for the others to escape by another door to a better secured building. The Indians chopped the door to pieces with their hatchets, knocked the girl down, left her for dead, and hurried on in pursuit of the others, but only came up with two poor little children, who had not been able to get over the fence. The rest were saved, and the brave girl recovered from her wounds; but other attacks ended far more fatally for the sufferers, and the rage and alarm of the New Englanders were great. A few of the recently taught and unbaptized Indians from what were called the "new praying towns" had joined their countrymen; and though the great body of the converts were true and faithful, the English confounded them all in one common hatred to the Red- skin. The magistrates and Government were not infected by this blind passion, and did all they could to restrain it, showing trust in the Christian natives by employing them in the war, when they rendered good and faithful service; but the commonalty, who were in the habit of viewing the whole people as Hivites and Jebusites, treated these allies with such distrust and contumely as was quite enough to alienate them. In July 1675, three Christian Indians were sent as guides and interpreters to an expedition to treat with the Indians in the Nipmuck country. One was made prisoner, but the two officers in command gave the fullest testimony to the good conduct of the other two; nevertheless they were so misused on their return that Mr. Gookin declared that they had been, by ill-treatment, "in a manner constrained to fall off to the enemy." One was killed by a scouting party of praying Indians; the other was taken, sold as a slave, and sent to Jamaica; and though Mr. Eliot prevailed to have him brought back, and redeemed his wife and children, he was still kept in captivity. The next month, August, a number of the Christian Indians were arrested and sent up to Boston to be tried for some murders that had been committed at Lancaster. Eliot and Gookin succeeded in proving their perfect innocence, but the magistrates had great difficulty in saving their lives from the fury of the mob, who thirsted for Indian blood, and both minister and major were insulted and reviled, so that Gookin said on the bench that it was not safe for him to walk in the streets; and when Eliot met with a dangerous boat accident, wishes were expressed that he had been drowned. Natick was looked upon with so much distrust and aversion that Government, fearing occasions of bloodshed, decided that the inhabitants must be removed to Deer Island. On the 7th of October a great fast-day, with prayer and preaching, had been held, and fierce and bitter entreaties had been uttered against the Indian Sachems, especially Philip. One wonders whether Eliot--now seventy-one years old--felt it come home to him that he knew not what spirit he had been of when he had prayed for the death of the Moorish prince. It must have been a heart- breaking time for the aged man, to see the spot founded in so much hope and prayer, the fruit of so much care and meditation, thus broken up and ruined, and when he was too old to do the like work over again. At the end of that month of October, Captain Thomas Prentiss, with a party of horse and five or six carts, arrived at Natick, and made known the commands of the Government. Sadly but patiently the Indians submitted. Two hundred men, women, and children were made to get together all they could carry, and marched from their homes to the banks of the Charles River. Here, at a spot called the Pines, Mr. Eliot met them, and they gathered round him to hear his words of comfort, as he exhorted them to meek patience, resignation, and steadiness to the faith. The scene was exceedingly affecting, as the white-haired pastor stood by the river-side beneath the tall pines, with his dark-skinned, newly reclaimed children about him, clinging to him for consolation, but neither murmuring nor struggling, only praying and encouraging one another. Captain Prentiss and his soldiers were deeply touched; but at midnight, when the tide was high enough, three large boats bore the Indians over to Deer Island. Here they were, transplanted from their comfortable homes in the beginning of a long and very severe winter; but, well divided by the river from all suspicion of doing violence, they fared better than the praying Indians of the new town of Wamesit. A barn full of hay and corn had been burnt, and fourteen men of Chelmsford, the next settlement, concluding it had been done by the Wamesit Red-skins, went thither, called them out of their wigwams, and then fired at them, killing a lad and five women and children. After all, the fire had been caused by some skulking heathen Indians; but though the Government obtained the arrest of the murderers, the jury would not find them guilty. The Wamesit Indians fled into the forest, and sent a piteous letter:--"We are not sorry for what we leave behind, but we are sorry that the English have driven us from our praying to God and from our teacher. We did begin to understand praying to God a _little_." They were invited back, but were afraid to come till cold and hunger drove them to their old abode, and then the indefatigable Eliot and Gookin visited them, and did all in their power to bring about a better feeling towards them in Chelmsford. This whole autumn and winter--a terribly severe one--seems to have been spent by these good men in trying to heal the strifes between the English and the Indians. Wanalanset had fled, true to his father's policy of never resisting, and they were sent to invite him back again; but when he returned, he found that the maize grounds of his settlement had been ploughed up by the English and sown with rye, so that his tribe had most scanty subsistence. Several settlements of Christians were deported to Deer Island. One large party had been made prisoners by their heathen countrymen and had managed to escape, but when met with wandering in the woods by a party of English soldiers, were plundered of the little the heathens had left them, in especial of a pewter cup, their communion plate, which Mr. Eliot had given them, and which was much treasured by their native pastor. The General interfered in their behalf, but could not protect them from much ill-usage. The teacher was sent with his old father and young children to Boston, where Mr. Eliot saw and cheered him before he was conveyed to Deer Island. There, in December, Eliot, with Gookin and other friends, frequently visited the Indians, now five hundred in number, and found them undergoing many privations, but patient, resigned, and unmurmuring. The snow was four feet deep in the woods by the 10th of December that year, and the exertion and exposure of travelling, either on snow-shoes or sledges, must have been tremendous to a man of Mr. Eliot's age; but he never seems to have intermitted his labours in carrying spiritual and temporal succour to his people, and in endeavouring to keep the peace between them and the English. The hard winter had had a great effect in breaking the strength of the enemy, and they were much more feeble on the renewal of the war in the spring. The good conduct of the praying Indians had overcome the popular prejudice so much that it was decided to employ them to assist the scanty forces of the English in hunting down the hostile tribes, and Gookin boasts of their having taken and slain more than 400 foes in the course of the summer of 1676, which one would scarcely think was very good for their recent Christianity. In the mean time, the absence of all the able- bodied men and hunters reduced their families to such distress that serious illness broke out among them, and Major Gookin caused them to be brought to the neighbourhood of Cambridge, where there was good fishing, and where he could attend to them, and provide them with food, clothing, and medicine. In August Philip was killed, the English believing themselves to "have prayed the bullet straight into his heart;" and his head was carried about on a pole, in a manner we should have called worthy of the Indians themselves, did we not recollect that there were a good many city gates at home with much the same kind of trophy, while his wife and children--miserable fate!--were, like many others of the captives, sold into slavery to the sugar planters in Jamaica. After this the war did not entirely cease, but the Christian Indians were allowed to creep back to their old settlements at Nonantum, and even at Natick, where Mr. Eliot continued periodically to visit and instruct them; but after this unhappy war there were only four instead of fourteen towns of Christian Indians in Massachusetts, and a blow had been given to his mission that it never recovered. Still there was a splendid energy and resolution about this undaunted old man, now writing a narrative of the Gospel History in his seventy-fourth year, now sending Robert Boyle new physical facts, now protesting hard against the cruel policy of selling captive Indians into slavery. What must not the slavery of the West Indian isles, which had already killed off their native Caribbeans, have been to these free hunters of the North American forest, too proud to work for themselves, and bred in a climate of cold, dry, bracing air? And even in the West Indies, a shipload of these miserable creatures was refused in the over-stocked market, and the horrors of the slave-ship were prolonged across the Atlantic, till at last Mr. Eliot traced the unhappy freight to Tangier. He at once wrote to conjure the excellent Mr. Boyle to endeavour to have them redeemed and sent home,--with what success, or if any were left alive, does not appear. He had the pleasure of seeing a son of good Major Gookin become the minister of a district including Natick, and likewise of the ordination at Natick of an Indian named Daniel Takawombgrait. Of his own six children only one son and one daughter survived him. Benjamin, the youngest son, was his coadjutor at Roxbury, and was left in charge there while he circulated amongst his Indians, and would have succeeded him. The loss of this son must have fallen very heavily on him; but "the good old man would sometimes comfortably say, 'I have had six children, and I bless God for His free grace; they are all either _with_ Christ or _in_ Christ, and my mind is now at rest concerning them.'" When asked how he could bear the death of such excellent children, his answer was, "My desire was that they should have served God on earth, but if God will choose to have them rather serve Him in heaven, I have nothing to object against it, but His will be done." His last letter to Mr. Boyle was written in his eighty-fourth year, and was a farewell but a cheerful one, and he had good hopes then of a renewal of the spirit of missions among his people. But though his Christians did not bely their name in his own generation, alcohol did its work on some, consumption on others; and, in 1836, when Jabez Sparks wrote his biography, there was one wigwam at Natick inhabited by a few persons of mingled Indian and Negro blood, the sole living remnants of the foundation he had loved so well. Nevertheless, Eliot's work was not wasted. The spark he lit has never gone out wholly in men's minds. His wife died in 1684, at a great age, and her elegy over her coffin were these words from himself: "Here lies my dear faithful, pious, prudent, prayerful wife. I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me." He had become very feeble, and was wont to say, when asked how he did, "Alas! I have lost everything: my understanding leaves me, my memory fails me, my utterance fails me, but, I thank God, my charity holds out still; I find that rather grows than fails." He was forced to give up the duties of his office to a new pastor, and though often entreated to preach again, he would hardly ever do so, by reason, he said, that it would be wronging the souls of his people, when they had an able minister; and when he preached for the last time on a fast day, on the 63rd Psalm, it was with an apology for what he called the poorness, and meanness, and brokenness of his meditations. "I wonder," he used to say, "for what the Lord lets me live. He knows that now I can do nothing for Him." Yet he was working for Him to the utmost of his power. A little boy in the neighbourhood had fallen into the fire, and lost his eyesight in consequence. The old minister took him into his house to instruct, and first taught him to repeat many chapters in the Bible, and to know it so thoroughly that when listening to readers he could correct them if they missed a word; after which he taught him Latin, so that an "ordinary piece" had become easy to him. The importation of negro slaves had already begun, and Mr. Eliot "lamented with a bleeding and a burning passion that the English used their negroes but as their horses or oxen, and that so little care was taken about their immortal souls. He look'd upon it as a prodigy, that any bearing the name of Christians should so much have the heart of devils in them, as to prevent and hinder the instruction of the poor Blackamores, and confine the souls of their miserable slaves to a destroying ignorance, merely through fear of using the benefit of their vassalage." So, old as he was, he induced the settlers around to send him their negroes on certain days of the week for instruction; but he had not made much progress in the work before he became too feeble to carry it on. He fell into languishments attended with fever, and this he viewed as his summons. His successor, Mr. Nehemiah Walters, came to live with him, and held a good deal of conversation with him. "There is a cloud," he said, "a dark cloud upon the work of the Gospel among the poor Indians. The Lord renew and prosper that work, and grant it may live when I am dead. It is a work which I have been doing much and long about. But what was the word I spoke last? I recall that word. _My doings_. Alas! they have been poor and small, and lean doings, and I'll be the man that shall throw the first stone at them all." Mather relates that he spake other words "little short of oracles," and laments that they were not correctly recorded; but it appears that he gradually sank, and died in his eighty-seventh year of age, at Roxbury, in the year 1690. His last words were, "Welcome joy." CHAPTER II. DAVID BRAINERD, THE ENTHUSIAST. The Indian pastor of Natick, who had been trained by Mr. Eliot, died in 1716, and two years later was born one of the men who did all in his power, through his brief life, to hold up the light of truth to the unfortunate natives of America, as they were driven further and further to the west before the advancing tide from Europe. The fourth son among nine children, who lost both parents at a very early age, David Brainerd, though born above the reach of want, had many disadvantages to contend with. Both his parents had, however, been religious people, the children of ministers who had come out to America in the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, and settling at Haddam in Connecticut, trained up their families in the stern, earnest, and rigid rules and doctrines of Calvinism, which certainly, where they are accepted by an earnest and thoughtful mind, have a great tendency to stimulate the intellect, and force forward, as it were, the religious perceptions in early youth. David was, moreover, a delicate child, with the seeds of (probably) hereditary decline incipient, and at seven or eight years old he drew apart from play, thinking much of death, and trying to prepare by prayer and meditation. His parents' death increased these feelings, and while living at East Haddam, under the charge of his brothers, and employed in farm work, the boy was continually struggling with himself in silence, disliking all youthful mirth and amusement, fasting, watching and praying, and groaning over the state of his soul. At nineteen, the wish to become a minister came upon him, and he began to study hard at all spare moments; and in another year, at twenty, he went to reside with Mr. Fiske, the minister of Haddam, and in him found, for the first time, a friend to whom he could open his heart, who could understand the anxieties and longings within him, and who gave him advice to withdraw himself from the young companions whose gay spirits were uncongenial to him, and spend more time with the graver and more religious. Whether this were good advice we do not know, but a period of terrible agony had to be struggled through. It seems plain, from comparison of different lives, that in the forms of religion which make everything depend upon the individual person's own consciousness of the state of his heart and feelings, instead of supporting this by any outward tokens for faith to rest upon, the more humble and scrupulous spirits often undergo fearful misery before they can attain to such security of their own faith as they believe essential. Indeed, this state of wretchedness is almost deemed a necessary stage in the Christian life, like the Slough of Despond in the Pilgrim's Progress; and with such a temperament as David Brainerd's, the horrors of the struggle for hope were dreadful and lasted for months, before an almost physical perception of light, glory, and grace shone out upon him, although, even to the end of his life, hope and fear, spiritual joy and depression alternated, no doubt, greatly in consequence of his constant ill-health. In 1739, in his twenty-first year, he became a student at Yale, and, between hard work and his mental self-reproach for the worldly ambition of distinction, his health broke down, haemorrhage from the lungs set in, and he was sent home, it was supposed, only to die. He was then in a very happy frame of mind, and was almost sorry to find himself well enough to return to what he felt to be a scene of temptation. That same year, his head was entirely turned by the excitement of George Whitfield's preaching; he was carried away by religious enthusiasm, and was in a state of indiscreet zeal, of which his better judgment afterwards repented, so that he destroyed all the portion of his journal that related to that year. Indeed, his vehemence cost him dear, for, in the heat of a discussion, he had the misfortune to say, "Mr. Whittlesey, he has no more grace than this chair I am leaning upon." Mr. Whittlesey was one of the college tutors, and a gossiping freshman who overheard the words thought proper to report this to a meddling woman, who immediately walked off to the Rector of the college with the awful intelligence that young Brainerd said that Mr. Whittlesey had no more grace than a chair! The Rector had not the sense to silence the silly slander; he sent for the freshman, took his evidence, and that of the young men with whom Brainerd had been conversing, and then required him to make public confession and amends to Mr. Whittlesey before the whole assembled college,--a humiliation never previously required, except in cases of gross moral misconduct. The fact was, that the old-fashioned hereditary Presbyterianism, which had had time to slacken in the hundred years since the foundation of the colony, was dismayed at the new and vivid life imported by Whitfield from the Wesleyan revival in the English Church. It was what always happens. A mixture of genuine sober-minded dread of extravagance, or new doctrine, and a sluggish distaste to the more searching religion, combine to lead to a spirit of persecution. This was the true reason that the lad's youthful rashness of speech was treated as so grave an offence. Brainerd's spirit was up. Probably he saw no cause to alter his opinion as to Mr. Whittlesey's amount of grace, and he stoutly refused to retract his words, whereupon he was found guilty of insubordination, and actually expelled from Yale. A council of ministers who assembled at Hartford petitioned for his restoration, but were refused, the authorities deeming themselves well rid of a dangerous fanatic. Still, as a youth of blameless life and ardent piety, he was encouraged by his friends to continue his preparation for the ministry, and he persisted in reading hard, and going out between whiles to meditate in the depths of the glorious woods. It is curious that while his homely and rigid system precluded any conscious admiration of the beauties of nature, it is always evident from his journal that the lightenings of hope and joy which relieved his too frequent depression and melancholy, were connected with the scenery and the glories of day and night. Sunrise and the aurora borealis seem to have filled him with spiritual bliss, and he never was so happy as when deep in the woods, out of the sight of men; but his morbid, sensitive, excitable nature never seems to have been understood by himself or by others. Just as John Eliot's missionary zeal was the outcome of the earnestness that carried the Puritans to New England, so the fresh infusion of religious life, brought by Whitfield, produced an ardent desire on the part of David Brainerd to devote himself to the remainder of the Indians; and in the year 1742, at twenty-five years old, he was examined by an assembly of ministers at Danbury, and licensed to preach the Gospel, when he began at once with a little settlement of Indians at Kent, with such a sinking of heart at his own unworthiness that he says he seemed to himself worse than any devil, and almost expected to have been stoned rather than listened to. Indeed, something of this diffidence and sadness seems always to have weighed him down when he began to preach, though the fervour of his subject and the responding faces of his audience always exhilarated him and bore him up through his sermon. To learn the Indian language had not occurred to him as part of his preparation, but probably these Kent Red men had been enough among the English to understand him, for they seem to have been much impressed. A Scottish Society for propagating Christian Knowledge had arisen, and the delegates hearing of the zeal of David Brainerd, desired to engage him at a salary. The sense of his own unworthiness, and fear of keeping out a better man, brought his spirits down to the lowest ebb; nevertheless, he went to meet the representatives of the Society at New York, and there, though between the hubbub of the town and his own perpetual self-condemnation he was continually wretched, they were so well satisfied with him as to give him the appointment, on condition that he studied the language, intending to send him to the Red men between the Susquehanna and the Delaware; but there was a dispute between these and the Government, and it was decided to send him to a settlement called Kanaumeek, between Stockbridge and Albany. Before going, David Brainerd, having no thought beyond devotion to the Indians, and thinking his allowance enough for his wants, gave up the whole of his inheritance to support a scholar at the University, and set forth, undaunted by such weakness of health as in ordinary eyes would have fitted him for nothing but to be carefully nursed; for even then he was continually suffering from pain and dizziness, and weakness so great that he could often hardly stand. In this state he arrived at Kanaumeek, with a young Indian to act as his interpreter, and there spent the first night sleeping on a heap of straw. It was a lonely, melancholy spot, where the Indians were herded together, watched with jealous eyes by adventurers who were always endeavouring to seize their lands, and sadly degenerated from the free, grave, high-spirited men to whom Eliot had preached. His first lodging was in the log house of a poor Scotchman who lived among the Indians--a single chamber, without so much as a floor, and where he shared the family meals upon porridge, boiled corn, and girdle-cakes. The family spoke Gaelic, only the master of the house knowing any English, and that not so good as the Indian interpreter's; and, moreover, the spot was a mile and a half from the Indian wigwams, no small consideration to so weakly a man, thus poorly fed. However, the Indians were pleased with his addresses, and seemed touched by them; but the evil habits of the White men were the terrible stumbling-block. Parties of them would come into the town, and vex the missionary's ears with their foul tongues, making a scandalous contrast to the grave, calm manners of the Indians. More than ever did he love solitude, and when with his own hands he had built himself a log hut, where he could be alone when he pleased, his relief was great. He was not the highly educated scholar and practical theorist that his predecessor had been: he seems to have had no plans or systems, and merely to have tried to fulfil immediate needs; but he soon found that he could not hope to benefit his Red flock without a school, so he made a journey to New Jersey to entreat for means to set one up, and this was done, with his interpreter as master. His journey was made on horseback, and was no small undertaking, for even between Stockbridge and Kanaumeek he had once lost his way, and had to sleep a night in the woods. He had by this time thoroughly repented of the uncharitableness and hastiness of his speech about Mr. Whittlesey, and he took a journey to New Haven to send in a thoroughly humble and Christian-like apology, requesting to be permitted to take his degree. Twice he was refused, and the third time was told that the only condition on which the degree would be granted would be the making up his term of residence at Yale, which was, of course, not possible to a licensed minister in full employment, and in fact was an insulting proposal to a man of his standing and character. His journey cost him dear, for as he was riding home he was attacked with violent pain in the face and shiverings, which forced him to halt at the first shelter he could find, happily with kind friends, who nursed him for a fortnight before he could return home. He believed that had his illness seized him in his log house at home, he must certainly have died for want of care and attendance, although he was much beloved by his poor Indians. His life was indeed a frightfully hard one, and would have been so for a healthy man; for he had to work with his own hands to store provisions for his horse in the winter, and that when weak and suffering the more for want of proper food. He could get no bread but by riding ten or fifteen miles to procure it, and if he brought home too much it became mouldy and sour, while, if he brought home a small quantity, he could not go for more if he failed to catch his horse, which was turned out to graze in the woods; so that he was reduced to making little cakes of Indian meal, which he fried in the ashes. "And then," he says, "I blessed God as if I had been a king." "I have a house and many of the comforts of life to support me," he says with great satisfaction; and the solitude of that house was so precious to him that, however weary he was, he would ride back twenty miles to it at night rather than spend an evening among ungodly men. By this terrible stinting of what we should deem the necessaries of life, he was actually able, in fifteen months, to devote a hundred pounds to charitable purposes, besides keeping the young man at the University. So much, however, did he love his solitude, that he counted it as no relief, but an affliction, to have to ride to Stockbridge from time to time to learn the Indian language from Mr. Sergeant, the missionary there stationed. Something of this must have been morbid feeling, something from the want of energy consequent on the condition of his frame. For a man in confirmed decline such an entry in a journal as this is no trifle:--"December 20.--Rode to Stockbridge. Was very much fatigued with my journey, wherein I underwent great hardship; was much exposed, and very wet by falling into a river." Mr. Sergeant could hardly have been profane company, but Brainerd never enjoyed these visits, thinking that intercourse with the world made him less familiar with heaven. Another inconvenience was the proximity of Kanaumeek to the frontier, and these were the days of that horrid war between England and France in America, when the native allies of each nation made savage descents on the outlying settlements, inflicting all the flagrant outrages of their wild warfare. A message came one evening to Kanaumeek from Colonel Stoddart, warning all in exposed situations to secure themselves as well as possible, since an attack might come at any moment; and this Brainerd quietly records as a salutary warning not to attach himself too much to the _comforts of life_ he enjoyed. The attack was never made, but he came to the conclusion that his small congregation of Indians would be much better with their fellows at Stockbridge under the care of Mr. Sergeant, and that this would leave him free to go to more wild and untaught tribes. It was carried out, and the Indians removed. There was much mutual love between them and their pastor, and the parting was very affectionate, though even after two years he was still unable to speak the language, and never seems to have troubled himself about this trifling obstacle. Several English congregations entreated him to become their minister, but he refused them all, and went to meet the Commissioners of the Scottish Society at New Jersey. They arranged with him for a mission to the Delaware Indians, in spite of his being laid up for some days at the time; and when he went back to Kanaumeek to dispose of his books and other "comforts," the effects of being drenched with rain showed themselves in continued bleeding from the lungs. He knew that he was often in an almost dying state, and only wished to continue in his Master's service to the end he longed for. He owns that his heart did sometimes sink at the thought of going alone into the wilderness; but he thought of Abraham, and took courage, riding alone through the depths of the forest, so desolate and lonely day after day, that it struck terror even into his soul. There were scanty settlements of Dutch and Irish, where he sometimes spent a night, but the Sunday he passed among some Irish was so entirely unmarked by them, that he felt like a "creature banished from the sight of God." At last he reached his destination on the fork of the river Delaware, and being within moderate distance of Newark, there received ordination as a minister on the 11th of June, 1744. Severe illness followed the exertion of preaching and praying before the convened ministers; but as soon as he could walk, he set forth on his return, though he was so weak that he could hardly open his numbed hand, but his heart and hopes had begun to revive, and the little settlement of Whites with whom he lived were willing to listen to him. The Indians were in the midst of preparing for an idolatrous feast and dance. Brainerd spent a day in the woods in an anguish of prayer, and then went to the place of meeting, where, stranger as he was, he prevailed on them to cease their revels and attend to him. His biographer, President Jonathan Edwards, provokingly leaves out his method of teaching, "for the sake of brevity," and from his own diary little is to be gathered but accounts of his state of feeling through endless journeyings and terrible prostrations of strength. He was always travelling about--now to the Susquehanna, now back to New England--apparently at times with the restlessness of disease, for this roving about must have prevented him from ever deepening the impression made by his preaching, which after all was only through an interpreter, for he never gave himself time to learn the language. Yet after some months he did find a settlement of Indians, about eighty miles from the fork of Delaware, at a place called Crossweeksung, who were far more disposed to attend to him. They listened so eagerly, that day after day they would travel after him from village to village, hardly taking any heed to secure provisions for themselves. The description of their conduct is like that of those touched by Wesleyan preaching. They threw themselves on the ground, wept bitterly, and prayed aloud, with the general enthusiasm of excitement, though, he expressly says, without fainting or convulsions, and even the White men around, who came to scoff, were deeply impressed. David Brainerd had at last his hour of bliss! He was delivered from his melancholy by the joy of such results, and in trembling happiness baptized his converts in the river beside their wigwams before leaving them to proceed to a village on the Susquehanna, where he hoped for an interview with the chief Sachem of the Delawares. The place, however, was in the wildest confusion and uproar, it being the period of a great festival, when every one was too tipsy to attend to him. At an island called Juneauta, he met a very remarkable personage, a Powaw, who bore the reputation of a reformer, anxious to restore the ancient religion of the Red man, which had become corrupted by intercourse with the White and his vices. His aspect was the most dreadful thing Brainerd had ever seen. He wore a shaggy bearskin coat, hood, and stockings, and a hideous, painted mask, so that no part of his person was visible, not even the hand in which he held an instrument made of the shell of a tortoise, with dry corn within, and he came up rattling this, and dancing with all his might, and with such gesticulations that, though assured that he intended no injury, it was impossible not to shrink back as this savage creature came close. Yet he was a thoughtful man, such as would have been a philosopher in ancient Greece or Rome. He took the missionary into his hut, and conversed long and earnestly with him. He had revolted in spirit from the degradation of his countrymen, and had gone to live apart in the woods, where he had worked out a system of natural religion for himself, which he believed the Great Spirit had taught him, and which had at last led him to return to his people and endeavour to restore them to that purity which of course he believed to have once existed. He believed there were good men somewhere, and he meant to wander till he found them; meantime, he was kindly to all who came near him, and constantly uplifted his testimony against their vices, especially when the love of strong drink was brought among them. When all was in vain, he would go weeping away into the woods, and hide himself there till the hateful fire-water was all consumed and the madness over. Brainerd was greatly touched by this red-skinned Epictetus, who, he said, had more honesty, sincerity, and conscientiousness than he had ever met with in an Indian, and more of the temper of true religion; and he expounded to him the Christian doctrine with great carefulness and double earnestness. The self-taught philosopher broke in now and then with "Now that I like,"--"So the Great Spirit has taught me;" but when the missionary came to the regions where faith surpasses the power of the intellect and the moral sense, the Indian would not follow him, and rejected his teaching. It was curious that he particularly denied the idea of a devil, declaring that there was no such being, according to the ancient Indians. Now, the incantations of the Powaws were generally supposed to be addressed to evil spirits, and probably the perception of the falsehood of these pretended rites led to his disclaiming the Christian doctrine. Whether time and further teaching would have overpowered his belief in his own inspiration does not appear, for Brainerd found the Indians too vicious and hardened to pay the least heed either to him or to their own reformer; and he went back to Crossweeksung, where his flock was still increasing, and in a most satisfactory condition, renouncing their heathen customs and their acquired vice of drunkenness, and practising some amount of industry. A school was set up, old and young learnt English, the children in three or four months could read the Bible in English, and Brainerd's sermons and prayers were understood without an interpreter. This improved condition of the Indians destroyed the shameful profits of the nearest settlement of Whites, whose practice it had hitherto been to entice them to drink, and then run up a heavy score against them for liquor. Finding that all endeavours to seduce them into drunkenness were now vain, these wretches first tried to raise the country against Brainerd, by reporting that he was a Roman Catholic in disguise; and when this failed, they laid claim to the lands of Crossweeksung, in discharge of debts that they declared to have been previously contracted. Fortunately, Brainerd had it in his power to advance 82_l._ from his private means, so as to save his people from this extortion; but he afterwards thought it best to remove them from these dangerous neighbours to a new settlement, fifteen miles off, called Cranberry. He remained himself in his little hut at Crossweeksung, after they had proceeded to raise wigwams and prepare the ground for maize; but, whenever he rode over to visit them, his approach was notified by the sound of a conch shell, and they all gathered round for his prayers and instruction. His success with them seems to have greatly cured his depression of spirits, but his mind was balancing between the expedience of remaining among them as their permanent pastor, protector, and guide, and that of striving to extend the kingdom of faith. Sometimes he liked the prospect of a settled home and repose, study and meditation; but, at the thought of gaining souls to Christ, all these considerations melted before him, and he believed that he was marked out for the life of a pilgrim and hermit by his carelessness about hardships. He had not, however, taken leave of his flock when he set forth on another expedition to the obdurate Indians of the Susquehanna, in the September of 1746. It was without result; he could obtain no attention, and the hardships of the journey, the night exposure, and the frequent drenchings completed the wreck of his health. He came back with night perspirations, bleeding from the lungs, and suffering greatly, feverish and coughing, and often in pain; yet, whenever he could mount his horse, riding the fifteen miles to attend to the Indians at Cranberry, or sitting in a chair before his hut, when they assembled round him. On Sunday he persisted in preaching, till generally at the end of half an hour he fainted, and was carried to his bed; and at the administration of the Lord's Supper he was carried to the place where he had forty Indian communicants, and likewise some Whites, who had learnt to reverence him, and who supported him back to his bed. He was quite happy now, for he felt he had done all he could to the utmost of his strength; but, soon becoming totally unable to speak at all, he felt that he must do what he called "consuming some time in diversions," and try to spend the winter in a civilized place. After riding his first short stage, however, his illness increased so much, that he was quite incapable of proceeding or returning, and remained in a friend's house at Elizabethtown, suffering from cough, asthma, and fever the whole winter. In March 1747 he had rallied enough to ride to Cranberry, where he went from hut to hut, giving advice to and praying with each family, and parting with them with great tenderness. Tears were shed everywhere; for, though he still hoped to return, all felt that they should see his face no more! But, to his great comfort and joy, his poor people were not to be abandoned to themselves and their tempters. His younger brother--John--relieved his mind by offering to assume the care of them, and under his pastorship he could thankfully leave them. In April he set out again on his journey, at the rate of about ten miles a day, riding all the way, and on the 28th of May arrived at Northampton, where Jonathan Edwards, afterwards President of the College of New Jersey, was then minister. They were like-minded men, both disciples of Whitfield, and the self-devoted piety of the young missionary was already so well known to Mr. Edwards by report, that it was most gladly that he received him into his house and family. There the impression Brainerd made was of a singularly social, entertaining person, meek and unpretending, but manly and independent. Probably rest and brightness had come when the terrible struggle of his early years had ceased, and morbid despondency had given way to Christian hope, for he became at once a bright and pleasant member of any society where he formed a part, and to the Edwards family he was like a son or brother. When he was able, Mr. Edwards wished him to lead the family devotions, and was always greatly impressed by the manner and matter of his prayers, but one petition never failed, _i.e._ "that we might not outlive our usefulness." Even in saying grace there was always something about him that struck the attention. His purpose in coming to Northampton had been to consult Dr. Mather, whose verdict was that he was far gone in decline, and who gave him no advice but to ride as much as possible. So little difference did this sentence make to him that he never noted it in his diary, though he spoke of it cheerily in the Edwards family--a large household of young people--where he was so much beloved, that when he decided to go to Boston, Jerusha, the second daughter, entreated to be allowed to accompany him, to nurse him as his sister would have done. The pure, severe simplicity of those early American manners was such, that no one seems to have been surprised at a girl of eighteen becoming the attendant of a man of twenty-nine. Jerusha had the full consent and approbation of her parents, and she was a great comfort and delight to him. He told her father that she was more spiritual, self denying, and earnest to do good, than any young person he had ever known; and on doubt their communings were far above earth, hovering, as he was well known to be, upon the very borders of the grave. They took four days to reach Boston, and there he was received with the greatest respect by all the ministers; but, a week after his arrival, so severe an attack of his illness came on that he became delirious, and was thought to be at the point of death. Again, however, he came back enough to life to sit up in bed and write ardent letters of counsel to the brother who had succeeded him among his Indians, and likewise to give his friends the assurance of his perfect peace and joy. He said that he had carefully examined himself, and though he had found much pride, selfishness, and corruption, he was still certain that he had felt it his greatest happiness to glorify and praise God; and this certainty, together with his faith in the Redeemer, had calmed all the anguish he had suffered for years. Whenever he was able to converse he had numerous visitors, especially from the deputies of the Society in London which had assisted Eliot. A legacy for the support of two missionaries had newly been received, and his counsel on the mode of employing it was asked. He was able to strive to imbue others with the same zeal as himself, and to do much on behalf of his own mission, although he often lay so utterly exhausted that he said of himself that he could not understand how life could be retained. One of his brothers, a student at Yale, came to see him, and to tell him of the death of his favourite sister, of whose illness he had not even heard, but it was no shock to him, for he felt far more sure of meeting her again than if she had been left on earth. The summer weather, to the surprise of all, brought back a slight revival of strength, and some of his friends began to hope he might yet recover, but he knew his own state too well, and told them he was as assuredly a dead man as if he had been shot through the heart; still he was resolved to profit by this partial restoration to return to Northampton, chiefly because the rumour had reached him that the Bostonians had intended to give him such a funeral as should testify their great esteem; and being disappointed in this, they intended to assemble and escort him publicly, while still alive, out of their city, but the bare idea naturally made him so unhappy that they were forced to give it up. Five days were spent in the journey, and again the Edwardses reverentially opened their doors to a guest so near heaven. For some time he rode out two or three miles daily, and sat with the family, writing or conversing cheerfully when not engaged in prayer. His brother John came from Crossweeksung and cheered him with a good account of his Indians; and hearing of the great need of another school, he wrote to the friends who had shown themselves so warmly interested in him at Boston, and was gratified by their reply, with a subscription of 200_l._ for the purpose, and of 75_l._ for the mission to the Six Nations. His answers were written with his own hand; but he had become so much weaker that he felt this his last task. He had been one who, in his short life, had sown in tears to reap in joy. He was sinking fast as the autumn cold came on, often talking tenderly to the little ones of the house, but suffering terribly at times, and sighing, "Why is His chariot so long coming?" then blaming himself for over-haste to be released. He had a smile for Jerusha as she came into his room on Sunday morning. "Are you willing to part with me? I am willing to part with you, though if I thought I could not see you and be happy with you in another world, I could not bear to part. I am willing to leave all my friends. I am willing to leave my brother, though I love him better than any creature living. I have committed him and all my friends to God, and can leave them with God!" Presently, looking at the Bible in her hands, he said, "Oh that dear Book! the mysteries in it and in God's providence will soon be unfolded." He lingered in great agony at times till the 9th of October, 1747, when came a cessation of pain, and during this lull he breathed his last, then wanting six months of his thirtieth birthday. He had told Jerusha that they should soon meet above, and, in effect, she only lived until the next February. She told her father on her death-bed, that for years past she had not seen the time when she had any wish to live a moment longer, save for the sake of doing good and filling up the measure of her duty. David Brainerd's career ended at an age when John Eliot's had not begun. It was a very wonderful struggle between the frail suffering body and the devoted, resolute spirit, both weighed down by the natural morbid temper, further depressed by the peculiar tenets of the form of doctrine in which he had been bred. The prudent, well-weighed measures of the ripe scholar, studious theologian, and conscientious politician, formed by forty-two years' experience of an old and a new country, could not be looked for in the sickly, self-educated, enthusiastic youth who had been debarred from the due amount of study, and started with little system but that of "proclaiming the Gospel"--even though ignorant of the language of those to whom he preached. And yet that heart-whole piety and patience was blessed with a full measure of present success, and David Brainerd's story, though that of a short life, over-clouded by mental distress, hardship, and sickness, fills us with the joyful sense that there is One that giveth the victory. CHAPTER III. CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH SCHWARTZ, THE COUNCILLOR OF TANJORE. We must turn from America to the warmer regions of the East, from the patriarchal savage to complicated forms of society, and from the Red-skin to the Hindoo--a man of far nearer affinity to ourselves, being, like us, of the great Indo-European race, speaking a language like our own, an altered, corrupted, and intermingled dialect of the same original tongue, and his ancestors originally professing a religion in which the same primary ideas may be traced as those which were held by our ancient northern forefathers, and which are familiar to us in the graceful dress imposed on them by the Greeks. The sacred writings of the Hindoos form the earliest storehouse of the words of our common language, and the thoughts therein found, though recorded after the branches had parted from the common stock, are nearer the universal germ than those to be found anywhere else, and more nearly represent the primary notion of religion held by the race of Japheth, after that of Shem, to which God revealed Himself more distinctly, had parted from it. These oldest writings are quaint, pure, and simple, but on them the fancies of a race enervated by climate engrafted much that was hideous, monstrous, and loathsome, leading to gross idolatry, and much vice perpetrated in the name of religion. Mythology always degenerates with the popular character, and then, so far as the character is formed by the religious faith, the mythology helps to debase it further, until the undying moral sense of conscience awakens again in some man, or band of men, and a new morality arises; sometimes grafted upon philosophic reasoning, sometimes upon a newly-invented or freshly introduced religion. Thus, when Hindooism had become corrupt, the deeply meditative system of Buddha was introduced into many parts of India, and certainly brought a much higher theory and purer code than that founded on the garbled nature- worship of ancient India; but both religions co-existed, and, indeed, Buddhism was in one aspect an offshoot of the Hindoo faith. Christianity--planted, as is believed, by St. Thomas, on the Malabar coast--never became wholly extinct, although tinged with Nestorianism, but it was never adopted by the natives at large, and the learning and philosophy of the Brahmins would have required the utmost powers of the most learned fathers of the Church to cope with them, before they could have been convinced. The rigid distinctions of caste have made it more difficult for the Church which "preaches the Gospel to the poor," to be accepted in India than anywhere else. Accounting himself sprung from the head of Brahma, the Brahmin deems himself, and is deemed by others, as lifted to an elevation which has no connection either with moral goodness, with wealth, or with power; and which is as much the due of the most poverty- stricken and wicked member of the caste as of the most magnificent priest. The Sudras, the governing and warlike class, are next in order, having sprung from the god's breast, and beneath these come infinite grades of caste, their subdivisions each including every man of each trade or calling which he pursues hereditarily and cannot desert or change, save under the horrible penalty of losing caste, and becoming forsaken and despised of every creature, even the nearest kindred. The mere eating from a vessel used to contain food for a person of a different caste is enough to produce contamination; the separation is complete, and the whole constitution of body and mind have become so inured to the distinction, that the cost of becoming a convert is infinitely severer in India than ever it could have been even in Greece or Rome, where, though the Christian might be persecuted even to the death, he was not thrust out of the pale of humanity like a Hindoo convert who transgresses caste. The Christians of Malabar are a people living to themselves, and the great Bengalee nations never appear to have had the Gospel carried to them. The Mahometan conquest filled India with professors of the faith of the Koran; but these were a dominant race, proud and separate from the mass of people, whom they did not win to their faith, and thus the Hindoo idolatry had prevailed untouched for almost the whole duration of the world, when the wealth of India in the early days of naval enterprise first began to tempt small mercantile companies of Europeans to form factories on the coast merely for purposes of traffic, without at first any idea that these would lead to possession or conquest, and, in general, without any sense of the responsibility of coming as Christians into a heathen world. The Portuguese did indeed strive earnestly to Christianize their territory at Goa; and they promoted by all means in their power the labours of Francisco Xavier and his Jesuit companions, so effectually that the fruits of their teaching have remained to the present day. Neither were the Dutch, who then held Ceylon, entirely careless of the duty of instructing their subjects; and the Danes, who had obtained the town of Tranquebar on the Coromandel coast, in 1746, sent out a mission which was vigorously conducted, and met with good success. Hitherto, however, the English at Madras and Calcutta had been almost wholly indifferent, and it must be remembered that theirs was not a Government undertaking. The East India Company was still only a struggling corporation of merchants and traders, who only wanted to secure the warehouses and dwellings of those who conducted their traffic, and had as yet no thought of anything but the security of their trade; often, indeed, considering themselves pledged to no interference with the religion of the people around, and too often forgetting their own. However, the Danish mission received grants of money and books from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and the first Indian missionary of any note, a German by birth, was equally connected with both England and Denmark. Sonnenburg in Brandenburg, still an electorate at the time, was the native home of Christian Friedrich Schwartz, of whose parents it is only known that they appear to have been in easy circumstances, and that his mother, who died before he could remember, told her husband and her pastor on her death-bed, that she had dedicated her infant to the service of God, imploring them to cherish and forward any inclination towards the ministerial office that might be visible in him. It was, of course, the Lutheran form in which the child of this pious woman was bred up, and in 1734 he was sent to the grammar school of Sonnenburg, where his piety was first excited by a religious master, then cooled by an indifferent one; and he was then taken by his father, walking on foot the whole way, to pursue his studies at Custrin. There he became beset by the temptations that surrounded young students, and after giving way to them for a time, was saved from further evil by the influence of the daughter of one of the Syndics. It does not appear to have been a matter of sentiment, but of honest friendship and good counsel, aiding the young man to follow his better instead of his worse impulses; and thus giving a labourer to the vineyard. Before residing at Custrin, this lady had lived for a time at Halle, and what she told the young Schwartz of the professors at that university, inspired him with the desire of completing his course under them, especially August Hermann Francke, who had established an admirable orphan house, with an excellent grammar school. In his twentieth year, Schwartz entered at Halle, but lodged at the orphan house, where he became teacher to the Latin classes, and was put in charge of the evening devotions of the household. At Halle, he met a retired Danish missionary, named Schultz, who had come thither to superintend the printing of a version of the Bible in Tamul, the language of Ceylon and of the Coromandel coast; and this it was that first turned his mind to the thought of offering himself as a worker in the great field of India. He was the eldest of the family, and his friends all declared that it was impossible that his father should consent to part with him; but when he went home, and earnestly stated his desire, the elder Schwartz, instead of at once refusing as all expected, desired to take three days to consider; and when they were passed, he came gravely down from his chamber, called his son Christian, gave him his blessing, and told him to depart in God's name, charging him to forget his own country and his father's house, and to win many souls to Christ. And certainly that good old German's blessing went forth with his son. Christian Schwartz next resigned his share in the family property to his brothers and sisters; and after completing his studies at Halle, went to Copenhagen, since it was by the Danish government that he was to be authorized. Two other young Germans, named Poltzenheigen and Hutteman, went with him. The Danes, though Lutherans in profession, have an Episcopal hierarchy, and the three students were ordained by the Danish Bishop Horreboa on the 6th of September, 1749; Christian Schwartz being then within a month of twenty-three. Their first stage was to England, where they had to learn the language, and were entertained at the cost of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Mr. Ziegenhagen, German chaplain to George II., was very kind to his countrymen, helped them in all their difficulties, and gave them directions for which they were very grateful. He made them preach in the Chapel Royal on Christmas Day. No doubt the language was German, which must have been acceptable to the Hanoverian ears. Their English studies were not greatly prolonged, for they arrived on the 8th of December, 1749, and sailed on the 29th of January, 1750, in an East India Company's ship, where they were allowed a free passage, and were treated with respect and friendliness. The voyage lasted long enough to improve them in English, for they did not cast anchor at Tranquebar till the 8th of October. At this considerable Danish factory, they were received into the mission- house of the Danes, and there remained while studying the language, in which Schwartz made so much progress that he preached his first Tamul sermon only four months after his arrival, and by the spring was able to catechize the children who attended the school. This station at Tranquebar formed the home of seven or eight missionaries, who lived together, attended to the services and schools, prepared candidates for baptism, and made excursions by ones and twos into the villages that stood thickly on the coast, where they talked and argued with the natives, hoping to incite them to inquire further. The two greatest obstacles they met with here were the evil example of Europeans and the difficulty of maintenance for a convert. One poor dancing girl said, on hearing that no unholy person could enter into the kingdom of heaven, "Ah! sir, then no European will;" but, on the whole, they must have met with good success, for in 1752 there were three large classes of catechumens prepared and baptized at the station. In the district around there were several villages, where congregations of Christians existed, and, of all those south of the river Caveri, Schwartz was after two more years made the superintendent. The simple habits of these German and Danish clergy eminently fitted them for such journeys; they set out in pairs on foot, after a farewell of united prayer from their brethren, carrying with them their Hebrew Bibles, and attended by a few Christian servants and coolies; they proceeded from village to village, sometimes sleeping in the house of a Hindoo merchant, sometimes at that of one the brother ministers they had come to see, and at every halt conversing and arguing with Hindoo or Mahometan, or sometimes with the remnants of the Christians converted by the Portuguese, who had been so long neglected that they had little knowledge of any faith. The character of Christian Schwartz was one to influence all around him. He seems to have had all the quiet German patience and endurance of hardship, without much excitability, and with a steadiness of judgment and intense honesty and integrity, that disposed every one to lean on him and rely on him for their temporal as well as their spiritual matters--great charity and warmth of heart, and a shrewdness of perception that made him excellent in argument. He had also that true missionary gift, a great facility of languages, both in grammar and pronunciation, and his utter absence of all regard for his own comfort or selfish dignity, yet his due respect to times and places made him able to penetrate everywhere, from the hut to the palace. The Carnatic war was at this time an impediment, by keeping the minds of all the natives in a state of excitement and anxiety, from dread of Mahratta incursions; but Schwartz never intermitted his rounds, and was well supported by the Danish Governor, a good man, who often showed himself his friend. Some of the missionaries were actually made prisoners when the French took Cuddalore, but Count Lally Tollendal was very kind to them, and sent them with all their property and converts safely away to Tranquebar. The Dutch missionaries in Ceylon had been in correspondence with those of Tranquebar, and had obtained from them copies of their Tamul Bible, and in 1760 Schwartz was sent on a visit to them. He was very well received by both clergy and laity; and though he was laid up by a severe illness at Colombo, yet he was exceedingly well contented with his journey and his conferences with his brethren. Christian Schwartz had been more than sixteen years in India, and was forty years of age, before his really distinctive and independent work began, after his long training in the central station at Tranquebar. The neighbouring district of Tanjore had at different times been visited, and the ministers of the Rajah had shown themselves willing to bestow some reflection on what they heard from the missionaries. Visits to this place and to Trichinopoly became frequent with him, and in 1766 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge having decided on planting a mission station in the latter place, he was appointed to take the charge of it. About this time he seems to have accommodated his name to English pronunciation, and to have always written it Swartz. It was now that he became acquainted with William Chambers, Esq., brother to the Chief Justice of Bengal,--not a Company's servant, but a merchant, and an excellent man, who took great interest in missionary labours, and himself translated a great part of St. Matthew's Gospel into Persian, the court language of India. From a letter of this gentleman, we obtain the only description we possess of Swartz's appearance and manners. He says that, from the descriptions he had heard, he had expected to see a very austere and strict person, but "the first sight of him made a complete revolution on this point. His garb, indeed, which was pretty well worn, seemed foreign and old-fashioned, but in every other respect his appearance was the reverse of all that could be called forbidding or morose. Figure to yourself a stout well-made man, somewhat above the middle size, erect in his carriage and address, with a complexion rather dark though healthy, black curled hair, and a manly engaging countenance, expressive of unaffected candour, ingenuousness, and benevolence, and you will have an idea of what Mr. Swartz appeared to be at first sight." Mr. Chambers adds that Swartz's whole allowance at Trichinopoly was ten pagodas a year, that is, about 48_l._ (as Mr. Chambers estimates it). The commanding officer of the English garrison was ordered to supply him with quarters, and gave him a room in an old native building, where "there was just room for his bed and himself, and in which few men could stand upright." With this lodging he was content. His food was rice and vegetables dressed native fashion, and his clothes were made of black dimity. The little brass lamp which he had used for his studies at the University went with him to India, and served him all his life, often late at night, for he never preached even to the natives without much study. He found the English without church or chaplain, and had very little knowledge of their language, having lived almost entirely among Germans, Danes, and natives; but he quickly picked it up among the soldiers, to whom his kindly simple manners commended him; and, as soon as he could speak it to any degree, he began to read the Church Service every Sunday to the garrison, with a printed sermon from an English divine, until he had obtained sufficient fluency to preach extempore. At first, the place of meeting was a large room in an old building, but he afterwards persuaded them to build themselves a church capable of holding from 1,500 to 2,000. His facility in learning languages must have been great, for the English of his letters is excellent, unless his biographer, Dean Pearson, has altered it. It is not at all like that of a German. His influence with the soldiers was considered as something wonderful, in those times of neglect and immorality, and the commandant and his wife--Colonel and Mrs. Wood--were his warmest friends; and when the Government at Madras heard of his voluntary services as chaplain, they granted him, unsolicited, a salary of 100_l._ a year, of which he devoted half to the service of his congregation. He was thus able to build a mission-house, and an English and a Tamul school, labour and materials being alike cheap. But, in spite of all his care of the English soldiery, the natives were his chief thought; and he was continually among them, reading and arguing home with the most thorough knowledge and experience of their difficulties. He made expeditions from Trichinopoly to Tanjore, then under the government of a Rajah, under the protection of the British Government. The principal worship of the place was directed to an enormous black bull, said to be hewn out of a single block of granite, and so large that the temple had been built round it. The Brahmins conversed with him a good deal, and often were all _but_ converted. One plainly said that love of money and pleasure alone kept them from accepting Christianity. In 1769 he had a personal interview with the Rajah Tuljajee, a man of the dignity, grace, and courtesy usual in Hindoo princes, but very indolent, not even rising in the morning if he was told that it was not an auspicious day, though he was more cultivated than most men of his rank and period. Swartz found him seated on a couch suspended from pillars, and was placed opposite to him, on a seat. The interpreter addressed him in Persian, and Swartz replied in the same; but, perceiving that the man omitted part of his speech, he asked leave to speak Tamul. The Rajah asked questions, which led to an exposition of the Christian doctrine, and he listened with interest; and he likewise was struck when Swartz uttered a thanksgiving before partaking of the sweets that were carried round on trays. He showed himself so much disappointed when he learnt that the Padre had left Tanjore, that it was resolved that Swartz should return thither again; and for some days there were out-of-door preachings on the glacis of the fort, where, in spite of clouds of dust brought by the land wind, the people collected in crowds to hear him, and expressed ardent wishes that the Rajah would become a Christian, when they all could do the same. The Prince himself was much drawn towards the missionary; but it was the old story,--he was surrounded with ministers and courtiers who feared any change, above all any plain-speaking truth, and therefore did their best to keep the new light at a distance. However, Tuljajee called Swartz "_his padre_," and gave him free entrance to his fort at Tanjore, where his arguments made a wide impression, and still more his example. "Padre," said a young Nabob, "we always regarded you Europeans as ungodly men, who knew not the use of prayers, till you came among us." He continued to go backwards and forwards between Trichinopoly and Tanjore, in both which places he began to gather catechumens round him. Unfortunately his Protestant principles brought him into collision with the Roman Catholics at the former place. A young Hindoo, of good birth, seems to have had one of those remarkable natures that cannot rest without truth. He had for seven years wandered to all the most famous pagodas and most sacred rivers, seeking rest for his soul, but in vain. Some Roman Catholics had given him a little brass crucifix, which he used to set up before him as he prayed; but he had learnt little more of them, and he was mournfully gazing at "the pagodas of Sirengam" (in his own words), and thinking, "What is all this? what can it avail?" when some of Swartz's catechists began to speak. "Will this be better than what I have found?" he said to himself. He listened, was asked to remain a fortnight at the station, and soon had given his whole soul to the faith. He was baptized by the name of Nyana Pracasam, or Spiritual Light, and became a catechist. His father and mother were likewise led to Christianity by him, but the Roman Catholics, having begun his conversion, considered that they had a right to him, and on one occasion, when he was found reading to a sick relative, probably a member of their Church, he was severely beaten, and was rescued by the heathen neighbours when nearly killed. Swartz seems to have regarded the Roman Catholics as in almost as much need of reconversion as the Hindoos and Mahometans; and as in those days their Church shared in that universal religious torpor that had crept over the world, it is most likely that he found them in a very debased condition. With the Mahometans he had some success, though he found, like all other missionaries, that their faith, being rather a heresy than a paganism, had truth enough in it to be much harder to deal with than the Hindoo polytheism. Besides, they accepted the Persian proverb, "Every time a man argues, he loses a drop of blood from his liver." He was impeded also by the want of a Persian translation of the entire Bible, having no more than the Gospels to give the inquirers, and these badly translated; and with Mahometans the want of the real history of the Patriarchs was very serious. Some, however, were convinced and baptized, though by far the greater number of his converts were Hindoos. In 1776, a coadjutor, either German or Danish-trained, named Christian Pohle, joined him at Trichinopoly, and thus he became free to reside more constantly at Tanjore, where the Rajah always protected him, though continually fluctuating in feeling towards Christianity, according to the influences of his ministers and the Brahmins who surrounded him, and the too frequent offences given by the godless officers of the European garrison which was stationed in the fort. Mr. Swartz was anxiously soliciting for means to build a church for the use of this garrison, when he was summoned to Madras, to the governor, Sir Thomas Rumbold, who promised him a grant for his church; but, at the same time, informed him that he was to be sent on a mission to visit the formidable Hyder Ali in Mysore, in order to judge how far his intentions towards the English were pacific. He was selected for the purpose on account of his perfect knowledge of Hindostanee, the simplicity of his manner of travelling, and his perfect immunity from any of the ordinary influences of interest or ambition; and he undertook it, as he tells the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, because he regarded it as conducing to peace, as opening fresh doors to the Gospel, and as a token of gratitude to the Honourable Company for kindness he had received; "but at the same time," he says, "I resolved to keep my hands undefiled from any presents, by which determination the Lord enabled me to abide, so that I have not accepted a single farthing save my travelling expenses." On the 1st of July, 1779, he set out from Trichinopoly on this journey, taking one of his catechists, named Sattianadem, with him. He travelled in a palanquin, and took six days to reach Caroor, on the Mysore frontier, forty miles off, where he stayed a month with a young Ceylonese Dutchman in Hyder Ali's service, while sending to ask the Nabob's permission to proceed. All this time he and his catechist preached and gave instruction in the streets. It is curious to find him, on his journey, contrasting the excellent state of Hyder Ali's roads and bridges with the careless disorganization of the public works under the Company. An epidemic fever was raging in Seringapatam, and Swartz pitched his tent outside, where he could conveniently visit the many-pillared palace of the sovereign. He was much struck with the close personal supervision that Hyder Ali kept up over his officers, and with the terrible severity of the punishments. Two hundred men were kept armed with whips, and not a day passed without many being scourged, no rank being exempt, the Nabob's two sons and sons-in-law being liable to be whipped like the meanest groom. Swartz was the unwilling spectator of the punishment of the collector of a district who was flogged with whips armed with nails. A few hundreds of Europeans, English, German, and French, were in Hyder's pay, encamped about the town, and a German captain lent his tent for public worship. No molestation was offered to any instructions that Swartz attempted to give, and he was very courteously entreated by the Prince himself. The conferences with him were generally held in a hall of marble columns, open to a garden adorned with fruit trees, rows of cypresses, and fountains. Hyder Ali sat on rich carpets, covering the floor, and the Padre was placed next to him. He spoke in general terms of his desire to keep the peace, though the British had violated their engagements, referring to an attempt that had newly been made to march troops through his territory without his permission. To Swartz he was gracious in speech, but the letter he entrusted to him was full of threatening for this and other acts which he considered aggressive; and the general impression brought back by the missionary was that a war was to be expected. Hyder Ali had presented him with a bag of three hundred rupees for travelling expenses, which it would have been a great affront to return. He, however, made it over to the Government at Madras, and when they would not take it, asked leave to use it as the foundation for a collection for an English orphan school at Tanjore. This was granted, and proved a success. Finding that there was an intention of voting a present to him, he begged instead that a salary might be given to Mr. Pohle at Trichinopoly; and, in consequence, both were enabled to maintain catechists and schoolmasters; for of making a home for themselves, these devoted men never thought. Moreover, Swartz obtained bricks and lime for the building of his English church within the fort; and he bought and enlarged a house half a mile from it, for his Malabar Christians to worship in. His own observations of Hyder Ali's warlike intentions led also to his purchasing 12,000 bags of rice as a provision against the scarcity that too surely attends upon Indian warfare. In the summer of 1780, these apprehensions were realized. Hyder crossed the Ghauts, and passed down into the Carnatic with 100,000 men, directed by a staff of French officers, and plundered up to the very gates of Madras. Everything was in the greatest confusion; the English troops were dispersed in garrisons, and could not easily be brought together; and one small detachment under Colonel Baillie, who were made prisoners at Conjiveram, suffered a frightful captivity. Sir Eyre Coote did, indeed, keep the enemy in check, and defeat him in several battles, but had not at first sufficient numbers or stores effectually to drive him back; and the whole province of Tanjore was horribly wasted. The irrigation of the district had been broken up by the invaders; there was for three years neither seed-time nor harvest, and the miserable peasants crawled into the towns to perish there, often with their sons carried off to form a regiment of youths whom Hyder Ali was bringing up as a sort of Janissaries. The unhappy creatures lay dying along the sides of the road, and among them moved from one to another that homely figure in the black dimity dress, and his catechists with him, feeding those who could still swallow, and speaking words of comfort to those who could hear. Some of the English sent a monthly subscription, which enabled Swartz to keep up the supply, so that a hundred and twenty a day were fed; but often in the morning he found the dead lying in heaps, and in one of his letters he mentions that his catechists are alive, as though he regarded it as a wonder and a mercy. Indeed he seems to have been a very Joseph to the Rajah, and even to the English garrison. There was absolutely no magazine for provisions, either for the Sepoys or the Rajah's own troops, and twice he was implored, both by Tuljajee and the Company, to purchase supplies and get them brought in, since they were unable to do so, "for a want of good understanding with the natives who still possessed either rice or oxen to transport it." He was enabled to procure the supply, and then there was no place to store it in but his own new English church, so that he was obliged to hold three services on a Sunday in the other: from eight till ten in English, from ten till twelve in Tamul, and from four till five in Portuguese! About a hundred converts were gained during the famine; but he was forced to teach them very slowly, their mental faculties were so weakened by their state of exhaustion. The whole of the towns of Tanjore and Trichinopoly were, he says, filled with living skeletons, there was hardly an able or vigorous man to be found, and in this distress it was necessary to relax the ordinarily wise rule of never giving any assistance to a person under preparation for baptism, since to withhold succour would have been barbarous cruelty. When the whole country was overrun by the troops of Mysore, the respect paid to the good Padre was such that he travelled from end to end of it without hindrance, even through the midst of the enemy's camp, and on the only occasion when he was detained, the sentinel politely put it that "he was waiting for orders to let him proceed." It was on one of these journeys that a little lad, named Christian David, the son of one of the converts, was attending him one evening, when, halting at a native village, the supper was brought, of rice and curry. The Padre made so long a grace out of the fulness of his heart, that at last the boy broke in with a murmur that the curry would be cold! He never forgot the reproof: "What! shall our gracious God watch over us through the heat and burden of the day, and shall we devour the food which He provides for us at night, with hands which we have never raised in prayer, and lips which have never praised Him?" The missionaries were always safe throughout the war, and, when Cuddalore capitulated to the French and Mysoreans, Mr. Gericke, who was then at the head of the station, concealed some English officers in his house, and likewise, by his representations to the French general, saved the town from being delivered up to be plundered by Hyder's native troops. In the end of 1782, Hyder Ali died; his son, Tippoo Sahib, assuming the title of Sultan, continued the war, with the same fierceness, but without the assistance of the French, who were withdrawn, in consequence of the peace that had been concluded at home. This, together with the numerous victories that had been obtained by the English forces, led to hopes that Tippoo would consent to terms of peace, and two Commissioners were appointed, whom Swartz was requested to join as interpreter. He had no taste for political missions, but he thought it a duty to do all in his power for peace, and set off for the purpose, but the Mysoreans complained that the English promises had not been kept, and he was turned back again by the enemy's troops. Colonel Fullarton, who was in command of the army about to invade Mysore, writes, "The knowledge and the integrity of this irreproachable missionary have retrieved the character of Europeans from _imputations of general depravity_!" He went back to Tanjore, and there, for the first time, experienced some failure in health. He was requested again to join the Commissioners, but would not again attempt it, partly from the state of his health, and partly because Tippoo was far more averse to Christianity than Hyder had been. All the 12,000 Tanjoreen captive boys--originally Hindoos--were bred up Mahometans, and he tolerated nothing else but Hindooism, persecuting the Roman Catholics in his dominions till no one dared make an open profession. A treaty was, however, concluded in 1784, and there was for a time a little rest, greatly needed by Swartz, who had been suffering from much weakness and exhaustion; but a journey into Tinnevelly, with his friend Mr. Sullivan, seems to have restored him. There were already some dawnings of Christianity in this district. As long before as 1771, one of the Trichinopoly converts, named Schavrimutta, who was living at Palamcotta, began to instruct his neighbours from the Bible, and a young Hindoo accountant, becoming interested, went to an English sergeant and his wife, who had likewise been under Swartz's influence, and asked for further teaching. The sergeant taught him the Catechism and then baptized him, rather to the displeasure of Swartz, who always was strongly averse to hasty baptisms. Afterwards, a Brahmin's widow begged for baptism. She, it appeared, was living with an English officer, and Swartz was obliged to refuse her while this state of things continued, but he found that the Englishman had promised to marry her, and had begun to teach her his language and his faith. He died without performing his promise, but Christianity had become so dear to her, that she again entreated for baptism, and was then admitted into the Church by the name of Clarinda. She afterwards was the chief means of building a church at Palamcotta, to which Sattianadem became the catechist; and thus was first sown a seed which has never ceased growing, for this district of Tinnevelly has always been the stronghold of Christianity in India. Meantime Swartz's poor friend, the Rajah Tuljajee at Tanjore, was in a deplorable state. He had suffered great losses during Hyder Ali's invasion of his country, and, moreover, was afflicted with an incurable disease, and had lately lost, by death, his only son, daughter, and grandson: He shut himself up in the depths of his palace, and became harsh and moody, heaping all the treasure together that he could collect, and employing a dean or minister, named Baba, whose exactions on the famished population were so intolerable that the people fled the country, and settled in the neighbouring districts, so that no less than 65,000 were said to have deserted the province. Sir Archibald Campbell, Governor of Madras, remonstrated, but the Rajah was affronted, and would not dismiss his minister, and as the peasants refused to sow their land without some security that the crops should not be reaped by Baba's emissaries before their very eyes, the Madras authorities decided on taking the management of Tanjoreen affairs into their hands and appointing a committee to watch over the government. Sir Archibald wished to place Mr. Swartz on this committee as the person best able to deal both with Rajah and people, and he accepted a seat, only stipulating that he was not to share in any violent or coercive measures. When the "good Padre" assured the fugitives in the Rajah's name and his own that oppression was at an end, 7,000 at once returned; and when he reminded them that the season for planting their corps was nearly past, they replied that in return for his kindness they intended to work night and day. In 1787, the childless Rajah decided on--after the fashion of many Hindoo princes--adopting an heir, who might perform the last duties which were incumbent on a son. His choice fell upon the son of a near kinsman, a child ten years of age, whom he named Serfojee. A day or two after he sent for Mr. Swartz, and said, "This is not my son, but yours. Into your hand I deliver him." "May the child become a child of God," was the answer of Swartz. The Rajah was too ill to continue the interview, but he sent for Swartz the next day, and said, "I appoint you guardian to this child; I put his hands into yours." Swartz, however, did not think it right to undertake the state guardianship of the lad, and the administration of the province. Indeed, he knew that to do so would be absolutely to put the child's life in danger, from the cabals and jealousies which would be excited, and he induced Tuljajee to confide the charge to his brother, Rama Swamey, afterwards called Ameer Singh. This was done, and the Rajah soon after died, in the year 1787, leaving the boy and Ameer Singh under the protection of the Company. He had always listened to Swartz willingly, and treated him affectionately, and the result of the influence of the missionary extended so far that no Suttee took place at his funeral, but he had never actually embraced Christianity, though protecting it to the utmost of his power. The brother, Ameer Singh, was not contented merely to act as regent, but complained that injustice was done to him, and that Tuljajee was too much enfeebled in mind to judge of his own measures when he adopted the boy Serfojee. Sir Archibald Campbell, acting for the Company, came to Tanjore, and, after an examination into the circumstances, decided in favour of Ameer Singh, and confirmed him in the Rajahship, binding him over to be the faithful protector of poor little Serfojee, who, putting the adoption apart, was still his near relation. Ameer was not a better manager of his province than his brother had been, and he was far from kind to Serfojee, whom Swartz had not been allowed to see for months, when the widows of the late Rajah made complaints that the boy was closely shut up and cruelly treated. On this Swartz applied to Government, and obtained an order to go with another gentleman to inquire into his condition. The Rajah was much offended; but as he reigned only by the protection of the English, he could not refuse, and the Padre was conducted to a large but dark room, where he found the poor child sitting by lamp-light. This had been his condition for almost two years, ever since his adopted father's death, and on seeing the Padre, he asked piteously if it were the way in Europe to prevent children from seeing the sun and moon. Mr. Swartz comforted him, and asked him if he had any one to teach him. The Rajah's minister replied that he had a master, but was too idle to learn; but Serfojee looked up and said, "I have none to teach me, therefore I do not know a single letter." The Rajah was only offended at remonstrance, and at last Government sent orders that could not be resisted, and a Sepoy guard to take charge of the lad. Then, as a great favour, the Rajah entreated that the guard would not enter his palace, but that for the night before Serfojee could be removed, the Padre would remain with him to satisfy them that he was safe. To this Swartz consented, and the guard disappeared, whereupon the Rajah told him "he might go home." "What! and be guilty of a breach of faith?" was his resolute answer. "Even my father should not be permitted to make me such a proposal!" They were ashamed, and left him to remain that night with Serfojee, whom he probably thus saved from foul play, since the jealous and vindictive passions of Ameer Singh had been thoroughly excited. The captivity must have been very wretched, for he observed that the poor boy walked lame, and found that the cause was this:--"I have not been able to sleep," said poor Serfojee, "from the number of insects in my room, but have had to sit clasping my knees about with my arms. My sinews are a little contracted, but I hope I shall soon recover." When taken out, the poor little fellow was delighted once more to see the sun, and to ride out again. A Brahmin master selected by Mr. Swartz was given to him, and he very rapidly learnt both to read his own language and English. Swartz also interfered on behalf of the late Rajah's minister, Baba, who had indeed been extortionate and severe, but scarcely deserved such a punishment as being put into a hole six feet long and four feet broad and high. For two years Serfojee was unmolested; but, in 1792, the husband of Ameer Singh's only child died without children, and this misfortune was attributed by the Rajah to witchcraft on the part of the widows of Tuljajee. He imagined that they were contriving against his own life, and included Serfojee in his hatred. By way of revenge, he caused a pile of chilis and other noxious plants to be burnt under Serfojee's windows, and thus nearly stifled him and his attendants. He prevented the Prince's teachers from having access to him, shut up his servants, and denied permission to merchants to bring their wares to him. Mr. Swartz was absent at the time, and Serfojee wrote a letter to him, begging that the English Government would again interfere. It was found that any remonstrance put the Rajah into such a state of fury that the lives of the youth and the ladies we're really unsafe while they remained within his reach, and it was therefore decided that they should be transplanted to Madras. It was a wonderful step for Hindoo princesses to take, and was only accomplished by the influence of Mr. Swartz, backed by a guard of soldiers, under whose escort all safely arrived at Madras, where Serfojee's education could at length be properly carried on. The youth was so entirely the child of Swartz and of the Government, that it is disappointing to find that he did not become a Christian. No stipulation to the contrary seems to have been made by Tuljajee; but, probably, the missionary refrained from a sense of honour towards the late Rajah, and because to bring the boy up in the Church would have destroyed all chance of his obtaining the provinces, and probably have deprived him of the protection of the Company, who dreaded the suspicion of proselytizing. Still it is very disappointing, and requires all our trust in Swartz's judgment and excellence to be satisfied that he was right in leaving this child, who had been confided to him, all his life a heathen. Serfojee learnt the theory of Christianity, was deeply attached to Mr. Swartz, and lived a life very superior to that of most Hindoo princes of his time. His faith in his hereditary paganism was probably only political, but he never made the desperate, and no doubt perilous, plunge of giving up all the world to save his own soul. Was it his fault, or was it any shortcoming in the teaching that was laid before him, and was that human honour a want of faith? It puzzles us! Here was Swartz, from early youth to hoary hairs unwavering in the work of the Gospel, gathering in multitudes to the Church, often at great peril to himself, yet holding back from bringing into the fold the child who had been committed to him, and, as far as we can see, without any stipulation to the contrary. Probably he thought it right to leave Serfojee's decision uninfluenced until his education should be complete, and was disappointed that the force of old custom and the danger of change were then too strong for him; and thus it was that Serfojee was only one of the many half-reclaimed Indian princes who have lived out their dreary, useless lives under English protection, without accepting the one pearl of great price which could alone have made them gainers. It is just possible that there may have been too much of a certain sort of acquiescence in Swartz's mind, missionary as he was. He did not attack the system of caste, with its multitudinous separations and distinctions. Of course he wished it to be abolished, but he accepted converts without requiring its renunciation, allowed high-caste persons to sit apart in the churches, and to communicate before Pariahs, and did not interfere with their habits of touching no food that the very finger of a person of a different caste had defiled. He no doubt thought these things would wither away of themselves, but his having permitted them, left a world of difficulty to his successors. He lived, however, the life of a saint, nearly that of an ascetic. His almost unfurnished house was shared with some younger missionary. Kohloff, who was one of these, related in after years how plain their diet was. Some tea in a jug, with boiling water poured over it and dry bread broken into it, formed the breakfast, which lasted five minutes; dinner, at one, was of broth or curry; and at eight at night they had some meal or gruel. If wine were sent them, it was reserved for the communions or for the sick. Swartz only began, very late in life, to take a single glass in the middle of his Sunday services. Every morning he assembled his native catechists at early prayer, and appointed them their day's work. "You go there." "You do this." "You call on such and such families." "You visit such a village." About four o'clock they returned and made their report, when their master took them all with him to the churchyard or some public place, or to the front of the Mission-house, according to the season of the year, and there sat either expounding the Scriptures to those who would come and listen, or conversing with inquirers and objectors among the heathen. His manner was mild, sometimes humorous, but very authoritative, and he would brook neither idleness nor disobedience. Over his Christian flock his authority was as complete as ever that of Samuel could have been as a judge. If any of them did wrong, the alternative was-- "Will you go to the Rajah's court, or be punished by me?" "O Padre, you punish me!" was always the reply. "Give him twenty strokes," said the Padre, and it was done. The universal confidence in the Padre, felt alike by Englishmen and Hindoos, was inestimable in procuring and carrying out regulations for the temporal prosperity of the peasantry at Tanjore, under the Board which had pretty well taken the authority out of the hands of the inefficient and violent Ameer Singh. Districts that, partly from misery, had become full of thieves, were brought into order, and the thieves themselves often became hopeful converts, and endured a good deal of persecution from their heathen neighbours. His good judgment in dealing with all classes, high and low, English or native, does indeed seem to have been wonderful, and almost always to have prevailed, probably through his perfect honesty, simplicity, and disinterestedness. The converts in Tinnevelly became more and more numerous, and Sattianadem had been ordained to the ministry, Lutheran fashion, by the assembly of the presbytery at Tranquebar, there being as yet no Bishop in India; and thus many, the very best of his catechists, served for many years, at Palamcotta, the first Christian minister produced by modern India. On the whole, Swartz could look back on the half-century of his mission with great joy and thankfulness; he counted his spiritual children by hundreds; and the influence he had exerted upon the whole Government had saved multitudes of peasants from oppression and starvation, and had raised the whole tone of the administration. He was once or twice unkindly attacked by Englishmen who hated or mistrusted the propagation of Christianity. One gentleman even wrote a letter in a newspaper calling a missionary a disgrace to any nation, and raking up stories of the malpractices of heathens who had been preached to without being converted, which were laid to the charge of the actual Christians; but imputations like these did not meet with faith from any one whose good opinion was of any real consequence to Swartz. His strong health and the suitability of his constitution to the climate brought him to a good old age in full activity. He had become the patriarch of the community of missionaries, and had survived all those with whom he had at first laboured; but he was still able to circulate among the churches he had founded, teaching, praying, preaching and counselling, or laying any difficulty before the Government, whose attention he had so well earned. His last care was establishing the validity of the adoption of Serfojee, who had grown up a thoughtful, gentle, and upright man, satisfactory on all points except on the one which rendered him eligible to the throne of Tanjore, his continued heathenism. The question was referred to the Company at home, and before the answer could arrive, by the slow communication of those days, when the long voyage, and that by a sailing vessel, was the only mode of conveyance, the venerable guardian of the young Rajah had sunk into his last illness. This was connected with a mortification in his left foot, which had been more or less painful for several years, but had probably been neglected. His Danish colleague, Mr. Gericke, was with him most of the time, and it was one of his subjects of thankfulness that he was permitted to depart out of the world in the society of faithful brethren. He suffered severely for about three months, but it was not till the last week that his departure was thought to be near. He liked to have the English children brought in to read to him chapters of the Bible and sing Dr. Watts's hymns to him; and the beautiful old German hymns sung by Mr. Gericke and Mr. Kohloff were his great delight. Indeed, when at the very last, as he lay almost lifeless, with closed eyes, Mr. Gericke began to sing the hymn, "Only to Thee, Lord JESUS CHRIST," he joined in with a clear melodious voice, and accompanied him to the end. Two hours later, about four o'clock in the afternoon of the 13th of February, 1798, Christian Friedrich Swartz breathed his last, in the seventy-second year of his age, and the forty-eighth of his mission service in India. The cries and wailings of the poor resounded all night around the house, and Serfojee Rajah came from a distance to be present at his burial. It had been intended to sing a funeral hymn, but the cries and lamentations of the poor so overcame the clergy, that they could scarcely raise their voices. Serfojee wept bitterly, laid a gold cloth over the bier, and remained present while Mr. Gericke read the Funeral Service,--a most unusual departure from Hindoo custom, and a great testimony of affection and respect. A few months later arrived the decision of the East India Company, that the weak and rapacious Ameer Singh should be deposed, and Serfojee placed on the throne. He conducted himself excellently as a ruler, and greatly favoured Christians in his territory, always assisting the various schools, and giving liberal aid whenever the frequently-recurring famines of India brought them into distress. Three years later, in 1801, Serfojee wrote to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, to beg them to order a "monument of marble" at his expense, to the memory of the late Rev. Father Swartz, to be affixed to the pillar nearest the pulpit. Accordingly, a bas-relief in white marble was executed by Flaxman, representing the death of Swartz, Gericke behind him, two native Christians and three children standing by, and Serfojee clasping his hand and receiving his blessing. It was not exactly fact, but it was the monumental taste of the day; and it so much delighted the Rajah, that he kept it in his palace, among the portraits of his ancestors, for two years before he could resolve on parting with it to the church. The Prince likewise composed the epitaph which was carved on the stone which covers the grave of Swartz, the first instance of English verse by a Hindoo:-- "Firm wast thou, humble and wise, Honest, pure, free from disguise; Father of orphans, the widow's support, Comfort in sorrow of every sort: To the benighted dispenser of light, Doing and pointing to that which is right. Blessing to princes, to people, to me, May I, my father, be worthy of thee, Wisheth and prayeth thy Sarabojee." Swartz had always been striving to be poor, and never succeeding. Living and eating in the humblest manner, and giving away all that came to him, still recognitions of services from English and natives had flowed in on him; and, after all the hosts of poor he had fed, and of churches and schools he had founded, he was an instance of "there is that scattereth and yet increaseth;" for the property he bequeathed to the Mission was enough to assist materially in carrying it on after his death. Moreover, Serfojee maintained the blind, lame, and decrepit members of his church, and founded an asylum for the orphan children; so that the good men, Gericke, Kohloff, Pohle, and the rest, were not absolutely dependent on Europe for assistance; and this was well, since the Orphan-house at Halle and the Society at Copenhagen had in this long course of years ceased to send out funds. But Swartz's work under their hands continued to prosper. He had a sort of apotheosis among the heathen, such as he would have been the last to covet; for statues were raised to him, lights burnt before him, and crowns offered up. But about Palamcotta and throughout Tinnevelly there was one of those sudden movements towards Christianity that sometimes takes place. The natives were asking instruction from their friends, and going eagerly in search of the catechists and of Sattianadem, and even burning their idols and building chapels in preparation for the coming of more fully qualified teachers. Mr. Gericke made a tour among them in 1803, and found their hearts so moved towards the Gospel, that he baptized 1,300 in the course of his journey, and the work of Sattianadem and the catechists raised the number of converts to 4,000. This was, however, this good man's last journey. On his return, he found that his only son, an officer in the Company's service, was dying, and, under the weight of this and other troubles, his health gave way, and he died in the thirty-eighth year of his mission. Others of the original Danish and German missionaries likewise died, and scarcely any came out in their stead. Their places were, therefore, supplied by ordinations, by the assembly of ministers, of four native catechists, of whom was Nyanapracasem, a favourite pupil of Swartz. No Church can take root without a native ministry. But the absence of any central Church government was grievously felt, both as concerned the English and the Hindoos. There were more than twenty English regiments in India, and not a single chaplain among them all. CHAPTER IV. HENRY MARTYN, THE SCHOLAR-MISSIONARY. Again do we find the steady, plodding labourer of a lifetime contrasted with the warm enthusiast, whose lot seems rather to awaken others than to achieve victories in his own person. St. Stephen falls beneath the stones, but his glowing discourse is traced through many a deep argument of St. Paul. St. James drains the cup in early manhood, but his brother holds aloft his witness to extreme old age. The ardent zeal of the Keltic character; the religious atmosphere that John Wesley had spread over Cornwall, even among those who did not enrol themselves among his followers; the ability and sensitiveness hereditary in the Martyn family, together with the strong influence of a university tutor,--all combined to make such a bright and brief trail of light of the career of Henry Martyn, the son of the head clerk in a merchant's office at Truro, born on the 18th of February, 1781. This station sounds lowly enough, but when we find that it was attained by a self-educated man, who had begun life as a common miner, and taught himself in the intervals of rest, it is plain that the elder Martyn must have possessed no ordinary power. Out of a numerous family only four survived their infancy, and only one reached middle age, and in Henry at least great talent was united to an extreme susceptibility and delicacy of frame, which made him as a child unusually tender and gentle in manner when at his ease, but fretful and passionate when annoyed. Of course he fared as ill with his fellow-scholars at Truro Grammar School as he did well with the masters; but an elder boy took him under his protection, and not only lessened his grievances at the time, but founded a lasting friendship. In 1795, when only fourteen, Henry Martyn was sufficiently advanced to be sent up as a candidate for a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and passed a very creditable examination, though he failed in obtaining the election. Eight years later, we find him congratulating himself in his journal on thus having escaped the "scenes of debauchery" to which his "profligate acquaintances" might have introduced him. Was Corpus very much changed, when, only eleven years after, John Keble entered it at the same age? Was it that Martyn's Cornish schoolfellows were a bad set, or does this thanksgiving proceed from the sort of pious complacency which religious journalizing is apt to produce in the best of men? The failure sent Henry back to work for two years longer at the Truro Grammar School, and when at sixteen he was entered at St. John's, Cambridge (most peculiarly the college of future missionaries), he immediately made proof of his remarkable talent. Strange to say, although his father's rise in life had begun in his mathematical ability, Henry's training in this branch had been so deficient, and the study appeared so repugnant to him, that his first endeavour at Cambridge was to learn the proportions of Euclid by heart, without trying to follow their reasoning. This story is told of many persons, but perhaps of no one else who in four years' time, while still a month under twenty, was declared Senior Wrangler. This was in 1801, and the intervening time had been spent in hard study and regular habits, but neither his sister at home, nor a seriously-minded college friend, were satisfied with his religious feelings during the first part of the time, and he himself regarded it afterwards as a period of darkness. Indeed, his temper was under so little control that in a passion he threw a knife at a companion, but happily missed his aim, so that it only pierced the wall. The shock of horror no doubt was good for him. But the next step he recorded in his life was his _surprise_ at hearing it maintained that the glory of God, not the praise of man, should be the chief motive of study. After thinking it over his mind assented, and he resolved to maintain this as a noble saying, but did not perceive that it would affect his conduct. However, the dearest, almost the only hallowed form of the praise of man, was taken from him by the death of his father in 1799, immediately after the delight of hearing of his standing first in the Christmas examination. The expense of a return home was beyond his means, but he took to reading the Bible, as a proper form to be complied with in the days of mourning; and beginning with the Acts, as being the most entertaining part, he felt the full weight of the doctrine of the Apostles borne in on him, and was roused to renew his long-neglected prayers. When next he went to chapel, with his soul thus awakened, he was struck by perceiving for the first time how joy for the coming of our Lord rings through the _Magnificat_. The great religious influence of the day at Cambridge emanated from the pulpit and the rooms of the Reverend Charles Simeon, who did a truly remarkable work in stirring up young men to a sense of the responsibilities of the ministry. Henry Martyn regularly attended his sermons, and the newly lighted sparks were also fanned by anxious letters from the good sister at home; but until the strain, pressure, and excitement of preparing for the final examination were over, he had little time or attention for any other form of mental exertion. When, however, he found himself in possession of the highest honours his University could award, he was amazed to discover how little they satisfied him, and that he felt as if he had grasped a shadow instead of a substance. This instinctive longing, the sure token of a mind of the higher pitch, was finding rest as he became more and more imbued with the spirit of religion, and ventured upon manifesting it more openly. He had hitherto intended to apply himself to the law, but the example and conversation of Charles Simeon brought him to such a perception of the greatness of the office of the ministry that he resolved to dedicate himself thereto. During the term after this decision was made, while he was acting as a tutor at his college, he heard Mr. Simeon speak of William Carey and his self-devotion in India; he read the Life of that kindred spirit, David Brainerd, and the spark of missionary zeal was kindled in his ardent nature. The commission "Go ye and teach all nations" was borne in on his mind, and, with the promptness that was a part of his nature, he at once offered himself to the "Society for Missions to Africa and the East," which had been established, in the year 1800, by members of the English Church who wished to act independently of the elder Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The name has since been altered to the "Church Missionary Society." However, Martyn was only just twenty-one, and not of an age to take Holy Orders, and he had therefore to wait, while studying divinity, and acting as a tutor at Cambridge. All through his life he kept copious journals of his sensations and resolutions, full of the deepest piety, always replete with sternness towards himself and others, and tinged with that melancholy which usually pervades the more earnest of that school which requires conscious feeling as the test of spiritual life. In October 1803, he went to Ely for ordination as a deacon, though still wanting five months of twenty-three. Those were lax days, there was little examination, and a very low standard of fitness was required. Henry Martyn was so much scandalized by the lightness of demeanour of one of his fellow candidates that he spoke to him in strong reproof--with what effect we do not know, but he records that he never ventured to speak in rebuke, "unless he at the same time experienced a peculiar contrition of spirit." He became Mr. Simeon's curate, and at the same time took charge of the neighbouring parish of Lolworth. People then had small expectations of clerical care, if a parish could be entrusted to a young deacon, non-resident, acting as tutor and examiner, and with an assistant curacy besides! His whole mind was, however, intensely full of his duties, and so unworthy did he consider all other occupations that he prayed and struggled conscientiously against the pleasure he could not but feel, in getting up Thucydides and Xenophon for the examinations. Everything not actually devotional seemed to him at these times under a ban, and it is painful to see how a mind of great scope and power was cramped and contracted, and the spirits lowered by incessant self-contemplation and distrust of almost all enjoyment. When, at another time, he had to examine on "Locke on the Human Understanding," the metaphysical study acting on his already introspective mind produced a sense of misery and anguish that he could hardly endure. It is pleasant, however, to find him in another mood, writing, "Since I have known God in a saving manner, painting, poetry, and music have had charms unknown to me before; I have received what I suppose is a taste for them, for religion has refined my mind, and made it susceptible of impressions from the sublime and beautiful." This, no doubt, was true, but another influence had awakened his heart, earthly perhaps in itself, but so noble and so holy that it bears a heavenly light. He had become attached to a young lady in Cornwall, named Lydia Grenfell, like-minded enough to return his affection. His intention of volunteering for the Church Missionary Society was overthrown by a disaster in Cornwall which deprived himself and his unmarried sister of all the provision that their father had made for them, thus throwing her upon him for maintenance, and making it necessary that he should obtain a salary that would support her. It was suggested by some of his friends that one of the chaplaincies founded by the old East India Company, before the jealousy of religious teaching had set in, would both give him opportunities for missionary work and enable him to provide for his sister at home. Application was accordingly made, and a man of his talent and character could not fail of being accepted; he was promised the next vacant post, and went down to spend the long vacation in Cornwall, and bid farewell to all whom he loved there, for the journey was long and expensive, and he had resolved not to trust himself among them again. He writes in his journal, "Parted with Lydia for ever in this life with a sort of uncertain pain, which I knew would increase to violence." And so it was, he suffered most acutely for many days, and, though calmness and comfort came after a time, never were hopes and affections more thoroughly sacrificed, or with more anguish, than by this most truly devoted disciple of his Master. He worked on at Cambridge till he received his appointment in the January of 1805, and he then only waited to receive Priests' Orders before going to London to prepare for his embarkation. In those times of war, a voyage to India was a perilous and lengthy undertaking. A whole fleet was collected, containing merchant, convict, and transport vessels, all under the convoy of the ships of war belonging to the Company; and, as no straggler might be left behind, the progress of the whole was dependent on the rate of sailing of the slowest, and all were impeded by the disaster of one. The _Union_, in which a passage was given to the chaplain, contained, besides the crew, passengers, the 59th Regiment, some other soldiers, and young cadets, all thrown closely together for many months. She sailed from Portsmouth on the 17th of July; but in two days' time one of the many casualties attendant on at least sixty vessels made the fleet put into Falmouth, where it remained for three weeks. This opportunity of intercourse with his family might well seem an especial boon of Providence to the young missionary, who had denied himself a last visit to them, and he carried away much comfort from this meeting. His sister was engaged to be suitably married, so that he was relieved from care on her account, and some hope was entertained that Lydia would be able to come out to him in India. A correspondence likewise began, which has been in great part preserved. Two days after weighing anchor, the _Union_ still lingered on the coast, and the well-known outline, with Mount's Bay, the spire of St. Hilary's church, and all the landmarks so dear and familiar to the young Cornishman's eye and heart, were watched from morning to night with keen pain and grief, but with steadfast resolve and constant inward prayer. Then he addressed himself to the duties of the voyage. Private study of Hebrew and of Hindostanee was of course a part; but he hoped to be useful to his companions as a friend and as a minister. He could only obtain permission to hold one service every Sunday, but he hoped to do much by private conversations and prayers, and he tried to gain over the cadets by offering to assist them in their studies, especially mathematics. Some of them had the sense to see that the teaching of a senior wrangler was no small advantage, and these read with him throughout the voyage; but in general they were but raw lads, and followed the example of their superiors, who for the most part were strongly set against Mr. Martyn. Those were the times when sailors were utterly uncared for, and when _mauvais sujets_ at home were sent out to India to the corruptions of a luxurious climate and a heathen atmosphere. Men of this stamp would think it bad enough to have a parson on board at all, and when they found that he was a faithful priest, who held himself bound not to leave them unchecked in their evil courses, they thought themselves aggrieved. Nor was his manner likely to gain them. Grave and earnest, he had never in his life known sportiveness, and his distress and horror at the profanity and blasphemy that rang in his ears made him doubly sad and stern. From the first his Sunday service was by most treated as an infliction, and the officers, both of the ship and of the military, had so little sense of decency as to sit drinking, smoking, and talking within earshot. The persons who professed to attend showed no reverence of attitude; and when he endeavoured to make an impression on the soldiers and their wives between-decks, he was met with the same rude and careless inattention. With very little experience of mankind, he imagined that these hardened beings could be brought to repent by terror, and his discourses were full of denunciations of the wrath of God. He was told that, if he threatened them thus, they would not come to hear him, and his reply was an uncompromising sermon on the text, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God." The bravery of the thing, and the spirit of truth and love that pervaded all he said on this solemn verse, was not lost upon all: some of the cadets were moved to tears, and an impression was made upon several persons. Indeed, there was much that should have induced serious thought, for, after having touched at Madeira and the Azores, it was made known that the 59th was to be disembarked at the Cape, to assist in the struggle then going on between the English and Dutch. Moreover, there was much sickness on board, and the captain himself, who had been always bitterly opposed to Mr. Martyn, anxiously called for him to attend upon his death-bed. The 59th were landed in Table Bay just in time to take part in Sir David Baird's victory. Martyn went on shore the next day to do his best for the wounded; but they were mostly in hospital, and, being Dutch, he could do little for them. He found congenial spirits among the Dutch clergy in Cape Town, and spent a happy month there, but the latter part of his voyage was not more satisfactory than the first. The educated portion of the passengers continued to set their faces against him, treating him with increased contempt, and even turning into ridicule the farewell sermon, in which he took an affectionate leave of all who had sailed with him. It may be that his manner was ill-judged, but it is a fearful thing to find that it was possible for so many Christian people to have been in daily contact with as true a saint as ever lived, and yet make him their mock! Perhaps some of his words, and far more his example, may have borne fruit in after years, such as he never knew of. The whole voyage had lasted nearly ten months before entering the Hooghly. While ascending the stream, the lassitude produced by the climate was so great that Martyn's spirits sank under it: he thought he should "lead an idle, worthless life to no purpose. Exertion seemed like death; indeed, absolutely impossible." Yet at the least he could write, "Even if I should never see a native converted, God may design, by my patience and continuance, to encourage future missionaries." This feeling of exhaustion was the prelude to a severe attack of fever, which assailed him almost immediately after his arrival; but happily not till he was safely lodged at Aldeen, in the kindly house of the Rev. David Brown, where he was nursed till his recovery. His friends wanted to keep him among the English at Calcutta, but his heart was set on ministering to the heathen, and the sights and sounds of idolatry that constantly met him increased his eagerness. He once rushed out at the sight of the flames of a Suttee, hoping to rescue the victim, but she had perished before he reached the spot. His arrival was when the alarm about the meeting at Vellore was at its height, and when the colony at Serampore had been forbidden to preach or distribute tracts in Calcutta. He by no means agreed with all the Baptist doctrines, but he held in great esteem and reverence such men as Carey and Marshman, was glad to profit by their experience and instructions, and heartily sympathised in all their difficulties. Mr. Carey might well write, "A young clergyman, Mr. Martyn, is lately arrived, who is possessed with a truly missionary spirit." Together the Serampore missionaries, with Mr. Martyn, Mr. Corrie, and Mr. Brown, united in dedicating to the worship of God a heathen pagoda, which the last-mentioned had succeeded in purchasing from the natives. Altogether he was much cheered and refreshed. During the time that he waited at Aldeen he improved himself in Hindostanee, and began to study Sanscrit, and learnt the most approved method of dealing with the natives. Moreover, he found that his allowance as a chaplain was so liberal as amply to justify him in writing to urge Miss Grenfell to come out and join him; and, during the long period of sixteen or eighteen months before her refusal to do so reached him, he was full of the hope of receiving her. His appointed station was Dinapore, where his primary duty was to minister to the English troops there posted, and to the families of the civilians; but he also hoped to establish native schools, to preach in their own language to the Hindoos, and to scatter translations of portions of Scripture, such as the Parables, among them. He had to read prayers to the soldiers from the drum-head by way of desk; there were no seats, and he was desired to omit the sermon: but afterwards a room was provided, and then the families of the officers and residents began to attend, though at first they were much scandalized by his preaching extempore. In fact there was a good deal in his whole tone that startled old orthodoxy; and in the opposition with which he met at times, there was some lawful and just distrust of the _onesidedness_ of his tenets, together with the ordinary hatred and dislike of darkness to light. So scrupulous was he in the Jewish force given by his party to the Fourth Commandment, that, having one Sunday conceived the plan of translating the Prayer-book into Hindostanee, he worked at it till he had reached the end of the _Te Deum_; and there, doubting whether it were a proper employment for the day, desisted until the Monday, to give himself up to prayer, singing hymns, Scripture-reading, and meditation. The immediate value of this work was for the poor native wives of the English soldiers, whom he found professing Christianity, but utterly ignorant; and to them every Sunday, after the official English service, he repeated the Liturgy in the vulgar tongue. In this holy work he was the pioneer, since Swartz's service was in Tamul. While working at his translations with his moonshee, or interpreter, a Mussulman, he had much opportunity for conversation and for study of the Mahometan arguments, so as to be very useful to himself; though he could not succeed in convincing the impracticable moonshee, who had all that self-satisfaction belonging to Mahometanism. "I told him that he ought to pray that God would teach him what the truth really is. He said he had no occasion to pray on this subject, as the word of God is express." With the Hindoos at Dinapore, he found, to his surprise, that there was apparently little disinclination to "become Feringees," as they called it, outwardly; but the difficulty lay in his insistance on Christian faith and obedience, instead of a mere external profession. It was while he was at Dinapore that we first acquire anything like a distinct idea of Henry Martyn; for there a short halt of the 53rd Regiment brought him in contact with one who had an eye to observe, a heart to honour, and a pen to describe him; namely, Mrs. Sherwood, the wife of the paymaster, a woman of deeply religious sentiments and considerable powers as an author. Mutual friends had already prepared Mr. Martyn to expect to find like-minded companions in the Sherwoods, invited to stay with him for the few days of their sojourn at Dinapore. "Mr. Martyn's quarters," says that lady, "were in the smaller square--a church-like abode, with little furniture, the rooms wide and high, with many vast doorways, having their green jalousied doors, and long verandahs encompassing two sides of the quarters." So scanty, indeed, was the furniture, that, though he gave up his own bedroom, Mrs. Sherwood could not find a pillow, not only there, but in the whole house; and, with a severe pain in her face, could get nothing to lay her head on "but a bolster stuffed as hard as a pin-cushion." She thus describes the first sight of her host:--"He was dressed in white, and looked very pale, which, however, was nothing singular in India; his hair, a light brown, was raised from his forehead, which was a remarkably fine one. His features were not regular, but the expression was so luminous, so intellectual, so affectionate, so beaming with Divine charity, that no one could have looked at his features and thought of their shape or form; the outbeaming of his soul would absorb the attention of every observer. There was a very decided air, too, of the gentleman about Mr. Martyn, and a perfection of manners which, from his extreme attention to all minute civilities, might seem almost inconsistent with the general bent of his thoughts to the most serious subjects. He was as remarkable for ease as for cheerfulness. He did not appear like one who felt the necessity of contending with the world and denying himself its delights, but, rather, as one who was unconscious of the existence of any attractions in the world, or of any delights which were worthy of his notice. When he relaxed from his labours in the presence of his friends, it was to play and laugh like an innocent child, more especially if children were present to play and laugh with him." His labours were the incessant charge of the English, travelling often great distances to baptize, marry, or bury, together with constant teaching in the schools he had established both for the English and natives, attendance on the sick in the hospitals, and likewise private arguments with Mahometans and Hindoos. Public preachings in the streets and bazaars, like those of Swartz, Carey, and Ward, he does not seem to have attempted at this time; but his translations were his great and serious employment, and one that gave him much delight. His thorough classical education and scholarship fitted him for this in an unusual degree, and besides the Hindostanee version of the Prayer-book, the Persian--so much wanted in the Bombay Presidency--was committed to him; and an assistant was sent to him, whose history, disappointing as it is, cannot be omitted from the account of Indian missions. Sabat was an Arab of the tribe of Koreish, the same which gave birth to Mahomet himself. He was born on the banks of the Euphrates, and educated in such learning as still lingered about the city of the Khalifs; but he left home early, and served in the Turkish army against the French at Acre. Afterwards he became a soldier in the Persian army, where he was several times wounded, and in consequence retired, and, wandering into Cabul, there rose to be a royal secretary. He formed a close friendship with his colleague, Abdallah, likewise a Koreishite Arab, and very able and poetical. When the Wahabees, the straitest sect of the Mussulmans, seized Mecca, their chief wrote a letter to the King of Cabul, which was committed to Abdallah to translate into Persian. By way of a graceful compliment, he put his translation into Persian verse, and the reward he received was equally strange; namely, the gift of as many pearls as could be stuffed into his mouth at once. He was, however, observed to be unusually grave and thoughtful, and to frequent the house of an Armenian--of course a Christian: but as this person had a beautiful daughter, she was supposed to be the attraction, and no suspicion was excited by his request to retire into his own country. Soon after Sabat was made prisoner by the Tartars of Bokhara, and, by appealing to the king, as a descendant of the prophet, obtained his release and promotion to high honour. While visiting the city of Bokhara, he recognized his old friend, Abdallah, and, perceiving that his beard was shaved off, examined him on the cause so closely that he was driven to confess that the Armenian had converted him to the Christian faith, and that he did not wish to be known. Hereditary Christians are tolerated by the Moslem, but converts are bitterly persecuted; and Sabat flew into a great rage, argued, threatened, and at last denounced his old friend to the Moollahs as a recreant from Islam. Abdallah was arrested, and showed himself a true and faithful confessor and martyr. The Moollahs strove hard to make him recant. They demanded of him: "In the Gospel of Christ, is anything said of our Prophet?"--intending to extort that promise of the Comforter which Mahomet blasphemously applied to himself. Abdallah's answer was: "Yea--Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves." This brave reply was requited by blows on the mouth till the blood flowed, and Sabat thought of the day he had seen that same mouth filled with pearls. Abdallah was sent back to prison, and four days were allowed him in which to recant; after which he was brought out and set before an assembled multitude. Pardon was offered him if he would deny his Lord, and, on his refusal, his left hand was cut off. The look of deep sorrow and pity he gave the former friend who had betrayed him sunk deep into Sabat's heart. Again his life was offered, again he confessed himself a Christian, and finally his martyrdom was completed by cutting off his head. This history Sabat told with feeling and earnestness, that convinced his hearers of its truth; and from this he did not vary, though his account of his own subsequent adventures varied so much that it was not possible at last to attach credence to anything he said of himself before he became expounder of Mohammedan Law in the Civil Court at Vizagapatam. At any rate Abdallah's look dwelt with him; he detected discrepancies in the Koran, and became anxious to study the Christian Scriptures. He obtained from Bombay a copy, first of the New Testament, then of the Old, and, having become convinced, he came to Madras, and demanded baptism from Dr. Ker, the British chaplain. After some probation, which made Sabat so impatient that he threatened that he should accuse the minister before God if he delayed, he was baptized by the name of Nathanael, and sent to Serampore as a person likely to be useful in the translations always in hand there. He was delighted with the habits there prevailing, dismissed his attendants, dined at the common table, and altogether conformed himself to the spirit of the place. When it was decided to send him to Dinapore to assist Mr. Martyn in rendering the Bible into Persian, he took leave of Serampore with tears in his eyes. He was gladly welcomed by Mr. Martyn, and they worked together at the Gospel of St. Matthew, Sabat showing a scholar-like anxiety both for correctness and rhythm; but there was so much of the wild Arab about him that he was a continual anxiety. The Serampore missionaries thought him a grand, dignified figure. Mrs. Sherwood paints him much less pleasantly, and says he was exactly like the sign of the Saracen's head, with intensely flashing eyes, high nose, white teeth, and jet black eyebrows, moustache, and beard. His voice was like rolling thunder, his dress of gorgeous material and thoroughly Oriental, silk skull-cap, jacket, jewelled girdle, loose trousers, and embroidered shoes, and he had a free and haughty manner, according with his signature, when writing to a gentleman who had offended him--"Nathanael Sabat, an Arab, who never was in bondage." In April 1809, Mr. Martyn was removed to the station at Cawnpore, where the Sherwoods were then residing. The time was one of the worst in the whole year for travelling across the sandy plains, with a wind blowing that made the air like "the mouth of an oven." For two days and two nights, between Allahabad and Cawnpore, Mr. Martyn travelled in his palanquin without intermission, and, having expected to arrive sooner, he had brought no provision for the last day. "I lay in my palanquin, faint, with a headache, neither awake nor asleep, between dead and alive, the wind blowing flames." When he arrived, Mr. Sherwood had only just time to lead him into the bungalow before he fainted away, and the hall being the least heated place, a couch was made ready for him there, where for some days he lay very ill; and the thermometer was never below 96 degrees, though the punkah never ceased. As soon as he mended a little, he enjoyed talking over his Hebrew and Greek studies and his ethnological researches with his clever and eager hostess, who must have greatly refreshed his spirit. He delighted in music: his voice and ear were both excellent, and he taught her many hymns and their tunes. He also took much pleasure in a little orphan girl whom she was bringing up. At this time she herself was almost a childless mother, all her Indian-born infants having been victims to the climate; but a few months later Mr. Martyn christened her little daughter Lucy, a child of such gentle, gracious temper that he was wont to call her Serena. Mrs. Sherwood gives a pretty picture of this little creature, when about eighteen months old, creeping up to Mr. Martyn as he lay on a sofa with all his books about him, and perching herself on his Hebrew Lexicon, which he needed every moment, but would not touch so as to disturb her. The pale, white-clad pastor, and the child with silky hair, bare white feet and arms, and little muslin frock, looked equally innocent and pure. Mr. Martyn's house at Cawnpore was at the end of an avenue of palms and aloes: there were two bungalows connected by a long passage, in one of which he himself lived, the other was given up to Sabat and his wife. The garden was prettily laid out with shrubs and tall trees, with a raised platform in the centre; and on one side was a whole colony, consisting not only of the usual number of servants allowed to a military chaplain, but of a host of pundits, moonshees, schoolmasters, and poor nominal Christians, who hung about him because there was no one else to give them a handful of rice for their daily maintenance. Here Mrs. Sherwood describes a motley entertainment, at which she was the only lady. Her husband, in his scarlet and gold uniform, and Mr. Martyn, in his clerical black silk coat, were the only other English. The other European present was Padre Giulio Cesare, an Italian Franciscan, whom Mr. Martyn was obliged to receive when he came to minister to the numerous Irish Roman Catholics in the regiment. He wore a purple satin cassock, a cord of twisted silk, a rosary of costly stones, and a little skull-cap, and his languages were French with the Sherwoods, and Italian and Latin with Mr. Martyn. Sabat was there in his Arab dress; there was a thin, copper-coloured, half-caste gentleman in white nankeen, speaking only Bengalee; and a Hindoo in full costume, speaking only his native tongue: so that no two of the party were in similar costume, seven languages were employed, and moreover the three Orientals viewed it as good breeding to shout at the very top of their voices. Unluckily, too, Mr. Martyn in his politeness suddenly recollected that Mrs. Sherwood had expressed a liking for certain mutton patties, and ordered them to be brought, in a bachelor's entire oblivion whether any mutton was procurable otherwise than by killing a sheep: and the delay forced the guests to continue to sit on the platform in the dark, with the voices and languages making too great a Babel for the night-enjoyment sometimes so valued, when Mr. Martyn would show Mrs. Sherwood our own Pole Star just above the horizon, or watch the new moon "looking like a ball of ebony in a silver cup." At last the patties were ready, and Mr. Martyn handed Mrs. Sherwood to a seat by him at the top of the table, while Sabat perched himself cross-legged upon a chair at the bottom. The good chaplain's simplicity seems to have been a great amusement to the Sherwoods. Late one evening he quietly observed, "The coolie does not come with my money: I was thinking this morning how rich I should be, and now I should not wonder in the least if he has run off and taken my treasure with him." Thereupon it turned out that, not having drawn his pay for some time, he had sent a note to the collector at Cawnpore, asking that the amount should be forwarded by the bearer, a common coolie. It was all paid in silver, tied up in cotton bags, and no one expected that he would ever see it; however, the coolie arrived safely with it a little later. Another time, when each household had ordered a pineapple cheese, it was observed that the fissures in the two were marvellously similar; and at last it was discovered that the servants, though paid for two cheeses, made one do duty for both, appearing in turn at the two tables, which was the easier as Mr. Martyn supped on limes and other fruits, and only produced his cheese when the Sherwoods came to supper. He heeded little but his immediate thoughts, and, when he drove out in his gig, went on with his disquisitions on language and pronunciation, utterly unheeding what his horse was about. The hope of having Lydia with him to brighten his life and aid his labours had by this time passed away. She had some entanglement which prevented her from coming out to India, and his disappointment was most acute. His letters urging her to come out to him are so strong, and full of such anguish, that it is hard to understand that the person who could withstand them could have been the admirable woman Miss Grenfell is described to have been in after-life--unless, indeed, Martyn did not appreciate the claims at home to which she yielded. "Why do things go so well with them and so hardly with me?" was a thought that would come into his mind at the weddings where he officiated as priest. Meantime he had established native schools, choosing a master, usually a Mussulman, and giving him an anna a head for each boy whom he obtained as a scholar in reading and writing. Mr. Martyn supplied books, and these were translations of Scripture history, of the Parables, and the like, through which he hoped to lay a foundation for distinctive teaching. Here is Mrs. Sherwood's description of the Cawnpore school, then in a long shed by the side of the cavalry lines:-- "The master sat at one end like a tailor on the dusty floor, and along under the shed sat the scholars, a pack of little urchins with no other clothes on than a skull-cap and a piece of cloth round their loins. These little ones squatted, like their master, in the sand: they had wooden imitations of slates in their hands, on which, having first written their lessons with chalk, they recited them _a pleine gorge_, as the French would say, being sure to raise their voices on the approach of any European or native of note. Now Cawnpore is one of the most dusty places in the world; the Sepoy lines are the most dusty part of Cawnpore; and as the little urchins are always well greased either with cocoa-nut oil, or, in failure thereof, with rancid mustard oil, whenever there was the slightest breath of air they always looked as if they had been powdered all over with brown powder. Who that has ever heard it, can forget the sounds of the various notes with which these little people intonated their 'Aleph, Zubbin ah, Zair a, Paiche oh,' as they moved backwards and forwards in their recitations? Who can forget the self-importance of the schoolmaster, who was generally a grey-bearded, dry, old man, who had no other means of proving his superiority to the scholars than by making more noise than even they could?" {i:Henry Martyn's first endeavour at native preaching: p1.jpg} In the winter of 1809, Mr. Martyn made his first endeavour at native preaching. The Yogis and Fakers, devotees and vagrants, haunted the station, and every Sunday evening he opened the gates of his garden, admitted all who were collected by the assurance of the distribution of a pice a head; and standing on his platform, read to them some simple verse of Scripture, and then endeavoured to make them believe there is a pure Almighty Universal Father. A frightful crowd: they were often five hundred in number. "No dreams," says Mrs. Sherwood, "in the delirium of a raging fever, could surpass the realities" of their appearance; "clothed with abominable rags, or nearly without clothes, or plastered with mud and cow-dung, or with long matted locks streaming down to their heels; every countenance foul and frightful with evil passions; the lips black with tobacco, or crimson with henna. One man, who came in a cart drawn by a bullock, was so bloated as to look like an enormous frog; another had kept an arm above his head with his hand clenched till the nail had come out at the back of his hand; and one very tall man had all his bones marked on his dark skin with white chalk, like the figure of grim Death himself." The assemblage, in contrast with the pure, innocent, pale face and white dress of the preacher who addressed them, must have been like some of Gustave Dore's illustrations. These addresses were jealously watched by the British authorities, and were often interrupted by the howls and threatenings of his loathsome congregation; while, moreover, pulmonary complaint, the enemy of his family, began to manifest itself, so that the physicians insisted on his trying the effect of cessation from work, a sea-voyage, and a visit to England. On this plan he had at first fixed. He enters in his journal a happy dream of a walk with Lydia, and, waking, the recollection of the 16,000 miles between them; but in the meantime he heard from the critics at Calcutta, that his translation of the Gospels into Persian, done with the assistance of Sabat, was too full of Arabic idioms, and in language not simple enough for its purpose; and he therefore made up his mind to spend his leave of absence in making his way through Persia and part of Arabia, so as to improve himself in the languages, and submit his translation to more trustworthy scholars. Mr. Brown, on hearing of his plan, consented in these remarkable terms: "Can I then bring myself to cut the string and let you go? I confess I could not if your bodily frame were strong, and promised to last for half a century. But as you burn with the intenseness and rapid blaze of phosphorus, why should we not make the most of you? Your flame may last as long, and perhaps longer, in Arabia than in India. Where should the phoenix build her odoriferous nest but in the land prophetically called the 'blessed'? And where shall we ever expect but from that country the true Comforter to come to the nations of the East?" In September, therefore, Henry Martyn made ready to set forth, and to take leave of his congregation of beggars. He had baptized one poor old Hindoo woman, and she seemed to him to be the only fruit of his toils; but though the exhortation, at the end of all his labours of the Sunday, cost him severe pain and exhaustion, he had constantly persisted, often beginning in a low feeble tone, but gradually rising in fervour to the full power of his musical voice; then himself going among the disgusting throng to distribute their petty bribe for attendance, and often falling afterwards, faint and speechless, on a sofa. He knew not that one seed, cast on these turbid waters, had found good soil, and was springing up. Sheik Salah was the son of a pundit at Delhi, and was well-learned in Persian and Arabic. When a youth he had become moonshee to two English gentlemen then living at Lucknow, and while in their service converted a Hindoo fellow-servant from his idolatry to Islam. Elated with his success, he gave himself such airs that his English masters reproved him; and he left them in displeasure, vowing never to serve a Feringhee again. However, being in the pay of a Mahratta chief, he was sent in company with a Mahometan envoy who had undertaken to murder a rival of his master, and having lulled his victim into security by an oath on the Koran that no treachery was intended, decoyed him into his tent, and there stabbed him. Sheik Salah was a deeply conscientious man, and not only did he leave the Mahratta service, lest some such horrible act should be required of him, but he conceived a certain distrust of his own faith, which, though it condemns such deeds, had not hindered them. While in search of employment, he came to Cawnpore, and there, one fine evening, he sat with some other young Mussulmans, in a summer-house on the garden wall that bounded Mr. Martyn's garden, enjoying their hookahs and sherbet, and amusing themselves with what they called the "foolishness" of the Feringhee Padre, who was discoursing to the throng of hateful looking beggars below. By and by, anxious to hear more, they came down, entered the garden, and stood in a row before the front of the bungalow; their arms folded, their turbans placed jauntily on one side, and their countenances expressive of the utmost contempt. But the words that Sheik Salah caught were sinking deep. They were of the intense purity and holiness of God and of His laws, and of the need of His power to attain to the keeping of them, as well as of His Sacrifice to atone for man's sinfulness. Sheik Salah could not rest without hearing more, and becoming determined to obtain employment at Cawnpore, he undertook to copy Persian manuscripts for Sabat, and was lodged by him in one of the numerous huts in Mr. Martyn's compound. He was a well-educated, graceful man, exceedingly handsome, looking like a hero of the Old Testament; and probably Sabat was afraid of a rival, for he never mentioned to Mr. Martyn the stranger who, Sunday after Sunday, listened to his preaching, and no doubt would have as thankfully profited by his individual teaching as he would have joyfully given it. Sabat was at this time a great trial to Mr. Martyn, who in the flush of enthusiasm had let him be put too forward at first, and found the wild man of the desert far too strong for him. Sometimes, when they differed about a word in the translation, Sabat would contend so violently for a whole morning that poor Mr. Martyn, when unable to bear it any longer, would order his palanquin and be carried over to the Sherwoods to escape from the intolerable brawling shout. What Sabat could be was plain from the story of his wife Amina; his seventh, as he told his friends. When he was trying to convert her, she asked his views upon the future lot of those who remained Mahometans, and, when he consigned them to the state of condemnation, she quietly replied that she greatly preferred hell without Sabat's company to heaven with him. The poor man was no doubt in great measure sincere, but his probation had been insufficient, and his wild Ishmaelitish nature, so far from being overcome, gained in pride and violence through the enthusiasm that was felt for him as a convert. Once, in a fit of indignation, he wrote a Persian letter, full of abuse of Mr. Martyn, to a friend in the service of the English resident at Lucknow. By him it was carried to his master, who, wishing to show Mr. Martyn the real character of his favourite convert, sent him the letter. Instead of looking into it, Mr. Martyn summoned Sabat, and bade him read it aloud to him. For once the Arab was overpowered; he cowered before his calm master and entreated his pardon, and when Mr. Martyn put the letter into his hands, assuring him that he had not read it, he was really touched, and showed sorrow for his violence. On the last Sunday of September 1810, Mr. Martyn took leave of Cawnpore. It was also the Sunday of the installation as chaplain of his dearest friend, the Reverend Daniel Corrie, and of the opening of a church which his exertions had prevailed to raise, whereas all former services had been in his own long verandah. The first sound of the bell most deeply affected those who had scarcely heard one since they had left their native country. That church has given place to the beautiful building which commemorates the horrors of 1857; but the name of Henry Martyn ought never to be forgotten at Cawnpore, if only as the priest to whom it was granted first to give thanks that, in his own words, "a temple of God was erected and a door opened for the service of the Almighty in a place where, from the foundation of the world, the tabernacle of the true God had never stood." After returning from church he sank, nearly fainting, on a sofa in the hall; but, as soon as he revived, begged his friends to sing to him. The hymn was-- "O God, our help in ages past, Our hope in years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home." After the early dinner and afternoon rest, on a sickly, hazy, burning evening, he preached for the last time to his beggars; came away fainting, and as he lay on his sofa told his friends that he did not believe that he had ever made the slightest impression on _one_ of his audience there. He knew not that Sheik Salah's heart had been touched, and so deeply that he sought further instruction. As to Sabat, his later career was piteous. He fell back into Mahometanism, and, after some years of a wandering life, took service with the Mussulman chief of Acheen in Sumatra, where, having given some offence, he was barbarously hacked to pieces and thrown into the sea. Such bitter disappointments occur in missionary life; and how should we wonder, since the like befel even St. Paul and St. John? On the 1st of October, 1810, Mr. Martyn embarked on the Ganges, and on the last day of the month arrived at Mr. Brown's house at Aldeen. He was then much the stronger for the long rest to his voice and chest, but his friends thought him greatly changed and enfeebled, and he could not even hold a conversation without bringing on painful symptoms. Nevertheless, he preached every Sunday but one at Calcutta until the 7th of January, 1811, when he took his last leave of his Anglo-Indian friends, and set forth on his journey to lands almost entirely strange even to his countrymen, in the hope of rendering the Scriptures available for the study of the numerous Hindoos and Mahometans who understood Persian better than any other literary language. He went forth, in broken health, and not only without a companion, but without even an attendant, and for his further history we have only his own journals and letters to depend upon. He went by sea to Bombay with a captain who had been a pupil of Swartz, and whose narratives delighted him much, and afterwards obtained a passage in an English ship which was to cruise in the Persian Gulf against Arab pirates. Here he was allowed to have public prayers every evening, and on the 22nd of May was landed at Bushire, where he was lodged in the house of an English merchant with an Armenian wife. The time for a journey to Persia was so far favourable that the Shah, Fath' Ali, who had succeeded to the throne in 1794, owed England much gratitude for having interfered to check the progress of Russian conquest upon his northern frontier. After Persia had long been closed from foreign intercourse by the jealous and cruel Shah, Aga Mohammed, Fath' Ali, a comparatively enlightened prince in the prime of life, willingly entertained envoys and travellers from European courts, and Sir Gore Ouseley was resident at Shiraz as British Ambassador. Yet it was not considered safe for a Frank to travel through Persia without an Oriental dress, and, accordingly, Martyn had to provide himself with the tall conical cap of black Tartar lambskin, baggy blue trousers, red boots, and a chintz coat, allowing his beard and moustache to grow, and eating rice by handfuls from the general dish. Meantime he was hospitably entertained, the Armenian ladies came in a body to kiss his hand, and the priest placed him beside the altar in church, and incensed him four times over, for which he was not grateful on being told "it was for the honour of our order." An English officer joined company with him, and a muleteer undertook their transport to Shiraz. It was a terrible journey up the parching mountain paths of Persia, where Alexander's army had suffered so much, with the sun glaring down upon them, never, in that rainless belt around the Persian Gulf, tempered by a cloud. They travelled only by night, and encamped by day, sometimes without a tree to spread their tents under. The only mode of existing was to wrap the head in a wet cloth, and the body in all the heavy clothing to be had, to prevent the waste of moisture; but even thus Martyn says his state was "a fire within my head, my skin like a cinder, the pulse violent." The thermometer rose to 126 degrees in the middle of the day, and came down to about 100 degrees in the evening. When exhausted with fever and sleeplessness, but unable to touch food, it was needful to mount, and, in a half-dead state of sleepiness, be carried by the sure-footed mountain pony up steep ascents, and along the verge of giddy precipices, with a general dreamy sense that it was magnificent scenery for any one who was in a bodily condition to admire it. Swift clear streams and emerald valleys began to refresh the travellers as they rose into the higher land above the arid region; and, after one twenty-four hours' halt in a sort of summer-house, where Henry Martyn was too ill to move till he had had a few hours of sleep, they safely arrived at the mountain-city of Shiraz, where he was kindly received by Jaffier Ali Khan, a Persian gentleman to whom he had brought letters of introduction. Persia, as is well known, has a peculiar intellectual character of its own. Descended from the Indo-European stock, and preserved from total enervation by their mountain air, the inhabitants have, even under Islam, retained much of the vivacity, fire, and poetry inherent in the Aryan nature. Their taste for beauty, especially in form and colour, has always been exquisite; their delight in gardens, in music, and poetry has had a certain refinement, and with many terrible faults--in especial falsehood and cruelty, the absence of the Turkish stolidity, the Arab wildness, and the Hindoo pride and indolence--has always made them an attractive people. Their Mahommedanism, too, is of a different form from that of the Arab and Turk. Theirs is the schismatical sect of Ali, which is less rigid, and affords more scope for the intellect and fancy, and it has thrown off a curious body called the Soofees, a sort of philosophers in relation to Islam. The name may be either really taken from the Greek _Sophos_, wise, or else comes from the Persian _Soof_, purity. The Soofees profess to be continually in search of truth, and seem, for the most part, to rest upon a general belief in an all-pervading Creator, with a spirit diffused through all His works. Like their (apparent) namesakes of old, they revel in argument, and delight to tell or to hear some new thing. Thus, Jaffier Ali Khan, who belonged to this sect, made the English padre welcome; and his brother, Seid Ali, whose title of Mirza shows him to have been a Scribe, undertook to assist in the translation, while Moollahs and students delighted to come and hold discussions with him; and very vain and unprofitable logomachies he found them, whether with Soofee, Mahometan, or Jew. But the life, on the whole, was interesting, since he was fulfilling his most important object of providing a trustworthy and classical version of the Scriptures, such as might adequately express their meaning, and convey a sense of their beauty of language and force of expression to the scholarly and fastidious Oriental. He made friends in the suite of the Ambassador, Sir Gore Ouseley, whose house he ministered on Sunday, and he was presented by him to the heir to the throne, Prince Abbas Mirza. He had, by way of Court dress, to wear a pair of red cloth stockings and high-heeled shoes, and was marched up through the great court of the palace, where a hundred fountains began to play the moment the Ambassador entered. The Prince sat on the ground in his hall of audience, and all his visitors sat in a line with their hats on, but he conversed with no one but the Ambassador, looking so gentle and amiable that Mr. Martyn could hardly believe that the tyrannical acts reported of him could be true. In the summer heat, Jaffier Ali pitched a tent for him in a garden outside the walls of Shiraz, where he worked with much enjoyment, "living among clusters of grapes, by the side of a clear stream," and sitting under the shade of an orange-tree. From thence he made an expedition to see the ruins of Persepolis, greatly to the perplexity of his escort, who, after repeatedly telling him that the place was uninhabited, concluded that he had come thither to drink brandy in secret! On the New Year's Day of 1812 Martyn wrote in his journal: "The present year will probably be a perilous one, but my life is of little consequence, whether I live to finish the Persian New Testament, or do not. I look back with pity and shame on my former self, and on the importance I then attached to my life and labours. The more I see of my own works, the more I am ashamed of them. Coarseness and clumsiness mar all the works of men. I am sick when I look at man, and his wisdom, and his doings, and am relieved only by reflecting that we have a city whose builder and maker is God. The least of _His_ works is refreshing to look at. A dried leaf or a straw makes me feel myself in good company. Complacency and admiration take the place of disgust." On the 24th of February he finished his Persian New Testament, and in six weeks more his translation of the Psalms. His residence in Persia had lasted just a year, and, though direct missionary work had not been possible to him there, he had certainly inspired his coadjutor, Mirza Seid Ali, with a much higher morality and with something very like faith. On one of the last days before his leaving Shiraz, Seid Ali said seriously, "Though a man had no other religious society, I suppose he might, with the aid of the Bible, live alone with God." It was to this solitude that Martyn left him, not attempting apparently to induce him to give up anything for the sake of embracing Christianity. Death would probably have been the consequence of joining the Armenian Church in Persia, but why did Martyn's teaching stop at inward faith instead of insisting on outward confession, the test fixed by the Saviour Himself? On the 24th of May, Mr. Martyn and another English clergyman set out to lay his translation before the Shah, who was in his camp at Tebriz. There they were admitted to the presence of the Vizier, before whom two Moollahs, the most ignorant and discourteous whom he had met in Persia, were set to argue with the English priest. The Vizier mingled in the discussion, which ended thus: "You had better say God is God, and Mahomet is His prophet." "God is God," repeated Henry Martyn, "and JESUS is the Son of God." "He is neither born nor begets," cried the Moollahs; and one said, "What will you say when your tongue is burnt out for blasphemy?" He had offended against the Mohammedan doctrine most strictly held; and, knowing this well, he had kept back the confession of the core of the true faith till to withhold it longer would have been a denial of his Lord. After all, he was not allowed to see the Shah without the Ambassador to present him, and descended again to Sultania--a painful journey, from which he brought a severe ague and fever, through which he was nursed by Sir Gore and Lady Ouseley. As soon as he had recovered, he decided on making his way to Constantinople, and thence to England, where he hoped to recruit his health and, it might be, induce Lydia to accompany him back to India. His last letter to her was written from Tebriz on the 28th of August, dreading illness on the journey, but still full of hope. In that letter, too, he alludes to Sabat as the greatest tormentor he had known, but warns her against mentioning to others that this "star of the East," as Claudius Buchanan had called him, had been a disappointment. His diary is carried on as far as Tocat. The last entry is on the 6th of October. It closes thus: "Oh! when shall time give place to eternity? When shall appear that new heaven and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness? There, there shall in nowise enter in anything that defileth; none of that wickedness which has made men worse than wild beasts, none of those corruptions which add still more to the miseries of mortality, shall be seen or heard of any more." No more is known of Henry Martyn save that he died at Tocat on the 16th of that same October of 1812, without a European near. It is not even known whether his death were caused by fever, or by the plague, which was raging at the place. He died a pilgrim's solitary death, and lies in an unknown grave in a heathen land. What fruit has his mission zeal left? It has left one of the soul-stirring examples that have raised up other labourers. It has left the Persian Bible for the blessing of all to whom that language is familiar. It left, for the time, a strong interest in Christianity in Shiraz. It left in India many English quickened to a sense of religion; and it assuredly left Sheik Salah a true convert. Baptized afterwards by the name of Abdul Messeh, or Servant of the Messiah, he became the teacher of no less than thirty-nine Hindoos whom he brought to Holy Baptism. Such were the reapings in Paradise that Henry Martyn has won from his thirty-one years' life and his seeming failure. CHAPTER V. WILLIAM CAREY AND JOSHUA MARSHMAN, THE SERAMPORE MISSIONARIES. The English subjects and allies in India had hitherto owed their scanty lessons in Christianity to Germans or Danes, and the first of our own countrymen who attempted the work among them was, to the shame of our Government be it spoken, a volunteer from among the humblest classes, of no more education than falls to the lot of the child of a village schoolmaster and parish clerk. In 1761, when Schwartz was just beginning to make his way in Tanjore, William Carey was born in the village of Paulerspury, in Northamptonshire. He showed himself a diligent scholar in his father's little school, and had even picked up some Latin before, at fourteen years old, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker at the neighbouring village of Hackleton. Still he had an earnest taste for study; and, falling in with a commentary on the New Testament full of Greek words, he copied them all out, and carried them for explanation to a man living in his native village, who had thrown away a classical education by his dissipated habits. The young shoemaker, thus struggling on to instruct himself, fell under the notice of Thomas Scott, the author of the Commentary on the Bible, and it was from him that Carey first received any strong religious impressions. Scott was a Baptist; and young Carey, who had grown up in the days of the deadness of the Church, was naturally led to his teacher's sect, and began to preach at eighteen years of age. He always looked back with humiliation to the inexperienced performances of his untried zeal at that time of life; but he was doing his best to study, working hard at grammar, and every morning reading his portion of the Scripture for the day in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, as well as English. Well might Mr. Scott say, as he looked at the little cobbler's shop, "That was Mr. Carey's college;" for all this time he was working at his trade, and, on his master's death, took the business, and married the daughter of the house before he was twenty. It was an unlucky marriage, for she was a dull, ignorant woman, with no feeling for her husband's high aims or superior powers, and the business was not a flourishing one; but he never manifested anything but warm affection and tenderness towards this very uncompanionable person, and perhaps, like most men of low station and unusual intellect, had no idea that more could be expected of a wife. Perhaps, in spite of his kindness, Mrs. Carey had to endure the disasters common to the wives of struggling great men: for William Carey's shoes were not equal to his sermons, and his congregation were too poor even to raise means to clothe him decently. His time was spent in long tramps to sell shoes he had made and to obtain the mending of others, and, meantime, he was constantly suffering from fever and ague. In 1786, when in his twenty-fifth year, he obtained a little Baptist chapel and the goodwill of a school at Moulton; but as a minister he only received 16_l._ per annum, and at the same time proved, as many have done before him, that aptness to learn does not imply aptness to teach. He could not keep order, and his boys first played tricks with him and then deserted, till he came nearly to starvation, and had to return to his last and his leather. Yet it was the geography lessons of this poor little school that first found the way to the true chord of Carey's soul. Those broad tracts of heathenism that struck his eye in the map, and the summary of nations and numbers professing false religions, were to a mind like his no mere items of information to be driven into dull brains, but were terrible realities representing souls perishing for lack of knowledge. Cook's Voyages fell into his hands and fed the growing impulse. He hung up in his shop a large map, composed of several sheets pasted together, and gazed at it when at his work, writing against each country whatever information he had been able to collect as to the number of the inhabitants, their religion, government, or habits, also as to the climate and natural history. After he had for some time thus dwelt on the great longing of his heart, he ventured on speaking it forth at a meeting of ministers at Northampton, when there was a request that some topic might be named for discussion. Carey then modestly rose and proposed "the duty of Christians to attempt the spread of the Gospel among the heathen." The words were like a shock. The senior, who acted as president, sprang up in displeasure, and shouted out, "Young man, sit down! When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine." And another, namely Mr. Fuller, who afterwards became the sheet anchor of the Missions, describes himself as having thought of the words of the noble at Jezreel, "If the Lord should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be?" Silenced by his brethren, Carey persevered, and proceeded to write what he had not been allowed to speak. A Birmingham tradesman of the name of Pott, an opulent man, was induced by his earnestness to begin a subscription for the publication of Carey's pamphlet, which showed wonderful acquaintance with the state of the countries it mentioned, and manifested talent of a remarkable order. In truth, Carey had been endowed with that peculiar missionary gift, facility for languages. A friend gave him a large folio in Dutch, and was amazed by his returning shortly after with a translation into English of one of the sermons which the book contained. He was becoming more known, and an invitation from a congregation at Leicester, in 1789, placed him in somewhat more comfortable circumstances, and brought him into contact with persons better able to enter into his views; but it was three years more before he could either publish his pamphlet or take the very first steps towards the establishment of a Society for Promoting the Conversion of the Heathen. The first endeavour to collect a subscription resulted in 13_l._ 2_s._ 6_d._ This was at Kettering, and at the same time Carey offered to embark for any country the Society might appoint. The committee, however, waited to collect more means, but they found it almost impossible to awaken people's minds. At Birmingham, indeed, 70_l._ was collected, but in London the dissenting pastors would have nothing to do with the cause; and the only minister of any denomination who showed any sympathy was the Rev. John Newton, that giant of his day, who had in his youth been captain of a slaver, and well knew what were the dark places of the earth. The objections made at that time were perfectly astounding. In the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, several Presbyterian ministers pronounced it to be "highly preposterous" to attempt to spread the Gospel among barbarous nations, extolled the "simple virtues" of the untutored savage, and even declared that the funds of Missionary Societies might be turned against Government. In India itself, the endeavours of the Danish settlement at Tranquebar had little affected Bengal, but a few of the more religious men at Calcutta had begun to be shocked at the utter oblivion of all Christian faith and morality by their own countrymen, and the absolute favour shown to the grossest idolatry of the heathen. Charles Grant, a member of the Board of Trade at Calcutta, was the foremost of these, and on his return to England brought the subject under the notice of that great champion of Christ, William Wilberforce. The charter of the East India Company was renewed from time to time; and when it was brought before Parliament, Wilberforce proposed the insertion of clauses enforcing the maintenance of chaplains, churches, and schools, so that a branch of the Church might take root in Hindostan. This scheme, however, excited violent and selfish alarm in the directors, chiefly men who had made their fortunes in India, and after living there for years under no restraint were come home to enjoy their riches. They believed that the natives would take umbrage at the least interference with their religion, and that their own wealth and power, so highly prized, would be lost if idolatry were not merely tolerated, but flattered and supported. The souls of men and the honour of God were nothing to them; they were furious with indignation, and procured from the House of Commons the omission of the clauses. There was another hope in the Lords; but though Archbishop Moore and the Bishop of London spoke in favour of the articles, the Bishop of St. David's said one nation had no right to impose its faith on another. None of the other Bishops stirred, and the charter passed without one line towards keeping Englishmen Christians, or making Hindoos such! The lethargy of the Church of the eighteenth century was so heavy that not only had such a son as Carey been allowed to turn from her pale in search of earnest religion, but while she was forced to employ foreigners, bred up in the Lutheran communion, as the chaplains and missionaries of her Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, he was going forth unaccredited as a volunteer in the cause which her paralysed efforts could not support! For it was to India that the minds of the little Baptist Society were turned by the return of one John Thomas, who seems to have been the Gaultier _Sans Avoir_ of this crusade. He was Baptist by education, and having gone out as a surgeon to Calcutta, had been so shocked at the state of things as to begin to preach on his own account, but he was a hot tempered, imprudent man, and quarrelled with everybody, so as to make the cause still more unpopular with the East Indians. Yet this strange, wild character had a wonderful power of awakening enthusiasm. He had come home in the same ship with one Wilson, whose history was a marvel in itself. He had been made prisoner by the French during the Carnatic war, and finding that the captives were to be delivered up to Hyder Ali, he resolved to escape, leapt forty feet from his prison window, and swam the river Coleroon, in happy ignorance that it was infested with alligators; but then going up an eminence to judge of his bearings, he was seen, secured, and stripped naked, and, with his hands tied behind him, was driven before Hyder Ali. His account of having crossed the Coleroon was treated as a lie. "No mortal man," said the natives, "had ever swum the river; did he but dip a finger in, he would be seized by the alligators," but when evidence proved the fact, the Nabob held up his hands and cried, "This is the man of God." Nevertheless Wilson was chained to a soldier, and, like the well-known David Baird, John Lindsay, and many others, was driven naked, barefoot, and wounded, 500 miles to Seringapatam; where, loaded with irons of thirty-two pounds weight, and chained in couples, they were thrust into a "black hole," and fed so scantily that Wilson declared that at sight of food his jaws snapped together of themselves. Many a time in the morning corpses were unchained, and the survivors coupled up together again. Wilson was one of the thirty-one who lived to be released after twenty-two months, in a frightful state of exhaustion and disease. Afterwards, when commanding a ship at Bencoolen, every European under his command died, and he alone escaped, yet all this time he was an absolute infidel; and, when having made a fortune, he was returning home, he appeared so utterly hardened against all the arguments that the zealous Thomas could bring in favour of Christianity, as to make him in despair remark to the chief officer that he should have more hope of converting the Lascar sailors than of Captain Wilson. However, the words were penetrating the hitherto ignorant or obdurate heart, and preparing it to attend to further instruction. After some years of comfort at home, on hearing of plans for a mission to the South Sea Islands, Wilson resolved to offer himself as a free and spontaneous fellow-worker, ready to sacrifice his whole self in the great cause! Meantime Thomas's fervid account of the needs of India had made the infant Society propose to send him out with one colleague; and William Carey, now thirty-three years of age, offered himself as a fellow-worker. The notion was terrible to Mrs. Carey, who flatly refused to go; but her husband decided on leaving her at home, and only taking his eldest boy, then about ten or eleven years old. An application was made to the Board of Directors for a licence to the two missionaries to preach, and for a passage in one of the Company's vessels; but when Mr. Grant learnt that Thomas was one of them, he refused to assist in promoting their request, though he undertook to do what he could for Carey alone. However, the Board were certain to refuse them a passage; not because they were unordained or dissenters, but simply because they wished to be Christian teachers. A captain with whom Thomas had sailed as surgeon, offered to smuggle them over without permission; but while his ship was preparing, they had to wait in the Isle of Wight, and Thomas was continually in danger of being arrested by his creditors, and was constantly obliged to hide himself, till Carey became ashamed of such an associate. At last, just as they were on board, with 250_l._ paid for their passage, and the goods in which the money for their support had been invested, the captain received a letter warning him that an information was about to be laid against him at the India House for taking out people without permission. Not only missionaries, but Europeans of any kind, not in the public service, were forbidden to set foot on the Company's territories without special licence, and the danger was so great that the captain set them ashore at once; and poor Carey beheld with tears the Indian fleet sailing from Portsmouth without him. However, by vigorous exertion, Thomas found that a Danish ship would be lying in the Downs, on her way to the East Indies, and that a passage in her would cost 100_l._ for a full-grown person and 50_l._ for a child. Posting down to Northamptonshire, Carey made a desperate effort to persuade his wife to come with him, and succeeded at last, on condition that her sister, Miss Old, should come too. There were now five children, and the passage-money for the whole party amounted to 600_l._, of which their utmost efforts, including the sale of all the little property the Careys possessed, could only raise half. Thomas, who really had a generous spirit, then arranged that the whole party should be squeezed into two cabins, and that Mr. and Mrs. Carey alone should be treated as first-class passengers. They were taken on these terms; but the captain, an Englishman, naturalized in Denmark, gave Mr. Thomas and Miss Old each a cabin, made them dine at his own table, and treated them all most kindly. Thus they safely arrived at Calcutta; but this was only the beginning of troubles. The goods, the sale of which was intended to maintain the mission, were entrusted to Thomas, and realized next to nothing; and Carey was indebted to the goodwill of a rich Hindoo for a miserable house in an unhealthy suburb of Calcutta, where he lodged his unfortunate family. They had a great deal of illness, and he was able to do little but study the language and endeavour to translate the Bible into Bengalee. Several moves made their state rather worse than better, until, in 1795, a gentleman in the Civil Service, Mr. George Udney, offered Carey the superintendence of an indigo factory of his own at Mudnabutty, where he hoped both to obtain a maintenance, and to have great opportunities of teaching the natives in his employment. Disaster as usual followed him: the spot was unhealthy, the family had fevers, one of the children died, and the mother lost her reason from grief, so that she had to be kept under restraint for the rest of her life. Nor was Carey a better indigo-planter than a shoe-maker; the profits of the factory dwindled, and the buildings fell into ruin; the seasons were bad, and in three years Mr. Udney found himself obliged to give up the speculation; but in the meantime, though Carey had not been able to produce much effect on the natives, he had completed the preparation of the implement to which he most trusted for his work, a translation of the New Testament; and, moreover, had been presented by good Mr. Udney with a wooden printing-press with Bengalee type. The wonderful-looking thing was set up in one of the side rooms at the factory, and was supposed by the natives to be the idol of the Europeans! In the meantime he opened a school, and preached to the natives in all the villages round, but without making much, if any, impression; indeed he was so disheartened, that he did not even teach his own children. The chief benefit of his residence in India was at present the example he set, and the letters he sent home, which bore in on the minds of others the necessities of their brethren in the East, and brought aid in subscriptions and, what was still more needed, men. In 1799, four members of the Baptist communion offered themselves to go out as missionaries to India, and two of these were men who left most important traces behind them: William Ward, who had been a printer and editor of a newspaper at Derby, and had seen Mr. Carey before his going out to India, and Joshua Marshman. This latter was the person who, above all others, gave the struggling mission the strength, consistency, and prudence which it wanted. The descendant of an old Puritan officer on the one side, and of Huguenot refugees on the other, he was brought up in strict Baptist principles by his father, who was one of the cloth weavers then inhabiting Wiltshire in great numbers. As a child, he was passionately fond of reading, and his huge appetite for books and great memory made him a wonder in his village. A London bookseller, who was visiting the place, heard of this clever lad, and took him into his shop as an errand boy; but Joshua found that his concern was more with the outside of books than the inside, and came home, at the end of five months, to his father's loom. He was a steady lad, with no passions save for reading and quiet heartfelt religion; but though he had never been guilty of any serious fault, the Baptist body to which his family belonged considered he had too much "head-knowledge" of Christianity to have much "heart-knowledge" of its truths; and for that reason only, and their distrust and contempt of human learning, refused to admit him to baptism. However, this was no obstacle either to his marrying the daughter of a minister of his own persuasion, or taking the mastership of a school at Bristol, where he found less narrow-minded co-religionists, and was baptized by them in 1734, when twenty-six years of age. He was a successful schoolmaster, and was likewise able to join the classes at Bristol Academy, where he studied thoroughly Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. His circumstances were prosperous and rapidly improving when, after five years of great comfort at Bristol, his mind became so imbued with the sense of the need that some one should assist Carey, that he offered himself, together with Ward and two other young men, one of whom he had recently brought back to Christianity from Tom Paine's infidel doctrines. Again his "human learning" stood in his way. The honest, ignorant men who were working so earnestly, fancied it connected with Pharisaism, and had little idea that the Brahmin philosophy was as hard to deal with as the Greek. They accepted him, but with hesitation, and a passage for the whole party, including wives and children, was taken in an American vessel. Mr. Charles Grant advised them not to attempt to land at Calcutta, where they would probably be at once arrested and sent home again, but to land at the Danish colony of Serampore, and there wait for an opportunity of joining Carey at Mudnabutty. Serampore is on the Hooghly, sixteen miles above Calcutta, and here they found themselves on the 13th of October, 1799, in a town pleasantly situated, beautiful to look at, and full of a mixed population of Danes, Dutch, English, and natives of all hues. They were preparing to set forth for Mudnabutty when, on the fifth day after their arrival, they were informed that the British Government demanded that they should be immediately re-embarked and sent home again, whilst a local English paper, having never heard of Baptists, concluded that the word was a mistake for Papists, and announced the arrival of four Popish priests, emissaries of Buonaparte. The Danish governor, Colonel Bie, was resolved to stand his ground and not deliver them up; but they were prevented from setting foot upon the Company's territory, and the unwholesome, damp, little house that they were obliged to take while waiting at Serampore proved fatal to one of their number, the young man whom Marshman had rescued from infidelity, who died of chill and fever before his inexperienced associates were aware of his danger. Another difficulty in the way of joining Carey and assisting in the printing of his translations, was that papers which were thought dangerous to the British power had lately been issued, and the Marquis Wellesley, who was then in the midst of his great war with Tippoo Sahib, was resolved not to allow any printing to be carried on except in Calcutta, where it could be under the eye of his officials. However, he had no objection to the establishment of mission, school, or press on the Danish ground, and Colonel Bie was only desirous to keep them there; so it was decided to send Ward alone, with a Danish passport, to visit Carey at Mudnabutty, and confer with him upon his removal to Serampore, and the establishment of a mission settlement there. All doubt was removed, while this consultation was in progress, by finding that the jealous Anglo-Indians were prepared to arrest any missionary whom they caught upon their ground; and Carey's five years' covenant as an indigo planter being now run out, his supposed idol was taken down and packed up, and his four boys and poor insane wife removed to Serampore, where all their present capital was laid out in the purchase of a piece of ground and the construction of the habitations of the little colony. The expenses were to be defrayed from a common stock, each missionary in turn superintending the domestic arrangements for a month, all the household dining together at one table, and only a small allowance being made to each head of a family for pocket money. Six families were here united, and only 200_l._ was left to support them for the six months until remittances could be obtained from England; but all were used to cottage fare, and were not so dependent on servants as most Europeans in India. A piece of land attached to the house became, under Mr. Carey's care, a beautiful botanic garden. The press was set up under the care of Ward, and on the 18th of March, 1800, the first sheets of the Gospels in Bengalee were struck off. Mr. and Mrs. Marshman opened two boarding schools for European children for the maintenance of the mission, and their great ability in tuition rendered these so profitable as to become its main support. This was soon followed by another school for the natives, to which they eagerly thronged. Meanwhile the missionaries went out, singly or in pairs, into the streets or the neighbourhood of the heathen temples, and attracted a crowd by singing hymns in Bengalee, and then preached to them, offering to receive any inquiries at the mission-house. Carey's time was almost entirely taken up in hearing and answering these questions; but, as usual, the ties of family, society, and custom almost always proved too strong to be broken through even by the conviction of the truth of Christianity. Ram- bosoo, Mr. Carey's first Hindoo friend, was like Serfojee, ready to do anything on behalf of Christianity except to embrace it openly himself. Mr. Thomas had meantime engaged himself as superintendent of a sugar factory at Beerbhoom, whence he came to visit his brethren at Serampore, bringing with him one of his workmen named Fukier, whom he believed that he had converted. The man gave so good an account of his faith that the missionaries deemed him fit for baptism, and rejoiced in him as the first- fruits of seven years' labour; but he went home to take leave of his friends, and either they prevailed on him to give up his intention, or privately murdered him, for he never was heard of again. However, a carpenter of Serampore named Krishnu, who had been brought into the mission-house with a dislocated arm for Mr. Thomas to set, was so struck by what he heard there that he, with his wife and daughter and his brother Goluk, were all willing to give up their caste and be baptized. There was much, however, to render the joy of this day far from being unmixed. Poor John Thomas, after his seventeen years of effort, fitful, indeed, but sincere, was so overjoyed at this confession of faith that he became frantic, and in three days was raving violently. Meanwhile, the native mob, infuriated by hearing that Krishnu and Goluk had renounced their caste, rose to the number of two thousand, and dragged them to the magistrate, but found nothing to accuse them of. The magistrate released them, but they were brought back immediately after, on the plea that the person to whom Krishnu's daughter had been betrothed had a claim upon her. This, however, the authorities disallowed, and they even gave the missionaries a guard to secure them from any interruption during the rite of Baptism, which, by the customs of their sect, was necessarily in public, and by immersion; but there was serious consultation whether it were fit to use the Ganges, so superstitiously adored by the natives, for the purpose. Some argued that the Hindoos might think that the sacredness of Gunga was thus recognized, others that they would consider that the Christians had defiled it, and it was finally resolved to use it like any other stream. In the meantime, Goluk and the two women had been so much terrified that they would not come forward; and on the day of the baptism, Sunday, the 26th of December, 1800, the only two candidates were Krishnu and Felix Carey, the missionary's own eldest son. William Carey walked from the chapel to the ghat, or steps leading to the river, with his son on one side and the Hindoo on the other; but the court they had to pass resounded with the frightful imprecations of poor Mr. Thomas in one room, echoed by screams from Mrs. Carey in the other. At the ghat the Danish governor himself, together with several of his countrymen, some Englishmen, a large body of Portuguese, and a throng of natives, Hindoo and Mahometan, were waiting, and before all these the baptism was performed by Mr. Carey. All were silent as if overawed, and Colonel Bie even shed tears. The next day there was not a scholar in the native school, but the love of learning soon filled it again. Even down till quite recently, when the bands of attachment to the old heathenism have become much loosened, every open conversion continued to empty the schools, though never for long at a time. The women soon recovered from their alarm and were baptized, and the mission also gained over an influential Portuguese gentleman named Fernandez, whom their tenets led them to view as in as much need of conversion as the heathen. He proved an active assistant, and for full thirty years laboured in their cause. In the meantime Lord Wellesley had been engaged in founding the college at Fort William, Calcutta, for the training of young Europeans for the civil service in the knowledge of the numerous native tongues, laws, and customs with which they had to deal--and which are as various as they are important--not only practically, but philosophically. The only person at that time in Bengal qualified to teach the Bengalese language was the Northamptonshire cobbler, who had acquired it for the love of God and the spread of Gospel light! His dissent was a disqualification for any of the higher offices of the college, but the teachership was offered to him, with a salary of 500 rupees a month--absolute affluence compared with his original condition. Yet he would not accept the post unless he were allowed still to be regarded as a missionary. No objection was made, and thus by his talent and usefulness had Carey forced from the Government which had forbidden him to set foot on their territories his recognition in the character he had always claimed. Even his private secular earnings he never regarded as his own: this income, and that arising from Marshman's school, these good men viewed as rendering their mission from henceforth independent, and setting free the Society at home to support fresh ones. Already the accounts they sent home were stirring up many more subscribers, and the commendations bestowed on them in the periodical accounts pained their humility. Ward wrote that it was like a public show: "Very fine missionaries to be seen here! Walk in, brethren and sisters, walk in!" It was happy for the missionaries that their ground had thus been won, for the war with Denmark occasioned Serampore to be occupied by British troops early in 1801, and this would, earlier in their career, infallibly have led to their expulsion: but, as it was, they were allowed to proceed exactly as they had done before. Their most serious difficulties were at an end before poor Thomas, though he had recovered from his brain fever, died of an attack of fever and ague, after having done almost an equal amount of good and harm to his cause by his excitable nature and entire want of balance. Converts continued from time to time to be gathered in: Goluk took courage after waiting about two years, and a Brahmin named Krishnu-prisad trampled on his brahminical cord or poita, and was baptized. He was allowed to wear it as a mark of distinction, but he gave it up voluntarily after three years. Moreover he broke through Indian prejudice by marrying the daughter of Krishnu, the first convert, though of a caste far inferior to his own. This was the occasion of a happy little wedding feast, given under a tree in front of the house of the bride's father, when a hymn composed by Krishnu was sung, and native dishes served up in Eastern style, after which the entertainment concluded with prayer. Only the next week, in contrast to the devotion that blessed these family ties, three Hindoo widows were burnt on a pile not far from the mission-house! In still greater contrast was the first funeral among the converts of the mission-house--that of a man named Gokool. The native custom is that the dead are always carried to burial by persons of their own caste, and it is intense defilement for one of another caste to touch the body. Christians were always carried by the lowest class of the Portuguese, who had fallen into so degraded a state that they were usually known by their own word for poor, "pobre," and were despised by the whole population. They were generally drunk and disorderly, and their rudeness, irreverence, and quarrels were a scandal to the solemn occasion. Mr. Marshman, who was in charge of the mission at the time in Mr. Carey's absence, had some difficulty in persuading the Hindoo converts that it was no shame, but a charitable work, to bear a brother's body to its last resting-place, even though they were seen doing the work of the despised pobres. Accordingly he resolved to set the example, and the corpse of the convert, within a coffin covered with white muslin, was carried to the burial-ground by Marshman, Felix Carey, a baptized Brahmin, and a baptized Hindoo, all the procession singing a Bengalee Christian hymn. The most remarkable events that befell the Serampore Mission from this time were either domestic, or related to their connection with the College at Fort William, and the sanction they received from Government. Lord Wellesley went home in 1805, Colonel Bie died the same year, and these were most serious losses to the cause of the Serampore mission. Lord Wellesley had followed his own judgment, and carried things with a high hand, often against the will of the East India Company, and there was a strong desire to reverse his policy. His successor, Lord Cornwallis, died two months after landing, and Sir George Barlow, who carried on the government in the interregnum, though a good man, had not force enough to withstand the dislike of the Anglo-Indians to the mission. Mr. Ward made an attempt at Calcutta to preach in Hindoo in a chapel, the ground of which had been purchased by the missionaries, but as he walked through the streets the people shouted, "That's the Hindoo padre; why dost thou destroy the caste of the people?" And when, two Sundays later, a preacher of Brahmin birth appeared, there were loud cries of indignation. "O vagabond," cried one man, "why didst thou not come to my house? I would have given thee a handful of rice rather than that thou shouldst have become a Feringhee!" In spite of these cries, however, the chapel was thronged, until, after the third Sunday, when an order came forth from the magistrates, forbidding the missionaries either to preach, allow their converts to preach, distribute tracts, or even argue with the natives--or in anyway "interfere with their prejudices"--in Calcutta; and two new missionaries, named Chater and Robinson, who had come out without a licence, were prohibited from proceeding to Serampore. Considering that these orders emanated only from a Provisional Government during an interregnum, and that there was every hope that they might be reversed by the next Governor-General, the missionaries resolved to submit to them for the time, and to abstain from working in Calcutta. Early in the year 1806, however, the animosity of the English East Indians was increased by a mutiny that broke out among the Sepoys at Vellore, in the Madras Presidency, in consequence of some regulations as to their dress, which they resented as being supposed to assimilate them to Europeans. The English colonel and all his garrison were massacred, and, though the mutineers were surrounded and destroyed, great alarm prevailed. The discontent of the Sepoys was attributed to their displeasure at the spread of Christianity, and it was even averred that the lives of the English in India could only be preserved by the recall of all the missionaries! At Calcutta, Sir George Barlow sent to forbid Mr. Carey and his colleagues from making any further attempts at conversion, and for a short time they were entirely restricted to the Danish territory, while Chater and Robinson were ordered to embark for England, and were only kept by their appeal to the flag of Denmark. Upon this Mr. Chater proceeded to Rangoon, an independent province, but on the whole the current of opposition was diminishing. Lord Wellesley and Mr. Pitt had prevailed upon Government not to permit the College at Fort William to be broken up, though it was reduced and remodelled. Mr. Carey was a gainer by the change, for he was promoted to a professorship, with an increase of salary, which he said was "very good for the mission." He soon after received the diploma of a Doctor of Divinity from an American University. The head-quarters of the establishment continued to be at Serampore, where the missionaries and their families still lived in common, supported upon the proceeds of Mr. Carey's professorship, Mr. Marshman's school, and likewise the subscriptions received from England. Here were their chapel, their schools, and their printing-press, from whence emanated such books and tracts in Bengalee as could be useful for their purpose, and likewise their great work, the translation of the Scriptures, which Marshman and Carey were continually revising and improving as their knowledge of the language became more critical. Thence Mr. Carey went to give instruction at Fort William, and thence the preachers, as the opposition relaxed, went forth on expeditions into the country to teach, argue, and persuade, without any very wide-spread success, but still every year gaining a few converts--sometimes as many as twenty--who, when they had given sufficient evidence of faith, were always publicly baptized by immersion, according to the custom of the sect, which indeed acknowledged no other form as valid, and re-baptized such members of other communions as joined them. Every missionary to the East Indies, whether belonging to their own society or not, was certain to visit and hold council with them, as the veterans of the Christian army in India, and the men most experienced in the character and language of the natives; they were the prime leaders and authorities in all that concerned the various vernacular translations of the Scriptures, and their example was as a trumpet-call to others to follow them in their labours; while all the time the simplicity, humility, self-denial, and activity of the men themselves remained unspoiled. Wonderful, too, had been the effect produced by the stirring of the sluggish waters of indifference. The Society that had been with such difficulty established at home, was numbering multitudes of subscribers both in England and America; it had awakened a like spirit in other sects, and whereas no dissenting minister in London had at first taken up Carey's cause, it had become a scandal for a minister not to subscribe to or promote missions to the heathen. Missionary reports were everywhere distributed, young men aspired to the work, and American Universities did honour to the ability and scholarship of the pioneers of Serampore. Mrs. Carey died on the 7th of December, 1807, having spent twelve years in a state of constant melancholy and often raving insanity. Poor woman! she was from the first a victim to her husband's aspirations, which she never understood. There is something piteous in the cobbler's daughter marrying the apprentice to keep on the business, and finding him a genius and a hero on her hands, starving, being laughed at, and at last carried off to a strange land and fatal climate, all without the least comprehension or sympathy for the cause, and her mind failing before the material prosperity came, which she might have regarded as compensation. In 1807, when some progress had been made, the grant for the translation of the Scriptures was withdrawn; but the superintendents resolved to persevere on their own account, and at the same time to collect all the information in their power respecting the Christians in India, so as to be able to rouse the cold hearts at home to the perception that a real work was in progress. For this purpose, Dr. Claudius Buchanan, the Provost of the College at Fort William, made an expedition of inquiry among the various Christians, and his little book, "Christian Researches," brought much before the public at home, of which they had hitherto been ignorant. Before his time the enormities of the worship of Jaghernauth, and the horrors of the car, beneath which human victims threw themselves, had hardly been realized; and his very effective style of writing brought into full prominence the atrocities of the Suttee, or burning of widows on the funeral pile, a custom with which it was supposed to be impossible to interfere, but which has been proved to be entirely a corrupt practice, unsanctioned by any ancient law, only encouraged by the Brahmins out of avarice. Happily the present generation only knows of these atrocities as almost proverbial expressions, but when the century came in they were in full force. It was Buchanan, too, who first revealed to the English the existence of those Nestorian Christians of St. Thomas, on the coast of Malabar, who had probably had no ecclesiastical intercourse with this country since the embassy of King Alfred, nine hundred years before. He also brought into public notice the effect of Swartz's labours, by describing a visit that he made to Tanjore, where he had a most kind reception from Serfojee, and greatly admired the numerous charitable foundations of that beneficent Rajah. He also heard the services held in three languages in Swartz's church, and was greatly struck, when the Tamul sermon began, by hearing a universal scratching and grating all round him. This was caused, he found, by the iron pens upon the palmyra leaves upon which most of the native congregation were taking notes, writing nearly as fast as the minister spoke. He also heard Sattianadem--now a white-haired old man--preach on the "Marvellous Light," and he felt that a great man had verily left his impress on these districts. Carey's second marriage was curiously different from his first. It was to a lady named Charlotte Rumohr, of noble extraction, belonging to a family of high rank, in the duchy of Schleswig. She was small and slightly deformed, but of good abilities; she had been highly educated, and being generally a prisoner on a couch, she had read deeply in many languages. She had come out to India in search of a warm climate, and residing at Serampore, had fallen under the influence of the missionaries, and had some years previously been admitted to their congregation by immersion. For the first time, Dr. Carey now enjoyed a really happy home, with a lady equal to conversing with him after the labours of the day. But this mission, though subsisting for some years longer, hardly affords many more events. It was not without troubles. At times came friendly support; at others, opposition from the authorities--the committee at home were sometimes ignorantly meddlesome, sometimes sordid in their fits of economy; insufficiently tested fellow-labourers came out and failed; promising converts fell away; the climate was one steady unrelaxing foe, which took victims out of every family: but all these things were as the dust of the highway, trials common to man, and only incident to the very position that had been so wondrously achieved, since the day when the poor Baptist cobbler was so peremptorily silenced for but venturing to hint at the duty of converting the heathen. Lord Hastings' government was far more friendly than any previous one, and the few notable events that befell the community are quickly numbered. In 1821, they were visited by Swartz's pupil, Serfojee, who was staying with the Governor-General, Lord Hastings, on his way to Benares, whither, strange and sad to say, he was on pilgrimage, though all the time showing full intellectual understanding of, and warm external affection for, the Christian faith. He talked English easily, and showed much interest in all that was going on, but a heathen he still remained. This visit only preceded by a few weeks the death of Mrs. Carey, after thirteen years' marriage, the happiest of Dr. Carey's life; but in another year he married a widow of forty-five, who was ready to nurse his now declining years. That year 1822 was a year of much sorrow; the cholera, said to have first appeared in 1817, became very virulent. The Hindoos viewed it as a visitation from the goddess of destruction, and held services to propitiate it, and when that had passed away, a more than usually fatal form of fever set in. Krishnu-pal, the first convert, who had for twenty years been a consistent Christian, was one of the first to be taken away. Dr. Carey himself, though exceedingly ill, recovered his former state of health, and continued his arduous labours, he being by this time the ablest philologist in India; but the little band had come to the time of life when "the clouds return after the rain," and in 1823 Mr. Ward died of cholera. For twenty-three years had the threefold cord between Carey, Marshman, and Ward, been unbroken. They had lived together like brothers, alike in aim and purposes, each supplying what the other lacked; and the distress of the parting was terrible, especially to Dr. Marshman, who at the time of his friend's illness was suffering from an attack of deafness, temporary indeed, but for some days total, so that he could only watch the final struggle without hearing a single word. He wrote as if he longed to be with those whose toils and sorrows were at an end, but he still had much more to do. In 1826, he visited England, partly for the sake of pleading with the Society at home, first begun on so small a scale by Carey, but which now numbered many members and disposed of large sums. The committee, however, were often hard to deal with. There were among them many men of good intentions, but without breadth of views, and used to small economies. They listened to false reports, censured without sufficient information, pinched their missions, and dictated the management, so that to deal with them was but a vexation of spirit. Indeed, such annoyances are inseparable from the very fact of the supplies and the government being in the hands of a body at a distance from the scene of action, and destitute of personal experience of the needs. After much argument, the matter ended in the Serampore mission being separated from the General Society, as indeed it had become nearly self- supporting through the numerous schools which the talents of the members of it had been able to establish. It was an unfortunate time, however, when the two men whose abilities had earned their present position were so far past the prime of life; and, in 1830, the failure of a great banking company both deprived them of a large part of their investments, and, by ruining numerous families, lessened the attendance at Dr. Marshman's school. Moreover, the American subscribers sent a most vexatious and absurd remonstrance against any part of their contributions for training young men to the ministry, being employed in teaching science. "As if," said Dr. Marshman, "youths in America could be educated for ministers without learning science." Another disaster was that, on Lord William Bentinck's arrival in India in 1830, the finances of the Government were found to be in so unsatisfactory a state, that salaries were everywhere reduced, and that which Dr. Carey had derived from the college at Fort William was thus cut down from 1,000 rupees per month to 500. At this time, the missions and preachers dependent on Serampore required 1,500_l._ a year for their support, and only 900_l._ was to be had, and this when both Marshman and Carey were seventy years of age, and still were toiling as hard as ever. There were other troubles, too, as to who was the owner of the buildings, whether the Baptist Society, or the missionaries as trustees, and as having paid a large portion of the price. A great inundation of the Hooghly had nearly settled the question by washing the whole away. As it was, it did much damage, and destroyed the beautiful botanical garden that had for twenty years been Dr. Carey's delight. Finally the whole of the right of Marshman and Carey to the buildings was sold to the Society, for a much less amount than they had paid from their own pockets; but they were to occupy them rent free for the rest of their lives. The trouble and anxiety consequent on this question, which had been of many years' standing, had greatly impaired Dr. Marshman's strength both of body and mind. Morbid attacks of depression came on, during which he wandered about, unable to apply himself so much as even to write a letter, though in the intervals he was both cheerful and full of activity. Dr. Carey's health was likewise failing, and, with no formed illness, he gradually sank, and died on the 9th of June, 1834, in his seventy-third year. To him belongs the honour of the awakening of the missionary spirit in England. Yet, as an individual preacher and teacher, he does not seem to have had much power. His talent was for language and philology; his perfections were faith and perseverance. In these he was a giant; in everything else, whether as a cobbler, schoolmaster, indigo-planter, nay, even as father of a family, he was a failure: but his steady, faithful purpose enabled him so to use that one talent as to make him the pioneer and the support as well as the example of numbers better qualified for the actual work than himself. His loss left Dr. Marshman alone, and suffering from melancholy more and more, as well as much harassed by difficulties as to the resources, and by captious complaints from home. In 1836, a great shock was given to his nerves by the danger of his daughter. She was the wife of Lieutenant Henry Havelock, a young officer, who, deeply impressed by Dr. Marshman's piety, had joined his congregation, and who was destined to become in after years one of the most heroic and able of the defenders of the British cause in India. During his absence, she and her three children had been left at Landour, when their bungalow caught fire in the middle of the night, and blazed up with a rapidity due to its light, dry materials. She rushed out with her baby in her arms, but in crossing the verandah tripped and fell, losing her hold of the child. She was dragged away by a faithful native servant, who likewise snatched out her two eldest boys, but the poor baby was lost in the flames, and she herself was so much injured and overwhelmed by the alarm and grief, that, when her husband arrived, her state was almost hopeless, and he wrote a letter preparing her father to hear of her death. From some untoward accident, no more tidings reached Serampore for three days, and to spirits that had already lost their balance the suspense was fatal. The aged father wandered about the house in a purposeless manner, sometimes standing gazing along the road through the Venetian blinds, sometimes talking incoherently; and when at last the intelligence arrived that Mrs. Havelock was out of danger, though his joy and thankfulness were ecstatic, the effects of these three days were irremediable; he was hardly ever seen to smile again, could take no part in the renewed discussions with the Baptist Society, although his mind and memory were still clear. He died on the 5th of December, 1837, just as the Serampore mission had been re-united to the General Baptist mission. "There had been but few men at Serampore, but they were all giants," was said of them by one of the dignitaries of the Church and assuredly it was a wonderful triumph, that a shoe-maker, a schoolmaster, and a printer should in thirty-eight years not only have aroused the missionary spirit in England, but have, by their resolution and talent, established thirty- three stations for the preaching of Christianity in India; while at the time of the death of the last survivor, forty-nine ministers were in union with them, half of whom were natives of Hindostan, and around each of the elder stations was a fair proportion of converts. Still more amazingly, these self-educated men had, by their accurate knowledge and deep study, become most eminent authorities in matters of language and philology; and by their usefulness had actually compelled a prejudiced Government to depend on them for assistance, and thus to support the work for which alone they cared. Never were the words more completely fulfilled than in them, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." The reverses that chequered their wonderful success were not the more interesting difficulties of wild country, or persecuting heathen, but troubles with an obstructive Government, and with the Society at home, which endeavoured to rule them without understanding them. These vexations are inseparable from the conditions of Societies trying to govern from home instead of letting the management be carried on by a head upon the spot. CHAPTER VI. THE JUDSON FAMILY. We must turn to an important offshoot from the Serampore mission, which assumed extensive proportions and a character of its own, chiefly in consequence of American zeal. Here, be it observed, was the first ground attempted by modern missions (not Roman Catholic) which belonged to an independent sovereign. The great Burmese Empire, roughly speaking, occupies the Eastern India peninsula, being separated from that of Hindostan by the Brahmapootra river. The mountainous formation of the country, its indented coast, and numerous rivers render it fertile, and the hills contain many valuable metals and beautiful precious stones. The inhabitants are of the Mongolian race, short, stout, active, and brown, with a good deal of ingenuity in arts and manufactures, but not equal to the Chinese, their neighbours. Their language is monosyllabic, their religion Buddhist, their government a despotic empire, and at the time the mission was entered upon they had had little intercourse with strangers, but their women were not secluded, were not wholly uneducated, and were treated with consideration. Buddha is regarded as a manifestation of Vishnu--the Hindoos say, to delude his enemies; the Buddhists, to bring a new revelation. Gautama was the almost deified being who spread the knowledge of Buddhism, about 500 B.C. In different countries the religion has assumed different forms, but it is nearly co-extensive with the Mongolian race, and the general features are the rejection of the Vedas and of most of the Hindoo myths, faith in the divinity of Buddha, and hope that the individual personality will be entirely absorbed in his essence, the human being lost in the Deity. Five laws of virtue must be observed, ten kinds of sin avoided; and the Buddhist expects that transgressions will be punished by the transmigration of his soul into some inferior creature, whence he will rise by successive stages into another trial as a man, and gradually improving by the help of contemplation, and of a sublime state of annihilation of all self-consciousness, may become fit for his final absorption into the Godhead. There is an extensive priesthood, called Lamas, who live in a state of celibacy in dwellings not at all unlike monasteries; and, in effect, so much in their practices seems to parody the ceremonies of Christianity that the Portuguese thought them invented by the devil for the very purpose. However, there is no doubt that Buddhism inculcates a much purer morality than the religion of Brahma, and far higher aims. In Burmah, however, the idea of the eternity of the Deity had evidently been lost, and Gautama had practically usurped the place that the higher Buddhists gave to Brahma. Indeed, though the true Buddhist system looks to the absorption in the Deity,--Nirvana, as it is called,--the popular notion, as received in Burmah and corrupted by less refined minds, made it into what was either absolute nonentity or could not be distinguished from it, so that the ordinary Burman's best hope for the future was of nothing but annihilation. There was originally a Burman Empire, but it had become broken up, and the territories of Ava, Pegu, and Siam were separated, though Ava claimed them all, and owned a semi-barbarous magnificent court, with many gradations of dignitaries, sending out Viceroys to the different provinces and towns. When in 1807 strong opposition was made by Sir George Barlow's government to the landing of the two Baptist missionaries, Robinson and Chater, the former obtained forbearance on account of his wife's health, but the latter was obliged to embark; and, rather than return to England, he chose a vessel bound for Rangoon, a city at the mouth of the river Irrawaddy, the nearest Burmese harbour. His was to be a reconnoitring expedition to discover the condition of the Burmese Empire, the progress that Roman Catholic missions were making there, and the possibility of undertaking anything from the centre of Serampore. Another missionary, named Mardon, went with him. They were well received by the European merchants resident at Rangoon, and returned with an encouraging report. It was decided that the attempt should be made; and as Mr. Mardon did not feel equal to the undertaking, fifteen days were set apart as a time of private prayer for direction who should be chosen in his stead. It was Felix Carey, then nearly twenty-two, who volunteered to go with Mr. Chater, of whom he was very fond. His father was unwilling to send him, not only on account of his youth, but because he was very valuable in the printers' work, and had an unusual amount of acquaintance with Sanskrit and Bengalee, so that he could hardly be spared from the translations; but the majority of the council at Serampore were in favour of his going, and after a long delay, in consequence of the danger British trading vessels were incurring from French privateers from the Isle of France, they set sail and arrived at Rangoon early in the year 1808. There they built themselves a house, and obtained a good deal of favour from the gentleness and amiability of Mr. Chater, and from young Carey's usefulness. He had regularly studied medicine for some years in the hospital at Calcutta, and his skill was soon in great request, especially for vaccination, which he was the first to introduce. His real turn was, however, for philology, and he was delighted to discover that the Pali, the sacred and learned language of Burmah, was really a variety of the Sanskrit, cut down into agreement with the Mongolian monosyllabic speech. He began, with the assistance of a pundit, to compile a grammar, and to make a rough beginning of a translation of the Scripture, a work indeed in which the Serampore people were apt to be almost too precipitate, not waiting for those refinements of knowledge which are needful in dealing with the shades of meaning of words of such intense importance and delicate significancy. But on their principles, they could do nothing without vernacular Bibles, and they had not that intense reverence and trained scholarly appreciation which made Martyn spend his life on the correctness of a single version, rather than send it forth with a flaw to give wrong impressions. Neither does Felix Carey seem to have been a missionary in anything but that bent which is given by training and family impulse. He delighted in languages, but rather as an end than a means; and though he did what the guiding fathers at Serampore required of him, it was as a matter of course, not with his whole heart. In the meantime, the fact of Mr. Chater being a married man occasioned difficulties. Like their kinsmen the Chinese, the Burmese much objected to the residence of foreign females within their bounds; and when Mr. Chater obtained leave to bring his wife, she was so forlorn that he was obliged to seek for another station, and, receiving an invitation to Ceylon, left Felix alone, except for his marriage with a young woman of European extraction, but born in Burmah. Soon after a dispute arose between the British and Burmese governments, and two English ships of war appeared off Rangoon. The native authorities wished the young missionary to act as interpreter, and on his refusal he was accused of being a spy, and was forced to take refuge on board one of the British ships where he remained for two months before the differences were adjusted, and he was allowed to return on condition that he should not refuse his services as interpreter another time. In the October of 1812 he came home to Serampore to print his Burmese grammar and Gospel of St. Matthew, and not only did this, but carried a press back with him to Rangoon. A youth who was sent from the congregation at Calcutta to co-operate with him proved unfit for the work, and was advised to return to secular business; but in the meantime, the person who was, above all others, to be identified with the Burmese mission, had heard the call and was on his way. This was Adoniram Judson, a native of New England, the eldest son of the minister of Malden, in Massachusetts, born in 1788, and bred up first at a school near home, and afterwards at Brown University. His acuteness and cleverness from infancy were great, especially in arithmetic and mathematics. During his studies, he met with a clever and brilliant friend who had imbibed the deistical teaching of the French Revolution, and infected him with it, and he came home at seventeen the winner of all the honours and prizes that the College afforded, but announcing himself to his parents as a decided infidel! The pastor treated him with stern displeasure, and argued hotly with him, but young Adoniram was the cleverer man, and felt his advantage. His mother's tears and entreaties were less easy to answer, and the thought of them dwelt with him, do what he would, when he set out on a sort of tour through the surrounding States. On his journey, he stopped at a country inn, and was told, with much apology, that there was no choice but to give him a room next to that of a young man who was so ill that he could scarcely live till morning. In fact, Adoniram's rest was broken by the groans of the dying man and the footsteps of the nurses, and there--close to the shadow of death--his infidelity, which had been but pride of intellect and fashion, began to quail, as the thought of the future haunted him. Morning came; all was still. He asked after his fellow-lodger, and heard that he was dead. He asked his name. It was no other than the very youth who had staggered his faith. The shock changed his whole tone. He could not bear to continue his journey, but turned back to Plymouth, determined to prove to himself what was indeed truth; and, while deeply studying the evidences of Christianity, he supported himself by keeping a school and writing educational books on grammar and arithmetic. His mind was soon thoroughly made up, as, indeed, his aberrations had been only on the surface, and he became very anxious to enter the Theological College at Andover, Massachusetts. This belonged to the most earnest of the Congregationalists, and evidence of personal conversion and piety was required from the candidates; but, in his case, the professors were satisfied, and he entered on his course of study, which included Hebrew. In the last year of his studies there he fell in with Claudius Buchanan's "Star in the East," and the perusal directed his whole soul to the desire of missionary labour. His mind was harassed night and day with the thought of longing to do something for the enlightenment of the millions in Asia; and, meeting with Symes' "Burmese Empire," his thoughts turned especially in that direction. It was a quiet steady purpose, though he was slow of communicating it; until, one evening at home, his father began throwing out hopes and hints of some great preferment, and his mother and sister smiled complacently, as if they were in the secret. Adoniram begged for an explanation, since it was possible their plans might not coincide, to which his father replied there was no fear, and told him that the minister of the biggest church in Boston wished for him as a colleague. "So near home," said the delighted mother. He could not bear to answer her, but, when his sister chimed in, he turned to her, saying, "No, sister, I shall never live in Boston; I have much farther to go;" and then, steadily and calmly, but fervidly, he set forth the call that he felt to be upon him. How different a communication from that which he had made two years before! No doubt his family so felt it, for, though his mother and sister shed many tears, neither they nor his father offered a word of opposition. Thenceforth his fate was determined, and he began to prepare himself. He was, in person, slightly made and delicate-looking, with an aquiline face, dark eyes, and chesnut hair; and though his constitution must have been immensely strong to have borne what he underwent, at this time he was thought delicate; and therefore, with his one purpose before him, he carefully studied physiology, and made himself a code of rules which he obeyed to the end of his life, in especial inhaling large quantities of air, sponging the whole body with cold water, and taking daily exercise by walking. He was a man of great vivacity and acuteness, with the poetical spirit that accompanies strong enthusiasm, and with a fastidious delicacy and refinement in all personal matters, such as seemed rather to mark him as destined to be an accomplished scholar than to lead the rude life of a missionary; and Ann Hasseltine, the young lady on whom he had fixed his affections, was a very beautiful girl, of great cultivation and accomplishments, but they were alike in one other great respect,--namely, in dauntless self-devotion. He began to talk of his purpose to the like- minded among his college mates, and gradually gathered a few into a very small missionary association, into which none were admitted who had any duties that could forbid their going out to minister among the heathen. At the same time, and partly through their means, a wider association was formed, which had its centre at Bradford, and which finally decided on sending Judson to England to endeavour to effect a union with the London Missionary Society, which had been formed in 1795, in imitation of Carey's Baptist Society, to work in other directions by Nonconformists of other denominations. The voyage in 1811, in the height of the continental war, was a very perilous one. On the way the vessel was taken by the French and carried into Bayonne, while the young American passenger was summarily thrown into the hold with the common sailors. He became very ill, but, when the French doctor visited him, he could hold no communication for want of a common language. Then it was that there came thoughts of home, and of the "biggest church in Boston," and a misgiving swept over him, which he treated at once as a suggestion of the enemy, and betook himself to prayer. Then, in the grey twilight of the hold, he felt about for his Hebrew Bible; and to keep his mind fully absorbed, began mentally rendering the Hebrew into Latin. When the doctor came in, he took up the Bible, perceived that he had a scholar to deal with, began to talk Latin to him, and arranged his release from the hold. But on landing at Bayonne, he was marched through the streets as a prisoner with the English crew. He began declaiming in his native language on the injustice of detaining an American, and obtained his purpose by attracting the attention of an American gentleman in the street, who promised to do what he could for him, but advised him in the meantime to proceed quietly. The whole party were thrown into a dismal underground vault, and the stones covered with straw, which seemed to Judson so foul that he could not bear to sit down on it, and he walked up and down, though sick and giddy with the chill, close, noisome atmosphere. Before his walking powers were exhausted, his American friend was at the door, and saying, "Let me see whether I know any of these poor fellows," took up the lamp, looked at them, said "No friend of mine," and as he put down the lamp threw his own large cloak round Mr. Judson, and grasping his arm, led him out under it in the dark; while a fee, put into the hand, first of the turnkey and then of the porter, may have secured that the four legs under the cloak should pass unobserved. "Now run," said the American, as soon as they were outside, and he rushed off to the wharf, closely followed by his young countryman, whom he placed on board a vessel from their own country for the night. Afterwards, Judson's papers were laid before the authorities, and he was not only released, but allowed to travel through France to the northern coast, and, making friends with some of the Emperor's suite on the way home from Spain, travelled to Paris in an Imperial carriage. Afterwards, he made his way to England, where he received a warm welcome from the London Missionary Society, by which he and the three friends he had left in America--Samuel Newell, Samuel Nott, and Gordon Hall--were accepted as missionaries; but on Judson's return to America, he found that the Congregationalist Mission Board there was able to undertake their expenses, and accordingly they went out, salaried by their own country. All four were dedicated to the ministry at Salem on the 6th of February, 1812, and immediately prepared to sail for the East Indies. Judson, with his wife, the beautiful dark-eyed Ann Hasseltine, and his friends Mr. and Mrs. Newell, also newly married, embarked in the _Caravan_; Hall, Nott, and another college mate, named Luther Rice, were in the _Harmony_. They were at once received at Serampore, on their landing, in the June of 1812, but Dr. Carey's expectations of them were not high. Adoniram and Ann Judson were both delicate, slender, refined- looking people. "I have little hope from the Americans," he wrote; "if they should stay in the East, American habits are too luxurious for a preparation to live among savages." He little knew what were the capabilities of Ann Judson, the first woman who worked effectively in the cause, the first who rose above the level of being the comfort of her husband in his domestic moments, and was an absolute and valuable influence. The opposition to the arrival of missionaries was at its height, and this large batch so dismayed the Calcutta authorities that, declaring them British subjects come round by America, they required their instant re- embarkation. It was decided to go to the Isle of France, whence it was hoped to find a French ship to take them to the aid of Felix Carey, but the first vessel could only take the Newells, and the detention at Serampore drew the Judsons and Rice into the full influence of Marshman's powerful and earnest mind. Aware that they would have to work with the Baptist mission, they had studied the tenets on the voyage, but found when they arrived, that the points of difference were subjects that the trio at Serampore did not choose to discuss, lest their work among the heathen should suffer by attention to personal controversy. However, their own thoughts and the influences of the place led them to desire baptism by immersion; and this being done, they considered it due to the Congregationalists, who had sent them out, to resign their claim on them for support, though this left them destitute. It was decided that Rice should go home and appeal for their support to the American Baptists, and in this he thoroughly succeeded, while the Judsons, after sailing for Mauritius, where they found poor Mrs. Newell recently dead, made their way back to Madras, and there found a vessel bound for Rangoon. It was a crazy old craft, with a Malay crew, no one but the captain able to speak a word of English. The voyage was full of disaster. A good European nurse, who had been engaged to go with Mrs. Judson, fell on the floor and died suddenly, even while the ship was getting under weigh, too late to supply her place. Mrs. Judson became dangerously ill, and the vessel was driven into a perilous strait between the Great and Little Andaman Islands, where the captain was not only out of his bearings, but believed that, if he were driven ashore, the whole ship's company would be eaten by the cannibal islanders. The alarm, however, acted as a tonic, and Mrs. Judson began to recover. They reached Rangoon in safety, but Judson writes: "We had never before seen a place where European influence had not contributed to smooth and soften the rough features of uncultivated nature. The prospect of Rangoon, as we approached, was quite disheartening. I went on shore, just at night, to take a view of the place and the mission-house, but so dark and cheerless and unpromising did all things appear, that the evening of that day, after my return to the ship, we have marked as the most gloomy and distressing that we ever passed." The mission-house was not quite empty, though Felix Carey, who they had hoped would welcome them, was at Ava. When Mrs. Judson, still too weak to walk, was carried ashore, she was received by his wife, who could speak Burmese, and managed the household, providing daily dinners of fowls stewed with rice or with cucumber. It was, however, a dismal place, near the spot where public executions took place, and where the dead were burnt outside the walls. And all around, among the beautiful vegetation and lovely forests on the banks of the broad Irrawaddy, rose the pagodas, graceful with the peculiar beauty of the far East, with gilded lacquer-work, umbrella-shaped roofs spiring upwards; huge idols with solemn contemplative faces within, and all around swarms of yellow-robed, fat, lazy lamas. The new comers meantime applied themselves to the study of the language, after overcoming the disdain of their pundit at having to instruct a woman. He could not speak English, and had neither grammar nor dictionary, so that the difficulties were great; but the eager spirit of the students overcame all, and they ventured to remove into town and keep house themselves. Mrs. Judson was taken to visit the wives of the Myowoon, or Viceroy of Rangoon, by a French lady who had been admitted before. On their first arrival the principal wife was not up, and the ladies waited, while the inferior wives examined all they wore, and tried on their gloves and bonnets; but when the great lady appeared, they all crouched together at a distance. She came in richly attired, and smoking a silver pipe, and sat down on a mat by Mrs. Judson, whom she viewed with much curiosity, asking if she were her husband's first wife. The Myowoon came in looking wild and savage, and carrying a huge spear in his hand; but he was very polite to Mrs. Judson, though he took very little notice of her husband. In fact the government was violent and barbarous. There were perpetual murders and robberies, and these were punished by horrid executions, accompanied by torture; yet the Burmese regarded themselves as superior to all other nations, and were far from understanding how greatly they fell short even of the requirements of Buddhism. Felix Carey, meantime, had been requested by the king to vaccinate the royal children; but he had to return to Calcutta to procure matter for the purpose. He then visited Rangoon on his way back, and prepared to carry up his family, property, and printing-press to Ava, with the hope of forming a fresh station there, under royal patronage; but after ten days' voyage, the vessel was capsized by a sudden storm, and all who could not swim were drowned. Felix tried to rescue his little son of three years old, but, finding himself sinking, he let the child go, and saved himself alone. Everything in the vessel was lost; but the king gave him compensation for the property, and took him into high favour, sending him shortly after, to conduct some negotiations with the British Government. He appeared at Calcutta with the title and gorgeous dress of a Burmese noble, and showed himself in the streets with a train of fifty followers. Old Dr. Carey was seriously grieved at his thus "sinking from a missionary to an ambassador;" and he was by no means successful in this new line; in fact his negotiations turned out so ill, that on his return to Rangoon he was obliged to fly the country. The excitement of his life had made missionary labour distasteful to him, and, after strange wanderings in the wild lands eastward of Bengal, he became prime minister and generalissimo to a barbarous prince; and in that capacity led an army against his old friends, the Burmese, sustained a defeat, and was forced to wander in the jungle. After three years of this strange life, he fell in by chance at Chittagong with Mr. Ward, and was by him persuaded to return to the printing and philology, for which alone, like his father, he really was well qualified. He lived at Serampore till 1822, and then was carried off by the same sickly season that had proved fatal to Krishnu-pal, who had been baptized with him, and to Bishop Middleton. Meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Judson were working steadily on, and were greatly cheered by the arrival of a much less barbarous viceroy, named Mya-day- men. They were invited, with all the Europeans, to a banquet at the new official's house, and Mrs. Judson was entertained by the wife, who questioned her eagerly, and asked if she knew how to dance in the English way; but was satisfied on hearing that the wives of priests did not dance. As Buddhist priests are celibate, Mrs. Judson must have been rather a puzzle to the good lady; and all this time the real work of the mission had not commenced, for the preliminary operation of acquiring the language had not been completed, and Judson was warned not to attempt preaching till he was familiar with it, by Dr. Carey having told him that after some years in Bengal, when he imagined himself to be freely able to use the language, he had found from the remark of a young man, that he was really not in the least understood. Private arguments with the teachers was all that could be attempted, and in these there seems to have been some forgetfulness of St. Paul's words, "Who art thou that judgest another? To his own master he standeth or falleth;" since there was a very free threatening that the souls of the pagans must be lost; to which the pundits replied with true Eastern calmness, "Our religion is good for us, yours for you." During this time of perseverance and preparation, Mrs. Judson's health became so much affected that she was forced to go to Madras. Heroine as she was, she would not consent to let her husband break up his work to accompany her; but the solitude of her absence fell on him most severely. She says, "He had no individual Christian with whom he could converse or unite in prayer during the six months of her absence;" but he worked on heartily, and she returned in perfect health. In the spring of 1816, the death of their first-born child was a great shock to the father's health, which was already disordered; and he continued in a declining state all through the summer. The Myowoon's wife, whom Mrs. Judson conveniently calls the vice-reine, was very kind to them, and took them on elephant-back to visit her country-house. The way lay through the woods, between trees sometimes so thick that the elephants broke them down, at the mahout's word, to make way. Thirty men in red caps, with spears and guns, formed the guard; then came the vice- reine's elephant, with a gilded howdah, where the lady sat dressed in red and white silk; then the Judsons' animal, three or four more behind with grandees, and 300 or 400 attendants followed. At a beautiful garden, full of fruit trees, a feast was spread under a noble banyan, the vice- reine causing the cloth next to her to be allotted to her guests, whom she tended affectionately, gathering and paring fruit, cutting flowers and weaving them for them, and, unlike the Hindoos, freely eating what they handed her. This hospitable and amiable lady had just begun to ask Mrs. Judson the difference between the Christians' God and Gautama, when she was obliged to return to Ava. For several months Mr. Judson's illness increased; but exercise on horseback did much to relieve him, and the comfort and encouragement of the arrival of a brother missionary, Mr. Hough, with his family, did more. He weathered the attack without leaving his post, and in 1817 made his first real step. A press had come out with Mr. Hough, and with it two little tracts, summarizing the chief truths of Christianity, were printed and distributed at Rangoon. Shortly after, a respectable-looking Burmese, attended by a servant, walked into Mr. Judson's house, and sat down. Presently he inquired, "How long a time will it take me to learn the religion of JESUS?" Mr. Judson answered, that where God gave light and wisdom, it was soon learnt; but without, a whole lifetime would not teach a man. "But how," he asked, "came the wish for this knowledge?" "I have seen two little books." "And who is JESUS?" said the missionary. "He is the Son of GOD, who, pitying human creatures, came into this world and suffered death in their stead." "Who is GOD?" continued Mr. Judson. "He is a Being without beginning or end, who is not subject to old age or death, but always is." Mr. Judson showed him the two little books, which he recognized, but begged for more. He did not attend much to what Judson tried to teach him by word of mouth, but begged for book. The Gospel of St. Matthew was in hand, but could not be finished for three months; and when he was told this "Have you not a little of that book done, which you will graciously give me now?" he asked. "And I," writes Judson, "beginning to think that God's time was better than man's, folded and gave him the two first half- sheets, which contain the first five chapters of St. Matthew, on which he instantly rose, as if his business was done, and took leave." It was long before they saw him again; though many other persons began calling at the mission-house to inquire about what they called the new religion; but all were so much afraid of one another, that no one would ask any questions if a fellow-citizen were present. Mrs. Judson was also getting together from fifteen to twenty women every Sunday, whom she tried to instruct. One of them, like the Norseman of old, preferred casting in her lot with her forefathers to a heaven separated from them; and when Mrs. Judson told her they would reproach her with the rejection of the truth they had never known, and that she would regret her folly when it was too late, she answered, "If I do, I will cry out to you to be my intercessor." Another combined prayers to our Lord and Gautama. The vice-reine came back from Ava, and continued to be very kind to Mrs. Judson, made her explain her doctrine, caused the little catechism to be taught to her daughter, and accepted a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew, which was at length completed. This being finished, Mr. Judson, after four years' study of the language, believed himself able to undertake more public ministrations; but first went on a voyage to Chittagong, where he hoped to find, among the Christian converts of Burmese speech, one to assist him in communicating with the people. Mrs. Judson remained with the Houghs, and had the pleasure of receiving the Burmese inquirer, whose long absence had been occasioned by his being appointed governor of some villages in Pegu. He said he was thinking and reading in order to become a believer. "But I cannot yet destroy my old mind, for, when I see a handsome patso, or a handsome gounboun, {f:130} I still desire it. Tell the great teacher, when he returns, that I wish to see him, though I am not a disciple of Christ." She gave him the rest of St. Matthew, and a tract to each of his attendants, and he promised that, if the great teacher would come and see him, he would collect his villagers to hear the new doctrine preached. There was something very attractive, meek, and unassuming about the man's whole appearance, and of him there was much hope; but, just about this time great anxiety fell on the mission party. The kindly Myowoon and his wife were removed, and immediately after a summons was sent to Mr. Hough to appear at the court- house of the city, with the intimation, "that, if he did not tell the whole truth they would write it in his blood." He was kept all Friday and Saturday answering, through an interpreter, foolish questions: who were his father and mother, how many suits of clothes he had, and the like; all which was formally written down. On the third day, Sunday, Mrs. Judson, resolving to ascertain whether this were really done by the command of the Myowoon, drew up a petition, which she carried herself. She was graciously received, and it presently appeared that an order had really been sent for the banishment of some Portuguese priests, and that the petty officials of the Court had taken advantage of it to harass Mr. Hough, in the hope of extracting a reward for his liberation. At this time there was a terrible visitation of cholera, which the Burmese attributed to evil spirits, and accordingly attempted to drive away by force of noise. It was supposed that the evil spirits would take refuge in any house that was silent, and for three whole nights cannon were fired from the court-house, and every human creature used the utmost powers nature or art afforded for producing a din. The mission party were uninfected by the contagion, but it was a time of terrible anxiety, for nothing had been heard of Mr. Judson or his ship for months; there were reports of ill-feeling between the Burmese and British Governments, no arrivals of English at Rangoon, and no intelligence. Mrs. Judson's female classes had fallen off ever since Mr. Hough's summons, and the state of things was such, that the Houghs decided on removing to Bengal. Mrs. Judson, with her little girl, most reluctantly decided to accompany them, but, just as the vessel in which they sailed had gone down the river, she was ascertained not to be seaworthy; and, during this delay, Mrs. Judson's fears of her husband's finding her gone, if he ever returned to Rangoon, so increased, that she went back with her child to the house, and, brave woman as she was, took up her abode there with the native servants, trusting herself wholly to the protection of her God. She was rewarded by her husband's arrival, after an absence of nine months, caused by the captain of his ship having broken his engagement, and carried him on to Madras, where he had been detained all this time for want of a vessel to return in. The Houghs also came back, and two young men from America soon after came out, full of zeal and activity, but both fell ill very shortly afterwards, and the younger died, but his fellow, Mr. Colman, became a valuable assistant. This era, the spring of 1819, was the first great step in the Burmese mission. Funds had been raised by the Baptist Society in America, which were applied to the erection of a zayat or public room, with walls of bamboo and a thatched roof. It had two rooms, one for a school for the women, another for the men, who gladly learnt to read and write from Mrs. Judson and a Burmese teacher. Here, too, Mr. Judson openly held prayers and preaching on Sunday, and these attracted many, some of whom would come in the week for private discussion. The first real convert was a man of thirty-five, named Moung Nau, poor, but of excellent character, and so intelligent, that he became a useful assistant after his baptism, on the 27th of June, 1819. Others were inquiring, among whom the most interesting was Moung Shwaygnong, a schoolmaster or tutor by profession, at a village a little way from Rangoon, and already a philosopher, "half deist, half sceptic, the first of the sort I have seen among the Burmans" (our quotations are from Mr. Judson's journal), who, however, worshipped at the pagodas, and conformed to national observances. The second time he came the conversation seemed to have made "no impression on his proud sceptical heart, yet he promised to pray to the eternal God, through the Saviour." It appeared that, about eight years previously, it had come before him that there is indeed One Eternal God, and that this thought had been working in him ever since. A copy of Mr. Judson's tract which fell in his way chimed in with this primary belief, and next came the question of the Scripture revelation, which he argued over with much metaphysical power and acuteness, being a very powerful reasoner, and well trained in the literature of his own country. Meantime three simpler minds--Moung Thaahlah, Moung Byaay, and Moung Ing--had been thoroughly convinced, and, though aware that they would expose themselves to considerable danger, resolved to become Christians. The Viceroy had remarked the zayat, and notice was taken that men were there led "to forsake the religion of the country." The alarm cleared the zayat of all the audience, and emptied Mrs. Judson's class of women, but Thaahlah {f:133} and Byaay sent in a letter, entreating to be admitted to baptism, and Ing would have followed their example, but that his trade as a fisherman carried him off to sea. They begged not to be baptized openly, as Nau had been, in a piece of water near the town and presided over by an image of Gautama; and Mr. Judson yielded so far, that he conducted the preliminary devotions in the zayat, and baptized them in the same pool two hours after dark. Shwaygnong had in the meantime taken alarm at being interrogated by the Government, had apologized, and apparently fallen away; but he could not keep aloof, and soon came back again. After a good deal of fencing and putting forth metaphysical cavils, he allowed that it was all for the sake of experiment, and declared that he really believed both in God and in the Atonement. "Said I," writes Mr. Judson, "knowing his deistical weakness, do you believe all that is contained in the book of St. Matthew which I gave you? In particular, do you believe that the Son of God died on a cross?" "Ah!" he replied, "you have caught me now. I believe that He suffered death, but I cannot admit that He suffered the shameful death of the cross." "Therefore," said I, "you are not a disciple of Christ. A true disciple inquires not whether a fact is agreeable to his own reason, but whether it is in the Book. His pride has yielded to Divine testimony. Teacher, your pride is unbroken. Break down your pride, and yield to the Word of God." He stopped and thought. "As you utter these words," said he, "I see my error. I have been trusting in my own reason, not in the Word of God." Some interruption now occurred. When we were again alone, he said, "This day is different from all the days on which I have visited you. I see my error in trusting to my own reason, and I now believe the Crucifixion of Christ, because it is contained in the Scripture." The profession of Christianity had become more perilous since the Judsons' arrival in Burmah. The old Emperor had died in 1819, and had been succeeded by his grandson, who was far more zealous for Buddhism than he had been, and who had appointed a viceroy at Rangoon, very minute in exacting observances--so much so, as to put forth an edict forbidding any person with hat, shoes, umbrella, or horse, to pass through the grounds belonging to the great pagoda, Shwaay Dagon, which extended half a mile from the building, and were crossed by all the chief roads. At the same time, he was new gilding the pagoda, a specially sacred one, as containing some bits of hair of Gautama. It was plain that the mission had little chance of succeeding, unless some sanction could be obtained from royalty; and Mr. Judson therefore determined to go to Ava and petition the Emperor to grant him permission to teach at Rangoon. So he obtained a pass from the Viceroy "to go up to the golden feet, and lift up our eyes to the golden face," and hired a boat to take him and Mr. Colman, with ten oarsmen, a headman, a steersman, a washerman, and two cooks, of whom Moung Nau was one. They had invited Shwaygnong to accompany them, but he refused, though he appeared waving his hand to them on the bank as they pushed off from the land. They took with them, as the most appropriate present, a Bible, bound in six volumes, in gold leaf, intending to ask permission to translate it. They arrived at Ava on the 28th of January, 1820, and beheld the gilded roofs of the pagodas and palace. Two English residents welcomed them, and Mya-day-men, the Viceroy who had been their friend at Rangoon, undertook to present them to the Emperor. They were taken to the palace, and were explaining their wishes to the Prime Minister, Moung Zah, when it was announced that "the golden foot was about to advance," and he had to hasten to attend the Emperor. The dome whither the missionaries followed him was dazzling with splendour, very lofty, and supported on pillars entirely covered with gold, and forming long avenues, through one of which the Emperor advanced alone, with the proud gait and majesty of an Eastern monarch, with a gold-sheathed sword in his hand. Every one prostrated his forehead in the dust except the two Americans, who merely knelt with folded hands. He paused before them, and demanded who they were. "The teachers, great king," replied Mr. Judson. "What? You speak Burmese--the priests that I heard of last night? When did you arrive? Are you like the Portuguese priests? Are you married?" and so on, he asked; then placing himself on a high seat, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, he listened to the petition read aloud by Moung Zah. He then held out his hand for it; Moung Zah crawled forward and gave it; the Emperor read it through to himself, and held out his hand for the little tract which was handed to him in like manner. The hearts of the missionaries throbbed with hope and prayer; but, after reading the two first sentences, the Emperor threw it from him, and when the gift was presented would not notice it. The answer communicated through Moung Zah was: "In regard to the objects of your petition, his Majesty gives no order. In regard to your sacred books, his Majesty has no use for them; take them away." Something was said of Colman's skill in medicine; upon which the Emperor desired that both should be taken to the Portuguese priest, who acted as his physician, to ascertain whether they could be useful in that line, and then lay down on his cushions to listen to music. They were taken two miles to the residence of the Portuguese, who of course perceived that they brought no wonderful secret of medicine, and then returned to their boat. They afterwards saw Moung Zah in private, and heard that the Burmese laws tolerated foreign religions, but that there was no security for natives who embraced them, and that it was an unpardonable offence even to propose it. The English collector went to the Emperor, but could obtain nothing from him but permission for them to return to Rangoon, where they might find some of their countrymen to teach. There was no actual prohibition against teaching Burmese subjects, but there was no security that the converts would not be persecuted; and the collector told them that fifteen years previously a Burmese teacher who had been converted by the Portuguese, and had even visited Rome, was denounced on his return by his nephew and commanded to recant. On his refusal, he was tortured with the iron mall--hammered, namely, from his feet upwards till he was all one livid wound as far as his breast, pronouncing the name of Christ at every blow. Some persons at last told the Emperor that he was a mere madman, on which he was spared, and the Portuguese contrived to send him away to Bengal, where he died. The nephew was high in the favour of the present Sovereign, who was besides far more attached than his grandfather had ever been to the Buddhist doctrine. Only four Portuguese clergy were in the country, and they confined themselves to ministrations to the descendants of the converts of the old Jesuit mission, instead of attempting to extend their Church. Nothing was to be done but to return to Rangoon, and for this a passport was necessary, the obtaining of which cost thirty dollars in presents. Mr. Judson was advised also to procure a royal order for personal protection, otherwise, when it became known that the royal patronage had been refused, he might be molested by ill-disposed persons; but finding that this would be exceedingly costly, he preferred "trusting in the Lord to keep us and our poor disciples." It was encouraging that at Pyece, a place on the banks of the Irrawaddy, the missionaries met Shwaygnong, who had come thither to visit a sick friend, and came on board eagerly to know the result of their journey. They told him all, even of the good confession beneath the iron mall, and he seemed less affected and intimidated than they expected, though he had nearly made up his mind to cast in his lot with them. "If I die, I shall die in a good cause," he said. "I know it is the cause of truth." And then he repeated his actual faith: "I believe in the Eternal God, in His Son Jesus Christ, in the Atonement which Christ has made, and in the writings of the Apostles as the true and one Word of God." He also said he had never, since their last conversation, lifted up his folded hands before a pagoda, though on the day of worship, to avoid persecution, he would walk up one side of the building and down the other. To this Mr. Judson replied, "You may be a disciple of Christ in heart, but you are not a full disciple. You have not faith and resolution enough to keep all the commands of Christ, particularly that which commands you to be baptized though in the face of persecution and death. Consider the words of JESUS--'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.'" He listened in profound silence, and with the manner with which he always received what he considered deeply; but there was still a long struggle to come, and many fluctuations, and the simpler minds were the stay and comfort of the missionaries, when on their return to Rangoon they considered what steps to take. Their first proposal was to move to a district between Bengal and Arracan, where were several Christian natives now destitute of a pastor, and where the language was very like Burmese, though the place was beyond the power of the Emperor, and to take their three baptized converts with them. Nau and Thaahlah were ready to follow them everywhere, but Byaay was married, and no Burmese woman was allowed to leave the country. He, with several others who were on the point of conversion, entreated the missionaries not to leave them, and Thaahlah made a remarkable speech. "Be it remembered," he said, "that this work is not yours or ours, but the work of God. If He give light, the religion will spread." It was decided, according to the earnest wish of these poor people, that they should not be deserted till there were enough of them to form a congregation and have a teacher from among themselves set over them, and this--as the sect to which the Judsons belonged has no form of setting apart for the ministry--was all that they regarded as requisite. The Arracan converts were not, however, to be neglected, and Mr. Colman therefore was to go to Chittagong, and there establish a station, which might receive those from Rangoon in case it should become needful to leave the place. He was doing well there, when he died from an attack of fever. The Judsons remained, and held their worship in the zayat on Sunday with the doors closed and only the initiated present; but it seemed as if the fear of losing their teachers quickened the zeal of the Christian converts in bringing their friends to inquire. Shwaygnong had long been unconsciously preparing the way by his philosophical instructions, going so much deeper than the popular Buddhism, and he brought several of his pupils, both male and female, telling them that "he had found the true wisdom;" but he still hung back. {f:137} Mr. Judson suspected him of wanting a companion of his own rank to keep him in countenance, and doubted whether it were fear of the world or pride of heart that kept him back; but he seems to have had a genuine battle with his own sceptical spirit, and the acceptance of such ordinances as the Baptists required was a difficulty to him. Four or five later converts were baptized before him, and at last he kept away from the mission for so long that Mr. Judson thought they had lost him; but when he reappeared it turned out that he had been ill with fever, and had had much sickness in his family, and had meantime fought out his mental conflict, and made up his mind to the full acceptance of Christianity at all risks. He came again with five disciples, one of them a woman of fifty-one years old, named Mah-menlay, with her husband, all formally requesting baptism; but Mr. Judson was not sufficiently satisfied of the earnestness of any to receive them at once, excepting Shwaygnong himself, whom Mr. Judson kept till evening; and then, after reading the history of St. Philip's baptism of the Ethiopian, and praying, led him down to the water in the woods and baptized him, like others, in the pool, by the light of the stars in the tropical night. That same night Mah-menlay came back, entreating so earnestly for baptism, that she, too, was led down to the water and baptized. "Now," she said, "I have taken the oath of allegiance to JESUS CHRIST, and I have nothing to do but to commit myself, soul and body, to the hands of my Lord, assured that He will never suffer me to fall away." This was the last thing before the Judsons embarked for Serampore, a journey necessitated by a severe attack of liver complaint, from which Mrs. Judson had long been suffering and their little girl had also died. To these devoted people a visit to Calcutta was a change for the sake of health! On their return, after half a year's absence, the first thing they heard was that their kind friend Mya-day-men had come as Myowoon to Rangoon, and they were met on the wharf by all their disciples, led by Shwaygnong, in a state of rapture. They found that such as had lived in the yard of the mission had been subjected to a petty official persecution, which had made them fly to the woods; but that the good Mya- day-men had refused to hear an accusation brought against Moung Shwaygnong by the lamas and officials of the village, who had him before the tribunal, accusing him of trying "to turn the priest's rice-pot bottom upwards." "What matters it," said the Myowoon; "let the priests turn it back again." This was enough to ensure the safety of the Christians during his viceroyalty, though at first he paid little attention to Mr. Judson, being absorbed in grief for the death of his favourite daughter, one of the wives of the Emperor. She does not seem to have been the child of the amiable Vice-reine, or, as her title had now become, Woon-gyee-gaadaw, who had been promoted to the right of riding in a _wau_, a vehicle carried by forty or fifty men, but who had not forgotten Mrs. Judson, and received her affectionately. There were now twenty-five disciples. Ing likewise joined them having returned from his voyage, and was shortly after baptized. Mah-menlay opened a school for little girls, and Shwaygnong was regularly engaged by Mr. Judson to revise his translation of the Epistle to the Ephesians and the first part of the Book of Acts, before they were printed. Another remarkable man came to study the subject, Moung Long, a philosopher of the most metaphysical kind, whose domestic conversations with his wife were reported to be of this description.--The wife would tell him, "The rice is ready." "Rice! what is rice? Is it matter or spirit? Is it an idea or a nonentity?" If she answered, "It is matter," he would reply, "And what is matter? Are you sure there is such a thing in existence, or are you merely subject to a delusion of the senses?" Mr. Judson was struck with the expression of this man's one eye, which had "as great a quantity of being as half-a-dozen common eyes." After the first exposition of the Christian doctrine, the philosopher began with extreme suavity and politeness: "Your lordship says that in the beginning God created one man and one woman. I do not understand (I beg your lordship's pardon) what a man is, and why he is called a man." Mr. Judson does not record his own line of argument, only that the Buddhist sceptic was foiled, and Shwaygnong, who had often argued with him, was delighted to see his old adversary posed. He came again and again, and so did his wife, the ablest woman whom Mrs. Judson had met, asking questions on the possibility of sin finding entrance to a pure mind, and they were soon promising catechumens; but in the midst of all this hopefulness, a season of cholera and fever set in, both the Judsons were taken ill at the same time, and could not even help one another, and the effect on Ann's health was such that, as the only means of saving her life, she was sent off at once to England, while her husband remained at his post quite alone, for Colman had died a martyr to the climate. She was warmly welcomed by the Missionary Societies in London and Edinburgh, and thence returned to America, where her mother and sisters were still living to hail her return. Her narratives, backed by her natural sweetness, eloquence and beauty, had a great effect in stirring up the mission spirit among both her countrymen and countrywomen, and there was no lack of recruits willing to return with her and share her toil. The account of Colman's devotion and death had had an especial effect upon a young girl named Sarah Hall, of Salem, Massachusetts, one of those natures that seem peculiarly gifted with poetic enthusiasm, yet able to stand the brunt of the severest test of practice. She was the daughter of one of those old-fashioned New England families, where a considerable amount of prosperity and a good deal of mental culture is compatible with much personal homely exertion. As the eldest of thirteen, Sarah had to work hard, but all the time she kept a prim little journal, recording, at an age when one is surprised to see her able to write at all, that her mother is too busy to let her go to school, and she must improve herself at home; and this she really did, for her notes, as she grew older, speak of studying Butler's Analogy, Paley's Evidences, logic, geometry, and Latin. Her library of poetry is said to have consisted only of Thomson's Castle of Indolence, and Macpherson's Ossian; but hymns must have filled her ear with the ring of rhyme, for she was continually versifying, sometimes passages of Scripture, sometimes Ossian, long before she was halfway through her teens. Very foolish, sing-song, emotional specimens they are, but notable as showing the bent of nature that forms itself into heroism. Her family were Baptists, and she was sixteen when the sense of religion came on her so strongly as to lead her to seek baptism. Remarkably enough, the thought of the ignorance of the heathen, and the desire to teach them, began to haunt her from that time, and is recorded in the last page of her childish journal, dated a month later than her baptism. In fact, her zeal seems to have been pretty strong towards the persons around her. While staying at a friend's house, she found a pack of cards left by a young man on the table, and wrote on it the text beginning, "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth," &c. Hearing that the owner was very curious to know the perpetrator, she wrote down this verse for him: "And wouldst thou know what friend sincere Reminds thee of thy day of doom? Repress the wish, yet thou mayst hear She shed for thee a pitying tear, For thine are paths of gloom." She also says that she had been for six weeks engaged, with the assistance of a gentleman, in working out proofs of the immortality of the soul, apart from those in Scripture. She had prayer-meetings for her young friends in her own room, and distributed tracts in the town, while still acting at home, as her mother's right hand, among her little brothers and sisters. But her vocation she felt to be for missionary life. At one time she thought of joining a mission to the Red Indians, and her verses were full of the subject. Her ode on Colman's death expressed the feeling of her soul in the verse: "The spirit of love from on high The hearts of the righteous hath fired; Lo! they come, and with transport they cry, 'We will go where our brother expired, And labour and die.'" The words fall sadly short of the feeling,--a very real one, but the ode not only satisfied Sarah's critics and obtained circulation, but it fired the heart of George Dana Boardman, a young student at Waterville College, intended for the Baptist ministry; and he never rested till he had found out the authoress, met her, and asked her to be his partner in "labouring and dying," as Colman had done before them. There was no illusion in her mind; she knew her task would be full of toil and suffering; but her feeling was the desire to devote her whole self to the work of the Redeemer, who had done so much for her. Mr. and Mrs. Hall were at first reluctant, but after a time heartily consented, and she was introduced to Mrs. Judson as a future companion in her toils. With very questionable taste, some of her friends insisted on her reading her own elegy on Colman, aloud, before a whole circle of friends that they might see Mrs. Judson listen to it. Blushes and refusals were of no avail; she was dragged out, and the paper thrust into her hand; she began, faltering, but as she proceeded the strong purpose of her soul inspired her, and she ended with firmness and enthusiasm--but was so overpowered that, without daring to look up and see that Mrs. Judson's eyes were overflowing, she crept away to hide in a corner the burning tears on her own cheeks. Twenty years after she spoke of it as one of the most painful moments of her life. At first it had been proposed that Mr. Boardman and Sarah should accompany Mrs. Judson on her return, but it was thought better that he should spend a little more time on his studies, and Ann Judson therefore sailed in 1823, with Mr. and Mrs. Wade as her companions. In the meantime Judson himself had been going on with his work at Rangoon, among many troubles. Another accusation was drawn up by the lamas against Shwaygnong, and the Viceroy, on reading it, pronounced him worthy of death; but before he could be arrested, he took boat, came down to the mission-house with his family, obtained a supply of tracts and portions of Scripture, and then secretly fled up the river to a town named Shway-doung, where he began to argue and distribute the tracts. So little regular communication was there between different places in Burmah, that this could be done with comparative safety; but the accusation and his flight created so much alarm at Rangoon, that Mr. Judson had to shut up the zayat, and only assemble his converts in the mission-house. They suffered another loss in Moung Thaahlah, their second convert, who died of cholera, after nineteen hours' illness. He had seven months before married a young Christian woman, this being the first Burmese Christian wedding; and as he was a youth of much promise and good education, he was a serious loss to the mission. All this time Mr. Judson was alone, until the arrival of Jonathan Price, who had wisely qualified himself to act as a physician, and no sooner did a report of his skill reach Ava, than the King sent for him; and as he had no time to learn the language, Judson went with him as interpreter. Dr. Price says, "The King is a man of small stature, very straight, steps with a natural air of superiority, but has not the least appearance of it in conversation. He wears a red, finely-striped silk cloth from his waist to his knees, and a blue-and-white handkerchief on his head. He has apparently the good of his people as well as the glory of his kingdom at heart, and is encouraging foreign merchants, and especially artisans to settle in his capital. A watchmaker at this moment could obtain any favour he should please to ask." As soon as the missionaries arrived, he sent for them and received them in an open court, where they were seated on a bamboo floor about ten feet from his chair. He took no notice of Judson, except as an interpreter, but interrogated Price as to his skill in surgery, sent for his medicines, looked at them and at his instrument, and was greatly amused with his galvanic battery; he then dismissed them with orders to choose a spot on which a house should be built for them, and to look up the diseased to try Price's skill upon. Moung Zah, the former minister, recognized Judson kindly, and after a time the King took notice of him: "You in black, what are you, a medical man too?" "Not a medical man, but a teacher of religion, your Majesty." After a few questions about his religion the King proceeded to ask whether any Burmese had embraced it. "Not here," diplomatically said Judson. "Are there any in Rangoon?" "There are a few." "Are they foreigners?" Mr. Judson says he trembled for the consequences of an answer, but the truth must be spoken at all risks, and he replied, "Some foreigners and some Burmese." The King showed no displeasure, but asked questions on religion, geography, and astronomy, as though his temper was quite changed. His brother, a fine young man of twenty-eight, who suffered from paralysis, became a patient of Dr. Price, and had much conversation with Judson, showing great eagerness for instruction. He assured the missionaries that under the present reign there was no danger to the native Christians, and after a successful operation for cataract, performed by Dr. Price, the missionaries were so much in favour that while Price remained at Ava and there married a native lady, Judson was desired only to go back to Rangoon to meet his wife on her return, and bring her to reside at Ava. Their good and tolerant friend, the Viceroy, was dead, and his successor was a severe and unjust man, so that the people had fled in numbers from the place, and few Christians remained except at Moung Shwaygnong's village. There was thus the less to leave, when in December 1823 Mrs. Judson safely arrived, and two fresh missionaries with her, to whom the flock at Rangoon could be left. There is a most happy letter written on the voyage up the Irrawaddy to Ava, when it seemed as though all the troubles and difficulties of four years had been smoothed away. The mission had been kindly welcomed at Ava, and established in the promised house, when the first of the English wars with Burmah broke out, on grounds on which it is needless to enter. It is enough to say that after many mutual offences, Sir Archibald Campbell, with a fleet and army, entered Rangoon, and occupied it without resistance, the Viceroy being absent at the time. The Court of Ava were exceedingly amazed at the insolence of the foreigners. An army supposed to be irresistible was sent off, dancing and singing, in boats down the river, and all the fear was lest the alarm should drive away the white strangers with the "cock-feather chief" before there was time to catch any for slaves. A lady sent a commission for four to manage the affairs of her household, as she heard they were trustworthy; a courtier, for six to row his boat. The capture of Rangoon was supposed by national pride to be wholly owing to the treachery of spies, and three English merchants were fixed upon as those spies and put under arrest. The King was advised likewise to secure the persons of the missionaries, but he answered, "They are quiet men; let them alone." Unfortunately, however, a receipt for some money paid to Adoniram Judson was found among the papers of one of the merchants, and this to the Burmese mind was proof of his complicity in the plot. Suddenly, an official, accompanied by a dozen men, one of whom had his face marked with spots, to denote his being an executioner, made his appearance demanding Mr. Judson. "You are called by the King," said the official, and at the same moment the executioner produced a cord, threw Mr. Judson on the floor, and tied his arms behind his back. His wife vainly offered money to have his arms unbound, and he was led away, the faithful Ing following at a distance to see what was done with him, while Mrs. Judson retired to her room and poured out her soul "to Him who for our sakes was bound and led away to execution," and great was her comfort even in that moment. She was immediately after summoned to be examined by a magistrate in the verandah, and after hastily destroying all journals and papers, went out to meet him. He took down her name and age, those of four little Burmese girls she had charge of, and of two Bengal servants; pronounced them all slaves to the King, and set a guard over them. Mrs. Judson fastened herself and her children into the inner room, while the guards threatened her savagely if she would not show herself, and even put her servants' feet in the stocks till she had obtained their release by promises of money. Moung Ing had ascertained that his master was in prison; and when, after the most dreadful night she had ever spent, she sent him again in the morning, with a piece of silver to obtain admittance, he brought word that both Judson and Price, with the three English merchants, were in the death-prison, each wearing three pairs of iron fetters and fastened to a long pole. Mrs. Judson immediately sent to the governor of the city with an entreaty to be allowed to visit him with a present. This procured her a favourable reception, and he promised to make the condition of the prisoners more comfortable, but told her that she must consult his head writer as to the means. This man, a brutal-looking fellow, extorted from her a huge bribe, and then promised to release the two teachers from the pole, and to put them into another building where she might send them food daily, and pillows and mats to sleep on. She obtained an order for an interview with her husband, whose looks were so wretched and ghastly that she lost no time in fulfilling these exorbitant demands. Her hope was in a petition to the Queen, but being under arrest herself, she could not go to the Queen in person, and had to approach her through her sister-in-law--a proud, haughty dame, who received her in the most cold, discouraging manner, but who undertook to present the petition. She then went to the prison again, but the head writer would not allow her to enter; and on her return home she found that all the property in the mission-house was to undergo a scrutiny; but this was humanely done, and was only inventoried, not seized--_i.e._ the King did not seize it, but the officials helped themselves to whatever took their fancy. The next day the Queen's answer was obtained--"He is not to be executed; let him remain where he is." The poor lady's heart fainted within her, but she thought of the widow and the unjust judge, and persevered day after day in applying to every member of the royal family or of Government to entreat for her husband's liberation. The King's mother, sisters, and brother were all interested in his favour, but none of them ventured to apply direct to the King lest they should offend the favourite Queen. All failed, but the hopes that from time to time were excited, kept up the spirits of the sufferers. During the long weary months while the missionaries continued in fetters, _i.e._ chained by the feet to a bar of bamboo, Mrs. Judson was often not allowed to visit them for ten days at a time, and then only by walking to the prison after dark, two miles, unattended. She could, however, communicate with her husband by means of the provisions she sent him daily. At first she used to write on the dough of a flat cake, which she afterwards baked and concealed in a bowl of rice, while he answered by writing on a tile, where the inscription disappeared when dry but was visible when wet; but latterly they found it most convenient to write on a roll of paper hidden in the long nose of a coffee-pot, in which tea was sent to the prisoners. Mrs. Judson delighted to send him little surprises, once a mince-pie, which Moung Ing carried with the utmost pride to his imprisoned master. Mrs. Judson found herself obliged to wear the native dress, though she was so much taller than the Burmese women that she could be hardly taken for one of them. It was a becoming dress; her hair was drawn into a knot on the forehead, with a cocoa-blossom, like a white plume, drooping from it; a saffron vest open in front to show a crimson tunic below; and a tight skirt of rich silk, sloping down behind, made her look to advantage, so that her husband liked to remember her as she stood at his prison door. She never was allowed to come further. For twenty days she was absent, and then she came with a tiny, pale, wailing, blue-eyed baby on her breast. Poor Judson, clanking up to the door in his chains to welcome his little daughter, commemorated his feelings in some touching verses ending:-- "And when in future years Thou know'st thy father's tongue, These lines will show thee how he felt, How o'er his babe he sung." Every defeat by the European forces added to the perils of captives. A favourite old general named Bundoolah had promised, when sent to command the army against Rangoon, that he would release all the white prisoners on his return as a conqueror; and when he was totally defeated, the wrath of the Burmese was so great that at this time the King himself seems to have scarcely acted at all. He was gentle, indolent and indifferent, more intelligent than those around him, scarcely a Buddhist in belief, and very kind-hearted: indeed Judson believed that it was his interposition alone that prevented the lives of the captives from being taken at once; but he was demoralized by self-indulgence, and allowed himself to be governed by his queen, the daughter of a superintendent of gaols; and through her, by her brother, who was cruel, rapacious and violent, and the chief author of all the sufferings inflicted on the prisoners. Among these were seven or eight British officers, and the King had commanded that a daily allowance of rice should be served to these, but scarcely half of it ever reached them; Mrs. Judson did her best to supply them as well as her husband, but their health gave way under their sufferings, and all died but one. At the end of seven months, it was reported that the English army was advancing into the interior; and in the passionate alarm thus excited, the English captives were all loaded with five pairs of fetters and thrown into the common prison among Burman thieves and robbers,--a hundred in a room without a window, and that in the hottest season of the year. Mrs. Judson again besought the governor to relieve them from this horrible condition, by at least allowing them to sit outside the door, and he actually shed tears at her distress, but he told her that he had been commanded to put them all to death privately, and that he was doing his best for them by massing them with the rest. The Queen's brother had really given this order, but the governor delayed the execution in case they should be required of him by the King, and they continued in this frightful state for a whole month, until Mr. Judson sickened with violent fever, and the governor permitted him to be removed into a little bamboo room, six feet long and four wide, where his wife was allowed to visit him and bring him food and medicine, she meantime living in a bamboo house in the governor's compound, where the thermometer rose daily to 106 degrees, but where she thought herself happy as she saw her husband begin to recover. One day, however, when the governor had sent for her and was kindly conversing with her, a servant came in and whispered to him that the white strangers had suddenly been taken away, no one knew whither. The governor pretended to be taken by surprise, but there could be no doubt that he had occupied Mrs. Judson to hinder her from witnessing the removal; and it was not till the evening that she learnt that the prisoners had been taken to Umerapoonah, whither she proceeded with her three months old baby and one servant. There she found that the prisoners had been sent on two hours before to a sort of penal settlement called Oung-pen-lay, whither she followed, to find her husband in a lamentable state. He had been dragged out of his little room, allowed no clothing but his shirt and trowsers, a rope had been tied round his waist, and he had been literally driven ten miles in the hottest part of the day. His feet were so lacerated that he was absolutely falling, when a servant of one of the merchants tore a piece from his turban, and this wrapped round his feet enabled him to proceed, but he could not stand for six weeks after; indeed the scars remained for life. In this state he lay chained to Dr. Price. The intention was to sacrifice them both, in order to obtain success for an intended expedition; but before this could be done, a different woongye, or prime minister, came in, and their condition was somewhat improved, for they only wore one bamboo, through two slits in which their feet were forced, and they were allowed to crawl into the enclosure. Meantime, a poor lion, once a great favourite, which was thought to be connected with the lions on the English colours, was placed in a bamboo cage in sight of the prisoners, and there starved to death, in hopes of thus abating the force of the enemy. When its carcase was removed, Mr. Judson, at his own earnest entreaty, was allowed the reversion of its cage, and there, to his great joy, Moung Ing brought him his MS. translation of part of the Burmese Bible, which he had kept in his pillow at Ava till it was torn away by the jailors on his removal. The faithful Ing, thinking only to secure a relic of his master, had picked up the pillow and secured the treasure. Solitude was the greatest boon to Judson, whose fastidious delicacy suffered greatly in the thronged prison, but his faithful Ann was suffering terribly. One of the little Burmese girls who lived with her had caught the small-pox, and was very ill: Mrs. Judson inoculated the other child and her own little Maria, but Maria's inoculation did not take effect, and she caught the disease, and had it very severely. Then Mrs. Judson herself fell ill of a fever, and remained for two months unable to visit her husband, both of them owing all their food to the exertions of their good Bengalee cook. Poor little Maria was nearly starved, no milk was to be had, and the only food she obtained was when the jailers were bribed to let her father carry her round the village to beg a little nourishment from the nursing mothers. Her moans at night rent the heart of her sick mother, and it is scarcely possible to imagine how either survived. By this time, the English troops were so far advancing that the King was reduced to negotiate, and, being in need of an interpreter, he sent an order for Mr. Judson's release; but as his wife was not named in it, she had great difficulty in effecting her departure, and half-way through the journey a guard came down and carried him off to Ava without her. Arriving next day, she found him in prison, but under orders to embark in a little boat and go at once to the camp at Maloun. She hastened to prepare all that was needful for his comfort, but all was stolen except a mattress, pillow, and one blanket. The boat had no awning, and was so crowded that there was no room to lie down for the three days and three nights of alternate scorching heat and heavy dew; there was no food but a bag of refuse-rice, and the banks on either side of the Irrawaddy were bordered with glittering white sand, which in sunlight emitted a metallic glare intolerable to the eyes, and heat like a burning furnace. The fever returned upon Judson, and, when he reached Maloun, he was almost helpless; but he found himself lodged in a small bamboo hut in the middle of the white sand, where he could not admit air by rolling up the matting without letting in the distressing glare, and where the heat reflected from the sand was like a furnace. He could not stir when the officers came to summon him to the presence of the Burmese general, and they thought it stubbornness, and threatened him; then they brought him papers and commanded him to translate them, while he writhed in torture and only longed that the fever in his brain would deprive him of his senses. This it must have done, for he had only a confused impression of feet around him, and of fancying that he was going to be burnt alive, until he found himself on a bed in a somewhat cooler room. As he lay there, papers were continually brought him to explain and translate, and he found that the greatest difficulty was in making the Burmese understand that a State paper could mean what it said, or that truth and honesty were possible. Sometimes, as he tried to explain the commonest principle: of good faith and fair dealing among Christian nations, his auditors would exclaim, "That is noble," "That is as it should be;" but then they would shake their heads and say, "The teacher dreams; he has a heavenly spirit, and so he thinks himself in the land of the dwellers in heaven." He remained here six weeks, suffering much at night from cold, for his only covering was a small rug and his well-worn blanket. Then, on the advance of the English, he was sent back to Ava, but was marched straight to the court-house without being suffered to halt for a moment at his own abode, to discover whether his wife was there. He was placed in a shed, guarded all day, and left without food, till Moung Ing found him out in the evening, and replied to his questions, that the Mamma Judson and the child were well; yet there was something about his manner that was unsatisfactory, and Judson, thinking it over, became terribly uneasy, and in the morning, being sent for by the governor of the jail, obtained permission to go to his own house. At the door he saw a fat, half-naked Burmese woman with a child in her arms, so dark with dirt that it never occurred to him that it could be his own; and entering, he found, lying across the foot of the bed, his wife, ghastly white and emaciated, her hair all cut away, and her whole appearance that of a corpse. She woke as he knelt down by her in despair! She had been ill all this time with a horrible spotted fever. The day she had fallen ill, the Burmese woman had offered to take charge of little Maria, and the Bengalee cook had attended on her. Dr. Price was released from prison and had cut off her hair, bled, and blistered her, but she could hardly move when the tidings came of her husband being in the town, and she had sent Moung Ing to him. The husband and wife were at last together again, and Dr. Price was sent to conduct the treaty at the English camp. As soon as Sir Archibald Campbell heard of the sufferings of the Judsons, he demanded them as well as the English subjects; but the King was aware that they were not English, and would not let them go. This attempt at a treaty failed; but its failure, and the alarm consequent upon a report of the advance of the English, led to Mr. Judson's being sent off, almost by force, with two officials, to promise a ransom if Ava were spared. Sir Archibald Campbell undertook that the city should not be attacked, provided his terms were complied with before he reached it; and among these was the stipulation that not only English subjects, but all foreigners should have free choice whether to go or to stay. Some of the officials tried to persuade Mr. Judson to stay, declaring that he would become a great man, but he could not refuse the freedom offered him after such cruel sufferings, and he was wont to declare that the joy of finding himself floating down the Irrawaddy in a boat with his wife and baby, made up for their twenty-one months of peril and misery. They were received with courtesy, and indeed with gratitude, respect, and veneration at the English camp. The Englishmen who had been in captivity bore witness to the kindness with which Mrs. Judson had relieved their wants, as well as those of her husband: how she had brought them food, mended their clothes, obtained new ones, and, as they believed, by her arguments and appeals to the ignorant and barbarous Government, had not only saved their lives, but convinced the authorities of the necessity of accepting the British terms of peace. These terms included the cession of a large portion of the Burmese territory; and this it was that decided the missionaries to leave Ava; for the state of exasperation and intolerance into which this brought the Court, made it vain to think of continuing to give instruction where they would be regarded with enmity and suspicion. Meantime, the officers in the English camp, who had not seen a lady for nearly two years, could not make enough of the graceful, gentle woman, so pale and fragile, yet such a dauntless heroine, and always ready to exert herself beyond her strength for every sufferer who came in her way. There was a curious scene at a dinner given to the Burmese commissioners, in a magnificent tent, with all the military pomp the camp could furnish. When Sir Archibald appeared with Mrs. Judson on his arm, and seated her by his side, there was such a look of discomfiture on the faces of the guests, that he asked her if they were not old acquaintance who had treated her ill. "That fellow with the pointed beard," he said, "seems taken with an ague fit." Then Mrs. Judson told how, when her husband lay in a burning fever with the five pairs of fetters, she had walked several miles with a petition to this man, had been kept waiting till the noontide sun was at its height, and not only was she refused, but as she departed her silk umbrella was torn out of her hand by his greediness; and when she begged at least to let her have a paper one to go home with, the officer only laughed at her, and told her that she was too thin to be in danger of a sunstroke! The English gentlemen could not restrain their countenances at least from expressing their indignation; and the Burmese, who thought she was asking for their heads, or to have them laid out in the sun with weights upon their chests, were yellow with fright, and trembled visibly. Mrs. Judson kindly turned to them with a smile, assuring them that they had nothing to fear, and, on repeating her words to Sir Archibald Campbell, he confirmed them to the frightened barbarians. That visit to the English camp was one of the few spaces of comfort or repose in those busy lives. It concluded by the husband and wife being forwarded to their old home at Rangoon. It was in the height of the war, when anxieties for the fate of Mr. and Mrs. Judson were at the utmost, that, on the 4th of July, 1825, George Boardman and Sarah Hall were married, and sailed for Calcutta, thinking it possible that they might find their predecessors martyred, and that they were coming "to step where their comrades stood." At Calcutta they found Mr. and Mrs. Wade, who had with great difficulty escaped, and soon after they heard of the rescue of the Judsons, and welcomed Dr. Price. Rangoon, in the meantime, had been occupied by the English, and then besieged by the Peguans; the mission-house was ruined, and the people dispersed, and Moung Shwaygnong had died of cholera, faithful to the last. The city was to be restored to the Burmese, and the King, though willing to employ Judson politically, refused toleration to his subjects; so that, as the provinces on the Martaban river were to be ceded to the English, it seemed wise to take advantage of the reputation which the Judsons had established to found a mission-station under their protection in the new town of Amherst, which Sir Archibald Campbell proposed to build on the banks of the Martaban river. Hither was transported the old zayat of Rangoon; and Mount Ing, Moung Shwaba, and a few other of the flock accompanied their teachers, to form the nucleus of the mission. Sir Archibald Campbell had made a great point of Mr. Judson's accompanying the English embassy that was to conclude the treaty at Ava; and he, hoping to obtain something for the Christian cause, complied, leaving that most brave and patient woman, his wife, with her little delicate girl, in a temporary house in Amherst, which, as yet, consisted only of barracks, officers' houses, and fifty native huts by the riverside in the space of freshly-cleared jungle. There she set to work with energy that enfeebled health could not daunt, to prepare the way for the Wades and the Boardmans, to superintend a little school, of which Moung Ing was master, and to have a house built for her husband. She had just moved into it, when she was attacked with remittent fever, and, though attended by an English army surgeon and nursed by a soldier's wife, she sank under it, and died on the 24th of October, 1826. She was buried under a _hopia_, or, as her friends loved to call it, a hope tree; and the Wades, coming shortly after, took charge of poor little Maria, who lived to be embraced by her father, on his arrival after three months' absence; but she continued to pine away, and only survived her mother six months. Judson endured patiently, thought of his wife's sufferings as gems in her crown, wrote cheerful letters, and toiled indefatigably, without breaking down, but he was never the same man again. Amherst was probably unhealthy, for several of the Rangoon converts died there, among them one of the little Burmese girls who had been with Mrs. Judson throughout her troubles. Those who died almost always spoke with joy of their hope of seeing Mamma Judson in heaven. "But first," said one woman, "I shall fall down before the Saviour's feet, and thank Him for sending us our teachers." It was shortly before little Maria's death that Mr. and Mrs. Boardman arrived, bringing with them a daughter born at Calcutta. Moulmein, the town near at hand, was decided on as their station, and they removed to a mission-house on the border of the jungle, about a mile from the cantonments, with a beautiful range of hills behind them, and the river in front. Opposite lay the Burman province of Martaban, which had been desolated during the war, and was now the haunt of terrible Malay pirates, who came and robbed in the town, and then fled securely to the opposite bank, where they could not be pursued. The English officers had entreated the Boardmans to reside within the cantonments, but they wished to be among the people, so as to learn the language more readily and become acquainted with them. One night, Mrs. Boardman awoke and found the lamp gone out. She rose and re-lighted it. Every box and drawer lay overthrown and rifled, nothing left but what the thieves deemed not worth taking. She turned round to the mosquito curtain which concealed her husband; it was cut by two long gashes, the one close to his head, the other to his feet. There the robber-sentry must have kept watch, ready to destroy the sleepers if they had wakened for a moment! Nearly every valuable had been carried away, and not a trace of any was ever found. After this, Sir Archibald Campbell gave them a Sepoy guard; and, as population increased, the danger diminished. Indeed, Amherst proved an unsuccessful attempt, and was gradually abandoned in favour of Moulmein, which became the head-quarters both of Government and of the Mission. The Boardmans were specially devoted to that, because of the work which regarded the Karens. These were a wandering race who occupied a strip of jungle, a hilly country to the south of Burmah, living chiefly by hunting and fishing, making canoes, and clothed in cotton cloth. They had very scanty ideas either of religion or civilization, but were not idolaters, and had a good many of what Judson calls the gentler virtues of savages, though their habits were lazy and dirty. They had been a good deal misused by the Burmese, but occasionally wandered into the cities; and there Judson had asked questions about them which had roused the interest of his Burman converts. During the war, one of these Burmese found a poor Karen, named Ko-Thah-byoo, in bondage for debt, paid the amount, made him his own servant, and, on the removal to Moulmein, brought him thither. He proved susceptible of instruction, and full of energy and zeal; and not only embraced Christianity heartily himself, but introduced it to his tribe, and assisted the missionaries in acquiring the language. To be nearer to these people, the Boardmans removed to Tavoy, where they had a Burmese congregation; and Mr. Boardman made an expedition among the Karens, who were, for the most part, by no means unwilling to listen, and with little tradition to pre-occupy their minds, as well as intelligence enough to receive new ideas. At one place, the people were found devoted to an object that was thought to have magic power, and which they kept with great veneration, wrapt up in many coverings. It proved to be an English Common Prayer Book, printed at Oxford, which had been left behind by a Mahometan traveller. On the whole, this has been a flourishing mission; the Karens were delighted to have their language reduced to writing, and the influence of their teachers began to raise them in the scale; but all was done under the terrible drawback of climate. Mrs. Boardman never was well from the time she landed at Moulmein, and her beautiful flower-covered house at Tavoy was the constant haunt of sickness, under which her elder child, Sarah, died, after showing all that precocity that white children often do in these fatal regions. A little boy named George had by this time been born, and shared with his mother the dangers of the Tavoy rebellion, an insurrection stirred up by a prince of the Burmese royal blood, in hopes of wresting the province from the English. One night, a Burmese lad belonging to the school close to the Boardmans' house, was awakened by steps; and, peeping through the braided bamboo walls of his hut, saw parties of men talking in an undertone about lost buffaloes. Some went into the town, others gathered about the gate, and, when their numbers began to thicken, a cloud of smoke was seen in the morning dawn, and yells from a thousand voices proclaimed, "Tavoy has risen!" Boardman awoke and rushed out to the door, but a friendly voice told him that no harm was intended him. The revolt was against the English, and never was a movement more perilous. The commandant, Colonel Burney, was absent at Moulmein, the English officer next in command was ill of a fatal disease, the gunner was ill, and the whole defence of a long, straggling city was in the hands of a hundred Sepoys, commanded by a very young surgeon, assisted by Mrs. Burney, who had a babe of three weeks old. The chief of the fight was at the powder magazine, not very far from the Boardmans' abode. It was attacked by two hundred men with clubs, knives, spears, but happily with very few muskets, and defended by only six Sepoys, who showed great readiness and faithfulness. Just as their bullets seemed to be likely to endanger the frightened little family, a savage-looking troop of natives were seen consulting, with threatening gestures aimed at the mission-house, and Mr. Boardman, fully expecting to be massacred, made his wife and her baby hide in a little shed, crouching to escape the bullets; but this alarm passed off, and, at the end of an hour, the whole of the gates had been regained by the Sepoys, and the attack on the magazine repulsed. Mr. Boardman took this opportunity of carrying his family to the Government house, where they were warmly welcomed by Mrs. Burney; but it was impossible to continue the defence of so large an extent as the town occupied, and therefore the tiny garrison decided on retiring to a large wooden building on the wharf, whither the Sepoys conveyed three cannon and as much powder as they expected to want, throwing the rest down wells. This was not done without constant skirmishing, and was not completed till three o'clock, when the refugees were collected,--namely, a hundred Sepoys, with their wives and children, stripped of all their ornaments, which they had buried; some Hindoo and Burmese servants; a few Portuguese traders; a wily old Mussulman; Mrs. Boardman and Mrs. Burney, each with her baby; and seven Englishmen besides Mr. Boardman. Among them rode the ghastly figure of the sick officer, who had been taken from his bed, but who hoped to encourage his men by appearing on horseback; but his almost orange skin, wasted form, sunken eyes, and perfect helplessness, were to Mrs. Boardman even more terrible than the yells of the insurgents around and the shots of their scanty escort. Three hundred persons were crowded together in the wooden shed, roofed over, and supported on posts above the water, with no partitions. The situation was miserable enough, but they trusted that the enemy, being only armed with spears, could not reach them. By and by, however, the report of a cannon dismayed them. The jingals, or small field-pieces, were brought up, but not till evening; and the inexperienced rebels took such bad aim that all the balls passed over the wharf into the sea, and the dense darkness put a stop to the attempt; but all night the trembling inmates were awakened by savage yells; and a Sepoy, detecting a spark of light through the chinks of the floor, fired, and killed an enemy who had come beneath in a boat to set fire to the frail shelter! In the morning the firing from the walls was renewed, but at long intervals, for there was a great scarcity of powder, though the unhappy besieged apprehended every moment that the right direction would be hit upon, and then that the balls would be among them. They could send nowhere for help, though there was a Chinese junk within their reach, for it could not put to sea under the fire of the rebels; and two more days, and two still more terrible nights, passed in what must have been almost a black hole. The fifth night was the worst of all, for the town was set on fire around, and by the light of the flames the enemy made a furious attack; but just in time to prevent the fire from attaining the frail wooden structure, a providential storm quenched it, and the muskets of the Sepoys again repulsed the enemy. By this time the provisions were all but exhausted, and there were few among even the defenders who were not seriously ill from the alternate burning sun and drenching rain. Death seemed hovering over the devoted wharf from every quarter; when at last, soon after sunrise on the fifth day, the young doctor quietly beckoned the Colonel's wife to the door that opened upon the sea, and pointed to the horizon, where a little cloudy thread of smoke was rising. It was the steamer bringing Colonel Burney back, in perfect ignorance of the peril of Tavoy and of his wife! But he understood all at a glance. The women and children were instantly transferred to the steamer, and she was sent back to Moulmein, but Colonel Burney and the few men who came with him landed, and restored courage and spirit to the besieged. Not only was a breastwork thrown up to protect the wharf, but the Colonel led a trusty little band of Sepoys to the wall where the cannon stood, recaptured them, and had absolutely regained Tavoy before the tidings of the insurrection had reached Moulmein. Mrs. Burney's babe died soon after the steamer had brought the two mothers and their infants to their refuge; but little George Boardman did not suffer any ill effects from these dreadful days and nights, and was, in fact, the only child of his patents who outlived infancy. Another son, born a few months afterwards, soon ended a feeble existence, and Mrs. Boardman was ill for many months. Her husband, delicate from the first, never entirely recovered the sufferings at the wharf; yet in spite of an affection of the lungs, he would often walk twenty miles a day through the Karen villages, teaching and preaching, and at night have no food but rice, and sleep on a mat on the floor of an open zayat. The Moulmein station was a comparative rest, and the husband and wife removed thither to supply the place of Judson and of the Wades, who were making another attempt upon Burmah Proper; the Wades taking up their residence at Rangoon, and Judson going on to Prome, the ancient capital, where he preached in the zayats, distributed tracts, and argued with the teachers in his old fashion; but the Ava Government had become far more suspicious, and interfered as soon as he began to make anything like progress, requesting the English officer now in residence at the Court to remonstrate with him, and desire him not to proceed further than Rangoon. He was obliged to yield, and again to float down the river in his little boat, baffled, but patient and hopeful. A great change had come upon the bright, enthusiastic, lively young man who had set out, with his beautiful Ann, to explore the unknown Eastern world. Suffering of body had not altered him so much as bereavement, and bereavement without rest in which to face and recover the shock. A strong ascetic spirit was growing on him. Already on his first return to Moulmein, after joining in the embassy, he had thought it right to cut short the ordinary intercourse of society, to which his residence in the camp had given rise, and had announced his intention in a letter to Sir Archibald Campbell. He was much regretted, for he was a particularly agreeable man; and it is evident, both from all testimony and from the lively tone of his letters, that he was full of good-natured sympathy, and, however sad at heart, was a cheerful and even merry companion. But through these years, throughout constant care and unrelaxed activity of mind and body, his heart was aching for the wife he had no time to mourn; and the agony thus suppressed led to an utter loathing for all that he thought held him back from perfect likeness to the glorified Saint whom he loved. He took delight in the most spiritual mystical writings he could find,--a Kempis, Madame Guyon, Fenelon, and the like,--and endeavoured to fulfil the Gospel measure of holiness. He gave up his whole patrimony to the American Baptist Mission Board (now separate from England and Serampore), mortified to the very utmost his fastidious delicacy by ministering to the most loathsome diseases; and to crush his love of honour, he burnt a letter of thanks for his services from the Governor-General of India, and other documents of the same kind. He fasted severely, and having by nature a peculiar horror of the decay and mouldering of death, he deemed it pride and self-love, and dug a grave beside which he would sit meditating on the appearance of the body after death. He had a bamboo hermitage on the borders of the jungle, where he would live on rice for weeks together--only holding converse with those who came to him for religious instruction; and once, when worn out with his work of translation, he went far into the depths of the wildest jungle, near a deserted pagoda, and there sat down to read, pray, and meditate. The next day, on returning to the spot, he found a seat of bamboo, and the branches woven together for a shelter. Judson never learnt whose work this was, but it was done by a loving disciple, who had overcome the fear of tigers to provide by night for his comfort, though the place was thought so dangerous that his safety, during the forty days that he haunted it, was viewed by the natives as a miracle. He spent several months in retirement. It was indeed four years after his bereavement, but it is plain that he was taking the needful rest and calm that his whole nature required after the shock that he had undergone, but which he had in a manner deferred until the numbers of workers were so increased that his constant labour could be dispensed with. He came forth from his retirement renovated in spirit, for the second period of his toils. Meantime, the Boardmans had returned to Tavoy, where they were eagerly welcomed by their Karen flock, and found many candidates for baptism. Weak as he was, Mr. Boardman examined them. He was sometimes able to sit up in his chair and speak for himself, but oftener so weak that his wife sat on his couch and interpreted his feeble whispers; but he was so happy that tears of joy often filled his eyes. The actual baptism, performed by going down into the water like Philip with the Ethiopian, could hardly have been carried out by a man in his state; but Moung Ing, who had been admitted to the pastorate, touched at Moulmein, on a mission to Mergui, and undertook the baptisms. The Karens carried Mr. Boardman to the water in his cot, along a street filled with lamaseries, whence the yellow-clothed priests looked down in scorn, and the common people hooted and reviled: "See! see your teacher, a living man borne as if he were already dead!" with still worse unfeeling taunts. The Christians, about fifty in number, reached the spot, a beautiful lake, nearly a mile in circumference, and bordered by green grass overshadowed by trees. There they all knelt down and prayed, and then Moung Ing baptized the nineteen new disciples, while the pastor lay pale and happy, and his wife watched him with her heart full of the last baptism, when it had been he who poured the water and spoke the words. Mr. Boardman lived on into the year 1831, and welcomed a new arrival from America, Francis Mason and his wife, on the 23rd of January, and a week later set out to introduce the former to the Karens, a band of whom had come down to convey the party. Mr. Boardman was carried on his bed, his wife in a chair, and on the third day they reached a spot where the Karens, of their own accord, had erected a bamboo chapel beside a beautiful stream beneath a range of mountains. Nearly a hundred had assembled there, of whom half were candidates for baptism. They cooked, ate, and slept in the open air, but they had made a small shed for Mr. Mason, and another for the Boardmans, too small to stand upright in, and so ill-enclosed as to be exposed to sun by day and cold air by night. The sufferer rapidly became worse, but he had an ardent desire to see this last baptism, and all the thirty-four women, who were sufficiently prepared, were baptized in his sight, though he was so spent as scarcely to be able to breathe without the fan and smelling-bottle. In the evening he contrived to speak a few words of exhortation to the disciples, and to give them each a tract or a portion of Scripture. The next morning the party set out on their return, but in the afternoon were overtaken by a great storm of thunder and lightning, with rain that drenched his mattress and pillows; and when they reached a house, they found it belonged to heathens, who would scarcely let the strange teacher lie in the verandah. His cot was so wet that he was forced to lie on the bamboo floor, and the rain continued all night. A boat was expected at twelve the next day, and it was resolved to wait for this, while the Tavoyans looked grimly on, and refused even to sell a chicken to make broth for the sick man. By nine o'clock he was evidently dying, and the Karens rubbed his hands and feet as they grew cold. Almost immediately after being conveyed to the boat, the last struggles came on, and in a few minutes he had passed away. He was buried at Tavoy, beside his little Sarah; all the Europeans in the town attending, as well as a grateful multitude of Burmese and Karens. "The tree to which the frail creeper clung Still lifts its stately head, But he, on whom my spirit hung, Is sleeping with the dead," wrote Sarah Boardman; and her first thought was of course to go home with her child, but the Masons had not learnt the languages, and had no experience, and, without her, there would be no schools, no possibility of instruction for the converts of either people until they could speak freely, and she therefore resolved not to desert her work. She was keeping school, attending to all comers, and interpreting from sunrise till ten o'clock at night, besides having the care of her little boy, and her schools were so good that, when the British Government established some, orders were given for conducting them on the same system. She tried to learn Karen, but never had time, and it was the less needful that a little Burmese was known to some Karens, and thus she could always have an interpreter. She sometimes made mission tours to keep up the spirit of the Karens till Mr. Mason should be qualified to come among them. Her little George was carried by her attendants, and there is a note to Mrs. Mason, sent back from one of the stages of her journey, which shows what her travels must have been: "Perhaps you had better send the chair, as it is convenient to be carried over the streams when they are deep. You will laugh when I tell you that I have forded all the smaller ones." But there is scarcely any record of these journeys of hers, she was too modest and shy to dwell on what only related to herself; and though she several times, with the help of her Burmese interpreter, led the devotions of two or three hundred Karens, it was always with a sense of reluctance, and only under necessity. She had been a widow four years, when Adoniram Judson, who had returned from Rangoon, and was about to take charge of the station at Moulmein, made her his second wife, on the 10th of April, 1834. At the same time, an opportunity offered of sending little George back to America for education; but year after year filled the house at Moulmein with other little ones,--careful comforts, in that fatal climate, which had begun to tell on the health of both the parents. Pain and sorrow went for little with this devoted pair. To be as holy as the Apostles though without their power, was the endeavour which Judson set before himself, and the work of such a man was one of spirit that drew all to hear and follow him. The Burmese converts were numbered by hundreds, and one of the missionaries in the Karen country could write: "I no longer date from a heathen land. Heathenism has fled from these banks; I eat the rice and fruits cultivated by Christian hands, look on the fields of Christians, see no dwellings but those of Christian families. I am seated in the midst of a Christian village, surrounded by a people that live as Christians, converse as Christians, act as Christians, and, to my eyes, look like Christians." All this, like every other popular conversion, involved many individual disappointments from persons not keeping up to the Christian standard, and from coolness setting in when the excitement of the change was over; and great attention had to be paid to rules, discipline, &c., as well as to providing books and schools. Judson himself had to work hard at the completion and correction of the Burmese Bible, to which he devoted himself, the more entirely because an affection of the throat and cough came on, and for some time prevented him from preaching. In 1839, he tried to alleviate it by a voyage to Calcutta, where he was received by both Bishop Wilson and by the Marshman family at Serampore; but, as he observes, "the glory of Serampore had departed," and his stay there must have been full of sad associations. His work upon the Scriptures was finished in 1840, and he then began a complete Burmese dictionary, while his wife was translating the Pilgrim's Progress; but both were completely shattered in health, and their children, four in number, had all been brought low by the hooping cough, and then by other complaints. A voyage to Calcutta was imperatively enjoined on all; but it was stormy and full of suffering, and soon after they arrived at Serampore their youngest child, little Henry, died. A still further voyage was thought advisable, and the whole family went as far as the Isle of France, where they recovered some measure of health, and their toil at Moulmein was resumed. Four more years passed, three more children were born, and then the strength that had been for nineteen years so severely tried, gave way, and the doctors pronounced that Sarah Judson's life could only be saved by a voyage to America. The three elder children were to go with her, but the three little ones were to remain, since their father only intended to go as far as the Isle of France, and then return to his labour. The last words she ever wrote were pencilled on a slip of paper, intended to be given to him to comfort him at their farewell:-- "We part on this green islet, love: Thou for the Eastern main, I for the setting sun, love; Oh! when to meet again? My heart is sad for thee, love, For lone thy way will be; And oft thy tears will fall, love, For thy children and for me. The music of thy daughter's voice Thou'lt miss for many a year, And the merry shout of thine elder boys Thou'lt list in vain to hear. * * * * * Yet my spirit clings to thine, love, Thy soul remains with me, And oft we'll hold communion sweet O'er the dark and distant sea. And who can paint our mutual joy When, all our wanderings o'er, We both shall clasp our infants three At home on Burmah's shore? But higher shall our raptures glow On yon celestial plain, When the loved and parted here below Meet, ne'er to part again. Then gird thine armour on, love, Nor faint thou by the way Till Boodh shall fall, and Burmah's sons Shall own Messiah's sway." What a trumpet-note for a soldier to leave after nineteen years service "through peril, toil, and pain," undaunted to the last! For by the time the ship left the Isle of France, she was fading so rapidly that her husband could not quit her, and sailed on with her to St. Helena. She was fast dying, but so composed about her children, that some one observed that she seemed to have forgotten the three babes. "Can a mother forget?" was all her answer. She died on board the ship, at anchor in the bay of St. Helena, and was carried to the burial-ground, where all the colonial clergy in the island attended, and she was laid beside Mrs. Chater, the wife of that Serampore missionary whose expulsion had led to the first pioneering at Rangoon, and who had since worked in Ceylon. She was just forty-two, and died September 1st, 1845. Her husband found her beautiful farewell; and, as he copied it out, he wrote after the last verse, "Gird thine armour on," "And so, God willing, I will yet endeavour to do; and while her prostrate form finds repose on the rock of the ocean, and her sanctified spirit enjoys sweeter repose on the bosom of JESUS, let me continue to toil on all my appointed time, until my change too shall come." On the evening of the day of her burial, he sailed with the three children, and arrived at Boston on the 15th of October, 1845. He remained in his native country only nine months, and, if a universal welcome could have delighted him, he received it to the utmost. So little did he know of his own fame, that, returning after thirty years, he had been in pain to know where to procure a night's lodging at Boston, whereas he found half the city ready to compete for the honour of receiving him, and every one wanted to meet him. Places of worship where he was to preach were thronged, and every public meeting where he was expected to speak was fully attended; but all this fervour of welcome was a distress to him, his affection of the throat made oratory painful and often impossible, and the mere going silently to an evening assembly so excited his nerves that he could not sleep for the whole night after. Any sort of display was misery to him; he could not bear to sit still and hear the usual laudation of his achievements; and, when distinguished and excellent men were introduced to him, he received them with chilling shyness and coldness, too humble to believe that it was for his goodness and greatness that they sought to know him, but fancying it was out of mere curiosity. His whole desire was to get back to his work and escape from American notoriety, and, disregarding all representations that longer residence in the north might confirm his health, he intended to seize the first opportunity of returning to Moulmein. But a wife was almost a necessity both to himself and his mission, and even now, at his mature age and broken health, he was able to win a woman of qualities almost if not quite equal to those of the Ann and Sarah who had gone before her. Emily Chubbuck, born in 1817, was the daughter of parents of the Baptist persuasion, living in the State of New York. She was the fifth child of a large family in such poor circumstances that, when she was only eleven years old, she was sent to work at a woollen factory, where her recollections were only of "noise and filth, bleeding hands and aching feet, and a very sad heart;" but happily for her, the frost stopped the works during the winter months, and she was able to go to school; and, after two years, the family removed to a country farm. They were all very delicate, and her elder sisters were one after the other slowly dying of decline. This, with their "conversions" and baptisms, deepened Emily's longing to give the tokens required by her sect for Christian membership, but they came slowly and tardily with her, and she quaintly told how one day she was addressed by one of the congregation whose prayers had been asked for her, "What! this little girl not converted yet? How do you suppose we can waste any more time in praying for you?" Her intelligence was very great, and in 1832, when her mother wanted her to become a milliner, she entreated to be allowed to engage herself as a school teacher. "I stood as tall as I could," she says, when she went to offer herself, and she was accepted, although only fifteen. The system was that of "boarding round"--_i.e._ the young mistress had to live a week alternately at each house, and went from thence to her school, but she found this so uncomfortable that she ended by sleeping at home every night. She struggled on, teaching in various schools, doing needlework in after-hours, trying to improve herself, and always contending with great delicacy of health, which must have made it most trying to cope with what she calls in one of her letters "a little regiment of wild cats" for about seven years, when some of the friends she had made obtained of two sisters who kept a boarding school at Utica that she should be admitted there to pursue the higher branches of study for a year or two, and then to repay them by her services as a teacher. The two ladies, Miss Urania and Miss Cynthia Sheldon, and their widowed sister, Mrs. Anable, proved Emily's kindest friends, and made a thoroughly happy home for her. She was very frail and nervous, but of great power of influence, and even while still only a pupil had this gift. Here she spent the rest of her maiden days, and here she supplied the failure of her labours in needlework by contributions to magazines, generally under the _nom de plume_ of Fanny Forester. They were chiefly poems and short tales, and were popular enough to bring in a sum that was very important to the Chubbuck family. The day's employment was very full, and she stole the time required from her rest. Late one night, Miss Sheldon seeing a light in the room looked in, and found her trembling in nervous agitation, holding her head with her hands and her manuscript before her; and when gently rebuked, and entreated to lie down at once, she exclaimed with a burst of tears, "Oh! Miss Urania, I must write; I must help my poor parents." Her brave and dutiful endeavours prospered so much that she was actually able to buy a house for them. It was during her stay at Utica that she was baptized, and several of her writings were expressly for the Baptist Sunday School Union; and though others were of a more secular cast, all were such as could only be composed by a religious woman. A little book of hers fell into the hands of Dr. Judson, and struck him so much that he said, "I should be glad to know her. A lady who writes so well ought to write better." She was then at Philadelphia, and at the moment of his introduction to her was undergoing the process of vaccination. As soon as it was over he entered into conversation with her with some abruptness, demanding of her how she could employ her talents in writings so trifling and so little spiritual as those he had read. Emily met the rebuke without offence, but defended herself by describing the necessity of her case, with her indigent parents depending upon her; so that her work must almost of necessity be popular and profitable, though, as a duty, she avoided all that could be of doubtful tendency. The missionary was thoroughly softened, and not only acquitted her, but begged her to undertake the biography of his wife Sarah: and this threw them much together. He was fifty-seven, she twenty-eight, when he offered himself to her in the following letter, sent with a watch:-- "I hand you, dearest, a charmed watch. It always comes back to me, and brings its wearer with it. I gave it to Ann when a hemisphere divided us, and it brought her safely and surely to my arms. I gave it to Sarah during her husband's lifetime (not then aware of the secret), and the charm, though slow in its operation, was true at last." The charm worked. Emily Chubbuck was ready to follow Dr. Judson to the deadly climate of Burmah, to share his labours, and become a mother to the babies he had left there. They were married on the 2nd of June, 1846, and five weeks later sailed for Burmah, leaving the three children at school. Emily seems to have differed from Ann and Sarah, in that she had less actual missionary zeal than they. Sarah at least was a missionary in heart, and, as such, became a wife; but Emily was more the wife, working as her husband worked. She had much more literary power than either; her letters to her friends were full of vivid description, playful accounts of their adventures, and lively colouring even of misfortunes, pain, and sickness. She arrived at Moulmein in November. One little boy had died during Dr. Judson's absence, but the other two were tenderly cared for by the new Mrs. Judson, who threw herself into all the work and interests of the mission with great animation. It proved, however, that both the Burman and Karen missions were well supplied with teachers; and Dr. Judson thought he should be more useful at Rangoon, where there had, since one attempt on the part of the Wades, been no resident missionary. He heard accounts of the Court which made him hope to recover a footing at Ava, and decided on again living at Rangoon; but he soon heard that there was less hope than ever at Ava. The king whom he had known was dead, and had been succeeded by a devoted Buddhist, whose brother and heir, "having been prevented from being a lama," writes Dr. Judson, "poor man! does all that he can. He descends from his prince-regal seat, pounds and winnows the rice with his own hands, washes and boils it in his own cook-house, and then, on bended knees, presents it to the priests. This strong pulsation at the heart has thrown fresh blood through the once shrivelled system of the national superstition, and now every one vies with his neighbour in building pagodas and making offerings to the priests. What can one poor missionary effect, accompanied by his yet speechless wife, and followed by three men and one woman from Moulmein, and summoning to his aid the aged pastor of Rangoon and eight or ten surviving members of the church?" The Vice-governor, or Raywoon, was a violent and cruel savage, whose house and court-yard rang with shrieks from the tortured, and the old remnant of Christians were sadly scattered. When they were collected to worship on Sunday, they durst not either come in or go out in company, and used to arrive with their garments tucked up to look like Coolies, or carrying fruit or parcels, while the Karens crept down from the hills in small parties. The Governor was friendly, but a weak man, whose authority the Raywoon openly set at defiance; and all sorts of petty annoyances were set in action against the teachers, while the probability that the converts would suffer actual persecution daily increased. Dr. Judson used to call the present difficulties the Splugen Pass, and illness, of course, added to their troubles. The great Buddhist fast of the year had never before been imposed on strangers, but now the markets contained nothing but boiled rice, fruit, or decaying fish, and terrible illness was the consequence both with themselves and the children, until some boxes of biscuit arrived from Moulmein, and a Mahometan was bribed to supply fowls. But the finances of the Society at home were at a low ebb, and it was thought needful to diminish the number of stations. The intolerance of the Burmese Government led to the decision that there was less benefit in maintaining that at Rangoon than those in the British provinces; and, as Dr. Judson had no private means, he was obliged to obey and return to Moulmein. Here he had a curious correspondence with the Prince of Siam, whose letter began in his own English: "Venerable sir, having received very often your far-famed qualities, honesty, faithfulness, righteousness, gracefulness, and very kindness to poor nation, &c., from reading the book of your ancient wife's memoir and journal." . . . The object of this letter was to ask for some of his Burmese translations, and, in return for them, his Royal Highness sent "a few artificial flowers, two passion flowers, one mognayet or surnamed flower, and three roses manufactured by most celebrated princess the daughter of the late second king or sub-king." The Dictionary continued to be Judson's chief occupation, for his affection of the voice rendered him unable to take charge of a congregation. He continued to work at it till the November of 1849, when he caught a severe cold, which brought on an attack of fever, and from that time he never entirely rallied. One of the last pleasures of his life deserves to be mentioned. He had always had a strong feeling for the Jews, and had longed to work for their conversion, praying that he might at least do something towards it. After his last illness had begun, a letter was read to him by his wife, giving an account of a German Jew who had been led, by reading the history of his toils in Burmah in the Gospel cause, to study Christianity and believe. "Love," he said presently, his eyes full of tears, "this frightens me. I do not know what to make of it." "What?" "What you have just been reading. I never was deeply interested in any object; I never prayed sincerely and fervently for anything, but it came at some time--no matter how distant a day--somehow, in some shape, probably the last I should have devised, it came. And yet I have always had so little faith." After spending a month at Amherst in the vain hope of improvement, a sea- voyage was recommended; but his reluctance was great, for his wife was expecting a second child, and could not go with him. There are some lines of hers describing her night-watches, so exquisite and descriptive, that we must transcribe them:-- "Sleep, love, sleep! The dusty day is done. Lo! from afar the freshening breezes sweep Wide over groves of balm, Down from the towering palm, In at the open casement cooling run; And round thy lowly bed, Thy bed of pain, Bathing thy patient head, Like grateful showers of rain They come; While the white curtains, waving to and fro, Fan the sick air; And pityingly the shadows come and go, With gentle human care, Compassionate and dumb. The dusty day is done, The night begun; While prayerful watch I keep, Sleep, love, sleep! Is there no magic in the touch Of fingers thou dost love so much? Fain would they scatter poppies o'er thee now; Or, with its mute caress, The tremulous lip some soft nepenthe press Upon thy weary lid and aching brow; While prayerful watch I keep, Sleep, love, sleep! On the pagoda spire The bells are swinging, Their little golden circlet in a flutter With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter, Till all are ringing, As if a choir Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing; And with a lulling sound The music floats around, And drops like balm into the drowsy ear; Commingling with the hum Of the Sepoy's distant drum, And lazy beetle ever droning near. Sounds these of deepest silence born, Like night made visible by morn; So silent that I sometimes start To hear the throbbings of my heart, And watch, with shivering sense of pain, To see thy pale lids lift again. The lizard, with his mouse-like eyes, Peeps from the mortise in surprise At such strange quiet after day's hard din; Then boldly ventures out, And looks around, And with his hollow feet Treads his small evening beat, Darting upon his prey In such a tricksy, winsome sort of way, His delicate marauding seems no sin. And still the curtains swing, But noiselessly; The bells a melancholy murmur ring, As tears were in the sky: More heavily the shadows fall, Like the black foldings of a pall, Where juts the rough beam from the wall; The candles flare With fresher gusts of air; The beetle's drone Turns to a dirge-like, solitary moan; Night deepens, and I sit, in cheerless doubt, alone." In spite of all this tender care, Dr. Judson became so much worse that, as a last resource, a passage was taken for him and another missionary, named Ramney, on board a French vessel bound for the Isle of Bourbon. The outset of the voyage was very rough, and this produced such an increase of illness, that his life closed on the 12th of April, 1850, only a fortnight after parting from his wife, though it was not for four months that she could be informed of his loss. During this time she had given birth to a dead babe, and had suffered fearfully from sorrow and suspense. She had become valuable enough to the mission for there to be much anxiety to retain her, and at first she thought of remaining; but her health was too much broken, and in a few months she carried home her little girl and her two step-sons. She collected the family together, and spent her time in the care of them, and in contributing materials for the Life of her husband; but the hereditary disease of her family had already laid its grasp on her, and she died on the 1st of June, 1854, the last of a truly devoted group of workers, as remarkable for their cheerfulness as for their heroism. CHAPTER VII. THE BISHOPRIC OF CALCUTTA: THOMAS MIDDLETON, REGINALD HEBER, DANIEL WILSON. Perhaps dying in a cause is the surest way of leading to its success. Henry Martyn was sinking on his homeward journey, while in England the renewal of the Charter of the East India Company was leading to the renewal of those discussions on the promotion of religion in Hindostan which had been so entirely quashed twenty years before, in 1793. Claudius Buchanan had published his "Christian Researches," the Life of Schwartz had become known, the labours of Marshman and Carey were reported, and the Legislature at length attended to the representations, made through Archbishop Manners Sutton, by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and consented to sanction the establishment of a branch of the Church, with a Bishop to govern it at Calcutta, and an Archdeacon there and also at Madras and Bombay; the Bishop to have 5,000_l._ a year but no house, and each Archdeacon 2,000_l._ Such was all that the efforts of Wilberforce could wring from the East India Company for a diocese, in length twenty degrees, in breadth ten, and where the inconvenience of distances was infinitely increased by the difficulties and dangers of travelling. One excuse for the insufficiency of this provision had more weight with the supporters of the Church than we can understand. England had for more than a thousand years been accustomed to connect temporal grandeur with the Episcopacy; a Bishop not in the House of Lords seemed an anomaly, and it was imagined that to create chief pastors without a considerable endowment would serve to bring them into contempt; whereas to many minds, that very wealth and station was an absolute stumbling- block. However, a beginning was made, and a year after Henry Martyn's death, in 1814, the first of the Colonial Bishops of England was appointed, namely, Thomas Fanshaw Middleton, the son of a Derbyshire clergyman, who had been educated at Christ's Hospital, and Pembroke College, Cambridge, and had since been known as an excellent Greek scholar, and an active clergyman in the diocese of Lincoln. Thence he removed to the rectory of St. Pancras, London, where he strove hard to accomplish the building of a new church, but could not succeed, such was the dead indifference of the period. He was also Archdeacon of Huntingdon, and one of a firmly compacted body of friends who were doing much in a resolute though quiet way for the awakening of the nation from its apathy towards religion. Joshua Watson, a merchant, might be regarded as the lay-manager and leader, as having more leisure, and more habit of business than the clergy, with and for whom he worked. This is no place for detailing their home labours, but it may be well to mention that to their exertions we owe the National Society for the education of the poor, and likewise that edition of the Holy Scriptures, with notes, which is commonly known as Mant's Bible. They were the chief managers at that time of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and when, in 1813, a Danish missionary was sent out by that Society to take charge of the congregations left by Schwartz and his colleagues, it was Archdeacon Middleton who was selected to deliver a charge to him. It was a very powerful and impressive speech, and perhaps occasioned Dr. Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln, to recommend the speaker to the Earl of Buckinghamshire for the bishopric created the next year. The office would be, humanly speaking, most trying, laborious and perplexing, and neither Archdeacon Middleton's age (forty-five) nor his habits inclined to enthusiasm. He shrank from it at first, then "suspected," as he says, "that I had yielded to some unmanly considerations," and decided that it was his duty to accept the charge as a call from his Master. He was consecrated in the chapel at Lambeth, by Archbishop Manners Sutton, with the Bishops of London, Lincoln, and Salisbury assisting. The sermon was preached by Dr. Rennell, Dean of Winchester, but was withheld from publication for the strange reason that there was so strong an aversion to the establishment of episcopacy in India, that it was thought better not to attract attention to the fact that had just been accomplished. Bishop Middleton, his wife, and two of his Archdeacons (the third was already in India) sailed on the 8th of June, 1814, and they landed at Calcutta on the 28th of November. There was no public reception, for fear of alarming the natives, though, on the other hand, they were found to entertain a better opinion of the English on finding they respected their own religion. The difficulties of the Bishop's arrival were increased by the absence of Lord Moira, the Governor-General, who was engaged in the Nepaulese war; and as no house had been provided for the Bishop, he had to be the guest of Mr. Seton, a member of the Council, till a house could be procured, at a high rent. One of the first visitors was a Hindoo gentleman, who told him, "Sir William Jones was a great man and understood our books, but he attended only to our law. Your lordship will study our religion; your people mistake our religion; it is not in our books. The Brahminee religion and your lordship's are the same; we mean the same thing." The man seems to have been one of those of whom there are now only too many in India, who have thrown off their old superstitions only to believe in nothing, save the existence of a Supreme Being, and who fancy that all other religions can be simplified into the like. This is the class that has, for the seventy years during which Christianity has been preached in earnest, been the alternate hope and anxiety of the missionary; intellectually renouncing their own paganism, but withheld by the prejudices of their families from giving up the heathenish customs of caste; admiring divine morality, but not perceiving the inability of man to attain the standard; and refusing to accept the mysteries in the supernatural portion of Revelation. Such was probably Serfojee; such was the celebrated Brahmin Ram Mohun Roy, with whom Bishop Middleton had much discussion, and of whom he had at one time many hopes, a man of very remarkable powers of mind and clear practical intelligence. Roy's endeavour at first was to purify the native forms of religion, and, recurring to the Vedas, to find a high philosophy in them; but he and the friends he gathered round him soon became convinced that these contained no system of reasonable theology, still less of morality, and they then constructed for themselves a theory culled from Christianity, but rejecting whatever did not approve itself to their intellect, in especial the holy mysteries regarding the nature of the Godhead and the Incarnation of our Lord. This teaching, called Brahmoism, from Brahma, the purest and highest of Hindoo divinities, is, under another form, the Neo-Platonism of the Greeks, or the Soofeeism of the Persians. There was even the germ of it in the grotesque medicine-man encountered by David Brainerd. It is the form of opposition which the spirit of evil always stirs up, wherever the natural character is elevated enough to appreciate the beauty of Christian morality. It only prevails where there are refined and cultivated men, afraid of all belief in the supernatural, as a humbling of their intellect to superstition; and just at present a form of it is very prevalent in India, owing to the amount of education which the natives receive, which uproots the old belief, but does not always implant the new. Whether it will become a stepping-stone to Christianity, or whether it has substance to become a separate sect, remains to be proved. To return to Bishop Middleton. He knew when he left home that his work would be heavy, and that to set in order the things that were wanting must be his first undertaking; but no words could have conveyed the dead weight of care and toil that lay on him. The huge diocese was shamefully deficient in all that was needful for the keeping up of religious ordinances; the Company's chaplains, few in number, were stationed at immense distances apart, and for the most part had no attempt at a proper church for their congregations. Verandahs or dining-rooms were used on Sundays; and at Meerut, an edifice was actually built for the purpose of a riding-school in the week, and a place of worship on Sunday. Moreover, these chaplains were accustomed to look to the Governor-General as their only superior, and, living so far apart, each followed his own independent line of action, as if entirely unaccountable. Some, such as Mr. Corrie at Cawnpore, were admirable and earnest men; but Henry Martyn's successor at Dinapore had let the place sink into a lamentable state, and there were several chaplains who greatly resented the being brought under authority. The brunt of the battle fell of course upon the first Bishop, and being a man as sensitive as he was firm, it tried him severely. His entreaty was constantly for more men; and in order to obtain a ministry beyond that which the East India Company would provide for, he occupied himself in procuring the foundation of Bishop's College, close to Calcutta, a seminary where young men, both European and native, could receive a good theological and classical education, and be prepared for Holy Orders. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge granted 5,000_l._ for the purpose, and private subscriptions came in, until on the 15th of December, 1820, the Bishop was enabled to lay the foundation- stone of an institution that has, now for half a century, admirably answered its purpose. It has long been found that Christianity cannot take root without a native ministry, and Bishop Middleton was most anxious to ordain such catechists of Schwartz's training as were ready; but he found great technical difficulties in the way, since the ordination form in the Prayer Book left no opening for persons who, not being British subjects, could not be expected to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; and, moreover, it was not certain what language ought to be used with men not speaking English. The arrangement of these difficulties hindered him from ordaining Christian David, the godson and pupil of Schwartz, and a subject of Tanjore, on his visitation to the Presidency. This good man met him, together with the minister of Palamcotta, bringing a deputation about thirty in number. The minister was an exceedingly dark man, with a very interesting countenance. Addresses, interpreted by Christian, were made on either side, and the thirty sang a psalm of thanksgiving in Tamul. They were only a small deputation, for there were several Christian villages in Tinnevelly, with churches built of unburnt brick, and roofed with palmyra leaves, where the English Liturgy was used, having been translated into Tamul by David. At Tanjore, the Bishop was received in the most friendly manner by Serfojee, who came down from his throne to welcome him, and caused Mrs. Middleton to be conducted to visit the ladies of his zenana. He conducted the Bishop into his library, which contained books in various European languages; also on medicine and anatomy, this being his favourite study, to assist him in which he had an ivory skeleton. He returned the visit in great state, with six elephants, two of enormous size, going before him, and accompanied by his troops, with a wild, horrid dissonance of cannon and native music. Two thousand persons escorted the Rajah to the Bishop's tent, where he conversed very sensibly on various subjects, especially English history, or as he called it, "the Generations of English Kings." He was keeping up the good works he had established, under the encouragement of the British resident, Colonel Blackburne, and in this district the native Christians numbered about 500, who were under the direction of Schwartz's companion, Pohle. On the Malabar coast Bishop Middleton had much intercourse with the Christians of St. Thomas, visited their churches, and held much conversation with their Bishop, convincing himself that the distinctive tenets of Nestorianism had died out among them, and arranging for their receiving assistance in books and teachers. His visit to Ceylon followed, and was always regarded by him as a time of much gratification; the good Governor, Sir Robert Brownrigg, had done so much for the improvement of the people, and the missions were flourishing so well. Here Christian David became a catechist, and on the Bishop's second visitation, in 1821, he ordained as deacon a man named Armour, whose history one longs to know more fully. He had come out to Ceylon originally as a private soldier, and finding a number of natives, probably the remnant of the Dutch Mission, whose profession of Christianity was only nominal, he had taken upon himself "almost the work of an evangelist," never varying from the teaching and services of the English Church. He had taught himself to speak and preach fluently in Cingalese, and could use the Dutch and Portuguese languages freely. He had even some knowledge of Latin and Greek, and was so staunch Churchman that he had resisted all invitations from the Baptists to join them. He had gone through frightful difficulties and dangers in the swamp and the jungle, and travelled thousands of miles; and when he came to the Bishop it was with deep humility, and the hope that he had not been presumptuous in taking on himself the charge of souls without sanction. It was his great desire to obtain this commission, and the Bishop, finding how sound in faith, pious, and excellent he was, admitted him to deacon's orders before leaving Colombo. Ceylon was erected into an archdeaconry and attached to the Bishopric of Calcutta, and shortly after the same arrangement was made respecting Australia--an archdeaconry a great deal larger than the continent of Europe! Thence Bishop Middleton received and attended to the petition of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, a devoted worker in the vineyard, of whom our next chapter will speak. Distinct missionary labour was scarcely possible to a man overtasked like Bishop Middleton. The district that kept St. Paul in continual "journeyings often" would have been but a quarter of that which depended on him for "the care of all the churches," and the long journeys by sea and land were by far the least harassing part of his life; for he had to fight the battles, sometimes of his Church, sometimes of the whole Christian cause, with unfair and prejudiced officials, and a malignant newspaper press, by which the bitterest attacks were circulated against him and his doings. And, "besides those things that were without," there were the troubles of dealing with men used to do "that which was right in their own eyes," and determined to oppose or neglect one whose powers could only thoroughly be defined by actual practice. To go into these conflicts would be wearisome and vain. They have lost their interest now; but it must be remembered that it is by manfully and firmly enduring vexations such as these, that systems are established which form the framework and foundation of more visible labours, which gain more praise for those who are allowed to carry them out. The constant wearing effort, the daily vexation, the inability to gain support, the binding of his hands from free action by the machinery of State regulations only applicable to home ecclesiastics, the continual making beginnings that never were allowed to progress--or, as he himself called it, the continual rolling of the stone of Sisyphus--could not but exhaust his powers, above all in such a climate; and that same sickly summer of 1822 which proved fatal to Felix Carey was his last. In July, one of his clergy, on whom he had been obliged to pass censure, instituted proceedings against him in the Supreme Court--a most improper and disloyal act, which much grieved and agitated him. He had to spend eight hours in writing in preparation for this painful matter, and afterwards went out in the carriage with his wife, but too early in the evening, for the slanting rays of the sun, not yet down, fell full on him, and their force is always especially dreaded at that damp and sickly season. He immediately said that the sun had struck him, and returned home; a most distressing fever, chiefly on the nerves, and accompanied by grievous restlessness and afterwards delirium, set in, and he died on the 8th of July, 1822, in his fifty-fourth year, absolutely worn out by toil and worry. But his career had established both the needfulness and the position of a Bishop, and his successor was appointed without the same opposition, still to a path perhaps only less thorny because briefer. Of a Yorkshire family, where the eldest son was always bred up as the country gentleman, the younger ones usually prepared to hold the family livings, Reginald Heber was born on the 21st of April, 1783, at Malpas, in Cheshire, a rectory held by his father, who was the clerical second son, but soon after became head of the house by the death of his squire- brother. He was twice married, and had a son by his first wife, so that Reginald was born, as it were, to the prospect of taking Holy Orders; and this fact seems to have in a certain degree coloured his whole boyhood, and acted as a consecration, not saddening, but brightening his life. A happy, eager, docile childhood seems to have been his; so obedient, that when an attack on the lungs necessitated the use of very painful remedies, the physician said that the chances of his recovery turned upon his being the most tractable of children; and with such a love and knowledge of the Bible that, when only five years old, his father could consult him like a little Concordance, and withal full of boyish mirth and daring. When sent to school at Neasdon, he was so excited by the story of an African traveller overawing a wild bull by the calm defiance of the eye, as to attempt the like process upon one that he found grazing in a field, but without the like success; for he provoked so furious a charge that he was forced to escape ignominiously over a high paling, whence he descended into a muddy pond. Neasdon was the place of education of his whole boyhood, among twelve other pupils. Mr. John Thornton, the schoolfellow friend and correspondent of his life, describes him as having been much beloved there. He had no scruple as to fighting rather than submitting to tyranny from a bigger boy, but his unfailing good nature and unselfishness generally prevented such collisions; he was full of fun, and excellent at games of all sorts; and though at one time evil talk was prevalent among the boys, his perfect purity of mind and power of creating innocent amusement destroyed the habit, without estranging the other lads from him. He took many of his stories from books not read by them, for he was an omnivorous reader, taking special delight in poetry, loving nothing better than a solitary walk with Spenser's "Faerie Queen" in his hand, and often himself composing verses above the average for so young a boy. He was always thoughtful, and there is a letter of his to his friend Thornton, written when only seventeen, which shows that he had begun to think over Church questions, was deeply sensible of the sacredness of the apostolical commission to the ministry, and of the evils of State interference. That same year, 1800, began his University education, at Brasenose College, Oxford. His course there was alike blameless in life and brilliant in scholarship; his talents and industry could not fail to secure him honours in the schools. Another young man was at the very same time at Oxford, whose course had been steered thither with more difficulties than Reginald Heber's. Daniel Wilson's father was a wealthy silk manufacturer, at Spitalfields, where he was born in the year 1778. He was educated at a private school at Hackney, kept by a clergyman named Eyre, who must have had a good deal of discernment of character, for he said, "There is no milk and water in that boy. He will be either something very bad or very good." One day, when he was in an obstinate and impracticable state of idleness, Mr. Eyre said, "Daniel, you are not worth flogging, or I would flog you," which so stung him that he never fell into similar disgrace again; nay, one morning when he had failed in his appointed task, he refused food saying, "No! If my head will not work, my body shall not eat." He had considerable powers, and when his own theme on a given subject was finished, would find "sense" for all the dull boys--varying the matter but keeping to the point in all: but his education ceased at fourteen, when he was bound apprentice to his uncle, who followed the same trade as his father, and lived in Cheapside. He was a widower with seven children, one of whom in after years became Daniel's wife. It was a strictly religious household, and whereas Daniel's parents had been wont to attend church or meeting as suited them best, his uncle was a regular churchman, and took his whole family constantly with him, as decidedly as he kept up discipline in his warehouse, where the young men had so little liberty, that for weeks together they never had occasion to put on their hats except on Sunday. Daniel was a thoughtless, irreverent lad, full of schoolboy restlessness when first he came; but though he was at first remarkable for his ill- behaviour in church, his attendance insensibly took effect upon him, as it brought his mind under the influence of the two chief powers for good then in London, John Newton and Richard Cecil. The vehement struggle for conversion and sense of individual salvation that their teaching deemed the beginning of grace took place, and he turned for aid to them and to his old schoolmaster, Mr. Eyre. It was from his hands in 1797, at the age of nineteen, that he received his first Communion, with so much emotion and such trembling, that he writes to his mother, "I have no doubt I appeared very foolish to those about me," but he adds in another letter to a friend that it had been the happiest day of his life. "And to you I confess it," he says, "(though it ought perhaps to be a cause for shame,) that I have felt great desire to go or do anything for the love of JESUS, and that I have even wished, if it were the Lord's will, to go as a missionary to foreign lands." It is very remarkable that this thought should have occurred at such a moment to one who only became a missionary thirty-five years later, at a summons from without, not from within. The distinct mission impulse passed away, but a strong desire remained to devote himself to the ministry of the Church. He tried to stifle it at first, lest it should be a form of conceit or pride; but it only grew upon him, and at last he spoke to Mr. Eyre, who promised to broach the subject to his parents. His father was strongly averse to it, as an overthrow to all his plans, and Mr. Eyre, after hearing both sides, said that he should give no opinion for a year; it would not hurt Daniel to remain another year in the warehouse, to fulfil the term of his apprenticeship, and it would then be proper time to decide whether to press his father to change his mind. It was a very sore trial to the young man, who had many reasons for deeming this sheer waste of time, though he owned he had not lost much of his school learning, having always loved it so much as to read as much Latin as he could in his leisure hours. He submitted at first, but was uneasy under his submission, and asked counsel from all the clergymen he revered, who seem all to have advised _him_ to be patient, but to have urged his father to yield, which he finally did before the year was out; so that Daniel Wilson was entered at St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, on the 1st of May, 1798. He struggled with the eagerness of one whose desire had grown by meeting with obstacles. In order to acquire a good Latin style, he translated all Cicero's letters into English, and then back into Latin; and when he went up for his degree, he took, besides his Latin and Greek books, the whole Hebrew Bible, but was only examined in the Psalms. He gained a triumphant first-class, and the next year, 1803, he carried off the English prose essay prize. The theme was "Common Sense." He had not in the least expected to gain the prize, and had not even mentioned the competition to his friends, so that their delight and surprise were equal. That same year, Reginald Heber was happy in the subject for Sir Roger Newdegate's prize for English verse, namely, "Palestine," which in this case had fallen to a poet too real to be crushed by the greatness of his subject. Reginald Heber was used to society of high talent and cultivation. His elder brother, Richard, was an elegant scholar and antiquary, and was intimate with Mr. Marriott, of Rokeby; with Mr. Surtees, the beauty of whose forged ballads almost makes us forgive him for having palmed them off as genuine; and with Walter Scott, then chiefly known as "the compiler of the 'Border Minstrelsy,'" but who a few years later immortalized his friendship for Richard Heber by the sixth of his introductions to "Marmion,"--the best known, as it contains the description of the Christmas of the olden time. It concludes with the wish-- "Adieu, dear Heber, life and health! And store of literary wealth." Just as Reginald was finishing his prize poem, Scott was on a tour through England, and breakfasted at Richard Heber's rooms at Oxford, when on the way to lionize Blenheim. The young brother's poem was brought forward and read aloud, and Scott's opinion was anxiously looked for. It was thoroughly favourable, "but," said Scott, "you have missed one striking circumstance in your account of the building of the Temple, that no tools were used in its erection." Before the party broke up the lines had been added: "No workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung; Majestic silence--" The prose essay on "Common Sense" was first recited from the rostrum in the Sheldonian theatre, and Wilson always remembered the hearty applause of the young man who sat waiting his turn. But the effect of the recitation of "Palestine" was entirely unrivalled on that as on any other occasion. Reginald Heber,--a graceful, fine-looking, rather pale young man of twenty,--with his younger brother Thomas beside him as prompter, stood in the rostrum, and commenced in a clear, beautiful, melancholy voice, with perfect declamation, which overcame all the stir and tumultuous restlessness of the audience by the power and sweetness of words and action: "Reft of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn, Mourn, widow'd queen; forgotten Zion, mourn. Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne, Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone; While suns unblest their angry lustre fling, And wayworn pilgrims seek the scanty spring?" On flowed the harmonious lines, looking back to the call of the Chosen, the victory of Joshua, the glory of Solomon, the hidden glory of the Greater than Solomon, the crime of crimes, the destruction, the renewal by the Empress Helena, the Crusades, and after a tribute (excusable at the time of excitement) to Sir Sidney Smith's defence of Acre, gradually rising to a magnificent description of the heavenly Jerusalem. "Ten thousand harps attune the mystic throng, Ten thousand thousand saints the strain prolong. 'Worthy the Lamb, omnipotent to save! Who died, Who lives triumphant o'er the grave." The enthusiasm, the hush, the feeling, the acclamations have ever since been remembered at Oxford as unequalled. Heber's parents were both present, and his mother, repairing at once in her joy to his rooms, found him kneeling by his bedside, laying the burthen of honour and success upon his God. His father, recently recovered from illness, was so overcome and shaken by the pressure of the throng and the thunder of applause as never entirely to recover the fatigue, and he died eight months later, early in 1804. The two youths who were in juxtaposition at the rostrum were not to meet again. Daniel Wilson was ordained to the curacy of Chobham, under Mr. Cecil, an excellent master for impressing hard study on his curates. He writes: "What should a young minister do? His office says, 'Go to your books, go to retirement, go to prayer.' 'No,' says the enthusiast, 'go to preach, go and be a witness.'" "'A witness of what?' "'He don't know!'" While Wilson worked under Cecil, Heber, who was still too young for the family living of Hodnet, in Shropshire, after taking his bachelor's degree, obtaining a fellowship at All Souls College, and gaining the prize for the prose essay, accompanied John Thornton on a tour through northern and eastern Europe, the only portions then accessible to the traveller; and, returning in 1806, was welcomed at home by his brother's tenants with a banquet, for which three sheep were slaughtered, and at which he appeared in the red coat of the volunteer regiment in which he had taken an eager share during former years. It was his last appearance in a military character, for in 1807 he was ordained, and entered on his duties as Rector of Hodnet. Two years later he married Amelia Shipley, the daughter of the Dean of St. Asaph. Floating thus easily into preferment, without a shoal or rock in his course, fairly wealthy, and belonging to a well-esteemed county family, connected through his brother with the very _elite_ of literary society, it seemed as though, in the laxity of the early part of the century, Reginald Heber could hardly have helped falling into the indolence of learned ease, the peril of the well-beneficed clergy of his day, especially among those who had not accepted the peculiarities of the awakening school of the period. But such was not the case. He was at once an earnest parish priest, working hard to win his people, not only to attend at church, but to become regular communicants, and to give up their prevalent evil courses. We find him in one letter mentioning the writing of an article on Pindar in the _Quarterly Review_, planning for a village-school on the Lancastrian principle, and endeavouring to improve the psalmody. "At least," he says, "I have a better reason to plead for silence than the Cambridge man who, on being asked in what pursuit he was then engaged, replied that he was diligently employed in suffering his hair to grow." These "endeavours to improve the psalmody" were a forestalling of the victory over the version of Tate and Brady. The Olney Hymns, produced by Cowper, under the guidance of John Newton, had been introduced by Heber on his first arrival in the parish, but he felt the lack of something more thoroughly in accordance with the course of the Christian year, less personal and meditative, and more congregational. Therefore he produced by degrees a series of hymns, which he described as designed to be sung between the Nicene Creed and the Sermon, and to be connected in some degree with the Collects and Gospels for the day. Thus he was the real originator in England of the great system of appropriate hymnology, which has become almost universal, and many of his own are among the most beautiful voices of praise our Church possesses. We would instance Nos. 135 and 263 in "Hymns Ancient and Modern,"--that for the 21st Sunday after Trinity, a magnificent Christian battle-song; and that for Innocents' Day, an imitation of the old Latin hymn "_Salvete flores Martyrum_." They were put together, with others by Dean Milman and a few more, into a little volume, which Heber requested Dr. Howley, then Bishop of London, to lay before the Archbishop, that it might be recommended for use in churches, but the timidity of the time prevented this from being carried into effect. A deep student of church history, his letters show him trying every practical question by the tests of ancient authority as well as instructive piety, and, on these principles, already deploring the undue elevation of the pulpit and debasement of the Altar to which exclusive preference of preaching had led. Missions had, since the days of Carey's first opening of the subject become so predominant a thought with the Nonconformist bodies, and were often conducted so irregularly, that there was certain dread and distrust of them among the sober-minded and orthodox; but Heber was one of the first English churchmen who perceived that to enlarge her borders and strengthen her stakes was the bounden duty of the living Church. He was a fervent admirer of Henry Martyn, whose biography was published soon after the news of his death reached England, and his feeling found vent in that hymn so familiar to us all--"From Greenland's icy mountains." He was meantime rising in influence and station,--Canon of St. Asaph, Preacher at Lincoln's Inn, Select Preacher before the University. He was beloved by all ranks: by the poor for his boundless charity and sympathy; and by his equals, not only for these qualities, but for his sunny temper, bright wit, and playfulness, which showed in his conversation, his letters, and in many a droll, elegant, and scholarly _jeu d'esprit_, thrown off by a mind that could do nothing without gracefulness. All this prosperity was alloyed only by such domestic sorrow as might be fitly termed gentle chastening. The death of his next brother, Thomas, who had acted as his curate, was a severe loss to him; and in the desire to make every affliction a stepping-stone in Christian progress, he began, from that date, a custom of composing a short collect-like prayer, veiled in Latin, on every marked occurrence in his life. The next occasion was, after several years of marriage, the birth of a little daughter, whom (in his own words) "he had the pleasure of seeing and caressing for six months," ere she faded away, and died just before the Christmas of 1817. He never could speak of her without tears, and (his wife tells us) ever after added to his private prayers a petition to be worthy to rejoin his "sinless child." His grief and his faith further found voice in the hymn, each verse of which begins with "Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee," and which finishes-- "Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee, Whose God was thy ransom, thy Guardian and Guide. He gave thee, He took thee, and He will restore thee, And death has no sting, for the Saviour has died." Such had been the training of Reginald Heber, through the pleasant paths of successful scholarship and literature, and of well-beneficed country pastorship; a life perilous to spirituality and earnestness, but which he kept full of the salt of piety, charity and unwearied activity as parish priest, and as one of the voices of the Church. Such had been his life up to 1822, when, on the tidings of the death of Dr. Middleton, Bishop of Calcutta, his friend Charles Williams Wynn, President of the Board of Commissioners for the affairs of India, offered him the appointment. To a man of his present position, talents, and prospects at home, the preferment was not advantageous: the income, with the heavy attendant expenses, would very little increase his means; the promotion threw him out of the chances of the like at home; and the labour and toil of the half-constituted and enormous diocese, the needful struggles with English irreligion and native heathenism, and the perils of climate, offered a trying exchange for all that had made life delightful at Hodnet Rectory. A second little daughter too, whom he could not of course look to educating in India, rendered the decision more trying. But in his own peculiarly calm and simple way, he wrote: "I really should not think myself justified in declining a situation of so great usefulness, and for which, without vanity, I think myself not ill adapted, either from a love for the society and friendship of England, or from a hope, which may never be realized, of being some time or other in a situation of more importance at home." At first, however, the fear for the child's health induced him to decline, but only if anyone else equally suitable could be found; and finally he accepted it, with apparent coolness, veiling the deep spirit of zeal and enthusiasm that glowed within. It was not the ardent vehemence that enables some to follow their inward call, overcoming all obstacles, but it was calm obedience to a call from without. "After all," he wrote, "I hope I am not enthusiastic in thinking that a clergyman is, like a soldier or a sailor, bound to go on any service, however remote or undesirable, where the course of his duty leads him, and my destiny (though there are some circumstances attending it which make my heart ache) has many, very many, advantages in an extended sphere of professional activity, in the indulgence of literary curiosity, and, what to me has many charms, the opportunity of seeing nature in some of its wildest and most majestic features." In the spring of 1823, he took leave of Hodnet, amid the tears of his parishioners; and on the 18th of May preached his last sermon in Lincoln's Inn chapel, on the Atonement. On coming out, one of the most leading men among the Wesleyan Methodists could only express his feelings by exclaiming, "Thank God for that man! Thank God for that man!" It is striking to find him in the full pressure of business, while preparing in London for his consecration and his voyage, making time for a letter to one of the Hodnet farmers, to warn him against habits of drunkenness, hoping that it would dwell with him "as a voice from the dead." On the 1st of June, 1823, Reginald Heber was consecrated at Lambeth, and on the 10th sailed for India! He made several sketches along the southern coast, under one of which he wrote:-- "And we must have danger, and fever, and pain, Ere we look on the white rocks of Albion again." A few days later, when passing the western coast of France on a Sunday, the sound of the bells suggested the following meditative verses:-- "Bounding along the obedient surges, Cheerly on her onward way, Her course the gallant vessel urges Across thy stormy gulf, Biscay. In the sun the bright waves glisten; Rising slow with solemn swell, Hark, hark, what sound unwonted? Listen-- Listen--'tis the Sabbath bell. It tells of ties which duties sever, Of hearts so fondly knit to thee, Kind hands, kind looks, which, wanderer, never Thy hand shall grasp, thine eye shall see. It tells of home and all its pleasures, Of scenes where memory loves to dwell, And bids thee count thy heart's best treasures Far, far away, that Sabbath bell. Listen again! Thy wounded spirit Shall soar from earth and seek above That kingdom which the blest inherit, The mansions of eternal love. Earth and her lowly cares forsaking, Bemoaned too keenly, loved too well, To faith and hope thy soul awaking, Thou hear'st with joy that Sabbath bell." By the 28th of September, the vessel was in sight of the Temple of Jaghernauth, and on the 3rd of October was anchored close to the island of Saugor. All through his voyage and residence in India, the Bishop kept a journal of the doings and scenes of each day, full of interesting sketches, both in pen and pencil. The beauty of the villages on the Hooghly, "the greenhouse-like smell and temperature of the atmosphere," and the gentle countenances and manners of the natives, struck him greatly, as he says, "with a very solemn and earnest wish that I might in some degree, however small, be enabled to conduce to the spiritual advantage of creatures so goodly, so gentle, and now so misled and blinded. '_Angili forent si essent Christiani_.'" On the 10th of October the Heber family entered their temporary abode in the Fort at Calcutta, and were received by two Sepoy sentries and a long train of servants in cotton dresses and turbans, one of them with a long silver stick, another with a mace. There, too, were assembled the neighbouring clergy--alas! far too few--and the next day the Bishop was installed in his cathedral. Then began a life of very severe labour, for not only had the arrears of episcopal business after the interregnum to be made up, but the deficiency of clergy rendered the Sunday duties very heavy; and the Bishop took as full a share of them as any working parish priest; and even though he authorized the Church Missionary Society's teachers to read prayers and to preach, the lack of sufficient ministrations was great. Bishop's College had, however, been completed, and what Middleton had founded was opened by Heber, with the happiest effect, which has lasted to the present time. The difficulties as to the form of ordination of such as were not British subjects had also been overcome, and Christian David was to be sent up from Ceylon in company with Mr. Armour, who was to receive Priest's orders. The latter excellent man died just before he was to set off, and this delayed David until the next spring, when he came to Calcutta, was lodged in Bishop's College, passed an excellent examination, and was ordained deacon on Holy Thursday, 1824, and priest on the ensuing Trinity Sunday. He is memorable as the first man of the dark-skinned races admitted by the Church of England to her ministry. An excellent and well- expressed letter from him, on the difficulties respecting the distinctions of caste, is given in Bishop Heber's Life. This, indeed, was one of the greatest troubles in dealing with converts. The Serampore missionaries had striven to destroy it, but Ziegenbalg, Schwartz, and their elder companions, regarded it as a distinction of society--not religious--and, though discouraging it, had not so opposed it as to insist on high and low castes mingling indiscriminately in church or at meals. The younger men who had since come out had been scandalized, and tried to make a change, which had led to much heartburning. Next to his hymns, Bishop Heber is best known by the journal he kept of his visitation tour, not intended for publication but containing so much of vivid description of scenery and manners, that it forms a valuable picture of the condition of Hindostan as it then was. His first stage, in barges along the Ganges, brought him to Dacca, where he was delayed by the illness and death of his much esteemed and beloved chaplain. He then went on to Bhaugulpore, where he was much interested in a wild tribe called the Puharries, who inhabit the Rajmahal hills, remnants of the aborigines of India. They carried bows and arrows, lived by the chase, and were viewed as great marauders; but they had a primitive faith, free from idolatry, hated falsehood, and, having no observance of caste and a great respect for Europeans, seemed promising objects for a mission; but unfortunately the climate of their mountains was so injurious to European life, that the clergyman, Mr. Thomas Christian, a scholar of Bishop's College, whom the Bishop appointed to this mission, was only able to spend three months in the hills in the course of the year, while for the other nine he took the children under his instruction back with him to Bhaugulpore. At Bankipore, the Bishop met Padre Giulio Cesare, still a remarkably handsome and intelligent-looking little man, and speaking warmly of Henry Martyn. Dinapore, that first station of Martyn's, had since his time fallen into a very unsatisfactory state, owing to the carelessness of his successor, though it was newly come into better hands. On the contrary, at Buxar, the Fort-adjutant, Captain Field, had so influenced all around, though without a chaplain, that, though the Bishop could not give the place a Sunday, his Saturday evening service in the verandah was thronged, the English soldiers coming with Prayer-books and making the responses, besides numerous Hindoos, many of them the Christian wives and children of the soldiers. There was a boys' school kept by a converted Mahometan, and one for girls by "Mrs. Simpson," a native of Agra, converted by Mr. Corrie, and the widow of a sergeant. She, however, got no scholars but the half-caste daughters of the soldiers. A little boy of four years old, son to an English sergeant with a native wife, was baptized, and the Bishop was delighted with the reverent devotion of the spectators. Cureem Musseh, once a Sepoy havildar, had his sword and sash hung over the desk, where, in a clean white cotton dress and turban, he presided over his scholars, whom he had taught to read Hindostanee, and to say the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments, with a short exposition of each. The school served them likewise to hold prayer-meetings in, and, on rare occasions, a clergyman visited them. The Bishop's entrance into the sacred city of Benares he describes to his wife thus: "I will endeavour to give you an account of the concert, vocal and instrumental, which saluted us as we entered the town:-- "_First beggar_.--Agha Sahib! Judge Sahib, Burra Sahib, give me some pice; I am a fakir; I am a priest; I am dying of hunger! "_Bearers trotting under the tonjon_.--Ugh! ugh!--Ugh! ugh! "_Musicians_.--Tingle, tangle; tingle, tangle; bray, bray, bray. "_Chuprassee_, _clearing the way with his sheathed sabre_.--Silence! Room for the Lord Judge, the Lord Priest. Get out of the way! Quick! (_Then gently patting and stroking the broad back of a Brahmin bull_.) Oh, good man, move. "_Bull_, _scarcely moving_.--Bu-u-uh. "_Second beggar_, _counting his beads_, _rolling his eyes_, _and moving his body backwards and forwards_.--Ram, ram; ram, ram!" Benares, said to be founded on the point of Siva's trident, as the most sacred city of all Hindostan, swarmed with beggars, fakirs, sacred animals, and idols of every description; but close beside it was a church for consecration and thirty candidates for confirmation, of whom fourteen were natives. The next day the Bishop was taken to see a school founded by a rich Bengalee baboo, whom Mr. Corrie had almost persuaded to be a Christian, but who had settled down into a sort of general admiration for the beauty of the Gospel, and a wish to improve his countrymen. He had made over the house where the school was kept to the Church Missionary Society, and the staff consisted of an English schoolmaster, a Persian moonshee, and two Hindostanee writing masters, the whole presided over by an English catechist, a candidate for Holy Orders. There were several class rooms, and a large, lofty hall, supported by pillars, where the Bishop examined the 140, who read Persian and English, answered questions in Hindostanee and English, and showed great proficiency in writing, arithmetic, and geography. No objection was made to their reading the New Testament. Afterwards, when the Bishop looked into a little pagoda, richly carved, and containing an image of Siva, crowned with scarlet flowers, with lamps burning before him, and a painted bull in front, a little boy, one of the brightest scholars in the school, came forward, and showing his Brahminical string, told, in tolerable English, the histories of the deities with which the walls were painted. "This," says the Bishop, "opened my eyes more fully to a danger which had before struck me as possible, that some of the boys brought up in our schools might grow up accomplished hypocrites, playing the part of Christian with us, and with their own people of zealous followers of Brahma, or else that they would settle down in a sort of compromise between the two creeds, allowing that Christianity was the best for us, but that idolatry was necessary and commendable in persons of their own nation." This in fact seems to have been ever since the state of a large proportion of the educated Hindoos. May it be only a transition state! The street preaching employed by the Serampore community had not been resorted to by the Church Missionary Society, and Bishop Heber decided that in the fanatic population, amid the crowds of bulls, beggars, and sacred apes, it was far wiser not to attempt it; but the missionaries were often sent for to private houses to converse with natives of rank, on their doctrine. One notable Hindoo, Amrut Row, who had at one time been Peishwa of the Mahrattas, who had retired to Benares, used on the feast of his patron god to give a portion of rice and a rupee to every Brahmin and blind or lame person who applied between sunrise and sunset. He had a large garden with four gates, three of which were set open for the three classes of applicants; the fourth served himself and his servants. As each person received his dole, he was shown into the garden, and detained there to prevent his applying twice, but there he enjoyed plenty of shade, water, company, and idols! This day's distribution often amounted to above 50,000 rupees, and his charities altogether were three times as great in the course of every year. He was a good kind man, religious to the best of his knowledge; and just before the Bishop's visit, he had sent a message to Mr. Morris, the clergyman at Sealcote, to call on him in the middle of the next week as he wished to inquire further into Christianity. Alas! before the appointed day Amrut Row was dead, and his ashes were still smoking when the Bishop quitted Benares. What had become of Henry Martyn's church does not appear, for at Cawnpore he found none, but service was alternately performed in a bungalow and in the riding-school. He went as far north as Oude, and found at Chinear a much larger native congregation than he expected, though the women still retained so much of Eastern customs that they would not even raise their veils when receiving the Holy Communion. Almost all were the converts of the excellent Mr. Corrie, Henry Martyn's friend. Arriving at Surat, after a journey of ten months, he there embarked for Bombay, where his wife and eldest child came from Calcutta, by sea, to meet him, and thence, after a stay in Ceylon for some weeks, returned to Calcutta, where, in December, he ordained Abdul Messeh, the man who had been won by Henry Martyn's garden preachings. It was a very remarkable ordination, for Father Abraham, the Armenian Suffragan from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, was present, in the black robes of his convent, and laid his hand on the heads of the candidates, and the service was in Hindostanee, whenever Abdul Messeh was individually concerned. Abdul Messeh was a most valuable worker among his countrymen, but he only survived about eighteen months. In his last letter to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Bishop records the reception into Bishop's College of Mesrop David, the kinsman of the Armenian Bishop and already a deacon; also of two native youths from Ceylon, one Tamul and one Cingalese. This college, though a work which had none of the romance of adventure about it, afforded the surest and most important means of thoroughly implanting the Gospel, and forming a native priesthood fit for the varying needs of the various people. Nor could such a task be committed to any but superior men. Only such as have abilities that would win them distinction in England, are fit to cope with the difficulties of dealing with intellects quite as argumentative as, and even more subtle than, those of the ordinary level of Englishmen. Soon after writing this letter, Bishop Heber set forth on what was to prove his last visitation. On the voyage to Madras, he spent much time upon some invalid soldiers who were being sent home, and confirmed one of them on board. Also he devoted himself to comforting a poor lady whose baby died on the voyage, not only when with her in her cabin, but Archdeacon Robinson, his chaplain, could hear him weeping and praying for her when alone in his own. At Madras, he was lodged in the house of Sir Thomas Munro, the governor, who had done much by the help of his excellent wife to promote all that was good. At Vepery, close at hand, the Bishop found, nearly finished, the first church built in the Gothic style in India. He was greatly delighted with it, and especially that the desk and pulpit had not been allowed to obstruct the view of the altar, which had more dignity than was usual in the churches of 1826. A monstrous pulpit in another little church at Poonamalee, a depot for recruits, and an asylum for pensioners and soldiers' children, he caused to be removed. He had a confirmation at this place, or rather two, for some unexpected candidates presented themselves, and he desired Archdeacon Robinson to examine them, so that they might be confirmed later in the day. Among them was an old pensioner, and a sickly-looking young woman with a little boy, whom the Archdeacon thought too young, and recommended her to keep back for another opportunity. She wept much, and the Bishop said, "Bring them both to me; who knows whether they may live to wish for it again?" The native Christians, poor people employed on the beach, remnants of the old Portuguese Missions, had built a church at their own expense, and, being unable to obtain regular ministrations from their own clergy, begged the Bishop to consecrate their building, and give them a clergyman, and this he hoped to do on his return. Meantime, he went in his robes to present Lady Munro with a vote of thanks from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, for the good works in the schools of her husband's government. "I have seldom witnessed a more interesting or affecting picture," writes Archdeacon Robinson: "the beauty and gracefulness of Lady Munro, the grave and commanding figure of the Governor, the youthful appearance and simple dignity of the dear Bishop, the beloved of all beholders, presented a scene such as few can ever hope to witness." "My lord," said Sir Thomas, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, "it will be vain for me after this to preach humility to Lady Munro; she will be proud of this day to the latest hour she lives." "God bless you, Sir Thomas!" was all the Bishop could utter. "And God bless _you_, my lord!" was the fervent answer. Before eighteen months had passed the two good men who exchanged this blessing, had met in Paradise! The Bishop went on from Madras, travelling by dak, and encamping during the heat of the day. He soon came into the field of labour of the Danish Missions, and was disappointed to find how poor and forlorn the Christian converts about Cuddalore were, and the great want of employment for them. Things were better in the Tanjore territory, where the Bishop was much interested by a visit from the native pastor of one of the villages, a fine, venerable old man. When about to take leave, he lingered, and the Bishop was told that the Tamul Christians never quitted a minister without receiving his blessing. He was greatly touched. "I will bless them all, the good people," he said, after blessing the pastor. Arriving at Tanjore, the Bishop thus describes Serfojee:--"I have been passing the last four days in the society of a Hindoo Prince, the Rajah of Tanjore, who quotes Fourcroy, Lavoilier, Linnaeus, and Buffon fluently; has formed a more accurate judgment of the poetical merits of Shakespeare than that so felicitously expressed by Lord Byron; and has actually emitted English poetry, very superior indeed to Rousseau's epitaph on Shenstone; at the same time that he is much respected by the English officers in his neighbourhood, as a real good judge of a horse, and a cool, bold, and deadly shot at a tiger. The truth is, that he is an extraordinary man, who, having in early youth received such an education as old Schwartz, the celebrated missionary, could give him, has ever since continued, in the midst of many disadvantages, to preserve his taste for, and extend his knowledge of, European literature: while he has never neglected the active exercises and frank, soldierly bearing which become the descendant of the old Mahratta conquerors; and by which only, in the present state of things, he has it in his power to gratify the prejudices of his people, and prolong his popularity among them. Had he lived in the days of Hyder, he would have been a formidable ally or enemy; for he is, by the testimony of all in his neighbourhood, frugal, bold, popular, and insinuating. At present, with less power than an English nobleman, he holds his head high, and appears contented; and the print of Buonaparte, which hangs in his library, is so neutralized by that of Lord Hastings in full costume, that it can do no harm to anybody. . . . To finish the portrait of Maha Raja Sarbojee, I should tell you that he is a strong-built and very handsome middle-aged man, with eyes and nose like a fine hawk, and very bushy grey mustachios, generally splendidly dressed, but with no effeminacy of ornament, and looking and talking more like a favourable specimen of a French general officer than any other object of comparison which occurs to me. His son, Raja Seroojee (so named after their great ancestor), is a pale, sickly-looking lad of seventeen, who also speaks English, but imperfectly, and on whose account his father lamented, with much apparent concern, the impossibility which he found of obtaining any tolerable instruction in Tanjore. I was moved at this, and offered to take him on my tour, and afterwards to Calcutta, where he might have apartments in my house, and be introduced into good English society; at the same time that I would superintend his studies, and procure for him the best masters which India affords. The father and son, in different ways,--the one catching at the idea with great eagerness, the other as if he were afraid to say all he wished,--seemed both well pleased with the proposal. Both, however, on consulting together, expressed a doubt of the mother's concurrence; and, accordingly, next day I had a very civil message, through the Resident, that the Rannee had already lost two sons; that this survivor was a sickly boy; that she was sure he would not come back alive, and it would kill her to part with him; but that all the family joined in gratitude, &c. So poor Seroojee must chew betel and sit in the zenana, and pursue the other amusements of the common race of Hindoo princes, till he is gathered to those heroic forms who, girded with long swords with hawks on their wrists, and garments like those of the king of spades (whose portrait-painter, as I guess, has been retained by this family), adorn the principal room in the palace." To the Bishop's great indignation, he found that whereas while the Rajah had retained his dominions, Christians had been eligible to all the different offices of State, there was now an order from the Company's Government against their admission to any employment. "Surely," he says, "we are, in matters of religion, the most lukewarm and cowardly people on the face of the earth. I mean to make this and some other things I have seen a matter of formal representation to all the three Governments of India, and to the Board of Control." It is highly probable that this systematic dread of encouraging God's service on the part of the Company assisted in keeping Serfojee a heathen, in spite of the many prayers offered up for him. Almost the last in Heber's book of private devotions was for the Rajah; and he drew up one, to be translated into Tamul, for use in all the churches in his territory; this last not directly for his conversion, but for his temporal and spiritual welfare. It is pleasant to know that the last Easter of Heber's life was made joyful by ministering to Schwartz's spiritual children. He preached in that church which Schwartz had raised, and where his monument stood. His text was, "I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore." Many English-speaking natives went there, and others besides; and at the Holy Eucharist that followed there were thirty English and fifty-seven native communicants. The delight and admiration of the Bishop were speedily apparent. In the evening he attended a Tamul service, where the prayers were said by a Hindoo, the sermon preached by a Dane, and the blessing delivered by the Bishop in Tamul, to the surprise and pleasure of the congregation, which numbered no less than 1,300, all reverent, all making the responses, joining in the Easter hymn, and in the 100th Psalm. Never had the Bishop been happier! As he was taking off his robes, he exclaimed, "Gladly would I exchange years of common life for _one_ such day as this!" Even at night he could not help coming back to Archdeacon Robinson's room to rejoice, discuss, and finally pray over this blessed fruit of the toils of a holy man, who had been at rest thirty-eight years, yet whose work still increased. The next day he confirmed a large number; and Kohloff, a contemporary missionary of Schwartz, preached in Tamul. After this happy Easter, the Bishop continued his route to Trichinopoly, where he preached and confirmed on the Sunday, but complained of a slight headache, and allowed himself to be persuaded not to go to the native service in the evening, though he spent a good deal of time conversing with Mr. Robinson, who was unwell enough to be lying in bed. On Monday, the 3rd of April, he went at daybreak to hold a Tamul confirmation at the poor little neglected native church; then looked at the schools, but found that the want of ventilation rendered them too oppressive for him to remain; and afterwards received and graciously answered an address from the poor Christians, praying him to send them a pastor, for they had been without one for two years. He came back, still in his robes, to Mr. Robinson's bedroom, and, with great eagerness, talked over what he had seen and heard; speaking of the destitution of this poor church, and of the needfulness that a Bishop should receive regular reports of every station; also mentioning a Danish missionary whom he intended to appoint. He then went to his own room, and, according to Indian habit after exertion, went out in order to bathe. The bath was in a separate building. It was fifteen feet long, eight broad, and with stone steps descending into it to a depth of seven feet, and it was perfectly full of water. The servant sitting outside wondered at the length of time and unbroken silence, and at last looked in; but Reginald Heber had, by that time, long been lifeless in the cold bath! He was only in his forty-fourth year; but medical opinion declared that there had been, unsuspected, the seeds of fatal disease, accelerated by climate, exertion, and excitement, and such as would probably have caused long helplessness and inaction, unless thus suddenly developed. He was buried the next day at Trichinopoly church, where the mural tablet, with most touching and appropriate simplicity, bears no inscription in laudation, but merely the holy words, "Be ye also ready." Thus ended a life of inward and outward brightness, which comes like a stream of sunshine among the shadows through which most of the labourers had to struggle, either for want of means of education, or from poverty or melancholy, and yet as true and as exhilarating a course as was ever one of theirs. May we not read his description in the verse:-- "And there are souls that seem to dwell Above this earth--so rich a spell Floats round their steps where'er they move, Of hopes fulfilled, and mutual love: Such, if on high their hopes are set, Nor in the stream the source forget; If, prompt to quit the bliss they know, Following the Lamb where'er He go, By purest pleasures unbeguiled To idolize or wife or child, Such wedded souls our God shall own For faultless virgins round His throne." Mrs. Heber published soon after her return her husband's journals, and these, bearing the impress of his graceful, scholarly hand, attracted many readers who care merely for information and amusement; and thus, by their mere mundane qualities, his writings did much to spread knowledge of, and therefore interest in, the field of labour in which he died. Large subscriptions came into the societies, and in a few years a church and three schools for the natives, with the pastor he had indicated, served as the best monument of that Low Sunday at Trichinopoly. His successor was John Thomas James: the most memorable event in whose life was a halt at the Cape of Good Hope. This was the first time that colony had ever been visited by a Bishop, and there was no church, though a piece of land had been newly granted for one, which he consecrated before proceeding on his voyage. He arrived in 1828, but the climate of Calcutta struck him for death almost immediately. He was only able to perform one ordination, one confirmation, and one charge to the Calcutta clergy, then was forced to embark, and died at sea within a few months of his arrival. During this time Daniel Wilson had been working under Mr. Cecil at Chobham, where he remained for three years, when a tutorship at St. Edmund's Hall was offered to him, which enabled him to marry his cousin Ann, combining the small living of Warton with his tutorship. On the death of the Rev. Richard Cecil he took, by his especial wish, his proprietary chapel in Bloomsbury, and there continued till 1824 as one of the most marked London clergy, keeping up the earnestness that Newton and Cecil had been noted for, with quite as much energy; and though without the same originality, there was a _telling_ force about his sermons which made a young man exclaim the first time he heard him, "I will never hear Daniel Wilson again," but something led him happily to infringe the resolution, and then it became, "I will always, if possible, hear Daniel Wilson." Sentences of his were very memorable; for instance, "Nineteen- twentieths of sanctification consist in holy tempers," and, besides exhibiting a pithy force of language, his sermons were prepared with infinite care and labour. When at St. John's, where he had no parochial charge, he selected his text on Monday and carried it about with him, so to speak, all the week, chewing the cud of it as it were, looking it up in every authority, ancient or modern, within his reach, and conversing on the subject with any one whom he thought likely to give him a hint. The sermons were written in a large legible shorthand, only on one side of the paper, and on the opposite page were copied out extracts of translations from illustrative authors, often as many as eight to a single sermon, so that he had in fact a huge secretion of stores, which he could adapt according to the needs of his congregation, and he made notes of what he found fall flat and incomprehensible, or what he felt was stirring the souls of his audience; and this time was most profitably spent, not only for his immediate congregation, but in laying up a provision for the busier days of after-life, when the same amount of study was out of his power. And the benefit of such painstaking may be estimated by the words of a gentleman when introduced to a relative of his in after-years, "I am only one of very many who do not know and never spoke to Mr. Wilson, but to whom he has been a father in CHRIST. He never will know, and he never ought to know, the good that he has been the means of doing, for no man could bear it." Proprietary chapels have now nearly become extinct. They were an effect of the neglect of the heathenish eighteenth century, and one of the means of providing church room by private speculation; and thus they almost necessarily were liable to the abuses of popularity-hunting and of lack of care for individuals, especially the poor: but a man in thorough earnestness is sure to draw good even out of a defective system; and Daniel Wilson, sitting in his study which was connected with the chapel, became the counsellor of hundreds who sought spiritual advice and assistance, chiefly of the upper and well-to-do classes, but he took care to avoid wasting time over these conferences, and when it came to mere talk would put people's hats and umbrellas into their hands. There were also large Sunday-schools connected with his chapel, and taught by the members of his congregation, and these led to the first organization of a district visitors' society, one of the earliest attempts of the slowly reviving English Church to show her laity how to minister to the poor under pastoral direction. His father-in-law, Mr. William Wilson, had purchased the advowson of the living of Islington, and, when it became vacant in 1824, presented it to him, when he carried thither all his vigour and thoroughness. Church building was his first necessity, and he absolutely prevailed on his parish to rate themselves for the purpose, so that three churches were begun almost at once, and by the time his Life was written in 1860 the great suburb had multiplied its single church in thirty-six years into fifteen. At Islington the chief sorrows of his life befel him. He had had six children, of whom one died an infant and two more in early childhood. The second son, John, after a boyhood of great promise, fell into temptation at the University and led a wild and degrading course; ending by his retirement to the Continent, where he died in 1833, after a very painful illness, in which he had evinced great agony of mind, which softened at length into repentance and hope. The eldest son, Daniel, who attended him on his death-bed, had taken holy orders and succeeded to his father's former living of Warton; and one daughter, Eliza, born in 1814, survived to cheer his home when his wife, after some years of invalidism, died in 1827. Zealous, resolute, and hardworking, he never allowed sorrow to interfere with his work, and was soon in the midst of his confirmation classes, and of a scheme for educating young tradespeople on a more thorough and religious system. In the meantime he had always loved and urged the missionary cause, and had consulted with Bishop Turner before he went out. When the news of his decease was received (the fourth Bishop to die at his post within nine years), the appointment began to be looked on as a sentence of death, and it was declined in succession by several eminent clergymen. Daniel Wilson had anxiously watched for the answer in each case, and was suggesting several persons to Mr. Charles Grant, when the thought struck him, "Here I am, send me." A widower of fifty-four years old, of much strength, and with no young children, seemed to him the fit person to volunteer to fill the breach; and he wrote stating, that if no one else could be found for the post, he was willing to offer himself. The appointment was accordingly given to him, after an interval of nine months since the see had become vacant, and an infinity of toil and arrangements crowded on him. Islington was resigned to his son Daniel, and he was consecrated by Archbishop Howley on the 29th of April, 1832, "the day of my espousals to CHRIST my Saviour," as he wrote in his journal; and on the ensuing 18th of June he sailed with his daughter for Calcutta. The ship touched at the Cape, which under the government of Sir Lowry Cole was by no means in the same hopeless state of neglect as when Martyn had visited it. Bishop Wilson there held an ordination and a confirmation, the first for himself as well as for South Africa, whose Episcopate was not founded till twenty-three years later. He landed at Calcutta on the 5th of November, 1832, and took possession of the large unfurnished house that had at last been wrung out of Government. He found only just enough chairs and tables, placed there by the Archdeacon, to suffice for immediate use; and was answered, when he asked why his orders that the place should be completely fitted up had not been attended to, "I thought this would be enough to last for six months,"--this being the term for which a Bishop of Calcutta was thought likely to need earthly furniture. But Bishop Wilson was resolved to take reasonable precaution, and not to be daunted, or to act as if he were afraid. He furnished the place, and rented a pleasant country-house, called the Hive, at Tittaghur, where he spent a few days of every week; and, having been told that much danger was incurred by the exertion of visitation tours before the constitution had become accustomed to the climate, he resolved to wait for two years before making any long journey; and, in the meantime, he was able to collect a great amount of information, as well as attending to the regulation of matters at head- quarters. He kept up more formality and state than Bishop Heber had done; and, of course, as the one had been censured for his simplicity, so the other was found fault with for pomp and stiffness. But these were minor points, chiefly belonging to the character of the two men, whose whole natures were in curious accordance with their prize performances at Oxford,--the one with all the warmth, fire, and animation of the poet of Palestine, sensitive to every impression, and making all serve to light his altar-flame; the other all common-sense, sincere, deep, and laborious, but with a narrower range of sympathies, and afraid of all that might distract attention from the one great subject. General literature had no charms for Wilson. He is believed never to have read one of Scott's poems or novels; and the playful mirth that enlivened all Heber's paths was not with him, though he had the equable cheerfulness of a faithful servant doing his Lord's work. His daughter, soon after his arrival, married her cousin, Josiah Bateman, his chaplain (and biographer), and thus continued to be the mistress of her father's house. On the Whitsunday of 1833 the Bishop baptized one of those Hindoo gentlemen who are among the most satisfactory of Christian converts; they are free from the suspicion of interested motives which has always attached to the pariahs and low-caste people who hung about Serampore and its dependent stations, and, justly or unjustly, were accused of turning Christians when they had exhausted other resources of idleness and knavery. A curious instance of a thorough conversion happened the same year. A lad, educated like most other well-to-do Hindoos in the schools of the Church Missionary at Mirzampore, when about fifteen, became persuaded of the saving grace of Christianity, and determined to be baptized and openly forsake his idols. His parents persecuted him, and he fled to a friend, a Hindoo convert; but he was seized by his relations, and the case was referred to the Supreme Court, who decided that the father's power over the son must not be interfered with; and the poor boy was dragged away, clinging to the barrister's table, amid the shouts of the heathen and the tears of the Christians. The boy remained staunch, and three years later came again and received baptism; but his sufferings had injured his health, both of mind and body, and his promise of superior intelligence was blighted. In 1834, the Bishop set off on his first long journey, which included Penang and Moulmein, where the Judsons had taken refuge after the Burmese war, and where he found, in the midst of half-cleared jungle and Buddhist temples full of enormous idols, a school kept by an American master, so full of notions of equality, that, at the examination, he expected the Bishop to go to each class, not the class to the Bishop. The Commissioner had built a church, the walls of teak slabs, and the pillars each a single teak-tree, and it was ready for consecration. After this and a confirmation, the Bishop went on his way to Ceylon, and then to the Madras Presidency, where he had already had a long correspondence with the pastors of the Christian congregations on the question of caste. Things had not prospered of late; and, to the dismay of the Bishop, he found that, in the course of the last year, 168 Christians had fallen back to heathenism, where, not having broken their caste, they could still be received and find a place. The truth was that, though caste might appear only a distinction of mere social rank, it was derived from a pagan superstition, and was a stronghold of heathenism. Schwartz was all his life trying to make it wear and die out, lest the violent renunciation should be too much for his converts' faith. But his successors had allowed the feeling to retrograde; and Bishop Wilson found separate services, sides of the church allotted to the high and low castes, and the most unchristian distinctions made between them. He decided that toleration of the prejudice was only doing harm, and issued orders that henceforth catechumens preparing for baptism, confirmation, or communion, should be called on to renounce caste as a condition of admittance; and that, though the adult communicants should be gently dealt with, there should be no recognition of the distinction in the places in church, in the order of administering the Holy Communion, in marriages or processions, and that differences of food or dress, or marks on the forehead, should be discontinued. The clergy were in consternation, and made an appeal before they published the Bishop's letter to their flocks; but they found his mind made up, and yielded. The lesser stations complied without much difficulty; but at Trichinopoly, Vepery, and Tanjore, there were many Soodras, the soldier-caste, professing to have come from Brahma's shoulders, and second only to the Brahmins. They were desperately offended. At Trichinopoly, only seven Soodra families continued to attend the services, although the seceders behaved quietly, and offered no insults either to the clergy or the pariahs. At Vepery, on the reading of the Bishop's letter, the whole Soodra population walked out _en masse_, except one catechist, who joined them afterwards. They then drew up a paper, declaring that they would not yield, and would neither come to church nor send their children to school, unless they continued to be distinguished; and they set up a service of their own in a chapel lent them by a missionary belonging to the London Society. He was, however, reprimanded for this by the committee which employed him at Madras, and the chapel was withdrawn; upon which the Soodras remained without any public worship whatever for five months, when the catechists and schoolmasters came forward and acknowledged their pride and contumacy, the children dropped into the schools, and the grown-up people, one by one, returned to church, but in their own way. At Tanjore, the contest was a much harder one. Serfojee had died in 1834, and the son whom Bishop Heber had vainly tried to obtain for education was one of the ordinary specimens of indolent, useless rajahs, enjoying ease and display under British protection; but the Mission had gone on thriving as to numbers, though scarcely as to earnestness or energy; and the Christians numbered 7,000, with 107 catechists and four native clergy, under the management of Mr. Kohloff, almost the last of Schwartz's fellow-workers. The Bishop's letter was read aloud by him, after the sermon, on the 10th of November, 1833. There was an immediate clamour of all the Soodras, who would not be hushed by being reminded that they were in church, and, while Mr. Kohloff was being assisted from the pulpit, gathered round his wife and insulted her. Letters passed between the Soodras and the missionaries. There was no denial that the Bishop's command was right in itself; but an immense variety of excuses were offered for not complying with it, and only one of the four priests consented,--Nyanapracasem, an old man of eighty, who may be remembered as one of Schwartz's earliest converts, and of the four priests ordained by the Lutherans,--with three catechists, and ten of the general body; all the others remained in a state of secession. When the first death took place among them, Nyanapracasem, the one conforming priest, was appointed to read the funeral service; but he fell sick, and the only substitute available on the spot was a low-caste catechist, a very respectable man, but whom the Soodras silenced with threats, employing one of their own people in his stead. Next time, they borrowed the Roman Catholic burial-ground, and services were carried on, on Sunday, by one of the dissentient priests, but marriages were celebrated in the heathen fashion, and there was evidently a strong disposition to form a schism, which the reckless, easy, self-willed conduct of the Soodras showed would be Christianity only in name. There had even been an appeal to the Governor-General, and the Bishop felt the whole tone of Christianity in India to be at stake. It was in the height of this crisis that his journey to Madras was made in the track of Bishop Heber. Twice he preached at Vepery, and the Soodras attended; but he asked no questions, and let them place themselves as they chose, and take precedence, intending to fight out the question at Tanjore. There, at seven o'clock in the morning of January 10, 1835, on the bank of the Cavery River, he was received by all the faithful Christians and school-children, headed by Kohloff and Nyanapracasem, These were the two remaining fellow-workers of Schwartz. Kohloff, now becoming aged, had his hair long and loose round his florid German face; he was still a true German, full of simple kindness, and his English had a good deal of accent. His Hindoo companion was a beautiful old man, with long snowy hair flowing over his long white robes, who took the Bishop's hand between both of his, and blessed God for his coming, hoping that as Elijah brought back the stiff-necked Israelites, so the Bishop might turn the hearts of the Soodras. Late that afternoon, a great party of these assembled to lay their complaints before the Bishop, bringing their two dissentient priests. One was of doubtful character, and was unnoticed; but to the other, John Pillay, the Bishop addressed himself, telling him to assure the other Christians that his heart was full of love, and that he would hear their grievances, and answer them another time, when less weary with his journey. Several spoke, and the Bishop listened to their individual cases. They were anxious to come and hear his sermon, but would only do so if allowed to sit apart; and to this, as one great object was to obtain their attention, the Bishop consented, with a reservation that it was only for that once. The church was thronged, and after a Tamul service, the Bishop preached, pausing after every sentence that a catechist might render his words into Tamul. The text was, "Walk in love, as Christ also loved us," and the latter part of his discourse was on the lesson from the Good Samaritan, as to "who is my neighbour." There was at the end a long pause of breathless silence, and then he called on everyone present to offer up the following prayer: "Lord, give me a broken heart to receive the love of Christ, and obey His commands." The whole congregation repeated the words aloud in Tamul, and then he gave the blessing and dismissed them. After this there were a great number of private conferences. People came and owned that they had been very unhappy; religion had died in their hearts, and they had had no peace; but their wives were the great objectors--they feared whether they should marry their daughters, &c. &c. The two priests especially saw the badness of their standing-ground, but they should lose respect, they said. No Pariah seems to have been in holy orders, but if a Pariah catechist visited a sick person, he was not allowed to come under the roof, and the patient was carried out into the verandah. And then came a rather stormy conference with about 150 Soodras, which occupied two days, since every sentence had to pass through an interpreter. The objections were various, but as a body the resistance continued, and it was only individuals that came over; some of these, however, did, and it was so clear from all that had passed that to permit the distinctions was but a truckling to heathenism, that the Bishop was more than ever resolved on firmness. Two of the priests had conformed, and the Christianity of those who would not do so was plainly not worth having. There was some polite intercourse with Serfojee's son, whose taste was visible in the alteration of a fine statue of his father by Flaxman, from which the white marble turban had been removed to substitute a coloured one, with black feathers and tassels. In him the family has become extinct, since he only left a daughter, and the adoption of a son, after the old Hindoo fashion, has not been permitted by Government. Thence, Bishop Wilson proceeded towards Trichinopoly. He encamped, by the way, at a place called Muttooputty, a large station on the Coleroon river, where the way had been so prepared for him that there was a grand throng of native Christians, untroubled about caste, and he was obliged literally to lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes of the large tent used as a chapel. It was one of the memorable days of joy that come now and then to support the laborious spirit of the faithful servant. "One such day as we have just passed is worth years of common service." At Trichinopoly, with the deepest sense of reverence, he visited the scene of Heber's death, ministered at the same altar, and preached from the same pulpit, after an interval of nine years. Here, his mode of dealing with the caste-question was thus: When he came robed into the church, he saw groups of natives standing about, instead of placing themselves like the others of the congregation. He went up to two, led them to seats, and his chaplain following, did the same; the rest were seated in like manner without resistance. When the Celebration took place, the Bishop had given directions as to the order of things. First, a Soodra catechist communicated, then two Pariah catechists, then an English gentleman, next a Pariah, then two Eurasians; and thus without distinction, 147 communicated. The barrier was broken down, and the nucleus of a church without caste was formed. This presidency of Madras was immediately after formed into a separate see, and given to Daniel Corrie, the friend of Martyn, while Dr. Thomas Carr became Bishop of Bombay. On Wilson's return to Tanjore he found an increasing though still small number had conformed, and before he left the place there were hopes of larger numbers. On his way back to Calcutta, he visited the horrible pagoda of Juggernaut (properly Jaghanatha, Lord of the World), which was still the centre of worship and pilgrimage; and though the self-immolation of the pilgrims beneath the car had been prohibited, yet the Company's Government still fancied themselves justified in receiving a toll from the visitors to this shrine of cruelty and all uncleanness, up to 1839, when the disgrace was done away by Lord Auckland. In the year 1836 another journey was made, first to Bombay and then further into the interior, to many places, never visited by a bishop before, and with no chaplain or anything to keep up the sense of religion. At Aurungabad, the utter ignorance of the English officers was appalling. The old Colonel-commandant had not heard a sermon for twenty years, and thought every sentence on the text, "Walk in love," was a personal attack on himself. He refused to attend another service, or to bid the Bishop farewell! And when the Holy Communion was celebrated, nobody knew what the offertory meant, and scarcely any one was prepared to respond. Yet in contrast to these English, a small band of Hindoos, four men, six women, and five children, presented themselves, asking permission to join in the service, and to have their children baptized. They had been once Roman Catholics, but an old Dutchwoman from Ceylon had taught them most of what they knew; and they had a Hindostanee prayer-book, whence they held a service every Sunday, but leaving out the Absolution and Benediction, which they rightly perceived to be priestly functions. Two of them were servants to an English officer, and they were all nearly related. They were perfectly respectable and trustworthy, and looked well dressed and intelligent. The Bishop tried to bring about an application from the Company to the Nizam, to defray the expenses of an occasional visit from a chaplain to the Christian officers and residents in his employ, but he was answered that "it would form a dangerous precedent." The next step was into the Bengal presidency, always with the same kind of adventures; quaint civilities of the presentation of flowery garlands bedecking the neck and arms, given by the native princes, with a sprinkling of rose-water, and sometimes an anointing with oil; and then an endeavour to stir into Christian life the neglected English military and civil officers stationed in their dominions. One of these, a gentleman of good birth and repute, actually went on smoking and gurgling his hookah when the Bishop was beginning family prayers, apparently with no more perception that it was anything that concerned him than if he had seen a Mahometan turning to Mecca, or a Parsee saluting the rising sun. Indeed many of these Company's servants had been sent out when fourteen or fifteen years old; and, if in a remote station, had been left without anything external whatever to remind them of Christianity. This journey extended to the Himalayas, where the Bishop had four months' repose at Simlah, then in its infancy as a resort for wearied East Indians; and on his descent from thence, his first halting-place was Kurnaul, where he found the church in a state of efficiency, owing, in great part, to an officer whose conversion to a religious life had been very remarkable. Once, when in a large party, where gambling was going on to a reckless extent, he saw one of the players take out a hideous little black figure, supposed to represent the devil, to which he addressed himself with a mixture of entreaties and threats, involving such blasphemy that this officer, utterly horrified, withdrew from the company, spent the night in tears and prayers, and from that time became a religious man. There was also an active chaplain, a large church, and a bungalow, built by the soldiers of an English regiment, the centre part arranged for service, and the surrounding verandah partitioned into little cells, where the soldiers could retire for private prayer or reading. It was called St. John's Chapel, and was in the hands of the chaplain. Here the Bishop remained for two Sundays, and ordained Anund Musseeh, who had been fifteen years a Christian, and had been known to Bishop Heber. The difficulty in his case was the rule not to ordain a person who had a heathen family, since he had not been able to convert his wife. His excellence outweighed the objection, and he was the first Brahmin who received holy orders from an English bishop; but in after- times the heathen influence at home told upon him; and this failure perhaps rendered Bishop Daniel Wilson somewhat over-cautious and backward in ordaining a native ministry. The next stage was Delhi, where a very interesting interview awaited him. An officer of Anglo-Indian birth, James Skinner by name, who had raised and commanded a capital body of light horse, had twenty years before entered Delhi with a conquering army, and, gazing on the countless domes and minarets, vowed that if ever he should be able, he would build an English church to raise its cross among them. He had persevered, though the cost far exceeded the estimate, and though the failure of houses of business had greatly lessened his means; and now he came, a tall, stout, dark man of fifty-six, in a uniform of blue, silver, and steel, a helmet on his head and a red ribbon on his breast, to beg for consecration for his church. His sons were Christians, but his wife was a Mahometan, though, he said with tears, that "for thirty years a better wife no man ever had." The church was of Greek architecture, shaped as a Greek cross, with porticoes with flights of steps at each extremity except the east, which formed the chancel, and at the intersection was a dome and cupola. It was paved with marble, and the whole effect was beautiful. After the consecration a confirmation followed, and the first to receive the apostolic rite were the noble old Colonel himself and his three sons. Twenty years later this fine building was filled with dying men, and shared in the horrors of the siege of Delhi; but it has now returned to its rightful use, and as a church of martyrs. Indeed, all the places that the Bishop visited in this excursion have since been associated with the Mutiny. Cawnpore was not much more satisfactory than when Heber had visited it; an irreligious commandant and a dissipated regiment had done much harm; and an imprudent letter of one of the chaplains had led to a quarrel, in which the clergyman unfortunately put himself in the wrong. Happily, a new commanding officer and better conducted regiment had replaced the first, and the ill- feeling was so entirely removed that the Bishop wrote, "Never did I enter a station with such despondency, nor leave one with so much joy." And thus he prepared Cawnpore for that which was in store for it! His visit to Allahabad was chiefly memorable for his horror at the large resort of pilgrims to bathe in the Ganges, and at the tax by which a Christian government profited by their pagan superstition, with all its grossness and cruelty. He brought home a little ticket, with the number 76902 stamped on it, such as was issued to the pilgrims, and made a strong appeal to the Governor-General, as well as to persons in England. The next year both this tax and that on the pilgrims to Jaghernauth were suppressed. Here he heard of the death of Bishop Corrie, after having held the see of Madras only a year and a quarter, but having spent many years in India, and worked there for a whole lifetime, in which he had seen the very dawn of missionary efforts, and had watched the English Church spread from a few scattered chaplains to three bishoprics. Lord Auckland and his sisters were more sincere friends of Christian efforts than any Governor-General had yet been, but these were trying times. Mr. Bateman, his daughter's husband, fell ill, and his wife was obliged to return to England with him; the Bishop's other chaplain died, and also some of his best friends. On going, a few years later, to consecrate a church at Singapore, he visited Moulmein, and was introduced to Dr. Judson, with whom he was very much struck. The great work connected with Daniel Wilson's name, as that of Bishop's College is with Middleton's, is the building of the Cathedral of Calcutta. "What do you say, my four children," he writes, "to your father's attempting to build a cathedral to the name of the Lord his God in this heathen land?" It had been the desire of Bishop Middleton, but there had been too much to do during his nine years, and it was only now that at last the times were ripe. Subscriptions were opened, and the Bishop devoted a large amount of his income to the fund; plans were drawn up, land granted freely, and on the 9th of October, 1839, the first stone of St. Paul's Cathedral was laid by the Bishop. Just at this time there was a most remarkable move made towards Christianity. Krishnaghur, 130 miles from Calcutta, was the great centre of the worship of Krishna, one of the manifestations of Vishnu. Here two missionaries of the Church Missionary Society had been at work; and when the Bishop was there in 1837, he described them as having made "a little beginning," by keeping schools and holding conferences with the people, but they had then no adult convert. A year after a message was brought by a native, entreating for further help. There were 1,200 seriously inquiring into the doctrine, with many candidates for baptism, and at many places around it was the same. In the year 1840, the Bishop set forth to visit the spot and the adjacent districts, where almost all the villages seemed to be actuated by the same impulse. The missionaries did their utmost to distinguish between mere fashion and hope of gain and a true faith; but after all their siftings, large numbers were ready for baptism, and the hope was so great that the Bishop was full of thankful ecstasy, and could hardly sleep from agitation, joy, and anxiety. One hundred and fifty converts were baptized at once, at a place called Anunda Bass. The examination was thus, the Bishop standing in the midst:-- "Are you sinners?" "Yes, we are." "How do you hope to obtain forgiveness?" "By the sacrifice of Christ." "What was that sacrifice?" "We were sinners, and Christ died in our stead." "How is your heart to be changed?" "By the Holy Ghost." "Will you renounce all idolatry, feasts, poojahs, and caste?" "Yes, we renounce them all." "Will you renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil?" "Yes." "Will you suffer for Christ's sake?" "Yes." "Will you forgive injuries?" "Yes." These converts had been under preparation for more than a year, and seemed thoroughly convinced and fairly instructed. Therefore the baptismal service was read by Mr. Deerr; and when the vows were reached, the Bishop turned to the Christians around and asked if they would be witnesses and godparents to these candidates; and, with one voice, they shouted that they would. Each candidate was singly baptized, and then came up to the Bishop, by whom the words receiving him into the Ark of Christ's Church were spoken. At Ranobunda there was another baptism of 250, and, in the whole district, full a thousand were admitted. It was not in over-confident joy. "Time will show," said the Bishop, "who are wheat and who are tares." It was impossible among so many that all should be perfect Christians, but it was a real foundation; the flame then lighted burns on steadily, and the Christian faith has a firm and strong hold in the district of Krishnaghur. Anxieties of course crossed his work. The Church Missionary Society, after being used to control its clergy, was not properly ready to allow their canonical obedience to a Bishop; and the troubles that thus arose made him once speak of Heber as happy in being shielded by his early death from the class of vexations connected with societies. To his great grief, too, a lady who had worked for years at the education of girls and orphans at Calcutta seceded to the Plymouth Brethren, and was necessarily obliged to give up the charge. It was to him "as if a standard-bearer fainteth." The Oxford controversy also vexed him a good deal. The school of Newton and Cecil, in which he had been brought up, was at the most distant point that the Church permitted from the doctrines of the Tracts for the Times; and few men are able or willing candidly to judge or appreciate opinions that have grown up since their own budget was completed, especially after they have been for some time in the exercise of authority. Thus he set his mind very strongly against all the clergy holding those views who came to work in the diocese; and thereby impeded a good deal that might have worked heartily with him if he had only been able to believe it, and to understand that the maintenance of the voice of the Church is truly the maintenance of the voice of Christ. In November 1844, when on a visitation at Umballah, he had his first serious illness, a fever, he being then in his sixty-sixth year and in the thirteenth of his residence in India. For about a week he was in great danger, but rallied, and was able to be removed by slow stages, though not without an attack of inflammation on the lungs before reaching Calcutta; and his constitution was altogether so much shaken that he was ordered home, without loss of time, to recruit his health. He returned to England by the Overland route, and after a short respite recovered much of his strength, so as to be able to preach in many churches and appear at numerous meetings; and in a year's time the vigorous old man was on his way back to his diocese, where he arrived in time to keep the Christmas of 1846, just two years after he had been stricken down by fever. In the October of the next year he consecrated his cathedral, towards which 20,000_l._ had been his own donation, half towards the building, half towards the endowment. His strength was not quite what it had been before, but he still had abundant energy, and new branches of the Church were springing up around him; not only the three dioceses that had branched from his own in India, but Ceylon had a Bishop of its own, Australia had five, and the Cape and New Zealand and the Isle of Hong Kong had each received a Bishop. The principle had come to be recognized that to send out isolated workers without a head to organize was a plan that could hardly be reasonably expected to succeed; and in the long run prosperity has certainly attended the contrary arrangement. Not to speak of the Divine authority, the action of a body under a recognized head and superior on the spot must be far readier of adaptation to circumstances than that of a number of equals, accountable only to some necessarily half-informed Society at home. In his 73rd year, just after a visitation tour, it somewhat dismayed Bishop Wilson to find a letter from the Bishop of London sending him to consecrate the new church erected by Sir James Brooke, at Sarawak. Few careers have been more remarkable than that of the truly great man who subdued Malay piracy, and gained the confidence of the natives of Borneo; and when the effort of the fourteen weeks' voyage had been made, the Bishop returned full of joy and hope, and not long after, together with the Bishops of Madras and Victoria, joined in consecrating the missionary Bishop of Labuan to the new field of work there opening. On the last journey of his life he also visited Rangoon, and there consecrated the church, finding the clergy hard at work and numerous converts. During the year 1856 he had many attacks of illness, more or less severe; and in December, in going across the room in haste, he struck himself against a wooden screen, and was thrown down. His thigh was broken, and his age was such that great fears for his life were entertained, but he recovered, and was able to pray with, cheer, and comfort the many anxious hearts at Calcutta during the dreadful days of the Indian mutiny of 1857, when the churches he had consecrated were stained with the blood of the worshippers. But there was no cause for despondency in the attitude of the converts. The districts where Christianity had been so widely diffused remained tranquil, and the Christians in the cities where the mutineers were raging did not apostatize; but, unless they could conceal themselves, suffered with the whites. There was a great day of fasting and humiliation appointed by him for the 24th of July, 1857. That day Bishop Wilson preached his last sermon. The text was from Habakkuk i. 12. "Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O Lord, Thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, Thou hast established them for correction." Calcutta was then trembling under the tidings of the horrors of Cawnpore, the death of Sir Henry Lawrence, and the siege of Lucknow; and no one knew what peril might be the next. Slaughter seemed at the very gates, when the old man stood forth to console and encourage, but yet to give warning strong and clear that these frightful catastrophes were in great measure the effect of our sins, our fostering of heathenism, our recognition of caste, and were especially a judgment on the viciousness and irreligion that had been the curse of English life in India. It was in open Christianity alone that he beheld hope. The day was observed by all the clergy, but the Governor-General for some reason declined to make it official, and, only when the worst of the danger was over, appointed the 4th of October as a fast-day. The Bishop arranged the services, but was too unwell to attend them. This was the beginning of his last illness; and though he held an ordination some weeks later, these latter weeks were all sinking, and increasing feebleness. A sea-voyage was twice attempted, but without success; and on the 1st of January, 1858, his trembling hand wrote, "All going on well, but I am dead almost.--D. C. Firm in hope." Daniel Calcutta, whom these initials indicated, wrote these words at half- past seven at night. By the same hour in the morning he had peacefully passed to his rest. One more Bishop of Calcutta we have since mourned; though the shortness of his career was owing to accident, not disease or climate. But with Daniel Wilson the see of Calcutta became established as a metropolitan bishopric, and ceased to possess that character of gradual extension which rendered its first holders necessarily missionaries. True, it needs many subdivisions. Four Bishops are a scanty allowance for our vast Indian Empire, and the see of Calcutta has a boundary scarce limited to the north; but these are better days than when it included the Cape, Australia, and New Zealand. The Bishop has now more to do with the development of old missions than with the working of new ones; and there can be no doubt that though there has been much of disappointment, and the progress is very slow, yet progress there is. The older converts form more and more of a nucleus, and although there is a large class who hang about missions from interested motives, there are also multitudes of quiet and contented villagers whose simplicity and remoteness shield them from the notice of the travellers who sneer at Christianity and call mission reports _couleur de rose_, because they have been taken in by some cunning scamp against whom any missionary would have warned them. The towns and the neighbourhood of troops are not favourable places for observing the effects of Christianity. The work of the schools in the great cities tells but very slowly. At present, out of a hundred boys who go thither and receive the facts of Christianity intellectually, only the minority are practically affected by it; and of these, some lose all faith in their own system, but retain it outwardly in deference to their families, while others try to take Christian morality without Christian doctrine; and only one or two perhaps may be sincere and open believers. But even if only one is gained, is not that an exceeding gain? It took three hundred years of apostolic teaching to make the Roman Empire Christian. Why should we "faint, and say 'tis vain," after one hundred in India? CHAPTER VIII. SAMUEL MARSDEN, THE AUSTRALIAN CHAPLAIN AND FRIEND OF THE MAORI. It has been mentioned that the island of Australia was considered as an archdeaconry of the see of Calcutta. This enormous island, first discovered in 1607 by Luis de Torres, and inhabited only by the very lowest race of savages, appeared to the Government of George III. a convenient spot for forming a penal settlement; and in 1787 the first convict ships carried out an instalment from the English jails to New South Wales, where the city of Sydney was founded by Governor Phillip. As usual in those days, the provision made for the moral or religious training of this felon population was lamentably and even absurdly deficient; for it seemed to be considered, that so long as the criminals were safe out of England, it did not greatly matter to her what became of them. But the power of grace is sure to work sooner or later wherever the Christian name has been carried, and a holy man rose up, not only to fight hard with the mass of corruption in Australia, but to carry on the light to the more distant shores of the Southern Ocean. This good man, Samuel Marsden, was the son of a small farmer at Farsley, near Calverley, in Yorkshire, and was educated at the free Grammar School at Hull by Dr. Joseph Milner, whose Church History used to be a standard book in the early part of this century. He began his career as a tradesman at Leeds, but his school influences had given him higher aspirations; and a body termed the Elland Society, whose object was to educate young men of small means and suitable character for the ministry, and whose chief supporters were Wilberforce, Simeon, and Thornton, selected him as one of their scholars, and placed him at St. John's College, Cambridge. He had not even taken his degree when, to his surprise, he was offered a chaplaincy in New South Wales! The post was no doubt a difficult one to fill,--for who would willingly undertake to be one of two clergymen sent to labour among an untamed multitude of criminals?--and Mr. Wilberforce was, no doubt, glad to suggest a young man so blameless and full of zeal, and of whom, from personal observation at Cambridge, Mr. Simeon had so high an opinion. Samuel Marsden wished to decline it at first; but finding that no one else would come forward to undertake the charge, he accepted it; and in the spring of 1793 he was ordained, and married, being then nearly twenty- nine years of age. His wife, Elizabeth Tristan, was thoroughly worthy of him, and ruled his house admirably, never calling him back from any duty, but so managing that his open-handed charity never brought him into difficulties. They were obliged to take their passage in a convict ship, which was to sail from Hull. Marsden was engaged to preach in a church near the harbour, and was just about to enter the pulpit when the signal- gun was fired to summon the passengers on board. He took off his gown, gave his arm to his bride at her pew door, and walked to the beach, the whole congregation streaming out after them down to the boat, where the young clergyman stood for a few moments ere pushing off, to give his parting benedictions. The ship went round to Portsmouth to receive her load of convicts; and while she was lying there, Marsden visited the Isle of Wight, and one Sunday preached in Brading Church. The effect of his sermon in touching the heart of one young woman was long remembered, in consequence of a memoir of her, entitled "The Dairyman's Daughter," which was drawn up after her death by the clergyman of her parish, the Rev. Legh Richmond. It was as trying a voyage as Henry Martyn's, except that even less was to be expected from his shipmates. The captain was unwilling to allow prayers to be read even on Sunday, saying he had never known a religious sailor; and though, after a time, Mr. Marsden prevailed, he never felt himself making much impression for good. One of his books on the voyage was the Life of David Brainerd, that torch of missionaries, and who proved the example which served to stir Mr. Marsden to look beyond his own immediate field of labour, severe though that was, and unflinching as was his toil. His arrival at Paramatta, his new home, was in the March of 1794, when the convict system had prevailed about seven years, and had been sufficient to form a population disgraceful to human nature. None of those endeavours to reclaim the prisoner which now prevail had then been attempted, and jails were schools and hotbeds of crime, whence the transported were sent forth to corrupt each other more and more on board ship; and then, though employed on Government works or assigned to free settlers as servants, so soon as they had worked out their time of servitude they were let loose to live after their own will. Such as had any capacity for steady industry soon made their fortunes on the parcels of land allotted to them by Government, to which they added by purchase; and these persons, by the influence of wealth and property, rose into colonial rank and authority, though without any such real training in the sense of uprightness or morality as could fit them for the posts they occupied. The least tainted by crime were the Irish, who had been deported by wholesale after the rebellion, some without even a form of trial, but these were idle and prone to violence; while of the regular convicts there was a large proportion addicted to every brutality that vice could conceive, and their numbers were continually being recruited by fresh shiploads after the assizes at home. The only attempt at securing order and tolerable safety was by visiting every offence, even the slightest, of which a convict was accused in a court of justice, with the most unrelenting severity; and this, of course, had the effect of further brutalizing these felon people, making them reckless of the deeds they committed, and often driving them to become bush-rangers--outlawed wild men of the woods--a terror to the colony. A powerful military force was kept up to repress these wretched beings by physical force, but of moral training there was only what was afforded by the openings for industry in a new country, and religious teaching was represented by--two chaplains, for convicts, soldiers, settlers, and all! No wonder that the senior soon broke down under the hopeless toil of such a position, and left the junior to struggle with it alone. And nobly he did struggle! Wilberforce had made a wise choice of a man in the prime of youth, whose bullet-headed portrait speaks of the most dogged determination, with nerves, health, and weight enough to contend for a whole lifetime with the horrible depravity around him--the only clergyman, and with three settlements far apart dependent on his ministry. And in the outset he was severely tried by domestic sorrows; for his eldest son, at two years old, was thrown out of his mother's arms by a jolt to the carriage over the rough road, and killed on the spot; and a younger child, who was shortly after left at home from dread of a similar accident, was allowed by its attendant to stray into the kitchen, where it fell backwards into a pan of boiling water and was fatally scalded. The father bore these calamities as one who had steadfast faith and resignation--"one who felt much and said little." The demands on his time, indeed, left him no leisure for giving way to grief. Spiritual matters were not all that came upon him. In the utter lack of conscientious men to perform the functions of the magistracy, he was at once appointed to the bench; nor, indeed, was there the same feeling in England then as now against the combination of the clergyman and justice of the peace. The most exemplary parish priests viewed it as a duty to administer justice in their villages; and the first, and till quite recently the sole manual of prayers to be used with prisoners, was the production of one of these clerical magistrates. A Yorkshire farmer's son could not be expected to know much about law, but good sense, uprightness, perception of justice, and intense determination, he had, as well as Christian humanity; and in these he was superior to any of his colleagues on the Paramatta bench, whom he was continually striving to raise to some comprehension of the commonest rules of justice, mercy, and decency; and in this, after a long course of years, he in some measure succeeded; but not till after his strong hand, impartial justice, and hatred of vice, had made him enemies among all parties; and it is only too probable that his secular authority, though always nobly wielded, impeded rather than otherwise his pastoral influence. His farming education served him well when he received a grant of land, and of thirteen convicts to bring it into order. It was part of his payment, almost indispensable for procuring to his family the necessaries of life, and it gave him, besides, the means of imparting instruction in honest labour. His property became the model farm of New South Wales, and the profits afforded him the means of establishing the schools, benevolent institutions, and missions, for which there were few, if any purses to draw upon. He won himself respect on all sides, especially from the Governor of the colony, Captain King, a hasty, violent, but good- hearted man, with whom more than once he had misunderstandings, but such as were made up again. On one of these occasions, the chaplain's advice was asked by the Governor, and promised on condition that he might speak as to a private individual. So, when they met, Mr. Marsden locked the door, and, in plain and forcible terms, gave _Captain_ King a thoroughgoing remonstrance on the faults of _Governor_ King, which was taken in perfect good part. Nevertheless, the whole construction of Society was so atrocious, that nothing could effect any improvement but interference from higher authority. The Court of Judicature in New South Wales was the most shamelessly corrupt and abandoned in existence, and a rebellious spirit broke out which imperilled the military authority of the Governor. Mr. Marsden saw no hope, except in laying a full statement in person before the home Government; and therefore, at the end of fourteen years, when Governor King was about to return home, he resolved to go himself, and make a strong personal representation to Government. The two families sailed in the same ship, the _Buffalo_, which proved to be leaky; and, when a heavy gale was expected, it was proposed that the passengers should quit her, and take refuge in a stronger vessel; but Mrs. King was too unwell to be moved, and Mrs. Marsden would not leave her, so that the proposal was abandoned, and most providentially, for the ship that had been thought secure was lost in the night and never seen more! The voyage was a slow one; and the first thing Mr. Marsden heard on arriving was, that the insurrection he had expected had actually broken out. This rendered Lord Castlereagh, then Colonial Secretary, the more anxious to obtain the advice of a sensible, clear-headed man like Samuel Marsden, and he was encouraged to explain his views. First, he was anxious for whatever would tend to reform the convicts; and having observed that the most respectable of these were such as had married, or whose wives had come out to them, he begged that, for the future, the families of the married men might be sent out with them. This was refused; but his representation that the convicts ought to be instructed in trades was attended to, when he showed that, by this means, the whole expense of their clothing might be saved. He had discerned the wonderful capacities of Australia for sheep farming, and having brought home some wool, and found it much approved by the manufacturers, he thereupon ventured to petition the King for a couple of merino {f:221} sheep from the royal farm at Windsor, to improve the breed. The request was after "Farmer George's" own heart; he gave five, and thus Mr. Marsden did the work of agricultural improvement of the Benedictines of old. He also obtained that three more clergymen and three schoolmasters should be sent out; and he strove hard for other institutions, chiefly for the reformation of the female convicts, which he could not at the time get carried out. He likewise conducted an immense correspondence on behalf of persons who had not found any other means of communicating with their homes; and, at the same time, he became personally acquainted with Wilberforce, and many others of the supporters of the cause of religion. Above all, it was in this visit to England that Mr. Marsden laid the foundations of the missions to New Zealand, and prepared to become the apostle of the Maori race. These great islands of New Zealand had been discovered and named by Tasman in 1642, and first visited by Captain Cook in 1769. He found them inhabited by a brave, high-spirited, and quick- witted set of natives, with as large a proportion of the fine qualities sometimes found in a wild race as ever savages possessed, but their tribes continually at war, and the custom of cannibalism prevailing: he had been on friendly terms with them, and presented them with pigs, fowls, and potatoes--no small boon in a land where there was no quadruped bigger than a rat, and very few esculent vegetables. From this time, whalers occasionally stopped to take in water, &c., and kept up a sort of intercourse with the Maori, sometimes amiable, and resulting in the natives taking voyages on board the vessels, but sometimes quarrelsome, and characterized by mutual outrages, when, if a white man were made prisoner, he was sure to be killed and eaten, to serve as a sort of triumphal and sacrificial banquet. Nevertheless, it was plain that these Maories were of a much higher type of humanity than the Australian natives, whom Mr. Marsden had found so far entirely unteachable and untameable, but for whom he was trying to establish some plan of training and protection. Such a spirit of curiosity and enterprise possessed some of the New Zealand chieftains, that they would come on visits to Australia, and on these occasions Mr. Marsden always gave them a welcome at his parsonage at Paramatta. At one time there were thirty staying there, over whom he had great influence. Once, when he was absent from home, the nephew of one of the chiefs died, and his uncle immediately prepared to sacrifice a slave; nor could Mrs. Marsden prevent it, otherwise than by hiding the intended victim till her husband came home, who made the chief understand that it was not to be done, though the man continued to lament that his nephew was deprived of his proper attendant in the other world, and seemed afraid to return home, lest the father of the youth should reproach him with the omission. Mr. Marsden made known all that he had been able to gather of the promising nature of the field of labour in New Zealand, and sought aid from the Church Missionary Society, since the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was then unable to reach beyond the colonies. The almost universal indifference of the upper classes to missionary labour was terribly crippling in the matter of means; and perhaps the fact was that the underbred class of agents of the Societies stirred up by the example of Marshman and Carey, together with the vulgarly-sensational appeals against which Ward's good taste so strongly protested, greatly tended to make them incredulous. It was not till the statements of scholars and gentlemen, like Henry Martyn and Bishop Heber, became generally known, that the work was looked on without sarcasm, provoked by vulgarity, even where there was great devotion. No clergyman could be found to undertake the mission to New Zealand; but William Hall and John King, two laymen, undertook to act as pioneers, with instructions to establish family worship, converse on religion with the natives, and instruct their children; trying, at the same time, to show the benefits of civilization, but to take care it was not confounded with Christianity. These two good men, who were presently followed by Thomas Kendall, sailed in the same ship with Mr. Marsden, when, in August 1809, he paid his last farewell to his native land, and sailed in the _Ann_ for New South Wales. Strange to say, this very ship contained a Maori, on his return home! He was a young chief named Duaterra, who had, in a spirit of adventure, embarked on board a whaler named the _Argo_, and worked as a sailor for six months, till the captain, having no further occasion for his services, put him ashore at Port Jackson, without payment or friends. However, he embarked in another whaler, and worked his way home, but soon was on board of a third English ship, the _Santa Anna_, in search of seal- skins, and having conceived a great desire to see the country whence these vessels came forth, and to know its chief, he engaged to come to England in it, the captain and sailors not scrupling to promise him an introduction to King George. When the _Santa Anna_ reached England, the crew had grown tired of him, used him roughly and harshly, and tried to put him off his pertinacious recollection of the promise of seeing the king, by telling him that King George's house could not be found; while he was worked beyond his strength, and scarcely ever suffered to go on shore. When, in fifteen days, the cargo was all discharged, the captain put him on board the _Ann_, to be taken back to Australia, and when he asked for his wages, to provide some clothing, told him that the owner of the ship would give him two muskets when he should reach Port Jackson. The poor fellow was little likely to reach it, for lung disease, the great foe of the Maori, had set in; and he was in a pitiable condition when Mr. Marsden, by chance, remarked his brown face on the forecastle, and inquired into his history, which was confirmed by the master of the _Ann_, and was really only a specimen of a sailor's vague promises, and incapacity to understand that a dark skin ought to be treated with the same justice as a white one. Duaterra was a man of much intelligence, and even under these most unfavourable circumstances had been greatly impressed with the civilization of England, and was so desirous of improvement that, on arriving at Port Jackson, Mr. Marsden took him to his farm, where he applied eagerly to the learning of husbandry. Duaterra was not the only Maori ill-treated by British sailors. Another chief having been used in like manner, or worse, on board the _Boyd_, bided his time till the ship was in the Bay of Islands, and then brought his tribe, armed with clubs and hatchets, to revenge his sufferings. They overpowered the crew, slaughtered and feasted upon them, burning the ship, and only retaining as captives two women and a boy. Nevertheless, Hall and King were ready to take the missionaries to this dangerous spot, but Mr. Marsden thought it best to give time for the passions thus excited to cool down. Meantime Governor Macquarie had come out to take charge of New South Wales. He was a man of great determination and despotic will, and carried out many regulations that were of exceeding benefit to the colony, but he did not know the limits of his authority, dealt with the chaplains as with subordinate officials, and sometimes met with staunch opposition from the sturdy Yorkshireman, his senior chaplain, so that they were in a state of almost constant feud throughout his government, although at the end of his career he bore the strongest testimony to the merits of the only man who durst resist him. The old game of Ambrose and Theodosius, Hildebrand and Henry, Becket and Plantagenet, has to be played over and over again, wherever the State refuses to understand that spiritual matters lie beyond its grasp; and when Governor Macquarie prescribed the doctrines to be preached and the hymns to be used in the churches, and commanded the most unsuitable secular notices to be promulgated by the clergy, if Mr. Marsden had not resisted the Church would have been absolutely degraded. When convicts of wealth and station, but still leading most vicious lives, were raised to the magistrates' bench, Mr. Marsden could not but refuse to associate or act with them, and even tendered his resignation of the magistracy, but Macquarie would not accept it. How uncompromising these sermons were is evidenced by an anecdote of a man, who, being stung to the quick, fancied that the words had been individually aimed at him, and determined to be revenged. Accordingly, as soon as he saw the chaplain riding near a piece of water he jumped in, and when Mr. Marsden at once sprung after him, did his utmost to drown his intended deliverer; but after a violent struggle the Yorkshire muscles prevailed, and the man was dragged out, so startled by the shock that he confessed his intention, and, under the counsel he had so fiercely spurned at first, became truly penitent, and warmly attached to Mr. Marsden, whose service he ultimately entered. The square short face and sturdy form of Samuel Marsden show the force, vigour, and determination of his nature, which told on beast as well as man. On the road between Sydney and Paramatta, he used to let the reins lie loose on the splash-board of his gig and read, saying that "the horse that could not keep itself up was not worth driving," and though one of the pair he usually drove was unmanageable in other hands, nothing ever went amiss with it when it went out with its master. Such a spirit of determination produced an impress even on those who opposed him most, and many works were carried out in the teeth of the difficulties thrown in their way; such as the erection of schools, of a factory for the reception of the female convicts, and of a sort of model farm, where it was intended to collect, tame, and civilize the aborigines. This was at first planned between the governor and chaplain, but when it was ready Marsden was under Colonel Macquarie's displeasure, and was therefore excluded from all share in the management, though the site was actually in his own parish of Paramatta. The experiment was a failure, probably not on this account, but from the restless character of the blacks, whose intellect was too small, and their wants too few, to feel any comfort a compensation for their freedom and wandering life. Mr. Marsden and the other chaplains repeatedly tried bringing up children,--some too young to retain any memory of their native habits, but they always relapsed into savage life on the first opportunity, and though here and there individuals may have better come up to the hopes of their devoted friends, yet as a race they seem too little above the animal to be susceptible of being raised. Governor Macquarie was an iron-handed man, who could not brook opposition, or endure any scheme that did not originate with himself. So when Mr. Marsden laid before him a project for diminishing the appalling misery and vice in which the utter neglect of Government left the female convicts, he acknowledged the letter, but did not act upon it. After waiting eighteen months for him to take some measure, the chaplain sent a statement of the condition of these poor creatures to the Colonial Office; it was laid before Parliament, and Lord Bathurst, the Colonial Secretary, sent a letter of inquiry to the Governor. Macquarie's fury was intense on finding that the chaplain had dared to look above and beyond him; and he gave a willing encouragement to whatever resisted the attempts of Marsden at establishing some sense of religion and morality. After refusing to accept his resignation of his post as a magistrate, he dismissed him ignominiously, and all the underlings of Government knew that any attack from them would be regarded with favour. A vile and slanderous letter, full of infamous libels, not only against Samuel Marsden, as a man and a Christian priest, but against the missionaries, and signed "Philo-free," appeared in the _Sydney Herald_, the Government paper, and was traced to Macquarie's own secretary! The libel was such that Mr. Marsden felt it due to his cause to bring an action against the publisher, and in spite of the prejudice against him, after a trial of three days, he gained a complete victory and damages of 200 pounds; but the newspaper published such a false and scandalous report of the trial that he was obliged a second time to prosecute, and again obtained a verdict in his favour. The officers of the 46th Regiment, on leaving the colony, presented him with a testimonial, and an address most gratifying, amid the general obloquy, and showing a feeling most honourable to themselves. Every one who cared for the cause of virtue at home, especially Wilberforce, Simeon, and Mrs. Fry, wrote encouraging letters to him; and Lord Bathurst, on receiving a despatch from Macquarie, full of charges against the chaplain as man, magistrate, and minister, sent out a commission of inquiry, which, coming with fresh eyes from England, was horrified at the abuses to which the Australian world was accustomed, found every word of Mr. Marsden's perfectly justified, and at last extracted the following confession from Colonel Macquarie: "The Governor admits that Mr. Marsden's manner to him has been constantly civil and accommodating, and that nothing in his manner could provoke the Governor's warmth. The Governor admits his qualifications, his activity, and his unremitting vigilance as a magistrate, and in society his cheerful disposition and readiness to please." The report of this commission resulted, among other more important consequences, in the unsolicited grant of 400 pounds a year additional stipend to Mr. Marsden, "in consideration of his long, laborious, and praiseworthy exertions in behalf of religion and morality." This was only fitting compensation on the part of Government, for the accusation of avarice had brought to light how many schools and asylums, the proper work of the Government, had been built, and were being maintained, out of the proceeds of the farm which had prospered so excellently. As long as Macquarie continued in office, Mr. Marsden was out of favour, but Sir Thomas Brisbane, who came out in 1821, was friendly with him, and knew his value, insisting on his returning to the bench of magistrates. He did all he could to avoid it, till the judges and almost every one in the colony so urged him to accept that he yielded; but in 1824 a case occurred in which a rich and insolent culprit was severely punished by the Paramatta bench, and contrived to raise such an outrageous storm that Sir Thomas Brisbane, who, if better disposed, was more timid than his predecessor, dismissed the whole five magistrates. The offender's wish had been merely to overthrow Mr. Marsden, but this was found impossible. The whole fury of the colony again rose against this fearless man, and accusations absolutely absurd were trumped up. One was that he allowed his windmill to work on Sunday! The fact turned out to be, when investigated, that somebody had once seen the sails turning on a Sunday, some time before Mr. Marsden had purchased the land on which the mill stood. A real act of persecution affected him more seriously, as it was the ruin of another person in whom he was interested. There was an old regulation forbidding the hiring out of convicts who were assigned to residents as domestic servants, but this had been virtually repealed by another under Macquarie, permitting such hiring out on the owners complying with certain rules. These had been duly attended to by Mr. Marsden in the case of one James Ring, a plumber and glazier, who, as a reward for good conduct, was allowed to go out to work in Paramatta for his own profit. Being ill-used and beaten by another servant, he summoned the man before the bench of magistrates, but these, who had been put in when Mr. Marsden and his colleagues were dismissed, immediately committed Ring to jail for being at large. His master went to demand his release, showing that the rules had been observed, but the magistrates replied by levying a fine of two-and-sixpence for every day that Ring had been at work, and as Marsden did not offer to pay, they sent a convict constable to his house to seize property to that amount, while poor Ring himself was sent to work in irons with the penal gang; though at that very moment one of the magistrates had a servant, a tailor, at work in Mr. Marsden's house; and another person had two hired convicts of another of these justices employed at his home. In fact, it was the only sentence of the kind ever inflicted, yet Sir Thomas Brisbane was afraid to interfere; whereupon Mr. Marsden caused his case to be tried before the Supreme Court, and so completely proved it, that restitution of the illegal fine was commanded, though the spirit of persecution was still shown in the absurdly small sum of damages allotted to him. What was worse was that he could not procure the release of Ring, for while he was sending an appeal to England the unhappy man lost patience, ran away from the gang where he was working in irons on the roads, and escaped to New Zealand, but was never heard of more. Had he but borne with his misery a little longer he would have been restored to his kind master, for a commission came out which a second time resulted in the complete triumph of Mr. Marsden, and the entire discomfiture of his persecutors. We have gone through the history of his home troubles before entering on the part that concerned his missionary labours. It is a painful picture, but the staunch firmness that never failed to "boldly rebuke vice," is too essential a part of the picture to be passed over. The Apostle of New Zealand was the Baptist of the Herods of Australia. We return to the year 1816, when, after some months' training in agriculture at Mr. Marsden's farm, Duaterra had sailed for his home, but only again to suffer from the perfidy of the master of the ship. The ordinary English mind seemed incapable of perceiving that any faith need be kept with a dark-coloured man, and Duaterra was defrauded of his share of the oil procured from the whales he had helped to catch, carried past his own shores, only two miles from the _pah_ where the master had engaged to land him, and turned adrift in the then uninhabited Norfolk Island, where a whaler picked him up almost starved, and brought him back to Australia. However, Mr. Marsden found another ship, which did fulfil its engagements, and Duaterra was at last set ashore in the Bay of Islands, close to the northern point of New Zealand, with a supply of wheat which Mr. Marsden had given him. Two years had passed, and Mr. Marsden had been trying to procure from the Society at home a mission ship to carry teachers to the islands, visit them, and supply their wants there, but he had not as yet succeeded, and he therefore decided on purchasing a small one from Australia at his own expense. This was the _Active_, the first of the mission vessels that now bear the Cross in several quarters of the globe. In her Hall and King sailed, and Mr. Marsden would have accompanied them but for the express prohibition of Governor Macquarie, who, little as he loved his senior chaplain, did not choose to lose him on what he regarded as a scheme of almost fanatic folly. The two teachers were not to settle on shore, nor even to sleep there, but they were to visit Duaterra, reconnoitre the ground, and see whether it would be possible to settle there as they had at first proposed. To their delight, Duaterra came eagerly to meet them, very anxious for their assistance with his corn. He had shown it to his tribe, telling them that hence came the bread and biscuit they had eaten in English ships, and great had been their disappointment when neither the ear nor the root of the wheat proved at all like these articles. However, he had been successful in his farmer operations, but was entirely puzzled by those of the miller, only knowing that the grain ought to be ground, and unable to contrive it, though he had borrowed a coffee-mill from a trading vessel. When the new comers produced a hand-mill he was delighted. His kindred, to whom he had been a laughing-stock for averring that biscuit had any connection with his new grass, crowded round incredulously to watch the mill, showed unbounded amazement as the white flour streamed forth, and when a cake was hastily made and baked in a frying-pan they leapt about shouting and dancing for joy. Duaterra, his uncle Hunghi, a very powerful chief, and five more, accepted an invitation to come and confer with Mr. Marsden, and the _Active_ brought them back to New South Wales. They were very anxious for the benefits which they hoped to derive from intercourse with the whites, and readily undertook to secure Hall and King from all danger. Even Governor Macquarie was so far satisfied that he consented to let Mr. Marsden go out and arrange the new settlement, to which he presented two cows and a bull. These, with three horses, and some sheep and poultry, were embarked on board the _Active_, with a motley collection of passengers, the eight Maories, the three missionaries with their wives and children, a sawyer, a smith, Mr. Marsden, and another gentleman named John Lydiard Nicholas, the master of the vessel, his wife, son, and crew, which included two Tahitians, and lastly a runaway convict who had secreted himself on board. Their arrival might have been rendered dangerous by the conduct of a whaling crew at Wangaroa, in the northern island of New Zealand, who, by way of retaliation for the massacre of the _Boyd's_ ship- company, had murdered a chief named Tippahee with all his family, without waiting to find out whether he had been concerned in the slaughter. Nevertheless, these brave men were ready to dare to the utmost, and the fame of Mr. Marsden, "the friend of the Maori," had preceded him, and the _Active_ was welcomed with presents of fish and visits from the natives. They found that Tippahee's people at Wangaroa had accused the tribe of the Bay of Islands of leading the English to murder their chief, that there was in consequence a deadly feud, and that several desperate battles had been fought. Marsden knew that if he came as the friend of Duaterra and his tribe alone, party spirit would entirely alienate the rest of the islanders, and he therefore determined at once to prove that he came not as the ally of one party, but as the friend of both. He therefore determined to prove to the Wangaroans his confidence in them by not only landing among them unarmed, but actually spending the night among them. His friend Mr. Nicholas accompanied him in this, one of the most intrepid actions ever performed, when it is remembered that this tribe consisted of the cannibals who had eaten his own countrymen, and had of late been freshly provoked. The two gentlemen supped in Hunghi's hut on potatoes and fish, and then quietly walked over to the hostile camp, where they met with a friendly welcome. One of the natives who had sailed in an English vessel was able to interpret, and with his assistance Mr. Marsden explained the purpose of the missionaries, and the desirableness of peace. Maories appreciate being spoken to at length and with due respect, and they listened politely, making speeches in their own fashion in return, until towards eleven, when most had gone to rest. The two Englishmen wrapped themselves in their great coats and lay down, the interpreter bidding them lie near him. It was a clear night, countless stars shining above, the sea in front smooth, all around a forest of spears stuck upright in the earth, and on the ground the multitude of human beings in their scanty loose garb of tapa cloth lying fast asleep, while the man who had come as an apostle to them spent the night in thought and prayer. Such a scene can never be forgotten! In the morning the ship's boat came to fetch him off, and he took the chiefs back with him to the ship to receive presents and be introduced to those who were to live among them. There was also a formal reconciliation with Duaterra and his tribe, and the wondering Maories took their travelled brother into high estimation when they really beheld the animals they had imagined to be mere creations of his fancy, and were specially amazed at the sight of Mr. Marsden mounted on horseback. Duaterra, meantime, of his own accord, was making preparations for the first Sunday service held in New Zealand. It was likewise the Christmas Day of 1815, and Mr. Marsden felt it a most appropriate moment for his first proclamation of the good tidings of great joy among this most distant of the nations. Duaterra's ideas of a church consisted in enclosing about half an acre of land with a fence, and erecting in the midst a reading-desk three feet, and a pulpit six feet high, both made out of canoes, covered with either black native cloth or some canvas he had brought from Port Jackson, and ranging near them some bottoms of old canoes, as seats for the English part of the congregation, and on the hill above he hoisted, of his own accord, the British flag. On the Sunday morning Duaterra, his uncle, and Koro Koro, another chief who had been in Australia, all appeared in regimentals given them by Governor Macquarie, swords by their sides, and switches in their hands, and all their men drawn up behind them. When the English had entered, the chiefs arranged their tribes, and Mr. Marsden began by singing the Old Hundredth Psalm, the first note of praise to the Creator that ever rung from the bays and rocks of New Zealand. Then he went through the Christmas Day service, his twenty-two English joining in it, and Koro Koro making signs with his switch to the natives when to stand and when to sit. Mr. Marsden ended with a sermon on the Angelic greeting, and when the natives complained that they could not understand, Duaterra promised to explain afterwards, and this he performed--it may be feared, after a fashion of his own, for as yet he was very ignorant, although very acute. Mr. Marsden's principle was not that of Eliot, to begin with the faith, then come to civilization. He thought that the benefits of civilization would lead to the acceptance of the faith; and, besides, he had only laymen to act as teachers; and, as his system was that of the Church, he could only employ them in laying foundations, in preparing instead of admitting converts, while his own duties only permitted of his making flying visits. So he established his settlers to show the benefits of peace, industry, and morality, and thus bring the natives to look higher. Seed, tools, clothing, he assisted them in procuring and using, but his smith was expressly forbidden ever to make or repair any warlike weapon, or the settlers ever to barter muskets or powder for any possession of whatever value with the natives. He likewise strove, in his conversations with the chiefs, to show the evils of their vices in such a manner as their shrewd minds could enter into, trying to make them see the disgrace and horror of cannibalism, and the inconveniences of polygamy, thus hoping to raise their standard. In order that the mission settlement might have some security, he purchased a plot of land in the name of the Church Missionary Society, drawing up a regular deed of sale, to which his signature was affixed, together with a likeness of the tattooed pattern of the Maori chieftain's face. Duaterra walked about with him in delight, talking of the time when the church should be built, and planning the spot; but the poor fellow had probably never recovered the injury his constitution had suffered, for he fell ill, and his state was soon hopeless. It was a great grief to Mr. Marsden, who had reckoned much on his assistance, and found it hard to acquiesce in the will of Providence, more especially as the poor young man was not yet so entirely a Christian as to warrant baptizing him. He begged Mr. Marsden to pray with him, but he kept his heathen priest at hand, and his mind was tossed to and fro between the new truth and the old superstition. In this state Mr. Marsden was forced to leave him, four days before his death, when Kendall, who visited him to the last, was shocked at the savage manner in which his relatives gashed themselves, to show their grief, and far more when his favourite wife stole out and hung herself, according to a frequent custom, regarded as rather honourable than otherwise! Soon after his death fresh wars broke out, and a hostile tribe encamped near the mission settlement, loudly threatening to kill and devour the inhabitants, who, for months together, had to keep watch day and night, put their children to bed in their clothes ready for instant flight, and had their boat always afloat with oars and sails; but they remained steadfast, and the danger passed over. The _Active_ plied backwards and forwards, supplying them with the necessaries of life, and bringing guests to the farm at Paramatta, where Mr. Marsden provided instruction for them. Two, named Tooi and Teterree, were sent in charge of Mr. Nicholas to visit England in a King's ship, where they had learnt to speak English tolerably, and to follow the customs of civilized society. They were gentle and intelligent, and eager to learn, but no one could reckon on what would interest or excite them. They were taken to see St. Paul's Cathedral, which did not seem to strike them at all; but, as they were walking along Fleet Street, they came to a sudden stand before a hairdresser's shop, screaming out, "Women, women," as they beheld the display of waxen busts, which they thought did credit to the Pakeha, or English, style of preserving dried human heads! Like Duaterra, their great anxiety was to see King George; but, in 1817, the apology recorded in Teterree's English letter was only too true,--"I never see the King of England, he very poorly; and Queen Charlotte very poorly too." On their return to Paramatta, Mr. Marsden made a second visit to New Zealand, taking them back, and also going to instal some fresh missionaries and mechanics on a new settlement. There was great competition among the chiefs; for the possession of a Pakeha, or Englishman, was greatly coveted as a means of bringing the material good things of life, and Mr. Marsden was eagerly assured that there was no danger of the English being killed and eaten, since the Maori flesh was much sweeter, because the whites ate so much salt. There was as yet no convert, but Mr. Marsden's resolution by no means failed him; he believed--and he was right--that kindness, truth, and uprightness, in those who could confer temporal benefits, would, in time, lead these intelligent men to appreciate the spiritual blessings that were offered to them. Presents of hoes, with which to plant the sweet potato, were greatly appreciated. Hunghi's head wife was working away with a wooden spade, though perfectly blind, and was delighted with the new instrument. Indeed, Hunghi was one of the most eager friends of the mission, though the splendidly tattooed heads of his enemies decorated his abode, and he defended cannibalism, on the ground that animals preyed upon one another, and that the gods devoured each other. His manners had all the high-bred courtesy that marked the chief, and he was a noble-looking creature, full of native majesty and gentleness. Every hope was entertained of him, and he was sent, in 1820, to visit England, where he had an interview with George IV., and received presents of weapons from him. But the moral Hunghi brought home was, "There is but one king in England. There shall be but one in New Zealand." And this consummation he endeavoured to bring about by challenging a hostile chief whom he met on his way back from Sydney to New Zealand. He gained the battle, by arranging his men in the form of a wedge, and likewise by the number of muskets with which he was able to arm them. When the chief himself fell by his hand, he drank his fresh blood, and devoured his eye, in the belief that it thus became a star in the firmament, and conferred glory on himself; and the whole battle-field was covered with the ovens in which his followers cooked the flesh of the prisoners whom they did not keep as slaves! This horrible scene took place while Mr. Marsden was in Australia, but he could hardly have prevented it. Probably the chief's ferocity, so long repressed, was in a state of reaction; for, though the missionaries were not molested, their efforts seemed lost. Hunghi declared that he wished his children to learn to fight, not to read; and the Maoris insisted on being paid for any service to the missionaries in fire-arms and powder. When this was refused they became insolent and mischievous, intruding into the houses, demanding food, breaking down the fences, and stealing whatever they could seize; and there was reason to fear that any excitement might lead to absolute danger. In this crisis some of the missionaries failed, sold ammunition, and otherwise were wanting in the testimony they were intended to maintain. The tidings determined Mr. Marsden on making a fourth visit to New Zealand: and this time he was able to take with him a clergyman, the Rev. Henry Williams, who lived to become Bishop of a Maori district. It was nine years since the first landing there, and, in spite of all disappointments, he found many of the natives much improved, and the friendly chiefs quite able to understand his prohibition against the sale of powder, although they were at first inclined to be angry at his having sent home a missionary on that account. The other missionaries expressed repentance for their errors, but he was not thoroughly satisfied with them, though allowing much for their isolation from Christian society and ordinances. A Wesleyan mission had been established at Wangaroa, which he visited and assisted, and finding Mr. Leigh, the chief minister, very ill, offered him a passage to Sydney for advice, but this ship had scarcely weighed anchor before a great storm came on; the ship was lost, and the crew and passengers had to land in boats, and return for two months longer before a ship could be found to bring them home, and in this time he did all in his power to bring the Maories to agree to some settled form of government under a single chief; but though any chief, especially Hunghi, was quite willing to be that one, nobody would be anything secondary, and thus the project failed. He also set the missionaries the task of endeavouring to collect a fixed vocabulary and grammar, which might be available in future translations. The great kindness shown him at his shipwreck had greatly touched his heart, especially in contrast with the usage he was meeting with in Australia, for this was in the height of the persecution about Ring, which detained him at home for more than two years. During this time Mr. Williams was joined by his brother William, also a priest of the English Church, but the wars of the Maories had become so desperate that the peril of the missionaries had been much increased; indeed, the Wesleyans had had the whole of their premises ravaged, so that the minister came as a fugitive to find a refuge at Paramatta, as a guest of Mr. Marsden. That brave soldier of his Lord decided on going at once to the scene of peril. Though sixty-three years old, he sailed as soon as possible in H.M.S. _Rainbow_, but found peace restored and the danger to his missions over. He therefore came back, after remaining only five days at his labours in New South Wales, to the superintendence of the translation of several chapters of Holy Scripture, and to the instruction of the young Maories at the sort of college he had tried from the first to keep up at Paramatta, but which he was forced to abandon, since the delicate lungs of the Maories could not endure the parching dryness of the Australian climate. By the time he went again to New Zealand, in 1830, Hunghi had been killed in battle, and the nation was fast dwindling between war and a disease resembling the influenza. It was estimated that in twenty years the numbers had diminished by one-half, and in the meantime English settlers were entering on the lands so numerously that it was evident that before long the islands would be annexed to the British crown. Mr. Marsden had hoped at first that this brave and intelligent people might have been Christianized and civilized, so as to stand alone, but finding that their deadly feuds and internecine savagery rendered this impossible, he thought it best to prepare them to come willingly under a curb that he trusted would be no more than beneficial. He found the missionaries much alarmed, for a horrible battle had just been fought, caused by the misconduct and insulting behaviour of the crew of an English ship. One tribe had taken their part, another had risen to revenge the affront, and a great mutual slaughter had taken place; victory had remained with the avengers, and though the offending crew had sailed away, it was apprehended that all the English might suffer in their stead. There was not an hour to be lost. Mr. Marsden and Mr. Williams crossed the bay and entered the camp of the English allies, where they were affectionately greeted, and allowed to carry proposals of peace to the victorious party, but there they met with a less friendly reception, being told that they were answerable for the lives of those who had fallen in the battle, since it had been occasioned by the misconduct of their countrymen. When Mr. Marsden promised to write to England to prevent the return of the offenders, the savages desired he would do no such thing, since they only desired vengeance. However, they agreed to hold a meeting with the hostile tribe, and endeavour to come to terms. Early the next morning thirty-six canoes arrived opposite to the mission station, some containing forty men; and notice was given that if the commissioners appointed on either side did not come to terms, the white men would be the sacrifice. The day was spent in conferences, but at night the chief of the hostile tribe clove a stick in two, in token that his anger was broken, and the two parties joined in a hideous war-dance, frequently firing their muskets; but peace was ratified, and Mr. Marsden found that real progress had been made among the natives around the stations. Many had become true and sincere Christians, among them the widow and daughters of Hunghi. A Maori Christian woman was married by Mr. Marsden to an Englishman. She made all the responses in good English, and appeared in decent English clothes of her own sewing. He also married a young man, free, and of good family, to a girl who had been a slave taken in war, who was redeemed from her master for five blankets, an axe, and an iron pot. A number of natives lived round the missions, attending the services, and working with a good deal of industry and intelligence, and an increasingly large proportion of these were openly baptized Christians. A seventh visit was paid by Mr. Marsden in 1837, when seventy-two years of age. On his return an officer in the ship observed: "I think, sir, you may look on this as your last visit to New Zealand." "No," he answered, "I intend to be off again in about six weeks; the people in the colony are becoming too fine for me now. I am too old to preach before them, but I can talk to the New Zealanders." He adhered to his purpose, and his daughter, Martha, who had been with him on his last voyage, accompanied him again in this. There had been some quarrels with the crews of ships, but the natives always separated Mr. Marsden from the misdeeds of his people, and the old chiefs were delighted to see him. "Stay with us and learn our language," one of them said: "become our father and our friend, and we will build you a house." "No," replied another, "we cannot build a house good enough, but we will hire Europeans to do it for us." Wherever he went, he was hailed as the friend of the Maori, and he made a progress through all the mission stations, which were growing up numerously, and whence Christianity was fast spreading by the agency of the Maories themselves. A chief named Koromona, made captive in Hunghi's great war, who had become blind, had been converted by Mr. William Williams, and soon learnt the whole Liturgy, with many chapters of the Bible, and hymns, by heart, and was fit to be sent as a teacher among the other tribes. Sunday was generally observed, cannibalism and polygamy were retreating into the more remote and heathenish regions, and there was every token that the noble Apostle of New Zealand had verily conquered a country and people for the Church of God. Terrible wars among the tribes, provoking all the old ferocities, still were liable to arise, and the whaling crews, among whom might be found some of the most unscrupulous, licentious, and violent of mankind, continued to take advantage of there being no regular jurisdiction to commit outrages, which spread corruption or provoked retaliation, and for this there was no remedy but annexation to the British crown, which the influence of the mission was leading the natives themselves to desire, though this was not carried out till after Mr. Marsden's death. This last visit took place in 1837. By that time the persecutions and troubles of Mr. Marsden's colonial life had been outlived,--though even as late as 1828, he writes about a pamphlet which actually charged him with inflicting torture to extract confession! But his character outweighed all such absurd charges, and as a more respectable class of settlers flowed into the colony he was better appreciated. What the tone must have been may be guessed from the fact that when, in 1825, Governor Darling began regularly to attend church with his wife and family, it was regarded as an unexampled act in the supreme magistrate! Mr. Marsden lost his wife in 1835, but his daughter did her best to minister to his happiness, and was his companion and assistant in all he undertook. Once, when she was driving with him, two of the most terrible of the bushrangers, who were feared by the whole country, broke forth upon them, seized the horse, and holding a loaded pistol to Mr. Marsden's breast, bade her empty his pockets into their hands, threatening to shoot them both if either said a word. Nevertheless, the fearless old man continued to remonstrate with them on their wicked life, telling them that he should see them again upon the gallows, and though they charged him with savage threats not to follow them with his eyes, he turned round and continued to warn them of the consequences of a life like theirs. In a few months' time they were captured, and it did actually fall to his lot to attend them to the scaffold. Yet, though of this fearless mould, he was one of the most loveable of men; everyone on his farm, as well as all little children, and the savages he conversed with, all loved him passionately. Some young Maories, whom he brought back on his last voyage, used to race after his gig to catch his eye, and when they took hold of any book, used to point upwards, as if whatever was associated with Matua, as they called him, must lead to heaven. He was fond of playing with children, and never was so happy as when he yearly collected the schoolchildren of Paramatta on his lawn, for a feast and games after it. In 1834, the Rev. William Grant Broughton, one of the clergy of Australia, took home an account of the spiritual destitution of New South Wales, and the effect was that in 1836 a bishopric was there created, and the first presentation given to him. Some thought that this was a passing over of the chaplain who had laboured so hard for so many years, but Mr. Marsden himself only observed that it was better thus: he was too old a man, and it was with sincere goodwill that he handed over the charge he had held for more than forty years, so that only the parish of Paramatta remained to him, and there he continued his ministry in church, to the sick, and among the poor to the end. On the last Sunday of his life he seemed in his usual health; but for the first time he did not take part in the service, and at the celebration he seemed to be so overcome by his feelings as not to move from his place to communicate, when, after a pause, his son-in-law went to him with the sacred elements. There were many tears shed by those who foreboded that his hand would never administer to them again. On the Tuesday he set out for a short journey, but apparently he took a chill on the way to the house of his friend, Mr. Styles, at Windsor, and arrived unwell; erysipelas in the head came on, with a stupor of the faculties, and he died on Saturday, the 12th of May, 1838,--a man much tried, but resolute, staunch, and gallant, and, in the end, blessedly successful. Two years later, New Zealand, by the wish of the Maories themselves, was added to the British dominions, a bishopric was erected there, and, did not our bounds forbid us to speak of those who are still among us, we could tell much of the development, under Bishop Selwyn, of Samuel Marsden's work: though, alas! there is a tale to tell that disgraces, not our Government, but our people,--a story of lust of land and of gain, and of pertinacious unfairness towards the Maori, which has alienated a large number of that promising and noble people, led to their relapse into the horrors from which they had been freed, overthrown their flourishing Church in favour of a horrid, bloodthirsty superstition, and will probably finish its work by the destruction of the gallant race that once asked our protection. CHAPTER IX. JOHN WILLIAMS, THE MARTYR OF ERROMANGO. Of Welsh extraction, and respectable though humble parentage, the pioneer and martyr of Polynesia, John Williams, was born at Tottenham High Court, London, in the year 1796. His parents were Nonconformists, and he was educated at a "commercial" school at Edmonton, where the teaching did not aim at much beyond writing and accounts, all that was supposed, at that time, to be needful for a young tradesman. The chief point remembered of his childhood was an aptitude and handiness which caused all little breakages to be kept for John to repair,--a small quality, but one of no small importance in the life of a missionary, who often finds ready resource essential to safety and to influence. His mother was a good and religious woman, whose one great purpose in choosing a situation was to place him in a family where he might be influenced for good; and she was fortunate in finding a furnishing ironmonger whose care of his apprentices exactly met her views. While serving his time, John Williams was observed to delight in the hard practical work of the forge far more than in the easier and more popular employments of the shop, and he was always eager to be sent out to execute repairs, a task that was rather despised by his companions. He was not regarded as a religious youth till he was about eighteen; he considered that a serious direction had been given to his mind one Sunday evening, when his master's wife, finding him just about to enter a tea- garden with some idle companions, persuaded him to come with her to chapel, where he heard an impressive sermon that gave a colour to his life. After this, distinct habits of piety were formed, Williams was admitted to full membership at the chapel called the Tabernacle, and, together with others of the more earnest young men of the congregation, formed a society called "The Youths' Class," one of those associations which, under whatever form, have, in all ages of Christianity, been found a most powerful and salutary means of quickening, uniting, and strengthening the young by the sense of fellowship. The lads met every Monday evening for discussion, and every eighteenth Monday was devoted to special prayer. The minister of the chapel did not naturally preside, but would often look in, say a few words on the subject in hand, and thus keep watch that the debates were properly conducted. It was through this pastor, Mr. Wilks, that John Williams first imbibed his interest in the missionary cause,--an interest that gradually grew upon him so much, that in his twentieth year he decided upon devoting himself to the task. Good Mr. Wilks freely gave the young ironmonger assistance in supplying the deficiencies of his education, and in July 1816 he was presented to the directors of the London Missionary Society, and passed an examination, after which he was accepted, before he was out of his apprenticeship. According to rule, so young and so insufficiently instructed a man would ordinarily have had some years of training before actually undertaking to labour among the heathen, but there was at the moment an urgent call for aid from various branches, and it was decided, by a special vote of the committee, to send him out as soon as possible to the South Sea Islands. His master willingly released him from the seven months that remained of his term; nor had his time of apprenticeship been by any means wasted, for the mechanical skill he had acquired was of great importance to his success as a civilizer. Marriage was always recommended to the missionaries of the Baptist Societies, and Williams's fate was no sooner decided than he chose Mary Channer, a constant attendant at the Tabernacle, and a woman helpful, kind, and brave, as befitted a missionary's wife. A great meeting was soon after held, as a sort of dedication of the new labourers, nine in number, who were thence to go forth,--five to South Africa, four to Polynesia. Among the Africans was Robert Moffat, a name memorable, both on his own account and as the father-in-law of Livingstone. An elderly minister stood forth and questioned the young men in the face of the congregation on their faith, their opinions, their motives, and their intentions; and then a Bible was solemnly presented to each by an elder minister, John Angell James, of Birmingham, one of the most able and highly reputed Nonconformists then living; and another minister, Dr. Waugh, addressing himself to Williams, who was much the youngest of the nine, said, "Go, my dear young brother, and if your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth, let it be with telling poor sinners the love of JESUS CHRIST; and if your arms drop from their shoulders, let it be with knocking at men's hearts to gain admittance for Him there." The impression never left John Williams, and the injunction was fulfilled to the utmost of his power. He was a man of strong and vigorous frame, well fitted to encounter the perils of climate; and with much enterprise, hardihood, and ingenuity. That his mind was in some degree narrowed by want of education, perhaps mattered less in the peculiar field of his labours, where he was seldom brought in contact with wide questions. He had the excellent quality of ready sympathy and adaptability to the persons around him, whether civilized or savage, and was so good-natured and yielding in unimportant matters, that the strength and firmness with which he would stand up for whatever he viewed as a matter of conscience, always took his opponents by surprise; but it was always long before this point was reached, and he was perhaps too ready to give up when it was judgment rather than right and wrong that came into play. Williams's face, as given in the portrait attached to his "History of Missionary Enterprise in the South Sea," curiously agrees with his history. There is much power about the brow, much enterprise in the strong, somewhat aquiline nose, great softness and sweetness in the eyes, but the thickness of the lips and chin betray the want of cultivation; indeed, the curious manner in which the mouth is pursed up, would seem to indicate that an eager temper naturally kept it unclosed, and that the restraint of sitting for a picture rendered the expression uncomfortably prim. The Polynesian Mission on which John Williams was sent, had been commenced in 1796 by the London Missionary Society, partly in consequence of the death-bed entreaties of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, who had been exceedingly interested by the accounts of the South Sea Islands in Captain Cook's Voyages. The subscriptions amounted to 10,000_l._, and were sufficient to purchase a ship called the _Duff_, which was commanded by that Captain Wilson whose wonderful history has been noticed in the lives of the Serampore body. Twenty-five missionaries were taken out, and received at Tahiti with grotesque dances and caperings. The dwelling, which had been erected when Captain Bligh was collecting bread- fruit, was given to them, and several were placed there, while the _Duff_ carried others to the Friendly and Marquesan Islands, and, after visiting them all a second time, returned home for reinforcements. On the next voyage, however, with a different captain, the _Duff_ was captured by a French privateer, the captain of which, when he understood the purpose of the voyage, greatly regretted what he had done, and declared that he would rather have given 500_l._ than have interfered with it. He landed the missionaries at Monte Video, and assisted them in obtaining a passage home, in the course of which they were again captured by a Portuguese, whose treatment of them was a wretched contrast to that of the friendly Frenchman. Meantime, many disasters had befallen the unassisted missionaries, who suffered from the hostility of a section of the natives, though the king, Pomare, always protected them. One of their number insisted on marrying a native woman still unconverted, separated from his brethren, and was soon after murdered by the natives. Another was lost in a still sadder way. He reasoned himself into doubts of the Divine power and of the immortality of the soul, and finally left the island, nor was he heard of again for many years, though prayer was constantly made for him, and at length it became known that he had wandered to Serampore, where the influence of Marshman and Carey had prevailed to bring back his faith, but he had since been lost at sea. What wonderful glimpses we get of strange wild lives! But the Tahitian Mission had not included any one leading character, so that it may be enough to state that, after years of patient effort and often of danger, the missionaries beheld King Pomare II., the successor of him whom they had found on the throne, solemnly burn his idols, and profess himself a Christian. From that time the island has been Christian. The standard of morality has been by no means as high as it ought to be, and there is much disappointment in dealing with any nation, with none more so than with an indolent and voluptuous people, in a climate disposing them to inertness, and in a part subject to the visits of lawless seamen of all nations. However, the mission kept its hold of Tahiti, until the French, in 1844, began a series of aggressions, which ended in their establishing a protectorate over the islands, introducing their Church, and doing all in their power to discourage the London Mission, to which, however, many of the natives still adhere. This, however, is anticipating. When the five young men sailed in 1817, and after a kindly welcome on their way from Mr. Marsden at Sydney, things were in the full blush of promise. Eight hundred people worshipped at the chapel of Erineo, near the landing-place. It was a circular building, a good deal like a haystack, with walls of stakes, a thatch of large leaves, and a desk in the centre of the floor for the preacher. This was his first station, and whilst there he gave his assistance in building a ship, to enable King Pomare to open a trade with New South Wales. He stayed in this place till he had become familiar with the language, and his first child was born there. Not long after some allies of Pomare, from Huahime, struck with the benefits produced among the Tahitians by the missionaries, entreated that some might be sent to them likewise; and Williams, his wife and child, with two other married pairs, and an interpreter, were told off for the mission. They were welcomed eagerly, had oval huts assigned to them, and no lack of pork and yams, but Mr. Williams did not long remain there, being called away by an invitation from Raiatea. This is one of the loveliest of tropical islands, the largest of the Society Islands. Huge mountain masses rise from the centre of an isle, about fifty miles in circumference, and give it the grandeur of the rock, the precipice, and the waterfall; but all around and below, the sides are clothed with the exquisite verdure of the southern clime, the palm, the bread-fruit, the yam, and all that can delight the eye; and both this and a little satellite islet are fenced in by an encircling coral reef, within which is clear still deep water, fit for navies to ride in, and approachable through numerous inlets in its natural breakwater. It was a spot of much distinction, containing the temple of the god Oro, who was revered by all the surrounding groups, as the god of war, to whom children were dedicated to make them courageous. There dreadful human sacrifices were offered, concluded by cannibal feasts. Whenever such a sacrifice was required, the priest and king despatched messengers to the chiefs of the districts around to inquire whether they had a broken calabash, or a rotten cocoa-nut. These terms indicated a man whom they would be willing to give up. The victim was then either knocked down with a blow of a small stone at the back of his head, or else speared in his own house; and when one man of a family had thus been sacrificed, all the rest had the same horrid preference. The last human victim of Tahiti was verily a martyr. He was designated because he had begun to pray. The emissaries came to his house and asked his wife where he was. Then, borrowing from her the ironwood stick used for breaking open cocoa-nuts, they went after him, and knocked him down with it, binding him hand and foot, and placing him in a long basket made of cocoa-nut leaves. His wife rushed forward, but was kept away, as the touch or breath of a woman is considered to pollute a sacrifice. The man, however, recovered the blow, and spoke out boldly: "Friends, I know what you intend to do with me. You are about to kill me, and offer me up as a _tabae_ to your savage gods. I know it is vain for me to beg for mercy, for you will not spare my life. You may kill my body, but you cannot hurt my soul, for I have begun to pray to JESUS." On hearing this, his bearers set him on the ground, put one stone under his head, and beat out his brains with another, and thus died the last Tahitian sacrifice, truly baptized in his own blood. The other gods besides Oro were numerous, and there were also many animals supposed to be possessed with familiar spirits. A chief was once in the cabin of a ship where there was a talking cockatoo: the moment the bird spoke he rushed away in the utmost terror, leapt overboard, and swam for his life, convinced that he had heard the captain's demon. The chief of Raiatea was named Tamatoa, and was a man of considerable power. Two years previously the Tahitian king, Pomare, nineteen of his subjects, and a missionary named Wilson had been driven thither in a canoe by stress of weather; and what Tamatoa had heard from them had so impressed him that he had persuaded his people to build a place of worship, observe the Sunday, and meet to repeat together the scant lessons they had been able to receive during the visit of the Tahitians. This led to a resolve to entreat for the presence of a missionary among them; and the chieftain himself came to Huahime to make the request. Williams longed to go, but, as the youngest minister, waited till all the rest had decided to the contrary, and then gladly accepted his lot to go with Tamatoa. There was a joyous welcome, and a feast was brought, consisting of five pigs for Mr. Williams, five for his wife, and five for their baby-boy; besides crates of yams, bananas, and cocoa-nuts, which, however, they were not required to eat themselves, only to see eaten in their house. The islanders were ready to give up their idols and call themselves Christians, to hear Mr. Williams preach, and to observe the Sabbath; being, in fact, like the Red Indians of Eliot's experience, so idle that a day of no work made no difference to them. Their indolence, the effect of their enervating climate, was well-nigh invincible; they preferred hunger to trouble, and withal their customs were abhorrent to Christian morality. Most islets of the South Seas have much the same experience. The people, taken on their best side, show themselves gentle and intelligent, and their chiefs are dignified gentlemen; but there is a horrible background of ferocity and barbarism--often cannibalism. It generally proves comparatively easy to obtain a recognition of Christianity, and the cruelty and violence are usually laid aside; but to bring purity and morality to bear upon these races is a much more difficult thing, and the apparent failures have been at once the grief and reproach of missionaries, while those who assail them with scoffs forget the difficulty of dealing with the inveterate customs of a whole people, in a luxurious climate, and with little or no inducement to such industrial occupations or refinements of mind, as are the best auxiliaries of religion in raising the tone. Lands where cold is unknown, and where fruit grows as freely as in Paradise, offer no inducement to labour; and the missionaries, striving in vain to lead the people to think occupation a duty, were deserted as being troublesome when they bade them to work. A school which the Williams's set up was more popular; the Polynesians had no lack of brains, and reading and writing were pleasanter than digging and building, or carrying logs. Thinking that examples of the civilization that the islanders had never seen would do more for their advance than anything else, Mr. Williams, with such assistance as he could obtain from the natives, built himself a house with eight rooms, sash windows with Venetian blinds, a verandah, and a most beautiful garden, and filled it with polished furniture, made by his own clever mechanical hands. With the assistance of one or two other missionaries who joined him, he succeeded in thus exciting a certain emulation among the natives. The king had a house built for him like that of the white men, others followed, and thus a very important step was made out of the degraded customs encouraged by the old oval huts. The coral, made into lime, afforded excellent material for plaster, and trades began to be fostered among the natives; they became carpenters, blacksmiths, plasterers, boat-builders, and acquired some ideas of agriculture. By the end of the second year, the chapel and school stood in the midst of white cottages; the population still wore clothing made of their own bark cloth, but in imitation of that of their teachers, and the open savagery of the island was gone. The congregation assembled three times on Sunday, and there was family prayer in almost every house. Cannibalism was ended, and so was infanticide, one of the most terrible customs of the island, for there was scarcely a woman above thirty who had not put to death several of her infants. Much had been done, although the good man to whom so much was owing did not feel satisfied that the profession in many cases was thoroughly deep, and he still knew of many an inveterate evil, that only time, discipline, and above all heartfelt religion, could uproot. A large chapel, built with all the taste and ornament that he could achieve, was erected, the sides wattled, the roof supported by pillars of tree-trunks, and the floors and pews, the pulpit and desk, which were all to which the young ironmonger at the Tabernacle attached the notion of a worthy place of worship, were solid and well finished. He even fashioned some chandeliers for evening service, and these so astonished the Raiateans, that on first entering the chapel, they broke out into a cry of amaze, "Oh, Britannia! Britannia!" and gave the name to England of "the land whose customs were without end." The opening of this chapel was one great step in Mr. Williams's work; the next was the inducing Tamatoa and the other chiefs to bind themselves to govern by a code of Christian laws, not complex, but based on the Ten Commandments, and agreeing with those newly established by Pomare in Tahiti, but with this difference, that Williams ventured to introduce trial by jury, in the hope that it would tend to qualify the despotic power of the chiefs. Tamatoa's brother, Pahi, was appointed judge, and the community was arranged on a Christian basis. The congregation was likewise put under regular discipline after the example of the Independents in England, with ruling pastors and elders appointed from among the people; and an auxiliary Missionary Society was formed for assisting in the conversion of the other isles. Just as this was thoroughly arranged, in about the fourth year of his mission, Williams suffered from a malady which seemed to him and his companion, Mr. Threlkeld, to necessitate his return home. The information was received by the islanders with something like despair. Old King Tamatoa came to him and said, "Viriamu, I have been thinking you are a strange man. JESUS did not take care of His body. He did not even shrink from death, and now you are afflicted you are going to leave us." Prayer was offered all over the island, and in the midst of all the preparations for departure the disease began to ameliorate, and Mr. Williams recovered for a time, though the next year a recurrence of the attack made him resolve upon a visit to Sydney, not only for the sake of advice, but in the hope of establishing a market for the produce of the Society Isles, which might give a motive to the industry he was so anxious to promote, and likewise to obtain a vessel to be used for the missions. Two Raiatean teachers instructed by him were landed at the island of Aitutake on the way, after the chiefs had pledged themselves to support and protect them, and the voyage was continued to Australia, where there was as usual a warm reception from Mr. Marsden. It was a very important visit. Parts of the Holy Scriptures, catechisms, and spelling-books, were printed; the ship, with the assistance of the Society of which Marsden was agent, was purchased, a schooner of ninety tons, and named _Te Matama_, the Beginner; a person named Scott secured, at 150_l._ per annum, to instruct the natives in the cultivation of sugar and tobacco, and stores laid in of presents for the natives, clothes for the women, shoes, stockings, tea-kettles, tea-cups, saucers, and tea. The natives had a great liking for tea, and as they could not cherish cups and saucers without shelves to put them on, all this was an indirect mode of introducing European comforts and decencies. As to shoes, there can be no spade husbandry with an unshod foot, and thus the system of hoeing- women doing all the labour was attacked. On the way back to Raiatea, Mr. Williams visited New Zealand, but not at a favourable moment, for the chiefs were at war, and he had to hurry away. The cargo was gladly welcomed at Raiatea, and the desire to purchase European dress was found a great incentive to industry. In 1823, Mr. Williams began a series of missionary voyages. The events of these have almost too much sameness for description, though full of interest in detail. The people, when taken on their right side, were almost always ready to admit teachers, and adopt certain externals, though the true essentials of Christianity were of much slower growth. Our limits prevent us from giving much of detail of his intercourse with these isles. Raiatea was his first home, Rarotonga his second. There he placed his family, which long consisted of his one boy, John, born in Tahiti, all Mrs. Williams's subsequent babes scarcely living to see the light, until, in the sixteenth year of her Polynesian life, another son rejoiced her. She became a centre and pattern of domestic life, and instructed the women in feminine habits, and she patiently encountered the anxieties and perils, chiefly from storm and hurricane, that beset her life. The chief troubles that Mr. Williams encountered at Raiatea, were the vices that civilization brought. After old Tamatoa's death, his son allowed a distillery to be established, and drunkenness threatened to overthrow the habits so diligently taught. May be, the Puritanical form of religion and the acquired tastes of the London tradesman did not allow brightness and beauty enough to these children of the South, and tempted them by proscribing things innocent, but there is no telling: nothing but strictness seemed a sufficient protection from the foul rites of idolatry, and all that his judgment or devotion could devise for these people Williams and his fellows did. The Samoan group of islands was one of those where the people showed the most intelligence. They were already great cultivators of the toilette. A Samoan beau glistened from the head to the hips with sweet-scented oil, and was tastefully tattooed from the hips to the knees; he wore a bandage of red leaves oiled and shining, a head-dress formed of a pearly disk of nautilus-shell, and a string of small white shells round each arm. His lady was not tattooed, but spotted all over, and when in full attire, wore a beautiful white silky mat at her waist, a wreath of sweet flowers round her head, rows of large blue beads round her neck, and the upper part of her person was tinged with turmeric rouge. These Samoans, though they deified many animals, had no temples, idols, priests, nor sacrifices, and thus were more than usually amenable to Christian ideas; and on Mr. Williams's second visit to the island, he had a numerous congregation, but so arranged that he could hardly keep his countenance. Some had their long hair greased and stiffened into separate locks, standing erect like quills upon the fretful porcupine; while others wore it cultivated into one huge bush, stiffened with coral line, diversified with turmeric. Indeed, there is no rest for such heads as these--none of their wearers dares to sleep without a little stool to support his neck, so as not to crush his _chevelure_ against the ground. These fine gentlemen had a readiness and intelligence about them that warmed to the first rays of light. They listened eagerly, and their attachment to the missionary was expressed in a song sung in what they called a "heavenly dance" of the ladies in his honour, when he had remained with them long enough to plant the good seed of a growing church. "Let us talk of Viriamu, Let cocoa-nuts glow in peace for months; When strong the east winds blow, our hearts forget him not. Let us greatly love the Christian land of the great white chief. All victors are we now, for we all have one God. No food is sacred now. All kinds of fish we catch and eat, Even the sting-ray. The birds are crying for Viriamu, His ship has sailed another way. The birds are crying for Viriamu, Long time is he in coming. Will he ever come again? Will he ever come again?" It was some time before he could come again; for, after eighteen years of unremitting labour in the isles of Raiatea and Rarotonga, and of voyages touching on many other isles, he had made up his mind to visit England. He came home in 1834, and remained about four years, doing much for his cause by his personal narratives and vivid accounts of the people to whom he had devoted his life. Curiously enough, his son, now a youth of twenty, was introduced to Earl Fitzwilliam's gardener, who proved to have been one of the mission party who had been captured in the _Duff_ on the second voyage, and who was delighted to hear of the wonderful progress of the cause from which he himself had been turned back. A subscription was raised for the purchase of a mission ship, exceeding in size and suitability such craft as could be purchased or hired in Australia; and the _Camden_, a vessel admirably fitted for the purpose, was obtained and equipped at a cost of 2,600_l._, the command of her given to Captain Morgan, who was well experienced in the navigation of the Polynesian seas, and had, moreover, such a reputation for piety, that the natives termed his vessel "the praying ship." In this vessel a large reinforcement of missionaries was taken out, including a married pair for Samoa, and likewise young John Williams, who had found himself an English wife; but his little brother was left at home for education. The intention of Williams was to station the missionaries upon the friendly isles, and himself circulate among them in the _Camden_, breaking fresh ground in yet unvisited isles, and stationing first native and then English teachers, as they were prepared for them. Among the Samoans he remained a good while. He estimated the population at 60,000, of whom nearly 50,000 were under instruction. Several places of worship were opened with feasts, at which huge hecatombs of swine were consumed--1,370 at one festival. One young chief under instruction became so good a preacher, that Williams called him the Whitfield of Samoa; and these islands have, under the training then set on foot, furnished many a missionary and even martyr to the isles around, and are, to the present day, one of the happiest specimens of the effects of missionary labour. The want of extended views in good Mr. Williams was shown in his manner of regarding the expected arrival of some Roman Catholic priests in the Polynesian seas. He set to work to translate Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," and begged that a present offered him for his people might be expended in slides illustrating it for a beautiful magic lantern which he already possessed, and whose Scripture scenes drew tears from the natives. He had not Church knowledge enough to rise above the ordinary popular view of "Popery," and did not understand its Christianity enough to see the evils of sowing the bitterest seeds of the Protestant controversy among scarcely reclaimed heathens. On their side, the Roman Catholics would have done better to enter on untrodden ground, of which there was such an infinity, than to force themselves where, if they did not find their Church, at least they found faith in the Saviour. But the Society Isles were coveted, for political reasons, by the existing French Government, and the struggle was there beginning, of which Mr. Williams was not destined to see the unfortunate conclusion. Raiatea he found much improving; and at Rarotonga civilization had made such progress, that the chiefs house was two storeys high, with ten bedrooms, and good furniture made in imitation of English, and any linen Mr. Williams left in his room was immediately washed, ironed, and laid ready for use. Much of the lurking heathenism was giving way, and fair progress being made in religious feeling, when, after a stay in Samoa, where Mrs. Williams now chiefly resided, John Williams set out on an exploring voyage in the _Camden_. Strangely enough, his last text in preaching to the Samoans was, "Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more;" and the people, who always grieved whenever he left them, wept as bitterly at the words as if they had known them to be an omen. He was bent on an attempt on the heathen isle of Erromango, which his wife viewed with a foreboding terror, that made her in vain try to extract a promise from him not to land there. But he viewed the New Hebrides as an important link, leading perhaps to reaching the Papuan race in New Guinea. He hoped to gain a footing there, and make the spot such a centre as Tahiti, Raiatea, Rarotonga, and Samoa had successively been; and, as the _Camden_ glided along the shores of the island, he talked of his schemes, and of a certain sense of fear that they gave him, lest they were too vast to be accomplished by his means and in his lifetime, but with the sanguine buoyancy of a man still in full vigour, and who had met with almost unmixed success. On the 20th of November, 1839, the vessel entered Dillon's Bay, and a canoe with three men paddled up to her. A boat was lowered, in which Mr. Williams, two other missionaries named Harris and Cunningham, Captain Morgan, and four sailors seated themselves. They tried to converse with the natives, but the language proved to be unlike any in use in Polynesia (it is, in fact, one of the Melanesian dialects), and not a word could be made out. Pulling into a creek, some beads and a small looking-glass were thrown to the natives, and water asked for by signs. It was brought, and this gave more confidence. Harris then waded ashore. At first the people ran away, but Mr. Williams called to him to sit down, and, on his doing so, they came nearer, and offered him some cocoa-nut milk. Mr. Williams observed little boys at play, and thought it a good sign. Captain Morgan wished they had been women, because the natives always send their wives out of the way when they mean violence. However, Williams landed, and divided some cloth among those who stood nearest. Then Harris began to walk forward into the bush, Williams following, and, with a crowd of natives round him, was counting in Samoan, trying whether the boys around would recognize the names of the figures. Cunningham did not like the countenances of the natives, and remarked it to him, but was not heard. Stooping to pick up a shell, Cunningham was startled by a yell, and Harris came rushing along, pursued by a native. Williams turned and looked, a blast on a shell was heard, and he too fled. Cunningham reached the boat in safety, but Harris fell in crossing a small brook, and the natives were at once upon him with their clubs. Williams had made for the sea, apparently intending to swim off and let the boat pick him up, but the beach was stony; he fell as he reached the water, and the natives with their clubs and arrows had fallen upon him before Morgan could turn his boat's head to the spot, under a shower of arrows, which forced him to put off. He saw the body lying on the beach, and fired a gun, loaded with powder, in hopes of driving away the natives and rescuing it; but they dragged it away into the bush, and all that was left for him to do was to sail for Sydney, whence a Queen's ship, the _Favourite_, was despatched to endeavour to recover the remains, and to convey the tidings to Samoa. By the 26th of February the vessel arrived. The war-conch was heard, and the savages were seen flying in all directions; but, as there was no intention of exacting a revenge, means of communication were at last arranged, and it was discovered that these two good men had furnished a cannibal feast, but that their skulls and many of their bones had been preserved, and these were recovered and carried on board ship. The Erromangans have always been an exceptionally treacherous and savage race, and, even to the present day, are more hostile to white men, and more addicted to cannibalism, than any of the other islanders. The _Favourite_ then proceeded to Samoa, where the weeping and wailing of the tender-hearted race was overwhelming. Mrs. Williams, in her silent English sorrow, was made the centre of a multitude of frantic mourners. "Aue kriamu, aue Viriamu, our father, our father! He has turned his face from us! We shall never see him more! He that brought us the good word of salvation is gone! Oh, cruel heathen, they knew not what they did. How great a man they have destroyed!" Such laments went on round the widow in the wild poetic language of the poor Samoans, till the other teachers, by their prayers and sermons, had produced a somewhat calmer tone; and the funeral took place beside the chapel, attended by the officers and crew of the _Favourite_, and a great concourse of natives. "Alas, Viriamu!" was the cry in every Christian Polynesian island for many a day; and well it might be, for, in spite of the shortcomings of a poorly-educated ministry and a tropical and feeble race, there are few who ever turned more men from darkness to light, from cannibal fury to Christian love, than the Martyr of Erromango,--John Williams,--one of the happiest of missionaries, in that to him was given the martyr's crown, in the full tide of his success and hope. CHAPTER X. ALLEN GARDINER, THE SAILOR MARTYR. The biography we next have to turn to is not that of a founder, scarcely that of a pioneer, but rather of a brave guerilla, whose efforts were little availing because wanting in combination, and undirected, but who, nevertheless, has left behind him a heart-thrilling name won by unflinching self-devotion even unto death. Allen Francis Gardiner, the fifth son of a Berkshire squire, was born in 1794. He was a born sailor, and became a midshipman before the end of the great war of the French revolution; but the only naval action in which he was engaged was against the American vessel _Essex_, which was captured by his ship, the _Phoebe_, off Valparaiso. Allen Gardiner had been carefully brought up by a good mother, but her death in his early youth cast him loose and left him without any influence to keep up serious impressions. He drifted into carelessness and godlessness, though at times some old remembrance, roused by danger or by a comrade's death, would sting him sharply. Once, feeling ashamed of having forgotten the very words of Scripture, he made up his mind to buy a Bible, and then was so full of false shame that he waited about in the street till the shop should be empty, and then only thought how odd his demand must seem to the bookseller. Most likely this was at Portsmouth, for he had there met a lady who had been with his mother at her death, and had given him a narrative of her last days, which his father had written, but from some sense of want of sympathy had withheld from the son. The friend judged him better. The copy in his own handwriting bears the date, "Portsmouth, November 18, 1818," and therewith was a little Bible with the same date written in it. For two years, however, this produced no effect; but in 1820, when at Penang, as a lieutenant in the _Dauntless_, Allen received a letter of grave reproof from his father, and one of warm kindness and expostulation from the same lady, his mother's friend, together with some books. Nothing would have seemed more hopeless than the chance that a letter from a religious old lady would make an impression on a dashing young naval officer, and yet Allen Gardiner always considered this as the turning-point of his life, and connected it with his mother's prayers. It was when his thoughts were directed to religious subjects, and his intelligence freshly excited, that he visited the coasts of South America, the region above all others where the Roman Catholic Church is seen to the most disadvantage. Two things most especially struck him, the remnants of the Inquisition at Lima, and the discovery that the poor were buried without prayer or mass. Such scenes as these gave him an extreme horror of Romanism and all that he supposed to be connected therewith, and his next station at Tahiti, in all the freshness of the newly established mission, full of devout people, filled him with strong enthusiasm for the good men who were carrying out the work. Shortly after he was invalided home, and as soon as he was fit for employment he offered himself to the London Missionary Society, begging them to send him to the neglected Indians of South America; but this did not suit their plans, and his ardour was slackened by the more common affairs of life. He fell in love and married a young lady named Julia Reade, and his only voyage was in his naval, not his missionary capacity. But his wife's health was exceedingly frail, and after eleven years of marriage she died, leaving four children, a fifth having preceded her to the grave. Beside her death-bed Allen Gardiner made a solemn dedication of himself to act as a pioneer in one or other of the most neglected parts of the earth, not so much to establish missions himself as to reconnoitre the ground and prepare the way for their establishment. Africa was the country to which his attention was first called. His wife died in May 1834, and the 24th of August was the last Sunday he spent in England, at Calbourne, the native parish of Charles Simeon. He sailed at once for Cape Colony, where the English, who had in the course of the Revolutionary war obtained possession of the ground from the original settlers, the Dutch, were making progress in every direction, and coming into collision, not with the spiritless Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope itself, but with that far more spirited and intellectual race, the Kaffirs--unbelievers, as the name meant--they being in fact of Arab descent, though Africanized by their transition through tropical latitudes, and not Mahometans. Such traditional religion as they possessed seemed to be vanishing, since only a few of the elders retained a curious legend of a supreme Deity who sent another Divine being to "publish the news," and divide the sexes. A message was sent to him from the Power in heaven to announce that man should not die, but this was committed to that tardy reptile the chameleon; then another message that man should die was given to the lizard, who outran the chameleon, and thus brought death into the world. Sir Benjamin D'Urban had just been appointed Governor, and it was apprehended that a war must take place, since the settlers were continually liable to sudden attacks by these wild Kaffirs, who burnt, slew, and robbed any homestead they fell upon. Captain Gardiner thought, and justly, that it would be better to begin by proclaiming the glad tidings of peace to these wild and ignorant people rather than to meet them with the strong hand of war. The colony was lamentably deficient in clergy, and the missions that existed were chiefly to the Hottentots and Bushmen. The Moravians, whose work we have not mentioned because it is a history in itself, had some excellent establishments, but no one had yet attempted to penetrate into the home of the Kaffirs themselves, the Zulu country, to endeavour to deal with their chieftains. This was Allen Gardiner's intention, and on his outward voyage he met with a Polish refugee named Berken, who had intended to settle in Australia, but was induced to become his companion in his explorations in South Africa. They rode together from Capetown to Grahamstown, where they obtained an interpreter named George Cyrus, and began to travel in the regular South African fashion, namely, with waggons fitted for sleeping in, and drawn by huge teams of oxen, and taking seven horses with them. Their first adventure during a halt at the Buffalo river was the loss of all their oxen, who were driven off by some natives. They applied to the chief of the tribe, named Tzatzoe, who recovered the cattle for them, but showed himself an insatiable beggar, even asking why, as Mr. Berken had two shoes, he could not spare him one of them. However, he was honest enough, when Mr. Berken chanced to leave his umbrella behind him, to send after him to ask whether he knew that he had left his _house_. The next anxiety was at a spot called the Yellow-wood River, where the mid-day halt was disturbed by an assembly of natives with a hostile appearance. Captain Gardiner sent orders to collect the oxen, and in- span (_i.e._ harness) them as soon as possible, but without appearance of alarm, and in the meantime he tried to keep the natives occupied. To one he lent his penknife, and after the man had vainly tried to cut off his own beard with it, he offered to shave him, lathered him well, and performed the operation like a true barber, then showed him his face in a glass. His only disappointment was that the moustache had not been removed, and as by this time the razor was past work, Captain Gardiner had to pacify him by assuring him that such was the appearance of many English warriors (for these were the days when moustaches were confined to the cavalry). The amusement this excited occupied them nearly long enough, but hostile murmurs then began to be heard--"One of our chiefs has been killed by the white men, no more shall enter our country!" Fearing that an angry word would be fatal, Captain Gardiner asked for a war-song, promising some tobacco at the conclusion. Accordingly they danced madly, and shouted at the top of their voices, "No white man shall drink our milk, No white man shall eat our children's bread. Ho-how! ho-how! ho-how!" But this couplet often repeated seemed to work off their rage; they accepted the tobacco, and sullenly said the travellers might pass, but they were the last who should. This was in the Amakosa country, lying between the Grahamstown settlement and Port Natal, and to the present day unannexed, though even then there were traders' stations at intervals, so filthy and wretched as to be little above the huts of the natives. These Amakosa tribes were such thieves that great vigilance was needed to prevent property being stolen; but the next tribes, the Amapondas, were scrupulously honest and friendly to the English. Their chief was found by Gardiner and Berken dressed in a leopard's skin, sitting in state under a canopy of shields, trying a rain-maker, who had failed to bring showers in consequence of not having his dues of cattle delivered to him! The chief advised them not to proceed, as he said the Zulus were angry people who would kill them; but they pushed on, though finding that the journey occupied much longer than they expected, so that provisions became a difficulty. A full month had passed since leaving Grahamstown, and Gardiner decided on pressing on upon horseback, leaving Mr. Berken to bring up the waggons, and taking with him the interpreter and two natives. The distance was 180 miles, and a terrible journey it was. A few waggon tracks had made a sort of road, but this was not always to be distinguished from hippopotamus paths, which led into horrible morasses, where the horses almost entirely disappeared, and had to be scooped out as it were by the hands; moreover, scarcely any food was to be had. In crossing one river one of the horses was so irretrievably stuck in a quicksand that humanity required it to be shot, and at the next, the Umkamas, the stream was so swollen that the Captain had to devise a canoe by sewing two cowskins together with sinews and stretching it upon branches, in which, as no one save himself had any notion of boating, he shoved off alone. The stream was too strong for him, and he had to return and obtain the help of the only good swimmer among his party. With him he crossed, but with no food save a canister of sugar! However, the native swam back and fetched a loaf of bread, while Captain Gardiner waited among the reeds, hearing the snorting and grunting of hippopotami all round. The transit of the natives was secured by the holding a sort of float made of a bundle of reeds, and in the morning, as the river was too high for the rest of the party to cross, he brought over a few necessaries, and a horse, with which the Captain was able to proceed to Port Natal, where he found English traders, and sent back supplies to those in the rear. The Zulus, on whom his attention was fixed, inhabit a fine country to the north of the Tugela, which is considered as the boundary of the British territory. The nation is full of intelligence and spirit, and by no means incapable of improvement, and their princes have been for generations past men of considerable natural ability, and of iron will, but often savagely cruel. The first known to Englishmen was named Charka, a great warrior, who kept his armies in a rude but thorough discipline, and had made considerable conquests. About the year 1829, Charka had been murdered by his brother Dingarn, who had reigned ever since, and was the terror of the English settlers, who were beginning to immigrate into the fertile terraced country of Natal. His forays might at any time sweep away farms and homesteads; and his subjects were continually fleeing from his violence across the Tugela, and thus might bring him down as a pursuer. Allen Gardiner's plan was to go to the fountain head and endeavour to deal with the chief himself, so as to make him a Christian instead of an enemy. With this end he set out absolutely unaccompanied, except by Cyrus the interpreter, and a Zulu servant whom he had hired named Umpondombeni, and this with the knowledge that an English officer had shortly before been treacherously murdered, and that Dingarn was a blood- stained savage. The king had been informed of his coming, and had pronounced that he was _his_ white man, and should make haste to Umkingoglove, his present abode. The first view of this place, with a double circular fence around it, resembled a race-course, the huts being ranged along the ring of the enclosure so as to leave the centre free for the reviews and war dances of the Kaffirs. Gardiner was very near entering by the wrong gate, in which case all his escort would have been put to death. A hut was assigned to him, a sort of beehive of grass and mud, with a hole to enter by. His own lines, strung together in his many unoccupied moments for his children's benefit, are so good a description of the Kaffir huts that form a kraal or village, as to be worth inserting:-- "I see them now, those four low props That held the haystack o'er my head, The dusky framework from their tops Like a large mouse-trap round me spread. To stand erect I never tried, For reasons you may guess: Full fourteen feet my hut was wide, Its height was nine feet less. My furniture, a scanty store, On saddle-bags beside me laid, A hurdle, used to close the door, Raised upon stones, my table made." There he received a bundle of the native sugar-cane, a bowl of maize beer from Dingarn, and was invited to his palace. This was surrounded by a fence, outside which the Captain was desired to sit down. Presently a black head and very stout pair of shoulders appeared above it, and a keen sable visage eyed the visitor fixedly for some time, in silence, which was only broken by these words, while indicating an ox, "There is the beast I give you to slaughter." His black majesty then vanished, but presently to reappear from beneath the gateway dressed in a long blue cloak, with a white collar, and devices at the back. After directing the distribution of some heaps of freshly slain oxen that lay around, he stood like a statue till a seat was brought him, and then entered into conversation. Captain Gardiner made him understand that trade was not the object of the visit; but the real purpose was quite beyond him; he seemed to regard what was proposed to him as an impossibility, and began to inquire after the presents, which, unfortunately, were still on the road. The delay exposed the Captain to some inconvenience and danger, and two _indunas_, or chiefs, a sort of prime ministers, who were offended with him for not having applied to the king through them, treated him with increasing insolence. At last he persuaded them that he had better send a note to hasten the coming of the presents, and he also managed to write a letter for England, on his last half-sheet of paper, by the light of a lamp made of a rag wick floating in native butter in a calabash. From time to time he was called upon to witness the wonderful evolutions, manoeuvres, and mock fights in the camp. The men were solely soldiers; the women did all the work, planting maize, weeding corn, and herding cattle, and thus the more wives a man had the more slaves he could employ. Every wife had a value, and could only be obtained from her father for a certain price in cattle, varying according to his rank. If the full rate were not paid, she remained, as well as her children, the property of her father or the head of her family. The king, having the power to help himself, had an establishment of ninety women, who on gala- days, or when his army was going to take the field, were drawn up in a regiment, all wearing two long feathers on the top of their heads, a veil of strings of coloured beads over their faces, bead skirts, and brass rings over their throats and arms; these beads being the current coin of the traders. They approached and retreated in files, flourishing their arms like bell-ringers, while they sang:-- "Arise, vulture, Thou art the bird that eateth other birds." These were, however, not wives, only female slaves. Either from jealousy of possible sons growing up, or from the desire not to be considered as in the ranks of the _umpagati_--elders or married men--neither Charka nor Dingarn would marry, and no man could take a wife without the king's permission. Dingarn wore his head closely shaven, whereas the married trained their woolly hair to fasten over a circle of reed, so as to look much as if they had an inverted saucepan on their heads. Besides this they wore nothing but a sort of apron of skin before and behind, except when gaily arrayed in beads, or ornaments of leopard's fur and teeth, for dancing or for battle. Their wealth was their cattle, and their mealie or maize grounds; their food, beef, mealies, and curdled milk; their drink, beer, made of maize; their great luxury, snuff, made of dried dacca and burnt aloes, and taken from an ivory spoon. Though sometimes acting with great cruelty, and wholly ignorant, they were by no means a dull or indolent people; they were full of courage and spirit, excellent walkers and runners, capable of learning and of thinking, and with much readiness to receive new ideas. The presents arrived, and the red cloak, made of the long scarlet nap often used in linings, was presented, and gave infinite satisfaction; the king tried it on first himself, then judged of the effect upon the back of one of his servants, caused it to be carried flowing through the air, and finally hung it up outside his palace for the admiration of his subjects, then laid it by for the great national festival at the feast of first-fruits. Captain Gardiner's object was to obtain a house and piece of land and protection for a Christian missionary, and with this object he remained at the kraal, trying to make some impression on Dingarn, and the two indunas, who assured him that they were the king's eyes and ears. Thus he became witness to much horrible barbarity. One of the least shocking of Dingarn's acts was the exhibiting the powers of a burning-glass that had been given him, by burning a hole in the wrist of one of his servants; and his indifference to the pain and death of others was frightful. His own brother, the next in succession, was, with his two servants, put to death through some jealousy; and, more horrible still, every living creature in thirty villages belonging to him was massacred as a matter of course. Captain Gardiner, though often horrified and sickened by the sights he was obliged to witness, remained for a month, and then, after accompanying the king on his march, and seeing some astonishing reviews and dances of his wild warriors, made another effort; but the king referred him to the two indunas, and the indunas were positive that they did not wish to learn, either they or their people. They would never hear nor understand his book, but if he would instruct them in the use of the musket he was welcome to stay. Dingarn pronounced, "I will not overrule the decision of my indunas;" but, probably looking on the white man as a mine of presents, he politely invited Gardiner to return. So ended his first attempt, and with no possessions remaining except his clothes, his saddle, a spoon, and a Testament, he proceeded to the Tugela, where he met his friend Berken, who had made up his mind to settle in Natal, and he set out to return to England for the purchase of stock and implements; but the vessel in which he sailed was never heard of more. Captain Gardiner remained at Port Natal, which in 1835 consisted of a cluster of huts, all of them built Kaffir-fashion, like so many hollow haycocks, except Mr. Collis's, which was regarded as English because it had upright sides, with a good garden surrounded by reeds. About thirty English and a few Hottentots clustered around, and some three thousand Zulus, refugees from Dingarn's cruelty, who showed themselves ready and willing to work for hire, but who exposed their masters to the danger of the king coming after them with fire and assagai. Hitherto on such an alarm the whole settlement had been wont to take to the woods, but their numbers were so increasing that they were beginning to erect a stockade and think of defence. To this little germ of a colony, Allen Gardiner brought the first recollection of Christian faith and duty. On Sunday mornings he stood under a tree, as he had been wont to do on the deck of his ship, and read the Church Service in English to such as would come round him and be reminded of their homes; in the afternoon, by the help of his interpreter, he prayed with and for the Kaffirs, and expounded the truths of the Gospel; and in the week, he kept school for such Kaffir children as he could collect, dressing them decently in printed calico. He began with very few, partly because many parents fancied he would steal and make slaves of them, and partly because he wished to train a few to be in advance and act as monitors to the rest. The English were on very good terms with him, and allotted a piece of land for a missionary settlement, which he called Berea, and began to build upon it in the fashion of the country. Fresh threats from Dingarn led the settlers to try to come to a treaty with him, by which he was to leave them unmolested with all their Kaffirs, on their undertaking to harbour no more of his deserters. There was something hard in this, considering the horrid barbarities from which the deserters fled, and the impossibility of carrying out the agreement, as no one could undertake to watch the Tugela; but Captain Gardiner, always eager and hasty, thinking that he should thus secure safety for the colony and opportunities for the mission, undertook the embassy, and set forth in a waggon with two Zulus and Cyrus, falling in on the way with one of the grotesque parties of European hunters, who were wont to go on expeditions after the elephant, hippopotamus, and buffalo, with a hunting train of Hottentots and Kaffirs in their company. On whose aspect he remarks truly:-- "I've seen the savage in his wildest mood, And marked him reeked with human blood, But never so repulsive made. Something incongruous strikes the mind Whene'er a barbarous race we find With shreds of civil life displayed. There's more of symmetry, however bare, In what a savage deigns to wear, In keeping with the scene. These, each deformed by what he wears, Like apes that dance at country fairs, Seemed but a link between." Dingarn proved to be at Congella, another circular town or kraal, on the top of a hill. He gave a ready welcome to the Captain, and his presents--some looking-glasses, a pair of epaulettes, and some coloured prints, especially full-lengths of George IV. and William IV. The collection in a place such as Natal then was must have been very hard to make, but it was very successful, and still more so was the Captain's presenting himself in his uniform when he went to propose the treaty. Dingarn said he must look at it before he could do anything else, and fully appreciated the compliment when the sailor said it was his war dress, in which he appeared before King William. He agreed to the treaty, but declared that the English would be the first to break it. The Captain answered that a true Englishman never broke a treaty, and that any white man who deceived was not the right sort of Englishman; and the king responded that "now a great chief was come, to whom he could speak his heart." Captain Gardiner tried to impress on him that it was the fear of God that made himself an honourable man, and to persuade him that the knowledge of the "Book" would make him and his people still greater; and the next time of meeting set forth an outline of the morality and promises of Revelation. Dingarn was attentive, and said they were good words, and that he would hear more of them, but in the meantime Gardiner must go back to Natal and see that his people kept the treaty. It was a good deal more than he could do. A Kaffir inkosikase, or female chieftain, who, with two servants and three children, was fleeing into Natal at the time of his return, was sent back, with all her companions. The poor creatures pleaded hard that the Captain would accompany them and save them, and he returned with them, and interceded for them with all his might, but soon found they were being starved to death. "Their bonds must kill them," said Dingarn. A second great effort resulted in a little food being sent, and a kind of promise that their lives should be spared; but this was only made to get rid of him, and they all perished after his departure. Deserters, as Gardiner called the fugitives to reconcile the surrender to his loyal English conscience, were hardly such as these: they were the only ones ever sent back, and the loose wild traders, who he ought to have known would never be bound by treaties, were at that very time enticing Kaffirs, who could be useful as herdsmen and labourers, across the frontier. This led to great indignation from Dingarn, and he declared that no Englishman save his favourite great chief should come near him. Meantime Gardiner was assisting an assembly of traders and hunters who had decided on building a town--all shaggy, unkempt, bearded men of the woods, who decided the spot, the name, the arrangements, the spot for church and magistrate's house, by vote, on the 25th of June, 1835, the birthday of the town of Durban, so called after Sir Benjamin D'Urban, Governor of the Cape, while the Portuguese name of Natal passed to the entire territory. The dispute with Dingarn continuing, the Captain was again sent to negotiate. This time he was received in the royal mansion, a magnified beehive, where the king was lying on a mat with his head on one of the little stools made to act as pillows, with about fifty women ranged round. As to the matter in question, Gardiner was able to declare that, in the white settlement itself, no deserters had found a home since the treaty, and that none should do so; Dingarn said he considered him the chief of the whites there, and should look to him to keep them in order. Gardiner explained that he had no authority. "You must have power," said Dingarn. "I give you all the country of the white people's ford." This was a piece of land extending from the Tugela to the Nouzincoolu, from the Snowy Mountains to the sea--in fact, the present whole colony of Natal. A smaller portion, including the district about Natal, was to be his own immediate property. Dingarn was perfectly in earnest, and thus intended to make him responsible for the conduct of every individual of the motley population of Natal, declaring that he should receive no trader who did not bring credentials from him. It was as curious a situation as ever commander in the navy was placed in. All he could do was to return to Durban, explain matters to Mr. Collis and the other traders, and then set out for the Cape to consult Sir Benjamin Durban. His journey across the mountains was very perilous and difficult, and took much longer than his sanguine nature had reckoned; but he reached Grahamstown at last, and explained matters to the Governor, who instantly sent off a British officer to assume authority over the settlement at Natal, and try to keep the peace with Dingarn, while Captain Gardiner embarked for England to lay the state of things before Government and the Church Missionary Society, at whose disposal he placed all his own personal grant from Dingarn. When the prospects of the mission were proclaimed, the Rev. Francis Owen volunteered for it, and Captain Gardiner collected all that he thought needful for the great work he hoped to carry out. He married Miss Marsh, of Hampstead, and, with her and his three children, Mr. Owen and his wife and sister, sailed on the 24th of December, 1836; but the arrival was a sorrowful one, for his eldest child, a girl, of twelve years old, was slowly declining. She died just as they entered Durban Bay, and was buried at Berea immediately on their arrival. As soon as the Kaffirs heard of Captain Gardiner's landing, they flocked in to express their willingness to live under his authority. He chose a pleasant spot for his home, and having settled his family there, went up to see Dingarn. The presents this time were indeed ecstatically received, and especially a watch and seals, and a huge pair of gay worsted slippers. "He took my measure before he went," cried Dingarn, who had tried a pair of boots before, but could not get them on. The king was made to understand that his gift of land must be not to the Captain, but to the King of England, and with this he complied. He was also persuaded to modify his demands; as to the fugitives, Gardiner undertook not to encourage or employ them, but would not search them out or return them. Mr. Owen was also favourably received, as the _umfundisi_ or teacher; a hut was allotted to him, and he was allowed to preach. He took up his abode at Umkingoglove, the first town where Captain Gardiner had seen the king, held services and opened a school, often holding conversations with the king. "Has God commanded kings and indunas to learn His word?" demanded Dingarn; and he actually did learn to read the words printed upon a card for the children. Meantime Captain Gardiner was forming his settlement at a place which he had named in the Kaffir tongue, Hambanati, "Go with us," in allusion to Moses' invitation to Hobab: "Go with us, and we will do thee good." It was half-way between Durban Bay and the Tugela, on a hill-side in the midst of the beautiful undulating ground and rich wood characteristic of the country, and with a river in front. There he had raised a thatched house for himself, and around it Zulu huts were continually multiplying. The English carpenter and labourers whom he had brought out instructed the Kaffirs in various kinds of labour, for which they were quite willing; and as they wore decent garments, they were called the clothed tribe. School was kept for the children in the week; for the grown-up people on Sunday; and on every alternate morning some Scripture fact was read and explained to them, the Captain still being obliged to act as chaplain, until the arrival of Mr. Hewetson, whom the Church Missionary Society were sending out. Never had the generous toil of a devoted man seemed likely to meet with better success, when a storm came from a most unexpected quarter. The original colonists of the Cape of Good Hope were Dutch, and the whole district was peopled with boers or farmers of that nation, stolid, prosperous, and entirely uncontrolled by public opinion. They had treated the unfortunate Hottentots as slaves, with all the cruelty of stupidity, and imported Malays and Negroes to work in the same manner; and they had shown, even when under their native state, a sort of grim turbulence that made them very hard to deal with. When in 1834 the British Government emancipated their slaves, and made cruelty penal and labour necessarily remunerative, their discontent was immense, and a great number sold their farms, and moved off into the interior to form an independent settlement on the Orange River. A large number of them, however, hearing of Dingarn's liberality to Captain Gardiner, were determined to extort a similar grant to themselves by a display of power. First came a letter, which Mr. Owen had to read and interpret to the chief, and not long after a large deputation arrived, armed and mounted on strong horses. Dingarn showed them a war-dance, and they in return said they would show how the boers danced on horseback, and exhibited a sham-fight, which did indeed alarm the savage, but, so far from daunting him, only excited his treachery and fierceness. He gave a sort of general answer, and the messengers retired. But from that time his interest in Mr. Owen's teaching flagged; he wanted fire-arms instead of religion, and preachings led to cavillings. Indications of evil intentions likewise reached Captain Gardiner, who sent to warn Mr. Owen, and to offer him a refuge at Hambanati in case of need. Still Mr. Owen could gather nothing; he was called from time to time to read the Dutchmen's letters, but was never told how they were to be dealt with. In fact, Dingarn had replied by an offer of the very district he had given Captain Gardiner, on condition that the new-comers would recover some cattle which had been carried off by a hostile tribe. This was done, and the detachment which had been employed on the service arrived at Umkingoglove, where they were welcomed with war-dances, and exhibited their own sham-fights; but in the midst of the ensuing meal they were suddenly surrounded by a huge circle of the Zulus, as if for another war- dance. The black ring came nearer and nearer still, and finally rushed in upon the unhappy boers, and slaughtered every man of them. Mr. Owen had suspected nothing of what was passing, till he received a message from Dingarn that he need not fear; the boers had been killed for plotting, but the umfundisi should not be hurt. A time of terrible anxiety followed, during which the Owen family saw large bodies of the Kaffir army marching towards the Tugela, and in effect they fell upon the Dutch camp, and upwards of a hundred and fifty white men, women, and children were massacred. This horrible act, showing that no reliance could be placed on Dingarn's promise, made the Owens decide on leaving Umkingoglove, and they arrived at Hambanati, whence they proceeded to Durban. The Gardiner family waited for another week; but, finding the whole of the settlers infuriated, and bent on joining the Dutch in a war of extermination against Dingarn, they were obliged to retreat to the coast. First, however, Captain Gardiner assembled his Kaffirs, and promised to do his utmost to find another tract, where they might settle in peace, if they would abstain from all share in the coming war. They promised; but in his absence the promise was not easy to keep; they joined in the fight, many were killed, and the settlement entirely broken up. The cause seemed to Gardiner hopeless; and, after waiting for a short time in Algoa Bay, he decided on leaving the scene of action, where peaceful teaching could not prevail for some time to come. Whether it would not have been better to have tarried a little while, and then to have availed himself of the confidence and affection he had inspired, so as to gather the remnants of his mission again, we cannot say. At any rate, he consoled himself for the disastrous failure at Natal by setting forth on a fresh scheme of Christian knight-errantry on behalf of the Indians of South America. Long ago, in Brazil, the Jesuits had done their best to Christianize and protect the Indians; but the Portuguese settlers had, as usual, savagely resented any interference with their cruel oppressions, broken up the Jesuit settlement, and sold their unfortunate converts as slaves. After this, the Jesuit Fathers had formed excellent establishments in the more independent country of Paraguay, lying to the south, where they had many churches, and peaceful, prosperous, happy communities of Christian Indians around them. South American Indians are essentially childish beings; and the Jesuits, when providing labour enough to occupy them wholesomely, found themselves obliged to undertake the disposal of the produce, thus not merely rendering their mission self-supporting, but so increasing the wealth of the already powerful Order as to render it a still greater object of jealousy to the European potentates; and when, in the eighteenth century, the tide of opposition set strongly against it, the unecclesiastical traffic of the settlements in Paraguay was one of the accusations. The result was, that the Jesuit Fathers were banished from South America in 1767; and whether it was that they had neglected to train the Indians in self-reliance, or whether it was impossible to do so, their departure led to an immediate collapse into barbarism; nor had anything since been done on behalf of the neglected race. Indeed, the break-up of all Spanish authority had been doubly fatal to the natives, by removing all protection, and leaving them to the self-interested violence of the petty republics, unrestrained by any loftier consideration. In the Republic of Buenos Ayres, under the dictatorship of General Rosas, the lot of these poor creatures was specially cruel. A war of extermination was carried on against them, and eighty had at one time been shot together in the market-place of the capital. Nothing could be done towards reclaiming them while so savage a warfare lasted; but Gardiner hoped to push on to the more northerly tribes, on the borders of Chili, and he took a journey to reconnoitre across the Pampas, with many strange hardships and adventures; but he found always the same story,--the Indians regarded as wild beasts, and, acting only too much as such, falling by night on solitary ranchos, or on lonely travellers, and murdering them, and, on the other hand, being shot down wherever they were found. With great difficulty and perseverance he made his way to the Biobio river, leaving his family at Concepcion, the nearest comparatively civilized place. Here he meant to make his way to a village of independent Indians, with whose chief, Corbalan, he had hopes of entering into relations. To cross the rapid stream of the Biobio, he had to use a primitive raft, formed of four trunks of trees, about eighteen feet long, lashed together by hide-thongs to two poles, one at each end. A horse was fastened to it, by knotting his tail to the tow-rope, and on his back was a boy, holding on by the single lock of the mane that is allowed to remain on Chilian horses, who guided him across with much entreating, urging, and coaxing. On the other side appeared Corbalan, the Indian chief on horseback, and in a dark poncho, a sort of round cloak, with a hole to admit the head, much worn all over South America. He took Captain Gardiner to his house, an oval, with wattled side-walls, about five feet high and thirty-five long, neatly thatched with grass, with a fireplace in the centre, where a sheep was cooked for supper. Corbalan could speak Spanish, and seemed to be pleased with the visit, making an agreement that he should teach Gardiner his Indian tongue, and, in return, be instructed in the way of God and heaven. He had convened forty-five of his people, among whom were five chiefs, each of whom made the visitor the offering of a boiled chicken, while he gave them some coloured cotton handkerchiefs and some brass buttons. It was a beautiful country, and reminded the guest so much of some parts of England, that it needed a glance at the brown skin, flowing hair, and long poncho of Corbalan to dispel the illusion that he was near home. Things looked so favourable, that he had even selected a site for the mission-house, when some change of sentiment came over Corbalan, probably from the remonstrances of his fellow-chiefs: he declared that a warlike tribe near at hand would not suffer him to harbour a stranger, and that he must therefore withdraw his invitation. So ended this attempt; and the indefatigable Captain turned his attention to the Indians to the southward, but he found that these were on good terms with the Chilian Government, and that no one could come among them without a pass from thence; and, as there was a cautious attempt at Christianizing then going on, by persuading the cacique to be baptized and to admit priests to their villages, there was both the less need and the less opening for him. So, picking up his wife and children again at Concepcion, he sailed with them for Valdivia, where, as wandering Europeans were always supposed to be in search of objects for museums, and perhaps from some confusion about his name, he was called "El Botanico." Again he plunged among the Indians; but, wherever he came to a peaceable tribe, they were under the influence of Spanish clergy, who were, of course, determined to exclude him, while the warlike and independent Indians could not understand the difference between him and their Spanish enemies; and thus, after two years of effort, he found that no opening existed for reaching these wild people. A proposal was made to him to remain and act as an agent for the Bible and Tract Societies among the South American Roman Catholics, but this he rejected. "No," he said; "I have devoted myself to God, to seek for openings among the heathen, and I cannot go back or modify my vow." The Malay Archipelago was his next goal. He sailed with his wife and children from Valparaiso for Sydney on the 29th of May, 1839, but the vessel got out of her course, and was forced to put in at Tahiti, where he found things sadly changed by the aggression of Louis Philippe's Government, which had claimed the protectorate. The troubles of Queen Pomare's reign were at their height, and the conflict between French and English, Roman Catholic and Protestant, prevented any efficient struggle against the corruption introduced by the crews of all nations. The great savage island of New Guinea seemed to Captain Gardiner a field calling for labour, and, on his arrival in Australia, he found that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Sydney was trying to organize a mission. He left Australia, hoping to obtain permission from the Dutch authorities at Timor to proceed to Papua, to take steps for being beforehand with the Australian expedition. He reached the place with great difficulty, and he himself, and all his family, began to suffer severely from fever. The Dutch governor told him that he might as well try to teach the monkeys as the Papuans, and the Dutch clergy gave him very little encouragement. He remained in these strange and beautiful islands for several months, trying one Dutch governor after another, and always finding them civil but impenetrable; for, in fact, they could not believe that an officer in her Britannic Majesty's Navy could be purely actuated by missionary zeal, but thought that it concealed some political object. They were not more gracious even to clergy of other nations. He found an American missionary at Macassar, whom they had detained, and some Germans, who were vainly entreating to be allowed to proceed to Borneo; and his efforts met only with the most baffling, passive, but systematic denial. It was reserved for the enterprise and prudence of Sir James Brooke to open a way in this quarter. The health of the Gardiner family had been much injured by their residence in those lovely but unwholesome countries, but the voyage to Capetown restored it; and immediately after they sailed again for South America, where the Captain had heard of an Indian tribe in the passes of the Cordilleras, who seemed more possible of access. Here again he was baffled in his dealings with the local government by the suspicions of the priests, and never could obtain the means of penetrating beyond the city of San Carlos, so that he decided at last to repair to the Falkland Islands, and make an endeavour thence to reach the people of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, where no hostile Church should put stumbling-blocks in his way. A doleful region he found those Falkland Isles, covered only with their peculiar grass and short heather, and without a tree. A little wooden cottage, brought from Valparaiso, sheltered the much-enduring Mrs. Gardiner and the two children, while the Captain looked out for a vessel to take him to Patagonia; but he found that no one ever went there, and the whalers who made these dismal islands their station did not wish to go out of their course. Captain Gardiner offered 200_l._, the probable value of a whole whale, as the price of his passage; but the skippers told him that, though they would willingly take him anywhere for nothing, they could not go out of their course. To seek the most hopeless and uncultivated was always this good man's object. The Falkland Isles were dreary enough, but they were a paradise compared to the desolate fag-end of the American world,--a cluster of barren rocks, intersected by arms of the sea, which divide them into numerous islets, the larger ones bearing stunted forests of beech and birch, on the skirts of hills covered with perpetual snow, and sending down blue glaciers to the water's edge. The narrower channels are very shallow; the wider, rough and storm-tossed; and scarcely anything edible grows on the islands. The Fuegians are as degraded a people as any on the face of the earth, with just intelligence enough to maintain themselves by hunting and fishing, by the help of dogs, which, it is said, they prize so much that they would rather, in time of scarcity, eat up an old mother than a dog; and they are churlishly inhospitable to strangers, although with an unusual facility for imitating their language, nor had any one ever attempted their conversion. However, the master of the _Montgomery_, who had brought the Gardiners out to the Falkland Islands, hearing of the offer, undertook such a profitable expedition; but his schooner was utterly frail, had to be caulked and to borrow a sail, and, as he was losing no whales, Captain Gardiner refused to give more than 100_l._, a sufficiently exorbitant sum, for the passage of himself and a servant named Johnstone. While the crazy vessel was refitting a Sunday intervened, during which he offered to hold a service, but only two men attended it, the rest were all absent or intoxicated. The poor little ship put to sea, and struggled into the Straits of Magelhaen, drifting near the Fuegian coast. Landing, the Captain lighted a fire to attract the attention of the natives, and some came down and shouted. The English did not, however, think it safe to go further from the boat, and presently the Fuegians likewise kindled their fire, whereupon Gardiner heaped more fuel on his own, and continued his signals, when two men advanced, descending to the beach. They were clad in cloaks of the skin of the guanaco, a small kind of llama, and were about five feet ten in height, with broad shoulders and chests, but lean, disproportionate legs. Each carried a bow and quiver of arrows; and they spoke loudly, making evident signs that the strangers were unwelcome. Presents were offered them; brass buttons, a clasp knife, and worsted comforter; and they sat down, but apparently with a sullen resolution not to relax their faces, nor utter another word. A small looking-glass was handed to one of them, and he was grimly putting it under his cloak when Captain Gardiner held it up to him, and he laughed at the reflection of his own face; and his friend then looked at the knife, as if expecting it to produce the same effect, but, though they seemed to appreciate it, they made no friendly sign, and appeared unmoved when spoken to either in Spanish or in the few Patagonian phrases that Captain Gardiner had managed to pick up; nor did anything seem to afford them any satisfaction except demonstrations of departure. Nothing seemed practicable with these uncouth, distrustful beings, and the Captain therefore went on in search of a tribe of Patagonians, among which, he was told, was a Creole Spaniard named San Leon, who had acquired great influence by his reckless courage and daring, and through whom it might be possible to have some communication with them. The camp of these people on the main continent, near Cape Gregory, was discovered newly deserted, with hollow places in the ground where fires had been made, and many marks of footsteps. This extreme point of the continent was by no means so dreary as the Land of Fire; it bore thorny bushes ten feet high, wild celery and clover, and cranberry-bushes covered with red berries. Indeed, the Patagonians--so called because their big splay boots made Magelhaen conclude they walked on _patas_ (paws), like bears--are a superior race to the Fuegians, larger in stature than most Europeans, great riders, and clever in catching guanacos by means of bolas, _i.e._ two round stones attached to a string. If the Fuegians are Antarctic Esquimaux, the Patagonians are Antarctic Tartars, leading a wandering life under tents made of skins of horses and guanacos, and hating all settled habits, but not so utterly inhospitable and impracticable as their neighbours beyond the Strait. In truth, the division is not clearly marked, for there are Fuegians on the continent and Patagonians in the islands. Ascending a height, the Captain took a survey of the country, and, seeing two wreaths of smoke near Oazy Harbour, sailed in, cast anchor, and in the morning was visited by the natives of their own accord, after which he returned with them to their camp, consisting of horse-hide tents, semicircular in form, and entirely open. They were full of men, women, and children, and among them San Leon, to whom it was possible to talk in Spanish, and indeed several natives, from intercourse with ships, knew a few words of English. San Leon had been with the tribe for twelve years, and said that American missionaries had visited them, but that they had gone away because the Fuegians who crossed the Strait were such thieves that they ate up their provisions and cut up their books. However, no objection was made to Gardiner's remaining, so he set up a tarred canvas tent, closed at each end with bullock-hides, and slept on shore, a good deal disturbed by the dogs, who gnawed at the bullock-hides, till a coat of tar laid over them prevented them. Not so, however, with another visitor, a huge Patagonian, who walked in with the words, "I go sleep," and leisurely coiled himself up for the purpose, unheeding Johnstone's discourse; but the Captain, pointing with his finger, and emphatically saying "Go," produced the desired effect. Then followed the erection of seventeen skin tents, all in a row, set up by the women. These Patagonians behaved well and quietly; but, in the meantime, the master of the schooner had asked San Leon to obtain some guanaco meat for the crew, and the natives who went in search of the animals insisted on being paid, though they had caught nothing. These however were Fuegians, and the Patagonians were very angry with them. Captain Gardiner even ventured to remain alone with Johnstone among this people, while San Leon went on to Port Famine in the _Montgomery_, which was in search of wood; but, in the meantime, he could do nothing but hold a little monosyllabic communication; and once, when he and his servant both went out at the same time, they lost their dinner, which, left to simmer over the fire, proved irresistible to the Patagonians. They, however, differed from the Fuegians in not ordinarily being thieves. A chief named Wissale arrived with a body of his tribe with whom he had been purchasing horses on the Rio Negro, and bringing with him an American negro named Isaac, who had three years since run away from a whaler, and who spoke enough English to be a useful interpreter. Wissale, with Isaac's help, was made to perceive Captain Gardiner's intentions sufficiently to promise to make him welcome if he should return, and to declare that he should be glad to learn good things. There seemed so favourable an opening that the Captain made up his mind to take up his abode there with his family to prepare the way for a missionary in Holy Orders, for whom he never deemed himself more than a pioneer. After distributing presents to the friendly Patagonians, he embarked, and making a weary passage, reached the Falkland Islands, where he found the two ships _Erebus_ and _Terror_ anchored, in the course of their voyage of Antarctic discovery. The presence of the two captains and their officers was a great pleasure and enlivenment to the Gardiners, who received from them many comforts very needful in that inclement climate to people lately come from some of the hottest regions of the southern hemisphere. Whalers continually put in, but not one, even though Captain Gardiner's offers rose to 300_l._, would undertake to go out of his course to Patagonia to convey him and his family, and he would not trust his wife and children on board that wretched craft the _Montgomery_, so he waited on at the Falkland Islands, doing what good he could there, and expecting the answer of a letter he had despatched to the Church Missionary Society, begging for the appointment of a clergyman to this field of labour. After six months' delay, the letter came, and proved to be unfavourable; there was a falling off in the funds of the Society, and a new and doubtful mission was thought undesirable. The Captain believed that nothing but personal representations could prevail, and therefore decided on going home to plead the cause of his Patagonians. He sailed with his family for Rio in a small vessel, and the voyage could not have been one of the least of the dangers, for the skipper was a Guacho who had been a shoemaker, and knew nothing about seafaring, and there was not a spare rope in the ship. From Rio Gardiner took a passage home, and safely arrived, after six years of brave pioneering in three different quarters of the globe. He found, however, that the Church Missionary Society could not undertake the Patagonian Mission, and neither could the London nor Wesleyan Societies. He declared that every one grew cold when they heard of South America, and viewed it as the natural inheritance of Giants Pope and Pagan; and for this very reason he was the more bent upon doing his utmost. Failing in his attack on Pagan he made an assault on Pope, obtaining a grant of Bibles, Testaments, and tracts from the Bible Society, and in 1843 sailed for Rio to distribute them; this time, however, going alone, as his children were of an age to require an English education and an English home. He undertook this mission, in fact, chiefly for the purpose of continuing his attempts to reach the Indian tribes. His journey was, as usual, wild and adventurous, and its principal result was an acquaintance with the English chaplains and congregations at several of the chief South American ports, from whom he received a promise of 100_l._, per annum for the support of a mission to Patagonia. With this beginning he returned home, and while residing at Brighton, his earnestness so stirred people's minds that a Society was formed with an income of 500_l._, and Mr. Robert Hunt, giving up the mastership of an endowed school, offered himself to the Church Missionary Society. A clergyman could not immediately be found, and it was determined that these two should go first and prepare the way. In 1844, then, they landed in Oazy Harbour in Magelhaen's Straits, and set up three tents, one for stores, one for cooking, and one for sleeping. One Fuegian hut was near, where the people were inoffensive, and presently there arrived a Chilian deserter named Mariano, who said that he had run away from the fort at Port Famine with another man named Cruz, who had remained among the Patagonians. He reported that Wissale had lost much of his authority, and that San Leon was now chief of the tribe; also that there was a Padre Domingo at Port Famine, who was teaching the Patagonians to become "Catolicos." To learn the truth as soon as possible, the Captain and Mr. Hunt locked up two of their huts, leaving the other for Mariano, and set off in search of the Patagonians; and a severe journey it was, as they had to carry the heavy clothing required to keep up warmth at night, besides their food, gun, powder, and shot. The fatigue was too much for Hunt, who was at one time obliged to lie down exhausted while the Captain went in search of water; and after four days they were obliged to return to their huts, where shortly after Wissale arrived, but with a very scanty following, only ten or twelve horses, and himself and family very hungry; but though ready to eat whatever Captain Gardiner would give him, his whole manner was changed by his disasters. He was surly and quarrelsome, and evidently under the influence of the deserter Cruz, who was resolved to set him against the new-comers, and so worked upon him that he once threatened the Captain with his dirk. Moreover, a Chilian vessel arrived, bringing Padre Mariano himself, a Spanish South American, with a real zeal for conversion, though he was very courteous to the Englishmen. An English vessel arrived about the same time, and Gardiner, thinking the cause for the present hopeless, accepted a homeward passage, writing in his journal, "We can never do wrong in casting the Gospel net on any side or in any place. During many a dark and wearisome night we may appear to have toiled in vain, but it will not be always so. If we will but wait the appointed time, the promise, though long delayed, will assuredly come to pass." But if he was not daunted his supporters were, and nothing but his intense earnestness, and assurance that he should never abandon South America, prevented the whole cause from being dropped. His next attempt was to reach the Indians beyond Bolivia, in the company of Federigo Gonzales, a Spaniard, who had become a Protestant, and was to have gone on the Patagonian Mission. Here fever became their enemy, but after much suffering and opposition Gonzales was settled at Potosi, studying the Quichuan language, and hoping to work upon the Indians, while the unwearied Gardiner again returned to England to strain every nerve for the Fuegian Mission, which lay nearest of all to his heart. He travelled all over England and Scotland, lecturing and making collections, speaking with the same energy whether he had few or many auditors. At one town, when asked what sort of a meeting he had had, he answered, "Not very good, but better than sometimes." "How many were present?" "Not one; but no meeting is better than a bad one." He could not obtain means enough for a well-appointed expedition such as he wished for; but he urged that a small experimental one might be sent out, consisting of himself, four sailors, one carpenter, with three boats, two huts, and provisions for half a year. He hoped to establish a station on Staten Island, whence the Fuegians could be visited, and the stores kept out of their reach. Having found the men, he embarked on board the barque _Clymene_, which was bound for Payta, in Peru, and was landed on Picton Island; but before the vessel had departed the Fuegians had beset the little party, and shown themselves so obstinately and mischievously thievish, that it was plainly impossible for so small a party to hold their ground among them. Before there could be a possibility of convincing them of even the temporal benefit of the white man's residence among them, they would have stripped and carried off everything from persons who would refrain from hurting them. So, once more, the Captain drew up the net which had taken nothing, decided that the only mission which would suit the Fuegians must be afloat, and went on to Payta in the _Clymene_. While in Peru, he met with a Spanish lady, who asked if he knew a friend of hers who came from Genoa, and then proceeded to inquire which was the largest city, Genoa or Italy, and if Europe was not a little on this side of Spain, while a priest asked if London was a part of France. After spending a little time in distributing Bibles in Peru, he made his way home by the way of Panama, and on his arrival made an attempt to interest the Moravians in the cause so near his heart, thinking that what they had done in Greenland proved their power of dealing with that savage apathy that springs from inclemency of climate, but the mission was by them pronounced impracticable. In the meantime, his former ground, Port Natal, was in a more hopeful state. Tremendous battles had been fought between Dingarn and the boers; but, in 1839, Panda, Dingarn's brother, finding his life threatened, went over to the enemy, carrying 4,000 men with him, and thus turned the scale. Dingarn was routed, fled, and was murdered by the tribe with whom he had taken refuge, and Panda became Zulu king, while the boers occupied Natal, and founded the city of Pieter Maritzburg as the capital of a Republic; but the disputes between them and the Zulus led to the interference of the Governor of the Cape, and finally Natal was made a British colony, with the Tugela for a boundary; and, as Panda's government was exceedingly violent and bloody, his subjects were continually flocking across the river to put themselves under British protection, and were received on condition of paying a small yearly rate for every hut in each kraal, and conforming themselves to English law, so far as regarded the suppression of violence and theft. One of the survivors of Gardiner's old pupils, meeting a gentleman who was going to England, sent him the following message: "Tell Cappan Garna he promise to come again if his hair was as white as his shirt, and we are waiting for him;" and he added a little calabash snuff-box as a token. But the Captain had made his promise to return contingent upon the Kaffirs of his settlement taking no part in the war, and they, poor things, had, with the single exception of his own personal attendant, Umpondombeni, broken this condition; so that he did not deem himself bound by it. Moreover, means were being taken for providing a mission for Natal, and Christian teachers were already there, while he regarded his own personal exertions as the only hope for the desolate natives of Cape Horn. So he only sent a letter and a present to the man, urging him to attach himself to a mission-station, and then turned again to his unwearied labour in the Patagonian and Fuegian cause. His little Society found it impossible to raise means for the purchase of a brigantine, and he therefore limited his plans to the equipment of two launches and two smaller boats. He would store in these provisions for six months, and take a crew of Cornish fishermen, used to the stormy Irish Sea. As to the funds, a lady at Cheltenham gave 700_l._, he himself 300_l._ The boats were purchased, three Cornishmen, named Pearce, Badcock, and Bryant, all of good character, volunteered from the same village; Joseph Erwin, the carpenter, who had been with him before, begged to go with him again, because, he said, "being with Captain Gardiner was like a heaven upon earth; he was such a man of prayer." One catechist was Richard Williams, a surgeon; the other John Maidment, who was pointed out by the secretary of the Young Men's Association in London; and these seven persons, with their two launches, the _Pioneer_ and the _Speedwell_, were embarked on board the _Ocean Queen_, and sailed from Liverpool on the 7th of September, 1850. They carried with them six months' provisions, and the committee were to send the same quantity out in due time, but they failed to find a ship that would undertake to go out of its course to Picton Island, and therefore could only send the stores to the Falklands, to be thence despatched by a ship that was reported to go monthly to Tierra del Fuego for wood. Meantime, the seven, with their boats and their provisions, were landed on Picton Island, and the _Ocean Queen_ pursued her way. Time passed on, and no more was heard of them. The Governor of the Falklands had twice made arrangements for ships to touch at Picton Island, but the first master was wrecked, the second disobeyed him; and in great anxiety, on the discovery of this second failure, he sent, in October 1851, a vessel on purpose to search for them. At the same time, the _Dido_, Captain William Morshead, had been commanded by the Admiralty to touch at the isles of Cape Horn and carry relief to the missionaries. On the 21st of October, in a lonely little bay called Spaniards' Harbour, in Picton Island, the Falkland Island vessel found the _Speedwell_ on the beach, and near it an open grave. In the boat lay one body, near the grave another. They returned with these tidings, and in the meantime the _Dido_ having come out, her boats explored the coast, and a mile and a half beyond the first found the other boat, beside which lay a skeleton, the dress of which showed it to be the remains of Allen Gardiner. Near at hand was a cavern, outside which were these words painted, beneath a hand:-- "My soul, wait thou still upon God, for my hope is in Him. "He truly is my strength and my salvation; He is my defence, so that I shall not fall. "In God is my strength and my glory; the rock of my might, and in God is my trust." Within the cave lay another body, that of Maidment. Reverent hands collected the remains and dug a grave; the funeral service was read by one of the officers, the ship's colours were hung half-mast high, and three volleys of musketry fired over the grave--"the only tribute of respect," says Captain Morshead, "I could pay to this lofty-minded man and his devoted companions who have perished in the cause of the Gospel." There was no doubt of the cause and manner of their death, for Captain Gardiner's diary was found written up to probably the last day of his life. It appeared that in their first voyage, on the 20th of December, they had fallen in with a heavy sea, and a great drift of seaweed, in which the anchor of the _Speedwell_ and the two lesser boats had been hopelessly entangled and lost. It was found impossible for such small numbers to manage the launches in the stormy channels while loaded, and it was therefore resolved to lighten them by burying the stores at Banner Cove, and, while this was being done, it was discovered that all the ammunition, except one flask and a half of powder, had been left behind in the _Ocean Queen_; so that there was no means of obtaining either guanacos or birds. Attempts were made at establishing friendly barter with the natives, but no sooner did these perceive the smallness of the number of the strangers, than they beset them with obstinate hostility. Meantime, Gardiner's object was to reach a certain Button Island, where was a man called Jemmy Button, who had had much intercourse with English sailors, and who, he hoped, might pave the way for a better understanding with the natives. But the _Pioneer_ had been damaged from the first, and could not go so far. At Banner Cove the natives were hostile and troublesome, and Spaniards' Harbour was the only refuge, and even there a furious wind, on the 1st of February, drove the _Pioneer_ ashore against the jagged root of a tree, so as to damage her past all her crew's power of mending, though they hauled her higher up on the beach, and, by the help of a tent, made a lodging for the night of the wreck close to the cave, which they called after her name. The question then was, whether to place all the seven in the _Speedwell_ with some of the provisions and make for Button Island, and this might probably have saved their lives; but they had already experienced the exceeding difficulty of navigating the launch in the heavy seas. Both their landing boats were lost, and they therefore decided to remain where they were until the arrival of the vessel with supplies, which they confidently expected either from home or from the Falklands. Indeed, their power of moving away was soon lost, for Williams, the surgeon, and Badcock, one of the Cornishmen, both fell ill of the scurvy. The cold was severe, and neither fresh meat nor green food was to be had, and this in February--the southern August. However, the patients improved enough to enable the party to make a last expedition to Banner Cove to recover more of the provisions buried there, and to paint notices upon the rocks to guide the hoped-for relief to Spaniards' Harbour; but this was not effected without much molestation from the Fuegians. Then passed six weary months of patient expectation and hope deferred. There was no murmuring, no insubordination, while these seven men waited--waited--waited in vain, through the dismal Antarctic winter for the relief that came too late. The journals of Williams and Gardiner breathe nothing but hopeful, resigned trust, and comfort in the heavenly-minded resolution of each of the devoted band, who may almost be said to have been the Theban legion of the nineteenth century. For a month they were able to procure fish, and were not put on short allowance till April, when Williams and Badcock both became worse, and Bryant began to fail, though he never took to his bed. They, with Erwin, were lodged in the _Speedwell_ at Blomfield Harbour, a sheltered inlet, about a mile and a half from the wreck of the _Pioneer_, where, to leave the sick more room, Captain Gardiner lodged with Maidment and Pearce. With the months whose names spoke of English summer, storms and terrible cold began to set in. The verses that Gardiner wrote in his diary during this frightful period are inexpressibly touching in the wondrous strength of their faith and cheerfulness. "Let that sweet word our spirits cheer Which quelled the tossed disciples' fear: 'Be not afraid!' He who could bid the tempest cease Can keep our souls in perfect peace, If on Him stayed. And we shall own 'twas good to wait: No blessing ever came too late." This was written on the 4th of June; on the 8th their fishing-net was torn to pieces by blocks of drifting ice. On the 28th Badcock died, begging his comrades to sing a hymn to him in his last moments. In August, Gardiner, hitherto the healthiest, was obliged to take to his bed in the _Pioneer_, and there heard of the death of Erwin on the 23rd of August, and of Bryant on the 27th. Maidment buried them both, and came back to Captain Gardiner, who, as he lay in bed, had continued his journal, and written his farewell letters to his wife and children. Hitherto, the stores of food had been eked out by mussels and wild celery, but there was now no one to search for them. Gardiner, wishing to save Maidment the journeys to and fro, determined to try to reach the _Speedwell_, and Maidment cut two forked sticks to serve as crutches, but the Captain found himself too weak for the walk, and had to return. This was on the 30th of August. On Sunday, the 31st, there is no record in the diary, but the markers stand in his Prayer-book at the Psalms for the day and the Collect for the Sunday. On the 3rd of September, Maidment was so much exhausted that he could not leave his bed till noon, and Gardiner never saw him again. He must have died in the _Pioneer_ cavern, being unable to return. The diary continues five days longer. A little peppermint-water had been left by the solitary sufferer's bed, and a little fresh water he also managed to scoop up from the sides of the boat in an india-rubber shoe. This was all the sustenance he had. On the 6th of September he wrote--"Yet a little while, and through grace we may join that blessed throng to sing the praises of Christ throughout eternity. I neither hunger nor thirst, though five days without food! Marvellous loving-kindness to me, a sinner. Your affectionate brother in CHRIST,--ALLEN F. GARDINER." These last words were in a letter to Williams. He must afterwards have left the boat, perhaps to catch more water, and have been too weak to climb back into it, for his remains were on the beach. Williams lost the power of writing sooner, and no more is known of his end, though probably he died first, and Pearce must have been trying to prepare his grave when he, too, sank. What words can befit this piteous history better than "This is the patience of the saints"? The memorial to Allen Gardiner has been a mission-ship bearing his name, with her head-quarters at the Falkland Isles. We believe that these isles are to become a Bishop's See. Assuredly a branch of the Church should spring up where the seed of so patient and devoted a martyrdom has been sown. CHAPTER XI. CHARLES FREDERICK MACKENZIE, THE MARTYR OF THE ZAMBESI. That Zulu country where poor Allen Gardiner had made his first attempt became doubly interesting to the English when the adjoining district of Natal became a British colony. It fell under the superintendence of Bishop Robert Gray, of Capetown, who still lives and labours, and therefore cannot be here spoken of; and mainly by his exertions it was formed into a separate Episcopal See in the year 1853. Most of the actors in the founding of the Church of Natal are still living, but there are some of whom it can truly be said that-- "Death hath moulded into calm completeness The statue of their life." Charles Frederick Mackenzie was born in 1825 of an old Scottish Tory family, members from the first of the Scottish Church in the days of her persecution. His father, Colin Mackenzie, was one of Walter Scott's fellow-Clerks of Session, and is commemorated by one of the Introductions to "Marmion," as-- "He whose absence we deplore, Who breathes the gales of Devon's shore; The longer missed, bewailed the more." His mother was Elizabeth Forbes, and he was the youngest of so unusually large a family that the elders had been launched into the world before the younger ones were born, so that they never were all together under one roof. The father's delicacy of health kept the mother much engrossed; the elder girls were therefore appointed as little mothers to the younger children, and it was to his eldest sister, Elizabeth (afterwards Mrs. Dundas), that the young Charles always looked with the tender reverence that is felt towards the earliest strong influence for good. From the first he had one of those pure and stainless natures that seem to be good without effort, but his talents were only considered remarkable for arithmetic. His elder brothers used to set him up on a table and try to puzzle him with questions, which he could often answer mentally before they had worked them out on their slates. His father died in 1830, after so much invalidism and separation that his five-year- old boy had no personal recollection of him. The eldest son, Mr. Forbes Mackenzie, succeeded to the estate of Portmore, and the rest of the family resided in Edinburgh for education. Charles attended the Academy till he was fifteen, when he was sent to the Grange School at Bishop's Wearmouth, all along showing a predominant taste for mathematics, which he would study for his own amusement and assist his elder brothers in. His perfect modesty prevented them from ever feeling hurt by his superiority in this branch, and he held his place well in classics, though they were not the same delight to him, and were studied rather as a duty and as a step to the ministry of the Church, the desire of his heart from the first. At school, his companions respected him heartily, and loved him for his unselfish kindness and sweetness, while a few of the more graceless were inclined to brand him as soft or slow, because he never consented to join in anything blameable, and was not devoted to boyish sports, though at times he would join in them with great vigour, and was always perfectly fearless. From the Grange he passed to Cambridge, and was entered at St. John's, but finding that his Scottish birth was a disadvantage according to restrictions now removed, he transferred himself to Caius College. He kept up a constant correspondence with his eldest sister, Mrs. Dundas, and from it may be gathered much of his inner life, while outwardly he was working steadily on, as a very able and studious undergraduate. With hopes of the ministry before his eyes, he begged one of the parochial clergy to give him work that would serve as training, and accordingly he was requested to read and pray with a set of old people living in an asylum. The effort cost his bashfulness much, but he persevered, with the sense that if he did not go "no one else would," and that his attempts were "better than nothing." This was the key to all his life. At the same time he felt, what biography shows many another to have done, the influence of the more constant and complete worship then enjoined by college rules. Daily service was new to him, and was accepted of course as college discipline, but after a time it gathered force and power over his mind, and as the _Magnificat_ had been a revelation to Henry Martyn, so Charles Mackenzie's affection first fixed upon the General Thanksgiving, and on the commemoration of the departed in the prayer for the Church Militant. His fellow-collegians thought of him as a steady, religious-minded man, but not peculiarly devout, and indeed the just balance of his mind made him perceive that the prime duty of an undergraduate was industry rather than attempts to exercise his yet unformed and uncultivated powers. In 1848 he was second wrangler. There were two prizes, called Dr. Smith's, for the two most distinguished mathematicians of the year. The senior wrangler's papers had the first of these; for the second, Mackenzie was neck and neck with a Trinity College man, and the question was only decided by the fact that Dr. Smith had desired that his own college (Trinity) should have the preference. After this he became tutor and fellow of his college, taking private pupils, and at the same time preparing for Holy Orders, not only by study of books, but by work among the poor, with whom his exceeding kindness and intense reality gave him especial influence at all times. He was ordained on the Trinity Sunday of 1851, and took an assistant curacy at a short distance from Cambridge, his vigorous powers of walking enabling him to give it full attention as well as to his pupils and to the University offices he filled. His great characteristic seems always to have been the tenderest kindness and consideration; and in the year when he was public examiner, this was especially felt by the young men undergoing an ordeal so terrible to strained and excited intellect and nerves, when a little hastiness or harshness often destroys the hopes of a man's youth. With this combination of pastoral work and college life Mackenzie was perfectly satisfied and happy, but in another year the turning-point of his life was reached. A mission at Delhi to the natives was in prospect, and the Rev. J. S. Jackson, who belonged to the same college with him, came to Cambridge in search of a fellow-labourer therein. During the conversations and consultations as to who could be asked, the thought came upon Mackenzie, why should he strive to send forth others without going himself. He could not put it from his mind. He read Henry Martyn's life, and resolved on praying for guidance as to his own duty. In the words of his letter to Mrs. Dundas, "I thought chiefly of the command, 'Go ye and baptize all nations,' and how some one ought to go; and I thought how in another world one would look back and rejoice at having seized this opportunity of taking the good news of the Gospel to those who had never heard of it; but for whom, as well as for us, Christ died. I thought of the Saviour sitting in heaven, and looking down upon this world, and seeing us, who have heard the news, selfishly keeping it to ourselves, and only one or two, or eight or ten, going out in the year to preach to His other sheep, who must be brought, that there may be one fold and one Shepherd; and I thought that if other men would go abroad, then I might stay at home, but as no one, or so few, would go out, then it was the duty of every one that could go to go. . . . And I thought, what right have I to say to young men here, 'You had better go out to India,' when I am hugging myself in my comfortable place at home." And afterwards, "Now, dear Lizzie, I have always looked to you as my mother and early teacher. To you I owe more than I can ever repay, more than I can well tell. I do hope you will pray for me and give me your advice." Mrs. Dundas's reply to this letter was a most wise and full expression of sympathy with the aspiration, given with the deep consideration of a peculiarly calm and devotional spirit, which perceived that it is far better for a man to work up to his fullest perception of right, and highest aims, than to linger in a sphere which does not occupy his fullest soul and highest self; and she also recognized the influence that the fact of one of a family being engaged in such work exercises on those connected with them. Others of the family, however, were startled, and some of his Cambridge friends did not think him adapted to the Delhi Mission, and this therefore was given up, but without altering the bent that his mind had received; and indeed Mrs. Dundas, in one of her beautiful letters, advised him to keep the aim once set before him in view, and thus his interest became more and more turned towards the support of missionary work at home. In 1854, the first Primate of New Zealand, George Augustus Selwyn, visited England, after twelve years of labour spent in building up the Colonial and Maori Church, and of pioneering for missions in the Melanesian Isles, over which his vast see then extended. He preached a course of four sermons at Cambridge; Mackenzie was an eager listener, and those forcible, heart-stirring discourses clenched his long growing resolution to obey the first call to missionary labour that should come to him, though, on the other hand, he desired so far to follow the leadings of Providence that he would not choose nor volunteer, but wait for the summons--whither he knew not. Ere long the invitation came. The erection of the colony of Natal into a Bishop's See had been decided upon a year before, and it had been offered to John William Colenso, a clergyman known as active in the support of the missionary cause, and a member of the University of Cambridge. On his appointment he had gone out in company with the Bishop of Capetown to inspect his diocese and study its needs, as well as to lay the foundations of future work. In the party who then sailed for Natal was a lady who had recently been left a widow, Henrietta Woodrow by name, ardent in zeal for the conversion of the heathen, and hoping that the warm climate of Africa would enable her to devote herself to good works more entirely than her delicate health permitted at home. Pieter Maritzburg had by this time risen into a capital, with a strange mixture of Dutch and English buildings; but the English population strongly predominated. Panda was king of the Kaffirs, and fearfully bloody massacres had taken place in his dominions, causing an immense number of refugees to take shelter in the English territory. Young people who thus came were bound apprentices to persons who would take charge of them for the sake of their services, and thus the missions and those connected with them gained considerable influence for a time. A Kaffir, who must have been Captain Gardiner's faithful Umpondobeni, though he was now called by another name, inquired for his former good master, and fell into an agony of distress on hearing of his fate. Mrs. Woodrow at once opened an orphanage for the destitute English children that are sure to be found in a new colony, where the parents, if unsuccessful, are soon tempted to drink, and then fall victims to climate and accident. The Kaffir servant whom she engaged had already been converted, and was baptized by the name of Abraham, soon after he entered her service; but "Boy,"--the name at first given to him,--became a sort of surname to him and to his family. While watching over the little band of children, Mrs. Woodrow was already--even though as yet only learning the language--preparing the way for the coming Church. She wrote of the Kaffirs: "They come to me of all ages, men and women, some old men from the country, with their rings upon their heads, and wrapped in their house blankets. Then they sit down on the kitchen floor, our 'Boy' telling them, in his earnest way, about JESUS CHRIST. These I cannot speak to, but I manage to let them know that I care for them, and 'Boy' says they go away with 'tears in their hearts.'" About two years previously, a Scottish colonist at the Cape, named Robert Robertson, had been touched by the need of ministers; had been ordained by the Bishop of Capetown, and sent to Natal as missionary clergyman to the Zulus. Early in 1855 these two devoted workers were married, and, taking up their abode at Durban, continued together their care of the English orphans, and of the Kaffir children whom they could collect. In the meantime, Bishop Colenso, having taken his survey of the colony, had returned to England to collect his staff of fellow-workers; and one of his first requests was that Charles Mackenzie would accompany him as Archdeacon of Pieter Maritzburg. There was not such entire willingness in Mrs. Dundas's mind to part with him on this mission as on the former proposal; not that she wished to hold him back from the task to which he had in a manner dedicated himself, but she preferred his going out without the title of a dignitary, and, from the tone of the new Bishop's letters, she foresaw that doctrinal difficulties and differences might arise. Her brother had, however, made up his mind that no great work would ever be done, if those who co-operated were too minute in seeking for perfect accordance of opinions; and that boundless charity which was his great characteristic made him perhaps underrate the importance of the fissure which his sister even then perceived between the ways of thinking of himself and his Bishop. His next sister, Anne, whose health was too delicate for a northern climate, was to accompany him; and the entire party who went out with Bishop Colenso numbered thirty or forty persons, including several ladies, who were to devote themselves to education, both of the white and black inhabitants. They sailed in the barque _Jane Morice_ early in the March of 1855, and, after a pleasant and prosperous voyage, entered Durban Bay in the ensuing May. The first home of the brother and sister was at Durban, among the English colonists. It somewhat disappointed the Archdeacon, as those who come out for purely missionary aims always are disappointed, when called to the equally needful but less interesting field of labour among their own countrymen; put as he says, he satisfied his mind by recollecting, "I came out here simply because there was a scarcity of people that could and would come. I did not come because I thought the work more important than that I was leaving." So he set himself heartily to gather and confirm the congregation that had had its first commencement when Allen Gardiner used to read prayers to the first few settlers; and, at the same time, Kaffir services were held for the some thousand persons in the town in the employment of the whites. The Archdeacon read prayers in Kaffir, and Mr. Robertson preached on the Sunday evenings. The numbers of attendants were not large, and the most work was done by the school that the Robertsons collected round them. The indifference and slackness of the English at Durban made it all the harder to work upon the Kaffirs; and, in truth, Archdeacon Mackenzie's residence there was a troublous time. The endeavour, by the wish of the Bishop, to establish a weekly offertory, was angrily received by the colonists, who were furious at the sight of the surplice in the pulpit, and, no doubt, disguised much real enmity, both to holiness of life and to true discipline, under their censure of what they called a badge of party. Their treatment of the Archdeacon, when they found him resolute, amounted to persecution; the most malignant rumours were set afloat, and nothing but his strength and calmness, perfect forgiveness, and yet unswerving determination, carried him through what was probably the most trying period of his life. Intercourse with the Robertsons was the great refreshment in those anxious days. A grant from Government had been made for a Church Mission station upon the coast, and upon the river Umlazi, not many miles from Durban; and here Mr. and Mrs. Robertson stationed themselves with their little company of orphans, refugees, and Kaffirs; also a Hottentot family, whose children they were bringing up. Their own house had straight walls, coffee-coloured, a brown thatched roof, and a boarded floor, in consideration of Mrs. Robertson's exceeding delicacy of health; but such boards! loose, and so springy that the furniture leapt and danced when the floor was crossed. It was all on the ground-floor, partitioned by screens; and the thatched roof continued a good way out, supported on posts, so as to form a wide verandah; and scattered all around were the beehive dwellings of the Kaffir following, and huts raised for the nonce for European guests. At six o'clock in the morning a large bell was rung. At eight, Kaffir prayers were read by Mr. Robertson, for his own servants, in the verandah, and for some who would come in from the neighbouring kraals; then followed breakfast; then English matins; and, by that time, Kaffir children were creeping up to the verandah to be taught. They were first washed, and then taught their letters, with some hymns translated into their language, and a little religious instruction. The children were generally particularly pleasant to deal with, bright and intelligent, and with a natural amiability of disposition that rendered quarrels and jealousies rare. Good temper seems, indeed, to be quite a Zulu characteristic; the large mixed families of the numerous wives live together harmoniously, and the gift of a kraal to one member is acknowledged by all the rest. Revenge, violence, and passion are to be found among them, but not fretfulness and quarrelsomeness. After the work of instruction, there was generally a ride into the neighbouring kraals, to converse with the people, and invite the children to school. They had to be propitiated with packets of sugar, and shown the happy faces of the home flock. There was, at first, a good deal of inclination to distrust; and the endeavour to bring the women and girls to wear clothes had to be most cautiously managed, as a little over-haste would make them take fright and desert altogether. The Kaffir customs of marriage proved one of the most serious impediments in the way of the missionaries. The female sex had its value as furnishing servants and cultivators of the ground, and every man wished to own as many wives as possible. Not only did the question what was to be done in the case of many-wived converts come under consideration, but the fathers objected to their daughters acquiring the rudiments of civilization, lest it should lessen their capabilities to act as beasts of burden, and thus spoil their price in cattle, (the true _pecunia_ of the Zulu). Practically, it was found, that no polygamist ever became more than an inquirer; the way of life seemed to harden the heart or blind the eyes against conviction; but the difficulty as regarded the younger people was great, since as long as a girl remained the lawful property of the head of her kraal, she was liable to be sold to any polygamist of any age who might pay her value; and thus it became a question whether it were safe to baptize her. Even Christian Zulus marrying Christian women according to the English rite could not be secure of them unless the cows were duly paid over; and as these Kaffirs are a really fine race, with more of the elements of true love in them than is usual in savages, adventures fit for a novel would sometimes occur, when maidens came flying to the mission station to avoid some old husband who had made large offers to their father; and the real lover would arrive entreating protection for the lady of his heart until he could earn the requisite amount of cows to satisfy her father. Mr. Robertson was always called the umfundisi, or teacher. He held his Sunday Kaffir service in a clearing in the bush, and gained many hearts to himself, and some souls for the Church, while toiling with his hands as well as setting forth the truth with his lips. Mrs. Robertson at the same time worked upon the women by her tenderness to their little ones, offering them little frocks if they would wash them, caressing them with all a woman's true love for babies, and then training their elder children and girls, teaching them needlework, and whatever could lead to aspirations towards modesty and the other graces of Christian womanhood. Often extremely ill, always fragile, her energy never failed; and there was a grace and dignity about her whole deportment and manner which caused "the Lady" to be the emphatic title always given to her by her husband and his friends. Of these the Mackenzie family were among the warmest, and the Archdeacon gladly gave valuable assistance to Mr. Robertson by supplementing an education which had not been definitely clerical, but rather of that order which seems to render an able Scotsman fit to apply himself to almost anything. In February 1857 another sister, named Alice, joined the Mackenzie family, when they were on a visit to the Umlazi station. Her quick powers and enthusiastic spirit fitted her in a wonderful manner for missionary labour, and she was at once in such sympathy with the Kaffirs that it was a playful arrangement among the home party that Anne should be the white and Alice the black sister. Just after her arrival, it was determined that the Archdeacon should leave Durban, where, indeed, he had been only filling the post of an absent clergyman, and take a district on the Umhlali river, forty miles from Durban, containing a number of English settlements, a camp, and a large amount of Kaffir kraals. Every Sunday he had five services at different places, one of them eighteen miles from the nearest, a space that had to be ridden at speed in the mid-day sun. There was no house, but a couple of rooms with perpendicular sides and a verandah, one for chapel, the other for sitting-room, while Kaffir beehive huts were the bedrooms of all. For a long time blankets and plaids did the part of doors and shutters; and just as the accommodations were improving, the whole grass and wattle structure was burnt down, and it was many months before the tardy labour of colonial workmen enabled the family to take possession of the new house, in a better situation, which they named Seaforth, after the title of the former head of the Mackenzie clan. All this time the whole party had been working. A school was collected every morning of both boys and girls; not many in number, but from a large area: children of white settlers, varying in rank, gentlemen or farmers, but all alike running wild for want of time and means to instruct them. They came riding on horses or oxen, attended by their Kaffirs, and were generally found exceedingly ignorant of all English learning, but precocious and independent in practical matters: young boys able to shoot, ride, and often entrusted with difficult commissions by their fathers at an age when their cousins at home would scarcely be at a public school, and little girls accustomed to superintend the Kaffirs in all household business; both far excelling their parents in familiarity with the language, but accustomed to tyrannize over the black servants, and in danger of imbibing unsuspected evil from their heathen converse. It was a task of no small importance to endeavour to raise the tone, improve the manners, and instruct the minds of these young colonists, and it could only be attempted by teaching them as friends upon an equality. With the Kaffirs, at the same time, the treatment was moulded on that of Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, who at one time paid the Umhlali a visit, bringing with them their whole train of converts, servants, orphans, and adopted children, who could be easily accommodated by putting up fresh grass huts, to which even the Europeans of the party had become so accustomed, that they viewed a chameleon tumbling down on the dinner-table with rather more indifference than we do the intrusion of an earwig, quite acquiesced in periodically remaking the clay floor when the white ants were coming up through it, scorpions being found in the Archdeacon's whiskers, and green snakes, instead of mice, being killed by the cat. The sight of Christian Kaffirs was very beneficial to the learners, to whom it was a great stumbling block to have no fellows within their ken, but to be totally separated from all of their own race and colour. At Seaforth, the wedding was celebrated of two of Mr. Robertson's converts, named Benjamin and Louisa, the marriage Psalms being chanted in Kaffir, and the Holy Communion celebrated, when there were seven Kaffir communicants. The bride wore a white checked muslin and a wreath of white natural flowers on her head. This was the first Christian Zulu wedding, and it has been followed by many more, and we believe that in no case has there been a relapse into heathenism or polygamy. The Mackenzies continued at Seaforth until the early part of the year 1859. The work was peaceful and cheerful. There were no such remarkable successes in conversion as the Robertsons met with, probably because in the further and wilder district the work was more pioneering, and the Robertsons had never been without a nucleus of Christians, besides which the gifts of both appear to have been surpassing in their power of dealing with natives, and producing thorough conversions. Moreover, they had no cure but of the Kaffirs, whereas Archdeacon Mackenzie was the pastor of a widely scattered population, and his time and strength on Sundays employed to their very uttermost. Church affairs weighed heavily upon him; and another heavy sorrow fell on him in the death of the guardian elder sister, Mrs. Dundas. Her illness, typhus fever, left time for the preparation of knowing of her danger, and a letter written to her by her brother during the suspense breathes his resigned hope:--"Dear Lizzie, you may now be among the members of the Church in heaven, who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. If so, we shall never meet again on earth. But what a meeting in heaven! Any two of us to meet so would be, more than we can conceive, to be made perfect, and never more to part." And when writing to the bereaved husband after the blow had fallen, he says: "Surely we ought not to think it strange if the brightest gems are sometimes removed from the workshop to the immediate presence of the Great King." But the grief, though borne in such a spirit, probably made him susceptible to the only illness he experienced while in Natal. The immediate cause was riding in the burning sun of a southern February, and the drinking cold water, the result of which was a fever, that kept him at home for about a month. There was at this time a strong desire to send a mission into independent Zululand, with a Bishop at its head. Bishop Colenso was at first inclined to undertake the lead himself, resigning Natal; and next a plan arose that Archdeacon Mackenzie should become the missionary Bishop. The plan was to be submitted to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and for this purpose the Archdeacon was despatched to England, taking Miss Mackenzie with him; but the younger sister, Alice, having so recently arrived, and being so valuable as a worker among the natives, remained to assist in the school of young chiefs who had been gathered together by Bishop Colenso. The time of the return of the brother and sister was just when Dr. Livingstone's account of the interior of Africa, and of the character of the chiefs on the Zambesi, had excited an immense enthusiasm throughout England. He had appealed to the Universities to found a mission, and found it they would, on a truly grand scale, commensurate with their wealth and numbers. It was to have a Bishop at the head, and a strong staff of clergy, vessels built on purpose to navigate the rivers, and every requisite amply provided. Crowded meetings were held at each University, and the enthusiasm produced by the appeal of Dr. Livingstone, a Scottish Presbyterian, to the English Universities, as the only bodies capable of such an effort, produced unspeakable excitement. At a huge meeting at Cambridge, attended by the most distinguished of English Churchmen, Archdeacon Mackenzie was present. His quiet remark to the friend beside him, was, "I am _afraid_ of this. Most great works have been carried on by one or two men in a quieter way, and have had a more humble beginning." In fact, Bishop Gray, of Capetown, had long been thinking of a Central African Mission; but his plan, and that which Mackenzie would have preferred, was to work gradually northwards from the places already Christian, or partially so, instead of commencing an isolated station at so great a distance, not only from all aid to the workers, but from all example or mode of bringing civilized life to the pupils. But Livingstone had so thoroughly won the sympathies of the country that only the exact plan which he advocated could obtain favour, and it was therefore felt that it was better to accept and co-operate with his spirit than to give any check, or divide the flow by contrary suggestions. Thus Livingstone became almost as much the guide and referee of the Zambesi expedition as ever a Cardinal Legate was of a crusade. Nor could this be wondered at, for the ordinary Englishman is generally almost ignorant of missions and their history, and in this case an able and interesting book of travels had stirred the mind of the nation; nor had experience then shown how much more there was of the explorer than of the missionary in the writer. From the first, Archdeacon Mackenzie was designated as the chief of the mission. He felt the appointment a call not to be rejected. His sister Anne viewed it in the same spirit, and was ready to cast in her lot with him, and letters were written to the other sister in Natal proposing to her to accompany them. Then came a year of constant travelling and oratory in churches and on platforms, collecting means and rousing interest in the mission--a year that would have been a mere whirl to any one not possessed of the wonderful calmness and simplicity that characterized Mackenzie, and made him just do the work that came to hand in the best manner in his power, without question or choice as to what that work might be. By the October of 1860 all was ready, and the brother and sister had taken leave of the remaining members of their family, and embarked at Southampton, together with two clergymen, a lay superintendent, a carpenter and a labourer, and likewise Miss Fanny Woodrow, Mrs. Robertson's niece, who was to join in her work. Their first stage was Capetown, where it had been arranged that the consecration should take place, since it is best that a Missionary Bishop governing persons not under English government should not be fettered by regulations that concern her Prelates, not as belonging to the Church, but to the Establishment. There was some delay in collecting the bishops of South Africa, so that the _Pioneer_, placed at Dr. Livingstone's disposal, could not wait; and the two clergy, Mr. Waller and Mr. Scudamore, proceeded without their chief. On the 1st of January, 1861, the rite took place, memorable as the first English consecration of a Missionary Bishop, and an example was set that has happily been since duly followed, as the Church has more and more been roused to the fulfilment of the parting command, "Go ye, and teach _all_ nations." And, on the 7th, the new Bishop sailed in H.M.S. _Lyra_, Captain Oldfield, which had been appointed, in the course of its East African cruise, to take him to the scene of his labours, on the way setting down the Bishop of Natal at his diocese. The first exploration and formation of a settlement had been decided to be too arduous and perilous for women, especially for such an invalid as Miss Mackenzie, and she was therefore left at Capetown, to follow as soon as things should be made ready for her. The so-called black sister, who then fully intended also to be a member of the Central African Mission, came down to meet her brother at Durban, and a few days of exceeding peace and joy were here spent. The victory over his opponents at Durban had been won by the recollection of his unfailing meekness and love; they hailed him with ardent affection and joy, expressed their regret for all that had been unfriendly, and eagerly sought for all pastoral offices at his hand. He consecrated a church, and held a confirmation at the Umlazi; but the Robertsons were not there to welcome him. The long-contemplated mission into independent Zululand had devolved upon Mr. Robertson, and he and his wife, and the choicest and most trustworthy of their converts, had removed across the Tugela into the territories of old King Panda, the last of the terrible brotherhood, and now himself greatly ruled by the ablest and most successful of his sons, Ketchewayo by name. The work was very near Bishop Mackenzie's heart, and, both with substantial aid, prayers, blessings, and encouragements, he endeavoured to forward it. His last day in Natal was spent in a service with a confirmation at Claremont, and an evening service at Durban. "As we were returning," wrote his sister Alice, "we saw a rocket from the sea; a gun fired, the mail was in; and the captain, who was with us, said he would let us know the first thing in the morning the hour he would sail. Well, after this, there was little peace or quiet. We were too tired to sit up that night, and next morning there was much to arrange, and everybody was coming and going, and we heard we were to go by the half-past two train. A great many friends were with us, but on the shore we slipped away, and, leaning together on a heap of bricks, had a few sweet, quiet collects together, till we were warned we must go to the boat. We went on board the tug, and stood together high up on the captain's place; we were washed again and again by the great waves. When he went, and I had his last kiss and blessing, his own bright, beautiful spirit infected mine, and I could return his parting words without flinching; I saw him go without even a tear dimming my eye: so that I could watch him to the last, looking after our little boat again crossing the bar, till we could distinguish each other no more. "In speaking one day of happiness, he said, 'I have given up looking for that altogether. Now, till death, my post is one of unrest and care. To be the sharer of everyone's sorrow, the comforter of everyone's grief, the strengthener of everyone's weakness: to do this as much as in me lies is now my aim and object; for, you know, when the members suffer, the pain must always fly to the head.' He said this with a smile, and oh! the peace in his face; it seemed as if nothing _could_ shake it." The last photograph, taken during this visit to Durban, with the high calm brow, and the quiet contemplative eye, bears out this beautiful, sisterly description of that last look. The _Lyra_ next proceeded to the Kongone mouth of the Zambesi, where the two parties who had gone forward, including Dr. Livingstone himself, were met, and a consultation took place. The Bishop was anxious to go forward, arrange his settlement, and commence his work at once; but Dr. Livingstone thought the season a bad one, and was anxious to explore the River Rovuma, to see whether its banks afforded a better opening; and it ended in the Bishop feeling obliged to give way to his experience, although against his own judgment. He therefore, with Mr. Rowley, who had joined him at Durban, accompanied Livingstone in the _Pioneer_, leaving the others at Johanna, a little island used as a depot for coal. The expedition was not successful; there was only water enough in the channel to enable the _Pioneer_ to go thirty miles up in five days, and it failed more and more in the descent. The steamer, too, though built for the purpose of navigating the shallows of rivers, drew more water than had been expected; the current when among shoals made the descent worse than the ascent; there was a continual necessity for landing to cut wood to feed the engine; and, in five days, the _Pioneer_ had not made ten miles. The Bishop worked as hard as any of the crew, once narrowly escaped the jaws of a crocodile, and had a slight touch of fever, so trifling that it perhaps disposed him to think lightly of the danger; but he was still weak when he came back to Johanna, and, by way of remedy, set out before breakfast for a mountain walk, and came back exhausted, and obliged to lie still, thoroughly depressed in mind as well as body for two days. The expedition proved the more unfortunate, that it delayed the start for the Zambesi from February, when the stream was full, till May, when the water was so low that a great quantity of the stores had to be left behind, in order that the _Pioneer_ might not draw too much water. The chief assistants were the Malokolo, a portion of a tribe who had attached themselves to Dr. Livingstone, and had been awaiting his return on the banks of the river. The Bishop would fain have gone without weapons of any sort, but Dr. Livingstone decided that this was impracticable. He said, by all means take guns, and use them, if needed, and they would prove the best pacificators; and Mackenzie, as usual, yielded his own judgment, and heartily accepted what was decided on for him. All those left at Johanna had suffered from fever, and were relieved that the time of inaction was over when they embarked in the _Pioneer_ on the 1st of May, and in due time ascended the Zambesi, and again the Shire, but very slowly, for much time was consumed in cutting wood for the engines, every _stick_ in the mud costing three days' labour, and in three weeks going only six or seven miles, seeing numerous crocodiles and hippopotami by the way. It was not till the middle of July that they reached the landing-place. As soon as the goods had been landed the whole party set out on an exploration, intending to seek for a place, high enough on the hills to be healthy, on which to form their settlement. Their goods were carried by negroes, and a good many by themselves, the Bishop's share being in one hand a loaded gun, in the other a crozier, in front a can of oil, behind, a bag of seeds. "I thought," he writes, "of the contrast between my weapon and my staff, the one like Jacob, the other like Abraham, who armed all his trained servants to rescue Lot. I thought also of the seed which we must sow in the hearts of the people, and of the oil of the Spirit that must strengthen us in all we do." The example of Abraham going forth to rescue Lot was brought suddenly before the mission party. While halting at a negro village, a sound was heard like the blowing of penny trumpets, and six men, with muskets, came into the village, driving with them eighty-four slaves, men, women, and children, whom they had collected for Portuguese slave-dealers at Tette. The Bishop and Mr. Scudamore had gone out of the village to bathe just before they arrived; but Dr. Livingstone, recognizing one of the drivers, whom he had seen at Tette, took him by the wrist, saying, "What are you doing here, killing people? I shall kill you to-day." The man answered: "I do not kill; I am not making war. I bought these people." Then Livingstone turned to the slaves. Two men said, "We were bought." Six said, "We were captured." And several of the women, "Our husbands and relatives were killed, and here we are." Whereupon Livingstone began to cut the bonds of cord that fastened them together, while the slave-catchers ran away. All this was over before the Bishop returned; and Livingstone was explaining to the rescued negroes that they might either return to their homes, go to Tette, or remain under English protection, while they expressed their joy and gratitude by a slow clapping of the hands. They told a terrible story, of women shot for trying to escape, and of a babe whose brains were dashed out, because its mother could not carry it and her brothers together. If asked by what authority he did these things, Livingstone would have answered, by the right of a Christian man to protect the weak from devilish cruelty. There was no doubt in his mind that these slaves, even though purchased, were deprived of their liberty so unjustly, that their deliverance was only a sacred duty, and that their owners had no right of property in them. If a British cruiser descended on a slave-ship, and released her freight, should he not also deliver the captive wherever he met him? And, with this, another question was raised, namely, that of the use of weapons. The party were in the country of the Man-gnaja, a tribe of negroes who were continually harried by the fiercer and more powerful neighbour-tribe of Ajawa, great slave-catchers, who supplied the slave- hunters who came out from Tette to collect their human droves. These were mostly Arabs, with some Portuguese admixture; and the blacks, after being disposed of in the market at Tette, were usually shipped off to supply the demand in Arabia and Egypt, where, to tell the truth, their lot was a far easier one than befell the slaves of the West, the toilers among sugar and cotton. A crusade against slave-catching could not be carried on without, at least, a show of force; and, this granted, a further difficulty presented itself, in the fact that, out of the scanty number of white men, one was a bishop and two were priests of the English Church, and one a Presbyterian minister. In all former cases, the missionaries had freely ventured themselves, using no means of self-defence, and marking the difference between themselves and others by the absence of all weapons. But, in those places, it was self-defence that was given up; here the point was, whether to deliver the captive, or, by silence, to acquiesce in the wrong done to him; and if his rescue were attempted, it was in vain, unless the clergy assisted; and thus it was that the mission party did not march so much as men of peace as deliverers of the captive and breakers of the yoke. The captives had no power of returning home, and chose to remain with their deliverers; and the next day the party reached a negro village, called Chibisa's, after the chief who had ruled it at the time of Dr. Livingstone's first visit. He was now dead, but his successor, Chigunda, begged the white men to remain, to protect him from the Ajawa, who were only five or ten miles off, and from whom an attack was expected. It was decided to forestall it by marching towards them. On the way another great convoy of slaves was encountered, and with the merest show of force, no bloodshed at all, more than forty were liberated--the men from forked clogs to their necks, consisting of a pole as thick as a man's thigh, branched at the top like the letter Y, so that the neck of the prisoner could be inserted, and fastened with an iron pin. The large number of these liberated captives made it necessary to choose a home, but Chibisa's was not the place selected, but a spot some sixty miles further on, called Magomero. It was on a plain 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, or rather in a hole on the plain; for it was chosen because the bend of a river encircled it on three sides, so that a stockade on the fourth would serve for defence, in case of an attack from the Ajawa; and this consideration made Livingstone enforce the choice upon the Bishop, who again yielded to his opinion. The higher ground around was not unhealthy; the air was pure, the heat never excessive; but the river was too near, and brought fever to a spot soon overcrowded. It was occupied, however, with high hope and cheerfulness; huts, formed of poles and roofed with piles of grass, were erected, a larger one set apart for a church, and a system established of regular training for the numerous troop of clients, now amounting to above a hundred. To give them regular religious instruction, without being secure of the language, was thought by the Bishop inexpedient, and he therefore desired, at first, to prepare the way by the effects of physical training and discipline. This was a Magomero day:--English matins at early morning; breakfast on fowls or goats'-flesh, yam, beans, and porridge; then a visit to the sick; for, alas! already the whole thirteen of the mission staff were never well at the same time. After this, the negroes were collected, answered to their names, and had breakfast served out to them; two women being found to receive and apportion the shares of the lesser children, and this they did carefully and kindly. The tender sweetness of Mackenzie told greatly in dealing with these poor creatures. He did not think it waste of time to spend an hour a day trying to teach the little ones their letters; and Mr. Rowley draws a beautiful picture of him feeding, with a bottle, a black babe, whose mother had not nutriment enough to sustain it,--the little naked thing nestling up to his big beard, and going to sleep against his broad chest. Work followed. One whith man drilled the boys, one command being for them all to leap into the river at the same moment to bathe; one bargained with the vendors of mealies, beer, goats, fowls, yams, &c., who came in numbers from the villages round, and received payment in beads, and a blue cotton manufacture, called selampore, which is the current coin of Central Africa. Others worked, and showed how to work, at the buildings till one o'clock, when the dinner was served, only differing from breakfast in the drink being native beer instead of coffee. Rest followed till five, when there were two hours' more work, nearly till sunset, which, even on the longest day, was before half-past six; then tea, evensong, and bed. The great need was of some female element, to train and deal with the women and girls; and there was an earnest desire for the arrival of the sisters. But, in the meantime, the occupation of Magomero proved far from peaceful. The Ajawa were always coming down upon the Man-gnaja to burn their villages and steal slaves, and the Man-gnaja called upon the whites as invincible allies. The Bishop and his clergy (Livingstone had now left them, and gone on to Lake Nyassa) thought that to present a resolute front to the Ajawa would drive them back for good and all; and that the Man-gnaja could be bound over henceforth to give up slave-dealing, and, on this condition, they did not refuse their assistance. Subsequent events have led to the belief that this warfare of the Ajawa was really the advance of one of those great tides of nations that take place from time to time, and that they were a much finer people than the cowardly and false Man-gnaja; but, of course, a small company of strangers, almost ignorant of the language, and communicating with the natives through a released and educated negro, could not enter into the state of things, and could only struggle against the immediate acts of oppression that came before them. There were thus about three expeditions to drive back the Ajawa and deliver the rescued slaves--bloodless expeditions, for the sight of the white men and their guns was quite enough to produce a general flight, and a large colony of the rescued had gathered at Magomero in the course of a few months. Meantime another clergyman, the Rev. H. De Wint Burrup, with his newly-married wife and three lay members of the mission, had arrived at Capetown, and, leaving Mrs. Burrup there with Miss Mackenzie, had come on to join the others. Mr. Burrup and Mr. Dickinson (a surgeon) actually made their way in canoes and river boats from Quillinane up to Chibisa's, where the _Pioneer_ was lying, Dr. Livingstone having just returned from his three months' expedition. It was an absolute exploit in travelling, but a very perilous one, since these open boats, in the rain and on the low level of the river, exposed them to the greatest danger of fever; and there can be no doubt that their constitutions were injured, although, no serious symptoms appearing, the mission party were still further induced to underrate the necessity of precaution. The Bishop coming down to visit Livingstone (seventy miles in thirty hours on foot), gladly hailed the new-comers, and returned rapidly with Mr. Burrup, both a good deal over-fatigued; and, indeed, the Bishop never thoroughly recovered this reckless expenditure of strength. He considered that things were now forward enough for a summons to the ladies at Capetown. Communication was very difficult, and the arrangements had therefore to be made somewhat blindly; but his plan was, that his sisters and Mrs. Burrup should try to obtain a passage to Kongone, where the _Pioneer_ should meet them, and bring them up the rivers to the landing-place at Chibisa's. He did not know of his sister Alice's marriage at Natal, though he would have rejoiced at it if he had known. He himself intended to come down to the spot where the rivers Shire and Ruo meet, and there greet the sister and the wife on board the _Pioneer_, and return with them to Magomero. The way by the river and by Chibisa's was a great circuit, and it was thought that a more direct way might be found by exploration. Mr. Procter and Mr. Scudamore, with the black interpreter, Charles Thomas, and some of the negroes, started to pioneer a way. After five days Charles appeared at Magomero, exhausted, foot-sore, ragged, and famished, having had no food for forty-eight hours, and just able to say "the Man- gnaja attacked us; I am the only one who has escaped." When he had had some soup, he told that the party had come to a village where they had been taken for slave-dealers, and the natives, on finding they were not, put on a hostile appearance, and as they pushed on came out in great numbers with bows and arrows, insisting on their return. After consulting they thought it would be better to turn back and conciliate the chief, rather than leave a nest of enemies in their rear, and they therefore turned. Unfortunately the negroes had caught sight of the 140 yards of selampore that they were taking with them as cash for the journey, and though the chief, who had been at Senna and Quillinane, was civil, there was much discontent at their not expending more in purchases of provisions; and Charles told them that their bearers had overheard plans for burning their huts in the night, killing them and taking their goods. They decided to escape; and occupying the chief's attention by a present of a bright scarf, they bade their men get under weigh. A cry arose, "They are running away." There was a rush upon them, and Charles managed to break through. He heard two shots fired, and was pursued for some distance, but, as darkness came on, effected his escape. It seems to have been just one of the cases when a little hesitation and uncertainty on the part of the civilized men did all the mischief by emboldening the savages. Of course it was necessary to rescue them, but as the Ajawa were but twenty miles off, and Magomero must be guarded, there was no choice but to have recourse to the Makololo, and thus let loose one set of savages against another. Just, however, as a message was being despatched to bring them, the two clergymen were seen returning. They too had walked eighty-five miles in forty-eight hours, and had had but one fowl between them. They had in fact got out of the village almost immediately after Charles, but closely beset with natives armed with bows and poisoned arrows. Some tried to wrest Mr. Procter's gun from him, and even got him down, when he defended himself with his heels, until Mr. Scudamore, who was a little in advance, fired on his assailants, when they gave back; but an arrow aimed at him penetrated the stock of his gun so deeply that the head remained embedded in it. Firing both barrels, he produced a panic, under cover of which they made their way into the bush, and contrived with much difficulty to reach home. Six of their eight bearers gradually straggled in, and the last brought the following message from a chief in the next village: "I am not in blame for this war; Manasomba has tried to kill the English, has stolen their baggage and their boy, and has kept two of your men. He says if the English want the men, let them come and buy them out, or else fight for them." It appeared that Manasomba was not a Man-gnaja, and that his suspicions were excited by anything so inexplicable to the negro mind as white men going about with so much cloth without buying slaves nor much of anything else. There were still two men to be rescued, and the question was, whether to wait for Livingstone, who was armed with authority to give a lesson to the negroes, or for the mission party to undertake it themselves, especially in the haste which was needful in order to be in time for the meeting with the _Pioneer_. They decided on the march, so as to release the men, and thus were forced to break up the calm of the Christmas feast. "If it is right to do it at all, it is right to do it on a holy day," was the Bishop's argument, and so the Christmas Day was spent, partly in walking, partly at Chipoka's village, where was held the Holy Communion feast. "How wondrous," wrote the Bishop, "the feeling of actual instantaneous communion with all you dear ones, though the distance and means of earthly communication are so great and so difficult!" The negroes of the neighbouring villages joined them, and they proceeded. Near Manasomba's village they met a large body of men, with whom the Bishop attempted to hold a parley, but they ran away, and only discharged a few arrows. The village was deserted except by a few sheep, goats, and Muscovy ducks, and these were driven out and the huts set on fire. This punishment was as a "vindication of the English name," and as an act of self-defence, since any faltering in resolution among such savages would have been fatal; but, after all, the men were not recovered, and the expedition had been so exhausting that none of the party were really fit to push on for the place of meeting with the _Pioneer_, nor would Chipoka give them guides or bearers in that direction, saying it was all occupied by Manasomba's friends. They came back to Magomero grievously exhausted; Scudamore fell down on a bed only just alive, and even the Bishop, though he tried to act and speak with vigour, was evidently suffering from illness and over-fatigue. But there was the appointment to be kept with Livingstone and the ladies at the Ruo, and, unfit as he was, he persevered, setting off with Burrup, sadly enough, for Scudamore was lying in a dangerous state; but no one guessed that they would never meet again upon earth. It was on the 4th of January, 1862, that they started with a few Malokolo and the interpreter Charles, and it was six weeks before the colony at Magomero heard any tidings. There the stores were all but exhausted, and having hardly any goods left for barter, there was little food to be obtained but green corn and pumpkin, most unsuited to the Englishmen's present state of health. Meanwhile, in constant rain and through swollen streams, Mackenzie and Burrup had made their way down to the river, and there with much difficulty obtained a canoe. On the first night of the voyage all the party, except the Bishop, wished to go on, because the mosquitoes rendered rest impossible. He thought moving on in the dark imprudent, but gave up his own will, and even wrote jestingly afterwards on the convenience of making the mosquitoes act as a spur. The consequence was that they came suddenly upon a projecting bend; the boat upset, and everything they had was in the water. They spent more than an hour in recovering what could be brought up; but their powder and their provisions were spoilt, and, what was still worse, their medicines: including the quinine, almost essential to life, and that when they were thoroughly drenched in the middle of an African night. Making sure, however, of speedily meeting Dr. Livingstone, they pushed on; but when they came to Malo, the isle at the confluence of the Ruo and Shire, they learnt from the natives that the _Pioneer_ had gone down the stream. The negroes could give no clear account of how long ago it had been. If they had known that it had been only five days, they would probably have put forth their speed and have overtaken her, but they thought that a much longer time was intended, and that waiting for the return would be not only more prudent, but might enable them to make friends with the chief, and prepare for a station to be established on the island. A hut was given them, and there was plenty of wholesome food on the island. Inaction, is, however the most fatal curse in that land of fever. There is a cheerful letter written by the Bishop to his home friends, on the 14th and 15th of January; but his vigour was flagging. He spoke with disappointment of the inability of Dr. Livingstone to bring up stores to Chibisa's, and longed much for his sisters' arrival, telling his companion it would break his heart if they did not now come. He also wrote a strong letter to the Secretary of the Universities' Mission, begging for a steam launch to keep up the supplies, where the _Pioneer_ had failed. Soon after this, both became grievously ill; the Bishop's fever grew violent, he perceived his danger, and told the Malokolo that JESUS would come to take him, but he presently became delirious and insensible, in which condition he lay for five days, the Malokolo waiting on him as well as they could under Burrup's superintendence. The negro tribes have an exceeding dread of death, and a hut which has had a corpse in it is shut up for three years. Probably for this reason the chief begged that the dying man might be carried to another hut less needful to himself, and as he had been kind and friendly throughout Mr. Burrup thought it right to comply. Shortly after, on the afternoon of the 31st of January, the pure, gentle, and noble spirit passed away. The chief, from superstitious fear, insisted that the body should be immediately interred, and not on the island, and Mr. Burrup and the Malokolo therefore laid it in their canoe, and paddled to the mainland, where a spot was cleared in the bush, the grave dug, and as it was by this time too dark to see to read, Mr. Burrup said all that he could remember of the burial service, the four blacks standing wondering and mournful by. He saw that for himself the only hope was in a return to Magomero. The canoe was tried, but the current was so strong that such small numbers could not make head against it. He therefore proceeded on foot, but fell down repeatedly from weakness, and was only dragged on by his strong will and the aid of the Malokolo. They behaved admirably, and when he reached Chibisa's, and could walk no longer, they and the villagers contrived a palanquin of wood, and carried him on in it. The chief, finding that his store of cloth (_i.e._ coin) was expended, actually offered him a present of some to carry him on. On the 14th of February, one of the Malokolo appeared before the anxious colonists at Magomero. His face was that of a bearer of evil tidings, and when they asked for the Bishop, he hid his face in his hands. When they pressed further, he said, "_wafa_, _wafa_" (he is dead, he is dead). And while they stood round stunned, he made them understand that Burrup was at hand, so ill as to be carried on men's shoulders. There was nothing to be done but to hurry out to meet him, taking the last drop of wine remaining. He had become the very shadow of himself, but even then he slightly rallied, and could he have had nourishing food, wine or brandy, the strength of his constitution would probably have carried him through; but the stores were exhausted, there was nothing to recruit his powers, and on the 23rd of February he likewise died. Meantime, his young wife, with Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Livingstone, had sailed in December in a wretchedly uncomfortable little craft, called the _Hetty Ellen_. On reaching the Kongone they saw no token of the _Pioneer_, but after waiting in great discomfort, tossing at the mouth of the river, the vessel made for Mozambique. There they fell in with H.M.S. _Gorgon_. Captain Wilson, resolved to render them every service in his power, took the ladies on board, the vessel in tow, and carried them to Quillinane, where they presently fell in with Dr. Livingstone and the _Pioneer_. His little lake steamer, the _Lady Nyassa_, had been packed on board the _Hetty Ellen_, and had formed the only shelter Miss Mackenzie had from the sun, and the transference of this occupied some time. Then the unhappy _Pioneer_ began to proceed at her snail's pace, one day on a sand- bank, another with the machinery out of order, continually halting for supplies of wood, and thinking a couple of miles a good day's work. Captain Wilson, shocked at the notion of women spending weeks in labouring up that pestiferous stream, beset with mosquitoes by night and tsetse flies by day, offered to man his gig and take them up himself. So desperate a journey was it for a frail invalid like Miss Mackenzie, that one of the sailors took a spade to dig her grave with; and in fact she was soon prostrated with fever. None of the party knew who lay sleeping in his grave under the trees. The natives on the island entirely denied having seen or heard anything of the Bishop, and never gave Mr. Burrup's letter, fearing perhaps that some revenge might fall on them. Baffled by not meeting him, Captain Wilson still would not leave the ladies till he should have seen them safe among their friends, and pushed on his boat with speed very unlike that of the tardy _Pioneer_, and thus, in a day and a half, arrived at Chibisa's, where the Malokolo came down to the boat, with tidings that, though their language was but imperfectly understood, were only too certain. The brave and tender-hearted leader of the mission was dead! Still there was hope of Mr. Burrup; but Captain Wilson would not allow the young wife to take the difficult journey only to find desolation, but went on by land himself, leaving her with Miss Mackenzie, under charge of his ship's surgeon, Dr. Ramsay. He came back after a few days, having become too ill by the way to get further than Soche, where he had been met by three of the mission party, who now returned with him to Chibisa's, with the tidings in all their sad fulness; and the mournful party set forth upon their return. On coming to the island, he demanded Mr. Burrup's letter, and the negroes looked at one another, saying, "It is all known." They gave him the letter, but it was with very great difficulty that they could be persuaded to show him the grave, over which he set up a cross of reeds, and then continuing this sad voyage, placed the ladies on board his ship, and carried them back to Capetown. Bishop Mackenzie had executed a will not six weeks before his death, bequeathing to the Additional Bishoprics Fund his property, and to the mission his books, except those specially connected with his personal devotions, which were to go to his family, and which Captain Wilson brought down with him, the Bible, Prayer-book, and "Christian Year," bearing tokens of that immersion in the water which, by the destruction of the medicines, may be believed to have been the chief cause of his death. Until the arrival of a new Bishop, or of instructions from the Metropolitan of Capetown, the headship of the mission was to remain with the senior clergyman, or failing him, of the senior layman. Thus the little colony had their instructions to wait and carry on the work: but further difficulties soon arose. Stores were still wanting, fever prevailed even among the negroes. All the class of little children whom the Bishop used to teach had died under it, each being baptized before its death, and the Ajawa began to threaten again. The lessened force, without a head, decided that, though their advance might drive the enemy back, it was better to avoid further warfare, and relinquish the post at Magomero. With the long train of helpless natives, then, the few white men set forth, and after several days' tedious and weary march came to Chibisa's, where they founded a new station on a hill-side, above the native village, and tried to continue their old system; but by Christmas Mr. Scudamore had become fatally ill, and he died on the morning of New Year's Day, 1863, greatly lamented, not only by the remnant of his own party, but by all the negroes; and on the 17th of March he was followed by Dr. Dickinson. We do not deal with those still living, therefore we will only further mention that on the 26th of June following Bishop Tozer arrived at Chibisa's. He decided on removing to a place called Morumbala, a station nearer Quillinane, which he hoped might prove healthier, and out of the reach of the Ajawa. The remaining clergy of the mission were greatly concerned at this, for they had hopes of influencing the Ajawa, and besides, the negroes whom they had rescued, who had been now more than a year under their care, could not for the most part be taken to Morumbala; for, though grieving much at losing their "English fathers," they would be placed at a distance from their own tribe, among strangers and possible enemies. The families who could provide for themselves were left at Chibisa's, Mr. Waller making the best terms in his power for them. It was sad to leave them without having more thoroughly Christianized them, but the frequent sicknesses of the clergy, the loss of the chief pastor, and the want of some one to take the lead, had prevented their instruction from being all that could have been hoped. They had become warmly attached to the English, and had in many respects much improved, and it is hoped that they may keep alive the memory of the training they have received, and prepare the way for better things. There were about twenty orphan boys, for whom Bishop Tozer undertook to provide; but there were also ten or twelve women and girls, the former old and infirm, the latter orphans, and these Mr. Waller could not bear to abandon, so he carried them with him to Morumbala, and supported them at his own expense, until at the end of five months it was decided to give up Morumbala, and fix the head-quarters of the Central African Mission at Zanzibar. Then, as it was not easy to convey the boys, or provide for them there, Mr. Waller took the charge of them likewise, and, with Dr. Livingstone's assistance, conveyed both them and the women and children to Capetown, where he succeeded in procuring homes for them in different families and mission schools or stations. All are now Christians, and show themselves gentle, and susceptible of training and education; nor have they much of that disposition so familiar to us in the transplanted negroes of Western Africa. Four boys were brought to England, but the climate would soon have been fatal to them, and it is evident that Capetown or Natal and its dependencies must be the meeting ground of the English and African races, since there alone can both retain their vigour in the same climate. Thus ended the first venture of the University mission, in the sacrifice of four lives, which may be well esteemed as freely laid down in the cause of the Gospel. Such lives and such deaths are the seed of the Church. It is they that speak the loudest in calling for the fresh labourers; and though the Zanzibar Mission has drifted far away from the field of Mackenzie's labours, and has adopted a different system, and though his toils in Natal never were allowed to continue long enough in a single spot for him personally to reap their fruits upon earth, not only has his name become a trumpet call, but out of his grave has sprung, as it were, a mission in the very quarter where, had he been permitted, he would have spent his best efforts, namely, the free Zulu country, Panda's kingdom, to the north of the Tugela. It has been already mentioned that Mr. and Mrs. Robertson had removed thither, from their station upon the Umlazi, taking with them a selection of their Christian Kaffirs, and settling, with the king's permission, at a place called Kwamagwaza. At first they lived in a waggon and tents, for, delicate and often ill as was Mrs. Robertson, she shrank from no hardship or exertion. She writes, "My own health has been wonderful, in spite of much real suffering from the closeness of the waggon, and exposure to rain or hot sun, which is even more trying. I often have to sleep with the waggon open, and a damp foggy air flowing through to keep me from fainting, and I have often told myself, 'You might be worse off in the cabin of a steamer,' that I might not pity myself too much." A hut was soon raised, and Mrs. Robertson here ruled in her own peculiarly dignified and tender way as the mother of the whole station, keeping guard there while her husband went on expeditions to visit the king and his son Ketchewayo, the chief executive authority. Another hut was raised to serve as a church, and the days were arranged much as those on the Umlazi had been. Children were born to the Christian couples, and Mrs. Robertson spent much time and care in teaching the mothers how to deal with them after a civilized and Christian fashion. Other children were sometimes brought to her to be adopted, and when entirely made over by their parents were baptized and bred up as Christians. The general trust in Mr. Robertson's skill as a doctor brought many people under his influence, and likewise gave some, though very slight assistance, in combating the belief in witchcraft, the worst enemy with which Christianity has to contend. Whenever a person falls sick or meets with an accident, a conjurer is sent for, who attributes the disaster to some other person, on whom revenge must be taken. In the British territory, no more can be done than to treat the supposed wizard with contumely, such as to render his life a burthen to him, and he can generally escape this by entering some white man's service, or attaching himself to a mission-station; but in independent Zululand, any disaster to prince or great chief was sure to be followed by a horrible massacre of the whole family of the supposed offender, unless he had time to escape across the border. Many a time did wounded women and children fly from the slaughter to Kwamagwaza, and Mr. and Mrs. Robertson protect them from the first fury of the pursuers, and then almost force consent from Ketchewayo to their living under the protection of the umfundisi. Visits to Ketchewayo formed a very important part of the work, since they gradually established his confidence in Mr. Robertson, and obtained concessions that facilitated the Christianizing of his people. One of his great objections was the fear of losing their services as warriors. The regiments still assemble at his camp as in the days of Dingarn, go through their exercises and sing their war-songs, into some of which are introduced lines in contempt of the Kaffirs who have passed the Tugela to live under British law:-- "The Natal people have no king, They eat salt; To every tag-rag white man they say, 'Your Excellency!'" Mrs. Robertson's niece, Miss Fanny Woodrow, who had come out to join her, arrived at Durban, and was there met by Mrs. Robertson herself, in her waggon, after the long and perilous journey undertaken alone with the Kaffirs. Her residence at Kwamagwaza was a time of much interest and prosperity; she threw herself into the work, and much assisted in the training of the women and children, and one or two visits she made to Ketchewayo greatly delighted the prince. She came in June 1861, but she had become engaged on her way out to the Rev. Lovell Procter, and when the mission at Chibisa's was given up, he was in such a state of health as not to be able to continue with the University Mission. Therefore he set out on his return, and, coming to Natal by the way, arrived at Kwamagwaza early in 1864. He was the first brother clergyman Mr. Robertson had seen since coming into Zululand, and the mingling of joy at the meeting, and of sorrow for Bishop Mackenzie, were almost overwhelming. At Easter Mr. Procter and Miss Woodrow were married, in the little mission church, built of bricks made by Mr. Robertson's own hands and those of his pupils; and soon after Mr. and Mrs. Robertson set out in their waggon to escort the newly-married pair to Durban, taking with them several of their converts, and all their flock of adopted children. The stay in Durban, and Pieter Maritzburg, among old friends, was full of comfort and pleasure; but the indefatigable missionary and his wife were soon on their way home, their waggon heavily loaded with boxes sent by friends in England, containing much that they had longed for--among other things, iron-work for fitting their church. On the 18th of June, when they were three days' journey across the Tugela, while Mr. Robertson was walking in front of the waggon to secure a safe track for it, the wheels, in coming down a descent, slid along on some slippery grass, and there was a complete overturn, the waggon falling on its side with the wheels in the air, and Mrs. Robertson, and a little Kaffir boy of three years old, under the whole of the front portion of the load. Her husband and the Kaffirs cut away the side of the waggon with axes, and tried to draw her out, but she was too fast wedged in. She said in a calm voice, "Oh, remove the boxes," but before this could be done she had breathed her last, apparently from suffocation, for her limbs were not crushed, and her exceeding delicacy of frame and shortness of breath probably made the weight and suffocation fatal to her. The little boy suffered no injury. The spot was near a Norwegian mission station, where the kindest help was immediately offered to the husband. A coffin was made of plank that had been bought at Durban to be made into church doors, and when her husband had kept lonely vigil all night over her remains, Henrietta Robertson was laid in her grave, where the Norwegians hope to build their church, Mr. Robertson himself reading the service over her. But her work has not died with her. Mr. Robertson returned to his lonely task, helped and tended by the converted man and his wife, Usajabula and Christina, whom she had trained, and whose child had been with her in the fatal overturn. A clergyman returning from the Zanzibar Mission came to him and aided him for a while; other helpers have come out from time to time, and meantime, Miss Mackenzie exerted herself to the utmost, straining every nerve to obtain funds for the establishment of a Missionary Bishopric in Zululand, as the most fitting memorial to her brother, since it was here that, had he chosen for himself, his work would have lain. After several years of endeavour she has succeeded, and, even as these last pages are written, we hold in our hands the account of the arrival of the new Bishop at Kwamagwaza. So it is that the work never perishes, but the very extinction of one light seems to cause the lighting of many more; and thus it is that the word is being gradually fulfilled that the Gospel shall be preached to all nations, and that "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Footnotes: {f:6} At first sight this seems one of the last misfortunes likely to have befallen a godly gentleman of Charlestown; but throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Algerine pirates swept the seas up to the very coasts of England, as Sir John Eliot's biography testifies. Dr. James Yonge, of Plymouth, an ancestor only four removes from the writer, was at one time in captivity to them; and there was still probability enough of such a catastrophe for Priscilla Wakefield to introduce it in her "Juvenile Travellers," written about 1780. {f:130} Articles of dress. {f:133} The Judsons always use the universal prefix Moung, which we omit, as evidently is a general title. {f:137} All along in these letters, written journal fashion, it is to be observed how careful and even distrustful Mr. Judson is. {f:221} Merino sheep, so called in Spain because the breed came from beyond the sea (_Mer_), having been introduced from England by Constance, daughter of John of Gaunt, and wife of Juan II. LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL. 
34484	----	Waihoura, the Maori Girl, by W.H.G. Kingston. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ WAIHOURA, THE MAORI GIRL, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON. CHAPTER ONE. THE NEW COLONY. ARRIVAL OF THE FAMILIES OF MR PEMBERTON, FARMER GREENING AND OTHERS, IN NEW ZEALAND.--INSPECT LAND.--ENCAMP NEAR THE PORT TILL THEY CAN SETTLE ON THE LAND THEY HAVE SELECTED. A fine emigrant ship, her voyage happily terminated, had just entered her destined port in the northern island of New Zealand. Her anchor was dropped, the crew were aloft furling sails, and several boats were alongside ready to convey the passengers to the shore. All was bustle and excitement on board, each person anxious to secure his own property,--and people were running backwards and forwards into the cabins, to bring away any minor articles which might have been forgotten. The water was calm and bright, the sky intensely blue. On either hand were bold picturesque headlands running out into the sea, fringed by dark rocks, while beyond the sandy beach, which bordered the bay, on a partially cleared space, were seen numerous cottages, interspersed with tents and huts, many of the latter rudely constructed of boughs. Further off arose forests of tall trees, reaching to the base, and climbing the sides of a range of high mountains, here and there broken by deep ravines, with sparkling streams rushing down them, finding their way into a broad river which flowed into the bay. Beyond the first range appeared others--range beyond range, the summits of several towering to the sky, covered with mantles of snow shining with dazzling whiteness in the bright rays of the sun. In several places the forest gave way to wide open tracts, clothed with fern or tall waving grass. "Here we are safe at last," exclaimed Valentine Pemberton, a young gentleman about eighteen, as he stepped from one of the first boats on to the ledge of rocks which formed the chief landing-place of the settlement. "Father, let me help you," he added, extending his arm towards a middle-aged fine-looking man who followed him. "Now, Lucy, take my hand; the rocks are somewhat slippery. Harry, you can look out for yourself." He addressed his young sister, a fair sweet-looking girl of about fifteen, and his brother, a fine active boy, who sprang on to the rock after him. "Take care of Betsy, though," said Lucy, not forgetful of her faithful maid, whose attachment to her young mistress had induced to leave home for a strange land. "Paul Greening is helping her," answered Harry. Mr Pemberton, with his daughter and two sons, soon made their way to the more even beach, followed by Betsy and Paul Greening. Paul's father, farmer Greening, a sturdy English yeoman, with his wife and two younger sons, James and little Tobias, as the latter was called, though as big as his brothers, were the next to land. "My boys and I will look after your things, Mr Pemberton," shouted the farmer. "Do you go and find lodgings for Miss Lucy and Betsy." "Thank you, my friend," said Mr Pemberton, "but we have made up our mind to rough it, and purpose camping out under tents until we can get a roof of our own over our heads. Before we begin work, however, I wish to return thanks to Him who has guided and protected us during our voyage across the ocean. Will you and your family join us?" "Aye, gladly sir," answered farmer Greening. "We are ready enough to be angry with those who are thankless to us when we have done them a kindness, and I have often thought how ungrateful we are apt to be to Him who gives us everything we enjoy in this life." Mr Pemberton led the way to a sheltered spot, where they were concealed by some high rocks from the busy throng on the beach. He there, with his own children and the farmer's family, knelt down and offered a hearty thanksgiving to the merciful God who had heretofore been their friend and guide, and a fervent prayer for protection from future dangers. Then, with cheerful hearts and strong hands, they returned to the boat, to assist in landing their goods and chattels, while Valentine and Paul went back to the ship to bring off the remainder of the luggage. Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening, meantime, set off to get the surveying officer to point out a plot of ground on which they might encamp, the rest of the party remaining on the beach to look after their property. While they were thus employed, a bustling little man, in a green velveteen shooting coat, approached Lucy, who, with Betsy and Mrs Greening were removing the lighter articles of their baggage. Underneath a broad-brimmed hat, which he wore far back on his bullet-like head, covered with short cropped hair, appeared a pair of round eyes, and a funny turned up nose. "Oh, Miss Pemberton, I am shocked to see you so employed!" he exclaimed. "Let me assist you. My own things will not be brought on shore to-day, I am told, and I have no wish to go on board the ship again to look for them." "Thank you, Mr Nicholas Spears," said Lucy, who had already discovered that the little man was never happy unless attending other people's concerns, to the neglect of his own, and had no wish to encourage him in his bad habit. "My brother Harry and our friends here can do all that is necessary." "Oh, I beg ten thousand pardons, Miss Lucy, but I thought that I could be of use to you. It would be such a pleasure, believe me." Mr Nicholas Spears rolled his round eyes about, and twitched his mouth in such a curious manner when he spoke, that Lucy could scarcely refrain from laughing outright. "If you don't look after your own property, Mr Spears, I don't think anybody else will," observed Mrs Greening. "Just let me advise you to go back in the first boat, and see if any of your goods have been got out of the hold, or they may be sent on shore, and you will not know what have become of them." The little man seemed very unwilling to follow this wise counsel, but hearing his name called by some of the other emigrants, he hurried away to join them, and was seen running up and down the beach, carrying their boxes and parcels. Most of the other passengers had now come on shore, and were busily employed in looking after their property, and conveying it from the beach. Valentine and Paul had just returned with the remainder of their goods, and soon afterwards Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening returned, accompanied by four dark-skinned men, dressed in shirts and trousers, the few tattoo marks on their faces, and the shaggy state of their black hair, showing them to be of the lower order of natives. They brought also a small dray, drawn by bullocks, with which to transport the heavier articles of their luggage. "Wherever you go, Mr Pemberton, with your leave, I and mine will go too," said farmer Greening, as they walked along. "We have been neighbours in the old country, and you have ever been a kind friend to me, and if I can be of any use to you in choosing land, which I ought to know something about, why, you see, sir, it's just what I shall be glad to do." Mr Pemberton knew the value of the farmer's friendship and assistance too well to decline it, and thanked him heartily. He had himself gone through many trials. After enjoying a good fortune derived from West Indian property, and living the life of a country gentleman, he found himself, at the time he was about to send his eldest son to the university, and his second boy into the navy, deprived of nearly the whole of his income. Soon afterwards he lost his wife, a far greater blow to his happiness, and believing that he could best provide for his children by emigrating to one of the colonies, with the small remainder of his fortune, he had embarked with them for New Zealand. A cleared space on some rising ground overlooking the harbour had been selected for encamping. To this the property of the party was soon conveyed. Mr Pemberton had brought with him two tents, the largest of which served as a store-house for his goods, and there was also space in it for beds for himself and his sons, while a much smaller one was appropriated to the use of Lucy and Betsy, which Lucy had invited Mrs Greening to share with them. The farmer and his sons, with the assistance of the Maoris, as the New Zealanders are called, were putting up a hut in which they might find shelter till the land they had purchased had been fixed on. It was composed simply of stakes driven into the ground, interwoven with branches of trees, beams being secured to the top, while other branches were placed on them and thatched with long grass, an operation quickly performed by the Maoris. Before dark it was in a sufficiently forward state to afford shelter to the farmer and his sons,--some heaps of fern, brought in by their active assistants, serving them for beds. While the pakehas, the strangers, as the natives call the English, slept at one end, the four Maoris occupied the other. Before they lay down to rest Mr Pemberton invited them into his tent to join in family worship, a practice he had kept up during the voyage, and hoped in future to maintain under all circumstances. "It's a great blessing and advantage, Miss Lucy, to be associated with a gentleman like the Squire," said Mrs Greening, when they returned to their tent. "My boys especially might be inclined to run wild in this strange country, if they hadn't the good example he sets before them." "We, I am sure, shall be a mutual help to each other, Mrs Greening," answered Lucy. "Your husband's practical experience in farming will greatly assist my father and brothers, and I was truly thankful when I heard that you wished to settle near us." "We know what it is to have bad land, with a high rent to pay," observed Mrs Greening with a sigh, "and I hope, now that we are to have a farm of our own, with a kind soil, we shall get on better than we did in the old country. Few are ready to work harder than my good man and our boys, and I have never been used to be idle since I was big enough to milk a cow." The following day Mr Pemberton and the farmer, accompanied by Valentine and Paul, prepared to set off, with one of the Maoris as a guide, to inspect a block of land lately surveyed, about ten miles from the coast, with a fine stream flowing through it. Before starting they surveyed from the hill the road they were to take. At a short distance appeared the outskirts of the forests, composed of the lofty kauri, or yellow pine, kahikatea, or white pine, the rimu, with its delicate and gently weeping foliage, and several others, interspersed by the shade-loving tree-fern, the most graceful of all forest trees. From the boughs hung parasites and creepers of brilliant hues,--some, like loose ropes from the rigging of a ship, others, in festoons winding from stem to stem, uniting far-off trees with their luxuriant growth. "How shall you be able to pass through that thick forest?" asked Lucy, of her father. "We shall have to make good use of our axes, I suppose," said Valentine. "We shall find but little difficulty," observed Mr Pemberton. "Although the foliage is so dense overhead, there is no jungle or underwood to obstruct our passage, and in this hot weather we shall have the advantage of travelling thoroughly shaded from the rays of the sun. We shall find it far more fatiguing walking over the fern land, which, at a distance, looks so smooth and even." Mr Pemberton took his fowling-piece; but the only weapons carried by the rest of the party were their axes, to mark the trees round the land they hoped to select. They expected not to be absent more than three days. Lucy and Harry accompanied them a short distance. They found, on their return, Mrs Greening busily employed with her sons in arranging the hut,--indeed, the good woman was never idle, and set an example of industry which some of the other settlers would have done wisely to follow. Leaving her boys to go on with the work, she commenced making preparations for dinner. "You must let me act as your cook, Miss Lucy," she said. "You and Betsy will have enough to do, and it's what I am used to." The cooking, however, was of necessity somewhat after the gipsy fashion, a pot being hung from a triangle over a fire on the ground, and when the pot was removed the tea-kettle took its place. They had no difficulty in procuring provisions, as there were several bakers in the village, and the Maoris brought in pigs and wild-fowl, and various roots and vegetables to the market. CHAPTER TWO. WAIHOURA. NATIVES ARRIVE AT MR PEMBERTON'S CAMP.--THEY BRING WITH THEM ON A LITTER A YOUNG GIRL--WAIHOURA APPARENTLY VERY ILL.--A DOCTOR IS SENT FOR, AND A HUT IS BUILT FOR HER ACCOMMODATION. "Oh mother! mother! Miss Lucy! Betsy! do look at the strange savages who are coming this way," exclaimed little Tobias, as he rushed up to the door of the tent the following morning. "I never did see such wild creatures, except once at the fair, and they were white men painted up to make believe they had come from foreign parts. There's no doubt about these, though." Lucy and her companions being thus summoned, hurried from the tent and joined Harry and the two young Greenings, who were standing on the brow of the hill, watching a band of twenty or thirty Maoris, who, emerging from the forest, were coming towards where they stood. At their head stalked a tall savage-looking warrior. His face, as he drew near, was seen to be thickly covered with blue lines, some in spirals, others in circles and curls of various devices. His black hair was gathered in a knot at the top of his head, and secured with a polished bone, while several large rings hung from his ears. Over his shoulders was thrown a large mat cloak, which almost completely enveloped his form. In one hand he carried a musket, more on the present occasion to add to his dignity than for use, as swords were formerly worn by gentlemen in Europe. His companions had their faces tattooed, though in a much less degree than was that of their leader. Some wore merely long kilts round their waists, but many had cloaks of matting. The hair of most of them was cut short, looking like a black mop at the top of their heads. Savages though they looked, they walked with a dignity and freedom that showed they felt their own consequence and independence. They were followed by several women, also clothed in mats, though of a finer texture than those of the men. Their hair hung loosely over their shoulders, and several wore a wreath of flowers or shells, which assisted to keep it off their eyes. Their faces were but slightly tattooed, the chin, and lips only being marked, giving the latter a curious blue look, which Lucy thought detracted much from their otherwise comely appearance. They were walking on either side of a small litter, covered with boughs, and carried by four young men. The party of natives advanced as if about to ascend the hill; but when the chief saw that it was occupied by the tents, he ordered them to halt at its base, and they immediately began to make preparations for encamping, while the young men were sent off towards the woods to collect fuel for the fires and materials for building huts. The litter having been placed on the ground, the women gathered round it, as if much interested in whatever it contained. The chief himself then approached, and the boughs being partially removed, Lucy perceived that its occupant was a young girl. The chief seemed to be speaking to her with tender interest. At length, on seeing Lucy and her companions watching him, he advanced towards them. "Oh! Miss Lucy, let's run away--the savage is coming, and I don't know what he will do," cried Betsy, in great alarm. "I am sure he will not hurt us, from the gentle way he was speaking to the young girl," said Lucy, holding her ground, though she felt a little nervous. "He looks terribly fierce, though," observed Mrs Greening. "But it won't do to run away, as if we were afraid." The chief, whose eye had been fixed on Lucy, now approached her, and pointing to the litter, seemed to invite her to come down and speak to his daughter, for such she felt the girl must be. "Oh miss, don't go," cried Betsy. "You don't know what they will do;" but Lucy, struck by the appearance of the occupant of the litter, was eager to learn more about her, and overcoming any fears she might have felt, at once accompanied the chief. The women made way for her as she got close to the litter. On it reclined, propped up by matting, which served as a pillow, a girl apparently of about her own age. Her complexion was much fairer than that of any of her companions, scarcely darker, indeed, than a Spanish or Italian brunette. No tattoo marks disfigured her lips or chin; her features were regular and well-formed, and her eyes large and clear, though at present their expression betokened that she was suffering pain. She put out her hand towards Lucy, who instinctively gave her her's. "Maori girl ill, berry ill," she said. "Tell pakeha doctor come, or Waihoura die--pakeha doctor make Waihoura well." Although the words may not have been so clearly pronounced as they have been written, Lucy at once understood their meaning. "Oh yes, I will send for a doctor," she answered, hoping that Dr Fraser, the surgeon who came out with them in the ship, would be found on shore. She beckoned to Harry, and told him to run and bring Dr Fraser without delay. The chief comprehended her intentions, and seemed well pleased when Harry and Tobias, who also offered to go, set off towards the village. As no one addressed her, Lucy guessed rightly that the Maori girl was the only person of her party who could speak English, and curious to know how she had learned it, she asked the question. "Waihoura learn speak pakeha tongue of missionary," she answered, "but near forget now," and she put her hand to her brow, as if it ached. "The doctor will come soon, I hope, and give you medicine to make you better," said Lucy, taking the young girl's hand, which felt hot and feverish. Waihoura shook her head, and an expression of pain passed across her countenance. "We will pray to God, then, to make you well," said Lucy. "He can do everything, so be not cast down, but trust Him." The Maori girl fixed her large eyes on her as she was speaking, evidently trying to understand her meaning, though apparently she did not entirely comprehend it. Savage in appearance as were the people who surrounded her, Lucy did not feel afraid of them, while they evidently regarded her with much respect. Betsy having at length gained courage, came down the hill with Mrs Greening. "Poor dear," said the farmer's wife, when she saw the Maori girl. "What she wants is good food, a comfortable bed, and a little careful nursing. If we had our house up, I'll be bound we would bring her round in the course of a few weeks, so that that painted-faced gentleman, her father, would not know her again." "We would make room for her in our tent," said Lucy. "Or, perhaps, her friends would build a hut for her close to it; they probably would soon put one up, and it would be far better for her to remain with us than to return to her home." The chief had been watching them while they were speaking, and seemed to understand that they were discussing some plan for his daughter's benefit. He spoke a few words to her. "What say?" she asked, looking at Lucy, and then pointing to her father. "We wish you to stop here and let us nurse you," said Lucy, trying still further to explain her meaning by signs. The young girl's countenance brightened, showing that she understood what Lucy had said, and wished to accept her offer. Perhaps the remembrance of her stay with the Missionary's family brought some pleasing recollections to her mind. While they were still speaking, a person was seen hurrying along the somewhat dusty road which led from the village, and Lucy soon recognised Mr Nicholas Spears. "Has not he come yet?" he exclaimed, as he drew near. "Dr Fraser, I mean. I met Master Harry, and that big lout Tobias. I beg your pardon, Mrs Greening. I did not see you were there, and so I told them I would find him and send him on; so I did, for I understood from them that a princess, or some great person, wanted his services. If he has not come I must go back and hurry him. Is that the princess? She don't look much like one, however, she may be a princess for all that. Your servant, Miss, and that old gentleman, with the curious marks on his face, is her father, I suppose? Your servant, sir," he added, making the chief a bow with his broad-brimmed hat. The chief bent his head in acknowledgment, and seemed somewhat inclined to rub noses with the little man as a further sign of his good-will; but Mr Spears sprang back in alarm, evidently thinking it safer to keep at a distance from the savage-looking warrior; observing, however, the confidence shown by Lucy and her companions, he walked round them once or twice, gazing at them as if they had been wild beasts at a show. As he passed again near Lucy, she reminded him of his promise to look for Dr Fraser, and much to her satisfaction, off he set at full speed. In a short time the doctor was seen coming along the road, followed by Harry and Tobias. "Oh, Dr Fraser, I am so glad you are come," said Lucy. "Here is a sweet interesting Maori girl, and she is very ill, I fear. Can you do anything for her?" "I am afraid, Miss Lucy, unless she can speak English, or we have an efficient interpreter, there may be some difficulty in ascertaining her disease, but I will do my best." "Oh, she understands a little English," said Lucy, "and seems very intelligent." The doctor approached the litter, and stooping down, remained some time by the girl's side, asking her questions, and endeavouring to comprehend her answers. "Unless I can have her for some time as my patient, I fear, Miss Pemberton, that I cannot do much for her," he said at length. "My lodgings are very small, and I suspect that among the settlers there are none who would be willing to receive her." Lucy then told him of the plan she and Mrs Greening had proposed. "That would certainly afford the best prospect of her recovery," he answered. "If we can explain that to her friends, perhaps they would be willing to allow her to remain." Lucy was very glad to hear this, for she already felt a deep interest in the young Maori girl. "There is her father," said Lucy, pointing to the chief, "perhaps you can make him understand what we propose." "I will try," said Dr Fraser, "but, if not, I must get Mr Clifton, the surveyor, who speaks their language, to explain it to him." The chief, who had been looking on all the time with an expression of anxiety visible on his stern countenance, now drew near, and with the assistance of his daughter, was made to comprehend what their new friends proposed. He stopped some time, apparently considering the matter, and then having consulted with several of his companions, he returned, and taking Lucy's hand, placed it in that of Waihoura, as if confiding her to her care. "But we must make them understand that they must build her a comfortable house," said Lucy. This the doctor managed to do without much difficulty, and leading the chief up the hill, showed the position in which he wished it to be placed. The natives, who appeared to render implicit obedience to their chief, immediately went off to cut timber. The doctor, meantime, marked the dimensions of the building, and showed the height he desired to have it, which was nearly three times that of the ordinary native huts. "We must have a proper door and a couple of windows, too," he remarked. "The poor girl requires fresh air more than anything else, probably she has been shut up in the smoke and heat of a native hut, and unless we have one of a very different character, she will have little chance of recovery." Idle and averse to work, as Lucy heard that the Maoris were, she was pleased to see the rapid way in which they erected the hut. While some dug the holes for the posts, and others cut them down, a third party brought them up the hill. They were evidently surprised at the size of the building, and uttered numerous exclamations of astonishment when the doctor made them understand that it must be in no respect smaller than he proposed. Harry, with James and Tobias, got their spades and levelled the ground for the floor, rendering considerable assistance also in digging the holes. Among the articles Mr Pemberton had brought were several doors and window sashes, intended for his own cottage. Lucy suggested that these should be unpacked, and a door and two windows be used for the hut. "I am sure that my father will not object," she said, "and it will make the house much more comfortable." "I wish that all our countrymen had as much consideration for the natives as you show, Miss Lucy," observed the doctor, "and I feel sure Mr Pemberton will approve of what you propose doing." The door and two windows were accordingly fixed, the Maoris showing themselves very expert carpenters. The doctor having seen that the plan he proposed for the house was likely to be properly carried out, returned to the town to get some medicine, while Mrs Greening arranged a comfortable English bed, in which his patient might be placed. Before nightfall the hut was completely finished. Mrs Greening removed her own bedding to it, that, as she said, she could be at hand to attend to the young native girl; and Dr Fraser having given her some medicine, took his departure, promising to come back, early the next morning. The chief showed by his manner the perfect confidence he placed in his new friends, and leaving his daughter in their charge, he and his companions retired to the foot of the hill, where they spent the night round their camp fire. Lucy sat for some time by the side of Waihoura, who showed no inclination to go to sleep; she evidently was astonished at finding herself in an English bed, and watched over by a fair pakeha girl instead of her own dark-skinned people. She talked on for some time, till at length her words grew more and more indistinct, and closing her eyes, to Lucy's satisfaction, she fell asleep. "Now, do you go back to your tent," said Mrs Greening. "I'll look after the little girl, and if I hear any noise I'll be up in a moment and call you or Betsy; but don't be fancying you will be wanted, the little girl will do well enough, depend on that." Lucy very unwillingly retired to her tent, and was much surprised when she awoke to find that it was already daylight. CHAPTER THREE. IN CAMP. DR FRASER ARRIVES WITH MR MARLOW, A MISSIONARY, WHO RECOGNISES WAIHOURA.--HE PERSUADES HER FATHER TO ALLOW HER TO REMAIN.--RETURN OF MR PEMBERTON, WHO HAS SELECTED HIS LAND, AND BEGINS TO SETTLE ON IT.-- THE FARM DESCRIBED.--HE LEAVES THEM AGAIN FOR IT ACCOMPANIED BY MR SPEARS.--WAIHOURA RECOVERS AND LEARNS ENGLISH, WHILE LUCY LEARNS MAORI.--A VESSEL ARRIVES WITH SHEEP, SOME OF WHICH THE DOCTOR BUYS, AND ARE LOOKED AFTER BY TOBY.--LUCY TRIES TO EXPLAIN THE GOSPEL TO WAIHOURA. "I am not quite happy about her, Miss Lucy," said Mrs Greening, when Lucy, as soon as she was dressed, went into the hut. "If she was an English girl I should know what to do, but these natives have odd ways, which puzzle me." The young Maori girl lay as she had been placed on the bed, with her eyes open, but without moving or speaking. There was a strange wild look in her countenance, so Lucy thought, which perplexed her. "I wish the doctor were here," she said; "if he does not come soon, we will send Harry to look for him." "Little Tobias shall go at once, Miss," answered Mrs Greening. "The run will do him no harm, even if he misses the doctor." Tobias was called, and taking his stick in hand, the young giant set off at a round trot down the hill. Lucy sat watching the sick girl, while Mrs Greening and Betsy made preparations for breakfast. Every now and then she cast an anxious glance through the open doorway, in the hopes of seeing the doctor coming up the hill. "Oh! how sad it would be if she were to die in her present heathen state; when should she recover, she may have an opportunity of learning the blessed truths of the gospel," thought Lucy. "How thankful I should feel could I tell her of the love of Christ, and how He died for her sake, and for that of all who accept the gracious offers of salvation freely made to them. I must try, as soon as possible, to learn her language, to be able to speak to her." Such and similar thoughts occupied Lucy's mind for some time. At length, turning round and looking through the open doorway, she saw several natives coming up the hill. She recognised the first as Waihoura's father. The party approached the hut, and stopped before the entrance. "Dear me, here comes some of those savage-looking natives," exclaimed Mrs Greening. "What shall we say to them? I hope they are not come to take the poor little girl away." "I will try and make them understand that we have sent for the doctor, and that if they wish her to recover, they must let her remain under his charge," said Lucy, rising and going to the door. Though still feeling somewhat nervous in the presence of the Maoris, her anxiety to benefit Waihoura gave her courage, and she endeavoured, by signs, to make the chief understand what she wished. She then led him to the bedside of his daughter, who lay as unconscious as before. He stood for some time gazing down at her, the working of his countenance showing his anxiety. Lucy felt greatly relieved on hearing Toby's voice shouting out, "The doctor's a-coming mother, I ran on before to tell you, and there's a gentleman with him who knows how to talk to the savages." In a short time the doctor arrived, accompanied by an Englishman of middle age, with a remarkably intelligent and benignant expression of countenance. "Mr Marlow kindly agreed to come with me," said Dr Fraser. "He understands the Maori language, and I shall now be able to communicate with my patient, and to explain to her friends what is necessary to be done to afford her a prospect of recovery." "I am afraid she is very ill," said Lucy, as she led the doctor and Mr Marlow into the hut. The latter addressed the young girl in a low gentle voice. At first she paid no attention, but at length her eyes brightened and her lips moved. Mr Marlow continued speaking, a smile lighted up her countenance. She replied, and taking his hand, pressed it to her lips. "I thought so," he said, turning to Lucy, "we are old acquaintances. When still a child, she was for a short time at my missionary school, but her father resisted the truth, and took her away. Through God's providence she may once more have an opportunity of hearing the message of salvation. We must endeavour to persuade Ihaka, her father, to allow her to remain. He loves his daughter, and though unconscious of the value of her soul, for the sake of preserving her life, he may be induced to follow our advice." Dr Fraser, through Mr Marlow, put several questions to Waihoura, and then administered some medicine he had brought, leaving a further portion with Mrs Greening, to be given as he directed. Mr Marlow then addressed Ihaka the chief, who seemed to listen to him with great attention. He told him what the English doctor had said, and urged him, as he loved his daughter, to leave her under his care. Ihaka at first hesitated, unwilling to be separated from his child. Mr Marlow pressed the point with great earnestness, and at length the chief signified his readiness to comply with the doctor's advice. "Tell him if he restores my daughter, I and my people will be friends to him and the pakehas, for his sake, for ever," he said, pointing to Dr Fraser. "The life of your daughter, as well as that of all human beings, is in the hands of the great God who rules this world, and allows not a sparrow to fall to the ground without knowing it," answered Mr Marlow. "The doctor is but His instrument, and can only exert the knowledge which has been given him. To that loving God we will kneel in prayer, and petition that she may be restored to health." Saying this, Mr Marlow summoned the English lads; and Betsy, who had hitherto kept at a distance, and kneeling on the ground, offered up an earnest prayer to God, that if it was in accordance with His will, and for the benefit of the young Maori girl, He would spare her life. All present earnestly repeated the "Amen," with which he concluded his prayer. The savages, during the time, stood round in respectful silence; and, though not understanding the words uttered, were evidently fully aware of the purpose of what had been said. Ihaka once more entering the hut, Waihoura recognised him. Taking her hand, he beckoned Lucy and Mrs Greening to approach, and placed it in theirs, as if confiding her to their charge. "Please, sir," said Mrs Greening to Mr Marlow, "tell the chief we will do the best we can for his little girl. She is a sweet young creature, and I little expected to find such among the savages out here." "They have hearts and souls, my dear lady, as we have, and though their colour is different to ours, God cares for them as He does for us." The chief seemed content, and after again addressing the missionary, he and his people took their departure. "The savages are all going, mother," exclaimed little Tobias some time afterwards, as he came puffing and blowing up the hill. "I could not feel quite comfortable while they were near us, and I am glad that we are rid of them." "We should not judge from outside looks, Tobias," remarked Mrs Greening. "As the good missionary said just now, they have hearts and souls like ours, and I am sure that chief, fierce and savage as he looks, loves his daughter as much as any English father can do." Dr Fraser and Mr Marlow had before this returned to the town, promising to come back in the evening to see how their patient was getting on. The consumption of firewood in the camp was considerable, as Mrs Greening kept up a good fire in the open air for the cooking operations. Harry and Tobias had brought in a supply in the morning, and Harry's hands and clothes gave evidence how hard he had laboured. "We shall want some more wood before morning," observed Mrs Greening, turning to her sons. "I am ready to go again," said Harry, "if James will stay in the camp." "No; Master Harry, its my turn to go if you will stop behind," said James. "If you wish it I'll stay," replied Harry. "One of us ought to remain, or strangers coming up to the camp might be troublesome, and I would not permit that." While James and Tobias set off with axes in their hands, and pieces of rope to bind their faggots, Harry got his gun, and began to march up and down on guard. He evidently considered himself like a sentinel in the presence of an enemy. Now he looked on one side of the hill, now on the other. No person could have entered the camp without receiving his challenge. He had thus been passing up and down for some time, when he caught sight, in the distance, of some persons emerging from the forest. "Here they come," he shouted out, "Papa and Valentine, Mr Greening and Paul, and the two natives who went with them." He was examining them with his spy-glass. "Yes, it's them, and they will soon be here. Pray get supper ready, Mrs Greening; depend upon it they will be very hungry after their long march." Mrs Greening, aided by Betsy, at once got her pots and saucepans on the fire. Harry, though feeling much inclined to run down and meet the party, restrained his eagerness. "A sentry must not quit his post," he said to himself, "though no harm will happen, I'll keep to mine on principle." In a short time Mr Pemberton, with his companions, appeared at the foot of the hill. Lucy ran down to meet them, eager to welcome her father, and to tell him about Waihoura. "I am glad you can be of assistance to the young girl, and it is most desirable that we should be able to show our friendly disposition towards the natives," he observed. "Oh, I do so hope she will recover," said Lucy. "But I am afraid that some time must pass before she is well enough to be moved." "That would decide me in a plan I propose," said Mr Pemberton. "Greening and I have settled our ground, and I hope that we may be put in possession of it in a day or two; we will then leave you here with Harry and Tobias, while we go back and build our houses, and make preparations for your reception." Lucy had expected to set out as soon as the ground was chosen; but as she could not hope that Waihoura would be in a fit state to be moved for some time, she felt that the arrangement now proposed was the best. Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening were highly pleased with the ground they had selected. "We propose to place our houses on the slope of a hill, which rises within a quarter of a mile of the river," he observed. "Greening will take one side and I the other. Our grounds extend from the river to the hill, and a little way beyond it; when the high road is formed, which will, from the nature of the country, pass close to our farm, we shall have both land and water communication. Close also to the foot of the hill, a village probably will be built, so that we shall have the advantage of neighbours. Among other advantages, our land is but slightly timbered, though sufficiently so to afford us an ample supply of wood for building, and as much as we shall require for years to come for fencing and fuel. From the spot I have chosen for our house, we have a view over the country in this direction, so that, with our telescope, we can distinguish the vessels, as they come into the harbour, or pass along the coast." "We shall have plenty of fishing too, Harry," exclaimed Valentine. "And we may, if we go a little distance, fall in with wild boars and plenty of birds, though there are none which we should call game in England." "Oh! how I long to be there, and begin our settlers' life in earnest," said Harry. "I hope the little savage girl will soon get well enough to move." "I wish we could be with you also to help you in the work," said Lucy. "How can you manage to cook without us?" "Valentine and Paul have become excellent cooks, and though we shall miss your society, we shall not starve," observed Mr Pemberton. "Our camp life is a very pleasant one," remarked Valentine. "For my part I shall be rather sorry when it is over, and we have to live inside a house, and go to bed regularly at night." This conversation took place while they were seated at supper on the ground in front of the large tent. It was interrupted by the arrival of Mr Fraser, accompanied by Mr Marlow, to see Waihoura. "She is going on favourably," said the doctor, as he came out; "but she requires great care, and I feel sure that had you not taken charge of her, her life would have been lost. Now, however, I trust that she will recover. Mr Marlow will let her father understand how much he is indebted to you, as it is important that you should secure the friendship a chief of his power and influence." In two days Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening were ready to start for their intended location. Each had purchased a strong horse, and these were harnessed to a light dray, which Mr Pemberton had bought. It was now loaded with all the articles they required, and sufficient provisions and stores to last them till their cottages were put up, and they could return for the rest of the party. By that time it was hoped that the young Maori girl would be in a fit state to be moved. "I will not let her, if I can help it, go back to her own people," said Lucy. "She will become, I am sure, attached to us. I may be of use to her, and she will teach me her language, and it will be interesting to learn from her the habits and customs of the natives." "Yes, indeed, it would be a pity to let the poor little girl turn again into a savage," observed Mr Greening. "I can't fancy that their ways are good ways, or suited to a Christian girl, and that I hope, as Miss Lucy says, she will turn into before long." It had been arranged that Lucy and Betsy should take up their abode in the large tent, in which there was now sufficient room for their accommodation, the small one being packed up for Mr Pemberton's use. The dray being loaded, the farmer went to the horses' heads, and the young men, with the two Maoris, going on either side to keep back the wheels, it slowly descended the hill. "We shall not make a very rapid journey," observed Valentine. "But we shall be content if we come to the end of it in time without a break down." Harry felt very proud at being left in charge of the camp, and Tobias promised that there should be no lack of firewood or water, while he could cut the one, and draw the other from the sparkling stream which ran at the foot of the hill. "We shall do very well, never fear, sir," said Mrs Greening to Mr Pemberton, "and as soon as you and my good man come back, we shall be ready to start." Just as her father had wished Lucy good-bye, Mr Spears, with a pack on his back, and a stout stick in his hand, was observed coming up the hill. "Just in time, neighbour," he exclaimed, as he came up to Mr Pemberton. "I found out, at the surveyor's office, where you had selected your land, and I made up my mind at once to take a piece of ground close to it. As I am all alone, I have only bought a few acres, but that will be enough to build a house on, and to have a garden and paddock. With your leave I'll accompany you. There are several more of our fellow passengers who will select land on the same block when they hear that you and I have settled on it, and we shall soon have, I hope, a pleasant society about us. We shall all be able to help each other; that's the principle I go on." Mr Pemberton told Mr Spears that he was very willing to have him as a companion on the journey, and that he was glad to hear that a settlement was likely soon to be formed near him. He was well aware that the differences of social rank could not be maintained in a new colony, and he had made up his mind to be courteous and kind to all around him, feeling assured that all the respect he could require would thus be paid him by his neighbours. He at once gave a proof of his good intentions. "Your pack is heavy, Mr Spears, and we can easily find room on our waggon for it," he said, and taking off the pack, he secured it to the vehicle which they had just then overtaken. "Thank you, good sir, thank you," answered Mr Spears, as he walked forward, with a jaunty elastic step, highly pleased at being relieved of his somewhat heavy burden. "One good turn deserves another, and I hope that I may have many opportunities of repaying it." Mr Pemberton had promised Lucy to send over, from time to time, to let her know what progress was made, and to obtain intelligence in return from her. Notwithstanding this, she looked forward eagerly to the day when he would come back to take her and the rest of the party to their new abode. Though she did her best to find employment, the time would have hung somewhat heavily on her hands had she not had Waihoura to attend to. The Maori girl, in a short time, so far recovered as to be able to sit up and try to talk. She seemed as anxious to become acquainted with English as Lucy was to learn her language. They both got on very rapidly, for though Waihoura had some difficulty in pronouncing English words, she seldom forgot the name of a thing when she had once learned it. She would ask Lucy to say the word over and over again, then pronouncing it after her. At the end of a week she could speak a good many English sentences. Lucy made almost as rapid progress in Maori, she having the advantage of several books to assist her, and at length the two girls were in a limited degree able to exchange ideas. No one in the camp, however, was idle. Harry, who always kept guard, was busy from morning to night in manufacturing some article which he thought likely to prove useful. Betsy either went with Tobias to cut wood, or bring up water, or assist Mrs Greening, and frequently accompanied her into the town when she went marketing; and sometimes Tobias, when he was not wanted to cut wood, went with his mother. One day he came back with the information that a vessel, which had come to an anchor in the morning, had brought over from Australia several head of cattle, and a large flock of sheep. "I wish father were here, he would be down on the shore, and buying some of them pretty quickly," he exclaimed. "Could we not send to let him know," said Lucy. "Harry, I heard papa say, too, that he wished to purchase a small flock of sheep as soon as he could find any at a moderate price. I should so like to have charge of them. I have always thought the life of a shepherd or shepherdess the most delightful in the world." Harry laughed. "I suspect when it began to rain hard, and your sheep ran away and got lost in the mountains and woods, you would wish yourself sewing quietly by the fireside at home, and your sheep at Jericho," he exclaimed, continuing his laughter. "Still I should be very glad if we could get the sheep, though I am afraid they will all be sold before we can receive papa's answer." While the conversation was going on, Dr Fraser arrived to see Waihoura. Harry told him that he would very much like to send to his father to give notice of the arrival of the sheep. "Would you like to turn shepherd?" asked the doctor. "I should like nothing better, for I could take my books with me, or anything I had to make, and look after the sheep at the same time; it would suit me better than Lucy, who has a fancy to turn shepherdess, and have a crook, and wear a straw hat set on one side of her head, surrounded with a garland, just as we see in pictures." "I suspect Miss Lucy would find home duties more suited to her," said the doctor; "but if you, Harry, will undertake to look after a small flock of sheep, I think I may promise to put one under your charge, and to give you a portion of the increase as payment. I was thinking of buying a hundred sheep, but hesitated from not knowing any one I could trust to to keep them. From what I have seen of you, I am sure you will do your best; and as your father and farmer Greening will probably purchase some more, they will run together till they are sufficiently numerous to form separate flocks. If you will write a letter to your father I will send a messenger off at once," said the doctor. "Indeed, so certain am I that they would wish to purchase some, that I will, when I go back, make an offer for a couple of hundred in addition to mine." The next day the doctor told them that he had purchased the sheep as he had proposed, and he brought a letter from Mr Pemberton thanking him for doing so, and saying that they had made such good progress in their work, that they hoped, in another week, to come back for the rest of the party. "I am rather puzzled to know what to do with the sheep in the meantime," said the doctor. "I cannot entrust them to natives, and there is not a European in the place who has not his own affairs to look after. What do you say, Harry, can you and Tobias take care of them?" "I cannot quit my post," answered Harry, though he was longing to go and see the sheep. "If they were sent up here, I could watch them, but I am afraid they would not remain on the hill while there is better pasture below." "Tobias could take charge of them, sir," said Mrs Greening. "And if we had our old dog `Rough,' I'll warrant not one would go astray." "Rough," who had accompanied farmer Greening all the way from England, had mysteriously disappeared the morning of their arrival; he could not be found before they had quitted the ship, and they had since been unable to discover him. "That is curious," said the doctor; "for this morning, when I bought the sheep, a man offered me a shepherd's dog for sale. I told him that should he not in the meantime have found a purchaser, I would treat with him in the evening after I had seen the dog. Should he prove to be `Rough,' I will not fail to purchase him." Tobias, on hearing this, was very eager to accompany Dr Fraser. "The old dog will know me among a thousand, and the man will have a hard job to hold him in," he observed, grinning from ear to ear. The doctor, after he had seen Waihoura, told Lucy she need have no further anxiety about her friend, who only required good food and care completely to recover. "I must get Mr Marlow to see her father, and persuade him to allow her to remain with you, and he may assure him very truly that she will probably fall ill again if she goes back again to her own people," he said. Tobias accompanied the doctor into the town in the hopes of hearing about his favourite "Rough." He had not been long absent, when back he came with his shaggy friend at his heels. "Here he is mother, here he is Master Harry," he shouted. "I know'd how it would be, the moment he caught sight of me, he almost toppled the man who held him down on his nose, and so he would if the rope hadn't broken, and in another moment he was licking me all over. The doctor gave the man a guinea; but I said it was a shame for him to take it, and so did everybody, for they saw that the dog knew me among twenty or thirty standing round. The man sneaked off, and `Rough' came along with me. Now I must go back and bring the sheep round here to the foot of the hill. There's some ground the surveyor says that we may put them on till we can take them to our own run, but we must give `Rough' his dinner first, for I'll warrant the fellow has not fed him over well." "Rough" wagged his stump of a tail to signify he understood his young master's kind intentions, and Mrs Greening soon got a mess ready, which "Rough" swallowed up in a few moments, and looked up into Toby's face, as much as to say, "what do you want with me next?" "Come along `Rough,' I'll show you," said Toby, as he set off at a round trot down the hill. The party at the camp watched him with no little pleasure, when a short time afterwards, he, with the aid of "Rough," was seen driving a flock of sheep from the town past the hill to a meadow partly enclosed by a stream which made its way into the sea, a short distance off. "Rough" exhibited his wonderful intelligence, as he dashed now on one side, now on the other, keeping the sheep together, and not allowing a single one to stray away. It was a difficult task for Toby and him, for the sheep, long pent up on board ship, made numberless attempts to head off into the interior, where their instinct told them they would find an abundance of pasture. Without the assistance of "Rough," Toby would have found it impossible to guide them into the meadow, and even when there, he and his dog had to exert all their vigilance to keep them together. Harry was sorely tempted to go down to assist. "I must not quit my post though," he said. "As soon as I am relieved, then I'll try if I cannot shepherd as well as Toby. It seems to me that `Rough' does the chief part of the work." The doctor had engaged a couple of natives to assist Toby in looking after the sheep, but he was so afraid of losing any, that he would only come up to the camp for a few minutes at a time to take his meals, and to get "Rough's" food. The Maoris had built him a small hut, where he passed the night, with the flock lying down close to him, kept together by the vigilant dog. The Maoris were, however, very useful in bringing firewood and water to the camp. Waihoura was now well enough to walk about. Lucy had given her one of her own frocks and some other clothes, and she and Betsy took great pains to dress her in a becoming manner, they combed and braided her dark tresses, which they adorned with a few wild flowers that Betsy had picked, and when her costume was complete, Mrs Greening, looking at her with admiration, exclaimed, "Well, I never did think that a little savage girl could turn into a young lady so soon." Waihoura, who had seen herself in a looking-glass, was evidently very well satisfied with her appearance, and clapped her hands with delight, and then ran to Lucy and rubbed her nose against her's, and kissed her, to express her gratitude. "Now that you are like us outside, you must become like us inside," said Lucy, employing a homely way of speaking such as her Maori friend was most likely to understand. "We pray to God, you must learn to pray to Him. We learn about Him in the Book through which He has made Himself known to us as a God of love and mercy, as well as a God of justice, who desires all people to come to Him, and has shown us the only way by which we can come. You understand, all people have disobeyed God, and are rebels, and are treated as such by Him. The evil spirit, Satan, wishes to keep us rebels, and away from God. God in His love desires us to be reconciled to Him; but we all deserve punishment, and He cannot, as a God of justice, let us go unpunished. In His great mercy, however, He permitted another to be punished for us, and He allowed His well-beloved Son Jesus Christ, a part of Himself, to become the person to suffer punishment. Jesus came down on earth to be obedient in all things, because man had been disobedient. He lived a holy pure life, going about doing good, even allowing Himself to be cruelly treated, to be despised and put to shame by the very people among whom He had lived, and to whom He had done so much good. Then, because man justly deserves punishment, He willingly underwent one of the most painful punishments ever thought of, thus suffering instead of man. When nailed to the cross, His side was pierced with a spear, and the blood flowed forth, that the sacrifice might be complete and perfect. Then He rose again, to prove that He was truly God, and that all men will rise from the dead; and He ascended into heaven, there to plead with the Father for all who trust Him, and to claim our freedom from punishment, on the ground that He was punished in our stead." "Jesus sent also, as He had promised, the Holy Spirit to dwell on earth with His people, to be their Comforter, their Guide and Instructor, and to enable them to understand and accept His Father's loving plan of salvation, which He had so fully and completely carried out." "Do you understand my meaning," said Lucy, who felt that she had said more than Waihoura was likely to comprehend. She shook her head. "Lucy not bad woman;" pointing to Mrs Greening, "not bad; Maori girl bad, Maori people very bad," she answered slowly. "God no love Maori people." "But we are all bad when compared to Him--all unfit to go and live in His pure and holy presence," exclaimed Lucy. "And in spite of their wickedness, God loves the Maori people as much as He does us; their souls are of the same value in His sight as ours, and He desires that all should come to Him and be saved." "Why God not take them then, and make them good?" asked Waihoura. "Because He in His wisdom thought fit to create man a free agent, to give him the power of choosing between the good and the evil. Why He allows evil to exist, He has not revealed to us. All we know is that evil does exist, and that Satan is the prince of evil, and tries to spread it everywhere throughout the world. God, if He chose, could overcome evil, but then this world would no longer be a place of trial, as He has thought fit to make it. He has not left man, however, without a means of conquering evil. Jesus Christ came down on earth to present those means to man; they are very simple, and can very easily be made use of; so simple and so easy that man would never have thought of them. Man has nothing to do in order to get rid of his sins, to become pure and holy, and thus fit to live in the presence of a pure and holy God. He has only to put faith in Jesus Christ, who, though free from sin, as I have told you, took our sins upon Himself, and was punished in our stead, while we have only to turn from sin, and to desire not to sin again. We are, however, so prone to sin, that we could not do even this by ourselves; but Christ, knowing our weakness, has, as He promised, when He ascended into heaven, sent His Holy Spirit to be with us to help us to hate sin, and to resist sin." Lucy kept her eyes fixed on her friend to try and ascertain if she now more clearly understood her. Waihoura again shook her head. Lucy felt convinced that her knowledge of English was still too imperfect to enable her to comprehend the subject. "I must try more than ever to learn to speak Maori," she said, "and then perhaps I shall better be able to explain what I mean." "Maori girl want to know much, much, much," answered Waihoura, taking Lucy's hand. "Maori girl soon die perhaps, and then wish to go away where Lucy go." "Ah, yes, it is natural that we should wish to be with those we have loved on earth, but if we understand the surpassing love of Jesus, we should desire far more to go and dwell with Him. Try and remember, Waihoura, that we have a Friend in heaven who loves us more than any earthly friend can do, who knows how weak and foolish and helpless we are, and yet is ever ready to listen to us, and to receive us when we lift up our hearts to Him in prayer." "Maori girl not know how to pray," said Waihoura, sorrowfully. "I cannot teach you," said Lucy, "but if you desire to pray, Jesus can and will send the Holy Spirit I told you of. If you only wish to pray, I believe that you are praying, the mere words you utter are of little consequence, God sees into our hearts, and He knows better than even we ourselves do, whether the spirit of prayer is there." "I am afraid, Miss Lucy, that the little girl can't take in much of the beautiful things you have been saying," observed Mrs Greening, who had all the time been listening attentively. "But I have learned more than I knew before, and I only wish Tobias and the rest of them had been here to listen to you." "I am very sure my father will explain the subject to them more clearly than I can do," said Lucy, modestly. "I have only repeated what he said to me, and what I know to be true, because I have found it all so plainly set forth in God's Word. My father always tells us not to take anything we hear for granted till we find it there, and that it is our duty to search the Scriptures for ourselves. It is because people are often too idle, or too ignorant to do this, that there is so much false doctrine and error among nominal Christians. I hope Mr Marlow will pay us a visit when we are settled in our new home, and bring a Maori Bible with him, and he will be able to explain the truth to Waihoura far better than I can. You will like to learn to read, Waihoura, and we must get some books, and I will try and teach you, and you will teach me your language at the same time." Lucy often spoke on the same subject to her guest; but, as was to be expected, Waihoura very imperfectly understood her. With more experience she would have known that God often thinks fit to try the faith and patience even of the most earnest and zealous Christians who are striving to make known the truth of the gospel to others. The faithful missionary has often toiled on for years among the heathen before he has been allowed to see the fruit of his labours. CHAPTER FOUR. SETTLING DOWN. RETURN OF WAGGON TO THE CAMP FOR LUCY AND THE REST OF THE PARTY, WHO SET OFF FOR THE FARM.--SCENERY ON THE ROAD.--ARRIVAL AT FARM.--MR SPEARS AGAIN.--PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. "Here comes the waggon," shouted Harry, as he stood on the brow of the hill waving his hat. "There's farmer Greening and Val. Papa has sent for us at last." Harry was right, and Val announced that he had come for all the lighter articles, including Lucy and her companions, who were to set out at once with farmer Greening, while he, with a native, remained to take care of the heavier goods. The waggon was soon loaded, leaving places within it for Lucy and Waihoura, Mrs Greening and Betsy insisting on walking. "Now Val, I hand over my command to you, and see that you keep as good a watch as I have done," said Harry, as he shook hands with his brother. "I must go and take charge of the sheep." Valentine smiled at the air of importance Harry had assumed. "There's the right stuff in the little fellow," he said to himself, as he watched him and young Tobias driving the sheep in the direction the waggon had taken. Lucy was delighted with the appearance of the country, as they advanced, though she could not help wishing very frequently that the road had been smoother; indeed, the vehicle bumped and rolled about so much at times that she fully expected a break down. Waihoura, who had never been in a carriage before, naturally supposed that this was the usual way in which such vehicles moved along, and therefore appeared in no degree alarmed. She pointed out to Lucy the names of the different trees they passed, and of the birds which flew by. Lucy was struck with the beauty of the fern trees, their long graceful leaves springing twenty and thirty feet from the ground; some, indeed, in sheltered and damp situations, were twice that height, having the appearance of the palm trees of tropical climates. The most beautiful tree was the rimu, which rose without a branch to sixty or seventy feet, with graceful drooping foliage of a beautiful green, resembling clusters of feathers; then there was the kahikatea, or white pine, resembling the rimu in foliage, but with a light coloured bark. One or two were seen rising ninety feet high without a branch. There were numerous creepers, some bearing very handsome flowers, and various shrubs; one, the karaka, like a large laurel, with golden coloured berries in clusters, which contrasted finely with the glossy greenness of its foliage. Some of the fruits were like large plums, very tempting in appearance; but when Lucy tasted some, which the farmer picked for her, she was much disappointed in their flavour. The best was the poro poro, which had a taste between that of apple peel and a bad strawberry. Birds were flitting about from tree to tree; the most common was the tui, with a glossy black plumage, and two white feathers on the throat like bands, and somewhat larger than an English blackbird, which appeared always in motion, now darting up from some low bush to the topmost bough of a lofty tree, when it began making a number of strange noises, with a wonderful volume of tone. If one tui caught sight of another, they commenced fighting, more in sport, apparently, than in earnest, and ending with a wild shout; they would throw a summer-set or two, and then dart away into the bush to recommence their songs and shouts. There was a fine pigeon, its plumage richly shaded with green purple and gold, called the kukupa. Occasionally they caught sight of a large brown parrot, marked with red, flying about the tops of the tallest trees, and uttering a loud and peculiar cry; this was the kaka. Waihoura pointed out to Lucy another bird of the parrot tribe, of a green plumage, touched with gold about the head, and which she called the kakarica. As the waggon could only proceed at a snail's pace, they had made good but half the distance, when they had to stop for dinner by the side of a bright stream which ran through the forest. The horses, which were tethered, cropped the grass, and Mrs Greening unpacked her cooking utensils. While dinner was getting ready, Waihoura led Lucy along the bank of the stream to show her some more birds. They saw several, among them an elegant little fly-catcher, with a black and white plumage, and a delicate fan-tail, which flew rapidly about picking up sun-flies; this was the tirakana. And there was another pretty bird, the makomako, somewhat like a green linnet. Several were singing together, and their notes reminded Lucy of the soft tinkling of numerous little bells. They had seen nothing of Harry and Tobias with the sheep since starting, and farmer Greening began to regret that he had not sent one of his elder sons to drive them. "Never fear, father," observed Mrs Greening, "our little Tobias has got a head on his shoulders, and so has Master Harry, and with `Rough' to help them, they will get along well enough." Mrs Greening was right, and just as the horses were put too, "Rough's" bark was heard through the woods. In a short time the van of the flock appeared, with a native, who walked first to show the way. Though "Rough" had never been out in the country before, he seemed to understand its character, and the necessity of compelling the sheep to follow the footsteps of the dark-skinned native before them. "It's capital fun," cried Harry, as soon as he saw Lucy. "We have to keep our eyes about us though, when coming through the wood especially, but we have not let a single sheep stray away as yet." "Well, boys, our fire is still burning, and my missus has cooked food enough for you all," said farmer Greening. "So you may just take your dinner, and come on after us as fast as you can." "We will not be long," answered Harry. "Hope, mother, you have left some bones for `Rough' though," said Toby. "He deserves his dinner as much as any of us." "Here's a mess I put by for him to give when we got to the end of our journey," answered Mrs Greening, drawing out a pot which she had stowed away in the waggon. She called to "Rough," who quickly gobbled it up. The waggon then moved on, while Harry and his companions sat round the fire to discuss their dinner. "Rough," in the meantime, vigilantly keeping the sheep together. The remainder of the journey was found more difficult than the first part had been. Sometimes they had to climb over steep ranges, when the natives assisted at the wheels, while Mrs Greening and Betsy pushed behind; then they had to descend on the other side, when a drag was put on, and the wheels held back. Several wide circuits had to be made to avoid hills on their way, and even when over level ground, the fern in many places was so very thick that it was rather hard work for the horses to drag the waggon through it. "This is a rough country," observed Mrs Greening, as she trudged on by her husband's side. "I didn't expect to see the like of it." "Never fear, dame," answered the farmer. "In a year or two we shall have a good road between this and the port, and a coach-and-four may be running on it." At length the last range was passed, and they reached a broad open valley, with a fine extent of level ground. In the distance rose a hill, with a sparkling river flowing near it, and thickly wooded heights. Further on beyond, it appeared a bold range of mountains, their highest peaks capped with snow. "This is, indeed, a beautiful scene," exclaimed Lucy. "That's our home, Miss," said the farmer, pointing to the hill. "If your eyes could reach as far, you would just see the roof of your new house among the trees. We shall come well in sight of it before long." The waggon now moved on faster, as the fern had been cut away or trampled down, and the horses seemed to know that they were getting near home. Mr Pemberton and the farmer's sons came down to welcome them, and to conduct them up to the house. Lucy was surprised to find what progress had already been made. The whole of it was roofed over, and the room she was to occupy was completely finished. The building was not very large. It consisted of a central hall, with two bed-rooms on either side, and a broad verandah running entirely round it; behind it were some smaller detached buildings for the kitchen and out-houses. In front and on one side a space was marked off for a flower garden, beyond which, extending down the side of the hill to the level ground, was a large space which Mr Pemberton said he intended for the orchard and kitchen garden. On that side of the house were sheds for the waggons and horses, though now occupied by the native labourers. "They consider themselves magnificently lodged," said Mr Pemberton. "And they deserve it, for they worked most industriously, and enabled me to put up the house far more rapidly than I had expected. I believe, however, that they would have preferred the native wahre, with the heat and smoke they delight in, to the larger hut I have provided for them, and I have been sometimes afraid they would burn it down with the huge fire they made within." Farmer Greening's cottage, which was a little way round on the other side of the hill, was built on a similar plan to Mr Pemberton, but it was not so far advanced. "You must blame me, Mrs Greening, for this," said Mr Pemberton. "Your husband insisted on helping me with my house before he would begin yours, declaring that he should have the advantage of having mine as a model. I hope, therefore, that you will take up your abode with us till yours is finished, as Harry and I can occupy the tent in the meantime." Mrs Greening gladly accepted the invitation; she thought, indeed, that she should be of use to Lucy in getting the house in order. The sitting-room was not yet boarded, but a rough table had been put in it, and round this the party were soon seated at tea. "Beg pardon, I hope I don't intrude, just looked in to welcome you and my good friend Mrs Greening to `Riverside.' Glad to find that you have arrived safe. Well, to be sure, the place is making wonderful progress, we have three families already arrived in the village, and two more expected tomorrow, and I don't know how many will follow. I have been helping my new friends to put up their houses, and have been obliged to content myself with a shake-down of fern in the corner of a shed; but we settlers must make up our minds to rough it, Mr Pemberton, and I hope to get my own house up in the course of a week or two." These words were uttered by Mr Nicholas Spears, who stood poking his head into the room at the doorway, as if doubtful whether he might venture to enter. "I thank you for your kind inquiries, Mr Spears," said Mr Pemberton, who, though he could not feel much respect for the little man, treated him, as he did everybody else, with courtesy. "If you have not had your tea come in and take a seat at our board. We have but a three-legged stool to offer you." This was just what Mr Spears wished; and sitting down he began forthwith to give the party all the news of the settlement. From his account Lucy was glad to find that two families, one that of a naval, the other of a military officer, who had just arrived in the colony, had taken land close to theirs, and were about to settle on it. Although the midsummer day was drawing to a close, Harry and Toby, with the sheep, had not yet made their appearance. Paul and James went off to meet them, and take the flock where they were to remain for the night, so as to relieve the boys of their charge. There was a fine bright moon, so they would have no difficulty in finding their way. Not long afterwards Harry's voice was heard, echoed by Toby's, shouting to the sheep, and the two boys rushed up to the house. "Here we are, papa," cried Harry. "We have brought the sheep along all safe, and now Paul and James have got charge of them, we may eat our supper with good consciences." Mrs Greening quickly placed a plentiful meal before the two young shepherds, who did ample justice to it. "We must get some cows, farmer, if we can procure any at a moderate price, when you next go back to town," said Mr Pemberton. "That's just what I was thinking," answered the farmer. "And some pigs and poultry," added Mrs Greening. "I should not think myself at home without them, and Miss Lucy and Betsy will be wanting some to look after." "And a few goats, I suspect, would not be amiss," observed the farmer. "I saw several near the town, and I hear they do very well." Waihoura, who was listening attentively to all that was said, seemed to comprehend the remark about the goats, and made Lucy understand that she had several at her village, and she should like to send for some of them. Supper being over, Mr Pemberton, according to his usual custom, read a chapter in the Bible, and offered up evening prayer; and after Mr Spears had taken his departure, and the rest of the family had retired to their respective dormitories, heaps of fern serving as beds for most of them, Mr Pemberton and the farmer sat up arranging their plans for the future. The latter agreed to return to town the next day to bring up the remainder of the stores, and to make the proposed purchases. Although they all knew that at no great distance there were several villages inhabited by savages, till lately, notorious for their fierce and blood-thirsty character, they lay down to sleep with perfect confidence, knowing that the missionary of the gospel had been among them, and believing that a firm friendship had been established between them and the white occupants of their country. CHAPTER FIVE. IHAKA'S VISIT. LIFE AT RIVERSIDE.--WAIHOURA BEGINS TO LEARN THE TRUTH.--HER FATHER, ACCOMPANIED BY SEVERAL CHIEFS, COMES TO TAKE HER TO HIS PAH, AND SHE QUITS HER FRIENDS AT RIVERSIDE. The settlement made rapid progress. In the course of a few weeks Mr Pemberton's and farmer Greening's houses were finished, their gardens dug and planted; and they had now, in addition to the sheep, which Harry and Toby continued to tend, several cows and pigs and poultry. Lucy, assisted by Betsy, was fully occupied from morning till night; she, however, found time to give instruction to Waihoura, while Mr Pemberton or Valentine assisted Harry in his studies. He seldom went out without a book in his pocket, so that he might read while the vigilant "Rough" kept the sheep together. Several other families had bought land in the neighbourhood, and had got up their cottages. Some of them were very nice people, but they, as well as Lucy, were so constantly engaged, that they could see very little of each other. The Maoris employed by Mr Pemberton belonged to Ihaka's tribe, and through them he heard of his daughter. He had been so strongly urged by Mr Marlow to allow her to remain with her white friends, that he had hitherto abstained from visiting her, lest, as he sent word, he should be tempted to take her away. Lucy was very glad of this, as was Waihoura. The two girls were becoming more and more attached to each other, and they dreaded the time when they might be separated. "Maori girl wish always live with Lucy--never, never part," said Waihoura, as one evening the two friends sat together in the porch, bending over a picture-book of Scripture subjects, with the aid of which Lucy was endeavouring to instruct her companion. Lucy's arm was thrown round Waihoura's neck, while Betsy, who had finished her work, stood behind them, listening to the conversation, and wondering at the way her young mistress contrived to make herself understood. "God does not always allow even the dearest friends to remain together while they dwell on earth," replied Lucy to Waihoura's last remark. "I used to wish that I might never leave my dear mother; but God thought fit to take her to Himself. I could not have borne the parting did not I know that I should meet her in heaven." "What place heaven?" asked Waihoura. "Jesus has told us that it is the place where we shall be with Him, where all is love, and purity, and holiness, and where we shall meet all who have trusted to Him while on earth, and where there will be no more parting, and where sorrow and sickness, and pain, and all things evil, will be unknown." "Maori girl meet Lucy in heaven?" said Waihoura, in a tone which showed she was asking a question. "I am sure you will," said Lucy, "if you learn to love Jesus and do His will." Waihoura was silent for some minutes, a sad expression coming over her countenance. "Maori girl too bad, not love Jesus enough," she said. "No one is fitted for heaven from their own merits or good works, and we never can love Jesus as much as He deserves to be loved. But He knows how weak and wayward we are, and all He asks us is to try our best to love and serve Him, to believe that He was punished instead of us, and took our sins upon Himself, and He then, as it were, clothes us with His righteousness. He hides our sins, or puts them away, so that God looks upon us as if we were pure and holy, and free from sin, and so will let us come into a pure and holy heaven, where no unclean things--such as are human beings--of themselves can enter. Do you understand me?" Waihoura thought for some time, and then asked Lucy again to explain her meaning. At length her countenance brightened. "Just as if Maori girl put on Lucy's dress, and hat and shawl over face, and go into a pakeha house, people say here come pakeha girl." "Yes," said Lucy, inclined to smile at her friend's illustration of the truth. "But you must have a living faith in Christ's sacrifice; and though the work and the merit is all His, you must show, by your love and your life, what you think, and say, and do, that you value that work. If one of your father's poor slaves had been set free, and had received a house and lands, and a wife, and pigs, and many other things from him, ought not the slave to remain faithful to him, and to try and serve him, and work for him more willingly than when he was a slave? That is just what Jesus Christ requires of those who believe in Him. They were slaves to Satan and the world, and to many bad ways, and He set them free. He wants all such to labour for Him. Now He values the souls of people more than anything else, and He wishes His friends to make known to others the way by which their souls may be saved. He also wishes people to live happily together in the world; and He came on earth to show us the only way in which that can be done. He proved to us, by His example, that we can only be happy by being kind, and gentle, and courteous to others, helping those who are in distress, doing to others as we should wish they would do to us. If, therefore, we really love Jesus, and have a living active faith in Him, we shall try to follow His example in all things. If all men lived thus, the gospel on earth would be established, there would be really peace and good will among men." "Very different here," said Waihoura. "Maori people still quarrel, and fight, and kill. In pakeha country they good people love Jesus, and do good, and no bad." "I am sorry to say that though there are many who do love Jesus, there are far more who do not care to please Him, and that there is much sin, and sorrow, and suffering in consequence. Oh, if we could but find the country where all loved and tried to serve Him! If all the inhabitants of even one little island were real followers of Jesus, what a happy spot it would be." Waihoura sighed. "Long time before Maori country like that." "I am afraid that it will be a long time before any part of the world is like that," said Lucy. "But yet it is the duty of each separate follower of Jesus to try, by the way he or she lives, to make it so. Oh, how watchful we should be over ourselves and all our thoughts, words and acts, and remembering our own weakness and proneness to sin, never to be trusting to ourselves, but ever seeking the aid of the Holy Spirit to help us." Lucy said this rather to herself than to her companion. Indeed, though she did her best to explain the subject to Waihoura, and to draw from her in return the ideas she had received, she could not help acknowledging that what she had said was very imperfectly understood by the Maori girl. She was looking forward, however, with great interest, to a visit from Mr Marlow, and she hoped that he, from speaking the native language fluently, would be able to explain many points which she had found beyond her power to put clearly. The work of the day being over, the party were seated at their evening meal. A strange noise was heard coming from the direction of the wahre, which the native labourers had built for themselves, a short distance from the house. Harry, who had just then come in from his shepherding, said that several natives were collected round the wahre, and that they were rubbing noses, and howling together in chorus. "I am afraid they have brought some bad news, for the tears were rolling down their eyes, and altogether they looked very unhappy," he remarked. Waihoura, who partly understood what Harry had said, looked up and observed-- "No bad news, only meet after long time away." Still she appeared somewhat anxious, and continued giving uneasy glances at the door. Valentine was about to go out to make inquiries, when Ihaka, dressed in a cloak of flax, and accompanied by several other persons similarly habited, appeared at the door. Waihoura ran forward to meet him. He took her in his arms, rubbed his nose against hers, and burst into tears, which also streamed down her cheeks. After their greeting was over, Mr Pemberton invited the chief and his friends to be seated, fully expecting to hear that he had come to announce the death of some near relative. The chief accepted the invitation for himself and one of his companions, while the others retired to a distance, and sat down on the ground. Ihaka's companion was a young man, and the elaborate tattooing on his face and arms showed that he was a chief of some consideration. Both he and Ihaka behaved with much propriety, and their manners were those of gentlemen who felt themselves in their proper position; but as Lucy noticed the countenance of the younger chief, she did not at all like its expression. The tattoo marks always give a peculiarly fierce look to the features; but, besides this, as he cast his eyes round the party, and they at last rested on Waihoura, Lucy's bad opinion of him was confirmed. Ihaka could speak a few sentences of English, but the conversation was carried on chiefly through Waihoura, who interpreted for him. The younger chief seldom spoke; when he did, either Ihaka or his daughter tried to explain his meaning. Occasionally he addressed her in Maori, when she hung down her head, or turned her eyes away from him, and made no attempt to interpret what he had said. Mr Pemberton knew enough of the customs of the natives not to inquire the object of Ihaka's visit, and to wait till he thought fit to explain it. Lucy had feared, directly he made his appearance, that he had come to claim his daughter, and she trembled lest he should declare that such was his intention. Her anxiety increased when supper was over, and he began, in somewhat high-flown language, to express his gratitude to her and Mr Pemberton for the care they had taken of Waihoura. He then introduced his companion as Hemipo, a Rangatira, or chief of high rank, his greatly esteemed and honoured friend, who, although not related to him by the ties of blood, might yet, he hoped, become so. When he said this Waihoura cast her eyes to the ground, and looked greatly distressed, and Lucy, who had taken her hand, felt it tremble. Ihaka continued, observing that now, having been deprived of the company of his daughter for many months, though grateful to the friends who had so kindly sheltered her, and been the means of restoring her to health, he desired to have her return with him to his pah, where she might assist in keeping the other women in order, and comfort and console him in his wahre, which had remained empty and melancholy since the death of her mother. Waihoura, though compelled to interpret this speech, made no remark on it; but Lucy saw that the tears were trickling down her cheeks. Mr Pemberton, though very sorry to part with his young guest, felt that it would be useless to beg her father to allow her to remain after what he had said. Lucy, however, pleaded hard that she might be permitted to stay on with them sometime longer. All she could say, however, was useless; for when the chief appeared to be yielding, Hemipo said something which made him keep to his resolution, and he finally told Waihoura that she must prepare to accompany him the following morning. He and Hemipo then rose, and saying that they would sleep in the wahre, out of which it afterwards appeared they turned the usual inhabitants, they took their departure. Waihoura kept up her composure till they were gone, and then throwing herself on Lucy's neck, burst into tears. "Till I came here I did not know what it was to love God, and to try and be good, and to live as you do, so happy and peaceable, and now I must go back and be again the wild Maori girl I was before I came to you, and follow the habits of my people; and worse than all, Lucy, from what my father said, I know that he intends me to marry the Rangatira Hemipo, whom I can never love, for he is a bad man, and has killed several cookies or slaves, who have offended him. He is no friend of the pakehas, and has often said he would be ready to drive them out of the country. He would never listen either to the missionaries; and when the good Mr Marlow went to his pah, he treated him rudely, and has threatened to take his life if he has the opportunity. Fear only of what the pakehas might do has prevented him." Waihoura did not say this in as many words, but she contrived, partly in English and partly in her own language, to make her meaning understood. Lucy was deeply grieved at hearing it, and tried to think of some means for saving Waihoura from so hard a fate. They sat up for a long time talking on the subject, but no plan which Lucy could suggest afforded Waihoura any consolation. "I will consult my father as to what can be done," Lucy said at last; "or when Mr Marlow comes, perhaps he can help us." "Oh no, he can do nothing," answered Waihoura, bursting into tears. "We must pray, then, that God will help us," said Lucy. "He has promised that He will be a present help in time of trouble." "Oh yes, we will pray to God. He only can help us," replied the Maori girl, and ere they lay down on their beds they together offered up their petitions to their Father in heaven for guidance and protection; but though they knew that that would not be withheld, they could not see the way in which it would be granted. Next morning Waihoura had somewhat recovered her composure. Lucy and Mrs Greening insisted on her accepting numerous presents, which she evidently considered of great value. Several of the other settlers in the neighbourhood, who had become acquainted with the young Maori girl, and had heard that she was going away, brought up their gifts. Waihoura again gave way to tears when the moment arrived for her final parting with Lucy; and she was still weeping as her father led her off, surrounded by his attendants, to return to his pah. CHAPTER SIX. AMONG THE MAORIS. RIVERSIDE.--MR MARLOW THE MISSIONARY, VISITS THE PEMBERTONS.--LUCY AND HER FRIENDS VISIT IHAKA.--A NATIVE PAH DESCRIBED.--A FEAST--NATIVE AMUSEMENTS.--RETURN TO RIVERSIDE. The appearance of Riverside had greatly improved since Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening had settled there. They had each thirty or forty acres under cultivation, with kitchen gardens and orchards, and Lucy had a very pretty flower garden in front of the cottage, with a dairy and poultry yard, and several litters of pigs. Harry's flock of sheep had increased threefold, and might now be seen dotting the plain as they fed on the rich grasses which had sprung up where the fern had been burnt. There were several other farms in the neighbourhood, and at the foot of the hill a village, consisting of a dozen or more houses, had been built, the principal shop in which was kept by Mr Nicholas Spears. The high road to the port was still in a very imperfect state, and the long talked of coach had not yet begun to run. Communication was kept up by means of the settlers waggons, or by the gentlemen, who took a shorter route to it on horseback. Mr Marlow at length paid his long promised visit. Lucy eagerly inquired if he had seen Waihoura. "I spent a couple of days at Ihaka's pah on my way here," he replied, "and I am sorry to say that your young friend appears very unhappy. Her father seems resolved that she shall marry Hemipo, notwithstanding that he is a heathen, as he has passed his word to that effect. I pointed out to him the misery he would cause her; and though he loves his child, yet I could not shake him. He replied, that a chief's word must not be broken, and that perhaps Waihoura's marriage may be the means of converting her husband. I fear that she would have little influence over him, as even among his own people he is looked upon as a fierce and vindictive savage." "Poor Waihoura!" sighed Lucy. "Do you think her father would allow her to pay us another visit? I should be so glad to send and invite her." "I am afraid not," answered Mr Marlow. "Ihaka himself, though nominally a Christian, is very lukewarm; and though he was glad to have his daughter restored to health, he does not value the advantage she would derive from intercourse with civilised people. However, you can make the attempt, and I will write a letter, which you can send by one of his people who accompanied me here." The letter was written, and forthwith despatched. In return Ihaka sent an invitation to the pakeha maiden and her friends to visit him and his daughter at his pah. Mr Marlow advised Lucy to accept it. "The chief's pride possibly prevents him from allowing his daughter to visit you again, until, according to his notions, he has repaid you for the hospitality you have shown her," he observed. "You may feel perfectly secure in going there; and, at all events, you will find the visit interesting, as you will have an opportunity of seeing more of the native customs and way of living than you otherwise could." Mr Pemberton, after some hesitation, agreed to the proposal, and Valentine undertook to escort his sister. Harry said he should like to go; "but then about the sheep--I cannot leave them for so long," he said. James Greening offered to look after his flock during his absence. A lady, Miss Osburn, a very nice girl, who was calling on Lucy, expressed a strong wish to accompany her. "I think that I am bound to go with you, as I have advised the expedition, and feel myself answerable for your safe conduct," said Mr Marlow. "I may also prove useful as an interpreter, and should be glad of an opportunity of again speaking to Ihaka and his people." A message was accordingly sent to the chief, announcing the intention of Lucy and her friends to pay a visit to his pah. The road, though somewhat rough, was considered practicable for the waggon, which was accordingly got ready. They were to start at daybreak, and as the pah was about twelve miles off, it was not expected that they would reach it till late in the afternoon. Two natives had been sent by Ihaka to act as guides, and as they selected the most level route, the journey was performed without accident. About the time expected they came in sight of a rocky hill rising out of the plain, with a stream running at its base. On the summit appeared a line of palisades, surmounted by strange looking figures, mounted on poles, while in front was a gateway, above which was a larger figure, with a hideous countenance, curiously carved and painted. The natives pointed, with evident pride, at the abode of their chief. As the path to it was far too steep to allow of the waggon going up it, Lucy and her friend got out to ascend on foot. As they did so, the chief and a number of his people emerged from the gateway, and came down to meet them. The usual salutations were offered, and the chief, knowing the customs of his guests, did not offer to rub noses. Lucy inquired anxiously for Waihoura. She was, according to etiquette, remaining within to receive her visitors. After passing through a gateway, they found a second line of stockades, within which was a wide place occupied by numerous small wahres, while at the further end stood two of somewhat larger size, ornamented with numerous highly carved wooden figures. On one side was a building, raised on carved posts, with a high-pitched roof--it was still more highly ornamented than the others, in grotesque patterns, among which the human face predominated. This latter was the chief's store-house, and it was considerably larger and handsomer than his own abode. The dwelling-houses were of an oblong shape, about sixteen feet long and eight wide, with low walls, but high sloping roofs; the doors were so low that it was necessary to stoop when entering. The roofs were thatched with rampo, a plant which grows in the marshes; and the walls were of the same material, thickly matted together, so as to keep out both rain and wind. As the party advanced, Waihoura appeared from her wahre, and throwing her arms on Lucy's neck, began to weep as if her heart would break. She then conducted her friends into the interior, while the chief took charge of Mr Marlow, Valentine, and Harry. Waihoura's abode was clean and neat, the ground on each side covered thickly with fern, on the top of which mats were placed to serve as couches. Here the Maori girl begged her guests to be seated, and having recovered her composure, she thanked Lucy warmly for coming, and made inquiries about her friends at Riverside. She smiled and laughed, and became so animated, that she scarcely appeared like the same person she had been a few minutes before. She became very grave, however, when Lucy asked if her father still insisted on her marrying Hemipo. "He does," she answered, in a sad tone. "But I may yet escape, and I will, if I can, at all risks." She pressed her lips together, and looked so firm, that Lucy hoped that she would succeed in carrying out her resolution. Their conversation was interrupted by a summons to a feast, which the chief had prepared, to do honour to his guests. In the centre of the pah a scaffold was erected, with bars across it, on which were hung up various fish, pieces of pork, and wild-fowl, while on the top were baskets full of sweet and ordinary potatoes, and a variety of other vegetables; and a number of women were employed in cooking, in ovens formed in the ground. These ovens were mere holes filled with hot stones, on the top of which the provisions were placed, and then covered up with leaves and earth. In deference to the customs of their white friends, the natives had prepared seats for them, composed of fern and mats, in the shade of the chief's wahre, while they themselves sat round, at a respectful distance, on the ground, in the hot sun. When all were arranged, the chief, wrapped in his cloak, walked into the centre, and marching backwards and forwards, addressed the party, now turning to his guests, now to his countrymen, the rapidity of his movements increasing, till he appeared to have worked himself into a perfect fury. Waihoura, who sat by Lucy's side, begged her and her friend not to be alarmed, he was merely acting according to custom. Suddenly he stopped, and wrapping his cloak around him, sat down on the ground. Mr Marlow considered this a good opportunity of speaking to the people, and rising, he walked into their midst. His address, however, was very different to that of the chief's. He reminded them that God, who rules the world, had given them all the food he saw there collected; that He desires to do good to the bodies of men, and to enable them to live in happiness and plenty; but that He loves their souls still more, and that He who had provided them with the food was ready to bestow on them spiritual blessings, to feed their souls as well as their bodies: that their bodies must perish, but that their souls must live for ever--He had sent the missionaries to them with His message of love, and He grieved that they were often more ready to accept only the food for their bodies, and to reject that which He offers for their souls. Much more he spoke to the same effect, and explained all that God, their Father had done for them when they were banished for their sins, to enable them again to become His dear children. Earthly fathers, he continued, are too often ready to sacrifice their children for their own advantage, regardless of their happiness here and of their eternal welfare. Ihaka winced when he heard these remarks, and fixed his eyes on the speaker, but said nothing. Other chiefs, who had come as guests, also spoke. Lucy was glad to find that Hemipo was not among them. The feast then commenced, the provisions were handed round in neat clean baskets to each guest. Ihaka had provided plates and knives and forks for his English friends, who were surprised to find the perfect way in which the fish and meat, as well as the vegetables, were cooked. After the feast, the young people hurried out of the pah towards a post stuck in the ground, on one side of a bank, with ropes hanging from the top; each one seized a rope, and began running round and round, now up, now down the bank, till their feet were lifted off the ground, much in the way English boys amuse themselves in a gymnasium. In another place a target was set up, at which the elder boys and young men threw their spears, composed of fern stems, with great dexterity. Several kites, formed of the flat leaves of a kind of sedge, were also brought out and set flying, with songs and shouts, which increased as the kite ascended higher and higher. A number of the young men exhibited feats of dancing, which were not, however, especially graceful, nor interesting to their guests. When the sun set the party returned to the pah. Mr Marlow, accompanied by Val, went about among the people, addressing them individually, and affording instruction to those who had expressed an anxiety about their souls. Ihaka had provided a new wahre for his visitors, while Waihoura accommodated Lucy and Miss Osburn in her hut. Lucy had hoped to persuade Ihaka to allow his daughter to return with her, but he made various excuses, and Waihoura expressed her fears that she was not allowed to go on account of Hemipo, who objected to her associating with her English friends. Next morning the party set out on their return, leaving Waihoura evidently very miserable, and anxious about the future. They had got a short distance from the pah, when a chief with several attendants passed them, and Lucy felt sure, from the glimpse she got of his features, that he was Hemipo, especially as he did not stop, and only offered them a distant salutation. Mr Marlow again expressed his regret that he had been unable to move Ihaka. "Still, I believe, that he is pricked in his conscience, and he would be glad of an opportunity of being released from his promise," he remarked. "The chief considers himself, however, in honour bound to perform it, though he is well aware that it must lead to his daughter's unhappiness. I do not, however, suppose that he is biased by any fears of the consequences were he to break off the marriage, though probably if he did so Hemipo would attack the fort, and attempt to carry off his bride by force." When the party got back to Riverside, their friends were very eager to hear an account of their visit, and several regretted that they had not accompanied them. "Who would have thought, Miss Lucy, when we first came here, that you would ever have slept inside one of those savage's huts!" exclaimed Mrs Greening. "My notion was, that they would as likely as not eat anybody up who got into their clutches; but I really begin to think that they are a very decent, good sort of people, only I do wish the gentlemen would not make such ugly marks on their faces--it does not improve them, and I should like to tell them so." CHAPTER SEVEN. THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE. PROSPEROUS CONDITION OF THE SETTLEMENT--MR PEMBERTON AND HIS SONS GO OUT SHOOTING.--WAIHOURA IS OBSERVED FLYING FROM HEMIPO, WHO FIRES AND WOUNDS HER.--RESCUED BY MR PEMBERTON AND TAKEN TO RIVERSIDE.--VAL GOES FOR DR FRASER.--ON THEIR RETURN, RAHANA, A NATIVE CHIEF, SAVES THEIR LIVES.--IHAKA ARRIVES WITH HIS FOLLOWERS TO DEFEND THE FARM, AS ALSO DO RAHANA'S, BUT NO ENEMY APPEARS, AND THEY, WITH WAIHOURA, RETURN TO IHAKA'S PAH. The little settlement went on prosperously, the flocks and herds increased, and more land was brought under cultivation; the orchards were producing fruit, and the kitchen gardens an abundance of vegetables. There had been outbreaks of the natives in the northern part of the island, but those in their immediate neighbourhood were supposed to be peaceably disposed, and friendly towards the English. Lucy had been for some time expecting to hear from Waihoura, and she feared, from the last account she had received from her, that the marriage the poor girl so much dreaded with Hemipo, might soon take place. "I am afraid it can't be helped," observed Mrs Greening, who was trying to console her. "After all, he is her own countryman, and maybe she will improve him when they marry." "Oh, but I mourn for her because he is a heathen, and a cruel bad man," said Lucy, "and I am sure she is worthy of a better fate." Mr Pemberton and Valentine had shortly after this gone out with their guns to shoot some wild-fowl which had visited the banks of the river. The young Pembertons and Greenings had built a boat, and as the birds appeared more numerous on the opposite side, Harry, who met them, offered to paddle them across. While Harry remained in the canoe, they proceeded up a small stream which ran into the main river. They were approaching the border of the forest. Although the foliage, entwined by creepers, was so dense towards the upper part of the trees that the rays of the sun were unable to penetrate through it, the lower part was open and free from underwood, thus enabling them to pass among the trees without difficulty, and to see for a considerable distance into its depths. "We shall find no birds there," observed Val. "Had we not better turn back and continue along the bank of the main stream?" They were just about to do as Val proposed, when they caught sight of a figure running at full speed through the forest towards them. "It is a woman, I believe," exclaimed Val. "Yes, and there is a man following her. She is endeavouring to escape from him. She is crying out, and making signs for us to come to her assistance. She is Waihoura!" As he spoke, the savage stopped, then levelled his rifle and fired. Waihoura shrieked out, and running a few paces further towards them, fell. "I must punish the villain," exclaimed Val, dashing forward. "Stay, my boy," said Mr Pemberton, "he deserves punishment, but not at our hands,--let us try and assist the poor girl." They hurried to where Waihoura lay. The bullet had wounded her in the shoulder. Meantime the savage had retreated, and when they looked round for him, he was nowhere to be seen. "We must take the poor girl to the house and endeavour to obtain surgical assistance for her," said Mr Pemberton. They lifted her up and bore her along towards the river. Valentine shouted for Harry, who quickly came up with the canoe. Waihoura was too much agitated to speak, or to tell them by whom she had been wounded. Still her countenance exhibited an expression rather of satisfaction than of alarm. Harry having secured the canoe, ran on before his father and brother to prepare Lucy for the arrival of her friend. Waihoura was carried into the house, and placed on the bed she had formerly occupied, while Harry ran on to get Mrs Greening to assist in taking care of her. Left with Lucy and Betsy, Waihoura soon recovered her composure. "I have escaped from him," she said, in her broken English. "I have done what I long intended. Hemipo came for me to my father's pah, and I was delivered in due form to him, and so my father's honour was satisfied. I went quietly for some distance, as if I was no longer unwilling to accompany him, and then, watching my opportunity, I ran off, hoping to make my escape without being discovered. He saw me, however, and followed, though I was already a long way off. I hoped to reach the river and swim across to you, when he was nearly overtaking me. Just then, as he caught sight of your father and brother, in his rage and disappointment he fired at me, and would have killed me had they not come up to prevent him." Such was the meaning of the account Waihoura gave Lucy, as she and Betsy were endeavouring to staunch the blood which continued to flow from the wound. As soon as Mrs Greening arrived, she advised Val to set off and obtain Dr Fraser's assistance. "We may be able to stop the blood, but the hurt is a bad one, and if the bullet is still in the wound, will need a surgeon to take it out," she observed. Valentine required no second bidding. Harry, indeed, had already got a horse ready. He galloped away, taking the shortest cut across the country to the fort. Valentine had to spend some time in searching for Dr Fraser, who had gone off to a distance, and when he returned he had a patient to whom it was absolutely necessary he should attend. "I'll not be a moment longer than I can help," exclaimed the doctor. "I felt great interest in that pretty little native girl. There's one comfort, that the natives seldom suffer from fever through injuries. You ride back and say I am coming." "I would rather wait for you," answered Valentine. Though he was sorely annoyed at the delay, it enabled him to give his horse a feed, and to rest the animal, so that there was not so much time lost as he supposed. At length the doctor was ready, and they set off to take the way by which Valentine had come. They had gone rather more than half the distance, and were approaching a defile between two high hills, covered thickly with trees, and wild rugged rocks on either side. They were just about to enter it when a Maori, who, by the way he was dressed, appeared to be a chief, was seen hurrying down the side of the hill towards them, and beckoning to them to stop. "He wishes to speak to us," said Valentine, "shall we wait for him?" "I hope that his intentions are friendly," observed the doctor. "These fellows have been playing some treacherous tricks to the settlers in the north, and it is as well to be prepared." "His manner does not appear to be hostile," observed Valentine. "I will ride forward to speak to him." Valentine had not gone many paces before he met the native, who hurriedly addressed him in broken English. "Go back and take another path," he exclaimed. "If you go forward you will be killed, there's a bad chief, with several men, lying in wait to shoot you. I have only just discovered their intentions, and hurried forward to give you warning." "Can you tell us who the chief is?" asked Valentine, not feeling very willing to believe the stranger's statement. "His name does not matter," answered the young stranger. "He supposes me to be his friend, and begged me to assist him, so that I do not wish further to betray him, but I could not allow you to suffer." "There may be some truth in what the young man says, and we should be unwise not to take his advice," observed the doctor. Valentine warmly thanked the stranger, who offered to lead them by a path he was acquainted with, which would enable them to escape the ambush and reach the river side with little loss of time. He accordingly led them back for some distance, and then striking off to the right over the hills, conducted them through another valley, which in time took them out on to the open plain. "You are safe now," he said. "Ride on as fast as you can, so that your enemy may not overtake you." "I should like to know who you are, that we may thank you properly for the benefit you have done us," said Valentine, "and I am sure Ihaka's daughter, on whose account Dr Fraser is going to our settlement, will desire to express her gratitude. She is sorely wounded, and I fear in much danger." "Wounded and in danger," exclaimed the young stranger. "How has she received an injury?" "She was basely shot at by a Maori," answered Val. "The chief told me that it was your sister who was ill, and that you having grossly insulted him, he was determined to revenge himself on you." He stopped for a few moments as if for consideration. "I will accompany you," he said. "If I go back I shall not be able to resist accusing him of his treachery, and bloodshed may be the consequence." "Come along then, my friend," said the doctor, "you are fleet of foot, and will keep up with our horses." The stranger, a fine young man, one of the handsomest natives Valentine had as yet seen--his face being, moreover, undisfigured by tattoo marks,--on this ran forward, and showed by the pace he moved at, that he was not likely to detain them. It was dark when they reached Riverside, but Lucy had heard the sound of their horses' feet, and came out to meet them. "I am so thankful you have come, doctor," she exclaimed. "Waihoura is, I fear, suffering much pain, and we have been able to do little to relieve her." The doctor hurried into the house. His report was more favourable than Lucy had expected. He quickly extracted the bullet, and promised, with the good constitution the young girl evidently possessed, that she would soon recover. Valentine invited the young stranger to remain, and he evidently showed no desire to take his departure. "I wish to stay for your sakes as well as my own," he said, "and I would advise you to keep a vigilant watch round the house during the night. The man who has committed so foul a deed as to shoot Ihaka's daughter, must from henceforth be Rahana's foe, and I now confess that it was Hemipo who intended to waylay and murder you. I am myself a Rangatira, chief of a numerous tribe. My father ever lived on friendly terms with the English, and seeing the folly of war, wished also to be at peace with his neighbours, and I have desired to follow his example. Among our nearest neighbours was Hemipo, who, though one I could never regard with esteem, has always appeared anxious to retain my friendship. Hitherto I have, therefore, frequently associated with him, but from henceforth he must be to me as a stranger. He is capable, I am convinced, of any treachery, and when he finds that you have escaped him on this occasion, will seek another opportunity of revenging himself." This was said partly in English and partly in Maori. Mr Pemberton, following the advice he received, sent to farmer Greening and several other neighbours, asking their assistance in guarding Waihoura, thinking it possible that Hemipo might attack the place and attempt to carry her off. Among others who came up was Mr Spears, with a cartouche-box hanging by a belt to his waist, and a musket in his hand. "Neighbours should help each other, Mr Pemberton," he said as he made his appearance, "and so I have locked up the shop, and shall be happy to stand sentry during the night at any post you may assign me. Place me inside the house or outside, or in a cow-shed, it's all the same to me. I'll shoot the first man I see coming up the hill." Valentine suggested that Mr Spears was as likely to shoot a friend as a foe, and therefore placed him, with a companion, in one of the sheds, strictly enjoining him not to fire unless he received an order to do so. From the precautions taken by Mr Pemberton, it was not likely that Hemipo would succeed even should he venture on an attack, especially as every one in the settlement was on the alert. The night passed off quietly, and in the morning Dr Fraser gave a favourable report of Waihoura. A messenger was then despatched to Ihaka, to inform him of what had occurred. He arrived before sunset with several of his followers, well-armed, and at once requested to have an interview with his daughter. On coming out of her room he met Mr Pemberton, and warmly thanked him for having again preserved her life. "From henceforth she is free to choose whom she will for a husband," he observed. "I gave her, as I was bound to do by my promise, to Hemipo; but she escaped from him, and as he has proved himself unworthy of her, though war between us be the result, I will not again deliver her to him." Lucy, who overheard this, was greatly relieved. Not knowing the customs of the Maoris, she was afraid that the chief might still consider himself bound to restore Waihoura to her intended husband. "I must go at once and tell her," she said. "I am sure that this will greatly assist her recovery." "She knows it. I have already promised her," said Ihaka. "And I will remain here and defend her and you, my friends, from Hemipo,--though boastful as he is, I do not believe that he will venture to attack a pakeha settlement." Rahana, who had hitherto remained at a distance, now came forward, and the two chiefs greeted each other according to their national custom, by rubbing their noses together for a minute or more. They then sat down, and the young chief gave Ihaka an account of the part he had taken in the affair. "We have ever been friends," answered Ihaka, "and this will cement our friendship closer than ever." They sat for some time talking over the matter, and Rahana agreed to send for a band of his people to assist in protecting their friends, and afterwards to escort Waihoura to her home. Till this time, the only natives who frequented the settlement were the labourers employed on the farm, but now a number of warriors might be seen, with rifles in their hands, some seated on the hillside, others stalking about among the cottages. They all, however, behaved with the greatest propriety, declining even to receive provisions from the inhabitants, both Ihaka's and Rahana's people having brought an abundant supply. Though scouts were sent out in every direction, nothing was heard of Hemipo, and it was supposed that he had returned to his own village--either being afraid of meeting those he had injured, or to hatch some plan of revenge. Dr Fraser, who had gone home when he considered Waihoura out of danger, returned, at the end of a fortnight, and pronounced her sufficiently recovered to undertake the journey home, to which Ihaka was anxious to convey her, as she would be there safer from any design Hemipo might entertain, than in the unprotected cottage at Riverside. Lucy, although she would gladly have had her remain longer, felt that this was the case. The Maori girl warmly embraced her before taking her seat on the covered litter constructed for her conveyance, and willingly gave a promise to return to Riverside as soon as her father considered it safe for her to do so. The young chief had constituted himself her chief attendant, and when they set out placed himself by her side, which he showed no intention of quitting. It appeared that they had hitherto been strangers to each other, but Lucy, having observed the admiration with which he had regarded Waihoura the first time they met, pleased with his manners, could not help hoping that he might become a Christian, and a successful suitor of her friend. She watched the party as they took their way along the road, till they were lost to sight among the trees; and from the judicious precautions they took of throwing out scouts, she trusted that they would, escape being surprised even should Hemipo be on the watch for them, and would reach their destination in safety. As soon as they were gone the settlement returned to its usual quiet state. After the character they had heard of Hemipo, Mr Pemberton considered it prudent to keep a watch at night, and to advise the Greenings, as well as his own sons, to carry arms in their hands, and never to go singly to a distance from the house. Day after day passed by, till at length they began to feel that such precautions were unnecessary, and by degrees they abandoned the habit, only occasionally taking their guns when they went out to shoot birds, or when the traces of a wild pig, which happened to stray from the mountains, were discovered in the neighbourhood. Few countries in the world are so destitute of game or animals of any description, or of noxious reptiles, as New Zealand; the only reptile, indeed, being a harmless lizard, while the only wild beasts are the descendants of pigs originally introduced by Europeans, which having escaped from their owners to the forests where they roam at large. Unhappily, although many of the natives lived on the most friendly terms with the English, and had made considerable advancement in civilisation, a large number still, at that period, retained much of their former savage character, and, instigated perhaps by evilly-disposed persons, from time to time rose in aims against the English, and though inferior in numbers to the settlers, were enabled, in their mountain fastnesses, to resist the attacks of well-trained troops sent against them. They sometimes descended on the unprepared settlements, murdered the inhabitants, and committed many fearful atrocities. Of late years, however, finding resistance vain, they have submitted to the English Government, and as they possess equal rights and privileges with the settlers, and are treated in every respect as British subjects, it may be hoped that they will become, ere long, thoroughly civilised and contented with their lot, so infinitely superior to that of their former savage state. At the time, however, that the occurrences which have been described took place, although cannibalism and their more barbarous customs were almost abandoned, still a number of the tribes were hostile to the English, and also carried on a fierce warfare among themselves. Our friends at Riverside were destined shortly to feel the ill effects of this state of things. CHAPTER EIGHT. CARRIED OFF. DISTURBANCE AMONG THE NATIVES.--VOLUNTEERS FROM THE SETTLEMENT.--MR PEMBERTON AND VAL CALLED AWAY.--THE SETTLERS, TO THEIR DISMAY, DISCOVER THAT THE YOUNG PEMBERTONS HAVE BEEN CARRIED OFF. Lucy had made tea, and her father and brother, who had come in from their work, had just taken their seats, when Mr Spears, announced by Betsy, popped his head in at the door. "Beg pardon, Mr Pemberton, for intruding, but I thought you would like to have this letter at once," he said, handing an official-looking envelope. "I have sent several others of similar appearance to a number of gentlemen in our neighbourhood, and I suspect they mean something." Lucy observed that her father's countenance assumed a grave expression as he read the document; after requesting the bearer to sit down and take a cup of tea. "More disturbances among the natives?" asked Mr Spears. "I hope, though, that they will keep quiet in these parts." "Yes, I am sorry to say that they have risen in much greater numbers than heretofore, and matters look very serious," answered Mr Pemberton. "The Governor has requested me to assist in organising a body of volunteers to co-operate with the loyal natives in this district, and to keep in check any of the Maoris who may be inclined to rebel, while the troops are engaged with the main body of the insurgents. I am afraid this will compel me to be absent from home for some time." "May I go with you?" exclaimed Harry. "I should so like to have some soldiering." "No, you must stay at home to take care of Lucy and the farm," answered Mr Pemberton. "Val, you are named, and though I would rather have left you in charge, we must obey the calls of public duty. Farmer Greening will assist Harry; Paul and James will probably accompany me." "Put my name down as a volunteer," exclaimed Mr Spears. "I'll have my musket and cartouche-box ready in a trice. I shall be proud to go out and fight my country's battles." "Take my advice, Mr Spears, and stay at home to look after your shop and the settlement--some must remain behind to guard it," said Mr Pemberton. "I am ready for the field, or for garrison duty," answered the little man, rising, and drawing himself up. "I must go back with the news to the village; the people are suspecting that there is something in the wind." Mr Pemberton and Valentine soon made the necessary preparations for their departure, and early the next morning, in company with several other settlers, set out on their expedition. As the natives in their immediate neighbourhood had always appeared very friendly, they had no anxiety about the safety of Riverside. Time passed on; news reached the settlement that the volunteers had on several occasions been engaged, and that the insurgents still made head against them. Lucy could not help feeling anxious at the prolonged absence of her father and brother; but as they wrote word that they were well, she kept up her spirits, hoping that the natives would soon be convinced of the uselessness and folly of their rebellion, and that peace would be established. She also received visits from Mary Osburn and other friends, and Mrs Greening never failed to look in on her two or three times in the day, while her husband kept his eye on the farm, and assisted Harry in managing affairs. Lucy had hoped that by this time it would be safe for Waihoura to pay her a visit, and she had sent a message inviting her to come to Riverside. In reply, Waihoura expressed her thanks for the invitation, but stated that as her father was absent with many of his people, taking a part in the war, she could not venture to quit home. She also mentioned that Hemipo was supposed to have joined the rebels, as he had not for some time been seen in the neighbourhood. A short time after this, as Harry was standing on the bank of the river, near which his sheep were feeding, he observed a small canoe gliding down the stream. A single native was in it, who, as soon as he saw him, paddled up to where he stood. The stranger leaped on shore, and asked Harry, in Maori, pointing to the hill, whether he did not belong to that place. As Harry understood very little Maori, he could but imperfectly comprehend what the man, who appeared to be delivering a message, was saying. The stranger, perceiving this, tried to help his meaning by dumb show, and Harry heard him repeat the name of Hemipo several times. The man placed himself on the ground, and shut his eyes, as if he was asleep, then he jumped up, and, moving away, ran up to the spot, and pretended to be lifting up a person whom he carried to the canoe. He did this several times then he flourished his arms as if engaged with a foe, leaping fiercely about from side to side, and then jumped into his canoe and began to shove it off, as if he was going to paddle up the stream. He returned, however, again coming up to Harry, and, with an inquiring look, seemed to ask whether he was understood? Harry asked him to repeat what he had said, and at length made out, as he thought, that the stranger wished to warn him that the settlement would be attacked at night, while the inhabitants were asleep, by Hemipo, whose object was to carry them off as prisoners, but when this was likely to take place he could not discover. The stranger, who was evidently in a great hurry to be off again, seemed satisfied that he was understood, and, getting into his canoe, paddled rapidly up the river. "I wish that I understood the Maori better," thought Harry, "I should not then be in doubt about the matter; however, it will be as well to be prepared. We will fortify our house, and keep a bright look out, and I'll tell the other people to be on the watch." He soon after met Toby, and telling him to look to the sheep, hurried homewards. Lucy listened calmly to his account. "There is, I fear, no doubt that some harm is intended us," she observed. "But we must pray that it may be averted, and do what we can to guard against it. I think our six native labourers are faithful, and we must place three of them in the house, and send the other three out as scouts to give us notice of the approach of an enemy. I propose also that we have a large pile of firewood made above the house, that, as soon as danger threatens it may be lighted as a signal to our friends in the neighbourhood. You must tell them of our intention, and ask them to come to our assistance as soon as they see the fire blazing up." "You ought to have been a man, and you would have made a first-rate soldier," exclaimed Harry, delighted at Lucy's idea. "It is the wisest thing that could be done; I'll tell everybody you thought of it, and I am sure they will be ready to help us." "But perhaps they will think that the whole place is to be attacked, and if so, the men will not be willing to leave their own homes and families," observed Lucy. "Oh, but I am sure the Maori intended to warn us especially, for he pointed to our hill while he was speaking," said Harry. "Then he mentioned Hemipo, who probably has a spite against us for rescuing Waihoura from him. However, there's no time to be lost. I'll tell the men to cut the wood for the bonfire, and go on to let Mr Osburn and our other friends know about the matter." Having charged Lucy and Betsy to close the doors and windows, and not to go out of the house, he went to tell the other people. The farmer was out, but he told Mrs Greening what he had heard. "Oh, it would be terrible if any harm was to happen to Miss Lucy, and the Squire and Master Val away," exclaimed the good woman; "I'd sooner our place were all burned down than that--I'll go round to her and persuade her to come here--then, if the savages go to your house they will not find her, and if they come here, the farmer and Tobias, I'll warrant, will fight for her as long as they have got a bullet or a charge of powder remaining." Harry warmly thanked Mrs Greening for her generous intentions, though he doubted very much whether Lucy would consent to leave the house. He then hurried on to the village. Mr Spears, at whose house he first called, was thrown into a great state of agitation on hearing of his apprehensions. "I'll go round and tell all the other people, and we will see what can be done," he exclaimed, getting down his musket. "We will fight bravely for our homes and hearths; but dear me, I wish all the people who are away would come back. These savages are terrible fellows, and if they were to come suddenly upon us at night, as you fancy they will, we may find ourselves in a very unpleasant predicament." While Mr Spears went off in one direction, Harry continued on to the house of their friend Mr Osburn, which was at no great distance. He, though expressing a hope that the stranger had been amusing himself at Harry's expense, undertook to collect the rest of the neighbours, and to make preparations to go to his assistance should the signal-fire give them notice that the house had been attacked. "I would offer at once to go up and assist in guarding you," he said. "But I am afraid that our other friends will not be willing to leave their own cottages undefended; indeed, I think we shall more effectually assist you by following the plan you propose. Still, I would advise you not to be over anxious about the matter, though you will do wisely to take the precautions you propose." Harry, feeling somewhat proud of himself, and tolerably well satisfied with the arrangements he had made, returned home. He found the farmer and Mr Greening at the house. They had in vain attempted to persuade Lucy to pass the night at their house--she would not leave Harry, who said that, as he had charge of the place, nothing would induce him to desert his post, and they hoped, with the precautions taken, they might escape the threatened danger. "Depend upon it, if the savages really come and find us prepared they will not venture to attack the house," said Harry. "Well, well, I like your spirit, Master Harry," said the farmer. "I'll be on the watch, and if I hear the sound of a musket I shall know what it means, and will be quickly round with my four natives." At length the farmer and Mrs Greening took their departure. Harry had spoken to the native servants, who seemed fully to understand what was expected of them, and promised to be vigilant. Betsy had undertaken to keep a lantern burning, and to run out at the back-door at the first signal of danger, and light the bonfire. Harry tried to persuade Lucy to go to bed. "Of course I shall sit up myself and keep watch for anything that happens," he said; "and if you fall asleep, Lucy, I'll awaken you if necessary." After commending themselves to the care of God, and reading together, as usual, a chapter in the Bible, the two young people sat down with their books before them to wait the issue of events, Harry, however, every now and then got up and ran to the door to listen, fancying he heard some sounds in the distance. Hour after hour passed by, and neither foe nor friend appeared. The night seemed very long, but at length the morning light streamed through the openings above the shutters. Harry opened the door, the air was pure and fresh, and the scene before him appeared so calm and peaceful, that he felt much inclined to laugh at his own fears. The native servants, who had been on the watch, came in also, and declared that they had seen no one, nor heard the slightest sound during the night to alarm them. In a short time farmer Greening arrived, and expressed his satisfaction at finding that they had had no cause for alarm. "Perhaps after all, Master Harry, the man was only passing a joke on you, though it was as well to be on the safe side, and to be prepared." Lucy had several visitors during the day, who appeared much inclined to consider they had been unnecessarily alarmed. "We may or may not have been," observed Harry, "but I intend to keep the same look out tonight as before." The second night passed over like the former, and Harry himself now owned that unless the stranger purposely intended to deceive him, he must have misunderstood his meaning. The evening came on, the cows had been milked, the pigs and poultry fed, and other duties attended to. They were in their sitting-room reading, when Betsy came in and announced Mr Spears. "I hope I don't intrude, Miss Lucy," he said, putting his head in at the doorway in his usual half-hesitating manner, "but I could not shut up my house for the night without coming to inquire how you are getting on. Well, Master Harry, the Maoris who were to attack us have turned out to be phantoms after all, pleasanter foes to fight with than real savages. However, you behaved very well, my young friend, and I hope you will get a quiet night's rest, and sleep free from alarm." "Thank you for your kind wishes," answered Lucy, "but still I hope that you and our other friends will be on the watch, for I cannot feel altogether secure till our father and brother return." "Never fear, Miss Lucy, we will be ready if your phantom foes come. Pardon me, Master Harry, for calling them phantom foes, but such they are, I suspect. Ah! ah! ah!" and Mr Spears laughed at his own conceit. As Lucy did not wish to encourage the little man, she did not invite him to sit down, and, somewhat to her relief, he soon went away. Mr Spears had reached home, and was shutting up his cottage, when, looking towards the hill, he saw the beacon fire blazing up. He rushed back for his musket, and began to load it in great haste; but in vain he pulled the trigger, it would not go off--no wonder, for he had forgotten to put on a cap. Not discovering this, having knocked at the doors of his immediate neighbours, and told them that the settlement was attacked, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him to Mr Osburn. Though that gentleman turned out immediately, it was sometime before he could collect the rest of the inhabitants, when some with firearms, and others with pitchforks, or any weapons they could lay hands on, rushed up the hill towards Mr Pemberton's farm. They were joined on the way by farmer Greening and Tobias. All round the house seemed quiet, and not a sign of a Maori could be discovered. "There's been some trick played," said farmer Greening, "for all my servants went off this evening, and I should not be surprised that Mr Pemberton's have done the same; but I hope Master Harry has kept the door shut, and not let the enemy inside." As may be supposed, on reaching the house, their consternation and grief was very great when they discovered that the inmates had gone; and from the overturned chairs, and the back and front doors being open, their alarm for the safety of their young friends was greatly increased. "The savages have undoubtedly come and carried them off, but we may yet be in time to overtake them, if we can ascertain in what direction they have gone," said Mr Osburn. "See, the orchard gate is open," said farmer Greening. "They must have gone this way, by the path which leads to the river." They went on a little farther, when Tobias picked up a handkerchief. "That must be Miss Lucy's," he exclaimed, "and probably dropped on purpose," observed Mr Osburn. On reaching the river, no signs, however, of the savages nor their captives were to be seen; and though they hurried along the bank for some distance, they were at length compelled to return, in a state of increased anxiety for their young friends, to the settlement. CHAPTER NINE. THE RESCUE. LUCY AND HARRY CARRIED OFF BY HEMIPO, WHO TAKES THEM TO HIS PAH.--LUCY EXPLAINS THE TRUTH TO A NATIVE GIRL WHO ATTENDS HER.--WAIHOURA APPEARS, AND ASSISTS THEM TO ESCAPE.--ENCOUNTER HEMIPO, WHO IS CONQUERED BY RAHANA.--HEMIPO ALLOWED TO GO FREE.--HAPPY RETURN TO RIVERSIDE WITH WAIHOURA AND HER PARTY.--GREAT REJOICINGS.--HEMIPO BECOMES A CHRISTIAN.--WAIHOURA MARRIES RAHANA, AND THE SETTLEMENT FLOURISHES. Lucy and Harry were spending their evening, as was their usual custom, Harry reading aloud while his sister sat by his side working. Mr Spears had not long gone away, when a slight knock was heard at the door. "I do believe it must be that Mr Spears come back again," observed Betsy, getting up to open it. As she did so, what was her horror to see the figure of a tall Maori warrior, his face painted red, with his merai or axe in his hand. "Run, Miss Lucy! run, Master Harry, and hide yourselves!" she exclaimed, attempting to push back the door. Her efforts were vain, the savage dashed it open and stalked in, followed by a dozen or more Maoris. "Light the bonfire!" exclaimed Lucy,--and Betsy, springing by her, made her escape at the back-door. Harry tried to drag off Lucy in the same direction, but they were both instantly seized by the Maoris, two of whom sprang after Betsy. Scarcely a word was spoken by any of the natives, and Lucy had been too much agitated and alarmed to shriek out. The leader, in whom, by his sinister features and fierce looks, Lucy recognised Hemipo, had raised his weapon as if to strike Harry, but he restrained himself on finding that there was no opposition. He and one of his companions now bound Harry's arms, making signs to him that if he made any noise his brains would be dashed out. Two others then lifted up Lucy, and taking a cloak which hung on the wall, threw it round her. Plunder did not appear to be their object; for, although numerous articles were lying about which would have been of value to them, none were taken. The savages now lifted up Lucy and Harry in their arms and carried them out of the house. Harry looked round, hoping to see some of the native servants. No one appeared. "I hope, at all events, that Betsy may have set light to the signal-fire, that if we are carried away our friends will come in pursuit of us," he said to himself. Great was his disappointment when directly afterwards he saw Betsy brought along in the arms of two of the savages. "I have done it though, Master Harry," she exclaimed, loud enough for him to hear. "I had just time to throw the candle in among the sticks and paper before they caught me,--I do not think they saw what I had been about, or they would have stopped and put it out." A savage growl, and the hand of one of her captors placed over her mouth, prevented Betsy from saying any more. The whole party now moved down the hill at a rapid rate towards the river. On reaching the bank the young captives were placed on board a canoe, several of which were collected at the spot. Harry felt a little relieved when his arms were unbound, and he was allowed to sit at his ease beside Lucy. The savages evidently supposed that he would not attempt to leap out and swim on shore. The flotilla shoved off. The night was very dark, but the Maoris, well acquainted with the river, navigated dexterously amid the rocks and occasional rapids in their course. Now and then the water could be seen bubbling up on either side, and sometimes leaping over the gunwale, and once or twice so much came in that Harry feared the canoe would be swamped. "If we are upset, stick to me, Lucy," he whispered. "I'll swim with you to the shore, and we will then run off and try and make our escape." Lucy felt confident of her young brother's courage, but feared that there was little prospect of his succeeding in the attempt. Poor Betsy shrieked out with alarm. A threatening sound from the man who steered the canoe warned her to keep silence. There had been for sometime a strong wind, it now increased, and blowing directly against them, greatly impeded the progress of the canoes. Still the Maoris persevered. At length a loud clap of thunder burst from the sky. It was succeeded by several terrific peals, while vivid flashes of forked lightning darting forth showed that they were passing between high rugged cliffs which rose on either side of the stream, overhung with trees, amid which the wind roared and whistled as they waved to and fro above their heads, threatening every instant, torn up by the roots, to fall over and crush them. The thunder rattled louder than ever, reverberating among the cliffs. Just then a flash, brighter than its predecessors, which came hissing along close to the canoe, showed Harry the savage features of Hemipo, who was sitting in the stern steering. Still the canoe went on, indeed, as far as Harry could see there was no place on either side where they could have landed, and he earnestly prayed that, should any accident happen, it might be further on, where there would be a hope of reaching the shore. Lucy sat with her hands clasped in his, and her calmness and self-possession gave him courage. "Oh, what a dear brave little sister mine is," he thought to himself. "I would willingly give up my life to save her's. I wonder what these savages will do with us. They surely cannot be so barbarous as to intend to kill her,--they may knock me on the head very likely, and I only wonder they did not do so at first, it would have been more like their usual custom." The rain was now falling in torrents. Harry drew the cloaks which had been thrown over Lucy and Betsy closer round them. He was himself quickly wet through, but for that he cared little. Though it was evident that the paddlers were straining every nerve to urge the canoe onwards, he could judge by the appearance of the cliffs that they were making but slow progress, sometimes, indeed, they were almost brought to a standstill, then again they would redouble their efforts, and the wind lulling for a short time, they would stem the rapid current and get into calmer water. It was difficult to judge, under the circumstances, how time went by, but it seemed to Harry that the whole night was thus spent. Still the darkness continued, and hour after hour passed. At length the banks came more clearly into view, and he could distinguish the other canoes in company. Suddenly the cliffs on either side ceased, and he found that they had entered a lake. Covered, however, as it was with foaming waves stirred up by the storm, it seemed scarcely possible for the canoes to make their way across it. After they had in vain attempted to do so, and several of them had been nearly swamped, Harry perceived that they were steering towards the shore. They made their way up a small inlet, where, sheltered from the gale, the canoes at length floated quietly, and their crews set to work to bail them out. This being done, Harry observed that they were examining their muskets, and fresh priming them, lest they should have become damp with the rain. He hoped from this that they had not yet reached Hemipo's district, and were still in that of some friendly tribe. Meantime a man was sent on shore, who ran to the summit of a neighbouring height, where Harry saw him looking round, as if to ascertain whether any one was approaching. On his return, after he had given his report, Hemipo landed, and with scant ceremony dragged his prisoners out of the canoe, and signed to them that they were to accompany him. Eight of the savages immediately landed and closed round them. Having issued orders to the remainder, he led the way towards the entrance of a valley which extended up from the water. Lucy and Betsy could with difficulty walk after having been so long cramped up in the canoe. Harry begged his sister to lean on him, that he might help her along, and poor Betsy did her best to keep up with them, for the savages showed no inclination to slacken their pace. Every now and then, indeed, one of them gave her a rough push to make her move faster. Harry felt very indignant, but knew that it would be useless to expostulate, and dreaded lest Lucy might be treated in the same way. The valley through which they were proceeding he found ran parallel with the lake, and concluded, as was the case, that it would at length conduct them to an upper part of the stream, which, had it not been for the storm, Hemipo intended to have reached in the canoes. The chief stalked on ahead, every now and then turning round to order his followers to move faster. The valley, as they proceeded, narrowed considerably; the sides, composed of wild rugged rocks with overhanging trees crowning their summits, rising precipitously on either hand. Harry observed that the chief, as they advanced, looked cautiously ahead, as if he thought it possible that an enemy might appear to intercept him. Suddenly he stopped altogether, and addressed a few words to his followers, while he pointed up the valley. What he said Harry could not understand, but several of the savages directly afterwards drew their merais from their belts, and cast fierce looks at their captives, which too clearly indicated their cruel designs. "Oh, our dear father, my poor brother," murmured Lucy, as her eye glanced at the savages' weapons, and she clung closer to Harry, thinking of those she loved more than of herself. "Yet they cannot be so cruel." "Are they going to kill us?" cried Betsy. "Dear, dear Miss Lucy," and she stretched out her arms as if to protect her young mistress. After waiting a short time Hemipo ordered two of his men to go ahead, apparently to ascertain if the road was clear. They seemed satisfied that such was the case, for at a sign from them he and the rest proceeded as before. Harry, as they advanced, could not help looking up frequently at the cliffs on either side, and more than once he fancied he saw some person moving among the rocks as if observing them, while at the same time endeavouring to remain concealed. If such was the case, the person managed to escape the keen eyes of the Maoris, for Hemipo went on, evidently not supposing that he was watched. At length they emerged from the defile, and proceeding over a more open, though still a hilly and picturesque country, till they again came in sight of the river. By this time Lucy and Betsy were nearly dropping with fatigue, and even Harry, though accustomed to exercise, felt very tired, but the savages still urged them on, regardless of their weary legs. Harry felt very indignant, but Lucy entreated him not to show his resentment. At last a hill, round the base of which the river made its way, rose directly before them, with a stockade on its summit, similar to that surrounding Ihaka's village. Hemipo led the way towards it, and ascended a narrow path, at the top of which appeared a gateway, with a huge hideous figure above it. As he approached a number of women and children and old men issued forth eyeing his captives with no pleasant looks. Scarcely a word, however, was exchanged between the inhabitants and him till they entered the pah, when the whole party seated themselves on the ground, each of them singling out one of the new comers, and began rubbing their noses together, howling and weeping, while the tears, in copious torrents, flowed down their brown cheeks. Under other circumstances, Harry, who with his sister and Betsy, were left standing alone, would have felt inclined to laugh heartily at the odd scene, but matters were too serious to allow him to do so now. After the savages had rubbed their noses, howled, and shed a sufficiency of tears to satisfy their feelings, they got up with dry eyes and unconcerned looks, as if nothing of the sort had occurred. They then came round their captives, who were allowed to stand unmolested, while Hemipo was apparently giving an account of his adventures. Lucy and Betsy trembled as they saw the fierce glances cast at them during the chief's address; their lives seemed to hang on a thread, for any moment his auditors, whom he appeared to be working into a fury, might rush forward and cut them down with the merais, which, ever and anon, they clutched as if eager to use them. At length he ceased, when another orator got up, and appeared to be endeavouring to calm the angry feelings of the assembly. Others spoke in the same strain, and at last the orator, who had opposed Hemipo, having gained his object, so it seemed, came up to the captives and signed to them to accompany him. Leading them to a large wahre on one side of the pah, he told them to enter. Lucy, overcome with fatigue, sank on a heap of fern, which covered part of the floor. "Cheer up," said Harry, "they do not intend to kill us, and I hope that chief, who looks more good-natured than Hemipo, will think of bringing us some food. I'll let him know that we want it." Harry went back to the door at which the chief was still standing, and made signs that they were very hungry. The chief evidently understood him, and in a short time a girl appeared with a basket of sweet potatoes, some baked fish, and a bowl of water. Lucy thanked her warmly in Maori, saying that she might some day have the opportunity of rewarding her, adding-- "Our people will be grateful for any kindness shown us, and though we have been most cruelly carried away from our home, yet they will not revenge themselves on the innocent." The girl, whom Lucy supposed from her appearance to be a slave, looked very much surprised. "Our religion teaches us that we should forgive our enemies, and do good to those who injure us, and therefore still more should we be grateful to all who do us good," she continued. "Do you understand that?" The girl shook her head, and made signs to Lucy and her companions to eat while the food was hot; they needed, indeed, no second bidding, the girl standing by while they discussed the meal. Lucy feeling the importance of gaining the good-will of any person in the village, again spoke to the girl, much to the same effect as before. The latter evidently understood her, and made a sign that if discovered in helping them to escape she would be killed. Lucy's words had, however, it seemed, made an impression on her mind, for when she stooped down to take up the basket and bowl, she whispered that she would do what she could to be of use to them. They were now left alone. Harry entreated his companions to go to sleep, declaring that he was able to sit up and keep watch; and in spite of their anxiety, they were so weary, that in a few minutes their eyes closed, and they happily forgot all that had occurred. Harry kept awake as well as he could, and every now and then he observed women and children, and sometimes men, peering at them through the open door of the hut. Discovering, however, a chick mat spread on a framework leaning against the side of the hut, he conjectured that it was intended to use as a door, and, accordingly, placing it across the entrance, shut out the intruders. Having now nothing to distract his attention, he very soon dropped off to sleep. It was dark when he awoke, and as there were no sounds in the village he concluded that it was night, and he hoped that they might therefore be allowed to rest in quiet. He went to the door of the hut and looked out. No one was stirring, the storm had ceased, and the stars were shining brightly overhead. He again carefully closed the entrance, securing it with some poles, so that it could not be opened from the outside, and throwing himself on the fern at Lucy's feet, was soon fast asleep. He was awakened by hearing some one attempting to open the door--the daylight was streaming in through the crevices--on pulling it aside the slave girl, who had brought their supper, appeared with a basket of food and a bowl of water, as before. The light awoke Lucy and Betsy, who seemed refreshed by their slumbers, though their faces were still pale and anxious. The girl pointed to the food and bade them eat, but seemed unwilling to stay. "Let us say our prayers, Harry, as we should do at home, before breakfast," said Lucy, "though we have not a Bible to read." They knelt down, and Lucy offered up a prayer of thanksgiving to God for having preserved them, and for further protection, while the Maori girl stood by wondering what they were about. She then hurried away, as they supposed, from having received orders not to remain with them. They were left alone all the morning, and at noon the girl brought them a further supply of food. "This looks as if the Maoris did not intend to do us any harm, perhaps they expect to get a ransom for us," observed Harry. "I trust so," said Lucy, "and I am sure our friends would pay it should our father and Val be still absent from home; but, perhaps, Hemipo has some other object in carrying us off." "What can that be?" asked Harry. "The idea came into my mind, and I fear it is too likely that he has done so, in order to get Waihoura into his power. If she believes that our lives are in danger, she will, I am sure, be ready to do anything to save them," answered Lucy. "How should she know that we have been carried away," asked Harry. "She will suspect something when our labourers suddenly return to her village, and will send to ascertain what has occurred," observed Lucy. "If it was not for your sake, Lucy, I would run every risk rather than let the poor girl fall into the power of the savage," exclaimed Harry. "I hope that our father and Val, and the volunteers, will find out where we have been carried to, and will come to attack the pah and rescue us." "That would cause great loss of life, and, perhaps, seal our fate," answered Lucy. "I have been praying, and He who does not allow a sparrow to fall to the ground without knowing it, will arrange matters for the best. The knowledge that He does take care of us should give us confidence and hope." "I am sure you are right," observed Harry, after a few minutes reflection. "Still we cannot help talking of what we wish." In the afternoon, Harry going to the door of the hut, heard voices as if in loud discussion at a distance, and observing no one about, he crept on among the huts till he came in sight of a number of people seated on the ground, apparently holding a debate, for one after the other got up and addressed the rest. Keeping himself concealed behind the hut, he watched them for some time, at length he saw Hemipo and a body of armed men issue out by the gate. He crept back to the hut with this information. As far as he could ascertain, only the old men, and women, and children, were left in the pah. Late in the evening the slave girl again visited them, and, as she appeared less anxious than before to hurry away, Lucy spoke to her. At last she answered-- "What Manima can do she will do for the pakehas, but they must wait-- perhaps something will happen." She said this in a very low voice, and taking up the basket and bowl, hurried away. Harry found that no one interfered with him as he walked about outside the hut; but he did not like to go far from Lucy and Betsy, and darkness coming on, he returned. After he had closed the door, they offered up their prayers as usual, and lying down, soon fell asleep. Lucy was awakened by feeling a hand pressed on her shoulder. She was inclined to cry out, when she heard a low voice saying in Maori-- "Don't be afraid, call your brother and Betsy." Lucy, to her astonishment, recognised the voice of Waihoura, and without waiting to ask questions, awakened Harry and Betsy. A few words served to explain what she had heard, and they at once got up and followed Waihoura out of the hut. She led the way among the wahres the inmates of which, they knew from the sounds which issued forth, were fast asleep. They soon reached the inner end of the pah, behind the public store-house, the largest building in the village, when Waihoura pointed to an opening in the stockade. It was so narrow that only slight people could have passed through it. Waihoura, taking Lucy's hand, led her through it, but Betsy almost stuck as she made the attempt. With some assistance from Harry, she however succeeded in getting on the other side, when he following, found that they were standing on the top of a cliff. Waihoura again taking Lucy's hand, showed them a narrow and zigzag path which led down it. They followed her, as she cautiously descended towards the river, which Harry saw flowing below them. On reaching the edge of the water Waihoura stepped into a canoe, which had hitherto been hidden by a rock. The rest of the party entering it, two men who were sitting with their paddles ready, immediately urged the canoe out into the stream, down which they impelled it with rapid strokes, while Waihoura, taking another paddle, guided its course. Not a word was spoken, for all seemed to know exactly what was to be done. They had entirely lost sight of the hills on which the pah stood, before Waihoura uttered a word. She then, in a whisper, addressed Lucy, who was sitting close to her, apparently considering, even then, that great caution was necessary. They were passing between high cliffs, amid which the slightest sound, Harry rightly guessed, might be carried, and heard by any one posted on them. The paddlers redoubled their efforts, till at length they got into a broader part of the river. Lucy then, in a low voice, told Harry that Waihoura had heard of their capture from the labourers, who had returned home, and had immediately formed a plan for their rescue. She had friends in Hemipo's pah, for all were not as bad as he was, and among them was Manima, who belonged to a friendly tribe, and had been carried off some time before by Hemipo, with others, as a slave. She had herself, with a party of her people, immediately set out, and knowing the route they would have to take, had remained in ambush with the intention of rescuing them; but fearing that Hemipo would put them to death should he find himself attacked, she resolved to employ stratagem to set them at liberty. She had at once sent a message to Manima, and on finding that Hemipo had set out on another expedition, she had herself that very night entered the pah in disguise, and arranged the plan which had thus far been carried out. "She tells us," added Lucy, "that her only fear arises from the possibility of meeting Hemipo, who has gone down the river in his war canoes, though for what object she could not ascertain. She advises us to keep very silent, as should he be anywhere near, he is certain to have scouts on the watch, though we may hope to escape them in the darkness of night." "As I said of you, Lucy, she would make a first-rate General," observed Harry, "and I hope for her sake, as well as ours, that she will prove herself a successful leader." Scarcely had Harry spoken when a loud voice hailed them from the shore, and a bullet whistled close to them. "Don't cry out," whispered Waihoura. "The man will take some time to load again, and we may get beyond his reach." Her hopes were, however, vain, for directly afterwards several canoes darted from behind some rocks, and surrounding them, their canoe was towed to the shore. "They are Hemipo's people," said Waihoura. "But keep silence, he is not among them, and they will merely keep us prisoners till he comes, and something may happen in the meantime." The country was tolerably level beyond the bank where the canoes lay. There was sufficient light from the stars to enable Harry to see for some distance inland, and he recognised the spot as the same place at which they had been taken on shore on their way up the river. After waiting a considerable time, he observed a party of men moving along from the direction of the valley, and coming towards the canoes. He was afraid that they were Hemipo and his band. "How will the savage treat us, and those who have been trying to aid our escape?" he thought. Just then he caught sight of another and very much larger party coming from nearly the opposite direction. The first stopped and seemed trying to hide themselves behind some rocks and bushes, but the others had seen them, and uttering loud cries, rushed forward, then came the flashes and rattle of musketry, with reiterated cries for a few minutes, when the smaller party giving way, attempted to fly, but were quickly surrounded. The people in the canoes, on seeing this, shoved off from the bank, and endeavoured to drag Waihoura's canoe with them. The crew resisted; a blow on his head, however, struck down one of the men, and it appeared too probable that their enemies would succeed in their object. They had got out into the middle of the stream, when several more canoes were seen rounding a point below them. Waihoura uttered a loud cry, and the canoes came rapidly paddling towards them. Their captors, on seeing this, allowed her to go free, and began making their way as fast as they could up the river. "Who are you?" asked Waihoura, as the strangers' canoes approached. "We are Rahana's people, and he ordered us to come here to stop Hemipo from descending the river, while he proceeded on by land," was the answer. "Then it is Rahana who has gained the victory," exclaimed Waihoura, and, escorted by her friends, she guided her canoe towards the shore, Harry taking the paddle of the poor man who had been struck down. They quickly landed, when a messenger despatched to Rahana brought him to where Waihoura and her English companions were seated on some rocks by the bank of the river. He spoke earnestly for a few minutes to Waihoura. Lucy, from what he said, learned that she had sent to ask his assistance, and that ascertaining the proceedings of Hemipo, he had set out with all his followers to meet him and compel him to restore the prisoners he had carried off. "He and many of his people are now in my hands, for before they could escape we surrounded them and captured them all," he said, addressing Lucy and Harry. "They deserve death,--do you wish that we should kill them, or give them into the hands of your countrymen?" "Oh no, no, spare their lives," exclaimed Lucy. "We should do good to our enemies, and we would far rather let them go free. We are thankful to have been rescued from their power, but more than that we do not desire." "That is a strange thing the pakeha girl says," remarked Rahana to Waihoura. "Is it according to the religion you desire to teach me?" "Oh yes, yes," exclaimed Waihoura. "I know that Lucy is right. She has told me that He who came to die and be punished that men might enjoy happiness hereafter, blessed His enemies, and did good to those who injured Him." "Then they shall live," said Rahana. "I will set Hemipo free, and tell him that it is by the wish of the pakehas, and that he must henceforth be their friend and ally, and abandoning the cruel customs of our people, learn the good religion, which has made them act thus towards him." Lucy and Harry knowing the alarm their disappearance must have caused to Mrs Greening and their other friends, were anxious to return home immediately. Waihoura offered to accompany them, and begged Rahana that he would allow one of his canoes to convey them down the river. "I will myself take charge of them, and I shall be proud to deliver them in safety to their friends," he answered. "I will, however, first obey their wish, and set Hemipo and his followers free, after I have deprived them of their arms, which belong to my warriors." While the canoes were getting ready for the voyage down the river, fires were lighted, and fish and other provisions were cooked, some of which were presented to Waihoura and her friends, greatly to Harry's satisfaction, who declared that he had seldom felt so hungry in his life; though Lucy and Betsy, still scarcely recovered from their agitation, partook of the repast but sparingly. Meantime Rahana had gone back to where he had left his warriors and their prisoners. He shortly returned, accompanied by another person. As they approached the spot where Waihoura and her friends sat, the light of the fire showed that Rahana's companion was Hemipo. He looked greatly crestfallen, but recovering himself, he addressed Waihoura. Neither Lucy nor Harry could clearly understand him; but they gathered from what he said that he desired to express his gratitude for having his life spared, and sorrow for his conduct towards her, as also for having carried off her friends, and that if they would send a missionary to him he would gladly listen to his instruction. It evidently cost him much to speak as he did. She was glad when the interview was over, and Rahana told him that he might now depart in peace. Waihoura and her friends were now conducted to the largest canoe, in which Rahana also took his seat. They had not proceeded far down the river when day broke, and the neighbouring woods burst forth with a chorus of joyful song, the sky overhead was blue and pure, the waters bright and clear, and the grass and shrubs, which grew on the banks, sparkled with bright dewdrops. "See, see," exclaimed Harry. "There's a whole fleet of boats coming up the river." Rahana, on observing them, went ahead of his flotilla with a flag waving at the bow of his canoe. "There is our father, there is Val," exclaimed Harry. The canoe was soon alongside one of the largest boats. A few words explained all that had occurred. Mr Pemberton and his companions had returned home the day after his children and servant had been carried off, when an expedition had immediately been organised to sail up the river and attack Hemipo's pah, it being at once suspected that he had committed the outrage. As there was now no necessity to proceed further, the boats' bows were turned down the stream, Harry, with his sister and Betsy, having gone on board Mr Pemberton's. Accompanied by the canoes, a strong current being in their favour, they soon reached "Riverside," where the safe return of the young people caused almost as much satisfaction as the news which had just before arrived of the termination of the war. Waihoura soon afterwards became the wife of Rahana, who built a house after the English model, on some land which he owned in the neighbourhood near the river, and receiving instruction from their friends, both became true and earnest Christians. They had the satisfaction also of hearing that Hemipo, who had gladly received Mr Marlow and other missionaries, had, with all his people, become Christians, and he showed by his changed life and peaceable conduct, that he was one in reality as well as in name. "Riverside" continued to increase and prosper, and protected by the friendly natives who surrounded it, escaped the disasters from which many other places in subsequent years suffered. Honest Mr Spears must not be forgotten. Though still showing a readiness to help everybody, having learned the necessity of attending to his own affairs, he became one of the leading tradesmen in the place. Both Mr Pemberton and farmer Greening had, in course of time, the satisfaction of seeing their children married, and settled happily around them. THE END. 
2893	----	THE WIZARD by H. Rider Haggard DEDICATION To the Memory of the Child Nada Burnham, who “bound all to her” and, while her father cut his way through the hordes of the Ingobo Regiment, perished of the hardships of war at Buluwayo on 19th May, 1896, I dedicate these tales--and more particularly the last, that of a Faith which triumphed over savagery and death. H. Rider Haggard. Ditchingham. AUTHOR’S NOTE Of the three stories that comprise this volume[*], one, “The Wizard,” a tale of victorious faith, first appeared some years ago as a Christmas Annual. Another, “Elissa,” is an attempt, difficult enough owing to the scantiness of the material left to us by time, to recreate the life of the ancient Poenician Zimbabwe, whose ruins still stand in Rhodesia, and, with the addition of the necessary love story, to suggest circumstances such as might have brought about or accompanied its fall at the hands of the surrounding savage tribes. The third, “Black Heart and White Heart,” is a story of the courtship, trials and final union of a pair of Zulu lovers in the time of King Cetywayo. [*] This text was prepared from a volume published in 1900 titled “Black Heart and White Heart, and Other Stories.”-- JB. THE WIZARD CHAPTER I THE DEPUTATION Has the age of miracle quite gone by, or is it still possible to the Voice of Faith calling aloud upon the earth to wring from the dumb heavens an audible answer to its prayer? Does the promise uttered by the Master of mankind upon the eve of the end--“Whoso that believeth in Me, the works that I do he shall do also . . . and whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do;”--still hold good to such as do ask and do believe? Let those who care to study the history of the Rev. Thomas Owen, and of that strange man who carried on and completed his work, answer this question according to their judgment. ***** The time was a Sunday afternoon in summer, and the place a church in the Midland counties. It was a beautiful church, ancient and spacious; moreover, it had recently been restored at great cost. Seven or eight hundred people could have found sittings in it, and doubtless they had done so when Busscombe was a large manufacturing town, before the failure of the coal supply and other causes drove away its trade. Now it was much what it had been in the time of the Normans, a little agricultural village with a population of 300 souls. Out of this population, including the choir boys, exactly thirty-nine had elected to attend church on this particular Sunday; and of these, three were fast asleep and four were dozing. The Rev. Thomas Owen counted them from his seat in the chancel, for another clergyman was preaching; and, as he counted, bitterness and disappointment took hold of him. The preacher was a “Deputation,” sent by one of the large missionary societies to arouse the indifferent to a sense of duty towards their unconverted black brethren in Africa, and incidentally to collect cash to be spent in the conversion of the said brethren. The Rev. Thomas Owen himself suggested the visit of the Deputation, and had laboured hard to secure him a good audience. But the beauty of the weather, or terror of the inevitable subscription, prevailed against him. Hence his disappointment. “Well,” he thought, with a sigh, “I have done my best, and I must make it up out of my own pocket.” Then he settled himself to listen to the sermon. The preacher, a battered-looking individual of between fifty and sixty years of age, was gaunt with recent sickness, patient and unimaginative in aspect. He preached extemporarily, with the aid of notes; and it cannot be said that his discourse was remarkable for interest, at any rate in its beginning. Doubtless the sparse congregation, so prone to slumber, discouraged him; for offering exhortations to empty benches is but weary work. Indeed he was meditating the advisability of bringing his argument to an abrupt conclusion when, chancing to glance round, he became aware that he had at least one sympathetic listener, his host, the Rev. Thomas Owen. From that moment the sermon improved by degrees, till at length it reached a really high level of excellence. Ceasing from rhetoric, the speaker began to tell of his own experience and sufferings in the Cause amongst savage tribes; for he himself was a missionary of many years standing. He told how once he and a companion had been sent to a nation, who named themselves the Sons of Fire because their god was the lightning, if indeed they could be said to boast any gods other than the Spear and the King. In simple language he narrated his terrible adventures among these savages, the murder of his companion by command of the Council of Wizards, and his own flight for his life; a tale so interesting and vivid that even the bucolic sleepers awakened and listened open-mouthed. “But this is by the way,” he went on; “for my Society does not ask you to subscribe towards the conversion of the Children of Fire. Until that people is conquered--which very likely will not be for generations, seeing that they live in Central Africa, occupying a territory that white men do not desire--no missionary will dare again to visit them.” At this moment something caused him to look a second time at Thomas Owen. He was leaning forward in his place listening eagerly, and a strange light filled the large, dark eyes that shone in the pallor of his delicate, nervous face. “There is a man who would dare, if he were put to it,” thought the Deputation to himself. Then he ended his sermon. That evening the two men sat at dinner in the rectory. It was a very fine rectory, beautifully furnished; for Owen was a man of taste which he had the means to gratify. Also, although they were alone, the dinner was good--so good that the poor broken-down missionary, sipping his unaccustomed port, a vintage wine, sighed aloud in admiration and involuntary envy. “What is the matter?” asked Owen. “Nothing, Mr. Owen;” then, of a sudden thawing into candour, he added: “that is, everything. Heaven forgive me; but I, who enjoy your hospitality, am envious of you. Don’t think too hardly of me; I have a large family to support, and if only you knew what a struggle my life is, and has been for the last twenty years, you would not, I am sure. But you have never experienced it, and could not understand. ‘The labourer is worthy of his hire.’ Well, my hire is under two hundred a year, and eight of us must live--or starve--on it. And I have worked, ay, until my health is broken. A labourer indeed! I am a very hodman, a spiritual Sisyphus. And now I must go back to carry my load and roll my stone again and again among those hopeless savages till I die of it--till I die of it!” “At least it is a noble life and death!” exclaimed Owen, a sudden fire of enthusiasm burning in his dark eyes. “Yes, viewed from a distance. Were you asked to leave this living of two thousand a year--I see that is what they put it at in Crockford--with its English comforts and easy work, that _you_ might lead that life and attain that death, then you would think differently. But why should I bore you with such talk? Thank Heaven that your lines are cast in pleasant places. Yes, please, I will take one more glass; it does me good.” “Tell me some more about that tribe you were speaking of in your sermon, the ‘Sons of Fire’ I think you called them,” said Owen, as he passed him the decanter. So, with an eloquence induced by the generous wine and a quickened imagination, the Deputation told him--told him many strange things and terrible. For this people was an awful people: vigorous in mind and body, and warriors from generation to generation, but superstition-ridden and cruel. They lived in the far interior, some months’ journey by boat and ox-waggon from the coast, and of white men and their ways they knew but little. “How many of them are there?” asked Owen. “Who can say?” he answered. “Nearly half-a-million, perhaps; at least they pretend that they can put sixty thousand men under arms.” “And did they treat you badly when you first visited them?” “Not at first. They received us civilly enough; and on a given day we were requested to explain to the king and the Council of Wizards the religion which we came to teach. All that day we explained and all the next--or rather my friend did, for I knew very little of the language--and they listened with great interest. At last the chief of the wizards and the first prophet to the king rose to question us. He was named Hokosa, a tall, thin man, with a spiritual face and terrible calm eyes. “‘You speak well, son of a White Man,’ he said, ‘but let us pass from words to deeds. You tell us that this God of yours, whom you desire that we should take as our God, so that you may become His chief prophets in the land, was a wizard such as we are, though grater than we are; for not only did He know the past and the future as we do, but also He could cure those who were smitten with hopeless sickness, and raise those who were dead, which we cannot do. You tell us, moreover, that by faith those who believe on Him can do works as great as He did, and that you do believe on Him. Therefore we will put you to the proof. Ho! there, lead forth that evil one.’ “As he spoke a man was placed before us, one who had been convicted of witchcraft or some other crime. “‘Kill him!’ said Hokosa. “There was a faint cry, a scuffle, a flashing of spears, and the man lay still before us. “‘Now, followers of the new God,’ said Hokosa, ‘raise him from the dead as your Master did!’ “In vain did we offer explanations. “‘Peace!’ said Hokosa at length, ‘your words weary us. Look now, either you have preached to us a false god and are liars, or you are traitors to the King you preach, since, lacking faith in Him, you cannot do such works as He gives power to do to those who have faith in Him. Out of your own mouths are you judged, White Men. Choose which horn of the bull you will, you hang to one of them, and it shall pierce you. This is the sentence of the king, I speak it who am the king’s mouth: That you, White Man, who have spoken to us and cheated us these two weary days, be put to death, and that you, his companion who have been silent, be driven from the land.’ “I can hardly bear to tell the rest of it, Mr. Owen. They gave my poor friend ten minutes to ‘talk to his Spirit,’ then they speared him before my face. After it was over, Hokosa spoke to me, saying:-- “‘Go back, White Man, to those who sent you, and tell them the words of the Sons of Fire: That they have listened to the message of peace, and though they are a people of warriors, yet they thank them for that message, for in itself it sounds good and beautiful in their ears, if it be true. Tell them that having proved you liars, they dealt with you as all honest men seek that liars should be dealt with. Tell them that they desire to hear more of this matter, and if one can be sent to them who has no false tongue; who in all things fulfills the promises of his lips, that they will hearken to him and treat him well, but that for such as you they keep a spear.’” “And who went after you got back?” asked Owen, who was listening with the deepest interest. “Who went? Do you suppose that there are many mad clergymen in Africa, Mr. Owen? Nobody went.” “And yet,” said Owen, speaking more to himself than to his guest, “the man Hokosa was right, and the Christian who of a truth believes the promises of our religion should trust to them and go.” “Then perhaps you would like to undertake the mission, Mr. Owen,” said the Deputation briskly; for the reflection stung him, unintentional as it was. Owen started. “That is a new idea,” he said. “And now perhaps you wish to go to bed; it is past eleven o’clock.” CHAPTER II THOMAS OWEN Thomas Owen went to his room, but not to bed. Taking a Bible from the table, he consulted reference after reference. “The promise is clear,” he said aloud presently, as he shut the book; “clear and often repeated. There is no escape from it, and no possibility of a double meaning. If it is not true, then it would seem that nothing is true, and that every Christian in the world is tricked and deluded. But if it _is_ true, why do we never hear of miracles? The answer is easy: Because we have not faith enough to work them. The Apostles worked miracles; for they had seen, therefore their faith was perfect. Since their day nobody’s faith has been quite perfect; at least I think not. The physical part of our nature prevents it. Or perhaps the miracles still happen, but they are spiritual miracles.” Then he sat down by the open window, and gazing at the dreamy beauty of the summer night, he thought, for his soul was troubled. Once before it had been troubled thus; that was nine years ago, for now he was but little over thirty. Then a call had come to him, a voice had seemed to speak to his ears bidding him to lay down great possessions to follow whither Heaven should lead him. Thomas Owen had obeyed the voice; though, owing to circumstances which need not be detailed, to do so he was obliged to renounce his succession to a very large estate, and to content himself with a younger son’s portion of thirty thousand pounds and the reversion to the living which he had now held for some five years. Then and there, with singular unanimity and despatch, his relations came to the conclusion that he was mad. To this hour, indeed, those who stand in his place and enjoy the wealth and position that were his by right, speak of him as “poor Thomas,” and mark their disapprobation of his peculiar conduct by refusing with an unvarying steadiness to subscribe even a single shilling to a missionary society. How “poor Thomas” speaks of them in the place where he is we may wonder, but as yet we cannot know--probably with the gentle love and charity that marked his every action upon earth. But this is by the way. He had entered the Church, but what had he done in its shadow? This was the question which Owen asked himself as he sat that night by the open window, arraigning his past before the judgment-seat of conscience. For three years he had worked hard somewhere in the slums; then this living had fallen to him. He had taken it, and from that day forward his record was very much of a blank. The parish was small and well ordered; there was little to do in it, and the Salvation Army had seized upon and reclaimed two of the three confirmed drunkards it could boast. His guest’s saying echoed in his brain like the catch of a tune--“that _you_ might lead that life and attain that death.” Supposing that he were bidden so to do now, this very night, would he indeed “think differently”? He had become a priest to serve his Maker. How would it be were that Maker to command that he should serve Him in this extreme and heroic fashion? Would he flinch from the steel, or would he meet it as the martyrs met it of old? Physically he was little suited to such an enterprise, for in appearance he was slight and pale, and in constitution delicate. Also, there was another reason against the thing. High Church and somewhat ascetic in his principles, in the beginning he had admired celibacy, and in secret dedicated himself to that state. But at heart Thomas was very much a man, and of late he had come to see that which is against nature is presumably not right, though fanatics may not hesitate to pronounce it wrong. Possibly this conversion to more genial views of life was quickened by the presence in the neighbourhood of a young lady whom he chanced to admire; at least it is certain that the mere thought of seeing her no more for ever smote him like a sword of sudden pain. ***** That very night--or so it seemed to him, and so he believed--the Angel of the Lord stood before him as he was wont to stand before the men of old, and spoke a summons in his ear. How or in what seeming that summons came Thomas Owen never told, and we need not inquire. At the least he heard it, and, like the Apostles, he arose and girded his loins to obey. For now, in the hour of trial, it proved that this man’s faith partook of the nature of their faith. It was utter and virgin; it was not clogged with nineteenth-century qualifications; it had never dallied with strange doctrines, or kissed the feet of pinchbeck substitutes for God. In his heart he believed that the Almighty, without intermediary, but face to face, had bidden him to go forth into the wilderness there to perish. So he bowed his head and went. On the following morning at breakfast Owen had some talk with his friend the Deputation. “You asked me last night,” he said quietly, “whether I would undertake a mission to that people of whom you were telling me--the Sons of Fire. Well, I have been thinking it over, and come to the conclusion that I will do so----” At this point the Deputation, concluding that his host must be mad, moved quietly but decidedly towards the door. “Wait a moment,” went on Owen, in a matter-of-fact voice, “the dog-cart will not be round for another three-quarters of an hour. Tell me, if it were offered to you, and on investigation you proved suitable, would you care to take over this living?” “Would I care to take over this living?” gasped the astonished Deputation. “Would I care to walk down that garden and find myself in Heaven? But why are you making fun of me?” “I am not making fun of you. If I go to Africa I must give up the living, of which I own the advowson, and it occurred to me that it might suit you--that is all. You have done your share; your health is broken, and you have many dependent upon you. It seems right, therefore, that you should rest, and that I should work. If I do no good yonder, at the least you and yours will be a little benefited.” ***** That same day Owen chanced to meet the lady who has been spoken of as having caught his heart. He had meant to go away without seeing her, but fortune brought them together. Hitherto, whilst in reality leading him on, she had seemed to keep him at a distance, with the result that he did not know that it was her fixed intention to marry him. To her, with some hesitation, he told his plans. Surprised and frightened into candour, the lady reasoned with him warmly, and when reason failed to move him she did more. By some subtle movement, with some sudden word, she lifted the veil of her reserve and suffered him to see her heart. “If you will not stay for aught else,” said her troubled eyes, “then, love, stay for me.” For a moment he was shaken. Then he answered the look straight out, as was his nature. “I never guessed,” he said. “I did not presume to hope--now it is too late! Listen! I will tell you what I have told no living soul, though thereafter you may think me mad. Weak and humble as I am, I believe myself to have received a Divine mission. I believe that I shall execute it, or bring about its execution, but at the ultimate cost of my own life. Still, in such a service two are better than one. If you--can care enough--if you----” But the lady had already turned away, and was murmuring her farewell in accents that sounded like a sob. Love and faith after this sort were not given to her. Of all Owen’s trials this was the sharpest. Of all his sacrifices this was the most complete. CHAPTER III THE TEMPTATION Two years have gone by all but a few months, and from the rectory in a quiet English village we pass to a scene in Central, or South Central, Africa. On the brow of a grassy slope dotted over with mimosa thorns, and close to a gushing stream of water, stands a house, or rather a hut, built of green brick and thatched with grass. Behind this hut is a fence of thorns, rough but strong, designed to protect all within it from the attacks of lions and other beasts of prey. At present, save for a solitary mule eating its provender by the wheel of a tented ox-waggon, it is untenanted, for the cattle have not yet been kraaled for the night. Presently Thomas Owen enters this enclosure by the back door of the hut, and having attended to the mule, which whinnies at the sight of him, goes to the gate and watches there till he sees his native boys driving the cattle up the slope of the hill. At length they arrive, and when he has counted them to make sure that none are missing, and in a few kind words commended the herds for their watchfulness, he walks to the front of the house and, seating himself upon a wooden stool set under a mimosa tree that grows near the door, he looks earnestly towards the west. The man has changed somewhat since last we saw him. To begin with, he has grown a beard, and although the hot African sun has bronzed it into an appearance of health, his face is even thinner than it was, and therein the great spiritual eyes shine still more strangely. At the foot of the slope runs a wide river, just here broken into rapids where the waters make an angry music. Beyond this river stretches a vast plain bounded on the horizon by mountain ranges, each line of them rising higher than the other till their topmost and more distant peaks melt imperceptibly into the tender blue of the heavens. This is the land of the Sons of Fire, and yonder amid the slopes of the nearest hills is the great kraal of their king, Umsuka, whose name, being interpreted, means The Thunderbolt. In the very midst of the foaming rapids, and about a thousand yards from the house lies a space of rippling shallow water, where, unless it chances to be in flood, the river can be forded. It is this ford that Owen watches so intently. “John should have been back twelve hours ago,” he mutters to himself. “I pray that no harm has befallen him at the Great Place yonder.” Just then a tiny speck appears far away on the plain. It is a man travelling towards the water at a swinging trot. Going into the hut, Owen returns with a pair of field-glasses, and through them scrutinises the figure of the man. “Heaven be praised! It is John,” he mutters, with a sigh of relief. “Now, I wonder what answer he brings?” Half an hour later John stands before him, a stalwart native of the tribe of the Amasuka, the People of Fire, and with uplifted hand salutes him, giving him titles of honour. “Praise me not, John,” said Owen; “praise God only, as I have taught you to do. Tell me, have you seen the king, and what is his word?” “Father,” he answered, “I journeyed to the great town, as you bade me, and I was admitted before the majesty of the king; yes, he received me in the courtyard of the House of Women. With his guards, who stood at a distance out of hearing, there were present three only; but oh! those three were great, the greatest in all the land after the king. They were Hafela, the king that is to come, the prince Nodwengo, his brother, and Hokosa the terrible, the chief of the wizards; and I tell you, father, that my blood dried up and my heart shrivelled when they turned their eyes upon me, reading the thoughts of my heart.” “Have I not told you, John, to trust in God, and fear nothing at the hands of man?” “You told me, father, but still I feared,” answered the messenger humbly. “Yet, being bidden to it, I lifted my forehead from the dust and stood upon my feet before the king, and delivered to him the message which you set between my lips.” “Repeat the message, John.” “‘O King,’ I said, ‘beneath those footfall the whole earth shakes, whose arms stretch round the world and whose breath is the storm, I, whose name is John, am sent by the white man whose name is Messenger’--for by that title you bade me make you known--‘who for a year has dwelt in the land that your spears have wasted beyond the banks of the river. These are the words which he spoke to me, O King, that I pass on to you with my tongue: “To the King Umsuka, lord of the Amasuka, the Sons of Fire, I, Messenger, who am the servant and the ambassador of the King of Heaven, give greeting. A year ago, King, I sent to you saying that the message which was brought by that white man whom you drove from your land had reached the ears of Him whom I serve, the High and Holy One, and that, speaking in my heart, He had commanded me to take up the challenge of your message. Here am I, therefore, ready to abide by the law which you have laid down; for if guile or lies be found in me, then let me travel from your land across the bridge of spears. Still, I would dwell a little while here where I am before I pass into the shadow of your rule and speak in the ears of your people as I have been bidden. Know, King, that first I would learn your tongue, and therefore I demand that one of your people may be sent to dwell with me and to teach me that tongue. King, you heard my words and you sent me a man to dwell with me, and that man has taught me your tongue, and I also have taught him, converting him to my faith and giving him a new name, the name of John. King, now I seek your leave to visit you, and to deliver into your ears the words with which I, Messenger, am charged. I have spoken.”’ “Thus I, John, addressed the great ones, my father, and they listened in silence. When I had done they spoke together, a word here and a word there. Then Hokosa, the king’s mouth, answered me, telling the thought of the king: ‘You are a bold man, you whose name is John, but who once had another name--you, my servant, who dare to appear before me, and to make it known to me that you have been turned to a new faith and serve another king than I. Yet because you are bold, I forgive you. Go back now to that white man who is named Messenger and who comes upon an embassy to me from the Lord of Heaven, and bid him come in peace. Yet warn him once again that here also we know something of the Powers that are not seen, here also we have our wizards who draw wisdom from the air, who tame the thunderbolt and compel the rain, and that he must show himself greater than all of these if he would not pass hence by the bridge of spears. Let him, therefore, take counsel with his heart and with Him he serves, if such a One there is, and let him come or let him stay away as it shall please him.’” “So be it,” said Owen; “the words of the king are good, and to-morrow we will start for the Great Place.” John heard and assented, but without eagerness. “My father,” he said, in a doubtful and tentative voice, “would it not perhaps be better to bide here awhile first?” “Why?” asked Owen. “We have sown, and now is the hour to reap.” “It is so, my father, but as I ran hither, full of the king’s words, it came into my mind that now is not the time to convert the Sons of Fire. There is trouble brewing at the Great Palace, father. Listen, and I will tell you; as I have heard, so I will tell you. You know well that our King Umsuka has two sons, Hafela and Nodwengo; and of these Hafela is the heir-apparent, the fruit of the chief wife of the king, and Nodwengo is sprung from another wife. Now Hafela is proud and cruel, a warrior of warriors, a terrible man, and Nodwengo is gentle and mild, like to his mother whom the king loves. Of late it has been discovered that Hafela, weary of waiting for power, has made a plot to depose his father and to kill Nodwengo, his brother, so that the land and those who dwell in it may become his without question. This plot the king knows--I had it from one of his women, who is my sister--and he is very wroth, yet he dare do little, for he grows old and timid, and seeks rest, not war. Yet he is minded, if he can find the heart, to go back upon the law and to name Nodwengo as his heir before all the army at the feast of the first-fruits, which shall be held on the third day from to-night. This Hafela knows, and Nodwengo knows it also, and each of them has summoned his following, numbering thousands and tens of thousands of spears, to attend this feast of the first-fruits. That feast may well be a feast of vultures, my father, and when the brothers and their regiments rush together fighting for the throne, what will chance to the white man who comes at such a moment to preach a faith of peace, and to his servant, one John, who led him there?” “I do not know,” answered Owen, “and it troubles me not at all. I go to carry out my mission, and in this way or in that it will be carried out. John, if you are fearful or unbelieving leave me to go alone.” “Nay, father, I am not fearful; yet, father, I would have you understand. Yonder there are men who can work wizardry. _Wow!_ I know, for I have seen it, and they will demand from you magic greater than their magic.” “What of it, John?” “Only this, my father, that if they ask and you fail to give, they will kill you. You teach beautiful things, but say, are you a wizard? When the child of a woman yonder lay dead, you could not raise it as did the Christ; when the oxen were sick with the pest, you could not cure them; or at least, my father, you did not, although you wept for the child and were sorry at the loss of the oxen. Now, my father, if perchance they ask you to do such things as these yonder, or die, say what will happen?” “One of two things, John: either I shall die or I shall do the things.” “But”--hesitated John--“surely you do not believe that----” and he broke off. Owen turned round and looked at his disciple with kindling eyes. “I do believe, O you of little faith!” he said. “I do believe that yonder I have a mission, and that He Whom I serve will give me power to carry out that mission. You are right, I can work no miracles; but He can work miracles Whom everything in heaven and earth obeys, and if there is need He will work them through me, His instrument. Or perhaps He will not work them, and I shall die, because thus His ends will best be forwarded. At the least I go in faith, fearing nothing, for what has he to fear who knows the will of God and does it? But to you who doubt, I say--leave me!” The man spread out his hands in deprecation; his thick lips trembled a little, and something like a tear appeared at the corners of his eyes. “Father,” he said, “am I a coward that you should talk to me thus? I, who for twenty years have been a soldier of my king and for ten a captain in my regiment? These scars show whether or no I am a coward,” and he pointed to his breast, “but of them I will not speak. I am no coward, else I had not gone upon that errand of yours. Why, then, should you reproach me because my ears are not so open as yours, as my heart has not understanding? I worship that God of Whom you have taught me, but He never speaks to me as He does to you. I never meet Him as I walk at night; He leaves me quite alone. Therefore it is that I fear that when the hour of trial comes He may desert you; and unless He covers you with His shield, of this I am sure, that the spear is forged which shall blush red in your heart, my father. It is for you that I fear, who are so gentle and tender; not for myself, who am well accustomed to look in the eyes of Death, and who expect no more than death.” “Forgive me,” said Owen hastily, for he was moved; “and be sure that the shield will be over us till the time comes for us to pass whither we shall need none.” ***** That night Owen rose from the task at which he was labouring slowly and painfully--a translation of passages from the Gospel of St. John into the language of the Amasuka--and going to the open window-place of the hut, he rested his elbows upon it and thought, staring with empty eyes into the blackness of the night. Now it was as he sat thus that a great agony of doubt took possession of his soul. The strength which hitherto had supported him seemed to be withdrawn, and he was left, as John had said, “quite alone.” Strange voices seemed to whisper in his ears, reproaching and reviling him; temptations long ago trampled under foot rose again in might, alluring him. “Fool,” said the voices, “get you hence before it is too late. You have been mad; you who dreamed that for your sake, to satisfy your pride, the Almighty will break His silence and strain His law. Are you then better, or greater, or purer than millions who have gone before you, that for you and you alone this thing should be done? Why, were it not that you are mad, you would be among the chief of sinners; you who dare to ask that the Powers of Heaven should be set within your feeble hand, that the Angels of Heaven should wait upon your mortal breath. Worm that you are, has God need of such as you? If it is His will to turn the heart of yonder people He will do it, but not by means of _you_. You and the servant whom you are deluding to his death will perish miserably, and this alone shall be the fruit of your presumptuous sin. Get you back out of this wilderness before the madness takes you afresh. You are still young, you have wealth; look where She stands yonder whom you desire. Get you back, and forget your folly in her arms.” These thoughts, and many others of like nature, tore Owen’s soul in that hour of strange and terrible temptation. He seemed to see himself standing before the thousands of the savage nation he went to save, and to hear the mocking voices of their witch-finders commanding him, if he were a true man and the servant of that God of Whom he prated, to give them a sign, only a little sign; perhaps to move a stone without touching it with his hand, or to cause a dead bough to blossom. Then he would beseech Heaven with frantic prayers, and in vain, till at length, amidst a roar of laughter, he, the false prophet and the liar, was led out to his doom. He saw the piteous wondering look of the believer whom he had betrayed to death; he saw the fierce faces and the spears on high. Seeing all this his spirit broke, and, just as the little clock in the room behind him struck the first stroke of midnight, with a great and bitter cry to God to give him back the faith and strength that he had lost, Owen’s head fell forward and he sank into a swoon there upon the window-place. CHAPTER IV THE VISION Was it swoon or sleep? At least it seemed to Owen that presently once again he was gazing into the dense intolerable blackness of the night. Then a marvel came to pass, for the blackness opened, or rather on it, framed and surrounded by it, there appeared a vision. It was the vision of a native town, having a great bare space in the centre of it encircled by hundreds or thousands of huts. But there was no one stirring about the huts, for it was night--not this his night of trial indeed, since now the sky was strewn with innumerable stars. Everything was silent about that town, save that now and again a dog barked or a fretful child wailed within a hut, or the sentries as they passed saluted each other in the name of the king. Among all those hundreds of huts, to Owen it seemed that his attention was directed to one which stood apart surrounded with a fence. Now the interior of the hut opened itself to him. It was not lighted, yet with his spirit sense he could see its every detail: the polished floor, the skin rugs, the beer gourds, the shields and spears, the roof-tree of red wood, and the dried lizard hanging from the thatch, a charm to ward off evil. In this hut, seated face to face halfway between the centre-post and the door-hole, were two men. The darkness was deep about them, and they whispered to each other through it; but in his dream this was no bar to Owen’s sight. He could discern their faces clearly. One of them was that of a man of about thirty-five years of age. In stature he was almost a giant. He wore a kaross of leopard skins, and on his wrists and ankles were rings of ivory, the royal ornaments. His face was fierce and powerful; his eyes, which were set far apart, rolled so much that at times they seemed all white; and his fingers played nervously with the handle of a spear that he carried in his right hand. His companion was of a different stamp; a person of more than fifty years, he was tall and spare in figure, with delicately shaped hands and feet. His hair and little beard were tinged with grey, his face was strikingly handsome, nervous and expressive, and his forehead both broad and high. But more remarkable still were his eyes, which shone with a piercing brightness, almost grey in colour, steady as the flame of a well-trimmed lamp, and so cold that they might have been precious stones set in the head of a statue. “Must I then put your thoughts in words?” said this man in a clear quick whisper. “Well, so be it; for I weary of sitting here in the dark waiting for water that will not flow. Listen, Prince; you come to talk to me of the death of a king--is it not so? Nay do not start. Why are you affrighted when you hear upon the lips of another the plot that these many months has been familiar to your breast?” “Truly, Hokosa, you are the best of wizards, or the worst,” answered the great man huskily. “Yet this once you are mistaken,” he added with a change of voice. “I came but to ask you for a charm to turn my father’s heart----” “To dust? Prince, if I am mistaken, why am I the best of wizards, or the worst, and why did your jaw drop and your face change at my words, and why do you even now touch your dry lips with your tongue? Yes, I know that it is dark here, yet some can see in it, and I am one of them. Ay, Prince, and I can see your mind also. You would be rid of your father: he has lived too long. Moreover his love turns to Nodwengo, the good and gentle; and perhaps--who can say?--it is even in his thought, when all his regiments are about him two days hence, to declare that you, Prince, are deposed, and that your brother, Nodwengo, shall be king in your stead. Now, Nodwengo you cannot kill; he is too well loved and too well guarded. If he died suddenly, his dead lips would call out ‘Murder!’ in the ears of all men; and, Prince, all eyes would turn to you, who alone could profit by his end. But if the king should chance to die--why he is old, is he not? and such things happen to the old. Also he grows feeble, and will not suffer the regiments to be doctored for war, although day by day they clamour to be led to battle; for he seeks to end his years in peace.” “I say that you speak folly,” answered the prince with vehemence. “Then, Son of the Great One, why should you waste time in listening to me? Farewell, Hafela the Prince, first-born of the king, who in a day to come shall carry the shield of Nodwengo; for he is good and gentle, and will spare your life--if I beg it of him.” Hafela stretched out his hand through the darkness, and caught Hokosa by the wrist. “Stay,” he whispered, “it is true. The king must die; for if he does not die within three days, I shall cease to be his heir. I know it through my spies. He is angry with me; he hates me, and he loves Nodwengo and the mother of Nodwengo. But if he dies before the last day of the festival, then that decree will never pass his lips, and the regiments will never roar out the name of Nodwengo as the name of the king to come. He must die, I tell you, Hokosa, and--by your hand.” “By _my_ hand, Prince! Nay; what have you to offer me in return for such a deed as this? Have I not grown up in Umsuka’s shadow, and shall I cut down the tree that shades me?” “What have I to offer you? This: that next to myself you shall be the greatest in the land, Hokosa.” “That I am already, and whoever rules it, that I must always be. I, who am the chief of wizards; I, the reader of men’s hearts; I, the hearer of men’s thoughts! I, the lord of the air and the lightning; I, the invulnerable. If you would murder, Prince, then do the deed; do it knowing that I have your secret, and that henceforth you who rule shall be my servant. Nay, you forget that I can see in the dark; lay down that assegai, or, by my spirit, prince as you are, I will blast you with a spell, and your body shall be thrown to the kites, as that of one who would murder his king and father!” The prince heard and shook, his cheeks sank in, the muscles of his great form seemed to collapse, and he grovelled on the floor of the hut. “I know your magic,” he groaned; “use it for me, not against me! What is there that I can offer you, who have everything except the throne, whereon you cannot sit, seeing that you are not of the blood-royal?” “Think,” said Hokosa. For a while the prince thought, till presently his form straightened itself, and with a quick movement he lifted up his head. “Is it, perchance, my affianced wife?” he whispered; “the lady Noma, whom I love, and who, according to our custom, I shall wed as the queen to be after the feast of first-fruits? Oh! say it not, Hokosa.” “I say it,” answered the wizard. “Listen, Prince. The lady Noma is the only child of my blood-brother, my friend, with whom I was brought up, he who was slain at my side in the great war with the tribes of the north. She was my ward: she was more; for through her--ah! you know not how--I held my converse with the things of earth and air, the very spirits that watch us now in this darkness, Hafela. Thus it happened, that before ever she was a woman, her mind grew greater than the mind of any other woman, and her thought became my thought, and my thought became her thought, for I and no other am her master. Still I waited to wed her till she was fully grown; and while I waited I went upon an embassy to the northern tribes. Then it was that you saw the maid in visiting at my kraal, and her beauty and her wit took hold of you; and in the council of the king, as you have a right to do, you named her as your head wife, the queen to be. “The king heard and bowed his head; he sent and took her, and placed her in the House of the Royal Women, there to abide till this feast of the first-fruits, when she shall be given to you in marriage. Yes, he sent her to that guarded house wherein not even I may set my foot. Although I was afar, her spirit warned me, and I returned, but too late; for she was sealed to you of the blood-royal, and that is a law which may not be broken. “Hafela, I prayed you to return her to me, and you mocked me. I would have brought you to your death, but it could not have availed me: for then, by that same law, which may not be broken, she who was sealed to you must die with you; and though thereafter her spirit would sit with me till I died also, it was not enough, since I who have conquered all, yet cannot conquer the fire that wastes my heart, nor cease to long by night and day for a woman who is lost to me. Then it was, Hafela, that I plotted vengeance against you. I threw my spell over the mind of the king, till he learnt to hate you and your evil deeds; and I, even I, have brought it about that your brother should be preferred before you, and that you shall be the servant in his house. This is the price that you must pay for her of whom you have robbed me; and by my spirit and her spirit you shall pay! Yet listen. Hand back the girl, as you may do--for she is not yet your wife--and choose another for your queen, and I will undo all that I have done, and I will find you a means, Hafela, to carry out your will. Ay, before six suns have set, the regiments rushing past you shall hail you King of the Nation of the Amasuka, Lord of the ancient House of Fire!” “I cannot,” groaned the prince; “death were better than this!” “Ay, death were better; but you shall not die, you shall live a servant, and your name shall become a mockery, a name for women to make rhymes on.” Now the prince sprang up. “Take her!” he hissed; “take her! you, who are an evil ghost; you, beneath whose eyes children wail, and at whose passing the hairs on the backs of hounds stand up! Take her, priest of death and ill; but take my curse with her! Ah! I also can prophecy; and I tell you that this woman whom you have taught, this witch of many spells, whose glance can shrivel the hearts of men, shall give you to drink of your own medicine; ay, she shall dog you to the death, and mock you while you perish by an end of shame!” “What,” laughed the wizard, “have I a rival in my own arts? Nay, Hafela, if you would learn the trade, pay me well and I will give you lessons. Yet I counsel you not; for you are flesh, nothing but flesh, and he who would rule the air must cultivate the spirit. Why, I tell you, Prince, that even the love for her who is my heart, the lady whom we both would wed, partaking of the flesh as, alas! it does, has cost me half my powers. Now let us cease from empty scoldings, and strike our bargain. “Listen. On the last day of the feast, when all the regiments are gathered to salute the king there in his Great Place according to custom, you shall stand forth before the king and renounce Noma, and she shall pass back to the care of my household. You yourself shall bring her to where I stand, and as I take her from you I will put into your hand a certain powder. Then you shall return to the side of the king, and after our fashion shall give him to drink the bowl of the first-fruits; but as you stir the beer, you will let fall into it that powder which I have given you. The king will drink, and what he leaves undrunk you will throw out upon the dust. “Now he will rise to give out to the people his royal decree, whereby, Prince, you are to be deposed from your place as heir, and your brother, Nodwengo, is to be set in your seat. But of that decree never a word shall pass his lips; if it does, recall your saying and take back the lady Noma from where she stands beside me. I tell you that never a word will pass his lips; for even as he rises a stroke shall take him, such a stroke as often falls upon the fat and aged, and he will sink to the ground snoring through his nostrils. For a while thereafter--it may be six hours, it may be twelve--he shall lie insensible, and then a cry will arise that the king is dead!” “Ay,” said Hafela, “and that I have poisoned him!” “Why, Prince? Few know what is in your father’s mind, and with those, being king, you will be able to deal. Also this is the virtue of the poison which I choose, that it is swift, yet the symptoms of it are the symptoms of a natural sickness. But that your safety and mine may be assured, I have made yet another plan, though of this there will be little need. You were present two days since when a runner came from the white man who sojourns beyond our border, he who seeks to teach us, the Children of Fire, a new faith, and gives out that he is the messenger of the King of heaven. This runner asked leave for the white man to visit the Great Place, and, speaking in the king’s name, I gave him leave. But I warned his servant that if his master came, a sign should be required of him to show that he was a true man, and had of the wisdom of the King of Heaven; and that if he failed therein, then that he should die as that white liar died who visited us in bygone years. “Now I have so ordered that this white man, passing through the Valley of Death yonder, shall reach the Great Place not long before the king drinks of the cup of the first-fruits. Then if any think that something out of nature has happened to the king, they will surely think also that this strange prayer-doctor has wrought the evil. Then also I will call for a sign from the white man, praying of him to recover the king of his sickness; and when he fails, he shall be slain as a worker of spells and the false prophet of a false god, and so we shall be rid of him and his new faith, and you shall be cleared of doubt. Is not the plan good, Prince?” “It is very good, Hokosa--save for one thing only.” “For what thing?” “This: the white man who is named Messenger might chance to be a true prophet of a true God, and to recover the king.” “Oho, let him do it, if he can; but to do it, first he must know the poison and its antidote. There is but one, and it is known to me only of all men in this land. When he has done that, then I, yes, even I, Hokosa, will begin to inquire concerning this God of his, who shows Himself so mighty in person of His messenger.” And he laughed low and scornfully. “Prince, farewell! I go forth alone, whither you dare not follow at this hour, to seek that which we shall need. One word--think not to play me false, or to cheat me of my price; for whate’er betides, be sure of this, that hour shall be the hour of your dooming. Hail to you, Son of the King! Hail! and farewell.” Then, removing the door-board, the wizard passed from the hut and was gone. ***** The vision changed. Now there appeared a valley walled in on either side with sloping cliffs of granite; a desolate place, sandy and, save for a single spring, without water, strewn with boulders of rock, some of them piled fantastically one upon the other. At a certain spot this valley widened out, and in the mouth of the space thus formed, midway between the curved lines of the receding cliffs, stood a little hill or koppie, also built up of boulders. It was a place of death; for all around the hill, and piled in hundreds between the crevices of its stones, lay the white bones of men. Nor was this all. Its summit was flat, and in the midst of it stood a huge tree. Even had it not been for the fruit which hung from its branches, the aspect of that tree must have struck the beholder as uncanny, even as horrible. The bark on its great bole was leprous white; and from its gaunt and spreading rungs rose branches that subdivided themselves again and again, till at last they terminated in round green fingers, springing from grey, flat slabs of bark, in shape not unlike that of a human palm. Indeed, from a little distance this tree, especially if viewed by moonlight, had the appearance of bearing on it hundreds or thousands of the arms and hands of men, all of them stretched imploringly to Heaven. Well might they seem to do so, seeing that to its naked limbs hung the bodies of at least twenty human beings who had suffered death by order of the king or his captains, or by the decree of the company of wizards, whereof Hokosa was the chief. There on the Hill of Death stood the Tree of Death; and that in its dank shade, or piled upon the ground beneath it, hung and lay the pitiful remnants of the multitudes who for generations had been led thither to their doom. Now, in Owen’s vision a man was seen approaching by the little pathway that ran up the side of the mount--the Road of Lost Footsteps it was called. It was Hokosa the wizard. Outside the circle of the tree he halted, and drawing a tanned skin from a bundle of medicines which he carried, he tied it about his mouth; for the very smell of that tree is poisonous and must not be suffered to reach the lungs. Presently he was under the branches, where once again he halted; this time it was to gaze at the body of an old man which swung to and fro in the night breeze. “Ah! friend,” he muttered, “we strove for many years, but it seems that I have conquered at the last. Well, it is just; for if you could have had your way, your end would have been my end.” Then very leisurely, as one who is sure that he will not be interrupted, Hokosa began to climb the tree, till at length some of the green fingers were within his reach. Resting his back against a bough, one by one he broke off several of them, and averting his face so that the fumes of it might not reach him, he caused the thick milk-white juice that they contained to trickle into the mouth of a little gourd which was hung about his neck by a string. When he had collected enough of the poison and carefully corked the gourd with a plug of wood, he descended the tree again. At the great fork where the main branches sprang from the trunk, he stood a while contemplating a creeping plant which ran up them. It was a plant of naked stem, like the tree it grew upon; and, also like the tree, its leaves consisted of bunches of green spikes having a milky juice. “Strange,” he said aloud, “that Nature should set the bane and the antidote side by side, the one twined about the other. Well, so it is in everything; yes, even in the heart of man. Shall I gather some of this juice also? No; for then I might repent and save him, remembering that he has loved me, and thus lose her I seek, her whom I must win back or be withered. Let the messenger of the King of Heaven save him, if he can. This tree lies on his path; perchance he may prevail upon its dead to tell him of the bane and of the antidote.” And once more the wizard laughed mockingly. ***** The vision passed. At this moment Thomas Owen, recovering from his swoon, lifted his head from the window-place. The night before him was as black as it had been, and behind him the little American clock was still striking the hour of midnight. Therefore he could not have remained insensible for longer than a few seconds. A few seconds, yet how much he had seen in them. Truly his want of faith had been reproved--truly he also had been “warned of God in a dream,”--truly “his ears had been opened and his instruction sealed.” His soul had been “kept back from the pit,” and his life from “perishing by the sword;” and the way of the wicked had been made clear to him “in a dream, in a vision of the night when deep sleep falleth upon men.” Not for nothing had he endured that agony, and not for nothing had he struggled in the grip of doubt. CHAPTER V THE FEAST OF THE FIRST-FRUITS On the third morning from this night whereof the strange events have been described, an ox-waggon might have been seen outspanned on the hither side of those ranges of hills that were visible from the river. These mountains, which although not high are very steep, form the outer barrier and defence of the kingdom of the Amasuka. Within five hundred yards of where the waggon stood, however, a sheer cliffed gorge, fire-riven and water-hewn, pierced the range, and looking on it, Owen knew it for the gorge of his dream. Night and day the mouth of it was guarded by a company of armed soldiers, whose huts were built high on outlook places in the mountains, whence their keen eyes could scan the vast expanses of plain. A full day before it reached them, they had seen the white-capped waggon crawling across the veldt, and swift runners had reported its advent to the king at his Great Place. Back came the word of the king that the white man, with the waggon and his servant, were to be led on towards the Great Place at such speed as would bring him there in time for him to behold the last ceremony of the feast of first-fruits; but, for the present, that the waggon itself and the oxen were to be left at the mouth of the gorge, in charge of a guard, who would be answerable for them. Now, on this morning the captain of the guard and his orderlies advanced to the waggon and stood in front of it. They were splendid men, armed with great spears and shields, and adorned with feather head-dresses and all the wild finery of their regiment. Owen descended from the waggon and came to meet them, and so for a few moments they remained, face to face, in silence. A strange contrast they presented as they stood there; the bare-headed white man frail, delicate, spiritual of countenance, and the warriors great, grave, powerful, a very embodiment of the essence of untamed humanity, an incarnate presentation of the spirit of savage warfare. “How are you named, White Man?” asked the captain. “Chief, I am named Messenger.” “The peace of the king be with you, Messenger,” said the captain, lifting his spear. “The peace of God be with you, Chief,” answered Owen, holding up his hands in blessing. “Who is God?” asked the captain. “Chief, He is the King I serve, and His word is between my lips.” “Then pass on, Messenger of God, and deliver the word of God your King into the ears of my king, at his Great Place yonder. Pass on riding the beast you have brought with you, for the way is rough; but your waggon, your oxen, and your servants, save this man only who is of the Children of Fire, must stay here in my keeping. Fear not, Messenger, I will hold them safe.” “I do not fear, Chief, there is honour in your eyes.” ***** Some hours later, Owen, mounted on his mule, was riding through the gorge, a guard in front of and behind him, and with them carriers who had been sent to bear his baggage. At his side walked his disciple John, and his face was sad. “Why are you still afraid?” asked Owen. “Ah! father, because this is a place of fear. Here in this valley men are led to die; presently you will see.” “I have seen,” answered Owen. “Yonder where we shall halt is a mount, and on that mount stands a tree; it is called the Tree of Death, and it stretches a thousand hands to Heaven, praying for mercy that does not come, and from its boughs there hangs fruit, a fruit of dead men--yes, twenty of them hang there this day.” “How know you these things, my father,” asked the man amazed, “seeing that I have never spoken to you of them?” “Nay,” he answered, “God has spoken to me. My God and your God.” Another hour passed, and they were resting by the spring of water, near to the shadow of the dreadful tree, for in that gorge the sun burned fiercely. John counted the bodies that swung upon it, and again looked fearfully at Owen, for there were twenty of them. “I desire to go up to that tree,” Owen said to the guard. “As you will, Messenger,” answered their leader; “I have no orders to prevent you from so doing. Still,” he added with a solemn smile, “it is a place that few seek of their own will, and, because I like you well, Messenger, I pray it may never be my duty to lead you there of the king’s will.” Then Owen went up to the tree and John with him, only John would not pass beneath the shadow of its branches; but stood by wondering, while his master bound a handkerchief about his mouth. “How did he know that the breath of the tree is poisonous?” John wondered. Owen walked to the bole of the tree, and breaking off some of the finger-like leaves of the creeper that twined about it, he pressed their milky juice into a little bottle that he had made ready. Then he returned quickly, for the sights and odours of the place were not to be borne. Outside the circle of the branches he halted, and removed the handkerchief from his mouth. “Be of good cheer,” he said to John, “and if it should chance that I am called away before my words come true, yet remember my words. I tell you that this Tree of Death shall become the Tree of Life for all the children of your people. Look! there above you is its sign and promise.” John lifted his eyes, following the line of Owen’s outstretched hand, and saw this. High up upon the tree, and standing clear of all the other branches, was one straight, dead limb, and from this dead limb two arms projected at right angles, also dead and snapped off short. Had a carpenter fashioned a cross of wood and set it there, its proportions could not have been more proper and exact. It was very strange to find this symbol of the Christian hope towering above that place of human terror, and stranger still was the purpose which it must serve in a day to come. Owen and John returned to the guard in silence, and presently they set forward on their journey. At length, passing beneath a natural arch of rock, they were out of the Valley of Death, and before them, not five hundred paces away, appeared the fence of the Great Place. This Great Place stood upon a high plateau, in the lap of the surrounding hills, all of which were strongly fortified with schanses, pitfalls, and rough walls of stone. That plateau may have measured fifteen miles in circumference, and the fence of the town itself was about four miles in circumference. Within the fence and following its curve, for it was round, stood thousands of dome-shaped huts carefully set out in streets. Within these again was a stout stockade of timber, enclosing a vast arena of trodden earth, large enough to contain all the cattle of the People of Fire in times of danger, and to serve as a review ground for their _impis_ in times of peace or festival. At the outer gate of the kraal there was a halt, while the keepers of the gate despatched a messenger to their king to announce the advent of the white man. Of this pause Owen took advantage to array himself in the surplice and hood which he had brought with him in readiness for that hour. Then he gave the mule to John to lead behind him. “What do you, Messenger?” asked the leader of the guard, astonished. “I clothe myself in my war-dress,” he answered. “Where then is your spear, Messenger?” “Here,” said Owen, presenting to his eyes a crucifix of ivory, most beautifully carved. “I perceive that you are of the family of wizards,” said the man, and fell back. Now they entered the kraal and passed for three hundred yards or more through rows of huts, till they reached the gate of the stockade, which was opened to them. Once within it, Owen saw a wonderful sight, such a sight as few white men have seen. The ground of the enormous oval before him was not flat. Either from natural accident or by design it sloped gently upwards, so that the spectator, standing by the gate or at the head of it before the house of the king, could take in its whole expanse, and, if his sight were keen enough, could see every individual gathered there. On the particular day of Owen’s arrival it was crowded with regiments, twelve of them, all dressed in their different uniforms and bearing shields to match, not one of which was less than 2500 strong. At this moment the regiments were massed in deep lines, each battalion by itself, on either side of the broad roadway that ran straight up the kraal to where the king, his sons, his advisers and guards, together with the company of wizards, were placed in front of the royal house. There they stood in absolute silence, like tens of thousands of bronze statues, and Owen perceived that either they were resting or that they were gathered thus to receive him. That the latter was the case soon became evident, for as he appeared, a white spot at the foot of the slope, countless heads turned and myriads of eyes fastened themselves upon him. For an instant he was dismayed; there was something terrifying in this numberless multitude of warriors, and the thought of the task that he had undertaken crushed his spirit. Then he remembered, and shaking off his fear and doubt, alone, save for his disciple John, holding the crucifix aloft, he walked slowly up the wide road towards the place where he guessed that the king must be. His arm was weary ere ever he reached it, but at length he found himself standing before a thickset old man, who was clad in leopard skins and seated upon a stool of polished wood. “It is the king,” whispered John behind him. “Peace be to you,” said Owen, breaking the silence. “The wish is good, may it be fulfilled,” answered the king in a deep voice, sighing as he said the words. “Yet yours is a strange greeting,” he added. “Whence came you, White Man, how are you named, and what is your mission to me and to my people?” “King, I come from beyond the sea; I am named Messenger, and my mission is to deliver to you the saying of God, my King and--yours.” At these words a gasp of astonishment went up from those who stood within hearing, expecting as they did to see them rewarded by instant death. But Umsuka only said:-- “‘My King and yours’? Bold words, Messenger. Where then is this King to whom I, Umsuka, should bow the knee?” “He is everywhere--in the heavens, on the earth, and below the earth.” “If He is everywhere, then He is here. Show me the likeness of this King, Messenger.” “Behold it,” Owen answered, thrusting forward the crucifix. Now all the great ones about the king stared at this figure of a dying man crowned with thorns and hanging on a cross, and then drew up their lips to laugh. But that laugh never left them; a sudden impulse, a mysterious wave of feeling choked it in their throats. A sense of the strangeness of the contrast between themselves in their armed multitudes and this one white-robed man in his loneliness took hold of them, and with it another sense of something not far removed from fear. “A wizard indeed,” they thought in their hearts, and what they thought the king uttered. “I perceive,” he said, “that you are either mad, White Man, or you are a prince of wizards. Mad you do not seem to be, for your eyes are calm, therefore a wizard you must be. Well, stand behind me: by-and-by I will hear your message and ask of you to show me your powers; but before then there are things which I must do. Are the lads ready? Ho, you, loose the bull!” At the command a line of soldiers moved from the right, forming itself up in front of the king and his attendants, revealing a number of youths, of from sixteen to seventeen years of age, armed with sticks only, who stood in companies outside a massive gate. Presently this gate was opened, and through it, with a mad bellow, rushed a wild buffalo bull. On seeing them the brute halted, and for a few moments stood pawing the earth and tearing it with its great horns. Then it put down its head and charged. Instead of making way for it, uttering a shrill whistling sound, the youths rushed at the beast, striking with their sticks. Another instant, and one of them appeared above the heads of his companions, thrown high into the air, to be followed by a second and a third. Now the animal was through the throng and carrying a poor boy on its horn, whence presently he fell dead; through and through the ranks of the regiments it charged furiously backward and forward. Watching it fascinated, Owen noted that it was a point of honour for no man to stir before its rush; there they stood, and if the bull gored them, there they fell. At length, exhausted and terrified, the brute headed back straight up the lane where the main body of the youths were waiting for it. Now it was among them, and, reckless of wounds or death, they swarmed about it like bees, seizing it by legs, nose, horns and tail, till with desperate efforts they dragged it to the ground and beat the life out of it with their sticks. This done, they formed up before the king and saluted him. “How many are killed?” he asked. “Eight in all,” was the answer, “and fifteen gored.” “A good bull,” he said with a smile; “that of last year killed but five. Well, the lads fought him bravely. Let the dead be buried, the hurt tended, or, if their harms are hopeless, slain, and to the rest give a double ration of beer. Ho, now, fall back, men, and make a space for the Bees and the Wasps to fight in.” Some orders were given and a great ring was formed, leaving an arena clear that may have measured a hundred and fifty yards in diameter. Then suddenly, from opposite sides, the two regiments, known as the Bees and the Wasps respectively, rushed upon each other, uttering their war-cries. “I put ten head of cattle on the Bees; who wagers on the Wasps?” cried the king. “I, Lord,” answered the Prince Hafela, stepping forward. “You, Prince!” said the king with a quick frown. “Well, you are right to back them, they are your own regiment. Ah! they are at it.” By this time the scene was that of a hell broken loose upon the earth. The two regiments, numbering some 5000 men in all, had come together, and the roar of their meeting shields was like the roar of thunder. They were armed with kerries only, and not with spears, for the fight was supposed to be a mimic one; but these weapons they used with such effect that soon hundreds of them were down dead or with shattered skulls and bruised limbs. Fiercely they fought, while the whole army watched, for their rivalry was keen and for many months they had known that they were to be pitted one against the other on this day. Fiercely they fought, while the captains cried their orders, and the dust rose up in clouds as they swung to and fro, breast thrusting against breast. At length the end came; the Bees began to give, they fell back ever more quickly till their retreat was a rout, and, leaving many stretched upon the ground, amid the mocking cries of the army they were driven to the fence, by touching which they obtained peace at the hands of their victors. The king saw, and his somewhat heavy, quiet face grew alive with rage. “Search and see,” he said, “if the captain of the Bees is alive and unhurt.” Messengers went to do his bidding, and presently they returned, bringing with them a man of magnificent appearance and middle age, whose left arm had been broken by a blow from a kerry. With his right hand he saluted first the king, then the Prince Nodwengo, a kindly-faced, mild-eyed man, in whose command he was. “What have you to say?” asked the king, in a cold voice of anger. “Know you that you have cost me ten head of the royal white cattle?” “King, I have nothing to say,” answered the captain calmly, “except that my men are cowards.” “That is certainly so,” said the king. “Let all the wounded among them be carried away; and for you, captain, who turn my soldiers into cowards, you shall die a dog’s death, hanging to-morrow on the Tree of Doom. As for your regiment, I banish it to the fever country, there to hunt elephants for three years, since it is not fit to fight with men.” “It is well,” replied the captain, “since death is better than shame. Only King, I have done you good service in the past; I ask that it may be presently and by the spear.” “So be it,” said the king. “I crave his life, father,” said the Prince Nodwengo; “he is my friend.” “A prince should not choose cowards for his friends,” replied the king; “let him be killed, I say.” Then Owen, who had been watching and listening, his heart sick with horror, stood forward and said:-- “King, in the name of Him I serve, I conjure you to spare this man and those others that are hurt, who have done no crime except to be driven back by soldiers stronger than themselves.” “Messenger,” answered the king, “I bear with you because you are ignorant. Know that, according to our customs, this crime is the greatest of crimes, for here we show no mercy to the conquered.” “Yet you should do so,” said Owen, “seeing that you also must ere long be conquered by death, and then how can you expect mercy who have shown none?” “Let him be killed!” said the king. “King!” cried Owen once more, “do this deed, and I tell you that before the sun is down great evil will overtake you.” “Do you threaten me, Messenger? Well, we will see. Let him be killed, I say.” Then the man was led away; but, before he went he found time to thank Owen and Nodwengo the prince, and to call down good fortune upon them. CHAPTER VI THE DRINKING OF THE CUP Now the king’s word was done, the anger went out of his eyes, and once more his countenance grew weary. A command was issued, and, with the most perfect order, moving like one man, the regiments changed their array, forming up battalion upon battalion in face of the king, that they might give him the royal salute so soon as he had drunk the cup of the first-fruits. A herald stood forward and cried:-- “Hearken, you Sons of Fire! Hearken, you Children of Umsuka, Shaker of the Earth! Have any of you a boon to ask of the king?” Men stood forward, and having saluted, one by one asked this thing or that. The king heard their requests, and as he nodded or turned his head away, so they were granted or refused. When all had done, the Prince Hafela came forward, lifted his spear, and cried:-- “A boon, King!” “What is it?” asked his father, eyeing him curiously. “A small matter, King,” he replied. “A while ago I named a certain woman, Noma, the ward of Hokosa the wizard, and she was sealed to me to fill the place of my first wife, the queen that is to be. She passed into the House of the Royal Women, and, by your command, King, it was fixed that I should marry her according to our customs to-morrow, after the feast of the first-fruits is ended. King, my heart is changed towards that woman; I no longer desire to take her to wife, and I pray that you will order that she shall now be handed back to Hokosa her guardian.” “You blow hot and cold with the same mouth, Hafela,” said Umsuka, “and in love or war I do not like such men. What have you to say to this demand, Hokosa?” Now Hokosa stepped forward from where he stood at the head of the company of wizards. His dress, like that of his companions, was simple, but in its way striking. On his shoulders he wore a cloak of shining snakeskin; about his loins was a short kilt of the same material; and round his forehead, arms and knees were fillets of snakeskin. At his side hung his pouch of medicines, and in his hand he held no spear, but a wand of ivory, whereof the top was roughly carved so as to resemble the head of a cobra reared up to strike. “King,” he said, “I have heard the words of the prince, and I do not think that this insult should have been put upon the Lady Noma, my ward, or upon me, her guardian. Still, let it be, for I would not that one should pass from under the shadow of my house whither she is not welcome. Without my leave the prince named this woman as his queen, as he had the right to do; and without my leave he unnames her, as he has the right to do. Were the prince a common man, according to custom he should pay a fine of cattle to be held by me in trust for her whom he discards; but this is a matter that I leave to you, King.” “You do well, Hokosa,” answered Umsuka, “to leave this to me. Prince, you would not wish the fine that you should pay to be that of any common man. With the girl shall be handed over two hundred head of cattle. More, I will do justice: unless she herself consents, she shall not be put away. Let the Lady Noma be summoned.” Now the face of Hafela grew sullen, and watching, Owen saw a swift change pass over that of Hokosa. Evidently he was not certain of the woman. Presently there was a stir, and from the gates of the royal house the Lady Noma appeared, attended by women, and stood before the king. She was a tall and lovely girl, and the sunlight flashed upon her bronze-hued breast and her ornaments of ivory. Her black hair was fastened in a knot upon her neck, her features were fine and small, her gait was delicate and sure as that of an antelope, and her eyes were beautiful and full of pride. There she stood before the king, looking round her like a stag. Seeing her thus, Owen understood how it came about that she held two men so strangely different in the hollow of her hand, for her charm was of a nature to appeal to both of them--a charm of the spirit as well as of the flesh. And yet the face was haughty, a face that upon occasion might even become cruel. “You sent for me and I am here, O King,” she said, in a slow and quiet voice. “Listen, girl,” answered the king. “A while ago the Prince Hafela, my son, named you as her who should be his queen, whereon you were taken and placed in the House of the Royal Women, to abide the day of your marriage, which should be to-morrow.” “It is true that the prince has honoured me thus, and that you have been pleased to approve of his choice,” she said, lifting her eyebrows. “What of it, O King?” “This, girl: the prince who was pleased to honour you is now pleased to dishonour you. Here, in the presence of the council and army, he prays of me to annul his sealing to you, and to send you back to the house of your guardian, Hokosa the wizard.” Noma started, and her face grew hard. “Is it so?” she said. “Then it would seem that I have lost favour in the eyes of my lord the prince, or that some fairer woman has found it.” “Of these matters I know nothing,” replied the king; “but this I know, that if you seek justice you shall have it. Say but the word, and he to whom you were promised in marriage shall take you in marriage, whether he wills or wills it not.” At this speech, the face of Hafela was suddenly lit up as with the fire of hope, while over that of Hokosa there passed another subtle change. The girl glanced at them both and was silent for a while. Her breast heaved and her white teeth bit upon her lip. To Owen, who noted all, it was clear that rival passions were struggling in her heart: the passion of power and the passion of love, or of some emotion which he did not understand. Hokosa fixed his calm eyes upon her with a strange intensity of gaze, and while he gazed his form quivered with a suppressed excitement, much as a snake quivers that is about to strike its prey. To the careless eye there was nothing remarkable about his look and attitude; to the observer it was evident that both were full of extraordinary purpose. He was talking to the girl, not with words, but in some secret language that he and she understood alone. She started as one starts who catches the tone of a well-remembered voice in a crowd of strangers, and lifting her eyes from the ground, whither she had turned them in meditation, she looked up at Hokosa. Instantly her face began to change. The haughtiness and anger went out of it, it grew troubled, the lips parted in a sigh. First she bent her head and body towards him, then without more ado she walked to where he stood and took him by the hand. Here, at some whispered word or sign, she seemed to recover herself, and again resuming the character of a proud offended beauty, she curtseyed to Umsuka, and spoke:-- “O King, as you see, I have made my choice. I will not force myself upon a man who scorns me, no, not even to share his place and power, though it is true that I love them both. Nay, I will return to Hokosa my guardian, and to his wife, Zinti, who has been as my mother, and with them be at peace.” “It is well,” said the king, “and perhaps, girl, your choice is wise; perhaps your loss is not so great as you have thought. Hafela, take you the hand of Hokosa and release the girl back to him according to the law, promising in the ears of men before the first month of winter to pay him two hundred head of cattle as forfeit, to be held by him in trust for the girl.” In a sullen voice, his lips trembling with rage, Hafela did as the king commanded; and when the hands of the conspirators unclasped, Owen perceived that in that of the prince lay a tiny packet. “Mix me the cup of the first-fruits, and swiftly,” said the king again, “for the sun grows low in the heavens, and ere it sinks I have words to say.” Now a polished gourd filled with native beer was handed to Nodwengo, the second son of the king, and one by one the great councillors approached, and, with appropriate words, let fall into it offerings emblematic of fertility and increase. The first cast in a grain of corn; the second, a blade of grass; the third, a shaving from an ox’s horn; the fourth, a drop of water; the fifth, a woman’s hair; the sixth, a particle of earth; and so on, until every ingredient was added to it that was necessary to the magic brew. Then Hokosa, as chief of the medicine men, blessed the cup according to the ancient forms, praying that he whose body was the heavens, whose eyes were lightning, and whose voice was thunder, the spirit whom they worshipped, might increase and multiply to them during the coming year all those fruits and elements that were present in the cup, and that every virtue which they contained might comfort the body of the king. His prayer finished, it was the turn of Hafela to play his part as the eldest born of the king. Kneeling over the cup which stood upon the ground, a spear was handed to him that had been made red hot in the fire. Taking the spear, he stabbed with it towards the four quarters of the horizon; then, muttering some invocation, he plunged it into the bowl, stirring its contents till the iron grew black. Now he threw aside the spear, and lifting the bowl in both hands, he carried it to his father and offered it to him. Although he had been unable to see him drop the poison into the cup, a glance at Hafela told Owen that it was there; for though he kept his face under control, he could not prevent his hands from twitching or the sweat from starting upon his brow and breast. The king rose, and taking the bowl, held it on high, saying:-- “In this cup, which I drink on behalf of the nation, I pledge you, my people.” It was the signal for the royal salute, for which each regiment had been prepared. As the last word left the king’s lips, every one of the thirty thousand men present in that great place began to rattle his kerry against the surface of his ox-hide shield. At first the sound produced resembled that of the murmur of the sea; but by slow and just degrees it grew louder and ever louder, till the roar of it was like the deepest voice of thunder, a sound awe-inspiring, terrible. Suddenly, when its volume was most, four spears were thrown into the air, and at this signal every man ceased to beat upon his shield. In the place itself there was silence, but from the mountains around the echoes still crashed and volleyed. When the last of them had died away, the king brought the cup to the level of his lips. Owen saw, and knowing its contents, was almost moved to cry out in warning. Indeed, his arm was lifted and his mouth was open, when by chance he noted Hokosa watching him, and remembered. To act now would be madness, his time had not yet come. The cup touched the king’s lips, and at the sign from every throat in that countless multitude sprang the word “_King!_” and every foot stamped upon the ground, shaking the solid earth. Thrice the monarch drank, and thrice this tremendous salute, the salute of the whole nation to its ruler, was repeated, each time more loudly than the last. Then pouring the rest of the liquor on the ground, Umsuka set aside the cup, and in the midst of a silence that seemed deep after the crash of the great salute, he began to address the multitude:-- “Hearken, Councillors and Captains, and you, my people, hearken. As you know, I have two sons, calves of the Black Bull, princes of the land--my son Hafela, the eldest born, and my son Nodwengo, his half-brother----” At this point the king began to grow confused. He hesitated, passing his hand over his eyes, then slowly and with difficulty repeated those words which he had already said. “We hear you, Father,” cried the councillors in encouragement, as for the second time he paused. While they still spoke, the veins in the king’s neck were seen to swell suddenly, foam flecked with blood burst from his lips, and he fell headlong to the ground. CHAPTER VII THE RECOVERY OF THE KING For a moment there was silence, then a great cry arose--a cry of “Our father is dead!” Presently with it were mingled other and angrier shouts of “The king is murdered!” and “He is bewitched, the white wizard has bewitched the king! He prophesied evil upon him, and now he has bewitched him!” Meanwhile the captains and councillors formed a ring about Umsuka, and Hokosa bending over him examined him. “Princes and Councillors,” he said presently, “your father yet lives, but his life is like the life of a dying fire and soon he must be dead. This is sure, that one of two things has befallen him: either the heat has caused the blood to boil in his veins and he is smitten with a stroke from heaven, such as men who are fat and heavy sometimes die of; or he has been bewitched by a wicked wizard. Yonder stands one,” and he pointed to Owen, “who not an hour ago prophesied that before the sun was down great evil should overtake the king. The sun is not yet down, and great evil has overtaken him. Perchance, Princes and Councillors, this white prophet can tell us of the matter.” “Perchance I can,” answered Owen calmly. “He admits it!” cried some. “Away with him!” “Peace!” said Owen, holding the crucifix towards those whose spears threatened his life. They shrank back, for this symbol of a dying man terrified them who could not guess its significance. “Peace,” went on Owen, “and listen. Be sure of this, Councillors, that if I die, your king will die; whereas if I live, your king may live. You ask me of this matter. Where shall I begin? Shall I begin with the tale of two men seated together some nights ago in a hut so dark that no eyes could see in it, save perchance the eyes of a wizard? What did they talk of in that hut, and who were those men? They talked, I think, of the death of a king and of the crowning of a king. They talked of a price to be paid for a certain medicine; and one of them had a royal air, and one----” “Will ye hearken to this wild babbler while your king lies dying before your eyes?” broke in Hokosa, in a shrill, unnatural voice; for almost palsied with fear as he was at Owen’s mysterious words, he still retained his presence of mind. “Listen now: what is he, and what did he say? He is one who comes hither to preach a new faith to us; he comes, he says, on an embassy from the King of Heaven, who has power over all things, and who, so these white men preach, can give power to His servants. Well, let this one cease prating and show us his strength, as he has been warned he would be called upon to do. Let him give us a sign. There before you lies your king, and he is past the help of man; even I cannot help him. Therefore, let this messenger cure him, or call upon his God to cure him; that seeing, we may know him to be a true messenger, and one sent by that King of whom he speaks. Let him do this now before our eyes, or let him perish as a wizard who has bewitched the king. Do you hear my words, Messenger, and can you draw this one back from between the Gates of Death?” “I hear them,” answered Owen quietly; “and I can--or if I cannot, then I am willing to pay the penalty with my life. You who are a doctor say that your king is as one who is already dead, so that whatever I may do I cannot hurt him further. Therefore I ask this of you, that you stand round and watch, but molest me neither by word nor deed while I attempt his cure. Do you consent?” “It is just; we consent,” said the councillors. “Let us see what the white man can do, and by the issue let him be judged.” But Hokosa stared at Owen wondering, and made no answer. “Bring some clean water to me in a gourd,” said Owen. It was brought and given to him. He looked round, searching the faces of those about him. Presently his eye fell upon the Prince Nodwengo, and he beckoned to him, saying:-- “Come hither, Prince, for you are honest, and I would have you to help me, and no other man.” The prince stepped forward and Owen gave him the gourd of water. Then he drew out the little bottle wherein he had stored the juice of the creeper, and uncorking it, he bade Nodwengo fill it up with water. This done, he clasped his hands, and lifting his eyes to heaven, he prayed aloud in the language of the Amasuka. “O God,” he prayed, “upon whose business I am here, grant, I beseech Thee, that by Thy Grace power may be given to me to work this miracle in the face of these people, to the end that I may win them to cease from their iniquities, to believe upon Thee, the only true God, and to save their souls alive. Amen.” Having finished his prayer, he took the bottle and shook it; then he commanded Nodwengo to sit upon the ground and hold his father’s head upon his knee. Now, as all might see by many signs, the king was upon the verge of death, for his lips were purple, his breathing was rare and stertorous, and his heart stood well-nigh still. “Open his mouth and hold down the tongue,” said Owen. The prince obeyed, pressing down the tongue with a snuff spoon. Then placing the neck of the bottle as far into the throat as it would reach, Owen poured the fluid it contained into the body of the king, who made a convulsive movement and instantly seemed to die. “He is dead,” said one; “away with the false prophet!” “It may be so, or it may not be so,” answered Owen. “Wait for the half of an hour; then, if he shows no sign of life, do what you will with me.” “It is well,” they said; “so be it.” Slowly the minutes slipped by, while the king lay like a corpse before them, and outside of that silent ring the soldiers murmured as the wind. The sun was sinking fast, and Hokosa watched it, counting the seconds. At length he spoke:-- “The half of the hour that you demanded is dead, White Man, as dead as the king; and now the time has come for you to die also,” and he stretched out his hand to take him. Owen looked at his watch and replied:-- “There is still another minute; and you, Hokosa, who are skilled in medicines, may know that this antidote does not work so swiftly as the bane.” The shot was a random one, but it told, for Hokosa fell back and was silent. The seconds passed on as the minute hand of the watch went round from ten to twenty, from twenty to thirty, from thirty to forty. A few more instants and the game was played. Had that dream of his been vain imagining, and was all his faith nothing but a dream wondered Owen? Well, if so, it would be best that he should die. But he did not believe that it was so; he believed that the Power above him would intervene to save--not him, indeed, but all this people. “Let us make an end,” said Hokosa, “the time is done.” “Yes,” said Owen, “the time is done--and _the king lives!_” Even as he spoke the pulses in the old man’s forehead were seen to throb, and the veins in his neck to swell as they had swollen after he had swallowed the poison; then once more they shrank to their natural size. Umsuka stirred a hand, groaned, sat up, and spoke:-- “What has chanced to me?” he said. “I have descended into deep darkness, now once again I see light.” No one answered, for all were staring, terrified and amazed, at the Messenger--the white wizard to whom had been given power to bring men back from the gate of death. At length Owen said:-- “This has chanced to you, King: that evil which I prophesied to you if you refused to listen to the voice of mercy has fallen upon you. By now you would have been dead, had it not pleased Him Whom I serve, working through me, His messenger, to bring you back to look upon the sun. Thank Him, therefore, and worship Him, for He alone is Master of the Earth,” and he held the crucifix before his eyes. The humbled monarch lifted his hand--he who for many years had made obeisance to none--and saluted the symbol, saying:-- “Messenger, I thank Him and I worship Him, though I know Him not. Say now, how did His magic work upon me to make me sick to death and to recover me?” “By the hand of man, King, and by the virtues that lie hid in Nature. Did you not drink of a cup, and were not many things mixed in the draught? Was it not but now in your mind to speak words that should bring down the head of pride and evil, and lift up the head of truth and goodness?” “O White Man, how know you these things?” gasped the king. “I know them, it is enough. Say, who was it that stirred the bowl, King, and who gave you to drink?” Now Umsuka staggered to his feet, and cried aloud in a voice that was thick with rage:-- “By my head and the heads of my fathers I smell the plot! My son, the Prince Hafela, has learned my counsel, and would have slain me before I said words that should set him beneath the feet of Nodwengo. Seize him, captains, and let him be brought before me for judgment!” Men looked this way and that to carry out the command of the king, but Hafela was gone. Already he was upon the hillside, running as a man has rarely run before--his face set towards that fastness in the mountains where he could find refuge among his mother’s tribesmen and the regiments which he commanded. Of late they had been sent thither by the king that they might be far from the Great Place when their prince was disinherited. “He is fled,” said one; “I saw him go.” “Pursue him and bring him back, dead or alive!” thundered the king. “A hundred head of cattle to the man who lays hand upon him before he reaches the _impi_ of the North, for they will fight for him!” “Stay!” broke in Owen. “Once before this day I prayed of you, King, to show mercy, and you refused it. Will you refuse me a second time? Leave him his life who has lost all else.” “That he may rebel against me? Well, White Man, I owe you much, and for this time your wisdom shall be my guide, though my heart speaks against such gentleness. Hearken, councillors and people, this is my decree: that Hafela, my son, who would have murdered me, be deposed from his place as heir to my throne, and that Nodwengo, his brother, be set in that place, to rule the People of Fire after me when I die.” “It is good, it is just!” said the council. “Let the king’s word be done.” “Hearken again,” said Umsuka. “Let this white man, who is named Messenger, be placed in the House of Guests and treated with all honour; let oxen be given him from the royal herds and corn from the granaries, and girls of noble blood for wives if he wills them. Hokosa, into your hand I deliver him, and, great though you are, know this, that if but a hair of his head is harmed, with your goods and your life you shall answer for it, you and all your house.” “Let the king’s word be done,” said the councillors again. “Heralds,” went on Umsuka, “proclaim that the feast of the first-fruits is ended, and my command is that every regiment should seek its quarters, taking with it a double gift of cattle from the king, who has been saved alive by the magic of this white man. And now, Messenger, farewell, for my head grows weary. To-morrow I will speak with you.” Then the king was led away into the royal house, and save those who were quartered in it, the regiments passed one by one through the gates of the kraal, singing their war-songs as they went. Darkness fell upon the Great Place, and through it parties of men might be seen dragging thence the corpses of those who had fallen in the fight with sticks, or been put to death thereafter by order of the king. “Messenger,” said Hokosa, bowing before Owen, “be pleased to follow me.” Then he led him to a little kraal numbering five or six large and beautifully made huts, which stood by itself, within its own fence, at the north end of the Great Place, not far from the house of the king. In front of the centre hut a fire was burning, and by its light women appeared cleaning out the huts and bringing food and water. “Here you may rest in safety, Messenger,” said Hokosa, “seeing that night and day a guard from the king’s own regiment will stand before your doors.” “I do not need them,” answered Owen, “for none can harm me till my hour comes. I am a stranger here and you are a great man; yet, Hokosa, which of us is the safest this night?” “Your meaning?” said Hokosa sharply. “O man!” answered Owen, “when in a certain hour you crept up the valley yonder, and climbing the Tree of Death gathered its poison, went I not with you? When, before that hour, you sat in yonder hut bargaining with the Prince Hafela--the death of a king for the price of a girl--was I not with you? Nay, threaten me not--in your own words I say it--‘lay down that assegai, or by my spirit your body shall be thrown to the kites, as that of one who would murder the king’--and the king’s guest!” “White Man,” whispered Hokosa throwing down the spear, “how can these things be? I was alone in the hut with the prince, I was alone beneath the Tree of Doom, and you, as I know well, were beyond the river. Your spies must be good, White Man.” “My spirit is my only spy, Hokosa. My spirit watched you, and from your own lips he learned the secret of the bane and of the antidote. Hafela mixed the poison as you taught him; I gave the remedy, and saved the king alive.” Now the knees of Hokosa grew weak beneath him, and he leaned against the fence of the kraal for support. “I have skill in the art,” he said hoarsely; “but, Messenger, your magic is more than mine, and my life is forfeit to you. To-morrow morning, you will tell the king all, and to-morrow night I shall hang upon the dreadful Tree. Well, so be it; I am overmatched at my own trade, and it is best that I should die. You have plotted well and you have conquered, and to you belong my place and power.” “It was you who plotted, and not I, Hokosa. Did you not contrive that I should reach the Great Place but a little before the poison was given to the king, so that upon me might be laid the crime of his bewitching? Did you not plan also that I should be called upon to cure him--a thing you deemed impossible--and when I failed that I should be straightway butchered?” “Seeing that it is useless to lie to you, I confess that it was so,” answered Hokosa boldly. “It was so,” repeated Owen; “therefore, according to your law your life is forfeit, seeing that you dug a pit to snare the innocent feet. But I come to tell you of a new law, and that which I preach I practise. Hokosa, I pardon you, and if you will put aside your evil-doing, I promise you that no word of all your wickedness shall pass my lips.” “It has not been my fashion to take a boon at the hand of any man, save of the king only,” said the wizard in a humble voice; “but now it seems that I am come to this. Tell me, White Man, what is the payment that you seek of me?” “None, Hokosa, except that you cease from evil and listen with an open heart to that message which I am sworn to deliver to you and to all your nation. Also you would do well to put away that fair woman whose price was the murder of him that fed you.” “I cannot do it,” answered the wizard. “I will listen to your teaching, but I will not rob my heart of her it craves alone. White Man, I am not like the rest of my nation. I have not sought after women; I have but one wife, and she is old and childless. Now, for the first time in my days, I love this girl--ah, you know not how!--and I will take her, and she shall be the mother of my children.” “Then, Hokosa, you will take her to your sorrow,” answered Owen solemnly, “for she will learn to hate you who have robbed her of royalty and rule, giving her wizardries and your grey hairs in place of them.” And thus for that night they parted. CHAPTER VIII THE FIRST TRIAL BY FIRE On the following day, while Owen sat eating his morning meal with a thankful heart, a messenger arrived saying that the king would receive him whenever it pleased him to come. He answered that he would be with him before noon, for already he had learned that among natives one loses little by delay. A great man, they think, is rich in time, and hurries only to wait upon his superiors. At the appointed hour a guard came to lead him to the royal house, and thither Owen went, followed by John bearing a Bible. Umsuka was seated beneath a reed roof supported by poles and open on all sides; behind him stood councillors and attendants, and by him were Nodwengo the prince, and Hokosa, his mouth and prophet. Although the day was hot, he wore a kaross or rug of wild catskins, and his face showed that the effects of the poisoned draught were still upon him. At the approach of Owen he rose with something of an effort, and, shaking him by the hand, thanked him for his life, calling him “doctor of doctors.” “Tell me, Messenger,” he added, “how it was that you were able to cure me, and who were in the plot to kill me? There must have been more than one,” and he rolled his eyes round with angry suspicion. “King,” answered Owen, “if I knew anything of this matter, the Power that wrote it on my mind has wiped it out again, or, at the least, has forbidden me to speak of its secret. I saved you, it is enough; for the rest, the past is the past, and I come to deal with the present and the future.” “This white man keeps his word,” thought Hokosa to himself, and he looked at him thanking him with his eyes. “So be it,” answered the king; “after all, it is wise not to stir a dung-heap, for there we find little beside evil odours and the nests of snakes. Now, what is your business with me, and why do you come from the white man’s countries to visit me? I have heard of those countries, they are great and far away. I have heard of the white men also--wonderful men who have all knowledge; but I do not desire to have anything to do with them, for whenever they meet black people they eat them up, taking their lands and making them slaves. Once, some years ago, two of you white people visited us here, but perhaps you know that story.” “I know it,” answered Owen; “one of those men you murdered, and the other you sent back with a message which he delivered into my ears across the waters; thousands of miles away.” “Nay,” answered the king, “we did not murder him; he came to us with the story of a new God who could raise the dead and work other miracles, and gave such powers to His servants. So a man was slain and we begged of him to bring him back to life; and since he could not, we killed him also because he was a liar.” “He was no liar,” said Owen; “since he never told you that he had power to open the mouth of the grave. Still, Heaven is merciful, and although you murdered him that was sent to you, his Master has chosen me to follow in his footsteps. Me also you may murder if you will, and then another and another; but still the messengers shall come, till at last your ears are opened and you listen. Only, for such deeds your punishment must be heavy.” “What is the message, White Man?” “A message of peace, of forgiveness, and of life beyond the grave, of life everlasting. Listen, King. Yesterday you were near to death; say now, had you stepped over the edge of it, where would you be this day?” Umsuka shrugged his shoulders. “With my fathers, White Man.” “And where are your fathers?” “Nay, I know not--nowhere, everywhere: the night is full of them; in the night we hear the echo of their voices. When they are angry they haunt the thunder-cloud, and when they are pleased they smile in the sunshine. Sometimes also they appear in the shape of snakes, or visit us in dreams, and then we offer them sacrifice. Yonder on the hillside is a haunted wood; it is full of their spirits, White Man, but they cannot talk, they only mutter, and their footfalls sound like the dropping of heavy rain, for they are strengthless and unhappy, and in the end they fade away.” “So you say,” answered Owen, “who are not altogether without understanding, yet know little, never having been taught. Now listen to me,” and very earnestly he preached to him and those about him of peace, of forgiveness, and of life everlasting. “Why should a God die miserably upon a cross?” asked the king at length. “That through His sacrifice men might become as gods,” answered Owen. “Believe in Him and He will save you.” “How can we do that,” asked the king again, “when already we have a god? Can we desert one god and set up another?” “What god, King?” “I will show him to you, White Man. Let my litter be brought.” The litter was brought and the king entered it with labouring breath. Passing through the north gate of the Great Place, the party ascended a slope of the hill that lay beyond it till they reached a flat plain some hundreds of yards in width. On this plain vegetation grew scantily, for here the bed rock of ironstone, denuded with frequent and heavy rains, was scarcely hidden by a thin crust of earth. On the further side of the plain, however, and separated from it by a little stream, was a green bank of deep soft soil, beyond which lay a gloomy valley full of great trees, that for many generations had been the burying-place of the kings of the Amasuka. “This is the house of the god,” said the king. “A strange house,” answered Owen, “and where is he that dwells in it?” “Follow me and I will show you, Messenger; but be swift, for already the sky grows dark with coming tempest.” Now at the king’s command the bearers bore him across the sere plateau towards a stone that lay almost in its centre. Presently they halted, and, pointing to this mass, the king said:-- “Behold the god!” Owen advanced and examined the object. A glance told him that this god of the Amasuka was a meteoric stone of unusual size. Most of such stones are mere shapeless lumps, but this one bore a peculiar resemblance to a seated human being holding up one arm towards the sky. So strange was this likeness that, other reasons apart, it seemed not wonderful that savages should regard the thing with awe and veneration. Rather would it have been wonderful had they not done so. “Say now,” said Owen to the king when he had inspected the stone, “what is the history of this dumb god of yours, and why do you worship him?” “Follow me across the stream and I will tell you, Messenger,” answered the king, again glancing at the sky. “The storm gathers, and when it breaks none are safe upon this plain except the heaven doctors such as Hokosa and his companions who can bind the lightning.” So they went and when they reached the further side of the stream Umsuka descended from his litter. “Messenger,” he said, “this is the story of the god as it has come down to us. From the beginning our land has been scourged with lightning above all other lands, and with the floods of rain that accompany the lightning. In the old days the Great Place of the king was out yonder among the mountains, but every year fire from heaven fell upon it, destroying much people: and at length in a great tempest the house of the king of that day was smitten and burned, and his wives and children were turned to ashes. Then that king held a council of his wizards and fire-doctors, and these having consulted the spirits of their forefathers, retired into a place apart to fast and pray; yes, it was in yonder valley, the burying ground of kings, that they hid themselves. Now on the third night the God of Fire appeared to the chief of the doctors in his sleep, and he was shaped like a burning brand and smoke went up from him. Out of the smoke he spoke to the doctor, saying: ‘For this reason it is that I torment your people, that they hate me and curse at me and pay me little honour.’ “In his dream the doctor answered: ‘How can the people honour a god that they do not see?’ Then the god said: ‘Rise up now in the night, all the company of you, and go take your stand upon the banks of yonder stream, and I will fall down in fire from heaven, and there on the plain you shall find my image. Then let your king move his Great Place into the valley beneath the plain, and henceforth my bolts shall spare it and him. Only, month by month you shall make prayers and offerings to me; moreover, the name of the people shall be changed, for it shall be called the People of Fire.’ “Now the doctor rose, and having awakened his companions, he told them of his vision. Then they all of them went down to the banks of this stream where we now stand. And as they waited there a great tempest burst over them, and in the midst of that tempest they saw the flaming figure of a man descend from heaven, and when he touched the earth it shook. The morning came and there upon the plain before them, where there had been nothing, sat the likeness of the god as it sits to-day and shall sit for ever. So the name of this people was changed, and the king’s Great Place was built where it now is. “Since that day, Messenger, no hut has been burned and no man killed in or about the Great Place by fire from heaven, which falls only here where the god is, though away among the mountains and elsewhere men are sometimes killed. But wait a while and you shall see with your eyes. Hokosa, do you, whom the lightning will not touch, take that pole of dead wood and set it up yonder in the crevice of the rock not far from the figure of the god.” “I obey,” said Hokosa, “although I have brought no medicines with me. Perhaps,” he added with a faint sneer, “the white man, who is so great a wizard, will not be afraid to accompany me.” Now Owen saw that all those present were looking at him curiously. It was evident they believed that he would not dare to accept the challenge. Therefore he answered at once and without hesitation:-- “Certainly I will come; the pole is heavy for one man to carry, and where Hokosa goes, there I can go also.” “Nay, nay, Messenger,” said the king, “the lightning knows Hokosa and will turn from him, but you are a stranger to it and it will eat you up.” “King,” answered Owen, “I do not believe that Hokosa has any power over the lightning. It may strike him or it may strike me; but unless my God so commands, it will strike neither of us.” “On your head be it, White Man,” said Hokosa, with cold anger. “Come, aid me with the pole.” Then they lifted the dead tree, and between them carried it into the middle of the plain, where they set it up in a crevice of the rock. By this time the storm was almost over them, and watching it Owen perceived that the lightnings struck always along the bank of the stream, doubtless following a hidden line of the bed of ironstone. “It is but a very little storm,” said Hokosa contemptuously, “such as visit us almost every afternoon at this period of the year. Ah! White Man, I would that you could see one of our great tempests, for these are worth beholding. This I fear, however, that you will never do, seeing it is likely that within some few minutes you will have passed back to that King who sent you here, with a hole in your head and a black mark down your spine.” “That we shall learn presently, Hokosa,” answered Owen; “for my part, I pray that no such fate may overtake you.” Now Hokosa moved himself away, muttering and pointing with his fingers, but Owen remained standing within about thirty yards of the pole. Suddenly there came a glare of light, and the pole was split into fragments; but although the shock was perceptible, they remained unhurt. Almost immediately a second flash leaped from the cloud, and Owen saw Hokosa stagger and fall to his knees. “The man is struck,” he thought to himself, but it was not so, for recovering his balance, the wizard walked back to the stream. Owen never stirred. From boyhood courage had been one of his good qualities, but it was a courage of the spirit rather than of the flesh. For instance, at this very moment, so far as his body was concerned, he was much afraid, and did not in the least enjoy standing upon an ironstone plateau at the imminent risk of being destroyed by lightning. But even if he had not had an end to gain, he would have scorned to give way to his human frailties; also, now as always, his faith supported him. As it happened the storm, which was slight, passed by, and no more flashes fell. When it was over he walked back to where the king and his court were standing. “Messenger,” said Umsuka, “you are not only a great doctor, you are also a brave man, and such I honour. There is no one among us here, not being a lord of the lightning, who would have dared to stand upon that place with Hokosa while the flashes fell about him. Yet you have done it; it was Hokosa who was driven away. You have passed the trial by fire, and henceforth, whether we refuse your message or accept it, you are great in this land.” “There is no need to praise me, King,” answered Owen. “The risk is something; but I knew that I was protected from it, seeing that I shall not die until my hour comes, and it is not yet. Listen now: your god yonder is nothing but a stone such as I have often seen before, for sometimes in great tempests they come to earth from the clouds. You are not the first people that have worshipped such a stone, but now we know better. Also this plain before you is full of iron, and iron draws the lightning. That is why it never strikes your town below. The iron attracts it more strongly than earth and huts of straw. Again, while the pole stood I was in little danger, for the lightning strikes the highest thing; but after the pole was shattered and Hokosa wisely went away, then I was in some danger, only no flashes fell. I am not a magician, King, but I know some things that you do not know, and I trust in One whom I shall lead you to trust also.” “We will talk of this more hereafter,” said the king hurriedly, “for one day, I have heard and seen enough. Also I do not believe your words, for I have noted ever that those who are the greatest wizards of all say continually that they have no magic power. Hokosa, you have been famous in your day, but it seems that henceforth you who have led must follow.” “The battle is not yet fought, King,” answered Hokosa. “To-day I met the lightnings without my medicines, and it was a little storm; when I am prepared with my medicines and the tempest is great, then I will challenge this white man to face me yonder, and then in that hour _my_ god shall show his strength and _his_ God shall not be able to save him.” “That we shall see when the time comes,” answered Owen, with a smile. That night as Owen sat in his hut working at the translation of St. John, the door was opened and Hokosa entered. “White Man,” said the wizard, “you are too strong for me, though whence you have your power I know not. Let us make a bargain. Show me your magic and I will show you mine, and we will rule the land between us. You and I are much akin--we are great; we have the spirit sight; we know that there are things beyond the things we see and hear and feel; whereas, for the rest, they are fools, following the flesh alone. I have spoken.” “Very gladly will I show you my magic, Hokosa,” answered Owen cheerfully, “since, to speak truth, though I know you to be wicked, and guess that you would be glad to be rid of me by fair means or foul; yet I have taken a liking for you, seeing in you one who from a sinner may grow into a saint. “This then is my magic: To love God and serve man; to eschew wizardry, wealth, and power; to seek after holiness, poverty and humility; to deny your flesh, and to make yourself small in the sight of men, that so perchance you may grow great in the sight of Heaven and save your soul alive.” “I have no stomach for that lesson,” said Hokosa. “Yet you shall live to hunger for it,” answered Owen. And the wizard went away angered but wondering. CHAPTER IX THE CRISIS Now, day by day for something over a month Owen preached the Gospel before the king, his councillors, and hundreds of the head men of the nation. They listened to him attentively, debating the new doctrine point by point; for although they might be savages, these people were very keen-witted and subtle. Very patiently did Owen sow, and at length to his infinite joy he also gathered in his first-fruit. One night as he sat in his hut labouring as usual at the work of translation, wherein he was assisted by John whom he had taught to read and write, the Prince Nodwengo entered and greeted him. For a while he sat silent watching the white man at his task, then he said:-- “Messenger, I have a boon to ask of you. Can you teach me to understand those signs which you set upon the paper, and to make them also as does John your servant?” “Certainly,” answered Owen; “if you will come to me at noon to-morrow, we will begin.” The prince thanked him, but he did not go away. Indeed, from his manner Owen guessed that he had something more upon his mind. At length it came out. “Messenger,” he said, “you have told us of baptism whereby we are admitted into the army of your King; say, have you the power of this rite?” “I have.” “And is your servant here baptised?” “He is.” “Then if he who is a common man can be baptised, why may not I who am a prince?” “In baptism,” answered Owen, “there is no distinction between the highest and the lowest; but if you believe, then the door is open and through it you can join the company of Heaven.” “Messenger, I do believe,” answered the prince humbly. Then Owen was very joyful, and that same night, with John for a witness, he baptised the prince, giving him the new name of Constantine, after the first Christian emperor. On the following day Nodwengo, in the presence of Owen, who on this point would suffer no concealment, announced to the king that he had become a Christian. Umsuka heard, and for a while sat silent. Then he said in a troubled voice:-- “Truly, Messenger, in the words of that Book from which you read to us, I fear that you have come hither to bring, ‘not peace but a sword.’ Now when the witch-doctors and the priests of fire learn this, that he whom I have chosen to succeed me has become the servant of another faith, they will stir up the soldiers and there will be civil war. I pray you, therefore, keep the matter secret, at any rate for a while, seeing that the lives of many are at stake.” “In this, my father,” answered the prince, “I must do as the Messenger bids me; but if you desire it, take from me the right of succession and call back my brother from the northern mountains.” “That by poison or the spear he may put all of us to death, Nodwengo! Be not afraid; ere long when he learns all that is happening here, your brother Hafela will come from the northern mountains, and the spears of his _impis_ shall be countless as the stars of the sky. Messenger, you desire to draw us to the arms of your God--and myself, I am at times minded to follow the path of my son Nodwengo and seek a refuge there--but say, will they be strong enough to protect us from Hafela and the warriors of the north? Already he gathers his clans, and already my captains desert to him. By-and-by, in the spring-time--may I be dead before the day--he will roll down upon us like a flood of water----” “To fall back like waters from a wall of rock,” answered Owen. “‘Let not your heart be troubled,’ for my Master can protect His servants, and He will protect you. But first you must confess Him openly, as your son has done.” “Nay, I am too old to hurry,” said the king with a sigh. “Your tale seems full of promise to one who is near the grave; but how can I know that it is more than a dream? And shall I abandon the worship of my fathers and change, or strive to change, the customs of my people to follow after dreams? Nodwengo has chosen his part, and I do not blame him; yet, for the present I beseech you both to keep silence on this matter, lest to save bloodshed I should be driven to side against you.” “So be it, King,” said Owen; “but I warn you that Truth has a loud voice, and that it is hard to hide the shining of a light in a dark place, nor does it please my Lord to be denied by those who confess Him.” “I am weary,” replied the old king, and they saluted him and went. In obedience to the wish of Umsuka his father, the conversion of Nodwengo was kept secret, and yet--none knew how--the thing leaked out. Soon the women in their huts, and the soldiers by their watch-fires, whispered it in each other’s ears that he who was appointed to be their future ruler had become a servant of the unknown God. That he had forsworn war and all the delights of men; that he would take but one wife and appear before the army, not in the uniform of a general, but clad in a white robe, and carry, not the broad spear, but a cross of wood. Swiftly the strange story flew from mouth to mouth, yet it was not altogether believed till it chanced that one day when he was reviewing a regiment, a soldier who was drunk with beer openly insulted the prince, calling him “a coward who worshipped a coward.” Now men held their breaths, waiting to see this fool led away to die by torture of the ant-heap or some other dreadful doom. But the prince only answered: “Soldier, you are drunk, therefore I forgive you your words. Whether He Whom you blaspheme will forgive you, I know not. Get you gone!” The warriors stared and murmured, for by those words, wittingly or unwittingly, their general had confessed his faith, and that day they made ribald songs about him in the camp. But on the morrow when they learned how that the man whom the prince spared had been seized by a lion and taken away as he sat at night with his companions in the bivouac, his mouth full of boasting of his own courage in offering insult to the prince and the new faith, then they looked at each other askance and said little more of the matter. Doubtless it was chance, and yet this Spirit Whom the Messenger preached was one of Whom it seemed wisest not to speak lightly. But still the trouble grew, for by now the witch-doctors, with Hokosa at the head of them, were frightened for their place and power, and fomented it both openly and in secret. Of the women they asked what would become of them when men were allowed to take but one wife? Of the heads of kraals, how they would grow wealthy when their daughters ceased to be worth cattle? Of the councillors and generals, how the land could be protected from its foes when they were commanded to lay down the spear? Of the soldiers, whose only trade was war, how it would please them to till the fields like girls? Dismay took hold of the nation, and although they were much loved, there was open talk of killing or driving away the king and Nodwengo who favoured the white man, and of setting up Hafela in their place. At length the crisis came, and in this fashion. The Amasuka, like many other African tribes, had a strange veneration for certain varieties of snakes which they declared to be possessed by the spirits of their ancestors. It was a law among them that if one of these snakes entered a kraal it must not be killed, or even driven away, under pain of death, but must be allowed to share with the human occupants any hut that it might select. As a result of this enforced hospitality deaths from snake-bite were numerous among the people; but when they happened in a kraal its owners met with little sympathy, for the doctors explained that the real cause of them was the anger of some ancestral spirit towards his descendants. Now, before John was despatched to instruct Owen in the language of the Amasuka a certain girl was sealed to him as his future wife, and this girl, who during his absence had been orphaned, he had married recently with the approval of Owen, who at this time was preparing her for baptism. On the third morning after his marriage John appeared before his master in the last extremity of grief and terror. “Help me, Messenger!” he cried, “for my ancestral spirit has entered our hut and bitten my wife as she lay asleep.” “Are you mad?” asked Owen. “What is an ancestral spirit, and how can it have bitten your wife?” “A snake,” gasped John, “a green snake of the worst sort.” Then Owen remembered the superstition, and snatching blue-stone and spirits of wine from his medicine chest, he rushed to John’s hut. As it happened, he was fortunately in time with his remedies and succeeded in saving the woman’s life, whereby his reputation as a doctor and a magician, already great, was considerably enlarged. “Where is the snake?” he asked when at length she was out of danger. “Yonder, under the kaross,” answered John, pointing to a skin rug which lay in the corner. “Have you killed it?” “No, Messenger,” answered the man, “I dare not. Alas! we must live with the thing here in the hut till it chooses to go away.” “Truly,” said Owen, “I am ashamed to think that you who are a Christian should still believe so horrible a superstition. Does your faith teach you that the souls of men enter into snakes?” Now John hung his head; then snatching a kerry, he threw aside the kaross, revealing a great green serpent seven or eight feet long. With fury he fell upon the reptile, killed it by repeated blows, and hurled it into the courtyard outside the house. “Behold, father,” he said, “and judge whether I am still superstitious.” Then his countenance fell and he added: “Yet my life must pay for this deed, for it is an ancient law among us that to harm one of these snakes is death.” “Have no fear,” said Owen, “a way will be found out of this trouble.” That afternoon Owen heard a great hubbub outside his kraal, and going to see what was the matter, he found a party of the witch-doctors dragging John towards the place of judgment, which was by the king’s house. Thither he followed to discover that the case was already in course of being opened before the king, his council, and a vast audience of the people. Hokosa was the accuser. In brief and pregnant sentences, producing the dead snake in proof of his argument, he pointed out the enormity of the offence against the laws of the Amasuka wherewith the prisoner was charged, demanding that the man who had killed the house of his ancestral spirit should instantly be put to death. “What have you to say?” asked the king of John. “This, O King,” replied John, “that I am a Christian, and to me that snake is nothing but a noxious reptile. It bit my wife, and had it not been for the medicine of the Messenger, she would have perished of the poison. Therefore I killed it before it could harm others.” “It is a fair answer,” said the king. “Hokosa, I think that this man should go free.” “The king’s will is the law,” replied Hokosa bitterly; “but if the law were the king’s will, the decision would be otherwise. This man has slain, not a snake, but that which held the spirit of an ancestor, and for the deed he deserves to die. Hearken, O King, for the business is larger than it seems. How are we to be governed henceforth? Are we to follow our ancient rules and customs, or must we submit ourselves to a new rule and a new custom? I tell you, O King, that the people murmur; they are without light, they wander in the darkness, they cannot understand. Play with us no more, but let us hear the truth that we may judge of this matter.” Umsuka looked at Owen, but made no reply. “I will answer you, Hokosa,” said Owen, “for I am the spring of all this trouble, and at my command that man, my disciple, killed yonder snake. What is it? It is nothing but a reptile; no human spirit ever dwelt within it as you imagine in your superstition. You ask to hear the truth; day by day I have preached it in your ears and you have not listened, though many among you have listened and understood. What is it that you seek?” “We seek, Messenger, to be rid of you, your fantasies and your religion; and we demand that our king should expel you and restore the ancient laws, or failing this, that you should prove your power openly before us all. Your word, O King!” Umsuka thought for a while and answered:-- “This is my word, Hokosa: I will not drive the Messenger from the land, for he is a good man; he saved my life, and there is virtue in his teaching, towards which I myself incline. Yet it is just that he should be asked to prove his power, so that an end may be put to doubt and all of us may learn what god we are to worship.” “How can I prove my power,” asked Owen, “further than I have proved it already? Does Hokosa desire to set up his god against my God--the false against the true?” “I do,” answered the wizard with passion, “and according to the issue let the judgment be. Let us halt no longer between two opinions, let us become wholly Christian or rest wholly heathen, for to be divided is to be destroyed. The magic of the Messenger is great; once and for all let us learn if it is more than our magic. Let us put him and his doctrines to the trial by fire.” “What is the trial by fire?” asked Owen. “You have seen something of it, White Man, but not much. This is the trial by fire: to stand yonder before the face of the god of thunder when a great tempest rages--not such a storm as you saw, but a storm that splits the heavens--and to come thence unscathed. Listen: I who am a ‘heaven-herd,’ I who know the signs of the weather, tell you that within two days such a tempest as this will break upon us. Then White Man, I and my companions will be ready to meet you on the plain. Take the cross by which you swear and set it up yonder and stand by it, and with you your converts, Nodwengo the prince, and this man whom you have named John, if they dare to go. Over against you, around the symbol of the god by which we swear, will stand I and my company, and we will pray our god and you shall pray your God. Then the storm will break upon us, and when it is ended we shall learn which of us remain alive. If you and your cross are shattered, to us will be the victory; if we are laid low, take it for your own. Your judgment, King!” Again Umsuka thought and answered:-- “So be it. Messenger, hear me. There is no need for you to accept this challenge; but if you will not accept it, then go from my country in peace, taking with you those who cleave to you. If on the other hand you do accept it, these shall be the stakes: that if you pass the trial unharmed, and the fire-doctors are swept away, your creed shall be my creed and the creed of the land; but if the fire-doctors prevail against you, then it shall be death or banishment to any who profess that creed. Now choose!” “I have chosen,” said Owen. “I will meet Hokosa and his company on the Place of fire whenever he may appoint, but for the others I cannot say.” “We will come with you,” said Nodwengo and John, with one voice; “where you go, Messenger, we will surely follow.” CHAPTER X THE SECOND TRIAL BY FIRE When this momentous discussion was finished, as usual Owen preached before the king, expounding the Scriptures and taking for his subject the duty of faith. As he went back to his hut he saw that the snake which John had killed had been set upon a pole in that part of the Great Place which served as a market, and that hundreds of natives were gathered beneath it gesticulating and talking excitedly. “See the work of Hokosa,” he thought to himself. “Moses set up a serpent to save the people; yonder wizard sets up one to destroy them.” That evening Owen had no heart for his labours, for his mind was heavy at the prospect of the trial which lay before him. Not that he cared for his own life, for of this he scarcely thought; it was the prospects of his cause which troubled him. It seemed much to expect that Heaven again should throw over him the mantle of its especial protection, and yet if it did not do so there was an end of his mission among the People of Fire. Well, he did not seek this trial--he would have avoided it if he could, but it had been thrust upon him, and he was forced to choose between it and the abandonment of the work which he had undertaken with such high hopes and pushed so far toward success. He did not choose the path, it had been pointed out to him to walk upon; and if it ended in a precipice, at least he would have done his best. As he thought thus John entered the hut, panting. “What is the matter?” Owen asked. “Father, the people saw and pursued me because of the death of that accursed snake. Had I not run fast and escaped them, I think they would have killed me.” “At least you have escaped, John; so be comforted and return thanks.” “Father,” said the man presently, “I know that you are great, and can do many wonderful things, but have you in truth power over lightning?” “Why do you ask?” “Because a great tempest is brewing, and if you have not we shall certainly be killed when we stand yonder on the Place of Fire.” “John,” he said, “I cannot speak to the lightning in a voice which it can hear. I cannot say to it ‘go yonder,’ or ‘come hither,’ but He Who made it can do so. Why do you tempt me with your doubts? Have I not told you the story of Elijah the prophet and the priests of Baal? Did Elijah’s Master forsake him, and shall He forsake us? Also this is certain, that all the medicine of Hokosa and his wizards will not turn a lightning flash by the breadth of a single hair. God alone can turn it, and for the sake of His cause among these people I believe that He will do so.” Thus Owen spoke on till, in reproving the weakness of another, he felt his own faith come back to him and, remembering the past and how he had been preserved in it, the doubt and trouble went out of his mind to return no more. The third day--the day of trial--came. For sixty hours or more the heat of the weather had been intense; indeed, during all that time the thermometer in Owen’s hut, notwithstanding the protection of a thick hatch, had shown the temperature to vary between a maximum of 113 and a minimum of 101 degrees. Now, in the early morning, it stood at 108. “Will the storm break to-day?” asked Owen of Nodwengo, who came to visit him. “They say so, Messenger, and I think it by the feel of the air. If so, it will be a very great storm, for the heaven is full of fire. Already Hokosa and the doctors are at their rites upon the plain yonder, but there will be no need to join them till two hours after midday.” “Is the cross ready?” asked Owen. “Yes, and set up. It is a heavy cross; six men could scarcely carry it. Oh! Messenger, I am not afraid--and yet, have you no medicine? If not, I fear that the lightning will fall upon the cross as it fell upon the pole and then----” “Listen, Nodwengo,” said Owen, “I know a medicine, but I will not use it. You see that waggon chain? Were one end of it buried in the ground and the other with a spear blade made fast to it hung to the top of the cross, we could live out the fiercest storm in safety. But I say that I will not use it. Are we witch doctors that we should take refuge in tricks? No, let faith be our shield, and if it fail us, then let us die. Pray now with me that it may not fail us.” ***** It was afternoon. All round the Field of Fire were gathered thousands upon thousands of the people of the Amasuka. The news of this duel between the God of the white man and their god had travelled far and wide, and even the very aged who could scarcely crawl and the little ones who must be carried were collected there to see the issue. Nor had they need to fear disappointment, for already the sky was half hidden by dense thunder-clouds piled ridge on ridge, and the hush of the coming tempest lay upon the earth. Round about the meteor stone which they called a god, each of them stirring a little gourd of medicine that was placed upon the ground before him, but uttering no word, were gathered Hokosa and his followers to the number of twenty. They were all of them arrayed in their snakeskin dresses and other wizard finery. Also each man held in his hand a wand fashioned from a human thigh-bone. In front of the stone burned a little fire, which now and again Hokosa fed with aromatic leaves, at the same time pouring medicine from his bowl upon the holy stone. Opposite the symbol of the god, but at a good distance from it, a great cross of white wood was set up in the rock by a spot which the witch-doctors themselves had chosen. Upon the banks of the stream, in the place apart, were the king, his councillors and the regiment on guard, and with them Owen, the Prince Nodwengo and John. “The storm will be fierce,” said the king uneasily, glancing at the western sky, upon whose bosom the blue lightnings played with an incessant flicker. Then he bade those about him stand back, and calling Owen and the prince to him, said: “Messenger, my son tells me that your wisdom knows a plan whereby you may be preserved from the fury of the tempest. Use it, I pray of you, Messenger, that your life may be saved, and with it the life of the only son who is left to me.” “I cannot,” answered Owen, “for thus by doubting Him I should tempt my Master. Still, it is not laid upon the prince to accompany through this trial. Let him stay here, and I alone will stand beneath the cross.” “Stay, Nodwengo,” implored the old man. “I did not think to live to hear my father bid me, one of the royal blood of the Amasuka, to desert my captain in the hour of battle and hide myself in the grass like a woman,” answered the prince with a bitter smile. “Nay, it may be that death awaits me yonder, but nothing except death shall keep me back from the venture.” “It is well spoken,” said the king; “be it as you will.” Now the company of wizards, leaving their medicine-pots upon the ground, formed themselves in a treble line, and marching to where the king stood, they saluted him. Then they sang the praises of their god, and in a song that had been prepared, heaped insult upon the God of the white man and upon the messenger who preached Him. To all of this Owen listened in silence. “He is a coward!” cried their spokesman; “he has not a word to say. He skulks there in his white robes behind the majesty of the king. Let him go forth and stand by his piece of wood. He dare not go! He thinks the hillside safer. Come out, little White Man, and we will show you how we manage the lightnings. Ah! they shall fly about you like spears in battle. You shall throw yourself upon the ground and shriek in terror, and then they will lick you up and you shall be no more, and there will be an end of you and the symbol of your God.” “Cease your boastings,” said the king shortly, “and get you back to your place, knowing that if it should chance that the white man conquers you will be called upon to answer for these words.” “We shall be ready, O King,” they cried; and amidst the cheers of the vast audience they marched back to their station, still singing the blasphemous mocking song. Now to the west all the heavens were black as night, though the eastern sky still showed blue and cloudless. Nature lay oppressed with silence--silence intense and unnatural; and so great was the heat that the air danced visibly above the ironstone as it dances about a glowing stove. Suddenly the quietude was broken by a moaning sound of wind; the grass stirred, the leaves of the trees began to shiver, and an icy breath beat upon Owen’s brow. “Let us be going,” he said, and lifting the ivory crucifix above his head, he passed the stream and walked towards the wooden cross. After him came the Prince Nodwengo, wearing his royal dress of leopard skin, and after him, John, arrayed in a linen robe. As the little procession appeared to their view some of the soldiers began to mock, but almost instantly the laughter died away. Rude as they were, these savages understood that here was no occasion for their mirth, that the three men indeed seemed clothed with a curious dignity. Perhaps it was their slow and quiet gait, perhaps a sense of the errand upon which they were bound; or it may have been the strange unearthly light that fell upon them from over the edge of the storm cloud; at the least, as the multitude became aware, their appearance was impressive. They reached the cross and took up their stations there, Owen in front of it, Nodwengo to the right, and John to the left. Now a sharp squall of strong wind swept across the space, and with it came a flaw of rain. It passed by, and the storm that had been muttering and growling in the distance began to burst. The great clouds seemed to grow and swell, and from the breast of them swift lightnings leapt, to be met by other lightnings rushing upwards from the earth. The air was filled with a tumult of uncertain wind and a hiss as of distant rain. Then the batteries of thunder were opened, and the world shook with their volume. Down from on high the flashes fell blinding and incessant, and by the light of them the fire-doctors could be seen running to and fro, pointing now here and now there with their wands of human bones, and pouring the medicines from their gourds upon the ground and upon each other. Owen and his two companions could be seen also, standing quietly with clasped hands, while above them towered the tall white cross. At length the storm was straight over head. Slowly it advanced in its awe-inspiring might as flash after flash, each more fantastic and horrible than the last, smote upon the floor of ironstone. It played about the shapes of the doctors, who in the midst of it looked like devils in an inferno. It crept onwards towards the station of the cross, but--_it never reached the cross_. One flash struck indeed within fifty paces of where Owen stood. Then of a sudden a marvel happened, or something which to this day the People of Fire talk of as a marvel, for in an instant the rain began to pour like a wall of water stretching from earth to heaven, and the wind changed. It had been blowing from the west, now it blew from the east with the force of a gale. It blew and rolled the tempest back upon itself, causing it to return to the regions whence it had gathered. At the very foot of the cross its march was stayed; there was the water-line, as straight as if it had been drawn with a rule. The thunder-clouds that were pressed forward met the clouds that were pressed back, and together they seemed to come to earth, filling the air with a gloom so dense that the eye could not pierce it. To the west was a wall of blackness towering to the heavens; to the east, light, blue and unholy, gleamed upon the white cross and the figures of its watchers. For some seconds--twenty or more--there was a lull, and then it seemed as though all hell had broken loose upon the world. The wall of blackness became a wall of flame, in which strange and ardent shapes appeared ascending and descending; the thunder bellowed till the mountains rocked, and in one last blaze, awful and indescribable, the skies melted into a deluge of fire. In the flare of it Owen thought that he saw the figures of men falling this way and that, then he staggered against the cross for support and his senses failed him. ***** When they returned again, he perceived the storm being drawn back from the face of the pale earth like a pall from the face of the dead, and he heard a murmur of fear and wonder rising from ten thousand throats. ***** Well might they fear and wonder, for of the twenty and one wizards eleven were dead, four were paralysed by shock, five were flying in their terror, and one, Hokosa himself, stood staring at the fallen, a very picture of despair. Nor was this all, for the meteor stone with a human shape which for generations the People of Fire had worshipped as a god, lay upon the plain in fused and shattered fragments. The people saw, and a sound as of a hollow groan of terror went up from them. Then they were silent. For a while Owen and his companions were silent also, since their hearts were too full for speech. Then he said:-- “As the snake fell harmless from the hand of Paul, so has the lightning turned back from me, who strive to follow in his footsteps, working death and dismay among those who would have harmed us. May forgiveness be theirs who were without understanding. Brethren, let us return and make report to the king.” Now, as they had come, so they went back; first Owen with the crucifix, next to him Nodwengo, and last of the three John. They drew near to the king, when suddenly, moved by a common impulse, the thousands of the people upon the banks of the stream with one accord threw themselves upon their knees before Owen, calling him God and offering him worship. Infected by the contagion, Umsuka, his guard and his councillors followed their example, so that of all the multitude Hokosa alone remained upon his feet, standing by his dishonoured and riven deity. “Rise!” cried Owen aghast. “Would you do sacrilege, and offer worship to a man? Rise, I command you!” Then the king rose, saying:-- “You are no man, Messenger, you are a spirit.” “He is a spirit,” repeated the multitude after him. “I am _not_ a spirit, I am yet a man,” cried Owen again, “but the Spirit Whom I serve has made His power manifest in me His servant, and your idols are smitten with the sword of His power, O ye Sons of Fire! Hokosa still lives, let him be brought hither.” They fetched Hokosa, and he stood before them. “You have seen, Wizard,” said the king. “What have you to say?” “Nothing,” answered Hokosa, “save that victory is to the Cross, and to the white man who preaches it, for his magic is greater than our magic. By his command the tempest was stayed, and the boasts we hurled fell back upon our heads and the head of our god to destroy us.” “Yes,” said the king, “victory is to the Cross, and henceforth the Cross shall be worshipped in this land, or at least no other god shall be worshipped. Let us be going. Come with me, Messenger, Lord of the Lightning.” CHAPTER XI THE WISDOM OF THE DEAD On the morrow Owen baptised the king, many of his councillors, and some twenty others whom he considered fit to receive the rite. Also he despatched his first convert John, with other messengers, on a three months’ journey to the coast, giving them letters acquainting the bishop and others with his marvellous success, and praying that missionaries might be sent to assist him in his labours. Now day by day the Church grew till it numbered hundreds of souls, and thousands more hovered on its threshold. From dawn to dark Owen toiled, preaching, exhorting, confessing, gathering in his harvest; and from dark to midnight he pored over his translation of the Scriptures, teaching Nodwengo and a few others how to read and write them. But although his efforts were crowned with so signal and extraordinary a triumph, he was well aware of the dangers that threatened the life of the infant Church. Many accepted it indeed, and still more tolerated it; but there remained multitudes who regarded the new religion with suspicion and veiled hatred. Nor was this strange, seeing that the hearts of men are not changed in an hour or their ancient customs easily overset. On one point, indeed, Owen had to give way. The Amasuka were a polygamous people; all their law and traditions were interwoven with polygamy, and to abolish that institution suddenly and with violence would have brought their social fabric to the ground. Now, as he knew well, the missionary Church declares in effect that no man can be both a Christian and a polygamist; therefore among the followers of that custom the missionary Church makes but little progress. Not without many qualms and hesitations, Owen, having only the Scriptures to consult, came to a compromise with his converts. If a man already married to more than one wife wished to become a Christian, he permitted him to do so upon the condition that he took no more wives; while a man unmarried at the time of his conversion might take one wife only. This decree, liberal as it was, caused great dissatisfaction among both men and women. But it was as nothing compared to the feeling that was evoked by Owen’s preaching against all war not undertaken in self-defence, and against the strict laws which he prevailed upon the king to pass, suppressing the practice of wizardry, and declaring the chief or doctor who caused a man to be “smelt out” and killed upon charges of witchcraft to be guilty of murder. At first whenever Owen went abroad he was surrounded by thousands of people who followed him in the expectation that he would work miracles, which, after his exploits with the lightning, they were well persuaded that he could do if he chose. But he worked no more miracles; he only preached to them a doctrine adverse to their customs and foreign to their thoughts. So it came about that in time, when the novelty was gone off and the story of his victory over the Fire-god had grown stale, although the work of conversion went on steadily, many of the people grew weary of the white man and his doctrines. Soon this weariness found expression in various ways, and in none more markedly than by the constant desertions from the ranks of the king’s regiments. At first, by Owen’s advice, the king tolerated these desertions; but at length, having obtained information that an entire regiment purposed absconding at dawn, he caused it to be surrounded and seized by night. Next morning he addressed that regiment, saying:-- “Soldiers, you think that because I have become a Christian and will not permit unnecessary bloodshed, I am also become a fool. I will teach you otherwise. One man in every twenty of you shall be killed, and henceforth any soldier who attempts to desert will be killed also!” The order was carried out, for Owen could not find a word to say against it, with the result that desertions almost ceased, though not before the king had lost some eight or nine thousand of his best soldiers. Worst of all, these soldiers had gone to join Hafela in his mountain fastnesses; and the rumour grew that ere long they would appear again, to claim the crown for him or to take it by force of arms. Now too a fresh complication arose. The old king sickened of his last illness, and soon it became known that he must die. A month later die he did, passing away peacefully in Owen’s arms, and with his last breath exhorting his people to cling to the Christian religion; to take Nodwengo for their king and to be faithful to him. The king died, and that same day was buried by Owen in the gloomy resting-place of the blood-royal of the People of Fire, where a Christian priest now set foot for the first time. On the morrow Nodwengo was proclaimed king with much ceremony in face of the people and of all the army that remained to him. One captain raised a cry for Hafela his brother. Nodwengo caused him to be seized and brought before him. “Man,” he said, “on this my coronation day I will not stain my hand with blood. Listen. You cry upon Hafela, and to Hafela you shall go, taking him this message. Tell him that I, Nodwengo, have succeeded to the crown of Umsuka, my father, by his will and the will of the people. Tell him it is true that I have become a Christian, and that Christians follow not after war but peace. Tell him, however, that though I am a Christian I have not forgotten how to fight or how to rule. It has reached my ears that it is his purpose to attack me with a great force which he is gathering, and to possess himself of my throne. If he should choose to come, I shall be ready to meet him; but I counsel him against coming, for it will be to find his death. Let him stay where he is in peace, and be my subject; or let him go afar with those that cleave to him, and set up a kingdom of his own, for then I shall not follow him; but let him not dare to lift a spear against me, his sovereign, since if he does so he shall be treated as a rebel and find the doom of a rebel. Begone, and show your face here no more!” The man crept away crestfallen; but all who heard that speech broke into cheering, which, as its purport was repeated from rank to rank, spread far and wide; for now the army learned that in becoming a Christian, Nodwengo had not become a woman. Of this indeed he soon gave them ample proof. The old king’s grip upon things had been lax, that of Nodwengo was like iron. He practised no cruelties, and did injustice to none; but his discipline was severe, and soon the regiments were brought to a greater pitch of proficiency than they had ever reached before, although they were now allowed to marry when they pleased, a boon that hitherto had been denied to them. Moreover, by Owen’s help, he designed an entirely new system of fortification of the kraal and surrounding hills, which would, it was thought, make the place impregnable. These and many other acts, equally vigorous and far-seeing, put new heart into the nation. Also the report of them put fear into Hafela, who, it was rumoured, had now given up all idea of attack. Some there were, however, who looked upon these changes with little love, and Hokosa was one of them. After his defeat in the duel by fire, for a while his spirit was crushed. Hitherto he had more or less been a believer in the protecting influence of his own god or fetish, who would, as he thought, hold his priests scatheless from the lightning. Often and often had he stood in past days upon that plain while the great tempests broke around his head, and returned thence unharmed, attributing to sorcery a safety that was really due to chance. From time to time indeed a priest was killed; but, so his companions held, the misfortune resulted invariably from the man’s neglect of some rite, or was a mark of the anger of the heavens. Now Hokosa had lived to see all these convictions shattered: he had seen the lightning, which he pretended to be able to control, roll back upon him from the foot of the Christian cross, reducing his god to nothingness and his companions to corpses. At first Hokosa was dismayed, but as time went on hope came back to him. Stripped of his offices and power, and from the greatest in the nation, after the king, become one of small account, still no harm or violence was attempted towards him. He was left wealthy and in peace, and living thus he watched and listened with open eyes and ears, waiting till the tide should turn. It seemed that he would not have long to wait, for reasons that have been told. “Why do you sit here like a vulture on a rock,” asked the girl Noma, whom he had taken to wife, “when you might be yonder with Hafela, preparing him by your wisdom for the coming war?” “Because I am a king-vulture, and I wait for the sick bull to die,” he answered, pointing to the Great Place beneath him. “Say, why should I bring Hafela to prey upon a carcase I have marked down for my own?” “Now you speak well,” said Noma; “the bull suffers from a strange disease, and when he is dead another must lead the herd.” “That is so,” answered her husband, “and, therefore, I am patient.” It was shortly after this conversation that the old king died, with results very different from those which Hokosa had anticipated. Although he was a Christian, to his surprise Nodwengo showed that he was also a strong ruler, and that there was little chance of the sceptre slipping from his hand--none indeed while the white teacher was there to guide him. “What will you do now, Hokosa?” asked Noma his wife upon a certain day. “Will you turn to Hafela after all?” “No,” answered Hokosa; “I will consult my ancient lore. Listen. Whatever else is false, this is true: that magic exists, and I am its master. For a while it seemed to me that the white man was greater at the art than I am; but of late I have watched him and listened to his doctrines, and I believe that this is not so. It is true that in the beginning he read my plans in a dream, or otherwise; it is true that he hurled the lightning back upon my head; but I hold that these things were accidents. Again and again he has told us that he is not a wizard; and if this be so, he can be overcome.” “How, husband?” “How? By wizardry. This very night, Noma, with your help I will consult the dead, as I have done in bygone time, and learn the future from their lips which cannot lie.” “So be it; though the task is hateful to me, and I hate you who force me to it.” Noma answered thus with passion, but her eyes shone as she spoke: for those who have once tasted the cup of magic are ever drawn to drink of it again, even when they fear the draught. **** It was midnight, and Hokosa with his wife stood in the burying-ground of the kings of the Amasuka. Before Owen came upon his mission it was death to visit this spot except upon the occasion of the laying to rest of one of the royal blood, or to offer the annual sacrifice to the spirits of the dead. Even beneath the bright moon that shone upon it the place seemed terrible. Here in the bosom of the hills was an amphitheatre, surrounded by walls of rock varying from five hundred to a thousand feet in height. In this amphitheatre grew great mimosa thorns, and above them towered pillars of granite, set there not by the hand of man but by nature. It would seem that the Amasuka, led by some fine instinct, had chosen these columns as fitting memorials of their kings, at the least a departed monarch lay at the foot of each of them. The smallest of these unhewn obelisks--it was about fifty feet high--marked the resting-place of Umsuka; and deep into its granite Owen with his own hand had cut the dead king’s name and date of death, surmounting his inscription with a symbol of the cross. Towards this pillar Hokosa made his way through the wet grass, followed by Noma his wife. Presently they were there, standing one upon each side of a little mound of earth more like an ant-heap than a grave; for, after the custom of his people, Umsuka had been buried sitting. At the foot of each of the pillars rose a heap of similar shape, but many times as large. The kings who slept there were accompanied to their resting-places by numbers of their wives and servants, who had been slain in solemn sacrifice that they might attend their Lord whithersoever he should wander. “What is that you desire and would do?” asked Noma, in a hushed voice. Bold as she was, the place and the occasion awed her. “I desire wisdom from the dead!” he answered. “Have I not already told you, and can I not win it with your help?” “What dead, husband?” “Umsuka the king. Ah! I served him living, and at the last he drove me away from his side. Now he shall serve me, and out of the nowhere I will call him back to mine.” “Will not this symbol defeat you?” and Noma pointed at the cross hewn in the granite. At her words a sudden gust of rage seemed to shake the wizard. His still eyes flashed, his lips turned livid, and with them he spat upon the cross. “It has no power,” he said. “May it be accursed, and may he who believes therein hang thereon! It has no power; but even if it had, according to the tale of that white liar, such things as I would do have been done beneath its shadow. By it the dead have been raised--ay! dead kings have been dragged from death and forced to tell the secrets of the grave. Come, come, let us to the work.” “What must I do, husband?” “You shall sit you there, even as a corpse sits, and there for a little while you shall die--yes, your spirit shall leave you--and I will fill your body with the soul of him who sleeps beneath; and through your lips I will learn his wisdom, to whom all things are known.” “It is terrible! I am afraid!” she said. “Cannot this be done otherwise?” “It cannot,” he answered. “The spirits of the dead have no shape or form; they are invisible, and can speak only in dreams or through the lips of one in whose pulses life still lingers, though soul and body be already parted. Have no fear. Ere his ghost leaves you it shall recall your own, which till the corpse is cold stays ever close at hand. I did not think to find a coward in you, Noma.” “I am not a coward, as you know well,” she answered passionately, “for many a deed of magic have we dared together in past days. But this is fearsome, to die that my body may become the home of the ghost of a dead man, who perchance, having entered it, will abide there, leaving my spirit houseless, or perchance will shut up the doors of my heart in such fashion that they never can be opened. Can it not be done by trance as aforetime? Tell me, Hokosa, how often have you thus talked with the dead?” “Thrice, Noma.” “And what chanced to them through whom you talked?” “Two lived and took no harm; the third died, because the awakening medicine lacked power. Yet fear nothing; that which I have with me is of the best. Noma, you know my plight: I must win wisdom or fall for ever, and you alone can help me; for under this new rule, I can no longer buy a youth or maid for purposes of witchcraft, even if one could be found fitted to the work. Choose then: shall we go back or forward? Here trance will not help us; for those entranced cannot read the future, nor can they hold communion with the dead, being but asleep. Choose, Noma.” “I have chosen,” she answered. “Never yet have I turned my back upon a venture, nor will I do so now. Come life, come death, I will submit me to your wish, though there are few women who would dare as much for any man. Nor in truth do I do this for you, Hokosa; I do it because I seek power, and thus only can we win it who are fallen. Also I love all things strange, and desire to commune with the dead and to know that, if for some few minutes only, at least my woman’s breast has held the spirit of a king. Yet, I warn you, make no fault in your magic; for should I die beneath it, then I, who desire to live on and to be great, will haunt you and be avenged upon you!” “Oh! Noma,” he said, “if I believed that there was any danger for you, should I ask you to suffer this thing?--I, who love you more even than you love power, more than my life, more than anything that is or ever can be.” “I know it, and it is to that I trust,” the woman answered. “Now begin, before my courage leaves me.” “Good,” he said. “Seat yourself there upon the mound, resting your head against the stone.” She obeyed; and taking thongs of hide which he had made ready, Hokosa bound her wrists and ankles, as these people bind the wrists and ankles of corpses. Then he knelt before her, staring into her face with his solemn eyes and muttering: “Obey and sleep.” Presently her limbs relaxed, and her head fell forward. “Do you sleep?” he asked. “I sleep. Whither shall I go? It is the true sleep--test me.” “Pass to the house of the white man, my rival. Are you with him?” “I am with him.” “What does he?” “He lies in slumber on his bed, and in his slumber he mutters the name of a woman, and tells her that he loves her, but that duty is more than love. Oh! call me back I cannot stay; a Presence guards him, and thrusts me thence.” “Return,” said Hokosa starting. “Pass through the earth beneath you and tell me what you see.” “I see the body of the king; but were it not for his royal ornaments none would know him now.” “Return,” said Hokosa, “and let the eyes of your spirit be open. Look around you and tell me what you see.” “I see the shadows of the dead,” she answered; “they stand about you, gazing at you with angry eyes; but when they come near you, something drives them back, and I cannot understand what it is they say.” “Is the ghost of Umsuka among them?” “It is among them.” “Bid him prophesy the future to me.” “I have bidden him, but he does not answer. If you would hear him speak, it must be through the lips of my body; and first my body must be emptied of my ghost, that his may find a place therein.” “Say, can his spirit be compelled?” “It can be compelled, or that part of it which still hover near this spot, if you dare to speak the words you know. But first its house must be made ready. Then the words must be spoken, and all must be done before a man can count three hundred; for should the blood begin to clot about my heart, it will be still for ever.” “Hearken,” said Hokosa. “When the medicine that I shall give does its work, and the spirit is loosened from your body, let it not go afar, no, whatever tempts or threatens it, and suffer not that the death-cord be severed, lest flesh and ghost be parted for ever.” “I hear, and I obey. Be swift, for I grow weary.” Then Hokosa took from his pouch two medicines: one a paste in a box, the other a fluid in a gourd. Taking of the paste he knelt upon the grave before the entranced woman and swiftly smeared it upon the mucous membrane of the mouth and throat. Also he thrust pellets of it into the ears, the nostrils, and the corners of the eyes. The effect was almost instantaneous. A change came over the girl’s lovely face, the last awful change of death. Her cheeks fell in, her chin dropped, her eyes opened, and her flesh quivered convulsively. The wizard saw it all by the bright moonlight. Then he took up his part in this unholy drama. All that he did cannot be described, because it is indescribable. The Witch of Endor repeated no formula, but she raised the dead; and so did Hokosa the wizard. But he buried his face in the grey dust of the grave, he blew with his lips into the dust, he clutched at the dust with his hands, and when he raised his face again, lo! it was grey like the dust. Now began the marvel; for, though the woman before him remained a corpse, from the lips of that corpse a voice issued, and its sound was horrible, for the accent and tone of it were masculine, and the instrument through which it spoke--Noma’s throat--was feminine. Yet it could be recognised as the voice of Umsuka the dead king. “Why have you summoned me from my rest, Hokosa?” muttered the voice from the lips of the huddled corpse. “Because I would learn the future, Spirit of the king,” answered the wizard boldly, but saluting as he spoke. “You are dead, and to your sight all the Gates are opened. By the power that I have, I command you to show me what you see therein concerning myself, and to point out to me the path that I should follow to attain my ends and the ends of her in whose breast you dwell.” At once the answer came, always in the same horrible voice:-- “Hearken to your fate for this world, Hokosa the wizard. You shall triumph over your rival, the white man, the messenger; and by your hand he shall perish, passing to his appointed place where you must meet again. By that to which you cling you shall be betrayed, ah! you shall lose that which you love and follow after that which you do not desire. In the grave of error you shall find truth, from the deeps of sin you shall pluck righteousness. When these words fall upon your ears again, then, Wizard, take them for a sign and let your heart be turned. That which you deem accursed shall lift you up on high. High shall you be set above the nation and its king, and from age to age the voice of the people shall praise you. Yet in the end comes judgment; and there shall the sin and the atonement strive together, and in that hour, Wizard, you shall----” Thus the voice spoke, strongly at first, but growing ever more feeble as the sparks of life departed from the body of the woman, till at length it ceased altogether. “What shall chance to me in that hour?” Hokosa asked eagerly, placing his ears against Noma’s lips. No answer came; and the wizard knew that if he would drag his wife back from the door of death he must delay no longer. Dashing the sweat from his eyes with one hand, with the other he seized the gourd of fluid that he had placed ready, and thrusting back her head, he poured of its contents down her throat and waited a while. She did not move. In an extremity of terror he snatched a knife, and with a single cut severed a vein in her arm, then taking some of the fluid that remained in the gourd in his hand, he rubbed it roughly upon her brow and throat and heart. Now Noma’s fingers stirred, and now, with horrible contortions and every symptom of agony, life returned to her. The blood flowed from her wounded arm, slowly at first, then more fast, and lifting her head she spoke. “Take me hence,” she cried, “or I shall go mad; for I have seen and heard things too terrible to be spoken!” “What have you seen and heard?” he asked, while he cut the thongs which bound her wrists and feet. “I do not know,” Noma answered weeping; “the vision of them passes from me; but all the distances of death were open to my sight; yes, I travelled through the distances of death. In them I met him who was the king, and he lay cold within me, speaking to my heart; and as he passed from me he looked upon the child which I shall bear and cursed it, and surely accursed it shall be. Take me hence, O you most evil man, for of your magic I have had enough, and from this day forth I am haunted!” “Have no fear,” answered Hokosa; “you have made the journey whence but few return; and yet, as I promised you, you have returned to wear the greatness you desire and that I sent you forth to win; for henceforth we shall be great. Look, the dawn is breaking--the dawn of life and the dawn of power--and the mists of death and of disgrace roll back before us. Now the path is clear, the dead have shown it to me, and of wizardry I shall need no more.” “Ay!” answered Noma, “but night follows dawn as the dawn follows night; and through the darkness and the daylight, I tell you, Wizard, henceforth I am haunted! Also, be not so sure, for though I know not what the dead have spoken to you, yet it lingers on my mind that their words have many meanings. Nay, speak to me no more, but let us fly from this dread home of ghosts, this habitation of the spirit-folk which we have violated.” So the wizard and his wife crept from that solemn place, and as they went they saw the dawn-beams lighting upon the white cross that was reared in the Plain of Fire. CHAPTER XII THE MESSAGE OF HOKOSA The weeks passed by, and Hokosa sat in his kraal weaving a great plot. None suspected him any more, for though he did not belong to it, he was heard to speak well of the new faith, and to acknowledge that the god of fire which he had worshipped was a false god. He was humble also towards the king, but he craved to withdraw himself from all matters of the State, saying that now he had but one desire--to tend his herds and garden, and to grow old in peace with the new wife whom he had chosen and whom he loved. Owen, too, he greeted courteously when he met him, sending him gifts of corn and cattle for the service of his church. Moreover, when a messenger came from Hafela, making proposals to him, he drove him away and laid the matter before the council of the king. Yet that messenger, who was hunted from the kraal, took back a secret word for Hafela’s ear. “It is not always winter,” was the word, “and it may chance that in the springtime you shall hear from me.” And again, “Say to the Prince Hafela, that though my face towards him is like a storm, yet behind the clouds the sun shines ever.” At length there came a day when Noma, his wife, was brought to bed. Hokosa, her husband, tended her alone, and when the child was born he groaned aloud and would not suffer her to look upon its face. Yet, lifting herself, she saw. “Did I not tell you it was accursed?” she wailed. “Take it away!” and she sank back in a swoon. So he took the child, and buried it deep in the cattle-yard by night. After this it came about that Noma, who, though her mind owned the sway of his, had never loved him over much, hated her husband Hokosa. Yet he had this power over her that she could not leave him. But he loved her more and more, and she had this power over him that she could always draw him to her. Great as her beauty had ever been, after the birth of the child it grew greater day by day, but it was an evil beauty, the beauty of a witch; and this fate fell upon her, that she feared the dark and would never be alone after the sun had set. When she was recovered from her illness, Noma sat one night in her hut, and Hokosa sat there also watching her. The evening was warm, but a bright fire burned in the hut, and she crouched upon a stool by the fire, glancing continually over her shoulder. “Why do you bide by the fire, seeing that it is so hot, Noma?” he asked. “Because I fear to be away from the light,” she answered; adding, “Oh, accursed man! for your own ends you have caused me to be bewitched, ah! and that which was born of me also, and bewitched I am by those shadows that you bade me seek, which now will never leave me. Nor, is this all. You swore to me that if I would do your will I should become great, ay! and you took me from one who would have made me great and whom I should have pushed on to victory. But now it seems that for nothing I made that awful voyage into the deeps of death; and for nothing, yet living, am I become the sport of those that dwell there. How am I greater than I was--I who am but the second wife of a fallen witch-doctor, who sits in the sun, day by day, while age gathers on his head like frost upon a bush? Where are all your high schemes now? Where is the fruit of wisdom that I gathered for you? Answer, Wizard, whom I have learned to hate, but from whom I cannot escape!” “Truly,” said Hokosa in a bitter voice, “for all my sins against them the heavens have laid a heavy fate upon my head, that thus with flesh and spirit I should worship a woman who loathes me. One comfort only is left to me, that you dare not take my life lest another should be added to those shadows who companion you, and what I bid you, that you must still do. Ay, you fear the dark, Noma; yet did I command you to rise and go stand alone through the long night yonder in the burying-place of kings, why, you must obey. Come, I command you--go!” “Nay, nay!” she wailed in an extremity of terror. Yet she rose and went towards the door sideways, for her hands were outstretched in supplication to him. “Come back,” he said, “and listen: If a hunter has nurtured up a fierce dog, wherewith alone he can gain his livelihood, he tries to tame that dog by love, does he not? And if it will not become gentle, then, the brute being necessary to him, he tames it by fear. I am the hunter and, Noma, you are the hound; and since this curse is on me that I cannot live without you, why I must master you as best I may. Yet, believe me, I would not cause you fear or pain, and it saddens me that you should be haunted by these sick fancies, for they are nothing more. I have seen such cases before to-day, and I have noted that they can be cured by mixing with fresh faces and travelling in new countries. Noma, I think it would be well that, after your late sickness, according to the custom of the women of our people, you should part from me a while, and go upon a journey of purification.” “Whither shall I go and who will go with me?” she asked sullenly. “I will find you companions, women discreet and skilled. And as to where you shall go, I will tell you. You shall go upon an embassy to the Prince Hafela.” “Are you not afraid that I should stop there?” she asked again, with a flash of her eyes. “It is true that I never learned all the story, yet I thought that the prince was not so glad to hand me back to you as you would have had me to believe. The price you paid for me must have been good, Hokosa, and mayhap it had to do with the death of a king.” “I am not afraid,” he answered, setting his teeth, “because I know that whatever your heart may desire, my will follows you, and while I live that is a cord you cannot break unless I choose to loose it, Noma. I command you to be faithful to me and to return to me, and these commands you must obey. Hearken: you taunted me just now, saying that I sat like a dotard in the sun and advanced you nothing. Well, I will advance you, for both our sakes, but mostly for your own, since you desire it, and it must be done through the Prince Hafela. I cannot leave this kraal, for day and night I am watched, and before I had gone an hour’s journey I should be seized; also here I have work to do. But the Place of Purification is secret, and when you reach it you need not bide there, you can travel on into the mountains till you come to the town of the Prince Hafela. He will receive you gladly, and you shall whisper this message in his ear:-- “‘These are the words of Hokosa, my husband, which he has set in my mouth to deliver to you, O Prince. Be guided by them and grow great; reject them and die a wanderer, a little man of no account. But first, this is the price that you shall swear by the sacred oath to pay to Hokosa, if his wisdom finds favour in your sight and through it you come to victory: That after you, the king, he, Hokosa, shall be the first man in our land, the general of the armies, the captain of the council, the head of the doctors, and that to him shall be given half the cattle of Nodwengo, who now is king. Also to him shall be given power to stamp out the new faith which overruns the land like a foreign weed, and to deal as he thinks fit with those who cling thereto.’ “Now, Noma, when he has sworn this oath in your ear, calling down ruin upon his own head, should he break one word of it, and not before, you shall continue the message thus: ‘These are the other words that Hokosa set in my mouth: “Know, O Prince, that the king, your brother, grows very strong, for he is a great soldier, who learned his art in bygone wars; also the white man that is named Messenger has taught him many things as to the building of forts and walls and the drilling and discipline of men. So strong is he that you can scarcely hope to conquer him in open war--yet snakes may crawl where men cannot walk. Therefore, Prince, let your part be that of a snake. Do you send an embassy to the king, your brother and say to him:-- “‘My brother, you have been preferred before me and set up to be king in my place, and because of this my heart is bitter, so bitter that I have gathered my strength to make war upon you. Yet, at the last, I have taken another council, bethinking me that, if we fight, in the end it may chance that neither of us will be left alive to rule, and that the people also will be brought to nothing. To the north there lies a good country and a wide, where but few men live, and thither I would go, setting the mountains and the river between us; for there, far beyond your borders, I also can be a king. Now, to reach this country, I must travel by the pass that is not far from your Great Place, and I pray you that you will not attack my _impis_ or the women and children that I shall send, and a guard before them, to await me in the plain beyond the mountains, seeing that these can only journey slowly. Let us pass by in peace, my brother, for so shall our quarrel be ended; but if you do so much as lift a single spear against me, then I will give you battle, setting my fortune against your fortune and my god against your God!’ “Such are the words that the embassy shall deliver into the ears of the king, Nodwengo, and it shall come about that when he hears them, Nodwengo, whose heart is gentle and who seeks not war, shall answer softly, saying:-- “‘Go in peace, my brother, and live in peace in that land which you would win.’ “Then shall you, Hafela, send on the most of your cattle and the women and the children through that pass in the mountains, bidding them to await you in the plain, and after a while you shall follow them with your _impis_. But these shall not travel in war array, for carriers must bear their fighting shields in bundles and their stabbing spears shall be rolled up in mats. Now, on the sixth day of your journey you shall camp at the mouth of the pass which the cattle and the women have already travelled, and his outposts and spies will bring it to the ears of the king that your force is sleeping there, purposing to climb the pass on the morrow. “But on that night, so soon as the darkness falls, you must rise up with your captains and your regiments, leaving your fires burning and men about your fires, and shall travel very swiftly across the valley, so that an hour before the dawn you reach the second range of mountains, and pass it by the gorge which is the burying-place of kings. Here you shall light a fire, which those who watch will believe to be but the fire of a herdsman who is acold. But I, Hokosa, also shall be watching, and when I see that fire I will creep, with some whom I can trust, to the little northern gate of the outer wall, and we will spear those that guard it and open the gate, that your army may pass through. Then, before the regiments can stand to their arms or those within it are awakened, you must storm the inner walls and by the light of the burning huts, put the dwellers in the Great Place to the spear, and the rays of the rising sun shall crown you king. “Follow this counsel of mine, O Prince Hafela, and all will go well with you. Neglect it and be lost. There is but one thing which you need fear--it is the magic of the Messenger, to whom it is given to read the secret thoughts of men. But of him take no account, for he is my charge, and before ever you set a foot within the Great Place he shall have taken his answer back to Him Who sent him.” Hokosa finished speaking. “Have you heard?” he said to Noma. “I have heard.” “Then speak the message.” She repeated it word for word, making no fault. “Have no fear,” she added, “I shall forget nothing when I stand before the prince.” “You are a woman, but your counsel is good. What think you of the plan, Noma?” “It is deep and well laid,” she answered, “and surely it would succeed were it not for one thing. The white man, Messenger, will be too clever for you, for as you say, he is a reader of the thoughts of men.” “Can the dead read men’s thoughts, or if they can, do they cry them on the market-place or into the ears of kings?” asked Hokosa. “Have I not told you that, before I see the signal-fire yonder, the Messenger shall sleep sound? I have a medicine, Noma, a slow medicine that none can trace.” “The Messenger may sleep sound, Hokosa, and yet perchance he may pass on his message to another and, with it, his magic. Who can say? Still, husband, strike on for power and greatness and revenge, letting the blow fall where it will.” CHAPTER XIII THE BASKET OF FRUIT Three days later it was announced that according to the custom of the women of the People of Fire, Noma having given birth to a still-born child, was about to start upon a journey to the Mount of Purification. Here she would abide awhile and make sacrifice to the spirits of her ancestors, that they might cease to be angry with her and in future protect her from such misfortunes. This not unusual domestic incident excited little comment, although it was remarked that the four matrons by whom she was to be accompanied, in accordance with the tribal etiquette, were all of them the wives of soldiers who had deserted to Hafela. Indeed, the king himself noticed as much when Hokosa made the customary formal application to him to sanction the expedition. “So be it,” he said, “though myself I have lost faith in such rites. Also, Hokosa, I think it likely that although your wife goes out with company, she will return alone.” “Why, King?” asked Hokosa. “For this reason--that those who travel with her have husbands yonder at the town of the Prince Hafela, and the Mount of Purification is on the road thither. Having gone so far, they may go farther. Well, let them go, for I desire to have none among my people whose hearts turn otherwhere, and it would not be wonderful if they should choose to seek their lords. But perchance, Hokosa, there are some in this town who may use them as messengers to the prince”--and he looked at him keenly. “I think not, King,” said Hokosa. “None but a fool would make use of women to carry secret words or tidings. Their tongues are too long and their memories too bad, or too uncertain.” “Yet I have heard, Hokosa, that you have made use of women in many a strange work. Say now, what were you doing upon a night a while ago with that fair witch-wife if yours yonder in the burying-place of kings, where it is not lawful that you should set your foot? Nay, deny it not. You were seen to enter the valley after midnight and to return thence at the dawn, and it was seen also that as she came homewards your wife walked as one who is drunken, and she, whom it is not easy to frighten, wore a face of fear. Man, I do not trust you, and were I wise I should hunt you hence, or keep you so close that you could scarcely move without my knowledge. “Why should I trust you?” Nodwengo went on vehemently. “Can a wizard cease from wizardry, or a plotter from his plots? No, not until the waters run upward and the sun shines at night; not until repentance touches you and your heart is changed, which I should hold as much a marvel. You were my father’s friend and he made you great; yet you could plan with my brother to poison him, your king. Nay, be silent; I know it, though I have said nothing of it because one that is dear to me has interceded for you. You were the priest of the false god, and with that god are fallen from your place, yet you have not renounced him. You sit still in your kraal and pretend to be asleep, but your slumber is that of the serpent which watches his time to strike. How do I know that you will not poison me as you would have poisoned my father, or stir up rebellion against me, or bring my brother’s _impis_ on my head?” “If the King thinks any of these things of his servant,” answered Hokosa in a humble voice, but with dignity, “his path is plain: let him put me to death and sleep in peace. Who am I that I should full the ears of a king with my defence against these charges, or dare to wrangle with him?” “Long ago I should have put you to death, Hokosa,” answered Nodwengo sternly, “had it not been that one has pleaded for you, declaring that in you there is good which will overcome the evil, and that you who now are an axe to cut down my throne, in time to come shall be a roof-tree for its support. Also, the law that I obey does not allow me to take the blood of men save upon full proof, and against you as yet I have no proof. Still, Hokosa, be warned in time and let your heart be turned before the grave claims your body and the Wicked One your soul.” “I thank you, King, for your gentle words and your tender care for my well-being both on earth and after I shall leave it. But I tell you, King, that I had rather die as your father would have killed me in the old days, or your brother would kill me now, did either of them hate or fear me, than live on in safety, owing my life to a new law and a new mercy that do not befit the great ones of the world. King, I am your servant,” and giving him the royal salute, Hokosa rose and left his presence. “At the least there goes a man,” said Nodwengo, as he watched him depart. “Of whom do you speak, King?” asked Owen, who at that moment entered the royal house. “Of him whom you must have touched in the door-way, Messenger, Hokosa the wizard,” answered the king, and he told him of what had passed between them. “I said,” he added, “that he was a man, and so he is; yet I hold that I have done wrong to listen to your pleading and to spare him, for I am certain that he will bring bloodshed upon me and trouble on the Faith. Think now, Messenger, how full must be that man’s heart of secret rage and hatred, he who was so great and is now so little! Will he not certainly strive to grow great again? Will he not strive to be avenged upon those who humbled him and the religion they have chosen?” “It may be,” answered Owen, “but if so, he will not conquer. I tell you, King, that like water hidden in a rock there is good in this man’s heart, and that I shall yet find a rod wherewith to cause it to gush out and refresh the desert.” “It is more likely that he will find a spear wherewith to cause your blood to gush out and refresh the jackals,” answered the king grimly; “but be it as you will. And now, what of your business?” “This, King: John, my servant, has returned from the coast countries, and he brings me a letter saying that before long three white teachers will follow him to take up the work which I have begun. I pray that when they come, for my sake and for the sake of the truth that I have taught you, you will treat them kindly and protect them, remembering that at first they can know little of your language or your customs.” “I will indeed,” said the king, with much concern. “But tell me, Messenger, why do you speak of yourself as of one who soon will be but a memory? Do you purpose to leave us?” “No, King, but I believe that ere long I shall be recalled. I have given my message, my task is well-nigh ended and I must be turning home. Save for your sakes I do not sorrow at this, for to speak truth I grow very weary,” and he smiled sadly. ***** Hokosa went home alarmed and full of bitterness, for he had never guessed that the “servant of the Messenger,” as he called Nodwengo the King, knew so much about him and his plans. His fall was hard to him, but to be thus measured up, weighed, and contemptuously forgiven was almost more than he could bear. It was the white prophet who had done this thing; he had told Nodwengo of his, Hokosa’s, share in the plot to murder the late King Umsuka, though how he came to know of that matter was beyond guessing. He had watched him, or caused him to be watched, when he went forth to consult spirits in the place of the dead; he had warned Nodwengo against him. Worst of all, he had dared to treat him with contempt; had pleaded for his life and safety, so that he was spared as men spare a snake from which the charmer has drawn the fangs. When they met in the gate of the king’s house yonder this white thief, who had stolen his place and power, had even smiled upon him and greeted him kindly, and doubtless while he smiled, by aid of the magic he possessed, had read him through and gone on to tell the story to the king. Well, of this there should be an end; he would kill the Messenger, or himself be killed. When Hokosa reached his kraal he found Noma sitting beneath a fruit tree that grew in it, idly employed in stringing beads, for the work of the household she left to his other wife, Zinti, an old and homely woman who thought more of the brewing of the beer and the boiling of the porridge than of religions or politics or of the will of kings. Of late Noma had haunted the shadow of this tree, for beneath it lay that child which had been born to her. “Does it please the king to grant leave for my journey?” she asked, looking up. “Yes, it pleases him.” “I am thankful,” she answered, “for I think that if I bide here much longer, with ghosts and memories for company, I shall go mad,” and she glanced at a spot near by, where the earth showed signs of recent disturbance. “He gives leave,” Hokosa went on, taking no notice of her speech, “but he suspects us. Listen----” and he told her of the talk that had passed between himself and the king. “The white man has read you as he reads in his written books,” she answered, with a little laugh. “Well, I said that he would be too clever for you, did I not? It does not matter to me, for to-morrow I go upon my journey, and you can settle it as you will.” “Ay!” answered Hokosa, grinding his teeth, “it is true that he has read me; but this I promise you, that all books shall soon be closed to him. Yet how is it to be done without suspicion or discovery? I know many poisons, but all of them must be administered, and let him work never so cunningly, he who gives a poison can be traced.” “Then cause some other to give it and let him bear the blame,” suggested Noma languidly. Hokosa made no answer, but walking to the gate of the kraal, which was open, he leaned against it lost in thought. As he stood thus he saw a woman advancing towards him, who carried on her head a small basket of fruit, and knew her for one of those whose business it was to wait upon the Messenger in his huts, or rather in his house, for by now he had built himself a small house, and near it a chapel. This woman saw Hokosa also and looked at him sideways, as though she would like to stop and speak to him, but feared to do so. “Good morrow to you, friend,” he said. “How goes it with your husband and your house?” Now Hokosa knew well that this woman’s husband had taken a dislike to her and driven her from his home, filling her place with one younger and more attractive. At the question the woman’s lips began to tremble, and her eyes swam with tears. “Ah! great doctor,” she said, “why do you ask me of my husband? Have you not heard that he has driven me away and that another takes my place?” “Do I hear all the gossip of this town?” asked Hokosa, with a smile. “But come in and tell me the story; perchance I may be able to help you, for I have charms to compel the fancy of such faithless ones.” The woman looked round, and seeing that there was no one in sight, she slipped swiftly through the gate of the kraal, which he closed behind her. “Noma,” said Hokosa, “here is one who tells me that her husband has deserted her, and who comes to seek my counsel. Bring her milk to drink.” “There are some wives who would not find that so great an evil,” replied Noma mockingly, as she rose to do his bidding. Hokosa winced at the sarcasm, and turning to his visitor, said:-- “Now tell me your tale; but say first, why are you so frightened?” “I am frightened, master,” she answered, “lest any should have seen me enter here, for I have become a Christian, and the Christians are forbidden to consult the witch-doctors, as we were wont to do. For my case, it is----” “No need to set it out,” broke in Hokosa, waving his hand. “I see it written on your face; your husband has put you away and loves another woman, your own half-sister whom you brought up from a child.” “Ah! master, you have heard aright.” “I have not heard, I look upon you and I see. Fool, am I not a wizard? Tell me----” and taking dust into his hand, he blew the grains this way and that, regarding them curiously. “Yes, it is so. Last night you crept to your husband’s hut--do you remember, a dog growled at you as you passed the gate?--and there in front of the hut he sat with his new wife. She saw you coming, but pretending not to see, she threw her arms about his neck, kissing and fondling him before your eyes, till you could bear it no longer, and revealed yourself, upbraiding them. Then your rival taunted you and stirred up the man with bitter words, till at length he took a stick and beat you from the door, and there is a mark of it upon your shoulder.” “It is true, it is too true!” she groaned. “Yes, it is true. And now, what do you wish from me?” “Master, I wish a medicine to make my husband hate my rival and to draw his heart back to me.” “That must be a strong medicine,” said Hokosa, “which will turn a man from one who is young and beautiful to one who is past her youth and ugly.” “I am as I am,” answered the poor woman, with a touch of natural dignity, “but at least I have loved him and worked for him for fifteen long years.” “And that is why he would now be rid of you, for who cumbers his kraal with old cattle?” “And yet at times they are the best, Master. Wrinkles and smooth skin seem strange upon one pillow,” she added, glancing at Noma, who came from the hut carrying a bowl of milk in her hand. “If you seek counsel,” said Hokosa quickly, “why do you not go to the white man, that Messenger in whom you believe, and ask him for a potion to turn your husband’s heart?” “Master, I have been to him, and he is very good to me, for when I was driven out he gave me work to do and food. But he told me that he had no medicine for such cases, and that the Great Man in the sky alone could soften the breast of my husband and cause my sister to cease from her wickedness. Last night I went to see whether He would do it, and you know what befell me there.” “That befell you which befalls all fools who put their trust in words alone. What will you pay me, woman, if I give you the medicine which you seek?” “Alas, master, I am poor. I have nothing to offer you, for when I would not stay in my husband’s kraal to be a servant to his new wife, he took the cow and the five goats that belonged to me, as, I being childless, according to our ancient law he had the right to do.” “You are bold who come to ask a doctor to minister to you, bearing no fee in your hand,” said Hokosa. “Yet, because I have pity on you, I will be content with very little. Give me that basket of fruit, for my wife has been sick and loves its taste.” “I cannot do that, Master,” answered the woman, “for it is sent by my hand as a present to the Messenger, and he knows this and will eat of it after he has made prayer to-day. Did I not give it to him, it would be discovered that I had left it here with you.” “Then begone without your medicine,” said Hokosa, “for I need such fruit.” The woman rose and said, looking at him wistfully:-- “Master, if you will be satisfied with other fruits of this same sort, I know where I can get them for you.” “When will you get them?” “Now, within an hour. And till I return I will leave these in pledge with you; but these and no other I must give to the Messenger, for he has already seen them and might discover the difference; also I have promised so to do.” “As you will,” said Hokosa. “If you are with the fruit within an hour, the medicine will be ready for you, a medicine that shall not fail.” CHAPTER XIV THE EATING OF THE FRUIT The woman slipped away secretly. When she had gone Hokosa bade his wife bring the basket of fruit into the hut. “It is best that the butcher should kill the ox himself,” she answered meaningly. He carried in the basket and set it on the floor. “Why do you speak thus, Noma?” he asked. “Because I will have no hand in the matter, Hokosa. I have been the tool of a wizard, and won little joy therefrom. The tool of a murderer I will not be!” “If I kill, it is for the sake of both of us,” he said passionately. “It may be so, Hokosa, or for the sake of the people, or for the sake of Heaven above--I do not know and do not care; but I say, do your own killing, for I am sure that even less luck will hang to it than hangs to your witchcraft.” “Of all women you are the most perverse!” he said, stamping his foot upon the ground. “Thus you may say again before everything is done, husband; but if it be so, why do you love me and tie me to you with your wizardry? Cut the knot, and let me go my way while you go yours.” “Woman, I cannot; but still I bid you beware, for, strive as you will, my path must be your path. Moreover, till I free you, you cannot lift voice or hand against me.” Then, while she watched him curiously, Hokosa fetched his medicines and took from them some powder fine as dust and two tiny crowquills. Placing a fruit before him, he inserted one of these quills into its substance, and filling the second with the powder, he shook its contents into it and withdrew the tube. This process he repeated four times on each of the fruits, replacing them one by one in the basket. So deftly did he work upon them, that however closely they were scanned none could guess that they had been tampered with. “Will it kill at once?” asked Noma. “No, indeed; but he who eats these fruits will be seized on the third day with dysentery and fever, and these will cling to him till within seven weeks--or if he is very strong, three months--he dies. This is the best of poisons, for it works through nature and can be traced by none.” “Except, perchance, by that Spirit Whom the white man worships, and Who also works through nature, as you learned, Hokosa, when He rolled the lightning back upon your head, shattering your god and beating down your company.” Then of a sudden terror seized the wizard, and springing to his feet, he cursed his wife till she trembled before him. “Vile woman, and double-faced!” he said, “why do you push me forward with one hand and with the other drag me back? Why do you whisper evil counsel into one ear and into the other prophesy of misfortunes to come? Had it not been for you, I should have let this business lie; I should have taken my fate and been content. But day by day you have taunted me with my fall and grieved over the greatness that you have lost, till at length you have driven me to this. Why cannot you be all good or all wicked, or at the least, through righteousness and sin, faithful to my interest and your own?” “Because I hate you, Hokosa, and yet can strike you only through my tongue and your mad love for me. I am fast in your power, but thus at least I can make you feel something of my own pain. Hark! I hear that woman at the gate. Will you give her back the basket, or will you not? Whatever you may choose to do, do not say in after days that I urged you to the deed.” “Truly you are great-hearted!” he answered, with cold contempt; “one for whom I did well to enter into treachery and sin! So be it: having gone so far upon it, come what may, I will not turn back from this journey. Let in that fool!” Presently the woman stood before them, bearing with her another basket of fruit. “These are what you seek, Master,” she said, “though I was forced to win them by theft. Now give me my own and the medicine and let me go.” He gave her the basket, and with it, wrapped in a piece of kidskin, some of the same powder with which he had doctored the fruits. “What shall I do with this?” she asked. “You must find means to sprinkle it upon your sister’s food, and thereafter your husband shall come to hate even the sight of her.” “But will he come to love me again?” Hokosa shrugged his shoulders. “I know not,” he answered; “that is for you to see to. Yet this is sure, that if a tree grows up before the house of a man, shutting it off from the sunlight, when that tree is cut down the sun shines upon his house again.” “It is nothing to the sun on what he shines,” said the woman. “If the saying does not please you, then forget it. I promise you this and no more, that very soon the man shall cease to turn to your rival.” “The medicine will not harm her?” asked the woman doubtfully. “She has worked me bitter wrong indeed, yet she is my sister, whom I nursed when she was little, and I do not wish to do her hurt. If only he will welcome me back and treat me kindly, I am willing even that she should dwell on beneath my husband’s roof, bearing his children, for will they not be of my own blood?” “Woman,” answered Hokosa impatiently, “you weary me with your talk. Did I say that the charm would hurt her? I said that it would cause your husband to hate the sight of her. Now begone, taking or leaving it, and let me rest. If your mind is troubled, throw aside that medicine, and go soothe it with such sights as you saw last night.” On hearing this the woman sprang up, hid away the poison in her hair, and taking her basket of fruit, passed from the kraal as secretly as she had entered it. “Why did you give her death-medicine?” asked Noma of Hokosa, as he stood staring after her. “Have you a hate to satisfy against the husband or the girl who is her rival?” “None,” he answered, “for they have never crossed my path. Oh, foolish woman! cannot you read my plan?” “Not altogether, Husband.” “Listen then: this woman will give to her sister a medicine of which in the end she must die. She may be discovered or she may not, but it is certain that she will be suspected, seeing that the bitterness of the quarrel between them is known. Also she will give to the Messenger certain fruits, after eating of which he will be taken sick and in due time die, of just such a disease as that which carries off the woman’s rival. Now, if any think that he is poisoned, which I trust none will, whom will they suppose to have poisoned him, though indeed they can never prove the crime?” “The plan is clever,” said Noma with admiration, “but in it I see a flaw. The woman will say that she had the drug from you, or, at the least, will babble of her visit to you.” “Not so,” answered Hokosa, “for on this matter the greatest talker in the world would keep silence. Firstly, she, being a Christian, dare not own that she has visited a witch-doctor. Secondly, the fruit she brought in payment was stolen, therefore she will say nothing of it. Thirdly, to admit that she had medicine from me would be to admit her guilt, and that she will scarcely do even under torture, which by the new law it is not lawful to apply. Moreover, none saw her come here, and I should deny her visit.” “The plan is very clever,” said Noma again. “It is very clever,” he repeated complacently; “never have I made a better one. Now throw those fruits to the she goats that are in the kraal, and burn the basket, while I go and talk to some in the Great Place, telling them that I have returned from counting my cattle on the mountain, whither I went after I had bowed the knee in the house of the king.” ***** Two hours later, Hokosa, having made a wide detour and talked to sundry of his acquaintances about the condition of his cattle, might have been seen walking slowly along the north side of the Great Place towards his own kraal. His path lay past the chapel and the little house that Owen had built to dwell in. This house was furnished with a broad verandah, and upon it sat the Messenger himself, eating his evening meal. Hokosa saw him, and a great desire entered his heart to learn whether or no he had partaken of the poisoned fruit. Also it occurred to him that it would be wise if, before the end came, he could contrive to divert all possible suspicion from himself, by giving the impression that he was now upon friendly terms with the great white teacher and not disinclined even to become a convert to his doctrine. For a moment he hesitated, seeking an excuse. One soon suggested itself to his ready mind. That very morning the king had told him not obscurely that Owen had pleaded for his safety and saved him from being put upon his trial on charges of witchcraft and murder. He would go to him, now at once, playing the part of a grateful penitent, and the White Man’s magic must be keen indeed if it availed to pierce the armour of his practised craft. So Hokosa went up and squatted himself down native fashion among a little group of converts who were waiting to see their teacher upon one business or another. He was not more than ten paces from the verandah, and sitting thus he saw a sight that interested him strangely. Having eaten a little of a dish of roasted meat, Owen put out his hand and took a fruit from a basket that the wizard knew well. At this moment he looked up and recognised Hokosa. “Do you desire speech with me, Hokosa?” he asked in his gentle voice. “If so, be pleased to come hither.” “Nay, Messenger,” answered Hokosa, “I desire speech with you indeed, but it is ill to stand between a hungry man and his food.” “I care little for my food,” answered Owen; “at the least it can wait,” and he put down the fruit. Then suddenly a feeling to which the wizard had been for many years a stranger took possession of him--a feeling of compunction. That man was about to partake of what would cause his death--of what he, Hokosa, had prepared in order that it should cause his death. He was good, he was kindly, none could allege a wrong deed against him; and, foolishness though it might be, so was the doctrine that he taught. Why should he kill him? It was true that never till that moment had he hesitated, by fair means or foul, to remove an enemy or rival from his path. He had been brought up in this teaching; it was part of the education of wizards to be merciless, for they reigned by terror and evil craft. Their magic lay chiefly in clairvoyance and powers of observation developed to a pitch that was almost superhuman, and the best of their weapons was poison in infinite variety, whereof the guild alone understood the properties and preparation. Therefore there was nothing strange, nothing unusual in this deed of devilish and cunning murder that the sight of its doing should stir him thus, and yet it did stir him. He was minded to stop the plot, to let things take their course. Some sense of the futility of all such strivings came home to him, and as in a glass, for Hokosa was a man of imagination, he foresaw their end. A little success, a little failure, it scarcely mattered which, and then--that end. Within twenty years, or ten, or mayhap even one, what would this present victory or defeat mean to him? Nothing so far as he was concerned; that is, nothing so far as his life of to-day was concerned. Yet, if he had another life, it might mean everything. There was another life; he knew it, who had dragged back from its borders the spirits of the dead, though what might be the state and occupations of those dead he did not know. Yet he believed--why he could not tell--that they were affected vitally by their acts and behaviour here; and his intelligence warned him that good must always flow from good, and evil from evil. To kill this man was evil, and of it only evil could come. What did he care whether Hafela ruled the nation or Nodwengo, and whether it worshipped the God of the Christians or the god of Fire--who, by the way, had proved himself so singularly inefficient in the hour of trial. Now that he thought of it, he much preferred Nodwengo to Hafela, for the one was a just man and the other a tyrant; and he himself was more comfortable as a wealthy private person than he had been as a head medicine-man and a chief of wizards. He would let things stand; he would prevent the Messenger from eating of that fruit. A word could do it; he had but to suggest that it was unripe or not wholesome at this season of the year, and it would be cast aside. All these reflections, or their substance, passed through Hokosa’s mind in a few instants of time, and already he was rising to go to the verandah and translate their moral into acts, when another thought occurred to him--How should he face Noma with this tale? He could give up his own ambitions, but could he bear her mockery, as day by day she taunted him with his faint-heartedness and reproached him with his failure to regain greatness and to make her great? He forgot that he might conceal the truth from her; or rather, he did not contemplate such concealment, of which their relations were too peculiar and too intimate to permit. She hated him, and he worshipped her with a half-inhuman passion--a passion so unnatural, indeed, that it suggested the horrid and insatiable longings of the damned--and yet their souls were naked to each other. It was their fate that they could hide nothing each from each--they were cursed with the awful necessity of candour. It would be impossible that he should keep from Noma anything that he did or did not do; it would be still more impossible that she should conceal from him even such imaginings and things as it is common for women to hold secret. Her very bitterness, which it had been policy for her to cloak or soften, would gush from her lips at the sight of him; nor, in the depth of his rage and torment, could he, on the other hand, control the ill-timed utterance of his continual and overmastering passion. It came to this, then: he must go forward, and against his better judgment, because he was afraid to go back, for the whip of a woman’s tongue drove him on remorselessly. It was better that the Messenger should die, and the land run red with blood, than that he should be forced to endure this scourge. So with a sigh Hokosa sank back to the ground and watched while Owen ate three of the poisoned fruits. After a pause, he took a fourth and bit into it, but not seeming to find it to his taste, he threw it to a child that was waiting by the verandah for any scraps which might be left over from his meal. The child caught it, and devoured it eagerly. Then, smiling at the little boy’s delight, the Messenger called to Hokosa to come up and speak with him. CHAPTER XV NOMA COMES TO HAFELA Hokosa advanced to the verandah and bowed to the white man with grave dignity. “Be seated,” said Owen. “Will you not eat? though I have nothing to offer you but these,” and he pushed the basket of fruits towards him, adding, “The best of them, I fear, are already gone.” “I thank you, no, Messenger; such fruits are not always wholesome at this season of the year. I have known them to breed dysentery.” “Indeed,” said Owen. “If so, I trust that I may escape. I have suffered from that sickness, and I think that another bout of it would kill me. In future I will avoid them. But what do you seek with me, Hokosa? Enter and tell me,” and he led the way into a little sitting-room. “Messenger,” said the wizard, with deep humility, “I am a proud man; I have been a great man, and it is no light thing to me to humble myself before the face of my conqueror. Yet I am come to this. To-day when I was in audience with the king, craving a small boon of his graciousness, he spoke to me sharp and bitter words. He told me that he had been minded to put me on trial for my life because of various misdoings which are alleged against me in the past, but that you had pleaded for me and that for this cause he spared me. I come to thank you for your gentleness, Messenger, for I think that had I been in your place I should have whispered otherwise in the ear of the king.” “Say no more of it, friend,” said Owen kindly, “We are all of us sinners, and it is my place to push back your ancient sins, not to drag them into the light of day and clamour for their punishment. It is true I know that you plotted with the Prince Hafela to poison Umsuka the King, for it was revealed to me. It chanced, however, that I was able to recover Umsuka from his sickness, and Hafela is fled, so why should I bring up the deed against you? It is true that you still practise witchcraft, and that you hate and strive against the holy Faith which I preach; but you were brought up to wizardry and have been the priest of another creed, and these things plead for you. “Also, Hokosa, I can see the good and evil struggling in your soul, and I pray and I believe that in the end the good will master the evil; that you who have been pre-eminent in sin will come to be pre-eminent in righteousness. Oh! be not stubborn, but listen with your ear, and let your heart be softened. The gate stands open, and I am the guide appointed to show you the way without reward or fee. Follow them ere it be too late, that in time to come when my voice is stilled you also may be able to direct the feet of wanderers into the paths of peace. It is the hour of prayer; come with me, I beg of you, and listen to some few words of the message of my lips, and let your spirit be nurtured with them, and the Sun of Truth arise upon its darkness.” Hokosa heard, and before this simple eloquence his wisdom sank confounded. More, his intelligence was stirred, and a desire came upon him to investigate and examine the canons of a creed that could produce such men as this. He made no answer, but waiting while Owen robed himself, he followed him to the chapel. It was full of new-made Christians who crowded even the doorways, but they gave place to him, wondering. Then the service began--a short and simple service. First Owen offered up some prayer for the welfare of the infant Church, for the conversion of the unbelieving, for the safety of the king and the happiness of the people. Then John, the Messenger’s first disciple, read aloud from a manuscript a portion of the Scripture which his master had translated. It was St. Paul’s exposition of the resurrection from the dead, and the grandeur of its thoughts and language were by no means lost upon Hokosa, who, savage and heathen though he might be, was also a man of intellect. The reading over, Owen addressed the congregation, taking for his text, “Thy sin shall find thee out.” Being now a master of the language, he preached very well and earnestly, and indeed the subject was not difficult to deal with in the presence of an audience many of whose pasts had been stepped in iniquities of no common kind. As he talked of judgment to come for the unrepentant, some of his hearers groaned and even wept; and when, changing his note, he dwelt upon the blessed future state of those who earned forgiveness, their faces were lighted up with joy. But perhaps among all those gathered before him there were none more deeply interested than Hokosa and one other, that woman to whom he had sold the poison, and who, as it chanced, sat next to him. Hokosa, watching her face as he was skilled to do, saw the thrusts of the preacher go home, and grew sure that already in her jealous haste she had found opportunity to sprinkle the medicine upon her rival’s food. She believed it to be but a charm indeed, yet knowing that in using such charms she had done wickedly, she trembled beneath the words of denunciation, and rising at length, crept from the chapel. “Truly, her sin will find her out,” thought Hokosa to himself, and then in a strange half-impersonal fashion he turned his thoughts to the consideration of his own case. Would _his_ sin find him out? he wondered. Before he could answer that question, it was necessary first to determine whether or no he had committed a sin. The man before him--that gentle and yet impassioned man--bore in his vitals the seed of death which he, Hokosa, had planted there. Was it wrong to have done this? It depended by which standard the deed was judged. According to his own code, the code on which he had been educated and which hitherto he had followed with exactness, it was not wrong. That code taught the necessity of self-aggrandisement, or at least and at all costs the necessity of self-preservation. This white preacher stood in his path; he had humiliated him, Hokosa, and in the end, either of himself or through his influences, it was probable that he would destroy him. Therefore he must strike before in his own person he received a mortal blow, and having no other means at his command, he struck through treachery and poison. That was his law which for many generations had been followed and respected by his class with the tacit assent of the nation. According to this law, then, he had done no wrong. But now the victim by the altar, who did not know that already he was bound upon the altar, preached a new and a very different doctrine under which, were it to be believed, he, Hokosa, was one of the worst of sinners. The matter, then, resolved itself to this: which of these two rules of life was the right rule? Which of them should a man follow to satisfy his conscience and to secure his abiding welfare? Apart from the motives that swayed him, as a mere matter of ethics, this problem interested Hokosa not a little, and he went homewards determined to solve it if he might. That could be done in one way only--by a close examination of both systems. The first he knew well; he had practised it for nearly forty years. Of the second he had but an inkling. Also, if he would learn more of it he must make haste, seeing that its exponent in some short while would cease to be in a position to set it out. “I trust that you will come again,” said Owen to Hokosa as they left the chapel. “Yes, indeed, Messenger,” answered the wizard; “I will come every day, and if you permit it, I will attend your private teachings also, for I accept nothing without examination, and I greatly desire to study this new doctrine of yours, root and flower and fruit.” ***** On the morrow Noma started upon her journey. As the matrons who accompanied her gave out with a somewhat suspicious persistency, its ostensible object was to visit the Mount of Purification, and there by fastings and solitude to purge herself of the sin of having given birth to a stillborn child. For amongst savage peoples such an accident is apt to be looked upon as little short of a crime, or, at the least, as indicating that the woman concerned is the object of the indignation of spirits who need to be appeased. To this Mount, Noma went, and there performed the customary rites. “Little wonder,” she thought to herself, “that the spirits were angry with her, seeing that yonder in the burying-ground of kings she had dared to break in upon their rest.” From the Place of Purification she travelled on ten days’ journey with her companions till they reached the mountain fastness where Hafela had established himself. The town and its surroundings were of extraordinary strength, and so well guarded that it was only after considerable difficulty and delay that the women were admitted. Hearing of her arrival and that she had words for him, Hafela sent for Noma at once, receiving her by night and alone in his principal hut. She came and stood before him, and he looked at her beauty with admiring eyes, for he could not forget the woman whom the cunning of Hokosa had forced him to put away. “Whence come you, pretty one?” he asked, “and wherefore come you? Are you weary of your husband, that you fly back to me? If so, you are welcome indeed; for know, Noma, that I still love you.” “Ay, Prince, I am weary of my husband sure enough; but I do not fly to you, for he holds me fast to him with bonds that you cannot understand, and fast to him while he lives I must remain.” “What hinders, Noma, that having got you here I should keep you here? The cunning and magic of Hokosa may be great, but they will need to be still greater to win you from my arms.” “This hinders, Prince, that you are playing for a higher stake than that of a woman’s love, and if you deal thus by me and my husband, then of a surety you will lose the game.” “What stake, Noma?” “The stake of the crown of the People of Fire.” “And why should I lose if I take you as a wife?” “Because Hokosa, seeing that I do not return and learning from his spies why I do not return, will warn the king, and by many means bring all your plans to nothing. Listen now to the words of Hokosa that he has set between my lips to deliver to you”--and she repeated to him all the message without fault or fail. “Say it again,” he said, and she obeyed. Then he answered:-- “Truly the skill of Hokosa is great, and well he knows how to set a snare; but I think that if by his counsel I should springe the bird, he will be too clever a man to keep upon the threshold of my throne. He who sets one snare may set twain, and he who sits by the threshold may desire to enter the house of kings wherein there is no space for two to dwell.” “Is this the answer that I am to take back to Hokosa?” asked Noma. “It will scarcely bind him to your cause, Prince, and I wonder that you dare to speak it to me who am his wife.” “I dare to speak it to you, Noma, because, although you be his wife, all wives do not love their lords; and I think that, perchance in days to come, you would choose rather to hold the hand of a young king than that of a witch-doctor sinking into eld. Thus shall you answer Hokosa: You shall say to him that I have heard his words and that I find them very good, and will walk along the path which he has made. Here before you I swear by the oath that may not be broken--the sacred oath, calling down ruin upon my head should I break one word of it--that if by his aid I succeed in this great venture, I will pay him the price he asks. After myself, the king, he shall be the greatest man among the people; he shall be general of the armies; he shall be captain of the council and head of the doctors, and to him shall be given half the cattle of Nodwengo. Also, into his hand I will deliver all those who cling to this faith of the Christians, and, if it pleases him, he shall offer them as a sacrifice to his god. This I swear, and you, Noma, are witness to the oath. Yet it may chance that after he, Hokosa, has gathered up all this pomp and greatness, he himself shall be gathered up by Death, that harvest-man whom soon or late will garner every ear;” and he looked at her meaningly. “It may be so, Prince,” she answered. “It may be so,” he repeated, “and when----” “When it is so, then, Prince, we will talk together, but not till then. Nay, touch me not, for were he to command me, Hokosa has this power over me that I must show him all that you have done, keeping nothing back. Let me go now to the place that is made ready for me, and afterwards you shall tell me again and more fully the words that I must say to Hokosa my husband.” ***** On the morrow Hafela held a secret council of his great men, and the next day an embassy departed to Nodwengo the king, taking to him that message which Hokosa, through Noma his wife, had put into the lips of the prince. Twenty days later the embassy returned saying that it pleased the king to grant the prayer of his brother Hafela, and bringing with it the tidings that the white man, Messenger, had fallen sick, and it was thought that he would die. So in due course the women and children of the people of Hafela started upon their journey towards the new land where it was given out that they should live, and with them went Noma, purposing to leave them as they drew near the gates of the Great Place of the king. A while after, Hafela and his _impis_ followed with carriers bearing their fighting shields in bundles, and having their stabbing spears rolled up in mats. CHAPTER XVI THE REPENTANCE OF HOKOSA Hokosa kept his promise. On the morrow of his first attendance there he was again to be seen in the chapel, and after the service was over he waited on Owen at his house and listened to his private teaching. Day by day he appeared thus, till at length he became master of the whole doctrine of Christianity, and discovered that that which at first had struck him as childish and even monstrous, now presented itself to him in a new and very different light. The conversion of Hokosa came upon him through the gate of reason, not as is usual among savages--and some who are not savage--by that of the emotions. Given the position of a universe torn and groaning beneath the dual rule of Good and Evil, two powers of well-nigh equal potency, he found no great difficulty in accepting this tale of the self-sacrifice of the God of Good that He might wring the race He loved out of the conquering grasp of the god of Ill. There was a simple majesty about this scheme of redemption which appealed to one side of his nature. Indeed, Hokosa felt that under certain conditions and in a more limited fashion he would have been capable of attempting as much himself. Once his reason was satisfied, the rest followed in a natural sequence. Within three weeks from the hour of his first attendance at the chapel Hokosa was at heart a Christian. He was a Christian, although as yet he did not confess it; but he was also the most miserable man among the nation of the Sons of Fire. The iniquities of his past life had become abominable to him; but he had committed them in ignorance, and he understood that they were not beyond forgiveness. Yet high above them all towered one colossal crime which, as he believed, could never be pardoned to him in this world or the next. He was the treacherous murderer of the Messenger of God; he was in the very act of silencing the Voice that had proclaimed truth in the dark places of his soul and the dull ears of his countrymen. The deed was done; no power on earth could save his victim. Within a week from the day of eating that fatal fruit Owen began to sicken, then the dysentery had seized him which slowly but surely was wasting out his life. Yet he, the murderer, was helpless, for with this form of the disease no medicine could cope. With agony in his heart, an agony that was shared by thousands of the people, Hokosa watched the decrease of the white man’s strength, and reckoned the days that would elapse before the end. Having such sin as thus upon his soul, though Owen entreated him earnestly, he would not permit himself to be baptised. Twice he went near to consenting, but on each occasion an ominous and terrible incident drove him from the door of mercy. Once, when the words “I will” were almost on his lips, a woman broke in upon their conference bearing a dying boy in her arms. “Save him,” she implored, “save him, Messenger, for he is my only son!” Owen looked at him and shook his head. “How came he like this?” he asked. “I know not, Messenger, but he has been sick ever since he ate of a certain fruit which you gave to him;” and she recalled to his mind the incident of the throwing of a fruit to the child, which she had witnessed. “I remember,” said Owen. “It is strange, but I also have been sick from the day that I ate of those fruits; yes, and you, Hokosa, warned me against them.” Then he blessed the boy and prayed over him till he died; but when afterwards he looked round for Hokosa, it was to find that he had gone. Some eight days later, having to a certain extent recovered from this shock, Hokosa went one morning to Owen’s house and talked to him. “Messenger,” he said, “is it necessary to baptism that I should confess all my sins to you? If so, I can never be baptised, for there is wickedness upon my hands which I am unable to tell into the ear of living man.” Owen thought and answered:-- “It is necessary that you should repent all of your sins, and that you should confess them to heaven; it is not necessary that you should confess them to me, who am but a man like yourself.” “Then I will be baptised,” said Hokosa with a sigh of relief. At this moment, as it chanced, their interview was again interrupted, for runners came from the king requesting the immediate presence of the Messenger, if he were well enough to attend, upon a matter connected with the trial of a woman for murder. Thinking that he might be of service, Owen, leaning on the shoulder of Hokosa, for already he was too weak to walk far, crept to the litter which was waiting for him, and was borne to the place of judgment that was before the house of the king. Hokosa followed, more from curiosity than for any other reason, for he had heard of no murder being committed, and his old desire to be acquainted with everything that passed was still strong on him. The people made way for him, and he seated himself in the first line of spectators immediately opposite to the king and three other captains who were judges in the case. So soon as Owen had joined the judges, the prisoner was brought before them, and to his secret horror Hokosa recognised in her that woman to whom he had given the poison in exchange for the basket of fruit. Now it seemed to Hokosa that his doom was on him, for she would certainly confess that she had the drug from him. He thought of flight only to reject the thought, for to fly would be to acknowledge himself an accessory. No, he would brazen it out, for after all his word was as good as hers. With the prisoner came an accuser, her husband, who seemed sick, and he it was who opened the case against her. “This woman,” he said, “was my wife. I divorced her for barrenness, as I have a right to do according to our ancient law, and I took another woman to wife, her half-sister. This woman was jealous; she plagued me continually, and insulted her sister, so that I was forced to drive her away. After that she came to my house, and though they said nothing of it at the time, she was seen by two servants of mine to sprinkle something in the bowl wherein our food was cooking. Subsequently my wife, this woman’s half-sister, was taken ill with dysentery. I also was taken ill with dysentery, but I still live to tell this story before you, O King, and your judges, though I know not for how long I live. My wife died yesterday, and I buried her this morning. I accuse the woman of having murdered her, either by witchcraft or by means of a medicine which she sprinkled on the food, or by both. I have spoken.” “Have you anything to say?” asked the king of the prisoner. “Are you guilty of the crime whereof this man who was your husband charges you, or does he lie?” Then the woman answered in a low and broken voice:-- “I am guilty, King. Listen to my story:” and she told it all as she told it to Hokosa. “I am guilty,” she added, “and may the Great Man in the sky, of Whom the Messenger has taught us, forgive me. My sister’s blood is upon my hands, and for aught I know the blood of my husband yonder will also be on my hands. I seek no mercy; indeed, it is better that I should die; but I would say this in self-defence, that I did not think to kill my sister. I believed that I was giving to her a potion which would cause her husband to hate her and no more.” Here she looked round and her eyes met those of Hokosa. “Who told you that this was so?” asked one of the judges. “A witch-doctor,” she answered, “from whom I bought the medicine in the old days, long ago, when Umsuka was king.” Hokosa gasped. Why should this woman have spared him? No further question was asked of her, and the judges consulted together. At length the king spoke. “Woman,” he said, “you are condemned to die. You will be taken to the Doom Tree, and there be hanged. Out of those who are assembled to try you, two, the Messenger and myself, have given their vote in favour of mercy, but the majority think otherwise. They say that a law has been passed against murder by means of witchcraft and secret medicine, and that should we let you go free, the people will make a mock of that law. So be it. Go in peace. To-morrow you must die, and may forgiveness await you elsewhere.” “I ask nothing else,” said the woman. “It is best that I should die.” Then they led her away. As she passed Hokosa she turned and looked him full in the eyes, till he dropped his head abashed. Next morning she was executed, and he learned that her last words were: “Let it come to the ears of him who sold me the poison, telling me that it was but a harmless drug, that as I hope to be forgiven, so I forgive him, believing that my silence may win for him time for repentance, before he follows on the road I tread.” Now, when Hokosa heard these words he shut himself up in his house for three days, giving out that he was sick. Nor would he go near to Owen, being altogether without hope, and not believing that baptism or any other rite could avail to purge such crimes as his. Truly his sin had found him out, and the burden of it was intolerable. So intolerable did it become, that at length he determined to be done with it. He could live no more. He would die, and by his own hand, before he was called upon to witness the death of the man whom he had murdered. To this end he made his preparations. For Noma he left no message; for though his heart still hungered after her, he knew well that she hated him and would rejoice at his death. When all was ready he sat down to think a while, and as he thought, a man entered his hut saying that the Messenger desired to see him. At first he was minded not to go, then it occurred to him that it would be well if he could die with a clean heart. Why should he not tell all to the white man, and before he could be delivered up to justice take that poison which he had prepared? It was impossible that he should be forgiven, yet he desired that his victim should learn how deep was his sorrow and repentance, before he proved it by preceding him to death. So he rose and went. He found Owen in his house, lying in a rude chair and propped up by pillows of bark. Now he was wasted almost to a shadow, and in the pale pinched face his dark eyes, always large and spiritual, shone with unnatural lustre, while his delicate hands were so thin that when he held them up in blessing the light showed through them. “Welcome, friend,” he said. “Tell me, why have you deserted me of late? Have you been ill?” “No, Messenger,” answered Hokosa, “that is, not in my body. I have been sick at heart, and therefore I have not come.” “What, Hokosa, do your doubts still torment you? I thought that my prayers had been heard, and that power had been given me to set them at rest for ever. Man, let me hear the trouble, and swiftly, for cannot you who are a doctor see that I shall not be here for long to talk with you? My days are numbered, Hokosa, and my work is almost done.” “I know it,” answered Hokosa. “And, Messenger, _my_ days are also numbered.” “How is this?” asked Owen, “seeing that you are well and strong. Does an enemy put you in danger of your life?” “Yes, Messenger, and I myself am that enemy; for to-day I, who am no longer fit to live, must die by my own hand. Nay, listen and you will say that I do well, for before I go I would tell you all. Messenger, you are doomed, are you not? Well, it was I who doomed you. That fruit which you ate a while ago was poisoned, and by my hand, for I am a master of such arts. From the beginning I hated you, as well I might, for had you not worsted me and torn power from my grasp, and placed the people and the king under the rule of another God? Therefore, when all else failed, I determined to murder you, and I did the deed by means of that woman who not long ago was hung for the killing of her sister, though in truth she was innocent.” And he told him what had passed between himself and the woman, and told him also of the plot which he had hatched to kill Nodwengo and the Christians, and to set Hafela on the throne. “She was innocent,” he went on, “but I am guilty. How guilty you and I know alone. Do you remember that day when you ate the fruit, how after it I accompanied you to the church yonder and listened to your preaching? ‘Your sin shall find you out,’ you said, and of a surety mine has found me out. For, Messenger, it came about that in listening to you then and afterwards, I grew to love you and to believe the words you taught, and therefore am I of all men the most miserable, and therefore must I, who have been great and the councillor of kings, perish miserably by the death of a dog. “Now curse me, and let me go.” CHAPTER XVII THE LOOSING OF NOMA When Owen heard that it was Hokosa who had poisoned him, he groaned and hid his face in his hands, and thus he remained till the evil tale was finished. Now he lifted his head and spoke, but not to Hokosa. “O God,” he said, “I thank Thee that at the cost of my poor life Thou hast been pleased to lead this sinner towards the Gate of Righteousness, and to save alive those whom Thou hast sent me to gather to Thy Fold.” Then he looked at Hokosa and said:-- “Unhappy man, is not your cup full enough of crime, and have you not sufficiently tempted the mercy of Heaven, that you would add to all your evil deeds that of self-murder?” “It is better to die to-day by my own hand,” answered Hokosa, “than to-morrow among the mockery of the people to fall a victim to your vengeance, Messenger.” “Vengeance! Did I speak to you of vengeance? Who am I that I should take vengeance upon one who has repented? Hokosa, freely do I forgive you all, even as in some few days I hope to be forgiven. Freely and fully from my heart do I forgive you, nor shall my lips tell one word of the sin that you have worked against me.” Now, when Hokosa heard those words, for a moment he stared stupefied; then he fell upon his knees before Owen, and bowing his head till it touched the teacher’s feet, he burst into bitter weeping. “Rise and hearken,” said Owen gently. “Weep not because I have shown kindness to you, for that is my duty and no more, but for your sins in your own heart weep now and ever. Yet for your comfort I tell you that if you do this, of a surety they shall be forgiven to you. _Hokosa, you have indeed lost that which you loved, and henceforth you must follow after that which you did not desire. In the very grave of error you have found truth, and from the depths of sin you shall pluck righteousness. Ay, that Cross which you deemed accursed shall lift you up on high, for by it you shall be saved._” Hokosa heard and shivered. “Who set those words between your lips, Messenger?” he whispered. “Who set them, Hokosa? Nay, I know not--or rather, I know well. He set them Who teaches us to speak all things that are good.” “It must be so, indeed,” replied Hokosa. “Yet I have heard them before; I have heard them from the lips of the dead, and with them went this command: that when they fell upon my ears again I should ‘take them for a sign, and let my heart be turned.’” “Tell me that tale,” said Owen. So he told him, and this time it was the white man who trembled. “Horrible has been your witchcraft, O Son of Darkness!” said Owen, when he had finished; “yet it would seem that it was permitted to you to find truth in the pit of sorcery. Obey, obey, and let your heart be turned. The dead told you that you should be set high above the nation and its king, and that saying I cannot read, though it may be fulfilled in some fashion of which to-day you do not think. At the least, the other saying is true, that in the end comes judgment, and that there shall the sin and the atonement strive together; therefore for judgment prepare yourself. And now depart, for I must talk with the king as to this matter of the onslaught of Hafela.” “Then, that will be the signal for my death, for what king can forgive one who has plotted such treachery against him?” said Hokosa. “Fear not,” answered Owen, “I will soften his heart. Go you into the church and pray, for there you shall be less tempted; but before you go, swear to me that you will work no evil on yourself.” “I swear it, Messenger, since now I desire to live, if only for awhile, seeing that death shuts every door.” Then he went to the church and waited there. An hour later he was summoned, and found the king seated with Owen. “Man,” said Nodwengo, “I am told by the Messenger here that you have knowledge of a plot which my brother the Prince Hafela has made to fall treacherously upon me and put me and my people to the spear. How you come to be acquainted with the plot, and what part you have played in it, I will not now inquire, for so much have I promised to the Messenger. Yet I warn you it will be well that you should tell me all you know, and that should you lie to me or attempt to deceive me, then you shall surely die.” “King, hear all the truth,” answered Hokosa in a voice of desperate calm. “I have knowledge of the plot, for it was I who wove it; but whether or not Hafela will carry it out altogether I cannot say, for as yet no word has reached me from him. King, this was the plan that I made.” And he told him everything. “It is fortunate for you, Hokosa,” said Nodwengo grimly when he had finished, “that I gave my word to the Messenger that no harm should come to you, seeing that you have repented and confessed. This is certain, that Hafela has listened to your evil counsels, for I gave my consent to his flight from this land with all his people, and already his women and children have crossed the mountain path in thousands. Well, this I swear, that their feet shall tread it no more, for where they are thither he shall go to join them, should he chance to live to do so. Hokosa, begone, and know that day and night you will be watched. Should you so much as dare to approach one of the gates of the Great Place, that moment you shall die.” “Have no fear, O King,” said Hokosa humbly, “for I have emptied all my heart before you. The past is the past, and cannot be recalled. For the future, while it pleases you to spare me, I am the most loyal of your servants.” “Can a man empty a spring with a pitcher?” asked the king contemptuously. “By to-morrow this heart of yours may be full again with the blackest treachery, O master of sin and lies. Many months ago I spared you at the prayer of the Messenger; and now at his prayer I spare you again, yet in doing so I think that I am foolish.” “Nay, I will answer for him,” broke in Owen. “Let him stay here with me, and set your guard without my gates.” “How do I know that he will not murder you, friend?” asked the king. “This man is a snake whom few can nurse with safety.” “He will not murder me,” said Owen smiling, “because his heart is turned from evil to good; also, there is little need to murder a dying man.” “Nay, speak not so,” said the king hastily; “and as for this man, be it as you will. Come, I must take counsel with my captains, for our danger is near and great.” So it came about that Hokosa stayed in the house of Owen. On the morrow the Great Place was full of the bustle of preparation, and by dawn of the following day an _impi_ of some seventeen thousand spears had started to ambush Hafela and his force in a certain wooded defile through which he must pass on his way to the mountain pass where his women and children were gathered. The army was not large, at least in the eyes of the People of Fire who, before the death of Umsuka and the break up of the nation, counted their warriors by tens of thousands. But after those events the most of the regiments had deserted to Hafela, leaving to Nodwengo not more than two-and-twenty thousand spears upon which he could rely. Of these he kept less than a third to defend the Great Place against possible attacks, and all the rest he sent to fall upon Hafela far away, hoping there to make an end of him once and for all. This counsel the king took against the better judgment of many of his captains, and as the issue proved, it was mistaken. When Owen told Hokosa of it, that old general shrugged his shoulders. “The king would have done better to keep his regiments at home,” he said, “and fight it out with Hafela here, where he is well prepared. Yonder the country is very wide, and broken, and it may well chance that the _impi_ will miss that of Hafela, and then how can the king defend this place with a handful, should the prince burst upon him at the head of forty thousand men? But who am I that I should give counsel for which none seek?” “As God wills, so shall it befall,” answered Owen wearily; “but oh! the thought of all this bloodshed breaks my heart. I trust that its beatings may be stilled before my eyes behold the evil hour.” On the evening of that day Hokosa was baptised. The ceremony took place, not in the church, for Owen was too weak to go there, but in the largest room of his house and before some few witnesses chosen from the congregation. Even as he was being signed with the sign of the cross, a strange and familiar attraction caused the convert to look up, and behold, before him, watching all with mocking eyes, stood Noma his wife. At length the rite was finished, and the little audience melted away, all save Noma, who stood silent and beautiful as a statue, the light of mockery still gleaming in her eyes. Then she spoke, saying:-- “I greet you, Husband. I have returned from doing your business afar, and if this foolishness is finished, and the white man can spare you, I would talk with you alone.” “I greet you, Wife,” answered Hokosa. “Say out your say, for none are present save us three, and from the Messenger here I have no secrets.” “What, Husband, none? Do you ever talk to him of certain fruit that you ripened in a garden yonder?” “From the Messenger I have no secrets,” repeated Hokosa in a heavy voice. “Then his heart must be full of them indeed, and it is little wonder that he seems sick,” replied Noma, gibing. “Tell me, Hokosa, is it true that you have become a Christian, or would you but fool the white man and his following?” “It is true.” At the words her graceful shape was shaken with a little gust of silent laughter. “The wizard has turned saint,” she said. “Well, then, what of the wizard’s wife?” “You were my wife before I became Christian; if the Messenger permits it, you can still abide with me.” “If the Messenger permits it! So you have come to this, Hokosa, that you must ask the leave of another man as to whether or no you should keep your own wife! There is no other thing that I could not have thought of you, but this I would never have believed had I not heard it from your lips. Say now, do you still love me, Hokosa?” “You know well that I love you, now and always,” he answered, in a voice that sounded like a groan; “as you know that for love of you I have done many sins from which otherwise I should have turned aside.” “Grieve not over them, Hokosa; after all, in such a count as yours they will make but little show. Well, if you love me, I hate you, though through your witchcraft your will yet has the mastery of mine. I demand of you now that you should loose that bond, for I do not desire to become a Christian; and surely, O most good and holy man, having one wife already, it will not please you henceforth to live in sin with a heathen woman.” Now Hokosa turned to Owen:-- “In the old days,” he said, “I could have answered her; but now I am fallen; or raised up--at the least I am changed and cannot. O prophet of Heaven, tell me what I shall do.” “Sever the bond that you have upon her and let her go,” answered Owen. “This love of yours is unnatural, unholy and born of witchcraft; have done with it, or if you cannot, at the least deny it, for such a woman, a woman who hates you, can work you no good. Moreover, since she is a second wife, you being a Christian, are bound to free her should she so desire.” “She can work me no good, Messenger, that I know; but I know also that while she struggles in the net of my will she can work me no evil. If I loose the net and the fish swims free, it may be otherwise.” “Loose it,” answered Owen, “and leave the rest to Providence. Henceforth, Hokosa, do right, and take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow is with God, and what He decrees, that shall befall.” “I hear you,” said Hokosa, “and I obey.” For a while he rocked himself to and fro, staring at the ground, then he lifted his head and spoke:-- “Woman,” he said, “the knot is untied and the spell is broken. Begone, for I release you and I divorce you. Flesh of my flesh have you been, and soul of my soul, for in the web of sorceries are we knit together. Yet be warned and presume not too far, for remember that which I have laid down I can take up, and that should I choose to command, you must still obey. Farewell, you are free.” Noma heard, and with a sigh of ecstasy she sprang into the air as a slave might do from whom the fetters have been struck off. “Ay,” she cried, “I am free! I feel it in my blood, I who have lain in bondage, and the voice of freedom speaks in my heart and the breath of freedom blows in my nostrils. I am free from you, O dark and accursed man; but herein lies my triumph and revenge--_you_ are not free from me. In obedience to that white fool whom you have murdered, you have loosed me; but you I will not loose and could not if I would. Listen now, Hokosa: you love me, do you not?--next to this new creed of yours, I am most of all to you. Well, since you have divorced me, I will tell you, I go straight to another man. Now, look your last on me; for you love me, do you not?” and she slipped the mantle from her shoulders and except for her girdle stood before him naked, and smiled. “Well,” she went on, resuming her robe, “the last words of those we love are always dear to us; therefore, Hokosa, you who were my husband, I leave mine with you. You are a coward and a traitor, and your doom shall be that of a coward and a traitor. For my sake you betrayed Umsuka, your king and benefactor; for your own sake you betrayed Nodwengo, who spared you; and now, for the sake of your miserable soul, you have betrayed Hafela to Nodwengo. Nay, I know the tale, do not answer me, but the end of it--ah! that is yet to learn. Lie there, snake, and lick the hand that you have bitten, but I, the bird whom you have loosed, I fly afar--taking your heart with me!” and suddenly she turned and was gone. Presently Hokosa spoke in a thick voice:-- “Messenger,” he said, “this cross that you have given me to bear is heavy indeed.” “Yes, Hokosa,” answered Owen, “for to it your sins are nailed.” CHAPTER XVIII THE PASSING OF OWEN Once she was outside of Owen’s house, Noma did not tarry. First she returned to Hokosa’s kraal, where she had already learnt from his head wife, Zinti, and others the news of his betrayal of the plot of Hafela, of his conversion to the faith of the Christians, and of the march of the _impi_ to ambush the prince. Here she took a little spear, and rolling up in a skin blanket as much dried meat as she could carry, she slipped unnoticed from the kraal. Her object was to escape from the Great Place, but this she did not try to do by any of the gates, knowing them to be guarded. Some months ago, before she started on her embassy, she had noted a weak spot in the fence, where dogs had torn a hole through which they passed out to hunt at night. To this spot she made her way under cover of the darkness--for though she still greatly feared to be alone at night, her pressing need conquered her fears--and found that the hole was yet there, for a tall weed growing in its mouth had caused it to be overlooked by those whose duty it was to mend the fence. With her assegai she widened it a little, then drew her lithe shape through it, and lying hidden till the guard had passed, climbed the two stone walls beyond. Once she was free of the town, she set her course by the stars and started forward at a steady run. “If my strength holds I shall yet be in time to warn him,” she muttered to herself. “Ah! friend Hokosa, this new madness of yours has blunted your wits that once were sharp enough. You have set me free, and now you shall learn how I can use my freedom. Not for nothing have I been your pupil, Hokosa the fox.” Before the dawn broke Noma was thirty miles from the Great Place, and before the next dawn she was a hundred. At sunset on that second day she stood among mountains. To her right stretched a great defile, a rugged place of rocks and bush, wherein she knew that the regiments of the king were hid in ambush. Perchance she was too late, perchance the _impi_ of Hafela had already passed to its doom in yonder gorge. Swiftly she ran forward on to the trail which led to the gorge, to find that it had been trodden by many feet and recently. Moving to and fro she searched the spoor with her eyes, then rose with a sigh of joy. It was old, and marked the passage of the great company of women and children and their thousands of cattle which, in execution of the plot, had travelled this path some days before. Either the _impi_ had not yet arrived, or it had gone by some other road. Weary as she was, Noma followed the old spoor backwards. A mile or more away it crossed the crest of a hog-backed mountain, from whose summit she searched the plain beyond, and not in vain, for there far beneath her twinkled the watch-fires of the army of Hafela. Three hours later a woman, footsore and utterly exhausted, staggered into the camp, and waving aside the spears that were lifted to stab her, demanded to be led to the prince. Presently she was there. “Who is this woman?” asked the great warrior; for, haggard as she was with travel, exhaustion, and the terror of her haunted loneliness, he did not know her in the uncertain firelight. “Hafela,” she said, “I am Noma who was the wife of Hokosa, and for whole nights and days I have journeyed as no woman ever journeyed before, to tell you of the treachery of Hokosa and to save you from your doom.” “What treachery and what doom?” asked the prince. “Before I answer you that question, Hafela, you must pay me the price of my news.” “Let me hear the price, Noma.” “It is this, Prince: First, the head of Hokosa, who has divorced me, when you have caught him.” “That I promise readily. What more?” “Secondly, the place of your chief wife to-day; and a week hence, when I shall have made you king, the name and state of Queen of the People of Fire with all that hangs thereto.” “You are ambitious, woman, and know well how to drive a bargain. Well, if you can ask, I can give, for I have ever loved you, and your mind is great as your body is beautiful. If through your help I should become King of the People of Fire, you shall be their Queen, I swear it by the spirits of my fathers and by my own head. And now--your tidings.” “These are they, Hafela. Hokosa has turned Christian and betrayed the plot to Nodwengo; and the great gorge yonder but three hours march away is ambushed. To-morrow you and your people would have been cut off there had I not run so fast and far to warn you, after which the _impis_ of Nodwengo were commanded to follow your women and cattle over the mountain pass and capture them.” “This is news indeed,” said the prince. “Say now, how many regiments are hidden in the gorge?” “Eight.” “Well, I have fourteen; so, being warned, there is little to fear. I will catch these rats in their own hole.” “I have a better plan,” said Noma; “it is this: leave six regiments posted upon the brow of yonder hill and let them stay there. Then when the generals of Nodwengo see that they do not enter the gorge, they will believe that the ambush is discovered, and, after waiting one day or perhaps two, will move out to give battle, thinking that before them is all your strength. But command your regiments to run and not to fight, drawing the army of Nodwengo after them. Meanwhile, yes, this very night, you yourself with all the men that are left to you must march upon the Great Place, which, though it be strong, can be stormed, for it is defended by less than five thousand soldiers. There, having taken it, you shall slay Nodwengo, proclaiming yourself king, and afterwards, by the help of the _impi_ that you leave here which will march onward to your succour, you can deal with yonder army.” “A great scheme truly,” said Hafela in admiration; “but how do I know whether all this tale is true, or whether you do but set a snare for me?” “Bid scouts go out and creep into yonder gully,” answered Noma, “and you will see whether or no I have spoken falsely. For the rest, I am in your hands, and if I lie you can take my life in payment.” “If I march upon the Great Place, it must be at midnight when none see me go,” said Hafela, “and what will you do then, Noma, who are too weary to travel again so soon?” “I will be borne in a litter till my strength comes back to me,” she answered. “And now give me to eat and let me rest while I may.” ***** Five hours later, Hafela with the most of his army, a force of something over twenty thousand men, was journeying swiftly but by a circuitous route towards the Great Place of the king. On the crest of the hill facing the gorge, as Noma had suggested, he left six regiments with instructions to fly before Nodwengo’s generals, and when they had led them far enough, to follow him as swiftly as they were able. These orders, or rather the first part of them, they carried out, for as it chanced after two days’ flight, the king’s soldiers got behind them by a night march, and falling on them at dawn, killed half of them and dispersed the rest. Then it was that Nodwengo’s generals learned for the first time that they were following one wing of Hafela’s army only, while the main body was striking at the heart of the kingdom, and turned their faces homewards in fear and haste. ***** On the morning after the flight of Noma, Owen passed into the last stage of his sickness, and it became evident, both to himself and to those who watched him, that at the most he could not live for more than a few days. For his part, he accepted his doom joyfully, spending the time which was left to him in writing letters that were to be forwarded to England whenever an opportunity should arise. Also he set down on paper a statement of the principal events of his strange mission, and other information for the guidance of his white successors, who by now should be drawing near to the land of the Amasuka. In the intervals of these last labours, from time to time he summoned the king and the wisest and trustiest of them whom he had baptised to his bedside, teaching them what they should do when he was gone, and exhorting them to cling to the Faith. On the afternoon of the fourth day from that of the baptism of Hokosa he fell into a quiet sleep, from which he did not wake till sundown. “Am I still here?” he asked wondering, of John and Hokosa who watched at his bedside. “From my dreams I thought that it was otherwise. John, send a messenger to the king and ask of him to assemble the people, all who care to come, in the open place before my house. I am about to die, and first I would speak with them.” John went weeping upon his errand, leaving Owen and Hokosa alone. “Tell me know what shall I do?” said Hokosa in a voice of despair, “seeing that it is I and no other who have brought this death upon you.” “Fret not, my brother,” answered Owen, “for this and other things you did in the days of your blindness, and it was permitted that you should do them to an end. Kneel down now, that I may absolve you from your sins before I pass away; for I tell you, Hokosa, I believe that ere many days are over you must walk on the same path which I travel to-night.” “Is it so?” Hokosa answered. “Well, I am glad, for I have no longer any lust of life.” Then he knelt down and received the absolution. Now John returned and Nodwengo with him, who told him that the people were gathering in hundreds according to his wish. “Then clothe me in my robes and let us go forth,” he said, “for I would speak my last words in the ears of men.” So they put the surplice and hood upon his wasted form and went out, John preceding him holding on high the ivory crucifix, while the king and Hokosa supported him, one on either side. Without his gate stood a low wooden platform, whence at times Owen had been accustomed to address any congregation larger than the church would contain. On this platform he took his seat. The moon was bright above him, and by it he could see that already his audience numbered some thousands of men, women and children. The news had spread that the wonderful white man, Messenger, wished to take his farewell of the nation, though even now many did not understand that he was dying, but imagined that he was about to leave the country, or, for aught they knew, to vanish from their sight into Heaven. For a moment Owen looked at the sea of dusky faces, then in the midst of an intense stillness, he spoke in a voice low indeed but clear and steady:-- “My children,” he said, “hear my last words to you. More than three years ago, in a far, far land and upon such a night as this, a Voice spoke to me from above commanding me to seek you out, to turn you from your idolatry and to lighten your darkness. I listened to the Voice, and hither I journeyed across sea and land, though how this thing might be done I could not guess. But to Him Who sent me all things are possible, and while yet I lingered upon the threshold of your country, in a dream were revealed to me events that were to come. So I appeared before you boldly, and knowing that he had been poisoned and that I could cure him, I drew back your king from the mouth of death, and you said to yourselves: ‘Behold a wizard indeed! Let us hear him.’ Then I gave battle to your sorcerers yonder upon the plain, and from the foot of the Cross I teach, the lightnings were rolled back upon them and they were not. Look now, their chief stands at my side, among my disciples one of the foremost and most faithful. Afterwards troubles arose: your king died a Christian, and many of the people fell away; but still a remnant remained, and he who became king was converted to the truth. Now I have sown the seed, and the corn is ripe before my eyes, but it is not permitted that I should reap the harvest. My work is ended, my task is done, and I, the Messenger, return to make report to Him Who sent the message. “Hear me yet a little while, for soon shall my voice be silent. ‘I come not to bring peace, but a sword,’--so said the Master Whom I preach, and so say I, the most unworthy of His servants. Salvation cannot be bought at a little price; it must be paid for by the blood and griefs of men, and in blood and griefs must you pay, O my children. Through much tribulation must you also enter the kingdom of God. Even now the heathen is at your gates, and many of you shall perish on his spears, but I tell you that he shall not conquer. Be faithful, cling to the Cross, and do not dare to doubt your Lord, for He will be your Captain and you shall be His people. Cleave to your king, for he is good; and in the day of trial listen to the counsel of this Hokosa who once was the first of evil-doers, for with him goes my spirit, and he is my son in the spirit. “My children, fare you well! Forget me not, for I have loved you; or if you will, forget me, but remember my teaching and hearken to those who shall tread upon the path I made. The peace of God be with you, the blessing of God be upon you, and the salvation of God await you, as it awaits me to-night! Friends, lead me hence to die.” They turned to him, but before their hands touched him Thomas Owen fell forward upon the breast of Hokosa and lay there a while. Then suddenly, for the last time, he lifted himself and cried aloud:-- “I have fought a good fight! I have finished my course! I have kept the faith! Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness . . . and not to me only, but to all those who love His appearing.” Then his head fell back, his dark eyes closed, and the Messenger was dead. Hokosa, the man who had murdered him, having lifted him up to show him to the people, amidst a sound of mighty weeping, took the body in his arms and bore it thence to make it ready for burial. CHAPTER XIX THE FALL OF THE GREAT PLACE On the morrow at sundown all that remained of Thomas Owen was laid to rest before the altar of the little church, Nodwengo the king and Hokosa lowering him into the grave, while John, his first disciple, read over him the burial service of the Christians, which it had been one of the dead man’s last labours to translate into the language of the Amasuka. Before the ceremony was finished, a soldier, carrying a spear in his hand, pushed his way through the dense and weeping crowd, and having saluted, whispered something into the ear of the king. Nodwengo started, and, with a last look of farewell at the face of his friend, left the chapel, accompanied by some of his generals who were present, muttering to Hokosa that he was to follow when all was done. Accordingly, some few minutes later, he went and was admitted into the Council Hut, where captains and messengers were to be seen arriving and departing continuously. “Hokosa,” said the king, “you have dealt treacherously with me in the past, but I believe now that your heart is true; at the least I follow the commands of our dead master and trust you. Listen: the outposts have sighted an _impi_ of many regiments advancing towards the Great Place, though whether or no it be my own _impi_ returning victorious from the war with my brother, I cannot say. There is this against it, however, that a messenger has but just arrived reporting that the generals have perceived the host of Hafela encamped upon a ridge over against the gorge where they awaited him. If that be so, they can scarcely have given him battle, for the messenger is swift of foot and has travelled night and day. Yet how can this be the _impi_ of Hafela, who, say the generals, is encamped upon the ridge?” “He may have left the ridge, King, having been warned of the ambush.” “It cannot be, for when the runner started his fires burned there and his soldiers were gathered round them.” “Then perhaps his captains sit upon the ridge with some portion of his strength to deceive those who await him in the gorge; while, knowing that here men are few, he himself swoops down on you with the main body of his _impi_.” “At least we shall learn presently,” answered the king; “but if it be as I fear and we are outwitted, what is there that we can do against so many?” Now one of the captains proposed that they should stay where they were and hold the place. “It is too large,” answered the king, “they will burst the fences and break our line.” Another suggested that they should fly and, avoiding the regiments of Hafela in the darkness of the night, should travel swiftly in search of the main army that had been sent to lie in ambush. “What,” said Nodwengo, “leaving the aged and the women and children to perish, for how can we take such a multitude? No, I will have none of this plan.” Then Hokosa spoke. “King,” he said, “listen to my counsel: Command now that all the women and the old men, taking with them such cattle and food as are in the town, depart at once into the Valley of Death and collect in the open space that lies beyond the Tree of Doom, near the spring of water that is there. The valley is narrow and the cliffs are steep, and it may chance that by the help of Heaven we shall be able to hold it till the army returns to relieve us, to seek which messengers must be sent at once with these tidings.” “The plan is good,” said the king, though none had thought of it; “but so we shall lose the town.” “Towns can be rebuilt,” answered Hokosa, “but who may restore the lives of men?” As the words left his lips, a runner burst into the council, crying: “King, the _impi_ is that of Hafela, and the prince heads it in person. Already his outposts rest upon the Plain of Fire.” Then Nodwengo rose and issued his orders, commanding that all the ineffective population of the town, together with such food and cattle as could be gathered, should retreat at once into the Valley of Death. By this time the four or five thousand soldiers who were left in the Great Place had been paraded on the open ground in front of the king’s house, where they stood, still and silent, in the moonlight. Nodwengo and the captains went out to them, and as they saw him come they lifted their spears like one man, giving him the royal salute of “King!” He held up his hand and addressed them. “Soldiers,” he said, “we have been outwitted. My _impi_ is afar, and that of Hafela is at our gates. Yonder in the valley, though we be few, we can defend ourselves till succour reaches us, which already messengers have gone out to seek. But first we must give time for the women and children, the sick and the aged, to withdraw with food and cattle; and this we can do in one way only, by keeping Hafela at bay till they have passed the archway, all of them. Now, soldiers, for the sake of your own lives, of your honour and of those you love, swear to me, in the holy Name which we have been taught to worship, that you will fight out this great fight without fear or faltering.” “We swear it in the holy Name, and by your head, King,” roared the regiments. “Then victory is already ours,” answered Nodwengo. “Follow me, Children of Fire!” and shaking his great spear, he led the way towards that portion of the outer fence upon which Hafela was advancing. By now the town behind them was a scene of almost indescribable tumult and confusion, for the companies detailed to the task were clearing the numberless huts of their occupants, and collecting women, children and oxen in thousands, preparatory to driving them into the defile. Panic had seized many of these poor creatures, who, in imagination, already saw themselves impaled upon the cruel spears of Hafela’s troops, and indeed in not a few instances believed those who were urging them forward to be the enemy. Women shrieked and wrung their hands, children wailed piteously, oxen lowed, and the infirm and aged vented their grief in groans and cries to Heaven, or their ancient god, for mercy. In truth, so difficult was the task of marshalling this motley array at night, numbering as it did ten or twelve thousand souls, that a full hour went by before the mob even began to move, slowly and uncertainly, towards the place of refuge, whereof the opening was so narrow that but few of them could pass it at a time. Meanwhile Hafela was developing the attack. Forming his great army into the shape of a wedge he raised his battle-cry and rushed down on the first line of fortifications, which he stormed without difficulty, for they were defended by a few skirmishers only. Next he attacked the second line, and carried it after heavy fighting, then hurled himself upon the weakest point of the main fence of the vast kraal. Here it was that the fray began in earnest, for here Nodwengo was waiting for him. Thrice the thousands rolled on in the face of a storm of spears, and thrice they fell back from the wide fence of thorns and the wall of stone behind it. By now the battle had raged for about an hour and a half, and it was reported to the king that the first of the women and children had passed the archway into the valley, and that nearly all of them were clear of the eastern gate of the town. “Then it is time that we follow them,” said the king, “for if we wait here until the warriors of Hafela are among us, our retreat will become a rout and soon there will be none left to follow. Let one company,” and he named it, “hold the fence for a while to give us time to withdraw, taking the wounded with us.” “We hear you, king,” said one of that company, “but our captain is killed.” “Who among you will take over the command of these men and hold the breach?” asked Nodwengo of the group of officers about him. “I, King,” answered old Hokosa, lifting his spear, “for I care not whether I live or die.” “Go to, boaster!” cried another. “Who among us cares whether he lives or dies when the king commands?” “That we shall know to-morrow,” said Hokosa quietly, and the soldiers laughed at the retort. “So be it,” said the king, and while silently and swiftly he led off the regiments, keeping in the shadow of the huts, Hokosa and his hundred men posted themselves behind the weakened fence and wall. Now, for the fourth time the attacking regiment came forward grimly, on this occasion led by the prince himself. As they drew near, Hokosa leapt upon the wall, and standing there in the bright moonlight where all could see him, he called to them to halt. Instinctively they obeyed him. “Is it Hafela whom I see yonder?” he asked. “Ah! it is I,” answered the prince. “What would you with me, wizard and traitor?” “This only, Hafela: I would ask you what you seek here?” “That which you promised me, Hokosa, the crown of my father and certain other things.” “Then get you back, Hafela, for you shall never win them.. Have I prophesied falsely to you at any time? Not so--neither do I prophesy falsely now. Get you back whence you came, and your wolves with you, else shall you bide here for ever.” “Do you dare to call down evil on me, Wizard?” shouted the prince furiously. “Your wife is mine, and now I take your life also,” and with all his strength he hurled at him the great spear he held. It hissed past Hokosa’s head, touching his ear, but he never flinched from the steel. “A poor cast, Prince,” he said laughing; “but so it must have been, for I am guarded by that which you cannot see. My wife you have, and she shall be your ruin; my life you may take, but ere it leaves me, Hafela, I shall see you dead and your army scattered. The Messenger is passed away, but his power has fallen upon me and I speak the truth to you, O Prince and warriors, who are--already dead.” Now a shriek of dismay and fury rose from the hundreds who heard this prophesy of ill, for of Hokosa and his magic they were terribly afraid. “Kill him! Kill the wizard!” they shouted, and a rain of spears rushed towards him on the wall. They rushed towards him, they passed above, below, around; but, of them all, not one touched him. “Did I not tell you that I was guarded by That which you cannot see?” Hokosa asked contemptuously. Then slowly he descended from the wall amidst a great silence. “When men are scarce the tongue must play a part,” he explained to his companions, who stared at him wondering. “By now the king and those with him should have reached the eastern gate; whereas, had we fought at once, Hafela would be hard upon his heels, for we are few, and who can hold a buffalo with a rope of grass? Yet I think that I spoke truth when I told him that the garment of the Messenger has fallen upon my shoulders, and that death awaits him and his companions, as it awaits me also and many of us. Now, friends, be ready, for the bull charges and soon we must feel his horns. This at least is left to you, to die gloriously.” While he was still speaking the first files of the regiment rushed upon the fence, tearing aside the thorns with their hands till a passage was made through them. Then they sprang upon the wall, there to be met by the spears of Hokosa and his men thrusting upward from beneath its shelter. Time after time they sprang, and time after time they fell back dead or wounded, till at last, dashing forward in one dense column, they poured over the stones as the rising tide pours over the rocks on the sea-shore, driving the defenders before them by the sheer weight of numbers. “This game is played!” cried Hokosa. “Fly now to the eastern gate, for here we can do nothing more.” So they fled, those who survived of them, and after them came the thousands of the foe, sacking and firing the deserted town as they advanced. Hokosa and his men, or rather the half of them, reached the gate and passed it in safety, barring it after them, and thereby delaying the attackers till they could burst their way through. Now hundreds of huts were afire, and the flames spread swiftly, lighting up the country far and wide. In the glare of them, Hokosa could see that already a full two-thirds of the crowd of fugitives had passed the narrow arch; while Nodwengo and the soldiers were drawn up in companies upon the steep and rocky slope that led to it, protecting their retreat. He advanced to the king and reported himself. “So you have lived through it,” said Nodwengo. “I shall die when my hour comes, and not before,” Hokosa answered. “We did well yonder, and yet the most of us are alive to tell the tale, for I knew when and how to go. Be ready, king, for the foe press us close, and that mob behind us crawls onward like a snail.” As he spoke the pursuers broke through the fence and gate of the burning town, and once more the fight began. They had the advantage of numbers; but Nodwengo and his troops stood in a wide road upon higher ground protected on either side by walls, and were, moreover, rested, not breathless and weary with travel like the men of Hafela. Slowly, fighting, every inch of the way, Nodwengo was pushed back, and slowly the long ant-like line of women and sick and cattle crept through the opening in the rock, till at length all of them were gone. “It is time,” said Nodwengo, glancing behind him, “for our arms grow weary.” Then he gave orders, and company by company the defending force followed on the path of the fugitives, till at length amidst a roar of rage and disappointment, the last of them vanished through the arch, Hokosa among them, and the place was blocked with stones, above which shone a hedge of spears. CHAPTER XX NOMA SETS A SNARE Thus ended the first night’s battle, since for this time the enemy had fought enough. Nodwengo and his men had also had enough, for out of the five thousand of them some eleven hundred were killed or wounded. Yet they might not rest, for all that night, assisted by the women, they laboured, building stone walls across the narrowest parts of the valley. Also the cattle, women and children were moved along the gorge, which in shape may be compared to a bottle with two necks, one at either end, and encamped in the opening of the second neck, where was the spring of water. This spot was chosen both because here alone water could be obtained, without which they could not hold out more than a single day, and because the koppie whereon grew the strange-looking euphorbia known as the Tree of Doom afforded a natural rampart against attack. Shortly after dawn, while the soldiers were resting and eating of such food as could be procured--for the most part strips of raw or half-cooked meat cut from hastily killed cattle--the onslaught was renewed with vigour, Hafela directing his efforts to the forcing of the natural archway. But, strive as he would, this he could not do, for it was choked with stones and thorns and guarded by brave men. “You do but waste your labour, Hafela,” said Noma, who stood by him watching the assault. “What then is to be done?” he asked, “for unless we come at them we cannot kill them. It was clever of them to take refuge in this hole. I thought surely that they would fight it out yonder, beneath the fences of the Great Place.” “Ah!” she answered, “you forgot that they had Hokosa on their side. Did you then think to catch him sleeping? This retreat was Hokosa’s counsel. I learned it from the lips of that wounded captain before they killed him. Now, it seems that there are but two paths to follow, and you can choose between them. The one is to send a regiment a day and a half’s journey across the cliff top to guard the further mouth of the valley and to wait till these jackals starve in their hole, for certainly they can never come out.” “It has started six hours since,” said Hafela, “and though the precipices are steep, having the moon to travel by, it should reach the river mouth of the valley before dawn to-morrow, cutting Nodwengo off from the plains, if indeed he should dare to venture out upon them, which, with so small a force, he will not do. Yet this first plan of yours must fail, Noma, seeing that before they starve within, the generals of Nodwengo will be back upon us from the mountains, catching us between the hammer and the anvil, and I know not how that fight would go.” “Yet, soon or late, it must be fought.” “Nay,” he answered, “for my hope is that should the _impi_ return to find Nodwengo dead, they will surrender and acknowledge me as king, who am the first of the blood royal. But what is your second plan?” By way of answer, she pointed to the cliff above them. On the right-hand side, facing the archway, was a flat ledge overhanging the valley, at a height of about a hundred feet. “If you can come yonder,” she said, “it will be easy to storm this gate, for there lie rocks in plenty, and men cannot fight when stones are dropping on their heads.” “But how can we come to that home of vultures, where never man has set a foot? Look, the cliff above is sheer; no rock-rabbit could stand upon it.” With her eye Noma measured the distance from the brink of the precipice to the broad ledge commanding the valley. “Sixty paces, not more,” she said. “Well, yonder are oxen in plenty, and out of their hides ropes can be made, and out of ropes a ladder, down which men may pass; ten, or even five, would be enough.” “Well thought of Noma,” said Hafela. “Hokosa told us last night that to him had passed the wisdom of the Messenger; but if this be so, I think that to you has passed the guile of Hokosa.” “It seems to me that some of it abides with him,” answered Noma laughing. Then the prince gave orders, and, with many workers of hides toiling at it, within two hours the ladder was ready, its staves, set twenty inches apart, being formed of knob-kerries, or the broken shafts of stabbing spears. Now they lowered it from the top of the precipice so that its end rested upon the ledge, and down it came several men, who swung upon its giddy length like spiders on a web. Reaching this great shelf in safety and advancing to the edge of it, these men started a boulder, which, although as it chanced it hurt no one, fell in the midst of a group of the defenders and bounded away through them. “Now we must be going,” said Hokosa, looking up, “for no man can fight against rocks, and our spears cannot reach those birds. Had the army been taught the use of the bow, as I counselled in the past days, we might still have held the archway; but they called it a woman’s weapon, and would have none of it.” As he spoke another stone fell, crushing the life out of a man who stood next to him. Then they retreated to the first wall, which had been piled up during the night, where it was not possible to roll rocks upon them from the cliffs above. This wall, and others reared at intervals behind it, they set to work to strengthen as much as they could, making the most of the time that was left to them before the enemy could clear the way and march on to attack. Presently Hafela’s men were through and sweeping down upon them with a roar, thinking to carry the wall at a single rush. But in this they failed; indeed, it as only after an hour’s hard fighting and by the expedient of continually attacking the work with fresh companies that at length they stormed the wall. When Hokosa saw that he could no longer hold the place, but before the foe was upon him, he drew off his soldiers to the second wall, a quarter of a mile or more away, and here the fight began again. And so it went on for hour after hour, as one by one the fortifications were carried by the weight of numbers, for the attackers fought desperately under the eye of their prince, caring nothing for the terrible loss they suffered in men. Twice the force of the defenders was changed by order of Nodwengo, fresh men being sent from the companies held in reserve to take the places of those who had borne the brunt of the battle. This indeed it was necessary to do, seeing that it was impossible to carry water to so many, and in that burning valley men could not fight for long athirst. Only Hokosa stayed on, for they brought him drink in a gourd, and wherever the fray was fiercest there he was always; nor although spears were rained upon him by hundreds, was he touched by one of them. At length as the night fell the king’s men were driven back from their last scherm in the western half of the valley, across the open space back upon the koppie where stood the Tree of Doom. Here they stayed a while till, overmatched and outworn, they were pushed from its rocks across the narrow stretch of broken ground into the shelter of the great stone scherm or wall that ran from side to side of the further neck of the valley, whereon thousands of women and such men as could be spared had been working incessantly during the past night and day. It was as he retreated among the last upon this wall that Hokosa caught sight of Noma for the first time since they parted in the house of the Messenger. In the forefront of his troops, directing the attack, was Hafela the prince, and at his side stood Noma, carrying in her hand a little shield and a spear. At this moment also she saw him and called aloud to him:-- “You have fought well, Wizard, but to-morrow all your magic shall avail you nothing, for it will be your last day upon this earth.” “Ay, Noma,” he answered, “and yours also.” Then of a sudden a company of the king’s men rushed from the shelter of the wall upon the attackers driving them back to the koppie and killing several, so that in the confusion and gathering darkness Hokosa lost sight of her, though a man at his side declared that he saw her fall beneath the thrust of an assegai. Thus ended the second day. Now when the watch had been set the king and his captains took counsel together, for their hearts were heavy. “Listen,” said Nodwengo: “out of five thousand soldiers a thousand have been killed and a thousand lie among us wounded. Hark to the groaning of them! Also we have with us women and children and sick to the number of twelve thousand, and between us and those who would butcher them every one there stands but a single wall. Nor is this the worst of it: the spring cannot supply the wants of so great a multitude in this hot place, and it is feared that presently the water will be done. What way shall we turn? If we surrender to Hafela, perhaps he will spare the lives of the women and children; but whatever he may promise, the most of us he will surely slay. If we fight and are defeated, then once his regiments are among us, all will be slain according to the ancient custom of our people. I have bethought me that we might retreat through the valley, but the river beyond is in flood; also it is certain that before this multitude could reach it, the prince will have sent a force to cut us off while he himself harasses our rear. Now let him who has counsel speak.” “King, I have counsel,” said Hokosa. “What were the words that the Messenger spoke to us before he died? Did he not say: ‘Even now the heathen is at your gates, and many of you shall perish on his spears; but I tell you that he shall not conquer’? Did he not say: ‘Be faithful, cling to the Cross, and do not dare to doubt your Lord, for He will protect you, and your children after you, and He will be your Captain and you shall be His people’? Did he not bid you also to listen to my counsel? Then listen to it, for it is his: Your case seems desperate, but have no fear, and take no thought for the morrow, for all shall yet be well. Let us now pray to Him that the Messenger has revealed to us, and Whom now he implores on our behalf in that place where he is to guide us and to save us, for then surely He will hearken to our prayer.” “So be it,” said Nodwengo, and going out he stood upon a pillar of stone in the moonlight and offered up his supplication in the hearing of the multitude. Meanwhile, those of the camp of Hafela were also taking counsel. They had fought bravely indeed, and carried the schanses; but at great cost, since for every man that Nodwengo had lost, three of theirs had fallen. Moreover, they were in evil case with weariness and the want of water, as each drop they drank must be carried to them from the Great Place in bags made of raw hide, which caused it to stink, for they had but few gourds with them. “Now it is strange,” said Hafela, “that these men should fight so bravely, seeing that they are but a handful. There can be scarce three thousand of them left, and yet I doubt not that before we carry those last walls of theirs as many of us or more will be done. Ay! and after they are done with, we must meet their great _impi_ when it returns, and of what will befall us then I scarcely like to think.” “Ill-fortune will befall you while Hokosa lives,” broke in Noma. “Had it not been for him, this trouble would have been done with by now; but he is a wizard, and by his wizardries he defeats us and puts heart into Nodwengo and the warriors. You, yourself, have seen him this day defying us, not once but many times, for upon his flesh steel has no power. Ay! and this is but the beginning of evil, for I am sure that he leads you into some deep trap where you shall perish everlastingly. Did he not himself declare that the power of that dead white worker of miracles has fallen upon him, and who can fight against magic?” “Who, indeed?” said Hafela humbly; for like all savages he was very superstitious, and, moreover, a sincere believer in Hokosa’s supernatural capacities. “This wizard is too strong for us; he is invulnerable, and as I know well he can read the secret thoughts of men and can suck wisdom from the dead, while to his eyes the darkness is no blind.” “Nay, Hafela,” answered Noma, “there is one crack in his shield. Hear me: if we can but catch him and hold him fast we shall have no need to fear him more, and I think that I know how to bait the trap.” “How will you bait it?” asked Hafela. “Thus. Midway between the koppie and the wall behind which lie the men of the king stands a flat rock, and all about that rock are stretched the bodies of dead soldiers. Now, this is my plan: that when next one of those dark storm-clouds passes over the face of the moon six of the strongest of our warriors should creep upon their bellies down this way and that, as though they were also numbered with the slain. This done, you shall despatch a herald to call in the ears of the king that you desire to treat with him of peace. Then he will answer that if this be so you can come beneath the walls of his camp, and your herald shall refuse, saying that you fear treachery. But he must add that if Nodwengo will bid Hokosa to advance alone to the flat rock, you will bid me, Noma, whom none can fear, to do likewise, and that there we can talk in sight of both armies, and returning thence, make report to you and to Nodwengo. Afterwards, so soon as Hokosa has set his foot upon the rock, those men who seem to be dead shall spring upon him and drag him to our camp, where we can deal with him; for once the wizard is taken, the cause of Nodwengo is lost.” “A good pitfall,” said the prince; “but will Hokosa walk into the trap?” “I think so, Hafela, for three reasons. He is altogether without fear; he will desire, if may be, to make peace on behalf of the king; and he has this strange weakness, that he still loves me, and will scarcely suffer an occasion of speaking with me to go past, although he has divorced me.” “So be it,” said the prince; “the game can be tried, and if it fails, why we lose nothing, whereas if it succeeds we gain Hokosa, which is much; for with you I think that our arms will never prosper while that accursed wizard sits yonder weaving his spells against us, and bringing our men to death by hundreds and by thousands.” Then he gave his orders, and presently, when a cloud passed over the face of the moon, six chosen men crept forward under the lee of the flat rock and threw themselves down here and there amongst the dead. Soon the cloud passed, and the herald advanced across the open space blowing a horn, and waving a branch in his hand to show that he came upon a mission of peace. CHAPTER XXI HOKOSA IS LIFTED UP “What would you?” asked Hokosa of the herald as he halted a short spear-cast from the wall. “My master, the Prince Hafela, desires to treat with your master, Nodwengo. Many men have fallen on either side, and if this war goes on, though victory must be his at last, many more will fall. Therefore, if any plan can be found, he desires to spare their lives.” Now Hokosa spoke with the king, and answered:-- “Then let Hafela come beneath the wall and we will talk with him.” “Not so,” answered the herald. “Does a buck walk into an open pit? Were the prince to come here it might chance that your spears would talk with him. Let Nodwengo follow me to the camp yonder, where we promise him safe conduct.” “Not so,” answered Hokosa. “‘Does a buck walk into an open pit?’ Set out your message, and we will consider it.” “Nay, I am but a common man without authority; but I am charged to make you another offer, and if you will not hear it then there is an end. Let Hokosa advance alone to that flat rock you see yonder, and there he shall be met, also alone, by one having power to talk with him, namely, by the Lady Noma, who was once his wife. Thus they can confer together midway between the camps and in full sight of both of them, nor, no man being near, can he find cause to be afraid of an unarmed girl. What say you?” Hokosa turned and talked with the king. “I think it well that you should not go,” said Nodwengo. “The offer seems fair, and the stone is out of reach of their spears; still, behind it may lurk a scheme to kill or capture you, for Hafela is very cunning.” “It may be so, King,” answered Hokosa; “still, my heart tells me it is wisest that I should do this thing, for our case is desperate, and if I do it not, that may be the cause of the death of all of us to-morrow. At the worst, I am but one man, and it matters little what may chance to me; nor shall I come to any harm unless it is the will of Heaven that it should be so; and be sure of this, that out of the harm will arise good, for where I go there the spirit of the Messenger goes with me. Remember that he bade you listen to my counsel while I remain with you, seeing that I do not speak of my own wisdom. Therefore let me go, and if it should chance that I am taken, trouble not about the matter, for thus it will be fated to some great end. Above all, though often enough I have been a traitor in the past, do not dream that I betray you, keeping in mind that so to do would be to betray my own soul, which very soon must render its account on high.” “As you will, Hokosa,” answered the king. “And now tell those rebel dogs that on these terms only will I make peace with them--that they withdraw across the mountains by the path which their women and children have taken, leaving this land for ever without lifting another spear against us. If they will do this, notwithstanding all the wickedness and slaughter that they have worked, I will send command to my _impi_ to let them go unharmed. If they will not do this, I put my trust in the God I worship and will fight this fray out to the end, knowing that if I and my people perish, they shall perish also.” Now Nodwengo himself spoke to the herald who was waiting beyond the wall. “Go back to him you serve,” he said, “and say that Hokosa will meet her who was his wife upon the flat stone and talk with her in the sight of both armies, bearing my word with him. At the sound of the blowing of a horn shall each of them advance unarmed and alone from either camp. Say to my brother also that it will indeed be ill for him if he attempts treachery upon Hokosa, for the man who causes his blood to flow will surely die, and after death shall be accursed for ever.” The herald went, and presently a horn was blown. “Now it comes into my mind that we part for the last time,” said Nodwengo in a troubled voice as he took the hand of Hokosa. “It may be so, King; in my heart I think that it is so; yet I do not altogether grieve thereat, for the burden of my past sins crushes me, and I am weary and seek for rest. Yet we do not part for the last time, because whatever chances, in the end I shall make my report to you yonder”--and he pointed upwards. “Reign on for long years, King--reign well and wisely, clinging to the Faith, for thus at the last shall you reap your reward. Farewell!” Now again the horn blew, and in the bright moonlight the slight figure of Noma could be seen advancing towards the stone. Then Hokosa sprang from the wall and advanced also, till at the same moment they climbed upon the stone. “Greeting, Hokosa,” said Noma, and she stretched out her hand to him. By way of answer he placed his own behind his back, saying: “To your business, woman.” Yet his eyes searched her face--the face which in his folly he still loved; and thus it came about that he never saw sundry of the dead bodies, which lay in the shadow of the stone, begin to quicken into life, and inch by inch to arise, first to their knees and next to their feet. He never saw or heard them, yet, as the words left his lips, they sprang upon him from every side, holding him so that he could not move. “Away with him!” cried Noma with a laugh of triumph; and at her command he was half-dragged and half-carried across the open space and thrust violently over a stone wall into the camp of Hafela. Now Nodwengo and his soldiers saw what had happened, and with a shout of “Treachery!” some hundreds of them leapt into the plain and began to run towards the koppie to rescue their envoy. Hokosa heard the shout, and wrenching himself round, beheld them. “Back!” he cried in a clear, shrill voice. “Back! children of Nodwengo, and leave me to my fate, for the foe waits for you by thousands behind the wall!” A soldier struck him across the mouth, bidding him be silent; but his warning had come to the ears of Nodwengo, causing him and his warriors to halt and begin a retreat. It was well that they did so, for seeing that they would not come on, from under the shelter of the wall and of every rock and stone soldiers jumped up by companies and charged, driving them back to their own schanse. But the king’s men had the start of them, and had taken shelter behind it, whence they greeted them with a volley of spears, killing ten and wounding twice as many more. Now it was Hokosa’s turn to laugh, and laugh he did, saying:-- “My taking is well paid for already, Prince. A score of your best warriors is a heavy price to give for the carcase of one weary and aging man. But since I am here among you, captured with so much pain and loss, tell me of your courtesy why I have been brought.” Then the prince shook his spear at him and cursed him. “Would you learn, wizard and traitor?” he cried. “We have caught you because we know well that while you stay yonder your magic counsel will prevail against our might; whereas, when once we hold you fast, Nodwengo will wander to his ruin like a blind and moonstruck man, for you were to him both eyes and brain.” “I understand,” said Hokosa calmly. “But, Prince, how if I left my wisdom behind me?” “That may not be,” answered Hafela, “since even a wizard cannot throw his thoughts into the heart of another from afar.” “Ah! you think so, Prince. Well, ask Noma yonder if I cannot throw my thoughts into her heart from afar: though of late I have not chosen to do so, having put aside such spells. But let it pass, and tell me, having taken me, what is it you propose to do with me? First, however, I will give you for nothing some of that wisdom which you grudge to Nodwengo the king. Be advised by me, Prince, and take the terms that he offers to you--namely, to turn this very night and begone from the land without harm or hindrance. Will you receive my gift, Hafela?” “What will happen if I refuse it?” asked the prince slowly. Now Hokosa looked at the dust at his feet, then he gazed upwards searching the heavens, and answered:-- “Did not I tell you yesterday? I think that this will happen. I think--but who can be quite sure of the future, Hafela?--that you and the most of your army by this hour to-morrow night will be lying fast asleep about this place, with jackals for your bedfellows.” The prince heard and trembled at his words, for he believed that if he willed it, Hokosa could prophesy the truth. “Accursed dog!” he said. “I am minded to be guided by your saying; but be sure of this, that if I follow it, you shall stay here to sleep with jackals, yes, this very night.” Then Noma broke in. “Be not mad, Hafela!” she said. “Will you listen to the lies that this renegade tells to work upon your fears? Will you abandon victory when it lies within your grasp, and in place of a great king become a fugitive whom all men mock at, an outcast to be hunted down at leisure by that brother against whom you dared to rebel, but on whom you did not dare to shut your hand when he lay in its hollow? Silence the tongue of this captive rogue for ever and become a man again, with the heart of a man.” “Now,” said Hokosa gently; “many would find it hard to believe that I reared this woman from childhood, nursing her with my own hands when she was sick and giving her of the best I had; that afterwards, when you stole her from me, Prince, I sinned deeply to win her back. That I married her and sinned yet more deeply to give her the greatness she desired; and at last, of my own will, I loosed the bonds by which I held her, although I could not thrust her memory from my heart. Yet I have earned it all, for I made her the tool of my witchcraft, and therefore it is just that she should turn and rend me. Well, if you like it, take her counsel, Prince, and let mine go, for I care nothing which you take; only, forgive me if I prophesy once more and for the last time--I am sure that Nodwengo yonder spoke truth when he bade your herald tell me that he who causes my blood to flow shall surely die and for it be called to a strict account. Prince, I am a Christian now, and believe me, whatever you may do, I seek no revenge upon you; having been myself forgiven so much, in my turn I have learned to forgive. Yet it may be ill for that man who causes my blood to flow.” “Let him be strangled,” said a captain who stood near by, “and then there will be no blood in the matter.” “Friend,” answered Hokosa, “you should have been not a soldier but a pleader of causes. True it is then that the prince will only cause my life to fly, but whether that is a smaller sin I leave you to judge.” “Keep him prisoner,” said another, “till we learn how these matters end.” “Nay,” answered Hafela, “for then he will surely outwit us and escape. Noma, what shall we do with this man who was your husband? Tell us, for you should know best how to deal with him.” “Let me think,” she answered, and she looked first at the ground beneath her, next around her, then upwards toward the skies. Now they stood at the foot of the koppie, on the flat top of which grew the great Tree of Doom, that for generations had served the People of Fire as a place of execution of their criminals, or of those who fell under the ban of the king or of the witch-doctors. Among and above the finger-like fronds of this strange and dreadful-looking tree towered that white dead limb shaped like a cross, which Owen had pointed out to his disciple John, taking it to be a sign and a promise. This cross stood out clear against the sinking moon. It caught Noma’s eye, and a devilish thought entered into her heart. “You would keep this fellow alive?” she said, “and yet you would not suffer him to escape. See, there above you is a cross such as he worships. Bind him to it as he says the Man whom he worships was bound, and let that dead Man help him if he may.” The prince and those about Noma shrank back a little in horror. They were cruel men rendered more cruel by their superstitious fear of one whom they believed to be uncanny; one to whom they attributed inhuman powers which he was exercising to their destruction, but still this doom seemed dreadful to them. Noma read their minds and went on passionately:-- “You deem me unmerciful, but you do not know what I have suffered at this wizard’s hands. For his sake and because of him I am haunted. For his own purposes he opened the gates of Distance, he sent me down among the dwellers in Death, causing me to interpret their words for him. I did so, but the dwellers came back out of Death with me, and from that hour they have not left me, nor will they ever leave me; for night by night they sojourn at my side, tormenting me with terrors. He has told me that through my mouth that spirit whom he drew into my body prophesied that he should be ‘lifted up above the people.’ Let the prophecy be fulfilled, let him be lifted up, for then perchance the ghosts will depart from me and I shall win peace and sleep. Also, thus alone can you hold him safe and yet shed no blood.” “Be it so,” said the prince. “When we plotted together of the death of the king, and as your price, Hokosa, you bargained for the girl whom I had chosen to wife, did I not warn you that this witch of many spells, who holds both our hearts in her little hands, should yet hound you to death and mock you while you perished by an end of shame? What did I tell you, Hokosa?” Now when he heard his fate, Hokosa bowed his head and trembled a little. Then he lifted it, and exclaimed in a clear voice:-- “It is true, Prince, but I will add to your words. She shall bring _both_ of us to death. For me, I am honoured indeed in that there has been allotted to me that same end which my Master chose. To that cross let my sins be fastened and with them my body.” Now the moon sank, but in the darkness men were found who dared to climb the tree, taking with them strips of raw hide. They reached the top of it, four of them, and seating themselves upon the arms of the cross, they let down a rope, the noose of which was placed about the body of Hokosa. As it tightened upon him, he turned his calm and dreadful eyes on to the eyes of Noma and said to her:-- “Woman, I do not reproach you; but I lay this fate upon you, that you shall watch me die. Thereafter, let God deal with you as He may choose.” Now, when she heard these words Noma shrieked aloud, for of a sudden she felt that the power of the will of Hokosa, from which she had been freed by him, had once more fallen upon her, and that come what might she was doomed to obey his last commands. Little by little the soldiers drew him up and in the darkness they bound him fast there upon the lofty cross. Then they descended and left him, and would have led Noma with them from the tree. But this they could not do, for always she broke from them screaming, and fled back to its shadow. Then, seeing that she was bewitched, Hafela commanded that they should bind a cloth about her mouth and leave her there till her senses returned to her in the sunlight--for none of them dared to stop with her in the shadow of that tree, since the odours of it were poisonous to man. Also they believed the place to be haunted by evil spirits. CHAPTER XXII THE VICTORY OF THE CROSS The sun rose suddenly over the edge of the cliffs, and while it was yet deep shadow in the valley, its red light struck upon the white cross of perished wood that towered above the Tree of Doom and on the black shape of Hokosa crucified to it living. The camp of the king saw and understood, and from every throat of the thousands of men, women and children gathered there, went up a roar of rage and horror. The king lifted his hand, and silence fell upon the place; then he mounted on the wall and cried aloud:-- “Do you yet live, Hokosa, or is it your body only that those traitors have fastened to the tree?” Back came the answer through the clear still air:-- “I live, O King!” “Endure then a little while,” called Nodwengo, “and we will storm the tree and save you.” “Nay,” answered Hokosa, “you cannot save me; yet before I die I shall see you saved.” Then his words were lost in tumult, for the third day’s fighting began. Desperately the regiments of Hafela rushing across the open space, hurled themselves upon the fortifications, which, during the night, had been strengthened by the building of two inner walls. Nor was this all, for suddenly a cry told those in front that the regiment which Hafela had despatched across the mountains had travelled up the eastern neck of the valley, and were attacking the position in their rear. Well was it for Nodwengo now that he had listened to the counsel of Hokosa, and, wearied as his soldiers were, had commanded that here also a great wall should be built. For two hours the fight raged, and then on either side the foe fell back, not beaten indeed, though their dead were many, but to rest and take counsel. But now a new trouble arose: from all the camp of Nodwengo there went up a moan of pain to Heaven, for since the evening of yesterday the spring had given out, and they had found no water wherewith to wet their lips. During the night they bore it; but now the sun beating down on the black rocks with fearful force scorched them to the marrow, till they began to wither like fallen leaves, and already wounded men and children died, while the warriors cut the throats of oxen and drank their blood. Hokosa hanging on his cross heard this moaning and divined its cause. “Be of good comfort, children of Nodwengo,” he cried; “for I will pray that rain be sent upon you.” And he lifted his head and prayed. Now, whether it was by chance or whether his prayer was heard, who can say? At least it happened that immediately thereafter clouds began to gather and to thicken in the blue of Heaven, and within two hours rain fell in torrents, so that every one could drink his fill, and the spring being replenished at its sources, flowed again strongly. After the rain came cold and moaning winds, and after the wind a great gloom and thunder. Now, taking advantage of the shadow, the regiments of Hafela renewed their attack, and this time they carried the first of the three walls, for its defenders grew feeble and few in number. There they paused a while, and save for the cries of the wounded and of frightened women, the silence was great. “Let your hearts be filled up!” cried the voice of Hokosa through the silence; “for the sunlight shines upon the plain of the Great Place yonder, and in it I see the sheen of spears. The _impi_ travels to your aid, O children of Nodwengo.” Now, at this tidings the people of the king shouted for joy; but Hafela called to his regiments to make an end of them, and they hurled themselves upon the second wall, fighting desperately. Again and again they were beaten back, and again and again they came on, till at length they carried this wall also, driving its defenders, or those who remained alive of them, into the third entrenchment, and paused to rest awhile. “Pray for us, O Prophet who are set on high!” cried a voice from the camp, “for if succour do not reach us speedily, we are sped.” Before the echoes of the voice had died away, a flash of lightning flared through the gloom, and in the light of it Hokosa saw that the king’s _impi_ was rushing up the gorge. “Fight on! Fight on!” he called in answer. “I have prayed to Heaven, and your succour is at hand.” Then, with a howl of rage, Hafela’s regiments hurled themselves upon the third and last entrenchment, attacking it at once in front and rear. Twice they nearly carried it, but each time the wild scream of Hokosa on high was heard above the din, conjuring its defenders to fight on and fear not, for Heaven had sent them help. They fought as men have seldom fought before, and with them fought the women and even the children. They were few and the foe was still many, but they listened to the urging of him whom they believed to be inspired in his death-agony upon the cross above them, and still they held their own. Twice portions of the wall were torn down, but they filled the breach with the corpses of the dead, ay! and with the bodies of the living, for the wounded, the old men and the very women piled themselves there in the place of stones. No such fray was told of in the annals of the People of Fire as this, the last stand of Nodwengo against the thousands of Hafela. Now all the shouting had died away, for men had no breath left wherewith to shout, only from the gloomy place of battle came low groans and the deep sobbing sighs of warriors gripped in the death-hug. “_Fight on! Fight on!_” shrilled the voice of Hokosa on high. “Lo! the skies are open to my dying sight, and I see the _impis_ of Heaven sweeping to succour you. _Behold!_” They dashed the sweat from their eyes and looked forth, and as they looked, the pall of gloom was lifted, and in the golden glow of many-shafted light, they saw, not the legions of Heaven indeed, but the regiments of Nodwengo rushing round the bend of the valley, as dogs rush upon a scent, with heads held low and spears outstretched. Hafela saw them also. “Back to the koppie,” he cried, “there to die like men, for the wizardries of Hokosa have been too strong for us, and lost is this my last battle and the crown I came to seek!” They obeyed, and all that were left of them, some ten thousand men, they ran to the koppie and formed themselves upon it, ring above ring, and here the soldiers of Nodwengo closed in upon them. Again and for the last time the voice of Hokosa rang out above the fray. “Nodwengo,” he cried, “with my passing breath I charge you have mercy and spare these men, so many of them as will surrender. The day of bloodshed has gone by, the fray is finished, the Cross has conquered. Let there be peace in the land.” All men heard him, for his piercing scream, echoed from the precipices, came to the ears of each. All men heard him, and, even in that fierce hour of vengeance, all obeyed. The spear that was poised was not thrown, and the kerry lifted over the fallen did not descend to dash away his life. “Hearken, Hafela!” called the king, stepping forward from the ranks of the attackers. “He whom you have set on high to bring defeat upon you charges me to give you peace, and in the name of the conquering Cross I give peace. All who surrender shall dwell henceforth in my shadow, nor shall the head or the heel of one of them be harmed, although their sin is great. One life only will I take, the life of that witch who brought your armies down upon me to burn my town and slay my people by thousands, and who but last night betrayed Hokosa to his death of torment. All shall go free, I say, save the witch; and for you, you shall be given cattle and such servants as will cling to you to the number of a hundred, and driven from the land. Now, what say you? Will you yield or be slain? Swift with your answer; for the sun sinks, and ere it is set there must be an end in this way or in that.” The regiments of Hafela heard, and shouted in answer as with one voice:-- “We take your mercy, King! We fought bravely while we could, and now we take your mercy, King!” “What say you, Hafela?” repeated Nodwengo, addressing the prince, who stood upon a point of rock above him in full sight of both armies. Hafela turned and looked at Hokosa hanging high in mid-air. “What say I?” he answered in a slow and quiet voice. “I say that the Cross and its Prophet have been too strong for me, and that I should have done well to follow the one and to listen to the counsel of the other. My brother, you tell me that I may go free, taking servants with me. I thank you and I will go--alone.” And setting the handle of his spear upon the rock, with a sudden movement he fell forward, transfixing his heart with its broad blade, and lay still. “At least he died like one of the blood-royal of the Sons of Fire!” cried Nodwengo, while the armies stood silent and awestruck, “and with the blood-royal he shall be buried. Lay down your arms, you who followed him and fought for him, fearing nothing, and give over to me the witch that she may be slain.” “She hides under the tree yonder!” cried a voice. “Go up and take her,” said Nodwengo to some of his captains. Now Noma, crouched on the ground beneath the tree, had seen and heard all that passed. Perceiving the captains making their way towards her through the lines of the soldiers, who opened out a path for them, she rose and for a moment stood bewildered. Then, as though drawn by some strange attraction, she turned, and seizing hold of the creeper that clung about it, she began to climb the Tree of Doom swiftly. Up she went while all men watched, higher and higher yet, till passing out of the finger-like foliage she reached the cross of dead wood whereto Hokosa hung, and placing her feet upon one arm of it, stood there, supporting herself by the broken top of the upright. Hokosa was not yet dead, though he was very near to death. Lifting his glazing eyes, he knew her and said, speaking thickly:-- “What do you here, Noma, and wherefore have you come?” “I come because you draw me,” she answered, “and because they seek my life below.” “Repent, repent!” he whispered, “there is yet time and Heaven is very merciful.” She heard, and a fury seized her. “Be silent, dog!” she cried. “Having defied your God so long, shall I grovel to Him at the last? Having hated you so much, shall I seek your forgiveness now? At least of one thing I am glad--it was I who brought you here, and with me and through me you shall die.” Then, placing one foot upon his bent head as if in scorn, she leaned forward, her long hair flying to the wind, and cursed Nodwengo and his people, naming them renegades and apostates, and cursed the soldiers of Hafela, naming them cowards, calling down upon them the malison of their ancestors. Hokosa heard and muttered:-- “For your soul’s sake, woman, repent! repent, ere it be too late!” “Repent!” she screamed, catching at his words. “Thus do I repent!” and drawing the knife from her girdle, she leant over him and drove it hilt-deep into his breast. Then with a sudden movement she sprang upwards and outwards into the air, and rushing down through a hundred feet of space, was struck dead upon that very rock where the corpse of Hafela lay. Now, beneath the agony of the life Hokosa lifted his head for the last time, crying in a great voice:-- “Messenger, I come, be you my guide,” and with the words his soul passed. “All is over and ended,” said a voice. “Soldiers, salute the king with the royal salute.” “Nay,” answered Nodwengo. “Salute me not, salute the Cross and him who hangs thereon.” So, while the rays of the setting sun shone about it, regiment by regiment that great army rushed past the koppie, and pausing opposite to the cross and its burden, they rendered to it the royal salute of kings. ***** Then the night fell, and thus through the power of Faith that now, as of old, is the only true and efficient magic, was accomplished the mission to the Sons of Fire of the Saint and Martyr, Thomas Owen, and of his murderer and disciple, the Wizard Hokosa. 
23072	----	The Voyage of the "Steadfast"--The Young Missionaries in the Pacific, by W.H.G. Kingston. ________________________________________________________________________ The "Steadfast" is a whaling vessel, based on Liverpool. The whaling grounds are in the Pacific, so each voyage involves a long time away from home. The story opens with the owner-captain's wife and daughter sitting at home during a great storm, in which a vessel is wrecked very near their house. On board the ship are Harry Graybrook, the skipper's son, and another youngster called Dickey Bass. Leonard Champion is the mate, and is also in love with the captain's daughter, whom we met in Chapter One. There is an incident with a whale which results in the "Steadfast" being separated from a small boat containing the above, as well as an old seaman known as "old Tom", and several other seamen. They try to regain contact with the mother ship, but fail. They run out of food and water, but land on an island where they are catching fish and filling their water containers, when they are attacked by a hostile band of natives who kill some of the seamen. After a long time at sea with very little water and food they are picked up by another whaling vessel, but are treated very badly by her moody and eccentric captain. Shipwrecked again, and after various adventures, they meet up with some missionaries. Eventually contact is made again with the "Steadfast", and back they go to England, where Leonard Champion marries the daughter, and takes command of the ship on old Graybrook's retirement. ________________________________________________________________________ THE VOYAGE OF THE "STEADFAST"--THE YOUNG MISSIONARIES IN THE PACIFIC, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON. CHAPTER ONE. CAPTAIN GRAYBROOK'S HOME. A heavy gale was blowing, which shook the windows of the little drawing-room in which Mrs Graybrook and her daughter Hannah were seated at their work. Their cottage was situated close to the sea on the north coast of Wales, so that from it, on a clear day, many a tall ship bound for Liverpool, or sailing from that port, could be seen through the telescope which stood ever ready pointed across the water. A lamp burning on the table, for it was night, shed its light on the comely features and matronly figure of the elder lady, as she busily plied her needle, while it showed that those of Hannah, a fair and interesting-looking girl just growing into womanhood, were unusually pale. Every now and then she unconsciously let her work drop on her lap while, with her eyes turned towards the window and lips apart, she seemed to be listening for some sound which her mother's ear had not noticed. A glance into the little room might have shown why both mother and daughter should feel anxious when tempests were raging and the sea was tossing with angry waves. The mantel-piece was ornamented with some beautiful branches of coral, several large and rare shells, and two horns of the narwhal, or sea-unicorn, fixed against the wall, and above it was the picture of a ship under all sail, with boats hoisted up along her sides, and flags flying at her mastheads and peak. On the top of a bookcase stood the perfect model of a vessel; another part of the wall was adorned with Indian bows and spears and clubs, arranged in symmetrical order; while one side of the room was hung with pictures, in which boats in chase of the mighty monsters of the deep formed the chief subjects, or which represented scenes on the coasts of far-distant lands. Hannah had more than once risen and gone to the window, across which-- for the weather was still warm--the curtain had only partially been drawn. Another fierce blast shook the whole house. "Oh, mother, what a dreadful night it is!" she exclaimed, at length. "I fancied I heard the sound of a distant gun; it must come from some ship in distress. What can she do if embayed off our shore in this terrific gale?" Mrs Graybrook looked up from her work. "I was thinking, my child, how thankful we should be that the _Steadfast_ has long ago been far away from this. Your father and Harry are enjoying, I hope, smooth seas and gentle breezes, and may such, I pray, follow them wherever they go." "I trust that they are, mother; but still I cannot help feeling anxious on such a night as this, with the wind howling and raging round us, when I think in what condition a ship must be placed, exposed on the wild sea to its fury." "Your father has often said that he cares little for the heaviest gale, provided he has plenty of sea-room; and a better-found ship and stauncher crew than his, he declares, does not sail out of the port of Liverpool." "I know that he has great faith in the _Steadfast's_ good qualities; but even the finest ship may meet with accidents; and oh, how many are the dangers she must have to run before she returns home!" said Hannah, with a sigh. "Your father is a careful navigator, my dear, and he has vigilant officers. His first mate is a tried hand, and he considers Leonard Champion, his second mate, young as he is, an excellent seaman and fully capable of taking charge of a ship; he hopes, indeed, to get him the command of one when he returns, though he would be sorry to lose him." "I know that, mother; and I am wrong to express my fears," answered Hannah. "Still I cannot help feeling for the poor seamen who may be battling with the tempest to-night; and that makes me more anxious, perhaps, about those who are far away, and of the dangers to which they may be exposed. Surely there was another gun!" She again went to the window, and, throwing it open, looked out into the darkness. The fierce wind coming in made the curtains flutter, and almost blew out the lamp. "I saw the flash of a gun, mother. It is in the direction of those dark rocks which lift their heads above the water!" exclaimed Hannah. "Ah! I heard the sound also. There is another flash! They must have come from some unfortunate ship. Perhaps she is already on the rocks. Can any boat venture out to her assistance in a storm like this? I will shut the window directly, mother," she added, looking round, and trying to catch the fluttering curtains. Again she looked out. "I cannot be mistaken!" she exclaimed, the tone of her voice showing her anxiety. "There is another gun. The ship must be in fearful peril! Can nothing be done to help the poor people?" Mrs Graybrook, convinced that Hannah was right in her conjecture, came to the window, and mother and daughter stood gazing out for some minutes, and trying to penetrate the thick gloom which hung over the wild, tempestuous sea raging below them. A fiercer blast than before, which drove the rain and spray against their faces, compelled them to close the window; yet Hannah could not withdraw herself from it, for she still caught an occasional flash, and could distinguish the roar of the guns even amidst the howling of the wind. "What help can we render to them?" she again asked. "We may give them aid--all the aid which we have the power to give," said Mrs Graybrook, placing her work on the table. "We can pray for them as we pray for those who are far away." "I never cease to pray for those dear ones, mother, morning and evening, and every hour of the day," said Hannah. "Oh, that they had learned to pray for themselves," she murmured; "to seek that aid in time of need which will never be withheld!" Together the mother and daughter knelt, and offered up their prayers to the throne of grace, that help might be sent to those near at hand, while their petitions went up also for those loved ones at a distance. They knew that the all-seeing eye of the God of mercy could follow them, that His far-reaching hand could protect them, and that, feeble as were their petitions, He heard and would grant them if He saw fit. They rose with hearts cheered and comforted. "I should indeed be happier if Harry had known and accepted the truth," said Mrs Graybrook, continuing the conversation just before begun. "He is so light-hearted, and, enjoying health and strength, so confident in himself, that his mind has hitherto appeared incapable of attending to spiritual things; though, when I have spoken to him, he has respectfully listened with a grave countenance; but the subject has evidently not been to his taste. My grief is, also, that your father so admires his bold and daring spirit, that he encourages him to think more of the things of this world than of the future. Excellent as your father is, too, he has not had the same advantages of receiving religious instruction which we have possessed, and is therefore unable to impart it to Harry. This made me very unwilling that your brother should go to sea before he was a confirmed Christian; but your father was so determined to take him that I was compelled to consent." Mrs Graybrook would not have spoken thus to Hannah of her father's want of religious principle, but that she knew her daughter was well aware of it, and mourned for it with her, while she had often joined with her in prayer that he might be brought to know the truth. Mrs Graybrook had far too much delicacy and sense of what is right, under other circumstances, to have spoken to her daughter in any way which might have appeared disrespectful of Captain Graybrook, for whom they both entertained the deepest affection. Her true and faithful love for her husband made her feel as she did; for, having learned the value of her own soul, she was anxious about his and that of her dear boy. "I at first had hoped that Leonard Champion would have proved an advantageous companion to Harry," continued Mrs Graybrook. "But, if not inclined to laugh at religion, he is, I fear, ignorant of its vital truths or indifferent to them, and Harry therefore cannot be benefited through his means." Hannah sighed. "You are right, mamma; Mr Champion cannot lead Harry to the fountain in which he does not see the need of being washed himself. I spoke to him earnestly on the subject, but without avail, though he accepted some books which I offered him, and promised to read them when he had time." The two ladies had, since they settled in Wales, enjoyed the ministry of one of those gifted servants of God, to whom the honour has been given of winning souls to Christ by their preaching and private exhortations. He had been a frequent visitor at the cottage; and mother and daughter, having accepted the truth, had been built up in their faith, becoming earnest yet humble Christians. This was after Harry went to school. During his short holidays, though his mother and sister had often earnestly and lovingly spoken to him, they had made no apparent impression on his mind, all his thoughts being set on going to sea. His mother had now deeply to regret that she herself, ignorant of the truth during his childhood's days, had been unable to instruct him while his young mind was ready to receive the religious knowledge she might have imparted. How many a mother must feel as she did! Captain Graybrook had been constantly at sea, and when he came home for a brief visit, though he remarked the change in his wife and daughter, and found that they were unwilling to engage in any of the frivolous amusements of society, he looked upon the opinions they expressed as mere passing fancies, and begged to be excused from listening to the preacher of whom they spoke so highly. "Those sort of things are very good, my dear wife, for some people," he answered, carelessly; "but sailors have no time to attend to them; I, at all events, have not, for I have to see to the refitting of the ship; and you must acknowledge that I have been a good husband and father. I have done my duty; and what more can you want of me?" "The best of human beings are sinful by nature, and have committed numberless sins, and require to be washed in the blood of Jesus to fit them to enter into the presence of a pure and holy God," answered Mrs Graybrook, gently. "I dare say it is all true," said the captain, kissing his wife. "You are a good creature, and mean well; but I have not time to listen now, and must be off; so good-bye, Betty, good-bye!" and he hurried away. Hannah had entertained hopes of inducing her father's young mate, Leonard Champion, to listen to the subject which occupied her thoughts. He had been a frequent visitor at the house while the ship was undergoing repairs in the dockyard, for he was an especial favourite of her father. He was a young man of superior attainments, not having gone to sea till he had completed his education at school and had entered college. At that time, his father, who was a merchant, dying just as his firm, by unforeseen circumstances, had become bankrupt, Leonard was left destitute. He had always had a predilection for the sea, and Captain Graybrook, an old friend of his father, at once offered, in the most liberal way, to give him an outfit and to receive him on board his ship. Leonard thankfully accepted the offer, and, devoting all his energies and talents to acquire a knowledge of the profession he had entered, soon became an excellent navigator and a first-rate seaman. Delighting in his new calling, generous and good-natured as he was cool and daring in danger, he won the confidence of his captain, and was beloved and willingly obeyed by the crew. He had not seen the captain's daughter till the last time the ship returned home, and had not expected to find her so engaging and refined a girl. He was, in her sight, superior to any one she had ever met, and her affections were engaged before she was aware of the state of her own feelings. He did not conceal his, and, little versed in the ways of the world, while utterly free from deceit, he expressed his opinions with a freedom which many persons under the circumstances would not have done. Hannah, though admiring his many fine qualities, could not forget that he was destitute of the most important of all things--sound religious principle. Not denying the interest she felt in him, she distinctly told him that she would never engage herself to marry one who did not desire faithfully to serve the same God and Master whom she did. Leonard did not clearly understand her meaning, as, indeed, no one still following the ways of the world can comprehend the spiritually minded. In vain she spoke to him. Perhaps not till he had sailed did she discover how completely, in spite of her resolutions, she had given him her heart. All she could now do was to pray that the young sailor might be brought to a knowledge of the truth. That evening, while the storm was raging, her mind had been far away on board the _Steadfast_, and her heart sickened as she remembered the dangers to which he might be exposed, and the hazardous pursuit in which he was engaged. "Perhaps Mr Champion may give Harry some of the books to read which he took with him," observed Hannah. "I chose such as I thought most likely to interest him." "I fear Harry is very little addicted to reading," answered Mrs Graybrook. "Is there no one else on board likely to speak to Harry on religious subjects, mother? Are none of the other mates Christians?" asked Hannah, anxiously. "I fear not," said Mrs Graybrook. "There is, however, old Tom Hayes, who has sailed for many years with your father, and has frequently been at our house. I have at times heard him let drop expressions which induced me to believe that he is a Christian man. Your father has spoken of him as a Methodist, and observed that, though he did not think much of his opinions, he was the most sober and steady man he ever had with him, and one of his best boat-steerers and harpooners. I remember being struck by the old man's calm and intelligent countenance and his gentle and unassuming manners, which true and simple religious faith could alone impart. When we were last on board the ship he expressed himself more openly to me than he had ever before done. I spoke to him about Harry, and he assured me that he would do his best to look after him and keep him out of danger. He was going to say more, when he was called away to attend to some duty, and I had no other opportunity of speaking to him." "I remember the old sailor," said Hannah. "How I wish that I had thought of talking with him! But I am afraid that Harry will not be inclined to listen to anything which a person whom he will look upon as his inferior may say to him. Still the old man may be able to speak to him, and if he is, as you think, a true Christian, he will certainly endeavour to do so." "After all, dear Hannah, while we rest assured that God will hear our petitions, we must remember that He knows best how to answer them," observed Mrs Graybrook. "Confiding in His love, let our hearts be comforted." More than once the conversation of the mother and daughter had been interrupted by the loud uproar of the storm, and Jane, their maid-servant, who had been sitting by herself in the kitchen, came running in, exclaiming that she was afraid the whole house would be blown away. "It has stood many a severer gale than this, Jane," answered her mistress. "But bring your work in here, as you are alarmed at being alone," she added, kindly. "We should be worse off if we were to run out into the garden." The girl thankfully took advantage of Mrs Graybrook's permission to sit in the drawing-room; and her presence prevented the two ladies from speaking further on the subject which occupied their thoughts. The usual time for their evening prayers arrived. It seemed to Hannah, even while they were on their knees, that the gale blew with less fury than before. It was, indeed, one of those storms which occasionally, during the equinox, sweep along the coast, and, though brief, cause much damage to vessels caught near the shore, especially to such as are ill-found and ill-manned. So do the trials of life wreck those persons destitute of sound faith and religious principle, while those who are resting on Jesus are carried through them and preserved. Next morning the wind had ceased, and the sun shone forth. Hannah anxiously looked through the telescope in the direction she had seen the flashes of the guns. There lay a large ship on the rocks, but her masts were standing, and boats were passing to and fro from the shore. She was greatly relieved when she soon afterwards heard that, though the ship had received much damage, no lives had been lost. "I was wrong last night in giving way to my faithless fears and running the risk of alarming you, my dear mother," she said, with a smile. "I feel my heart happier this morning, and believe that God will protect those we love, and that we shall yet see the _Steadfast_, with a full cargo, sailing back towards the Mersey, and, better still, that father and Harry" (she could not bring herself to utter the name of Leonard Champion aloud) "may have accepted the truth, and then--" and she looked upwards--"when we are called upon to part, we may know that we shall meet together to enjoy the glorious happiness which our gracious Saviour has prepared for all those who love Him." CHAPTER TWO. WHALING IN THE PACIFIC. The _Steadfast_, South Sea whaler, having doubled Cape Horn, was traversing the broad waters of the Pacific. Royals and studding-sails were set to catch the light breeze which sent her gliding majestically along over the calm ocean; her six whaleboats, with stem and stern alike, hung from the davits above her black sides. A tropical sun shone down on her deck, making the pitch hiss and bubble in the seams, and driving all on deck whose duty did not compel them to keep elsewhere, into such shade as the sails and bulwarks afforded. Captain Graybrook, a fine-looking man, with an open, intelligent expression of countenance, stood aft, sextant in hand, prepared to take a meridional altitude. Near him was his second mate, Leonard Champion, with two boys, one of whom also held a sextant. "You can now, Harry, take an observation as well as I can, and before long, if you pay attention, you will become a good navigator," observed the young mate. "Thank you for teaching me, Mr Champion; that's just my wish," answered Harry. "Where there's a will there's a way; and you, Mr Bass," said the mate, turning to the other boy, "ought to do as well as Harry by this time." "Dickey is fonder of skylarking than shooting the stars," remarked Harry, laughing. "Not fonder than you are, Harry," retorted Dickey Bass, who was the son of a former shipmate of Captain Graybrook, and brought by him to sea through regard for the boy's father. "I don't happen to understand sums as well as you do, and so I don't always get my day's work done as correctly as yours." "Always! why, if we were to go by your reckoning, Dickey, we should have been in the middle of the forests of South America, or on the top of the Andes, before now. When did you ever make a right calculation?" asked Harry, who delighted in bantering Dickey, though they were really great friends. "Why, for the last fortnight I don't suppose I have been more than eight or ten degrees out at the utmost." Mr Champion and Harry laughed heartily. "Rather a serious error, Mr Bass." "I meant minutes," said Dickey, "or perhaps seconds; I always forget which is which." At that moment Captain Graybrook lifted his instrument to his eye, and the mate and Harry followed his example. "The sun has dipped; make it noon," said the captain; and the ship's bell was struck. Having written off their observations and quickly made their calculations, the ship was found to be about seventeen degrees south of the line, off the coast of Peru. Look-out men were sent aloft, for they were now approaching a part of the ocean where whales were in those days likely to be found. As they looked over the side, many polypi, medusae, and squid were observed floating on the surface; and occasionally a covey of flying-fish, rising from the water, darted rapidly over it, quickly again, as their brilliant wings dried, to sink down and become the prey of their enemies, the dolphin or bonito. A seaman had just hauled a bucket of water on deck. Within it was a gelatinous-looking mass. The mate and his young companions examined it. "That is part of a squid," he observed, "the whale's food. Probably the remainder is down the monster's maw. We shall sight a whale before the day is over, I hope." "I hope so too," said Harry. "I long to see one killed and brought alongside. We have had a dull time of it since we touched at Valparaiso. I thought we should have captured a dozen or more before this." "You will have to learn patience at sea, my boy," observed the mate. "We have three years to remain out, and may consider ourselves fortunate if we get a full ship at the end of that time." The sextants had been returned to their cases in the cabin, and Harry and his chum, Dickey Bass, finding it very hot, seated themselves in the shade by the side of a gun, of which the _Steadfast_ carried eight, besides a good supply of muskets and cutlasses and other weapons; for, having to visit regions inhabited by fierce and savage tribes, she was well armed. "I say, Harry, what was old Tom talking to you about in your watch last night, and what made you look so grave this morning? I could not tell what had come over you," said Dickey Bass. "He asked me whether I was prepared to die. I thought it an odd question." "I should think it was," said young Bass. "What did you say in return?" "I told him that I had not thought about it, and that, as I enjoyed life, I had no intention of leaving it," answered Harry. "He then reminded me that I might fall overboard any day, or the ship might be lost with all hands, or the boat in which I happened to be might be capsized, or I might die of fever, or be cut off by savages, or that I might lose my life in a number of other ways. He asked me, if any of these disagreeable things were to happen, where I expected to go. I told him, of course, that I wished to go to heaven; and he then inquired what right I had to go there." "I do not think he had any right to ask you any such questions," observed Harry's companion. "I should have told him to mind his own business. I do not like to be bothered by that sort of questions." "I could not answer him in that way," replied Harry, "for he spoke very kindly. He is, besides, an old man, and has been for a number of years with my father, who thinks highly of him, for I have heard him say so. Besides, he has taken great pains to teach me seamanship, always tells me anything I ask him; and if it were not for him I should not know half as much as I do." "Still, I do not see why he should try to frighten you about dying, or ask you where you expect to go if you do. It looks as if he doubted that you would go to heaven," said Dickey. "He told me very distinctly that I had no claim whatever to go there, and that unless my sins were washed away, the Bible says that I should be unfit to go there; that heaven is a pure and holy place, and that all people are impure and unholy," said Harry, in a graver tone than usual. "But I suppose he wants you to become religious, and read good books, and give up laughing and singing and being the capital jolly fellow you are now, Harry," interrupted Dickey Bass. "If I were you, I would not listen to him; neither your father nor Mr Champion ever speaks to us in that way. Just forget all he said, and drive dull care away." "I have already forgotten, I am afraid, a great deal that he said," answered Harry; "but he seemed, at all events, very much in earnest, and I cannot help remembering some of the things. Besides, Mr Champion has lately spoken to me more seriously than he has ever done before; and only last Sunday he gave me a book to read, and told me that he thought it would do me good. As I found my sister Hannah's name in it, I suppose she asked him to give it to me, and that he had forgotten to do so till then." "I saw you with one in your hand. Did you read it?" asked young Bass. "It seemed very dry, and I fell asleep over it, so that I cannot say I know much about it," answered Harry. "The best thing you could have done," remarked Dickey. "Whatever you do, Harry, don't turn Methodist. I cannot say that I admire old Tom, and do not want you to become like him. To my mind he is a dull, stiff old fellow, with a very good opinion of himself, and I have never felt inclined to be intimate with him." "I did not at first; but he seemed so anxious to help me, and to put me up to all sorts of things, that I could not help liking him, though I own that I would rather he did not talk to me about religion. The next time he does so I shall try to get him to change the subject." "Of course you must," said Dickey Bass. "It's all very well for parsons and ministers, but an old boat-steerer has no business to trouble one with such things. Why, I only yesterday heard him lecturing Rob Burton there, the merriest, happiest fellow in the ship;" and he pointed to a fine, active-looking young seaman at work on the other side of the deck. "I have a notion that he was talking to him about his soul and death, as if he was not likely to live as long as any one on board, and longer too than most of the old hands. Why should he put melancholy thoughts into his head, and take the pluck out of him?" "I suppose he thought Rob Burton careless about religious matters, and wanted to get him to read his good books and tracts," observed Harry. "Old Tom means well, at all events." "He may mean well, but for my part I don't like those well-meaning fellows," answered Dickey. "If I catch him lecturing you I will join in, and we will soon put a stop to his preaching." The thoughtless lads talked on for some time in the same strain, till any good effect which the conversation Tom Hayes had held with Harry might have produced on him was completely eradicated. They were interrupted by a startling cry from the masthead, so welcome to a whaler's ears, of "There she spouts!" and in a moment the crew, hitherto so lethargic, were aroused into action. Some flew to the falls, to lower a couple of boats, others sprang up the shrouds, to observe the position of the whale; and soon afterwards the boats, of which the first and second mates had the command, shoved off from the ship's side. Another cry came of "There again!" indicating that the whale had once more come to the surface, and was spouting. The monster was at no great distance. Mr Gibson, the first mate, took the lead, pulling the bow oar of his boat, that he might be ready to strike the harpoon into the animal as soon as it was reached. Harry and his friend were in the rigging watching the proceedings. Quitting his oar, the mate stood up, harpoon in hand; it flew from his grasp just in time to strike the monster, which was about to "sound," or dive. The line attached to the weapon led aft to a tub, in which it lay coiled at the bottom of the boat. The mate, who acted as boat-steerer, now came to his proper place in the stern, where he guided the boat by an oar passed through a ring called a grummet, while the headsman, who had before been steering, took his place in the bow, armed with several lances, ready to plunge into the body of the whale the instant it again appeared. After some minutes, up came the monster, lying somewhat exhausted with its exertions to escape and the effects of the harpoon in its body. The boat pulling close up to it, the headsman thrust first one lance and then another into its body, near the fin, shouting as he did so, "Stern all." Instantly the boat backed away as fast as the crew could use their oars, only just in time to avoid the violent movements of the monster, which now reared its tail, lashing the water into foam, and, lifting its enormous head, threatened destruction to its assailants with its formidable jaws. Suddenly its movements ceased, and the boat-steerers, believing that its last struggles were over, and eager to secure their victim, urged their men to give way towards it. The first mate's boat still took the lead, and approached with less caution than usual. The apparently vanquished monster, as it saw her, without a moment's warning whirled round its enormous tail, which, striking her, sent the boat flying into the air, scattering her crew on either side in the blood-stained water, when it rushed forward with open mouth to attack Mr Champion's boat. He narrowly avoided the fierce assault, and then boldly steered to the assistance of his shipmates, who were struggling for their lives. Once more the whale turned, dragging the boat after it, swimming directly through the midst of the men in the water. The accident had been clearly seen from the ship. Several had been picked up. Mr Champion then steered towards the whale, which was in its death struggle a short distance off. Another boat had been lowered to go to his assistance, under the command of Tom Hayes. In a short time, the first mate's boat having been righted, all three were seen returning. "Any one hurt, Mr Gibson?" inquired the captain, as the whale was brought alongside. "Sorry to say, sir, that Rob Burton has gone," was the answer. "Either the whale or the boat struck him, and he went down like a shot." "Poor Rob Burton!" exclaimed several voices. "The gayest and best-hearted fellow aboard." "Dickey, you said he was likely to live as long as any of us," remarked Harry, very much shocked. "I wonder whether he listened to what old Tom said to him?" "It's not a subject I like to think about," answered Dickey. "I wish it had not happened." "So do I. But our wishes cannot bring poor Burton to life again," observed Harry. "I cannot help thinking that old Tom must be right; and when he speaks to me I think I ought to listen to what he says." "Now, Harry, don't let this thing make you turn Methodist!" exclaimed Bass, after a silence of some minutes. "It is very shocking, of course; but that's no reason why we should mope and grow serious, and fancy that the same is going to happen to us. I don't feel quite comfortable myself, I own; but we shall get over it in a few days, and all hands will be as merry as ever." Such, indeed, was the case. Poor Burton's clothes were put up to auction and disposed of among the crew, and his name was seldom or never mentioned afterwards. Too often the same thing happens on board ship when a seaman is lost, much as his shipmates may mourn for him at the time. Old Tom did not, however, fail to speak to Harry about Burton. "I was talking to him on the state of his soul only just two or three days before he had to go and stand in the presence of his Maker, and give an account of the deeds done in the body," said the old man. "I asked him whether he knew that it was washed in the blood of the Saviour, or whether he had his sins still clinging to him. He did not know, poor lad, that his soul needed cleansing; and when I said that it was vile and foul, and loaded with sin, and that unless it was washed he could not enter heaven and stand before the all-righteous Judge, he asked me how that was to be done. So I told him the way God has appointed--the only way by which it could be done--through faith in the blood of the risen Saviour shed for us on Calvary. And I tell you, Harry, that it gives me great joy to think that his answer was, `I do believe Jesus died for me. May God in His mercy help my unbelief.' I told him to pray, and that he might be sure God would answer his prayer. He said he would that very night; and next morning he told me that he had prayed, and that he felt happier than he had ever done before. I had not another word with him after that; but I only wish that you and every one in the ship were like Rob Burton. I know little more about him than what I have told you, but that is enough to give me comfort; and if I ever get home and can visit his mother, it will give her comfort too, for she is a Christian woman, and had taught him to pray, and had never ceased praying for him, he said. Of that he was sure." "Then do you think he has gone to heaven?" asked Harry. "Yes," answered old Tom; "for God has promised that He will receive all who trust in Jesus. Whatever are their sins, He will put them as far from Him as the east is from the west; that though they be red like scarlet, they shall become white as wool." "I wish that I understood these things better than I do," said Harry, earnestly. "You have your Bible, Harry; read that, with prayer for grace to understand it." Harry said he would try and find time; and he actually took out a small Bible which his mother had put into his chest, and carried it in his pocket; but he did not like reading it when Dickey was looking on, and somehow or other never found the time he expected. Dickey tried his best to do away with the impression old Tom had made on Harry's mind; and the thoughtless boys soon, like the rest of the crew, forgot the fate of poor Burton. All hands were, indeed, kept actively employed. Numerous whales appeared, several of which were captured, and night after night the crew were engaged in "cutting in" and "trying out"--that is, cutting the blubber off the body of the animal and boiling it in huge cauldrons on deck. The bright glare falling on the masts and rigging, and the sturdy frames of the sailors, as they stirred up the cauldrons, placed on tripods, with their forks, gave them the wildest and most savage appearance. "I don't think my mother and sister would recognise the ship if they were to see us now," observed Harry to his companion, as they stood aft, ready to cast off the carcase of a whale which had been stripped of its blubber, and had an opportunity of observing the scene going on beyond them. "They would think we were a set of spirits from the lower world busy over some diabolical work, I suspect," said Dickey. The business was not exactly pleasant, but as there was no disagreeable smell, Harry did not mind it; and even Mr Champion, whom he looked upon as very refined, was so accustomed to the work that he took it as a matter of course. After the oil was thus extracted, it was ladled into casks, which were stowed below. CHAPTER THREE. ADVENTURE WITH SEA-LIONS. The _Steadfast_ had made so successful a commencement of her voyage that all hands hoped she would get full much sooner than many had expected, and be able to return home. The whales, however, having disappeared from the fishing-ground where she had been engaged, she was about to proceed to the western part of the Pacific, when a mass of rugged rocks was sighted out of the ocean. "An awkward spot to run against on a dark night," observed Harry, as they approached them. "Hark! what is that strange roaring noise? I could fancy that a thousand lions or more were assembled together holding a concert." "They are sea-lions, Master Harry," observed old Tom; "the whole rock is covered with them and their cubs. If we could manage to get hold of some of them, we should find their skins very useful." Captain Graybrook was of this opinion, and as the wind was light and there was no dangerous current running, the ship was hove to, and he ordered two of the boats to be got ready to capture some of the sea-lions, the ordinary species of seal found in the southern seas. Mr Champion took command of one boat and old Tom of the other, and the boys got leave to accompany the second mate. They pulled away towards the rocks. As a heavy surf broke on the rocks, rushing up some distance with great force and then back again, which would have dashed the boats to pieces, had they got within its influence, they were compelled to pull a considerable distance round before a spot was found on which a landing could be effected with any degree of safety. Even there, those who were to land had to watch for an opportunity, as the boat was sent forward on the crest of a breaker, to leap out and spring up the rocks, while the boats, with a couple of hands in each, were pulled back again out of danger. No sooner had the party scrambled up the rocks than the seals, alarmed at their approach, made towards the water, rushing down impetuously, and working themselves along by means of their fins--their heads and manes giving them the appearance of lions. Their threatening aspect, and the loud roars they uttered, were enough to daunt any one not accustomed to encounter them. "I wish that I had remained on board," cried Dickey. "See, here comes a fellow; he will knock us over to a certainty. What shall we do?" The men, however, had brought heavy clubs, with which they struck right and left as the monsters, with glistening fangs, rushed down on them, snapping their jaws, powerful enough to bite off a limb in an instant. The position of the party was dangerous in the extreme as the monsters came rolling and sliding down the rocks. To avoid them, the men were compelled to climb over the bodies of those which had been stunned; but still more met them, and Harry would have been knocked over by a big seal, and probably carried into the sea, had not Mr Champion, close to whom he kept, struck the creature on the head and dragged Harry out of the way. Old Tom saved Dickey in the same way. Though most of the seals which had not been killed had made their escape, a few remained on the higher ground, among which was an enormous male seal. The monster seemed determined to give battle to his assailants, and came down the rocks towards them shaking his mane and extending wide his jaws armed with sharp tusks. Old Tom, who boldly went forward to meet the creature, inflicted a tremendous blow with his club on its head, but without stopping its career. Wishing to secure it, he took a harpoon which one of the men, by his orders, had carried with a line attached to it, and plunged it into the animal, trying to make fast the line to a jutting point of rock. The seal, however, rendered only more furious from its wounds, rushed into the midst of the party, dragging the rope, which, as Mr Champion sprang forward to meet it, became entangled around his leg. Before any one could rescue him, he was carried away into the midst of the wild surf dashing up against the rocks. A cry of horror and dismay rose from all the party as they saw the young mate buried beneath the waves. Old Tom and several of the men sprang forward in a vain attempt to seize him, and were nearly swept away. The boats were at too great a distance to render assistance. The next instant Leonard Champion was seen struggling amid the curing crest of a breaker; but, alas! much too far off to be reached. "Oh, he is gone! he is gone!" cried Harry, wringing his hands. Little did he think of the agony his gentle sister would have suffered could she have witnessed the scene. Happily, those at home are not aware of the dangers to which their loved ones are exposed till they are over. When ending fatally there comes, it is true, the unavoidable sorrow; but even that does not equal the intense suffering of mind which is endured when the peril is witnessed and no help can be sent. Again the young mate disappeared. "There, there he is!" cried Harry, as he was seen struggling on the snowy summit of an enormous roller. Onward he was borne. His shipmates, clasping each other's hands, formed a line, the strongest bravely dashing in towards him. He was already almost senseless; one outstretched hand was seized. Exerting all their strength, the men worked their way up the rock, and then, two of them clasping him in their arms, he was borne in triumph out of the power of the greedy waves. Harry threw himself down by his side overcome by his feelings. "You are safe, Mr Champion!" "Thank God for it!" answered the young man, pressing Harry's hand; but he could say no more. The task of embarking was a hazardous one. The mate was first placed in his boat, when the seal-skins, which had been quickly stripped off, were thrown on board; and, thankful to escape from the treacherous rocks, the party returned to the ship. Leonard Champion was for several days confined to his cabin. He thought much, and he was constantly reading. Harry recognised the books which had been his sister's. "You must find them very interesting, Mr Champion," he observed. "I wish that I had begun reading them sooner, Harry," was the answer. "I feel that I have been rescued from the jaws of death through God's mercy; and how unprepared I was to die." "But I hope you will not be exposed to the same danger again, Mr Champion." "I pray not, for it was terrible--I can scarcely make you understand how terrible. I cannot help seeing that I should be indeed ungrateful if I did not acknowledge the loving mercy of God, who preserved my life, and endeavour from henceforth to serve Him faithfully, instead, as I have hitherto done, of rebelling against Him. Yet I am sure that we should accept the offers of God, and serve Him from love and gratitude, and not from fear of death; I do not mean simply the death of the body, but eternal death--the doom of all who die unreconciled, and therefore at enmity with God." "Is that what Hannah's books say?" inquired Harry, in perfect sincerity. "Yes, and much more. You would have found what I now say in the book I lent you," observed the mate. "I have not yet read it, but I will try and do so," said Harry; "still, except on a Sunday, I have not much time, as you know, and the book appeared to me very dull." "I am not surprised at that, for I thought it so myself, though I read it. But now, Harry, that I have had time for reflection, and feel how nearly I was lost, I see its value," said Mr Champion. "Let me ask you to read it, Harry, even although you do find it dull." Harry promised that he would, and fully intended to read it. Captain Graybrook observed the change which had come over his mate, but he forbore to ask him questions; he could scarcely suppose, however, that a peril to which seamen are so constantly exposed should have produced the change. "I thought Mr Champion was as brave as any fellow in the ship," observed Dickey Bass to Harry. "It seems to me that he must have been in a terrible fright, being carried off by the seal, or he would not look so grave and down-hearted as he seems." "I don't think it was fear, for I am very sure he is as brave as any man alive," answered Harry; but he made no other remark, for of late he had become less willing than formerly to talk to Bass on such a subject, suspecting as he did the real cause of the change which his young shipmate had observed in the second mate. CHAPTER FOUR. A NIGHT ADVENTURE. The _Steadfast_ now steered westward across the Pacific. Leonard Champion was indeed much changed. He no longer took pleasure in the light reading and frivolous conversation in which he had previously indulged. He knew that he was a sinner, and he believed that Jesus Christ died to save sinners; but he had not discovered that by simple faith in the all-sufficient atonement of the Saviour's precious blood shed on Calvary, his sins were already washed away, and that he might live rejoicing in the love of God, and go to Him as a child goes to an affectionate parent, with the certainty of obtaining all he asks for, if it is for his good. Leonard, however, took every opportunity of talking to Harry. Harry listened respectfully; but he thought that the mate was ill and out of spirits, and he did not feel, therefore, that he need be much influenced by what was said. Several weeks passed, and once more the cheering cry of "There she spouts!" was heard, and several whales were captured. The ship was in sight of a rocky island. Three of the boats had already gone away in pursuit of a whale in an opposite direction from the island, the captain himself being in one of them, when another was seen spouting towards the land. The boat of which old Tom had charge was immediately lowered. Harry and Dickey, who had long been eager to go in chase of a whale, slipped down just as she was shoving off. The first mate, who remained in charge of the ship, hailed them to come back. "The captain promised to let us go some day, and we could not have a better opportunity," shouted Bass. The mate, understanding that the captain had given them leave, told them that they might go; and old Tom, who had been busy arranging his harpoons, was under the same impression. The crew giving way, the boat was soon at a distance from the ship. Before she got up to the whale, the monster had sounded; but from the direction it had taken old Tom felt certain that it would rise again still nearer the island. The boat accordingly pulled on. He was not mistaken, but the whale was still some way off. Once more the men bent to their oars. The monster, unconscious of danger, was still above water. As the boat drew near, old Tom was standing up in the bow, harpoon in hand, ready to plunge it into the whale's side. Its flukes were just going up as, with unerring aim, he darted his weapon, which sunk deep into its side. With rapid strokes the boat was backed away, and old Tom returned aft to manage the line, now running rapidly out as the whale sounded. The second line was got ready and made fast to the first, that had almost run out before it began to slacken, as the whale returned to the surface. The crew were hauling it in when the monster appeared. They had just time to make it fast round the bollard, when the whale darted off, towing the boat at a rapid rate towards the island. It seemed in no way disposed to slacken its speed; but old Tom knew that if the harpoon held they would at length come up with it. The ship had in the meantime been standing after the other boats, and was now almost hull down; still, as the island would mark their position, they had little fear of not being picked up after the other whales were captured. The sun was by this time near the horizon, and the wind had increased considerably since they left the ship, but, as it blew off the shore, the sea was tolerably smooth. At length the monster, growing weary, slackened its speed, and the line was hauled in. The boat had got nearly up to it when it again sounded, but only for a short time. On its return to the surface, old Tom was able to plunge several lances into its body, and then, the boat backing away from it, after it had struggled and lashed the water with its tail for a few minutes, it turned over on its side, and a shout proclaimed that the crew were victors. They now prepared to tow their prize towards the ship; but darkness had come on, and when they looked out for her she was nowhere to be seen. Still, as they knew the direction in which she was to be found, they hoped to get alongside before midnight, and bending lustily to their oars, pulled away. They had not gone far before they had to meet the wind, which had hitherto come off the shore, and was in their favour; and the sea rising rapidly, they made but slow way with the whale in tow. No sound was heard but the roaring of the surf on the rocky island and the breaking of the sea-caps, which ever and anon leaped on board. Harry and Dickey heartily wished themselves safe on board again, while old Tom, as he stood up steering with his oar, looked out anxiously ahead, in the hope of seeing a light from the ship. The sea-caps, however, came tumbling on board faster than ever. "There is work for you, boys," he observed. "We must get rid of some of this water, or else we shall have more than enough." The boys turned to and bailed with might and main; but their efforts were not sufficient, and one of the men was obliged to assist them. "There is the light, lads!" cried old Tom; "but it's a long way off," he murmured. Far away, just above the breaking seas ahead, could be seen the glare of a blue light; it seemed to come out of the water, and showed that the ship was indeed a long way off. "We shall not get alongside with the whale to-night," observed old Tom. "Neither with it nor without it," answered one of the men. "It will be lucky if we get anywhere," said another. The sea had now risen still more than at first, and dark heavy masses crested with foam came rolling on towards the boat. It was proposed to hang on to the whale, and wait till the ship stood towards them. The boat was made fast under the lee of the monster's body, which served somewhat to break the force of the seas. Again a pale blue light was seen, but it was evidently only the upper rays, showing that the ship was hull down. The captain might not dare to venture so near a rocky coast, off which unknown reefs might lie hid, even to save their lives. In a short time the body of the whale scarcely afforded them shelter, and the seas, rolling over it, broke on board. The crew cried out that they should be swamped, and proposed pulling for the island and landing on the rocks. "We shall have a chance of saving our lives, and it will be better than being swamped out here!" exclaimed the man who had first spoken. "We shall have but a poor chance if we attempt to land on the rocks, I tell you that, lads," said old Tom. "I would rather keep hold of the whale." Still the men declared that they would, at all events, rather chance it. Just as they were speaking, the clouds to windward appeared to open, and a bright light darted from the sky. This decided old Tom, for he knew that it was the sign of a still further increase of wind. "I hope we shall not have to run on the rocks," he said; "just, however, as we made fast to the whale, I observed an opening in the surf. It was a very narrow one, though. If we can find it we will attempt to run through, for there is sure to be a harbour inside, and we have no other hope of saving our lives that I can see." The boat was accordingly cast off from the whale, and her head being kept to the seas, to prevent her from being swamped, the crew exerted all their strength to gain the land. Ahead appeared a long line of roaring, foaming breakers, with a rocky shore beyond, and the dim outline of the dark hills farther on. For an hour or more they pulled on, but no opening in the mass of foaming breakers could be discerned. They were beginning to despair, when old Tom said that he could see the place he was in search of, for he had remarked the peculiar shape of the hills at that spot. He accordingly steered in for the shore. Harry and Dickey, however, could see nothing but the threatening breakers. "It's very awful!" observed Dickey to his companion. "I wish I was prepared to die. It's bad enough now, and if the boat once gets caught in those breakers it will be all over with us. Harry, can you say any prayers?" "I am trying to do so," said Harry, who saw the danger as well as Dickey. Old Tom was too much occupied to make any remark. He kept his eye steadily fixed on a dark patch of water which appeared in the white line of foam, and he steered towards it. The roaring sound of the surf as it dashed against the wild rocks grew louder and louder. Still old Tom urged the men to pull as hard as they could. Many of them thought, however, that they were only pulling to meet destruction the sooner. "I see the passage now!" exclaimed Harry, as he looked up for a moment while bailing the water out. "You are right, lad," said old Tom. "Steady, lads! there is One above who will protect us. We will do our best, and trust to Him." The men gave way. They knew well that in a few minutes more they should be safe, or struggling helplessly among the foaming waters. The loud roar of the breakers sounded in their ears. They bent to their oars; the boys bailed as hard as they could. Old Tom kept his eye ahead. A huge wave lifted up the boat, and seemed about to heave her into the midst of the boiling surf. Onwards she was borne; now she was between two walls of white hissing foam, which flew in thick masses over her; but still she went on, and, gliding downwards with the rapidity of an arrow, in a few seconds she shot into smooth water, leaving the dark rocks and the roaring breakers astern. The wind blew fiercely, the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed vividly; but she was now safe within the shelter of a deep bay. By the glare of the lightning it could be seen that there were cliffs on either side. The crew pulled steadily up the centre till they reached a sandy beach at the farther end, where they landed, and hauled their boat up. "Now, lads, let us return thanks to God for preserving us from the greatest danger I have ever been in, or any of you either, probably," said old Tom. "If we had not been guided into the passage when we were, it is my belief that the boat would in a few minutes have gone to the bottom, for the gale is blowing nearly twice as hard as it did when we cast off from the whale." Though most of the men had refused to join with old Tom in prayer on board ship when in safety, no one now declined to do as he suggested; and, led by him, they knelt down on the sands, and offered up thanksgivings for their preservation from the danger in which they had been placed. Even Dickey Bass uttered a fervent "Amen," and Harry felt that God had indeed been merciful to him. "Where should we have been now, Bass, if we had missed the passage?" he asked. "I don't know," answered Dickey; "but I am very thankful that we are safe." It was too dark to enable them to go in search of shelter, if shelter was to be found; so they stretched the boat's sail out from her side, and formed a low tent, beneath which they lay down to shelter themselves from the storm till the return of daylight. CHAPTER FIVE. ON THE DESERT ISLAND. The storm raged furiously all night, the thunder roared, the lightning, darting forth from the dark sky, flashed ever and anon, in a zigzag course, from side to side of the cliffs around the bay, and the howling wind threatened frequently to tear off the sail and carry it away. Still the weary seamen slept, although Harry and young Bass did not for a long time close their eyes. "I feel, Harry, that old Tom is right; and next time he speaks to me I will listen to him," said the latter. "He was as cool and collected from the beginning of the storm as if there had been no danger. If it had not been for him, I do not think we should have been where we are." Harry agreed with his companion, and urged him not to forget his good resolutions should they ever again get on board the ship. What had become of her they could not tell, and they felt very anxious about her fate. She might have been cast on some of the numerous reefs which lay thereabouts, or have been driven far away from the island. "At all events, the captain will probably suppose that the boat is lost, and not think it worth while to come and look for us," observed Dickey. "I am very sure my father won't give us up, if he thinks there is a chance of finding us," answered Harry. "But what if the ship is lost?" said Dickey, thoughtlessly. "Oh! do not talk of anything so dreadful!" exclaimed Harry; "I could not bear to think that we are not again to see my father and Mr Champion and the rest. My father is a good seaman, and our ship is stout enough to weather out the worst gale that ever raged." "I hope so," said Dickey, in a mournful voice; "but it blows a regular hurricane; and, oh! what a fearful crash of thunder that last was! See, see! The lightning seems to stir up the very water of the harbour; and oh! there is another peal! I cannot help feeling as if the sky itself was coming down upon us." The last peal was succeeded by a loud rending and crashing sound, as if a number of trees had been torn up by their roots or the stout branches wrenched off from the stems. "Lie down, boys, and try and get some sleep." It was old Tom who spoke. They were not aware that he was awake and overheard them. "God will take care of us, for we can do nothing more to take care of ourselves. We are safer here than we should be farther inland among the trees." It was some time, however, before they followed his advice. At length there was a lull, and they both lay down. Scarcely had they placed their heads on the ground, than they were lost in forgetfulness, and took no more notice of the storm than the seamen who had slept through it all. When morning dawned all hands awakened. The fury of the gale was over. The sun arose, and, bursting through the clouds, his rays soon dried their damp clothing. The ground rose slightly from the head of the bay, and on the lower portion grew a grove of cocoa-nut trees loaded with fruit. One of the men, by means of a belt round his waist and the trunk, soon managed to climb to the top of one of them, when he threw down a number of nuts, which were eagerly seized by the rest. The outer husks were quickly torn off, and a nut was given to Harry, the eye being pierced. He declared that he had never tasted so delicious a draught of milk. The meat served the party for food, but did not satisfy their hunger, as they had eaten nothing since leaving the ship. "This is better than nothing, but it won't keep body and soul together," said one of the men, in a grumbling tone. "Lad, we should be thankful that God has sent us where we can find such wholesome food, instead of complaining that we have not better," said old Tom. "Maybe, too, there are shell-fish and crabs to be got, and perhaps other food besides; and see, there is a rill of fresh water. We should be thankful for that. We have an axe and our knives, and if we are obliged to live here we may build ourselves a hut, though we need not think about that, as I hope the ship has escaped and will come to look for us before long." Still the men grumbled. They were all out of spirits, and had made up their minds that the ship was lost. They had begun to wander about, as sailors generally do under such circumstances, one in one direction and one in another, when Harry, who had gone to the boat, exclaimed, "See, here are some fishing-lines. Who put them there I do not know, but we shall not be in want of a dinner if we make use of them." "This is a godsend," observed Dickey. "Everything good is sent by God," said old Tom; and he called to the men to come and assist him in launching the boat. A short search along the shore enabled them to find mussels and other shell-fish, which they hoped would serve for bait; and, shoving off, they went down towards the mouth of the harbour, where they quickly caught as many fine fish as they could eat. Returning to the beach, sticks were collected, and a tinder-box, which was in the tub with other articles always carried in a whale-boat, enabled them to light a fire. An ample meal raised their spirits. They once more embarked and pulled down to the mouth of the harbour, in the hope of seeing the ship standing towards the island. The heavy surf which rolled in, however, made it impossible for them to get out. Old Tom and the two boys, therefore, landed and climbed to the summit of a high cliff overlooking the ocean. Hence they gazed round in every direction, but no ship was in sight. In the far distance they could discern here and there some dark rocks, over which the sea broke in masses of foam. Harry's heart sank within him as he thought that possibly the _Steadfast_ might have been driven upon those fearful rocks, when, as he knew too well, she must speedily have gone to pieces without a chance of any one on board escaping. He scarcely liked to ask Tom Hayes what he thought, but he observed that the old man looked unusually grave as his eye turned in that direction. "This is no place for us to build our hut on, though it is the best spot for a look-out," observed old Tom, as he surveyed the rough broken ground all around them. "We must take it by turns, however, to spend the day here, though it will be best to take up our quarters near where we first landed." They waited for some time watching the dark, heaving sea, which still rolled and tumbled in huge billows before them; but not even a speck which might be the topsails of the _Steadfast_ appeared above the horizon. At length they returned to the boat. The men had, in the meantime, caught a large supply of fish, and, in better spirits than before, they pulled back to the head of the bay. Old Tom advised that they should put up some shelter for the night; and while one of the men cooked the fish, the remainder cut down some young trees and a quantity of boughs, with which they formed a tolerably substantial arbour, while some dried leaves and smaller boughs supplied them with as good beds as they required. "If we had a good stock of grog, and some bread and potatoes, we should be as happy as princes," observed one of the men. "You are right, Ned," said another. "For my part, I do not care how long we stay." "What if there should be savages on the island! Most of them are cannibals in these parts, I have heard say; and, as we have no arms to defend ourselves, we should look foolish," remarked a third. "I have seen no signs of any natives, so I do not think we should make ourselves unhappy about them," said old Tom. "If there are any we must make friends with them, and it's more than likely that they will give us help and show us where we can obtain food." Thus old Tom did his utmost to keep up the spirits of the men, and to prevent them from falling into despondency. Harry, however, could not help feeling sad as he thought of the possible loss of the ship. He eagerly set off the next morning to look out for her, and while two of the men who pulled the boat remained fishing below he and Dickey climbed the cliff. The gale had considerably abated, but the ocean still swelled and broke with the effects of the gale. They returned with an unsatisfactory report. The men who had remained in the camp had, in the meantime, been looking out for traces of natives. None had been discovered. They had also begun to build a hut. As they had only one axe, this was a slow process. They had cut out a couple of rude spades with which to dig the holes for the foundation, and, as all hands worked hard, by the close of the day they had made some progress. The cocoa-nut fibre, twisted into rope, enabled them to bind the rafters together, and the long leaves of some palms, which grew farther inland, served for thatch. Old Tom encouraged them to proceed, though he had lost all hopes that the ship would return. As had been agreed on, one man went down and remained on the look-out during the first part of the day, and a second took his place in the afternoon. Thus all were employed. Harry took the afternoon of the second day. Climbing to the top of the hill, he gazed, as before, anxiously round the horizon. A sigh escaped him when no sail appeared. Sitting down, he remembered his Bible, which he had always carried since he formed the resolution of doing so. He took it out. From its sacred pages he drew that comfort which it always affords. Never before had he read it with so much satisfaction, for he prayed earnestly that his mind might be enlightened; and he now was enabled to see many of the important truths he had never before comprehended. He read and read on, page after page. "I would rather have this than every book on board!" he exclaimed. He was surprised when he heard a hail from below, and found that the boat had come for him. Sunday came round, and old Tom urged his companions to make it a day of rest. Harry now produced his Bible, greatly to old Tom's delight. Morning and evening Tom had offered up a prayer, Harry and Bass and one or two of the seamen joining him, though others showed no inclination to do so. Harry offered to read from his Bible, to which the men agreed; but though they sat quiet and listened, some did so with apparent indifference. He, however, selected such portions as he thought that they would best understand. By degrees they became interested. He was reading the fourteenth chapter of Matthew--the account of our Lord's feeding five thousand men, besides women and children; followed by that of Peter walking on the sea, when, through want of faith, he began to sink, and the Lord stretched forth His hand and saved him, saying, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" "So, lads," observed old Tom, "you see how Jesus Christ fed the multitudes when they were hungering, and saved Peter when in danger, though his faith was weak. We have been fed, you will all allow, when we thought we had reached a barren island where no food was to be found; and in the same way, though I fear our faith is weak, He will take care of us. Then it seems to me that we must give Him our hearts, just as Peter stretched out his hands to Christ for safety." "Old Tom speaks the truth, it seems to me," observed one of the men to a companion, in an undertone. "If I thought that Jesus would hold out His hand as He did to Peter, I should not despair; but I am such a terrible bad fellow, that I am sure I could not keep straight by myself." "Jesus is ready, not only to grasp the hand of every one who cries for help, but when once He has got the man's hand in His He does not let it go," said old Tom, who had overheard the remark. When evening closed and the boat's crew lay down in their hut, several of them acknowledged that they had never spent so happy a Sunday in their lives. CHAPTER SIX. IN AN OPEN BOAT. A fortnight had elapsed, still the _Steadfast_ did not return. The whole island had been explored. It was found not to be more than a couple of miles long, and scarcely half a mile in width, the greater portion consisting of black volcanic rocks thrown up by some mighty convulsion of nature. No other harbour was discovered; indeed, there was not a spot besides the bay they had entered on which a landing could be effected without danger. They probably were the first people who had entered the bay, for there were no signs of the island ever having been inhabited. There was but a very small portion of ground fit for cultivation; the only trees were those which clothed the side of the valley and the little cocoa-nut grove on the shore of the bay; while no other stream of water was discovered besides that near which they had formed their camp. As the trees could not be perceived from the sea, Harry thought that, even if the island was marked on the chart, it was probably set down as a barren rock on which no one could land. "My father, depend upon it, thought that our boat was swamped in attempting to regain the ship, or else that she was driven on the rocks, when he might well suppose that none of us could have escaped. He would otherwise, I am sure, have come back before this," he observed to old Tom. "I hope that is the reason why he has not come back," was the answer; for old Tom had come to the conclusion that the ship, with all hands, had been lost, though he did not like to say so to Harry. The men were beginning to get very impatient at their long detention on the island. Old Tom did his best to keep them employed; but it was difficult to find work for them. It was evident, too, that the cocoa-nuts would not last for ever; and when they had come to an end, what would they do for food? the men inquired. They might live on fish; but three or four of their hooks had already been lost, and in time they might be unable even to catch fish. "One thing is clear, lads," observed Tom; "if we are to get away, we must carry water with us as well as food. Our small breaker will only hold enough for two or three days on short allowance, and, though we may carry some in the tubs, it will be difficult to keep that from being spilled. My advice is, that we set to work and scoop out a number of cocoa-nuts--they will hold a good supply--and we must try and smoke or salt some fish. I calculate that we can carry enough to last us three or four weeks, and in that time we may be able to reach a more fertile island than this is--one likely to be visited by whalers--if we are not so fortunate as to be picked up by a ship first." The men were eager to be off, and set to work readily to prepare for the voyage. Harry would rather have remained, still believing that the ship would come back to look for them. Some time, however, was occupied in catching fish, and in drying and salting them, for it was necessary first to erect a building of stone for the former operation, and they had to collect the salt in the holes of the rock along the shore. A lovely day, just a month after they landed, found them ready, with the cocoa-nut bottles and tubs full of water, and as many whole cocoa-nuts and as much dried and salt fish as they could stow away. "Before we shove off, lads, let us return thanks to God for bringing us safely here and giving us food to eat, and then let us pray that He will take care of us in the voyage we are about to make," said old Tom. "I tell you that we shall meet with many dangers, from which He alone can preserve us." The men agreed to old Tom's proposal; and then in good spirts they pulled down the harbour and glided out into the open ocean, now shining in the bright sun of the early morning. The surf, which broke on the rocks on either side in a gentle murmur, glittered brightly, presenting a very different appearance to the wild fury it exhibited when they took refuge within the bay. A light breeze springing up from the northward, the sail was hoisted, and the whale-boat stood to the south, away from the dark, forbidding-looking island. The small compass which is usually carried in a whale-boat enabled them to steer in a tolerably direct course. "Now, lads," said old Tom, "we may reach land in about a fortnight; but it may be a month or six weeks before we fall in with an island where provisions are to be found. It will be well, therefore, to put ourselves on an allowance both of water and food. Remember that God helps those who help themselves, and if we take more than we require to keep up our strength, we cannot expect Him to send us a fresh supply." Harry and Dickey were always ready to support him, and the men, without murmuring, agreed to do as he advised. The crew having been divided into watches, old Tom taking charge of one and Harry of the other, and all other arrangements being made, old Tom lay down to rest, saying that he would keep the first night-watch. They had a few candles for their lanterns, which had been carefully husbanded; these were kept to be used should any night prove particularly dark and cloudy, and the compass be required, for when the stars were shining they were sufficient to steer by. For several days the boat sailed on over the tranquil ocean. Sometimes it fell calm, when the men took to their oars. The rest of the day they spent lying along the thwarts. Morning and evening, however, Tom offered up prayer, and Harry read some chapters in the Bible, to which most of the men listened attentively. "What we should have done without your Bible, Mr Harry, I do not know," observed old Tom. "I believe it has mainly contributed to keep the men contented and happy; I only hope that they will remain in the same temper." "I at all events will read the Bible to them," said Harry. Harry kept to his resolution. Dickey was one of the most attentive of the listeners. "Harry," he said, one day, "I confess that I did not before know what was in the Bible when I used to sneer at old Tom for being religious, and was afraid that he would make you so. I wish that he would make me like himself or like you." "God's Holy Spirit can alone make you, Mr Bass, what you ought to be," observed old Tom, who had been listening to the boys' conversation. "But you have to seek His grace, and to trust in Jesus, according to the teaching of His word; for we are there told that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. I never yet met an infidel or careless, bad fellow who really had read the Bible with prayer. It is only thus that we can benefit by it. Many complain that they have no faith, and that it is no fault of theirs--and yet they will not do the very thing that God tells us to do; so you see that it is not God's fault if a man does not believe, but the man's own fault. Do you read and pray earnestly and faithfully, and depend upon it God's Holy Spirit will do His part and help you." "I will try, Tom, indeed I will," said Dickey; "and will you and Harry pray for me?" "That we will, Mr Bass, because God has said that earnest, believing prayer availeth much; but you must pray for yourself--you must not trust to others praying instead of you. God will hear your prayers, though they may be very weak and imperfect, just as He heard the prayer of the poor publican who smote on his breast and said, `God be merciful to me a sinner.'" It cannot be said that all in the boat listened to Harry when he read the Bible, or to old Tom when he spoke, or followed their example. While the weather remained fine and they had enough to eat, they kept up their spirits, and began to talk of what they would do when they got on shore. Two or three of them indeed declared that they had had enough knocking about at sea, and that if they should land on a pleasant island with good-natured natives, they would take up their quarters there and marry wives and live a life of ease. "If you do so, lads, you will run the risk of becoming heathens like them, and forget God and all His benefits," observed old Tom. "Remember, if we do land safely, it will not be our own right arm or our own strength which will have preserved us, but His merciful kindness; and I tell you, you will be ungrateful fellows if you do as you propose." "Old Tom is always preaching," muttered one of the men to whom he spoke. "I don't see why we have not a right to please ourselves." Old Tom did not hear this remark, and he probably would not then have answered even if he had. For ten days or so the voyage had continued without any change in the weather. The sun was very hot, and the fish, which they thought had been well salted and smoked, began to taste very strong. Harry and Dickey could only eat very small pieces at a time, with the help of some cocoa-nut and a sip of water between each mouthful. Next day a perfect calm came on, and the sun beat down with intense force on the boat. Although their provisions were covered up and kept as cool as possible, the fish grew worse and worse. Several of the men, when it was served out to them, threw it overboard with disgust, declaring that they could eat it no longer. "Seeing we have nothing else to live upon, we should be thankful that we have got that, and not throw it from us," observed old Tom. "It's bad-tasted, I'll allow; but as long as we can manage to get it down it will help to support life, and we should try to eat it." Harry and Bass did as he advised, and as yet they did not find their strength much diminished. Most of the men, however, began to complain of pains and aches, and unwillingly got out their oars. Tom urged them to pull on, in the hope that they might in a day or two reach some island which Harry thought could not be far off. Day after day they had gone on, ever appearing to be in the midst of the same circle where sky and sea met, without sighting land or a distant sail. At night, while one watch rowed the other slept. Another morning came, but still the glass-like ocean showed no signs of a coming breeze. They had put in their oars, and were munching their share of cocoa-nut and such small pieces of the fish as they could still eat, when suddenly, at a little distance, the surface of the water was broken, and a covey of flying-fish darted through the air towards them. A dozen or more fell into the boat, and were eagerly seized and killed by the famishing crew. "Let us thank God, who sent them to us," said Tom, as several of the men greedily began to bite at the fresh, tempting-looking morsels. Half the number were cut up, and the remainder Tom advised should be reserved for dinner. The food somewhat restored the men's spirits, and they pulled on for some hours without murmuring. Another and another day passed by, and then a breeze sprang up, and the sail was hoisted, and they ran on before the wind. All felt that unless they should shortly reach land or be picked up by a ship their fate was certain. Their cocoa-nuts and water were nearly exhausted, and even old Tom could with difficulty manage to eat a small portion of fish. Still he appeared calm and happy, and did his best to encourage his companions; he sat at the steering oar for the greater part of the day and night, taking but little rest. When he lay down he charged those who were on the watch to keep a bright look-out for land, while he himself, when awake, had his eyes moving round the horizon in the hope of discovering it. At length all the water was gone, and not a piece of cocoa-nut remained. One of the crew, who had long been complaining, had lain down in the bow, saying he should go to sleep. When it was his turn to keep watch, Jack Harding, one of the men, tried to arouse him. Jack lifted his arm, which fell down by his side. "Bill has slipped his cable, I am afraid," said Jack, in a hollow voice. Harry went forward to ascertain if such was the case. Bill was indeed dead. "Lads," said old Tom, "I don't know which of us will go next, but this I know, that the case of those who are not trusting in Christ is a very terrible one. I won't say anything about poor Bill, but I speak to you as a dying man to dying men. The day of grace has not yet passed-- to-morrow it may have gone by for some, if not for all those who are still unreconciled to God. I said this before to you when you were in health; God in His mercy has allowed you to suffer from starvation and sickness, that He might lead you to Himself." "We dare say you speak the truth, Mr Hayes," answered one of the men; "but it's hard to believe that God, if He is as kind as you say, should allow us to suffer as we are doing." "He allowed His faithful apostles of old, and many thousands of Christians since then, to suffer far more than we are doing; and yet they acknowledged to the last that He does all things well," answered old Tom. "I have just told you why He allows you to suffer; and remember what Saint Paul says, `The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.'" Tom's address served as the funeral sermon of poor Bill, who was shortly afterwards lifted overboard by his sorrowing companions. CHAPTER SEVEN. SAVAGES AND MISSIONARIES. It was again night. For the greater part of it old Tom sat at the helm, while a gentle breeze wafted them on. Once more the sun rose. It was Harry's watch. As he glanced round the horizon, he caught sight of a blue undulating line to the south-west. At first he thought that it was a bank of clouds, but at length he was convinced that it was land he saw. "Land! land!" he cried out. His shouts aroused all the sleepers. "Land it is! there is no doubt about that!" said old Tom, taking his seat at the helm and steering towards it. As they approached they saw it was an island of some extent, with hills covered with trees, but a coral reef intervened. A passage, however, was at length discovered. How eagerly the famished crew longed to get on shore to quench their burning thirst and satisfy their hunger! The first object which met their sight, as they pulled into a small picturesque bay, was a stream of water, which came sparkling and foaming down the side of the hill. Not far off was a grove of cocoa-nut palms, near which were several other fruit-bearing trees. Without stopping to ascertain whether any natives, were in the neighbourhood, they pulled to the shore, and leaping out, rushed forward to quench their thirst at the nearest point of the stream which they could reach. Some cocoa-nuts were also quickly obtained, and sitting down, they soon emptied the contents of the shells of several. "If we had fallen in with this island two or three days ago, poor Bill, maybe, would have been alive and merry now," observed one of the men. "It might have been so, lads," said Tom; "but one thing I know, that we should be thankful for God's mercy in bringing us thus far in safety." The strength of all the party was revived by the food and water. By Tom's advice they refilled the casks and cocoa-nut bottles. He then proposed that they should push off into the bay, and try and catch some fish. Two of the men replied that they had had food enough, and preferred remaining in the shade under the trees; the rest, however, agreed to accompany him. Some crabs and shell-fish, as before, served them as bait. They had been fishing for some time with good success, and were contemplating returning to the shore to cook the fish and to rest for the night, when they caught sight among the trees, at some distance from the beach, of several savages, who had apparently been watching them. These were joined by others, who began flourishing their weapons and shouting. The two men who had been left on shore, on hearing their voices, started up, and, observing their menacing attitude, ran towards the beach. The crew of the boat, seeing the danger of their companions, pulled in as fast as they could bend to their oars, in the hope of rescuing them. The distance was considerable. Neither of the poor fellows could swim. They rushed into the water up to their necks. The natives came on yelling towards them. Long before the boat could get up to them they were dragged back, and in another instant dispatched by the clubs of the savages. "It's too late, lads!" cried old Tom, who saw what had occurred; "we shall be treated as they have been if we let the savages get hold of us. We must make the best of our way out of the bay. It's a mercy that we have got the water and food." There was indeed no time to be lost, for at that moment another party of savages were seen bringing several canoes down to the beach. Old Tom told Harry to take the helm, while he and the three remaining men pulled away out to sea. Happily, just as they got near the passage through the reef, a breeze sprang up, and they were able to hoist the sail. At that instant four canoes were seen paddling out of the bay. It still seemed doubtful whether they would escape. The breeze, however, freshened, and the whale-boat darting ahead, soon distanced her pursuers. Tom urged his companions not to despair. "We may still reach another island where the natives will treat us more kindly than these have done," he observed. Harry thought that there were other islands to the southward, the natives of which were well spoken of. That was all he could say on the subject. How far off they were he could not tell. They had now a good supply of water; but they had put only a few cocoa-nuts into the boat, and though they had several fish, they would very soon be unfit to eat. "He who has brought us thus far will still take care of us, lads, if we will but trust Him," said old Tom. This was the burden of his address day after day. The fish they were still able to eat on the second day, so that they could reserve their cocoa-nuts. They had been living on the latter, with some water, for two days longer, when again a covey of flying-fish passed over the boat, nearly a dozen falling into her. This afforded them the means of subsistence for two days more, then again they had to resort to the remainder of the cocoa-nuts. These were, however, at length finished. Day after day they sailed on, no land appearing in sight. Even should they reach shore, they were aware that they might be received in the same hostile way that they were before. The last cocoa-nut was eaten, the last drop of water exhausted. The hapless wanderers gazed with lack-lustre eyes in each other's faces. What would next happen? "All we can now do is to lay ourselves down and die," said Harry. "No, no, lad; trust still in God," answered old Tom. "He has preserved us hitherto. If He thinks fit He can still carry us safe to shore. See away there over the starboard bow--what do you make out?" Harry and Dickey lifted their heads and gazed in the direction in which old Tom pointed. "My old eyes are sharper than your young ones," he observed, when they made no reply. "I make out the top of a mountain rising above the horizon. We shall see more of it before nightfall if the wind holds; let us pray that it may." The rest of the people would not believe old Tom, and declared that he was mistaken; but he persisted in his assertion that land was ahead, and urged them to keep up their spirits. Before nightfall land appeared clearly in view, but still at a great distance. All night long they ran on, old Tom sitting at the helm, for he would trust no one else, while Harry and Dickey did their best to keep a look-out ahead, for, young as they were, they endured their sufferings better than the older men, who lay stretched out on the thwarts. When morning dawned a beautiful island, with rocks and trees and mountains in the centre, appeared about two miles ahead; but it was surrounded by a reef, over which the sea dashed in masses of foam, barring their approach to the shore. "Never fear, boys, we shall find a passage through it," said old Tom. They sailed on, and in a short time the expected passage was seen, the water shining calm and blue within it. They glided on towards a bay, beyond which a valley opened up into the interior of the country. On one side, on the slope of a hill, appeared a few neat cottages, and among them a building of larger size. "If my eyes don't deceive me, that's a chapel!" exclaimed old Tom; "and where there is a chapel there will be Christians, and we shall be received by them as friends." The men roused up on hearing this, for in their despair they believed that on landing they should be murdered like their companions. Old Tom steered without hesitation towards the cottages. As they approached, several persons were seen coming down to the beach. Two were in European costume, one of whom was a woman, while most of the rest were dressed in shirts and trousers. Before the boat's keel had touched the shore, several of the latter came rushing forward into the water; and, seeing the condition of those on board, they carefully lifted them out, and bore them to the shore in their arms. The white people, who were at once recognised by old Tom as missionaries, kindly pressing his hand, invited him and his companions to their house. "We will not ask questions now," they said; "your appearance shows the sufferings you have endured." The natives, receiving directions from the missionary, again lifted them up, and followed him, while his wife hastened on with two native girls to make preparations for their reception. Food and water were, however, what they most required. "I can allow you to partake of them but sparingly at first," observed the missionary. "God's greatest blessings are too often abused by being enjoyed in excess." Harry and old Tom thanked him, and said they did not wish for more than would be beneficial; but the men grumbled at not being allowed to have as much as they could devour, when they were so hungry. Poor Dickey was unable to speak, and could scarcely eat the food given to him. The missionary, who told them that his name was Hart, and that he and his wife had resided scarcely a year on the island, showed them the greatest sympathy and kindness. Mrs Hart took poor Dickey under her especial care, and gave him nourishing food in small quantities till she saw that his strength was returning, and that his pulse was beating more regularly. He could not help feeling, indeed, that it was mainly owing to her care that his life was preserved. In the course of two or three days the strength of all the party was much restored, and Harry and old Tom were able to get up and join Mr and Mrs Hart at their meals. They then gave an account of their adventures. "You have indeed been mercifully preserved," observed Mr Hart. "What confidence does it give us when we know that we are under the protection of our Heavenly Father! Were it not for that, my wife and I could not live as we do in this island, surrounded by hostile savages, far away from other Europeans. It is true that we have with us a small band of Christian natives; but their numbers are insufficient for our defence, even if we wished them to fight. We have often been threatened, but hitherto the heathens have been restrained from attacking us. Many, indeed, have come to listen to the doctrines we preach, and now one and now another has acknowledged Jehovah to be the true God. The more progress we have made, the greater has been the animosity of the heathens, and of late, instigated by their priests, they have threatened our destruction. Still we persevere, in the hope, whatever may happen, of gaining more souls for Christ's kingdom." Harry was surprised to hear Mr Hart speak so calmly of the dangers which surrounded him, and to observe that Mrs Hart did not appear in any way alarmed. "But if the heathen party attack you, what do you propose doing?" he asked. "We know that our friends will protect us as long as they have the power to do so," answered the missionary. "We are perfectly resigned to whatever God, in His providence, may allow. Should the heathens have resolved to put us to death, we are sure that if God allows them to succeed He has an important object in view, and that our death will ultimately tend to His honour and glory. At the same time, should means of escape be afforded us, we should consider it our duty to take advantage of them. Our friends know of some hiding-places in the mountains to which they have promised to take us, should they obtain timely notice of an intended attack on the station; but we suspect that, even should we succeed in reaching a place of concealment, it may be discovered by our enemies, and we have little expectation of being in safety even there." Mrs Hart spoke to the same effect, but expressed a hope that the enmity of the heathens might abate, or that friends might arrive who would turn them from their purpose. Notwithstanding the threatening aspect of affairs, Mr and Mrs Hart attended zealously to their missionary duties. Mr Hart not only preached the gospel, but held a school for men and boys, whom he instructed in various branches of knowledge, while Mrs Hart taught the women and girls and young children. Mr Hart also instructed them in several mechanical arts, and showed them improved methods of cultivating the ground. With their assistance he had built the house he inhabited, and had manufactured most of the furniture it contained, as also the school-house and chapel, and many of the natives had erected neat cottages after the same model. Indeed, the whole place already wore an air of civilisation and comfort, which contrasted greatly with the heathen portion of the island. The missionary and his wife were employed from morning till night among their converts, and much of the time spent in their own house was devoted to study. They enjoyed, indeed, none of that luxurious ease which some people in England suppose falls to the lot of missionaries in the sunny isles of the Pacific, but, harassed by numerous cares and anxieties, their days were spent in toil, while they knew that their lives were in constant danger. As soon as Harry and old Tom were able to move about, they begged that Mr Hart would allow them to assist him in his labours. Harry would gladly have tried to teach the natives, but his ignorance of their language prevented him being of use in that way. They both, however, could carpenter and dig, and accordingly helped in fitting up the school-house, which had just been erected. Dickey was soon able to join them. Two days afterwards the three men had sufficiently recovered to take their share of the work. Again a rumour reached the settlement that the heathens were about to attack it. "I'll tell you what, Harry," said old Tom, when they happened to be alone together. "There is one thing we ought to do, and that is to get the boat ready for use. I don't fancy Mr and Mrs Hart hiding away in the mountains. They are pretty sure to be starved to death, if the savages don't get hold of them, which I fear it is very likely they will do. And as to fighting to defend them, though we should be ready enough to risk our lives, yet as we have no arms we cannot hope to succeed. If we had had half a dozen muskets we might have thrown up a fortification and defended our friends, but without them the naked savages are our superiors when it comes to fighting; besides, Mr Hart does not wish to fight." "He is, I suspect, right on that point," said Harry. "He wishes to show the savages that the religion of the gospel is one of love and mercy and long-suffering; and musket bullets, even if we had arms, would not contribute to do that. I agree with you, however, that the sooner we can get the boat ready the better." Old Tom on this called the other men, and they all set to work to prepare the boat for sea. Harry also informed the missionary and his wife of their intentions, and urged Mrs Hart to get ready such a stock of provisions as she could collect. "For your sakes I will do so," she answered; "but if my husband still thinks it right that we should remain, I cannot try to persuade him to fly. We ought to stop and share the lot of the poor converts." "You would, I think, by remaining, only increase their danger," observed Harry. "They might, if alone, escape to the mountains and hide themselves; but if they have you to attend to, they would run a much greater risk of being discovered. Whereas if you accompany us, and our lives are preserved, you may return when the rage of the heathens is abated, and re-establish the mission." These arguments seemed to have considerable effect on Mrs Hart, and Harry hoped that she and her husband would no longer hesitate to embark, should the heathens seriously threaten to attack the station. Things, however, went on much as usual for several days. The boat was made ready for sea, while as much water and provisions as she could carry were prepared to be put on board at a moment's notice. The three men had by this time grown weary of the monotonous life they were compelled to live at the station, and, notwithstanding the dangers they had gone through, they were anxious again to be off in search of some other island, where they could live at their ease among the natives, without running the risk of being murdered, as they were assured they would be should they wander away among the heathens. Old Tom and the two boys did their best to persuade them to remain contentedly where they were; but, from some remarks overheard by Bass, Harry was afraid that they contemplated running off with the boat, should they be detained much longer. "If they make the attempt they will lose their lives to a certainty," observed old Tom, when Harry told him. "But I think better of them. We will make them understand that we remain for the sake of the poor lady and gentleman who have left their home in England to try and benefit the ignorant savages, and that while they are in danger we should be cowards to desert them." The men acknowledged, when Tom spoke to them, that he was right, and promised to remain contentedly to assist the missionary and his wife. CHAPTER EIGHT. ATTACK AND FLIGHT. Old Tom and the three men had built a hut for themselves at a short distance from the missionary's house, that they might not incommode him and his wife. He, however, kindly insisted that the two lads should continue their guests. The more Harry saw of Mr Hart, the more anxious he became to assist him, and in order to do so he commenced studying the language of the natives. "I wonder you take so much trouble, Harry," observed his companion Bass; "it seems to me like labour lost, when we may at any moment be compelled to run away." "But I hope, if we do, we shall be able to return," said Harry. "I think, of all the works in which man can engage, that of converting the heathen, and instructing them in the truths of the gospel, is the first and noblest. I would rather be employed in it than in any other. We look with respect on a man who has saved the life of a fellow-creature; but surely, as the soul is of infinitely more value than the body, it must be infinitely more noble to be the means of saving souls. If it were not for my mother and sister, I would rather remain out here and labour with Mr Hart than return home. But still I feel that it is my first duty to try and go back to England, that I may comfort my mother and sister, should, as I fear is the case, the _Steadfast_ and all hands have been lost." "Each man to his task," answered Dickey; "but I should have thought that you, who have a good chance of some day getting the command of a ship, would have preferred remaining at sea, even should the _Steadfast_ be lost." "I have not given up all hopes of her even yet," answered Harry; "though I cannot account for her not coming to look for us." Harry was soon able to speak a few words to the natives, and, as they were anxious to learn English, they took pains to teach him their own tongue in return for the instruction he gave them, and he and they were thus able to understand each other on ordinary subjects. Rumours that the heathens were meditating an attack again reached the station. A large body of savages had been seen on the hills a short distance off flourishing their weapons, and making fierce and threatening gestures. Perhaps they had been deterred from their purpose by the arrival of the boat, and, believing that all white men were possessed of firearms, been unwilling to encounter them. As, however, heathens were constantly coming to the village and going away again, some of them would probably report that they had seen no muskets, and that the number of white men was very small. One evening, after prayers had been offered up in the missionary's house, and old Tom and his companions had returned to their hut, just as Harry and Bass were about to go to bed, a knocking was heard at the door, Harry opened it, when a native appeared, and, in an agitated voice, told them that a friend who still lived among the heathens had just stolen into the village with the intelligence that a large band of savages, led on by one of their priests, was approaching at a rapid rate, having vowed to destroy all the Christians before the morning. Harry at once told Mrs Hart, who was at first inclined to believe that it was only another false report, such as had often before reached them. The native, however, was positive that his friend was not mistaken, and declared that if their dear missionary and his wife would not fly, he and the other converts would carry them off by force to the mountains. Harry proposed that scouts should be sent out to ascertain the fact, and entreated Mr and Mrs Hart to embark at once, and to wait in the boat till the return of the scouts. In the meantime he sent Bass to summon Tom and his companions. Several of the converts were ready to act as scouts, though they declared that there was no doubt of the truth of the report, and that it would be wiser to escape at once to the mountains. The whole population now gathered round the mission-house, and urged Mr and Mrs Hart to go on board the boat, which had been sent, they asserted, on purpose to preserve their lives. The missionary and his wife at length agreed to act as they were advised, though still loth to leave the converts. The people, though they knew the danger they themselves ran by remaining, would not commence their flight till they had seen their white friends, whom they hurried down to the beach, safe on board. At the same time, some of them carried the provisions which had been prepared on board, while others brought from their own stores a still further supply, and would have added more, had not old Tom assured them that the boat was already overloaded. She had just been launched into deep water, when one of the scouts came hurrying back with the intelligence that the savages were close to the village, and that there was but little time for their countrymen to make their escape. While the Christian natives hurried off in the direction of the mountains, the boat pulled away from the shore towards the passage which led into the open sea. The night was cloudy and dark, but a strong breeze was blowing, which sent the surf high over the reef, so that the passage could easily be distinguished. Mr Hart, even to the last, was very unwilling to desert his station, and begged old Tom to remain inside the lagoon till they could see what would happen. They were not left long in doubt, for a few minutes only had elapsed after they had quitted the beach when fearful shouts and yells rent the air. The savages, expecting to entrap their victims, had evidently surrounded the village, and were rushing forward with the intention of putting all within it to death. In a short time torches which they had lighted were seen flaring up, their glare being cast on the tall trees and rocks and the sides of the hills, as they rushed forward to throw them into the buildings. In a few seconds more the whole village was in a blaze, and burning furiously. The dark figures of the savages could be seen as they stood ready with uplifted weapons to strike those whom they expected to issue forth. Their rage and disappointment must have been great when no one appeared. The delay, however, it was hoped, would enable the fugitives to escape to their proposed hiding-places. As the bright light from the burning buildings shed a glare over the water, at length the savages perceived the boat, and rushed down to the beach, shouting loudly to those in her to return, some darting their spears, and others shooting arrows towards her. She was happily too far off for the weapons to reach her. "The heathens have been allowed to triumph for a time," said Mr Hart. "I pray that our poor converts will escape their fury. We must now trust to the protection of Him who is able to guide us over the stormy ocean to a haven of rest. His will be done." "The sooner we are out of the reach of those savages the better, or they will be coming after us in their canoes," observed old Tom. "When we are outside we shall be able to make sail and stand to the eastward. If the wind favours us we shall reach a Christian island in the course of a week, where we are sure to meet a hearty welcome. We have provisions enough on board to last us a month, so we need have no fear of starving, whatever happens." This address encouraged the men, who pulled away in good spirits, Harry and Bass, who had each an oar, setting them an example. Mr Hart offered to row. "No, no, sir," answered old Tom. "You are not accustomed to the sort of life we shall have to lead for the next few days, and you will have enough to do to look after your poor wife. We all feel more for her than for ourselves, and will do our best to make her as comfortable as we can." Mrs Hart thanked old Tom, and assured him that she was resigned to whatever might happen, and felt no alarm, notwithstanding the fearful scene they had witnessed. The boat now reached the passage, and passing between the two walls of foam which rose up on either hand, was soon tossing on the wild sea outside. Harry, as he pulled away, had watched the shore anxiously, and was thankful to find that they were not as yet pursued. He had little doubt, however, that, as soon as the savages could reach their canoes, they would put off in chase, they not supposing that so small a boat would venture out into the open sea on so stormy a night. "Now, lads, we will set up the mast and make sail," said old Tom, after the boat had got some distance from the reef. "You need not be alarmed, marm," he continued, addressing Mrs Hart; "this whale-boat of ours is strong, and will go through twice as much sea as we have now." Old Tom did not over-estimate the good qualities of the boat. Though the dark seas rose up capped with foam around her, she sprang lightly over them, guided by his experienced hands, scarcely shipping a drop of water. Thus she went on during the night. When morning dawned she had run the island out of sight. As the wind had been gradually decreasing, and the sea going down, they were able to re-stow the boat. By Harry's forethought several articles had been put on board which might conduce to Mrs Hart's comfort. Among them was a small mattress and a tarpaulin, which had served to protect their luggage when they first landed. With this a cabin was fitted in the stern of the boat, which, though narrow and confined, afforded her the shelter she so much needed. Within, shaded from the rays of the sun, she could recline during the heat of the day, while by lifting up the edges, sufficient air was admitted. Not a murmur escaped her lips, while she warmly expressed her thanks for the attention bestowed on her. "We should be very ungrateful, marm, if we did not do our best to make you comfortable; for if it had not been for you and Mr Hart, I am pretty sure none of us would have been now alive. If we had landed on another part of the island, the savages, judging from the way they behaved last night, would have knocked us all on the head. I am sure, lads, I say what you all feel." The men acknowledged that old Tom spoke the truth, and promised to do their best to take care of the missionary and his wife. Mr Hart began the day by offering up a prayer for protection, and thanking their Father in heaven for preserving their lives from the fury of the savages. Then, opening his Bible, he read several portions showing how full of loving-kindness and mercy God is; at the same time, being just, He can by no means overlook iniquity. On this account it was that He gave us the inestimable gift of His Son, the Lamb without spot or blemish, to die instead of sinful man. And He requires now that men should believe that Christ thus died for their sakes, that His blood atones for all their sins, that God receives them, rebels though they have hitherto been, as His dear children, and makes them holy by His own good Spirit, fitted to enter the glorious heaven which He has prepared for all those who love Him. Again and again, with earnest prayer that they might receive it, Mr Hart impressed these truths on his hearers. They had heard them before; but their minds were so dull, and their hearts so hard even now, that but slight impression appeared to have been made on them. Young Bass alone at length murmured, "I do believe, and desire to give my heart to Jesus; pray for me, Mr Hart, for I am afraid if I were to get back among careless companions, that I should again become as they are." "From that God will assuredly guard you, my young friend, if you earnestly seek for His guidance; and our prayers, as well as yours, will be heard at the throne of grace." Day after day went by, the boat making but slow progress, for it was an almost perfect calm; and, though the oars were got out, and kept going, the men either could not, or would not, make much exertion in rowing. Mr Hart, and Harry and Bass, and old Tom, took their turns at the oars, and endeavoured to encourage the men. Still no land appeared in sight. The men grumbled, and declared that they would rather have a gale than this long continuance of calm. "Let us rather be thankful, my friends, for the fine weather; and, though our voyage is prolonged, we may still hope to reach a haven of safety," observed Mr Hart. The gale the men were wishing for came, however, with more fury than they desired. Once more the boat was tossing on the foaming waves, when the sea, breaking over her, washed away a portion of their provisions, and compelled them to be constantly bailing to keep her afloat. She was driven, too, far out of her course, and often it seemed as if she could not live amid the raging seas which rose up around her. Old Tom, however, sat at the helm, calm and undismayed, steering with his accustomed skill. All knew well that their lives depended, under Providence, on him. Still the tempest was increasing. In spite of the admirable way old Tom managed the boat, another sea broke on board, washing out of her more of the provisions, and almost carrying away one of the men as he lay asleep in the bows. He was caught by the man next to him, and hauled in, and all hands had instantly to set to work to bail out the water. "It looks to me as if this hurricane was never going to cease!" cried the chief grumbler of the party. "We might as well have stopped and fought the savages, and if they had killed us there would have been an end of it." "My friend, God will cause the hurricane to cease when He thinks fit," said Mr Hart, solemnly. "Be thankful rather that you are yet alive, and that the day of grace still lasts. You had not then accepted Christ, and heaven would never have been your home. Have you done so now? God is still willing to receive you; and He shows it by having preserved you hitherto from the perils by which we have been surrounded." "You are right, sir," answered the man, at length touched; "I am an ungrateful fellow, God be merciful to me a sinner! I will never complain again." "God is always merciful, my friend; He has offered you the means by which you may be saved. He has not thought fit to establish any other means, or opened up any other way by which you can enter heaven but that one single way, and He says, `Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' Believe, my dear friend; think how precious your soul is. Remember the thief on the cross; and if, like him, you can truly say, `I believe,' should the boat be overwhelmed the next minute, you will be where he is, with Jesus in heaven." The storm at length ceased, and the sorely battered boat was left floating calmly on the water; but nearly all the provisions were gone, two of the oars had been washed overboard, and there was a leak in her side which it was found impossible altogether to stop, while the crew were well-nigh worn out. Mr Hart sat with his beloved wife in his arms, feeling that it might be God's will that they should not again see land. They were prepared for whatever He might decree, and they felt more for their two young companions, and for Harry's mother and sister, of whom he had been speaking to them, than for themselves. As they gazed at the haggard faces of the two boys and the old man, it seemed to them that before long one or the other would be called away. CHAPTER NINE. SAVED AND WRECKED. Well might the unhappy fugitives have despaired. The larger portion of their provisions had been washed overboard; the remainder were almost exhausted; their boat was battered and leaky, the seamen were apparently dying, and unable to determine in what direction to seek for land. For weeks they might sail on and not find it. Still the missionary and his companions placed their trust in Him who is able to save them. A light breeze once more sent the boat through the water. They were gliding on when Harry observed that old Tom's eye was intently gazing towards the south-west, yet he did not speak. Harry looked in the same direction. "What do you see, lad?" asked old Tom. Harry rubbed his eyes. "Yes, it is. A sail! a sail!" he exclaimed. "I thought so, but feared that my hopes might have deceived me," said old Tom. "She is standing this way, and is close-hauled." The boat was steered so as to intercept the stranger. Harry kept his gaze fixed on her. She was evidently a whaler. "Can she be the _Steadfast_?" exclaimed Dickey, who was also earnestly looking at her. "I was in hopes that she might be," exclaimed Harry. "The _Steadfast_ would be deeper in the water, and has a new cloth on her foretopsail, and that ship has not," observed old Tom. "We should be thankful, whatever she is," said Mr Hart. "Let us return thanks to God for sending her to rescue us." The men roused up on hearing that a ship was approaching, and managed even to get their oars out to pull alongside her. As they drew near they saw clearly that she was not the _Steadfast_. The stranger hove to. A person, whom they supposed to be the captain, asked whence they had come and what they wanted. "We are escaping from savages, and entreat you to receive us on board, for we are almost starved," answered Mr Hart. "You may come on deck, then," said the captain; but that was more than any one in the boat unassisted could do. Even old Tom, the strongest of the party, could not manage to clamber up the side. A ladder was therefore let down, and two seamen descending carried up Mrs Hart and then her husband. The boys followed, old Tom being the last to leave the boat, which was then hoisted up, but almost fell to pieces in the operation. "You people have had a narrow escape," observed the captain, as he examined the boat. "You and your wife can have a cabin, though I am not fond of missionaries, I tell you," he observed, turning to Mr Hart. "The rest can manage to shift for'ard among the men." "I shall be grateful for any accommodation you will afford my wife and me," said Mr Hart. "You see how much she requires attention;" and he pointed to his wife, who was seated on a hencoop almost fainting. "I would ask you, too, to allow those two young gentlemen to live in the cabin; one is a captain's son, the other an apprentice." "Oh, they can shift for themselves well enough forward," answered the captain, gruffly. "We are bound for the Sandwich Islands, which I hope to make in the course of a couple of weeks, and we shall then part company, as you will then be able to find a vessel to carry you wherever you may wish to go. I cannot undertake charge of you for a longer time." "All I can say is that we shall be grateful to you for preserving our lives; for I believe, humanly speaking, we should have perished before many days had elapsed," said Mr Hart. "I do not at present see how we can repay you, but if I have the power be assured I will gladly do so." The crew, though rough in appearance and rough spoken, paid every attention in their power to old Tom and his companions, and put them into their berths, where they all in a few minutes fell fast asleep. Next day Harry and Bass, having somewhat recovered, crawled on deck. They learned that the ship was the _Swordfish_; that Captain Boucher, the master, was an odd-tempered man, and that, as she had been out more than a year and caught but few whales, and had of late had nothing but ill-luck, he was in an especial bad humour. The captain was walking up and down, abusing the officers, who behaved in the same way towards the men, while the latter growled in return and performed their work in a sulky way. Harry was afraid that poor Mr and Mrs Hart would be neglected, and, waiting till the captain was quiet, humbly asked leave to be allowed to go down and pay them a visit. "What do you want with them?" asked the captain. "They are my friends," said Harry, "and I wish to see if they require anything." "If you go below you shall wait upon them and on me too, youngster. My cabin-boy fell overboard the other day, and I want another." "While I remain on board I will do as you wish," answered Harry, glad to have the means of being of service to his friends. He found them in a small cabin--poor Mrs Hart still very weak and ill, and Mr Hart seated by her side, though much requiring rest himself. One of the men who had taken in the captain's breakfast had brought them some, but they had received no other attention, while they had heard the captain abusing missionaries as a useless, idle set who never did any good. Harry set about the duty he had undertaken with alacrity, though for some days he had great difficulty in moving about. He said nothing when the captain abused him as an idle young dog, but did his best to do as he was required. He spread the table as he had seen it arranged on board the _Steadfast_, and tried to keep the cabin in good order. He was constant in his attendance on Mr and Mrs Hart, though he had often a difficulty in obtaining proper food for them from the cook. Dickey was anxious to assist him, and proposed to ask the captain's leave. "I am sure he would not grant it," said Harry; "he would only say that one boy is more than enough, and that we should be playing tricks together." Harry could not help acknowledging that he had an uncomfortable life of it; but he willingly bore all the captain's abuse for the sake of his friends, and his chief consolation was to remain in their cabin and to listen to Mr Hart's conversation. The captain, however, who at length one day found he was there, ordered him on deck. "What are you and that man plotting about?" he asked, abusing him as an idle young dog. "I'll give you work to do;" and Harry was sent to assist Bass in blacking down the rigging. After that the captain kept him constantly employed in the dirtiest work about the ship. Harry bore this treatment without murmuring. "I only wish that the voyage was over," he remarked to Bass. "Still, whatever he does, we should be thankful to him for saving our lives." "I am not so certain that he will let us go free, even when we reach the Sandwich Islands," answered Bass. "The men say he will swear we are apprentices, and keep us on board." "Don't let him suppose that you think so. If we have our wits about us we may make our escape," said Harry. Day after day the wind continued light, and the voyage was prolonged. The captain treated the boys in the same tyrannical way as at first. Harry could only exchange a few words with his friends when he took them their meals; he was thankful that the captain had not deprived him of the opportunity of doing so. "It is our duty, my dear Harry, to bear with ill-treatment," observed Mr Hart. "It is hard to do so, but let us pray for grace, and we shall not seek it in vain." At length the Island of Oahu, in which the capital Honolulu is situated, was sighted. As the ship approached the harbour, and Harry and Bass were congratulating themselves that their emancipation drew near, the captain ordered them to go down into the cabin. When there they found themselves suddenly seized by two of the mates, who thrust them into a small side cabin. "You will remain there; and take care that you make no noise," said one of the mates. "When we are at sea again you will be let out." The poor boys expostulated in vain. The door was locked upon them, and they were left in almost total darkness. "I told you so," said Bass. "I was sure he meant us mischief." "I am very sure that Mr Hart will make every effort to obtain our release," observed Harry. "So will old Tom; and I should think the captain would scarcely venture to detain him." In a short time they heard the anchor let go, and they knew that the ship had entered the harbour. They waited in the hope that Mr Hart would discover where they were and come at least to speak to them, but night came on and they were left alone. They had to coil themselves up and go to sleep. Next morning the first mate opened the door and put in some breakfast, saying that it would be worse for them if they made any noise. Several days passed by and they were thus kept in durance. They heard at different times voices in the cabin; but not knowing who the speakers were, they were afraid of crying out. At last they knew by the movements of the ship that she was once more under way; and shortly afterwards the mate came to the door and told them that they might go on deck to attend to their duty. Greatly to their satisfaction, they saw old Tom. He made a sign to them not to speak to him and turned away. They waited till it was dark. He then came up to them as they were standing together. "I discovered that the captain had shut you up," he said; "and I did all I could to get him to allow you to go on shore, but he said that he had a right to detain you, and I of course would not leave the ship without you. We must therefore watch for an opportunity of getting on shore at some place where English authority is established, and we can make complaints of the way you have been treated." "I would rather land among savages than remain on board," said Harry. "And so would I," exclaimed Bass. "And if you will come with us we will try to escape at the first place we touch at." "We must learn what sort of a place it is first," said old Tom, "or we may be worse off than we are on board." "We will talk about that by-and-by," said Harry. "I am very anxious to know what has become of Mr and Mrs Hart." "I am thankful to say they are among friends," answered old Tom. "Missionaries have been for some time settled in these islands, and the king and a considerable number of his people have become Christians. Mr Hart did not forget you either, and he came on board to try and learn what had become of you. The captain must have deceived him, and persuaded him that you were no longer in the ship. He was coming off again just as we were getting under way, and the captain would not then allow him to come up the side." "I am thankful, at all events, to hear that our friends are safe," said Harry; "and we must try to make the best of it." "That's a wise resolution, Harry," said Tom. "Even though the captain should continue to ill-treat you, behave as you have hitherto done, and even his hard heart may be softened. However, we must not be found talking together, so now go and turn into your berths, and try and get a better night's rest than you could have had in that close cabin." Harry and Bass followed old Tom's advice; and next morning when they came on deck they found that the ship was off the magnificent coast of the large island of Hawaii, with the two lofty mountains, Mouna Kea and Mouna Roa, rising far off. The weather looked threatening, and in a short time a heavy gale began to blow. The wind increased in fury till it became a perfect hurricane. The sails were closely reefed. The captain endeavoured to beat out to sea, as there was no port under his lee into which he could run. Notwithstanding all the efforts made to keep off the land, the ship drove closer and closer to it. A terrific line of breakers could be seen dashing on the shore. Should the ship be driven among them, her destruction would be certain; and there was little hope of an anchor a holding to save her from her impending fate. To avoid this, sail was kept on the ship, though, under any other circumstances, with an open sea before her, she would have been running under bare poles. Harry and Bass were standing together. "What do you think of it, Tom?" asked Harry, as the old man came up to them. "Badly enough, as far as this world is concerned," answered old Tom. "Happy are those who are prepared to enter another world, as I know you are, and I hope Mr Bass is too. He who died for us is ready to welcome us there, if we are trusting to Him alone down here, and not to our own strength and doings, however good our fellow-men may think us. That's my comfort, whatever happens, though for your sakes, and that of the poor fellows aboard, I pray we may escape. I cannot say, however, that I see much prospect of it. If the worst comes, do you boys stick by me, and I will do my best to save your lives." The ship drifted nearer and nearer the shore. The captain and mates, hardy and bold as they were, looked pale and anxious, now gazing up at the bending masts, now at the shore under their lee. "If we get a slant of wind we may do it yet," said the captain. "But if not?" observed the first mate. "We must let go our anchors, and cut away the masts. There is nothing else to be done," was the answer. The hoped-for change of wind did not come. "Let go the best bower," shouted the captain. "Stand by with the axes." The order was obeyed. The ship for a moment rode head to wind. At the same instant the men, with gleaming axes in their hands, were seen cutting away at the masts. Tom led his young friends under shelter of the poop deck. Down came the masts with a crash. Not a hundred fathoms astern the sea in wild masses was breaking furiously. The next instant the anchor parted; another was let go, but it scarcely held for a moment; and then the ship drove broadside into the midst of the wild, raging tumult of waters. Now she rose for a moment on the summit of a huge wave, now borne onwards she sank into a hollow between the waves. The next sea swept her decks, carrying many of the hapless crew overboard, and washing away the caboose and a large portion of the bulwarks. By Tom's advice Harry and Bass clung to a stanchion near which they had taken their post. Tom held on to another near them. Another sea struck the devoted ship, and threw her with tremendous force on the coral rocks, crushing in her bottom and sides. Others of the crew were carried off as the seas continued to strike her. Now portions of her bows, now the remainder of her bulwarks, were swept away, while on each occasion the fearful crashing and rending of timbers showed that she was rapidly breaking up. "What had we best do?" asked Bass. "Hold on to the last," answered Harry; "perhaps the gale may abate, and we may yet reach the shore." There seemed, however, but little hope of their doing this. Every instant larger portions of the wreck were carried away. It was evident that in a short time she would break up completely. Tom handed to each of the boys a length of rope. "Make yourselves fast to any piece of timber you can get hold of," he said; "it will give you the best chance of safety." Few of the people had by this time escaped, and every sea which broke over the wreck carried one or more away. At length another tremendous sea came rolling towards them. A fearful crash followed. Harry and Bass found themselves floating together amid the boiling waters, with pieces of wreck tossed to and fro near them, a blow from which would have proved fatal, but not one struck them. Not far off they caught sight of Tom clinging to a portion of the poop deck. A sea carried them towards him. He hauled them up, and they made themselves fast to some ring-bolts. Though the seas washed over them, and they felt as if the breath would be knocked out of their bodies, they were not carried off; and they found that their raft was being driven rapidly towards the shore, now scarcely a quarter of a mile from them. Every instant they expected the raft to be turned over and over, but it floated as before, and, now lifted high on the summit of a breaker, and now sunk down into the hollow of the sea, went on and on till they felt it ground on the beach. Tom told them to cast themselves adrift, when, seizing each by the arm, he dragged them forward, and in another instant they were on dry ground. "Praise God for His mercy! We are safe!" cried Tom. "But now, boys, let us see if we can help any of our shipmates." They looked along the beach on either hand, but for some minutes they could discover no one. "There is a man!" at length cried Tom. "I caught sight of his head and hand among the foam." They ran in the direction Tom pointed, waiting anxiously, in the hope of dragging the man out of the surf as it broke on the shore. Tom rushed in and seized him, as for an instant he was thrown on the beach, or the receding waves would have carried him back. The boys assisted Tom. They recognised the features of the captain, but the hue of death was on his face. His arms fell down as they placed him on the ground. "He has gone!" cried Tom. They did what they could to revive him, but life was extinct. Two other bodies were washed up, but not a human being besides themselves reached the shore alive. They looked around them. The whole bay into which they had been thrown presented a scene of barren wildness and grandeur. A valley opened up from it, and in the distance rose the summit of a lofty volcano, the stream of lava from which had caused the desolation they saw around. "I am glad we have got ashore alive; but I am afraid we shall die of hunger if we cannot manage to get out of this soon," said Bass. "He who brought us on shore will take care of us," observed Tom. "But we must do our best. The sooner we set off to look for some natives the better." "If there are any Christians about here, we are sure, if we can find them, to be treated kindly." Having examined the coast as far as they could see on either hand, they agreed to move to the east, in which direction some green shrubs and trees were distinguishable. As they all felt weak and exhausted, there was no time to be lost. "Won't it be well to get hold of something to defend ourselves if we are attacked?" said Bass. "I should like to have a club to fight with." "It would be no use, Mr Bass," answered Tom. "We must try to make friends with the natives; I have no fear about the matter." "Nor have I," said Harry. Tom and the two boys made their way along the shore. Sometimes they had to climb over rocks, sometimes to wade through black sand. At length they reached a firmer beach, and got on better than at first. The day was wearing on. They had had nothing to eat or drink since the previous evening. They all felt faint and hungry. At length they caught sight of a stream of sparkling water trickling down the rocks. How eagerly they drank of it! It revived them, and they pushed on. They were anxious to fall in with natives before dark who might give them food and shelter. The appearance of the country rapidly improved. At last, after climbing some rocks, they found themselves looking down into a beautiful bay, on the shore of which a number of women and girls were collected, who, from the way they were employed in combing their dark hair or dressing their heads with flowers, had apparently just come out of the water. On seeing the three strangers several of the girls shrieked out. Among them was a tall, dignified-looking person, who, on observing Tom and the boys approaching, rose from the ground on which she had been seated and advanced towards them. To their surprise, she addressed them in broken English. "Who you? where you come from?" she asked. Tom replied that they were English, and had escaped from their ship, which had been wrecked some way along the coast. "And, please, marm," he added, "we are very hungry, especially these two boys, and shall be thankful if you will give us some food as soon as possible." "We are not more hungry than he is," said Harry; "but he always thinks more of us than of himself." The lady smiled and made signs to them to accompany her, evidently understanding what they said, though she herself had soon apparently exhausted her stock of English words. She led the way, followed by her maidens. Climbing the rocks, which were easily surmounted, they found themselves in a level country with trees growing luxuriantly, while plantations of various descriptions were seen in every direction. At a little distance was a cottage, which, though built after the native fashion, was of considerable size. "There is my house," said the lady, pointing to it. "You welcome food, plenty sleep till to-morrow, and praise Jehovah." "What! marm, if I may make so bold to ask, are you a Christian?" exclaimed Tom. The lady nodded and smiled. "You Christian too, I hope?" she said. "That I am, marm, and so are these boys," answered Tom. "I told you all would be right, Harry," he added. "You see we could not have fallen into better hands." On reaching the house, the girls, by the directions of their mistress, hurried to prepare food, and several dishes of fish and fruits were soon placed on mats on the floor. Before bidding her guests to eat, the lady, who had been sitting, rose and said a grace in her own language, adding a few words of English. Tom and the boys uttered "Amen," at which she seemed pleased, and she then served each of them with her own hands. As soon as she saw that her guests had eaten enough, she assembled her family and attendants, who seated themselves before her; she read to them the Bible in her own language, and then offered up a prayer. After this, she leading, the rest joined in singing a hymn, the tune of which Tom recognised, though the words were strange to him. The evening's devotions being thus concluded, she led them to a part of the house screened off by mats, and bidding them enter, pointed to three beds, also covered with matting, which her maidens had in the meantime prepared for them. Their clothes had been thoroughly dried during their journey. She showed that she had thought of their comfort by presenting each of them with some cotton garments, and making them understand that their own clothes, saturated with the salt water, should be washed and ready for them the next day. "We have indeed fallen into good hands, as you say, Mr Hayes," observed Harry, after they had all three knelt down and said their prayers. "No doubt about that," answered old Tom. "We shall find that a missionary has been here; and I hope by his means to gain tidings of our friends and be able to rejoin them." With this pleasant thought they lay down to rest. Harry hoped not only to meet Mr and Mrs Hart again, but to be able to find a ship returning to England. He longed once more to be with his dear mother and sister, and to comfort them in their affliction. CHAPTER TEN. KAPOIOLANI. After a long sleep, produced by weariness, Tom and the two boys dressed, and made their appearance before their hostess. They found an ample meal provided for them. She told them that her name was Kapoiolani, that she was the wife of one of the chief men of the island, who had gone away on a preaching tour with the missionary by whose means she and her husband had been taught the truth, and begged Tom and the boys to remain till their return. This they were very glad to do, as they still felt weary, and Bass complained of aches in all his limbs. At every hour of the day people were coming in to receive instructions from Kapoiolani, who was evidently better acquainted with the truths of Christianity than her neighbours. She had for some time accepted the gospel, and showed the deepest earnestness and zeal in making it known to others. "If people at home, who profess to be true Christians, were as anxious as this lady is to teach others, there would not be so many poor men and women who sink into their graves without ever having heard of the love of Christ for sinners," observed old Tom. "She puts many civilised people to shame." "But in England there are regular ministers to do that sort of work," observed Harry. "Every one who loves Christ is a regular minister, to my mind," answered Tom; "and is bound, when he can find the opportunity, to tell others that Christ died for them, and that His blood cleanseth from all sin." "I hope that I may be able to find opportunities when I get home; though I don't think I shall be able to preach," said Harry. "You must make opportunities," answered Tom. "You can preach in your life and daily conversation, in gently speaking a word to those among whom you mix. Souls are won to Christ as much by that as by preachers in their pulpits; and the only object of preaching is to win souls." Two days passed by, when the chief, Kapoiolani's husband, returned, saying that the missionary had gone on with some other friend to a distant part of the island. Naihi, the chief, seemed as zealous and earnest as his wife; and as he spoke more English than she could, he was able to give his guests a considerable amount of information about the island. He told them that the larger portion of the inhabitants were still heathens, and worshippers of their great goddess, Pele, whose abode, he said, they supposed was in the lofty volcano. "There is need without delay to preach the gospel to them, for our people are rapidly passing away; and unless we hasten they may sink into their graves still ignorant heathens as they now are," he observed, in a solemn and sad tone. Naihi, after remaining at home two days, again set off to join his friend the missionary. Tom and the boys wished to accompany him, but he advised them to remain with his wife, telling them that the journey was fatiguing; and as they could not speak the language of the people, they could be of no use, whereas if they remained with Kapoiolani, they might assist her in acquiring a knowledge of English, which she was anxious to do, so that she might read books in that language. Harry was her chief instructor; and never was there a more attentive pupil. He was surprised at the rapidity with which she learned to read. Some time had thus been spent, when there was a commotion in the village, and it was announced that a person of importance was approaching, no less than the high-priestess of Pele, if not Pele herself, as the heathen inhabitants asserted. "She is an impostor, and I will prove her to be so!" exclaimed Kapoiolani, when she heard of it; and, attended by a band of Christians, she went out to meet the priestess. A woman appeared descending from the hills, dressed in a fantastic way, with her robes scorched and partially consumed by fire. She was followed by a band of women and girls, dressed in the same manner. As she drew near, she shouted with a loud voice that she was come to warn the followers of the new faith to be prepared for the fearful punishment she was about to inflict on them for deserting their ancient gods. "You are but a miserable woman, and a wretched impostor!" answered Kapoiolani, in an authoritative tone. "The worshippers of Jehovah are not to be frightened by your foolish threats." On hearing this the pretended Pele became very indignant, and, drawing a document written on native cloth from her bosom, declared that it would prove her authority. "It will prove that you yourself cannot write, but some one else has assisted you in your imposture, and that is all it will prove, foolish woman!" exclaimed Kapoiolani. "I have a book which announces that there are many false gods, among whom is the one you serve, but that there is only one true God, Jehovah, whom I serve. Let me advise you to throw away your idols, and to turn to Him, I know Pele can do me no harm, because Pele does not really exist, and to prove it I intend to ascend the mountain where you say she resides, and to eat the berries which you hold sacred to her, that when I come back, as I know I shall do, uninjured, my people may see their folly and turn to the true God. I advise you in the meantime to give up your follies, and to labour industriously for your support." The pretended priestess and her followers appeared very indignant at this; but when Kapoiolani offered them food they gladly partook of it, the priestess of Pele herself joining in the feast. Kapoiolani pointed her out to her people, remarking, "If she were a goddess she would not require food; but see, she eats as greedily as any one." The next morning Kapoiolani, who had long resolved to visit the volcano Kilauea, the supposed abode of Pele, was ready to set out. She sent word to her husband and the missionary of her intention, saying that it was necessary to do so at once, in order to convince the people of the imposture of the pretended priestess, and that they might understand that Jehovah was the only true God. With this laudable object in view, she was ready to undergo the fatigue of the journey. She did not object to old Tom and the two boys attending her. "My people," she said, "believe that any strangers approaching the crater will meet with certain destruction; your going will more easily convince them of their folly." Kapoiolani performed her journey on foot, as there were at that time no horses in the island, and she objected to be carried by her people. She was attended by a number of persons, with baskets of provisions, who were to proceed to the foot of the mountain, while she, with a select band, proposed mounting to the summit. The country through which they passed was wild and savage in the extreme. In some places they had to penetrate through thick woods, in others over wide fields of lava. After many days' journey the base of the mountain was reached. Resting for the night, the next morning at daybreak Kapoiolani and her attendants, aided by long poles, commenced the ascent. Some carried provisions and others materials for building a hut for the accommodation of the chieftainess. It was past noon before the edge of the crater was reached, near which grew the bushes bearing the supposed sacred berries. It seemed surprising that any vegetation could be produced on such a spot. They now stood on the edge of a vast basin upwards of seven miles in circuit and nearly a thousand feet deep. At the bottom was a level floor two miles in length, in the centre of which was a vast lake of liquid lava, out of which rose numerous cones sending forth jets of smoke. Harry had not imagined the existence of so wild and terrible a scene, and he was not surprised that the ignorant inhabitants should have believed it the abode of a goddess delighting in fire and heat. Kapoiolani told him that at times the lake which they saw below them rose up high above the cones, filling the whole space within a hundred feet of the edge with a sea of liquid lava, and that it occasionally burst its way through the edges, carrying destruction in its course, towards the ocean, while at other times new cones arose in the side of the mountain, through which the lava burst its way, flowing down in all directions. Having plucked some of the berries, Kapoiolani ate them, and desired her attendants to do the same. "Now watch the lake!" she exclaimed, extending her hand towards it. "Does it rise because we few poor mortals have eaten the fruit which God allows to grow here? No!" she said, lifting her hand, and pointing towards heaven. "He who lives there, the great Jehovah, has ordained that these things should be, for a wise purpose. There is no such person as Pele, whom, in their ignorance, our fathers have worshipped. You now understand, my friends, that we have nothing therefore to fear." While some of her attendants were building the hut, Kapoiolani, with old Tom and the boys, and a few other persons, descended the side of the crater, where it sloped sufficiently to enable them to make their way. The scene around was wild and sombre in the extreme. Mighty cliffs of jet black rock were on every side, with the lake of shining lava below them, though relieved by the blue sky overhead, to which Kapoiolani looked up and pointed. "There!" she said, "above us is the glorious heaven, which is to be the future home of believers; below, the dark pit, the dwelling-place of those who reject the Lord of light and love." On regaining the edge of the crater, they saw several persons approaching, among whom, to Kapoiolani's great satisfaction, was the missionary, accompanied by her husband. The people who followed her, as soon as they saw them, set up a loud shout of joy; for many of them till then had fully believed that their chieftainess would have been destroyed by the vengeance of Pele. The missionary now offered up a prayer, and having addressed the people, a hymn was sung. The party remained on the summit of the mountain during the night. The early portion of it was passed by Tom and the boys seated round the fire with the missionary, who told them that they would find little difficulty in returning to Honolulu, where they would soon, probably, find a ship sailing for England. While they were speaking they were aroused by a brighter light than usual, and on going to the edge of the crater they perceived that the numerous cones, in the centre were now in violent action, some emitting flame, which darted upwards to a height of fifty and a hundred feet, while boiling lava flowed down the sides of others into the lake, out of which they arose like so many islands. Kapoiolani came out of the hut to witness the scene. She remained calm as before, and quieted the fears of her attendants by observing-- "I know in whom I trust. Even should the lava continue flowing, many days must elapse before the crater is full, and long before it is so we shall be in safety. Pele has nothing to do with it." Having watched the eruption for some time, Kapoiolani and her female attendants returned to their hut, while the rest of the party gathered round their camp fires to spend the remainder of the night. After breakfast, having plucked more of the berries and again descended the crater, they proceeded down the mountain. On reaching the camp where the chief body of her attendants had remained, she addressed them, and urged them from henceforth to dismiss all thoughts of the pretended Pele, and other false deities, from their minds, and to trust alone to Jehovah, the only true God, and His Son Jesus Christ, whom He had sent into the world to die instead of them, and to reconcile them, His outcast children, to Himself. With one voice the people shouted out, "There is no such being as Pele; Jehovah is the only true God; we will serve Him!" The news of the pious and heroic Kapoiolani's visit to the mountain of Pele was carried through the island; and the people from henceforth acknowledged that they had been foolishly frightened by believing in a being who had no existence, and were everywhere ready to listen to the addresses either of the missionaries or of their own chiefs who had turned from idols. It is a remarkable circumstance that in the Sandwich Islands the chiefs set the example of overturning their idols, and were generally the first to accept the truth. After visiting several places on the coast, Kapoiolani and her attendants, accompanied by Tom and the boys, returned to her village. CHAPTER ELEVEN. HAPPY RE-UNIONS. Several weeks passed away, and no vessel appeared in which the voyagers could obtain a passage to Honolulu. They were rapidly acquiring a knowledge of the language of the island, and Harry and Tom employed much of their time in instructing the natives. Bass did not make so much progress as the rest, and began to grow very weary of the life he led. "The truth is, Dickey," observed Harry to him one day, "your heart is not in the matter. I wish to reach home, I confess; but if it were not for the dear ones there, I should be content to labour on as I am now doing. I never find the day too long." "I wish I were like you," said Bass; "but I cannot bring myself to care about the people." "My dear Dickey," said Harry, "you must pray for grace, then, to do what you know to be right. Think of the great value of human souls, and of the inestimable price which was paid that they might enjoy the happiness of heaven, and then you will become more anxious to win them." Bass tried to do as his friend advised, and in a short time he was almost as eager as Harry to instruct the natives, and found himself rapidly acquiring their language to enable him to do so. One day Tom and the two boys set off to visit a village at some distance along the coast. After going some way they saw, by the appearance of the sky, that a storm was threatening, but they hoped to reach their destination before it broke. It came on, however, more rapidly than they had expected. As they doubled a headland they caught sight of a ship close in with the land, in nearly the same dangerous position that the _Swordfish_ had been. Tom stopped and looked at her. "She appears to be a whaler, and pretty full," observed Harry. "A whaler she is; there is no doubt about that," answered Tom. "Just do you scan her narrowly, and tell me if you have ever seen a ship like her." "What!" exclaimed Harry, shading his eyes, and gazing at her earnestly. "Do you really think she is the _Steadfast_? She is wonderfully like her, as far as I can judge at this distance." "I know every yard in her canvas, and the _Steadfast_ she is, I am nearly as certain as that we three stand here!" said old Tom, his voice showing the unusual agitation he felt. "If she is not, she is very like her," observed Bass. "Oh, she is--I am certain that she is the _Steadfast_!" cried Harry. "But I wish she were farther off the coast, or she may be driven on the rocks and lost after all." "There is a deep bay two miles on," said Tom, "with a good entrance. It must be down on the chart, and it's my belief the ship is standing for it. If the wind holds as it is now she will be safe." "I pray that the wind will hold, then!" cried Harry. "Oh, my dear father! I little thought to see him again, and Mr Champion, and the rest. I cannot believe that they will be lost, now that we are about to meet them." "God knows what is best--you must always remember that, Harry," observed Tom. "It is our business, however, to pray for them. If He thinks fit He will grant our prayers; and even though He does not as we may wish, we must not doubt His justice and mercy." Right earnestly Tom and his young companions, as they knelt on the ground, offered up their prayers for the safety of the ship, and then hurried on towards the harbour of which Tom had spoken. The wind continued increasing. They saw first one sail and then another furled till the ship stood on under close-reefed topsails. They hurried forward, every now and then getting a glimpse of her as they reached some elevation overlooking the sea. They met several natives, who seemed to sympathise in their anxiety, and accompanied them towards the harbour. The ship heeled over to the blast. Still her canvas stood. Every moment, however, they expected to see it blown from the bolt-ropes. At last they were obliged to leave the coast to reach the shore of the harbour, and now came the most anxious time of all, when they could not watch the progress of the ship. Hurrying on, they arrived at length at a point of land which projected out into the harbour, and made their way over the rough rocks towards the end. "There she is! there she is!" shouted Harry, as at that moment he caught sight of the ship, with her yards squared away, running into the harbour. The natives, who had accompanied them, got a canoe ready, and Tom and the boys jumping into her, their friends paddled away to show the stranger the best spot for anchoring. Their signals were understood by those on board, and the sails being quickly furled and the anchor let go, she rode in safety. "Harry," exclaimed old Tom, "there is no doubt about her being the _Steadfast_. I caught sight of Mr Champion on the forecastle, with many another well-known face, though I don't think any one recognised us. Let me go up the side first, and learn if it is all well with your father, and if so tell him that you are safe. You know we must always be ready to say `God's will be done,' and you must be prepared for whatever He has ordered." "Do as you think best, Tom," answered Harry. "I am sure that is right." Tom climbed up the side. Directly after reaching the deck he stepped back and beckoned to the boys. They quickly climbed up after him. Harry caught sight of his father talking to Tom. In another instant he was in Captain Graybrook's arms. Bass, also, was warmly welcomed. Mr Champion shortly afterwards came aft, and the three castaways were soon surrounded by the remainder of the officers and crew. They had much to recount to each other. Harry, as clearly as he could, told his father all that had happened to them. "We have indeed mourned for you and your companions, Harry, as lost," said Captain Graybrook. "The ship was almost knocked to pieces, and after striking on a reef and having our sails blown to ribbons, we drove, with a fearful leak, hardly able to keep the ship afloat, many hundred leagues to the southward. At last, mercifully preserved, we were able to get safely into a harbour in one of the Samoan islands. As soon as the ship was repaired we made sail to the northward to look for you. On reaching the island off which your boat had last been seen, we searched every part of the coast, and went up the only harbour in it, where we hoped that you might have taken shelter, but finding no traces of you, we at length gave you up for lost. "I believe I should have died of grief, but my friend Champion afforded me comfort from a source of which, till then, I was ignorant. He told me of the love of Jesus, and that he felt sure that you had accepted the offers of salvation, and if it had been God's will to take you to Himself, that you were safe with Him in heaven, where you were free from all the troubles and trials of life, and that I might look forward to the certainty of meeting you there, with your dear mother and sister, if I, too, would yield my stubborn heart to Him. My friend spoke faithfully and firmly, and at length, by grace, through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, I became reconciled to that loving God, and assured that He orders all things for the best. "We have lately been very successful in fishing, and, having got a full ship, were about to return home, but, requiring fresh provisions, I determined to touch at the Sandwich Islands for the sake of obtaining them, little dreaming of the surprise in store for me. "When writing to your poor mother I had not the heart to tell her that I had given up all hope of finding you, though it was necessary to prepare her for the worst, and I have told her of your boat being driven away from the ship. I have dreaded the time when I must tell her the sad news that you were, as I supposed, lost to us. What joy it will be to take you back with me, and to set the minds of your dear mother and sister at rest about your safety!" What Harry said in return need not be repeated. He told his father, however, that he was anxious, before returning home, to let Mr and Mrs Hart know of his and Tom's and Bass's safety, and to thank Kapoiolani and her husband for their kindness. As the gale threatened to keep the ship in harbour for some days, Tom offered to go back with a message to their native friends, and set off immediately. As a sufficient supply of provisions, and especially certain stores, could best be obtained at Honolulu, Captain Graybrook, greatly to Harry's satisfaction, had determined to touch there before commencing the homeward voyage. Two days afterwards several canoes were seen coming off to the ship. In one of them were Kapoiolani and Naihi. They came, they said, to beg that the captain would bear a message to the missionary, Mr Hart, and his wife, requesting that they would come and reside with them, that they might instruct their people in the gospel. A house should be built for them, and a church and schools, and they should be amply provided with food and all things they might require. "We have wealth in abundance," observed Kapoiolani, "and we cannot employ that wealth so well as in supporting those who are working to make known the truth to our perishing fellow-countrymen." Captain Graybrook gladly undertook to carry the message, promising, if possible, to bring Mr and Mrs Hart to the island. On reaching Honolulu, which the _Steadfast_ did in a few days afterwards, Harry was delighted to find that his friends were willing to accept the invitation; and the stores and provisions being soon obtained, the ship returned with them on board to Hawaii. On landing at Kapoiolani's village, Mr and Mrs Hart found that a house was already prepared for their reception, and that a church was commenced. Old Tom said that he felt very much inclined to remain with them; but the ship was short-handed. "It's my duty to stay on board; there is no doubt about that," he observed; "and I am sure that a man does no good when he deserts his first duty for the sake of doing anything else, however right that may be." Although several natives had been engaged, the addition of the two lads and Tom to the strength of the crew was very welcome. Harry and his companion, having bidden farewell to the Christian chief and his wife, and their many other friends, prepared to embark. Mr Hart accompanied them to the beach. "My dear Harry," he said, "I trust that, when far away from this place, you will not forget the long-benighted savages inhabiting the numberless islands of the vast Pacific. You will have many opportunities of telling people at home of their condition, and perhaps may be the means of inducing some fitted for the task to come out and labour in the glorious work of making known the gospel." "Indeed I will, Mr Hart," answered Harry; "and, if my father will permit me, I will return here as soon as possible myself. I love a sea life, but would thankfully employ myself, when I possess more knowledge, in spreading the gospel among the islanders." "You may possibly combine both objects," answered Mr Hart. "Missionary ships to convey missionaries from place to place, and to visit them as often as practicable, are much required, and it is most important that they should be officered by Christian men; and you may be doing good service if you obtain a berth on board one, and ultimately be able to take the command." "That is exactly what I feel I ought to do," said Harry, as he pressed his friend's hand; "I will pray that I may be directed aright in the matter." Away the _Steadfast_ sailed on her homeward voyage. Harry, to his great satisfaction, soon found that Mr Champion had resolved to try to induce his friends at home, or one of the missionary societies, to send out a mission ship, of which he purposed offering to take the command. "And I will go with you as mate," exclaimed Harry. "That will indeed be delightful, and I am sure my father will agree to it; and, from what he has said to me lately, I do not think he intends to come to sea again." On speaking to his father, Harry found that he was right in his conjecture. "I had, however, intended giving the command of the _Steadfast_ to Champion, as I have long known he wishes to make your sister Hannah his wife; and allowing her to accompany him, with you as his second mate, as I feel sure she and the ship will be well taken care of. However, though there is no doubt that Champion would make a much better income in command of the _Steadfast_ than as captain of a mission ship, yet I will not thwart his views, if he resolves to do as you tell me he wishes." Frequently during the voyage the subject was discussed; and though formerly Captain Graybrook would have thought his young mate mad to entertain such a notion, he now cordially entered into his views, and it was settled that Hannah should decide what was to be done. At length the _Steadfast_, freighted with the richest cargo Captain Graybrook had ever brought into port, was safely at anchor. As soon as he could leave the ship, accompanied by Harry, he hastened home. The deep anxiety Mrs Graybrook and Hannah long had felt was set at rest. Mr Champion, directly his duties allowed him, joined them. Hannah discovered the all-important change which had taken place in his mind. She no longer hesitated to promise him her hand. He told her of the heathen state of the people inhabiting the countless isles of the Pacific, of the earnest wish he entertained of being instrumental in carrying the gospel among them, of the offer her father had made to him of the command of the _Steadfast_, and of his own wish to command a missionary ship, or to engage still more directly in the glorious work by going out as a minister of the gospel. "I believe that you may be as usefully employed in following your profession as in the latter work, but on whichever you decide I am ready to accompany you," was Hannah's answer. As no missionary vessel was ready, Leonard Champion, soon after his marriage, took command of the _Steadfast_, and, accompanied by his wife, with Harry and Dickey Bass as his mates, and Tom Hayes as boatswain, made two voyages to the Pacific; and while acting as the father of his crew, and bringing many to a knowledge of the truth, he was the means, by touching whenever he could at missionary stations, of rendering much assistance to those engaged in the most glorious of enterprises; while, by the example he and his crew set, and by the efforts he made at every heathen place at which he touched, he gained the goodwill of the inhabitants, and disposed them to think favourably of Christianity. At length, having given up the _Steadfast_, he obtained the command of a mission ship, though he had in the meantime succeeded to a good property; and conveyed many missionaries to the stations to which they were appointed. On the death of Captain and Mrs Graybrook, he and his wife settled in one of the larger islands of the Pacific, where, with Harry and Bass, who shortly afterwards joined them, they have laboured faithfully on till they have seen most of the inhabitants converted to the truth. Old Tom resided with them, labouring devotedly to the last, till he was called away to hear the words, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 
30026	----	MISSIONARY ANNALS. (A SERIES.) A STORY OF ONE SHORT LIFE, 1783 to 1818. BY ELISABETH G. STRYKER. CHICAGO: WOMAN'S PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE NORTHWEST, Room 48, McCormick Block. COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY WOMAN'S PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE NORTHWEST. CONTENTS. PAGE I. ANCESTRY--BIRTH--BOYHOOD--CONVERSION . . . . . . . . . . 7 II. COLLEGE--THE HAYSTACK--EFFORTS TO SPREAD THE INTEREST IN FOREIGN MISSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 III. OBOOKIAH IN HAWAII--IN AMERICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 IV. THE SANDWICH ISLANDS WITH AND WITHOUT THE GOSPEL . . . . 20 V. MILLS AT ANDOVER--THE AMERICAN BOARD . . . . . . . . . . 22 VI. AN APOSTOLIC JOURNEY IN THE UNITED STATES . . . . . . . 25 VII. MILLS' SECOND TOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 VIII. THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY--THE UNITED FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 IX. THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY--MILLS, AS ITS AGENT, VISITS AFRICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 X. THE LAST JOURNEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 As I write, I have in my mind a row of intelligent boyish faces. Manly souls look through bright eyes. My heart responds to the beats of affection beneath jacket and cut-away. I see also a row of girlish faces, in which Christian and womanly graces are dawning. I feel the warmth of pure young hearts beginning to swell with generous desires. These are my real friends. Beyond them I see rows and rows of boys and girls whose sympathies and interest I would gladly claim. PREFACE. Those among us interested in the young people, the boys and girls of our Churches, somewhat realize the lack of material wherewith to stimulate and nourish these young workers. The apiarist studies the nature of the insect which must yield him its sweets, and discovers that "the nature of the cell and the food affects the difference" in the bees. We have long watched our boys and girls, and either we do not care what they yield, or we are dull not to notice that what surrounds them and enters into their minds, is surely deciding their natures. White clover honey can only be made from white clover blossoms. What they read and what they may be induced to read concerns us as mission workers. Individual tastes make many by-paths in the field of literature, but the girls all enjoy the windings of romance, and the boys delight in the highway of adventure. "But," they say or think, "Missions, their history and progress are so stupid, they have no decent heroes and heroines. We like Robinson Crusoe, and Little Women, and the Arabian Nights!" But do we not know that the stories of the lives of some of our missionaries, well told, may stand side by side, upon the book-shelves and in the hearts of our young people, with the pages of De Foe and Louise Alcott? Many a boy and girl, charmed by the life and fortune of some unreal, and oftentimes unworthy, hero, has attempted to make copy in his or her own life. Missionary lives are not lacking in the spirit, adventure and romance which are so fascinating. With these ideals in their minds, may we not expect followers of the Judsons, the Moffats, the Fiskes and the Rankins? The writer, who has humbly undertaken to re-tell an old tale, is neither a De Foe nor an Alcott. She finds she can borrow neither of their pens. Her own, conscious of its inexperience, finds its only relief in the fact that the story is its own strength. SAMUEL J. MILLS. CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY--BIRTH--BOYHOOD--CONVERSION. Our country is quietly enjoying the benefits of a great activity. Foreign Missions are still feeling a noble impulse, and the origin of this force was, under God, in the heart and brain of Samuel J. Mills. It is a name known to us, but a history almost forgotten. Only upon the shelves of some antiquarian, or in the undisturbed library of some old homestead can a volume be found bearing the title "Mills' Memoirs." Take it down, blow the dust from the leaves yellow with sixty-seven years, and you will find the narrative related in the stately, old-time style, and somewhat laudatory and expansive. He had no son, as Adoniram Judson had, gladly to record the details of his busy life. The writer was Dr. Gardiner Spring, who laments having failed in the attempt to obtain what appeared to him to be important information. We are thankful to him for gathering even these rare fragments. From a sketch of Salmon Giddings, the Damon Memorial, a letter from a relative of Mills, and the life of Henry Obookiah have come a few incidents and facts, but mainly in the record of Dr. Spring have we found our Story of One Short Life. Such hid treasure should find the light, even though quarried by unskillful hands. Biographies are apt to seem discouraging, in the beginning; the attention being riveted upon the supposed hero, meets with a shock in finding it has been following the history of his great-grandfather. The scattered energies are then directed upon the grandfather, only to meet with a second delay. Again recovering, and following the father's fortunes, the son, the subject of the work, is at last introduced. The great-grandfather of our hero must be brought in just long enough to answer one question. He was once asked, "How did you educate four sons at Yale College, and give each a profession?" His reply was, "Almighty God did it, with the help of my wife." The grandfather (of our hero) was drowned while some of his children were still young. His widow, committing their babes to the God of the fatherless, especially offered for His service, a son named Samuel John. He became a minister, and for many years was settled in Torringford, Connecticut. He was eminent for his ability and character. Mrs. Stowe said of him--"He was one ingrain New Englander. Of all the marvels that astonished my childhood, there is none I remember to this day with so much interest as Father Mills." This was the name by which he was extensively known. His wife was a woman exemplary and devout. Being assured that the three preceding generations were commandment-keeping, we shall see how the Lord showed mercy unto the fourth. Almighty God and a true mother secure for many a man's sons, not only education, but large efficiency and honor. The seventh child, born April 21st, 1783, in this Torringford home, was a son, named after his father, Samuel John. The child grew to be a mighty instrument in God's hand, which He in His wisdom selected, knowing the fineness of the material with which he dealt. That we too may know something of the tempering of the steel, we are permitted a reverent glance into that pious mother's bosom. Before the birthday came she continually dedicated the little life beneath her heart to the God who is pleased to accept such gifts. During all his childhood he received the most careful Christian training. Nourished in such a home-garden, and shined on by such mother-light, we cannot wonder that the child grew toward the Sun, and that the roots of religious character struck deep and spread wide. When but a little child he showed an unusual concern of conscience. At fifteen the town in which he lived was greatly aroused and revived. His friends and acquaintances received the blessing, and he was deeply interested, but the revival passed, leaving him with a bitter, rebellious feeling in his heart. About this time, one fine cold winter morning, a merry sleigh load drove from his father's house. He, with his brothers, sisters and cousins, about eighteen in all, went to spend a few days with his uncle in West Hartford. Samuel had recently come into the possession of a fine farm. He was gay and ambitious. His companions fearing his good fortune might make him feel a "little too high minded," sought to tease him. The evening before their return, after eating nuts and apples, they agreed to have a little singing. They struck up "Hark, from the Tombs a Doleful Sound," to the tune, Bangor. They sang it slowly and solemnly, now and then casting at him glances from their mischievous eyes. He sat a silent listener, while their song, sung in fun, made an earnest impression of which he could not rid himself. Soon after his farm was sold, and at eighteen he determined to go to Litchfield and study in the Academy. As he was leaving home, his mother's anxious heart could not let him go without enquiring for his soul's health. Other mothers know the pain she suffered, when he told her "for two years I have been sorry God ever made me." She replied to him as her wise heart prompted her, and sent him on his way. She went where all mothers of boys must so often go, to her knees, alone with God. He had not gone far on his journey when he met a Friend. It was the Good Shepherd, whom that mother's urgent prayer had sent searching for the wanderer. It was as if he had met Christ in his path. He looked up at the great trees and down at the blossoms, and in everything saw God. He became so impressed with the perfections of the Holy One he had so long resisted, that he lost sight of himself. He sat down in the woods to wonder and to pray. It was not until some time after that he realized any change in himself, and not until he returned from Litchfield did his father perceive it. His conversion was thorough. Not only was he turned about,--his face God-ward instead of self-ward,--but he was impelled toward "those sitting in darkness." In his childhood, from his mother's lips, he often heard stories from the lives of Brainerd, Eliot, and other missionaries. He heard her prayers for them and their great undertakings. Once he heard her say, "I have consecrated this child to the service of God as a missionary." Now it was his joy to follow those noble examples, and to fulfill his part in the plans of God and his mother for him. His parents approved of his determination, though the thought of separation tore their hearts. His mother said to him, "I cannot bear to part from you, my son." When he reminded her of her vow, she burst into tears, and never after made complaint. To his father he said that he could "not conceive of any course of life in which to pass the rest of his days, that would prove so pleasant, as to go and communicate the gospel of salvation to the poor heathen." This desire to spread the Gospel grew to be a sublime purpose, and from it he never wavered. He set about his plannings, with this supreme end in view. Thanking God for his own salvation, he laid his life in God's hand, imploring Him to use it for those who had as yet no knowledge of that mercy. The Lord took him from the plough, as he did Elisha. He left the field for the college. CHAPTER II. COLLEGE--THE HAYSTACK--EFFORTS TO SPREAD THE INTEREST IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. He entered Williams College in the spring of 1806. During his first visit home in June, he connected himself with his father's church. A college course means to some young men four years of frolic, or worse. To others it is an opportunity to cram knowledge, that shall by-and-by astound the round world and they that dwell therein. To one, at least, it was the time for choosing "smooth stones" for his combat with the giant adversary, whom he was brave enough to meet alone, if need be, "in the name of the Lord of Hosts." As a scholar he was not brilliant, but as a Christian he was "a bright and shining light." To serve God was the highest aim of his life. First of all, he served Him upon his knees. He used to pray often and earnestly, alone and with others. He pursued his studies for the after use he might make of them, not for his own accomplishment. As he visited his friends in their rooms, and walked with them through the groves, the subject dearest to his heart was oftenest the theme of his conversation. To one friend he said: "Though you and I are very little beings, we must not rest satisfied till we have made our influence extend to the remotest corner of this ruined world." His life was so consistent, his disposition so sweet, his manners so winning that every one was his friend. Those who had been unfaithful to their vows were reproved, and those opposed to religion were induced to follow his example. During his first year there was a revival, which seemed to come in answer to his earnest prayers. Many of his comrades became Christians, and so earnestly that they laid aside or sanctified their old ambitions, and prepared to spread through the earth the fire kindled by this devoted youth. A mission band of boys were examined as to their knowledge of Samuel Mills. "Where was he born?" asked the leader. "Under a haystack!" replied a small boy. Had the question been, Where was the American Board of Foreign Missions born? the answer would not have been so far from the way. Its baptismal naming came some years later, but under a stack of hay in a meadow, near Williams College, it was born, nursed and prayed over. About fourteen years earlier foreign missionary organization had begun across the Atlantic. On this side, the attention of Christians had been occupied with their new homes and the needs of the destitute near at hand. There were societies of domestic missions; but no scheme to touch hands God-blessed with hands idol-cursed, had ever been devised before the Lord of both put it into the heart of Mills. "God called him out of the midst of the bush." The bush was this haystack, but the place became "holy ground." The Lord said: "I have surely seen the affliction of my people, and have heard their cry." "Come now, therefore, and I will send thee." This commission filled his soul. He gathered a few of his friends in a grove, to tell them his convictions and his hopes. What was his surprise and joy to find that the "Angel of the Lord" had appeared to them also. A sudden thunder storm came upon them here, but his retreat, his place of safety, was near by. He led them under the haystack, and there they talked together, and with God. And there they continued to meet through two seasons, and finally formed themselves into the first Foreign Missionary Society of this continent. Its object was "to effect in the persons of its members a mission to the heathen." From the spot where the haystack once stood, now rises a marble shaft, bearing aloft a globe, underneath which is inscribed: "THE FIELD IS THE WORLD." "The Birthplace of American Foreign Missions, 1806." SAMUEL J. MILLS, JAMES RICHARDS, FRANCIS L. ROBBINS, HARVEY LOOMIS, BYRAM GREEN. At every commencement, the college president leads to this monument a procession of alumni, students, and guests. Prayer is offered that the spirit of missions may still prevail at Williams, and that the traditions of the past may be maintained. In these years public opinion was decidedly opposed to the enterprise of these young men. Even good men thought their zeal extravagant and expected it soon to subside. In order to arouse sympathy and a right sentiment, they devised various means. They discussed their projects with Christian people. They distributed missionary sermons. A list was made of the names of distinguished ministers, to whom these young men made frequent visits, urging their suit. Among them, the first to take fire, was Dr. Worcester. With one of them, Dr. Griffin, Mills asked to be permitted to study theology. Said the Doctor: "I had always refused such applications, but from the love I bore to him, I agreed to criticise one sermon a week. After that exercise he would commonly sit and draw letters very moderately and cautiously from his pocket, reading passages to me on some benevolent project. At length I perceived that _studying divinity_ with me had been quite a secondary object, that his chief object was to get me engaged to execute his plans. As soon as I discovered that, I told him to bring out his letters and all his plans, without reserve." Mills became convinced that they could not expect help from the Churches unless the number was increased of young men ready to devote their lives to this cause. He and his friends then separated for the purpose of establishing societies in other colleges. Mills went to Yale, hoping there to find kindred spirits. This was not the case, but God had sent him for another purpose, and that to know Obookiah, a heathen boy from the Sandwich Islands. This acquaintance greatly increased his zeal. Sometimes a little seed, wafted by the wind, is borne far from its mother plant to take root in a foreign soil: but its fruit may be returned whence it came. This little lonely heathen child, blown by seemingly cruel and adverse winds, was tossed upon our Christian shores by the good hand of God. The ship which brought him touched other and idolatrous lands, but he was not to put his feet down till they could be planted in the right place. That his life touched Mills' life, both being quickened, is perhaps reason enough for giving here a portion of Obookiah's history and that of his native land, if there were not another reason, and that the opportunity, here afforded, of following a stream of influence to its sea. CHAPTER III. OBOOKIAH IN HAWAII--IN AMERICA. Henry Obookiah was born in Hawaii, about the year 1792. When about twelve years old, two parties contending for dominion, disturbed the peace of the island. He alone survived the persecution of his family. He was captured and carried home by the man who killed his parents, but finally made his way to an uncle. Though he was well treated, he suffered from loneliness. He said of himself, "When I was at play with other children, after we had made an end of playing, they return to their parents: but I was returned into tears, for I have no home, neither father nor mother. Poor boy am I." He determined to go to some other country, and forget his sorrow. The captain of an American vessel showed him kindness, and consented to take him on board. He brought him to America, and took him to his own home in New Haven. Henry was a clumsy, stupid-looking boy at this time, his appearance not revealing the undeveloped depths of his nature. He made the acquaintance of some of the students at Yale College, and of the Rev. E. W. Dwight. These friends becoming interested in his welfare, offered to teach him. He accepted their aid with avidity, and made wonderful progress, at the same time becoming more and more lovable and attractive. A fun-loving disposition soon showed itself. He had great difficulty in pronouncing the letter _r_, giving it the sound of _l_. Every day his teacher tried to help him, saying, "try, Obookiah, it is _very easy_." This seemed to amuse the boy greatly, though as yet he could not express himself in English. Some time after, when he could speak more readily, he was describing to his teacher some of the customs of his native land. Clasping his hands together, and adjusting his thumbs, he formed a cup which he raised to his lips to show how his countrymen drank from a spring. His instructor tried to do the same, but before he could reach his mouth with his hands the cup would be inverted so that the contents, had there been any, would have been spilled. Obookiah laughed heartily and said, "_try_, Mr. Dwight, it is _very easy_!" One day he mimicked the gait of some of his friends so cleverly, that there was no mistaking whom he intended to personate. His teacher then mocked his own awkward style, when he exclaimed several times: "me walk so?" Being assured that it was true, he rolled upon the floor until his mirth exhausted his strength. After being instructed about the true God, idol worship seemed to him ridiculous. He said, "Hawaii gods! They _wood_,--_burn_. Me go home, put 'em in a fire, burn 'em up. They no _see_, no _hear_, _no_ anything." Then added, "We make _them_. Our God," looking up, "He make us." After Mr. Mills arrived in New Haven he became a friend of Mr. Dwight's, and being often in his room, occasionally heard this boy recite. He became greatly attached to him, and began to cherish a plan for his future. He wanted to see Obookiah a Christian, educated, and then a missionary to his native land. One evening Mr. Mills had not been long in Mr. Dwight's room, when Obookiah came in with a very gloomy face. He said he had no place to live; Mr. ---- didn't want him any more, and Miss ---- had threatened to take away his new clothes. Mr. Mills told him he would take him to his own home, and that he had clothes enough for both. This cheered the poor, disconsolate fellow, who soon went with Mr. Mills to Torringford, and was placed under the "care of those whose benevolence was without a bond or check, or a limit to confine it." Here he spent a part of the year 1810, and was treated wisely and affectionately. Mrs. Mills taught him the Catechism, and her son Jeremiah assisted him in his studies. At different times, and frequently, their house was his home. He became gentle and refined in his manner, a Bible-loving, earnest, prayerful Christian. His friends who had been so careful in the training of his mind and heart, had not neglected his hands. He was taught much that was useful and practical, particularly in farming. He surprised all by the quickness and eagerness with which he learned. He was both inquisitive and acquisitive to a remarkable degree. He persisted in knowing and getting, that he might impart what he had gained to his own countrymen. To return to them for their enlightenment, was his consuming desire. He visited many families, and many of the churches of New England, always creating a deep interest in his mission. Many people who had affirmed that the heathen could never be reclaimed from their low estate, were forced to change their opinions after seeing and knowing Obookiah, and were inspired to pray and give for his and other unevangelized races. The presence of Obookiah in this country, as well as of other heathen youth, together with the desire to educate some of our own Indians, led to the formation of the Foreign Mission School, at Cornwall, Mass. This school was under the care of the American Board ten years. Its pupils were from many different nations. In 1826 it was discontinued, for by this time the missions were able to educate the young at their several stations. Obookiah was pursuing his studies here, when, in the beginning of the year 1818, he was stricken with typhus fever, and suffered several weeks. On the 17th of February, 1818, he shook hands with all his companions present, and with perfect composure addressed to them the parting salutation of his native language, "Alloah ò e"--"my love be with you." Mrs. Stone, in whose house he died, and who cared for him with Christian kindness during his sickness, said, "This had been one of the happiest and most profitable periods of her life; that she had been more than rewarded for her cares and watchings by day and night, in being permitted to witness his excellent example, and to hear his godly conversation." Almost immediately after his death, missionaries, inspired by his life, hastened to accomplish his cherished purpose, the establishment of a mission in the Sandwich Islands. Mills was far from home, but returning at the time, not knowing Obookiah had died, he said to a friend, "If it please God that I may arrive safely, I think that I shall take Obookiah and go to the Sandwich Islands and there I will end my life." From that day to this, missionaries and missions, schools, churches and Christians have multiplied, till all those islands name the name of Christ. CHAPTER IV. THE SANDWICH ISLES WITH AND WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. "Surely the isles shall wait for me." The missionaries found upon these islands naked savages, without books, education, or courts of justice. The people were slaves, governed arbitrarily by chiefs. It was a nation of debauchees, thieves and drunkards. There were no marriage laws. Two-thirds of the children born were destroyed. If an infant was ailing or troublesome, the mother scooped a hole in the ground, covered the child with earth and trampled out its life. The aged and infirm were taken to the brow of a precipice and pushed over. The sick were removed to such a distance that their groans could not annoy, and left to die. The insane were stoned to death. God opened the way for the missionaries by a revolution which did away with idolatry, but did nothing for the uplifting of society. Some of the noblest specimens of our American manhood have devoted their lives to these desolate, far-away creatures. The mention of one will suffice as a sample of the salt that purified those bitter and filthy waters. When he stepped on shore at Hilo, in 1832, it was to stay till his work was finished--and he lived beyond the three score and ten. Such a life is a rebuke to the restlessness of many modern workers. For forty-two years he labored patiently in pressing himself and what he knew upon Hawaiian youth--nearly a thousand in all--many of whom are now pastors, leading lawyers, men of affairs, missionaries to Micronesia, and the men who stand for righteousness in the native churches. Great events and advances in science were exciting his native land, but he worked on, struggling for things unseen and eternal. Amid uninspiring surroundings, and performing many menial duties, he led a high spiritual and intellectual life, not seeking honor, but service--thereby gaining honor, and the "rest that remaineth." As for the results of such consecration, wisdom and work, the facts are a marvel in history. Any prophecy in regard to them would have been thought a wild dream. These islanders have taken their place among the Christian nations. Marriage is considered honorable, the family established, as well as schools, churches and a government, whose constitution ordains that "no law shall be enacted at variance with the word of the Lord Jehovah, or with the general spirit of His word." In proportion to the population, there are more readers than in Boston. The proportion of true Christians is as great as anywhere in Christendom. They are decently clad, their homes are comfortable, even sometimes going so far as to possess a melodeon and a sewing-machine! They have progressed in agriculture, commerce, the industries, literature and the arts. It is a regenerated nation. The American Board has erased this mission from its list and transferred all responsibility to the Hawaiian Evangelical Association. CHAPTER V. MILLS AT ANDOVER--THE AMERICAN BOARD. From Yale College, Mills went to Andover to study theology. Soon after entering, his dear mother died. His grief was passionate. He mourned for the loss of her face, her voice, her prayers, but not as one "without hope." At Andover he met some of his former friends, and found new ones whose hearts the Lord had stirred--Newell, Judson, Nott, Hall, Mills! Names to shout at the sleeping saints of this our day! Lives to uphold to the view of our self-pleasing generation! These men organized a second missionary society, similar to the one at Williams. They met to pray and plan. Their prayers were answered and their plans resulted in the formation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. If the objections made to their plans were here rehearsed, the arguments would sound very familiar; they are the same, in spite of their repeated death-blows, that array themselves against the plan of missions to-day. The assailants of this cause are not students of history. There is no such thing as opposition, or even indifference, to Christian missions, unless there is ignorance behind it. These young men succeeded in gaining the sympathy and alliance of some of the prominent pastors, and the professors in the seminary. To the annual meeting of the General Association of Massachusetts, at Bradford, June 27, 1810, they presented the following paper: The undersigned, members of the Divinity College, respectfully request the attention of their Reverend Fathers, convened in the General Association at Bradford, to the following statement and inquiries: They beg leave to state, that their minds have been long impressed with the duty and importance of personally attempting a mission to the heathen; that the impressions on their minds have induced a serious, and they trust a prayerful, consideration of the subject in its various attitudes, particularly in relation to the probable success and the difficulties attending such an attempt; and that after examining all the information which they can obtain, they consider themselves as devoted to this work for life, whenever God in his providence shall open the way. They now offer the following inquiries, on which they solicit the opinion and advice of the association. Whether, with their present views and feelings, they ought to renounce the object of missions, as visionary and impracticable; if not, whether they ought to direct their attention to the Eastern or Western world? Whether they may expect patronage and support from a missionary society in this country, or must commit themselves to the direction of a European society; and what preparatory measures they ought to take previous to actual engagement? The undersigned, feeling their youth and inexperience, look up to their fathers in the church and respectfully solicit their advice, direction and prayers. ADONIRAM JUDSON JR. SAMUEL NOTT JR. SAMUEL J. MILLS. SAMUEL NEWELL. The names of Rice and Richards were struck off "for fear of alarming the Association with too large a number." This paper was referred to a special committee, who indorsed the sentiment and submitted a plan to the association, which was carried into effect by the appointment of a Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. After much exertion and inquiry at home, Judson was sent to England to learn if help could be expected from the London Missionary Society. He found that society willing to take the young men under its care and support, but not ready to assist the new Board. The American society soon received aid within its own boundaries, which was a far better beginning than to be dependent upon outside resources. Mrs. Mary Norris, the wife of one of the founders of Andover Seminary, bequeathed thirty thousand dollars to the Board. God's Spirit generally revived the churches, opening the eyes and hearts of His people, their purses as well, though not many of the latter were well filled in those days. God only has a full record of the anxious courage and faith which was exercised by the supporters, managers, and appointees of the Board during those first struggling years. Under the care of this board Mills and his friends placed themselves, and by it most of them were sent out in the year 1812. CHAPTER VI. AN APOSTOLIC JOURNEY IN THE UNITED STATES. From the first throb of his Christian life, the heart of Mills beat like a soldier's. He called out the recruits, captained the forces, and died in service--a hero! In his student days he had a compelling influence upon his classmates, and even then showed signs of generalship in his faculty of organizing. The establishment of the Foreign Mission School was largely consequent upon his suggestions; in the formation of the American Board he was one of the foremost personal instruments. Studies finished, his heart firm in his lofty purpose, highborn schemes began their struggling claim for his attention. The world with all its lands stretching their help-beckoning fingers, was persuading him. Over the home land, his and ours, he turned his penetrating glance. He saw occasion for vast concern, and here was his first response. To go first, opening the way for others through the tangled wilderness, was his design, his master-plot. That "divine ferment" at Williams College worked the good of home, as well as of foreign, missions. Having chosen a companion-spy, the Rev. John Schermerhorn, soon after his graduation in 1812, he went to view a goodly land, which he desired to have the people of God go up and possess. This tour was undertaken under the patronage of the Connecticut and Massachusetts Home Missionary Societies. Heretofore these societies had prayed and wept over young missionaries sent to the uncivilized wilds of Western New York! The plan of Mills and Schermerhorn was to travel through the wide territory lying between the great lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, to learn the moral condition of the inhabitants, and scatter what good they might. The map of this region, as published in Morse's school atlas of 1823, is curiously different from the maps of the present day. The state and territorial lines have been altered, those green, pink, and yellow blanks have become densely freckled and wrinkled, by the dots of cities and towns, and by the complicated tracery of railroads. These travelers did not telegraph their intended arrival, nor sleep and dine their way to their journey's end, on the "Flyer," and then rest in some palatial hotel at last. Each mounted his horse, taking with them by way of baggage all that was necessary for the trip,--tent, provisions, clothing and Bibles. They plodded through miry swamps, they climbed up and down almost perpendicular ledges, and cut their way through canebrakes with a hatchet. When they had creeks to cross they swam their horses. At night they camped, often in the rain and sometimes without food. More than once they were serenaded by Indian war-whoops and the howling wolves. Stopping at town or settlement they were made cordially at home in hut and cabin. In some places they perceived bright prospects, the germs of future cities, and were often urgently besought to stay and preach the gospel permanently. They found everywhere the Sabbath profaned, only a few good people in any one place, and Bibles rare possessions. In some places the people were longing for the Gospel. In all the leading towns they formed Bible societies, and everywhere preached and distributed Bibles, which were gladly received. From Nashville they went down the Cumberland and Mississippi with General Jackson and fifteen hundred volunteers. In New Orleans they gained the consent of Bishop DeBury to distribute the Scriptures in French to the French Romanists, who made up three-fourths of the population of the state. They found no Protestant church in the city. They here organized a Bible society, and remained several weeks to preach and to hold prayer-meetings. CHAPTER VII. MILLS' SECOND TOUR. In the year 1814 Mr. Mills having obtained the assistance of some of the eastern Bible societies, and having chosen as companion the Rev. Daniel Smith, started on another tour through the South and West. They went laden with Bibles and the prayers of Christian friends. They went through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. In all these states they found the people "exceedingly destitute of religious privileges," and a "lamentable want of Bibles and missionaries." They found "American families who never saw a Bible, or heard of Jesus Christ." There was only one minister to ten thousand people if equally placed; but there were districts containing from twenty to fifty thousand "without a preacher." These men were light-bringers to this "valley of the shadow of death," as Mills called it. They found English soldiers, French Romanists, colored slaves, our own dear countrymen, greedy for the bread of life. They traveled more than six thousand miles; they passed through a variety of climates; they endured "perils in the city, perils of the wilderness, perils on the rivers and on the sea," that they might cast that bread upon the waters which you and I are finding after many days. Mills arrived for the second time in New Orleans, soon after the celebrated battle of January 8, 1815, and cheered many hearts by his coming. He visited the soldiers in prison, the sick and wounded in the hospitals; kneeling on the bare floor where they lay, he prayed and talked with them, sang for them, and gave them Bibles; he preached in camp. The Philadelphia society had given him a quantity of French Bibles. The people were clamorous for them. They thronged the distributor's door, and remained even after the notice had been given that no more could be had until the following day. They came sometimes from great distances. In one week a thousand copies were given away. In one instance a Romish priest assisted in this work. The bishop acknowledged the deplorable state of the people, and preferred their having the Protestant version to none at all. When these adventurers in Christ's kingdom visited St. Louis, they found it a place of two thousand inhabitants,--"a tumble-down French village,--built mainly of wooden slabs and poles set vertically, and well daubed with mortar mixed with straw, though there were many log houses." In a school-room they delivered the first Presbyterian or Congregational sermons ever preached on the west side of the Mississippi. They were gratefully received, and had crowded audiences. The people would gladly have supported either one could he have stayed. But the immediate duty of these explorers for souls was to return to the churches which had sent them out, to report what they had discovered, and to beg that men be sent to these waste places which were waiting to be made to blossom. All New England was roused to effort by their appeal, and the next year ten or twelve men responded to the summons. In 1848 the word "gold" was whispered in California and heard all over the world. The gold-hunters pressed forward from every corner of the earth. It was not thought a hard thing to turn one's back on home, friends and country, for the sake of gold, though that glittering promise was, to most of those who searched, like the bag at the end of the rainbow, and all the riches of this world "make themselves wings." "The promises of God are sure," and the riches which He bestows are everlasting; and yet to the call, gold and glory, young men answer by the thousand, while to the cry, Christ and a crown, they respond by the dozen! "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." CHAPTER VIII. THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY--THE UNITED FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. During these two missionary journeys the heart of our apostle was swelling with the woes of the sin-bound, and his brain contriving for their release. Upon his return he settled in New York state, and spent two busy years in working out his purposes. While waiting for their maturity he was most of the time in the large cities, particularly New York. Here he spent what might have been leisure, in visiting the poor in the neglected districts. He also wrote many letters; and in the churches, and everywhere, and upon everybody, urged attention to the world's great needs, and their great duties. As the result of this planning, waiting and working, he was permitted to see formed the American Bible Society, and the United Foreign Missionary Society. On the subject of city evangelization, he advanced ideas which we at this striving time might well study. The entire destitution of religious privileges which Mills had witnessed in the West and South, and the great desire of the people for the word of God, with their inability to supply themselves, made him eager for the formation of a National Bible Society, which should be large enough and strong enough to supply such great want. He had some hope of having the matter brought out at the general assembly of the Presbyterian church; but it was thought best to have it come about through the existing Bible societies, rather than have it bear the features of any denomination. The matter was kept constantly before influential people by this indefatigable man, and at last on the 8th of May, 1816, delegates from the different Bible societies of the United States convened in New York city, and resolved unanimously "to establish, without delay, a General Bible Institution, for the circulation of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment." Before closing their sessions a constitution was adopted, managers elected, and an address issued to the people of the United States, informing them of the project, and inviting their sympathy and coöperation in this benevolent scheme. This was a great day to Mills, and those who saw him, sitting apart, watching with intense eagerness the deliberations of the convention, long remembered his delighted face. But how must the resources and usefulness of this society have exceeded even his fond hopes! As its first depository, it shared the office room of its agent. From time to time it was forced to move to larger quarters, until the year 1853, when it located permanently, in its well-known building, The Bible House, on Astor Place, New York city. This edifice is of brick, six stories high, and occupies a solid block. In its first year, the society received $37,779, and issued 6,410 volumes; in its seventieth year (1886) its receipts were $523,910, and it issued 1,437,440 volumes. In the Bible House, the working force--manufacturing and executive--numbers about 250. The auxiliaries which directly and indirectly center in this society, number about 7,000. From this great tree and its many branches, the leaves have been sent for the healing of nations. There are now but few countries where there are any impediments to the free circulation of the Scriptures. In our own land the society has afforded relief to its feeble auxiliaries, has supplied destitute Sabbath-schools, has endeavored to place the Bible in the common schools, to distribute it among soldiers and seamen, to furnish hotels, steamboats, railroads, and humane and criminal institutions. By it, the Bible has been circulated among immigrants, the destitute poor, the freedmen, the Chinese, and (in the Douay version) among Romanists. At four different periods the society has made exploration among the states and territories, to search and supply the destitute. Proportionately the number of families without the word of God is much smaller now than when the society was organized, notwithstanding the enormous growths in population. The society has attempted to send the Bible to all the inhabitants of the earth, accessible to its agents. It has established depots in almost every place where the American churches have missions. It circulates the Scriptures in more than eighty different languages and dialects. In 1856, in compliance with a special request, and by means of a special gift, the Society's Imperial Quarto English Bible, bound with extraordinary care, enclosed in a rosewood case, and accompanied by a courteous letter, was sent to each of the reigning monarchs and other chief magistrates of the world. Before the art of printing, the Bible was the most expensive book in the world. So late as the American Revolution, in its cheapest edition a volume could not be purchased for less than two dollars. This society now furnishes a copy of the entire book for twenty-five cents. It has made the Bible the cheapest book in the world. Mills, anxious to see every wheel set in motion for the advancement of Christ's kingdom, was restless because of the inaction of the Presbyterian church in the cause of Foreign Missions; again by his personal influence upon prominent men, another plan was matured. A committee was appointed by the General Assembly to confer with committees from the Dutch and Scotch churches, and a new society was formed, called the United Foreign Missionary Society. After a few years of efficient service this society was merged with the American Board, yielding to it its name and affairs. While so busy with these schemes just referred to, Mr. Mills was collecting all possible information in regard to South America. He desired to have the way opened for a mission in that country, and was willing to go himself to make the needed investigations. But it was seven years later when the American Board sent the first men to that field. In spite of these great enterprises, which must have been so absorbing of time and energy, this busy man found opportunity and strength to search out the squalid back streets of New York, and to go from house to house of its wretched inhabitants, giving sympathy, speaking words of Christian love and instruction, and where they would receive them leaving the word of God and good books. CHAPTER IX. THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY--MILLS, AS ITS AGENT, VISITS AFRICA. Abraham Lincoln, when a young man, made a journey into the South. Of all the impressions which those new scenes made upon him, the one deepest and strongest was that of slavery. It filled him with loathing, but kindled a zeal which never slumbered, until it cost his priceless life. It was such a spark which became a fire in the breast of Mills. What he saw and what he heard, during those southern tours, made him a willing martyr for the sake of Africa's sons and daughters. Their degradation made him ready to endure all things if only he could pierce the black cloud overshading them. His first effort resulted in a school, called the African School, for training young colored men to teach and preach to their own race. He then lent essential aid in the formation of the American Colonization Society. This society was composed of noble-minded men whose pitying attention was fastened upon the bondage, afflictions and heathenism of their black brothers, in this so called free land. Their aim was to furnish a refuge, in their own country, for those who were emancipated here, and it was their hope that such a scheme would do much toward the abolition of slavery. Their first effort was the collection of information: first, in regard to the condition of the slave here, that they might enlist general sympathy in their work. In a letter written by Mr. Mills about this matter, he said: "State facts. Facts will always produce an effect, at least on pious minds. You can easily possess yourself of facts, the bare recital of which will make the heart bleed." From the extensive observations he had made in the South, and by having the subject so long in his mind, he was very ready to "state facts," and did so in every time and place. The information needed, in the second place, by the society was in regard to a suitable location for the colony, and the methods which would be required to obtain it. Mr. Mills was made their agent. He chose as a colleague, to share his responsibility, the Rev. Mr. Burgess. After some months of preparation they left America, planning to visit England first for information and assistance and then Africa, for the accomplishment of their errand. His father says of the "good-bye" which he bade him, at the time, that "he enjoyed peculiar peace of mind, committing himself entirely to the guidance and protection of the Almighty." He, who had endured so many hardships for Christ's sake, knew in whom he trusted. After about two weeks' sailing, they encountered a fearful storm and had need of all their faith. The wind blew furiously for thirty-six hours. The captain ordered the masts cut away and the decks cleared. He remained on deck, calmly giving orders, until they were driven almost upon a ledge of rocks. Despairing of any safety in the ship, he abandoned her, taking his children with him in a small boat. Some of those left on board the ship, in their agony of peril, were in the cabin, beseeching the mercy of Him who rules the violent sea. Others were on deck, where Mr. Burgess, praying aloud, commended their souls to God. All unexpectedly, a counter current bore them into deeper water, past the rocks. All exclaimed, "It is the work of God!" A gloomy night they spent tossing on the sea, but in the morning quiet came. The mate assumed control, and by using what crippled forces they could command, they found their way to a harbor of France. From there they proceeded to London. They were cordially received by a number of distinguished men and officials. Among them Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. Zachary Macauly, the former governor of Sierra Leone, who introduced them to the Duke of Gloucester. They met everywhere with Christian sympathy, and the kindest offers of service. Having obtained letters to the governors of colonies in Africa, they left England for the west coast, February 3, 1818. This voyage was a pleasant one, and brought them in about thirty days to the mouth of the Gambia. They anchored near the village of St. Mary's, and went to inspect this and other settlements. They made the acquaintance of the governors and the Europeans, everywhere gathering useful and pertinent facts. They proceeded south, visiting towns and villages, and calling upon the kings and head men. On these occasions they were received in the "palaver house," by the chiefs arranged in true African style, regardless of taste. One was described as wearing "a silver-laced coat, a superb three-cornered hat, blue-bafta trousers, considerably the worse for wear, and no stockings or shoes." The insignia of royalty were a silver-headed cane in one hand, a horse-tail in the other. Before the palaver could go on, the hosts must receive presents, and as their guests had oftenest been slave traders, rum and tobacco had become essentials. By means of interpreters they made known their friendly feelings, and that they had come from America. "That wise and good men had agreed to help the black people who wished to come to this country; that the design was a good one, and would promote the best interests of the black people both in America and Africa; that if they would sell or give tracts of their unimproved lands, the people who came would introduce more knowledge of the arts and agriculture, would buy such things as they had to sell, and would sell to them such things as they wanted;" that the children were to be educated; that they had come as messengers of peace and good tidings, bringing no weapons in their hands--that they did not desire war. They found that African kings knew the art of being slothful in business. They seemed to have no idea of dispatch, but would talk for hours without coming to the point. In general their reception was cordial, and, in some instances, more than that. Land was offered them in five different places. Their greatest obstacle was the unsavory reputation of the white men who had preceded them,--the slave-traders and merchants,--men who had been gross, violent and rapacious. One of the natives who saw Mr. Mills and Mr. Burgess in prayer, said he "never knew before that white men prayed!" They found that the natives would not be unwilling to give up their superstitions, and were gratified at the prospect of education for their children; that they would be glad to have God's word, and the pure religion it teaches. One old man with white hair and beard, wished for this good time to come at once; he wanted to know more about God's book before he died. The observations and inquiries which had been so conscientiously made by the agents, enabled them to report to their society that the project was both practicable and expedient. After due consideration of the instructions and recommendations of experienced foreigners, and the details of exploration, which this report furnished them, the society thought it most wise to proceed with the undertaking. After seeking needed individual and governmental aid, and perfecting so far as possible the organization, the first colony was sent to Africa in 1820. They endured the discouraging vicissitudes which are generally incident to new settlements, and in a few years success seemed certain. In 1847 LIBERIA became an established free republic. The constitution is modeled upon our own. CHAPTER X. THE LAST JOURNEY--BRIG "SUCCESS," FRIDAY, MAY 22, 1818. "We have taken an affectionate leave of the clergymen, the civil officers, and the colonists of Sierra Leone. We are embarked for the United States, by way of England; and the continent of Africa recedes from our view." This is the last entry in Mills' journal. Three months had been spent in Africa; months of unsparing toil, under a scorching sun, amid depressing pagan scenes. But the undertaking had been reasonably successful, and tired bodies had been upheld by grateful hearts. On shipboard once more, with faces turned homeward, opportunity came for fatigue to assert itself. The strength of Mills, never great at the best, began to fail. A deep spirituality, which had possessed him through all the journey, grew stronger and stronger. And as they were wafted, day by day, nearer home, it became evident that his spirit, too, was nearing its desired haven. Fever burned his body; but at last eternal health claimed his soul. Under a glowing sunset, he was buried, to wait until the sea surrenders its dead. The one great desire of his life, "to sit in some quiet corner and teach the perishing," was unfulfilled; but God through him had sent, and yet sends, many teachers to many far corners. Thirty-five years, only, of mortal life was allotted him in which to accomplish so much; yet it was time enough,--not because of his uncommon gifts, but because he knew the secret of well doing. He did not attempt to be the origin--the source, but gloried in being the channel through which God poured His great thoughts. No time was lost by obstructions; the dredge that kept the channel free was prayer--private, social, public, constant prayer, not for himself, but for God's glory. THE END. 
21208	----	AMONG THE SIOUX _A Story of The Twin Cities and The Two Dakotas_ _BY_ THE REV. R. J. CRESWELL _Author of_ "WHO SLEW ALL THESE," ETC. _Introduction by_ THE REV. DAVID R. BREED, D.D. 1906 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. _OUR PLATFORM_. For Indians we want American Education, American homes, American rights,--the result of which is American citizenship. And the Gospel is the power of God for their salvation! _DEDICATION_. TO NELLIE, (MY WIFE) Who, for forty years has been my faithful companion in the toils and triumphs of missionary service for the Freedmen of the Old Southwest and the heroic pioneers of the New Northwest, this volume is affectionately inscribed. By the Author, R. J. CRESWELL. _INTRODUCTION_ By the Rev. David R. Breed, D.D. The sketches which make up this little volume are of absorbing interest, and are prepared by one who is abundantly qualified to do so. Mr. Creswell has had large personal acquaintance with many of those of whom he writes and has for years been a diligent student of missionary effort among the Sioux. His frequent contributions to the periodicals on this subject have received marked attention. Several of them he gathers together and reprints in this volume, so that while it is not a consecutive history of the Sioux missions it furnishes an admirable survey of the labors of the heroic men and women who have spent their lives in this cause, and furnishes even more interesting reading in their biographies that might have been given upon the other plan. During my own ministry in Minnesota, from 1870 to 1885, I became very intimate with the great leaders of whom Mr. Creswell writes. Some of them were often in my home, and I, in turn, have visited them. I am familiar with many of the scenes described in this book. I have heard from the missionaries' own lips the stories of their hardships, trials and successes. I have listened to their account of the great massacre, while with the tears flowing down their cheeks they told of the desperate cruelty of the savages, their defeat, their conversion, and their subsequent fidelity to the men and the cause they once opposed. I am grateful to Mr. Creswell for putting these facts into permanent shape and bespeak for his volume a cordial reception, a wide circulation, and above all, the abundant blessing of God. DAVID R. BREED. Allegheny, Pa., January, 1906. _PREFACE_. This volume is not sent forth as a full history of the Sioux Missions. That volume has not yet been written, and probably never will be. The pioneer missionaries were too busily engaged in the formation of the Dakota Dictionary and Grammar, in the translation of the Bible into that wild, barbaric tongue; in the preparation of hymn books and text books:--in the creation of a literature for the Sioux Nation, to spend time in ordinary literary work. The present missionaries are overwhelmed with the great work of ingathering and upbuilding that has come to them so rapidly all over the widely extended Dakota plains. These Sioux missionaries were and are men of deeds rather than of words,--more intent on the _making_ of history than the _recording_ of it. They are the noblest body of men and women that ever yet went forth to do service, for our Great King, on American soil. For twenty years it has been the writer's privilege to mingle intimately with these missionaries and with the Christian Sioux; to sit with them at their great council fires; to talk with them in their teepees; to visit them in their homes; to meet with them in their Church Courts; to inspect their schools; to worship with them in their churches; and to gather with them on the greensward under the matchless Dakota sky and celebrate together with them the sweet, sacramental service of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. He was so filled and impressed by what he there saw and heard, that he felt impelled to impart to others somewhat of the knowledge thus gained; in order that they may be stimulated to a deeper interest in, and devotion to the cause of missions on American soil. In the compilation of this work the author has drawn freely from these publications, viz.: THE GOSPEL OF THE DAKOTAS, MARY AND I, _By Stephen R. Riggs, D.D., LL.D._ TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES, _By S. W. Pond, Jr._ INDIAN BOYHOOD, _By Charles Eastman_ THE PAST MADE PRESENT, _By Rev. William Fiske Brown_ THE WORD CARRIER, _By Editor A. L. Riggs, D.D._ THE MARTYRS OF WALHALLA, _By Charlotte O. Van Cleve_ THE LONG AGO, _By Charles H. Lee_ THE DAKOTA MISSION, _By Dr. L. P. Williamson and others_ DR. T. S. WILLIAMSON, _By Rev. R. McQuesten_ He makes this general acknowledgment, in lieu of repeated references, which would otherwise be necessary throughout the book. For valuable assistance in its preparation he is very grateful to many missionaries, especially to John P. Williamson, D.D., of Grenwood, South Dakota; A. L. Riggs, D.D. of Santee, Nebraska; Samuel W. Pond, Jr., of Minneapolis, and Mrs. Gideon H. Pond, of Oak Grove, Minnesota. All these were sharers in the stirring scenes recorded in these pages. The names Dakota and Sioux are used as synonyms and the English significance instead of the Indian cognomens. May the blessing of Him who dwelt in the Burning Bush, rest upon all these toilers on the prairies of the new Northwest. R. J. CRESWELL. Minneapolis, Minnesota, January, 1906. PART I. _CONTENTS_ CHAPTER I. The Pond Brothers.--Great Revival.--Conversions.--Galena.--Rum-seller Decision.--Westward.--Fort Snelling.--Man of-the-Sky.--Log Cabin.--Dr. Williamson.--Ripley.--Lane Seminary.--St. Peters Church.--Dr. Riggs.--New England Mary.--Lac-qui-Parle. CHAPTER II. The Lake-that-Speaks.--Indian Church.--Adobe Edifice.--First School.--Mission Home.--Encouragements.--Discouragements.--Kaposia.--New Treaty.--Yellow Medicine.--Bitter Winter.--Hazlewood.--Traverse des Sioux.--Robert Hopkins.--Marriage.--Death.--M. N. Adams, Oak Grove.-- J. P. Williamson, D.D. CHAPTER III. Isolation.--Strenuous Life.--Formation of Dakota Language Dictionary. --Grammar.--Literature.--Bible Translation.--Massacre.--Fleeing Missionaries.--Blood.--Anglo Saxons Triumph.--Loyal Indians.--Monument. CHAPTER IV. Prisoners in Chains.--Executions.--Pentecost in Prison.--Three Hundred Baptisms.--Church Organized.--Sacramental Supper.--Prison Camp.--John P. Williamson.--One Hundred Converts.--Davenport.--Release.--Niobrara. --Pilgrim Church. CHAPTER V. 1884--Iyakaptapte.--Council.--Discussions.--Anniversaries.--Sabbath.-- Communion.--The Native Missionary Society. CHAPTER VI. 1905--Sisseton.--John Baptiste Renville.--Presbytery of Dakota. AMONG THE SIOUX. PART ONE. SOWING AND REAPING. [Illustration: FORT SNELLING.] They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing Precious Seed, Shall doubtless come again With rejoicing, Bringing his sheaves. _Psalm 126._ Chapter I. _Now appear the flow'rets fair_ _Beautiful beyond compare_ _And all nature seems to say,_ "_Welcome, welcome, blooming May._" It was 1834. A lovely day--the opening of the merry month of May! The Warrior, a Mississippi steamer, glided out of Fever River, at Galena, Illinois, and turned its prow up the Mississippi. Its destination was the mouth of the St. Peters--now Minnesota River--five hundred miles to the north--the port of entry to the then unknown land of the Upper Mississippi. The passengers formed a motley group; officers, soldiers, fur-traders, adventurers, and two young men from New England. These latter were two brothers, Samuel William and Gideon Hollister Pond, from Washington, Connecticut. At this time, Samuel the elder of the two, was twenty-six years of age and in form, tall and very slender as he continued through life. Gideon, the younger and more robust brother was not quite twenty-four, more than six feet in height, strong and active, a specimen of well developed manhood. With their clear blue eyes, and their tall, fully developed forms, they must have attracted marked attention even among that band of brawny frontiersmen. In 1831 a gracious revival had occurred in their native village of Washington. It was so marked in its character, and permanent in its results, that it formed an epoch in the history of that region and is still spoken of as "the great revival". For months, during the busiest season of the year, crowded sunrise prayer-meetings were held daily and were well attended by an agricultural population, busily engaged every day in the pressing toil of the harvest and the hayfields. Scores were converted and enrolled themselves as soldiers of the cross. Among these were the two Pond brothers. This was, in reality with them, the beginning of a new life. From this point in their lives, the inspiring motive, with both these brothers, was a spirit of intense loyalty to their new Master and a burning love for the souls of their fellowmen. Picked by the Holy Spirit out of more than one hundred converts for special service for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Pond brothers resolutely determined to choose a field of very hard service, one to which no others desired to go. In the search for such a field, Samuel the elder brother, journeyed from New Haven to Galena, Illinois, and spent the autumn and winter of 1833-34 in his explorations. He visited Chicago, then a struggling village of a few hundred inhabitants and other embryo towns and cities. He also saw the Winnebago Indians and the Pottawatomies, but he was not led to choose a field of labor amongst any of these. A strange Providence finally pointed the way to Mr. Pond. In his efforts to reform a rumseller at Galena, he gained much information concerning the Sioux Indians, whose territory the rumseller had traversed on his way from the Red River country from which he had come quite recently. He represented the Sioux Indians as vile, degraded, ignorant, superstitious and wholly given up to evil. "There," said the rumseller, "is a people for whose souls nobody cares. They are utterly destitute of moral and religious teachings. No efforts have ever been made by Protestants for their salvation. If you fellows are looking, in earnest, for a _hard job_, there is one ready for you to tackle on those bleak prairies." This man's description of the terrible condition of the Sioux Indians in those times was fairly accurate. Those wild, roving and utterly neglected Indians were proper subjects for Christian effort and promised to furnish the opportunities for self-denying and self-sacrificing labors for which the brothers were seeking. Mr. Pond at once recognized this peculiar call as from God. After prayerful deliberation, Samuel determined to write to his brother Gideon, inviting the latter to join him early the following spring, and undertake with him an independent mission to the Sioux. He wrote to Gideon:--"I have finally found the field of service for which we have long been seeking. It lies in the regions round about Fort Snelling. It is among the savage Sioux of those far northern plains. They are an ignorant, savage and degraded people. It is said to be a very cold, dreary, storm-swept region. But we are not seeking a soft spot to rest in or easy service. So come on." Despite strong, almost bitter opposition from friends and kinsmen, Gideon accepted and began his preparations for life among the Indians, and in March, 1834, he bade farewell to his friends and kindred and began his journey westward. Early in April, he arrived at Galena, equipped for their strange, Heaven-inspired mission. He found his brother firmly fixed in his resolution to carry out the plans already decided upon. In a few days we find them on the steamer's deck, moving steadily up the mighty father of waters, towards their destination. "This _is_ a serious undertaking," remarked the younger brother as they steamed northward. And such it was. There was in it no element of attractiveness from a human view-point. They expected to go among roving tribes, to have no permanent abiding place and to subsist as those wild and savage tribes subsisted. Their plan was a simple and feasible one, as they proved by experience, but one which required large stores of faith and fortitude every step of the way. They knew, also, that outside of a narrow circle of personal friends, none knew anything of this mission to the Sioux, or felt the slightest interest in its success or failure. But undismayed they pressed on. The scenery of the Upper Mississippi is still pleasing to those eyes, which behold it, clothed in its springtime robes of beauty. In 1834, this scenery shone forth in all the primeval glory of "nature unmarred by the hand of man." [Illustration: SAMUEL W. POND, 20 Years a Missionary to the Sioux.] [Illustration: GIDEON H. POND, For Twenty years Missionary to the Dakotas.] As the steamer Warrior moved steadily on its way up the Mississippi, the rich May verdure, through which they passed, appeared strikingly beautiful to the two brothers, who then beheld it for the first time. It was a most delightful journey and ended on the sixth day of May, at the dock at old Fort Snelling. This was then our extreme outpost of frontier civilization. It had been established in 1819, as our front-guard against the British and Indians of the Northwest. It was located on the high plateau, lying between the Mississippi and the Minnesota (St. Peters) rivers, and it was then the only important place within the limits of the present state of Minnesota. While still on board the Warrior, the brothers received a visit and a warm welcome from the Rev. William T. Boutell, a missionary of the American Board to the Ojibways at Leach Lake, Minnesota. He was greatly rejoiced to meet "these dear brethren, who, from love to Christ and for the poor red man, had come alone to this long-neglected field." A little later they stepped ashore, found themselves in savage environments and face to face with the grave problems they had come so far to solve. They were men extremely well fitted, mentally and physically, naturally and by training for the toils and privations of the life upon which they had now entered. Sent, not by man but by the Lord; appointed, not by any human authority but by the great Jehovah; without salary or any prospects of worldly emoluments, unknown, unheralded, those humble but heroic men began, in dead earnest, their grand life-work. Their mission and commission was to conquer that savage tribe of fierce, prairie warriors, by the two-edged sword of the spirit of the living God and to mold them aright, by the power of the Gospel of His Son. And God was with them as they took up their weapons (not carnal but spiritual) in this glorious warfare. They speedily found favor with the military authorities, and with one of the most prominent chieftains of that time and region--Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky. The former gave them full authority to prosecute their mission among the Indians; the latter cordially invited them to establish their residence at his village on the shore of Lake Calhoun. The present site of Minneapolis was then simply a vast, wind-swept prairie, uninhabited by white men. A single soldier on guard at the old government sawmill at St. Anthony Falls was the only representative of the Anglo-Saxons, where now dwell hundreds of thousands of white men of various nationalities. Busy, bustling, beautiful Minneapolis, with its elegant homes; its commodious churches; its great University--with its four thousand students--; its well-equipped schools--with their forty-two thousand pupils--; its great business blocks; its massive mills; its humming factories; its broad avenues; its pleasant parks; its population of a quarter of a million of souls; all this had not then even been as much as dreamed of. Four miles west of St. Anthony Falls, lies Lake Calhoun, and a short distance to the south is Lake Harriet, (two most beautiful sheets of water, both within the present limits of Minneapolis). The intervening space was covered by a grove of majestic oaks. Here, in 1834, was an Indian village of five hundred Sioux. Their habitations were teepees, made of tamarack bark or of skins of wild beasts. Their burial ground covered a part of lovely Lakewood, the favorite cemetery of the city of Minneapolis. This band recognized Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky as their chief, whom they both respected and loved. He was then about forty years of age. He was an intelligent man, of an amiable disposition and friendly to the approach of Civilization. Here, under the auspices of this famous chieftain, they erected for themselves a snug, little home, near the junction of Thirty-fifth street and Irving Avenue South, Minneapolis. It was built of large oak logs. The dimensions were twelve feet by sixteen and eight feet high. Straight tamarack poles formed the timbers of the roof. The roof itself was the bark of trees, fastened with strings of the inner bark of the basswood. A partition of small logs divided the house into two rooms. The ceiling was of slabs from the old government sawmill at St. Anthony Falls. The door was made of boards, split from a tree with an axe, and had wooden hinges and fastenings and was locked by pulling in the latch-string. The single window was the gift of the kind-hearted Major Taliaferro, the United States Indian agent at Fort Snelling. The cash cost of the whole was one shilling, New York currency, for nails, used about the door. The formal opening was the reading of a portion of Scripture and prayer. The banquet consisted of mussels from the Lake, flour and water. This cabin was the first house erected within the present limits of Minneapolis; it was the home of the first citizen settlers of Minnesota and was the first house used as a school-room and for divine worship in the state. It was a noble testimony to the faith, zeal and courage of its builders. Here these consecrated brothers inaugurated their great work. In 1839 it was torn down for materials with which to construct breastworks for the defense of the Sioux, after the bloody battle of Rum River, against their feudal foes, the Ojibways. Here amid such lovely natural surroundings were the very beginnings of this mighty enterprise. The first lesson was given early in May, by Samuel Pond to Big Thunder chieftain of the Kaposia band, whose teepees were scattered over the bluffs, where now stands the city of St. Paul. His chief soldier was Big Iron. His son was Little Crow, who became famous or rather infamous, as the leader against the whites in the terrible tragedy of '62. Later in May the second lesson was taught by Gideon Pond to members of the Lake Calhoun band. Both lessons were in the useful and civilizing art of plowing and were the first in that grand series of lessons, covering more than seventy years, and by which the Sioux nation have been lifted from savagery to civilization. While God was preparing the Pond brothers in the hill country of Connecticut for their peculiar life-work, and opening up the way for them to engage in it, He also had in training in the school of His Providences, in Massachusetts and Ohio, fitting helpers for them in this great enterprise. In the early 30's, at Ripley, Ohio, Dr. Thomas S. Williamson and Mrs. Margaret Poage Williamson, a young husband and wife, were most happily located, in the practice of his profession and in the upbuilding of a happy Christian home. To this young couple the future seemed full of promise and permanent prosperity. Children were born to them; they were prosperous and an honorable name was being secured through the faithful discharge of the duties of his most noble profession and of Christian citizenship. They regarded themselves as happily located for life. The mission call to Dr. and Mrs. Williamson was emphasized by the messenger of death. When the missionary call first came to them, they excused themselves on account of their children. God removed the seeming obstacles, one by one. The little ones were called to the arms of Jesus. "A great trial!" A great blessing also. The way was thus cleared from a life of luxury and ease in Ohio to one of great denial and self sacrifice on mission fields. The bereaved parents recognized this call as from God, and by faith, both father and mother were enabled to say, "Here are we; send us." "This decision," says an intimate friend, "neither of them after for one moment regretted; neither did they doubt that they were called of God to this great work, nor did they fear that their life-work would prove a failure." With characteristic devotion and energy, Dr. Williamson put aside a lucrative practice, and at once, entered on a course of preparation for his new work for which his previous life and training had already given him great fitness. In 1833, he put himself under the care of the Presbytery of Chillicothe, removed with his family to Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, and entered Lane Seminary. While the Pond brothers in their log cabin at Lake Calhoun were studying the Sioux language, Dr. Williamson was completing his theological course on the banks of the beautiful river. He was ordained to the office of the gospel ministry in 1834. And in May, 1835, he landed at Fort Snelling with another band of missionaries. He was accompanied by his quiet, lovely, faithful wife, Margaret, and one child, his wife's sister, Sarah Poage, afterwards Mrs. Gideon H. Pond, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander G. Huggins and two children. Mr. Huggins came as a teacher and farmer. During a stay of a few weeks here, Dr. Williamson presided at the organization of the first Protestant congregation in Minnesota, which was called the Presbyterian church of St. Peters. It consisted of officers, soldiers, fur-traders, and members of the mission families--twenty-one in all; seven of whom were received on confession of faith. It was organized at Fort Snelling, June 11, 1835, and still exists as the First Presbyterian church of Minneapolis, with more than five hundred members. [Illustration: The Old Fort Snelling Church Developed.] [Illustration: AT LAKE MINNETONKA.] Early in July, Dr. Williamson pushed on in the face of grave difficulties, two hundred miles to the west, to the shores of Lac-qui-Parle, the Lake-that-speaks. Here they were cordially welcomed by Joseph Renville, that famous Brois Brule trader, the half-breed chief who ruled that region for many years, by force of his superior education and native abilities, and who ever was a strong and faithful friend of the missionaries. He gave them a temporary home and was helpful in many ways. Well did the Lord repay him for his kindness to His servants. His wife became the first full-blood Sioux convert to the Christian faith, and his youngest son, John Baptiste Renville, then a little lad, became the first native Presbyterian minister, one of the acknowledged leaders of his people. June, 1837, another pair of noble ones joined the ranks of the workers by the Lakeside. These were the Rev. Stephen Return Riggs and his sweet New England Mary, he was a native of the beautiful valley of the Ohio; she was born amid the green hills of Massachusetts. His father was a Presbyterian elder of Steubenville, Ohio; her mother was a daughter of New England. She herself was a pupil of the cultured and sainted Mary Lyon of Mount Holyoke. They were indeed choice spirits, well-fitted by nature and by training for a place in that heroic band, which God was then gathering together on the shores of Lakes Calhoun and Harriet and Lac-qui-Parle, for the conquest of the fiercest tribe of prairie warriors that ever roamed over the beautiful plains of the New Northwest. He was a scholar and a linguist; courageous, energetic, firm, diplomatic; she was cultured, gentle, tactful, and withal, both were intensely spiritual and deeply devoted to the glorious work of soul-winning. Both had been trained as missionaries, with China as a prospective field of service. Step by step in the Providence of God, they were drawn together as life companions and then turned from the Orient to the Western plains. During these years of beginnings, Dr. Williamson formed the acquaintance of Stephen R. Riggs, then a young man, which culminated in a life-long alliance of love and service. During his seminary course, Mr. Riggs received a letter from his missionary friend, to which he afterwards referred thus: "It seems to me now, strange that he should have indicated in that letter the possible line of work open to me, which has been so closely followed. I remember especially the prominence he gave to the thought that the Bible should be translated into the language of the Dakotas. Men do sometimes yet write as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. That letter decided my going westward rather than to China." It was a lovely day, the first of June, when this young bride and groom arrived at Fort Snelling. Though it was their honeymoon, they did not linger long in the romantic haunts of Minnehaha and the Lakes; but pressed on to Lac-qui-Parle and joined hands with the toilers there in their mighty work of laying foundations broad and deep in the wilderness, like the coral workers in the ocean depths, out of sight of man. What a glorious trio of mission family bands were then gathered on Minnesota's lovely plains, on the shores of those beautiful lakes! Pond, Williamson, Riggs. Names that will never be forgotten while a Sioux Christian exists in earth or glory. [Illustration: A PARK DRIVE, LAKE CALHOUN.] [Illustration: SOLDIERS' HOME.] When the American Mission Hall of Fame shall be erected these three names will shine out high upon the dome like "apples of gold in pictures of silver," Pond, Williamson, Riggs. "And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name. * * * And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels." Chapter II. In 1836, within one year from the arrival of Dr. Williamson and his missionary party at Lac-qui-Parle, a church was organized, with six native members, which in 1837, consisted of seven Dakotas, besides half-breeds and whites, and, within five years, had enrolled forty-nine native communicants. Of this congregation Alexander G. Huggins and Joseph Renville were the ruling elders. An adobe church edifice was erected in 1841, which for eighteen years met the wants of this people. In its belfry was hung the first church bell that ever rang out over the prairies of Minnesota, the sweet call to the worship of the Savior of the human race. The services of the church were usually held in the native language. The hymns were sung to French tunes, which were then the most popular. At the beginning, translations from the French of a portion of Scripture were read and some explanatory remarks were made by Joseph Renville. The first school for teaching Indians to read and write in the Dakota language, was opened in December, 1835, at Lac-qui-Parle, in a conical Dakota tent, twenty feet in height and the same in diameter. At first the men objected to being taught for various frivolous reasons, but they were persuaded to make the effort. The school apparatus was primitive and mainly extemporized on the spot. Progress was slow; the attendance small and irregular, but in the course of three months, they were able to write to each other on birch bark. Those who learned to read and write the language properly, soon became interested in the gospel. The first five men, who were gathered into the church, were pupils of this first school. Of the next twenty, three were pupils and fourteen were the kindred of its pupils. Among their descendants were three Dakota pastors and many of the most faithful and fruitful communicants. [Illustration: MINNEAPOLIS IN 1857.] One large log-house of five rooms, within the Renville stockade, furnished a home for the three mission families of Dr. Williamson, Rev. Stephen R. Riggs and Gideon H. Pond. One room was both church and school room for years. Under this roof the missionaries met frequently for conference, study and translation of the word of God. Here, September 30, 1844, the original Dakota Presbytery was organized. For several years most of the members of this congregation were women. Once in the new and then unfinished church edifice, more than one hundred Indian men were gathered. When urged to accept Christ and become members of this church, they replied that the church was made up of squaws. Did the missionaries suppose the braves would follow the lead of squaws? Ugh! Ugh!! For the first seven years, at Lac-qui-Parle, mission work was prosecuted, with marked success in spite of many grave hindrances. But for the four years following--1842-46--the work was seriously retarded. The crops failed and the savages charged their misfortunes to the missionaries. They became very ugly, and began a series of petty yet bitter persecutions against the Christian Indians and the missionaries. The children were forbidden to attend school; the women who favored the church had their blankets cut to pieces and were shut away from contact with the mission. The cattle and horses of the mission were killed, and for a season the Lord's work was stayed at Lac-qui-Parle. Discouraged, but not dismayed His servants were watchful for other opportunities of helpful service. In 1846, the site of the present, prosperous city of St. Paul, was occupied by a few shanties, owned by "certain lewd fellows of the baser sort," sellers of rum to the soldiers and the Indians. Nearby, scattered over the bluffs, were the teepees of Little Crow's band, forming the Sioux village of Kaposia. In 1846, Little Crow, their belligerent chieftain, was shot by his own brother, in a drunken revel. He survived the wound, but apparently alarmed at the influence of these modern harpies over himself and his people, he visited Fort Snelling and begged a missionary for his village. The United States agent stationed there forwarded this petition to Lac-qui-Parle with the suggestion that Dr. Williamson be transferred to Kaposia. The invitation was accepted by the doctor, so in November, 1846, he became a resident of Kaposia (now South St. Paul). To this new station, he carried the same energy, hopefulness and devotion, he had shown at the beginning. Here he remained six years, serving not only the Indians of Little Crow's band, but also doing great good to the white settlers, who were then gathering around the future Capital City of Minnesota. Here in 1848, he organized an Indian church of eight members. It increased to fifteen members, in 1851, when the Indians were removed. Then followed the treaty of 1851, which was of great import, both to the white man and to the red man. By this treaty, the fertile valley of the Minnesota was thrown open for settlement to the whites. This took away from the Sioux their hunting-grounds, their cranberry marshes, their deer-parks and the graves of their ancestors. So the Dakotas of the Mississippi and lower Minnesota packed up their teepees, their household goods and gods, some in canoes, some on ponies, some on dogs, some on the women, and slowly and sadly took up their line of march towards the setting of the sun. No sooner did the Indians move than Dr. Williamson followed them and established a new station at Yellow Medicine, on the West bank of the Minnesota river and three miles above the mouth of the Yellow Medicine river. The first winter there, was a fight for life. The house was unfinished; a very severe winter set in unusually early, the snows were deep and the drifts terrible; the supply-teams were snowed in; the horses perished, the provisions were abandoned to the wolves and the drivers reached home in a half-frozen condition. But God cared for His servants. In this emergency, the Rev. M. N. Adams, of Lac-qui-Parle, performed a most heroic act. In mid-winter, with the thermometer many degrees below zero, he hauled flour and other provisions for the missionaries, on a hand sled, from Lac-qui-Parle to Yellow Medicine, a distance of thirty-two miles. The fish gathered in shoals, an unusual occurrence, near the mission and both the Indians and the missionaries lived through that terrible winter. Here, an Indian church of seventeen members was organized by Dr. Williamson. It increased to a membership of thirty in the next decade. In March, 1854, the mission houses at Lac-qui-Parle were destroyed by fire. A consolidation of the mission forces was soon after effected. Dr. Riggs and other helpers were transferred from Lac-qui-Parle to a point two miles distant from Yellow Medicine and called Omehoo (Hazelwood). A comfortable mission home was erected. The native Christians removed from Lac-qui-Parle and re-established their homes at Hazelwood. A boarding school was soon opened at this point by Rev. M. N. Adams. A neat chapel was also erected. A church of thirty members was organized by Mr. Riggs. It grew to a membership of forty-five before the massacre. These were mainly from the the Lac-qui-Parle church which might be called the mother of all the Dakota churches. There were now gathered around the mission stations, quite a community of young men, who had to a great extent, become civilized. With civilization came new wants--pantaloons and coats and hats. There was power also in oxen and wagons and brick-houses. The white man's axe and plow and hoe had been introduced and the red man was learning to use them. So the external civilization went on. But the great and prominent force was in the underlying education and especially in the vitalizing and renewing power of Christian truth. So far as the inner life was changed, civilized habits became permanent; otherwise they were shadows. Evangelization was working out civilization. It is doing its permanently blessed work even yet. About this time occurred the formation of the Hazelwood Republic. This was a band of Indians somewhat advanced in civilization, who were organized chiefly by the efforts of Dr. Riggs, under a written constitution and by-laws. Their officers were a President, Secretary and three judges, who were elected by a vote of the membership for a term of two years each. Paul Maza-koo-ta-mane was the first president and served for two terms. This was an interesting experiment, in the series of efforts, by the missionaries, to change this tribe of nomads from their roving teepee life to that of permanent dwellers in fixed habitations. The rude shock of savage warfare, which soon after revolutionized the whole Sioux nation, swept it away before its efficiency could be properly tested. Surely it was a novelty--an Indian band, regulated by written laws and governed by officers, elected by themselves for a term of years. It now exists only in the memory of the oldest of the tribesmen or the missionaries. In 1843, a new station was established at Traverse des Sioux (near St. Peter, Minnesota,) by the Rev. Stephen R. Riggs. This station was doomed to a tragic history. July 15, 1843, Thomas Longley, the favorite brother of Mrs. Mary Riggs, was suddenly swallowed up in the treacherous waters of the Minnesota and laid to rest under what his sister was wont to call the "Oaks of weeping"--three dwarf oaks on a small knoll. In 1844, Robert Hopkins and his young bride joined the workers here. In 1851, July 4, Mr. Hopkins was suddenly swept away to death by the fatal waves of the Minnesota and his recovered body was laid to rest under the oaks where Thomas Longley had slept all alone for seven years. Thus the mission at Traverse des Sioux was closed by the messenger of death. It was continued, however, in the nearby frontier town of St. Peter, whose white settlers requested the Rev. M. N. Adams, one of the missionaries to the Sioux, to devote his time to their spiritual needs. He complied and founded a white Presbyterian church and it is one of the strong Protestant organizations of Southern Minnesota. In 1843, also the Pond brothers established a station at Oak Grove, twelve miles west of the Falls of St. Anthony. It was never abandoned. For many years it was the center of beneficent influences to both races for miles around. It developed into the white Presbyterian church of Oak Grove, which still stands as a monument to the many noble qualities of its founder, Rev. Gideon Hollister Pond. On the Sabbath scores of his descendants worship within its walls. The surrounding community is composed largely of Ponds and their kindred. In 1846, a mission was established at Red Wing by the Reverends J. F. Aiton and J. W. Hancock, and another in 1860, at Red Wood by Rev. John P. Williamson. In 1858, a church was organized at Red Wing with twelve members. This was swept away by the outbreak in 1862. Dr. John P. Williamson, who was born in 1835, in one of the mission cabins on the shores of Lac-qui-Parle, who has spent his whole life among the Sioux Indians, and who with a singleness of purpose, worthy of the apostle Paul, has devoted his whole life to their temporal and spiritual uplift, thus vividly sketches missionary life among the Sioux in his boyhood days: "My first serious impression of life was that I was living under a great weight of something, and as I began to discern more clearly, I found this weight to be the all-surrounding overwhelming presence of heathenism, and all the instincts of my birth and culture of a Christian home set me at antagonism to it at every point. "This feeling of disgust was often accompanied with fear. At times, violence stalked abroad unchallenged and dark lowering faces skulked about. Even when we felt no personal danger this incubus of savage life all around weighed on our hearts. Thus it was day and night. Even those hours of twilight, which brood with sweet influences over so many lives, bore to us, on the evening air, the weird cadences of the heathen dance or the chill thrill of the war-whoop. Ours was a serious life. The earnestness of our parents in the pursuit of their work could not fail to impress in some degree the children. The main purpose of Christianizing that people was felt in everything. It was like garrison life in time of war. But this seriousness was not ascetical or moroseful. Far from it. Those missionary heroes were full of gladness. With all the disadvantages of such a childhood was the rich privilege of understanding the meaning of cheerful earnestness in Christian life." [Illustration: REV. STEPHEN R. RIGGS, D.D., LL.D., Forty-five Years a Missionary to the Dakotas.] Chapter III. Thus for more than a quarter of a century, the glorious work of conquering the Sioux nation for Christ went on. It was pushed vigorously at every mission station from Lac-qui-Parle to Red Wing and from Kaposia to Hazelwood. Great progress was made in these years. And such a work! The workers were buried out of sight of their fellow-white men. Lac-qui-Parle was more remote from Boston than Manilla is today. It took Stephen R. Riggs three months to pass with his New England bride from the green hills of her native state to Fort Snelling. It was a further journey of thirteen days over a trackless trail, through the wilderness, to their mission home on the shores of the Lake-that-speaks. Even as late as 1843, it required a full month's travel for the first bridal tour of Agnes Carson Johnson as Mrs. Robert Hopkins from the plains of Ohio to the prairies of Minnesota. It was no pleasure tour in Pullman palace cars, on palatial limited trains, swiftly speeding over highly polished rails from the far east to the Falls of St. Anthony, in those days. It was a weary, weary pilgrimage of weeks by boat and stage, by private conveyance and oft-times on foot. One can make a tour of Europe today with greater ease and in less time than those isolated workers at Lac-qui-Parle could revisit their old homes in Ohio and New England. Within their reach was no smithy and no mill until they built one; there was no post office within one hundred miles, and all supplies were carried from Boston to New Orleans by sloops; then by steamboats almost the whole length of the Mississippi; then the flatboat-men sweated and swore as they poled them up the Minnesota to the nearest landing-place; then they had to be hauled overland one hundred and twenty-five miles. These trips were ever attended with heavy toil, often with great suffering and sometimes with loss of life. Small was the support received from the Board. The entire income of the mission, including government aid to the schools, was less than one thousand dollars a year. Upon this meager sum, three ordained missionaries, two teachers and farmers, and six women, with eight or ten children were maintained. This also, covered travelling expenses, books and printing. The rude and varied dialects of the different bands of the savage Sioux had been reduced to a written language. This was truly a giant task. It required men who were fine linguists, very studious, patient, persistent, and capable of utilizing their knowledge under grave difficulties. Such _were_ the Ponds, Dr. Williamson, Mr. Riggs and Joseph Renville by whom the great task was accomplished. It took months and years of patient, persistent, painstaking efforts; but it was finally accomplished. In 1852, the Dakota Dictionary and Grammar were published by the Smithsonian Institute at its expense. The dictionary contained sixteen thousand words and received the warm commendation of philologists generally. The language itself is still growing and valuable additions are being made to it year by year. Within a few years, a revised and greatly enlarged edition should be, and probably will be published for the benefit of the Sioux nation. The Word of God too, had been translated into this wild, barbaric tongue. This was in truth a mighty undertaking. It involved on the part of the translators a knowledge of the French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Sioux tongues and required many years of unremitting toil on the part of those, who wrought out its accomplishment in their humble log cabins on the shores of Lakes Calhoun and Lac-qui-Parle, and at Kaposia and Traverse des Sioux, Yellow Medicine and Hazelwood. But it, too, was completed and published in 1879, by the American Bible Society. Hymn-books and textbooks had also been prepared and published in the new language. Books like the Pilgrims Progress had been issued in it--a literature for a great nation had been created. Comfortable churches and mission homes had been erected at the various mission stations. Out of the eight thousand Sioux Indians in Minnesota, more than one hundred converts had been gathered into the church. The faithful missionaries, who had toiled so long, with but little encouragement, now looked forward hopefully into the future. Apparently the time to favor their work had come. But suddenly all their pleasant anticipations vanished--all their high hopes were blasted. It was August 17, 1862, a lovely Sabbath of the Lord. It was sacramental Sabbath at Hazelwood. As their custom was, that congregation of believers and Yellow Medicine came together to commemorate their Lord's death. The house was well-filled and the missionaries have ever remembered that Sabbath as one of precious interest, for it was the last time they ever assembled in that beautiful little chapel. A great trial of their faith and patience was before them and they knew it not. But the loving Saviour knew that both the missionaries and the native Christians required just such a rest with Him before the terrible trials came upon them. As the sun sank that day into the bosom of the prairies, a fearful storm of fire and blood burst upon the defenseless settlers and missionaries. Like the dread cyclone, it came, unheralded, and like that much-to-be-dreaded monster of the prairies, it left desolation and death in its pathway. The Sioux arose against the whites and in their savage wrath swept the prairies of Western Minnesota as with a besom of destruction. One thousand settlers perished and hundreds of happy homes were made desolate. The churches, school-houses and homes of the missionaries were laid in ashes. However, all the missionaries and their households escaped safely out of this fiery furnace of barbaric fury to St. Paul and Minneapolis. All else seemed lost beyond the possibility of recovery. In dismay, the missionaries fled from the wreck of their churches and homes. There were forty persons in that band of fugitives, missionaries and their friends, who spent a week of horrors--never-to-be-forgotten--in their passage over the prairies to St. Paul and Minneapolis. By day they were horrified by the marks of bloody cruelties along their pathway--dead and mangled bodies, wrecked and abandoned homes. At night, they were terrified by the flames of burning homes and fears of the tomahawks and the scalping knives of their cruel foes. The nights were full of fear and dread. Every voice was hushed except to give necessary orders; every eye swept the hills and valleys around; every ear was intensely strained to catch the faintest noise, in momentary expectation of the unearthly war-whoop and of seeing dusky forms with gleaming tomahawks uplifted. In the moonlight mirage of the prairies, every taller clump of grass, every blacker hillock grew into a blood thirsty Indian, just ready to leap upon them. But, by faith, they were able to sing in holy confidence: "God is our refuge and our strength; In straits a present aid; Therefore although the hills remove We will not be afraid." And the God, in whom they trusted, fulfilled his promises to them and brought them all, in safety, to the Twin Cities. And as they passed the boundary line of safety, every heart joined in the glad-song of praise and thanksgiving, which went up to heaven. "Jehovah has triumphed, His people are free," seemed to ring through the air. Little Crow, the chieftain of the Kaposia Band was the acknowledged leader of the Indian forces in this uprising. He was forty years of age, possessed of considerable military ability; wise in council and brave on the field of battle. He had wrought, in secret, with his fellow-tribesmen, until he had succeeded in the formation of the greatest combination of the Indians against the whites since the days of Tecumseh and the Prophet in the Ohio country, fifty years before. He had under his control a large force of Indian warriors armed with Winchesters; and on the morning of the battle, he mustered on the hills around New Ulm, the largest body of Indian cavalry ever gathered together in America. [Illustration: MINNEHAHA FALLS.] [Illustration: PERILS BY THE HEATHEN Missionaries fleeing from Indian massacre in 1862. Thursday morning of that terrible week, after an all-night's rain, found them all cold, wet through and utterly destitute of cooked food and fuel. That noon they came to a clump of trees and camped down on the wet prairies for the rest of the day. They killed a stray cow and made some bread out of flour, salt and water. An artist, one of the company, took the pictures here given.] The whites arose in their might and, under the leadership of that gallant general, Henry H. Sibley, gave battle to their savage foes. Then followed weeks of fierce and bloody warfare. It was no child's play. On the one side were arrayed the fierce warriors of the Sioux nation, fighting for their ancestral homes, their ancient hunting grounds, their deer-parks and the graves of their ancestors. "We _must_ drive the white man east of the Mississippi," was the declaration of Little Crow, and he added the savage boast; "We will establish our winter-quarters in St. Paul and Minneapolis." Over against them, were the brave pioneers of Minnesota, battling for the existence of their beloved state, for their homes, and for the lives and honor of their wives and daughters. The thrilling history of the siege of New Ulm, of the battle of Birch Coullie, of Fort Ridgely and Fort Abercrombie, and of other scenes of conflict is written in the mingled blood of the white man, and of the red man on the beautiful plains of western Minnesota. The inevitable result ensued. The Sioux were defeated, large numbers were slain in battle or captured, and in despair, the others fled to the then uninhabited regions beyond the Red River of the North. Many of these found refuge under the British flag in Prince Rupert's Land (now Manitoba). One of the redeeming features in this terrible tragedy of '62, was the unflinching loyalty of the Christian Sioux to the cause of peace. They stood firmly together against the war-party and for the whites. They abandoned their homes and pitched their teepees closely together. This became the rallying point for all who were opposed to the outbreak. They called it Camp Hope, which was changed after the flight of Little Crow's savage band to Camp Lookout. Two days later, when General Sibley's victorious troops arrived, it was named Camp Release. Then it was that the captives, more than three hundred in number were released, chiefly through the efforts of the Christianized Indians. In 1902, at the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the battle of New Ulm, by invitation of the citizens, a band of Sioux Indians pitched their teepees in the public square and participated in the exercises of the occasion. This was a striking illustration of the amity now existing between the two races upon the very ground, where their immediate ancestors so eagerly sought each other's life-blood, in the recent past. Here on the morn of battle, on the surrounding hills, in the long ago, Little Crow had marshalled his fierce warriors, who rushed eagerly in savage glee, again and again, to the determined assault, only to be driven back, by the brave Anglo-Saxon defenders. Tablets, scattered here and there over the plains, in the valley of the Minnesota River, tell the story of the Sioux nation, in the new Northwest. John Baptiste Renville, a licentiate of the Presbyterian church, and who later was a famous preacher of great power among his own people, remained inside of the Indian lines, and was a powerful factor in causing the counter revolution which hastened the overthrow of the rebellion, and the deliverance of the white captives. Elder Peter Big Fire turned the war party from the trail of the fleeing missionaries and their friends, thus saving two-score lives. One Indian alone, John Other-Day, saved the lives of sixty-two whites. One elder of the church, Simon Anakwangnanne, restored a captive white woman and three children. And still another, Paul Mintakutemanne, rescued a white woman and several children and a whole family of half-breeds. These truly "good Indians" saved the lives of more than their own number of whites,--probably two hundred souls in all. In token of her appreciation of these invaluable services, Minnesota has caused a monument to be erected in honor of these real braves, on the very plains, then swept by the Sioux with fire and blood, in their savage wrath. It is located on the battlefield of Birch Coullie, near Morton in Renville County. The cenotaph is built entirely of native stone of different varieties. It rises to the height of fifty-eight feet above the beautiful prairies by which it is surrounded. It bears this appropriate inscription HUMANITY. Erected A.D. 1899, by the Minnesota Valley Historical Society to commemorate the brave, faithful and humane conduct of the loyal Indians who saved the lives of white people and were true to their obligations throughout the Sioux war in Minnesota in 1862, and especially to honor the services of those here named: Other Day--Ampatutoricna. Paul--Mintakutemanne. Lorenzo Lawrence--Towanctaton. Simon--Anakwangnanne. Mary Crooks--Mankahta Heita-win. Chapter IV. "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?"--_Isaiah 60:8._ But now occurred the strangest phase of this wondrously strange story. In November, 1862, four hundred defeated Indian warriors, many of them leaders of their people, were confined in prison-pens at Mankato, Minnesota. While free on the prairies, these wild warriors had bitterly hated the missionaries with all the intensity of their savage natures. They had vigorously opposed every effort of the missionaries in their behalf. They had scornfully rejected the invitations of the Gospel. But now in their claims, they earnestly desired to hear the glad tidings they had formerly scorned. They sent for the missionaries to visit them in prison and the missionaries responded with eager joy. And the Holy Spirit accompanied them. Thirty-eight of the prisoners were under the death-sentence and were executed in December. "I remember," said Dr. Williamson, "feeling a great desire to preach to them, mingled with a kind of terror partly from a sense of grave responsibility in speaking to so many whose probation was so nearly closed, and partly from a sense of fear of hearing them say to me "Go home; when we were free we would not hear you preach to us; why do you come here to torment us when we are in chains and cannot go away." It was a great relief to find them listening intently to all I had to say." The prisoners were supplied with Bibles and other books, and for a time, the prison became a school. They were all eager to learn. The more their minds were directed to God and His Word, the more they became interested in secular studies. Very soon the Indians of their own accord began holding meetings every morning and evening in which they sang and spoke and prayed. In a short time, there were ninety converts that would lead in public prayer. Of those who were executed, thirty were baptized. Standing in a foot of snow, manacled two and two, they frequently gathered to sing and pray and listen to the words of eternal life. Of this work, the Rev. Gideon H. Pond wrote at the time; "There is a degree of religious interest manifested by them, which is incredible. They huddle themselves together every morning and evening, read the scriptures, sing hymns, confess one to another and pray together. They declare they have left their superstitions forever, and that they do and will embrace the religion of Jesus." In March, Mr. Pond visited Mankato again and spent two Sabbaths with the men in prison, establishing them in their new faith. Before his departure, he administered the Lord's supper, to these new converts. And again the Mankato prison-pens witnessed a strange and wondrous scene. Three hundred embittered, defeated Indian warriors, manacled, fettered with balls and chains,--but clothed and in their right minds,--were sitting in groups upon the wintry grounds reverently observing the Lord's supper. Elders Robert Hopkins, Peter Big-Fire and David Grey Cloud officiated with reverence and dignity. The whole movement was marvelous! It was like a "nation born in a day." And after many years of severe testing, all who know the facts, testify that it was a genuine work of God's Holy Spirit. The massacre and the subsequent events destroyed the power of the Priests of Devils, which had previously ruled and ruined these wretches' tribes. They themselves, exploded the dynamite under the throne of Paganism and shattered it to fragments forever. In 1863, these Indians were transferred to Davenport, Iowa, where they were confined in prison for three years. In 1866 they were released by the government and returned to their native prairies, where they then became the nuclei of other churches, other Sabbath schools and other church organizations; and so these formerly savage Sioux became a benediction rather than a terror to their neighbors on the plains of the Dakotas. The church of the prison-pen became the prolific mother of churches. While these events were transpiring in the prison-pen at Mankato, a similar work of grace was also in progress in the prison camp at Fort Snelling, where fifteen hundred men, women and children, mainly the families of the Mankato prisoners, were confined under guard. The conditions, in both places, were very similar. In the camp as well as in the prison, they were in grave troubles and great anxieties. In their distresses they called mightily upon the Lord. Here John, the Beloved (John P. Williamson D.D.) ministered to their temporal and spiritual wants. The Lord heard and answered their burning and agonizing cries. By gradual steps, but with overwhelming power came the heavenly visitation. Many were convicted; confessions and professions were made; idols reverenced for many generations were thrown away by the score. More than one hundred and twenty were baptized and organized into a Presbyterian church, which, after years of bitter wandering, was united with the church of the Prison Pen and formed the large congregation of the Pilgrim church. Thus all that winter long, '62-3, there was in progress within the rude walls of those terrible prison-pens at Mankato, one of the most wonderful revivals since the day of Pentecost. And in February, '63, Dr. Williamson and Rev. Gideon H. Pond spent a week in special services amongst them. The most careful examinations possible were made into their individual spiritual condition and the most faithful instruction given them as to their Christian duties; then those Indian warriors were all baptized, received into the communion of the church and organized into a Presbyterian church within the walls of the stockade; _three hundred in a day_! Truly impressive was THE BAPTISMAL SCENE. The conditions of baptism were made very plain to the prisoners and it was offered to only such as were willing to comply fully with those conditions. All were forbidden to receive the rite, who did not do it heartily to the God of Heaven, whose eye penetrated each of their hearts. All, by an apparently hearty response, indicated their desire to receive the rite on the proffered conditions. As soon as the arrangements were completed, they came forward one by one, as their names were called and were baptized into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while each subject stood with the right hand raised and head bowed and many of them with their eyes closed with an appearance of profound reverence. As each came forward to be baptized one of the ministers addressed to him in a low voice a few appropriate words. This was the substance of these personal addresses. "My brother, this is a mark of God, which is placed upon you. You will carry it with you while you live. It introduces you into the great family of God who looks down from heaven, not upon your head but into your heart. This ends your superstition, and from this time you are to call God your Father. Remember to honor Him. Be resolved to do His will." Each one responded heartily, "Yes, I will." Gideon H. Pond then addressed them collectively. "Hitherto I have addressed you as friends; now I call you brethren. For years we have contended together on this subject of religion; now our contentions cease. We have one Father, we are one family. I shall soon leave you and shall probably see your faces no more in this world. Your adherence to the medicine sack and the Natawe (consecrated war weapons) have brought you to your ruin. The Lord Jesus Christ can save you. Seek him with all your heart. He looks not upon your heads nor on your lips but into your bosoms. Brothers, I will make use of a term of brotherly salutation, to which you have been accustomed to your medicine dances and say to you: "'Brethren I spread my hands over you and bless you.'"" Three hundred voices responded heartily, "'Amen, yea and Amen.'" Chapter V. It was 1884. Fifty years since the coming of the Pond brothers to Fort Snelling--twenty-one years since the organization of the church in the prison-pen at Mankato. One bright September day, from the heights of Sisseton, South Dakota, a strangely beautiful scene was spread out before the eye. In the distance the waters of Lake Traverse (source of the Red River of the North), and Big Stone Lake (head waters of the Minnesota), glistened in the bright sunshine, their waters almost commingling ere they began their diverse journeyings--the former to Hudson's Bay, the latter to the Gulf of Mexico. At our feet were prairies rich as the garden of the Lord. The spot was Iyakaptapte, that is the Ascension. Half-way up was a large wooden building, nestling in a grassy cove. Round about on the hillsides were white teepees. Dusky forms were passing to and fro and pressing round the doors and windows. We descended and found ourselves in the midst of a throng of Sioux Indians. Instinctively we asked ourselves, Why are they here? Is this one of their old pagan festivals? Or is it a council of war? We entered. The spacious house was densely packed; we pressed our way to the front. Hark! They are singing. We could not understand the words, but the air was familiar. It was Bishop Heber's hymn (in the Indian tongue): "From Greenlands icy mountains, From India's coral strand. * * * Salvation! O Salvation! The joyful sound proclaim, Till each remotest nation Has learned Messiah's Name. Waft, waft, ye winds, His story, And you, ye waters, roll, Till like a sea of glory It spreads from pole to pole." With what joyful emphasis, this strange congregation sang these words. We breathed easier. This was no pagan festival, no savage council of war. It was the fifteenth grand annual council of the Dakota Christian Indians of the Northwest. The singing was no weaklunged performance--not altogether harmonious, but vastly sweeter than a war-whoop; certainly hearty and sincere and doubtless an acceptable offering of praise. The Rev. John Baptiste Renville was the preacher. His theme was Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of Dry Bones. We did not knew how he handled his subject. But the ready utterance, the sweet flow of words, the simple earnestness of the speaker and the fixed attention of the audience marked it as a complete success. When the sermon was finished, there was another loud-voiced hymn and then the Council of Days was declared duly opened. Thus they gather themselves together, year by year to take counsel in reference to the things of the kingdom. The Indian moderator, Artemas Ehnamane, the Santee pastor, was a famous paddle-man, a mighty hunter and the son of a great conjuror and war-prophet, but withal a tender, faithful, spiritual pastor of his people. Rev. Alfred L. Riggs, D.D., the white moderator, who talked so glibly alternately in Sioux and English and smiled so sweetly in both languages at once, was "Good Bird," one of the first white babes born at Lac-qui-Parle. John, The Beloved, one of the chief white workers, as a boy had the site of Minneapolis and St. Paul for a play-ground, and the little Indian lads for his playmates. That week we spent at Iyakaptapte was a series of rich, rare treats. We listened to the theological class of young men, students of Santee and Sisseton. We watched the smiling faces of the women as they bowed in prayer, and brought their offerings to the missionary meetings. Such wondrous liberality those dark-faced sisters displayed. We marked with wonder the intense interest manifested hour by hour by all classes in the sermons, addresses, and especially in the discussion: "How shall we build up the church?" Elder David Grey Cloud said, "We must care for the church if we would make it effective. We must care for all we gather into the church." The Rev. James Red-Wing added, "The work of the church is heavy. When a Red River cart sticks in the mud we call all the help we can and together we lift it out; we must all lift the heavy load of the church." The Rev. David Grey Cloud closed with: "We must cast out all enmity, have love for one another and then we shall be strong." "Does the keeping of Dakota customs benefit or injure the Dakota People?" Deacon Boy-that-walks-on-the-water responded emphatically. "The ancient Dakota customs are all bad. There is no good in them. They are all sin, all sorrow. All medicine men are frauds. Jesus is the only one to hold to." Rev. Little-Iron-Thunder said "When I was a boy I was taught the sacred dances and all the mysteries; to shoot with the bag; to hold the sacred shell. To gain a name, the Dakotas will suffer hunger, cold, even death. But all this is a cheat. It will not give life to the people. Only one name will give life,--even Jesus." Rev. Daniel Renville declared: "Faith is the thing our people need; not faith in everything, but faith in Christ; not for hope of reward." There were evening gatherings in the interest of the Young Men's Christian Associations and the Young People's Christian Endeavor Societies. These are two of the most hopeful features of the work. With the young men and maidens of the tribe in careful training in Christian knowledge and for Christian service, there must be far-reaching and permanent beneficent results. Sabbath came! A glorious day! A fitting crown of glory for a week of such rare surprises. A strange chanting voice, like that of a herald mingled with our day-break dreams. Had we been among the Moslems, we should have thought it the muezzin's cry. It was all Indian to us, but it was indeed a call to prayer with this translation in English:-- "Morning is coming! Morning is coming! Wake up! Wake up! Come to sing! Come to pray." Very soon, the sweet music of prayer and praise from the white teepees on the hillside, rose sweetly on the air, telling us that the day of their glad solemnities had begun. The great congregation assembled in the open air. Pastor Renville, who as a little lad played at the feet of the translators of the Bible into the Sioux language, and who as a young man organized a counter revolution among the Christian Indians in favor of the government in the terrible days of '62, presided with dignity, baptizing a little babe and receiving several recent converts into the church. A man of rare powers and sweet temperament is the Rev. John Baptiste Renville, youngest son of the famous Joseph Renville. A wonderfully strange gathering is this. Hundreds of Indians seated in semi-circles on the grass, reverently observing the Lord's Supper. Probably one-third of the males in that assemblage were participants in the bloody wars of the Sioux nation. The sermon was delivered by Solomon His-Own-Grandfather, who had taken an active part in the war of 1862, but was now a missionary among his own people in Manitoba. The bread was broken by Artemas Ehnamane ("Walking Along"), who was condemned and pardoned, and then converted after that appalling tragedy in 1862. The wine was poured by the man whom all the Sioux lovingly call John (Dr. John P. Williamson) who led them in the burning revival scenes in the prison-camp at Fort Snelling in 1863. And as he referred to those thrilling times, their tears flowed like rain. It is said that Indians cannot weep, but scores of them wept that day at Ascension. One of the officiating elders was a son of the notorious chieftain Little Crow, who was so prominent against the Anglo-Saxons in those days of carnage. As we partook of those visible symbols of our Saviour's broken body, and shed blood, with this peculiar congregation, so recently accustomed to the war-whoop and the scalp-dance, we freely mingled our tears with theirs. And as our minds ranged over the vast Dakota field and as we remembered the thousands of Christian Sioux, their Presbytery and their Association, their scores of churches and their many Sabbath Schools, their Y.M.C.A. and their Y.P.S.C.E. associations, their missionary societies and other beneficent organizations, their farms and homes, their present pure, happy condition, and contrasted it with their former superstition, nakedness and filthy teepee life, we sang joyfully; Behold! What wondrous works Have, by the Lord, been wrought; Behold! What precious souls Have, by His blood, been bought. As the shades of evening drew on, the different bands held their farewell meetings in their teepees. There were sounds of sweet music--joyous ones--echoing and re-echoing over the prairies--"He leadeth me, Oh precious thought," "Nearer, my God to thee," "Blessed Assurance, Jesus hath given"--until the whole was blended in one grand refrain:-- "Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love; The fellowship of Christian minds Is like to that above." The Council Tent was in darkness! The lights were out in the teepees. The whole camp was wrapped in solid slumber. And as we sunk to rest in our bed of new-mown hay, we breathed a prayer for the slumbering Sioux around us; May the Cloud, by day, and the Pillar of Fire, by night, guide the Sioux Nation through the Red Sea of Savagery, superstition and sin to the Promised Land of Christian Civilization. The Native Missionary Society. It is well worth a journey to the land of the Dakotas to witness an anniversary gathering of their Woman's Missionary Society. You enter the great Council Tent. It is thronged with these nut-brown women of the plains. A matronly woman welcomes you, and presides with grace and dignity. A bright and beautiful young maiden--a graduate of Santee or Good Will--controls the organ and sweetly leads the service of song. And oh how they do sing! You cannot understand the words, but the airs are familiar. Now it is Bishop Coxe's "Latter Day" sung with vim in the Indian tongue; "We are living, we are dwelling, In a grand and awful time; In an age on ages telling, To be living is sublime." And now some sedate matron rises and reads a carefully written paper, contrasting their past, vile teepee life of ignoble servitude to Satan, with their present, pure life of glorious liberty in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then they sing, so earnestly for they are thinking of their pagan sisters of the wild tribes, sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, in the regions beyond. The hymn is Draper's "Missionary Chant." "Ye Christian heralds, go proclaim Salvation through Emmanuel's name; To distant lands the tidings bear And plant the Rose of Sharon there." And now a lively young lass, neatly attired, comes forward and with a fine, clear accent, recites a poem of hope, touching the bright future of their tribe, when the present generation of young men and maidens, nourished in Christian homes, educated in Christian schools and trained in the Young People's societies for efficient service, shall control their tribe, and move the great masses of their people upward and God-ward, and elevate the Sioux Nation to a lofty plane of Christian civilization and culture; and enable them to display to the world the rich fruition of Christian service. And, by request, their voices ring out in song these thrilling words; "Watchman, tell us of the night, For the morning seems to dawn; Traveller, darkness takes its flight, Doubt and terror are withdrawn. Watchman, let thy wanderings cease; Hie thee, to thy quiet home; Traveller, lo, the Prince of Peace, Lo, the Son of God is come!" Fervent prayers are frequently interspersed in these exercises. And oh, what wondrous liberality these dark-skinned sisters of the Dakota plains display! How full their hands are with rich gifts, gleaned out of their poverty for the treasury of their Saviour-King. For many years, the average annual contributions per capita to missions, by these Sioux sisters, have fully measured up to the standard of their more highly favored Anglo-Saxon sisters of the wealthy Presbyterian and Congregational denominations, of which they form a humble part. Chapter VI. It was 1905. From the heights of Sisseton, South Dakota, another striking scene met the eye. The great triangular Sisseton reserve of one million acres no longer exists. Three hundred thousand of its choicest acres are now held in severalty by the fifteen hundred members of the Sisseton and Wahpeton Band of the Dakotas--the "Leaf Dwellers" of the plains. Their homes, their schools, their churches cover the prairies. That spire pointing heavenward rises from Good Will Church, a commodious, well-furnished edifice, with windows of stained glass. Within its walls, there worship on the Sabbath, scores of dusky Presbyterian Christians. The pastor, the Rev. Charles Crawford, in whose veins there flows the mingled blood of the shrewd Scotch fur trader and the savage Sioux, lives in that comfortable farm house a few rods distant. He has a pastorate that many a white minister might covet. Miles to the west, still stands in its grassy cove on the coteaux of the prairie, the Church of the Ascension, referring not to the ascension of our Lord, but to "the going up" of the prairies. On the hill above it, is the cozy home of the pastor emeritus, the Rev. John Baptiste Renville, whose pastorate, in point of continuous service, has been the longest in the two Dakotas. After a long lifetime of faithful ministrations to the people of his own charge, enfeebled by age and disease, he sweetly fell asleep in Jesus, Dec. 19, 1904. Doubtless his is a starry crown, richly gemmed, in token of the multitude of the souls of his fellow tribesmen, led to the Savior by his tender, faithful ministry of a life-time in their midst. Round about these two churches cluster half a dozen other congregations, worshipping in comfortable church homes. These form only a part of the PRESBYTERY OF DAKOTA. The original Presbytery of Dakota was organized September 30, 1844, at the mission Home of Dr. Williamson, at Lac-qui-Parle, Minnesota. It was organized, by the missionaries, among the Dakotas, for the furtherance of their peculiar work. The charter members were three ministers, the Rev. Samuel W. Pond, Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, M.D., and Rev. Stephen R. Riggs and one elder Alexander G. Huggins. It was an independent presbytery, and, for fourteen years, was not connected with any Synod. It was a lone presbytery, in a vast region, now covered by a dozen Synods and scores of presbyteries. For many years, the white and Indian churches that were organized in Minnesota, were united in this presbytery and wrought harmoniously together. In 1858, the General Assembly of Presbyterian churches (N.S.) invited this independent presbytery to unite with her two Minnesota Presbyteries and form the Synod of Minnesota which was accomplished. Solely on account of the barrier of the language, the missionaries and churches among the Dakotas, petitioned the Synod of Minnesota to organize them into a separate presbytery. And the Synod so ordered and it was so done, September 30, 1867, just twenty-three years after the first organization at Lac-qui-Parle. By this order, the limits of the Presbytery of Dakota became the churches and ministers among the Dakota Indians. It is the only Presbytery in existence, without any geographical boundaries. At present, there are seventeen ordained Indian ministers upon the roll of this presbytery--workmen of whom neither they themselves nor any others have any cause to be ashamed. There are, also, under its care, twenty-eight well-organized churches, aggregating more than fifteen hundred communicants, and eight hundred Sabbath-School members. The contributions of these fifteen hundred Dakota Presbyterians in 1904, exceeded the sum of six thousand dollars for all religious purposes. Among the "Dispersed" of the Sioux nation, in Manitoba, there is one organized Presbyterian church of twenty-five communicant members. It is the church of Beulah and is in connection with the Presbyterian church of Canada. In all, twenty-one Sioux Indians have been ordained to the Presbyterian ministry, by the Presbytery of Dakota. Of these, Artemas Ehnamane, Titus Icaduze, Joseph Iron Door, and John Baptiste Renville have all passed on, from the beautiful prairies of the Dakotas, to the celestial plains of glory. And how warm must have been their greeting as they passed through the pearly gates of the city, whose builder and maker is God. Gideon Pond, Dr. Williamson, Samuel W. Pond, Stephen R. Riggs and Robert Hopkins, Margaret Williamson, Mary Riggs and Aunt Jane and other faithful missionaries and thousands of redeemed Dakotas, welcomed them, with glad hozannas, and sweet are the songs they sing as they walk together, under the trees, on the banks of the River of Life. The Dakota Congregational association has under its care thirteen organized churches, with more than one thousand communicants and one thousand Sabbath school members. The prominent leaders of its work are Alfred L. Riggs D.D., of Santee, Nebraska, and Rev. Thomas L. Riggs of Oahe, South Dakota. They are the worthy sons of their famous father, Stephen R. Riggs, D.D., one of the heroic pioneers in the Dakota work. The native ministers are Francis Frazier, Edwin Phelps, James Garvie, James Wakutamani and Elias Gilbert. This association is a mighty factor in God's plan, for the upbuilding of the Dakotas, in the things that are noble and of good report. The Presbyterian and Congregationalists have wrought together, side by side, for seventy years, in this glorious enterprise. Under their auspices, forty-four churches, many schools and other beneficent organizations are in efficient operation among these former savage dwellers on these plains. Seven other natives have, also, been ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church, making thirty-three in all, who have served their fellow-tribesmen in the high and holy office of the Christian ministry. There is not a single ordained Romish priest among the Sioux Indians. "Watchman, tell us of the night, What its signs of promise are." Seventy years ago, among the twenty-five thousand Sioux Indians in the United States, there was not a single church, not even one professing Christian. They were all polytheistic pagans. There were signs of pagan worship about every teepee. It might be the medicine sack tied behind the conical wigwam, or a yard of broadcloth, floating from the top of a flagpole as a sacrifice to some deity. There was more or less idol-worship in all their gatherings. One of the simplest forms was the holding of a well-filled pipe at arm's length, with the mouth-piece upward, while the performers said, "O Lord, take a smoke and have mercy on me." In the feasts and dances, the forms were more elaborate. The Sun-dance continued for days of fasting and sacrificial work by the participants. Now these signs of pagan worship have almost entirely disappeared among the Dakotas. These facts speak volumes--one in eight of the Dakotas is a Presbyterian. There are two-thirds as many Congregationalists, twice as many Episcopalians and twice as many Catholics. More than one-half of the Dakotas have been baptized in the name of the Triune God and thousands of them are professed followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now what has wrought this great change among the Dakotas? It was the power of the Holy Spirit of the Lord, working through the means of grace as employed and applied by these faithful missionaries. They renounced heathenism, not because the government so ordered, but because they found that there was no God like Jehovah and Jehovah said, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Even those who have not accepted Christ have generally cast away their idols. Now do missions pay? Do Indian missions pay? Let the grand work among the Dakotas and its glorious results be an all sufficient answer. It does pay a thousand fold. Hear the Christian tribesmen sing the Hymn of the Sioux. Lift aloft the starry banner, Let it wave o'er land and sea; Shout aloud and sing hosanna! Praise the Lord, who set us free! Here we stand amazed and wonder Such a happy change to see; The bonds of sin are burst asunder! Praise the Lord who set us free. Long we lay in darkness pining, Not a ray of hope had we! Now the Gospel Sun is shining: Praise the Lord who set us free. In one loud and joyful chorus, Heart and soul now join will we; Salvation's Sun is shining o'er us! Praise the Lord who set us free. _PART II._ SOME SIOUX STORIETTES _Part II_ _CONTENTS_ SOME SIOUX STORIETTES. I. The Dead Papoose.--The Maiden's Feast. II. Grand Mother Pond.--Oak Grove Mission. III. Anpetuzapawin.--A Legend of St Anthony Falls. IV. Aunt Jane--the Red Song Woman. V. Artemas--the Warrior-Preacher. VI. Two Famous Missions--Lake Harriet and Prairieville. VII. The Prince of Indian Preachers. VIII. An Indian Patriarch. IX. John--the Beloved of the Sioux Nation. X. The Martyrs of Old St. Joe. THE DEAD PAPOOSE The Indian mother, when her child dies, does not believe that swift angels bear it into the glorious sunshine of the spirit-land; but she has a beautiful dream to solace her bereavement. The cruel empty places, which everywhere meet the eye of the weeping white mother, are unknown to her, for to her tender fancy a little spirit-child fills them. It is not a rare sight to see a pair of elaborate tiny moccasins above a little Indian grave. A mother's fingers have embroidered them, a mother's hand has hung them there, to help the baby's feet over the long rough road that stretches between his father's wigwam and the Great Chief's happy hunting grounds. Indians believe that a baby's spirit cannot reach the spirit-land until the child, if living, would have been old enough and strong enough to walk. Until that time the little spirit hovers about its mother. And often it grows tired--oh so very tired! So the tender mother carries a papoose's cradle on her back that the baby spirit may ride and rest when it will. The cradle is filled with the softest feathers, for the spirit rests more comfortably upon soft things--hard things bruise it--and all the papoose's old toys dangle from the crib, for the dead papoose may love to play even as the living papoose did. THE MAIDENS' FEAST Of the many peculiar customs of the Indians in the long ago, perhaps the most unique was the annual "feast of Maidens." One was given at Fort Ellis, Manitoba, some thirty years ago, in a natural amphitheatre, surrounded by groves, fully one thousand feet above the Assiniboine River. It was observed at a reunion of the Sioux, and of the Assiniboines and the Crees, three friendly tribes. In his "Indian Boyhood," that brilliant Sioux author, Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman, great-grandson of Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky, that potential friend of the missionaries in pioneer days at Lake Calhoun, graphically describes it thus:-- "One bright summer morning, while we were still at our meal of jerked buffalo meat, we heard the herald of the Wahpeton band upon his calico pony as he rode round our circle. "White Eagle's daughter, the maiden Red Star, invites all the maidens of all the tribes to come and partake of her feast. It will be in the Wahpeton Camp, before the sun reaches the middle of the sky. All pure maidens are invited. Red Star, also, invites the young men to be present, to see that no unworthy maiden should join in the feast." The herald soon completed the rounds of the different camps, and it was not long before the girls began to gather. It was regarded as a semi-sacred feast. It would be desecration for any to attend, who was not perfectly virtuous. Hence it was regarded as an opportune time for the young men to satisfy themselves as to who were the virtuous maids of the tribe. There were apt to be surprises before the end of the day. Any young man was permitted to challenge any maiden, whom he knew to be untrue. But woe to him, who could not prove his case. It meant little short of death to the man, who endeavored to disgrace a woman without cause. From the various camps, the girls came singly or in groups, dressed in bright colored calicoes or in heavily fringed and beaded buckskin. Their smooth cheeks and the center of their glossy hair was touched with vermillion. All brought with them wooden basins to eat from. Some who came from a considerable distance were mounted upon ponies; a few for company or novelty's sake rode double. The maidens' circle was formed about a cone-shaped rock, which stood upon its base. This was painted red. Beside it, two new arrows were lightly stuck into the ground. This is a sort of altar, to which each maiden comes before taking her assigned place in the circle, and lightly touches first the stone and then the arrows. By this oath, she declares her purity. Whenever a girl approaches the altar there is a stir among the spectators and sometimes a rude youth would call out; "Take care! you will overturn the rock or pull out the arrows!" Immediately behind the maidens' circle is the chaperons' circle. This second circle is almost as interesting to look at as the inner one. The old women watched every movement of their respective charges with the utmost concern. There was never a more gorgeous assembly of its kind than this one. The day was perfect. The Crees, displaying their characteristic horsemanship, came in groups; the Assiniboines with their curious pompadour well covered with red paint. The various bands of Sioux all carefully observed the traditional peculiarities of dress and behavior. The whole population of the region had assembled and the maidens came shyly into the circle. During the simple preparatory rites, there was a stir of excitement among a group of Wahpeton Sioux young men. All the maidens glanced nervously toward the scene of the disturbance. Soon a tall youth emerged from the throng of spectators and advanced toward the circle. With a steady step, he passed by the chaperons, and approached the maidens' circle. At last, he stopped behind a pretty Assiniboine maiden of good family and said: "I am sorry, but according to custom, you should not be here." The girl arose in confusion, but she soon recovered her control. "What do you mean?" she demanded indignantly. "Three times you have come to court me, but each time I have refused to listen to you. I have turned my back upon you. Twice I was with Washtinna. She can tell the people that this is true. The third time I had gone for water when you intercepted me and begged me to stop and listen. I refused because I did not know you. My chaperon Makatopawee knows I was gone but a few minutes. I never saw you anywhere else." The young man was unable to answer this unmistakable statement of facts and it became apparent that he had sought to revenge himself for her repulse. "Woo! Woo! Carry him out!" was the order of the Chief of the Indian police, and the audacious youth was hurried away into the nearest ravine to be chastised. The young woman who had thus established her good name returned to the circle and the feast was served. The "maidens' song" was sung, and four times they danced in a ring around the altar. Each maid, as she departed, took her oath to remain pure until she should meet her husband. II GRANDMOTHER POND. Grandmother Pond is one of the rarest spirits, one of the loveliest characters in Minnesota. She is the last living link between the past and the present--between that heroic band of pioneer missionaries who came to Minnesota prior to 1844, and those who joined the ranks of this glorious missionary service in more recent years. Her life reads like a romance. Agnes Carson Johnson Pond is a native of Ohio--born at Greenfield in 1825. She was the daughter of William Johnson, a physician and surgeon of Chillicothe, Ohio. By the death of her father she was left an orphan at five years of age. Her mother married a worthy minister of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian church, Rev. John McDill. She had superior educational and social advantages and made good use of all her opportunities. She was educated at a seminary at South Hanover, Indiana. There she met her future husband, Robert Hopkins. He, as well as she, was in training for service on mission fields. They were married in 1843. He had already been appointed as a missionary teacher for the Sioux Indians. The young wife was compelled to make her bridal tour in the company of strangers, by boat and stage and private conveyance from Ohio to the then unknown land of the upper Mississippi. It required thirty days then, instead of thirty hours, as now, to pass from Ohio to the Falls of St. Anthony. The bride-groom drove his own team from Galena, Illinois, to Fort Snelling. [Illustration: GRANDMOTHER POND, The Last Living Member of the Heroic Band of Pioneer Missionaries to the Dakotas, in the 81st Year of Her Age.] HER HUSBAND DROWNED. Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins were first stationed at Lac-qui-Parle. After one year they were transferred to Traverse des Sioux, near the present site of St. Peter, Minnesota. Here they gave seven years of the most faithful, devoted, self-sacrificing toil for the lost and degraded savages around them. They built a humble home and established and maintained a mission school. Five children were born to them there. Two of these were early called to the celestial home on high. Their life at Traverse des Sioux was a strenuous, isolated, but a fruitful and happy one. It was destined, however, to a speedy and tragic end. Early in the morning of July 4, 1851, Mr. Hopkins entered the river for a bath. He was never seen alive again. A treacherous swirl in the water at that point suddenly carried him to his death. His wife waited long the carefully prepared morning meal, but her beloved came not again. He went up through the great flood of waters from arduous service on the banks of the beautiful Minnesota to his glorious rewards on the banks of the still more beautiful River of Life. Broken-hearted, the young wife, only twenty-six years of age, laid him to rest on the banks of the river whose treacherous waves had robbed her of her life companion. Sadly she closed her home in Minnesota and, with her three little fatherless children, returned to her old home in far-distant Ohio. Rev. Robert Hopkins enjoyed the full confidence of his colleagues and was greatly beloved by the Indians. His untimely death was an irreparable loss to the mission work among the Sioux. SECOND BRIDAL TOUR TO THE WEST. Shortly after the tragedy at Traverse des Sioux, Mrs. Sarah Poage Pond, wife of Rev. Gideon H. Pond, died at Oak Grove Mission of consumption. In 1854 Mr. Pond visited Ohio, where he and Mrs. Hopkins were united in marriage. She made a second bridal tour from Ohio to Minnesota, and toiled by his side till his death in 1878. In every relation in life in which she has been placed, Mrs. Pond has excelled. While she long ago ceased from active service in mission fields, she ever has been, and still is untiring in her efforts to do good to all as she has opportunity. She is strong and vigorous at the age of eighty. She still resides at the Oak Grove Mission house, her home since 1857, universally beloved and regarded as the best woman in the world by about one hundred descendants. [Illustration: JOHN P. WILLIAMSON, D.D., Superintendent of Presbyterian Sioux Missions. Forty-five years a missionary to the Sioux.] [Illustration: ST. ANTHONY FALLS.] OAK GROVE MISSION HOUSE. This old land mark is located in Hennepin County, Minnesota, twelve miles southwest of Minneapolis. Here in 1843, Gilbert H. Pond established his headquarters as a missionary to the Sioux Indians. He erected a large log building in which he resided, taught school and preached the gospel. Here, in 1848, the Presbytery of Dakota convened, and ordained Mr. Pond and Robert Hopkins to the Presbyterian ministry. For many years it was the sole source of social, moral, and spiritual light for a wide region for both races. It was also the favorite gathering place of the Indians for sport. In 1852, a great game of ball was played here. Good Road and Grey Iron joined their followers with Cloudman's band of Lake Calhoun in opposition to Little Six and his band from Shakopay. Two hundred and fifty men and boys participated in the game, while two hundred and fifty others were deeply interested spectators. The game lasted for three days and was won by Cloudman and his allies. Forty-six hundred dollars in ponies, blankets and other such property changed hands on the results. In 1856, the present commodious residence was erected of brick manufactured on the premises. For twenty-one years it was the residence of Rev. Gideon Hollister Pond. He was for twenty years, also, pastor of the white Presbyterian church of Oak Grove. He was a member of the first territorial legislature; the editor of the "The Dakota Friend" the first religious journal published in the state, and he was also the first preacher of the gospel in the city of Minneapolis. In whatever position he was placed in life, he ever proved himself to be a wise, conscientious, consecrated Christian gentleman. None knew him, but to love him; none knew him, but to praise. He was born in Connecticut, June thirtieth, 1810, and on the twentieth of January, 1878, he passed from his Oak Grove Mission Home through the gates of the celestial city, to go no more out. They laid him to rest in the midst of the people, whom he had loved and served so well for four and forty years and by whom he was universally beloved and admired. None were more sincere in their demonstrations of sorrow than the little company of Dakotas to whom he had been a more than father. III ANPETUSAPAWIN _A Legend of St. Anthony Falls_ Long ere the white man's bark had seen These flower-decked prairies, fair and wide, Long ere the white man's bark had been Borne on the Mississippi's tide, So long ago, Dakotas say, Anpetusapawin was born, Her eyes beheld these scenes so gay First opening on life's rosy morn. --S. W. Pond. In the long ago, a young Indian brave espoused as his wife this Indian maiden of whom the poet sings. With her he lived happily for a few years, in the enjoyment of every comfort of which a savage life is capable. To crown their happiness, they were blessed with two lovely children on whom they doted. During this time, by a dint of activity and perseverance in the chase, he became signalized in an eminent degree as a hunter, having met with unrivaled success in the pursuit and capture of the wild denizens of the forest. This circumstance contributed to raise him high in the estimation of his fellow savages and drew a crowd of admiring friends around. This operated as a spur to his ambitions. At length some of his newly acquired friends suggested to him the propriety of taking another wife, as it would be impossible for one woman to manage the affairs of his household and properly wait upon the many guests his rising importance would call to visit him. They intimated to him that in all probability he would soon be elevated to the chieftainship. His vanity was fired by the suggestion. He yielded readily and accepted a wife they had already selected for him. After his second marriage, he sought to take his new wife home and reconcile his first wife to the match in the most delicate manner possible. To this end he returned to his first wife, as yet ignorant of what had occurred, and endeavored, by dissimulation, to secure her approval. "You know," said he, "I can love no one as I love you; yet I see your labors are too great for your powers of endurance. Your duties are daily becoming more and more numerous and burdensome. This grieves me sorely. But I know of only one remedy by which you can be relieved. These considerations constrain me to take another wife. This wife shall be under your control in every respect and ever second to you in my affections." She listened to his narrative in painful anxiety and endeavored to reclaim him from his wicked purpose, refuting all his sophistry by expressions of her unaffected conjugal affection. He left her to meditate. She became more industrious and treated him more tenderly than before. She tried every means in her power to dissuade him from the execution of his vile purpose. She pleaded all the endearments of their former happy life, the regard he had for her happiness and that of the offspring of their mutual love to prevail on him to relinquish the idea of marrying another wife. He then informed her of the fact of his marriage and stated that compliance on her part would be actually necessary. She must receive the new wife into their home. She was determined, however, not to be the passive dupe of his duplicity. With her two children she returned to her parental teepee. In the autumn she joined her friends and kinsmen in an expedition up the Mississippi and spent the winter in hunting. In the springtime, as they were returning, laden with peltries, she and her children occupied a canoe by themselves. On nearing the Falls of St. Anthony she lingered in the rear till the others had landed a little above the falls. She then painted herself and children, paddled her canoe into the swift current of the rapids and began chanting her death song, in which she recounted her former happy life, with her husband, when she enjoyed his undivided affection, and the wretchedness in which she was now involved by his infidelity. Her friends, alarmed at her imminent peril, ran to the shore and begged her to paddle out of the current before it was too late, while her parents, rending their clothing and tearing their hair, besought her to come to their arms of love; but all in vain. Her wretchedness was complete and must terminate with her existence! She continued her course till her canoe was borne headlong down the roaring cataract, and it and the deserted, heartbroken wife and the beautiful and innocent children, were dashed to pieces on the rocks below. No traces of the canoe or its occupants were found. Her brothers avenged her death by slaying the treacherous husband of the deserted wife. They say that still that song is heard Above the mighty torrent's roar, When trees are by the night-wind stirred And darkness broods on stream and shore. IV AUNT JANE _The Red Song Woman_ Miss Jane Smith Williamson, the subject of this sketch, was one of the famous missionary women in our land in the nineteenth century. She was widely known among both whites and Indians as "Aunt Jane." The Dakotas also called her "Red Song Woman." She was born at Fair Forest, South Carolina, March 8, 1803. Through her father she was a lineal descendant of the Rev. John Newton and Sir Isaac Newton. Her father was a revolutionary soldier. Her mother was Jane (Smith) Williamson. They believed that negroes had souls and therefore treated the twenty-seven slaves they had inherited like human beings. Her mother was fined in South Carolina, for teaching her slaves to read the Bible. Consequently, in 1804, in her early infancy, her parents emigrated to Adams county, Ohio, in order to be able to free their slaves and teach them to read the Word of God and write legibly. The story of Aunt Jane's life naturally falls into three divisions. I--PREPARATION FOR HER GREAT LIFE WORK. This covered forty years. She grew up in an atmosphere of sincere and deep piety and of devotion to Christian principles. Her early educational advantages were necessarily limited, but she made the most of them. She became very accurate in the use of language, wrote a clear round hand and was very thorough in everything she studied. She was a great reader of good and useful books, possessed an excellent memory and a lively imagination and very early acquired a most interesting style of composition. [Illustration: AUNT JANE, Or, The Red Song Woman.] From her ancestors she inherited that strong sympathy for the colored race, which was a marked characteristic of her whole life. In her young womanhood, she taught private schools in Adams county, Ohio. The progress made by her pupils was very rapid and her instruction was of a high order. She sought out the children of the poor and taught them without charge. She admitted colored pupils as well as whites. For this cause, many threats of violence were made against her school. But she was such an excellent teacher that her white pupils remained with her; and a guard of volunteer riflemen frequently surrounded her school house. She calmly pursued the even tenor of her way. In 1820, when she was only 17 years of age, she and her brother rode on horseback all the way from Manchester, Ohio, to South Carolina and back again, and brought with them two slaves they had inherited. They could have sold them in the South for $300 each, and stood in great need of the money; but instead, they gave to these two poor colored persons the priceless boon of liberty. Miss Williamson's slave was a young woman of her own age, called Jemima. She was married to another slave named Logan. She was the mother of two children. Logan was a daring man, and rendered desperate by the loss of his young wife, he determined to be free and follow her. He fled from South Carolina, and after passing through many adventures of the most thrilling character, he found his wife in Ohio, and lived and died a free man. He was fully determined to die rather than return to slavery. Jemima lived to a great age, surviving her husband, who was killed accidently in the fifties. They left a family highly respected. During all these years "Aunt Jane" was a very active worker in Sabbath schools, prayer meetings and missionary societies. In her own day schools, she made religious worship and Bible study a prominent feature of the exercises. In 1835, when her brother, Dr. Williamson, went as a missionary to the Dakotas, she strongly desired to accompany him. But her duty required her to remain at home and care for her aged father, who died in 1839, at the age of 77. She did not join her brother, however, until 1843, at the age of forty. II--HER WORK AMONG THE DAKOTAS. This covers one-third of a century. The missionary spirit was a part of her life,--born with her,--a heritage of several generations. The blood of the Newtons flowed in her veins. When she arrived in Minnesota, she went to work without delay and with great energy and with untiring industry greatly beyond her strength. She was very familiar with the Bible. She taught hundreds of Indians, perhaps fully one thousand, to read the Word of God, and the greater part of them to write a legible letter. She visited all the sick within her reach, and devoted much of her time to instructing the Dakota women in domestic duties. She conducted prayer meetings and conversed with them in reference to the salvation of their souls. Many of them, saved by the Holy Spirit's benediction upon her self-denying efforts, are now shining like bright gems in her crown of glory on high. Lac-qui-Parle,--the Lake-that-speaks,--two hundred miles west of St. Paul, was her first missionary home. There she gathered the young Indians together and taught them as opportunity offered. The instruction of the youth--especially the children, of whom she was ever a devoted lover, was her great delight. It was more than a year before any mail reached her at this remote outpost. She was absent in the Indian village when she heard of the arrival of her first mail. She, in her eagerness to hear from her friends in Ohio, ran like a young woman to her brother's house. She found the mail in the stove-oven. The carrier had brought it through the ice, and it had to be thawed out. That mail contained more than fifty letters for her and the postage on them was over five dollars. In 1846, she removed with her brother to Kaposia, Little Crow's village (now South St. Paul), and in 1852 to Yellow Medicine, thirty-two miles south of Lac-qui-Parle. The privations of the missionaries were very great. White bread was more of a luxury to them then, than rich cake ordinarily is now. Their houses and furnishings were of the rudest kind. Their environments were all of a savage character. Their trials were many and sore, extreme scarcity of food in mid-winter, savage threats and bitter insults. They were "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, of robbers, by the heathen and in the wilderness." All this she endured contentedly for Christ's sake and the souls of the poor ignorant savages around for the evangelization and salvation of the degraded Dakotas,--lost in sin. She possessed great tact and was absolutely fearless. In 1857, during the Inkpadoota trouble, the father of a young-Indian, who had been wounded by the soldiers of Sherman's battery, came with his gun to the mission house to kill her brother. Aunt Jane met him with a plate of food for himself and an offer to send some nice dishes to the wounded young man. This was effectual. The savage was tamed. He ate the food and afterwards came with his son to give them thanks. Scarcely was the prison-camp, with nearly four hundred Dakota prisoners, three-fourths of them condemned to be hanged, established at Mankato, when Aunt Jane and her brother came to distribute paper and pencils and some books among them. When their lives were imperilled, by their savage pursuers, during the terrible massacre, Aunt Jane calmly said; "Well if they kill me, my home is in Heaven." The churches were scattered, the work apparently destroyed, but nothing could discourage Aunt Jane. She had, in the midst of this great tragedy, the satisfactory knowledge that all the Christian Sioux had continued at the risk of their own lives, steadfast in their loyalty, and had been instrumental in saving the lives of many whites. They had, also, influenced for good many of their own race. III--THE CLOSING YEARS OF HER LIFE. After that terrible massacre the way never opened for her to resume her residence among the Dakotas; but she was given health and strength for nineteen years more toil for the Master and her beloved Indians. Her home was with her brother, Dr. Williamson, near St. Peter, until his death in 1879, and she remained, in his old home several years after his death. During this period, she accomplished much for the education of the Indians around her and she kept up an extensive and helpful correspondence with native Christian workers. All the time she kept up the work of self-sacrifice for the good of others. In 1881 she met a poor Indian woman, suffering extremely from intense cold. She slipped off her own warm skirt and gave it to the woman. The result was a severe illness, which caused her partial paralysis and total blindness from which she never recovered. In 1888 she handed the writer a $5 gold coin for the work among the freedmen with this remark: "First the freedman; then the Indian." Out of a narrow income she constantly gave generously to the boards of the church and to the poor around her. She spent most of her patrimony in giving and lending to needy ones. The closing years of her life were spent with her nephew the great Indian missionary the Rev. John P. Williamson D.D. at Greenwood, South Dakota. There at noon of March 24, 1895, the light of eternity dawned upon her and she entered into that sabbatic rest, which remains for the people of God. Such is the story of Aunt Jane, modest and unassuming--a real heroine, who travelled sixteen hundred miles all the way on horseback and spent several months that she might rescue two poor colored persons whom she had never seen or even known. Without husband or children, alone in the world, she did not repine, but made herself useful, wherever she was, in teaching secular learning and religious truth, and in ministering to the sick and afflicted, the down-trodden and oppressed. She never sought to do any wonderful things,--but whatever her hand found to do, she did it with her might and with an eye to the honor and glory of God. Hers was a very long and most complete Christian life. Should it ever be forgotten? Certainly not, while our Christian religion endures. "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them." --Rev. 14: 13. V ARTEMAS, THE WARRIOR PREACHER He was one of the fiercest of the Sioux warriors. He fought the Ojibways in his youth; danced the scalp-dance on the present site of Minneapolis, and waged war against the whites in '62. He was converted at Mankato, Minnesota, in the prison-pen, and for thirty-two years, he was pastor of the Pilgrim Congregational church at Santee, Nebraska. Artemas Ehnamane was born in 1825, at Red Wing, Minnesota, by the mountain that stands sentinel at the head of Lake Pepin. "Walking Along" is the English translation of his jaw-breaking surname. As a lad, he played on the banks of the mighty Mississippi. As a youth, he hunted the red deer in the lovely glades of Minnesota and Wisconsin. He soon grew tall and strong and became a famous hunter. The war-path, also, opened to him in the pursuit of his hereditary foes, the Chippewas. He danced the scalp-dance on the present site of Minneapolis, when it was only a wind-swept prairie. While in his youth, his tribe ceded their ancestral lands along the Mississippi and removed to the Sioux Reservation on the Minnesota River. But not for long, for the terrible outbreak of 1862, scattered everything and landed all the leading men of that tribe in prison. Artemas was one of them. He was convicted, condemned to death, and pardoned by Abraham Lincoln. While in the prison-pen at Mankato, he came into a new life "that thinketh no evil of his neighbor." The words of the faithful missionaries, Pond and Williamson and Riggs, sank deep into his heart. His whole nature underwent a change. Artemas once explained his conversion thus: "We had planned that uprising wisely and secretly. We had able leaders. We were well organized and thoroughly armed. The whites were weakened by the Southern war. Everything was in our favor. We had prayed to our gods. But when the conflict came, we were beaten so rapidly and completely, I felt that the white man's God must be greater than all the Indians' gods; and I determined to look Him up, and I found Him, All-Powerful and precious to my soul." Faithfully he studied his letters and learned his Dakota Bible, which became more precious to him than any record of traditions and shadows handed down from mouth to mouth by his people. He soon became possessed of a great longing to let his tribe know his great secret of the God above. So when the prisoners were restored to their families in the Missouri Vally in Nebraska, Artemas was soon chosen one of the preachers of the reorganized tribe. His first pastorate was that of the Pilgrim Congregational Church at Santee, Nebraska, in 1867. It was also his last, for he was ever so beloved and honored by his people, that they would not consider any proposal for separation. No such proposition ever met with favor in the Pilgrim Church for Artemas firmly held first place in the affections of the people among whom he labored so earnestly. He served this church for thirty-two years and passed on to take his place among the Shining Ones, on the eve of Easter Sabbath, 1902. Artemas seldom took a vacation. In fact there is only one on record. In 1872, his church voted a vacation of six weeks. True to his Indian nature, he planned a deer hunt. He turned his footsteps to the wilds of the Running Water (Niobrara River), where his heart grew young and his rifle cracked the death-knell of the deer and antelope. One evening, in the track of the hostile Sioux and Pawnees, he found himself near a camp of the savage Sicaugu. He was weak and alone. They were strong and hostile. He had tact as well as courage. He invited those savage warriors to a feast. His kettle was brimming, and as the Indians filled their mouths with the savory meat, he filled their ears with the story of the gospel, and gave them their first view of that eternal life, purchased by the blood of Christ. The deer-hunt became a soul-hunt. The wild Sicaugu grunted their amicable "Hao" as they left his teepee, their mouths filled with venison and their hearts planted with the seeds of eternal truth. Again he went on a deer-hunt, when he crossed another trail, that of hunters from another hostile tribe. In the camp he found a sick child, the son of Samuel Heart, a Yankton Sioux. But let Heart tell the story himself in his simple way: "I was many days travel away in the wilderness. My child was very sick. I felt much troubled. A man of God came to my tent. I remember all he said. He told me not to be troubled, but to trust in God, and all would be well. He prayed; he asked God to strengthen the child so I could bring him home. God heard him. My child lived to get home. Once my heart would have been very sad, and I would have done something very wicked. I look forward and trust Jesus." This is how Rev. Artemas Ehnamane spent his vacations, hunting for wild souls instead of wild deer. He was a scriptural, personal and powerful preacher. Faith in a risen Saviour, was the keynote of his ministry. As he said: "Who of all the Saviours of the Indian people has risen from the dead? Not one." "Our fathers told us many things and gave us many customs, but they were not true." "I grew up believing in what my father taught me, but when I knew of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I believed in Him and put aside all my ways." It was to him in truth, the coming out of darkness into light. "Sins are like wolves," he said. "They abound in the darkness and destroy men. When we enter the way, Jesus watches over us. Be awake and follow Him. All over the world men are beginning to follow Christ. The day is here." "Repent, believe, obey." He loved to sing: "Saved, by grace, alone; That is all my plea; Jesus died for all mankind; Jesus died for me." The twenty grand-children of the old Sioux--all of school age--are diligently prosecuting their studies in order to be prepared to meet the changed conditions which civilization has made possible for the Indians. One of his grand-sons is a physician now, in a fair practice among his own people. This man President Lincoln wisely pardoned, knowing full well what a great influence for good such a man could wield over his turbulent people. And the President was not disappointed. One of his sons has been a missionary among the Swift Bear tribe at the Rose Bud Agency for twenty years; another son has been a missionary at Standing Rock, on the Grand River, and is now pastor of an Indian congregation on Basile Creek, Nebraska, and is also an important leader of his tribe. The Rev. Francis Frazier, one of his sons, was installed September 10, 1902, as his father's successor in the pastorate of Pilgrim church at Santee. His married daughter is also very earnest in the woman's work in the church. Seventy-seven years of age at his death, Rev. Artemas Ehnamane had filled to overflowing with good deeds to offset the first half, when he fought against the encroachments of the whites and the advance of civilization with as much zeal as later he evinced in his religious and beneficent life. Abraham Lincoln pardoned Ehnamane and the old warrior never forgot it. But it was another pardon he prized more highly than that. It was this pardon he preached and died believing. VI TWO FAMOUS MISSIONS. _Lake Harriet and Prairieville_ In the spring of 1835, the Rev. Jedediah Dwight Stevens, of the Presbyterian Church, arrived at Fort Snelling under the auspices of the American Board of Missions. He established a station on the northwestern shore of Lake Harriet. It was a most beautiful spot, west of the Indian village, presided over by that friendly and influential chieftain Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky. He erected two buildings--the mission-home, first residence for white settlers, and the school house--the first building erected exclusively for school purposes within the present boundaries of the State of Minnesota. Within a few rods of the Pavilion, where on the Sabbath, multitudes gather for recreation, and desecration of God's holy day, is the site, where, in 1835, the first systematic effort was made to educate and Christianize Dakota Indians. It is near the present junction of Forty-second Street, and Queen Avenue (Linden Hills). In July, Mr. Stevens, and his interesting family, took possession of the mission house. With the co-operation of the Pond brothers, this mission was prosecuted with a fair measure of success till the removal of the Indians farther west, in 1839, when it was abandoned, and the connection of Mr. Stevens with the work of the Dakota mission ceased. Here on the evening of November 22, 1838, a romantic wedding was solemnized by Rev. J. D. Stevens. The groom was Samuel Pond of the Dakota mission. The groomsman was Henry H. Sibley, destined in after years to be Minnesota's first delegate to Congress, her first state executive, and in the trying times of '62, the victorious General Sibley. The bride was Miss Cordelia Eggleston; the bridesmaid, Miss Cornelia Stevens; both amiable, lovely and remarkably handsome. It was a brilliant, starry evening, one of Minnesota's brightest and most invigorating. The sleighing was fine, and among the guests, were many officers, from Fort Snelling, with their wives. Dr. Emerson and wife, the owners of Dred Scott, the subject of Judge Taney's infamous decision, were present. The doctor was, then, post-surgeon at the fort, and the slave Dred, was his body-servant. The tall bridegroom and groomsman, in the vigor and strength of their young manhood; the bride and bridesmaid, just emerging from girlhood, with all their dazzling beauty, the officers in the brilliant uniforms, and their wives, in their gay attire, must have formed an attractive picture in the long ago. After the wedding festivities, the guests from the fort were imprisoned at the mission for the night, by a blizzard, which swept over the icy face of Lake Harriet. In the previous November, at Lac-qui-Parle, the younger brother was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Poage, by the Rev. Stephen R. Riggs. It was a unique gathering. The guests were all the dark-faced dwellers of the Indian village, making a novel group of whites, half-breeds and savage Indians. Many of the latter were poor, maimed, halt and blind, who thoroughly enjoyed the feast of potatoes, turnips, and bacon so generously provided by the happy bridegroom. PRAIRIEVILLE. In 1846, Shakpe or Little Six, extended an urgent invitation to Samuel Pond to establish a mission at Tintonwan--"the village on the prairies"--for the benefit of his people. He was chief of one of the most turbulent bands of Indians in the valley of the Minnesota. He was a man of marked ability and one of the ablest and most effective orators in the whole Dakota nation. Yet withal, Shakpe was a petty thief, had a "forked tongue," a violent temper, was excitable, and vindictive in his revenge. These characteristics led him to the scaffold. He was hanged at Fort Snelling, in 1863 for participation in the bloody massacre of '62. He and his followers were so noted for their deception and treachery, that Mr. Pond doubted their sincerity and the wisdom of accepting their invitation. But after weeks of prayerful deliberation, he accepted and began preparations for a permanent establishment at that point. He erected a commodious and substantial residence into which he removed, with his household, in November 1847. This station, which Mr. Pond called Prairieville, was fourteen miles southeast of Oak Grove mission, on the present site of Shakopee. The mission home was pleasantly located on gently rising ground, half a mile south of the Minnesota River. It was surrounded by the teepees of six hundred noisy savages. Here, for several years they toiled unceasingly for the welfare of the wild men, by whom they were surrounded. In 1851, Mr. and Mrs. Pond were compelled, by her rapidly failing health, to spend a year in the east. She never returned. She died February 6, 1852, at Washington, Connecticut. Thus after fourteen years of arduous missionary toil, Cordelia Eggleston Pond, the beautiful bride of the Lake Harriet mission house, was called from service to reward at the early age of thirty-six. Mr. Pond returned to Prairieville and toiled on for the Indians until their removal by the government, in 1853. He himself, remained and continued his labors for the benefit of the white community of Shakopee, which had grown up around him. In 1853, a white Presbyterian church was organized and, in 1856, a comfortable church edifice was erected, wholly at the expense of the pastor and his people. The congregation still exists and the mission house still stands as monuments of the wisdom, faith and fortitude of the heroic builder. After thirteen years of faithful service, he laid the heavy burdens down for younger hands, but for a quarter of a century longer he remained in his old home. During these last years, his chief delight was in his books, which lost none of their power to interest him in advancing age; especially was this true of the Book of books. He was never idle. The active energy, which distinguished his youth, no less marked his advancing years. His mind was as clear, his judgment as sound, and his mental vision as keen at eighty-three, as they were at thirty-three. His was a long and happy old age. He lingered in the house his own hands had builded, content to go or stay, till he was transferred, December twelfth, 1891, to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. VII THE PRINCE OF INDIAN PREACHERS. Without disparagement to any of his brethren in the ministry, this title can be properly applied to the Rev. John Baptiste Renville, of Iyakaptapte, (Ascension) South Dakota, who recently passed on to join the shining ranks of the saved Sioux in glory. Timid as a little child, yet bold as a lion, when aroused; shy of conversation in private, yet eloquent in the pulpit and in the council-chamber; yielding yet firm as a rock, when duty demanded it; a loving husband, a kind father, a loyal citizen, a faithful presbyter--a pungent preacher of the gospel, a soul-winner--a courteous, cultured Christian gentleman; such a man was this Indian son of a Sioux mother, herself the first fullblood Sioux convert to the Christian faith. He was the youngest son of Joseph Renville, a mixed blood Sioux and French, who was a captain in the British army in the War of 1812 and the most famous Sioux Indian in his day. After the war, he became a trader and established his headquarters at Lac-qui-Parle, where he induced Dr. Thomas S. Williamson to locate his first mission station in 1835. John Baptiste was one of the first Indian children baptized by Dr. Williamson and he enjoyed the benefits of the first school among the Sioux. He was rather delicate, which hindered his being sent east to school as much as he otherwise would have been. However, he spent several years in excellent white schools, and he acquired a fair knowledge of the elementary branches of the English language. The last year he spent at Knox College, Galesburgh, Illinois, where he wooed and won Miss Mary Butler, an educated Christian white woman, whom he married and who became his great helper in his educational and evangelistic work. [Illustration: JOHN B. RENVILLE[1] JOHN P. WILLIAMSON, D.D. DANIEL RENVILLE JOHN EASTMAN CHARLES R. CRAWFORD All Indian Ministers Except Dr. Williamson] [1] Died Dec. 19, 1904 [Illustration: The Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, M.D., Forty-five years a Missionary to the Sioux.] He was the first Sioux Indian to enter the ministry. In the spring of 1865, he was licensed to preach, by the presbytery of Dakota, at Mankato, Minnesota, and ordained in the following autumn. When he entered the ministry, the Sioux Indians were in a very unsettled state, and his labors were very much scattered; now with the Indian scouts on some campaign; again with a few families of Indians gathered about some military post, and anon with a little class of Indians, who were trying to settle down to civilized life. In 1870, he became the pastor of Iyakaptapte, (Ascension) a little church in what subsequently became the Sisseton reservation. Both physically and in mental and spiritual qualities, he was best adapted to a settled pastorate. His quiet and unobtrusive character required long intercourse to be appreciated. However, in the pulpit, his earnestness and apt presentation of the truth ever commanded the attention even of strangers. Under his ministry, the church increased to one hundred and forty members. More than half a dozen of them became ministers and Ascension was generally the leading church in every good work among the Dakota Indians. No one among the Christian Sioux was more widely known and loved than Mr. Renville. In the councils of the church, though there were seventeen other ministers in the presbytery before his death, he was ever given the first place both for counsel and honor. He twice represented his presbytery in the general Assembly, and he was ever faithful in his attendance at Synod and Presbytery and active in the discharge of the duties devolving upon him. Mary Butler, the white wife of his youth, died several years ago. Their daughter Ella, a fine Christian young lady passed away at twenty years of age. She was active in organizing Bands of Hope among the children of the tribe. She sleeps, with her parents on the brow of Iyakaptapte overlooking the church to which all their lives were devoted. Josephine, the Indian wife of his old age, survives him and remains in the white farm house on the prairie in which John Baptiste Renville spent so many years of his long, happy useful life. He died December 19, 1904, in the seventy-third year of his age. VIII AN INDIAN PATRIARCH. Chief Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky, was one of the strongest characters among the natives on the headwaters of the Mississippi in the earlier half of the nineteenth century. He was one of the leading chiefs of the Santee band of Sioux Indians. He was born about 1780. He was brave in battle, wise in council, and possessed many other noble qualities, which caused him to rise far above his fellow chieftains. He possessed a large fund of common sense. Years prior to the advent of the white man in this region, he regarded hunting and fishing as a too precarious means to a livelihood, and attempted to teach his people agriculture and succeeded to a limited extent. It was a strange circumstance that prompted the chief to this wise action. On a hunting tour in the Red River country, with a part of his band, they were overtaken by a drifting storm and remained, for several days, under the snow, without any food whatsoever. While buried in those drifts, he resolved to rely, in part, upon agriculture, for subsistence, if he escaped alive, and he carried out his resolution, after the immediate peril was passed. His band cultivated small fields of quickly maturing corn, which had been introduced by their chief in the early 30's. He was respected and loved by his people and quite well obeyed. [Illustration: REV. JOHN EASTMAN.] Before the coming of the missionaries he taught and enforced, by his example, this principle, namely, that it as wrong to kill non-combatants, or to kill under any circumstances in time of peace. He favored peace rather than war. He was twenty-five years of age, and had six notches on the handle of his tomahawk, indicating that he had slain half a dozen of his Ojibway foes before he adopted this human policy. His own band lived on the shores of Lakes Calhoun and Harriet, within the present limits of Minneapolis. On the present site of lovely Lakewood--Minneapolis' most fashionable cemetery--was his village of several hundred savages, and also an Indian burial place. This village was the front guard against the war parties of the Ojibways--feudal enemies of the Sioux--but finally as their young men were killed off in battle, they were compelled to remove and join their people on the banks of the Minnesota and farther West. He located his greatly reduced band at Bloomington, directly west of his original village. This removal occurred prior to 1838. He was never hostile to the approach of civilization, or blind to the blessings it might confer on his people. He was one of the first of his tribe to accept the white man's ways and to urge his band to follow his example. This fact is confirmed by the great progress his descendants have made. He was the first Sioux Indian of any note to welcome those first pioneer missionaries, the Pond brothers. As early as 1834 he encouraged them to erect their home and inaugurate their work in his village. In all the treaties formed between the government and the Sioux, he was ever the ready and able advocate of the white man's cause. He threw all the weight of his powerful influence in favor of cession to the United States government of the military reservation on which Fort Snelling now stands. He died at Fort Snelling in 1863, and was buried on the banks of the Minnesota in view of the fort. He was the father of seven children, all of whom are dead, except his son David Weston, his successor in the chieftainship, who still lives at Flandreau, South Dakota, at the age of seventy-eight years. He was for many years a catechist of the Episcopal Church. His two daughters were called Hushes-the-Night and Stands-like-a-Spirit. They were once the belles of Lake Harriet, to whom the officers and fur traders paid homage. Hushes-the-Night married a white man named Lamont and became the mother of a child called Jane. She had one sister, who died childless, in St. Paul, in 1901. Jane Lamont married Star Titus, a nephew of the Pond brothers. They became the parents of three sons and two daughters. Two of these sons are bankers and rank among the best business men of North Dakota. They are recognized as leaders among the whites. The other son is a farmer near Tracy, Minnesota. Stands-Like-a-Spirit was the mother of one daughter, Mary Nancy Eastman, whose father, Captain Seth Eastman, was stationed at Fort Snelling--1830-36. Mary Nancy married Many Lightnings, a fullblood, one of the leaders of the Wahpeton-Sioux. They became the parents of four sons and one daughter. After Many Lightnings became a Christian, he took his wife's name, Eastman, instead of his own, and gave all his children English names. John the eldest, and Charles Alexander, the youngest son, have made this branch of the Cloudman family widely and favorably known. John Eastman, at twenty-six years of age, became a Presbyterian minister, and for more than a quarter of a century has been the successful pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Flandreau, South Dakota. He was for many years a trusty Indian agent at that place. He is a strong factor in Indian policy and politics. He has had a scanty English education in books, but he has secured an excellent training, chiefly by mingling with cultured white people. His proud statement once was; "every adult member of the Flandreau band is a professing Christian, and every child of school age is in school." During the "Ghost Dance War," in 1890, his band remained quietly at home, busy about their affairs. In the spring of 1891, they divided $40,000 among themselves. Charles Alexander Eastman was born in 1858, in Minnesota, the ancestral home of the Sioux, and passed the first fifteen years of his life in the heart of the wilds of British America, enjoying to the full, the free, nomadic existence of his race. During all this time, he lived in a teepee of buffalo skins, subsisted upon wild rice and the fruits of the chase, never entered a house nor heard the English language spoken, and was taught to distrust and hate the white man. The second period (third) of his life was spent in school and college, where after a short apprenticeship in a mission school, he stood shoulder to shoulder, with our own youth, at Beloit, Knox, Dartmouth and the Boston university. He is an alumnus of Dartmouth of '87 and of Boston University, department of medicine, of '90. During the last fifteen years, he has been a man of varied interests and occupations, a physician, missionary, writer and speaker of wide experience and, for the greater part of the time, has held an appointment under the government. At his birth he was called "Hakadah" or "The Pitiful Last," as his mother died shortly after his birth. He bore this sad name till years afterwards he was called Ohiyesa, "The Winner," to commemorate a great victory of La Crosse, the Indian's favorite game, won by his band, "The Leaf Dwellers," over their foes, the Ojibways. When he received this new name, the leading medicine man thus exhorted him: "Be brave, be patient and thou shalt always win. Thy name is "Ohiyesa the Winner."" The spirit of his benediction seems to follow and rest upon him in his life-service. His grandmother was "Stands-Like-a-Spirit," the second daughter of the old chief Cloudman. His full-blooded Sioux father was a remarkable man in many ways and his mother, a half-blood woman, was the daughter of a well-known army officer. She was the most beautiful woman of the "Leaf Dwellers" band. By reason of her great beauty, she was called "Demi-Goddess of the Sioux." Save for her luxuriant, black hair, and her deep black eyes, she had every characteristic of Caucasian descent. The motherless lad was reared by his grandmother and an uncle in the wilds of Manitoba, where he learned thoroughly, the best of the ancient folk lore, religion and woodcraft of his people. Thirty years of civilization have not dimmed his joy in the life of the wilderness nor caused him to forget his love and sympathy for the primitive people and the animal friends, who were the intimates of his boyhood. [Illustration: DR. CHARLES A. EASTMAN, Famous Sioux Author, Orator and Physician.] He is very popular as a writer for the leading magazines. "His Recollections of Wild Life" in St. Nicholas, and his stories of "Wild Animals" in Harper, have entertained thousands of juvenile as well as adult readers. His first book, "Indian boyhood," which appeared in 1902, has passed through several editions, and met with hearty appreciation. "Red Hunters and the Animal People," published in 1904, bids fair to be, at least, equally popular. During the last two years, he has lectured in many towns from Maine to California and he is welcomed everywhere. His specialty is the customs, laws, religion, etc., of the Sioux. Witty, fluent, intellectual, trained in both methods of education, he is eminently fitted to explain, in an inimitable and attractive manner, the customs, beliefs and superstitions of the Indian. He describes not only the life and training of the boy, but the real Indian as no white man could possibly do. He brings out strongly the red man's wit, music, poetry and eloquence. He also explains graphically from facts gained from his own people, the great mystery of the battle of the Little Big Horn in which the gallant Custer and brave men went to their bloody death. He was married in 1891 at New York City, to Miss Elaine Goodale, a finely cultured young lady from Massachusetts, herself a poetess and prose writer of more than ordinary ability. They have lived very happily together ever since and are the parents of five lovely children. They have lived in Washington and St. Paul and are now residents of Amherst, Massachusetts. Whether in his physician's office, in his study, on the lecture platform, in the press or in his own home, Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman is a most attractive personality. IX JOHN _The Beloved of the Sioux Nation_ Rev. John P. Williamson, D.D., of Greenwood, South Dakota, was born in the month of October, 1835, in one of Joseph Renville's log cabins, with dirt roof and no floor; and was the first white child born in Minnesota, outside of the soldier's families at Fort Snelling. His father, the Rev. Thomas S. Williamson. M.D., was the first ordained missionary appointed to labor among the Sioux Indians. He came out to the new Northwest on an exploring expedition in 1834, visiting the Indian camps at Wabawsha, Red Wing, Kaposia, and others. He returned in the spring of 1835, with his family and others who were appointed. After the arrival of this missionary party, Dr. Williamson and his colleagues, lived and labored continuously among the Indians the remainder of their lives. Their work for the Master has not suffered any interruption, but is still carried on successfully and vigorously by their successors. John P. Williamson grew up in the midst of the Indians. He mastered the Sioux language in early boyhood. As a lad, he had the present sites of Minneapolis and St. Paul for his playgrounds and little Indian lads for his playmates. Among these, was Little Crow, who afterwards became infamous in his savage warfare, against the defenseless settlers in western Minnesota, in 1862. He was early dedicated to the work of the gospel ministry. In his young manhood he was sent to Ohio, for his education. In 1857, he graduated at Marietta College, and in 1860, at Lane Seminary, Cincinnati. In 1859 he was licensed by Dakota (Indian) Presbytery, and ordained, by the same body, in 1861. The degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by Yankton, (S.D.) college in 1890. He recognized no call to preach the gospel save to the Sioux Indians, and for forty-six years, he has given his whole life zealously to this great work. He has thrown his whole life unreservedly into it. And he has accomplished great things for the Master and the tribe to which he has ministered. In 1860 he established a mission and organized a Presbyterian church of twelve members at Red Wood Agency on the Minnesota. These were both destroyed in the outbreak two years later. He spent the winter of 1862-3, in evangelistic work, among the Sioux, in the prison-camp at Fort Snelling, where 1,500 were gathered under military guard. An intense religious interest sprung up amongst them and continued for months. Young Dr. Williamson so ministered unto them, that the whole camp was reached and roused, and the major part of the adults were led to Christ. Many, including scores of the children of the believers, were baptized. A Presbyterian congregation of more than one hundred communicants was organized. This church was afterwards united with the church of the Prison-pen, at Crow Creek, Nebraska. In 1883, he was appointed superintendent of Presbyterian missions among the Sioux Indians. He has ever abounded in self-sacrificing and successful labors among this tribe. He has organized Nineteen (19) congregations and erected twenty-three (23) church edifices. In twenty-three years he has traveled two hundred thousand miles in the prosecution of these arduous labors. The number of converts cannot be reckoned up. In 1866, he was married to Miss Sarah A. Vannice. To them there have been born four sons and three daughters, who are still living. In 1869 he established the Yankton mission, which has ever since been a great center, moral and spiritual, to a vast region. At the same time he established his home at Greenwood, South Dakota, and from that, as his mission headquarters, he has gone to and from in his great missionary tours throughout the Dakota land. He has, also, abounded in literary labors. For sixteen years he was the chief editor of "Iapi Oayi," an Indian weekly. In 1864, he published "Powa Wow-spi," an Indian Spelling Book, and in 1865, a collection of Dakota Hymns. His greatest literary work, however, was an edition of the "Dakota Dictionary," in 1871, and other later editions. He has won the affections of the whole Sioux nation. They bow willingly to his decisions, and follow gladly his counsels. To them, he is a much greater man than President Roosevelt. While he has passed the limit of his three-score years and ten--forty-six of them in frontier service--his bow still abides in strength, and he still abounds in manifold labors. He is still bringing forth rich fruitage in his old age. Every white dweller among the Indians is known by some special cognomen. His is simply "John." And when it is pronounced, by a Sioux Indian as a member of the tribe always does it so lovingly, all who hear it know he refers to "John, the Beloved of the Sioux Nation." X THE MARTYRS OF OLD ST. JOE. One of the most touching tragedies recorded in the annals of the new Northwest, was enacted in the sixth decade of the nineteenth century, on the borders of Prince Rupert's Land and the Louisiana purchase (now Manitoba and North Dakota). It is a picturesque spot, where the Pembina river cuts the international boundary line in its course to the southeast to join the Red River of the North in its course to Hudson's bay. Sixty years ago, in this place, encircled by the wood-crowned mountain and the forest-lined river and prairies, rich as the gardens of the gods, there stood a village and trading post of considerable importance, named after the patron saint of the Roman Catholic church, in its midst--St. Joseph--commonly called St. Joe. It was a busy, bustling town, with a mixed population of 1,500. Most of these dwelt in tents of skin. There were, also, two or three large trading posts and thirty houses, built of large, hewn timbers mudded smoothly within and without and roofed with shingles. Some of these were neat and pretty; one had window-shutters. It was the center of an extensive fur trade with the Indian tribes of the Missouri river. Many thousands of buffalo and other skins were shipped annually to St. Paul in carts. Sometimes a train of four hundred of these wooden carts started together for St. Paul, a distance of four hundred miles. But old things have passed away. The village of old St. Joe is now marked only by some cellar excavations. It possesses, however, a sad interest as the scene of the martyrdom of Protestant missionaries on this once wild frontier, then so far removed from the abodes of civilization. James Tanner was a converted half-breed, who with his wife labored, in 1849, as a missionary at Lake Winnibogosh, Minnesota. His father had been stolen, when a lad, from his Kentucky home, by the Indians. Near the close of 1849 he visited a brother in the Pembina region. He became so deeply interested in the ignorant condition of the people there, that he made a tour of the East in their behalf. He visited New York, Washington and other cities, and awakened considerable interest in behalf of the natives of this region. While east he became a member of the Baptist Church. He returned to St. Joe, in 1852, accompanied by a young man named Benjamin Terry, of St. Paul, to open a mission among the Pembina Chippewas and half breeds under the auspices of the Baptist Missionary Society. Terry was very slight and youthful in appearance, quiet and retiring in disposition and was long spoken of, by the half-breeds, as "Tanner's Boy." They visited the Red River (Selkirk) settlement (now Winnipeg). While there, Terry wooed and won one of the daughters of the Selkirk settlers, a dark-eyed handsome Scotch lass, to whom he expected to be married in a few months. But, alas, ere the close of summer, he was waylaid, by a savage Sioux, shot full of arrows, his arm broken and his entire scalp carried away. Mr. Tanner secured permission to bury him in the Roman Catholic Cemetery in the corner reserved for suicides, heretics and unbaptized infants. Thus ended in blood, the first effort to establish a Protestant mission in the Pembina country. June 1, 1853, a band of Presbyterian missionaries arrived at St. Joe. It was composed of the Reverends Alonzo Barnard and David Brainard Spencer, their wives and children. They came in canoes and in carts from Red and Cass lakes, Minnesota, where for ten years, they had labored as missionaries among the Chippewas. They removed to St. Joe, at the earnest request of Governor Alexander Ramsey, of Minnesota, and others familiar with their labors and the needs of the Pembina natives. Mrs. Barnard's health soon gave way. Her husband removed her to the Selkirk settlement, one hundred miles to the north, for medical aid. Her health continued to fail so rapidly that by her strong desire they attempted to return to St. Joe. The first night they encamped in a little tent on the bleak northern plain in the midst of a fierce windstorm. The chilling winds penetrated the folds of the tent. All night long the poor sufferer lay in her husband's arms, moaning constantly: "Hold me close; oh, hold me close." They were compelled to return to the settlement, where after a few days more of intense suffering, she died, Oct. 22, 1853, of quick consumption, caused by ten years exposure and suffering for the welfare of the Indians. Mrs. Barnard was first interred at the Selkirk settlement, in Prince Rupert's Land (now Manitoba). In the absence of other clergymen, Mr. Barnard was compelled to officiate at his wife's funeral himself. In obedience to her dying request, Mrs. Barnard's remains were removed to St. Joe and re-interred in the yard of the humble mission cabin, Dec. 3, 1853. In 1854, Mr. Barnard visited Ohio to provide a home for his children. On his return, at Belle Prairie, Minnesota, midway between St. Paul and St. Joe, he met Mr. Spencer and his three motherless children, journeying four hundred miles by ox-cart to St. Paul. There in the rude hovel in which they spent the night, Mr. Barnard baptized Mr. Spencer's infant son, now an honored minister of the Congregational church in Wisconsin. On his arrival at St. Joe Mr. Barnard found another mound close by the grave of his beloved wife. The story of this third grave is, also, written in blood. It was Aug. 30, 1854. The hostile Sioux were infesting the Pembina region. Only the previous month, had Mrs. Spencer written to a far distant friend in India: "Last December the Lord gave us a little son, whose smiling face cheers many a lonely hour." On this fatal night, she arose to care for this darling boy. A noise at the window attracted her attention. She withdrew the curtain to ascertain the cause. Three Indians stood there with loaded rifles and fired. Three bullets struck her, two in her throat and one in her breast. She neither cried out nor spoke, but reeling to her bed, with her babe in her arms, knelt down, where she was soon discovered by her husband, when he returned from barricading the door. She suffered intensely for several hours and then died. And till daybreak Mr. Spencer sat in a horrid dream, holding his dead wife in his arms. The baby lay in the rude cradle near by, bathed in his mother's blood. The two elder children stood by terrified and weeping. Such was the distressing scene which the neighbors beheld in the morning, when they came with their proffers of sympathy and help. The friendly half-breeds came in, cared for the poor children and prepared the dead mother for burial. A half-breed dug the grave and nailed a rude box together for a coffin. Then with a bleeding heart, the sore bereaved man consigned to the bosom of the friendly earth the remains of his murdered wife. Within the past thirty years civilization has rapidly taken possession of this lovely region. Christian homes and Christian churches cover these rich prairies. The prosperous and rapidly growing village of Walhalla (Paradise) nestles in the bosom of this lovely vale and occupies contentedly the former site of Old St. Joe. June 21, 1888, one of the most interesting events in the history of North Dakota occurred at the Presbyterian cemetery, which crowns the brow of the mountain, overlooking Walhalla. It was the unveiling of the monument erected by the Woman's Synodical Missionary Society of North Dakota, which they had previously erected to the memory of Sarah Philena Barnard and Cornelia Spencer, two of the three "Martyrs of St. Joe." The monument is a beautiful and appropriate one of white marble. The broken pieces of old stone formerly placed on Mrs. Barnard's grave, long scattered and lost, were discovered, cemented together and placed upon her new grave. The Rev. Alonzo Barnard, seventy-one years of age, accompanied by his daughter, was present. Standing upon the graves of the martyrs, with tremulous voice and moistened eyes, he gave to the assembled multitude a history of their early missionary toil in the abodes of savagery. It was a thrilling story, the interest intensified by the surroundings. The half-breed women who prepared Mrs. Spencer's body for the burial and who washed and dressed the little babe after his baptism in his mother's blood, were present. The same half-breed who dug Mrs. Spencer's grave in 1854 dug the new grave in 1888. Several pioneers familiar with the facts of the tragedy at the time of its occurrence were also present. "The Martyr's Plot," the last resting place of these devoted servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a beautiful spot, on the hillside, in the Presbyterian Cemetery at Walhalla. It is enclosed by a neat fence, and each of these three martyr's graves is marked by a white stone, with an appropriate inscription. The Rev. Alonzo Barnard retired to Michigan, where he gave five years of missionary toil to the Chippewas at Omene and many other years of helpful service to the white settlers at other points in that state. In 1883 he retired from the work of the active ministry and spent the remainder of his days with his children. He died April 14, 1905, at Pomona, Michigan, at the home of his son, Dr. James Barnard, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. There is a large and flourishing Episcopal Indian church at Leech Lake, Minnesota, the scene of Mr. Barnard's labors from 1843-52. The rector is the Rev. Charles T. Wright, a full-blood Chippewa. He is the eldest son of that famous chieftain, Gray Cloud and is now himself, chief of all the Chippewas. "Thus one soweth and another reapeth." 
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35359	----	Jimmie Moore _of_ Bucktown By Melvin E. Trotter Chicago The Winona Publishing Company MCMIV Copyright, 1904 by The Winona Publishing Company _August._ Contents I. The Invasion Begun II. "Der Gang" III. "The Busted Funeral" IV. Jimmie's New Pa V. Mrs. Cook's "Opery" VI. Mrs. Cook's First Prayer VII. Floe VIII. Bill's Pension IX. "Auntie's Favorite Horse" X. Jimmie's Education XI. The Meeting in the Market XII. Fred Hanks XIII. "Fagin's Meetin'" XIV. Fred and Doc XV. The Picnic XVI. Dave Strikes His Gait Jimmie Moore of Bucktown CHAPTER I _The Invasion Begun_ "Please kin yer tell me where is der boss of dis Mishun?" The superintendent turned sharply about and beheld a boy of singularly striking appearance. His stature was that of a child of ten or twelve years and his face that of a worn-out, heart-broken, disappointed old man. His eyes, set far back in his head under heavy eyebrows, indicated an almost abnormal development of the perceptive faculties. In other respects the contour of the head was not remarkable; but the face was one, once seen, never to be forgotten. The nose was pointed and pinched, the cheeks hollow, and the glance of his eye at once appealing and defiant. There could be no doubt that this boy was a bread winner, and that the burdens he carried were altogether too heavy for such young shoulders. From the ragged cap which he turned nervously in his hands to the large pair of sharp-pointed ladies' shoes on his feet, every garment was a misfit. The loss of a button from the neckband of his blouse-waist permitted it to gap wide open and disclosed the fact that he wore no underclothing. The day was bitterly cold; and the boy's shivery look showed how greatly he suffered. As the superintendent took in all these facts he realized that, despite his unseemly attire and generally distracted appearance, the boy was by no means an ordinary character. Down deep in the dark gray eyes that never wavered under his steady gaze he saw the making of a man mighty for good or evil. "I guess I'm the man you want," said Morton, kindly. "Come into my office." Leading the way, he was followed by the boy into a small private office at the back end of the big mission hall. Offering the lad a seat, he turned to his desk, on which stood two telephones. In an instant that boy was again upon his feet. Looking with wide-open eyes, he inquired, "Be yer goin' ter call der bull? I ain't as't yer fur nuthin'. Me Pa said yer was a good guy and wouldn't squeal. I mus' go." Morton intercepted the boy at the door. But it was some time before he could persuade him that it was not his intention to turn him over to the police, "the bull," for begging. "I want to help you," he said. "I'll be your friend, and I won't squeal on you either." "Well, be yer Mister Morton?" asked the boy. "Yes, that's my name," replied the superintendent. "And now I want you to tell me all about your trouble. Who sent you to me?" "Me Pa. He heard your talk on der gospel wagon down at der square. He don't talk about nuthin' else and he wants yer ter come an' see him." "Is he sick?" "Sure he's sick. He's been in bed ever since Wednesday. Ma says he's outer his head. Tuesday night he didn't come home home from work, and Ma says, 'I guess he's drunk ag'in.' We waited fur him till eleven o'clock and den I couldn't stay awake no longer. 'Sides, der wood was all burnt up and we had ter go ter bed ter keep warm. At five in der mornin' Mike Hardy, der bar-keep' at Fagin's, saw Pa layin' in Rice's wagon box, out in front of der market. It snowed on Pa, and he was near frozed. Mike calls Bill Cook and dey brings Pa home. Bill and Pa is chums; an' Bill gets drunk, too. Ma says dey bot' works fur Fagin. When dey gits paid dey take all der money straight to Fagin's and spends it for booze." "Well, what's your name and where do you live?" interrupted Morton. "Me name's Jimmie Moore, and we live down in Bucktown near der market." "Go on with your story, sonny," said Morton. "After dey got him in der house Ma and Bill gits his clothes off and Bill goes and gets some wood and built a fire. I carried me mornin' papers, and when I gits back I stayed wit' Pa while Ma went ter Ransome's house up on der Avenue to do deir washin'. Pa he slept all day till four in the afternoon, and den he raised up straight in bed and, lookin' at somethin' in der corner of der room, said, 'Can't yer see me hand? I raised it twice. Why don't yer come and git me?' I couldn't see nuthin', but he keeps on talkin' dat way fur a long time. Den he laid down again and cried and said he wanted der mishun man ter come and see him. When Ma gits back she sent me to der barber shop to git Fred Hanks ter telerphone ter Dr. Possum. He's der city doctor. He looked at Pa and said he had ammonia. Den Ma she cried, 'cause she had no money ter git supper for us kids and fer the doctor's paper, too." "Pretty soon Mrs. Cook, that's Bill's missus, comes in and she said she'd help take care of Pa. The neighbors done all dey could, but we ain't got no money, er no wood, and der rent ain't paid. We ain't had no fire since yisterday, and dis' mornin' Ma sits down and cries 'cause der's nothin' for der kids ter eat. Her and me don't mind, but we got four girl kids that's hungry all der time. Pa set up in bed and said, 'Go to der mishun man and tell him I mus' see him.' Ma sent me up ter see if yer won't come down ter see Pa." Finding a knitted scarf for the boy to tie about his neck, the superintendent and Jimmie started for the sick man's bedside. The section of the city where the Moore family lived, locally known as Bucktown, contained the only real slums to be found in the busy and rapidly growing metropolis. It was located on a low tract of ground between the city market and the river, and was inhabited chiefly by negroes and very poor white people. On the way Jimmie continued his story, and the superintendent tried to tell him about the Father above who loves the poor and who sent His Son to die that all the world might live and have access to the unsearchable riches of God. "The only help that is sure and lasting," he said, "comes from God. He can find a way out of your trouble for you." "I don't see how He kin help us," replied the boy. "They won't give us no help at der city hall, 'cause we ain't been here long enough. We ain't no city case er nothin' else, I guess. The man said he would put us kids in der Children's Home and Pa in der poorhouse, er send us all back ter Dalton. Ma said she'd die widout us kids." When the boy stopped talking Morton took him by the hand and told him about the Jesus who loves little boys and their fathers and mothers, and how He would do all things for them. "If you believe in Him," said the superintendent, "you can ask for anything in His name and get it." "Where is Jesus?" asked Jimmie. "He's right here now," replied Morton. "You can't see Him, but He's always with us to watch over us and care for us." This was a stunner for Jimmie. For a full minute he looked straight ahead of him, as if in deep thought, and then raising his eyes until they met Morton's, said: "Watcher givin' us, Cully? Do yer tink I am bug-house?" "No, I don't think you're crazy, but what I have said is true, Jimmie. You can't see the wind, but you know there is wind because you feel it. I cannot see Jesus with my natural eye, but I know He is here, just as well as you know that the wind is blowing. I trust Him for everything, and He supplies all my needs. I have loved Him and He has kept me for seven years. I never help any one myself; I do it for Him. He gives me the love and the money, and if I help you, you must thank Him and not me." "Maybe He loves good boys; but I'm no good, ner never was. He can't love no kid like me, kin he?" "Yes, my boy, just as much as He does me." "Den He don't know me, for everybody dat knows me says I'm bad. Me Ma, even she says so. I guess He don't love no one in Bucktown." "Yes, He loves every one in Bucktown, and He will care for you all if you will trust Him and ask Him for what you need." "Kin I ask Him fur somethin' ter eat." "Yes, you can, and you'll get it too. But you must love Him and thank Him for what you get." Jimmie looked up to see if Morton really meant what he was saying. When he saw the look of intense earnestness on the superintendent's face he knew that he was not deceiving him. "I hope He'll help Pa," said Jimmie thoughtfully. "I guess he needs it mor'n der rest of us do." "If your Pa will tell God what a sinner he has been and will ask Him for forgiveness, He will help him. God is a friend of sinners, Jimmie." "This is where we live," said the boy, turning to go into a miserable shack. The house was one of the most disreputable looking places in the neighborhood. It consisted of a lean-to portion of a house from which the original building had been moved away. There was no wall beneath; the building stood on four posts, one at each corner, and open on all sides, the wind having a clean sweep beneath the floor in every direction. Within there were two rooms. In the front one was a bed upon which the sick man lay, an old table, two chairs and a box to sit on. In the next room an old wood-burning cook-stove, a big box for table and cupboard combined, and a broken mirror constituted its complete furnishing. The roof leaked, and most of the spaces in the window sashes were filled with rags and paper instead of glass. A baby of six months, lying in a market basket, was being pulled about the room by an older sister. When Morton entered, two other girls, older than the baby, one two, the other past three years of age, darted under the bed and peeked from beneath the ragged comfort hanging over the edge. "Dis is Mister Morton from der Mission," said Jimmie proudly, still clasping the hand of the superintendent, "and he says dat Jesus loves every bloomin' one of us, and'll be our friend and owns the whole business. If we lives fur Him, He lives fur us, and--and--" "You shut up, Jim," said his mother, as with her apron she wiped the dirt off the seat of the nearest chair. "Sit down, Mister Morton," she said. "Glad to see you. We ain't got much of a place here; but Robert wanted to see you so bad, I sent Jimmie up to the Mission to bring you." After greeting the little ones, Morton went to the bed and spoke to Mr. Moore. He was sick indeed; and the superintendent knew that he was facing a man who would never stand upon his feet again. "Oh, sir," said the sick man, "I'm dying, and I'm not saved. I know I'm not fit to go, and I don't know the way to git fit. I heard you talk on the gospel wagon and I've tried to find God by myself, but I don't seem to get any answer to my prayers. Back in Pennsylvania, at a meeting in our little country schoolhouse, I promised God I would live for Him, but after we was married I came out West, and settled in this country where it was wild. Maybe you know how it is. I learned to drink, and that has spoiled all my chances. Since I've been sick here I've seen it all over again, and I want God to save me before I die. I know I've been awful wicked, but I heard you say God loved everybody; now I want you to pray for me." Moore broke into tears as he thought of his awful sin, and he was weeping bitterly. The superintendent read the third chapter of John slowly and with emphasis, and told of the marvelous love of God that makes the way for the salvation of even the most unworthy. The man said he was ready to give up, but wanted first to confess his wickedness. The story of his life was one of toil and privation. He had learned to drink after he became a man and had a family. From that time on his descent was rapid. He made no attempt to shield himself, but laid bare before the superintendent and before his own family all the secrets of his sinful career. He left his home at Dalton to escape arrest, and when times got hard in the city he feared to go back to his old home on account of the possible consequences of his sin. When he had finished, the superintendent pointed him to the One who alone could help him. The sick man said he would believe and trust God. That little gathering, with the prayers that followed, was an experience that Morton will remember as one of the events of his life. The wife also expressed a desire to know the Saviour, and both prayed for forgiveness. There was a joy there that seemed to fill the old shed with the glory of God. Moore's eyes beamed with love, and the whole family seemed to rejoice in the peace that had come to him on his sick bed. Then the superintendent sung a hymn, and little Jimmie, standing close by his side, grasped his hand, and, looking up into his face, said, "If Jesus will love me I'll love Him and be his boy." Morton took him to the grocery and market. When he left him on the corner, with a basket well filled with good things to eat, he said, "Now, Jimmie, I'll see you in the morning. You tell your Ma and every one that Jesus is your friend and sent you this basket." "I'll do it, yer bet; and I'll tank Him for dis lot of stuff. Gee! We'll eat till we bust!" CHAPTER II _"Der Gang"_ Socially and terrestrially Bucktown was situated beside a river. Once a year, when the spring freshet caused the Big Grandee to overflow its banks, the whole tract was inundated. At such times most of the people were compelled to leave their homes and find temporary quarters elsewhere. Along the Market side of the district the ground was a trifle higher, and here a few houses were beyond the reach of the floods. One of these was the shack in which the Moore family lived. Other near-by sections of the city had been filled in to raise them above the level of the high water mark, but Bucktown remained as it was in the beginning. Its houses were the oldest in the city, and some of them in their day had been the residences of the best citizens. Some were first erected where they now continued to stand; but many others had been moved to make room for the rapidly growing business district, and had been set down here because land was cheap and nowhere else would such worn-out, dilapidated structures find tenants. Unlike the slums of larger and older cities, Bucktown was largely peopled by men and women who, like its houses, had come from happier and more elegant surroundings. Few of its older inhabitants were born in the slums, and among its people were to be found many whose careers in life were begun under really favorable circumstances; but, like driftwood, they had been crowded out of the busy stream of human effort into this pool of stagnant humanity. In this way the neighborhood had become the dumping ground for everything that was undesirable in a population of more than one hundred thousand souls. Stall saloons and houses of ill-fame were numerous, and sin and wickedness stalked forth in open daylight with a boldness that knew no hindrance. One-third of the population was colored, and the whites were made up of almost every known nationality. No effort was made to draw the color line. Negroes and whites lived in the same or adjoining houses, and in some families the husband was of one color and the wife of another. The second house from the Moore home was the celebrated "Dolly" resort, known everywhere as the most dangerous place of the kind in the city. It was luxuriously furnished and was famous for its pretty girls and its dances. In an old shanty back of Moore's home lived "Yellow Liz," or "Big Liz," a monstrously hideous woman who had once been the wife of Abe Tobey, now doing a long term in State's Prison for murderous assault. "Big Liz" had a wart as large as an acorn in the middle of her forehead and wooly red and black whiskers on her chin and lower jaw. She was recognized as one of the features of the neighborhood, and slumming parties from "uptown" never failed to visit her domicile. Another house close by had been the home of Tom Beet, who murdered his wife by saturating her clothing with kerosene oil and setting fire to her body while she lay in a drunken stupor on the bedroom floor. There was no high-toned moral element in the slums. Nobody made any pretense of being good. Every man, woman and child in the community knew that he was a sinner and recognized the fact that other people knew it too. "Oily Ike" Palmer, whose junk shop was the resort of thieves, and who acted in the capacity of a "fence" for all of them, together with Dave Beach, the horse trader and political boss of the ward, were the heroes of the community. "Oily Ike" was known to the police as a criminal, but although many offenses had been traced to his door, the evidence necessary to place him behind the bars was always lacking and he had never been convicted of a crime. He was also an opium eater and a drunkard, while it was said he had once held an honorable position in society. His vices had been the cause of his downfall, and at the time Superintendent Morton of the City Rescue Mission made his acquaintance he was a crafty, unscrupulous rascal, with the qualities of a beast of prey rather than those of a man. Beach, the horse trader, sometimes called the "Mayor of Bucktown," was proprietor of a "Traders'" barn, a once prosperous livery stable on Brady Street. His place was a "growler joint," and was frequented by all the toughs and criminals in the neighborhood. In his own way, Dave was an autocrat of no mean power. When he O.K.'d a man, that man stood ace high; but when he said "Jiggers," everybody shut up like a clam. Beach was a bad man; but he had brains, and everybody paid court at his throne. It was said he could deliver the vote of Bucktown intact at election time, and there could be no doubt of the effectiveness of his pull with the authorities. He could drink more whisky, and stay sober, than any man in the community. If any one could whip him in a rough and tumble fight, the fact had not been demonstrated; and no one seemed anxious to establish it. Gene Dibble, a good-natured, big-hearted fellow, worked in the North Woods in the winter, but came to Bucktown every spring to spend his money. He was a fine singer, and could dance the Buck-and-wing, Turkey-in-the-Straw and the Rag like few men. He was a favorite in Bucktown, and a warm friend of Dave Beach. When it was noised about that Moore had sent for the "Mission Guy," as Morton was known in Bucktown, most of the neighbors waited for Beach to speak before they expressed any opinion. People had been sick and died before; but none had ever been so bold as to send for the mission man, and though they said nothing, some of Moore's best friends thought he must be out of his head. The day following Morton's visit to the sick man little Jimmie stopped at Dave's barn and told a crowd of fellows who were present what had happened. "Der main squeeze of der Rescue Mission was down ter our house last night, and he tol' Pa dat Jesus loves us and will give us anyting we wants. De doc says Pa is goin' ter die; but Pa tol' de Mission Guy he believed and now he's saved. He ain't goin' ter drink no more booze er nuthin'. We all belongs ter Jesus now, and He's goin' ter take care of us. Yer kin as't Him fer anyting yer wants, and if yer love Him and confesses Him you'll git it. Dat's wat der Mission Guy tol' Pa." Although a favorite with the crowd that hung around the barn, Jimmie's little speech provoked a derisive laugh, and, catching the boy by the coat collar, Jewey Martin, an ex-convict, started to fire him out of the door with the advice to "chase himself." Before he had taken three steps Dave Beach had his great fist about Jewey's throat and had shoved him back into a corner. "You let the kid alone. He's all right and knows what he's talking about. If you was more like that boy, mebbe you'd git to heaven sometime. You don't have to believe what he says if you don't want to, but you want to recollect what I tell you, that you better let him alone around here." Some religious apologists might question the conversion of a boy of Jimmie's make-up; but among the people of Bucktown there was no doubt about his sincerity and his belief that Jesus loved him and heard and answered his prayers. With Dave Beach back of him he did not hesitate to repeat his story, and it was not long before every one about the market place had heard the tale from his lips. As Morton would not allow Jimmie to thank him, but taught him that he must thank God for everything, he learned to call Morton "Jesus' storekeeper," and "Jesus' hired man"; and he sang his praises from daylight until dark. In this way he helped Morton to gain a foothold in the neighborhood, and when the people found that he wanted to help them rather than to pry into their affairs he was made welcome when he visited Bucktown. Jimmie had never learned to read; but one day he told Morton he wanted a little red Testament, such as the superintendent had given his father. "You jus' tell me some of dem verses like I heard yer read to Pa an' gimme der book, an' I can make a bluff at readin' 'em anyhow." Using colored inks, Morton marked John 3:16, John 10:28, and other well-known texts. He also explained their meaning to the boy. "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find," and "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these," were Jimmie's favorites, and although he quoted them in language all his own, he never failed to convey their full meaning. The days that followed Moore's conversion were trying ones for the family. When the fever broke the sick man's cough grew worse, and he required constant attention. Through the Mission, Mrs. Moore found work enough to keep her busy six days in the week, and the task of caring for the sick man fell upon Jimmie and Mrs. Cook, who proved to be a woman of generous impulses and an excellent neighbor. She ran in many times a day to see how they were getting along. Jimmie had a morning newspaper route and in the afternoon sold papers on the street. At other times he stayed close at home and never tired of talking with his father about Jesus and His love for wicked men and women. His childlike faith in God was wonderful. He was quick to learn and often surprised Morton by his aptitude; but his chief characteristic was his almost phenomenal grasp of spiritual truths. He prayed to God for food, coal, wood and clothes; and when he had told Jesus what he wanted he always counted it settled. Mrs. Morton, wife of the superintendent, was a frequent visitor at the home, and brought many things to make the bed more comfortable and the two rooms more cheerful for the sick man. No matter what the articles might be, Jimmie always said, "Jesus sent 'em." On one occasion, when the Mission woman had gone, Mrs. Cook, who was present, turned to Jimmie and said, "I sh'd think you'd thank her for all she's doin' for you folks. She's the best friend yer ever had, and I'll bet none of yer ever even said 'Much erblidged.'" "We don't have ter tank her," said Jimmie. "Jesus is der one we're ter tank. Everyting belongs ter Him, and I'm His'n, too. When we needs anyting we jus' tells Him an' He sends it." "Well, she's the one who brought that flour this morning, fer I seen her come," said Mrs. Cook, "and none of you thanked her at all." "Aw, yer go on," replied the boy. "Yer don't know wot you're talkin' about. Dis ain't no graft dat we's a-workin'. Jesus is our friend an' He loves us; dat's why He takes care of us. He'd love yer, too, if you'd let Him, but when yer takes Him for your friend yer got to cut out dose cuss words an' de growler, too. Dat's wat me an' Pa has done, and we belongs to Jesus now. 'Twouldn't be de square ting by Him for us ter tank anybody else, and we ain't afeard but wat He'll give us all we needs." As for Moore, while he never doubted his salvation, there were times when he was despondent and gloomy. The memory of his misspent life and the consciousness that he had nearly reached the end lay heavily upon his mind, and, left alone as he was for hours at a time, with no one but Jimmie and the other children in the house, he brooded upon his troubles until he grew very miserable. At such times it was interesting to hear Jimmie hold up Jesus and preach the gospel of love as his juvenile mind comprehended it. "Pa, yer act jus' as though Jesus didn't love yer," he said one afternoon, when the superintendent's wife was present. "He knows yer coughin' spells hurt yer, and He'll help yer to stan' 'em, 'cause He was hurted once Hisself. Ain't He takin' care of us, and didn't He send der Mission Guy ter help us? Yer ain't got no right ter worry; just look how good He's been ter all of us." One morning when Dr. Snyder, who had been called in on the advice of the Cook family, came to see the sick man, Moore anxiously inquired if there was no chance of his recovery. While he was conceded to be an able man in his profession, the doctor, himself a drinking man, was sometimes rough and heartless in his manner, and, replying to the question, said: "Well, if you've got any unfinished business on hand you better call a special session and close it up. You'll be pushing clouds within a week." "Do you mean he's goin' ter die?" asked Jimmie, whose quick ears had caught the remark. "That's just the plain English of it, my boy," replied the doctor. "The old man's a goner, and no doctor on earth can save him." "Well, he'll go straight ter Jesus," said Jimmie, "'cause he got saved las' Friday. Gran'ma and Gran'pa er up dar, and Pa an' Ma an' the rest of us is all a-goin'." "What's the matter with the kid, Moore?" asked the doctor. "Has he gone daffy?" "No, Doc, the boy's all right. Leastwise if he's daffy, as you call it, I wish to God we'd all got that way long ago. Then we wouldn't be in the condition you find us to-day. Say, Doc, don't you ever expect to be a Christian? If you were in my place you'd see what it means to face death without God." "Gee, you're good!" said the physician. "The way you talked to Gene Dibble when I sewed up your head after the fight didn't sound much like a prayer to me. You want to get forgiven here before you ask God to do anything for you there. Now, kid, you'd better forget about this religion and tend to the old man. Give him his medicine every hour, and I'll be in again to-morrow. Good-bye." He slammed the door, and Jimmie sat for a moment in deep thought. Then he turned to his father and said: "Pa, Gene'll forgive yer if yer ast him. I'll go over ter Fagin's and if he ain't dere I'll tell Mike ter send him over wen he comes in." "How's the old man, Jimmie?" asked Fagin as the boy entered the saloon. "Doc says he's dyin'. Is Gene Dibble here? Wish't you'd tell him Pa wants ter see him," said the boy as he turned to go. "Wait a minute, Jimmie; I want to send a little medicine to your father." He took a bottle from the back bar and began to wrap it up in a scrap of old newspaper. "This is about all the poor devil lived for," he said to himself, "and he ought to have a taste now that he's dyin'." "Is dat booze?" asked Jimmie. "It's just a nip for the old man. It's his favorite brand," said Fagin. "Not his'n; he's got saved an' don't need it in his business," replied the boy, starting for the door. "Come here, you little fool, and take this bottle to your dad with my compliments," said the saloon-man in anger. "It's your compliments wat's ailin' him now," answered Jimmie. "Yer got his nine dollars last Tuesday night, and now he's dyin'. I seen yer Ralph goin' ter school wid new shoes and rubbers dis mornin', an' I'm wearin' yer compliments," said the boy, holding up one of his feet encased in a worn-out lady's shoe. "I promised Pa dat I'd take care of Ma an' der kids, and we don't need no booze ter help us, not us." Jimmie ducked and dodged out of the door just in time to escape a soaking wet bar towel the saloon-man had thrown at him, and at a single bound jumped to the middle of the sidewalk just in time to collide with Bill Cook. "Hello Bill," he said. "Why ain't yer workin'? Drunk agin? Gee! you'll be seein' 'em agin. Der las' time yer was crazier den a bed bug." "You be d----!" said Bill. "Guess I'm all right. Only had three drinks. You's is gittin' too good for this neck o' woods. Yer orter move up on der boulevard amongst der bloods." "Don't Ma do washin' up dere now, smarty? We got friends up dere; see? Why don't yer come over an' see Pa? He's dyin'." "Go on!" said Bill. "Ye don't mean it! Kin I see him?" "Sure, come on." Bill staggered into Fagin's and took two more big drinks and then followed Jimmie across the street. He was badly intoxicated, but the sight of Moore's pinched features and fever-lighted eyes nearly brought him to his sober senses. Bill was rough and wicked; but his heart within was almost as tender as a babe's. Drink was his worst trouble, and when he was sober he was rather a decent sort of fellow. His effort to appear at ease and say something encouraging to Moore was painful. He stammered and hawed and finally said, "It's all off, Bob; I can't make no speech. Let 'er go t' 'ell." He pulled up the box, sat down at the bedside and began to cry. The sick man stretched forth his emaciated hand, and, placing it on Bill's head, said: "Never mind, old man, I know what yer mean. You're my friend all right; but you can't say nuthin' that will help me now. I guess I must cash in pretty soon; but I ain't no coward, Bill; I've just been prayin' and everything is all right 'tween me and God. I don't know what'll become of the old woman and the kids, but I guess He'll take care of them. Maybe they will be better off when I'm gone than when I'm here. I'll tell you, Bill, booze don't get yer much when the doctor says you're up. I wish I'd cut 'er out the first time we saw the gospel wagon down on the square. The Mission man was here just a little while ago, an' he says he will help Jimmie take care of Ma and the kids. He says Jesus loves me, and when he prayed I put in too and says, 'I'm ready, Lord.'" Moore's effort to talk exhausted his strength and brought on a sinking spell. He gasped and coughed and grasped his throat as though he was strangling. Bill thought he was dying, and grabbing his hat started for the door, telling Jimmie to stay there while he brought the doctor. The scene had been too much for his shattered nerves, and, reaching the middle of the sidewalk, he stood and yelled at the top of his voice: "Moore's dyin'! Moore's dyin'! Git the doctor and the undertaker and der Mission man, quick! Moore's dyin'! Moore's dyin'!" CHAPTER III _"The Busted Funeral"_ The commotion that followed made dying a hard matter for Moore. When the doctor and Mrs. Moore reached the house it took them ten minutes, with the help of Dave Beach, to clear the room of the people. When Mr. and Mrs. Morton came, quiet had been restored on the inside, but on the street and at Fagin's they were talking about the funeral expenses, etc., before they had a corpse. In this neighborhood a funeral was looked upon as something of a party or social function, not to be missed. Every one turned out, never failing to dress for the occasion. Mrs. Rose, Mrs. Kinney and Mrs. Washington (colored) were easily in the lead when it came to professional mourners. As Dave Beach said one time, they "could cry real tears at a moment's notice, and keep it up as long as the water lasted and occasion demanded." When Charlie Slater was drowned in the Slough they cried for three days with Mrs. Slater, never going home for meals. Both they and their children put black crape on their arms and lived and cried with Mrs. Slater until Charlie was found. Mrs. Rose kept the crape, and after a funeral would wash and iron it and put it in the "burer" drawer until some one else died. When she heard Bill's cry, she came running with a piece tied on each arm and at least twenty pieces in her hand to supply the neighbors. That she considered her first and solemn duty. Inside of five minutes after Bill yelled and gave the alarm, every one of the regulars was decorated for action. Bill went to Fagin's and got three big drinks without money, on the strength of Moore's death. He went into the back room, buried his face in his hands and began to weep. He was honest in his weeping, but he had too many drinks aboard and his snores soon told their own story. Bill's cry of "Moore's dyin'!" was soon turned to "Moore's dead; Bill says so." Of course Bill knew nothing of the disturbance he had created, and slept peacefully on in Fagin's back room. In the meantime Mrs. Cook was trying to "square" Bill with the neighbors. After the mistake was discovered every one blamed Bill that Moore was alive. Bill and his wife would fight with each other almost daily. Bill would swear that he had not tasted a drop when he was so drunk he could scarcely see. He contended that he was never drunk so long as he was sober enough to deny it. Mrs. Cook was possessed of an uncontrollable temper, and when she became angry--and she always did when Bill lied to her--she would completely lose control of herself. As Jimmie said one day: "Gee, der old girl'll bounce irons er any old thing she can git her mitts on when she's sore. Her nose and her chin comes together so fast when she talks dat she's got corns on both of 'em." She washed and worked until three or four o'clock in the morning to care for her children, and would do anything she could for any one, but when she got "sore," as Jimmie said, every one gave her the right of way. "She calls Bill every name on der calendar, but when it comes ter any one else saying a word about him, she won't stand fer it." "If Bill said that Bob Moore's dead, he's dead, er soon will be," she said. "He knows a dead one when he sees it. It's a sure thing anyhow, and what difference does an hour or two make? The doctor says he's done fer anyhow." As Mr. Morton left the house after Moore's death, he led Jimmie by the hand. The little fellow had made some big promises for one so small and frail, but he said God could and would help him. He knew that he could do no more window work for Jewey and his gang, neither could he work the depot crowds on Sunday excursion trains with Fred Hood. As he passed Mrs. Cook he simply said, "He's dead." Before leaving the house Morton had promised Mrs. Moore to help her hold her family together and not allow them to be sent to the Children's Home. Perhaps the promise was not a wise one, but it is hard to refuse a mother such a request in the presence of her dead husband. To raise girls in Bucktown and have them turn out right would be the eighth wonder of the world. The Children's Home would be much the best place for them; but the mother heart revolts at separation. "We must pray for money to pay your father's funeral expenses, Jimmie," said Morton. Not knowing whence any of it was coming, but believing that He would provide, they went to the undertaker and made arrangements for the funeral. The next day being Sunday, Morton spoke in one of the big down-town churches, and at the close of his talk on "City Missions" he stated to that fashionable audience just what was needed in the Moore household. After the meeting enough money was placed in his hand to pay for one-half of the entire expense. The next day was a busy one at the Mission. To get clothes for all the children and to keep them clean enough to go to the funeral at two o'clock was no easy matter. The clothes room in the City Rescue Mission is a room where old clothes sent in by well-to-do people are kept for the poor, and hundreds of the less fortunate are cared for every year. Three nurses from the hospital helped Mrs. Morton with the work. With a tub of hot water, ivory soap and sapolio the scrubbing started. They polished their faces until Jimmie said, "They shine like a nigger's heel." The dressing was the hard part. A blue skirt to fit the oldest girl could only be matched in size by a bright green waist, and by her own choice a red ribbon for a belt, with yellow ribbons for her stiff "pig-tails." Mrs. Cook said "she looked like the pattern in a false-face factory." Cast-off shoes were secured for all but Jimmie, and Mr. Morton was compelled to take him to a shoe store and buy him his first pair of new shoes. He had always worn shoes that some one else had discarded. He could not keep his eyes off them as he walked along the street. His warm underclothing and suit from some rich boy's wardrobe, with new shoes, all in one day, was more than he could stand. He was spotted by one of his friends who was yelling, "Extra Press; read all about it!" Mr. Morton and Jimmie came along and to them he said, "Paper, Mister?" Jimmie raised his eyes from his shoes long enough to say, "Hello, Swipsey! How'd yer like 'em?" "Where'd yer git 'em?" asked Swipsey. "Git 'em? I got 'em, ain't I? How'd yer like 'em?" "Dead swell. Do I git yer old ones?" "Ain't got no old ones; I give 'em ter the shoe store man. We got a funeral at our house ter-day. Me Pa's died." As Morton and a quartet reached the house with the children a wonderful gathering was there to greet them. The old bed had been taken down; the casket had been placed between the two windows. Folding chairs, furnished by the undertaker, were placed in rows before the casket. They were nearly filled by the friends and mourners. Bill Cook sat close by the door, so that he might be free to spit without getting up. "Big Liz" sat next to him, smoking her pipe, but at the sight of Morton she put it under her old apron. Several of the girls from the Dolly resort were there to pay their respects. All the neighbors were there, either in person or by proxy. As the quartet started to sing the old song, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," every one seemed to take it as a signal to cry. No one seemed to know why they cried; but all did their part in making the funeral a "howling success," as Mrs. Rose said. Before the song was ended "Big Liz" was weeping louder than all the four singers could sing. Morton knew that he must have a brief service, and after a short prayer and Scripture reading he spoke words of comfort to the family and told of Moore's wonderful conversion. As he pictured the glories of heaven that await the redeemed and contrasted them with the awful condition of the unrepentant in sin and hell, every one trembled. Morton was very anxious to bring the people to a decision, and felt that the time had come for a final invitation. Bill Cook's eyes were fastened on Morton and, as he spoke of hell and judgment, he was sure it was all intended for him. "Big Liz" had forgotten the pipe in her lap. It had fallen over and the contents had set her dress on fire. The smell of smoke caused by the burning of cotton, wool, and dirt together did not make a pleasing accompaniment for Morton's words. When the smell reached Bill, he leaped into the middle of the room and shouted, "Hell's here now!" Just at that moment "Big Liz" felt the heat from the fire, and she jumped to Bill's side and said, "Yer right, honey, and I'm sure in it." Morton saw what was causing the trouble, and with the help of the undertaker succeeded in getting Liz out upon the street. He called Bill and told him to help her put out the fire. Bill was very much excited, and he took Liz by the hand and started for the big watering trough at the corner of the market. When he reached it he pushed her into the water backward. "That busted up der funeral," as Jimmie said. Such screaming had never been heard in Bucktown. When she at last managed to get out of the icy water she started for Bill, determined to kill him. Dave Beach headed him away from Moore's funeral and gave Morton a chance to close with a feeble prayer. The chance that he had prayed for so long, to reach the people of Bucktown with the gospel, had come and he had lost. He was heart-broken and felt the disappointment keenly. Jimmie was quick to see it and, as the people viewed the remains, he slipped up to Morton, and, pressing his hand, said, "Don't yer care, we'll git 'em all yet." CHAPTER IV _Jimmie's New Pa_ Jasper, the reporter on the Press, knew a good story when he had found one. A quiet visit to the Moore domicile the next afternoon, a brief call at Bill Cook's, and a few liberal potations at Fagin's, were responsible for the write-up which appeared in the evening Press. The pathetic story of sickness, death and privation appealed in a powerful manner to the community. Many well-meaning people flooded the place with provisions and a miscellaneous assortment of wearing apparel, running from silk dresses and opera cloaks to cotton jumpers and soleless patent leathers. As is the case generally, this kind of charity did much more harm than good. For a week they had provision enough to feed every man, woman and child in Bucktown. Mrs. Moore thought it would always be so. She gave up her work and said "she would do nothin' fer nobody." Five days after the funeral Jimmie rushed into Morton's office at the Mission and said, "Say, I got er new Pa at my house." "A new what?" asked Morton in surprise. "A new Pa," said Jimmie. "Me Ma says that Charlie Hathnit would be me Pa from now on; he's been livin' with us fer two days now." Morton was dumfounded. He sat looking at Jimmie a moment; then he said, "Jimmie, this is all wrong. God cannot bless your home with that man there." Morton, reaching out, drew Jimmie to his side and continued, "You promised your father you would run the house and help your mother to care for the family." The diminutive figure of Jimmie suddenly straightened and seemed to increase an inch in height as he answered, looking Morton straight in the eyes, "So I did, and I meant it, too." Then said Morton, "You must not allow that loafer there at all." A moment later Jimmie was at the door. "Where are you going?" inquired Morton. "I'm going home ter clean house," said Jimmie, as he dashed down Brady Street. As he entered the house a few minutes later he was not the little Jimmie of an hour before. Almost unconsciously there had been born within him a stern resolve to right wrong; an invisible line had been passed; dependent childhood seemed to fade away and in its place came manhood; he stood there another recruit to the great army of child heroes, the great army of those who are forced to face the stern realities of life. As he looked up into his mother's face the little tempest which had gathered within him for a moment was calmed; he caught her hand in both of his, pressing it against his cheek, an old habit of his when he had sought to comfort his mother or to express some emotion when lips would fail. "What the h--l ails the kid?" snarled Hathnit. Jimmie, realizing that there was stern business at hand, and ashamed of his momentary emotion, replied: "Jus' dis: I got somethin' ter ast yer; what are yer doin' in our house anyhow?" "Hush, Jimmie," interposed Mrs. Moore. "Yer mind yer business." "That's jus' what I'm doin', Ma. I seen Morton, an' he says it's all wrong fer yer ter keep this piker here, and yer know I promised Pa der night Jesus took him up dare----" A curse followed from Hathnit which was so awful that it would have shaken anything but Jimmie's determination. "Go an' tell dis Bible-banging Morton to keep his d---- advice to himself. I'm a peaceable man, but if I mix with this Mission galoot he'll cut out givin' his advice to you kids. As fer you, you better duck till you git this nonsense out of yer head." Hathnit strolled to the door and opened it, and Jimmie was compelled for the time being to leave the house. "It's no more than I expected," said Mrs. Cook to Jimmie as he related the events of the morning. "When I heard Hathnit was a-livin' ter yer house, I jus' told Bill that no good would come from it. Poor Jimmie, you jus' wait till I git these here clothes out of this here bluing water; I'll go over wid yer to see what can be did." Soon the last towel was through the wringer, and Mrs. Cook, hastily drying her hands on her apron, accompanied Jimmie to his home. The conference that ensued was not productive of any good. Hathnit was a man devoid of all manly principles, lazy to the limit, ill-bred, ill-kept, illiterate, but still possessing one noticeable characteristic--a keenness which cannot be overlooked in men of his ilk. Mrs. Cook came to the point at once. "Mis Moore," she said, "yer boy Jim tells me you've took Hathnit here for yer man." "Right yer be," replied Hathnit. "Yer needn't guess again." "But yer ain't married yet," said Mrs. Cook. "Well, yer see it's dis way," proceeded Hathnit. "She said she wanted me and I said I wanted her, so that's ernough. It used ter be the style ter go before the Justice with your dollar and a quarter paper and git tied, but that's a dead one now." "Well, where's Mollie? She's yer wife, ain't she?" asked Mrs. Cook. "Naw, Tom Ellen's got her now; he took her while I was doing a two-year contract fer the State." "But it's wrong," burst out Jimmie. "Mr. Morton says so." "To h--l with Morton!" said Hathnit. "Now look here, the high-tone guys do that right along, only they spends their good money fer lawyer's licenses and divorce cases. I found this mornin's Herald at the depot, and it says there was six marriage licenses and eight divorces granted in this town yisterday. Fer every five marriages in dis whole State last year there was one divorce. Der people gits married ter-day with the understanding that if they don't like each other they can get a divorce. If that's all marriage amounts to--and it is--I think a man's a blooming sucker ter blow his good money to der lawyers. In dis town a dozen lawyers lives on divorce money alone. Society, so-called, says it's right, and when they gits up deir dancin' parties they have ter git an expert to keep from invitin' hubbie number one, two and three at the same time. If the bloods kin have two or three wives by payin' some cheap lawyer their good dough, I can have two or three an' save my money fer weddin' celebrations. The women all over the country went wild about Smoot and Polly Gamy." "Yer means Pollie Gainey, that lived over Fagin's last year, don't yer?" asked Mrs. Cook. "Naw, I means jus' what I said; Polly Gamy means yer can have all kinds of wives," said Hathnit. "Now, ter my way of thinkin', Smoot has as much right ter his wives as these women has ter their husbands. If he would send his money ter some cheap lawyer he'd be O.K. ter their way of thinkin'. Smoot takes care of his kids, anyhow, but these society guys sends theirs ter the Children's Home fer the city ter care fer. There's sixty-six kids there now, and fifty-two of them are from divorced families. Dis Morton that yer crackin' up ter me is kickin' about us livin' tergether without marryin'. He says it's wrong; why don't he say somethin' ter the church members? That big guy, where Bob Evans is coachman, got a divorce from his Missus and gave her the home ter live in. He built a new house on der next block and took another woman, and she took another man. Bob says that Ralph, the kid, calls one Papa and the other Daddie. They all goes ter the same church Sunday mornin' and nothin's said. Why? 'Cause they pay der lawyer. If they're all right, I'm all right; the church stands fer it, the law stands fer it, and society stands fer it. That cheap Mission guy with his old Bible don't cut much ice against that bunch. "I know the Bible says it's wrong ter put away yer wife an' take another, but no one believes that old book nowadays. Why, I heard one of dem preachers from a dominie shop in Chicago say, when he was preaching down at the Bull Pen, dat the Bible wasn't der word of God at all, and he oughter know 'cause they got der very latest th'ology out. They discover things over there in Chicago. If the kid here don't like der way thin's is doin' he kin duck. I'm runnin' dis house now. Tell Bill ter come over ter der celebration, Mrs. Cook. So long." With this he fished a cigar stub out of his pocket, bit off a portion of it, expectorated freely into the stove hearth, and turning his back to them walked into the front room. Mrs. Moore was about to follow him, when Jimmie plucked at her dress. When she turned around and their eyes met, the mother love had vanished. "Ma," he said, his voice faltering, "which one goes, me or that?" pointing to the door where Hathnit had disappeared. She turned and disengaged his hand, replying, "Ask him, Jimmie; he's runnin' the place now." Jimmie went out into the world with a heavy heart. He did not mind the fact that he had no home so much as he did that his mother was doing wrong. "I guess I can't keep der promise I made Pa when he died; but I believe he knows that I'm doin' der best I kin." CHAPTER V _Mrs. Cook's "Opery"_ Bill Cook continued to drink day and night until it was plain to all that he would have another one of his "spells," as his wife always called an attack of delirium tremens. There was no hope for Bill when he once got started. He never stopped until he was arrested or went into the tremens. He could not borrow a five-cent piece, but could always get all the liquor he wanted. It is a fact well known to all drinking men that men will buy them fifty cents' worth of drink rather than give them five cents in money. If they wanted the money for bread for the children they could not get it; but drinks go any time. Dave Beach had found Bill in the street, and taken him to his barn to sleep off a little of his "jag," as Dave said. Dave and Mrs. Cook never agreed as to the cause of Bill's trouble, so Dave was very careful not to get near her when Bill was coming down with one of his "spells." "He was shot in the army and has bad spells. 'Tain't drinkin' at all 'at ails Bill; he's sick," she would say. Dave found it was better to let her have her way about it; so he put Bill into a box stall, until he could send him home with Jimmie. Every one in the neighborhood knew that Jimmie could be trusted. He was never known to tell a thing he should not, and had a way of knowing nothing when some one was looking for information. Mrs. Cook knew that he had left home and was staying in Dave's barn at night and eating anywhere and anything he could get. When Bill failed to come home, she called Jimmie into the house as he came from up-town. "Had yer supper, Jim?" she asked. "Yep, I'm eatin' up-town now," answered Jim. "Better have a cup o' tea," she said as Jimmie closed the door. He had lived that day on three dry buns and a drop cookie, and tea, warm tea, sounded good to him. He pulled off his cap and jammed it into his coat pocket as he sat down at the table. "Jim, I was yer friend when yer was in trouble, now I want yer to help me. Bill's been gone all day and I'm scart fer him. Dr. Snyder told me that the next time he had a "spell" he'd die. No better man ever lived than Bill Cook, and I've been thinkin' ter-day 'at somethin's got ter be did. Last night he cried out in his sleep, jus' like he did las' time he had 'em, and at three o'clock this morning he got up an' left the house. I ain't seen nothin' of him since; the younguns think he's workin', and I don't want 'em ter know no different. Bill loves his younguns, and they think there's no one like their Pa. There never was a kinder man than Bill Cook; no siree, not a kinder man nowheres. He's been gittin' worser an' worser since yer Pa's funeral, an' honest, Jim, I'm scart." "Well," said Jimmie, as he finished his third cup of tea, "I know jus' what he needs, but you'll have ter help." "I'll do anyting yer say, Jim," said Mrs. Cook. "Say, 'Hope ter die,' and cross yer heart," said Jimmie. "I'll do it, yer bet." "All right," said Jimmie. "Der first thing I want yer ter do is ter go ter der Mission wid me ter-night." "Me? I can't go, Jim; I ain't got no clothes ter go there; 'sides, it's Bill yer want ter help an' not me," she said. "Yer promised me," said Jimmie, "an' yer mustn't ast no questions. Yer get yer duds on an' I'll be back fer yer in five minutes." Jimmie went over to Dave's barn, told him what was on and Dave promised to get Bill into the house while they were gone. Mrs. Cook took the children over to Hardy's to play while she made a "call." When Jimmie returned to the house for Mrs. Cook, she was all ready to go. "Gee, where yer git der lid?" said Jimmie. "Never you mind, sonny; that hat's some more of yer business." As Jimmie stood and looked her over, he almost wished he had not suggested the trip. Her hat was an old straw derby with two chicken feathers stuck in it. She had put an old wine-colored skirt over her blue wrapper. "I'm ready," she said, "but yer mustn't sit up front." "Yer needn't worry," answered Jimmie as he looked once more at her hat. She was very nervous at first; but after she discovered that no one was looking at her she soon felt at ease. The singing seemed to carry her out of herself. She forgot her trouble and settled down into the chair to enjoy the very best hour she had had in years. "It's better 'n a opery," she whispered to Jimmie. No place in the world do people sing as they do in a Rescue Mission. Every one sings there, and the one who can make the most noise is considered the best singer. Each one tries to outdo his neighbor. They sing the old gospel songs with a vim and never seem to tire of them. The sermon that followed the singing was listened to by Mrs. Cook; but the testimonies almost drove her to say things. She hardly breathed as one after another got up and told what Jesus had done for them. "I believe my soul, that's Lousy Kate," she whispered to Jimmie when one woman arose and told how God had found her at a jail meeting. "Sure 'nough, it's her; I knew her when she did that very thing," she said as she followed her in her testimony. "Why, that woman was so crooked she couldn't lay down in a round-house." When Superintendent Morton gave an invitation for all who wished the prayers of the Christians to come forward, she started for the door. When she had reached it she turned and watched the people as they went forward. She watched one poor drunken man as some of the workers helped him up the aisle. Big tears were in her eyes when she turned to Jimmie. "If that man kin be saved, drunk as he is, there's hope fer Bill, 'cause Bill's no drunkard, he's sick." "There's hope fer you, too," said Jimmie, when they had reached the sidewalk. "Me!" she almost shouted. "I ain't no drunkard, ner I never killed anybody, and 'sides, it's Bill yer want ter help, not me." "The Bible says yer a sinner an' yer need fixin' jus' as bad as Bill," said Jimmie. He knew he was on dangerous ground, but he was determined to push the case as far as he dared. Without giving her a chance to answer, he continued, "Jesus says we're all sinners, an' whosever kin be saved, and that means you." "I ain't no whoserever, I'm German, and my name's Annabella Cook, and I don't want you nor none of yer friends ter fergit it, sonny." Jimmie was stumped for a minute. He had asked Morton what to say, but he could not remember the Scripture, so he simply said, "Yer swear, and yer drink, and yer don't pray, and if that ain't sin I don't want a cent. If yer was to die ter-night, you'd want somethin' more than 'em cuss words ter take ter Jesus. Yer Freddie is in heaven and me Pa is there, and yer got too much sense ter miss seein' 'em over there, and 'sides that yer can't never help Bill till yer helped first." Jimmie had touched a tender chord in Mrs. Cook, and he knew it. She loved her family, and Bill was the apple of her eye. She did not get angry, as Jimmie had feared, but walked along in silence, thinking of what she had heard and how Jimmie had brought it all home to her very door. At last she said, as though speaking to herself, "Yes, I do swear when I git mad, but I don't mean it ten minutes after. No, I guess I ain't ready ter die, but, oh, Jimmie, what made yer mention Freddie? It near kills me." And she began to cry. Freddie had died a few months ago of membranous croup, and his death had caused a great sorrow in the Cook family. Jimmie slipped his hand into hers, and said, "I'm sorry; but I'm so bloomin' anxious ter see yer both Christians, 'cause yer so good ter me. I guess I'll never have no more Ma but you. Say, how'd yer like der meetin'?" "It's jus' fine," said Mrs. Cook, glad to change the subject. "I'm goin' agin ter-morrow night." Bill was all tucked away in bed when Mrs. Cook got home. Dave had put him to bed. The doctor had given him a powder to quiet him. After the children were asleep Mrs. Cook sat alone thinking of the night's happenings. The market clock struck twelve before she came to herself and thought of going to bed. "O God, I can't see it; I can't see it," she cried; "but I want ter. I can't see it; I can't see it that way; but I want ter." "I've seen 'nough fer both of us," said Bill, as he bolted upright in bed. "There's one under my pillow now wid a thousand legs!" CHAPTER VI _Mrs. Cook's First Prayer_ Early the next morning Jimmie was at the Morton home. After a long talk and much prayer he started for Bucktown, armed with that sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. He had some more verses marked in his Testament, and after Morton had quoted them many times he felt sure that he could handle them. Mrs. Cook had confused him the night before so that he could not answer her; but he was sure of his ground after his talk with Morton. "I wish I could read 'em myself," he said to Morton sadly. "Der yer tink I kin ever learn?" "Yes, Jimmie, I know you can if you will study. You have five hours that you are not busy with your papers; you can use that time to learn to read. I think that Mrs. Price, a worker in the Mission, will be glad to help you. She used to teach school before her marriage. I will ask her to-day and if she consents to take you as a pupil you must study hard." "I will, yer bet." And so Jimmie went on his way. As he quietly pushed open the door of the Cook home, he heard Mrs. Cook talking with three of her neighbors on the back porch. "Where do you suppose I was las' night, Mrs. Fagin?" she was saying. Jimmie listened with keen interest for her account of the Mission service. He knew that Bill would never get right until she did. "How do you s'pose I know?" answered Mrs. Fagin. "Where was you?" "I was to der Mission with Jimmie Moore," she said, "and it's the best time I've had since the balloon extension on the market, six years ago." "I'd like ter know how yer can have a good time in church," said Mrs. Fagin. "'Tain't no church, it's a Mission, and they have jus' as good singin' as dey do in Uncle Tom's Cabin, and 'sides, it's a good deal like dat play, too, 'cause yer laff jus' as hard as yer kin one minute and the next minute yer cry like Eva was a-dyin'. Yer couldn't guess in a thousand years who I saw there. I saw Lousy Kate, that you used ter live next door to, and that Hatfield that yer thought was such a dood. Yer oughter hear what he said--yer know every one speaks in der Mission meetin's. He ain't no dummy, that man ain't. He's been an awful drunkard, and when Morton found him he was that fur gone that his wife had ter leave him an' go an' live wid her Ma. He said he got saved, an' now they're happy, and he works in der wholesale house and----" "Who saved him? Morton?" asked Mrs. Fagin in disgust. "No, he said it was all Jesus and no Morton about it; that's what Jimmie says erbout Morton, too. I guess he don't amount to much nohow. He says he can't help no one, but can tell them of One who can. I thought I'd split when Hatfield said he was so low down he had to reach up ter touch bottom. Every one laffed like all git-out; but when his woman got up and said it was all true, and that her and her baby come near starvin', every one 'round me cried, and I cried, too. I tell yer, I'd know how ter sympathy with her; only Bill ain't no drunkard, he's sick." "What's Kate doin' there?" asked Mrs. Fagin. "She's saved, too. She got saved in jail. Now she's livin' straight an' goes ter meetin' every night. She looks so good, you'd hardly know her, looks ten years younger; but the biggest surprise of all is Morton. Yer know Dave Beach said that he know'd more 'an he looked, and I allowed he'd orter. But say, he's been through der mill and knows der ropes like an' old rounder. He said his mother teached him ter pray and be a good boy, but he got ter boozin' and soon went ter pieces. He got in trouble and fer years lived among thieves and drunkards and knows 'em like a book. He's seen 'em killed and go down in nearly every old way, but never knew any of 'em ter git anywhere until dey git Jesus. He couldn't git no work 'cause he wa'n't honest and couldn't stay sober, so he'd jus' clean up saloons fer his toddy, like Fred Hanks der barber is doin' now. I wish Morton could git Fred. One time he got a plant an' left fer Chicago; then he went into a Mission like his'n is now and got saved. You'd never think he ever did worser than pull his sister's hair, to look at him now; but he knows what's what, and that's why he was after Moore and all the rest of us, I guess. He says jus' what Jimmie says, that Jesus loves us all and wants us all. There, 'tis eleven o'clock and I've got ter give Bill his medicine. Say, I'm goin' agin ter-night. Go 'long with me?" "Fagin would go wild if he knew I'd go there; but I'd like ter see it once," said Mrs. Fagin. For seven nights Mrs. Cook and Jimmie went to the Mission. On the seventh night she rose to her feet and was the first one to go forward to the altar. After prayer she stood up and said she would serve God the best she knew how, and wanted every one to pray for Bill, her husband. Every one shook hands with her and she forgot that it was getting late. She visited with all the ladies, one after the other. Jimmie had found Morton at the platform and slipped his hand into Morton's. As their eyes met, both seemed ready to weep for joy. "The ice is broken, Jimmie. And we must not give up until the whole Bucktown gang are in the Kingdom of God. Bill comes next, and you had better get Mrs. Cook home, as it is late. You may hurt your case with Bill if you get him angry." At last Jimmie got her started, and when they reached the house Bill was nearly wild with rage. He was very nervous and needed something to quiet him. "Where in h---- have you bin?" he shrieked at the top of his voice. "I want a drink and I want it d---- quick." "No doubt, sonny, yer do," said his wife, "and you'll want it quicker 'an that 'fore yer git it. Now shut yer mouth until I'm done," she went on. "I been to der Mission ter-night and I give my heart ter God, an' no more booze comes inter my house, no more, not mine. If yer tongue was hangin' out as long as a clothes line I'd tie it in knots and throw it under der bed 'fore I'd give yer a drop. All der people at der Mission are prayin' fer yer, and Jim is goin' ter der drug store fer somfin' fer yer nerves and ter make yer sleep, and if yer able ter-morrer yer goin' ter der Mission an' git saved too. And oh, Bill! we'll git a carpet fer our front room when yer gits yer pension, and you'll git a new suit of clothes and we'll git a monument fer Freddie's grave, and oh, Bill! we'll go ter be with Jesus and Freddie some day in heaven." She stooped down and took Bill's bloated cheeks between her hands and kissed him again and again. "I guess dis is where I lose out," said Jimmie. "I'll go ter der drug store and by that time maybe dey'll have deir love feast finished. Gee, when old Bill gits any booze ter-night, he don't!" Jimmie spent his last five pennies for a powder for Bill, and went on tip-toe back to Cook's house. As he opened the door he heard Mrs. Cook praying. She was kneeling by Bill's bed, and this is the prayer Jimmie heard: "O Lord, keep Bill from wantin' booze ter-night, and if he gits gay call him down fer Jesus' sake. Amen." CHAPTER VII _Floe_ Jimmie was very happy as he gave Bill and Mrs. Cook "Good-night." "Don't yer worry erbout nothin'," he said to Mrs. Cook. "Yer got Jesus ter help yer, an' he'll take care of yer all. I'll see yer in der mornin'. So long." He started for Dave's barn, where he "roomed." His nerves were all unstrung, he was much too excited to go to bed. He sat down upon the curb in front of the barn and went over the whole evening in his mind. The best he knew how, he prayed and thanked God for answering his prayer. As he sat with his head in his hands, he heard a piercing scream which came from the direction of the Dolly resort. There was nothing unusual about a scream in Bucktown any time of the day or night; but Jimmie jumped to his feet and started on a run to the direction from which it came. "Dat sounded like Floe's voice," he said to himself. "I hope she ain't hurted." Floe had been very kind to Jimmie, many times giving him something to eat, and she had given him the pair of shoes he was wearing when Morton first saw him. She always put herself out to speak to him, and when he was "stuck" with his evening papers she would persuade the other inmates of the house to help him out by buying them. Let it be understood now that Jimmie's ideals of morality were based entirely upon the Bucktown standard. Floe was the best dressed woman in Bucktown; she lived in the best house in Bucktown; she was the handsomest woman in Bucktown; and these facts, to Jimmie's child mind, put Floe and the Dolly resort far in the lead of anything in Bucktown. He knew nothing of their business, and the question of their being wrong had never entered his head. Had any one asked Jimmie a question about the character of this black-eyed woman, his answer would have been, "She's an angel, sure." The little girls in the neighborhood would say, "When I git big I'm goin' ter have clothes like them girls, an' go ridin' in hacks with white horses. Gee, won't I shine!" The highest ideals of womanhood to these little girls were the women of the Dolly resort. Is it any wonder that Jimmie was interested when he heard Floe scream? When he reached the house he saw her lying at the foot of the stairs; he rushed to her side as others were trying to get her upon her feet. They put her upon a couch and sent for a doctor. "Did yer fall downstairs?" asked Jimmie. "Oh, Jimmie, what are you doing in this awful place?" she said. "This is worse than hell itself; do go out, child; I can't stand to see your pure face in a place like this." "If it ain't er good place fer me, it ain't fer you, Floe. Yer better 'n I am, er ever could be. Are yer hurted much?" Just then Doctor Snyder came in, and after a brief examination said he found a broken arm and three broken ribs. Floe would not tell how she happened to fall; but several who saw it said that a girl by the name of Maud, in a fit of jealousy, had pushed her downstairs. "Hello, kid! What are you doing here?" said Doctor Snyder to Jimmie. "You should be in bed at this time of night. How's Bill Cook getting on?" "Bill's better," said Jimmie, "an' Mrs. Cook got converted at der Mission ter-night, and she's happy all over. When I left there she was prayin' at Bill's bed and he was cryin'. I'll bet he gits saved next." "You better go home and go to bed, Jimmie; you're excited to-night. You'll feel better in the morning," said the doctor, with a knowing wink at the people standing around. "We must get this girl to her room now." "Can I come ter see yer to-morrow, Floe?" asked Jimmie. "If the doctor will let you come; but I don't like to have you come into this awful house." "I'll be here jus' the same; I'm goin' ter ast Jesus ter help yer," he whispered to her, and slipped quietly out into the street and started for the barn. When he reached there, Dave sat in his old office chair smoking and trying to look unconcerned; but it was plain to Jimmie that he had something on his mind besides his hat. "Where have you been so late?" he said to Jimmie. "Sit down and tell me about it." "Mrs. Cook got saved ter-night and Bill's comin' next, I'll bet," said Jimmie in one breath. "Yer see, we's prayin' fer him at der Mission, an' he's got ter come. Say, Dave, Floe jus' got hurted, an' I went ter see her when I heard her holler, an' she said she didn't like ter see me in such a bad house. Is that nice house bad, an' what's Floe doin' dere if it is?" "Well, the house is anything but good, Jimmie, and I wish Floe lived somewhere else. If you can go to see her I wish you would talk to her just like you did to Mrs. Cook. Tell her about, well, tell her about yer Friend, you know." "Who do yer mean? Morton?" asked Jimmie. "No, I mean the Friend you say Morton works for." "Oh, yer means Jesus," said Jimmie. "Yes, that's who I mean; she has heard of Him before, and maybe you can do her good. The poor girl has had lots of trouble and has lost heart in life. Tell her that--that Je--er--that yer Friend loves her and will fergive her all her past and--well, you can tell it better than I can." "I'll do it, yer bet," said Jimmie, "'cause Jesus loves every one of us, don't he, Dave?" "Most every one, but not all of us," said Dave. Jimmie made a dive for his Testament and turned to John 3:16; the page was so dirty and soiled from handling that it could scarcely be seen. "Der yer see that word marked wid red ink?" asked Jimmie. "Yes, I see it." "Well, what is she?" "It's 'whosoever.'" "Well, who does that mean?" "I guess it means just what it says; but you see, with me it is different. I was raised to do right; my father was a Methodist minister, and he taught me to pray and read the Bible when I was a child. I knew what was right, but with my eyes wide open I went into the most awful sin, and God can never forgive one who sins against the light." "Say, read der whole verse," said Jimmie. "I know it without reading it; I learned it at my mother's knee before I could talk plain." "Well, git busy and say it then." "God so loved the world----" "Loved der what?" asked Jimmie. "The world," said Dave. "Go on," as Dave hesitated. "That He gave His only begotten Son----" "Dat's Jesus, ain't it?" "Yes, that is who it means." "Go on," said Jimmie. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever----" "Who?" asked Jimmie. "Whosoever," said Dave. "Don't that mean you?" asked Jimmie. "I'm afraid not," said Dave. "Den dis is der way ter read it," said Jimmie, "'Dat whosoever, 'cept Dave Beach, kin have everlastin' life.' Not on your fottygraff; it ain't writ dat way." "Well, in another place it says that if you know to do right and do it not it's sin," said Dave. "And dat makes yer a sinner, don't it?" said Jimmie. "Yes, it does, and a bad one, too," said Dave. Jimmie put his thumb into his mouth to wet it and turned leaf after leaf. At last he said, "Read dat." Dave took the book and looked hard and long in silence. "Read her," said Jimmie. Dave read very slowly: "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "Save what?" asked Jimmie. "Sinners," said Dave. "Are yer a sinner, Dave?" "Yes, I am a bad one." "Worser dan dis guy? Read der rest of 'er." "Of whom I am chief," David read. "All right," said Jimmie, "if He kin save der chief of sinners, can't He save Dave Beach?" Before he could answer, Jewey, Oily Ike and Fred Hood came in. "Send the kid home," said Jewey. "He's at home now," said Dave; "he sleeps here. You can do all the business you have with me in a minute er two. I'm tired of this crooked business; and for my part, I'm going to cut it out. Whatever your haul is to-night you can keep it or let Ike there handle it; I'm done. "No, don't get leery; I won't turn you. But I don't want no more of it here." "You'll be havin' Sunday school here every day if that kid hangs around much longer," said Jewey. "Well, he'll be here just as long as he wants to," said Dave. "It's two o'clock, Jimmie; you had better turn in and I'll call you at three-thirty. Good-night." Jimmie lay down upon a horse blanket without taking off his shoes or clothes and was soon fast asleep. His day had been a long one and he was very tired, but happy. After Dave's callers had gone, he stood looking down into Jimmie's tired face. "Poor little Jimmie," he said, "if I knew your paper route, I'd carry it myself rather than wake you up this morning. There's no use talking, that kid don't get enough to eat. I saw him give his little sister his supper money last night, and I know he went to sleep hungry; I never saw his beat. He preaches to every one in his sweet child way and he makes me feel as though I was the biggest devil on earth. By thunder, it breaks me all up." Dave was talking to himself, or thinking out loud. He was very much moved by Jimmie's life and words; he pulled his old office chair beside Jimmie's pallet and began to weep. Big, strong Dave had broken down and was once more a boy. He was ashamed of his tears and tried to brace up and stop them; but when he would look at Jimmie's little pinched face on the old horse blanket, the tears would start afresh and creep through his dirty fingers and fall to the floor in spite of all he could do. Dave Beach was a strong, big fellow; he had drunk and fought his way through the world and for many years had suppressed his emotional nature. Tears to him were a sign of weakness and he would rather have lost his barn and horses by fire than that any one should see him cry. He jumped to his feet and started to pace up and down the office. "D---- fool that I am! I'm bawling worse than a yearling heifer. It's time to call Jimmie and he must not see me this way." He went to the hydrant out in the barn and washed and pulled himself together as best he could, and then went back to call Jimmie. "It's time to get up, Jimmie," he said as he kicked the bottom of the boy's foot. Jimmie rose and rubbed his eyes, but was so tired and sleepy he fell back again upon the blankets. "Come, my boy, I want you to go to the lunch counter with me and have a cup of coffee." He reached down and picked the boy up bodily and held him in his great, strong arms a moment, but had to drop him for safety; he would be weeping again if he did not get busy at something else. "Go out and wash your face, Jim, and you'll feel better." The cold water did its work. "Guess I's hard to wake up, wasn't I, Dave?" said Jimmie, as he wiped his face on the lining of his cap--a trick of the newsboys. "You're all right, Jimmie; but you need more sleep. After you get your papers carried, come back and go up into the haymow and sleep all morning." "I can't do 'er, Dave. I got ter see Bill and call on Floe and take me first lesson from Mrs. Price and go ter Morton's house, all dis mornin'." "Well, come, we'll go over and get something to eat," said Dave. "I don't feel very hungry," said Jimmie, "and I guess I won't go over jus' now. I'll git somfin later." Dave knew what the trouble was and took Jimmie by the hand and started for the all-night lunch counter. "You're going to eat with me this time, Jimmie; I have enough money for both of us. No, you'll never pay me a cent of it back. Just a little treat, you know." Jimmie never wanted something for nothing, but he grew so hungry as he thought of the good things at the counter that he could not say No. Dave ordered their meal, and when it came upon the table Jimmie's big gray eyes stuck out. "Is dis all fer us, Dave? Der meat, an' eggs, an' taters, too, an' coffee 'sides! Gee! it must of cost a quarter, didn't it, Dave?" As he grabbed his knife and fork to start his meal, he looked up at Dave with such love in his eyes that Dave lost his appetite for food and wanted to finish the "bawl" he had started in the barn. "Go on and eat, Jimmie. You'll be late for your papers," he said. "I mus' pray 'fore I eat, Dave," he said as he jammed his cap into his coat pocket. "Now, Jesus, I'm glad yer give us all this here good stuff ter eat. It's more'n we got comin'; but yer always givin' us more'n we could ast er tink. Dave's a good man fer payin' fer it, and he's feedin' you when he's feedin' me, 'cause I'm your'n. Make Dave gooder and gooder fer Jesus' sake. Amen." Dave jumped to his feet and started for the door. "You eat, Jimmie; I'll be back in a minute." He was overcome and the "bawl" had got the best of him. He stood outside the door in the dark and cried as if his heart would break. "D---- fool that I am! I wish some one would come along and call me names so I could lick him within an inch of his life. I'd feel better anyhow." After several unsuccessful attempts to control himself, he went to the door and told Jimmie to eat both meals, as he had to go. "I'll pay you, Mose, when I come over." Before Jimmie could answer he was gone. He went to Fagin's, got several drinks, tried his best to pick a fight with Mike, then went home and went to bed. Jimmie ate all there was in sight, and with a full stomach became very cheerful and talked to Mose, the colored waiter. "Gee, I guess me belly t'ought me t'roat was cut. I bet if it could talk it would ast me what I was doin' up dere." CHAPTER VIII _Bill's Pension_ After Mr. and Mrs. Morton had listened to Jimmie's story of Mrs. Cook's prayer, Floe's "gittin' hurted" and Dave's talk, he went into detail as he described the wonderful breakfast he had eaten. "Gee, I was scart I'd bust when I straightened up. I don't feel like I wanted nothin' for a week." "Tell me more about Floe," said Mrs. Morton, much interested. "Do you think she would come to live with us while she is sick? I would love to care for her and be her friend if she would let me." "Do yer mean she can board here?" asked Jimmie in surprise. "No, I want her to come and live with us; I want her for my friend and companion. She can be our Floe and make this her home." "Will her name be Floe Morton then?" asked Jimmie. "Yes, you may call her that if you like, but I do want her to come and live with us. When you go to see her this morning, ask her if she will allow me to see her. If she will, you come right back for me and we will go down together." After prayer Jimmie started for Bucktown, very happy, and confident that the day would be a day of victory for Jesus. His faith was wonderful. His prayers were so simple and childlike; he prayed to God and asked Him for things in the same language and tone of voice he used when he talked to any one else. He had not acquired the professional whine as yet, and for that reason he received answers to his prayers, because he prayed to God and did not whine to the people who might be around to hear him. Many godly people have been shocked in the Mission because some redeemed drunkard would use slang in his fervent prayer to the Almighty. He simply prayed in his own language. The language of the slums is just as much a language as German or French; it must be learned before it can be understood. The idea that these men must not pray until they have learned that professional, unnatural, painful whine, is as absurd as confining prayer to Latin. When a man or woman is occupied by the wording of a prayer and not with the prayer and with their God, it may be beautiful, but it never gets higher than the bald spot on their head. Jimmie prayed as he ran along the railroad tracks, and asked God to help him say the right thing at the right time. "Hello, Bill, yer up, are yer? Yer must be feelin' better." "Yes, he's up and he ain't had a drink ter-day nor las' night, have yer, Bill?" said Mrs. Cook proudly. "And what's more, yer ain't goin' ter have none, are yer, Bill?" Bill was eating canned tomatoes from a can with a spoon. Tomatoes taste good to a man in Bill's condition and they will stay down when nothing else will. "He's got ter git out ter-day an' sign his pension papers, 'cause he won't git his money on the fifth if he don't," said Mrs. Cook. "I wish you'd go with him, Jim," she whispered. "He ain't very strong yet." "I'll do it, yer bet," said Jimmie. "What time do yer want ter go, Bill?" "About ten o'clock I'll be ready." Bill spoke with great difficulty; he was very weak and nervous. "Dat'll gi' me time ter go and see Floe," said Jimmie. "I'll be back at jus' ten o'clock. Yer make him wait fer me, won't yer, Mrs. Cook?" "Yep, I'll keep him if I can." The colored cook let Jimmie into the Dolly resort through the kitchen, and he was shown to Floe's room by the nurse, who had been called in by Doctor Snyder the night before. "Oh, Jimmie child, I'm so glad to see you. I've been thinking of what you said about asking Jesus to help me. He can't help me now; it's too late. Come here, Jimmie dear, I want to ask you to do something for me." Jimmie went to her bedside. "Will you do what I want you to do?" "I'll do der best I kin ter help yer," said Jimmie proudly. "Yer was good ter me and I want ter be good ter you. I'll never forgit the dollar yer sent ter Ma when Pa was sick, and the shoes yer----" "Oh, never mind any of that, Jim; I want to ask you to do me this favor before you get started to talk and say something I don't want to hear," said Floe. "For years the whole aim of my life has been to forget, forget, forget the past. I had succeeded to some extent and begun to believe that I was away from even the thought or desire for anything better than this kind of life. What you said last night has brought it all back to me and I have been living in the past all night, only to awake this morning to this awful reality. Now, Jimmie child, I don't want to hurt you, but I want you to promise me that you will never mention anything of that kind to me again. It can never do me any good and it only makes me miserable." "Jesus never makes yer miserable, Floe. He makes yer glad yer livin'," said Jimmie, and before she could answer he went on in his enthusiastic way: "Say, Floe, you know Mrs. Morton at the Mission? Well, she's the best that ever happened. Talk 'bout der limit; what der yer tinks she wants now? I went up ter der house this mornin' and tol' 'em about yer gittin' hurted, den I tried ter tell 'em 'bout Dave Beach, but Mrs. Morton, she says, 'Tell me more about Floe.' 'Do yer know Floe?' I ast. 'No, I do not, Jimmie, but I want to know her.' And dis is what she said: She wants yer to come up ter her house while yer hurted and live with her. She says it ain't so bloomin' noisy, er somfin like dat. You'll git well quicker and she says she wants ter take care of yer, and yer can live dere all der time if yer wants ter, and be Floe Morton. Gee, dey got a swell house with carpets, an' pictures an' things jus' like yer got here, and grass and trees outside and a hummock ter swing in, an' I'll come ter see yer every day. Mrs. Morton tol' me ter come jus' any ol' time I wanted ter. Won't that be fine, me an' you both there?" Floe tried to speak, but Jimmie talked so fast she couldn't get a word in edgewise. "Dis here lady with a white doo-bob on her top-knot says I can't stay only fer a minute, so I wants ter tell yer what we're doin'. Me an' Mrs. Morton is comin' up ter see yer, and she's goin' ter tell yer what she wants, and if Doctor Snyder and dis lady says yer can be took, Mrs. Morton is goin' ter get a hearse wagon an' take yer home, an' I'm goin' along. I never rid in one of 'em tings yet. I must go now, but I'm comin' back with Mrs. Morton. So long." "Wait a minute, Jimmie," cried Floe. "Don't bring that woman in here, Jimmie, do you hear?" But he was gone, or at least he did not give her a chance to talk back. Jimmie went straight to the Cook home. Mrs. Cook said Bill had just left, but had promised not to take a drink. Jimmie hurried out of the house, and for some reason, unknown even to himself, started for Fagin's. He slipped in unnoticed and there stood Bill on one side of the bar and Fagin on the other. Bill had just got a drink to his mouth with great difficulty after Fagin had poured it out. When he set the glass down upon the bar, Fagin filled it up again and Bill "downed" it. As Fagin filled it for the third time, Jimmie rushed up with his canvas bag, in which he carried papers. Swinging it around his head with all his strength, he hit the glass and bottle and sent them across the room, breaking both on the floor. Bill thought it was his wife. As he ducked his head, he said, "I didn't drink no booze, that was for Fagin." "Don't lie, Bill. I saw yer git two, but I don't blame yer fer it. Fagin knows how near yer come ter cashin' in and how weak yer are, and wants ter git yer goin' agin 'cause yer pension's 'bout due; he knows he'll git it if yer drunk." Fagin was white with rage and started for Jimmie, but Jimmie straightened up and made himself as large as he could, and, with his big gray eyes fastened upon Fagin, said, "I'm not scart of yer bluff; yer coward 'nough ter hit me 'cause I'm little, but yer goin' ter listen while I tell yer somfin. Yer killed me Pa, an' yer know it. After yer got all his dough, yer put him out and he was left in Rice's wagon box ter freeze, while yer slept in yer good bed. When it come ter buryin' him yer didn't give nothin' but a lot of poor booze ter git der people drunk, and der funeral broke up in a free-for-all; now yer after Bill 'cause yer tinks yer can git his pension. His woman's got her second washin' out so fur dis mornin' an' when I ast her how she did it she said she washed all night long, 'cause rent was up and Bill was sick. Then she said she'd wash her finger nails off if she could help Bill git saved. She loves Bill and her kids jus' as much as your woman loves yer and yer kids, and I don't see what yer want ter kill him off fer. Dey never done nothin' ter you. Ah, go on! he wouldn't either git it nowhere else if he didn't git it here." A big tear stole down Jimmie's face as he stood looking first at Fagin and then at poor Bill. "Der Bible say that God loves everybody, and I believe it 'cause it says so, but I can't see no show fer a dog like you, Fagin. You're worser than any guy I ever see'd. You go ter church every Sunday mornin', and Sunday afternoon and the rest of the week yer booze and steal and raise h----. Yer got ter----" "Oh, shut up, you little fool; some one told you to say that; no kid your age got off such a temperance talk without some one helping him. That fresh guy from the Mission put you up to rubbing it into me; I'll fix him, and you, too, if I ever hear any more of it." Fagin was beaten by the boy and he felt the defeat keenly. "I suppose you'll hit him in der back of der head wid a stone, like yer did der poor dago last spring. If yer lookin' fer a good square game I tink Morton could fix yer so you'd need one of yer fottygraffs on yer shirt front ter tell yer wife who was comin' home ter dinner. Come on, Bill, let's git out of here and go sign yer papers. Dis is no place fer gentlemen like me and you." Jimmie took Bill by the hand and started for the door. Bill had not spoken during the "temperance lecture," and when Jimmie took him by the hand he allowed himself to be led away and seemed glad to have a chance to get out of the place. He did not want to drink, and yet he could not help it. "So long, Fagin," said Jimmie when he had reached the door with Bill. "When yer confess next Sunday mornin' be sure ter tell 'em 'bout dis hold-up, and tell 'em dat all der money yer gits is money yer steals from der women and kids of Bucktown. An' say, Fagin," Jimmie yelled from the sidewalk, "tell 'em erbout Bill's pension yer didn't git. So long." Jimmie got Bill back home after the papers were signed and Mrs. Cook put him to bed. Neither spoke of the two drinks to her and she was very happy as she thought of the wonderful things ahead of her. "Fer thirty years Bill's been havin' spells," she said to herself. "Now I believe it's goin' ter change. He can't help gittin' saved if he hears them people at der Mission tell how Jesus kin save 'em." CHAPTER IX _"Auntie's Favorite Horse"_ Dave Beach had traded for an old pacing mare. She was very sore forward, at least sixteen years old, but had a world of speed for a short distance. In the harness she was quiet and kind, but in the barn she would drive nearly every one from her. To feed her was a trick few men cared to learn. She would kick and bite, and any one who was the least bit timid could do nothing with her. Dave had traded for her in another city. She was not known to horsemen around here. He expected to make some money with her, so he kept her out of sight as much as possible until he got her "fixed up a bit," as he put it. He had her teeth filed until she had a six-year-old mouth. Her shoes were pulled off to let her feet spread and grow. The clippers had removed her long hair, and Dave had fed her to bring the best results for looks and speed. He knew nothing of her breeding, but that was "easy" for a man as horsy as Dave. When she was ready for the public to see she looked as racy as even Dave had hoped for. The morning paper contained the following advertisement: "For Sale.--The bay pacing mare Becky Wilkes, by Forward, by George Wilkes, by Hamiltonian 10, by Abdallah 1. Dam: Mamie B, by Brown Hal, by Tom Hal, Jr., by Kitrell's Tom Hal, by old Kentucky Tom Hal. This mare is six years old, kind and gentle, perfectly sound, and can show a 10 clip to wagon. With proper work she would be a world beater. Reason for selling--death in the family. Call mornings at Beach's Livery, Brady St." After Dave's experience with Jimmie he went to bed and slept until ten o'clock. He was standing in the big double door of the barn, thinking what a fool he had made of himself, when a young fellow drove up to the curb and stopped. "Is this Beach's Livery?" "Yes, sir, this is the place," said Dave. "I see by the paper that you have a pacer for sale." The speaker was a fine-looking young man, with a good face and an easy manner. He was dressed in the pink of fashion, and his general make-up would denote wealth. Dave was not sure of the kind of man he had to deal with. He looked him over carefully, but somehow he was unable to tell whether he was "horse wise" or not. "He'll soon show his hand," said Dave to himself. "He's either 'dead wise' or 'dead easy.'" "Yes, sir, I have a very fine bay mare and she's for sale to the right party," said Dave. "No one can get that mare to abuse, as she is very dear to our family. Do you want a horse for yourself, sir?" "Yes, I want one that can go faster than these," pointing to his own team. "I have the one," said Dave. "Can I see it?" asked the stranger. "Sure you can; I'll hitch her up. (Did you hear him say 'it'? Mamma, he's easy!) Oh, Hank!" he shouted. "Put the harness on Becky. (I knew that he'd soon show his hand," said Dave to himself. "He don't know no more about a horse than a jack-rabbit knows about ping-pong, or he'd never say 'it.' Just watch me hand it to him.) Ginger up a bit, Hank, this man is in a hurry." Of course Hank, the barn man, knew what that meant, and when Becky came out she was champing the bit and pawing like a race horse. Dave was proud of the way she was acting. "She's perfectly safe and kind, but full of life. Not a mean thing in her make-up, and if you can find an 'out' about her I'll give her to you." As he was hitching her to his light wagon he kept up his horse talk, and no one could beat him talking horse if he thought the man had money. "You see this mare is out of Colonel Thompson's celebrated string. The Colonel's wife was my aunt, and when this mare was a colt auntie fell in love with her and would not allow her to be raced down through the circuit. When Johnny Seely broke Joe Patchen he used Becky to work him out and she would go away from him like he was tied to a post. Yes, siree, man, this is the greatest mare on earth and she never had but one chance to show what she could do, and I'll stop and tell you about that right now. Just once we got her away from the home stables and I'll never forget that day. There had been much good-natured bartering among the owners and drivers down through the grand circuit during the season and much money had changed hands among them that did not reach the 'bookies.' When we got to Lexington, Kentucky (our old home), at the close of the season, the owners got together and put up five hundred dollars each for a special race. Mile dash, free-for-all, either gait, association rules to govern. Harry Loper to start them and the first horse under the wire to take the jack-pot. The Lexington association added five thousand dollars. "The day of the race was ideal, clear and warm and no wind blowing to speak of. Oh, my! I'll never forget the excitement of that day till I die. There was Splan with Newcastle, Geers with Robert J., McHenry with John R. Gentry, Curry with Joe Patchen, Curtis with Walter E., Wade with Dr. M., Kelly with his California wonder. You see every one had to start some horse, even if he was outclassed. Old Dad Hamlin said to the Colonel, 'What are you going to start, Colonel?' 'I don't know; I'll find something,' he said." The young man did not understand a word that Dave said, but looked at him in wonder. "After a talk with Seely," Dave went on, "it was decided that they would slip this mare over to the track. Yes, sir, this very mare here, and Johnnie was to drive her in the special race. In the betting she was never mentioned until the Colonel went up and asked for a price on her. 'Oh, about fifty to one,' said Al Swarengen. 'Do you want a dollar's worth of her?' 'Give me a hundred dollars' worth,' said the Colonel. He bet a hundred dollars with every bookie in the bunch at fifty to one. When they scored for the word, Johnnie was in fifth position. They got away the third time down. Every horse was on their stride. Mack had the pole, Curry lay alongside, and Geers, with Robert J. going strong, moved in from the outside just after they left the wire. A blanket would cover the three horses at the quarter pole. Johnnie was trailing close up with Becky, but the trotters Newcastle and Walter E. with Dr. M. were outclassed. The pacers went the first quarter in 30 3/4 seconds, but slowed some in the back stretch. At the half Gentry made a skip, but recovered quick and still held the pole in the upper turn. No one in the grand stand seemed to notice the little bay with her nose at the wheel of Gentry's sulky. The Colonel knew she was there, and he knew also that if Johnnie could get her though the bunch at the head of the stretch there'd be a horse race in Kentucky that day that would make the Doble-Marvin days look like deuces in the Mississippi steamboat jack-pot. As the horses entered the stretch Geers spoke to his knee-sprung bay and he responded as only Robert J. could. Patchen, the big, honest black, was pacing the race of his life. McHenry can team 'em in the stretch like few men, and Gentry was on his tiptoes but holding his place. Johnnie could see no opening to get through as they entered the stretch, so he made a long swing clear to the outside with Becky and then pulled her together for the finish. A hundred yards from the wire it was anybody's race. Mack was reefing Gentry; Geers was talking to Robert J. in his own way; Patchen kept his feet, although Curry was standing up yelling at the top of his voice. The people in the grand stand hardly breathed as Seely came up strong on the outside with Becky. 'Who is that?' they cried. 'See that bay horse come up on the outside. What horse is it? Who's driving her? Come on, boys!' they cried. When within fifty yards of the wire Johnnie shifted both lines into his left hand and cut Becky with the whip the full length of her body. She shot forward with a mighty lunge and Johnnie rained blow after blow upon her. Just before they reached the wire Robert J. and Becky were neck and neck, with Gentry and Patchen at their throat-latch. Drivers and horses were straining every nerve. The great crowd in the stand were holding their breath. The judges and timers forgot their duty. Never will the excitement of that moment be forgotten. Just in reach of the wire Johnnie let go of Becky's head and she shot her nose under the wire about two inches ahead of Robert J. For a moment all was still, then that crowd of Kentuckians threw their hats in the air and yelled themselves hoarse. As the drivers came back to dismount, Johnnie was lifted high in the air and was literally carried into the weighing-room, while Becky was led to the stables to be cooled off. The niggers rushed to the Thompson mansion on the river and told Mrs. Thompson about Becky's victory. When the Colonel drove back home, with Johnnie leading Becky, Mrs. Thompson came at once to the stables and said to Johnnie, 'Uncover that mare.' 'She is very warm, ma'am,' said Johnnie. 'You can see her in the morning all right.' 'I want to see her now,' she said, and she did. When she was those whip marks she was very angry and said, 'That mare will never race again while I live, nor after, if I can help it.' "When auntie died she gave the best she had to her favorite nephew, with the understanding, of course, that I would never enter this mare in a race, and I meant to keep her for my own use, but every time I see her it reminds me of my poor, dead aunt, and I am determined to let some good man have her, but he must use her right. It would kill me to think that auntie's favorite horse was abused." Hank got a coughing spell and started on a run for the back end of the barn. He fell into a box stall and rolled and laughed until it seemed he would never get his breath. "Oh, mamma!" he said, "if that dood gits that old blister he'll wish she was in heaven with Dave's auntie about the first time he goes to feed her." He doubled up again and rolled in the straw and laughed until he cried. "I like a liar, but Dave suits me too well," he cried. He peeked out of the stall just as Dave and his victim started out of the door. "Becky sure feels her ginger this morning," he said, and then fell back in the stall and rolled and laughed some more. Dave drove down over the pavement slowly, talking "horse" as he went. When he got down on the river bank, where there was about eighty rods of good dirt road, he "cut her loose." She was used to a "brush" and liked the dirt, and the way she threw dust into that "dood's" eyes pleased Dave. "Did you ever see anything like it?" said Dave as he pulled her up. "And she only got started on that short road. She goes a mile better than a quarter." Dave turned her around and handed the lines to the young man and said, "You drive her down this time." He fell in love with her on the way to the barn and said to Dave, "How much do you want for her?" "That's the trouble," said Dave, almost ready to cry. "When it comes to parting with her it almost breaks my heart; but I can't keep her around the barn, as she constantly reminds me of dear auntie. I hardly know what to say. You'll be kind to her, won't you?" "Oh, yes, I'll be kind to her for your aunt's sake," the young man replied kindly. As they got back to the barn Dave looked at the slick, fat team that belonged to the young man and said, "Where did you get that pair of farm horses? They'll do for plowing, but you want something that will beat anything in town, and Becky can do it." After much talk about breeding and speed, Dave finally made him an offer to trade Becky for the team of five-year-olds and one hundred dollars. The man counted out the money without saying a word and Dave nearly fell dead, as he said afterward. "I could just as well got five hundred. What a chump I was!" As the young man's coachman led the mare away that afternoon after delivering the five-year-olds, Dave called to him and said, "Say, watch her a little in the stable. She's cross, but if you ain't afraid of her you can handle her easy. Don't let her bluff you." "Thrust me for that, laddy. Oi've seen the loikes of this before," pointing with his thumb to the mare. "Oi sure feel sorry fer paple and harses that are in their second choildhood. Shure, if yer aunt was old enough to remember when this mare was a colt she was old enough to die." Dave smiled, but made no reply. Generally after a good trade Dave took every one out for a drink and felt very happy. The boys stood around and waited, but Dave failed to say anything. At last Hank ventured to say, "Are yer any good, Dave? We're spittin' cotton." "You go treat the boys, Hank; I don't want a drink now," said Dave, throwing him a dollar. For the first time in his life he felt as if he had robbed some one. Everything is fair in a horse trade, and he figured that the fellow could afford to get beat once. "It will teach him a lesson," he said. "I think he is too game to come back and holler, and I'm not afraid of that; but it sort of looks like taking advantage of his ignorance." Jimmie and his Friend kept coming up before him until Dave almost wished the old mare was back in the barn. "I'd give this hundred dollars if I didn't feel so much like an old fool woman. I don't know what's ailing me. I've traded my dead aunt's favorite horse at least fifty times and it never hurt me before like it does now. I guess I need a drink. I'm losing my nerve." CHAPTER X _Jimmie's Education_ "Don't it beat the Dutch, Fagin, the way things is goin' in Bucktown?" said Mike, the bartender, to Fagin one afternoon. "The gang all seem ter be on the bum. When I went home fer dinner this noon, my old lady said she was goin' ter the Mission with Mrs. Cook and Bill ter-night. Ever since that funeral of Moore's, she's been sendin' the kids to the Mission Sunday school and not one of 'em will come inside of this place now. I've been thinkin' I'd put a stop to the whole business and not let her nor the kids go near that place, but I guess I'll keep my hands off until they git to interferin' with my business; then I'll stop 'em hard." "Has Bill Cook been down to the Mission?" asked Fagin. "Yes, and I guess they've got him, too. His woman says he's converted, er whatever they calls it, and he told me this mornin' that he wasn't drinkin'. I ast him to have one, but he said he'd foller the water wagon the rest of his life. I give him the laugh, but he wouldn't stand fer it." "This is pension day, isn't it?" asked Fagin. "I think so," said Mike. "Well, if Bill stays sober after he gets his money, then I'll think there's somethin' ter this Mission business," said Fagin. "That kid of Moore's is makin' most of this trouble and Jewey says that Dave Beach is stuck on him. Dave always had good sense, but he don't show it now. He paid for the ambulance that Mrs. Morton used to take Floe to her house with, and that must 'a' cost three dollars anyhow." "Does he come here much now, Mike?" "Not much, and when he does come he acts sore all the time. The other mornin' about four o'clock he came in here and got a couple of drinks and he was so mad he was cryin'. When I ast him what was eatin' him he wanted to lick me. I tell you, things are changin' in Bucktown, Fagin, and I don't like it a little bit." The women of Bucktown were talking the same way, and little groups of them could be seen here and there in earnest conversation about Mrs. Cook, Bill Cook, Floe, Jimmie, etc. "I'll bet Bill'll be drunk when he gits his money," said Mrs. Kinney. "You git her mad and she'll swear like she always did. Where der yer suppose she got that hat she's wearin'? When I ast her she said the Lord give it to 'er, and she says she's goin' ter have a carpet and curtains. I wish Bill would git drunk and just teach her a good lesson. She's gittin' too smart. She'll quit speakin' to us next thing we know, and that Floe that Mrs. Morton took home with her, I'll bet she'll be a bad girl agin. If I don't miss my guess, they'll be sorry they ever saw Bucktown." Even the children would stand and look at Bill when he passed by on the street. Morton had gone with him to his old employer and told him how he was saved, and he gave Bill back his old place in the shop. He worked ten hours each day and went to the Mission every night. Jimmie was getting on well with is studies under Mrs. Price. She gave him an hour each morning and he worked hard to get his lessons. On Saturday morning he rushed into Morton's office very much excited. "What's the matter, Jimmie?" said Morton. "Matter? Matter 'nough, I guess. What yer been steerin' me up against? I was jus' gittin' my lesson up at Price's and her man comes home. He's a travelin' man and gits home once a month. He stood lookin' at me and, pointin' his finger at me, says, says he, 'What's dis?' His woman says, says she, 'Dat's Jimmie Moore and I'm teachin' him ter read and write. He's one of der Sunday school boys at der Mission.' 'I don't want no such cattle in my house,' he said ter his woman. 'He's covered wid vermum (er somfin like dat) and'll steal yer blind when yer ain't lookin',' and said he wa'n't runnin' no mission, and 'f I didn't git he'd sling me out der winder." "Well, what did you do, Jimmie?" asked Morton. "Do? I ducks out, and ducks out fast is what I do. Did yer ever see him? He's one of them tall, skinny guys and he's got er high shiny hat dat makes him taller and skinnier. He'd go fer a lead pencil at der masquerade in Bucktown, if he had a rubber on his head. Den his overcoat is so big dat he's got a belly-band buttoned on behind it ter make it littler. Gee, he looked like er rat-tail in er quart cup. I wouldn't care so much, but I left my book dere, and I'm scart ter go after it." "Did you say anything to him, Jimmie?" asked Morton. "Not on yer life, I didn't have time; he came near beatin' me to der door as it was." "Well, never mind, Jimmie. It may be all right. I will get your book for you and you will learn to read and write yet," said Morton kindly. "Romans 8:28 says that 'all things work together for good to them that love God.'" While Jimmie's experience with Price was hard for one so sensitive, before the day ended he was very glad it had happened as it did. As Mr. and Mrs. Price started for down-town that evening to do some shopping, Mrs. Price took Jimmie's book with her. When they reached Brady Street, where the Mission is located, she turned suddenly to Mr. Price and said, "I have that boy's book with me and I want to take it to him at the Mission. Please walk down with me; it is rather rough on Saturday night and I am timid alone." For what followed, hear Mr. Price's own words as he stood up to speak in the Mission at the end of the service. "If any one had told me this morning that I would be in a place like this to-night, I would have considered that person insane. It was all a mistake on my part, but I thank God for the mistake. For years I have been a traveling man. To hold my trade and be a good fellow I have always treated my customers right. In this way I got into the habit of drinking. Never got drunk very often at first, but the habit kept growing until it has been the other way--never got sober very often. Ten days ago, in another city, fifteen of us boys met at the supper table in the hotel and one of them bet the drinks for the crowd with another one. I do not know what the bet was about, but after supper we all adjourned to the barroom to drink with the loser. Before we stopped we had all treated and every one was ready for anything. To make a long story short, we have all been drunk for ten days. I reached home this morning without money; I left my hotel bill unpaid. My firm does not know where I am. When I went into the house my wife had company, and I was mad in a minute. I tried to kick a boy out of doors that she was teaching to read. I have not spoken a pleasant word all day. To-night my wife asked me to come to this place with her, as she had a book she wanted to deliver to that boy. He was nowhere to be seen, so I sat down with her in the back part of the building to wait for him. Two large women came in and we moved in against the wall to make room for them. I became very nervous and wanted to get out, but I couldn't get past those women. I was angry enough at my wife to choke her, but she sat there and sung those old songs and never once looked at me. When my eye caught sight of the motto there, 'How long since you wrote Mother?' I almost fell from my chair. Listen, fellows; I had as good a mother as God ever gave a boy. I had promised her many times that I would not take another drink, but never could keep my word. One day when I was in a barroom, I received a telegram from my wife which read, 'Come at once. Mother is dead.' When I reached home they told me that the last conscious words were a prayer for her boy. I had promised her to meet her in Heaven, but I've gone lower and lower since her death. I thank God for that boy; I thank God for those words on the wall and for Mr. Morton's invitation to come to Mother's God. Since I came to this altar, Jesus has saved me and I mean to live for Him and meet Mother over there." As he sat down there was scarcely a dry eye in the house. Jimmie went up to him and put his hand on his arm and said, "I was sore at yer ter-day, but I love yer now, Mr. Price." Price took the boy in his arms and hugged him. "I love you, my boy, and will always be your friend. You will always find my home open to you." CHAPTER XI _The Meeting in the Market_ The first day that was warm enough for people to stand outside and listen, Mr. Morton had his big, white stallions hitched to the gospel wagon, which was also white. The team had wintered well and weighed 3400 pounds. As they stood champing their bits outside of the Mission, Jimmie watched them for a few minutes and then, turning to Morton, said, "Please, kin I go erlong, Mr. Morton?" "Where shall we go, Jimmie? We want to have about three meetings this afternoon if the weather stays warm, as it is now." "Have all t'ree of 'em in Bucktown," said Jimmie. "I bet I kin git Dave Beach ter come over ter the corner ter see dem dere horses, and I'll bet Fagin and Mike'll come over ter hear Bill Cook make his speel, and say, come here er minute." Jimmie took Morton off to one side, away from every one, and whispered into his ear: "If you'll git Floe ter go down there an' sing dat dere song erbout 'Tellin' yer Ma I'll be dere' [Tell Mother I'll be There], it'll git der whole bunch out to der meetin'." "Floe is not very strong, Jimmie, and I hardly think she would care to sing in the open air." "If she'll do et, will yer let her?" "Oh, yes, if she cares to go I will be glad to take her with us on the wagon. You must not tell her I wanted you to ask her, Jimmie," said Mr. Morton as the boy started on a run to ask Floe to sing. "She'll be dere by der time der wagon is," said Jimmie, all out of breath, "an' I'm goin' down now ter tell der gang you're comin'." Before the second song had been sung at least two hundred people stood before the gospel wagon at the corner of the Market. All ages, sizes, colors, kinds, some drunk, some under the influence of morphine and opium, and some Greeks and Russians who could not understand one word of the English language. On the edge of the crowd were three or four girls from the Dolly resort, and as many more from other houses of this same type near by. Oily Ike, Fred Hood and Jewey were there; but Fagin, Mike, Dave Beach and Jimmie were nowhere to be seen. When the male quartet arose to sing, every one became very quiet and listened attentively to the singing. Morton read the first Psalm and then told the crowd just why they were there. "We are here to tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ and His power to save; because we know that every one of you needs Him," said Morton. This class of people can never be "fooled," and one endeavoring to help them in a spiritual way must be very frank and honest, and never, never use "nice" words or sayings to catch them. They are very suspicious of everybody and when any one attempts to win them to his way of thinking he must do it in a straightforward, honest manner. Do not call them "dear friends" or "dear brothers and sisters"; do not tell them that they are all good people, as they at once begin to look for a collection box or expect you to have something to sell. They say, "He's either a fool or thinks I'm one." "The City Rescue Mission stands for the old Gospel of Christ, to save from sin," Morton continued. "And on this wagon to-day are those who were once far in sin, but who are now happy in Him. Every one here knows Mr. Cook. He is your neighbor and I believe your friend. You all knew him in his old life and most of you know how God has kept him these past weeks. I know that you will all want to hear from him, and after he speaks to you I shall ask a lady to sing. She will sing, by request, 'Tell Mother I'll be There.' I take great pleasure in introducing to you Mr. William Cook." "What's the matter with Bill?" yelled a voice. "He's all right!" came from nearly every throat as Bill stood up to speak. Jimmie stepped from the side entrance of Fagin's saloon and was quickly followed by Mike, Fagin, Dave Beach and Gene Dibble. Bill started to speak just as they lined up in front of him, and he became so nervous he could scarcely stand up, much less say anything. Fagin was quick to notice his embarrassment and laughed a rough Ha! Ha! "Cut that out, Fagin!" said Dave, stepping up to him. The look in Dave's eyes told Fagin that he meant all he said. "Go on, Bill, you're a winner," he said. "We want to hear you speak." "Well, fellows, yer know that this is a new one on me. I've never been up against this gospel wagon game before in my life. My trainin' has been along other lines. I can't make no speech, but I can tell yer this, that fer six weeks I ain't wanted no booze and I've been workin' most of the time and got money in my pocket to buy booze if I wanted it. See?" "Good boy, Bill," yelled Dave. "You're getting your second wind; all you need is a little more weight forward and jogged every morning in hopples for about ten days and you've got 'em all skinned in your class." "Go on, Bill," said Jimmie, "tell 'em what yer told 'em in der Mission last night." "It's this way," said Bill, great drops of perspiration standing on his forehead. "It's this way. In the army I learned to drink. After I came home I took up my old trade and have always worked when I could keep sober. Since I have lived in this part of town I've been drunk more than I have been at work. Every time it happened, I'd swear that it would never happen again, but I'd go and git it before I'd git my breakfast. I tried to stop, but couldn't handle myself at all. Every one round here knows how my family suffered. I could make enough ter keep 'em good, but I'd spent it fer likker. My wife has took in washin' to keep the kids from starvin' and freezin'. She had to work all night, more'n one night, and when Freddie died--Oh, my God! I wish I could forgit that! When Freddie died--I was drunk. Just before he passed away I promised him I'd never drink another drop, but I went out and got into the delirium tremens before I stopped. When I came to myself I found that my wife had sold everything in the house but the stove, table, a few chairs and one bed to pay the funeral expenses. You can call it fun, if yer want to, but I tell you it's hell on earth. Most of you know what's happened lately. When my old pal, Bob Moore, died, I was in bad shape; but I never got away from what God did fer him before he died. When I got out of bed, Jimmie took me to the Mission and Jesus saved me the first night I went there. My wife was saved the night before, and I tell you we're havin' different times at our house nowadays. We had chicken fer dinner to-day and we've had meat once a day fer two weeks. I've eat garlic sausage and rye bread on the free lunch counter fer thirty years, but now I'm eatin' chicken and givin' the old lady and kids a chance ter eat too." When he sat down some tried to clap their hands, but the crowd did not feel that way. Every one knew that Bill had told the truth and they were touched with the earnest way in which he told his simple, straightforward story. "Now, while you are quiet, I will ask our friend to sing for us," said Morton. "Please come to the wagon, sister," he said to Floe. As she stepped upon the wagon every eye was upon her. She was dressed in a dark tailor-made suit, very plain but neat. Mr. Worden at the organ started to play softly. Floe walked to the front of the wagon and looked down into the faces of many she knew. Her large black eyes beamed with love for them all. She was very pale, but calm, and as she stood there she looked like a queen. "It's Floe," said Dave. "She can beat 'em all singin'." "Gee, don't she look swell! I'd hardly know her," said Gene Dibble. "Before I sing this song for you," she said in a clear, sweet voice, "I wish to say something about it. Most of you, no doubt, know this song and many of you like it, but to me it means more than any song I could sing. It simply tells my life story. Let me read it to you. "When I was but a little child, how well I recollect, How I would grieve my mother with my folly and neglect. And now that she has gone to Heaven, I miss her tender care, Oh, angels, tell my mother I'll be there. "Tell mother I'll be there, in answer to her prayer, This message, guardian angel, to her bear. Tell mother I'll be there, Heaven's joys with her to share, Yes, tell my darling mother, I'll be there. "When I was often wayward, she was always kind and good, So patient, gentle, loving, when I acted rough and rude. My childhood griefs and trials, she would gladly with me share, Oh, angels, tell my mother I'll be there. "When I became a prodigal and left the old roof-tree, She almost broke her loving heart in grieving after me. And day and night she prayed to God to keep me in His care, Oh, angels, tell my mother I'll be there. "One day a message came to me, it bade me quickly come, If I would see my mother ere the Saviour took her home. I promised her before she died for Heaven to prepare, Oh, angels, tell my mother I'll be there. "This last verse has been enacted in my life within the past week. Mrs. Morton had written home and told father and mother that I was with her. This message came the next day, 'Come at once. Mother is dying'; it was signed 'From your Father.' In company with Mrs. Morton I reached the old home at four o'clock the next afternoon. I used to think the place was lonely and dreary, but I can never tell you how glad I was to set my foot in the old yard once more. Everything looked so good to me, and the same old apple tree where I used to swing when I was a little girl seemed to welcome me home. Dear old Rover came to meet me and, although it had been three years since he saw me, he knew me. We hugged each other and in his dog way he made me feel that I still had a place in his warm heart. The night I left home, the old dog followed me down the road and it nearly broke my heart when I had to send him back; he loved me when I thought all the world hated me. As I reached the porch, father came to the door. Oh, how different he looked! When I left home he was strong and active and now he is bent with sorrow, sorrow that my sin has brought to him. He took me in his arms and kissed me again and again. I tried to ask him for forgiveness; but he would not listen to me. 'You have been forgiven ever since you left home that awful night, and I have searched for three years to find you and tell you so. But come, my child, you must see your mother; she has been calling for you ever since her sickness.' He led the way into mother's bed chamber. 'Here's daughter, Mother,' he said. "'Oh, I knew you'd come,' she said with a feeble voice; 'I just knew that God would send you to me before He called me home. Raise me up, child, I can't see you.' "I lifted her frail body and held her in my arms and--and--well, after I made the promise that is in this last verse, she smiled and, with her eyes turned heavenward, my dear, sweet mother went to be with Jesus. You all know my life, how I suffered for my sin; I tried to forget father, mother, home and God. Loving hands have lifted me back to life once more and Jesus has saved me from it all and I can truthfully say, 'Oh, angels, tell my mother I'll be there.'" The song that followed carried everything before it, and nearly every one was weeping. The rich contralto voice was never better and Floe was singing from her very soul. She forgot the people around her, she was in another world. When the chorus had been sung for the last verse the male quartet took it up, singing softly, and seemed to carry that crowd into the very heaven of which Floe had been singing. Morton closed the meeting in prayer and was inviting them to accept Jesus as their Saviour. While he was talking, Floe stepped from the wagon to join Mrs. Morton; as she passed Jewey he made a remark to her and insultingly referred to her past life. Gene Dibble, hearing it, threw his coat to Dave Beach, and stepping up to Jewey said, "Get out of your clothes and square yourself. No man can insult a girl that's tryin' ter trot square and make me like it." There was an old grudge of long standing between these men and every one knew that a fight was unavoidable; both men were strong and each had a reputation as a fighter to sustain. "Give 'em room," cried Dave. "We'll see fair play." "Oh, Mr. Dibble," cried Floe, "don't fight for me. I deserve all he said and more." Gene turned to Floe, and awkwardly raising his hat was about to speak, when Jewey said, tauntingly, "Oh, I guess he ain't looking fer it very bad; he was just bluffin' anyhow." Jimmie took Floe by the hand and pulled her away from the ring that Dave had formed by crowding the people back. Every one wanted to see Jewey whipped, but all knew that Gene had his hands full to do it. It is not the purpose of the story to describe this fight, but, from a fighter's standpoint, it was a beauty. Gene had just come from the North woods and he was hard and strong, and had better wind than his antagonist. It was give and take from the start; blood was flowing freely on both sides. Jewey was becoming winded and began to beat the air and strike very wild. "Keep out an upper cut," said Dave, "you've got him coming all right." Gene pulled himself together and went in to finish his man. With a right swing, he caught him square on the point of the jaw; in short, as Dave said, "Gene won it in a walk. Bully for Gene!" On the way to the Mission, Morton sat with his head in his hands. "Beat again," he said. "Every time I get that people together the devil spoils the whole business." CHAPTER XII _Fred Hanks_ The topic of conversation in Bucktown on Sunday evening was the Gospel wagon service. Many little groups were seen here and there talking about Floe, Bill, the singing or the fight. Every one but Mrs. Kinney liked some part of the service, but she was never known to be pleased with anything. "The idea of Bill Cook sayin' the things he did! And if I'd 'a' been his wife I'd hide my face. My! I was ashamed fer him. I'll bet he'll be drunk for weeks out and I jus' wish he would," she said. When some one said they thought the singing was fine, Mrs. Kinney said, "Hum, you call that singin'? That big feller that stood on the end and singed bass looks like a catfish when he opened his mouth. The fellow that plays the organ looks for all the world like a girl, and if you call that singin', I wish you could hear the singin' I heard at the Indian Medicine Show last summer; that's what I call real singin'. And that Floe standin' up there, singin' afore that big crowd and her mother hardly cold in her coffin! The style is that she mus' not go in 'siety fer a year, and if you call that singin' you don't know the first principle of music er 'siety. To my way of thinkin', them big horses should be a-workin' 'stead o' hawlin' a lot o' lazy galoots around town fer pleasure. Why, that Morton wears as good clothes as the undertaker. I'll bet he steals the money out of the collection box at the Mission." Mrs. Kinney never missed an opportunity to express her opinion and the neighbors knew just what to expect from her. She was the only person in the neighborhood who dared criticise Dave Beach. "He's a devil, and you'll all find it out when it's too late," she said. At the Mission the house was packed and several who had been at the Bucktown wagon service were in the audience. Gene Dibble was there with a "shanty" over his eye, his lip was swelled to twice its natural size and his right hand was tied up in a red handkerchief. He certainly looked the worse for wear. He dropped into a back seat and not a word sung or spoken escaped him. When Floe arose to sing, by request, the same song of the afternoon, Gene straightened up, and before she was half through the song he was standing on tiptoe. Floe saw him as he stood there and recognized him as the man who had fought to defend her that day. At the close of the meeting, Morton gave an invitation and Gene was the first one to raise his hand for prayer. He raised the one with the red handkerchief about it and Floe went at once to the rear of the room, to speak to him about his soul. "I'm so sorry to have caused you all this trouble," she said. "You would not be in this condition to-night were it not for me." "That's nothin'; I'd 'a' done it fer any girl that's tryin' to trot square. It's that song that's botherin' me, not the fight. Do you think I could ever be a Christian like you folks talk about? I have a good mother, but I'll never meet her there like you sing about in the song, the way I'm goin' now; what will I do?" When Floe and Gene walked up the aisle together, several people from Bucktown saw them. Before Gene could reach Dave's barn the news had preceded him. When Gene and Jimmie walked into the barn, Dave leaped to his feet and, taking Gene's free hand in his, said, "You're right in the step you've taken to-night and I'm glad for you. I know that your life can be a useful one and I don't want any one to put a straw in your way. No, don't say a word about that; it's not for me, but I feel just as much pleased to see you get into it as if it were for me. I know it is right, but I've lost my chance." At the conference in Morton's home the next morning, there was a time of great rejoicing, also a time of great anxiety. Jimmie was very happy over Gene's conversion. "We'll git der whole bunch yet," he said to Morton. "Der was five of 'em at the altar from Bucktown, last night, 'sides Gene. Fred Hanks was er comin' ter der Mission, but he got pinched at der railroad crossin' fer bein' drunk. Fagin give 'm four big drinks and er bottle ter start on, den steered him fer der meetin'. He got nabbed 'fore he got dere." Fagin had hoped to have Fred cause a disturbance at the meeting. He, Mike and Jewey were doing everything in their power to stop the Mission work in Bucktown. The fight on Sunday was a part of their plan; unfortunately for them, Dave Beach was there to see fair play and it resulted in a victory for Gene. Morton knew that the long fight that was to follow in Bucktown would be hard and bitter, but he also knew that God could give the victory. "Is Fred in jail now, Jimmie?" he asked. "Dat's what Dave tol' me dis mornin'." After prayer, Jimmie with Morton started for the jail. "Dis is Mr. Morton from the Mission, Fred; he wants ter see yer." With great difficulty Fred arose from the old plank upon which he was lying. He took hold of the bars with both hands, but was so weak he could not stand on his feet. "Just sit down, my boy; I want to talk to you," said Morton, kindly. Fred fell back exhausted upon the plank. In the city police stations of this country, a plank built against the wall is used for a bed. "You see," continued Morton, "I've been all through this thing and know just how you feel. Jimmie tells me you have been drinking for several weeks without a let-up. Have you had a drink this morning?" "No, and I'm near dead fer one," said Fred. "If I should take you out of here and help you to get on your feet, would you like to make a try for a better life?" asked Morton. "I was in a worse shape than you when I staggered into a Mission and learned of Jesus' power to save drunken men. I turned myself over into his keeping and I've not wanted a drink for over seven years. I know you are weak, but God is strong and He will fight for you. If you will promise me to do as I tell you, I will pay your fine and take you out of here." "I drew a ten spot or a three thirty-five," said Fred. "If you'll pay it for me I'll pay you back as soon as I get to work and I'll never take another drink as long as I live." "Unless you let the Lord undertake for you," said Morton, "you'll be drunk again inside of a week." Morton prayed with him and then went to the clerk of the police court and paid his fine. After Fred had had a bath and shampoo Mr. and Mrs. Morton went with him to his home. His wife and boy had not seen him for ten days and they were actually suffering for the necessities of life. It required much talk and coaxing before Mrs. Hanks would agree to give him one more chance. "You do not know him as I do," she said to Mrs. Morton. "A thousand times he has promised me to stay away from saloons and not drink, but he's broken every promise he ever made me. Our rent is two months behind, and baby and me have gone to bed hungry more than one night on account of his drunkenness. I'm tired of it all, and if it wasn't for baby's sake I'd end my life. I wish I was dead." She buried her head in her hands and wept bitterly. "It'll never happen again; I'm done this time sure," and he meant what he said. Morton left money with Mrs. Hanks to buy things to eat. She put Fred to bed and cared for him as tenderly as loving hands could. A woman's love is wonderful. In a few days Fred went to work at his old job, determined to be a sober man the rest of his life. That night he stood up in the Mission and said he was sober and was going to remain sober. On his way home to dinner next day, Fagin called to him from the saloon door. "Hello, Fred, they tell me that you're going to be a Mission stiff. Come in here a minute." Fred stepped inside. "I never thought you would get yellow on the bunch," said Fagin. "A man's a baby that will admit he can't take a social glass and stop when he wants to. Let's all take one together. Give us all something, Mike," said Fagin. Fred did not have the courage to say No. He not only took a drink with Fagin, but remained there until he was so drunk he couldn't see. Never had he been worse, that night he was helped into the Mission by Fagin's gang. They followed him in and waited to see the fun, but Fred was too drunk to make a noise and soon fell asleep. At the close of the meeting, Mr. Morton shook him until he awoke. "Come, Fred, I want you to go home with me to-night; I want to help you and be your friend." The next morning Fred was so ashamed of himself that he did not want to see the Mortons. He dressed himself and tried to slip out of the house unnoticed. Mrs. Morton intercepted him at the door. "Never mind about the past, my boy," she said. "You let God take care of you for to-day and you'll be all right. Your boss said you could go to work and your wife wants you to come home. We'll help you in every way we can, and if you'll only trust God, everything will brighten up." Fred was heartbroken. "I don't deserve such treatment from you folks; I turned you and lied to you like a thief," he said. "But Jesus loves you and we love you and your family loves you and you can go out in the strength of God and win the fight. Keep away from saloons and pray for help," said Mrs. Morton. Bill Cook was having a hard fight with the Fagin crowd. They had tried every way to get him to drink but he had been able to say No, in the name of the Lord. Then they attempted to get him angry. "Bill gets paid fer testifyin' in the Mission; he's just workin' a new graft," Fagin said one day. Bill was angry in a moment and wanted to fight, but before he could say anything, Jimmie said to Fagin, "Yer bet yer life he gits paid fer servin' Jesus. Look at dem clothes he's wearin'. He never had 'em when yer was gittin' his dough. He's dressin' jus' as swell as yer dressin'. When his woman gits rigged up fer meetin' she makes yer old gal look like er wheelborrer in er autermobile parade. Say, Fagin, yer worked up 'cause yer thinks yer kin git Bill sore an' den he'll take one. Not him; he's drinkin' other kind er booze, eh, Bill?" Gene Dibble was tormented almost beyond human endurance. He walked into Dave's barn one day white with rage. "If I've got ter stand this kind of a deal ter be a Christian, I'll cut this whole business out." "What's the trouble?" asked Dave. "There'll be trouble enough when I see Fagin," said Gene; "I just came from his place, but I can't find him. The dirty thief says that Floe is wrong and that I'm just playin' this here religious dodge just to get Floe. Floe an' me have been singin' together some and he says we're not trottin' square. I'll tell yer, Dave, there'll be singin' over to his house and he won't know anything about it if he don't stop mentioning Floe's name in that old cheap booze dump. That name's too good ter even be spoke in there." Dave smiled and Gene was quick to see it. "Now see here, Dave, you're wrong. I'm not stuck on Floe and no dog like Fagin can kick her down while I live." "You stay away from Fagin's," said Dave, "and don't let anything that you hear bother you. I'll see him to-day and he'll stop talking or I'll make him stop." After Fagin learned that he was causing Gene and Bill so much trouble he doubled his efforts to persecute them. "They're afraid to pass by the place any more," he said. "If they're tryin' to do good, why don't they come in and talk to us? I guess Gene can't leave his girl long enough. "Say, kid, come here," he called to Jimmie. "Why don't Morton come down here and try to convert us? Does he think we're so good we don't need it?" "Der yer want him ter come?" asked Jimmie. "Sure I want him, but he won't come; he's scart of the cars." Thirty minutes later, Jimmie rushed into Fagin's. There were ten or twenty men at the bar and Jimmie called out so every one could hear, "Say, Fagin, Mr. Morton said he'd come ter-night at eight er-clock an' hold a meetin' in yer saloon if you'll promise ter sell no booze from eight ter nine. Will yer do it?" "Be game, Fagin, be game!" cried several voices. "Don't let him bluff you." Fagin hesitated a moment. "You're yellow, Fagin. I heard yer ask the kid why he didn't come and now yer afraid he will come." "Be game, old man; we'll all come to the meeting," said another. After much good-natured talk of this kind, Fagin turned to Jimmie and said, "Tell 'em to come, kid, and we'll give 'em the warmest time they've had in months." CHAPTER XIII _"Fagin's Meetin'"_ At eight o'clock Fagin's big bar-room was filled with people. The crowd was mostly made up of men, although several women had ventured in to see the fun. At the bar men were standing three deep. Mike and Fagin were both working hard, but were unable to wait upon the crowd. "Here they come," cried some one at the door. In a moment every one was quiet and still, as Morton and his workers filed into the place. Fagin's place was known as a free and easy. In the rear of the room was a platform upon which stood several chairs, a table and an old grand piano. "Go back to the platform," said Fagin. Jimmie, Floe, Gene Dibble, Bill Cook, Mrs. Cook and Morton stepped upon the platform. Floe went to the piano and started to play the old song, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." Without an invitation nearly every one joined in the singing and Morton was pleased. As the song ended about twenty strong voices started to clap their hands and sing: "Monday I got awful drunk, Tuesday I got sober, Wednesday night I stayed at home To think the matter over. Thursday I went out again, Friday I took more, And Saturday night they found me tight On Fagin's cellar door." They repeated it three times, making more noise each time. Just as they stopped, Floe and Gene started to sing: "On Sunday I am happy, on Monday full of joy, On Tuesday I've a peace, the devil can't destroy. On Wednesday and on Thursday I'm walking in the light, Friday 'tis a Heaven below, the same on Saturday night." Without a stop they ran into Doane's greatest song, "Hide Me, O My Saviour, Hide Me." Whatever Fagin's plans were, he had forgotten them. Never were two voices better adapted for this sort of music. Gene's tenor voice blended perfectly with Floe's rich alto. But, what is more essential in the singing of the Gospel, they both knew what they were singing about and to whom they were singing. The best story teller on earth can not tell a story well unless he knows it, neither can the best singer on earth sing the Gospel well unless he knows it. The question so often asked to-day, Why are there no conversions in our church? could be answered sometimes by a glance into the choir loft. Every one stood spellbound as Floe and Gene put their very souls into the song: "Hide me when my heart is breaking, with its weight of woe, When in tears I seek the comfort, Thou canst alone bestow." Every word was a prayer and Floe was singing to God alone; she seemed to forget the crowd and the place; she remembered the time she had taken her broken heart to Jesus with its weight of woe. Gene was self-conscious, but no one knew it, as every eye was upon Floe. She stopped playing and stood up as they very softly sang the chorus the last time. Falling upon her knees, she said: "Let us pray. O Father, we thank Thee, that Thou hast given us a chance to praise Thee in this room. In former days, in this same place, we blasphemed Thy Holy Name. We thank Thee for forgiveness, for peace, for power to overcome sin, and now, O Father, our prayer is for the people in this room. We know that Thou lovest them all; may they realize to-night that Jesus is the sinner's Friend. For the habit-bound ones, we pray, set them free, O God!" With tears streaming down her cheeks she prayed for Dave Beach, Fagin, Mike, Ike Palmer, and the girls that were living lives of shame; the plea she made to God for Fred Hanks would almost melt a heart of stone. "Forgive these men for getting poor, weak Fred drunk to-night," she prayed. "He is trying hard, but Mr. Fagin and his helpers are doing all they can to kill him; for Jesus' sake stop them, for the sake of his heart-broken wife and his little boy, stop them. May every man, woman and child here to-night be saved for Jesus' sake. Amen." Not a person moved during the prayer; every word went straight to the hearts of the people; many of the women were weeping and the men were fighting back their tears with more or less success. After Fagin had consented to allow a meeting in his place he and his crowd had gone after Fred and filled him full of liquor. At the right time he was to be brought into the room and introduced as one of Morton's converts. This was to be the signal for the crowd to break up the meeting. Floe had spoiled their plans by her prayer. Fred came into the room unnoticed while she was praying, and at the close of her prayer he pushed his way to the platform. In his drunken way he said he didn't want to blame the gang for his condition, but he had tried as hard as he could and it was no use, there was no hope for him. He began to cry and left the room by the rear door. He pulled the door open again and, waving his hat in the air said, "You pikers will never git another chance to make a monkey out of me," and slammed the door. Morton jumped to his feet and said to the crowd, "I want Floe and Gene to sing for you, but before they sing I will ask Mrs. Cook, one of your neighbors, to say something about Jesus in her home." Morton was afraid to have Bill Cook speak, but thought Mrs. Cook could keep the crowd still better than a man. "Everybody here knows me," said Mrs. Cook. "We've lived here in this town for thirty years. All that time, until a little while ago, we've had a drunkard's home. Jesus saved me one night and my husband came the next night and we're havin' the blessedest time yer' ever heard tell on. Bill don't drink no more and I ain't been mad fer two weeks now, 'cept when Fagin and Mike tried ter git Bill ter drink. I don't see fer the life of me, what they want ter git Bill back inter the gutter agin fer"--Morton trembled--"they oughter be satisfied; they've had all his money fer years. I wouldn't do that ter them er their families if they was tryin' ter git along like we are," and she began to cry. Before she could go on with her talk, Morton arose and said, "Floe and Gene will sing." The song selected was the duet, "They are Nailed to the Cross." "There was One who was willing to die in my stead, That a soul so unworthy might live, And the path to the cross, He was willing to tread, All the sins of my life to forgive. "They are nailed to the cross, they are nailed to the cross, Oh, how much he was willing to bear! With what anguish and loss, Jesus went to the cross! But he carried my sins with Him there. "He is tender and loving and patient with me, While He cleanses my heart of its dross; But 'there's no condemnation,' I know I am free, For my sins are all nailed to the cross. "I will cling to my Saviour and never depart, I will joyfully journey each day, With a song on my lips and a song in my heart, That my sins have been taken away." After the song Morton gave an invitation. Mike stepped out from behind the bar, untied his white apron and walked up to the platform. "If you people think that I kin be fergiven I want it right now," he said. "I did try to get Bill to drink and I got Fred Hanks drunk and I'm an awful sinner, but I'm done with the whole business; I'll never sell nor take another drink in my life if God will forgive me the way I've used Him." Mike's wife pushed her way through the crowd and they both bowed in prayer at the old saloon platform. At least twenty-five men and women came forward that night and prayed to God for mercy. Fagin stood with his elbows on the bar and watched everything that was going on, but he said nothing. At nine o'clock Mr. Morton said, "We agreed to get through in this place at nine o'clock and our time is up. I wish to thank Mr. Fagin for his kindness to us, and before we close I wish to ask God to bless him and his family and get him out of this business." Fagin bowed his head as Morton prayed, and as they passed out he shook hands with all of them and invited them to come again. The next night at the Mission the first man upon his feet to give a testimony was Oily Ike Palmer. "I was in Fagin's bar-room meeting, and before I went to sleep last night Jesus saved me. Every one in the First Ward knows me and they know very little good of me. I was educated for the ministry and expected to be some one in this world. Everything was bright before me; my parents were both Christians and well to do. Every one, in the little place where I lived, pointed me out as a model young man. A so-called doctor gave me morphine for pain one day and told me to carry it with me always. Some of you know the rest of my story without my telling it; it soon got the best of me. For fifteen years I have been a drug fiend. I have tried every known remedy and they have all failed. With the drug I began to drink whisky. In order to keep myself in these things, I became dishonest. For ten years at least I have made my money in a crooked way. My family have suffered everything through my sin. We were not raised in the slums, but have drifted to the very bottom because of my vicious habits. My brothers and sisters never mention my name, and in the old home my picture has been turned toward the wall. Last night, when Jimmie Moore came to my home and invited me to the Fagin place, I could not refuse him. He told me that Jesus could help me and that you people here would be my friend. I went to Fagin's and heard of my way out; I left that place determined to find God if I could; I spent half of last night upon my knees, and to-night, although very weak and nervous, I know that I am saved. I've been twenty-four hours without drug or whisky and I could never do that unless God was with me. I just want to say one more thing before I sit down. Jimmie Moore came to my house again to-day and invited me to this meeting. When I told him I had no clothing fit to be seen in a place like this, he took every penny he had, thirty-seven cents, I believe, and bought these pants from Rosenbaum. He has promised to leave an evening paper there for sixty-three days to make up the dollar--the price of the pants. I did not know that until this evening, or I should not have allowed him to do it. Jesus saved me, but that boy did his share of it and under God I want to thank Jimmie for my salvation." Mike and his wife both spoke and thanked God for salvation. Bucktown was well represented at the meeting and several professed conversion. After the meeting Jimmie said to Morton, "When we git Dave and Fagin, Fred Hanks and Doc Snyder saved, Bucktown will be just as good as der Bulevard ter live in. Jewey got pinched ter-day and he'll git a ten spot, 'cause dey found der goods on him." CHAPTER XIV _Fred and Doc_ When Fred Hanks left Fagin's, he started for the river determined to end his life. Fred had made many desperate attempts to live a sober life, but with him it was out of the question. He had made resolution after resolution. He had taken the gold cure and in less than forty-eight hours after being cured he was drunk again. His own father had said to Morton, "There is no hope for him, and I wish that he was dead." Five different times Morton had prayed with him and Fred had promised each time to stay away from drink and trust God; and he meant every word he said. Men do not get to be drunkards from choice; they cannot help it. It is the first drink that makes drunkards, not the last. The hundreds of thousands of young men and women who are drinking just for fun to-day will be a great army of helpless drunkards to-morrow. Of course, if they were told this, every one would laugh at the idea that they would ever be drunkards; but, allow the question, where else do the drunkards come from? Many men say they can drink or they can leave it alone. Every drunkard in the world has been able to say the same thing sometime, but that time passes for nearly every one. Men who say they can drink or leave it alone, invariably drink. The same thing is true with the poor fallen girl. Never did a girl start out with the intention of going into the very depths of sin; but Charles N. Crittenden tells us that three hundred thousand women are living in houses of ill-fame in the United States alone. Their average life is only five years and it takes six thousand girls every thirty days to keep the ranks filled. Seventy-two thousand girls enter upon a life of shame every year; again, allow the question, where do they come from? No man starts out to be a drunkard; no girl starts out to be a harlot; why are there so many? Unconsciously they become slaves to sin, and the result is, our country is reeking with this class of people. One who has given a life among women of this class says that nine out of every ten come from the dance hall. One thing is certain, they all come from our homes. Nearly all would gladly leave the awful life they are living if they could, but, like poor Fred Hanks, they are bound hand and foot by sin. Nothing but the power of God can save the fallen. Fred went to the bridge over the East Side canal and, climbing to the top of the railing, deliberately leaped into the dark waters, twenty feet below. Several people saw him when he leaped and he was rescued from the water before he could drown. When the officer from the corner saw who it was he called the wagon from the police station and Fred spent the night in his wet clothing on the plank in a cell. As he was loaded into the wagon several people inquired who he was. "Oh, only a drunken barber," was the reply; "we get him often. It ain't the first time he's tried this." The next morning, with Jimmie, Morton went to the station and took Fred to his home. There was a change in Fred; Morton saw something in him that he had never noticed there before. "Fred," he said kindly, "you have had a very close call; but God in His love and mercy has seen fit to spare you. What do you mean to do with your life?" "With God's help I'll give it all to Him." And right then and there he unconditionally surrendered himself to God. Mrs. Hanks took her baby in her arms and paid Fagin a visit. "O Mr. Fagin, won't you please give Fred a chance to stay sober? Every time he gets away from liquor for a few days, you do all in your power to get him drunk again. Last night he nearly succeeded in killing himself, after you had filled him up, and you would have been his murderer had he accomplished his purpose. Baby and myself have had nothing to eat to-day and I cannot stand this strain much longer; for our sake, won't you give him a chance?" Fagin was very nervous as he thought of the awful way he had acted. He promised her, not only to refuse Fred any liquor in his place, but said he would do all in his power to keep it away from him in other places. As she left the place, he slipped a dollar into her hand and said, "Feed the kid; he looks hungry." Fred was sick from the effects of his bath the night before; but so determined was he to do right, that he went with Jimmie to Doctor Snyder's office and from there to work. The doctor gave him some medicine and called him "a d---- fool" for his attempt of the night before. "Say, Doc," said Jimmie, "Fred's got Jesus ter-day and boozin' and him is done. Ter-night in der Mission he's goin' ter speak erbout it. Yer promised ter come down some night; won't yer come ter-night t' hear Fred?" "If Fred will speak I'll come down and sit on the front seat," said the doctor, tauntingly, as he turned to Fred. "You'll be on the front seat then," said Fred, "'cause I'm goin' to speak if God lets me live. I've tried lots of times to brace up, but this time I'm trustin' God. If you're a man of your word you'll be in the Mission to-night and on the front seat too." That night the doctor was there. He had several drinks aboard, but was not in the least intoxicated. After the singing and Scripture reading the meeting was thrown open for testimonials. Bill and Mrs. Cook stood up and told how God had saved them. The doctor had never heard them speak before and he at once became very much interested. When Mike Hardy stood up to speak the doctor was so surprised that he turned around in his chair and unconsciously said, "Well, I'll be d----! When did he get into this game? If there's nothing in this religion they're talking about, a mighty lot of people are getting fooled in this Mission business." Fred Hanks took hold of a chair in front of him and with difficulty rose to his feet. "I don't expect any one to take stock in me," he said; "I have made so many mistakes and turned the Mission people so many times I am almost ashamed to look at them. I'm not making any promises this time. I've turned my case over to Jesus Christ. If I get drunk now, He's to blame, 'cause he's running the whole shooting match. My life has been a failure from start to finish. When I was a boy I carried papers; one of my regular customers was an old Dutch woman, who used to brew her own beer. Every evening when I delivered her paper I got my glass of beer. I got so I looked ahead to it and when I was sixteen years old I could drink as much beer as a man. I learned the barber's trade, and before I was twenty years of age I was known as a drunken barber. I braced up many times, but when I started again I always went lower than I was before. I got into trouble, was arrested, and pled guilty. On account of my parents, the judge suspended sentence with the understanding that if I ever took a drink, he would call me up before him and give me five years. With the State prison staring me in the face I managed to stay sober three months. During that time I worked hard, got good clothes on me and married one of the sweetest girls that ever lived. After our marriage--well, it's the same old story; why should I tell it again? I've been in jail all over this country. My picture is in the Rogues' gallery in more than one city. I did not want to be dishonest, but a man can't drink whisky and be honest. "I have stolen the pennies out of my baby's bank to satisfy that awful desire for whisky. Don't tell me that a man does that because he wants to; I couldn't help it. God help me; I've tried as hard as any man ever tried to be somebody but that craving for whisky was there and it had to be first in my life. Whisky was my god, I worshiped it, I loved it better than my family, my life. I've taken the shoes off my feet in the winter time and traded them for whisky. But to-day, thank God, I've not even wanted a drink. The first day in years that I've not wanted whisky is to-day. Gold cure failed; prison bars failed; wife's tears failed; but Jesus has taken even the desire for it away. When a man has that gnawing at his very vitals there is but two things that will touch it, a big drink of whisky or the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God, I have Him, and I'll never thirst again. Last night I leaped from the bridge into the water to end my life; but God saved me from death and hell. I do not understand how He can love such a brute as I am, but He does and now I'm saved." The doctor was very much moved by what he had heard. "I never heard it just this way," he said. "The way you folks put it it's a personal matter and I never could believe that. I believe there is some great Supreme Being; but I do not believe in a personal God. I think that after you die you get what's coming to you; but you people say that you're saved right now and you know it. That can't be." In the inquiry meeting, Morton took his Bible and sat down beside Dr. Snyder. "Doctor, read that verse," he said, opening his Bible to John 5:24. "Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth My Word and believeth on Him that sent me, hath----" "Does that mean, 'will have'?" asked Morton. "No, 'hath,' is in the present tense," said the doctor. "'Hath everlasting life', then, means that we have it now, don't it, doctor?" "That is what it says, sir." "Now look at Isaiah 53:6," said Morton. "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid----" "Not 'will lay'," said Morton. "'Hath laid' upon Christ 'the iniquity of us all.' Does that mean you, doctor?" asked Morton. "Can it mean me?" asked the doctor. "If the Word is true, it means you," said Morton. Like a flash it dawned upon the doctor that Jesus had borne his sins in His own body on the tree. He leaped to his feet and said: "All these years I've been a chump! I've never been satisfied with myself. Had I known this was for me I would have had it long ago." He was very happy and went from one to the other shaking hands. When he met Jimmie, he hugged him. "I want to go to Bucktown and tell the gang I'm saved," he said. After the meeting Fred Hanks, Doctor Snyder and Jimmie went from place to place in Bucktown and the doctor did all the talking. He preached to every one he met. In Fagin's, he told them all how Fred and he had been saved and begged every one of them to give their hearts to God. The last place they went was to the Dolly resort. Never was there such a plea made for purity as the doctor made to that crowd of women. "There is something better for you than this sort of life," he said. "God loves every one of you and wants to save you now. If you will trust Him to save you I will find you a different home than this." He did not look for what happened. "If you will find me a place where I can live like other people, I'll leave here to-night," said one. "I don't like to live this way, but there's no one cares for me." About midnight the door-bell rang at the Morton home, and when Mr. Morton opened the door, the doctor, Fred and Jimmie stood there with three women from the Dolly resort. "I was preaching to the people down in Bucktown," said the doctor, "and I told them I'd find them a better place to live if they would trust God. They took me at my word and I have nothing else to do but bring them here." Every bed was filled but they were made welcome by Mrs. Morton. "Come right in," she said. "One of you can sleep with Floe and the other two can sleep in this bed downstairs. To-morrow we will get another bed and put it in Floe's big room." Mr. and Mrs. Morton slept on the floor that night. When Jimmie reached the barn it was two o'clock. "Where in the world have you been, Jimmie?" asked Dave. Jimmie told Dave of all that had taken place and he was as much interested as was Jimmie. "Gee, der doc is a comer sure!" said Jimmie. "He can preach jus' as good as he can peddle pills." CHAPTER XV _The Picnic_ Mrs. Morton and Floe spent most of the time during the day in the homes of Bucktown. They would call the neighbors together to sew for a certain family. After the sewing a prayer meeting was held and many women and children were saved in these meetings. In this way the wives and children were made ready to join with the heads of the homes in Christian living. The children were dressed and put into the Mission Sunday school; the family altar was established and home life took on a new phase in Bucktown. Many were after the loaves and fishes only; and they got them. Mrs. Morton knew that they were trying to deceive her but she never stopped helping them. When real trouble came they would always send for her and many that started out to "work" the Mission found Jesus before the "work" ended. As time drew near for the Mission picnic, the young people and children talked of nothing else. Six or seven hundred people attend the annual picnic and the day is one never to be forgotten by those who go. Two days before the picnic, Jimmie rushed into Morton's office and said, "Mr. Morton, I want ter ast you fer somfin'." "What is it, Jimmie?" asked Morton. "Well, kin I have it?" "You can have anything I can give you, my boy; but what is it?" "I want der gospel wagon and white horses fer picnic day." "Now, what in the world do you want with a thing like that?" asked Morton. "Didn't yer say dat everybody was invited ter der picnic?" asked Jimmie. "Yes, that's what I said." "Well, I want ter take der Bucktown gang what can't go dere by demselves, and I want der wagon ter haul 'em. Der's more 'an twenty of 'em 'at can't go dere in street cars. Der's one-winged Bob, Hump Rumpord, Goosefoot Sus, Stumpie-der-shine, Nigger Mose, Hop Hawkins, Blind Billy, der pianer player at Dolly's, 'sides those nigger kids of Griffin's 'at's been sick all winter, and 'sides, Mrs. Rollins says Swipsey can go wid me if I'll take care of 'im. He near died wid der dipteria and he's just gittin' over it." "Well, can you run such an excursion, if I get a good man to drive the team?" said Morton. "Kin 'er duck swim? 'Course I kin run her. Kin I have her?" asked Jimmie. "Yes, you may have them and we will help you in every way we can," said Morton. "How's Dave Beach getting on?" "Gee, he's under construction. He's mad at everybody, drinks like er fish and swears ter beat der cars," said Jimmie. "You mean that he is under conviction," said Morton. "Well, what ever she is, Dave can't swaller 'er an' she's near choking him." The day of the picnic was warm and bright, a great crowd was there with lunch baskets, and every one was in the best of humor. Thirty minutes after the cars reached the park, Jimmie's excursion came. The white horses were covered with foam and never did they seem so proud as they danced and pranced up the steep hill to the park. Jimmie stood on the back step and was as proud as the team. Bill Cook lifted Swipsey from the wagon and placed him in a hammock. Jimmie introduced his load as "der bunch." "When do we eat, Hump?" asked Bob. "I dunno. I hope mighty soon. Jimmie says it's goin' to be swell." "Wonder what dey'll have. Did yer see any of der stuff?" asked Hop. "Nope, but I hope they have pie an' soup an' cake wid raisins in it. Say, Mose, which you'd rather have, sweet potates and possum or watermelon an' 'lasses?" "Hush yuh business, man! Hush, yuh business! I'd drop dead suh, if I'd see a possum. Who said watahmelon? Look yah, man, I ain't had no pokchop foh moh 'an a week. Hush, man! I can't stan' no foolin' 'bout such impotent mattahs." When dinner was announced Morton gave orders to have Jimmie with "der bunch" sit at the first table. He told the young ladies who waited upon them to give them everything they wanted. The first things that were passed to them were several plates of ham sandwiches. "Please, how many kin I have of 'em, missus?" asked Hump. "You can have all you want of them; help yourself," replied the lady. He took no less than seven sandwiches the first grab. All that the rest of "der bunch" needed was some one to start the thing right, so they all took a like amount. "Leave der rest of 'em for Blind Billy," said Hump, as one of the ladies started away with one of the plates. "What's dat yeller stuff comin', Jim?" whispered Swipsey. "Gee! don't yer know nothin'?" said Jimmie knowingly. "Dat's hard eggs wid corn mush over dem." After Swipsey had tasted of it a few times, he turned to Jimmie and said, "Them's taters, jus' common taters, wid dat stuff spilt on 'em and they tastes jus' like green walnuts." More sandwiches, baked beans, pickles, potato salad, lemonade, etc., were being stored away so fast that it kept several ladies busy waiting upon them. When they were well filled Mrs. Morton sent a plate of fried chicken to their table. Mose stood up and looked at it. "Look, yuh woman, where dat chicken come from? I'd give my hat if I had dat ol' ham an' bread out of me. I'll put my share of dat chicken away if I bust." They all grabbed at once. Jimmie got the largest piece and gave it to Blind Billy. "I don't want no chicken, no how," he said. Two large watermelons followed. They were cut in fancy scallops and the waiter put them both down in front of Mose. He took the largest piece and laid his face upon it and laughed until he cried. "Mah, watahmelon, what am I eveh 'gwine to do with you. If I eat dat melon, I'll die suh. But I neveh could die any happier." They all ate watermelon till they could hardly straighten up. Then, when the ice cream and cake was set before them, there was great sorrow. With tears in his eyes, Stumpy stood up and said, "We're der biggest lot of d---- fools what ever lived. Here we'se are full to der neck wid bread and taters and dem cheap beans dat we'se kin all git ter home and never left no room for chicken, watermelon, ice cream and all dis here kinds of cake. Somebody oughter take us out in der woods and kick us ter death." "An' yer all doin' der same ting every day," said Jimmie. "Yer gits so full of cuss words and shootin' craps and boozin' and stealin' and lyin' dat yer don't have no room fer Jesus. Jesus is ice cream and cake an' watermelon, an' Morton says He's honey outen der rock. Yer don't git no feed like dis at Fagin's or no where else where they ain't got Jesus." On the way home, Jimmie attempted to get his load of cripples to accept Christ; and the argument they had about "'ligion," as Mose called it, would make splendid reading for preachers; but we will pass most of it by. Jimmie told them that Jesus loved them all and was able to help them. "In der picture I see'd of Him, He's got long hair and wears long dresses like a woman and looks jus' like he's goin' ter cry. What's He know erbout guys like us? I can't walk er nothin' and kin a womany man help me?" asked Hop. "I don't care erbout no pictures," said Jimmie. "He ain't no womany man. He built houses and barns and was a carpenter when He was here. He was born in a barn and slep' in a barn same's I do an' He didn't have no more home 'an I got. He jus' knows what I'm doin' an' what I need an' kin take care of me, 'cause He's been there." When they were in the midst of their argument the wagon stopped in front of Dave's barn. Dave's opinion on any subject was final in Bucktown. "Say, Dave, come here, will yer?" cried Jimmie. "Dese pikers are tryin' ter say that Jesus don't love 'em and can't save 'em and sech like and I want yer ter prove that I'm right. Don't Jesus love everybody?" "Yes, everybody," said Dave. "Ain't He got der power der save everybody?" "Yes, everybody," said Dave. "Cripples an' all?" asked Jimmie. "Yes, cripples and all," said Dave. "Won't He fergive 'em all der mean things dey done?" "Yes, all of them," said Dave. "An' won't He take care of 'em all der time?" "Yes, all the time," said Dave. "Now, smartie, what did I tell yer?" said Jimmie to Hop. "Say, Dave," said Hop, "do yer believe all yer sayin'?" "I certainly do," said Dave. "Say, Dave, why don't yer git it if yer believe it?" Dave was dumfounded. "Oh, it's not for me, boys," he said. "You see, it's----" "Den it's not fer us neither," Hop ejaculated. "So yer see yer don't believe a word yer say. We're goin'. So-long, Dave." Jimmie's eyes filled with tears as he watched Dave stand there with his head down. Never had he known Dave to get the worst of an argument before. As the team started, Dave looked up at Jimmie; their eyes met for an instant. The pain and sorrow on Jimmie's face pierced Dave to the heart. CHAPTER XVI _Dave Strikes His Gait_ After Jimmie had sold his evening papers he started for Dave's barn. His heart was heavy. Dave had a wonderful influence over this boy. Jimmie loved him and believed him to be a wonderful man. He found Dave in his office. "Dave, I want ter talk ter yer erbout what Hop said ter yer. He said 'at if it wasn't fer you it wasn't fer him either. Yer didn't say nothin' and I've been thinkin' maybe yer didn't have nothin' ter say. If yer sure it's not fer yer, how kin it be fer me? I don't know what ter do. I pray fer yer every day but if God don't want yer I might as well give yer up." He buried his face in his hands and began to weep. "It's me that's been wrong, Jimmie, not you. I've fought God ever since I've known you. After you went away to-day I hated myself for my cowardice. I know what is right and I'll do it or die." Jimmie looked up and said, "Der yer mean yer are goin' ter get saved?" "That's just what I mean, Jimmie, I am----" But before he could finish his sentence Jimmie jumped into his lap and hugged him. "Dear old Dave, I knowed you'd come. Let's go to der Mission right away, it's time fer der singin' already." Dave walked so fast that Jimmie had to run to keep up. The song service was in progress when they reached the Mission. They sat down in the front row of seats and after a few songs Dave jumped to his feet and said, "Excuse me, I want to get saved and I want to get saved bad. I can't wait for the word. I want to get off now. I've scored at will, I've scored by the pole horse and I've laid up a heat or two; but I want to get on my stride and face the wire agoing square. I'm done jockeying and with everything else that's crooked and I'm going into this race teaming for first money. I'll win by the help of God." After the meeting, Floe, Gene, Bill Cook and his wife, Ike Palmer, Mike Hardy, Mr. and Mrs. Morton and Jimmie went with Dave to Bucktown. He invited them to visit him at his barn; but his office was so small they could not all get in, so they went to the Cook residence. Dave excused himself and in five minutes returned with Fagin. Fagin was surprised when he saw the crowd, but he did not seem displeased. Dave was the first to speak. "Fagin, I let Jesus into my life to-night and I want you to do the same thing. We're going to start a Sunday school in Bucktown and we want your room for the purpose. "This afternoon I denied Christ and I feel that I've turned a lot of young folks from God; I will get them back for Him if I have to start a Sunday school and have meetings in the old barn besides. You know, Fagin, the other day when Fred Hanks tried to kill himself, you told me you were tired of your business and wished you could be a Christian. You told me how sorry you were you boozed him up six times after Morton had got hold of him. Now, Fred has given himself to God and is doing good work in the Mission and we want you to join us." Mrs. Fagin was sent for and it took very little persuasion to bring her to a decision for the right. "Mr. Morton and myself will take the lease for the building off your hands and we'll pay you for what stock you have," Dave told them. "You can get into the factory where you used to work and you can live like a man." Very little remains to be said. The men that came to God through Jimmie Moore's ministry made the greatest Gospel-wagon crew ever known. In jail, street and Mission meetings they worked like one man, never once was any jealousy known to spring up amongst them. Not one of them ever went back into the old life for one hour. Five of them have been called into God's work and all have been prospered and blessed of God. Jimmie is living with Mr. and Mrs. Gene Dibble and no one ever saw a happier home. Jimmie says, "Floe's der best cook what ever happened." Dave, Bill and Fagin used their influence and elected aldermen who closed every stall saloon and house of ill-fame in Bucktown. For eight months Fagin's place was used for a kindergarten during the week and Sunday school on Sunday. The Railroad Company bought the old houses in Poverty Row and razed them; a side track running to the market has taken their place. One day Jimmie stood at the market and said, "Gee! dis don't look no more like old Bucktown dan a man what's smokin' looks like a Christian." 
6733	----	This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions. MEMOIR OF FATHER VINCENT DE PAUL, RELIGIOUS OF LA TRAPPE: TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH BY A. M. POPE, WITH A PREFACE BY THE RIGHT REVEREND DR. CAMERON, BISHOP OF ARICHAT. PREFACE. The reply of Maximilian to the wealthy courtier who tendered him a goodly purse of gold for a title of nobility, was worthy of that emperor: "I can enrich thee," he said, "but only thy own virtue can enoble thee" All true grandeur, excellence, and dignity, are the offspring of virtue. Even the most renowned oracles of paganism proclaim this, and the very persecutors of holiness are often constrained to pay homage to their victim. No wonder, then, that whenever we are privileged to find one of those rare mortals, whom virtue has unmistakably marked as her own, we lovingly attach an exceptional importance to everything connected with his history. Such assuredly was he whose "account of what befel" him during his first ten years in America, is now for the first time published in English. A brief sketch of the religious Order to which he belonged, of the life he led, and of the Monastery he founded, may give added interest to his own simple and edifying narrative. What Scripture terms "the world," and so emphatically denounces as such, is the poisonous source of the mother-evils described by St. John as "the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life." Flight from the contamination of this threefold inordinate love of pleasures, riches and honors, being essential to salvation, is most easily, most surely and most meritoriously achieved by those who, in answer to a Divine call, consecrate and give themselves wholly to God, by the practice of the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience. Those who embrace this angelic profession form the choice portion of the fold of Christ. They rank as His spouses, and, by the holy ambition of their virgin love, console Him for the craven defections or the cold indifference of so many Christians. All Christians animated by the spirit of Jesus are religious, just as they are holy, and kings and priests (I Peter 2,9). Such is the unity of the marvellous body of Christ, the Church, whose soul is infinite love, that her every member shares, in some sense and measure, all her sublime prerogatives. But as God willed that in His family some goods should be common to all, so He likewise decreed that other goods should be reserved to comparatively few, and through these chosen and privileged ones benefit the rest. Hence, as besides this elementary royalty and priesthood conferred by baptism, there are, according to the express order of God superior and official royalties and priesthoods, in like manner besides the fundamental religion, which is the vital breath of every soul in a state of grace, there is a religion more eminent, more definite, more perfect. Thus as there is here below a sacerdotal and royal state, so likewise is there a religious state which is confined to those only who bind themselves by vows to a monastic life. It is evident, therefore, that when Catholics use the expression "religious Order," or term a monk or nun "a religious," they are perfectly justified in doing so, the cavillings of Dr. Trench to the contrary notwithstanding. Each religious order is characterized by the special purpose for which it was founded, and by the constitution and rule which its members are to follow. The observance of the Benedictine rule was greatly relaxed in the monasteries of France towards the close of the eleventh century, when St. Robert (1098) inaugurated a reform at Citeaux, which resulted in the establishment of the Cistercian Order. A monastery of this Order was subsequently (1140) founded in La Perche, France, by the Count of Perche, and was called La Trappe. In 1662 the commendatory abbot of La Trappe, Armand Jean le Bouthilier de Rance', a nobleman who abandoned wealth and a brilliant career, visited La Trappe, undertook a new reform of the Cistercian rule, and thus became the founder of that branch of this Order which became known as the congregation of La Trappe. In consequence of the Revolution of 1789, one of the Trappist Fathers, Dom Augustin conducted twenty-four of his brethren from France to Valsainte, in Switzerland. Here they decided to adopt a rule still more strict than that which they had hitherto observed. This step occasioned a division in the Trappist Order: some monasteries following the rule of Valsainte, others that of de Rance'. An appeal to Rome resulted in a decree dated October 3rd, 1834, by which all Trappist monasteries were placed under one government. The decree not having however had the desired effect, the Holy See decided in 1847 to sanction two distinct congregations, one to follow the constitution of de Rance', and the other to observe the rule of St. Benedict, with the primitive constitution of the Cistercian Order. To the latter congregation belong the Trappist monasteries of Canada and the United States, whose time-table on week days during winter is as follows:-- At two o'clock, a. m., the Trappists rise and proceed to their chapel, where they devote their time to the recitation of the Office, meditation, &c., till 7.45, when they have High Mass, followed by manual labor, which, with the interruption of only half an hour given to the recitation of Office and examen of conscience, continues till 2 p. m.; ten minutes more and they break their long fast of twenty-four hours with the lean and only repast of the day. At 6 p. m. begins spiritual reading, immediately followed by compline and other devotional exercises till 7, when they retire to their much needed rest on their hard straw mattresses. Perpetual silence is prescribed, unless in case of necessity, so that the Trappist's whole life is one of extraordinary austerity and of incessant recollection, reminding him at every turn of the shortness of life and the tremendous rigor of judgment. The time-table for summer varies in some minor practices and observances, while, according to that of Sundays and holidays, those religious in the latter case rise at midnight, and in the former at 1 a. m., and busy themselves till 7 o'clock, p. m. during winter, and 8 o'clock during summer in the praises of the Lord. James Merle was born at Lyons, France, the 29th October, 1768. His father was a much respected physician in that city. On the 7th of April, 1798, while the godless Revolution was carrying resistless devastation over the country, he privately received the holy order of priesthood at the hands of Mgr. C. F. D. Dubois de Sanzay, Archbishop of Vienne, and seven years afterwards he entered the Trappist Order, taking the name of Father Vincent de Paul, by which he has always since been known. In his memoir Father Vincent speaks of having bought a large tract of land near the sea in Nova Scotia, and of having built a house thereon. This was in Tracadie, where he resided for some years previous to his return to France in 1823. In 1824 he came again to Tracadie with another worthy priest of his Order, Father Francis, a native of Freiburg, together with three lay brothers, and the house above referred to became thenceforth the monastery of Petit Clairvaux. A few years later three other lay brothers were admitted, two of them from Halifax, and one from the United States. Until the Rev. John Quinn was appointed parish priest of Tracadie, (1837) Father Vincent had pastoral charge of the three missions of Tracadie, Havre au Boucher, and Pomquet, and the old people of the place still recount his innumerable acts of extraordinary zeal and devotion. "He scarcely ever had the stole off his neck during Lent," is the remark of one of them. He also made frequent excursions to Cheticamp, Arichat, and other parts of Cape Breton, to preach missions there, and to assist the dying. In his memoir he speaks of that sublime pilgrimage of the heart, the admirable devotion of the Way of the Cross, as one especially acceptable to God; and no wonder it bore marvellous fruit as conducted by him. At each station this holy servant of God did not content himself with reading the usual prayers: he gave expression to heavenly thoughts inspired by his own burning love of his crucified Saviour, producing a mysterious and lasting echo in all hearts. The church was always crowded on those occasions. To prepare children for their first communion, he devoted six entire weeks of instruction each year. His capacity for work was immense; and while hurry never appeared in his actions, he managed to glide through them with a masterly ease far out-stripping the speediest progress of ordinary mortals. A supernatural light seemed to supersede the necessity of recourse to the usual slow and laborious process of reasoning in seeing one's way, and to endow him with an intuition excluding all doubt, and with an instinct ever ready in performance. Thus for everything he found ample time, because no particle of his time was lost. He was a living, palpitating, breathing, vocal, acting temple of the Holy Ghost, and this Divine indwelling was, in a manner, visible to all. At the altar, during the holy sacrifice which he daily offered, it seemed to transfigure his countenance so as to impress his heavenly citizenship upon all beholders. In administering the sacrament, in instructing the people, in his incessant endeavors to keep or win them from sin, and to provide for all their spiritual wants, the same irradiation of holiness imparted the most extraordinary efficacy to his charity and zeal. So palpable was this impress of sanctity in his every-day-life, that no one could come in contact with him without perceiving it and feeling its inherent power. Such being the rare effulgence of Father Vincent's sanctity as seen amid the dust and darkness of the world, one can more readily realize the transcendent perfection and purity of his soul as nurtured and revealed in his divine communing in his own beloved cloister. No wonder, then, that when this admirable servant of God, fall of days and merits, was called away to his reward on the morning of New Year's Day, 1853, all felt that they had one intercessor more in heaven. No wonder that miraculous cures wrought through his mediation began soon to multiply. Nor was Father Vincent's reputation for sanctity confined to Catholics. Even Protestants not only acknowledged the heroism of his virtues, but also sought to possess some earth from his grave, and one of them, J. H., still living, was restored to health and usefulness by the application of this relic to his diseased and disabled limbs. The next Prior of Petit Clairvaux was the dauntless and holy Father Francis, whose advanced age obliged him in 1858 to resign his office into the hands of the sweet Father James, a native of Belgium, and a religious eminently qualified for the position. Such was the success of his administration that in 1876 the community was raised by Pius IX of blessed memory to the dignity of an abbey--an abbey, which, with its forty-one fervent religious, now wisely governed by the worthy Abbot Dominic, presents an example of heroic abstinence, mortification and prayer, well calculated to put the characteristic dissipation, effeminacy and dissoluteness of the age to blush, and to bring home to our minds that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." (I Co. 3,19). JOHN CAMERON, _Bishop of Arichat._ MEMOIR OF FATHER VINCENT. [Some account of what befel Father Vincent de Paul, Religious of La Trappe, with observations made by him when in America, where he has spent about ten years, with the permission of his Superior, in obedience to whose orders he writes the following:] The reverend Father Abbot, of La Trappe, Dom Augustin, (De Lestrange) foreseeing that Bonaparte would seek to destroy the communities existing in Europe, resolved on sending a party of his religious to America, in order that they might establish themselves there and preserve their monastic state. In 1812, I, in company with two other brothers, was sent by him to the United States, there to found an establishment of our Order. We left Bordeaux on the 15th June, and on the 6th of the month of August we arrived at Boston. We had with us one of our Trappistines, whose object was also to found a community; with this intention she had preceded her companions, but now found herself alone, as passports were refused to the other sisters. We were welcomed by the worthy Mr. Matignon, parish priest of the town, who coaxed us to remain in the diocese of Bishop Cheverus. However as we had received orders to establish ourselves near Baltimore, after a few days rest I started for that town alone, leaving my brothers and the nun in Boston, intending to send for them when I should find a suitable site for the two projected establishments. I paid my respects to His Grace the Archbishop of Baltimore, who received me kindly, but appeared at a loss where to find a site such as we desired. After many unsuccessful efforts and researches, he established me temporally on a farm belonging to the Society of Jesus (of which he was a member) until such time as we could procure the sort of place we wanted; then as I thought that time might be long in coming, I summoned my brothers to me, and arranged for a suitable lodging for the nun. During our stay, a rich man of Baltimore, who was once a Protestant and had been converted, offered us 2000 acres of land in the mountains of Pensylvania, near a river called the Delaware. He was even generous enough to offer me the services of his son, who was also a recent convert, and who came with us to point out the property which, however, I was not able to inspect thoroughly as I remained there only one day. I returned soon after with two young men who were inclined to join our Order. They commenced a somewhat rude novitiate, for we fasted and kept silence on the way, going always on foot for want of money. After great suffering from fatigue and heat (as it was summer), we arrived at a little town, distant about sixty miles from Philadelphia, whence we had started on our tour of inspection. This little town, which was called Milford, was quite near to the land that was to be ours. On the way we passed through many Protestant villages whose inhabitants appeared to be anxious for the light of the true faith, and this budding town of Milford did not look askance at us, as almost all of its inhabitants came to mass on Sunday. After mass one of the young men aforementioned, who knew English well, expounded the catechism to them, and they listened with attention. The Protestant minister came afterwards to preach, but we were told that none of the people went to hear him which without doubt annoyed him greatly. One of the principal men of the place, a Protestant, as indeed they were all, begged me to remain with them, saying that they would subscribe me a pension, and that he would head the list with the sum of fifty dollars. But we had not come to this country to be missionaries, so we left Milford to go and inspect our land. Travelling through these immense and trackless forests was very difficult, and we often went astray. One day when I was alone with a child who served me in the capacity of guide, we were greatly puzzled. We wished to find a little hut that we had built in the woods in which to sleep; nightfall was coming on, and there seemed no chance of finding our camp before sundown. I said to the child: "here is a low, flat rock, on which I will spend the night." He replied that if I remained there I should be devoured by the bears, of which there were a great number on these mountains; we had already heard their cries and hideous howlings. At length, thanks be to God, we found the cabin, which was not a very safe refuge for us, as it was only a little hut built of young trees. The two novices and I slept there like Indians, either on the bare ground or on couches formed by heaps of the branches of trees. Having no provisions with us we were obliged for the first few days to eat what we could find in the woods, such as certain little blue berries that they call "bluets," and other wild fruits, which the people of the country despise. On the third or fourth day help came. A Jew and a Protestant appeared on the scene, bringing us potatoes. This Jew showed a leaning towards our religion, and the Sunday previous I had said mass in his house. I do not doubt that if we had remained longer with these people many would have been converted. There was one entire family, of father, mother and three children, whom I had instructed, and who were to receive baptism and embrace the Catholic religion. Unfortunately the woman was the victim of evil counsel at Milford, and was deterred from her good purpose. There were many people in Milford who were bitter enemies to the truth. I often said mass in our cabin. One day we made a cross and carried it in procession for nearly a mile: we sang psalms, and part of the way went barefoot, until we reached the spot where we planted the cross, which was our consolation and our safeguard, as there were in this desert a great number of rattlesnakes and other reptiles no less dangerous. When we left our retreat we would sometimes step upon them and would hear the noise that these serpents make with their rattles. At last having walked over a great portion of these two thousand acres of land during the two weeks that we spent there, we left these solitudes and went down to Philadelphia. [Footnote: It was not deemed advisable to accept this property, it being almost entirely rock or marsh land. Besides which it was not suitable for one of our establishments, communication with other places being too difficult.] Upon arriving at the town I told the Bishop how well-disposed were the people whom we had seen, and suggested to him to send some missionaries there, but he told me that he had none to send. If I had been free I would have returned at once to labor for the conversion of these poor people. After a year of crosses and difficulties in the way of our discovering a suitable and convenient place for our establishment, we found ourselves in Maryland, an excellent province, producing all the necessaries of life in abundance. It is near the sea, and near to the Potoxen, and not far from the Potomac, two great rivers that add to its commercial advantages and render it more flourishing. We thought we had at last found the country in which to succeed in establishing our foundation. I consulted His Grace the Archbishop of Baltimore, and the reverend gentlemen of the seminary of St. Sulpice, and in accordance with their advice, I decided to go there and commence the work. Three more brothers sent from France by our Reverend Father Abbot, arrived at this juncture and joined us. We bought the land and set ourselves to work to cultivate it. We built a house for ourselves, which consisted of trees placed one upon another--what is called in this country a _loghouse_. It was small, being only eighteen feet long, and as many wide. We shortly commenced another which would serve as a chapel. The negroes of the country--who are all Catholics--gave us a helping hand in this work On arriving here we found lodgings in a private house near our clearing, in which we remained until our _loghouse_ was fit to receive us. Maryland produces an abundance of Indian corn, the cultivation of which is the chief work of the negroes. We subsisted almost entirely upon this food, with potatoes and occasionally bread; wheat, however, and buckwheat grow very well. We arrived there at the beginning of the year 1813, and during the winter we were occupied in cutting down trees and preparing the land for work in the spring, so that when that season arrived we had an acre and a half of land under cultivation. Part of this we planted with potatoes, another part was a garden where we sowed different vegetables, and we also laid out an orchard of young fruit trees. So far everything looked well, but when summer came, and while we were working most zealously we all fell ill with fever, and many of us were attacked with dysentery. I attribute these maladies to many causes,--first to the miasma or poisonous vapors exhaled from newly cleared land, then to the great heat and the bad water that we had to drink, which, though it had been pure enough in the winter and spring, had become bad by reason of a multitude of little insects that were perpetually drowning themselves in it. Another reason that contributed to render us ill was the number of different sorts of flies by which we were devoured day and night. There were among others two species of flies which in this country they call _tics_. Some of them are large, others are small, they fasten themselves to the skin and so penetrate into the flesh that one can only remove them by pulling them to pieces, even then a part remains and causes an insupportable itching. We were dying one after another in this place when our Rev. Father Abbot on his way from Martinique, with several religious, arrived at New York. He summoned our community to him, as well as that of the Rev. Father Urbain, which a short time previously had united with ours, so that these three little communities now formed but one, under our chief Superior, who thus in a moment effected a foundation such as we had spent years of fruitless effort endeavoring to establish. Our new monastery was established in the country near New York, and did much good. Thirty-three poor children (almost all of them orphans) were brought up there, and were given all the necessaries of life, even to their clothes. Protestants came to see the good work and two ministers were converted. These gentlemen came sometimes to see us, and assisted at our religious ceremonies. They liked to converse with our Reverend Father Abbot, who won them by his frank and polite manner. In addition to the work of this monastery, our Reverend Father Abbot supported and directed another house of our Order which he had also founded, and which was productive of much good. This was a community of nuns. There was yet another convent, one belonging to the Ursulines quite near, that is to say about three or four miles from our monastery, which our community supplied with a chaplain. I was obliged to go there every Sunday to say mass and to confess the nuns. When we arrived in their neighborhood they were without a priest; we could not leave them in such need, so that I, ill though I was, had to say two masses on Sundays, one in the church of the Ursulines, the other in that of our sisters. However, this was to me a cause of rejoicing, although I was fatigued after my voyages and overwhelmed by the work with which I was charged, I was compensated and consoled by the good that I could be the means of doing. I remember having received the abjuration of Protestantism of three young ladies who were boarders at the Ursuline Convent, and who had the happiness of becoming Catholics. Although we were in a Protestant country, our Reverend Father Abbot undertook to have the procession of the Blessed Sacrament on the festival of Corpus Christi, thinking it might do some good. He had several repositories built in a field adjoining our house, these he decorated in the best style possible and managed to have a canopy and boys to swing censors and others to throw flowers before the Blessed Sacrament. When the time for the procession arrived we saw our Reverend Father bearing Jesus Christ in his hands and walking under the dais borne by four religious in dalmatics accompanied by the community and by several strangers singing hymns and canticles. Numbers of children preceeded the Blessed Sacrament, exercising the solemn functions which had been allotted to them. This infantine band, clad in white surplices girded with different colors, resembled angels and presented a spectacle at once beautiful and edifying to the beholder. The Protestants who were present appeared to be much pleased with the procession. Our Reverend Father Abbot wished with all his heart to be able to continue the good work thus commenced, but he was obliged to abandon it for want of pecuniary means, and perhaps also because of the ill-will of many who offered opposition to his projects; besides which King Louis XVIII had been restored to the throne of France, and religion was being re-established in that country. Almost all our brothers were dispersed here and there throughout Europe, and it would be necessary to reunite them. Persuaded, besides, that he would receive more help in France than in the United States, and in short, reflecting that there would perhaps be more good to be done yet in the old world than in the new, (the Revolution having been the cause of such wickedness and having done so much harm) our Father Abbot decided that he and his community would return to France. He embarked in the autumn of 1814, and took with him from New York the greater number of our Brothers and all our Sisters, leaving only six Brothers and myself behind, with orders that we should join him in France after I had arranged our business matters and recovered my strength, for I had still within me the germ of that malady of which mention has been made in speaking of Maryland where I contracted it, as did the others. It left me with a slow fever, that lasted for a long time. At this junction two of our Brothers died, a lay Brother and an oblate. This latter had been almost a millionaire he having acquired a large fortune in the West India Islands; he lost it, however, in the negro rebellion, and retired to La Trappe, where he died poor enough. Belonging to the house in which we were living was an orchard which we had made our cemetery, here we had buried our two brothers; but, as we were going to leave this spot and did not wish to expose their bodies to be perhaps profaned by heretics who might buy the ground and not wish to have them there, we determined to exhume them. They had been buried about a fortnight, and the weather was warm, so we provided ourselves with incense to burn in case there might be a foul odour. This precaution, however, was not necessary, as there was no smell perceptible, they were as fresh, so to speak, as if they were still alive. We remarked especially that the body of Brother Jean Marie, (the lay Brother) was supple. I touched it myself, and saw that it was really so, for while I held him his legs swayed as would those of a person in life. Near the town there was a little cemetery well walled in, and intended for the poor. As our brothers were poor in fact, and by profession, I had them laid there, and in the same spirit of poverty interred them side by side in the same grave. We accompanied these good brothers to the tomb, offering our prayers for their repose, and all was finished before daylight. About the middle of the month of May, 1815, our business being concluded, we left New York, and fifteen days later arrived at Halifax, without having experienced bad weather. After two week's delay in searching for another vessel, we at length found one, and by means of the recommendation of Mr. Burke, then pastor of the town, and since Bishop, we were taken on board with our seven trunks without being obliged to pay anything for our passage. The ship was a transport called the "Ceylon," and was delayed by contrary winds. The second day after we embarked the wind still being from a wrong quarter, I was stupid and imprudent enough to go ashore to see about some business that was not of grave importance--when lo! the wind veered round suddenly and became favorable. The ship sailed, but Father, Vincent remained and lost his passage! I thus found myself alone in a strange country, and without means. I made every effort to discover some way of overtaking the ship, but in vain. It was impossible to do so, and I felt very sad at the thought of my brothers being carried so far away from me. My Superior in France, to whom I made known this event, wrote to me that as God had permitted it, I could remain until farther orders, and occupy myself with the salvation of the Indians; for which object I accordingly labored up to the time of my leaving Nova Scotia, that is to say up to the month of October, 1823. These labors, however, did not prevent my working for the good of our Order, as we shall see later. Mr. Bourke having gone to Ireland, we were only two priests for the town of Halifax and its suburbs, where there were many Catholics, without counting the Mic-macs, who are the Indians inhabiting Nova Scotia. These Indians were called to the Faith about four centuries ago. French priests or Jesuits coming at the peril of their lives, brought them the light of the Gospel. Many of these ministers of our Lord fell victims of their own zeal and charity, being murdered by this nation, then pagan and barbarous. Since these Indians became acquainted with the true religion they have never been known to conform to any other, but have preserved their firmness in the faith up to the present day in spite of the danger of perversion to which they are so often exposed, more especially since they have lived among the English, and in spite of their ignorance, for it is difficult to teach them. Their language which they call "Mic-mac," is a jargon without rule. They have been taught to read in it, but only by means of hieroglyphics. A figure or a sign which they write themselves on bark or on paper, may sometimes signify only one word, sometimes again it stands for a whole phrase. Some have thought they detected Arab words amongst this language, but I think it bears more resemblance to that of children just learning to speak without being able to understand what they say. For example for the "_yes_" they say [long-e] (ay); for "_no_" they say "mena." The accent of the Mic-mac is soft and slow. I have remarked that, they do not convey their ideas well in any other language. When one translates Mic-mac for them into French or English, they often appear dissatisfied, and one can see from their manner that the true sense is not given. What renders their faith more remarkable and meritorious is, that they confess through the medium of an interpreter, and they avail themselves of the first they find, no matter who, provided he knows their language. They are often interpreted by their relatives, even the oldest by the youngest. Mr. Mayar, a French priest who was formerly missionary to these parts and who died in Halifax full of merit before God, was deeply regretted by these Indians. By means of great application, and by the aid of light from heaven, he accomplished the task of translating into their language a number of the prayers and chants of the church, so that they now sing the _Kyrie_, the _Gloria in Excelsis_, the _Credo_, &c, even the _Te Deum_, on the Roman or Parisian tone, (for this worthy priest came from Paris). They know many hymns of the Blessed Virgin, which they sing equally well, also the prose _Dies Irae_. They sing mass fairly well, especially the tone Royal, and the mass for the dead. Some persons may be surprised at this, and perhaps harbor a doubt of it, but I can testify as a witness to its truth. More than a hundred times they have sung it for me. So recently as the month of August, 1823, I was in a parish called Havre-a-Bouchers, when twenty-six canoes filled with Indians arrived there; they came to have their children baptised, and for confession, &c. There were eight singers among them, and during the week that they remained, they sang mass for me each day, and one might say conducted themselves like canons or like Trappists! They have clear voices. These poor Indians might shame some of our European Catholics by their zeal and their piety; they will go fifty or even a hundred leagues to find a priest and to receive the Sacraments, and as it often happens that they have no provisions when they arrive, they pass two or three days without eating, occupied only with their souls and forgetful of the wants of the body. While in Halifax, which is the capital of Nova Scotia, I found myself overladen with work. The priest who was with me being in very delicate health and often indisposed, most of the work fell to me. He was at length obliged to go away for change of air and was absent for a month, during which time it fell to me to baptize, confess, marry, visit the sick in town and country, and be on my feet day and night, besides saying mass on Sundays and Holy days. Although I knew very little English, I preached twice in that language in the Catholic church of the town, where there were about two thousand Catholics, of whom the greater number were Irish. Soon I felt constrained to go further into the Province of Nova Scotia to minister to the wants of the poor, neglected inhabitants. The first place to which I went was a parish called Chezzetcook, composed of French Acadians, who were without a priest. It is seven leagues from the town (Halifax) and when it possessed a missionary the Indians had been accustomed to go there. They were not long in learning of my presence, and came from a circuit of fifteen or twenty leagues. I had a transparancy representing the suffering souls in purgatory, which our Revered Father Abbot had made. The figures expressing different shades of grief and of the desire as well as the hope of seeing God, combined with the brilliant and real looking flames, were well calculated to produce an impression. I showed it to them and explained it by means of one of their interpreters who knew French. At once penetrated with compassion and charity for the suffering souls in purgatory they began to weep, and to look up the money they had with them so as to have the Holy Sacrifice offered on behalf of these suffering souls, and that without my having said anything to give them the idea. They all wear the cross, some have it hung round their necks, others fasten it on their breast. It is seldom that an Indian leaves home without his beads; they generally have them and do not neglect to say them, sometimes repeating the chapelet several times a day, as well as in the middle of the night, when they rise to pray. They observe all the fasts of the Church, and the penances imposed on them they generally perform on Fridays. On that day in a spirit of penitence, and in memory of the passion of Jesus Christ, a man will hold out to his wife the backs of his hands, which the wife strikes with a rod, giving twenty, thirty, or fifty blows. She then in turn presents her hands and receives the same chastisement from her husband. This chastisement is dealt out indiscriminately, children are thus chastized by their parents, and what is surprising, the little Indians when struck on the hands do not withdraw them, no matter how much they feel the pain. I have seen them bleeding, yet in spite of that they were firm and motionless. Their religion is not only exterior, they have it in their heart as will be seen by the following fact: The feast of St. Anne is a great festival for the Indians, and I made a point of being at Chezzetcook on that day. Two hundred Indians assembled, most of them came in a spirit of devotion, but some of them had evil designs, for they mediated killing their king and all his family. I discovered this plot in time, and learnt the cause with astonishment. It was that they believed that the chief and all his family would change their religion, that they had become Protestants, or that they intended so to do. This is how it came about. Some heretics called Methodists, had done all in their power to attract the king of the Indians to their sect, going so far as to give him all sorts of provisions, and other valuables, such as cows, pigs, farming implements, &c. One of these Methodists was sent among the Indians to learn their language, and so corrupt them more easily. In this way the report got about that their Chief, Benjamin (which was the name of the king) had joined the Methodists with all his family. Mr. Mignault, parish priest of Halifax, and myself knew this to be false, for Benjamin himself, whom we had warned against the dangers that threatened him, had replied: "The potatoes, cows, and the other provisions of Bromlet (which was the name of the Methodist who had given him the things) are good, I have taken them and made use of them, but his religion is worthless, I will have none of it." In consequence of this we assembled the Indians in the church of Chezztecook, which was not large enough to hold them all, and we made the king repeat his profession of faith in their presence, so that they should no longer doubt his sincerity. He did this in a most edifying manner. His example was followed by all his officers, who also made their profession of faith. We remarked in particular one of his brothers who was conspicuous by the touching beauty and eloquence of his speech, and by the earnestness of the gestures which he employed. Some fragments of his discourse were rendered into our language by an Acadian interpreter, who understood Mic-mac pretty well. "How," said he, "could we leave our religion that will save our souls if we follow it, this religion that comes from God, whose son died on the cross for our salvation? Shall we lose our souls that have cost Him so dear, for which he suffered so much, and which he shed all his blood to purchase? No, better die than change our faith and do such a great wrong." I had written to Mr. Mignault to come so as to render the affair more imposing and dignified, and he arrived in good time. He carried a large crucifix, which at the conclusion of the ceremony the Indians came to venerate. The missionary then said a few words of instruction, after which the Indians embraced each other as brothers and friends, in token of general satisfaction and peace. I heard all their confessions, and a large number had the happiness of receiving Holy Communion. On the eve of St. Anne's feast, they made a bonfire, and while the wood burned they fired off guns and danced around the fire, clapping their hands in imitation of musical instruments. This lasted for a great part of the night, however, they had previously said their evening prayers, and sung hymns and canticles. We can obtain almost anything from them in the name of our holy religion, so great is their attachment to it, as will be seen by the following: One day while I was in Halifax, a number of Indians came to the presbytery to complain to me of the Governor who resided in the town. They clamored for the guns and powder which had been promised to them, and which they were accustomed to receive every year from the English Government in addition to their gifts of woolen blankets. The missionaries distributed, or saw to the distribution of these latter. I was obliged to go myself to see the Governor on the subject of this small rebellion, for the Indians wore a threatening air. His Excellency begged me to pacify them and to tell them that their demand would soon be granted. I returned and said a few words in the name of religion, which at once quieted them. Another time some barbarous and fanatical miscreants set a number of Indians against us, making them believe that we only drew them around us in order to do them harm, and to emperil their safety. This they apparently believed, for we were warned that they would attempt our lives. I spoke to them instructing them as well as I was able. At last by the arguments of the religion to which they are so attached, I turned them from their wicked purpose. I am sure that afterwards they experienced a lively remorse for having entertained such a thought. Formerly, that is to say, before priests came among them, they had the barbarous custom of killing their fathers and mothers when they became old and infirm. Many of the bludgeons and war clubs with which they killed their parents have been found quite recently. Now, however, they take care of them until their death, respecting and loving them. It is thought that before they had any knowledge of religion they were cannibals. How is it that this people who were formerly so unnatural and so barbarous are to-day so different, so humane, and quiet and tractible? What has rendered them so docile and submissive; in short, what has worked this happy change if not the Catholic religion? Protestants, as we have shown above, have tried to civilize them, and to imbue them with different sentiments, even going so far as to live among them and entering into their pursuits, but their undertakings have always failed, each attempt has met with the same result It is only the true religion and its priests that have power to convert and civilize these savages and make them useful members of society. Each year they have masses said for different intentions, and in this they give evidence of generosity and nobleness of sentiment. The first mass that they recommend is for the human race, that is for all men living; the second is for the souls in purgatory; the third for all Indians and others who have died during the year; the fourth to thank God for all benefits received from His hand during the year, and the fifth to offer up to Him the coming year so that he may bless it. For this object they save their money, sometimes to the end of the year, sometimes to the feast of St. Anne, when they have an opportunity to come to their religious duties. This, however, does not prevent their having a special mass said, should any of their near relatives die. They generally recommend high masses for these general intentions, and for thanksgiving. Before the French took possession of Nova Scotia, which they called Acadia, the Indians lived only by hunting and fishing, and had no clothing, but such as they made of the skins of wild beasts. Their houses were hut-like in form, as they are at the present time, for they have not changed their ancient manner of living. I have often slept in their cabins, which are very uncomfortable for civilized people, such as Frenchmen, although the Indians prefer them to our houses. A proof of this is that, notwithstanding the length of time they have lived among Europeans, they have not made up their mind to imitate them. This may possibly arise from idleness, for it would cost them much labor as well as time and money were they to erect houses such as ours. They are not rich enough to employ workmen, but in less than a day, without expense and with little labor, they can build the house in which they live, sleep, cook, &c., and which is much less trouble for them. They cut fifteen or twenty little trees of about the same size as the arm of a youth of fifteen. From these they remove the branches, if there be any, and make them into posts of nine or ten feet in length. They then plant them in the earth at equal distances, in the form of a circle, placing them so that they may incline inwards, so that the base is much larger than the summit. An opening is left at the apex sufficient to admit of the escape of the smoke from the fire, which is always made in the middle of the cabin. They then cover these poles with the bark of trees, leaving an open space for the entrance. If they are not too poor, they cover this space with some pieces of old blankets. Their houses are built in the shape of a sugar loaf, their bed is the naked earth, or some small branches of trees, shreded fine, that serve as a mattrass. These cabins are never more than fifteen or twenty feet in diameter. Their cookery consists chiefly in suspending above their fire some eels or hares that they have killed. These they eat almost before they have changed color, (what the Acadians term _boucare_). There are some who have kettles, and who cook their fish in water, with potatoes, which vegetable for some time past the Indians of Nova Scotia have planted, and which now forms almost their principle nourishment. Many have boats in which they go codfishing. Although they are generally rather idle, they occupy themselves nevertheless at work which requires attention and a certain kind of application, such as making pretty boats out of bark and pretty boxes of different shapes and colors, and elegant and highly ornamented baskets. For this ornamentation they use the quills of the porcupine, an animal very common in America. These quills they die black, red, blue, &c. They make these colors themselves by means of certain barks which they boil in water. They then fasten the colored quills on the bark of their boxes in tasteful and varied patterns. This is generally considered to be women's work. That of the men is heavier, such as the making of churns and other wooden utensils for domestic use. They tan the skins of the animals they kill and make their shoes or moccasins out of them. These are very thin and do not last long. As, regards their dress, both men and women are oddly attired. Their clothes are fashioned somewhat after the manner of ours, but the sewing is all on the outside and the stitches are very large. The selvedge of the cloth, (which they are always careful to secure when buying it) also shews on the outside, from their shoulders to their heels, and is considered ornamental. The squaws' dresses are similar, with the addition of a hood, which, when turned up, completely covers their head. The more elegant are ornamented with ribbons, flowers, beads, &c. It is more particularly when they come to their devotions that they decorate themselves thus. The men also at such times dress themselves with more than usual care. They live very peaceably together, willingly lend to each other, and have almost everything in common. If one receives a gift of anything, bread for example, all the others, men and women, regard it as a present made to all, and are as grateful as if each had received it, consequently there is no such thing as jealousy among them. A beautiful example for all Christians! We will now speak of their dexterity. It is wonderful to see them manage their bark canoes, which are extremely light. These little boats are narrow at both ends, a little wider in the middle, and generally about nine or ten feet long. They move with surprising quickness in the midst of the angry waves. Two persons are sufficient to propel them, and it can be done by one. When fishing eels they stand at the end of their canoes and spear the eels with a long stick, to the end of which is fastened a sharp pointed iron. This instrument they call _higogue_. They are so long sighted that they can see to the bottom, of water twenty feet in depth. They wait until the fish rise, then spear them as they go along. Their dexterity is such that they seldom miss their aim. I have often gone with them; we have journeyed together by sea and by land. When there are _portages_, that is to say lands to cross, in order to regain the sea or lakes, they put their canoes on their heads and carry them to the water, and if they are overtaken by rain or by bad weather, they turn them over and take shelter underneath them. Without counting the Indians who in 1818 numbered many thousand souls in Nova Scotia and in Cape Breton, which Province alone, is almost as large as France, there were at least twelve hundred and fifty Catholic families scattered over these two large Provinces. At that time we numbered only seven priests, two of whom were very infirm, which was the reason of my being obliged to leave the Halifax mission and to repair to a place two hundred miles from there, on the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in the neighborhood of Cape Breton, This part of Nova Scotia (to which I was sent by Bishop Burke on his return from his visit to Europe, where he had been made Bishop of Sion and Vicar Apostolic of this Province), was without a priest, although it contained a great number of Catholics. On my arrival I found three parishes abandoned and deprived of the precious consolations of religion. Many children were brought to me for baptism, and I had numerous confessions to hear, &c. They came from great distances to take me to visit the sick who had ample time to die before I could get near them. I was given especial charge of three parishes composed of Acadians and of natives of France, to whom the English Government had given land, and who still remain in this country. The Acadian portion of my charge having intermarried with the Indians, had become half savage, and had adopted many of the Indian customs. [Footnote: Le peuple Acadien s'etant allie avec les Sauvages, est devenu moitie Sauvage, et a pris beaucoup de leurs manieres.] There is a tribe of the Indians called _Micmacs_ in one of these three parishes that is named Pomquet (an Indian word) and I was in a position to observe them as they were only ten miles from Tracadie, which was my ordinary place of residence. They there possessed a considerable property given to them by the Government. They cultivated it, planted potatoes and cut hay. When I arrived among them I found great disorder. Many had given themselves up to drunkeness, and they were without a chief. One day I assembled them together and spoke to them strongly about these matters. Since then I have seen with pleasure that they have not opposed me, but that they have chosen among themselves a chief whom they obey,--not all of them unfortunately, for there are some of them who are wicked and have always given me much trouble; their love for brandy is their ruin. I have often crossed an arm of the sea in order to visit other Micmacs who live in Cape Breton. This Cape is surrounded by little islands, and there is there a lake seven leagues in length and five or six in width; on which I was once shipwrecked. We were two priests in a bark canoe, paddled by two Indians, and were carrying the consolations of religion to many families of Indians who lived on the other side at the foot of a mountain. A storm suddenly arose, a long stick, which served as a mast and carried a sail, was broken, and during the two hours that the bad weather continued, we momentarily expected to be engulfed by the immense waves that rose like hills and fell, breaking against our feeble bark, although the pilot endeavored to avoid them as much as possible, while the other Indian tried to break their force by means of his paddle. One of these Indians, the elder of the two, and the more experienced, trembled, fearing every moment that we should be lost, and he was not so afraid for us as we were for ourselves. However, thanks to Providence, and to the wood of the True Cross that I had with me, we were delivered from danger, and arrived safely in port. We found a new plantation made by the Indians, that is to say, some tracts of cultivated land, some animals and some frames of houses. The Indians received us with great joy, especially when they learned that we were two priests who came to visit them; but in nearing their habitations we were exposed to great danger from the horns of a bull that was ferocious and was in the habit of rushing at passers by. God delivered us from this peril also, although the animal in question was quite near to us. These Indians set before us for our supper, tea, milk, butter, potatoes and some fruit that resembled small apples (petites pommes). We were hungry and tired. We ate with good appetites, and were anxious to retire for the night. But what beds! Appropriate truly for a Trappist. They were made of grass and of branches of trees thrown on the ground. And what a house! It had no chimney and scarcely any roof, so that we were all night exposed to the snow and rain which was falling. My companion who was suffering from lung complaint was injured by this, while for my part, I shivered all night and could not get warm, although quite near to a fire that had been kindled in the centre of the cabin. The next morning we rose before daybreak and baptized several Micmac children, (for these Indians were of the same nation as those of Nova Scotia) and confessed others. After that we prepared to re-cross the lake, which was not easy, as the sea was still very high. Another time that I started on a mission to this same Cape (Breton) the Indians who conducted me in a canoe perceived three monstrous fish called _maraches_, and they were frightened, as these fish are very dangerous. Their teeth are made like gardiners' knives, for cutting and boring, or like razors slightly bent. They are extremely voracious, and often follow boats, attacking them with violence. Bark canoes cannot resist them, they rend them open with their teeth, so that they sink to the bottom, which is why the Indians have such a terror of them. Happily for us these fish did not follow us, we arrived, thank God, in good health. Tracadie was usually my starting place when I left for the Indian mission of Cape Breton. I had from eighteen to twenty leagues to journey by water, making long circuits and paddling round twelve or fifteen little islands, and passing near many others. Nevertheless it only takes one day to make the journey in a bark canoe, that is if the wind be not contrary. The Micmacs of the Cape (Breton) knowing that I was on the road and would soon arrive at the mission [Footnote: This place is called "Mission" or "The Mission of the Bras d'or," because it is there that the missionaries are accustomed to confess, baptize and administer the Sacraments to the Indians, and to those who present themselves to receive them. It is a pretty little island on which they have built a nice chapel, and a house sufficiently commodious for the priest.] would all gather there to the number of five or six hundred. On the occasion referred to above, three canoes came to meet us. (I was then accompanied by another missionary). This was to do honor to us, to show respect and gratitude. When we approached near to the island two of these canoes were sent on ahead to announce to the king that we would arrive immediately, The king had all his braves armed (for they all have guns) and the moment we landed he commanded them to fire, after which he formed them into two lines and made them kneel to receive our benediction; they then rose and we passed between them. They accompanied us to the church where we chanted the _Te Deum_, or rather it was chanted by themselves in thanksgiving for our arrival. This is about the ordinary ceremony to honor the arrival of a missionary. When the mission was opened, after having implored the light of the Holy Spirit, they all confessed, and a great number received Holy Communion. I made the Stations of the Cross partly in their own Micmac language. I know that they understood me by the signs that they made, as well as by their devout appearance in following the procession. Afterwards each one came to make the Stations himself the best way he could. This went on for six days, during which time I left the pictures of the Stations in the church. I put a high indulgence on their crosses, crucifixes, beads, &c., by virtue of a power that I received from Rome since I came on this mission. Some Indians had given bad example and had openly sinned; these made public reparation, promising to correct themselves and praying the king, who was present in the church, to punish them, if they again fell into the same fault. I was obliged to leave, and had not time to erect fourteen large crosses which I had intended to place in the middle of the island to serve as a Calvary. They, themselves, made three crosses, probably by this time they have set them up (as I instructed them how to do) before leaving. The Cape Breton Indians are the best of all the Micmacs, they are sober, obedient to their priests, exact in the observance of the smallest articles of religion (if indeed there be any small). It is true that they are ignorant, but this is pardonable in them because of the difficulty of their language. One day I had given Communion to an old squaw who was ill. They were all alarmed as she was not fasting when she received; they thought that both the priest and the squaw had been guilty of great disrespect to the Blessed Sacrament. In order to quiet them, I said to them in Micmac: "_Kijidou_," which means: "Be easy, there is no harm in that, it is permitted, I know what I have to do." Immediately they looked at each other and smiled, their consciences at rest. The missionary who was with me once said to them: "I want you to make me a road in the woods one or two miles long." The next day, very early in the morning, one or two hundred Indians, each armed with a hatchet, began to cut down the trees, and at the close of the day the road was finished. This incident alone will serve to illustrate their good will and devotion. During the five years and a half in which I worked at the holy ministry in this second mission, I had consolations and God delivered me from many dangers besides those of which I have spoken. One winter when I went to one of the three Acadian parishes to hold a mission there, I fell between two large cakes of very thick ice; this was on the sea, for every winter in this part of the world the water freezes sufficiently to allow a man and even a horse and sleigh to pass over it. A young man with whom I was travelling, came to my assistance, and by his help, but more by the help of God, I drew myself out. I was safe, but very wet and benumbed with cold. Some days after I was seized with a violent sore throat, which I attributed to the accident that had happened to me a short time previously. Many times I have been on foot and on horseback night and day, going on sick calls in the most severe weather. I have walked upon the frozen sea on one day, and have passed the same place on the day following and seen that it would not then bear me, and should I have attempted to cross it then, I would have perished. When the navigation was open, almost all the journeys rendered necessary, by the wants of my people, I made by sea, sometimes going in a boat, sometimes in a larger vessel. Besides the general risk that one always runs on this perfidious element, I have often experienced bad weather and long and perilous passages, but the Lord has preserved me in the midst of the waters. I must not omit to mention a most critical moment when Monseigneur Plessis, Bishop of Quebec, with several other priests and myself were in danger of losing our lives in 1815, while going by sea to Chezzetcook, a parish situated twenty-one miles from Halifax, and of which I have already spoken. Monseigneur, two priests and myself, were in the same boat, we had just quitted a long boat that had brought us from the town to the harbor. We were about landing, but had still some breakers to avoid. Two totally unexperienced young Englishmen who were rowing us led us suddenly into grave danger. The sea rose very high, and we found ourselves crossing the breakers, so that we momentarily expected to have our boat upset and ourselves sent head over heels into the midst of the waters. All who saw us, or knew of our situation, thought that we ran the greatest risk; but we held on, thanks to Providence, who arranges all, and nothing was lost but my hat, which was struck by a breaker and carried into the sea. Not only has divine Providence often delivered me in like dangers that I can call to mind, but also we were protected in the tempest which we experienced in the beginning of December, 1823, when we were coming from America to France. If I have been exposed to danger on the sea, I have also on land, but God made the elements; He dwells therein, He is their master. I have fallen three times from the back of a horse, at great risk of being killed or of breaking a limb, and I have twice been robbed by thieves who broke into the house in which I usually resided; they took the little money I had, my clothes, etc., but I was absent from home when they executed their evil deed. God permitted it, may His holy name be blessed! There are in the parish of Tracadie and its environs twenty or thirty-six families of negroes, of whom the greater number are Protestants. Besides being heretics they are rascals, given to all kinds of vice. I have often visited them, and upon every occasion that offered, tried to instruct them in spite of the danger that I ran of being ill-treated and perhaps killed by them, for there are some among them who are bad at heart and capable of evil deeds. I had some experience of this when I lived near them. Recently one of these negroes, remarkable among the others for his age and his pretended learning, fell ill. I went to see him thinking that my visit would not displease him. There were a number of blacks round his bed, who were singing hymns and praying. They offered me a chair. I seated myself near the sick man and commenced to speak to him of death, of judgment and of the truth faith, of the only true religion in which we can save ourselves. Finally I said to him that he would be dammed if he died in his false belief. At these words the other negroes turned on me with fury; by their animated features, by their eyes flashing with anger, and by their horrible cries, I knew that I was not safe with them, and that I could do no good there, so I left the house. They followed me, crying out against the priests. A young ecclesiastic who accompanied me was very frightened, and I myself expected to be assaulted by them. There was one in particular more enraged than the others, and who screamed most loudly. He said that if a hundred or a thousand priests should speak to him of religion he would not believe one of them. I returned there some days afterwards with another priest who was conversant with English (for the sick man could not speak French). After some hours conversation with the missionary, the sick man asked him if he would come to him again when he sent for him. Soon after this I left the country, but I have reason to think that he sent for me. I do not know what is the result for his soul, whether he is converted or whether he remains in error, for the above incident occurred just before my return to France. During the five years and a half that I have spent at Tracadie, which is in Nova Scotia, I have had the consolation of seeing four or five families of these Protestant negroes embrace the Catholic religion. Many other persons also of different nations and sects have changed their faith, to the great edification of the children of the true Church. It has been found necessary to build new churches and to enlarge others, to enable them to hold their congregations, which have so increased in number, either by conversions, by the multiplying of the old Catholic families, or by the number of strangers who came every day to settle in this country, and who bring the true faith with them. For some time I was the only missionary there, and obliged to traverse forty or fifty leagues by land and by sea. I found every where colonies who were Catholic, as well as many persons who were not. If some zealous priests would go to carry spiritual help to all these people who are in a measure abandoned, they would perform a great act of charity and win much merit; but they must be prepared to suffer many miseries, hunger, cold, persecution, poverty, &c, and to risk their lives often both on land and sea. The principal nourishment of the people of the country consists of potatoes and salt meat, water or spruce beer (biere de Pruche) is their ordinary drink. They love rum which is common enough, and is not expensive-- but on the other hand it is dangerous and unhealthful to soul and body. A very small quantity of this liquor will make a man lose his reason, and quite inebriate him. It is this unhappy and deadly drink that ruins the Indians in this country as in all others. The climate of Nova Scotia and of Cape Breton is very cold during the winter (which lasts six months), and sometimes very hot in summer. From time to time we hear of persons having their hands and feet frozen, and even parts of their faces. I myself have seen many who were obliged to have their hands or feet amputated, they having mortified from the effects of the cold. Another danger that one has to face is that of being surrounded by the snow when it is drifted by the wind, as sometimes happens on the Alps, on the side of Mont Cenis and Simplon. This is what is called a "snow storm." In these eddies of snow one cannot see the road on which to travel, not even a house fifteen feet distant The snow, driven with force by the wind, fills your eyes, nostrils and mouth, and prevents you from breathing, so that you are really in danger of perishing. Every winter a tremendous quantity of snow falls, so that one is obliged to use snow-shoes in order to travel. In spite of all these drawbacks it is a healthy country, and one which produces all necessary grain and vegetables, such as wheat, bearded wheat, rye, kidney beans, beans, turnips, cabbage, potatoes, &c, and even good fruit, such as apples, pears and plums. As to the fruit, in some townships it is very good, in others it is small, while as to vegetables, potatoes succeed the best. These latter are very fine in Nova Scotia and in Cape Breton. A proof of the country not being a bad one is, that every one lives well there. Strictly speaking, there are no poor, for one never sees a beggar. It has been remarked that those who work well, and are rather industrious, live in comfort, without being exactly rich. Again, the people have fish at their doors, for living as they do near the sea and the lakes, they can have all kinds, such as herring, mackerel, salmon, eels and codfish in abundance. It is true that the winter is long and severe, but there is plenty of wood with which to keep warm. A consideration that ought to overweigh all the troubles and dangers which have been mentioned, is the great work that may be here done for religion among so many souls that are abandoned and given over to ignorance for want of priests to instruct them. More particularly among the Indian people, who deserve that we should try to save them, because of their good faith and fine natural character. It occurred to me to group them into villages as soon as I got to know them well; for that purpose I have bought a large tract of land near the sea, there to form a religious establishment which will serve to civilize them and to make them still better Christians. They will establish themselves near us, and we will be at hand to see them and to instruct them. I have built a house on this land, hoping that the Government or some charitable and generous soul will assist in erecting a chapel and some other buildings, that we shall need, in order to carry out our project, and to effect the good that we hope for. My Superior consents, and encourages me to return to America for this laudable undertaking, and in order to work for the salvation of those Indians who know not God, such as the Esquimaux. These latter are a barbarous and cannibalistic people. Recently they made a descent on some European fisherman in the woods that they inhabit, which are not far from the banks of Newfoundland, a little to the north. The Indians having let fly several arrows at the fishermen, the latter replied by some shots from their guns. One of the Indians was killed, the others saved themselves by flight. Our fishermen seized a squaw who remained near the dead body of the Indian; probably they had lived together, and she regarded him as her husband. She was taken to St John's Newfoundland, and the Governor having been notified gave orders to the merchants of the town to allow this Indian woman such wearing material as pleased her. It was noticed that she fancied everything of the most gaudy description. The colors, red in particular, pleased and delighted her, consequently the material she chose was principally red. They prepared something for her to eat and offered her food which had been cooked; she, however, scorned that, and seized upon a raw fowl which she devoured without removing the feathers. A Frenchman who was there and saw her, told me that her nails and teeth were extremely long. Instead of keeping her among civilized beings, she was taken to the woods where she had been found. This was probably by order of the Governor. It is very difficult to civilize this kind of Indian. They are very fierce, and their language, which is not the same as that of the Micmacs, seems to present great difficulties. Still these souls have been created by God and bought by Jesus Christ, and the more abandoned, and the further from the religion of heaven they seem to be, so much the more do they call for our compassion. We have succeeded in civilizing many barbarous nations and in rendering them Christian and Catholic, we may equally, with the help of God, bring others to the knowledge of the true religion, and since pretended philosophers have abandoned the faith, it must, according to the divine oracle, go to other men. If this faith is extinguished for many, who have deserved the misfortune in closing their eyes to its light, it goes to others who will render themselves worthy by allowing this divine truth to enlighten them. Thus faith is never lost, if it leaves us, it is our own fault. To return to our Micmacs of Nova Scotia,--it does one good to reflect on what they were formerly and what they are now. Formerly they were ferocious idolaters, now they are gentle and they know the true God. If the Government had chosen to help us we could have done for the Esquimaux what the early missionaries did for the people of which we speak; and even these latter for whom we have worked would, without doubt, have become much more civilized. We would have ventured to promise to make of them, not only well instructed and perfect Christians, but also good laborers and good workmen, in a word, good citizens who would be useful to society and not a burden to the State as they have hitherto been. The way in which they have profited by the few lessons that they have received from us on agriculture is a proof of the success that we should have had. We have worked with them and our example has encouraged them. It is well that they know how to farm a little, for instance, how to plant potatoes, for the country is beginning to be populous, and they do not find enough game to subsist upon, and there are times when they cannot fish. It is then charitable as well as necessary to teach them to gain their livelihood in some other way. But all that is only a small part of the good that we propose to do; to work efficaciously at the saving of their souls, to render them humble, sober, industrious, charitable, &c., from religious principles which is the way by which we hope to complete and perfect the good work. Not having succeeded so far in making an establishment of any consequence, by reason of want of means, we have contented ourselves with forming a little school for girls, more especially for the young Micmac squaws. This school is taught by three excellent women, natives of the place, who live as religious of the third order of La Trappe, until such time as they can establish a house of the first order. They have already gone through a year of novitiate at the convent of the Ladies of the Congregation of Montreal, in Canada, which congregation was founded by Sister Bourgeoys, as one reads in the history of the discovery of that great country. These three women are stationed in the parish of Pomquete, one of the three parishes with which I am especially charged, and of which mention has been made at the beginning of this narrative. It is a good little parish, composed of French people, born most of them at St Malo, Dinan or Grandville. When I left these poor people in order to return to France, they were inconsolable, fearing they would have no priest. They called a meeting to discuss what they should do in the event of so sad a situation. Many were resolved to follow me with the hope of bringing me back, or of returning with another priest. All were agreed to pay the passage of the missionary who should come to them, as well as to undertake to supply all that might be necessary for food or raiment while he should be with them. One man named Dominique Phillippar, born in Paris, and a resident of Pomquett for about thirty years, was chosen for an important errand. He was to accompany me to France, and to entreat the Reverend Father Abbot, my Superior, that I or some other member of our Order might return with him. In case that could not be managed, we were by his recommendation and through his instrumentality to address ourselves to the Bishop, asking for some zealous priests who were willing to consecrate themselves to the North American missions, and to minister to people who had no spiritual help. His place was secured in the ship that took me to France, but as he had not arrived from his parish when we set sail, he lost his passage, the ship having sailed a day earlier than was expected. Doubtless the good man experienced poignant regret. He was ready to journey almost two thousand leagues (including going and coming) in order to get a priest. This fact illustrates the faith and zeal for religion existing in the Catholics of these countries. I hope that God who is often satisfied with our good will and who permitted this event, will inspire some good ecclesiastics with the desire of going to the aid of these poor souls who so well deserve assistance. When we arrived in America we found most Catholics well disposed. Their religion was obscured, but they seemed to be impressed with the first invitations or instructions that we gave them; of this they gave exterior proof, such as building churches, erecting crosses on the roadside, establishing Calvaries, and making the way of the cross, a devotion which touches the heart and bears excellent fruit. I, myself, have often been witness of the good effect produced by the Stations, and it is not long since one of my parishoners who was given over to drunkenness was completely converted after assisting at this devotion. He threw himself at my feet dissolved in tears, made his confession, and since that time he has always been extremely sober and filled with the fear of God. I often make the Stations in the different places where I go to hold missions, and as I have remarked a change for the better in the manners and in the amusements, the dancing, vanities, &c, of the people, I attribute it to the grace attached to the devotion of the way of the cross. Those who have resolved to go over to those countries will do well to procure the faculty for establishing this precious devotion everywhere. _Ut in nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur caelestium, terrestrium et infernorum. Ad Philippenses, 2 10_. "At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, whether in heaven, or on earth, or in hell." [Footnote: The Procession of the most Holy Sacrament made by the Indians of Cape Breton and the Bras d'Or has not been mentioned in these pages, as it took place since this narrative was written.] * * * * * TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. The foregoing very imperfect translation of Father Vincent de Paul's quaint narrative, is published at the request of the leading clergy of Antigonish County, that section of Eastern Nova Scotia in which the holy Trappist so long lived and labored. The original from which the translation was made, was printed in France in the year 1824, and, as far as is known, is the only copy in Canada. It was for many years lying _perdu_ in the old convent of the Trappistine Sisters, in Tracadie, Nova Scotia, where it was discovered in the autumn of 1883. It is interspersed with corrections and footnotes in the pious monk's own handwriting and was printed at a private press, in the Trappist Monastery at Bellefontaine, France. Father Vincent's labors were, generally speaking, confined to the district over which he presided, but occasionally in cases of urgent need, he would be sent for to administer the Sacraments to the dying in Prince Edward Island. Old Catholic residents along the northern and eastern shores of King's County, will tell how, with Father Vincent seated in the prow, the smallest boat would ride safely over an angry sea. His apostolic zeal it was that kept the Faith alive in Eastern Nova Scotia, in the days when, with the exception of a few French missions, it lived only in the hearts of the poor Micmac Indians. Before his death, however, he had the happiness of seeing the Catholic religion firmly rooted in the land he so loved, by the arrival and establishment there of the loyal Highlanders, who by their energy and perseverance have changed the desert through which Father Vincent made his perilous journeys into a beautiful and fertile country. To the Right Rev. Dr. Cameron for his kindness in writing the preface, to the Rev. Clergy for their liberal patronage, and to the Trappistine Sisters for the loan of the original copy of Father Vincent's book, are due the most grateful thanks of THE TRANSLATOR. Charlottetown, P.E. Island, 18th June, 1886. [Transcriber's Note: The words "mattrass," "preceeded," "shreded," "tractible," and "transparancy" appear thus in our print copy; also, "Pomquet" is variously spelled as "Pomquet," "Pomquett," and "Pomquete"; we have retained these spellings as they appeared in the published work.] 
30085	----	MISSIONARY ANNALS. (A SERIES.) LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN, MISSIONARY TO INDIA AND PERSIA, 1781 to 1812 ABRIDGED FROM THE MEMOIR. BY MRS. SARAH J. RHEA. CHICAGO: WOMAN'S PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE NORTHWEST, Room 48, McCormick Block. COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY WOMAN'S PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE NORTHWEST. CONTENTS. PAGE. EDUCATION AND PREPARATION, . . . . . . . . . . . 5 LIFE IN INDIA, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 LIFE IN PERSIA, AND DEATH, . . . . . . . . . . . 29 I hold in my hand an album adorned with pictures of missionaries, my brethren and sisters, the ambassadors of the King. On one of the first pages is "the tomb of Henry Martyn," given me by Dr. Van Lennep, who had just visited the sacred spot and described it vividly. When I turn the pages of my album and come to this, I pause with reverence and the overflowings of deep and tender emotion, and my mind adds other pictures, both terrestrial and celestial, to the one upon the page. My own missionary life as the companion of him whom Dr. Perkins called "the later Henry Martyn," was spent in Henry Martyn's Persia. They were alike I think in many things, these two Persian evangelists, and also in their deaths. When they passed out of the Tabriz gate, journeying homeward after a course of illness in the fated city, for each it was a quick ascent, a painful translation, to the heavenly city with abundant entrance and the Master's "well done"--in heaven; and on earth, a foreign grave taking possession for Christ, as the Nestorians reverently say, with "white stones still speaking out." S. J. R. EDUCATION AND PREPARATION. Henry Martyn was born in England on the south-western coast of Truro, February 18, 1781. His father, Mr. John Martyn, worked in the mines. He was not educated but was very fond of learning. The miners were in the habit of working and resting alternately every four hours. Mr. John Martyn spent many of his rest intervals in study, and so by diligence and education raised himself to a higher position, and became a clerk in the office of a merchant in Truro. When Henry was seven years old, he went to school to Dr. Cardew. From his earliest years all who knew him considered him a very interesting and promising child. Dr. Cardew says his proficiency in the classics exceeded that of his schoolfellows; he was of a lively, cheerful temper and seemed to learn without application, almost by intuition. But he was not robust, and loving books better than sport, and having a peculiar tenderness and inoffensiveness of spirit, he was often abused by rude and coarse boys in the school. A friendship which he formed at this time with a boy older than himself was the source of great comfort and advantage to him, and was kept up throughout his whole life. This friend often protected him from the bullies of the play-ground. At this school, under excellent tuition, Henry remained until fourteen years old, when he was induced to offer himself as a candidate for a vacant scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Young as he was, he went there alone, and acquitted himself so well, though strongly and ably opposed by competitors, that in the opinion of some of the examiners he ought to have been elected. How often is the hand of God seen in frustrating our fondest designs! Speaking of this disappointment he afterwards wrote: "Had I remained and become a member of the university at that time, as I should have done in case of success, the profligate acquaintances I had there would have introduced me to scenes of debauchery, in which I must in all probability, from my extreme youth, have sunk forever." He continued after this with Dr Cardew till 1797, and then joined his school friend at Cambridge at St. John's College. Here he obtained a place in the first class at the public examination in December, a circumstance which, joined to the extreme desire he had to gratify his father, encouraged and excited him to study with increased alacrity, and as the fruit of this application, at the next public examination in the summer he reached the second station in the first class, a point of elevation which "flattered his pride not a little." At this time he appeared in the eye of the world most amiable and commendable, outwardly moral, unwearied in application, and exhibited marks of no ordinary talent. One exception to this statement is to be found in an irritability of temper arising perhaps from the treatment he had received at school. On one occasion in sudden anger, he threw a knife at the head of another boy, which providentially missed him and was left trembling in the wall; but it was a narrow escape, and might have proved fatal. Though not a Christian at this time, he was under two strong influences for good, one from his religious friend in college, the other from his sister in Cornwall, a Christian of a meek, heavenly and affectionate spirit. He paid a visit to his home in the summer of 1799, carrying with him no small degree of academical honor. It may be well supposed that to a sister such as we have described, her brother's spiritual welfare would be a most serious and anxious concern; and that she often conversed with him on the subject of religion we know from his own declaration. The first result of her tender exhortations and earnest endeavors was very discouraging; a violent conflict took place in her brother's mind between his conviction of the truth of what she urged, and his love of the world; and for the present, the latter prevailed. Yet, sisters similarly circumstanced may learn from this case, not merely their duty, but also, from the final result, the success they may anticipate in the faithful discharge of it. "At the examination at Christmas, 1799," he writes: "I was first, and the account of it pleased my father prodigiously, who, I was told, was in great health and spirits. What, then, was my consternation when in January I received an account of his death!" Most poignant were his sufferings under this affliction, which led him to God for comfort in prayer and Bible study. He says: "I began with the Acts, and found myself insensibly led to inquire more attentively into the doctrines of the Apostles." Writing to his sister, having announced shortly and with much simplicity that his name stood first upon the list at the college examination of the summer of 1800, he says: "What a blessing it is for me that I have such a sister as you, my dear S., who have been so instrumental in keeping me in the right way. After the death of our father you know I was extremely low spirited, and like most other people began to consider seriously without any particular determination, that invisible world to which he was gone and to which I must one day go. Soon I began to attend more diligently to the words of our Savior in the New Testament, and to devour them with delight, when the offers of mercy and forgiveness were made so freely; I supplicated to be made partaker of the covenant of grace with eagerness and hope, and thanks be to the ever-blessed Trinity for not leaving me without comfort!" How cheering to his sister it must have been to receive at a moment of deep sorrow such a communication as this! How salutary to his own mind to have possessed so near a relation to whom he could thus freely open the workings of his heart. At this time he also received great benefit from attendance on the faithful ministry of Rev. Charles Simeon, under whose pastoral instructions he himself declares that he "gradually acquired more knowledge in divine things." With this excellent man he had the most friendly and unreserved intercourse. Mr. Martyn received his first impressions of the transcendent excellence of the Christian ministry of Mr. Simeon, from which it was but a short step to choose this calling for his own, for until now he had intended to devote himself to the law "chiefly," he confesses, "because he could not consent to be poor for Christ's sake." In January, 1801, the highest academical honor, that of "senior wrangler," was awarded to him before the completion of his twentieth year. His description of his feelings on this occasion is remarkable: "I obtained my highest wishes, but was surprised to find that I had grasped a shadow." So impossible it is for earthly distinction to fill and satisfy the mind. In March, 1802, after another rigid examination, Mr. Martyn was chosen Fellow of St. Johns, a situation honorable to the society and gratifying to himself. Soon after he obtained first prize for best Latin prose composition over many competitors of classical celebrity, and this was the more remarkable, as his studies had been almost entirely in mathematics. Henry Martyn's attention was called to the great cause of Foreign Missions by some remarks of Rev. Mr. Simeon on the work of Carey in India, but more particularly by reading the memoir of David Brainerd, who preached with apostolic zeal and success to the North American Indians, and who finished a course of self-denying labors for his Redeemer with unspeakable joy at the early age of thirty-two. Henry Martyn's soul was filled with holy emulation, and after deep consideration and fervent prayer he was at length fixed in a resolution to imitate his example. Nor let it be conceived that he could adopt this resolution without the severest conflict in his mind, for he was endued with the truest sensibility of heart, and was susceptible of the warmest and tenderest attachments. No one could exceed him in love for his country, or in affection for his friends, and few could surpass him in an exquisite relish for the various and refined enjoyments of a social and literary life. How then could it fail of being a moment of extreme anguish when he came to the deliberate resolution of leaving forever all he held dear upon earth? But he was fully satisfied that the glory of that Savior who loved him and gave Himself for him would be promoted by his going forth to preach to the heathen. He considered their pitiable and perilous condition; he thought on the value of their immortal souls; he remembered the last solemn injunction of his Lord, "Go teach all nations,"--an injunction never revoked, and commensurate with that most encouraging promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Actuated by these motives, he offered himself as a missionary to the society for Missions, and from that time stood prepared with childlike simplicity and unshaken constancy to go to any part of the world whither it might be deemed expedient to send him. In the early part of 1804, Mr. Martyn's plans of becoming a missionary were dampened by the loss of his slender patrimony, and as his sister was also involved in the calamity, it appeared hardly justifiable for him to go away. After some delay his friends obtained for him the position of chaplain to the East India Company, and so the obstacles which detained him were removed. The time of the delay was spent in zealous service for his divine Master. He was associated with Rev. Mr. Simeon as curate and preached with great zeal and unction, often to very large audiences, and sometimes with such unsparing denunciation of common sins as to awaken opposition. He considered it his duty to rebuke iniquity, and on one occasion severely reproved a student for shocking levity,--reading a play with some young ladies while their father lay dying. He feared the result of this might be estrangement from his friend, but prayed earnestly that it might lead to his awakening. This prayer was answered, and afterwards this very friend became his beloved associate in missionary work in India. In very early youth Mr. Martyn became fondly attached to a young lady named Lydia Grenfell. She considered herself his superior in social position. The memoirs all speak of her as estimable, and we infer from the little that is said that she somewhat indifferently accepted Henry Martyn's homage, but she did not wholeheartedly and generously respond. What a contrast to the beloved and devoted Harriet Newell, who was not afraid to risk all for Christ, and counted not her life dear even unto the death! It was Miss Grenfell's greatest honor that Henry Martyn would have made her his wife, but she declined the honor, and yet gave him encouragement, for their correspondence only ended with his life, and his very last writing was a letter to her. He begged her with all the eloquence of a lonely and devoted heart to come out to him after he had gone to India, arranging every detail for her comfort with thoughtful tenderness, and urging and encouraging her and lavishing upon her an affection that would have crowned and enriched her life. We are left to infer from the history that she did love him in her way, but if she had shared his consecration and gone with him and taken care of him, and cheered and comforted him, and made for him a happy restful home, as some missionary wives have done in self-denying foreign fields, what a blessing she might have been, and her life, how fruitful, and her memory, how fragrant! As it was, she has this distinction, that she was Henry Martyn's disappointment and trial and discipline. No one less tender and sensitive than Henry Martyn can appreciate all he suffered on this account; but he made it, like all the other great sorrows of his life, a cross on which to be crucified with Christ. He writes to his dear sister S.: "When I sometimes offer up supplications with strong crying to God to bring down my spirit into the dust I endeavor calmly to contemplate the infinite majesty of the most high God and my own meanness and wickedness, or else I quietly tell the Lord, who knows the heart, I would give Him all the glory of everything if I could. But the most effectual way I have ever found is to lead away my thoughts from myself and my own concerns by praying for all my friends, for the church, the world, the nation, and especially by beseeching that God would glorify His own great name by converting all nations to the obedience of faith, also by praying that he would put more abundant honor on those Christians whom he seems to have honored especially, and whom we see to be manifestly our superiors." In spite of Henry Martyn's beautiful humility, honor after honor was heaped upon him by his admiring and appreciative Alma Mater. Three times he was chosen examiner, and discharged the duties of this office with great care and faithfulness. As the time approaches for his parting from all he holds dear, especially the beloved L., our hearts go out to him in irrepressible sympathy. He writes, "parted with L. forever in this life with a sort of uncertain pain which I know will increase to greater violence." And these forebodings were but too soon realized. For many succeeding days his mental agony was extreme, yet he could speak to God as one who knew the great conflict within him. Yet while the waves and billows are going over him he writes from these depths, "I never had so clear a conviction of my call as at the present. Never did I see so much the exceeding excellency and glory and sweetness of the work, nor had so much the favorable testimony of my own conscience, nor perceived so plainly the smile of God. Blessed be God, I feel myself to be His minister. This thought which I can hardly describe came in the morning after reading Brainerd. I wish for no service but the service of God, to labor for souls on earth and to do His will in heaven." LIFE IN INDIA. On the 17th of July, 1805, the Union East Indiaman conveying Mr. Martyn sailed from Portsmouth. Mr. Martyn says: "Though it was what I had been anxiously looking forward to so long, yet the consideration of being parted forever from my friends, almost overcame me. My feelings were those of a man who should suddenly be told that every friend he had in the world was dead." Though suffering much in mind and body throughout the long and tedious voyage of nine months, Mr. Martyn seeks no selfish ease. He preaches, reads and labors assiduously with officers, passengers and crew, and shuns not to declare the whole counsel of God, even the unpalatable doctrine of the future punishment of the wicked. He says: "The threats and opposition of these men made me willing to set before them the truths they hated, yet I had no species of hesitation about doing it. They said they would not come if so much hell was preached, but I took for my text, 'The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God.' The officers were all behind my back in order to have an opportunity of retiring in case of dislike. H., as soon as he heard the text, went back and said he would hear no more about hell; so he employed himself in feeding the geese. However, God I trust blessed the sermon to the good of many; some of the cadets and many of the soldiers were in tears. I felt an ardor and vehemence in some parts which are unusual with me. After service walked the deck with Mrs. ----; she spoke with so much simplicity and amiable humility that I was full of joy and admiration to God for a sheep brought home to His fold. In the afternoon went below intending to read to them at the hatchway, but there was not one of them, so I could get nothing to do among the poor soldiers." What a picture revealing Henry Martyn's character!--the contrasting attributes of sternness and gentleness, his martyrlike determination to do his whole duty at any cost to himself from suffering and insult, the keen shrinking of a nature so refined and sensitive from coarseness and abuse, undeviating yet uncompromising, bringing to our thoughts the Divine Exemplar. I pass by the incidents of the voyage, including mutiny, sickness and death, romantic stay at St. Salvador, battles at the Cape of Good Hope, etc., eloquently and vividly recorded. The Friday preceding his arrival in India he spends "in praying that God would no longer delay exerting his power in the conversion of the eastern nations. I felt emboldened" he says, "to employ the most familiar petitions by Is. xii. 6, 7, 'Keep not silence; give him no rest,' etc. Blessed be God for those words! They are like a cordial to my spirits, because if the Lord is not pleased by me or during my lifetime to call the Gentiles, yet He is not offended at my being urgent with Him that the kingdom of God may come." April 21, 1806, the nine months' journey is complete, and they land at Madras. Mr. Martyn gives first impressions and description of the natives, ending in these words: "In general, one thought naturally occurred: the conversion of their poor souls. I am willing, I trust, through grace, to pass my life among them if by any means these poor people may be brought to God. The sight of men, women and children, all idolaters, makes me shudder as if in the dominions of the prince of darkness. Hearing the hymn, 'Before Jehovah's awful throne,' it excited a train of affecting thoughts in my mind." "Wide as the world is thy command. Therefore it is easy for Thee to spread abroad Thy holy name. But oh, how gross the darkness here! The veil of the covering cast over all nations seems thicker here; the friends of darkness seem to sit in sullen repose in this land. What surprises me is the change of views I have here from what I had in England. There my heart expanded with hope and joy at the prospect of the speedy conversion of the heathen; but here the sight of the apparent impossibility requires a strong faith to support the spirits." Ah, how vividly this describes missionary experiences! After great peril from storm and illness, passing up the Hoogly from Madras, Mr. Martyn arrived at Calcutta, May 14. In this city for years had been a band of English Christians faithfully praying for the coming of the kingdom in that dark land, and into the home of one of these, Rev. David Brown, was Mr. Martyn received with much affection. A pagoda in one end of the yard on the river bank was fitted up for him, and the place where once devils were worshiped now became a Christian oratory. The first experience here was of severe illness from acclimating fever, from which he was kindly nursed into convalescence. He then applied himself earnestly to the study of the Hindoostanee, having engaged a Brahmin as a teacher. Here he witnessed with horror the cruel and debasing rites of heathenism. The blaze of a funeral pile caused him one day to hasten to the rescue of a burning widow who was consumed before his eyes. And in a dark wood he heard the sound of cymbals and drums calling the poor natives to the worship of devils, and saw them prostrate with their foreheads to the ground before a black image in a pagoda surrounded with burning lights--a sight which he contemplated with overwhelming compassion, "shivering as if standing in the neighborhood of hell." Mr. Martyn's plain and pungent preaching was a great offense to some of the easy-going formalists of the English church at Calcutta, and some of the ministry attacked him bitterly from their pulpits, declaring, for instance, that to affirm repentance to be the gift of God and to teach that nature is wholly corrupt, is to drive men to despair, and that to suppose the righteousness of Christ sufficient to justify is to make it unnecessary to have any of our own. Though compelled to listen to such downright heresies, to hear himself described as knowing neither what he said nor whereof he affirmed, and as aiming only to gratify self sufficiency, pride and uncharitableness,--"I rejoiced," said this meek and holy man, "to receive the Lord's supper afterwards;--as the solemnities of that blessed ordinance sweetly tended to soothe any asperity of mind, and I think that I administered the cup to ---- and ---- with sincere good will." September 13, 1806, Mr. Martyn received his appointment to Singapore. A farewell meeting of great interest was held in his pagoda, followed by a tender parting from the family who had been so kind to him, and two fellow laborers who, following his bright example, had just come out from England. The voyage to Singapore was performed in a budgero, a small boat with a cabin, in which he studied and translated and prayed while making the seventeen or eighteen miles a day of the six-weeks' journey. At night the boat was fastened to the shore. His journal record of these days is very interesting and very characteristic. He says: "October 27. Arrived at Berhampore. In the evening walked out to the hospital in which there were 150 European soldiers sick. I was talking to a man said to be dying, when a surgeon entered. I went up and made some apology for entering the hospital. It was my old school-fellow and townsman, ----. The remainder of the evening he spent with me in my budgero. "October 28. Rose very early and was at the hospital at daylight. Waited there a long time wandering up and down the wards in hopes of inducing the men to get up and assemble, but it was in vain. I left three books with them and went away amidst the sneers and titters of the common soldiers. Certainly it is one of the greatest crosses I am called to bear to take pains to make people hear me. It is such a struggle between a sense of propriety and modesty on the one hand, and a sense of duty on the other, that I find nothing equal to it. I could force my way anywhere, in order to introduce a brother minister; but for myself, I act with hesitation and pain. "Walking out into a village where the boat stopped for the night I found the worshipers of Kali by the sound of their drums and cymbals. Invited by the Brahmins to walk in I entered and asked a few questions about the idol. The Brahmin who spoke bad Hindoostanee disputed with great heat, and his tongue ran faster than I could follow, and the people, about one hundred, shouted applause. I continued my questions and among other things asked if what I had heard of Vishnu and Brahma was true, which he confessed. I forbore to press him with the consequences, which he seemed to feel; and then I told him what was my belief. The man grew quite mild and said it was _chula bat_ (good words), and asked me seriously at last what I thought, 'Was idol worship true or false?' I felt it a matter of thankfulness that I could make known the truth of God though a stammerer and that I had declared it in the presence of the devil. And this also I learnt, that the power of gentleness is irresistible. I never was more astonished than at the change in deportment of this hot-headed Brahmin.... Came to on the eastern bank below a village called Ahgadup. Wherever I walked the women fled at the sight of me. Some men were sitting under the shed dedicated to their goddess; a lamp was burning in her place. A conversation soon began, but there was no one who could speak Hindoostanee. I could only speak by the medium of my Mussulman, Musalchee. They said that they only did as others did, and that if they were wrong then all Bengal was wrong. I felt love for their souls, and longed for utterance to declare unto these poor simple people the holy gospel. I think that when my mouth is opened I shall preach to them day and night. "October 31. My Moonshee said, 'How can you prove this book (the gospel), to be the word of God?' I took him to walk with me on the shore that we might discuss the matter, and the result of our conversation was that I discovered that the Mussulmen allow the gospel to be in general the command of God, though the words of it are not His as the words of the Koran are, and contend that the actual words of God given to Jesus were burnt by the Jews; that they also admit the New Testament to have been in force till the coming of Mohammed. When I quoted some passages which proved the Christian dispensation to be the final one, he allowed it to be inconsistent with the divinity of the Koran, but said, 'Then those words of the gospel must be false.' The man argued and asked his questions seemingly in earnest, and another new impression was left upon my mind, namely, that these men are not fools and that all ingenuity and clearness of reasoning are not confined to England and Europe. I seem to feel that these descendants of Ham are as dear to God as the haughty sons of Japheth; I feel, too, more at home with the Scriptures than ever; everything I see gives light to, and receives it from, the Scriptures. I seem transported back to the ancient times of the Israelites and the Apostles. My spirit felt composed after the dispute by simply looking to God as one who had engaged to support His own cause; and I saw it to be my part to pursue my way through the wilderness of this world, looking only to that redemption which daily draweth nigh. How should this consideration quell the tumult of anger and impatience when I cannot convince men 'the government is on His shoulders?' Jesus is able to bear the weight of it; therefore we need not be oppressed with care or fear, but a missionary is apt to fancy himself an Atlas. "November 2. Walking on shore met a large party. I asked if any of them could read. One young man who seemed superior in rank to the rest, said he could, and accordingly read some of the only Nagree tract that I had. I then addressed myself boldly to them and told them of the gospel. When speaking of the inefficacy of the religious practices of the Hindoos I mentioned as an example the repetition of the name of Ram. The young man assented to this and said, 'of what use is it?' As he seemed to be of a pensive turn and said this with marks of disgust, I gave him a Nagree Testament, the first I have given. May God's blessing go along with it and cause the eyes of the multitudes to be opened. The men said they should be glad to receive tracts, so I sent them back a considerable number. The idea of printing the parables in proper order with a short explanation to each, for the purpose of distribution and as school books, suggested itself to me to-night and delighted me prodigiously.... A Mussulman, when he received one of the tracts and found what it was, was greatly alarmed, and after many awkward apologies, returned it, saying that 'a man who had his legs in two different boats, was in danger of sinking between them.'" Established at Singapore, Mr. Martyn began upon three different lines of work, establishing schools, attaining readiness in Hindoostanee so as to preach the gospel in that language, and translating the Scriptures and religious books. To his great discouragement he was informed by the Pundit that every four miles the language changed, so that a book in the dialect of one district would be unintelligible to the people of another. Being advised to learn Sanscrit, he took up this language with great zeal. The commencement of Mr. Martyn's ministry amongst the Europeans of Singapore was not of such a kind as to either gratify or encourage him. At first he read prayers to the soldiers at the barracks from the drumhead, and as there were no seats provided, was desired to omit the sermon. Afterwards more decent arrangements being made, the families came in; but taking offense at his evangelical plainness, they asked that he should desist from extempore preaching. These European members of his flock were jealous and angry at his constant efforts for the salvation of the heathen natives. They thought it much beneath the dignity of an English chaplain to care for these degraded souls. Some of Mr. Martyn's duties as chaplain were exceedingly onerous. On several occasions he was summoned to distant places involving long and dangerous journeys to perform a marriage ceremony. On these journeys he suffered severely, and they were a great draft upon his very delicate health; always weak and languid, and often alarmingly disordered. Yet through all he continued to labor incessantly. Every Sabbath he held at least four services: at 7 for Europeans; at 2 for Hindoos, about two hundred in attendance; in the afternoon at the hospital; in the evening in his own room for the soldiers. In his household were two natives who assisted in his studies and translations, the Moonshee and the Pundit, with whom he held long disputes and with whom he labored daily, though unsuccessfully, to bring them to faith in Christ. He says, "translating the epistle of St. John with the Moonshee, I asked him what he thought of those passages which so strongly express the doctrines of the Trinity and of the divinity of Christ. He said he never would believe it, because the Koran declared it sinful to say that God had any Son. I told him that he ought to pray that God would teach him what the truth really is. He said he had no occasion on this subject, as the word of God was express. I asked him whether some doubt ought not to arise in his mind whether the Koran is the word of God. He grew angry, and I felt hurt and vexed. I should have done better to have left the words of the chapter with him without saying anything. I went also too far with the Pundit in arguing against his superstition, for he also grew angry." If any qualification seems necessary to a missionary in India it is wisdom--operating in the regulation of the temper and the due improvement of opportunities. Mr. Martyn needed the heavenly gift of wisdom also in the management of his native schools, five or six of which were supported by himself in Singapore. Little by little he succeeded in introducing as a text-book a part of the Bible--his own translation of the sermon on the Mount and the Parables. He was called to do more and more of this work of translating the Scriptures, and was persuaded by the Rev. David Brown not only to continue the Hindoostanee, but to superintend the translation of the Scriptures into Persian. He engaged in it at once with zeal. He writes: "The time fled imperceptibly while so delightfully engaged in the translations; the days seemed to have passed like a moment. What do I not owe to the Lord for permitting me to take part in a translation of His word? Never did I see such wonder and wisdom and love in the blessed Book as since I have been obliged to study every expression. Employed a good while at night in considering a difficult passage, and being much enlightened respecting it, I went to bed full of astonishment at the wonder of God's Word. Never before did I see anything of the beauty of the language and the importance of the thoughts as I do now. What a source of perpetual delight have I in the precious Word of God!" This ecstasy of enthusiasm in most successful and congenial labor was suddenly dashed by a great wave of sorrow which came to Mr. Martyn in the news of the death of his eldest sister. To missionaries in foreign lands such news is especially bitter, and to recover from such a shock and sense of irreparable loss seems almost impossible. The mind, unsatisfied with details of the sad event, is left in shadow which deepens into heavy gloom. Mr. Martyn was all alone and felt it keenly and inexpressibly. Some of his most intimate and sympathetic friends at this time, realizing how it was not good for him to be alone, encouraged him to renew his matrimonial offer to his ever beloved L. After her refusal he says, "The Lord sanctify this, and since this last desire of my heart is also withheld may I turn away forever from the world and henceforth live forgetful of all but God. With Thee, O my God, is no disappointment. I shall never have to regret that I have loved Thee too well. Thou hast said, 'delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart.'" Could sweeter words than these be expressed in any language! Could greater depths of submission or heights of consecration be attained! They deserve to be recorded on imperishable marble or blazoned on the sky in sight of all, and received as the confession of every Christian heart, to the honor and praise of Him who gave such glorious victory to this tried soldier of the cross. Providentially for Mr. Martyn's comfort his thoughts were much occupied after this by the arrival of his coadjutors in the work of translation, one of these, Mirza of Benares, well known in India as an eminent Hindoostanee scholar; the other Sabat the Arabian, since but too well known both in India and England by his rejection of that faith which he then appeared to profess in sincerity and faith. In the latter of these Mr. Martyn confidently trusted that he had found a Christian brother with respect to the reality of his belief in Christianity, although Mr. Martyn immediately discovered in him an unsubdued Arab spirit, and witnessed with pain many deflections from that temper and conduct which he himself so eminently exemplified; yet, he could not but "believe all things and hope all things," even while he continued to suffer much from him, and for a length of time, with unparalleled forbearance and kindness. Sabat's temper was a continual trial and mortification. The very first Sabbath in Singapore, imagining he was not treated with sufficient dignity, he left the church before service in great anger. Often in the midst of the translation he would come to a sudden stop and refuse to go on for the most trivial reasons, sometimes for fear that Mirza who would review the work might have part of the honor. About this time Mr. Martyn was much bereaved by the removal of a family with whom he had lived in intimate terms of Christian intercourse. "This separation affected him the more sensibly because it was not in every family at that station that he met with a kind and cordial reception." He says, "I called on one of the Singapore families, and felt my pride rise at the uncivil manner in which I was received. I was disposed at first to determine never to visit the house again, but I remembered the words, 'overcome evil with good.'" In the month of March, 1808, the New Testament in Hindoostanee was completed. He says, "I have read and corrected the manuscript till my eyes ache; such a week of labor I believe I have never passed. The heat is terrible, often at 98 degrees, the nights insupportable." We next hear of Mr. Martyn suffering from severe illness with fever and vertigo, and pained with the thought of leaving the Persian gospels unfinished! So unselfish, so full of zeal! Again at work, mercury at 102 degrees. "Arabic now employs my few moments of leisure. In consequence of reading the Koran with Sabat audibly, and drinking no wine, the slander has gone forth that the Singapore Padre has turned Mussulman. "June 6th. To-day we have completed the Persian of St. Matthew. Sabat desired me to kneel down to bless God for the happy event, and we joined in praise of the Father of lights. It is a superb performance in every respect, with elegance enough to attract the careless and please the fastidious; it contains enough of Eternal Life to save the reader's soul.... My services on the Lord's day always leave me with a pain in the chest, and such a great degree of general relaxation, that I seldom recover it till Tuesday. The society still meet every night at my quarters, and though we have lost many by death, others are raised up in their room. One officer, a lieutenant, is also given to me, and he is not only a brother beloved, but a constant companion and nurse; so you must feel no apprehension that I should be left alone in sickness." In April, 1809, Mr. Martyn removes from Dinapore to Cawnpore. Here he met friendship and hospitality. We quote from the graceful pen of Mrs. Sherwood: "The month of April in the upper provinces of Hindoostan is one of the most dreadful months for traveling throughout the year; indeed, no European at that time can remove from place to place, but at the risk of his life. "But Mr. Martyn had that anxiety to begin the work which his heavenly Father had given him to do, that notwithstanding the violent heat, he traveled from Chunar to Cawnpore, the space of about four hundred miles. At that time as I well remember, the air was as hot and dry as that which I have sometimes felt near the mouth of a large oven, no friendly cloud or verdant carpet of grass to relieve the eye from the strong glare of the rays of the sun pouring on the sandy plains of the Ganges. Thus Mr. Martyn traveled, journeying night and day, and arrived at Cawnpore in such a state that he fainted away as soon as he entered the house. When we charged him with the rashness of hazarding his life in this manner, he always pleaded his anxiety to get to the great work. He remained with us ten days, suffering considerably at times from fever and pain in the chest. "Mr. Martyn's removal from Dinapore to Cawnpore was to him in many respects a very unpleasant arrangement. He was several hundred miles farther distant from Calcutta and more widely separated than before from his friend Mr. Corrie. He had new acquaintances to form at his new abode, and after having with much difficulty procured the erection of a church at Dinapore he was transported to a spot where none of the conveniences, much less the decencies and solemnities of public worship, were visible. "We find him soon after he arrived there preaching to a thousand soldiers drawn up in a hollow square, when the heat was so great, although the sun had not risen, that many actually dropped down, unable to support it." Yet Mr. Martyn's labors were not abated. Every Sabbath at dawn were prayers and sermon with the regiment, and again at eleven at the house of the general of the station. In the afternoon he preached to a crowd of poor natives, five, to eight hundred, rude, noisy, wretched beggars, for whose souls he felt a tender care. Again in the evening, the best of the day, he had a meeting with the more devout of his flock. These ministrations so earnestly performed were most exhausting, yet he knew not how to forego them; at this time, too, from England came the sad and sudden news of the death of his sister, the one who had led him to Christ. The alarming state of his health made some change necessary, and Mr. Martyn was urged to leave India and make trial of a sea voyage. His Persian New Testament had been criticised as unfit for general circulation, being written in a style too learned and exalted for the comprehension of the common people. He was advised to visit Persia and there revise his work and also complete his version in Arabic, almost finished. Mr. Brown, his devoted friend, and the Calcutta agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, thus writes: "Can I then bring myself to cut the string and let you go? I confess I could not if your bodily frame were strong, and promised to last for half a century. But as you burn with the intenseness and rapid blaze of heated phosphorus, why should we not make the most of you? Your flame may last as long and perhaps longer in Arabia, than in India. Where should the Phoenix build her odoriferous nest, but in the land prophetically called 'the blessed?' and where shall we ever expect, but from that country, the true Comforter to come to the nations of the East? I contemplate your New Testament springing up, as it were, from dust and ashes, but beautiful as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and his feathers like yellow gold." His farewell services at Cawnpore were very tender and affecting, both with his great audience of natives and Englishmen. Of the latter, Mrs. Sherwood says: "He began in a weak and faint voice, being at that time in a very bad state of health; but, gathering strength as he proceeded, he seemed as one inspired from on high. Never was an audience more affected. The next day this holy and heavenly man left Cawnpore and the society of many who sincerely loved and admired him." Stopping to visit the friends in Calcutta, the Rev. Mr. Thomason says: "This bright and lovely jewel first gratified our eyes on Saturday last. He is on his way to Arabia, where he is going in pursuit of health and knowledge. You know his genius, and what gigantic strides he takes in everything. He has some great plan in his mind, of which I am no competent judge; but as far as I do understand it, the object is far too grand for one short life, and much beyond his feeble and exhausted frame. Feeble it is, indeed; how fallen and changed! His complaint lies in his lungs and appears to be an incipient consumption. But let us hope the sea air may revive him, and that change may do him essential service and continue his life many years. In all other respects he is exactly the same as he was; he shines in all the dignity of love, and seems to carry about him such a heavenly majesty as impresses the mind beyond description. But if he talks much, though in a low voice, he sinks, and you are reminded of his being dust and ashes." Though so infirm, Mr. Martyn preached every Sabbath of his visit, and his last sermon on the anniversary of the Calcutta Bible Society was afterwards printed and entitled "Christian India, or an appeal on behalf of nine hundred thousand Christians in India who want the Bible." LIFE IN PERSIA. From this time a change comes over Mr. Martyn's varied life. We have seen him the successful candidate for academical distinctions--the faithful and laborious pastor--the self-denying and devoted missionary--the indefatigable translator--the preacher of the gospel to the heathen; we are now called to admire in him the courageous spirit of the Christian confessor. He says, on his voyage towards Persia: "All down the Bay of Bengal I could do nothing but sit listless, viewing the wide waste of water, a sight that would have been beautiful had I been well. In my Hebrew researches I scarcely ever felt so discouraged. All the knowledge I thought I had acquired became uncertain, and consequently I was unhappy. It was in vain that I reflected that thousands live and die happy without such knowledge as I am in search of. "Proposed family prayer every night in the cabin--no objection was made. "February 18, anchored off Bombay. This day I finished the thirtieth year of my unprofitable life, the age at which David Brainerd finished his course. I am now at the age at which the Savior of men began his ministry, and at which John the Baptist called a nation to repentance. Hitherto I have made my youth and insignificance an excuse for sloth and imbecility, now let me have a character and act boldly for God. "March 5. Feerog, a Parsee who is considered the most learned man here, called to converse about religion. He spoke Persian and seemed familiar with Arabic. He began by saying that no one religion had more evidences of its truth than another, for that all the miracles of the respective founders depended upon tradition. This I denied. He acknowledged that the writer of the Zendavesta was not cotemporary with Zoroaster. After disputing and raising objections he was left without an answer, but continued to cavil. 'Why' said he, 'did the Magi see the star in the East and none else? from what part of the East did they come? and how was it possible that their king should come to Jerusalem in seven days?' The last piece of information he had from the Armenians. I asked him whether he had any thoughts of changing his religion. He replied with a contemptuous smile, 'No, every man is safe in his own religion.' I asked him, 'What sinners must do to obtain pardon?' 'Repent,' said he. I asked, 'Would repentance satisfy a creditor or a judge?' 'Why, is it not said in the gospel,' rejoined he, 'that we must repent?' I replied, 'It cannot be proved from the gospel that repentance alone is sufficient, or good works, or both.' 'Where then is the glory of salvation?' he said; I replied, 'In the atonement of Christ.' 'All this' said he, 'I know, but so the Mohammedans say, that Hosyn was an atonement for the sins of men.' He then began to criticise the translations he saw on the table. "April 23. Moscat, Arabia. Went on shore and met the Vizier. His African slave argued with me for Mohammed and did not know how to let me go, he was so interested in the business. "April 25. Gave him an Arabic copy of the gospel, which he at once began to read, and carried it off as a great prize, which I hope he will find it to be. "Bushire, Persia. Called on the governor, a Persian Khan. He was very particular in his attentions. Seated me on his own seat and then sat by my side. After the usual salutations and inquiries the calean (pipe), was introduced, then coffee in china cups placed within silver ones, then calean, then some rose-water syrup, then calean. Observing the windows of stained glass, I began to question him about the art of coloring glass, observing that the modern Europeans were inferior to the ancient in the manufacture of the article. He expressed his surprise that Europeans, who were so skillful in making watches, should fail in any handicraft work. I could not help recollecting the Emperor of China's sarcastic remark on the Europeans and their arts, and therefore dropped the subject. On his calean--I called it hookah at first, but he did not understand me--I noticed several little paintings of the Virgin and child, and asked him whether such things were not unlawful among Mohammedans. He answered very coolly 'Yes,' as much as to say, 'What then?' I lamented that the Eastern Christians should use such things in their churches. He repeated the words of a good man who was found fault with for having an image before him while at prayer, 'God is nearer to me than that image, so that I do not see it.' This man, I afterwards found, is like most of the other grandees of the East, a murderer. "On the 30th of May, our Persian dresses were ready, and we set out for Shiraz. The Persian dress consists of first, stockings and shoes in one; next, a pair of large blue trousers, or else a pair of huge red boots; then the shirt, then the tunic, and above it the coat, both of chintz, and a great coat. I have here described my own dress, most of which I have on at this moment. On the head is worn an enormous cone made of the skin of the black Tartar sheep with the wool on. If to this description of my dress I add that my beard and mustachios have been suffered to vegetate undisturbed ever since I left India; that I am sitting on a Persian carpet, in a room without tables or chairs, and that I bury my hand in the pillar (rice), without waiting for spoon or plate, you will give me credit for being already an accomplished Oriental. "At ten o'clock on the 30th our califa began to move. It consisted chiefly of mules with a few horses. I wished to have a mule, but the muleteer favored me with his own pony; this animal had a bell fastened to its neck. To add solemnity to the scene, a Bombay trumpeter who was going to join the embassy was directed to blow a blast as we moved off the ground; but whether it was that the trumpeter was not an adept in the science or that his instrument was out of order, the crazy sounds that saluted our ears had a ludicrous effect. At last, after some jostling, mutual recriminations and recalcitrating of the steeds, we each found our places and moved out of the gate of the city in good order. The residents accompanied us a little way, and then left us to pursue our journey over the plain. It was a fine moonlight night, the scene new and perfectly oriental, and nothing prevented me from indulging my own reflections. As the night advanced the califa grew quiet; on a sudden one of the muleteers began to sing, and sang in a voice so plaintive that it was impossible not to have one's attention arrested. Every voice was hushed. "These were the words translated: Think not that e'er my heart could dwell Contented far from thee, How can the fresh-caught nightingale Enjoy tranquility? Oh, then forsake thy friend for naught That slanderous tongues can say, The heart that fixeth where it ought No power can rend away. "Thus far our journey was agreeable. Now for miseries. At sunrise we came to our ground at Ahmedu, six parasangs, and pitched our little tent under a tree; it was the only shelter we could get. At first the heat was not greater than we had felt in India, but it soon became so intense as to be quite alarming. When the thermometer was above 112 degrees, fever heat, I began to lose my strength fast; at last it became quite intolerable. I wrapped myself up in a blanket and all the warm covering I could get to defend myself from the external air, by which means the moisture was kept a little longer upon the body, and not so speedily evaporated as when the skin was exposed. One of my companions followed my example and found the benefit of it. But the thermometer still rising, and the moisture of the body being quite exhausted, I grew restless and thought I should have lost my senses. The thermometer at last stood at 126 degrees. In this state I composed myself and concluded that, though I might hold out but a day or two, death was inevitable. Captain ---- continued to tell the hour and heights of the thermometer, and with pleasure we heard of it sinking to 120 degrees, 118 degrees, etc. At last the fierce sun retired and I crept out more dead than alive. The next day we secured some comfort from a large wet towel wrapped about the head and body. At sunset, rising to go out, a scorpion fell upon my clothes. The night before we found a black scorpion in our tent, that made us uneasy, so we got no sleep." June 9 Mr. Martyn arrived at Shiraz, the celebrated seat of Persian literature, and at once began work upon his translation with the efficient help of Mirza Seid Ali Khan. In this work he had many interruptions, being himself an object of attention and curiosity. He received many calls, and unwilling to lose any opportunity of benefiting the inhabitants of Shiraz, was never inaccessible to them. He says, "June 17, in the evening, Seid Ali came with two Moollahs, and with them I had a very long and temperate discussion. One of them read the beginning of John in Arabic and inquired very particularly into our opinions respecting the person of Christ, and when he was informed that we did not consider His human nature eternal nor His mother divine, seemed quite satisfied, and remarked to the others, 'how much misapprehension is removed when people come to an explanation.'" "June 22. The Prince's secretary called to talk about Soofeeism. They believe they know not what. He thought to excite my wonder by telling me that I and every created being was God. "June 26. Two young men from the college came, full of zeal and logic, to try me with hard questions such as, whether being be but one or two? What is the state and form of disembodied spirits? and other foolish and unlearned questions ministering strife. At last, one of them discovered the true cause of his coming by asking me bluntly to bring a proof of the religion of Christ. You allow the divine mission of Christ, said I, why need I prove it? Not being able to draw me into an argument they said what they wished to say, namely, that I had no other proof for the miracles of Christ than they had for those of Mohammed, which is tradition. 'Softly' I said, 'You will be pleased to observe a difference between your books and ours, when by tradition we have reached our several books, our narrators were eye witnesses; yours are not, nor nearly so.' "In the evening Seid Ali asked me the cause of evil. I said I knew nothing about it. He thought he could tell me, so I let him reason on till he soon found he knew as little about the matter as myself. He wanted to prove that there was no real difference between good and evil; that it was only apparent. I observed that the difference, if only apparent, was the cause of a great deal of misery. "June 30, Sunday. Preached to the Ambassador's suite on the 'Faithful Saying.' In the evening baptized his child. Zachariah told me this morning that I was the town talk." Indeed Shiraz was stirred to its depth by the presence of Mr. Martyn during the whole year of his stay. Men of every kind, especially the learned and zealous, came singly and in groups almost every day to argue and dispute against Christ. Now it was a party of Armenians, now learned Jews, now a prince, now a general, now the very Moojtuhid himself, the professor of Mohammedan law. This great dignitary invited Mr. Martyn to his house, where for hours he talked on and on, defending his Prophet and showing his learning; he was greatly annoyed at any difference of opinion, and decided it was "quite useless for Mohammedans and Christians to argue together, as they had different languages and different histories." But fearing Mr. Martyn's influence he was stirred to write a defense of his faith, which was said to surpass all former treatises on Islam. He concludes it in these words, addressed to Mr. Martyn: "Oh, thou that art wise! consider with the eye of justice, since thou hast no excuse to offer to God. Thou hast wished to see the truth of miracles. We desire you to look at the great Koran: that is an everlasting miracle." Mr. Martyn replied, showing why men are bound to reject Mohammedanism; that Mohammed was foretold by no prophet, worked no miracles, spread his religion by means merely human, appeals to man's lowest and sensual nature, that he was ambitious for himself and family, that the Koran is full of absurdities and contradictions, that it contains a method of salvation wholly inefficacious, sadly contrasting with the divine atonement of Jesus Christ. The Prince's nephew, hearing of the attack on Mohammed, said, "the proper answer to it is the sword." Mr. Martyn writes, February 8: "This is my birthday, on which I complete my thirty-first year. The Persian New Testament has been begun and finished in it. Such a painful year I never passed, owing to the privations I have been called to, on the one hand, and the spectacle before me of human depravity on the other. But I hope I have not come to this seat of Satan in vain. The Word of God has found its way into Persia, and it is not in Satan's power to oppose its progress if the Lord hath sent it." The Psalms in Persian was finished by the middle of March. On the 23d Mr. Martyn writes: "I called on the Vizier. In the court where he received me, Mirza Ibraheem was lecturing. Finding myself so near my old and respectable antagonist, I expressed a wish to see him, on which Jaffier Ali Khan went up to ascertain if my visit would be agreeable. The master consented, but some of the disciples demurred. At last, one of them, observing that by the blessing of God on the master's conversation I might possibly be converted, it was agreed that I should be invited to ascend. Then it became a question where I ought to sit. Below all would not be respectful to a stranger, but above all the Moollahs could not be tolerated. I entered and was surprised at the numbers. The room was lined with Moollahs on both sides and at the top. I was about to sit down on the floor but was beckoned to an empty place near the top, opposite to the master, who, after the usual compliments, without further ceremony, asked me, 'What we meant by calling Christ, God?' War being thus unequivocally declared, I had nothing to do but stand upon the defensive. Mirza Ibraheem argued temperately enough; but of the rest, some were very violent and clamorous. The former asked 'if Christ had ever called himself God--was he the Creator or a creature?' I replied, 'The Creator.' The Moollahs looked at one another. Such a confession had never before been heard among the Mohammedan doctors. "One Moollah wanted to controvert some of my illustrations by interrogating me about the personality of Christ. To all his questions I replied by requesting the same information respecting his own person. To another, who was rather contemptuous and violent, I said 'If you do not approve of our doctrine, will you be so good as to say what God is, according to you, that I may worship a proper object?' One said, 'the author of the universe.' 'I can form no idea from these words,' said I, 'but of a workman at work upon a vast number of materials. Is that a correct notion?' Another said, 'One who came of himself into being.' 'So then he came,' I replied, 'out of one place into another, and before he came he was not. Is this an abstract and refined notion?' After this no one asked me any more questions, and for fear the dispute should be renewed Jaffier Ali Khan carried me away." When we think of the bigotry and intolerance of these people and of Mr. Martyn's unflinching courage single-handed and alone, declaring the truth and preaching Christ, exposed to the greatest personal danger, contempt and insult, but unabashed, he stands before the world during his Shiraz residence as one of the bravest and grandest heroes that has ever lived. Such a spectacle is thrilling and sublime. God was with him to protect him and to inspire his magnificent confessions. A figure-head in history! A sight for angels and for men! Faithful found Among the faithless, faithful only he, Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, His loyalty he kept, his zeal, his love. And God was with him to cheer and comfort, and we rejoice to know that some of the scenes of his life in Shiraz were quiet and restful. At one time a tent was pitched for him in a garden in the suburbs of the city. Living amidst clusters of grapes by the side of a clear stream and frequently sitting under the shade of an orange tree, which Jaffier Ali Khan delighted to point out to visitors, until the day of his own departure, he passed many a tranquil hour, and enjoyed many a Sabbath of holy rest and divine refreshment. He says: "Passed some days at Jaffier Ali Khan's garden with Mirza Seid Ali, Aga Baba, Sheikh Abul Hassam, reading at their request the Old Testament histories. Their attention to the word and their love and respect for me seemed to increase as the time for my departure approached. Aga Baba, who had been reading St. Matthew, related very circumstantially to the company the particulars of the death of Christ. The bed of roses on which we sat and the notes of the nightingales warbling around us, were not so sweet to me as this discourse from the Persian." The plain of Shiraz is covered with ancient ruins, and contains the tombs of the poets Zaadi and Hafiz. A vision of the bright Shiraz, of Persian bards the theme; The vine with bunches laden hangs o'er the crystal stream; The nightingale all day her notes in rosy thicket trills, And the brooding heat-mist faintly lies along the distant hills. About the plain are scattered wide in many a crumbling heap, The fanes of other days, and tombs where Iran's poets sleep; And in the midst, like burnished gems, in noonday light repose The minarets of bright Shiraz,--the City of the Rose. One group beside the river bank in rapt discourse are seen, Where hangs the golden orange on its boughs of purest green; Their words are sweet and low, and their looks are lit with joy, Some holy blessing seems to rest on them and their employ. The pale-faced Frank among them sits; what brought him from afar? Nor bears he bales of merchandise, nor teaches skill in war; One pearl alone he brings with him--the Book of life and death,-- One warfare only teaches he,--to fight the fight of faith. And Iran's sons are round him, and one with solemn tone Tells how the Lord of Glory was rejected by his own; Tells from the wondrous gospel of the trial and the doom,-- The words divine of love and might,--the scourge, the cross, the tomb. Far sweeter to the stranger's ear these eastern accents sound, Than music of the nightingale that fills the air around; Lovelier than balmiest odors sent from gardens of the rose, The fragrance from the contrite soul and chastened lip that flows. The nightingales have ceased to sing, the roses' leaves are shed, The Frank's pale face in Tocat's field hath mouldered with the dead; Alone and all unfriended midst his Master's work he fell, With none to bathe his fevered brow, with none his tale to tell. But still those sweet and solemn tones about him sound in bliss, And fragrance from those flowers of God forevermore is his; For his the meed, by grace, of those who rich in zeal and love, Turn many unto righteousness, and shine as stars above. 1851. --HENRY ALFORD. On the 24th of May, after a year's residence, Mr. Martyn left Shiraz, bearing his precious translation to be presented to the Shah. The journey was an occasion of disappointment, exposure and suffering. Arrived at the Shah's camp he says: "June 12th, attended the Vizier's levee, when there was a most intemperate and clamorous controversy kept up for an hour or two, eight or ten on one side, and I on the other. Amongst them were two Moollahs, the most ignorant of any I have met in Persia or India. It would be impossible to enumerate all the absurd things they said. Their vulgarity in interrupting me in the middle of a speech, their utter ignorance of the nature of an argument, their impudent assertions about the law and the gospel, neither of which they had ever seen in their lives, moved my indignation. The Vizier said, 'You had better say, God is God and Mohammed is the prophet of God.' I said, 'God is God,' but added, instead of 'Mohammed is the prophet of God,' 'Jesus is the Son of God.' They had no sooner heard this, which I had avoided bringing forward till then, than they all exclaimed in contempt and anger, 'He is neither born nor begets,' and rose up as if they would have torn me in pieces. One of them said, 'What will you say when your tongue is burnt out for this blasphemy?' "My book which I had brought, expecting to present it to the king, lay before Mirza Shufi. As they all rose up after him to go, some to the king, and some away, I was afraid they would trample upon the book; so I went in among them to take it up, and wrapped it in a towel before them, while they looked at it and me with supreme contempt. Thus I walked away alone to my tent to pass the rest of the day in heat and dirt. What have I done, thought I, to merit all this scorn? Nothing, I trust, but bearing testimony to Jesus. I thought over these things in prayer and found the peace which Christ hath promised. To complete the trials of the day a messenger came from the Vizier in the evening to say that it was the custom of the king not to see any Englishman unless presented by the ambassador or accredited by a letter from him, and that I must therefore wait till the king reached Sultania, where the ambassador would be." Traveling toward Tabriz he writes, June 22: "Met with the usual insulting treatment at the caravansarai when the king's servant had got possession of a good room built for the reception of the better order of guests; they seemed to delight in the opportunity of humbling a European--all along the road when the king is expected the people are patiently waiting as for some dreadful disaster; plague, pestilence or famine are nothing to the misery of being subject to the violence and extortion of this rabble soldiery. "June 26. Have eaten nothing now for two days. My mind much disordered from headache and giddiness;--but my heart is with Christ and His saints. "June 27. Passed the third day in the same exhausted state, my head tortured with shocking pains, such as, together with the horror I felt at being exposed to the sun, showed me plainly to what to ascribe my sickness." Thus in great illness and suffering Mr. Martyn reached Tabriz, and was nursed through a fever of two months' continuance at the ambassador's residence. This defeated his plan of presenting the Persian New Testament to the king--but it was afterwards done by Sir Gore Ouseley himself, and publicly received the royal approbation, and still later was printed in St. Petersburg. On leaving Cawnpore, Mr. Martyn had intended returning to England, but had willingly remained in Persia to finish the translation, which being now disposed of, he reverted to his original intention, and set out on his last fatal journey towards Constantinople, September 2. His journal is filled with expressions of gratitude for restored health, delight in the scenery of Tabriz, descriptions of the country and the journey, the Araxes river, the hoary peaks of Ararat, the governor's palace, the ancient Armenian church and monastery at Ech-Miazin, where he received great kindness from the Patriarch and the monks. He was profoundly impressed with the view from an elevated table-land looking out upon Persia, Russia and Turkey--a Pisgah vision, which excites in later missionaries a strong desire for Christian conquest. Describes Cars and Erzroom. September 29, left Erzroom. Was attacked with fever and ague. "September 30. Took nothing all day but tea; headache and loss of appetite depressed my spirits, yet my soul rests in Him who is as anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, which, not seen, keeps me fast. "October 1. Marched over a mountainous tract; we were out from seven in the morning till eight at night. After sitting a little by the fire I was near fainting from sickness. My depression of spirits led me to the throne of grace as a sinful abject worm. When I thought of myself and my transgressions, I could find no text so cheering as, 'My ways are not as your ways.' From the men who accompanied Sir Wm. Ouseley to Constantinople I learned that the plague was raging at Constantinople and thousands dying every day. One of the Persians had died of it. They added that the inhabitants of Tocat were flying from their town from the same cause. Thus I am passing into imminent danger. O Lord thy will be done! Living or dying, remember me. "October 2. Lodged in the stables of the post-house. As soon as it began to grow a little cold, the ague came on and then the fever, after which I had a sleep, which let me know too plainly the disorder of my frame. In the night Hossan sent to summon me away, but I was quite unable to move. Finding me still in bed at the dawn he began to storm furiously at my detaining him so long, but I quietly let him spend his ire, ate my breakfast composedly, and set out at eight. He seemed determined to make up for the delay, for we flew over hill and dale to Sherean, where we changed horses. From thence we traveled all the rest of the day and all night. It rained most of the time. After sunset the ague came on again, which in my wet state was very trying. I hardly know how to keep my life in me. About that time there was a village at hand, but Hassan had no mercy. The night was pitchy dark, so that I could not see the road under my horse's feet. However, God being mercifully pleased to alleviate my bodily suffering, I went on contentedly to the munzil (stopping-place). After sleeping three or four hours Hassan hurried me away, and galloped furiously toward a village, which he said was four hours distant, which was all I could undertake in my present state; but village after village did he pass, till night coming on, and no signs of another, I suspected he was carrying me on to the munzil; so I got off my horse and sat upon the ground and told him I neither could nor would go any farther. He stormed, but I was immovable, till a light, appearing at a distance, I mounted my horse and made toward it, leaving him to follow or not as he pleased. He brought in the party, but would not exert himself to get a place for me. They brought me to an open verandah, but Sergius told them I wanted a place in which to be alone. This seemed very offensive to them, 'and why must he be alone'? they asked, ascribing this desire of mine to pride, I suppose. Tempted at last by money they brought me to a stable room, and Hassan and a number of others planted themselves there with me. My fever here increased to a violent degree, the heat in my eyes and forehead was so great that the fire almost made me frantic. I entreated that it might be put out or that I might be carried out of doors. Neither was attended to; my servant, who from my sitting in that strange way on the ground, believed me delirious, was deaf to all I said. At last I pushed my head in among the luggage and lodged it on the damp ground and slept. "October 5. Preserving mercy made me see the light of another morning. The sleep had refreshed me but I was feeble and shaken, yet the merciless Hassan hurried me off. I was pretty well lodged and felt tolerably well till a little after sunset, when the ague came on with a violence I had never before experienced. I felt as if in a palsy, my teeth chattering, and my whole frame violently shaken. Aga Hosyn and another Persian on their way here from Constantinople, came hastily to render me assistance if they could. These Persians appear quite brotherly after the Turks. While they pitied me, Hassan sat in perfect indifference, ruminating on the further delay this was likely to occasion. The cold fit after continuing two or three hours was followed by a fever, which lasted the whole night and prevented sleep. "October 6. No horses were to be had, and I had an unexpected repose. Sat in the orchard and thought with sweet comfort and peace of my God: in solitude my companion, friend and comforter. Oh, when shall time give place to eternity--when shall appear that new heaven and earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness! There, there shall in no wise enter in anything that defileth; none of that wickedness which has made men worse than wild beasts, none of those corruptions which add still more to the miseries of humanity, shall be seen or heard of any more." Here abruptly closes the journal, with pantings for the glory and the purity of Immanuel's land, into which he was admitted by a blessed translation, released from all the sufferings of life on October 16, 1812, at Tocat, Turkey. The manner of his death is not known, whether it resulted from the sickness described, or from the plague, then raging. Whether Hassan was cruel and driving to the last, whether all his heartless Turkish attendants deserted him or not in his hour of final agony, we cannot tell. No relative or friend was there, no tender voice of sympathy, no woman's soothing hand, no alleviations from medicine. Even the commonest decencies and necessities of civilized life were lacking. Earth gave nothing to Henry Martyn in his mortal need, but we are sure heavenly consolations were unstinted. "Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are." And Jesus was there! And Henry Martyn was satisfied, and is forever satisfied! "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." And the most priceless legacy of the blood-bought and commissioned church is the memory of a life, so gifted, so unselfish, so consecrated. It is wanting in no element of moral heroism. Our souls confess its grandeur. The contemplation lifts us into a higher atmosphere than that of mammon, and self, and earth. We rejoice to see a crown so rare, so fair, so precious, laid at the feet of Jesus, the King. He is worthy. And we long to see the youth of our land and the church inspired by Henry Martyn's example, as he was inspired by David Brainerd's. And so we would have the apostolic succession continued till the millennium, of such as shall not count their lives dear for the testimony of the gospel. It is said that after Mr. Martyn's death one of his earliest and most devoted friends, the Rev. Charles Simeon, used always to keep his picture before him in his study for help and inspiration. "Move where he would through the apartment, it seemed to keep its eyes upon him, and ever to say to him, 'Be earnest, be earnest; don't trifle, don't trifle,' and the good Simeon would gently bow to the speaking picture, and with a smile, reply, 'Yes, I will; I will be in earnest, I will not trifle; for souls are perishing and Jesus is to be glorified.'" Would that Henry Martyn's life might bring such a message to every heart, and awaken in every one a similar response. MISSIONARY ANNALS. Price per vol., cloth 30c., paper 18c. I. MEMOIR OF ROBERT MOFFAT _BY MRS. M. L. WILDER_. II. LIFE OF ADONIRAM JUDSON _BY MISS JULIA H. JOHNSTON_. III. WOMAN AND THE GOSPEL IN PERSIA _BY REV. THOMAS LAURIE, D.D._ IV. LIFE OF REV. JUSTIN PERKINS, D.D. _BY REV. HENRY MARTYN PERKINS_. V. LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE _BY MRS. J. H. WORCESTER, JR._ OTHERS IN PREPARATION. SENT POSTPAID ON RECEIPT OF PRICE. CHICAGO: WOMAN'S PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE NORTHWEST. Room 48, McCormick Block. 
34810	----	THE RED MIRIOK BY ANNA M. BARNES ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE A. NEWMAN PHILADELPHIA American Baptist Publication Society 1420 Chestnut Street Copyright 1901 and 1902 by the AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY Published January, 1903 From the Society's own Press INTRODUCTORY NOTE Korea has been called the "Hermit Nation," as of all nations Tibet alone has exceeded it in repulsing foreign influences. Only in 1882 did the United States secure a treaty, and that opened the country to foreign trade only in the capital, Seoul, and three ports. But in this treaty Korea was treated with as an independent State, and its people are distinct from either Chinese or Japanese and well repay study and missionary labors. This little story is one of the first to present this slightly known land and its customs, and therefore deserves special attention from all who are interested in the Christianizing of Oriental nations. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Mr. Kit-ze 9 CHAPTER II A Hasty Desertion 19 CHAPTER III The Lost Recovered 30 CHAPTER IV A Stowaway 39 CHAPTER V Before the Magistrate 49 CHAPTER VI A Friendly Hail 61 CHAPTER VII An Entreaty 71 CHAPTER VIII The Story of Choi-so 81 CHAPTER IX A Theft 90 CHAPTER X An Arrested Sacrifice 102 CHAPTER XI "One Soul" 115 ILLUSTRATIONS "_Mr. Kit-ze's hat was moving across the organ_" 17 "'_Yes, only a little, for it takes nearly three thousand of them to make a dollar_'" 28 "_Yes, it was the red miriok_" 38 "_He began to shake him vigorously_" 47 "_Cheefoo prostrated himself to the magistrate_" 54 "_The old man was bolt upright, despite his years_" 69 "_Then, extending his hands, entreated_" 79 "_He was permitted to look ... upon the priests at their devotions_" 85 "_He forthwith ... proceeded to throw rice into the well_" 92 "'_Stop!_' _entreated Helen_" 106 "'_Sorry. Sorry. It was wrong. She showed me_'" 123 THE RED MIRIOK CHAPTER I MR. KIT-ZE "There is one thing I forgot to mention," said Mr. Reid, resuming the conversation. "If we do undertake our sampan journey, we must have Mr. Kit-ze. I have already talked to him about it." "Oh, father!" The expression of Clarence's face so emphasized his protest that nothing beyond the mere exclamation was necessary. "Why, Clarence, what could be the objection to Mr. Kit-ze?" "A good one, father. He is such an eel-like fellow. I know we couldn't depend on him. Then it strikes me that his mind isn't right. He's always muttering to himself and clutching his breast in such a queer way. Oh, I'm sure it would be a bad step to take Mr. Kit-ze." "That is just like a boy!" declared Helen, his sister, "jumping at conclusions." "You mean girls," retorted Clarence. "They fairly spring at them; yes, reach out their arms to grasp 'em as they spring." "Come, children, don't spar," warned Mr. Reid. "But, my son," turning to Clarence, "I fear it is as your sister asserts, you have arrived at conclusions too hastily with reference to Mr. Kit-ze. He is a little strange in his manner, I'll admit; but his friends, some of whom belong to the mission, tell me that he is a very good sort of fellow, honest and well-meaning, though he is rather grasping as to money matters." "He is well-meaning," asserted Helen; "and I think the reason he is so close about money is because he has many who are dependent on him. Yes, I like Mr. Kit-ze. Though some of his ways are strange, yet he is good-natured and kind when you know him well." "Guess, then, I don't know him well," admitted Clarence. "No; and until you do, you won't like him." Clarence whistled, and reached over to give the tail of Nam-san, the monkey, a twist, which that quick-tempered little animal resented by scratching at him and then springing away. "I think I know what is the matter with Mr. Kit-ze," said Mr. Reid, as though in sudden comment after following a line of thought. "He is a religious enthusiast." Helen looked at him quickly, a glad light over-spreading her face. "Oh, father, I didn't know that Mr. Kit-ze had been converted. That _is_ news." "I don't mean that, Helen. I wish that it were true, for I have been working earnestly to that end for more than a year. What I have reference to is that he is an enthusiast in his own religious belief." "Why, I didn't know, uncle, that these people had any religious belief," said his nephew, Mallard Hale, who for a few moments past had not joined in the conversation. "I believe, yes, I am sure I have seen it stated that as a country Korea is practically without a religion." "That is true in one sense, Mallard, but not in another. While Korea has no established religion, what might be called a national religion, as have China, Japan, and her other neighbors, yet such of the Koreans as have not individually embraced Buddhism, Confucianism, and the like, are given over wholly to ancestral and to demon worship, especially the latter." "What do you mean by demon worship, uncle?" "They believe in spirits of all degrees, good, bad, and indifferent, but principally the bad. They fill the air around them; they dwell in their homes; they sit at their feasts; they even perch upon such portions of the human body as suits them. They bring evil or good as they are angered or appeased. To counteract the influence of the evil demons the people carry about with them certain charms to frighten them away. Around their habitations, especially in the country districts, they erect these grotesque figures having resemblance to the human form, the more hideous the better. They are called _mirioks_. In the cities, where there is little space for such erection, the figures, considerably diminished in size, are either kept in the homes or carried about the person. In many instances this devotion to _mirioks_ amounts to fanaticism of the most pronounced kind." "Oh, yes, that is just what Mr. Kit-ze does!" exclaimed Joyce, the younger son of the family. "He carries it around in his bosom. Sometimes he takes it out and talks to it. I have seen it. Oh! it is the ugliest little red thing!" All eyes were now turned inquiringly upon him. "I believe, yes, I am sure," he continued, "if I were to see it in the black dark, I'd run from it." "Why, how could you see it in 'the black dark'?" quizzed Mallard. Joyce flushed as the laugh went around at his expense, then he answered: "Oh, I mean if it were so I could see it even a little bit. I am sure I could see its eyes, for they are made out of something that just glitters and burns." "It is as I supposed," said Mr. Reid; "Mr. Kit-ze is an enthusiast on the subject of this _miriok_. This accounts for his strange behavior, his mutterings, and the clutchings at his breast. He keeps the _miriok_ there in the folds of his gown. He believes that it wards away the evil spirits and invites the good. On other subjects I am sure he is all right. At any rate, if we are going to attempt that journey up the Han we shall be almost dependent on him. He not only has the largest sampan and is considered the safest boatman on the river, but he also knows the way better, having ascended higher than any other, I am told." "Then, uncle, we must have him by all means," said Mallard decisively. "Yes," added Clarence somewhat flippantly, "red _miriok_ and all." "Yes, even the red _miriok_ to get Mr. Kit-ze," declared Mallard. Then he asked, "Isn't the journey attended by some degree of danger?" "With considerable danger at some places, I understand, Mallard; and this is why we should have a stout sampan as well as a sampan man who understands both his business and the river." The family of Rev. Mr. Reid, missionary at Seoul, Korea, consisted of his wife, her widowed sister, his two sons, Clarence and Joyce, and his daughter, Helen. Mallard Hale, an American youth of seventeen, had recently come to make his home with his uncle. He was only a few months older than Clarence, and the two cousins were very fond of each other. Helen was nearly fifteen and Joyce twelve. For some days they had been talking of this sampan journey up the Han. Mr. Reid had long wanted to take such a trip into the interior for the purpose of making observations of the country and of studying the conditions of the people along the south branch of the Han. It was reported to be a wonderfully attractive and fertile section, with a people whose manners and customs, differing from those in the cities, made them of deep interest to the traveler. They were described as quiet and peaceful, given to hospitality, and fairly burning with curiosity. The Mission Board, under the auspices of which Mr. Reid labored, had for some time contemplated the establishment of a branch mission in the interior. They were waiting for him to decide the point where it should be located. He had hesitated a long time about undertaking the sampan journey because as yet there had not been sufficient money to defray the necessary expenses. But the coming of his nephew, Mallard Hale, had quickly done away with this obstacle. For Mallard was comfortably fixed as to income, and he insisted on bearing all the expense of hiring and propelling the sampan, while his uncle was left to provide only for provisions and equipments. "Then, uncle," said Mallard, after they had talked a little further, "let us decide positively on going, also that we take Mr. Kit-ze and his sampan." "Yes, red----" began Clarence, but the words were cut short by an exclamation from Joyce. "Why," he cried, "here is Mr. Kit-ze now!" Sure enough, Mr. Kit-ze was coming in. It was just after dinner, or _opan_, as they would say in Korea, and Mr. Kit-ze was still caressing his lips with his tongue, well pleased with the toothsome morsels that had gone to comfort his stomach. He was a little stouter and taller than the average man of his race, standing five feet six in his sandals, weighing, perhaps, one hundred and sixty pounds, and was fifty years of age. His complexion, originally of a bright olive, had now a deep tan through the action of sun and winds. He had a straight nose, but rather distended nostrils, the oblique Mongolian eye, while his hair, of a deep russet-brown smeared with lampblack, was wound in a knot at the top of his head. Mr. Kit-ze had on the loose white robe of his countrymen, with flowing sleeves, that fell just below the knees. It was belted in with a girdle of straw. Beneath it showed his baggy trousers, gathered in at the ankle. A _katsi_ (hat), in shape like a flower pot turned down over a table, wadded stockings, and sandals of straw completed his attire. When he removed his hat, on Mr. Reid's invitation, there was a little tight-fitting skullcap of horsehair underneath, carefully placed on top of his knot of hair. He seemed solicitous about his hat, not knowing just where to place it. It was, indeed, a huge affair for a hat, the brim being nearly six feet in circumference. At home Mr. Kit-ze had his swinging case for his hat, but here he was at a loss as to its disposal. Helen at length came to the rescue and placed it on top of the organ, where it rested, one portion of the brim lying upon a large music book, the other flat upon the surface of the instrument. "Well, Mr. Kit-ze," said Mr. Reid, "are you ready to take another journey with your sampan up the South Han?" Instead of replying to this question, Mr. Kit-ze suggested: "Better go up the North Han, honorable instructor. There are the Diamond Mountains." Clarence jumped up suddenly, shouting out his delight: "Yes, father, let's go to the Diamond Mountains. Oh, won't that be glorious?" "And pick up treasure," suggested Helen; "enough to build the new mission chapel that is so needed," she added, her eyes taking on a deeper glow as she glanced at her father. "Why, are there really any treasures to be found in those mountains?" asked Mallard, catching the excitement. Mr. Kit-ze, who understood enough of the language to catch the drift of the question, quickly replied: "Yes, honorable sir, there are treasures. Two gentlemen from your country got a whole wallet full of diamonds in the mountains last week. They say they can be picked up like bamboo reeds after a freshet." "Only Mr. Kit-ze's enthusiasm," said Mr. Reid in an aside to his nephew. "Some one has been filling him with the story, which is vastly exaggerated, I am sure. But later in the year, Mallard, if you desire it, we can make the trip to the Diamond Mountains. Now my Master's business calls me in another direction." "All right, uncle, that Diamond Mountain trip can wait. Yes, we'll take it later," he added after a pause. "Is your sampan ready, Mr. Kit-ze?" Mr. Reid now asked. [Illustration: "MR. KIT-ZE'S HAT WAS MOVING ACROSS THE ORGAN!"] "Not quite, exalted master; but your servant can make it ready in a day or so." "Are you sure of that? We should like to start by Tuesday of next week; and when we are ready we want the sampan ready. You understand?" "Most learned teacher, it shall be as you wish," Mr. Kit-ze assured him, with a bow that brought his forehead almost to the floor. A full understanding was now had; the day set, arrangements perfected, and the amount of Mr. Kit-ze's remuneration satisfactorily adjusted. Mr. Kit-ze arose to go. All this time, having declined the chair offered to him, he had been squatting upon his heels, his legs doubled back under him. Considering the position, it was surprising how quickly he got up. He had barely gained his feet when a sudden cry that startled them all escaped him. He was gazing straight toward the organ, his features growing rigid, his eyes dilating. Following his gaze, it took them only an instant to discover what was the matter--Mr. Kit-ze's hat was moving across the organ, moving as though it had feet and were walking. CHAPTER II A HASTY DESERTION The pupils of Mr. Kit-ze's eyes grew larger and larger. They seemed ready to burst into flame. He began to mutter: "The spirit! the spirit! It has attached itself to my hat! It will now attend me home and stay there; how long, I do not know." He made a sudden movement toward the door. He was evidently going away without his hat. Nothing could induce him to touch it while the spirit had taken hold of it in so demonstrative a way. Plainly his thought was that it was better to lose the hat than to run the risk of contact with the spirit. His movement was hasty, but, quick as he was, Helen acted more quickly. In an instant of time, as it were, she had grasped the whole situation. Her eyes too had done her good service. Her glance in the direction of the moving hat had shown her what Mr. Kit-ze did not see, nor even the others at first, an inch or so of snake-like tail showing beneath the rim of the hat. She sprang toward the organ, quickly threw up the hat, and exposed to view the whole furry body of Nam-san, the monkey, who began to chatter at her indignantly, the shrill notes heard above the burst of laughter that now came from the others. Mr. Kit-ze was just backing out of the doorway, but he paused as Helen's quick movement disclosed Nam-san under the hat. "You see it is the monkey, Mr. Kit-ze," said Helen smiling. "He is a mischievous little beast, and doesn't respect anything that he can have his fun with; not even your hat, Mr. Kit-ze. But he hasn't hurt it. See, it is all right!" She advanced toward Mr. Kit-ze bearing the hat. She held it toward him, but he did not take it. He still seemed alarmed, and his glance was nervous. Seeing the condition Mr. Kit-ze was still in and his attitude toward the hat, Mr. Reid now came to Helen's assistance. "There has no harm befallen the hat," he assured Mr. Kit-ze. "It was only the little beast under it, as you saw, that was causing it to move. It is all right now, my friend," and he took the hat from Helen and held it toward Mr. Kit-ze. Mr. Kit-ze still hesitated, but, after further reassuring words from Mr. Reid, he consented to receive the hat. Yet he did not put it on; he turned away, holding it gingerly between his thumb and one finger. After he had gone, they found it on the doorstep, a mark apparently made with red chalk drawn all around the rim. "The superstitious old crank!" exclaimed Clarence in disgust; "what made him leave his hat with us? Why didn't he take it away and destroy it, if he was that afraid of it?" "I think he left it as a reproach to us," said Mr. Reid. The eyes around him sought his inquiringly. "It is a hint that, as the misfortune befell it here, and he is now deprived of his hat, we should replace it with another." "And how will Mr. Kit-ze feel toward us, uncle, if we do not?" asked Mallard. "I fear not very pleasantly, for a while, at least," replied Mr. Reid. "Then the new hat must go to him by all means," said Mallard. "We can't afford to start off with our sampan man in the pouts." "No, indeed," assented Helen. So the next day they sent Mr. Kit-ze a new hat, with expressions of regret at what had happened, and with the assurance that the other hat had been destroyed. "For that is what he expects of us," Mr. Reid had said. "He drew the red chalk mark so as to confine the spirit within the hat, then left the hat for us to destroy, together with the spirit. All pure foolishness," he concluded, a little emphatically. "We'll just throw the hat aside." "No, father," said Helen decisively, "we will burn it." "And thus encourage Mr. Kit-ze in his silliness?" asked Clarence. "In his superstition," corrected Mr. Reid. "But it is all so real to him, poor man!" said Helen. And she continued, her eyes softening: "If it will make him feel better to know it is destroyed, isn't it worth while?" "Yes," assented Mallard heartily, "it is. We'll burn the hat, my Helen. I'm sure uncle won't object." "Oh, no," assented Mr. Reid. "If Helen wants to take the trouble, let her do it." A day or two later Mr. Kit-ze came again. He had on his new hat, and was in the best of humor. Especially did his face express pleasure when Helen, carrying him to a spot in the yard, showed him the small pile of ashes to which the hat had been reduced. He stooped hurriedly, gathered them up, and, holding them in his palms, blew his breath hard upon the mass, scattering it to the four winds. Then he grunted with satisfaction, and, going down on hands and knees, made Helen a series of the most profound bows. He had come to tell them that the sampan was ready, but on account of the great danger of the shoals near Seoul, they must make their arrangements to start from Han-Kang, four miles from the city. Themselves and their supplies could be transported thither by pony-back. Mr. Kit-ze further informed them that he had secured, as both interpreter and assistant boatman, one Mr. Cheefoo, a graduate of the government schools. He had recently fallen upon hard ways, and was glad enough to earn a little for himself, as well as to see some of the world, even if it were only his own country. Mr. Cheefoo would be sent to assist them with the loading, and to guide them to Han-Kang, where Mr. Kit-ze and the sampan would be found awaiting them. Mr. Chefoo came a day ahead of the time set for starting, for the supplies must be carefully packed into bales ere they could be loaded. He had too, some suggestions from Mr. Kit-ze as to what to take and how to take it. The selection of the necessary provisions and other supplies had cost them much thought and planning. They knew they must not overload the sampan, as much as they might want to take some things. On the other hand was the danger of starting out with a too meagre supply. They finally decided on the following: seventy-five pounds of flour, thirty pounds of rice,--they expected to buy more of this on the way,--a half-bushel of beans, a strip or two of dried beef, a small amount of meats in cans and of tomatoes for soups. "We can get eggs and vegetables from the country people," said Mr. Reid, who had traveled some in the interior districts, "and there will be fish in the river to be caught." The other supplies consisted of a brazier for charcoal, a frying pan, saucepan, and kettle, some drinking mugs of stoneware, plates and soup plates of tin, knives, forks, and spoons, the latter of wood. Mallard had his camera, and Clarence the fine Winchester which his cousin had presented to him. In addition, each traveler carried a rubber coat, a pair of blankets, and two changes of underclothing. One thing they came near forgetting, but Mrs. Reid's forethought caused them to include it among the stores almost at the last minute. This was a little case of medicines. It was an excited and happy party that rode away from the mission house early on the following Tuesday morning. In addition to Mr. Reid, Mallard, Helen, Clarence, and Joyce, there were Mr. Wilburn, a young missionary from another station, and his sister, Dorothy, a very dear friend of Helen. Indeed, for two years past the girls had been almost inseparable. Mr. Reid's native assistant in the mission work and his wife were to be the companions of Mrs. Reid and her sister during the two weeks the party expected to be away. They moved through the narrow streets, so narrow that it was necessary to go in single file. Even that was difficult at times, for, though the hour was early, a mass of people was beginning to stir abroad. Along each side of some of the streets ran a gutter, green with slime and thick with all manner of putrid matter. The low mud huts, with their queer, horse-shoe shaped straw roofs, were set so close to this it seemed that any one coming out of the door must fall into the slime if he were not careful. All along the streets dogs and children were tumbling about, sometimes rolling the one over the other. Even the close observer would have found it hard to decide which was the dirtier, dog or child. "Oh, my, the dirty youngsters!" exclaimed Mallard, as he picked his pony's way gingerly along, sometimes finding it quite difficult to keep from riding right upon a squirming little mass of humanity. "Where are the mothers," he continued, "to let them run so into danger?" "You will soon find out, Mallard," replied his uncle, "that the Korean woman has her hands too full of the major duties of washing and ironing to attend with any degree of success to the minor one of looking after her children. There! do you not hear that strange rat-ta-tat noise? That is made by the wooden club coming down upon the garment wrapped about its iron cylinder. Wherever you go over Seoul, at almost any hour, day or night, you can hear that familiar sound. It denotes the Korean slave-wife's battle with the white clothes of her lord and master, which must receive a certain amount of gloss, or there will be a storm in the domestic sky." As they came out through the massive stone arches of the great South Gate, its lofty drum chamber with tiled roof overhead, a new world seemed to burst upon them. They could see plainly now the line of mountains and the nearer circlet of hills, the latter flower-crowned and sparkling like jewels in the golden light of the sun. Brilliant, indeed, was the coloring where the rich clusters of azaleas grew, and the tangled masses of clematis and honeysuckles. Butterflies and dragon-flies flitted through the air; numerous ducks and geese hovered along the edge of the river, now alighting and skimming the water for a few moments, then dipping wing to fly away. Flocks of cranes waded in and out of the shallow places, hunting for small fish to seize. All around was the beauty and the glory of the spring,--matchless skies, bursting flowers, and singing birds,--such a spring as makes Seoul and its surroundings a joy to eye and heart, never to be surpassed, always to be remembered. They took the path along the river, and in a little more than an hour's time had reached Han-Kang, where they found Mr. Kit-ze and the sampan, both in fine trim and ready to be off. Mr. Kit-ze had changed his white clothing for his boatman's suit, which consisted of a blouse and Turkish trousers of coarse blue cotton cloth. He was very proud of his sampan, and insisted on showing them its various fine points as well as dwelling upon them. "Never has such a craft gone up the waters," he declared; and indeed it did look workmanlike alongside of those usually seen on Korean streams. To begin, it had two very essential qualities--it was strongly made and it was well calked throughout. From fore to aft it measured thirty-six feet, was seven in width at its widest portion, and drew six to seven inches of water. At Mr. Reid's request, Mr. Kit-ze had rigged up a new and a more substantial roof along the ridgepole and its supporting framework. This was composed of thick, water-tight mats of tough grass. There were also curtains of the same material that could be fastened along the sides in case of rain or when the glare of the sun was too strong. This roof was only about five feet from the floor of the sampan, so that it was very plain to all eyes that most of its occupants would have to content themselves with sitting or with standing in a stooping posture. The boat had five compartments, three of them from seven to eight feet long, and the other two only small affairs indeed. One of the latter was in the bow of the boat and the other at the stern. Here the boatmen stood to pole the boat during the day, and in them they curled down to sleep at night, each rolled in a straw mat and with the side of the boat as a pillow. "All hands to the stores!" announced Mr. Reid. "The more quickly we have them in and are off the better. The sun will be pretty warm after a while." Mr. Chefoo had brought along a young man to carry the ponies back, and he too was anxious to begin his return journey. So all hands set to with a will, even Helen and Dorothy assisting "like good fellows," as Clarence expressed it. Mr. Kit-ze, following Mr. Reid's instructions, had previously carried aboard the sampan a supply of charcoal and some bundles of faggots. It was only the stores brought by the ponies that now had to be loaded. One thing amused Mallard greatly. This was the shape in which most of their money to be spent on the way had to be brought, strung on cords of straw. And the amount had proved almost a full burden for one pony, though in all it was only about twenty dollars. What queer looking coins they were! of copper, with a small square hole through their center. [Illustration: "'YES, ONLY A LITTLE, FOR IT TAKES NEARLY THREE THOUSAND OF THEM TO MAKE A DOLLAR.'"] "This is our often abused but ever available 'cash,'" said Mr. Reid, holding up one of the crude bits of metal for Mallard to see. "As there are no bankers or money changers on the way, we must take it with us, for it is the only coin accepted in the rural districts. We must have a little ready money with us," he added. "Oh, uncle, you call that a _little_?" and Mallard pointed to the pony with his burden of coin. "Yes, only a little, for it takes nearly three thousand of them to make a dollar." Mallard recalled his uncle's words now, as he was helping to store the coin away in what Helen and Dorothy had termed the sitting room of the sampan. He had turned to address a merry remark to Helen when he was struck by the appearance of Mr. Kit-ze. The boatman had stopped in the midst of something he was doing as suddenly as though he had felt the force of an electric shock. He had thrown his head up and was now clutching nervously at the folds of his blouse. Almost at the moment that Mallard's eyes were directed upon him he uttered a sharp little cry. It was of sufficient compass to reach the ears of the others. As their eyes too were turned upon him, what was the astonishment of all to see Mr. Kit-ze the next moment rush up the bank to where one of the ponies, with empty saddle, was standing, and flinging himself upon it, go galloping away like one suddenly out of his senses. CHAPTER III THE LOST RECOVERED Exclamations of astonishment and of dismay followed Mr. Kit-ze. "What can he mean?" asked Mr. Reid, his eyes fixed in wonder upon the fast-retreating form of his boatman. "He surely hasn't deserted us!" "It evidently looks that way," replied Mr. Wilburn. "Now we are in a box!" exclaimed Clarence. "How are we to go on without our sampan man?" "Well, we have the sampan," remarked Mallard cheerfully. "The only other thing now is to look out for some one to take charge of it." "Easier said than accomplished," commented Mr. Reid. "Besides, though Mr. Kit-ze has deserted us, yet the sampan is his. We can't take possession without his consent." "He has forfeited his right to protest against such a step," declared Mr. Wilburn, "by his desertion and breach of contract. I am for taking possession of the sampan, engaging some one to have charge of it, assisted by Mr. Chefoo here, then allowing Mr. Kit-ze so much for its use." "But a competent sampan man is hard to find," said Mr. Reid. "That was why I stuck to Mr. Kit-ze." "Oh, but it is too bad to lose our trip!" exclaimed Mr. Wilburn, "especially when so much relating to our work depends on it," and he looked wistfully at Mr. Reid. "Yes, too bad," assented Mallard. "Oh, we must go," declared Clarence. Even Helen and Dorothy were for going on, that is, if satisfactory arrangements could be made. "But maybe Mr. Kit-ze will return," suggested Helen. "Yes," said Mr. Chefoo, who now spoke for the first time, "he will return." All turned to look at him inquiringly. He had spoken very positively. "What makes you say that?" "Because, honorable sirs, he went away as one who will come back. There was no parting word. He will return." "He didn't have sense for any parting word," commented Clarence. "It seemed all taken from him." "No," asserted Mr. Chefoo, "it was only the excitement that comes when one knows there has been a loss." "'A loss'!" echoed Clarence. "Yes; Mr. Kit-ze has either lost something of very great value, for which he has now gone to make search, or else he has forgotten something that he has gone to bring. It is one or the other as you will in time discover, son of the honorable teacher." "But why act in that demented way? Couldn't he have explained to us, and then gone after it in a respectable fashion?" "It was something by which he set so great a store, youthful sir, that he was overcome by what its loss signified to him. I should say," continued Mr. Chefoo, "that it is something without which he could not proceed, or without which he----" Here Mr. Chefoo paused. "Well?" asked Clarence. "Without which he would fear to go on." "I see!" exclaimed Mr. Reid. "It was----" "Let me finish, father," cried Clarence. "It was the red _miriok_. That old crank has either left it or lost it. Now we must be tied up here waiting his pleasure." "Yes," said Mr. Reid in a disgusted manner, "it was the red _miriok_ that carried him off in that demented way; I am sure of it. But don't call him a crank so boldly, Clarence. It would offend him should he hear it." "Well, what else is he? It is just too bad to be deserted in this way and for such silliness. Oh, I wish that the red _miriok_ was in the bottom of the river." "Then, we'd never get Mr. Kit-ze to proceed," assured Mr. Wilburn, who by this time had heard the story of the red _miriok_; "or at least not until its counterpart was procured. But we can't stay here," he continued. "We must, at least, try getting on to the next village. There Mr. Kit-ze can join us. We'll leave word for him. This is a very objectionable locality for more reasons than one, and the sooner we move away from it the better." In the meanwhile a large crowd had gathered, both on the river bank and in the shallow water surrounding the sampan. All were agape with curiosity. It is a well-known saying in Korea, and one the truth of which travelers have often proved, that if you move on, very little comment is excited; but if you stand still and appear to be engaged in anything, or even to be looking at an object, curiosity of the most intense kind is aroused. It takes but a minute or two then for the crowd to gather around you, each individual member thereof following anxiously the glance of your eye and hanging with almost breathless intent upon every movement of hand or leg. There were women and children in the crowd as well as men. The former were so overcome by their curiosity that they had for the time forgotten to keep their long, green coats close up about their eyes, which is the custom when women are abroad in Korea. They now hung loosely about their necks, the long, wide sleeves that are rarely used swinging over their shoulders. An old woman with much vigor of speech offered them barley sugar for sale. She was very dirty, and her wares looked as uninviting as herself. But feeling sorry for her, Helen invested quite liberally in the barley sugar, immediately bestowing it upon a little group of open-mouthed children who stood near. In some way the old woman had caught a part, at least, of the situation. She seemed to comprehend that they were at a loss whether to go on or to stay. In return for Helen's graciousness she came to the rescue by suggesting that they send for a _mutang_ (sorceress) who lived near. She would come with her drum and cymbals, her wand and divination box,[1] and in a little while she could tell them what to do. The sun was now climbing nearer and nearer the meridian, and its rays were growing unpleasantly warm. More than an hour had been wasted since the loading of the sampan. They had burned the bridge behind them, as the saying is, by sending the man back to the city with the ponies. There was nothing now but to go on, even if they had to turn back in the midst of the journey. Mr. Chefoo was the good fairy that came to the rescue. He seemed to regret Mr. Kit-ze's behavior keenly, and to be deeply sympathetic with the sampan party in its desire so plainly expressed to be off on the journey. He was a big, good-natured fellow, strong and hearty looking, with a clear eye and with much intelligence expressed upon his face. He had too, a pretty fair scope of English, which made his attendance all the more satisfactory and agreeable. Mr. Kit-ze, he continued to assure them, would return. He felt certain of it. They would leave word for him and proceed to the next town, since this one was so objectionable with its foul smells and its rather rough-looking population. The first step then, was to hire a man to help him pole, as he felt certain he, Mr. Chefoo, could direct the movements of the sampan up to the next village. There were no rapids of any considerable danger in the way. "All right, Mr. Chefoo," said Mr. Reid. "Go ahead and hire your man, but be sure he is one on whom we can rely." "I'll have a care to that, honorable teacher," assured Mr. Chefoo. The first man approached declared that he couldn't go, as his wife needed him to sit and watch her while she washed the clothes. The second one said he must first ask his mother and, as she lived two villages away, they must wait until the following morning ere he could give them his answer. The third wished to know if he would be permitted to take as many as seven suits of clothes with him, as he could do with no less; also if provision would be made for their washing and ironing along the way. On being assured that no such concession could be granted he went away much aggrieved. Another said he would gladly attend them as their poleman if they would promise not to tie up anywhere along the bank where there were tigers, or even where tigers were known to have been on the surrounding hills. As they could give no such promise with the prospect of fulfilling it, he too had to be dismissed without an engagement. He then tried to drive a sale with them of two tiger bones at three hundred "cash" each, warranted to give strength and courage. As they hadn't the faith he had in the efficacy of the commodity, the purchase was declined. Another hour and more slipped by in this way. Things were growing lively, if they were somewhat monotonous, for a great crowd was now surging about Mr. Chefoo, Mr. Reid, and Mr. Wilburn. The boatman had them with him for the purpose of consultation. To add to the hubbub a string of oxen and their drivers on their way to the city, the backs of the oxen piled with mountains of brushwood, had drawn near the men, the drivers overcome by curiosity at the sight of the crowd. Between their yells and shouts to the oxen and their noisy salutations passed to those they knew, there was a babel indeed. In the very midst of these sounds came a sudden cry, sufficiently loud and prolonged to attract the attention of many. While the bargaining with the would-be polemen went on, the young people had gathered within the sitting room of the sampan, that is, all with the exception of Clarence. He had stretched himself along the stern of the boat. His head was lying on his hand upheld by the elbow. Thus it was considerably elevated, and thus he had a fair view of the water all around the sampan. The Han is often called the River of Golden Sands. It is a clear, bright stream, its bed covered with thick layers of white sand. Along this sand particles of golden-hued gravel sparkle in the sunlight as though they were the pure metal itself. In many places, even of considerable depth, the bottom of the river is plainly seen. Where the sampan lay there was only the depth of about two feet of water. This had for a time been stirred into some degree of murkiness by the feet of those who pressed curiously about the sampan. But as the crowd had now withdrawn to the bank, where Mr. Chefoo bargained with the polemen, the river had cleared. As Clarence lay along the stern of the boat glancing down into the water, his attention was suddenly attracted by something that rested at the top of a little hillock of sand. First its shape, then its color arrested his gaze. The next moment there came that wild shout from him, a compromise between a station-master's train call and an Indian warwhoop. Then those whose attention was now riveted upon him saw him hastily throw off his coat, his shoes and stockings and, quickly rolling up sleeves and trousers, spring into the water. An instant later he held up something in his hand, his shirt sleeve dripping with the water. "The red _miriok_!" he cried. "See! Mr. Kit-ze must have dropped it as he leaned over packing the things." Yes, it was the red _miriok_. "Oh, its eyes are shinier than ever!" cried Joyce. "Guess that's cause the water washed 'em. It's the same horrid, ugly thing I've seen Mr. Kit-ze pressing in his hands." [Illustration: "YES, IT WAS THE RED MIRIOK!"] "Oh," said Helen, "if Mr. Kit-ze could only know!" Even as she spoke, Mr. Kit-ze was seen coming rapidly toward the river. FOOTNOTES: [1] A box in which are carried three or more coins with characters stamped upon them. The coins are cast upward three times, falling again into the box. The combination of characters each time gives the _mutang_ her clue to the divination or prediction. CHAPTER IV A STOWAWAY Mr. Kit-ze had left the pony in town and now came on at a rapid dog-trot. He was covered with dust and perspiration, and his hair, which had been shaken from its knot, was now partly hanging in much disorder down his back. When he had first rushed away, it had been with the thought that the _miriok_ had been left at home, that it had in all probability dropped from his clothing as he slept. But as a rigid search failed to reveal it, he at length came to the conclusion that he had dropped it in or near the river while helping to load the sampan. He had stooped over many times, he knew. Why hadn't he thought of that ere coming away? Yes, the first search ought, by all means, to have been made in and around the sampan. But then he had been so excited over his loss he hadn't taken the time to reason about it at all. Now he would hasten back to the boat and resume there the search for the _miriok_. Oh, he must find it, or failing, secure another like it. He could not think of going on the journey without his _miriok_, for would not disaster be sure to befall him if he did? But where was such another as this _miriok_ to be had? As he recalled with what difficulty this one had been secured, Mr. Kit-ze grew more and more excited over his loss. Oh, he must return to the river at once! as there was a chance that he had dropped the _miriok_ there. Thus Mr. Kit-ze, coming in sight of the sampan, saw Clarence standing in the water and holding something at arm's length over which all were exclaiming. It took only a steady glance to show him what it was. The next moment, with a ringing cry, he endeavored to increase his pace, lost his footing, and went rolling down the slope, stopping just at the water's edge. It was Helen who reached him as he regained his feet. She had taken the _miriok_ from Clarence, and was holding it toward Mr. Kit-ze, saying in her softest, gentlest tones: "Here, Mr. Kit-ze, is something of yours that Clarence has found in the river. We were so sorry when we knew you had lost it, and are glad now that it can be returned to you." With a little cry of delight he took the _miriok_ from her, clasped it against his breast, prostrating himself before her almost to the ground. This he did the second and even the third time. The sudden coming of Mr. Kit-ze, his mishap, and the scene that followed between him and Helen on the river bank had formed considerable of a diversion for a part of the crowd. Even the excitement of Mr. Chefoo's still unsatisfactory interviews with the polemen had, for a time, paled before this newer and greater one. Ere she could extricate herself Helen was surrounded by quite a rabble. Many faces were pressing up about her, but there was one that attracted her attention in such a way that it startled her. It was a somewhat worn and haggard face, with restless, piercing eyes, and a nervous twitching of the lips that impressed itself upon Helen the moment she saw it. She noticed that its owner's gaze soon left her face and fixed itself in the direction of Mr. Kit-ze. The eyes had now a startled look. They were fastened upon the _miriok_ that Mr. Kit-ze was still holding against his breast, but in such a way that it showed plainly. Helen noted this riveted gaze, as she also saw his lips moving. By this time her position had become very unpleasant. She felt too, a little chill of fear as she looked at this man. Was his mind upset? However, Mr. Kit-ze, having recovered his senses along with his _miriok_, was equal to the emergency. He safely conducted her out of the surging crowd and to the sampan. Mr. Reid and Mr. Wilburn, with Mr. Chefoo, being informed of the return of Mr. Kit-ze, joined them as rapidly as they could in view of the crowd that bore them company at the sampan. Considerable satisfaction was expressed at the finding of the _miriok_, though the two missionaries some hours later expressed themselves quite vigorously to each other on the subject. Mr. Kit-ze, who had by this time profusely apologized for his sudden departure, was as anxious as the others to be off. There was no need to delay another moment, he assured them. He motioned to Mr. Chefoo to take his place in the stern, while he, grasping his long pole, took a similar position in the bow. "Hurrah!" cried Joyce, "we are off at last." He stood up in his delight, clapping his hands and, as the boat was given a sudden turn at that moment, he assuredly would have tumbled over the side into the river had not Mallard caught him. "Better keep your eye on the polemen hereafter," Clarence advised him, "ere you try any acrobatic performances on a sampan." They found some difficulty in getting away from the crowd, many of whom followed the sampan for some distance into the water. These Mallard finally turned back by the happy thought carried into execution of tossing a handful of "cash" toward the shore. The last they saw of the village was the scrambling forms in the water, and the line of low hovels, built of mud-smeared wattle, with no vestige of windows and with their black smokeholes plainly defined. Yes, they were off at last, really afloat on the glorious Han, _the_ river of Korea, which, in two branches, sweeps almost across the peninsula, forming two great waterways, navigable for flat-bottomed craft for more than two hundred miles. They found the river teeming with moving life. In addition to the flatboats there were many junks passing back and forth, for the Han is the great artery of commerce for the eastern provinces. Those going into the city were laden with produce, pottery, bundles of faggots for firewood, and the like, while those coming out held cargoes of merchandise, both home and foreign, and salt from the seacoast. Some of these junks were very old. They carried prodigious sails, despite their rotten timbers, and looked as though they might turn over at any moment. The most of them creaked horribly, and when our friends in the sampan heard one for the first time, they thought for a moment it was some great beast in terrible pain. When they found out their mistake a hearty laugh went around. Though the sun was now quite high, and its rays very warm, yet Mr. Kit-ze knew the stream so well that he could keep near to the bank. Thus for much of the way they had the shade from the trees and from the overhanging bluffs. They found their curtains too, much protection. Their little sitting room was very cozy and comfortable. Helen had brought some oilcloth matting for the floor of the sampan, and a little oil stove that they could light when the air was damp and disagreeable. Here too were cushions, one or two folding chairs, and the bedding which the girls were to use at night, together with the oilskin cases in which they kept their clothing, a small supply of books, writing materials, etc. In the next compartment forward Mr. Reid and Mr. Wilburn had stored their effects, as they were to occupy it jointly at night. Here all would dine when they were afloat; here too, the service of morning and evening prayer would be held. The three boys slept and kept their effects in the compartment just behind that of the girls. The straw roof along the ridgepole extended over all, even for a part of the way over the small, boxlike quarters of the two boatmen. In addition our party was provided with oilcloths for the better protection of the stores, and with mosquito netting. "This is fine, even finer than sailing on the Hudson at home!" declared Dorothy, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. "Or the noble Mississippi, down in our Southland," added Helen. "How pleasant this is! Oh, I had no idea it could be so delightful!" "You just wait, my sister, until you strike some of the rapids," admonished Clarence, his face taking on a very solemn expression, "and begin to roll about like loose apples in a cart, or find your feet hanging where your head ought to be. Then I'm no prophet if you don't completely change your form of expression." "Oh, for shame!" cried both girls in a breath. "I think it is real mean of you," declared Helen, "to try to spoil our enjoyment of the present by introducing into it the suggestion of those terrible things that await us. As for myself, I believe in enjoying what is sweet and good while we have it, without borrowing trouble with reference to what is in the future." "A philosophy in which I heartily agree," said Dorothy. There was indeed much to make the trip delightful, for the beauties of the spring were all around them, in the sky, in the water, in the green knolls overhanging the river. The stream continued to be quite shallow. At some places it gurgled over the rocks only a foot or so below the sampan. They came now and then to where the cattle waded knee deep in the lush grasses. These turned to view them in mild-eyed astonishment as they passed by chatting and laughing, then went on with their grazing. Flocks of mandarin ducks and wild geese flew by; some of the latter even swam close to the sampan. There were too, numbers of the imperial crane, and once in a while a pink ibis wading along the edge of a rice field. Clarence took his gun to shoot one of these, but Helen and Dorothy began to beg for its life. "We don't want to eat it, so why destroy it?" asked Helen. "Oh, wouldn't you girls like a wing each for your hats?" asked Clarence a little mischievously. "Oh, no indeed," declared Dorothy. "No bird wing for me! You know that well enough, Master Clarence," and she looked at him reprovingly. "Well, the truth is," confessed Clarence, "I want it for my cabinet. I know a young Japanese in Seoul who has promised to show me how to stuff all I bring back. In the meantime he has taught me how to preserve them while on the trip." "If you must do it then in--in the cause of science," and here Helen looked at him quizzingly, "wait until we can't see you commit the murder, won't you?" "All right," assented Clarence cheerfully. "But see here, sister," with earnest protest, "don't call it murder." "Well, the cruelty of sport then," corrected Helen. At that moment a shout from Joyce attracted their attention. "Oh, look at the pheasants!" he cried. "Quick! Clarence, I know you can shoot one or more of them if you try." Sure enough, there were the pheasants right along the edge of the rice field, fine, fat fellows, and many of them. "Be careful," warned Mr. Reid. "Examine the surroundings well before you fire. There might be some one near." Assured that there was not, Clarence raised his gun. "Beg pardon, girls," he said slyly, as he adjusted it to his shoulder. "Pheasants are _so_ good to eat." They gave a little exclamation, then quickly covered both eyes and ears. The next moment a report rang out, followed instantly by another. When the smoke cleared away five of the birds were seen in their last flutterings. "Now, how are we to get them?" asked Mallard. "Why, sure enough, I didn't think of that!" exclaimed Clarence in dismay. "We can't carry the sampan close enough, that's certain." Mr. Chefoo was now seen throwing off his sandals and rolling up his pantaloons, while Mr. Kit-ze, holding the sampan steady by means of his long pole, was giving him some directions. The next moment Mr. Chefoo sprang over the side of the sampan and into the water. He slipped once or twice as he was trying to make headway over the rocks, and two or three times also, he was seen to mire; but notwithstanding these difficulties he reached the birds all right, and was soon returning with them. As he came again to the side of the sampan it was toward the compartment occupied by the boys, the one in the rear of that in which all had been sitting since the boat left Han-Kang. He placed his hand upon the side of the boat to vault upward, but as he did so a quick exclamation escaped him, which the next moment changed to a decided whoop as Mr. Chefoo landed full in the compartment. A second or so later what was the astonishment of all when he dragged into view by the neck of his blouse a man, and began to shake him vigorously. To Helen was given something more than astonishment. Her heart leaped up, then almost ceased to beat. For the face exposed to view by Mr. Chefoo was the same she had seen on the river bank at Han-Kang with the glittering eyes fixed upon the red _miriok_ Mr. Kit-ze held. [Illustration: "HE BEGAN TO SHAKE HIM VIGOROUSLY."] CHAPTER V BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE The man made no effort to resist Mr. Chefoo, neither did he offer a word of protest, but stood silent and sullen, his lean face leaner than ever in its side view, his eyes half closed and gazing steadily downward. "The rogue!" cried Mr. Wilburn. "He was there for no good purpose. Come, sir, what have you to say for yourself?" But still the culprit made no answer. He only raised his eyes and let them sweep past Mr. Wilburn, past them all to Mr. Kit-ze, and rest there with a deep and burning glance. "Speak to him, Mr. Kit-ze," said Mr. Reid. "Find out what was his object in concealing himself in the sampan. It may be," he continued charitably, "that he wanted to steal a ride to one of the villages." But Mr. Kit-ze, instead of obeying this request, shifted himself a little farther away from the man, and seemed to be intent on something in the river. "I think Mr. Kit-ze doesn't want to get mixed up in any trouble," said Mr. Wilburn in an undertone. "He probably fears it may end in his having to appear before a magistrate. That always means a fine, you know, whether one is in the right or the wrong. It is evident, brother, that we must adjust this matter ourselves with Mr. Chefoo's help, since Mr. Kit-ze plainly doesn't want to take a hand in it." But neither threats nor persuasions could elicit a word of reply from the man. Even Mr. Chefoo's fine speeches failed. "Can he be deaf and dumb?" asked Mr. Reid finally. "No, father, he is not," replied Helen positively. All eyes were now quickly turned to her, astonishment plainly written on the faces. "Why, my daughter, how do you know?" "Because, father, I saw him in the crowd that surrounded me for a few moments on the bank of the river at Han-Kang. I distinctly heard him talking to himself, though I could not understand the words. I thought at the time," she continued, "from the way in which he regarded Mr. Kit-ze, that they might be acquaintances." As Helen spoke these last words, she turned her head so as to get a view of Mr. Kit-ze, but he still persistently kept his face turned away, while he seemed to be making aimless search in the river with his pole. He was assuredly doing nothing toward the progress of the boat, since that still remained stationary in the little rocky inlet toward which he had dexterously steered it when Mr. Chefoo had started for the birds. Desiring that he should understand what Helen had suggested, Mr. Reid repeated it to him. The man was no acquaintance of his, Mr. Kit-ze emphatically declared. "I think we had better pitch him into the river," said Mr. Chefoo, "and leave him to get out as best he can." "Yes," said Clarence, "he deserves a ducking, if no more." "No, we won't be so cruel as that," Mr. Reid replied, "although he may have been after no good. We'll go ashore at the next village and leave him." "But first," said Clarence, "hadn't you better search him? He may have taken something of value." "Yes, uncle," said Mallard, "we ought to do that." To this both Mr. Reid and Mr. Wilburn consented; but, though close investigation was made, nothing was found on the man, nothing, at least, to which they could lay claim. Mr. Reid gave the signal for the sampan to be headed again up the river. In the meanwhile, Clarence and Mallard kept watch upon the man, who had now assumed a squatting posture upon the floor of the sampan. To their surprise he began to mutter to himself. But even to Mr. Chefoo the words were unintelligible; all except the part of one sentence. In this Mr. Chefoo said had occurred the words, "Marble Pagoda," but he was evidently still as much mystified as the others. The village to which they soon came was one of considerable size, picturesquely situated in the midst of chestnut groves. There were too, many beautiful clumps of the umbrella pine over which vines of red and white roses luxuriantly abloom were running riot. A curious crowd swarmed around them at the landing. There were many in it who had never seen a foreigner. The soft hair and white skins of our friends called forth the most intense curiosity. Ridiculous too, were some of the comments. Question after question was directed to them. Some of these Mr. Chefoo answered. To others he paid no attention. Who were they? Whence had they come? Were their families respectable? Did their ancestors occupy tombs on the hillside? Could they take off their eyes and pull out their teeth as it had been reported that they could? All of these and many more came in rapid succession. When it was learned that they wanted to put a man ashore a great hue and cry was at once raised, and it was positively declared that this could not be done until the magistrate was seen and consulted. Thereupon, the magistrate's runners, six in number, appeared and assumed control of their movements. These runners were gorgeous in light blue coats, wide pantaloons of white, and big hats with red tassels. Yes, the magistrate must be seen, they declared. Nothing else would do. In a rash moment Mr. Reid consented to see the magistrate. It is safe to say that had he known the result he would at once have headed his sampan off up the river again even with its objectionable occupant. It was finally arranged that Mr. Reid, in company with Mr. Chefoo and the stowaway, should attend upon the magistrate while the others remained with the sampan. At the last moment Clarence begged to accompany his father, and consent was finally given. Mr. Reid could see no reason why the stowaway should be carried along with them, as he had really done nothing for which he could be punished. Their only desire was to leave him ashore. But the runners persisted that it was necessary that he too should go before the justice. The magistrate was seated on the floor of a small platform over which matting was spread. Around him, also squatting on their heels, were two or three of his assistants. The chief official had on a robe of deep blue silk, slashed to the waist at intervals, and with pipings of orange silk introduced between. Only a small portion of his crimson trousers was showing. On his head was perched a little hat of glazed horsehair ornamented with crimson tassels. Mr. Reid came into the room and very politely bowed to the magistrate, while Chefoo prostrated himself, as did the runners. Clarence, independent young American that he was, contented himself with saying, "Good day, sir," then began to use his eyes to their fullest extent. [Illustration: "CHEFOO PROSTRATED HIMSELF TO THE MAGISTRATE."] The magistrate took no notice of their presence. He merely remarked in a high key to his associates that foreigners were really demons, and that he couldn't see why they had ever been allowed in the country. As to himself, he had felt many times like setting up again, on his own responsibility, the tablets which, prior to the treaty, had declared that all foreigners were cutthroats and robbers, and should be killed on sight.[2] Each of these sentences Mr. Chefoo cheerfully translated to Mr. Reid. "The old barbarian," declared Clarence. "I feel like giving him a shaking." The magistrate now deigned to become aware of their presence. "Who are these who have dared to approach me?" he asked in a big, off-hand way, but all the while he was nervously regarding Mr. Reid and Clarence. Foreigners, he knew from experience, were not always the chicken-hearted people they were declared to be. The runners told him. "Well, what is you name, and whence do your come?" was asked of Mr. Reid. The replies came readily. "How old are you? Has your father gone and left you? and was he an honorable man?" To each of these, in turn, was given a cheerful response. "Well, what are you doing in the country, anyhow? Do they know you are away? Do you get a salary? How much is it?" After all these queries and many more had been answered to the magistrate's satisfaction, he deigned to hear the case that had been brought before him. When each detail had been gone over again and again, the magistrate put his head to one side, looked as wise as an owl for a few moments, and then proceeded to deliver himself of his decision. By paying five Japanese _yen_ (a _yen_ is one dollar), the man could be left ashore; but none of the rest could depart until he, the magistrate, visited the sampan and inspected its contents. He further added that he might come that evening if business permitted. If it did not, he would wait until morning. In the meantime they were to remain tied up where they were under the supervision of the runners. On Mr. Reid's protesting against the injustice of having to pay such an amount for the mere privilege of putting a native ashore who had concealed himself in his sampan, the magistrate retorted by assuring him that he would then charge him, the missionary, that amount for having come ashore himself without first having communicated with him, the magistrate. Mr. Reid knew very well that such a proceeding was far from legal, as he had his passport which he had shown, but at the same time he felt it would be better for many reasons to pay the amount than to contest the point. Fortunately, Mr. Reid had provided himself with a few of these valuable Japanese coins, which he carried on his person; otherwise he would have been subjected to the further delay of sending to the sampan, as the magistrate at once let it be understood that he could not depart until the amount was in hand. On their return to the sampan they found that the others too, had been having trials in their absence. The curiosity of the crowd had now become almost unendurable. Men, women, and children had even climbed upon the sampan. They had inspected everything. The two girls had called forth the deepest excitement and curiosity. It was their hair that caused the most comment, especially Helen's; it was so soft and bright. For Helen's hair, though her eyes were dark, was of a light chestnut color. One woman had even gone so far as to offer a dozen eggs for a piece of it. Then she wanted to handle it, but this Helen declined. The woman's eyes and her manner made her nervous. But Dorothy, more assured than Helen, took hers from its fastenings, shaking it about her shoulders, then stood beyond reach of the outstretched hands, laughing merrily at the expressions of countenance and the somewhat wild gesticulations. "Oh, Dorothy, how can you do that?" remonstrated Helen. "If it gives the poor things any enjoyment, I don't mind," replied Dorothy. "But don't you see that the sight of it that way excites them the more?" "Oh, it's good as a show," declared Joyce, almost shouting out in his delight. "Don't you mind sister, Miss Dorothy." Things were in this hubbub when Mr. Reid, Clarence, and the runners appeared. Mr. Reid joined in the effort to induce the people to withdraw from the sampan, but without success. Then the thought struck him that he would appeal to the runners. It is safe to say he hadn't the least conception of the result or, much as he wanted to get rid of the people, he would have hesitated. The runners at once charged pell-mell upon the surging crowd, shouting and yelling as though they were seeking to stampede a herd of cattle. Big hats, green coats, topknots, and wide trousers were soon jumbled together in a series of kaleidoscopic flashes, then quiet reigned once more around the sampan. The runners had done them this much good, if no more. The sun had almost disappeared behind the neighboring hills, and the night, traveling fast in that region, would soon be upon them. Still the magistrate had not appeared. They felt now that he would not come until morning. They were much provoked. Mr. Kit-ze especially showed displeasure. He had planned to reach the next town ere tying up for the night. There had already been too much delay at Han-Kang. He felt considerable compunction over this, and had been doing his best ever since to make up for lost time, and now felt thoroughly exasperated over this unnecessary detention. But there was no other course save to await the magistrate's pleasure. Supper eaten, with curious eyes all around watching their every movement, Mr. Reid prepared for the evening service. "We will go ashore," he said to Mr. Wilburn, "and take Mr. Chefoo. The others can join in from the sampan." They had no trouble to gather the people about them. Great was the wonder that spread as the services proceeded. A hymn was sung, a prayer made, a Bible lesson read, which Mr. Chefoo explained. Then with Mr. Chefoo still as interpreter, Mr. Reid began to speak to them. His words were about Jesus, our one ever-loving, steadfast friend. Exclamations of surprise, then of interest, began to be heard. "Could it be possible," they asked each other, "that there was One in the world who could love as this one loved? who could and did give his friendship 'without money and without price'?" As Mr. Reid ceased speaking, an old man approached him. Would the honorable teacher tell him again the name of this wonderful Friend? When told he kept repeating it over and over. Other touching incidents occurred. Many questions were asked. When Mr. Reid lay down to sleep that night, it was with the happy feeling that more than a passing impression had been made upon some hearts, as it was also with the determination that he would come again to break the bread of life to these hungry souls. Even when the crowd had left the sampan, scattered by the impetuosity of the runners, Helen still felt nervous. The persistency with which the women had pressed about Dorothy and herself, their incoherent words, burning glances, and fierce gestures had wrought her up to a high pitch of excitement. It was a long while ere she could go to sleep, even though her father assured her that it was to the interest of the runners to keep close watch upon the sampan. When at last Helen fell into slumber, it was to be disturbed by unpleasant dreams. In the midst of one of these she awakened with a start. She surely was conscious now, and what a moment of horror it was! for a rough hand was feeling its way along the meshes of her hair. A voice she knew from both tone and accent was no friendly one, was muttering in a manner that made her heart almost stop its beating. FOOTNOTES: [2] Before the treaty of Korea with the United States, while yet it was known as the Hermit Nation, tablets bearing inscriptions similar to that quoted by the magistrate were placed at intervals throughout the country. CHAPTER VI A FRIENDLY HAIL Helen's first impulse was to scream, but with a great effort she controlled herself. Then, reaching up quickly, she grasped the hand between both of her own, holding on to it tightly. Instantly there was a frightened exclamation, and a violent movement on the other side of the straw curtain almost against which Helen's head lay. The next moment, the hand was wrenched away, and she heard a heavy splash in the water. Peering out through the opening between the curtains, she saw two Korean women moving away from the sampan. Thus she knew her midnight fright had been caused not through any evil intention but from the exercise of pure curiosity. They had but carried into effect the desire for a closer inspection of her hair. So soundly did the other occupants of the sampan sleep that none of them were aroused by this incident, not even Dorothy. Thus it was an astonishing piece of news to them when Helen told it on the following morning. Dorothy was overcome by admiration for Helen's coolness. "O Helen, are you sure you didn't scream, not the least little bit? Oh, I never could have taken it as you did," and she drew her breath quickly. Others besides Dorothy had words of praise for Helen's fortitude. "Nine girls out of ten would have gone into hysterics," declared Clarence. "Put the percentage lower," warned Dorothy, shaking her fist at him in well-feigned indignation. "Well, seven out of ten then." "Oh, that is much better." It was long after breakfast when the magistrate condescended to appear. Then he kept them waiting an hour or more through his insatiable curiosity, for he must needs inspect everything in the boat, even to the faggots and the chicken coop. But at last they were off. They had been afraid that the man might attach himself to them again ere they left the village. However, up to the time of pushing off, they had seen nothing of him. He had been dropped on the way from the magistrate's the evening before, and evidently that was the last of him. As they went along now, Mr. Reid and Mr. Wilburn were discussing the event, as well as the man's probable meaning when he had muttered the words "Marble Pagoda." Both missionaries knew of the old Marble Pagoda in Seoul, one of the curiosities of the place, though, strange to say, not many seemed to care to go about it. The natives especially shunned it, that is, a large percentage of them did. They declared that it was filled with demons and haunted by all kinds of evil spirits. It stood in one of the foulest parts of the city, just back of a narrow alley, and all around it were clustered wretched-looking hovels. It was said to be more than seven centuries old. It had been originally thirteen stories, but during the Japanese invasion of three centuries before, three stories had been taken off. Many of the chambers contained the richest carvings, especially that known as the room of the Five Hundred Disciples. That had the images of many of the Hindu divinities. "I understand," said Mr. Wilburn, "that several bits of detached carving, some of them representing deities, and others the various stages of the progress of Buddha toward Nirvana, or the Buddhist heaven, have been found in the old pagoda up to a time within recent years. There is the story, not very old, of the young assistant of one of the Buddhist priests at a monastery in the mountains, who nearly forfeited his life by stealing one of the images that had been brought from the pagoda, a very rare and valuable one, by the way. But he escaped by the narrowest chance, though the priest hunted and hunted him for a long time, and may be doing it yet, for all I know." "What a fortunate thing for our missionary labors," remarked Mr. Reid, "that Buddhism was long ago abolished throughout the kingdom, and only a little colony of the priests allowed here and there in remote places." "Ah, my brother, but there are the horrors of demon worship with which to contend, and the stonelike barriers of ancestral worship to break away. The former is as bad as Buddhism, where it has taken deep hold." "As it has in our sampan man here," observed Mr. Reid with a sigh. "Oh, if I could only see some impression made on him by our teachings, some little inclination toward the truth as it is alone found in the pure gospel of Jesus." "Do not despair. He may turn to the better way in time. It seemed to me during the services last evening that he listened more intently than I had ever seen him. He seemed to be impressed too, by the questions that were asked, especially by the earnest ones of the old man." "Oh, but he is so persistent in his devotions to that wretched little image he has. Only this morning I saw him fondling it. Sometimes I feel like taking it from him and pitching it far out into the stream." "Oh but, father," said Helen earnestly, now joining the conversation because she felt that she must, "that would not be best, believe me." "But how are we to teach them a better worship until we take their miserable idols from them?" "Oh, father, we mustn't tear down to build up. If a man were living in an old and insecure house, we wouldn't pull it down over him, for fear of the damage it would do. If we were his true benefactors, we would simply invite him away from the old and into a better one." "Well said!" declared Mr. Wilburn, his eyes shining. "You are a true reasoner, Miss Helen." "But so long as they have these horrid images that they believe can counteract the evil effect of the demons, they will go on worshipping them. We must get them away." "But not by compulsion, father." "How then, Helen?" "By love." She reached out and took his hand as she said the words, and began to pat it softly. Her lips trembled but her eyes met his bravely. "Yes, my dear, yes, I know. When the heart is touched, love is the thing then with which to win them. But you can't pelt a stone wall with cotton, Helen, and hope to make any impression." "But, my father, if cannon were used, what would be the result? Only devastation. We can't drive these poor things away from their idols. We must coax them." "A woman's way, Helen. But, my daughter, you are doubtless right," he said a moment later. "I get so provoked at their persistency, their blind infatuation, I feel that I must use force, or at least warn them of God's wrath if they persist in their idolatry." "Tell them of God's love ever waiting to receive them, you mean, father?" "Yes, of God's love," repeated Mr. Wilburn, his eyes moistening as he looked at Helen, "the warm sunlight, gentle yet powerful, the one agent that, using no force, yet accomplishes what force cannot." They made pleasant progress all that day and the next. The views of the river and from the river grew more and more picturesque. They had now passed beyond the range of hills on the highest point of which stood the fortress of Nam Han, with its garrison of Korean soldiers. The river had grown broader and its banks lower. They passed many beautiful islands and had more than one experience with rapids. While navigating these, Mr. Reid had insisted on the girls' going ashore attended by Mallard and Mr. Wilburn. This they did, joining the sampan a mile or so above after some rather exciting adventures with the natives. However, as there was no worse spirit displayed than that of curiosity, they suffered more annoyance than alarm. Through a considerable part of that third afternoon they moved along in sight of several small villages inhabited by woodcutters and charcoal burners. At one of these Mr. Reid said he must stop, not only for the night but for much of the next day, for it was one that had been brought to the attention of his mission Board as an inviting field for the establishment of a station. At first the people were alarmed when they caught sight of the strangers. But on the assurance of Mr. Chefoo and Mr. Kit-ze that all were friends, they released their chickens and their queer-looking little pigs, not much bigger than rabbits, which they had begun to put in pens at the approach of the sampan. They listened eagerly to what the missionaries had to say, pressed closely to them during the services, and had many questions to ask, all of an earnest character. The magistrate too, at this place, to whom Mr. Reid had brought letters, treated them cordially and offered to assist him in any way he could. The chief men were also friendly and assured the missionaries that if they wanted to come and teach the new doctrine, they should have respectful attention. One thing in connection with their stay at the village caused special happiness to Mr. Reid. Mr. Kit-ze had not only paid deep attention during the services, but he had remained thoughtful for some time thereafter. He had also come to both Mr. Reid and Mr. Wilburn with questions. They remained all the next day, which was Friday, and that night at the village. Early the next morning the sampan was heading again up the river. "Where shall we spend the Sabbath?" asked Mr. Reid. "At Yo-Ju, I think, exalted teacher," replied Mr. Kit-ze. "If we pass the rapids without ill-luck, and push on steadily, we can reach there by the fall of the night." But they had trying times at the rapids, the longest and the most dangerous yet encountered, so that the late afternoon found them a good half-day's journey from Yo-Ju. They had now come to the mountains in all their wildness and ruggedness. Silence fell upon the little party. No word could be spoken amid all that awe-inspiring beauty. Then Mr. Reid's voice broke the stillness as he repeated the ninety-seventh Psalm, "The Lord reigneth." Though the way was so wildly picturesque on either side, yet the river at this place flowed peacefully along, washing about the shore of green islets or lapping the steep banks with a gentle murmur. Suddenly, from the midst of some overhanging vines near which they were passing, there came a loud hail. Then a voice added in very good English: "Pause, friends! O exalted teacher, do I see you once more?" "Why, that voice sounds familiar," said Mr. Reid. "Head the sampan toward the cliff, Mr. Kit-ze, and let us see what it means." Mr. Kit-ze had no more than started to obey when a small flat boat came out from the overhanging bank and made toward them. It had three occupants, an elderly man who was sitting midway of it, and two younger ones who were propelling it. The old man was bolt upright despite his years, and made an interesting and picturesque figure with his snow-white hair, which, as is altogether unusual in Koreans, was falling about his shoulders, and with his partly civilized dress. "Why, it is Mr. Ko!" cried Joyce. "Yes," said Helen, a smile breaking over her face, "it is he, sure enough. Oh, how glad I am!" "Old friend," cried Mr. Reid delighted, "can it be that I greet you again?" "Yes, exalted master. Your old servant heard you were coming up the river. So, lo, since the evening of yesterday he has been watching for you." [Illustration: "THE OLD MAN WAS BOLT UPRIGHT, DESPITE HIS YEARS."] Mr. Reid now introduced Mr. Ko to Mr. Wilburn and the others. The old Korean had lived for years at the capital. There he had known the missionary and his family through three or four years. During two of these he had lived at the mission as gate-keeper and errand man. Mr. Reid had heard that he had inherited some property and had gone away from Seoul. The old man was quite a character. He had shown considerable devotion to the missionary and his family, but Mr. Reid, with all his efforts in Mr. Ko's behalf, had never been able to get the old man further than the admission that the Jesus doctrine was a very fair sort of doctrine and, if he only had the time, he would give himself over to the practice of it. Now the old man was delighted at seeing the missionary and his children again. They must spend some time with him, he declared. Everything had been prepared for them. He had even secured a cook who could give them the food as they liked it. Oh, this was a wonderful man, indeed. Only yesterday he had come. "The good spirits sent him," asserted Mr. Ko, "I am certain they did." Nothing would do the old man but that Helen, at least, must have a glimpse of this wonderful cook the moment she reached the dwelling. "There he is," said Mr. Ko, with the delight of a child, pointing through an opening into the kitchen. A tall figure was bending over the _ang-pak_, or great rice jar. At sound of Mr. Ko's voice he raised his head and glanced around. It was the stowaway of the sampan. CHAPTER VII AN ENTREATY Helen uttered an exclamation, then moved toward Mr. Ko. He read the expression of her face quickly. "You know him?" he asked. "I do not know him, but I have seen him. He was on the sampan with us after we left Han-Kang." "Why, he did not tell me that! He only said that he had seen the honorable teacher and that he was coming. But no matter," continued Mr. Ko, and looking encouragingly toward the man. "He did not tell me because he had some reason not to. It is all right," he added cheerfully. "You may go on with the cooking." "I know him," he said, turning again to Helen. "He was my neighbor in Seoul two years ago. He is a good sort of fellow, only there seems to be something on his mind. I don't understand that. Never did." A deep perplexity now came to Helen. She could not decide whether or not to let the others know of the presence of the man at Mr. Ko's. She finally reached the decision to tell her father and Clarence and maybe Dorothy. There was, perhaps, after all, nothing wrong about the man. He had really done nothing to arouse their suspicions, only remained silent and sullen when he was questioned. She knew that her father believed that he had merely been stealing a ride. The only mysterious thing about him at present was his having so swiftly preceded them to Mr. Ko's. She afterward learned that he had fallen in with another sampan almost as soon as he had left them, and had worked his way up the river. While they lingered at the villages he had traveled. Though Mr. Ko had adopted some of the ways of civilization, he still ate very much after the Korean fashion. Thus when they sat down to supper it was at little round tables not more than a foot or a foot and a half high. Instead of cloths, they were covered with sheets of glazed paper. Rice was the principal diet. It was set in an earthenware bowl near the center of each table. In addition there was a soup of beef and onions thickened with barley, a batter bread made of flour and oil and a slight sprinkling of sugar, chicken curry, eggs, and rice fritters. Mr. Ko also had tea, a rarity for the rural districts of Korea. As Mr. Ko, Mr. Kit-ze, and Mr. Chefoo ate, they made a great noise with their mouths. This was done to show their appreciation of the viands, for in Korea, the greater the noise made while eating, the more forcefully defined is the compliment to the food. Mr. Ko's house was much better than that of the average farmer. It was built of poles, mud-daubed, but the walls of the principal rooms were covered with paper. There were little windows of thick glazed paper while the doors were set in frames of light bamboo. The sleeping arrangements consisted principally of mats with blocks of wood for pillows. In the winter the beds were made over the brick flues that ran through the rooms connected with the great oven where the baking was done. Thus, in winter, to sleep in a Korean house means to roast and freeze by turns, for while the fire is kept up it is hot indeed, and when it is allowed to go out then "cold as a stone" gives the literal condition of a brick bed. The house stood in a grove of mulberries, for to his other pursuits Mr. Ko added that of silkworm raising. There were clumps too, of the walnut and persimmon, with vines of the white and yellow clematis tangled amid their branches. Here the birds built, and here they poured forth their morning songs or chattered to their mates as they were going to bed at night. In front were the fields of wheat and barley, and farther down, in the very heart of the valley, the crops of rice. As it was near the end of April, the barley was already in ear and beginning to take on its russet coloring. Mr. Ko, being an old bachelor, there were only men about the house. He had a saying with reference to which Clarence teased Helen and Dorothy rather unmercifully. It was to the effect that where there were women there was sure to be trouble. "Oh, but Mr. Ko likes girls!" asserted Helen. "You can't make me believe otherwise, Master Clarence. He and I have been too long good friends." "What was that I heard him say last night?" asked Dorothy, a mischievous light in her eyes, "about sons and how they were like dragon's teeth in the sides of their parents?" Clarence looked rather sheepish at this quick turning of the tables on himself, and in a moment or so dexterously changed the conversation. On the following day, which was the Sabbath, two services were held in Mr. Ko's mulberry grove. At the first not many were present, but by afternoon scores had flocked to the place from the neighboring farms and from the village. Curiosity was plainly depicted on all the faces, but as Mr. Reid proceeded, it changed to eager attention on the part of several. Mr. Chefoo made a good interpreter. He was both careful and earnest. Already the sweet, simple truths the missionary taught were beginning to make their appeal to his own heart. It was the old story of Jesus and his sweet ministrations to men, his sympathy for them, his understanding of their needs, the great, warm, deep love that took in all, even the poorest and humblest. "And this Jesus is the same now as then," continued the missionary. "He is waiting to enter each heart and to possess it, to have our lives drawn nearer to his own, to bestow upon us the sweet knowledge of that companionship with him that may be ours through all the way." The services were barely concluded when Mr. Kit-ze came to ask questions. Gladness was in Mr. Reid's heart as he saw the moved, wondering look upon the boatman's face. He wanted to know if this Jesus, who could do so much for men, who wanted to be their friend, was very rich and powerful? Could he bestow honor and wealth as well as friendship? Mr. Kit-ze was told that the provisions of honor and wealth did not enter into Jesus' plans for the happiness of his people. He himself had shown his condemnation of the grasping hand, the covetous heart, by declaring that he who desired to be the greatest should be the least of all and servant to all. "But he gives that to us which is better than all the honor and riches of earth," continued Mr. Reid; "he gives us contentment of life and peace of heart. Would not you think these far better than money or land, my friend?" Mr. Kit-ze did not know. He had thought that it would indeed be a very fine thing to possess land and cattle and so comfortable a home as that of Mr. Ko. This, then, had been the thought uppermost with Mr. Kit-ze when contemplating the character of Jesus, the Divine Friend, and the thought of the possible worldly elevation the friendship might bring him. The missionary felt a deep pain at his heart as he realized whither Mr. Kit-ze's thoughts had led him. But at the same time there was something in his attitude to inspire hope. Mr. Kit-ze had been impressed. That was plainly evident. His mind was in a deep whirl of thought. Other and better things would surely be evolved from it in the end. Many times during that day he made fervent petition for Mr. Kit-ze. Mr. Kit-ze's perplexity increased as one thought after another came to him. The exalted teacher had not answered as he had hoped. All was still so uncertain, so unsatisfactory. Ah, now he knew what he would do! He would go to the daughter of the honorable teacher, to her who had the soft voice, the gentle ways, the kind heart. She could make it plain, she would tell it so that it would reach his understanding. Helen's heart leaped as Mr. Kit-ze asked her the questions. She could see how deeply in earnest he was. Oh, could it be that he was at last awakened, that he would search until he had found the truth, would accept Jesus as the one faithful Friend? His first and second questions aroused these thoughts; but the third, how it disturbed her, as it had also disturbed her father. It was the same question about earthly honor and wealth. "Dear Mr. Kit-ze," said Helen, taking his hand, and at that moment he felt that he would have done anything for her, "those who truly love Jesus, who have taken him as their Friend, do not think of such things in connection with what Jesus does for them. They know that whatever is best for them he will send, that whatever of good gifts they will use happily, he will bestow. But further than this they do not go, for, Mr. Kit-ze, when once we have taken Jesus, we must trust him for everything. We must not question or ask him for this thing or the other. Thus, Mr. Kit-ze, if you had a worldly friend, one in whom you believed with all the mind, in whom you trusted with all the heart, would you not willingly follow that friend wherever he bade you go and take everything from him as meant for your good?" "Oh, yes," said Mr. Kit-ze, "oh, yes." "Well, thus it is with Jesus. When we take him for our Friend, truly take him, we do not require anything of him. We leave all that to him and only trust him. He loves us. Oh, how he loves, Mr. Kit-ze! He is the truest lover in all the world. Could he, or would he, then, do aught else but what is best for the one beloved?" "Oh, daughter of the exalted teacher," said the boatman, his voice tremulous with some new-found emotion, "you have put that into Mr. Kit-ze's heart which will make him think, think!" He went away with his hand still pressed upon his heart and murmuring to himself. Helen had told her father of the presence of the stowaway in Mr. Ko's kitchen, and of her great surprise at finding him there. "Oh, I suppose there isn't anything mysterious about it, Helen," her father made answer; "nothing to be dreaded from him, I know. He looked inoffensive enough, though sullen, and you remember we didn't find anything on his person. I am only astonished at the rapidity with which he has made his way up the river; but from what you have since learned and have told me, that too is clear." Helen was glad her father took the man's presence in this way. She really felt sorry for the poor fellow. He had looked at her so pathetically the evening before ere she left the kitchen with Mr. Ko, and had murmured something in which she caught the words, "No harm, no harm." His eyes had not then the burning look she had noticed when they were fixed upon Mr. Kit-ze. Instead, they were soft and pleading. She was ready now to tell Clarence and Dorothy. They had walked down to the bluff for a view of the river and of the track of the setting sun as it moved across the water like some golden-freighted craft. Clarence, boylike, whistled his astonishment at the communication. "Why, Helen, how did he ever manage to get here so far ahead of us?" he asked at length. "It seems almost incredible." "On a sampan, as I have told you Mr. Ko informed me. There isn't anything so strange about that. What troubles me is the feeling that he is following us." "I think this time we followed him," observed Clarence trying to be a little witty. "But he was evidently awaiting us here." "Then we'll ask him his business," declared Clarence. [Illustration: "THEN, EXTENDING HIS HANDS, ENTREATED."] "No, Clarence, no," entreated Helen. "That might be the worst thing. I am sure he means no harm. Let us wait and see if he attempts to follow us away from here. Then we might inquire into his conduct." "I feel sorry for him," said Dorothy. "I can't help it, though he may mean no good. He looked so pitiful when he was being dragged away to the magistrate. He was frightened too, but he didn't have the appearance of one who contemplated wrong-doing." "I feel in that way myself," said Helen. "I----" But ere she finished the sentence, they were attracted by the noise of a step behind them. Turning, they saw the one whom they were discussing. With a hasty movement he prostrated himself before them; then extending his hands, entreated: "O friends, hear the story of poor Choi-So!" CHAPTER VIII THE STORY OF CHOI-SO Such a pathetic story as it was for the most part! One that caused the young people to listen to it with the deepest interest. Choi-So's mother had died when he was very young, too young to remember her. The woman who raised him had cruelly treated him. She had not only half-starved him, but she had often severely beaten him. Choi-So had not said it in so many words, but he gave his young hearers the impression that this treatment had so dazed him that his head was not altogether right. Sometimes he was like one in a mist, as he expressed it. His father was a very religious man. He was a dreamer too, a bad combination, since when one is constantly wandering away in thought, many of the plainest duties that are allied to a religious profession are apt to be neglected. He was a worker in straw. He made shoes and ropes and mats, the latter beautifully woven. He received a fair price for his work, and there was no reason why his child should have been starved except that the money that ought to have gone to his nourishment was appropriated to her own use by an unscrupulous woman while the father wove his mats and dreamed. Mr. Ang-su, Choi-So's father, had spent many years of his life in Japan. There he had married Choi-So's mother. There too, he had acquired his deep religious convictions. He was a devout Buddhist. As he sat and dreamed his young son entered into many of these dreams, was, in truth, the chief figure therein. Far better would it have been could he have occupied even for half the length of time his father's practical thought. Thus it came about that at eighteen Choi-So was sent to one of the Buddhist monasteries in the mountains, there to be prepared for the priesthood. Five years were spent in the dreary, monotonous routine that made up his life there. So many times during each period of twenty-four hours, from midnight till midnight again, he must hasten to the temple at sound of drum or bell, there to prostrate himself on the stone floor before the bow-kneed, brass-faced god, repeating, "_Namu Amit abul!_ _Namu Amit abul!_" (I put my trust in Buddha! I put my trust in Buddha!) One hundred and eight times he did this without stopping, to an accompaniment of bells, sometimes sounding soft and silvery, or again ringing out with harsh, loud clangor. He was also taught to take no life, not even that of a mosquito. If one troubled him more than he could endure, the venerable abbot instructed him that he was simply to get up and "shoo" it gently out of the room. His fare was hard and unsatisfying, consisting all the year round of rice and pressed seaweed, for no one who lived to the glory of Buddha must touch meat. Sad to say, this life was just the one that appealed to the melancholy boy. He had inherited much of his father's religious concentration and dreaminess of manner. Instead of having the desire to run away from this hard life, he daily applied himself the more earnestly to the task of learning to please Buddha, of so living that he might attain _Nirvana_! That was his highest desire. One day, just at the close of his five years, he came upon Mr. Kit-ze stranded upon the river bank, bruised and broken. He had had a desperate struggle for life in the rapids. Three ribs were broken and an arm badly injured. He had lost his cargo, and had very nearly lost his sampan; but, injured though he was, he had managed to cling to the latter and to get it safely to shore. However, it would need much in the way of repairs ere it could be used again. Choi-So, in deep pity for the wounded boatman, went for help, and had him assisted to the monastery. Mr. Kit-ze was conducted through the great arched gateway and into the reception hall. There the venerable abbot had come to him, and uttered the words of welcome, "Peace be unto you," and had then bidden that he be led away and his wounds treated. For two weeks Mr. Kit-ze had remained at the monastery. He had ingratiated himself into the favor of the priests. Especially had he won the trust and goodwill of Choi-So. The young man was his devoted attendant. The boatman was given many privileges. He was even permitted to look through a small sliding panel upon the priests at their devotions. This room, to which the monks were called so many times each day to their prayers, began to hold a deep fascination for Mr. Kit-ze. Its rich carvings, its many images, above all, the great bronze statue of the Buddha with the various smaller ones grouped about it, so chained his attention that for moments at a time he would continue to gaze as though spellbound. Choi-So had explained to him the mission of these smaller images. They were to teach man the various stages through which he was to pass ere Nirvana could be attained. Thus they were helps in the progress of life. Any one of them could bring to mind what man hoped, what he inherited through the strength and the faithfulness of Buddha. Much of this was unintelligible to Mr. Kit-ze. He knew nothing of Buddha, nor cared to know. But the images represented something that did appeal to him. This much he understood, or at least thought he understood. Any one of them brought good fortune to its possessor. That is the way he had read Choi-So's explanation. Mr. Kit-ze's mind was ripe for a suggestion of this kind. Among the losses he had sustained through the catastrophe in the rapids was one he felt more keenly than the others. Deeply superstitious, as is the greater part of his race, Mr. Kit-ze believed devoutly in the efficacy of certain charms. A grotesque figure he had carried on his person for years had again and again helped him to elude the demons that waited for him in the rapids. But for this his sampan would never have had the many safe journeys through the dangerous parts of the river, and but for the loss of this image during the earlier part of his late struggle in the rapids, calamity would never have befallen. He must replace this charm, this wonderful image of protection and helpfulness. What better could be found than what was here represented in this chamber, sacred to the great god before whom the priests prostrated themselves, and of whose power they made such astonishing recitals? Had he not been informed of the marvelous things that could be accomplished through the possession of even one of the images, of the part each bore in the fortune of man? He could not enter the chamber himself. He must work through Choi-So. [Illustration: "HE WAS PERMITTED TO LOOK ... UPON THE PRIESTS AT THEIR DEVOTIONS."] Poor Choi-So was in a sore state of mind at that time. Again and again he had felt, as he had described himself, like one walking in a mist. His father had recently died. For weeks now he had remained unburied, a custom very prevalent in Korea until such a funeral as the mourners desire can be given. His savings had been squandered by the wife who had so ill-treated Choi-So. There was nothing with which to lay the corpse away as the dutiful son felt would be fitting. So he waited and waited, praying and hoping and longing for the means to do honor to his father, or else become a wretched, miserable son, despised of all who knew him. It was then that Mr. Kit-ze tempted him, repeating the temptation until poor Choi-So had finally yielded. The image was stolen, but, to Mr. Kit-ze's shame, only a part of the price agreed upon had been paid. When Choi-So had followed him, beseeching the remainder, it was but to be cast off roughly. Another time he was threatened with the magistrate, and with exposure. This last threat drove Choi-So back to the monastery. But the theft had been discovered and traced to him. A companion priest informed him in time for Choi-So to make his escape ere the terrible punishment in store overtook him. Since then he had been a wanderer. He knew that his brother priests had sent one of their number in pursuit of him. His one object now was to recover the image, return it, and suffer the consequences. He could never be happy again until he had done it. He could never attain _Nirvana_ until reparation had been made and the image placed once more in the mystic circle about the Buddha. For three years now he had wandered in search of Mr. Kit-ze, but as the boatman had moved away from his old quarters at Seoul, poor Choi-So, for all his search, had never laid eyes upon him until that day on the river bank at Han-Kang. This story had been told in a broken way, and as Choi-So had but a small knowledge of English and his youthful listeners far from a full one of Korean, it was only by putting it together piece by piece, one supplying a link here and another one there, that they finally understood him. "Oh, friends," he entreated, holding out his hands pathetically to his hearers, at the conclusion of his story, "pity the sorrows of poor Choi-So. Help him to recover that which is the only thing that can bring peace to him again!" "The red _miriok_!" exclaimed Clarence, and looked at Helen significantly. "Yes," said Helen, "the red _miriok_. I had already felt that it had something to do with this poor man's following us." Then she told them of her impressions on the river bank as she had first noted Choi-So and the manner in which his gaze had been riveted upon Mr. Kit-ze and the red _miriok_. "Poor thing," she continued, her eyes fixed pityingly upon Choi-So, "it is all very serious to him, and we can see how he has suffered through it." "But how can we help him?" asked Dorothy. Her sympathies too were deeply aroused. "Mr. Kit-ze will never give up the image, I fear," she continued. "We might make him do it," said Clarence quickly, "or pay him to do it." "No," said Helen emphatically; "we cannot. Neither will do." "What then?" asked Clarence. "We might win him to the better way," said Helen softly. "We might coax him to give up this wretched little image for the sweeter things we could help him to attain." "What! Mr. Kit-ze?" cried Clarence incredulously. "Never! He is too hardened." "Clarence, how wrong to say that! Has not God's love shown its power to reach even those more hardened than Mr. Kit-ze?" "But what can we do for this poor fellow here?" repeated Dorothy. Helen turned her eyes upon Choi-So. As she noted the lean and pallid face, the deep-set eyes in which the light of fanaticism burned steadily, courage, hope, both left her. "Oh, I am sure I don't know!" she cried in despair. Just at that moment Mallard was seen hastening down the path toward them. From the manner in which he came they felt sure he was the bearer of a message of some kind. "I have bad news," he said as he approached. "Oh, what is it?" cried Helen, thinking instantly of her father. "Do not be alarmed, cousin," he hastened to assure her. "It is nothing so dreadful. There has been an accident. Mr. Chefoo slipped at a steep place on the river bank, fell, and has broken his arm." CHAPTER IX A THEFT Yes, Mr. Chefoo had broken his arm. It was too bad! for aside from the pain and discomfort that it gave him, how were they to get on with the sampan without him? It is true, it was not a very severe fracture, only one of the smaller bones having been broken; but it would be at least two weeks ere he could use it again. In the meantime, what was to be done? Mr. Kit-ze could not manage the sampan alone. Some one must help him pole as well as keep the boat within the proper channel. It would be a very one-sided and unsatisfactory progress if the sampan were propelled from only one end. Mr. Ko thought of a half-dozen men who were at hand, but none were reliable. It would be better without them than with them, especially as there were rapids to be passed. Mr. Ko was very much disturbed over the accident to Mr. Chefoo, because of its having occurred at his place. He was sure a demon had caused it. It was the demon in the well, he finally decided, since Mr. Chefoo had been at the well ere proceeding down the path where the accident occurred. The demon must be appeased, he declared, and forthwith proceeded to throw rice into the well. Now Mr. Chefoo's arm would rapidly mend, he asserted. Monday morning had come, and still there seemed no prospect of resuming the journey to Yo Ju. "We must get on," said Mr. Reid, "our time is limited. We must make some arrangement for an assistant for Mr. Kit-ze." Mr. Chefoo had now a high fever and was unable to sit up. It had been decided to leave him with Mr. Ko until their return, which would be in about three days, as they were not going much beyond Yo Ju. In the midst of their perplexity Mr. Ko came to them with a beaming face. He knew the very thing! Why had he not thought of it before? They could take Mr. Choi-So. Now that his honorable guests were about to depart, he, Mr. Ko, would not need his cook. Mr. Choi-So himself was anxious to go along with them. He had approached Mr. Ko on the subject. He was an excellent poleman, quick and careful. He had several times assisted in carrying sampans up and down the river, twice for Mr. Ko himself. Besides, he bore an excellent character. Mr. Ko knew him. He had known his father too. "I see no reason why we shouldn't take him," said Mr. Reid. [Illustration: "HE FORTHWITH ... PROCEEDED TO THROW RICE INTO THE WELL."] But Mr. Wilburn opposed this. He had not liked the man's concealment of himself in the sampan, neither had he been favorably impressed by his appearance on that occasion. His sullen, hang-dog look had betokened anything but innocence. He could have been after no good. Mr. Wilburn's suspicions had been strengthened by the presence of Choi-So at Mr. Ko's. Neither Mr. Reid nor Mr. Wilburn had learned the story of the red _miriok_, or image of Buddha, as it ought more properly to be designated. The young people, after consulting among themselves, had decided to tell no one, at least not until they could agree on some plan. Mr. Choi-So had given them his confidence. He evidently trusted them and believed that they could help him. If he wanted the others to know too, then he would tell them. He showed plainly that he feared Mr. Wilburn and was not at ease with Mr. Reid. Helen and Clarence both felt that they wanted their father to know, but they respected Mr. Choi-So's feelings. Perhaps he would himself tell the missionary. Things were in this unsatisfactory state when Mr. Choi-So's offer to attend them as poleman was made known. The young people were pleased. It was the very thing, they thought. It would give them more time to decide upon some action, for the desire was now keen with each one to secure the _miriok_ from Mr. Kit-ze and return it to Mr. Choi-So. "The poor fellow will go demented if we do not," declared Clarence. "He is half crazy on the subject, anyhow. We can at least try to give him peace of mind." "I wish we could give him something else," added Helen wistfully. "But we can't," asserted Clarence; "at least not now. His mind is too upset about the _miriok_. Besides, Mr. Kit-ze has really treated him dishonestly. He ought to be made to give the image back to him. The poor fellow has pinched and saved until he has the amount Mr. Kit-ze paid, so he told us." "Oh," said Helen, "if only I could talk to this poor Choi-So so that it would go to his mind and then to his heart, how happy I should be! If only I could show him that this image for which he is willing to sacrifice life itself is only a wretched little piece of metal!" "But he ought to carry it back," said Clarence. "And run the chance of being thrown into a dungeon, fed on bread and water, and kept there perhaps for years without ever hearing of a single one of the sweet and precious things Jesus wants to do for him? Oh, it is dreadful! He had better lose the _miriok_." "And lose his mind with it? No, my sister, believe me that is not the right way for poor Choi-So. Let us get the _miriok_ for him--that is, if we can--and perhaps afterward we may induce him to return it by messenger and listen to us." Mr. Wilburn was finally induced, through Mr. Reid's clear and forceful way of presenting the matter to him, to withdraw his opposition to Choi-So's accompanying them as poleman; but not so Mr. Kit-ze. He had been the last one to discover Choi-So's presence at Mr. Ko's, and this had been only a short time before the stowaway's offer to take Mr. Chefoo's place. The old boatman made quick and stormy objections. He would not, he declared, permit such an idiot to handle a pole of his sampan, for he was one who had no sense for moving his hands two ways at once. If ever he had had any sense it was under his arm, for it certainly had never been put into his head for the lack of room there. But after a time Mr. Kit-ze grew cooler and seemed, to some extent, to be ashamed of his outburst, especially as Helen had now drawn near to him and taking his hand, was gazing at him reproachfully. "Don't say that, Mr. Kit-ze," she said. "You don't really know that he can't help you with the sampan, do you?" regarding him steadily. "Only try him, won't you? Think what it means to us to be delayed here. Oh, we must go on, and you must help us, Mr. Kit-ze, by your consent. Perhaps it will only be to Yo Ju, as we may find another poleman there to suit us." Thus Helen pleaded, and little by little Mr. Kit-ze's heart relented, his opposition relaxed, till he at length agreed to Choi-So's accompanying them as far as Yo Ju. But the stipulations were that he was not to move from his end of the sampan, and at night he was to leave them. "Mr. Kit-ze is afraid of him," commented Mr. Wilburn. "He can read the rascal in him as plainly as I can." "I hope it will be proved ere we part from our poleman, that both you and Mr. Kit-ze are mistaken," said Mr. Reid earnestly. "I can't believe that there is anything vicious in the man. He hasn't at all that appearance to me. To my eye it is more an anxiety to get up the river than anything else I can detect." Mr. Ko was pleased that they had finally decided to take Mr. Choi-So. "You won't regret it," he asserted. "He'll take you over the rapids better than any one I know; and," he concluded, looking at Mr. Reid a little peculiarly, "it's my opinion you won't dismiss him at Yo Ju. At any rate, I'll have you a good poleman by the time you come back." By ten o'clock they were ready to be off, having bidden good-bye to poor Mr. Chefoo after having spoken all the consoling words to him they could. In honor of their departure, Mr. Ko had donned a spotless suit of white. He had also sought to enhance his appearance by adding an immense pair of spectacles, which he had purchased at considerable outlay, from an old scholar. It mattered not that one lens was entirely lacking and the other was so badly cracked that it was a question as to whether Mr. Ko could use the vision of that eye with any satisfactory effect. All the same, he stood upon the bank waving his fan majestically, his little black eye gleaming from out the great round space where the lens ought to have been, and all the time shouting out to them in Korean, "Come back again to-morrow!" That meant, "Return as soon as you can." Mr. Choi-So soon proved his right to all the good things Mr. Ko had spoken of him. He was an excellent poleman, both alert and careful. He helped engineer the boat safely through the rapids in a manner that called forth grunts of approval from even Mr. Kit-ze. About four o'clock in the afternoon they came in sight of Yo Ju. Besides being a city of considerable size, it was noted as the birthplace of the queen, and the king had caused two or three public structures to be erected in her honor. There were many sampans, junks, and other rude craft at anchor in front of the city, and they had much difficulty in making their way through them. But at length they reached the shore safely. They had not more than tied up when an immense crowd began to gather about the sampan, even wading out into the water. The crowd was not only curious, but annoying. They handled the clothes and hair of our friends, and even tried to run their hands over their faces. But to this not only protest but resistance was offered. Soon after reaching the bank, Mallard had climbed out on an end of the sampan and steadied his camera for a snap of the city. He thought it a splendid opportunity, as the sun was falling full upon the great gateway and the queer looking buildings grouped near to it. He at once attracted the attention of the crowd. Great curiosity was aroused as to his intention, and soon men, women, and children were rushing toward him. They clambered up the side of the sampan. They pressed about him until there wasn't space to hold another foot. They poked fingers into eyes and ears and nose; they shouted in glee as they caught the flash of the lens in the instrument, and tried to pull it out. In consternation Mallard endeavored first to protect himself, then his camera, and was finally pushed into the water, saving the latter from both a smashing and a wetting by the narrowest margin. The same curiosity followed them as they went up into a gate tower for a view of the city. The crowd pressed about them so they could barely enter. Even after they began to ascend the stairs the curious throng crowded about them so that the entire space was filled. When they attempted to come down again, to their consternation they found they could not. They had finally to make their way back from the outside, a rough and somewhat dangerous undertaking. Fortunately neither was Joyce nor were the two girls with them. "This will never do," said Mr. Reid. "We must get away from this terribly curious crowd, for the annoyance they give us will become more than a burden after a while. Mr. Kit-ze, is there no place, not so far away, where we can tie up without the prospect of having such curiosity as this to endure?" "Yes, honorable teacher, not so far away is the temple of the great Dragon. There are overhanging trees, a quiet river bed, and not many people who will come to gaze." "Then let us go there by all means. To-morrow morning we'll find our chance to enter the city." They made their way out through the forest of river craft and up the stream again. The great temple stood directly on the banks of the Han, some little distance from the city. It was a beautiful spot, picturesquely so, for in addition to the brick and stone pagodas that gleamed through the trees, there was a number of small islands clustered about, covered with low-growing verdure and spangled with the blossoms of the pink and white azalea. The temple in itself had much with which they could occupy their time. Among other things was a quaint bell, in a perfect network of dragons, said to be more than five hundred years old. But as the sun was near to its setting as they came to anchor in a quiet spot along the banks, they decided to do no exploring for that afternoon. Mr. Kit-ze had spoken truly, "there were not many who came to gaze." Though it was a kind of outlying village and had several hundred inhabitants, yet only a few of them appeared on the arrival of the sampan. Most seemed closely occupied with their pursuits. However, a little group of women and children pressed near to the sampan, but no one proved offensive except a mutang (sorceress), who, in the end, gave them considerable trouble. She contended that she must be given two _yen_ so as to decide for them whether or not the Dragon would be pleased at their stay in the front of the temple. She finally fell to one _yen_, then to six hundred "cash," but still our travelers paid no attention to her. She had an evil eye, Dorothy asserted, and further declared that she knew she could not sleep that night for thinking of her. Mr. Kit-ze showed even more impatience with her than the others. They didn't need her divinations, he told her, for they had that with them that could overcome any evil from the dragon. Then he injudiciously gave her a view of the red _miriok_. How her keen little black eyes glowed as she caught sight of it! and the sudden look she cast upon Mr. Kit-ze made Helen, who was closely watching the scene, feel uneasy despite herself. Helen had been earnestly regarding Mr. Kit-ze through a large part of that afternoon. There was that in his manner that at times disturbed her, but again it seemed as though hope were creeping into her heart. He had been absent-minded and dejected for much of the way, but now and then he had aroused himself. At such times he had turned with keen glances in the direction of Choi-So, studying every lineament of the young man's face, it seemed to Helen. Always these searching looks were bestowed upon Choi-So when he was not in turn regarding Mr. Kit-ze. Helen was sure that better feelings were stirring at the heart of Mr. Kit-ze on these occasions, for she could see how his eyes softened and his lips moved nervously as he continued to gaze. According to agreement Choi-So had been dismissed as night approached; but Helen, who had been very observant, was sure he was not far away. Indeed, while walking on the bank for exercise, she had caught sight of his face from a small clump of bushes only a few steps from where she was. She decided at once that she would not call attention to him. Her heart was tender for him. She did not believe that he would do harm. Soon silence settled down around the sampan, for its inmates had retired to rest. Several hours of the night passed away. All were supposed to be asleep except Mr. Kit-ze, whose watch it was. But, after a while, Mr. Kit-ze too yielded to slumber. Suddenly Helen awoke. It was with a strange, restless feeling. It seemed to her that there had been an uneasy consciousness even in the midst of her slumber. She tried to go sleep again, but could not. "I think the air in here must be a little too close," Helen thought after a few moments. She raised herself and leaned toward the heavy curtain of straw. Then she rolled it partly upward, secured it to the fastenings, and looked out. She was sleeping at the side of the sampan next to the shore. All was quiet. She could see no one. Then she let her eyes glance toward the bow of the boat. Mr. Kit-ze was huddled down in his little boxlike apartment sound asleep. "Oh," said Helen, "this will never do! I must call my father to awaken him." But even as she started to move toward her father's apartment, she stopped again, almost transfixed. A hand had cautiously made its way up the side of the sampan, and was now directing itself toward Mr. Kit-ze's breast. CHAPTER X AN ARRESTED SACRIFICE The hand moved nearer and nearer Mr. Kit-ze's breast; a moment more and it had buried itself in the folds of his robe. Even as Helen continued to gaze like one transfixed, ere yet she had the power to recover herself, a face appeared above the hand. But it was not the face she had expected to see--that of Mr. Choi-So. Instead, the moonlight showed her clearly the repulsive countenance of the old _mutang_. There are moments when sudden excitement leads us into a line of action our cooler moments would by no means approve, when quick emotions bring impulses that are followed without a pause for reasoning. Such a time had now come to Helen. Mr. Kit-ze was being robbed. She could see that plainly. The thief was the old _mutang_, and the object of her theft, it almost instantly flashed into Helen's mind, was the red _miriok_. In truth, even as the intuition came to her, she saw the hideous little image in the woman's hand. All Helen's energies were now bent toward a frustration of the old woman's design of carrying away the _miriok_. She, Helen, must recover it ere the _mutang_ got off with it. For if the _miriok_ disappeared, how could she ever carry out her good intentions for either Mr. Kit-ze or Choi-So? All would be frustrated. For would not Mr. Kit-ze be violently angry? and would he not at once charge the theft to Choi-So? And what might not happen? As to poor Choi-So, he would surely grow demented when he found that the image had gone beyond his reach--oh, she felt that he would! In her sudden excitement, Helen never stopped for reasoning. Hence it did not occur to her that her testimony would exonerate Choi-So with Mr. Kit-ze, nor that, so far as the part relating to Choi-So was concerned the old _mutang_ might be located and the stolen image recovered. All that Helen then thought of was the recovery of the _miriok_. She must get it and at once. Even now the woman was slipping away with it. If she waited to arouse the others the old woman would be gone, for at the first sounds of alarm, she would speed away like a hunted animal up the bank. Helen knew the magic influence of money, especially of shining _yen_. Had not the old woman shown her greed for them during the afternoon? If the _miriok_ could be recovered, it would surely be through the agency of the _yen_. Both girls had lain down in the loose wrappers they wore for comfort during a part of the day. In the pocket of hers Helen had her purse. Besides a few smaller silver pieces there were in it three _yen_. She leaned quickly over Dorothy; she placed her arm under her neck and gently shook her, all the while whispering: "Get up quickly, dear, and come with me. Don't speak out, don't question; only come and be quick! quick!" Fortunately, Dorothy was not hard to arouse when once she had been touched. Like some even heavy sleepers whom a vigorous call cannot awaken, the touch was like magic. In a second or so she was fully awake, and gazing at Helen in deep wonder but alert. "It is the red _miriok_!" said Helen to Dorothy again in a whisper. "The old _mutang_ has come and stolen it from Mr. Kit-ze. He does not know it, and there is no time to arouse him and the others. We must recover it. If we are quick we can overtake her before she gets away. Then this will accomplish the rest," she added, confidently holding up the purse. The _mutang_ had now sprung down from the side of the sampan into which she had crept, and was moving rapidly up the slight incline when Helen and Dorothy in turn reached the bank. She saw them almost instantly and, with a muffled cry, very much like the growl of an animal, increased her speed. "Stop!" said Helen in low tones, and as persuasively as she could. "Stop! We only want to talk to you. We mean no harm." But the old woman either did not understand them or she would not stop. It was evidently the latter, for as much as she could, she quickened her pace. But swift as she was, Helen and Dorothy were even swifter. They were only a pace or two behind her as the top of the bank was reached. It was not far from daylight. The signs of the approaching dawn had already begun to appear along the eastern sky. At the brow of the bluff and stretching away from the temple, was the village of rude mud huts, with now and then a more pretentious one showing in their midst. There was one principal street which ran along between the rows of huts. The _mutang_ made for this with Helen and Dorothy close behind her. "Stop!" entreated Helen again, and louder than before. "Oh, do stop! We mean no harm. We only want to talk to you." But the more earnestly she entreated, the more determined the old woman seemed to be to resist her, to escape from her. Helen had now drawn near enough to lay hold of the old woman's clothing, but her grasp was violently shaken off, as the _mutang_ sprang away again with renewed energy. The two girls, intensely excited, stuck to the chase. All their thoughts were concentrated upon it; their one desire to overtake the old woman and to induce her, by offering _yen_ in exchange, to return the _miriok_. Absorbed in these thoughts, this desire, they lost sight of all else, especially of how every moment that they were getting nearer and nearer to the woman they were going farther and farther away from the sampan. [Illustration: "'STOP!' ENTREATED HELEN!"] "Oh," said Helen breathlessly, "we must overtake her! We must get her to give us the _miriok_. We can't let her escape with it in this manner, for what then could we do about poor Choi-So and Mr. Kit-ze?" "Yes," replied Dorothy, "we must get it back. I am like you, Helen, I can't bear to see the old woman get off with it. Oh, every time I think of that poor man Choi-So and his melancholy, pleading eyes, I feel that we must keep on, that we must overtake her and secure the image by some means!" "Why," said Helen suddenly, "I have forgotten to tell her about the _yen_ I have for her." Then she began to call, holding up her purse: "See! I have _yen_ for you. Stop and let me tell you about it." At last she had used the magic words. At sound of them, twice repeated, the _mutang_ slackened her pace. Then she turned her head. Encouraged by these signs, Helen renewed her efforts. They were now some distance into the village, and a half-mile or more from the sampan. The red glow of the coming morning had fully dyed the east. Already there were signs of stirring life in the huts about them. Then too, the noise of running feet and of Helen's loudly spoken words had attracted attention. One by one forms began to appear on the street. Soon there was quite a group in the neighborhood of the pursued and pursuers. By the time Helen had succeeded in gaining the old _mutang's_ interest, there were many curious spectators surrounding them. "What is all this commotion about?" asked one man as he approached. Then as he noted the _mutang_ he stopped respectfully. The old woman had now paused in her running, and had turned toward Helen. "What were the words? Say them again." Helen repeated them. "Why are you running after me in this way? Why do you offer me _yen_?" she now asked angrily. Helen told her as simply and as plainly as she could. At this the old woman's eyes blazed more than ever. But she seemed to take a second thought, and asked cautiously, "How many _yen_?" "Two," replied Helen, closely watching her face. The old woman shook her head vigorously, then began to stamp. "Too little! too little!" she said. "Your head is under your arm to think I'd be such an idiot!" Then she set off again. "Three!" called Helen desperately, for she knew this was the limit of her resources so far as _yen_ were concerned. "No! no!" shouted the old woman. "Too little! too little! Five or none." As the last sentence was uttered, she turned to see its effect on Helen, but as there was not the response she expected, she renewed her efforts to get beyond their reach. "Oh, if I only had my purse too!" said Dorothy. "But I gave it to my brother yesterday just before we left Mr. Ko's." In her despair Helen called after the old woman again and again to stop, to turn back with them to the sampan, promising her the _yen_ she desired if only she would do so, and further assuring her that no harm should come to her, for Helen knew Mallard would gladly supply the amount of _yen_ she lacked. She would tell him about the _miriok_. She had been intending to do it the first favorable opportunity. There was now quite a hubbub in the street, for in addition to Helen's calls and Dorothy's added entreaties, there were the shrill cries of defiance of the old _mutang_ herself. People had come running from all directions, and their loudly voiced questions and exclamations added to the noise. Among others there came five runners, the court officers of a near-by _yangban_ (gentleman), who was serving as magistrate. When they saw the two girls they began to cry out something against the hated foreigners, and three of them at once took Helen and Dorothy into custody, while the other two hastened away to capture the _mutang_. They were too hardened to mind the old sorceress and her wiles. Moreover, the court was no respecter of persons. Helen and Dorothy were now much frightened and, for the first time, began to realize what they had done in setting off on this mad chase after the old _mutang_. Helen was the first to recover herself. "I guess," she said, "it won't be so dreadful. They won't dare hurt us. And soon our dear ones in the sampan will come to the rescue, for surely we can get them word. Anyhow, it won't be long ere they miss us, and they'll search the town over till they find us." A young man, whom Helen declared looked more honest than any of the others, was soon engaged, in consideration of the offer of two of Helen's smaller silver pieces, to carry the news of their predicament to the sampan. But alas for Helen's confidence! After securing the silver he had taken only about a dozen steps toward the river when, overcome by curiosity to see the thing out, he turned back. The _mutang_ had now been captured, but not until she had made such vigorous resistance that not only the clothing of the runners had been torn, but their faces also scratched. In close company with the old _mutang_, and with the runners encircling them so that there could be no chance of escape, and a leering, hooting mob following them, the two girls were conducted along the street to the house of the _yangban_. "Oh, Dorothy," said Helen, "this is dreadful!" and, in her pain and mortification, she sought to conceal as much of her face as she could with her hands. "Yes," said Dorothy, on the verge of tears. "Oh, Helen, it would have been better, many times, to have let the _miriok_ go." "No," said Helen, "no!" It was now sunrise, but far too early for the magistrate. They were informed that they must wait an hour or more. Dorothy and Helen were finally permitted to enter the women's apartments. They afterward learned that it was through the overwhelming curiosity of the _yangban's_ chief wife. At the entrance they were laid hold of by the serving-women and fairly dragged into the apartment. There they had a trying experience which lasted nearly an hour. To them it seemed five times that length. Their clothing, their faces, and their hair in turn were inspected, and by each wife. They were bidden to take off their shoes, their wrappers, and other wearing apparel, and each wife in turn must try on each article. But the bulk of the curiosity was directed toward Helen's hair. It seemed that the women would never tire of handling it. They even wanted to cut it off, and but for Helen's heroic efforts, aided by Dorothy's quick ingenuity, would have succeeded. At length they were summoned before the _yangban_, the wives, unable to restrain their curiosity, following them to the room, where they sat behind a screen. The _yangban_, who was quite a young man, was lounging on his platform and smoking an immense cigar. He was dressed in a pea-green silk robe confined by a red girdle, and on each hand was a very showy paste-diamond ring. He had ordered the outer door to be thrown open, and had allowed as many of the curious crowd to enter as could be accommodated within a certain space. Near him stood his interpreter, for he had early been informed that two of the accused were foreigners. After smoking awhile in silence, he commanded the offenders to be brought before him for the usual form of questions. He began with Helen. As she stepped a little apart from the others, and nearer to the magistrate, in her earnestness to tell him her story, she happened to raise her eyes for a moment and let them rest upon the crowd gathered at her left. As she did so a little muffled cry escaped her. There, standing almost in the front line, and with his dark eyes fixed mournfully upon her, was Choi-So. How had he come there? Afterward she learned that he had not been far away from the sampan, and, sleeping very lightly because of the thoughts that disturbed him, had been attracted by the sound of running feet and by Helen's calls to the old woman. He had overtaken them just as they had been arrested and started to the _yangban's_. He had heard Helen try to tell one of the runners the cause of the trouble. He had gleaned just enough to set him on fire with interest and excitement. For an instant Choi-So's presence at the magistrate's court so disconcerted Helen that she could not remember the words she had been on the point of uttering. But soon more confidence returned, and she began bravely to tell her story. The magistrate listened patiently, but he was evidently full of curiosity and deeply excited over the appearance of the two young girls. Though he had seen the white foreigners on the streets of Seoul, yet he had never before been brought in such contact with them. The fearless, earnest manner of both girls impressed him and had much to do with his decision. The _mutang_ should return the image, he declared. He had not asked to see it yet, and so was in no wise impressed by it. Helen and Dorothy had proved to be of such tremendous interest that all minor objects had been for the time obscured. Yes, the _mutang_ should return the image, and the _yen_ that Helen had offered should go to himself. This decision was barely rendered when there came a communication from his chief wife. He appeared to frown over it for a few moments, all the while smoking hard. Then he further announced, and in the most laconic manner, that Helen was to sacrifice her hair ere receiving the image. A cry of dismay escaped Helen, while Dorothy, hot with indignation, began to pour out her protests, first to the magistrate, then to Helen. "It can't be done! You can't think of such a thing! Don't! _Don't!_" "Oh, yes," said Helen, who had now grown strangely quiet and calm. "It isn't such a dreadful sacrifice, dear. There are many far worse. I can endure it. My hair will grow out again. Oh, surely it is worth this when we remember what it means to get back the _miriok_!" All the while she was speaking, though she was looking at Dorothy, yet Helen saw those mournful eyes that she knew were fixed upon her from the other side of the room. "Take the scissors, Dorothy," she entreated. "I had forgotten until now that I had my folding ones here in the little case in my pocket. Oh, it will be so much better for you to do it, dear, for I couldn't bear any of those rude hands to touch me." Dorothy took the scissors, but still making vigorous protest. "Do, Dorothy, _do_, my dear," pleaded Helen. With trembling hand Dorothy grasped the rich, shining braid. The scissors were raised; but ere the two gleaming blades could close on the glossy strand, a voice cried out authoritatively: "_Stop! Stop!_" Helen and Dorothy raised their eyes simultaneously. It was Mr. Kit-ze. He had pressed to the extreme limit of the line of spectators, and with his hat gone, his clothing in wild disorder, his eyes gleaming like two globes of fire, was gesticulating frantically to the magistrate. CHAPTER XI "ONE SOUL" Mr. Kit-ze continued to gesticulate and to cry out to the magistrate, although those near-by sought to restrain him. He even tried to pass the barrier, but was each time pushed back by the guards. The magistrate at first appeared not to notice him, but after a while, overcome by his curiosity, he turned his head and called to Mr. Kit-ze: "What do you want, fellow? I'll put you in the _cangue_[3] if you don't cease that noise." "A word!" cried Mr. Kit-ze. "A word with you, O most high and exalted!" The magistrate eyed him a moment nonchalantly. Then he said to a runner: "Bring him here." Mr. Kit-ze approached and, falling upon his heels, prostrated himself three times before the _yangban_, touching his forehead to the floor each time. As he arose, there fluttered from his fingers a strip of yellow ribbon, and those who were near to him saw stamped upon it in red a dragon with four wings and tongue extended. "See!" said Mr. Kit-ze, as he held it before the magistrate. "See! O renowned son of a renowned father. O most exalted, I claim the promise." A look of intelligence began to dawn in the magistrate's eye. He looked closely at the streamer of yellow ribbon. "Go on," he said to Mr. Kit-ze. "Go on, but keep your head above your shoulders, so as to make clear what you are trying to say." "On a blessed day for your poor, miserable servant," began Mr. Kit-ze, "your exalted person came down the Han in a craft that went to grief in the rapids. Your polemen, losing their heads, deserted, and but for the assistance of the unworthy being now speaking to you and his poleman, there would have been neither craft nor cargo belonging to your exalted self to enter Seoul. You gave me _yen_, but you gave me this too," holding the ribbon nearer as he spoke, "and your most eloquent tongue, that always speaks straight, declared that if there was ever anything this miserable wretch desired of you that could be granted, it should be so." "I remember," said the magistrate. "Go on." "I ask you now, O renowned and honorable, to spare the hair of the daughter of him who is known as the exalted teacher," and here Mr. Kit-ze turned toward Helen, who, ever since his sudden appearance, had been regarding him with a questioning if not puzzled wonder. How had he come there, and where were the others? Had he alone learned of their whereabouts, and how had it so happened? "Take instead something of your wretched servant's," continued Mr. Kit-ze to the magistrate, "and leave undisturbed the beautiful strands that are a happiness to her whom they adorn and a joy in the eyes of those who love her." "Oh, Mr. Kit-ze," said Helen softly, a great, warm flood of feeling sweeping over her heart as she comprehended what he had asked and noted the deep earnestness in his eyes as he turned them upon her, "don't mind about my hair; please don't. It won't be so dreadful to me to lose it. Don't get yourself into trouble for my sake," and now she laid her hand upon his shoulder in earnest pleading. "I'll fear to suffer nothing if done for _you_, O daughter of the honorable teacher." And now his eyes were misty with feeling as their gaze lingered upon her. "Come, is this all you want?" asked the magistrate impatiently and evidently resenting the conversation now going on between Helen and Mr. Kit-ze. "Yes, it is all your wretched servant has to ask of you," replied Mr. Kit-ze. "O most honorable," he began to plead, "spare, I entreat you, the beautiful hair of her who is the daughter of the exalted teacher, and nothing more will I ask of you. Nothing!" "But the _miriok_, Mr. Kit-ze, the _miriok_?" said Helen in an undertone and surprised that he had seemed to take no thought of it in his appeal to the magistrate. For he surely had heard enough of the proceedings to understand why she and Dorothy had been brought before the _yangban_. "The _miriok_?" said Mr. Kit-ze softly and looking at her with eyes whose confidence touched her beyond expression. "He will give you the _miriok_. He has said it." Then, as a sudden, strange expression came into his eyes, he glanced up quickly and straight toward the line of spectators. "There is another," he said, his lips moving nervously, "and I must!" He paused; then she heard him say again, "Oh, I must!" Helen's heart leaped. Did he mean Mr. Choi-So? Had he seen him among the spectators? It was more than likely that he had, as the latter stood near to where Mr. Kit-ze was when he began to gesticulate to the magistrate. "I can't see why your request shouldn't be granted," said the magistrate after a pause, and to Mr. Kit-ze; "especially as you have brought that at sight of which no gentleman could break his word," and he pointed to the streamer of yellow ribbon that Mr. Kit-ze still held. "I remember the service. Now let me hear the request again." Mr. Kit-ze repeated it with all the eloquence that heart and tongue could bestow upon it. "Take the image from the old woman and give it to the young foreigner," said the magistrate, "and there will be no cutting of her hair," he added firmly. As he uttered the last sentence, he threw his head up and glanced somewhat defiantly at the screen behind which he knew his wives were sitting. But the chief lady of his household was inexorable. Another message came to him, and quickly. She would renounce her desire for all of Helen's hair, but she must have some of it. A strand would now suffice her. "No," said Mr. Kit-ze, "no!" and moved nearer to Helen as though to protect her. "It must not be!" "I can spare a strand," said Helen soothingly to Mr. Kit-ze, "without its ever showing where it has been cut." Then she turned to Dorothy. "Help me undo the braids quickly, dear, and get a part of one of them. You will know where to cut. Get a good-sized piece," she added with a smile. "We must give her her curiosity's worth." As the braids were loosened and the strands swept in shining waves over Helen's shoulders, falling below her waist, there was a chorus of quick exclamations, followed by prolonged murmurs of astonishment. Only Mr. Kit-ze groaned. Urged by Helen, Dorothy severed the portion of hair, which was at once conveyed to the _yangban's_ chief wife. They could hear the excited expressions that sounded from behind the screen. Mr. Kit-ze looked miserable. He stood with folded hands mournfully regarding Helen. His eyes said plainly, though his lips did not, "I tried to save it. If only you had let me!" "Dear Mr. Kit-ze," said Helen, "how I do thank you for----" But here she stopped, for the runner, who had at length succeeded, with the assistance of another, in getting the _miriok_ from the old _mutang_ was now offering it to her. He was also demanding for the magistrate the yen that had been mentioned. Helen gave them to him, then reached for the _miriok_. But how her hand trembled! A pang too struck her heart. How different was the feeling to that with which she had thought she would receive the _miriok_ if only she could succeed in recovering it! Though it had been stolen from Mr. Kit-ze, yet her chief thought when pursuing the old _mutang_ had been of poor Choi-So, and of how frantic he would be should the _miriok_ pass away from him. Now the _miriok_ had been given back to her. She stood there with it in her hand. But there too stood Mr. Kit-ze, and she felt, if she did not see, his burning glance fixed upon the image in her clasp. How much he had dared for her! For it is considered a serious matter in Korea to interrupt a magistrate in the midst of his court. With what earnestness and eloquence had he pleaded for her hair, seeming to forget even the precious _miriok_ in his desire to save to her that which he knew was pleasing to herself and a delight to her loved ones. He had even used his one claim to the favor of the magistrate in her behalf. Yes, there stood Mr. Kit-ze with burning eyes regarding her, and there too, not more than ten paces away, was Choi-So. Only the moment before she had seen him, standing at almost the same spot and in almost the same position, his eyes riveted upon her every movement. How singularly quiet he had been! But it was, she felt, the quiet of concentrated emotion--emotion that might at any moment break forth. Oh, what was she to do? A fervent prayer winged its way upward as she thought quickly, intently. Now of all times she must not make a mistake. The peace of a soul, maybe in the end the peace of two souls, was at stake. Suddenly her resolution was formed. She would give the _miriok_ to Mr. Kit-ze, then, when they were released from the court and were away from all those inquisitive eyes, she would bravely plead with him to return it to Choi-So. She would see Choi-So too. She would entreat him to wait and to leave it to her. "Mr. Kit-ze," she said, speaking slowly and trying to make each expression plain to him, "I saw the old woman when she robbed you. I called to Dorothy, for I knew I had not the time to awaken you and the others, and we chased her. Oh, how anxious we were to get the _miriok_ for--for----" But she could not tell him yet. Besides, the magistrate was through with them, and was even now instructing the runners to conduct them away. As they turned to leave the room, Helen gently pressed the _miriok_ into Mr. Kit-ze's hands. "Take it," she said; "but later, when we get away from here, I must tell you something." His fingers closed about it nervously, and he paused for a moment as though his emotion at receiving it again had overcome him. Then she heard him murmur, "Wrong, wrong. I must give it back," and, ere she could speak to him, he had moved hastily away. Surprised, Helen, with a word to Dorothy, turned to follow him. After so bravely coming to the rescue, was he going to abandon them in that strange place to make their way back to the sampan alone? "Stop, Mr. Kit-ze, stop!" entreated Helen. "Oh, do wait for us, Mr. Kit-ze!" pleaded Dorothy. He paid no heed to them, only kept on; and now Helen, for the first time, realized whither he was going. It was straight toward Mr. Choi-So. Her heart almost stopped beating. What would happen? She must follow him and know. As she reached them, it was to see Mr. Kit-ze holding the image toward Choi-So, and to hear his tremulously uttered words, "Sorry. Sorry. It was wrong. She showed me." Then he raised his head and added another word, but with almost pathetic entreaty, "Go!" "No," said Helen quickly, "no," and reached out her hand to detain Mr. Choi-So, but too late. With a muffled cry of joy that fell distinctly upon the ears of those around him, Mr. Choi-So grasped the image, dropped something into Mr. Kit-ze's hand and, turning, sprang away. He passed swiftly through the crowd that opened at once to let him by, believing that he was running in search of his mind, as they expressed it, and to their journey's end the inmates of the sampan did not see nor hear of him again. [Illustration: "'SORRY. SORRY. IT WAS WRONG! SHE SHOWED ME.'"] "Oh, Mr. Kit-ze," said Helen, "I----" But the sentence was never finished, for a joyous cry from Dorothy arrested her in the act of speaking the words, and, at the same time, she felt an arm slipped about her waist and heard a voice deep with emotion saying, "My daughter, this has been dreadful for you." It was her father, and there too, was Mallard. How rejoiced they were to find her and Dorothy safe. Soon the story of the search for them was told, and then Helen, for the first time, had light on a subject that even in the midst of far more engrossing things had caused her much wonder. This was as to how Mr. Kit-ze had found his way to the court-room without the others. The old boatman had slept on until sunrise. The other inmates too had finished their morning naps, had performed their toilets, and were ready for breakfast ere the disappearance of the two girls was discovered. It was after repeated calls and numerous sarcastic remarks on Clarence's part had failed either to bring them forth or to win even a retort from them, that Mr. Reid had raised the curtain of their sleeping apartment for an examination. But still their absence had not caused alarm, for the first thought was that they might be walking on the bank near by. However, as a search in that direction failed to discover them, a well defined fear soon spread. In a short time it became evident that they had either wandered away and become lost or had been abducted. It was quickly arranged that Mr. Reid, Mr. Kit-ze, and Mallard should set off in search for them, while Mr. Wilburn, Clarence, and Joyce remained to take care of the sampan. In the town they soon heard of the arrest; but as there were two magistrates, there were, of course, two trails to follow, as no one they met seemed to know before which one the girls had been carried. In the eagerness of inquiry, Mr. Kit-ze became separated from Mr. Reid and Mallard and, while they went on the wrong trail at first, he went on the right one, arriving almost as soon as the court had begun. There was a joyful reunion at the sampan. Only Mr. Kit-ze looked sad. Helen watched for the first opportunity to speak to him when alone and said: "Oh, Mr. Kit-ze, that was a good, brave thing you did. How glad it has made me!" The gloomy look began to leave his face. He turned toward her, a joy awakening in his eyes. "I did it," he said, "because you told me." "I?" asked Helen astonished. "Oh, no, Mr. Kit-ze, I never told you." "Not with lips, but with eyes," declared Mr. Kit-ze. "Oh, when you looked at me so, I knew I must. I felt it here," laying his hand with a pathetic movement on his heart. "And when you talked to me, daughter of the most honorable teacher, oh, it was like light coming, coming, that is almost here." "But how did you know that I knew about the _miriok_?" she asked, now more astonished than ever. "I heard him. The day on the bluff. Oh, how frightened poor Kit-ze, and wretched, wretched!" So he had heard Choi-So tell the story, and though he had hotly protested against his accompanying them as poleman, all the time vigorously declaring to himself that he would never give up the _miriok_, yet the seeds of better things had taken root in his heart, were even then beginning to push their tender shoots upward. And how Helen's deep interest, her kindness to him, her evident concern, above all, the sweet, earnest words she had spoken--how these had brought just the nourishment to make the seed grow! The hand that no harsh force of compulsion could ever have made give up the idol to which it clung had brought it tremblingly to the feet of love, won by its all-conquering power. They turned back from the old temple above Yo-Ju after thoroughly exploring it. They also spent a day in Yo-Ju, where Mr. Kit-ze fortunately found a poleman whom he knew and in whom he had confidence. They stopped at Mr. Ko's long enough to pick up Mr. Chefoo, whom they found well on the road to recovery, and to leave with their old friend some remembrances brought from Yo-Ju. What a joy it was to Helen, on the homeward journey, to watch Mr. Kit-ze coming more and more into the light. It was one afternoon, just as they were passing along beneath the beautifully verdured bluffs that indicate the nearness of the mountain range which encircles Seoul, that Dorothy, slipping her arm with warm pressure about Helen's waist, laid a book across Helen's knee with a passage marked. After a moment, Helen looked up, her eyes suffused with tears, for this is what she had read: Perchance in heaven, some day, to me Some blessed saint will come and say: "All hail, beloved, but for thee My soul to death had fallen a prey"; Then oh, what rapture in the thought One soul to glory to have brought. [Illustration] The End FOOTNOTES: [3] A wooden collar worn by Korean offenders against the law. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: The chapter headings in this work contain illustrated capitals. For the text version, these have been removed. All formatting has been removed, with italics changed to underscores, bolded text replaced by = signs, and small capitals replaced by all-capitals. 
26830	----	[Transcriber's note: Susan Warner (1819-1885), _The Old Helmet_ (1864), Tauchnitz edition 1864, volume 2] THE OLD HELMET. BY THE AUTHOR OF "WIDE, WIDE WORLD." AUTHORIZED EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II. LEIPZIG BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ 1864. THE OLD HELMET. CHAPTER I. IN THE SPRING. "Let no one ask me how it came to pass; It seems that I am happy, that to me A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, A purer sapphire melts into the sea." Eleanor could not stay away from the Wednesday meetings at Mrs. Powlis's house. In vain she had thought she would; she determined she would; when the day came round she found herself drawn with a kind of fascination towards the place. She went; and after that second time never questioned at all about it. She went every week. It was with no relief to her mental troubles however. She was sometimes touched and moved; often. At other times she felt dull and hopeless. Yet it soothed her to go; and she came away generally feeling inspirited with hope by something she had heard, or feeling at least the comfort that she had taken a step in the right direction. It did not seem to bring her much more comfort. Eleanor did not see how she could be a Christian while her heart was so hard and so full of its own will. She found it perverse, even now, when she was wishing so much to be different. What hope for her? It was a great help, that during all this time Mrs. Caxton left her unquestioned and uncounselled. She made no remarks about Eleanor's going to class-meeting; she took it as a perfectly natural thing; never asked her anything about it or about her liking it. A contrary course would have greatly embarrassed Eleanor's action; as it was she felt perfectly free; unwatched, and at ease. The spring was flushing into mature beauty and waking up all the flowers on the hills and in the dales, when Eleanor one afternoon came out to her aunt in the garden. A notable change had come over the garden by this time; its comparatively barren-looking beds were all rejoicing in gay bloom and sending up a gush of sweetness to the house with every stir of the air that way. From the house to the river, terrace below terrace sloped down, brimfull already of blossoms and fragrance. The roses were making great preparations for their coming season of festival; the mats which had covered some tender plants were long gone. Tulips and hyacinths and polyanthuses and primroses were in a flush of spring glory now; violets breathed everywhere; the snowy-flowered gooseberry and the red-flowered currant, and berberry with its luxuriant yellow bloom, and the almond, and a magnificent magnolia blossoming out in the arms of its evergreen sister, with many another flower less known to Eleanor, made the garden terraces a little wilderness of loveliness and sweetness. Near the house some very fine auriculas in pots were displaying themselves. In the midst of all this Mrs. Caxton was busy, with one or two people to help her and work under direction. Planting and training and seed-sowing were going on; and the mistress of the place moved about among her floral subjects a very pleasant representation of a rural queen, her niece thought. Few queens have a more queenly presence than Mrs. Caxton had; and with a trowel in hand just as much as if it were a sceptre. And few queens indeed carry such a calm mind under such a calm brow. Eleanor sighed and smiled. "Among your auriculas, aunty, as usual!" "Among everything," said Mrs. Caxton. "There is a great deal to do. Don't you want to help, Eleanor? You may plant gladiolus bulbs--or you may make cuttings--or you may sow seeds. I can find you work." "Aunty, I am going down to the village." "O it is Wednesday afternoon!" said Mrs. Caxton. And she came close up to her niece and kissed her, while one hand was full of bulbs and the other held a trowel. "Well go, my dear. Not at peace yet, Eleanor?"-- There was so tender a tone in these last words that Eleanor could not reply. She dashed away without making any answer; and all along the way to Plassy she was every now and then repeating them to herself. "Not at peace yet, Eleanor?" She was in a tender mood this afternoon; the questions and remarks addressed to the other persons in the meeting frequently moved her to tears, so that she sat with her hand to her brow to hide the watering eyes. She did not dread the appeal to herself, for Mr. Rhys never asked her any troublesome questions; never anything to which she had to make a troublesome answer; though there might be perhaps matter for thought in it. He had avoided anything, whether in his asking or replying, that would give her any difficulty _there_, in the presence of others,--whatever it might do in her own mind and in secret. To-day he asked her, "Have you found peace yet?" "No," said Eleanor. "What is the state of your mind--if you could give it in one word?" "Confusion." "What is it confused about? Do you understand--clearly--the fact that you are a sinner? without excuse?" "Fully!" "Do you understand--clearly--that Christ has suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God?" "Yes. I understand it." "Is there any confusion in your mind as to the terms on which the Lord will receive you?--forsaking your sins, and trusting in him to pardon and save you?" "No--I see that." "Do you think there is any other condition besides those two?" "No." "Why do you not accept them?" Eleanor raised her eyes with a feeling almost of injustice. "I cannot!"--she said. "That makes no difference. God never gives a command that cannot with his help be fulfilled. There was a man once brought to Jesus--carried by foul men; he was palsied, and lay on a litter or bed, unable to move himself at all. To this man the Lord said, 'Arise, take up thy bed, and walk.' Suppose he had looked up and said, 'I cannot?'" Eleanor struggled with herself. Was this fair? Was it a parallel case? She could not tell. She kept silence. Mr. Rhys went on, with tones subdued to great gentleness. "My friend, Jesus invites to no empty board--to no cold reception. On his part all is ready; the unreadiness lies somewhere with you, or the invitation would be accepted. In your case it is not the bodily frame that is palsied; it is the heart; and the command comes to you, sweet as the invitation,--'_Give it to me_.' If you are entirely willing, the thing is done. If it be not done, it is because, somewhere, you are not willing--or do not believe. If you can trust Jesus, as that poor man did, you may rise up and stand upon your feet this very hour. 'Believe ye that I am able to do this?' he asked of the blind man whom he cured." There was silence for an instant. And again, as he turned away from her, Mr. Rhys broke out with the song, that Eleanor thought would break her heart in twain this time,-- "How lost was my condition Till Jesus made me whole; There is but one physician Can cure a sin-sick soul. There's balm in Gilead-- To make the wounded whole. There's power enough in Jesus To save a sin-sick soul." Eleanor had been the last one spoken to; the meeting soon was ended, and she was on her way home. But so broken-spirited and humiliated that she did not know what to do with herself. Could it be possible that she was not _willing_--or that she wanted _faith_--or that there was some secret corner of rebellion in her heart? It humbled her wonderfully to think it. And yet she could not disprove the reasoning. God could not be unfaithful; and if there were not somewhere on her part a failure to meet the conditions, surely peace would have been made before now. And she had thought herself all this while a subject for pity, not for blame; nay, for blame indeed, but not in this regard. Her mouth was stopped now. She rode home broken-hearted; would not see Mrs. Caxton at supper; and spent the evening and much of the night in weeping and self-searching. They were very downcast days that followed this day. Mrs. Caxton looked at her anxiously sometimes; never interfered with her. Towards the end of the week there was preaching at Glanog, and the family went as usual. Eleanor rode by herself, going and coming, and held no communication with her aunt by the way. But late at night, some time after Mrs. Caxton had gone to bed, a white-robed figure came into her room and knelt down by the bedside. "Is that you, Eleanor?" "Aunt Caxton--it's all gone!" "What?" "My trouble. I came to tell you. It's all gone. I am so happy!" "How is it, my dear child?" "When Mr. Rhys was preaching to-night, it all came to me; I saw everything clearly. I saw how Jesus loves sinners. I saw I had nothing to do but to give myself to him, and he would do everything. I see how sins are forgiven through his blood; and I trust in it, and I am sure mine are; and I feel as if I had begun a new life, aunt Caxton!" Eleanor's tears flowed like summer rain. Mrs. Caxton rose up and put her arms round her. "The Lord be praised!" she said. "I was waiting for this, Eleanor." "Aunt Caxton, I had been trying and thinking to make myself good first. I thought I was unworthy and unfit to be Christ's servant; but now I see that I can be nothing but unworthy, and only he can make me fit for anything; so I give up all, and I feel that he will do all for me. I am so happy! I was so blind before!" Mrs. Caxton said little; she only rejoiced with Eleanor so tenderly as if she had been her own mother. Though that is speaking very coolly on the present occasion. Mrs. Powle had never shewed her daughter so much of that quality in her life, as Eleanor's aunt shewed now. The breakfast next morning was unusually quiet. Happiness does not always make people talkative. "How do you do, my love?" said Mrs. Caxton when they were left alone. "After being up half the night?" "More fresh than I have felt for a year, aunt Caxton. Did you hear that nightingale last night?" "I heard him. I listened to him and thought of you." "He sang--I cannot tell you what his song sounded like to me, aunt Caxton. I could almost have fancied there was an angel out there." "There were a great many rejoicing somewhere else. What glory to think of it!" They were silent again till near the end of breakfast; then Mrs. Caxton said,--"Eleanor, I shall be engaged the whole of this morning. This afternoon, if you will, I will go with you into the garden." "This afternoon--is Wednesday, aunt Caxton." "So it is. Well, before or after you go to the village, I want you to dress some dishes of flowers for me--will you?" "With great pleasure, ma'am. And I can get some hawthorn blossoms, I know. I will do it before I go, ma'am." Was it pleasant, that morning's work? Eleanor went out early to get her sprays of May blossoms; and in the tender beauty of the day and season was lured on and on, and tempted to gather other wild bits of loveliness, till she at last found her hands full, and came home laden with tokens of where she had been. "O'er the muir, amang the heather," Eleanor's walk had gone; and her basket was gay with gorse and broom just opening; but from grassy banks on her way she had brought the bright blue speedwell; and clematis and bryony from the hedges, and from under them wild hyacinth and white campion and crane's-bill and primroses; and a meadow she had passed over gave her one or two pretty kinds of orchis, with daisies and cowslips, and grasses of various kinds. Eleanor was dressing these in flower baskets and dishes, in the open gallery that overlooked the meadows, when Mrs. Caxton passing through on her own business stopped a moment to look at her. "All those from your walk, my dear! Do you not mean to apply to the garden?" "Aunty, I could have got a great many more, if I could have gone into the woods--but my walk did not lie that way. Yes, ma'am, I am going into the garden presently, when I have ordered these dishes well. Where are they to go, aunt Caxton?" "Some in one place and some in another. You may leave them here, Eleanor, when they are done, and I will take care of them. Shall I have the garden flowers cut for you?" "O no, ma'am, if you please!" Mrs. Caxton stood a moment longer watching Eleanor; the pretty work and the pretty worker; the confusion of fair and sweet things around her and under her fingers, with the very fine and fair human creature busy about them. Eleanor's face was gravely happy; more bright than Mrs. Caxton had ever seen it; very much of kin to the flowers. She watched her a moment, and then went nearer to kiss Eleanor's forehead. The flowers fell from the fingers, while the two exchanged a look of mute sympathy; then on one part and on the other, business went forward. Eleanor's work held her all the morning. For after the wild beauties had been disposed to her mind, there was another turn with their more pretentious sisters of the garden. Azaleas and honeysuckles, lilies of the valley, hyacinths and pomponium lilies, with Scotch roses and white broom, and others, made superb floral assemblages, out of doors or in; and Eleanor looked at her work lovingly when it was done. So went the morning of that day, and Eleanor's ride in the afternoon was a fit continuation. May was abroad in the bursting leaves as well as in opening flowers; the breath of Eden seemed to sweep down the valley of Plassy. Ay, there is a partial return to the lost paradise, for those whom Christ leads thither, even before we get to the everlasting hills. Eleanor this day was the first person addressed in the meeting. It had never happened so before. But now Mr. Rhys asked her first of all, "How do you do to-day?" Eleanor looked up and answered, "Well. And all changed." "Will you tell us how you mean?" "It was when you were preaching last night. It all I came to me. I saw my mistake, when you told about I the love of Christ to sinners. I saw I had been trying to make myself good." "And how is it now?" "Now,"--said Eleanor looking up again with full eyes,--"I will know nothing but Christ." The murmur of thanksgiving heard from one or two voices brought her head down. It had nearly overcome her. But she controlled herself, and presently went on; though not daring to look again into Mr. Rhys's face, the expression of whose eyes of gladness was harder to meet than the spoken thanksgivings. "I see I have nothing, and am nothing," she said. "I see that Christ is all, and will do all for me. I wish to be his servant. All is changed. The very hills are changed. I never saw such colours or such sunlight, as I have seen as I rode along this afternoon." "A true judgment," said Mr. Rhys. "It has been often said, that the eye sees what the eye brings the means of seeing; and the love of Christ puts a glory upon all nature that far surpasses the glory of the sun. It is a changed world, for those who know that love for the first time! Friends, most of us profess to have that knowledge. Do we have it so that it puts a glory on all the outer world, in the midst of which we live and walk and attend to our business?" "It does to me, sir," said the venerable old man whom Eleanor had noticed;--"it does to me. Praise the Lord!" Instead of any other answer they broke out singing,-- "O how happy are they Who the Saviour obey, And have laid up their treasure above. Tongue can never express The sweet comfort and peace Of a soul in its earliest love." "The way to keep that joy," said Mr. Rhys returning to Eleanor, "and to know more of it, is to take every succeeding step in the Christian life exactly as you took the first one;--in self-renunciation, in entire dependence. As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. It is a simple and humble way, the way along which the heavenly light shines. Do everything for Christ--do everything in his strength;--and you will soon know that the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. Blessed be his name! He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength." It was easy to see that the speaker made a personal application here, with reference to himself; but after that there was no more said directly to Eleanor. The subject went round the circle, receiving the various testimony of the persons there. Eleanor's heart gave quick sympathy to many utterances, and took home with intent interest the answering counsels and remarks, which in some instances were framed to put a guard against self-deception or mistake. One or two of her neighbours when the exercises were over, came and took her hand, with a warm simple expression of feeling which made Eleanor's heart hot; and then she rode home. "Did you have a pleasant time?" said her aunt. "Aunt Caxton, I think that room where we meet is the pleasantest place in the world!" "What do you think of the chapel at Glanog?" "I don't know. I believe that is as good or better." "Are you too tired to go out again?" "Not at all. Who wants me?" "Nanny Croghan is very sick. I have been with her all the afternoon; and Jane is going to sit up with her to-night; but Jane cannot go yet." "She need not. I will stay there myself. I like it, aunt Caxton." "Then I will send for you early in the morning." Nanny Croghan lived a mile or two from the farmhouse. Eleanor walked there, attended by John with a basket. The place was a narrow dell between two uprising hills covered with heather; as wild and secluded as it is possible to imagine. The poor woman who lived there alone was dying of lingering disease. John delivered the basket, and left Eleanor alone with her charge and the mountains. It was not a night like that she had spent by the bedside of her old nurse's daughter. Nanny was dying fast; and she needed something done for her constantly. Through all the hours of the darkness Eleanor was kept on the watch or actively employed, in administering medicine, or food, or comfort. For when Nanny wanted nothing else, she wanted that. "Tell me something I can fix my mind onto," she would say. "It seems slipping away from me, like. And then I gets cold with fear." Eleanor was new at the business; she had forgotten to bring her Bible with her, and she could find none in the house; "her sister had been there," Nanny said, "and had carried it away." Eleanor was obliged to draw on the slender stores of her memory; and to make the most of those, she was obliged to explain them to Nanny, and go them over and over, and pick them to pieces, and make her rest upon each clause and almost each word of a verse. There were some words that surely Eleanor became well acquainted with that night. For Nanny could sleep very little, and when she could not sleep she wanted talking incessantly. Eleanor urged her to accept the promises and she would have the peace. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him." "Ay, but I never did fear him, you see,--till a bit agone; and now it's all fear. I fear furder'n I can see." "Nanny, Nanny, the blood of Christ will take all that fear away--if only you will trust in it. He shed it for you--to pay your debts to justice. There is no condemnation to them which are in him." Nanny did not know exactly what so big a word as condemnation meant; Eleanor was obliged to explain it; then what was meant by being "in Christ." Towards morning Nanny seemed somewhat soothed and fell into a doze. Eleanor went to the cottage door and softly opened it, to see how the night went. The dawn was breaking fair over the hills, the tops of which shewed the unearthly brightness of coming day. It took Eleanor's eyes and thoughts right up. O for the night of darkness to pass away from this weary earth! Down in the valley the shadows lay thicker; how thick they lay about the poor head just now resting in sleep. How thick they lay but a day or two ago upon Eleanor herself! Now she looked up. The light was flushing upon the mountain tops every moment stronger. The dewy scents of the May morning were filling the air with their nameless and numberless tokens of rich nature's bounty. The voice of a cataract, close at hand, made merry down the rocks along with the song of the blackbird, woodpecker and titmouse. And still, as Eleanor stood there and looked and listened, the rush and the stir of sweet life grew more and more; the spring breeze wakened up and floated past her face bringing the breath of the flowers fresher and nearer; and the hill tops ever kindled into more and more glow. "It is Spring! and it is Day!" thought Eleanor,--"and so it is in my heart. The darkness is gone; the light is like that light,--promising more; my life is full of sweetness I never knew. Surely this month shall be the month of months to me for ever. O for this day--O for this morning--to waken over all the world!" She stood there, for Nanny still slept, till the sunbeams struck the hills and crept down the sides of them; and till John and Jane came in sight round the angle of the road. John had brought the pony to take Eleanor home; and a few minutes' ride brought her there. Morning prayers were however done, before Eleanor could refresh herself with cold water and a change of dress. When she came down to the sitting-room Mrs. Caxton had stepped out on some business; and in her place, sitting alone with a book, Eleanor was greatly surprised to see Mr. Rhys. He was not at all surprised to see her; rose up and gave her a very cordial grasp of the hand, and stirred up the wood fire; which, May morning though it was, the thick walls of the old stone house and the neighbourhood of the mountains made useful and agreeable. In silence and with a good deal of skill Mr. Rhys laid the logs together so that a fresh blaze sprang up; then after a remark upon the morning he went back to his book. Eleanor sat down, also silent, feeling very much delighted to see him there, and to think that they would have his company at breakfast; but not at all inclined, nor indeed competent, to open a conversation. She looked into the fire and wondered at the turns that had brought about this meeting; wondered over the past year of her life; remembered her longing for the "helmet of salvation" which her acquaintance with Mr. Rhys had begun; and sang for joy in her heart that now she had it. Yes, it was hers, she believed; a deep rest and peace had taken place of craving and anxiety, such as even now disturbed poor dying Nanny. Eleanor felt very happy, in the midst of all her care for her. The fire burned beautifully. "I was not aware," said Mr. Rhys looking up from his book, "I was not aware till last night that you lived with Mrs. Caxton." Very odd, Eleanor thought; most people would have found out; however she took it simply. "I am her niece." "So I find,--so I am glad to find. I can wish nothing better for any one, in that kind, than to be connected with Mrs. Caxton." He sat with his finger between the leaves of his book, and Eleanor again wondered at the silence; till Mrs. Caxton came in. It was not very flattering; but Eleanor was not troubled with vanity; she dismissed it with a thought compounded of good-humour and humility. At breakfast the talk went on pretty briskly; it was all between the other two and left her on one side; yet it was good enough to listen to it. Eleanor was well satisfied. Mr. Rhys was the principal talker; he was telling Mrs. Caxton of different people and things in the course of his labours; which constantly gave a reflex gleam of light upon those labours themselves and upon the labourer. Unconsciously of course, and merely from the necessity of the case; but it was very interesting to Eleanor, and probably to Mrs. Caxton; she looked so. At last she turned to her niece. "How did you leave Nanny?" "A little easier towards morning, I think; at least she went to sleep, which all the night she could not do." "Nor you neither." "O that's nothing. I don't mind that at all. It was worth watching, to see the dawn." "Was the woman in so much pain?" Mr. Rhys asked. "No; not bodily; she was uneasy in mind." "In what way." "Afraid of what lies before her; seeing dimly, if at all." "Was she comforted by what you told her?" "I had very little to tell her," said Eleanor; "I had no Bible; I had forgotten to take it; and hers was gone. I had to get what I could from memory, for I did not like to give her anything but the words of the Bible itself to ground hope upon." "Yes, but a good warm testimony of personal experience, coming from the heart, often goes to the heart. I hope you tried that." Eleanor had not; she was silent. The testimony she had given in the class-meeting somehow she had been shy of uttering unasked in the ear of the dying woman. Was that humility--or something else? Again Mr. Rhys had done for her what he so often did for her and for others--probed her thoughts. "It is a good plan," said Mrs. Caxton, "to have a storehouse in one's memory of such things as may be needed upon occasion; passages of Scripture and hymns; to be brought out when books are not at hand. I was made to learn a great deal out of the Bible when I was a girl; and I have often made a practice of it since; and it always comes into play." "I never set myself lessons to get by heart," said Mr. Rhys. "I never could learn anything in that way. Or perhaps I should say, I never _liked_ to do it. I never did it." "What is your art, then?" said Mrs. Caxton, looking curious. "No art. It is only that when anything impresses itself strongly on my feelings, the words seem to engrave themselves in my memory. It is an unconscious and purely natural operation." Eleanor remembered the multitudinous quoting of the Bible she had at different times heard from Mr. Rhys; and again wondered mentally. All that, all those parts of the Bible, he had not set himself to study, but had _felt_ them into his memory! They had been put in like gold letters, with a hot iron. "Where is this woman?" Mr. Rhys went on. "She lives alone, in the narrow dell that stretches behind Bengarten Castle--and nearly in a straight line with it, from here. Do not go there this morning--you want rest, and it is too far for you to walk. I am going to take you into my garden, to see how my flowers go." "Won't you take me into your dairy?" "If you like it," said Mrs. Caxton smiling. "I like it exceedingly. It is something like a musical box to me, Miss Powle, to see Mrs. Caxton's cheese-making. It soothes my nerves, the noiseless order of everything. Do you know that wonderful cheese-house, where they stand in ranks like yellow millstones? I never can get over my surprise at going in there. Certainly we, as a nation, are fond of cheese!" "You think so because you are not," said Mrs. Caxton. "It is too late for the dairy to-day. You shall give me help in my garden, where I want it." "I understand," says Mr. Rhys. "But it is my business to make flowers grow in the Lord's garden--wherever I can. I wish I could do more of _that_ gardening work!" Eleanor gave a quick glance up at the speaker. His brow rested on his hand for the moment; she noticed the sharply drawn lines of the face, the thin cheeks, the complexion, which all witnessed to _over_-work already attempted and done. The brow and eyes were marked with lines of watching and fatigue. It was but a glance, and Eleanor's eyes went down again; with an additional lesson of unconscious testimony carried deep home. This man lived as he talked. The good of existence was not one thing in his lips and another in his practice. Eleanor looked at her plate with her heart burning. In her old fancy for studying, or at least reading, hands, she had noticed too in her glance the hand on which the head rested; and with surprise. It was almost a feminine hand in make, with long slim fingers; white withal, and beautifully cared for. Certain refinements were clearly necessary to this man, who was ready to plunge himself into a country of savages nevertheless, where all the refinement would be his own. To some natures it would be easier to part with a hand altogether, than to forego the necessity of having it clean. This was one. And he was going to give himself up to Polynesia and its practices. Eleanor eat with the rest of her breakfast and swallowed with her tea, the remembered words of the apostle--"But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ."--"Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I may finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to be faithful."--Eleanor's heart swelled. Tears were very near. After breakfast, a large part of the morning was spent by her aunt and Mr. Rhys in the garden; as Mrs. Caxton had said; and very busy they were. Eleanor was not asked to join them, and she did not choose to volunteer; she watched them from the house. They were very honestly busy; planting and removing and consulting; in real garden work; yet it was manifest their minds had also much more in common, in matters of greater interest; they stood and talked for long intervals when the flowers were forgotten. They were very near each other, those two, evidently, in regard and mutual confidence and probably mutual admiration also. It was very strange Eleanor should never have come to the knowledge of it till to-day. And yet, why should she? She had never mentioned the name of Mr. Rhys to her aunt in any of her stories of Wiglands. He was away all the afternoon and the evening, and came back again late; a tired and exhausted man. He said nothing, except to officiate at family prayers; but Eleanor was delighted that he was to spend the night at the farm and they would have him at breakfast. Only to see him and hear him talk to others, only the tones of his voice, brought up to her everything that was good and strong and pure and happy. He did not seem inclined to advance at all upon their Wiglands acquaintance. He made no allusion to it. As far as she was concerned, Eleanor thought that there was more reserve in his manner towards her than he had shewed there. No matter. With Mrs. Caxton he was very much at home; and she could study him at her ease all the better for not talking to him. CHAPTER II. WITH THE BASKET. "The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, And there's never a leaf or a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace." "Mrs. Caxton," said Mr. Rhys the next morning, when half the breakfast had been passed in silence, "have you such a thing as a microscope in the house?" "I am afraid not. Why do you ask?" "Only, that I have suddenly discovered myself to be very ignorant, in a department of knowledge where it would be very pleasant as well as proper to be otherwise. I have been reading a book on some of the forms of life which are only to be known through the help of glasses; and I find there is a world there I know nothing about. That book has made a boy of me." "How?" said Mrs. Caxton smiling. "You think I always retain more or less of that character! Well--it has made me doubly a boy then; in my eagerness to put myself to school, on the one hand, and my desire to see something new on the other. Miss Powle, have you ever studied the invisible inhabitants of pools, and ponds, and sea-weeds?" "Not at all," said Eleanor. "You do not know much more than the names, then, of Infusoria, Rotifera, and Pedunculata, and such things?" "Not so much as the names--except Infusoria. I hope they are better than they sound." "If the accounts are true--Mrs. Caxton, the world that we do not see, because of the imperfection of our organs, is even far more wonderful than the world that we do see. Perhaps it seems so, because of the finiteness of our own powers. But I never had a single thing give me such a view of the infinite glory of God, as one of the things detailed in that book--one of the discoveries of the microscope." "His glory in creation," said Mrs. Caxton. "More than that--There is to be sure the infiniteness of wisdom and of power, that makes your brain dizzy when you think of it; but there is an infinite moral glory also." "What was the thing that struck you so much?" Eleanor inquired. "It was a little fellow that lives in the water. He is not bigger than the diameter of the slenderest needle--and that is saying as much as I can for his size. This fellow builds himself a house of bricks, which he makes himself; and under his head he carries a little cup mould in which the bricks are made." "Mr. Rhys," said Eleanor, "I am wondering what is the slenderest needle of your acquaintance!" "No," said he laughing, "you are mistaken. I have seen my mother hem thin ruffles of muslin; and you know with what sort of a needle that should be done." "Aunt Caxton," said Eleanor, "it is inconceivable!" Mrs. Caxton did not make much answer, and the conversation turned. After breakfast, and after, as Eleanor judged, they had been a good while in the dairy, the two went out together in the car. Eleanor supposed it was to visit Nanny; and so she found when her aunt came home. "I knew he would go," said Mrs. Caxton; "and then we made another call. Nanny is hopeful, and comfortable; but the other---- Mr. Rhys came away very much agitated. He is not fit for it. I wish I could keep him from work for a few weeks. It's the best economy. But I will keep him here as long as I can, at least." "Is he going to stay here?" "Yes; he was not comfortably situated in the village; and now I will have him at the farm, I hope, till he goes. I shall trust you to keep the flowers fresh in his room, Eleanor.--No, my dear; Jane will stay with Nanny to-night." So Mr. Rhys stayed at the farm, and certainly wanted for no comfort that the mistress of it could secure to him. Neither did Eleanor neglect the flowers. Mr. Rhys made his home there, and went out to his preaching and visiting and teaching as vigorously as ever; and was often a tired man when he came home. Nevertheless he gained ground, to Mrs. Caxton's great satisfaction. He grew stronger; and was less often a silent, prostrated, done-over member of their little circle. At first he was very often that. But when he felt well he was exceedingly social and conversational; and the Plassy farmhouse had never been so pleasant, nor the evenings and mornings and meal times so full of interest. In all which however Mrs. Caxton thought Eleanor took a very quiet part. "You do not do your share, Eleanor," she said one day; "you are become nothing of a talker; and I can bear witness you had a tongue once. Has religion made you silent, my dear?" "No, aunty," said Eleanor laughing; "but you forget--you have somebody else to talk to now." "I am sure, and so have you." "No ma'am--Mr. Rhys does not talk to me generally." "I would return good for evil, then; and not silence for silence." "I can't, aunty. Don't you know, there are some people that have a sort of quieting effect upon one?" "I don't think anybody ever did upon me," said Mrs. Caxton; "and I am sure Mr. Rhys would be shocked if he knew the effect of his presence." One morning Mrs. Caxton asked Mr. Rhys at breakfast if he had leisure to unpack a box for her. He said yes, with great alacrity; and Mrs. Caxton had the box brought in. "What is it?" said Mr. Rhys as he began his work. "Am I to take care of china and glass--or to find gardener's plants nicely done up--or best of all, books?" "I hope, something better yet," said Mrs. Caxton. "There is a good deal of it, whatever it is," said Mr. Rhys, taking out one and another and another carefully wrapped up bit of something. "Curiosity can go no further!" He stopped unpacking, and took the wrapping papers off one or two odd-looking little pieces of brass; paused,--then suddenly exclaimed, "Mrs. Caxton!--" "Well?" said that lady smiling. "It is just like you! I might have known the other morning what all that talk would end in." Mrs. Caxton smiled in silence, and the gentleman went on with his unpacking; with added zeal and tenderness now, it was evident. It stood full in view at last, an exquisitely made and mounted microscope of one of the best London makers. Now was Mr. Rhys in his element; and proved how justly he had declared himself a _boy_. He got the microscope all into place and arranged, and then set himself to find out its powers and method of management.. There were some prepared objects sent with the instrument, which gave him enough to work with; and over them he was in an absorbed state for hours; not selfishly, however, for he allowed Eleanor to take her full share of the pleasure of looking, when once he had brought objects into view. At last he broke off and hurried away to an engagement. The next day at breakfast, Eleanor was a good deal surprised to be asked if she would take a walk? "Now?" said Eleanor. "You mean immediately after breakfast?" "It is the only time I have to-day. All the time before dinner, I have; but I supposed we should want the whole of it. I am going after objects for the microscope--and I thought it would be selfish to go alone. Besides, we may help one another." "I shall be very glad to go," said Eleanor laughing; "but don't expect any _help_ of me; unless it be in the way of finding out such places as you want." "I fancy I know those better than you do. Miss Powle, a small basket would be desirable to hold phials of water." "And phials." "I will take care of those." Much amused, and a little excited, Eleanor made ready for the walk, and in the matter of the basket at least proved helpful. It was bright and early when they set out. Among those mountains and valleys, the dew was not off the fields yet, while the air was freshly sweet from roses and wild thyme, and primroses lingering, and numberless other sweet things; for hedgerow and meadow and mountain side were gay and rich with a multitude of flowers. There was a mingling of shadow and sunshine too, at that early time in the morning; and as the two walkers passed along they were sometimes in one, sometimes in the other. There was little conversation at first. Mr. Rhys went not with a lingering step, but as if with some purpose to reach a definite locality. Eleanor was musing to herself over the old walks taken with Julia by her present companion; never but once Eleanor's walking companion till now. How often Julia had gone with him; what a new and strange pleasure it was for herself; and how oddly life changes about things; that the impossible thing at Wiglands should be possible at Plassy. "What sort of places are you looking for, Mr. Rhys?" Eleanor inquired at last. "All sorts of places," he said smiling. "All sorts at least of wet places. But I know nothing about it, you know, except what I have read. They say, wherever water is found, some or other species of these minute wonders may be met with; standing pools, and rivers, and ditches all have them; and some particularly beautiful are to be found in bog water; so with, I am afraid you will think, a not very commendable impatience, I am pointing my steps towards a bog that I know--in the wish to get some of the best first." "That is being very impatient," said Eleanor laughing. "I should be satisfied with almost anything, for the first." "So you will very probably have to be. I am by no means sure of accomplishing my design. Am I walking too fast for you, in the meanwhile?" "Not at all. I am thinking, Mr. Rhys, how we are to bring home the bog water when we have found it." In answer to which, he put his hand in his pocket and brought out thence and deposited in his basket one after another of half a dozen or more little phials, all duly corked. Eleanor was very much amused. "And what is this stick to do, that you wanted me to bring?" "You will see." The bog was reached in due time, after a walk over a most delicious country, for the most part new to Eleanor. Water was found, though not exactly with the conditions Mr. Rhys desired; however a phial of it was dipped up, corked and marked. Then they retraced their steps partially, diverging right and left. Just the right sort of pool was found at last; covered with duck-weed. Here Mr. Rhys stopped and tied one of the phials to the end of the stick. With this he dipped water from the surface, then he dipped from the bottom; he took from one side and from another side, where there was sunshine and where there was shade; pouring each dipping into a fresh phial, while Eleanor in a great state of amusement corked and labelled each as it was filled. At last it was done. Mr. Rhys filled his last phial, looked at Eleanor's face, and smiled. "You do not think much is going to come of all this?" he said. "Yes I do," said Eleanor. "At least I hope so." "I know it. Look through that." He put a pocket lens into her hand and bade her survey one of the phials with it. Eleanor's scepticism fled. That _something_ was there, in pretty active life, was evident. Somethings. The kinds were plural. "It was like Mrs. Caxton, to order this lens with the microscope," Mr. Rhys went on. "I suppose she made her order general--to include everything that would be necessary for a naturalist in making his observations. I not being a naturalist. Did you ever see the 'Bundle' of Helig?" "I do not know what it is." "'Bundle' or 'Bandel'--I do not know how it got the name, I am sure; but I suppose it is a corruption of something. Would you like to go a little out of your way to see it?" "You can judge better than I, Mr. Rhys!" Eleanor said with her full, rich smile, which that gentleman had not often seen before. He answered it with his own very peculiar one, sober and sweet. "I will take so much responsibility. You ought not to come so near and miss it." Turning from the course of their return way, they followed a wild woody dell for a little distance; then making a sudden angle with that, a few steps brought them in sight of a waterfall. It poured over a rocky barrier of considerable height, the face of which was corrugated, as it were, with great projecting ridges of rock. Separated of necessity by these, the waters left the top of the precipice in four or five distinct bands or ribbands of bright wave and foam, soon dashed into whiteness; and towards the bottom of the fall at last found their way all together; which they celebrated with a rush and a dance and a sparkle and a roar that filled all the rocky abyss into which they plunged. The life, the brightness, the peculiar form, the wild surroundings, of this cataract made it a noted beauty. In front of it the rocks closed in so nearly that spectators could only look at it through a wild narrow gap. Above, beyond the top of the fall, the waving branches could be seen of the trees and bushes that stood on the borders of the water; to reach which was a mere impossibility, unless by taking a very long way round. At the foot, the waters turned off suddenly and sought their course where the eye could not follow them. It was out of the question to talk in the presence of the shout of those glad waters. Mr. Rhys leaned against the rock, and looked at them, so motionless that more than once the eye of Eleanor went from them to him with a little note-taking. When at last he turned away and they got back into the stillness of the glen, he asked her, "how looking at such a thing made her feel?" "Nothing but surprise and pleasure, I think," said Eleanor; "but a great deal of both those." Then as he still remained silent, she went on,--"To tell the truth, Mr. Rhys, I think my mental eye is only beginning to get educated. I used always to enjoy natural beauty, but I think it was in a superficial kind of way. Since I have been at Plassy--and especially since a few weeks back,--all nature is much more to me than it was." "It is sure to be so," he said. "Nature without and nature within are made for each other; and till the two are set to the same key, you cannot have a good tune.--There is a fellow who is in pretty good order! Do you hear that blackbird?" "Sweet!" said Eleanor. "And what is that other note--'chee chee, chee,' so many times?" "That is a green wren." "You are _something_ of a naturalist, Mr. Rhys," said Eleanor. "Not at all! no more than my acquaintance with you and Mrs. Caxton makes me a philosopher." Eleanor wanted to ask what looking at the cataract made _him_ think of; but as she had told her aunt, Mr. Rhys exercised a sort of quieting influence over her. No natural audacity, of which she had an innocent share, remained to her in his company. She walked along in demure silence. And to say the truth, the sun was now growing warm, and the two had walked not a few good miles that morning; which also has a quieting influence. Eleanor queried with herself whether all the bright part of the walk were over. "I think it is time we varied our attention," said Mr. Rhys breaking silence. "We have been upon one class of subjects a good while;--suppose we try another. Don't you want to rest?" "I am not tired,--but I have no objection." "You are not easily tired?" "Not about anything I like." "You have struck a great secret of power and usefulness," he said gravely. "What do you think of this bank?--it is dry, and it is pleasant." It would have been hardly possible to find a spot in all their way that would not have been pleasant; and from this bank they looked over a wide rich valley bordered with hills. It was not the valley where the farmhouse of Plassy stood, with its meadows and river; this was different in its features, and moreover some miles distant. Eleanor and Mr. Rhys sat down on the moss at the foot of the trees, which gave both shade and rest. It was the edge of a piece of woods, and a blackbird was again heard saluting them. "Now if you want refreshment," said Mr. Rhys, "I can give it to you; but only of one kind." "I don't know--I should say of several kinds," said Eleanor looking into the basket--"but the quality doubtful." "Did you think I meant _that?_" Eleanor laughed at the earnest gravity of this speech. "Mr. Rhys, I saw no other refreshment you had to offer me; but indeed I do not want any--more than I am taking." "I was going to offer it to you of another kind, but there is no kind like it. What is your way of reading the Bible?" "I have no particular 'way,'" said Eleanor in some surprise. "I read several chapters a day--or at least always a chapter at morning and another at evening. What 'way' do you mean?" "There are a great many ways; and it is good to use them all at different times. But what way would be good for a half hour's refreshment, at such a time as this?" "I am sure, I don't know," said Eleanor. "I have no way but the one." "Yes, but we should not have seen the 'Bandel' of Helig, if we had not turned aside to look at it; and you would not have heard the blackbird and the wren perhaps, unless you had stopped to listen to them. I suppose we have missed a million of other things, for want of looking." "Yes, but we could not look at everything all along these miles of our way," said Eleanor, her smile breaking forth again. "Very true. On the other hand, if we go but a very little way, we can examine all around us. Have you a Bible with you?" "No. I never carry one." "I am better off than you. Let us try a little of this--the first chapter of Romans. Will you read the first verse, and consider it." He handed her his Bible and Eleanor read. "'Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God'--" "What do you find there?" said her companion. "Not much. This verse seems to be a sort of opening, or introduction to the rest. Paul tells who he is, or what he is." "And what does he say he is?" "A servant of Jesus Christ." "You think that is 'not much?'" "Certainly it is much, in itself; but here I took it for a mere statement of fact." "But what a fact. _A servant of Jesus Christ_. Only that! Do you know what a fact that is? What is it, to be a servant of Jesus Christ?" Without waiting for the answer, which was not ready, Mr. Rhys rose up from his seat and began an abstracted exploration of the bit of woodland at the edge of which they had been sitting; wandering in and out among the trees, and stooping now and then to pluck a flower or a fern or to examine one; apparently too full of his thoughts to be quiet. Eleanor heard him sometimes and watched him when she could; he was very busy; she wished he I would give some of his thoughts to her. "I thought you wanted rest, Mr. Rhys," she said boldly, when she got a chance. "Please sit down here and take it, along with your other refreshment." He smiled and came immediately with a bunch of Myosotis in his hand, which he threw into Eleanor's lap; and turning to her he repeated very seriously his question. "What is it, to be a servant of Jesus Christ?" "I know very little," said Eleanor timidly. "I am only just beginning to learn." "You know the words bring for our refreshment only the meaning that we attach to them--except so far as the Holy Spirit answering our prayers and endeavours shews us new meaning and depth that we had not known before." "Of course--but I suppose I know very little. These words convey only the mere fact to me." "Let us weight the words. A servant is a follower. Christ said, 'If a man serve me, let him _follow me_.'" "Yes,--I know." "A follower must know where his Master goes. How did Christ walk?" "He went about doing good." "He did; but mark, there are different ways of doing that. Get to the root of the matter. The young man who kept all the commandments from his youth, was not following Christ; and when it came to the pinch he turned his back upon him." "How then, Mr. Rhys? You mean heart-following?" "That is what the Lord means. Look here--Paul says in the ninth verse,--'Whom I serve _with my spirit_ in the gospel'--Following cannot have a different end in view from that of the person followed. And what was Christ's?--'My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.' Are we servants of Christ after that rule, Miss Powle?" The question had a singular intonation, as if the questioner were charging it home upon himself. Yet Eleanor knew he could answer it in the affirmative and that she could not; she sat silent without looking up. The old contrast of character recurred to her, in spite of the fact that her own had changed so much. She hung over the book, while her companion half abstractedly repeated, "'My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.'--That makes a way of life of great simplicity." "Is it always easy to find?" ventured Eleanor. "Very!--if his will is all that we desire." "But that is a very searching, deep question." "Let it search, then. 'My meat is to do the will of him--' No matter what that may be, Miss Powle; our choice lies in this--that it is his will. And as soon as we set our hearts upon one or the other particular sort of work, or labour in any particular place, or even upon any given measure of success attending our efforts, so that we are not willing to have him reverse our arrangements,--we are getting to have too much will about it." Eleanor looked up with some effort. "You are making it a great matter, to be a true servant of Christ, Mr. Rhys." "Would you have it a little matter?" he said with a smile of great sweetness and brightness. "Let the Lord have all! He was among us 'as one that serveth'--amid discouragements and disappointments, and abuse; and he has warned us that the servant is not greater than his Lord. It is not a little thing, to be the minister of Jesus Christ!" "Now you are getting out of the general into the particular." "No--I am not; a 'minister' is but a servant; what we call a minister, is but in a more emphatic degree the servant of all. The rules of service are the same for him and for others. Let us look at another one. Here it is--in John--" And the fingers that Eleanor had watched the other morning, and with which she had a curious association, came turning over the leaves. "'Ye call me Master, and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.'--One thing is plain from that, Miss Eleanor--we are not to consider ourselves too good for anything." "No--" said Eleanor;--"but I suppose that does not forbid a just judgment of ourselves or of others, in respect of their adaptations and qualifications." "Yes it does," he said quickly. "The only question is, Has the Lord put that work in your hands? If he has, never ask whether your hands are the right ones. He knows. What our Lord stooped to do, well may we!" Eleanor dared not say any more; she knew of what he was thinking; whether he had a like intuition with respect to her thoughts she did not know, and would not risk them any nearer discovery. "There is another thing about being a servant of Christ," he presently went on;--"it ensures some kind and degree of persecution." "Do you think so?" said Eleanor; "in these days? Why, it is thought praiseworthy and honourable, is it not, through all the land, to be good? to be a member of the Church, and to fulfil the requirements of religion? Does anybody lose respect or liking from such a cause?" "No. But he suffers persecution. My dear friend, what are the 'requirements of religion?' We are just considering them. Can you remember a servant of Christ, such as we have seen the name means, in your knowledge, whom the world allowed to live in peace?" Eleanor was silent. "'Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.'" "But in _these_ days, Mr. Rhys?" said Eleanor doubtfully. "I can only say, that if you are of the world, the world will love his own. I know no other way of securing that result. 'Because ye are not of the world,' Jesus said, 'but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.' And it is declared, elsewhere, that all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Can you remember any instance to the contrary?" Eleanor looked up and gave Mr. Rhys a good view of her honest eyes; they looked very intent now and somewhat sorrowful. "Mr. Rhys, except in Plassy, I do not know such a person as you ask me about." "Is it possible!" he said. "Mr. Rhys, I was thinking the servants of Christ have good need of that 'helmet of salvation' I used to wish for." "Well, they have it!" he said brightly. "'If any man serve me, let him follow me; _and where I am, there shall also my servant be_.' That is the end of all. But there is another point of service that occurs to me. We have seen that we must not lease ourselves; I recollect that in another place Paul says that if he pleased men, he would not be the servant of Christ. There is a point where he and the world would come in contact of opposition." "But I thought we ought to please everybody as much as we could?" He smiled, put his hand over and turned two or three leaves of the Bible which she kept open at the first of Romans, and pointed to a word in the fifteenth chapter. "Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good, to edification." "There is your limit," said he. "So far thou mayest go, but no further. And to do that you will find requires quite sufficiently that you should not please yourself. And now how shall we do all this?--how shall we be all this?" "You are asking the very question!" said Eleanor gravely. "We must come to the root and spring of all this service and following--it is our love of the Lord himself. That will do it, and nothing else will. 'What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.'" "But suppose," said Eleanor, with some difficulty commanding her voice,--"suppose one is deficient in that very thing? suppose one wants that love?" "Ay!" he said, looking into her face with his eyes of light,--"suppose one does; what then?" Eleanor could not bear them; her own eyes fell. "What is one to do?"--Mr. Rhys had risen up before he answered, in his deliberate accents, "'Seek him, that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of night into morning.'" He paced slowly up and down before Eleanor; then went off upon a rambling search through the wood again; seeming to be busy with little things in his way. Eleanor sat still. After a little he came and stood before her with a bunch of ferns and Melic grass and lilies of the valley, which he was ordering in his hands as he spoke. "The effect of our following Christ in this way, Miss Powle, will be, that we shall bear testimony to the world that He is our King, and what sort of a king he is. We shall proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. We shall have the invisible army of angels for our fellow-servants and co-workers; and we shall be passing on with the whole redeemed world to the day of full triumph and final restoration; when Christ will come to be glorified in his saints and to be admired in them that believe--because our testimony among you was believed. But now our business is to give the testimony." He walked up and down, up and down, before Eleanor for some minutes, in a thoughtful, abstracted way. Eleanor felt his manner as much as his words; the subject had clearly gone home to himself. She felt both so much that she did not like to interrupt the silence, nor to look up. At last he stopped again before her and said in quite a different tone, "What are the next words, Miss Powle?" "'Called to be an apostle.'" "We shall not get home to dinner, if we go into that," he said smiling. "You have preached a sermon to me, Mr. Rhys." "I do that very often to myself," he answered. "To yourself?" said Eleanor. "Yes. Nobody needs it more." "But when you have so much real preaching to do--I should think it would be the last thing you would wish to do in private,--at other times." "For that very reason. I need to have a sermon always ready, and to be always ready myself. Now, let us get home and look at our 'rotifera'--if we have any." However, there was to be no microscopical examination that morning. "The best laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft agley." They had gone but half a mile further homeward when their course was again stopped. They came up with a man and a horse; the horse standing still, the man lying on the ground beside him. At first sight they thought it was a case of drunkenness, for the face of the man was very red and he was unable to give any account of himself; but they were soon convinced it was sudden illness, not intoxication, which was the matter. He had fallen from his horse evidently, and now was not unconscious but in great pain; the red in his face alternating with sudden changes of colour. Apparently his condition was that of a small farmer or upper farm servant, who had been overtaken on some business errand by this attack of severe sickness. His horse stood quietly beside him. "This is no case for a lancet," said Mr. Rhys after making a slight examination. "It calls for greater skill than mine. How will you do? I must take the horse and ride for it. But the first thing is to find where I ought to go--if I can--" For this information he sought in the man's pockets; and found presently a pocket-book with one or two bills, which gave the name he wanted. It was a name not unknown to Mr. Rhys; and let him know also the direction in which he must ride; not towards the valley of Plassy. "What will you do, Miss Powle?--will you be afraid to find your way home alone?" "I will stay here till you come back." "Will you? But I may be gone some time--and I must tell you," he said gravely, "the man is very ill." "There is the more reason then, I am sure. I will stay and do anything for him I can, Mr. Rhys. You go--I will stay here." Mr. Rhys said nothing more, though Eleanor felt sure from his face that he did not disapprove of her conclusion. He mounted the horse immediately. "I will send help from the way if I can, though I doubt it. The way is lonely, till I get almost there." He rode off at a sharp pace, and Eleanor was left quite alone. Her attention came back to the sick person at her feet. So near the light-hearted pleasure of ten minutes ago had been to pain and death! And Mr. Rhys's sermon was nearer still. The first thing to consider, was what she could do for the man. He had fallen and lay on the grass in the broad sunshine. The sun had mounted high now; its beams fell hot and full on the sufferer's face. At a little distance was a grove of oaks and beeches, and good shelter; but Eleanor's strength could not move the man thither; he was a great, thickset, burly fellow. Yet it was miserable to see the sun beating upon his face where the sweat of pain already stood. Eleanor went to the wood, and with much trouble and searching managed to find or break off two or three sticks of a few feet in length. She planted these for a frame near the sick man's head and spread her light summer shawl over them to make a screen. It was a light screen; nevertheless much better than nothing. Then Eleanor kneeled down by the man to see what more she could do. Red and pale changed fast and fearfully upon his face; big drops stood on the brow and cheeks. Eleanor doubted whether he were conscious, he lay so still. She took her pocket-handkerchief to wipe the wet brow. A groan answered her at that. It startled her, for it was the first sound she had heard the sick person utter. Putting down her face to receive if possible some intimation of a wish, she thought he said or tried to say something about "drink." Eleanor rose up and sought to recollect where last and nearest she had seen water. It was some distance behind; a little spring that had crossed their foot-way with its own bright track. Then what could she bring some in? The phials! Quick the precious pond water and bog water was poured out, with one thought of the nameless treasures for Mr. Rhys's microscope that she was spilling upon the ground; and Eleanor took the basket again and set off on the backward way. She was in a hurry, the sun was warm, the distance was a good quarter of a mile; by the time she had found the stream and filled her phial and retraced again her steps to where the sick man lay, she was heated and weary; for every step was hurried with the thought of that suffering which the water might alleviate. This was pure, sparkling, good water with which the phials were now filled. But when Eleanor got back to him, the man could not open his lips to take it. She feared he would die, and suddenly. It was a wild uncultivated place they were in. No signs of human habitation were to be seen, except far up away on a hillside in the distance, where smoke went up from a farmhouse or some sort of a house; towards which Eleanor looked with earnest longings that the human help which was there could be brought within available distance. It was greatly too far for that. How soon would Mr. Rhys be back? Impossible to say; she could not tell what length of road he might have to travel. And the man seemed dying. Eleanor knelt down again, and with the precious contents of one of the phial bathed the brow and the lips that she thought would never return to their natural colour again. She did it perseveringly; it was all she could do. Perhaps it gave comfort. But Eleanor grew tired, and felt increasingly lonely and desirous that some one should come. No one did come by that way, nor was likely to come, until the return of Mr. Rhys; the place was not near a highway; only on a wild mountain track. It struck Eleanor then that the sufferer's head lay too low, upon the ground. She could not move him to a better position; and finally placing herself on the grass beside him, she contrived with great exertion to lift his head upon her lap. He could not thank her; she did not know if he were aware of what she did; but then Eleanor had done all. She schooled herself to sit patiently and wipe the brow that lay upon her knee, and wait; knowing that death might come to take her charge before any other arrival relieved her of it. Eleanor had a great many thoughts meanwhile; and as she sat there revolved Mr. Rhys's 'sermon' in her mind over and over, and from one end to the other and back again. So at last Mr. Rhys found her. He came as he had gone, full speed; jumped off his horse, and took a very grave survey of the group on the ground. It was not early. Mr. Rhys had been a long time away; it seemed half a day's length to Eleanor. "Have you been there all this time?" was his question. "O no." "I will take your place," said he kneeling down and lifting the unconscious head from Eleanor's lap. "There is a waggon coming. It will be here directly." Eleanor got up, trembling and stiff from her long constrained position. The waggon presently came in sight; a huge covered wain which had need to move slowly. Mr. Rhys had stayed by it to guide it, and only spurred forward when near enough to the place. Into it they now lifted the sick man, and the horses' heads were turned again. Mr. Rhys had not been able to bring a doctor. "Why here is Powis!" exclaimed Eleanor, as on the waggon coming round she discovered her pony hitched to the back of it. Mr. Rhys unhitched him. Powis was saddled. "I thought you would have done enough for to-day," said he; "and I went round by the farm to bring him. Now you will ride home as fast as you please." "But I thought the farm was out of your way?" "I had time to gallop over there and meet the waggon again; it went so slowly." "O thank you! But I do not need Powis--I can walk perfectly well. I am sure you need him more than I do, Mr. Rhys. I do not need him at all." "Come, mount!" said he. "I cannot ride on a side saddle, child." Eleanor mounted in silence, a little surprised to find that Mr. Rhys helped her not awkwardly; and not knowing exactly whence came a curious warm glow that filled her heart like a golden reflection. But it kept her silent too; and it did not go away even when Mr. Rhys said in his usual manner, "I beg your pardon, Miss Powle--I live among the hills till I grow unceremonious." Eleanor did not make any answer, and if she rode home as fast as she pleased, it was her pleasure to ride slowly; for Mr. Rhys walked beside her all the way. But she was too tired perhaps to talk much; and he was in one of his silent moods. "What have you done with the phials?" said he looking into the basket as they neared home. "I am very sorry, Mr. Rhys! I had to empty them to get water for that poor man. I wasn't quite sure, but I thought he asked for it." "Oh!--And where did you go to find water?" "Back--don't you remember?--some distance back of where we found him, we had passed a little brook of running clear water. I had to go there." "Yes--I know. Well, we shall have to make another expedition." CHAPTER III. AT HOME. "I will have hopes that cannot fade, For flowers the valley yields! I will have humble thoughts instead Of silent, dewy fields! My spirit and my God shall be My sea-ward hill, my boundless sea." The promised expedition came off; and a number of others; not too frequently however, for Mr. Rhys continued to be one of the world's busy people, and was often engaged and often weary. The walks after natural history came between times; when he was not under the immediate pressure of duty, and felt that he needed recreation to fit him for it. Eleanor was his companion generally, and grew to be as much interested in his objects as he was himself. Perhaps that is saying too much. In the house certainly Mr. Rhys bestowed an amount of patient time and investigation upon his microscopical studies which Eleanor did not emulate; time and pains which made him presently a capital manipulator, and probably stowed away quantities of knowledge under that quiet brow of his. Many an hour Mr. Rhys and his microscope were silent companions, during which he was rapt and absorbed in his contemplations or his efforts--whichever it might be; but then at other times, and before and after these times, Eleanor and Mrs. Caxton were constantly invited to a share in some of the results at least of what was going on. Perhaps three people rarely enjoy more comfort together in themselves and in each other, than these three did for some weeks following the date of the last chapter. Mr. Rhys was a wonderful pleasant addition to the family. He was entirely at home, and not a person be trammelled by any ordinary considerations. He was silent when he felt like it; he kept alone when he was busy; he put no unnatural force upon himself when he was fatigued; but silent, or weary, or busy, there was always and at all times where he was, the feeling of the presence of one who was never absent from God. It was in the atmosphere about him; it was in the look that he wore, free and simple as that always was, in its gravity; it was in the straightforward doing of duty, all little things as much as in great things; the little things never forgotten, the great things never waived. It was an unconscious testimony that Mr. Rhys carried about with him; and which his companions seeing, they moved about with softened steps and strengthened hearts all the while. But he was not always tired and silent; and when he was not, he was a most delightful companion, as free to talk as a child and as full of matter as a wise man; and entirely social and sympathetic too in his whole temper and behaviour. He would not enjoy his natural historical discoveries alone; Mrs. Caxton and Eleanor were made to take their full share. The family circle was, quietly, a very lively one; there was no stagnating anywhere. He and Mrs. Caxton had many subjects and interests in common of which they talked freely, and Eleanor was only too glad to listen. There were books and reviews read aloud sometimes, with very pithy discussion of the same; in fact, there was conversation, truly deserving the name; such as Eleanor never listened to before she came to Plassy, and which she enjoyed hugely. Then the walks after natural objects were on the whole frequent; and Mr. Rhys was sure to ask her to go along; and they were full of delightful pleasure and of nice talk too, though it never happened that they sat down under a tree again to sermonize and Mr. Rhys never forgot himself again to speak to her by the undignified appellation he once had given her. But Eleanor had got over her shyness of him pretty well, and was inclined to think it quite honour and pleasure enough to be allowed to share his walks; waited very contentedly when he was wrapped up in his own thoughts; wrapped herself up in hers; and was all ready for the talk when it came. With all this she observed that he never distinguished her by any more familiarity than Mrs. Caxton's niece and his daily neighbour at the table and in the family, might demand from a gentleman and Mrs. Caxton's friend and guest. The hills and the valleys around Plassy were very beautiful that summer. So was Mrs. Caxton's garden. The roses flushed out into bloom, with all their contemporaries; the terraces down to the river were aglow with richness and profusion of blossoms, and sweet with many fragrances. The old farmhouse itself had become an object of admiration to Eleanor. Long and low, built of dark red stone and roofed with slate, it was now in different parts wreathed and draped in climbing roses and honeysuckle as well as in the ivy which did duty all winter. To stand under these roses at the back of the house, and look down over the gorgeous terraces, to the river and the bridge and the outspread meadows on the other side, stretching away down and up the valley and reaching to the foot of the hills which rose beyond them; to see all this, was to see a combination of natural features rare even in England, though words may not make it seem so. Mrs. Caxton and Eleanor were there one evening. It was towards the end of the season of "June roses," though indeed it was later than the month of June. Mr. Rhys had been called away to some distance by business, and been detained a week; and this evening he might be expected home. They had missed him very much, Mrs. Caxton and Eleanor. They had missed him exceedingly at prayer-time; they had missed him desolately at meals. To-night the tea-table was spread where he loved to have it; on the tiled floor under the projecting roof before mentioned. A dish was crowned with red and white strawberries in the middle of the table, and Eleanor stood decorating it slowly with ivy leaves and blossoms of white heath. "It is not certain, my dear, he will come home to-night," Mrs. Caxton said as she watched her. "No, aunty,"--said Eleanor with a slight start, but then going on with her occupation. "What about it?" "Nothing. We will enjoy the flowers ourselves." "But he thought he would be at home to-night, aunt Caxton?" "He could not be sure. He might easily be detained. You have got over your fear of Mr. Rhys, Eleanor?" "Aunt Caxton, I don't think I ever feared him!" "He used to have a 'quieting influence' upon you," Mrs. Caxton said smiling. "Well,--he does now, ma'am. At least I am sure Mr. Rhys is one of the persons I should never care to contradict." "I should think not," said Mrs. Caxton quietly. Eleanor had coloured a little. "But that is not because, merely, I do not think myself wise; because there are other persons before whom I think myself no wiser, whom I _would_ contradict--I mean, in a polite way--if it came into my head." "We shall miss him when he goes," said Mrs. Caxton with a little bit of a sigh. Eleanor wanted to ask a question, but the words did not come. The ornamenting of the strawberry dish was finished. She turned from it, and looked down where the long train of cows came winding through the meadows and over the bridge. Pretty, peaceful, lovely, was this gentle rural scene; what was the connection that made but a step in Eleanor's thoughts between the meadows of Plassy and some far-off islands in distant Polynesia? Eleanor had changed since some time ago. She could understand now why Mr. Rhys wanted to go there; she could comprehend it; she could understand how it was that he was not afraid to go and did not shrink from leaving all this loveliness at her feet. All that was no mystery now; but her thoughts fastened on her aunt's words--how they would "miss him." She was very still, and so was Mrs. Caxton; till a step brought both heads round to the door. It was only a servant that came out, bringing letters; one for Eleanor, one for Mrs. Caxton. Standing where she was, Eleanor broke hers open. It was from her mother, and it contained something both new and unexpected; an urgent injunction on her to return immediately home. The family were going at once to Brighton, the letter said; Mrs. Powle wished Eleanor to lose no time, in order that her wardrobe might be properly cared for. Thomas was sent with the letter, and her mother desired that Eleanor would immediately on the receipt of it, "without an hour's delay," set off to come home with him. Reasons for this sudden proceeding there were none given; and it came with the suddenness of a hurricane upon Eleanor. Up to this time there had been no intimation of her mother's wish to have her at home again ever; an interval of several weeks had elapsed since any letters; now Mrs. Powle said "she had been gone long enough," and they all wanted her, and must have her at once to go to Brighton. So suddenly affectionate? Eleanor stood looking at her letter some time after she had ceased to read it, with a face that shewed turmoil. Mrs. Caxton came up to her. Eleanor dropped the letter in her hand, but her eye avoided her aunt's. "What is all this haste, Eleanor?" Mrs. Caxton said gravely. "I don't know, ma'am." "At any rate, my child, you cannot leave me to-night. It is too late." "Yes, ma'am." "Does your mother assign no reason for this sudden demand of you? She gives me none." "She gives me none, ma'am." "Eleanor--" It brought Eleanor's eye up, and that brought her head down on Mrs. Caxton's shoulder. Her aunt clasped her tenderly for a moment, and then said, "Had you not better see your mother's servant, my dear, and give your orders?--and then we will have tea." Eleanor steadied herself immediately; went out and had an interview with old Thomas, which however brought her no enlightenment; made her arrangements with him, and returned to her aunt. Mrs. Caxton ordered tea; they would not wait for Mr. Rhys any longer. The aunt and niece sat down to the table behind the honeysuckle drapery of the pillars; the sunlight had left the landscape; the breath of the flowers floated up cool and sweet from the terraced garden and waved about them with every stir of the long rose and honeysuckle sprays. Eleanor sat by the table and looked out. Mrs. Caxton poured out the tea and looked at her. "Aren't you going to take some strawberries, my love?" "Shall I give you some, aunt Caxton?" "And yourself, my dear." She watched while Eleanor slowly broke up the heath and ivy adornment of the strawberry dish, and carefully afterwards replaced the sprays and leaves she had dislodged. It is no harm for a lady's hand to be white; but travelling from the hand to the face, Mrs. Caxton's eye found too little colour there. Eleanor's cheeks were not generally wanting in a fine healthy tinge. The tinge was fainter than usual to-night. Nevertheless she was eating strawberries with apparent regularity. "Eleanor, I do not understand this sudden recall. Have you any clue?" "No ma'am, not the least." "What arrangements have you made, my dear?" "For to-morrow morning, ma'am. I had no choice." "No, my dear, you had not; and I have not a word to say. I hope Mr. Rhys will come back before you go." Absolute silence on Eleanor's part. "You would like to bid him good bye before you leave Plassy." There was a cessation of any attention to the strawberries, and Eleanor's hand took a position which rather hindered observations of her face. You might have heard a slight little sigh come from behind Mrs. Caxton's tea-pot. "Eleanor, have you learned that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord? My love, they are not left to our own disposal, and we should not know how to manage it. You are going to do the Lord's work, are you not, wherever you may be?" "I hope so." "Then trust him to place you where he wants the work to be done. Can you, Eleanor?" Eleanor left her seat, came round and knelt down by Mrs. Caxton's side, putting her face in her lap. "It is not like a good soldier, dear, to wish to play general. You have something now to do at home--perhaps not more for others than for yourself. Are you willing to do it?" "Don't ask me if I am willing, aunt Caxton! I have been too happy--But I shall be willing." "That is all we live for, my dear--to do the Lord's work; and I am sure that in service as in everything else, God loves a cheerful giver. Let us give him that now, Eleanor; and trust him for the rest. My child, you are not the only one who has to give up something." And though Mrs. Caxton said little more than that word on the subject of what Eleanor's departure cost herself, she manifested it in a different way by the kind incessant solicitude and care with which she watched over Eleanor and helped her and kept with her that night and the next morning. Eleanor made her preparations and indulged in very few words. There was too much to think of, in the last evening's society, the last night in her happy room, the last morning hours. And yet Eleanor did very little thinking. She was to go immediately after breakfast. The early prayers were over, and the aunt and niece were left by themselves a moment before the meal was served. "And what shall I say to Mr. Rhys?" enquired Mrs. Caxton, as they stood silent together. Eleanor hesitated, and hesitated; and finally said, "I believe, nothing, ma'am." "You have given me messages for so many other people, you know," said Mrs. Caxton quietly. "Yes, ma'am. I don't know how to make a message for him." "I think he will feel it," said Mrs. Caxton in the same manner. Then she saw, for her eyes were good, the lightning flash of emotion which worked in Eleanor's face. Proud self-control kept it down, and she stood motionless, though it did not prevent the perceptible paling of her cheek which Mrs. Caxton had noticed last night. She stood silent, then she said slowly,-- "If I thought _that_--You may give him any message for me that you think good, aunt Caxton." The breakfast arrived, and few more words passed on any topic. Another hour, and Eleanor was on her journey. She felt in a confusion of spirits and would not let herself think, till they reached her stopping place for the night. And then, instead of thinking, Eleanor to say the truth could do nothing but weep. It was her time for tears; to-morrow would end such an indulgence. At an early hour the next day she met her father's carriage which had been sent so far for her; and the remaining hours of her way Eleanor did think. Her thoughts are her own. But at the bottom of some that were sorrowful lay one deep subject of joy. That she was not going helmet-less into the fight which she felt might be before her. Of that she had an inward presentiment, though what form it would take she was entirely uncertain. Julia was the first person that met her, and that meeting was rapturous. "O Nell! it has been so dreadful and dull since you have been gone! I'm so glad to have you home! I'm so glad to have you home!"--she repeated, with her arms round Eleanor's neck. "But what are you going to Brighton for?" said Eleanor after the first salutations had satisfied the first eagerness of the sisters. "O I don't know. Papa isn't just well, I believe; and mamma thought it would do him good. Mamma's in here." It was to Eleanor's relief that her reception in this quarter also was perfectly cordial. Mrs. Powle seemed to have forgotten, or to be disposed to forget, old causes of trouble; and to begin again as if nothing had happened. "You look well, Eleanor. Bless me, I never saw your complexion better! but how your hair is dressed! That isn't the way now; but you'll get to rights soon. I've got a purple muslin for you that will be beautiful. Your whole wardrobe will want attention, but I have everything ready--dress-maker and all--only waiting for you. Think of your being gone seven months and more! But never mind--we'll let bygones be bygones. I am not going to rake up anything. We'll go to Brighton and have everything pleasant." "How soon, mamma?" "Just as soon as I can get you dressed. And Eleanor! I wish you would immediately take a review of all your wardrobe and all I have got for you, and see if I have omitted anything." "What has put you into the notion of Brighton, mamma?" "Everybody is there now--and we want a change. I think it will do your father good." To see her father was the next thing; and here there was some comfort. The squire was undoubtedly rejoiced to see his daughter and welcomed her back right heartily. Made much of her in his way. He was the only one too who cared much to hear of Mrs. Caxton and her way of life and her farm. The squire did care. Eleanor was kept a long time answering questions and giving details. It cost her some hard work. "She is a good woman, is my sister Caxton," said the Squire; "and she has pluck enough for half a dozen. The only thing I have against her is her being a Methodist. She hasn't made a Methodist of you, hey, Eleanor?" "I don't think she has, papa," Eleanor answered slowly. "That's the only fault _I_ have to find with her," the Squire went on; "but I suppose women must have an empty corner of their heads, where they will stick fancies if they don't stick flowers. I think flowers are the most becoming of the two. Wears a brown gown always, don't she?" "No, sir." "I thought they did," said the Squire; "but she's a clever woman, for all that, or she wouldn't carry on that business of the farm as she does. Your mother don't like the farm; but I think my sister is right. Better be independent and ask leave of nobody. Well, you must get dressed, must you. I am glad to have you home, child!" "Why are we going to leave home, papa?" "St. George and the Dragon! Ask your mother." So Eleanor did not get much wiser on the subject till dinner-time; nor then either, though it was nearly the only thing talked about, both directly and indirectly. A great weariness came over her, as the contrast rose up of Mrs. Caxton's dinner-table and the three faces round it; with the sweet play of talk, on things natural or philosophical, religious or civil, but always sensible, fresh, and original and strong. Always that; the party might lapse into silence; if one of them was tired it often did; but when the words came again, they came with a ready life and purpose--with a sort of perfume of love and purity--that it made Eleanor's heart ache now to think of. Her mother was descanting on lodgings, on the people already at Brighton, or coming there; on dresses ready and unready; and to vary this topic the Squire complained that his wine was not cooled properly. Eleanor sank into silence and then into extreme depression of spirits; which grew more and more, until she caught her little sister's eye looking at her wistfully. Julia had hardly said a word all dinner-time. The look smote Eleanor's conscience. "Is this the way I am doing the work given me?" she thought; "this selfish forgetting of all others in myself? Am I standing in my post like a good soldier? Is _this_ 'pleasing all men for their good?'" Conscience thumped like a hammer; and Eleanor roused up, entered into what was going, talked and made herself pleasant to both father and mother, who grew sunshiny under the influence. Mrs. Powle eat the remainder of her dinner with more appetite; and the Squire declared Eleanor had grown handsome and Plassy had done her no harm. But Julia looked and listened and said never a word. It was very hard work to Eleanor, though it brought its reward as she went along, not only in comments but in the sense of duty performed. She would not run away from her post; she kept at it; when her father had gone away to smoke she stayed by her mother; till Mrs. Powle dropped off into her usual after dinner nap in her chair. Eleanor sat still a minute or two longer, then made an escape. She sought her old garden, by the way of her old summer parlour. Things were not changed there, except that the garden was a little neglected. It brought painful things back, though the flowers were sweet and the summer sunset glow was over them all. So it used to be in old times. So it used to be in nearer times, last summer. And now was another change. Eleanor paced slowly down one walk and up another, looking sorrowfully at her old friends, the roses, carnations and petunias, which looked at her as cheerfully as ever; when a hand touched hers and she found Julia at her side. "Eleanor," she said wistfully, "are you _sorry_ to be at home again?" "I am glad to see you, darling; and papa, and mamma." "But you don't look glad. Was it so much pleasanter where you have been?" Eleanor struggled with herself. "It was very different, Julia--and there were things that you and I both love, that there are not here." "What?" "Here all is for the world, Julia; there, at Plassy, nothing is for the world. I feel the difference just at first--I suppose I shall get a little used to it presently." "I have not thought so much about all that," said Julia soberly, "since Mr. Rhys went away. But you must have loved aunt Caxton very much, Eleanor, to make you sorry to come home." Julia spoke almost sadly. Eleanor felt bitterly reproached. Was there not work at home here for her to do! Yet she could hardly speak at first. Putting her arm round Julia she drew her down beside her on a green bank and took her little sister in her arms. "You and I will help each other, Julia, will we not?" "In what?" "To love Christ, and please him." "Why, do you love him?" said Julia. "Are you like Mr. Rhys?" "Not much. But I do love the same Master he loves, Julia; and I have come home to serve him. You will help me?" "Mamma don't like all that," remarked Julia. Eleanor sighed. The burden on her heart seemed growing heavy. Julia half rose up and putting both arms round her neck covered her lips with kisses. "You don't seem like yourself!" she said; "and you look as grave as if you had found us all dead. Eleanor--are you afraid?" she said with an earnest look. "Afraid of what, dear?" "Of that man--afraid of Mr. Carlisle?" "No, I am not afraid of him, or of anything. Besides, he is hundreds of miles away, in Switzerland or somewhere." "No he isn't; he is here." "What do you mean by 'here?'" "In England, I mean. He isn't at the Priory; but he was here at the Lodge the other day." Eleanor's heart made two or three springs one way and another. "No dear, I am not afraid of him," she repeated, with a quietness that was convincing; and Julia passed to other subjects. Eleanor did not forget that one; and as Julia ran on with her talk, she pondered it, and made a secret thanksgiving that she was so escaped both from danger and from fear. Nevertheless she could not help thinking about the subject. It seemed that Mr. Carlisle's wound had healed very rapidly. And moreover she had not given him credit for finding any attraction in that house, beyond her own personal presence in it. However, she reflected that Mr. Carlisle was busy in politics, and perhaps cultivated her father. They went in again, to take up the subject of Brighton. And what followed? Muslins, flowers, laces, bonnets and ribbands. They were very irksome days to Eleanor, that were spent in getting ready for Brighton; and the thought of the calm purity of Plassy with its different occupations sometimes came over her and for the moment unnerved her hands for the finery they had to handle. Once Eleanor took a long rambling ride alone on her old pony; she did not try it again. Business and bustle was better, at least was less painful, than such a time for thinking and feeling. So the dresses were made, and they went to Brighton. CHAPTER IV. AT A WATERING-PLACE. "In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!" Eleanor was at once plunged into a whirl of engagements, with acquaintances new and old. And the former class multiplied very rapidly. Mrs. Powle's fair curls hung on either side of her face with almost their full measure of complacency, as she saw and beheld her daughter's successful attractions. It was true. Eleanor was found to have something unique about her; some said it was her beauty, some said it was her manners; some insisted it was neither, but had a deeper origin; at any rate she was fresh. Something out of the common line and that piqued curiosity, was delightful; and in despite of her very moderate worldly advantages, compared with many others who were there, Eleanor Powle seemed likely to become in a little while the belle of Brighton. Certain rumours which were afloat no doubt facilitated and expedited this progress of things. Happily Eleanor did not hear them. The rush of engagements and whirl of society at first was very wearying and painful to her. No heart had Eleanor to give to it. Only by putting a force upon herself, to please her father and mother, she managed to enter with some spirit into the amusements going forward, in which she was expected to take an active part. Perhaps this very fact had something to do with the noble and sweet disengagedness of manner which marked her unlike those about her, in a world where self-interest of some sort is the ruling motive. It was not Eleanor's world; it had nothing to do with the interests that were dear in her regard; and something of that carelessness which she brought to it conferred a grace that the world imitates in vain. Eleanor found however after a little, that the rush and hurry of her life and of all the people about her had a contagion in it; her own thoughts were beginning to be absorbed in what absorbed everybody; her own cherished interests were getting pushed into a corner. Eleanor resolved to make a stand then, and secure time enough to herself to let her own inner life have play and breathing room. But it was very difficult to make such a stand. Mrs. Powle ever stood like a watchman at the door to drive Eleanor out when she wanted to be in. Time! there seemed to be no time. Eleanor had heard that Mr. Carlisle was expected at Brighton; so she was not greatly surprised one evening to find herself in the same room with him. It was at a public assembly. The glances that her curiosity cast, found him moving about among people very like, and in very exactly the manner of his old self. No difference that she could see. She wondered whether he would have the audacity to come and speak to her. Audacity was not a point in which Mr. Carlisle was failing. He came; and as he came others scattered away; melted off, and left her alone. He came with the best air in the world; a little conscious, a little apologetic, wholly respectful, not altogether devoid of the old familiarity. He offered his hand; did not to be sure detain hers, which would have been inconvenient in a public assembly; but he detained _her_, falling into talk with an ease or an effrontery which it was impossible not to admire. And Eleanor admired him involuntarily. Certainly this man had capacities. He did not detain her too long; passed away as easily as he had come up; but returned again in the course of the evening to offer her some civility; and it was Mr. Carlisle who put her mother and herself into their carriage. Eleanor looked for a remark from her mother on the subject during their drive home; but Mrs. Powle made none. The next evening he was at Mrs. Powle's rooms, where a small company was gathered every Tuesday. He might be excused if he watched, more than he wished to be seen watching, the sweet unconscious grace and ease with which Eleanor moved and spoke. Others noticed it, but Mr. Carlisle drew comparisons; and found to his mystification that her six months on a cheese-farm had returned Eleanor with an added charm of eye and manner, for which he could not account; which he could not immediately define. She was not expecting to see him this time, for she started a little when he presented himself. He came with the same pleasant expression that he had worn last night. "Will you excuse me for remarking, that your winter has done you good?" he said. "Yes. I know it has," Eleanor answered. "With your old frankness, you acknowledge it?" "Willingly." Her accent was so simple and sweet, the attraction was irresistible. He sat down by her. "I hope you are as willing as I am to acknowledge that all our last winter's work was not good. We exchanged letters." "Hardly, Mr. Carlisle." "Will you allow me to say, that I am ashamed of my part in that transaction. Eleanor, I want you to forget it, and to receive me as if it had not happened." Eleanor was in a mixture of astonishment and doubt, as to how far his words might be taken. In the doubt, she hesitated one instant. Another person, a lady, drew near, and Mr. Carlisle yielded to her the place he had been occupying. The opportunity for an answer was gone. And though he was often near her during the evening, he did not recur again to the subject, and Eleanor could not. But the little bit of dialogue left her something to think of. She had occasion often to think of it. Mr. Carlisle was everywhere, of course, in Brighton; at least he was in Eleanor's everywhere; she saw him a great deal and was a little struck and puzzled by his manner. He was very often in her immediate company; often attending upon her; it constantly happened, she could not tell how, that his arm was the one to which she was consigned, in walks and evening escorts. In a measure, he assumed his old place beside her; his attentions were constant, gracefully and freely paid; they just lacked the expression which would have obliged and enabled her to throw them off. It was rather the manner of a brother than of a lover; but it was familiar and confidential beyond what those assume that are not brothers. Whatever it meant, it dissatisfied Eleanor. The world, perhaps the gentleman himself, might justly think if she permitted this state of things that she allowed the conclusions naturally to be drawn from it. She determined to withdraw herself. It was curiously and inexplicably difficult. Too easily, too gracefully, too much as a matter of course, things fell into train, for Eleanor often to do anything to alter the train. But she was determined. "Eleanor, do you know everybody is waiting?" Mrs. Powle exclaimed one morning bursting into Eleanor's room. "There's the whole riding party--and you are not ready!" "No, mamma. I am not going." "Not going! Just put on your riding-habit as quick as you can--Julia, get her hat!--you said you would go, and I have no notion of disappointing people like that. Get yourself ready immediately--do you hear me?" "But, mamma--" "Put on your habit!--then talk if you like. It's all nonsense. What are you doing? studying? Nonsense! there's time enough for studying when you are at home. Now be quick!" "But, mamma--" "Well? Put your hair lower, Eleanor; that will not do." "Mamma, isn't Mr. Carlisle there?" "Mr. Carlisle? What if he is? I hope he is. You are well in that hat, Eleanor." "Mamma, if Mr. Carlisle is there,--" "Hold your tongue, Eleanor!--take your whip and go. They are all waiting. You may talk to me when you come back, but now you must go. I should think Mr. Carlisle would like to be of the party, for there isn't such another figure on the ride. Now kiss me and go. You are a good girl." Mrs. Powle said it with some feeling. She had never found Eleanor so obediently tractable as since her return; she had never got from her such ready and willing cooperation, even in matters that her mother knew were not after Eleanor's heart, as now when her heart was less in them than ever. And at this moment she was gratified by the quiet grave obedience rendered her, in doing what she saw plainly enough Eleanor did not like to do. She followed her daughter down stairs with a proud heart. It happened again, as it was always happening, that Mr. Carlisle was Eleanor's special attendant. Eleanor meditated possible ways of hindering this in future; but for the present there was no remedy. Mr. Carlisle put her on her horse; it was not till she was taking the reins in her left hand that something struck her with a sense of familiarity. "What horse is this?" she asked. "No other than your old friend and servant--I hope you have not forgotten her. She has not forgotten you." Eleanor perceived that. As surely as it was Black Maggie, Maggie knew her; and displeased though Eleanor was with the master, she could not forbear a little caress of recognition to the beautiful creature he had once given her. Maggie was faultless; she and Eleanor were accustomed to each other; it was an undeniable pleasure to be so mounted again, as Eleanor could not but acknowledge to herself during the first few dainty dancing steps that Maggie made with her wonted burden. Nevertheless it was a great deal too much like old times that were destroyed; and glancing at Mr. Carlisle Eleanor saw that he was on Tippoo, and furthermore that there was a sparkle in his eye which meant hope, or triumph. Something put Eleanor on her mettle; she rode well that day. She rode with a careless grace and ease that even drew a compliment from Mr. Carlisle; but beyond that, his companion at first gave him little satisfaction. She was grave and cold to all his conversational efforts. However, there she was on his black mare; and Mr. Carlisle probably found an antidote to whatever discouragement she threw in his way. Chance threw something else in his way. They had turned into one of the less frequented streets of the town, in their way to get out of it, when Eleanor's eye was seized by a figure on the sidewalk. It startled her inexpressibly; and before she could be sure her eyes did not deceive her the figure had almost passed, or they had almost passed the person. But in passing he had raised his bat; she knew then he had recognized her, as she had known him; and he had recognized her in such company. And he was in Brighton. Without a moment for thought or delay, Eleanor wheeled her horse's head sharply round and in one or two smart steps brought herself alongside of Mr. Rhys. He stopped, came up to her stirrup and shook hands. He looked grave, Eleanor thought. She hastened to speak. "I could not pass you, Mr. Rhys. I had to leave Plassy without bidding you good bye." "I am glad to meet you now," he said,--"before I go." "Do you leave Brighton very soon?" "To-morrow. I go up to London, and in a few days I expect to sail from there." "For--?" "Yes,--for my post in the Southern Ocean. I have an unexpected opportunity." Eleanor was silent. She could not find anything to say. She knew also that Mr. Carlisle had wheeled his horse after her, and that Tippoo was taking steps somewhere in her close neighbourhood. But she sat motionless, unable to move as well as to speak. "I must not detain you," said Mr. Rhys. "Do you find it as easy to live well at Brighton as at Plassy?" Eleanor answered a low and grave "no;" bending down over her saddlebow. "Keep that which is committed to thy charge," he said gently. "Farewell--and the Lord bless you!" Eleanor had bared her gauntleted hand; he gave it the old earnest grasp, lifted his hat, and went on his way. Eleanor turned her horse's head again and found herself alongside of Mr. Carlisle. She rode on briskly, pointing out to him how far ahead were the rest of the party. "Was not your friend somebody that I know?" he enquired as soon as there was a convenient pause. "I am sure I do not know," said Eleanor. "I do not know how good your memory may be. He is the gentleman that was my brother's tutor at home--some time ago." "I thought I remembered. Is he tutoring some one else now?" "I should think not. He just tells me he is about to sail for the South Seas. Mr. Carlisle, Maggie has a very nice mouth." "Her mistress has a very nice hand," he answered, bending forward to Maggie's bridle so that he could look up in Eleanor's face. "Only you let her rein be too slack, as of old. You like her better than Tippoo?" "Tippoo is beyond my management." "I am not going to let you say that. You shall mount Tippoo next time, and become acquainted with your own powers. You are not afraid of anything?" "Yes, I am." "You did not use it." "Well I have not grown cowardly," said Eleanor; "but I am afraid of mounting Tippoo; and what I am afraid of, Mr. Carlisle, I will not do." "Just the reverse maxim from that which I should have expected from you. Do you say your friend there is going to the South Seas?" "Mr. Rhys?" said Eleanor, turning her face full upon him. "If that is his name--yes. Why does he not stick to tutoring?" "Does anybody stick to tutoring that can help it?" "I should think not; but then as a tutor he would be in the way of better things; he could mount to something higher." "I believe he has some expectation of that sort in going to the Pacific," said Eleanor. She spoke it with a most commonplace coolness. "Seems a very roundabout road to promotion," said Mr. Carlisle, watching Eleanor's hand and stealthily her face; "but I suppose he knows best. Your friend is not a Churchman, is he?" "No." "I remember him as a popular orator of great powers. What is he leaving England for?" "You assume somewhat too much knowledge on my part of people's designs," said Eleanor carelessly. "I must suppose that he likes work on the other side of the world better than to work here;--for some reason or other." "How the reason should be promotion, puzzles me," said her companion; "but that may be owing to prejudice on my part. I do not know how to conceive of promotion out of the regular line. In England and in the Church. To be sent to India to take a bishopric seems to me a descent in the scale. Have you this feeling?" "About bishoprics?" said Eleanor smiling. "They are not in my line, you know." "Don't be wicked! Have you this feeling about England?" "If a bishopric in India were offered me?--" "Well, yes! Would you accept it?" "I really never had occasion to consider the subject before. It is such a very new thought, you see. But I will tell you, I should think the humblest curacy in England to be chosen rather,--unless for the sake of a wider sphere of doing good." "Do you know," said Mr. Carlisle, looking very contented, and coming up closer, "your bridle hand has improved? It is very nearly faultless. What have you been riding this winter?" "A wiry little pony." "Honour, Eleanor!" said Mr. Carlisle laughing and bringing his hand again near enough to throw over a lock of Maggie's mane which had fallen on the wrong side. "I am really curious." "Well I tell you the truth. But Mr. Carlisle, I wonder you people in parliament do not stir yourselves up to right some wrongs. People ought to live, if they are curates; and there was one where I was last winter--an excellent one--living, or starving, I don't know which you would call it, on thirty pounds a year." Mr. Carlisle entered into the subject; and questions moral, legislative, and ecclesiastical, were discussed by him and Eleanor with great earnestness and diligence; by him at least with singular delight. Eleanor kept up the conversation with unflagging interest; it was broken by a proposal on Mr. Carlisle's part for a gallop, to which she willingly agreed; held her part in the ensuing scamper with perfect grace and steadiness, and as soon as it was over, plunged Mr. Carlisle deep again into reform. "Nobody has had such honour, as I to-day," he assured her as he took her down from her horse. "I shall see you to-night, of course?" "Of course. I suppose," said Eleanor. It cannot be said that Eleanor made any effort to change the "of course," though the rest of the day as usual was swallowed up in a round of engagements. There was no breathing time, and the evening occasion was a public one. Mrs. Powle was in a great state of satisfaction with her daughter to-day; Eleanor had shunned no company nor exertion, had carried an unusual spirit into all; and a minute with Mr. Carlisle after the ride had shewed him in a sort of exultant mood. She looked over Eleanor's dress critically when they were about leaving home for the evening's entertainment. It was very simple indeed; yet Mrs. Powle in the depth of her heart could not find that anything was wanting to the effect. Nor could a yet more captious critic, Mr. Carlisle; who was on the ground before them and watched and observed a little while from a distance. Admiration and passion were roused within him, as he watched anew what he had already seen in Eleanor's manner since she came to Brighton; that grace of absolute ease and unconsciousness, which only the very highest breeding can successfully imitate. No Lady Rythdale, he was obliged to confess, that ever lived, had better advanced the honours of her house, than would this one; could she be persuaded to accept the position. This manner did not use to be Eleanor's; how had she got it on the borders of Wales? Neither was the sweetness of that smile to be seen on her lip in the times gone by; and a little gravity was wanting then, which gave a charm of dignity to the exquisite poise which whether of character or manner was so at home with her now. Was she too grave? The question rose; but he answered it with a negative. Her smile came readily, and it was the sweeter for not being always seen. His meditations were interrupted by a whisper at his elbow. "She will not dance!" "Who will not?" said he, finding himself face to face with Mrs. Powle. "Eleanor. She will not. I am afraid it is one of her new notions." Mr. Carlisle smiled a peculiar smile. "Hardly a fault, I think, Mrs. Powle. I am not inclined to quarrel with it." "You do not see any faults at all, I believe," said the lady. "Now I am more discerning." Mr. Carlisle did not speak his thoughts, which were complimentary only in one direction, to say truth. He went off to Eleanor, and prevented any more propositions of dancing for the rest of the evening. He could not monopolize her, though. He was obliged to see her attention divided in part among other people, and to take a share which though perfectly free and sufficiently gracious, gave him no advantage in that respect over several others. The only advantage he could make sure of was that of attending Eleanor home. The evening left him an excited man, not happy in his mind. Eleanor, having quitted her escort, went slowly up the stairs; bade her mother good night; went into her own room and locked the door. Then methodically she took off the several parts of her evening attire and laid them away; put on a dressing-gown, threw her window open, and knelt down by it. The stars kept watch over the night. A pleasant fresh breeze blew in from the sea. They were Eleanor's only companions, and they never missed her from the window the whole night long. I am bound to say, that the morning found her there. But nights so spent make a heavy draft on the following day. In spite of all that cold water could do in the way of refreshment, in spite of all that the morning cup of tea could do, Eleanor was obliged to confess to a headache. "Why Eleanor, child, you look dreadfully!" said Mrs. Powle, who came into her room and found her lying down. "You are as white!--and black rings under your eyes. You will never be able to go with the riding party this morning." "I am afraid not, mamma. I am sorry. I would go if I could; but I believe I must lie still. Then I shall be fit for this evening, perhaps." She was not; but that one day of solitude and silence was all that Eleanor took for herself. The next day she joined the riders again; and from that time held herself back from no engagement to which her mother or Mr. Carlisle urged her. Mr. Carlisle felt it with a little of his old feeling of pride. It was the only thing in which Eleanor could be said to give the feeling much chance; for while she did not reject his attendance, which she could not easily do, nor do at all without first vanquishing her mother; and while she allowed a certain remains of the old wonted familiarity, she at the same never gave Mr. Carlisle any reason to think that he had regained the least power over her. She received him well, but as she received a hundred others. He was her continual attendant, but he never felt that it was by Eleanor's choice; and he knew sometimes that it was by her choice that he was thrown out of his office. She bewildered him with her sweet dignity, which was more utterly unmanageable than any form of pride or passion. The pride and passion were left to be Mr. Carlisle's own. Pride was roused, that he was stopped by so gentle a barrier in his advances; and passion was stimulated, by uncertainty not merely, but by the calm grace and indefinable sweetness which he did not remember in Eleanor, well as he had loved her before. He loved her better now. That charm of manner was the very thing to captivate Mr. Carlisle; he valued it highly; and did not appreciate it the less because it baffled him. "He's ten times worse than ever," Mrs. Powle said exultingly to her husband. "I believe he'd go through fire and water to make sure of her." "And how's she?" growled the Squire. "She's playing with him, girl-fashion," said Mrs. Powle chuckling. "She is using her power." "What is she using it for?" said the Squire threateningly. "O to enjoy herself, and make him value her properly. She will come round by and by." How was Eleanor? The world had opportunities of judging most of the time, as far as the outside went; yet there were still a few times of the day which the world did not intrude upon; and of those there was an hour before breakfast, when Eleanor was pretty secure against interruption even from her mother. Mrs. Powle was a late riser. Julia, who was very much cast away at Brighton and went wandering about like a rudderless vessel, found out that Eleanor was dressed and using the sunshine long before anybody else in the house knew the day was begun. It was a golden discovery. Eleanor was alone, and Julia could have her to herself a little while at least. Even if Eleanor was bent on reading or writing, still it was a joy to be near her, to watch her, to smooth her soft hair, and now and then break her off from other occupations to have a talk. "Eleanor," said Julia one day, a little while after these oases in time had been discovered by her, "what has become of Mr. Rhys? do you know?" "He has gone," said Eleanor. She was sitting by her open window, a book open on her lap. She looked out of the window as she spoke. "Gone? Do you mean he has gone away from England? You don't mean that?" "Yes." "To that dreadful place?" "What dreadful place?" "Where he was going, you know,--somewhere. Are you sure he has gone, Eleanor?" "Yes. I saw it in the paper--the mention of his going--He and two others." "And has he gone to that horrible place?" "Yes, I suppose so. That is where he wished to go." "I don't see how he could!" said Julia. "How could he! where the people are so bad!--and leave England?" "Why Julia, have you forgotten? Don't you know whose servant Mr. Rhys is?" "Yes," said Julia mutteringly,--"but I should think he would be afraid. Why the people there are as wicked as they can be." "That is no reason why he should be afraid. What harm could they do to him?" "Why!--they could kill him, easily," said Julia. "And would that be great harm to Mr. Rhys?" said Eleanor looking round at her. "What if they did, and he were called quick home to the court of his King,--do you think his reception there would be a sorrowful thing?" "Why Nell," said Julia, "do you mean heaven?" "Do you not think that is Mr. Rhys's home?" "I haven't thought much about it at all," said Julia laying her head down on Eleanor's shoulder. "You see, nobody talked to me ever since he went away; and mamma talks everything else." "Come here in the mornings, and we'll talk about it," said Eleanor. Her voice was a little husky. "Shall we?" said Julia rousing up again. "But Eleanor, what are your eyes full for? Did you love Mr. Rhys too?" It was an innocent question; but instead of answering, Eleanor turned again to the window. She sat with her hand pressed upon her mouth, while the full eyes brimmed and ran over, and filled again; and drop after drop plashed upon the window-sill. It was impossible to help it, for that minute; and Julia looked on wonderingly. "O Nell," she repeated almost awe-struck, "what is it? What has made you sorry too?--" But she had to wait a little while for her answer. "He was a good friend to me," said Eleanor at last, wiping her eyes; "and I suppose it is not very absurd to cry for a friend that is gone, that one will never see again." "Maybe he will come back some time," said Julia sorrowfully. "Not while there is work there for him to do," said Eleanor. She waited a little while. There was some difficulty in going on. When she did speak her tone was clear and firm. "Julia, shall we follow the Lord as Mr. Rhys does?" "How?" "By doing whatever Jesus gives us to do." "What has he given us to do?" said Julia. "If you come to my room in the mornings, we will read and find out. And we will pray, and ask to be taught." Julia's countenance lightened and clouded with alternate changes. "Will you, Eleanor! But what have we got to do?" "Love Jesus." "Well I--O I did use to, Eleanor! and I think I do now; only I have forgotten to think about anything, this ever so long." "Then if we love him, we shall find plenty of things to do for him." "What, Eleanor? I would like to do something." "Just whatever he gives us, Julia. Come, darling,--have you not duties?" "Duties?" "Have you not things that it is your duty to do?--or not to do?" "Studies!" said Julia. "But I don't like them." "For Jesus' sake?" Julia burst into tears. Eleanor's tone was so loving and gentle, it reached the memories that had been slumbering. "How can I do them for him, Eleanor?" she asked, half perversely still. "'Whatsoever ye do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.' So he has told us." "But my studies, Eleanor? how can I?" "Who gave you the opportunity, Julia?" "Well--I know." "Well, if God has given you the opportunity, do you think he means it for nothing? He has work for you to do, Julia, some time, for which you will want all these things that you have a chance of learning now; if you miss the chance, you will certainly not be ready for the work." "Why, Eleanor!--that's funny." "What is it?" "Why I never thought of such a thing." "What did you think?" "I thought I had French and German to study, for instance, because everybody else learned French and German. I did not think there was any use in it." "You forgot who had given you them to learn." "No, mamma would have it. Just her notion. Papa didn't care." "But dear Julia, you forget who has made it your duty to please mamma's notions. And you forget who it is that has given you your place in the world. You might have been born in poverty, with quite other lessons to learn, and quite other work in the world." "You talk just as queer as if you were Mr. Rhys himself," said Julia. "I never heard of such things. Do you suppose all the girls who are learning French and German at school--all the girls in England--have the same sort of work to do? that they will want it for?" "No, not all the same. But God never gives the preparation without the occasion." "Then suppose they do not make the preparation?" "Then when the occasion comes, they will not be ready for it. When their work is given them to do, they will be found wanting." "It's so queer!" said Julia. "What?" "To think such things about lessons." "You may think such things about everything. Whatever God gives you, he gives you to use in some way for him." "But how can I possibly know _how_, Eleanor?" "Come to me in the mornings, and you and I will try to find out." "Did you say, I must please all mamma's notions?" "Certainly--all you can." "But I like papa's notions a great deal better than mamma's." "You must try to meet both," said Eleanor smiling. "I do not like a great many of mamma's notions. I don't think there is any sense in them." "But God likes obedience, Julia. He has bid you honour mamma and papa. Do it for him." "Do you mean to please all mamma's notions?" said Julia sharply. "All that I can, certainly." "Well it is one of her notions that Mr. Carlisle should get you to the Priory after all. Are you going to let her? Are you going to let him, I mean?" "No." "Then if it is your duty to please mamma's notions, why mustn't you please this one?" "Because here I have my duty to others to think of." "To whom?" said Julia as quick as lightning. "To myself--and to Mr. Carlisle." "Mr. Carlisle!" said Julia. "I'll be bound he thinks your duty to him would make you do whatever he likes." "It happens that I take a different view of the subject." "But Eleanor, what work do you suppose I have to do in the world, that I shall want French and German for? real work, I mean?" "I can't tell. But I know _now_ you have a beautiful example to set?" "Of what? learning my lessons well?" "Of whatever is lovely and of good report. Of whatever will please Jesus." Julia put her arms round her sister's neck and hid her face there. "I am going to give you a word to remember to-day; keep it with you, dear. 'Whatsoever ye do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.' Just think of that, whether you are busy or not busy. And we will ask the Lord to make us so full of his love, that we cannot help it." They knelt and prayed together; after which Julia gave her sister a great many earnest caresses; and they went down to breakfast a much comforted pair. CHAPTER V. IN LONDON. "London makes mirth! but I know God hears The sobs i' the dark, and the dropping of tears." The morning meetings were kept up. Julia had always been very fond of her sister; now she almost worshipped her. She would get as close as possible, put her arm round Eleanor's waist, and sometimes lay her head on her shoulder; and so listen to the reading and join in the talking. The talks were always finished with prayer; and at first it not seldom happened that Eleanor's prayer became choked with tears. It happened so often that Julia remarked upon it; and after that it never happened again. "Eleanor, can you see much use in my learning to dance?" was a question which Julia propounded one morning. "Not much." "Mamma says I shall go to dancing school next winter." "Next winter! What, at Brompton?" "O we are going to London after we go from here. So mamma says. Why didn't you know it?" Eleanor remained silent. "Now what good is that going to do?" Julia went on. "What work is that to fit me for, Eleanor?--dancing parties?" "I hope it will not fit you for those," the elder sister replied gravely. "Why not? don't you go to them?" "I am obliged to go sometimes--I never take part." "Why not Eleanor? Why don't you? you can dance." "Read," said Eleanor, pointing to the words. Julia read. "'Whatsoever ye do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus; giving thanks to God and the Father by him.'--Well Eleanor?" "I cannot find anything I can do in the Lord's service at such places, except to stand by and say by my manner that I do not enjoy them nor approve of them." "That won't hinder other people enjoying them, though." "I do not think people enjoy them much. You and I have a hundred times as much fun in one good scamper over the moor. Dear old moor! I wish we were back again. But other people's doing is not my business." "Then what makes you go, Eleanor?" "Mamma would be so exceedingly vexed if I did not. I mean to get out of it soon--as soon as I can." "Do you think you will, in London?" Eleanor was silent, and thoughtful. "Well, I know one thing," said Julia,--"I am not going to dancing school. Mamma says it will make me graceful; and I think I am as graceful as other people now--as most other people. I don't think I am as graceful as you are. Don't you think so, Eleanor?" Eleanor smiled, soberly enough. "Eleanor, must I go to dancing school?" "Why do you wish not to go?" "Because you think it is wrong." "Darling, you cannot displease mamma for such a reason. You must always honour every wish of hers, except you thought that honouring her would be to dishonour or displease the Lord." The words were spoken and listened to with intense feeling and earnestness on both sides; and the tears came back in Eleanor's prayer that morning. With the world at large, things maintained a very unaltered position during the rest of the stay at Brighton. Mr. Carlisle kept his position, advancing a little where it seemed possible. Eleanor kept hers; neither advancing nor retreating. She was very good to Mr. Carlisle; she did not throw him off; she gave him no occasion to complain of an unready talker or an unwilling companion. A little particular kindness indeed she had for him, left from the old times. Julia would have been much mystified by the brightness and life and spirit Eleanor shewed in company, and in his company especially; which her little sister did not see in their private intercourse alone. Nevertheless, Mr. Carlisle's passion was rather stimulated by difficulty than fed by hope; though hope lived high sometimes. All that Eleanor gave him she gave shim readily, and as readily gave to others; she gave coolly too, as coolly as she gave to others. Mr. Carlisle took in many things the place of an accepted suitor; but never in Eleanor's manner, he knew. It chafed him, it piqued him; it made him far more than ever bent on obtaining her hand; her heart he could manage then. Just now it was beyond his management; and when Mrs. Powle smiled congratulation, Mr. Carlisle bit his lip. However, he had strong aids; he did not despair. He hoped something from London. So they all went to London. Eleanor could gain no satisfactory explanation why. Only her mother asserted that her father's health must have the advice of London physicians. The Squire himself was not much more explicit. That his health was not good, however, was true; the Squire was very unlike his hearty, boisterous, independent self. He moped, and he suffered too. Eleanor could not help thinking he would have suffered less, as he certainly would have moped less, at home; and an unintelligible grunt and grumble now and then seemed to confirm her view of the case; but there they were, fixed in London, and Eleanor was called upon to enter into all sorts of London gaieties, of which always Mr. Carlisle made part and parcel. Eleanor made a stand, and declined to go to places where she could not enjoy nor sympathize with what was done. She could not think it duty to go to the opera, or the theatre, or to great routs, even to please her mother. Mrs. Powle made a stand too, and insisted, and was very angry; but Eleanor stood firm; and the end was, she gained her point. Mr. Carlisle was disappointed, but counselled acquiescence; and Mrs. Powle with no very good grace acquiesced; for though a woman, she did not like to be foiled. Eleanor gained one point only; she was not obliged to go where she could not go with a good conscience. She did not thereby get her time to herself. London has many ways of spending time; nice ways too; and in one and another of these Eleanor found hers all gone. Day by day it was so. Nothing was left but those hours before breakfast. And what was worse, Mr. Carlisle was at her elbow in every place; and Eleanor became conscious that she was in spite of herself appearing before the world as his particular property, and that the conclusion was endorsed by her mother. She walked as straight as she could; but the days grew to be heavy days. She devoted herself to her father as much as possible; and in that found a refuge. The Squire was discontented and unwell; a good deal depressed in spirits as a consequence; he delighted to have Eleanor come and sit with him and read to him after dinner. She escaped many an engagement by that means. In vain Mrs. Powle came in with her appeal, about Eleanor's good requiring him to do without her; the Squire listened, struggled, and selfishness got the better. "St. George and the Dragon!" he exclaimed,--"she shall do as she likes, and as I like, for one hour in the twenty-four. You may haul her about the rest of the time--but from dinner for a while or so you may spare her. I choose she shall be with me." The "while" was often three hours. Eleanor enjoyed repose then, and enjoyed ministering to her father; who speedily became exceedingly wedded to her services, and learned to delight in her presence after a new manner. He would have her read to him; she might read everything she pleased except what had a religious bearing. That he disposed of at once, and bade her seek another book. He loved to have her brush his hair, when his head ached, by the half hour together; at other times he engaged her in a game of chess and a talk about Plassy. The poor Squire was getting a good deal tamed down, to take satisfaction in such quiet pleasures; but the truth was that he found himself unable for what he liked better. Strength and health were both failing; he was often suffering; drives in the park wearied him almost as much as sitting alone in his room; he swore at them for the stupidest entertainment man ever pleased himself with. What he did with the lonely hours he spent entirely by himself, nobody knew; Eleanor knew that he was rejoiced every time to see her come in. His eye brightened when she opened the door, and he settled himself in his easy chair to have a good time; and then even the long columns of the newspaper, read from one end to the other, up and down, were pleasant to Eleanor too. It was soothing repose, in contrast with the whirl of all the rest of her life. Until the time came when Mr. Carlisle began to join the party. How he did it Eleanor hardly knew; but he did it. He actually contrived to make one at those evening entertainments, which admitted but two others; and with his usual adroitness and skill he made his presence so acceptable that Eleanor felt it would be quite in vain to attempt to hinder him. And so her rest was gone, and her opportunity; for she had cherished fond hopes of winning not only her own way into her father's heart, but with that, in time, a hearing for truths the Squire had always pushed out of his path. Mr. Carlisle was very pleasant; there was no question. He did not at all usurp her office, nor interfere with it. But when he saw her getting weary of a parliamentary discussion, or a long discourse on politics or parties, his hand would gently draw away the paper from hers and his voice carry on the reading. And his voice was agreeable to her father; Eleanor saw it; the Squire would turn his head a little towards the new reader, and an expression of anything but dissatisfaction steal over his features. Eleanor sat by, half mortified, half feeling real good-will towards Mr. Carlisle for his grace and kindness. Or if a game of chess were on foot, Mr. Carlisle would sit by, he generally declined playing himself, and make the play very lively with his talk; teaching Eleanor, whose part he invariably took, and keeping a very general's watch over her as if she had been a subordinate officer. Mr. Powle liked that too; it made his fighting better fun; he chuckled a good deal over Mr. Carlisle's play by proxy. Eleanor could not help it, nor withdraw herself. She knew what brought Mr. Carlisle there, and she could not avoid him, nor the very easy familiar terms on which they all sat round the chess table. She was admirably quiet and cool; but then it is true she felt no unkindness towards Mr. Carlisle, and sometimes she feared she shewed kindness too frankly. It was very difficult to help that too. Nevertheless it was plain the gentleman did not dare trust anything to his present power over her, for he never tried it. He evidently relied on somewhat else in his advances. And Eleanor felt that the odds were rather hard against her. Father and mother, and such a suitor! She was cut off from her evening refreshment; and the next step was, that her morning pleasure with Julia was also denied her. Mrs. Powle had been in a state of gratulation with reference to Julia's improvement; Julia had become latterly so docile, so decorous, and so diligent. One unlucky day it came to Mrs. Powle's knowledge that Julia objected to going to dancing school; objected to spending money on the accomplishment, and time on the acquisition; and furthermore, when pressed, avowed that she did not believe in the use of it when attained. It seemed to Mrs. Powle little less than a judgment upon her, to have the second of her daughters holding such language; it was traced to Eleanor's influence of course; and further and diligent questioning brought out the fact of the sisters' daily studies in company. They should happen no more, Mrs. Powle immediately decided. Julia was forbidden to go to her sister's room for such purposes; and to make matters sure she was provided with other and abundant occupation to keep her engaged at the dangerous hour. With Eleanor herself Mrs. Powle held no communication on the subject; having for certain reasons an unwillingness to come into unnecessary collision with her; but Eleanor found her little sister's society was no more to be had. Mrs. Powle would assuredly have sent Julia quite out of the house to get her away from mischievous influences, but that she could not prevail on her husband. No daughter of his, he declared, should be made a fool of in a boarding-school, while he had a foot above ground to prevent it. "Why Mrs. Powle," he said, "don't you know yourself that Eleanor is the only sensible girl in London? That's growing up at home, just as you didn't want." "If she only had not some notions--" said Mrs. Powle dubiously. For between her husband and Mr. Carlisle she was very much _held in_ on Eleanor's subject; both insisting that she should let her alone. It was difficult for Eleanor to be displeased with Mr. Carlisle in these times; his whole behaviour was so kind and gentlemanly. The only fault to be found with him was his pursuit of her. That was steady and incessant; yet at the same time so brotherly and well-bred in manner that Eleanor sometimes feared she gave him unconsciously too much encouragement. Feeling really grateful to him, it was a little hard not to shew it. For although Mr. Carlisle was the cause of her trouble, he was also a shield between her and its more active manifestations. He favoured her not dancing; _that_ was like a jealous man, Mrs. Powle said. He smiled at Eleanor's charities, and would have helped them if he could. He would not have her scolded on the score of religious duties; he preferred administering the antidote to them as quietly as possible. "Eleanor!" said Mrs. Powle, putting her head out of the drawing-room door one Sunday evening as she heard somebody come in--"Eleanor! is that you? come here. Where have you been? Here is Mr. Carlisle waiting this hour to go with you to hear the Bishop of London preach." Eleanor came into the room. She was dressed with extreme plainness, and looking so calm and sweet that it was no wonder Mr. Carlisle's eyes rested on her as on a new object of admiration. Few of his acquaintance looked so; and Eleanor did not use it, in times past. "Now here you are, child, almost too late. Make haste and get yourself ready. Where have you been?" "She cannot be more ready than she is," remarked the other member of the party. "I think, mamma, I will not go to-night. I am a little tired." "That's nonsense, Eleanor! When were you ever too unwell to go to church, this winter? Go and get ready. What Mr. Carlisle says is all very well, but he does not see you with my eyes." "I shall not take her if she is tired," said Mr. Carlisle gently. And Eleanor sat still. "Where have you been then, child, to tire yourself? You do try me, Eleanor. What can you have found to do?" "All London, mamma," said Eleanor pleasantly. "All London! I should like to know what that means. All wrong, I suppose, according to you. Well, what part of London have you been attacking to-day? I should think the best thing for London would be to hear its Bishop. What have you been about, Eleanor?" "Only to school, mamma--Sunday school." "But you went there this morning?" "That was another." Mrs. Powle looked appealingly to Mr. Carlisle, as saying, How long would you let this go on? Turned her dissatisfied face again to Eleanor, "What school is this, mistress? and where?" "Mamma, if I tell you where it is, I am afraid you will be frightened. It is a Ragged school." "A Ragged school! What does that mean, Eleanor? What is a Ragged school?" "A school to teach ragged children, mamma. Or rather, for ragged people--they are not most of them children; and perhaps I should not say they are ragged; for though some of them are, others of them are not. They are some of the wretchedest of the ragged class, at any rate." "And Eleanor Powle can find nothing more suitable to do, than to go and teach such a set! Why you ought to have a policeman there to take care of you." "We have several." "Policemen!" "Yes, ma'am." "And it is not safe without them!" "It is safe with them, mamma." "Mr. Carlisle, what do you think of such doings?" said Mrs. Powle, appealing in despair. "They move my curiosity," he said quietly. "I hope Eleanor will go on to gratify it." "And can you really find nothing better than that to do, of a Sunday?" her mother went on. "No, mamma, I do not think I can." "What do they learn?" Mr. Carlisle inquired. "A little reading, some of them; but the main thing to teach them is the truths of the Bible. They never heard them before, anywhere,--nor can hear them anywhere else." "Do you think they will hear them there?" "I am sure they do." "And remember?" The tears filled Eleanor's eyes, as she answered, "I am sure some of them will." "And suppose you lose your life in this Ragged teaching?" said Mrs. Powle. "You might catch your death of some horrid disease, Eleanor. Do you think that right?" "Mamma, there was One who did lay down his life for you and for me. I am not going to offer mine needlessly. But I do not think it is in any danger here. Many go besides me." "She is a confirmed Methodist!" said Mrs. Powle, turning to Mr. Carlisle. He smiled. "Where does your school meet, Eleanor?" "I am afraid of terrifying mamma, if I tell you." "We will take care of her in case she faints. I am in no danger." "It is the Field-Lane school, Mr. Carlisle." "The Field-Lane? Won't you enlighten me?" "Carter's Field-Lane; but it is only called Field-Lane. Did you never hear of it? It was in a wretched place in Saffron Hill at first--now it is removed to an excellent room in a better street." "Where?" "You know where Clerkenwell is?" This name gave no intelligence whatever to Mrs. Powle, but Mr. Carlisle looked enlightened. His face changed and grew dark with something very like horror and alarm. "Do you know that is one of the worst parts of London?" he said. "Pretty bad," said Eleanor, "and the school used to be. It is wonderfully improved now." "There, you see, Eleanor, Mr. Carlisle thinks it is a very improper place for you to be; and I hope you will go there no more. I do not mean you shall." Eleanor was silent, looking a little anxious, though not cast down. Mr. Carlisle marked her. "It is not safe for you, Eleanor," he said. "It is perfectly safe," she answered with a smile that had a curious brightness in it. "I run no risk whatever." "You are a bold creature," said her mother, "and always were; but that is no reason why you should be allowed to go your own crazy ways. I will have no more of this, Eleanor." "Mamma, I am perfectly safe. I have nothing at all to fear. I would not fail of going for anything in the world." She spoke with an earnest and shadowed face now. She felt it. "Who goes with you? or do you go alone?" "No, ma'am--Thomas is with me always." "How came you to get into such a strange place?" "I heard of it--and there is sure to be more to do in such a work than there are hands for. I know one or two of the gentlemen that teach there also." "Methodists, I suppose?" said Mrs. Powle sneeringly. "One of them is, mamma; the other is a Churchman." "And do you _teach_ there?" "Yes, ma'am--a large class of boys." Eleanor's smile came again--and went. "I'll have no more of it, Eleanor. I will not. It is just absurdity and fanaticism, the whole thing. Why shouldn't those boys go to the regular schools, instead of your giving your time and risking your life to teach them Sundays? _You_ indeed!" "You do not know what sort of boys they are, mamma; or you would not ask that." "I suppose they have learned some things too well already?" said Mr. Carlisle. "Well, I'll have no more of it!" said Mrs. Powle. "I am disgusted with the whole thing. If they are not good boys, the House of Correction is the best place for them. Mr. Carlisle, do you not say so?" Mr. Carlisle's knowledge of the limits of Houses of Correction and the number of boys in London who were not good boys, forbade him to give an affirmative answer; his character as a reformer also came up before him. More than all, Eleanor's face, which was somewhat sad. "Mrs. Powle, I am going to petition you to suspend judgment, and reconsider the case of the Ragged schools. I confess to a selfish motive in my request--I have a desire to go there myself and see this lady with her scholars around her. The picturesque effect, I should say, must be striking." Mrs. Powle looked at him as a very unwise and obstinate man, who was bewitched into false action. "If you have a fancy for such effects," she said; "I suppose you must do as you please. To me the effect is striking and not picturesque. Just look at her!" Mr. Carlisle did so, and the expression on his face was so unsatisfactory that Mrs. Powle gave up the matter; laughed, and went out of the room. "I will be less striking," said Eleanor, "if you will excuse me." And she left the room to change her dress. But when she came back an hour after, Mr. Carlisle was still there. "Eleanor," said he, coming and standing before her, "may I go with you the next time you go to Field Lane?" "No, I think not. You would not know what to do in such a place, Mr. Carlisle." "Do you think so?" "They are a set of people whom you do not like; people who you think ought to be fined--and imprisoned--and transported; and all that sort of thing." "And what do you think ought to be done with them?" "I would try a different regimen." "Pray what would it be?" "I would tell them of the love of One who died for them. And I would shew them that the servants of that One love them too." She spoke quietly, but there was a light in her eye. "How, for heaven's sake, Eleanor?" "Mr. Carlisle, I would never condemn a man or boy very severely for stealing, when I had left him no other way to live." "So you would make the rest of the world responsible?" "Are they not? These fellows never heard a word of right or of truth--never had a word of kindness--never were brought under a good influence,--until they found it in the Ragged school. What could you expect? May I illustrate?" "Pray do." "There is a boy in a class neighbouring to mine in the room, whose teacher I know. The boy is thirteen or fourteen years old now; he came to the school first some four or five years ago, when he was a little bit of a fellow. Then he had already one brother transported for stealing, and another in prison for stealing--both only a little older than he. They had often no other way of getting food but stealing it. The father and mother were both of them drunkards and swallowed up everything in liquor. This little fellow used to come to the morning school, which was held every day, without any breakfast; many a time. Barefooted, over the cold streets, and no breakfast to warm him. But after what he heard at the school he promised he would never do as his brothers had done; and he had some very hard times in keeping his promise. At last he came to his teacher and asked him for a loan of threepence; if he had a loan of threepence he thought he could make a living." Mr. Carlisle half turned on his heel, but instantly resumed his look and attitude of fixed attention. "Mr. Morrison lent him threepence. And Jemmy has supported himself respectably ever since, and is now in honest employment as an errand boy." "I hope you can tell me how he managed it? I do not understand doing business on such a capital." "The threepence bought twelve boxes of matches. Those were sold for a halfpenny each--doubling his capital at once. So he carried on that business for two years. All day he went to school. In the end of the day he went out with twelve boxes of matches and hawked them about until they were disposed of. That gave him threepence for the next day's trade, and threepence to live upon. He spent one penny for breakfast, he said; another for dinner, and another for supper. So he did for two years; now he does better." "He deserves it, if anybody in London does. Is not this a strange instance, Eleanor?--on honour?" "If you like--but not solitary." "What has been done for the mass of these boys in these schools? what has been accomplished, I mean?" "I have given you but one instance out of many, many individual instances." "Then you can afford to be generous and give me another." Perhaps he said this only because he wanted to have her go on talking; perhaps Eleanor divined that; however she hesitated a moment and went on. "Lord Cushley, with some other friends, has just provided for the emigration to Australia of near a dozen promising cases of these boys." "Was Eleanor Powle another of the friends?" "No; I had not that honour. These are reclaimed boys, mind; reclaimed from the very lowest and most miserable condition; and they are going out with every prospect of respectability and every promise of doing well. Do you want to know the antecedents of one among them?" "By all means!" "Notice them. First, slavery under two drunken people, one of them his mother, who sent him out to steal for them; and refused him even the shelter of their wretched home if he came to it with empty hands. At such times, thrust out houseless and hungry, to wander where he could, he led a life of such utter wretchedness, that at length he determined to steal for himself, and to go home no more. Then came years of struggling vagrancy--during which, Mr. Carlisle, the prison was his pleasantest home and only comfortable shelter; and whenever he was turned out of it he stood in London streets helpless and hopeless but to renew his old ways of thieving and starvation. Nobody had told him better; no one had shewed the child kindness; was he to blame?" "Somebody shewed him kindness at last," said Mr. Carlisle, looking into the lustrous eyes which were so full of their subject. "Who, do you think?" "Impossible for me to guess--since you were not here." "One of the most noted thieves in London went to one of the city missionaries and told him of the boy and recommended him to his kindness." "Impelled by what earthly motive?" "The misery of the case." "Why did he not teach him his own trade?" "The question the missionary put to him. The thief answered that he knew a thief's life too well." "I should like to see you before a committee of the House of Commons," said Mr. Carlisle, taking two or three steps away and then returning. "Well?" "Well--the missionary put the child with some decent people, where he was washed and clothed. But it is impossible for met to tell, as it was too bad to be told to me, the state to which squalor, starvation, and all that goes with it, had brought the child. He went to school; and two years after was well, healthy, flourishing, intelligent, one of the best and most useful lads at the establishment where he was employed. Now Lord Cushley has sent him to Australia." "Eleanor, I will never say anything against Ragged schools again." "Then I have not spoken in vain," said Eleanor rising. He took her hand, held it, bowed his lips to it, held it still, too firmly for Eleanor to disengage it without violence. "Will you grant me one little favour?" "You take without asking, Mr. Carlisle!" He smiled and kissed her hand again, not releasing it, however. "Let me go with you to Field-Lane in future." "What would you do there?" "Take care of you." "As I do not need it, you would be exceedingly bored; finding yourself without either business or pleasure." "Do you think that what interests you will not interest me?" A change came over her face--a high grave light, as she answered,--"Not till you love the Master I do. Not till his service is your delight, as it is mine.--Mr. Carlisle, if you will allow me, I will ring the bell for tea." He rang the bell for her instantly, and then came to her side again, and waited till the servant was withdrawn. "Eleanor, seriously, I am not satisfied to have you go to that place alone." "I do not. I am always attended." "By a servant. Have you never been frightened?" "Never." "Do you not meet a very ugly sort of crowd sometimes, on your way?" "Yes--sometimes." "And never feel afraid?" "No. Mr. Carlisle, would you like a cup of tea, if you could get it?" She had met his questions with a full clear look of her eyes, in which certainly there lay no lurking shadow. He read them, and drank his tea rather moodily. "So, Eleanor," said Mrs. Powle the next day, "you have enlisted Mr. Carlisle on your side as usual, and he will have you go to your absurd school as you want to do. How did people get along before Ragged schools were invented, I should like to know?" "You would not like to know, mamma. It was in misery and ignorance and crime, such as you would be made sick to hear of." "Well, they live in it yet, I suppose; or are they all reclaimed already?" "They live in it yet--many a one." "And it is among such people you go! Well, I wash my hands of it. Mr. Carlisle will not have you molested. He must have his own way." "What has he to do with it, mamma?" Eleanor asked, a little indignantly. "A good deal, I should say. You are not such a fool as not to know what he is with you all the time for, Eleanor." A hot colour came up in Eleanor's cheeks. "It is not by my wish, mamma." "It is rather late to say so. Don't you like him, Eleanor?" "Yes, ma'am--very much--if only he would be content with that." "Answer me only one thing. Do you like any one else better? He is as jealous as a bear, and afraid you do." "Mamma," said Eleanor, a burning colour again rising to her brow,--"you know yourself that I see no one that I favour more than I do Mr. Carlisle. I do not hold him just in the regard he wishes, nevertheless." "But do you like any one else better? tell me that. I just want that question answered." "Mamma, why? Answering it will not help the matter. In all England there is not a person out of my own family whom I like so well;--but that does not put Mr. Carlisle in the place where he wishes to be." "I just wanted that question answered," said Mrs. Powle. CHAPTER VI. AT FIELD-LANE. "Still all the day the iron wheels go onward, Grinding life down from its mark; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on blindly in the dark." "She declares there is not anybody in the world she likes better than she does you--nor so well." Mrs. Powle's fair curls hung on either side of a perplexed face. Mr. Carlisle stood opposite to her. His eye brightened and fired, but he made no answer. "It is only her absurd fanaticism that makes all the trouble." "There will be no trouble to fear, my dear madam, if that is true." "Well I asked her the question, and she told me in so many words; and you know Eleanor. What she says she means." Mr. Carlisle was silent, and Mrs. Powle went on. He was seldom loquacious in his consultations with her. "For all that, she is just as fixed in her ways as a mountain; and I don't know how to manage her. Eleanor always was a hard child to manage; and now she has got these fanatical notions in her head she is worse than ever." There was a slight perceptible closing in of the fingers of Mr. Carlisle's hand, but his words were quiet. "Do not oppose them. Fanaticism opposed grows rigid, and dies a martyr. Let her alone; these things will all pass away by and by. I am not afraid of them." "Then you would let her go on with her absurd Ragged schools and such flummery? I am positively afraid she will bring something dreadful into the house, or be insulted herself some day. I do think charity begins at home. I wish Lord Cushley, or whoever it is, had been in better business. Such an example of course sets other people wild." "I will be there myself, and see that no harm comes to Eleanor. I think I can manage that." "Eleanor of all girls!" said Mrs. Powle. "That she should be infected with religious fanaticism! She was just the girl most unlike it that could possibly be; none of these meek tame spirits, that seem to have nothing better to do." "No, you are wrong," said Mr. Carlisle. "It is the enthusiastic character, that takes everything strongly, that is strong in this as in all the rest. Her fanaticism will give me no trouble--if it will once let her be mine!" "Then you would let her alone?" said Mrs. Powle. "Let her alone." "She is spoiling Julia as fast as she can; but I stopped that. Would you believe it? the minx objected to taking lessons in dancing, because her sister had taught her that dancing assemblies were not good places to go to! But I take care that they are not together now. Julia is completely under her influence." "So am I," said Mr. Carlisle laughing; "so much that I believe I cannot bear to hear any more against her than is necessary. I will be with her at Field-Lane next Sunday." He did not however this time insist on going with her. He went by himself. It is certain that the misery of London disclosed to him by this drive to Field-Lane, the course of which gave him a good sample of it, did almost shake him in his opinion that Eleanor ought to be let alone. Mr. Carlisle had not seen such a view of London in his life before; he had not been in such a district of crime and wretchedness; or if by chance he had touched upon it, he had made a principle of not seeing what was before him. Now he looked; for he was going where Eleanor was accustomed to go, and what he saw she was obliged to meet also. He reached the building where the Field-Lane school was held, in a somewhat excited state of mind. He found at the door several policemen, who warned him to guard well and in a safe place anything of value he might have about his person. Then he was ushered up stairs to the place where the school was held. He entered a very large room, looking like a factory room, with bare beams and rough sides, but spacious and convenient for the purpose it was used for. Down the length of this room ran rows of square forms, with alleys left between the rows; and the forms were in good measure filled with the rough scholars. There must have been hundreds collected there; three-fourths of them perhaps were girls, the rest boys and young men, from seven years old and upwards. But the roughness of the scholars bore no proportion to the roughness of the room. _That_ had order, shape, and some decency of preparation. The poor young human creatures that clustered within it were in every stage of squalor, rags, and mental distortion. With a kind of wonder Mr. Carlisle's eye went from one to another to note the individual varieties of the general character; and as it took in the details, wandered horror-stricken, from the nameless dirt and shapeless rags which covered the person, to the wild or stupid or cunning or devilish expression of vice in the face. Beyond description, both. There were many there who had never slept in a bed in their lives; many who never had their clothes off from one month's end to another; the very large proportion lived day and night by a course of wickedness. There they were gathered now, these wretches, eight or ten in a form, listening with more or less of interest to the instructions of their teachers who sat before them; and many, Mr. Carlisle saw, were shewing deep interest in face and manner. Others were full of mischief, and shewed that too. And others, who were interested, were yet also restless; and would manifest it by the occasional irregularity of jumping up and turning a somerset in the midst of the lesson. That frequently happened. Suddenly, without note or warning, in the midst of the most earnest deliverances of the teacher, a boy would leap up and throw himself over; come up all right; and sit down again and listen, as if he had only been making himself comfortable; which was very likely the real state of the case in some instances. When however a general prevalence of somersets throughout the room indicated that too large a proportion of the assemblage were growing uneasy in their minds, or their seats, the director of the school stood up and gave the signal for singing. Instantly the whole were on their feet, and some verse or two of a hymn were shouted heartily by the united lungs of the company. That seemed to be a great safety valve; they were quite brought into order, and somersets not called for, till some time had passed again. In the midst of this great assemblage of strange figures, small and large, Mr. Carlisle's eye sought for Eleanor. He could not immediately find her, standing at the back of the room as he was; and he did not choose the recognition to be first on her side, so would not go forward. No bonnet or cloak there recalled the image of Eleanor; he had seen her once in her school trim, it is true, but that signified nothing. He had seen her only, not her dress. It was only by a careful scrutiny that he was able to satisfy himself which bonnet and which outline of a cloak was Eleanor's. But once his attention had alighted on the right figure, and he was sure, by a kind of instinct. The turns of the head, the fine proportions of the shoulders, could be none but her's; and Mr. Carlisle moved somewhat nearer and took up a position a little in the rear of that form, so that he could watch all that went on there. He scanned with infinite disgust one after another of the miserable figures ranged upon it. They were well-grown boys, young thieves some of them, to judge by their looks; and dirty and ragged so as to be objects of abhorrence much more than of anything else to his eye. Yet to these squalid, filthy, hardened looking little wretches, scarcely decent in their rags, Eleanor was most earnestly talking; there was no avoidance in her air. Her face he could not see; he could guess at its expression, from the turns of her head to one and another, and the motions of her hands, with which she was evidently helping out the meaning of her words; and also from the earnest gaze that her unpromising hearers bent upon her. He could hear the soft varying play of her voice as she addressed them. Mr. Carlisle grew restless. There was a more evident and tremendous gap between himself and her than he had counted upon. Was she doing this like a Catholic, for penance, or to work out good deeds to earn heaven like a philanthropist? While he pondered the matter, in increasing restlessness, mind and body helping each other; for the atmosphere of the room was heavy and stifling from the foul human beings congregated there, and it must require a very strong motive in anybody to be there at all; he could hardly bear it himself; an incident occurred which gave a little variety to his thoughts. As he stood in the alley, leaning on the end of a form where no one sat, a boy came in and passed him; brushing so near that Mr. Carlisle involuntarily shrank back. Such a looking fellow-creature he had never seen until that day. Mr. Carlisle had lived in the other half of the world. This was a half-grown boy, inexpressibly forlorn in his rags and wretchedness. An old coat hung about him, much too large and long, that yet did not hide a great rent in his trowsers which shewed that there was no shirt beneath. But the face! The indescribable brutalized, stolid, dirty, dumb look of badness and hardness! Mr. Carlisle thought he had never seen such a face. One round portion of it had been washed, leaving the dark ring of dirt all circling it like a border, where the blessed touch of water had not come. The boy moved on, with a shambling kind of gait, and to Mr. Carlisle's horror, paused at the form of Eleanor's class. Yes,--he was going in there, he belonged there; for she looked up and spoke to him; Mr. Carlisle could hear her soft voice saying something about his being late. Then came a transformation such as Mr. Carlisle would never have believed possible. A light broke upon that brutalized face; actually a light; a smile that was like a heavenly sunbeam in the midst of those rags and dirt irradiated; as a rough thick voice spoke out in answer to her--"Yes--if I didn't come, I knowed you would be disappointed." Evidently they were friends, Eleanor and that boy; young thief, young rascal, though Mr. Carlisle's eye pronounced him. They were on good terms, even of affection; for only love begets love. The lesson went on, but the gentleman stood in a maze till it was finished. The notes of Eleanor's voice in the closing hymn, which he was sure he could distinguish, brought him quite back to himself. Now he might speak to her again. He had felt as if there were a barrier between them. Now he would test it. He had to wait yet a little while, for Eleanor was talking to one or two elderly gentlemen. Nobody to move his jealousy however; so Mr. Carlisle bore the delay with what patience he could; which in that stifling atmosphere was not much. How could Eleanor endure it? As at last she came down the room, he met her and offered his arm. Eleanor took it, and they went out together. "I did not know you were in the school," she said. "I would not disturb you. Thomas is not here--Mrs. Powle wanted him at home." Which was Mr. Carlisle's apology for taking his place. Or somewhat more than Thomas's place; for he not only put Eleanor in a carriage, but took a seat beside her. The drive began with a few moments of silence. "How do you do?" was his first question. "Very well." "Must I take it on trust? or do you not mean I shall see for myself?" said he. For there had been a hidden music in Eleanor's voice, and she had not turned her face from the window of the carriage. At this request however she gave him a view of it. The hidden sweetness was there too; he could not conceive what made her look so happy. Yet the look was at once too frank and too deep for his personal vanity to get any food from it; no surface work, but a lovely light on brow and lip that came from within. It had nothing to do with him. It was something though, that she was not displeased at his being there; his own face lightened. "What effect does Field-Lane generally have upon you?" said he. "It tires me a little--generally. Not to-day." "No, I see it has not; and how you come out of that den, looking as you do, I confess is an incomprehensible thing to me. What has pleased you there?" A smile came upon Eleanor's face, so bright as shewed it was but the outbreaking of the light he had seen there before. His question she met with another. "Did nothing there please you?" "Do you mean to evade my inquiry?" "I will tell you what pleased me," said Eleanor. "Perhaps you remarked--whereabouts were you?" "A few feet behind you and your scholars." "Then perhaps you remarked a boy who came in when the lesson was partly done--midway in the time--a boy who came in and took his seat in my class." "I remarked him--and you will excuse me for saying, I do not understand how pleasure can be connected in anybody's mind with the sight of him." "Of course you do not. That boy has been a most notorious pickpocket and thief." "Exactly what I should have supposed." "Did you observe that he had washed his face?" "I think I observed how imperfectly it was done." "Ah, but it is the first time probably in years that it has touched water, except when his lips touched it to drink. Do you know, that is a sign of reformation?" "Water?" "Washing. It is the hardest thing in the world to get them to forego the seal and the bond of dirt. It is a badge of the community of guilt. If they will be brought to wash, it is a sign that the bond is broken--that they are willing to be out of the community; which will I suppose regard them as suspected persons from that time. Now you can understand why I was glad." Hardly; for the fire and water sparkling together in Eleanor's eyes expressed so much gladness that it quite went beyond Mr. Carlisle's power of sympathy. He remained silent a few moments. "Eleanor, I wish you would answer one question, which puzzles me. Why do you go to that place?" "You do not like it?" "No, nor do you. What takes you there?" "There are more to be taught than there are teachers for," said Eleanor looking at her questioner. "They want help. You must have seen, there are none too many to take care of the crowds that come; and many of those teachers are fatigued with attendance in the week." "Do you go in the week?" "No, not hitherto." "You must not think of it! It is as much as your life is worth to go Sundays. I met several companies of most disorderly people on my way--do you not meet such?" "Yes." "What takes you there, Eleanor, through such horrors?" "I have no fear." "No, I suppose not; but will you answer my question?" "You will hardly be able to understand me," said Eleanor hesitating. "I like to go to these poor wretches, because I love them. And if you ask me why I love them,--I know that the Lord Jesus loves them; and he is not willing they should be in this forlorn condition; and so I go to try to help get them out of it." "If the Supreme Ruler is not willing there should be this class of people, Eleanor, how come they to exist?" "You are too good a philosopher, Mr. Carlisle, not to know that men are free agents, and that God leaves them the exercise of their free agency, even though others as well as themselves suffer by it. I suppose, if those a little above them in the social scale had lived according to the gospel rule, this class of people never would have existed." "What a reformer you would make, Eleanor!" "I should not suit you? Yes--I do not believe in any radical way of reform but one." "And that is, what?--counsellor." "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." "Radical enough! You must reform the reformers first, I suppose you know." "I know it." "Then, hard as it is for me to believe it, you do not go to Field-Lane by way of penance?" "The penance would be, to make me stay away." "Mrs. Powle will do that, unless I contrive to disturb the action of her free agency; but I think I shall plunge into the question of reform, Eleanor. Speaking of that, how much reformation has been effected by these Ragged institutions?" "Very much; and they are only as it were beginning, you must remember." "Room for amendment still," said Mr. Carlisle. "I never saw such a disorderly set of scholars in my life before. How do you find an occasional somersault helps a boy's understanding of his lesson?" "Those things were constant at first; not occasional," said Eleanor smiling; "somersaults, and leaping over the forms, and shouts and catcalls, and all manner of uproarious behaviour. That was before I ever knew them. But now, think of that boy's washed face!" "That was the most partial reformation I ever saw rejoiced in," said Mr. Carlisle. "It gives hope of everything else, though. You have no idea what a bond that community of dirt is. But there are plenty of statistics, if you want those, Mr. Carlisle. I can give you enough of them; shewing what has been done." "Will you shew them to me to-night?" "To-night? it is Sunday. No, but to-morrow night, Mr. Carlisle; or any other time." "Eleanor, you are very strict!" "Not at all. That is not strictness; but Sunday is too good to waste upon statistics." She said it somewhat playfully, with a shilling of her old arch smile, which did not at all reassure her companion. "Besides, Mr. Carlisle, you like strictness a great deal better than I do. There is not a law made in our Queen's reign or administered under her sceptre, that you would not have fulfilled to the letter--even down to the regulations that keep little boys off the grass. It is only the laws of the Great King which you do not think should be strictly kept." She was grave enough now, and Mr. Carlisle swallowed the reproof as best he might. "Eleanor, you are going to turn preacher too, as well as reformer? Well, I will come to you, dear, and put myself under your influences. You shall do what you please with me." Too much of a promise, and more of a responsibility than Eleanor chose to take. She went into the house with a sober sense that she had a difficult part to play; that between Mr. Carlisle and her mother, she must walk very warily or she would yet find herself entangled before she was aware. And Mr. Carlisle too had a sober sense that Eleanor's religious character was not of a kind to exhale, like a volatile oil, under the sun of prosperity or the breezes of flattery. Nevertheless, the more hard to reach the prize, the more of a treasure when reached. He never wanted her more than now; and Mr. Carlisle had always, by skill and power, obtained what he wanted. He made no doubt he would find this instance like the others. For the present, the thing was to bring a bill into parliament "for the reformation of juvenile offenders"--and upon its various provisions Mr. Carlisle came daily to consult Eleanor, and take advice and receive information. Doubtless there was a great deal to be considered about the bill, to make it just what it should be; to secure enough and not insist upon too much; its bearings would be very important, and every point merited well the deepest care and most circumspect management. It enlisted Eleanor's heart and mind thoroughly; how should it not? She spent hours and hours with Mr. Carlisle over it; wrote for him, read for him, or rather for those the bill wrought for; talked and discussed and argued, for and against various points which she felt would make for or against its best success. Capital for M. Carlisle. All this brought him into constant close intercourse with her, and gave him opportunities of recommending himself. And not in vain. Eleanor saw and appreciated the cool, clear business head; the calm executive talent, which seeing its ends in the distance, made no hurry but took the steps and the measures surest to attain them, with patient foresight. She admired it, and sometimes also could almost have trembled when she thought of its being turned towards herself. And was it not, all the while? Was not Eleanor tacitly, by little and little, yielding the ground she fought so hard to keep? Was she not quietly giving her affirmative to the world's question,--and to Mr. Carlisle's too? To the former, yes; for the latter, she knew and Mr. Carlisle knew that she shewed him no more than the regard that would not satisfy him. But then, if this went on indefinitely, would not he, and the world, and her mother, all say that she had given him a sort of prescriptive right to her? Ay, and Eleanor must count her father too now as among her adversaries' ranks. She saw it and felt it somewhat bitterly. She had begun to gain his ear and his heart; by and by he might have listened to her on what subject she pleased, and she might have won him to the knowledge of the truth that she held dearest. Now, she had gained his love certainly, in a measure, but so had Mr. Carlisle. Gently, skilfully, almost unconsciously it seemed, he was as much domiciled in her father's room as she was; and even more acceptable. The Squire had come to depend on him, to look for him, to delight in him; and with very evident admission that he was only anticipating by a little the rights and privileges of sonship. Eleanor could not absent herself neither; she tried that; her father would have her there; and there was Mr. Carlisle, as much at home, and sharing with her in filial offices as a matter of rule, and associating with her as already one of the family. It is true, in his manner to Eleanor herself he did not so step beyond bounds as to give her opportunity to check him; yet even over this there stole insensibly a change; and Eleanor felt herself getting deeper and deeper in the toils. Her own manner meanwhile was nearly perfect in its simple dignity. Except in the interest of third party measures, which led her sometimes further than she wanted to go, Eleanor kept a very steady way, as graceful as it was steady. So friendly and frank as to give no cause of umbrage; while it was so cool and self-poised as to make Mr. Carlisle very uneasy and very desperate. It was just the manner he admired in a woman; just what he would like to see in his wife, towards all the rest of the world. Eleanor charmed him more by her high-bred distance, than ever she had done by the affection or submissiveness of former days. But he was pretty sure of his game. Let this state of things go on long enough, and she would have no power to withdraw; and once his own, let him have once again the right to take her to his breast and whisper love or authority, and he knew he could win that fine sweet nature to give him back love as well as obedience,--in time. And so the bill went on in its progress towards maturity. It did not go very fast. All this while the sisters saw very little of each other. One morning Eleanor waylaid Julia as she was passing her door, drew her in, and turned the key in the lock. The first impulse of the two was to spring to each other's arms for a warm embrace. "I never have a chance to speak to you, darling," said the elder sister. "What has become of you?" "O I am so busy, you see--all the times except when you are gone out, or talking in the drawing-room to people, or in papa's room. Then I am out, and you are out too; somewhere else." "Out of what?" "Out of my studies, and teachers, and governesses. I must go now in two minutes." "No you must not. Sit down; I want to see you. Are you remembering what we have learnt together?" "Sometimes--and sometimes it is hard, you see. Everything is so scratchy. O Eleanor, are you going to marry Mr. Carlisle?" "No. I told you I was not." "Everybody says you are, though. Are you _sure_ you are not?" "Quite sure." "I almost wish you were; and then things would go smooth again." "What do you mean by their being 'scratchy'? that is a new word." "Well, everything goes cross. I am in ever so many dictionaries besides English--and shut up to learn 'em--and mamma don't care what becomes of me if she can only keep me from you; and I don't know what you are doing; and I wish we were all home again!" Eleanor sighed. "I call it _scratchy_," said Julia. "Everybody is trying to do what somebody else don't like." "I hope you are not going on that principle,"--said her sister, with a smile which made Julia spring to her neck again and load her lips with kisses over and over. "I'll try to do what you like, Eleanor--only tell me what. Tell me something, and I will remember it." "Julia, are you going to be a servant of Christ? have you forgotten that you said you loved him?" "No, and I do, Eleanor! and I want to do right; but I am so busy, and then I get so vexed!" "That is not like a servant of Jesus, darling." "No. If I could only see you, Eleanor! Tell me something to remember, and I will keep it in my head, in spite of all the dictionaries." "Keep it in your life, Julia. Remember what Jesus said his servants must be and how they must do--just in this one little word--'And ye yourselves like them that wait for their Lord.'" "How, Eleanor?" "That is what we are, dear. We are the Lord's servants, put here to work for him, put just in the post where he wishes us to be, till he comes. Now let us stand in our post and do our work, 'like them that wait for their Lord.' You know how that would be." Julia again kissed and caressed her, not without some tears. "I know," she said; "it is like Mr. Rhys, and it is like you; and I don't believe it is like anybody else." "Shall it be like you, Julia?" "Yes, Eleanor, yes! I will never forget it. O Eleanor, are you sure you are not going to Rythdale?" "What makes you ask me?" "Why everybody thinks so, and everybody says so; and you--you are with Mr. Carlisle all the time, talking to him." "I have so many thoughts to put into his head," said Eleanor gravely. "What are you so busy with him about?" "Parliament business. It is for the poor of London, Julia. Mr. Carlisle is preparing a bill to bring into the House of Commons, and I know more about the matter than he does; and so he comes to me." "Don't you think he is glad of his ignorance?" said Julia shrewdly. Eleanor leaned her head on her hand and looked thoughtfully down. "What do you give him thoughts about?" "My poor boys would say, 'lots of things.' I have to convince Mr. Carlisle that it would cost the country less to reform than to punish these poor children, and that reforming them is impossible unless we can give them enough to keep them from starvation; and that the common prison is no place for them; and then a great many questions besides these and that spring out of these have to be considered and talked over. And it is important beyond measure; and if I should let it alone,--the whole might fall to the ground. There are two objections now in Mr. Carlisle's mind--or in other people's minds--to one thing that ought to be done, and must be done; and I must shew Mr. Carlisle how false the objections are. I have begun; I must go through with it. The whole might fall to the ground if I took away my hand; and it would be such an incalculable blessing to thousands and thousands in this dreadful place--" "Do you think London is a dreadful place?" said Julia doubtfully. "There are very few here who stand 'like them that wait for their Lord,'"--said Eleanor, her face taking a yearning look of thoughtfulness. "There aren't anywhere, _I_ don't believe. Eleanor--aren't you happy?" "Yes!" "You don't always look--just--so." "Perhaps not. But to live for Jesus makes happy days--be sure of that, Julia; however the face looks." "Are you bothered about Mr. Carlisle?" "What words you use!" said Eleanor smiling. "'Bother,' and 'scratchy.' No, I am not bothered about him--I am a little troubled sometimes." "What's the difference?" "The difference between seeing one's way clear, and not seeing it; and the difference between having a hand to take care of one, and not having it." "Well why do you talk to him so much, if he troubles you?" said Julia, reassured by her sister's smile. "I must," said Eleanor. "I must see through this business of the bill--at all hazards. I cannot let that go. Mr. Carlisle knows I do not compromise myself." "Well, I'll tell you what," said Julia getting up to go,--"mamma means you shall go to Rythdale; and she thinks you are going." With a very earnest kiss to Eleanor, repeated with an emphasis which set the seal upon all the advices and promises of the morning, Julia went off. Eleanor sat a little while thinking; not long; and met Mr. Carlisle the next time he came, with precisely the same sweet self-possession, the unchanged calm cool distance, which drove that gentleman to the last verge of passion and patience. But he was master of himself and bided his time, and talked over the bill as usual. It was not Eleanor alone who had occasion for the exercise of admiration in these business consultations. Somewhat to his surprise, Mr. Carlisle found that his quondam fair mistress was good for much more than a plaything. With the quick wit of a woman she joined a patience of investigation, an independent strength of judgment, a clearness of rational vision, that fairly met him and obliged him to be the best man he could in the business. He could not get her into a sophistical maze; she found her way through immediately; he could not puzzle her, for what she did not understand one day she had studied out by the next. It is possible that Mr. Carlisle would not have fallen in love with this clear intelligence, if he had known it in the front of Eleanor's qualities; for he was one of those men who do not care for an equal in a wife; but his case was by this time beyond cure. Nay, what might have alienated him once, bound him now; he found himself matched with Eleanor in a game of human life. The more she proved herself his equal, the nobler the conquest, and the more the instinct of victory stirred within him; for pride, a poor sort of pride, began to be stirred as well as love. So the bill went on; and prisons and laws and reformatory measures and penal enactments and industrial schools, and the question of interfering with the course of labour, and the question of offering a premium upon crime, and a host of questions, were discussed and rediscussed. And partly no doubt from policy, partly from an intelligent view of the subject, but wholly moved thereto by Eleanor, Mr. Carlisle gradually gave back the ground and took just the position (on paper) that she wished to see him take. CHAPTER VII. IN APRIL. "Why, how one weeps When one's too weary! Were a witness by, He'd say some folly--" So the bill went on. And the season too. Winter merged into spring; the change of temperature reminded Eleanor of the changing face of the earth out of London; and even in London the parks gave testimony of it. She longed for Wiglands and the Lodge; but there was no token of the family's going home at present. Parliament was in session; Mr. Carlisle was busy there every night almost; which did not in the least hinder his being busied with Eleanor as well. Where she and her mother went, for the most part he went; and at home he was very much at home indeed. Eleanor began to feel that the motions of the family depended on him; for she could find no sufficient explanation in her father's health or her mother's pleasure for their continued remaining in town. The Squire was much as he had been all winter; attended now and then by a physician, and out of health and spirits certainly; yet Eleanor could not help thinking he would be better at home, and somewhat suspected her father thought so. Mrs. Powle enjoyed London, no doubt; still, she was not a woman to run mad after pleasure, or after anything else; not so much but that the pleasure of her husband would have outweighed hers. Nevertheless, both the Squire and she were as quietly fixed in London, to judge by all appearance, as if they had no other place to go to; and the rising of parliament was sometimes hinted at as giving the only clue to the probable time of their departure. Did you ever lay brands together on a hearth, brands with little life in them too, seemingly; when with no breath blown or stirring of air to fan them, gradually, by mere action and reaction upon each other, the cold grey ends began to sparkle and glow, till by and by the fire burst forth and flame sprang up? Circumstances may be laid together so, and with like effect. Everything went on in a train at the house in Cadogan Square; nobody changed his attitude or behaviour with respect to the others, except as by that most insensible, unnoticeable, quiet action of elements at work; yet the time came when Eleanor began to feel that things were drawing towards a crisis. Her place was becoming uncomfortable. She could not tell how, she did not know when it began, but a change in the home atmosphere became sensible to her. It was growing to be oppressive. Mother, father, and friends seemed by concert to say that she was Mr. Carlisle's; and the gentleman himself began to look it, Eleanor thought, though he did not say it. A little tacit allowance of this mute language of assignment, and either her truth would be forfeited or her freedom. She must make a decided protest. Yet also Eleanor felt that quality in the moral atmosphere which threatened that if any clouds came up they would be stormy clouds; and she dreaded to make any move. Julia's society would have been a great solace now; when she never could have it. Julia comforted her, whenever they were together in company or met for a moment alone, by her energetic whisper--"I remember, Eleanor!--" but that was all. Eleanor could get no further speech of her. At the Ragged school Mr. Carlisle was pretty sure to be, and generally attended her home. Eleanor remonstrated with her mother, and got a sharp answer, that it was only thanks to Mr. Carlisle she went there at all; if it were not for him Mrs. Powle certainly would put a stop to it. Eleanor pondered very earnestly the question of putting a stop to it herself; but it was at Mr. Carlisle's own risk; the poor boys in the school wanted her ministrations; and the "bill" was in process of preparation. Eleanor's heart was set on that bill, and her help she knew was greatly needed in its construction; she could not bear to give it up. So she let matters take their course; and talked reform diligently to Mr. Carlisle all the time they were driving from West-Smithfield home. At last to Eleanor's joy, the important paper was drawn up according to her mind. It satisfied her. And it was brought to a reading in the House and ordered to be printed. So much was gained. The very next day Mr. Carlisle came to ask Eleanor to drive out with him to Richmond, which she had never seen. Eleanor coolly declined. He pressed the charms of the place, and of the country at that season. Eleanor with the same coolness of manner replied that she hoped soon to enjoy the country at home; and that she could not go to Richmond. Mr. Carlisle withdrew his plea, sat and talked some time, making himself very agreeable, though Eleanor could not quite enjoy his agreeableness that morning; and went away. He had given no sign of understanding her or of being rebuffed; and she was not satisfied. The next morning early her mother came to her. "Eleanor, what do you say to a visit to Hampton Court to-day?" "Who is going, mamma?" "Half the world, I suppose--there or somewhere else--such a day; but with you, your friend in parliament." "I have several friends in parliament." "Pshaw, Eleanor! you know I mean Mr. Carlisle. You had better dress immediately, for he will be here for you early. He wants to have the whole day. Put on that green silk which becomes you so well. How it does, I don't know; for you are not blonde; but you look as handsome as a fairy queen in it. Come, Eleanor!" "I do not care about going, mamma." "Nonsense, child; you do care. You have no idea what Bushy Park is, Eleanor. It is not like Rythdale--though Rythdale will do in its way. Come, child, get ready. You will enjoy it delightfully." "I do not think I should, mamma. I do not think I ought to go with Mr. Carlisle." "Why not?" "You know, mamma," Eleanor said calmly, though her heart beat; "you know what conclusions people draw about me and Mr. Carlisle. If I went to Hampton Court or to Richmond with him, I should give them, and him too, a right to those conclusions." "What have you been doing for months past, Eleanor? I should like to know." "Giving him no right to any conclusions whatever, mamma, that would be favourable to him. He knows that." "He knows no such thing. You are a fool, Eleanor. Have you not said to all the world all this winter, by your actions, that you belonged to him? All the world knows it was an engagement, and you have been telling all the world that it is. Mr. Carlisle knows what to expect." Eleanor coloured. "I cannot fulfil his expectations, mamma. He has no right to them." "I tell you, you have given him a right to them, by your behaviour these months past. Ever since we were at Brighton. Why how you encouraged him there!" A great flush rose to Eleanor's cheeks. "Mamma,--no more than I encouraged others. Grace given to all is favour to none." "Ay, but there was the particular favour in his case of a promise to marry him." "Broken off, mamma." "The world did not know that, and you did not tell them. You rode, you walked, you talked, you went hither and thither with Mr. Carlisle, and suffered him to attend you." "Not alone, mamma; rarely alone." "Often alone, child; often of evenings. You are alone with a gentleman in the street, if there is a crowd before and behind you." "Mamma, all those things that I did, and that I was sorry to do, I could hardly get out of or get rid of; they were Mr. Carlisle's doing and yours." "Granted; and you made them yours by acceptance. Now Eleanor, you are a good girl; be a sensible girl. You have promised yourself to Mr. Carlisle in the eye of all the world; now be honest, and don't be shy, and fulfil your engagements." "I have made none," said Eleanor getting up and beginning to walk backwards and forwards in the room. "Mr. Carlisle has been told distinctly that I do not love him. I will never marry any man whom I have not a right affection for." "You did love him once, Eleanor." "Never! not the least; not one bit of real--Mamma, I _liked_ him, and I do that now; and then I did not know any better; but I will never, for I ought never, to marry any man upon mere liking." "How come you to know any better now?" Eleanor's blush was beautiful again for a minute; then it faded. She did not immediately speak. "Is Mr. Carlisle right after all, and has he a rival?" "Mamma, you must say what you please. Surely it does not follow that a woman must love all the world because she does not love one." "And you may say what you please; I know you like Mr. Carlisle quite well enough, for you as good as told me so. This is only girl's talk; but you have got to come to the point, Eleanor. I shall not suffer you to make a fool of him in my house; not to speak of making a fool of yourself and me, and ruining--forever ruining--all your prospects. You can't do it, Eleanor. You have said yea, and you can't draw back. Put on your green gown and go to Hampton Court, and come back with the day fixed--for that I know is what Mr. Carlisle wants." "I cannot go, mamma." "Eleanor, you would not forfeit your word?" "I have not given it." "Do not contradict me! You have given it all these months. Everybody has understood it so. Your father looks upon Mr. Carlisle as his son already. You would be everlastingly disgraced if you play false." "I will play true, mamma. I will not say I give my heart where I do not give it." "Give your hand then. All one," said Mrs. Powle laughing. "Come! I order you to obey me, Eleanor!" "I must not, mamma. I will not go to Hampton Court with Mr. Carlisle." "What is the reason?" "I have told you." "Do you mean, absolutely, that you will not fulfil your engagement, nor obey me, nor save us all from dishonour, nor make your friend happy?" Eleanor grew paler than she had been, but answered, "I mean not to marry Mr. Carlisle, mamma." "I understand it then," said Mrs. Powle rising. "It is not your heart but your head. It is your religious fanaticism I will put that out of the way!" And without another word she departed. Eleanor was much at a loss what would be the next move. Nevertheless she was greatly surprised when it came. The atmosphere of the house was heavy that day; they did not see Mr. Carlisle in the evening. The next day, when Eleanor went to her father's room after dinner she found, not Mr. Carlisle, but her mother with him. "Waiting for me"--thought Eleanor. The air of Mrs. Powle said so. The squire was gathered up into a kind of hard knot, hanging his head over his knees. When he spoke, and was answered by his daughter, the contrast of the two voices was striking, and in character; one gruff, the other sweet but steady. "What's all this, Eleanor? what's all this?" he said abruptly. "What, papa?" "Have you refused Mr. Carlisle?" "Long ago, sir." "Yes, that's all past; and now this winter you have been accepting him again; are you going to throw him over now?" "Papa--" "Only one thing!" roared the Squire,--"are you going to say no to him? tell me that." "I must, papa." "I command you to say yes to him! What do you say now?" "I must say the same, sir. If you command me, I must disobey you." "You will disobey me, hey?" "I must, papa." "Why won't you marry him? what's the reason?" said the Squire, looking angry and perplexed at her, but very glum. "Papa--" "I have seen you here myself, all winter, in this very room; you have as good as said to him every day that you would be his wife, and he has as good as said to you that he expected it. Has he not, now?" "Yes, sir,--but--" "Now why won't you have him, hey?" "Papa, I do not like him well enough to marry him. That is reason enough." "Why did you tell him all the winter that you _did?_" "Sir, Mr. Carlisle knows I did not. He has never been deceived." "Why don't you like him well enough, then? that's the question; what fool's nonsense! Eleanor, I am going to have you at the Priory and mistress of it before the world is three months older. Tell me that you will be a good girl, and do as I say." "I cannot, papa. That is all past. I shall never be at the Priory." "What's the reason?" roared her father. "I have told you, sir." "It's a lie! You do like him. I have seen it. It's some fool's nonsense." "Let me ask one question," said Mrs. Powle, looking up and down from her work. "If it had not been for your religious notions, Eleanor, would you not have married Mr. Carlisle more than a year ago? before you went to Wales?" "I suppose I should, mamma." "And if you had no religious notions, would you have any difficulty about marrying him now? You will speak the truth, I know." "Mamma--" "Speak!" the Squire burst out violently--"speak! truth or falsehood, whichever you like. Speak out, and don't go round about. Answer your mother's question." "Will you please to repeat it, mamma?" Eleanor said, a little faintheartedly. "If you had never been in a Methodist Chapel, or had anything to do with Methodists,--would you have any difficulty now about being the wife of Mr. Carlisle, and lady of Rythdale?" Eleanor's colour rose gradually and grew deep before she ceased speaking. "If I had never had anything to do with Methodists, mamma, I should be so very different from what I am now, that perhaps, it would be as you say." "That's enough!" said the Squire, in a great state of rage and determination. "Now, Eleanor Powle, take notice. I am as good as the Methodists any day, and as well worth your minding. You'll mind me, or I'll have nothing to do with you. Do you go to their chapels?" "Sometimes." "You don't go any more! St. George and the Dragon fly away with all the Methodist Chapels that ever were built! they shall hold no daughter of mine. And hark ye,--you shall give up this foolery altogether and tell me you will marry Mr. Carlisle, or I won't have you in my family. You may go where you like, but you shall not stay with me as long as I live. I give you a month to think of it, Eleanor;--a month? what's to-day?--the tenth? Then I give you till the first of next month. You can think of it and make up your mind to give yourself to Mr. Carlisle by that time; or you shall be no daughter of mine. St. George and the Dragon! I have said it, and you will find I mean it. Now go away." Eleanor went, wondering whether her ears had served her right; so unnaturally strange seemed this turn of affairs. She had had no time to think of it yet, when passing the drawing-room door a certain impulse prompted her to go in. Mr. Carlisle was there, as something had told her he might be. Eleanor came in, looking white, and advanced towards him with a free steady step eyeing him fully. She was in a mood to meet anything. "Mr. Carlisle," she said, "you are the cause of all the trouble that has come upon me." He did not ask her what trouble. He only gently and gravely disclaimed the truth of her assertion. "Mr. Carlisle," said Eleanor facing him, "do you want the hand without the heart?" There was brave beauty in her face and air. "Yes!" he said. "You do not know yourself, Eleanor--you do not see yourself at this moment--or you would know better how impossible it is to give other than one answer to such a question." His look had faced hers as frankly; there was no evil expression in it. Eleanor's head and her gaze sank a little. She hesitated, and then turned away. But Mr. Carlisle with a quick motion intercepted her. "Eleanor, have you nothing kind to say to me?" he asked, taking her hand. And he said it well. "Not just now," said Eleanor slowly; "but I will try not to think unkindly of you, Mr. Carlisle." Perhaps he understood that differently from her meaning; perhaps he chose to misinterpret it; at all events he stooped forward and kissed her. It brought a flash of colour into Eleanor's face, and she went up stairs much more angry with her suitor than her last words had spoke her. The angry mood faded fast when she reached her own room and could be alone and be still. She sat down and thought how, while he stood there and held her hand, there had been a swift presentation to her mind, swift and clear, of all she would be giving up when she turned away from him. In one instant the whole view had come; the rank, the ease, the worldly luxury, the affection; and the question came too, waywardly, as impertinent questions will come, whether she was after all giving it up for sufficient cause? She was relinquishing if she quitted him, all that the world values. Not quite that, perhaps; if turned out from her father's family even, she was in no danger of wanting food or shelter or protection; for she would be sure of those and more in Mrs. Caxton's house. But looking forward into the course of future years that might lie before her, the one alternative offered for her choice presented all that is pleasant in worldly estimation; and on the other side there was a lonely life, and duty, and the affection of one old woman. But though the two views came with startling clearness before Eleanor just at this moment, the more attractive one brought no shadow of temptation with it. She saw it, that was all, and turned away from it to consider present circumstances. Would her father keep to his word? It seemed impossible; yet coolly reflecting, Eleanor thought from what she knew of him that he would; so far at least as to send her into immediate banishment. That such banishment would be more than temporary she did not believe. Mr. Carlisle would get over his disappointment, would marry somebody else; and in course of time her mother and father, the latter of whom certainly loved her, would find out that they wanted her at home again. But how long first? That no one could tell, nor what might happen in the interval; and when she had got so far in her thoughts, Eleanor's tears began to flow. She let them flow; it relieved her; and somehow there was a good fountain head of them. And again those two pictures of future life rose up before her; not as matters of choice, to take one and leave the other--but as matters of contrast, in somewhat that entered the spring of tears and made them bitter. Was something gone from her life, that could never be got back again? had she lost something that could never be found again? Was there a "bloom and fragrance" waving before her on the one hand, though unattainable, which the other path of life with all its beauty did not offer? To judge by Eleanor's tears she had some such thoughts. But after a time the tears cleared away, and her bowed face looked up as fair as a blue sky after a storm. And Eleanor never had another time of weeping during the month. It was a dull month to other people. It would have been a dreary one to her, only that there is a private sunshine in some hearts that defies cloudy weather. There is an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, by which one rides contentedly in rough water; there is a hope of glory, in the presence of which no darkness can abide; and there is a word with which Eleanor dried her tears that day and upon which she steadied her heart all the days after. It was written by one who knew trouble. "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him." It is hard to take that portion away from a man, or to make him poor while he has it. Eleanor had little else the remaining twenty-one days of that month. What troubled her much, she could by no means see Julia; and she found that her sister had been sent home, to the Lodge at Wiglands, under charge of a governess; Mrs. Powle averring that it was time she should be in the country. London was not good for Julia. Was it good for any of them, Eleanor thought? But parliament was still sitting; Mr. Carlisle was in attendance; it was manifest they must be so too. Everything went on much as usual. Eleanor attended her father after his early dinner, for Mr. Powle would not come into London hours; and Mr. Carlisle as usual shared her office with her, except when he was obliged to be in the House. When he was, Mrs. Powle now took his place. The Squire was surly and gloomy; only brought out of those moods by Mr. Carlisle himself. That gentleman held his ground, with excellent grace and self-control, and made Eleanor more than ever feel his power. But she kept her ground too; not without an effort and a good deal of that old arm of defence which is called "all-prayer;" yet she kept it; was gentle and humble and kind to them all, to Mr. Carlisle himself, while he was sensible her grave gentleness had no yielding in it. How he admired her, those days! how he loved her; with a little fierce desire of triumph mingling, it must be confessed, with his love and admiration, and heightened by them; for now pride was touched, and some other feeling which he did not analyse. He had nobody to be jealous of, that he knew; unless it were Eleanor herself; yet her indifference piqued him. He could not brook to be baffled. He shewed not a symptom of all this; but every line of her fine figure, every fold of her rich, beautiful hair, every self-possessed movement, at times was torment to him. Her very dress was a subject of irritation. It was so plain, so evidently unworldly in its simplicity, that unreasonably enough, for Eleanor looked well in it, it put Mr. Carlisle in a fume every day. She should not dress so when he had control of her; and to get the control seemed not easy; and the dress kept reminding him that he had it not. On the whole probably all parties were glad when the sweet month of May for that season came to an end. Even Eleanor was glad; for though she had made up her mind what June would bring her, it is easier to grasp a fear in one's hand, like a nettle, than to touch it constantly by anticipation. So the first of June came. CHAPTER VIII. IN MAY. "Come spur away! I have no patience for a longer stay, But must go down, And leave the changeable noise of this great town; I will the country see, Where old simplicity, Though hid in grey, Doth look more gay Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad." Although Eleanor's judgment had said what the issue would be of that day's conference, she had made no preparation to leave home. That she could not do. She could not make certain before it came the weary foreboding that pressed upon her. She went to her father's room after dinner as usual, leaning her heart on that word which had been her walking-staff for three weeks past. "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him!" Mrs. Powle was there, quietly knitting. The Squire had gathered himself up into a heap in his easy chair, denoting a contracted state of mind; after that curious fashion which bodily attitudes have, of repeating the mental. Eleanor took the newspaper and sat down. "Is there anything there particular?" growled the Squire. "I do not see anything very particular, sir. Here is the continuation of the debate on--" "How about that bill of yours and Mr. Carlisle's?" broke in Mrs. Powle. "It was ordered to be printed, mamma--it has not reached the second reading yet. It will not for some time." "What do you suppose will become of it then?" "What the Lord pleases. I do not know," said Eleanor with a pang at her heart. "I have done my part--all I could--so far." "I suppose you expect Mr. Carlisle will take it up as his own cause, after it has ceased to be yours?" Eleanor understood this, and was silent. She took up the paper again to find where to read. "Put that down, Eleanor Powle," said her father who was evidently in a very bad humour, as he had cause, poor old gentleman; there is nobody so bad to be out of humour with as yourself;--"put that down! until we know whether you are going to read to me any more or no. I should like to know your decision." Eleanor hesitated, for it was difficult to speak. "Come!--out with it. Time's up. Now for your answer. Are you going to be an obedient child, and give Mr. Carlisle a good wife? Hey? Speak!" "An obedient child, sir, in everything but this. I can give Mr. Carlisle nothing, any more than he has." "Any more than he has? What is that?" "A certain degree of esteem and regard, sir--and perhaps, forgiveness." "Then you will not marry him, as I command you?" "No--I cannot." "And you won't give up being a Methodist?" "I cannot help being what I am. I will not go to church, papa, anywhere that you forbid me." She spoke low, endeavouring to keep calm. The Squire got up out of his chair. He had no calmness to keep, and he spoke loud. "Have you taught your sister to think there is any harm in dancing?" "In dancing parties, I suppose I have." "And you think they are wicked, and won't go to them?" "I do not like them. I cannot go to them, papa; for I am a servant of Christ; and I can do no work for my Master there at all; but if I go, I bear witness that they are good." "Now hear me, Eleanor Powle--" the Squire spoke with suppressed rage--"No such foolery will I have in my house, and no such disrespect to people that are better than you. I told you what would come of all this if you did not give it up--and I stand to my word. You come here to-morrow morning, prepared to put your hand in Mr. Carlisle's and let him know that you will be his obedient servant--or, you quit my house. To-morrow morning you do one thing or the other. And when you go, you will stay. I will never have you back, except as Mr. Carlisle's wife. Now go! I don't want your paper any more." Eleanor went slowly away. She paused in the drawing-room; there was no one there this time; rang the bell and ordered Thomas to be sent to her. Thomas came, and received orders to be in readiness and have everything in readiness to attend her on a journey the next day. The orders were given clearly and distinctly as usual; but Thomas shook his head as he went down from her presence at the white face his young mistress had worn. "She don't use to look that way," he said to himself, "for she is one of them ladies that carry a hearty brave colour in their cheeks; and now there wasn't a bit of it." But the old servant kept his own counsel and obeyed directions. Eleanor went through the evening and much of the night without giving herself a moment to think. Packing occupied all that time and the early hours of the next day; she was afraid to be idle, and even dreaded the times of prayer; because whenever she stopped to think, the tears would come. But she grew quiet; and was only pale still, when at an early hour in the morning she left the house. She could not bear to go through a parting scene with her father; she knew him better than to try it; and she shrank from one with her mother. She bid nobody good-bye, for she could not tell anybody that she was going. London streets looked very gloomy to Eleanor that morning as she drove through them to the railway station. She had still another reason for slipping away, in the fear that else she would be detained to meet Mr. Carlisle again. The evening before she had had a note from him, promising her all freedom for all her religious predilections and opinions--leave to do what she would, if she would only be his wife. She guessed he would endeavour to see her, if she staid long enough in London after the receipt of that note. Eleanor made her escape. Thomas was sorry at heart to see her cheeks so white yet when they set off; and he noticed that his young mistress hid her face during the first part of the journey. He watched to see it raised up again; and then saw with content that Eleanor's gaze was earnestly fixed on the things without the window. Yes, there was something there. She felt she was out of London; and that whatever might be before her, one sorrowful and disagreeable page of life's book was turned over. London was gone, and she was in the midst of the country again, and the country was at the beginning of June. Green fields and roses and flowery hedge-rows, and sweet air, all wooed her back to hopefulness. Hopefulness for the moment stole in. Eleanor thought things could hardly continue so bad as they seemed. It was not natural. It could not be. And yet--Mr. Carlisle was in the business, and mother and father were set on her making a splendid match and being a great lady. It might be indeed, that there would be no return for Eleanor, that she must remain in banishment, until Mr. Carlisle should take a new fancy or forget her. How long would that be? A field for calculation over which Eleanor's thoughts roamed for some time. One comfort she had promised herself, in seeing Julia on the way; so she turned out of her direct course to go to Wiglands. She was disappointed. Julia and her governess had left the Lodge only the day before to pay a visit of a week at some distance. By order, Eleanor could not help suspecting it had been; of set purpose, to prevent the sisters meeting. This disappointment was bitter. It was hard to keep from angry thoughts. Eleanor fought them resolutely, but she felt more desolate than she had ever known in her life before. The old place of her home, empty and still, had so many reminders of childish and happy times; careless times; days when nobody thought of great marriages or settlements, or when such thoughts lay all hidden in Mrs. Powle's mind. Every tree and room and book was so full of good and homely associations of the past, that it half broke Eleanor's heart. Home associations now so broken up; the family divided, literally and otherwise; and worst of all, and over which Eleanor's tears flowed bitterest, her own ministrations and influence were cut off from those who most needed them and whom she most wished to benefit. Eleanor's day at home was a day of tears; it was impossible to help it. The roses with their sweet faces looked remonstrance at her; the roads and walks and fields where she had been so happy invited her back to them; the very grey tower of the Priory rising above the trees held out worldly temptation and worldly reproof, with a mocking embodiment of her causes of trouble. Eleanor could not bear it; she spent one night at home; wrote a letter to Julia which she entrusted to a servant's hands for her; and the next morning set her face towards Plassy. Julia lay on her heart. That conversation they had held together the morning when Eleanor waylaid her--it was the last that had been allowed. They had never had a good talk since then. Was that the last chance indeed, for ever? It was impossible to know. In spite of June beauty, it was a dreary journey to her from home to her aunt's; and the beautiful hilly outlines beyond Plassy rose upon her view with a new expression. Sterner, and graver; they seemed to say, "It is life work, now, my child; you must be firm, and if necessary rugged, like us; but truth of action has its own beauty too, and the sunlight of Divine favour rests there always." A shadowless sunlight lay on the crowns and shoulders of the mountains as Eleanor drew near. She got out of the carriage to walk the last few steps and look at the place. Plassy never was more lovely. An aromatic breath, pure and strong, came from the hills and gathered the sweetness of the valleys. Roses and honeysuckles and jessamines and primroses, with a thousand others, loaded the air with their gifts to it, from Mrs. Caxton's garden and from all the fields and hedge-rows around. And one after another bit of hilly outline reminded Eleanor that off _there_ went the narrow valley that led to the little church at Glanog; _there_ went the road to the village, where she and Powis had gone so often of Wednesday afternoons; and in _that_ direction lay the little cot where she had watched all night by the dying woman. Not much time for such remembrances was just now; for the farmhouse stood just before her. The dear old farmhouse! looking as pretty as everything else in its dark red stone walls and slate roof; stretching along the ground at that rambling, picturesque, and also opulent style. Eleanor would not knock now, and the door was not fastened to make her need it. Softly she opened it, went in, and stood upon the tiled floor. No sound of anything in particular; only certain tokens of life in the house. Eleanor went on, opened the door of the sitting parlour and looked in. Nobody there; the room in its summer state of neatness and coolness as she had left it. Eleanor's heart began to grow warm. She would not yet summon a servant; she left that part of the house and wound about among the passages till she came to the back door that led out into the long tiled porch where supper was wont to be spread. And there was the table set this evening; and the wonted glow from the sunny west greeted her there, and a vision of the gorgeous flower-garden. But Eleanor hardly saw the one thing or the other; for Mrs. Caxton was there also, standing by the tea-table, alone, putting something on it. Eleanor moved forward without a word. Her voice would not come out of her throat very well. "Eleanor!" exclaimed Mrs. Caxton. "My dear love! what has given me this happiness?" Very strong language for Mrs. Caxton to use. Eleanor felt it, every word of it, as well as the embrace of those kind arms and her aunt's kisses upon her lips; but she was silent. "How come you here, my darling?" "They have sent me away from home." Mrs. Caxton saw that there was some difficulty of speech, and she would not press matters. She put Eleanor into a seat, and looked at her, and took off her bonnet with her own hands; stooped down and kissed her brow. Eleanor steadied herself and looked up. "It is true, aunt Caxton. I come to you because I have nowhere else to be." "My love, it is a great happiness to have you, for any cause. Wait, and tell me what the matter is by and by." She left Eleanor for a moment, only a moment; gave some orders, and returned to her side. She sat down and took Eleanor's hand. "What is it, my dear?" And then Eleanor's composure, which she had thought sure, gave way all of a sudden; and she cried heartily for a minute, laying her head in its old resting-place. But that did her good; and then she kissed Mrs. Caxton over and over before she began to speak. "They want me to make a great match, aunty; and will not be satisfied with anything else." "What, Mr. Carlisle?" "Yes." "And is that all broken off?" said Mrs. Caxton, a little tone of eagerness discernible under her calm manner. "It was broken off a year ago," said Eleanor--"more than a year ago. It has always been broken since." "I heard that it was all going on again. I expected to hear of your marriage." "It was not true. But it is true, that the world had a great deal of reason to think so; and I could not help that." "How so, Eleanor?" "Mamma, and papa, and Mr. Carlisle. They managed it." "But in such a case, my dear, a woman owes it to herself and to her suitor and to her parents too, to be explicit." "I do not think I compromised the truth, aunt Caxton," said Eleanor, passing her hand somewhat after a troubled fashion over her brow. "Mr. Carlisle knew I never encouraged him with more favour than I gave others. I could not help being with him, for mamma and he had it so; and they were too much for me. I could not help it. So the report grew. I had a difficult part to play," said Eleanor, repeating her troubled gesture and seeming ready to burst into tears. "In what way, my love?" Eleanor did not immediately answer; sat looking off over the meadow as if some danger existed to self-control; then, still silent, turned and met with an eloquent soft eye the sympathizing yet questioning glance that was fixed on her. It was curious how Eleanor's eye met it; how her eye roved over Mrs. Caxton's face and looked into her quiet grey eyes, with a kind of glinting of some spirit fire within, which could almost be seen to play and flicker as thought and feeling swayed to and fro. Her eye said that much was to be said, looked into Mrs. Caxton's face with an intensity of half-speech,--and the lips remained silent. There was consciousness of sympathy, consciousness of something that required sympathy; and the seal of silence. Perhaps Mrs. Caxton's response to this strange look came half unconsciously; it came wholly naturally. "Poor child!"-- The colour rose on Eleanor's cheek at that; she turned her eyes away. "I think Mr. Carlisle's plan--and mamma's--was to make circumstances too strong for me; and to draw me by degrees. And they would, perhaps, but for all I learned here." "For what you learned here, my dear?" "Yes, aunty; if they could have got me into a whirl society--if they could have made me love dancing parties and theatres and the opera, and I had got bewildered and forgotten that a great worldly establishment not the best thing--perhaps temptation would have been too much for me.--Perhaps it would. I don't know." There was a little more colour in Eleanor's cheeks than her words accounted for, as Mrs. Caxton noticed. "Did you ever feel in danger from the temptation, Eleanor?" "Never, aunty. I think it never so much as touched me." "Then Mr. Carlisle has been at his own risk," said Mrs. Caxton. "Let us dismiss him, my love." "Aunt Caxton, I have a strange homeless, forlorn feeling." For answer to that, Mrs. Caxton put her arms round Eleanor and gave her one or two good strong kisses. There was reproof as well as affection in them; Eleanor felt both, even without her aunt's words. "Trust the Lord. You know who has been the dwelling-place of his people, from all generations. They cannot be homeless. And for the rest, remember that whatever brings you here brings a great boon to me. My love, do you wish to go to your room before you have tea?" Eleanor was glad to get away and be alone for a moment. How homelike her old room seemed!--with the rose and honeysuckle breath of the air coming in at the casements. How peaceful and undisturbed the old furniture looked. The influence of the place began to settle down upon Eleanor. She got rid of the dust of travel, and came down presently to the porch with a face as quiet as a lamb. Tea went on with the same soothing influence. There was much to tell Eleanor, of doings in and about Plassy the year past; for the fact was, that letters had not been frequent. Who was sick and who was well; who had married, and who was dead; who had set out on a Christian walk, and who were keeping up such a walk to the happiness of themselves and of all about them. Then how Mrs. Caxton's own household had prospered; how the dairy went on; and there were some favourite cows that Eleanor desired to hear of. From the cows they got to the garden. And all the while the lovely meadow valley lay spread out in its greenness before Eleanor; the beautiful old hills drew the same loved outline across the sunset sky; the lights and shadows were of June; and the garden at hand was a rich mass of beauty sloping its terraced sweetness down to the river. Just as it was a year ago, when the summons came for Eleanor to leave it; only the garden seemed even more gorgeously rich than then. Just the same; even to the dish of strawberries on the table. But that was not wreathed with ivy and myrtle now. "Aunt Caxton, this is like the very same evening that I was here last." "It is almost a year," said Mrs. Caxton. Neither added anything to these two very unremarkable remarks; and silence fell with the evening light, as the servants were clearing away the table. Perhaps the mountains with the clear paling sky beyond them, were suggestive. Both the ladies looked so. "My dear," said Mrs. Caxton then, "let me understand a little better about this affair that gives you to me. Do you come, or are you sent?" "It is formal banishment, aunt Caxton. I am sent from them at home; but sent to go whither I will. So I come, to you." "What is the term assigned to this banishment?" "None. It is absolute--unless or until I will grant Mr. Carlisle's wishes, or giving up being, as papa says, a Methodist. But that makes it final--as far as I am concerned." "They will think better of it by and by." "I hope so," said Eleanor faintly. "It seems a strange thing to me, aunt Caxton, that this should have happened to me--just now when I am so needed at home. Papa is unwell--and I was beginning to get his ear,--and I have great influence over Julia, who only wants leading to go in the right way. And I am taken away from all that. I cannot help wondering why." "Let it be to the glory of God, Eleanor; that is all your concern. The rest you will understand by and by." "But that is the very thing. It is hard to see how it can be to his glory." "Do not try," said Mrs. Caxton smiling. "The Lord never puts his children anywhere where they cannot glorify him; and he never sends them where they have not work to do or a lesson to learn. Perhaps this is your lesson, Eleanor--to learn to have no home but in him." Eleanor's eyes filled very full; she made no answer. But one thing is certain; peace settled down upon her heart. It would be difficult to help that at Plassy. We all know the effect of going home to the place of our childhood after a time spent in other atmosphere; and there is a native air of the spirit, in which it feels the like renovating influence. Eleanor breathed it while they sat at the table; she felt she had got back into her element. She felt it more and more when at family prayer the whole household were met together, and she heard her aunt's sweet and high petitions again. And the blessing of peace fully settled down upon Eleanor when she was gone up to her room and had recalled and prayed over her aunt's words. She went to sleep with that glorious saying running through her thoughts--"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations." CHAPTER IX. IN CORRESPONDENCE. "But there be million hearts accurst, where no sweet sunbursts shine, And there be million hearts athirst for Love's immortal wine; This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above, And if we did our duty, it might be full of love." Peace had unbroken reign at Plassy from that time. Eleanor threw herself again eagerly into all her aunt's labours and schemes for the good and comfort of those around her. There was plenty to do; and she was Mrs. Caxton's excellent helper. Powis came into requisition anew; and as before, Eleanor traversed the dales and the hills on her various errands, swift and busy. That was not the only business going. Her aunt and she returned to their old literary habits, and read books and talked; and it was hard if Eleanor in her rides over the hills and over the meadows and along the streams did not bring back one hand full of wild flowers. She dressed the house with them, getting help from the garden when necessary; botanized a good deal; and began to grow as knowing in plants almost as Mrs. Caxton herself. She would come home loaded with wild thyme and gorse and black bryony and saxifrage and orchis flowers, having scoured hill and meadow and robbed the hedge-rows for them, which also gave her great tribute of wild roses. Then later came crimson campion and eyebright, dog roses and honeysuckles, columbine and centaury, grasses of all kinds, and harebell, and a multitude impossible to name; though the very naming is pleasant. Eleanor lived very much out of doors, and was likened by her aunt to a rural Flora or Proserpine that summer; though when in the house she was just the most sonsy, sensible, companionable little earthly maiden that could be fancied. Eleanor was not under size indeed; but so much like her own wild flowers in pure simpleness and sweet natural good qualities that Mrs. Caxton was sometimes inclined to bestow the endearing diminutive upon her; so sound and sweet she was. "And what are all these?" said Mrs. Caxton one day stopping before an elegant basket. "Don't you like them?" "Very much. Why you have got a good many kinds here." "That is Hart's Tongue, you know--that is wall spleenwort, and that is the other kind; handsome things are they not?" "And this?" "That is the forked spleenwort. You don't know it? I rode away, away up the mountain for it yesterday That is where I got those Woodsia's too--aren't they beautiful? I was gay to find those; they are not common." "No. And this is not common, to me." "Don't you know it, aunt Caxton? It grows just it the spray of a waterfall--this and this; they are polypodies. That is another--that came from the old round tower." "And where did you get these?--these waterfall ferns?" "I got them at the Bandel of Helig." "There? My dear child! how could you, without risk?" "Without much risk, aunty." "How did you ever know the Bandel?" "I have been there before, aunt Caxton." "I think I never shewed it to you?" "No ma'am;--but Mr. Rhys did." His name had scarcely been mentioned before since Eleanor had come to the farm. It was mentioned now with a cognizance of that fact. Mrs. Caxton was silent a little. "Why have you put these green things here without a rose or two? they are all alone in their greenness." "I like them better so, aunty. They are beautiful enough by themselves; but if you put a rose there, you cannot help looking at it." Mrs. Caxton smiled and turned away. One thing in the midst of all these natural explorations, remained unused; and that a thing most likely, one would have thought, to be applied to for help. The microscope stood on one side apparently forgotten. It always stood there, in the sitting parlour, in full view; but nobody seemed to be conscious of its existence. Eleanor never touched it; Mrs. Caxton never spoke of it. From home meantime, Eleanor heard little that was satisfactory. Julia was the only one that wrote, and her letters gave painful subjects for thought. Her father was very unlike himself, Julia said, and growing more feeble and more ill every day; though by slow degrees. She wished Eleanor would write her letters without any religion in them; for she supposed _that_ was what her mother would not let her read; so she never had the comfort of seeing Eleanor's letters for herself, but Mrs. Powle read aloud bits from them. "Very little bits, too," added Julia, "I guess your letters have more religion in them than anything else. But you see it is no use." Eleanor read this passage aloud to Mrs. Caxton. "Is that true, Eleanor?" "No, ma'am. I write to Julia of everything that I do, all day long, and of everything and everybody that interests me. What mamma does not like comes in, of course, with it all; but I do very little preaching, aunt Caxton." "I would go on just so, my dear. I would not alter the style of my letters." So the flowers of June were replaced by the flowers of July; and the beauties of July gave place to the purple "ling" of August, with gentian and centaury and St. John's wort; and then came the Autumn changes, with the less delicate blossoms of that later time, amidst which the eclipsed meadow-sweet came quite into favour again. Still Eleanor brought wild things from the hills and the streams, though she applied more now to Mrs. Caxton's home store in the garden; wild mints and Artemisias and the Michaelmas daisy still came home with her from her rides and walks; the rides and walks in which Eleanor was a ministering angel to many a poor house, many an ignorant soul and many a failing or ailing body. Then came October; and with the first days of October the news that her father was dead. It added much bitterness to Eleanor's grief, that Mrs. Powle entirely declined to have her come home, even for a brief stay. If she chose to submit to conditions, her mother wrote, she would be welcome; it was not too late; but if she held to her perversity, she must bear the consequences. She did not own her nor want her. She gave her up to her aunt Caxton. Her remaining daughter was in her hands, and she meant to keep her there. Eleanor, she knew, if she came home would come to sow rebellion. She should not come to do that, either then or at all. Mildly quiet and decided Mrs. Powle's letter was; very decided, and so cool as to give every assurance the decision would be persisted in. Eleanor felt this very much. She kept on her usual way of life without any variation; but the radiant bright look of her face was permanently saddened. She was just as sweet and companionable an assistant to her aunt as ever; but from month to month Mrs. Caxton saw that a shadow lay deep upon her heart. No shadow could have less of anything like hard edges. They had been sitting at work one night late in the winter, those two, the aunt and the niece; and having at last put up her work Eleanor sat gravely poring into the red coals on the hearth; those thought-provoking, life-stirring, strange things, glowing and sparkling between life and death like ourselves. Eleanor's face was very sober. "Aunt Caxton," she said at length,--"my life seems such a confusion to me!" "So everything seems that we do not understand," Mrs. Caxton said. "But is it not, aunty? I seem taken from everything that I ought most naturally to do--papa, Julia, mamma. I feel like a banished person, I suppose; only I have the strange feeling of being banished from my place in the world." "What do you think of such a life as Mr. Rhys is leading?" "I think it is straight, and beautiful,"--Eleanor answered, looking still into the fire. "Nothing can be further from confusion. He is in _his_ place." "He is in a sort of banishment, however." "Not from that! And it is voluntary banishment--for his Master's sake. _That_ is not sorrowful, aunt Caxton." "Not when the Lord's banished ones make their home in him. And I do not doubt but Mr. Rhys does that." "Have you ever heard from him, aunt Caxton." "Not yet. It is almost time, I think." "It is almost a year and a half since he went." "The communication is slow and uncertain," said Mrs. Caxton. "They do not get letters there, often, till they are a year old." "How impossible it used to be to me," said Eleanor, "to comprehend such a life; how impossible to understand, that anybody should leave home and friends and comfort, and take his place voluntarily in distance and danger and heathendom. It was an utter enigma to me." "And you understand it now?" "O yes, aunty," Eleanor went on in the same tone; and she had not ceased gazing into the coals;--"I see that Christ is all; and with him one is never alone, and under his hand one can never be in danger. I know now how his love keeps one even from fear." "You are no coward naturally." "No, aunt Caxton--not about ordinary things, except when conscience made me so, some time ago." "That is over now?" Eleanor took her eyes from the fire, to give Mrs. Caxton a smile with the words--"Thank the Lord!" "Mr. Rhys is among scenes that might try any natural courage," said Mrs. Caxton. "They are a desperate set of savages to whom he is ministering." "What a glory, to carry the name of Christ to them!" "They are hearing it, too," said Mrs. Caxton. "But there is enough of the devil's worst work going on there to try any tender heart; and horrors enough to shock stout nerves. So it has been. I hope Mr. Rhys finds it better." "I don't know much about them," said Eleanor. "Are they much worse than savages in general, aunt Caxton?" "I think they are,--and better too, in being more intellectually developed. Morally, I think I never read of a lower fallen set of human beings. Human life is of no account; such a thing as respect to humanity is unknown, for the eating of human bodies has gone on to a most wonderful extent, and the destroying them for that purpose. With all that, there is a very careful respect paid to descent and rank; but it is the observance of fear. That one fact gives you the key to the whole. Where a man is thought of no more worth than to be killed and eaten, a woman is not thought worth anything at all; and society becomes a lively representation of the infernal regions, without the knowledge and without the remorse." "Poor creatures!" said Eleanor. "You comprehend that there must be a great deal of trial to a person of fine sensibilities, in making a home amongst such a people, for an indefinite length of time." "Yes, aunty,--but the Lord will make it all up to him." "Blessed be the name of the Lord!" it was Mrs. Caxton's turn to answer; and she said it with deep feeling and emphasis. "It seems the most glorious thing to me, aunt Caxton, to tell the love of Christ to those that don't know it. I wish I could do it." "My love, you do." "I do very little, ma'am. I wish I could do a thousand times more!" The conversation stopped there. Both ladies remained very gravely thoughtful a little while longer and then separated for the night. But the next evening when they were seated at tea alone, Mrs. Caxton recurred to the subject. "You said last night, Eleanor, that you wished you could do a great deal more work of a certain kind than you do." "Yes, ma'am." "Did your words mean, my love, that you are discontented with your own sphere of duty, or find it too narrow?" Eleanor's eyes opened a little at that. "Aunt Caxton, I never thought of such a thing. I do not remember that I was considering my own sphere of duty at all. I was thinking of the pleasure of preaching Christ--yes, and the glory and honour--to such poor wretches as those we were talking of, who have never had a glimpse of the truth before." "Then for your part you are satisfied with England?" "Why yes, ma'am. I am satisfied, I think,--I mean to be,--with any place that is given me. I should be sorry to choose for myself." "But if you had a clear call, you would like it, to go to the Cape of Good Hope and teach the Hottentots?" "I do not mean that, aunty," said Eleanor laughing a little. "Surely you do not suspect me of any wandering romantic notion about doing the Lord's work in one place rather than in another. I would rather teach English people than Hottentots. But if I saw that my place was at the Cape of Good Hope, I would go there. If my place were there, some way would be possible for me to get there, I suppose." "You would have no fear?" said Mrs. Caxton. "No aunty; I think not. Ever since I can say 'The Lord is my Shepherd--' I have done with fear." "My love, I should be very sorry to have you go to the Cape of Good Hope. I am glad there is no prospect of it. But you are right about not choosing. As soon as we go where we are not sent, we are at our own charges." The door here opened, and the party and the tea-table received an accession of one to their number. It was an elderly, homely gentleman, to whom Mrs. Caxton gave a very cordial reception and whom she introduced to Eleanor as the Rev. Mr. Morrison. He had a pleasant face, Eleanor saw, and as soon as he spoke, a pleasant manner. "I ought to be welcome, ma'am," he said, rubbing his hands with the cold as he sat down. "I bring you letters from Brother Rhys." "You are welcome without that, brother, as you know," Mrs. Caxton answered. "But the letters are welcome. Of how late date are they?" "Some pretty old--some not more than nine or ten months ago; when he had been stationed a good while." "How is he?" "Well, he says; never better." "And happy?" "I wish I was as happy!" said Mr. Morrison.--"He had got fast hold of his work already." "He would do that immediately." "He studied the language on shipboard, all the way out; and he was able to hold a service in it for the natives only a few weeks after he had landed. Don't you call that energy?" "There is energy wherever he is," said Mrs. Caxton. "Yes, you know him pretty well. I suppose they never have it so cold out there as we have it to-night," Mr. Morrison said rubbing his hands. "It's stinging! That fire is the pleasantest thing I have seen to-day." "Where is Mr. Rhys stationed?" "I forget--one of the islands down there, with an unintelligible name. Horrid places!" "Is the place itself disagreeable?" Eleanor asked. "The place itself, ma'am," said Mr. Morrison, his face stiffening from its genial unbent look into formality as he turned to her,--"the place itself I do not understand to be very disagreeable; it is the character of the population which must make it a hard place to live in. They are exceedingly debased. Vile people!" "Mr. Rhys is not alone on his station?" said Mrs Caxton. "No, he is with Mr. and Mrs. Lefferts. His letters will tell you." For the letters Mrs. Caxton was evidently impatient; but Mr. Morrison's refreshment had first to be attended to. Only fair; for he had come out of his way on purpose to bring them to her; and being one of a certain Committee he had it in his power to bring for her perusal and pleasure more than her own letters from Mr. Rhys, and more than Mr. Rhys's own letters to the Committee. It was a relief to two of the party when Mr. Morrison's cups of tea were at last disposed of, and the far-come despatches were brought out on the green table-cloth under the light of the lamp. With her hand on her own particular packet of letters, as if so much communication with them could not be put off, Mrs. Caxton sat and listened to Mr. Morrison's reading. Eleanor had got her work. As the particular interest which made the reading so absorbing to them may possibly be shared in a slight degree by others, it is fair to give a slight notion of the character of the news contained in those closely written pages. The letters Mr. Morrison read were voluminous; from different persons on different stations of the far-off mission field. They told of difficulties great, and encouragements greater; of their work and its results; and of their most pressing wants; especially the want of more men to help. The work they said was spreading faster than they could keep up with it. Thousands of heathen had given up heathenism, who in miserable ignorance cried for Christian instruction; children as wild as the wild birds, wanted teaching and were willing to have it; native teachers needed training, who had the will without the knowledge to aid in the service. Thirty of them, Mr. Lefferts said, he had under his care. With all this, they told of the wonderful beauty of the regions where their field of labour was. Mr. Lefferts wrote of a little journey lately taken to another part of his island, which had led him through almost every variety of natural luxuriance. Mountains and hills and valleys, rivers and little streams, rich woods and mangrove swamps. Mr. Lefferts' journey had been, like Paul's of old, to establish the native churches formed at different small places by the way. There he married couples and baptized children and met classes and told the truth. At one place where he had preached, married several couples, baptized over thirty, young and old, and met as many in classes, Mr. Lefferts told of a walk he took. It led him to the top of a little hill, from which a rich view was to be had, while a multitude of exquisite shrubs in flower gave another refreshment in their delicious fragrance. A little stream running down the side of the hill was used by the natives to water their plantations of taro, for which the side hill was formed into terraced beds. Paroquets and humming birds flew about, and the sun was sinking brilliantly in the western ocean line as he looked. So far, everything was fair, sweet, lovely; a contrast to what he met when he reached the lower grounds again. There the swarms of mosquitos compelled Mr. Lefferts to retreat for the night within a curtain canopy for protection; and thither he was followed by a fat savage who shared the protection with him all night long. Another sort of experience! and another sort of neighbourhood from that of the starry white _Gardenia_ flowers on the top of the hill. Nevertheless, of a neighbouring station Mr. Rhys wrote that the people were at war, and the most horrible heathen practices were going on. At the principal town, he said, more people were eaten perhaps than anywhere else in the islands. The cruelties and the horrors were impossible to be told. A few days before he wrote, twenty-eight persons had been killed and eaten in one day. They had been caught fishing--taken prisoners and brought home--half killed, and in that state thrown into the ovens; still having life enough left to try to get away from the fire. "The first time I saw anything of this kind," wrote Mr. Rhys, "was one evening when we had just finished a class-meeting. The evening was most fair and peaceful as we came out of the house; a fresh air from the sea had relieved the heat of the day; the leaves of the trees were glittering in the sunlight; the ocean all sparkling under the breeze; when word came that some bodies of slain people were bringing from Lauthala. I could hardly understand the report, or credit it; but presently the horrible procession came in sight, and eleven dead bodies were laid on the ground immediately before us. Eleven only were brought to this village; but great numbers are said to have been killed. Their crime was the killing of one man; and when they would have submitted themselves and made amends, all this recompense of death was demanded by the offended chief. The manner in which these wretched creatures were treated is not a thing to be described; they were not handled with the respect which we give to brute animals. The natives have looked dark upon us since that time, and give us reason to know that as far as they are concerned our lives are not safe. But we know in whose hands our lives are; they are the Lord's; and he will do with them what he pleases--not what the heathen please. So we are under no concern about it." That storm appeared to have passed away; for in later letters Mr. Rhys and Mr. Lefferts spoke of acceptable services among the people and an evidently manifested feeling of trust and good will on their part towards the missionaries. Indeed these were often able to turn the natives from their devilish purposes and save life. Not always. The old king of that part of the country had died, and all the influence and all the offers of compensation made by the missionaries, could not prevent the slaughter of half a dozen women, his wives, to do him honour in his burial. The scene as Mr. Lefferts described it was heart-sickening. As he drew near the door of the king's house, with the intent to prevail for the right or to protest against the wrong, he saw the biers standing ready; and so knew that all the efforts previously made to hinder the barbarous rites had been unavailing. The house as he entered was in the hush of death. One woman lay strangled. Another sitting on the floor, covered with a large veil, was in the hands of her murderers. A cord was passed twice round her neck, and the ends were held on each side of her by a group of eight or ten strong men, the two groups pulling opposite ways. She was dead, the poor victim underneath the veil, in a minute or two after the missionaries entered; and the veil being taken off they saw that it was a woman who had professed Christianity. Her sons were among those who had strangled her. Another woman came forward with great shew of bravery when her name was called; offered her hand to the missionaries as she passed them; and with great pride of bearing submitted herself to the death which probably she knew she could not avoid. Everybody was quiet and cheerful, and the whole thing went on with the undisturbed order of a recognized and accustomed necessity; only the old king's son, the reigning chief for a long time back, was very uneasy at the part he was playing before the missionaries; he was the only trembling or doubtful one there. Yet he would not yield the point. Pride before all; his father must not be buried without the due honours of his position. Mr. Rhys and Mr. Lefferts had staid to make their protest and offer their entreaties and warnings, to the very last; and then heart-sick and almost faint with the disgusting scene, had returned home. Yet the influence of the truth was increasing and the good work was spreading and growing around them, steadily and in every direction. A great many had renounced heathenism; not a small number were earnest Christians and shewed the truth of their religion in their changed lives. A great number of reports proved this. "It is work that tries what stuff men's hearts are of, however," remarked Mr. Morrison as he folded up one packet of letters. Neither of his hearers made him any answer. Mrs. Caxton sat opposite to him, deeply attentive but silent, with her hand always lying upon her own particular packet. Eleanor had turned a little away and sat with her side face towards Mr. Morrison, looking into the fire. Her work was dropped; she sat motionless. "I have a letter to read you now of a later date," Mr. Morrison went on,--"from Mr. Rhys, which shews how well he has got hold of the people and how much he is regarded by them already. It shews the influence gained by the truth, too, which is working there fast." After giving some details of business and of his labours, Mr. Rhys wrote--"My last notable piece of work, has been in the character of an ambassador of peace--not heavenly but earthly. News was brought four or five days ago that the heathen inhabitants of two neighbouring districts had engaged in open hostilities. Home business claimed me one day; the next morning I set out on my mission, with one or two Christian natives. The desolations of war soon met our eyes, in destroyed crops and a deserted village. Nobody was to be seen. I and those who were with me sat down in the shade of some trees, while a native went to find the inhabitants who had hid themselves in a thicket of mangroves. As soon as the chief heard that I was there, and what I had come for, he declared he would be a Christian forthwith; and four or five of his principal men followed his example. They came to me, and entered fully into my object; and it was decided that we should go on immediately to the fortress where those who wished to carry on war had intrenched themselves. We got there just as the sun was setting; and from that time till midnight I was engaged in what I saw now for the first time; a savage council of war. Grim black warriors covered with black powder sat or stood about, on a little clear spot of ground where the moon shone down; muskets and clubs and spears lay on the glass and were scattered about among the boles of the trees; a heathen-looking scene. Till midnight we talked, and hard talking too; then it was ended as I had prayed it might. The party with whom I was had suffered already in battle and had not had their revenge; it was difficult to give that up; but at last the chief got up and put his hand in mine. 'I should like to be a heathen a little longer,' he said, 'but I will _lotu_ as you so earnestly entreat me.' _Lotu_ is their name for embracing Christianity. Another young warrior joined him; and there under the midnight moon, we worshipped God; those two and those who were with me. In another part of the village a dozen women for the first time bowed the knee in the same worship. "So far was well; but it yet remained to induce the opposite hostile party to agree to peace; you understand only one side was yet persuaded. Early the next morning I set about it. Here a difficulty met me. The Christian chiefs made no objection to going with me to parley with their enemies; but I wanted the company also of another, the chief of this district; knowing it very important. And he was afraid to go. He told me so plainly. 'If I do as you ask me,' said he, 'I am a dead man this day.' I did my best to make him think differently; a hundred men declared that they would die in defence of him; and at last I gained my point. Tui Mbua agreed to go to the neighbourhood of the hostile town, if I would bring its principal men to meet him at an appointed place. So we went. This chosen place was a fine plot of ground enclosed by magnificent chestnut trees. I went on to the town, with a few unarmed men. The people received us well; but it was difficult to make the old heathen, brought up on treachery and falsehood, believe that I was to be trusted. But in the end the chief and twenty of his men consented to go with us, and left their arms at home. They did it with forebodings, for I overheard an old man say, as we set out from the place,--'We shall see death to-day.' I lifted my voice and cried, 'To-day we live!' They took up the words, and heart at the same time, and repeated, 'To-day we live'--to encourage themselves, I suppose, as we went towards the chestnut-tree meeting ground. "I felt that the peace of the whole region depended on what was to be done there, and for my part went praying that all might go well. It was an anxious moment when we entered the open place; any ill-looks in either party would chase away trust front the other. As we went in I watched the chief who accompanied me. He gently bowed to Tui Mbua and approached him with due and evidently honest respect. My heart leaped at that moment. Tui Mbua looked at him keenly, sprang to his feet, and casting his arms about his enemy's neck gave him a warm embrace. The people around shouted for joy; I was still, I believe, for the very depth of mine. One of the Christian chiefs spoke out and cried, 'We thank thee, O Lord, for thus bringing thy creatures into the way of life;' and he wept aloud for very gladness. "After that we had speechifying; and I returned home very full of thankful joy." This was the last letter read. Mr. Morrison folded up his packet amid a great silence. Mrs. Caxton seemed thoughtful; Eleanor was motionless. "He is doing good work," remarked Mr. Morrison; "but it is hard work. He is the right sort of man to go there--fears nothing, shirks nothing. So are they all, I believe; but almost all the rest of them have their wives with them. How came Rhys to go alone?" "He does not write as if he felt lonely," said Mrs. Caxton. "It is better for a man to take a wife, though," said Mr. Morrison. "He wants so much of comfort and home as that. They get tired, and they get sick, and to have no woman's hand about is something to be missed at such times. O we are all dependent. Mr. Rhys is domesticated now with Brother Lefferts and his family. I suppose he feels it less, because he has not had a home of his own in a good while; that makes a difference." "He knows he has a home of his own too," said Mrs. Caxton; "though he has not reached it yet. I suppose the thought of that makes him content." "Of course. But in a heathen land, with heathen desolation and dark faces all around one, you have no idea how at times one's soul longs for a taste of England. Brother Rhys too is a man to feel all such things. He has a good deal of taste, and what you might call sensitiveness to externals." "A good deal," said Mrs. Caxton quietly. "Then he has some beautiful externals around him." "So they say. But the humanity is deplorable. Well, they will get their reward when the Master comes. A man leaves everything indeed when he goes to the South Seas as Rhys has done. He would have been very popular in England." "So he will in the islands." "Well so it seems," said Mr. Morrison. "He has got the ear of those wild creatures evidently. That's the man." It was time for evening prayers; and afterwards the party separated; Mrs. Caxton carrying off with her her packet of letters unbroken. The morning brought its own business; the breakfast was somewhat hurried; Mr. Morrison took his departure; and nothing more was said on the subject of South Sea missionaries till the evening. Then the two ladies were again alone together. "Are you well to-day, Eleanor?" was Mrs. Caxton's first question at the tea-table. "Some headache, aunt Caxton." "How is that? And I have noticed that your eyes were heavy all day." "There is no harm, ma'am. I did not sleep very well." "Why not?" "I think the reading of those letters excited me, aunt Caxton." Mrs. Caxton looked at a line of faint crimson which was stealing up into Eleanor's cheeks, and for a moment stayed her words. "My dear, there is as good work to be done here, as ever in Polynesia." "I do not know, aunt Caxton," said Eleanor leaning her head on her hand in thoughtful wise. "England has had the light a great while; it must be grand to be the first torch-bearers into the darkness." "So Mr. Rhys feels. But then, my dear, I think we are to do the work given us--one here and one there;--and let the Lord place his servants, and our service, as he will." "I do not think otherwise, aunt Caxton." "Would you like, to hear some of what Mr. Rhys has written to me? there is a little difference between what is sent to a Committee and what is for the private eye of a friend." "Yes ma'am, I would like it," Eleanor said; but she did not say so at all eagerly; and Mrs. Caxton looked at her once or twice before she changed the subject and spoke of something else. She held to her offer, however; and when the green cloth and the lamp were again in readiness, she brought out the letters. Eleanor took some work and bent her head over it. "This is one of the latest dates," Mrs. Caxton said as she opened the paper; "written after he had been there a good many months and had got fairly acquainted with the language and with the people. It seems to me he has been very quick about it." "Yes, I think so," Eleanor answered; "but that is his way." Mrs. Caxton read. "My dear friend, "In spite of the world of ocean rolling between us, I yet have a strange and sweet feeling of taking your hand, when I set myself to write to you. Spirit and matter seem at odds; and far away as I am, with the vegetation and the air of the tropics around me, as soon as I begin upon this sheet of paper I seem to stand in Plassy again. The dear old hills rear their wild outlines before me; the green wealth of vegetation is at my feet, but cool and fresh as nothing looks to me under the northerly wind which is blowing now; and your image is so distinct, that I almost can grasp your hand, and almost hear you speak; _see_ you speak, I do. Blessed be the Lord for imagination, as well as for memory! Without it, how slowly we should mount to the conception of heavenly things and the understanding of himself; and the distance between friends would be a sundering of them indeed. But I must not waste time or paper in telling you what you know already. "By which you will conclude that I am busy. I am as busy as I can possibly be. That is as I wish it. It is what I am here for. I would not have a moment unused. On Sunday I have four or five services, of different sorts. Week days I have an English school, a writing school, one before and the other after mid-day; and later still, a school for regular native instruction. Every moment of time that is free, or would be, is needed for visiting the sick, whose demands upon us are constant. But this gives great opportunity to preach the gospel and win the hearts of the people. "Some account of a little preaching and teaching journey in which I took part some few months ago, I have a mind to give you. Our object was specially an island between one and two hundred miles away, where many have become Christians, and not in name only; but where up to this time no missionary has been stationed. We visit them when we can. This time we had the advantage of a brig to make the voyage in; the mission ship was here with the Superintendent and he desired to visit the place. We arrived at evening in the neighbourhood; at a little island close by, where all the people are now Christian. Mr. Lefferts went ashore in a canoe to make arrangements; and the next day we followed. It was a beautiful day and as beautiful a sight as eyes could see. We visited the houses of the native teachers, who were subjects of admiration in every respect; met candidates for baptism and examined them; married a couple; and Bro. Griffiths preached. There is a new chapel, of very neat native workmanship; with a pulpit carved out of a solid piece of wood, oiled to give it colour and gloss. In the chapel the whole population of the island was assembled, dressed in new dresses, attentive, and interested. So were we, you may believe, when we remembered that only two years ago all these people were heathens. O these islands are a glorious place now and then, in spots where the devil's reign is broken. I wish you could have seen us afterwards, my dear friend, at our native feast spread on the ground under the trees; you who never saw a table set but with exact and elegant propriety. We had no table; believe me, we were too happy and hungry to mind that. I do not think you would have quarrelled with our dishes; they were no other and no worse than the thick broad glossy leaves of the banana. No fault could be found with their elegance; and our napkins were of the green rind of the same tree. Cocoanut shells were our substitute for flint glass, and I like it very well; especially when cocoanut milk is the refreshment to be served in them. Knives and forks we had none! What would you have said to that? Our meat was boiled fowls and baked yams and fish dressed in various ways; and the fingers of the natives, or our own, were our only dividers. But I have seen less pleasant entertainments; and I only could wish you had been there,--so you might have whisked back to England the next minute after it was over, on some convenient fairy carpet such as I used to read of in Eastern tales when I was a boy. For us, we had to make our way in haste back to the ship, which lay in the offing, and could not come near on account of the reef barrier. We got on board safely, passing the reefs where once an American ship was wrecked and her crew killed and eaten by the people of these parts. "The next day we made the land we sought; and got ashore through a tremendous surf. Here we found the island had lately been the seat of war--some of the heathen having resolved to put an end by violence to the Christian religion there, or as they call it, the _lotu_. The Christians had gained the victory, and then had treated their enemies with the utmost kindness; which had produced a great effect upon them. The rest of the day after our landing was spent in making thorough inquiry into this matter; and in a somewhat extended preaching service. At night we slept on a mat laid for us, or tried to sleep; but my thoughts were too busy; and the clear night sky was witness to a great many restless movements, I am afraid, before I lost them in forgetfulness. The occasion of which, I suppose, was the near prospect of sending letters home to England by the ship. At any rate, England and the South Seas were very near together that night; and I was fain to remember that heaven is nearer yet. But the remembrance carne, and with it sleep. The next day was a day of business. Marrying couples (over forty of them) baptizing converts, preaching; then meeting the teachers and class-leaders and examining them as to their Christian experience, etc. From dawn till long past mid-day we were busy so; and then were ready for another feast in the open air like that one I described to you--for we had had no breakfast. We had done all the work we could do at that time at One, and sought our ship immediately after dinner; passing through a surf too heavy for the canoes to weather. "Let me tell you some of the testimony given by these converts from heathenism; given simply and heartily, by men who have not learned their religion by book nor copied it out of other men's mouths. It was a very thrilling thing to hear them, these poor enterers into the light, who have but just passed the line of darkness. One said, 'I love the Lord, and I know he loves me; not for anything in me, or for anything I have done; but for Christ's sake alone. I trust in Christ and am happy. I listen to God, that he may do with me as he pleases. I am thankful to have lived until the Lord's work has begun. I feel it in my heart! I hold Jesus! I am happy! My heart is full of love to God!' "Another said, 'One good thing I know,--the sacred blood of Jesus. I desire nothing else.' "Another,--'I know that God has justified me through the sacred blood of Jesus. I know assuredly that I am reconciled to God. I know of the work of God in my soul. The sacred Spirit makes it clear to me. I wish to preach the gospel, that others also may know Jesus.' "All these have been engaged the past year in teaching or proclaiming the truth in various ways. Another of their number who was dying, one or two of us went to see. One of us asked him if he was afraid to die? 'No,' he said, 'I am sheltered. The great Saviour died for me. The Lord's wrath is removed. I am his.' And another time he remarked, 'Death is a fearfully great thing, but I fear it not. There is a _Saviour_ below the skies.' "So there is a helmet of salvation for the poor Fijian as well as for the favoured people at home. Praise be to the Lord! Did I tell you, my dear friend, I was restless at the thought of sending letters home? Let me tell you now, I am happy; as happy as I could be in any place in the world; and I would not be in any other place, by my own choice, for all the things in the world. I need only to be made more holy. Just in proportion as I am that, I am happy and I am useful. I want to be perfectly holy. But there is the same way of trusting for the poor Fijian and for me; and I believe in that same precious blood I shall be made clean, even as they. I want to preach Christ a thousand times more than I do. I long to make his love known to these poor people. I rejoice in being here, where every minute may tell actively for him. My dear friend, when we get home, do what we will, we shall not think we have done enough. "Our life here is full of curious contrasts. Within doors, what our old habits have stereotyped as propriety, is sadly trenched upon. Before the ship came, Mrs. Lefferts' stock of comfort in one line was reduced to a single tea-cup; and in other stores, the demands of the natives had caused us to run very short. You know it is only by payment of various useful articles that we secure any service done or purchase any native produce. Money is unknown. Fruit and vegetables, figs, fish, crabs, fowls, we buy with iron tools, pieces of calico, and the like; and if our supply of these gives out, we have to draw upon the store of things needed by ourselves; and blankets and hardware come to be minus. Then, forgetting this, which it is easy to do, all the world without is a world of glorious beauty. How I wish I could shew it to you! These islands are of very various character, and many of them like the garden of Eden for natural loveliness; shewing almost every kind of scenery within a small area. Most of them are girdled more or less entirely by what is called a _barrier reef_--an outside and independent coral formation, sometimes narrow, sometimes miles in width, on the outer edge of which the sea breaks in an endless line of white foam. Within the reef the lagoon, as it is called, is perfectly still and clear; and such glories of the animal and vegetable world as lie beneath its surface I have no time to describe to you now. I have had little time to examine them; but once or twice I have taken a canoe and a piece of rest, gliding over this submarine garden, and rejoicing in the Lord who has made everything so beautiful in its time. My writing hour is over for to-day. I am going five or six miles to see a man who is said to be very ill. "Feb. 16. The man had very little the matter with him. I had my walk for nothing, so far as my character of doctor or nurse was concerned. "I will give you a little notion of the beauty of these islands, in the description of one that I visited a short time ago. It is one of our out-stations--too small to have a teacher given it; so it is visited from time to time by Mr. Lefferts and myself. With a fair wind the distance is hardly a day's journey; but sometimes as in this case it consumes two days. The voyage was made in a native canoe, manned by native sailors, some Christian, some heathen. They are good navigators, for savages; and need to be, for the character of the seas here, threaded with a network of coral reefs, makes navigation a delicate matter. Our voyage proceeded very well, until we got to the entrance of the island. That seems a strange sentence; but the island itself is a circle, nearly; a band of volcanic rock, not very wide, enclosing a lake or lagoon within its compass. There is only a rather narrow channel of entrance. Here we were met by difficulty. The surf breaking shorewards was tremendously high; and meeting and struggling with it came a rush of the current from within. Between the two opposing waters the canoe was tossed and swayed like a reed. It was, for a few moments, a scene to be remembered, and not a little terrific. The shoutings and exertions of the men, who felt the danger of their position, added to the roar and the power of the waters, which tossed us hither and thither as a thing of no consequence, made it a strange wild minute,--till we emerged from all that struggle and roar into the still beautiful quiet of the lagoon inside. Imagine it, surrounded with its border of rocky land covered with noble trees, and spotted with islets covered in like manner. The whole island is of volcanic formation, and its rocks are of black scoria. The theory is, I believe, that a volcano once occupied the whole centre of such islands; which sinking afterwards away left its place to the occupancy of a lake instead. However produced, the effect is singular in its wild beauty. The soil of this island is poor for any purpose but growing timber; the inhabitants consequently are not many, and they live on roots and fish and what we should think still poorer food--a great wood maggot, which is found in plenty. There are but four villages, two of them Christian. I staid there one night and the next day, giving them all I could; and it was a good time to me. The day after I returned home. O sweet gospel of Christ! which is lighting up these dark places; and O my blessed Master, who stands by his servants and gives them his own presence and love, when they are about his work and the world is far from them, and men would call them lonely. There is no loneliness where Christ is. I must finish this long letter with giving you the dying testimony of a Tongan preacher who has just gone to his home. He came here as a missionary from his own land, and has worked hard and successfully. He said to Mr. Calvert the day before his death, 'I have long _enjoyed_ religion and felt its _power_. In my former illness I was happy; but now I am greatly blessed. The Lord has come down with mighty power into my soul, and I feel the blessedness of _full rest of soul_ in God. I feel religion to be peculiarly sweet, and my rejoicing is great. I see more fully and clearly the truth of the word and Spirit of God, and the suitableness of the Saviour. The whole of Christianity I see as exceedingly excellent.' "With this testimony I close, my dear friend. It is mine; I can ask no better for you than that it may be yours." Mrs. Caxton ended her reading and looked at Eleanor. She had done that several times in the course of the reading. Eleanor was always bent over her work, and busily attentive to it; but on each cheek a spot of colour had been fixed and deepening, till now it had reached a broad flush. Silence fell as the reading ceased; Eleanor did not look up; Mrs. Caxton did not take her eyes from her niece's face. It was with a kind of subdued sigh that at last she turned from the table and put her papers away. "Mr. Morrison is not altogether in the wrong," she remarked at length. "It is better for a man in those far-off regions, and amidst so many labours and trials, to have the comfort of his own home." "Do you think Mr. Rhys writes as if he felt the want?" "It is hard to tell what a man wants, by his writing. I am not quite at rest on that point." "How happened it that he did not marry, like everybody else, before going there?" "He is a fastidious man," said Mrs. Caxton; "one of those men that are rather difficult to please, I fancy; and that are apt enough to meet with hindrances because of the very nice points of their own nature." "I don't think you need wish any better for him, aunt Caxton, than to judge by his letters he has and enjoys as he is. He seems to me, and always did, a very enviable person." "Can you tell why?" "Good--happy--and useful," said Eleanor. But her voice was a little choked. "You know grace is free," said Mrs. Caxton. "He would tell you so. Ring the bell, my dear. And a sinner saved in England is as precious as one saved in Fiji. Let us work where our place is, and thank the Lord!" CHAPTER X. IN NEWS. "Speak, is't so? If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue; If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee, As heaven shall work in me for thine avail, To tell me truly." Mr. Morrison's visit had drifted off into the distance of time; and the subject of South Sea missions had passed out of sight, for all that appeared. Mrs. Caxton did not bring it up again after that evening, and Eleanor did not. The household went on with its quiet ways. Perhaps Mrs. Caxton was a trifle more silent and ruminative, and Eleanor more persistently busy. She had been used to be busy; in these weeks she seemed to have forgotten how to rest. She looked tired accordingly sometimes; and Mrs. Caxton noticed it. "What became of your bill, Eleanor?" she said suddenly one evening. They had both been sitting at work some time without a word. "My bill, ma'am? What do you mean, aunt Caxton?" "Your Ragged school bill." "It reached its second reading, ma'am; and there it met with opposition." "And fell through?" "I suppose so--for the present. Its time will come, I hope; the time for its essential provisions, I mean." "Do you think Mr. Carlisle could have secured its passage?" "From what I know and have heard of him, I have no doubt he could." "His love is not very generous," remarked Mrs. Caxton. "It never was, aunt Caxton. After I left London I had little hope of my bill. I am not disappointed." "My dear, are you weary to-night?" "No ma'am! not particularly." "I shall have to find some play-work for you to do. Your voice speaks something like weariness." "I do not feel it, aunt Caxton." "Eleanor, have you any regret for any part of your decision and action with respect to Mr. Carlisle?" "Never, aunt Caxton. How can you ask me?" "I did not know but you might feel weariness now at your long stay in Plassy and the prospect of a continued life here." Eleanor put down her work, came to Mrs. Caxton, kneeled down and put her arms about her; kissing her with kisses that certainly carried conviction with them. "It is the most wicked word I ever heard you say, aunt Caxton. I love Plassy beyond all places in the world, that I have ever been in. No part of my life has been so pleasant as the part spent here. If I am weary, I sometimes feel as if my life were singularly cut off from its natural duties and stranded somehow, all alone; but that is an unbelieving thought, and I do not give it harbour at all. I am very content--very happy." Mrs. Caxton brought her hand tenderly down the side of the smooth cheek before her, and her eyes grew somewhat misty. But that was a rare occurrence, and the exhibition of it immediately dismissed. She kissed Eleanor and returned to her ordinary manner. "Talking about stranded lives," she said; "to take another subject, you must forgive me for that one, dear--I think of Mr. Rhys very often." "His life is not stranded," said Eleanor; "it is under full sail." "He is alone, though." "I do not believe he feels alone, aunt Caxton." "I do not know," said Mrs. Caxton. "A man of a sensitive nature must feel, I should think, in his circumstances, that he has put an immense distance between himself and all whom he loves." "But I thought he had almost no family relations left?" "Did it never occur to you," said Mrs. Caxton, "when you used to see him here, that there was somebody, somewhere, who had a piece of his heart?" "No, ma'am,--never!" Eleanor said with some energy. "I never thought he seemed like it." "I did not know anything about it," Mrs. Caxton went on slowly, "until a little while before he went away--some time after you were here. Then I learned that it was the truth." Eleanor worked away very diligently and made no answer. Mrs. Caxton furtively watched her; Eleanor's head was bent down over her sewing; but when she raised it to change the position of her work, Mrs. Caxton saw a set of her lips that was not natural. "You never suspected anything of the kind?" she repeated. "No, ma'am--and it would take strong testimony to make me believe it." "Why so, pray?" "I should have thought--but it is no matter what I thought about it!" "Nay, if I ask you, it is matter. Why should it be hard to believe, of Mr. Rhys especially?" "Nothing; only--I should have thought, if he liked any one, a woman,--that she would have gone with him." "You forget where he was bound to go. Do you think many women would have chosen to go with him to such a home--perhaps for the remainder of their lives? I think many would have hesitated." "But _you_ forget for what he was going; and any woman whom he would have liked, would have liked his object too." "You think so," said Mrs. Caxton; "but I cannot wonder at his having doubted. There are a great many questions about going such a journey, my dear." "And did the lady refuse to go?" said Eleanor bending over her work and speaking huskily. "I do not think he ever asked her. I almost wish he had." "_Almost_, aunt Caxton? Why he may have done her the greatest wrong. She might like him without his knowing it; it was not fair to go without giving her the chance of saying what she would do." "Well, he is gone," said Mrs. Caxton; "and he went alone. I think men make mistakes sometimes." Eleanor sewed on nervously, with a more desperate haste than she knew, or than was in the least called for by the work in hand. Mrs. Caxton watched her, and turned away to the contemplation of the fire. "Did the thought ever occur to you, Eleanor," she went on very gravely, "that he fancied _you?_" Eleanor's glance up was even pitiful in its startled appeal. "No, ma'am, of course not!" she said hastily. "Except--O aunt Caxton, why do you ask me such a thing!" "_Except_,--my dear?" "Except a foolish fancy of an hour," said Eleanor in overwhelmed confusion. "One day, for a little time--aunt Caxton, how can you ask me such a thing?" "I had a little story to tell you, my dear; and I wanted to make sure that I should do no harm in telling it. What is there so dreadful in such a question?" But Eleanor only brushed away a hot tear from her flushed face and went on with her sewing. Or essayed to do it, for Mrs. Caxton thought her vision seemed to be not very clear. "What made you think so that time, Eleanor? and what is the matter, my dear?" "It hurts me, aunt Caxton, the question. You know we were friends, and I liked him very much, as I had reason; but I _never_ had cause to fancy that he thought anything of me--only once I fancied it without cause." "On what occasion, my love?" "It was only a little thing--a nothing--a chance word. I saw immediately that I was mistaken." "Did the thought displease you?" "Aunt Caxton, why should you bring up such a thing now?" said Eleanor in very great distress. "Did it displease you, Eleanor?" "No aunty"--said the girl; and her head dropped in her hands then. "My love," Mrs. Caxton said very tenderly, "I knew this before; I thought I did; but it was best to bring it out openly, for I could not else have executed my commission. I lave a message from Mr. Rhys to you, Eleanor." "A message to me?" said Eleanor without raising her head. "Yes. You were not mistaken." "In what?" Eleanor looked up; and amidst sorrow and shame and confusion, there was a light of fire, like the touch the summer sun gives to the mountain tops before he gets up. Mrs. Caxton looked at her flushed tearful face, and the hidden light in her eye; and her next words were as gentle as the very fall of the sunbeams themselves. "My love, it is true." "What, aunt Caxton?" "You were not mistaken." "In what, ma'am?" "In thinking what you thought that day, when something--a mere nothing--made you think that Mr. Rhys liked you." "But, aunty," said Eleanor, a scarlet flood refilling the cheeks which had partially faded,--"I had never the least reason to think so again." "That is Mr. Rhys's affair. But you may believe it now, for he told me; and I give it to you on his own testimony." It was curious to Mrs. Caxton to see Eleanor's face. She did not hide it; she turned it a little away from her aunt's fill view and sat very still, while the intense flush passed away and left only a nameless rosy glow, that almost reminded Mrs. Caxton of the perfume as well as of the colour of the flower it was likened to. There was a certain unfolding sweetness in Eleanor's face, that was most like the opening of a rosebud just getting into full blossom; but the lips, unbent into happy lines, were a little shame-faced, and would not open to speak a word or ask another question. So they both sat still; the younger and elder lady. "Do you want me to tell you any more, Eleanor?" "Why do you tell me this at all now, aunt Caxton?" Eleanor said very slowly and without stirring. "Mr. Rhys desired I should." "Why, aunt Caxton?" "Why do gentlemen generally desire such things to be made known to young ladies?" "But ma'am"--said Eleanor, the crimson starting again. "Well, my dear?" "There is the whole breadth of the earth between us." "Ships traverse it," said Mrs. Caxton coolly. "Do you mean that he is coming home?" said Eleanor. Her face was a study, for its changing lights; too quick, too mingled, too subtle in their expression, to be described. So it was at this instant. Half eager, and half shame-faced; an unmistakeable glow of delight, and yet something that was very like shrinking. "No, my love," Mrs. Caxton made answer--"I do not mean that. He would not leave his place and his work, even for you." "But then, ma'am--" "What all this signifies? you would ask. Are you sorry--do you feel any regret--that it should be made known to you?" "No, ma'am," said Eleanor low, and hanging her head. "What it signifies, I do not know. That depends upon the answer to a very practical question which I must now put to you. If Mr. Rhys were stationed in England and could tell you all this himself, what would you say to him in answer?" "I could give him but one, aunt Caxton," said Eleanor in the same manner. "And that would be a grant of his demand?" "You know it would, ma'am, without asking me." "Now we come to the question. He cannot leave his work to come to you. Is your regard for him enough to make you go to Fiji?" "Not without asking, aunt Caxton," Eleanor said, turning away. "Suppose he has asked you." "But dear aunt Caxton," Eleanor said in a troubled voice, "he never said one word to me of his liking for me, nor to draw out my feeling towards him." "Suppose he has said it." "How, ma'am? By word, or in writing?" "In writing." Eleanor was silent a little, with her head turned away; then she said in a subdued way, "May I have it, aunt Caxton?" "My dear, I was not to give them to you except I found that you were favourably disposed towards the object of them. If you ask me for them again, it must be upon that understanding." "Will you please to give them to me, aunt Caxton," Eleanor said in the same subdued tone. Mrs. Caxton rose and went to a secretary in the room for one or two papers, which she brought and put in Eleanor's hand. Then folding her arms round her, stooped down and kissed the turned-away face. Eleanor rose up to meet the embrace, and they held each other fast for a little while, neither in any condition to speak. "The Lord bless you, my child!" said Mrs. Caxton as she released her. "You must make these letters a matter of prayer. And take care that you do the Lord's will in this business--not your own." "Aunt Caxton," said Eleanor presently, "why was this not told me long ago--before Mr. Rhys went away?" She spoke the words with difficulty. "It is too long a story to tell to-night," Mrs. Caxton said after hesitating. "He was entirely ignorant of what your feeling might be towards him--ignorant too how far you might be willing to do and dare for Christ's sake--and doubtful how far the world and Mr. Carlisle might be able to prevail with you if they had a fair chance. He could not risk taking a wife to Fiji who had not fairly counted the cost." "He was so doubtful of me, and yet liked me?" said Eleanor. "My love, there is no accounting for these things," Mrs. Caxton said with a smile. "And he left these with you to give to me?" "One was left--the other was sent. One comes from Fiji. I will tell you about them to-morrow. It is too long a story for to-night; and you have quite enough to think about already. My dear Eleanor!" They parted without more words, only with another speaking embrace, more expressive than words; and without looking at the other each went to her own room. Eleanor's was cosy and bright in winter as well as in summer; a fire of the peculiar fuel used in the region of the neighbourhood, made of cakes of coal and sand, glowed in the grate, and the whole colouring of the drapery and the furniture was of that warm rich cast which comforts the eye and not a little disposes the mind to be comfortable in conformity. The only wood fire used in the house was the one in the sitting parlour. Before her grate-full of glowing coals Eleanor sat down; and looked at the two letters she held in her hand. Looked at the handwriting too, with curious scrutiny, before she ventured to open and read either paper. Wondered too, with an odd side thought, why her fingers should tremble so in handling these, when no letter of Mr. Carlisle's writing had ever reminded her that her fingers had nerves belonging to them. One was a little letter, which Mrs. Caxton had told her was the first to be read; it was addressed, "In the hand of Mrs. Caxton, for Miss Eleanor Powle." That note Eleanor's little fingers opened with as slight tearing of the paper as might be. It was in few words indeed. "Although I know that these lines will never meet the eye of her for whom they are written, unless she be favourably inclined both to them and to me; yet in the extreme doubt which possesses me whether that condition will be ever fulfilled, and consequently whether I am not writing what no one will ever read, I find it very difficult to say anything. Something charges me with foolhardiness, and something with presumption; but there is a something else, which is stronger, that overthrows the charges and bids me go on. "If you ever see these lines, dear Eleanor, you will know already what they have to tell you; but it is fit you should have it in my own words; that--not the first place in my heart--but the second--is yours; and yours without any rivalry. There is one thing dearer to me than you--it is my King and his service; after that, you have all the rest. "What is it worth to you? anything? and what will you say to me in reply? "When you read this I shall be at a distance--before I can read your answer I shall be at the other side of the globe. I am not writing to gratify a vague sentiment, but with a definite purpose--and even, though it mocks me, a definite hope. It is much to ask--I hardly dare put it in words--it is hardly possible--that you should come to me. But if you are ready to do and venture anything in the service of Christ--and if you are willing to share a life that is wholly given to God to be spent where and how he pleases, and that is to take up its portion for the present, and probably for long, in the depths of South Sea barbarism--let your own heart tell you what welcome you will receive. "I can say no more. May my Lord bless and keep you. May you know the fulness of joy that Jesus can give his beloved. May you want nothing that is good for you. "R. Rhys." The other letter was longer. It was dated "Island Vulanga, in the South Seas, March, 18--, "My dear Eleanor-- "I do not know what presumption moves me to address you again, and from this far-away place. I say to myself that it is presumption; and yet I yield to the impulse. Perhaps it is partly the wish to enjoy once at least even this fancied communion with you, before some news comes which may shut me off from it for ever. But I yield to the temptation. I feel very far from you to-day; the tops of the bread-fruit trees that I see from my window, the banana tree with its bunches of fruit and broad bright leaves just before my door--this very hot north wind that is blowing and making it so difficult to do anything and almost to breathe--all remind me that I am in another land, and by the very force of contrast, the fresh Welsh mountains, the green meadows, the cool sweet air of Plassy--and your face--come before me. Your face, most of all. My mind can think of nothing it would be so refreshing to see. I will write what I please; for you will never read it if the reading would be impertinent; and something tells me you _will_ read it. "This is one of the hot months, when exertion is at times very difficult. The heat is oppressive and takes away strength and endurance. But it is for my Master. That thought cures all. To be weary for Christ, is not to be weary; it is better than any delights without him. So each day is a boon; and each day that I have been able to fill up well with work for God, I rejoice and give thanks. There is no limit here to the work to be done; it presses upon us at all points. We cannot teach all that ask for teaching; we can hardly attend to the calls of the sick; hundreds and hundreds stand stretching out their hands to us with the prayer that we would come and tell them about religion, and we cannot go! Our hands are already full; our hearts break for the multitudes who want the truth, to whom we cannot give it. We wish that every talent we have were multiplied. We wish that we could work all night as well as all day. Above all _I_ want to be more like my Lord. When I am all Christ's, _then_ I shall be to the praise of his glory, who called me out of darkness into his marvellous light. I want to be altogether holy; then I shall be quite happy and useful, and there is no other way. Are you satisfied with less, Eleanor? If you are, you are satisfied with less than satisfies Christ. Find out where you stand. Remember, it is as true for you as it was for Paul to say, 'Through Christ I can do all things.' "There are a few native Christians here who are earnestly striving to be holy. But around them all is darkness--blacker than you can even conceive. Where the Sun of righteousness has shined, there the golden beams of Fiji's morning lie; it is a bright spot here and there; but our eyes long for the day. We know and believe it is coming. But when? I understand out here the meaning of that recommendation--'Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into the harvest.' You can hardly understand it in England. Do you pray that prayer, Eleanor? "Before I left England I wrote you a note. Amid the exquisite pleasure and pain of which lurked a hope--without which it would not have been written, but which I now see to have been very visionary. It is possible that circumstances may be so that the note may have been read by you; in that case Mrs. Caxton will give you this; but at the distance of space and time that intervenes now, and with cooler thoughts and better knowledge, I feel it to be scarcely possible that you should comply with the request I was daring enough to make to you. I do not expect it. I have ceased to allow myself to hope for it. I think I was unreasonable to ask--and I will never think you unreasonable for refusing--so extravagant a demand. Even if you were willing, your friends would not allow it. And I would not disguise from you that the difficulties and dangers to be met in coming here, are more and greater than can possibly have been represented to you. Humanly speaking, that is; I have myself no fear, and never have felt any. But the evils that surround us--that come to our knowledge and under our very eyes--are real and tangible and dreadful. So much the more reason for our being here;--but so much the less likely that you, gently reared and delicately cared for, will be allowed to risk your delicate nurture in this land of savages. There is cannibalism here, and to the most dreadful extent; there is all the defilement of life and manners that must be where human beings have no respect for humanity; and all this must come more or less under the immediate knowledge and notice of those that live here. The Lord God is a sun and shield; we dwell in him and not in the darkness; nevertheless our eyes see what our hearts grieve over. I could not shield you from it entirely were you here; you would have to endure what in England you could not endure. There are minor trials many and often to be encountered; some of which you will have learned from other letters of the mission. "The heathen around us are not to be trusted, and will occasionally lay their hands upon something we need very much, and carry it off. Not long ago the house of Mr. Thomas, on a neighbouring station, was entered at night and robbed of almost all the wearing apparel it contained. The entrance was effected silently, by cutting into the thin reed and grass wall of the house; and nobody knew anything of the matter till next morning. Then the signs shewed that the depredators had been prepared to commit violence if resisted. I do not know--but I am inclined to think such a thing would not happen in my house. I have been enabled to gain the good will of the people very generally, by kindness to the sick, &c.; and two or three of the most powerful chiefs in this vicinity have declared themselves each formally my 'friend'--a title of honour which I scrupulously give and take with them. Nevertheless they are not to be relied upon. What of that? The eternal God is our refuge! After all I come back into feeling how safe we are, rather than how exposed. "Yet all I have told you is true, and much more. Let no one come here who does not love Christ well enough to suffer the loss of all things for his sake, if necessary; for it may be demanded of him. He wants the helmet of salvation on his head; but with that, it does not matter where we are--glory to the Captain of our salvation! Fiji is very near heaven, Eleanor; nearer than England; and if I dared, I would say, I wish you were here;--but I do not dare. I do not know what is best. I leave you to your own judgment of what you ought to do, and to that better direction which will tell you. For me, I know that I shall not want; not so but that I can find my supply; and soon I shall be where I shall not want at all. Meanwhile every day is a glad day to me, for it is given to my Lord; and Jesus is with me. The people hear the word gladly, and with some fruit of it continually our hearts are cheered. I would not be anywhere else than I am. My choice would be, if I had my choice, to live and die in Fiji. "I dare not trust myself to say the thoughts that come surging up for utterance; it is wiser not. If my first note to you was presumptuous, this at least is the writing of a calmer and wiser man. I have resigned the expectations of a moment. But it is no harm for me to say I love you as well as ever; _that_ I shall do, I think, till I die; although I shall never see you again, and dare not promise myself I shall ever again write to you. It may be it will be best not, even as a friend, to do that. Perhaps as a friend I could not. It is not as a friend, that I sign myself now, "Rowland Rhys." Poor Eleanor! She was of all people in the world the least given to be sentimental or soft-hearted in a foolish way; but strong as she was, there was something in these letters--or some mixture of things--that entered her heart like an arrow through the joints of an armour, and found her as defenceless. Tears came with that resistless, ceaseless, measureless flow, as when the secret nerve of tenderness has been reached, and every barrier of pride or self-consideration is broken down or passed over. So keen the touch was to Eleanor, that weeping could not quiet it. After all it was only a heavy summer shower--not a winter storm. Eleanor hushed her sobs at last to begin her prayers; and there the rest of the night left her. The morning was dawning grey in the east, when she threw herself upon her bed for an hour's sleep. Sleep came then without waiting. Perhaps Mrs. Caxton had not been much more reposeful than her niece; for she was not the first one down stairs. Eleanor was there before her; Mrs. Caxton watched her as she came in; she was ceremoniously putting the fire in best burning condition, and brushing up the ashes from the hearth. As Mrs. Caxton came near, Eleanor looked up and a silent greeting passed between them; very affectionate, but silent evidently of purpose. Neither of them was ready to speak. The bell was rung, the servants were gathered; and immediately after prayers breakfast was brought in. It was a silent meal for the first half of it. Mrs. Caxton still watched Eleanor, whose eyes did not readily meet hers. What about her? Her manner was as usual, one would have said, yet it was not; nor was she. A little delicate undefined difference made itself felt; and that Mrs. Caxton was studying. A little added grace; a little added deftness and alacrity; Mrs. Caxton had seen it in that order taken of the fire before breakfast; she saw it and read it then. And in Eleanor's face correspondingly there was the same difference; impossible to tell where it lay, it was equally impossible not to perceive it. Though her face was grave enough, there was a beauty in the lines of it that yesterday had not seen; a nameless witness in the corners of her mouth, that told tales the tongue would not. Mrs. Caxton looked on and saw it and read it, for half the breakfast time, before she spoke. Maybe she had a secret sigh or two to cover; but at any rate there was nothing like that in her look or her voice when she spoke. "So you will go, Eleanor!" Eleanor started, and coloured; then looked down at her plate, the blush growing universal. "Have you decided, my love?" Eleanor leaned her head upon her hand, as if with the question came the remembrance of last night's burden of thoughts; but her answer was a quiet low "yes." "May I know--for I feel myself responsible to a degree in this matter,--may I know, on what ground?" Eleanor's look was worth five hundred pounds. The little glance of surprise and consciousness--the flash of hidden light, there was no need to ask from what magazine, answered so completely, so involuntarily. She cast down her eyes immediately and answered in words sedate enough-- "Because I am unable to come to any other decision, ma'am." "But Eleanor, my dear," said Mrs. Caxton,--"do you know, Mr. Rhys himself would be unwilling you should come to him for his own sake alone--in Fiji." Eleanor turned away from the table at that and covered her face with her hands; a perfect rush of confusion bringing over face and neck and almost even over the little white fingers, a suffusing crimson glow. She spoke presently. "I cannot say anything to that, aunt Caxton. I have tried myself as well as I can. I think I would go anywhere and do anything where I saw clearly my work and my place were put for me. I do not know anything more about it." "My love, that is enough. I believe you. I entirely approve your decision. I spoke, because I needed to ask the question _he_ would have asked if he had been here. Mr. Rhys has written to me very stringently on the subject." "So he has to me, ma'am." "If you have settled that question with your conscience, my dear, there is no more necessary to be said about it. Conscience should be clear on that point, and the question settled securely. If it is not, you had better take time for thought and self-searching." "I do not need it, aunt Caxton." Mrs. Caxton left her place and came round to Eleanor, for the sole purpose of taking her in her arms and kissing her. Grave, earnest kisses, on brow and cheek, speaking a heart full of sympathy, full of tenderness, full of appreciation of all that this decision of Eleanor's involved, full of satisfaction with it too. A very unusual sort of demonstration from Mrs. Caxton, as was the occasion that called for it. Eleanor received it as the seal of the whole business between them. Her aunt's arms detained her lovingly while she pressed her lips to every part of Eleanor's face; then Mrs. Caxton went back to her place and poured herself out another cup of coffee. Sentiment she had plenty; she was not in the least bit sentimental. She creamed her coffee thoughtfully and broke bread and eat it, before she came out with another question. "When will you go, Eleanor?" Eleanor looked up doubtfully. "Where, aunt Caxton?" "To Fiji." There seemed to be some irresolution or uncertainty in the girl's mind; for she hesitated. "Aunt Caxton, I doubt much--my mother will oppose my going." "I think she will. But I think also that her opposition can be overcome. When will you write to her?" "I will write to-day, ma'am." "We must have an answer before we send any other letters. Supposing she does not oppose, or that her opposition is set aside, I come back to my question. When will you go?" Eleanor looked up doubtfully again. "I don't know, ma'am--I suppose opportunities of going only occur now and then." "That is all--with long intervals sometimes. Opportunities for _your_ going would come only rarely. You must think about it, Eleanor; for we must know what we are to tell Mr. Rhys." Eleanor was silent; her colour went and came. "You must think about it, my dear. If you write to Mr. Rhys to-day and send it, we may get an answer from him possibly in twenty months--possibly in twenty-four months. Then if you wait four or five months for an opportunity to make the voyage, and have a reasonably good passage, you may see your friend in three years from now. But it might well happen that letters might be delayed, and that you might wait much longer than four or five months for a ship and company in which you could sail; so that the three years might be nearer four." "I have thought of all that, aunt Caxton," Eleanor said, while the colour which had been varying in her cheeks fixed itself in two deep crimson spots. Mrs. Caxton was now silent on her part, slowly finishing her coffee and putting the cups together on the tray. She left it for her niece to speak next. "I have thought of all that, aunt Caxton," Eleanor repeated after a little while,--"and--" "Well my love?" "Aunt Caxton," said the girl, looking up now while her cheeks and brow were all one crimson flush--"is it unmaidenly in me--would it be--to go so, without being asked?" "Has he not asked you?" "Yes ma'am. But--" "What?" "Not since he got there." "Have you reason to think his mind is altered on the subject?" "No, ma'am," said Eleanor, drooping her head. "What does your own feeling bid you do, my love?" "I have thought it all over, aunt Caxton," said the girl slowly,--"I did that last night; I have thought of everything about it; and my feeling was--" "Well, my love?" "My feeling, as far as I am concerned--was to take the first good opportunity that offered." "My love, that is just what I thought you would do. And what I would have you do, if you go at all. It is not unmaidenly. Simple honest frankness, is the most maidenly thing in the world, when it is a woman's time to speak. The fact that your speaking must be action does not alter the matter. When it takes two years for people to hear from each other, life would very soon be spent in the asking of a few questions and getting the answers to them. I am a disinterested witness, Eleanor; for when you are gone, all I care for in this world is gone. You are my own child to me now." Eleanor's head bent lower. "But I am glad to have you go, nevertheless, my child. I think Mr. Rhys wants you even more than I do; and I have known for some time that you wanted something. And besides--I shall only be separated from you in body." Eleanor made no response. "What are you going to do now?" was Mrs. Caxton's question in her usual calm tone. "Write to mamma." "Very well. Do not send your letter to her without letting mine go with it." "But aunt Caxton," said Eleanor lifting up her head,--"my only fear is--I am quite satisfied in my own mind, and I do not care for people--my only fear is, lest Mr. Rhys himself should think I come too easily. You know, he is fastidious in his notions." She spoke with great difficulty and with her face a flame. "Your fear will go away when you have heard my story," said Mrs. Caxton tranquilly. "I will give you that to-night. He is fastidious; but he is a sensible man." Quieted with which suggestion, Eleanor went off to her desk. CHAPTER XI. IN CHANGES. "But never light and shade Coursed one another more on open ground, Beneath a troubled heaven, than red and pale Across the face of Enid hearing her." Various letters were written that day. In the evening the two ladies came together again cheerfully. The time between had not all been spent in letter-writing, for the world does not stand still for love matters. Eleanor had been out the whole afternoon on visits of kindness and help to sick and poor people. Mrs. Caxton had been obliged to attend to the less interesting company of one or two cheese-factors. At the tea-table the subject of the morning came back. "You posted your letter and mine, Eleanor?" "Yes, ma'am. But I cannot think mamma's answer will be favourable. I cannot fancy it." "Well, we shall see. The world is a curious world; and the wind does not always blow from the quarter whence we expect it. We must wait and pray." "I am puzzled to imagine, aunt Caxton," Eleanor said after some pause, "how you came to know all about this matter in the first place. How came you to know what I never knew?" "That is my story," said Mrs. Caxton. "We will let the table be cleared first, my dear." So it was done. But Eleanor left her work by her side to-night, and looked into her aunt's face to listen. "I never should have known about it, child, till you had, if you had been here. You remember how you went away in a hurry. Who knows? Perhaps, but for that, none of us would have been any wiser to-day on the subject than we were then. It is very possible." "How, ma'am?" "You disappeared, you know, in one night, and were gone. When Mr. Rhys came home, the next day or the same day, I saw that he was very much disappointed. That roused my suspicions of him; they had been only doubtful before. He is not a person to shew what he thinks, unless he chooses." "So I knew; that made me surprised." "I saw that he was very much disappointed, and looked very sober; but he said hardly anything about it, and I was forced to be silent. Then in a little while--a few weeks, I think--he received his appointment, with the news that he must sail very soon. He had to leave Plassy then in a very few days; for he wanted some time in London and elsewhere. I saw there was something more than leaving Plassy, upon his mind; he was graver than that could make him, I knew; and he was giving up something more than England, I knew by is prayers. "One night we were sitting here by the fire--it was a remarkably chill evening and we had kindled a blaze in he chimney and shut the windows. Mr. Rhys sat silent, watching the fire and keeping up the blaze; too busy with his own thoughts to talk to me. I was taken with a spirit of meddling which does not very often possess me; and asked him how much longer he had to stay. He said how long, in so many words; they were short, as pain makes words. "'How comes it,' I asked, plunging into the matter, 'that you do not take a wife with you? like everybody else.' "He answered, in dry phrases, 'that it would be presumption in him to suppose that anybody would go with him, if he were to ask.' "I said quietly, I thought he was mistaken; that anybody who was worthy of him would go; and it could not be _presumption_ to ask anybody else. "'You do not realize, Mrs. Caxton, how much it would be asking of any one,' he said; 'you do not know what sacrifices it would call for.' "'Love does not care for sacrifices,' I reminded him. "'I have no right to suppose that anybody has such a degree of regard for me,' he said. "I can't tell what in his manner and words told me there was more behind. They were a little short and dry; and his ordinary way of speaking is short sometimes, but never with a sort of edge like this--a hard edge. You know it is as frank and simple when he speaks short as when his words come out in the gentlest way. It hurt me, for I saw that something hurt him. "I asked if there was not anybody in England good enough for him? He said there were a great many too good. "'Mr. Rhys,' said I,--I don't know what possessed me to be so bold,--'I hope you are not going to leave your heart behind with somebody, when you go to Fiji?' "He got up and walked once or twice through the room, went out and presently came back again. I was afraid I had offended him, and I was a good deal troubled; but I did not know what to say. He sat down again and spoke first. "'Mrs. Caxton,' said he, 'since you have probed the truth, I may as well confess it. I am going to do the unwise thing you have mentioned.' "'Who are you going to leave your heart with, Mr. Rhys?' I asked. "'With the lady who has just left you.' "'Eleanor?' "'Yes,' he said. "'Have you told her, Mr. Rhys?' I asked. "He said no. "'You are not going to do her the injustice to go and _not_ speak to her?' "'Why should I tell her?' he said. "'There might be several answers given to that,' I said; 'but the best one at present seems to be, why should you _not?_' "'For several reasons,' he said. 'In the first place I do not know at all whether Miss Powle has that degree of love to Christ that she would be willing to forsake all her earthly prospects--home and friends--for hard work in his service. In the second place, even if she have that, I have not the slightest reason to believe that she--that she cares enough for me to go with me at my asking.' "'And do you mean to go in ignorance?' I said. "'Yes--I must.' "I waited a little, and then I told him I thought he was wrong. "'Why?' he asked quickly. "'People cannot see each other's hearts,' I said. 'Suppose that she have the same secret feeling towards you that you have towards her. She cannot speak; you will not; and so both would be unhappy for nothing. "'I never saw the least thing like it,' he said. "'I suppose she might say the same of you--might she not?' "'Yes and with truth; for knowing the uncertainties--or rather the certainties--of my position, I have not given her the least cause.' "'You could hardly expect demonstrations from her in that case,' I said. "'There is no chance, Mrs. Caxton, even if it were according to your supposition. Her friends would never permit her to marry a man with my lot in life;--and I do not know that I ought to ask her, even if they would. She has a very fair prospect for this world's happiness.' "'What do you think of your own lot in life?' I asked him. "'I would not exchange it, you know,' he said, 'for any other the world could offer me. It is brighter and better.' "'It strikes me you are selfish,--' I told him. "He laughed a little, for the first time; but he grew as grave as possible immediately after. "'I have not meant to be selfish,' he said; 'But I could not take a woman to Fiji, who had not thoroughly considered the matter and counted the cost. That could not be done in a little while. The world has a fair chance now to see if it can weaken Miss Powle's principles or overcome her faithfulness to them. It is better that she should try herself perhaps, before having such a question asked of her.' "'And suppose she comes clear out of the trial?' I said. "'Then I shall be in Fiji.' "We were both silent a while. He began then. "'Mrs. Caxton, without invading any confidences or seeking to know anything that should not be known,--may I ask you a question?' "'Certainly,' I said. 'I reserve the discretion of answering.' "'Of course. Your words look like a rebuke of the attitude I have taken towards this subject. Is it proper for me to ask, whether you have any foundation for them beyond your general knowledge of human nature and your good will towards me? I mean--whether you, as a friend, see any ground of hope for me?' "'If you were going to stay in England,' I said, 'I would answer no such question. Every man must make his own observations and run his own risk. But these circumstances are different. And appealed to as a friend--and answering on my own observations simply--I should say, that I think your case not hopeless.' "I could see the colour rise in his cheek; but he sat quite still and did not speak, till it faded again. "'I have never heard a word on the subject,' I told him. 'I do not say I am certain of anything. I may mistake. Only, seeing you are going to the other end of the world, without the chance of finding out anything for yourself, I think it fair to tell you what, as a woman, I should judge of the case.' "'Why do you tell me?' he said quickly. "'I am but answering your question. You must judge whether the answer is worth anything.' "He half laughed again, at himself; at least I could see the beginning of a smile; but he was too terribly in earnest to be anything but serious. He sat silent; got up and fidgetted round the room; then came and stood by the chimney piece looking down at me. "'Mrs. Caxton,' he said, 'I am going to venture to ask something from you--to fulfil a contingent commission. When I am gone, if Miss Powle returns to you, or when you have otherwise opportunity,--will you, if you can, find out the truth of her feeling on these subjects, which I have failed to find out? You tempt me beyond my power of self-abnegation.' "'What shall I do with the truth, if I find it, Mr. Rhys?' "'In that case,' he said,--'if it is as you suppose it possible it may be, though I dare not and do not hope it;--if it be so, then you may tell her all I have confessed to you to-night.' "'Why?' "'You are uncommonly practical to-night,' he said. 'I could have but one motive in discovering it to her.' "'To ask her to follow you to Fiji?' "'I dare not put it in words. I do not believe the chance will ever come. But I am unable to go and leave the chance changed into an impossibility.' "'We are talking of what _may_ be,' I said. 'But you do not suppose that she could follow you on my report of your words alone?' "'I shall be too far off to speak them myself.' "'You can write then,' I said. "'Do you remember what the distances are, and the intervals of time that must pass between letter and letter? When should I write?' "'Now--this evening. I am not thinking of such courtship as took place in the antediluvian days.' "'I cannot write on such an utter uncertainty. I have not hope enough; although I cannot bear to leave the country without enlisting you to act for me.' "'I shall reconsider the question of acting,' I said, 'if I have no credentials to produce. I cannot undertake to tell anything to Eleanor merely to give her pleasure--or merely to give her pain.' "'Would you have me write to her here--now?' he asked. "'Yes, I would,' I told him. "He sat pondering the matter a little while, making up the fire as you did this morning--only with a very different face; and then with a half laugh he said I was making a fool of him, and he went off. I sat still--and in a few minutes he came down and handed me that note for you." Eleanor's cheeks would have rivalled the scarlet Lobelia or Indian Mallow, or anything else that is brilliant. She kept profound silence. It was plain enough what Mr. Rhys expected her to do--that is, supposing he had any expectations. Now her question was, what would her mother say? And Eleanor in her secret heart looked at the probability of obstinate opposition in that quarter; and then of long, long waiting and delay; perhaps never to be ended but with the time and the power of doing what now her heart longed to do. The more she thought of it, the less she could imagine that her mother would yield her consent; or that her opposition would be anything but determined and unqualified. Then what could she do? Eleanor sighed. "No," said Mrs. Caxton. "Have patience, my dear, and believe that all will go right--_however it goes_, Eleanor. We will do our part; but we must be content with our part. There is another part, which is the Lord's; let him do that, and let us say it is well, Eleanor. Till we have learnt that, we have not learnt our lesson." "I do say it, and will, aunt Caxton," said the girl. But she said nothing more that night. To tell the truth, they were rather silent days that followed. Mrs. Powle's letters of answer did not come speedily; indeed no one knew at Plassy just where she might be at this time, nor how far the Plassy letters might have to travel in order to reach her; for communication was not frequent between the two families. And till her answer came, Eleanor could not forget that the question of her life was undecided; nor Mrs. Caxton, that the decision might take away from her, probably for ever, the only living thing that was very dear to her. That was Eleanor now. They were very affectionate to each other those days, very tender and thoughtful for each other; not given to much talking. Eleanor was a good deal out of the house; partly busy with her errands of kindness, partly stilling her troublesome and impatient thoughts with long roamings on foot or on horseback over the mountains and moors. "The spring has come, aunt Caxton," she said, coming in herself one day, fresh enough to be spring's impersonation. "I heard a blackbird and a wheat-ear; and I have found a violet for you." "You must have heard blackbirds before. And you have got more than violets there." "Yes, ma'am--not much. I found the Nepeta and the ivy-leaved Veronica under the hedge; and whitlow grass near the old tower. That's the willow catkin you know of course--and sloe. That's all--but it's spring." A shade came over the faces of both. Where might another spring find her. "I have got something more for you," said Mrs. Caxton. "My letter, ma'am!--Had you one, aunt Caxton?" "Yes." Eleanor could not tell from her aunt's answer what the letter might be. She went off with her own, having parted suddenly with all the colour she had brought in with her. It returned again however soon. Mrs. Powle declared that according to all _her_ experience and power of judging of the world, her daughter and her sister Mrs. Caxton were both entirely crazy. She had never, in her life, heard of anything so utterly absurd and ridiculous as the proposition upon which they had required her to give an opinion. Her opinion found no words in the English language strong enough in which to give it. That Eleanor should be willing to forego every earthly prospect of good or pleasure, was like Eleanor; that is, it was like the present Eleanor; an entirely infatuated, blind, fanatical, unreasonable thing. Mrs. Powle had given up the expectation of anything wiser or better from her, until years and the consequences of her folly should have taught her when it would be too late. Why Eleanor, if she wished to throw herself away, should pitch upon the South Seas for the place of her retirement, was a piece of the same mysterious fatuity which marked the whole proceeding. Why she could think of no pleasanter wedding journey than a voyage of twelve thousand miles in search of a husband, was but another incomprehensible point. Mrs. Powle had a curiosity to know what Eleanor expected to live upon out there, where she presumed the natives practised no agriculture and wheaten flour was a luxury unknown? And what she expected to _do?_ However, having thus given her opinion, Mrs. Powle went on to say, that she must quite decline to give it. She regarded Eleanor as entirely the child of her aunt Caxton, as she understood was also Mrs. Caxton's own view; most justly, in Mrs. Powle's opinion, since conversion and adoption to Mrs. Caxton's own family and mind must be amply sufficient to supersede the accident of birth. At any rate, Mrs. Powle claimed no jurisdiction in the matter; did not choose to exercise any. She felt herself incompetent. One daughter she had still remaining, whom she hoped to keep her own, guarding her against the influences which had made so wide a separation between her eldest and the family and sphere to which she belonged. Julia, she hoped, would one day do her honour. As for the islands of the South Seas, or the peculiar views and habits of life entertained by those white people who chose them for their residence, Mrs. Powle declared she was incapable from very ignorance of understanding or giving judgment about them. She made the whole question, together with her daughter, over to her sister Mrs. Caxton, who she did not doubt would do wisely according to her notions. But as they were not the notions of the world generally, they were quite incomprehensible to the writer, and in a sphere entirely beyond and without her cognizance. She hoped Eleanor would be happy--if it were not absurd to hope an impossibility. But on one point the letter was clear, if on no other. Eleanor should not come home. She had ruined her own prospects; Mrs. Powle could not help that; she should not ruin Julia's. Whether she stayed in England or whether she went on her fool's voyage, _this_ was a certain thing. She should not see Julia, to infect her. Mrs. Powle desired to be informed of Eleanor's movements; that if she went she herself might meet her in London before she sailed. But she would not let her see Julia either then or at any time. This cruel letter broke Eleanor down completely. It settled the question of her life indeed; and settled it according to her wish and against her fears; but for all that, it was a letter of banishment and renunciation. With something of the feeling which makes a wounded creature run to shelter, Eleanor gathered up her papers and went down to Mrs. Caxton; threw them into her lap, and kneeling beside her put herself in her arms. "What is it, my child?" said Mrs. Caxton. "What does your mother say to you?" "She gives her consent--but she gives me up to you, aunt Caxton. She counts me your child and not hers." "My love, I asked her to do so. You have been mine, in my own mind, for a long time past. My Eleanor!"--And Mrs. Caxton's kiss and her warm clasping arms spoke more than her words. "But she renounces me--and she will not let me see Julia."--Eleanor was in very great distress. "She will by and by. She will not hold to that." "She says she will not at all. O aunt Caxton, I want to see Julia again!"-- "Were you faithful to Julia while you were with her?" "Yes--I think so--while I could. I had hardly any chance the last winter I was at home; we were never together; but I seized what I could." "Your mother kept you apart?" "I believe so." "My child, remember, as one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, so one word is as a thousand words; he can make it do his work. All we have to do is to be faithful, and then trust. You recollect the words of that grand hymn on the Will of God-- "'I do the little I can do, And leave the rest to thee.' "I don't think I know it." Mrs. Caxton went on. "'When obstacles and trials seem Like prison walls to be, I do the little I can do, And leave the rest to thee. "'I know not what it is to doubt; My heart is ever gay; I run no risk, for, come what will, Thou always hast thy way. "'I have no cares, O blessed will! For all my cares are thine. I live in triumph, Lord, for thou Hast made thy triumphs mine.'" Eleanor lifted up her face and pressed a long kiss on her aunt's lips. "But I want to see Julia!" "My love, I think you will. It will be some time yet before you can possibly leave England. I think your mother will withdraw her prohibition before that time. Meanwhile--" Eleanor lay with her head on Mrs. Caxton's bosom, her brown eyes looking out with a sweet and sorrowful wistfulness towards the light. Mrs. Caxton read them. "This gift would be very precious to me, my child," she said, tightening the pressure of the arms which still were wrapped round Eleanor,--"if I were not obliged so soon to make it over to somebody else. But I will not be selfish. It is unspeakably precious to me now. It gives me the right to take care of you. I asked your mother for it. I am greatly obliged to her. Now what are you going to do to-day?" "Write--to Fiji," said Eleanor slowly and without moving. "Right; and so will I. And do not you be overmuch concerned about Julia. There is another verse of that hymn, which I often think of-- "'I love to see thee bring to nought, The plans of wily men; When simple hearts outwit the wise, O thou art loveliest then!'" CHAPTER XII. IN WAITING. "If Proteus like your journey, when you come, No matter who's displeas'd when you are gone; I fear me he will scarce be pleas'd withal." The way was clear, and Eleanor wrote to Fiji as she had said. She could not however get rid of her surprise that her mother had permitted the tenor of these letters to be what it was. What had moved Mrs. Powle, so to act against all her likings and habits of action? How came she to allow her daughter to go to the South Seas and be a missionary? Several things which Eleanor knew nothing of, and which so affected the drift of Mrs. Powle's current of life that she was only, according to custom, sailing with it and not struggling against it. When people seem to act unlike themselves, it is either that you do not know themselves, or do not know some other things which they know. So in this case. For one thing, to name the greatest first, Mr. Carlisle was unmistakeably turning his attention to another lady, a new star in the world of society; an earl's daughter and an heiress. Whether heart-whole or not, which was best known to himself, Mr. Carlisle was prosecuting his addresses in this new quarter with undoubted zeal and determination. It was not the time for Eleanor now to come home! Let her do anything else,--was the dictate of pride. _Now_ to come home, or even not to come home, remaining Eleanor Powle, was to confess in the world's eye a lamentably lost game; to take place as a rejected or vainly ambitious girl; the _would-have-been_ lady of Rythdale. Anything but that! Eleanor might almost better die at once. She would not only have ruined her own prospects, but would greatly injure those of Julia, on whom her mother's hopes and pride were now all staked. Alfred was taken from her and put under guardians; Mrs. Powle did not build anything on him; he was a boy, and when he was a man he would be only Alfred Powle. Julia promised to be a beauty; on her making a fine match rested all Mrs. Powle's expectations from this world; and she was determined to spare no pains, expense, nor precautions. Therefore she resolved that the sisters should not be together, cost what it might. Good bye to all her cares or hopes on Julia's behalf, looking to a great establishment, if Julia became a Methodist! She might go on a farm like her aunt and sell cheeses. The thought of those cheeses froze the blood in Mrs. Powle's veins; that was a characteristic of good blood, she firmly believed. Therefore on every account, for every reason, nothing better could happen than that Eleanor should go to the South Seas. She would escape the shame of coming home; Julia would be out of danger of religious contamination; and she herself would be saved from the necessary odium of keeping one daughter in banishment and the other in seclusion; which odium she must incur if both of them remained in England and neither of them ever saw the other. All this would be cleverly saved. Then also, if Eleanor married a missionary and went to the other end of the world, her case could be very well dismissed as one of a religious enthusiasm--a visionary, fanatical excitement. Nay, there could be made even a little _éclat_ about it. There would be no mortification, at any rate, comparable to that which must attend supposed overthrown schemes and disappointed ambition. Eleanor had chosen her own course, backed by her wealthy relation, Mrs. Caxton, who had adopted her; and whose views were entirely not of this world. Mrs. Powle deplored it, of course, but was unable to help it. Besides, Mrs. Caxton had answered, on her own knowledge, for the excellent character and superior qualities of the gentleman Eleanor was to marry; there was no fault to be found with him at all, except that he was a fanatic; and as Eleanor was a fanatic herself, that was only a one-sided objection. Yes, Mrs. Caxton had answered for all that, on her own knowledge, of many years' standing; and she had said something more, which also weighed with Mrs. Powle and which Mrs. Powle could also mention among the good features of the case, without stating that it had had the force of an inducement with herself. Mrs. Caxton had asked indeed to be permitted to consider Eleanor her own, and had promised in that case to make Eleanor entirely her own care, both during Mrs. Caxton's life and afterwards; leaving Mrs. Powle free to devote all her fortune to Julia that would have been shared with Julia's sister. Mrs. Powle's means were not in her estimation large; she wanted every penny of them for the perfecting and carrying out of her plans which regarded her youngest daughter; she consented that the elder should own another mother and guardian. Mrs. Powle agreed to it all. But not satisfied with any step of the whole affair nevertheless, which all displeased her, from beginning to end, her own action included, she expressed her determination to Eleanor in terms which half broke Eleanor's heart; and left a long, lingering, sore spot there. To Mrs. Caxton Mrs. Powle's writing was much better worded; civil if not kind, and well mannered if not motherly. The thing was done, at all events; Eleanor was formally made over to another mother and left free to do whatever her new guardian pleased. Letters of a different sort of temper were sent off upon their long journey to the South Seas; and there began a busy time at Plassy, in anticipation of Eleanor's following them. It was still very uncertain when that might be; opportunities must be waited for; such an opportunity as would satisfy Mrs. Caxton. In the mean while a great deal of business was on hand. Mrs. Caxton even made a journey up to London and took Eleanor with her; for the sake of inquiries and arrangements which could not be attended to from a distance. For the sake of purchases too, which could be made nowhere but in London. For Mrs. Caxton was bent, not only on supplying Eleanor with all that could be thought of in the way of outfit; but also on getting together to accompany or precede her everything that could be sent that might be useful or helpful to Mr. Rhys or comfortable in the household; in short, to transfer England as nearly as possible to Fiji. As freights of course were expensive, all these matters must be found and compressed in the smallest compass they could possibly know as their limits; and Mrs. Caxton was very busy. London did not hold them but a fortnight; the rest of the time work was done at Plassy. And the months rolled on. Cheeses were turned off as usual, and Mrs. Caxton's business was as brisk as ever. Eleanor's outfit gradually got ready; and before and after that was true, Eleanor's visits among her neighbours and poor people were the same as ever. She had strength and spirit enough for all calls upon either; and her sweet diligence seemed to be even more than ever, now that work at Plassy was drawing towards a close. Still Eleanor gathered the spoils of the moors and the hedge-rows, as she went and came on her errands; climbed the mountain on Powis and explored the rocks and the waterfalls on her way. As usual her hands came home full. The house was gay with broom again in its season; before that the violets and wood anemone had made the tea-table and the breakfast table sweet with their presence. Blue-bells and butter-cups and primroses had their time, and lovely they looked, helped out by the yellow furze blossoms which Eleanor was very fond of. Then the scorpion grass, of both kinds, proclaimed that it was summer; and borage was bright in the sitting-room. Eleanor could hardly look at it without an inward smile and sigh, remembering the cheering little couplet which attached to it by old usage; and Julia from whose lips she had first heard it; and the other lips that had given it to Julia. Corn-marigold was gay again in July, and the white blackberry blossoms came with crane's bill and flax, campion and willow-herb, speedwell and vetchling. Any one well acquainted with the wild things that grow and blossom in the land, might have known any day what time of the year it was by going into Mrs. Caxton's sitting parlour and using his eyes. Until the purple ling and loosestrife, gave place to mint and maiden pink and late meadow-sweet; and then the hop vine and meadow saffron proclaimed that summer was over. But ferns had their representatives at all times. Summer was over; and no chance for Eleanor's sailing had yet presented itself. Preparations were all made; and the two ladies lived on in waiting and in the enjoyment of each other, and doubtless with a mixture of thoughts that were not enjoyment. But a very sweet even glow of love and peace and patience filled the house. Letters were written; and once and again letters had arrived, even from Mr. Rhys. They told of everything going on at his station; of his work and pleasures; of the progress the truth was making; and the changes coming even while he looked, upon the population of the islands, their manners and character. There never were letters, I suppose, more thoroughly read and studied and searched out in every detail, than all those letters were by Eleanor; for every fact was of importance to her; and the manner of every word told her something. They told her what made her eyes fill and her pulse beat quick. But among them there was not a word to herself. No, and not even a word about herself. In vain Eleanor hoped for it and searched for it. There was not even an allusion that looked her way. "Do you want to know what I am doing?" Mr. Rhys wrote in one of these letters. "You see by my date that I am not in the place I last wrote from. I am alone on this island, which has never had a resident missionary and which has people enough that need the care of one; so it has been decided that I should pitch my tent here for some months. There is not a large population--not quite five hundred people in the whole island; but almost all of them that are grown up are professing Christian--members of the church, and not disgracing their profession. The history of the church in this place is wonderful and even of romantic interest. One of their chiefs, being in another part of Fiji, fell in with a chief who was a Christian. From him he learned something of the new religion, and carried back to Ono thus much of truth--that Jehovah is the only God and that all worship and praise is his due. Further than this, and the understanding that the seventh day should be especially spent in his service, the Ono chief knew nothing. Was not that a little seed for a great tree to grow from? But his island had just been ravaged by disease and by war; in their distress the people had applied in vain to their old gods to save them; they were convinced now from what they heard that help is in the Lord alone, and they resolved to seek him. But they knew not the Lord, nor his ways, and there was no one to teach them. Fancy that company of heathens renouncing heathenism--setting apart the seventh day for worship, preparing food beforehand so that the day might be hallowed, putting on their best dresses and fresh oil, and meeting to seek the unknown God! Oh kingdom of Christ, come, come!-- "When they were met, they did not know how to begin their service. However, as old custom referred them to their priests for intercourse with heaven, they bethought them to apply to one now, and told him what I they wanted. I do not understand what influenced the man; but however, heathen priest of a heathen god as he was, he consented to officiate for this Christian service. The priest came; the assembly sat down; and the priest made a prayer, after this fashion as it has been reported to me. _He_ did not then renounce heathenism, you understand. "'Lord, Jehovah! here are thy people; they worship thee. I turn my back on thee for the present, and am on another tack, worshipping another god. But do thou bless these thy people; keep them from harm, and do them good.' "That was the beginning; and doubtless the Lord hearkened and heard it. For awhile they went on as they had begun; then wanting something more, they sent messengers to Tonga to beg for teachers. Now, as I said, the people are nearly all Christians, and not in name only; and all the children are brought to be taught. Here am I; don't you think I am in a good place? But I am here only for a little while; more cannot be spared to so small a population at this time. "To get here, one has to shoot something such a gulf as I described to you at Vulanga. The barrier reef has a small opening. At particular times of tide a boat can go through; but with the rush of waves from without, meeting the tremendous current from within, it is an exciting business; somewhat dangerous as well as fearful. The ships cannot get inside the barrier. The night I came, canoes came out to meet me, bringing a present of yams as their contribution to our fund; they brought as many as the vessel could find room for. In the canoe with the Ono people I felt myself with friends; I had visited the place before, and they knew me. The current made fearfully hard work for them; but it was love's labour; they felt about me, I suppose, something as the Galatians did towards Paul. The next day was Sunday. I preached to an attentive congregation, and had a happy time. Now I will give you a notion of my run of employments at the present time. "First. Playing bookbinder. Fact. One has to play all sorts of things here--and the more the better. My work was to stitch, fold, (fold first) and cover, so many copies of the New Testament as I had brought with me--printed, but in sheets. I did them strong! more than that I will not answer for; but I wish I could send you a copy. It would be only a curiosity in art, though; you could not read it. It is an admirable translation in Fijian. As I have had but very slight previous practice in bookbinding, my rate of progress was at first somewhat slow; and after a few days of solitary labour I was glad to accept the offer of help from four or five native apprentices--some of our local preachers. They took to the work kindly; and in five weeks we finished the edition--sixty copies. I could do the next sixty quicker. These are the first Fijian testaments in Ono, and you can understand--or you cannot--what a treasure. The natives who came to purchase them found no fault with the binding, I assure you. So you see I have been bookseller as well as the other thing; and I received pay for my testaments in _sinnet_--you know what that is. It is as good as money for the mission use here in Fiji. During these bookbinding weeks I was making excursions hither and thither, to preach and baptize. Twice a week I took a time to see the local preachers and teachers and examine them and hear them read and talk to them and be talked to by them. Every Tuesday and Friday I did this. The whole course of the week's work is now something like the following: "Sunday begins with a prayer-meeting. Afterwards old and young have a catechism exercise together. Morning and afternoon, preaching. "Monday, the morning there is a children's school, and the afternoon a school for grown people. I question both classes on the sermons of the preceding day; and I hope English people have as good memories. The afternoon school is followed by a prayer-meeting. Tuesdays and Fridays I have the teachers' meeting in addition. "Wednesday I preach, have leaders' meeting, and give out work for the week to come. "Thursday, preaching at one of the neighbouring towns, and a sort of young class-meeting. "Friday, I have said what I do. "Saturday has a prayer-meeting. "So much for the regular work. Then there are the sick to look after, and my own private studies; and there is not a minute to spare. A few that cannot be spared are claimed by the mosquitos, which hold their high court and revel here at Ono; of all places on the earth that I know, their headquarters. When I was here before with Brother Lefferts and others, two of them could not sit still to read something that wanted to be read; they walked the floor, one holding the candle, the other the paper; both fighting mosquitos with both hands. I am of a less excitable temperament--for I contrive to live a little more quietly. "Shall I tell you some of these native testimonies of Christians who a little while ago worshipped idols? At our love-feast lately some thirty or forty spoke. They did my heart good. So may they yours. These people said but few words, full of feeling; my report cannot all give the effect. I wish it could. "One old chief, who could hardly speak for feeling, said, 'These are new things to me in these days;' (he meant the love-feasts) 'I did not know them formerly. My soul is humbled. I rejoice greatly in the Lord. I rejoice greatly for sending his servants.' "A Tongan teacher--'I desire that God may rule over me,' (i. e., direct me) 'I desire not to govern myself. I know that I am a child of God: I know that God is my father. My friends wrote for me to go to Tonga; but I wondered at it. I wish to obey the Father of my soul.' "A local preacher--'I know that God is near, and helps me sometimes in my work. I love all men. I do not fear death; one thing I fear, the Lord." "Leva Soko, a female class-leader, a very holy woman, said,--this is but a part of what she said,--'My child died, but I loved God the more. My body has been much afflicted, but I love him the more. I know that death would only unite me to God.' "A teacher, a native of Ono, who had gone to a much less pleasant place to preach the gospel, and was home on a visit, spoke exceedingly well. 'I did not leave Ono that I might have more food. I desired to go that I might preach Christ. I was struck with stones twice while in my own house; but I could bear it. When the canoes came, they pillaged my garden; but my mind was not pained at it: I bore it only.' "A local preacher--'I am a very bad man; there is no good thing in me; but I know the love of God There are not two great things in my mind; there is one only,--the love of God for the sake of Christ. I know that I am a child of God. I wish to repent and believe every day till I die.' "These are but a specimen, my dear friend. The other day, in our teachers' meeting we were reading the nineteenth chapter of John. An old teacher read the eighteenth verse in his turn--the words, 'Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.' He could hardly get through it, and then burst into tears and wept aloud. This man was a cannibal once. And now his life speaks for the truth of his tears. "Good night. The mosquitos are not favourable to epistle writing. I am well. Remember me, as I remember you. "R. R." "Aunt Caxton," said Eleanor after reading this letter for the second or third time,--"have we a supply of mosquito netting among my boxes? I could get the better of the mosquitos, I think." "How would you like to help bind books?" said Mrs. Caxton. "Or translate? Mr. Rhys seems to be about that business, by what he says in the other letter." "He would not want help in that," said Eleanor, musing and flushing. "Aunt Caxton--is it foolish in me to wish I could hear once more from Mr. Rhys before I go?" "Only a little foolish, my love; and very natural." "Then why is it foolish?" "Because reason would tell you that it is simply impossible your letters could receive an answer by this time. They have perhaps but barely got to Mr. Rhys this minute. And reason would tell you further that there is no ground for supposing he is in any different mind from that expressed when he wrote to you." "But--you know--since then he does not say one word about it, nor about me," said Eleanor flushing pretty deep. "There is reason for that, too. He would not allow himself to indulge hope; and therefore he would not act as if he had any. That sight of you at Brighton threw him off a good deal, I judge." "He told you he saw me?" "He wrote to me about it." "Did he tell you how he saw me?" "Yes." "What more?" "He said he thought there was little chance I would have any use for his letters; he saw the world was closing its nets around you fast; how far they were already successful he could not know; but he was glad he had seen what forbade him in time to indulge vain anticipations." "Oh aunt Caxton!" said Eleanor--"Oh aunt Caxton! what a strange world this is, for the way people's lives cross each other, and the work that is done without people's knowing it! If you knew--what that meeting cost me!--" "My dear child! I can well believe it." "And it aroused Mr. Carlisle's suspicions instantly, I knew. If I made any mistake--if I erred at all, in my behaviour with regard to him, it was then and in consequence of that. If I had faltered a bit then--looked grave or hung back from what was going on, I should have exposed myself to most cruel interpretation. I could not risk it. I threw myself right into whatever presented itself--went into the whirl--welcomed everybody and everything--only, I hoped, with so general and impartial a welcome as should prove I preferred none exclusively." Eleanor stopped and the tears came into her eyes. "My child! if I had known what danger you were in, I should have spent even more time than I did in praying for you." "I suppose I was in danger," said Eleanor thoughtfully. "It was a difficult winter. Then do you think--Mr. Rhys gave me up?" "No," said Mrs. Caxton smiling. "You remember he wrote to you after that, from Fiji; but I suppose he tried to make himself give you up, as far as hope went." "For all that appears, I may be here long enough yet to have letters before I go. We have heard of no opportunity that is likely to present itself soon. Aunt Caxton, if my feeling is foolish, why is it natural?" "Because you are a woman, my dear." "And foolish?" "Not at all; but feeling takes little counsel of reason in some cases. I am afraid you will find that out again before you get to Mr. Rhys--_after_ that, I do not think you will." The conversation made Eleanor rather more anxious than she had been before to hear of a ship; but October and November passed, and the prospect of her voyage was as misty as ever. Again and again, all summer, both she and Mrs. Caxton had written begging that Mrs. Powle would make a visit to Plassy and bring or send Julia. In vain. Mrs. Powle would not come. Julia could not. CHAPTER XIII. IN MEETINGS. "A wild dedication of yourselves To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores; most certain, To miseries enough." In a neat plain drawing-room in a plain part of London, sat Mrs. Caxton and Eleanor. Eleanor however soon left her seat and took post at the window; and silence reigned in the room unbroken for some length time except by the soft rustle of Mrs. Caxton's work. Her fingers were rarely idle. Nor were Eleanor's hands often empty; but to-day she stood still as a statue before the window, while now and then a tear softly roll down and dropped on her folded hands. There were no signs of the tears however, when the girl turned round with the short announcement, "She's here." Mrs. Caxton looked up a little bit anxiously at her adopted child; but Eleanor's face was only still and pale. The next moment the door opened, and for all the world as in old times the fair face and fair curls of Mrs. Powle appeared. Just the same; unless just now she appeared a trifle frightened. The good lady felt so. Two fanatics. She hardly knew how to encounter them. And then, her own action, though she could not certainly have called it fanatical, had been peculiar, and might be judged divers ways. Moreover, Mrs. Powle was Eleanor's mother. There was one in the company who remembered that, witness the still close embrace which Eleanor threw around her, and the still hiding of the girl's face on her mother's bosom. Mrs. Powle returned the embrace heartily enough; but when Eleanor's motionless clasp had lasted as long as she knew how to do anything with it and longer than she felt to be graceful, Mrs. Powle whispered, "Won't you introduce me to your aunt, my dear,--if this is she." Eleanor released her mother, but sobbed helplessly for a few minutes; then she raised her head and threw off her tears; and there was to one of the two ladies an exquisite grace in the way she performed the required office of making them known to each other. The gentleness of a chastened heart, the strength of a loving one, the dignity of an humble one, made her face and manner so lovely that Mrs. Caxton involuntarily wished Mr. Rhys could have seen it. "But he will have chance enough," she thought, somewhat incongruously, as she met and returned her sister-in-law's greetings. Mrs. Powle made them with ceremonious respect, not make believe, and with a certain eagerness which welcomed a diversion from Eleanor's somewhat troublesome agitation. Eleanor's agitation troubled no one any more, however; she sat down calm and quiet; and Mrs. Powle had leisure, glancing at her from time to time, to get into smooth sailing intercourse with Mrs. Caxton. She took off her bonnet, and talked about indifferent things, and sipped chocolate; for it was just luncheon time. Ever and anon her eyes came back to Eleanor; evidently as to something which troubled her and which puzzled her; and Mrs. Caxton saw, which had also the effect of irritation too. Very likely, Mrs. Caxton thought! Conscience on one hand not satisfied, and ambition on the other hand disappointed, and Eleanor the point of meeting for both uneasy feelings to concentrate their forces. It would come out in words soon, Mrs. Caxton knew. But how lovely Eleanor seemed to her. There was not even a cloud upon her brow now; fair as it was pure and strong. "And so you are going?" Mrs. Powle began at last, in a somewhat constrained voice. Eleanor smiled. "And _when_ are you going?" "My letter said, Next Tuesday the ship sails." "And pray, Eleanor, you are not going alone?" "No, mamma. A gentleman and his wife are going the whole voyage with me." "Who are they?" "A Mr. Amos and his wife." "_What_ are they then? missionaries?" "Yes, ma'am." "Going to that same place?" "Yes, ma'am--very nicely for me." "Pray how long do you expect the voyage will take you?" "I am not certain--it is made, or can be made, in four or five months; but then we may have to stop awhile at Sydney." "Sydney? what Sydney? Where is that?" "Australia, mamma," said Eleanor smiling. "New South Wales. Don't you know?" "_Australia!_ Are you going there? To Botany Bay?" "No, mamma; not to Botany Bay. And I only take Australia by the way. I go further." "_Further_ than Botany Bay?" "Yes, ma'am." "Well certainly," said Mrs. Powle with an accent of restrained despair, "the present age is enterprising beyond what was ever known in my young days. What do you think, sister Caxton, of a young lady taking voyage five months long after her husband, instead of her husband taking it for her? He ought to be a grateful man, I think!" "Certainly; but not too grateful," Mrs. Caxton answered composedly; "for in this case necessity alters the rule." "I do not understand such necessities," said Mrs. Powle; "at least if a thing cannot be done properly, I should say it was better not to do it at all. However, I suppose it is too late to speak now. I would not have my daughter hold herself so lightly as to confer such an honour on any man; but I gave her to you to dispose of, so no doubt it is all right. I hope Mr. What's-his-name is worthy of it." "Mamma, let me give you another cup of chocolate," said Eleanor. And she served her with the chocolate and the toast and the hung beef, in a way that gave Mrs. Caxton's heart a feast. There was the beautiful calm and high grace with which Eleanor used to meet her social difficulties two years ago, and baffle both her trials and her tempters. Mrs. Caxton had never seen it called for. Her face shewed not the slightest embarrassment at her mother's words; not a shade of rising colour did dishonour to Mr. Rhys by proving that she so much as even felt the slurs against him or the jealousy professed on her own behalf. Eleanor's calm sweet face was an assertion both of his dignity and her own. Perhaps Mrs. Powle felt herself in a hopeless case. "What do you expect to live on out there?" she said, changing her ground, as she dipped her toast into chocolate. "You won't have this sort of thing." "I have never thought much about it," said Eleanor smiling. "Where other people live and grow strong, I suppose I can." "No, it does not follow at all," replied her mother. "You are accustomed to certain things, and you would feel the want of them. For instance, will you have bread like this out there? wheat bread?" "I shall not want chocolate," said Eleanor. "The climate is too hot." "But bread?" "Wheat flour is shipped for the use of the mission families," said Mrs. Caxton. "It is known that many persons would suffer without it; and we do not wish unnecessary suffering should be undergone." "Have they cows there?" "Mamma!" said Eleanor laughing. "Well, have they? Because Miss Broadus or somebody was saying the other day, that in New Zealand they never had them till we sent them out. So I wondered directly whether they had in this place." "I fancy not, mamma. You will have to think of me as drinking my tea without cream." "So you will take tea there with you?" "Why not?" "I have got the impression," said Mrs. Powle, "somehow, that you would do nothing as other people do. You will drink tea, will you? I'll give you a box." "Thank you, mamma," said Eleanor, but the colour flushed now to the roots of her hair,--"aunt Caxton has given me a great stock already." "And coffee?" "Yes, mamma--for great occasions--and concentrated milk for that." "Do tell me what sort of a place it is, Eleanor." "It is a great many places, mamma. It is a great many islands, large and small, scattered over some hundreds of miles of ocean; but they are so many and near each other often, and so surrounded with interlacing coral reefs, that navigation there is in a kind of network of channels. The islands are of many varieties, and of fairy-land beauty; rich in vegetation and in all sorts of natural stores." "Not cows." "No, ma'am. I meant, the things that grow out of the ground," said Eleanor smiling again. "Cows and sheep and horses are not among them." "Nor horses either? How do you go when you travel?" "In a canoe, I suppose." "With savages?" exclaimed Mrs. Powle. "Not necessarily. Many of them are Christians." "The natives?" "Yes, ma'am." "Then I don't see what you are going for. Those that are Christians already might teach those that are not. But Eleanor, who will marry you?" A bright rose-colour came upon the girl's cheeks. "Mamma, there are clergymen enough there." "_Clergymen?_ of the Church?" "I beg your pardon, mamma; no. That is not essential?" "Well, that is as you look at things. I know you and my sister Caxton have wandered away,--but for me, I should feel lost out of the Church. It would be very essential to me. Are there no Church people in the islands at all?" "I believe not, mamma." "And what on earth do you expect to do there, Eleanor?" "I cannot tell you yet, mamma; but I understand everybody finds more than enough." "What, pray?" "The general great business, you know, is to carry light to those that sit in darkness." "Yes, but you do not expect to preach, do you?" Eleanor smiled, she could not help it, at the bewildered air with which this question was put. "I don't know, mamma. Do not you think I could preach to a class of children?" "But Eleanor! such horrid work. Such work for _you!_" "Why, mamma?" "Why? With your advantages and talents and education. Mr.--no matter who, but who used to be a good judge, said that your talents would give anybody else's talents enough to do;--and that you should throw them away upon a class of half-naked children at the antipodes!"---- "There will be somebody else to take the benefit of them first," Mrs. Caxton said very composedly. "I rather think Mr. Rhys will see to it that they are not wasted." "Mamma, I think you do not understand this matter," Eleanor said gently. "Whoever made that speech flattered me; but I wish my talents were ten times so much as they are, that I might give them to this work." "To this gentleman, you mean!" Mrs. Powle said tartly. A light came into Eleanor's eyes; she was silent a minute and then with the colour rising all over her face she said, "He is abundantly worthy of all and much more than I am." "Well I do not understand this matter, as you said," Mrs. Powle answered in some discomfiture. "Tell me of something I do understand. What society will you have where you are going, Eleanor?" "I shall be too busy to have much time for society, mamma," Eleanor answered, good-humouredly. "No such thing--you will want it all the more. Sister Caxton, is it not so?" "People do not go out there without consenting to forego many things," Mrs. Caxton answered; "but there is One who has promised to be with his servants when they are about his work; and I never heard that any one who had that society, pined greatly for want of other." Mrs. Powle opened her eyes at Mrs. Caxton's quiet face; she set this speech down in her mind as uncontaminated fanaticism. She turned to Eleanor. "Do the people there wear clothes?" "The Christians clothe themselves, mamma; the heathen portion of the people hardly do, I believe. The climate requires nothing. They have a fashion of dress of their own, but it is not much." "And can you help seeing these heathen?" "No, of course not." "Well you _are_ changed!" said Mrs. Powle. "I would never have thought you would have consented to such degradation." "I go that I may help mend it, mamma." "Yes, you must stoop yourself first." "Think how Jesus stooped--to what degradation--for us all." Mrs. Powle paused, at the view of Eleanor's glistening eyes. It was not easy to answer, moreover. "I cannot help it," she said. "You and I take different views on the subject. Do let us talk of something else; I am always getting on something where we cannot agree. Tell me about the place, Eleanor." "What, mamma? I have not been there." "No, but of course you know. What do you live in? houses or tents?" "I do not know which you would call them; they are not stone or wood. There is a skeleton frame of posts to uphold the building; but the walls are made of different thicknesses of reeds, laid different ways and laced together with sinnet." "What's _sinnet?_" "A strong braid made of the fibre of the cocoa-nut--of the husk of the cocoanut. It is made of more and less size and strength, and is used instead of iron to fasten a great many sorts of things; carpentry and boat building among them." "Goodness! what a place. Well go on with your house." "That is all," said Eleanor smiling; "except that it is thatched with palm leaves, or grass, or cane leaves. Sometimes the walls are covered with grass; and the braid work done in patterns, so as to have a very artistic effect." "And what is inside?" "Not much beside the people." "Well, tell me what, for instance. There is something, I suppose. The walls are not bare?" "Not quite. There are apt to be mats, to sit and lie on;--and pots for cooking, and baskets and a chest perhaps, and a great mosquito curtain." "Are you going to live in a house like that, Eleanor?" Mrs. Powle's face expressed distress. Eleanor laughed and declared she did not know. "It will have some chairs for her to sit upon," said Mrs. Caxton; "and I shall send some china cups, that she may not have to drink out of a cocoa-nut shell." "But I should like that very well," said Eleanor; "and I certainly think a Fijian wooden dish, spread with green leaves, is as nice a vessel for food as can be." Mrs. Powle rose up and began to arrange her shawl, with an air which said, "I do not understand it!" "Mamma, what are you about?" "Eleanor, you make me very uncomfortable." "Do I? Why should I, mamma?" "It is no use talking." Then suddenly facing round on Eleanor she said, "What are you going to do for servants in that dreadful place?" "Mr. Rhys says he has a most faithful servant--who is much attached to him, and does as well as he can desire." "One of those native savages?" "He was; he is a Christian now, and a good one." Mrs. Powle looked as if she did not know how to believe her daughter. "Aren't you afraid of what you are about, Eleanor--to venture among those creatures? and to take all that voyage first, alone? Are you not afraid?" There was that in the very simpleness and quietness of Eleanor's answer that put her negative beyond a question. Mrs. Powle sat down again for very bewilderment. "Why are you not afraid?" she said. "You never were afraid of little things, I know; but those houses--Are there no thieves among those heathen?" "A good many." "What is to keep them out of your house? Anybody could cut through a reed wall with a knife--and make no noise about it. Where is your security?" Alas, in the one face there was such ignorance, in the other such sorrowful consciousness of that ignorance, that the two faces at first looked mutely into each other across the gulf between them. "Mamma," said Eleanor, "why will you not understand me? Do you not know,--the Eternal God is our refuge!" The still, grand expression of faith Mrs. Powle could not receive; but the speaking of Eleanor's eyes she did. She turned from them. "Good morning, sister Caxton," she said. "I will go. I cannot bear it any longer to-day." "You will come to-morrow, sister Powle?" "Yes. O yes. I'll be here to-morrow. I will get my feelings quieted by that time. Good bye, Eleanor." "Mamma," said the girl trembling, "when will you bring Julia?" "Now Eleanor, don't let us talk about anything more that is disagreeable. I do not want to say anything about Julia. You have taken your way--and I do not mean to unsettle you in it; but Julia is in another line, and I cannot have you interfere with her. I am very sorry it is so,--but it is not my doing. I cannot help it. I do not want to give you pain." Mrs. Powle departed. Eleanor came back from attending her to the door, stopped in the middle of the room, and her cheeks grew white as she spoke. "I shall never see her again!" "My love," said Mrs. Caxton pityingly,--"I hardly know how to believe it possible." "I knew it all along," said Eleanor. She sat down and covered her face. Mrs. Caxton sighed. "It is as true now as it was in the old time," she said,--"'He that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution.' So surely as we walk like Christ, so surely the world will call us odd and strange and fanatical, and treat us accordingly." Eleanor's head was bent low. "And Jesus is our only refuge--and our sufficient consolation." "O yes!--but--" "And he can make our silent witness-bearing bring fruits for his glory, and for our dear ones' good, as much as years of talking to them, Eleanor." "You are good comfort, aunt Caxton," said the girl putting her arms around her and straining her close;--"but--this is something I cannot help just now--" It was a natural sorrow not to be struggled with successfully; and Eleanor took it to her own room. So did Mrs. Caxton take it to hers. But the struggle was ended then and there. No trace of it remained the next day. Eleanor met her mother most cheerfully, and contrived admirably to keep her from the gulf of discussion into which she had been continually plunging at her first visit. With so much of grace and skill, and of that poise of her own mind which left her free to extend help to another's vacillations and uncertainties, Eleanor guided the conversation and bore herself generally that day, that Mrs. Powle's sighing commentary as she went away, was, "Ah, Eleanor!--you might have been a duchess!" But the paleness of sorrow came over her duchess's face again so soon as she was gone. Mrs. Caxton saw that if the struggle was ended, the pain was not; and her heart bled for Eleanor. These were days not to be prolonged. It was good for everybody that Tuesday, the day of sailing, was so near. They were heavy, the hours that intervened. In spite of keeping herself close and making no needless advertisement of her proceedings, Eleanor could not escape many an encounter with old friends or acquaintances. They heard of her from her mother; learned her address; and then curiosity was enough, without affection, to bring several; and affection mingled with curiosity to bring a few. Among others, the two Miss Broadus's, Eleanor's friends and associates at Wiglands ever since she had been a child, could not keep away from her and could not be denied when they came; though they took precious time, and though they tried Eleanor sorely. They wanted to know everything; if their wishes had sufficed, they would have learned the whole history of Mr. Rhys's courtship. Failing that, their inquiries went to everything else, past and future, to which Eleanor's own knowledge could be supposed to extend. What she had been doing through the year which was gone, and what she expected the coming year would find her to do; when she would get to her place of destination, and what sort of a life she would have of it when once there. Houses, and horses, and cows and sheep, were as interesting to these good ladies as they were to Mrs. Powle; and feeling less concern in the matter they were free to take more amusement, and so no side feeling or hidden feeling disturbed their satisfaction in the flow of information they were receiving. For Eleanor gratified them patiently, in all which did not touch immediately herself; but when they were gone she sighed. Even Mrs. Powle was less trying; for her annoyances were at least of a more dignified kind. Eleanor could meet them better. "And this is the end of you!" she exclaimed the evening before Eleanor was to sail. "This is the end of your life and expectations! To look at you and think of it!" Despondency could no further go. "Not the end of either, mamma, I hope," Eleanor responded cheerfully. "The expectation of the righteous shall be for ever, you forget," said Mrs. Caxton smiling. "There is no fall nor failure to that." "O yes, I know!" said Mrs. Powle impatiently; "but just look at that girl and see what she is. She might be presented at Court now, and reigning like a princess in her own house; yes, she might; and to-morrow she is going off as if she were a convict, to Botany Bay!" "No, mamma," said Eleanor smiling. "I never can persuade you of Australian geography." "Well it's New South Wales, isn't it?" said Mrs. Powle. Eleanor assented. "Very well. The girl that brings you your luncheon when you get there, may be the very one that stole my spoons three years ago. It's all the same thing. And you, Eleanor, you are so handsome, and you have the manners of a queen--Sister Caxton, you have no notion what admiration this girl excited, and what admiration she could command!" Mrs. Caxton looked from the calm face of the girl, certainly handsome enough, to the vexed countenance of the mother; whose fair curls failed to look complacent for once. "I suppose Eleanor thinks of another day," she said; "when the Lord will come to be admired in his saints and to be glorified in all them that believe. _That_ will be admiration worth having--if Eleanor thinks so, I confess I think so too." "Dear sister Caxton," said Mrs. Powle restraining herself, "what has the one thing to do with the other?" "Nothing," said Mrs. Caxton. "To seek both is impossible." "_Do_ you think it is wicked to receive admiration? I did not think you went so far." "No," said Mrs. Caxton, with her genial smile. "We were talking of seeking it." Mrs. Powle was silent, and went away in a very ill humour. CHAPTER XIV. IN PARTINGS. "The sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea." And the Tuesday came, and was fair; and under a bright sky the steamer ran down to Gravesend with Eleanor and her friends on board. Not Julia; Eleanor had given up all hopes of that; but Mrs. Caxton was beside her, and on the other side of her was Mrs. Powle. It was a terribly disagreeable journey to the latter; every feeling in her somewhat passionless nature was in a state of fretful rebellion. The other stronger and deeper characters were ready for the time and met it bravely. Met it cheerfully too. The crisping breeze that curled the waters of the river, the blue sky and fair sunlight, the bright and beautiful of the scene around them, those two saw and tasted; with hopeful though very grave hearts. The other poor lady saw nothing but a dirty steamboat and a very unpropitious company. Among these however were Eleanor's fellow-voyagers, Mr. Amos and his wife; and she was introduced to them now for the first time. Various circumstances had prevented their meeting in London. "A very common-looking man,"--whispered Mrs. Powle to Eleanor. "I don't know, mamma,--but very good," Eleanor returned. "You are mad on goodness!" said Mrs. Powle. "Don't you see anything else in a man, or the want of anything else? I do; a thousand things; and if a man is ever so good, I want him to be a gentleman too." "So do I," said Eleanor smiling. "But much more, mamma, if a man is ever so much a gentleman, I want him to be good. Isn't that the more important of the two?" "No!" said Mrs. Powle. "I don't think it is; not for society." Eleanor thought of Paul's words--"Henceforth know I no man after the flesh"--What was the use of talking? she and her mother must have the same vision before they could see the same things. And she presently forgot Mr. Amos and all about him; for in the distance she discerned signs that the steamer was approaching Gravesend; and knew that the time of parting drew near. It came and was gone, and Eleanor was alone on the deck of the "Diana;" and in that last moment of trial Mrs. Powle had been the most overcome of the three. Eleanor's sweet face bore itself strongly as well; and Mrs. Caxton was strong both by life-habit and nature; and the view of each of them was far above that little ship-deck. Mrs. Powle saw nothing else. Her distress was very deep. "I wish I had taken Julia to her!" was the outburst of her penitent relentings; and Mrs. Caxton was only thankful, since they had come too late, that they were uttered too late for Eleanor to hear. _She_ went home like a person whose earthly treasure is all lodged away from her; not lost at all, indeed, but yet only to be enjoyed and watched over from a distance. Even then she reckoned herself rich beyond what she had been before Eleanor ever came to her. For Eleanor, left on the ship's deck, at first it was hard to realize that she had any earthly treasure at all. One part of it quitted, perhaps for ever, with the home and the country of her childhood; the other, so far, so vague, so uncertainly grasped in this moment of distraction, that she felt utterly broken-hearted and alone. She had not counted upon this; she had not expected her self-command would so completely fail her; but it was so; and although without one shadow of a wish to turn back or in any wise alter her course, the first beginning of her journey was made amidst mental storms. Julia was the particular bitter thought over which her tears poured; but they flooded every image that rose of home things, and childish things and things at Plassy. Mr. Amos came to her help. "It is nothing," Eleanor said as well as she could speak,--"it is nothing but the natural feeling which will have its way. Thank you--don't be concerned. I don't want anything--if I only could have seen my sister!" "Mrs. Amos is about as bad," said her comforter with a sigh. "Ah well! feeling must have its way, and better it should. You will both be better by and by, I hope." They were worse before they were better. For in a few hours sickness took its place among present grievances; and perhaps on the whole it acted as a relief by effecting a diversion from mental to bodily concerns. It seemed to Eleanor that she felt them both together; nevertheless, when at the end of a few days the sea-sickness left her and she was able to get up again, it was with the sweet fresh quietness of convalescence in mind as well as in body. She was herself again. Things took their place. England was behind indeed--but Fiji was forward--and Heaven was over all. As soon as she was able to be up she went upon deck. Strength came immediately with the fresh breeze. It was a cool cloudy day; the ship speeding along under a good spread of canvas; the sea in a beautiful state of life, but not boisterous. Nobody was on deck but some of the sailors. Eleanor took a seat by the guards, and began to drink in refreshment. It stole in fast, on mind as well as body, she hardly knew how; only both were braced up together. She felt now a curious gladness that the parting was over, the journey begun, and England fairly out of sight. The going away had been like death; a new life was rising upon her now; and Eleanor turned herself towards it with the same sweet readiness as the good ship whose head is laid upon a new course. There is a state of mind in which the soul may be aptly called the garden of the Lord; when answering to his culture it brings forth flowers and fruits for his pleasure. In such a state, the paradise which Adam lost is half re-entered again; the moral victory is won over "the works of the devil" which Christ came to destroy. The body is dead, no doubt, because of sin; but the spirit is life, because of righteousness. The air of that garden is peace; no hurricanes blow there; the sunshine dwells therein; the odours of sweet things come forth, and make known all abroad whose garden it is. Eleanor had sat awhile very still, very busy looking over into the sea, when she heard a step near her on the deck. She looked up, and saw a man whom she recognized as the master of the vessel. A rather hard-featured man, tall and strong set, with a pair of small eyes that did not give forth their expression readily. What there was struck her as not pleasant. "So you've got up!" said he, in a voice which was less harsh than his looks. "Do you feel better?" "Much better, thank you." "Hearty, eh?" "Pretty well," said Eleanor smiling, "since I have got this salt air into my lungs." "Ah! you'll have enough of that. 'Tother lady is down yet, eh? She has not got up." "No." "Are you all going to the same place?" "I believe so." "Missionaries, eh?" "Yes." "Think you'll get those dark fellows to listen to you?" "Why not?" said Eleanor brightly. "It's all make-believe. They only want to get your axes and hatchets, and such things." "Well, we want their yams and potatoes and fish and labour," said Eleanor; "so it is a fair bargain; and no make-believe on either side." "Why don't you stay in the Colonies? there is work enough to be done; people enough that need it; and a fine country. Everything in the world that you need; and not so far from home either." Eleanor made no answer. "Why don't you stay in the Colonies?" "One can only be in one place," said Eleanor lightly. "And that must always be the place where somebody else is," said the captain maliciously. "That's the way people will congregate together, instead of scattering where they are wanted." "Do you know the Colonies well?" said Eleanor coolly, in answer to this rude speech. "I ought. I have spent about a third of my life in them. I have a brother at Melbourne too, as rich in flocks and herds almost as Job was. That's the place! That's a country! But you are going to Sydney?" "Yes." "Friends there?" "I have one friend there who expects me." "Who's he? Maybe I know him." "Egbert Esthwaite is his name." "Don't know him, though. And so you have left England to find yourself a new home in the wilderness?" "Yes." "Pretty tough change you'll find it. Don't you find it already?" "No. Don't you know," said Eleanor giving him a good look, "when one's real home is in heaven, it does not make so much difference?" The captain would have answered the words fast enough; but in the strong sweet eye that had looked into his so full, there was something that silenced him. He turned off abruptly, with the internal conviction--"_That_ girl thinks what she says, anyhow!" Eleanor's eyes left contemplating the waters, and were busy for some time with the book which had lain in her lap until her colloquy with the captain. Somebody came and sat down beside her. "Mr. Amos! I am glad to see you," said Eleanor. "I am glad to see you, sister," he replied; "and glad to see you able to be here. You look well again." "O I am." "Mrs. Amos cannot raise her head. What are you doing?--if I may ask so blunt a question upon so short an acquaintance." "This is the first time I have been on deck. I was studying the sea, in the first place;--and then something drove me to study the Bible." "Ah, we are driven to that on every hand," he answered. "Now go on, and tell me the point of your studies, will you?" There was something in the utmost genial and kind in his look and way; he was not a person from whom one would keep back anything he wanted to know; as also evidently he was not one to ask anything he should not. The request did not even startle Eleanor. She looked thoughtfully over the heaving sea while she answered. "I had been taking a great new view of the glory of creation--over the ship's side here. Then I had the sorrow to find--or fear--that we have an unbeliever in our captain. From that, I suppose, I took hold of Paul's reasoning--how without excuse people are in unbelief; how the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; even his eternal power and Godhead. And those glorious last words were what my heart fixed upon." "'His eternal power and Godhead.'" Eleanor looked round without speaking; a look full of the human echo to those words; the joy of weakness, the strength of ignorance, the triumph of humility. "What a grand characterizing Paul gives in those other words," said Mr. Amos--"'the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God.' Unto him be honour and glory forever!" "And then those other words," said Eleanor low,--"'The eternal God is thy refuge.'" "That is a good text for us to keep," said Mr. Amos. "But really, with that refuge, I don't see what we should be afraid of." "Not even of want of success," said Eleanor. "No. If faith didn't fail. Paul could give thanks that he was made always to triumph in Christ,--and by the power that wrought with him, so may we." He spoke very gravely, as if looking into himself and pondering his own responsibilities and privileges and short-comings. Eleanor kept silence. "How do you like this way of life?" Mr. Amos said presently. "The sea is beautiful. I have hardly tried the ship." "Haven't you?" said Mr. Amos smiling. "That speaks a candid good traveller. Another would have made the first few days the type of the whole." And he also took to his book, and the silence lasted this time. Mrs. Amos continued prostrated by sea-sickness; unable to raise her head from her pillow. Eleanor could do little for her. The evil was remediless, and admitted of very small amelioration. But the weather was very fine and the ship's progress excellent; and Eleanor spent great part of her time on deck. All day, except when she was at the side of Mrs. Amos, she was there. The sailors watched the figure in the dark neat sea-dress and cloak and the little close straw bonnet with chocolate ribbands; and every now and then made pretences to get near and see how the face looked that was hidden under it. The report of the first venturers was so favourable that Eleanor had an unconscious sort of levee the next day or two; and then, the fresh sweet face that was so like a flower was found to have more attractions when known than it had before when unknown. There was not a hand on board but seized or made opportunities every day and as often as he could to get near her; if a chance offered and he could edge in a word and have a smile and word in answer, that man went away esteemed both by himself and his comrades a lucky fellow. Eleanor awoke presently to the sense of her opportunities, though too genuinely humble to guess at the cause of them; and she began to make every one tell for her work. Every sailor on board soon knew what Eleanor valued more than all other things; every one knew, "sure as guns," as he would have expressed it, that if she had a chance of speaking to him, she would one way or another contrive before it was ended to make him think of his duty and to remember to whom it was owed; and yet--strange to say--there was not one of them that for any such reason was willing to lose or to shun one of those chances. "If all were like she"--was the comment of one Jack tar; and the rest were precisely of his opinion. The captain himself was no exception. He could not help frequently coming to Eleanor's side, to break off her studies or her musings with some information or some suggestion of his own and have a bit of a talk. His manners mended. He grew thoroughly civil to her. Meanwhile the vessel was speeding southwards. Fast, fast, every day they lowered their latitude. Higher and higher rose the sun; the stars that had been Eleanor's familiars ever since she had eyes to see them, sank one by one below the northern horizon; and the beauty of the new, strange, brilliant constellations of the southern sky began to tell her in curious language of her approach to her new home. They had a most magical charm for Eleanor. She studied and watched them unweariedly; they had for her that curious interest which we give to any things that are to be our life-companions. Here Mr. Amos could render her some help; but with or without help, Eleanor nightly studied the southern stars, watched and pondered them till she knew them well; and then she watched them because she knew them, as well as because she was to know them all the rest of her life. By day she studied other things; and the days were not weary. The ocean was a storehouse of pleasure for her; and Captain Fox declared his ship had never carried such a clever passenger; "a girl who had plenty of stuff, and knew what to do with herself." Certainly the last piece of praise was true; for Eleanor had no weary moments. She had interests on board, as well as outside the ship. She picked up the sailors' legends and superstitions; ay, and many a little bit of life history came in too, by favour of the sympathy and friendliness they saw in those fine brown eyes. Never a voyage went better; and the sailors if not the captain were very much of the mind that they had a good angel on board. "Well how do you like _this?_" said Mr. Amos coming up one day. N.B. It was the seventh day of a calm in the tropics. "I would like a wind better," Eleanor said smiling. "Can you possess your soul in patience?" "Yes," she said, but gently and with a slight intonation that spoke of several latent things. "We are well on our way now,--if a wind would come!" "It will come." "I have never asked you," said Mr. Amos. "How do you expect to find life in the islands?" "In what respect? In general, I should say, as unlike this as possible." "Of course. I understand there is no stagnation there. But as to hardships--as to the people?" "The people are part Christianized and part unchristianized; that gives every variety of experience among them, I suppose. The unchristianized are as bad as they can be, very nearly; the good, very good. As to hardships, I have no expectation." "You have not data to form one?" "I cannot say that; but things are so different according to circumstances; and there is so great a change going on continually in the character of the people." "How do you feel about leaving behind you all the arts and refinements and delights of taste in the old world?" "Will you look over the side of the ship, Mr. Amos?--down below there--do you see anything?" "Dolphin--," said Mr. Amos. "What do you think of them?" "Beautiful!" said Mr. Amos. "Beautiful, undoubtedly! as brilliant as if they had just come out of the jeweller's shop, polished silver. How clear the water is! I can see them perfectly--far below." "Isn't the sea better than a jeweller's shop?" "I never thought of it before," said Mr. Amos laughing; "but it certainly is; though I think it is the first time the comparison has been made." "Did you ever go to Tenby?" "I never did." "Nor I; but I have heard the sea-caves in its neighbourhood described as more splendid in their natural treasures of vegetable and animal growth, than any jeweller's shop could be--were he the richest in London." "_Splendid?_" said Mr. Amos. "Yes--for brilliance and variety of colour." "Is it possible? These are things that I do not know." "You will be likely to know them. The lagoons around the Polynesian islands--the still waters within the barrier-reefs, you understand--are lined with most gorgeous and wonderful displays of this kind. One seems to be sailing over a mine of gems--only not in the rough, but already cut and set as no workman of earth could do them." "Ah," said Mr. Amos, "I fancy you have had advantages of hearing about these islands, that I have not enjoyed." Eleanor was checked, and coloured a little; then rallied herself. "Look now over yonder, Mr. Amos--at those clouds." "I have looked at them every evening," he said. Their eyes were turned towards the western heavens, where the setting sun was gathering his mantle of purple and gold around him before saying good night to the world. Every glory of light and colouring was there, among the thick folds of his vapourous drapery; and changing and blending and shifting softly from one hue of richness to another. "I suppose you will tell me now," said Mr. Amos with a smile of some humour, "that no upholsterer's hangings can rival that. I give up--as the schoolboys say. Yet we do lose some things. What do you say to a land without churches?" "O it is not," said Eleanor. "Chapels are rising everywhere--in every village, on some islands; and very neat ones." "I am afraid," said Mr. Amos with his former look of quiet humour, "you would not be of the mind of a lady I heard rejoicing once over the celebration of the church service at Oxford. She remarked, that it was a subject of joyful thought and remembrance, to know that praise so near perfection was offered somewhere on the earth. There was the music, you know, and the beautiful building in which we heard it, and all the accessories. You will have nothing like that in Fiji." "She must have forgotten those words," said Eleanor--"'Where is the house that ye build unto me, and where is the place of my rest? ... _to this man_ will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.' You will find _that_ in Fiji." "Ah," said Mr. Amos,--"I see. My friend will have a safe wife in you. Do you know, when I first saw you I stood in doubt. I thought you looked like--Well, never mind! It's all right." "Right!" said Captain Fox coming up behind them. "I am glad somebody thinks so. Right!--lying broiling here all day, and sleeping all night as if we were in port and had nothing to do--when we're a long way from that. Drove you down to-day, didn't it?" said he turning to Eleanor. "It was so hot; I could not get a bit of permanent shade anywhere. I went below for a little while." "And yet it's all right!" said the captain. "I am afraid you are not in a hurry to get to the end of the voyage." Mr. Amos smiled and Eleanor blushed. The truth was, she never let herself think of the end of the voyage. The thought would come--the image standing there would start up--but she always put it aside and kept to the present; and that was one reason certainly why Eleanor's mind was so quiet and free and why the enjoyable and useful things of the hour were not let slip and wasted. So her spirits maintained their healthy tone; no doubt spurred to livelier action by the abiding consciousness of that spot of brightness in the future towards which she would not allow herself to look in bewildering imaginations. Meanwhile the calm came to an end, as all things will; the beneficent trade wind took charge of the vessel again, and they sped on, south, south; till the sky over Eleanor's head was a new one from that all her life had known, and the bright stars at night looked at her as strangers. For study them as she would, she could not but feel theirs were new faces. The captain one day shewed her St. Helena in the distance; then the Cape of Good Hope was neared--and rounded--and in the Indian Ocean the travellers ploughed their way eastward. The island of St. Paul was passed; and still the ship sailed on and on to the east. Eleanor had observed for a day or two that there was an unusual degree of activity among the sailors. They seemed to be getting things into new trim; clearing up and cleaning; and the chain cable one day made its appearance on deck, where room had been made for it. Eleanor looked on at the proceedings, with a half guess at their meaning that made her heart beat. "What is it?" she asked Captain Fox. "What's all this rigging up? Why, we expect to see land soon. You like the sea so well, you'll be sorry." "How soon?" "I shouldn't wonder, in a day or two. You will stop in Sydney till you get a chance to go on?" "Yes." "I wish I could take you the whole way, I declare! but I would not take an angel into those awful islands. Why if you get shipwrecked there, they will kill and eat you." "There would be little danger of that now, Captain Fox; none at all in most of the islands. Instead of killing and eating, they relieve and comfort their shipwrecked countrymen." "Believe that?" said the captain. "I know it. I know instances." "Whereabouts are you going among them?" said he looking at her. "If I get driven out of my reckoning ever and find myself in those latitudes, I'd like to know which way to steer. Where's your place?" He was not uncivil; but he liked to see, when he could manage to bring it, that beautiful tinge of rose in Eleanor's cheeks which answered such an appeal as this. CHAPTER XV. IN PORT. "And the magic charm of foreign lands, With shadows of palm, and shining sands, Where the tumbling surf O'er the coral reefs of Madagascar, Washes the feet of the swarthy 'Lascar.'--" It was but the next day, and Eleanor was sitting as usual on deck looking over the waters in a lovely bright morning, when a sound was heard which almost stopped her heart's beating for a moment. It was the cry, rung out from the mast-head, "Land, ho!" "Where is it?" she said to the captain, who was behind her. "I do not see it anywhere." "You will see it in a little while. Wait a bit. If you could go aloft I could shew it you now." "What land? do you know?" "Australia--the finest land the sun shines upon!" "I suppose you mean, besides England." "No, I don't, begging your pardon. England is very well for those who can take the ripe side of the cherry; poorer folks had better come here, if they want any chance at all." The lucky sailor was coming down from the mast-head, and the captain went off to join those who were giving him sundry rewarding tokens of their joy for his news. Eleanor looked over the waste of waters eastward, feeling as if her breath had been taken away. So much of her journey done! The rest seemed, and was, but little. Australia was almost--_home_. And what sort of a home? And could Mr. Rhys possibly be at Sydney to meet her? Eleanor knew he could not; yet the physical possibility would assert itself in spite of all the well-allowed moral impossibility. But at any rate at Sydney she would find letters; at Sydney she would find, perhaps very soon, the means of making the remainder of her voyage; at Sydney she could no longer prevent herself from _thinking_. Eleanor had staved off thought all the way by wisely saying and insisting to herself "Time enough when I get to Sydney." Yes; she was nearing home now. So deep, so engrossing, were her meditations and sensations, that Mr. Amos who had come up to congratulate her on the approaching termination of the voyage, spoke to her once and again without being heard. He could not see her face, but the little straw bonnet was as motionless as if its wearer had been in a dream. He smiled and went away. Then appeared on the distant horizon somewhat like a low blue cloud, which gathered distinctness and strength of outline by degrees. It was the land, beyond doubt; the coast of New Holland itself, as the captain informed Eleanor; and going on and passing through Bass's Strait the vessel soon directed her course northward. Little remained then before reaching port. It was under a fair and beautiful sunlight morning that they were at last approaching Sydney. Mr. Amos was on deck as well as Eleanor, the captain standing with them; for a pilot had come on board; the captain had given up his charge, and was in command no longer. Before the watching three stretched a low unpromising shore of sandstone cliffs and sand. "It is good to see it," said Mr. Amos; "but in this first view it don't shew for much." "Don't shew for anything," said Captain Fox. "Wait till we get inside the Heads. It don't shew for anything; but it's the most glorious land the sun shines on!" "In what particular respects?" said Mr. Amos. "In every respect of making a living and enjoying it," said the captain. "That makes a good land, don't it?" Mr. Amos allowed that it did. "It's the most beautiful country, if you come to that," Captain Fox went on;--"that's what Miss Powle thinks of. I wish this was Melbourne we were coming to, instead of Sydney. I'd like to have her look at it." "Better than this?" said Mr. Amos, for Eleanor was silent. "A better colony, for beauty and riches," said the captain. "It's the most glorious country, sir, you ever saw! hundreds of square miles of it are as handsome as a duke's park; and good for something, which a duke's park ain't. There's a great tract of country up round Mt. Macedon--thirty or forty miles back into the land--its softly rolling ground without a stone on it, as nice as ever you saw; and spotted with the trees they call she-oaks--beautiful trees; and they don't grow in a wood, but just stand round in clumps and ones or twos here and there, like a picture; and then through the openings in the ground you can see miles off more of just the same, till it gets blue in the distance; and mountains beyond all. And when you put here and there a flock of thousands of sheep spotting the country with their white backs--I ain't poetical, sir, but I tell you! when I saw that country first, I thought maybe I was; but it's likely I was mistaken," said the captain laughing, "for the fit has never come back since. Miss Powle thinks there's as much poetry in the water as on the land." Still Eleanor did not move to answer; and Mr. Amos, perhaps for her sake, went on. "What is it that country is so good for? gold? or sheep?" "Sheep, sir, sheep! the gold grows in another part. There's enough of that too; but I'd as lieve make my money some other way. Victoria is the country for wool-growing, sir. I've a brother there--Stephen Fox--he went with little more than nothing; and now he has a flock of sheep--well, I'm afraid to say how many; but I know he needs and uses a tract of twelve thousand acres of land for them." "That is being a pretty large land-owner, as well as sheep-owner," Mr. Amos said with a smile. "O he don't own it. That wouldn't do, you know. The interest of the money would buy all the wool on his sheep's backs." "How then?" "He has the use of it,--that's all. Don't you know how they work it? He pays a license fee to Government for the privilege of using the land for a year--wherever he pitches upon a place; then he stocks it, and goes on occupying by an annual license fee, until he has got too many neighbours and the land is getting all taken up in his neighbourhood. Then some one comes along who has money and don't want the plague of a new settlement; and he sells off his stock and claim to him, packs up his traps, pokes off through the bush with his compass till he has found a new location somewhere; then he comes back, pays a new license fee, and stocks the new place with flocks and shepherds and begins again. And I never saw in my life anything so fine as one of those Victoria sheep or cattle farms." "Why don't you go into it?" "Well--it's best to divide the business just now. I can be of use to Stephen and he can be of use to me. And I'm a little of this lady's opinion." "How is it in this colony we are coming to?" "Well, they are very prosperous; it's a good place to get rich. They have contrived to get along with their gold mines without ruining every other interest, as the other colonies have done for a time. But I think Victoria is the queen of them all; Victoria sends home more wool than either of the others; and she has gold, and she has other mines; different. She has copper equal to Burla-Burra--and she has coal, within a few miles of Melbourne, and other things; but the coal is a great matter here, you see." The ship all the while was rapidly approaching the Heads, which mark, and make, the entrance to the harbour of Port Jackson. They assumed more dignity of elevation and feature as they were nearer seen; the rocks rising some two or three hundred feet high, with the sea foaming at their foot. Passing swiftly onward, the vessel by and by doubled Bradley's Head, and the magnificent sheet of water that forms the harbour was suddenly revealed to the strangers' gaze. Full of islands, full of sailing craft, bordered with varying shores of "promontory, creek, and bay," pleasantly wooded, and spotted along its woody shores with spots of white that marked where people had pretty country homes, the quiet water glittering in the light; the view to the sea-tossed travellers was nothing short of enchanting. Mrs. Amos had come on deck, though scarce able to stand; a quiet, gentle, sweet-looking person; her eyes were full of tears now. Her husband's arm was round her, supporting her strength that she might keep up; his face was moved and grave. Eleanor was afraid to shew anybody her face; yet it was outwardly in good order enough; she felt as if her heart would never get back to its accustomed beat. She sat still, breathlessly drinking in the scene, rejoicing and trembling at once. She heard Mrs. Amos's softly whispered, "Praise the Lord!--" and her husband's firm "Amen!" It had like to have overset her. She pressed her hands tight together to keep her heart still. "They know we are coming," said the captain. "Who?" said Eleanor quickly. Mr. Amos pressed his wife's arm; the captain's eyes twinkled. "Is there anybody there on the look-out for you?" he asked. "I suppose there may be," said Eleanor calmly. "Well, he bas got notice then, some hours ago," said the captain. "The pilot telegraphed to the South Head, and from the South Head the news has gone all over Sydney and Paramatta. Pretty good-looking city, is Sydney." It was far more than that. It had been the point of the travellers' attention for some time. From the water up, one height above another, the white buildings of the town rose and spread; a white city; with forts and windmills, and fair looking country seats in its neighbourhood. "Where is Paramatta?" said Eleanor, "and what is it?" "It's a nice little pleasure place, up the Paramatta river; fifteen miles above Sydney. Fine scenery; it's as good as going to Richmond," added the captain. "What is that splendid large white building?" Mrs. Amos asked, "on the hill?" "No great things of a hill," said the captain. "That's the Government-house. Nice gardens and pleasure grounds there too." "How beautiful it is!" said Mrs. Amos almost with a sigh. "It is almost like a Scottish lake!" said her husband. "I remember one that this scene reminds me of at this moment." "A little of this is worth all Scotland," said the captain. "There's pretty much everything here that a man wants--and not hard to come by, either. O you'll stay in Sydney! why shouldn't you? There's people enough here that want teaching, worse than the savages. I declare, I think they do." "Somebody else will have to teach them," said Mr. Amos. "What an array of ships and sails of all sorts! This gives one an idea of the business of the place." "Business, and growing business," said the captain. "Sydney is getting ahead as fast as it can." "How sweet the air is!" said Eleanor. "Ay!" said the captain. "Now you smell green things again. I'll wager you won't want to put to sea any more, after you once get a firm foot on land. Why this is the very place for you. Enough to do, and every luxury a man need want, at hand when your work is done." "When is one's work done?" said Eleanor. "I should say, when one has worked enough and got what one is after," said the captain. "That's my idea. I never was for working till I couldn't enjoy." "What are we after? do you think--" said Eleanor looking round at him. "What everybody else is!" the captain answered somewhat shortly. "Luxury, namely?" "Yes! it comes to that. Everybody is seeking happiness in his own way; and when he has got it, then it is luxury." Eleanor only looked at him; she did not say anything further, and turned again to the contemplation of the scene they had in view. The captain bustled off and was gone a few minutes. "I wish you'd sing, sister Powle," said Mr. Amos in that interval. "Do!" said his wife. "Please do!" Whether Eleanor was precisely in a singing mood or no, she began as desired. Mr. Amos joined her, in somewhat subdued tones, and Mrs. Amos gave a still gentler seconding; while the rich notes of her own voice filled the air; so mellow that their full power was scarcely recognized; so powerful that the mellow sound seemed to fill the ship's rigging. The sailors moved softly. They were accustomed to that music. All the way out, on every Sunday service or any other that was held, Eleanor had served for choir to the whole company, joined by here and there a rough voice that broke in as it could, and just backed by Mr. Amos's steady support. There was more than one in that ship's company to whom memory would never cease to bring a reminder that 'there is balm in Gilead;' for some reason or other that was one of Eleanor's favourite songs. Now she gave another--sweet, clear, and wild;--the furthest-off sailors stood still to hearken. They had heard it often enough to know what the words were. "O who's like Jesus! From sins and fears he frees us. He died for you, He died for me, He died to set poor sinners free. O who's like Jesus!" The chorus floated all over after each verse of the hymn was ended; it went clear to the ship's bows; but Eleanor sat quite still in her old position, clasping her hands fast on the rail and not moving her head. During the singing the captain came back and stood behind them listening; while people on the vessels that they passed, suspended their work and looked up to hear. Just as the singing was finished, a little boat was seen swiftly coming alongside; and in another minute they were boarded by the gentleman who had been its solitary passenger. The captain turned to meet him. He was a man rather under middle size, black hair curling all round his head, eyes quick and bright, and whole appearance handsome at once and business-like. He came forward briskly, and so he spoke. "Have you got anybody here that belongs to me?" he said. "Captain, is there a Miss Powle on board of your ship?" Captain Fox silently stepped on one side and made a motion of his hand towards Eleanor. Eleanor hearing herself called, slowly rose and faced the new-comer. There was a second's pause, as the two confronted each other; then the gentleman bowed very low and advanced to touch the lady's hand, which however when he touched he held. "Is this Miss Powle? Miss _Eleanor_ Powle?" "Yes." "I am honoured in having such a cousin! I hope you have heard somebody speak of a Mr. Esthwaite in these parts?" "I have heard Mrs. Caxton speak of Mr. Esthwaite--very often." "All right!" said the gentleman letting go Eleanor's hand. "Identity proved. Captain, I am going to take charge of this lady. Will you see that her luggage, personal effects and so on, are brought on deck?"--then turning to Eleanor with real deference and cordiality in his manner, he went on,--"Mrs. Esthwaite is longing to see you. It is such a pleasure to have a cousin come from England, as you can but feebly appreciate; she hopes to learn the new fashions from you, and all that sort of thing; and she has been dressing your room with flowers, I believe, for these three months past. If you please, we will not wait for the ship's slow motions, but I will carry you straight to land in my boat; and glad you will be! Will you signify your assent to this arrangement?--as I perceive the captain is a servant of yours and will do nothing without you bid him." "Thank you," said-Eleanor,--"I will go with you;--but what will be done with all my boxes in the hold?" This enquiry was addressed to the captain. "Don't you fear anything," said Mr. Esthwaite, "now you have overcome so many troubles and got to this haven of rest. We will take care of your boxes. I suppose you have brought enough to stock the whole Navigator's group--or Fiji, is it, you are going to? I would go to any other one rather--but never mind; the boxes shall be stored; and maybe you'll unpack them here after all. Captain, what about that luggage?--" Eleanor went down to give directions, and presently came on deck again, all ready to go ashore. There was a little delay on account of the baggage; and meanwhile Mr. Esthwaite was introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Amos. "I am very much obliged to you for taking care of this cousin of mine," he said to them. "I am sure she is worth taking care of. And now I should like to take care of you in turn. Will you go to my house, and make us happy?" They explained that they were going elsewhere. "Well, come and see her then; for she will be wanting to see somebody. We will do the best for her we can; but still--you know--absent friends have the best claim. By the way! didn't I hear some sweet Methodist singing as I came up? was it on this ship? You haven't got any Methodists on board, captain; have you?" "I've been one myself, this voyage!" said the captain. "I wouldn't," said Mr. Esthwaite. "The Church service is the only one to be used at sea. Every other sounds--I don't know how--incompatible. There is something in the gentle swell of the rolling waves, and in the grandeur of the horizon, that calls for the finest form of words mortals could put together; and when you have got such a form, why not use it?" "You did not like the form of the singing then?" said Mr. Amos smiling. "No," said Mr. Esthwaite drily,--"it struck me that if there had been a cathedral roof over it, one of those voices would have lifted the rafters and gone on; and that would not have been reverential, you know. Now, my young cousin!--" "Mr. Amos," said Eleanor aside to him and colouring deeply, "if there are any letters for me at the house where you are going, or at the post-office, will you send them to me?" "I will certainly make it my care, and bring them to you myself." "I'll send for anything you want," said Mr. Esthwaite. "What's that? letters? We'll get all there is in Sydney, and there is a good deal, waiting for this young lady. I've had one floor of my warehouse half full for some months back already. No use of it for myself." At last they got off; and it was not quickly, for Eleanor had to give a good bye to everybody on board. Mr. Esthwaite looked on smiling, until he was permitted to hand her down the vessel's side, and lodged her in the wherry. "Now you are out of the ship," said he looking keenly at her. "Aren't you glad?" "I have some good friends in her," said Eleanor. "Friends! I should think so. Those were salt tears that were shed for your coming away. Positively, I don't think a man of them could see clear to take his last look at you." Neither were Eleanor's feelings quite unmixed at this moment. She expected to see Mr. and Mrs. Amos again; with the rest her intercourse was finished; and it had been of that character which leaves longing and tender memories behind. She felt all that now. And she felt much more. With the end of her voyage in the "Diana" came, at least for the present, an end to her inward tranquillity. Now there were letters awaiting her; letters for which she had wished nervously so long; now she was near Fiji and her new life; now she dared to realize, she could not help it, what all the voyage she had refused to think of, as still in a hazy distance of the future. Here it was, nigh at hand, looming up through the haze, taking distinctness and proportions; and Eleanor's heart was in a state of agitation to which that sound little member was very little accustomed. However, the outward effect of all this was to give her manner even an unwonted degree of cool quietness; and Mr. Esthwaite was in a state between daunted and admiring. Both of them kept silence for a little while after leaving the ship, while the wherry pulled along in the beautiful bay, passing among a crowd of vessels of all sorts and descriptions, moving and still. The scene was lively, picturesque, pleasant, in the highest degree. "How does my cousin like us on a first view?" "It is a beautiful scene!" said Eleanor. "What a great variety of vessels are here!" "And isn't this just the finest harbour in the world?" "I have heard a great deal of Port Philip," said Eleanor smiling. "I understand there is a second Bay of Naples there." "I don't care for the Bay of Naples! We have sunk all that. We are in a new world. Wait till you see what I will shew you to-morrow. Now look at that wooded point, with the white houses spotting it; those are fine seats; beautiful view and all that; and at Sydney you can have everything you want, almost at command." "You know," said Eleanor, "that is not absolutely a new experience to me. In England, we have not far to seek." "O you say so! Much you know about it. You have been in such a nest of a place as my cousin Caxton spreads her wings over. I never was in a nest, till I made one for myself. How is my good cousin?" The talk ran upon home things now until they reached the town and landed at a fine stone quay. Then to the Custom House, where business was easily despatched; then Mr. Esthwaite put Eleanor into a cab and they drove away through the streets for his house in the higher part of the city. Eleanor's eyes were full of business. How strange it was! So far away from home, and so long living on the sea, now on landing to be greeted by such a multitude of familiar sounds and sights. The very cab she was driving in; the omnibuses and carts they passed; the English-cut faces; the same street cries; the same trades revealing themselves, as she had been accustomed to in London. But now and then there came a difference of Australasia. There would be a dray drawn by three or four pair of bullocks; London streets never saw that turn-out; and then Eleanor would start at seeing a little group of the natives of the country, dressed in English leavings of costume. Those made her feel where she was; otherwise the streets and houses and shops had very much of a home air. Except indeed when a curious old edifice built of logs peeped in among white stone fronts and handsome shop windows; the relics, Mr. Esthwaite told her, of that not so very far distant time when the town first began to grow up, and the "bush" covered almost all the ground now occupied by it. Eleanor was well pleased to be so busied in looking out that she had little leisure for talking; and Mr. Esthwaite sat by and smiled in satisfaction. But this blessed immunity could not last. The cab stopped before a house in George street. "Has she come?" exclaimed a voice as the door opened; and a head full of curls put itself out into the hall;--"have you brought her? Oh how delightful! How glad I am!--" and the owner of the curls came near to be introduced, hardly waiting for the introduction, and to give Eleanor the most gleeful sort of a welcome. "And she was on that ship, the 'Diana,' Egbert? how nice! Just as you thought; and I was so afraid it was nothing but another disappointment. I was afraid to look out when the cab came. Now come up stairs, cousin Eleanor, and I will take you to your room. You must be tired to death, are you not?" "Why should I?" said Eleanor as she tripped up stairs after her hostess. "I have done nothing for four months." "Look here!" shouted Mr. Esthwaite from the hall--"Louisa, don't stop to talk over the fashions now--it is dinner-time. How soon will you be down?"-- "Don't mind him," said pretty Mrs. Esthwaite, leading the way into a light pleasant room overlooking the bay;--"sit down and rest yourself. Would you like anything before you dress? Now just think you are at home, will you? It's too delightful to have you here!" Eleanor went to the window, which overlooked a magnificent view of the harbour. Very oddly, the thought in her mind at that moment was, how soon an opportunity could be found for her to make the rest of her voyage. Scarce landed, she wanted to see the means of getting away again. Her way she saw, over the harbour; where was her conveyance? While she stood looking, her new-found cousin was considering her; the erect beautiful figure, in all the simplicity of its dress; the close little bonnet with chocolate ribbands, the fine grave face under it, lastly the little hand which rested on the back of the chair, for Eleanor's sea-glove was off. And a certain awe grew up in Mrs. Esthwaite's mind. "Cousin Eleanor," said she, "shall I leave you to dress? Dinner will be ready presently, and Egbert will be impatient, I know, till you come down stairs again." "Thank you. I will be but a few minutes. How beautiful this is! O how beautiful,--to my eyes that have seen no beauty but sea beauty for so long. And the air is so good." "I am glad you like it. Is it prettier than England?" "Prettier than England!" Eleanor looked round smiling. "Nothing could be that." "Well I didn't know. Mr. Esthwaite is always running down England, you see, and I don't know how much of it he means. I came away when I was so little, I don't remember anything of course--" Here came such a shout of "Louisa!--Louisa!"--from below, that Mrs. Esthwaite laughing was obliged to obey it and go, and Eleanor was left. There was not much time then for anything; yet a minute Eleanor was held at the window by the bay with its wooded shores and islands glittering in the evening light; then she turned from it to pray, for her heart needed strength, and a great sense of loneliness had suddenly come over her. Fighting this feeling, and dressing, both eagerly, in a little time she was ready to descend and encounter Mr. Esthwaite and dinner. An encounter it was to Mr. Esthwaite. He had put himself in very careful order; though that, to do him justice, was an habitual weakness of his; and he met his guest when she appeared with a bow of profound recognition and appreciation. Yet Eleanor was only in the simplest of all white dresses; without lace or embroidery. No matter. The rich hair was in perfect arrangement; the fine figure and fine carriage in their unconscious ease were more imposing than anything pretentious can ever be, even to such persons as Mr. Esthwaite. He measured his young guest correctly and at once. His wife took the measure of Eleanor's gown meanwhile, and privately studied what it was that made it so graceful; a problem she had not solved when they sat down to dinner. The dinner was sumptuous, and well served. Mr. Esthwaite took delight evidently in playing his part of host, and some pride both housekeeping and patriotic in shewing to Eleanor all the means he had to play it with. The turtle soup he declared was good, though she might have seen better; the fish from Botany Bay, the wild fowl from the interior, the game of other kinds from the Hunter river, he declared she could not have known surpassed anywhere. Then the vegetables were excellent; the potatoes from Van Dieman's Land, were just better than all others in the world; and the dessert certainly in its abundance of treasures justified his boasting that Australia was a grand country for anybody that liked fruit. The growth of the tropics and of the cooler latitudes of England met together in confusion of beauty and sweetness on Mr. Esthwaite's table. There were oranges and pineapples on one hand, peaches, plums, melons, from the neighbouring country; with all sorts of English-grown fruits from Van Dieman's Land; gooseberries, pears and grapes. Native wines also he pressed on his guest, assuring her that some of them were as good as Sauterne, and others very fair claret and champagne. Eleanor took the wines on credit; for the rest, her eyes enabled her to give admiration where her taste fell short. And admiration was expected of her. Mr. Esthwaite was in a great state of satisfaction, having very much to do in the admiring way himself. "Did Louisa keep you up stairs to begin upon the fashions?" said he, as he pulled a pineapple to pieces. "I see you have very little appreciation of that subject," said Eleanor. "Yes!" said Mrs. Esthwaite,--"just ask him whether he thinks it important that _his_ clothes should be cut in the newest pattern, and how many good hats he has thrown away because he got hold of something new that he liked better. Just ask him! He never will hear me." "I am going to ask her something," said Mr. Esthwaite. "See here;--you are not going to those savage and inhospitable islands, are you?" Eleanor's smile and answer were as cool as if her whole nature had not been in a stir of excitement. "What in the world do _you_ expect to do there?" said her host with a strong tone of disapprobation. "'Wasting sweetness on the desert air' is nothing to it; this is positive desecration!" Eleanor let the opinion pass, and eat the pineapple which he gave her with an apparently unimpaired relish. "You don't know what sort of a place it is!" he insisted. "I cannot know, I suppose, without going." "Suppose you stay here," said Mr. Esthwaite; "and we'll send for anybody in the world you please! to make you comfortable. Seriously, we want good people in this colony; we have got a supply of all other sorts, but those are in a deficient minority." "In that case, I think everybody that stays here is bound to supply one." "See here--who is that gentleman that is so fortunate as to be expecting you? what is his name?" "Mr. Esthwaite! for shame!" said his wife. "I think you are a very presuming cousin." Mr. Esthwaite knew quite well that he was, but he smiled to himself with satisfaction to see the answer his question had called up into Eleanor's cheeks. The rich dye of crimson was pretty to behold; her words were delayed long enough to mark either difficulty of speaking or displeasure at the necessity for it. Mr. Esthwaite did not care which it was. At last Eleanor answered, with calm distinctness though without facing him. "Do you not know the name?" "I--I believe Mrs. Caxton must have mentioned it in one of her letters. She ought, and I think she did." An impatient throb of displeasure passed through Eleanor's veins. It did not appear. She said composedly, "The name is Rhys--it is a Welsh name--spelled R, h, y, s." "Hm! I remember. What sort of a man is he?" Eleanor looked up, fairly startled with the audacity of her host; and only replied gravely, "I am unable to say." Mr. Esthwaite at least had a sense of humour in him; for he smiled, and his lips kept pertinaciously unsteady for some time, even while he went on talking. "I mean--is he a man calculated for savage, or for civilized life?" "I hope so," said Eleanor wilfully. "Mr. Esthwaite! you astonish me!" said his wife. Mr. Esthwaite seemed however highly amused. "Do you know what savage life is?" he said to Eleanor. "It is not what you think. It is not a garden of roses, with a pineapple tucked away behind every bush. Now if you would come here--here is a grand opening. Here is every sort of work wanting you--and Mr. Rhys--whatever the line of his talents may be. We'll build him a church, and we'll go and hear him, and we'll make much of you. Seriously, if my good cousin had known what she was sending you to, she would have wished the 'Diana' should sink with you on board, rather than get to the end of her voyage. It is quite self-denial enough to come here--when one does not expect to gain anything by it." "Mr. Esthwaite! Egbert!" cried his wife. "Now you are caught! Self-denial to come here! That is what you mean by all your talk about the Colonies and England!" "Don't be--silly,--my dear," said her husband. "These people would think it so. I don't; but I am addressing myself to their prejudices. Self-denial is what they are after." "It is not what I am after," said Eleanor laughing. "I must break up your prejudices." "What are you after, then. Seriously, what are you going to those barbarous islands for--putting friendship and all such regards out of the question? Wheat takes you there,--without humbug? You must excuse me--but you are a very extraordinary person to look at,--as a missionary." Eleanor could hardly help laughing. She doubted whether or no this was a question to be answered; discerning a look of seriousness, as she thought, beneath the gleam in her host's eyes, she chose to run the risk of answering. She faced him, and them, as she spoke. "I love Jesus. And I love to do his work, wherever he gives it to me; or, as I am a woman and cannot do much, I am glad to help those who can." Mr. Esthwaite was put out a little. He had words on his lips that he did not speak; and piled Eleanor's plate with various fruit dainties, and drank one or two glasses of his Australian claret before he said anything more; an interval occupied by Eleanor in cooling down after her last speech, which had flushed her cheeks prodigiously. "That's a sort of work to be done anywhere," he said finally, as if Eleanor had but just spoken. "I am sure it can be done here, and much better for you. Now see here--I like you. Don't you suppose, if you were to try, you could persuade this Mr. Rhys to quit those regions of darkness and come and take the same sort of work at Sydney that he is doing there?" "No." "Seems decided!--" said Mr. Esthwaite humourously, looking towards his wife. "I am afraid this gentleman is a positive sort of character. Well!--there is no use in struggling against fate. My dear, take your cousin off and give her some coffee. I will be there directly." The ladies left him accordingly; and in the pretty drawing-room Mrs. Esthwaite plied Eleanor with questions relating to her voyage, her destination, and above all, the England of which she had heard so much and knew so little. Her curiosity was huge, and extended to the smallest of imaginable details; and one thing followed another with very little of congruous nature between them. And Eleanor answered, and related, and described, and the while thought--where her letters were? Nevertheless she gave herself kindly to her hostess's gratification, and patiently put her own by; and the evening ended with Mrs. Esthwaite being in a state of ecstatic delight with her new-found relation. Mr. Esthwaite had kept silence and played the part of listener for the larger portion of the evening, using his eyes and probably his judgment freely during that time. As they were separating, he asked Eleanor whether she could get up at six o'clock? Eleanor asked what for? "Do, for once; and I will take you a drive in the Domain." "What Domain? yours, do you mean?" "Not exactly. I have not got so far as that. No; it's the Government Domain--everybody rides and drives there, and almost everybody goes at six o'clock. It's worth going; botanical gardens, and all that sort of thing." Eleanor swiftly thought, that it was scarce likely Mr. Amos would have her letters for her, or at least bring them, so early as that; and she might as well indulge her host's fancy if not her own. She agreed to the proposal, and Mrs. Esthwaite went rejoicing with her to her room. "You'll like it," she said. "The botanical gardens are beautiful, and I dare say you will know a great deal more about them than I do. O it's delightful to have you here! I only cannot bear to think you must go away again." "You are very kind to me," said Eleanor gratefully. "My dear aunt Caxton will be made glad to know what friends I have found among strangers." "Don't speak about it!" said Mrs. Esthwaite, her eyes fairly glistening with earnestness. "I am sure if Egbert can do anything he will be too glad. Now won't you do just as if you were at home? I want you to be completely at home with us--now and always. You must feel very much the want of your old home in England! being so far from it, too." "Heaven is my home," said Eleanor cheerfully; "I do not feel the loss of England so much as you think. That other home always seems near." "Does it?" said Mrs. Esthwaite. "It seems such an immense way off, to me!" "I used to think so; but it is near to me now. So it does not so much matter whereabouts on the earth I am." "It must be nice to feel so!" said Mrs. Esthwaite with an unconscious sigh. "Do you not feel so?" Eleanor asked. "O no. I do not know anything about it. I am not good--like you." "It is not goodness--not my goodness--that makes heaven my home," said Eleanor smiling at her and taking her hands. "But I am sure you are good?" said Mrs. Esthwaite earnestly. "Just as you are,--except for the grace of God, which is free to all." "But," said Mrs. Esthwaite looking at her as if she were something hardly of earth like ordinary mortals,--"I have not given up the world as you have. I cannot. I like it too well." "I have not given it up either," said Eleanor smiling again; "not in the sense you mean. I have not given up anything but sin. I enjoy everything else in the world as much as you do." "What do you mean?" said Mrs. Esthwaite, much bewildered. "Only this," said Eleanor, with very sweet gravity now. "I do not love anything that my King hates. All that I have given up, and all that leads to it; but I am all the more free to enjoy everything that is really worth enjoying, quite as well as you can, or any body else." "But--you do not go to parties and dances, and you do not drink wine, and the theatre, and all that sort of thing; do you?" "I do not love anything that my King hates," said Eleanor shaking her head gently. "But dancing, and wine,--what harm is in them?" "Think what they lead to!--" "Well wine--excuse me, I know so little about these things! and I want to know what you think;--wine, I know, if people will drink too much,--but what harm is in dancing?" "None that I know of," said Eleanor,--"if it were always suited to womanly delicacy, and if it took one into the society of those that love Christ--or helped one to witness for him before those who do not." "Well, I will tell you the truth," said Mrs. Esthwaite with a sort of penitent laugh,--"I love dancing." "Ay, but I love Christ," said Eleanor; "and whatever is not for his honour I am glad to give up. It is no cross to me. I used to like some things too; but now I love Him; and his will is my will." "Ah, that is what I said! you are good, that is the reason. I can't help doing wrong things, even if I want to do it ever so much, and when I know they are wrong; and I shouldn't like to give up anything." "Listen," said Eleanor, holding her hands fast. "It is not that I am good. It is that I love Jesus and he helps me. I cannot do anything of myself--I cannot give up anything--but I trust in my Lord and he does it for me. It is he that does all in me that you would call good." "Ah, but you love him." "Should I not?" said Eleanor, "when he loved me, and gave himself for me, that he might bring me from myself and sin to know him and be happy." "And you are happy, are you not?" said Mrs. Esthwaite, looking at her as if it were something that she had come to believe against evidence. There was good evidence for it now, in Eleanor's smile; which would bear studying. "There is nothing but happiness where Christ is." "But I couldn't understand it--those places where you are going are so dreadful;--and why you should go there at all--" "No, you do not understand, and cannot till you try it. I have such joy in the love of Christ sometimes, that I wish for nothing so much in the world, as to bring others to know what I know!" There was power in the lighting face, which Mrs. Esthwaite gazed at and wondered. "I think I am willing to go anywhere and do anything, which my King may give me, in that service." "To be sure," said Mrs. Esthwaite, as if adding a convincing corollary from her own mind,--"you have some other reason to wish to get there--to the Islands, I mean." That brought a flood of crimson over Eleanor's face; she let go her hostess's hands and turned away. "But there was something else I wanted to ask," said Mrs. Esthwaite hastily. "Egbert said--Are you very tired, my dear?" "Not at all, I assure you." "Egbert said there was some most beautiful singing as he came up alongside the ship to-day--was it you?" "In part it was I." "He said it was hymns. Won't you sing me one?" Eleanor liked it very well; it suited her better than talking. They sat down together, and Eleanor sang: "'There's balm in Gilead, To make the wounded whole. There's power enough in Jesus To save a sin-sick soul.'" And somewhat to her surprise, before the hymn had gone far, her companion was weeping; and kept her face hidden in her handkerchief till the last words were sung. "'Come then to this physician; His help he'll freely give. He asks no hard condition,-- 'Tis only, look, and live. For there's balm in Gilead, To make the wounded whole. There's power enough in Jesus To save a sin-sick soul.'" "I never heard anything so sweet in all my life!" said Mrs. Esthwaite as she got up and wiped her eyes. "I've been keeping you up. But do tell me," said she looking at her innocently,--"are all Methodists like you?" "No," said Eleanor laughing; and then she was vexed at herself that the laugh changed to a sob and the tears came. Was _she_ hysterical? It was very unlike her, but this seemed something like it. Neither could she immediately conquer the strangling sensation, between laughter and crying, which threatened her. "My dear! I'm very sorry," said Mrs. Esthwaite. "You are too tired!--and it is my fault. Egbert will be properly angry with me." But Eleanor conquered the momentary oppression, threw off her tears, and gave her hostess a peaceful kiss for good night; with which the little lady went off comforted. Then Eleanor sat down by her window, and with tears wet on her eyelashes yet, looked off to the beautiful moonlit harbour in the distance--and thought. Her thoughts were her own. Only some of them had a reference to certain words that speak of "sowing beside all waters," and a tender earnest remembrance of the seed she had just been scattering. "Beside all waters"--yes; and as Eleanor looked over towards the fair, peace-speaking view of Port Jackson, in New South Wales, she recollected the prayer that labourers might be sent forth into the vineyard. CHAPTER XVI. IN VIEWS. "Know well, my soul, God's hand controls Whate'er thou fearest; Round Him in calmest music rolls Whate'er thou hearest." "That girl is the most lovely creature!" said Mrs. Esthwaite when she rejoined her husband. "What have you been talking to her about? Now she will not be up in time to take a drive in the Domain." "Yes, she will. She has got plenty of spirit. But oh, Egbert! to think of that girl going to put herself in those savage islands, where she won't see anybody!" "It is absurd?" said her husband, but somewhat faintly. "I couldn't but think to-night as I looked at her--you should have seen her.--Something upset her and set her to crying; then she wouldn't cry; and the little white hand she brushed across her eyes and then rested on the chair-back to keep herself steady--I looked at it, and I couldn't bear to think of her going to teach those barbarians. And her eyes were all such a glitter with tears and her feelings--I've fallen in love with her, Egbert." "She's a magnificent creature," said Mr. Esthwaite. "Wouldn't she set Sydney a fire, if she was to be here a little while! But somebody has been beforehand with Sydney--so it's no use talking." Eleanor was ready in good time for the drive, and with spirits entirely refreshed by the night's sleep and the morning's renewing power. Things looked like new things, unlike those which yesterday saw. All feeling of strangeness and loneliness was gone; her spirits were primed for enjoyment. Mr. and Mrs. Esthwaite both watched eagerly to see the effect of the drive and the scene upon her; one was satisfied, the other was not. The intent delight in Eleanor's eyes escaped Mrs. Esthwaite; she looked for more expression in words; her husband was content that Eleanor's mind was full of what he gave it to act upon. The Domain was an exquisite place for a morning drive; and the more stylish inhabitants of Sydney found it so; there was a good display of equipages, varying in shew and pretension. To Mrs. Esthwaite's disappointment neither these nor their owners drew Eleanor's attention; she did not even seem to see them; while the flowers in the woods through which part of the drive was cut, the innumerable, gorgeous, novel and sweet flowers of a new land, were a very great delight to her. All of them were new, or nearly so; how Eleanor contrasted them with the wild things of Plassy which she knew so well. And instead of the blackbird and green wren, there were birds of brilliant hues, almost as gay as the flowers over which their bright wings went, and yet stranger than they. It was a sort of drive of enchantment to Eleanor; the air was delightful, though warm; with no feeling of lassitude or oppression resulting from the heat. There were other pleasures. From point to point, as they drove through the "bush," views opened upon them of the harbour and its islands, glittering in the morning sun. Changes of beauty; for every view was a little unlike the others and revealed the loveliness with a difference. Eleanor felt herself in a new world. She was quite ready for the gardens, when they got through the "bush." The gardens were fine. Here she had a feast which neither of her companions could enjoy with her in anything like fellowship. Eleanor had not lived so long with Mrs. Caxton, entering into all her pursuits, without becoming somewhat well acquainted with plants; and now she was almost equally charmed at seeing her dear old home friends, and at making acquaintance with the glorious beauties that outshone them but could never look so kindly. Slowly Eleanor went through the gardens, followed by her host and hostess who took their enjoyment in observing her. In the Botanical Gardens Mr. Esthwaite came up alongside again, to tell her names and discuss specimens; he found Eleanor knew more about them than he did. "All this was a wild 'bush'--nothing but rocks and trees, a few years ago," he remarked. "_This?_ this garden?" "Yes, only so long ago as 1825." "Somebody has deserved well of the community, then," said Eleanor. "It is a delicious place." "General Sir Ralph Darling had that good desert. It is a fine thing to be in high place and able to execute great plans; isn't it?" Eleanor rose up from a flower and gave Mr. Esthwaite one of her thoughtful glances. "I don't know," she said. "His gardeners did the work, after all." "They don't get the thanks." "_That_ is not what one works for," said Eleanor smiling. "So the thing is done--what matter?" "If it _isn't_ done,--what matter? No, no! I want to get the good of what I do,--in praise or in something else." "What is Sir Ralph Darling the better of my thanks now?" "Well, he's dead!" said Mr. Esthwaite. "So I was thinking." "Well, what do you mean? Do you mean that you would do nothing while you are alive, for fear you would not hear of it after you have left the world?" "Not exactly." "What then? I don't know what you are after." "You say this was all a wilderness a few years ago--why should you despair of what you call the 'black islands?'" "O ho!" said Mr. Esthwaite,--"we are there, are we? By a hop, skip, and jump--leaving the argument. That's like a woman." "Are you sure?" said Eleanor. "Like all the women I ever saw. Not one of them can stick to the point." "Then I will return to mine," said Eleanor laughing--"or rather bring you up to it. I referred--and meant to refer you--to another sort of gardening, in which the labourer receives wages and gathers fruit; but the beauty of it is, that his wages go with him--he does not leave them behind--and the fruit is unto life eternal." "That's fair," said Mr. Esthwaite. "See here--you don't preach, do you?" "I will not, to you," said Eleanor. "Mr. Esthwaite, I will look at no more flowers I believe, this morning, since you leave the time of our stay to me." Mr. Esthwaite behaved himself, and though a speech was on his tongue he was silent, and attended Eleanor home in an unexceptionable manner. Mrs. Esthwaite was in a dissatisfied mood of mind. "I hope it will be a great while before you find a good chance to go to Fiji!" she said. "Do not wish that," said Eleanor: "for in that case I may have to take a chance that is not good." "Ah but, you are not the sort of person to go there." "I should be very sorry to think that," said Eleanor smiling. "Well it is clear you are not. Just to look at you! I am sure you are exactly a person to look always as nice as you do now." "I hope never to look less nice than I do now," said Eleanor, rather opening her eyes. "What, in that place?" "Why yes, certainly. Why not?" "But you will not wear that flat there?" Eleanor and Mr. Esthwaite here both gave way in a fit of laughter. "Why yes I will; if I find it, as I suppose I shall, the most comfortable thing." "But you cannot wear white dresses there?" "If I cannot, I will submit to it, but, my dear cousin, I have brought little else but white dresses with me. For such a climate, what else is so good?" "Not like that you wore yesterday?" "They are all very much alike, I believe. What was the matter with that?" "Why, it was so--" Mrs. Esthwaite paused. "But how can you get them washed? do you expect to have servants there?" "There are plenty of servants, I believe; not very well trained, indeed, or it would not be necessary to have so many. At any rate, they can wash, whatever else they can do." "I don't believe they would know how to wash your dresses." "Then I can teach them," said Eleanor merrily. "_You!_ To wash a cambrick dress!" "That, or any other." "Eleanor, do not talk so!" "Certainly not, if you do not wish it. I was only putting you to rest on the score of my laundry work." "With those hands!" said Mrs. Esthwaite expressively. Eleanor looked down at her hands, for a moment a higher and graver expression flitted over her face, then she smiled again. "I should be ashamed of my hands if they were good for nothing." "Capital!" said Mr. Esthwaite. "That's what I like. That is what I call having spirit. I like to see a woman have some character of her own; something besides hands, in fact." "But Eleanor, I do not understand. I am serious. You never washed; how can you know how?" "That was precisely my reasoning; so I learned." "Learned to _wash?_ _You?"_ "Yes." "You did it with your own hands?" "The dress you were so good as to approve," said Eleanor smiling, "it was washed and done up by myself." "Do you expect to have to do it for yourself?" said Mrs. Esthwaite looking intensely horrified. "No, not generally; but to teach somebody, or upon occasion, you know. You see," she said smiling again her full rich smile, "I am bent upon having my white dresses." Mrs. Esthwaite was too full for speech, and her husband looked at his new cousin with an eye of more absolute admiration than he had yet bestowed on her. Eleanor's thoughts were already on something else; springing forward to meet Mr. Amos and his letters. Breakfast was over however before he arrived. Much to her chagrin, she was obliged to receive him in the company of Mr. and Mrs. Esthwaite; no private talk was possible. Mr. Esthwaite engaged him immediately in an earnest but desultory conversation, about Sydney, Eleanor, and the mission, and the prospect of their getting to their destination; which Mr. Esthwaite prophesied would not be within any moderate limits of time. Mr. Amos owned that he had heard of no opportunity, near or far. The talk lasted a good while and it was not till he was taking leave that Eleanor contrived to follow him out and gain a word to herself. "There are no letters for you," said Mr. Amos, speaking under his breath, and turning a cheerful but concerned face towards Eleanor. "I have made every enquiry--at the post-office, and of everybody likely to know about such things. There are none, and they know of none." Eleanor said nothing; her face grew perceptibly white. "There is nothing the matter with brother Rhys," said Mr. Amos hastily; "we have plenty of news from him--all right--he is quite well, and for a year past has been on another station; different from the one he was on when you last heard from him. There is nothing the matter--only there are no letters for you; and there must be some explanation of that." He paused, but Eleanor was silent, only her colour returned a little. "We want to get away from here as soon as possible, I suppose," Mr. Amos went on half under breath; "but as yet I see no opening. It will come." "Yes," said Eleanor somewhat mechanically. "You will let me know--" "Certainly--as soon as I know anything myself; and I will continue to make enquiry for those letters. Mr. Armitage is away in the country--he might know something about them, but nobody else does; and he ought to have left them with somebody else if he had them. But there can be nothing wrong about it; there is only some mistake, or mischance; the letters from Vuliva where brother Rhys is, are quite recent and everything is going on most prosperously; himself included. And we are to proceed to the same station. I am very glad for ourselves and for you." "Thank you--" Eleanor said; but she was not equal to saying much. She listened quietly, and with her usual air, and Mr. Amos never discovered the work his tidings wrought; he told his wife, sister Powle looked a little blank, he thought, at missing her expected despatches, and no wonder. It was an awkward thing. Eleanor slowly made her way up to her room and sat down, feeling as if the foundations of the earth, to _her_ standing, had given way. She was more overwhelmed with dismay than she would have herself anticipated in England, if she could have looked forward to such a catastrophe. Reason said there was not sufficient cause; but poor Eleanor was to feel the truth of Mrs. Caxton's prediction, that she would find out again that certain feelings might be natural that were not reasonable. Nay, reason said on this occasion that the failure of letters proved too much to justify the distress she felt; it proved a combination of things, that no carelessness nor indifference nor unwillingness to write, on the part of Mr. Rhys, could possibly have produced. Let him feel how he would, he would have written, he _must_ have written to meet her there; all his own delicacy and his knowledge of hers affirmed and reaffirmed that letters were in existence somewhere, though it might be at the bottom of the ocean. Reason fought well; to what use, when nature trembled, and shivered, and shrank. Poor Eleanor! she felt alone now, without a mother and without shelter; and the fair shores of Port Jackson looked very strange and desolate to her; a very foreign land, far from home. What if Mr. Rhys, with his fastidious notions of delicacy, did not fancy so bold a proceeding as her coming out to him? what if he disapproved? What if, on further knowledge of the place and the work, he had judged both unfit for her; and did not, for his own sake only in a selfish point of view, choose to encourage her coming? in that case her being _come_ would make no difference; he would not shelter himself from a judgment displeasing to him, because the escape from its decisions was rendered easy. What if _for his own sake_ his feeling had changed, and he wanted her no longer? years had gone by since he had seen her; it must have been a wayward fancy that could ever have made him think of her at first; and now, about his grave work in a distant land, and with leisure to correct blunders of fancy, perhaps he had settled into the opinion that it was just as well that his coming away had separated them; and did not feel able to welcome her appearance in Australia, and was too sincere to write what he did not feel; so wrote nothing? Not very like Mr. Rhys, reason whispered; but reason's whisper, though heard, could not quiet the sensitive delicacy which trembled at doubt. So miserable, so chilled, so forlorn, Eleanor had never felt in her life; not when the 'Diana' first carried her away from the shores of her native land. What was she to do? that question throbbed at her heart; but it answered itself soon. Stay in Australia she could not; go home to England she could not; no, not upon this mere deficiency of testimony. There was only one alternative left; she must go on whenever Mr. and Mrs. Amos should move. Nature might tremble and quiver, and all Eleanor's nerves did; but there was no other course to pursue. "I can tell," she thought,--"I shall know--the first word, the first look, will tell me the whole; I cannot be deceived. I must go on and meet that word and look, whatever it costs me--I must; and then, if it is--if it is not satisfying to me, then aunt Caxton shall have me! I can go back, as well as I have come. Shame and misery would not hinder me--they would not be so bad as my staying here then." So the question of action was settled; but the question of feeling not so soon. Eleanor's enjoyment was gone, of all the things she had enjoyed those first twenty-four hours, and of all others which her entertainers brought forward for her pleasure. Yet Eleanor kept her own counsel, and as they did not know the cause she had for trouble, so neither did they discover any tokens of it. She did not withdraw herself from their kind efforts to please her, and they spared no pains. They took her in boat excursions round the beautiful harbour. They shewed her the pretty environs of the Parramatta river. Nay, though it was not very easy for him to leave his business, Mr. Esthwaite went with her and his wife to the beautiful Illawarra district; put the whole party on horses, and shewed Eleanor a land of tropical beauty under the clear, bracing, delicious warm weather of Australia. Fern trees springing up to the dimensions of trees indeed, with the very fern foliage she was accustomed to in low herbaceous growth at home; only magnified superbly. There were elegant palms, too, with other evergreens, and magnificent creepers; and floating out and in among them in great numbers were gay red-crested cockatoos and other tropical birds. The character of the scenery was exquisite. Eleanor saw one or two of the fair lake-like lagoons of that district, eat of the fish from them; for they made a kind of gypsey expedition, camping out and providing for themselves fascinatingly; and finally returned in the steamer from Wollongong to Sydney. Her friends would have taken her to see the gold diggings if it had been possible. But Eleanor saw it all, all they could shew her, with half a heart. She had learned long ago to conceal what she felt. "I think she wants to get away," said Mrs. Esthwaite one night, half vexed, wholly sorry. "That's what it is to be in love!" said her husband. "You won't keep her in Sydney. Do you notice she has given up smiling?" "No!" said his wife indignantly; "I notice no such thing. She is as ready to smile as anybody I ever saw."--And I wish I had as good reason! was the mental conclusion; for Eleanor and she had had many an evening talk by that time, and many a hymn had been listened to. "All very well," said Mr. Esthwaite; "but she don't smile as she did at first. Don't you remember?--that full smile she used to give once in a while, with a little world of mischief in the corners? I would like to see it the next time!--" "I declare," said Mrs. Esthwaite, "I think you take quite an impertinent interest in people's concerns. She wouldn't let you see it, besides." At which Mr. Esthwaite laughed. So near people came to it; and Eleanor covered up her troublesome thoughts within her own heart, and gave Mr. Esthwaite the benefit of that impenetrable coolness and sweetness of manner which a good while ago had used to bewitch London circles. In the effort to hide her real thoughts and feelings she did not quite accommodate it to the different latitude of New South Wales; and Mr. Esthwaite was a good deal struck and somewhat bewildered. "You have mistaken your calling," he said one evening, standing before Eleanor and considering her. "Do you think so?" "There! Yes, I do. I think you were born to govern." "I am sadly out of my line then," said Eleanor laughing. "Yes. You are. That is what I say. You ought to be this minute a duchess--or a governor's lady--or something else in the imperial line." "You mistake my tastes, if you think so." "I do not mistake something else," muttered Mr. Esthwaite; and then Mr. Amos entered the room. "Here, Amos," said he, "you have made an error in judging of this lady--she is no more fit to go a missionary than I am. She--she goes about with the air of a princess!" Mrs. Esthwaite exclaimed, and Mr. Amos took a look at the supposed princess's face, as if to reassure or inform his judgment. Apparently he saw nothing to alarm him. "I am come to prove the question," he said composedly; then turning to Eleanor,--"I have heard at last of a schooner that is going to Fiji, or will go, if we desire it." This simple announcement shot through Eleanor's head and heart with the force of a hundred pounder. An extreme and painful flush of colour answered it; nobody guessed at the pain. "What's that?" exclaimed Mr. Esthwaite getting up again and standing before Mr. Amos,--"you have found a vessel, you say?" "Yes. A small schooner, to sail in a day or two." "What schooner? whom does she belong to? Lawsons, or Hildreth?" "To nobody, I think, but her master. I believe he sails the vessel for his own ends and profits." "What schooner is it? what name?" "The 'Queen Esther,' I think." "You cannot go in that!" said Mr. Esthwaite turning off. "The 'Queen Esther'!--I know her. She's not fit for you; she's a leaky old thing, that that man Hawkins sails on all sorts of petty business; she'll go to pieces some day. She ain't sea-worthy, I don't believe." "It is not as good a chance as might be, but it is the first that has offered, and the first that is likely to offer for an unknown time," Mr. Amos said, looking again to Eleanor. "When does she sail?" "In two days. She is small, and not in first-rate order; but the voyage is not for very long. I think we had better go in her." "Certainly. How long is the voyage, regularly?" "A fortnight in a good ship, and a month in a bad one," struck in Mr. Esthwaite. "You'll never get there, if you depend on the 'Queen Esther' to bring you." "We go to Tonga first," said Mr. Amos. "The 'Queen Esther' sails with stores for the stations at Tonga and the neighbourhood; and will carry us further only by special agreement; but the master is willing, and I came to know your mind about it." "I will go," said Eleanor. "Tell Mrs. Amos I will meet her on board--when?" "Day after to-morrow morning." "Very well. I will be there. Will she take the additional lading of my boxes?" "O yes; no difficulty about that. It's all right." "How can I do with the things you have stored for me?" Eleanor said to Mr. Esthwaite. "Can the schooner take them too?" "What things?" "Excuse me--perhaps I misunderstood you. I thought you said you had half your warehouse, one loft of it, taken up with things for me?" "Those things are gone, long ago," said Mr. Esthwaite, in a dogged kind of mood which did not approve of the proposed journey or conveyance. "Gone?" "Yes. According to order. Mrs. Caxton wrote, Forward as soon as possible; so I did." Again Eleanor's brow and cheeks and her very throat were covered with a rush of crimson; but when Mr. Amos took her hand on going away its touch made him ask involuntarily if she were well? "Perfectly well," Eleanor answered, with something in her manner that reminded Mr. Amos, though he could not tell why, of the charge Mr. Esthwaite had brought. Another look into Eleanor's eyes quieted the thought. "Your hand is very cold!" he said. "It's a sign of"--Mr. Esthwaite would have said "fever," but Eleanor had composedly faced him and he was silent; only busied himself in shewing Mr. Amos out, without a word that he ought not to have spoken. Mr. Amos went home and told his wife. "I think she is all right," he said; "but she does not look to me just as she did before we landed. I dare say she has had a great deal of admiration here--" "I dare say she feels bad," said good Mrs. Amos. "Why?" "If you were not a man, you would know," Mrs. Amos said laughing. "She is in a very trying situation." "Is she? O, those letters! It is unfortunate, to be sure. But there must be some explanation." "The explanation will be good when she gets it," Mrs. Amos remarked. "I hope somebody who is expecting her is worthy of her. Poor thing! I couldn't have done it, I believe, even for you." CHAPTER XVII. IN SMOOTH WATER. "But soon I heard the dash of oars, I heard the pilot's cheer; My head was turned perforce away, And I saw a boat appear." The morning came for the "Queen Esther" to sail. Mr. and Mrs. Amos were on board first, and watched with eyes both kind and anxious to see Eleanor when she should come. The little bonnet with chocolate ribbands did not keep them waiting and the first smile and kiss to Mrs. Amos made _her_ sure that all was right. She had been able to see scarce anything of Eleanor during the weeks on shore; it was a refreshment to have her near again. But Eleanor had turned immediately to attend to Mr. Esthwaite. "This is the meanest, most abominable thing of a vessel," he said, "that ever Christians travelled in! It is an absurd proceeding altogether. Why if the boards don't part company and go to pieces before you get to Tonga--which I think they will--they don't give room for all three of you to sit down in the cabin at once." "The deck is of better capacity," Eleanor told him briskly. "Such a deck! I wonder _you_, cousin Eleanor, can make up your mind to endure it. There is not a man living who is worth such a sacrifice. Horrid!" "We hope it won't last a great while," Mr. Amos told him. "It won't! That's what I say. You will all be deposited in the bottom of the ocean, to pay you for not having been contented on shore. I would not send a dog to sea in such a ship!" "Cousin Esthwaite, you had better not stay in a situation so disagreeable to you. You harass yourself for nothing. Shake hands. You see the skipper is going to make sail directly." Eleanor with a little play in the manner of this dismissal, was enough in earnest to secure her point. Mr. Esthwaite felt in a manner constrained to take his departure. He presumed however in the circumstances to make interest for a cousinly kiss for good bye; which was refused him with a cooler demonstration of dignity than he had yet met with. It nettled him. "There was the princess," whispered Mr. Amos to his wife. "Good!" said Mrs. Amos. "Good bye!" cried Mr. Esthwaite, disappearing over the schooner's side. "_You_ are not fit for a missionary! I told you so before." Eleanor turned to Mrs. Amos, ignoring entirely this little transaction, and smiled at her. "I hope he has not made you nervous," she said. "No," said Mrs. Amos; "I am not nervous. If I did not get sick I should enjoy it; but I suppose I shall be sick as soon as we get out of the harbour." "Let us take the good of it then, until we are out of the harbour," said Eleanor. "If the real 'Queen Esther' was at all like her namesake, Ahasuerus must have had a disorderly household." They sat down together on the little vessel's deck, and watched the beautiful shores from which they were gliding away. Eleanor was glad to be off. The stay at Sydney had become oppressive to her; she wanted to be at the end of her journey and know her fate; and hope and reason whispered that she had reason to be glad. For all that, the poor child had a great many shrinkings of heart. A vision of Mr. Rhys never came up in one of its aspects,--that of stern and fastidious delicacy,--without her heart seeming to die away within her. She could not talk now. She watched the sunny islands and promontories of the bay, changing and passing as the vessel slowly moved on; watched the white houses of Sydney, grateful for the home she had found there, longing exceedingly for a home once again that should be hers by right; hope and tremulousness holding her heart together. This was a conflict that prayer and faith did not quell; she could only come to a state of humble submissiveness; and she never thought of reaching Vuliva without a painful thrill that almost took away her breath. But she was glad to be on the way. The vessel was very small, not of so much as eighty tons burthen; its accommodations were of course a good deal as Mr. Esthwaite had said; and more than that, the condition of the vessel and of its appointments was such that Mrs. Amos felt as if she could hardly endure to shut herself up in the cabin. Eleanor resolved immediately that _she_ would not; the deck was a better plate; and she prevailed to have a mattress brought there for Mrs. Amos, where the good lady, though miserably ill as soon as they were upon the ocean roll, yet could be spared the close air and other horrors of the place below deck. Eleanor wrapped herself in her sea cloak, and lived as she could on deck with her; having a fine opportunity to read the stars at night, and using it. The weather was very fine; the wind favouring and steady; and in the Southern Ocean, under such conditions, there were some good things to be had, even on board the "Queen Esther." There were glorious hymn-singings in the early night-time; and Eleanor had never sung with more power on the "Diana." There were beautiful Bible discussions between her and Mr. Amos--Bible contemplations, rather; in which they brought Scripture to Scripture to illustrate their point; until Mr. Amos declared he thought it would be a grand way of holding a Bible-class; and poor Mrs. Amos listened, delighted, though too sick to put in more than a word now and then. And Eleanor's heart gave a throb every time she recollected that another day had gone,--so many more miles were travelled over,--they were so much nearer the journey's end. Her companions found no fault in her. There was nothing of the princess now, but a gentle, thoughtful, excellent nurse, and capital cook. On board the "Diana" there had been little need of her services for Mrs. Amos; little indeed that could be done. Now, in the fresh air on the open deck of the little schooner, Mrs. Amos suffered less in one way; but all the party were sharers in the discomforts of close accommodations and utter want of nicety in anything done or furnished on board. The condition of everything was such that it was scarcely possible to eat at all for well people. Poor Mrs. Amos would have had no chance except for Eleanor's helpfulness and clever management. As on board the "Diana," there was nobody in the schooner that would refuse her anything; and Mr. Amos smiled to himself to see where she would go and what she would do to secure some little comfort for her sick friend, and how placidly she herself munched sea biscuit and bad bread, after their little stock of fruit from Sydney had given out. She would bring a cup of tea and a bit of toast to Mrs. Amos, and herself take a crust with the equanimity of a philosopher. Eleanor did not care much what she eat, those days. Her own good times were when everybody else was asleep except the man at the wheel; and she would kneel by the guards and watch the strange constellations, and pray, and sometimes weep a flood of tears. Julia, her mother and Alfred, Mrs. Caxton, her own intense loneliness and shrinking delicacy in the uncertainty of her position, they were all well watered in tears at some of those watching hours when nobody saw. The "Queen Esther" made the Friendly Islands in something less than a month, notwithstanding Mr. Esthwaite's unfavourable predictions. At Tonga she was detained a week and more; unlading and taking in stores. The party improved the time in a survey of the island and mission premises and in pleasant intercourse with their friends stationed there. Or what would have been pleasant intercourse; it was impossible for Eleanor to enjoy it. So near her destination now, she was impatient to be off; and drew short breaths until the days of delay were ended, and the little schooner once more made sail and turned her head towards Vuliva. She had seen Tonga with but half an eye. Two or three days would finish their journey now. The weather and wind continued fair; they dipped Tonga in the salt wave, and stood on and on towards the unseen haven of their hopes and duties. A new change came over Eleanor. It could not be reason, for reason had striven in vain. Perhaps it was nature, which turning a corner took a new view of the subject. But from the time of their leaving Tonga, she was unable to entertain such troublesome apprehensions of what the end of the voyage might have in store for her. Something whispered it could be nothing very bad; and that point that she had so dreaded began to gather a glow of widely different promise. A little nervousness and trepidation remained about the thought of it; the determination abode fast to see the very first word and look and know what they portended; but in place of the rest of Eleanor's downhearted fear, there came now an overwhelming sense of shamefacedness. This was something quite new and unexpected; she had never known in her life more than a slight touch of it before; and now it consumed her. Even before Mr. and Mrs. Amos she felt it; and her eyes shunned theirs the last day or two as if she had been a shy child. Why was it? She could not help it. This seemed to be as natural and as unreasonable as the other; and in her lonely night watches, instead of trembling and sinking of heart, Eleanor was conscious that her cheeks dyed themselves with that unconquerable feeling of shame. Very inconsistent indeed with her former state of feeling; and that was according to Mrs. Caxton's words; not being reasonable, reason could not be expected from them in anything. Her friends had not penetrated her former mood; this they saw and smiled at; and indeed it made Eleanor very lovely. There was a shy, blushing grace about her the last day or two of the voyage which touched all she did; indeed Mrs. Amos declared she could see it through the little close straw bonnet, and it made her want to take Eleanor in her arms and keep her there. Mr. Amos responded in his way of subdued fun, that it was lucky she could not; as it would be likely to be a disputed possession, and he did not want to get into a quarrel with his brethren the first minute of his getting to land. Up came Eleanor with some trifle for Mrs. Amos which she had been preparing. "We are almost in, sister Eleanor!" said Mr. Amos. "The captain says he sees the land." Eleanor's start was somewhat prompt, to look in the direction of 'Queen Esther's' figure-head. "The light is failing--I don't believe you can see it," said Mr. Amos; "not to know it from the clouds. The captain says he shall stand off and on through the night, so as to have daylight to go in. The entrance is narrow. I suppose, if all is well, we shall have a wedding to-morrow?" Eleanor asked Mrs. Amos somewhat hastily, if what she had brought her was good? "Delicious!" Mrs. Amos said; and pulling Eleanor's face down to her she gave it a kiss which spoke more things than her mere thanks. She was rewarded with the sight of that crimson veil which spread itself over Eleanor's cheeks, which most people thought it was a pleasure to see. Eleanor thought she should get little sleep that night; but she was disappointed. She slept long and sweetly on her mattress; and awoke to find it quite day, with fair wind, and the schooner setting her head full on the land which rose up before her fresh and green, yes, and exceeding lovely. Eleanor got up and shook herself out; her companions were still sleeping. She rolled her mattress together and sat down upon it, to watch the approaches to the land. Fresher and fairer and greener every moment it lifted itself to her view; she could hardly bear to look steadily; her head went down for a minute often under the pressure of the thoughts that crowded together. And when she raised it up, the lovely hills of the island, with their novel outline and green luxuriance, were nearer and clearer and higher than they had been a minute before. Now she could discern here and there, she thought, something that must be a dwelling-house; then trees began to detach themselves from the universal mass; she saw smoke rising; and she became aware too, that along the face of the island, fronting the approach of the schooner, was a wall of surf; and a line of breakers that seemed to stretch right and left and to be without an interval in their white continuity. Eleanor did not see how the schooner was going to get in; for the surf did not break evidently on the shore of the island, but on a reef extending around the shore and at some little distance from it. Yet the vessel stood straight on; and the sweet smell of the land began to come with the freshness of the morning air. "Is this Vuliva before us?" she asked of the skipper whom she found standing near. "Ay, ay!" "Where are you going to get in? I see no opening." "Ay, ay! There _is_ an opening, though." And soon, looking keenly, Eleanor thought she could discern it. Not until they were almost upon it however; and then it was a place of rough water enough, though the regular fall of the surf was interrupted and there was only a general upheaving and commotion of the waves among themselves. It was nothing very terrific; the tide was in a good state; and presently Eleanor saw that they had passed the barrier, they were in smooth water, and making for an opening in the land immediately opposite which might be either the mouth of a river or an inlet of the sea. They neared it fast, sailed up into it; and there to Eleanor's mortification the skipper dropped anchor and swung to. She saw no settlement. Some few scattered houses were plain enough now to be seen; but nothing even like a village. Tufts of trees waved gracefully; rock and hill and rich-coloured lowland spread out a variety of beauty; where was Vuliva, the station? This might be the island. Where were the people? Could they come no nearer than this? Mr. Amos made enquiry. The village, the skipper said, was "round the pint;" in other words, behind a woody headland which just before them bent the course of the river into a sharp angle. The schooner would go no further; passengers and effects were to be transported the rest of the way in boats. People they would see soon enough; so the master of the "Queen Esther" advised them. "I suppose the natives will carry the news of the schooner being here, and our friends will come and look after us," Mr. Amos said. Eleanor changed colour, and sat with a beating heart looking at the fair fresh landscape which was to be--perhaps--the scene of her future home. The scene was peace itself. Still water after the upheavings of the ocean; the smell and almost the fluttering sound of the green leaves in the delicious wind; the ripple on the surface of the little river; the soft stillness of land sounds, with the heavy beat of the surf left behind on the reef outside. Eleanor drew a long breath. People would find them out soon, the skipper had said. She was exceedingly disposed to get rid of her sea dress and put on something that looked like the summer morning; for without recollecting what the seasons were in the Southern Ocean, that was what the time seemed like to her. She looked round at Mrs. Amos, who was sitting up and beginning to realize that she had done with the sea for the present. "How do you do?" said Eleanor. "I should feel better if I could get on something clean." "Come, then!" The two ladies disappeared down the companion way, into one of the most sorry tiring rooms, surely, that ever nicety used for that purpose. But it served two purposes with Eleanor just now; and the second was a hiding place. She did not want to be taken unawares, nor to be seen before she could see. So under the circumstances she made both Mrs. Amos and herself comfortable, and was as helpful as usual in a new line. Then she went to look out; but nobody was in sight yet, gentle or savage; all was safe; she went back to Mrs. Amos and fastened the door. "Let us kneel down and pray together, will you?" she said. "I cannot get my breath freely till we have done that." Mrs. Amos's lips trembled as she knelt. And Eleanor and she joined in many petitions there, while the very stillness of their little cabin floor reminded them they were come to their desired haven, and the long sea journey was over. They rose up and kissed each other. "I am so glad I have known you!" said Mrs. Amos. "What a blessing you have been to us! I wish we might be stationed somewhere together." "I suppose that would be too good to hope for," said Eleanor. "I am going to reconnoitre again." Mrs. Amos half guessed why, and smiled to herself at Eleanor's blushing shyness. "Poor child, her hands were all trembling too," she said in her thoughts. They were broken off by a low summons to the cabin door, which Eleanor held slightly ajar. Through the crack of the door they had a vision. On the deck of the "Queen Esther" stood a specimen of the native inhabitants of the land. A man of tall stature, nobly developed in limbs and muscles, he looked in his native undress almost of giant proportions. His clothing was only a long piece of figured native cloth wound about his loins, one end falling like a train to the very sloop's deck. A thorough black skin was the only covering of the rest of his person, and shewed his breadth of shoulder and strength of muscle to good advantage; as if carved in black marble; only there was sufficient graceful mobility and dignified ease of carriage and attitude; no marble rigidity. Black he was, this savage, but not negro. The features were well cut and good. What the hair might be naturally could only be guessed at; the work of a skilful hair-dresser had left it something for the uninitiated to marvel at. A band of three or four inches in breadth, completely white, bordered the face; the rest, a very luxuriant head, was jet black and dressed into a perfectly regular and smooth roundish form, projecting everywhere beyond the white inner border. He had an uncouth necklace, made of what it was impossible to say, except that part of it looked like shells and part like some animal's teeth; rings of one or two colours were on his fingers; he carried no weapon. But in his huge, powerful black frame, uncouth hair-dressing, and strange uncoveredness, he was a sufficiently terrible object to unused eyes. In Tonga the ladies had seen no such sight. "Do shut the door!" said Mrs. Amos. "He may come this way, and there is nobody that knows how to speak to him." Eleanor shut the door, and looked round at her friend with a smile. "I am foolish!" said Mrs. Amos laughing; "but I don't want to see him just yet--till there is somebody to talk to him." The door being fast, Eleanor applied herself to a somewhat large knot-hole she had long ago discovered in it; one which she strongly suspected the skipper had fostered, if not originated, for his own convenience of spying what was going on. Through this knot-hole Eleanor had a fair view of a good part of the deck, savage and all. He was gesticulating now and talking, evidently to the captain and Mr. Amos, the former of whom either did not understand or did not agree with him. Mr. Amos, of course, was in the former condition. Eleanor watched them with absorbed interest; when suddenly this vision was crossed by another, that looked to her eyes much as a white angel might, coming across a cloud of both moral and physical blackness. Mr. Rhys himself; his very self, and looking very much like it; only in a white dress literally, which in England she had never seen him wear. But the white dress alone did not make the impression to her eyes; there was that air of freshness and purity which some people always carry about with them, and which has to do with the clear look of temperance as well as with great particularity of personal care, and in part also grows out of the moral condition. In three breathless seconds Eleanor took note of it all, characteristics well known, but seen now with the novelty of long disuse and with the background of that huge black savage, to whom Mr. Rhys was addressing some words, of explanation or exhortation--Eleanor could not tell which. She noticed the quiet pleasant manner of his speech, which certainly looked not as if Mrs. Amos had any reason for her fears; but he was speaking earnestly, and she observed too the unbending look of the savage in answer and a certain pleasant deference with which he appeared to be listening. Mr. Rhys had taken off his hat for a moment--it hung in his hand while the other brushed the hair from his forehead. Eleanor's eye even in that moment fell to the hand which carried the hat; it was the same,--she recognized it with a curious sense of bringing great and little things together,--it was the same white and carefully looked-after hand that she remembered it in England. Mr. Rhys's own personal civilization went about with him. Eleanor did not hear any of Mrs. Amos's words to her, which were several; and though Mrs. Amos, half alarmed by her deafness, did not know but she might be witnessing something dreadful on deck, and spoke with some importunity. Eleanor was thinking she had not a minute to lose. Beyond the time of Mr. Rhys's talking to the other visitor on the schooner's deck, there could be but small interval before he would learn all about her being on board; two words to the skipper or Mr. Amos would bring it out; and if she wished to gain that first minute's testimony of look and word, she must be beforehand with them. She thought of all that with a beating heart in one instant's flash of thought, hastily caught up her ship cloak without daring to stop to put it on, slipped back the bolt of the door, and noiselessly passed out upon the deck. She neither heard nor saw anybody else; she was conscious of an intense and pitiful shame at being there and at thus presenting herself; but everything else was second to that necessity, to know from Mr. Rhys's look, with an absolute certainty, where _he_ stood. She was not at that moment much afraid; yet the look she must see. She went forward while he was yet speaking to his black neighbour, she stood still a little behind him, and waited. She longed to hide her eyes, yet she looked steadfastly. _How_ she looked, neither she nor perhaps anybody else knew. There was short opportunity for observation. Mr. Rhys had no sooner finished his business with his sable friend, when he turned the other way; and of course the motionless figure standing so near his elbow, the woman's bonnet and drapery, caught his first glance. Eleanor was watching, with eyes that were strained already with the effort; they got leave to go down now. The flash of joy in those she had been looking at, the deep tone of the low uttered, "Oh, Eleanor!" which burst from him, made her feel on the instant as if she were paid to the full, not only for all she had done, but for all that life might have of disagreeable in store for her. Her eyes fell; she stood still in a sudden trance of contentment which made her as blind and deaf as another feeling had made her just before. Those two words--there had been such a depth in them, of tenderness and gladness; and somehow she felt in them too an appreciation of all she had done and gone through. Eleanor was satisfied. She felt it as well in the hold of her hand, which was taken and kept in a clasp as who should say, 'This is mine.' Perhaps it was out of consideration for her state, that without any further reference to her he turned to Mr. Amos and claimed acquaintance and brotherhood with him; and for a little while talked, informing himself of various particulars of their journey and welfare; never all the while loosing his hold of that hand, though not bringing her into the conversation, and indeed standing so as somewhat to shield her. The question of landing came up and was discussed. The skipper objected to send the schooner's boat, on the score that it would leave too few men on board to take care of the vessel. Mr. Rhys had only a small canoe with him, manned by a single native. So he decided forthwith to return to the village and despatch boats large enough to bring the missionaries and their effects to land; but about that there might be some delay. Then for the first time he bent down and spoke to Eleanor; again that subdued, tender tone. "Are you ready to go ashore?" "Yes." "I will take you with me. Do you want anything out of this big ship? The canoes may not be immediately obtained, for anything but the live freight." He took the grey ship cloak from Eleanor's arm and put it round her shoulders. She felt that she was alone and forlorn no more; she had got home. She was a different creature that went into the cabin to kiss Mrs. Amos, from the Eleanor that had come out. "I've seen him!" whispered Mrs. Amos. "Eleanor! you will not be married till we come, will you?" "I hope not--I don't know," said Eleanor hurriedly seizing her bag and passing out again. Another minute, and it and she were taken down the side of the schooner and lodged in the canoe; and their dark oarsman paddled off. CHAPTER XVIII. AT DINNER. "Nor did she lift an eye nor speak a word, Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of it." Eleanor's shamefacedness was upon her in full force when she found herself in the canoe pushing off from the schooner and her friends there. She felt exceeding shy and strange, and with that a feeling very like awe of her companion. A feeling not quite unknown to her in former days with the same person, and in tenfold force now. There was no doubt to be sure of the secret mind of them both towards each other; nevertheless, he had never spoken to her of his affection, nor given her the least sign of it, except on paper, up to that day; and now he sat for all she could see as cool and grave as ever by her side. The old and the new state of things it was hard to reconcile all at once. To do Eleanor justice, she saw as one sees without looking; she was too shame-faced to look; she bent her outward attention upon their boatman. He was another native, of course, but attired in somewhat more civilized style, though in no costume of civilized lands. What he wore was more like a carman's frock at home than anything else it could be likened to. He was of pleasant countenance, and paddled along with great activity and skill. They had been silent for the first few minutes since leaving the schooner, till at length Mr. Rhys asked her, with a little of the sweet arch smile she remembered so well, "how she had liked the first sight of a Fijian?" It brought such a rush upon Eleanor of past things and present, old times and changes, that it was with the utmost difficulty she could make any answer at all. "I was too much interested to think of liking or disliking." "You were not startled?" "No." "That was a heathen chief, of the opposite village." "He wanted something, did he not?" "Yes; that the captain of the schooner should accommodate him in something he thought would be for his advantage. It was impossible, and so I told him." Eleanor looked again towards the oarsman. "This is one of our Christian brethren." "Are there many?" she asked, though feeling as if she had no breath to ask. "Yes. And we have cause to be thankful every day at hearing of more. We want ten times as many hands as we, have got. How has the long voyage been to you?" Eleanor answered briefly; but then she was obliged to go on and tell of Mrs. Caxton, and of Mr. and Mrs. Amos, and of various other matters; to all which still she answered in as few words as possible. She could not be fluent, with that sense of strangeness upon her; conscious not only that one of her hands was again in Mr. Rhys's hold, but that his eyes were never off her face. He desisted at last from questions, and they both sat silent; until the headland was rounded, and "There is Vuliva!" came from Mr. Rhys's lips. In a little bay curve of the river, behind the promontory, lay the village; looking pretty and foreign enough. But very pretty it was. The odd, or rather the strange-looking houses, sitting apart from each other, some large and some small, intermingled gracefully with trees whose shape and leafage were as new, made a sweet picture. One house in particular as they neared the shore struck Eleanor; it had a neat colonnade of slender pillars in front, and a high roof, almost like a Mansard in form, but thatched with native thatch. A very neat paling fence stretched along in front of this. Very near it, a little further off, rose another building that made Eleanor almost give a start of joy; so homelike and pleasant it looked, as well as surprising. This was an exceeding pretty chapel; again with a high thatched roof, and also with a neat slight bell-tower rising from one end. In front two doors at each side were separated by a large and not inelegant window; other windows and doors down the side of the building promised light and airiness; and the walls were wrought into a curious pattern; reminding Eleanor of the fanciful brick work of a past style of architecture. Near the shore and back behind the chapel and houses, reared themselves here and there the slender stems of palm and cocoa-nut trees, with their graceful tufts of feathery foliage waving at top; other trees of various kinds were mingled among them. Figures were seen moving about, in the medium attire worn by their oarsman. It was a pretty scene; cheerful and home-like, though so unlike home. Further back from the river, on the opposite shore, other houses could be seen; the houses of the heathen village; but Eleanor's eyes were fastened on this one. Mr. Rhys said not one word; only he held her hand in a still closer grasp which was not meaningless. "How pretty it is!" Eleanor forced herself to say. He only answered, "Do you like it?" but it was in such a satisfied tone of preoccupation that Eleanor blushed and thought she might as well leave his meditations alone. Yet though full of content in her heart, Mr. Rhys and his affection seemed both at a distance. It was so exactly the Mr. Rhys of Plassy, that Eleanor could not in a moment realize their changed relations and find her own place. A little thing administered a slight corrective to this reckoning. The little canoe had come to land. Eleanor was taken out of it safely, and then for a moment left to herself; for Mr. Rhys was engaged in a colloquy with his boatman and another native who had come up. Not being able to understand a word of what was going on, though from the tones and gestures she guessed it had reference to the disembarkation of the schooner's party, and a little ready to turn her face from view, Eleanor stood looking landward; in a maze of strangeness that was not at all unhappy. The cocoa-nut tops waved gently a welcome to her; she took it so; the houses looked neat and inviting; glimpses of other unknown foliage helped to assure her she had got home; the country outlines, so far as she could see them, looked fair and bright. Eleanor was taking note of details in a dreamy way, when she was surprised by the sudden frank contact of lips with hers; lips that had no strangeness of their own to contend with. Turning hastily, she saw that the natives with whom Mr. Rhys had been talking had run off different ways, and they two were alone. Eleanor trembled as much as she had done when she first read Mr. Rhys's note at Plassy. And his words when he spoke did not help her, they were spoken so exactly like the Mr. Rhys she had known there. Not exactly, neither, though he only said, "Do you want this cloak on any longer?" "Yes, thank you," said Eleanor stammering,--"I do not feel it." Which was most literally true, for at that moment she did not feel anything external. He looked at her, and exercising his own judgment proceeded to unclasp the cloak from her shoulders and hang it on his arm, while he put her hand on the other. "There is no need for you to be troubled with this now," said he. "I only put it round you to protect your dress." And with her bag in his hand, they went up from the river-side and past the large house with the colonnade. "Whither now?" thought Eleanor, but she asked nothing. One or two more houses were passed; then a little space without houses; then came a paling enclosure, of considerable size, apparently, filled with trees and vines. A gate opened in this and let them through, and Mr. Rhys led Eleanor up a walk in the garden-like plantation, to a house which stood encompassed by it. "Not at home yet!" he remarked to her as they stood at the door; with a slight smile which again brought the blood to her cheeks. He opened the door and they went in. "The good news is true, sister Balliol!" he said to somebody that met them. "I have brought you one of our friends, and there are more to come, that I must go and look after. Is brother Balliol at home?" "No, he is not; he has gone over the river." "Then I will leave this lady in your care, and I will go and see if I can find canoes. I meant to have pressed him into my service. This is Miss Powle, sister Balliol." The lady so called had come forward to meet them, and now took Eleanor by the hand and kissed her cordially. Mr. Rhys took her hand then, when she was released, and explained. "I am going back to the schooner after our friends--if I can find a canoe." And without more words, off he went. Eleanor and Mrs. Balliol were left to look at each other. This latter was a lady of middle height, and kindly if not fine features. A pair of good black eyes too. But what struck Eleanor most about her was her air; the general style of her figure and dress, which to Miss Powle's eyes was peculiar. She wore her hair in a crop; and that seemed to Eleanor a characteristic of the whole make up. Her dress was not otherwise than neat, and yet that epithet would never have occurred to one in describing it; all graces of style or attire were so ignored. Her gown sat without any; so did her collar; both were rather uncivilized, without partaking of the picturesqueness of savage costume. The face was by no means disagreeable; lacking neither in sense, nor in spirit nor in kindliness; but Eleanor perceived at once that the mind must have a serious want somewhere, in refinement or discernment: the exterior was so ruthlessly abandoned to ungainliness. Mrs. Balliol took her to an inner room, where the cloak and the bonnet were left; and returned then to her occupations in the other apartment, while Eleanor set herself down at the window to make observations. The room was large and high, cheerful and airy, with windows at two sides. The one where she sat commanded a view of little beside the garden, with its luxuriant growth of fruit trees and shrubs and flowers. A tropical looking garden; for the broad leaves of the banana waved there around its great bunches of fruit; the canopy of a cocoa-nut palm fluttered slightly overhead; and various fruits that Eleanor did not know displayed themselves along with the pine-apples that she did know. This garden view seemed very interesting to Eleanor, to judge by her intentness; and so it was for its own qualities, besides that a bit of the walk could be seen by which she had come and the wicket which had let her in and by which Mr. Rhys had gone out; but in good truth, as often as she turned her eyes to the scene within, she had such a sense of being herself an object of observation and perhaps of speculation, that she was fain to seek the garden again. And it was true, that while Mrs. Balliol plied her needle she used her eyes as well, and her thoughts with her needle flew in and out, as she surveyed Eleanor's figure in her neat fresh print dress. And the lady's eyebrows grew prophetical, not to say ominous. "She's too handsome!"--that was the first conclusion. "She is quite too handsome; she cannot have those looks without knowing it. Better have brought a plain face to Fiji, than a spirit of vanity. Hair done as if she was just come out of a hair-dresser's!--hum--ruffle all down the neck of her dress--flowing sleeves too, and ruffles round _them_. And a buckle in her belt--a gold buckle, I do believe. And shoes?" The shoes were unexceptionable, but they fitted well on a nice foot; and the hands--were too small and white and delicate ever to have done anything, or ever to be willing to do anything. That was the point. No harm in small hands, Mrs. Balliol allowed, if they did not betray their owner into daintiness of living. She pursued her lucubrations for some time without interrupting those of Eleanor. "Are you from England, sister?" "From England--yes; but we made some stay in Australia by the way," said Eleanor turning from the window to take a more sociable position nearer her hostess. "A long voyage?" "Not remarkably long. I had good companions." "From what part of England?" "The borders of Wales, last." "Brother Rhys is from Wales--isn't he?" "I do not know," said Eleanor, vexed to feel the flush of blood to her cheeks. "Ah? You have known brother Rhys before?" with a searching look. "Yes." "And how do you think you shall like it in Fiji?" "You can hardly expect me to tell under such short trial," said Eleanor smiling. "There are trials enough. I suppose you expect those, do you not?" "I do not mean to expect them till they come," said Eleanor, still smiling. "Do you think that is wise?" said the other gravely. "They will come, I assure you, fast enough; do you not think it is well to prepare the mind for what it has to go through, by looking at it beforehand?" "You never know beforehand what is to be gone through," said Eleanor. "But you know some things; and it is well, I think, to harden oneself against what is coming. I have found that sort of discipline very useful. Sister, may I ask you a searching questions?" "Certainly! If you please," said Eleanor. "You know, we should be ready to give every one a reason of the hope that is in us. I want to ask you, sister, what moved you to go on a mission?" Astonishment almost kept Eleanor silent; then noticing the quick eyes of Mrs. Balliol repeating the enquiry at her face, the difficulty of answering met and joined with a small tide of indignation at its being demanded of her. She did not want to be angry, and she was very near being ready to cry. Her mind was in that state of overwrought fulness when a little stir is more than the feelings can bear. Among conflicting tides, the sense of the ludicrous at last got the uppermost; and she laughed, as one laughs whose nerves are not just under control; heartily and merrily. Mrs. Balliol was confounded. "I should not have thought it was a laughing matter,"--she remarked at length. But the gravity of that threw Eleanor off again; and the little hands and ruffled sleeves were reviewed under new circumstances. And when Eleanor got command of herself, she still kept her hand over her eyes, for she found that she was just trembling into tears. She held it close pressed upon them. "Perhaps you are fatigued, sister?" said Mrs. Balliol, in utter incapacity to account for this demonstration. "Not much. I beg your pardon!" said Eleanor. "I believe I am a little unsettled at first getting here. If you please, I will try being quite quiet for awhile--if you will let me be so discourteous?" "Do so!" said Mrs. Balliol. "Anything to rest you." And Eleanor went back to her window, and turning her face to the garden again rested her head on her hand; and there was a hush. Mrs. Balliol worked and mused, probably. Eleanor did as she had said; kept quiet. The quiet lasted a long time, and the tropical day grew up into its meridian heats; yet it was not oppressive; a fine breeze relieved it and made it no other than pleasant. Home at last! This great stillness and quiet, after the ocean tossings, and months of voyaging, and change, and heart-uncertainty. The peace of heart now was as profound; but so profound, and so thankfully recognized, that Eleanor's mood was a little unsteady. She needed to be still and recollect herself, as she could looking out into the leaves of a great banana tree there in the garden, and forgetting the house and Mrs. Balliol. The quiet lasted a long time, and was broken then by the entrance of Mr. Balliol. His wife introduced him; and after learning that he could now render no aid to Mr. Rhys, he immediately entered into a brisk conversation with the new comer Mr. Rhys had brought. That went well, and was also strengthening. Eleanor was greatly pleased with him. He was evidently a man of learning and sense and spirit; a man of excellent parts, in good cultivation, and filled with a most benign and gentle temper of goodness. It was a pleasure to talk to him; and while they were talking the party from the schooner arrived. Eleanor felt her "shamefacedness" return upon her, while all the rest were making acquaintance, welcoming and receiving welcome. She stood aside. Did they know her position? While she was thinking, Mr. Rhys came to her and put her again in her chair by the window. Mrs. Amos had been carried off by Mrs. Balliol. The two other gentlemen were in earnest converse. Mr. Rhys took a seat in front of Eleanor and asked in a low voice if she wished for any delay? "In what?" said Eleanor, though she knew the answer. "Coming home." He was almost sorry for her, to see the quick blood flash into her face. But she caught her breath and said "No." "You know," he said; how exactly like the Mr. Rhys of Plassy!--"I would not hurry you beyond your pleasure. If you would like to remain here a day or two, domiciled with Mrs. Balliol, and rest, and see the land--you have only to say what you wish." "I do not wish it," said Eleanor, finding it very difficult to answer at all--"I wish it to be just as you please." "You must know what my pleasure is. Does your heart not fail you, now you are here?" he asked still lower and in a very gentle way. "No." "Eleanor, have you had any doubts or failings of heart at any time, since you left England?" "No. Yes!--I did, once--at Sydney." "At Sydney?"--repeated Mr. Rhys in a perceptibly graver tone. "Yes--at Sydney--when I did not get any letters from you." "You got no letters from me?" "No." "At Sydney?" "No," said Eleanor venturing to look up. "Did you not see Mr. Armitage?" "Mr. Armitage! O he was in the back country--I remember now Mr. Amos said that; and he never returned to Sydney while we were there." An inarticulate sound came from Mr. Rhys's lips, between indignation and impatience; the strongest expression of either that Eleanor had ever heard from him. "Then Mr. Armitage had the letters?" "Certainly! and I am in the utmost surprise at his carelessness. He ought to have left them in somebody else's charge, if he was quitting the place himself. When did you hear from me?" The flush rose again, not so vividly, to Eleanor's face. "I heard in England--those letters--you know." "Those letters I trusted to Mrs. Caxton?" "Yes." "And not since! Well, you are excused for your heart failing that once. Who is to do it, Eleanor?--Mr. Amos?" "If you please--I should like--" He left her for a moment to make his arrangements; and for that moment Eleanor's thoughts leaped to those who should have been by her side at such a time, with a little of a woman's heart-longing. Mrs. Caxton, or her mother! If one of them might have stood by her then! Eleanor's head bent with the moment's poor wish. But with the touch of Mr. Rhys's hand when he returned to her, with the sound of his voice, there came as it always did to Eleanor, healing and strength. The one little word "Come," from his lips, drove away all mental hobgoblins. He said nothing more, but there was a great tenderness in the manner of his taking her upon his arm. His look Eleanor dared not meet. She felt very strange yet; she could not get accustomed to the reality of things. This man had never spoken one word of love to her, and now she was standing up to be married to him. The whole little party stood together, while the marriage service of the English church was read. It was preceded however by a prayer that was never read nor written. After the service was over, and after Eleanor had been saluted by the two ladies who were all the representatives of mother and sister and friends for her on the occasion, Mr. Rhys whispered to her to get her bonnet. Eleanor gladly obeyed. But as soon as it appeared, there was a general outcry and protest. What were they going to do?" "Take her to see how her house looks," said Mr. Rhys. "You forget I have something to shew." "But you will bring her back to dinner? do, brother Rhys. We shall have dinner presently. You'll be back?" "If the survey is over in time--but I do not think it will," he answered gravely. "Then tea--you will come then? Let us all be together at tea. Will you?" "It is a happiness we have had no visitors before dinner! I will see about it, sister Balliol, thank you; and take advice." And glad was Eleanor when they got away; which was immediately, for Mr. Rhys's motions were prompt. He led her now not to the wicket by which she had come, but another way, through the garden wilderness still, till another slight paling with a wicket in it was passed and the wilderness took a somewhat different character. The same plants and trees were to be seen, but order and pleasantness of arrangement were in place of vegetable confusion; neat walks ran between the luxuriant growing bananas, and led gradually nearer to the river; till another house came in view; and passing round the gable end of it, Eleanor could cast her eye along the building and take the effect. It was long and low, with a high picturesque thatched roof, and the walls fancifully wrought in a pattern, making a not unpretty appearance. The door was in the middle; she had no time to see more, for Mr. Rhys unlocked it and led her in. The interior was high, wide, and cool and pleasant after the hot sun without; but again she had no time to make observations. Mr. Rhys led her immediately on to an inner room. Eleanor's eyes were dazed and her heart was beating; she could hardly see anything, except, as one takes impressions without seeing, that this answered to the inner room at Mrs. Balliol's, and had far more the air of being furnished and pleasantly habitable. What gave it the air she could not tell; for Mr. Rhys was unfastening her bonnet and throwing it off, and then taking her sea-cloak from his arm and casting that somewhat carelessly away; and then his arms enfolded her. It was the first time they had been really alone since her coming; and now he was silent, so silent that Eleanor could scarcely bear it. She was aware his eyes were studying her fixedly, and she felt as if they could see nothing beside the conscious mounting of the blood from cheek to brow, which reached what to her was a painful flush. Probably he saw it, for the answer came in a little closer pressure of the arms that were about her. She ventured to look up at last; she was unable to endure this silent inspection; and then she saw that his face was full of emotion that wrought too deep for words, too deep even for caresses, beyond the one or two grave kisses with which he had welcomed her. It overcame Eleanor completely. She could not meet the look. It was much more than mere joy or affection; there was an expression of the sort of tenderness with which a mother would clasp a lost child; a full keen sympathy for all she had done and gone through and ventured for him, for all her loneliness and forlornness that had been, and that was still with respect to all the guardians of her childhood or womanhood up to that hour. Eleanor's head sank down. She felt none of that now for which his looks expressed such keen regard; she had got to her resting-place, not the less for all the awe and strangeness of it, which were upon her yet. She could have cried for a very different feeling; but she would not; it did not suit her. Mr. Rhys let her be still for a few minutes. When he did speak, his voice was gravely tender indeed, as it had been to her all day, but there was no sentimentality about it. He spoke clear and abrupt, as he often did. "Do you want to go back to the other house to dinner?" "Do you wish it?" said Eleanor looking up to find out. "I wish to see nothing earthly, this afternoon, but your face." "Then do let it be so!" said Eleanor. He laughed and kissed her, more gaily this time, without seeming able to let her out of his arms; and left her at last with the injunction to keep still a minute till he should return, and on no account to begin an examination of the house by herself. Very little danger there was! Eleanor had not the free use of her eyes yet for anything. Presently he came back, put her hand on his arm, and led her out into the middle apartment. "Do you know," he said as he passed through this, keeping her hand in his own, and looking down at her face,--"what is the first lesson you have to learn?" "No," said Eleanor, most unaffectedly frightened; she did not know why. "The first thing we have to do, on taking possession here to-day is, to give our thanks and offer our prayers in company. Do not you think so?" "Yes--" said Eleanor breathlessly. "But what then?" "I mean together,--not that it should be all on one side. You with me, as well as I with you." "Oh no, Mr. Rhys!" "Why not?--Mrs. Rhys?" "Do not ask me! That would be dreadful!" "I do not think you will find it so." Eleanor stopped short, near the other end of the great apartment. "I cannot do it!" she exclaimed with tears in her eyes, but spoke gravely. "One can always do what is right." "Not to-day--" whispered Eleanor. "One can always do right to-day," he answered smiling. "And it is best to begin as we are going on. Come!" He took her hand and led her forward into the room at the other end of the house; his study, Eleanor saw with half a glance by the books and papers and tables that were there. Still keeping her hand fast in his, they knelt together; and certainly the prayer that followed was good for nervousness, and like the sunshine to dispel all manner of clouds. Eleanor was quieted and subdued; she could not help it; all sorts of memories and associations of Plassy and Wiglands gathered in her mind, back of the thoughts that immediately filled it. Hallowed, precious, soothing and joyful, those minutes of prayer were while Mr. Rhys spoke; in spite of the minutes to follow that Eleanor dreaded. And though her own words were few, and stammering, they were different from what she would have thought possible a quarter of an hour before; and not unhappy to look back upon. Detaining her when they arose, Mr. Rhys asked with something of his old comical look, whether she thought she could eat a dinner of his ordering? Eleanor had no doubt of it. "You think you could eat anything by this time!" said he. "Poor child! But my credit is at stake--suppose you wait here a few minutes, until I see whether all is right." He went off, and Eleanor sat still, feeling too happy to want to look about her. He came again presently, to lead Eleanor to the dining-room. In the lofty, spacious, and by no means inelegant middle apartment of the house, a little table stood spread, looking exceeding diminutive in contrast with the wide area and high ceiling of the room. Here Mr. Rhys with a very bright look established Eleanor, and proceeded to make amends for keeping her so long from Mrs. Balliol's table. Much to her astonishment there was a piece of broiled chicken and a dish of eggs nicely cooked, and Mr. Rhys was pouring out for her some tea in delicate little cups of china. "You see aunt Caxton, do you not?" he said. "O aunt Caxton! in these cups. I thought so. But I had no idea you had such cooks in Fiji?" "They will learn--in time," said he shortly. "You perceive this is an unorganized establishment. I have not indulged in tablecloths yet; but you will put things to rights." "Tablecloths?" said Eleanor. "Yes--you have such things lying in wait for you. You have a great deal to do. And in the first place, you are to find out the good qualities of these fruits of the land," he said, giving her portions of several vegetable preparations with which and with fruits the table was filled. "What is this?" said Eleanor. "Taro; one of the valuable things with which nature has blessed Fiji. The natives cultivate it well and carefully. That is yam; and came from a root five and a half feet long. Eleanor--I do not at all comprehend how you come to be sitting there!" It was so strange and new to Eleanor, and Mr. Rhys was such a compound of things new and things old to her, that a little chance word like this was enough to make her flutter and change colour. He perceived it, and bent his attention to amuse her with the matters of the table; and told her wonders of the natural productions of Fiji. But in the midst of this Mr. Rhys's hand would come abstracting her tea-cup to fill it again; and then Eleanor watched while he did it; and he made himself a little private amusement about getting it sugared right and finding how she liked it; and Eleanor wondered at him and her tea-cup together, and stirred her tea in a subdued state of mind. "One hardly expects to see such a nice little teaspoon in Fiji," she remarked. "Aunt Caxton, again," said Mr. Rhys. "But Mr. Rhys, your Fijians must be remarkable cooks! Or have you taught them?" "I have taught nobody in that line." "Then are they not remarkable for their skill in cookery?" "As a nation, I think they are; and it is one evidence of their mental development. They have a great variety of native dishes, some of which, I believe, are not despicable." "But these are English dishes." "Do justice to them, then, like a good Englishwoman." Eleanor's praise was not undeserved; for the chicken and yam were excellent, and the sweet potatoe which Mr. Rhys put upon her plate was roasted very like one that had been in some hot ashes at home. But everything except the dishes was strange, Mr. Rhys's hand included. Through the whole length of the house, and of course through the middle apartment, ran a double row of columns, upholding the roof. If Eleanor's eye followed them up, there was no ceiling, but the lofty roof of thatch over her head. Under her foot was a mat, of native workmanship; substantial and neat, and very foreign looking. And here were aunt Caxton's cups; and if she lifted her eyes--Eleanor felt most strange then, although most at home. The taro and yam and sweet potatoe were only an introduction to the fruit, which was beautiful as a shew. A native servant came in and removed the dishes, and then set on the table a large basket, in which the whole dessert was very simply served. Cocoanuts and bananas, oranges and wild plums, bread-fruit and Malay apples, came piled together in beautiful mingling. Mr. Rhys went himself to a sort of beaufet in the room and brought plates. "Servants cannot be said to be in complete training," he said with a humourous look as he seated himself. "It would be strange if they were, when there has been no one to train them. And in Fiji." "I do not understand," said Eleanor. "Have you been keeping house he all by yourself? I thought not, from what Mrs. Balliol said." "You may trust sister Balliol for being always correct. No, for the last few months, until lately, I have been building this house. Since it was finished I have lived in it, partly; but I have taken my principal meals at the other house." "_You_ have been building it?" "Or else you would not be in it at this moment. There is no carpenter to be depended on in Fiji but yourself. You have got to go over the house presently and see how you like it. Are you ready for a banana? or an orange? I think you must try one of these cocoanuts." "But you had people to help you?" "Yes. At the rate of two boards a day." "But, Mr. Rhys, if you cannot get carpenters, where can you get cooks?--or do the people have _this_ by nature?" "When you ask me properly, I will tell you," he said, with a little pucker in the corners of his mouth that made Eleanor take warning and draw off. She gave her attention to the cocoanut, which she found she must learn how to eat. Mr. Rhys played with an orange in the mean time, but she knew was really busy with nothing but her and her cocoanut. When she would be tempted by no more fruit, he went off and brought a little wooden bowl of water and a napkin, which he presented for her fingers, standing before her to hold it. Eleanor dipped in her fingers, and then looked up. "You should not do this for me, Mr. Rhys!" she said half earnestly. But he stooped down and took his own payment; and on the whole Eleanor did not feel that she had greatly the advantage of him. Indeed Mr. Rhys had payment of more sorts than one; for cheeks were rosy as the fingers were white which she was drying, as she had risen and stood before him. She looked on then with great edification, to see his fingers deliberately dipped in the same bowl and dried on the same napkin; for very well Eleanor knew they would have done it for no mortal beside her. And then she was carried off to look at the walls of her house. CHAPTER XIX. IN THE HOUSE. "Thou hast found .... Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams, And homestall thatched with leaves." The walls of the house were, to an Englishwoman, a curiosity. They were made of reeds; three layers or thicknesses of them being placed different ways, and bound and laced together with sinnet; the strong braid made of the fibre of the cocoanut-husk. It was this braid, woven in and out, which produced the pretty mosaic effect Eleanor had observed upon the outside. Mr. Rhys took her to a doorway, where she could examine from within and from without this novel construction; and explained minutely how it was managed. "This looks like a foreign land," said Eleanor. "You had described it, and I thought I had imagined it; but sight and feeling are quite a different matter." "I did not describe it to you?" "No--O no; you described it to aunt Caxton." He drew her back a step or two and laid her hand upon the post of the door. "What is this?" said Eleanor. "That is a piece of the stem of the palm-fern." "And these are its natural mouldings and markings! It is like elegant carved work! It is natural, is it not?" she said suddenly. "Certainly. The natives do execute very marvellous carving in wood, with tools that would drive a workman at home to despair; but I have not learned the art. Come here--the pillars that hold up the roof of your house are of the same wood." A double row of pillars through the whole length of the house gave it stability; they were stems of the same palm fern, and as they had been chosen and placed with a careful eye to size and position, the effect of them was not at all inelegant. The building itself was of generous length and width; and with a room cut off at each end, as the fashion was, the centre apartment was left of really noble proportions; broad, roomy, and lofty; with its palm columns springing up to its high roof of thatch. Standing beside one of them, Eleanor looked up and declared it a beautiful room. "Do not look at the doors and windows," said Mr. Rhys. "I did not make those--they were sent out framed. I had only the pleasure of putting them in." "And how did that agree with all your other work?" "Well," he said decidedly. "That was my recreation." "There is the prettiest mixture of wild and tame in this house," said Eleanor, speaking a little timidly; for she was conscious all the while how little Mr. Rhys was thinking of anything but herself. "Are these mats made here?" "Pure Fijian!" The one at which Eleanor was looking, her eyes having fallen to the floor, was both large and elegant. It was very substantially and neatly made, and had a border fancifully wrought all round it, a few inches in width. The pattern of the border was made with bits of worsted and little white feathers. This mat covered all the centre of the room; under it the whole floor was spread with other and coarser ones; and others of a still different manufacture lined the walls of the room. "One need not want a prettier carpet," said Eleanor, keeping her eyes on the mat. Mr. Rhys put his arm round her and drew her off to one side of the room, where he made her pause before a large square space which was sunk a foot deep in the earth and bordered massively with a frame of logs of hard wood. "What do you think of that?" "Mr. Rhys, what is it?" "You would not take it for a fireplace?" he said with a comical look. "But is it a fireplace?" "That is what it is intended for. The Fijians make their fireplaces in this manner." "And you are a Fijian, I suppose." "So are you." "But Mr. Rhys, can a fireplace of this sort be useful in an English house?" "No. But in a Fijian house it may--as I have proved. The natives would have a wooden frame here, at one side, to hold cooking vessels. You do not need that, for you have a kitchen." "With a fireplace like this?" "Yes," he said, with a smile that had some raillery in it, which Eleanor would not provoke. "Suppose you come and look at something that is not Fijian," he went on. "You must vary your attention." He drew her before a little unostentatious piece of furniture, that looked certainly as if it was made out of a good bit of English oak. What it was, did not appear; it was very plain and rather massively made. Now Mr. Rhys produced keys, and opened first doors; then a drawer, which displayed all the characteristic contents and arrangements of a lady's work-box on an extended scale. Love's work; Eleanor could see her adopted mother in every carefully disposed supply of needles and silks and braids and glittering Sheffield ware, and the thousand and one appliances and provisions for one who was to be at a very large distance from Sheffield and every home source of needle furniture. Love recognized love's work, as Eleanor looked into the drawer. "Now you are ready to say this is a small thread and needle shop," said Mr. Rhys; "but you will be mistaken if you do. Look further." And that she might, he unlocked a pair of smaller inner doors; the little piece of furniture developed itself immediately into a capital secretary. As thoroughgoing as the work-box, but still more comprehensive, here were more than mere materials and conveniences for writing; it was a depository for several small but very precious treasures of a scientific and other kinds; and even a few books lay nestling among them, and there was room for more. "What is this!" Eleanor exclaimed when she had got her breath. "This is--Mrs. Caxton! I do not know whether she expected you to turn sempstress immediately for the colony--or whether she intended you for another vocation, as I do." "She sent this from England!" "It was made by nobody worse than a London cabinet-maker. I did not know whether you would choose to have it stand in this place, or in the only room that can properly be called your own. Come in here;--the other part of the house is, you will find, pretty much public." "Even your study?" "That is no exception, sometimes. I am a public man, myself." The partition wall of this room was nicely lined with mats; the door was like a piece of the wall, swinging to noiselessly, but Mr. Rhys shewed Eleanor how she could fasten it securely on the inside. Eleanor had been taken into this room on her first arrival; but had then been unable to see anything. Now her eyes were in requisition. Here there was even more attention paid to comfort and appearances than in the dining-room. In the simplest possible manner; but somebody had been at work there who knew that elegance is attainable without the help of opulence; and that eye and hand can do what money cannot. Eye and hand had been busy everywhere. Very pretty and soft native mats were on the floor; the windows were shaded with East Indian _jalousies;_ and not only personal convenience but tastes were regarded in the various articles of furniture and the arrangement of them. Good sense was regarded too. Camp chairs and tables were useful for packing and moving, as well as neat to the eye; white draperies relieved their simplicity; shelves were hung against the wall in one place for books, and filled; and in the floor stood an easy chair of excellent workmanship, into which Mr. Rhys immediately put Eleanor. But she started up to look at it. "Did aunt Caxton send all these things?" she said with a tear in her eye. "She has sent almost too many. These are but the beginning, Look here, Eleanor." He opened a door at one end of the room, hidden under mat hangings like the other, which disclosed a large space lined with shelves; several articles reposing on them, and on the floor below sundry chests and boxes. "This is your storeroom. Here you may revel in the riches you do not immediately wish to display. This is yours; I have a storeroom on my own part." "And what is in those chests and boxes, Mr. Rhys?" "I don't know! except that it is aunt Caxton again. You will find tablecloths and napkins--I can certify that--for I stumbled upon them; but I thought they had best not see the light till their owner came. So I locked them up--and here are the keys." "And who put up all these nice shelves?" "Your head carpenter." "And have you been doing all this for me?" said Eleanor. He laughed and took her in his arms again, looking at her with that mixture of expressions. "I wish I could give you some of my content!" he said. "I do not want it!" said Eleanor laughing. "Is that declaration entirely generous?" Eleanor had no mind, like a wise woman, to answer this question; but she was held under the inspection of an eye that she knew of old clear and keen beyond all others to untie the knot of anybody's meaning. She flushed up very much and tried to turn it off, for she saw he had a mind to have the answer. "You do not want me to give account of every idle word after that fashion?" she said lightly. "Hush--hush," he said, with a gravity that had much sweetness in it. "I cannot have you speak in that way." "I will not--" said Eleanor, suddenly much more sober than he was. "There are too many that have the habit of using their Master's words to point their own sentences. Do not let us use it. Come to my study--you did not see it before dinner, I think." Eleanor was glad he could smile again, for at that minute she could not. She felt whirled back to Plassy, and to Wiglands, to the time of their old and very different relations. She could not realize the new, nor quietly understand her own happiness; and a very fresh vivid sense of his character made her feel almost as much awe of him as affection. That was according to old habit too. But if she felt shy and strange, she was the only one; for Mr. Rhys was in a very gay mood. As they went through the dining-room he stopped to shew and display to her numerous odd little contrivances and arrangements; here a cupboard of rustic, and very pretty too, native work; or at least native materials. There a more sophisticated beaufet, which had come from Sydney by Mrs. Caxton's order. "Dear Mrs. Caxton!" said Mr. Rhys,--"she has forgotten nothing. I am only in astonishment what she can have found to fill your new invoice of boxes." "Why there are not many," said Eleanor. He looked at her and laughed. "You will be doing nothing but unpacking for days to come," he said. "I have done what I never thought I should do--married a rich wife." "Why aunt Caxton sends the things quite as much to you as to me." "Does she?" "I am sure, if anybody is poor, I am." "If that speech means _me_," said Mr. Rhys with a little bit of provokingness in the corners of his mouth,--"I don't take it. I do not feel poor; and never did. Not to-day certainly, with whole shiploads coming in." "I do not know of a single unnecessary thing but your microscope." "Have you brought that?" he said with a change of tone. "It would be just like Mrs. Caxton to come out and make us a visit some day! I cannot think of anything else she could give us, that she has not given. Look at my book-cases." Eleanor did, thinking of their owner. They were of plainest construction, but so made that they would take to pieces in five minutes and become packing cases with the books packed, all ready for travel; or at pleasure, as now, stand up in their place in the study in the form of very neat bookcases. They were not large; a Fijian missionary's library had need be not too extensive; but Eleanor looked over their contents with hurried delight. The rest of the room also spoke of Mrs. Caxton; in light neat tables and chairs and other things. Here too, though not a hand's turn had apparently been wasted, everything, simple as it was, had a sort of pleasantness of order and fitness which left the eye gratified. Eleanor read that and the meaning of it. Here were contrivances again that Mr. Rhys had done; shelves, and brackets, and pins to hang things; nothing out of use, but all so contrived as to give a certain elegant effect to this plain work-room. Even the book and paper disorder was not that of a careless man. Still it was not like the room at the other end of the house. The mats that floored and lined it were coarser; there were no _jalousies_ at the windows; and no easy chair anywhere. One thing it had like the other; a storeroom cut off from it. This was a large one, like Eleanor's, and filled. His money-drawer, Mr. Rhys called it. All sorts of articles valued by the natives were there; Mrs. Caxton had taken care to send a large supply. These were to serve the purposes of barter. Mr. Rhys displayed to Eleanor the stores of iron tools, cotton prints, blankets, and articles of clothing, that were stowed away there; stowed away with an absolute order and method which again she looked at as significant of one side at least of Mr. Rhys's character. He amused himself with displaying everything; shewed her the whole of the new and strangely appointed establishment over which she had come to preside, so far at least as the house contained it; and when he had brought her to something like an apparent share in his own gay mood, at last placed her in a camp chair in the dining-room, which he had set in the middle of the floor, and opened the door of the house. It gave Eleanor a lovely view. The plantations had been left open, so that the eye had a fair range down to the river and to the opposite shore, where another village stood. It was seen under bright sunshine now. Mr. Rhys let her look a moment, then shut the door, and came and sat down before her, taking both her hands in his own; and Eleanor knew from a glance at his face that the same thoughts were working within him that had wrought that moved look before dinner--when she first came. She felt her colour mounting; it tried her to be silent under his eye in that way. "Mr. Rhys, do you remember preaching to me one day at Plassy--when we were out walking?" "Yes," he said with a half laugh. "I wish you would do it again." "I will preach you a sermon every morning if you like." "No, but now. I wish you would, so as to make me realize that you are the same person." "I am not the same person at all!" he said. "Why are you not?" said Eleanor opening her eyes at him. "In those days I was your pastor and friend simply. The difference is, that I have acquired the right to love you--take care of you--and scold you." "It seems to me that last was a privilege you exercised occasionally in those times," said Eleanor archly. "Not at all! In those days I was a poor fellow that did not dare say a word to you." Eleanor's recollections were of sundry exceptions to this rule, so marked and prominent in her memory that she could not help laughing. "O Mr. Rhys, don't you remember--" "What?" said he with the utmost gravity. But Eleanor had stopped, and coloured now brilliantly. "It seems that your recollections are of a questionable character," he said. Eleanor did not deny it. "What is it you wish me _not_ to remember?" "It was a time when you said I was very wrong," said Eleanor meekly, "so do not call it back." He bent forward to kiss her, which did not steady Eleanor's thoughts at all. "Do you want preaching?" he said. "Yes indeed! It will do me good." "I will give you some words to think of, that I lived in all yesterday. 'Beloved of God.' They are wonderful words, that Paul says belong to all the saints; and they were about me yesterday like a halo of glory, from morning to night." Now Eleanor was all right; now she recognized Mr. Rhys and herself, and listened to every word with her old delight in them. Now she could use her eyes and look at him, though she well saw that he was considering her with that full, moved tenderness that she had felt in him all day; even when he was talking and thinking of other things he did not cease to remember _her_. "Eleanor, what do you know about the meaning of those words?" "Little!" she said. "And yet, a little." "You know that _we_ were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols--or after others in our own hearts--as helplessly as the poor heathen around us. But we have got the benefit of that word,--'I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.'" "Yes!" "Then look at our privileges--'The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between is shoulders.'--Heavenly security; unearthly joy; a hiding-place where the troubles of earth cannot reach us." Mr. Rhys left his position before Eleanor at this, and with a brow all alight with its thoughts began to pace up and down in front of her; just as he had done at Plassy, she remembered. She ventured not a word. Her heart was very full. "Then look how we are bidden to increase our rejoicing and to delight ourselves in the store laid up for us; we are not only safe and happy, but fed with dainties. All things are ready; Christ says he will sup with us; and we are bidden--'Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.' 'He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.' "And then, Eleanor, if we are the elect of God, holy and beloved, what bowels of mercies should be in us; how precious all other beloved of him should be to us; how we should be constrained by his love. Are you? I am. I am willing to spend and be spent for these people among whom we are. I am sure there are many, many children of God among them, come and coming. I seek no better than to labour for them. It is the delight of my soul! Eleanor, how is it with you?" He had stood still before her during these last words, and now sat down again, taking her hands and looking with his undeceivable gaze into her face. "I desire the same thing. I dare not say, I desire it as strongly as you do,--but it is my very wish." "Is it for the love of Christ--or for love of these poor creatures? or for any other reason?" "I can hardly separate the first two," said Eleanor, looking a little wistfully. "The love of Christ is at the bottom of it all." "There is no other motive," he said; "no other that will do the work; nothing else that will work true love to them. But when I think of my Master--I am willing to do or be anything, I think, in his service!" He quitted her hands and began slowly walking up and down again. "Mr. Rhys," said Eleanor, "what can I do?" "Are you ready to encounter disagreeablenesses, and hardships, and privations, in the work?" "Yes; and discouragements." "There are no such things. There ought to be no such things. I never feel nor have felt discouraged. That is want of faith. Do you remember, Eleanor, 'The clouds are the dust of his feet?' Think--our eyes are blinded by the dust, we look at nothing else, and we do not see the glory of the steps that are taken." "That is true. O Mr. Rhys, that is glorious!" "Then you are not afraid? I forewarn you, little annoyances are sometimes harder to bear than great ones. It is one of the most trying things that I have to meet," said Mr. Rhys standing still with a funny face,--"to have Ra Mbombo's beard sweep my plate when I am at dinner." "What does he do that for?" "He is so fond of me." "That is being too fond, certainly." "It is an excess of affectionate attention,--he gets so close to me that we have a community of things. And you will have, Eleanor, some days, a perpetual levee of visitors. But what is all that, for Christ?" "I am not afraid," said Eleanor with a most unruffled smile. "I wrote to frighten you." "But I was not frightened. Are things no better in the islands than when you wrote?" "Changing--changing every day; from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. Literally. There are heathen temples here, in which a few years ago if a woman or a child had dared cross the threshold they would have been done to death immediately. Now those very temples are used as our schools. On our way to the chapel we shall pass almost over a place where there used to be one of the ovens for cooking human bodies; now the grass and wild tomatoes are growing over it. I can take you to house after house, where men and women used to be eaten, where now if you stand to listen you may hear hymns of praise to Jesus and prayer going up in his name. Praise the Lord! It is grand to be permitted to live in Fiji now!"-- Eleanor was hushed and silent a few minutes, while Mr. Rhys walked slowly up and down. Then she spoke with her eyes full of sympathetic tears. "Mr. Rhys, what can I do?" "What you have to do at present," he said with a change of tone, "is to take care of me and learn the language,--both languages, I should say! And in the mean while you had better take care of your pins,"--he stooped as he spoke, to pick up one at her feet and presented it with comical gravity. "You must remember you are not in England. Here you could not spend pin-money even if you had it." "If I were inclined to be extravagant," said Eleanor laughing at him, "your admonition would be thrown away; I have brought such quantities with me." "Of pins?" "Yes." "I hope you will not ever use them!" "Why not?" "I do not see what a properly made dress has to do with pins." But at this confession of masculine ignorance Eleanor first looked and then laughed and covered her face, till he came and sat down again and by forcible possession took her hands away. "You have no particular present occasion to laugh at me," he said. "Eleanor, what made you first willing to quit England and go anywhere?" The answer to this was first an innocent look, and then an extreme scarlet flush. She could not hide it, with her hands prisoners; she sat in a pretty state of abashment. A slight giving way of the mouth bore witness that he read and understood it, though his immediate words were reassuringly grave and unchanged in tone. "I remember, you did not comprehend such a thing as possible, at one time. When was that changed? You used to have a great fear." "I lost part of that at Plassy." "Where did you lose the rest of it, Eleanor?" "It was in London." He saw by the light in Eleanor's eyes, which looked at him now, that there was something behind. Yet she hesitated. "Sealed lips?" said he bending forward again to her face. "You must unseal them, Eleanor." "Do you want me to tell you all that?" she asked questioningly. "I want you to tell me everything." "It is only a long story." "Do not make it short." An easy matter! to go on and tell it with her two hands prisoners, and those particularly clear eyes looking into her face. It served to shew the grace that belonged to Eleanor, the way that in these circumstances she began what she had to say. Where another woman would have been awkward, she spoke with the simple sweet poise of manner that had been the admiration of many a company, and that made Mr. Rhys now press the little hands closer in his own. A little evident shy reluctance only added to the grace. "It is a good while ago--I felt, Mr. Rhys, that I wanted,--just that which makes one willing to go anywhere and do anything; though not for that reason. I expected to live in England always. I wanted to know more of Christ. I wanted it, not for work's sake but for happiness' sake. I was a Christian, I suppose; but I knew--I had seen and felt--that there were things,--there was a height of Christian life and attainment, that I had not reached; but where I had seen other people, with a light upon their brows that I knew never shined upon mine. I knew whence it came--I knew what I wanted--more knowledge of Christ, more love of him." "When was this?" "It is a good while ago. It is--it was,--time seems so confused to me!--I know it was the winter after you went away. I think it was near the spring. We were in London." "Yes." "I was cold at the heart of religion. I was not happy. I knew what I wanted--more love to Christ." "You did love him." "Yes; but you know what it is just to love him a little. I went as duty bade me; but the love of him did not make all duty happy. I had seen you live differently--I saw others--and I could not be content as I was. "We were in town then. One night I sat up all night, and gave the whole night to it." "To seeking Jesus?" "I wanted to get out of my coldness and find him!" "And you found him?" "Not soon. I spent the night in it. I prayed--and I walked the floor and prayed--and I shed a great many tears over the Bible. I felt as if I must have what I wanted--but I could not seem to get any nearer to it. The whole night passed away--and I had wearied myself--and I had got nothing. "The dawn was just breaking, when I got up from my knees the last time. I was almost giving up in despair. I had done all I could--what could I do more? I went to the window and opened it. The light was just creeping up in the sky--there was a little streak of brightness along the horizon, or of light rather, but it was the herald of brightness. I felt desolate and tired, and like giving up hope and quest together. The dull grey canopy overhead seemed just like my heart. I cannot tell you how enviously I looked at the eastern dawn, wishing the light would break upon my own horizon. I shall never forget it. It was dusky yet down in the streets and over the housetops; the city had not waked up in our quarter; it was still yet, and the breath of the morning's freshness came to me and revived me and mocked me both at once. I could have cried for sadness, if I had not been too down-hearted and weary. "While I stood there, hearing the morning's promise, I suppose, without knowing it--there came up from the streets somewhere below me, and near, the song of a chimney-sweep. I can never tell you how it came! It came--but not yet; at first I only knew what he was singing by the notes of the air; but the next verse he began came up clear and strong to me at the window. He was singing those words-- "'Twas a heaven below My Redeemer to know; And the angels could do nothing more, Than to fall at his feet, And the story repeat, And the Lover of sinners adore.' "I thought, it seemed that a band of angels came and carried those words up past my window! And the dawn came in my heart. I cannot tell you how,--I seemed to see everything at once. I saw what a heaven below it is, to know the love of Christ. I think my heart was something like the Ganges when the tide is coming in. I thought, if the angels could do nothing more than praise him, neither could I! I fell at his feet then--I do not think I have ever really left them since--not for long at a time; and since then my great wish has been to be allowed to glorify him. I have had no fears of anything in the way." Eleanor had not been able to get through her "long story" without tears; but they came very much against her will. She could not see, yet somehow she felt the strong sympathetic emotion with which she was listened to. She could hear it, in the subdued intonation of Mr. Rhys's words. "'Keep yourselves in the love of God.' How shall we do it, Eleanor?" She answered without raising her eyes--"'The Lord is good unto them that wait for him.'" "And, 'if ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.'" There was silence a moment. "That commandment must take me away for a while, Eleanor." She looked up. "I thought," he said, with his sweet arch smile, "I might take so much of a honeymoon as one broken day--but there is a poor sick man a mile off who wants me; and brother Balliol has had the schooner affairs to attend to. I shall be gone an hour. Will you stay here? or shall I take you to the other house?" "May I stay here?" "Certainly. You can fasten the door, and then if any visiters come they will think I am not at home. I will give Solomon directions." "Who is Solomon?" "Solomon is--I will introduce him to you!" and with a very bright face Mr. Rhys went off into his study, coming back again in a moment and with his hat. He went to a door opposite that by which Eleanor had entered the house, and blew a shrill whistle. "Solomon is my fast friend and very faithful servant," he said returning to Eleanor. "You saw him at dinner--but it is time he should know you." In came Solomon; a very black specimen of the islanders, in a dress something like that which Eleanor had noticed on the man in the canoe. Solomon's features were undeniably good, if somewhat heavy; they had sense and manliness; and his eye was mildly quiet and genial in its expression. It brightened, Eleanor saw, as he listened to Mr. Rhys's words; to which she also listened without being able to understand them, and wondering at the warm feeling of her cheeks. Solomon's gratulations were mainly given with his face, for all the English words he could get out were, "glad--see--Misi Risi"--Mr. Rhys laughed and dismissed him, and went off himself. Eleanor was half glad to be left alone for a time. She fastened the door, not for fear, but that her solitude might not be intruded upon; then walked up and down over the soft mats of the centre room and tried to bring her spirits to some quiet of realization. But she could not. The change had been so sudden, from her wandering state of uncertainty and expectation to absolute content and rest, of body and mind at once, that her mental like her actual footing seemed to sway and heave yet with the upheavings that were past. She could not settle down to anything like a composed state of mind. She could not get accustomed yet to Mr. Rhys in his new character. As the children say, it was "too good to be true." A little unready to be still, she went off again into the room specially prepared for her, where the green jalousies shaded the windows. One window here was at the end; a direction in which Eleanor had not looked. She softly raised the jalousies a little, expecting to see just the waving bananas and other plants of the tropical garden that surrounded the house; or perhaps servants' offices, about which she had a good deal of curiosity. Instead of that, the window revealed a landscape of such beauty that Eleanor involuntarily pulled up the blind and sat entranced before it. No such thing as servants or servants' offices. A wide receding stretch of broken country, rising in the distance to the dignity of blue precipitous hills; a gorge of which opened far away, to delight and draw the eye into its misty depth; a middle distance of lordly forest, with patches of clearing; bits of tropical vegetation at hand, and over them and over it all a tropical sky. In one direction the view was very open. Eleanor could discern a bit of a pathway winding through it, and once or twice a dark figure moving along its course. This was Vuliva! this was her foreign home! the region where darkness and light were struggling foot by foot for the mastery; where heathen temples were falling and heathen misery giving place to the joy of the gospel, but where the gospel had to fight them yet. Eleanor looked till her heart was too full to look any longer; and then turned aside to get the only possible relief in prayer. The hour was near gone when she went to her window again. The day was cooling towards the evening. Well she guessed that this window had been specially arranged for her. In everything that had been done in the house she had seen that same watchful care for her pleasure and comfort. There never was a house that seemed to be so love's work; Mr. Rhys's own hand had most manifestly been everywhere; and the furniture that Mrs. Caxton had sent he had placed. But Mrs. Caxton had not sent all. Eleanor's eye rested on a dressing-table that certainly never came from England. It was pretty enough; it was very pretty, even to her notions; yet it had cost nothing, and was as nearly as possible made of nothing. Yes, for she looked; the frame was only some native reeds or canes and a bit of board; the rest was white muslin drapery, which would pack away in a very few square inches of room, but now hung in pretty folds around the glass and covered the frame. Eleanor just looked and wondered; no more; for the hour was up, and she went to her window and raised the jalousies again. She was more quiet now, she thought; but her heart throbbed with the thought of Mr. Rhys and his return. She looked over the beautiful wild country, watching for him. The light was fair on the blue hills; the sea-breeze fluttered the leaves of the cocoanut trees and waved the long thick leaves of the banana. She heard no other sound near or far, till the quick swift tread she was listening for came to her ear. Nobody was to be seen; but the step was not to be mistaken. Eleanor got to the front door and had it open just in time to see him come. They stood then together in the doorway, for the view was fair on the river side too. The opposite shore was beautiful, and the houses of the heathen village had a great interest for Eleanor, aside from their effect as part of the landscape; but her shyness was upon her again, and she had a thorough consciousness that Mr. Rhys did not see how the light fell on either shore. At last he put his arm round her and drew her up to his side, saying, "And so you did not get my letters in Sydney.--Poor little dove!" It struck Eleanor with a curious pleasure, these words. They would have been true, she knew, in the lips of no other mortal, as also certainly to no other mortal would it have occurred to use them. She was not the sort of person by any means to whom such an appellation would generally be given. To be sure her temper was of the finest, but then also it had a body to it. Yet here she knew it was true; and he knew; it was spoken not by any arrogance, but by a purely frank and natural understanding of their mutual natures and relations. She answered by a smile, exceeding sweet and sparkling, as well as conscious, to the face that was looking down at her with a little bit of provoking archness upon its gravity; and their lips met in a long sealing kiss. Husband and wife understood each other. Perhaps Mr. Rhys knew it, for it seemed as if his lips could hardly leave hers; and Eleanor's face was all manner of lights. "What has become of Alfred?" he asked, in an irrelevant kind of manner, by way of parenthesis. "I have not seen him--hardly--since you left England. He is not under mamma's care now." "And my friend Julia? You have told me but a mite yet about everybody." "Julia is your friend still. But Julia--I have not seen her in a long, long time." "How is that?" "Mamma would not let me. O Mr. Rhys!--we have been kept apart. I could not even see her when I came away." "Why?" "Mamma--she was afraid of my influence over her." "Is it possible!" "Julia was going on well--setting her face to do right. Now--I do not know how it will be. Even our letters are overlooked." "I need not ask how your mother is. I suppose she is trying to save one of her daughters for the world." Eleanor's thoughts swept a wide course in a few minutes; remembered whose hand instrumentality had saved her from such a fate and had striven for Julia. With a sigh that was part sorrow and part gratitude, Eleanor laid her head softly on Mr. Rhys's shoulder. With such tenderness as one gives to a child, and yet rarer, because deeper and graver, she was made at home there. "Don't you want to take a walk to the chapel?" "O yes!"--But she was held fast still. "And shall we give sister Balliol the pleasure of our company to tea, as we come back?" "If you please--if you like." "I do not like it at all," said Mr. Rhys frankly--"but I suppose we must." "Think of finding the restraints of society even in Fiji!" said Eleanor trying to laugh, as she brought her bonnet and they set out. "You must find them everywhere--unless you live to please yourself;" said Mr. Rhys, with his sweet grave look; and Eleanor was consoled. The walk to the church was not very long, and she could have desired it longer. The river shore, and the view on the other side, and the village by which they passed, the trees and the vegetable gardens and the odd thatched roofs--everything was pretty and new to Eleanor's eyes. They passed all they had seen in coming from the landing that morning, taking this time a path outside the mission premises. Past the house with the row of pillars in front, which Eleanor learned was a building for the use of the various schools. A little further on stood the chapel. It was neat and tasteful enough to please even an English eye; and indeed looked more English than foreign on a distant view; and standing there in the wilderness, with its little bell-tower rising like a witness for all that was good in the midst of a heathen land, the feelings of those who looked upon it had need be very tender and very deep. "This chapel is dear to our eyes," said Mr. Rhys. "Everything is, that costs such pains. This poor people have made it; and it is one of the best pieces of work in Fiji. It was all done by the labour of their hearts and hands." "That seems to be the style of carpentry in this country," said Eleanor. "The chief made up his mind on a good principle--that for a house of the true God, neither time nor material could be too precious. On that principle they went to work. The timber used in the building is what we call green-heart--the best there is in Fiji. To find it, they had to travel over many a mile of the country; and remember, there are no oxen here, no horses; they had no teams to help them. All must be done by the labour of the hands. I think there were about eighty beams of green-heart timber needed for the house--some of them twelve and some of them fifty feet long. In about three months these were collected; found and brought in from the woods and hills, sometimes from ten miles away. While the young men were doing this, the old men at home were all day beating cocoanut husk, to separate the fibre for making sinnet. All day long I used to hear their beaters going; it was good music; and when at the end of every few days the woodcutters came home with their timber--so soon as they were heard shouting the news of their coming--there was a general burst and cry and every creature in the village set off to meet them and help drag the logs home. Women and children and all went; and you never saw people so happy. "Then the building was done in the same spirit. Many a time when I was busy with them, overlooking their work, I have heard them chanting to each other words from the Bible--band against band. One side would sing--'But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded.'--Then the other side would answer, 'The Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.' I cannot tell you how sweet it was. There was another chant they were very fond of. A few would begin with Solomon's petition--'Have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer, which thy servant prayeth before thee to-day: that thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there: that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place,'--and here a number of the other builders would join in with their cry--'Hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make!' And so in the next verse, when it came near the end the others would join in--'And when thou hearest, forgive!'--" "I should think you would love it!" said Eleanor, with her eyes full of tears. "And I should think the Lord would love it." "Come in, and see how it looks on the inside." The inside was both simple and elegant, after a quaint fashion; for it was Fijian elegance and Fijian simplicity. A double row of columns led down the centre of the building; they looked like mahogany, but it was only native wood; and the ornamental work at top which served for their capitals, was done in sinnet. Over the doors and windows triangular pediments were elaborately wrought in black with the same sinnet. The roof was both quaint and elegant. It was done in alternate open and close reed-work, with broad black lines dividing it; and ornamental lashings and bandings of sinnet were used about the fastenings and groinings of spars and beams. Then the wings of the communion rail were made of reed-work, ornamented; the rail was a beautiful piece of nut timber, and the balusters of sweet sandal wood. The whole effect exceeding pretty and graceful, though produced with such simple means. "Mr. Ruskin ought to have had this as an illustration of his 'Lamp of Sacrifice,'" said Eleanor. "How beautiful!--" "The 'Lamp of Truth,' too," said Mr. Rhys. "It is all honest work. That side was done by our heathen neighbours. The heathen chief sent us his compliments, said he heard we were engaged in a great work, and if we pleased he would come and help us. So he did. They built that side of the wall and the roof." "Did they do it well?" "Heartily." "Do they come to attend worship in it?" "The chapel is a great attraction. Strangers come to see--if not to worship,--and then we get a chance to tell the truth to them." "And Mr. Rhys, how is the truth prospering generally?" "Eleanor, we want men!--and that seems to be all we want. My heart feels ready to break sometimes, for the want of helpers. I am glad of brother Amos coming--very glad!--but we want a hundred where we have one. It is but a few weeks since a young man came over from one of the islands, a large and important island, bringing tidings that a number of towns there had given up heathenism--all wanting teachers--and there were no teachers for them. In one place the people had built a chapel; they had gone so far as that; it was at Koroivonu--and they gathered together the next Sunday after it was finished, great numbers of the people, filled the chapel and stood under some bread-fruit trees in front of it, and stood there waiting to have some one come and tell them the truth--and there was no one. My heart is ready to weep blood when I think of these things! The Tongan who came with the news came with his eyes full of tears. And this is no strange nor solitary case of Koroivonu." Mr. Rhys walked the floor of the little chapel, his features working, his breast heaving. Eleanor sat thinking how little she could do--how much she would! "You have native helpers--?" she said gently. "Praise the Lord for what they are! but we want missionaries. We want help from England. We cannot get it from the Colonies--not fast enough. Eleanor,"--and he stopped short and faced her--"a few months ago, to give you another instance, I was beholder of such a scene as this. I was to preach to a community that were for the first time publicly renouncing heathenism. It was Sunday."--Mr. Rhys spoke slowly, evidently exercising some control over himself; how often Eleanor had seen him do that in the pulpit!-- "I stood on the shores of a bay, reefed in from the ocean. I wish I could put the scene before you! On the land side, one of the most magnificent landscapes stretched back into the country, with almost every sort of natural beauty. Before me the bay, with ten large canoes moored in it. An island in the bay, I remember, caught the light beautifully; and beyond that there was the white fence of breakers on the reef barrier. The smallest of the canoes would hold a hundred men; they were the fleet of Thakomban, one of Fiji's fiercest kings formerly, with himself and his warriors on board. "My preaching place was on what had been the dancing grounds of a village. I had a mat stretched on three poles for an awning--such a mat as they make for sails;--and around me were nine others prepared in like manner. This was my chapel. Just at my left hand was a spot of ground where were ten boiling springs; and until that Sunday, one of them had been the due appointed place for cooking human bodies. That was the place and the preparation I looked at in the still Sunday morning, before service time. "At that time, the time appointed for service, a drum was beat and the conch shell blown; the same shell which had been used to give the war call. Directly all those canoes were covered with men, and they were plunging into the water and wading to shore. These were Thakomban and his warriors. Not blacked and stripped and armed for fighting, but washed and clothed. They were stopping in that place on their way somewhere else, and now coming and gathering to hear the preaching. On the other side came a procession from the village; and down every hillside and along every path, I could see scattering groups and lines of comers from the neighbouring country. _These_ were the heathen inhabitants, coming up now to hear the truth and profess by a public act of worship that they were heathens no longer. They all gathered round me there under the mat awnings, and sat on the grass looking up to hear, while I told them of Jesus." Mr. Rhys's voice was choked and he broke off abruptly. Eleanor guessed how he had talked to that audience; she could see it in his flushing face and quivering lip. She could not find a word to say, and let him lead her in silence and slowly away from the chapel and towards the mission house. Before entering the plantation again, Eleanor stopped and said in a low voice, "What can I do?" He gave her a look of that moved sweetness she had seen in him all day, and answered with his usual abruptness, "You can pray." "I do that." "Pray as Paul prayed--for your mother, and for Julia, and for Fiji, and for me. Do you know how that was?" "I know what some of his prayers were." "Yes, but I never thought how Paul prayed, until the other day. You must put the scattered hints together. Wait until we are at home--I will shew you." He pushed open the wicket and they went in; and the rest of the evening Eleanor talked to Mrs. Amos or to Mr. Balliol; she sheered off a little from his wife. There was plenty of interesting conversation going on with one and another; but Eleanor had a little the sense of being to that lady an object of observation, and drew into a corner or into the shade as much as she could. "Your wife is very handsome, brother Rhys," Mrs. Balliol remarked in an aside, towards the end of the evening. "That is hardly much praise from you, sister Balliol," he answered gravely. "I know you do not set much store by appearances." "She is very young!" Both looked over to the opposite corner where Eleanor was talking to Mrs. Amos, sitting on a low seat and looking up; a little drawn back into the shade, yet not so shaded but that the womanly modest sweetness of her face could be seen well enough. Mr. Rhys made no answer. "I judge, brother Rhys, that she has been brought up in the great world,"--Mrs. Balliol went on, looking across to the ruffled sleeve. "She is not in it now," Mr. Rhys observed quietly. "No;--she is in good hands. But, brother Rhys, do you think our sister understands exactly what sort of work she has come to do here?" "She is teachable," he answered with great imperturbability. "Well, you will be able to train her, if she wants it. I am glad to know she is in such good hands. I think she has hardly yet a just notion of what lies before her, brother Rhys." "When did you make your observations?" "She was with me, you know--you left her with me this morning. We were alone, and we had a little conversation." "Mrs. Balliol, do you think a just notion of _anything_ call be formed in half an hour?" His question was rather grave, and the lady's eyes wavered from meeting his. She fidgeted a little. "O you know best, of course," she said; "I have had very little opportunity--I only judged from the want of seriousness; but that might have been from some other cause. You must excuse me, if I spoke too frankly." "You can never do that to me," he said. "Thank you, sister Balliol. I will take care of her." Mrs. Balliol was reassured. But neither during their walk home nor ever after, did Mr. Rhys tell Eleanor of this little bit of talk that had concerned her. CHAPTER XX. AT WORK. "My Lady comes; my Lady goes; he can see her day by day, And bless his eyes with her beauty, and with blessings strew her way." The breakfast-table was as much of a mystery to Eleanor as the dinner had been. Not because it looked so homelike; though in the early morning the doors and windows were all open and the sunlight streaming through on Mrs. Caxton's china cups and silver spoons. It all looked foreign enough yet, among those palm-fern pillars, and on the Fijian mat with its border made of red worsted ends and little white feathers. The basket of fruit, too, on the table, did not look like England. But the tea was unexceptionable, and there was a piece of fresh fish as perfectly broiled as if it had been brought over by some genius or fairy, smoking hot, from an English gridiron. And in the order and arrangements of the table, there had been something more than native skill and taste, Eleanor was sure. "It seems to me, Mr. Rhys," she said, "that the Fijians are remarkably good cooks!" "Uncommon, for savages," said Mr. Rhys with perfect gravity. "This fish is excellent." "There is no better fish-market in the world, for variety and abundance, than we have here." "But I mean, it is broiled just like an English fish. Isaac Walton himself would be satisfied with it." "Isaac Walton never saw such fishing as is carried on here. The natives are at home in the water from their childhood--men and women both;--and the women do a good deal of the fishing. But the serious business is the turtle fishing. It is a hand to hand conflict. The men plunge into the water and grapple bodily with the turtle, after they have brought them into an enclosure with their nets. Four or five men lay hold of one, if it is a large fellow, and they struggle together under water till the turtle thinks he has the worst of the bargain, and concludes to come to the surface." "Does not the turtle sometimes get the better?" "Sometimes." "Mr. Rhys, have you any particular duty to-day?" "I don't see how you can keep up that form of expression!" said he, with a comic gravity of dislike. "Why not?" "It is not treating me with proper confidence." Her look in reply was so very pretty, both blushing and winsome, that the corners of his mouth were obliged to give way. "You know what my first name is, do not you?" "Yes," said Eleanor. "The people about call me 'Misi Risi'--I am not going to have my wife a Fijian to me." The lights on Eleanor's face were very pretty. With the same contained smile he went on. "I gave you my name yesterday. It is yours to do what you like with; but the greatest dishonour you can shew to a gift, is not to use it at all." "That is the most comical putting of the case that ever I heard," said Eleanor, quite unable to retain her own gravity. "Very good sense," said Mr. Rhys, with a dry preservation of his. "But after all," said Eleanor, "you gave me your second name, if you please--I do not know what I have to do with the first." "You do not? Is it possible you think your name is Henry or James, or something else? You are Rowland Rhys as truly as I am--only you are the mistress, and I am the master." Eleanor's look went over the table with something besides laughter in the brown eyes, which made them a gentle thing to see. "Mr. Rhys, I am thinking, what you will do to this part of you to make it like the other?" He gave her a glance, at which her eyes went down instantly. "I do not know," he said with infinite gravity. "I will think about it. Preaching does not seem to do you any good." Eleanor bent her attention upon her bread and fruit. He spoke next with a change of tone, giving up his gravity. "Do you know _your_ particular duty to-day?" "I thought," said Eleanor,--"that as yesterday you shewed me the head-carpenter, perhaps this morning you would let me see the chief cook." "That is not the first thing. You must have a lesson in Fijian; now that I hope you are instructed in English." He carried her off to his study to get it. The lesson was a matter of amusement to Mr. Rhys, but Eleanor set herself earnestly to learn. Then he said he supposed she might as well see her establishment at once, and took her out to the side of the house where she had not been. It was a plantation wilderness here too, though particularly devoted to all that in Fiji could belong to a kitchen garden. English beans and peas had been sown, and were flourishing; most of the luxuriance that met the eye had a foreign character. Beautiful order was noticeable everywhere. Mr. Rhys seemed to have forgotten all about the servants; he pleased himself with leading Eleanor through the walks and shewing her which were the plants of the yam and the kumera and other native fruits and vegetables. Bananas were here too, and the graceful stems of the sugar cane; and overhead the cocoa-nut trees waved their feathery plumes in the air. "Who did all this?" Eleanor asked admiringly. "Solomon--with a head gardener over him." "Solomon is--I saw him yesterday?" "Yes. He came with me from Vulanga. He is a nice fellow. He is a Christian, as I told you; and a true labourer in the great vineyard. I believe he never misses an opportunity to speak to his countrymen in a quiet way and tell them the truth. He has brought a great many to know it. In my service he is very faithful." "No wonder this garden looks nice," said Eleanor. "I asked Solomon one day about his religious experience. He said he was very happy; he had enjoyed religion all the day. He said he rose early in the morning and prayed that the Lord would greatly bless him and keep him; and that it had been so, and generally was so when he attended to religious duties early in the morning. 'But if I neglect and rush into the world,' he said, 'without properly attending to my religious duties, nothing goes right. I am wrong in my own heart, and no one round me is right.'" "Good testimony," said Eleanor. "Is he your cook as well as your gardener?" "I had forgotten all about the cook," said Mr. Rhys. "Come and see the kitchen." Near the main dwelling house, in this planted enclosure, were several smaller houses. Mr. Rhys at last took Eleanor that way, and permitted her to inspect them. The one nearest the main building was fitted for a laundry. The furthest was a sleeping house for the servants. The middle one was the kitchen. It was a Fijian kitchen. Here was a large fireplace, of the original fashion which had moved Eleanor's wonder in the dining-room; with a Fijian framework of wood at one side of it, holding native vessels of pottery, larger and smaller, and variously shaped, for cooking purposes. Some more homelike iron utensils were to be seen also; with other kitchen appurtenances, water jars and so forth. A fire had been in the fireplace, and the signs of cookery were remaining; but in all the houses, nobody was anywhere visible. "Solomon is gone to collect your servants," said Mr. Rhys. "That explains the present solitude." "Did he cook that fish?" "I have not tried him in cooking," said Mr. Rhys with a gravity that was perfect. "I do not know what he could do if he was tried." "Who did it then?" His smile was wonderfully pleasant--now that it could be no longer kept back--as he answered, "Your servant." "_You_, Rowland! And the dinner yesterday?" "Do not praise me," he said with the same look, "lest I should spoil the dinner to-day. I do not expect there will be anybody here till afternoon." "Then you shall see what I can do!" "I do not believe you know how. I have been long enough in the wilderness to learn all trades. You never learned how to cook at Wiglands." "But at Plassy I did." "Did aunt Caxton let you into her kitchen?" "Yes." "I shall not let you into mine." "She went with me there. I have not come out here to be useless. I will take care of the dinner to-day." "No, you shall not," said Mr. Rhys, drawing her away from the kitchen. "You have got enough to do to-day in unpacking boxes. There will be servants this evening to attend to all you want; and for the present you are my care." "Rowland, I should like it." Which view of the case did not seem to be material. At least it was answered in a silencing kind of way, as with his arm about her he led her in through the bananas to the house. It silenced Eleanor effectually, in spite of being very serious in her wish. She put it away to bide another opportunity. Mr. Rhys gave her something else to do, as he had said. The boxes had in part been brought from the schooner, and there was employment for both of them. He drew out nails, and took off covers, and did the rough unpacking; while the arranging and bestowing of the goods thus put under her disposal kept Eleanor very busy. His part of the work was finished long before hers, and Mr. Rhys withdrew to his study for some other work. Eleanor, happy and busy, with touched thoughts of Mrs. Caxton, put away blankets and clothes and linen and calicos, and unpacked glass, and stowed on her shelves a whole store of home comforts and necessaries; marvelling between whiles at Mr. Rhys's varieties of power in making himself useful and wishing she could do what she thought was better her work than his--the work to be done in the kitchen before the servants came home. By and by, Mr. Rhys came out of the study again, and found Eleanor sitting on the mat before a huge round hamper, uncovered, filled with Australian fruit. This was a late arrival, brought while he had been shut up at his work. Grapes and peaches and pears and apricots were crowded side by side in rich and beautiful abundance and confusion. Eleanor sat looking at it. She was in a working dress, of the brown stuff her aunt's maids wore at home; short sleeves left her arms bare to the elbow; and the full jacket and hoopless skirt did no wrong to a figure the soft outlines of which they only disclosed. Mr. Rhys stopped and stood still. Eleanor looked up. "Mr. Esthwaite has sent these on in the schooner unknown to me! What shall I do with them all?" "I don't know," said Mr. Rhys. "It is the penalty that attaches to wealth." "But you said you never were poor?" said Eleanor, laughing at his look. "I never was, in feeling. I never was in an embarrassment of riches, either. I can't help you!" "But these are yours, Rowland. What are you talking of?" "Are you going to make me a present of the whole?" said Mr. Rhys, stooping down for a grape. "No, Mr. Esthwaite has done that. The embarrassment is yours." "I am in no embarrassment; you are mistaken. By what right do you say that Mr. Esthwaite has sent these to me?" "Because he sent them to me," said Eleanor. "It is the same thing." "That is dutiful, and loyal, and all that sort of thing," said Mr. Rhys, helping himself to another grape, and looking with his keen eyes and imperturbable gravity at Eleanor. Perhaps _he_ liked to see the scarlet bloom he could so easily call up in her cheeks, which was now accompanied with a little impatient glance at him. "Nevertheless, I do not consider myself to be within the scope of the gift. The disposition of it remains with you. I do not like the responsibilities of other people's wealth to rest on my shoulders." "But this fruit is different from what we have on the island; is there not something you would like to have done with it?" "I should like you to give me one bunch of grapes--to be chosen by yourself." He looked on, with a satisfied expression of face, while Eleanor's fingers separated and overhauled the fruit till she had got a bunch to her mind; and stood still in his place to let her bring it to him. Then took possession of her and the grapes at once, neglecting the latter however entirely, to consider her. "What would you like to have done with the rest, Rowland?" said Eleanor, while her face glowed under his caresses and examination. "This is a very becoming dress you have on!" "I did not know you noticed ladies' dresses." "I always notice my own." Eleanor's head drooped a little, to hide the rush of pleasure and shame. "But, Rowland," she said with gentle persistence, "what _would_ you like to have done with that basket? Isn't there some meaning behind your words about it?" "What makes you think so?" said he, curling the corners of his mouth in an amused way. "I thought so. Please tell it me! You have something to tell me." "The fruit is yours, Eleanor." "And what am I?" The tears came into her eyes with a little vexed earnestness, for she fancied that Mr. Rhys would not speak _because_ the fruit was hers. His manner changed again, to the deep tenderness which he had shewn so frequently; holding her close and looking down into her face; not answering at once; half enjoying, half soothing, the feeling he had raised. "Eleanor," he said, "I do not want that fruit." "Tell me what to do with it." "If you like to send some of those grapes to sister Balliol, at the other house, I think they would do a great deal of good." "I will just take out a few for you, and I will send the whole basket over there just as it is. Is there anybody to take it?" "Do not save any for me." "Why not?" "Because I do not want anything more than I have got." "I suppose I may do about that as I please?" said Eleanor, laughing a little. "No--you may not. I only want this bunch that I have in my hand, for a poor sick fellow whom I think they will comfort. If you feel as I do, and like to send the rest over to the mission house, I think they will be well and gratefully used." "But Rowland, why did you not tell me that just at first?" she said a little wistfully. "Do you feel as I do? Tell me that first." But as Eleanor was not ready with her answer to this question, of course her own got the go-by. Mr. Rhys laughed at her a little, and then told her she might get the house ready for dinner. Very much Eleanor wished she could rather get the dinner ready for the house; yet somehow she had an instinctive knowledge that it would be no use to ask him; and she had a curious unwillingness to make the request. "Do you know," she said, looking up in his face, "I do not know how it is, but you are the only person I ever was afraid of, where my natural courage had full play?" "Does that sentiment possess you at present?" "Yes--a little." He laughed again, and said it was wholesome; and went off without seeming in the least dismayed by the intelligence. If Eleanor had ventured that remark as a feeler, she was utterly discomfited. She went about her pretty work of getting the little table ready and acquainting herself with the details of her cupboard arrangements, feeling a little amused at herself, and with many deeper thoughts about Mr. Rhys and the basket of fruit. They were sitting in the study after dinner, alternately talking and studying Fijian, when Mr. Rhys suddenly asked, "Of whom have you ever been afraid, Eleanor, where your natural courage did not have full play?" "Mr. Carlisle." "How was that?" "I was in a false position." "I feared that, at one time," said Mr. Rhys thoughtfully. "I was a bond woman--under engagements that tied me--I did not dare do as I felt. I understand it all now." "Do you like to tell me how it happened?" "I like it very much. I want that you should know just how it was. I was pressed into those engagements without my heart being in them, and indeed very much against my will; but I was dazzled by a vision of worldly glory that made me too weak to resist. Then thoughts of another kind began to rise within me; I saw that worldly glory was not the sufficient thing I had thought it; and as my eyes got clear, I found I had given no love where I had given my promise. Then that consciousness hampered me in every action." "But you did not break with him--with Mr. Carlisle?" "Because I was such a bondwoman, as I told you. I did not know what I might do--what was right,--and I wanted to do right then; till I went to Plassy. Aunt Caxton set me free." Mr. Rhys was silent a little. "Do you remember coming to visit the old window in the ruins, just before you went to Plassy that time?" he said, looking round at her with a smile. His wife though she was, Eleanor could not help a warm flush of consciousness coming over her at the recollection. "I remember," she said demurely. "It was in December." "What were you afraid of at that time?" "Mr. Carlisle." "Did you think it was _he_ whom you heard?' "No. I thought it was you." "Then why were you afraid?" "I had reason enough," said Eleanor, in a low voice. "Mr. Carlisle had taken it into his head to become jealous of you." She answered with a certain straightforward dignity, but Mr. Rhys had a view of dyed cheeks and a face which shrank from his eye. He beheld it, no doubt, for a little while; at least he was silent; and ended with one or two kisses which to Eleanor's feeling, for she dared not look, spoke him very full of satisfaction. But he never brought up the subject again. The thoughts raised by the talk about the basket of fruit recurred again a few days later. Eleanor had got into full train of her island life by this time. She was studying hard to learn the language, and beginning to speak words of it with her strange muster of servants. Housekeeping duties were fairly in hand. She had begun to find out, too, what Mr. Rhys had foretold her respecting visitors. They came in groups and singly, at all hours nearly on some days, to see the new house and the new furniture and the new wife of "Misi Risi." Eleanor could not talk to them; she could only be looked at, and answer through an interpreter their questions and requests, and watch with unspeakable interest these strange poor people, and admire with unceasing admiration Mr. Rhys's untiring kindness, patience, and skill, in receiving and entertaining them. They wanted to see and understand every new thing and every new custom. They were polite in their curiosity, but insatiable; and Mr. Rhys would shew and explain and talk, and never seem annoyed or weary; and then, whenever he got a chance, put in his own claim for attention, and tell them of the Gospel. Eleanor always knew from his face and manner, and from theirs, when this sort of talk was going on; and she listened strangely to the unknown words in which her heart went along so blindly. When he thought her not needed, or when he thought her tired, Mr. Rhys would dismiss her to her own room, which he would not have invaded; and Eleanor's reverence for her husband grew with every day, although she would not at the beginning have thought that possible. At the end of these first few days, Eleanor went one afternoon into Mr. Rhys's study. He was in full tide of work now. The softly swinging door let her in without much noise, and she stood still in the middle of the room, in doubt whether to disturb him or no. He was busy at his writing-table. But Mr. Rhys had good ears, even when he was busy. While she stood there, he looked up at her. She was a pretty vision for a man to see and call wife. She was in one of the white dresses that had stirred Mrs. Esthwaite's admiration; its spotless draperies were in as elegant order as ever they had been for Mrs. Powle's drawing room; the rich banded brown hair was in as graceful order. She stood there very bright, very still, looking at him. "You have been working a long time, Rowland. You want to stop and rest." "Come here, and rest me," he answered stretching out his hand. "Rowland," said Eleanor when she had been standing a minute beside him. "Mrs. Balliol wants me to cut off my hair." Mr. Rhys looked up at her, for with one arm round her he was still bending attention upon his work. He glanced up as if in doubt or wonder. "I have been over to see her," Eleanor repeated, "and she counsels me to cut off my hair; cut it short." "See you don't!" he said sententiously. "Why?" said Eleanor. "It would be the cause of our first and last quarrel." "Our first," said Eleanor stifling some hidden amusement; "but how could you tell that it would be the last?" "It would be so very disagreeable!" Mr. Rhys said, with a gravity so dryly comic that Eleanor's gravity was destroyed. "Mrs. Balliol says I shall find it, my hair, I mean, very much in my way." "It would be in _my way_, if it was cut off." "She says it will take a great deal of precious time. She thinks that your razor would be better applied to my head." "Than to what other object?" "Than to its legitimate use and application. She wants me to get you to let your beard grow, and to cut off my hair. 'It's unekal'--as Sam Weller says." Eleanor was laughing; she could not see Mr. Rhys's face very well; it was somewhat bent over his papers; but the side view was of unprovokable gravity. A gravity however which she had learned to know covered a wealth of amusement or of mischief, as the case might be. She knelt down to bring herself within better speaking and seeing distance. "Rowland, what sort of people are your coadjutors?" "They are the Lord's people," he answered. Eleanor felt somewhat checked; the gravity of this answer was of a different character; but she could not refrain from carrying the matter further; she could not let it rest there. "Do you mean," she said a little timidly, but persistently, "that you are not willing to speak of them as they are, _to me?_" He was quite silent half a minute, and Eleanor grew increasingly sober. He said then, gently but decidedly, "There are two persons in the field, of whose faults I am willing to talk to you; yours and my own." "And of others you think it is wrong, then, to speak even so privately and kindly as we are speaking?" Eleanor was very much chagrined. Mr. Rhys waited a moment, and then said, in the same manner, "I cannot do it, Eleanor." He got up a moment after and went out of the room. Eleanor felt almost stunned with surprise and discomfort. This was the second time, in the few days that she had been with him, that he had found her wrong in something. It troubled her strangely; and the sense of how much he was better than she--how much higher his sphere of living than the one she moved in--pressed her heart down almost to the ground. She stood by the writing-table where she had risen to her feet, with her eyes brimful of tears, but so still even to her eyelids that the tears had not overflowed. She supposed Mr. Rhys had gone out. In another moment however she heard his step returning and he entered the study. Eleanor moved instantly to leave it, but he met and stayed her with a look infinitely sweet; turned her about, and made her kneel down with him. And then he poured out a prayer for charity; not merely the kindness that throws a covering over the failings of others, or that holds back the report of what they have been; but the overabounding heavenly love that will send its brightness into the dark places of human society and with its own richness fill the barren spots; and above all, for that love of Jesus the King, that makes all his servants dear, for that spirit of Christ that looks with his own love and forbearance on all that need it. And so, as the speaker prayed, he shewed his own possession of that which he asked for; so revealed the tender and high walk of his own mind and its near familiarity with heavenly things, that Eleanor thought her heart would break. The feeling, how far he stood above her in knowledge and in goodness, while it was a secret and deep joy, yet gave her acute pain such as she never had felt before. She would not weep; it was a dry aching pain, that took part of its strength from the thought of having done or shewn something that he did not like. But Mr. Rhys went on to pray for her alone; and Eleanor was conquered then. Tears came and she cried like a little child, and all the hard pain of pride or of fear was washed away; like the dust from the leaves in a summer shower. She was so far healed, but she would have run way when they rose from their knees if he had permitted her. He had no such intention. Keeping fast hold of her hand he brought her to a seat by the window, opened it, for the day was now cooling off and the sea-breeze was fresh; and taking the book of their studies he put her into a lesson of Fijian practice; till Eleanor's spirits were thoroughly restored. Then throwing away the book and taking her in his arms he almost kissed the tears back again. "Eleanor----" he said, when he saw that her eyes were wet, and her colour and her voice were fluttering together. "What?" "You must bear the inconvenience of your hair for my sake. Tell sister Balliol you wear it by my express orders." Eleanor's look was lovely. She saw that the gentleness of this speech was intended to give her back just that liberty she might think was forbidden. Humbleness and affection danced in her face together. "And you do not object to white dresses, Rowland?" "Never--when they are white--" he said with one of his peculiar smiles. "Rowland," said Eleanor, now completely happy again, "you ought to have those jalousie blinds at these windows. You want them here much more than I do." "How will you prove that?" "By putting them here; and then you will confess it." "Don't you do it!" said he smiling, seeing that Eleanor's eye was in earnest. "Please let me! Do let me! You want them much more than I do, Rowland." "Then you will have to let them stand; for they are just where I want them." "But the shade of them is much more needed here." "I could have had it. You need not disturb yourself. There is a whole stack of them lying under the shelves in your store-room." "Why are they lying there?" said Eleanor in great surprise. "I did not want them. I left them for you to dispose of." "For me! Then I shall dispose some of them here." "Not with my leave." "May I not know why?" said Eleanor putting her hand in his to plead for it. "I do not want to fare too much better than my brethren," he answered with a smile of infinite pleasantness at her. Eleanor's face shewed a sudden accession of intelligence. "Then, Rowland, let us send the other jalousies to Mr. Balliol to shade his study--with all my heart; and you put up mine here. I did not think about that before. Will you do it?" "There are plenty of them without taking yours, child." "Then, O Rowland, why did you not do it before?" "I have an objection to using other people's property--even for the benefit of my neighbours"--he said, with the provoking smile in the corners of his mouth. "But it is yours now." "Well, I make it over to you, to be offered and presented as it seems good to you, to brother Balliol, or to sister Balliol, for his use and behoof." "Do you mean that I must do it?" "If it is your pleasure." "Then I will speak of it immediately." "You can have an opportunity to-night. But Eleanor,--you must call her, sister Balliol." "I can't, Rowland!" Silence fell between the parties. Mr. Rhys's face was impenetrable. Eleanor glanced at it and again glanced at it; got no help. Finally she laid her hand on his shoulder and spoke a little apprehensively. "Rowland--are you serious?" "Perfectly." So he was, outwardly. "Do you think it matters really whether I call her one thing or another? If it were Mrs. Amos, I should not have the least difficulty. I could call her sister Amos. What does it matter?" "Why can't you use a Christian form of address with her as well as with me?" "Do you consider it a matter of _principle?_" "Only as it regards the feelings of the individual, in either case." Mr. Rhys's mouth was looking very comical. "Would she care, Rowland?" "I should like to have you try," he said, getting up and arranging his papers to leave. And Eleanor saw he was not going to tell her any more. "What is the opportunity you spoke of, Rowland?" "This is our evening for being together--it has hardly been a Class before this, we were so few; but we met to talk and think together, and usually considered some given subject. To-night it is, the 'glory to be revealed.'" "That is what Mr. Amos and I used to do on board the schooner; and we had that subject too, just after we left Tonga. So we shall be ready." "We ought to go there to tea; but I have to go over first to Nawaile; it will keep me till after tea-time. Do not wait for me, unless you choose." Eleanor chose, and told him so. While he was gone she sat at the door of the house watching and thinking; thinking of him especially, and of things that his talk that afternoon had brought up. It was a pleasant hour or two. The sea-breeze fresh from the sea; the waving broad banana leaves; the sweet perfume of flowers, which were rarely profuse and beautiful in their garden; the beautiful southern sky of night, with the stars which Eleanor had learned to know as strangers coming over in the ship, and now loved as the companions of her new home. Stillness, and flapping of leaves, and sweet thoughts; until it was time to be expecting Mr. Rhys back again, and Eleanor made the tea, that he might at least not miss so much refreshment. She knew his step rods off, and long before she could see him; his cup was all ready for him when he stepped in. He drank it, looking at Eleanor over it; would stop for nothing else, and carried her off. "I had a happy time," he said as they went through the plantations. "I have been to see an old man who lies there dying, or very near it. He has been a Christian two years. He is very glad to see me when I come, and ready to talk; but he will not talk with his neighbours. He says he wants to keep his thoughts fixed on God; and if he listened to these people they would talk to him of village affairs, and turn his mind off." "Then, if you had a happy time, I suppose _he_ is happy?" "He is happy. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! Think of old Caesar, going to glory from the darkness of Fiji. He said to me to-night--'I am weak, and I am old; my time is come, but I am not afraid to die; through Jesus I feel courageous for death. Jesus is my Chief, and I wish to obey him: if he says I am yet to lie here, I will praise him; and if he says I am to go above to him, I will praise him. I do not wish to eat; his word is my food; I think on it, and lean entirely on Jesus.'--Do you know how good it is to be a missionary, Eleanor?" They exchanged looks; that was all; they were at the door, and went in. The party there were expecting and waiting for them, and it was more than a common welcome, Eleanor saw, that was given to them. She did not wonder at it. After exchanging warm greetings all round, she sat down; but Mr. Rhys began walking the floor. The rest were silent. There was a somewhat dim light from a lamp in the room; the windows and doors were open; the air, sweet with flowers and fresh from the sea, came in gently; the soft sounds of leaves and insects could be heard through the fall of Mr. Rhys's steps upon the matted floor. The hour had a strange charm to Eleanor. Silence lasted, until Mr. Rhys interrupted it with kneeling down for prayer. Then followed one of those prayers, in which it always seemed to Eleanor as if somebody had taken her hand, who was leading her where she could almost look in at the gates of that city which Bunyan called the Celestial. Somewhere above earth it took her, and rapt her up as Milton's angel is said to have descended, upon a sunbeam. One came to earth again at the end of the prayer; but not without a remembrance of where one had been. "Sister Balliol," said Mr. Rhys, "will you put us in mind concerning our subject this evening?" "It is the glory to be revealed; and I find that it is a glory to be revealed in us," Mrs. Balliol made answer. "Sufferings come first. It is a glory that goes along with sufferings in the present life; but it is so much greater than the sufferings, that no comparison can be made of them. For my part, I do not think the glory would be half so much glory, if it were not for the sufferings going before." "To suffer with Christ, and for him, that is glory now," said Mr. Rhys; "to have been so honoured will always be part of our joy. If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but rather let him glorify God on this behalf. Those be tears that Christ's own hand will wipe off; and what glory will that be!" "The word of God fails to express it," said Mr. Amos, "and calls it 'riches of glory.' Riches of glory, to be poured into vessels prepared to receive it. Surely, being such heirs, none of us has a right to call himself poor? we are heirs of an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and not subject to decadence or failure. We may well be content with our penny earnest in this life, who have such an estate coming in." "I feel poor very often," said gentle Mrs. Amos; "and I suppose that must be my own fault; for the word says, 'Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches, and righteousness.'" "Those are riches that none but the poor come into possession of," said Mr. Rhys. "The poor in spirit inherit the kingdom, and nobody else. It is our very emptiness, that fits us for receiving those unsearchable riches. But having those, sister Amos, it is no deprivation of this world's good things that would make you feel poor?" "O no, indeed!" said Mrs. Amos. "I did not mean that sort of poor." "The rich he will send empty away"--Mr. Rhys went on. "So in the matter of suffering," said Mr. Balliol taking up the word. "If we are partakers of Christ's sufferings now, we are told to rejoice. For when his glory is revealed, the word is, that we shall be glad also, and with exceeding joy. When his glory is revealed here, a little, now, we are glad; our joy seems to be exceeding, now, brother Rhys. I wonder what it will be when God calls it exceeding joy!" There was a pause; and then Mrs. Amos, for the sake simply of starting Eleanor, whose voice she knew in it, began softly the song, "Burst, ye emerald gates!" She had her success, for Eleanor with the others took up the words, and carried it--Mrs. Amos thought--where Mr. Rhys's prayer had been. When the song ceased, there was silence; till Mr. Rhys said, "Eleanor!"--It was her turn to speak. "I do not believe," she said speaking low and slowly,--"that either sufferings, or premises, or duties, will bring the hope of glory into the heart; until Jesus himself brings it there. And if he brings it, it hardly seems to me that sufferings will enhance it--except in so far as they lead to greater knowledge of him or are the immediate fruit of love to him; and then, as Mr. Rhys says, they are honour themselves already. The riches of the glory of this mystery, is _Christ in you, the hope of glory_." Mr. Rhys was standing at the back of Eleanor's chair, leaning upon it. He bent his head and whispered to her to tell her story that she had told him. At that whisper, Eleanor would have steadily gone through the fire if necessary; this was not quite as hard; and though not for her own sake caring to do it, she told the story and told it freely and well. She told it so that every head there was bowed. And then there was silence again; till Mr. Rhys began, or rather went on with what she had been saying; in a voice that seemed to come from every heart. "'Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.' "Friends, we have the present honour, of being Christ's ambassadors. Do we know what honour that is? 'Whosoever shall receive this child in my name, receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth him that sent me.' That is honour under which we may tremble!"--And standing there at the back of Eleanor's chair, Mr. Rhys began to talk; on the joy of carrying Christ's message, the honour of being his servants and co-workers, and the gladness of bringing the water of life to lips dry and failing in death. He told the instance of that evening which he had told to Eleanor; and leaving his station behind her, he walked up and down again, speaking as she had sometimes heard him speak, till every head was raised and turned, and every eye followed him. With fire and tears, speaking of the work to be done and the joy of doing it, and the need of more to do it; and of the carelessness people have of that glory which will make men shine as the stars for ever and ever. "Ay, we shall know then, brother Balliol, when the great supper is served, and Christ shall gird himself, and make his faithful servants sit down to meat, and he shall come forth and serve them--we shall know then, if we are there, what glory means! And we shall know what it means to have no want unsatisfied and no joy left out!--when the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of waters." Mr. Balliol answered-- "If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servants be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour." Mr. Rhys went on--"Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." They knelt together again, and then separated; and the tropical moon lighted home the two who did not belong to Mrs. Balliol's household. THE END. PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. Typographical errors silently corrected: volume 1 Chapter 1: =is no information?= silently corrected as =is no information?"= Chapter 1: the following sentence is lacking in the Tauchnitz edition: "Who is that Mr. Rhys?" said Eleanor. Chapter 2: =that is what I think,= silently corrected as =that is what I think,"= Chapter 2: =colored verbenas= silently corrected as =coloured verbenas= Chapter 5: =nothing to signify= silently corrected as ="nothing to signify= Chapter 5: ="Much' is comparative= silently corrected as ="'Much' is comparative= Chapter 7: =pushed her hair= silently corrected as =pushed her chair= Chapter 10: =And I am glad Autumn= silently corrected as ="And I am glad Autumn= Chapter 10: ='Let not your heart be troubled.'"= silently corrected as ="Let not your heart be troubled."= Chapter 11: =he said gravely.= silently corrected as =he said gravely,= Chapter 11: =couteque coute= silently corrected as =coûte que coûte= Chapter 13: =You must do it= silently corrected as ="You must do it= Chapter 17: =to keep her,--= silently corrected as =to keep her.= volume 2 Chapter 2: ='drink.'= silently corrected as ="drink."= Chapter 3: =cotemporaries= silently corrected as =contemporaries= Chapter 4: =Do you find it= silently corrected as ="Do you find it= Chapter 6: =said her sister:= silently corrected as =said her sister,= Chapter 9: =They are a desperate= silently corrected as ="They are a desperate= Chapter 10: =no doubt he could.= silently corrected as =no doubt he could."= Chapter 10: =My dear Eleanor: --= silently corrected as ="My dear Eleanor --= Chapter 10: =do all things.'"= silently corrected as =do all things.'= Chapter 10: =prayer, Eleanor?"= silently corrected as =prayer, Eleanor?= Chapter 11: =each other's hearts,"= silently corrected as =each other's hearts,'= Chapter 11: ="Suppose that she have= silently corrected as ='Suppose that she have= Chapter 11: =unhappy for nothing.= silently corrected as =unhappy for nothing.'= Chapter 11: ="for any other= silently corrected as ='for any other= Chapter 12: ="Lord, Jehovah= silently corrected as ="'Lord, Jehovah= Chapter 12: =do them good."= silently corrected as =do them good.'= Chapter 12: =That was the beginning= silently corrected as ="That was the beginning= Chapter 12: =R. R.= silently corrected as ="R. R."= Chapter 13: =letter said. Next= silently corrected as =letter said, Next= Chapter 15: ='Praise the lord! --'= silently corrected as ="Praise the lord! --"= Chapter 15: ='Amen!'= silently corrected as ="Amen!"= Chapter 16: =should have seen her= silently corrected as =should have seen her.= Chapter 16: =like a woman?= silently corrected as =like a woman.= Chapter 19: =never thirst.'"= silently corrected as =never thirst.'= Chapter 19: =quantities with me?= silently corrected as =quantities with me.= Chapter 19: =sinners adore.'"= silently corrected as =sinners adore.'= Chapter 19: =These, were the heathen= silently corrected as =These were the heathen= Chapter 20: =in the same manner.= silently corrected as =in the same manner,= Chapter 20: ="Whom having= silently corrected as ="'Whom having= Chapter 20: =full of glory."= silently corrected as =full of glory.'= 
40688	----	The School Friends Nothing New By WHG Kingston Illustrations by E. Evans Published by George Routledge and Sons, London. The School Friends, by WHG Kingston. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ THE SCHOOL FRIENDS, BY WHG KINGSTON. BOOK I--THE SCHOOL FRIENDS; NOTHING NEW. CHAPTER I. Lance Loughton and Emery Dulman were brought up together at Elmerston Grammar-School. They were both in the upper or sixth form; but Lance was nearly at the head, while Emery was at the bottom, of the form. They were general favourites, though for different causes. Lance was decidedly best liked by the masters. He was steady, persevering, and studious, besides being generous, kind-hearted, and brave--ever ready to defend the weak against the strong, while he would never allow a little boy to be bullied by a big one if he could help it. Emery had talents, but they were more showy than solid. He was good-natured and full of life and spirits, and having plenty of money, spent it freely. He was, however, easily led, and had in consequence done many foolish things, which got him into trouble, though he managed, on the whole, to maintain a tolerably good character. Lance and Emery were on friendly terms; and Lance, who thought he saw good qualities in his companion, would gladly have won his confidence, but Emery did not like what he called Lance's lectures, and there was very little or no interchange of thought between them. Without it real friendship can scarcely be said to exist. They were, however, looked upon as school friends, and certainly Lance would at all times have been ready to do a friendly act for Emery. Emery was somewhat of a fine gentleman in his way. His father was a tradesman in the place, and wished his son to assist him in his business, but Emery often spoke of entering the army or one of the liberal professions. He therefore considered himself equal to those whose fathers held a higher social grade than his own. His father's style of life encouraged him in this. Mr Dulman had a handsome house, and gave dinners and parties; and at elections took a leading part, and entertained the proposed member and his friends, and indeed sometimes talked of entering Parliament himself, and altogether did a good deal to excite the envy of his less successful fellow-townsmen. Emery constantly invited Lance to his house, and was really flattered when he came; for Lance's father, who had died when he was very young, was a lieutenant in the navy; and his widowed mother, though left with only her pension to depend on, was a lady by birth and education. Lance, however, very frequently refused Emery's pressing invitations. "I never met such a stay-at-home fellow as you are," exclaimed the latter, when on one occasion Lance had declined attending a gay party Mr and Mrs Dulman were about to give. "We shall have half the neighbourhood present--Mr Perkins, our member, and I don't know how many other grandees--and we want some young fellows like you, who can dance and do the polite. Mother says I must get you, for we don't know what to do for proper partners for the young ladies." "I should have been happy to make myself useful," answered Lance, laughing; "but I am no great dancer, and my poor mother is so unwell that I cannot leave her." "Oh, she has got little Maddie Hayward to look after her, so I will come and get her to let you off." "I beg that you will not make the attempt," answered Lance, more gravely than he had hitherto spoken. "My mother is seriously ill; besides I have work to do, and any time I can spare I must devote to her." "Oh, but a little gaiety will do you good, and you can cheer her up with an account of the party," persisted Emery. Lance was, however, firm, and he returned in a thoughtful mood to his humble little cottage in the outskirts of the town. A sweet fair face met him at the jessamine-covered porch--that of a girl three or four years younger than himself. It would not have been surprising had he preferred her society to that of the fine ladies his friend had spoken of, though he certainly was not conscious that this had in any degree influenced him. Madelene Hayward was indeed a lovely young creature, sweet-tempered and good as she was beautiful. She was the orphan child of a distant relative of Lieutenant Loughton. Having been left, when still an infant, utterly destitute, she had been adopted by the kind-hearted officer at his wife's earnest wish, and brought up as their daughter, although their own scanty means might have excused them in the eyes of the world had they declined the responsibility. Mrs Loughton had devoted herself to Maddie's education, and the young girl repaid her with the most tender love. Some time before this Mrs Loughton's old servant had married, and Maddie had persuaded her not to engage another in her place, consenting only that a woman should come in to light the fires and do the rougher work which she was less able to perform. While Mrs Loughton was well, she herself attending to what was necessary, Maddie's duties were not very heavy, but since her illness they had of necessity much increased. Though she tried not to let Lance discover how hard she worked, he knew that her attendance on his mother must occupy the chief part of her time. His aim was therefore to relieve her as much as possible. Where there is a will there is a way. He soon learned to clean his shoes, and purchasing needles and thread and worsted, to mend his clothes and darn his socks; and Maddie was surprised to find one morning that his bed was made and his room set to rights, when she was sure that Dame Judkin had not gone into it. She found him out at last, and reproachfully asked why he had not given her his torn coat to mend, and a pair of socks which she had discovered darned in a curious fashion. "I wanted to try if I could not do it," he answered, smiling. "Just look at that sleeve--I defy it to tear again in the same place." "Perhaps so, but as every one can see that there has been a rent, I shall be accused of being a very bad tailoress, and I am afraid you will find an uncomfortable lump in the heel of your socks. Do, dear Lance, bring the next pair requiring mending to me, and I will find time to dam them." Few could fail to admire Madelene Hayward. "How is our mother?" asked Lance, taking her hand, as he found her waiting for him in the porch of their little cottage. "She has at last dropped off to sleep; but she has been in much pain all the day," answered Maddie. "And, O Lance! I sometimes fear that she will not recover. Yet our lives are in God's hands, and we can together pray, if He thinks fit, that hers may be preserved for our sakes--I cannot say for her own, as I am sure, resting on the merits of Him who died for sinners, she is ready to go hence to enjoy that happiness He has prepared for those who love Him." "But, Maddie, do you really think mother is so ill?" asked Lance, with an anxious look. "I know that when she is taken, the change to her must be a blessed one; but, Maddie, what would become of you?" He spoke in a tone which showed the grief which Madelene's announcement had caused him. "I have not thought about myself," she answered quietly. "My wish was to prepare you for what I dread may occur, and to ask you to join your prayer with mine that God will in His mercy allow her to remain longer with us. He can do all things, and the prayer of faith availeth much." "I am sure it does," said Lance. "I will pray with you. I have too often prayed as a matter of form, but now I can pray from the bottom of my heart." The young people lifted up their hearts and voices as they stood together, hand in hand, in the porch, which was hid by a high hedge from the passers-by. They noiselessly entered the cottage. Mrs Loughton was still sleeping. Perhaps even then Lance realised the fact that Maddie was more to him than any other being on earth, and he mentally resolved to exert all his energies to procure the means of supporting her, should she be deprived of her present guardian. They sat together in silence lest their voices might awaken Mrs Loughton. Maddie had resumed her work, while Lance had placed his books on the table; but his eyes scarcely rested on them--he was thinking of the future. Mrs Loughton at length awoke. She appeared revived by her sleep, the most tranquil she had enjoyed for many a day. After this, to the joy of Maddie and her son, she rapidly got better, and with thankful hearts they saw her restored to comparative health. Lance had no foolish pride, but he had refrained from asking any of his schoolfellows, especially those who, like Emery, lived in fine houses, to enter his mother's humble cottage. One day, however, Emery overtook him as he was returning from home. On reaching the cottage, his companion pulled out his watch, observing that it was tea-time, and saying in an off-hand way, "I daresay your mother will give me a cup, for I am fearfully thirsty." Lance, without downright rudeness, could not refuse to ask him in. The widow received her guest with the courtesy of a lady, though, more acquainted with the world than her son, she saw defects in the manners of his companion which he had not discovered. She was not pleased, either, with the undisguised admiration Emery bestowed on Maddie, and was very glad when Lance, bringing out his books, observed, "Now, old fellow, I have got to study, and you ought to be doing the same, and though I don't want to turn you out, you will excuse me if I set to work." Maddie got up to remove the tea-things, and Mrs Loughton took her work; so that Emery, finding that the young lady was not likely to listen to his fine speeches, at length, greatly to their relief, wished them good evening. CHAPTER TWO. Emery had certainly not received the slightest encouragement to pay another visit to his schoolfellow's abode. He, however, fancied himself desperately smitten with the beauty of Madelene Hayward, and after this very frequently sauntered by the cottage, or whenever he could make an excuse to accompany Lance, he walked with him towards his home, in the hopes of being again invited in. Lance, however, sturdily refused to understand his hints, and managed, generally without churlishness, to get rid of him. Emery, however, met Maddie one day when out walking alone, and with a self-assurance of which no gentleman would have been guilty, in spite of her evident annoyance, accompanied her till just before she arrived at home. Lance felt more angry than he had ever before been when he heard what had occurred, and the next day cautioned Emery not to repeat the offence, telling him very plainly that his mother did not wish to see him again at her cottage. Emery, who stood somewhat in awe of Lance, looked foolish; but trying to conceal his vexation, muttered a sort of apology, and walked hurriedly away. Emery had some time before made the acquaintance of a person who had for a year or so been residing at Elmerston, where he had acted as one of the inferior agents in the last election contest. Sass Gange had been a seaman. He was a long-tongued fellow, with an assumed sedate manner, which gained him the credit of being a respectable man. Sass having been employed by Mr Dulman, Emery became acquainted with him, and he had ever since taken pains to gain the confidence of the lad, with considerable success. Emery always found himself a welcome guest at Sass Gange's lodgings, when the old sailor was wont to indulge him in a pipe of tobacco and a glass of ale, while he spun long yarns about his adventures at sea. After leaving Lance, Emery made his way to Sass Gange's lodgings. "What is up now, Master Emery?" asked the old sailor as the lad threw himself into an arm-chair before the fire. "You look out of sorts somehow." "With good reason too, I should think," exclaimed Emery. "I have taken it into my head to admire a beautiful young creature; and though my father is rolling in wealth, and I suppose I shall come in for a good share of it one of these days, I have just been told that I must keep away from the house, and if they had their will, never see her again." "Well, take a blow, lad, and it will calm your spirits, and we will then talk the matter over," said old Sass, handing a pipe which he had just charged, and filling up a tumbler with ale. "Now tell me all about it." Emery gave his own version of what had just occurred. "Don't be cast down, Master Emery," said old Sass, "I will help you if I can. I have no reason to love that young Loughton, and he is at the bottom of it, depend upon that. If she was his sister, he would not be so very particular; but that's not what I was going to say. I once served under Lieutenant Loughton, and, thanks to him, my back more than once got a scoring which it has not forgotten yet. I vowed vengeance, but had no opportunity of getting it; and as the lieutenant is gone, why, I shall have a pleasure in paying the son what I owed the father. We must bide our time, though; but it will come if we are on the watch, depend upon that." Emery, instead of being shocked at these remarks, listened to them eagerly. The rest of the conversation need not be repeated. "I must go now," said Emery, "for we have a grand party at our house to-night, and I must be at home in time to dress." Mr Dulman's party was the grandest he had ever given. The member for the borough with all his family was there, and he had persuaded a number of his friends to come and honour Mr Dulman, by whose means he had gained his election. All the magnates of the town were also present, so that Elmerston had never before seen a more brilliant assemblage. Mr Dulman exerted himself to the utmost to make the party go off well, and poor Mrs Dulman did her best, though she always felt overwhelmed with the responsibilities of the new position in which she was placed, and awed by the great people. Emery, though not a bad-looking young man, felt too much abashed to appear to advantage, in spite of his off-hand manner among his ordinary associates; and though he made many efforts to do the polite to his father's guests, he as often failed from awkwardness, and would have felt much happier smoking his pipe and drinking beer with old Sass. During the evening, as Mr Dulman went into the hall, a letter was put into his hand by a messenger who had been waiting to see him. He retired to a corner to read it. His usually ruddy countenance turned deadly pale. He hurriedly thrust it into his pocket. "I will attend to the matter to-morrow," he said, in as firm a voice as he could command. "It's impossible to do so now." He went to the supper-room, and rapidly drinking off three or four glasses of wine, hastened back to his guests. Many of them, however, remarked his agitated and absent manner, while some of his acquaintances observed that old Dulman had been over-fortifying himself for his arduous duties. As soon as his guests were gone he shut himself up in his room, and spent the remainder of the night, with the fatal letter before him, making calculations. Before the rest of the family were up he had left the house, and was off by the first train to London. The next day it was whispered that Mr Dulman, who was known to have speculated largely in railway shares, was ruined. People said that he had only love of ostentation to thank for what had occurred, and few pitied him. His fine house and furniture were sold, but his estate did not yield a penny in the pound. Ashamed of again showing his face at Elmerston, he sailed for Australia, leaving his wife and younger children living in a mean cottage in the neighbourhood, a small allowance having been made to them by the creditors, while Emery was sent to seek his fortune in London. About the same time Sass Gange, for reasons best known to himself, finding it convenient to leave the town, went up also to London, where, with the character of a highly respectable and confidential man, through the influence of some of his political friends, he obtained a situation as porter in the large West End draper's establishment of Messrs Padman and Co. Sass was not a man to allow his talents to remain under a bushel. By means of his persuasive eloquence, he soon induced the confiding Mr Padman to place the most unbounded confidence in his honesty and devoted attention to business. When the cash received during the day was sent to the bank by one of the clerks, Sass was invariably ordered to follow, to be ready to assist him should he be waylaid by pickpockets, and to see that he faithfully deposited the amount as directed. Sass did not know how much was carried, but he guessed that at times it must be a considerable sum. CHAPTER THREE. Sass Gange had been for some time in the employment of Messrs Padman, when one day as he entered the shop he saw behind the counter his former Elmerston acquaintance, Emery Dulman, busily engaged in serving a customer. Emery did not recognise him, nor did he just then wish to be recognised, so he passed quickly on to deliver the parcels he had just brought in. He observed, however, that Emery was even better dressed than usual--that he wore a fashionably-cut black suit, a neck-cloth of snowy whiteness, a gold ring on his finger, and a somewhat large gold watch-chain, ostentatiously exhibited. As he was repassing, Emery looked up, when Sass gave him an almost unperceived wink, and turning away his head, hurried on. "I hope that he will have the sense not to tell any one that we are acquainted," he thought. "I must let him know where I live, and he will soon be coming to have a talk over old times." Sass might have been pretty sure that Emery was not likely to tell any one that they were acquainted; indeed, that young gentleman's chief pleasure was boasting to his new associates of his highly-connected and fashionable friends, and bewailing the hard fate which had compelled him to become a draper's assistant. Some were inclined in consequence to treat him with respect, but many of the older hands laughed at his folly, and having discovered who his father was, observed that he was fortunate in obtaining so good a situation in a business for which he ought to be well suited. Sass soon found an opportunity of letting Emery know where he lived, and the next day received a visit from him, when the usual pipe and ale were prepared for his entertainment. "Curious that we should meet again, Master Emery, in this big city," observed Sass. "We all have our `ups and downs,' and you have had one of the `downs' lately, so it appears. Well, I have had them in my time. I never told you that I got my education, such as it is, at Elmerston Grammar-School, and I might have been a steady-going burgess, with pink cheeks and a fat paunch, if I had stuck to business. But I had no fancy for that sort of life; so one morning, taking French leave of school, and father and mother, and brothers and sisters, I went off to sea. When I came back some years afterwards, all who were likely to care for me were dead or scattered; so I set off again, and knocked about in all parts of the world till about two or three years ago, when, having a little money in my pocket, and thinking I should like a spell on shore, I found my way back to the old place. I made myself useful, as you know, to the grandees; and as I did not wish to go to sea again just then, one of them got me this situation. Though I can't say it's much to my taste, I intend to stick to it as long as it suits me." "I don't see anything very tempting in the life you have led," observed Emery. "I have not told you much about its pleasures, the curious countries I have visited, and the strange adventures I have met with," answered Sass. "For my part, I would not have missed them on any account." "When you come to hear about them, you will have a fancy for setting off too, or I am much mistaken. With a young companion like you I should not mind taking another trip, and enjoying myself for a few years more afloat, instead of leading the dull life you and I are doomed to in London." Such was the style of conversation with which the old rogue entertained his credulous young guest. The adventures he described were highly entertaining, garnished as they were by his fertile imagination, and Emery began to wonder how he could consent to remain on shore when so delightful an existence might be led by going off to sea. Emery, however, had not got over his fancy for trying to assume the airs of a fine gentleman. On Sundays, though he went with his employer's family and the rest of the young men in the establishment to church, as soon as dinner was over it was his delight to saunter out into the Park, and loll over the railings round the drive with a gold-headed cane in his hand, watching the gay people as they drove past in their carriages. Occasionally he would lift his hat as if returning a bow from a lady, or he waved his hand as if recognising a gentleman acquaintance. Some might have considered him only foolish; but he was undoubtedly acting a lie, and trying to deceive those around him. He was besides wasting time given for higher purposes. Unhappily, not only such as he, but many others waste time, without for a moment considering their guilt, and that they will some day be called to account for the way in which every moment of their lives has been spent. In time Emery formed a number of acquaintances, mostly silly lads like himself, and inclined to consider him a remarkably fine fellow; several were vicious, and they, as vicious people always wish to make others like themselves, tried to induce him to accompany them to see something, as they called it, of London life. He at first feebly declined, but at length yielded; and though such scenes, it must be said to his credit, were not to his taste, he was over-persuaded again and again, and soon found that the greater part of his wages were spent at theatres, dancing-rooms, and other places to which he and his companions resorted. His employer, finding that he was out late at night, spoke to him on the subject. He excused himself with a falsehood, saying that he had gone to visit a friend of his father's, who had just come up to town, promising that he would not again break through the rules of the establishment. After this he was very exact in his conduct, and again, in consequence, rose in the estimation of his employer. He had, indeed, an attraction to keep him at home. Mr Padman possessed a daughter, a pretty, good-humoured young lady; and though she was considerably older than Emery, he took it into his head that she was not insensible to his personal appearance and gentlemanly manners. Whenever he had an opportunity, he offered his services to attend on her; and as he made himself useful, and he was quiet and well-behaved, they were frequently accepted, while Miss Madelene Hayward was, happily perhaps, soon forgotten. Thus a year or more went by. Poor Emery might under proper guidance have become a useful member of society, as all people are who do their duty in the station of life for which they are fitted; but he wanted what no one can do without--right religious and moral principles. CHAPTER FOUR. Mr Dulman did not fall alone. The bank at Elmerston, which had made him large advances, got into difficulties, and though its credit was bolstered up for some time, it ultimately failed, and many of the people in the place suffered. Among others of small means who had cause to mourn the wicked extravagance and folly of their ambitious townsman, was Mrs Loughton. Some cursed him in their hearts, loudly exclaiming against his extravagance, which had brought ruin on themselves and their families. Mrs Loughton bore her loss meekly. The sum of which she had been deprived she had saved up, by often depriving herself of necessaries, to assist in starting her dear Lance in life. This was indeed a great trial. Lance entreated her not to mourn on his account. He was not even aware that she had saved so much money, and only regretted that she should not have it to benefit herself and Maddie. He had for long determined to go forth into the world, trusting, with God's help, to his own industry and perseverance to make his way. He was ready to take any situation which offered, or to do anything which was thought advisable. All he desired was to perform his duty in that station of life to which he might be called, and to be able to assist his mother and Maddie. To secure their happiness and comfort was his great aim; for himself; independent of them, he had no ambition. He was aware that talent, such as his master considered he possessed, with honesty, industry, and zeal, must, should he get his foot on the ladder, enable him to rise higher. Still, metaphorically speaking, he was content to secure his position on the ground where he stood, while he refrained from withdrawing his attention, by looking up at the prize at the top. "By thinking only of the prize, and not duly employing the means to obtain it, many a man has slipped off the ladder, and, crushed by his fall, has failed again to reach it," the Doctor observed to him one day. "Go on as you propose, my boy, and never trouble yourself about the result; God blesses honest efforts when His assistance is sought. I do not advise you to remain at Elmerston. Seek your fortune in London. You may have a much harder struggle to endure than you would here, but you will come off victorious, and gain ultimately a respectable position." Such was the tenor of the remarks of his late master to Lance, during a visit he paid him, after he had left school. His mother agreed with what had been said. "I should grieve to part with you, Lance; but as I am sure it will be for your advantage, it must be done, and we shall have the happiness of seeing you down here when you can get a holiday." "That will indeed be great!" murmured Maddie, who had not before spoken. She was in the habit of looking at the bright side of things, and thought more of the joyful meeting than of the long, long time they must be separated. "I will write to your uncle Durrant, and ask him what he can do," continued Mrs Loughton. "My brother is kind and generous, and though he has a large family, and I fear his salary from the Government office he holds is but small, yet I am sure he will do his utmost to assist you." "I ought to be at work without delay, mother," said Lance; "so pray write as you propose to uncle Durrant." He cast a glance at Maddie, and added, "I'll do my best to employ my time profitably while I am at home. You know that I am happier here than I can be anywhere else." "Yes," said Maddie, "I am sure there is no happier place than this." The letter to Mr Durrant was written, and while waiting for an answer, Lance spent much of the time not occupied in study in the garden, very frequently with Maddie as his companion. He had from his boyhood been accustomed to cultivate it, and he was anxious to leave it in the most perfect order possible. It was pleasant to sit reading with Maddie by his side, but pleasanter still to be working in the fresh air among sweet flowers, receiving such assistance as she could give, and talking cheerfully all the time. The expected answer from Mr Durrant came in the course of a few days. "I lost no time in looking for a situation for Lance, and I was able, from the report I received from the Doctor, to speak confidently of him," he wrote. "I have obtained one in the office of my friend Mr Gaisford, a highly respectable solicitor in the city, who, knowing Lance's circumstances, will attend to his interests, and advance him according to his deserts." "It appears very satisfactory, and we should be truly grateful to your uncle," observed Mrs Loughton. "You are to go to his house. You will have a long walk into London every day, but that, he says, will be good for you. He does not speak about salary, but as, from what I understand, you are to take up your abode with him, I hope that you will receive sufficient to repay him." "I would rather live in a garret on bread and water, than be an expense to my uncle, who can with difficulty support his large family," observed Lance; "and so I will thankfully take any office where I can get enough to maintain myself, even in the most humble way." "Well, well, dear Lance, your uncle and I will settle that," said Mrs Loughton. "He wishes you to go up the day after to-morrow." "So soon?" exclaimed Maddie; "his things will scarcely be ready." "I must not delay a day longer than can be helped," said Lance firmly; "I am eager to begin real work, whatever that may be." "You will always do what is right," said Maddie. "And I will ask Mrs Judkin to come and help me iron your things," and she ran out of the room, it might possibly have been to hide the tears rising in her eyes. Maddie was still very young; she had not before parted from Lance, even for a day, and had as yet experienced none of the trials of life. She would have felt the same had Lance been her brother; she scarcely recognised the fact that he was not. The day of parting came. Mrs Loughton was unable to leave the house. She clasped her boy to her heart, and blessed him, committing him to the charge of One all able and willing to protect those who confide in His love. Maddie, attended by Mrs Judkin, whose husband wheeled his portmanteau, accompanied Lance to the railway station, and her last tender, loving glance still seemed following him long after the train had rushed off along its iron way. Perhaps now for the first time he realised how completely his future hopes of happiness depended on her. With manly resolution, and firm confidence in the goodness of God, he prepared, as he had often said he would, to do his duty. He safely reached his uncle's house, where he received a kindly welcome from his aunt and a number of young cousins. They looked at him approvingly; he was likely to become a favourite with them. "I think you will get on with Gaisford," said his uncle after the conclusion of dinner. "He is an honest man, and a Christian, and feels that he has responsibilities which many are not apt to acknowledge. I will say no more about him. You tell me you wish to do your duty; and therefore all I can say to you is, to try and ascertain what that duty is, and to do it." At an early hour the next morning Mr Durrant accompanied his nephew to Mr Gaisford's office. The principal had not arrived. His head clerk scrutinised Lance from under his spectacles for a few seconds. Apparently satisfied, his countenance relaxed. "We can find work for him," he observed, after Lance had been duly introduced; "and as you have to be at your office you can leave him here, and the time need not hang heavily on his hand till Mr Gaisford arrives." Mr Durrant, promising to call for his nephew on his way home, hurried off. Lance had at once a draft placed before him to copy. He wrote a clear, bold hand. Mr Brown, the head clerk, watched him for a minute. "That will do--go on," he said, and returned to his seat. The draft was finished just as Mr Gaisford arrived. The clerk took it in his hand, telling Lance to follow him to their principal's room. While introducing him, he placed it on the table, and withdrew. Mr Gaisford, a middle-aged man, slightly grey, with a pleasant expression of countenance, having glanced over the paper, turned round and addressed Lance kindly. "Sit down," he said. "Your uncle has told me something about you, but I should like to hear more. Where were you at school?" Lance told him. "You were the head boy, I understand." He then asked what books he had read, and a variety of other questions, to which Lance answered modestly and succinctly. He then handed the paper back to Lance, to give it to Mr Brown, who would find him something more to do. "This is written as well as it could be," he observed. "I always like to have my work well done, and I can depend upon your doing it to the best of your ability." "That is what I wish to do," said Lance, taking the paper and bowing as he left the room. He had plenty of work during the morning. Mr Brown asked him to come out and take a chop with him at one o'clock. The head clerk was never long absent from the office, as he might be wanted, and he made it a rule never to keep clients waiting longer than he could help. "Time is money, my young friend," he observed. "We should never squander other people's time more than our own." Lance worked hard till his uncle arrived just at the usual hour for closing the office. Mr Gaisford had gone away some time before. "He has done very well, sir," observed Mr Brown as Mr Durrant entered; "and what is more, I feel sure he will do as well every day he is here." He and his uncle walked home together. Mr Durrant told him that his employer promised to give him a salary at once should the head clerk make a favourable report of him. "That he will do that, I am confident, from what he has said." Lance felt very happy, and wrote home in good spirits, giving a satisfactory account of the commencement of his career in London. He generally accompanied his uncle to and from the office, but he soon learned to find the way by himself. He always went directly there and back, refraining from wandering elsewhere to see the great city which to him was still an unknown land. He was very happy in his new home, and on his return each day he was greeted by his young cousins with shouts of pleasure. Lance was never tired of trying to amuse them. With intense satisfaction Lance received his first quarter's salary. He took it immediately to his uncle. "This should be yours, sir," he said, "though I fear it is not sufficient to repay you for the expense to which you have been put on my account." His uncle smiled. "I think you must settle that with your aunt; and if she finds her household expenses much increased, you shall pay the difference: to the room you occupy you are welcome." Lance received back the greater portion of the sum he placed in his aunt's hands, and immediately forwarded it to his mother. The balance from next quarter, however, was somewhat less, as he had to pay for a few articles of clothing. His mother begged that he would not send her any more, as she was sure he would soon require considerable additions to his wardrobe. He, however, resolved to be very economical, and with the assistance of Mr Brown, who knew where everything was to be got the cheapest and best, he found that he still had a fair sum left to forward for the use of the loved ones at Elmerston. "Pay ready money," observed his friend the clerk. "Owe no man anything; it's a golden rule, and assists to give a good digestion in the day, and sound sleep at night." Some time after this Mr Gaisford sent for Lance into his room, and put a document into his hand. "Here, my young friend," he said, "are your articles. Your mother is a widow with limited means, and has, moreover, not only brought you up well, but supported an orphan relative, so I understand. Such as she has claims on one like me, who am a bachelor with an ample fortune. Such claims I must recognise, for I am sure God does, whatever the rest of the world may think. I say this to set you at your ease about the matter. You have done your duty hitherto, and I am sure you will continue to do it. Your salary will be increased from the commencement of this quarter." Lance's heart was too full to thank his kind benefactor as he wished. He tried to express his gratitude; at all events, Mr Gaisford understood him. From that time forward it was evident that he rose still more in the estimation of one who was a keen judge of character. CHAPTER FIVE. Lance had been more than a year in London, and having been frequently sent with papers to clients in all directions, he learned his way about the City and West End. During the first autumn vacation, as it was soon after his arrival, he had not gone home. He was looking forward to a visit before the close of the following summer. He kept up, however, a frequent correspondence with his mother and Maddie. His greatest pleasure was receiving their letters. Mr Brown continued his friend, as at first, and took pains to initiate him into the mysteries of his profession. He was one evening in the West End, near the Park, having been sent after office hours to a client's house with the draft of a will. He had performed his commission, and had just left the house, when he encountered a young man, dressed in the height of the fashion, with a gold-headed cane in his hand. The other stopped and looked at him, exclaiming as he did so-- "Upon my word, I believe you are Lance Loughton!" and Lance recognised his former schoolfellow. "What! Dulman?" he said, unconsciously scanning him from head to foot. "I did not know what had become of you; I thought you were engaged in business somewhere." "Hush, hush, my dear fellow! let me ask you not to call me by that odious name. I am Emery Delamere on this side of Temple Bar. I had been sent to call on a lady of fashion about a little affair of my employers, and embraced the opportunity of taking a stroll in the Park, in the hopes of meeting some of my acquaintances. You, I conclude, are bound eastward; so am I. We will proceed together, though I wish you had got rid of a little more of your rustic appearance. And now tell me all about yourself. Where are you? Who are you employed with? What are your prospects?" As soon as Emery's rattling tongue would allow him to answer, Lance briefly gave him the information he asked for. "Very good, better than I had thought, for I am inclined to envy you. At the same time, the dull existence you are compelled to lead would not have suited my taste. However, you were always better adapted to plodding work than I am," he answered, with a slight degree of envy in his tone. "But I suppose you have managed to see something of London life; if not, let me have the pleasure of initiating you. What do you say, shall we go to the theatre? I have tickets for the Haymarket, but it's a dull house, I prefer Drury Lane; and though I ought to be in at ten o'clock according to rule, I can easily explain that I was detained by Lady Dorothy, and had to wait for an omnibus." "I am much obliged to you for your kind intentions, but I have no wish to go to a theatre, and beg that you will not on my account be late in returning home, and especially that you will not utter a falsehood as your excuse." "Falsehood! that's a good joke," exclaimed Emery; "you use a harsh term. We should never be able to enjoy ourselves without the privilege of telling a few white lies when necessary, ha! ha! ha! Why, my dear Lance, you seem as ignorant of the world as when you were at Elmerston." "I knew the difference between right and wrong, as I do now," answered Lance gravely, "and I regret to hear you express yourself as you are doing. I was in hopes that the misfortunes you met with would have tended to give you more serious thoughts. Excuse me for saying so, but I speak frankly, as an old friend, and I pray that you may see things in their true light." "Really, Lance, you have become graver and more sarcastic than ever," exclaimed Emery, not liking the tenor of his companion's remarks. "I only wished to find some amusement for you; and since you don't wish to be amused, I will not press you further to come with me. I myself do not care about going to the theatre, and will walk home with you as far as our roads run together." Lance thanked him, and hoping to be able to speak seriously to him of the sin and folly of the conduct he appeared to be pursuing, agreed to his proposal. Though Emery would rather have had a better dressed companion, yet recollecting that Lance was a gentleman by birth, he felt some satisfaction in being in his society; for notwithstanding his boastings of the fashionable friends he possessed, he knew perfectly well that none of those whose acquaintance he casually made were real gentlemen. "You appear to be better off than I am in some respects, Lance," he observed. "For though I stand high in the opinion of my employer, and, I flatter myself, still higher in that of his daughter, a very charming girl I can assure you, they are not equal in social position to your relatives; and as you know, my desire has always been to move in a good circle, and maintain a high character among the aristocracy." Though Lance could not help despising the folly of poor Emery, he felt real compassion for him as he continued to talk this sort of nonsense. "Now, Emery," he said, "we have been schoolfellows, and you will excuse me for speaking freely to you. Would it not be wiser to accept the position in which you are placed, to work on steadily to gain a good name among those with whom you are associated, instead of aping the manners and customs of people who enjoy wealth and undoubtedly belong to a higher social grade than you do. You will be far more respected, even by them, if you are known to be looked up to by those of your own station in life. I speak from experience: I am treated with kindness and attention, not only by all the clerks in the office, and their friends whom I occasionally meet, but by the head clerk himself, not because I am the son of a naval officer, but simply because I work hard, and try to do whatever work is given me as well as possible. Besides, my old friend, we should have a higher motive for all our actions. Remember God sees us; and though we may give our earthly masters eye-service, we cannot deceive Him. Yet we should be influenced by a higher motive than that, not by fear alone, but by love and gratitude to Him who has given us life and health, and all the blessings we enjoy, and the promise of everlasting happiness if we will accept the offer He so graciously makes us, and become reconciled to Him, through faith in the great sacrifice--His Son offered upon the cross for us, His rebellious and disobedient creatures. Pray seek for grace to realise the great fact that we are by nature and conduct rebels, vile and foul-- that if trusting to our own strength, we are in the power of our great enemy Satan, who is always trying to lead us astray--and that we have no claim whatever to God's love and protection while here on earth, or to enjoy the happiness of heaven when we leave this world--that there is but one state of existence for which, if we die in rebellion, we can be fitted, that is, to associate for ever with the fallen angels justly cast out from His glorious presence." Lance spoke with deep earnestness, holding Emery lightly by the arm. He might never, he felt, have another opportunity of putting the truth before him. Emery suddenly snatched his arm away. "I really don't like the sort of things you have been saying," he exclaimed, "and I don't know what authority you have for talking to me thus. I did not know what you were driving at when you began to talk, or I should not have listened so patiently, I can tell you. I asked you in a friendly way to come and enjoy a little harmless amusement with me, and you in return first give me a grave lecture, such as some one might expect from a Solon, rather than from a lawyer's clerk, and then preach a sermon, which might be all very well if thundered out by the Archbishop of Canterbury from the pulpit, but really, when uttered by one young fellow to another, is simply ridiculous. I hope, for your sake, that you don't pester your brother scribes, and that head clerk you speak of, with such balderdash, or favour your principal with an occasional discourse in the same strain. We are old schoolfellows, as you have remarked, so you will not be offended at what I say. Ah! ah! ah! Good evening to you, friend Solon; should we meet again, I hope you will recollect such an address as you have just given me is not to my taste. I have to go south; you go north, I fancy;" and Emery, swinging round his cane, and cocking his hat on one side, sauntered off, whistling a popular street air to show his unconcern. Lance was too much hurt and astonished at the effect his earnest and faithful remarks had produced to say anything. He stood irresolute for a minute, feeling much inclined to run after Emery, and to entreat him not to take what he had said thus amiss. Just then he saw that his old schoolfellow was joined by another youth of a similar appearance, and the two went into a tobacconist's together. It would be hopeless, he felt, to attempt saying anything more. He therefore hastened homewards, hoping that he might before long have another opportunity of again speaking seriously to Emery. CHAPTER SIX. Emery had been sent by his employer on a commission of some importance. On his return he gave a highly satisfactory account of the way he had performed it. He had risen, in consequence of his address and supposed abilities, high in the favour of Mr Padman, who placed perfect confidence in his zeal and honesty. He was always prepared beforehand with a sufficient excuse when he intended to be late out, or to break through any of the rules of the establishment. He was utterly regardless of the truth Lance had put before him, that God at all times sees us, and that those who deceive their fellow-men are sure, misled by Satan, to be discovered at last, and left to the consequences of their sin. Emery, proud of what he considered his cleverness, and trusting to the confidence Mr Padman placed in him, became bolder in his proceedings. "There was no young man," he said to himself, "so much thought of as he was;" and believing that Miss Padman also looked on him with a favourable eye, he determined to propose to marry her. He consulted old Sass, who, seeing no reason to doubt his success, advised him to try his chance. If he failed, Sass, knowing his secret, thought that he might take advantage of it. If he succeeded, he himself would certainly benefit by the influence he had gained over the young gentleman. Emery had to wait some time for the desired opportunity of speaking alone to Miss Padman. That young lady, however, did not hold her father's shopman in the high estimation he had flattered himself. Others had taken care to whisper that Emery was not as correct in his conduct as he professed to be, and she thought her father unwise in placing so much confidence in him. When, therefore, he at length made her an offer, she replied that she considered him very presumptuous, and begged him to understand that she had no more regard for him than for the boy who swept out the shop, or for any one else in the establishment; and having discovered how he deceived her father, she should put Mr Padman on his guard. As the young lady was perfectly cool and decided, Emery had discernment enough to perceive that her decision was final, and as is often the case with weak natures, any better feeling he might have entertained for her was turned into hatred. As there was no one else to whom he could express his anger and vexation, he called as soon as he could leave the shop on Sass Gange. "Well, it was a toss up, I thought, from the first, and you have lost," observed the old man. "However, Master Emery, don't be cast down, there is as good fish in the sea as out of it. If the girl threatens you, as you say, I would advise you to cut the concern altogether. You will get disrated, depend upon it, and be worse off. Make hay while the sun shines. Now, my lad, I don't want you to do anything that would get you into trouble, but there is nothing worth having without some risk. You have often said you would like a new sort of life instead of the humdrum counter-jumping work you have got to do. What do you say to making a start for South America or the Pacific? You might lead a jolly life among the natives, with nothing to do and lots of pretty girls to make love to, who would not treat you like Miss Padman, that I can tell you." Thus the old sailor ran on, describing in overdrawn colours, with a large admixture of fable, the life he had himself led in his early days. He did not say how he had seen his companions, some murdered, and the rest dying of disease, or that he himself had narrowly escaped with his life. Emery listened eagerly. He had felt how unsatisfactory was the life he was trying to lead, the constant rebuffs of those into whose society he tried to thrust himself, and the hopelessness of succeeding in his foolish aims, and Satan was of course ready to suggest that he might find far greater enjoyment in something new. "It will be capital fun!" he exclaimed at last; "but I have spent every shilling of my salary, and am in debt to a pretty considerable amount to some who look upon me as Mr Padman's future son-in-law, and to others who have taken me to be a young man of fortune; and if I were to sell my whole wardrobe, I don't suppose it would fetch enough to pay for a good sea outfit and my passage." "So I thought," said Gange; "and as I have a notion that you have been shamefully treated by Miss Padman, if I were you, I would help myself in a way I can suggest to you, and the loss will fall upon her more than on her father, who is an old donkey, and it will do him no harm either. The chances are that he will send you to-morrow to pay the receipts of the shop into the bank, and as business is brisk just now, it's likely to be a good round sum. I shall be sure to be sent to look after you, to see that no one picks your pockets, or knocks you down, or makes off with it. Now, then will be the time to fill your purse, and have some cash to spare for me. I won't be very hard on you. To say the truth, I have had a little business of my own on hand, and have made up my mind to cut and run, so you won't have me here as your friend much longer if you stay. Come, what do you say? a free and independent life, with plenty of money in your pocket; or hanging on here, to be snubbed by Miss Padman, and jeered at by the other fellows at your ill luck. She is sure to tell them, and the chances are there is some one she likes better than you." The unhappy youth listened to all the old tempter said, instead of at once seeking for grace to put away temptation and to say, "Get thee behind me, Satan." He consented to all Sass had proposed. "That's right!" said the old sailor, "I like your spirit, my boy; I will help you, depend on me. You had better get your portmanteau packed with all your best things, and just carry it down the first thing in the morning. You can tell the house-porter that you are going away for a day; he will not ask questions, and I will send a man to bring it here." All other arrangements were speedily made. Sass had evidently thought the matter over, and Emery was impressed by what he fancied the clever way all risks had been provided against. Emery went home. He felt too nervous to sleep soundly, and rising, lighted a candle and packed up his portmanteau, keeping out his best things, in which to dress in the morning. If questions were asked, he would say that his mother was ill, and that he intended to ask leave to go home in the evening. The thoughts of the sinfulness of the act he was about to commit did not trouble him so much as the fear of possible detection. Still, the plan proposed by Sass was so feasible, and the arrangements he had made so perfect, that he had great hopes all would go right. He thought the matter over and over. Sometimes the remarks made by Lance would force themselves upon him, but he put them away, muttering, "That's all old women's nonsense, I am not going to be prevented from doing what I like by such stuff." Dressing, and putting all the small articles of value he possessed into his pockets, as soon as he thought the porter would be opening the house he carried down his portmanteau, observing to the man as he did so, that he had had a sad letter the previous night, and should be compelled to start for home as soon as he could get leave from Mr Padman. In a short time the porter sent by Sass appeared, and he got it sent off without any questions being asked. He then went back to his room, and afraid of going to bed again with the risk of oversleeping himself, sat down in a chair by his bedside. Not having slept a wink during the night, his head soon dropped on his chest. His dreams were troubled--he felt a fearful pressure round his neck--it seemed that a cap was drawn over his eyes-- the murmuring sound of numberless voices rang in his ears--he was standing on the platform at Newgate, the drop was about to fall beneath his feet. He had once witnessed such a scene, and gazed at it with indifference, moving off among the careless throng with the remark "Poor wretch! he has got what he deserved." Could it be possible that he himself was now standing where he had seen the unhappy culprit launched into eternity. He awoke with a start, and found to his satisfaction that he had been only dreaming. His eyelids were heavy, his eyes bloodshot. He washed his face in cold water, and endeavoured to laugh off the recollection of his dream while he brushed his hair and arranged his cravat. He went down-stairs and joined his companions in the breakfast-room. They rallied him on his rakish look. He talked in his usual affected way, managing, however, to bring in the falsehood he had already uttered about his mother's illness. It would assist, he hoped, to account for his not returning from the bank. After a good breakfast he went with apparent diligence to business, waiting with anxious trepidation to be summoned by Mr Padman to convey the money received to the bank. Sometimes, as Lance's words, and the recollection of his horrid dream, would intrude, he almost hoped that some one else would be selected; then he thought of, his debts, and the consequence of Miss Padman's communication to her father, and the sneers of his companions, and he resolved to carry out the plan proposed by Sass Gange. The expected summons came. He received nearly 400 pounds, with the usual directions. "I need not tell you to be careful, Dulman, and keep out of crowds," said Mr Padman as he gave him the money. Emery, buttoning up his coat, replied, with a forced smile, that he need have no fear on that score, though it was with difficulty that he prevented his knees from knocking together as he walked away. He hastened out of the house. As he expected, before getting far, on looking back, he saw Sass Gange following at his heels. Would it not be safer, after all, to pay the money in? Miss Padman might relent; and should he be captured, the dreadful dream of the morning might be realised. "Pooh! they don't hang for such things as that," he said to himself. Directly afterwards he felt Sass's hand laid on his shoulder. "Have you a goodish sum, my lad?" he asked. "Seldom have had more at one time," answered Emery. "Then come along, don't let us lose the chance." Sass called a cab, and forced his dupe into it. They drove away to Gange's lodgings. He ran in and brought down Emery's portmanteau, and a sea-bag with his own traps. The cabman was ordered to drive to Euston Square station. Sass had a railway guide; he had been consulting it attentively; they might catch a train starting for Liverpool. "Is it most in notes or gold?" asked Sass. "About a third in gold, the rest in bank-notes, with a few cheques," said Emery. "Hand me out the gold, then, it will suit me best," said Sass. "I will be content with that as my share. You can get rid of the notes better than I can." Sass promised double fare to the cabman if he would drive faster. Emery wanted to keep some of the gold for himself, but Sass insisted on having the whole of it. He made Emery pay the fare. They had three minutes to spare. "You take our tickets," said Sass, "second class for me, there are no third, and a first for yourself. We had better be separate; and if by any chance we are traced thus far, it will help to put them off the scent." Emery having no gold, took out a bank-note for ten pounds. He felt somewhat nervous as the booking-clerk examined it. It was all right, however, and he received his change, and going on to the next shutter took a ticket for his companion. "All right," said Gange, "get in, and sit at the further side, and pretend to be sleepy or drunk, only keep your face away from the light. Your portmanteau is ticketed for Liverpool. Good-bye, my lad, till we stop on the road, and I will come and have a look at you." Gange disappeared. Off went the train, and Emery's brain whirled round and round, even faster than the carriage seemed to be moving. He tried not to think, but in vain. The other seats were filled, but he had not dared to look at his companions. He heard them laughing and talking. A board was opened, and dice rattled, still he did not look up. Cards were produced. "Will any other gentleman join us?" asked a man sitting opposite to the seat, next to him. He caught Emery's eye. "Will you, sir," he added in a bland voice. "We play for very moderate stakes." Emery knew something about the game proposed. It would have been better for him had he been ignorant of it altogether. A game of cards would enable him to turn his thoughts from himself. He agreed to play. He knew that he did not play well, but to his surprise he found himself winning. The stakes were doubled. He still won. He thought that his companions were very bad players. Again the stakes were increased, he still occasionally won, but oftener lost. He had soon paid away all his gold, and was compelled to take out one of the notes which he had stolen; that quickly went, and another, and another. He felt irritated, and eager to get back the money he had lost; he had won at first, why should he not again? His companions looked calm and indifferent, as if it mattered very little if the luck turned against them. When they came to a station, they shut up the board, and put the cards under their railway rugs. Emery had lost fifty pounds of the stolen money. He felt ready for any desperate deed. Two of the men got out at the next large station. Could he have been certain that the money was in the possession of the remaining man, he would have seized him by the throat, and tried to get it back. The man kept eyeing him sternly, as if aware of his thoughts. Just before the train started, he also stepped out, carrying the board concealed in his rug. "You have been a heavy loser, I fear," said a gentleman in the seat near the door. "I would have warned you had I thought you would have lost so much, but it will be a lesson to you in future. I am convinced, by their movements, that those were regular card-sharpers. It's too late now, but you may telegraph from the next station to try and stop them." As this remark was made, it flashed into Emery's mind that some one might telegraph to Liverpool to stop him. He scarcely thought about his loss, but dreaded that his agitation might betray him. The gentleman naturally thought it arose from his being cheated of so much money. Emery tried to look unconcerned. "A mere trifle," he said, forcing a laugh, "I will try and catch the rogues, though." However, when he reached the next station, remembering Sass Gange's caution, he was afraid to leave his seat. "I might lose the train," he said, "and business of importance takes me to Liverpool." "As you think fit," observed the gentleman, "but you will now have little chance of recovering your money." Emery was thankful when the train again moved on. Sass Gange had not appeared at either of the stations. Liverpool was at length reached. He looked about expecting to see Sass, but he was nowhere to be found. His own portmanteau was in the luggage-van, but the sailor's bag was not with it. Where to go he could not tell. His eye caught the name of a hotel. He took a cab and drove to it. It was too late to change any notes that night; but he determined in the morning, as early as possible, to get rid of those evidences of his guilt. In the meantime, he went to bed utterly miserable. CHAPTER SEVEN. Mr Padman became anxious when neither Emery nor Sass Gange returned at the expected time. On sending to the bank he found that no money had been paid in. He made inquiries if they had been seen, and learned that Emery had sent for his portmanteau in the morning. He at once despatched a messenger to Gange's lodgings. Gange had left with his bag in the afternoon. Mr Padman immediately suspected the truth. He sent to the police, and to each of the railway stations. Lance's master, Mr Gaisford, was his lawyer. He hurried to consult him as to what other steps it would be advisable to take. Lance was in the room receiving instructions about a draft, and not being told to withdraw, remained. With sincere grief he heard of Emery's guilt. "He comes from Elmerston, do you know him?" asked Mr Gaisford, turning to Lance. "Yes," said Lance, "he was a schoolfellow, and I saw him but a few days ago. I have also frequently seen the man who is supposed to have accompanied him." "If we can find out where they have gone to I will send you down with an officer and a warrant. It will save much trouble, and you will be able at once to identify them, and the sooner they are captured the less money they will have spent." The number of the cab happened to consist but of two figures; a fellow-lodger of Sass had remarked it, and heard him order the cabman to drive to Euston Square station. A clue was obtained in the course of a few hours, and a telegraph message sent to stop the fugitives. Before Emery had reached Liverpool, Lance and the officer, having warrants for his and Gange's apprehension, were on their way. The cunning old sailor, however, having obtained all the gold as his share, had quitted the train and gone off to Hull, leaving his unhappy dupe to follow his own devices. The Liverpool police being on the look-out for an old man and a young one allowed Emery to pass, though not altogether unnoticed; and when Lance and the London officer arrived, the latter, suspecting the true state of the case, inquired if a young man of Emery's appearance had arrived alone. The hotel which he had driven to was at once discovered, and he was still in bed when the officer, followed by Lance, entered the room. He awoke as the door opened. As the officer, turning to Lance, asked, "Is that the man?" Emery gazed at Lance with a look of the most abject terror, unable to utter a word. "Yes, I am sorry to say he is Emery Dulman," said Lance, his voice choking with emotion. The usual form of arrest was gone through. The officer examined his clothes, and found the pocket-book with the remainder of the stolen notes. "Is this your doing, Lance?" asked Emery, at length making an effort to speak. "No, it is not; I wish that I could have prevented you from committing the crime, and I am anxious, to serve you as far as I have the power," answered Lance; "I advise you to confess everything, and to restore the money to your employer." The unhappy youth was allowed to dress, and while at breakfast told Lance everything that had occurred. Of Sass Gange he could say nothing, except that he believed he had entered a second-class carriage. The wretched Emery, instead of enjoying the liberty and pleasure he had anticipated, as he sat waiting for the train, with his hands between his knees and his head bent down, looked the very picture of misery and despair. "I have been befooled and deceived by every one--right and left!" he murmured, evidently wishing to throw blame on others rather than to condemn himself. "Mr Padman shouldn't have given the money to me to carry to the bank, and he ought to have known what an old rascal that Sass Gange is. To think that the villain should have played me so scurvy a trick, and have gone off and left me in the lurch! Then to have lost so much money to these cheating card-sharpers. I expected only to meet gentlemen in a first-class carriage. I would punish them for robbing me if I could catch them--that I would, and they would deserve it! And now to have you, Lance, whom I looked upon as a friend, ferret me out and assist to hand me over to prison, and for what you can tell to the contrary, to the hangman's noose, if the matter is proved against me. I wish that I was dead, that I do. If I had a pistol, I'd shoot myself, and get the affair settled at once!" he exclaimed, jumping up and dashing his fists against his forehead. Lance did his utmost to calm the unhappy youth. "My poor Emery, Satan has duped you as he dupes all those who listen to his agents, or to the evil suggestions of their own wicked hearts. `All our hearts are deceitful, and desperately wicked above all things,' the Bible tells us. Notwithstanding which, had you sought for strength from God's Holy Spirit, you would assuredly have resisted the temptations thrown in your way. I have ever been your friend, and I wish to remain so. You remember the line in our Latin Grammar--`A true friend is tried in a doubtful matter.' As a friend, I rejoice that through God's mercy you have been arrested in the downward course you had commenced. It must have led to your utter destruction. Think what you would have become old Sass Gange as your counsellor and guide. You will have much that is painful to go through--from that you cannot escape; but thank our loving Father in heaven for it. Far better is it to suffer a light affliction here for a short season, than to be eternally cast out. Never--let me entreat you--again utter the impious threat of rushing into the presence of your Maker; but turn to Him with a penitent heart, seeking forgiveness for all your sins through the one only way He has appointed--faith in our crucified Saviour: and oh! believe me, He will not deny you, for He has promised to receive all who thus come to Him. He has said, `Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.' Text upon text I might bring forward to prove God's readiness to forgive the greatest of sinners. Trust Him. Throw yourself upon His mercy. Do not fear what man can do to you. Submit willingly to any punishment the just laws of our country may demand you should suffer. Not that imprisonment or any other punishment you may receive can atone for the sin you have committed in God's sight--not if you were to refund every farthing of the sum you stole. As the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, so through that precious blood alone can the slightest as well as the deepest shade of sin be washed away. I say this now, Emery, in case I should be prevented from speaking again to you on the subject. Reflect, too, on the condition in which you would have been placed had you committed this crime a few years ago, for then an ignominious death on the scaffold would have been your inevitable doom, and bless God that you will now be spared to prove the sincerity of your repentance in some new sphere of life." Happy would it be for criminals if they had, when placed as Emery Dulman now was, faithful friends like Lance Loughton to speak to them. Emery now and then, as Lance was addressing him, looked up, but again turned aside his head with an expression of scorn on his lips. Lance, however, was too true a Christian, and too sincerely desirous of benefiting his former acquaintance, to be defeated in his efforts to do so. Again and again he spoke to him so lovingly and gently that at length Emery burst into tears. "I wish that I had listened to you long ago, when you warned me of my folly, and it would not have come to this," he exclaimed. "I will plead guilty at once, and throw myself on the mercy of my employer whom I have robbed." "I do not know whether he will be inclined to treat you mercifully. It may be considered necessary, as a warning to others, to punish you severely," answered Lance. "But, my dear Emery, I am very sure that our Father in heaven, whom you have far more grievously offended, will, if you come to Him in His own appointed way, through faith in the Great Sacrifice, with sincere repentance, not only abundantly pardon you, but will inflict no punishment, because the punishment justly your due has been already borne by the Just and Holy One when He died on the Cross for sinners." The officer, looking at his watch, interrupted Lance by saying that it was time to start. Emery was conveyed to the station, and in a short time they were on their way back to London. The officer made inquiries at the different stations, and at length discovered the one at which Gange had left the train. He sent to London for another officer to follow on his track. Emery was conveyed to prison. He was tried, convicted, and sent to gaol for twelve months' imprisonment. Old Sass, however, was too cunning to be caught, and got off to sea. Lance obtained leave frequently to visit his unhappy schoolfellow, who, now left to his own reflections, listened to him attentively when with gentle words he impressed on him the truths he had hitherto derided. Before he left the prison Emery became thoroughly and deeply convinced that he was an utterly lost sinner, and that so he would have been, had he not been guilty of the crime for which he was suffering, or the countless others he had committed which his memory conjured up. Often had he cried, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!" That prayer had been heard, and he now knew that God is merciful, and that He has given good proof of His mercy by sending Jesus, the pure and sinless One, to suffer on the cross for every one who will trust to that sufficient atonement which He thus made for sin. "God as a Sovereign with free grace offers pardon to rebellious man," said Lance. "He leaves us with loving gratitude to accept it, and if we reject His mercy, justly to suffer the consequence of that rejection, and to be cast out for ever from His presence." "I see it!--I understand!--I do accept His gracious offer, and from henceforth, and with the aid of His Holy Spirit, will seek to obey and serve Him," said Emery. "And I feel thankful that all this has come upon me, for I might never otherwise have learned to know Him in whom I can now place all my trust and love." At the end of Emery's term of imprisonment, with the help of Mr Gaisford, Lance was able to procure him a passage to Australia, where he had in the meantime learned that his father had obtained a situation of trust, and would be able to find employment for his son. Lance went on as he had begun, and as soon as he was out of his articles his loving and faithful Maddie became his wife, his mother having the happiness of seeing him the partner of his former employer before she was called to her rest. He heard frequently from Emery, who, ever thankful for the mercies shown him by his heavenly Father, continued with steady industry to labour in the humble situation he had obtained. A decrepit beggar one day came to Lance's door with a piteous tale of the miseries he had endured, and Lance, ever ready to relieve distress, visited him at the wretched lodging where a few days afterwards he lay dying. He there learned that the unhappy man was Sass Gange. Lance told him that he knew him. Sass inquired for Emery. "I'm thankful I did not help to bring him to the gallows," he murmured. "The way I tempted the lad has laid heavier on my conscience than anything I ever did, and I've done a good many things I don't like to think about." Lance endeavoured to place the gospel before the old man, but his heart was hard, his mind dull. In a few days he died. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The End. BOOK II--ALONE ON AN ISLAND. CHAPTER I. The _Wolf_, a letter-of-marque of twenty guns, commanded by Captain Deason, sailing from Liverpool, lay becalmed on the glass-like surface of the Pacific. The sun struck down with intense heat on the deck, compelling the crew to seek such shade as the bulwarks or sails afforded. Some were engaged in mending sails, twisting yarns, knotting, splicing, or in similar occupations; others sat in groups between the guns, talking together in low voices, or lay fast asleep out of sight in the shade. The officers listlessly paced the deck, or stood leaning over the bulwarks, casting their eyes round the horizon in the hopes of seeing signs of a coming breeze. Their countenances betrayed ill-humour and dissatisfaction; and if they spoke to each other, it was in gruff, surly tones. They had had a long course of ill luck, as they called it, having taken no prizes of value. The crew, too, had for some time exhibited a discontented and mutinous spirit, which Captain Deason, from his bad temper, was ill fitted to quell. While he vexed and insulted the officers, they bullied and tyrannised over the men. The crew, though often quarrelling among themselves, were united in the common hatred to their superiors, till that little floating world became a perfect pandemonium. Among those who paced her deck, anxiously looking out for a breeze, was Humphry Gurton, a fine lad of fifteen, who had joined the _Wolf_ as a midshipman. This was his first trip to sea. He had intended to enter the Navy, but just as he was about to do so his father, a merchant at Liverpool, failed, and, broken-hearted at his losses, soon afterwards died, leaving his wife and only son but scantily provided for. Tenderly had that wife, though suffering herself from a fatal disease, watched over him in his sickness, and Humphry had often sat by his father's bedside while his mother was reading from God's Word, and listened as with tender earnestness she explained the simple plan of salvation to his father. She had shown him from the Bible that all men are by nature sinful, and incapable, by anything they can do, of making themselves fit to enter a pure and holy heaven, however respectable or excellent they may be in the sight of their fellow-men, and that the only way the best of human beings can come to God is by imitating the publican in the parable, and acknowledging themselves worthless, outcast sinners, and seeking to be reconciled to Him according to the one way He has appointed--through a living faith in the all-atoning sacrifice of His dear Son. Humphry had heard his father exclaim, "I believe that Jesus died for me; O Lord, help my unbelief! I have no merits of my own; I trust to Him, and Him alone." He had witnessed the joy which had lighted up his mother's countenance as she pressed his father's hand, and bending down, whispered, "We shall be parted but for a short time; and, oh! may our loving Father grant that this our son may too be brought to love the Saviour, and join us when he is summoned to leave this world of pain and sorrow." Humphry had felt very sad; and though he had wept when his father's eyes were closed in death, and his mother had pressed him--now the only being on earth for whom she desired to live--to her heart, yet the impression he had received had soon worn off. In a few months after his father died, she too was taken from him, and Humphry was left an orphan. The kind and pious minister, Mr Faithful, who frequently visited Mrs Gurton during the last weeks of her illness, had promised her to watch over her boy, but he had no legal power. Humphry's guardian was a worldly man, and finding that there was but a very small sum for his support, was annoyed at the task imposed on him. Humphry had expressed his wish to go to sea. A lad whose acquaintance he had lately made, Tom Matcham, was just about to join the _Wolf_, and, persuading him that they should meet with all sorts of adventures, offered to assist him in getting a berth on board her. Humphry's guardian, to save himself trouble, was perfectly willing to agree to the proposed plan, and, without difficulty, arranged for his being received on board as a midshipman. "We shall have a jovial life of it, depend upon that!" exclaimed Matcham when the matter was settled. "I intend to enjoy myself. The officers are rather wild blades, but that will suit me all the better." Harry went to bid farewell to Mr Faithful. "I pray that God will prosper and protect you, my lad," he said. "I trust that your young companion is a right principled youth, who will assist you as you will be ready to help him, and that the captain and officers are Christian men." "I have not been long enough acquainted with Tom Matcham to know much about him," answered Humphry. "I very much doubt that the captain and officers are the sort of people you describe. However, I daresay I shall get on very well with them." "My dear Humphry," exclaimed Mr Faithful, "I am deeply grieved to hear that you can give no better account of your future associates. Those who willingly mix with worldly or evil-disposed persons are very sure to suffer. Our constant prayer is that we may be kept out of temptation, and we are mocking God if we willingly throw ourselves into it. I would urge you, if you are not satisfied with the character of those who are to be your companions for so many years, to give up the appointment while there is time. I would accompany you, and endeavour to get your agreement cancelled. It will be better to do so at any cost, rather than run the risk of becoming like them." "Oh, I daresay that they are not bad fellows after all!" exclaimed Humphry. "You know I need not do wrong, even though they do." The minister sighed. In vain he urged Humphry to consider the matter seriously. "All I can do, then, my young friend, is to pray for you," said Mr Faithful, as he wrung Harry's hand, "and I beg you, as a parting gift, to accept these small books. One is a book above all price, of a size which you may keep in your pocket, and I trust that you will read it as you can make opportunities, even though others may attempt to interrupt you, or to persuade you to leave it neglected in your chest." It was a small Testament, and Harry, to please the minister, promised to carry it in his pocket, and to read from it as often as he Could. Humphry having parted from his friend, went down at once to join the ship. Next day she sailed. Humphry at first felt shocked at hearing the oaths and foul language used, both by the crew and officers. The captain, who on shore appeared a grave, quiet sort of man, swore louder and oftener than any one. Scarcely an order was issued without an accompaniment of oaths; indeed blasphemy resounded throughout the ship. Matcham only laughed at Humphry when he expressed his annoyance. "You will soon get accustomed to it," he observed. "I confess that I myself was rather astonished when I first heard the sort of thing, but I don't mind it now a bit." So Humphry thought, for Matcham interlarded his own conversation with the expressions used by the rest on board; indeed, swearing had become so habitual to him, that he seemed scarcely aware of the fearful language which escaped his lips. By degrees, as Matcham had foretold, Humphry did get accustomed to the language used by all around, which had at first so greatly shocked him. Though he kept his promise to the minister, and carried the little Testament in his pocket, he seldom found time to read it. He wished to become a sailor, and he applied himself diligently to learn his profession; and as he was always in a good temper and ready to oblige, the captain and officers treated him with more respect than they did Matcham, who was careless and indifferent, and ready to shirk duty whenever he could do so. Matcham, finding himself constantly abused, chose to consider that it was owing to Humphry, and, growing jealous, took every opportunity of annoying him. Humphry, however, gained the good-will of the men by never swearing at them, or using the rope's-end: this the officers were accustomed to do on all occasions, and Matcham imitated them by constantly thrashing the boys, often without the slightest excuse. As the ship sailed on her voyage, the state of affairs on board became worse and worse. On one occasion the crew came aft, complaining that their provisions were bad, and then that the water was undrinkable, when the captain, appearing with pistols in his hands, ordered them to go forward, refusing to listen to what they had to say. Another time they complained that they were stinted in their allowance of spirits, when he treated them in the same way. They retired, casting looks of defiance at him and the officers. On several occasions, when some of the men did not obey orders with sufficient promptitude, Humphry saw them struck to the deck by the first and second mates without any notice being taken by the captain. The officers, too, quarrelled among themselves; the first officer and the second refused to speak to each other; and the surgeon, who considered that he had been insulted, declined intercourse with either of them. The younger officers followed their bad example, and often and often Humphry wished that he had listened to the advice of his friend Mr Faithful, and had inquired the character of his intended companions before he joined the ship. At the first port in South America at which the _Wolf_ touched, the surgeon, carrying his chest with him, went on shore, and refused to return till the mates had apologised. As this they would not do, she sailed without him; and although the men might be wounded, or sickness break out, there was now no one on board capable of attending to them. Such was the condition of the _Wolf_ at the time she was thus floating becalmed and alone on the wide ocean. CHAPTER TWO. Harry Gurton stood gazing on the glassy sea till his eyes ached with the bright glare, his thoughts wandering back to the days of his happy childhood, when he was the pride and delight of his beloved father and mother. He had come on deck only to breathe a purer air than was to be found below. Soon after leaving the coast of South America a fever had broken out on board, and several of the crew lay sick in their berths. Their heartless shipmates, afraid of catching the complaint, took little care of them. Humphry could not bear to see them suffer without help, and from the first had done his best to attend on them. He constantly went round, taking them water and such food as he could induce the cook to prepare. Tom Matcham was the only officer who had as yet been struck down by the fever. He lay in his berth tossing and groaning, complaining of his hard lot. The officers, who were annoyed by his cries, often abused him, telling him roughly not to disturb them. "The cruel brutes! I will be revenged on them if I ever get well," exclaimed Matcham. In vain Humphry tried to pacify him. "Don't mind what they say, Tom," he observed. "I hope you may get well; but if you were to die, it would be dreadful to go out of the world with such feelings in your heart. I remember enough about religion to know that we should forgive those who injure us. If you will let me, I will try to say some of the prayers which my mother taught me when I was a child, and I will pray with you. I have got a Testament, and I should like to read to you out of it." "I can't pray, and I don't want to hear anything from the Testament," answered Tom gloomily. "It would be very dreadful if you were to go out of the world feeling as you now do," urged Humphry. "What! you don't mean to say you think I am going to die!" exclaimed Tom in an agitated voice. "I tell you honestly, Tom, that you seem as bad as the two poor fellows who died last week," said Humphry. "Oh, you are croaking," groaned Tom, though his voice faltered as he spoke. After talking for some time longer without being able to move him, Humphry was compelled to go forward to attend to some of the other men. In the first hammock he came to lay Ned Hadow, one of the oldest, and apparently one of the most ruffianly of the crew. He seemed, however, to be grateful to Humphry for his kindness; and he acknowledged that if it had not been for him, he should have been fathoms down in the deep before then. "I hope, however, that you are getting better now," said Humphry. "Thanks to you, sir, I think I am," answered Ned. "I don't want to die, though I cannot say I have much to live for, nor has any one else aboard this ship, except to be abused and knocked about without any chance of gaining any good by the cruise." "Perhaps we may do better by and by," observed Humphry. "I have no hopes of that while such men as the captain and his mates have charge of the ship. Take my advice, Mr Gurton, if you have a chance, get out of her as fast as you can. You will thank me for warning you--it is the only way I have to show that I am grateful to you for your kindness." Hadow's remarks made no deep impression upon Humphry, but he could not help occasionally recollecting them. After visiting the other sick men, he went on deck to keep his proper watch; then, weary with his exertions, he turned into his berth to obtain the rest he so much needed. He was awakened by hearing the cry of "All hands shorten sail!" He quickly sprang on deck. A gale had suddenly sprung up. The ship was heeling over, and ploughing her way through the seething waters. The crew flew aloft. The loftier sails were taken in, and the top-sails were being closely reefed, when another blast, more furious than the former, struck the ship, and two poor fellows were hurled from the lee-yard-arm into the foaming waters. There was a cry from the crew, and several rushed to lower a boat-- Humphry among them. "Hold fast!" cried the captain; "let the fellows drown; you will only lose your lives if you attempt to save them." Still the men persisted, showing more humanity than they had exhibited in attending to their sick shipmates, when the captain swore that he would shoot any one who disobeyed him. Though spare spars and everything that could float had been hove overboard, the poor fellows in the water could no longer be seen. The crew, with gloomy looks, assembled forward, muttering threats which did not reach the officers' ears. The change of weather had the effect of restoring some of the sick men to health, though several died. Among the first to appear on deck was Ned Hadow. He still looked weak and ill--the shadow of his former self. He was changed in other respects, and Humphry observed that he was quiet in his behaviour, and no longer swore in the way he had been accustomed to do. Matcham remained in his berth. He seemed a little better, though he still refused to listen to Humphry when he offered to read the Bible to him, and when asked the reason, replied, "Because I am not going to let those fellows suppose that I am afraid to die. They would be sneering at me, and calling me a Methodist; and I don't intend to die either, so I don't see why I should bother myself by having religion thrust down my throat." "If you are not going to die, I suppose the case is different," answered Humphry. "Still, I know that if you were, the Bible is the best book to read. I wish that I had read it oftener myself." "If I can get hold of it, I will take care that neither you nor I am troubled with it in future," answered Matcham. "You have teased me too much about it already. I wish you would just try what the captain or mates would say to you if you were to bother them." Humphry put his little Testament into his pocket, determining that his messmate should not get hold of it. Still, much as he valued the book as a gift from his old friend, he looked upon it, as many other people do, as a book to be reverenced, and to be read in times of sickness or trouble; but he had little notion of the value of an open Bible, to be studied with prayer every day in the week, to serve as a light to his feet and a lamp to his path, and to guide him in the everyday affairs of life. Humphry, wishing Matcham good evening, went on deck. As he looked ahead, he saw in the distance a small island rising like a rock out of the blue ocean. The ship was standing towards it. The sun, however, was just then setting, and in a short time it was concealed from sight by the mists of night. As he was to keep the first watch with the third mate, he went down and took some supper. When he returned on deck, he found that the sky was overcast with clouds, and that the night was excessively dark. He could scarcely distinguish the man at the helm or the officer of the watch. "Is that you, Gurton?" asked the third mate. "The orders are to heave to in an hour, so as not to run past the island we saw at sunset, as the captain wishes to examine it to-morrow morning. Go forward, and see that the look-outs are keeping their eyes open; the reefs may run further off the land than we think for." "Ay, ay, sir," answered Humphry, making his way along the deck. Having spoken to the men as directed, he stood for some minutes trying to pierce the thick gloom, and as he was sure no danger could be seen till the ship was close upon it, he resolved to return aft, and advise the mate to heave her to sooner than he had been ordered. When just abreast of the fore-rigging, he suddenly felt his arms pinioned behind him, and a gag thrust into his mouth. At the same time a voice whispered in his ear, which he recognised as Ned Hadow's, "Do not cry out--no harm is intended you; what we do is for your good." The next instant he felt himself lifted off his feet and placed in the fore-rigging, up which a man on either side forced him to ascend. He soon reached the top. "He will be safer in the cross-trees," said one of the men, and he was compelled to ascend till he got there. "We must make you fast where you are," whispered Hadow, compelling Humphry to sit down on the cross-trees, and lashing him to the rigging. "If you will promise not to cry out, we will remove the gag from your mouth; if not, you must be content to bear it for some time longer. Here, press my hand if you promise to do as I tell you--I can trust to your word." Humphry was very anxious to get rid of the gag, which hurt him, and pressed the hand placed in his. The gag was immediately taken out of his mouth. "Whatever sounds you hear, or whatever you see, don't cry out, as you value your life," whispered Hadow. The next moment Humphry was left alone. He sat wondering why he had been thus treated. Hadow could certainly not have intended to injure him; at the same time, he could not help fearing that the crew contemplated some dreadful act of mutiny, and that Hadow had contrived to get him up there to keep him out of harm's way. Nothing could he see but the tall mast above his head tapering towards the dark sky, and the yard and ropes immediately below him. All on deck seemed quiet, no voices reached his ear. The moments passed slowly by. Suddenly a loud shriek rent the air, followed by a heavy groan; then came the flash and report of a pistol-- another, and another followed. Now rose fierce shouts and cries from many voices, loud thundering blows, and the clash of cutlasses. A desperate fight was going on. He no longer had any doubt that the officers had been attacked, and were struggling for their lives. Suddenly, as they began, all sounds of strife ceased, though he could now distinguish the voices of the crew shouting to each other. The helm during the contest had been deserted, and the ship had come up to the wind. It seemed a relief to him to hear the boatswain's voice ordering the crew to brace up the yards. The ship was then hove to. No one, however, came to release him. If his friend Hadow had fallen in the strife, what would be his fate when the rest of the crew discovered him? The dreadful certainty forced itself upon his mind, that the officers had been overcome. He heard the men moving about the deck, and talking in loud voices to each other; but though he listened eagerly, he could not ascertain what was said. Hour after hour passed by. No one came aloft to release him. Notwithstanding the fearful anxiety he felt, he at length dropped off into forgetfulness; but his dream were troubled, and full of the horrors which had just occurred. CHAPTER THREE. "It was well I thought of lashing you securely, or you would have fallen and been killed," said a voice in Humphry's ear. Consciousness returned. He recognised Ned Hadow. "It will be wise in you not to ask any questions, Mr Gurton," he whispered. "Just be sure that you are wide awake, and I will cast off the lashings. I have done the best I could for you. The men did not ask you to join them because they believed you would not, nor do I either. I am too grateful to you for what you have done for me to wish you to be among them. They have now possession of the ship, and intend to keep it. As we shall be at daybreak close in with the island we saw last night, they give you your choice of being put on shore there, or taking the oath of fidelity to them, and joining their cause. As I said before, I don't suppose you will hesitate about the matter." "Indeed I will not," answered Humphry; "whether or not the island is inhabited or means of subsistence can be found on it, I would rather be put on shore than remain an hour longer than I can help on board the ship, after what I fear has taken place." "As I said, Mr Gurton, you must ask no questions," repeated Hadow. "I wish I could go with you, but I am sworn to stay by the rest. I would give anything to be out of the ship, but it is too late now to draw back; though, as I have heard it said, that hell with sinners often begins on earth, so it has begun with me. Yes, Mr Gurton, I almost wish that I had been carried off by the fever instead of living on, to become what I now am. I was bad enough before, but I am a thousand times worse now. There is no one on board I can say this to, and I cannot help saying it to you." "Surely you could manage to come on shore with me," said Humphry. "Your messmates will probably release you from any oath you have taken if you wish it." "They will not do that, sir, they will not do that," answered Hadow in a despairing tone. "I am bound hand and foot to them; their fate, whatever that is, must be mine. You must not stay up here longer. I will cast off the lashings now, but you must take care, as your arms will be stiff after being bound so long, that you don't fall. I will hold you till you get the use of them." Saying this, Ned cast off the rope, and grasping Humphry round the body, assisted him to get on his legs; then, after he had stood for a minute or two, helped him to descend the rigging. On reaching the foretop, Hadow told him to wait there till he should come for him. "I don't want you to go among the crew," he said in a low voice. "I have got four men whom you looked after in their sickness, who have agreed to pull you on shore, which we hope to reach as soon as there is light enough to land. The boat is already in the water, and we are stowing her with things which we think will be useful to you. As you saw nothing of what happened, even should you be taken off the island some time or other, you cannot swear against any one. All you know is that you were lashed in the rigging, and were put on shore the same night before daybreak. If any one asks you questions on deck, that is what you must say to them--you understand me?" Humphry replied that he did understand, and, suspecting that his safety depended on his answer, said that he would do as Ned advised. "Well, then, stay here till I come for you," and Ned disappeared down the rigging. Harry had not long to wait when he again heard his voice. "All is ready," he whispered. "We took the bearings of the island before dark, and can steer a straight course for it. Don't speak to any one. Follow me into the boat; she is waiting under the forechains; you will find a rope by which you can lower yourself into her." Humphry followed Ned without ever stepping on deck, and took his seat near him in the stern of the boat, which noiselessly shoved off from the ship's side. The crew bent to their oars, while Ned steered by a boat compass lighted by a lantern at his feet. Humphry breathed more freely when he felt himself out of the ship. Yet what a fate was to be his. To be left alone on an island where he might have to spend long, long years, cut off from all intercourse with his fellow-creatures. Yet anything was better than having to associate with the wretched men on board the _Wolf_. They soon lost sight of the ship, and the boat made her way across the dark water, the island not being yet visible ahead. "Are they all dead, have none been spared?" asked Humphry at length, yet half fearing to speak on the subject which occupied his thoughts. "I told you, Mr Gurton, to ask no questions," answered Ned in a hollow voice. "The sooner you put all thoughts of what happened last night out of your head the better. Just think of what you have got to do. You will have to keep your wits awake where you are going, depend on that. I wish we could stop to help you, but we have promised to be back as soon as we have landed your things. All I can tell you is, that there is said to be water, and you will probably find cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees, and other roots and fruits; and as we have put up lines and hooks, and a gun and ammunition, and a couple of harpoons, and lines for catching seals, it will be your fault if you do not manage to find as much food as you want." "But how shall I be able to live all alone by myself on the island?" said Humphry with a sigh. "Better to be all alone than food for the sharks, I have a notion," observed one of the men who overheard him. Humphry made no further remark. He now felt more than ever certain that a fearful tragedy had been enacted, and that he ought to be thankful to get out of the company of the perpetrators. Yet he was sorry to leave Hadow among them, for he had observed, he thought, the signs of something better in him than in his companions, rough and ignorant as he was. As day dawned the island appeared ahead, rising out of the blue water with black rocks piled one upon another, and some hills of considerable elevation. Humphry observed also a deep sandy bay between the rocks, but an encircling coral reef intervened, over which, even on that calm morning, the sea broke in masses of foam. They pulled along till the bay opened out more clearly, and just in front was a cascade, which came tumbling down the rocks. A narrow piece of dark water was seen between the masses of foam which danced up on either side of it. "There is a passage," exclaimed Ned. "Give way, my lads, and we shall get through it without difficulty." The men bent to their oars, and the boat, dashing between the two walls of foam, was in a short time floating on the calm surface of a lagoon. Pulling up the bay, they reached a small sandy beach, though the dark rocks which everywhere rose up around it gave the place a gloomy aspect. The boat was hauled up, and the men quickly landed the various articles which Ned had secured for Humphry's benefit. He and Humphry searching about soon found a level spot on one side of the bay where the ground looked capable of cultivation. "This will do for you, my lad," said Ned. "And as I found some papers of seed in the captain's cabin, I put them into one of the casks; though I don't know what they are, maybe if you sow them they will come up, and supply you with vegetables." The men now brought up all the things from the boat. They all wished him good luck and a happy life on the island, and then hurried back to the boat. "I only wish I could stop with you, that I do!" exclaimed Ned with some feeling, as he wrung Humphry's hand. "I dare not say `God bless you!' but I hope He will, that I do with all my heart," and Ned ran down to join his companions, who were already shoving off the boat. He would not have been sorry if they had gone without him. Humphry watched them going down the bay. They passed through the reef, and pulled out to sea till the boat was lost to sight, though he could distinguish the ship hove to in the offing waiting for her return. CHAPTER FOUR. Humphry sat down on his chest, feeling very forlorn. Here he was on a desert island, a mere speck in the ocean, hundreds of miles away perhaps from any place inhabited by civilised man. He might perhaps never be able to make his escape, or again hold intercourse with his fellow-creatures. All alone, without speaking, without exchanging an idea with another human being, he might have to drag out a weary existence; and then, should sickness overtake him, have to lie down and breathe out his life, leaving his bones to whiten in the sun. He had read Robinson Crusoe, but then his case was very different to that of the far-famed voyager. Robinson Crusoe had the companionship of Friday, and his island was fertile and smiling, and he had goats and fowls and other animals to cheer him or to serve him as food. He would have to go in search of fish and birds for his daily food, and as yet was uncertain whether any were to be found, though at present he did not fear starvation, as he had the salted beef and pork and biscuits with which Ned had supplied him. But then when they were gone, how should he live? "It won't do to indulge in these thoughts," he exclaimed to himself, suddenly starting up. "I must think about building a house in the first place; and then as soon as I can prepare the ground I will put in the seed, and, as I hope, some may produce good edible vegetables, I shall have a variety in diet and keep myself in health." As he began to examine the articles which had been brought on shore, he found a large roll of canvas. It was part of an old sail. "This Ned must have intended to serve as a tent till I can put up a more substantial building. I am much obliged to him, and I need not be in any great hurry about building my house." He spoke his thoughts aloud on nearly all occasions. It gave him some relief to hear his own voice. "I must get some poles for the tent, though; and no spars, I see, have been brought on shore." He looked out an axe, and sticking it in his belt, set out to search for what he wanted. "I shall not lose my way in this new kingdom of mine, that's one advantage in having it of moderate size; and if I climb to the top of the hill, I shall be able to sing with Robinson Crusoe, `I am lord of all I survey,'--ah, ah, ah!" and he laughed for the first time for many a day. There was nothing to excite his risibility on board. He felt his spirits rising. "Stay!" he exclaimed suddenly. "What an ungrateful wretch I am! Here have I been saved from a great danger, and placed in safety, at all events for the present, and yet I have not uttered one word of thanks to Him who has preserved me." He knelt down, and lifted up his heart as well as he could to God. "Careless, worthless fellow that I have been! yet God promises to hear all those that come to Him, not trusting to themselves or to their own good deeds, but to the perfect and complete atonement Jesus Christ made for their sins on the cross, so I know that He will hear me; and I am sure, though I am unworthy of His care, that He put it into the hearts of those men to bring me on shore instead of throwing me overboard, or what would have been worse, keeping me among them." He felt his heart much lighter when he rose from his knees. He then, carefully observing the appearance of the rocks, that he might find his way back without difficulty, proceeded on his expedition. Clambering over them, he came to more level ground covered with various bushes, and soon reached a hill-side on which grew a number of trees, palms and others, with the names of which he was unacquainted. He looked in vain for cocoa-nuts, not being aware that the trees are only generally found on the level shore to which the nuts have been borne by the wind and tides of the ocean from other islands. He cut two stout poles for uprights, and a longer one for a ridge-pole, and shouldering them, returned to his camp. "I shall want a fire, though," he thought, as he got back, and throwing them down he again set out to get fuel. This he had no difficulty in finding among the brushwood, and with the aid of his axe he quickly made up a number of faggots. "I shall not be obliged to have a fire burning all night to keep off wild beasts, that is another comfort," he observed. "But it will be cheerful to sit by when it grows dark. I shall not find the time hang heavily on my hands for some days to come, that's another comfort." His first thought was to do the most necessary work. Having brought the faggots to his camp, he next put up his tent. This accomplished, as soon as he sat down to rest he began to feel hungry. He rummaged in a small cask, which contained a number of miscellaneous articles, and discovered a tinder-box. He had soon a fire blazing in front of his tent. He had prudently made it up at a sufficient distance to prevent the risk of the flames reaching the canvas. While he stayed his hunger with some biscuit, he prepared a piece of beef, which he spitted and placed before the fire on two small sticks, such as he had read of people doing under similar circumstances. He turned the meat on the spit, which grew blacker and blacker. "I think it must be done now," he said at length, taking it off. When he cut it with his knife, he found it almost as hard as wood. He attempted to eat a few mouthfuls, but he could scarcely get them down. "This won't do," he said. "I must get some water, to enable me to swallow this dry food." On searching for something to hold the water, he found a saucepan, and on his way with it to the cascade it occurred to him that he might have cooked his beef much better by boiling. "I must try that way for dinner," he thought. A draught of pure water greatly refreshed him. He returned to the camp with his saucepan filled. He put it on at once with a small piece of meat in it, recollecting that salted beef requires a long time to boil, and he hoped to have better success in his second attempt at cooking. He now made a survey of the articles his shipmates had left with him. There was enough beef and pork to serve him for many months, but he regretted to find that the bread would not last him nearly so long. "I must try and find some substitute for it," he said, "and economise it in the meantime. I would rather have had much more bread and less meat, as I hope to catch some fish and kill some birds. However, I need not go hunting till I have put my home to rights." Then he thought of his seeds. He had no spade, however, to dig the ground; so going to the wood he shaped one, which he hoped would answer the purpose, out of the stem of a small tree. It did better than nothing, but he would have been very glad of an iron spade. He at once began to dig up the ground. It was covered thickly with grass with long roots, but the soil was rather sand than earth. "I must dig all this up," he said, "or they will soon sprout up again, and destroy the seed." So he marked out a small plot, carefully throwing the roots and grass into a heap. It then struck him that if they were scattered about on the ground in the sun they would more quickly dry, and he might then burn them, and the ashes would contribute to fertilise the ground. He worked away till he felt quite weary. He then went back to his fire to see how the beef was boiling. As it was not yet done, after resting a short time he returned to his digging. It was a very long operation, but after labouring for four or five hours he found that he had dug up almost ten square yards of ground. "It is thoroughly done, though there is not much of it, and that's a satisfaction," he said. He thought, however, even when the ashes of the grass were mixed with it, it would scarcely be sufficiently fertile for the seeds. "I will go into the woods and collect rotten leaves, and with the ashes of my fire I hope in time to make the soil good." This was a wise thought, but the sun was already getting low, and he determined to wait till the next day to do so. "It will be better to have a small piece of good ground than to dig up the whole plot, and I will only put in a few seeds at first, to see how they answer; so that if some fail, I may try a different way of cultivating them. I shall, at all events, have work enough. How sad it would have been if I had had nothing to do but to sit still and bemoan my hard fate. I may not, after all, find my life so miserable alone as I had expected, that's another comfort." With these reflections he went back to his fire, and now, to his satisfaction, he found that his beef was thoroughly boiled. Ned had forgotten to put in any salt or mustard, but as the beef was salt in itself, that did not signify. It reminded him, however, that if he shot any birds or caught fish, he should require some. That made him resolve to try and look for it amongst the rocks, or to try and manufacture it from salt water, as he had read of being done. He had been accustomed to read a good many books of travels before he came to sea, and he now found the advantage of having done so, by being reminded of the various ways people, when placed in situations similar to his, had been enabled to support existence. This contributed to keep up his spirits, as it made him have no doubts of obtaining food. His only dread was that he might meet with an accident, or might fall ill, when there would be no one to help him. "Well, well, I ought not to trouble myself about that either," he said. "I must pray to God to preserve me, and do my best not to run any unnecessary risk." He then recollected the dreadful complaint, the scurvy, which had already attacked some of the crew of the _Wolf_. "That is brought on by people living too exclusively on salt provisions. I must try to find some roots or herbs till the seeds come up; and then, if they produce vegetables, as I hope they will, I need not be anxious about that." Such were his cogitations during his meal. Having finished, he hung up the remainder of his beef in his tent, to serve as breakfast for the next morning, and then went back to the fountain to enjoy a draught of pure water. He felt but little inclined to do any more work, and the sun had not set when he recollected that he had not yet read from his Testament. He took it from the pocket of his jacket, which hung up in his tent, and sat down to read. He read on for some time, feeling his spirits greatly refreshed, till, by the increasing darkness, he found that the sun had gone down, and that it was time to prepare for rest. Ned had thrown a bed into the boat and a blanket. "Few people left on a desert island as I am have enjoyed so luxurious a couch as this is," thought Humphry, as he laid himself down after offering up his prayers, as he had been accustomed to do before he came to sea. Since then, shame, and the indifference which arises from it, had prevented him ever kneeling in prayer. He now, left all alone as he was, felt that prayer was his greatest comfort; though he had no fellow-creature to talk to, he had the privilege of speaking to his Maker. He had not been reading his Testament without gaining enlightenment. He had learned that he must come to God in His appointed way--through Jesus Christ; that he had no right to approach Him in any other way. He had scarcely placed his head on the bundle of clothes which he had rolled up to make a pillow, and drawn his blanket round him, than he fell fast asleep. CHAPTER FIVE. It seemed but a moment afterwards that Humphry heard some birds chirruping, and opening his eyes, he found that it was already daylight. He instantly sprang up, recollecting that though the days were long, he had plenty of work to do. He first knelt down and earnestly offered up a prayer for protection and guidance. The water in the bay looked bright and clear. Throwing off his clothes and plunging in, he enjoyed a refreshing swim. The warm air soon dried him, for Ned, as may be supposed, had not thought of providing him with towels. As he sat on a rock for a few moments to rest, he saw a dark object floating by in the water, then a triangular fin rose above it, and he observed a pair of fierce-looking eyes gazing up at him. He shuddered, for he recognised the sailor's enemy, the shark. How mercifully he had been preserved! Had he remained in a few minutes longer the monster might have seized him. He must be cautious in future how he bathed. He might find, however, some quiet pool into which no shark could enter. After recovering himself he returned to the camp, and lighted a fire to cook his breakfast, which consisted of salt beef and biscuit. He thought he should like some tea. He searched in his cask of stores, and to his satisfaction he discovered a large bagful, and another of cocoa. This showed him more than ever how thoughtful his friend had been. He knew, however, that he must husband it carefully. Having brought water from the fountain, he made a little, which he found very refreshing. After draining off the liquid he put the leaves carefully by, to serve for another time. With this, and some of the cold beef and biscuit, he made a hearty meal. Then taking his spade in his hand he set to work to dig up more ground. He enriched it also with rotten leaves which he collected, and with the ashes of the grass and roots which he dug up and burned. He had already spent nearly two days on the island. "I shall forget how time passes if I don't take some note of it," he thought. "I must follow Robinson Crusoe's plan, and notch a stick." He at once went and cut a long one. He made a notch to show the day he had landed, and another for that which was then passing. He then smoothed off the end, and carved the date--"20th November 1812." "I will cut a notch every morning, directly I am up, and then I shall not run the risk of missing a day by forgetting to mark it." He was surprised to find how soon Sunday came round. On board the _Wolf_ that sacred day had only been observed by the men being allowed to mend their clothes; or if they were not so employed, they used to sit idly gambling or singing ribald songs. Humphry had been considering all the previous day how he should spend it. "We are told by God in the Bible to do no work, and to make it a day of rest. I am sure that I ought to obey Him, though it may seem important to me to get my house up or to dig more ground. I will therefore obey His commands, and leave the rest to Him." He rose at the usual hour, and went to wash at the waterfall, where he found that he could take a shower-bath, which was cooler and more refreshing than even a dip in the sea. He came back to breakfast, and then taking out his Testament, read for a long time with deep interest. While so employed, it occurred to him that he would learn portions by heart. This amply occupied his mind, and afforded him so much satisfaction, that he determined every morning to commit a verse to memory that he might think of it while he was at work. He began at the "Sermon on the Mount" on Monday morning, so that by the end of another week he had learned six verses. While waiting for the result of his gardening operations, he began putting up his house. As he had the greater portion of the summer of the Southern hemisphere before him, he was in no hurry about this; so during a portion of each day he went out with his gun to shoot birds, or sat on a rock with a line catching fish. He never failed to kill as many birds as he wanted for food, or to catch as many fish as he could eat. He fitted one of his harpoons, and kept it ready for use in case any seals appeared, though he suspected that if they visited the island at all, they would not come till the winter season. He had gone on increasing his garden, and putting in more seeds. Greatly to his delight those he first sowed now appeared above ground. He watered them regularly, and the plants rapidly increased in size. Some were evidently cabbages, while others put forth roots with tubers; others, again, greatly resembled spinach. He had now got up his house, and had dug a garden sufficiently large for his wants. The soil, by being watered every day, became even more fertile than he had expected. CHAPTER SIX. Several weeks thus passed away before he thought of exploring his island. His stores had during this time visibly diminished. He therefore saw the necessity of laying in a store of food which might serve him when he could not obtain it either by his gun or fishing-lines. During bad weather, when the sea breaking over the reef washed into the bay, he was frequently unable to catch fish. He thought over various ways of preserving them. "I might dry some in the sun, and salt others; but I suspect they would keep better and be more palatable if I could smoke them." He found salt in the hollows of the rocks as he had expected, but it required much time and labour to collect. One of his small casks was now empty. A fine day, when the fish bit freely, enabled him to catch a large number, and he made his first experiment. He had already got a large pile of salt, though it was somewhat sandy, but he thought that would not signify. He cut off the heads and tails of the fish, then rubbed the salt thoroughly into them, and packed them away in layers, with salt between each. It took him three or four days' fishing to fill his cask, when all the salt was expended. He then stowed it away in a dry part of his hut, hoping that he had now secured food to last him for several weeks. He next tried drying some in the sun, but did not succeed to his satisfaction. He afterwards, however, built a smoking-house, and cured a considerable number in it, though they were less palatable than those preserved with salt. These tasks finished, one day, being prevented from fishing by a gale of wind, he set out on his proposed expedition, taking his gun, with some provisions in a wallet he had manufactured for the purpose. He made his way towards the nearest hill, and then struck down a valley which led to the sea. Between it and the bay a high ridge of rocks extended, so he continued his course along the shore in an opposite direction. He had not gone far before he came to another ridge which he had to surmount, the coast becoming wilder and wilder as he advanced, instead of improving, as he had hoped it might do. At last he reached what he took to be the southern end of the island. Looking back he saw the slope of the single high hill which composed its chief feature. He had now great difficulty in proceeding. The cliffs which faced the sea were almost perpendicular, and the rocks over which he climbed were extremely rough. He proceeded cautiously, knowing the fearful position in which he would be placed should he meet with an accident. He saw, however, at a little distance off, a number of wild-fowl circling round the cliffs. He was certain that they had come there for the purpose of laying their eggs. Could he reach the spot, he might obtain a pleasant addition to his larder. After great labour he reached the spot, when he found himself among hundreds of birds, many of them already sitting. They screeched and quacked and scolded, pecking at his legs as he got among them. Without ceremony he quickly filled his wallet with eggs. "This will serve me as a poultry-yard for a long time to come," he thought. "I will not kill any of the old birds, but will wait till the young ones are hatched, as they are likely to be more palatable than their parents. In the meantime, I will supply myself with eggs." It was now time for him to commence his return home. He felt very tired when he reached his hut, for he had not taken so long a walk since landing on the island. To preserve his eggs, he covered them over with the grease which remained in the pot after he had boiled his pork, and then packed them away in cool, dry sand. Every day he had reason to be thankful that he had read so much, for recollecting the various methods by which others had supported themselves, he was able to supply himself with food. His garden yielded him a daily meal of either sweet potatoes, yams, cabbages, or other vegetables. He now caught more fish than at first, and also from his poultry-yard obtained a good supply of young fowls. His shoes were wearing out, and he was desirous of catching some seals, from the skins of which he might manufacture others to supply their place. At last he saw several sporting in the bay. He at once got his harpoon ready, and took post on a rock, expecting that one would before long approach him. He was not disappointed Darting his weapon, he struck the animal, which swam off, dragging out the line at a rapid rate. He found that he had made a mistake, and was nearly losing his line and harpoon as well as the seal. Fortunately, just as it neared the end, he got a turn round a projecting piece of rock. The poor seal plunged and tumbled, and swam back to the rock to ascertain, it seemed, what had hurt it. He drew in the slack, and was thus able to secure it more completely. After a time its struggles ceased, and he dragged it to the beach. He here took off the skin, with which he hoped to make several pairs of shoes, while the flesh supplied him with a dinner of fresh meat for a couple of days; the other portions he salted, in store for future use. Stretching the hide on the ground, he dressed it with a ley formed by mixing the ashes of his fire with water. This he found would not answer completely, and after searching in the forest he discovered some bark which formed a strong tan. The seals now came on shore in large numbers. Recollecting that their skins would be of value should a ship come to the island, he determined to capture as many as he could. Arming himself with a thick club, he attacked them when asleep on the beach, and every day succeeded in knocking over a considerable number. This gave him abundant occupation; and continuing his experiments he succeeded in perfectly preserving the skins. When at length the creatures took their departure, his hut was nearly filled with the result of his industry. Day after day went rapidly by, and had he not been careful in notching his stick, he would soon have lost all count of time. CHAPTER SEVEN. Three years had passed away since Humphry landed on the island. He was startled one calm day, when fishing from a rock in the bay as he caught sight of his own countenance in the water, to observe how changed he had become. Instead of the laughing, careless, broadly-built boy with the ruddy face, which he once was, he had grown into a tall, thin young man, with a sunburnt countenance, its expression grave and thoughtful. He was not melancholy, however, nor did he ever feel out of spirits; but he had of course been thrown back on himself, while his mind was constantly occupied. He had but one book to read, but that book, above all price, had given him ample subjects for reflection. "What should I have done without this?" he often said to himself, as he opened the book with a prayer that what he was about to read might enlighten his mind. "I have heard people talk of reading their Bibles, but though I have read nothing but my Testament for three years, I every day find something fresh and interesting in it." He had often made excursions to the top of the hill, whence he could obtain a view over the surrounding ocean. It had been raining heavily during the previous day. No seals were to be caught on shore, nor fish in the water. Taking his gun, he set off, intending to go over the hill to get a shot at some wild-fowl. The wind had greatly increased; and wishing to obtain a view of the ocean with its huge foam-covered billows rolling around, he climbed to the top of the hill. As he reached it, his eye fell on a ship driving before the gale towards the rocky shore. Two of her masts were gone; the third fell while he was looking at her. Nothing could now save her from destruction, for even should her anchors be let go, they were not likely to hold for a moment. He considered whether he could render any assistance to the unhappy people on board. Too truly he feared that he could be of no use. Still he would do his best. Hurrying home, he procured the only rope he possessed, and a spar, and with these on his shoulder he hastened towards the spot at which, considering the direction the ship was driving, he thought she would strike the shore. He had scarcely reached it when he saw the ship driving on towards him on a mountain sea. The next instant down she came, crashing on a reef of rocks far away from where he stood, the foaming sea dashing over her. Several poor wretches were carried off the deck, now driven towards him, but directly afterwards carried back by the retiring surf. He could distinguish but one alone still clinging to a portion of the wreck, all the others had in a few minutes disappeared. As long as that man remained, he could not tear himself from the spot. Several hours passed by; still the man clung on, having secured himself apparently by a lashing. The storm seemed to be abating. Humphry took off his shirt, and fastening it to the end of a spar, waved it, to show the shipwrecked seaman that help was at hand if he could reach the shore. It was observed at length. The man, casting off the lashings, lowered himself into the water, and struck out for land. Humphry prepared his rope. Fixing the spar deep in the sand, and securing one end of the rope to it, he stood ready to plunge in, with the other end round his waist, to drag the man on shore should he get within his reach. How anxiously he watched! Nearer and nearer the man came. Now he was seen floating on his back, now he struck out again. A sea rolling in bore him on, but as it receded it threatened to carry him off once more. Now was the moment. Humphry dashed into the surf. The man's strength had almost failed when Humphry grasped him, and hauling himself up by the rope dragged the man out of the surf, sinking down exhausted by his side the instant he was out of its reach. Humphry was the first to recover. "If you are strong enough to accompany me to the other side of the island, friend, where I have my home, we will set off at once; but if not, I will go back and get some food for you," he said. "I shall soon be better," answered the man. "I think I could walk. Have you a companion with you?" "No," answered Humphry, surprised at the question; "I am all alone." "That's strange! What, isn't there a young lad somewhere about the island?" "No," said Humphry. "I have been here three years and have seen no human being." The man gazed into his countenance with a look of astonishment. "What is your name, then?" he asked. Humphry mentioned it. "You Mr Gurton!" he cried, pressing his hand. "I suppose it must be; and don't you know me?" Humphry looked into the man's face. It was covered with a thick beard, and his tangled hair hung over his shoulders. "You must be Ned Hadow; yet I should not have known you more than you know me. I am indeed thankful that you have been saved. But where have you been all the time?" "Greater part of it living on shore," answered Ned. "After we landed you, we took three or four prizes; but not being able to navigate the ship, we put into a convenient harbour in an island inhabited by savages. There we remained, living among them much as they did. Several of our men were killed; and at last, finding that the savages intended to cut us all off, we put to sea again. We had been knocking about for some time, and used up all our provisions, when we fell in with the gale which drove the ship on yonder rocks." Ned insisted that he could walk across the island, and with Humphry's help he was able to accomplish the journey, though nearly exhausted at the end of it. Humphry then made him lie down in his bed, while he prepared some soup and other food. Next day Ned somewhat recovered; and in the course of a week, owing to Humphry's constant attention, he looked more like his former self. "It's very dreadful to think that all the others have perished, but I am truly thankful that you have been sent to be my companion," said Humphry. "You little thought when you acted so kindly towards me by saving my life, and getting me put on shore here, that I should ever in any way be able to repay you." "I did not, Mr Gurton; but I feel that I am such a worthless fellow that my life was not worth preserving." "We are all worthless, Ned: that's what the book I read every day tells me, and I am convinced of it when I look into my own heart, and know how people in the world are generally acting." "What! have you got that book still, Mr Gurton?" asked Ned. "Yes, indeed I have, and I shall be glad to read it to you, Ned," said Humphry. "I shall like to hear it, sir, for I have not heard anything like a good word since you used to read it to me when I was sick. I had almost forgotten there is a God in heaven. I remembered that, however, when I was clinging to the wreck, and expecting every moment to be in His presence." "It's the best thing to read God's Word, and to be guided by it, when we expect to live. I hope you may be spared many years, even though we never get away from this island, and that book will serve us better than any other companion who could join us." Humphry, instead now of reading his Testament to himself, read it daily to Ned, and even while they were at work he used to repeat portions he had learned by heart. Though Ned could not read, he gained in time a good knowledge of the book, and his dark soul by degrees becoming enlightened, he understood clearly at length God's plan of salvation, and cheerfully accepted it. "You see, Ned, all things are ordered for the best," said Humphry one day, "and you must be convinced that God loves us, however little we may have loved Him. If I had remained on board the privateer, I should have become, as I was fast doing, like the rest of the unhappy crew. Though I thought it very dreadful to be left all alone on the island, I now feel that it has been the greatest blessing to me. God in His mercy also saved you, though you would have preferred remaining among the savages. Now you are happy in knowing the glorious truth that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin; and though we may both of us wish to be once more among our fellow-men, we can live contentedly here till He thinks fit to call us out of this life." "I hope He may take me before any ship comes to the island, for if I once fell among the sort of men I have lived with all my life, I should soon again be as bad as they are," said Ned with a sigh. "Not if you sought help and protection from God's Holy Spirit," answered Humphry, "and prayed that He would keep you out of temptation." Ned was surprised to find how much Humphry had done during the time he had been alone on the island. He assisted him in all his undertakings, and they together caught enough seals to fill another large storehouse. At last, after two years had thus passed away, Ned, who had been fishing down the harbour, came hurrying back. His countenance was grave, and he looked much agitated. "I have been watching a vessel standing in for the island. She has hove to, and is sending a boat on shore. The time has come, Mr Gurton, when we must part. I dare not go back into the world, and have made up my mind to remain here. You are young, and have many years before you, and I would advise you to go, and all I ask is that you will think of me and pray for me." This announcement made Humphry even more agitated than Ned. He hurried to the spot where the boat could be seen. She made her way up the harbour. Humphry and his companion went down to meet her. An officer-like looking man stepped on shore, accompanied by another in dark clothes. They seemed much surprised at seeing Humphry and Ned. "What! are you Englishmen?" asked one of the strangers. "We only discovered the island this morning, and had no expectation of finding it inhabited." Humphry explained that they were the only inhabitants; that he had been left there some years before, and, pointing to Ned, said, "This man was afterwards wrecked on the coast, and he alone was saved from his ship." "I am Captain Summers of the _Hope_, now lying in the offing. This gentleman is the Reverend Mr Evans, a missionary, whom I am conveying to an island where he is about to settle. What is your name?" asked the officer. Humphry told him. "And my name is Tom Martin," said Ned coming forward, greatly to Humphry's surprise. "Well, my friends, it seems but a barren island. I wonder how you have managed to live here so long." Humphry briefly explained the various means by which he had procured food, and leading the way to the garden, showed them the perfect cultivation into which it had been brought. He then invited Captain Summers and Mr Evans into his hut. His Testament lay open on the table. The latter took it up, observing-- "I am glad to see, my young friend, that you have not been deprived of God's Word during your long stay here." "It has indeed been my great solace and delight," answered Humphry. "Without it I should have been miserable." "Well, my friends, I shall be most happy to receive you both on board my ship; and as I hope to sail for England in the course of a few months, you will then be able to return home." Humphry thanked the captain for his offer, which he gladly accepted. Ned looked very grave. "I am much obliged to you, sir," he said, "and though I shall be sorry to part from Mr Gurton, I am very sure that I had better stay where I am till God thinks fit to call me from this world. I have lived too long among savages, and worse than savages, to go back again and live with civilised people. If Mr Gurton will leave me his Testament, which he has taught me to read, and his gun and harpoons, it's all I ask." "No, my friend," observed Mr Evans, "man is not made to live alone. If, as I hope from what you say, you have learned to love Jesus Christ, you should try to serve Him, and endeavour to do good among your fellow-creatures. Now, as I am going to settle in an island inhabited by savages, I shall be very glad of your assistance, and if you already understand their language, which I have to learn, you may speak to them, and tell them of Him who died for them, that they may be reconciled to Him. You will thus be showing your love for Him far more than by living a life of solitude, even although you spend your days in reading His Word. Remember it is not only those who hear the Word of God, but those who hear and do it, who are His disciples." "You are right, sir," exclaimed Ned, brightening up. "My only fear if I left this was to find myself among those who would lead me back into bad ways, but I will gladly go with you--that I will, sir." As the captain was anxious to see the island, Humphry undertook to guide him and Mr Evans to the top of the hill, whence they could obtain a view over the whole of it. Before setting out, Humphry showed them the store of seal-skins. "I shall be sorry to leave these behind," he observed, "and if you can receive them on board, they will assist to pay my passage." "As to that, my friend," answered the captain, "I will very gladly send my boats to take them off, and you shall pay freight for them; but you, I am very sure, will be able to work your passage, and I hope you will find they will sell for some hundred pounds in England." "Part of them belong to my companion," observed Humphry. "No, no, Mr Gurton," said Ned. "They are all yours. Not a shilling of their value will I touch, except enough to give me a new rig-out, as I am not fit to accompany Mr Evans in these tattered old clothes of mine." "Set your mind at rest about that," said the captain. "You shall be welcome to a thorough fit out, suitable for the task you are about to undertake, and your friend Mr Gurton will require the money more than you will." Captain Summers, according to his promise, loaded his own boat with seal-skins, and sent her off to the ship with orders for the long-boat to come ashore and carry off the remainder. Meantime he and Mr Evans paid their intended visit to the hill-top. On their return Humphry took the first opportunity of drawing Ned aside, and asking why he had not given his right name. "I did give my right name, Mr Gurton," he answered. "Ned Hadow was merely a purser's name which I took when I entered on board the _Wolf_, because you see, sir, I had run from a man-of-war. Now I know better, I would only tell the truth; and so, please, call me Tom Martin in future, and I am ready to stand the consequences." Humphry and his companion were kindly received on board the _Hope_, when the good captain supplied them with new suits of clothes, which they indeed much required. The _Hope_ continued her voyage. How different was the life led on board her to that on board the _Wolf_! Captain Summers and his officers were Christian men. The crew were kindly treated; not an oath escaped the lips of any of the men, while all did their duty with cheerfulness and alacrity. The voyage was prosperous. At the end of three weeks the _Hope_ dropped her anchor in the harbour of a fine island where Mr Evans was to remain. A native missionary, who had been sent there a year before, came off to receive him, and brought him the satisfactory intelligence that a large number of the natives were anxiously looking out for his arrival. Some days were spent in landing his property, and assisting him in putting up his house, while an abundance of fresh provisions was brought off by the natives to the ship. Humphry parted from his old friend with the less regret from feeling sure that he would be well occupied, and free from the temptations he dreaded. "We shall meet again, I trust, as Captain Summers has offered me a berth as third mate of the _Hope_ on her next voyage, which he expects to make to these seas," said Humphry, as he bade him farewell. "If we don't meet here, we shall in another world, sir. And bless you, Mr Gurton, for pointing out to me the way to it," said Tom, as he wrung Humphry's hand, and tears burst from his eyes. The _Hope_ had a prosperous voyage home, during which Humphry did his utmost to fit himself for the duty he was to undertake. He had no ties in England, so he gladly again sailed in the _Hope_. Captain Summers having sold the seal-skins for a good price, judiciously invested the proceeds for him. Humphry had the satisfaction of meeting his old friend Ned, or rather Mr Martin, as he was now called, and of finding that he had been of the greatest service to Mr Evans. He never returned to England, but died at his post, labouring to the last in spreading the gospel among the natives. Humphry won the regard of Captain Summers by his steadiness and good conduct, and at the end of his third voyage he married his daughter, and soon afterwards obtained the command of a ship. When at length he was able to quit the sea and live on shore, he often used to relate to his children, among his many adventures, how he spent five years of his life alone on an island. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The End. BOOK III--THE BROTHERS; A TALE OF THREE LIVES. CHAPTER I. Many years ago, while King George the Third sat on the tranquil throne of England, and before the First Napoleon became Emperor of France, Gilbert Maitland, the youngest of Farmer Maitland's three sons, was one autumn evening, mounted on his shaggy pony, riding through the New Forest. He had set out from the town of Christchurch to return to his father's house, which was situated between it and Lymington. The shadows of the trees grew longer and longer, till they disappeared altogether in the general gloom, as the sun sank, into the leaden-coloured foam-topped waves of the English Channel, which could here and there be seen from the higher ground through the openings of the trees on his right. The wind howled and whistled, and the dry leaves and twigs, blown off by the south-westerly gale, came flying by even faster than he galloped, while the clouds gathering thickly overhead increased the darkness. Gilbert was not altogether comfortable in his mind. He had gone, contrary to his father's wish, to pay a visit to Dick Hockley, whose acquaintance he had formed while at school at Christchurch, and whom Mr Maitland considered an unfit companion for one of his boys. Mr Hockley held a small farm, and though it was badly cultivated, he had become wealthy, and had built a good house, and rode a fine horse, and lived in a style much above his position. He was, indeed, more than suspected of being connected with one of the many gangs of daring smugglers who at that time carried on their illicit traffic on the coast of Hampshire and Dorsetshire. Dick, a bold, rough fellow, two or three years older than Gilbert, boasted openly that he had already engaged in several smuggling enterprises. Gilbert was fascinated by the accounts his acquaintance gave him of the risks he had run, the excitement of being chased, and the triumphant satisfaction of landing a valuable cargo, and conveying it, escorted by a large body of armed men, under the very noses of the Revenue officers, into the interior. Gilbert's great ambition was to join in one of these expeditions; whenever he could get an opportunity, he rode over to see his friend, and to listen to his long yams. His father had at first cautioned him against any intimacy with a person of so doubtful a character as young Hockley, and then, finding that his warnings were of no avail, had positively prohibited Gilbert from associating with him. He had grumbled greatly at this, when one day, Mr Maitland being away from home, in the hearing of his sister Mary and his two elder brothers Hugh and Arthur, he declared that he would go, notwithstanding what his father said. "Dick is an honest fellow, and he has asked me to come, and I don't see why father has a right to stop me," he exclaimed. "Father has forbid you to go, as he does not approve of young Hockley, and at all events it is your duty to obey him," said Mary. "Pray, Gilbert, do not go; it will vex father so much." "I will tell you what, Gilbert," exclaimed Hugh, "if you are going to play any tricks of the sort, I will lash your hands behind you, and shut you up in your room till father comes back. I am the eldest, and it is my business to keep order while he is away." "You had better not try to lay hands on me, or it will be the worse for you," exclaimed Gilbert, dashing out of the room. "I don't think he will dare to go," said Hugh, resuming his studies, which had thus been interrupted. Arthur, who was also sitting with his books before him, had not spoken. They were both reading hard. Hugh had sometime before left school with great credit, having gained numerous prizes, and an exhibition which would enable him at his own earnest desire to go to college, where he hoped that with the talents he was supposed to possess he should make his way to a good position in life. He had a fine constitution, was strongly built, and neither study nor bodily exercise ever seemed to fatigue him; so that with the resolution and clear intellect he possessed, he had every prospect of succeeding. Arthur, though studious, was delicate, and had been kept back somewhat by ill health. Neither of them had any taste for farming pursuits, and their father, who was proud of their talents, was anxious, as far as he was able, to give them the means of following the course in life they had marked out for themselves. He and his ancestors, sturdy yeomen of the upper class, the pith and marrow of the English population, for many generations had held the farm he occupied; and as he wished it to continue in his family, he had determined that his younger son Gilbert should become a farmer. Gilbert was what is often called a fine-spirited lad, but unfortunately he had been allowed to have his own way, and in consequence, frequently exhibited a determination not to submit to control. He had also never known a mother's tender and watchful care, for Mr Maitland had been deprived of his wife soon after Gilbert's birth, and perhaps this circumstance may have prevented him from restraining the child's temper, or punishing him when guilty of faults, as strictly as his better judgment would have prompted him to do. Mr Maitland, an upright man, proud of his old family, and satisfied with his position, did not wish to rise out of it, though he was ready to allow his sons to run forward as far as they could in the race of life. He held the laws in respect, and, an exception to many around him, was strongly opposed to the smugglers and their illicit traffic. He would never allow them to deposit any of their goods on his property, and the active part he took in assisting the Revenue officers gained him much ill-will from the contraband traders. Gilbert had scarcely left the room when Arthur got up, saying in his gentle way-- "I will try and persuade him to obey father, and not to go off to Christchurch. If he wants a ride, I will accompany him to Lymington, where there is to be a review of the Foreign Legion; or if he has a fancy for fishing, we will take our rods, and try and get some tench for father's supper." "Oh, do get him to do that!" said Mary. "Father likes them better than anything else, and I will try and cook them nicely for him." Arthur, leaving his darling books, hastened out after Gilbert. Mary hoped he might find him, and prevent him committing the act of disobedience he threatened. She loved all her brothers, and the two elder treated her with tenderness and respect. She was a kind-hearted, good-tempered, and intelligent girl, in every way worthy of their love, and possessed of a considerable amount of beauty. She came next to Hugh in age, but she and Arthur were more generally companions, as they agreed in most of their tastes. Hugh was already a young man, and though he had no objection to a gallop through the forest, he devoted the greater part of his time, even when at home, to study. He had determined to make his way in the world, and he knew that only by steady application could he hope to do so. Mary now sat at the window, busily plying her needle, and refraining from speaking lest she might interrupt him, though she wanted to talk to him about Gilbert, whose general conduct had of late given her great anxiety. She could not help thinking that it would be better if he were to be sent to a distance, and thus be separated from his present companions. Neither she nor Arthur liked to tell their father what they knew about him, but she thought that Hugh might do so, and might suggest the plan which had occurred to her. Arthur, after some time, came back. He had searched everywhere for Gilbert, but had been unable to find him, his saddle was not in the harness-room, nor his pony in the stable; it was evident that he had ridden off somewhere. In the evening Mr Maitland came back, and inquired for Gilbert. His other children were unwilling to say that they feared he had gone to Christchurch, for they hoped he might have taken a ride in some other direction. Night came on, and still he did not appear. Mr Maitland inquired whether any of them could tell where Gilbert had gone. At last Mary confessed that he had said he should ride over to see Dick Hockley; but that she hoped, from her and his brothers' remonstrances, that he would have refrained from doing so. Hour after hour passed away, and Mr Maitland, at first angry, became anxious about him. The night was too dark to permit of any one going out to search for him; indeed, as there were numerous ways through the forest by which he could come, he might be easily missed. Midnight arrived, and he was still absent Mr Maitland now became seriously alarmed, and he, with Hugh and Arthur, went out in different directions from the house, listening anxiously, in the hopes of hearing the sound of his pony's footsteps, but the roaring and whistling of the wind in the trees drowned all other noises. At length they re-entered the house, Mr Maitland sent the rest of the family to bed, but sat up himself watching for Gilbert's return. CHAPTER TWO. Gilbert knew his way, and that he could trust his little forest-bred pony to carry him safe home; so he gave it the rein, and let it gallop along the open glade, though the gloom was often so dense that he could not see a yard beyond the animal's head. He had got some distance, and had just crossed another road, when he heard the sound of horses' hoofs behind him. There were several. They came on at a rapid rate. Who the horsemen were he could not tell. The sounds increased. He put his little forester at its swiftest gallop, but his pursuers were soon at his heels, and a stentorian voice shouted to him to stop, with the threat of a pistol-bullet through his head. He pulled up, feeling that all hopes of escape were vain. "Who are you? what are you after here?" shouted the same voice, and two men galloping up seized his rein. "What business takes you out at this time of night, youngster?" asked one of the men. "I am going home," answered Gilbert. "Where is your home?" said one of the men, drawing a pistol from his belt; "answer truly, or I will send a bullet through you!" "I am going to the house of Mr Maitland, my father," answered Gilbert, more frightened than he had ever before been in his life. "Mr Maitland! you will not go there to-night!" exclaimed the man, with a loud curse. "Why, he is the fellow who before brought the soldiers down upon us, and this youngster has been sent out to learn where we are going, and will be setting the dragoons from Lymington on our heels. If Mr Maitland ever falls into our hands, he will find we have a heavy score to settle with him." These remarks were interlarded with numerous fierce oaths, which need not be repeated. The men now turning round the pony's head, led Gilbert back, swearing at him in a way which made his blood curdle, and fancy that they intended to shoot him or knock his brains out. They had not got far when Gilbert saw a long line of horsemen riding two and two, in close order, crossing the road. They appeared to have heavy packages on their saddles, and were armed with blunderbusses and swords. Gilbert's conductors seemed to be watching for some one to come up. After the horsemen came a line of waggons, with an armed man sitting in front of each and another behind, while a horseman rode on either side. There seemed to be no end of them, one following close upon the other. Gilbert counted a hundred or more. At last another band of horsemen appeared. One of Gilbert's captors called to a man riding among them whom he addressed as "Captain," and told him of the way they had found Gilbert, and their suspicions. "Bring him along with you," was the answer, "we will have a talk by and by with him." Gilbert's captors joined the ranks, and the party of smugglers continued to make their way by unfrequented paths through the forest. He now recollected hearing that a strong force of military had been sent down to Lymington to assist the Revenue officers, and every moment he expected to see the smugglers attacked. They, however, seemed to have no dread of being interfered with, but rode on, laughing and joking with the utmost indifference. From the remarks Gilbert overheard, he found that they had taken good care to mislead the military, who were waiting far behind them, near the coast, under the belief that the intended run of contraband goods had not yet been landed. At length the smugglers reached a spot where their large band was to break up into separate parties who were to branch off in various directions, some with silks and ribbons to go even as far as London, others to different towns, while a portion of the goods were to be stored in hiding-places in the forest. A large party of mounted men still remained after the waggons had gone off. Among them were those who had seized Gilbert. "Well, Captain, what shall we do with this young viper; he is a son of old Maitland's, and there is no doubt has been after mischief." "Do?" answered the person addressed, a big dark-bearded man, clothed like his companions in rough seafaring costume. "The easiest way would be to leave him here to frighten the crows," and he looked up at the overhanging branch of a tree. Gilbert felt ready to drop from his pony with terror. "Oh, don't, don't hang me!" he cried out; "I did not want to do you any harm. If you will let me go, I will not say a word about what I have seen." "Very likely?" growled the Captain, "but you knew that a cargo was to be run, and were galloping off to bring the dragoons down on us." "I knew that a cargo was to be run, because Dick Hockley told me so; but I was not going to fetch the dragoons, for I did not even know where they were." "A very likely story; and if Dick Hockley has been chattering to you, he will have to answer for it," observed the Captain. "However, bring the lad along. We will hear what Master Dick has to say for himself." The troop, with Gilbert in their midst, now rode back by the way they had come towards the coast. Gilbert supposed that they were about three miles from Christchurch, when, turning to the left, they came in sight of one of the numerous small farms which existed in those days in the forest, consisting of several straw-thatched mud buildings. Here he was told to tumble off his pony, which was led away, while he was conducted into a small inner room in the cottage. The window, high up near the roof, was closed by a shutter from the outside. The only furniture was a truckle-bed and a stool. The cottage apparently belonged to one of the men who had captured him, for Gilbert heard him inviting the rest to partake of the provisions he placed before them. They were all engaged in eating and drinking and talking loudly for some time. He heard the Captain at last say-- "We will now go and hear what account Master Dick has to give us about this youngster, and if he has been trying to play us a trick, he must be shipped off out of the way." Gilbert could not tell whether the smuggler referred to Dick or to himself, though as it was very evident they would not scruple to use violence if they thought it necessary for their own safety, he felt very uncomfortable. At last, from the sounds he had heard, he supposed that most of the men had mounted their horses and ridden off. Feeling tired, he groped his way to the bed, on which he threw himself, and in spite of his anxiety, was soon asleep. He was awakened by the entrance of his host, bringing him some bread and cheese, and a jug of milk. "There," he said, "you must be hungry by this time, youngster. It's more than you deserve, though." "How long am I to be kept here?" asked Gilbert. "I again tell you I did not want to do any one harm; on the contrary, I think you smugglers very fine fellows." The man laughed. "It does not matter what you think; if Dick cannot give a good account of you, you will be sent across the seas, that I can tell you." Saying this, the man left the room. Gilbert was very hungry, so he ate the bread and cheese, and drank up the milk. By the light which came through a small chink in the shutter and under the door he saw that it was daytime; but hour after hour passed on, and he was still a prisoner. CHAPTER THREE. Mr Maitland became seriously anxious when morning dawned and Gilbert did not return. Calling up Hugh and Arthur, he told them to mount their ponies, and ride in the direction Gilbert was most likely to have taken; and as soon as the farm servants arrived, he sent them out to search the forest far and near. He himself, after consulting Mary, mounted his horse, and rode off to Christchurch, to ascertain from Dick Hockley whether Gilbert had paid him a visit. He found the young man lolling over a gate smoking. "Your son, Mr Maitland? what, has not he got home?" he exclaimed in unfeigned surprise. "Yes, he paid me a visit yesterday. He is an old schoolfellow, you know, and I am always happy to see him. He and I are very good friends, and there is no reason we should not be that I know of." "That is not to the point," said Mr Maitland, sternly. "You acknowledge that he paid you a visit. I wish to know when he left you." "Somewhere about five o'clock, as far as I recollect," answered young Hockley; "and as he was as sober as a judge, I should think his forester ought to have carried him home in a couple of hours at the outside." Mr Maitland continued to cross-question Dick. "I tell you he left me at five o'clock, and I know nothing more about him," was the only answer he could obtain. Mr Maitland was at length convinced that young Hockley knew nothing more than he said about his son. He made inquiries in the neighbourhood, and ascertained from two or three people that they had seen a lad resembling Gilbert in appearance riding towards the forest. He gained, however, a piece of information; it was that a large cargo of goods had been run that evening from the well-known lugger, the _Saucy Sally_, and had been conveyed with a strong escort inland, under the command of her daring captain, Slippery Rogers, who was so called from the way in which he managed on all occasions to elude the Revenue cruisers afloat, and the Government officers and soldiers sent in pursuit of him on shore. "It's lucky you did not fall in with them, Mr Maitland," observed his informant. "They have vowed vengeance against you; and it would fare ill with you if they were to get you into their power." "I am not afraid of them, or any ruffians like them!" said Mr Maitland. "I shall do what I consider right; and try to rid the country of such pests as these outlaws have long been to it. It is a disgrace to those who should know better, and who yet encourage them by buying their goods, and refusing to give evidence when they are caught. They not only deprive the king of his just dues, but injure legitimate trade, and encourage a general lawlessness among the whole population of the coast. However, I must hasten off, and try and find out what has become of my poor boy." On making further inquiries, Mr Maitland ascertained the route the smugglers had taken, and became convinced that Gilbert must have crossed their path, and probably fallen into their hands. He accordingly called on the two neighbouring magistrates, and deposed, to his belief, that violence had been offered to his son by the smugglers. He gave information also to the Revenue officers, who promised all the assistance they could afford. Having done all he could, hoping that Gilbert might in the meantime have arrived there, he set off home. Mary met him at the gate. Gilbert had not been seen. Hugh and Arthur had come back, and had gone out again to renew the search. The whole day was spent in searching for the missing one, but no trace of him could be discovered. Day after day passed by, and Mr Maitland could gain no tidings of the son, who, notwithstanding his disobedience, he loved truly, as the last gift of his affectionate wife. Many weeks afterwards Gilbert's pony was found in the neighbourhood of the farm with its saddle on its back. Arthur, from overstudy, it was supposed, fell ill, and his life was despaired of. Poor Mr Maitland feared he should lose him also. He had not unhappily the consolation of true religion. He was a just and upright man in his own sight, and in that of his neighbours, and fully believed that he deserved the favours of God on earth, and merited heaven when he should be called hence. When the time of trial came, there was something wanting. He could not look up to God as his loving, tender Father, and go confidently to Him in prayer for support, or say truly, "Thy will be done." Hugh had gone to college, where from the first he exhibited the talents which had gained him credit during his school career, and his tutor wrote word that he was among the most promising young men in the University. He avoided all unnecessary expenses, and being of a thoroughly independent spirit, kept aloof from those who would have drawn him away from his studies. His aims were, however, worldly; the human intellect he held in the highest estimation, and was satisfied that by his unaided efforts he could do as he desired. He was sober, moral, and economical, because he was convinced that should he be otherwise he would injure his prospects. Hugh Maitland was therefore looked upon as an excellent young man, and perhaps few were more convinced that such was the case than himself. He wrote home deeply regretting Arthur's illness, hoping that the doctor's skill and Mary's watchful care would bring him round, and sympathising with his father in his grief that no tidings had been received of Gilbert. "I am still convinced, however," he observed, "that had he met with foul play, or by any accident lost his life, his body would have been found, and I have hopes that he will still turn up. Perhaps, as he had been reading Robinson Crusoe, he may have taken it into his wise head to run off to sea, though I should have supposed that he would have sent a line to inform us of his romantic proceeding. Tell Arthur to keep up his spirits, and not to say die." Mary watched over Arthur with the most loving care, and through God's mercy he gradually recovered his strength, and was able to resume his studies. The doctor warned him, however, that he must not slick to them too closely, and advised him to take constant rides with his sister, and be in the open air as much as possible. "If you will be guided by me, my young friend, you will give up your intention of going to college, and assist your father on his farm," he observed. "You will find it a more healthy life than the one you propose, and probably get as strong as you can wish." Arthur began to consider whether it was not his duty to follow the doctor's advice. Mary hoped that he would do so, as he would then live at home with her. Mr Maitland promised every encouragement, remarking-- "Now I have lost poor Gilbert, there is no one else to keep on the farm when I am gone, or to afford a home to Mary." This latter argument weighed greatly with Arthur. He had had indeed no definite aim in his wish to go to college; he might perhaps become a master in a school, or take pupils at the university, or should he get a fellowship, obtain a living, but he had never thought even in that case of the duty of striving to win souls for Christ. Of the gospel and its requirements he had a very imperfect knowledge. Possessing a more gentle and loving spirit than Hugh, he thought it would be pleasant to go about among the poor, to try and make them moral and good, and relieve them in distress. There were very few cottagers in their neighbourhood who required much assistance. When any of them were sick, he and Mary had found much satisfaction in carrying them food and delicacies which they were unable to procure, and in helping them sometimes with money from their own scanty means. During the summer long vacation Hugh did not come home, having gone with some young men who had engaged him to read with them. When he returned at Christmas, Arthur's resolution of becoming a farmer was somewhat shaken. Hugh put before him so many of the advantages a hard-working man with good talents might obtain at the university, that his desire to try his fortune there revived. He had continued his studies for several hours every day, and now Hugh being able to assist him, he set to work with renewed vigour during the long winter evenings. CHAPTER FOUR. Gilbert scarcely knew how long he had been a prisoner when he heard a voice which he recognised as Dick's. For some time he could not make out what was said. "I will have a talk with him," he at length heard Dick observe. Some more remarks were made when the door opened, and he found Dick standing outside. "Why, Gilbert, they have treated you somewhat scurvily; but it was for your good, lad, and no one is more anxious about that than I am," said Dick. "Come along, and have some dinner, and we will talk matters over." They repaired to the kitchen, where an ample meal, with no lack of spirits, was placed on the table. Gilbert did justice to it, and Dick plied him with liquor, which he drank off without considering its strength. "I must tell you, Gilbert, that your father is in a tremendous taking about you," continued Dick. "If you were to go back, I should not be surprised if you found yourself turned out of house and home. He came to me this morning, and accused me of spiriting you away. I told him that I knew nothing about you, which was the fact. Now as matters have come to the worst, you are not likely to have a pleasant home even if you do go back, let me advise you to put the plan we have often talked about into execution, and come and have a trip with me to sea. Captain Rogers sails in the _Saucy Sally_ to-night, and I promised to go along with him. We will have a jolly time of it; you will only have to swear that you will never reveal anything you see or hear about the doings of the smugglers. I told him that you were as true as steel, and that I would answer for you." Dick said much more to the same effect. At another time Gilbert might have refused to leave his kind father and sister and brothers, even with only the intention of making a pleasure-trip, for he was not yet hardened in vice, but the spirits he had drunk had taken effect. He had committed the sin of wilful disobedience to his father's commands, and was thus easily deceived by his treacherous companion, who persuaded him that that kind father was too angry to forgive him, and that he would be henceforth an outcast from home. Such is the way Satan always tries to deceive erring people, both young and old, and to persuade them that their heavenly Father is not at all times ready to blot out their offences if they come to Him seeking forgiveness according to the way He has appointed through the all-sufficient atonement of His Son. His false friend had fully calculated on gaining over the unhappy Gilbert, and had told his host to get a pony ready for him. As soon as evening approached they mounted and rode to the banks of the Christchurch river, near which the _Saucy Sally_ lay moored. Though a notorious smuggler, as she had then no contraband in her, she could not be touched by the Revenue officers. Most of her numerous crew were already on board; Others were preparing to go off. "Come!" said Dick, "we will soon be among the fine fellows," and sending back their ponies by a lad who came for the purpose, he and Gilbert jumped into a punt, and paddled alongside. Gilbert was welcomed by Captain Rogers, who had been expecting him. "Glad to see you, lad!" he said, shaking him by the hand, "and hope we shall have a pleasant cruise together." Gilbert did not suspect that that slippery fellow had an object in getting him to join his gang. It was that he might revenge himself on Mr Maitland, whom he hated heartily. Rogers thought also that by getting Gilbert among them it might prevent him for the future from interfering in their illegal traffic as he had hitherto done. The _Saucy Sally_ was the longest boat of her class ever built--so it was said--measuring one hundred and twenty feet from her bowsprit end to the extremity of her outrigger. She had a large cuddy forward, and another aft, while the whole of the midship portion was open for the stowage of casks, of which she could carry from between two and three thousand. She pulled forty oars, and carried an enormous spread of canvas; so that in calms, light winds, or gales she could easily give the go-bye to any of the king's cruisers who might chase her. The _Saucy Sally_ was soon gliding swiftly out to sea. She had got some distance from the land, when a light breeze springing up, her sails were hoisted, and away she sped at a rate no ordinary vessel could equal towards the French coast. Gilbert, who had often longed to take a trip in the craft he had so much admired, was delighted with the way in which she sailed, and Dick took care to keep him amused, getting several of the men to recount some of the daring and hazardous adventures in which they had been engaged. Gilbert thought the life of a bold smuggler about the finest and most exciting he could wish for. They soon reached the French coast. Dick invited Gilbert to go on shore, and introduced him into scenes of vice of which before he had had no experience. The _Saucy Sally_ was detained some days taking in her cargo. The whole of this time was spent by Dick and Gilbert on shore, in company with several other profligate young men. "Well, you have seen something of life," observed Dick, as they were once more on board. "You will find it somewhat slow work when you go back to help your father on his farm--eh, lad?" "I cannot go back," answered Gilbert gloomily; "I should like to assist in running our cargo. There is excitement in that sort of work which suits my fancy." "I admire your spirit, lad!" exclaimed Captain Rogers, who overheard him. "If you stick by us, we will stick by you, and you shall have a share in the profits of our Venture; I know I can trust you, from what I have seen of you. Wherever there is danger, I shall expect you to be near to help me," and Slippery Rogers shook Gilbert's hand warmly. On the voyage back to England a bright look-out was kept for any Revenue cruisers which might be on the watch. Twice the _Saucy Sally_ was chased. Once, as a thick fog lifted, she found herself close to a Revenue bruiser, from which several shots struck her, killing one man and wounding two; but notwithstanding, with the help of oars and sails, she managed to get away. The _Saucy Sally_ reached the English coast at night, and Captain Rogers threw up a signal, to let his friends on shore know of his arrival. A signal, to show that all was right, was returned. The _Saucy Sally_ ran in, and boats coming to her, in a wonderfully short time the whole of her cargo was landed. "Come!" said Dick to Gilbert, "if you wish to see all the fun, you must assist in conveying our cargo inland," and he gave him a brace of pistols and a short gun, such as the rest were armed with. Dick then told Gilbert to mount a horse, over the back of which a couple of ankers were slung, and he found himself riding along in company with a large gang of smugglers similar to those he had met with a short time before. He was now thoroughly involved with the smugglers, and less than ever could he venture, so he thought, to go home. Captain Rogers and Dick felt that they had got him securely in their toils, and that they could make use of him as an instrument to do whatever they might require. They had got some distance inland when a halt was called, a scout having come back with the information that danger was ahead. A consultation was held among the leaders, who determined to push on, and if necessary, to fight their way. Dick and Gilbert, and others on horseback, were summoned to the front. Advancing for half a mile, they saw drawn up a strong body of mounted Revenue officers. The smugglers with oaths ordered them to get out of their way, and on their refusing, rode boldly forward, firing as they advanced. The Revenue officers fired in return. "Make use of your weapon, Gilbert!" cried Dick, seeing that his companion hesitated to attempt killing his fellow-countrymen engaged in the performance of their duty. "Are you chicken-hearted, lad? I thought better of you." Thus taunted, Gilbert raised his piece. One of the officers was seen to fall from his saddle. More smugglers coming up, the Revenue men, finding themselves far outnumbered, retreated, carrying off two or three wounded companions. One smuggler had been killed, and several slightly wounded. The smugglers dashed on, the dead man being put into one of the waggons, and without further hindrance reached their destination. "You did that well," said Dick to Gilbert; "I saw you bring the fellow down; should not be surprised that you killed him." Gilbert shuddered. Had he really been guilty of the death of a fellow-creature? if so, all hope of ever returning home was gone; he would be hunted as a murderer, and murder, he had often heard, was sure to be discovered. Dick saw the effect his remark had produced, and tried to laugh it off. "Why, my good fellow, such things happen every day, and it's no use being downcast about it," he observed. "You can take up your old quarters at Deadman's Farm till the _Saucy Sally_ sails again; and then if you have a fancy for it, we will make a longer trip. The skipper intends to try his luck on another part of the coast, as this little affair will probably make the forest too hot for us for a time. We shall be back again, however, when it blows over, depend upon that." Gilbert lay concealed for about a week. He had time for reflection, and had he dared, he would have gone back. "It's too late now, though; it's too late!" he groaned out, and had recourse to the brandy-bottle to stifle conscience. He was once more on board the lugger, and from henceforth for several years was the constant associate of the smugglers. During the time he paid several visits to the neighbourhood of Christchurch; but he was so completely changed in appearance that even had he met any of his old acquaintances, they would not have recognised him. He had long ceased to be called by his own name, having assumed another, by which he was known among his associates. Dick Hockley and Slippery Rogers, and others who were acquainted with his secret, kept it for their own objects, and under his assumed name he became known as one of the most daring and desperate of the band. CHAPTER FIVE. Hugh had returned to college. It was again summer. Arthur studied harder than ever during every spare moment. He assisted his father as far as he could, but Mr Maitland saw that his heart was not in the work, and he more than once observed-- "I am afraid, Arthur, you will make no hand at farming." "I will do my best, at all events," was Arthur's reply. He frequently, as before, rode out with Mary. They were sometimes joined by Harry Acton, a young man who had lately taken a farm in the neighbourhood, and who seldom failed when he met them to turn his horse's head round, and accompany them on their ride. He was intelligent and well educated, and Arthur liked him from the first. Mary gave no opinion, but she did not object to his accompanying them. Mr Maitland, after hearing Arthur's report, invited Mr Acton in to tea, and seemed favourably impressed with him. He only thought him rather grave, and was surprised that a young man accustomed to country life should not take any interest in races or sporting, and had even declined to join the hunt. "Life is too short for idle amusement," Harry observed to Mary one day. "I have abundance of exercise in attending to my farm, and I feel that I am responsible to God for the proper employment of my time." Mary thought that a little amusement now and then could not be wrong. "Relaxation from business for our mental or bodily health may not be so," answered Harry; "but when I reflect that I am responsible to God for every moment of my life, I cannot reconcile it to my conscience to spend time in pursuits which do not tend to honour and glorify Him." Mary had never heard such language used before; and though she had already learned to like him too much to quarrel with him, she was disposed to think him somewhat puritanical. Still Harry Acton came and came again, and Mary looked forward to his visits with pleasure. Serious as his remarks were sometimes, he talked well on numerous subjects, and she confessed that he was very agreeable. Arthur liked him more and more, and was thankful to have found a companion who could enter into his feelings and views. Mary and Arthur had ridden over one day to Lyndhurst, and were passing through, that picturesque village, when they saw a large number of people collected on the green beneath the wide-spreading trees which bounded one side of it. Approaching, they saw a person mounted on a small platform, which raised him above the assemblage. He was of a tall, commanding figure; and as he stood bareheaded, it was seen that his hair was slightly tinged with grey, thrown back from off his high and expansive forehead. He was giving out a hymn in a clear, full voice, which reached even to the distance they were from him. "He is a Methodist of some sort," observed Arthur. "I suppose, Mary, you do not wish to stop and hear him." "I should be sorry to pass by without ascertaining whether what he is saying is worth listening to," answered Mary. "I like the tone of his voice, and I remember learning that hymn from our poor mother." It was "Rock of Ages cleft for me." The young people drew near to the outside of the circle formed round the preacher. Though thus at some distance, every word he uttered was distinctly heard. The hymn concluded, in which a number of people joined, he offered up a short prayer that the blessing of God's Holy Spirit might convey the words he spoke to the hearts of his hearers, and he implored them to reflect that they had immortal souls which must live for ever in happiness unspeakable or in immeasurable woe. "And yet what claim have we to the bliss and glory of heaven?" he asked. "We have none. Every man is vile and outcast, full of disobedience, utterly sinful--ay, a rebel against God! Unregenerate man lives in open rebellion against his Maker. As well might a rebel taken in arms against his lawful sovereign demand pardon by right, as man, till reconciled to God, claim to be admitted to heaven. Men virtually acknowledge this when they profess a hope of going there by their performance of good works, by their penances, by the confession of their sins to other sinful mortals, by their sacrifices to Him who has said that He takes no delight in the blood of bulls and of goats." He continued, with text upon text, to prove the utter depravity of human nature, and man's lost condition. He pointed to the state of society in all countries, people of all classes, to the hearts of each of his hearers, compelling them to search within, and many with horror felt that they were utterly lost. Then suddenly he pointed to the blue canopy of heaven, undimmed by a single cloud, and spoke of the unapproachable purity and holiness of God, in whose sight even the heavens are not clean; of heaven His dwelling-place, where all is peace and joy and love and holiness and purity, surpassing human comprehension. He spoke, too, of the might, the awful majesty and immutable justice of the Divinity, who can by no means look upon iniquity, who considers every departure from His exact and strict law as sin, who allows no such sins as small sins, and considers the least infraction of one of His laws as sinful. "But I have not yet finished the catalogue of God's attributes," he continued. "He is a God of mercy: He is a God of love; though He hates sin, He loves the sinner, and that love caused Him to form the glorious plan by which His justice and mercy can both be satisfied--by which sinful and rebellious man can become reconciled and fit to inhabit a pure heaven, in which nothing vile and undefiled can enter. That plan I would now with swelling heart unfold to you. That gospel plan which God sent down His well-beloved Son, not only to declare to sinful man, but to carry out. Christ Himself announced it when He said, `God so loved the world, that He sent His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.' Yes, God could not pass over sin; but in His infinite grace and mercy He allowed His only-begotten Son, all pure and holy and obedient, to be punished instead of unholy and rebellious man. He might have sent an angel, but then man would have given to that angel the love and reverence and obedience which is due to Himself alone. Christ left not one particle of the work to be done by man, graciously allowing man to take hold of it through a living faith, producing love and gratitude and adoration towards Him who accomplished it. Yet even thus sinful man was not left to his own unaided efforts. When Christ rose, the first-fruits from the dead, He promised, ere He ascended, to sit at the right hand of God, there to be man's great High Priest, Mediator, and Intercessor--to send one to dwell with, to enlighten, support, and comfort, to urge and to enable man to take advantage of that salvation which He had completely wrought out. Oh, my friends! rebels though you are, that gracious, loving God asks you to be reconciled to Himself. He has done the whole work for you. You cannot undo a single act, or unsay a single idle word; every evil thought is registered against you. But all, all will be blotted out--`Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool;' `The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin!' Oh! let me urge you to take advantage of that blood shed for you on Calvary. Accept without a moment's delay our loving Father's gracious offer of reconciliation. Only have faith that Jesus died for _you_--that He bore _your_ sins upon the accursed tree--that He nailed them there, and put them out of God's sight, and give Him your willing, loving obedience! Seek in His Word with faithful prayer to learn His will, and His Holy Spirit will enlighten your minds, enable you to comprehend what you read or hear, and will aid you in obeying His commands." Mary and Arthur were among the most attentive of those assembled round the preacher. Much more he said. Another hymn was raised, a prayer offered. Mary had sat with her eyes on the ground. She looked up, and saw Harry Acton by her side. "I rejoice that you have been here," he said. "I will, with your leave, accompany you home." Mary said, "Pray do." "It is humbling to our human pride to be called on to acknowledge that we are outcast and rebellious sinners," he remarked, "but it is a truth all must be convinced of before they can understand the value of God's plan of salvation." "I do feel it most deeply," murmured Mary; "and had I gone away without hearing the gospel part of the address, I should indeed have been most miserable." Arthur made no remark, but as soon as he reached home, producing a Bible, he asked Acton to help him to refer to many of the passages which had been quoted. "Remember, Arthur, we must not only search the Scriptures, but search them diligently, with earnest prayer for enlightenment," observed Harry. They did so. Mr Maitland was from home, and the three thus sat together without interruption, searching, as Harry remarked, "whether these things were so." It was the commencement of a new era in the lives of the brother and sister. No longer legalists and formalists, as they had hitherto been, they became true and humble followers of Jesus, and found a happiness and contentment they had hitherto not known. CHAPTER SIX. Mr Maitland gladly allowed Mary to accept Harry Acton, who had asked her to become his wife. Arthur, on this, entreated his father to allow him to go to college. "I would rather that one of my own sons should have taken the farm after me; but as Harry seems willing to occupy your place, and as I am afraid you will never give your heart to the business, I must let you follow the bent of your inclination," answered Mr Maitland. Arthur at once, therefore, went to college. As his father could make him but a small allowance, he entered as a sizar. He worked, however, so diligently, that though he did not possess the brilliant talents of Hugh, he made good progress. Hugh had not only supported himself, but when he left the university, had saved sufficient to enter as a law student at Lincoln's Inn. Having not only eaten his way through his terms, but studied hard all the time, he was at length called to the Bar, and was shortly afterwards engaged as junior counsel in a case relating to the purchase of a property in his own county. His senior counsel having been taken ill, the cause remained in his bands. Having frequently been in the house about which the dispute had arisen--he was well acquainted with the locality--he brought forward witnesses to prove what he knew to be the truth. He had thus an opportunity of exhibiting his powers as a speaker, and triumphantly won. He had no lack after this of briefs, and in a short time became known among the solicitors on the circuit as a rising barrister, in whose hands they could safely commit the causes of their clients. Mr Maitland was proud of his son's success, and welcomed him whenever he could spare time for a visit. Between Hugh and Harry Acton there was, however, no sympathy. Hugh looked upon Harry as a very worthy young man, to whom he was happy enough to see his sister married, but thought him somewhat weak, and too much absorbed in his religious notions. Harry, on the other hand, considered Hugh a hard, worldly man, whose sole aim was to push his way in the world, forgetful of all higher spiritual matters. Still they were very good friends, and Harry took every opportunity of putting the truth in a loving and affectionate way before Hugh. "Very good," answered Hugh one day to some of his remarks, "but life is short, and those never get on who waste time on subjects which interfere with their lawful pursuits. I want to be a judge some day, and when I am not studying law cases or my briefs, I must take a little relaxation, and should break down if I attended to the matters that interest you." "But, my dear Hugh, agreeing that life is short, I argue that for that very reason we should employ it in a way to prepare ourselves for the event which must occur at its termination. Its very brevity proves to me that it is only a portion, and a very small one, of our existence, and that it is given us to prepare for another and a holier state of existence. As we employ it here, so shall we be better fitted for that higher, and what may be most glorious, state." "Very well argued, Harry!" said Hugh; "I will consider more than I have hitherto done the plan which you say the Bible contains for man's redemption from the sinful and rebellious condition in which you argue he lives here below." Harry had more than once clearly placed God's scheme of salvation before Hugh, who had listened to it with a dull, if not inattentive ear. Hugh, however, went back into the world to enjoy its amusements, and to attend to his legal duties, and did not allow Harry's remarks to trouble him. Arthur, meantime, took his degree, and as soon as he was of age, entered the ministry. He had, however, no interest, and was not likely to obtain preferment. He was, indeed, indifferent to it, provided he could have the opportunity of preaching the gospel, and winning souls for Christ. His worldly acquaintances declared that he had no high or lofty aims, and Hugh pitied him for being content to go through life as a humble drudge. His Christian friends considered his aims were as noble and lofty as any human being could possess. His earnest desire was to gain subjects for his Master's kingdom. He was ready to preach the gospel at all times, and in all places, wherever he could get men to listen. He felt as earnest when pressing one poor lost sinner to accept the truth and be saved, as when addressing a large multitude, hanging on his words; and he made his way into hospitals with that object in view, looking upon the souls of the humble and wretched as of as much value in God's sight as those of the rich and powerful. He was at length appointed chaplain to the prison of the county gaol, a post which many would consider as among the least hopeful for winning souls. Arthur Maitland performed his duties in no perfunctory way; he entered upon them with all the zeal which the love of souls can alone excite, influenced by God's Holy Spirit. Here, month after month, he laboured with untiring energy. Unhappily, the prison cells were at that time always full; and many who entered them in dark ignorance, went forth rejoicing in that risen Saviour, against whose loving laws they had long been rebels. Arthur would seldom even allow himself a short visit to Mary and her husband, much as they rejoiced whenever he was able to come. Mr Maitland continued, as heretofore, engaged in his agricultural pursuits, and as stern an opponent of the smugglers as before; he was, indeed, more than ever incensed against them, on account of a fearful outrage which had lately been committed on a Custom-house officer residing at a neighbouring village. This officer, Bursey by name, had been always a conscientious and zealous servant of Government. He had mortally offended the smugglers by his activity. On this account Mr Maitland held him in much esteem, and had constantly afforded him support. On a dark night in winter, Mr Bursey, after he had retired for some hours to bed, was aroused by a loud rapping at the door. On looking through the casement of his chamber, he perceived two men, whose countenances he could not distinguish because of the gloom of midnight. He inquired their business, when one of them informed him that he had discovered a large quantity of smuggled goods in a barn at no great distance, to which he and his companion would lead him on the promise of a certain reward. A bargain was immediately struck, and Mr Bursey, telling his wife what had occurred, and that he would soon be back, unsuspicious of danger, hastily clothed himself, and descended unarmed into the passage; and on opening the door, his brains were instantly dashed out on the threshold. The other inmates of the house were aroused, but before they could reach the hall door the murderers had fled. There could be no doubt that some members of the daring smugglers who had so long infested the neighbourhood were guilty of the murder, but who they were it seemed hopeless to discover. Every effort was made to trace them; Mr Maitland was among the most active engaged in the search. Hitherto, however, the culprits had escaped, and it was supposed that they had left the country. All hopes of finding them had been abandoned. At first Mr Maitland, knowing the feeling of hatred he had excited against himself, though a brave man, thought it prudent to avoid riding to any distance from home after nightfall. By degrees, however, he grew less cautious; and if business called him out, he did not hesitate to delay to any hour that was convenient. He had one day gone to Christchurch, and it was somewhat late before he mounted his horse to return home. The friend he was visiting had begged him to stop till the next morning. "If you fancy that I fear the smugglers, set your mind at rest; I am not likely to be attacked, and my mare will give them the go-bye if they attempt to do so." He set off. Darkness came on, and a storm of thunder and lightning that had long been brewing broke over his head. While passing through a thick part of the forest, four men suddenly sprang out on him, and a couple of bullets whistled by his head. Putting spurs to his horse, he was dashing on, when his bridle was seized, and he was dragged from his saddle. A heavy blow on the head almost stunned him, but he retained sufficient consciousness to distinguish the voice of another man who had suddenly rushed up. "Who have you got there?" asked the new-comer. "Old Maitland, and we will give him his deserts," replied one of the men with a fierce oath. "Hold! hold! don't kill him!" cried the man. It was too late. One of the ruffians let the butt end of his pistol fall with a tremendous blow, which made the unfortunate farmer fall helpless to the ground. A cry of horror echoed through the forest. The murderers, satisfied that they had performed their deed of vengeance, hastened from the spot. CHAPTER SEVEN. Harry Acton and his wife anxiously sat up till a late hour, waiting the return of Mr Maitland. When he did not appear the next morning, his son-in-law rode over to Christchurch to inquire for him. Harry became alarmed on hearing that he had left that place, and hastened to the nearest magistrate. A search was at once made in all directions. Mr Maitland's body was at length found. It was evident how he had been killed, and it was at once suspected that some of the gang of smugglers who had murdered Bursey were guilty of the deed. While the party were waiting for a cart to convey the body to Christchurch, a man was caught sight of among the trees in the distance. On finding that he was observed, he took to flight. He was chased, and at length overtaken. His dress showed that he was a seaman, probably a smuggler, his countenance was haggard, his eyes bloodshot. He made no attempt to defend himself, though he had a brace of pistols in his belt, and they were both loaded. As he was being dragged along, blood was observed on his coat, and blood had flowed from the victim's head. His name was asked. "Geoferey Marwood," he answered promptly. "What do you know about the death of this man?" he was next asked. "I did not kill him," he answered. "You will have a hard job to prove to the contrary," observed one of his captors, as they dragged the unhappy man along. Mr Maitland's body was conveyed to Christchurch, where an inquest was held, when a verdict of murder was returned against Geoferey Marwood, and others not in custody. He, notwithstanding, protested his innocence, and accused four others of being guilty of the crime. Warrants were therefore issued for their apprehension, while he was conveyed to Winchester gaol to await his trial. Notwithstanding his protestations of innocence, it was generally supposed in the neighbourhood that Marwood was guilty of the murder of Mr Maitland, and that he had accused the other men in the hopes of prolonging his own life while search was being made for them. Though, however, they for a considerable time evaded the officers of justice, the whole were at length apprehended and conveyed to gaol. For many weeks the wretched man known as Geoferey Marwood lay in the felon's cell. Arthur Maitland frequently visited him, though he could not do so without horror as the supposed murderer of his father. Yet his sense of duty overcame all other considerations, and he endeavoured to address him as he would have done any other prisoner. The man, however, seemed to have hardened his heart, and to have an utter indifference to his fate. "I have said that I did not kill the old man; but if it is proved that I did it, they will hang me, I suppose, and there will be another man less in the world. It is no matter, for I have nothing to live for; if I had, I should not have been taken in the way I was." "But you have a soul, and that must live for ever," urged Arthur. "If you die impenitent, still refusing to accept God's offer of mercy, which He holds out even to the worst of sinners, that soul must spend eternity in misery unspeakable, cast out from His presence." Arthur then read to him the account of the Crucifixion, and of the Saviour's gracious promise to the penitent thief. "Great as is the crime that you are accused of, even if guilty, though man may not pardon you, God has promised to do so if you turn to Him and accept His offer. `The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin,'" "I tell you I am not guilty of that crime," answered Marwood. "I have done a number of things I wish that I had not; but if they choose to hang me, they may--that's all I have to say about it." Still, although Arthur had seldom met with a prisoner who appeared more hardened or more indifferent to his fate, he persisted in visiting him, and placing before him the truths of the gospel. He had endeavoured to show him what sin is, how hateful it is in God's sight, and he had warned him that God is a God of justice, and can by no means overlook iniquity. He had faithfully placed before him the fearful condemnation which he would bring down upon himself if dying impenitent. He now spoke to him of God's long-suffering and kindness, of His mercy, and readiness to forgive. He inquired whether he remembered a fond mother and kind father whom he had offended. "Surely when you did so, and went back to them and expressed your sorrow, they received you again, and forgave you." "I never remember my mother," answered the prisoner. "My father was a good man, but he was stern, and because I disobeyed him and joined some wild companions, I was told that he would not forgive me, and so I ran off and kept out of his way. I found out afterwards that he thought me dead. It was too late then to go back, for I had done so many things which he would have condemned that I could not face him." Just at that moment the warders arrived at the door to conduct him to the court. His trial was about to commence. He and the other four men accused of the murder of Mr Maitland were placed in the dock. The junior counsel for the prosecution was Hugh Maitland. As had occurred at the commencement of his career, his senior counsel was unable, on account of sudden illness, to attend. His private feelings, as well as his professional interest, induced him to exert all his talents to procure the condemnation of the prisoners, whom he believed to be guilty. Every effort had been made to obtain proof against them. Of this they well knew. Evil-doers, though often faithful to each other while success attends them, are frequently, for the sake of saving their own lives, ready to betray each other. One of the men had offered to turn king's evidence. Hugh brought him forward as a witness. The trial went on. The evidence contributed to fix the guilt on all the prisoners. That, however, of their traitorous companion was crushing. The jury were convinced that Marwood was guilty, as well as the three others. The blood on his coat, and his having been found in the neighbourhood, left no doubt on their minds, notwithstanding all the counsel of the accused could say in their favour. The jury brought in a verdict of "guilty." The judge was about to pronounce sentence, when one of the condemned men claimed to be heard. He acknowledged that he and his three companions were the murderers of Mr Maitland, and that though he had not struck the fatal blow, he had been assisting; but that Marwood, though he had arrived at the moment, had no notion of their intention, but, on the contrary, had interfered and endeavoured to stop them. This evidence was considered of so much value, that though the judge condemned the whole to death, he recommended Marwood to mercy. In those days a brief time only was allowed between sentence and execution. The three other prisoners knew that they had no hope of escaping, and Arthur felt it his duty to warn Marwood that the Government were so determined to put an end to the smuggler's traffic, and to punish all who fell into their hands, that he must not entertain much expectation of being reprieved. "I care not for my life; but of this crime, as I have always said, I am innocent, and would die a thousand deaths rather than suffer for it," he answered. "And tell me, sir, who was that lawyer that appeared against me. I heard his name; it is one I once well knew." "He is a barrister of high talent, the eldest son of the murdered man." The prisoner, who was now in the condemned cell, lifted his manacled hands, exclaiming, involuntarily it seemed-- "My brother appear against me! God have mercy on him, for through him I have been unjustly condemned. As there is a God in heaven, whom I have so often blasphemed, I tell you again that I am guiltless of the crime for which I am condemned!" Arthur was too much agitated to speak for a moment. "You the brother of Hugh Maitland?" he exclaimed, "I am his brother. We had but one other brother, Gilbert, who lost his life when a mere lad; so we believed, and long mourned him as dead." "Arthur! Arthur!" exclaimed Gilbert, for he was indeed the prisoner. "I recognise your features, although I had not till now done so. Can you believe me guilty of our father's death? I confess to countless crimes, but of that I am innocent." Arthur at length recovered himself. From several circumstances which Gilbert brought to his memory, he was thoroughly convinced that he was indeed his brother. "I before hoped that you might escape death, and now that I am convinced that you are innocent, I must use every exertion to prevent the risk of the reprieve not reaching Winchester in time to stay your execution." Arthur hastened away in search of Hugh, who was on the point of starting for London. The calm, self-confident barrister sunk almost fainting into a chair when he heard Arthur's account. He, however, soon recovered his self-possession. "If Gilbert is innocent, I am guilty of fratricide, and shall have contributed to bring disgrace on our family!" he exclaimed. Together they set out for London. A reprieve, which had hitherto been refused, was granted. It was on the very morning that the execution of the prisoners was to take place. An accident might delay them. It was daylight before they reached the gaol. They found the Governor in a state of agitation, for one of the prisoners had escaped. He was greatly relieved on finding that it was the man for whom they had brought a reprieve. "One difficulty is got over," he observed; "but I should have had to keep him here, for he and another were accused, by that fellow who turned king's evidence, and who hopes to get the promised reward, of being implicated in Bursey's murder." The two brothers looked at each other. Hugh could scarcely restrain his feelings; a sense of bitter shame predominated, however, for the disgrace he had hoped to escape might still fall on his family. Arthur earnestly prayed that the information might be false, and that his unhappy brother was innocent. The prisoner was supposed to have made his way to Southampton, and to have escaped on board a foreign-bound ship. Several months passed away; it was the autumn. Arthur had gone to spend some days with Mary and her husband. He had ridden over to call on some friends at Christchurch. A heavy equinoctial gale was blowing from the south-west. As he was returning along the coast, wishing to obtain a view of the stormy sea, now covered with foaming waves, he observed a large lugger, under a press of sail, standing towards the shore. A number of people were collected on the beach, and he guessed, from the light waggons and horses of which he had caught sight, that preparations were being made for running a cargo of smuggled goods, then often done in open day, the Revenue officers being either enticed away or bribed not to interfere. The danger a vessel must encounter venturing in at that time appeared fearfully great. He could not bring himself to leave the spot. The reason of the lugger's attempting the hazardous experiment, however, was evident. In the offing appeared a sloop-of-war, and one, he knew, had been sent to cruise after smugglers. From remarks he overheard, he discovered that the lugger was the _Saucy Sally_, commanded by Slippery Rogers. Every moment the gale was increasing, and the surf came rolling with greater and greater force upon the beach. Those on shore threw up a signal to show that landing was impossible, but the fearless crew of the lugger pushed madly on. One instant she appeared with her broad spread of canvas swelling to the gale; the next, surrounded by the fierce waves dashing up madly around her, she lay shattered to fragments on the shingly beach, her crew struggling vainly in the surf. Some few amid the wreck, and casks and bales, which formed her cargo, were washed on shore, but the greater number were carried out far beyond human reach by the receding waves. Of those who were saved, several were fearfully injured, some breathed their last as they were dragged out of the water. Arthur offered that assistance which the rough men were little able to afford. He had sent off for a surgeon, and having attended to two of the sufferers, hastened to the side of a third, who seemed to have received some severe injuries. As he knelt down he recognised the countenance of his unhappy brother Gilbert, who, opening his eyes, fixed them on his face. "We obtained a reprieve," said Arthur. "Why did you escape? you knew I had gone to obtain it." "I did not trust to the king's mercy; and as I had the opportunity, I determined to avail myself of it," answered Gilbert in a feeble voice. "Our king is a merciful sovereign; he has ever shown a readiness to forgive when his sense of justice will allow him," answered Arthur. "But oh! how much more merciful is our Father in heaven; and His justice having been amply satisfied by the willing sacrifice of His dear Son, who died for sinners, He is abundantly ready to forgive the sinner who trusts to that full atonement made for his sins! I speak thus, dear Gilbert, for I fear your time on earth is short." "I know it is," answered Gilbert. "Oh! continue to speak as you have begun. I knew myself to be a guilty, outcast sinner before I left the prison. What you had said to me sunk into my heart. It was for your sake and for Hugh's more than my own that I escaped; and I came back in the lugger resolved not to participate in the profits of the enterprise." Arthur sighed. "Those who associate with evil-doers share in their doings," he was compelled to remark, but he dwelt not on that subject. "My dear brother," he continued, "we are all sinners in the sight of a pure and holy God, who cannot look upon iniquity; but He in His love and mercy has provided a fountain in which all our sins, however black, however foul, can be washed away; and He tells us in His Word that though they be red like crimson, they shall become as white as snow, and though they be as scarlet, they become as wool--that He will put them as far from us as the east is from the west. To that fountain which flowed from the side of Jesus when He hung on the cross, offering himself up as a full and sufficient sacrifice in God's sight for the sins of all who trust in Him, let me urge you to turn your eyes; believe in that loving Saviour that He died for you, as well as for other sinners; that His heart yearns toward you; that He desires you to come to Him and be saved." "I remember, Arthur, that you said this to me in prison; but I hardened my heart. I was strong and well, and feared not death," answered Gilbert, with a deep sigh. "I can do nothing to merit heaven--it's too late now, it's too late." "It is never too late," exclaimed Arthur. "The arms of Jesus are ever ready to receive all who come to Him in simple faith, trusting to His merits alone, and not to any merits of their own, or anything they ever can do to deserve His favour; banish such a thought from your mind. By His free grace He gives us salvation: remember the thief on the cross; he simply turned his dying eye on his crucified Lord, acknowledging that He was the Son of God, and the same answer Jesus gave to him He will give to you if you believe on Him. Remember, too, how the Israelites in the wilderness, bitten by the fiery serpents, were told to look on the serpent of brass, the emblem of healing held up by Moses, and no sooner did they look than they were healed. How merciful, how loving, how gracious, is our Father in heaven, who, knowing the frailty of poor human beings, has thus provided so simple, so easy, and yet so all-sufficient a means by which they may be saved." Arthur, animated by love for his brother's soul, continued thus to plead with him, for he dreaded lest he might die in the attempt to move him. He would have pleaded, however, in the same way with any other sufferer, for he knew the value of human souls. At length several of the people assembled round him, and charitably offered to convey the injured man to a cottage at some little distance from the beach. "Let me be taken there," whispered Gilbert; "there is another I should wish to see, to ask her forgiveness for all the pain and sorrow I have caused her, but do not leave me." A litter was speedily formed with a couple of spars and a piece of sail, and Gilbert being placed on it, four fishermen conveyed him towards the cottage, Arthur walking by his side, still holding his hand. The men seeing that Arthur was a clergyman, were not surprised at the attention he paid to the dying man, nor did they suspect the relationship. "I am praying for you," whispered Arthur; "and oh, let me entreat you to pray for yourself." "I am trying to do so, but I find it hard. My faith is weak--too weak I fear to avail me," gasped the dying man. "Though it be but like a grain of mustard seed, He has promised that it shall remove mountains," answered Arthur. The cottage, happily the abode of Christian people, was reached. The sufferer was placed on a bed prepared for him by the good woman of the house, and Arthur immediately sent off a messenger to summon Mary and her husband, as well as a surgeon, in the hopes that his skill might benefit his brother. Anxiously he watched the livelong night by the side of Arthur's couch, and it was with joy unspeakable that towards morning he heard him whisper, "God has answered my prayer; I believe that His Son Jesus Christ died for me, the just for the unjust, and that through His merits my numberless sins are put away." Soon afterwards the surgeon arrived. After examining Gilbert, he took Arthur aside. "The injuries the poor fellow has received are such as I fear no human skill can remedy. I will do my best, but I can give no hopes of his recovery; he is a fitter subject for your care than mine, though these smugglers are such ruffians that I do not suppose you will be able to do much with him." "We are all by nature rebels to God," answered Arthur, endeavouring to conceal his feelings. "I will, as you advise, remain with the poor man, and follow the directions you give." The surgeon told Arthur what he advised and took his departure, and Arthur hastened back to his brother. Mary and her husband arrived early in the morning. Gilbert, though too weak to speak, knew his sister, and showed by signs that he understood what she said. He pressed her hand, and a smile lighted up his countenance when she assured him that she had never ceased to pray for him, and to feel the same affection for him as of yore. "Those prayers have been answered, have they not?" said Arthur bending over his brother, and he repeated the last words Gilbert had uttered, "I believe that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." Again a bright look passed across Gilbert's countenance, and holding the hands of the loving ones kneeling by his side, his spirit passed away. One of his last requests had been that he might be buried with his hapless companions who had been rescued from the waves. It was complied with, and no one besides those who were with him at his death knew that the shipwrecked smuggler was Gilbert Maitland. Oh that the young could see the fearful termination of the broad road they are tempted by Satan to follow, ere they take the first downward step along it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The End. BOOK IV--THE IVORY TRADER; A TALE OF AFRICA. CHAPTER I. To the north of the Cape of Good Hope Colony, beyond the Great Orange River, an extensive level region exists, known as the Kalahara Desert. Here no running streams are found to fertilise the plain, and often for miles and miles together, not a well nor pool is to be discovered, from which the weary traveller can quench his burning thirst. Yet destitute as it is of water, it is in many parts covered with grass, and an immense variety of creeping plants; while in some places large patches of bushes, and even trees, find nourishment in the seeming arid soil, and countless multitudes of wild animals, especially those which require but little water, or can go many days together without drinking, roam over its trackless wilds. This region passed, a fertile country is found, thickly populated by dark-skinned tribes, who till of late years have had no intercourse with white men. Here an almost countless number of rivers and streams are found, some flowing into the mighty Zambesi, and others into Lake Ngami. Notwithstanding the dangers which must be encountered in crossing the vast Kalahara Desert, from the scarcity of water, the intense heat, the wild beasts, the savage people who inhabit its borders, and more than all, from the attacks of the Tsetse fly, whose poisonous bite speedily destroys cattle and horses, white traders from the colony occasionally traverse it, for the purpose of obtaining ivory from the natives. A tilted waggon belonging to one of these traders, dragged by a span of fourteen oxen, was slowly moving across the wide-extending plain. On the box sat a Hottentot driver, his whip in hand, with lash of prodigious length, reaching even to the leading animals shouting out at the same time strange sounds to urge them on. A dozen dark-skinned men, some clad in jacket and trousers, and broad-brimmed hats, but others having merely a cloth or kilt round their loins, moved along by the side of the waggon. A few were seated on oxen, and the rest marched on foot, mostly with arms in their hands. Among those on foot was a young lad, whose dark skin showed that he was an African, though his features had somewhat of the Asiatic character. He was dressed more in the English fashion than the other black men, though his firm step and independent air proved that young Kibo was well accustomed to traverse the desert wilds. Ahead of the caravan stalked, with spear in hand, the Bechuana guide Masiko, whose people inhabit the region to the south of the desert, over all parts of which, from his earliest youth, he had wandered. His only garment was a cotton scarf, or plaid of a dark colour, thrown over his shoulders and wound round his waist, so as to form a kilt reaching to his knees, his woolly head and his feet being without covering. Two horses without saddles followed the waggon, secured to it by thongs of hide, and several spare oxen kept pace with the vehicle, ready to supply the places of any of the team which might knock up on the road. Two white persons mounted on strong horses brought up the rear of the caravan. One Mr Robert Vincent, the owner of the waggon and its varied contents, was a strongly-built man of middle age, his countenance well tanned by African suns; the other a lad of about fifteen years of age apparently, who, from his slightly-built figure, looked scarcely capable of enduring the fatigues, of the journey before him. The bright sun shining down from the cloudless sky shed a peculiar glare over the whole scene, the atmosphere quivering with heat. Here and there a few bushes rose above the surface, and broke the ocean-like horizon; but so exactly did they resemble one another, that to even the well-practised eye of the trader, they were useless as landmarks to direct his course. He had, therefore, entirely to depend on the guidance of Masiko, to conduct the caravan to the different water-holes and wells on the road across the desert. Already both men and beasts were suffering greatly from thirst, for at the last halting-place no water had been obtained, and there was a fear that the oxen would break down altogether, unless they should soon reach the wells which the guide assured him would be found ahead. "Had I supposed we should have found water so scarce on this route, I would have left you at Mr Warden's station till my return, Martin," observed Mr Vincent to the lad by his side. "But I wanted to give you an insight into the dealing of the natives, for which no small amount of experience is required, that you may be able to help me in my business, and be competent in a few years to take charge of a trading expedition yourself." "I shall be very glad if I can be of assistance to you, father," answered Martin. "I already feel myself the better for the dry air of the desert. I was very happy with Mr Warden, and should have been content to remain and help him and his wife in the numerous duties they have to perform." "He is a good man, no doubt, Martin," observed the trader; "but his is not a money-making calling, and it is not one I should wish you to follow." "If you had not wanted me to help you, father, from what I learned and saw while I was with Mr Warden, I would rather have become a missionary like him than be of any other profession," answered young Martin. "Oh! you must put such foolish ideas out of your head, Martin. It is very well for those who are paid for it, and are not fit for anything better, but I want my son to be a man of the world, to make money, and to become some day one of the leading merchants of Cape Town." Young Martin made no reply. On his father's previous journey from the Cape, Martin had accompanied him, but, unaccustomed to travelling, he had fallen sick, and had been left at the Missionary-station of Mr Warden. Though the trader looked upon the illness of his son as a great misfortune, young Martin had good reason soon to believe it the happiest event of his life. He there for the first time became practically acquainted with the glorious truths of the gospel: he learned that man is a sinner, and by nature a rebel against God, and that through the atonement and mediation of Jesus Christ can he alone become reconciled to Him. This truth brought home to his own heart, he at once comprehended the importance of the efforts which Mr Warden, and the missionary-band engaged with him, were making to carry the gospel of love and mercy among the savage hordes by whom they were surrounded; he knew it to be the only means by which their natures could be changed, and they can become not only civilised members of society, but, what is of far more consequence, heirs of eternal life. He therefore, rejoicing in the blessings he had himself received, felt an earnest desire to engage in the glorious work of carrying the same blessings to the dark-skinned races of that land, long so deeply plunged in ignorance. Though his health had been completely restored, he would therefore far rather have remained with the missionary than have taken the journey to which his father summoned him. But he had learned that obedience to parents is among the first duties of a Christian; and thus, after he had frankly expressed his wish to remain, when his father still desired his company, he had no longer hesitated to obey his summons. He was accompanied by Kibo, the son of a chief of one of the tribes to the north of the desert, whom Mr Vincent purposed visiting. Kibo had been carried away from his home into slavery by the great Matabele leader Moselekatse, in one of his marauding expeditions against the territory inhabited by the lad's tribe four or five years before this. During a visit Mr Warden had paid to Moselekatse, he had seen young Kibo, then apparently on the point of death, and inducing the chief to give him his liberty, had carried him to the Missionary-station, where recovering, he was instructed in the truths of Christianity. The lad became a true and earnest convert, and his heart yearned to visit his parents and friends, and to tell them the good news he had heard. Mr Warden, believing him to be confirmed in the faith, had consented to his accompanying Martin, in the hopes that by his means his tribe might be induced to receive a missionary of the gospel among them. The trader and his son rode on for some time in silence, the former indeed was beginning to feel too anxious about the chances of finding water at the end of the day's journey to talk much. Already many hours had passed since they had left the last water-holes. Although there was still a sufficient supply in the leathern bottles carried in the waggon to prevent them and their men from feeling much inconvenience from thirst, both horses and oxen were already suffering from want of the moisture so necessary to enable them to swallow their food. They had stopped as usual during the heat of the day; but though there was an abundance of grass, it was so dry that it crumbled in the hand, and the poor animals as they chewed it turned it about in their mouths, in a vain endeavour to get it down their throats. Robert Vincent had ordered his men to inspan or harness the cattle at an earlier hour than usual, hoping by pushing on to gain the promised pool before nightfall; but the oxen, already fatigued by their previous long journey, were unable to move as fast as usual, in spite of all the efforts of their driver. The trader, at length losing patience, rode on by the side of the guide, and inquired when they were to reach the pool he had spoken of. "Not till after the sun has sunk far beyond yonder distant line, unless the oxen move faster than they are now doing," answered the guide, pointing to the western horizon. The trader shouted to the driver. Again and again he made his huge whip crack, as he struck his team in succession, but without effect; nothing would induce the poor animals to hasten their steps. "I am much inclined to ride forward, and try and find out the wells myself," said Mr Vincent to his son. "I am not quite sure that our guide is not playing us false. If I thought so, I would shoot him through the head. It is wiser to trust to one's own sagacity than to a treacherous guide." "O father! do not use violence," exclaimed Martin. "Gentle words and kindness will have more effect in keeping him faithful. I have no fear about him, for he has long been known to Mr Warden, who has perfect confidence in him." "Why do you think he should have confidence in him, Martin?" asked his father. "Because, though he was once a fierce savage, he has become a faithful Christian, and as such would be ready to sacrifice his own life rather than risk ours when he has promised to serve us." "I am afraid the fellows are all much alike," observed Mr Vincent. "The only way of making them faithful is not to pay them till the journey is over. I only hope he and young Kibo will answer your expectations. For my part, I have found the heathen black men as trustworthy as the whites." "Yes, father," said Martin, "because in too many instances the whites are merely nominal Christians. Mr Warden has shown me the difference between a real and nominal Christian, and it is of the first I speak. All men are fallible, and even in them we cannot hope to find perfection, but still they can be trusted to do their best." "Well, well, Martin, when you know more of the world, perhaps you will change your opinion," remarked the trader in an indifferent tone. "However, water must be found; and as we have still yearly an hour's daylight, we may even yet reach it if we push on before dark." The trader and his son rode on, though their weary steeds did not move as fast as they wished. "What is that?" exclaimed the elder Vincent, pointing to an object moving among the dry grass some distance ahead. "A lion; we must put a shot into him, or he will be paying the cattle a visit to-night." Spurring on his horse, he galloped forward, followed by Martin. "Don't fire, father!" cried Martin, "it is a human being." Martin was right. They soon discovered that the object they had seen was an old bushwoman, although, but for the scanty clothing which covered her wretchedly thin and diminutive body, she might have been mistaken for some wild animal. She seemed dreadfully frightened, as if expecting instant death. Martin by speaking to the old woman somewhat reassured her. "Water must be near, and she will know where to find it," observed his father; "so she must come with us whether she likes it or no, and act as our guide." The poor creature was soon made to understand what she was required to do, while Martin assured her that she should receive no harm, and should be well rewarded. Still this poor wanderer of the desert, accustomed all her life to ill-treatment, seemed to doubt the motives of her captors, and turned her head about, as if meditating an escape. Knowing, however, that she could not outstrip the horses, she walked quietly on, every now and then looking up and imploring the strangers not to hurt her. Her husband, her sole companion, she said, was in the neighbourhood, and would be wondering what had become of her. "Show us the water, and you shall return to him when you wish," said the elder Vincent. She replied that it would take nearly an hour to reach it. "Look out then for the waggon, Martin, or it may pass us; for on this hard ground even Masiko may fail to see our tracks." Martin did as he was told, and, greatly to his relief, at length met the caravan. It moved forward for some time. Martin could nowhere see his father. Masiko made him feel anxious, by hinting that the old woman might, under the pretence of looking for water, have enticed him among a band of her own people, notorious, he said, for their treachery. Martin on this would have ridden forward, had he not received directions to bring on the caravan. The sun was nearly touching the western horizon, when, to his great relief, he at length caught sight of his father's horse in the distance. At the same instant the cattle began to move on faster than they had hitherto done. "Water! water!" shouted the thirsty people, and the whole party rushed forward ahead of the waggon. Martin, who led the way, could see no pool. The old woman, however, was on her knees, scraping the sand from a hole, out of which she began to ladle with a little cup a small quantity of water into three or four ostrich eggs, carried in a net at her back. "I am afraid our poor oxen will not be much the better for this discovery," observed Martin when he reached his father. "Wait a bit, our men will soon dig more wells, though it may be some hours before we shall have water sufficient for the animals," was the answer. The men as they came up commenced digging with their hands in the soft sand a number of holes some distance apart. As soon as the waggon arrived, the order was given to outspann. Fires were lighted, the neighbouring bushes affording sufficient fuel, and all the usual preparations for camping were made. Martin did not forget the old bushwoman, and with his father's leave gave her, to her no little astonishment and delight, a piece of meat and a bunch of beads, and two or three other trifling articles. The people were employed for several hours in cleaning out the sand from the holes, for as fast as they dug, it again rolled down and filled them up. Gradually, however, the water oozed out from the sides, and towards morning there was a sufficient quantity to afford a little to each of the thirsty horses and oxen. Directly the first streaks of dawn appeared in the sky the oxen were inspanned, and the journey recommenced. On search being made for the old bushwoman, it was discovered that she had decamped. Mean and wretched though she was, she had rendered an essential service to the strangers, but she probably thought them as treacherous as they had supposed her to be. CHAPTER TWO. For several hours the weary oxen dragged on the waggon, slightly refreshed by the limited amount of water they had obtained, and at length they began to show signs of thirst. Masiko confessed that he knew of no pool within the distance of another day's journey, and as the heat had been excessive, he could not be certain that water would be found in it. It was a question whether the oxen could get as far without drinking. Noon was approaching, and it would have been worse than useless to attempt moving on while the sun was overhead. Again they outspanned. The men sat down to sleep in the limited shade the waggon afforded; but the poor animals had to stand out in the full glare of the hot sun, turning their heads in the direction whence came a light breeze, which prevented the atmosphere being altogether insupportable. They had halted about a couple of hours, when two objects were seen moving across the boundless plain towards them. They proved to be the little, yellow-skinned, shrivelled old bushwoman, and a man of the same hue, and as scantily dressed as herself. They came without hesitation up to the waggon. Martin hastened forward, and in a kind tone thanked them for coming to the camp, assuring them that they were welcome and would be protected. "Can you show us where we can find water?" he asked. Their reply convinced him that Masiko was right, and that there was none to be found nearer than he had said. They, however, told him that if he would accompany them a short distance, they would point out where to obtain what would answer the purpose of water. As his father was asleep in the waggon, Martin did not wish to disturb him, and therefore called Kibo, who had meantime been speaking to the bushman and his wife. "Do you think they can be trusted, Kibo?" Martin asked. "Yes, good people; no do harm," answered the lad in broken English. "Then we will go with them." Martin, saddling his horse, called two of the most trustworthy men to follow on the spare horses, while Kibo mounting another, they set out in company with the little bushman and his wife. They had proceeded some distance, when the latter pointed out a creeping plant, with long leaves and a thin, delicate stalk, spreading over the ground in various directions. Both the man and his wife had stones in their hands with which they struck the ground at various spots, at about equal distances from the centre of the plant, and then made signs to the people who had accompanied them to dig, setting the example themselves. After throwing out the sand to the depth of a foot and a half they came to a tuber, three or four times as large as an ordinary turnip; and at each spot where they had struck a similar one was procured. On breaking open one of the tubers, it was found to be full of juice. "These very good, me remember them before," observed Kibo. Martin and the Hottentot loaded their horses with as many of the tubers as they could carry, perceiving at once what a rich treat they would prove to the thirsty and starving cattle. Having first fed their own animals, they quickly returned with their prize to the camp, accompanied by the bushman and his wife. Martin having rewarded them, they expressed their readiness to show where more tubers could be found. The riding oxen having been fed, another party was despatched to obtain a further supply. On their return they were able, as soon as the heat of the day was over, to proceed on to the northward. "Though I was inclined to look with contempt on those poor little wretches, father, see how useful they have been to us," observed Martin. "It goes to prove, as Mr Warden says, that none of the human race should be despised; and debased as they may be, they are capable of improvement, and have immortal souls which we should value not less than those of our other fellow-creatures." "As to that, my boy, I doubt whether you would ever make anything out of those wretched little bush-people. Well, well! you have got a number of new notions into your head. However, when we reach the Makololo, you will have other things to occupy your thoughts; they are sharp fellows, and we shall have to keep our eyes open when dealing with them." Martin knew that it would be his duty to assist his father to the best of his abilities, and he promised to do so. They moved on till dark, and started again at dawn, no water having been found. Had it not been for the roots which God has caused to grow in this arid desert to supply the wants of His creatures, the oxen must have perished. Just as they were about to outspann after their morning's journey, the little bushman beckoned to Martin, and intimated that he could lead them to a place where another production of nature could be found which would assist to sustain the cattle. Martin, summoning three men to attend him with their oxen, and some large nets used to carry fodder, followed his volunteer guide, who, to show his confidence, left his wife with the waggon. The country over which they passed was even more barren and arid than any he had yet seen. At length, after travelling several miles, some large green objects were seen, which, to his surprise and delight, he discovered were a species of water-melon. The Hottentots immediately rushed at them; the first man cut a huge slice with his axe, but no sooner did he put his mouth to it than he cast it aside with a look of disgust and bitter disappointment. The cattle, however, passing by several, began greedily eating others they came to. Meantime the little guide, after tasting two or three which he threw down, pointed to some which he signified were good. Martin now found that some were intensely bitter, while others were sweet and full of juice; this, however, could only be ascertained by tasting each. The party having now satisfied their own thirst, collected as many of the sweet melons as their animals could carry, and returned with them to the camp. "That bushman is a serviceable little fellow," observed Mr Vincent. "I have often seen both the tubers and the melons, but I have never found them before in this part of the desert. The latter seldom last long after the rains, as not only do the natives of the desert collect them, but elephants, and rhinoceroses, and even lions and hyenas, come from a distance to devour them. It was probably in consequence of the arid character of the surrounding desert that the patch to which the bushman took you has escaped a visit from them." Martin begged that he might be allowed to reward his guide, who seemed well satisfied with an axe and several other useful articles, as well as some beads which he received. "You should have waited till they can be of no further use before giving them presents," observed his father. "Depend upon it, they will be off before long; and it Masiko, as I suspect, has lost his way, we shall be in no small difficulty." Martin hoped that their new friends would prove faithful, though as the waggon moved on during the afternoon they said something which made him suspect that their wanderings did not extend much further to the north. They, however, accompanied the caravan to the end of the day's journey; but when morning broke they were nowhere to be seen, they had gone off, as the old woman had before, without being observed by the watch, who had probably been slumbering at the time. Here a whole day was spent, that both men and beasts might obtain that rest they so much required. Again the caravan was on the move. Masiko urged that they should push on as rapidly as possible, for he could not say when they might next reach water. But a small supply remained in their skin bottles. The horses and cattle were again suffering greatly. First one of the oxen in the team fell, then another, and another; and though their places were supplied by the spare animals, the waggon continued to move on at an unusually slow pace. The last drop of water in the skins was exhausted, and even some of the men accustomed to desert travelling declared they could go no further. The sun was striking down on their heads with intense force. The men's lips were parched, their eyes bloodshot. The animals moved on with open mouths, lowing piteously in their sufferings. The trader began to fear that the whole party would knock up. In that case, his only hope of saving his own life and that of his son would be to abandon them with his waggon and goods, and to gallop forward, on the chance of finding water. They had ridden some distance ahead of the caravan, when Martin, who was a short way in front of his father, shouted out, "Water! water!" pointing as he spoke to a beautiful lake in the distance, its waters, curled by the breeze, shining with intense lustre in the bright sun. On the further shore trees were seen reflected clearly on the surface, while among them appeared a number of elephants cooling themselves by throwing water over their bodies. "We need no longer fear losing our animals, for they will have water enough now to drink their fill," observed Martin as his father overtook him. Mr Vincent did not answer, but anxiously gazed at the sheet of water. "I know of no lake hereabouts, and it is too important an object not to be known to all who have ever travelled across the desert; yet my eyes cannot be deceived," he remarked. "Shall I ride back and tell the people?" asked Martin. "Wait till we have ascertained how far off the water is," said his father; "you may only disappoint them." "Surely it cannot be very far off, or we should not see those elephants so clearly," remarked Martin. They now put their horses into a trot, the poor animals were too much fatigued to gallop. Just then the seeming elephants began to move, and suddenly, instead of elephants, a herd of zebras crossed their path, scampering over the ground. The next instant the lake had disappeared, and they found themselves on the borders of an immense expanse of salt, covering the ground as far as the eye could reach to the north and west. On looking behind them, however, they saw both their cattle and men moving rapidly towards the spot, as if they too had been deceived. Bitter was their disappointment when they discovered their mistake. Two of the poor animals dropped and died, now another, and now a fourth; still "Forward! forward!" was the cry. Masiko asserted that water would be at length reached, though it might be some hours' journey ahead. Thus encouraged, even those who had hitherto been most inclined to despair exerted themselves. "If this is to endure much longer, I fear that I shall be unable to stand it," observed Martin to Kibo, who was riding by his side. "Should I die, you will promise me, Kibo, to remain with my father, and to do your best to serve him, and try and get him back safely to Mr Warden's. Perhaps if I die he will be more ready to listen to him than he was during his last visit, and to think that is a great consolation to me. Oh, how willingly would I give up my life to save his, and much more, to enable him to learn the glorious truths which have brought joy to my heart!" The sun was rapidly sinking in the west. They had left the salt expanse some way behind; still the country was as dry and inhospitable as ever. Masiko, at Mr Vincent's order, had pushed on ahead of the caravan. Suddenly he was seen to wave his spear, and to point with it to a clump of trees, then to rush forward. Mr Vincent, with Martin and Kibo, followed him eagerly. CHAPTER THREE. Water was found in the bed of what had once been a running river. The men eagerly rushed forward, and lapped up the refreshing liquid, followed by the horses and oxen. It was with difficulty that those yoked to the waggon could be restrained from dragging it in with them, so eager were they to quench their burning thirst. The party here encamped, for there were all things requisite--water, grass, and wood. Masiko now knew where he was, and he urged his companions to fill all their water-skins, for this pool would soon be dried up, and they had a wide desert track to traverse before they could reach the country of the Makololo. The next morning, having secured as much water as they could carry, the party proceeded on their journey. Day after day they travelled on, often suffering greatly from thirst and hunger, and dreading the loss of more of the cattle. At length a stream of running water was crossed flowing to the east, and the caravan reached the borders of a dense forest, through which a path had to be cut with axes. Beyond it, far off in the east, hills were seen rising out of the plain. Several ruined villages were passed, the plantations near them overrun with weeds and brushwood; while many skeletons of their unhappy inhabitants lay scattered about, telling plainly how they had been attacked by their cruel foes before they had time to escape, and had been remorselessly slaughtered, while the remainder probably had been carried off into slavery. Such scenes met their sight day after day through what otherwise would have been a smiling country. Several more of the oxen had died. Scarcely enough survived to drag on the waggon. Ahead lay a level waste covered by scrub. Masiko urged Mr Vincent to wait till nightfall to cross it. He was afraid, he said, that it might be infested by the tsetse, which does not attack cattle at night. The trader, however, was eager to proceed, as he was now near the termination of his journey, and he thought that Masiko was mistaken. Martin suggested that one of the oxen should be sent on first, and that if that was not bitten the rest should follow. His father, however, seemed to have abandoned his usual caution, and insisted on proceeding. They had not proceeded far across the scrub when several of the dangerous flies were seen on the animals. It was too late to turn back. They must now push on in the hopes that some might escape, which they might do if not severely bitten. The horses might possibly be saved by galloping on, should the dangerous spot not be of any great extent. Mr Vincent therefore directed Martin and Kibo, with two of the men, to push forward with the horses while he himself remained with the waggon. It was already late in the day before the scrub was passed. Riding on for some distance, Martin and his companions crossed a small stream and encamped on a grassy spot, where they hoped to be safe from further attacks of the deadly tsetse. Examining the horses, however, they found that all had been bitten, while there was no hope that any of the oxen would have escaped. The disease caused by the bite might not show itself for several days, and the animals might have strength to drag the waggon to the end of the journey; but if bitten, death would certainly be the consequence. It was late at night before the waggon arrived. Mr Vincent was much out of spirits, for he anticipated the loss of all his oxen. It was the more important, therefore, that they should push on, and the next morning they were again on their journey. At length the bank of another large river was reached Several villages were seen on the opposite side, the dwellings composed of conical-shaped reed-thatched huts surrounded by circular clay walls. The inhabitants, on observing the waggon, came across in their canoes to welcome the trader, who had before been to their country. They were clothed with skins of animals round their loins and others thrown loosely over their shoulders. All were eager to ascertain what Mr Vincent had brought; but he could not commence trading until visited by their chief, who would first claim his own dues and make purchases of such articles as he wanted for himself. The waggon was soon surrounded by natives, who appeared disposed to be friendly. While Mr Vincent was speaking to them they announced that their chief, Kanenge, was coming across the river. In a short time, a tall man, dressed like his people, except that the skins he wore were handsomer and that feathers ornamented the fillet round his head, landed from a canoe and came up to the waggon. Mr Vincent saluted him, shaking hands in the usual fashion. The chief then taking his seat on the ground, they discussed the business which had brought the trader to the country. One had plenty of goods, the other an abundance of ivory. The chief was as eager to trade as any of his people, and appeared incapable just then of thinking of anything else. Every now and then, however, his eye turned towards young Kibo. At length he remarked how like the lad was to his own tribe. Mr Vincent then told him how he had been captured by Moselekatse's people some years before, and had been redeemed by the missionary. Kanenge listened with intense interest, and calling to the boy, addressed him. As Kibo replied, the chief's before somewhat stern countenance became animated and eager. He continued putting questions to Kibo, to which the boy replied, and then eagerly asked several in return. At length, with a cry of delight, the chief sprang up, and pressing young Kibo in his arms, exclaimed-- "My heart was moved when I saw him. I knew him to be of my own people, but I dared not believe that he was the child I loved, and whom I had lost so long ago. White man, I will load your waggon with tusks. You shall take them to the good missionary chief who has sent me back my boy; or if he will come here with a waggon himself, he and his people shall be fed as long as they will remain." Thus the father endeavoured to express his gratitude to the missionary who had preserved his son, and to those who had brought him back. Mr Vincent, however, did not put full confidence in his promises. He replied that he should be happy to convey his messages to the missionary; but that as he had come to trade, he must purchase tusks for himself, though he would carry as many as he had room for, if sent as a present. The chief offered to convey the trader's goods over the river, and to float the waggon across it, while the cattle and horses would pass over by swimming, to his village. This was accomplished the next day. Kanenge appropriated several huts for the accommodation of his visitors, in one of which they took up their residence, in another their goods were stored, while their attendants inhabited the remainder. Trade was now commenced, and everything appeared to be going on prosperously. Scarcely, however, had these arrangements been made than Masiko and their driver came with the intelligence that several of the oxen were sickening from the effects of the tsetse-bites. No cure was known. The most healthy had already perished. In a few days it was found that all the cattle, as well as the horses, had been bitten by the deadly insect. Martin tried to console his father by pointing out how much worse it would have been had they perished on the journey, in which case the waggon and its contents must have been deserted, and they themselves would in all probability have lost their lives. The trader, however, was inclined to look at things in a gloomy light. Though fresh oxen might be procured in the country, it would require some time to break them in, while their cost would swallow up a considerable portion of his profits. Mr Vincent himself was ill, and in a few days he was attacked with fever, while several of his men were suffering from the same complaint. Martin now felt thankful that he had accompanied his father, and while he attended him with the most devoted care, he did his utmost to take his place in carrying on trade with the natives. His father appeared well pleased with the way he transacted business, when he each day reported the progress he had made, and gradually their store-hut became filled with elephant-tusks. "Ah, Martin, you will become a first-rate trader," he observed; "and I hope we shall soon recover our losses. As soon as I am well we must push further to the eastward, where I hear there are large supplies of ivory. In the meantime we must get fresh oxen broken in." "I am thankful to be able to assist you, father," answered Martin; "but I must not pride myself on my dealings with the natives. We are now with a friendly chief who treats us fairly, but I understand the people among whom you propose going are likely to behave in a very different way; besides which, the country is exposed to the inroads of hostile tribes, and should they hear that such a prize as our waggon full of goods is in the neighbourhood, they will attack us in the hopes of carrying it off." "We need not be afraid of them; we have a dozen muskets, besides our rifles and pistols, and may keep a whole host of enemies at bay," observed Mr Vincent. "Kanenge will send a party of his men, and probably, if I ask him, come himself to assist us." Martin had now to tell his father that two of their own people were already dead, and that several others were so ill that there was little hope of their recovery. Kibo came every day to the hut, and brought presents of provisions from his father. Martin asked him if he felt happy at being once more among his relations and own people. Kibo shook his head. "No, very sorry," he answered, speaking partly in broken English and partly in his native tongue. "My father is kind and glad to have me with him; but he knows nothing of the true God, and wants me to follow the bad ways of my people, which he thinks right ways. I tell him that God wishes men to be happy, and to live at peace, and to do good to each other and not harm, and to love their enemies, and to trust to Him, and to worship Him only; and that all men are bad by nature and constantly doing wrong, and that it is only by trusting to Jesus Christ, who was punished instead of them, that God will forgive them their sins and put them away out of His sight. My father says he cannot understand how this can be, and that now I have come to live among my people, I must believe what they do, and live as they do. I tell him I cannot believe the lies Satan has invented to deceive them, and that I must not follow their ways, which are the bad ways Satan has taught them; and so I have asked my father to let me go back with you and try to persuade Mr Warden to come here, or to send another missionary to teach the people about Jesus Christ, and how He wishes men to live." Martin was truly glad to hear Kibo say this, and he urged him to persevere in trying to obtain leave to return, promising to beg Mr Vincent to assist him. CHAPTER FOUR. Two months had passed by, the waggon was half loaded with ivory, and Mr Vincent had partly recovered from his fever; but all his oxen were dead, and so were nearly half the men he had brought with him. Many of the natives had also died, and great numbers were suffering. It was evident that the low-lying region now occupied by Kanenge and his tribe, intersected as it was by numerous rivers, with swamps in all directions, was very unhealthy. Martin was thankful when his father proposed moving eastward to a higher region. Kanenge had supplied oxen, which the trader's surviving followers had been engaged for some time in breaking in. The chief also, confiding in the firearms with which he and his people were to be furnished, agreed to accompany him. The waggon and goods were transported across the river, and accompanied by Kanenge, with nearly a hundred men, the trader's party commenced their journey in the proposed direction. Mr Vincent being too weak to walk, was carried in a sort of palanquin, while the rest of the party marched on foot. After travelling for upwards of a week, the country greatly improving in appearance, they reached a steep hill, up which the waggon was slowly dragged, till at length they found themselves on a wide extent of elevated ground, high above the plain, which stretched away to the southward. Here the air felt pure and comparatively bracing, and Martin at first hoped that his father would recover his strength. Still, after some days had passed, observing how weak and ill he remained, he could not help fearing that his days were numbered. Should his father die, he would indeed have been in a forlorn condition had he not learned to trust to One who rules all things for the best. He was, therefore, far more anxious about his father than about himself. Each evening, when they encamped, he sat by his side, and having read a portion of Scripture, he endeavoured to turn his father's thoughts to a future state of existence. "What, do you think I am likely to die?" asked Mr Vincent one day. "Why do you talk so much about heaven?" "We have seen many of our companions die, my dear father, and we know how uncertain life is in this country, as it is indeed in all parts of the world, and at all events we should live prepared to quit this life at any moment. Christ has said that we must enter the kingdom of heaven here, we must become His subjects while we are on earth, we must be reconciled to God now, we must be born again; and therefore it is that I am so anxious you should accept His gracious offers, though at the same time I pray that you may be restored to health and strength." At first Mr Vincent turned a deaf ear to what his son said, but by degrees his hard heart softened, he saw how earnest and affectionate that son was, and he could not help being aware of his own increasing weakness. Although he at first thought himself getting better, the disease had taken too strong a hold of him to be thrown off. Martin at length had the infinite satisfaction of finding that his father now listened with deep attention to God's Word when he read it. "My dear boy," he said one day, "I now know myself to be a rebel to God, and grievously to have sinned against His pure and holy laws; and I earnestly desire to accept the gracious offer of mercy which He holds out through the atoning blood of Christ, according to His plan of salvation, which you have so clearly explained to me. I do not know whether I shall live or die, but I pray for grace that I may ever continue faithful to Him who has redeemed me with His precious blood." Martin burst into tears on hearing his father thus express himself--they were tears of joy--and he felt the great load which had hitherto oppressed him removed from his heart. The natives came in to trade, but Mr Vincent was utterly unable to do anything. Had it not been for Martin, who was assisted by Kibo and Masiko, no trade could have been carried on. At length most of the tusks in the neighbourhood were bought up, and as Mr Vincent had still some goods remaining, he wished to move further on. He was, however, still so ill that he agreed, at the suggestion of his son, to entrust the goods to Kanenge, who promised faithfully to take care of them till his return. He accordingly determined to set out at once, hoping that the air of the desert would restore him to health, and the preparations for the journey being completed, the waggon, with its valuable load of ivory, descended to the plain. Kanenge, with most of his men, escorted it; while Martin and Kibo remained with Mr Vincent, who, should he feel stronger, was to follow the next day on a litter. Martin's spirits now revived, and he began to hope that, the journey being commenced, his father would ultimately recover. His chief sorrow was with regard to Kibo. The Makololo chief positively refused to allow him to return. Martin entreated him to remain true to his faith, instead of falling into the ways of his tribe. "Try and instruct them, my dear Kibo," he said. "Young as you are you may be the means of spreading the glorious truths of the Gospel among them." "You pray for me then," said Kibo. "I poor boy, I very weak, I do nothing by myself." "We are all very weak and helpless in God's work," said Martin. "If you seek the aid of the Holy Spirit, you will have strength given you." "Ah, yes," said Kibo; "I no trust to myself, and then I strong and do much." This conversation took place at the door of the hut. Martin thought he heard his father call to him. He ran to the side of his couch. Mr Vincent put forth his hand to take that of his son. "Bless you, my boy," he whispered; "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." Martin put his arm under his father's head. The trader's eyes fixed to the last on his boy, the film of death stole over them, and ere a few minutes had passed he had ceased to breathe. Kibo left his friend for a time to indulge his grief alone, while he sent off a message to inform Kanenge of Mr Vincent's death. Towards evening the next day, instead of the chief, who was expected, Masiko made his appearance. Martin was thankful to have a Christian at such a time with him. Martin had chosen a spot under a wide-spreading tree for his father's grave, and Masiko, who had brought some presents to repay the natives, had it dug. Here the white trader was buried by his orphan son and his two dark-skinned Christian friends. Kibo had gone back to the village to order Kanenge's people to prepare for their departure that night, he having received intelligence that a party of their enemies were on the move and approaching the neighbourhood. Darkness had set in, yet Martin was unwilling to leave the spot till, assisted by Masiko, he had covered the grave over with a thick roof of branches to prevent its being disturbed by savage animals. He was thus engaged when loud shrieks and cries from the village reached their ears. His impulse was to hasten towards it to find Kibo, that they might, if the placed was attacked, escape together. "Don't go," exclaimed Masiko, grasping Martin's hand; "you cannot help him, and will be killed or taken prisoner with the rest." At that instant several figures were observed rushing towards them. "Come," exclaimed Masiko, dragging Martin forward in the direction the waggon had taken. "The enemy will not dare to attack our party armed with guns, and if we can reach them we shall be safe." Martin, though anxious to discover his friend, could not help feeling that it would be unwise to return to the village, probably already in the hands of the enemy. He therefore hastened on with his faithful companion, trusting that they would outstrip the foe. He could only hope that Kibo had made his escape, and that he would rejoin them at the waggon. This it was probably the object of the marauding party to have surprised. They had many miles of rough country to traverse; but, though weary, Martin was unwilling to stop and rest, as it was important to warn Kanenge of what had occurred, that he might move the waggon to a greater distance, or if his force was sufficient, pursue the enemy. CHAPTER FIVE. Just as day broke, Martin and his companion approached the camp. The chief, observing Martin's clothes torn, and his and Masiko's limbs scratched by the bushes through which they had passed, inquired in an anxious tone why they had come without his son and the rest of his people. Masiko then briefly described what had occurred, and said that they had hurried on to warn him of the threatened danger. "I know that you would not willingly have deserted your friend," said the chief to Martin. "No, indeed, I would not," answered Martin; "and had not Masiko prevented me, I would have returned at all risks to the village to try and discover him. I was in hopes that he might have escaped, and would have followed us. If he does not appear, I am even now ready to return to try and find him." The chief uttered an exclamation which showed his grief, and said-- "Too probably he and all with him were surrounded by the enemy, and were either killed or were carried off as prisoners. If there were a possibility of his being alive, I would follow him; but our enemies would not have attacked the place unless with a very large number of fighting men, against whom my people would have no chance of success. I also promised your father to defend the waggon and his property with my life, and if I pursue the enemy I shall leave that defenceless." "I will sacrifice the waggon and all its contents rather than allow Kibo to be carried away into slavery," exclaimed Martin. "I know your friendship for my son, but it would be useless," said Kanenge. "If the enemy were to see a party outnumbering them approaching, they would put their captives to death and take to flight. I am better acquainted with the ways of my country than you are. Our first business is to take the waggon to a place where it will be safer than here, and I will at the same time send out scouts to learn what has happened." Kanenge now gave orders to have the oxen yoked to the waggon and the march to begin. He had one of the oxen saddled for Martin to ride, who, wearied with his long run, more than once dropping asleep, nearly fell of. After travelling some distance, a broad stream was reached, with an island in the centre and a village on the opposite side. Signals being made, the natives came across with several canoes. The waggon was quickly unloaded, when it and the goods were carried over to the island. Kanenge assured Martin that they would be perfectly safe, as the enemy, having no canoes, could not attack them. Shortly afterwards the scouts who had been sent out arrived, accompanied by one of the men who had been left in the village, and who was bleeding from several wounds. He had a sad account to give. The enemy, numbering upwards of a thousand men, had secretly approached the village, and almost surrounding it before they were discovered, had rushed upon the defenceless inhabitants, killing, as usual, all who opposed them, and making the rest prisoners. The man confessed that he and his companions had been completely surprised, but that they had all fought bravely; and not till he had seen Kibo surrounded by enemies and carried off, and he himself had been wounded, did he take to flight. All the rest had been shot down. Martin had eagerly listened to what the man said, and hoping from the account he heard that Kibo was alive, he resolved to attempt his release. He proposed, therefore, as soon as he had rested, to follow the enemy; and should he overtake them, to go boldly into their camp, and to try and redeem his friend. They might possibly be content to receive in exchange the remainder of the goods in the waggon, and if not, he should be ready to offer as many tusks as they might demand. He could not devote them to a more satisfactory purpose. He should like to have returned to Mr Warden with a waggon full of tusks, that he might for the future be no cost to him, but he would willingly sacrifice the whole could he regain his friend. On explaining his plan to Kanenge, the chief replied that though he and Masiko, being strangers, might be allowed to enter the enemy's camp, should any of the Makololo go, they would be immediately killed. Masiko, though well aware of the risk that he would run by putting himself in the power of the cruel savages bent on making slaves of all they could capture, without hesitation agreed to accompany Martin. "God will take care of us, we are doing what is right, we must leave the rest to Him," he observed. After a short sleep, Martin and Masiko got ready to set out. Kanenge selected twelve of his most tried warriors to escort them till they should reach the neighbourhood of the enemy's camp. The Makololo were then to remain in ambush, to assist in any way which might be found practicable. Among the stores was an English flag which Mr Vincent had been accustomed to hoist on a high pole above his waggon when prepared to trade with the natives. This Martin fixed to a staff with the intention of unfurling it on approaching the enemy. Martin and his companions were some distance on their journey before daybreak. They hurried on till fatigue and hunger compelled them to halt. After breakfasting and taking a short rest they again proceeded. In vain they endeavoured to obtain information as to the movements of the enemy. No inhabitants were to be seen. They passed, however, several villages which had been burned, and saw numerous bodies of men, women, and even of children, shot down while attempting to escape. Some of the men also had evidently been killed while fighting for their homes. Masiko told Martin that the object of this raid, as well as of numberless others, had been solely to procure slaves to sell to the slave-dealers, who sent up parties many miles to the interior from the east coast. "Unless the Christian people of your country and others unite to put a stop to the cruel traffic, there will be no peace or happiness for poor Africa," he observed. At length a spot where a village had lately stood was reached. The remains of the huts were still smouldering, and it was evident that the enemy had not long quitted it. Numerous dead bodies lay about, shot through by bullets, showing that the enemy had firearms supplied by the white slave-dealers to enable them to carry out their nefarious undertaking. One man was found still breathing. The Makololo showed very little feeling for his sufferings, but Masiko stooping down, poured some water from his leathern bottle into his mouth, which somewhat revived him. The wounded man then told Masiko that the village having been surprised at night, most of the inhabitants had been carried off, and he supposed that the enemy could not be many miles off. The sufferer's life was ebbing fast, and in a few minutes he ceased to breathe. Most of those killed were old men and old women, not considered worth carrying off as slaves; or, sadder still, several infants, who, incapable of enduring the fatigues of the journey, had been torn from their mother's arms and dashed lifeless on the ground. Martin, unaccustomed to such scenes, felt sick at heart as he contemplated the spectacle, though the Makololo warriors regarded it with indifference. Too often, probably, they had treated their enemies in a similar manner. The party now proceeded with the greatest caution, as it was difficult to ascertain how far off the enemy might have got. At any moment they might overtake them. Not a single native could be seen from whom they could gain intelligence. No guide, however, was required to show them the way, as it was too clear by the dead bodies of men and women who had been wounded in the attack, and had sunk down from loss of blood, and frequently by those of very young children, whose weight had prevented their mothers from walking as fast as their cruel captors required. Martin was anxious as soon as possible to overtake the enemy, that he might have a less distance to send back for the ransom which might be demanded for Kibo. He was therefore much disappointed when night again came on, and his party were compelled to encamp. They were fortunate in finding a spot near a pool, with high rocks and trees round it, where they could venture to light a fire and cook their provisions without the risk of being seen by the enemy. The usual sounds heard at sunset in an African forest had ceased, and were succeeded by the silence which reigns at night. Martin's companions too, who had hitherto been talking to each other, had thrown themselves on the ground to sleep. He was about to follow their example, when a cry, which seemed to come from a distance, reached his ears. He listened attentively. It was repeated. He asked Masiko if he had heard anything. Masiko said that he had, but that it was the cry of a wild beast. Martin was almost sure it was a human voice, and that it came from the direction the enemy had taken. Anxious to ascertain if they were in their neighbourhood, Martin begged Masiko to accompany him. Taking their guns, they made their way through the wood, the light from the moon enabling them to do so. After passing through the wood, they ascended a slight elevation, whence they could distinguish in the distance the light of several fires, while a murmur, proceeding from a large number of human voices, reached their ears. There could be no longer any doubt that they were close to the enemy's camp, and that the cry they had heard was that of some unfortunate captive being beaten, or perhaps put to death. On this Martin and Masiko returned to their companions, resolved to set out by daybreak, and to try and reach the marauders' camp before the march was commenced. Martin was so occupied with the thoughts of what he had to do in the morning that it was long before he could go to sleep. On one thing he was resolved, that he would not allow Masiko to run the risk of being seized by the robbers or carried off with the rest of their captives. Masiko, though very unwilling to let him go alone, at length consented to remain with the rest in their place of concealment till Martin's return. CHAPTER SIX. Before daybreak Martin and Masiko set out, the latter insisting on accompanying him as far as he could venture without the risk of being discovered. The sounds which proceeded from the camp showed that the people were already astir, and Martin leaving his gun with Masiko, who remained concealed behind a thick clump of trees, proceeded alone, taking only the slender staff round which his flag was rolled. He kept himself, as he proceeded, as much as possible under shelter, as his object was to get as far as he could into the camp without being discovered. As the people were engaged in their various occupations-- some collecting cattle, others lighting fires to cook their food, while many had not yet even risen from the ground--he succeeded better than he had anticipated. Seeing some huts before him, he guessed that they were occupied by the chief of the band and his attendants. Though a number of people began to press round him, he advanced boldly forward till he got in front of the largest of the huts, when, unfurling his flag, he stood quietly waiting to see what would happen. No one in the meantime attempted to interfere with him, while the countenances of the people exhibited astonishment rather than anger. He had not long to wait before the chief made his appearance at the door of one of the huts, evidently too much surprised at what he saw to utter a word. Martin, taking advantage of his silence, pointed to the flag and inquired if he knew to what nation it belonged. The chief made no reply. "I must tell you then," said Martin. "It is that of a great people who have more power than all the tribes of Africa put together; yet powerful as they are, they wish to be friends with all people, and to do them good. You will understand, therefore, that I come to you as a friend, and as such I wish to talk to you, and to arrange a matter which has brought me here." The chief, at length recovering a little from his surprise, put out his hand and told Martin that though he had never seen that flag before, nor did he know the nation of whom he spoke, he was welcome. "Probably," he added, "some of the people in the camp who have travelled to the sea may have heard of the great nation." Just then a man came forward and addressed the chief in a low tone. Martin did not hear what was said. The chief seemed somewhat agitated, and at length inquired of Martin whether any of the big canoes of his countrymen were in the neighbourhood, and what force he had with him. Martin did not say that no English ships were likely to be in the interior of Africa, nor that probably he was the only Englishman within many hundred miles of him, but he replied cautiously that he had come on an embassy of peace, and that he could not suppose the chief would refuse him the simple request he had to make. "My countrymen," he added, "are, as I have said, powerful, and lovers of peace, and yet when they are compelled to go to war they never reduce to slavery those they conquer, but wish them to be as free as they are themselves. Yet they know how to punish those who ill-treat the helpless." "Your countrymen may be a great people, but they seem to have very different notions to mine," observed the chief. "As yet, however, I do not understand your object in paying me a visit." "That is the point I am coming to," answered Martin in as firm a tone of voice as he could command. "You and your people have lately attacked a village in which were some of my friends, and have carried them off to sell as slaves. One of them is an especial friend of mine. He is also of my religion, and understands my language, and I cannot allow him to be carried away to live among strangers. As I told you, I came here on a peaceable errand, and all I demand is that you should set a price on my friend, and if you will allow him to accompany me I will send you the goods you demand." The chief, on hearing this speech, looked greatly relieved, and after consulting with several of his headmen, asked Martin to point out the friend of whom he spoke. Martin replied that he would, and was forthwith conducted to the part of the camp where the unfortunate slaves, who had by this time got ready to commence their march, were assembled. The men were generally chained in parties of six together, with heavy manacles on their hands; while the women were secured two and two with ropes round their waists, they having often to carry loads in addition to their children, who clung to their backs. The boys were manacled in the same way as the men; while the younger girls, though fastened together to prevent their running away, were allowed to travel without loads, not from any feeling of mercy on the part of their captives, but that they might appear to better advantage on their arrival at the slave-market. Some of the men who had apparently been refractory were secured by having their necks fixed in forks at the end of heavy poles, the fork being secured by iron pins bolted in at the broader end so as to prevent them from slipping out their necks. Two or three dozen of the stronger men were thus fastened together two and two, some having also chains round their wrists. A number of men--some armed with spears and swords, and others with muskets--stood ready to prevent the possibility of the captives escaping. Martin hurried to the spot where the boys were collected, eagerly scanning the faces of the young captives. He had passed by a number, among whom he in vain searched for Kibo. There was one more group a little further on, still sitting or lying down. The reason of this was at once apparent. One of the poor lads being unable to rise, his companions in misfortune were kicking and pinching him to make him get up, with the exception of one, who was endeavouring to protect him from their cruelty. In that one, though deprived of his English clothes and naked like the rest, Martin recognised his friend Kibo. He was so engaged in his generous efforts to protect the sufferer that he did not at first observe Martin approaching. Kibo, at length seeing Martin, uttering a cry of joy, endeavoured to spring forward, but his chain quickly checked him. The other lads on this ceased tormenting their companion, and gazed with astonishment at the stranger and his flag. Martin, speaking in English, told Kibo why he had come to the camp, and advised him not to say who he was lest the chief should increase the amount he might demand for his ransom. "There is my friend," he then said, turning to the headman who had accompanied him. "You see, as I told you, that he speaks my language, and you will now believe that everything else I have told you about him is true. Set him at once at liberty, and I will send the goods as soon as I return to the camp." Greatly to his joy, Martin saw Kibo's manacles knocked off, and they stood together grasping each other's hands. Kibo, however, did not move from the spot, but casting his eyes towards the poor lad on the ground, he said, "Can you get him set free too? he is sick already, and will die if made to travel with the rest. I have been telling him about Jesus Christ, and he says how much he wishes to know Him better, and that he would come to this country and teach people to be happy. Oh, how grieved I should be if he were to die and not know more about Him!" Martin at once pointed out the sick lad to the headmen, and told them that if they would knock off his chains and carry him to their chief, he would pay a ransom for him as well as for his friend. As the savages saw that this would be a clear gain, well knowing that the lad would die if compelled to march with the rest, they at once complied; and Martin grasping Kibo by the hand, followed by a couple of men carrying the poor lad, returned to the hut, in front of which the chief was seated smoking his pipe, and surrounded by several persons. One of these, though his skin was as brown as that of the rest, had European features, and was dressed in shirt and trousers, and Martin rightly conjectured that he was an agent of the slave-dealers on the coast, and had instigated the raid which had unhappily been so successfully carried out. Martin had brought a list of his remaining goods, and the chief appeared satisfied with those he offered in exchange for Kibo and the other lad. He was in hopes that the matter would quickly be settled, when the white man advised the chief to refuse the articles offered and to insist on having tusks instead. Martin had been too long accustomed to deal with the natives to yield at once, or to acknowledge that he had any tusks. "I tell you truly that I offer you all my remaining goods," he answered. "If you will send messengers to receive them, I promise to send them to you as soon as I can get back to my camp." The chief, instigated by the slave-dealer, insisted on having tusks, finally agreeing, however, to receive twelve for Kibo and two for the poor sick lad, who, he remarked, was not likely to be of much use to any one. He would probably not have allowed his captives to go free until he had received the tusks, but when Martin promised on the faith of his flag to send them, even the slave-dealer advised him to consent, observing that Englishmen, though he hated them from his heart, always fulfilled their promises. Martin, thankful that his enterprise had thus far succeeded, set out with Kibo, accompanied by fourteen men, who were to go a part of the distance and there to wait till the arrival of the tusks. On consideration of receiving payment, they agreed to carry the poor lad whose freedom Martin had obtained. As they approached the spot where he had left his companions, he and Kibo hurried forward to give them warning. Their joy at seeing their chief's son was very great, and they declared that Martin ought to be made a chief himself. Martin, committing the two rescued lads to the charge of the Makololo, urged them to hasten on to Kanenge, while he followed with Masiko, as he was anxious to separate the hostile natives as soon as possible, fearing that either one or the other might be guilty of some act of treachery. He advised those who had come from the camp to remain at the spot where he left them till his return. The men begged that he would leave his flag, as no one, they observed, would then venture to attack them, and it would be an additional proof that he intended to fulfil his promise. This he gladly agreed to do. He then set out with Masiko, and travelled on with all speed, supported by the feeling that he had succeeded in his undertaking, and by his wish to fulfil his promise. For many miles the country was desolate, and no food was to be obtained. In the evening, however, they overtook their companions, who had sufficient for their wants. Kibo gave a good report of his friend Telo, who by his directions had been carried on a litter. "I have promised that you, Martin, will take him with you to the missionary, who will instruct him in the religion of which I have been telling him. He says that as all his friends have been killed or carried off as slaves he will gladly go with you." "But I must get you also to go with me, if your father will let you," said Martin. "You will then learn English, and obtain more knowledge of the Bible; and you may some day return to this country with a white missionary, to whom you may act as interpreter, and be able to instruct your people in the truths of the Gospel." Kibo, who had not been attracted by the examples of savage life he had witnessed, gladly promised to try and obtain his father's leave to return with Martin. He did this more willingly as he found with regret that Kanenge was in no way disposed to listen to him when he tried to explain the Gospel, and he hoped that a missionary would be more successful. The discussion of their plans for the future occupied them during the remainder of their journey. Kanenge received his son with joy, and expressed his warmest gratitude to Martin for bringing him back. Though he confessed that a very high price had been demanded for his liberation, he seemed rather flattered than otherwise by it, and insisted on replacing the tusks taken from Martin's store. He showed, however, that he was still the savage by observing that Martin had been over-generous in rescuing poor Telo, who was not worth the two tusks he had promised. Martin did not consider it necessary to argue the point, merely replying that he would give them from his own store. As soon as he had rested, leaving Kibo with Kanenge to look after Telo, he and Masiko set out, attended by several men carrying the tusks he had promised as a ransom for the two young blacks. He also selected a number of articles to distribute among the party who had escorted him from the camp. He found them anxiously waiting his return, and in fear of being attacked on their march to overtake the rest of their party. No sooner had they received the tusks and presents than they hurried off, and Martin and Masiko returned in safety to Kanenge's camp. In a short time Kanenge managed to obtain as many tusks as Martin had paid for his son's ransom, with several in addition, which he presented as a gift. Martin having thus, greatly to his satisfaction, rescued Kibo from slavery, was anxious to rejoin Mr Warden as soon as possible. Still, eager as he was to set out, he determined not to go, if possible, without his friend. He had frequent conversations with Kibo on the subject. Martin went to the chief, who again expressed his gratitude to him for rescuing his son. "Yes," said Martin, "I, it is true, redeemed him from slavery, but that was only the slavery which binds the body; you wish to bring back his soul into slavery, which is ten thousand times worse than that from which I saved him. If he remains with you, and follows your customs, he will be Satan's slave. Allow him to return with me, and in a few years I trust that he will come back and be able to show you and your people how you may be free indeed, and enjoy the blessings which my religion can alone give you. You acknowledge that I have been the means of rescuing him from your enemies; I have a right, therefore, to entreat that you will allow him to accompany me." For a considerable time Kanenge did not speak. A great struggle was taking place within him. At length he answered-- "He shall go with you, my son. You have said what is true; only, remember your promise, that he is to return here to see me ere I die." Martin again assured Kanenge that should God spare his life, Kibo would return with a white missionary to instruct him and his people, and then hastened away to communicate to his friend the joyful intelligence. Preparations for their departure were now made, and the waggon being well loaded, Martin and his two young companions, with Masiko as conductor, set out on his journey southward across the desert. The Hottentot driver and four of his men survived, while several of the Makololo gladly undertook to fill the places of the others and to form the necessary escort. Kanenge accompanied them for a couple of days on their journey, urging Martin to come back with Kibo, and promising to give him a warm reception. The journey across the desert was performed without an accident. Martin had no intention of following the life of a trader, having far higher aims in view. He without difficulty disposed of his waggon and its valuable cargo, and with Mr Warden's assistance, invested the proceeds, which were sufficient not only to supply his very moderate wants for the present but for the future. He at once began diligently to prepare himself for the important duties of a missionary, Kibo and Telo following his example. The three young men were in the course of a few years fitted to go forth on their destined work, and were the means of bringing many in that long-benighted region out of Nature's darkness into the glorious light of the Gospel. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The End. 
53576	----	generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 53576-h.htm or 53576-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53576/53576-h/53576-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53576/53576-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/johnblackapostle00bryciala [Illustration: REV. JOHN BLACK, D.D. The Apostle of the Red River.] JOHN BLACK THE APOSTLE OF THE RED RIVER Or, How the Blue Banner Was Unfurled on Manitoba Prairies by REV. GEORGE BRYCE, M.A., LL.D. Professor in Manitoba College, Winnipeg. Toronto: William Briggs Wesley Buildings. C. W. Coates, Montreal. S. F. Huestis, Halifax. 1898 Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, by William Briggs, at the Department of Agriculture. PREFACE. We are in the habit of referring to the heroic deeds of our fathers, whether English, Scottish, Irish or French, in the struggles they endured and the sacrifices they made for country or religion. The service rendered to liberty and religion by Cromwell and his Ironsides at Marston Moor or Naseby, by Hamilton and his Covenanters at Drumclog, by King William and his followers at Boyne and Londonderry, or by Henry and his Huguenots at Ivry, may well stir our bosoms with emotion. But this century has, in the piping times of peace, developed a new and, perhaps, greater heroism in the army of Christian adventurers going to all lands, and proclaiming under King Jesus a war against sin and idolatry, in which battles for the truth are fought against "principalities and powers" as real as those against Prince Rupert, or the bloody Claverhouse. Even the quieter life of a pioneer missionary like Carey or Livingstone requires the highest daring and the sublimest perseverance. To this class belongs the career of Rev. John Black, the Apostle of the Red River of the North. To leave home and friends at the call of duty, to cross the trackless prairies of the north-western States in order to reach the northern and secluded plains of Rupert's Land, to bury himself in obscurity, albeit he was engaged in laying the foundation of a spiritual empire of the future, was to give John Black a true claim to the honor of self-sacrificing fame and highest patriotism. The work of the author has been a labor of love, and it is with the hope of awakening wider interest--especially in the minds of the young--in the sweetness of self-sacrifice, and in what the world may call the "reproach of the cross," that this little book is sent forth. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. JOHN BLACK'S EARLY DAYS 9 II. STUDENT AND MISSIONARY 19 III. MONTREAL TO FORT GARRY 30 IV. A HIGHLAND WELCOME 45 V. THE EARLY SETTLERS ON RED RIVER 53 VI. SOWING AND WEEPING 66 VII. PASTOR AND PARISH 77 VIII. A KINDRED SPIRIT 91 IX. RED RIVER BECOMES CANADIAN 103 X. THE NEW SETTLEMENTS 114 XI. COLLEGE AND SCHOOLS 131 XII. MEMORIALS 142 ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE REV. JOHN BLACK, D.D. _Frontispiece_ ST. BONIFACE CATHEDRAL, BURNT 1860 43 KILDONAN PARISH CHURCH 75 REV. JAMES NISBET 90 WINNIPEG IN 1870 122 KNOX CHURCH, WINNIPEG, 1871 126 KNOX CHURCH, WINNIPEG, 1879 130 MANITOBA COLLEGE, 1872 130 PUBLIC MONUMENT TO DR. BLACK 153 MEMORIAL TABLET IN KILDONAN CHURCH 159 JOHN BLACK _THE APOSTLE OF THE RED RIVER_ CHAPTER I. His Early Days. John Black was the Apostle of the Red River. He will be long remembered on the prairies of Manitoba. In 1882 he passed away, all too soon to see the remarkable rise of the country for which he had planned and worked and prayed. He had reached the age of sixty-two, and nearly half of that time he had spent on the plains of the Northwest. His name is a household word in many settlements, and his memory is revered by the white settlers and the Christian red men alike, throughout Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. BIRTHPLACE AND CHILDHOOD. On a visit to Scotland, a few years ago, the writer of these sketches spent a few pleasant days on the Scottish border. He was guest of a former Canadian minister in the pretty parish on the river Esk, of which Sir Walter Scott speaks, where "there was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee." One day a delightful drive led along the winding valley of the river to the town of Langholm, to attend the Presbytery meeting there. After the business was over the Presbytery dinner was held, with all the forms of the "olden time." While at dinner one of the ministers addressed the writer: "Oh, I'm the minister of Eskdale Muir, where your first minister on the Red River, the Rev. John Black, was born." It was interesting to note that the pioneer of the western wilds was not forgotten in the place of his birth. On the 8th of January, 1818, John Black was born. He was the son of William Black and Margaret Halliday, Eskdale shepherd farmers, who lived on the farm of Garwaldshiels. His ancestors had originally dwelt in the neighboring parish of Ettrick, and some of them had been warm friends of the godly minister there, Thomas Boston, whose works, "Fourfold State" and the "Crook in the Lot," were well-read books in many a Scottish home. The farm of Garwaldshiels was a lonely spot. Its steading, as the farm buildings are called in Scotland, was two miles from any other. Indeed, the whole parish of Eskdale Muir is mountainous and sparsely settled, its inhabitants being chiefly sheep farmers and shepherds. In the church on Sunday it is said the collie dogs were formerly almost as many as the men. Sometimes the dogs became restless, and were apt to disturb the minister. The shepherds of the south of Scotland are noted as a most intelligent lot of men. Their quiet life on the hills with their flocks gives them time for thought. They are great readers, and undertake to master the deepest books. This is so uncommon among humble people, such as they, that visitors from outside Scotland are greatly struck by it. It is said that a Yorkshire wool merchant once visited the parish of Eskdale Muir on business, and was so surprised that he said: "They are the strangest people that ever I saw; the very shepherds talk about deep stoof (stuff)." The minister of this parish who baptized John Black was in knowledge a leader of his people, for he was the author of a work called "Antiquities of the Jews," which was formerly very well known. About the time of the birth of John Black, the shepherds of the border parishes had gained another accomplishment. Many of them undertook to write poems. The reason of this was that a few years before, in the parish of Ettrick, a remarkable man, James Hogg, known as the "Ettrick Shepherd," had written a number of very beautiful poems, which had been published and widely read. This led many of the shepherds to imitate one of their own number. Some of the poems produced were poor, but others were uncommonly good. It was strange to see such a burst of song in a people so severe in their thought. Born of such a stock, and brought up in such surroundings, it was no wonder that the boy of Eskdale Muir should early show a disposition to study. He had a great thirst for knowledge, even as a child, and especially for Bible stories and religious thoughts. In early childhood, we are told, he was noted for his affectionate disposition. He was a serious boy, and even early in life, at the age when most children are thoughtless and unconcerned, he showed a desire to become a follower of Jesus Christ. REMOVAL TO HIGHMOOR. When John Black was a boy of seven years of age his family removed from the lonely farm of Garwaldshiels to Highmoor, some twenty miles to the south. Highmoor was situated in the parish of Kilpatrick-Fleming. It was a sheep farm, of about 700 acres, and belonged to a celebrated border family, the Maxwells of Springkeld. It was in the very centre of historic ground. It was less than five miles from the Scottish border where the little streamlet that divides Scotland from England marks the change from the broad Doric tongue to the very different dialect of Cumberland. From the door of Highmoor the Solway Frith was clearly in view, with its small sailing vessels and greater ships passing on the errands of commerce. Between Highmoor farm and the Solway was not more than ten miles, and a beautiful little stream, the "Kirtle Water," ran through the farm and emptied into the frith. The windings and turns of the "Kirtle" are well filled with the thoughts of romance, and within this short distance seven old castles are to be seen, the strongholds of the Irvings and the Bells, so well known along the Scottish border. These old castles all had their legends, and almost every one of them was said by country folk to have been the scene of some great crime, and to be haunted by a ghost or evil spirit. While John Black did not believe these old tales, he was always fond of the stories, and read with greatest interest the "Tales of the Border," and Sir Walter Scott's poems of the border minstrelsy. Highmoor was not more than four miles from Ecclefechan, the town where the great Scottish writer, Thomas Carlyle, was born. Not half that distance from Highmoor was the house where Carlyle's father, mother, and brother long lived. Even the Hodden Hill farm, which Thomas Carlyle for a time occupied, was not far from Highmoor. Upon this farm was a celebrated erection known as the "Tower of Repentance." On this farm Carlyle was just becoming known as a genius in the days of John Black's boyhood, and what were called his "longnebbit" words and striking sayings were often spoken of by his Annandale neighbors. John Black, to the day of his death, was proud of his fellow-dalesman, who became known as the "Sage of Chelsea." The wider view from Highmoor was equally beautiful. Looking eastward to the end of the Solway Frith, one could see the tall chimneys of the city of Carlisle, so prominent a place in the border strife. Towering to the sky were to be seen beyond in Cumberland the gigantic Skiddaw and other mountains, while beyond the heights of Cumberland appeared dimly the Yorkshire fells and the hills of Durham. To the west the far view was interesting. Majestic Criffel appeared running out into the frith, and on a clear day the hills of the Isle of Man were seen in the middle of the Irish Sea. Such a country, with natural beauty and historic memories, could scarcely fail to inspire those who dwelt in it. We are not surprised that John Black was stirred to poetry in such surroundings, and we learn that, following the beginning as a verse-writer, made under the name of "Glenkirtle" in the newspaper of his county, he all his life had a faculty of writing snatches of lively verse for his children and friends. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS. The parish school in the wide parish of Kilpatrick-Fleming was seven miles from Highmoor, but a second school, known as the "Gair school," was at the corner of the farm. Here, in 1826, John Black and one of his sisters began their education. The school was under the charge of a Mr. William Smith, the father of one afterwards well known in the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Smith, at one time minister in Kingston, Ontario. To this school came from far and near pupils from the scattered farms, some of them boarding in the nearest dwellings. The parish schools of Scotland taught everything from the alphabet to the works of the highest Latin and Greek writers. Mr. Smith was a good scholar and a good teacher. Young John Black here laid a good foundation for his future attainments. Mr. Smith was followed as a teacher by Mr. John Roddick, also a man of much ability and skill as a teacher. He was, strange to say, the father of another Canadian, Dr. Richard Roddick, of Montreal. Under Mr. Roddick John Black made remarkable progress. The young scholar had a great fondness for the languages. The sturdy lad had, however, to fight with obstacles in getting an education. To make a living on the farm his father needed the help of all his children, and John could not well be spared when he had reached the age when he could herd the cattle and watch the sheep. He was often unable to be present at school, but his desire to gain a higher education never left him. At last his father consented to his study of the languages, and the happy boy at the age of fifteen threw all his energy into his task. French was the first language on which he began under Mr. Roddick. A curious incident is connected with his entrance on the study of French. Full of the thought of beginning a foreign language he walked all the way to the town of Annan, nine miles distant, to buy a French grammar. On arriving in the town, he found the bookseller's shop shut and the bookseller along with almost all the people in the town, wending their way, week-day though it was, to the parish church. The boy followed the crowd, and found the greatest excitement prevailing. It was the day of the trial of the celebrated Edward Irving. Irving was a native of Annan and a great friend of Thomas Carlyle. He was a minister of great eloquence, who had first assisted Dr. Chalmers in Glasgow, and afterwards been settled in London. He had adopted strange views as to the humanity of Christ, and on the day of John Black's visit was being tried for heresy by the Presbytery of Annan. The boy was present during the whole trial, and was wont to tell to his latest day of the prophet-like Irving as he answered for himself and of Dr. Henry Duncan, who was the advocate for a pure doctrine and a divine Christ. Thomas Carlyle in his "Reminiscences," defends his friend and throws ridicule on the Presbytery, but the extravagant views of Irving, remarkable man though he was, justified, to the mind of most of the people, the action that was taken by the Presbytery in deposing him from the sacred office of the ministry. The young scholar was able after the exciting scenes of the day to find his way into the bookseller's shop, bought the French grammar, and returned home to begin his study with much enthusiasm. It was always his view that this French grammar exercised a great influence on his after life. It was through his knowledge of French that he was afterwards chosen, as we shall see, to work among the French-Canadians, and it was thus through his being unattached to any special congregation that he was led to find his way to Red River. The young scholar progressed very rapidly in his studies. Of Latin and Greek he was very fond, while his love for the great authors of his own language was intense. He had a great craving for books. At the time of which we write, and in a country district in Scotland, books were not easy to be had. Fortunately for the young bookworm, a "Library Association" was formed in the village of Waterback, which lay one mile to the west of Highmoor. Though the number of works was small, yet it represented nearly all classes of books. Twenty huge volumes of Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopædia were there, and it is believed that John Black before the age of twenty had pretty well read them through. As a shareholder of the association, he made full use of his privileges. He read widely in history, both ecclesiastical and general, and made a brave attempt to grapple with the thought of such writers as Bacon, Locke, Butler, and Paley. During this time also his religious life became stronger and more devoted. The parish minister was Rev. George Hastie, an earnest and devoted preacher of the Gospel. Under Mr. Hastie's instruction, and watered by the dew of heaven, the seed of truth, planted in early childhood, sprouted and grew into a flourishing plant. The young student made, under the faithful pastor, a public profession of his faith in Christ. He was also much strengthened in the faith by his youthful companions of kindred Christian feelings. One of these, Walter Smith, became afterwards Free Church minister of Half-Morton in Eskdale. Many years after, in a letter written from Red River to his brother, we find John Black speaking of this Christian friend in far-off Eskdale. At about the age of twenty, his old teacher, Mr. Roddick, having left Gair school to accept a position in Liverpool, John Black was, for a time, called on to act as a substitute. This he did with much satisfaction to parents and pupils. It may have been this temporary work that suggested to the young man, who was rather retiring and bashful, the thought of teaching elsewhere. For some time after this he was engaged in teaching a school in one of the most beautiful and romantic villages of Cumberland. While gaining great success in his school in England, his mind was dwelling on the fuller devotion of himself to the higher office of the ministry. The ministry had thus early a great attraction to him. He, however, hesitated, for there was, to the end of his life, a singular union of courage and diffidence in Mr. Black. It was his disposition never to push himself forward in any cause, but if it seemed to him a duty he would go through fire and through water to accomplish it. TO AMERICA. He had now reached the age of twenty-three, when a complete overturn took place in all his plans. From hints thrown out in after years it is made plain that his father's family had not been prosperous in their sixteen years at Highmoor farm. It seems that they were so severely tried that they were compelled to borrow money to take them to a new land. John Black was his father's chief stay and counsellor, and so, giving up all the prospects in his English school, he threw in his lot with the rest of his family, and determined to go with them to America. It was a sad picture when the family was torn up by the roots from the home where it had grown. The far-off Solway was to be left behind, the gently flowing Kirtle to be deserted, school and church, where character has been formed, to be forsaken, and the sweet glens and historic rivers and market town were to be seen no more. Oh, how sad the spectacle so often witnessed at the Broomielaw in Glasgow or on the docks of Liverpool, where tens of thousands have thus been wrenched from the tender associations of home, and thrust out into the wide world! On June 18th, 1841, John Black, with father and mother, three brothers and four sisters, formed one of these sad companies, and, none too well provided with worldly goods, started from Liverpool to gain a living in the New World. CHAPTER II. Student and Missionary. It was, as has been said, in the summer of 1841, that John Black's father with his family arrived in America. Though Canada was at this time enjoying a large British immigration, yet the family of Highmoor was led to find its way to the United States. Two sisters of William Black, with their husbands, had years before found a comfortable home in the State of New York. Twenty years' residence had made these Murray and Davidson families fairly prosperous, and to their rocky home the immigrants from Scotland came, ascending the Hudson River, reaching Catskill, and then going by land carriage to Bovina, in the county of Delaware. This region of the Catskill Mountains, though not suited for ordinary agriculture, has long enjoyed, from its sweet grasses and clear streams, a great pre-eminence as a dairy-farming district. No doubt this was due to the skill, energy, and thrift of the farmers from the south of Scotland who had settled there. After reaching Bovina, the newly-arrived family took a farm in the neighborhood. For a time John gave some help in the work, but his heart was set on preaching the Gospel. In order to obtain the means of continuing his studies, he engaged in teaching, and by his skill and enthusiasm awakened much interest in education among the young people of Bovina. The work of teaching John Black found to be an excellent preparation for the work of the ministry. The power to manage a school, the ability to understand the character of his scholars, and the habit of patience acquired were to him of great value in after life. Desiring to carry on his education further before entering on the special study for the ministry, the young teacher looked about for an academy where he might pursue his general studies. This he found in Delhi, the chief town of Delaware county. Here a most accomplished teacher, Rev. Daniel Shepherd, was in charge of a school of a very high order. It is said that though this institution did not bear the name of either college or university, and gave no degrees, yet in scholarship many of its alumni were not behind university graduates. John Black, now on fire with a high purpose, threw himself with all his soul into his studies. He at once took a high place in the school. The shepherd lad from the Gair school in far-off Eskdale reflected credit on his old teacher, Mr. Roddick. He planned a course of study in the needful branches of mathematics, but his chief delight was in classics. So excellent a scholar was he in Greek that the original Greek oration delivered by him on leaving the institution was for many years spoken of as being unusually meritorious. His metrical translations of Latin authors, such as Horace, were well done, and though not so often as formerly, yet now and then his muse took a poetic flight. Like many Scottish students, John Black lived very economically in his school life in Delhi, "cultivating," as has been said, "the muses on a little oatmeal." With him were two of his cousins as room-mates, William and David Murray. These three lads, living in a little upstairs room, cooking for themselves the provisions received from home, gained in after life, though in different spheres, high and honorable distinction. William Murray became Judge of the Supreme Court of New York, and Dr. David Murray was the organizer of the educational system of Japan, and for several years chief superintendent of education there. When he left Japan to return to America he was invested by the Emperor with the highest order of Japanese nobility. He has since been State Librarian at Albany, New York. John Black may not have received such earthly honors as fell to the lot of his cousins, although he had his share of these, too, but he has the joy of those of whom it is said "they shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." CHURCH LIFE. Though baptized in the Church of Scotland, and attached to its forms, John Black became, on his arrival in Bovina, an active member of the "Associate Church." This was one of the bodies which afterwards were united and became the "United Presbyterian Church of North America." The minister of the Bovina congregation was Rev. John Graham, a native of Montrose, Scotland, a man of ability, especially as a writer. Before his death he published his "Autobiography," a most interesting book. Of Mr. Graham it was said that he "was a man with eccentricities, but far more excellencies." In Mr. Graham John Black found a true friend, as he did also in the other members of the congregation. True piety prevailed among them. Perhaps some would call them narrow, but they were genuine. They had brought with them from the old land customs such as the regular observance of family worship, the keeping of the Sabbath, and the habit of churchgoing, and these they put into practice in their new world home. As the country settled, many congregations, which are now strong, hived off from the original one in Bovina. For three years John Black remained a member of this congregation, and his family were very anxious that he should study for the ministry in connection with the Associate Church. He was unable to accept all the views of the Church, however, and this kept him for some time in grave doubt. The Associate Church held that the Scottish covenants were binding on the Church in later times. It will be remembered that these covenants of 1638 and 1643 represent one of the grandest periods in Scottish history. Nobles and people alike, in Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh, and elsewhere in Scotland, signed, in some cases with pens dipped in their own blood, the covenant or pledge to oppose prelacy and popery, and to keep the Church of Scotland pure and true. John Black loved and admired the martyrs and Covenanters who fought so nobly for liberty, but he was not sure that two centuries after those stirring times it was still necessary to subscribe these notable documents. The Associate Church required of those who entered its ministry to declare adhesion to "public covenanting," and this threw an obstacle in the way of the young candidate. His thought was then turned to Princeton College, the seminary of the Old School Presbyterian Church, as it was then called. Some five or six years before this time the Presbyterian Church of the United States had been rent by doctrinal differences, and perhaps more especially by the question of negro slavery. Princeton College would have satisfied the young aspirant to the ministry, but belonging, as it did, to the body which seemed unsound on the slavery question, John Black, like all of British blood, was horrified at the thought of being connected in any way with so hideous and cruel a thing as slavery, and so he could not conscientiously join the Old School. He still kept up correspondence with Scotland, and his love was strong for the Scottish Church. At this time, too, a great religious movement was going on in Scotland, which led to the Disruption in 1843, and the formation of the Free Church of Scotland. After this event the young student in Bovina began to turn his attention to Canada, where the Church was strongly Scottish in its character and customs. Just at this time, early in 1844, a minister from Canada came on a visit to his friends in Bovina. This was the Rev. James George, then a minister of the Church of Scotland in Scarboro, in Upper Canada. Mr. George's father and brothers were nearest neighbors of William Black and his family in Bovina. Mr. George was at this time an examiner in Queen's College, Kingston, and, indeed, afterwards became a professor in that institution. Young John Black called upon Mr. George during his visit to Bovina, and enquired as to the opportunities for studying for the ministry in the Canadian Church. He also sought information as to what the Church in Canada would do in view of the disruption which had taken place in the mother Church in Scotland. Mr. George stated that he had a strong hope that the Church in Canada would satisfy all parties, and thus prevent a division on this side of the Atlantic. Having examined Mr. Black, Mr. George expressed himself as highly satisfied, and advised the young student to come over to Canada in the autumn and to enter Queen's College. Mr. George returned to Canada, the Canadian Synod met shortly afterwards in Kingston, and there the disruption took place. Mr. George thereupon wrote to Mr. Black informing him as to what had happened, but still urging him to come over and enter Queen's College on its opening. After all the kindness which had been shown him he felt it to be a painful trial to refuse; but John Black's sympathies were with the Free Church in the struggle, and he could not accept the kind invitation of his friend. It was with great grief that he saw the division in Canadian Presbyterianism. He never ceased to desire reconciliation, and he was greatly overjoyed that he lived to see the happy reunion in 1875. COLLEGE LIFE. John Black had not an acquaintance in Canada other than Mr. George. He had noticed in the newspapers that the Rev. Mark Y. Stark, of Dundas, had been moderator of the synod at the time of its division, and that he had taken the side with which he himself sympathized. Accordingly, he wrote to this gentleman about the arrangements for starting a college in connection with the new body, and the answer came, greatly to his satisfaction, that the commission of synod would meet in October to deal with this matter, and that it would be well for him to be present at the meeting. The synod was held in Toronto, and, a number of students having sent in their names, Knox College was founded. John Black waited over for the opening of the college, which took place on November 5th, 1844, and he may be said to have been its first student. The establishment of this college was a great and notable event, for here many well-known ministers of the Presbyterian Church have been trained for their work. There were two professors to begin with: the polished Henry Esson, who taught arts, and a gentleman from Scotland, Rev. Andrew King, acting professor of theology. Mr. King afterward became professor of theology in Halifax. The beginning of the college was almost as simple as that of the well-known "Log College" which gave instruction in early days to Presbyterian students in the United States. It began in a single room in Professor Esson's house in Toronto. Shelves around the room contained the professor's library and a number of books for the use of the students, lent by other ministers. In the middle of the room was a long pine table, surrounded by benches and a few chairs. Fourteen students received the attention of the two professors. This first session was a busy one, and at its close the enthusiastic young men were sent as home missionaries to different places. The session was one of great interest to John Black. Well prepared as he had been, a good Greek scholar, well instructed in English literature, and well read in philosophy, he took a foremost place among his fellow-students. Bursaries and prizes were won by him, and the session was thoroughly profitable. Now fairly committed to the Christian ministry, he thought often of the motives which were leading him. His letters of this time show a growing love for spiritual things, and, while there is always in them a spice of humor or of fancy, yet there runs through them a deep and earnest vein. Among the greatest influences brought to bear upon him were those of the company of good friends, for he was a man of most sociable disposition. In after days he often spoke of the influence of that devoted man of God, William C. Burns, who went as a missionary to China. This remarkable man was a nephew of Dr. Robert Burns, of whom we shall speak more fully, and a friend of Robert Murray McCheyne, one of the most spiritual of the young preachers of his time. Many a story is yet told of the remarkable sayings and doings of William C. Burns during his memorable visit in Canada. His influence, though that of a passing visitor, was very great over the students of Knox College, and over young Black in particular. At the end of his second year in Knox College the young student was sent as a missionary to preach the Gospel in a number of new settlements. The townships of Brock, Reach, Uxbridge, and Scott were then filling up with immigrants from Great Britain and Ireland. John Black thus writes to his brother: "Brock, May 27th, 1846. "I came here about five weeks ago, and have been very busy ever since. I have four preaching stations, two here and two in the next township south. I preach in three schoolhouses and a large barn. The people are mostly Scotch, Irish, and English. The four would make a decent congregation. I take them two each Sabbath, and have prayer-meetings, when I can manage it, as well as week-day 'preachings.' To-morrow night I must ride six miles northwest to hold a meeting among some English people (whom I like best of all my people), and next day, Friday, come back ten miles to a prayer-meeting in another place, Saturday ten miles again to another, and Sabbath two meetings." This shows the spirit of the man whose faithful and unremitting services in after years told so powerfully on the banks of the Red River. A MISSIONARY. As John Black drew to the end of his college course the work of the ministry became very real to him. His sympathies became more intense in his desire to reach and rescue perishing men. The little band of students in 1846 were all aglow with missionary zeal. The Knox College Missionary Society, which has ever since been so good a training school for young missionaries, was formed in that early time. The society at that date not only did city mission work in Toronto and cultivated the missionary spirit, but helped the Missionary Society of the Free Church of Scotland to support a missionary in a foreign land. During the session of 1846-7 the Rev. Mr. Doudiet, a Swiss Protestant missionary, in the service of the French-Canadian Missionary Society, visited Knox College and addressed the students. The students decided to assist this movement. John Black had, as we have seen, some knowledge of French, and was therefore urged by his fellow-students to enter upon this work. He would have preferred preaching in English, for he had enjoyed his summer in the mission field very greatly, but it was agreed that he should spend the following summer at Pointe aux Trembles, a French school near Montreal, ever since well known. This he did, and returned in the autumn to take his last year in college. At the opening of this session he was made glad by his brother James joining him from Bovina, to study for the ministry in Knox College. Not only had he intimate companionship with his brother, but there were three other students with whom he associated much and of whom he spoke with the highest regard to the day of his death; these were afterward well known as Dr. Robert Ure, of Goderich; Dr. John Scott, of London; and the Rev. John Ross, of Brucefield--all of whom exercised a great influence on the western peninsula of Upper Canada. He was strongly attached to his professors. Dr. Burns he regarded as a fearless champion of the truth; Professor Esson he admired for his refined taste and wide scholarship; and Professor Rintoul, he tells us, he loved as he did his own father. FRENCH MISSIONS. On the close of the college session of 1848 John Black was ready to enter on the work of the Christian ministry, a work lying very near to his heart. It seemed, however, as if it were not to be. The Students' Missionary Society insisted on his taking a part in the movement among the French Roman Catholics. He proceeded to Montreal, and was soon busy studying French. He was not, however, allowed to continue at his work, for there were so many English-speaking congregations in and about Montreal that he was compelled to take service in these week after week. This interfered with his plans, and we find him writing, in 1849, from Pointe aux Trembles: "I left Montreal and came here about five weeks ago. I have been making some progress in French, especially in conversation, for it is now the vacation and there are no lessons. It is a dour (difficult) job. I fear I shall never be able to use the French effectively." The estimate in which Mr. Black was held as a preacher and pastor may be seen from the fact that Côte Street Church, Montreal, the leading Free Church in Canada, having failed to receive continuous help from Scotland, was supplied for months together by the young missionary. He was in request by congregations in different parts of Lower Canada, but he still remained working for the French-Canadians. At length, in May, 1851, he resigned the secretaryship of the French-Canadian Missionary Society. His letters at this time breathe a spirit of earnestness and devotion. He had paid a visit to his former home in New York State, and had seen his old father and mother, and always spoke with the most tender regard of their claims upon him. He was always anxious about the welfare of his brother, to whom he writes. He had then a habit which clung to him to the last, of enquiring minutely into his friends' affairs. His letters abound with direct questions to his brother, such as: "How do you do your work? Do you sermonize, or expound, or what? Do you write out your sermons? Are the professors harmonious in the college? Have you prayer-meetings in college and city? Do you go out on Sabbaths? How are you situated for money?" This habit arose from his warm interest in his friends. His questions at times may have seemed abrupt and forward, but the warmth of his nature showed that it was only "his way." Three years had now passed in visiting congregations in Canada and the United States, and in preparing himself more fully for his life work, although seriously interrupted by the pressing demands from new congregations. It was a time of great spiritual hope, and the minds of the students of that day had a strong evangelistic bent, which they retained throughout life. CHAPTER III. Montreal to Fort Garry. While John Black was wondering what special duty the Lord would lay upon him he was startled by a cry for help from the wilds of Rupert's Land. Forty years before this an enterprising Scottish nobleman, Lord Selkirk, became a leading partner in the Hudson's Bay Company, and shortly after undertook to settle a colony of Highlanders on the banks of Red River. The colonists had come in three separate companies, by way of Hudson Bay, and by a difficult route ascended the water courses to the very heart of North America, and settled on the banks of Red River. With true Highland fervor they longed for a minister and a place of worship. A Highland elder, James Sutherland, had accompanied one of the parties, and he had been given power to marry and baptize. He had gone east to Canada, and no minister of their own land had ever come to these Highland exiles. As we shall see, a Church of England minister had been sent to them, and yet they remained Presbyterian. After many disappointments their cry had reached Scotland, and had been referred to Canada to Dr. Robert Burns, minister of Knox Church, Toronto. We shall enter more fully into the steps they had taken to secure a minister, but at last the Hudson's Bay Company Governor at Fort Garry, Mr. Ballenden, as he was passing through Toronto, had urged the matter upon Dr. Burns. The heart of the good man was touched, and he fixed upon John Black as the missionary. The following extract of a letter to Mr. James Court, the secretary of the French Canadian Missionary Society, speaks for itself: Toronto, 27th June, 1851. MY DEAR SIR,--"In the name of our Synod's Home Mission, and for behoof of our poor brethren at Red River in the Hudson's Bay Territory, I have to solicit your aid in obtaining for a time the services of Mr. John Black, whom we have fixed on as a fit person to make an exploratory visit to the settlement. We would not have asked this could we have avoided it, but our fixed pastors and professors are difficult to move; and we know Mr. Black's peculiar qualifications. The truth is I was so impressed with the importance of such a visit, both for our people and the red men, and the French speaking settlers in that region, that I gave the pledge as chairman of the committee, and Mr. Ballenden will be entitled to hold me good for it personally, if I cannot get a substitute. If necessary I am ready to resign my charge here and throw myself on the far west, for I am clear that our Church is called to do some good work in those regions; and if we lose the present opportunity, when may we have another? "If you agree, as I trust you will, Mr. Black should come direct to us." "Most truly yours, "ROBT. BURNS. "Mr. Court, Montreal." On the following day Dr. Burns wrote a letter to Mr. Black himself. Of this we give a portion: "Toronto, 28th June, 1851. "MY DEAR SIR,--I send you a scroll sketch of instructions, or hints rather, for your guidance in your important mission, _but your own judgment_ and good sense will be the best guides. You are called at an early period of life to a most important duty, and on the manner in which you shall discharge it will depend, under God, the position which we as a Church may be called upon to occupy in regard to the progress of Christ's kingdom in these western regions. You will find in Bishop Anderson a pious and liberal Episcopalian and a Bishop--yea, _The Bishop_! You know what I mean. Already you know something of Popery and its steps, open or close. The Sabbath observance subject I commend to your serious notice. The company like hunting on the Lord's day! The range is wide and long; but if you can get from the United States boundary to York Fort, it will be desirable. Your object being exploratory keep note of all. Preach and exhort and expound, and conduct devotional exercises wherever you have an opportunity--Sabbath days especially. * * * * "Our prayers will accompany you, and our most fervent desires that your way may be prospered before you, and that you may be hailed by the settlers as a messenger of good tidings and a pioneer of salvation. "Come up as soon as you can. "Yours, etc., "ROBT. BURNS." The young missionary engrossed in his French Canadian work received this communication. He was at the same time earnestly sought for by the congregation of North Georgetown in Lower Canada. After due consideration, he refused Dr. Burns' offer to go to Red River. He did this not because he was lacking in the true spirit of the missionary, but because he felt anxious about his old father and mother still alive in New York State. They were now left without any of their children beside them, and John Black, as their eldest son, felt it to be his duty to be within reach of them. He therefore felt justified in declining the earnest call to visit the Northwest. It is stated that on his refusal application was made to one who has since become known as one of the staunchest theologians and best preachers of the Church, the Rev. Professor MacLaren, D.D., of Knox College, Toronto. He, however, was not able to accept. Very strong pressure was again brought to bear upon John Black, and as the season was advancing his answer had to be given without delay. The following letter written to his brother explains his action in the matter: ON TO RED RIVER. Toronto, July 31st, 1851. MY DEAR JAMES,--"You will no doubt be surprised to learn that I am so far on my way to Red River. I am to be ordained to-night and go on to-morrow morning at half-past seven o'clock. I have been forced into it against my will. It is a very important mission, but I leave one important also, and what grieves me much is that I go without seeing friends--yourself and family at home. Nobody else would go and so I am called on to do so. I shall not be able to return before next spring--be a good boy till I come back. Write frequently home and comfort them. I doubt somewhat if I am in the way of duty in leaving father and mother now in their old age. * * * * I have no time to write more. May God bless you and keep you! Do not cease to pray for my preservation and success and I shall do the same for you. God bless you, dear brother." Yours, etc., J. BLACK. P.S. Now mind you write often home, or if you could possibly go over I should like it very much. J. B. On the following day, August 1st, the young missionary who had been ordained for the work of the ministry on the evening before, in Knox Church, Toronto, started on his long journey to Red River. Twenty years afterward the writer left Toronto for Red River, and could not find before leaving how he was to accomplish the journey after St. Paul, in Minnesota, had been reached. How much more difficult when the long journey of eight hundred miles to St. Paul had to be performed over bad roads by stage coach and Mississippi steamboat! The journey that now takes thirty hours from Toronto, _via_ Detroit, Chicago, and St. Paul, then took two full weeks. The young missionary arrived at where the city of Minneapolis now stands, and wrote the following letter. Falls of St. Anthony, August 15th, 1851. DEAR JAMES: "I am so far on my way and hope to begin another stage of my journey on Monday next. My journey has yet been comparatively pleasant, though diversified with a good deal of the disagreeable, owing chiefly to bad roads and anxiety as to being too late. I am, however, here and well, and hope to get through. Pray for strength and protection and faithfulness and success. There is now to be a regular monthly mail and so I hope you will write regularly. The mail starts from here on the 1st of the month. To be in time you must post in the middle of the month previous. I add no more at present. May God bless and keep you evermore. Do not forget me at a throne of Grace." Yours, etc., JOHN BLACK. When the traveller reached the capital of Minnesota he was in the greatest perplexity. His coming had been anxiously looked for by a deputation of the Scottish settlers from Red River. But they were nearly five hundred miles from home and a tedious cart journey lay before them, so that the time of the year did not permit their delaying any longer. On the 1st of August, just at the time their long-looked-for missionary was leaving Toronto, the deputation left the Falls of St. Anthony to return to Red River. A FRIEND IN NEED. At this most important point a happy deliverance came to the young missionary. He learned that Alexander Ramsey, the Governor of Minnesota, was soon to set out to the north of Minnesota, attended with a mounted escort. Governor Ramsey had organized the territory of Minnesota two years before, and had the year before negotiated a treaty with the Sioux Indians, by which they ceded a large tract of land in southern Minnesota. He was now to proceed northward to Pembina, to make a treaty with the Chippewa Indians. Mr. Black, though, as he tells us, at a considerable expense to himself, was given the privilege of going to his northern home along with this party. We are fortunate in having two camp-fire sketches written by Mr. J. W. Bond, who was also one of the party. He tells us that the party met from several different points near the Sauk rapids, on the Upper Mississippi. Besides the governor and his staff there were Rev. John Black and Mr. Bond. The escort consisted of twenty-five dragoons from Fort Snelling, commanded by an American military officer, and accompanied by six two-horse baggage wagons. The baggage of the party and the provisions were carried in light Red River carts, with eight French-Canadian and halfbreed drivers. In number there were comprised about fifty souls in all. John Black and Mr. Bond, each mounted on an Indian pony, became companions during the journey, and Mr. Black won the regard of all the members of the party. EN ROUTE. We may give a few notes of the journey over the prairies: Sauk Rapids, August 21st, 1851: "Fine, clear, cool day. We struck tents and went away early. Passed over the worst piece of road between the Rapids and Pembina. The dragoons were busy for several hours in repairing the 'corduroy' for the passage of the teams." August 23rd: "We to-day rode over the rolling prairie, full of strips of marsh, when, after a march of ten miles, we came to an almost impassable swamp. We crossed with some difficulty by pulling the carts and horses across by ropes, during which Rev. Mr. Black and Mr. Bond completely mired their ponies, and came near going with them to the bottom, if there was any. After this we took a cup of tea to refresh ourselves." August 24th (Sunday). "To-day our French-Canadians and halfbreeds, who have charge of the provision and baggage carts, have been shooting pigeons and ducks, and also making new cart axles. The day has not seemed much like Sunday." August 25th. "Mosquitoes are very bad, although the weather is quite cold and bracing." August 26th. "We had a very good dinner to-day, consisting of bouillon (broth) made of geese, ducks, etc., with ham, pork, coffee, bread and butter, etc." August 27th. "Cool, cloudy, and quite cold early in the morning; fine weather for travelling; up at daylight, and away upon our march at half-past five. We are to-day passing on the dividing ridge between the head waters of the Red, Minnesota, and Mississippi rivers." August 30th. "To-day suffered much from mosquitoes. No imagination can do them justice--they must be seen and felt to be appreciated. Mr. Bond rode a cream-colored horse, and declared that he was unable to distinguish the color of the animal, so thickly was he covered with the pests. During supper they swarmed around like bees hiving, and entered the mouth, nose, eyes, and ears, and had it not been for a cool fresh evening breeze they would have been unbearable." August 31st. "Our hunters discovered two buffalo bulls about two miles ahead. They immediately equipped and started, and soon surrounded and killed both. We soon joined them and encamped. The buffaloes were skinned, the choice parts cut out, and the liver and kidney fried for dinner. These were our first buffaloes, and there was much excitement over them." September 1st. "Another buffalo to-day, but a sad accident. During the chase Pierre Bottineau, our best French halfbreed guide, was thrown violently from his horse, which stumbled. Bottineau was picked up insensible, terribly stunned, though not much hurt. He was bled, brought to camp in the carriage and put to bed." September 4th. "The prairie is so bare that no wood is to be had. Having no wood we were obliged to boil our kettle, and the French boys their pork and buffalo, over a fire made of buffalo chips, _i.e._, of dried buffalo manure picked up on the prairie. Only a few mosquitoes troubled us, and they were driven to leeward by the strong smoke and smell of the buffalo chips." September 6th. "To-night there was the finest exhibition of the _aurora borealis_ that any of us have ever seen. To attempt a description is the height of vanity. The Rev. Mr. Black and Mr. Bond gazed very long upon it, as a most remarkable manifestation in the heavens, before they could tear themselves away and return to rest. Mr. Black, who had seen the Northern sky in Scotland and Canada, says it was much the finest exhibition he has ever seen. Bottineau declared that he had never seen its equal this side of Hudson Bay." September 7th. "It is three weeks to-day since we left St. Paul." September 8th. "A furious thunderstorm overtook us. It came down a deluge, a perfect torrent of falling waters, though the heaviest of the storm had passed around us to the south." September 11th. "Arrived at Pembina. The houses were full of halfbreeds, who saluted us with the discharge of guns, etc. Two of the staff rode on ahead, and were treated to milk and potatoes--a treat equal to that of the milk and honey received by the Israelites of old. Near the village, on the muddy banks of Red River, stood an admiring group of several hundred whites, halfbreeds, and Indians of all sizes, with any quantity of dogs, very large and wolfish. Amid this babel of cries, yelps, barks, and shouts, from the said big dogs and little papoose Indians, we came to a halt and reconnoitred, standing almost glued fast in the sticky, tenacious mud caused by the rains and overflow of the Red and Pembina Rivers for three years past. The journey to Pembina has been accomplished, including the two rest days, in twenty-five days in all." September 14th. "Cloudy, cold, raw, and windy, quite unpleasant and unseasonable. An overcoat is necessary out of doors this morning, and fires in the house for comfort. To-day we had preaching by the Rev. John Black, in the dining-room of the Governor's house; a novelty most certainly in this far distant region. The congregation consisted of about a dozen whites and three halfbreeds. The Rev. Charles Tanner, a halfbreed missionary among the Indians of Red Lake, met us here, and in the afternoon preached to the assembled Chippewas in their own tongue. He moved to this place a week ago, and intends farming, teaching school, etc., for a livelihood after the conclusion of the treaty. His wife is a halfbreed, and they reside at present in a lodge in the yard at this place." DOWN THE RED RIVER. After Sunday was past for two days the weather was bad, but on Wednesday, 17th, the day was fine, and the two companions of the voyage, Messrs. Black and Bond, determined to leave the party behind and proceed down the Red River to the Selkirk settlement, a distance by land of sixty miles, but not less than three times as far by the winding river. Astir by daylight, the travellers were soon ready, and in a birch bark canoe, fifteen feet long and three wide, managed by two French halfbreeds or Bois-brulés (burnt sticks, referring to their dusky faces), their bedding, baggage, and provisions, and finally the two passengers were stowed away for the journey. The voyage was a tedious one, but not without interest. The canoe was somewhat leaky, and at times had to be hauled up on the bank, overturned, emptied, and calked with white spruce gum. Large flocks of ducks and geese were swimming almost within paddle length from the canoe. Everywhere were to be seen traces of the high water which had prevailed for several years, and marks upon the trees thirty feet above the water were seen, where in spring the freshets had reached. A NIGHT SCENE. The party halted for the night some forty miles below Pembina. The description given by Mr. Black's travelling companion of the camp on the river bank is graphic: "The night is very clear and fine, the face of heaven is smiling amid myriads of twinkling stars; the northern horizon is lit up with the rays of dancing beams of an aurora, while the woods and silent-flowing river are illuminated by our camp fire; our voyageurs are fast asleep upon the ground before us, and not a sound is heard save that of the leaping, crackling flames and the low tone of our own voices as we chat merrily. And now, as my companion reads a chapter in his French pocket Bible, and I pencil down these sketches of fact and fancy by the light of the burning fagots--but hark! we have company, it seems, and are not so lonely as I thought; that was the hoot-owl's cry, and sounds like the wailing of a fiend in misery; that was the cry, long drawn out and dismal, of a distant wolf; and near, the pack like hungry curs are heard yelping and barking furiously. In the bushes beside the camp I see two gleaming, fiery eyeballs. "Take that, to light you to better quarters!" I hurl a blazing firebrand toward the beast, who, with a dismal cry, leaves us to repose and quiet sleep." Another day and still another night of camping, and next morning the party started on the home stretch. With a head wind the voyageurs toiled on, and both passengers relieved the monotony by landing on the right bank, walking along it, and cutting off the bends kept ahead of the canoe. During the day they found by the appearance of houses along the banks that they were approaching their destination. The vivid description given by Mr. Bond fell, in some way, into the hands of the American poet, Whittier, and he has left us a sweet poem, with which we should be acquainted. The scene is that of the voyageurs coming down the stream, and as they approach their destination there is first the sound of bells, and then the sight of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Boniface with the two towers. A picture much like this was seen as the voyageurs in the old days left Ste. Anne on the Ottawa, not far from Montreal, and took their leave, under the protection of Providence, for their long journey to the interior. Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, was much impressed by the sight, on his visit to Canada, when he wrote the Canadian boat song: "Faintly as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time." So the weary voyageurs approaching St. Boniface are filled with expectation and delight at the end of their journey by the cheery chimes of the Roman Mission. THE RED RIVER VOYAGEUR Out and in the river is winding The links of its long red chain, Through belts of dusky pine land And gusty leagues of plain. Only at times a smoke wreath With the drifting cloud-rack joins-- The smoke of the hunting lodges Of the wild Assiniboins! Drearily blows the north-wind From the land of ice and snow; The eyes that look are weary, And heavy the hands that row. And with one foot on the water, And one upon the shore, The Angel of Shadow gives warning, That day shall be no more. Is it the clang of wild geese? Is it the Indians' yell, That lends to the voice of the north-wind The tones of a far-off bell? The voyageur smiles as he listens To the sound that grows apace; Well he knows the vesper ringing Of the bells of St. Boniface. The bells of the Roman Mission That call from their turrets twain; To the boatman on the river, To the hunter on the plain! Even so in our mortal journey The bitter north-winds blow, And thus upon life's Red River Our hearts, as oarsmen, row. And when the Angel of Shadow Rests his feet on wave and shore, And our eyes grow dim with watching, And our hearts faint at the oar, Happy is he who heareth The signal of his release In the bells of the Holy City, The chimes of eternal peace! [Illustration: The bells of the Roman Mission, That call from their turrets twain; To the boatman on the river, To the hunter on the plain!] In the afternoon the party disembarked and found a kindly shelter in the hospitable home of an old French family, the Marions, not far from the cathedral, opposite the point where the Assiniboine falls into the Red River, and the stone walls of Fort Garry in view in the distance. CHAPTER IV. A Highland Welcome. A short rest having been made in the hospitable home of the Marions, the young missionary, anxious to meet his future flock, crossed the Red River by canoe and disembarked about a mile below, at "Colony Gardens." This was the house of Alexander Ross, sheriff of Assiniboia, who had been a leader in all the efforts to obtain a minister. Here the expected minister received a Highland welcome, and the Ross mansion became his home. A short sketch of Sheriff Ross and his wife is an absolute necessity to our understanding of the Red River community to which John Black came. Alexander Ross was a Highlander who, about 1803, at the age of twenty-one, came with the disbanded soldiers of the Highland regiment of Glengarry Fencibles to Upper Canada. He went with them to Glengarry District on the St. Lawrence, and, being a fair scholar, taught school there for some time. In 1810 he entered the Astor Fur Company, which had its headquarters in New York. Sailing from that city, he rounded Cape Horn, went up the Pacific coast, and helped to build Astoria, a fort at the mouth of the Columbia river, on the Pacific. He led a rough and dangerous life for a number of years, and found his way in the service of the Northwest Fur Company of Montreal, to the mountains of British Columbia. Here he married an Indian maiden, the daughter of the chief of the Okanagan Indians. The writer was well acquainted, many years after, with "Granny" Ross, as she was called, and can speak of her kindness and Christian character. At the end of the first quarter of the century Alexander Ross was brought across the mountains and prairies by Governor George Simpson, and took up his abode on the banks of Red River, on what is now the site of the city of Winnipeg. Here he reared a large family, and took a leading part in all the affairs of the Red River settlement. Mr. Black's companion writes: "The old gentleman met us on the bank, welcomed us to the Selkirk settlement, and escorted us up to his house--a white, rough-cast, two-storey stone, which stands upon a large bend of the river and commands a view both ways; and that view is certainly the finest I have seen for a long time." The scene about Colony Gardens on that September afternoon was a very striking one. "A village of farmhouses with barns, stables, hay, wheat, and barley stooks, with small cultivated fields or lots, well fenced, are stretching along the meandering river, while the prairies, far off to the horizon, are covered over with herds of cattle, horses, etc., the fields filled with a busy throng of whites, halfbreeds, and Indians--men, squaws, and children--all reaping, binding, and stacking the golden grain, while hundreds of carts, with a single horse or ox harnessed in their shafts, are brought in requisition to carry it to the well-stored barn, and are seen moving, with their immense loads rolling along like huge stacks in all directions. Add to this the numerous wind-mills, some in motion, whirling around their giant arms, while others, motionless, are waiting for a grist. Just above, Fort Garry sits in the angle at the junction of the Assiniboine and Red rivers, with a blood-red flag inscribed with the letters 'H. B. Co.' floating gaily in the breeze." Of the house of Sheriff Ross the writer says: "We spent the night with Mr. Ross and family, and found him to be a very intelligent and interesting old gentleman, full of information as regards the Northwest region, and of Selkirk colony in particular. He published a book descriptive of the country and of the Rocky Mountains, Vancouver and the Pacific Coast, where he spent some fifteen years of his life, since which he has been residing in this colony, and has been for a long time one of its leading citizens." A book entitled "Red River Settlement," published by Sheriff Ross, some years after this time, is really a lively and correct account in most respects of the Selkirk colony. We have gleaned from his writings, and from the information communicated to Dr. Burns by him, the main facts leading up to the coming of John Black to the Highland colony. No doubt, late into that first night, the religious story of the forty years preceding, was told by the old fur trader to the youthful missionary. We may well rehearse the tale of disappointment now to be turned to joy. The Scottish settlers of Red River were chiefly emigrants from the north of Scotland, brought to the country during and before the year 1815, by the Earl of Selkirk. They had a clergyman of their own persuasion promised by his lordship at the time of leaving their native country, the Rev. Mr. Sage, but he remained behind them for a year in order to perfect himself in the Gaelic language. He was expected to follow them. Next year, however, came and passed away and with it no clergyman; and up to the time of Mr. Black's coming no Presbyterian minister had ever visited Rupert's Land. In the winter of 1815-16 the settlers had to abandon the colony for want of food, and they betook themselves to the plains for buffalo, and to the lakes for fish, and wintered among the natives in all directions. In 1816, after their return to the settlement, they were driven from the colony at the muzzle of the gun by the Northwest fur traders, who did not want a farming settlement in Rupert's Land, and they spent the following winter three hundred miles to the north of the colony, at the foot of Lake Winnipeg. Led by the vicissitudes of his settlers, Lord Selkirk visited his colony in 1817, made a treaty with the Indians, and made promises to his settlers, among other things, to send them a minister of their own faith. Much encouraged by his lordship's visit, the people settled down to work, when they were invaded by a grasshopper scourge, and had been compelled again to leave their farms and seek subsistence by the chase of the buffalo on the plains. At this juncture (1818) they were surprised at the arrival of two Roman Catholic priests sent from Montreal, on the request of Lord Selkirk, for the Roman Catholic colonists taken out by him, and the French halfbreeds of Red River. But no Presbyterian minister was sent. It is to be said for Lord Selkirk that the financial difficulties of his colony and the strife and opposition which had arisen preyed on his mind to such an extent that he died in the south of France in 1820. He had, however, given strict charges to his agent, then in London, to send out a minister as promised. The agent was an Englishman and seemed to have used his position with the directors of the Hudson Bay Company very unfairly. In 1820 there arrived in Red River Rev. John West, a good and suitable man, but the settlers complained that he was of the Church of England, and that there were not "twenty individuals in the whole colony belonging to the Church of England." Much dissatisfied, the colonists, in 1822, applied to Lord Selkirk's executors for redress, but no answer was made to them. Governor Donald Mackenzie, who was in charge at Fort Garry, made them, in the year following, a promise that a minister of their own persuasion would be sent them. A petition sent to Scotland for assistance received no reply. Years rolled on, the people still adhering in their homes to the customs of their fathers, holding prayer meetings from house to house and teaching the Shorter Catechism in their families. In 1843 they saw six Roman Catholic priests in the settlement, and four Church of England ministers, but none of their own faith. The state of depression produced by these unavailing efforts may be seen in the fact that in 1835 a party of one hundred and ten persons, all Scotch settlers, left the colony for the United States, "solely because at the Selkirk settlement they had neither minister nor church of their own." Two years after a number of additional families left the country for the same reason. The indiscreet and uncalled for public address of one of their ministers, who had been once a Presbyterian but was so no longer, did much to influence their feeling and stir up resentment. In the year 1844, Duncan Finlayson, a Scotchman, who was Governor at Fort Garry, advised another application to be made to the company in London. The petition of the people is really a most pathetic one. In it they say that "they are in danger of forgetting that they have brought with them into this land, where they have sought a home, nothing so valuable as the faith of Christ, or the primitive simplicity of their form of worship; and that their children are in danger of losing sight of those Christian bonds of union and of worship, which everywhere characterize the sincere follower of Christ." In reply to this petition, the company denied any promise of Lord Selkirk to the settlers in the matter, but agreed to pay the expenses of a minister of their own faith to the country, provided they were willing to undertake his support. Again stirred up to vindicate their position, the leaders made affidavits as to Lord Selkirk's promise in their old Highland home of Helmsdale, in Sutherlandshire, before the Colonists emigrated, as well as at the time in 1817 when His Lordship gave the grant of land for church and school. The response to these declarations from the Hudson's Bay Company was no more satisfactory than the former had been, and thus ended the expectation which the Kildonan people had fondly cherished for more than thirty years of having a minister sent them by the company. Now that they had learned the wisdom of the admonition--"Put not your trust in princes," the disappointed colonists began to turn their thoughts to the sympathy of the Scottish people. In 1846 they addressed a letter to the Free Church of Scotland, which in the following year reached the Colonial Committee of that Church. This committee sought in vain to obtain a minister for Red River, in Scotland, and in turn, through Dr. Bonar, the convener of the committee, handed the matter over to the Free Church in Canada. Then the persistent settlers of Red River transferred their case to Montreal, and wrote to Sir George Simpson, who has been called the "Emperor of Rupert's Land," and asked for his countenance and support. Though very diplomatic, Sir George seems to have favored them. An interesting correspondence between Rev. Mr. Rintoul, of Montreal, and Sir George, now took place. The work of obtaining a suitable missionary was, as we have seen, in the hands of Rev. Dr. Robert Burns, of Knox Church, Toronto, a relative of Dr. Bonar. Chief Factor Ballenden, resident governor at Fort Garry, took much interest in the matter, and pressed the case of the Red River settlers on Dr. Burns and his committee. We have already seen the steps by which the apostle of Red River was sent upon his way. Mr. Black had faced the journey, and now on the scene of his future labors heard the details of the well-nigh forty years of disappointment, as well as of the Highland welcome awaiting him. The joy that took possession of the Highland hearts of the people of Red River was almost beyond measure. They had unremittingly striven in the face of many rebuffs for a pure Gospel and for the coming of the house of the Lord. And now in many of the homes of Red River at their family worship they sang: When Sion's bondage God turned back As men that dreamed were we, Then filled with laughter was our mouth, Our tongue with melody. As streams of water in the south, Our bondage, Lord, recall. Who sow in tears a reaping time Of joy enjoy they shall. That man who, bearing precious seed, In going forth doth mourn, He doubtless bringing back his sheaves, Rejoicing shall return. It was Friday afternoon when John Black arrived at his destination on Red River. On Sabbath following he went with the people to the Episcopal Church of St. John's, now on the north side of the city of Winnipeg, in which the Kildonan people always claimed a share. Expecting their minister, the people had made a compromise with the Hudson's Bay Company as to property, and had been given a glebe lot called "La Grenouilliere," Frog Plain, two or three miles down the river, as a site for church and manse. Here they had already erected a manse for their new minister, and though not quite finished, it served as a meeting-place for the people in their worship for the first year or two of the mission. During the week after Mr. Black's arrival, the news went quickly about the settlement, so that on Sabbath, September 28th, 1851, three hundred of the Selkirk settlers, who had a week before met in St. John's, assembled for service in the manse at Kildonan. Here the first sermon was preached by a Presbyterian minister in the wide region west of Lake Superior, where now the Presbyterian Church is much the largest body engaged in spreading the Gospel. CHAPTER V. The Early Settlers on Red River. On the banks of the Red River of the North for well nigh forty years before the coming of John Black, there had existed the Red River Settlement. Fort Garry was its centre for upwards of thirty years of that period. The fur trader on the Mackenzie River looked to the settlement as his probable haven of rest when he should have finished his days of active service and retired; the half-breed hunter of the plains thought of it as the paradise to which he might make his annual visit, or the place where he might at last settle, while the Kildonan settler boasted that there was no place like his "oasis" in the Northwest wilderness, and that the traveller who had tasted the magical waters of Red River would always return to them again. The Canadian youth read in his school-book of a far distant outpost, Fort Garry, and chilled by the very sound of the name, whispering "cold as Siberia," passed on to the next subject. The Canadian statesman dreamed of a Canada from ocean to ocean, but as he thought of the thousand miles of impassable rocks and morasses between him and the fur-traders, he could only shudder and say, "perhaps sometime," while the secretary of the Hudson's Bay Company House in London with darkest secrecy folded together his epistles, addressed them "_via_ Pembina," and then slipped quietly away to his suburban residence, knowing that he had the key in his pocket to unlock the door to half a continent, around which was built an impenetrable Chinese wall. As early as 1802 the Earl of Selkirk, a man of philanthropic and liberal views, stirred by the accounts given by Sir Alexander Mackenzie (1801) and other traders to the Indian country, wrote to the British Government of the day a letter now in the British archives, proposing the establishment in Red River of a colony for the purpose of relieving Irish disaster and Highland misery. It was not until 1811 that Lord Selkirk succeeded in obtaining, by purchase from the Hudson's Bay Company, of which in the meantime he had become a member, the district of Assiniboia on Red River, comprising 116,000 square miles. By way of Hudson Bay was the route chosen, and in the letters of the founder occur the words--words of still unfulfilled, but no doubt true prophecy: "To a colony in these territories the channel of trade must be the river of Port Nelson." THE HIGHLANDERS. At this time (1811) there were sad times in the Highlands of Scotland. Cottars and crofters were being driven from their small holdings by the Duchess of Sutherland and others, to make way for large sheep farms. Strong men stood sullenly by, women wept, and wrung their hands, and children clung to their distressed parents as they saw their steadings burnt before their eyes. The "Highland clearances" have left a stain on the escutcheons of more than one nobleman. Lord Selkirk, whose estates were in the south of Scotland, and who had no special connection with the Celts, nevertheless took pity on the helpless Highland exiles. Ships were prepared, and the following are the numbers of Highland colonists sent out in the respective years: In 1811, reaching Red River in 1812, there were 70 In 1812, reaching Red River in 1813, there were (a part Highland) 15 or 20 In 1813, reaching Red River in 1814, there were 93 In 1815, reaching Red River in the same year, there were 100 --- Total Selkirk Highland colonists, about 270 The names of these settlers were those still well known in Manitoba, as Sutherland, McKay, McLeod, McPherson, Matheson, Macdonald, Livingstone, Polson, McBeth, Bannerman, and Gunn. From the above list it will be seen that at the end of 1814 the colony had reached the number of one hundred and eighty or two hundred. Over these ruled the Hudson's Bay Company governor, Capt. Miles Macdonell, a U. E. Loyalist from Glengarry, in Canada. The fact that the Highland settlers were under the protection of the Hudson's Bay Company roused against them the opposition of the Northwest Fur Company, of Montreal, which had for thirty or forty years before their coming carried on trade in the country. The two companies had their rival posts side by side at many points throughout the Territories. The Nor'wester fort standing immediately at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers was called Fort Gibraltar. The fort occupied by the colony was less than a mile down the bank of the Red River, and was known as Fort Douglas from Lord Selkirk's family name. It is of no consequence to our present object to determine who opened hostilities or who was to blame in the contest of the companies. Strife prevailed, and through this the colonists suffered. In 1814 arrived on the scene a jauntily-dressed officer of the Nor'west Company, brandishing a sword and signing himself captain--one Duncan Cameron. This man was a clever, diplomatic, and rather unscrupulous instrument of his company, and coming to command Fort Gibraltar, cultivated the colonists, spoke Gaelic to and entertained them with much hospitality, and ended by inducing about one hundred and fifty of the two hundred of them to desert Red River and go with him to Upper Canada. By a long and wearisome journey to Fort William, and then in small boats along Lakes Superior and Huron, they reached Penetanguishene, and found new homes near Toronto, London, and elsewhere. To the faithful half hundred who remained true to their pledges all honor is due. The arrival of the third party of Highlanders in 1815 reinforced the remnant who had resisted Cameron's seductive proposals. The Colony again rose to three-fourths its original strength. In 1816 the Nor'westers adopted still more extreme measures to destroy the colony. An attack was made on the settlers on the 19th of June, and the new Governor, Robert Semple, was killed, with a number of his attendants, at a spot a short distance north of the present city of Winnipeg. Lord Selkirk on the receipt of the news of the colony in 1815 had come to Montreal, and was proceeding up the lakes to assist his people in 1816, when the news reached him, on the way, of the skirmish of "Seven Oaks" and the death of the governor. He was at the very time bringing with him as settlers, a number of disbanded soldiers, who have usually been known as the "De Meurons." The regiments to which these men belonged were part of the body of German mercenaries which had been raised during the Napoleonic wars. The name of Col. De Meuron, one of the principal officers, was given to the whole. These new settlers were not all Germans, but had among them a number of Swiss and Piedmontese. The regiments had been employed by Britain in the war of 1812-15, and were disbanded in Montreal at its close. Lord Selkirk engaged four officers and one hundred men to go to Red River. The men were promised certain wages, as well as land grants at Red River. In the autumn of 1816 the party arrived at Fort William, which they seized and the camping place on the Kaministiquia River is still called Point De Meuron. Employed during the winter in opening out for a distance a military road, the party under command of Capt. D'Orsonnens in early spring pushed on by the way of the western shore of the Lake of the Woods, surprised the Northwesters, and retook Fort Douglas from them. Lord Selkirk arrived at the Red River in the last week of June, 1817. In accordance with his agreement he settled all the De Meurons who wished to remain, along the banks of the little river, the Seine, which empties into the Red River opposite Point Douglas. This stream has among the old settlers always been known as German Creek in consequence. Being mostly Roman Catholics they were the first settlers among whom the priests Provencher and Dumoulin took up their abode on their arrival in 1818. From the nationality of the De Meurons the first Roman Catholic parish formed in the country was called St. Boniface, from Winifred, or Boniface, the German apostle and patron saint. The first Roman Catholic parish is now the town of St. Boniface, and is the residence of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of the country. Some severe things have been said of the character of the De Meuron settlers. They have been charged with turbulence, insobriety, and with having had predatory inclinations towards their neighbours' cattle. They almost all left the country after the disastrous year of 1826, for the United States. No doubt like all bodies of men they had good and bad among them, but the fact of their having been disbanded mercenaries would not incline us to expect a very high morality of them. THE SWISS. In the same year (1820) in which Lord Selkirk went to France, to find, in the little town of Pau, his death and burial place, a former officer of a disbanded regiment--Col. May--a native of the Swiss capital of Berne, went as an agent of Lord Selkirk to Switzerland. He had been in Canada, but not at Red River, and accordingly his representations among the Swiss Cantons were too much of the kind circulated by Government emigration agents still. He succeeded in inducing a considerable number of Swiss families to seek the Red River settlement. Crossing the ocean by Hudson's Bay Company ships, they arrived at York Factory in August, 1821, and were borne in York boats to their destination. Gathered, as they had been, from the towns and villages of Switzerland, and being chiefly "watch and clock makers, pastry cooks, and musicians," they were ill-suited for such a new settlement as that of Red River, where they must become agriculturists. They seem to have been honest and orderly people, though very poor. It will be remembered that the De Meurons had come as soldiers; they were chiefly, therefore, unmarried men. The arrival of the Swiss, with their handsome daughters, produced a flutter of excitement in the wifeless De Meuron cabins along German creek. The results may be described in the words of a most trustworthy eye-witness of what took place: "No sooner had the Swiss emigrants arrived than many of the Germans, who had come to the settlement a few years ago from Canada, and had houses, presented themselves in search of a wife, and, having fixed their attachment with acceptance, they received those families in which was their choice into their habitations. Those who had no daughters to afford this introduction were obliged to pitch their tents along the banks of the river and outside the stockades of the fort, till they removed to Pembina in better prospects of provisions for the winter." THE METIS. Alongside the Selkirk settlers others began to settle on the vacant banks of Red River. Most worthy of notice among them were the half-breeds of French or English descent, whose mothers were Indian women. Parkman, in his account of Pontiac's conspiracy, has well shown the facility with which the French voyageurs and Indian people coalesced. Though a poor colonist, the French-Canadian is unequalled as a voyageur and pioneer runner. When he settles on a remote lake or untenanted river, he is at home. Here he rears in contentment his "dusky race." The French half-breed, called also Metis, and formerly Bois-brulé, is an athletic, rather good-looking, lively, excitable, easy-going being. Fond of a fast pony, fond of merry-making, free-hearted, open-handed, yet indolent and improvident, he is a marked feature of border life. Being excitable, he can be aroused to acts of revenge, of bravery, and daring. The McGillivrays, Grants, McLeods, and Mackays, who had French, Scotch, and Indian blood, were especially determined. The Metis, if a friend, is true, and cannot in too many ways oblige you. The offspring of the Montreal traders with their Indian spouses, so early as 1816, numbered several hundreds, and they possessed a considerable esprit-de-corps. They looked upon themselves as a separate people, and, headed by their Scoto-French half-breed leader, Cuthbert Grant, called themselves the New Nation. Having tasted blood in the death of Governor Semple, they were turbulent ever after. Living the life of buffalo hunters, they preserved their warlike tastes. Largely increased in numbers in 1849, they committed the grave offence of rising, taking the law into their own hands, defying all authority, and rescuing a French half-breed prisoner named Sayer. This was in the time of Recorder Thom. Adam Thom, the judge, deserves a word of notice. A native of Scotland, of large frame, great intelligence, and strong will, he had had experience as a journalist in Montreal. Sent up to establish law and order, he certainly did his best, and should have had a proper force to support him. True, exception has been taken to his decisions, but where is the judge that escapes that? Among the leaders in this affair was one with the ominous name of Riel, a Scoto-French half-breed, who owned a mill on the Seine River. He was the father of Louis Riel, who afterwards led the French half-breeds in their two rebellions. Louis Riel, the younger, was the embodiment of the restless spirit of his race. Ambitious, vain, capable of inspiring confidence in the breasts of the ignorant, yet violent, vacillating and vindictive, the rebel chieftain died to atone for the turbulence of his people. ENGLISH HALF-BREEDS. As different as is the patient roadster from the wild mustang, is the English speaking half-breed from the Metis. So early as 1775 the traveller, Alexander Henry, found Orkney employees in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company at Cumberland House. The Orkney Islands furnished so many useful men to the company that in 1816, when the Bois-brulés came to attack the colony, though the colonists were mostly Highlanders, they were called "Les Orcanais." Since 1821 the same supply of employees to the company has continued and increased with occasionally an admixture of Caithness-shire and other Highlanders. Accordingly the English-speaking half-breeds are almost entirely of Scotch descent. From Hudson's Bay to distant Yukon the steady-going Orkney men have come with their Indian wives and half-breed children and made the Red River their home. We have but to mention such well-known respectable names as Inkster, Fobister, Setter, Harper, Mowat, Omand, Flett, Linklater, Tait, Spence, Monkman, and others, to show how valuable an element of population the English half-breeds have been, though, of course, there are those bearing these names as well who are of pure Orkney blood. HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY OFFICERS. No element, however, did so much for Red River of old as the intelligent and high-spirited officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, of whom many settled in the country. There was among them also a strong Highland and Orkney strain. In few countries is the speech of the people generally so correct as it was in the Red River settlement. This undoubtedly arose from the influence of the educated Hudson's Bay Company officers. At their distant posts on the long nights they read useful books and kept their journals. Numbers of them collected specimens of natural history, Indian curiosities, took meteorological observations, and the like. Though all may not have been the pink of perfection, yet very few bodies of men retained, as a whole, so upright a character as they. We have but to mention such names as that of the notable governor, Sir George Simpson, of Pruden, Bird, Bunn, Stewart, Lillie, Campbell, Christie, Kennedy, Heron, Ross, Murray, MacKenzie, Hardisty, Graham, McTavish, Bannatyne, Cowan, Rowand, Sinclair, Sutherland, Finlayson, Smith, Balsillie, McLean, McFarlane, and Hargrave, and others who have settled on the Red River, to establish this. THE PENSIONERS. Most portions of the new world have grown from additions from the military, who have for some reason or other come to them. So it was in Red River settlement. In 1846 the 6th Regiment of foot, some three hundred and fifty strong, was sent out by way of Hudson's Bay under Col. Crofton, in connection with the Oregon question, then disturbing the relations of Great Britain and the United States. Few of the regiment remained in the country. The troublous state of affairs in Recorder Thom's time induced the company to send out a number of pensioners and settlers who should be settled near the fort, and be useful in time of emergency as police. It was in 1848 that Col. Caldwell, with fifty-six non-commissioned officers and men, of whom forty-two were married and had families, came out by way of Hudson's Bay, each man being promised twenty acres of land and each sergeant forty. It was after their arrival that the Sayer emeute took place. THE CENSUS. The nucleus of 150 Kildonan settlers in 1816 had with it a few Metis, already settled down, but there was a need for a settlement for the heart of the vast fur territories. The North-west Company, ever opposed to settlement, we learn from Harmon's book, had a scheme on foot at this time to establish a native settlement on Rainy River, and had the money subscribed for an educational institution there. A settlement having been once established on Red River, many flocked to it. Thus it was that in ten years after the death of Governor Semple there were of Highlanders, De Meurons, Swiss, French voyageurs, Metis, and Orkney half-breeds, not less than fifteen hundred settlers. It was certainly a motley throng. The Rev. Mr. West the first missionary, tells us that he distributed copies of the Bible in English, Gaelic, German, Danish, Italian, and French, and they were all gratefully received in this polyglot community. Though the colony lost by desertion, as we have seen, yet it continued to gain by the addition of retiring Hudson's Bay Company officers and servants, who took up land, as allowed by the company, in strips along the river, after the Lower Canadian fashion, for which they paid small sums. There were in many cases no deeds, simply the registration of the name in the company's register. A man sold his lot for a horse, and it was a matter of chance whether the registration of the change in the lot took place or not. This was certainly a mode of transferring land free enough to suit the greatest radical. The land reached as far out from the river as could be seen by looking under a horse, say two miles, and back of this was the limitless prairie, which became a species of common where all could cut hay, and where herds could run unconfined. Wood, water and hay, were the three r's of a Red River settler's life; to cut poplar rails for his fences in spring and burn the dried rails in the following winter was quite the proper thing. There was no inducement to grow surplus grain, as each settler could only get a market for eight bushels of wheat from the Hudson's Bay Company. It could not be exported. Pemican from the plains was easy to get; the habits of the people were simple, their wants were few, and while the picture was hardly Arcadian, yet the new order of things since that time has borne pretty severely upon many, so that they feel as did the kindly old lady, "granny" Ross, of whom we have spoken, that they were "shut in" by so many people coming to the country. The census of the whole settlement in 1849 amounted to 5,291. THE PARISHES. No municipal government was ever provided for the people of Red River, though extensive petitions were forwarded to Britain for changes to be made in the government of the country. The Assiniboia council, however, passed certain ordinances, appointed road overseers, and from a slight tariff of four per cent. on imports, enough was raised to carry on public affairs. The local sub-divisions of Assiniboia were national and religious. French and Roman Catholics taking up a certain portion of river bank, Church of England half-breeds another, Scottish settlers and Presbyterians another. This was done sometimes by the will of the Hudson's Bay Company and sometimes without it. The first parish was Kildonan, so set apart and named by Lord Selkirk, on his visit in 1817; the De Meuron and Swiss settlement (1817-20) on the Seine, was the next, resulting in the parish of St. Boniface. It was to this community with its varied elements and many conflicting interests that John Black found his way. It was here his life was spent, and with this people we shall see he at length threw in his lot. The population when he reached Red River was estimated at about 5,500 in all. The settlement was at length swallowed up in the Manitoba of to-day. It did its work though what that was will probably never be quite appreciated by those who see the Manitoba of to-day. It marked the slow but sure process of an influence of the christianization and semi-civilization of many of our Indians; it gave the introduction from a barbarous and wandering life to habits of order and settled work; it furnished a valuable pioneering and trading agency for the fur trade, for surveying our plains, and for our Canadian exploration. It gave the nucleus of the present educational and religious organizations, it made the Hudson's Bay Company not only a trading company but a company helping forward in different ways, the improvement of the Indians, and made them the friends of education and religion, and if we read the story of its history aright, it saved to Britain and Canada, the vast northwest which would otherwise not unlikely have met the fate of Oregon. And to do so great a work was not to fail. CHAPTER VI. Sowing and Weeping. It was not strange that the mixture of population should be a matter of anxiety to the young pioneer of the Red River. Almost all the Highlanders and their descendants followed the newly-arrived preacher; but the Orkneymen, who had largely in the Hudson's Bay Company outposts married Indian women, seemed to form a guild of their own, and were more inclined to adhere to the Church of England. No doubt the Highland pride of character and connection of the Selkirk settlers kept the Orcadians at arm's length. Twenty years afterward the writer found a sentiment of this kind in Kildonan. The hope of Dr. Burns that John Black might, on account of his knowledge of French, gain an entrance to the Metis was never to any extent realized. Though never able to speak more than a few words of Indian, yet the minister had, as we shall afterwards see, a warm side for the red men. Thus shut in, the young man found himself surrounded from the first by stalwart theologians, and for these he framed his habits of thought and course of action. So successfully did he do this that he reached their ideal as a preacher, though he knew not a word of Gaelic, and "bore his faculties so meek" that he won unusual admiration and regard on Red River. NO INFANCY OR CHILDHOOD. The work of the hardy pioneer is usually a slow and painful process of gathering together a few people at a time, of making the community familiar with his voice and thought, and at last from a small beginning growing gradually stronger and stronger. This is the natural course of development, but in Kildonan Mr. Black found a congregation ready made, and it arose like Minerva, fully armed and scarcely needing equipment. Its infancy, childhood, and youth were all omitted. Within two months of Mr. Black's arrival, and while the people worshipped in the manse, which was used as a temporary church, the organization was begun. At this time the pioneer wrote as follows: "Red River, Dec. 17th, 1851. "The temporary church will accommodate 250 or 300 persons, and is always well filled with a most attentive auditory. We have service forenoon and afternoon, and also a lecture on Wednesday. We have a large and interesting Sabbath-school. There are ninety-six scholars, thirty-six of whom are young people in my own class. Finding, as I did, that the congregation was pretty ripe for organization, I proceeded, with the help of a few of the heads of families, whom the people at my request appointed to aid me in the work, to examine and admit to the privilege of Church membership, such as presented themselves with this desire." THE ELDERS OF THE PEOPLE. In any other than a Highland community it would have been a dangerous experiment to choose elders so soon in the history of the congregation. But the Highlander has the natural tendency to follow leaders. His chief is everything to him. Every Highland community, by a process of natural selection--character of a lofty kind being a chief element--chooses its ideal men. Precisely seven weeks after the first Presbyterian service was held in Red River six elders were chosen by ballot by the people who had been admitted by Mr. Black. Alexander Ross, of whom it was said that his work for the people for twenty-five years laid the people under a debt that they could never discharge, was chosen as leading elder. He died four years afterward. A second, James Fraser, a man of high spiritual power, filled the office for eleven years, till his death. George Munro, Donald Matheson, and John Sutherland made up the five who accepted office. One chosen, Robert McBeth, did not see his way to enter upon the office. The ordination of this first kirk session took place on the 7th of December. The young minister was always a wholesome upholder of the principle of doing everything "decently and in order." He did not even perform a baptism till the session was formed. A most interesting entry is made at this time in the session record: "On the same day as the ordination of the elders took place, the ordinance of baptism was dispensed for the first time in the congregation, the recipient being the child of Mr. Richard Salter, the only Englishman in the community. It was also the first baptism dispensed by the minister." At this time, too, came the recognition of the new minister by the governor and council of Assiniboia. A resolution was passed authorizing any legally ordained Presbyterian minister belonging to the settlement to solemnize marriages. This was regarded as a very considerable concession at the time. A HIGHLAND COMMUNION. To the Highland imagination the communion stands out as the great feast day at Jerusalem did to the ancient Jew. The Celt is highly imaginative and is especially fervid. Few of us can estimate how much religion owes in the old world and the new to Celtic fervor. The communion is looked forward to as an especially close approach to God himself. At times we have to deplore a false view that keeps some in Highland communities from coming forward until late in life to the Lord's table. How much it must have meant to the exiles on Red River, forty years after some of them had partaken of the communion in the Kildonan in Sutherlandshire to now take part in Kildonan on Red River. Due preparation was made for the first celebration of the New Testament feast by the newly constituted session. On December 13th, 1851, the people met together for a preparatory service--not now with perhaps thousands gathered from parishes far and near, but with the few hundreds dwelling side by side. Tokens of admission to the Lord's table were cautiously distributed, and we learn that the position of the tables was carefully determined, as well as the number of table services and the part each elder should take in the administration. The method seen by the writer twenty years after this date was then introduced. It was to have the table covered with linen and to have it successively occupied by different relays of communicants. The number of communicants, at this first communion after the Presbyterian form on Red River, was 45. The services following the communion were carried out as rigidly as those preceding it. Rev. John Black wrote in his description of this same service: "It was to all of us a solemn day, being the first time in which, according to our simple and scriptural form, that blessed ordinance was ever dispensed here. It was also the first time for the pastor who administered; the first time for the elders who served; and the first time for not a few who sat at the table--among others, two old men--the one 87 and the other 99 years of age; and all this in addition to its own intrinsic solemnity." ARISE AND BUILD! To the settlers on Red River the only true ideal was that of the parish church--and it was the parish church of the beginning of this century when in the Highlands dissent was unknown. New settlers elsewhere have been willing to erect such temporary structures as their circumstances permit and to wait for better days. In new countries this plan has some advantages. But to the Highland hearts on Red River old Kildonan parish church must be reproduced in the Kildonan of the New World. But stone and mortar were needed, and there were few stone buildings in the settlement. The site on which the church was to be built had been given by the Hudson's Bay Company along with £150 toward the new church, as an equivalent to the people for their rights in St. John's Church which they relinquished to the Church of England, although they retained an interest in the burying ground in which their dead were lying. The new site at Frog Plain was really more centrally situated than that at St. John's for the Scottish settlers, and it contained glebe land amounting to some three hundred acres. Already their manse and school had been erected upon it. It had formerly been a camping place for the Indians, and of it Mr. Black remarked in one of his letters: "The church is to be erected on a piece of land long desecrated by the idolatrous revels of the Indians, and the Sabbath evening sports of some who bore a better name, but whose works were not so much better than theirs." Ten miles away from Red River on the open plain is an old Silurian outlier of limestone rock, which still furnishes building stone for Winnipeg. Even by the end of December the people had quarried at Stony Mountain nearly all the stone required, and with Red River cart or ox-sled had brought the most of the material to the new site on Frog Plain. The limestone of Stony Mountain produces excellent lime, and a sufficient quantity had already been burnt and placed on the ground ready for work in the spring. It was a time of earnest enthusiasm in Kildonan, and the most real parallel to it which comes to the mind of the writer is where in the days of Ezra after the captivity "the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem" and "when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord." THE FLOODS OPPOSE. The people but awaited the opening of spring in 1852 to erect the building for which they had the material on the ground. The winter had been one of great blessing to the newly-founded church. There had, however, been a great fall of snow and the swamps and streams had been filled with water in the autumn. The Red and Assiniboine rivers run through flat prairie lands, and an overflow in time of high water is very possible. In 1826 the valley of the Red River had been flooded, the water reaching in a great lake for miles across the country. The fathers of Kildonan remembered that former date when in 130 tents they had dwelt on Stony Mountain and the higher lands back from the river. Now to the people ardent to go on with their church building--which was all in all to their Highland hearts--it came as a great disappointment to see another flood, which, while not so great as the former, yet was very serious. We are fortunate in having a letter of Mr. Black's which gives us a vivid description of the SCATTERING OF THE PEOPLE. "Red River, May 27th, 1852. "The only thing of great consequence of which I have to tell is that we are at present suffering from a great inundation--second only to that of the year 1826, of which you have heard. The consequence is that we are living in a tent on the Stony Hill, whither many have fled for shelter, and where I have been for more than two weeks and have the prospect of being so for some time longer. "The ice began to break up on the river about the 23rd of April; by the 29th, the water was coming over the lower lands. Its increase was about a foot per day, and those whose houses were low had to flee to the heights on the 1st of May. Still rising, on the 7th and 8th the river began to carry down floating houses from the upper or French part of the settlement, where the banks are lower and the houses less substantial. On Sabbath 9th, I preached for the last time in our temporary church and had to go part of the way to it in a canoe. On Monday 10th, the flight from the Scotch part of the settlement was general. On that very day twenty-six years before had the poor people fled from the former flood. "Such a scene it has never before been my lot to see. The water was now a considerable depth in many of the houses and flowing in behind them completely surrounded the people. In trying to reach a place of safety men and women were seen plunging through the water, driving and carrying, while the aged and little children were conveyed in carts drawn by oxen or horses. Most of the Scotch settlers had from 100 to 300 bushels of wheat in lofts which they kept from year to year in case of failure, and now for this there was much anxiety. The first night we encamped on the plain without wood or shelter, saving what we erected; and amid the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep, and the roaring of calves, and the squealing of pigs, and the greeting of bairns, you may be sure we had a concert. After three days we arrived here which is a beautiful woody ridge far from water mark, but thirteen miles from our houses. A few families are with me here, but my congregation is scattered, so that, from extreme to extreme is, I suppose, more than thirty miles. A SEA OF WATERS. "Thus the waters prevailed and spread themselves over the cultivated lands, sweeping away everything loose and much that was thought fast. Houses, barns, byres, stacks of wheat, etc., were floating down thick and fast. The rail fences--and there were no other--were swept clean away. Not a bridge is left on the road in all the flooded district. Sometimes the wind blew very strong, and acting on the lakelike expanse of waters agitated them like a sea, and this was very destructive to the houses of the settlers. The breadth flooded in our part of the settlement might be eight or nine miles, while the ordinary width of the river is not more than 150 yards. The destruction of property has been immense. From 3,000 to 4,000 people have been driven from their homes, though the water did not rise so high as in 1826 by 3 feet 6 inches. I have crossed this wide expanse twice to visit our people on the east side. It is like a great lake. I have now three preaching stations instead of one--_all camp meetings_. The water began to fall about the 21st. We hope to be home again in about two weeks. Our sacrament was to have been held last Sabbath, but we have had to defer it indefinitely. The whole will be a serious blow to the settlement, and will be an injury to the congregation. Many will be rendered much less able to pay their subscriptions for church building." HOME AGAIN. The pastor and his people reached their desolated homes in June. The country presented a dreary aspect. Crops to a limited extent were sown and yet the harvest, though the floods had done their worst, according to the promise did not fail. The church building was again taken up. The flood during its continuance had destroyed a considerable portion of the lime prepared for the building. A quantity of lumber was drifted off, and timbers for the couples had been floated away but were secured again. The people resumed the work with great cheerfulness. During the season following, the church was erected. Alexander Ross in his "Red River Settlement," says: "It was finished in 1853; and though small, it is considered the neatest and most complete church in the colony. It is seated for 510 persons and is always well filled. Its cost was £1,050 stg. The manse is also completed; and it is pleasing to add that when it was finished there was not a shilling due on either church or manse." In 1853 Mr. Black returned to Canada, and spent the summer there. He was induced to return to Red River, and had the pleasure of opening the new church in January, 1854. His heart was gladdened. [Illustration: KILDONAN PARISH CHURCH.] "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." CHAPTER VII. Pastor and Parish. The uncertainty as to whether he was to be the permanent leader of the Red River Presbyterians remained for years in the mind of John Black. Five years at least after his arrival we find him wondering whether the committee intended to recall him or not. This arose from a strain in his nature which rendered him liable to depression, and also from a deep desire to see the spiritual development of the people, which he determined should not be hindered by his personal defects. He was a man of intense humility. In the year after the Red River flood (1853), when he saw the church building fairly under way, he returned to Canada, undoubtedly to allow a substitute to be sent if such were possible. The impression made by the pioneer missionary during his year and a half of labor had been so marked that the people of Red River were determined that he should not be replaced. The Hudson's Bay Company, as before stated, had been averse to another denomination entering Rupert's Land until they saw that the Presbyterians could not be refused. Then Sir George Simpson, with a stroke of diplomacy, allowed the privilege in his letter to Rev. Mr. Rintoul, of Montreal. The company's attitude was still for various reasons one of caution. Mr. Black had been exceedingly wise and politic. In one of his letters he states that at times when his inclination had impelled him to interfere yet he had studiously refrained from taking sides in the struggle which was beginning between the company and the people. He had a strong sense of the fact that he was an ambassador of peace. That he had succeeded well is shown by an extract from a letter written him by Sheriff Ross on his first return to Toronto. SIR GEORGE SIMPSON WON OVER. "Colony Gardens, Red River, June 29th, 1853. "I have just had an interview with Sir George Simpson, the Governor-in-Chief of Rupert's Land, who regrets very much he had not been in time to see you before you left the settlement, and desires me to write immediately and intimate to you, that he would be most happy to see you in passing through Toronto. "Sir George has expressed himself in a very kind and friendly manner, and says that from the high sense the committee in London entertains of your moderation, zeal, and peace-working ministrations, while in the colony, he is authorized to convey to you a sense of its esteem for your character and to grant you a certain sum annually from the company as minister of the Presbyterian congregation in Red River, and adds, 'If I had been here I should not have consented to Mr. Black's leaving the settlement at this time.' "In connection with what has been said, I must further observe that the offer Sir George is prepared to make to you, on the part of the company as already stated is not to be considered to be made to any Presbyterian clergyman that may come to labor in Red River, no, _but to you_, distinctly intended for you, for the great satisfaction you have given and the high esteem you are held in by all classes in the colony. This high and flattering opinion of the company at home will, we trust, be an additional motive for your return to resume your duties among us. We all look for it, will expect it, if God spare your health." THE PIONEER RETURNS. After an absence of five months the longed for pastor returned. The committee had not succeeded in finding one to replace him, and, indeed, do not seem to have striven hard to do so. In a spirit of submission he turned northwestward, though immediately on his arrival he wrote to his aged father: "Whether the Canadian Church will allow me to stay here or not I do not yet know. I am perfectly willing to return if they get some one to supply the place. For some reasons I would wish it to be so. We shall see." His return to Red River on this occasion was one that even he confessed to be "tedious and toilsome." He actually took forty-nine days to reach his destination, starting from Galena, on the Mississippi river. On his northward journey he reached the establishment of the Presbyterian missionaries at Red Lake, in Minnesota. Supplied by these kind friends with pemican, bread, and flour, Mr. Black and his voyageur, about the end of October, pushed through Red Lake in their birch bark canoe, the missionary having to paddle as well as the boatman. On the third day, on account of the ice, the canoe could proceed no further. Unwillingly the travellers retraced their course and reached again the shelter of their missionary friends. In the following week the start was again made, but again to be interrupted by ice. The party then camped on the shore for several days, until the ice would bear their weight, when they proceeded on their slippery way. They walked over the ice for forty miles, until having obtained a horse and cart they reached by land carriage, in four and a half days, Pembina, a fort on the boundary line. At the Pembina trading post a good Presbyterian fur trader named Murray supplied the pioneers with a conveyance, and the journey was again resumed to Fort Garry. The horse was weak and the weather cold, and so Mr. Black trudged most of the way and reached the Ross mansion, near Fort Garry, at the close of his last day's walk of forty miles. Surely it needs a man of iron frame for frontier mission work! And yet Mr. Black writes of this journey with a cheerful heart: "During all these hardships and toils and disappointments, sleeping in the open air in northern frosts, I have reason to bless God I have enjoyed the most vigorous health and have not as much as caught a cold." THE CURE OF SOULS. With the new Church now almost ready the pastor settled down to regular work. His parish proper was his kingdom. He regarded every parishioner as worthy of his attention and most anxious thought. Years after it was a well-known sight to behold the faithful pastor, staff in hand, a gray checked plaid thrown over one shoulder, and with light moccasined feet tripping along the banks of Red River on his errand of mercy. On account of the settlement of Red River, being like that of the French Canadians along the St. Lawrence, his parish was an example of length without breadth. The Kildonan houses were in two rows, facing each other from each side of the river, and made a continuous village along each bank. The writer has heard the announcement from Kildonan pulpit that the pastor, during the coming week, would visit from the house of Mr. Donald Matheson to that of Mr. Samuel Matheson. On another occasion from Mr. Harper's to Mr. Gunn's, and the like. These visits were very thorough. All the children expected the minister; all the housewives had their houses swept and garnished; even the men, on the day of the expected visit, laid aside their working garb, and the godly pastor emulated, in many ways, Goldsmith's "village preacher." As everyone knows, every preacher has not the faculty of successful visitation of the sick. This was, however, an especially strong feature of the Kildonan pastor. His sympathy, deep feeling, and wise regard for the condition of the invalid, are spoken of to this day. In cases of severe illness his visits were daily and unremitting. "In his duty prompt at every call He watched, wept, prayed, and felt for all." THE PARISH SCHOOL. To a man brought up in the parish schools of his native land, and so impressed with the value of education, the parish school of Scotland was the model. The conditions in Red River settlement were favorable for it. John Knox's ideal of the parish church and manse and parish school were easily realizable; and so church and school went up side by side. Even before the church was built we find the following entry (1852) in a letter by the pioneer: "The York Factory boats have just come and brought the annual supply of goods. They have brought in the box of school books which we had ordered all safe. We have, among other things, ten large wall maps. Our school will now be the best furnished in the settlement." The Kildonan parish school always retained its pre-eminence on the Red River. The government of the country under the Hudson's Bay Company gave no aid. The Church of England and Catholics had their schools supported by private effort, and the Kildonan parish school was of the same kind. Even after the transfer of the Red River country to Canada the writer remembers being present at a Kildonan school meeting when it was decided still to continue the support of the school by voluntary subscriptions. Mr. Black was soon instrumental in sending three Kildonan young men to Toronto to complete their education. Donald Fraser, a youth of great promise, who died early; Alex. Matheson, afterwards a minister of the Church, and now a resident of his native parish of Kildonan; and James Ross, son of Sheriff Ross, a young man who was afterwards on the editorial staff of the Toronto _Globe_. The pastor afterwards at times helped studious boys privately with their Latin and Greek, and did his best to encourage good education in the parish. THE PREACHER. But great as John Black was as a pastor and as an educator, he was not less noted as a preacher. He always retained the dialect of the Scottish south country, but this was modified somewhat by a pronunciation, said to have arisen from his use of French in his mission work. He pronounced the letter a broad in such words as "grace," "congregation," and the like. His manner was very free and natural, though in voice he was possibly a little louder than some would have desired. He was, however, regarded all over the country as an excellent preacher. The writer remembers his first opportunity of hearing John Black, and this more than a quarter of a century ago. Kildonan Church was plain, even to severity. On the right hand, as you entered the church, was a small vestry under the stair. Here the pastor entered, and waited for the signal from the ringing bell, as it called the worshippers from all parts of the parish. It was the custom always to use the Geneva gown. On the morning referred to, Mr. Black came forth, gowned, as the bell ceased, and ascended the high pulpit. In accordance with the custom of the country at that time, the pastor was shod with moccasins, which gave the quick, lively motion which so characterized him. The psalm was given out with rapid movement and much impressiveness, the prayer was purely extempore, and entered with considerable minuteness into the needs of his people, and marked a man of unmistakable devotion. The lessons were read with perhaps a want of variety. When the preacher began his sermon it was evident, from the attitude assumed by his auditors, that they regarded this as the chief part of the service, and that they waited with expectancy for its development. Mr. Black always wrote his sermons in full, and had the sermon before him in the pulpit. Like Dr. Chalmers, however, he was not hampered by his "manuscript." As the preacher opened his subject, it was plain to see that his method was textual and expository, and showed intimate acquaintance with Scripture. As the sermon progressed the speaker became more and more animated, and frequently rose to the heights of eloquence. His denunciation of sin and wrong-doing were fearless, and at times reminded one of the fervor of the Hebrew prophets. He was, however, very tender, and frequently was moved to tears, and his appeals to sinners were most touching and effective. In Mr. Black's preaching there was much variety of subject, though there was little of dealing with popular questions of the day. Congregation and preacher alike had very strict views as to what was dignified and suitable to the house of God. As a result of the high standard of preaching of the pioneer, the Kildonan people became excellent judges of sermonizing, and after hearing many preachers in the later part of Mr. Black's ministry and since that time, are of opinion that Mr. Black was the greatest of them all. HABITS OF STUDY. That Mr. Black was able to maintain himself in the same congregation for thirty years as an interesting preacher arose, no doubt, from his systematic method of study. In writing during his earlier ministry to his brother, who was also a minister, and had been settled in Caledonia, Upper Canada, Mr. Black says: "How do you get along with study? What is your plan in preparing sermons? Do you write fully and commit, or how? What are your general studies? How many hours a day can you spend? Tell me all about it--your Hebrew, Greek, philosophy, theology, etc. How are you in natural science and astronomy, geology, etc.? These and such like branches we would need to study nowadays if we would not be despised by everyone with a smattering of knowledge. My much travelling and my long separation from my books have inflicted an injury upon me that I will never recover I suppose in this world. I am trying to study four hours a day four days in the week--the other two are devoted to sermon-making. My subjects are Greek Testament, Hebrew Bible, systematic or philosophical theology, and practical theology, and an hour to Biblical interpretation. Of course I indulge to some extent also in general reading. The work that has attracted my mind most of late in the theological department is McCosh's 'Divine Government,' which I esteem about the noblest performance that ever I read. I lay out my time regularly, but am constantly getting into debt and becoming a literary bankrupt, failing to carry out my plans. And so I have almost given up hope of ever being anything more than a third or fourth-rate man." Such words as these show the aspiration of the true student, and show Mr. Black to have been a man well qualified to shine in the highest walks of Church and scholarly life. DOMESTIC LIFE. On the return of Mr. Black from his first visit to Canada the longing of his heart for domestic sympathy shewed itself. Indeed it was a necessity of his life that he should be surrounded by friends and companions. That he needed the cheering influence of friends was shown all through his career. No one ever loved his friends more strongly, delighted more to sit and spend hour after hour in a social chat, and loved home life more tenderly than he. The house of Sheriff Ross had been his home from the first day of his arrival in Red River Settlement. It was not strange that his heart should incline to Henrietta Ross, one of the tall and handsome daughters found in the numerous family of his Highland host. Miss Ross was, it is true, one of the daughters of the land, being, as we have seen, on the mother's side, related to the Okanagan Indians of the Rocky Mountains. This attachment created, indeed, a ripple of excitement among the Scottish settlers, who were somewhat exclusive in their notions, but Miss Ross was attractive in appearance, well educated, having had the advantages of the excellent "McCallum School" at St. John's, and was distinguished for Christian character and worth. So the pastor was married and the establishment seemed to Mr. Black complete--church, school, manse, and the last now with the appearance and tone of home. In this home there grew to manhood and womanhood three sons and three daughters, all living to-day in different places in the valley of Red River. One of the family the pastor named after the father of the Red River Mission, Robert Burns. In the collection of letters is a most pathetic account of the death by accident of this promising little boy, and the sore bereavement seems to have for years cast a deep shadow over the Kildonan manse. The home thus founded was the very abode of hospitality. The circumstances of Red River were such that suitable accommodation for visitors or newcomers was very hard to obtain. The bountiful table at the manse was rarely without visitors, and the writer, a quarter of a century after enjoying such hospitality, still remembers the kind-hearted and noble mistress of the manse. The home at Kildonan was plunged into the deepest gloom by the death of Mrs. Black in 1873. The day of the funeral is still remembered as one of the coldest and fiercest days of the cold years of the early seventies. It was long before the desolated hearts of the husband and children recovered from the terrible stroke. Dr. Black some years after married Miss Bannatyne, a lady connected with one of the leading families of the country. She was a mother indeed to the motherless children, and still lives in the family home in Kildonan. PUBLIC DUTIES. With a sympathy for every good work Mr. Black was identified with every moral movement in Red River Settlement. Coming as he did to people who had had for forty years an unfortunate religious experience, he had naturally to take a firm stand against evil of every kind. The Highland ideal of church discipline is very high, and Mr. Black seemed equally solicitous with his people to suppress aggravated forms of sin. It would neither be interesting nor expedient to detail the session cases which came up as the years rolled on. There was one thing always to be said, that the moderator never flinched in his duty, but it is plain to see that he rather aimed at the reclamation of the wrongdoer, than took satisfaction in meting out punishment to the offender. He associated himself very heartily with the ministers of the Church of England, who welcomed his assistance in joint meetings for prayer and temperance reform throughout the parishes. He was instrumental in carrying out the work of the Bible Society. He was also very anxious to gain the acquaintance of the officers and men of the Hudson's Bay Company--many of them his countrymen--scattered over the Northwest. With these men he kept up a correspondence, and hardly a chief factor or trader from the interior visited Fort Garry, who did not think it a duty and a pleasure to take the five miles journey from the Fort to Kildonan manse to visit the representative of the church of his fathers. So strong did this feeling become that in 1862 Governor Dallas invited Mr. Black to hold service at Fort Garry, and this was undertaken with the approval of Kildonan session, and thus was begun the first Presbyterian service on the site of the city of Winnipeg, which has become one of the strongholds of the Presbyterian Church in Canada to-day. In every good thing the Kildonan pastor was a leader, and while his sympathetic nature encouraged many a confidence, and many a sad story that caused him trouble and anxiety, yet he was full of resource, and thought nothing of pain and trouble and expense if he might be helpful to the vicious, or lead the young into wisdom's ways, "As a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way!" [Illustration: REV. JAMES NISBET, Presbyterian Pioneer Indian Missionary, 1866.] CHAPTER VIII. A Kindred Spirit. It might not be right to say that it was John Black's intermarriage with the native people of the country and the fact of his own children having Indian blood rather than the Christian sentiment in favor of carrying the Gospel to the wandering Indian tribes of the prairies, that more strongly influenced him, but it is certain that early in his ministry he began to cry out for a Presbyterian mission among the Indians. His ardent appeal led to the synod so early as 1857 passing a resolution in favor of undertaking this work. The comforting task of passing favorable resolutions was indulged in for ten years, but toward the end of this decade some money had been accumulated and the church undertook its first work among the Red Indians of the plains. This period was a time of much anxiety to John Black, the ardent advocate of the project. Sitting in his lonely study on Red River it was discouraging to read letters from Toronto telling how one year more, and another year, and so on was deemed necessary to mature the scheme. One year he refers to the agitation going on at the Red River in favor of union with Canada and to a petition signed by upwards of five hundred heads of families being forwarded to the British government to further this object. John Black's chief thought was that if the petition were granted, and the northwest became a part of Canada, something would surely then be done for the poor Indian. A SELECTION MADE. While not quite prepared to undertake the mission the church went so far in 1862 as to send to Mr. Black's assistance at Red River, one of its ministers who should be engaged in learning the Indian language, and otherwise preparing himself for the Indian work resolved on. This agent was Rev. James Nisbet, minister of Oakville, Upper Canada. James Nisbet was of a missionary family, his brother, Dr. Nisbet, who paid a visit to Canada, more than a quarter of a century ago, having been honored to take a leading place in the South Sea mission of the Free Church of Scotland. James Nisbet had come out to Canada from Scotland full of the fervor of the period of the disruption and though a skillful tradesman, had thrown in his lot with the first band of students which entered Knox College. The minister of Kildonan and he had been fellow students and co-workers, and now that James Nisbet had been appointed to Red River, John Black found in him a kindred spirit. On his arrival in 1862, being an unmarried man, he became a resident at the Kildonan Manse, and we find frequent reference, in the collection of letters, to the hearty co-operation of the two ministers, and the spirit of rejoicing that now they could overtake Kildonan, Little Britain, Headingly, and the new station to which the Governor had given an invitation at Fort Garry. Mr. Nisbet while an earnest preacher, and as Mr. Black writes, "working diligently and acceptably," yet had a remarkable liking for building. At Kildonan there is still pointed out the parish schoolhouse, a stone building, much of the woodwork of which was done by Mr. Nisbet personally. Mr. Nisbet very readily fell into the ways of the Red River people, and two or three years after his arrival was married to Mary McBeth, a member of one of the best known Kildonan families, and sister of the present minister of Augustine Church, Winnipeg. HEATHEN INDIANS. The question of how and where to begin work among the Indians was a difficult one, and on Mr. Black largely fell the responsibility of determining the question. He had the confidence of the committee in the east, and he was the friend of the Hudson's Bay Company in the far west. The Church of England and Roman Catholics were carrying on work among the Swampy Crees, Saulteaux, and other Ojibways about Lake of the Woods and Lake Manitoba, as well as in the far off Mackenzie River district, while the former had almost a monopoly of the missions around Hudson Bay. The English Wesleyans had for years carried on missions among the Indians near Norway House and the north end of Lake Winnipeg, and after the visit of John Ryerson, whose letters about the region were published, the work was taken over by the Methodist Church in Canada. It was manifest that the call sent the Presbyterian Church was to the Indians of the western prairies, who had only seen the passing missionary and were still in absolute heathenism. After much deliberation it was decided to undertake work among the Crees of the plains, of whom there were said to be from ten to fifteen thousand largely without the gospel. These Indians are among the finest physically and mentally of the Canadian Indians. They are of the same race as the Ojibways, belonging to the great Algonquin family known on the Atlantic sea-board and continuing along the Laurentian country to the north of our Canadian lake chain. Leaving behind the rocky regions where the birch-bark canoe and wigwam, and the fish of the streams, with the game of the forest, had been their chief dependence, the Crees of the Plains used horses, of which they had numerous bands, chased the buffalo to obtain a bountiful subsistence, and lived in leathern teepees. The language of the Crees, while the same in structure as that of the Ojibways, has yet its vocabulary much modified from that of the parent tongue. While the Crees, in their love of the buffalo and fondness for following the herds over the plains, were thoroughly nomadic and likely to be difficult to evangelize, yet the task was undertaken cheerfully. Their great camps were the scenes of the wildest excitement and greatest excesses, and yet they were a brave, self-reliant, and able people. The cut given of four of their chiefs who visited Brantford at the time of the unveiling of the Brant statue in 1886, gives a good illustration of the appearance of staidness and solidity found among them. THE TASK BEGUN. In 1865 Mr. Nisbet was recommended to the synod for a mission among this uncivilized but interesting people. The gravity of the enterprise is to be borne in mind. Hudson's Bay Company traders had for many years ventured among the tribes of the plains. The Hudson's Bay Company trader, however, had the Union Jack flying over him; he was housed in a strong fort; in his hands were weapons, and the power of the company was felt over the whole land; but the missionary came with a message of peace; he had no emblem of force about him, he preached the doctrine, "If one cheek was smitten to turn the other also," and so to proceed 500 miles from Red River and break ground on the Saskatchewan, to be largely dependent on the locality for sustenance, and to trust to the good-will of the Indians, required courage and resource. And these qualities James Nisbet had. He was not a man of display, was a man of quiet, undemonstrative manner, but had no cowardice or surrender in him. Like his countryman, the Highland piper, who was asked to play the "retreat," he could reply that he had never learned that tune. Mr. Nisbet's theology was of a very exact kind. He was in the habit of advising complete reliance in God, perhaps there was a strain of the severe, even of the stoical, in it; but in the case of our pioneer Indian missionary, he lived out and exemplified it as well as preached it. FOR CHRIST AND COUNTRY. A journey from the Red River to the Saskatchewan by the Canadian Pacific Railway to-day is a comparatively trifling matter, taking twenty-five or thirty hours; but thirty years ago it meant much. It required an outfit that could serve the purpose for forty or fifty days. The sending of a missionary, known to the people of Kildonan and by marriage one of themselves, profoundly stirred the Highland parish. In one of Mr. Black's letters he states that the people of the parish had raised between £80 and £100 sterling for the purpose of making a suitable send-off for the man who had become so popular among them. Mr. Nisbet's plan, in so far as we can gather, was from the first to be practical and industrial. His effort was to induce the nomadic Indians to settle, to cultivate the land, and to make the Indian independent of the precarious results of the chase. In order to accomplish his ideal it was necessary to provide himself with a considerable establishment, so that the mission party, inclusive of his wife and little child and two other children, numbered ten persons. They were provided with the necessary outfit for hunting, fishing, building, and farming. The day of departure was the 6th of June, 1866, and it was a day of great moment for Kildonan. The Saskatchewan was being looked to as the land of promise. Gold had been discovered in its sands, and one of Mr. Black's letters mentions that a number of Kildonan young men had been among the fortunate explorers. The establishment had about it the air of a Kildonan enterprise, and these elements added wider interest to the Christian effort to evangelize the heathen, which was so dear to Mr. Nisbet's heart. It was a high day for John Black, for he had felt it a scandal that his church should be the only one of the four churches at work in Rupert's Land not doing something for the aborigines of the country. INTO THE WILDERNESS. We are fortunate in having a letter, quoted in Dr. Gregg's "Short History," giving in Mr. Nisbet's own words an account of the journey into the wilderness. From this we make a few extracts: "All our goods were carried in carts; each cart was drawn by one ox, harnessed something like a horse. Mrs. Nisbet and our little girl and a young woman rode on a light wagon with a canvas top, such as you sometimes use in Canada. For myself I was generally on horseback but frequently walking, as the oxen do not go very fast. We had tents, such as soldiers use, which we pitched every night, and in them we were generally very comfortable. The Sabbaths were delightful to us. Both men and animals were prepared for the weekly rest. It was pleasant to see the poor oxen evidently enjoying the rich pasture of the wilderness and the rest they had from their daily toil. We had regular Sabbath services, and they were very devout. "We had a good many creeks and rivers to cross, and I dare say you would have been much amused had you seen the plans that were fallen upon for crossing such as were too deep for loaded carts. Few of my friends in the east have seen a boat made with two cartwheels tied together and an oilcloth spread over them, or one made of ox hides sewed together and stretched on a rough frame, that would take two carts and their loads at a time. Such were the contrivances for getting over streams where there are no bridges or large boats by which we could cross. We passed over a great deal of beautiful country, with hills and valleys, streams, lakes, and ponds. Hundreds of ducks were swimming about in the little lakes, and sometimes they furnished dinners for us. Sandhill cranes were also seen occasionally, and a few of them were shot for our Sabbath dinners. Forty days after we left our Red River homes we got to a place called Carlton House, on the north branch of the great Saskatchewan River, and there we camped for one week, while I went to see some places that I could fix upon for our future home." PRINCE ALBERT FOUNDED. At Carlton, George Flett, the interpreter of the mission, who had been in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company at Edmonton, met the party. He has since become known to the Church as its oldest living Indian missionary. Born on the Saskatchewan of Scottish and Indian extraction, he had received a good English education at the schools on Red River. His wife was a member of the Ross family, being a sister of Mrs. John Black. The gathering of missionary agents also included Mr. John McKay, a Scoto-French-Indian native, who belonged to a family well known at Red River for its energy and influence. John McKay was married to a sister of Mrs. Nisbet, and he steadfastly clung to Mr. Nisbet in the prosecution of the Indian work. The party at Fort Carlton made a considerable impression upon the Indians. While the Indians were glad to see so many of the Red River people coming to them, yet some trouble arose when the decision was made to settle at a point sixty miles south-east of Carlton House and not far from the forks where the north and south branches of the Saskatchewan unite. No treaties had as yet been made with the Indians, and they objected to the incomers erecting buildings, ploughing fields, and taking possession of the land as the agents of the mission proposed to do. George Flett was the useful man for the occasion. His mother's people were Crees, and he was among the very band, whose members he recognized as relations. With his characteristic shrewdness he claimed his portion and gave permission to the Red River party to utilize his rights. This claim seems to have been at once admitted by the Cree band of the locality. The new mission was appropriately named after the Prince Consort, Albert the Good, who had passed away a few years before. MISSION WORK BEGUN. The plan of the establishment was soon vigorously worked out. During the first year two small buildings were erected, and what was since known as the large mission building in the year after. A school was immediately opened, a farm begun, and every means taken to attract the Indians to the place. As was not unnatural, the maimed, the halt, and the blind were brought to the kind-hearted missionary, and it must be stated that no small trouble was experienced in protecting the missionary from the cunning and the lazy among the Indian bands. The Indian's view of salvation is very often a willingness to accept the white man's religion provided the consideration offered is sufficient. How to meet this difficulty was one of Mr. Nisbet's chief concerns. For four years Mr. Black was the sole intermediary between the Foreign Mission Committee of the Church and Mr. Nisbet. When the Presbytery of Manitoba was established in 1870 matters took a slightly different shape. A Foreign Mission Committee of Presbytery was formed, of which Mr. Black was convener. Mr. Nisbet did such itinerant work as he was able. He journeyed to Edmonton, a point upwards of 400 miles west of Prince Albert. He visited the Indians of Carlton House once a month and had success with them. But the management of an industrial centre, such as Prince Albert had become, was plainly inconsistent with any large amount of sowing the Gospel "broadcast" among the wandering tribes, from fifty to five hundred miles away. Another difficulty overtook Prince Albert as an Indian mission in a few years after its founding. It was the centre of a fertile region very attractive to white settlers. The white settlement led the bands of wandering Crees to retreat to more remote districts. The writer in 1871 became a member of the Presbytery's Committee, of which Mr. Black was convener, and well remembers the unrest of the period. At this time the large expense of an establishment like Prince Albert was meeting opposition in the Church and this, along with the other considerations stated, brought much trouble to the venerable convener in regard to the mission which he loved as a child of his own. In 1872 Dr. Moore, of Ottawa, went as a delegate to the Saskatchewan, in behalf of the General Assembly. His report led to the discontinuance of the industrial phase of the mission, but it also rendered a tribute of commendation and praise to the faithful work that had been done by the founder, to the high reputation borne by the mission among all the bands of Crees, and to the steady influence for righteousness attached to the name of James Nisbet. In the course of time the Indian mission at Prince Albert ceased to be, unless the mission school among a wandering band of Sioux still maintained there be so regarded. John McKay, afterwards ordained, was invited to a band of Crees north of Carlton, and till his death ministered to Mistawasis' band. Other churches have taken hold of the bands about Prince Albert, and to-day as a result direct or indirect, of James Nisbet's work, few Indians of the district are without the Gospel. Shortly after Dr. Moore's visit to Prince Albert, Mr. Nisbet and his wife visited his old home in Ontario, and he was present at the General Assembly of 1873. He returned to his dear Prince Albert, but being left alone by the resignation of Rev. Edward Vincent who had come to Manitoba, and finding his plans somewhat changed by the action of the Church, he arrived with his wife at Kildonan, in September, seeking a temporary rest. The writer well remembers them as they returned. Their work seemed to be done, and the Presbytery soon decided to lay hands on Hugh McKellar, an earnest student, and license and ordain him for the work in Prince Albert. Mrs. Nisbet soon passed away in the home where she was born, and eleven days afterward her husband followed her. They are together in Kildonan churchyard. His grave marks the spot where lies as true, brave and single-minded a man as ever laid a foundation stone in the work of missions. A NEW DEPARTURE. Though Mr. Black as Convener of the Foreign Mission Committee of the Presbytery had some sympathy for the industrial ideal of Missions among the Indians held by Mr. Nisbet, yet, on the decision of the General Assembly being given, he loyally accepted the plan proposed, of attending simply to evangelistic work among the tribes and to teaching the young. It is to be remembered, however, that between 1866 and 1874 circumstances had changed. It was evident in 1874 that the buffalo was soon to be a thing of the past, and the Canadian Government approved the plan of settling the Indians upon reserves and of teaching them to be farmers. The policy of the Government thus left the Church to pursue its own method. The Committee now began to extend its work. George Flett, who had left Prince Albert Mission in 1869, was sent to two bands, one near Fort Pelly, the other on the west side of Riding Mountain. These missions were very successful. Mr. Flett was ordained as an Indian missionary, and lived to see the Okanese Reserve on Little Saskatchewan entirely Christianized. The Fort Pelly band was left to a young half-breed of Red River, Cuthbert McKay, since dead, and has grown to be the Crowstand Mission of to-day. In 1875 the Sioux or Dakota band of refugees from the United States living on the Birdtail Creek were taken under the care of the Presbytery's Foreign Mission Committee and a pure blooded Sioux missionary from the States obtained for them. This mission is still maintained, and is part of the constituency of the Birtle Indian boarding school. Mr. Black lived long enough to see the Mistawasis, Okanese, Pelly, and Birdtail missions fairly established. Nothing delighted him more than to preside at the meeting of his committee, read the letters from the missionaries, and then to write the necessary letters of counsel and advice, and at times even of gentle fault-finding, which were agreed on. All his friends lament that he passed away too soon to know of Round Lake, File Hills, the western Qu'Appelle Valley reserves and the Portage la Prairie, Birtle and Regina Indian schools. He saw enough, however, to assure him that his dream of a Christianized Indian population would in the end be realized. CHAPTER IX. Red River Becomes Canadian. The union of Red River Settlement with Canada was in the air in 1857. In a letter to his brother, Mr. Black, after discussing the reasons given by the settlers for the change, says in his own cautious way: "I do not know whether Canadian annexation will much better them. However, it looks as if the time was come for a change, and if we suffer some inconvenience during the transition period perhaps 'the good time coming' may compensate for all. I have taken no part for or against the movement. I do not think it is good for ministers to jump into the maelstrom of politics. Let them stop till they are pushed in. I have my views and preferences, _and aiblins it wadna hae taen a muckle dunch to ding me in_, but in the meantime I am better pleased to be out." While Mr. Black was thus so politic the leaders among the people of Red River were by no means undecided. The movement seems to have taken so strong a form that the greater part of the people, who were not immediately connected with the Hudson's Bay Company, strongly favored it. Ten or eleven years before this, the desire for self-government took a much more disagreeable form. Petitions from some of the people of Red River at that time were to the American Government asking it to "annex the Red River Territory to the United States, and promising assistance against the Hudson's Bay Company in case of war." BUT WE SHALL BE FREE. This shameful proposal had completely failed, but now a large petition to "The President of the Executive Council, Toronto, Canada," was signed by "Roderick Kennedy and 574 others," reciting their grievances, and appealing for reception by Canada. The petition says: "We love the British Name! we are proud of that glorious fabric, the British Constitution, raised by the wisdom, cemented and hallowed by the blood of our forefathers.... It will be seen, therefore, that we have no other choice than the Canadian plough and printing press, or the American rifle and fugitive slave law." One of the most active and influential men in this movement was the Hon. David Gunn, the leading elder in the Little Britain congregation. A Caithness Highlander, he had come out in Lord Selkirk's time, had been schoolmaster, meteorological observer, Smithsonian agent, and now took a leading part in all public matters. Being the literary man of the movement, he wrote a document setting forth very well the advantages of the Red River country, and showing the profit the country would be to Canada. This statement may be found in the government publications of the time. Donald Gunn lived for many years after and became a member of the Legislative Council of Manitoba after Confederation. Canada made a strong effort under the leadership of Chief Justice Draper and others to obtain the Northwest, and the British Commons ordered a complete investigation by committee into the case, but it took a number of years more to bring about the desired result. CANADIAN SETTLERS. Immediately after this movement, Canadian settlers began to drop by ones and twos into the Red River Settlement. An important exploration of the Red River, Assiniboine, and Saskatchewan Valleys took place by Henry Youle Hind, and the report of this was at the time a mine of interesting and useful information. The well-known Dr. Schultz arrived in 1859. Two English-Canadians, Messrs. Buckingham and Coldwell, came to the settlement at this time with a printing press, and began to publish the _Nor'-Wester_, the first newspaper of the country. This paper soon passed into other hands, and had a stormy existence, being regarded by many, certainly by the Hudson's Bay Company, as a disturber of the peace. The arrival of a number of aggressive and determined men during this decade introduced much strife into the hitherto quiet and easy-going settlement, and the weakness of the Hudson's Bay Company, which was rather uncertain of its powers, encouraged restless spirits to insubordination. The formation of what was called a "Canadian party" during this time certainly did not improve the chances of a peaceful and speedy union of the country with Canada. Shortly after the transfer the writer remembers Mr. Black when speaking of the disturbed and clamorous times through which we were passing, sighing for "the peaceful days of the old Red River." Oh! but responded the writer, in his youthful Canadian enthusiasm, "Surely you would not have the broad acres of Red River locked up from cultivation! Life is hardly worth living without progress!" "Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle in Cathay." "Well, perhaps so," said Mr. Black, "but there are animals that like to lie at the bottom of the pool and bask in peace and quiet." THE GRASSHOPPERS. The steady flow of small groups of Canadians to the banks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, and the interest taken by a few of the representatives in the Canadian Parliament led to negotiations of a more definite kind between the Canadian government, the Imperial government and the Hudson's Bay Company. In the year 1868 a destructive visitation of grasshoppers took place in the Red River Settlement. Any one who has not seen this locust invasion cannot imagine it. The pictures given by the Prophet Joel were reproduced. Myriads of voracious insects ate up every green thing, and heaps of their dead, decaying and putrid, filled the air with disgusting odors. Sympathy in Britain and America was awakened for the people left without food in Red River Settlement. The Hudson's Bay Company gave £6,000 stg. to relieve the distress, and Canada sent her quota. Mr. John Black, as a member of the Relief Executive, took an active part in relieving the distress, and was in his element in comforting the discouraged and the suffering. The Canadian government determined on a plan of assistance which led to serious complications, though at the time, it seemed [missing word] JUDICIOUS CHARITY. The Canadian government thought it better to give public work to the destitute than to bestow indiscriminate charity. Accordingly they undertook to build the wagon road from Fort Garry to the Lake of the Woods, which has since been known as the Dawson Road. This was really a work of much importance, the distance of 110 miles through the wet country being much shorter than the long circuit by Winnipeg River and Lake Winnipeg. Though begun with the most benevolent intention it was not long before the question was raised by what right the Canadian government undertook it when they did not own the territory. The Canadian agents, Messrs. Snow and Mair, who were in charge of the work, paid all those who chose to work upon the road, but there were questions as to the rate of wages, method of payment, and the like, that became bitter enough. Trifling remarks of the contractors and their assistants, as to the new state of affairs likely to come to the country, to their seizure of land, and dispossession of the old settlers and halfbreeds, were told about, and a very disagreeable state of feeling was thus engendered. "The Canadian Party" was certainly most unwise in its attitude to the old settlers of the country, though it is quite evident also that unreasonable suspicion took possession of the people of Red River. The leaders of opinion in the settlement were, however, in favor of the change to join fortunes with Canada. Mr. Black was most outspoken in favor of the advantage it would be to have Canadian law established, and to be brought in closer touch with his own church, and the brethren from whom for twenty years he had been in a measure severed. THE FLAME BURSTS OUT. The negotiations between Canada and the Hudson's Bay Company had been favorable, the wide fields of the Northwest were to become Canadian, and a million and a half of dollars were to make up the loss to the veteran company. Hon. William McDougall was chosen as first Governor and was sent by way of Minnesota and Dakota to his new vice-royalty. Suddenly one of the Canadian party, on October 22, 1869, appeared before the Master of Fort Garry and made affidavit that forty French halfbreeds, fully armed and equipped, had taken possession of the Queen's highway, some nine miles south of Fort Garry, and proposed to prevent Mr. McDougall, the new Governor, entering the colony. This startling news proved to be true and was a great surprise to the Company and to all the English-speaking people of Red River. All seemed paralyzed. Some were afraid of bloodshed, some thought the demonstration of the French was mere bravado, some that after a parley with the incoming Governor it would be arranged by his giving a promise of just treatment and equal rights. The inactivity of the civil authorities encouraged Riel, the French halfbreed leader of the unruly Metis. Riel was a vain-glorious fellow, and he must do something brilliant. The party defending the "barriere" at St. Norbert began to tamper with the mails. Next, though most of his followers opposed it, Riel, by a _coup-de-main_, quartered a number of his men in the Fort, much to the disgust of the Hudson's Bay officers. Here again there was criminal inactivity on the part of the authorities. Riel, the dictator, became still more bold, and issued a call to the parishes to send delegates to a meeting in the Fort. A show of opposition, even at this stage, on the part of the English-speaking people would probably have checked the insolent desperado at the Fort. The feeling of disgust on the part of the English at the impudent assumption of power by Riel was strong. Why, then, it may be asked, did not the spirit of their race assert itself at all hazards? DIVIDED COUNSELS. The answer is easily given. Jealousy and rivalry prevailed among the English speaking people themselves. The leader in the Canadian party was regarded as a selfish and unscrupulous man. He had for years instilled discontent through the columns of the _Nor'-Wester_. Many of the people of the settlement disliked him intensely. The incoming governor seemed to the people to be simply the shadow of this man. Colonel Dennis, the head of the surveying party was personally popular, but lacked penetration and decision. Had Governor McTavish, who unfortunately was in poor health, been able to make a call on the loyalty of the people, all would have been well, but this sentiment of distrust and dislike prevented it, and nothing was done. The Bishop of Rupert's Land declared he had gone to the first meeting of the Council of Assiniboine "prepared to recommend a forcible putting down of the insurrection." Mr. Black was as firm as any man could be against the arrogant impostor who held the Fort. Mr. Bannatyne, who understood the French people thoroughly, was forward in endeavoring to avert the disaster, but inaction, arising from mutual hatred, lost the opportunity, and encouraged by this, the French halfbreeds in the Fort grew to be six hundred in number. TOO LATE. Then it was too late. The Canadian garrison in Dr. Schultz's store but aggravated the feeling; the gathering of the English halfbreeds and others in Kildonan church only roused bitterness without accomplishing anything. It was useless to throw water on the fire, after standing and gazing listlessly at the blaze till it had grown strong. The stealing by Riel and his followers at the "barriere" of goods which were being imported to the settlement, the breaking open of the stores and looting the cellars of the Fort by his hungry horde, the killing of Scott, the suffering of the prisoners confined in Fort Garry, and the loud vapouring and personal insults of the insolent chief of the "New Nation" were part of the penalty inflicted on the people of the country, for the masterly inactivity arising from divided counsels, which had been shown. Mr. Black and the Highland parish stood sullenly by amazed and disgusted at the current of events. With few exceptions the whole parish would have responded to the call of authority, but the call never came. Mr. McDougall issued a proclamation when he was no Governor, Col. Dennis was divided in his mind and had no real authority, the true source of power--the Company--felt itself unable to act, and in the meantime the rebellion triumphed. THE COLLAPSE. The rebellion had been agoing for two months, and Riel seemed at the summit of his power, when, two days after Christmas, Donald A. Smith, a prominent member of the Hudson's Bay Company, arrived from Canada, at Fort Garry. The Canadian government had realized its blunder, and now sought to do by negotiation what it should have done three months before. If instead of the hasty visit of Hon. Joseph Howe, which itself did some good, two members of the government, one French and the other English, had come up and conferred with the people, there would have been no rebellion. It is so easy to be wise after the event! Mr. Smith was virtually a prisoner in Riel's hands, was watched by him with suspicion, and was treated as discourteously by the petty tyrant as he dared to do. However, by degrees, the Commissioner, who displayed great tact as well as decision, began to sap the foundation of Riel's authority. A monster meeting of the people was held January 19th, in the open air at Fort Garry, with the thermometer at 20 degrees below zero. Riel, with the true instincts of a desperado, had seized a number of the papers sent by the Governor-General of Canada. The mass meeting, however, resulted in a demand for the election of representatives to consider the invitation from Mr. Smith to formulate their grievances. One of the most useful and trusted men at this time in the Red River settlement was A. G. B. Bannatyne, merchant and postmaster, in the village of Winnipeg, near Fort Garry. Mr. Bannatyne was the real representative chosen to the convention for Winnipeg, but an American mob by force elected one of themselves. Mr. Bannatyne acted as intermediary between the English and French, and long after wielded much influence in Winnipeg. He was, however, openly opposed to the leader of the Canadian party. Step by step the power of Riel waned until on the 4th of March, probably to awe the people and regain his weakening power, he committed the desperate act of executing Thomas Scott, a Canadian, contrary to the pleadings of Donald A. Smith, Mr. Bannatyne and others. That was the beginning of the end. The party to meet the Canadian government, bearing a Bill of Rights, left soon after for Ottawa. The news of the execution of Scott threw Canada into a blaze. Ten thousand volunteers would have reported in a day to go to Red River, if they had been called. The name of Riel was despised and hated throughout the English-speaking parishes and by many of the French. The Canadian government busied itself in passing the Manitoba Act, which established a province in a part of Rupert's Land. The Wolseley expedition started as soon as the spring opened, and the followers of Riel began to leave him. The back of the rebellion was broken. Late in August, 1870, the vanguard of the expedition reached Fort Garry. Shortly before their arrival Riel and two of his lieutenants left the Fort. The 60th regiment were anxious to have a brush with the rebels, but the three captains, as the troops appeared in the distance, "folded their tents like the Arabs and silently stole away." RESTORING PEACE. The coming of Governor Archibald and the establishment of Canadian institutions took place in the same year as the arrival of the expedition. But it took years to establish peace. The writer came to Manitoba in the year after this, and well remembers the bitterness and hatred which continually showed themselves. The two old English-speaking factions struggled for supremacy. The influx of new people in due time, however, overcame the feuds. The sentiment against Riel and his associates burned as strongly years after as it did in the time of the troubles. Peace never came really until in Chief Justice Wood's court Riel and Lepine were found guilty of murder and sedition. The springs of action in communities are hard to trace, but it is plain to see that the burning questions which have agitated Manitoba, and through her the whole Dominion, since that time, have gained their intensity from the terrible months--for they were nothing short of that--from November to March, of the Red River rebellion. Undoubtedly the heat of feeling of the "Canadian party" included for a time Mr. Black as being one of the other wing of the English-speaking people. But in his case this soon passed away. His personal character, his kindly and friendly manner, his open hospitality, and his unwavering loyalty to British institutions made new-comers find in the "Apostle of Red River" a friend, willing to aid all. Some of the more extreme of the so-called "Canadian party" attempted to misinterpret a casual remark of the good old pioneer to his disadvantage, but it was not accepted generally, and a few years after Mr. Black was as acceptable as a preacher to the rising congregation of Winnipeg as in his own beloved Kildonan. Often, often did he commiserate the people compelled to go through such an experience as that of 1869-70. CHAPTER X. The New Settlements. To some, the story of early settlement appears prosaic. To the deep thinking, there is in it romance of the most thrilling kind. Who has not read with sympathetic interest the story of Abraham going into a far country that God would tell him of? How Scottish hearts have been moved with the accounts of the Highland Clearances, when thousands of crofts and straths and glens were left behind, and their occupants hurried forth to find homes in Pictou, Glengarry, or on the banks of the Hudson! It is not only in the painful separations, the leaving behind of spots and scenes consecrated with the dearest memories, and in some degree the sense of failure in having to give up old associations forced by hard necessity; but the tearful outlook into the unknown, the dread of meeting the inhospitality of a cold world, and the utter feeling of uncertainty that give its human interest to the emigrant ship as it sails forth from the old-world port, or the settler's wagon as it wends its way through the bush or over the "interminable prairie." All the pathetic scenes of early settlers' life became familiar in connection with the Red River becoming a part of Canada. As soon as the Rebellion had been quelled, and Manitoba became open for settlement, a movement took place from all parts of Canada to occupy the fertile prairies of the West. Farmers, whose families were finding the small farm of one hundred acres or less on which they had grown up too strait for them, sold off their possessions and journeyed to Manitoba to take homesteads and pre-emptions on its virgin prairies. For the first few years the journey was made by rail to St. Paul, in the American State of Minnesota. Here the old-fashioned settler's wagon with its canvas top--the prairie schooner as it has been called--was revived; the household goods and a stock of provisions were packed in closely, and after them the women and children entered to undertake a journey of nearly five hundred miles to the new land of hope in the north. The father and sons drove the herd of cattle and the extra horses; and from camping place to camping place groups of settlers' wagons moved in daily caravans over the prairie trails. In one such wagon the writer remembers to have seen an old lady of over eighty years, who, seated in her commodious arm chair, held her post among the boxes and bedding and farming tools over this long and weary route. At a stopping place in the then utterly wild territory of Dakota, the writer remembers to have seen the quaint entry in the register of the wayside hostelry of J. W., "Citizen of the World." The traveller had evidently been impressed with the illimitable stretch of the prairie, so like the sea. At times the unbridged coulée, with its depth of water, was to be crossed, when all the goods had to be unloaded from the wagons, the goods and chattels floated across, the horses and cattle made to swim over; and a delay, sometimes dangerous, of several hours checked the forward advance of the caravan. Sometimes the fierce storm of the prairie rose, and compelled the parties to keep camp for two or three days. The writer calls to mind one storm in 1872 that blew over tents, drove horses and cattle hither and thither over the prairies, and well-nigh brought bands of travellers to despair. Such are the dramatic features of frontier life. At times the settler and his family went by rail as far as the Red River, and reached a town two hundred and twenty-five miles by land above Fort Garry. Here a Red River steamer was taken, and by following seven hundred miles of the winding river the destination was reached. The Red River steamer was of the Mississippi type, flat-bottomed and easily running over shallows. Indeed, speaking in western phrase, it could run over the prairie if there was a good heavy dew upon the grass. The extra goods were towed in barges behind the steamer, and old-timers still delight to recount the picturesque scenes connected with the Red River steamboat. At times, when the river had flooded its banks, the steamer lost her course in the night, and was compelled to fasten her bow to a tree on a prairie bluff till the morning. Thousands of the early settlers of Manitoba remember the river steamers--the delay of days together when stranded on the rapids--the wretched meals, and the primitive accommodation. Arrived at Fort Garry, the settler found the troubles and discomforts soon forgotten in the hurry and bustle of a new life. Then the toilsome journey, on steamboat or over muddy roads, with myriads of mosquitoes and inevitable hardships, was past, and the steamer "tied up" at the warehouse, or the prairie caravan crossed the ferry of the Assiniboine and camped by the walls of Fort Garry. The sun seemed to shine all the brighter and the air was all the more exhilarating since the goal had been reached and the land of promise entered on. At a distance of about half a mile from the fort was now springing up the straggling village of Winnipeg. This nucleus of the present city was a separate place, with different ideals and often divergent aspirations, from old Fort Garry. For years the struggle prevailed as to which should rule, but the increase of population, the influx of men of wider view, and the softening influence of time abolished the rivalries, and the Hudson's Bay Company has in late years entered into all the objects and prospects of the city along with its most enterprising citizens. The picture of that early Winnipeg is a strange contrast to the city of to-day. Soon after his arrival the family patriarch and his stalwart sons found their way to the land office, inspected the list of vacant lands, ascertained where acquaintances had gone, and after visits and journeys hither and thither, made up their minds where to take up lands from the embarrassing plenty that was offered them. New townships were opening up in all directions where the surveyors had gone, and east and west new settlements sprang up like magic. The Kildonan people, from their greater intelligence than that of their neighbors, and their long residence in the country, were naturally much consulted as to the best parts of the country and the localities most desirable for settlement. Their habits of life, however, being more pastoral than agricultural, had led them to different views from those taken by the majority of the new-comers who were farmers. The writer remembers very well in 1871 hearing of several Canadian families, who had broken the immemorial custom of settling along the river bank, and had ventured beyond Bird's Hill on the one hand, and Stony Mountain on the other, several miles from the river. These were looked upon by some of the old settlers as simply mad, their failure was prophesied, and the expectation was strongly held that they would be frozen on the plains, or lost in the snow-drifts if they attempted during the winter to find their way to the old settlement. To-day, tens of thousands of Manitoba settlers have their comfortable houses on the open plains. SOUND THE GOSPEL CLARION. Wherever the settler goes, there must the herald of the Gospel follow him. Many of the early settlers of Manitoba came from the congested agricultural districts of Bruce, Huron and Lanark counties, in Ontario. As these were strongly Presbyterian localities, a very large proportion of the incoming settlers belonged to the church whose foundation John Black had been for twenty years so industriously and firmly laying. The Presbytery of Manitoba had been formed just in time (1870) to deal with this great influx of people, and applications came to it from almost every new locality to have the Gospel preached. It was a great responsibility. Money and men were scarce, and the source of both these lay in the older provinces, from which so many of the older settlers were coming. The doctrine was laid down that it was the duty of settled pastors, ordained missionaries, college professors, students and also efficient elders, to occupy the new and rising settlements, and the leading members of Presbytery cherished it as an ambition to be the first church to preach the Gospel in each rising settlement. That ambition has been largely fulfilled in the quarter of a century that has elapsed since it was formed. It involved great self-denial to accomplish this. But the spirit prevailed. It has led to the enormous growth that has taken place, as seen in the fact that the nine preaching places of 1870 have increased to the vast number, north and west of Lake Superior, of 839 in 1897. CHURCH STATESMANSHIP. Much more, however, than this was necessary. The new province of Manitoba was unknown. People do not send their contributions largely to places of which they know nothing. There were many in the eastern provinces who had no confidence in the future of Manitoba. One of the leaders of the Church denounced it as a frozen Siberia, and declared himself unwilling to spend a dollar of mission money within its hyperborean limits. It became the duty of John Black and his colleagues to do away with this false notion. They knew well their advantage as belonging to the Presbyterian Church. It is a church which legislates in its highest court--the General Assembly--for the weak as well as for the strong; for the maligned as well as for the popular; for the distant as well as for the central interests. Accordingly the Manitoba men began the work by letter, and full report, and map, and speech, and personal influence, with the purpose of letting the church know the capabilities of the country, and the prospect of a large population coming to cultivate its fertile soil. And this was not a mere spasmodic effort, but it has continued from that day to this. The Presbytery of Manitoba kept up a constant agitation as to its wants, knowing that the kindly mother in the east but needed to hear the cry of her children and she would relieve them. And so it has been. The outlook of the church has been so widened that to day money flows freely to Manitoba, Assiniboia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia for the wide mission work of the west. HARD WORK. But the organization and development of the work in the new settlements was a mighty task. In Mr. Black's letters are frequently found: "Received your letter as I was leaving to visit Grassmere"; "Have just returned from the new settlement in Springfield"; "Paid a visit on church work to the Portage," and the like. This was to an equal or larger extent the same with every ordained missionary, professor and other laborer. The great question became, Who could do the most, not, Who could escape the most. The work was carried on during the winter as thoroughly as in summer. In 1874 one of the ministers undertook to supply a new settlement, forty miles from Winnipeg, once a month during winter. Preaching at the distant point on Sabbath morning he came towards the city, about half way took another service among people who had come in that very year, and then struck homeward across the treeless, pathless, uninhabited prairie, having nothing to guide him but the stars. The roads over the prairie in early days were nothing but trails running in a most perplexing manner, and missionaries were constantly losing their way, and sometimes spent the night in the shelter of a bluff, or solitary stack in the wide hay meadow. In some years the roads were very bad. To become "mired" or "bogged" in a "slough," and to have the shaganappi or Indian pony coolly lie down in the mud, was an occurrence by no means uncommon. Winter with its biting blasts gave no respite to the faithful missionary. The history of Manitoba missions has been a marvellous record of faithful, uncomplaining, self-denying service. Men have been placed in charge of six or seven townships with settlers scattered sparsely through them. They have carried on for years, in winter's cold and summer's heat, service at six and seven points, three and even four on a Sabbath, and all this on small and poorly paid stipends. Truly Christ said, "My kingdom is not of this world." THE HONOR ROLL. Did time and general interest permit, the growth from year to year, and from district to district, in Manitoba might be traced; the special work of faithful missionaries might be given and their great services recounted. This is not our present purpose. The presbytery, in its early missionary plans in 1871, consisted of Revs. John Black, James Nisbet, William Fletcher, John McNabb, and the writer. Mr. Nisbet was five hundred miles west, at Prince Albert, and the little knot of members seemed too small to face so large a work; but missionary after missionary was sent by the generous and patriotic home mission committee in Toronto. Prof. Hart, a missionary of the Church of Scotland in Canada, came to join us in the following year, and Rev. James Robertson two years after that. [Illustration: WINNIPEG IN 1870.] Frazer, Matheson, Donaldson, and Vincent were active members of presbytery and worthy foundation builders. McKellar, Bell and Stewart were a trio who did yeoman service in the splendid farming region of Portage la Prairie and Gladstone. Scott and Borthwick and Ross took hold of Southern Manitoba and laid the foundations of numerous congregations, such as Emerson, Carman, Morden and others, now self-sustaining and influential. Alex. Campbell, James Douglas, A. H. Cameron, and Alexander Smith all earned a good degree in the later seventies, and are still residents of the west. Such men as McGuire, Wellwood, Donald McRae, Hodnett, and Polson were hard-working pioneers in the last years in which John Black yet remained with us. St. Paul's list of worthies was well called a cloud of witnesses in his wonderful chapter in the Hebrews, and we honor those whose names have become world wide for their faith and self-sacrifice; but many of the names now mentioned are also those of men of unflinching courage, of splendid endurance, of godly lives, and truest influence. The fact that numbers of them, and others who have since come to the west, were willing to bury themselves in obscure mission stations for the sake of Christ, but showed them to be men of the same spirit as John Black, and their virtues call for admiration and regard. SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES. The great mission work, from 1871 to 1881, was of the most difficult and trying kind. The settlements were new, the people were very scattered, were strangers to one another, their resources were small, and mission work was carried on under the greatest disadvantages. But such faithful, self-denying work never goes unrewarded. During one-half of this decade the country suffered from the terrible plague of the grasshoppers. The new farmers all through the settlements were greatly discouraged. About the year 1875 there were thousands of settlers of Manitoba reduced to the scantiest fare. The writer recalls those dark days of the new settlement. If ever the consolations of religion were needed, and indeed largely appreciated, it was during the years of the grasshopper scourge. The services were held in settlers' houses. The settlers kindly invited the missionaries after service to share their scanty fare, and many a time the missionary felt ashamed to be a burden on those who were literally suffering from the lack of sufficient food. The settlers were, however, in a country from which they had not means to return to their eastern homes, and so, ragged and hungry, they were compelled to wait to be delivered by a Higher Hand. In 1876 the last grasshoppers left Manitoba, and gradually the new settlements have risen, till now neatly built Presbyterian churches dot the landscape in all quarters of Manitoba, and the sacrifice of pioneer missionaries, elders and people has been rewarded. EARLY WINNIPEG. Perhaps the most picturesque and successful example of mission effort was that in what was at the beginning of the period the village of Winnipeg. For years before the transfer of the Red River country to Canada service had been held by Mr. Black in the Court House near Fort Garry. There had been little growth. The expectation roused by the new state of things led to the erection of a small Presbyterian church in the village. John Black obtained some $400 assistance from Canada, and erected a wooden building, 30 × 40 feet. This building, yet unfinished, but sufficiently advanced to be used, was opened for public worship by Rev. Dr. Black on December 3rd, 1868. The completion of this building was interfered with by the Rebellion of 1869-70, but the arrival of the troops and the coming of a few Canadians led to the partial fitting up of the church in 1870, a committee consisting mostly of the officers and men of the volunteer force doing the work necessary. A view of the cut given herewith will show the appearance of the church. The original intention was to have a tower on the top, and in the sketch the timbers are shown which were to have been the mainstays. For a year these posts were an eyesore to the community, but one night they disappeared. It is said that the sexton, acting on a hint from some quarter, clambered on the roof and removed the offending posts. The interior of the church was somewhat ambitious for those times. The pulpit had a high Gothic backpiece, in harmony with the churchly windows to be seen in the sketch. The committee of the troops in 1870 partitioned off a portion of the interior as ante-rooms, and left the church seated for about one hundred and fifty persons. To this little building John Black gave the name Knox church, in memory of the mother church in Toronto, of which Dr. Burns, the patron of the Red River mission, had been pastor. KNOX CHURCH ORGANIZED. In October, 1871, the writer was placed in charge of Knox church, and regular services twice a day were begun. John Black took the most lively interest in everything connected with the congregation. He knew that it represented the movement in a city which was to become the central fortress of Presbyterianism in Manitoba and in all the far west. The congregation was organized in 1872 with eleven members, and a session was elected in the following year. In 1874 the congregation had grown to have seventy-three members, and unanimously called Rev. James Robertson, of Norwich, Ontario, and though small in numbers guaranteed a salary of $2,000 per annum. In 1872 the church building had been enlarged, again in 1873 and a third addition took place in 1875. During the pastorate of Mr. Robertson, which lasted seven years, there was a large immigration to the province. Knox church grew very rapidly. Mr. Robertson was a most faithful pastor, and took an especial interest in the incoming population. He was ever willing to give a helping hand to the lonely or discouraged newcomer. Knox church has ever been known as a great supporter of the home mission work of the Church. [Illustration: KNOX CHURCH, WINNIPEG, 1871.] As has been well said: "The greatest enterprise in which the congregation engaged, in addition to its regular and missionary work in Mr. Robertson's pastorate, was the new Knox church building. This is known as the second Knox church. This was largely accomplished through the energy and personal effort of the pastor. Indeed so sedulously did the pastor work up the subscription list, that it has been said that it was in this that Mr. Robertson laid the foundation of the great success that he has since gained in finances as Superintendent of Missions." The congregation had in 1879 grown to have four hundred names upon the roll, and thus desired to have a more comfortable place of worship. The second Knox church, as will be seen from the accompanying illustration, was a handsome and commanding building. In August, 1881, the first colony from Knox church went off to form St. Andrew's church. This was placed in the northern part of the city, and was begun just in time to meet the great railway population which came in in connection with the Canadian Pacific Railway. It was ministered to by the Rev. C. B. Pitblado. These two congregations represented the Presbyterianism of Winnipeg during the life of Dr. Black, but he always believed in the growth of Winnipeg. How greatly he would have rejoiced could he have lived to see the handful he had nursed and seen begun as a congregation in the little wooden church with eleven members, develop into seven self-sustaining congregations and two missions, with nine church buildings in all to-day, numbering two thousand five hundred and fifty-four communicants in the city of Winnipeg. As we have said before, it has often been spoken of regretfully by the friends of the pioneer that John Black was taken away just when the fuller measure of the success of Presbyterianism in the great west was dawning. However, Simeon-like, he was satisfied. He lived to see the foundations well laid in the new settlements, including the new city of the prairies. He saw the mission work become too large for management by the ordinary machinery of the presbytery. He was quite in sympathy with his brethren as to the necessity of a special agent being set apart to superintend the rapidly rising missions, and when Dr. Robertson was unanimously chosen as superintendent of missions, though Mr. Black regretted his being taken from Knox church congregation, yet he rejoiced in the appointment and gave his heartiest congratulation to the new superintendent. Dr. Robertson had just begun his work, which has yielded such a magnificent fruitage to the cause of Christ in the West, while the good pastor of Kildonan was struggling for health in the last few months of his life. How often do we see the true, the good, the noble, thus "By affliction touched and saddened." "But the glories so transcendant That around their memories cluster, And on all their steps attendant, Make their darkened lives resplendent With such gleams of inward lustre." [Illustration: KNOX CHURCH, WINNIPEG, 1879.] [Illustration: MANITOBA COLLEGE, 1872.] CHAPTER XI. College and Schools. Next to John Black's desire for the spiritual good of the people among whom he labored, was his anxiety for the education of the young. Born in Scotland, where to be illiterate is looked upon as disgraceful; brought up under teachers in the parish school, who had a real love of knowledge and whose joy it was to select from their pupils every "lad of pairts"; afterwards well trained in a higher institution in New York State; and having finished his course in Canada at a time when a new educational impulse led to the founding of Knox College, the pastor of Kildonan could scarcely fail to be AN EDUCATIONIST. His bent of mind constantly showed itself in his desire to help forward promising youths. It was not enough to him that the parish school of Kildonan should be the best in the Red River Settlement. He took those who were looking forward to professional life, and in his own study drilled them in the Latin and Greek classics, with which he was so familiar. A number of the Kildonan lads went on to higher positions, led in their earlier stages by his kindly hand. Higher educational facilities were not wanting to Kildonan, for upon the borders of the parish, and beside the very church where until 1851 the fathers of the Kildonan people had attended public worship, was St. John's College. Here a good education was given, and, so far as known to the writer, there were no restrictions placed upon those students who were not members of the Church of England; but John Black desired to mould the leaders of the Presbyterian people after a fashion to preserve the best traditions of the race from which they sprang. The small number of people in the Red River Settlement, and their remoteness from highly civilized life, was for a time an objection to the founding of another college on the banks of the Red River. Now, however, the vista of hope was opening out before the country, as a new province was entering on its career as one of the Canadian sisterhood. The Kildonan school reached the culmination of its excellence during the years 1870 and 1871 under the direction of Mr. David B. Whimster, a teacher from western Ontario. The attendance was large, the educational interest was great, and a goodly number of the best pupils were being instructed in Latin and French by Mr. Black. Now seemed the time for carrying out the dream which the Kildonan pastor had long cherished. THE COLLEGE PLANNED. In the autumn of 1870, the very year in which the young province of Manitoba was born, a provisional board of twelve of the leading Presbyterians of the province signed a prospectus and circulated it through the province inviting assistance for an institution to give a training in Classics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Natural History, Moral and Mental Philosophy, and the Modern Languages. We may certainly say there was no restricted view in the minds of the founders of the infant college. Early in 1871, £300 sterling had been subscribed on the Red River, and before the meeting of the General Assembly material for the new building had been secured and the building was expected to be sufficiently advanced for use in the autumn of the year. The General Assembly met that year in Quebec, and the Rev. William Fletcher, a commissioner from Manitoba, strongly presented the case for the new college. THE ASSEMBLY DECIDES. As usual "some doubted," but the Assembly entered with spirit upon the project, and after certain negotiations the writer was appointed to go to Manitoba and lay the foundations of the new institution. He was ordained for the work in Gould Street church, Toronto, in company with Dr. MacKay of Formosa, and pushed on to reach Manitoba before winter. After a long and toilsome journey, in October the writer arrived at Red River, and looks back with pleasure to the first night spent in company with John Black at Kildonan manse. The Rev. William Fletcher and the writer on arriving at Fort Garry could find no accommodation in the crowded hotel in Winnipeg, and accordingly they walked down the four miles or more to the manse on a pleasant autumn evening. The Apostle of the Red River, with a mass of iron gray hair, as shown in his portrait, with well marked and yet kindly face, and his Dumfrieshire Doric, not yet displaced by forty years of absence from his native moorlands, was in high spirits. So often had the people of Red River seen those coming to them foiled in their plans by the too early approach of winter that their fears had been awakened lest another disappointment would reach them. But the journey had been made, and now the pioneer, whose tastes had always remained scholastic and literary, even in the remote solitudes of the west, saw one of his strongest anticipations about to be realized. He spoke of the youths ready to go on with their work, of the numbers coming into the country, of the bright prospects of the Church, and the value of education as a factor of national growth. Late into the night all phases of the subject were discussed and plans laid for immediately beginning work. MANITOBA COLLEGE BEGUN. A few days afterward the provisional board met, and the name "Manitoba College" was adopted for the new institution--a name which has meant much in the educational development of the western prairies. On November 10th, 1871, classes were opened, and the work immediately took hold of the minds and hearts of the Presbyterian people of the country, and of many others as well. The first building was of logs covered with siding, and so Manitoba College while not emulating the fame of the log college, out of which great Princeton College grew, yet has a similarity in its first housing and surroundings. The cut on page 130 gives a view of the first college building at Kildonan, with the Kildonan church in the background. In the year following the opening of the college the staff was strengthened by the arrival of the Rev. Thomas Hart, B.D., who was the representative of the Church of Scotland in Canada. Professor Hart came under an arrangement with the Church of Scotland Synod to take part in the educational work, and has in the quarter of a century since his coming labored with unwearied diligence for the good of the college. The co-operation of the two branches of the Church in college work three years before the union of the Churches proved the advisability of the scheme of union, and was the harbinger of that event which has been such a blessing to religion throughout the Dominion of Canada. REMOVAL TO WINNIPEG. The college steadily progressed for two sessions, when an event took place which seriously tried the stability and attachment to principle of the Presbyterians of the country, more especially of the people of Kildonan. This was nothing less than the proposed removal of the newly-founded college from Kildonan to Winnipeg. There can be no doubt that this was one of the most trying things to Mr. Black in his whole experience. Kildonan was four or five miles distant from the rising capital of the province. Three miles nearer the city than Manitoba College stood St. John's College. The Methodist Church had opened an academy in the heart of Winnipeg, and the disadvantages of fair development under which Manitoba College lay at Kildonan were manifest. The matter came up in the Presbytery of Manitoba, and the scheme favorable to beginning work in the provincial centre was carried by the casting vote of the Moderator. It was naturally a great grief to the people of Kildonan, and especially to their earnest pastor. To see the longed-for tree of knowledge so speedily plucked up by the roots seemed to the good old pioneer unnatural and uncalled for. And yet it was the struggle between reason and sentiment. The good of the institution itself and the plan to be adopted for its greatest usefulness must be the highest considerations. The matter was necessarily taken to the General Assembly. Mr. Black had not intended to be present that year at the General Assembly, but at the wish of Kildonan itself went in order that he might give the view of the people against the removal of the college. All who were present at that Assembly will remember the address of the valiant representative. With singular clearness and the highest dignity, though with deep emotion, he recounted the struggles of the people of Kildonan, the sacrifices they had made for the Church and country, the hopes that had been awakened, and the damage it would do the college among the relatively small number of Presbyterians yet settled in the country. The Assembly was deeply impressed by the appeal of the devoted and unselfish advocate. The writer recalls the fact of one of the most respected pillars of the church, Hon. John McMurrich, coming to him privately and saying, "I quite agree with the argument in favor of removing the college to the rising town, but it does seem hard that after all the struggles of the faithful pioneers of Presbyterianism on the Red River, and especially after the devoted and self-sacrificing life that John Black has lived, that there can be found no way in which their wishes may be gratified." There was not a member of the General Assembly who did not feel in the same way as good old John McMurrich. But it was a critical moment in the history of northwestern Presbyterianism. To have hesitated at that time would have been to take up the same movement in a few years again with the added difficulty of a falling cause and a sense of failure. DEPUTATION SENT. The Assembly acted with extreme caution and discernment in the matter. A commission of two of its members, Drs. Ure, of Goderich, and Cochrane, of Brantford, the former an old fellow-student and warm friend of Mr. Black, was appointed to visit Manitoba and report upon the case. The commission decided that after a year the college should be removed to Winnipeg, and carry on its whole work there. This was naturally a great disappointment to Mr. Black. He was not convinced by the decision, and feared especially that hurt would be done the college among the old settlers of the country. He quoted in confirmation of his opinion the statement made by the Bishop of Rupert's Land, the head of St. John's College, that the removal was a mistake. In this John Black, to his own surprise and happiness also, found himself mistaken. The Kildonan people, to their infinite credit, stood true to their principles and in the next and succeeding years, numbers of their young men were educated in their own college in Winnipeg, notwithstanding their feeling of disappointment at the loss of the college. Acting in the same manner as he had done when his views were not carried out in regard to the policy of managing the Prince Albert mission, the true-hearted Presbyterian pastor still gave his unwavering support to the college, and for several years when the college undertook the instruction of a small band of theological students, came, in company with Dr. Robertson, at considerable inconvenience to himself, and unrewarded except by the gratitude of the board and the high appreciation of the students, to deliver lectures in church history of which he was so complete a master. It was with the deepest appreciation of his scholarship and high character that the Board of Manitoba College congratulated him in 1876, when the sister institution in the Church, Queen's College, conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon the one who had been the originator and strong supporter of general and theological education among the Presbyterians of the western prairies. THE UNIVERSITY ESTABLISHED. The college continued to grow and, after the union of 1875, obtained a building of its own in the northern part of Winnipeg. It became in 1877, along with the Church of England College of St. John and the Roman Catholic College of St. Boniface, a part of the University of Manitoba, which was established in that year. From the first it took the lead in the University of Manitoba, and to-day has upwards of one hundred and eighty graduates in Arts. Dr. Black was among the earliest representatives of the college on the council of the university. The needs of the college became so great that in 1881 the beautiful college building represented in the accompanying cut was erected at a cost of $40,000. The Marquis of Lome laid the corner stone of the new college. Dr. Black lived to see the erection of the building, but passed away too soon to witness its occupation in the autumn of 1882. The difficulties of the college were many during these early years. As has been said, "this part of its history was the period of uncertainty, and of many sleepless nights for its professors. Eleven or twelve years of no visible means of support, of inevitable friction, arising from the necessary change from Kildonan to Winnipeg, of an utterly insufficient staff for undertaking the university work in which it early took part, and of its professors each weighted down with as much missionary work as an ordinary missionary, to enable them to gain remuneration from the Home Mission Committee--these were the struggles of development with which the young organism grew into strength." No one was more sympathetic than John Black in encouraging the professors in their toil. During its whole history Manitoba College has been a missionary centre for the west. The authorities of the college have always been anxious to make the college in every way useful to the Church. Its professors have taken a very active part in the home mission work and Indian missions, and its students have been strongly possessed with the missionary spirit. Before the college had the status of a theological college, in co-operation with the Presbytery of Manitoba, it gave instruction to students in theology with the approval of the General Assembly. In the year following that of the death of Dr. Black, Manitoba College was granted a regular theological department, and this part of the college work has been well organized and maintained under Dr. King and Professor Baird. No less than 81 graduates in theology have left the walls of the college between 1878 and the present time (1897). In token of its absorbing interest in home mission work, Manitoba College has willingly placed itself at the service of the Church in conducting a summer session in theology, for the better supply of the mission stations of the synods of Manitoba and British Columbia. Dr. Black would have greatly rejoiced, could he have seen the present prosperity of the institution for which he prayed and labored so long. PUBLIC SCHOOLS. The change made by the first parliament of Manitoba from the denominational schools formerly prevailing to a system of public schools was a very striking one. The desire of the Roman Catholics to have separate schools for themselves was granted, and thus the germ of the great question which has for years disturbed Manitoba was introduced. Those, who in the old Red River Settlement days had been accustomed to their parish schools, were not seriously opposed to the separate school system. To them it seemed simply a more systematic way of working their parish schools, and receiving the assistance of a government grant. Dr. Black thus became the representative of the Presbyterian parishes and was a member of the first Board of Education for the province. Matters worked with a fair amount of smoothness, but there was a constant grasping of power by the Roman Catholic hierarchy to make a greater and greater division between the two sections of the board, until in ten years after the formation of the province the Roman Catholic schools were to all intents and purposes managed privately by the Catholic section of the board, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop recognized as the authority by whom, for his own section, all books in religion and morals should be approved. Protests in the newspapers, in political campaigns and otherwise were made against this gradual aggression on the part of the Roman Catholics. ACTION TAKEN. The Protestant section of the board at length took action in the matter. A series of resolutions were passed on Oct. 4th, 1876, by a majority of the section, looking toward the doing away of separate schools. The matter promised to bring on a great agitation in the country, and Dr. Black ceased to be a member of the board, though Rev. Dr. Robertson, who was also a Presbyterian representative on the board, held with the majority and ardently approved of the national school ideas. Dr. Black in this matter felt that he could not be a party to interfere with the amity between Protestants and Roman Catholics, which had been a feature of the old days of the Red River Settlement. While he probably differed little from the other members of the board as to what should be done, yet his strongly expressed desire to be freed from the personal turmoil and discussion of this difficult question was regarded, and the burden thrown on younger men. THE GOVERNMENT INTERFERES. The Provincial Government of the time became alarmed at the action of the Protestant section of the board, and took the strong measure of reconstituting the board at the time of next appointment. Some of the more aggressive members were replaced by others of a more pacific character and the crisis was thus postponed. Dr. Black's anticipations of the reality of this struggle were by no means mistaken. For several years the question slumbered, with, in 1881, a new aggression on the part of the Roman Catholics, making the two systems more distinct and maintaining the share of joint stock company assessments, which were almost entirely those of Protestant stockholders, _pro rata_ for Roman Catholic schools. Dr. Black's fears of trouble were soon to be realized, for after ominous rumblings, on the incoming of a new government, in a few years the educational change took place (1890), giving rise to what has been widely known throughout the world as the "Manitoba School Question." Dr. Black died a number of years before this reformation came about. CHAPTER XII. Memorials. In the thirtieth year of Mr. Black's ministry a considerable religious movement took place in Winnipeg and the neighboring country. Mr. Black's interest in vital religion was ever one of his outstanding features. His conception of the Christian minister was that he was in reality a shepherd of the flock. It was his high mission to study the times and the seasons and to avail himself of any wise and timely circumstances which might arise in connection with the religious life of the parish. The influx of a large number of new settlers can hardly be said to have had a favorable influence on the Highland parish. The life of the colonist or settler, even when he is well disposed, is likely to lead to carelessness in religious things, to laxity in the observance of the Sabbath, and to exposure to many temptations. Kildonan parish, being near Winnipeg, and much in touch with the new settlers, was thus exposed to hurtful influences. As a wise watchman, the pastor of Kildonan saw this, and gladly welcomed tokens of spiritual revival, and took part very heartily in the movement to have special services in his beloved parish. We are fortunate in having a sermon of the pastor on the subject of revivals, published some years before the time of which we are speaking. Referring to REVIVALS, Mr. Black says: "Happy the ministers thus privileged to be instruments in God's hand. Happy the souls who plentifully partake of this extraordinary grace! And it is well worth remembering how beautifully this mode of dealing with men is adapted to the wants and weaknesses of the race. "Not only do spiritual affections become languid and require to be freshened with new life, but even the very ideas and impressions of a spiritual and eternal world wax dim upon the soul through the lapse of time, and the influence of the world and something extraordinary is required to renew these--some fresh testimony that there is a God and an eternity. "It must be familiar to all, how events and appearances, however stupendous in themselves, lose their impressions by such regular recurrence as renders them familiar to our minds. What, for instance, can present a more magnificent spectacle than the passage of the sun through the heavens on a clear summer day? Yet so familiar are we with the spectacle that we scarcely think of it. It is a part of the regular operations of nature and passes unobserved. "But suppose some day that the sun should appear of double size, or that another sun of equal brilliancy were to traverse the heavens from north to south, then all would be struck and filled with amazement--it may be with alarm--for then it would appear that there is some power superior to nature that can interfere with its regular course when he will. God would thus be brought near. "So it is in spiritual things; however mightily the work of God might be carried on, men would soon begin to forget God in it, and to attribute the deep and earnest religious feelings prevailing to natural causes, and so something higher still would be needed to prove that the work was of God. Much more is this needed in a time of comparative indifference to bring palpably before men's minds that there is a God and a spiritual world. Men require something uncommon to stir them up from to time. Our private devotions would be more ready to sink into coldness and apathy were they not quickened by the public services of the sanctuary, and the Sabbath services would also degenerate, were we not stirred up by the occasional occurrence of Sacramental services. So God's ordinary dealings require the aid of these seasons of revival." SOME DROPS DESCEND. The meetings, as conducted by the evangelist in Kildonan church, were attended with good. There was much in the manner of the professional evangelist that did not commend itself to the more staid religious customs of Kildonan, but Dr. Black and his session, being in earnest in the cure of souls, overlooked the defects and sought to make the most of the efforts of the messenger of God sent amongst them. A considerable quickening took place among the young people, and the older people were helped as well. This was a great joy to the pastor. The strain upon the faithful minister in his person was, however, very great. The frequency of the services and the feeling of responsibility told upon his deeply moved nature, and by the time the meetings were ended the godly man was prostrated in body. Rest was tried, and a visit to the Province of Ontario was undertaken, but without very much permanent benefit. The good old apostle took advantage of his eastern visit to attend the meeting of the General Assembly in Kingston in 1881. He was expected to be present at it, and it seemed to be the desire of the leading ministers of the Church that the honor of the Moderatorship should be conferred on Dr. Black, as no less than ten presbyteries had nominated him. On the opening of Assembly a letter was read from Dr. Black, declining, on account of his poor health, to be put in nomination for this exalted position. A HIGH ESTIMATE. The grounds for the proposed honor were not only the fact that John Black was the first missionary to the Red River, but that he had so well fulfilled the functions of pastor, preacher, and leader. Few had, indeed, heard the apostle of Red River, but it was well-known that he was a preacher of no mean order. His reputation as a theologian was well established, an evangelical tone was highly characteristic of his sermons, and his fervid appeals and denunciation of wrong-doing were telling, while a poetic and eloquent power of expression was certainly possessed by him in his nobler efforts. As an example of his successful preaching, we may refer to a very effective and touching sermon delivered by him in the earlier part of his ministry. Among the youths who had gone from Red River to study, we have already mentioned Donald Fraser. He was a young man of singularly attractive disposition, who as a boy had suffered from a disease in the hip joint. Recovering somewhat, he had gone on with his education, and had in 1854 entered Knox College, Toronto, where he continued a student for three years. It is said of him that in addition to his more than ordinary ability and diligence, he was distinguished for "his deep and steady, yet gentle, cheerful, unobtrusive piety." On his return to Red River, the disease increased, and attended by the kindly and continuous spiritual care of his minister, in the late winter he passed away, joyfully exclaiming, "I am going to glory." Ardently attached to his young friend, the Kildonan pastor preached a beautiful sermon on Rev. vii. 1, 3, 14, entitled, "FROM TRIBULATION TO GLORY." We may well give an extract or two: "How many have been thus removed who seemed the very men to labor for God here! This is the Lord's doing. It is marvellous in our eyes." It is mysterious, yet we can see reason in it--the Lord will show that He is not dependent on men. And there is mercy in it--He spares the green and takes the ripe. To our departed brother the change is unspeakable gain--he is gone forth out of all his tribulations. Faith is changed into sight, hope into enjoyment. He is gone to see the Saviour, whom long he had trusted and long loved. Faith, we may be well sure (a favorite form of speech of John Black), had many a struggle to realize a present Redeemer; but now there is no struggle; he sees Him as He is, and is like Him. We are left. His form is no longer before our eyes. But in his meekness and gentleness of disposition, in his Christian consistency and cheerfulness, in his patience under suffering, in his prayerfulness and faithfulness, and in his kindness of heart and spirituality of mind, he has left us an example which woe unto us if we forget. And in his happy, joyful deathbed, unvisited by doubt or fear, we have another blessed evidence of the reality of religion and the faithfulness of God. To the family the loss is great, but their sorrow is mingled with joy, for not the shadow of doubt is left upon their minds. To myself the loss is also great. There I found sympathy, counsel, encouragement, prayer. But that heart and those lips are now still. "IN ROBES OF WHITE." "See these glorious, these shining ones, walking in brightness the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. They are clothed in white robes--angels' garments. Such was the clothing of our Lord on the day of His transfiguration, and such was the clothing of the angel that rolled the stone away from the door of His tomb." THE WHITE ROBE IS THE EMBLEM OF PURITY. The white robe without signifies the pure and holy heart within. These are purified, holy souls. In them has been fulfilled to the utmost, David's prayer: "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." No stain of guilt now remains upon their consciences, no stain of corruption now defiles their hearts; no sinful desire, no vile or tumultuous passion now agitates their minds. Their thoughts are all pure; their affections are all heavenly; they are conformed to the image and the will of God. Not the smallest thing in them is out of keeping with the holy heaven in which they now dwell. THE WHITE ROBE IS ALSO AN EMBLEM OF JOY. It is the wedding garment--the dress of the bride, the Lamb's wife--the garment of the guests that sit at the heavenly banquet. The white robe without signifies the joyful heart within. And, oh, a happy company are all these white-robed ones in their Heavenly Father's home! The sorrows of earth are all left behind, and not even the shadow of evil now obscures the sunshine of their holy joys. No sin, no sorrow, no care, no toil, no fear, no conflict; but purity, peace, delight--their Father's smile, their Saviour's presence, the society of the redeemed and of holy angels, the sight of heavenly beauty, the sounds of heavenly music, the fragrance of celestial flowers, the sweetness of the water of life, the exercises of heavenly devotion, all conspiring to fill their minds with gladness ineffable. The marriage robe without is the emblem of the joyful heart within. THE WHITE ROBE IS THE EMBLEM OF VICTORY. It was worn by those who after victory returned to the Imperial city and passed in triumphal procession through the crowded streets, and the admiring and shouting multitudes. Those who have entered the New Jerusalem have gained the victory; they now enjoy the triumph. They have fought the good fight; they have finished their course, they have kept the faith; henceforth they are to enjoy their crowns of righteousness, their white robes, and their evergreen palms. Long and hard was the conflict; many and fierce were their enemies; but now the victory is won--sin, Satan and the world are subdued; and the sword and the breastplate, the buckler and the shield have been exchanged for the white robes of victory and of peace. "They hang their trumpet in the hall and study war no more." OUT OF AFFLICTION. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all." They were in pain, in sickness, in poverty, in hunger, thirst, and nakedness; they were exposed to shame, they were oppressed by tyranny; they have been captives, slaves, victims of cruelty and injustice; they have seen their dearest snatched from their embraces, they have passed through the trials which are common to man, and many peculiar to themselves; but they have come out of all their tribulations--sickness and pain, captivity and bereavement, oppression and suffering are now forever ended, and God has wiped away all tears from their eyes. A BELOVED ELDER. We have before us another address of Mr. Black worthy of being quoted. This was delivered on the death of one of his best beloved elders, John Pritchard. This elder was the son of an English fur trader of the same name, who had been in the service of the Northwest Fur Company, and afterward acted as Lord Selkirk's agent. The tender heart of John Black comes out in his words for his departed friend: "John Pritchard was a man of God. In him we have lost a man of much prayer--of deep humility, and one who knew well how to speak the truth in love, and who in his deportment beautifully mingled the gravity and the cheerfulness of true religion--a gravity without gloom or austerity--a cheerfulness without levity--a mingling or union of qualities which gave him at once the respect of the aged and the confidence of the young. "In him his family have lost a wise, faithful, loving head--a large connexion has lost one of its most beloved members--society has lost a man of much usefulness and Christian worth--for myself, I have lost a good counsellor and a faithful and confiding friend; and you, as a congregation, have lost an office-bearer whose place it will not be easy to supply. "How often in private have many of you heard his earnest counsels; at how many sickbeds and deathbeds have you been comforted by his consolations; how often, here and elsewhere, have we heard his earnest pleading voice in prayer; and how often has that voice been lifted up in wrestling intercession for us all, when there was no ear to hear but that of our Father in Heaven." LIFE DECLINING. It was in April, 1881, that Mr. Black so felt the need of rest that he obtained leave of absence from the Presbytery of Manitoba and went to Ontario and to his old home in New York State, seeking health. After spending some months in the east and being present at the meeting of the General Assembly, he returned to Manitoba, feeling much improved. Unfortunately he caught a severe cold on his return journey and was again reduced in strength. Reaching Kildonan he sought to minister to his devoted people, but after a few Sabbaths was again compelled to make application to the presbytery for relief. This was granted most willingly, but at the same time with a feeling of great anxiety on the part of his brethren. It seemed the presage of the approaching end. The affectionate attention of friends and relations was given him, but he remained very weak. Reclining on his sofa, he received his ministerial and other friends, and still with clear mind discoursed on the topics of the day and on the blessedness of the service of Christ with the great future rewards of the people of God. Even in the time of declining strength his was no weak or halting faith, but a strong and unwavering confidence. The old year passed away and the opening days of January saw no marked change. His interest in the affairs of the parish did not flag, but he was patiently resigned in his weakening strength. At last as the opening hours of the second Sabbath, 12th, of February, 1882, were approaching, the spirit of the devoted minister passed away to its eternal rest. The event, though somewhat expected, yet produced a shock in the parish, and on the word reaching Winnipeg references were made in the city pulpits on that day to the departure of the good man. TRIBUTES. The tributes of kind friends came from all directions. The leading newspaper of the province referred to the great service he had rendered the whole Northwest, and said: "In the midst of his many duties he was able in a wonderful degree to keep abreast of the literature of the day. Although occupying so remote a field, he was remarkable for the superiority of his scholarship, so that he enjoyed an eminent reputation as a man of learning and particularly as a theologian." LAST SAD RITES. On the following Wednesday the funeral took place, the service being held in Kildonan church. The day was one of the most bitterly cold days of the season. Yet the people of all denominations were there, and representatives from the river parishes and Winnipeg, so that the church was pretty well filled with men and women. Several of the oldest members of the presbytery were absent from the province at the time, and were prevented from paying their last tokens of respect to the departed leader. Rev. Professor Hart, who had been for ten years intimately acquainted with Mr. Black, took the service and made the address. In the course of his remarks he said: "In reference to Dr. Black's public life, I have only a word or two to say. As a preacher he was well known to us all as being clear, forcible, simple, impressive and eloquent in his exposition of divine truths; as a pastor he was indefatigable, visiting regularly in succession all the families in his parish, especially in times of sickness, distress or in death. He was active in forwarding the interest of the Sabbath-school and also of the Bible Society, of which for years he was president. "Every good cause found in him a faithful and zealous advocate. As a friend, the departed was judicious, faithful, steadfast and true. His whole course among us was, I may add, such as became a true and faithful man of God. When work was to be done he did it up to the measure of his strength and even beyond it. Hence, though naturally of a strong and healthy constitution, he succumbed--not to old age, but to excess of work. He was worn out by his exertions, and his death took place at a time when in his prime, intellectually, years of activity and usefulness might be looked forward to. "The All Wise Disposer of events seemed to say that our friend's work on earth was done, and called for him from labour and trial here to the rest that remains for the just. The last illness of our brother (and father), though protracted to nearly a year, was not during the latter portion of it accompanied with much pain. To the end his faith remained unshaken, his hope undimmed, his peace of mind undisturbed. That end came quietly. He sweetly fell asleep in the arms of Jesus. Just as that day he loved the best was being ushered in, just as that earthly Sabbath dawned, he passed away to the enjoyment of an eternal Sabbath in the courts above." [Illustration: PUBLIC MONUMENT ERECTED TO REV. JOHN BLACK, D.D. In Kildonan churchyard.] The Rev. Alexander Matheson, a native of Kildonan, then led in prayer; the Rev. C. B. Pitblado, the minister of the new St. Andrew's congregation of Winnipeg, pronounced the benediction; the Rev. Alexander Campbell was also present, and the Rev. R. Y. Thompson took the service at the grave. RETROSPECT. We have now completed our long journey from Garwaldshields farm in Eskdale Muir, where John Black was born, to Kildonan kirkyard, where his honoured bones now lie. Sixty-four years was his alloted span, and no one who has followed our story can fail to admit that the character and life described are those of a true man. Born among the shepherd people of the region that has been made historic by the names of Thomas Boston, James Hogg, Edward Irving and Thomas Carlyle, the worthy lad of Eskdale very early showed the features of a religious and deep-laid character. What he would have been had he remained in the land of his birth we can only conjecture, but it is certain that wherever he was to dwell his earnest, manly, studious boyhood was the promise of a useful life. Perhaps nothing shows the chivalry of his nature more than his surrendering all the bright hopes of a student life, and the career of a successful teacher, in order that he might with his family, which had suffered losses, seek a New World home to better their condition. His unselfish devotion led to his becoming the mainstay in the counsels of the family as they settled in the State of New York. Years afterwards we find his love of his aged parents in the Catskills a matter for consideration in choosing where his lot should be cast. The return of John Black to the Canadian branch of the Church of his fathers illustrates two or three points in his character. There was in him a strong attachment to old associations. The Scottish type of Presbyterianism was to him the best, and he sought his defence in the shelter of the "burning bush." His characteristic discrimination and determination to follow his convictions were shown in his choice of the newly formed Free Church, while his love of the past and strong personal attachment would have led him to cling to the Church of Scotland. His love of country was also strong, and there can be no doubt that he greatly preferred the shadow of the Union Jack to that of any other flag. His student and missionary life were characterized by great thoroughness and enthusiasm. While strongly evangelical, and counting all things other than the Gospel as "wood and hay and stubble," yet he valued knowledge, and laid the foundation of subsequent excellence in Latin, Greek, History, and English Literature. His missionary life in Brock, in Upper Canada, in the district of Montreal, and on behalf of the French Canadian Society, all indicates the spirit of thorough consecration, which is the beauty and strength of the aspirant to the Christian ministry. The most critical time in the life of John Black was his reception of the command, for it was nothing else, of Dr. Burns to go to Red River Settlement. Those who knew Dr. Burns can easily imagine the ardency and enthusiasm with which he would argue the case. He was a man of strong personality, and to him his opinions had all the strength of principles. Mr. Black could not resist what was put to him as the call of duty. It is somewhat remarkable to see, however, that year after year he was not convinced that the Red River was to be his permanent sphere of labor. This no doubt arose from a certain sensitiveness of disposition, and an unwillingness to stand in the way of what he thought was the highest spiritual good of his people. And yet it was as all his friends said it would be: God's finger pointed out the Red River unmistakably as his lifelong sphere. The founding of a new cause among a people who, for thirty or forty years had been without their own form of faith, was a great work. The church building, the alarming flood which hindered his work, the severe task of supplying, while still alone, the small groups of Presbyterians outside of Kildonan, the anxiety about the spiritual condition and insobriety of so many of the native people about him, cases of discipline which required at the same time firmness and tact--all these filled up the measure of his busy life. The effect of the arrival of an additional laborer in the person of Rev. James Nisbet, in 1862, can hardly be estimated by us now. The fact that another clergyman may arrive now in the field of Manitoba missions is an everyday occurrence, and gives rise to little comment; but when the arrival of a laborer doubled the available missionary force it made it an event of first importance. When, four years later, James Nisbet began the Indian missions of the Church it was something, too, of immense moment. John Black's dream of fifteen years was then realized, and he saw in the future the vista of a reclaimed and civilized race in place of the helpless and sin-afflicted savages by whom he was surrounded. When the stirring days of the Riel Rebellion were over, there came the rush of immigration, which startled the quiet solitudes of the Red River prairies. It was to Mr. Black, as to the older people of the country, a time of change, but the religious needs of the new settlements were well looked after, and the movement begun of the mission advance, which has been so notable a feature of the Presbyterian cause in the Northwest, and has led to the Church, which John Black came to the west to found, becoming much the largest and most influential body of the prairies. Not only in Winnipeg, with its thoroughly organized body of communicants, and in Portage la Prairie, Brandon, Regina and Calgary have the Presbyterian views of church doctrine and life become potential; but, in more than a score of towns, such as Morden, Pilot Mound, Deloraine, Carman, Glenboro, Treherne, Holland, Miami, Minnedosa, Russell, Rapid City, Gladstone, Moosomin, Prince Albert, Edmonton, Souris, Virden, Boissevain, Emerson, Keewatin, Rat Portage, Fort William, and Port Arthur have strong self-sustaining churches been established. Notably is the Church strongly ensconced in the affections of the agricultural communities spread over the prairies. It would gladden the heart of John Black to-day could he see the presbytery of which he was the first moderator now developed into two synods with fourteen presbyteries, and could he realize how "the little one has become a thousand." As an educationist, we have shown the really fundamental work of Mr. Black in the cause of education. It is very rare to see the men who lay foundations equally strong on the missionary and on the educational sides. It shows the even balance of his mind, that Mr. Black was as much interested in one direction as in the other. Manitoba College is the outcome to-day of the hopes and pleadings and plans of this scion, transplanted from the parish schools of Scotland, and of the early love of knowledge of the Presbyterianism of Canada, which took root in the favorable soil of the Red River, Assiniboine, and Saskatchewan valleys. These are the memorials of the Apostle of Red River. We are not carried away by any absurd sentiment which would lead us to make John Black a hero. As a rule the surroundings of his life were not of an exciting kind. The Red River community was isolated, its opportunities of communication with the outer world were small; for two-thirds of the life of John Black upon the Red River there was little increase in the population, but during his thirty years of Northwest life we see in him the white lily of a blameless life, we see the spirit of an ardent social reformer, we see the public sentiment leading him to labor for the educational good of his people, we see the exercise of a diligent pastorate, and the attainment of honorable distinction as a preacher--in short, we see in him the embodiment of high domestic, social, public and Christian virtues. We shall cherish the memory of "the Apostle of the Red River." [Illustration: In Memoriam OF THE Rev. John Black, D.D. FIRST PRESBYTERIAN MISSIONARY TO RUPERT'S LAND SEPT. 18TH, 1851, AND FIRST PASTOR OF THIS PARISH TO WHOSE SPIRITUAL WANTS HE MINISTERED FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS. DIED FEB. 11TH, 1882 AT THE AGE OF 84 YEARS "_He being dead yet speaketh._" TABLET IN KILDONAN CHURCH.] ADVERTISEMENTS The Selkirk Settlers in Real Life By REV. R. G. MACBETH, M.A. WITH INTRODUCTION BY HON. SIR DONALD A. SMITH, K.C.M.G. (Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal). PRICE, - - - 75 Cents, Postpaid Press Comments "In every instance Mr. MacBeth tells his story in happy terms, and supplies many details of the life of the settlers."--_Royal Colonial Institute Journal._ "The author is a descendant of one of the hardy Scots who were in the Red River Valley a life-time before Riel was born. His story is the more romantic for its very simplicity."--_St. John Sun._ "Not a dry collection of details, but an interesting account of the Settlement.... These experiences are unique.... Mr. MacBeth is to be congratulated on his book."--_Canadian Magazine._ "A fascinating little volume, telling a tale that redounds to the honor of the Scottish race.... Mr. MacBeth's sketch gives a pleasing impression of the sterling worth and industry of the settlers."--_Review of Historical Publications_, Vol. II. "A small but useful contribution to the history of the North-West.... Mr. MacBeth was brought up in the colony, and recalls some of its primitive laws, methods of agriculture and social customs, with a flavor of personal reminiscence."--_Montreal Witness._ "The story of the Red River Settlement is one of unique interest. Its early days were a perfect Iliad of disaster. Flood, famine and hostile Indians sorely tried the faith and patience of the brave pioneers. A descendant of one of these tells in these pages the stirring story."--_Onward._ Rev. Robert Murray, Editor of the _Presbyterian Witness_ (Halifax, N.S.), writes the author: "Accept of my thanks for your most readable and refreshing book. I am delighted with it. Brought up among the Highlanders I appreciate some of the chapters more than others; but the book as a whole is excellent. I only wish it were ampler in its details." "As the title indicates, the aim of the writer is to give to the people of to-day an idea of how the settlers lived in their homes, as apart from their struggles as a community for political and commercial rights. In this he has been eminently successful, and a valuable picture of the social life as it then was has been preserved for future generations."--_Winnipeg Tribune._ WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher 29-33 Richmond Street West, TORONTO, ONT. LEAVES FROM Manitoba MY LIFE IN THE PRAIRIE Memories PROVINCE. By REV. GEORGE YOUNG, D.D., _Founder of Methodist Missions in the "Red River Settlement."_ WITH INTRODUCTION BY REV. ALEXANDER SUTHERLAND, D.D., _General Secretary of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church._ In Extra English Cloth Boards, with 15 Portraits and Illustrations. PRICE, $1.00, POSTPAID. Personal and Press Comments "The book is of fascinating interest, and gives authentic information not elsewhere to be obtained on the stirring events of the early history of Manitoba. It is handsomely printed, with numerous portraits and other engravings."--_Onward._ "The reader will readily perceive that one who has lived so long in such varied scenes as have fallen to the lot of Dr. Young must have witnessed many things worthy of record, and will rejoice with the present writer that the venerable author, notwithstanding his characteristic modesty, was prevailed upon, after much entreaty, to send forth this charming volume."--_Mail and Empire._ "An interesting chapter is devoted to the Fenian Raid of 1871; another to Dr. Lachlan Taylor's tour among the missions in the 'Great Lone Land,' taken from Dr. Taylor's own report and journal; and still another chapter recounts the history of the early educational movement in the West. On the whole the book is a very interesting and indeed valuable one, not only to members of the author's Church, but also to the general reader."--_Ottawa Citizen._ S. R. PARSONS, Esq., writes: "Only one who has lived in that land of 'illimitable possibilities,' and experienced the brightness of its winter and summer sunshine, and tasted of the water of the Red River, that ever after leaves an unquenchable thirst, and sniffed the ozone of the prairies, and mingled with the heartiest and most friendly people on earth, can fully appreciate this book. The high respect in which the author is deservedly held will, no doubt, ensure a large sale for the work. In the North-West, particularly, it should be in every home and Sunday School library." WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher, 29-33 Richmond St. West, TORONTO, ONT. The Warden of the Plains AND OTHER STORIES OF LIFE IN THE CANADIAN NORTH-WEST. By JOHN MACLEAN, M.A., Ph.D., _Author of "Canadian Savage Folk," etc._ _Illustrated by J. E. LAUGHLIN._ CLOTH, $1.25, POSTPAID. CONTENTS: The Warden of the Plains--Asokoa, the Chief's Daughter--The Sky Pilot--The Lone Pine--The Writing Stone--Akspine--Old Glad--The Spirit Guide--Alahcasla--The Hidden Treasure--The White Man's Bride--The Coming of Apauakas. [Illustration: Cover] "Dr. Maclean's familiarity with western life is evident in this collection of stories. All are well told."--_The Westminster._ "Dr. Maclean has rendered a distinct service to Canadian literature by photographing in this series of pictures a type of Canadian life which is fast passing away."--_Rev. W. H. Withrow, D.D._ "These stories are admirably written. They present the life and legends of the great North-West in a manner calculated to excite a sincere and useful interest among strangers."--_Mail and Empire._ "A collection of short stories, some dramatic, some pathetic, all serious.... The Indian tales are very pathetic and most interesting from an ethnological standpoint.... The stories are accurate pictures of North-West life."--_Victoria Times._ WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher, 29-33 Richmond St. West, TORONTO, ONT. Some Notable Canadian Books [Illustration] Biographical and Historical Canadian Men and Women of the Time. By Henry J. Morgan. Cloth $3 00 Haliburton: A Centenary Chaplet. A Series of Biographical and Critical Papers, with Portrait and Illustrations 1 25 Life and Times of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock. By D. B. Read, Q.C., with Portrait and Illustrations 1 50 Life and Work of D. J. Macdonnell. Edited by Prof. J. F. McCurdy, LL.D. With Portraits, etc. 1 50 Popular History of Canada. By W. H. Withrow, D.D. Illustrated 3 00 History Of Canada. By W. H. P. Clement, LL.B. With Maps and Illustrations 0 50 History of British Columbia. By Alex. Begg, C.C. With Portrait and Illustrations 3 00 In the Days of the Canada Company. By Robina and Kathleen M. Lizars. Illustrated 2 00 Humours of '37, Grave, Gay and Grim. Rebellion Times in the Canadas. By Robina and Kathleen M. Lizars 1 25 The Story Of the Union Jack. By Barlow Cumberland. Illustrated in Colors 1 50 Ten Years of Upper Canada in Peace and War--1803-15. By Mrs. J. D. Edgar 1 50 The Selkirk Settlers in Real Life. By R. G. MacBeth, M.A. 0 75 The Making of the Canadian West. By R. G. MacBeth, M.A. With Portraits and Illustrations 1 00 The History Of Annapolis County, including old Port Royal and Acadia. By Judge Savary. With Portraits 3 25 The History of Lunenburg County. By Judge DesBrisay. With Illustrations 2 50 Canadian Savage Folk. By John Maclean, Ph.D. Illustrated 2 50 The Forge in the Forest. A Historical Romance of Acadia. By Chas. G. D. Roberts. Illustrated 1 25 _Postpaid to any Address._ WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher, 29-33 Richmond Street West, TORONTO, ONT. Across the Sub-Arctics of Canada _3,200 MILES BY CANOE AND SNOWSHOE THROUGH THE BARREN LANDS_ By J. W. TYRRELL, C.E., D.L.S. _Illustrated by Engravings from Photographs and from Drawings by ARTHUR HEMING._ CLOTH, $1.50, POSTPAID. PRESS COMMENTS [Illustration: Cover ACROSS THE SUB-ARCTICS OF CANADA] "A story of immense scientific value."--_Toronto Globe_. "A most valuable contribution to the literature of the great North-West.... Mr. Tyrrell's touches of description are delightful."--_Victoria Times._ "As a mere record of adventure, of imminent peril and hair-breadth escapes, of hunting polar bears, and taking a winter tramp of a thousand miles, we know no narrative of more absorbing character."--_Methodist Magazine._ "Upon the whole, no book of travel and exploration in Canada has appeared since Butler's 'Great Lone Land' was published, that combined the interest and value of Mr. Tyrrell's book."--_Hamilton Herald._ "A remarkable trip of exploration, one of the most important of recent years."--_Buffalo Illustrated Express._ "The tale is a marvellous one; the only wonder is the party ever succeeded in returning to civilization."--_Christian Guardian._ "The record of their journey will be found delightful reading by those who feel the peculiar fascination of the vast melancholy Northland.... Altogether the volume is one of solid merit."--_Christian Advocate_ (New York). "There is a variety in this narrative which those of strictly Arctic expeditions lack. It leads through wonderful lakes and rivers hitherto unvisited by white men, with thrilling adventures in running unknown and perilous rapids."--_The Bookman_ (New York). "The illustrations have the double virtue of illustrating the subject and of being trustworthy; and this final remark applies to the whole book."--_N. Y. Independent._ WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher, 29-33 Richmond St. West. TORONTO, ONT. 
21551	----	The Little Savage, by Captain Marryat. ________________________________________________________________________ Captain Frederick Marryat was born July 10 1792, and died August 8 1848. He retired from the British navy in 1828 in order to devote himself to writing. In the following 20 years he wrote 26 books, many of which are among the very best of English literature, and some of which are still in print. Marryat had an extraordinary gift for the invention of episodes in his stories. He says somewhere that when he sat down for the day's work, he never knew what he was going to write. He certainly was a literary genius. "The Little Savage" was published in 1848, the twenty-sixth book to flow from Marryat's pen. It was completed after his death by a member of his family. It is intended for children, and its religious overtones are in contrast to Marryat's other works. He was far from irreligious, but this book is definitely in a different style. This e-book was transcribed in 1998 by Nick Hodson, and was reformatted in 2003, and again in 2005. ________________________________________________________________________ THE LITTLE SAVAGE, BY CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT. CHAPTER ONE. I am about to write a very curious history, as the reader will agree with me when he has read this book. We have more than one narrative of people being cast away upon desolate islands, and being left to their own resources, and no works are perhaps read with more interest; but I believe I am the first instance of a boy being left alone upon an uninhabited island. Such was, however, the case; and now I shall tell my own story. My first recollections are, that I was in company with a man upon this island, and that we walked often along the sea-shore. It was rocky and difficult to climb in many parts, and the man used to drag or pull me over the dangerous places. He was very unkind to me, which may appear strange, as I was the only companion that he had; but he was of a morose and gloomy disposition. He would sit down squatted in the corner of our cabin, and sometimes not speak for hours,--or he would remain the whole day looking out at the sea, as if watching for something, but what I never could tell; for if I spoke, he would not reply; and if near to him, I was sure to receive a cuff or a heavy blow. I should imagine that I was about five years old at the time that I first recollect clearly what passed. I may have been younger. I may as well here state what I gathered from him at different times, relative to our being left upon this desolate spot. It was with difficulty that I did so; for, generally speaking, he would throw a stone at me if I asked questions, that is, if I repeatedly asked them after he had refused to answer. It was on one occasion, when he was lying sick, that I gained the information, and that only by refusing to attend him or bring him food and water. He would be very angry, and say, that when he got well again, he would make me smart for it; but I cared not, for I was then getting strong, whilst he was getting weaker every day, and I had no love for him, for he had never shown any to me, but always treated me with great severity. He told me, that about twelve years before (not that I knew what he meant by a year, for I had never heard the term used by him), an English ship (I did not know what a ship was) had been swamped near the island in a heavy gale, and that seven men and one woman had been saved, and all the other people lost. That the ship had been broken into pieces, and that they had saved nothing--that they had picked up among the rocks pieces of the wood with which it had been made, and had built the cabin in which we lived. That one had died after another, and had been buried (what death or burial meant, I had no idea at the time); and that I had been born on the island--(how was I born? thought I); that most of them had died before I was two years old; and that then, he and my mother were the only two left besides me. My mother had died a few months afterwards. I was obliged to ask him many questions to understand all this; indeed, I did not understand it till long afterwards, although I had an idea of what he would say. Had I been left with any other person, I should, of course, by conversation, have learned much; but he never would converse, still less explain. He called me, Boy, and I called him, Master. His inveterate silence was the occasion of my language being composed of very few words; for, except to order me to do this or that, to procure what was required, he never would converse. He did, however, mutter to himself, and talk in his sleep, and I used to lie awake and listen, that I might gain information; not at first, but when I grew older. He used to cry out in his sleep constantly: "A judgment, a judgment on me for my sins, my heavy sins! God be merciful!" But what judgement, or what sin was, or what was God, I did not then know, although I mused on words repeated so often. I will now describe the island, and the way in which we lived. The island was very small, perhaps not three miles round; it was of rock, and there was no beach nor landing-place, the sea washing its sides with deep water. It was, as I afterwards discovered, one of the group of islands, to which the Peruvians despatch vessels every year to collect the guano, or refuse of the sea-birds which resort to the islands; but the one on which we were was small, and detached some distance from the others, on which the guano was found in great profusion; so that hitherto it had been neglected, and no vessel had ever come near it. Indeed, the other islands were not to be seen from it except on a very clear day, when they appeared like a cloud or mist on the horizon. The shores of the island were, moreover, so precipitous, that there was no landing-place, and the eternal wash of the ocean would have made it almost impossible for a vessel to have taken off a cargo. Such was the island upon which I found myself in company with this man. Our cabin was built of ship-plank and timber, under the shelter of a cliff, about fifty yards from the water; there was a flat of about thirty yards square in front of it, and from the cliff there trickled down a rill of water, which fell into a hole dug out to collect it, and then found its way over the flat to the rocks beneath. The cabin itself was large, and capable of holding many more people than had ever lived in it; but it was not too large, as we had to secure in it our provisions for many months. There were several bed-places level with the floor, which were rendered soft enough to lie on, by being filled with the feathers of birds. Furniture there was none, except two or three old axes, blunted with long use, a tin pannikin, a mess kid, and some rude vessels to hold water, cut out of wood. On the summit of the island, there was a forest of underwood, and the bushes extended some distance down the ravines which led from the summit to the shore. One of my most arduous tasks was to climb these ravines and collect wood, but fortunately a fire was not often required. The climate was warm all the year round, and there seldom was a fall of rain; when it did fall, it was generally expended on the summit of the island, and did not reach us. At a certain period of the year, the birds came to the island in numberless quantities to breed, and their chief resort was some tolerably level ground--indeed, in many places, it was quite level with the accumulation of guano--which ground was divided from the spot where our cabin was built by a deep ravine. On this spot, which might perhaps contain about twenty acres or more, the sea-birds would sit upon their eggs, not four inches apart from each other, and the whole surface of this twenty acres would be completely covered with them. There they would remain, from the time of the laying of the eggs, until the young ones were able to leave the nests and fly away with them. At the season when the birds were on the island, all was gaiety, bustle; and noise, but after their departure it was quiet and solitude. I used to long for their arrival, and was delighted with the animation which gladdened the island, the male birds diving in every direction after fish, wheeling and soaring in the air, and uttering loud cries, which were responded to by their mates on the nests. But it was also our harvest time; we seldom touched the old birds, as they were not in flesh, but as soon as the young ones were within a few days of leaving the nests, we were then busy enough. In spite of the screaming and the flapping of their wings in our faces, and the darting their beaks at our eyes, of the old birds, as we robbed them of their progeny, we collected hundreds every day, and bore as heavy a load as we could carry across the ravine to the platform in front of our cabin, where we busied ourselves in skinning them, splitting them, and hanging them out to dry in the sun. The air of the island was so pure that no putrefaction ever took place, and during the last fortnight of the birds coming on the island, we had collected a sufficiency for our support until their return on the following year. As soon as they were quite dry they were packed up in a corner of the cabin for use. These birds were, it may be said, the only produce of the island, with the exception of fish, and the eggs taken at the time of their first making their nests. Fish were to be taken in large quantities. It was sufficient to put a line over the rocks, and it had hardly time to go down a fathom before anything at the end of it was seized. Indeed, our means of taking them were as simple as their voracity was great. Our lines were composed of the sinews of the legs of the man-of-war birds, as I afterwards heard them named; and, as these were only about a foot long, it required a great many of them knotted together to make a line. At the end of the line was a bait fixed over a strong fish-bone, which was fastened to the line by the middle; a half-hitch of the line round one end kept the bone on a parallel with the line until the bait was seized, when the line being tautened, the half-hitch slipped off and the bone remained crossways in the gullet of the fish, which was drawn up by it. Simple as this contrivance was, it answered as well as the best hook, of which I had never seen one at that time. The fish were so strong and large, that, when I was young, the man would not allow me to attempt to catch them, lest they should pull me into the water; but, as I grew bigger I could master them. Such was our food from one year's end to the other; we had no variety, except when occasionally we broiled the dried birds or the fish upon the embers, instead of eating them dried by the sun. Our raiment, such as it was, we were also indebted to the feathered tribe for. The birds were skinned with the feathers on, and their skins sewn together with sinews, and a fish-bone by way of a needle. These garments were not very durable, but the climate was so fine that we did not suffer from the cold at any season of the year. I used to make myself a new dress every year when the birds came; but by the time that they returned, I had little left of my last year's suit, the fragments of which might be found among the rocky and steep parts of the ravine where we used to collect firing. Living such a life, with so few wants, and those periodically and easily supplied, hardly varied from one year's end to another, it may easily be imagined that I had but few ideas. I might have had more, if my companion had not been of such a taciturn and morose habit; as it was, I looked at the wide ocean, and the sky, and the sun, moon, and stars, wondering, puzzled, afraid to ask questions, and ending all by sleeping away a large portion of my existence. We had no tools except the old ones, which were useless--no employment of any kind. There was a book, and I asked what it was for and what it was, but I got no answer. It remained upon the shelf, for if I looked at it I was ordered away, and at last I regarded it with a sort of fear, as if it were a kind of incomprehensible animal. The day was passed in idleness and almost silence; perhaps not a dozen sentences were exchanged in the twenty-four hours; my companion always the same, brooding over something which appeared ever to occupy his thoughts, and angry if roused up from his reverie. CHAPTER TWO. The reader must understand that the foregoing remarks are to be considered as referring to my position and amount of knowledge when I was seven or eight years old. My master, as I called him, was a short square-built man, about sixty years of age, as I afterwards estimated from recollection and comparison. His hair fell down his back in thick clusters and was still of a dark colour, and his beard was full two feet long and very bushy; indeed, he was covered with hair, wherever his person was exposed. He was, I should say, very powerful had he had occasion to exert his strength, but with the exception of the time at which we collected the birds, and occasionally going up the ravine to bring down faggots of wood, he seldom moved out of the cabin, unless it was to bathe. There was a pool of salt-water of about twenty yards square, near the sea, but separated from it by a low ridge of rocks, over which the waves only beat when the sea was rough and the wind on that side of the island. Every morning almost we went down to bathe in that pool, as it was secure from the sharks, which were very numerous. I could swim like a fish as early as I can recollect, but whether I was taught, or learned myself, I cannot tell. Thus was my life passed away; my duties were trifling; I had little or nothing to employ myself about, for I had no means of employment. I seldom heard the human voice, and became as taciturn as my companion. My amusements were equally confined--looking down into the depths of the ocean, as I lay over the rocky wall which girted the major portion of the island, and watching the motions of the finny tribes below, wondering at the stars, during the night season, eating, and sleeping. Thus did I pass away an existence without pleasure and without pain. As for what my thoughts were I can hardly say, my knowledge and my ideas were too confined for me to have any food for thought. I was little better than a beast of the field, who lies down on the pasture after he is filled. There was one great source of interest, however, which was to listen to the sleeping talk of my companion, and I always looked forward to the time when the night fell and we repaired to our beds. I would lie awake for hours, listening to his ejaculations and murmured speech, trying in vain to find out some meaning in what he would say--but I gained little; he talked of "that woman"--appearing to be constantly with other men, and muttering about something he had hidden away. One night, when the moon was shining bright, he sat up in his bed, which, as I have before said, was on the floor of the cabin, and throwing aside the feathers upon which he had been lying, scratched the mould away below them and lifted up a piece of board. After a minute he replaced everything, and lay down again. He evidently was sleeping during the whole time. Here, at last, was something to feed my thoughts with. I had heard him say in his sleep that he had hidden something--this must be the hiding-place. What was it? Perhaps I ought here to observe that my feelings towards this man were those of positive dislike, if not hatred; I never had received one kind word or deed from him, that I could recollect. Harsh and unfeeling towards me, evidently looking upon me with ill-will, and only suffering me because I saved him some trouble, and perhaps because he wished to have a living thing for his companion, his feelings towards me were reciprocated by mine towards him. What age I was at the time my mother died, I know not, but I had some faint recollection of one who treated me with kindness and caresses, and these recollections became more forcible in my dreams, when I saw a figure very different from that of my companion (a female figure) hanging over me or leading me by the hand. How I used to try to continue those dreams, by closing my eyes again after I had woke up! And yet I knew not that they had been brought about by the dim recollection of my infancy; I knew not that the figure that appeared to me was the shadow of my mother; but I loved the dreams because I was treated kindly in them. But a change took place by the hand of Providence. One day, after we had just laid in our yearly provision of sea-birds, I was busy arranging the skins of the old birds, on the flat rock, for my annual garment, which was joined together something like a sack, with holes for the head and arms to pass through; when, as I looked to seaward, I saw a large white object on the water. "Look, master," said I, pointing towards it. "A ship, a ship!" cried my companion. "Oh," thought I, "that is a ship; I recollect that he said they came here in a ship." I kept my eyes on her, and she rounded to. "Is she alive?" inquired I. "You're a fool," said the man; "come and help me to pile up this wood, that we may make a signal to her. Go and fetch some water and throw on it, that there may be plenty of smoke. Thank God, I may leave this cursed hole at last!" I hardly understood him, but I went for the water and brought it in the mess kid. "I want more wood yet," said he. "Her head is this way, and she will come nearer." "Then she is alive," said I. "Away, fool!" said he, giving me a cuff on the head; "get some more water and throw on the wood." He then went into the cabin to strike a light, which he obtained by a piece of iron and flint, with some fine dry moss for tinder. While he was so employed, my eyes were fixed on the vessel, wondering what it could be. It moved through the water, turned this way and that. "It must be alive," thought I; "is it a fish or a bird?" As I watched the vessel, the sun was going down, and there was not more than an hour's daylight. The wind was very light and variable, which accounted for the vessel so often altering her course. My companion came out with his hands full of smoking tinder, and putting it under the wood, was busy blowing it into a flame. The wood was soon set fire to, and the smoke ascended several feet into the air. "They'll see that," said he. "What then, it has eyes? It must be alive. Does it mind the wind?" inquired I, having no answer to my first remark, "for look there, the little clouds are coming up fast," and I pointed to the horizon, where some small clouds were rising up, and which were, as I knew from experience and constantly watching the sky, a sign of a short but violent gale, or tornado, of which we usually had one, if not two, at this season of the year. "Yes; confound it," replied my companion, grinding his teeth, "it will blow her off! That's my luck." In the meantime, the smoke ascended in the air and the vessel approached nearer and nearer, until she was within, I suppose, two miles of the island, and then it fell quite calm. My companion threw more water on to increase the smoke, and the vessel now hauling up her courses, I perceived that there were people on board, and while I was arranging my ideas as to what the vessel might be, my companion cried out--"They see us, they see us! There's hope now. Confound it, I've been here long enough. Hurrah for old England!" and he commenced dancing and capering about like a madman. At last he said: "Look out, and see if she sends a boat, while I go into the cabin." "What's a boat?" said I. "Out, you fool! Tell me if you see anything." "Yes, I do see something," replied I. "Look at the squall coming along the water, it will be here very soon; and see how thick the clouds are getting up: we shall have as much wind and rain as we had the time before last, when the birds came." "Confound it," replied he, "I wish they'd lower a boat, at all events;" and so saying, he went into the cabin, and I perceived that he was busy at his bed-place. My eyes were still fixed upon the squall, as I watched it advancing at a furious speed on the surface of the water; at first it was a deep black line on the horizon, but as it approached the vessel, changed to white; the surface of the water was still smooth. The clouds were not more than ten degrees above the horizon, although they were thick and opaque but at this season of the year, these tornados, as I may call them, visited us; sometimes we had one, sometimes more, and it was only when these gusts came on that we had any rain below. On board of the vessel--I speak now from my after knowledge--they did not appear to be aware of the danger the sails were all set and flapping against the masts. At last, I perceived a small object close to the vessel; this I presumed was the boat which my companion looked for. It was like a young vessel close to the old one, but I said nothing, as I was watching and wondering what effect the rising wind would have upon her; for the observations of my companion had made me feel that it was important. After a time, I perceived that the white sails were disappearing, and that the forms of men were very busy, and moving on board, and the boat went back to the side of the vessel. The fact is, they had not perceived the squall until it was too late, for in another moment almost, I saw that the vessel bowed down to the fury of the gale, and after that, the mist was so great that I couldn't see her any more. "Is she sending a boat, boy?" cried my companion. "I can't see her," replied I; "for she is hidden by the wind." As I said this, the tornado reached to where we stood, and threw me off my legs to the entrance of the cabin; and with the wind came down a torrent of rain, which drenched us, and the clouds covered the whole of the firmament, which became dark; the lightning darted in every direction, with peals of thunder which were deafening. I crawled into the cabin, into which the rain beat in great fury and flowed out again in a small river. My companion sat near me, lowering and silent. For two hours, the tornado lasted without interruption; the sun had set, and the darkness was opaque. It was impossible to move against the force of the wind and the deluge of water which descended. Speak we did not, but shut our eyes against the lightning, and held our fingers to our ears to deaden the noise of the thunder, which burst upon us in the most awful manner. My companion groaned at intervals, whether from fear, I know not; I had no fear, for I did not know the danger, or that there was a God to judge the earth. Gradually the fury of the gale abated, the rain was only heavy at intervals, and we could now hear the beating of the waves, as they dashed against the rocks beneath us. The sky also cleared up a little, and we could dimly discern the white foam of the breakers. I crawled out of the cabin, and stood upon the platform in front, straining my eyes to see the vessel: A flash of lightning for a second revealed her to me; she was dismasted, rolling in the awful breakers, which bore her down upon the high rocks not a quarter of a mile from her. "There it is," exclaimed I, as the disappearance of the lightning left me in darkness, more opaque than ever. "She's done for," growled my companion, who, I was not till then aware, stood by my side. "No hopes this time, confound it!" Then he continued for some time to curse and swear awfully, as I afterwards discovered, for I did not then know what was cursing and swearing. "There she is again," said I, as another flash of lightning revealed the position of the vessel. "Yes, and she won't be there long; in five minutes she'll be dashed to atoms and every soul perish." "What are souls?" inquired I. My companion gave me no reply. "I will go down to the rocks," said I, "and see what goes on." "What," said he, "and share their fate?" CHAPTER THREE. I left him, and commenced a careful descent of the precipices by which we were surrounded, but, before I had gone fifty paces, another flash of lightning was followed up by a loud shriek, which arrested my steps. Where the noise came from I could not tell, but I heard my companion calling to me to come back. I obeyed him, and found him standing where I had left him. "You called me, master?" "Yes, I did; take my hand and lead me to the cabin." I obeyed him, wondering why he asked me so to do. He gained his bed-place, and threw himself down on it. "Bring the kid full of water," said he--"quick!" I brought it, and he bathed his head and face. After a time, he threw himself back upon the bed-place, and groaned heavily. "O God! It's all over with me," said he at last. "I shall live and die in this cursed hole." "What's the matter, master?" said I. He gave me no answer, but lay groaning and occasionally cursing. After a time, he was still, and then I went out again. The tornado was now over, and the stars were to be seen here and there, but still the wind was strong and the wild clouds flew fast. The shores of the island were one mass of foam, which was dashed high in the air and fell upon the black rocks. I looked for the vessel, and could see nothing--the day was evidently dawning, and I sat down and waited its coming. My companion was apparently asleep, for he lay without motion or noise. That some misfortune had happened, I was convinced, but what I knew not, and I passed a long time in conjecture, dividing my thoughts between him and the vessel. At last the daylight appeared--the weather was moderating fast, although the waves still beat furiously against the rocky shore. I could see nothing of the vessel, and I descended the path, now slippery and insecure from the heavy fall of rain, and went as near to the edge of the rocks as the breaking billows would permit. I walked along, occasionally drenched by the spray, until I arrived where I had last seen the vessel. The waves were dashing and tossing about, as if in sport, fragments of timber, casks, and spars; but that was all I could see, except a mast and rigging, which lay alongside of the rocks, sometimes appearing above them on the summit of the waves, then descending far out of my sight, for I dared not venture near enough to the edge to look over. "Then the vessel is dashed to pieces, as my companion said," thought I. "I wonder how she was made." I remained about an hour on the rocks, and then turned back to the cabin. I found my companion awake, and groaning heavily. "There is no ship," said I, "nothing but pieces of wood floating about." "I know that," replied he; "but what do I care now?" "I thought by your making a smoke, that you did care." "Yes, I did then, but now I am blind, I shall never see a ship or anything else again. God help me! I shall die and rot on this cursed island." "Blind, what is blind?" inquired I. "The lightning has burned out my eyes, and I can see nothing--I cannot help myself--I cannot walk about--cannot do anything, and I suppose you will leave me here to die like a dog." "Can't you see me?" "No, all is dark, dark as night, and will be as long as I live." And he turned on his bed-place and groaned. "I had hope, I lived in hope--it has kept me alive for many weary years, but now hope is gone, and I care not if I die to-morrow." And then he started up and turned his face towards me, and I saw that there was no light in his eyes. "Bring me some more water, do you hear?" said he angrily. "Be quick, or I'll make you." But I now fully comprehended his condition and how powerless he was. My feelings, as I have before said, were anything but cordial towards him, and this renewed violence and threatening manner had its effect. I was now, I suppose, about twelve or thirteen years old--strong and active. I had more than once felt inclined to rebel, and measure my strength against his. Irritated, therefore, at his angry language, I replied-- "Go for the water yourself." "Ah!" sighed he, after a pause of some seconds, "that I might have expected. But let me once get you into my hands, I'll make you remember it." "I care not if I were in your hands," replied I; "I am as strong as you." For I had thought so many a day, and meant to prove it. "Indeed! Well, come here, and let us try." "No, no," replied I, "I'm not such a fool as you say I am--not that I'm afraid of you; for I shall have an axe in my hand always ready, and you will not find another." "I wish that I had tossed you over the cliffs when you were a child," said he, bitterly, "instead of nursing you and bringing you up." "Then why have you not been kind to me? As far back as I can remember you have always treated me ill; you have made me work for you; and yet never even spoken kindly to me. I have wanted to know things, and you have never answered my questions, but called me a fool, and told me to hold my tongue. You have made me hate you; and you have often told me how you hated me--you know you have." "It's true, quite true," replied he, as if talking to himself. "I have done all that he says, and I have hated him. But I have had cause. Come here, boy." "No;" replied I, "do you come here. You have been master, and I have been boy, long enough. Now I am master and you are boy, and you shall find it so." Having said this, I walked out of the cabin and left him. He cried out, "Don't leave me;" but I heeded him not, and sat down at the edge of the flat ledge of the rock before the cabin. Looking at the white dancing waves, and deep in my own thoughts, I considered a long while how I should behave towards him. I did not wish him to die, as I knew he must if I left him. He could not obtain water from the rill without a great chance of falling over the cliff. In fact, I was now fully aware of his helpless state; to prove it to myself, I rose and shut my own eyes; tried if I could venture to move on such dangerous ground, and I felt sure that I could not. He was then in my power; he could do nothing; he must trust to me for almost everything. I had said, let what would follow, I would be master and he boy; but that could not be, as I must still attend upon him, or he would die. At last the thought came suddenly upon me--I will be master, nevertheless, for now he shall answer me all my questions, tell me all he knows, or he shall starve. He is in my power. He shall now do what I have ever tried to make him do, and he has ever refused. Having thus arranged my plans, I returned to the cabin, and said to him: "Hear what I say--I will be kind to you, and not leave you to starve, if you will do what I ask." "And what is that?" replied he. "For a long while I have asked you many questions, and you have refused to answer them. Instead of telling me what I would know, you have beaten me or thrown stones at me, called me names, and threatened me. I now give you your choice--either you shall promise to answer every question that I put to you, or you may live how you can, for I shall leave you to help yourself. If you do as I wish, I will do all I can to help you, but if you will not, thank yourself for what may happen. Recollect, I am master now; so take your choice." "Well," replied he, slowly, "it's a judgment upon me, and I must agree to it. I will do what you wish." "Well, then, to begin," said I, "I have often asked you what your name was, and what was mine. I must call you something, and Master I will not, for I am master now. What is your name?" He groaned, ground his teeth, and then said, "Edward Jackson." "Edward Jackson! Very well; and my name?" "No, I cannot bear the name. I cannot say it," replied he angrily. "It it so," replied I. "Then I leave you." "Will you bring me some water for my eyes? They burn," said he. "No, I will not, nor anything else, unless you tell me my name." "Frank Henniker--and curses on it!" "Frank Henniker. Well, now you shall have the water." I went out, filled a kid, and put it by his side. "There is the water, Jackson; if you want anything, call me. I shall be outside." "I have gained the mastery," thought I,--"it will be my turn now. He don't like to answer, but he shall, or he shall starve. Why does he feel so angry at my name? Henniker! What is the meaning of Henniker, I wonder? I will make him tell me. Yes, he shall tell me everything." I may here observe, that as for pity and compassion, I did not know such feelings. I had been so ill-treated, that I only felt that might was right; and this right I determined upon exercising to the utmost. I felt an inconceivable pleasure at the idea of my being the master, and he the boy. I felt the love of power, the pride of superiority. I then revolved in my mind the daily task which I would set him before he should receive his daily sustenance. He should talk now as much as I pleased, for I was the master. I had been treated as a slave, and I was now fully prepared to play the tyrant. Mercy and compassion I knew not. I had never seen them called forth, and I felt them not. I sat down on the flat rock for some time, and then it occurred to me that I would turn the course of the water which fell into the hole at the edge of the cliff; so that if he crawled there, he would not be able to obtain any. I did so, and emptied the hole. The water was now only to be obtained by climbing up, and it was out of his power to obtain a drop. Food, of course, he could obtain, as the dried birds were all piled up at the farther end of the cabin, and I could not well remove them; but what was food without water? I was turning in my mind what should be the first question put to him; and I had decided that I would have a full and particular account of how the vessel had been wrecked on the island, and who were my father and mother, and why I was named Henniker--when I was roused by hearing Jackson (as I shall in future call him) crying out, "Boy, boy!" "Boy, indeed," thought I--"no longer boy," and I gave no reply. Again he called, and at last he cried out "Henniker," but I had been ruffled by his calling me boy, and I would not answer him. At last he fairly screamed my name, and then was silent. After a moment, I perceived that he crawled out of his bed-place, and feeling by the sides of the cabin, contrived on his hands and knees to crawl in the direction of the hole into which the water had previously been received; and I smiled at what I knew would be his disappointment when he arrived there. He did so at last: put his hand to feel the edge of the hole, and then down into it to feel for the water; and when he found that there was none, he cursed bitterly, and I laughed at his vexation. He then felt all the way down where the water had fallen, and found that the course of it had been stopped, and he dared not attempt anything further. He dashed his clenched hand against the rock. "Oh! That I had him in this grasp--if it were but for one moment. I would not care if I died the next." "I do not doubt you," replied I to him, above; "but you have not got me in your hands, and you will not. Go in to bed directly--quick," cried I, throwing a piece of rock at him, which hit him on the head. "Crawl back as fast as you can, you fool, or I'll send another at your head directly. I'll tame you, as you used to say to me." The blow on the head appeared to have confused him; but after a time he crawled back to his bed-place, and threw himself down with a heavy groan. CHAPTER FOUR. I then went down to the water's edge to see if I could find anything from the wreck, for the water was smooth, and no longer washed over the rocks of the island. Except fragments of wood, I perceived nothing until I arrived at the pool where we were accustomed to bathe; and I found that the sea had thrown into it two articles of large dimensions-- one was a cask of the size of a puncheon, which lay in about a foot of water farthest from the seaward; and the other was a seaman's chest. What these things were I did not then know, and I wish the reader to recollect that a great portion of this narrative is compiled from after knowledge. The cask was firm in the sand, and I could not move it. The chest was floating; I hauled it on the rocks without difficulty, and then proceeded to open it. It was some time before I could discover how, for I had never seen a lock or a hinge in my life; but at last, finding that the lid was the only portion of the chest which yielded, I contrived, with a piece of rock, to break it open. I found in it a quantity of seamen's clothes, upon which I put no value; but some of the articles I immediately comprehended the use of, and they filled me with delight. There were two new tin pannikins, and those would hold water. There were three empty wine-bottles, a hammer, a chisel, gimlet, and some other tools, also three or four fishing-lines many fathoms long. But what pleased me most were two knives, one shutting up, with a lanyard sheath to wear round the waist; and the other an American long knife, in a sheath, which is usually worn by them in the belt. Now, three or four years back, Jackson had the remains of a clasp knife--that is, there was about an inch of the blade remaining--and this, as may be supposed, he valued very much; indeed, miserable as the article was, in our destitute state it was invaluable. This knife he had laid on the rock when fishing, and it had been dragged into the sea as his line ran out; and he was for many days inconsolable for its loss. We had used it for cutting open the birds when we skinned them, and, indeed, this remains of a knife had been always in request. Since the loss of it, we had had hard work to get the skins off the birds; I therefore well knew the value of these knives, which I immediately secured. The remainder of the articles in the chest, which was quite full, I laid upon the rocks, with the clothes, to dry; of most of them I did not know the use, and consequently did not prize them at the time. It was not until afterwards, when I had taken them to my companion, that I learned their value. I may as well here observe, that amongst these articles were two books, and from the positive commands of my companion, not to touch the book in the cabin, I looked upon them with a degree of awe, and hesitated upon taking them in my hand; but, at last, I put them out to dry on the rocks, with the rest of the contents of the chest. I felt the knives, the blades were sharp; I put the lanyard of the clasp knife round my neck; the sheath knife, which was a formidable weapon, I made fast round my waist, with a piece of the fishing-lines, which I cut off; and I then turned my steps towards the cabin, as night was coming on, though the moon was high in the heavens, and shining brightly. On my return, I found Jackson in his bed-place; he heard me come in, and asked me in a quiet tone, whether I would bring him some water. I answered-- "No, that I would not, for what he had said about me, and what he would do if he got me into his power. I'll tame you," cried I. "I'm master now, as you shall find." "You may be," replied he, quickly, "but still that is no reason why you should not let me have some water. Did I ever prevent you from having water?" "You never had to fetch it for me," I rejoined, "or you would not have taken the trouble. What trouble would you take for me, if I were blind now and not you? I should become of no use to you, and you would leave me to die. You only let me live that you might make me work for you, and beat me cruelly. It's my turn now--you're the boy, and I'm the master." The reader must remember that I did not know the meaning of the word "boy;" my idea of it was, that it was in opposition to "master," and boy, with me, had the same idea as the word "slave." "Be it so," replied he, calmly. "I shall not want water long." There was a quietness about Jackson which made me suspect him, and the consequence was, that, although I turned into my bed-place, which was on the ground at the side of the cabin opposite to his, I did not feel inclined to go to sleep, but remained awake, thinking of what had passed. It was towards morning when I heard him move; my face being turned that way, I had no occasion to stir to watch his motions. He crept very softly out of his bed-place towards me, listening, and advancing on his knees, not more than a foot every ten seconds. "You want me in your grasp," thought I; "come along," and I drew my American knife from its sheath, without noise, and awaited his approach, smiling at the surprise he would meet with. I allowed him to come right up to me; he felt the side of my bed, and then passed his right hand over to seize me. I caught his right hand with my left, and passing the knife across his wrist, more than half divided it from his arm. He gave a shriek of surprise and pain, and fell back. "He has a knife," exclaimed he, with surprise, holding his severed wrist with the other hand. "Yes, he has a knife, and more than one," replied I; "and you see that he knows how to use it. Will you come again? Or will you believe that I am master?" "If you have any charity or mercy, kill me at once," said he, as he sat up in the moonlight, in the centre of the floor of the cabin. "Charity and mercy," said I, "what are they? I never heard of them." "Alas! No," replied he, "I have showed none--it's a judgment on me--a judgment on me for my many sins; Lord, forgive me! First my eyes, now my right hand useless. What next, O Lord of Heaven?" "Why, your other hand next," replied I, "if you try it again." Jackson made no reply. He attempted to crawl back to his bed, but, faint with loss of blood, he dropped senseless on the floor of the cabin. I looked at him, and, satisfied that he would make no more attempts upon me, I turned away, and fell fast asleep. In about two hours I awoke, and looking round, perceived him lying on the floor, where he had fallen the night before. I went to him and examined him-- was he asleep; or was he dead? He lay in a pool of blood. I felt him, and he was quite warm. It was a ghastly cut on his wrist, and I thought, if he is dead, he will never tell me what I want to know. I knew that he bound up cuts to stop the blood. I took some feathers from the bed, and put a handful on the wound. After I had done it, I bound his wrist up with a piece of fishing-line I had taken to secure the sheath knife round my waist, and then I went for some water. I poured some down his throat; this revived him, and he opened his eyes. "Where am I?" said he, faintly. "Where are you?--why, in the cabin," said I. "Give me some more water." I did so, for I did not wish to kill him. I wanted him to live, and to be in my power. After drinking the water, he roused himself, and crawled back to his bed-place. I left him then, and went down to bathe. The reader may exclaim--What a horrid tyrant this boy is--why, he is as bad as his companion. Exactly--I was so; but let the reader reflect that I was made so by education. From the time that I could first remember, I had been tyrannised over; cuffed, kicked, abused, and ill-treated. I had never known kindness. Most truly was the question put by me, "Charity and mercy--what are they?" I never heard of them. An American Indian has kind feelings--he is hospitable and generous-- yet, educated to inflict, and receive, the severest tortures to, and from, his enemies, he does the first with the most savage and vindictive feelings, and submits to the latter with indifference and stoicism. He has, indeed, the kindlier feelings of his nature exercised; still, this changes him not. He has been from earliest infancy brought up to cruelty, and he cannot feel that it is wrong. Now, my position was worse. I had never seen the softer feelings of our nature called into play; I knew nothing but tyranny and oppression, hatred and vengeance. It was therefore, not surprising that when my turn came, I did to others as I had been done by. Jackson had no excuse for his treatment of me, whereas I had every excuse for retaliation. He did know better, I did not. I followed the ways of the world in the petty microcosm in which I had been placed. I knew not of mercy, of forgiveness, charity, or good-will. I knew not that there was a God; I only knew that might was right, and the most pleasurable sensation which I felt was that of anxiety for vengeance, combined with the consciousness of power. After I had bathed, I again examined the chest and its contents. I looked at the books without touching them. "I must know what these mean," thought I, "and I will know." My thirst for knowledge was certainly most remarkable, in a boy of my age; I presume for the simple reason, that we want most what we cannot obtain; and Jackson having invariably refused to enlighten me on any subject, I became most anxious and impatient to satisfy the longing which increased with my growth. CHAPTER FIVE. For three days did Jackson lie on his bed; I supplied him with water, but he did not eat anything. He groaned heavily at times, and talked much to himself, and I heard him ask forgiveness of God, and pardon for his sins. I noted this down for an explanation. On the third day, he said to me: "Henniker, I am very ill. I have a fever coming on, from the wound you have given me. I do not say that I did not deserve it, for I did, and I know that I have treated you ill; and that you must hate me; but the question is, do you wish me to die?" "No," replied I, "I want you to live, and answer all my questions, and you shall do so." "I will do so," replied he. "I have done wrong, and I will make amends. Do you understand me? I mean to say, that I have been very cruel to you, and now I will do all you wish, and answer every question you may put to me, as well as I can." "That is what I want," replied I. "I know it is, but my wound is festering, and must be washed and dressed. The feathers make it worse. Will you do this for me?" I thought a little, and recollected that he was still in my power, as he could not obtain water. I replied, "Yes, I will." "The cord hurts it, you must take it off." I fetched the kid of water, and untied the cord, and took away the feathers, which had matted together with the flow of blood, and then I washed the wound carefully. Looking into the wound, my desire of information induced me to say, "What are these little white cords which are cut through?" "They are the sinews and tendons," replied he, "by which we are enabled to move our hands and fingers; now these are cut through, I shall not have the use of my hand again." "Stop a moment," said I, rising up, "I have just thought of something." I ran down to the point where the chest lay, took a shirt from the rock, and brought it back with me, and tearing it into strips, I bandaged the wound. "Where did you get that linen?" said Jackson. I told him. "And you got the knife there, too," said he, with a sigh. I replied in the affirmative. As soon as I had finished, he told me he was much easier, and said: "I thank you." "What is, I thank you?" replied I. "It means that I am grateful for what you have done." "And what is grateful?" inquired I again. "You never said those words to me before." "Alas, no," replied he, "it had been better if I had. I mean that I feel kindly towards you, for having bound up my wound, and would do any thing for you if I had the power. It means, that if I had my eyesight, as I had a week ago, and was master, as I then was, that I would not kick nor beat you, but be kind to you. Do you understand me?" "Yes," replied I, "I think I do; and if you tell me all I want to know, I shall believe you." "That I will as soon as I am well enough; but now I am too ill--you must wait a day or two, till the fever has left me." Satisfied with Jackson's promise, I tended him carefully, and washed and dressed his wound for the two following days. He said that he felt himself much better, and his language to me was so kind and conciliatory, that I hardly knew what to make of it; but this is certain, that it had a good effect upon me, and gradually the hatred and ill-will that I bore to him wore off, and I found myself handling him tenderly, and anxious not to give him more pain than was necessary, yet without being aware that I was prompted by better feelings. It was on the third morning that he said-- "I can talk to you now; what do you want to know?" "I want to know the whole story of how we came to this island, who my father and mother were, and why you said that you hated me and my name?" "That," said Jackson, after a silence of a few minutes, "will take some time. I could soon tell it you, if it were not for the last question,-- why I hated your name? But the history of your father is so mixed up with mine, that I cannot well tell one without the other. I may as well begin with my own history, and that will be telling you both." "Then tell it me," replied I, "and do not tell me what is not true." "No; I will tell you exactly what it was," replied Jackson; "you may as well know it as not.--Your father and I were both born in England, which you know is your country by birth, and you also know that the language we talk is English." "I did not know it. Tell me something about England before you say any more." I will not trouble the reader with Jackson's description of England, or the many questions which I put to him. It was night-fall before he had finished answering, and before I was satisfied with the information imparted. I believe that he was very glad to hold his tongue, for he complained of being tired, and I dressed his wound and wetted the bandage with cold water for him before he went to sleep. I can hardly describe to the reader the effect which this uninterrupted flow of language had upon me; I was excited in a very strange way, and for many nights after could not sleep for hours. I may say here, I did not understand a great proportion of the meaning of the words used by Jackson; but I gathered it from the context, as I could not always be interrupting him. It is astonishing how fast ideas breed ideas, and how a word, the meaning of which I did not understand when it was first used, became by repetition clear and intelligible; not that I always put the right construction on it; but if I did not find it answer when used at another time to my former interpretation of it, I would then ask and obtain an explanation. This did not, however, occur very often. As for this first night, I was positively almost drunk with words, and remained nearly the whole of it arranging and fixing the new ideas that I had acquired. My feelings towards Jackson also were changed--that is, I no longer felt hatred or ill-will against him. These were swallowed up in the pleasure which he had afforded me, and I looked upon him as a treasure beyond all price,--not but that many old feelings towards him returned at intervals, for they were not so easily disposed of; but still I would not for the world have lost him until I had obtained from him all possible knowledge; and if his wound did not look well when I removed the bandage, I was much more distressed than he was. Indeed, there was every prospect of our ultimately being friends, from our mutual dependence on each other. It was useless on his part, in his present destitute condition, to nourish feelings of animosity against one on whose good offices he was now so wholly dependent, or on my part, against one who was creating for me, I may say, new worlds for imagination and thought to dwell on. On the following morning. Jackson narrated in substance (as near as I can recollect) as follows:-- "I was not intended for a sailor. I was taught at a good school, and when I was ten years old, I was put into a house of business as a clerk, where I remained at the desk all day long, copying into ledgers and day-books, in fact, writing what was required of me. This house was connected with the South American trade." "Where is South America?" said I. "You had better let me tell my story," replied Jackson, "and after I have done, you can ask any questions you like; but if you stop me, it will take a week to finish it; yesterday we lost the whole day." "That's very true," replied I, "then I will do so." "There were two other clerks in the counting-house--the head clerk, whose name was Manvers, and your father, who was in the counting-house but a few months before me. Our master, whose name was Evelyn, was very particular with both your father and myself, scanning our work daily, and finding fault when we deserved it. This occasioned a rivalry between us, which made us both very active, and I received praise quite as often as he did. On Sunday, Mr Evelyn used to ask your father and me to spend the day. We went to church in the forenoon and dined with him. He had a daughter a little younger than we were. She was your mother. Both of us, as we grew up, were very attentive to her, and anxious to be in her good graces. I cannot say which was preferred at first, but I rather think that if anything, I was the favourite during the first two years of our being acquainted with her. I was more lively and a better companion than your father, who was inclined to be grave and thoughtful. We had been about four years in the counting-house, when my mother died--my father had been dead some time before I went into it--and at her death I found my share of her property to amount to about 2,500 pounds. But I was not yet twenty-one years of age. I could not receive it for another year. Mr Evelyn, who had till then every reason to be satisfied with my conduct, used to joke with me, and say that as soon as I was of age, he would allow me, if I chose it, to put the money in the business, and thus obtain a small share in it--and such was my intention, and I looked forward to bright prospects and the hope of one day being married to your mother; and I have no doubt but such would have been the case, had I still conducted myself properly. But, before I was of age, I made some very bad acquaintances, and soon ran into expenses which I could not afford, and the worst was, that I contracted a habit of sitting up late at night, and drinking to excess, which I never have since got over, which proved my ruin then, and has proved my ruin through life. This little fortune of mine not only gave me consequence, but was the cause of my thinking very highly of myself. I now was more particular in my attentions to Miss Evelyn, and was graciously received by her father; neither had I any reason to complain of my treatment from the young lady. As for your father, he was quite thrown into the back-ground. He had no property nor hope of any, except what he might hereafter secure by his diligence and good conduct; and the attention I received from Mr Evelyn, and also the head clerk, who had an idea that I was to be a partner and consequently would become his superior, made him very melancholy and unhappy, for I believe that then he was quite as much in love with Miss Evelyn as I was myself; and I must tell you, that my love for her was unbounded, and she well deserved it. But all these happy prospects were overthrown by my own folly. As soon as it was known that I had property left to me, I was surrounded by many others who requested to be introduced to me, and my evenings were passed in what I considered very good company, but which proved the very reverse. By degrees I took to gambling, and after a time, lost more money than I could afford to pay. This caused me to have recourse to a Jew, who advanced me loans at a large interest to be repaid at my coming of age. Trying to win back my money, I at last found myself indebted to the Jew for the sum of nearly 1,000 pounds. The more that I became involved, the more reckless I became. Mr Evelyn perceived that I kept late hours, and looked haggard, as I well might; indeed, my position had now become very awkward. Mr Evelyn knew well the sum that had been left me, and how was I to account to him for the deficiency, if he proposed that I should put it into the business? I should be ruined in his opinion, and he never, I was convinced, would intrust the happiness of his daughter to a young man who had been guilty of such irregularities. At the same time, my love for her nearly amounted to adoration. Never was there a more miserable being than I was for the last six months previous to my coming of age; and to drown my misery I plunged into every excess, and seldom, if ever, went to bed but in a state of intoxication. Scheme after scheme did I propose to enable me to conceal my fault; but I could hit upon nothing. The time approached; I was within a few days of coming of age, when Mr Evelyn sent for me and then spoke to me seriously, saying, that out of regard to the memory of my father, with whom he had been very intimate, he was willing to allow me to embark my little capital in the business, and that he hoped that by my good conduct and application I might soon become a useful partner. I stammered some reply, which surprised him; and he asked me to be more explicit. I stated that I considered my capital too small to be of much use in such a business as his, and that I preferred trying some quick method of doubling it; that as soon as I had so done I would accept his offer with gratitude. `As you please,' replied he coolly; `but take care, that in risking all, you do not lose all. Of course, you are your own master,' and so saying, he left me, apparently much displeased and mortified. But circumstances occurred, which exposed the whole affair. When in company with my evening companions, I stated my intentions of trying my fortune in the East Indies, not seriously, but talking at random. This came to the ears of the Jew of whom I had borrowed the money; he thought that I intended to leave the kingdom, without taking up my bonds, and immediately repaired to Mr Evelyn's counting-house, to communicate with the head clerk, and ascertain if the report was correct, stating also the sums I was indebted to him. The head clerk informed Mr Evelyn, and on the day upon which I became twenty-one years of age, he sent for me into his private room, and, after some remonstrances, to which I replied very haughtily, it ended in my being dismissed. The fact was, that Mr Evelyn had, since his last interview with me, made inquiries, and finding out I had been living a very riotous life, he had determined upon my leaving his service. As soon as my first burst of indignation was over, I felt what I had lost; my attachment to Miss Evelyn was stronger than ever, and I bitterly deplored my folly; but after a time, as usual, I had recourse to the bottle, and to drowning my cares in intemperance. I tried very hard to obtain an interview with Miss Evelyn previous to my quitting the house, but this Mr Evelyn would not permit, and a few days after, sent his daughter away, to reside, for a time, with a relation in the country. I embarked my capital in the wine-trade, and, could I have restrained myself from drinking, should have been successful, and in a short time might have doubled my property, as I stated to Mr Evelyn; but now I had become an irreclaimable drunkard; and when that is the case, all hope is over. My affairs soon became deranged, and, at the request of my partner, they were wound up, and I found myself with my capital of 1,500 pounds reduced to 1,000 pounds. With this I resolved to try my fortune in shipping; I procured a share in a brig, and sailed in her myself. After a time, I was sufficiently expert to take the command of her, and might have succeeded, had not my habit of drinking been so confirmed. When at Ceylon, I fell sick, and was left behind. The brig was lost, and as I had forgotten to insure my portion of her, I was ruined. I struggled long, but in vain--intemperance was my curse, my bane, the millstone at my neck, which dragged me down: I had education, talents, and energy, and at one time, capital; but all were useless; and thus did I sink down, from captain of a vessel to mate, from mate to second mate, until I at last found myself a drunken sailor before the mast. Such is my general history; to-morrow I will let you know how, and in what way, your father and I met again, and what occurred, up to this present time." But I was too much bewildered and confused with what he had told me, to allow him to proceed, as he proposed. "No, no," replied I. "I now recollect all you have said, although I do not understand. You must first answer my questions, as to the meaning of words I never heard of before. I cannot understand what money is, what gaming is, and a great many more things you have talked about, but I recollect, and can repeat every word that you have said. To-morrow, I will recall it all over, and you shall tell me what I cannot make out; after that you can go on again." "Very well," replied he, "I don't care how long it takes me to answer your questions, for I am not very anxious to tell all about your father and myself." CHAPTER SIX. I can hardly describe to the reader the effect which these conversations with Jackson had upon me at first. If a prisoner were removed from a dark cell, and all at once introduced into a garden full of fruit and flowers, which he never before had an idea were in existence, he could not have been more filled with wonder, surprise, and pleasure. All was novelty and excitement, but at the same time, to a great degree, above my comprehension. I had neither language nor ideas to meet it, and yet I did, to a certain degree, comprehend. I saw not clearly, but sometimes as through a mist, at others through a dark fog, and I could discern little. Every day, however, my increased knowledge of language and terms gave me an increased knowledge of ideas. I gained more by context than I did by any other means, and as I was by degrees enlightened, so my thirst for information and knowledge became every day more insatiable. That much that I considered I understood was erroneous, is certain, for mine was a knowledge, as yet, of theory only. I could imagine to myself, as far as the explanation I received, what such an object might be, and, having made up my ideas on the matter, I was content; further knowledge would, however, incline me to think, and occasionally to decide, that the idea I had formed was incorrect, and I would alter it. Thus did I flounder about in a sea of uncertainty, but still of exciting interest. If any one who has been educated, and has used his eyes in a civilised country, reads an account of people and things hitherto unknown to him, he can, from the description and from his own general knowledge, form a very correct idea of what the country contains. But then he has used his eyes--he has seen those objects between which the parallel or the difference has been pointed out. Now I had not that advantage. I had seen nothing but the sea, rocks, and sea-birds, and had but one companion. Here was my great difficulty, which, I may say, was never surmounted, until I had visited and mixed with civilisation and men. The difficulty, however, only increased my ardour. I was naturally of an ingenious mind, I had a remarkable memory, and every increase of knowledge was to me a source of delight. In fact, I had now something to live for--before I had not; and I verily believe, that if Jackson had been by any chance removed from me at this particular time, I should soon have become a lunatic, from the sudden drying up of the well which supplied my inordinate thirst for knowledge. Some days passed before I asked Jackson to continue his narrative, during which we lived in great harmony. Whether it was that he was deceiving me, and commanding his temper till he had an opportunity of revenge, or whether it was that his forlorn and helpless condition had softened him down, I could not say; but he appeared gradually to be forming an attachment to me; I was, however, on my guard at all times. His wounded wrist had now healed up, but his hand was quite useless, as all the tendons had been severed. I had therefore less to fear from him than before. At my request that he would continue his history, Jackson related as follows:-- "After sailing in vessel after vessel, and generally dismissed after the voyage for my failing of intemperance, I embarked on board a ship bound to Chili, and after having been on the coast for nearly a year, we were about to proceed home with a cargo, when we anchored at Valdivia, previous to our homeward voyage, as we had some few articles to ship at that port. We were again ready for sea, when we heard, from the captain, that he had agreed to take two passengers, a gentleman and his wife, who wished to proceed to England. The cabin was cleared out, and every preparation made to receive them on board, and in the evening the boat was sent on shore for the luggage. I went in the boat, as I thought it likely that the gentleman would give the boat's crew something to drink; nor was I wrong--he gave us four dollars, which we spent immediately in one of the ventas, and were all more or less intoxicated. It had been arranged that the luggage should first be carried on board, and after that, we were to return for the passengers, as we were to sail early in the morning. We pulled off with the luggage, but on our arrival on board, I was so drunk, that the captain would not allow me to return in the boat, and I knew nothing of what had passed until I was roused up the next morning to assist in getting the ship under weigh. We had been under weigh two or three hours, and were clearing the land fast, when the gentleman passenger came on deck; I was then coiling down a rope on the quarter-deck, and as he passed by me, I looked at him, and I recognised him immediately as your father. Years had passed--from a stripling he had grown a man; but his face was not to be mistaken. There he was, apparently a gentleman of property and consideration; and I, what was I? A drunken sailor. All I hoped was, that he would not recognise me. Shortly afterwards he went down again, and returned escorting his wife on deck. Again I took a furtive curious glance, and perceived at once that she was that Miss Evelyn, whom I had once so loved, and by my folly had lost. This was madness. As they stood on the deck, enjoying the cool sea breeze, for the weather was delightfully fine, the captain came up and joined them. I was so confused at my discovery, that I knew not what I was about, and I presume was doing something very awkwardly; for the captain said to me--`Jackson, what are you about, you drunken hound? I suppose you are not sober yet.' At the mention of my name, your father and mother looked at me, and as I lifted up my head to reply to the captain, they eyed me earnestly, and then spoke to each other in a low tone; after which they interrogated the captain. I could not hear what they said, but I was certain they were talking about me, and that they had suspected, if they had not recognised me. I was ready to sink to the deck, and, at the same time, I felt a hatred of your father enter my heart, of which, during his life, I never could divest myself. It was as I supposed; your father had recognised me, and the following morning he came up to me as I was leaning over the gunwale amid ships, and addressed me,--`Jackson,' said he, `I am sorry to find you in this situation. You must have been very unfortunate to have become so reduced. If you will confide your history to me, perhaps I may, when we arrive in England, be able to assist you, and it really will give me great pleasure.' I cannot say that I replied very cordially. `Mr Henniker,' said I, `you have been fortunate, by all appearances, and can therefore afford compassion to those who have not been so; but, sir, in our positions, I feel as if pity was in reality a sort of triumph, and an offer of assistance an insult. I am content with my present position, and will at all events not change it by your interference. I earn my bread honestly. You can do no more. Times may change yet. It's a long road that has no turning to it. I wish you a good morning.' So saying, I turned from him, and walked away forward, with my heart full of bitterness and anger. From that hour he never spoke to me or noticed me again; but the captain was more severe upon me, and I ascribed his severity most unjustly to your father. We were about to go round Cape Horn, when the gale from the S.E. came on, which ended in the loss of the vessel. For several days we strove up against it, but at last the vessel, which was old, leaked so much from straining, that we were obliged to bear up and run before it, which we did for several days, the wind and sea continuing without intermission. At last we found ourselves among these islands, and were compelled occasionally to haul to the wind to clear them. This made her leak more and more, until at last she became water logged, and we were forced to abandon her in haste, during the night, having no time to take anything with us; we left three men on board, who were down below. By the mercy of Heaven we ran the boat into the opening below, which was the only spot where we could have landed. I think I had better stop now, as I have a good deal to tell you yet." "Do then," replied I; "and now I think of it, I will bring up the chest and all the things which were in it, and you shall tell me what they are." I went down and returned with the clothes and linen. There were eight pair of trousers, nine shirts, besides the one I had torn up to bandage his wounds with, two pair of blue trousers, and two jackets, four white duck frocks, some shoes, and stockings. Jackson felt them one by one with his hands, and told me what they were, and how worn. "Why don't you wear some of them?" inquired I. "If you will give me leave, I will," replied he. "Let me have a duck frock and a pair of trousers." I handed the articles to him, and then went back for the rest, which I had left on the rocks. When I returned, with my arms full, I found that he had put them on, and his other clothes were beside him. "I feel more like a Christian now," said he. "A Christian," said I, "what is that?" "I will tell you by-and-bye. It is what I have not been for a long, long while," replied he. "Now, what have you brought this time?" "Here," said I, "what is this?" "This is a roll of duck, to make into frocks and trousers," replied he. "That is bees'-wax." He then explained to me all the tools, sailing-needles, fish-hooks, and fishing-lines, some sheets of writing-paper, and two pens, I had brought up with me. "All these are very valuable," said he, after a pause, "and would have added much to our comfort, if I had not been blind." "There are more things yet," said I; "I will go and fetch them." This time I replaced the remaining articles, and brought up the chest. It was a heavy load to carry up the rocks, and I was out of breath when I arrived and set it down on the cabin floor. "Now I have the whole of them," said I. "Now, what is this?" "That is a spy-glass--but, alas! I am blind--but I will show you how to use it, at all events." "Here are two books," said I. "Give them to me," said he, "and let me feel them. This one is a Bible, I am quite sure by its shape, and the other is, I think, a Prayer-book." "What is a Bible, and what is a Prayer-book?" replied I. "The Bible is the word of God, and the Prayer-book teaches us how to pray to him." "But who is God? I have often heard you say, `O God!' and `God damn'-- but who is he?" "I will tell you to-night, before we go to sleep," replied Jackson, gravely. "Very well, I shall remind you. I have found a little box inside the chest, and it is full of all manner of little things--strings and sinews." "Let me feel them." I put a bundle into his hand. "These are needles and thread for making and mending clothes--they will be useful by-and-bye." At last the whole contents of the chest were overhauled and explained. I could not well comprehend the glass bottles, or how they were made, but I put them, with the pannikins, and everything else, very carefully into the chest again, and hauled the chest to the further end of the cabin, out of the way. Before we went to bed that night, Jackson had to explain to me who God was, but as it was only the commencement of several conversations on the subject, I shall not at present trouble the reader with what passed between us. Jackson appeared to be very melancholy after the conversation we had had on religious matters, and was frequently agitated and muttering to himself. CHAPTER SEVEN. I did not on the following day ask him to resume his narrative relative to my father and mother, as I perceived that he avoided it, and I already had so far changed, as to have consideration for his feelings. Another point had now taken possession of my mind, which was, whether it were possible to learn to read those books which I had found in the chest, and this was the first question that I put to Jackson when we arose on that morning. "How is it possible?" replied he. "Am I not blind--how can I teach you?" "Is there no way?" replied I, mournfully. "Let me think.--Yes, perhaps there is a way--at all events we will try. You know which book I told you was the Prayer-book?" "Oh yes! The small, thin one." "Yes--fetch it here. Now," said he, when I put it into his hand, "tell me; is there a straight line down the middle of the page of the book, so that the words and letters are on both sides of it?" "Yes, there is," replied I; "in every page, as you call it, there is a black line down the middle, and words and letters (I suppose they are) on both sides." "And among the letters there are some larger than others, especially at the side nearest to the margin." "I don't know what margin is." "I mean here," replied he, pointing to the margin of the page. "Yes, there are." "Well then, I will open the book as near as I can guess at the Morning Service, and you tell me if you can find any part of the writing which appears to begin with a large round letter, like--what shall I say?--the bottom of a pannikin." "There is one on this leaf, quite round." "Very well--now get me a small piece of stick, and make a point to it." I did so, and Jackson swept away a small place on the floor of the cabin. "Now," said he, "there are many other prayers which begin with a round O, as the letter is called; so I must first ascertain if this one is the one I require. If it is, I know it by heart, and by that shall be able to teach you all the letters of the alphabet." "What's an alphabet?" "The alphabet is the number of letters invented to enable us to read and write. There are twenty-six of them. Now look, Frank; is the next letter to O the shape of this?" and he drew with the pointed stick the letter U on the ground. "Yes, it is," replied I. "And the next is like this," continued he, drawing the letter R, after he had smoothed the ground and effaced the U. "Yes," replied I. "Well then, to make sure, I had better go on, OUR is one word, and then there is a little space between; and next you come to an F." "Yes," replied I, looking at what he had drawn, and comparing it with the letter in the book. "Then I believe that we are all right, but to make sure, we will go on for a little longer." Jackson then completed the word "Father," and "which art," that followed it, and then he was satisfied. "Now," said he, "out of that prayer I can teach you all the letters, and if you pay attention, you will learn to read." The whole morning was passed in my telling him the different letters, and I very soon knew them all. During the day, the Lord's Prayer was gone through, and as I learnt the words as well as the letters, I could repeat it before night; I read it over to him twenty or thirty times, spelling every word, letter by letter, until I was perfect. This was my first lesson. "Why is it called the Lord's Prayer?" said I. "Because, when our Lord Jesus Christ was asked by his followers in what way they ought to address God, he gave them this prayer to repeat, as being the most proper that they could use." "But who was Jesus Christ?" "He was the Son of God, as I told you yesterday, and at the same time equal with God." "How could he be equal with God, if, as you said yesterday, God sent him down to be killed?" "It was with his own consent that he suffered death: but all this is a mystery which you cannot understand at present." "What's a mystery?" "That which you cannot understand." "Do you understand it yourself?" "No, I do not; I only know that such is the fact; but it is above not only mine, but all men's comprehension. But I tell you honestly, that on these points, I am but a bad teacher; I have paid little attention to them during my life, and as far as religion is concerned, I can only give you the outlines, for I know no more." "But I thought you said that people were to be punished or rewarded when they died, according as they had lived a bad or good life; and that to live a good life, people must be religious, and obey God's commands." "I did tell you so, and I told you the truth; but I did not tell you that I had led a bad life, as I have done, and that I have neglected to pay obedience to God's word and command." "Then you will be punished when you die, will you not?" "Alas! I fear so, child," replied Jackson, putting his hands up to his forehead and hiding his face. "But there is still time," continued he, after a pause; and "O God of mercy!" exclaimed he, "how shall I escape?" I was about to continue the conversation, but Jackson requested that I would leave him alone for a time. I went out and sat on the rock, watching the stars. "And those," he says, "were all made by God." "And God made everything," thought I, "and God lives up beyond those stars." I thought for a long while, and was much perplexed. I had never heard anything of God till the night before, and what Jackson had told me was just enough to make me more anxious and curious; but he evidently did not like to talk on the subject. I tried, after a time, if I could repeat the Lord's Prayer, and I found that I could, so I knelt down on the rock, and looking up to a bright star, as if I would imagine it was God, I repeated the Lord's Prayer to it, and then I rose up and went to bed. This was the first time that I had ever prayed. I had learnt so much from Jackson, latterly, that I could hardly retain what I had learnt; at all events, I had a very confused recollection in my brain, and my thoughts turned from one subject to another, till there was, for a time, a perfect chaos; by degrees things unravelled themselves, and my ideas became more clear; but still I laboured under that half-comprehension of things which, in my position, was unavoidable. But now my mind was occupied with one leading object and wish, which was to learn to read. I thought no more of Jackson's history and the account he might give me of my father and mother, and was as willing as he was that it should be deferred for a time. What I required now was to be able to read the books, and to this object my whole mind and attention were given. Three or four hours in the earlier portion of the day, and the same time in the latter, were dedicated to this pursuit, and my attention never tired or flagged. In the course of, I think, about six weeks, I could read, without hesitation, almost any portion of the Bible or Prayer-book. I required no more teaching from Jackson, who now became an attentive hearer, as I read to him every morning and evening a portion of the Gospel or Liturgy. But I cannot say that I understood many portions which I read, and the questions which I put to Jackson puzzled him not a little, and very often he acknowledged that he could not answer them. As I afterwards discovered, this arose from his own imperfect knowledge of the nature of the Christian religion, which, according to his statement to me, might be considered to have been comprised in the following sentence: "If you do good on earth, you will go to heaven and be happy; if you do ill, you will go to hell and be tormented. Christ came down from heaven to teach us what to do, and how to follow his example; and all that we read in the Bible we must believe." This may be considered as the creed imparted to me at that time. I believe that Jackson, like many others, knew no better, and candidly told me what he himself had been taught to believe. But the season for the return of the birds arrived, and our stock of provender was getting low. I was therefore soon obliged to leave my books, and work hard for Jackson and myself. As soon as the young birds were old enough, I set to my task. And now I found how valuable were the knives which I had obtained from the seaman's chest; indeed, in many points I could work much faster. By tying the neck and sleeves of a duck frock, I made a bag, which enabled me to carry the birds more conveniently, and in greater quantities at a time; and with the knives I could skin and prepare a bird in one quarter of the time. With my fishing-lines also, I could hang up more to dry at one time, so that, though without assistance, I had more birds cured in the same time than when Jackson and I were both employed in the labour. The whole affair, however, occupied me from morning to evening for more than three weeks, by which time the major portion of my provender was piled up at the back of the cabin. I did not, however, lose what I had gained in reading, as Jackson would not let me go away in the morning, or retire to my bed in the evening, without my reading to him a portion of the Bible: indeed he appeared to be quite uncomfortable if I did not do so. At last, the work was ended, and then I felt a strong desire return to hear that portion of Jackson's history connected with my father and mother, and I told him so. He did not appear to be, pleased with my communication, or at all willing to proceed; but as I pressed him hard and showed some symptoms of resolution and rebellion, he reluctantly resumed his narrative. CHAPTER EIGHT. "I wish you to understand," said he, "that my unwillingness to go on with my history proceeds from my being obliged to make known to you the hatred that subsisted between your father and me; but if you will recollect, that we both had, in our early days, been striving to gain the same object--I mean your mother--and also that he had taken, as it were, what I considered to have been my place, in other points--that he had been successful in life, and I had been unfortunate, you must not then be surprised at my hating him as I did." "I understand nothing about your feelings," replied I; "and why he injured you by marrying my mother, I cannot see." "Why, I loved her." "Well, suppose you did, I don't know what love is, and therefore cannot understand it, so tell me the story." "Well then, when I left off, I told you that we had ventured to land upon this island, by running the boat into the bathing-pond; but in so doing, the boat was beaten to pieces, and was of no use afterwards. We landed, eight persons in all; that is, the captain, your father, the carpenter, mate, and three seamen, besides your mother. We had literally nothing in the boat except three axes, two kids, and the two pannikins, which we have indeed now; but as for provisions, or even water, we had none of either. Our first object, therefore, was to search the island to obtain water, and this we soon found at the rill which now runs down by the side of the cabin. It was very fortunate for us that we arrived exactly at the time that the birds had come on the island and had just laid their eggs; if not, we must have perished with hunger, for we had not a fish hook with us, or even a fathom of line. "We collected a quantity of eggs, and made a good meal, although we devoured them raw. While we were running about, or rather climbing about, over the rocks; to find out what chance of subsistence we might have on the island, the captain and your father remained with your mother, who sat down in a sheltered spot near to the bathing-pool. On our return in the evening, the captain called us all together, that he might speak to us; and he said, that if we would do well, we must all act in concert; that it also would be necessary that one should have the command and control of the others; that without such was the case, nothing would go on well;--and he asked us if we did not consider that what he said was true. We all agreed, although I, for one, felt little inclination to do so; but as all the rest said so, I raised no objections. The captain then told us that, as we were all of one opinion, the next point was to decide as to who should have the command; he said, that if it had been on ship-board, he of course would have taken it himself, but now we were on shore, he thought that Mr Henniker was a much more competent person than he was, and he therefore proposed that the command should be given to him, and he, for one, would willingly be under his orders. To this proposal, the carpenter and mate immediately agreed, and at last two of the seamen. I was left alone, but I resisted, saying, that I was not going to be ordered about by a landsman, and that if I were to obey orders, it must be from a thorough-bred seaman. The other two sailors were of my way of thinking, I was sure, although they had given their consent, and I hoped that they would join me, which they appeared very much inclined to do. Your father spoke very coolly, modestly, and prudently. He pointed out that he had no wish to take the command, and that he would cheerfully serve under the captain of the vessel, if it would be more satisfactory to all parties that such should be the case. But the captain and the others were positive, saying that they would not have their choice disputed by such a drunken vagabond as I was, and that if I did not like to remain with them, I might go to any part of the island that I chose. This conference ended by my getting in a passion, and saying that I would not be under your father's orders; and I was seizing one of the axes to go off with it, when the captain caught my arm and wrested it from me, stating that the axe was his property, and then telling me that I was welcome to go where I pleased. "I left them, therefore, and went away by myself to where the birds were hatching, as I wished to secure a supply of eggs. When the night closed in, I lay down upon the guano, and felt no cold; for the gale was now over, and the weather was very mild. "The next morning, when I awoke, I found that the sun had been up some time. I looked for the rest of my companions whom I had quitted, and perceived that they were all busily at work. The sea was quite calm; and, when the vessel went down after we left, many articles had floated, and had been washed to the island. Some of the men were busy collecting spars and planks, which were near the rocks, and pushing them along with the boat-hooks to the direction of the bathing-pond, where they hauled them over the ridge, and secured them. Your father and mother, with the carpenter, were on this ledge where we now are, having selected it as a proper place for building a shelter, and were apparently very busy. The captain and one of the seamen were carrying up what spars and timber could be collected to where your father was standing with the carpenter. All appeared to be active, and working into each other's hands; and I confess that, as I looked on, I envied them, and wished that I had been along with them; but I could not bear the idea of obeying any orders given by your father; and this alone prevented my joining them, and making my excuses for what I had done and said the previous night. I therefore swallowed some more bird's eggs raw, and sat down in the sun, looking at them as they worked. "I soon perceived that the carpenter had commenced operations. The frame of this cabin was, with the assistance of your father, before it was noon, quite complete and put up; and then they all went down to the bathing-place, where the boat was lying with her bottom beaten out. They commenced taking her to pieces and saving all the nails; the other men carried up the portions of the boat as they were ripped off, to where the frame of the cabin had been raised. I saw your mother go up with a load in her hand, which I believed to be the nails taken from the boat. In a couple of hours the boat was in pieces and carried up, and then your father and most of the men went up to assist the carpenter. I hardly need tell what they did, as you have the cabin before you. The roof, you see, is mostly built out of the timbers of the boat; and the lower part out of heavier wood; and a very good job they made of it. Before the morning closed in, one of the sides of the cabin was finished; and I saw them light a fire with the chips that had been cut off with the axes, and they then dressed the eggs and birds which they had collected the first day. "There was one thing which I had quite forgotten when I mutinied and left my companions, which was, the necessity of water to drink; and I now perceived that they had taken possession of the spot where the only water had as yet been found. I was suffering very much from thirst towards the close of the day, and I set off up the ravine to ascertain if there was none to be found in that direction. Before night I succeeded in finding some, as you know, for you have often drunk from the spring when you have gone up for firewood. This gave me great encouragement, for I was afraid that the want of water would have driven me to submission. By way of bravado, I tore off; and cut with my knife, as many boughs of the underwood on the ravine as I well could carry, and the next morning I built a sort of wigwam for myself on the guano, to show them that I had a house over my head as well as they had; but I built it further up to the edge of the cliff, above the guano plain, so that I need not have any communication with those who I knew would come for eggs and birds for their daily sustenance. "Before the night of the following day set in, the cabin was quite finished. "The weather became warmer every day, and I found it very fatiguing to have to climb the ravine two or three times a day to procure a drink of water, for I had nothing to hold water in, and I thought that it would be better that I should take up my quarters in the ravine, and build myself a wigwam among the brushwood close to the water, instead of having to make so many journeys for so necessary an article. I knew that I could carry eggs in my hat and pocket-handkerchief sufficient for two or three days at one trip; so I determined that I would do so; and the next morning I went up the ravine, loaded with eggs, to take up my residence there. In a day or two I had built my hut of boughs, and made it very comfortable. I returned for a fresh supply of eggs on the third day, with a basket I had constructed out of young boughs, and which enabled me to carry a whole week's sustenance. Then I felt quite satisfied, and made up my mind that I would live as a hermit during my sojourn on the island, however long it might be; for I preferred anything to obeying the orders of one whom I detested as I did your father. "It soon was evident, however, how well they had done in selecting your father as their leader. They had fancied that the birds would remain on the island, and that thus they would always be able to procure a supply. Your father, who had lived so long in Chili, knew better, and that in a few weeks they would quit their nesting-place. He pointed this out to them, showing them what a mercy it was that they had been cast away just at this time, and how necessary it was to make a provision for the year. But this they could not imagine that it was possible to do without salt to cure the birds with; but he knew how beef was preserved without salt on the continent, and showed them how to dry the birds in the sun. While therefore I was up in the ravine, they were busy collecting and drying them in large quantities, and before the time of the birds leaving they had laid up a sufficient supply. It was he also that invented the fishing-lines out of the sinews of the legs of the birds, and your mother who knotted them together. At first, they caught fish with some hooks made of nails, but your father showed them the way to take them without a hook, as you have learnt from me, and which he had been shown by some of the Indians on the continent. "Owing to your father, they were well prepared when the birds flew away with their young ones, while I was destitute. Previous to the flight, I had fared but badly, for the eggs contained the young birds half formed, and latterly so completely formed that I could not eat them; and as I had no fire, and did not understand drying them, I had no alternative but eating the young birds raw, which was anything but pleasant. I consoled myself, however, with the idea that your father and mother and the rest were faring just as badly as myself, and I looked forward to the time when the birds would begin to lay eggs again, when I resolved to hoard up a much larger supply while they were fresh. But my schemes were all put an end to, for in two days, after a great deal of noise and flying about in circles, all the birds, young and old, took wing, and left me without any means of future subsistence. "This was a horrid discovery, and I was put to my wits' ends. I wandered over the guano place, and, after the third day of their departure, was glad to pick up even a dead bird with which to appease my hunger. At the same time, I wondered how my former companions got on, for I considered that they must be as badly off as I was. I watched them from behind the rocks, but I could perceive no signs of uneasiness. There was your mother sitting quietly on the level by the cabin, and your father or the captain talking with her. I perceived, however, that two of the party were employed fishing off the rocks, and I wondered where they got their fishing-lines; and at last I concluded that it was by catching fish that they supported themselves. This, however, did not help me--I was starving, and starvation will bring down the pride of any man. On the fifth day, I walked down to the rocks, to where one of the seamen was fishing, and having greeted him, I told him that I was starving, and asked for something to eat. "`I cannot help you,' replied he; `I have no power to give anything away; it is more than I dare do. You must apply to Mr Henniker, who is the governor now. What a foolish fellow you were to mutiny, as you did; see what it has brought you to.' "`Why,' replied I, `if it were not for fishing, you would not be better off than I am.' "`Oh yes we should be; but we have to thank him for that--without him, I grant, we should not have been. We have plenty of provisions, although we fish to help them out.' "This puzzled me amazingly, but there was no help for it. I could starve no longer, so up I went to the level where your father was standing with the captain, and in a swaggering sort of tone, said that I had come back, and wanted to join my comrades. The captain looked at me and referred me to your father, who said that he would consult with the rest when they came to dinner, as without their permission he could do nothing; and then they both turned away. In the meantime I was ravenous with hunger, and was made more so by perceiving that two large fish were slowly baking on the embers of the fire, and that your mother was watching them. However, there was no help for it, and I sat down at some little distance, anxiously waiting for the return of the rest of the party, when my fate would be decided. My pride was now brought down so low, that I could have submitted to any terms which might have been dictated. In about two hours they were all assembled to dinner, and I remained envying every morsel that they ate, until the repast was finished; when, after some consultation, I was ordered to approach-- which I did--and your father addressed me: `Jackson, you deserted us, when you might have been very useful, and when our labour was severe; now that we have worked hard, and made ourselves tolerably comfortable, you request to join us, and partake with us of the fruits of our labour and foresight. You have provided nothing, we have--the consequence is, that we are in comparative plenty, while you are starving. Now I have taken the opinion of my companions, and they are all agreed, that as you have not assisted when you were wanted, should we now allow you to join us, you will have to work more than the others to make up an equivalent. It is therefore proposed that you shall join us on one condition, which is, that during the year, till the birds again visit the island, it will be your task to go up to the ravine every day, and procure the firewood which is required. If you choose to accept these terms, you are permitted to join, always supposing that to all the other rules and regulations which we have laid down for our guidance, you will be subject as well as we are. These are our terms, and you may decide as you think proper.' I hardly need say, that I gladly accepted them, and was still more glad when the remnants of the dinner were placed before me: I was nearly choked, I devoured with such haste until my appetite was appeased. "When this was done, I thought over the conditions which I had accepted, and my blood boiled at the idea that I was to be in a manner the slave to the rest, as I should have to work hard every day. I forgot that it was but justice, and that I was only earning my share of the year's provisions, which I had not assisted to collect. My heart was still more bitter against your father, and I vowed vengeance if ever I had an opportunity; but there was no help for it. Every day I went up with a piece of cord and an axe, cut a large fagot of wood, and brought it down to the cabin. It was hard work, and occupied me from breakfast to dinner-time, and I had no time to lose if I wanted to be back for dinner. The captain always examined the fagot, and ascertained that I had brought down a sufficient supply for the day's consumption." CHAPTER NINE. "A year passed away, during which I was thus employed. At last, the birds made their appearance, and after we had laid up our annual provision, I was freed from my task, and had only to share the labour with others. It was now a great source of speculation how long we were likely to remain on the island; every day did we anxiously look out for a vessel, but we could see none, or if seen, they were too far off from the island to permit us to make signals to them. At last we began to give up all hope, and, as hope was abandoned, a settled gloom was perceptible on most of our faces. I believe that others would have now mutinied as well as myself, if they had known what to mutiny about. Your father and mother were the life and soul of the party, inventing amusements, or narrating a touching story in the evenings, so as to beguile the weary time. Great respect was paid to your mother, which she certainly deserved; I seldom approached her; she had taken a decided dislike to me, arising, I presume, from my behaviour towards her husband; for now that I was again on a footing with the others, I was as insolent to him as I dared to be, without incurring the penalty attached to insubordination, and I opposed him as much as I could in every proposal that he brought forward--but your father kept his temper, although I lost mine but too often. The first incident which occurred of any consequence, was the loss of two of the men, who had, with your father's permission, taken a week's provisions, with the intention of making a tour round the island, and ascertaining whether any valuable information could be brought back: they were the carpenter and one of the seamen. It appears, that during their return, as they were crossing the highest ridge, they, feeling very thirsty, and not finding water, attempted to refresh themselves by eating some berries which they found on a plant. These berries proved to be strong poison, and they returned very ill. After languishing a few days, they both died. "This was an event which roused us up, and broke the monotony of our life; but it was one which was not very agreeable to dwell upon, and yet, at the same time, I felt rather pleasure than annoyance at it--I felt that I was of more consequence, and many other thoughts entered my mind which I shall not now dwell upon. We buried them in the guano, under the first high rock, where, indeed, the others were all subsequently buried. Three more months passed away, when the other seaman was missing. After a search, his trousers were found at the edge of the rock. He had evidently been bathing in the sea, for the day on which he was missed, the water was as smooth as glass. Whether he had seen something floating, which he wished to bring to land, or whether he had ventured for his own amusement, for he was an excellent swimmer, could never be ascertained--any more than whether he had sunk with the cramp,--or had been taken down by a shark. He never appeared again, and his real fate is a mystery to this day, and must ever remain so. Thus were we reduced to four men--your father, the captain, the mate, and me. But you must be tired--I will stop now, and tell you the remainder some other time." Although I was not tired, yet, as Jackson appeared to be so, I made no objections to his proposal, and we both went to sleep. While I had read the Bible to Jackson, I had often been puzzled by numbers being mentioned, and never could understand what was meant; that is, I could form no idea of the quantity represented by seventy or sixty, or whatever it might be. Jackson's answer was, "Oh! It means a great many; I'll explain to you by-and-bye, but we have nothing to count with, and as I am blind, I must have something in my hand to teach you." I recollected that at the bathing-pool there were a great many small shells on the rocks, about the size of a pea; there were live fish in them, and they appeared to crawl on the rocks. I collected a great quantity of these, and brought them up to the cabin, and requested Jackson would teach me to count. This he did, until he came to a thousand, which he said was sufficient. For many days I continued to count up to a hundred, until I was quite perfect, and then Jackson taught me addition and subtraction to a certain degree, by making me add and take away from the shells, and count the accumulation, or the remainder. At last, I could remember what I had gained by manipulation, if I may use the term; but further I could not go, although addition had, to a degree, made me master of multiplication, and subtraction gave me a good idea of division. This was a new delight to me, and occupied me for three or four weeks. At last I had, as I thought, learned all that he could teach me in his blind state, and I threw away the shells, and sighed for something more. Of a sudden it occurred to me, that I had never looked into the book which still lay upon the shelf in the cabin, and I saw no reason now that I should not; so I mentioned it to Jackson, and asked him why I might not have that book? "To be sure you may," replied he; "but you never asked for it, and I quite forgot it." "But when I asked you before, you were so particular that I should not open it. What was your reason then?" Jackson replied--"I had no reason except that I then disliked you, and I thought that looking into the book would give you pleasure. It belonged to that poor fellow that was drowned; he had left it in the stern-sheets of the boat when we were at Valdivia, and had forgotten it, and we found it there when we landed on the island. Take it down, it will amuse you." I took down the book, and opened it. It was, if I recollect right, called "Mayor's Natural History." At all events, it was a Natural History of Beasts and Birds, with a plate representing each, and a description annexed. It would be impossible for me to convey to the reader my astonishment and delight. I had never seen a picture or drawing in my life. I did not know that such things existed. I was in an ecstasy of delight as I turned over the pages, hardly taking sufficient time to see one object before I hastened on to another. For two or three hours did I thus turn over leaves, without settling upon any one animal; at last my pulse beat more regularly, and I commenced with the Lion. But now what a source of amusement, and what a multitude of questions had to be answered by my companion. He had to tell me all about the countries in which the animals were found; and the description of the animals, with the anecdotes, were a source of much conversation; and, what was more, the fore-grounds and back-grounds of the landscapes with which the animals were surrounded produced new ideas. There was a palm-tree, which I explained to Jackson, and inquired about it. This led to more inquiries. The lion himself occupied him and me for a whole afternoon, and it was getting dark when I lay down, with my new treasure by my side. I had read of the lion in the Scriptures, and now I recalled all the passages; and before I slept I thought of the bear which destroyed the children who had mocked Elisha the prophet, and I determined that the first animal I would read about the next morning should be the bear. I think that this book lasted me nearly two months, during which time, except reading a portion every night and morning to Jackson, the Bible and Prayer-book were neglected. Some times I thought that the book could not be true; but when I came to the birds, I found those which frequented the island so correctly described, that I had no longer any doubt on the subject. Perhaps what interested me most were the plates in which the barn-door fowls and the peacock were described, as in the back-ground of the first were a cottage and figures, representing the rural scenery of England, my own country; and in the second there was a splendid mansion, and a carriage and four horses driving up to the door. In short, it is impossible to convey to the reader the new ideas which I received from these slight efforts of the draftsman to give effect to his drawing. The engraving was also a matter of much wonder, and required a great deal of explanation from Jackson. This book became my treasure, and it was not till I had read it through and through, so as almost to know it by heart, that at length I returned to my Bible. All this time I had never asked Jackson to go on with his narrative; but now that my curiosity was appeased, I made the request. He appeared, as before, very unwilling; but I was pertinacious, and he was worried into it. "There were but four of us left and your mother, and the mate was in a very bad state of health; he fretted very much, poor fellow, for he had left a young wife in England, and what he appeared to fear most was, that she would be married again before he could get home. It ended in a confirmed liver complaint, which carried him off nine months afterwards; and thus was one more of our companions disposed of. He died very quietly, and gave me his sleeve-buttons and watch to deliver to his wife, if ever I should escape from the island. I fear there is little chance of her ever receiving them." "Where are they?" said I, recollecting how I had seen him lift up the board under his bed-place. "I have them safe," replied Jackson, "and it necessary, will tell you where to find them." This reply satisfied me, and I allowed him to proceed. "We buried him in the guano, by the side of the two others, and now we were but three. It was at this time that your mother was confined and you were born; that is, about three months after the death of the mate. We had just finished laying in our stock of birds for the year when she was taken ill, sooner than was expected, and it was supposed that was occasioned by over-exertion at the time. However, she got up very well without any medical assistance, and your father was much pleased at having a son, for he had been married five years without any prospect of a family. I ought to observe, that the loss of our companions, one after another, had had the effect of bringing those that remained much closer together; I was treated with more kindness by both your father and mother, and the captain, and I returned it as well as my feelings would permit me, for I could not altogether get rid of my animosity to your father. However, we became much more confidential, that is certain, and I was now treated as an equal. "Six months passed away and you had become a thriving child, when a melancholy occurrence--" here Jackson covered up his face with his hands and remained for some time silent. "Go on," said I, "Jackson; I know that they all died somehow or another." "Very true," replied he, recovering himself. "Well, your father disappeared. He had gone to the rocks to fish, and when I was sent to bring him home to dinner, he was nowhere to be found. It was supposed that a larger fish than usual had been fast to his line, and that he had been jerked off the rocks into the water, and the sharks had taken him. It was a dreadful affair," continued Jackson, again covering his face. "I think," replied I, "that any man in his senses would have allowed the fish to have taken the line rather than have been dragged into the water. I don't think that the supposed manner of his death is at all satisfactory." "Perhaps not," replied Jackson; "his foot may have slipped, who knows? We only could guess; the line was gone as well as he, which made us think what I said. Still we searched everywhere, but without hope; and our search--that is, the captain's and mine, for your poor mother remained with you in her arms distracted--was the cause of another disaster--no less than the death of the captain. They say misfortunes never come single, and surely this was an instance of the truth of the proverb." "How did he die?" replied I, gravely; for somehow or other I felt doubts as to the truth of what he was saying. Jackson did not reply till after a pause, when he said-- "He was out with me up the ravine collecting firewood, and he fell over the high cliff. He was so injured that he died in half an hour." "What did you do?" "What did I do--what could I do but go back and break the news to your mother, who was distracted when she heard it; for the captain was her friend, and she could not bear me." "Well, go on, pray," said I. "I did all that I could to make your mother comfortable, as there how were but her, you; and I, left on the island. You were then about three years old; but your mother always hated me, and appeared now to hate me more and more. She never recovered the loss of your father, to whom she was devotedly attached; she pined away, and after six months she died, leaving you and me only on the island. Now you know the whole history, and pray do not ask me any more about it." CHAPTER TEN. Jackson threw himself back in his bed-place and was silent. So was I, for I was recalling all that he had told me, and my doubts were raised as to the truth of it. I did not like his hurrying over the latter portion of his narrative in the way which he had done. What he had said about my mother was not satisfactory. I had for some time been gradually drawing towards him, not only showing, but feeling, for him a great increase of good-will; but suspicion had entered my mind, and I now began to feel my former animosity towards him renewed. A night's sleep, however, and more reflection, induced me to think that possibly I was judging him too harshly, and as I could not afford to quarrel with him, our intercourse remained as amicable as before, particularly as he become more and more amiable towards me, and did everything in his power to interest and amuse me. I was one day reading to him the account of a monkey, given in the book of Natural History, in which it is said that that animal is fond of spirits and will intoxicate itself, and Jackson was telling me many anecdotes of monkeys on board of the vessel he had sailed in, when it occurred to me that I had never thought of mentioning to him, or of ascertaining the contents of the cask which had been thrown into the bathing-pool with the seaman's chest, and I did so then to Jackson, wondering at its contents and how they were to be got at. Jackson entered into the question warmly, explaining to me how and where to bore holes with a gimlet, and making two spiles for me to stop the holes with. As soon as he had done so, curiosity induced me to go down to the pool where the cask had been lying so long in about a foot and half water. By Jackson's directions I took a pannikin with me, that I might bring him a specimen of the contents of the cask, if they should prove not to be water. I soon bored the hole above and below, following Jackson's directions, and the liquor, which poured out in a small stream into the pannikin, was of a brown colour and very strong in odour, so strong, indeed, as to make me reel as I walked back to the rocks with the pannikin full of it. I then sat down, and after a time tasted it. I thought I had swallowed fire, for I had taken a good mouthful of it. "This cannot be what Jackson called spirits," said I. "No one can drink this--what can it be?" Although I had not swallowed more than a table-spoonful of it, yet, combined with the fumes of the liquor which I had inhaled when drawing it off into the pannikin, the effect was to make my head swim, and I lay down on the rock and shut my eyes to recover myself. It ended in my falling asleep for many hours, for it was not much after noon when I went to the cask, and it was near sunset when I awoke, with an intense pain, in my head. It was some time before I could recollect where I was, or what had passed, but the pannikin full of liquor by my side first reminded me; and then perceiving how late it was, and how long I must have slept, I rose up, and taking the pannikin in my hand, I hastened to return to the cabin. As I approached, I heard the voice of Jackson, whose hearing, since his blindness, I had observed, had become peculiarly acute. "Is that you, Frank?" "Yes," replied I. "And what has kept you so long?--how you have frightened me. God forgive me, but I thought that I was to be left and abandoned to starvation." "Why should you have thought that?" replied I. "Because I thought that some way or another you must have been killed, and then I must have died, of course. I never was so frightened in my life, the idea of dying here all alone--it was terrible." It occurred to me at the time, that the alarm was all for himself, for he did not say a word about how sorry he should have been at any accident happening to me, but I made no remark, simply stating what had occurred, and my conviction that the contents of the cask were not drinkable. "Have you brought any with you?" inquired he, sharply. "Yes, here it is," said I, giving him the pannikin. He smelt it, and raised it to his lips--took about a wine-glass full of it, and then draw his breath. "This is delightful," said he; "the best of old rum, I never tasted so good. How big did you say that the cask was?" I described it as well as I could. "Indeed, then it must be a whole puncheon--that will last a long while." "But do you mean to say that you really like to drink that stuff?" inquired I. "Do I like to drink it? Yes, it is good for men, but it's death to little boys. It will kill you. Don't you get fond of it. Now promise me that you will never drink a drop of it. You must not get fond of it, or some sad accident will happen to you." "I don't think you need fear my drinking it," replied I. "I have had one taste, as I told you, and it nearly burnt my mouth. I shan't touch it again." "That's right," replied Jackson, taking another quantity into his mouth. "You are not old enough for it; by-and-bye, when you are as old as I am, you may drink it, then it will do you good. Now, I'll go to bed, it's time for bed. Bring the pannikin after me and put it by my side. Take care you don't spill any of it." Jackson crawled to his bed and I followed him with the pannikin, and put it by his side, as he requested, and I returned to my own resting-place, without, however, having the least inclination to sleep, having slept so long during the day. At first Jackson was quiet, but I heard him occasionally applying to the pannikin, which held, I should say, about three half-pints of liquor. At last he commenced singing a sea-song; I was much surprised, as I had never heard him sing before; but I was also much pleased, as it was the first time that I had ever heard anything like melody, for he had a good voice and sang in good tune. As soon as he had finished, I begged him to go on. "Ah!" replied he, with a gay tone I had never heard from him before. "You like songs, do you? My little chap? Well, I'll give you plenty of them. 'Tis a long while since I have sung, but it's a `poor heart that never rejoiceth.' The time was when no one in company could sing a song as I could, and so I can again, now that I have something to cheer my heart. Yes, here's another for you. I shall rouse them all out by-and-bye, as I get the grog in--no fear of that--you find the stuff, and I'll find songs." I was surprised at first at this unusual mirth; but recollecting what Jackson had told me about his intemperance, I presumed that this mirth which it produced was the cause why he indulged so much in it; and I felt less inclined to blame him. At all events, I was much pleased with the songs that he sang to me one after another for three or four hours, when his voice became thick, and, after some muttering and swearing, he was quite silent, and soon afterwards snored loudly. I remained awake some time longer, and then I also sank into forgetfulness. When I awoke the next morning, I found Jackson still fast asleep. I waited for him for our morning meal; but, as he did not wake, I took mine by myself, and then I walked out to the rock, where I usually sat, and looked round the horizon to see if there was anything in sight. The spy-glass, from having been in sea-water, was of no use, and I did not know what to do with it; nor could Jackson instruct me. After I had been out about an hour I returned, and found Jackson still snoring, and I determined to wake him up. I pushed him for some time without success; but, at last, he opened his eyes, and said: "My watch already?" "No;" said I; "but you have slept so long, that I have waked you up." He paused, as if he did not know my voice, and then said: "But I can't see anything; how's this?" "Why, don't you know that you're blind, Jackson?" replied I, with amazement. "Yes, yes; I recollect now. Is there anything in the pannikin?" "Not a drop," replied I; "why, you must have drunk it all." "Yes, I recollect now. Get me some water my good boy; for I am dying with thirst." I went for the water; he drank the whole pannikin, and asked for more. "Won't you have something to eat?" said I. "Eat? Oh no; I can't eat anything. Give me drink;" and he held out his hand for the pannikin. I perceived how it trembled and shook, and I observed it to him. "Yes;" replied he, "that's always the case after a carouse, and I had a good one last night--the first for many a year. But there's plenty more of it. I wish you would get me a little more now, Frank, just to steady me; just about two or three mouthfuls, no more; that is, no more till night time. Did I make much noise last night?" "You sang several songs," replied I, "with which I was much amused." "I'm glad that you liked them. I used to be considered a good singer in my day; indeed, if I had not been such good company, as they term it, I had not become so fond of drinking. Just go and fetch me about half an inch high of the pannikin, my good fellow, that's all I want now." I went down to the cask, drew off the quantity that he requested, and brought it to him. He drank it off; and, in a few moments, appeared to be quite himself again. He then asked for some thing to eat, and commenced telling me a variety of stories relative to what he termed jolly parties in his former days; so that the day passed very agreeably. As the night closed in, he said: "Now, Frank, I know you want to hear some more songs; so go down and bring me up a full pannikin, and I will sing you plenty." I complied with his request, for I was anxious to be again amused as I was the night before. The consequence was, that this night was, in the early portion of it, but a repetition of the previous one. Jackson took the precaution to get into his bed-place before he commenced drinking; and, as soon as he had taken his second dose, he asked me what sort of songs I liked. My reply naturally was, that I had never heard any one sing but him, and therefore could not say. "What did I sing to you last night?" said he. I replied as well as I could. "Ah," said he, "they were all sea-songs; but now I will give you something better." After a little thought, he commenced singing a very beautiful and plaintive one, and certainly much better than he had sung the night before; for he now was sober. The consequence was, that I was still more delighted; and, at my request, he sang several others; but at last his speech became rapid and thick, and he would not sing any more, using some very coarse expressions to me when I asked him. For a time he was silent, and I thought that he was going to sleep, and I was reflecting upon the various effects which the liquor appeared to have upon him, when I heard him talking and muttering, and I listened. "Never mind how I got them," said he; "quite as honestly as other people, Old Moshes. There they are, do you choose to buy them?" Then there was a pause, after which he commenced: "They're as pure diamonds as ever came out of a mine. I know that, so none of your lies, you old Jew. Where did I come by them? That's no concern of yours. The question is, will you give me the price, or will you not? Well, then, I'm off. No, I won't come back, you old thief." Here he swore terribly, and then was silent. After a while he recommenced-- "Who can ever prove that they were Henniker's diamonds?" I started up at the mention of my father's name; I rested with my hands on the floor of the cabin, breathless as to what would come next. "No, no," continued Jackson, "he's dead, and food for fishes--dead men tell no tales--and she's dead, and the captain's dead, all dead--yes, all;" and he gave a bitter groan and was silent. The day was breaking, and I could just see him as he lay; but he said no more, and appeared to breathe heavily. As the sun rose, I got out of my bed-place; and, now that it was broad day light, I looked at Jackson. He was lying on his back; his brow was covered with large drops of perspiration, and his hands were clenched together. Although asleep, he appeared, by the convulsive twitching of the muscles of his face, to be suffering and in great agony. Occasionally he groaned deeply, and his lips appeared to move, but no sound proceeded from them. I perceived that the pannikin of liquor was not finished, one third at least having been left. CHAPTER ELEVEN. I then went out of the cabin and took my usual seat, and began to reflect upon what I had heard. He had talked about diamonds; now I knew what diamonds were, so far as they were of great value, for I had read of them in the Bible, and Jackson had explained the value of precious stones to me, and had told me of diamonds of very great value indeed. Then he said that they were Henniker's diamonds--he must have meant my father, that was positive. And that no one could prove they were his-- this implied that Jackson had no right to them; indeed how could he have? And then I recalled to mind his having a secret hiding-place under his bed, where I presumed the diamonds were deposited. I then turned over in my mind what he had told me relative to the death of my father, the captain, and my mother, how confused he was, and how glad he was to get rid of the subject, and how unsatisfactory I thought his account was at the time. After much cogitation, I made up my mind that Jackson had not told me the truth, and that there was a mystery yet to be explained but how was I to get at it? There was but one way. The liquor made him talk. I would supply him with liquor, and by degrees, I would get the truth out of him. At the same time I would not allow him to suppose that he had said anything to commit himself, or that I had any suspicions. How naturally do we fall into treachery and deceit, from the evil in our own hearts, without any assistance or example from the world. How could I have learnt deceit? Isolated as I had been, must it not have been innate? I returned to the cabin, and woke Jackson without much difficulty, since he had not drunk so much as on the previous night. "How are you this morning?" said I. "Not very well, I have had some bad dreams." "Well, you sang me some beautiful songs," replied I. "Yes, I recollect," said he; "but I fell asleep at last." "Yes, you refused to sing any more, and went off in a loud snore." Jackson got out of his bed-place, and I gave him his meal. We talked during the whole day about singing, and I hummed the air which had pleased me most. "You have got the air pretty correct," said he; "you must have an ear for music. Have you ever tried to sing?" "No, never; you know I have not." "You might have tried when I was not with you. Try now. I will sing a tune, and then do you repeat it after me." He did so, and I repeated it. "Very good," said he. "Let's try the compass of your voice." He ran up the gamut, and I followed him. "I think you can go higher than I can," said he; "however, you go quite high enough, so now I'll give you a singing lesson." Thus were we occupied at intervals during the whole day, for Jackson would not allow me to try my voice too much at first. As the evening fell, he again asked me to fetch some liquor, and as I had three quart wine-bottles, as I before mentioned, which I had found in the chest, I took them down to fill, as it would save me many trips, and be more convenient in every respect. I brought them up full, and Jackson stopped them up with some of the rags which I had torn to bind round his wrist, and put them all three in his bed-place. "That will be a much better arrangement," said he, "as now I can pour out the liquor into the pannikin as I want it; besides, I mean to take a little water with it in future. It's not quite so good with water, but it lasts longer, and one don't go to sleep so soon. Well, I little thought that I should have such a comfort sent me after all my sufferings. I don't so much care now about staying here. Go and fetch some water in the pannikin." That night was a repetition of the first. Jackson sang till he was intoxicated, and then fell fast asleep, not talking or saying a word, and I was disappointed, for I remained awake to catch anything he might say. It would be tedious to repeat what took place for about a month;-- suffice it to say, it was very rarely, during that time, that Jackson said anything in his sleep, or drunken state, and what he did say, I could make nothing of. He continued in the `daytime' to give me lessons in singing, and I could now sing several songs very correctly. At night he returned to his usual habit, and was more or less intoxicated before the night was over. I perceived, however, that this excess had a great effect upon his constitution, and that he had become very pale and haggard. Impatient as I felt to find out the truth, I concealed my feelings towards him (which had certainly very much changed again since the discovery I had made and the suspicions I had formed), and I remained on the best of terms with him, resolving to wait patiently. He had spoken once, and therefore I argued that he would speak again; nor was I wrong in my calculations. One night, after he had finished his usual allowance of liquor, and had composed himself for sleep, I observed that he was unusually restless, changing his position in his bed-place every few minutes, and, at last, he muttered, "Captain James. Well, what of Captain James, eh?" A thought struck me that he might reply to a question. "How did he die?" said I, in a low clear voice. "Die?" replied Jackson, "he fell down the cliff. Yes, he did. You can't say I killed him. No--never put my finger on him." After that he was silent for some time, and then he recommenced. "She always said that I destroyed them both, but I did not--only one-- yes, one, I grant--but I hated him--no, not for his diamonds--no, no--if you said his wife indeed--love and hate." "Then you killed him for love of his wife, and hate of himself?" "Yes, I did. Who are you that have guessed that? Who are you? I'll have your life." As he said this, he started up in his bed-place, awakened by his dream, and probably by my voice, which he had replied to. "Who spoke?" said he. "Frank Henniker, did you speak?" I made no reply, but pretended to be sound asleep, as he still sat up, as if watching me. I feigned a snore. "It could not have been him," muttered Jackson, "he's quite fast. Mercy, what a dream!" He then sank down in his bed-place, and I heard the gurgling noise which told me that he had put the bottle of liquor to his mouth, and was drinking out of it. From the time that the gurgling lasted, he must have taken a great deal. At last, all was quiet again. "So I have discovered it at last," said I, as my blood boiled at what I had heard. "He did murder my father. Shall I kill him while he sleeps?" was the first thought that came into my troubled mind. "No, I won't do that. What then, shall I tax him with it when he is awake, and then kill him?" but I thought, that, as he was blind, and unable to defend himself, it would be cowardly, and I could not do that. What then was I to do? And as I cooled down, I thought of the words of the Bible, that we were to return good for evil; for Jackson, of whom, when I read it, I asked why we were told to do so, had explained it to me, and afterwards when I came to the part which said, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," he had told me that there was punishment for the wicked hereafter, and that was the reason why we were not to obey the Jewish law of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," which I had referred to. This portion of the Bible he had well explained, and certain it is that it prevented my raising my hand against him that night. Still, I remained in a state of great excitement; I felt that it would be impossible for me to be any longer on good terms with him, and I revolved the question in my mind, till, at last, worn out by excitement, I fell fast asleep. A short time before daylight, I started up at what I thought was a faint cry, but I listened, and hearing nothing more, I again fell asleep, and it was broad daylight when I arose; my first thoughts were naturally of Jackson, and I looked at where he lay, but he was no longer there--his bed-place was empty. I was astonished, and after a moment's thought, I recollected the cry I had heard in the night, and I ran out of the cabin and looked around me; but I could see nothing of him. I then went to the edge of the flat rock upon which the cabin was built and looked over it; it was about thirty feet from this rock to the one below, and nearly perpendicular. I thought that he must have gone out in the night, when intoxicated with liquor, and have fallen down the precipice; but I did not see him as I peered over. "He must have gone for water," thought I, and I ran to the corner of the rock, where the precipice was much deeper, and looking over, I perceived him lying down below without motion or apparent life. I had, then, judged rightly. I sat down by the side of the pool of water quite overpowered; last night I had been planning how I should destroy him, and now he lay dead before me without my being guilty of the crime. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," were the words that first escaped my lips; and I remained many minutes in deep thought. At last it occurred to me that he might not yet be dead; I ran down the cliff, and, clambering over the rocks, arrived breathless at the spot where Jackson lay. He groaned heavily as I stood by him. "Jackson," said I, kneeling down by him, "are you much hurt?" for all my feelings of animosity had vanished when I perceived his unhappy condition. His lips moved, but he did not utter any sound. At last he said, in a low voice, "Water." I hastened back as fast as I could to the cabin, got a pannikin half full of water, and poured a little rum in it out of the bottle. This journey and my return to him occupied some ten minutes. I put it to his lips, and he seemed to revive. He was a dreadful object to look at. The blood from a cut on his head had poured over his face and beard, which were clotted with gore. How to remove him to the cabin I knew not. It would be hardly possible for me to carry him over the broken rocks which I had climbed to arrive at where he lay; and there was no other way but what was longer, and just as difficult. By degrees he appeared to recover; I gave him more of the contents of the pannikin, and at last he could speak, although with great pain and difficulty. As he did so he put his hand to his side. He was indeed a ghastly object, with his sightless eyeballs, his livid lips, and his face and beard matted with blood. "Do you think you could get to the cabin, if I helped you?" said I. "I shall never get there--let me die where I am," said he. "But the cut on your head is not very deep," replied I. "No, I don't feel it;--but--my side--I bleed inwardly--I am--broken to pieces," said he, pausing and gasping between each word. I looked at his side, and perceived that it was already black and much swollen. I offered him more drink, which he took eagerly, and I then returned for a further supply. I filled two of the wine-bottles with water and a small drop of spirits as before, and went back to where he lay. I found him more recovered, and I had hopes that he might still do well, and I told him so. "No, no," replied he; "I have but a few hours to live--I feel that. Let me die here, and die in peace." He then sank into a sort of stupor, occasioned, I presume, by what I had given him to drink, and remained quite quiet, and breathing heavily. I sat by him waiting till he should rouse up again; for more than an hour I was in a very confused state of mind, as may well be imagined, after what had passed in the night. CHAPTER TWELVE. What I most thought of was obtaining from him, now that he was dying, the full truth as to the deaths of my father and mother. Jackson remained so long in this state of stupor, I feared that he would die before I could interrogate him; but this, as it proved, was not to be the case. I waited another hour, very impatiently I must acknowledge, and then I went to him and asked him how he felt. He replied immediately, and without that difficulty which he appeared before to have experienced. "I am better now--the inward bleeding has stopped; but still I cannot live--my side is broken in, I do not think there is a rib that is not fractured into pieces, and my spine is injured, for I cannot move or feel my legs; but I may live many hours yet, and I thank God for his mercy in allowing me so much time--short indeed to make reparation for so bad a life; but still nothing is impossible with God." "Well, then," replied I, "if you can speak, I wish you would tell me the truth relative to my father's death, and also about the death of others--as for my father, I know that you murdered him--for you said so last night in your sleep." After a pause, Jackson replied--"I am glad that I did, and that you have told me so--I wished to make a full confession even to you; for confession is a proof of repentance. I know that you must hate me, and will hate my memory, and I cannot be surprised at it; but look at me now, Frank, and ask your own heart whether I am not more an object of pity than of hatred. `Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!' and has not his vengeance fallen upon me even in this world? Look at me; here I am, separated from the world that I loved so much, with no chance of ever joining it--possessed of wealth which would but a few months ago have made me happy--now blind, crushed to pieces by an avenging God, in whose presence I must shortly appear to answer for all my wickedness--all my expectations overthrown, all my hopes destroyed, and all my accumulated sins procuring me nothing, but, it may be, eternal condemnation. I ask you again, am I not an object of pity and commiseration?" I could but assent to this, and he proceeded. "I will now tell you the truth. I did tell the truth up to the time of your father and mother's embarkation on board of the brig, up to when the gale of wind came on which occasioned eventually the loss of the ship. Now give me a little drink. "The vessel was so tossed by the storm, and the waves broke over her so continually, that the between-decks were full of water, and as the hatches were kept down, the heat was most oppressive. When it was not my watch, I remained below, and looked out for another berth to sleep in. Before the cabin bulkheads on the starboard side, the captain had fitted up a sort of sail-room to contain the spare sails in case we should require them. It was about eight feet square, and the sails were piled up in it, so as to reach within two feet of the deck overhead; though the lower ones were wetted with the water, above they were dry, and I took this berth on the top of the sails as my sleeping-place. Now the state-room in which your father and mother slept was on the other side of the cabin bulkhead, and the straining and rolling of the vessel had opened the chinks between the planks, so that I could see a great deal of what was done in the state-room, and could hear every word almost that was spoken by them. I was not aware of this when I selected this place as my berth, but I found it out on the first night, the light of the candle shining through the chinks into the darkness by which I was surrounded outside. Of course, it is when a man is alone with his wife that he talks on confidential subjects; that I knew well, and hoped by listening to be able to make some discovery;--what, I had no idea of; but, with the bad feelings which stimulated me, I determined not to lose an opportunity. It was not till about a week after I had selected this berth, that I made any discovery. I had had the watch from six to eight o'clock, and had gone to bed early. About nine o'clock your father came into the state-room. Your mother was already in bed. As your father undressed, your mother said, `Does not that belt worry you a great deal, my dear?' "`No,' replied your father, `I am used to it now; it did when I first put it on, but now I have had it on four days, I do not feel it. I shall keep it on as long as this weather lasts; there is no saying what may happen, and it will not do to be looking for the belt at a moment's warning.' "`Do you think then that we are in danger?' "`No, not particularly so, but the storm is very fierce, and the vessel is old and weak. We may have fine weather in a day or two, or we may not; at all events, when property of value is at stake, and that property not my own, I should feel myself very culpable, if I did not take every precaution.' "`Well--I wish we were safe home again, my dear, and that my father had his diamonds, but we are in the hands of God.' "`Yes, I must trust to Him,' replied your father. "This circumstance induced me to look through one of the chinks of the bulkhead, so that I could see your father, and I perceived that he was unbuckling a belt which was round his body, and which no doubt contained the diamonds referred to. It was of soft leather, and about eight inches wide, sewed lengthways and breadthways in small squares, in which, I presumed the diamonds were deposited. After a time your mother spoke again. "`I really think, Henniker, that I ought to wear the belt.' "`Why so, my dear?' "`Because it might be the means of my preservation in case of accident. Suppose, now, we were obliged to abandon the vessel and take to the boats; a husband, in his hurry, might forget his wife, but he would not forget his diamonds. If I wore the belt, you would be certain to put me in the boat.' "`That observation of yours would have force with some husbands, and some wives,' retorted your father; `but as I have a firm belief in the Scriptures, it does not affect me. What do the Proverbs say? "The price of a virtuous woman is far above rubies;" and a good ruby is worth even more in the market than a diamond of the same size.' "`Well, I must comfort myself with that idea,' replied your mother, laughing. "`Supposing we be thrown upon some out-of-the-way place,' said your father, `I shall then commit the belt to your charge. It might soon be discovered on my person, whereas, on yours, it would stand every chance of being long concealed. I say this because, even in a desert, it would be dangerous to have it known by unscrupulous and unprincipled men that any one had so much wealth about him.' "`Well,' replied your mother, `that is also comfortable for me to hear, for you will not leave me behind, because I shall be necessary to conceal your treasure.' "`Yes,' replied your father, laughing, `there is another chance for you, you see.' "Your father then extinguished the light, and the conversation was not renewed; but I had heard enough. Your father carried a great treasure about his person--wealth, I took it for granted, that if I once could obtain, and return to England, would save me from my present position. My avarice was hereby excited, and thus another passion equally powerful, and equally inciting to evil deeds, was added to the hate which I already had imbibed for your father. But I must leave off now." Jackson drank a little more, and then remained quiet, and as I had no food that day, I took the opportunity of returning to the cabin, with the promise that I would be back very soon. In half an hour I returned, bringing with me the Bible and Prayer-book, as I thought that he would ask me to read to him after he had made his confession. I found him breathing heavily, and apparently asleep, so I did not wake him. As I looked at him, and recalled to mind his words, "Am not I an object of pity?" I confessed that he was, and then I asked myself the question, Can you forgive him who was the murderer of your father? After some reflection, I thought that I could. Was he not already punished? Had not the murder been already avenged? It was not possible to retain animosity against one so stricken, so broken to pieces, and my heart smote me when I looked at his disabled hand, and felt that I, boy as I was, had had a share in his marring. At last, he spoke. "Are you there, Frank?" "Yes," replied I. "I have had a little sleep," said he. "Do you feel easier?" inquired I, kindly. "Yes, I feel my side more numbed, and so it will remain, till mortification takes place. But let me finish my confession, I wish to relieve my mind; not that I shall die to-night, or perhaps to-morrow, but still, I wish it over. Come nearer to me, that I may speak in a lower voice, and then I shall be able to speak longer." I did so, and he proceeded. "You know how we were cast upon this island, and how I behaved at first. When I afterwards took my place with the others, my evil thoughts gradually quitted me, and I gave, up all idea of any injury to your father. But this did not last long. The deaths of so many, and at last the captain, your father, and your mother being the only ones left on the island besides myself, once more excited my cupidity. I thought again of the belt of diamonds, and by what means I should gain possession of it; and the devil suggested to me the murders of the captain and of your father. I had ascertained that your father no longer carried the belt on his person when we all used to bathe at the bathing-pool; it was, therefore, as your father had proposed, in your mother's keeping. Having once made up my mind, I watched every opportunity to put my intentions into execution. It was the custom for one of us to fish every morning, as your mother would not eat the dried birds, if fish could be procured, and I considered that the only chance I had of executing my horrible wish was when your father went to fish off the rocks. We usually did so off the ledge of rocks which divide the bathing-pool from the sea, but I found out another place, where more fish, and of a better quality, were to be taken, which is off the high wall of rocks just below. You know where I mean, I have often sent you to fish there, but I never could go myself since your father's death. Your father took his lines there, and was hauling in a large fish, when I, who had concealed myself close to where he stood, watched the opportunity as he looked over the rock to see if the fish was clear of the water, to come behind him and throw him off into the sea. He could not swim, I knew, and after waiting a minute or two, I looked over and saw his body, just as it sank, after his last struggles. I then hastened away, and my guilty conscience induced me to ascend the ravine, and collect a faggot of firewood to bring home, that no suspicions might be entertained; but my so doing was the very cause of suspicion, as you will afterwards perceive. I returned with the wood, and the captain observed, when I came up to the cabin:-- "`Why, it's something new for you to collect wood out of your turn, Jackson. Wonders will never cease.' "`The fact is, that I am becoming very amiable,' replied I, hardly knowing what to say, and afraid to look either of them in the face, for your mother, with you on her lap, was standing close by. "`Has my husband caught any fish, do you know, Jackson?' said your mother, `for it is high time that he came home.' "`How can I tell?' replied I. `I have been up the ravine for wood.' "`But you were down on the rock two hours ago,' replied your mother, `for Captain James saw you coming away.' "`That I certainly did,' replied the captain. `Had he caught any fish when you were with him?' "They must have perceived my confusion when I said, `Yes, I was on the rocks, but I never went near Henniker, that I'll swear.' "`You must have been near him, even when I saw you,' replied the captain. "`I never looked at him, if I was,' replied I. "`Well then, one of us had better go down and see what he is about,' said the captain. `Shall I leave Jackson with you?' "`Yes, yes,' replied your mother, much agitated, `for I have my forebodings; better leave him here.' "The captain hastened down to the rocks, and in a quarter of an hour returned very much heated, saying, `He is not there!' "`Not there?' replied I, getting up, for I had seated myself in silence on the rock during the captain's absence: `that's very odd.' "`It is,' replied the captain. `Jackson, go and try if you see anything of him, while I attend to Mrs Henniker.' "Your mother, on the captain's return, had bowed her head down to her knees, and covered her face with her hands. I was glad of an excuse to be away, for my heart smote me as I witnessed her condition. "I remained away half an hour, and then returned, saying, that I could see nothing of your father. "Your mother was in the cabin, and the captain went in to her, while I remained outside with all the feelings of Cain upon my brow. "That was a dreadful day for all parties--no food was taken. Your mother and the captain remained in the cabin, and I dared not, as usual, go into my own bed-place. I lay all night upon the rocks--sleep I could not; every moment I saw your father's body sinking, as I had seen it in the morning. The next morning, the captain came out to me. He was very grave and stern, but he could not accuse me, whatever his suspicions might have been. It was a week before I saw your mother again, for I dared not intrude into her presence; but, finding there was no accusation against me, I recovered my spirits, and returned to the cabin, and things went on as before." CHAPTER THIRTEEN. "One thing, however, was evident, that your mother had an aversion--I may say a horror--of me, which she could not conceal. She said nothing, but she never could look at me; and to any question I put, would seldom make reply. Strange to say, this treatment of hers produced quite a different effect from what might have been anticipated, and I felt my former love for her revive. Her shrinking from me made me more familiar towards her, and increased her disgust. I assumed a jocose air with her, and at times Captain James considered it his duty to interfere and check me. He was a very powerful man, and in a contest would have proved my master; this I knew, and this knowledge compelled me to be more respectful to your mother in his presence, but when his back was turned I became so disgustingly familiar, that at last your mother requested that whether fishing or collecting wood, instead of going out by turns we should both go, and leave her alone. This I could not well refuse, as Captain James would in all probability have used force if I had not consented, but my hatred to him was in consequence most unbounded. However, an event took place which relieved me from the subjection which I was under, and left me alone with you and your mother. Now I must rest a little. Wait another hour, and you shall know the rest." It was now late in the evening, but there was a bright moon which shone overhead, and the broad light and shadow made the rocks around us appear peculiarly wild and rugged. They towered up one above the other till they met the dark blue of the sky, in which the stars twinkled but faintly, while the moon sailed through the ether, without a cloud to obscure her radiance. And in this majestic scenery were found but two living beings--a poor boy and a mangled wretch--a murderer--soon to breathe his last, and be summoned before an offended God. As I remained motionless by his side, I felt, as I looked up, a sensation of awe, but not of fear; I thought to myself--"And God made all this and all the world besides, and me and him. The Bible said so;" and my speculation then was as to what God must be, for although I had read the Bible, I had but a confused idea, and had it been asked me, as it was to the man in the chariot by Philip, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" I most certainly should have answered, No. I remained for nearly two hours in this reverie, and at last fell asleep with my back against the rock. I was, however, wakened up by Jackson's voice, when he asked in a low tone for water. "There it is," said I, handing it to him. "Have you called long?" "No," replied he, "I asked but once." "I have been asleep," said I. As soon as he had drunk, he said--"I will finish now; my side begins to burn." He then proceeded--"It was about four months after your father's death, that Captain James and I went together to the ravine to collect firewood. We passed under the wall of rock, which you know so well, and went through the gap, as we call it, when Captain James left the water-course and walked along the edge of the wall. I followed him: we both of us had our pieces of rope in our hands with which we tied the faggots. Of a sudden his foot slipped, and he rolled down to the edge of the rock, but catching hold of a small bush which had fixed its roots in the rocks, he saved himself when his body was hanging half over the precipice. "`Give me the end of your rope,' said he to me, perfectly collected, although in such danger. "`Yes,' replied I, and I intended so to do, as I perceived that, if I refused, he could still have saved himself by the bush to which he clung. "But the bush began to loosen and give way, and Captain James perceiving it cried out-- "`Quick, quick, the bush is giving way!' "This assertion of his determined me not to give him the rope. I pretended to be in a great hurry to do so, but entangled it about my legs, and then appeared occupied in clearing it, when he cried again-- "`Quick!'--and hardly had he said the word when the root of the bush snapped, and down he fell below. "I heard the crash as he came to the rock beneath. See the judgment of God--am I not now precisely in his position, lying battered and crushed as he was? After a time I went down to where he lay, and found him expiring. He had just strength to say `God forgive you,' and then he died. It was murder, for I could have saved him and would not, and yet he prayed to God to forgive me. How much happier should I have felt if he had not said that. His `God forgive you' rang in my ears for months afterwards. I returned to the cabin, and with a bold air stated to your mother what had happened, for I felt I could say, this time, I did not do the deed. She burst out into frantic exclamations, accusing me of being not only his murderer but the murderer of her husband. I tried all I could do to appease her, but in vain. For many weeks she was in a state of melancholy and despondency, that made me fear for her life; but she had you still to bestow her affections upon, and for your sake she lived. I soon made this discovery. She was now wholly in my power, but I was awed by her looks even, for a time. At last I became bolder, and spoke to her of our becoming man and wife; she turned from me with abhorrence. I then resorted to other means. I prevented her from obtaining food; she would have starved with pleasure, but she could not bear to see you suffer. I will not detail my cruelty and barbarity towards her; suffice to say it was such that she pined away, and about six months after the death of the captain she died, exhorting me not to injure you, but if ever I had an opportunity, to take you to your grandfather. I could not refuse this demand, made by a woman whom I as certainly killed by slow means as I had your father by a more sudden death. I buried her in the guano, by the side of the others. After her death my life was a torture to me for a long while. I dared not kill you, but I hated you. I had only one consolation, one hope, which occasionally gave me satisfaction; the consolation, if so it could be called, was, that I had possession of the diamonds; the hope--that I should one day see England again. You see me now--are they not all avenged?" I could not but feel the truth of Jackson's last sentence. They were indeed avenged. After a short pause, he said to me-- "Now, Frank, I feel that the mortification in my side is making great progress, and, in a short time, I shall be in too great pain to talk to you. I have made a full confession of my crimes; it is all the reparation I can make to you. Now, can you forgive me? For I shall die very miserable if you do not. Just look at me. Can you feel resentment against one in my wretched state? Recollect that you pray to be forgiven as you forgive others. Give me your answer." "I think--yes, I feel that I can forgive you, Jackson," replied I. "I shall soon be left alone on this island, and I am sure I should be much more miserable than I shall be, if I do not forgive you. I do forgive you." "Thanks; you are a good boy, and may God bless you. Is it not nearly daylight?" "Yes, it is. I shall soon be able to read the Bible or Prayer-book to you. I have them both here." "The pain is too severe, and becomes worse every minute. I shall not be able to listen to you now; but I shall have some moments of quiet before I die; and then--" Jackson groaned heavily, and ceased speaking. For many hours he appeared to suffer much agony, which he vented in low groans; the perspiration hung on his forehead in large beads, and his breathing became laborious. The sun rose and had nearly set again before Jackson spoke; at last he asked for some drink. "It is over now," said he, faintly. "The pain is subsiding, and death is near at hand. You may read to me now; but, first, while I think of it, let me tell you where you will find your father's property." "I know," replied I; "in your bed-place under the board. I saw you remove it when you did not see me." "True. I have no more to say; it will all be over soon. Read the burial service over me after I am dead; and now, while still above, read me what you think I shall like best; for I cannot collect myself sufficiently to tell you what is most proper. Indeed I hardly know. But I can pray at times. Read on." I did so, and came upon the parable of the prodigal son. "That suits me," said Jackson. "Now let me pray. Pray for me, Frank." "I don't know how," replied I; "you never taught me." "Alas, no!" Jackson was then silent. I saw his pale lips move for some time. I turned away for a few moments; when I came back to him, he was no more! His jaw had fallen; and this being the first time that I had ever faced death, I looked upon the corpse with horror and dismay. After a few minutes I left the body, and sat down on a rock at some distance from it, for I was somewhat afraid to be near to it. On this rock I remained till the sun was sinking below the horizon; when, alarmed at the idea of being there when it was dark, I took up my books and hastened back to the cabin. I was giddy from excitement, and not having tasted food for many hours. As soon as I had eaten, I lay down in my bed-place, intending to reflect upon what I was to do, now that I was alone; but I was in a few moments fast asleep, and did not wake until the sun was high. I arose much refreshed, and, seeing my Bible and Prayer-book close to my bed-place, I recollected my promise to Jackson that I would read the burial service over his body. I found the place in the Prayer-book, for I had read it more than once before; and, having just looked over it, I went with my book to where the body lay. It presented a yet more hideous spectacle than it had the night before. I read the service and closed the book. "What can I do?" thought I. "I cannot bury him in the guano. It will be impossible to carry the body over these rocks." Indeed, if it had been possible, I do not think I could have touched it. I was afraid of it. At last I determined that I would cover it up with the fragments of rocks which lay about in all directions, and I did so. This occupied me about two hours, and then, carrying the bottles with me, I gladly hastened away from the spot, with a resolution never to revisit it. I felt quite a relief when I was once more in the cabin. I was alone, it was true, but I was no longer in contact with the dead. I could not collect my thoughts or analyse my feelings during the remainder of the day. I sat with my head resting on my hand, in the attitude of one thinking; but at the same time my mind was vacant. I once more lay down to sleep, and the following morning I found myself invigorated, and capable of acting as well as thinking. I had a weight upon my spirits which I could not at first account for; but it arose from the feeling that I was now alone, without a soul to speak to or communicate with; my lips must now be closed till I again fell in with some of my fellow-creatures--and was that likely? We had seen some of them perish not far from us, and that was all, during a period of many years. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. I was now, by Jackson's account, nearly fourteen years old. During fourteen years but one vessel had been seen by us. It might be fourteen more, or double that time might elapse, before I should again fall in with any of my fellow-creatures. As these thoughts saddened me, I felt how much I would have sacrificed if Jackson had remained alive, were it only for his company; I would have forgiven him anything. I even then felt as if, in the murderer of my father, I had lost a friend. That day I was so unsettled I could not do anything; I tried to read, but I could not; I tried to eat, but my appetite was gone. I sat looking at the ocean as it rolled wave after wave, sometimes wondering whether it would ever bring a fellow-creature to join me; at others I sat, and for hours, in perfect vacuity of thought. The evening closed in, it was dark, and I still remained seated where I was. At last I returned to my bed, almost broken-hearted; but fortunately I was soon asleep, and my sorrows were forgotten. Another morning was gladdened with a brilliant sun, the dark blue ocean was scarcely ruffled by the breeze that swept over it, and I felt my spirits much revived, and my appetite returned. After taking a meal, I remembered what Jackson had told me about the belt with the diamonds, and I went up to his bed-place, and turning out the birds' skins and feathers, I raked up the gravel, which was not more than two inches deep, and came to the board. I lifted it up, and found underneath a hole, about a foot deep, full of various articles. There were the watch and sleeve-buttons of the mate, some dollars wrapped in old rags, a tobacco-box, an old pipe, a brooch with hair forming initials, some letters which were signed J. Evelyn, and which I perceived were from my grandfather, and probably taken by Jackson after my mother's death. I say letters, because they were such, as I afterwards found out, but I had not then ever seen a letter, and my first attempt to decipher written hand was useless, although I did manage to make out the signature. There was in the tobacco-box a plain gold wedding-ring, probably my mother's; and there was also a lock of long dark hair, which I presumed was hers also. There were three or four specimens of what I afterwards found out to be gold and silver ores, a silver pencil-case, and a pair of small gold ear-rings. At the bottom of the hole was the belt; it was of soft leather, and I could feel a hard substance in it sewed in every square, which of course I presumed were the diamonds, but I did not cut one of the divisions open to see what was in them. It had on the upper part of it, in very plain writing, "The property of Mr J. Evelyn, 33, Minories, London." I examined all these articles one after another, and having satisfied my curiosity, I replaced them in the hole for a future survey. I covered the hole with the board, and put back the gravel and the feathers into the bed-place. This occupied me about two hours, and then I again took my former position on the rocks, and remained in a state of listless inactivity of body and mind the remainder of that day. This state of prostration lasted for many days--I may say for weeks, before it was altogether removed. I could find no pleasure in my books, which were taken up, and after a few moments laid aside. It was now within a month of the time that the birds should come to the island. I was in no want of them for sustenance; there were plenty left, but I almost loathed the sight of food. The reader may inquire how it was that I knew the exact time of the arrival of the birds? I reply that the only reckoning ever kept by Jackson and me was the arrival of the full moons, and we also made a mark on the rock every time that the moon was at the full. Thirteen moons were the quantity which we reckoned from the time of the birds appearing on the island one year, until their re-appearance the next; and twelve moons had now passed. At length, tired with everything, tired of myself; and I may say, almost tired of life, I one day took it into my head that I would take some provisions with me and a bottle to hold water, and go up the ravine, and cut firewood which should last me a long while; and that I would remain up there for several days, for I hated the sight of the cabin and of all that was near to it. The next day I acted upon this resolution, and slinging my dry provisions on my shoulder, I set off for the ravine. In an hour I had gained it; but not being in a hurry to cut wood, I resolved upon climbing higher up, to see if I could reach the opposite side of the island; that is, at least, get over the brow of the hill, to have a good view of it. I continued to climb until I had gained a smooth grassy spot, which was clear of brushwood; and as I sat down to rest myself, I observed some blue flowers which I had never seen before; indeed I did not know that there was a flower on the island. As I afterwards discovered, they were one of the varieties of Gentianellas. I looked at them, admired them, and felt quite an affection for them; they were very pretty, and they were, as well as myself, alone. Jackson, when I was pointing out the English cottages in the landscapes of Mayor's Natural History, had told me a great deal about gardening in England, and how wild flowers and trees were transplanted and improved by culture; how roses and other plants were nailed up the walls as I had observed in the engraving, and how they were watered and kept; and as I sat down looking at the flower, the thought occurred to me, Why should I not take it with me, and keep it for myself? I can water it and take care of it. I resolved that I would do so, for I already looked upon the plant as a treasure. I took it up carefully with my American knife, leaving sufficient mould about the roots, and then I proceeded to ascend the hill; but before I had gone another hundred yards, I found at least a dozen more of these plants in flower, all finer than the one I had dug up, and three or four others very different from these, which were also quite new to me. I was puzzled what to do; I put down the plants I had dug up and continued my ascent, not having made up my mind. After half an hour's climbing, I gained the summit, and could perceive the ocean on the other side, and the other half of the island lying beneath me. It was very grand from the height I stood on, but I observed little difference between one side of the island and the other; all was rugged barren rock as on my side, with the exception of the portion close to me; this had brushwood in the ravine, which appeared to be a sort of cleft through the island. All was silent and solitary; not a bird was to be seen, and nothing that had life could I discover. I was about to return, when I thought I might as well go down the ravine facing me for a little way, and see what there was in it. I did so, and discovered some other plants that I had not seen on my side of the island. There were also some fern trees, and some twining plants running up them, and I thought to myself, Why, these plants are what I saw in the picture of the English cottages, or very like them. I wonder if they would run up my cabin? And then all at once the idea came to me that I would plant some of them round the cabin, and that I would make a garden of flowers, and have plants of my own. The reader can hardly imagine the pleasure that this idea gave me; I sat down to ruminate upon it, and felt quite happy for the time. I now recollected, however, that the cabin was built on the rock, and that plants would only grow in the earth. At first this idea chilled me, as it seemed to destroy all my schemes, but I resolved that I would bring some earth to the rock, and make my garden in that way. I at first thought of the guano, but Jackson had told me that it was only used in small proportions to enrich the soil, and would kill plants if used by itself. After an hour's consideration, during which I called to mind all that Jackson had told me on the subject, I made up my mind I would return to the cabin, and on my return ascertain how low down the ravine I could obtain earth for my garden; I would then carry the earth to the cabin, make a soil ready for the plants and flowers, and then, when all was ready, I would go up the ravine, collect what I could, and make my garden. I did so. I found that I could get soil about one-third of the way up the ravine, a quarter of a mile below where the brushwood grew; and having ascertained that, I returned to the cabin, threw down my provisions which were to have lasted me a week, and as it was late, I decided that I would not commence operations until the following day. I took out of the chest a duck frock, and tying up the sleeves and collar, so as to form a bag of the body of the frock, I set off the next morning to begin my task. That day I contrived to carry to the cabin ten or twelve bags of mould, which I put round it in a border about four feet wide and about a foot deep. It occupied me a whole week to obtain the quantity of earth necessary to make the bed on each side of the cabin; it was hard work, but it made me cheerful and happy to what I had been before. I found that the best cure for melancholy and solitude was employment, so I thus obtained valuable knowledge as well as the making of my garden. When I had finished carrying the mould, I started off for the ravine with two bags to hold the plants which I might collect, and after a day's toil, I returned with my bags full of small shrubs, besides a bundle of creepers to plant against the sides of the cabin. The following day was occupied in planting everything I had procured. I was sorry to see that the leaves and flowers hung down, but I watered them all before I went to bed. The next morning I was delighted to perceive that they had all recovered and were looking quite fresh. But my garden was not full enough to please me, and I once more went up the ravine, selecting other plants which had no flowers on them, and one or two other shrubs, which I had not before observed. When these were planted and watered, my garden looked very gay and full of plants, and then I discovered the mould came down for want of support at the edges; I therefore went and picked up pieces of rock of sufficient size to make a border and hold up the mould, and now all was complete, and I had nothing to do but to go on watering them daily. This I did, and recollecting what Jackson had said about the guano, I got a bag of it, and put some to each plant. The good effect of this was soon observable, and before the birds came, my garden was in a very flourishing condition. I cannot express to the reader the pleasure I derived from this little garden. I knew every plant and every shrub, talked to them as if they were companions, while I watered and tended them, which I did every night and morning, and their rapid growth was my delight. I no longer felt my solitude so irksome as I had done. I had something to look after, to interest me, and to love; they were alive as well as I was; they grew, and threw out leaves and flowers; they were grateful for the care I bestowed upon them, and became my companions and friends. I before mentioned that during the latter portion of the time I was with Jackson, he had taught me to sing several songs. Feeling tired, in my solitude, of not hearing the human voice, I found myself at first humming over, and afterwards singing aloud, the various airs I had collected from him. This afforded me much pleasure, and I used to sing half the day. I had no one to listen to me, it is true; but as my fondness for my garden increased, I used to sit down and sing to the flowers and shrubs, and fancy that they listened to me. But my stock of songs was not very large, and at last I had repeated them so often that I became tired of the words. It occurred to me that the Prayer-book had the Psalms of David at the end of it, set to music. I got the book, and as far as the airs that I knew would suit, I sang them all; never were Psalms, probably, sung to such tunes before, but it amused me, and there was no want of variety of language. Every three or four days I would go up the ravine, and search carefully for any new flower or shrub which I had not yet planted in my garden, and when I found one, as I often did, it was a source of great delight. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. At last the birds came, and I procured some of their eggs, which were a very agreeable change, after living so long upon dried meat. My want of occupation occasioned me also to employ some of my time in fishing, which I seldom had done while Jackson was alive; and this created a variety in my food, to which, for a long while, I had been a stranger. Jackson did not care for fish, as to cook it we were obliged to go up the ravine for wood, and he did not like the trouble. When the birds came, I had recourse to my book on Natural History, to read over again the accounts of the Man-of-War birds, Gannets, and other birds mentioned in it; and there was a vignette of a Chinaman with tame cormorants on a pole, and in the letter-press an account of how they were trained and employed to catch fish for their masters. This gave me the idea that I would have some birds tame, as companions, and, if possible, teach them to catch fish for me; but I knew that I must wait till the young birds were fit to be taken from the nest. I now resolved that during the time the birds were mating, I would go to the ravine and remain there several days, to collect bundles of firewood. The firewood was chiefly cut from a sort of low bush, like the sallow or willow, fit for making baskets, indeed fit for anything better than firewood; however, there were some bushes which were of a harder texture, and which burnt well. It was Jackson who told me that the former were called Willow and used for making baskets, and he also showed me how to tie the faggots up by twisting the sallows together. They were not, however, what Jackson said they were--from after knowledge, I should say that they were a species of Oleander, or something of the kind. Having roasted several dozen of eggs quite hard, by way of provision, I set off one morning, and went to the ravine. As Jackson had said before, you had to walk under a wall of rock thirty feet high, and then pass through a water-course to get up to the ravine, which increased the distance to where the shrubs grew, at least half a mile. It was over this wall that the captain fell and was killed, because Jackson would not assist him. I gained the thicket where the bushes grew, and for three days I worked very hard, and had cut down and tied about fifty large faggots, when I thought that I had collected enough to last me for a long while; but I had still to carry them down, and this was a heavy task, as I could not carry more than one at a time. It occurred to me that if I threw my faggots over the wall opposite to where they had been cut down, I should save myself nearly a mile of carriage, as otherwise I had to walk all the way to the water-course which divided the wall of rock, and then walk back again. Indeed, where I cut down the wood was not more than a quarter of a mile from the bathing-pool, and all down hill. I was delighted at this idea, which I wondered had never occurred to Jackson, and I commenced putting it into execution. The top of the wall of rock was slippery from the constant trickling of the water over the surface, but this was only in some places. I carried my faggots down one by one, and threw them over, being careful not to lose my footing in so doing. I had carried all but three or four, and had become careless, when, on heaving one over, my heels were thrown up, and before I could recover myself I slid down the remainder of the ledge and was precipitated down below, a distance of more than thirty feet. I must have remained there many hours insensible, but at last I recovered and found myself lying on the faggots which I had thrown down. It was my falling on the faggots, instead of the hard rock, which had saved my life. I rose as soon as I could collect my scattered senses. I felt very sore and very much shaken, and the blood was running out of my mouth, but there were no bones broken. I was, however, too ill to attempt anything more that day. I walked home at a very slow pace and went to bed. A sound sleep restored me, and in a day or two I was quite recovered. I watered my plants, which I found drooping, as if they had grieved at my being so long away from them, and then I returned to where my faggots had been left; and to lighten my labour I resolved to carry them down to the bathing-pool and stack them up there on the rocks near to it. I mention this for reasons that the reader will comprehend by-and-bye. This occupied me two days, for I was not inclined, after my fall, to work hard; and very glad was I when the labour was over. The young birds were now hatched, but I had to wait four or five weeks before they were fit to be taken. I began again to find solitude tedious. The flowers in my garden had all bloomed and withered, and there was not so much to interest me. I recommenced reading the Bible, and the narratives in the Old and New Testaments again afforded me pleasure. I hardly need say to the reader that I read the Bible as I would have read any other book--for amusement, and not for instruction. I had learnt little from Jackson--indeed, as regards the true nature of the Christian religion, I may say, nothing at all. I do not believe that he knew anything about it himself. It is true that the precepts in the New Testament struck me, and that I was more interested about Our Saviour than anybody else; but I could not comprehend him, or his mission. In short, I read in darkness; and I may say that I almost knew the Bible by heart without understanding it.--How could I? How many thousands are there who do the same, without having an excuse to offer for their blindness! At last the time for taking the birds arrived, and I had then sufficient employment to keep me from being melancholy. I collected quite as many as we had done when Jackson and I had to be provided for; and with my new knives my labour was comparatively easy. As soon as I had completed my provision, I went back to take the young birds which already I had selected and left for that purpose. It was high time, for I found that when I went to take them they were ready to fly. However, after a good battle with the old birds (for I had taken six young ones--two from each nest, which arrayed a force of six old ones against me, who fought very valiantly in defence of their offspring), I succeeded in carrying them off, but followed by the old birds, who now screamed and darted close to me as they came pursuing me to the cabin. As soon as I got safe back, I took the young birds into the cabin, tying each of them by the leg with a piece of fishing-line, and the other end of the line I fastened to some pieces of rock which I had collected ready on the platform outside of the cabin. The old birds continued to persecute me till it was dark, and then they went away, and I, tired with my day's labour, was not sorry to go to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I found the old birds on the platform, in company with the young ones, I presume trying to persuade them to fly away with them; but the lines on their legs prevented that. They did not leave at my approach for some little while; at last they all took wing, and went off to sea; but in the course of a few minutes they returned with some small fish in their mouths, with which they fed their young ones. They continued to do this for the two following days, when there was a general break up, announcing the departure of the main body, which, after much soaring and wheeling in the air, flew off in a northerly direction. The six parent birds, who were with their young ones at the cabin, appeared for some time very uneasy, flying round and round and screaming wildly; at last they soared in the air with loud shrieks, and flew away after the main body, which was still in sight-- their love for their young overpowered by their instinctive habits. I was not sorry when they were gone, as I wanted to have my new family all to myself. I went down to the rocks and caught a fish, which was large enough to supply them for three or four days. I fed them with the inside of the fish, and they ate it very heartily. For several days they appeared very uneasy; but gradually they settled, and not only appeared to know me, but to welcome my coming, which was to me a source of great pleasure. I now neglected my flowers for the birds, which were the more animated of the two; and I sat down for hours on the platform with my six companions, who I must own were not over-lively and intelligent, but they were alive, and had eyes. They seldom roused up, unless I brought them fish, of which they had a supply four times a day, and then they would stand on their legs and open their beaks far apart, each waiting for its share. They were a great happiness to me, and I watched their gradual increase of plumage and of size, which was very rapid. I gave them all names out of my natural history book. One was Lion, then Tiger, Panther, Bear, Horse, and Jackass (at the time that I named them, the last would have been very appropriate to them all); and as I always called them by their names as I fed them, I soon found, to my great joy, that they knew them well enough. This delighted me. I read my books to them by way of amusement; I sang my songs to them; I talked to them; I would even narrate the various histories out of the Bible to them, such as that of Joseph and his brethren, etcetera; and the stolid air with which the communications were received made me almost imagine they were listened to. After a time, I took the line off the legs of two of them, with the precaution of first cutting their wings, and these two became much more lively, following me into the cabin, and generally staying there during the night. As I found that no attempt was made to escape, I let them all loose, after having cut their wings, and they all behaved equally well with the two first to which I had given their liberty. The perfect obedience and good behaviour of my new companions again gave me leisure that was not altogether desirable, as it left a vacuum to fill up. But I returned to my garden. I could do no more at present but water my plants and look at the increased daily growth of the climbers, as they now boldly ascended the sides of the cabin; but I thought it was high time to go up into the ravine and about the island, to see if I could not add to my collection. One morning I set off up the ravine. I was not successful, so I contented myself with carrying, by the long road, those faggots which I had left behind me on the day when I fell over the precipice. This labour I finished, and then returned to the cabin, where I was met by my birds with half-extended wings and open mouths, as if they were very glad to see me, and very hungry into the bargain. I ought to observe that my birds appeared now to separate into pairs, male and female, as their difference of plumage denoted. Lion and Horse were always side by side, as were Jackass and Bear, and Tiger and Panther. I now fed them one by one, calling them by name, to which they immediately responded, and if any one came who was not called, it was switched for its trouble. The next morning I set off on another voyage of discovery after plants, and this time I resolved upon trying what I could find among the crevices of the rocks, for I had seen at a distance what appeared to me to be a very pretty flower on the ledge of one of the clefts. I did not go up the ravine this time, but commenced climbing the rocks behind where the cabin was built. It was hard work, but I was not easily discouraged, and after a couple of hours, I arrived at a level which I had in view when I commenced my labour, and here I was amply rewarded; for I found several plants quite new to me, and a variety of ferns, which I thought very beautiful, although they had no flowers. The scene, from where I stood, was awful and beautiful. I looked down upon the rocks below, and the cabin, which appeared very small, and I thought that I could see my birds like dots upon the platform. It was a bright day and smooth water, and I could clearly distinguish the other islands in the distance, and I thought that I saw something like a white speck close to them--perhaps it was a vessel. This made me melancholy, and I could not help asking myself whether I was to remain all my life upon the island, alone, or if there were any chance of my ever being taken off it. As I looked down upon the cabin, I was surprised at the steepness of the rocks which I had climbed, and felt alarmed, as if I never should be able to get back again. But these thoughts were soon chased away. I turned from the seaward, and looked inland. I found that on one side of me there was a chasm between the rocks, the bottom of which was so far down that I could not see it; and on the other side the rock rose up as straight as a wall. My attention was soon diverted by discovering another plant, and I now commenced my task of digging them all up. I obtained, with the ferns, about twenty new varieties, which I made up in a bundle ready for carrying down slung round my neck; for I knew that I should require both hands to descend with. Then I sat down to rest myself a little before I commenced my return, and after I had been seated a few minutes, I thought I would sing a song by way of amusement. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. I have before said that, tired of repeating the words of the songs which Jackson had taught me, I had taken those of Psalms in metre, at the end of the Prayer-book, by way of variety; and, as far as metre went, they answered very well, although people would have been surprised to have heard Psalms sung to such quick and varied measure. The Psalm I chose this time was the first--"How blest is he who ne'er consents;" and I began accordingly; but when I came to the end of the line, to my astonishment I heard a plaintive voice, at a distance, repeat after me "con-sents." I looked round. I thought I must have been deceived, so I continued--"By ill advice to walk." This time I could not be mistaken--"to walk," was repeated by the same voice as plainly as possible. I stopped singing, lost in wonder. "There must be somebody on the island as well as myself," thought I; for I never had heard an echo before, except when it thundered, and such echoes I had put down as a portion of the thunder. "Who's there?" cried I. "Who's there?" replied the voice. "It's me!" "It's me!" was the answer. I did not know what to make of it. I cried out again and again, and again and again I heard what I said repeated, but no answer to my questions. I thought I was insulted by somebody, and yet, when I listened, the voice that spoke came from the face of the rock on the other side of the chasm, and no one could be there without my seeing them. This made me think that I was mistaken, and that there could not be anybody, but still I could not solve the mystery. At last I became frightened, and as the sun was now setting, I determined to get back to the cabin. I did so, and went down much faster than I had gone up, for as it grew dark I became the more alarmed. The only thing that reassured me was the softness and plaintiveness of the voice--not like Jackson's, but as of some one who would not think of injuring me. Although I was, generally speaking, quiet and content with my isolated position, yet it was only when I was employed or amused with my favourites. At times, I could not find anything to do, and was overcome by weariness. I would then throw away my books, and remain for hours thinking upon the probability of my ever again seeing a fellow-creature; and a fit of melancholy would come over me, which would last many days. I was in one of these moods, when it occurred to me, that although I had seen the other side of the island from the summit, I had not gone down to the beach to explore it; and I resolved that I would do so, making a trip of three or four days. When my knives had become blunt, Jackson had told me how to sharpen them by rubbing the blades upon a hard flat piece of rock wetted with water. This I had found to answer very well, and I now determined I would try and sharpen one of the old axes in the same way, so as to make it serviceable, for I was very much afraid of breaking my knives in cutting down the brushwood, and I knew how much more rapidly it could be done with an axe. I picked out a large stone, suitable for the purpose, and with a kid of water at hand, I set-to to sharpen the axe. It was a long job, but in a day or two I had succeeded admirably, and the axe was in good order. I then thought how I could leave my birds for so many days, as they would require food. At last I considered that if I caught two large fish and cut them up, they would be sufficient for their sustenance. I did so, and, provided with a packet of dried birds for food, tied up in a duck frock, with my Natural History book for amusement, a pannikin to get water in, my axe on my shoulder, and my knives by my side--I first kissed all the birds, and told them to remain quiet and good till I came back--I set off on a bright clear morning on my tour of examination. In a couple of hours I had gained the summit of the island, and prepared for my descent, by sitting down and eating my dinner. I observed that, as before, the water on the other side of the island was quite smooth, compared to what it was on the side where I resided. It was, in fact, from the prevailing winds during the year, the lee side of the island. Having rested myself sufficiently, I commenced my descent, which I accomplished in little less time than it took me to ascend from the other side. As I neared the rocks by the shore, I thought I perceived something occasionally moving about on them. I was not mistaken, for as I came closer, I found that there were several large animals lying on the rocks, and occasionally dropping into the sea close to them. The sight of anything living was to me of great interest. I determined to get nearer, and ascertain what animals they were. At last, by creeping along from rock to rock, I arrived to within forty yards of them. I recollected some animals of the same shape in my book of Natural History, which, fortunately, I had with me in the duck frock, and sitting down behind the rock, I pulled it out, and turned over the pages until I came to a print which exactly answered to their appearance. It was the Seal. Having satisfied myself on that point, I read the history of the animal, and found that it was easily tamed, and very affectionate when taken young, and also might be easily killed by a blow on the nose. These, at least, were for me the two most important pieces of information. It occurred to me that it would be very pleasant to have a young seal for a playmate (for the gannets, after all, were not very intelligent), and I resolved to obtain one if I could. I put down my duck frock with my provisions behind the rock, and taking my axe in my hand, I cautiously advanced to where the animals lay. There were about twenty of them all together on one rock, but they were all large, and seemed to be about five or six feet long. I could not see a small one anywhere, so I walked in behind the rocks further to the right, towards another rock, where I saw another batch of them lying. As I neared them, I saw by herself, a seal with a young one by her side, not more than two feet long. This was what I wanted. They lay at some distance from the water, upon a low rock. I watched them for some time, and was much amused at the prattling which passed between the old and the young one. I thought that to obtain the young one, I must of course kill the old one, for I perceived that it had large teeth. I considered it advisable to get between them and the water, that they might not escape me, and I contrived so to do, before I made my appearance. As soon as the old one perceived me running to them, it gave a shrill cry, and then floundered towards the water; as we came close together, it showed its teeth, and rose upon its flappers to defend itself and its young one, which kept close to its side; but a blow on its nose with the axe rendered it motionless, and apparently dead. Delighted with my success, I seized hold of the young one and took it in my arms, and was carrying it away, when I found myself confronted with the male seal, which, alarmed by the cry of the female, had come to her assistance. It was much larger than the female, with more shaggy hair about the neck and shoulders, and apparently very fierce. I could not pass it, as it was in-shore of me, and I had just time to drop the young seal, and leap behind a rock on one side, with my axe all ready. The animal reared itself on the rock to pass over to me, when I saluted it with a blow on the head, which staggered it. I had lost my presence of mind by the creature coming upon me so unexpectedly, and my blow was not well aimed; but before it could recover the first blow, another on its nose tumbled it over, to all appearance lifeless. I then hastened to gain the other side of the rock, where I had left the young seal, and found that it had crept to its mother's body, and was fondling it. I took it in my arms, and retreated to where I had left my duck frock, and throwing everything else out, I put the animal in, and tied up the end, so that it could not escape. I then sat down to recover myself from the excitement occasioned by this first engagement I had ever been in, quite delighted with my newly-acquired treasure. I then thought what I should do. It was now within an hour of dark, and was too late to return to the other side of the island, or I would have done so, as I was anxious to get my seal home. At last I decided that I would go farther from the beach, and take up my quarters for the night. I collected my provision, and with my seal under my arm, I walked away about one hundred yards from the water's edge, and took up a position under a large rock; here I ate my supper, and then untied the line which closed up the frock, and had a parting look at my little friend before I went to sleep. He had struggled a good deal at first, but was now quiet, although he occasionally made attempts to bite me. I coaxed him and fondled him a good deal, and then put him into his bag again, and made him secure, which appeared to annoy him very much, as he was not half as quiet in a bag as he was when I held him in my lap. I then took my book to read over again the history of the seal, and I found that their skins were valuable, and also that they gave a great deal of oil; but I had no use for oil, though I thought that their skins might be very comfortable in my bed-place. I shut my book and lay down to sleep, but I could not obtain any till near daylight, I had been so excited, and was so anxious about my treasure. The sun shining in my eyes woke me up; I found my seal was lying very quiet, I touched him to see that he was not dead; and the cry that he gave assured me to the contrary. I then walked back to where I had left the bodies of the parents. I found on examination that they were both dead, and also that their furs were very beautiful, and I resolved that I would have their skins. But here was a difficulty. If I took off the skins, I could not carry them with me, and I was anxious to get the young one home, lest it should die of hunger; so I decided that I would first take home the young one, give it food and warm it, and then return and skin the old ones. I therefore made my breakfast, and leaving the remainder of my provision in a cleft in the rock, that I might not have the trouble of bringing it again, I set off on my return, and used such diligence that I was back at the cabin by noon. I found my birds all well, and apparently quite satisfied with the provision that I had left them, for they were most of them asleep, and those that were awake did not notice my arrival. "Ah," thought I, "you only like me for what I give you; next time I go away I will leave you hungry, and then, when you see me come back, you will all flutter your wings with gladness." I was puzzled where to put my seal so as to keep him safe: at last I decided upon opening the seaman's chest and putting him in that. I did so, and gave him a piece of fish which the birds had not eaten. The little creature devoured it eagerly, and I took my lines and went down to catch some fish for a further supply. In half an hour I returned with two large fish, and I then took the seal out of the chest and fed him again. He ate very heartily; and I was glad to perceive that he appeared much tamer already. I threw some of the insides of the fish to the birds, who were now become of very inferior interest to me. Having fed my animals, I then thought of myself, and, as I took my meal, I arranged that the next morning I would go over to the other side of the island, skin the two seals, and spread out the skins on the rocks to dry, and would leave them there till I had a better opportunity of bringing them to the cabin; at present I could not be away from my new acquaintance, which I wished to make tame and fond of me. Having fed him again in the morning, I put down the lid of the chest, and then started for the lee side of the island. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. I arrived early, skinned both the seals, and dragged the skins up from the water side, though with difficulty, especially that of the large one, to the rock where I had taken up my quarters the night before. Here I spread them out to dry, putting large pieces of rock upon the edges, that they might not be blown away. It was nearly dusk when I had finished, but I set off, and an hour after dark arrived at the cabin; for now that I knew my way so well, I got over the ground twice as fast as I did before. I crawled into my bed-place in the dark, and slept soundly after my fatigue. I awoke the next morning with the plaintive cry of my seal in the chest, and I hastened to get some fish to feed him with. I took him out and fed him; and was astonished how tame the little animal had become already. He remained very quietly with me after he had been fed, nestling close to my side, as if I had been his mother, and even making a half attempt to follow me when I left him. My birds appeared very dull and stupid, and I observed also that they were very dirty, and always rushed to the kid when it was full of water, trying to get into it. This made me think that they required bathing in salt-water, and I took one down to the bathing-pool, with a long line to its leg, and put it in. The manner in which the poor creature floundered, and dipped and washed itself, for several minutes, proved my supposition correct; so, after allowing it half an hour for its recreation, I took it back, and went down with the others until they had all indulged in the luxury of a bath; and from that time, as I took them down almost every day, it was astonishing how much brighter and sleeker their plumage became. I remained a week in the cabin, taming my seal, who now was quite fond of me; and one night, as I was going to bed, he crawled into my bed-place, and from that time he was my bedfellow. At the end of a week I went over to the other side of the island, and contrived to carry up the two skins to the summit. It was a hard day's work. The day afterwards I conveyed them to the cabin, and, as they were quite dry, I put them into my bed-place to lie down upon, as I did not like the smell of the bird's feathers, although I had so long been accustomed to them. And now, what with my seal, my birds, and my garden, and the occupation they gave me, the time passed quickly away, until, by my reckoning, it was nearly the period for the birds to come again. I observed, as the time drew near, that my birds were uneasy. They had paired, as I mentioned before, and when their plumage was complete, it was evident that they had paired male and female, as I had supposed. They had not been tethered for a long while, and appeared to me now very much inclined to fly, especially the male birds. At first I thought that I would cut all their wings, as I was fearful that they would join the other birds on their arrival, but observing that they were so fond of their mates, I resolved to cut the wing of the females only, as I did not think that the male birds would leave them. I did so, and took my chance; for, since I had the seal for a companion, I did not care so much for the birds as before. At last the birds came, and took possession of the guano-ground as usual, and I went for fresh eggs; at the same time I found that my females were scratching, as if they would make their nests, and a few days afterwards they began to lay. I then thought that as soon as they had young ones they would wish to go away, so I took the eggs that were laid, to prevent them; but I found that as fast as I took away the eggs they laid more, and this they did for nearly two months, supplying me with fresh eggs long after the wild birds had hatched, and left the island. The male birds, at the time that the females first laid their eggs, tried their wings in short flights in circles; and then flew away out to sea. I thought that they were gone; but I was deceived, for they returned in about a quarter of an hour, each with a fish in its beak, which they laid down before their mates. I was much pleased at this, and I resolved that in future they should supply their own food, which they did; and not their own food only, but enough for the seal and me also, when the weather was fine; but when it was rough, they could not obtain any, and then I was obliged to feed them. The way I obtained from them the extra supply of fish was, that when they first went out, I seized, on their return the fish which they brought; and as often as I did this, they would go for more, until the females were fed. But I had one difficulty to contend with, which was, that at the time the birds could not obtain fish, which was when the weather was rough, I could not neither, as they would not take the bait. After some cogitation, I decided that I would divide a portion of the bathing-pool farthest from the shore, by a wall of loose rock which the water could flow through, but which the fish could not get out of, and that I would catch fish in the fine weather to feed the seal and the birds when the weather was rough and bad. As soon as I had finished curing my stock of provisions and got it safely housed in the cabin, I set to work to make this wall, which did not take me a very long while, as the water was not more than two feet deep, and the pool about ten yards across. As soon as it was finished, I went out every day, when it was fine, and caught as many fish as I thought I might require, and put them into this portion of the bathing-pool. I found the plan answer well, as the fish lived; but I had great difficulty in getting them out when I wanted them; for they would not take the bait. As my birds were no longer a trouble to me, but rather, on the contrary, a profit, I devoted my whole time to my seal. I required a name for him, and reading in the book of Natural History that a certain lion was called Nero, I thought it a very good name for a seal, and bestowed it on him accordingly, although what Nero meant I had no idea of. The animal was now so tame that he would cry if ever I left him, and would follow me as far as he could down the rocks; but there was one part of the path leading to the bathing-pool, which was too difficult for him, and there he would remain crying till I came back. I had more than once taken him down to the bathing-pool to wash him, and he was much pleased when I did. I now resolved that I would clear the path of the rocks, that he might be able to follow me down the whole way, for he had grown so much that I found him too heavy to carry. It occupied me a week before I could roll away and remove the smaller rocks, and knock off others with the axe; but I finished it at last, and was pleased to find that the animal followed me right down and plunged into the water. He had not been down since I had made the wall of rock to keep the fish in, and as soon as he was in, he dived and came out with one of the fish, which he brought to land. "So now," thought I, "I shall know how to get the fish when I want them--I shall bring you down, Nero." I may as well here observe that Nero very soon obeyed orders as faithfully as a dog. I had a little switch, and when he did wrong, I would give him a slight tap on the nose. He would shake his head, show his teeth, and growl, and then come fondly to me. As he used to follow me every day down to the pool, I had to break him of going after the fish when I did not want them taken, and this I accomplished. No one who had not witnessed it, could imagine the affection and docility of this animal, and the love I had for him. He was my companion and playmate during the day, and my bedfellow at night. We were inseparable. It was at the latter portion of the second year of my solitude that a circumstance occurred, that I must now relate. Nero had gone down to the pool with me, and I was standing fishing off the rocks, when he came out of the pool and plunged into the sea, playing all sorts of gambols, and whistling with delight. I did not think anything about it. He plunged and disappeared for a few minutes, and then would come up again close to where my line was; but he disturbed the fish, and I could not catch any. To drive him further off, I pelted him with pieces of rock, one of which hit him very hard, and he dived down. After a time I pulled up my line, and whistling to him to return, although I did not see him, I went away to the cabin, fully expecting that he would soon follow me, for now he could walk (after his fashion) from the cabin to the pool as he pleased. This was early in the morning, and I busied myself with my garden, which was now in great luxuriance, for I had dressed it with guano; but observing about noon that he had not returned, I became uneasy, and went down to the pool to look for him. He was not there, and I looked on the sea, but could not perceive him anywhere. I called and whistled, but it was of no use, and I grew very much alarmed at the idea that my treasure had deserted me. "It could not be because I threw the pieces of rock at him," thought I; "he would not leave me for that." I remained for two or three hours, watching for him, but it was all in vain; there was no seal--no Nero. My heart sank at the idea of the animal having deserted me, and for the first time in my life, as far as I can recollect, I burst into a flood of tears. For the first time in my life, I may say, I felt truly miserable--my whole heart and affections were set upon this animal, the companion and friend of my solitude, and I felt as if existence were a burden without him. After a while, I retraced my steps to the cabin; but I was miserable, more so than I can express. I could not rest quiet. Two hours before sunset, I went down again to the rocks, and called till I was hoarse. It was all in vain; night closed in, and again I returned to the cabin, and threw myself down in my bed-place in utter despair. "I thought he loved me," said I to myself, "loved me as I loved him; I would not have left him in that way." And my tears burst out anew at the idea that I never should see my poor Nero again. The reader may think that my grief was inordinate and unwarrantable; but let him put himself in my position--a lad of sixteen, alone on a desolate island, with only one companion--true, he was an animal, and could not speak, but he was affectionate; he replied to all my caresses; he was my only companion and friend, the only object--that I loved or cared about. He was intelligent, and I thought loved me as much as I loved him; and now he had deserted me, and I had nothing else that I cared about or that cared for me. My tears flowed for more than an hour, till at last I was wearied and fell asleep. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. It was early in the morning, and yet dark, when I felt something touch me. I started up--a low cry of pleasure told me at once it was Nero, who was by my side. Yes, it was Nero, who had come back, having climbed up again the steep path to the cabin, to return to his master. Need I say that I was overjoyed, that I hugged him as if he had been a human being, that I wept over him, and that in a few minutes afterwards we were asleep together in the same bed-place? Such was the fact, and never was there in my after-life so great a transition from grief to joy. "Oh! Now, if you had left me,"--said I to him, the next morning, when I got up; "you naughty seal, to frighten me and make me so unhappy as you did!" Nero appeared quite as happy as I was at our re-union, and was more affectionate than ever. I must now pass over many months in very few words; just stating to the reader what my position was at the end of three years, during which I was alone upon the island. I had now arrived at the age of near seventeen, and was tall and strong for my years. I had left off wearing my dress of the skins of birds, having substituted one of the seaman's shirts, which I had found in the chest. This, however, was the whole of my costume, and although, had it been longer it would have been more correct, still, as I had no other companion but Nero, it was not necessary to be so very particular, as if I had been in society. During these three years, I think I had read the Bible and Prayer-book, and my Natural History book, at least five or six times quite through, and possessing a retentive memory, could almost repeat them by heart; but still I read the Bible as a sealed book, for I did not understand it, having had no one to instruct me, nor any grace bestowed upon me. I read for amusement, and nothing more. My garden was now in a most flourishing condition, the climbing plants had overrun the cabin, so as to completely cover the whole of the roof and every portion of it, and they hung in festoons on each side of the doorway. Many of the plants which I had taken up small, when I moved them, had proved to be trees, and were now waving to the breeze, high above the cabin roof; and everything that I had planted, from continual watering and guano, had grown most luxuriantly. In fact, my cabin was so covered and sheltered, that its original form had totally disappeared; it now looked like an arbour in a clump of trees, and from the rocks by the bathing-pool it had a very picturesque appearance. I had, of course, several times gone up the ravine, and now that my axe had become useful, I had gradually accumulated a large stock of wood down by the bathing-pool, more than I could use for a long while, as I seldom lighted a fire; but the cutting it was employment, and employment was to me a great source of happiness. I had been several times to the other side of the island, and had had more encounters with the seals, of which I killed many, for I found their skins very comfortable and useful in the cabin. I had collected about three dozen of the finest skins, which were more than I required, but I had taken them for the same reason that I had collected the firewood, for the sake of employment; and in this instance, I may add, for the sake of the excitement which the combats with the seals afforded me. I have not narrated any of these conflicts, as I thought that they might weary the reader; I must, however, state what occurred on one occasion, as although ludicrous, it nearly cost me my life. I had attacked a large male seal, with a splendid fur, for I always looked out for the best-skinned animals. He was lying on a rock close to the water, and I had gone into the water to cut him off and prevent his escape by plunging in as he would otherwise have done; but as I aimed the usual blow at his nose, my foot slipped on the wet rock, and I missed the animal, and at the same time fell down on the rock with the axe in my hand. The animal, which was a male of the largest size, seized hold of my shirt (which I then wore) with his teeth, and plunging with me into the sea, dived down into the deep water. It was fortunate that he had seized my shirt instead of my body, and also that I could swim well. He carried me along with him--the shirt, for a few seconds, drawn over my head, when, disembarrassing myself of the garment, by slipping my head and arms out, I left it in his possession, and regained the surface of the water, almost suffocated. It was fortunate that I did not wear sleeve-buttons; had I had them, I could not have disengaged myself, and must have perished. I climbed the rock again, and turning round, I perceived the seal on the surface, shaking the shirt in great wrath. This was a sad discomfiture, as I lost not only my shirt but my axe, which I dropped when I was dragged into the water; nothing was saved except my knife, which I carried by a lanyard round my neck. Why I mention this circumstance particularly, is, that having felt great inconvenience for want of sleeve-buttons to hold the wristbands of my shirt together, I had thought of making use of those of the mate, which the reader may recollect had been given with his watch into Jackson's care, to take home to his wife; but on second consideration I thought it very possible I might lose them, and decided that the property was in trust, and that I had no right to risk it. This correct feeling on my part, therefore, was probably the saving of my life. I have only now to mention my birds, and of them I can merely say that they went on as before; they bathed constantly, at the right season they laid eggs, the male birds caught fish and brought them to the cabin, and they were just as stupid and uninteresting as they were at first; however, they never left me, nor indeed showed any intention to leave me, after the first season of the birds returning to the island. They were useful but not very ornamental, and not at all interesting to one who had such an intelligent companion as Nero. Having new brought up my history, in a few words, until the time referred to, I come to the narrative of what occurred to produce a change in my condition. I have said that in the chest there was a spy-glass, but it had been wetted with salt-water, and was useless. Jackson had tried to show me how to use it, and had shown me correctly, but the glasses were dimmed by the wet and subsequent evaporation from heat. I had taken out all the glasses and cleaned them, except the field-glass, as it is called; but that being composed of two glasses, the water had penetrated between them, and it still remained so dull that nothing could be distinguished through it, at the time that Jackson was showing me how to use the instrument; it was therefore put on one side as useless. A year afterwards I took it out, from curiosity, and then I discovered that the moisture between the two glasses had been quite dried up, and that I could see very clearly through it, and after a little practice I could use it as well as anybody else. Still I seldom did use it, as my eyesight was particularly keen, and I did not require it; and as for any vessel coming off the island, I had gradually given up all thoughts of it. It was one evening when the weather was very rough and the sea much agitated, that I thought I saw something unusual on the water, about four miles distant. I supposed at first it might be a spermaceti whale, for numbers used to play round the island at certain seasons, and I used to watch their blowing and their gambols, if I may use the term, and Jackson, often told me long stories about the whale-fisheries; but a ray of the setting sun made the object appear white, and I ran for the glass, and made out that it was a boat or a very small vessel, with a sail out, and running before the gale right down to the island. I watched it till it was dark with much interest, and with thoughts of various kinds chasing each other; and then I began to consider what was best to do. I knew that in an hour the moon would rise, and as the sky was not cloudy, although the wind and sea were high, I should probably be able to see it again. "But they never can get on shore on this side of the island," thought I, "with so much sea. Yes they might, if they ran for the bathing-pool." After thinking awhile, I decided that I would go down to the bathing-pool, and place lighted fagots on the rocks on each side of the entrance, as this would show them where to run for, and how to get in. I waited a little longer, and then taking my spy-glass and some tinder with me, I went down to the pool, carried two fagots to the rocks on each side, and having set them on fire and taken up others to replace them as soon as they were burnt out, I sat down with my spy-glass to see if I could make out where the boat might be. As the moon rose, I descried her now within a mile of the island, and her head directed towards the beacon lights made by the burning fagots. I threw another fagot on each, and went down for a further supply. The gale had increased, and the spray now dashed over the rocks to where the fagots were burning, and threatened to extinguish them, but I put on more wood and kept up a fierce blaze. In a quarter of an hour I could distinguish the boat; it was now close to the island, perhaps three hundred yards distant, steering not directly for the lights, but more along shore. The fact was that they had hauled up, not knowing how they could land until they had observed the two lights clear of each other, and then they understood why they had been made; and a moment afterwards they bore up right for the entrance to the bathing-pool, and came rushing on before the rolling seas. I still trembled for them, as I knew that if the sea receded at the time that they came to the ledge of rocks at the entrance, the boat would be dashed to pieces, although their lives might be saved; but fortunately for them, it was not so--on the contrary, they came in borne upon a huge wave which carried them clear over the ledge, right up to the wall of rock which I had made across the pool, and then the boat grounded. "Hurrah! Well done, that," said a voice from the boat. "Lower away the sail, my lads; all's right." The sail was lowered down, and then, by the light of the fire, I discovered that there were several people in the boat. I had been too much excited to say anything, indeed, I did not know what to say. I only felt that I was no more alone, and the reader may imagine my joy and delight. CHAPTER NINETEEN. As soon as the sail was lowered, the men leaped over the sides of the boat into the water, and waded to the rocks. "Who are you?" said one of the men, addressing me, "and how many of you are there here?" "There is no one on the island but myself," replied I; "but I'm so glad that you have come." "Are you? Then perhaps you'll tell us how to get something to eat, my hearty?" replied he. "Oh yes, wait a little, and I'll bring you plenty," replied I. "Well, then, look smart, that's a beauty, for we are hungry enough to eat you, if you can find us nothing better." I was about to go up to the cabin for some birds, when another man called out:-- "I say--can you get us any water?" "Oh yes, plenty," replied I. "Well then, I say, Jim, hand us the pail out of the boat." The one addressed did so, and the man put it into my hands, saying, "Bring us that pail, boy, will you?" I hastened up to the cabin, filled the pail full of water, and then went for a quantity of dried birds, with which I hastened down again to the bathing-pool. I found the men had not been idle; they had taken some fagots off the stack and made a large fire under the rocks, and were then busy making a sort of tent with the boat's sails. "Here's the water, and here's some birds," said I, as I came up to them. "Birds! What birds?" said the man who had first spoken to me, and appeared to have control over the rest. He took one up and examined it by the light of the fire, exclaiming, "Queer eating, I expect." "Why, you didn't expect a regular hotel when you landed, did you, mate?" said one of the men. "No, if I had, I would have called for a glass of grog," replied he. "I suspect I might call a long while before I get any one to bring me one here." As I knew that Jackson called the rum by the name of grog, I said, "There's plenty of grog, if you want any." "Is there, my hearty,--where?" "Why, in that cask that's in the water on the other side of your little ship," replied I. "I can draw you some directly." "What! In that cask? Grog floating about in salt-water, that's too bad. Come here all of you. You're in earnest, boy--no joking I hope, or you may repent it." "I'm not joking," said I--"there it is." The man, followed by all the rest excepting one of the party, waded into the water, and went to the cask of rum. "Take care," said I, "the spiles are in." "So I see--never fear, my hearty--come now all of us." So saying, the whole of them laid hold of the cask by the chains, and lifting it up, they carried it clean out of the water, and placed it on the rocks by the side of the pool. "Hand us the little kid out of the boat, Jim," said the man; "we'll soon see if it's the right stuff." He took out the spiles, drew off some of the liquor, and tasting it, swore it was excellent. It was then handed round, and all the men took some. "We're in luck to-night; we're fallen upon our legs," said the first man. "I say, Jim, put them dried chickens into the pitch-kettle along with some taters out of the bag--they'll make a good mess; and then with this cask of grog to go to, we shan't do badly." "I say, old fellow," said he, turning to me, "you're a regular trump. Who left you on shore to get all ready for us?" "I was born here," replied I. "Born here! Well, we'll hear all about that to-morrow--just now, we'll make up for lost time, for we've had nothing to eat or drink since Wednesday morning. Look alive, my lads! Get up the hurricane-house. Jim, put the pail of water into the kettle, and send the islander here for another pailful, for grog." The pail was handed to me, and I soon returned with it full; and, as I did not see that they had a pannikin, I brought one down and gave it to them. "You're a fine boy," said the mate (as I afterwards found out that he was). "And now, I say, where do you hold out? Have you a hut or a cave to live in?" "Yes," replied I; "I have a cabin, but it is not large enough for all of you." "No, no! We don't want to go there--we are very well where we are, alongside of the cask of rum; but you see, my lad, we have a woman here." "A woman!" said I; "I never saw a woman. Where is she?" "There she is, sitting by the fire." I looked round, and perceived that there was one of the party wrapped up in a blanket, and with a wide straw hat on the head, which completely concealed the form from me. The fact is, that the woman looked like a bundle, and remained by the fire quite as inanimate. At my saying that I never saw a woman, the man burst into a loud laugh. "Why, did you not say that you were born on this island, boy?" said the mate at last. "Were you born without a mother?" "I cannot recollect my mother--she died when I was very young; and therefore I said that I had never seen a woman." "Well, that's explained; but you see, my lad--this is not only a woman, but a very particular sort of a woman; and it will not do for her to remain here after we have had our supper--for after supper, the men may take a drop too much, and not behave themselves; so I asked you about your cabin, that you might take her there to sleep. Can you do that?" "Yes," replied I; "I will take her there if she wishes to go." "That's all right then; she'll be better there than here, at all events. I say, boy, where did you leave your trousers?" "I never wear any." "Well then, if you have any, I advise you to put them on, for you are quite old enough to be breeched." I remained with them while the supper was cooking, asking all manner of questions, which caused great mirth. The pitch-kettle, which was a large iron pot on three short legs, surprised me a good deal; I had never seen such a thing before, or anything put on the fire. I asked what it was, and what it was made of. The potatoes also astonished me, as I had never yet seen an edible root. "Why, where have you been all your life?" said one of the men. "On this island," replied I, very naively. I waded into the water to examine the boat as well as I could by the light of the fire, but I could see little, and was obliged to defer my examination till the next day. Before the supper was cooked and eaten, I did, however, gain the following information. That they were a portion of the crew of a whaler, which had struck on a reef of rocks about seventy miles off, and that they had been obliged to leave her immediately, as she fell on her broadside a few minutes afterwards; that they had left in two boats, but did not know what had become of the other boat, which parted company during the night. The captain and six men were in the other boat, and the mate with six men in the one which had just landed--besides the lady. "What's a lady?" said I. "I mean the woman who sits there; her husband was killed by some of the people of the Sandwich Isles, and she was going home to England. We have a consort, another whaler, who was to have taken our cargo of oil on board, and to have gone to England with that and her own cargo, and the missionary's wife was to have been sent home in her." "What's a missionary?" inquired I. "Well, I don't exactly know; but he is a preacher who goes out to teach the savages." By this time the supper was cooked, and the odour from the pitch-kettle was more savoury than anything that I had ever yet smelt. The kettle was lifted off the fire, the contents of it poured into a kid, and after they had given a portion in the small kid to the woman, who still remained huddled up in the blanket by the fire, they all sat round the large kid, and commenced their supper. "Come, boy, and join us," said the mate, "you can't have had your supper; and as you've found one for us, it's hard but you should share it with us." I was not sorry to do as he told me, and I must say that I never enjoyed a repast so much in my life. "I say, boy, have you a good stock of them dried chickens of yours?" said the mate. "Yes, I have a great many, but not enough to last long for so many people." "Well, but we can get more, can't we?" "No!" replied I, "not until the birds come again, and that will not be for these next five moons?" "Five moons! What do you mean?" "I mean, five full moons must come, one after another." "Oh, I understand; why then we must not remain on the island." "No," replied I, "we must all go, or we shall starve; I am so glad that you are come, and the sooner you go the better. Will you take Nero with you?" "Who is Nero?" "Nero--my seal--he's very tame." "Well, we'll see about it; at all events," said he, turning to the other men, "we must decide upon something, and that quickly, for we shall starve if we remain here any time." It appeared, that they had left the whaler in such a hurry, that they had only had time to throw into the boat two breakers of water, four empty breakers to fill with salt-water for ballast to the boat, and the iron pitch-kettle, with a large sack of potatoes. As soon as supper was finished, they went to the cask for the rum, and then the mate said to me:-- "Now I'll go and speak to the woman, and you shall take her to sleep in your cabin." During the whole of this time, the woman, as the mate called her, had never spoken a word. She had taken her supper, and eaten it in silence, still remaining by the fire, huddled up in the blanket. On the mate speaking to her, she rose up, and I then perceived that she was much taller than I thought she could have been; but her Panama hat still concealed her face altogether. "Now then, my lad," said the mate, "show the lady where she is to sleep, and then you can join us again if you like." "Will you come with me?" said I, walking away. The woman followed me up the path. When we arrived at the platform opposite the cabin, I recollected Nero, whom I had ordered to stay there till my return. "You won't be afraid of the seal," said I, "will you? He is very good-natured. Nero, come here." It was rather dark as Nero came shuffling up, and I went forward to coax him, for he snarled a little at seeing a stranger. "Have you no light at hand?" said my companion, speaking for the first time, in a very soft yet clear voice. "No, I have not, but I will get some tinder, and make a fire with one of the fagots, and then you will be able to see." "Do so, then, my good lad," replied she. I thought her voice very pleasing. I soon lighted the fagot and enabled her to see Nero (who was now quite quiet), and also the interior of the cabin. She examined the cabin and the bed-places, and then said: "Where do you sleep?" I replied by showing her my bed-place. "And this," said I, pointing to the one opposite, "was Jackson's, and you can sleep in that. Nero sleeps with me. Here are plenty of seal-skins to keep you warm, if you are cold. Are your clothes wet?" "No, they are quite dry now," replied she; "if you will get me some seal-skins, I will lie down on them, for I am very tired." I spread five or six skins one on the other, in Jackson's bed-place, and then I went out and threw another fagot on the fire, that we might have more light. "Do you want anything else?" said I. "Nothing, I thank you. Are you going to bed now?" "I was meaning to go down again to the men, but now I think of it, I do not like to leave you alone with Nero, as he might bite you. Are you afraid of him?" "No, I'm not much afraid, but still I have no wish to be bitten, and I am not used to sleep with such animals, as you are." "Well then, I'll tell you how we'll manage it. I will take some skins outside, and sleep there. Nero will not leave me, and then you won't be afraid. The weather is clearing up fast, and there's very little wind to what there was besides, it will be daylight in three or four hours." "As you please," was the reply. Accordingly, I took some seal-skins out on the platform, and spreading them, I lay down upon them, wishing her good night, and Nero soon joined me, and we were both fast asleep in a few minutes. CHAPTER TWENTY. Nero, who was an early riser, woke me up at daybreak, or I should have slept much longer; for I had been tired out with the fatigue and excitement of the night before. As soon as I was up, I looked into the cabin, and found the woman was fast asleep; her straw hat was off, but she had lain down in her clothes. Her black hair was hanging about her shoulders. Having only seen Jackson with his bushy beard, I had been somewhat surprised when I first saw the men on their landing so comparatively clear of hair on their face; my astonishment at the clear white skin of a woman--and in this instance, it was peculiarly white and pallid--was very great. I also perceived how much more delicate her features were than those of the men; her teeth, too, were very white, and Jackson's were discoloured and bad; I longed to see her eyes, but they were closed. Any other difference I could not perceive, as she had drawn the blanket close up to her chin. "This is then a woman;" said I to myself: "yes, and it's very like what I used to see in my dreams." I looked a little longer, and then, hearing Nero coming into the cabin behind me, and afraid that she would awake, I made a hasty retreat. I remained at this part of the cabin considering what I should do. I thought I would light a fire, and go down for a fish to broil on the embers for her breakfast, so I called Nero to come down with me. On arriving at the pool, I found all the seamen fast asleep under the tent they had made with the boat's sails; and they appeared to be much the same as Jackson used to be after he had got drunk the night before; I presumed, therefore, that such was their state, and was not far wrong. Nero went into the pool and brought out a fish, as I ordered him, and I then walked to the boat to examine it. This took me half an hour, and I was sorry that none of the men were awake, that so I might ask any questions I wished. I examined the pitch-kettle, and the boat's sails, and the breakers. Breakers are small casks, holding about six to seven gallons of water, and are very handy for boats. I remained about an hour, and then went back to the cabin, carrying a fagot on my shoulder, Nero following with the fish in his mouth. We were met by the woman, who came out of the cabin; she no longer had the blanket round her, for it was a beautiful bright morning, and very warm. "Nero is bringing you your breakfast," said I, "so you ought to like him." "I dare say I shall, if we are to be companions in future," replied she. "Do you want anything?" said I. "Yes, a little water, if you can get me some." I filled the kid from the spring, put it down by her, and then took out the inside of the fish, and fed the birds, who were crowding round me. The woman washed her face and hands, braided up her hair, and then sat down on the rock. In the mean time, I had lighted my fagot, cleaned the fish, and waited till the wood was burnt to ashes before I put the fish on the fire. Having then nothing to do, I thought that reading would amuse the woman, and I went in for the Bible. "Shall I read to you?" said I. "Yes," replied she with some astonishment in her looks. I read to her the history of Joseph and his brethren, which was my favourite story in the Bible. "Who taught you to read?" said she, as I shut the book, and put the fish on the embers. "Jackson," said I. "He was a good man, was he not?" replied she. I shook my head. "No, not very good," said I, at last. "If you knew all about him, you would say the same; but he taught me to read." "How long have you been on this island?" said she. "I was born on it, but my father and mother are both dead, and Jackson died three years ago--since that I have been quite alone, only Nero with me." She then asked me a great many more questions, and I gave her a short narration of what had passed, and what Jackson had told me; I also informed her how it was I procured food, and how we must soon leave the island, now that we were so many, or the food would not last out till the birds came again. By this time the fish was cooked, and I took it off the fire and put it into the kid, and we sat down to breakfast; in an hour or so we had become very sociable. I must, however, now stop a little to describe her. What the men had told me was quite true. She had lost her husband, and was intending to proceed to England. Her name was Reichardt, for her husband was a German, or of German family. She was, as I have since ascertained, about thirty-seven years old, and very tall and elegant; she must have been very handsome when she was younger, but she had suffered much hardship in following her husband as she had done, through all the vicissitudes of his travels. Her face was oval; eyes black and large; and her hair black as the raven's wing; her features were small and regular; her teeth white and good; but her complexion was very pallid, and not a vestige of colour on her cheeks. As I have since thought, it was more like a marble statue than anything I can compare her to. There was a degree of severity in her countenance when she did not smile, and it was seldom that she did. I certainly looked upon her with more awe than regard, for some time after I became acquainted with her; and yet her voice was soft and pleasant, and her manners very amiable; but it must be remembered I had never before seen a woman. After breakfast was over, I proposed going down to where the seamen lay, to see if they were awake; but I told her I thought that they would not be. "I will go with you, as I left a basket with some things of mine in the boat, and it will be as well to bring them up at once." We therefore set off together, I having ordered Nero to stay in the cabin. On our arrival at the pool, we found the men still fast asleep; and by her directions I went into the water to the boat, and brought out a basket and a small bundle which she pointed out. "Shall I wake them?" said I. "No, no," replied she; "so long as they sleep, they will be doing no harm. But," said she, "we may as well take some potatoes up with us; fill both these handkerchiefs," continued she, taking two out of the bundle. I did so, and she took one and I the other, and we returned to the cabin. "Are these all the birds that you have for food?" said she, looking at the pile in the cabin. "Yes," replied I. "But what are we to do with the potatoes?" "We can roast them by the fire if we like," said she; "but at present we had better take them into the cabin. Did you plant all these flowers and creepers which grow over the cabin?" "Yes," replied I. "I was alone and had nothing to do, so I thought I would make a garden." "They are very pretty. Now that I am back, you can go down to the men if you please, and tell them, when they wake up, that I wish to have the smallest of the boat's sails, to make a screen of. Tell the mate--he is the most civil." "I will," said I. "Is there anything else?" "Yes, bring up a few more potatoes; they will let you take them if you say that I told you." "Shall I take Nero with me?" "Yes, I do not want his company, for I am a little afraid of him." I called Nero, who came after me, and went down to the pool, when I found that the men had all woke up, and were very busy, some lighting a fire, some washing potatoes, and some trying to catch the fish in the pool. "Oh, here he is. Come, boy, what have you got for our breakfast? We've been trying to catch some of these fish, but they're as quick as eels." "Nero will soon catch you what you want," replied I. "Here, Nero, in." Nero plunged in, and soon brought out a fish, and I then sent him in for another. "Thanks, lad," said the mate, "that will be enough for our breakfast. That seal of yours is a handy fellow, and well trained." While the other men were getting breakfast, one of them went up to Nero, I believe with the intention of making friends with him, but Nero rejected his advances, and showed his sharp teeth, snapping at him several times. The man became angry, and caught up a piece of rock to throw at the seal. He aimed at the animal's nose, and narrowly missed hitting it. Had he done so, he would probably have killed it. This made me very angry, and I told the man not to do so again; upon this, he caught up another, and was about to throw it, when I seized him by the collar with my left hand, and with my right drawing my American knife, I threatened to stab him with it, if he attacked the beast. The man started back, and in so doing, fell over a piece of rock, on his back. This quarrel brought the mate to us, along with two or three of the men. My knife was still lifted up, when the mate said: "Come, my hearty, no knives, we don't allow them. That's not English. Put it up; no one shall hurt the beast, I promise you. Bob, you fool, why couldn't you leave the animal alone? You forget you are among savages here." At this, the other men burst out into a laugh. "Yes," observed one; "I can swear, when I get back, that the natives of this island are savages, who eat raw flesh, have seals for playmates, and don't wear clothes enough for common decency?" This made them laugh more, and the man who had attacked Nero, and who had got upon his legs again, joined with the others; so all was again good humour. The men sat down to their breakfast, while I examined the boat again, and afterwards asked many questions, with which they were much amused, every now and then observing, "Well, he is a savage!" After they had breakfasted, I made Nero catch another fish, and sent him up to the cabin with it, as I was afraid that the man might do him an injury, and then told the mate that the woman had desired me to bring up some potatoes. "Take them," said he; "but you have nothing to carry them up with. Here, fill the pail, and I will go to the cabin with you." "She told me that I was to ask you for a small boat's sail, to hang up as a screen." "Well, she shall have the boat's mizen. We don't want it. I'll carry it up." The mate threw the sail and yard over his shoulder, and followed me up to the cabin. On our arrival, we found the missionary's wife sitting on the platform, Nero lying not far from her, with the fish beside him. The mate took off his hat, and saluted my new companion, saying, that he hoped she was comfortable last night. "Yes," replied she, "as much so as I could expect; but I turned this good lad out of his cabin, which I do not wish to do again, and therefore I requested the sail for a screen. Now, John Gough, what do you intend to do?" continued she. The mate replied, "I came up here to see what quantity of provision the lad might have. By his account, it will not last more than a month, and it will take some time before we can reach where we are likely to fall in with any vessel. Stay here we cannot, for we shall only eat the provision and lose time; therefore the sooner we are off the better." "If you take all the provision, of course you will take the lad with you?" replied she. "Of course we will." "And my chest, and my seal?" inquired I. "Yes, your chest, certainly; but as for your seal, I do not know what to say to that--he will be starved in the boat, and if you give him his liberty, he will do well enough." "What you say is very true," replied the woman. "I am afraid, boy, that you will have to part with your friend. It will be better for both of you." I made no reply; for it cut me to the heart to think of parting with Nero; but still I had sense enough to perceive that what they said was right. The mate then went into the cabin, and examined the heap of dried birds which I had collected, and having made his calculation, said that there were sufficient for three weeks, but not more. "And when do you think of leaving this island?" inquired the woman. "The day after to-morrow, if I can persuade the men, madam," replied he; "but you know they are not very easy to manage, and very thoughtless, especially now that they have so unexpectedly fallen in with liquor." "That I admit," replied she; "but as they will probably take the liquor in the boat, that will not make so great a difference." "I shall go down and speak to them, now they're all sober," replied the mate, "and will let you know in the evening; or to-morrow morning perhaps, will be better." The mate then saluted her, by touching his hat, and left us. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. There was one thing which had made a great impression on me in the conversation with the men in the morning. They called me a savage, and said that I had not sufficient clothes on; and as I observed that they were all dressed in jackets and trousers, which covered them from head to foot, I took it for granted that my shirt, which was all that I wore, was not a sufficient clothing. This had never occurred to me before, nor can the reader be surprised at it. I had been like our first parents in Eden--naked but not ashamed; but now that I had suddenly come in contact with my fellow-men, I felt as if something were amiss. The consequence was, that I went to the chest and got out a pair of white trousers, and put them on. I thought them very uncomfortable and very unnecessary articles; but others--wore them, and I felt that I must do so also. They were rather long for me, but I rolled up the bottoms of the legs, as I observed that the seamen did, and then came out on the platform, where the missionary's wife was still seated, looking out upon the waves as they lashed the rocks. She immediately observed the addition that I had made to my dress, and said-- "That is a great improvement. Now you look like other people. What is your name? You have not told me." When I had answered the question, I said to her-- "I have brought up more of the potatoes, as you call them; what am I to do with them?" "First tell me, have you any spot that you know about the island where there is mould--that is, earth, like you have in your garden--where we can plant them?" "Yes," replied I, "there is some up there;" and I pointed to one-third up the ravine. "I brought all this earth from there, and there is plenty of it; but what is the good of planting them?" "Because," said she, "one of the potatoes planted will, in a very short time, grow, and then it will produce perhaps thirty or forty potatoes at its roots as large as these; they are excellent things for food, and where there is nothing else to be had, may be the means of preserving life." "Well, that may be," replied I, "and if we were going to remain on the island, it would be well to plant them; but as we are going away the day after to-morrow, what's the use of it? I know that they are very nice, for I had some for supper last night." "But are we only to think of ourselves in this world, and not of others?" replied she, "Suppose, two or three years hence, another boat were to be cast away on this island, and not find, as we have, you here, with provisions ready for them, they would starve miserably; whereas, if we plant these potatoes, they may find plenty of food and be saved. Only think how glad your father and mother would have been to have found potatoes on the island when they were thrown on it. We must not live only for ourselves, but we must think and try to do good to others--that is the duty of a Christian." "I think you are very right," replied I, "and a very kind person too. If you wish it, I will go and plant the potatoes this day. How am I to plant them?" "They have a shovel in the boat," said she, "for I saw them throwing the water out with it. Go down and get it, and then I will go with you and show you." I went down and the mate gave me the shovel, which I carried up to her. I found her cutting the potatoes into pieces, and she showed me how she cut them, leaving an eye in each piece, and explained the reason for it. I was soon very busy cutting away alongside of her, and before long the pail of potatoes was all ready to be planted. We then walked to the ravine, and she showed me how to use the shovel, and I made the holes. Before noon we had planted all that we had cut, but we had still the two handkerchiefs full that we had at first brought up with us. We returned to the cabin, and I prepared the fish for dinner. After it was on the embers, she wished to have the screen put up beside her bed-place. "Go down to the mate," said she, "and ask him for the hammer and three or four nails. I know they have them in the boat." "I may as well take them down some birds for their dinner," replied I, "for, they will want them." "Yes, do so; and then come back to me as soon as you can." The mate gave me the hammer, an article I had never seen before, and five or six nails, with which I returned to the cabin, and nailed up the sail as a screen. "Now you will be able to sleep in your own bed-place to-night," said she. I made no reply; but I could not imagine why I could not have done so the night before, for I had only gone out of the cabin that she might not be frightened by Nero being so close to her. After we had eaten our dinner, she said to me-- "How could you contrive to live on this island, if you had no dried birds?" "How?" replied I; "why very badly. I might catch fish; but there are times in the year when you can catch no fish, they won't take bait, neither will they when the weather is rough. Besides, I have only two lines, and I might lose them both--then what would become of me? I should starve." "Well, then, you see under all circumstances, it was just as well to plant the potatoes, for other people may come here and be in your position." "Yes, that is true, but we shall not be here long now, and you don't know how glad I am to go. I want to see all the things that I have read about in my books. I want to go to England and look for somebody; but you don't know all that I know; some day I will tell you all-- everything. I am so tired of living here by myself--nothing to say--no one to talk to--no one to care for, except Nero, and he can't speak. I can't bear the idea of parting with him, though." "Would you rather stay on the island with Nero, than go away without him?" "No," replied I; "go I must, but still I do not like to part with him. He is the only friend that I ever had, that I can remember." "When you have lived longer, and mixed more with the world, my poor boy, you will then find how many sacrifices you will be obliged to make, much more serious than parting with an animal that you are attached to. I suppose you expect to be very happy if ever you get back to England?" "Of course I do; why should I not be?" replied I; "I shall be always happy." The missionary's wife shook her head. "I fear not. Indeed, I think if you live long enough, you will acknowledge that the happiest of your days were passed on this barren rock." "Jackson said otherwise," replied I. "He was always grieving at being on the island, and not able to get back to England; and he told me so many stories about England, and what is done there and what a beautiful place it is, that I'm sure I shall like it better than being here, even if I had somebody with me." "Well, you are in the hands of God, and you must put your trust in him. He will do with you as he thinks best for you--that you know, as you read your Bible." "No, I didn't know that," replied I. "God lives beyond the stars, a long way off." "Is that all you have gained by reading your Bible?" inquired she, looking me in the face. "No, not all," replied I; "but I do not understand a great deal that I read; I want some one to tell me. I am so glad you came with the men in the boat, for I never saw a woman before. I used to see somebody in my dreams, and now I know it was a woman. It was my mother; but I have not seen her for a long while now, and I have nobody but Nero." "My poor boy, you have a father in heaven." "Yes," replied I; "I know he is in heaven, and so is my mother; for Jackson said that they were both very good." "I mean your Heavenly Father, God. Do you not say in the Lord's Prayer, `Our Father which art in heaven?' You must love him." I was about to reply, when John Gough, the mate, came up, and told my companion, that he had been speaking to the men, and they had agreed that the day after the next they would, if the weather permitted, leave the island; that they had examined the boat, and found it required very little repair, and that all would be ready the next day. "I hope that they will not overload the boat," said she. "I fear that they will, but I must do all I can to prevent it. The cask of rum was rather an unfortunate discovery, and we had been better without it. Leave it they will not, so we must put out of the boat all that we can possibly do without, for we shall be nine of us, and that will be plenty of weight with the addition of the cask." "You promised to take my chest, you remember," said I. "Yes, I will do so if I possibly can; but recollect, I may not be able to keep my promise; for now that they have the liquor, the men do not obey me as they did before, ma'am," said the mate. "Perhaps he had better take the best of his clothes in a bundle, in case they should refuse to take in the chest; and I must say, that, loaded as the boat will be, they will be much to blame if they do not refuse, for the boat is but small for stowage, and there's all the provisions to put in her, which will take up a deal of room." "That is very true," replied the woman. "It will be better to leave the chest here, for I do not think that the boat will hold it. You must not mind your chest, my good boy, it is of no great value." "They take my rum and all my birds, and they ought to take both me and my chest." "Not if it takes up too much room," replied the woman. "You cannot expect it. The wishes of one person must give way to the wishes of many." "Why, they would have starved if it had not been for me," replied I, angrily. "That's very true, boy," replied the mate; "but you have to learn yet, that might is right; and recollect that what you did this morning has not made you any great favourite with them." "What was that?" inquired my companion. "Only that he nearly drove his knife through one of the men, that's all," replied the mate; "English sailors ar'n't fond of knives." He then touched his hat, and went down again to the pool, desiring me to follow him with a kid for our share of the supper. I did so, and on my return she asked me why I had drawn my knife upon the seaman, and I narrated how it occurred. She pointed out to me the impropriety of what I had done, asking me whether the Bible did not tell us we were to forgive injuries. "Yes," replied I; "but is it not injuries to ourselves? I did forgive Jackson; but this was to prevent his hurting another." "Another! Why you talk of Nero as if the animal was a rational being, and his life of as much consequence as that of a fellow-creature. I do not mean to say but that the man was very wrong, and that you must have felt angry if an animal you were so fond of had been killed; but there is a great difference between the life of an animal and that of a fellow-creature. The animal dies, and there is an end of it; but a man has an immortal soul, which never perishes, and nothing can excuse your taking the life of a man, except in self-defence. Does not the commandment say, `Thou shalt not kill?'" She then talked to me a long while upon the subject, and fully made me understand that I had been very wrong, and I confessed that I had been so. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. I now resolved to speak to her relative to the belt which contained the diamonds; and I was first obliged to narrate to her in a few words what Jackson had told me. She heard me with great interest, now and then asking a question. When I had told her all, I said-- "Now, as they talk of not taking my chest, what shall I do? Shall I wear the belt myself, or shall I put it in the bundle? Or will you wear it for me, as my mother would have done, if she had been alive?" She did not reply for some time, at last she said, as if talking to herself, and not to me-- "How unsearchable are thy ways, O God!" Indeed, although I did not feel it at the time, I have afterwards thought, and she told me herself, how great her surprise was at finding in the unshorn little savage, thus living alone upon a desolate rock, a lad of good birth, and although he did not know it, with a fortune in his charge, which would, in all probability, be ultimately his own. This is certain, that the interest she felt towards me increased every hour, as by degrees I disclosed my history. "Well," replied she, "if you will trust me, I will take charge of your belt. To-morrow we will select out of the chest what will be best to take with you, and then we will arrange as you wish." After about an hour's more conversation, she went into the cabin, and retired behind the screen which had been fixed up, telling me that she did not mind Nero, and that I might go to bed when I pleased. As I was not much inclined to go down to the seamen, I followed her advice and went to bed; but I could not sleep for a long time from the noise which the men made, who were carousing at the bathing-pool. The idea of parting with Nero also lay heavy upon my heart, though the woman had almost satisfied me that as soon as I was gone, the animal would resume its natural habits, and care nothing for me. I was up the next morning early, and went down with Nero to obtain the fish which we required. I left some on the rocks for the seamen's breakfast (for they were all sound asleep), and then returned to the cabin, and prepared for our own. Mrs Reichardt, as I shall now call her, soon came out to me, and when breakfast was over, proposed that we should plant the remainder of the potatoes, before we packed up the things in the chest. As soon as they were all cut, we set off to the ravine, and had finished our task before noon, at which time there were but few of the seamen stirring, they had remained up so long the night before, drinking. The mate was one of those who were on their legs, and he asked me if I thought we should have smooth water to launch the boat on the following day. I replied in the affirmative, and went with Mrs Reichardt to the cabin, and putting down the shovel, I hauled my chest out on the platform to select what articles I should take. While we were thus employed, and talking at times, the men came up for the dried birds to take down ready for putting them in the boat on the following day, and in two trips they had cleared out the whole of them. "Have you used all the potatoes you brought up?" said one of the men; "for we shall be short of provisions." Mrs Reichardt replied that we had none left. "Well then," said the man, "the mate says you had better bring down that brute of yours to catch the rest of the fish in the pond, that we may cook them before we start, as they will make two days' meals at least." "Very well," replied I; "I will come down directly." I did so, and Nero, in a quarter of an hour, had landed all the fish, and I then returned with him to the cabin. Mrs R had selected the best of the clothes, and made them up in a tight bundle, which she sewed up with strong thread. My books she had left out, as well as the spy-glass, and the tools I had, as they might be useful. I asked her whether I should carry them down to the bathing-pool, but she replied that on the morning when we embarked would be quite time enough. I then went to the hole under Jackson's bed-place, and brought out the belt and the few articles that were with it. Mrs R, after having examined them, said that she would take care of them all; the watch and other trinkets she put in her basket; the belt she took to the bed-place, and secreted it. She appeared very silent and thoughtful, and on my asking her whether I should not take down the shovel, and the pail, and hammer, she replied, "No, leave all till we are ready to go to the boat. It will be time enough." Shortly afterwards, the mate brought us up some of the fish which they had cooked for supper, and when we had eaten it we went to bed. "This is the last night we shall sleep together, Nero," said I, kissing my favourite, and the thought brought tears into my eyes. "But it can't be helped." I was, however, soon fast asleep, with my arm round the animal. When I went out the next morning, I found that the weather was beautifully fine, the water smooth, and only rippled by a light breeze. As Mrs R had not yet made her appearance, I went down to the bathing-pool, where I found all the men up and in full activity. The boat had been emptied out, the oars, masts, and sails, were on the rocks; and the men were turning the bows to the seaward in readiness for launching her over the ledge of rocks. The dried birds lay in a heap by the side of the cask of rum, and the fish which had been baked were in the large kid. The six breakers were also piled up together, and the mate and some of the men were disputing as to how many of them should be filled with water. The mate wanted them all filled; the men said that three would be sufficient, as the boat would be so loaded. At last the mate gained his point, and the men each took a breaker, and went up to the cabin for the water. I went with them to fill the breakers, and also to see that they did no mischief, for they appeared very unruly and out of temper; and I was afraid that they would hurt Nero, who was at the cabin, if I was not there to prevent them; but with the exception of examining the cabin, and forcing themselves in upon Mrs Reichardt, they did nothing. When the breakers were full, which took at least half an hour, they did indeed try to catch the birds, and would have wrung their necks, but the males flew away, and the females I put into the bed-place that was screened off in the cabin, and near which Mrs Reichardt was sitting. They all appeared to have a great awe and respect for this woman, and a look from her was more effectual than were any words of the mate. "We don't want you," said one of the men, as they went down to the bathing-pool with the breakers on their shoulders. "Why don't you keep up with the lady? You're quite a lady's man, now you've white trousers on." The others who followed him laughed at this latter remark. "I'm of no use up there, at present," said I; "and I may be down below." The men set down the breakers on the rocks by the pool, and then, under the directions of the mate, prepared to launch the boat over the ledge. The masts of the boat were placed athwartships, under her keel, for her to run upon, and being now quite empty, she was very light. She was what they call a whale-boat, fitted for the whale-fishery, pointed at both ends, and steered by an oar; she was not very large, but held seven people comfortably, and she was remarkably well fitted with sails and masts, having two lugs and a mizen. As soon as they were all ready, the men went to the side of the boat, and in a minute she was launched into the sea without injury. The mate said to me, as they brought her broadside to the ledge: "Now, my lad, we don't want you any more; you may go up to the cabin till we are ready, and then we will send for you and the lady." "Oh! But I can be of use here," replied I; "and I am of none up there." The mate did not reply, and the men then went to the rum-cask, and rolled it towards the boat; and when they had it on the ledge, they parbuckled it, as they term it, into the boat with a whale-line that they happened to have, and which was of great length. After the cask of rum was got in amidships (and it took up a great deal of space, reaching from one gunwale to the other, and standing high above the thwarts), they went for the breakers of water, which they put in, three before and three behind the cask, upon the floor of the boat. "She will be too heavy," said one of the men, "with so much water." "We can easily get rid of it," replied the mate. "If you had said she would be too heavy with so much liquor on board, you had better explained the matter; however, you must have your own ways, I suppose." The next articles that they brought to stow away were the provisions. The kid of fish was put amidships on the breakers, and the dried bird; which they carried down in their arms, were packed up neatly in the stern-sheets. They were soon up to the gunwale, and the mate said: "You had better stow away forward now--there will be little room for the lady as it is." "No, no, stow them all aft," replied one of the men, in a surly tone; "the lady must sit where she can. She's no better than we." "Shall this go in?" said I, pointing to the coil of whale-line, and addressing the mate. "No, no; we must leave that," replied one of the men in the boat; "we shall be wedged enough as it is; and I say, Jim, throw that old saw and the bag of nails out of the boat--we can have no use for them." The masts were then stepped, and the rigging set up to the gunnel of the boat, the yards and sails handed in, and hooked on the halyards ready for hoisting. In fact the boat was now all ready for starting; they had only the iron kettle and two or three other articles to put in. "Shall we have the mizen?" inquired one of the men, pointing to the mast, which lay on the rocks. "No, she steers quite as well without it," replied the mate. "We'll leave it. And now, lad; hand the oars in." They were brought to the boat, but owing to the puncheon of rum in the centre, they could not lie flat, and after a good deal of arguing and disputing, four oars and a boat-hook were lashed to the gunnel outside, and the rest were left on the rocks. At this time there was some consultation between the mate and some of the men--the mate being evidently opposed by the others. I could not hear what it was about, but the mate appeared very angry and very much annoyed. At last he dashed his hat down on the rocks in a great passion, saying: "No good will come of it. Mark my words. No good ever did or ever will. Be it so, you are too many for me; but I tell you again, no good will come of it." The mate then sat down on the rocks by himself, and put his head down on his knees, covering it with his hands. The man with whom he had been disputing went to the others in the boat, and spoke to them in a low tone, looking round at me, to ascertain if I was within hearing. After a minute or two they all separated, and then one of them said to me--"Now, my lad, we're all ready. Go up to the cabin and bring down your bundle and her basket, and tell the lady we are waiting for her." "There's the shovel," said I, "and the boat's sail--must I bring them down?" "Oh, yes, bring them down, and also two or three seal-skins for the lady to sit upon." Off I went on my errand, for I was delighted with the idea of leaving the island, and my patience had been almost exhausted at the time they had taken in the stowage of the boat. As I hastened up the path, I heard loud contention, and the mate's voice speaking very angrily, and I stopped for a short time to listen, but the noise ceased, and I went on again. I found Nero on the platform, and I stopped a minute to caress him. "Good-bye, my poor Nero, we shall never see one another again," said I. "You must go back to the sea, and catch fish for yourself;" and the tears started in my eyes as I gave the animal a farewell kiss. I then went into the cabin, where I found Mrs Reichardt sitting very quietly. "They are all ready," said I, "and have sent me up for you; but I am to bring down the boat's sail and some seal-skins for you to sit upon. I can carry both if you can carry my bundle. Have you put the belt on?" "Yes," replied she, "I am quite ready. I will carry the bundle, and the books and spy-glass, as well as my basket; but we must pack them close," added she, "and roll the sail up round the yard, or you will not be able to carry it." We took the sail down, and got it ready for carrying, and I rolled up the two best seal-skins, and tied them with a piece of fishing-line, and then we were all ready. I shouldered my burden, and Mrs Reichardt took the other articles, as proposed, and we left the cabin to go down the path to the bathing-pool. "Good-bye, Nero--good-bye, birds--good-bye, cabin--and good-bye, garden," said I, as I went along the platform; and having so done, and ordered Nero back with a tremulous voice, I turned my head in the direction of the bathing-pool. I stared and then screamed, dropping my burden, as I lifted up my hands in amazement-- "Look!" cried I to my companion. "Look!" repeated I, breathless. She did look, and saw as I did--the boat under all sail, half a mile from the pool, staggering under a fresh breeze, which carried her away at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour. They had left us--they had deserted us. I cried out, like a madman, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" and then, seeing how useless it was, I dashed myself on the rock, and for a minute or two was insensible. "Oh!" groaned I, at last, as I came to my senses. "Frank Henniker," said a sweet firm voice. I opened my eyes, and saw Mrs Reichardt standing by me. "It is the will of Heaven, and you must submit to it patiently," continued she. "But so cruel, so treacherous!" replied I, looking at the fast-receding boat. "I grant, most cruel, and most treacherous; but we must leave them to the judgment of God. What can they expect from Him in the way of mercy when they have shown none? I tell you candidly, that I think we are better in our present forlorn state upon this rock, than if in that boat. They have taken with them the seeds of discord, of recklessness, and intemperance, in an attempt which requires the greatest prudence, calmness, and unanimity, and I fear there is little chance of their ever being rescued from their dangerous position. It is my opinion, and I thought so when I first knew they had found the cask, that liquor would prove their ruin, and I say again, that boat will never arrive at its destination, and they will all perish miserably. It has pleased God that they should leave us here, and depend upon it, it has been so decided for the best." "But," replied I, looking again at the boat, "I was tired of being here--I was so anxious to get off--and now to be left! And they have taken all our provisions, everything, even the fish in the pool. We shall starve." "I hope not," replied she, "and I think not; but we must exert ourselves, and trust to Heaven." But I could not heed her--my heart was bursting. I sobbed, as I sat with my hands covering up my face. "All gone;" cried I. "No one left but you and I." "Yes," replied she, "one more." "Who?" cried I, looking up. "God!--who is with us always." CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. I heard what she said, but my head was too confused to weigh the words. I remained silent, where I was. A few seconds elapsed, and she spoke again: "Frank Henniker, rise, and listen to me." "We shall starve," muttered I. As I said this, one of the male birds returned from the sea with a large fish, of which Mrs Reichardt took possession, as she had seen me do, and the gannet flew away again to obtain more. Immediately afterwards, the other two birds returned with fish, which were in the like way secured by my companion. "See how unjust and ungrateful you are," observed she. "Here are the birds feeding us, as the ravens did Elijah in the wilderness, at the very time that you are doubting the goodness and mercy of God. There is a meal for us provided already." "My head! My head!" exclaimed I, "it is bursting, and there is a heavy weight rolling in it--I cannot see anything." And such was the fact: the excitement had brought on a determination of blood to the head, and my senses were rapidly departing. Mrs Reichardt knelt by my side, and perceiving that what I had said was the case, went into the cabin and brought out a cloth, which she wetted with water from the spring, and laid across my forehead and temples. I remained motionless and nearly senseless for half an hour, during which, she continued to apply fresh cold water to the cloth, and by degrees I recovered from my stupor. In the mean time, the weather being so fine and the water smooth, the gannets continued to return with the fish they caught, almost all of which were taken from them by my companion, until she had collected more than a dozen fish, from half a pound to a pound weight, which she put away, so that the birds and seal might not devour them. I was still in a half-dozing state, when the breathing and cold nose of Nero touched my cheek, and the murmurings of my favourite roused me up, and I opened my eyes. "I am better now," said I, to Mrs Reichardt. "How kind you have been." "Yes, you are better; but still, you must remain quiet. Do you think that you could walk to your bed-place?" "I'll try," replied I, and with her assistance I rose up; but, when I afterwards gained my feet, I should have fallen if she had not supported me; but, assisted by her, I gained my bed and sank down again. She raised my head higher, and then applied the linen cloth and cold water as before. "Try now," said she, "if you cannot go to sleep. When you awake again, I will have some dinner ready for you." I thanked her and shut my eyes. Nero crawled to my bed-place, and with my hand upon his head, I fell asleep, and remained so till near sunset, when I awoke with very little pain in my head, and much refreshed. I found Mrs Reichardt by my side. "You are better now," said she. "Can you eat any dinner? I must make friends with Nero, for he has been disputing my right to come near your bedside, and his teeth are rather formidable. However, I gave him the inside of the fish when I cleaned them, and we are better friends already. There is your dinner." Mrs Reichardt placed before me some of the fish, broiled on the embers, and I ate very heartily. "It is very kind of you," said I, "to be working for me, when I ought to be working for you--but you must not do it again." "Only my share of the work when you are well," replied she; "but my share I always shall do. I cannot be idle, and I am strong enough to do a great deal; but we will talk about that to-morrow morning. You will be quite well by that time, I hope." "Oh! I feel well now," replied I, "only I am very weak." "You must put your trust in God, my poor boy. Do you ever pray to Him?" "Yes, I try a little sometimes--but I don't know how. Jackson never taught me that." "Then I will. Shall I pray now for both of us?" "Will God hear you? What was it that you said just before I forgot everything this morning?" "I told you that there was another here besides ourselves, a good and gracious God, who is always with us and always ready to come to our assistance if we call upon Him." "You told me God lived beyond the stars." "My poor boy, as if He were a God who was afar off and did not attend to our prayers! Such is not the case. He is with us always in spirit, listening to all our prayers, and reading every secret thought of our hearts." I was silent for some time, thinking upon what she had told me; at last I said--"Then pray to Him." Mrs Reichardt knelt down and prayed in a clear and fervent voice, without hesitation or stop. She prayed for protection and support in our desolate condition, that we might be supplied with all things needful for our sustenance, and have a happy deliverance from our present position. She prayed that we might be contented and resigned until it should please Him to rescue us--that we might put our whole trust and confidence in Him, and submit without murmuring to whatever might be His will. She prayed for health and strength, for an increase of faith and gratitude towards Him for all His mercies. She thanked him for our having been preserved by being left on the desolate rock, instead of having left it in the boat with the seamen. (This surprised me.) And then she prayed for me, entreating that she might be the humble instrument of leading me to my Heavenly Father, and that He would be pleased to pour down upon me His Holy Spirit, so that I might by faith in Christ, be accepted, and become a child of God and an inheritor of eternal bliss. There was something so novel to me and so beautiful in her fervency of prayer, that the tears came into my eyes, and about a minute after she had finished, I said-- "I now recollect, at least, I think I do--for the memory of it is very confused--that my mother used to kneel down by me and pray just as you have done. Oh, how I wish I had a mother!" "My child," replied she, "promise me that you will be a good and obedient son, and I will be a mother to you." "Will you? Oh! How kind of you. Yes, I will be all you wish; I will work for you day and night if it is necessary. I will do everything, if you will but be my mother." "I will do my duty to you as a mother most strictly," replied she; "so that is agreed upon. Now, you had better go to sleep, if you can." "But I must first ask you a question. Why did you thank God for the seamen having left us here, instead of taking us with them?" "Because the boat was overloaded as it was; because the men, having liquor, would become careless and desperate, and submit to no control; and therefore I think there is little or no chance of their ever arriving anywhere safe, but that they will perish miserably in some way or another. This, I consider, is the probability, unless the Almighty in His mercy, should be pleased to come to their assistance, and allow them to fall in with some vessel soon after their departure." "Do you think, then, that God prevented our going with them on purpose that we might not share their fate?" "I do! God regulates everything. Had it been better for us that we should have gone, He would have permitted it; but He willed it otherwise, and we must bow to His will with a full faith, that He orders everything for the best." "And you say that God will give us all that we ask for in our prayers?" "Yes, if we pray fervently and in faith, and ask it in the name of Jesus Christ; that is, He will grant all we pray for that is good for us, but not what is not good for us; but when we ask anything, we do not know that we are asking what is proper or not--but He does. We may ask what would be hurtful to us, and then, in His love for us, He denies it. For instance, suppose you had been accustomed to pray, you must have prayed God that He would permit you to leave this island in the boat, as you are so anxious to go away; but supposing that boat is lost, as I imagine it will be, surely it would have been a kindness in God, who knew that it would be lost, not to grant your prayer. Is it not so?" "Yes, I see now, thank you; now I will go to sleep--good night." CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. I awoke the next morning quite recovered from my illness of the day before, and was out of the cabin before Mrs Reichardt, who still remained behind the screen which she had put up after I had gone to sleep. It was a beautiful morning, the water was smooth, and merely rippled with a light breeze, and the sun shone bright. I felt well and happy. I lighted a fire to broil the fish for breakfast, as there was a sufficiency left, and then got my fishing-lines ready to catch some larger fish to re-inhabit my pond at the bathing-pool. Mrs Reichardt came out of the cabin and found me playing with Nero. "Good morning, dear mother," said I, for I felt most kindly towards her. "Good morning, my dear boy," replied she. "Are you quite well?" "Quite well; and I have got my lines all ready; for I have been thinking that until the birds come, we must live on fish altogether, and we can only take them in fine weather like this; so we must not lose such a day." "Certainly not. As soon as we have breakfasted, we will go down and fish. I can fish very well, I am used to it. We must both work now; but first go for your Bible, that we may read a little." I did so, and after she had read a chapter, she prayed, and I knelt by her side; then we breakfasted, and as soon as we had breakfasted, we set off to the bathing-pool. "Do you know if they left anything behind them, Frank?" "Yes," replied I, "they left some oars, I believe, and a long line, and we have the shovel and the hammer, and the boat's small sail, up at the cabin." "Well, we shall see very soon," replied she, as we went down the path. When we arrived at the bathing-pool, the first thing that met my eyes made me leap with joy. "Oh! Mother! Mother! They've left the iron pot; I did so long for it; and as I lay awake this morning, I thought that if I prayed for anything, it would be for the iron pot. I was tired of dried birds, and they ate so different when they were boiled up in the pot with potatoes." "I am equally glad, Frank, for I do not like victuals uncooked; but now let us first see what else they have thrown out of the boat." "Why, they have put on shore three of the little casks of water," said I; "they took them all on board." "They have so, I suppose, because the boat was too heavy, and they would not part with the liquor. Foolish men, they will now not have more than six days' water, and will suffer dreadfully." We then looked round the rocks and found that they had left the iron kettle, three breakers, five oars, and a harpoon and staffs; a gang-board, a whale-line of 200 fathoms, an old saw, a bag of broad-headed nails, and two large pieces of sheet-iron. "That saw may be very useful to us," said Mrs Reichardt, "especially as you have files in your chests. Indeed, if we want them, we may convert one half of the saw into knives." "Into knives! How?" "I will show you; and these pieces of sheet-iron I could use again. You see the sheet-iron was put on to repair any hole which might be made in the boat, and they have thrown it out, as well as the hammer and nails. I wonder at John Gough permitting it." "I heard them quarrelling with him as I came out yesterday to fetch you down; they would not mind what he said." "No, or we should not have been left here," replied she; "John Gough was too good a man to have allowed it, if he could have prevented it. That sheet-iron will be very useful. Do you know what for? To broil fish on, or anything else. We must turn up the corners with the hammer. But now we must lose no more time, but fish all day long, and not think of eating till supper-time." Accordingly we threw out our lines, and the fish taking the bait freely, we soon hauled in more than a dozen large fish, which I put into the bathing-pool. "What use can we make of that long line which they have left?" "A good many; but the best use we can make of it, is to turn it into fishing-lines, when we require new ones." "But how can we do that, it is so thick and heavy?" "Yes, but I will show you how to unlay it, and then make it up again. Recollect, Frank, that I have been the wife of a Missionary, and have followed my husband wherever he went; sometimes we have been well off, sometimes as badly off as you and I are now--for a Missionary has to go through great dangers, and great hardships, as you would acknowledge if you ever heard my life, or rather that of my husband." "Won't you tell it to me?" "Yes, perhaps I will, some day or another; but what I wish to point out to you now is, that being his wife, and sharing his danger and privation, I have been often obliged to work hard and to obtain my living as I could. In England, women do little except in the house, but a Missionary's wife is obliged to work with the men, and as a man very often, and therefore learns to do many things of which women in general are ignorant. You understand now?" "Oh yes. I have thought already that you appear to know more than Jackson did." "I should think not; but Jackson was not fond of work I expect, and I am. And now, Frank, you little thought that when you so tardily went to work the other day to plant potatoes for the benefit of any one that might hereafter come to the island, that you were planting for yourself, and would reap the benefit of your own kind act; for if you had not assisted, of course I could not have done it by myself: so true it is, that even in this world you are very often rewarded for a good action." "But are not you always?" "No, my child, you must not expect that; but if not rewarded in this world, you will be rewarded in the next." "I don't understand that." "I suppose that you hardly can, but I will explain all that to you, if God spare my life; but it must be at a more seasonable time." We continued fishing till late in the afternoon, by which time had taken twenty-eight large fish, about seven to nine pounds weight; Mrs Reichardt then proposed that we should leave off, as we had already provision for a fortnight. I hauled out one more fish, which she took with her to cook for our supper, and having coiled up my lines, I then commenced, as she had told me to do, carrying up the articles left by the boat's crew at the bathing-pool. The first thing I seized upon was the coveted iron kettle; I was quite overjoyed at the possession of this article, and I had good reason to be. In my other hand I carried the saw and the bag of nails. As soon as I had deposited them at the cabin, I went down again, and before supper was ready I had brought up everything except the three breakers of water, which I left where they were, as we did not want them for present use, whatever we might hereafter. We were both rather tired, and were glad to go to bed after we had taken our supper. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. When we met the following morning, my mother, as I shall in future call her, said to me, "This will be a busy day, Frank, for we have a great many arrangements to make in the cabin, so that we may be comfortable. In future the cabin must be kept much more clean and tidy than it is; but that is my business more than yours. Let us get our breakfasts, and then we will begin." "I don't know what you want me to do," replied I; "but I will do it if I can, as soon as you tell me." "My dear boy, a woman requires a portion of the cabin to herself, as it is not the custom for women to live altogether with men. Now, what I wish is, that the hinder part of the cabin, where you used to stow away your dried birds, should be made over to me. We have oars with which we can make a division, and then nail up seal-skins, so that I may have that part of the cabin to myself. Now, do you understand what I want?" "Yes, but the oars are longer than the cabin is wide," observed I. "How shall we manage it?" "We have the old saw, and that will do well enough to cut them off, without its being sharpened." "I never saw one used," replied I, "and I don't understand it." "I will soon show you. First, we must measure the width of the cabin. I shall not take away more than one-third of it." My mother went into the cabin, and I followed her. With a piece of fishing-line, she took the width of the cabin, and then the height up to the rafters for the door-posts. We then went out, and with the saw, which she showed me how to use, and which astonished me very much, when I perceived its effects, the oars were cut up to the proper length. Gimlets I had already from the sea-chest, and nails and hammer we had just obtained from the boat; so that before the forenoon was over, the framework was all ready for nailing on the seal-skins. The bag of broad-headed short nails, which had been thrown on the rocks, were excellent for this purpose, and as I had plenty of skins, the cabin was soon divided off, with a skin between the door-jambs hanging down loose, so that any one might enter. I went inside after it was complete. "But," said I, "you have no light to see what you are about." "Not yet, but I soon will have," replied my mother. "Bring the saw here, Frank. Observe, you must cut through the side of the cabin here, a square hole of this size; three of the planks cut through will be sufficient. Begin here." I did as she directed me, and in the course of half an hour, I had cut out of the south side of the cabin a window about two feet square, which admitted plenty of light. "But won't it make it cold at night?" said I. "We will prevent that," replied she, and she took out a piece of white linen, and with some broad-headed nails, she nailed it up, so as to prevent the air from coming in, although there was still plenty of light. "There," said she, "that is but a coarse job, which I will mend by-and-bye; but it will do for the present." "Well, it is very nice and comfortable now," said I, looking round it. "Now what shall I bring in?" "Nothing for the bed but seal-skins," said she. "I do not like the feathers. The seal-skins are stiff at present, but I think we may be able to soften them by-and-bye. Now, Frank, your chest had better come in here, as it is of no use where it is, and we will make a storeroom of it, to hold all our valuables." "What, the diamonds?" replied I. "My dear boy, we have articles to put into the chest, which, in our present position, are more valuable to us than all the diamonds in the world. Tell me now, yourself, what do you prefer and set most value upon, your belt of diamonds, or the iron kettle?" "The iron kettle, to be sure," replied I. "Exactly so; and there are many things in our possession as valuable as the iron kettle, as you will hereafter acknowledge. Now do you go and get ready some fire for us, and I will finish here by myself Nero keep out, sir--you are never to come into this cabin." I went with Nero for a fish, and when I returned. I determined that I would use the iron kettle. I put it on with water and boiled the fish, and I thought that it ate better than broiled on the embers, which made it too dry. As we sat at our meal, I said, "Dear mother, what are we to do next?" "To-morrow morning we will put the cabin into better order, and put away all our things, instead of leaving them about the platform in this way. Then I will carefully look over all that we have got, and put them away in the chest. I have not yet seen the contents of the chest." The next day it was very cloudy and rough weather, blowing fresh. After breakfast we set to work. We cleared out the floor of the cabin, which was strewed with all manner of things, for Jackson and I had not been very particular. The whale-line was coiled up and put into one corner and everything else was brought in and a place round for it. "We must contrive some shelves," said my mother, "that we may put things on them, or else we never can be tidy; and we have not one except that which holds the books. I think we can manage it. We have, two oars left besides the boat's yard; we will nail them along the side of the cabin, about a foot or more from it, and then we will cut some of the boat's sail, and nail the canvass from the side of the cabin to the oars, and that will make a sort of shelf which will hold our things." I brought in the oars; they were measured and cut off and nailed up. The canvass was then stretched from the side of the cabin to the oar, and nailed with the broad-headed nails, and made two capital shelves on each side of the cabin, running from one end to the other. "There," said my mother, "that is a good job. Now we will examine the chest and put everything away and in its place." My mother took out all the clothes, and folded them up. When she found the roll of duck which was at the bottom, she said-- "I am glad to find this, as I can make a dress for myself much better for this island than this black stuff dress which I now wear, and which I will put by to wear, in case we should be taken off the island some of these days; for I must dress like other people when I am again among them. The clothes are sufficient to last you for a long while; but I shall only alter two shirts and two pair of trousers to your present size, as you will grow very fast. How old do you think you are now?" I replied, "About sixteen years old, or perhaps more." "I should think that was about your age." Having examined and folded up every article of clothing in the chest, the tools, spy-glass, etcetera, were put by me on the shelves, and then we examined the box containing the thread, needles, fish-hooks, and other articles, such as buttons, etcetera. "These are valuable," said she; "I have some of my own to put along with them. Go and fetch my basket; I have not yet had time to look into it since I left the ship." "What is there in it?" "Except brushes and combs, I can hardly say. When I travelled about, I always carried my basket, containing those things most requisite for daily use, and in the basket I put everything that I wished to preserve, till I had an opportunity to put it away. When I embarked on board of the whaler, I brought my basket on my arm as usual; but except opening it for my brushes and combs or scissors, I have not examined it for months." "What are brushes and combs and scissors?" "That I will show you," replied she, opening the lid of the basket. "These are the brushes and combs for cleaning the hair, and these are scissors. Now we will take everything out." The basket did indeed appear to contain a wonderful quantity of things, almost all new to me. There were two brushes, twelve combs, three pair of scissors, a penknife, a little bottle of ink, some pens, a woman's thimble, a piece of wax, a case of needles, thread and silk, a piece of India ink, and a camel's hair brush, sealing-wax, sticking plaster, a box of pills, some tape and bobbin, paper of pins, a magnifying-glass, silver pencil-case, some money in a purse, black shoe-ribbon, and many other articles which I have forgotten. All I know is, that I never was so much interested ever after at any show as I was with the contents of this basket, all of which were explained to me by my mother, as to their uses, and how they were made. There were several little papers at the bottom of the basket, which she said were seeds of plants, which she had collected to take to England with her, and that we would plant them here. As she shook the dust out of the basket after it was empty, two or three white things tumbled out, which she asked me to pick up and give to her. "I don't know how they came here," said she, "but three of them are orange-pips, which we will sow to-morrow, and the other is a pea, but of what kind I know not; we will sow that also--but I fear it will not come up, as it appears to me to be one of the peas served out to the sailors on board ship, and will be too old to grow. We can but try. Now we will put into the chest, with the other things that you have, what we do not want for present use, and then I can drive a nail into the side of my bedroom and hang my basket on it." "But," said I, "this round glass--what is that for?" "Put it on one side," replied she, "and to-morrow, if it is fine, I will show you the use of it; but there are some things we have forgotten, which are your belt and the other articles you gave me to take for you when you thought we were to leave the island. They are in the bed-place opposite to yours." I brought them, and she put away the mate's watch and sleeve-buttons, and the other trinkets, etcetera, saying that she would examine the letters and papers at another time. The belt was examined, counting how many of the squares had stones in them, and then, with her scissors, she cut open one of the squares, and took out a white glittering thing like glass, as it appeared to me, and looked at it carefully. "I am no great judge of these things," said she, "but still I have picked up some little knowledge. This belt, if it contain all stones like this, must be of considerable value; now I must get out my needle and thread and sew it up again." She did, and put the belt away with the other articles in the chest. "And now," said she, "we have done a good day's work, and it is time to have something to eat." CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. I must say that I was much better pleased with the appearance of the cabin, it was so neat and clean to what it had been, and everything was out of the way. The next day was a calm and clear day, and we went down to fish. We were fortunate, and procured almost as many as we had done at the previous fishing--they were all put in the bathing-pool as before. When we went up to the cabin, as soon as the fish was put on the fire, under the direction of my mother, I turned up the sides of one of the pieces of sheet-iron, so as to make a sort of dish. The other piece I did the same to, only not so high at the sides, as one piece was kept for baking the fish on and the other as a dish to put our dinner upon when cooked. That day we had been too busy with fishing to think of anything else, but on the following I recollected the magnifying-glass, and brought it to her. She first showed me the power it had to magnify, with which I was much amused for a time, and she explained as well as she could to me the cause of its having that power: but I could not well understand her: I was more pleased with the effect than cognisant of the cause. Afterwards she sent me to the cabin for some of the dried moss which I used for tinder, and placing the glass so as to concentrate the rays of the sun, to my astonishment I saw the tinder caught fire. It was amazement more than astonishment, and I looked up to see where the fire came from. My mother explained to me, and I, to a certain degree, comprehended; but I was too anxious to have the glass in my own hands and try experiments. I lighted the tinder again--then I burnt my hand--then I singed one of the gannet's heads, and lastly, perceiving that Nero was fast asleep in the sun, I obtained the focus on his cold nose. He started up with a growl, which made me retreat, and I was perfectly satisfied with the result of my experiments. From that time, the fire was, when the sun shone, invariably lighted by the burning-glass, and very useful did I find it. As it was so portable, I always carried it with me, and when I had nothing to do, I magnified, or set fire, according to the humour of the moment. Although I have not mentioned it, not a morning rose, but before breakfast, I read the Scriptures to my mother. "There's so much in that book which I cannot understand," said I, one morning. "I suspect that, living as you have, alone on this island, and having seen nothing of the world," replied my mother, "that there are not many books that you would understand." "But I understand all that is said in the Beast and Bird Book," replied I. "Perhaps you may, or think you do; but, Frank, you must not class the Bible with other books. The other books are the works of man; but the Bible is the word of God. There are many portions of that book which the cleverest men, who have devoted their lives to its study, cannot understand, and which never will be understood as long as this world endures. In many parts the Bible is a sealed book." "But will it never be understood then by anybody?" "There is quite as much of the Bible as is necessary for men to follow its precepts, and this is so clear that anybody may understand it--it contains all that is necessary for salvation; but there are passages, the true meaning of which we cannot explain, and which God, for His own purposes, will not permit us to do. But if we do not know them now, we shall probably hereafter, when we have left this world, and our intellects more nearly approach God's." "Well, I don't understand why we should not understand it." "Frank," replied she, "look at that flower just in bloom. Do you understand how it is that that plant keeps alive--grows every year-- every year throws out a large blue flower? Why should it do so? Why should the flower always be blue? And whence comes that beautiful colour? Can you tell me? You see, you know that it does do so. But can you tell me what makes it do so?" "No." "Look at that bird. You know it is hatched from an egg. How is it that the inside of an egg is changed into bird? How is that the bird is covered with feathers, and has the power to fly? Can you explain to me yourself? You can walk about just as you please--you have the power of reasoning, and thinking, and of acting; but by what means is it that you possess that power? Can you tell? You know that is so, but you know no more. You can't tell why, or how, or what causes produce these effects--can you?" "No." "Well, then, if you are surrounded by all manner of things, living and dead, and see every day things which you cannot explain, or understand, why should you be surprised that, as God has not let you know by what means these effects are produced, that in His written word He should also keep from you that which for good purposes you are not permitted to know. Everything here is by God's will, and that must be sufficient for us. Now do you understand?" "Yes, I see now what you mean, but I never thought about these things before. Tell me some more about the Bible." "Not now. Some day I will give you a history of the Bible, and then you will understand the nature of the book, and why it was written; but not at present. Suppose, as we have nothing particular to do, you tell me all you know about yourself from Jackson, and all that happened while you lived with him. I have heard only part, and I should like to know all." "Very well," replied I. "I will tell you everything, but it will take a long while." "We shall have plenty of time to spare, my dear boy, I fear, before we leave this place; so never mind time--tell me everything." I commenced my narrative, but I was interrupted. "Have you never been able to call your own mother to your memory?" said she. "I think I can now, since I have seen you; but I could not before. I now can recollect a person dressed like you, kneeling down and praying by my side; and I said before, the figure has appeared in my dreams, and much oftener since you have been here." "And your father?" "I have not the slightest remembrance of him, or anybody else except my mother." I then proceeded, and continued my narrative until it was time to go to bed; but as I was very circumstantial, and was often interrupted by questions, I had not told a quarter of what I had to say. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. Mrs Reichardt had promised to give me a history of the Bible; and one day, when the weather kept us both at home, she thus commenced her narrative:-- "The Bible is a history of God's doings for the salvation of man. It commences with the fall of man by disobedience, and ends with the sacrifice made for his reinstatement. As by one man, Adam, sin came into the world, so by one man, Jesus Christ, was sin and death overcome. If you will refer to the third chapter of Genesis, at the very commencement of the Bible, you will find that at the same time that Adam receives his punishment, a promise is made by the Lord, that the head of the serpent shall hereafter be bruised. The whole of the Bible, from the very commencement, is an announcement of the coming of Christ; so that as soon as the fault had been committed, the Almighty, in His mercy, had provided a remedy. Nothing is unknown or unforeseen by God. "Recollect, Frank, that the Bible contains the history of God's doings, but it does not often tell is why such things were done. It must be sufficient for us to know that such was the will of God; when He thinks proper, He allows us to understand His ways; but to our limited capacities, most of His doings are inscrutable. But are we to suppose that, because we, in our foolishness, cannot comprehend His reasons, that therefore they must be cavilled at? Do you understand me, Frank?" "Yes," replied I; "I do pretty well." "As I pointed out to you the other day, you see the blade of grass grow, and you see it flower, but how it does so you know not. If then you are surrounded all your life with innumerable things which you see but cannot comprehend--when all nature is a mystery to you--even yourself-- how can you expect to understand the dealings of God in other things? When, therefore, you read the Bible, you must read it with faith." "What is faith? I don't quite understand, mother." "Frank, I have often told you of many things that are in England, where you one day hope to go. Now, if, when you arrive in England, you find that everything that I have told you is quite true, you will be satisfied that I am worthy of belief." "Yes." "Well, suppose some one were to tell you something relative to any other country, which you could not understand, and you came to me and asked me if such were the case, would you, having found that I told you truth with regard to England, believe that what you had been told of this other country was true, if I positively asserted that it was so?" "Of course I should, mother." "Well, then, Frank, that would be faith; a belief in things not only not seen, but which you cannot understand. But, to go on, I mention this because some people are so presumptuous as to ask the why and the wherefore of God's doings, and attempt to argue upon their justice, forgetting that the little reason they have is the gift of God, and that they must be endowed with intellect equal to the Almighty, to enable them to know and perceive that which He decides upon. But if God has not permitted us to understand all his ways, still, wherever we can trace the finger of God, we can always perceive that everything is directed by an all-wise and beneficent hand; and that, although the causes appear simple, the effects produced are extraordinary and wonderful. We shall observe this as we talk over the history of the Jews, in the Bible. But, I repeat, that we must study the whole of the Bible with faith, and not be continually asking ourselves, `Why was this done?' If you will turn to the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, you will see what the Apostle Paul says on the subject: `Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?' Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, `Why hast thou made me thus?' Do you now understand in what spirit the Bible should be read?" "Yes, I do. We must read it as the Word of God, and believe all that we read in it." "Exactly. Now we will proceed. After Adam's fall, the earth became so wicked that God destroyed it, leaving but Noah and his family to re-people it; and as soon as this was done, the Almighty prepared for his original intention for the future salvation of men. He selected Abraham, who was a good man, and who had faith, to be the father of a nation chosen for His own people--that was the Jewish nation. He told him that his seed should multiply as the stars in the heavens, and that all the nations of the earth should be blessed in him; that is, that from his descendants should Christ be born, who should be the salvation of men. Abraham's great grandchildren were brought into Egypt, to live apart in the land of Goshen. You have read the history of Joseph and his brethren?" "Oh yes; I know that well." "Well, the Almighty wished the Jews should be a nation apart from others, and for that purpose he brought them into Egypt. But observe, Frank, by what simple and natural causes this was effected. It was by a dream of Joseph's, which, when he told them of it, irritated his brothers against him; they sold him as a slave, and he was sent into Egypt. There, having explained the dream of Pharaoh, he was made a ruler over Egypt, and saved that country from the famine which was in every other land. His brothers come down to buy corn, and he recognises them. He sends for his father and all the family, and establishes them in the land of Goshen, as shepherds, apart from the Egyptians. Here they multiplied fast; but after Joseph's elevation they were cruelly treated by the Egyptians, who became afraid of their rapid increase, and eventually the kings of Egypt gave orders that all the male children of the Jews should be destroyed. It was at this time, when they were so oppressed and cruelly treated by the Egyptians, that God interfered and sent for Moses. Moses, like all the rest of the Jews, knew nothing of the true God, and was difficult to persuade; and it was only by miracles that he was convinced." "Why did God keep the Jews apart from the Egyptians, and have them thrown in bondage?" "Because he wished to prepare them to become his own peculiar people. By their being descended from Abraham, and having never intermarried with other nations, they had become a pure race; by being in bondage and severely treated, they had suffered and become united as a people. They knew no gods, but those worshipped by the Egyptians, and these gods it was now the intention of the Almighty to confound, and prove to the Jews as worthless. At the same time he worked with his own nation in mystery, for when Moses asked him what God he was to tell his people that He was, the Almighty only replied by these words--`I am:' having no name like all the false gods worshipped by the Egyptians. He was now about to prove, by his wonderful miracles, the difference between himself and the false gods." "What are miracles?" "A miracle is doing that which man has no power of doing, proving that the party who does it is superior to man; for instance--to restore a dead man to life is a miracle, as none but God, or those empowered by God, could do so. Miracles were necessary, therefore, to prove to the Jews that the Almighty was the true God, and were resorted to by Him in this instance, as well as in the coming of Our Saviour, when it was also necessary to prove that he was the Son of God. When the Almighty sent Moses to Pharaoh to demand that the Israelites should have permission to sacrifice in the desert, He purposely hardened the heart of Pharaoh that he might refuse the request." "But why did he so?" "Because he wanted to prove to the Israelites that He was the only true God; and had Pharaoh consented to their going away, there would have been no opportunity of performing those miracles by which the Israelites were to be delivered, and by which they were to acknowledge Him as their God." Mrs Reichardt often renewed this conversation, till I became acquainted with Scriptural History. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. The following morning, I went with Nero to take a couple of fish out of the pool. As soon as Nero had caught them, he went into the other part of the bathing-pool to amuse himself, while I cleaned the fish, which I generally did before I went up to the cabin, giving him the heads and insides for his share, if I did not require any portion for the birds. Nero was full of play that morning, and when I threw the heads to him, as he frolicked in the water, he brought them out to the rocks; but instead of eating them, as usual, he laid them at my feet. I threw them in several times, and he continued to bring them out, and my mother, coming down to me, was watching him. "I think," said she, "you must teach Nero to fetch and carry like a dog--try. Instead of the heads, throw in this piece of wood;" which she now broke off the boat-hook staff. I did so, and Nero brought it out, as he had done the heads of the fish. I patted and coaxed the animal, and tried him again several times with success. "Now," said my mother, "you must accustom him to certain words when you send him for anything. Always say, `Fetch it, Nero!' and point with your finger." "Why am I to do that, mother?" I asked. "Because the object to be gained is, not that the animal should fetch out what you throw in, but what you send it to bring out which you have not thrown in. Do you understand?" "Yes," replied I. "You mean, if there were anything floating near on the sea, I should send him for it." "Exactly. Then Nero would be of some use." "I will soon teach him," replied I; "to-morrow I will send him into the sea after the piece of spar. I've no fear that he will go away now." "I was thinking last night, Frank, whether they had taken the pail with them in the boat." "The pail," said I; "I know where it is, but I quite forgot it. We left it up the ravine the last day we planted the potatoes." "We did so, now I recollect. I will go for it while you get the breakfast ready." We had now been for many weeks on a fish diet and I must confess that I was tired of it, which was not the case when I lived upon the dried birds during the whole of the year. Why so I cannot tell; but I was soon to learn to relish fish, if I could obtain them. It was not often that the wind blew direct on the shore, but coming from the northward and eastward, it was in a slanting direction; but occasionally, and chiefly about the time of the equinoxes, the gales came on very heavy from the eastward, and then the wash of the seas upon the rocky coast was tremendous. Such was the case about this time. A fierce gale of wind from the eastward raised a sea which threw the surf and spray high over the loftiest of the rocks, and the violence of the wind bore the spray far inland. The gale had come on in the evening, and my mother and I, when we rose in the morning, were standing on the platform before the cabin, admiring the grandeur of the scene, but without the least idea that it was to be productive of so much misery to ourselves. My mother pointed out to me some passages in the Psalms and Old Testament bearing strongly upon the scene before us; after a time I called Nero, and went down with him to take fish out of the pool for our day's consumption. At that time we had a large supply in the pool--more than ever, I should say. When I arrived at the pool, I found the waves several feet in height rolling in over the ledges, and the pool one mass of foam, the water in it being at least two or three feet higher than usual; still it never occurred to me that there was any mischief done, until I had sent Nero in for the fish, and found that, after floundering and diving for some time, he did not bring out one. My mind misgave me; and I ordered him in again. He remained some time and then returned without a fish, and I was then satisfied that from the rolling in of the waves, and the unusual quantity of the water in the pool, the whole of the fish had escaped, and that we were now without any provisions or means of subsistence, until the weather should settle, and enable us to catch some more. Aghast at the discovery, I ran up to the cabin, and called to my mother, who was in her bedroom. "Oh, mother, all the fish have got out of the pool, and we have nothing to eat. I told you we should be starved." "Take time, Frank, and take breath," replied she, "and then tell me what has happened to cause this alarm and dismay, that you appear to be in." I explained to her what had happened, and that Nero could not find one fish. "I fear that what you say must be correct," replied she; "but we must put our trust in God. It is His will, and whatever He wills must be right." I cannot say I was Christian enough at the time to acknowledge the truth of her reply, and I answered, "If God is as good and as gracious as you say, will He allow us to starve? Does he know that we are starving?" continued I. "Does He know, Frank?" replied my mother. "What does the Bible say-- that not a sparrow falls to the ground without His knowledge; and of how much more worth are you than many sparrows? Shame upon you, Frank!" I was abashed, but not satisfied; I therefore replied quietly, "We have nothing to eat, mother." "Granted that we have lost all our fish, Frank, still we are not yet starving; the weather may moderate to-morrow, and we may catch some more, or even if it should not till the day afterwards, we can bear to be two days without food. Let us hope for the best and put our trust in God--let us pray to Him and ask him for his assistance. He can rebuke these stormy waters--He can always find means of helping those who put confidence in Him, and will send us aid when all hope appears gone. Pray, Frank, as I will do fervently, and believing that your prayer is heard--pray with faith, and your prayer will be answered." "It is not always so," replied I; "you have told me of many people who have died of starvation." "I grant it, and for all-wise purposes they were permitted so to do; but the Almighty had reasons for permitting it, unknown to us, but which you may depend upon it, were good. We cannot fathom His decrees. He may even now decide that such is to be our fate; but if so, depend upon it, Frank, all is right, and what appears to you now as cruel and neglectful of you, would, if the future could be looked into by us, prove to have been an act of mercy." "Do you think, then, that we shall starve?" "I do not--I have too much faith in God's mercy, and I do not think that He would have preserved our lives by preventing the men from taking us into the boat if we were now to starve. God is not inconsistent; and I feel assured that, forlorn as our present position appears to be, and tried as our faith in Him may be, we shall still be preserved, and live to be monuments of his gracious love and kindness." These words of my mother and the implicit confidence which she appeared to have, much revived me. "Well," said I, "I hope you are right, my dear mother; and now I think of it," continued I, brightening up at the idea, "if the worst come to the worst, we can eat the birds; I don't care much for them now, and if I did, you should not starve, mother." "I believe you would not hesitate to sacrifice the birds, Frank; but a greater sacrifice may be demanded of you." "What?" inquired I; and then after a little thought I said, "You don't mean Nero, mother?" "To tell the truth, I did mean Nero, Frank; for the birds will not be a support for more than a day or two." "I never could kill Nero, mother," replied I, gloomily; and walking away into the cabin, I sat down very melancholy at the idea of my favourite being sacrificed; to me it appeared quite horrible, and my mother having referred to it, made her fall very much in my good opinion. Alas! I was indeed young and foolish, and little thought what a change would take place in my feelings. As for the birds, as I really did not care for them, I resolved to kill two of them for our day's meal, and returning to the platform I had laid hold of the two that were there and had seized both by the neck, when my mother asked me what I was going to do. "Kill them, and put them in the pot for our dinner," replied I. "Nay, Frank! You are too hasty. Let us make some little sacrifice, even for the poor birds. We surely can fast one day without very great suffering. To-morrow will be time enough." I dropped the birds from my hand, tacitly consenting to her proposal. It was not, however, for the sake of the birds that I did so, but because one day's respite for the birds would be a day's respite for Nero. "Come," said my mother, "let us go into the cabin and get some work. I will alter some of the clothes for you. What will you do?" "I don't know," replied I, "but I will do whatever you tell me." "Well, then, I perceive that the two fishing-lines are much worn, and they may break very soon, and then we shall be without the means of taking fish, even if the weather is fine; so now we will cut off some of the whale-line, and when it is unravelled, I will show you how to lay it up again into fishing-line; and, perhaps, instead of altering the clothes, I had better help you, as fishing-lines are now of more consequence to us than anything else." This was an arrangement which I gladly consented to. In a short time the whale-line was unravelled, and my mother showed me how to lay it up in three yarns, so as to make a stout fishing-line. She assisted, and the time passed away more rapidly than I had expected it would. "You are very clever, mother," said I. "No, my child, I am not, but I certainly do know many things which women in general are not acquainted with; but the reason of this is, I have lived a life of wandering, and occasional hardships. Often left to our own resources, when my husband and I were among strangers, we found the necessity of learning to do many things for ourselves, which those who have money usually employ others to do for them; but I have been in situations where even money was of no use, and had to trust entirely to myself. I have, therefore, always made it a rule to learn everything that I could; and as I have passed much of my life in sailing over the deep waters, I obtained much useful knowledge from the seamen, and this of laying up fishing-lines is one of the arts which they communicated to me. Now, you see, I reap the advantage of it." "Yes," replied I; "and so do I. How lucky it was that you came to this island." "Lucky for me, do you mean, Frank?" "No, mother! I mean how lucky for me." "I trust that I have been sent here to be useful, Frank, and with that feeling I cheerfully submit to the will of God. He has sent me that I may be useful to you, I do not doubt; and if by my means you are drawn towards Him, and, eventually, become one of His children, I shall have fulfilled my mission." "I do not understand you quite, mother." "No, you cannot as yet; but everything in season," replied she, slowly musing. "`First the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear.'" "Mother," said I, "I should like to hear the whole story of your life. You know I have told you all that I know about myself. Now, suppose you tell me your history, and that of your husband. You did say that perhaps one day you would. Do you recollect?" "Yes, I do recollect that I did make a sort of promise, Frank, and I promise you now that some day I will fulfil it; but I am not sure that you will understand or profit by the history now, so much as you may by-and-bye." "Well, but mother, you can tell me the story twice, and I shall be glad to hear it again; so tell it to me now, to amuse me, and by-and-bye, that I may profit by it." My mother smiled, which she very seldom did, and said-- "Well, Frank, as I know you would at any time give up your dinner to listen to a story, and as you will have no dinner to-day, I think it is but fair that I should consent to your wish. Who shall I begin with-- with my husband or with myself?" "Pray begin with your own history," replied I. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. "I am the daughter of a parish clerk in a small market-town near the southern coast of England, within a few miles of a large seaport." "What is a parish clerk?" I asked, interrupting my mother at the commencement of her promised narrative. "A parish clerk," she replied, "is a man who is employed in the parish or place to which he belongs, to fulfil certain humble duties in connection with the church or place of worship where the people meet together to worship God." "What does he do there?" I inquired. "He gives out the psalms that are to be sung, leads the congregation in making their responses to the minister appointed to perform the services of the church; has the custody of the registry of births, deaths, and burials of the inhabitants, and the care of the church monuments, and of other property belonging to the building. In some places he also fulfils the duties of bell-ringer and grave-digger; that is to say, by ringing a large bell at the top of the church, he summons the people to their devotions, during their lives, and digs a hole in consecrated ground, surrounding the sacred building, to receive their bodies when dead." I mused on this strange combination of offices, and entertained a notion of the importance of such a functionary, which I afterwards found was completely at variance with the real state of the case. "My father," she resumed, "not only fulfilled all these duties, but contrived to perform the functions of schoolmaster to the parish children." "What are parish children?" I asked eagerly. "I know what children are, as Jackson represented to me that I was the child of my father and mother--but what makes children parish children?" "They are the children of the poor," Mrs Reichardt replied, "who, not being able to afford them instruction, willingly allow them to be taught at the expense of the people of the parish generally." I thought this a praiseworthy arrangement. I knew nothing of poor's-rates, and the system of giving relief to the poor of the parish, so long used in England, afterwards explained to me; but the kindness and wisdom of this plan of instruction became evident to my understanding. I was proceeding to ask other questions, when my mother stopped them by saying, that if I expected her to get through her story, I must let her proceed without further interruption; for many things would be mentioned by her, which demanded explanation, for one so completely unaware of their existence as myself, and that it would be impossible to make me thoroughly acquainted with such things within any reasonable time; the proper explanations she promised should follow. She then proceeded. "My father, it may be thought, had enough on his hands; but in an obscure country town, it is not unusual for one man to unite the occupations of several, and this was particularly the case with my father, who, in addition to the offices I have enumerated, was the best cattle-doctor and bone-setter within ten miles, and often earned his bread at different kinds of farmer's work; such as thatching, hedging, ditching, and the like. Nevertheless, he found time to read his Bible, and bring up his only daughter religiously. This daughter was myself." "What had become of your mother?" I asked, as I thought it strange Mrs Reichardt should only mention one parent. "She had died very soon after my birth," she answered, "and I was left at first to the care of a poor woman, who nursed me; as soon, however, as I could run about, and had exhibited some signs of intelligence, my father began to get so partial to me, that he very reluctantly allowed me to go out of his sight. He took great pains in teaching me what he knew; and though the extent of his acquirements was by no means great, it was sufficient to lay a good foundation, and establish a desire for more comprehensive information, which I sought every available means to obtain. "I remember that at a very early age, I exhibited an extraordinary curiosity for a child, constantly asking questions, not only of my father, but of all his friends and visitors; and, as they seemed to consider me a quick and lively child, they took pleasure in satisfying my inquisitive spirit. In this way I gained a great deal of knowledge, and, by observation of what passed around me, a great deal more. "It soon became a source of pride and gratification with my father, to ask me to read the Bible to him. This naturally led to a good many inquiries on my part, and numerous explanations on his. In course of time, I became familiar with all the sacred writings, and knew their spirit and meaning much better than many persons who were more than double my age. "My fondness for such studies, and consequent reputation, attracted the attention of Dr Brightwell, the clergyman of our parish, who had the kindness to let me share the instructions of his children, and still further advanced my education, and still more increased my natural predilection for religious information. By the time I was thirteen, I became quite a prodigy in Christian learning, and was often sent for to the parsonage, to astonish the great people of the neighbourhood, by the facility with which I answered the most puzzling questions that were put to me, respecting the great mysteries of Christianity." CHAPTER THIRTY. "It was about this time that I first became acquainted with an orphan boy, an inmate of the workhouse, who had been left to the care of the parish, by the sudden death of his parents, a German clockmaker and his wife, from a malignant fever which had visited the neighbourhood, and taken off a considerable portion of the labouring population. I had been sent on errands from my father to the master of the workhouse, a severe, sullen man, of whom I had a great dread, and I noticed this child, in consequence of his pale and melancholy countenance, and apparently miserable condition. I observed that no one took any notice of him; and that he was allowed to wander about the great straggling workhouse, among the insane, the idiotic, and the imbecile, without the slightest attention being paid to his going and coming; in short, he lived the wretched life of a workhouse boy. "I see that you are eager to ask what is a workhouse boy," said my mother, "so I will anticipate your question. There is, in the various parishes of the country to which we both belong, a building expressly set apart for the accommodation and support of the destitute and disabled poor. It usually contains inmates of all ages, from the infant just born to the very aged, whose infirmities show them to be on the verge of the grave. They are all known to be in a state of helpless poverty, and quite unable to earn a subsistence for themselves. In this building they are clothed and fed; the younger provided with instruction necessary to put them in the way of earning a livelihood; the elders of the community enjoying the consolations of religion, accorded to them by the regular visits of the chaplain." "I suppose," I here observed, "that the people who lived there were deeply impressed with their good fortune in finding such an asylum?" "As far as I could ever ascertain," Mrs Reichardt replied, "it was exactly the reverse. It was always thought so degrading to enter a workhouse, that the industrious labourer would endure any and every privation rather than live there. An honest hard-working man must be sorely driven indeed, to seek such a shelter in his distress." "That seems strange," I observed. "Why should he object to receive what he so much stands in need of?" "When he thus comes upon the funds of the parish," answered my mother, "he becomes what is called a pauper, and among the English peasantry of the better sort, there is the greatest possible aversion to be ranked with this degraded class. Consequently, the inmates of the workhouses are either those whose infirmities prevent their earning a subsistence, or the idle and the dissolute, who feel none of the honest prejudices of self-dependence, and care only to live from day to day on the coarse and meagre fare afforded them by the charity of their wealthier and more industrious fellow-creatures. "The case of this poor boy I thought very pitiable. I found out that his name was Heinrich Reichardt. He could speak no language but his own and therefore his wants remained unknown, and his feelings unregarded. He had been brought up with a certain sense of comfort and decency, which was cruelly outraged by the position in which he found himself placed by the sudden death of his parents. I observed that he was often in tears; and his fair features and light hair contrasted remarkably with the squalid faces and matted locks of his companions. His wretchedness never failed to make a deep impression on me. "I brought him little presents, and strove to express my sympathy for his sufferings. He seemed, at first, more surprised than grateful; but I shortly discovered that my attentions gave him unusual pleasure, and he looked upon my visits as his only solace and gratification. "Even at this period, I exercised considerable influence over my father, and I managed to interest him in the case of the poor foreign boy to such an extent, that he was induced to take him out of the workhouse, and find him a home under his own roof. He was at first reluctant to burthen himself with the bringing up of a child, who, from his foreign language and habits, could be of little use to him in his avocations; but I promised to teach him English, and all other learning of which he stood most in need, and assured my father, that in a prodigious short time I would make him a much abler assistant than he was likely to find among the boys of the town. "My father's desire to please me, rather than any faith he reposed in my assertions, led him to allow me to do as I pleased in this affair. I lost no time, therefore, in beginning my course of instruction, and in a few weeks ascertained that I had an apt pupil, who was determined to proceed with his education as fast as circumstances would admit. We were soon able to express our ideas to each other, and in a few months read together the book out of which I had received so many invaluable lessons. "In a short time I became not less proud of, than partial to, my pupil. I took him through the same studies which I had pursued under the auspices of our clergyman, and was secretly pleased to find, not only that he was singularly quick in imbibing my instructions, but displayed a strong natural taste for those investigations towards which I had shown so marked a bias. "Day after day have we sat together discoursing of the great events recorded in Holy Writ: going over every chapter of its marvellous records, page by page, till the whole were so firmly fixed upon our minds, that we had no necessity during our conversations for referring to the Sacred Book. We found examples we held up to ourselves for imitation;--we found incidents we regarded as promises of Divine Protection; we found consolation and comfort, as well as exhortation and advice; and, moreover, we found a sort of instruction that led us to select for ourselves duties that apparently tended to bring us nearer to the Great Being, whose goodness we had so diligently studied. "My father seemed as much pleased with my successful teaching, as he had been with my successful learning; and when young Reichardt turned out a remarkably handy and intelligent lad, to whose assistance in some of his avocations he could have recourse with perfect confidence in his cleverness and discretion, he grew extremely partial to him. Dr Brightwell also proved his friend, and in a few years, the condition of the friendless workhouse boy was so changed, he could not have been taken for the same person. "He was a boy of a very grateful spirit, and always regarded me with the devotion of a most thankful heart. Often would he contrast the wretchedness of his previous condition with the happiness he now enjoyed, and express in the warmest terms his obligations to me for the important service I had rendered him in rescuing him from the abject misery of the workhouse. Under these circumstances, it is not extraordinary that we should learn to regard each other with the liveliest feelings of affection, and while we were still children,-- endured all the transports and torments which make up the existence of more experienced lovers." "I do not like interrupting you," I here observed, "but I certainly should like to know what is meant by the word lovers?" "I can scarcely explain it to you satisfactorily at present," said Mrs Reichardt, with a smile; "but I have no doubt, before many years have passed over your head--always provided that you escape from this island--you will understand it without requiring any explanation. But I must now leave my story, as many things of much consequence to our future welfare now demand my careful attention." I could not then ascertain from her what was meant by the word whose meaning I had asked. It had very much excited my curiosity; but she left me to attend to her domestic duties, of which she was extremely regardful, and I had no opportunity at that time of eliciting from her the explanation I desired. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. It is impossible for me to overrate the value of Mrs Reichardt's assistance. Indeed had it not been for her, circumstanced as I was at this particular period, I should in all probability have perished. Her exhortations saved me from despair, when our position seemed to have grown quite desperate. But example did more, even, than precept. Her ingenuity in devising expedients; her activity in putting them in force; her unfailing cheerfulness under disappointment, and Christian resignation under privation, produced the best results. I was enabled to bear up against the ill effects of our crippled resources, consequent upon the ill conduct of the sailors of the whaler, and the failure of our fish-pond. She manufactured strong lines for deep-sea fishing, and having discovered a shelf of rock, little more than two feet above the sea, to which with a good deal of difficulty I could descend, I took my stand one day on the rock with my lines baited with a piece of one of my feathered favourites, whom dire necessity had at last forced me to destroy. I waited with all the patience of a veteran angler. I knew the water to be very deep, and it lay in a sheltered nook or corner of the rocks about ten feet across; I allowed the line to drop some three or four yards, and not having any float, could only tell I had a bite by feeling a pull at the line, which was wound round my arm. After some time having been passed in this way, my attention was withdrawn from the line, and given to the narrative I had so lately heard; that is to say, though my eyes were still fixed upon the line, I had completely given up my thoughts to the story of the poor German boy, who had been snatched from poverty by the interference of the parish clerk's daughter; and I contrived to speculate on what I should have done under such circumstances, imagining all sorts of extravagances in which I should have indulged, to testify my gratitude to so amiable and benevolent a friend. A singular course of ideal scenes followed each other in quick succession in my mind--as I fancied myself the hero of a similar adventure. I regarded my imaginary benefactress with feelings of such intensity as I had never before experienced; and it seemed that I was to her the exciting object of sentiments of a like nature, the knowledge of which awoke in our hearts the most agreeable sensations. I was rudely disturbed out of this day-dream by finding myself suddenly plunged into the deep water beneath me. The shock was so startling, that some seconds elapsed before I could comprehend my situation; and then it became clear that I must have hooked a fish, that had not only succeeded in pulling me off my balance, but the line by which he was held being round my arm, cutting painfully into the flesh, threatened drowning by keeping me under water. With great difficulty I managed to rise to the surface, and loosened the windings of the line from my limb; then, anxious to retain possession of what from its force must have been a fish well worth some trouble in catching, I held on with both hands, and pulled with all my strength. At first, by main force I was drawn through the water; then, when I found the strain slacken, I drew in the line. This manoeuvre was repeated several times, till I succeeded in obtaining a view of what I had caught; or, more properly speaking, of what had caught me. It was merely a glimpse; for the fish, which was a very large one, getting a sight of me within a few yards of him, made some desperate plunges, and again darted off, dragging me along with him, sometimes under the water, and sometimes on the surface. His body was nearly round, and about seven or eight feet long--rather a formidable antagonist for close quarters; nevertheless, I was most eager to get at him, the more so, when I ascertained that his resistance was evidently decreasing. I continued to approach, and at last got near enough to plunge my knife up to the haft in his head, which at once put an end to the struggle. But now another difficulty presented itself. In the ardour of the chase I had been drawn nearly a mile from the island, and I found it impossible to carry back the produce of my sport, exhausted as I was by the efforts I had made in capturing him. I knew I could not swim with such a burthen for the most inconsiderable portion of the distance. My fish therefore must be abandoned. Here was a bountiful supply of food, as soon as placed within reach, rendered totally unavailable. I thought of Mrs Reichardt. I thought how gratified she would have been, could I have brought to her such an excellent addition to our scanty stock of food. Then I thought of her steadfast reliance upon Providence, and what valuable lessons of piety and wisdom she would read me, if she found me depressed by my disappointment. CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. As soon as I could disconnect my tackle from the dead fish, I turned my face homewards, and struck out manfully for the shore; luckily I did not observe any sharks. I landed safely without further adventure, and immediately sought my kind friend and companion, whom I found, as usual, industriously employed in endeavouring to secure me additional comforts. If she were not engaged in ordinary woman's work,--making, mending, cleaning, or improving, in our habitation, she was sure to be found doing something in the immediate neighbourhood, which, though less feminine, showed no less forethought, prudence, and sagacity. Our garden had prospered wonderfully under her hands. The ground seemed now stocked with various kinds of vegetation, of which I neither knew the value nor the proper mode of cultivation; and we seemed about to be surrounded with shrubs and plants--many of very pleasing appearance-- that must in a short time entirely change the aspect of the place. She heard my adventure with a good deal of interest, only remonstrating with me upon my want of caution, and dwelling upon the fatal consequences that must have ensued to herself, had I been drowned or disabled by falling from the rock, or devoured by the sharks. "You may consider yourself, my dear son," she observed, with serious earnestness, "to have been under the Divine care. Nothing can be clearer than that a wise and kind Providence is continually watching over His creatures when placed in unusual or perilous circumstances. He occasionally affords them manifestations of His favour, to encourage them when engaged in good works. This shows the comprehensive eye of the master of many workmen, who overlooks the labours of his more industrious servants, and indicates to them his regard for their welfare and appreciation of their labours." "But surely," I interposed, "if I had been under the superintendence of the Providence of which you speak, I should not have been obliged to abandon so capital a fish, when I had endured such trouble to capture it, and when its possession was so necessary to our comfort, nay, even to our existence." "The very abandonment of so unwieldy a creature," she replied, "is unanswerable evidence of a Divine interposition in your favour; for had you persisted in your intention of carrying it to the shore, there is but little doubt that its weight would have overpowered you, and that you would have been drowned; and then what would have become of me? A woman left in this desolate spot to her own resources, must soon be forced to give up the struggle for existence, from want of physical strength. Nevertheless, there are numerous instances on record, of women having surmounted hardships which few men could endure. Supported by our Heavenly Father, who is so powerful a protector of the weak, and friend of the helpless, the weakest of our weak sex may triumph over the most intolerable sufferings. I, however, am not over confident of being so supported, and therefore, I think it would be but showing a proper consideration for your fellow exile, to act in every emergency with as much circumspection and prudence as possible." I promised that for the future I would run no such risks, and added many professions of regard for her safety. They had the desired effect; I pretended to think no more of my disappointment, nevertheless, I found myself constantly dwelling on the size of my lost fish, and lamenting my being obliged to abandon him to his more voracious brethren of the deep. These thoughts so filled my mind, that at night I continued to dream over again the whole incident, beginning with my patient angling from the rock, and concluding with my disconsolate swim to shore--and pursued my scaly antagonist quite as determinedly in my sleep as I had done in the deep waters. I rose early, after having passed so disturbed a night, and soon made my way to the usual haunt of Nero, whom I discovered in the sea near the rocks making all sorts of strange tumblings and divings, apparently after some dark object that was floating in the water. I called him away, to examine what it was that had so attracted his attention, and my surprise may be imagined when I made out the huge form of my enemy of the preceding day. My shouts and exclamations of joy soon brought Mrs Reichardt to the scene, and when she discovered the shape of this prodigious fish, her surprise seemed scarcely less than my own. How to land him was our first consideration; and after some debate on the ways and means, I got a rope and leaped into the water with it, fastened a noose round his gills, and then swimming back and climbing the rock, we jointly tried to pull him up on to the shore. We hauled and tugged with all our force for a considerable time, but to very little effect; he was too heavy to pull up perpendicularly. At last we managed to drag him to a low piece of rock, and there I divided him into several pieces, which Mrs Reichardt carried away to dry and preserve in some way that she said would make the fish capital eating all the year round. It was very palatable when dressed by her, and as she changed the manner of cooking several times, I never got tired of it. By its flavour, as far as I could judge from subsequent knowledge, the creature was something of the sturgeon kind of fish; but its proper name I never could learn; nor was I ever able to catch another, therefore, I must presume that it was a stranger in those seas. Nevertheless, he proved most acceptable to us both, for we should have fared but ill for some time, had it not been for his providential capture. It was one afternoon, when we had been enjoying a capital meal at the expense of our great friend, that I led the subject to Mrs Reichardt's adventures, subsequently to where she broke off in the story of herself and the poor German boy; and though not without considerable reluctance, I induced her to proceed with her narrative. CHAPTER THIRTY THREE. "Our good minister Dr Brightwell," she commenced, "was a man of considerable scholastic attainments, and he delighted in making a display of them. At one time he had been master of an extensive grammar school, and now he employed a good deal of his leisure in teaching those boys and girls of the town, who indicated the possession of anything like talent. The overseers used to talk jestingly to my father, of the Doctor teaching ploughboys Greek and Latin; and wenches, whose chief employment was stone-picking in the fields, geography and the use of the globes. Even the churchwardens shook their heads, and privately thought the Rector a little out of his seven senses, for wasting his learning upon such unprofitable scholars. Nevertheless, he continued his self-imposed task, without meeting any reward beyond the satisfaction of his own conscience. It was not till he added to his pupils myself and young Reichardt, he felt he was doing his duty with some prospect of advantage. "The spirit of emulation roused both of us to make extraordinary efforts to second our worthy master's endeavours: and this did not, as is usually the case, proceed from rivalry--it arose entirely from a desire of the one to stand well in the estimation of the other. In this way we learned the French and Latin languages, geography, and the usual branches of a superior education: but our bias was more particularly for religions knowledge, and our preceptor encouraged this, till we were almost as good theologians as himself. "While this information was being carefully arranged and digested, there sprung up in our hearts so deep a devotion for each other, that we were miserable when absent, and enjoyed no gratification so much as being in each other's society. We knew not then the full power and meaning of this preference, but as we changed from boy and girlhood to adult life, our feelings developed themselves into that attachment between the sexes, which from time immemorial has received the name of love." "I think I know what that means, now," said I, as my day-dream, which was so rudely disturbed by my fall into the sea, occurred to me. "It would be strange if you did," she replied, "considering that it is quite impossible you should have become acquainted with it." "Yes, I am certain I understand it very well," I rejoined, more confidently, and then added, not without some embarrassment, "If I were placed in the position of Heinrich Reichardt, I am quite sure I should feel towards any young female who was so kind to me, the deepest regard and affection. I should like to be constantly near her, and should always desire that she should like me better than any one else." "That is quite as good an explanation of the matter, as I could expect from you," she observed, smiling. "But to return to my story. Our mutual attachment attracted general attention, and was the subject of much observation. But we had no enemies: and when we were met strolling together in the shady lanes, gathering wild flowers, or wandering through the woods in search of wild strawberries, no one thought it necessary to make any remark if we had our arms round each other's waist. My father, if he heard anything about it, did not interfere. Young Reichardt had made himself so useful to him, and showed himself so remarkably clever in everything he undertook, that the old man loved him as his own son. "It was a settled thing between us, that we were to become man and wife, as soon as we should be permitted. And many were our plans and schemes for the future. Heinrich considered himself to be in the position of Jacob, who served such a long and patient apprenticeship for Rachel; and though he confessed he should not like to wait so long for his wife as the patriarch had been made to do, he acknowledged he would rather serve my father to the full period, than give up all hope of possessing me. "This happy state of things was, however, suddenly put an end to, by Dr Brightwell one day sending for my father. It was a long time before he came back, and when he did, he looked unusually grave and reserved. In an hour or so, he communicated to me the result of his long interview with the Rector. The Doctor had resolved to send young Reichardt to a distant place, where many learned men lived together in colleges, for the purpose of farther advancing his education, and fitting him for a religious teacher, to which vocation he had long expressed a desire to devote himself. The idea of separation seemed very terrible, but I at last got reconciled to it, in the belief that it would be greatly for Heinrich's advantage, and we parted at last with many tears, many protestations, some fears, but a great many more hopes. "For some days after he had left me, everything seemed so strange, every one seemed so dull, every place seemed so desolate, that I felt as if I had been transported into some dismal scene, where I knew no one, and where there was no one likely to care about me in the slightest degree. My father went about his avocations in a different spirit to what he had so long been used to exhibit; it was evident he missed Heinrich as much as I did, and the villagers stared whenever I passed them, as though my ever going about without Heinrich was something which they had never anticipated. "In course of time, however, to all appearance, everything and every one went on in their daily course, as though no Heinrich had ever been heard of. My father would sometimes, when overpressed by business, refer to the able assistant he had lost, and now and then I heard a conjecture hazarded by some one or other of his most confidential friends, as to what young Reichardt was doing with himself. My conjectures, and my references to him, were far from being so occasional; there was scarce an hour of the day I did not think of him; but, believing that I should please him most by endeavouring to improve as much as possible during his absence, I did not give myself up to idle reflections respecting the past, or anticipations, equally idle, respecting the future. "My great delight was in hearing from him. At first, his letters expressed only his feelings for me; then he dwelt more largely on his own exertions for preparing himself for the profession he desired to adopt; and after a time, his correspondence was almost entirely composed of expositions of his views of a religious life, and dissertations on various points of doctrine. He evidently was growing more enthusiastic in religion, and less regardful of our attachment. "Yet I entertained no apprehensions or misgivings. I did not think it necessary to consider myself slighted because the thoughts of my future husband were evidently raised more and more above me; the knowledge of this only made me more anxious to raise myself more and more towards the elevation to which his thoughts were so intently directed. "Things went on in this way for two or three years. I never saw him all this time; I heard from him but seldom. He excused his limited correspondence on the plea that his studies left him no time for writing. I never blamed him for this apparent neglect--indeed I rather encouraged it, for my exhortations were always that he should address his time and energies towards the attainment of the object I knew him to have so much at heart--his becoming a minister of our Lord's Gospel. "One day my father came home from the rectory with a troubled countenance. Dr Brightwell was very indignant because Heinrich had joined a religious community that dissented from the Articles of the Church of England. The Doctor had offered to get him employment in the Church, if he would give up his new connections: but the more earnest character of his new faith exerted so much influence over his enthusiastic nature, that he willingly abandoned his bright prospects to become a more humble labourer in a less productive vineyard. "My father, as the clerk of the parish, seemed to think himself bound to share in the indignation of his pastor for this desertion, and Heinrich was severely condemned by him for displaying such ingratitude to his benefactor: I was commanded to think no more of him. "This, however, was not so easy a matter, although our correspondence appeared to have entirely ceased. I knew not where to address a letter to him, and was quite unaware of what his future career was now to be." CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR. "Time passed on. With all, except myself, Heinrich Reichardt appeared to be forgotten; in the opinion of all, except myself, he had forgotten our house, and all the friends he had once made there. Our good rector had been removed by death from the post he had so ably filled; and my father being incapacitated by age and infirmity from attending his duties in the church, had his place filled by another. He had saved sufficient to live upon, and had built himself a small cottage at the end of the village, where we lived together in perfect peace, if not in perfect happiness. "I had long grown up to womanhood, and having some abilities, had been employed as one of the teachers of the girls' school, of which I had raised myself to be mistress. I conducted myself so as to win the respect of the chief parochial officers, from more than one of whom I received proposals of marriage: but I never could reconcile myself to the idea of becoming the wife of any man but the long-absent Heinrich, and the new clerk and the overseer were fain to be content with my grateful rejection of their proposals. "I determined to wait patiently till I could learn from Heinrich's own lips that he had abandoned his early friend. I could never get myself to believe in the possibility of his unfaithfulness; and the remembrances of our mutual studies in the Book of Truth seemed always to suggest the impossibility of his acting so completely at variance with the impressions he had thence received. "I was aware that if I had mentioned my hopes of his one day coming to claim me, I should be laughed at by every one who knew anything of our story--so I said nothing, but continued the more devotedly in my heart to cherish that faith which had so long afforded me support against the overwhelming evidence of prolonged silence and neglect. "There was a congregation of Dissenters in the town, and I had been once or twice prevailed on to join their devotions. One day I heard that proceedings of extraordinary interest would take place at the meeting-house. A minister of great reputation had accepted the situation of Missionary to preach the Gospel to the heathen, and he was visiting the different congregations that lay in his route to the seaport whence he was to embark to the Sandwich Islands. He was expected to address a discourse to the Dissenters of our parish, and I was induced to go and hear him. "The meeting-house was very much crowded, but I contrived to get a seat within a short distance of the speakers, and waited with much interest to behold the man, who, like some of the first preachers, had chosen the perilous task of endeavouring to convert a nation of savage idolaters to the faith of the true Christ. "After a short delay he appeared on a raised platform, and was introduced to this congregation by their minister. I heard nothing of this introduction, though it seemed a long one; I saw nothing of the speaker, though his was a figure which always attracted an attentive audience. I saw only the stranger. In those pale, grave, and serious features then presented to me, I recognised Heinrich Reichardt." "He had come back to you at last," I exclaimed; "I thought he would. After all you had done for the poor German boy, it was impossible that he should grow up to manhood and forget you." "You shall hear," she replied. "For some time my heart beat wildly, and I thought I should be obliged to leave the place, my sensations became so overpowering; but the fear of disturbing the congregation, and of attracting attention towards myself, had such influence over me, that I managed to retain sufficient control over my feelings to remain quiet. Nevertheless my eyes were upon Heinrich, and my whole heart and soul were exclusively engrossed by him while he continued before me. "Presently he began to speak. As I have just said, I paid no attention to the preliminary proceedings. I know nothing of the manner in which he was introduced to his audience; but when he became the speaker, every word fell upon my ear with a distinctness that seemed quite marvellous to me. "And how could it be otherwise? His tall figure, his melancholy yet expressive features, his earnest manner, and clear and sonorous voice, invested him with all the power and dignity of an Apostle, and when with these attributes were joined those associations of the past with which he was so intimately connected, it is impossible to exaggerate the influence he exercised over me. "He began with a fervent blessing on all who had sought the sanctity of that roof, and his hearers, impressed with the thrilling earnestness of his delivery, became at once hushed into a kind of awe-struck attention. They knelt down, and bowed their heads in prayer. "I appeared to have no power to follow the general example, but remained the only sitter in the entire congregation, with my eyes, nay, all my senses, fixed, riveted upon the preacher. This, of course, attracted his attention. I saw him look towards me with surprise, then he started, his voice hesitated for a moment, but he almost immediately continued his benediction, and, as it seemed to me, with a voice tremulous with emotion. "Then followed a discourse on the object of the preacher in presenting himself there. He described the wonderful goodness of the Creator in continually raising up the most humble instruments of His will to perform the most important offices; in illustration of which he referred to the numerous instances in the Old and New Testaments, where God's preference in this way is so clearly manifested. "He then stated that a case had arisen for Divine interposition, equal in necessity to any which had occurred since the first commencement of Christianity. He explained that there were nations still existing in a distant portion of the globe in a state of the wildest barbarism. Ignorant savages were they, with many cruel and idolatrous customs, who were cannibals and murderers, and given up to the worst vices of the heathen. Their abject and pitiable state, he told us, the Lord God had witnessed with Divine commiseration, and had determined that the light of Christian love should shine upon their darkness, and that Almighty wisdom should dissipate their besotted ignorance. "`But who,' he asked, `was to be the ambassador from so stupendous a Power to these barbarous states? Who would venture to be a messenger of peace and comfort to a cruel and savage nation? Was there no man,' he again asked, `great enough and bold enough to undertake a mission of such vast importance, attended by such terrible risks? "`The Almighty Ruler seeks not for his ministers among the great and bold,' he added, `as it is written, "He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and hath exalted the humble and meek." And it will be peculiarly so on this occasion, for the exaltation is from the humblest origin; so humble it is scarcely possible to imagine so miserable a beginning, in the end attaining distinction so honourable. "`Imagine, if you can, my brethren,' he said, `in the building set apart in your town for the reception of your destitute poor, a child parentless, friendless, and moneyless, condemned, as it seemed, to perpetual raggedness and intolerable suffering. A ministering angel, under the direction of the Supreme Goodness, took that child by the hand and led it out of the pauper walls that inclosed it, and under its auspices the child grew and flourished, and learned all that was excellent in faith and admirable in practice. "`It was ordained that he should lose sight of his angelic teacher. A dire necessity compelled him to withdraw from that pure and gracious influence. He had to learn in a different school, and prepare himself for heavier tasks. Manhood, with all its severe responsibilities, came upon him. He sought first to render himself competent for some holy undertaking, before he could consider himself worthy again to claim that notice which had made him what he was. Earnestly he strove for the Divine assistance and encouragement; and as his qualifications increased, his estimate of the worthiness necessary for the object he had in view, became more and more exalted. "`At last,' he continued, `it became known to him that a Missionary was required to explain to the savage people to whom I have already alluded, the principles of Christianity. He was appointed to this sacred trust; and he then determined, before he left this country for the distant one of his ministry, to present himself before that beneficent being who had poured out before him so abundant a measure of Christian virtue; that they might be joined together in the same great vocation, and support each other in the same important trust.' "I heard enough," continued Mrs Reichardt. "All was explained, and I was fully satisfied. The discourse proceeded to identify the speaker with the poor boy who had been preserved for such onerous duties. Then came an appeal to the congregation for their prayers, and such assistance as they could afford, to advance so holy a work as the conversion of the heathen. "I was in such a tumult of pleasant feelings, that I retained but a confused recollection of the subsequent events. I only remember that as I was walking home from the meeting, I heard footsteps quickly following; in a few minutes more the voice that had so lately filled my heart to overflowing with happiness, again addressed me. I was too much excited to remain unconcerned on suddenly discovering that Heinrich was so near, and I fell fainting into his arms. "I was carried into a neighbouring cottage, but in a short time was enabled to proceed home. In a week afterwards we were married: a few days more sufficed for the preparations that were required for my destination, and then we proceeded to the port, and embarked on board the ship that was to take us over many thousand miles of sea, to the wild, unknown country that was to be the scene of our mission." CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. Mrs Reichardt was obliged to break off her narrative, where it concluded at the end of the last chapter. As I have said, her household duties being very numerous, and requiring a great deal of attention, took up nearly the whole of her time. The garden now presented a most agreeable appearance, possessing several different kinds of vegetables, and various plants that had been raised from seed. We had succeeded in raising several young orange-trees from the pips she had brought in her basket: and they promised to supply us with plenty of their luscious fruit. Even the peas we thought so dry and useless had germinated, and provided us with a welcome addition to our table. I shall never forget the first day she added to our scanty meal of dried fish a dish of smoking potatoes fresh out of the moist earth. After enjoying sufficiently my wonder at their appearance, and delight at their agreeable taste, she informed me of their first introduction into Europe, and their gradual diffusion over the more civilised portions of the globe. I speak of Europe now, because I had learned from my companion, not only a good deal of geography, but had obtained some insight into several other branches of knowledge. In particular, she had told me much interesting information about England, much more than I had learnt from Jackson; dwelling upon its leading features, and the most remarkable portions of its history; and I must acknowledge that I felt a secret pride in belonging to so great a country. I considered that I belonged to it, for my father and mother were English, and though I might be called The Little Savage, and be fixed to an obscure island in the great ocean, I felt that my real home was in this great country my mother talked about so glowingly, and that my chief object ought to be to return into the hands of my grandfather, the belt that had in so singular a manner come into my possession. I often thought of this great England whose glory had been so widely spread and so durably established, and longed for some means of leaving our present abode, and going in search of its time-honoured shores. But I asked myself how was this desirable object to be effected? We had no means of transporting ourselves from the prison into which we had been accidentally cast. We had nothing resembling a boat on the island, and we had no tools for making one; and even had we been put in possession of such a treasure, we had no means of launching it. The rocky character of the coast made the placing of a boat on the water almost impossible. The expectation of a vessel appearing off the island appeared quite as unreasonable. We had seen no ships for a long time, and those we had observed, were a great deal too far off to heed our signals. We had no help for it, but to trust to Providence and bear our present evil patiently. Nevertheless, I took my glass and swept the sea far and wide in search of a ship, but failed to discover anything but a spermaceti whale blowing in the distance, or a shoal of porpoises tumbling over each other nearer the shore, or a colony of seals basking in the sun on the rocks nearest the sea. My disappointment was shared by Nero, who seemed to regard my vexation with a sympathising glance, and even the gannets turned their dull stupid gaze upon me, with an expression as if they deeply commiserated my distress. I had for a long time employed myself in making a shelving descent to the sea, on the most secure part of the rock, intending that it should be a landing-place for a boat, in case any ship should come near enough to send one to our rescue. It was a work of great labour, and hatchet and spade equally suffered in my endeavours to effect my object; but at last I contrived to take advantage of a natural fracture in the rock, and a subsequent fall of the cliff, to make a rude kind of inclined plane, rather too steep and too rough for bad climbers, but extremely convenient for my mother and me, whenever we should be prepared to embark for our distant home. My thoughts were now often directed to the possibility of making on the island some kind of boat that would hold ourselves and sufficient provisions for a voyage to the nearest of the larger islands. I spoke to Mrs Reichardt on the subject, but she dwelt upon the impossibility, without either proper tools, or the slightest knowledge of boat-building, of producing a vessel to which we could trust ourselves with any confidence, neither of us knowing anything about its management in the open sea; and then she spoke of the dangers a small boat would meet with, if the water should be rough, or if we should not be able to make the island in any reasonable time. Yet I was not daunted by difficulties, nor dissuaded by discouraging representations. I thought at first of fastening all the loose timber together that had drifted against the rocks, as much in the shape of a boat as I could get it; but on looking over my stock of nails, I found they fell very far short of the proper quantity; consequently that mode of effecting my purpose was abandoned. I then thought of felling a tree and hollowing it out by charring the timber. As yet I had discovered nothing on the island but shrubs. I was quite certain that no tree grew near enough to the sea to be available, and if I should succeed in cutting down a large one and fashioning it as I desired, I had no means of transport. I might possibly make a boat capable of carrying all I wanted to put into it, but as I could neither move the water up to the boat, nor the boat down to the water, for all the service I wanted of it, even if the island contained a tree large enough, I might just as well leave it untouched. Still I would not altogether abandon my favourite project. I thought of the willows that grew on the island, and fancied I could make a framework by twisting them strongly together, and stretching seal-skins over them. I laboured at this for several weeks, exercising all my ingenuity and no slight stock of patience, to create an object with which I was but imperfectly acquainted. I did succeed at last in putting together something in a remote degree resembling the boat that brought part of the whaler's crew to the island and had taken them away, but it was not a quarter the size and was so light that I could carry it without much difficulty to the landing I had constructed on the cliff. When I came to try its capabilities, I found it terribly lopsided--it soon began to leak, and in fact it exhibited so many faults, that I was forced to drag it again on shore, and take it to pieces. I called in Mrs Reichardt to my assistance, and though at first she seemed averse to the experiment, she gave me a great deal of information respecting the structure of small boats, and the method of waterproofing leather and other fabrics. I attended carefully to all she said, and commenced rebuilding with more pretensions to art. I now made a strong framework, tolerably sharp at each end, and as nearly as possible resembling a keel at the bottom. I covered this on both sides with pieces of strong cloth saturated with grease from the carcases of birds, and then covered the whole with well-dried seal-skins, which I had made impervious to wet. The inside of the boat nearest the water I neatly covered with pieces of dry bark, over which I fixed some boards, which had floated to the island from wrecked ships. Finally I put in some benches to sit on, and then fancied I had done everything that was necessary. I soon got her into the fishing-pool, and was delighted to find that she floated capitally--but I still had a great deal to do. I had made neither oars to propel her through the water, nor sail to carry her through the waves, when rowing was impossible. I remembered the whaler's spare oars and mizen, but they were too large; nevertheless, they served me as models to work upon, and in time I made a rough pair of paddles or oars, which, though rudely fashioned, I hoped would answer the purpose pretty well. The next difficulty was how to use the oars, and I made many awkward attempts before I ascertained the proper method of proceeding. Again my companion, on whom nothing which had once passed before her eyes had passed in vain, showed me how the boat should be managed. In a short time I could row about the pool with sufficient dexterity to turn the boat in any direction I required, and I then took Nero as a passenger, and he seemed to enjoy the new gratification with a praiseworthy decorum; till, when I was trying to turn the boat round, the movement caused him to attempt to shift his quarters, which he did with so little attention to the build of our vessel, that in one moment she was capsized, and in the next we were swimming about in the pool with our vessel bottom upwards. As she was so light, I soon righted her, and found that she had received no injury, and appeared to be perfectly water-tight. CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. I could not prevail upon Mrs Reichardt to embark in my craft, the fate of my first passenger, which she had witnessed from the shore, had deterred her from attempting a voyage under such unpromising circumstances. As soon as I had dried my clothes, I was for making another experiment, and one too of a more hazardous nature. I would not be parted from Nero, but I made him lie at the bottom of the boat, where I could have him under strict control. With him I also took my little flock of gannets, who perched themselves round me, gazing about them with an air of such singular stupidity as they were being propelled through the water, that I could not help bursting out laughing. "Indeed," said Mrs Reichardt, "such a boat's crew and such a boat had never been seen in those seas before. A young Savage as captain, a tame seal as boatswain, and a flock of gannets as sailors, certainly made up as curious a set of adventurers as ever floated upon the wide ocean." I was not the least remarkable of the strange group, for I had nothing on but a pair of duck trousers, patched in several places; and my hair, which had grown very long, hung in black wavy masses to my shoulders. My skin was tanned by the sun to a light brown, very different from the complexion of Mrs Reichardt, which had ever been remarkable for its paleness. Indeed she told me I should find some difficulty in establishing my claim to the title of European, but none at all to that of Little Savage, which she often playfully called me. Nevertheless, in this trim, and with these companions, I passed out of the fishing-pool into the sea, with the intention of rowing round the island. Mrs Reichardt waved her hand as I departed on my voyage, having exhorted me to be very careful, as long as I was in hearing; she then turned away, as I thought, to return to the hut. The day was remarkably fine. There was not so much as a cloud on the horizon, and scarcely a ripple on the water: therefore, everything seemed to favour my project, for if there had been anything of a breeze, the beating of the waves against the rock would have been a great obstacle to my pursuing my voyage with either comfort or safety. The water too was so clear, that although it was of great depth, I could distinguish the shells that lay on the sand, and observe various kinds of fish, some of most curious shape, that rushed rapidly beneath the boat as it was urged along. I was delighted with the motion, and with the agreeable appearance of the different novelties that met my gaze. The light boat glided almost imperceptibly through the water at every stroke of the oar. Nero lay as still as if his former lesson had taught him the necessity of remaining motionless; and the gannets now and then expressed their satisfaction by a shrill cry or a rapid fluttering of their wings. In this way, we passed on without any adventure, till I found it necessary for me to row some distance out to sea, to round a projecting rock that stood like a mighty wall before me. I pulled accordingly, and then had a better opportunity of seeing the island than I had ever obtained. I recognised all the favourite places--the ravine, the wood, the hut covered with beautiful creepers, and the garden, full of flowers, looked very agreeable to the eye: but every part seemed to look pleasant, except the great savage rocks which inclosed the island on every side: but even these I thought had an air of grandeur that gave additional effect to the scene. Much to my surprise, I recognised Mrs Reichardt walking rapidly towards a part of the shore, near which I should be obliged to pass. From this I saw that she was intent on watching me from point to point, to know the worst, if any accident should befall me, and be at hand should there be a necessity for rendering assistance. I shouted to her, and she waved her hand in reply. On rounding the headland, my astonishment was extreme on finding my little bark in the midst of a shoal of enormous sharks. If I came in contact with one of them, I was lost, for the frail boat would certainly be upset, and as Jackson had assured me, if ever I allowed these monsters to come near enough, one snap of their jaws, and there would be an end of the Little Savage. I thought of the warning of Mrs Reichardt, and was inclined to think I had better have taken her advice, and remained in the fishing-pool; nevertheless, I went on as quietly and deliberately as possible, exercising all my skill to keep clear of my unexpected enemies. It was not till I had got into the middle of the shoal, that the sharks seemed to be aware there was anything unusual in their neighbourhood; but as soon as they were fully aware of the presence of an intruder, they exhibited the most extraordinary excitement, rushing together in groups, with such rapid motion, that the water became so agitated, I was obliged to exercise all my skill to keep the boat steady on her course. They dived, and rushed to and fro, and jostled each other, as I thought, in anything but an amicable spirit; still, however, keeping at a respectful distance from the boat, for which I was extremely thankful. I urged her on with all my strength, for the purpose of getting away from such unpleasant neighbours; but they were not to be so easily disposed of. They came swimming after the boat, then when within a few yards dived, and in a moment they were before it, as if to bar any further progress. I however pushed on, and they disappeared, but immediately afterwards rose on all sides of me. They were evidently getting more confidence; a fact I ascertained with no slight apprehension, for they began to approach nearer, and their gambols threatened every minute to overwhelm my poor craft, that, light as a cork, bounced up and down the agitated waves, as if quite as much alarmed for our safety as ourselves. The captain was not the only one who began to fear evil; the gannets were very restless, and it was only by strong admonitions I could prevail on Nero to retain his recumbent attitude at my feet; their instinct warned them of approaching danger, and I felt the comfortable assurance that my own rashness had brought me into my present critical position, and that if the menaced destruction did arrive, there was no sort of assistance at hand on which I could rely. Every moment the sharks became more violent in their demonstrations, and more bold in their approaches, and I could scarcely keep the boat going, or prevent the water rushing over her sides. The gannets having shown themselves for some minutes uneasy, had at last flown away to the neighbouring rock, and Nero began to growl and snap, as though meditating a forcible release from his prostrate position, to see what mischief was brewing. As I was coaxing him to be quiet, I felt a tremendous blow given to the boat, evidently from beneath, and she rose into the air several yards, scattering Nero and myself, and the oars, in different directions. The noise we made in falling, appeared for the instant to have scattered the creatures, for I had struck out for the rock and nearly reached it before a shark made its appearance. Just then I saw a large monster rushing towards me. I thought all was over. He turned to open his great jaws, and in another instant I should have been devoured. At that critical period I saw a second object dart in between me and the shark, and attack the latter fiercely. It was Nero, and it was the last I ever saw of my faithful friend. His timely interposition enabled me to reach a ledge in the cliff, where I was in perfect safety, hanging by some strong seaweed, although my feet nearly touched the water, and I could retain my position only with the greatest difficulty. The whole shoal were presently around me. They at first paid their attentions to the boat and the oars, which they buffeted about till they were driven close to the rock, at a little distance from the place where I had found temporary safety. They left these things unharmed as soon as they caught sight of me, and then their eagerness and violence returned with tenfold fury. They darted towards me in a body, and I was obliged to lift my legs, or I should have had them snapped off by one or other of the twenty gaping jaws that were thrust over each other, in their eagerness to make a mouthful of my limbs. This game was carried on for some minutes of horrible anxiety to me. I fancied that my struggles had loosened the seaweed, and that in a few minutes it must give way, and I should then be fought for and torn to pieces by the ravenous crew beneath. I shouted with all the strength of my lungs to scare them away; but as if they were as well aware that I could not escape them as I was myself, they merely left off their violent efforts to reach my projecting legs, and forming a semicircle round me, watched with upturned eyes, that seemed to possess a fiendish expression that fascinated and bewildered me, the snapping of the frail hold that supported me upon the rock. In my despair I prayed heartily, but it was rather to commend my soul to my Maker, than with any prospect of being rescued from so imminent and horrible a peril. The eyes of the ravenous monsters below seemed to mock my devotion. I felt the roots of the seaweed giving way: the slightest struggle on my part would, I knew, only hasten my dissolution, and I resigned myself to my fate. In this awful moment I heard a voice calling out my name. It was Mrs Reichardt on the cliff high above me. I answered with all the eagerness of despair. Then there came a heavy splash into the water, and I heard her implore me to endeavour to make for a small shrub that grew in a hollow of the rock, at a very short distance from the tuft of seaweed that had become so serviceable. I looked down. The sharks had all disappeared; I knew, however, that they would shortly return, and lost not a moment in making an effort to better my position in the manner I had been directed. Mrs Reichardt had thrown a heavy stone into the water among the sharks, the loud splash of which had driven them away. Before they again made their appearance, I had caught a firm hold of the twig, and flung myself up into a position of perfect safety. "Thank God he's safe!" I heard Mrs Reichardt exclaim. The sharks did return; but when they found their anticipated prey had escaped, they swam lazily out to sea. "Are you much hurt, Frank Henniker?" she presently cried out to me. "I have not a scratch," I replied. "Then thank God for your deliverance," she added. I did thank God, and Mrs Reichardt joined with me in prayer, and a more fervent thanksgiving than was ours, it is scarcely possible to imagine. CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN. I had several times pressed Mrs Reichardt for the conclusion of her story, but she had always seemed reluctant to resume the subject. It was evidently full of painful incidents, and she shrunk from dwelling upon them. At last, one evening we were sitting together, she working with her needle and I employed upon a net she had taught me how to manufacture, and I again led the conversation to the narrative my companion had left unfinished. She sighed heavily and looked distressed. "It is but natural you should expect this of me, my son," she said; "but you little know the suffering caused by my recalling the melancholy events that I have to detail. However, I have led you to expect the entire relation, and, therefore, I will endeavour to realise your anticipations." I assured her I was ready to wait, whenever it might be agreeable for her to narrate the termination of her interesting history. "It will never be agreeable to me," she replied mournfully; "indeed I would forget it if I could; but that is impossible. The struggle may as well be made now, as at any time. I will therefore commence by informing you, that during our long voyage to the Sandwich Islands, I found ample opportunity for studying the disposition of my husband. He was much changed since he first left me, but his was still the same grateful nature, full of truth and purity, that had won me towards him when a child. A holy enthusiasm seemed now to exalt him above ordinary humanity. I could scarcely ever get him to talk upon any but religious subjects, and those he treated in so earnest and exalted a manner, that it was impossible to avoid being carried away with his eloquence. "He seemed to feel the greatness of his destination, as though it had raised him to an equality with the adventurous saints, who established the banner of Christ among the Pagan nations of Europe. He was fond of dilating upon the importance of his mission, and of dwelling on the favour that had been vouchsafed him, in causing him to be selected for so high and responsible a duty. "It was evident that he would rather have been sent to associate with the barbarous people whom he expected to make his converts, than have been raised to the richest bishopric in England. And yet, with this exultation, there was a spirit of deep melancholy pervading his countenance, as well as his discourses, that seemed to imply a sense of danger. The nimbus of the saint in his eyes, was associated with the crown of martyrdom. He seemed to look forward to a fatal termination of his ministry, as the most natural and proper conclusion of his labours. "His conversation often filled me with dread. His intimations of danger seemed at first very shocking, but, at last, I got more familiar with these terrible suggestions, and regarded them as the distempered fancies of an over-worked mind. "In this way our long voyage passed, and we arrived at last at our place of destination. When we had disembarked, the scene that presented itself to me was so strange, that I could almost believe I had passed into a new world. The most luxurious vegetation, of a character I had never seen before--the curious buildings--the singular forms of the natives, and their peculiar costume--excited my wonder to an intense degree. "My husband applied himself diligently to learn the language of the people, whilst I as intently studied their habits and customs. We both made rapid progress. "As soon as I could make myself understood, I endeavoured to make friends with the women, particularly with the wives of the great men, and although I was at first the object of more curiosity than regard, I persisted in my endeavours, and succeeded in establishing with many a good understanding. "I found them ignorant of everything that in civilised countries is considered knowledge--their minds being enveloped in the most deplorable darkness--the only semblance of religion in use amongst them being a brutal and absurd idolatry. "I often tried to lead them to the consideration of more humanising truths, for the purpose of preparing the way for the inculcation of the great mysteries of our holy religion; but the greater portion of my hearers were incompetent to understand what I seemed so desirous of teaching, and my making them comprehend the principles of Christianity, appeared to be a hopeless task. "Yet I continued my pious labours, without allowing my exertions to flag--making myself useful to them and their families in every way I could--attending them when sick--giving them presents when well--and showing them every kindness likely to make a favourable impression on their savage natures. In this way I proceeded doing good, till I found an opportunity of being of service to a young girl, about twelve years of age, who was a younger sister of one of the wives of a great chief. She had sprained her ankle, and was in great pain, when I applied the proper remedies and gave her speedy relief. Hooloo, for that was her name, from that moment became warmly attached to me; and finding her of an affectionate and ingenuous disposition, I became extremely desirous of improving upon the good impression I had made. "At the same time my husband sought, by his knowledge of the mechanical arts, and some acquaintance with medicine, to recommend himself to the men. He also met with much difficulty at first, in making his information properly appreciated. He sought to increase their comforts--to introduce agricultural implements of a more useful description, and to lead then generally towards the conveniences and decencies of civilisation. He built himself a house and planted a garden, and cultivated some land, in which he showed the superior advantages of what he knew, to what they practised. They seemed to marvel much, but continued to go on in their own way. "He also went amongst them as a physician, and having acquired considerable knowledge of medicine and simple surgery, he was enabled to work some cures in fevers and spear-wounds, that in course of time made for him so great a reputation, that many of the leading chiefs sent for him, when anything ailed then or their families, and they were so well satisfied with what he did for them, that he began to be looked upon as one who was to be treated with particular respect and honour by all classes of the natives, from the highest to the lowest. "On one occasion the king required his services. He was suffering from a sort of colic, for which the native doctors could give him no relief. My husband administered some medicines, and stayed with his majesty until they had the desired effect, and the result being a complete recovery, seemed so astonishing to all the members of his Sandwich majesty's court, that the doctor was required to administer the same medicine to every one, from the queen to the humblest of her attendants, though all were apparently in good health. He managed to satisfy then with a small portion only of the mixture, which he was quite certain could do them no harm: and they professed to be wonderfully the better for it." CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT. "His reputation had now grown so great, that whatever he required was readily granted. He first desired to have some children sent him, to learn those things which had enabled him to do so much good, and this having been readily sanctioned, we opened a school for girls and boys, in which we taught the first elements of a civilised education. "Finding we made fair progress in this way, we commenced developing our real object,--the inculcation of Christian sentiments. This meeting with no opposition, and Reichardt having established a powerful influence over the entire community, he next proceeded with the parents, and earnestly strove to induce them to embrace the profession of Christianity. "His labours were not entirely unproductive. There began to prevail amongst the islanders, a disposition to hear the wondrous discourses of this stranger, and he was employed, day after day, in explaining to large and attentive audiences, the history of the Christian world, and the observances and doctrine of that faith which had been cemented by the blood of the Redeemer. The new and startling subjects of his discourse, as well as the impressive character of his eloquence, frequently deeply moved his hearers; and at his revelations they would often burst forth into piercing shouts and loud expressions of amazement. "In truth it was a moving scene. The noble figure of the missionary, with his fine features lighted up with the fire of holy enthusiasm, surrounded by a crowd of dusky savages, armed with spears and war-clubs, and partly clothed with feathers, in their features showing traces of unusual excitement, and every now and then joining in a wild chorus, expressive of their wonder, could not have been witnessed by any Christian, without emotion. "But when the ceremony of Baptism was first performed before them, their amazement was increased a thousand-fold. The first member of our flock was Hooloo, whom I had instructed so far in the principles of our faith, and I had acquired such an influence over her mind, that she readily consented to abandon her idolatrous customs and become a Christian. "After a suitable address to the natives, who had assembled in some thousands to witness the spectacle, in which he explained to them the motive and object of baptism, my husband assisted the girl down a sloping green bank which led to a beautiful stream, and walked with her into the water till he was up to his waist, then, after offering up a long and fervent prayer that this first victory over the false worship of the Devil might be the forerunner of the entire extirpation of idolatry from the land, he, plunging her into the water, baptised her in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. "All the people were awed to silence while the ceremony proceeded; but when it was over, they burst forth into a loud cry, and came down to meet the new Christian and my husband as they came out of the water, and waved over them boughs of trees, and danced and shouted as though in an ecstasy. "We however had not proceeded to this extent without exciting considerable opposition; our disrespect towards their idols had given great offence to those who were identified with the superstitions of the people, and flourished according as these were supported. Complaints were made too of our teaching a new religion, in opposition to the gods they and their fathers had worshipped, and a powerful party was got together for the purpose of pursuing us to destruction. "My husband was summoned before a council of the great chiefs, to hear the accusations that had been brought against him: and the old idolaters got up and abused him, and threatened him with the punishment of their monstrous gods, for telling lies to the people, and deceiving them with forged tales and strange customs. "They sought all they could, to move the judges against him, by painting the terrible fate that would befall them if they failed to kill the white stranger, who had insulted their gods; and they predicted hosts of calamities that were to happen, in consequence of their having allowed the teller of lies to work so much mischief against them. "My husband then being called upon for his defence, first declared to the judges the attributes of the Deity he worshipped: that He created the vast heavens, the stars, the mountains, the rivers, and the sea; His voice spoke in the thunder, and His eye flashed in the lightning. He then dwelt on His goodness to man, especially to the Sandwich Islanders, whom He had created for the purpose of enjoying the fine country around them and of beholding the beauty of the heavens where He dwelt. Then he referred to the gods they had worshipped, and asked how they were made, and what such senseless things could do for them; commenting on their inability to serve them in any way, or do them any harm; and went on to speak of the benefits he had been able to confer upon them, through the influence of the all-powerful God he worshipped; and asked them if he had ever done them anything but good. Lastly, he promised them innumerable benefits, if they would leave their useless gods, and turn to the only God who had the power to serve them. "It is impossible for me to do justice to the animated manner in which he delivered this discourse. It produced great effect upon the majority of his hearers; but there was a powerful minority it still more strongly influenced against him; and they continued to interrupt him with terrible outcries. "Most of the leading chiefs were against his suffering any harm. They bore in mind the advantages he had conferred, by his skill in medicine, and superior wisdom in various other things, which the people would lose were he put to death. They also remembered the hope he held out of future benefits, which of course they could not expect, if they offered him any violence. "The result was, that my husband was suffered to go harmless from the meeting, to the great disappointment of his enemies, who could scarcely be kept from laying violent hands upon him. The danger he had escaped, unfortunately, did not render him more prudent. Far from it. He believed that he was a chosen instrument of the Most High, to win these savages from the depths of idolatry and paganism; and continued, on every occasion that presented itself, to endeavour to win souls to God. "The school increased, several of the parents suffered themselves to be baptised, and there was a regular observance of the Lord's Day amongst those who belonged to our little flock. Even many of the islanders, although they did not become Christians, attended our religious services, and spoke well of us. "We brought up the young people to be able to teach their brethren and sisters; and hoped to be able to establish missions in other parts of the island, to which we sometimes made excursions; preaching the inestimable blessings of the Gospel to the islanders, and exhorting them to abandon their dark customs and heathen follies. I was not far behind my husband in this good work, and acquired as much influence among the women, as he exercised over the men: indeed we were generally looked upon as holy people, who deserved to be treated with veneration and respect." CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. "Things went on in this flourishing way for several years; my husband, deeply impressed with the responsibility of his position, as a chosen servant of God, devoted himself so entirely to the great work he had undertaken, that he often seemed to overlook the claims upon his attention of her he had chosen as his partner in his struggle against the powers of darkness. Sometimes I did not see him for several days; and often when we were together he was so abstracted he did not seem aware I was present. Whenever I could get him to speak of himself, he would dilate on the unspeakable felicity that he felt in drawing nearer to the end of his work. I affected not to know to what he alluded; but I always felt that he was referring to the impression he entertained of his own speedy dissolution, which he had taken up when he first embraced this mission. "I tried to get rid of my misgivings, by recalling the dangers and difficulties we had triumphantly passed, and referring to the encouraging state of things that existed at the present time; nevertheless, I could not prevent a sinking of the heart whenever I heard him venture upon the subject; and when he was absent from me, I often experienced an agony of anxiety till his return. I saw, however, no real cause of apprehension, and endeavoured to persuade myself none existed; and very probably I should have succeeded, had not my husband so frequently indulged in references to our separation. "Alas," she exclaimed, mournfully, "he was better informed than I was of the proximity of that Celestial Home, for which he had been so long and zealously preparing himself. He, doubtless, had his intimation from on high, that his translation to the realms of bliss was no remote consequence of his undertaking the mission he had accepted; and he had familiarised his mind to it as a daily duty, and by his constant references had sought to prepare me for the catastrophe he knew to be inevitable." Here Mrs Reichardt became so sensibly affected, that it was some time before she could proceed with her narrative. She, however, did so at last; yet I could see by the tears that traced each other down her wan cheeks, how much her soul was moved by the terrible details into which she was obliged to enter. "In the midst of our success," she presently resumed, "when we had established a congregation, had baptised hundreds of men, women, and children; had completed a regular place of worship and an extensive school-house, both of which were fully and regularly attended, some European vessel paid us a short visit, soon after which, that dreadful scourge the small-pox broke out amongst the people. Both children and adults were seized and as soon as one died, a dozen were attacked. "Soon the greatest alarm pervaded the natives my husband was implored to stop the pestilence, which power they felt convinced he had in his hands. He did all that was possible for him to do, but that unfortunately was very little. His recommendation of remedial measures was rarely attended with the desired results. Death was very busy. The people died in scores, and the survivors, excited by the vindictive men who had formerly sought his death for disparaging their gods began not only to fall off rapidly in their regard and reverence for my husband; but murmurs first, and execrations afterwards, and violent menaces subsequently, attended him whenever he appeared. "He preached to them resignation to the Divine will; but resignation was not a savage virtue. He was indefatigable in his attentions to the sick; but those of whom he was most careful seemed the speediest to die. The popular feeling against him increased every hour; he appeared, however, to defy his fate--walking unconcernedly amongst crowds of infuriated savages brandishing heavy clubs, and threatening him with the points of their sharp spears; but his eye never blinked, and his cheek never blanched, and he walked on his way inwardly praising God, careless of the evil passions that raged around him. "It was on a Sabbath morn--our service had far advanced; we could boast of but a limited congregation, for many had died, some had fled from the pestilence into the interior; others had avoided the place in consequence of the threats of their countrymen. A few children, and two or three women, were all their teacher had to address. "We were engaged in singing a psalm, when a furious crowd, mad with rage, as it seemed, screaming and yelling in the most frightful manner, and brandishing their weapons as though about to attack an enemy, burst into our little chapel, and seized my husband in the midst of his devotions. "I rushed forward to protect him from the numerous weapons that were aimed at his life, but was dragged back by the hair of my head, and with infuriate cries and gestures, that made them look like demons broke loose from hell, they fell upon him with their clubs and spears. "Reichardt made no resistance, he merely clasped his hands the more firmly, and looked up to heaven the more devoutly, as he continued the Psalm he had commenced before they entered. This did not delay his fate. "They beat out his brains so close to me, that I was covered with his blood; and I believe I should have shared the same fate, had I not fainted with terror at the horrible scene of which I was a forced spectator. "I learned afterwards that some powerful chief interfered, and I was carried away more dead than alive; in which state I long remained. As soon as I became sufficiently strong to be moved, I took advantage of a whaler calling at the island, homeward bound, to beg a passage. The captain heard my lamentable story, took me on board as soon as he could, and showed a seaman's sympathy for my sufferings. "I was to have returned to England with him, but off this place we encountered a terrible storm, in which we were obliged to take to the boats, as the only chance of saving our lives. What became of him I know not, as the two boats parted company soon after leaving the wreck. I trust he managed to reach the land in safety, and is now in his own country, enjoying all the comforts that can make life covetable. "What became of that part of the crew that brought me here in the other boat, led by the fires you had lighted, I am in doubt. But I think on quitting the island, crowded as their boat was, and in the state of its crew, it was scarcely possible for them to have made the distant island for which they steered." CHAPTER FORTY. Mrs Reichardt's story made a sensible impression on me. I no longer wondered at the pallor of her countenance, or the air of melancholy that at first seemed so remarkable; she had suffered most severely, and her sufferings were too recent not to have left their effects upon her frame. I thought a good deal about her narrative, and wondered much that men could be got to leave their comfortable homes, and travel thousands and thousands of miles across the fathomless seas, with the hope of converting a nation of treacherous savages, by whom they were sure to be slaughtered at the first outbreak of ill-feeling. I could not but admire the character of Reichardt--in all his actions he had exhibited a marked nobility of nature. He would not present himself before the woman who had the strongest claims upon his gratitude, till he had obtained a position and a reputation that should, in his opinion, make him worthy of her; and though he had a presentiment of the fate that would overtake him, he fulfilled his duties as a missionary with a holy enthusiasm that made him regard his approaching martyrdom as the greatest of all earthly distinctions. I felt regret that I had not known such a man. I knew how much I had lost in having missed such an example. My having heard this story, led me into much private communing with myself respecting religion. I could consider myself little better than a savage, like the brutal Sandwich Islanders; my conduct to Jackson had been only in a degree less inhuman than that these idolaters had shown to their teacher when he was in their power. I fancied at the time that I served him right, for his villainous conduct to my father, and brutal conduct to me: but God having punished him for his misdeeds, I felt satisfied I had no business to put him to greater torment as satisfaction for my own private injuries. I fancied God might have been angry with me, and had kept me on the island as a punishment for my offences; and I had some conversation with Mrs Reichardt on this point. "Nothing," she observed, "can excuse your ill-feeling towards Jackson; he was a bad man, without a doubt, and he deserved condign punishment for his usage of your parents; but the Divine founder of our religion has urged us to return good for evil." "Yes," I answered readily, "but I should have suffered as bad as my father and mother, had I not prevented his doing me mischief." "You do not know that you were to suffer," she replied. "Jackson, without such terrible punishment as he brought upon himself, might eventually have become contrite, and have restored you to your friends as well as enabled you to obtain your grandfather's property. God frequently performs marvellous things with such humble instruments; for he hath said, `there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-nine just men.'" "Surely, this is raising the wicked man over the good," I cried. "Not at all," she replied. "The repentant is one gained from the ranks of the great enemy--it is as one that was lost and is found again--it is a soul added to the blessed. Therefore the joy in heaven is abundant at such a conversion. The just are the natural heirs of heaven--their rights are acknowledged without dispute--their claim is at once recognised and allowed, and they receive their portion of eternal joy as a matter of course, without there being any necessity for exciting those demonstrations of satisfaction which hail the advent of a sinner saved." "I don't think such a villain as Jackson would ever go to heaven," I observed. "`Judge not, lest ye be judged,'" she answered; "that is a text that cannot be too often impressed upon persons anxious to condemn to eternal torment all those they believe to be worse than themselves. It is great presumption in us poor creatures of clay, to anticipate the proceedings of the Infinite Wisdom. Let us leave the high prerogative of judgment to the Almighty Power, by whom only it is exercised, and in our opinions of even the worst of our fellow-creatures, let us exercise a comprehensive charity, mingled with a prayer that even at the eleventh hour, they may have turned from the evil of their ways, and embraced the prospect of salvation, which the mercy of their Creator has held out to them." In this and similar conversations, Mrs Reichardt would endeavour to plant in my mind the soundest views of religion; and she spoke so well, and so convincingly, that I had little trouble in understanding her meaning, or in retaining it after it had been uttered. It was not, as I have before stated, to religion only that she led my thoughts, although that certainly was the most frequent subject of our conversation. She sought to instruct me in the various branches of knowledge into which she had acquired some insight, and in this way I picked up as much information respecting grammar, geography, astronomy, writing, arithmetic, history, and morals, as I should have gained had I been at a school, instead of being forced to remain on a desolate island. I need not say that I still desired to leave it. I had long been tired of the place, notwithstanding that, from our united exertions, we enjoyed many comforts which we could not have hoped for. Our hut we had metamorphosed into something Mrs Reichardt styled a rustic cottage, which, covered as it was with flowers and creepers, really looked very pretty; and the garden added greatly to its pleasant appearance: for near the house we had transplanted everything that bore a flower that could be found in the island, and had planted some shrubs, that, having been carefully nurtured, made rapid growth, and screened the hut from the wind. I had built a sort of outhouse for storing potatoes and firewood, and a fowl-house for the gannets, which were now a numerous flock; and had planted a fence round the garden, so that, as Mrs Reichardt said, we looked as if we had selected a dwelling in our own beloved England, in the heart of a rural district, instead of our being circumscribed in a little island thousands of miles across the wide seas, from the home of which we were so fond of talking. Although my companion always spoke warmly of the land of her birth, and evidently would have been glad to return to it, she never grieved over her hard fate in being, as it were, a prisoner on a rock, out of reach of friends and kindred; indeed, she used to chide me for being impatient of my detention, and insensible of the blessings I enjoyed. "What temptations are we not free from here?" she would say. "We see nothing of the world; we cannot be contaminated with its vices, or suffer from its follies. The hideous wars--the terrible revolutions-- the dreadful visitations of famine and pestilence--are completely unknown to us. Robbery, and murder, and fraud, and the thousand other phases of human wickedness, we altogether escape. There was a time, when men, for the purpose of leading holy lives, abandoned the fair cities in which they had lived in the enjoyment of every luxury, and sought a cave in some distant desert, where, in the lair of some wild beast, with a stone for a pillow, a handful of herbs for a meal, and a cup of water for beverage, they lived out the remnant of their days in a constant succession of mortifications, prayers, and penitence. "How different," she added, "is our own state. We are as far removed from the sinfulness of the world, as any hermit of the desert, whilst we have the enjoyment of comforts to which they were strangers." "But probably," I observed, "these men were penitents, and went into the desert as much to punish their bodies for the transgressions of the flesh, as to acquire by solitary communion, a better knowledge of the spirit than they were likely to obtain in their old haunts." "Some were penitents, no doubt," she answered, "but they, having obtained by their sanctity an extraordinary reputation, induced others, whose lives had been blameless, to follow their example, and in time the desert became colonised with recluses, who rivalled each other in the intensity of their devotions and the extent of their privations." "Would it not have been more commendable," I asked, "if these men had remained in the community to which they belonged, withstanding temptation, and employed in labour that was creditable to themselves, and useful to their country?" "No doubt it would,"--she replied; "but religion has unfortunately, too often been the result of impulse rather than conviction; and at the period to which we are referring, it was thought that sinful human nature could only gain the attributes of saintship by neglecting its social duties, and punishing its humanity in the severest manner. Even in more recent times, and at the present day, in Catholic countries, it is customary for individuals of both sexes, to abandon the world of which they might render themselves ornaments, and shut themselves up in buildings constructed expressly to receive them, where they continue to go through a course of devotions and privations till death puts an end to their voluntary imprisonment. "In this modified instance of seclusion," she added, "there are features very different from our own case. We are not forced to impoverish our blood with insufficient diet, or mortify our flesh with various forms of punishment. We do not neglect the worship of God. We offer up daily thanks for His loving care of us, and sing His praises in continual hymns; and instead of wasting the hours of the day in unmeaning penances, we fill up our time in employments that add to our health, comfort, and happiness; and that enable us the better to appreciate the goodness of that Power who is so mindful of our welfare." "Have you no wish, then, to leave this island?" I inquired. "I should gladly avail myself of the first opportunity that presented itself, for getting safely to England," she replied. "But I would wait patiently the proper time. It is not only useless repining at our prolonged stay here, but it looks like an ungrateful doubting of the power of God to remove us. Be assured that He has not preserved us so long, and through so many dangers, to abandon us when we most require His interposition in our favour." I endeavoured to gather consolation from such representations: but perhaps young people are not so easily reconciled to what they do not like, as are their elders; for I cannot say I succeeded in becoming satisfied with my position. CHAPTER FORTY ONE. The perils of my first voyage had deterred me from making a similar experiment; but I recovered my boat, and having further strengthened it, fitted it with what could either be turned into a well or locker: I used to row out a little distance when the sea was free from sharks and fish. But my grand effort in this direction, was the completion of a net, which, assisted by Mrs Reichardt, I managed to manufacture. By this time, she had gained sufficient confidence to accompany me in my fishing excursions; she would even take the oars whilst I threw out the net, and assisted me in dragging it into the boat. The first time we got such a haul, that I was afraid of the safety of our little craft. The locker was full, and numbers of great fish, as I flung them out of the net, were flapping and leaping about the bottom of the boat. It began to sink lower in the water than was agreeable to either of us, and I found it absolutely necessary to throw back into the sea the greater portion of our catch. We then rowed carefully to land, rejoicing that we had at our command the means of obtaining an abundant supply of food whenever we desired it. Mrs Reichardt was with me also in our land excursions. Together we had explored every part of the island; our chief object was plants for enriching our garden; and, often as we had been in search of novelties, we invariably brought home additions to our collection; and my companion having acquired some knowledge of botany, would explain to me the names, characters, and qualities of the different species; which made our journeys peculiarly interesting. Our appearance often caused considerable amusement to each other; for our respective costumes must have been extremely curious in the eyes of a stranger. Neither wore shoes or stockings--these things we did not possess, and could not procure; we wore leggings and sandals of seal-skin to protect us from the thorns and plants of the cacti tribe, among which we were obliged to force our way. My companion wore a conical cap of seal-skin, and protected her complexion from the sun by a rude attempt at an umbrella I had made for her. She had on, on these occasions, a pair of coarse cloth trousers, as her own dress would have been torn to pieces before she had got half a mile through the bush; these were surmounted by a tight spencer she had herself manufactured out of a man's waistcoat, and a dimity petticoat, which buttoned up to her throat, and was fastened in the same way at the wrists. My head was covered with a broad-brimmed hat, made of dry grass, which I had myself plaited. I wore a sailor's jacket, much the worse for wear, patched with seal-skin, over a pair of duck trousers, similarly repaired. Although our expeditions were perfectly harmless, we did not go without weapons. At the instigation of my companion, I had made myself a good stout bow and plenty of arrows, and had exercised myself so frequently at aiming at a mark, as to have acquired very considerable skill in the use of them. I had now several arrows of hard wood tipped with sharp fish-bones, and some with iron nails, in a kind of pouch behind me; in its sheath before me was my American knife, which I used for taking the plants from the ground. I had a basket made of the long grass of the island, slung around me, which served to contain our treasures; and I carried my bow in my hand. My companion, in addition to her umbrella, bore only a long staff, and a small basket tied round her waist, that usually contained a little refreshment; for she would say there was no knowing what might occur to delay our return, and therefore it was better to take our meal with us. And not the least agreeable portion of the day's labour was our repast; for we would seat ourselves in some quiet corner, surrounded by flowers, and shaded by the brushwood from the sun, and there eat our dried fish or pick our birds, and roast our potatoes by means of a fire of dried sticks, and wash down our simple dinner with a flask of pure water--the most refreshing portion of our banquet. I had, as I have just stated, attained a singular degree of skill in the use of the bow and arrow, which, as we had no firearms, was often of important service in procuring food on land. I had made another use of my skill--an application of it which afforded me a vast deal of satisfaction. My old enemies the sharks used still to frequent a certain portion of the coast, in great numbers, and as soon as I became master of my weapon, I would stand as near to the edge of the rock as was safe, and singling out my victim, aim at his upper fin, which I often found had the effect of ridding the place of that fellow. I bore such an intense hatred to these creatures for the fright they had put me into during my memorable voyage of discovery, and for the slaughter of my beloved Nero, that I determined to wage incessant war against them, as long as I could manufacture an arrow, or a single shark remained on the coast. As we had so often traversed the island without accident, we dreamt not of danger. We had never met with any kind of animals, except our old friends the seals, who kept near the sea. Of birds, the gannets were generally the sole frequenters of the island; but we had seen, at rare intervals, birds of a totally different character, some of which I had shot. Indeed, during our excursions, I was always on the look-out for any stranger of the feathered race, that I might exercise my skill upon him. If he proved eatable, he was sure to be very welcome; and even if he could not be cooked, he afforded me some entertainment, in hearing from Mrs Reichardt his name and habits. We had discovered a natural hollow which lay so low that it was quite hid till we came close to it, when we had to descend a steep declivity covered with shrubs. At the bottom was a soil evidently very productive, for we found trees growing there to a considerable height, that were in marked contrast to the shrubby plants that grew in other parts of the island. We called this spot the Happy Valley, and it became a favourite resting-place. I remember on one of these occasions, we had made our dinner after having been several hours employed in seeking for plants, of which we had procured a good supply, and the remains of our meal lay under a great tree, beneath the spreading branches of which we had been resting ourselves. It was quite on the other side of the island, within about a quarter of a mile of the sea. Abundance of curious plants grew about the place, and Mrs Reichardt had wandered to a little distance to examine all within view. I was peering into the trees and shrubs around to discover a newcomer. I had wandered in an opposite direction to that taken by my companion, and was creeping round a clump of shrubs about twenty yards off, in which I detected a chirping noise, when I heard a loud scream. I turned sharply round and beheld Mrs Reichardt, evidently in an agony of terror, running towards me with prodigious swiftness. She had dropped her umbrella and her staff, her cap had fallen from her head, and her long hair, disarranged by her sudden flight, streamed behind her shoulders. At first I did not see anything which could have caused this terrible alarm; but in a few seconds I heard a crushing among a thicket of shrubs from which she was running, as if some heavy weight was being forced through them; and presently there issued a most extraordinary monster. It came forward at a quick pace, its head erect above ten feet, its jaws wide open, from the midst of which there issued a forked tongue which darted in and out with inconceivable rapidity. Its body was very long, and thick as an ordinary tree; it was covered over with bright shining scales that seemed to have different colours, and was propelled along the ground in folds of various sizes, with a length of tail of several yards behind. Its eyes were very bright and fierce. Its appearance certainly accounted for my companion's alarm. "Fly!" she cried in accents of intense terror, as she rushed towards me, "fly, or you are lost!" She then gave a hurried glance behind her, and seeing the formidable monster in full chase, she just had power to reach the spot to which I had advanced, and sunk, overpowered with terror, fainting at my feet. My first movement was to step across her body for the purpose of disputing the passage of the monster; and in an erect posture, with my bow drawn tight as I could pull it, I waited a few seconds till I could secure a good aim, for I knew everything depended on my steadiness and resolution. On came my prodigious antagonist, making a terrible hissing as he approached, his eyes flashing, his jaws expanded as if he intended to swallow me at a mouthful, and the enormous folds of his huge body passing like wheels over the ground,--crushing the thick plants that came in their way like grass. I must acknowledge that in my heart I felt a strange sinking sensation, but I remembered that our only chance of escape lay in giving the monster a mortal wound, and the imminence of the danger seemed to afford me the resolution I required. He was close behind, and in a direct line with the tree under which we had dined, and I was about twenty yards from it. Directly his head darted round and in front of the tree, making a good mark, I let fly the arrow direct, as I thought, for his eye, hoping, by penetrating his brain, to settle him at once. But as he moved his head at that moment, the arrow went into his open jaws, one of which it penetrated, and going deep into the tree behind, pinned his head close to the bark. As soon as the huge creature found himself hurt, he wound his enormous body round the trunk, and with his desperate exertions, swayed the great tree backwards and forwards, as I would have done one of its smallest branches. Fearful that he would liberate himself before I could save my senseless companion, as quick as possible I discharged all my arrows into his body, which took effect in various places. His exertions then became so terrible, that I hastily snatched up Mrs Reichardt in my arms, and with a fright that seemed to give me supernatural strength, I ran as fast as I could the shortest way to our hut. Fortunately, before I had gone half a mile, my companion came to her senses, and was able to continue her flight. We got home at last, half dead with fatigue and fright; nevertheless the first thing we did was to barricade all the entrances. We left loop-holes to reconnoitre; and there we sat for hours after our arrival, waiting the monster's approach in fear and trembling. We did not go to sleep that night. We did not, either of us, go out the next day. The next night one watched while the other slept. The second day my courage had so far returned, I wanted to go and look after the constant subject of our conversation. But Mrs Reichardt dissuaded me. She told me it was an enormous python, or serpent of the boa species, that are common in the northern coast of America. Probably it had been brought to the island on a drifted tree, and being so prodigious a reptile, the wounds it had received were not likely to do it much harm, and it would be no doubt lurking about, ready to pounce upon either of us directly we appeared. On the third day, nothing having occurred to increase our alarm, I determined to know the worst; so I got by stealth out of the house, and, armed with a fresh bow, a good supply of arrows, a hatchet slung at my side, and my American knife--with my mind made up for another conflict if necessary--I crept stealthily along, with my eyes awake to the slightest motion, and my ears open to the slightest sound, till I approached the scene of my late unequal struggle. I must own I began to draw my breath rather rapidly, and my heart beat more quickly, as I came near the place where I had left my terrible enemy. To my extreme surprise the python had disappeared. There was the tree still standing, though its foliage and branches strewed the ground, and a great portion of its bark was ground to powder. At the base of the trunk was a pool of blood, mingled with fragments of bark, broken arrows, leaves, and mould. The reptile had escaped. But where was he? Not altogether without anxiety I began to look for traces of his retreat; and they were easily found. With my arrow ready for immediate flight, I followed a stream of blood that was still visible on the grass, and led from the tree, accompanied by unmistakeable marks of the great serpent's progress, in a direct line to the sea. There it disappeared. When I discovered this, I breathed again. There was no doubt if the monster survived the conflict, he was hundreds of miles away, and was not likely to return to a place where he had received so rough a welcome. It may readily be believed I lost no time in taking the agreeable news to my companion. CHAPTER FORTY TWO. I had become tired of looking out for a ship. Though day after day, and week after week, I made the most careful scrutiny with my glass, as I have said, it brought no result. I sometimes fancied I saw a vessel appearing in the line of the horizon, and I would pile up fagots and light them, and throw on water to make them smoke, as Jackson had done; but all without avail. Either my vision had deceived me, or my signals had not been observed, or the ship's course did not lay in the direction of the island. We had had storms, too, on several occasions, but no wreck had been left on our coast. I began to think we were doomed to live out our lives on this rock, and frequently found myself striving very manfully to be resigned to my fate, and for a few days I would cheerfully endeavour to make the best of it. But the increasing desire I felt to get to England, that I might seek out my grandfather, and put him in possession of his diamonds, always prevented this state of things enduring very long. I had obtained from Mrs Reichardt an idea of the value of these stones, and of the importance of their restoration to my relative, and I had often thought of the satisfaction I should enjoy in presenting myself before him, as the restorer of such valuable property, which, no doubt, had long since been given up as lost. But latterly, I thought less of these things; the chance of leaving the island seemed so remote, and the prospect of ever seeing my grandfather so very distant, that I had ceased to take any interest in the contents of the belt. The diamonds seemed to become as valueless as they were useless; a handful of wheat would have been much more desirable. It was now some time since I had seen the belt, or inquired about it. Thus we lived without any incident occurring worth relating--when one day the appearance of the atmosphere indicated a storm, and a very violent hurricane, attended with peals of thunder and lurid flashes of lightning, lasted during the whole of the day and evening. The wind tore up the trees by the roots, blew down our outhouses, made terrible havoc in our garden, and threatened to tumble our hut over our heads. We could not think of going to our beds whilst such a tempest was raging around us, so we sat up, listening to the creaking of the boards, and anticipating every moment that the whole fabric would be blown to pieces. Fortunately, the bark with which I had covered the roof, in a great measure protected us from the rain, which came down in torrents; but every part was not equally impervious, and our discomfort was increased by seeing the water drip through, and form pools on the floor. The thunder still continued at intervals, and was sometimes so loud as to have a most startling effect upon us. My companion knelt down and said her prayers with great fervour, and I joined in them with scarcely less devotion. Indeed it was an awful night, and our position, though under shelter, was not without danger. The incessant flashes of lightning seemed to play round our edifice, as if determined to set it in a blaze; and the dreadful peals of thunder that followed, rolled over our heads, as if about to burst upon the creaking boards that shut us from its fury. I fancied once or twice that I heard during the storm, bursts of sound quite different in character from the peals of thunder. They were not so loud, and did not reverberate so much; they seemed to come nearer, and then the difference in sound became very perceptible. "Great God!" exclaimed Mrs Reichardt, starting up from her kneeling posture, "that is a gun from some ship." The wind seemed less boisterous for a few seconds, and the thunder ceased. We listened breathlessly for the loud boom we had just heard, but it was not repeated. In a moment afterwards our ears were startled by the most terrifying combination of screams, shrieks, cries, and wailings, I had ever heard. My blood seemed chilled in my veins. "A ship has just struck," whispered my companion, scarcely above her breath. "The Lord have mercy on the crew!" She sunk on her knees again in prayer, as if for the poor souls who were struggling in the jaws of death. The wind still howled, and the thunder still roared; but in the fiercest war of the elements, I fancied I could every now and then hear the piercing shrieks sent up to heaven for assistance. I thought once or twice of venturing out, but I remembered the safety of my companion was so completely bound up with my own, that I could not reconcile myself to leaving her; and I was also well aware, that till the terrible fury of the tempest abated, it was impossible for me to be of the slightest service to the people of the wrecked ship, even could I remain unharmed exposed to the violence of the weather. I, however, awaited with much impatience and intense anxiety till the storm had in some measure spent itself; but this did not occur till sunrise the next morning. The wind fell, the thunder and lightning ceased, the rain was evidently diminishing, and the brightness of the coming day began to burst through the darkest night that had ever visited the island. Mrs Reichardt would not be left behind; it was possible she might be useful, and taking with her a small basket of such things as she imagined might be required, she accompanied me to the rocks nearest the sea. On arriving there, the most extraordinary scene presented itself. The sea was strewed with spars, masts, chests, boats stove in or otherwise injured, casks, empty hencoops, and innumerable pieces of floating wreck, that were continually dashed against the rocks, or were washed ashore, wherever an opening for the sea presented itself. At a little distance lay the remains of a fine ship, her masts gone by the board, her decks open, in fact a complete wreck, over which the sea had but lately been making a clean sweep, carrying overboard everything that could not resist its fury. I could see nothing resembling a human being, though both myself and my companion looked carefully round, in the hope of discovering some poor creature that might need assistance. It appeared, however, as if the people of the ship had taken to their boats, which had been swamped, and most probably all who had ventured into them had been devoured by the sharks. Had the crew remained on board, they would in all probability have been saved; as the vessel had been thrown almost high and dry. As soon as we had satisfied ourselves that no sharks were in the neighbourhood, I launched my little boat, and each taking an oar, we pulled in the direction of the wreck, which we reached in a few minutes. She had heeled over after striking, and the water was quite smooth under her lee. I contrived to climb into the main chains, and from thence on board, and was soon afterwards diligently exploring the ship. I penetrated every place into which I could effect an entrance, marvelling much at the variety of things. I beheld. There seemed such an abundance of everything, and of things, too, quite new to me, that I was bewildered by their novelty and variety. Having discovered a coil of new rope, I hauled it on deck, and soon made fast my little boat to the ship. Then I made a hasty rope ladder, which I threw over, and Mrs Reichardt was in a very few minutes standing by my side. Her knowledge was necessary to inform me of the uses of the several strange things I saw, and to select for our own use what was most desirable. She being well acquainted with the interior of a ship, and having explained to me its numerous conveniences, I could not but admire the ingenuity of man, in creating such stupendous machines. The ship having much water in the hold, I was forced to dive into the armoury. It was the first time I had seen such things, and I handled the muskets and pistols with a vast deal of curiosity; as my companion explained to me how they were loaded and fired, I at once saw their advantage over the bow and arrow, and was selecting two or three to carry away, when I hesitated on being assured they would be perfectly useless without ammunition. I might have remained content with my own savage weapons, that had already served me so well, had not Mrs Reichardt, in the course of our survey, discovered several tin canisters of powder perfectly uninjured, with abundance of shot and bullets, of which I quickly took possession. From other parts of the vessel we selected bags of grain, barrels of flour, and provisions of various kinds; wearing apparel, boxes of tools, with numerous bottles and jars, of the contents of which I was perfectly unacquainted, though their discovery gave great gratification to my companion. What most excited my wonder, were various kinds of agricultural implements that we found in the hold, and in a short time I was made aware of the proper employment of spades, harrows, ploughs, thrashing-machines, and many other things, of the existence of which I had never before dreamt. We found also quantities of various kinds of seeds and roots, and some sort of twigs growing in pots, which Mrs Reichardt particularly begged me not to leave behind, as they would be of the greatest use to us; and, she added, that from various signs, she believed that the ship had been an emigrant vessel going out with settlers, but to what place she could not say. We made no ceremony in breaking open lockers and chests, and everywhere discovered a variety of things, which, could we transfer to our island, would add greatly to our comfort; but how they were to be got ashore, was a puzzle which neither of us seemed capable of solving. Our little boat would only contain a few of the lighter articles; and as many of these as we could conveniently put together were shortly stowed in her. With this cargo we were about returning, when my companion called my attention to a noise that seemed to come from a distant corner of the vessel, and she laughed and exhibited so much satisfaction, that I believed we were close upon some discovery far more important than any we had yet hit upon. We continued to make our way to what seemed to me a very out of the way part of the vessel, led in a great measure by the noises that proceeded from thence. It was so dark here, that we were obliged to get a light, and my companion having procured a ship's lantern, and lighted it by means of a tinder-box, led me to a place where I could discern several animals, most of which were evidently dead. She, however, ascertained that there were two young calves, three or four sheep, and as many young pigs, still giving very noisy evidence of their existence. She searched about and found some food for them, which they ate with great avidity. The larger animals she told me were cows and horses; but they had fallen down, and gave no signs of life. My companion and myself then entered into a long debate as to how we were to remove the living animals from the dead; and she dwelt very eloquently upon the great advantages that would accrue to us, if we could succeed in transporting to the island the survivors. After giving them a good feed, seeing we could not remove them at present, we descended safely to our boat and gained the shore without any accident. Then having housed our treasures, we were for putting together a raft of the various planks and barrels that were knocking against the rocks; but as I knew this would take a good deal of time, I thought I would inspect the ship's boats, which, bottom upwards, were drifting about within a few yards of us. To our great satisfaction, one I ascertained to be but little injured, and having forced her ashore, with our united exertions we turned her over. In an hour we had made her water-tight, had picked up her oars, and were pulling merrily for the wreck. CHAPTER FORTY THREE. Had the cows or horses been alive, they must have been left behind, for we could not have removed them; but the smaller animals were with comparatively little difficulty got on deck, and they descended with me into the boat. We added a few things that lay handy, and in a few minutes were laughingly driving our four-footed treasures on shore, to the extreme astonishment of the gannets, which seemed as though they would never cease to flap their wings, as their new associates were driven by them. In the same way we removed the most portable of the agricultural implements, bed and bedding, cots and hammocks, furniture, the framework of a house, preserved provisions of all kinds, a medicine-chest, boxes of books, crates of china and glass, all sorts of useful tools, and domestic utensils; in short, in the course of the next two or three weeks, by repeated journeys, we filled every available place we could find with what we had managed to rescue. Then came another terrible storm that lasted two days, after which the wreck having been broken up, was scattered in every direction. I however managed to secure the driftwood, tubs, spars, and chests, which were all got on shore, and proved of the greatest service to me some time afterwards. Numerous as our acquisitions had been in this way, both of us had been infinitely better pleased had we been able to rescue some of the ill-fated crew, to whom they had once belonged. But not one of them could have escaped, and only one body was cast on shore, which was that of a young woman, who lay with her face to the ground, and her wet clothes clinging round her. We turned her carefully over, and I beheld a face that seemed to me wonderfully fair and beautiful. She had escaped the sharks, and had been dead several hours--most probably she had been cast on shore by the waves, soon after the ship struck, for she had escaped also the rocks, which, had she been dashed against, would have left fearful signs of their contact on her delicate frame. The sight of her corpse gave me many melancholy thoughts. I thought of the delight she might have caused both of us, had she been saved. What a pleasant companion she might have proved. Indeed, as I looked on her pale cold features, I fancied that she might have reconciled me to ending my existence on the island--ay, even to the abandonment of my favourite scheme of seeking my grandfather to give him back his diamonds. We took her up with as much pity and affection as if she were our nearest and dearest relative, and carried her home, and placed her on Mrs Reichardt's bed; and then I laid some planks together, in the shape of what Mrs Reichardt called a coffin--and I dug her a deep grave in the guano. And all the while I found myself crying as I had never cried before, and my heart seemed weary and faint. In solemn silence we carried her to her grave, and read over her the funeral service out of the Prayer-book, kneeling and praying for this nameless creature, whom we had never seen alive, as though she had been our companion for many years; both of us shedding tears, for her hapless fate, as if we had lost a beloved sister. And when we had filled up her grave and departed, we went home, and passed the most miserable day we had ever had to endure since we had first been cast upon the island. I had now numerous occupations that kept me actively employed. Still I could not for a long time help recalling to mind that pale face that looked so piteously upon me when I first beheld it; and then I would leave off my work, and give myself up to my melancholy thoughts till my attention was called off by some appeal from my companion. I made a kind of monument over the place where she was buried, and planted there the finest flowers we had; and I never passed the spot without a prayer, as if I were approaching holy ground. I must not forget to add, that a few days after the wreck, we were agreeably surprised by visitors that, though unexpected, were extremely welcome. I had noticed strange birds wandering about in various parts of the island. On their coming under the notice of my companion, they were immediately recognised as fowls and ducks, that had no doubt escaped from the ship. We might now, therefore, constitute ourselves a little colony, of which Mrs Reichardt and myself were the immediate governors, the settlers being a mingled community of calves, sheep, pigs, and poultry, that lived on excellent terms with each other; the quadrupeds having permission to roam where they pleased, and the bipeds being kept within a certain distance of the government house. The old hut had suffered so much from the storm that I determined on building another in a better position, and had recourse to the framework of the house I had taken from the wreck. I had some difficulty in putting the several parts together, but at last succeeded, and a small, but most commodious dwelling was the result. Near it I laid out a new garden, wherein I planted all the orange-trees we had reared, as well as many of the seeds and roots we had brought from the wreck. A little beyond I inclosed a paddock, wherein I planted the twigs we had found in pots, which proved to be fruit-trees. When I had done this, I thought of my agricultural implements, and very much desired to make use of a handy plough that was amongst them, when I learned the advantages that might arise from it. At first I yoked myself to the plough, and Mrs Reichardt held it: this proved such hard and awkward work, that I kept projecting all sorts of plans for lessening the labour--the best was that of yoking our calves, and making them pull instead of myself. This was more easily thought of than done. The animals did not prove very apt pupils, but in course of time, with a good deal of patience, and some manoeuvring, I succeeded in making them perform the work they were expected to do. Thus, in building, gardening, planting, and farming, the time flew by quickly, and in the course of the next year the aspect of the place had become quite changed. The guano that enriched the soil made every kind of vegetation thrive with an almost marvellous rapidity and luxuriance. We had a comfortable house, up which a vine was creeping in one place, and a young pear-tree in another. We were supplied with the choicest oranges, and had apples of several kinds. We had abundance of furniture, and an inexhaustible stock of provisions. We had a most gorgeous show of flowers, of many different species; our new kitchen-garden was full of useful vegetables--young fruit-trees were yielding their produce wherever they had been planted--the poultry had more than doubled their number--the calves were taking upon themselves the full dignity of the state of cow and bull--the ewes had numerous lambs--and the pigs had not only grown into excellent pork, but had already produced more than one litter, that would be found equally desirable when provisions ran scarce. We had two growing crops, of different kinds of grain, and a large pasture-field fenced round. The Little Savage, at seventeen, had been transformed into a farmer, and the cultivation of the farm and the care of the live stock soon left him no time for indulging in vain longings to leave the island, or useless regrets for the fair creature who, even in death, I had regarded as its greatest ornament. Two years later, still greater improvements, and still greater additions became visible. We were establishing a dairy farm on a small scale, and as our herds and flocks, as well as the pigs and poultry, increased rapidly, we promised in a few years to be the most thriving farmers that had ever lived in that part of the world by the cultivation of the land. CHAPTER FORTY FOUR. Although my first experimental voyage had proved so hazardous, now that I was better provided for meeting its perils, I became anxious to make another attempt to circumnavigate the island. The boat that had belonged to the wrecked ship, from the frequent trips I had made in her to and from the shore, I could manage as well as if I had been rowing boats all my life. With the assistance of Mrs Reichardt, who pulled an oar almost as well as myself, we could get her along in very good style, even when heavily laden, and our labours together had taken from her all that timidity which had deterred her from trusting herself with me, when I first ventured from the island. I was, however, very differently circumstanced now, to what I was then. Instead of a frail cockle-shell, that threatened to be capsized by every billow that approached it, and that would scarcely hold two persons comfortably, I was master of a well-built ship's boat, that would hold half a dozen with ease, and except in very rough weather, was as safe as any place ashore. I had repaired the slight damage its timbers had received, and had made an awning to protect us when rowing, from the heat of the sun; I had also raised a sail, which would relieve us of a good deal of labour. When everything was prepared, I urged Mrs Reichardt to accompany me in a voyage round the island; an excursion I hoped would turn out equally pleasant and profitable. I found her very averse to trusting herself farther from shore than was absolutely necessary. She raised all kinds of objections--prominent among which were my want of seamanship for managing a boat in the open sea; the danger that might arise from a sudden squall coming on; her fear of our getting amongst a shoal of sharks, and the risk we ran of driving against a projecting rock; but I overruled them all. I showed her, by taking little trips out to sea, that I could manage the boat either with the sail or the oars, and assured her that by keeping close to the island, we could run ashore before danger could reach us; and that nothing could be easier than our keeping out of the reach of both rocks and sharks. I do not think I quite convinced her that her fears were groundless; but my repeated entreaties, the fineness of the weather, and her dislike to be again left on the island, whilst I was risking my life at sea, prevailed, and she promised to join me in this second experiment. Her forethought, however, was here as fully demonstrated as on other occasions, for she did not suffer the boat to leave the shore till she had provided for any accident that might prevent our return the anticipated time. A finer day for such a voyage we could not have selected. The sky was without a cloud, and there was just wind enough for the purpose I wanted, without any apprehensions of this being increased. I got up the awning, and spread the sail, and handing Mrs Reichardt to her appointed seat, we bid farewell to our four-footed and two-footed friends ashore, that were gazing at us as if they knew they were parting from their only protectors. I then pushed the boat off, the wind caught the sail, and she glided rapidly through the deep water. I let her proceed in this way about a quarter of mile from the island, and then tacked; the boat, obedient to the position of the sail, altered her course, and we proceeded at about the same rate, for a considerable distance. Mrs Reichardt, notwithstanding her previous fears, could not help feeling the exhilarating effect of this adventurous voyage. We were floating, safely and gracefully, upon the billows, with nothing but sea and sky in every direction but one, where the rugged shores of our island home gave a bold, yet menacing feature to the view. My heart seemed to expand with the majestic prospect before me. Never had mariner, when discovering some prodigious continent, felt a greater degree of exultation than I experienced when directing my little vessel over the immense wilderness of waters that spread out before me, till it joined the line of the horizon. I sat down by the side of Mrs Reichardt, and allowed the boat to proceed on its course, either as if it required no directing hand, or that its present direction was so agreeable, I felt no inclination to alter it. "I can easily imagine," said I, "the enthusiasm of such men as Columbus, whose discovery of America you were relating to me the other day. The vocation of these early navigators was a glorious one, and, when they had tracked their way over so many thousand miles of pathless water, and found themselves in strange seas, expecting the appearance of land, hitherto unknown to the civilised world, they must have felt the importance of their mission as discoverers." "No doubt, Frank," she replied; "and probably, it was this that supported the great man you have just named, in the severe trials he was obliged to endure, on the very eve of the discovery that was to render his name famous to all generations. He had endured intolerable hardships, the ship had been so long without sight of land, that no one thought it worth while to look out for it, and he expected that his crew would mutiny, and insist on returning. At this critical period of his existence, first one indication of land, and then another, made itself manifest; the curiosity of the disheartened sailors became excited; hope revived in the breast of their immortal captain; a man was now induced to ascend the main-top, and his joyful cry of land woke up the slumbering spirit of the crew. In this way, a new world was first presented to the attention of the inhabitants of the old." "It appears to me very unjust," I observed, "that so important a discovery should have become known to us, not by the name of its original discoverer, but by that of a subsequent visitor to its shores." "Undoubtedly," said Mrs Reichardt, "it is apparently unfair that Americus Vespucius should obtain an honour which Christopher Columbus alone had deserved. But of the fame which is the natural right of him whose courage and enterprise procured this unrivalled acquisition, no one can deprive him. His gigantic discovery may always be known as America, but the world acknowledges its obligation to Columbus, and knows little beyond the name of his rival." "Were the immediate results of so large an addition to geographical knowledge, as beneficial to the entire human race as they ought to have been?" "I do not think they were. The vast continent then thrown open to the advance of civilisation, may be divided into two portions,--the south and the north. The former was inhabited by a harmless effeminate race, who enjoyed many of the refinements of civilisation; their knowledge of the arts, for instance, as shown to us in the ruins of their cities, was considerable; they possessed extensive buildings in a bold and ornate style of architecture; they made a lavish use of the precious metals, of which the land was extremely rich, and they wore dresses which showed a certain perfection in the manufacture of textile fabrics, and no slight degree of taste and art in their formation. "The Spaniards, who were led to this part of the continent by a desire to enrich themselves with the gold which the earliest discoverers had found in the new country in considerable quantities, invaded the territories of this peaceful people, and, by their superior knowledge of warlike weapons, and the ignorance of the intentions of their invaders that prevailed amongst the natives of all ranks, by a series of massacres, they were enabled, though comparatively but a small force, to obtain possession of the vast empire that had been established there from time immemorial, and turn it into a Spanish colony. "The blood of this harmless race flowed like water; their great Incas or Emperors were deposed and murdered, their splendid temples plundered of their riches, their nobles and priests tortured to make them change their faith, and the great mass of the people became slaves to their more warlike conquerors. It was in this way the gold of Mexico and Peru enriched the treasury of Spain; but every ingot had the curse of blood upon it, and from that time the Spanish power, then at its height, began to decline in Europe, till it sunk in the scale of nations among the least important. The colonies revolted from the mother country, and became independent states; but the curse that followed the infamous appropriation of the country, seems to cling to the descendants of the first criminals, and neither government nor people prospers; and it is evident that all these independent states must in time be absorbed by a great republic, that has sprung up by peaceable means, as it were at their side, whilst they were content to be colonies." "To what republic do you allude?" "You may remember that I told you that the entire continent was divided into south and north." "Exactly." "The history of the southern portion I have rapidly sketched for you, that of the northern you will find of a totally different character." "Pray let me hear it." "When North America was first discovered, it was found to be inhabited by a race of savages, divided into several tribes. They had no manufactures; they had no knowledge of art or science; they lived in the impenetrable woods in huts, having no pretension to architecture; they went almost entirely naked, were extremely warlike, and fond of hunting, and were known to devour the enemies they killed in battle. "To this barbarous race came a few adventurous men across the stormy Atlantic, from the distant island of England--" "Ah, England!" I exclaimed, "that is the country of my parents--that is the home of my grandfather; let me hear anything you have to say about England." Mrs Reichardt smiled at my animation, but proceeded without making any comment upon what I had said. "England possessed at this period many adventurous spirits, who were ready to dare every danger to obtain for their country a share in the honours which other lands had assumed through the enterprise of their navigators. By such men different portions of the northern continent of America were discovered; the fame of these new lands, their wonderful productiveness and admirable climate, soon spread amongst their countrymen, and from time to time various ships left the English ports with small bands of adventurers, who made what were termed settlements in the country of these savages--not by mercilessly massacring them as the Spaniards had done in the south, and then plundering them of all they possessed, but by purchasing certain districts or pieces of land from the original occupants, which they peacefully cultivated; as their numbers increased, they multiplied their habitations, and obtained by barter of the savages fresh accessions of territory." "The English showed themselves a much more humane people than the Spaniards," I observed. "But did they never come into collision with the wild natives of the country?" "Frequently," Mrs Reichardt replied; "but in some measure this was unavoidable. As new settlers from England landed in the country, they required more land; but the savages were now not inclined to barter; they had become jealous of the strangers, and were desirous of driving them back to their ships before they became too numerous. Acts of hostility were committed by the savages upon the settlers, which were often marked by great brutality: this exasperated the latter, who joined in a warlike association, and notwithstanding their numbers and daring, drove them further and further from their neighbourhood, till either by conquest, treaties, or purchase, the Englishmen or their descendants obtained the greater portion of North America." "Do they still hold possession of it?" I asked. "Up to a recent date, the whole of this vast acquisition was a colony in obedience to the government of England; but a dispute having arisen between the mother country and the colony, a struggle took place, which ended in the hatter throwing off all subjection to the laws of England. The extensive provinces joined together in a union of equal privileges and powers, which has since gone by the name of the Government of the United States of North America. This is the great republic to which I just now alluded, that is gradually absorbing the minor Southern States into its union, and threatens at no very distant date to spread the English language and the English race over the whole continent of America." "Has England then completely lost the country she colonised?" I inquired, feeling more and more interested in the subject. "No, a great portion still remains in her possession," she replied. "The people preserved their allegiance when their neighbours thought proper to rise in revolt, and are now in a state of great prosperity, governed by the laws of England, and supported by her power. The English possessions in North America form an extensive district. It is, however, but an inconsiderable fraction of the vast countries still remaining under the dominion of England. Her territories lie in every quarter of the globe; indeed the sun never sets upon this immense empire--an empire with which the conquests of Alexander, and of Caesar, or the most formidable state that existed in ancient times, cannot for a moment be compared; and when we bear in mind that in all these various climates, and in all these far-distant shores, the flag of our country affords the same protection to the colonist as he would enjoy in his own land, we may entertain some idea of the vast power that government possesses which can make itself respected at so many opposite points from the source whence it emanates." I was so much interested in this description, that I had neglected to notice the rate at which the boat was driving through the water. I now rose with great alacrity to shift the sail, as we had got several miles from the island, and if I did not take care we might be blown out of sight of land. I lost no time in putting her on another tack, but we had not proceeded far in this direction when I found the wind lull, and presently the sail drooped to the mast, and there was a dead calm. It became necessary now to take to our oars, and we were presently pulling with all our strength in the direction of land. This went on for some time till we were both tired, and I was surprised at the little progress we had made. We lay on our oars and took some refreshment, and then pulled with additional vigour; but I began to suspect that we were receding from the land instead of approaching it, and called Mrs Reichardt's attention to the fact of the island diminishing in size, notwithstanding the length of time we had been pulling towards it. "Ah, Frank," she said, in a melancholy tone of voice, "I have for some time entertained suspicions that all our strength was being expended in vain. It is very clear that we have got into a current that is every moment taking us further out to sea, and if a breeze does not soon spring up, we shall lose sight of the island, and then heaven only knows what will become of us." I shook out the sail, in hopes of its catching sufficient wind to lead us out of the current, but not a breath of air was stirring. We did not possess such a thing as a compass; our provisions were only calculated for a pleasure trip--we had only one small jar of water, and a flask of spirit, a few biscuits, two large cakes, a chicken, and some dried fish. The land was rapidly receding; I could only mark its position with respect to the sun, that now was pouring its burning rays upon our little bark. If it had not been for the awning, we could not have endured it; the heat was so oppressive. We had been obliged to give over rowing, as much from the fatigue it occasioned as from the hopelessness of our labour. We now sat with sinking hearts watching the fast-retreating land. It had become a point--it diminished to a speck, and as it disappeared from our anxious sight, the sun set in all his glory, and we were drifting at the mercy of the current we knew not where, with nothing but sky and sea all around us. CHAPTER FORTY FIVE. Vainly I stretched my eyes around the illimitable field of ocean, in hope of discerning some indication of that power whose ships I had been told traversed every sea; but nothing like a vessel was in sight--the mighty waters stretched out like an endless desert on every side. There was no sign of man in all this vast space, except our little boat; and in comparison with this space, how insignificant were the two helpless human beings who sat silent and motionless in that boat awaiting their destiny. The stars came out with marvellous brilliancy. I fancied that I had never seen them appear so bright; but probably the gloominess of my thoughts made them look brighter by contrast. I seemed the centre of a glorious system of worlds revolving above me with a calm and tranquil beauty, that appeared to reproach me for giving way to despair in a scene so lovely. The great mass of water, scarcely moved by a ripple, now appeared lit up with countless fires, and a purplish haze, like a low flame, was visible in every direction. I directed the attention of my companion to this strange appearance. Notwithstanding the intensity of her anxiety, she immediately entered into an explanation of the phenomenon, and attributed it to a peculiarly phosphoric state of the sea, caused by myriads of creatures which possess the quality of the glowworm, and rising to the surface of the water, made the latter seem as though enveloped in flame. I sat a long time watching the singular appearances that presented themselves whenever I dashed down the oar. It looked as though I was beating fire instead of water, and flame seemed to come from the oar with the drops that fell from it into the sea. In this way hours passed by: we were still floating with the current; the moon and stars were now coldly shining over our heads; the ocean around us was still gleaming with phosphoric fires, when Mrs Reichardt advised me to take some nourishment, and then endeavour to go to sleep, saying she would keep watch and apprise me if anything happened of which it might be advantageous to avail ourselves. The only thing I desired was the appearance of a vessel, or the setting in of a breeze, of which at present not a sign existed. I felt disinclined either to eat or to drink: but I proposed that my companion should make a meal and then go to sleep, as it was much more proper that I should keep watch than herself. The fact was, we were both anxious that the other should be the first to diminish our little stock of food; but as neither would be induced to do this, it was decided that our provisions should be divided into certain portions, which were only to be taken at sunrise and sunset, and that we should during the night relieve each other every three hours in keeping watch, that if we saw land, or a ship, or the wind should spring up, we might consult immediately as to our course. I only succeeded in inducing her to lie down at the bottom of the boat, to obtain a little sleep, previously to her taking my place, that I might so rest myself. She first said her usual prayers for the evening, in which I joined, and in a few minutes I was glad to hear by her regular breathing, that she was obtaining that repose of which I was certain she stood greatly in need. I was now the sole observer of the stupendous spectacle that spread out around and above me; the most sublime feature in this imposing scene appeared to be the silence which reigned supreme over all. The heavens were as mute as the sea. It looked as if the earth had been engulfed by a second deluge, and all living nature had perished utterly from the face of it. I felt a deep feeling of melancholy stealing over me, and could not forbear reproaching myself for embarking in this hazardous enterprise, and risking a life that I was bound to preserve. What could become of us both I knew not; but I was sensible that if we were not speedily picked up, or made some friendly shore, there existed but little hopes of our surviving many days. I made up my mind, that the island we should never see again; and though I had been so anxious for so many years to quit it, now that fate had separated us for ever, I could not console myself for the loss of a home endeared to me by so many recollections. But my great grief was the loss of my grandfather's diamonds. He had now no chance of having them restored to him. If they were found, they would become the property of the discoverer; and he would never know how his daughter perished on a rock, and how his grandson was swallowed up by the waters of the great deep. And then I thought of that glorious England I had so long hoped to see, and my heart sunk within me as I gazed out upon the boundless prospect. There was not a voice to murmur consolation, not a hand to offer me assistance. Was I never to see those white cliffs which had been so often described to me, that I could call them to mind as clearly as if they stood in all their pride and beauty before my eyes? How often had I dreamed of approaching the hallowed shores of England-- how often had I heard the cheerful voices of her people welcoming the Little Savage to his natural home--how often had I been embraced by my aged grandfather, and received into the happy circle of his friends, with the respect and affection due to his heir. I had dreamed happy dreams, and seen blissful visions; and the result was starvation in an open boat on the illimitable ocean. Mrs Reichardt still slept, and I would not wake her. As long as she was insensible to the dangers of her position, she must exist in comparative happiness; to disturb her was to bring her back to a sense of danger and misery, and the recollection that my folly had brought her to this hopeless state. I noticed that a small cloud was making its appearance in the horizon, and almost at the same instant I observed it, I felt a breeze that was just sufficient to flap the sail against the mast. In a few minutes the cloud had greatly increased, and the wind filled the sail. I fancied it blew in a direction contrary to the current; but in the belief that it did so, I soon got the boat round, and to my great joy she was presently scudding before the wind at a rate that was sensibly increasing. But the cloud presently began to envelop the heavens, and a thick darkness spread itself like a veil in every direction. The wind blew very fresh, and strained the mast to which the sail had been fixed; and now I began to entertain a new fear: some sudden gust might take the sail and capsize us, or tear it from its fastenings. I would gladly have taken in the sail, but I considered it as rather a hazardous experiment. Mrs Reichardt lay in a position that prevented my getting at it without disturbing her, or running the risk of tipping the boat over, when it would be sure to fill immediately, and sink with us both. Though we could both swim, I felt assured that if we were once in the water, there would remain very little chance of our protracting our lives beyond a few hours. The boat, therefore, continued to run before the wind at a rapid rate, the slight mast creaking, and the sail stretching so tight, I expected every minute that we should be upset. At this moment Mrs Reichardt awoke, and her quick eye immediately took in the full extent of our danger. "We shall be lost," she said, hurriedly, "if we do not take in that sail!" I was fully aware of this, but she had seen more of a sailor's perils than I had, and knew better how to meet them. She offered to assist me in taking in the sail, and directing me to be very careful, we proceeded, with the assistance of the awning, to the mast, and after a good deal of labour, and at some risk of being blown into the sea, we succeeded in furling the sail, and unshipping the mast. We were now in quite as much danger from another cause--the surface of the sea, which had been so smooth during the calm, was now so violently agitated by the wind, that the boat kept ascending one great billow only to descend into the trough of another. We often went down almost perpendicularly, and the height seemed every moment increasing; and every time we went thus plunging headlong into the boiling waters, I thought we should be engulfed never to rise; nevertheless, the next minute, up we ascended on the crest of some more fearful wave than any we had hitherto encountered, and down again we plunged in the dark unfathomable abyss that, walled in by foaming mountains of water, appeared yawning to close over us for ever. It was almost entirely dark; we could see only the white foam of the wave over which we were about to pass: save this, it was black below and black above, and impenetrable darkness all around. Mrs Reichardt sat close to me with her hand in mine--she uttered no exclamations of feminine terror--she was more awe-struck than frightened. I believe that she was fully satisfied her last hour had come, for I could hear her murmuring a prayer in which she commended her soul to her Creator. I cannot say that I was in any great degree alarmed--the rapid up-and-down motion of the boat gave me a sensation of pleasure I had never before experienced. To say the truth, I should have greatly enjoyed being thus at the mercy of the winds and waves, in the midst of a black and stormy night on the trackless ocean, had it not been for my constant thoughts of my companion, and my bitter self-reproaches for having led her into so terrible a danger. I was now, however, called from these reflections, by the necessity of active employment. The boat I found shipped water at every plunge, and if speedy means were not taken to keep the water under, there was little doubt that she would soon fill and go down. I therefore seized the iron kettle we had brought with us to cook our dinner, and began rapidly baling out the water, which was already over our ankles. We continued to ship water, sometimes more and sometimes less; and Mrs Reichardt, actuated no doubt by the same motives as myself, with a tin pan now assisted me in getting rid of the treacherous element. By our united exertions we kept the water under, and hoped to be able to get rid of the whole of it. About this time it began to rain very heavily, and although the awning protected our heads, so much fell into the boat, that notwithstanding our labours, we continued to sit in a pool. We were, however, glad to find that as the rain fell, the wind abated and as the latter subsided, the sea became less violent, and we shipped less water. I was now able by my own exertions to keep the boat tolerably dry, and Mrs Reichardt, ever provident, spread out all the empty vessels she had brought with her to catch the rain; for as she said, we did not know how valuable that water might become in a short time. The rain continued to pour down in a perfect torrent for several hours; at the end of which the sky gradually cleared. The sea, though still rough, presented none of those mountainous waves that a short time before had threatened to annihilate us at every descent, and there was just sufficient breeze to waft us along at a brisk rate with the assistance of our sail. Mrs Reichardt helped me in putting up the mast, and directly we began to feel the breeze, she insisted on my taking some refreshment. It was vitally necessary to both, for our labours had been heavy for several hours. We therefore ate sparingly of our provisions, and washed down our meal with a pannikin of water mingled with a little spirit. CHAPTER FORTY SIX. The morning dawned upon a boundless expanse of sea. The first object that presented itself to my sight was an enormous whale spouting water, about a quarter of a mile distant from me; then I observed another, then a third, and subsequently, several more: they presented a singular and picturesque appearance, as one or other of these vast animals was continually throwing up a column of water that caught the rays of the sun, and looked very beautiful in the distance. I looked in vain for land; I looked equally in vain for a ship; there was nothing visible but this shoal of whales, and Mrs Reichardt endeavoured to cheer me by describing the importance of the whale-fishery to England, and the perils which the men meet with who pursue the fish for the purpose of wounding them with an iron instrument called a harpoon. I felt much interest in these details; and my companion went into the whole history of a whaling expedition, describing the first discovery of the huge fish from the ship; the pursuit in the boats, and the harpooning of the whale; its struggles after having been wounded; its being towed to the ship's side; the subsequent manufacture of oil from the blubber of the animal, and the preparation of whalebone. In attending to this discourse, I completely, forgot that I was being tossed about in the open sea, I knew not where; and where I might be in a short time it would be proved I was equally ignorant: perhaps I should be a corpse floating on the surface of the ocean, waiting for a tomb till a shark came that way; perhaps I should be suffering the torments of hunger and thirst; perhaps cast lifeless upon a rock, where my bleached bones would remain the only monument which would then declare that there once existed in these latitudes, such a being as the Little Savage. Where now could be the island I, though long so anxious to quit, now was a thousand times more desirous of beholding? I felt that nothing could be more agreeable to me than a glimpse of that wild rocky coast that had so often appeared to me the walls of an intolerable prison. I strained my eyes in vain in every direction; the line of the horizon stretched out uninterrupted by a single break of any kind all around. Where could we be? I often asked myself; but except that we were on the wide ocean, neither myself nor my companion had the slightest idea of our geographical position. We must have been blown a considerable distance during the storm: much further than the current had taken us from the island. I calculated that we must have passed it by many a mile, if we had continued the same course; but the wind had shifted several times, and it might be that we were not so very long a sail from it, could we gain the slightest knowledge of the direction in which it was to be found. But this was hopeless. I felt assured that we must abandon all idea of seeing it again. In the midst of these painful reflections, my companion directed my attention to an object at a very considerable distance, and intimated her impression that it was a ship. Luckily, I had brought my glass with me, and soon was anxiously directing it to the required point. It was a ship: but at so great a distance that it was impossible, as Mrs Reichardt said, for any person on board to distinguish our boat. I would have sailed in that direction, but the wind was contrary: I had, therefore, no alternative but to wait till the ship should approach near enough to make us out; and I passed several hours of the deepest anxiety in watching the course of the distant vessel. She increased in size, so that I could observe that she was a large ship by the unassisted eye; but as we were running before the wind in a totally different direction, there seemed very little chance of our communicating, unless she altered her course. Mrs Reichardt mentioned that signals were made by vessels at a distance to attract each other's attention, and described the various ways in which they communicated the wishes of their respective captains. The only signal I had been in the habit of making was burning quantities of wood on the shore and pouring water on it to make it smoke--this was impossible in our boat. My companion at last suggested that I should tie a tablecloth to the mast; its peculiar whiteness might attract attention. The sail was presently taken in, and the tablecloth spread in its place; but, unfortunately, it soon afterwards came on a dead calm--the breeze died away, and the cloth hung in long folds against the mast. No notice whatever was taken of us. We now took to our oars and pulled in the direction of the ship; but after several hours' hard rowing, our strength had so suffered from our previous fatigues, that we seemed to have made very little distance. In a short time the sun set, and we watched the object of all our hopes with most anxious eyes, till night set in and hid her from our sight. Shortly afterwards a light breeze again sprung up; with renewed hope we gave our sail to the wind, but it bore us in a contrary direction, and when morning dawned we saw no more of the ship. The wind had now again shifted, and bore us briskly along. But where? I had fallen asleep during the preceding night, wearied out with labour and anxiety, and I did not wake till long after daybreak. Mrs Reichardt would not disturb me. In sleep I was insensible to the miseries and dangers of my position. She could not bring herself to disturb a repose that was at once so necessary to mind and body; and I fell into a sweet dream of a new home in that dear England I had prayed so often to see; and bright faces smiled upon me, and voices welcomed me, full of tenderness and affection. I fancied that in one of those faces I recognised my mother, of whose love I had so early been deprived, and that it was paler than all the others, but infinitely more tender and affectionate: then the countenance seemed to grow paler and paler, till it took upon itself the likeness of the fair creature I had buried in the guano, and I thought she embraced me, and her arms were cold as stone, and she pressed her lips to mine, and they gave a chill to my blood that made me shake as with an ague. Suddenly I beheld Jackson with his sightless orbs groping towards me with a knife in his hand, muttering imprecations, and he caught hold of me, and we had a desperate struggle, and he plunged a long knife into my chest, with a loud laugh of derision and malice; and as I felt the blade enter my flesh, I gave a start and jumped up, and alarmed Mrs Reichardt by the wild cry with which I awoke. How strongly was that dream impressed upon my mind; and the features of the different persons who figured in it--how distinctly they were brought before me! My poor mother was as fresh in my recollection as though I had seen her but yesterday, and the sweetness of her looks as she approached me--how I now tried to recall them, and feasted on their memory as though it were a lost blessing. Then the nameless corpse that had been washed from the wreck, how strange it seemed, that after this lapse of time she should appear to me in a dream, as though we had been long attached to each other, and her affections had been through life entirely my own. Poor girl! Perhaps even now some devoted lover mourns her loss; or hopes at no distant date to be able to join her in the new colony, to attain which a cruel destiny had forced her from his arms. Little does he dream of her nameless grave under the guano. Little does he dream that the only colony in which he is likely to join her, is that settlement in the great desert of oblivion, over which Death has remained governor from the birth of the world. But the most unpleasant part of the vision was the appearance of Jackson; and it was a long time before I could bring myself to believe that I had not beheld his well-known features--that I had not been stabbed by him, and that I was not suffering from the mortal wound he had inflicted. I however at last shook off the delusion, and to Mrs Reichardt's anxious inquiries replied only that I had had a disagreeable dream. In a short time I began to doubt whether the waking was more pleasant than the dreaming--the vast ocean still spread itself before me like a mighty winding-sheet, the fair sky, beautiful as it appeared in the rays of the morning sun, I could only regard as a pall--and our little bark was the coffin in which two helpless human beings, though still existing, were waiting interment. "Has God abandoned us?" I asked my companion; "or has He forgotten that two of His creatures are in the deepest peril of their lives, from which He alone can save them?" "Hush! Frank Henniker," exclaimed Mrs Reichardt, solemnly; "this is impious. God never abandons those who are worthy of His protection. He will either save them at His own appointed time--or if He think it more desirable, will snatch them from a scene where so many dangers surround them, and place them where there prevails eternal tranquillity and everlasting bliss. "We should rather rejoice," she added, with increasing seriousness, "that we are thought worthy of being so early taken from a world in which we have met with so many troubles." "But to die in this way," I observed gloomily; "to be left to linger out days of terrible torture, without a hope of relief--I cannot reconcile myself to it." "We must die sooner or later," she said, "and there are many diseases which are fatal after protracted suffering of the most agonising description. These we have been spared. The wretch who lingers in torment, visited by some loathsome disorder, would envy us, could he see the comparatively easy manner in which we are suffered to leave existence. "But I do not myself see the hopelessness of our case," she added. "It is not yet impossible that we may be picked up by a ship, or discover some friendly shore whence we might obtain a passage for England." "I see no prospect of this," said I; "we are apparently out of the track of ships, and if it should be our chance to discover one, the people on board are not likely to observe us. I wish I had never left the island." Mrs Reichardt never reproached me--never so much as reminded me that it was my own fault. She merely added, "It was the will of God." We ate and drank our small rations--my companion always blessing the meal, and offering a thanksgiving for being permitted to enjoy it. I noticed what was left. We had been extremely economical, yet there was barely enough for another day. We determined still further to reduce the trifling portion we allowed ourselves that we might increase our chance of escape. CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN. Five days and nights had we been drifting at the mercy of the winds and waves; all our small stock of food had been devoured--though we had hoarded every crumb, as the miser hoards his gold. Even the rain-water, as well as the water we had brought with us, we had drained to the last drop. The weather continually alternated from a dead calm to a light breeze: the wind frequently shifted, but I had no strength left to attend to the sail--the boat was abandoned to its own guidance, or rather to that of the wind. When becalmed, we lay still; when the breeze sprung up, we pursued our course till the sail no longer felt its influence. Five long days and nights--days of intolerable suffering, nights of inexpressible horror. From sunrise to sunset I strained my eyes along the line of the horizon, but nothing but sky and wave ever met my gaze. When it became dark, excited by the deep anxiety I had endured throughout the day, I could not sleep. I fancied I beheld through the darkness monstrous forms mocking and gibbering, and high above them all was reared the head of the enormous python I had combated in the Happy Valley. And he opened his tremendous jaws, as though to swallow me, and displayed fold upon fold of his immense form, as if to involve and crush the boat in its mighty involutions. I was always glad when the day dawned, or if the night happened to be fair and starlight; for the spectres vanished when the sun shone, and the tranquil beauty of the stars calmed my soul. I was famishing for want of food--but I suffered most from want of water, for the heat during the day was tremendous, and I became so frantic from thirst, that nothing but the exhortations of Mrs Reichardt would have prevented me from dashing myself into the sea, and drinking my fill of the salt-water that looked so tempting and refreshing. My companion sought to encourage me to hope, long after all hope had vanished--then she preached resignation to the Divine will, and in her own nature gave a practical commentary on her text. I perceived that her voice was getting more and more faint--and that she was becoming hourly more feeble. She was not able to move from her seat, and at last asked me to assist her to lie down at the bottom of the boat. Then I noticed that she prayed fervently, and I could often distinguish my name in these petitions to the throne of Grace. I felt a strange sensation in my head, and my tongue became in my mouth as a dry stick--from this I was relieved by chewing the sleeve of my shirt; but my head grew worse. My eyes too were affected in a strange manner. I continually fancied that I saw ships sailing about at a little distance from me, and I strove to attract their attention by calling to them. My voice was weak, and I could create only a kind of half-stifled cry. Then I thought I beheld land: fair forests and green pastures spread before me--bright flowers and refreshing fruits grew all around--and I called to my companion to make haste, for we were running ashore and should presently be pulling the clustering grapes and should lay ourselves down among the odorous flowers. Mrs Reichardt opened her eyes and gazed at me with a more painful interest. She knew I was haunted by the chimeras created by famine and thirst; but she seemed to have lost all power of speech. She motioned me to join her in prayer; I, however, was too much occupied with the prospect of landing, and paid no attention to her signs. Presently the bright landscape faded away, and I beheld nothing but the wide expanse of water, the circle of which appeared to expand and spread into the sky, and the sky seemed lost and broken up in the water, and for a few minutes they were mixed together in the wildest and strangest confusion. Subsequently to this I must have dropped asleep, for after a while I found myself huddled up in a corner of the boat, and must have fallen there from my seat. I stared about me for some time unconscious where I was. The bright sun still shone over my head; the everlasting sea still rolled beneath my feet. I looked to the bottom of the boat, and met the upturned gaze of my fellow voyager. The pale face had grown paler, and the expression of the painful eye had become less intelligent. I thought she was as I had seen her in my dream when she changed from her own likeness to that of the poor drowned girl we buried in the guano. I turned away my gaze--the sight was too painful to look upon. I felt assured that she was dying, and that in a very short space of time, that faithful and affectionate nature I must part from for ever. I thought I would make a last effort--though faint and trembling, burning with fever, and feeling deadly sick, I managed by the support of the awning to crawl to the mast, and embracing it with one arm, I raised the glass with the other hand, and looked carefully about. My hand was very unsteady and my eyes seemed dim. I could discern nothing but water. I should have sunk in despair to the bottom of the boat, had I not been attracted at the moment by a singular appearance in the sky. A cloud was approaching, of a shape and appearance I had never observed before. I raised the glass again, and after observing this cloud for some time with great attention, I felt assured that what I considered to be long lines of vapour was an immense flock of birds. This discovery interested me--I forgot the intensity of my sufferings in observing the motions of this apparently endless flock. As the first file approached, I looked again, to see if I could make out what they were. God of Heaven! They were gannets. I crawled back to my companion as rapidly as my feeble limbs would allow, to inform her of the discovery I had made. Alas! I found that I was unheeded. I could not believe that her fine spirit had fled: no, she moved her hand; but the dull spiritless gaze seemed to warn me that her dissolution was fast approaching. I looked for the spirit-flask, and found a few drops were still left there; I poured these into her mouth, and watched the result with the deepest anxiety I had ever known since the day of my birth. In a few minutes I found that she breathed more regularly and distinctly--presently her eyes lost that fixedness which had made them so painful to look upon. Then she recognised me, and took hold of my hand, regarding me with the sweet smile with which I was so familiar. As soon as I found that consciousness had returned, I told her of the great flock of gannets that were evidently wending their way to their customary resting-place, and the hope I entertained that if they could be kept in sight, and the wind remained in the same quarter, the boat might be led by them to the place where they laid their eggs. She listened to me with attention, and evidently understood what I said. Her lips moved, and I thought she was returning thanks to God-- accepting the flight of the birds as a manifest proof that he was still watching over us. In a few minutes she seemed so much better that she could sit up. I noticed her for some time watching the gannets that now approached in one vast cloud that threatened to shut us out from the sky--she then turned her gaze in an opposite direction, and with a smile of exultation that lit up her wan face as with a glory, stretched her arm out, pointing her hand to a distant portion of the sea. My gaze quickly followed hers, and I fancied I discovered a break in the line of the horizon; but it did not look like a ship. I pointed the glass in that direction, and felt the joyful assurance that we were within sight of land. This additional discovery gave me increased strength or rather hope now dawning upon us, gave me an impulse I had not felt before. I in my turn became the consoler. I encouraged Mrs Reichardt, with all the arguments of which I was master, to think that we should soon be in safety. She smiled, and something like animation again appeared in her pale features. If I could save her, I felt I should be blessed beyond measure. Such an object was worth striving for; and I did strive. I know not how it was that I gained strength to do what I did on that day; but I felt that I was supported from on High, and as the speck of land that she had first discovered gradually enlarged itself as we approached it, my exertions to secure a speedy rescue for my companion from the jaws of death, continued to increase. The breeze remained fair, and we scudded along at a spanking rate, the gannets keeping us company all the way--evidently bound to the same shore. I kept talking to Mrs Reichardt, and endeavouring to raise her spirits with the most cheering description of what we should do when we got ashore; for God would be sure to direct us to some place where we might without difficulty recover our strength. Hitherto she had not spoken; but as soon as we began to distinguish the features of the shore we were approaching, she unclosed her lips, and again the same triumphant smile played around them. "Frank Henniker, do you know that rock?" "No!--yes!--can it be possible? O what a gracious Providence has been watching over us!" It was a rock of a remarkable shape that stood a short distance from the fishing-pool. It could not be otherwise, the gannets had led us to their old haunts. We were approaching our island. I looked at my companion--she was praying. I immediately joined with her in thanksgiving for the signal mercy that had been vouchsafed to us, and in little more than an hour had the priceless satisfaction of carrying her from the shore to the cottage, and then we carefully nursed ourselves till we recovered the effects of this dreadful cruise. CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT. My numerous pursuits, as I stated in a preceding chapter, obliging me to constant occupation, kept me from useless repining about my destiny, in being obliged to live so many years on this far-distant corner of the earth. I had long ceased to look for passing ships--I scarcely ever thought about them, and had given up all speculations about my grandfather's reception of me. I rarely went out to sea, except to fish, and never cared to trouble myself about anything beyond the limited space which had become my inheritance. The reader, then, may judge of my surprise when, one sultry day, I had been busily engaged for several hours cutting down a field of wheat, Mrs Reichardt came running to me with the astounding news that there was a ship off the island, and a boat full of people had just left her and were rowing towards the rocks. I hastily took the glass she had brought with her, and as soon as I could get to a convenient position, threw myself on the ground on the rock, and reconnoitred through the glass the appearance of the newcomers. I soon noticed that a part were well armed, which was not the case with the rest, for they were pinioned in such a manner that they could scarcely move hand or foot. We concealed ourselves by lying our lengths on the grass. As the boat approached, I could discern that the unarmed party belonged to a superior class of men, while many of the others had countenances that did not prepossess me at all in their favour. We lay hid in the long grass, from which we could command a view of our approaching visitors. "I think I understand this," whispered Mrs Reichardt. "There is mischief here." "Had I not better run home and get arms?" I asked. "No," she replied, "you had better not. If we are able to do any good, we must do it by stratagem. Let us watch their movements, and act with great caution." My companion's advice was, I saw, the wisest that could be pursued; and therefore we remained in our hiding-places, narrowly observing our visitors as they approached. They entered the fishing-pool, and I could then distinctly not only see, but hear them. To my extreme surprise, one of the first men who jumped out of the boat was John Gough, who had brought Mrs Reichardt to the island. He looked older, but I recognised him in a moment, and so did my companion. Her admonitory "Hush!" kept me from betraying the place of our concealment--so great was my astonishment, having long believed him and all his lawless associates to have been lost at sea. He was well armed, and evidently possessed some authority; nevertheless, I thought I could detect an air of concern in his features, as he offered to help one of the captives out of the boat. The latter, however, regarded him with an air of disdain, and, though his hands were tied behind him, leaped ashore without assistance. He was a man of commanding stature, with a well-bronzed face, and a look of great energy of character. He wore a band of gold lace round his cap, and had on duck trousers, and a blue jacket and waistcoat. "Come, Captain!" exclaimed John Gough, "I bear you no malice. Though you have been rather hard upon us, we won't leave you to starve." "He's a deuced deal better off than he desarves to be," cried a man from the boat, whom I at once recognised as the fellow on whom I had drawn my knife for hurting Nero. "If we had made him walk the plank, as I proposed, I'm blowed if it wouldn't have been much more to the purpose than putting him on this here island, with lots o' prog, and everything calkilated to make him and his domineering officers comfortable for the rest of their days." "Hold your tongue, you mutineering rascal," exclaimed the Captain, angrily; "a rope's end at the yard-arm will be your deserts before long." "Thank ye kindly, Captain," replied the fellow, touching his hat in mockery. "But you must be pleased to remember I ain't caught yet; and we means to have many a jolly cruise in your ship, and get no end o' treasure, before I shall think o' my latter end; and then I means to die like a Christian, and repent o' my sins, and make a much more edifying example than I should exhibit dangling at the end of a rope." The men laughed, the Captain muttered something about "pirates and mutineers," but the rest of the officers wisely held their tongues. I now noticed an elderly man of very respectable appearance, who was not pinioned like the rest. His hair was quite white, his complexion very pale, and he looked like one oppressed with deep sorrow and anxiety. He rose from his seat in the boat, and was assisted out by John Gough. "I'm very sorry that we are obliged to leave you here, Mr Evelyn," said Gough, "but you see sir, we have no alternative. We couldn't keep you with us, for many reasons; and therefore we have been obliged to make you a sharer in the fate of our officers." "And werry painful this is to our feelings, sir, you may believe," said another of the mutineers, mockingly. "I'm quite moloncholy as I thinks on it." The men again laughed; but the person so addressed walked to the side of the Captain without making any observation. The other captives also left the boat in silence. They were eight in all, but four of them were evidently common seamen by their dress--the others were officers. All were well-made strong men. "What a precious pretty colony you'll make, my hearties!" exclaimed one of the mutineers, jeeringly, as he helped to land a cask, and some other packages, that they had brought with them. "It's a thousand pities you ain't got no female associates, that you might marry, and settle, and bring up respectable families." "Talking of women," cried the one who had first spoken, "I wonder what became of the one we left here so cleverly when we was wrecked at this here place six years ago." John Gough looked uneasy at this inquiry, as if the recollection was not agreeable to him. "And the Little Savage," continued the fellow, "what was a-going to send his knife into my ribs for summat or other--I forget what. They must have died long ago, I ain't no doubt, as we unfortnitely left 'em nothin' to live upon." "No doubt they died hand in hand, like the Babes in the Wood," said another. I still observed John Gough; he seemed distressed at the turn the conversation had taken. "Now, mates," he said, hurriedly, "let us return to the ship. We have done what we came to do." "I votes as we shall go and see arter the missionary's woman and the Little Savage," cried the fourth. "I should like, somehow, to see whether they be living or not, and a stroll ashore won't do any on us any harm." "I shall remain here till you return," said John Gough; and he threw himself on the grass with his back towards me, and only a few yards from the place in which we were concealed. The rest, after making fast the boat, started off on an exploring expedition, in the direction of the old hut. CHAPTER FORTY NINE. The captives were grouped together, some sitting, and some standing. Not one of them looked dejected at his fate; though I could see by their movements that they were impatient of the bonds that tied them. My attention was most frequently directed to the old gentleman who had been addressed as Mr Evelyn. Notwithstanding the grief expressed in his countenance, it possessed an air of benevolence and kindness of heart that even his settled melancholy did not conceal. I could not understand why, but I felt a deeper interest for this person than for any of the others--a sort of yearning towards him, mingled with a desire to protect him from the malice of his enemies. Almost as soon as they were gone, John Gough beckoned to Mr Evelyn to sit down by his side. Possibly this was done to prevent his assisting his companions to regain their liberty, as he, not being pinioned like the rest, might easily have done, and they might have overpowered their guard before his companions could come to his assistance. But Gough was well armed, and the rest being without weapons of any kind, it was scarcely probable that they would have risked their lives on so desperate an attempt. Mr Evelyn came and quietly sat himself down in the place indicated. I observed him with increasing interest, and, singular to relate, the more I gazed on his venerable face, the more strongly I felt assured that I had seen it before. This of course was impossible; nevertheless, the fancy took possession of me, and I experienced a strange sensation of pleasure as I watched the changes his features underwent. "John Gough, I am sorry to see you mixed up in this miserable business," said he, mildly addressing his companion. The other did not answer, and as his back was turned towards me, I could not observe the effect the observation had upon him. "The men who have left us, I know to be bad men," continued the speaker; "I expect nothing but wickedness from them. But you, I am aware, have been better brought up. Your responsibility therefore becomes the greater in assisting them in their villainy." "You had better not let them hear you, Mr Evelyn," replied Gough, at last, in something like a surly tone; "I would not answer for the consequences." "Those I do not fear," the other answered. "The results of this transaction can make very little difference to a man on the verge of the grave, who has outlived all his relatives, and has nothing left to fall back upon but the memory of his misfortunes: but to one in the prime of life like yourself, who can boast of friends and relatives who feel an interest in your good name, these results must be serious indeed. What must be the feelings of your respectable father when he learns that you have joined a gang of pirates; how intense must be the grief of your amiable mother when she hears that you have paid the penalty that must sooner or later overtake you for embracing so lawless a life." "Come, Mr Evelyn," exclaimed Gough, though with a tremulousness in his voice that betrayed the state of his feelings, "you have no right to preach to me. I have done as much as I could for you all. The men would have made short work with you if I had not interposed, and pointed out to them this uninhabited island." "Where it seems you left a poor woman to be starved to death," continued Mr Evelyn. "It was no fault of mine," replied the man; "I did all I could to prevent it." "It would have been more manly if you had remained with her on this rock, and left your cowardly associates to take their selfish course. But you are weak and irresolute, John Gough; too easily persuaded into evil, too slow to follow the impulses of good. The murder of that poor woman is as much your deed as if you had blown her brains out before you abandoned her. Indeed I do not know but what the latter would have been the less criminal." John Gough made no answer. I do not think, however, his mind was quite easy under this accusation, for he seemed restless, and kept playing with his pistols, with his eyes cast down. "Your complicity in this mutiny, too, John Gough, is equally inexcusable," continued Mr Evelyn. "It was your duty to have stood by Captain Manvers and his officers; by which you would have earned their eternal gratitude, and a handsome provision from the owners of the vessel." "It's no use talking of these things now, Mr Evelyn," said Gough, hurriedly. "I have taken my course. It is too late to turn back. Would to God," he added, dashing his hand violently against his brow, "I had had nothing to do with it." "It is never too late, John Gough, to do good," here cried out Mrs Reichardt, as she rose from her place of concealment, as much to my surprise as that of all who could observe her. But nothing could equal the astonishment of Gough when he first caught sight of her features--he sprang to his feet, leaving his pistols on the ground, and clasping his hands together, exclaimed, "Thank God, she is safe!" "Yes," she replied, approaching him and taking his hand kindly. "By an interposition of Providence you are saved from the guilt of one murder. In the name of that God who has so signally preserved you against yourself, I command you to abandon your present wicked designs." The man hesitated, but it seemed as if he could not take his gaze from her face, and it was evident that her presence exerted an extraordinary influence over him. In the mean time I had made my appearance on the scene, not less to the astonishment of the lookers-on; and my first act was to take possession of the pair of pistols that Gough had left on the ground; my next to hurry to the group of captives, who had been regarding us, in a state as it were of perfect bewilderment, and with my American knife to cut their bonds. "I will do whatever you think proper," said John Gough. "Believe me, I have been reluctantly led into this, and joined the mutiny knowing that I should have been murdered if I did not." "You must endeavour to make what amends are in your power," continued Mrs Reichardt, "by assisting your officers in recovering possession of the ship." "I will gladly assist in whatever they may think feasible," said the man. "But we must first secure the desperate fellows who have just left us; and as we are but poorly provided with weapons, that of itself will be a service of no slight danger. To get possession of the ship I am afraid will be still more hazardous; but you shall find me in the front of every danger." Here Captain Manvers and the others came up to where John Gough and Mrs Reichardt were conversing; he heard Gough's last speech, and he was going to say something, when I interposed by stating that there was no time now for explanations, for in a few minutes the fellows who had gone to the hut would return, and the only way to prepare for them was for the whole party to go to our house, to which Mrs Reichardt would lead them, where they would find plenty of arms and ammunition. In the meantime I would keep watch, and observe their motions, and by firing one of the pistols would signal to them if I was in any danger. Lastly, I recommended that the oars should be removed from the boat, to prevent the mutineers making their escape to the ship. My appearance and discourse attracted general attention. I particularly noticed that Mr Evelyn started as soon as he caught sight of me, and appeared to observe me with singular carefulness; but that, no doubt, arose from my unexpected address, and the strange way in which I had presented myself before him. The Captain approving of my proposal, the whole party, after taking away the boat's oars, moved off rapidly in the direction of the house. I again concealed myself in the grass, and waited the return of the mutineers. They did not remain away long. I could hear them approaching, for they laughed and shouted as they went along, loud enough to be heard at a considerable distance. When they began to descend the rocks, they passed so close to me, that I could hear every word that was spoken. "Well, flesh is grass, as the parson says," said Jack, "they must have died sooner or later, if we hadn't parted company with so little ceremony. But, hallo! My eyes and limbs! Where's John Gough? Where's the Captain? Where's all on 'em?" It is impossible to express the astonishment of the men on reaching the spot where they had so lately left their prisoners, and discovering that not a trace of them was to be seen. At first they imagined that they had escaped in the boat, but as soon as they saw that the boat was safe, they gave up that idea. Then they fancied John Gough had taken the prisoners to stroll a little distance inland, and they began to shout as loud as their lungs would permit them. Receiving no response, they uttered many strange ejaculations, which I could not then understand, but which I have since learned were profane oaths; and seemed at a loss what to do, whether to wander about the island in search of them, or return to their ship. Only one chanced to be for the former, and the others overruled him, not thinking it was worth their while to take so much trouble as to go rambling about in a strange place. They seemed bent on taking to the boat, when one of them suggested they might get into a scrape if they returned without their companion. They finally resolved on sitting down and waiting his return. Presently, one complained he was very sleepy, as he had been too busy mutineering to turn into his hammock the previous night, and the others acknowledged they also felt an equal want of rest from the same cause. Each began to yawn. They laid themselves at their full length along the grass, and in a short time I could hear by their snoring, as Jackson used to do, that they were asleep. I now crept stealthily towards them on my hands and knees, and they were in such a profound sleep, that I had no difficulty whatever in removing the pistols from their belts. I had just succeeded in this, when I beheld the Captain, and John Gough, and Mr Evelyn, and all the rest of them, well armed with guns and pistols, approaching the place where we were. In a few minutes afterwards the mutineers were made prisoners, without their having an opportunity of making the slightest resistance. I was much complimented by the Captain for the dexterity with which I had disarmed them; but while I was in conversation with him, it is impossible to express the surprise I felt, on seeing Mr Evelyn suddenly rush towards me from the side of Mrs Reichardt, with whom he had been talking, and embracing me with the most moving demonstrations of affection, claim me as his grandson. The mystery was soon explained. Mr Evelyn had met so many losses in business as a merchant, that he took the opportunity of a son of his old clerk--who had become a captain of a fine ship, employed in the South American trade--being about to proceed on a trading voyage to that part of the world, to sail in his vessel with a consignment of goods for the South American market. He had also another object, which was to inquire after the fate of his long-lost daughter and son-in-law, of whom he had received no certain intelligence, since the latter took ship with the diamonds he had purchased to return home. The vessel in which they sailed had never been heard of since; and Mr Evelyn had long given up all hopes of seeing either of them again, or the valuable property with which they had been intrusted. On their going to the house, he had asked Mrs Reichardt my name, stating that I so strongly resembled a very dear friend of his he believed had perished many years ago, that he felt quite an interest in me. The answer he received led to a series of the most earnest inquiries, and Mrs Reichardt satisfied him on every point, showed him all the property that had formerly been in the possession of Mrs Henniker and her husband; related Jackson's story, and convinced him, that though he had lost the daughter for whom he had mourned so long, her representative existed in the Little Savage, who was saving him from the fate for which he had been preserved by the mutineers. I have only to add, that I had the happiness of restoring to my grandfather the diamonds I had obtained from Jackson, which were no doubt very welcome to him, for they not only restored him to affluence, but made him one of the richest merchants upon Change. I was also instrumental in obtaining for the Captain the command of his ship, and of restoring discipline amongst the crew. The ringleaders of the mutiny were thrown into irons, and taken home for trial; this resulted in one or two of them being hanged by way of example, and these happened to be the men who so barbarously deserted Mrs Reichardt. She accompanied me to England in Captain Manvers' vessel; for when he heard of the obligations I owed her, my grandfather decided that she should remain with us as long as she lived. We however did not leave the island, until we had shown my grandfather, the captain, and his officers, what we had effected during our stay, and every one was surprised that we could have produced a flourishing farm upon a barren rock. I did not fail to show the places where I had had my fight with the python, and where I had been pursued by the sharks, and my narrative of both incidents seemed to astonish my hearers exceedingly. I must not forget to add, that the day before our departure, John Gough came to me privately, and requested my good offices with the Captain, that he might be left on the island. He had become a very different character to what he had previously been; and as there could be no question that the repentance he assumed was sincere, I said all I could for him. My recommendation was successful, and I transferred to John Gough all my farm, farming stock, and agricultural implements; moreover, promised to send him whatever he might further require to make his position comfortable. He expressed great gratitude, but desired nothing; only that his family might know that he was well off, and was not likely to return. Perhaps John Gough did not like the risk he ran of being tried for mutiny, or was averse to sailing with his former comrades: but whatever was the cause of his resolution, it is certain that he remained behind when the ship left the island, and may be there to this hour for all I know to the contrary. We made a quick voyage to England, and as my readers will be no doubt glad to hear, the Little Savage landed safely at Plymouth, and was soon cordially welcomed to his grandfather's house in London. FINIS. 
26829	----	[Transcriber's note: Susan Warner (1819-1885), _The Old Helmet_ (1864), Tauchnitz edition 1864, volume 1] THE OLD HELMET. BY THE AUTHOR OF "WIDE, WIDE WORLD." AUTHORIZED EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. LEIPZIG BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ 1864. NOTE TO THE READER. The incidents and testimonies given in this work as matters of fact, are not drawn from imagination, but reported from excellent authority--though I have used my own words. And in the cases of reported words of third parties, the words stand unchanged, without any meddling. THE AUTHOR. THE OLD HELMET. CHAPTER I. THE RUINS. "She look'd and saw that all was ruinous, Here stood a shattered archway plumed with fern; And here had fall'n a great part of a tower, Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff, And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers, And high above a piece of turret stair, Worn by the feet that now were silent, Bare to the sun." The first thing noticeable is a gleam of white teeth. Now that is a pleasant thing generally; yet its pleasantness depends, after all, upon the way the lips part over the ivory. There is a world of character discoverable in the curve of those soft lines. In the present case, that of a lady, as it is undoubtedly the very first thing you notice, the matter must be investigated. The mouth is rather large, with well cut lips however; and in the smile which comes not infrequently, the lips part freely and frankly, though not too far, over a wealth of white, beautiful teeth. So free is the curve of the upper lip, and so ready its revelation of the treasures beneath, that there is an instant suspicion of a certain frankness and daring, and perhaps of a little mischief, on the part of their possessor; so free, at the same time, as to forbid the least notion of consciousness or design in that beautiful revelation. But how fine and full and regular are those white treasures of hers! seeming to speak for a strong and perfect physical organisation; and if your eye goes further, for her flat hat is on the ground, you will see in the bountiful rich head of hair another token of the same thing. Her figure is finely developed; her colour clear and healthy; not blonde; the full-brown hair and eyes agree with the notion of a nature more lively than we assign to the other extreme of complexion. The features are not those of a beauty, though better than that, perhaps; there is a world of life and sense and spirit in them. It speaks for her good nature and feeling, that her smile is as frank as ever just now, and as pleasant as ever; for she is with about the last one of her party on whom she would have chosen to bestow herself. The occasion is a visit to some celebrated ruins; a day of pleasure; and Eleanor would a good deal rather be walking and talking with another much more interesting member of the company, in whose society indeed her day had begun; but Mr. Carlisle had been obliged suddenly to return home for an hour or two; and Eleanor is sitting on a grassy bank, with a gentleman beside her whom she knows very little and does not care about at all. That is, she has no idea he can be very interesting; and he _is_ a grave-looking personage, but we are not going to describe him at present. A word must be given to the place where they are. It is a little paradise. If the view is not very extended, it is rich in its parts; and the eye and the mind are filled. The grass is shaven smooth on the bank where the two are sitting; so it is all around, under trees which stand with wilful wildness of luxuriance, grouped and scattered apparently as they would. They are very old, in several varieties of kind, and in the perfect development and thrift of each kind. Among them are the ruins of an old priory. They peep forth here and there from the trees. One broken tower stands free, with ivy masking its sides and crumbling top, and stains of weather and the hues of lichen and moss enriching what was once its plain grey colour. Other portions of the ruins are seen by glimpses further on among the trees. Standing somewhat off by itself, yet encompassed by the congeners of those same trees, almost swallowed up among them, is a comfortable, picturesque little building, not in ruins; though it has been built up from the ruins. It is the parsonage, where the rector of the parish lives. Beyond this wood and these buildings, old and new, the eye can catch only bits of hills and woods that promise beauty further on; but nearer than they, and making a boundary line between the present and the distant, the flash of a little river is seen, which curves about the old priory lands. A somewhat doubtful sunlight is struggling over it all; casting a stray beam on the grass, and a light on the ivy of the old tower. "What a queer old place it must have been," said Eleanor. "How old is it?" "O I don't know--ages! Do you mean really how old? I am sure I can't tell; I never can keep those things in my head. If Dr. Cairnes would come out, he could tell you all about it, and more." "Dr. Cairnes, the rector?" "Yes. He keeps it all in _his_ head, I know. The ruins are instead of a family to him." "They must date back pretty far, judging by those Norman arches." "Norman arches?--what, those round ones? O, they do. The priory was founded by some old courtier or soldier in the time of Henry the First, who got disgusted with the world. That is the beginning of all these places, isn't it?" "Do you mean, that it is the beginning of all religious feeling?" "I really think it is. I wouldn't tell Dr. Cairnes so however. How sweet these violets are. Dear little blue things!" "Do you suppose,", said the young man, stooping to pick one or two, "that they are less sweet to me than to you?" "Why should they be?" "Because, religion is the most precious thing in the world to me; and by your rule, I must be disgusted with the world, and all sweet things have lost their savour." He spoke with quiet gravity, and Eleanor's eye went to his face with a bright glance of inquiry. It came back with no change of opinion. "You don't convert me," she said. "I do not know what you have given up for religion, so I cannot judge. But all the other people I ever saw, grew religious only because they had lost all care about everything else." "I wonder how that discontented old soldier found himself, when he got into these solitudes?" said the young man, with a smile of his own then. It was sweet, and a little arch, and withal harmonised completely with the ordinary gravity of his face, not denying it at all. Eleanor looked, once and again, with some curiosity, but the smile passed away as quietly as it had come. "The solitude was not _this_ solitude then." "O no, it was very wild." "These were Augustine canons, were they not?" "Who?" "The monks of this priory." "I am sure I don't know. I forget. What was the difference?" "You know there were many orders of religious houses. The Augustines were less severe in their rule, and more genial in their allowed way of life, than most of the others?" "What was their rule?" "Beginning with discontent of the world, you know, they went on with the principle that nothing worldly was good." "Well, isn't that the principle of all religious people now?" "I like violets"--said the young man, smiling again. "But do tell me, what did those old monks do? What was their 'rule?' I don't know anything about it, nor about them." "Another old discontented soldier, who founded an abbey in Wales, is said by the historian to have dismissed all his former companions, and devoted himself to God. For his military belt, he tied a rope about his waist; instead of fine linen he put on haircloth. And it is recorded of him, that the massive suit of armour which he had been used to wear in battle, to protect him against the arrows and spears and axes of the enemy, he put on now and wore as a defence against the wiles and assaults of the devil--and wore it till it rusted away with age." "Poor old soul!" said Eleanor. "Does that meet your ideas of a religious life?" Eleanor laughed, but answered by another question. "Was _that_ the rule of all the Augustine monks?" "It gives the key to it. Is that your notion of a religious life? You don't answer me." "Well," said Eleanor laughing again, "_it gives the key to it_, as you say. I do not suppose you wear a suit of armour to protect yourself." "I beg your pardon. I do." "_Armour?_" said Eleanor, looking incredulous. But her friend fairly burst into a little laugh at that. "Are you rested?" said he. And Eleanor got up, feeling a little indignant and a little curious. Strolling towards the ruins, however, there was too much to start conversation and too much to give delight, to permit either silence or pique to last. "Isn't it beautiful!" burst from both at once. "How exquisite that ivy is, climbing up that old tower!" "And what a pity it is crumbling away so!" said Eleanor. "See that nearer angle--it is breaking down fast. I wish it would stay as it is." "Nothing will do that for you. What is all that collection of rubbish yonder?" "That is where Mr. Carlisle is going to build a cottage for one of his people--somebody to take care of the ruins, I believe." "And he takes the ruins to build it with, and the old priory grounds too!" Eleanor looked again at her companion. "I think it is better than to have the broken stones lying all over--don't you?" "I do not." "Mr. Carlisle thinks so. Now here we are in the body of the church--there you see where the roof went, by the slanting lines on the tower wall; and we are standing where the congregation used to assemble." "Not much of a congregation," said her companion. "The neighbouring country furnished few attendants, I fancy; the old monks and their retainers were about all. The choir would hold most of them; the nave, where we are standing, would have been of little use except for processions." "Processions?" said Eleanor. "On particular days there were processions of the brotherhood, with lighted candles--round and round in the church. In the church at York twelve rounds made a mile, and there were twelve holes at the great door, with a little peg, so that any one curious about the matter might reckon the miles." "And so they used to go up and down here, burning their fingers with melted tallow!" said Eleanor. "Poor creatures! What a melancholy existence! Are you preparing to renounce the world yourself, Mr. Rhys?" He smiled, but it was a compound smile, light and earnest both at once, which Eleanor did not comprehend. "Why do you suspect me?" he asked. "You seem to be studying the thing. Are you going to be a white or a black monk--or a grey friar?" "There is a prior question. It is coming on to rain, Miss Powle." "Rain! It is beginning this minute! And all the umbrellas are nobody knows where--only that it is where we ought to be. I was glad just now that the old roof in gone--but I think I would like a piece of it back." "You can take shelter at the parsonage." "No, I cannot--they have got fever there." "Then come with me. I believe I can find you a piece of roof somewhere." Eleanor smiled to herself that he should think so, as all traces of beam and rafter had long since disappeared from the priory and its dependencies. However she followed her conductor, who strode along among the ruins at a pace which it taxed her powers to keep up with. Presently he plunged down into a wilderness of bushes and wild thorn and piled up stones which the crumbling walls had left in confusion strewn over the ground. It was difficult walking. Eleanor had never been there; for in that quarter the decay of the buildings was more entire, and the growth of shrubs and brambles had been allowed to mask the disorder. As they went on, the footing grew very rough; they were obliged to go over heaps and layers of the crumbling, moss-grown ruins. Eleanor's conductor turned and gave her his hand to help; it was a strong hand and quickened her progress. Presently turning a sharp corner, through a thicket of thorn and holly bushes, with young larches and beeches, a small space of clearance was gained, bounded on the other side by a thick wall, one angle of which was standing. On this clear spot the rain drops were falling fast. The hand that held Eleanor's hurried her across it, to where an old window remained sunk in the wall. The arch over the window was still entire, and as the wall was one of the outer walls and very thick, the shelter of a "piece of roof" was literally afforded. Eleanor's conductor seated her on the deep window sill, where she was perfectly screened from the rain; and apologising for the necessity of the occasion, took his place beside her. The window was narrow as well as deep; and the two, who hardly knew each other, were brought into very familiar neighbourhood. Eleanor would have been privately amused, if the first passing consciousness of amusement had not been immediately chased away by one or two other thoughts. The first was the extreme beauty of her position as a point of view. The ruins were all behind them. As they looked out of the window, nothing was seen but the most exquisite order and the most dainty perfection of nature. The ground, shaven and smooth, sloped away down to a fringe of young wood, amidst which peeped out a pretty cottage and above which a curl of smoke floated. The cottage stood so low, and the trees were so open, that above and beyond appeared the receding slopes and hills of the river valley, in their various shades of colour, grass and foliage. There was no sun on all this now, but a beautiful light under the rain cloud from the distant horizon. And the dark old stone window was the frame for this picture. It was very perfect. It was very rare. Eleanor exclaimed in delight. "But I never was here--I never saw this before! How did you know of it, Mr. Rhys?" "I have studied the ruins," he said lightly. "But you have been at Wiglands only a few months." "I come here very often," he answered. "Happily for you." He might add that well enough, for the clouds poured down their rain now in torrents, or in sheets; the light which had come from the horizon a few minutes before was hidden, and the grey gloom of a summer storm was over everything. The little window seemed dark, with the two people sitting there. Then there came a blinding flash of lightning. Eleanor started and cowered, and the thunder rolled its deep tones over them, and under them, for the earth shook. She raised her head again, but only to shrink back the second time, when the lightning and the thunder were repeated. This time her head was not raised again, and she kept her hand covered over her eyes. Yet whenever the sound of the thunder came, Eleanor's frame answered it by a start. She said nothing; it was merely the involuntary answer of the nerves. The storm was a severe one, and when the severity of it passed a little further off, the torrents of rain still fell. "You do not like thunder storms"--Mr. Rhys remarked, when the lightnings had ceased to be so vivid or so near. "Does anybody like them?" "Yes. I like everything." "You are happy"--said Eleanor. "Why are not you?" "I can't help it," said the girl, lifting up her head, though she did not let her eyes go out of the window. "I cannot bear to see the lightning. It is foolish, but I cannot help it." "Are you sure it is foolish? Is there not some reason at the bottom of it?" "I think there is a reason, though still it is foolish. There was a man killed by lightning just by our door, once--when I was a child. I saw him--I never can forget it, never!" And a sort of shudder ran over Eleanor's shoulders as she spoke. "You want my armour," said her companion. The tone of voice was not only grave but sympathising. Eleanor looked up at him. "Your armour?" "You charged me with wearing armour--and I confessed it," he said with something of a smile. "It is a sort of armour that makes people safe in all circumstances." He looked so quiet, so grave, so cool, and his eye had such a light in it, that Eleanor could not throw off his words. He _looked_ like a man in armour. But no mail of brass was to be seen. "What _do_ you mean?" she said. "Did you never hear of the helmet of salvation?" "I don't know," said Eleanor wonderingly. "I think I have heard the words. I do not think I ever attached any meaning to them." "Did you never feel," he said, speaking with a peculiar deliberation of manner, "that you were exposed to danger--and to death--from which no effort of yours could free you; and that after death, there is a great white throne to meet, for which you are not ready?" While he spoke slowly, his eyes were fixed upon Eleanor with a clear piercing glance which she felt read her through and through; but she was fascinated instead of angered, and submitted her own eyes to the reading without wishing to turn them away. Carrying on two trains of thought at the same time, as the mind will, her inward reflection was, "I had no idea that you were so good-looking!"--the answer in words was a sober, "I have felt so." "Was the feeling a happy one?" Eleanor's lip suddenly trembled; then she put down that involuntary natural answer, and said evasively, looking out of the window, "I suppose everybody has such feelings sometimes." "Not with that helmet on"--said her companion. With all the quietness of his speech, and it was very unimpassioned, his accent had a clear ring to it, which came from some unsounded spirit-depth of power; and Eleanor's heart for a moment sunk before it in a secret convulsion of pain. She concealed this feeling, as she thought, successfully; but that single ray of light had shewed her the darkness; it was keen as an arrow, and the arrow rankled. And her neighbour's next words made her feel that her heart lay bare; so quietly they touched it. "You feel that you want something, Miss Powle." Eleanor's head drooped, as well as her heart. She wondered at herself; but there was a spell of power upon her, and she could by no means lift up either. It was not only that his words were true, but that he knew them to be so. "Do you know _what_ you want?" her friend went on, in tons that were tender, along with that deliberate utterance that carried so much force with it. "You know yourself an offender before the Lord--and you want the sense of forgiveness in your heart. You know yourself inclined to be an offender again--and you want the renewing grace of God to make your heart clean, and set it free from the power of sin. Then you want also something to make you happy; and the love of Jesus alone can do that." "What is the use of telling over the things one has not got?"--said Eleanor in somewhat smothered tones. The words of her companion came again clear as a bell-- "Because you may have them if you want them." Eleanor struggled with herself, for her self-possession was endangered, and she was angry at herself for being such a fool; but she could not help it; yet she would not let her agitation come any more to the surface. She waited for clearness of voice, and then could not forbear the question, "How, Mr. Rhys?" "Jesus said, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.' There is all fulness in him. Go to him for light--go to him for strength--go to him for forgiveness, for healing, for sanctification. 'Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.'" "'Go to him?'" repeated Eleanor vaguely. "Ask him." Ask _Him!_ It was such a far-off, strange idea to her a heart, there seemed such a universe of distance between, Eleanor's face grew visibly shadowed with the thought. _She?_ She could not. She did not know how. She was silent a little while. The subject was getting unmanageable. "I never had anybody talk to me so before, Mr. Rhys," she said, thinking to let it pass. "Perhaps you never will again," he said. "Hear it now. The Lord Jesus is not far off--as you think--he is very near; he can hear the faintest whisper of a petition that you send to him. It is his message I bring you to-day--a message to _you_. I am his servant, and he has given me this charge for you to-day--to tell you that he loves you--that he has given his life for yours--and that he calls Eleanor Powle to give him her heart, and then to give him her life, in all the obedience his service may require." Eleanor felt her heart strangely bowed, subdued, bent to his words. "I will"--was the secret language of her thoughts--"but I must not let this man see all I am feeling, if I can help it." She held herself still, looking out of the window, where the rain fell in torrents yet, though the thunder and the lightning were no longer near. So did he; he added no more to his last words, and a silence lasted in the old ruined window as if its chance occupants were gone again. As the silence lasted, Eleanor felt it grow awkward. She was at a loss how to break it. It was broken for her then. "What will you do, Miss Powle?" "I will think about it"--she answered, startled and hesitating. "How long, before you decide?" "How can I tell?" she said. "You are shrinking from a decision already formed. The answer is given in your secret thoughts, and something is rising up in the midst of them to thwart it. Shall I tell my Master that his message is refused?" "Mr. Rhys!" said Eleanor looking up, "I never heard any one talk so in all my life! You speak as if--" "As if, what?" "You speak as if--I never heard any one speak as you do." "I speak as if I were in the habit of telling my Master how his message is received? I often do that." "But it seems superfluous to tell what is known already," said Eleanor, wondering secretly much more than she dared to say at her companion's talk. "Do you never, in speaking to those you love, tell them what is no information?" Eleanor was now dumb. There was too great a gulf of difference between her companion and herself, to try to frame any words or thoughts that might bridge it over. She must remain on one side and he on the other; yet she went on wondering. "Are you a clergyman, Mr. Rhys?" she said after a pause. "I am not what you would call such." "Do you not think the rain is over?" "Nearly, for the present; but the grass is as wet as possible." "O, I don't mind that. There is somebody now in the shrubbery yonder, looking for me." "He will not find you here," said Mr. Rhys. "I have this window all to myself. But we will find him." The rain-drops fell now but scatteringly, the last of the shower; the sun was breaking out, and the green world was all in a glitter of wet leaves. Wet as they were, Eleanor and Mr. Rhys pushed through the thick bramble and holly bushes, which with honeysuckles, eglantine, and broom, and bryony, made a sweet wild wilderness. They got plentifully besprinkled in their way, shook that off as well as they could, and with quick steps sought to rejoin their companions. The person Eleanor had seen in the shrubbery was the first one found, as Mr. Rhys had said. It was Mr. Carlisle. He at once took charge of Eleanor. "What has become of you?" "What has become of _you_, Mr. Carlisle?" Eleanor's gleaming smile was as bright as ever. "Despair, nearly," said he; "for I feared business would hold me all day; but I broke away. Not time enough to protect you from this shower." "Water will wet," said Eleanor, laughing; for the politeness of this speech was more evident than its plausibility. She was on the point of speaking of the protection that had been actually found for her, but thought better of it. Meantime they were joined by a little girl, bright and rather wild looking, who addressed Eleanor as her sister. "O come!" she said,--"where have you been? We can't go on till you come. We are going to lunch at Barton's Tower--and mamma says she will make Mr. Carlisle build a fire, so that we may all dry ourselves." "Julia!--how you speak!" "She did say so," repeated the child. "Come--make haste." Eleanor glanced at her companion, who met the glance with a smile. "I hope Mrs. Powle will always command me," he said, somewhat meaningly; and Eleanor hurried on. She was destined to long _tête-à-têtes_ that day; for as soon as her little party was seen in the distance, the larger company took up their line of march again. Julia and Mr. Rhys had fallen behind; and the long walk to Barton's Tower was made with Mr. Carlisle alone, who was in no haste to abridge it, and seemed to enjoy himself very well. Eleanor once or twice looked back, and saw her little sister, hand in hand with her companion of the old window, walking and talking in very eager and gay style; to judge by Julia's lively movements. "Who is that Mr. Rhys?" said Eleanor. "I have hardly the honour to know him. May I ask, why you ask?" "He is peculiar," said Eleanor. "He can hardly be worthy your study." And the question was dismissed with a coolness which reminded Eleanor of Mr. Rhys's own words, that he was not what she would call a clergyman. She would have asked another question, but the slight disdain which spoke in Mr. Carlisle's eye and voice deterred her. She only noticed how well the object of it and her sister were getting along. However, Eleanor's own walk was pleasant enough to drive Mr. Rhys out of her head. Mr. Carlisle was polished, educated, spirited, and had the great additional advantage of being a known and ascertained somebody; as he was in fact the heir of all the fine domain whose beauties they were admiring. And a beautiful heirdom it was. The way taken by the party led up the course of a valley which followed the windings of a small stream; its sides most romantic and woody in some places; in others taking the very mould of gentle beauty, and covered with rich grass, and sweet with broom; in others again, drawing near together, and assuming a picturesque wildness, rocky and broken. Sweet flowers grew by the way in profusion, on the banks and along the sides of the stream; and the birds were very jocund in their solitudes. Through all this it was very pleasant wandering with the heir of the land; and neither wet shoes nor wet shoulders were much remembered by Eleanor till they reached Barton's Tower. This was a ruin of a different character; one of the old strongholds of the rough time when men lived by the might of hand. No delicate arches and graceful mouldings had ever been here; all was, or had been, grim, stern strength and massiveness. The strength was broken long ago; and grace, in the shape of clustering ivy, had mantled so much of the harsh outlines that their original impression was lost. It could be recalled only by a little abstraction. Within the enclosure of the thick walls, which in some places gave a sort of crypt-like shelter, the whole rambling party was now collected. "Shall we have a fire?" Mr. Carlisle had asked Eleanor, just before they entered. And Eleanor could not find in her heart to deny that it would be good, though not quite prepared to have it made to _her_ order. However, the word was given. Wood was brought, and presently a roaring blaze went up within the old walls; not where the old chimney used to be, for there were no traces of such a thing. The sun had not shined bright enough to do away the mischief the shower had done; and now the ladies gathered about the blaze, and declared it was very comfortable. Eleanor sat down on a stone by the side of the fire, willing to be less in the foreground for a little while; as well as to dry her wet shoes. From there she had a view of the scene that would have pleased a painter. The blazing fire threw a warm light and colour of its own upon the dark walls and on the various groups collected within them, and touched mosses and ferns and greensward with its gypsy glare. The groups were not all of one character. There was a light-hued gay company of muslins and scarfs around the burning pile; in a corner a medley of servants and baskets and hampers; and in another corner Eleanor watched Julia and Mr. Rhys; the latter of whom was executing some adventurous climbing, after a flower probably, or a fern, while Julia stood below eagerly following his progress. Mr. Carlisle was all about. It was a singularly pretty scene, and to Eleanor's eye it had the sharp painting which is given by a little secret interest at work. That interest gave particular relief to the figures of the two gentlemen whose names have been mentioned; the other figures, the dark walls and ivy, the servants and the preparing collation, were only a rich mosaic of background for those two. There was Mr. Powle, a sturdy, well-to-do, country gentleman; looking it, and looking besides good-natured, which he was if not crossed. There was Eleanor's mother, good-natured under all circumstances; fair and handsome; every inch of her, from the close fair curls on each side of her temples, to the tips of her neat walking shoes, shewing the ample perfection of abundant means and indulgent living. There were some friends that formed part of their household just then, and the young people of a neighbouring family; with the Miss Broadus's; two elderly ladies from the village who were always in everything. There was Dr. Cairnes the rector, and his sister, a widow lady who spent part of every year with him. All these Eleanor's eye passed over with slight heed, and busied itself furtively with the remaining two; the great man of the party, and the other, the one certainly of least consideration in it. Why did she look at him, Eleanor asked herself? Mr. Carlisle was a mark for everybody's eyes; a very handsome man, the future lord of the manor, knowing and using gracefully his advantages of many kinds. What had the other,--that tall, quiet man, gathering flowers with Julia in the angle of the old tower? He could not be called handsome; a dark thick head of hair, and somewhat marked features alone distinguished him; except a pair of very clear keen eyes, the penetrating quality of which Eleanor had felt that morning. "He has a good figure, though," she said to herself, "a very good figure--and he moves well and easily; but what is there about him to make me think of him? What is the difference between his face and that other face?" "That other face" made frequent appeals for her attention; yet Eleanor could not forget the group in the corner, where her sister seemed to be having a time of more lively enjoyment than any one else of the company. No other person paid them any attention, even in thought; and when the collation was spread, Eleanor half wondered that her morning's friend neither came forward nor was for some moments asked to do so. She thought indeed she heard Julia ask him, but if so it was without effect. Mr. Rhys remained in the distant angle, studying the stones there; till Mr. Powle shouted to him and brought him into the company. Having done this good action, the squire felt benevolently disposed towards the object of his care, and entered into conversation with him. It grew so satisfactory to Mr. Powle, that it absorbed his attention from all but the meats and wines which were offered him, the enjoyment of which it probably heightened; the talk was prolonged, and seemed to grow more interesting as it went on. Eleanor could not hear what it was about, her own ear was so much engaged with business nearer at hand. The whole play had not escaped her, however; and between question and answer of the rattling gaiety going on about her ears, and indeed on her own tongue, she found time to wonder whether Mr. Rhys were shy, or kept back by a feeling of inferiority; so marked his conduct was by the absence of all voluntary self-assertion, She could not determine that he was either. No look or word favoured the one or the other supposition. And Eleanor could not look at those keen eyes, without feeling that it was extremely unlikely they would quail before anybody or anything. Very different from those fine hazel irids that were flashing fun and gallantry into hers with every glance. Very different; but what was the difference? It was something deeper than colour and contour. Eleanor had no chance to make further discoveries; for her father engrossed his new acquaintance all the way home, and only did not bring him to Ivy Lodge to tea because Mr. Rhys refused it; for the invitation was given. CHAPTER II. AT THE GARDEN-DOOR. "To die--to sleep. To sleep! perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come"-- The family at Ivy Lodge gathered round the tea-table with spirits rather whetted, apparently for both talking and eating. Certainly the one exercise had been intermitted for some hours; the other however had gone on without cessation. It went on still. The party was now reduced to the home party, with the addition of Miss Broadus; which lady, with her sister, was at home at Ivy Lodge, as she was everywhere else. Elderly, respectable and respected old ladies they were; and though they dealt in gossip, would not willingly have hurt a fly. They dealt in receipts and in jellies too; in fashions, and in many kindnesses, both received and given by all the neighbourhood. They were daughters of a former rector of the parish, and poor, and asked nobody to help them; which indeed they had no need to ask. "You seemed to like your afternoon's acquaintance, papa?" said Eleanor. "He is a fine fellow," said the squire. "He's a fine fellow. Knows something. My dear, he teaches a small school at Wiglands, I hear." "Does he. I wonder who goes to it," said Mrs. Powle. "I don't know," said the squire; "but I mean to send Alfred." "My dear Mr. Powle! to such a school as that? Nobody can go to it but some of the farmers' children around--there is no one else." "It won't hurt him, for a little while," said the squire. "I like the master, and that's of more importance than the children. Don't you worry." "My dear Mr. Powle! But I never heard of such a thing in my life. I do not believe Dr. Cairnes will like it at all. He will think it very strange, your sending your boy to a man that is not a Churchman, and is not anything, that anybody knows of." "Dr. Cairnes be hanged!" said the squire,--"and mind his own affairs. He wouldn't want me to send Alfred to _him_." "My dear Mrs. Powle," said Miss Broadus, "I can tell you this for your comfort--there are two sons of Mr. Churchill, the Independent minister of Eastcombe--that come over to him; besides one or two more that are quite respectable." "Why does not Mr. Churchill send his boys to school it Eastcombe?" "O well, it doesn't suit him, I suppose; and like goes to like, you know, my dear." "That is what I think," said Mrs. Powle, looking at her husband,--"and I wonder Mr. Powle does not think so too." "If you mean me," said the squire, "I am not 'like' anybody--that I can tell you. A good schoolmaster is a good schoolmaster--I don't care what else he calls himself." "And Mr. Rhys is a good schoolmaster, I have no doubt," said Miss Broadus. "I know what he is," said Julia; "he is a nice man, I like him." "I saw he kept you quiet," said Eleanor. "How did he manage it?" "He didn't manage it. He told me about things," said Julia; "and he got flowers for me, and told me about ferns. You never saw such lovely ferns as we found; and you would not know where to look for them, either. I never saw such a nice man as Mr. Rhys in my life." "There, my dear," said her mother, "do not encourage Julia in talking. She is always too ready." "I am going to walk with him again, to get flowers," said the child. "I shall invite him to the Lodge," said the squire. "He is a very sensible man, and knows what he is about." "Do you know anything more about him, Mr. Powle?" "He does more than teach three or four boys," said Miss Broadus. "He serves a little Dissenting Chapel of some sort, over at Lily Vale." "Why does he not live there then?" said Mrs. Powle. "Lily Vale is two and a half miles off. Not very convenient, I should think." "I don't know, my dear. Perhaps he finds living cheap at Wiglands, and I am sure he may. Do you know, I get butter for less than one-half what I paid when I was in Leicester?" "It is summer time now, Miss Broadus," said the squire. "Yes, I know, but still--I am sure Wiglands is the nicest, easiest place for poor people to live, that ever was." "Why you are not poor, Miss Broadus," said the squire. Miss Broadus chuckled. The fact was, that the Miss Broadus's not being poor was a standing pleasant joke with them; it being well known that they were not largely supplied with means, but contrived to make a little do the apparent work of much more than they had. A way of achieving respectability upon which they prided themselves. "Eleanor," said her mother as they left the table, "you look pale. Did you get your feet wet?" "Yes, mamma--there was no helping that." "Then you'll be laid up!" "She must not, just now, my dear," said Miss Broadus smilingly. Eleanor could not laugh off the prophecy, which an internal warning told her was well founded. She went to bed thinking of Mr. Rhys's helmet. She did not know why; she was not given to such thoughts; neither did she comprehend exactly what the helmet might be; yet now the thought came uneasily across her mind, that just such a cold as she had taken had been many a one's death; and with that came a strange feeling of unprotectedness--of want of defence. It was very uncomfortable to go to bed with that slight sensation of sore throat and feverishness, and to remember that the beginning of multitudes of last sicknesses had been no other and no greater; and it was most unlike Eleanor to have such a cause make her uncomfortable. She charged it upon the conversation of the morning, and supposed herself nervous or feverish; but this, if an explanation, was no cure; and through the frequent wakings of a disturbed night, the thought of that piece of armour which made one of her fellow creatures so blessedly calm, came up again and again to her mind. "I am feverish--this is nightmare," said Eleanor to herself. But it must be good to have no such nightmare. And when the broad daylight had come, and she was pronounced to be very ill, and the doctor was sent for, Eleanor found her night's visions would not take their departure. She could not get up; she was a prisoner; would she ever be free? She was very ill; the fever gained head; and the old doctor, who was a friend of the family, looked very grave at her. Eleanor saw it. She knew that a battle was to be fought between the powers of life and death; and the thought that no one could tell how the victory would be, came like an ice wind upon flowers. Her spirit shrank and cowered before it. Hopes and pleasures and plans, of which she was so full yesterday, were chilled to the ground; and across the cleared pathway of vision, what appeared? Eleanor would not look. But the battle must be fought; and it had to be fought amid pain and fever and weariness and the anxious looks of friends; and it was not soon decided. And the wish for that helmet of shelter, whatever it might be, came at times bitterly strong over Eleanor's heart. Many a heavily drawn sigh, which her mother charged to the body's weariness, came from the mind's longing. And in the solitude of the night, when her breath was quick and her pulse was high and she knew everything was going wrong, the thought came with a sting of agony,--if there was such a helmet, and she could not have it. O to be well and strong, and need none!--or while lying before death's door to see if it would open, O to have that talisman that would make its opening peace! It was not at Eleanor's hand, and she did not know where to find it. And when the daylight came again, and the doctor looked grave, and her mother turned away the anxious face she did not wish Eleanor to read, the cold chill of fear crept over Eleanor's heart. She hid it there. No creature in the house, she knew, could meet or quiet it; if indeed her explanation of it could have been understood. She banished it as often as it was possible; but during many days that Eleanor lay on a sick bed, it was so frequent a visiter that her heart grew sore for its coming. There were June roses and summer sunshine outside; and sweet breaths came in at the open windows, telling the time of year. Julia reported how fine the strawberries were, and went and came with words about walks and flowers and joyous doings; while Eleanor's room was darkened, and phials of medicine and glasses stood on the table, and the doctor went and carne, and Mrs. Powle hardly left her by day, and at night tile nurse slept, and Eleanor tossed and turned on her pillow and thought of another "night" that "cometh." The struggle with fever and pain was over at last. Then came weakness; and though hope revived, fear would not die. Besides, Eleanor said to herself, though she should get entirely well of this sickness, who would guaranty her that another would not come? And must not one come--some time--that must be final? And how should that be met? Nay, though getting well again and out of present danger, she would have liked to have that armour of shelter still! "What are you crying for?" said her little sister coming suddenly into her room one day. Eleanor was so far recovered as to be up. "I am weak and nervous,--foolish." "I wouldn't be foolish," said Julia. "I do not think I am foolish," said Eleanor slowly. "Then why do you say you are? But what is the matter with you?" "Like all the rest of the world, child,--I want something I cannot get. What have you there?" "Ferns," said Julia. "Do you know what ferns are?" "I suppose I do--when I see them." "No, but when you _don't_ see them; that's the thing." "Do you, pray." "Yes! A fern is a plant which has its seeds come on the back of the leaf, and no flower; and it comes up curled like a caterpillar. Aren't those pretty?" "Where did you learn all that?" "I know more than that. This leaf is called a _frond_." "Who told you?" "Mr. Rhys." "Did you learn it from Mr. Rhys?" "Yes, to be sure I did, and a great deal more. He is going to teach me all about ferns." "Where do you see Mr. Rhys?" "Why! wherever I have a mind. Alfred goes walking with him, and the other boys, and I go too; and he tells us things. I always go along with Mr. Rhys, and he takes care of me." "Does mamma know?" "Yes, but papa lets Mr. Rhys do just what he pleases. Papa says Mr. Rhys is a wonderful man." "What is he wonderful for?" said Eleanor languidly. "Well, _I_ think, because he is making Alfred a good boy." "I wonder how he has done it," said Eleanor. "So do I. He knows how. What do you think--he punished Alfred one day right before papa." "Where?" said Eleanor, in astonishment. "Down at the school. Papa was there. Papa told about it. Alfred thought he wouldn't dare, when papa was there; and Alfred took the opportunity to be impudent; and Mr. Rhys just took him up by his waistband and laid him down on the floor at his feet; and Alfred has behaved himself ever since." "Was not papa angry?" "He said he was at first, and I think it is likely; but after that, he said Mr. Rhys was a great man, and he would not interfere with him." "And how does Alfred like Mr. Rhys?" "He likes him--" said Julia, turning over her ferns. "I like him. Mr. Rhys said he was sorry you were sick. Now, _that_ is a frond. That is what it is called. Do you see, those are the seeds." Eleanor sighed. She would have liked to take lessons of Mr. Rhys on another subject. She half envied Julia's liberty. There seemed a great wall built up between her and the knowledge she wanted. Must it be so always? "Julia, when are you going to take a walk with Mr. Rhys again?" "To-morrow," was the quick answer. "I will give you something to ask him about." "I don't want it. I always have enough to ask him. We are going after ferns; we always have enough to talk about." "But there is a question I would like you to ask." "What is it? Why don't you ask him yourself?" Eleanor was silent, watching Julia's uncompromising business-like air as she turned over her bunch of ferns. The little one was full of her own affairs; her long locks of hair waving with every turn of her busy head. Suddenly she looked up. "What is your question, Eleanor?" "You must not ask it as if from me." "How then?" "Just ask it--as if you wanted to know yourself; without saying anything." "As if I wanted to know what?" Eleanor hesitated, and Mrs. Powle came into the room. "What, Eleanor--what?" Julia repeated. "Nothing. Study your ferns." "I _have_ studied them. This is the rachis--and down here below this, is the rhizoma; and the little seed places that come on the back of the frond, are thecae. I forget what Mr. Rhys called the seeds now. I'll ask him." "What nonsense is that you are talking, Julia?" "Sense, mamma. Or rather, it is knowledge." "Mamma, how do _you_ like Mr. Rhys? Julia says he is often here." "He is a pleasant man," said Mrs. Powle. "I have nothing against him--except that your father and the children are crazy about him. I see nothing in him to be crazy about." "Alfred is a good deal less crazy than he used to be," remarked Julia; "and I think papa hasn't lost anything." "You are a saucy girl," said her mother. "Mr. Carlisle is very anxious to know when you will be down stairs again, Eleanor." Julia ran off with her ferns; Eleanor went into a muse; and the conversation ceased. It happened a few days after this, that the event about which Mr. Carlisle was anxious came to pass. Eleanor was able to leave her room. However, feeling yet very wanting in strength, and not quite ready to face a company of gay talkers, she shunned the drawing-room where such a company was gathered, and betook herself to a small summer-parlour in another part of the house. This room she had somewhat appropriated to her own use. It had once been a school-room. Since the misbehaviour of one governess, years ago, Mr. Powle had vowed that he would never have another in the house, come what would. Julia might run wild at home; he should be satisfied if she learned to read, to ride, and to walk; and when she was old enough, he would send her to boarding-school. What the squire considered old enough, did not appear. Julia was a fine child of eleven, and still practising her accomplishments of riding and walking to her heart's content at home; with little progress made in the other branches to which reading is the door. The old schoolroom had long forgotten even its name, and had been fitted up simply and pleasantly for summer occupation. It opened on one side by a glass door upon a gay flower-garden; Eleanor's special pet and concern; where she did a great deal of work herself. It was after an elaborate geometrical pattern; and beds of all sorts of angles were filled and bright with different coloured verbenas, phloxes, geraniums, heliotrope, and other flowers fit for such work; making a brilliant mosaic of scarlet, purple and gold, in Eastern gorgeousness, as the whole was seen from the glass door. Eleanor sat down there to look at it and realise the fact that she was getting well again; with the dreamy realization that goes along with present weakness and remembered past pain. On another side the room opened to a small lawn; it was quite shut off by its situation and by the plantations of shrubbery, from the other part of the house; and very rarely visited by the chance comers who were frequent there. So Eleanor was a good deal surprised this evening to see a tall strange figure appear at the further side of her flower garden; then not at all surprised to see that it was Mr. Rhys accompanied by her sister, Julia. Julia flitted about through the garden, in very irregular fashion, followed by her friend; till their wanderings brought them near the open door within which Eleanor sat. To the door Julia immediately darted, drawing her companion with her; and as soon as she came up exclaimed, as if she had been armed with a search warrant and had brought her man,-- "Here's Mr. Rhys, Eleanor. Now you can ask him yourself whatever you like." Eleanor felt startled. But it was with such a pleasant face that Mr. Rhys came up, such a cordial grasp of the hand greeted her, that the feeling vanished immediately. Perhaps that hand-clasp was all the warmer for Eleanor's changed appearance. She was very unlike the girl of superb health who had wandered over the old priory grounds a few weeks before. Eleanor's colour was gone; the blue veins shewed distinctly on the temples; the full lips, instead of their brilliant gay smile, had a languid and much soberer line. She made quite a different impression now, of a fair delicate young creature, who had lost and felt she had lost the proud strength in which she had been so luxuriant a little while before. Mr. Rhys looked at her attentively. "You have been very ill, Miss Powle." "I suppose I have--some of the time." "I am rejoiced to see you well again." "Thank you." "Julia has been leading me over the garden and grounds. I did not know where she was bringing me." "How do you like my garden?" "For a garden of that sort--it seems to me well arranged." He was very cool, certainly, in giving his opinion, Eleanor thought. Her gardening pride was touched. This was a pet of her own. "Then you do not fancy gardens of this sort." "I believe I think Nature is the best artist of all." "But would you let Nature have her own way entirely?" "No more in the vegetable than I would in the moral world. She would grow weeds." The quick clear sense and decision, in the eye and accent, were just what Eleanor did not want to cope with. She was silent. So were her two companions; for Julia was busy with a nosegay she was making up. Then Mr. Rhys turned to Eleanor, "Julia said you had a question to ask of me, Miss Powle." "Yes, I had,"--said Eleanor, colouring slightly and hesitating. "But you cannot answer it standing--will you come in, Mr. Rhys?" "Thank you--if you will allow me, I will take this instead," said he, sitting down on one of the steps before the glass door. "What was the question?" "That was the other day, when she brought in her ferns--it was a wish I had. But she ought not to have troubled you with it." "It will give me great pleasure to answer you--if I can." Eleanor half fancied he knew what the question was; and she hesitated again, feeling a good deal confused. But when should she have another chance? She made a bold push. "I felt a curiosity to ask you--I did not know any one else who could tell me--what that 'helmet' was, you spoke of one day;--that day at the old priory?" Eleanor could not look up. She felt as if the clear eyes opposite her were reading down in the depth of her heart. They were very unflinching about it. It was curiously disagreeable and agreeable both at once. "Have you wanted it, these weeks past?" said he. The question was unexpected. It was put with a penetrating sympathy. Eleanor felt if she opened her lips to speak she could not command their steadiness. She gave no answer but silence. "A helmet?" said Julia looking up. "What is a helmet?" "The warriors of old time," said Mr. Rhys, "used to wear a helmet to protect their heads from danger. It was a covering of leather and steel. With this head-piece on, they felt safe; where their lives would not have been worth a penny without it." "But Eleanor--what does Eleanor want of a helmet?" said Julia. And she went off into a shout of ringing laughter. "Perhaps you want one," said Mr. Rhys composedly. "No, I don't. What should I want it for? What should I cover my head with leather and steel for, Mr. Rhys?" "You want something stronger than that." "Something stronger? What do I want, Mr. Rhys?" "To know that, you must find out first what the danger is." "I am not in any danger." "How do you know that?" "Am I, Mr. Rhys?" "Let us see. Do you know what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us all?" "No." "Do you know whether God has given us any commandments?" "Yes; I know the ten commandments. I have learned them once, but I don't remember them." "Have you obeyed them?" "Me?" "Yes. You." "I never thought about it." "Have you disobeyed them then?" Eleanor breathed more freely, and listened. It was curious to her to see the wayward, giddy child stand and look into the eyes of her questioner as if fascinated. The ordinary answer from Julia would have been a toss and a fling. Now she stood and said sedately, "I don't know." "We can soon tell," said her friend. "One of the commandments is, to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Have you always done that?" "No," said Julia bluntly. "I don't think anybody else does." "Never mind anybody else. Have you always honoured the word and wish of your father and mother? That is another command." "I have done it more than Alfred has." "Let Alfred alone. Have _you_ always done it?" "No, sir." "Have you loved the good God all your life, with all your heart?" "No." "You have loved to please yourself, rather than anything else?" The nod with which Julia answered this, if not polite, was at least significant, accompanied with an emphatic "Always!" Mr. Rhys could not help smiling at her, but he went on gravely enough. "What is to keep you then from being afraid?" "From being afraid?" "Yes. You want a helmet." "Afraid?" said Julia. "Yes. Afraid of the justice of God. He never lets a sin go unpunished. He is _perfectly_ just." "But I can't help it," said Julia. "Then what is to become of you? You need a helmet." "A helmet?" said Julia again. "What sort of a helmet?" "You want to know that God has forgiven you; that he is not angry with you; that he loves you, and has made you his child." "How can I?" said the child, pressing closer to the speaker where he sat on the step of the door. And no wonder, for the words were given with a sweet earnest utterance which drew the hearts of both bearers. He went on without looking at Eleanor; or without seeming to look that way. "How can you what?" "How can I have that?" "That helmet? There is only one way." "What is it, Mr. Rhys?" They were silent a minute, looking at each other, the man and the child; the child with her eyes bent on his. "Suppose somebody had taken your punishment for you? borne the displeasure of God for your sins?" "Who would?" said Julia. "Nobody would." "One has." "Who, Mr. Rhys?" "One that loved you, and that loved all of us, well enough to pay the price of saving us." "What price did he pay?" "His own life. He gave it up cruelly--that ours might be redeemed." "What for, Mr. Rhys? what made him?" "Because he loved us. There was no other reason." "Then people will be saved"--said Julia. "Every one who will take the conditions. It depends upon that. There are conditions." "What conditions, Mr. Rhys?" "Do you know who did this for you?" "No." "It is the Lord himself--the Lord Jesus Christ--the Lord of glory. He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but he made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death--even the death of the cross. So now he is exalted a Prince and a Saviour--able to save all who will accept his conditions." "What are the conditions, Mr. Rhys?" "You must be his servant. And you must trust all your little heart and life to him." "I must be his servant?" said Julia. "Yes, heart and soul, to obey him. And you must trust him to forgive you and save you for his blood's sake." Doubtless there had been something in the speaker himself that had held the child's attention so fast all this while. Her eyes had never wandered from his face; she had stood in docile wise looking at him and answering his questions and listening, won by the commentary she read in his face on what her friend was saying. A strange light kindled in it as he spoke; there were lines of affection and tenderness that came in the play of lips and eyes; and when he named his Master, there had shined in his face as it were the reflection of the glory he alluded to. Julia's eyes were not the only ones that had been held; though it was only Julia's tongue that said anything in reply. Standing now and looking still into the face she had been reading, her words were an unconscious rendering of what she found there. "Mr. Rhys, I think he was very good." The water filled those clear eyes at that, but he only returned the child's gaze and said nothing. "I will take the conditions, Mr. Rhys," Julia went on. "The Lord make it so!" he said gravely. "But what is the helmet, Mr. Rhys?" "When you have taken the conditions, little one, you will know." He rose up. "Mr. Rhys," said Eleanor rising also, "I have listened to you, but I do not quite understand you." "I recommend you to ask better teaching, Miss Powle." "But I would like to know exactly what you mean, and what you meant, by that 'helmet' you speak of so often?" He looked steadily now at the fair young face beside him, which told so plainly of the danger lately passed through. Eleanor could not return, though she suffered the examination. His answer was delayed while he made it. "Do you ask from a sense of need?" he said. Eleanor looked up then and answered, "Yes." "To say, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth'--that is it," he said. "Then the head is covered--even from fear of evil." It was impossible that Eleanor ever should forget the look that went with the words, and which had prevented her own gaze from seeking the ground again. The look of inward rejoicing and outward fearlessness; the fire and the softness that at once overspread his face. "He was looking at his Master then"--was the secret conclusion of Eleanor's mind. Even while she thought it, he had turned and was gone again with Julia. She stood still some minutes, weak as she was. She was not sure that she perfectly comprehended what that helmet might be, but of its reality there could be no questioning. She had seen its plumes wave over one brow! "I know that my Redeemer liveth"--Eleanor sat down and mused over the words. She had heard them before; they were an expression of somebody's faith, she was not sure whose; but what faith was it? Faith that the Redeemer lived? Eleanor did not question that. She had repeated the Apostle's Creed many a time. Yet a vague feeling from the words she could not analyze--or arising perhaps from the look that had interpreted them--floated over her mind, disturbing it with an exceeding sense of want. She felt desolate and forlorn. What was to be done? Julia and Mr. Rhys were gone. The garden was empty. There was no more chance of counsel-taking to-night. Eleanor felt in no mood for gay gossip, and slowly mounted the stairs to her own room, from whence she declined to come down again that night. She would like to find the settlement of this question, before she went back into the business of the world and was swallowed up by it, as she would soon be. Eleanor locked the door, and took up a Bible, and tried to find some good by reading in it. Her eyes and head were tired before her mind received any light. She was weak yet. She found the Bible very unsatisfactory; and gave it up. CHAPTER III. IN THE DRAWING-ROOM. "Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once; And he that might the vantage best have took, Found out the remedy." "You can come down stairs to-night, Eleanor," said Mrs. Powle the next morning. "I was down stairs last night--in the afternoon, I mean--mamma." "Yes, but you did not stay. I want you in the drawing-room this evening. You can bear it now." "I am in no hurry, mamma." "Other people are, however. If you wear a white dress, do put a rose or some pink ribbands somewhere, to give yourself a little colour." "Have you invited any one for this evening?" "No, but people have promised themselves without being asked. Dr. Cairnes wants to see you; he said he would bring Mrs. Wycherly. Miss Broadus will be here of course; she declared she would; both of them. And Mr. Carlisle desired my permission to present himself." "Mr. Rhys is coming," said Julia. "I dare say. Mr. Powle wants him here all the time. It is a mercy the man has a little consideration--or some business to keep him at home--or he would be the sauce to every dish. As it is, he really is not obtrusive." "Are all these people coming with the hope and intent of seeing me, mamma?" "I can only guess at people's hopes, Eleanor. I am guiltless of anything but confessing that you were to make your appearance." "Mr. Rhys is not coming to see you," said Julia. "He wants to see the books--that is what he wants." There was some promise for Eleanor in the company announced for the evening. If anybody could be useful to her in the matter of her late doubts and wishes, it ought to be Dr. Cairnes, the rector. He at least was the only one she knew whom she could talk to about them; the only friend. Mr. Rhys was a stranger and her brother's tutor; that was all; a chance of speaking to him again was possible, but not to be depended on. Dr. Cairnes was her pastor and old friend; it is true, she knew him best, out of the pulpit, as an antiquarian; then she had never tried him on religious questions. Nor he her, she remembered; it was a doubtful hope altogether; nevertheless the evening offered what another evening might not in many a day. So Eleanor dressed, and with her slow languid step made her way down stairs to the scene of the social gayeties which had been so long interrupted for her. Ivy Lodge was a respectable, comfortable, old house; pretty by the combination of those advantages; and pleasant by the fact of making no pretensions beyond what it was worth. It was not disturbed by the rage after new fashions, nor the race after distant greatness. Quiet respectability was the characteristic of the family; Mrs. Powle alone being burdened with the consciousness of higher birth than belonged to the name of Powle generally. She fell into her husband's ways, however, outwardly, well enough; did not dislodge the old furniture, nor introduce new extravagances; and the Lodge was a pleasant place. "A most enjoyable house, my dear,"--as Miss Broadus expressed it. So the gentry of the neighbourhood found it universally. The drawing-room was a pretty, spacious apartment; light and bright; opening upon the lawn directly without intervention of piazza or terrace. Windows, or rather glass doors, in deep recesses, stood open; the company seemed to be half in and half out. Dr. Cairnes was there, talking with the squire. In another place Mrs. Powle was engaged with Mr. Carlisle. Further than those two groups, Eleanor's eye had no chance to go; those who composed the latter greeted her instantly. Mrs. Powle's exclamation was of doubtful pleasure at Eleanor's appearance; there was no question of her companion's gratification. He came forward to Eleanor, gave her his chair; brought her a cup of tea, and then sat down to see her drink it; with a manner which bespoke pleasure in every step of the proceedings. A manner which had rather the effect of a barrier to Eleanor's vision. It was gratifying certainly; Eleanor felt it; only she felt it a little too gratifying. Mr. Carlisle was getting on somewhat too fast for her. She drank her tea and kept very quiet; while Mrs. Powle sat by and fanned herself, as contentedly as a mother duck swims that sees all her young ones taking to the water kindly. Now and then Eleanor's eyes went out of the window. On the lawn at a little distance was a group of people, sitting close together and seeming very busy. They were Mr. Rhys, Miss Broadus, Alfred and Julia. Something interesting was going forward; they were talking and listening, and looking at something they seemed to be turning over. Eleanor would have liked to join them; but here was Mr. Carlisle; and remembering the expression which had once crossed his face at the mention of Mr. Rhys's name, she would not draw attention to the group even by her eyes; though they wandered that way stealthily whenever they could. What a good time those people were having there on the grass; and she sitting fenced in by Mr. Carlisle. Other members of the party who had not seen Eleanor, came up one after another to congratulate and welcome her; but Mr. Carlisle kept his place. Dr. Cairnes came, and Eleanor wanted a chance to talk to him. None was given her. Mr. Carlisle left his place for a moment to carry Eleanor's cup away, and Dr. Cairnes thoughtlessly took the vacated chair; but Mr. Carlisle stationed himself on the other side in the window; and she was as far from her opportunity as ever. "Well my dear," said the doctor, "you have had a hard time, eh? We are glad to have you amongst us again." "Hardly," put in Mrs. Powle. "She looks like a ghost." "Rather a substantial kind of a ghost," said the doctor, pinching Eleanor's cheek; "some flesh and blood here yet--flesh at least;--and now the blood speaks for itself! That's right, my dear--you are better so." Mr. Carlisle's smile said so too, as the doctor glanced at him. But the momentary colour faded again. Eleanor remembered how near she had come to being a ghost actually. Just then Mr. Carlisle's attention was forcibly claimed, and Mrs. Powle moved away. Eleanor seized her chance. "Dr. Cairnes, I want your instruction in something." "Well, my dear," said the doctor, lowering his tone in imitation of Eleanor's--"I shall be happy to be your instructor. I have been that, in some sort, ever since you were five years old--a little tot down in your mother's pew, sitting under my ministrations. What is it, Miss Eleanor?" "I am afraid I did not receive much in those days, sir." "Probably not. Hardly to be expected. I have no doubt you received as much as a child could, from the mysteries which were above its comprehension. What is it now, Miss Eleanor?" "Something in your line, sir. Dr. Cairnes, you remember the helmet spoken of in the Bible?" "Helmet?" said the doctor. "Goliath's? He had a helmet of brass upon his head. Must have been heavy, but I suppose he could carry it. The same thing essentially as those worn by our ancestors--a little variation in form. What about it, my dear? I am glad to see you smiling again." "Nothing about that. I am speaking of another sort of helmet--do you not remember?--it is called somewhere the helmet of salvation." "_That?_ O!--um! _That_ helmet! Yes--it is in, let me see--it is in the description of Christian armour, in a fine passage in Ephesians, I think. What about that, Miss Eleanor?" "I want to know, sir, what shape that helmet takes." It was odd, with what difficulty Eleanor brought out her questions. It was touching, the concealed earnestness which lingered behind her glance and smile. "Shape?" said the doctor, descending into his cravat;--"um! a fair question; easier asked than answered. Why my dear, you should read a commentary." "I like living commentaries, Dr. Cairnes." "Do you? Ha, ha!--well. Living commentaries, eh? and shapes of helmets. Well. What shape does it take? Why, my dear, you know of course that those expressions are figurative. I think it takes the shape of a certain composure and peace of mind which the Christian soul feels, and justly feels, in regarding the provision made for its welfare in the gospel. It is spoken of as the helmet of salvation; and there is the shield of faith; and so forth." Eleanor felt utterly worried, and did not in the least know how to frame her next question. "What has put you upon thinking of helmets, Miss Eleanor?" "I was curious--" said Eleanor. "You had some serious thoughts in your illness?" said the doctor. "Well, my dear--I am glad of it. Serious thoughts do not in the least interfere with all proper present enjoyments; and with improper ones you would not wish to have anything to do." "May we not say that serious thoughts are the _foundation_ of all true present enjoyment?" said another voice. It was Mr. Rhys who spoke. Eleanor started to hear him, and to see him suddenly in the place where Mr. Carlisle had been, standing in the window. "Eh? Well--no,--not just that," said Dr. Cairnes coolly. "I have a good deal of enjoyment in various things--this fair day and this fair company, for example, and Mrs. Powle's excellent cup of tea--with which I apprehend, serious thoughts have nothing to do." "But we are commanded to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus." "Well--um! That is to be taken of course in its rational significance. A cup of tea is a cup of tea--and nothing more. There is nothing at the bottom of it--ha, ha!--but a little sugar. Nothing more serious." Mr. Rhys's figure standing in the window certainly hindered a part of the light. To judge by the doctor's face, he was keeping out the whole. "What do you suppose the apostle means, sir, when he says, 'Henceforward know I no man after the flesh?'" "Hum!--Ah,--well, he was an apostle. I am not. Perhaps you are?" There was a degree of covert disdain in this speech, which Eleanor wondered at in so well-bred a man as Dr. Cairnes. Mr. Rhys answered with perfect steadiness, with no change of tone or manner. "Without being inspired--I think, in the sense of _messenger_, every minister of Christ is his apostle." "Ah! Well!--I am not even apostolic," said the doctor, with one or two contented and discontented grunts. Eleanor understood them; the content was his own, the discontent referred to the speaker whose words were so inopportune. The doctor rose and left the ground. Mr. Rhys had gone even before him; and Eleanor wondered anew whether this man were indeed shy or not. He was so little seen and heard; yet spoke, when he spoke, with such clearness and self-possession. He was gone now, and Mr. Carlisle was still busy. Up came Miss Broadus and took the vacant seat. It is impossible to describe Miss Broadus's face. It was in a certain sense fair, and fat, and fresh-coloured; but the "windows of her soul" shewed very little light from within; they let out nothing but a little gleam now and then. However, her tongue was fluent, and matter for speech never wanting. She was kindly too, in manner at least; and extremely sociable with all her neighbours, low as well as high; none of whose affairs wanted interest for her. It was in fact owing to Miss Broadus's good offices with Mrs. Powle, that Mr. Rhys had been invited to join the pleasure party with which the adventures of this book begin. The good lady was as neat as a pink in her dress; and very fond of being as shewy, in a modest way. "Among us again, Eleanor?" she said. "We are glad to see you. So is Mr. Carlisle, I should judge. We have missed you badly. You have been terribly ill, haven't you? Yes, you shew it. But _that_ will soon pass away, my dear. I longed to get in to do something for you--but Mrs. Powle would not let me; and I knew you had the best of everything all the while. Only I thought I would bring you a pot of my grape jelly; for Mrs. Powle don't make it; and it is so refreshing." "It was very nice, thank you." "O it was nothing, my dear; only we wanted to do something. I have been having such an interesting time out there; didn't you see us sitting on the grass? Mr. Rhys is quite a botanist--or a naturalist--or something; and he was quite the centre of our entertainment. He was shewing us ferns--fern leaves, my dear; and talking about them. Do you know, as I told him, I never looked at a fern leaf before; but now really it's quite curious; and he has almost made me believe I could see a certain kind of beauty in them. You know there is a sort of beauty which some people think they find in a great many things; and when they are enthusiastic, they almost make you think as they do. I think there is great power in enthusiasm." "Is Mr. Rhys enthusiastic?" "O I don't know, my dear,--I don't know what you would call it; I am not a philosopher; but he is very fond of ferns himself. He is a very fine man. He is a great deal too good to go and throw himself away." "Is that what he is going to do?" "Why yes, my dear; that is what I should call it. It is a great deal more than that. I never can remember the place; but it is the most dreadful place, I do suppose, that ever was heard of. I never heard of such a place. They do every horrible thing there--my dear, the accounts make your blood creep. I think Mr. Rhys is a great deal too valuable a man to be lost there, among such a set of creatures--they are more like devils than men. And Eleanor," said Miss Broadus, looking round to see that nobody was within hearing of her communication,--"you have no idea what a pleasant man he is. I asked him to tea with Juliana and me--you know one must be kind and neighbourly at any rate--and he has no friends here; I sometimes wonder if he has any anywhere; but he came to tea, and he was as agreeable as possible. He was really excellent company, and very well behaved. I think Juliana quite fell in love with him; but I tell her it's no use; she never would go off to that dreadful place with him." And Miss Broadus laughed a laugh of simple amusement; Miss Juliana being, though younger than herself, still very near the age of an old lady. They kept the light-hearted simplicity of young years, however, in a remarkable degree; and so had contrived to dispense with wrinkles on their fresh old faces. "Where is that place, Miss Broadus?" "My dear, I never can remember the name of it. They do say the country is beautiful, and the fruit, and all that; it is described to be a beautiful place, where, as Heber's hymn says, 'only man is vile.' But he is as vile as he can be, there. And I am sure Mr. Rhys would be a great loss at Wiglands. My dear, how pleasant it would be, I said to Juliana this morning, how pleasant it would be, if Mr. Rhys were only in the Church, and could help good Dr. Cairnes. 'Tisn't likely they will let him live long out there, if he goes." "When is he going?" "O I don't know when, my dear; he is waiting for something. And I never can remember the name of the place; if a word has many syllables I cannot keep them together in my memory; only I know the vegetables there grow to an enormous size, and as if that wasn't enough, men devour each other. It seems like an abusing the gifts of providence, don't it? But there is nothing they do not abuse. I am afraid they will abuse poor Mr. Rhys. And his boys would miss him very much, and I am sure we all should. I have got quite acquainted with him, seeing him here; and now Juliana has taken a fancy to ask him to our cottage--and I have come to quite like him. What a different looking man he is from Mr. Carlisle--now look at them talking together!--" "Where did you learn all this, Miss Broadus? did Mr. Rhys tell you?" "No, my dear; he never will talk about it or about himself. He lent me a pamphlet or something.--Mr. Rhys is the tallest--but Mr. Carlisle is a splendid looking man,--don't you think so, Eleanor?" Miss Broadus's energetic whisper Eleanor thought fit to ignore, though she did not fail to note the contrast which a moment's colloquy between the two men presented. There was little in common between them; between the marked features and grave keen expression of the one face, and the cool, bright, somewhat supercilious eye and smile of the other. There was power in both faces, Eleanor thought, of different kinds; and power is attractive. Her eye was held till they parted from each other. Two very different walks in life claimed the two men; so much Eleanor could see. For some time after she was obliged to attend exclusively to that walk of life which Mr. Carlisle represented, and to look at the views he brought forward for her notice. They were not so engrossing, however, that Eleanor entirely forgot the earlier conversation of the afternoon or the question which had troubled her. The evening had been baffling. She had not had a word with Mr. Rhys, and he had disappeared long since from the party. So had Dr. Cairnes. There was no more chance of talk upon that subject to-night; and Eleanor feeling very feeble still, thought best to cut short Mr. Carlisle's enjoyment of other subjects for the evening. She left the company, and slowly passed through the house, from room to room, to get to her own. In the course of this progress she came to the library. There, seated at one of the tables and bending over a volume, was Mr. Rhys. He jumped up as she passed through, and came forward with extended hand and a word of kindly inquiry. His "good night" was so genial, his clasp of her hand so frank and friendly, that instead of going on, Eleanor stood still. "Are you studying?" "Your father has kindly given me liberty to avail myself of his treasures here. My time is very scanty--I was tempted to seize the moment that offered itself. It is a very precious privilege to me, and one which I shall not abuse." "Pray do not speak of abusing," said Eleanor; "nobody minds the books here; I am glad they are good to anybody else.--I am interrupting you." "Not at all!" said he, bringing up a great chair for her,--"or only agreeably. Pray sit down--you are not fit to stand." Eleanor however remained standing, and hesitating, for a moment. "I wish you would tell me a little more about what we were talking of," she said with some effort. "Do you feel your want of the helmet?" he said gravely. "I feel that I haven't it," said Eleanor. "What is it that you are conscious of wanting?" She hesitated; it was a home question; and very unaccustomed to speak of her secret thoughts and feelings to any one, especially on religious subjects, which however had never occupied her before, Eleanor was hardly ready to answer. Yet in the tones of the question there was a certain quiet assurance and simplicity before which she yielded. "I felt--a little while ago--when I was sick--that I was not exactly safe." Eleanor spoke, hesitating between every few words, looking down, and falling her voice at the end. So she did not see the keen intentness of the look that was fixed upon her. "You felt that there was something wanting between you and God?" "I believe so." His accent was as deliberately clear as her's was hesitating. Every word went into Eleanor's soul. "Then you can understand now, that when one can say, joyfully, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth';--when he is no vague abstraction, but felt to be a _Redeemer;_--when one can say assuredly, he is _my_ Redeemer; I know he has bought back my soul from sin and from the punishment of sin, which is death; I feel I am forgiven; and I know he liveth--my Redeemer--and according to his promise lives to deliver me from every evil and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom;--do you see, now, that one who can say this has on his head the covering of an infinite protection--an infinite shelter from both danger and fear?--a helmet, placed on his head by his Lord's own hand, and of such heavenly temper that no blows can break through it." Eleanor was a little time silent, with downcast eyes. "You do not mean to say, that this protection is against _all_ evil; do you? sickness and pain are evils are they not?" "Not to him." "Not to him?" "No. The evil of them is gone. They can do him no harm; if they come, they will do good. He that wears this helmet has absolutely no evil to fear. All things shall work good to him. There shall no evil happen to the just. Blessed be the Lord, who only doeth wondrous things!" Eleanor stood silenced, humbled, convinced; till she recollected she must not stand there so, and she lifted her eyes to bid good-night. Then the face she met gave a new turn to her thoughts. It was a changed face; such a light of pure joy and deep triumph shone over it, not hiding nor hindering the loving care with which those penetrating eyes were reading herself. It gave Eleanor a strange compression of heart; it told her more than his words had done; it shewed her the very reality of which he spoke. Eleanor went away overwhelmed. "Mr. Rhys is a happy man!" she said to herself;--"happy, happy! I wish,--I wish, I were as happy as he!" CHAPTER IV. IN THE SADDLE. "She has two eyes, so soft and brown, Take care! She gives a side-glance and looks down, Beware! beware!" A few days more saw Eleanor restored to all the strength and beauty of health which she had been accustomed to consider her natural possession. And then--it is likely to be so--she was so happy in what mind and body had, that she forgot her wish for what the spirit had not. Or almost forgot it. Eleanor lived a very full life. It was no dull languid existence that she dragged on from day to day; time counted out none but golden pennies into her hand. Every minute was filled with business or play, both heartily entered into, and pursued with all the energy of a very energetic nature. Study, when she touched it, was sweet to her; but Eleanor did not study much. Nature was an enchanted palace of light and perfume. Bodily exertion, riding and walking, was as pleasant to her as it is to a bird to use its wings. Family intercourse, and neighbourly society, were nothing but pleasure. Benevolent kindness, if it came in her way, was a labour of love; and a hundred home occupations were greatly delighted in. They were not generally of an exalted character; Eleanor's training and associations had not led her into any very dignified path of human action; she had led only a butterfly's life of content and pleasure, and her character was not at all matured; but the capabilities were there; and the energy and will that might have done greater things, wrought beautiful embroidery, made endless fancy work, ordered well such part of the household economy as was committed to her, carried her bright smile into every circle, and made Eleanor's foot familiar with all the country where she could go alone, and her pony's trot well known in every lane and roadway where she could go with his company. All these enjoyments of her life were taken with new relish and zeal after her weeks of illness had laid her aside from them. Eleanor's world was brighter than ever. And round about all of these various enjoyments now, circling them with a kind of halo of expectancy or possibility, was the consciousness of a prospect that Eleanor knew was opening before her--a brilliant life-possession that she saw Fortune offering to her with a gracious hand. Would Eleanor take it? That Eleanor did not quite know. Meanwhile her eyes could not help looking that way; and her feet, consciously or unconsciously, now and then made a step towards it. She and her mother were sitting at work one morning--that is to say, Eleanor was drawing and Mrs. Powle cutting tissue paper in some very elaborate way, for some unknown use or purpose; when Julia dashed in. She threw a bunch of bright blue flowers on the table before her sister. "There," she said--"do you know what that is?" "Why certainly," said Eleanor. "It is borage." "Well, do you know what it means?" "What it _means?_ No. What does any flower mean?" "I'll tell you what _this_ means"--said Julia. "I, borage Bring courage." "That is what people used to think it meant." "How do you know that." "Mr. Rhys says so. This borage grew in Mrs. Williams's garden; and I dare say she believes it." "Who is Mrs. Williams?" "Why!--she's the old woman where Mr. Rhys lives; he lives in her cottage; that's where he has his school. He has a nice little room in her cottage, and there's nobody else in the cottage but Mrs. Williams." "Do, Julia, carry your flowers off, and do not be so hoydenish," said Mrs. Powle. "We have not seen Mr. Rhys here in a great while, mamma," said Eleanor. "I wonder what has become of him." "I'll tell you," said Julia--"he has become not well. I know Mr. Rhys is sick, because he is so pale and weak. And I know he is weak, because he cannot walk as he used to do. We used to walk all over the hills; and he says he can't go now." "Mamma, it would be right to send down and see what is the matter with him. There must be something. It is a long time--mamma, I think it is weeks--since he was at the Lodge." "Your father will send, I dare say," said Mrs. Powle, cutting her tissue paper. "Mamma, did you hear," said Eleanor as Julia ran off, "that Mr. Rhys was going to leave Wiglands and bury himself in some dreadful place, somewhere?" "I heard so." "What place is it?" "I can't tell, I am sure. It is somewhere in the South Seas, I believe--that region of horrors." "Is it true he is going there, mamma?" "I am sure I can't tell. Miss Broadus says so; and she says, I believe, he told her so himself. If he did, I suppose it is true." "Mamma, I think Mr. Rhys is a great deal too fine a man to go and lose his life in such a place. Miss Broadus says it is horrible. Do you know anything about it?" "I have no taste for horrors," said Mrs. Powle. "I think it is a great pity," Eleanor repeated. "I am sorry. There is enough in England for such a man to do, without going to the South Seas. I wonder how anybody can leave England!" Mrs. Powle looked up at her daughter and laughed. Eleanor had suspended her drawing and was sending a loving gaze out of the open window, where nature and summer were revelling in their conjoined riches. Art shewed her hand too, stealthily, having drawn out of the way of the others whatever might encumber the revel. Across a wide stretch of wooded and cultivated country, the eye caught the umbrageous heights on the further side of the valley of the Ryth. Eleanor's gaze was fixed. Mrs. Powle's glance was sly. "I should like to ask your opinion of another place," she said,--"which, being in England, is not horrible. You see that bit of brown mason-work, high away there, peeping out above the trees in the distance?--You know what house that is?" "Certainly." "What is it?" "It is the Priory. The new Priory, it ought to be called; I am sure the old one is down there in the valley yet--beneath it." But Eleanor's colour rose. "What do you think of that place?" "Considering that the old priory and its grounds belong to it, I think it must be one of the loveliest places in England." "I should like to see it in your possession--" Mrs. Powle remarked, going on with her tissue paper. Eleanor also went on assiduously with her drawing, and her colour remained a rich tint. But she went on frankly with her words too. "I am not sure, mamma, that I like the owner of it well enough to receive such a valuable gift from him." "He likes you, quite well enough to bestow it on you, without asking any questions," said Mrs. Powle. "He hardly thinks it is worth having, unless you have it too." "That is inconvenient," said Eleanor. "It strikes me the other way," said her mother. "How do you know this, which you affirm so securely, mamma?" "How should I know it? The person in question told me himself." "Told you in so many words?" "No, in a great many more," said Mrs. Powle laughing. "I have merely presented a statement. He had a great deal more to do than that." The tissue paper rustled quietly for some time after this, and Eleanor's pencil could be heard making quick marks. Neither lady interrupted the other. "Well, Eleanor,--how does it seem to you?" began the elder lady, in a tone of quiet satisfaction. "Inconvenient, mamma,--as I said." "How?" But Eleanor did not say how. "Mr. Carlisle will be here for his answer this evening." "I like him very well, mamma," said Eleanor, after another pause,--"but I do not like him enough." "Nonsense! You would like to be Lady Rythdale, wouldn't you?" The silence which followed this was longer than that which had been before. Knife and pencil pursued their work, but Mrs. Powle glancing up furtively from her tissue paper saw that Eleanor's brow was knitted and that her pencil was moving under the influence of something besides Art. So she let her alone for a long time. And Eleanor's fancy saw a vision of fairy beauty and baronial dignity before her. They lay in the wide domains and stately appendages of Rythdale Priory. How could she help seeing it? The vision floated before her with point after point of entrancing loveliness, old history, present luxury, hereditary rank and splendour, and modern power. It was like nothing in Eleanor's own home. Her father, though a comfortable country gentleman, boasted nothing and had nothing to boast in the way of ancestry, beyond a respectable descent of several generations. His means, though ample enough for comfort and reasonable indulgence, could make no pretensions to more. And Ivy Lodge was indeed a pleasant home, and every field and hedgerow belonging to it was lovely to Eleanor; but the broad manors of Rythdale Priory for extent would swallow up many such, and for beauty and dignity were as a damask rose to a bit of eglantine. Would Eleanor be Lady Rythdale? "He will be here this evening for his answer, Eleanor--" Mrs. Powle remarked in a quiet voice the second time. "Then you must give it to him, mamma." "I shall do nothing of the kind. You must see him yourself. I will have no such shifting of your work upon my shoulders." "I do not wish to see him to-night, mamma." "I choose that you should. Don't talk any nonsense to me, Eleanor." "But, mamma, if I am to give the answer, I am not ready with any answer to give." "Tell Mr. Carlisle so; and he will draw his own conclusions, and make you sign them." "I do not want to be made to sign anything." "Do it of free-will then," said Mrs. Powle laughing. "It is coming, Eleanor--one way or the other. If I were you, I would do it gracefully. Is it a hard thing to be Lady Rythdale?" Eleanor did not say, and nothing further passed on the subject; till as both parties were leaving the room together, Mrs. Powle said significantly, "You must give your own answer, Eleanor, and to-night. I will have no skulking." It was beyond Mrs. Powle's power, however, to prevent skulking of a certain sort. Eleanor did not hide herself in her room, but she left it late in the afternoon, when she knew the company consisted of more than one, and entered a tolerably well filled drawing-room. Mrs. Powle had not wished to have it so, but these things do not arrange themselves for our wishes. Miss Broadus was there, and Dr. Cairnes, and friends who had come to make him and his sister a visit; and one or two other neighbours. Eleanor came in without making much use of her eyes, and sheltered herself immediately under the wing of Miss Broadus, who was the first person she fell in with. Two pairs of eyes saw her entrance; with oddly enough the same thought and comment. "She will make a lovely Lady Rythdale." All the baronesses of that house had been famous for their beauty, and the heir of the house remarked to himself that _this_ would prove not the least lovely of the race. However, Eleanor did not even feel sure that he was there, he kept at such a distance; and she engaged Miss Broadus in a conversation that seemed of interminable resources. The sole thing that Eleanor was conscious of concerning it, was its lasting quality; and to maintain that was her only care. Would Eleanor be Lady Rythdale? she had made up her mind to nothing, except, that it would be very difficult for her to say either yes or no. Naturally enough, she dreaded the being obliged to say anything; and was ready to seize every expedient to stave off the moment of emergency. As long as she was talking to Miss Broadus, she was safe; but conversations cannot last always, even when they flow in a stream so full and copious as that in which the words always poured from that lady's lips. Eleanor saw signs at last that the fountain was getting exhausted; and as the next resort proposed a game of chess. Now a game of chess was the special delight of Miss Broadus; and as it was the detestation of her sister, Miss Juliana, the delight was seldom realized. The two sisters were harmonious in everything except a few tastes, and perhaps their want of harmony in those points gave their life the variety it needed. At any rate, such an offer as Eleanor's was rarely refused by the elder sister; and the two ladies were soon deep in their business. One really, the other seemingly. Though indeed it is true that Eleanor was heartily engaged to prevent the game coming to a termination, and therefore played in good earnest, not for conquest but for time. This had gone on a good while, before she was aware that a footstep was drawing near the chess table, and then that Mr. Carlisle, stood beside her chair. "Now don't _you_ come to help!" said Miss Broadus, with a thoughtful face and a piece between her finger and thumb. "Why not?" "I know!" said Miss Broadus, never taking her eyes from the board which held them as by a charm,--"I can play a sort of a game; but if you take part against me, I shall be vanquished directly." "Why should I take part against you?" Miss Broadus at that laughed a good-humoured little simple laugh. "Well"--she said, "it's the course of events, I suppose. I never find anybody taking my part now-a-days. There! I am afraid you have made me place that piece wrong, Mr. Carlisle. I wish you would be still. I cannot fight against two such clever people." "Do you find Miss Powle clever?" "I didn't know she was, so much, before," said Miss Broadus, "but she has been playing like a witch this evening. There Eleanor--you are in check." Eleanor was equal to that emergency, and relieved her king from danger with a very skilful move. She could keep her wits, though her cheek was high-coloured and her hand had a secret desire to be nervous. Eleanor would not let it; and Mr. Carlisle admired the very pretty fingers which paused quietly upon the chess-men. "Do not forget a proper regard for the interests of the church, Miss Broadus," he remarked. "Why, I never do!" said Miss Broadus. "What do you mean? Oh, my bishop!--Thank you, Mr. Carlisle." Eleanor did not thank him, for the bishop's move shut up her play in a corner. She did her best, but her king's resources were cut off; and after a little shuffling she was obliged to surrender at discretion. Miss Broadus arose, pleased, and reiterating her thanks to Mr. Carlisle, and walked away; as conscious that her presence was no more needed in that quarter. "Will you play with me?" said Mr. Carlisle, taking the chair Miss Broadus had quitted. "Yes," said Eleanor, glad of anything to stave off what she dreaded; "but I am not--" "I am no match for you," she was going to say. She stopped suddenly and coloured more deeply. "What are you not?" asked the gentleman, slowly setting his pawns. "I am not a very good player. I shall hardly give you amusement." "I am not sorry for that--supposing it true. I do not like to see women good chess-players." "Pray why do you not like it?" "Chess is a game of planning--scheming--contriving--calculating. Women ought not to be adepts in those arts. I hate women that are." He glanced up as he spoke, at the fair, frank lines of the face opposite him. No art to scheme was shewn in them; there might be resolution; he liked that. He liked it too that the fringe of the eyes drooped over them, and that the tint of the cheek was so very rich. "But they say, no one can equal a woman in scheming and planning, if she takes to it," said Eleanor. "Try your skill," said he. "It is your move." The game began, and Eleanor tried to make good play; but she could not bring to it the same coolness or the same acumen that had fought with Miss Broadus. The well-formed, well-knit hand with the coat sleeve belonging to it, which was all of her adversary that came under her observation, distracted Eleanor's thoughts; she could not forget whose it was. Very different from the weak flexile fingers of Miss Broadus, with their hesitating movement and doubtful pauses, these did their work and disappeared; with no doubt or hesitancy of action, and with agile firmness in every line of muscle and play. Eleanor shewed very poor skill for her part, at planning and contriving on this occasion; and she had a feeling that her opponent might have ended the game many a time if he had chosen it. Still the game did not end. It was a very silent one. "You are playing with me, Mr. Carlisle," she said at length. "What are you doing with me?" "Making no fight at all; but that is because I cannot. Why don't you conquer me and end the game?" "How can I?" "I am sure I don't know; but I believe you do. It is all a muddle to me; and not a very interesting piece of confusion to you, I should think." He did not answer that, but moved a piece; Eleanor made the answering move; and the next step created a lock. The game could go no further. Eleanor began to put up the pieces, feeling worsted in more ways than one. She had not dared to raise her eyes higher than that coat-sleeve; and she knew at the same time that she herself had been thoroughly overlooked. Those same fingers came now helping her to lay the chess-men in the box, ordering them better than she did. "I want to shew you some cottages I have been building beyond Rythdale tower," said the owner of the fingers. "Will you ride with me to-morrow to look at them?" He waited for her answer, which Eleanor hesitated to give. But she could not say no, and finally she gave a low yes. Her yes was so low, it was significant; Eleanor knew it; but Mr. Carlisle went on in the same tone. "At what hour? At eleven?" "That will do," said Eleanor, after hesitating again. "Thank you." He went on, taking the chess-men from her fingers as fast as she gathered them up, and bestowing them in the box after a leisurely manner; then rose and bowed and took his departure. Eleanor saw that he did not hold any communication with her mother on his way out; and in dread of Mrs. Powle's visitation of curiosity upon herself, she too made as quick and as quiet an escape as possible to her own room. There locked the door and walked the floor to think. In effect she had given her answer, by agreeing to ride; she knew it. She knew that Mr. Carlisle had taken it so, even by the slight freedom with which his fingers touched hers in taking the chess-men from them. It was a very little thing; and yet Eleanor could never recall the willing contact of those fingers, repeated and repeated, without a thrill of feeling that she had committed herself; that she had given the end of the clue into Mr. Carlisle's hand, which duly wound up would land her safe enough, mistress of Rythdale Priory. And was she unwilling to be that? No--not exactly. And did she dislike Rythdale Priory's master, or future master? No, not at all; nevertheless, Eleanor did not feel quite willing to have him hers just yet; she was not ready for that; and she chafed at feeling that the end of that clue was in the hand of her chess-playing antagonist, and alternatives pretty well out of her power. An alternative Eleanor would have liked. She would have liked the play to have gone on for some time longer, leaving her her liberty in all kinds; liberty to make up her mind at leisure, among other things. She was not just now eager to be mistress of anything but herself. Eleanor watched for her mother's coming, but Mrs. Powle was wiser. She had marked the air of both parties on quitting the drawing-room; and though doubtless she would have liked a little word revelation of what she desired to know, she was content to leave things in train. She judged that Mr. Carlisle could manage his own affairs, and went to bed well satisfied; while Eleanor, finding that her mother was not coming, at last laid herself also down to rest, with a mixed feeling of pleasure and pain in her heart, but vexation towering above all. It would have been vexation still better grown, if she had known the hint her mother had given Mr. Carlisle, when that evening he had applied to her for what news she had for him? Mrs. Powle referred him very smilingly to Eleanor to learn it; at the same time telling him that Eleanor had been allowed to run wild--like her sister Julia--till now she was a little wilful and needed taming. She looked the character sufficiently well when she came down the next morning. The colour on her cheek was raised yet, and rich; and Eleanor's beautiful lips did not unbend to their brilliant mischievous smile. She was somewhat quick and nervous too about her household arrangements and orders, which yet Eleanor did not neglect. It was time then to dress for her ride; and Eleanor dressed, not hurriedly but carefully, between pleasure and irritation. By what impulse she could not have told, she pulled the feather from her riding cap. It was a long, jaunty black feather, that somewhat shaded and softened her face in riding with its floating play. Her cap now, and her whole dress, was simplicity itself; but if Eleanor had meant to cheat Mr. Carlisle of some pleasure, she had misjudged and lost her aim; the close little unadorned cap but shewed the better her beautiful hair and a face and features which nobody that loved them could wish even shaded from view. Mrs. Powle had maintained a discreet silence all the morning; nevertheless Eleanor was still afraid that she might come to ask questions, and not enduring to answer them, as soon as her toilet was finished she fled from her room into the garden. This garden, into which the old schoolroom opened, was Eleanor's particular property. No other of the family were ever to be found in it. She had arranged its gay curves and angles, and worked in it and kept it in great part herself. The dew still hung on the leaves; the air of a glorious summer morning was sweet with the varied fragrance of the flowers. Eleanor's heart sprung for the dear old liberty she and the garden had had together; she went lingeringly and thoughtfully among her petunias and carnations, remembering how joyous that liberty had been; and yet--she was not willing to say the word that would secure it to her. She roved about among the walks, picking carnations in one hand and gathering up her habit with the other. So her little sister found her. "Why Eleanor!--are you going to ride with Mr. Carlisle?" "Yes." "Well he has come--he is waiting for you. He has brought the most _splendid_ black horse for you that you ever saw; papa says she is magnificent." "I ordered my pony"--said Eleanor. "Well the pony is there, and so is the black horse. O such a beauty, Eleanor! Come." Eleanor would not go through the house, to see her mother and father by the way. Instinctively she sheered off by the shrubbery paths, which turning and winding at last brought her out upon the front lawn. On the whole a more marked entrance upon the scene the young lady could not have contrived. From the green setting of the shrubbery her excellent figure came out to view, in its dark riding drapery; and carnations in one hand, her habit in the other, she was a pleasant object to several pairs of eyes that were watching her; Julia having done them the kind office to say which way she was coming. Of them all, however, Eleanor only saw Mr. Carlisle, who was on the ground to meet her. Perhaps he had as great an objection to eyes as she had; for his removal of his cap in greeting was as cool as if she had been a stranger; and so were his words. "I have brought Black Maggie for you--will you do me the honour to try her?" Eleanor did not say she would not, and did not say anything. Hesitation and embarrassment were the two pleasant feelings which possessed her and forbade her to speak. She stood before the superb animal, which shewed blood in every line of its head and beautiful frame; and looked at it, and looked at the ground. Mr. Carlisle gently removed the carnations from her hand, taking them into his own, then gave her the reins of Black Maggie and put her into the saddle. In another minute they were off, and out of the reach of observation. But Eleanor had felt again, even in that instant or giving into her fingers the reins which he had taken from the groom, the same thing that she had felt last night--the expression of something new between them. She was in a very divided state of mind. She had not told him he might take that tone with her. "There are two ways to the head of the valley," said the subject of her thoughts. "Shall we take the circuit by the old priory, or go by the moor?" "By the moor," said Eleanor. There, for miles, was a level plain road; they could ride any pace, and she could stave off talking. Accordingly, as soon as they got quit of human habitations, Eleanor gave Black Maggie secretly to understand that she might go as fast as she liked. Black Maggie apparently relished the intimation, for she sprang forward at a rate Eleanor by experience knew nothing of. She had never been quite so well mounted before. As swiftly and as easily as if Black Maggie's feet had been wings, they flew over the common. The air was fresh, the motion was quite sufficient to make it breezy; Eleanor felt exhilarated. All the more because she felt rebellious, and the stopping Mr. Carlisle's mouth was at least a gratification, though she could not leave him behind. He had not mounted her better than himself. Fly as Black Maggie would, her brown companion was precisely at her side. Eleanor had a constant sense of that; but however, the ride was so capital, the moor so wild, the summer air so delicious, that by degrees she began to grow soothed and come down from rebellion to good humour. By and by, Black Maggie got excited. It was with nothing but her own spirits and motion; quite enough though to make hoofs still more emulous of wings. Now she flew indeed. Eleanor's bridle rein was not sufficient to hold her in, or make any impression. She could hardly see how they went. "Is not this too much for you?" the voice of Mr. Carlisle said quietly. "Rather--but I can't check her," said Eleanor; vexed to make the admission, and vexed again when a word or two from the rider at her side, who at the same moment leaned forward and touched Maggie's bridle, brought the wild creature instantly not only from her mad gallop but back to a very demure and easy trot. So demure, that there was no longer any bar to conversation; but then Eleanor reflected she could not gallop always, and they were almost off the plain road of the moor. How beautiful the moor had been to her that morning! Now Eleanor looked at Black Maggie's ears. "How do you like her?" said Mr. Carlisle. "Charming! She is perfection. She is delightful." "She must learn to know her mistress," he rejoined, leaning forward again and drawing Maggie's reins through his fingers. "Take her up a little shorter--and speak to her the next time she does not obey you." The flush rose to Eleanor's cheeks, and over her brow, and reddened her very temples. She made no sort of answer, yet she knew silence was answer, and that her blood was speaking for her. It was pretty speaking, but extremely inconvenient. And what business had Mr. Carlisle to take things for granted in that way? Eleanor began to feel rebellious again. "Do you always ride with so loose a rein?" began Mr. Carlisle again. "I don't know--I never think about it. My pony is perfectly safe." "So is Maggie--as to her feet; but in general, it is well to let everything under you feel your hand." "That is what you do, I have no doubt," thought Eleanor, and bit her lip. She would have started into another gallop; but they were entering upon a narrow and rough way where gallopping was inadmissible. It descended gradually and winding among rocks and broken ground, to a lower level, the upper part of the valley of the Ryth; a beautiful clear little stream flowing brightly in a rich meadow ground, with gently shelving, softly broken sides; the initiation of the wilder scenery further down the valley. Here were the cottages Mr. Carlisle had spoken of. They looked very picturesque and very inviting too; standing on either side the stream, across which a rude rustic bridge was thrown. Each cottage had its paling enclosure, and built of grey rough stone, with deep sloping roofs and bright little casements, they looked the very ideal of humble homes. No smoke rose from the chimneys, and nobody was visible without or within. "I want some help of you here," said Mr. Carlisle. "Do you like the situation?" "Most beautiful!" said Eleanor heartily. "And the houses are just the thing." "Will you dismount and look a little closer? We will cross the bridge first." They drew bridle before one of the cottages. Eleanor had all the mind in the world to have thrown herself from Black Maggie's back, as she was accustomed to do from her own pony; but she did not dare. Yesterday she would have dared; to-day there was a slight indefinable change in the manner of Mr. Carlisle towards herself, which cast a spell over her. He stood beside Black Maggie, the carnations making a rosy spot in the buttonhole of his white jacket, while he gave some order to the groom--Eleanor did not hear what, for her mind was on something else; then turned to her and took her down, that same indescribable quality of manner and handling saying to all her senses that he regarded the horse and the lady with the same ownership. Eleanor felt proud, and vexed, and ashamed, and pleased; her mind divided between different feelings; but Mr. Carlisle directed her attention now to the cottages. It was impossible not to admire and be pleased with them. The exterior was exceedingly homelike and pretty; within, there was yet more to excite admiration. Nicely arranged, neatly and thoroughly furnished, even to little details, they looked most desirable homes for any persons of humble means, even though the tastes had not been equally humble. From one to another Mr. Carlisle took Eleanor; displaying his arrangements to a very silent observer; for though she thought all this admiration, she hardly said anything. Between irritation, and pleasure, and a pretty well-grown shyness, she felt very tongue-tied. At last, after shewing her the view from the lattice of a nice little cottage kitchen, Mr. Carlisle asked for her judgment upon what had been done. "It is thoroughly excellent," said Eleanor. "They leave nothing to wish. I have never seen such nice cottages. There is nobody in them yet?" "Is there any improvement to be made?" "None to be desired, I think," said Eleanor. "They are just perfect little homes. They only want the people now." "And that is where I want your help. Do you think of any good families, or poor people you approve of, that you would like to put in some of these?" Eleanor's thought flew instantly to two or three such families among her poor friends; for she was a good deal of a Lady Bountiful, as far as moderate means and large sympathy could go; and knew many of the lower classes in her neighbourhood; but again she struggled with two feelings, for the question had been put not in tone of compliment but with a manner of simple consultation. She flushed and hesitated, until it was put again. "I know several, I think, that you would not dislike to have here, and that would be very glad to come, Mr. Carlisle." "Who are they?" "One is Mrs. Benson, who lives on nothing with her family of eight children, and brings them up well." Mr. Carlisle took out his note-book. "Another is Joe Shepherd and his wife; but they are an old couple; perhaps you do not want old people here?" He looked up from his note-book with a little smile, which brought the blood tingling to Eleanor's brow again, and effectually drove away all her ideas. She was very vexed with herself; she was never used to be so troubled with blushing. She turned away. "Suppose you sit down," said he, taking her hands and placing her in a chair by the window. "You must have some refreshment, I think, before we go any further." He left the cottage, and Eleanor looked out of the open casement, biting her lips. The air came in with such a sweet breath from the heathery moor, it seemed to blow vexation away. Yet Eleanor was vexed. Here she was making admissions with every breath, when she would fain have not made any. She wanted her old liberty, and to dispose of it at her leisure if at all; and at least not to have it taken from her. But here was Mr. Carlisle at her elbow again, and one of his servants bringing dishes and glasses. The meats were spread on the little table before which Eleanor sat, and Mr. Carlisle took another chair. "We will honour the house for once," he said smiling; "the future shall be as the occupants deserve. Is this one to belong to some of your protégés?" "I have not the gift of foresight," said Eleanor. "You have another sort of gift which will do quite as well. If you have any choice, choose the houses in which Joe Shepherd, and Mrs. Benson, and anybody else, shall thank you--and I will order the doors marked. Which do you prefer?" Eleanor was forced to speak. "I think this is one of the pleasantest situations," she said flushing deeply again; "but the house highest up the valley--" "What of it?" said Mr. Carlisle, smiling at her. "That would be best for Joe Shepherd, because of his business. It is nearer the common." "Joe Shepherd shall have it. Now will you do me the favour to eat that," said he putting a piece of cold game on her plate. "Do not look at it, but eat it. Your day's labour is by no means over." It was easier to eat than to do nothing; and easier to look at her plate than where her carnations gleamed on that white breast-ground. So Eleanor eat obediently. "The day is so uncommonly fine, how would you like to walk down the valley as far as the old priory, and let the horses meet us there?" "I am willing"--said Eleanor. Which she was, only because she was ashamed or afraid to say that she wanted to gallop back by the moor, the same way she had come. A long walk down the valley would give fine opportunity for all that she dreaded in the way of conversation. However, the order was given about the horses, and the walk began. The way was at first a continuation of the valley in which the cottages were situated; uncultivated, sweet, and wild. They were a good distance beyond Barton's tower. The stream of the Ryth, not so large as it became further down, sparkled along in a narrow meadow, beset with flowers. Here and there a rude bridge crossed it; and the walkers passed as they listed from side to side, wandering down the valley at great leisure, remarking upon all sorts of things except what Eleanor was dreading. The walk and talk went on without anything formidable. Mr. Carlisle seemed to have nothing on his mind; and Eleanor, full of what was on hers, only felt through his quiet demeanour that he was taking things for granted in a very cool way. She was vexed and irritated, and at the same time subdued. And then an opposite feeling would stir, of pleasure and pride, at the place she was taking and the relations she was assuming to the beautiful domain through which they wandered. As they went down the valley it grew more and more lovely. Luxuriant growths of ash and oak mingled with larches, crowned the rising borders of the valley and crept down their sides, hanging a most exquisite clothing of vegetation over the banks which had hitherto been mostly bare. As they went, from point to point and in one after another region of beauty, her companion's talk, quietly flowing on, called her attention to one and another observation suggested by what they were looking at; not as if it were a foreign matter, but with a tacit intimation that it concerned her or had a right to her interest. It was a long walk. They were some time before reaching the old tower; then a long stretch of beautiful scenes lay between them and the old priory ruins. This part of the valley was in the highest degree picturesque. The sides drew together, close and rocky and overshadowed with a thicket of trees. The path of the river became steep and encumbered; the way along its banks grew comparatively rough and difficult. The day was delicious, without even a threatening of rain; yet the sun in some places was completely shut out from the water by the overgrown, overhanging sides of rock and wood which shut in the dell. Conversation was broken here, by the pleasant difficulty of pursuing the way. Here too flowers were sweet and the birds busy. The way was enough to delight any lover of nature; and it was impossible not to be delighted. Nevertheless Eleanor hailed for a sake not its own, every bit of broken ground and rough walking that made connected conversation impossible; and then was glad to see the grey walls of the priory, where the horses were to meet them. Once in the saddle again--she would be glad to be there! The horses were not in sight yet; they strolled into the ruin. It was lovely to-day; the sunlight adding its brightening touch to all that moss and ivy and lichen and fern had done. They sauntered up what had been an aisle of the church; carpeted now with soft shaven turf, close and smooth. "The priory was founded a great while ago," said Mr. Carlisle, "by one of the first Lords of Rythdale, on account of the fact that he had slain his own brother in mortal combat. It troubled his mind, I suppose, even in those rough times." "And he built the church to soothe it." "Built the church and founded the establishment; gave it all the lands we have passed through to-day, and much more; and great rights on hill and dale and moor. We have them nearly all back again--by one happy chance and another." "What was this?" said Eleanor, seating herself on a great block of stone, the surface of which was rough with decay. "This was a tombstone--tradition says, of that same slain Lord of Rythdale--but I think it very hypothetical. However, your fancy can conjure back his image, if you like, lying where you sit; covered with the armour he lived his life in, and probably with hands joined to make the prayers his life had rendered desirable." "He had not the helmet--" thought Eleanor. She got up to look at the stone; but it was worn away; no trace of the knight in armour who had lain there was any longer to be seen. What long ago times those were! "And then the old monks did nothing else but pray," she remarked. "A few other things," said her companion; "if report is true. But they said a great many prayers, it is certain. It was what they were specially put here for--to do masses for that old stone figure that used to lie there. They were paid well for doing it. I hope they did it." The wind stirred gently through the ruin, bringing a sweet scent of herbs and flowers, and a fern or an ivy leaf here and there just moved lightly on its stalk. "They must have lived a pleasant sort of life," said Eleanor musingly,--"in this beautiful place!" "Are you thinking of entering a monastery?" said her companion smiling. It brought back Eleanor's consciousness, which had been for a moment forgotten, and the deep colour flashed to her face. She stood confused. Mr. Carlisle did not let her go this time; he took both her hands. "Do you think I am going to be satisfied with only negative answers from you?" said he changing his tone. "What have you got to say to me?" Eleanor struggled with herself. "Nothing, Mr. Carlisle." "Your mother has conveyed to you my wishes?" "Yes," said Eleanor softly. "What are yours?" She hesitated, held at bay, but he waited; and at last with a little of her frank daring breaking out, she said, still in her former soft voice, "I would let things alone." "Suppose that could not be,--would you send me away, or let me come near to you?" Eleanor could not send him away; but he would not come near. He stood keeping her hands in a light firm grasp; she felt that he knew his hold of her; her head bowed in confusion. "Speak, darling," he said. "Are you mine?" Eleanor shrank lower and lower from his observation; but she answered in a whisper,--"I suppose so." Her hands were released then, only to have herself taken into more secure possession. She had given herself up; and Mr. Carlisle's manner said that to touch her cheek was his right as well as his pleasure. Eleanor could not dispute it; she knew that Mr. Carlisle loved her, but the certainly thought the sense of power had great charms for him: so, she presently thought, had the exercise of it. "You are mine now," he said,--"you are mine. You are Eleanor Carlisle. But you have not said a word to me. What is my name?" "Your name!" stammered Eleanor,--"Carlisle." "Yes, but the rest?" "I know it," said Eleanor. "Speak it, darling?" Now Eleanor had no mind to speak that or anything else upon compulsion; it should be a grace from her lips, not the compliance with a requisition; her spirit of resistance sprung up. A frank refusal was on her tongue, and her head, which had been drooping, was thrown back with an infinitely pretty air of defiance, to give it. Thus she met Mr. Carlisle's look; met the bright hazel eyes that were bent upon her, full of affection and smiling, but with something else in them as well; there was a calm power of exaction. Eleanor read it, even in the half-glance which took in incongruously the graceful figure and easy attitude; she did not feel ready for contention with Mr. Carlisle; the man's nature was dominant over the woman's. Eleanor's head stooped again; she spoke obediently the required words. "Robert Macintosh." The kisses which met her lips before the words were well out, seemed to seal the whole transaction. Perhaps it was Eleanor's fancy, but to her they spoke unqualified content both with her opposition and her yielding. She was chafed with the consciousness that she had been obliged to yield; vexed to feel that she was not her own mistress; even while the kisses that stopped her lips told her how much love mingled with her captor's power. There was no questioning that fact; it only half soothed Eleanor. Mr. Carlisle bade her sit down and rest, while he went to see if the horses were there. Eleanor sat down dreamily on the old tombstone, and in the space of three minutes went over whole fields of thought. Her mind was in a perverse state. Before her the old tower of the ruined priory rose in its time-worn beauty, with the young honours of the ivy clinging all about it; on either side of her stretched the grey, ivied and mossy, crumbling walls. It was a magnificent place; if not her own mistress, it was a pleasant thing to be mistress of such as that; and a vision of gay grandeur floated over her mind. Still, in contrast with that vision, the quiet, ruined priory tower spoke of a different life--brought up a separate vision; of unworldly possessions, aims, hopes, and occupations; it was not familiar to Eleanor's mind, yet now somehow it rose upon her, with the feeling of that once-wanted, still desired,--only she had forgotten it--armour of security. Why did she think of it now? was it because Eleanor's mind was in that disordered state which lets everything come to the surface by turns; or because she was still suffering, from vexation, and her spirit chose contraries with a natural readiness and relish? It was not more than three minutes, but Eleanor travelled far in dream-land; so far that the sudden feeling of two hands upon her shoulders, brought her back with even a visible start. She was rallied and laughed at; then her hand was put upon Mr. Carlisle's arm and so Eleanor was walked out to where Black Maggie stood waiting for her. Of course she felt that her engagement was to be made known to all the world immediately. Mr. Carlisle's servant must know it now. It seemed to Eleanor that fine bands of cobwebs had been cast round her, binding her hands and feet, which loved their liberty. The feeling made one little imprudent burst. As Mr. Carlisle put Maggie's reins into her hand, he repeated what he had before said, that Eleanor should use her voice if the bridle failed to win obedience. "She is not of a rebellious disposition," he added. "Do you read dispositions?" said Eleanor, gathering up the reins. He stood at her saddle-bow. "Sometimes." "Do you know mine?" "Partially." "It is what you say Black Maggie's is not." "Is it? Take the reins a little shorter, Eleanor." It is difficult to say how much there may be in two short words; but as Mr. Carlisle went round to the other side and mounted, he left his little lady in a state of fume. Those two words said so plainly to Eleanor's ear, that her announcement was neither denied nor disliked. Nay, they expressed pleasure; the sort of pleasure that a man has in a spirited horse of which he is master. It threw Eleanor's mind into a tumult, so great that for a minute or two she hardly knew what she was about. But for the sound, sweet good temper, which in spite of Eleanor's self-characterising was part of her nature, she would have been in a rage. As it was, she only handled Black Maggie in a more stately style than she had cared about at the beginning of the ride; putting her upon her paces; and so rode through all the village, in a way that certainly pleased Mr. Carlisle, though he said nothing about it. He contrived however to aid in the soothing work done by Black Maggie's steps, so that long before Ivy Lodge was reached Eleanor's smile came free and sweet again, and her lip lost its ominous curve. "You are a darling!" Mr. Carlisle whispered as he took her down from her horse. Eleanor went on into the drawing-room. He followed her. Nobody was there. "What have you to say to me, Eleanor?" he said as he held her hand before parting. "Nothing whatever, Mr. Carlisle." Eleanor's frank brilliant smile gleamed mischievously upon him. "Will you not give me a word of kindness before I go?" "No! Mr. Carlisle, if I had my own way," said Eleanor switching her riding-whip nervously about her habit,--"I would be my own mistress for a good while longer." "Shall I give you back your liberty?" said he, drawing her into his arms. Eleanor was silent. Their touch manifested no such intention. He bent his head lower and said softly, "Kiss me, Eleanor." There was, as before, just that mingling of affection and exaction which conquered her. She knew all she was giving, but she half dared not and half cared not to refuse. "You little witch--" said he as he took possession of the just permitted lips,--"I will punish you for your naughtiness, by taking you home very soon--into my own management." Mrs. Powle was in Eleanor's room when she entered; waiting there for her. "Well Eleanor," she began,--"is it settled? Are you to be Lady Rythdale?" "If Mr. Carlisle has his will, ma'am." "And what is _your_ will?" "I have none any longer. But if you and he try to hurry on the day, mamma, it shall never come,--never!" Mrs. Powle thought she would leave that matter in more skilful hands; and went away well satisfied. CHAPTER V. AT THE COTTAGE. "This floating life hath but this port of rest, A heart prepared, that fears no ill to come." The matter was in skilful hands; for the days rolled on, after that eventful excursion, with great smoothness. Mr. Carlisle kept Eleanor busy, with some pleasant little excitement, every day varied. She was made to taste the sweets of her new position, and to depend more and more upon the hand that introduced her to them. Mr. Carlisle ministered carefully to her tastes. Eleanor daily was well mounted, generally on Maggie; and enjoyed her heart's delight of a gallop over the moor, or a more moderate pace through a more rewarding scenery. Mr. Carlisle entered into the spirit of her gardening pursuits; took her to his mother's conservatory; and found that he never pleased Eleanor better than when he plunged her into the midst of flowers. He took good care to advance his own interests all the time; and advanced them fast and surely. He had Eleanor's liking before; and her nature was too sweet and rich not to incline towards the person whom she had given such a position with herself, yielding to him more and more of faith and affection. And that in spite of what sometimes chafed her; the quiet sway she felt Mr. Carlisle had over her, beneath which she was powerless. Or rather, perhaps she inclined towards him secretly the more on account of it; for to women of rich natures there is something attractive in being obliged to look up; and to women of all natures it is imposing. So Mr. Carlisle's threat, by Eleanor so stoutly resisted and resented, was extremely likely to come to pass. Mrs. Powle was too wise to touch her finger to the game. Several weeks went by, during which Eleanor had no chance to think of anything but Mr. Carlisle and the matters he presented for her notice. At the end of that time he was obliged to go up to London on sudden business. It made a great lull in the house; and Eleanor began to sit in her garden parlour again and dream. While dreaming one day, she heard the voice of her little sister sobbing at the door-step. She had not observed before that she was sitting there. "Julia!" said Eleanor--"What is the matter?" Julia would not immediately say, but then faltered out, "Mr. Rhys." "Mr. Rhys! What of him?" "He's sick. He's going to die, I know." "How do you know he is sick? Come, stop crying, Julia, and speak. What makes you think he is sick?" "Because he just lies on the sofa, and looks so white, and he can't keep school. He sent away the boys yesterday." "Does he see the doctor?" "No. I don't know. No, I know he don't," said Julia; "because the old woman said he ought to see him." "What old woman, child?" "His old woman--Mrs. Williams. And mamma said I might have some jelly and some sago for him--and there is nobody to take it. Foster is out of the way, and Jack is busy, and I can't get anybody." Julia's tears were very sincere. "Stop crying, child, and I will go with you myself. I have not had a walk to-day, or a ride, or anything. Come, get ready, and you and I will take it." Julia did not wait even for thanks; she was never given to be ceremonious; but sprang away to do as her sister had said. In a few minutes they were off, going through the garden, each with a little basket in her hand. Julia's tears were exchanged for the most sunshiny gladness. It was a sunshiny day altogether, in the end of summer, and the heat was sultry. Neither sister minded weather of any sort; nevertheless they chose the shady side of the road and went very leisurely, along by the hedgerows and under the elms and beeches with which all the way to the village was more or less shaded. It was a long walk, even to the village. The cottage where Mr. Rhys had his abode was yet further on. The village must be passed on the way to it. It was a long line of cottages, standing for the most part on one side the street only; the sweet hedgerow on the other side only here and there broken by a white wicket gate. The houses were humble enough; yet in universal neat order on the outside at least; in many instances grown over with climbing roses and ivy, and overhung with deep thatched roofs. They stood scatteringly; gardens and sometimes small crofts intervening; and noble growth of old oaks and young elms shading the way; the whole as neat, fresh, and picturesque in rural comfort and beauty, as could be seen almost anywhere in England. The lords of Rythdale held sway here, and nothing under their rule, of late, was out of order. But there were poor people in the village, and very poor old houses, though skilfully turned to the account of beauty in the outward view. Eleanor was well known in them; and now Mrs. Benson came out to the gate and told how she was to move to her new home in another fortnight; and begged the sisters would come in to rest themselves from the sun. And old Mrs. Shepherd curtsied in her doorway; and Matthew Grimson's wife, the blacksmith that was, came to stop Eleanor with a roundabout representation how her husband's business would thrive so much better in another situation. Eleanor was seldom on foot in the village now. She passed that as soon as she could and went on. From her window on the other side of the lane, Miss Broadus nodded, and beckoned too; but the sisters would not be delayed. "It is good Mr. Carlisle has gone to London," said Julia. "He would not have let you come." Eleanor felt stung. "Why do you say so, Julia?" "Why, you always do what he tells you," said Julia, who was not apt to soften her communications. "He says 'Eleanor'--and you go that way; and he says 'Eleanor'--and you go the other way." "And why do you suppose he would have any objection to my going this way?" "I know"--said Julia. "I am glad he is in London. I hope he'll stay there." Eleanor made no answer but to switch her dress and the bushes as they went by, with a little rod in her hand. There was more truth in the allegation than it pleased her to remember. She did not always feel her bonds at the time, they were so gently put on and the spell of another's will was so natural and so irresistible. But it chafed her to be reminded of it and to feel that it was so openly exerted and her own subjugation so complete. The switching went on vigorously, taking the bushes and her muslin dress impartially; and Eleanor's mind was so engrossed that she did not perceive how suddenly the weather was changing. They had passed through the village and left it behind, when Julia exclaimed, "There's a storm coming, Eleanor! maybe we can get in before it rains." It was an undeniable fact; and without further parley both sisters set off to run, seeing that there were very few minutes to accomplish Julia's hope. It began sprinkling already. "It's going to be a real storm," said Julia gleefully. "Over the moor it's as black as thunder. I saw it through the trees." "But where are you going?"--For Julia had left the road, or rather lane, and dashed down a path through the trees leading off from it. "O this is the best--this leads round to the other side of the house," Julia said. Just as well, to go in at the kitchen, Eleanor thought; and let Julia find her way with her sago and jelly to Mr. Rhys's room, if she so inclined. So they ran on, reached a little strip of open ground at the back of the cottage, and rushed in at the door like a small tornado; for the rain was by this time coming down merrily. The first thing Eleanor saw when she had pulled off her flat,--was that she was not in a kitchen. A table with writing implements met her eye; and turning, she discovered the person one of them at least had come to see, lying on a sort of settee or rude couch, with a pillow under his head. He looked pale enough, and changed, and lay wrapped in a dressing-gown. If Eleanor was astonished, so certainly was he. But he rose to his feet, albeit scarce able to stand, and received his visitors with a simplicity and grace of nature which was in singular contrast with all the dignities of conventional life. "Mr. Rhys!" stammered Eleanor, "I had no idea we were breaking into your room. I thought Julia was taking me into Mrs. Williams's part of the house." "I am very glad to see you!" he said; and the words were endorsed by the pleasant grave face and the earnest grasp of the hand. But how ill and thin he looked! Eleanor was shocked. "It was beginning to rain," she repeated, "and I followed where Julia led me. I thought she was bringing me to Mrs. Williams's premises. I beg you will excuse me." "I have made Mrs. Williams give me this part of the house because I think it is the pleasantest. Won't you do me the honour to sit down?" He was bringing a chair for her, but looked so little able for it that Eleanor took it from his hand. "Please put yourself on the sofa again, Mr. Rhys--We will not interrupt you a moment." "Yes you will," said Julia, "unless you want to walk in the rain. Mr. Rhys, are you better to-day?" "I am as well as usual, thank you, Julia." "I am sorry to see that is not very well, Mr. Rhys," said Eleanor. "Not very strong--" he said with the smile that she remembered, as he sank back in the corner of the couch and rested his head on his hand. His look and manner altogether gave her a strange feeling. Ill and pale and grave as he was, there was something else about him different from all that she had touched in her own life for weeks. It was a new atmosphere. "Ladies, I hope you are not wet?" he said presently. "Not at all," said Eleanor; "nothing to signify. We shall dry ourselves in the sun walking back." "I think the sun is not going to be out immediately." He rose and with slow steps made his way to the inner door and spoke to some one within. Eleanor took a view of her position. The rain was coming down furiously; no going home just yet was possible. That was the out-of-door prospect. Within, she was a prisoner. The room was a plain little room, plain as a room could be; with no adornments or luxuries. Some books were piled on deal shelves; others covered two tables. A large portfolio stood in one corner. On one of the tables were pens, ink and paper, not lying loose, but put up in order; as not used nor wanted at present. Several boxes of various sorts and sizes made up the rest of the furniture, with a few chairs of very simple fashion. It was Mr. Rhys's own room they were in; and all that could be said of it was its nicety of order. Two little windows with the door might give view of something in fair weather; at present they shewed little but grey rain and a dim vision of trees seen through the rain. Eleanor wanted to get away; but it was impossible. She must talk. "You cannot judge of my prospect now," Mr. Rhys said as she turned to him. "Not in this rain. But I should think you could not see much at any time, except trees." "'Much' is comparative. No, I do not see much; but there is an opening from my window, through which the eye goes a long way--across a long distance of the moor. It is but a gleam; however it serves a good purpose for me." An old woman here came in with a bundle of sticks and began to lay them for a fire. She was an old crone-looking person. Eleanor observed her, and thought what it must be to have no nurse or companion but that. "We have missed you at the Lodge, Mr. Rhys." "Thank you. I am missing from all my old haunts," he answered gravely. And the thought and the look went to something from which he was very sorry to be missing. "But you will be soon well again--will you not? and among us again." "I do not know," he said. "I am sometimes inclined to think my work is done." "What work, Mr. Rhys?" said Julia. "Ferns, do you mean?" "No." "What work, Mr. Rhys?" "I mean the Lord's work, Julia, which he has given me to do." "Do you mean preaching?" "That is part of it." "What else is your work, Mr. Rhys?" said Julia, hanging about the couch with an affectionate eye. So affectionate, that her sister's rebuke of her forwardness was checked. "Doing all I can, Julia, in every way, to tell people of the Lord Jesus." "Was that the work you were going to that horrid place to do?" "Yes." "Then I am glad you are sick!" "That is very unkind of you," said he with a gravity which Eleanor was not sure was real. "It is better for you to be sick than to go away from England," said Julia decidedly. "But if I am not well enough to go there, I shall go somewhere else." "Where?" "What have you got in that saucer?" "Jelly for you. Won't you eat it, Mr. Rhys? There is sago in the basket. It will do you good." "Will you not offer your sister some?" "No. She gets plenty at home. Eat it, Mr. Rhys, won't you?" He took a few spoonfuls, smiled at her, and told her it was very good. It was a smile worth having. But both sisters saw that he looked fearfully pale and worn. "I must see if Mrs. Williams has not some berries to offer you," he said. "Where are you going, Mr. Rhys, if you do not go to that place?" Julia persisted. "If I do not go there, I think I shall go home." "Home?" "Yes." "Where is that?" said Julia hanging about him. "I meant my everlasting home, Julia." "O don't, Mr. Rhys!" cried the child in a half vexed tone. "Eat some more jelly--do!" "I am very willing to stay, Julia, if my Master has work for me to do." "You had charge of a chapel at Lily Dale, Mr. Rhys, I am told?" Eleanor said, feeling awkward. "No--at Croydon, beyond." "At Croydon! that is nine miles off. How did you get there?" The question escaped Eleanor. He hesitated, and answered simply, "I had no way but to walk. I found that very pleasant in summer mornings." "Walk to Croydon and back, and preach there! I do not wonder you are sick, Mr. Rhys." "I did not walk back the same day." "But then where did you go in the evenings to preach?" said Julia. "That was not so far off." "Did you serve _two_ chapels on the same day, Mr. Rhys?" Eleanor asked. "No. The evenings Julia speaks of I preached nearer home." "And school all the week!" said Eleanor. "It was no hardship," he said with a most pleasant smile at her. "The King's work required haste--there were many people at both places who had not heard the truth or had not learned to love it. There are still." His face grew very grave as he spoke; grave even to sadness as he added, "They are dying without the knowledge of the true life!" "Where was the other chapel you went to?" "Rythmoor." Eleanor hurried on. "But Mr. Rhys, will you allow me to ask you a question that puzzles me?" "I beg you will do so!" "It is just this. If there are so many in England that want teaching--But I beg your pardon! I am afraid talking tires you." "I assure you it is very pleasant to me. Will you go on." "If there are so many in England that want teaching, why should you go to such a place as that Julia talks of?" "They are further yet from help." "But is not the work here as good as the work there?" "I am cut off from both," he said. "I long to go to them. But the Lord has his own plans. 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul; and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God!'--" The grave, sweet, tender, strong intonation of these words, slowly uttered, moved Eleanor much. Not towards tears; the effect was rather a great shaking of heart. She saw a glimpse of a life she had never dreamed of; a power touched her that had never touched her before. This life was something quite unearthly in its spirit and aims; the power was the power of holiness. It is difficult or impossible to say in words how this influence made itself felt. In the writing of the lines of the face, in the motion of the lips, in the indefinable tones of voice, in the air and manner, there comes out constantly in all characters an atmosphere of the truth, which the words spoken, whether intended or not intended, do not convey. Even unintentional feigning fails here, and even self-deception is belied. The truth of a character will make itself felt and influential, for good or evil, through all disguises. So it was, that though the words of Mr. Rhys might have been said by anybody, the impression they produced belonged to him alone, of all the people Eleanor had ever seen in her life. The "helmet of salvation" was on this man's head, and gave it a dignity more than that of a kingly crown. She sat thinking so, and recalling her lost wishes of the early summer; forgetting to carry on the conversation. Meanwhile the old woman of the cottage came in again with a fresh supply of sticks, and a blaze began to brighten in the chimney. Julia exclaimed in delight. Eleanor looked at the window. The rain still came down heavily. She remembered the thunderstorm in June, and her fears. Then Mr. Rhys begged her to go to the fire and dry herself, and again spoke some unintelligible words to the old attendant. "What is that, Mr. Rhys?" said Julia, who seldom refrained from asking anything she wished to know. "I was enquiring of Mrs. Williams whether she had not some fresh-gathered berries she could bring for your refreshment." "But I mean, what language did you speak to her?" "Welsh." "Are you Welsh?" "No," said he smiling; "but I have Welsh blood; and I had a Welsh nurse, Julia." "I do not want any refreshment, Mr. Rhys; but I would like some berries." "I hope you would like to ask pardon of Mr. Rhys for your freedom," said Eleanor. "I am sure you need it." "Why Mrs. Williams very often gives me berries," said Julia; "and they always taste better than ours. I mean, Mr. Rhys gives me some." Eleanor busied herself over the fire, in drying her muslin dress. That did very well instead of talking. Mrs. Williams presently came in again, bearing a little tray with berries and a pot of cream. Julia eagerly played hostess and dealt them out. The service was most homely; nevertheless the wild berries deserved her commendation. The girls sat by the fire and eat, and their host from the corner of his couch watched them with his keen eyes. It was rather a romantic adventure altogether, Eleanor thought, in the midst of much graver thoughts. But Julia had quite got her spirits up. "Aren't they good, Eleanor? They are better berries than those that came from the Priory. Mr. Rhys, do you know that after Eleanor is Mrs. Carlisle, she will be Lady Rythdale?" This shot drove Eleanor into desperation. She would have started aside, to hide her cheeks, but it was no use. Mr. Rhys had risen to add some more cream to her saucer--perhaps on purpose. "I understand," he said simply. "Has she made arrangements to secure an everlasting crown, after the earthly coronet shall have faded away?" The question was fairly put to Eleanor. It gave a turn to her confusion, yet hardly more manageable; for the gentle, winning tones in which it was made found their way down to some very deep and unguarded spot in her consciousness. No one had ever probed her as this man dared to do. Eleanor could hardly sit still. The berries had no more any taste to her after that. Yet the question demanded an answer; and after hesitating long she found none better than to say, as she set down her saucer, "No, Mr. Rhys." Doubtless he read deeper than the words of her answer, but he made no remark. She would have been glad he had. The shower seemed to be slackening; and while Julia entered into lively conversation over her berries, Eleanor went to the window. She was doubtfully conscious of anything but discomfort; however she did perceive that the rain was falling less thickly and light beginning to break through the clouds. As she turned from the window she forced herself to speak. "What is there we can do for you at home, Mr. Rhys? Mrs. Williams' resources, I am sure, must be very insufficient." "I am very much obliged to you!" he said heartily. "There is nothing that I know of. I have all that I require." "You are better than you were? you are gaining strength?" "No, I think not. I am quite useless now." "But you will get better soon, and be useful again." "If it pleases my Master;--but I think not." "Do you consider yourself so seriously ill, Mr. Rhys?" said Eleanor looking shocked. "Do not take it so seriously," said he smiling at her. "No harm can come to me any way. It is far worse than death for me, to be cut off from doing my work; and a while ago the thought of this troubled me; it gave me some dark hours. But at last I rested myself on that word, 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Hope thou in God!' and now I am content about it. Life or death--neither can bring but good to me; for my Father sends it. You know," he said, again with a smile at her, but with a keen observant eye,--"they who are the Lord's wear an invisible casque, which preserves them from all fear." He saw that Eleanor's face was grave and troubled; he saw that at this last word there was a sort of avoidance of feature, as if it reached a spot of feeling somewhere that was sensitive. He added nothing more, except the friendly grasp of the hand, which drove the weapon home. The rain had ceased; the sun was out; and the two girls set forward on their return. They hurried at first, for the afternoon had worn away. The rain drops lay thick and sparkling on every blade of grass, and dripped upon them from the trees. "Now you will get your feet wet again," said Julia; "and then you will have another sickness; and Mr. Carlisle will be angry." "Do let Mr. Carlisle's anger alone!" said Eleanor. "I shall not sit down in wet shoes, so I shall not get hurt. Did you ever see him angry?" "No," said Julia; "and I am glad he won't be angry with me?" In spite of her words, the wet grass gave Eleanor a disagreeable reminder of what wet grass had done for her some months before. The remembrance of her sickness came up with the immediate possibility of its returning again; the little feeling of danger and exposure gave power to the things she had just heard. She could not banish them; she recalled freshly the miserable fear and longing of those days when she lay ill and knew not how her illness would turn; the fearful want of a shelter; the comparative littleness of all things under the sun. Rythdale Priory had not been worth a feather in that day; all the gay pleasures and hopes of the summer could have found no entrance into her heart then. And as she was then, so Eleanor knew herself now--defenceless, if danger came. And the wet grass into which every footstep plunged said that danger might be at any time very near. Eleanor wished bitterly that she had not come this walk with Julia. It was strange, how utterly shaken, miserable, forlorn, her innermost spirit felt, at this possible approach of evil to her shelterless head. And with double force, though they had been forcible at the time, Mr. Rhys's words recurred to her--the words that he had spoken half to himself as it were--"Hope thou in God." Eleanor had heard those words, read by different lips, at different times; they were not new; but the meaning of them had never struck her before. Now for the first time, as she heard the low, sweet, confident utterance of a soul fleeing to its stronghold, of a spirit absolutely secure there, she had an idea of what "hope in God" meant; and every time she remembered the tones of those words, spoken by failing lips too, it gave a blow to her heart. There was something she wanted. What else could be precious like that? And with them belonged in this instance, Eleanor felt, a purity of character till now unimagined. Thoughts and footsteps hurrying along together, they were past the village and far on their way towards home, the two sisters, before much was said between them. "I wish Mr. Rhys would get well and stay here," said Julia. "It is nice to go to see him, isn't it, Eleanor? He is so good." "I don't know whether it is nice," said Eleanor. "I wish almost I had not gone with you. I have not thought of disagreeable things before in a great while." "But isn't he good?" "Good!" said Eleanor. "He makes me feel as black as night." "Well, you aren't black," said Julia, pleased; "and I'll tell Mr. Carlisle what you say. He won't be angry that time." "Julia!" said Eleanor. "Do if you dare! You shall repeat no words of mine to Mr. Carlisle." Julia only laughed; and Eleanor hoped that the gentleman would stay in London till her purpose, whatever it might be, was forgotten. He did stay some days; the Lodge had a comparatively quiet time. Perhaps Eleanor missed the constant excitement of the weeks past. She was very restless, and her thoughts would not be diverted from the train into which the visit to Mr. Rhys had thrown them. Obstinately the idea kept before her, that a defence was wanting to her which she had not, and might have. She wanted some security greater than dry shoes could afford. Yea, she could not forget, that beyond that earthly coronet which of necessity must some time fade, she might want something that would endure in the air of eternity. Her musings troubled Eleanor. As Black Maggie did not wait upon her, these days, she ordered up her own little pony, and went off upon long rides by herself. It soothed her to be alone. She let no servant attend her; she took the comfort of good stirring gallops all over the moor; and then when she and the pony were both tired she let him walk and her thoughts take up their train. But it did not do her any good. Eleanor grew only more uneasy from day to day. The more she thought, the deeper her thoughts went; and still the contrast of purity and high Christian hope rose up to shame her own heart and life. Eleanor felt her danger as a sinner; her exposure as guilty; and the insufficiency of all she had or hoped for, to meet future and coming contingencies. So far she got; there she stopped; except that her sense of these things grew more keen and deep day by day; it did not fade out. Friends she had none to help her. She wanted to see Dr. Cairnes and attack him in private and bring him to a point on the subjects which agitated her; but she could not. Dr. Cairnes too was absent from Wiglands at this time; and Eleanor had to think and wait all by herself. She had her Bible, it is true; but she did not know how to consult it. She took care not to go near Mr. Rhys again; though she was sorry to hear through Julia that he was not mending. She wished herself a little girl, to have Julia's liberty; but she must do without it. And what would Mr. Carlisle say to her thoughts? She must not ask him. He could do nothing with them. She half feared, half wished for his influence to overthrow them. He came; but Eleanor did not find that he could remove the trouble, the existence of which he did not suspect. His presence did not remove it. In all her renewed engagements and gaieties, there remained a secret core of discomfort in her heart, whatever she might be about. They were taking tea one evening, half in and half out of the open window, when Julia came up. "Mr. Carlisle," said she, "I am going to pay you my forfeit." He had caught her in some game of forfeits the day before. "I am going to give you something you will like very much." "What can it be, Julia?" "You don't believe me. Now you do not deserve to have it. I am going to give you something Eleanor said." Eleanor's hand was on her lips immediately, and her voice forbade the promised forfeit; but there were two words to that bargain. Mr. Carlisle captured the hand and gave a counter order. "Now you don't believe me, but you believe Eleanor," said the lawless child. "She said,--she said it when you went away,--that she had not thought of anything disagreeable in a long while!" Mr. Carlisle looked delighted, as well he might. Eleanor's temples flushed a painful scarlet. "Dear me, how interesting these goings away and comings home are, I suppose!" exclaimed Miss Broadus, coming up to the group. "I see! there is no need to say anything. Mr. Carlisle, we are all rejoiced to see you back at Wiglands. Or at the Lodge--for you do not honour Wiglands much, except when I see you riding through it on that beautiful brown horse of yours. The black and the brown; I never saw such a pair. And you do ride! I should think you would be afraid that creature would lose a more precious head than its own." "I take better care than that, Miss Broadus." "Well, I suppose you do; though for my part I cannot see how a person on one horse can take care of a person on another horse; it is something I do not understand. I never did ride myself; I suppose that is the reason. Mr. Carlisle, what do you say to this lady riding all alone by herself--without any one to take care of her?" Mr. Carlisle's eyes rather opened at this question, as if he did not fully take in the idea. "She does it--you should see her going by as I did--as straight as a grenadier, and her pony on such a jump! I thought to myself, Mr. Carlisle is in London, sure enough. But it was a pretty sight to see. My dear, how sorry we are to miss some one else from our circle, and he did honour us at Wiglands--my sister and me. How sorry I am poor Mr. Rhys is so ill. Have you heard from him to-day, Eleanor?" "You should ask Julia, Miss Broadus. Is he much more ill than he was? Julia hears of him every day, I believe." "Ah, the children all love him. I see Julia and Alfred going by very often; and the other boys come to see him constantly, I believe. And my dear Eleanor, how kind it was of you to go yourself with something for him! I saw you and Julia go past with your basket--don't you remember?--that day before the rain; and I said to myself--no, I said to Juliana, some very complimentary things about you. Benevolence has flourished in your absence, Mr. Carlisle. Here was this lady, taking jelly with her own hands to a sick man. Now I call that beautiful." Mr. Carlisle preferred to make his own compliments; for he did not echo those of the talkative lady. "But I am afraid he is very ill, my dear," Miss Broadus went on, turning to Eleanor again. "He looked dreadfully when I saw him; and he is so feeble, I think there is very little hope of his life left. I think he has just worked himself to death. But I do not believe, Eleanor, he is any more afraid of death, than I am of going to sleep. I don't believe he is so much." Miss Broadus was called off; Mr. Carlisle had left the window; Eleanor sat sadly thinking. The last words had struck a deeper note than all the vexations of Miss Broadus's previous talk. "No more afraid of death than of going to sleep." Ay! for his head was covered from danger. Eleanor knew it--saw it--felt it; and felt it to be blessed. Oh how should she make that same covering her own? There was an engagement to spend the next afternoon at the Priory--the whole family. Dr. Cairnes would most probably be there to meet them. Perhaps she might catch or make an opportunity of speaking to him in private and asking him what she wanted to know. Not very likely, but she would try. Dr. Cairnes was her pastor; it ought to be in his power to resolve her difficulties; it must be. At any rate, Eleanor would apply to him and see. She had no one else to apply to. Unless Mr. Rhys would get well. Eleanor wished that might be. _He_ could help her, she knew, without a peradventure. Mr. Carlisle appeared again, and the musings were banished. He took her hand and put it upon his arm, and drew her out into the lawn. The action was caressingly done; nevertheless Eleanor felt that an inquiry into her behaviour would surely be the next thing. So half shrinking and half rebellious, she suffered herself to be led on into the winding walks of the shrubbery. The evening was delicious; nothing could be more natural or pleasant than sauntering there. "I am going to have Julia at the Priory to-morrow, as a reward for her good gift to me," was Mr. Carlisle's opening remark. "I am sure she does not deserve it," said Eleanor very sincerely. "What do you deserve?" "Nothing--in the way of rewards." Mr. Carlisle did not think so, or else regarded the matter in the light of a reward to himself. "Have you been good since I have been away?" "No!" said Eleanor bluntly. "Do you always speak truth after this fashion?" "I speak it as you will find it, Mr. Carlisle." The questions were put between caresses; but in all his manner nevertheless, in kisses and questions alike, there was that indefinable air of calm possession and power, before which Eleanor always felt unable to offer any resistance. He made her now change "Mr. Carlisle" for a more familiar name, before he would go on. Eleanor felt as a colt may be supposed to feel, which is getting a skilful "breaking in;" yielding obedience at every step, and at every step secretly wishing to refuse obedience, to refuse which is becoming more and more impossible. "Haven't you been a little too good to somebody else, while I have been away?" "No!" said Eleanor. "I never am." "Darling, I do not wish you to honour any one so far as that woman reports you to have done." "That!" said Eleanor. "That was the merest act of common kindness--Julia wanted some one to go with her to take some things to a sick man; and I wanted a walk, and I went." "You were too kind. I must unlearn you a little of your kindness. You are mine, now, darling; and I want all of you for myself." "But the better I am," said Eleanor, "I am sure the more there is to have." "Be good for _me_," said he kissing her,--"and in my way. I will dispense with other goodness. I am in no danger of not having enough in you." Eleanor walked back to the house, feeling as if an additional barrier were somehow placed between her and the light her mind wanted and the relief her heart sought after. CHAPTER VI. AT THE PRIORY. "Here he lives in state and bounty, Lord of Burleigh, fair and free; Not a lord in all the county Is so great a lord as he." Lady Rythdale abhorred dinner-parties, in general and in particular. She dined early herself, and begged that the family from Ivy Lodge would come to tea. It was the first occasion of the kind; and the first time they had ever been there otherwise than as strangers visiting the grounds. Lady Rythdale was infirm and unwell, and never saw her country neighbours or interchanged civilities with them. Of course this was laid to something more than infirmity, by the surrounding gentry who were less in consequence than herself; but however it were, few of them ever saw the inside of the Priory House for anything but a ceremonious morning visit. Now the family at the Lodge were to go on a different footing. It was a great time, of curiosity, pleasure, and pride. "What are you going to wear this evening, Eleanor?" her mother asked. "I suppose, my habit, mamma." "Your habit!" "I cannot very well ride in anything else." "Are you going to _ride?_" "So it is arranged, ma'am. It will be infinitely less tiresome than going in any other way." "Tiresome!" echoed Mrs. Powle. "But what will Lady Rythdale say to you in a riding-habit." "Mamma, I have very little notion what she would say to me in anything." "I will tell you what you must do, Eleanor. You must change your dress after you get there." "No, mamma--I cannot. Mr. Carlisle has arranged to have me go in a riding-habit. It is his responsibility. I will not have any fuss of changing, nor pay anybody so much of a compliment." "It will not be liked, Eleanor." "It will follow my fate, mamma, whatever that is." "You are a wilful girl. You are fallen into just the right hands. You will be managed now, for once." "Mamma," said Eleanor colouring all over, "it is extremely unwise in you to say that; for it rouses all the fight there is in me; and some day--" "Some day it will not break out," said Mrs. Powle. "Well, I should not like to fight with Mr. Carlisle," said Julia. "I am glad I am going, at any rate." Eleanor bit her lip. Nevertheless, when the afternoon came and Mr. Carlisle appeared to summon her, nothing was left of the morning's irritation but a little loftiness of head and brow. It was very becoming, no more; and Mr. Carlisle's evident pleasure and satisfaction soon soothed the feeling away. The party in the carriage had gone on before; the riders followed the same route, passing through the village of Wiglands, then a couple of miles or more beyond through the village of Rythdale. Further on, crossing a bridge they entered upon the old priory grounds; the grey tower rose before them, and the horses' feet swept through the beautiful wilderness of ruined art and flourishing nature. As the cavalcade wound along--for the carriage was just before them now--through the dale and past the ruins, and as it had gone in state through the village, Eleanor could not help a little throbbing of heart at the sense of the place she was holding and about to hold; at the feeling of the relation all these beauties and dignities now held to her. If she had been inclined to forget it, her companion's look would have reminded her. She had no leisure to analyze her thoughts, but these stirred her pulses. It was beautiful, as the horses wound through the dale and by the little river Ryth, where all the ground was kept like a garden. It was beautiful, as they left the valley and went up a slow, gentle, ascending road, through thick trees, to the higher land where the new Priory stood. It stood on the brow of the height, looking down over the valley and over the further plain where the village nestled among its trees. Yes, and it was fine when the first sight of the house opened upon her, not coming now as a stranger, but as future mistress; for whom every window and gable and chimney had the mysterious interest of a future home. Would old Lady Rythdale like to see her there? Eleanor did not know; but felt easy in the assurance that Mr. Carlisle, who could manage everything, could manage that also. It was his affair. The house shewed well as they drew towards it, among fine old trees. It was a new house; that is, it did not date further back than three generations. Like everything else about the whole domain, it gave the idea of perfect order and management. It was a spacious building, spreading out amply upon the ground, not rising to a great height; and built in a simple style of no particular name or pretensions; but massive, stately, and elegant. No unfinished or half realized idea; what had been attempted had been done, and done well. The house was built on three sides of a quadrangle. The side of approach by which the cavalcade had come, winding up from the valley, led them round past the front of the left wing. Mr. Carlisle made her draw bridle and fall a little behind the carriage. "Do you like this view?" said he. "Very much. I have never seen it before." He smiled at her, and again extending his hand drew Black Maggie's rein till he brought her to a slow walk. The carriage passed on out of sight. Eleanor would have remonstrated, but the view before her was lovely. Three gables, of unequal height, rose over that façade; the only ornamental part was in their fanciful but not elaborate mouldings. The lower story, stretching along the spread of a smooth little lawn, was almost masked with ivy. It embedded the large but perfectly plain windows, which reached so near the ground that one might step out from them; their clear amplitude was set in a frame of massive green. One angle especially looked as if the room within must be a nest of verdurous beauty. The ivy encased all the doorways or entrances on that side of the house; and climbing higher threatened to do for the story above what it had accomplished below; but perhaps some order had been taken about that, for in the main its course had been stayed at a certain stone moulding that separated the stories, and only a branch here and there had been permitted to shew what more it would like to do. One of the upper windows was partly encased; while its lace curtains gave an assurance that all its garnishing had not been left to nature. Eleanor could not help thinking it was a very lovely looking place for any woman to be placed in as her home; and her heart beat a little high. "Do you not like it?" said Mr. Carlisle. "Yes,--certainly!" "What are you considering so attentively in Black Maggie's ears?" Eleanor caused Maggie to prick up the said ears, by a smart touch of her whip. The horses started forward to overtake the carriage. Perhaps however Mr. Carlisle was fascinated--he might well be--by the present view he had of his charge; there was a blushing shy grace observable about her which it was pretty to see and not common; and maybe he wanted the view to be prolonged. He certainly did not follow the nearest road, but turned off instead to a path which went winding up and down the hill and through plantations of wood, giving Eleanor views also, of a different sort; and so did not come out upon the front of the house till long after the carriage party had been safely housed. Eleanor found she was alone and was not to be sheltered under her mother's wing or any other; and her conductor's face was much too satisfied to invite comments. He swung her down from the saddle, allowed her to remove her cap, and putting her hand on his arm walked her into the drawing-room and the presence of his mother. Eleanor had seen Lady Rythdale once before, in a stately visit which had been made at the Lodge; never except that one time. The old baroness was a dignified looking person, and gave her a stately reception now; rather stiff and cold, Eleanor thought; or careless and cold, rather. "My dear," said the old lady, "have you come in a riding-habit? That will be very uncomfortable. Go to my dressing-room, and let Arles change it for something else. She can fit you. Macintosh, you shew her the way." No questions were asked. Mr. Carlisle obeyed, putting Eleanor's hand on his arm again, and walked her off out of the room and through a gallery and up the stairs, and along another gallery. He walked fast. Eleanor felt exceedingly abashed and displeased and discomfited at this extraordinary proceeding, but she did not know how to resist it. Her compliance was taken for granted, and Mr. Carlisle was laughing at her discomfiture, which was easy enough to be seen. Eleanor's cheeks were glowing magnificently. "I suppose he feels he has me in his own dominions now,"--she thought; and the thought made her very rebellious. Lady Rythdale too! "Mr. Carlisle," she began, "there is really no occasion for all this. I am perfectly comfortable. I do not wish to alter my dress." "What do you call me?" said he stopping short. "Mr. Carlisle." "Call me something else." The steady bright hazel eyes which were looking at her asserted their power. In spite of her irritation and vexation she obeyed his wish, and asked him somewhat loftily, to take her back again to the company. "Against my mother's commands? Do you not think they are binding on you, Eleanor?" "No, I do not!" "You will allow they are on me. My darling," said he, laughing and kissing her, "you must submit to be displeased for your good." And he walked on again. Eleanor was conquered; she felt it, and chafed under it. Mr. Carlisle opened a door and walked her into an apartment, large and luxurious, the one evidently that his mother had designated. He rang the bell. "Arles," said he, "find this lady something that will fit her. She wishes to change her dress. Do your best." He went out and left Eleanor in the hands of the tire-woman. Eleanor felt utterly out of countenance, but powerless; though she longed to defy the maid and the mistress and say, "I will wear my own and nothing else." Why could she not say it? She did not like to defy the master. So Arles had her way, and after one or two rapid glances at the subject of her cares and a moment's reflection on her introduction there, she took her cue. "Blushes like that are not for nothing," thought Arles; "and when Mr. Macintosh says 'Do your best'--why, it is easy to see!" She was quick and skilful and silent; but Eleanor felt like a wild creature in harness. Her riding-dress went off--her hair received a touch, all it wanted, as the waiting maid said; and after one or two journeys to wardrobes, Mrs. Arles brought out and proceeded to array Eleanor in a robe of white lawn, very flowing and full of laces. Yet it was simple in style, and Eleanor thought it useless to ask for a change; although when the robing was completed she was dressed more elegantly than she had ever been in her life. She was sadly ashamed, greatly indignant, and mortified at herself; that she should be so facile to the will of a person who had no right to command her. But if she was dissatisfied, Arles was not; the deep colour in Eleanor's cheeks only relieved her white drapery to perfection; and her beautiful hair and faultless figure harmonized with flowing folds and soft laces which can do so much for outlines that are not soft. Eleanor was not without a consciousness of this; nevertheless, vanity was not her foible; and her state of mind was anything but enviable when she left the dressing-room for the gallery. But Mr. Carlisle was there, to meet her and her mood too; and Eleanor found herself taken in hand at once. He had a way of mixing affection with his power over her, in such a way as to soothe and overawe at the same time; and before they reached the drawing-room now Eleanor was caressed and laughed into good order; leaving nevertheless a little root of opposition in her secret heart, which might grow fast upon occasion. She was taken into the drawing-room, set down and left, under Lady Rythdale's wing. Eleanor felt her position much more conspicuous than agreeable. The old baroness turned and surveyed her; went on with the conversation pending, then turned and surveyed her again; looked her well over; finally gave Eleanor some worsted to hold for her, which she wound; nor would she accept any substitute offered by the gentlemen for her promised daughter-in-law's pretty hands and arms. Worse and worse. Eleanor saw herself now not only a mark for people's eyes, but put in an attitude as it were to be looked at. She bore it bravely; with steady outward calmness and grace, though her cheeks remonstrated. No movement of Eleanor's did that. She played worsted reel with admirable good sense and skill, wisely keeping her own eyes on the business in hand, till it was finished; and Lady Rythdale winding up the last end of the ball, bestowed a pat of her hand, half commendation and half raillery, upon Eleanor's red cheek; as if it had been a child's. That was a little hard to bear; Eleanor felt for a moment as if she could have burst into tears. She would have left her place if she had dared; but she was in a corner of a sofa by Lady Rythdale, and nobody else near; and she felt shy. She could use her eyes now upon the company. Lady Rythdale was busied in conversation with one or two elderly ladies, of stately presence like herself, who were, as Eleanor gathered, friends of long date, staying at the Priory. They did not invite curiosity. She saw her mother with Mrs. Wycherly, the rector's sister, in another group, conversing with Dr. Cairnes and a gentleman unknown. Mr. Powle had found congeniality in a second stranger. Mr. Carlisle, far off in a window, one of those beautiful deep large windows, was very much engaged with some ladies and gentlemen likewise strange to Eleanor. Nobody was occupied with her; and from her sofa corner she went to musing. The room and its treasures she had time to look at quietly; she had leisure to notice how fine it was in proportions and adornments, and what luxurious abundance of everything that wealth buys and cultivation takes pleasure in, had space to abound without the seeming of multiplicity. The house was as stately within as on the outside. The magnificence was new to Eleanor, and drove her somehow to musings of a very opposite character. Perhaps her unallayed spirit of opposition might have been with other causes at the bottom of this. However that were, her thoughts went off in a perverse train upon the former baronesses of Rythdale; the ladies lovely and stately who had inhabited this noble abode. Eleanor would soon be one of the line, moving in their place, where they had moved; lovely and admired in her turn; but their turn was over. What when hers should be?--could she keep this heritage for ever? It was a very impertinent thought; it had clearly no business with either place or time; but there it was, staring at Eleanor out of the rich cornices, and looking in at her from the magnificent plantations seen through the window. Eleanor did not welcome the thought; it was an intruder. The fact was that having once made entrance in her mind, the idea only seized opportunities to start up and assert its claims to notice. It was always lying in wait for her now; and on this occasion held its ground with great perverseness. Eleanor glanced again at Dr. Cairnes; no hope of him at present; he was busily engaged with a clever gentleman, a friend of Mr. Carlisle's and an Oxford man, and with Mr. Carlisle himself. Eleanor grew impatient of her thoughts; she wondered if anybody else had such, in all that company. Nobody seemed to notice her; and she meditated an escape both from her sofa corner and from herself to a portfolio near by, which promised a resource in the shape of engravings; but just as she was moving, Lady Rythdale laid a hand upon her lap. "Sit still, my dear," she said turning partly towards her,--"I want you by me. I have a skein of silk here I want wound for my work--a skein of green silk--here it is; it has tangled itself, I fear; will you prepare it for me?" Eleanor took the silk, which was in pretty thorough confusion, and began the task of unravelling and untieing, preparatory to its being wound. This time Lady Rythdale did not turn away; she sat considering Eleanor, on whose white drapery and white fingers the green silk threads made a pretty contrast, while they left her helplessly exposed to that examining gaze. Eleanor felt it going all over her; taking in all the details of her dress, figure and face. She could not help the blood mounting, though she angrily tried to prevent it. The green silk was in a great snarl. Eleanor bent her head over her task. "My dear, are you near-sighted?" "No, madam!" said the girl, giving the old lady a moment's view of the orbs in question. "You have very good eyes--uncommon colour," said Lady Rythdale. "Macintosh thinks he will have a good little wife in you;--is it true?" "I do not know, ma'am," said Eleanor haughtily. "I think it is true. Look up here and let me see." And putting her hand under Eleanor's chin, she chucked up her face as if she were something to be examined for purchase. Eleanor felt in no amiable mood certainly, and her cheeks were flaming; nevertheless the old lady coolly held her under consideration and even with a smile on her lips which seemed of satisfaction. Eleanor did not see it, for her eyes could not look up; but she felt through all her nerves the kiss with which the examination was dismissed. "I think it is true," the old baroness repeated. "I hope it is true; for my son would not be an easy man to live with on any other terms, my dear." "I suppose its truth depends in a high degree upon himself, madam," said Eleanor, very much incensed. "Does your ladyship choose to wind this silk now?" "You may hold it. I see you have got it into order. That shews you possessed of the old qualification of patience.--Your hands a little higher. My dear, I would not advise you to regulate your behaviour by anything in other people. Macintosh will make you a kind husband if you do not displease him; but he is one of those men who must obeyed." Eleanor had no escape; she must sit holding the silk, a mark for Lady Rythdale's eyes and tongue. She sat drooping a little with indignation and shame, when Mr. Carlisle came up. He had seen from a distance the tint of his lady's cheeks, and judged that she was going through some sort of an ordeal. But though he came to protect, he stood still to enjoy. The picture was so very pretty. The mother and son exchanged glances. "I think you can make her do," said the baroness contentedly. "Not as a permanent winding reel!" exclaimed Eleanor jumping up. "Mr. Carlisle, I am tired;--have the goodness to take this silk from my fingers." And slipping it over the gentleman's astonished hands, before he had time quite to know what she was about, Eleanor left the pair to arrange the rest of the business between them, and herself walked off to one of the deep windows. She was engaged there immediately by Lord Rythdale, in civil conversation enough; then he introduced other gentlemen; and it was not till after a series of talks with one and another, that Eleanor had a minute to herself. She was sitting in the window, where an encroaching branch of ivy at one side reminded her of the elegant work it was doing round the corner. Eleanor would have liked to go through the house--or the grounds--if she might have got away alone and indulged herself in a good musing fit. How beautiful the shaven turf looked under the soft sun's light! how stately stood old oaks and beeches here and there! how rich the thicker border of vegetation beyond the lawn! What beauty of order and keeping everywhere. Nothing had been attempted here but what the resources of the proprietors were fully equal to; the impression was of ample power to do more. While musing, Eleanor's attention was attracted by Mr. Carlisle, who had stepped out upon the lawn with one or two of his guests, and she looked at the place and its master together. He suited it very well. He was an undeniably handsome man; his bearing graceful and good. Eleanor liked Mr. Carlisle, not the less perhaps that she feared him a little. She only felt a little wilful rebellion against the way in which she had come to occupy her present position. If but she might have been permitted to take her own time, and say yea for herself, without having it said for her, she would have been content. As it was, Eleanor was not very discontented. Her heart swelled with a secret satisfaction and some pride, as without seeing her the group passed the window and she was left with the sunlit lawn and beautiful old trees again. Close upon that feeling of pride came another thought. What when this earthly coronet should fade?-- "Dr. Cairnes," said Eleanor seizing an opportunity,--"come here and sit down by me. I have not seen you in a great while." "You have not missed me, my dear lady," said the doctor blandly. "Yes I have," said Eleanor. "I want to talk to you. I want you to tell me something." "How soon I am to make you happy? or help you to make somebody else happy? Well I shall be at your service any time about Christmas." "No, no!" said Eleanor colouring, "I want something very different. I am talking seriously, Dr. Cairnes. I want you to tell me something. I want to know how I may be happy--for I am unhappy now." "You unhappy!" said the doctor. "I must talk to my friend Mr. Carlisle about that. We must call him in for counsel. What would he say, to your being unhappy? hey?" He was there to speak for himself; there with a slight cloud on his brow too, Eleanor thought. He had come from within the room; she thought he was safe away in the grounds with his guests. "Shall I break up this interesting conversation?" said he. "It was growing very interesting," said the doctor; "for this lady was just acknowledging to me that she is not happy. I give her over to you--this is a case beyond my knowledge and resources. Only, when I can do anything, I shall be most gratified at being called upon." The doctor rose up, shook himself, and left the field to Mr. Carlisle. Eleanor felt vexed beyond description, and very little inclined to call again upon Dr. Cairnes for anything whatever in any line of assistance. Her face burned. Mr. Carlisle took no notice; only laid his hand upon hers and said "Come!"--and walked her out of the room and on the lawn, and sauntered with her down to some of the thickly planted shrubbery beyond the house. There went round about upon the soft turf, calling Eleanor's attention to this or that shrub or tree, and finding her very pleasant amusement; till the question in her mind, of what was coming now, had almost faded away. The lights and shadows stretched in long lines between the trees, and lay witchingly over the lawn. An opening in the plantations brought a fair view of it, and of the left wing of the house which Eleanor had admired, dark and rich in its mantle of ivy, while the light gleamed on the edges of the ornamented gables above. It was a beautiful view. Mr. Carlisle paused. "How do you like the house?" said he. "I think I prefer the ruined old priory down yonder," said Eleanor. "Do you still feel your attraction for a monastic life?" "Yes!" said Eleanor, colouring,--"I think they must have had peaceable old lives there, with nothing to trouble them. And they could plant gardens as well as you can." "As the old ruins are rather uninhabitable, what do you think of entering a modern Priory?" It pleased him to see the deep rich glow on Eleanor's cheek, and the droop of her saucy eyelids. No wonder it pleased him; it was a pretty thing to see; and he enjoyed it. "You shall be Lady Abbess," he went on presently, "and make your own rules. I only stipulate that there shall be no Father Confessor except myself." "I doubt your qualifications for that office," said Eleanor. "Suppose you try me. What were you confessing to Dr. Cairnes just now in the window?" "Nonsense, Robert!" said Eleanor. "I was talking of something you would not understand." "You underrate me," said he coolly. "My powers of understanding are equal to the old gentleman's, unless I am mistaken in myself. What are you unhappy about, darling?" "Nothing that you could make anything of," said Eleanor. "I was talking to Dr. Cairnes in a language that you do not understand. Do let it alone!" "Did he report you truly, to have used the English word 'unhappy'?" "Yes," said Eleanor; "but Mr. Carlisle, you do not know what you are talking about." "I am coming to it. Darling, do you think you would be unhappy at the Priory?" "I did not say that--" said Eleanor, confused. "Do you think I could make you happy there?--Speak, Eleanor--speak!" "Yes--if I could be happy anywhere." "What makes you unhappy? My wife must not hide her heart from me." "Yes, but I am not that yet," said Eleanor with spirit, rousing up to assert herself. He laughed and kissed her. "How long first, Eleanor?" "I am sure I don't know. Very long." "What is very long?" "I do not know. A year or two at least." "Do you suppose I will agree to that?" Eleanor knew he would not; and further saw a quiet purpose in his face. She was sure he had fixed upon the time, if not the day. She felt those cobweb bands all around her. Here she was, almost in bridal attire, at his side already. She made no answer. "Divide by twelve, and get a quotient, Eleanor." "What do you mean?" "I mean to have a merry Christmas--by your leave." Christmas! that was what the doctor had said. Was it so far without her leave? Eleanor felt angry. That did not hinder her feeling frightened. "You cannot have it in the way you propose, Mr. Carlisle. I am not ready for that." "You will be," he said coolly. "I shall be obliged to go up to London after Christmas; then I mean to instal you in Berkeley Square; and in the summer you shall go to Switzerland with me. Now tell me, my darling, what you are unhappy about?" Eleanor felt tongue-tied and powerless. The last words had been said very affectionately, and as she was silent they were repeated. "It is nothing you would understand." "Try me." "It is nothing that would interest you at all." "Not interest me!" said he; and if his manner had been self-willed, it was also now as tender and gentle as it was possible to be. He folded Eleanor in his arms caressingly and waited for her words. "Not interest me! Do you know that from your riding-cap to the very gloves you pull on and off, there is nothing that touches you that does not interest me. And now I hear my wife--she is almost that, Eleanor,--tell Dr. Cairnes that she is not happy. I must know why." "I wish you would not think about it, Mr. Carlisle! It is nothing to care about at all. I was speaking to Dr. Cairnes as a clergyman." "You shall not call me Mr. Carlisle. Say that over again, Eleanor." "It is nothing to think twice about, Mr. Macintosh." "You were speaking to Dr. Cairnes as a clergyman?" he said laughing. "How was that? I can think but of one way in which Dr. Cairnes' profession concerns you and me--was it on _that_ subject, Eleanor?" "No, no. It was only--I was only going to ask him a religious question that interested me." "A _religious_ question! Was it that which made you unhappy?" "Yes, if you will have it. I knew you would not like it." "I don't like it; and I will not have it," said he. "_You_, my little Eleanor, getting up a religious uneasiness! that will never do. You, who are as sound as a nut, and as sweet as a Cape jessamine! I shall prove your best counsellor. You have not had rides enough over the moor lately. We will have an extra gallop to-morrow;--and after Christmas I will take care of you. What were you uneasy about?" "Don't Robert!" said Eleanor,--"do not ask me any more about it. I do not want you to laugh at me." "Laugh at you!" he said. "I should like to see anybody else do that! but I will, as much as I like. Do you know you are a darling? and just as lovely in mind as you are in person. Do not you have any questions with the old priest; I do not like it; come to me with your difficulties, and I will manage them for you. Was that all, Eleanor?" "Yes." "Then we are all right--or we soon shall be." They strolled a little longer over the soft turf, in the soft light. "We are not quite all right," said Eleanor; "for you think I will do--what I will not." "What is that?" "I have not agreed to your arrangements." "You will." "Do not think it, Macintosh. I will not." He looked down at her, smiling, not in the least disconcerted. She had spoken no otherwise than gently, and with more secret effort than she would have liked him to know. "You shall say that for half the time between now and Christmas," he said; "and after that you will adopt another form of expression." "If I say it at all, I shall hold to it, Macintosh." "Then do not say it at all, my little Eleanor," said he lightly; "I shall make you give it up. I think I will make you give it up now." "You are not generous, Robert." "No--I suppose I am not," he said contentedly. "I am forced to go to London after Christmas, and I cannot go without you. Do you not love me well enough to give me that, Eleanor?" Eleanor was silent. She was not willing to say no; she could not with truth say yes. Mr. Carlisle bent down to look into her face. "What have you to say to me?" "Nothing--" said Eleanor avoiding his eye. "Kiss me, Nellie, and promise that you will be my good little wife at Christmas." His mother's very phrase. Eleanor rebelled secretly, but felt powerless under those commanding eyes. Perhaps he was aware of her latent obstinacy; if he was, he also knew himself able to master it; for the eyes were sparkling with pleasure as well as with wilfulness. The occasion was not sufficient to justify a contest with Mr. Carlisle; Eleanor was not ready to brave one; she hesitated long enough to shew her rebellion, and then yielded, ingloriously she felt, though on the whole wisely. She met her punishment. The offered permission was not only taken; she was laughed at and rejoiced over triumphantly, to Mr. Carlisle's content. Eleanor bore it as well at she could; wishing that she had not tried to assert herself in such vain fashion, and feeling her discomfiture complete. It was more than time to return to the company. Eleanor knew what a mark she was for people's eyes, and would gladly have screened herself behind somebody in a corner; but Mr. Carlisle kept full possession of her. He walked her into the room, and gently retained her hand in its place while he went from one to another, obliging her to stand and talk or to be talked to with him through the whole company. Eleanor winced; nevertheless bore herself well and a little proudly until the evening was over. The weather had changed, and the ride home was begun under a cloudy sky. It grew very dark as they went on; impossible in many places to see the path. Mr. Carlisle was riding with her and the roads were well known to him and to the horses, and Eleanor did not mind it. She went on gayly with him, rather delighting in the novelty and adventure; till she heard a muttering of thunder. It was the only thing Eleanor's nerves dreaded. Her spirits were checked; she became silent and quiet, and hardly heard enough to respond to her companion's talk. She was looking incessantly for that which came at last as they were nearing the old ruins in the valley; a flash of lightning. It lit up the beautiful tower with its clinging ivy, revealed for an instant some bits of wall and the thick clustering trees; then left a blank darkness. The same illumination had entered the hidden places of memory, and startled into vivid life the scenes and the thoughts of a few months ago. All Eleanor's latent uneasiness was aroused. Her attention was absorbed now, from this point until they got home, in watching for flashes of lightning. They came frequently, but the storm was after all a slight one. The lightning lit up the way beautifully for the other members of the party. To Eleanor it revealed something more. Mr. Carlisle's leave-taking at the door bespoke him well satisfied with the results of the evening. Eleanor shunned the questions and remarks of her family and went to her own room. There she sat down, in her riding habit and with her head in her hands. What use was it for her to be baroness of Rythdale, to be mistress of the Priory, to be Mr. Carlisle's petted and favoured wife, while there was no shield between her head and the stroke that any day and any moment might bring? And what after all availed an earthly coronet, ever so bright, which had nothing to replace it when its fading time should come? Eleanor wanted something more. CHAPTER VII. WITH THE FERNS. "It is the little rift within the lute, That by and by will make the music mute." It was impossible for Eleanor to shake off the feeling. It rose fresh with her the next day, and neither her own nor Mr. Carlisle's efforts could dispose of it. To do Eleanor justice, she did not herself wish to lose it, unless by the supply of her want; while she took special care to hide her trouble from Mr. Carlisle. They took great gallops on the moor, and long rides all about the country; the rides were delightful; the talks were gay; but in them all, or at the end of them certainly, Eleanor's secret cry was for some shelter for her unprotected head. The thought would come up in every possible connexion, till it haunted her. Not her approaching marriage, nor the preparations which were even beginning for it, nor her involuntary subjection to all Mr. Carlisle's pleasure, so much dwelt with Eleanor now as the question,--how she should meet the storm which must break upon her some day; or rather the sense that she could not meet it. The fairest and sweetest scene, or condition of things, seemed but to bring up this thought more vividly by very force of contrast. Eleanor hid the whole within her own heart, and the fire burned there all the more. Not a sign of it must Mr. Carlisle see; and as for Dr. Cairnes, Eleanor could never get a chance for a safe talk with him. Somebody was always near, or might be near. The very effort to hide her thoughts grew sometimes irksome; and the whirl of engagements and occupations in which she lived gave her a stifled feeling. She could not even indulge herself in solitary consideration of that which there was nobody to help her consider. She hailed one day the announcement that Mr. Carlisle must let the next day go by without riding or seeing her. He would be kept away at a town some miles off, on county business. Mr. Carlisle had a good deal to do with county politics and county business generally; made himself both important and popular, and lost no thread of influence he had once gathered into his hand. So Brompton would have him all the next day, and Eleanor would have her time to herself. That she might secure full possession of it, she ordered her pony and went out alone after luncheon. She could not get free earlier. Now she took no servant to follow her, and started off alone to the moors. It was a delicious autumn day, mild and still and mellow. Eleanor got out of sight or hearing of human habitations; then let her pony please himself in his paces while she dropped the reins and thought. It was hardly in Eleanor's nature to have bitter thoughts; they came as near it on this occasion as they were apt to do; they were very dissatisfied thoughts. She was on the whole dissatisfied with everybody; herself most of all, it is true; but her mother and Mr. Carlisle had a share. She did not want to be married at Christmas; she did not even care about going to Switzerland, unless by her own good leave asked and obtained; she was not willing to be managed as a child; yet Eleanor was conscious that she was no better in Mr. Carlisle's hands. "I wonder what sort of a master he will make," she thought, "when he has me entirely in his power? I have no sort of liberty now." It humbled her; it was her own fault; yet Eleanor liked Mr. Carlisle, and thought that she loved him. She was young yet and very inexperienced. She also liked all the splendour of the position he gave her. Yet above the gratification of this, through the dazzle of wealth and pleasure and power, Eleanor discerned now a want these could not fill. What should she do when they failed? there was no provision in them for the want of them. Eleanor forgot her loss of independence, and pondered these thoughts till they grew bitter with pain. By turns she wished she had never seen Mr. Rhys, who she remembered first started them; or wished she could see him again. In the stillness and freedom and peace of the wide moor, Eleanor had fearlessly given herself up to her musings, without thinking or caring which way she went. The pony, finding the choice left to him, had naturally enough turned off into a track leading over some wild hills where he had been bred; the locality had pleasant associations for him. But it had none of any kind for Eleanor; and when she roused herself to think of it, she found she was in a distant part of the moor and drawing near to the hills aforesaid; a bleak and dreary looking region, and very far from home. Neither was she very sure by which way she might soonest regain a neighbourhood that she knew. To follow the path she was on and turn off into the first track that branched in the right direction, seemed the best to do; and she roused up her pony to an energetic little gallop. It seemed little after the long bounds Black Maggie would take through the air; but it was brisk work for the pony. Eleanor kept him at his speed. It was luxurious, to be alone; ride as she liked, slow or fast, and think as she liked, even forbidden thoughts. Her own mistress once more. Eleanor exulted, all the more because she was a rebel. The wild moor was delicious; the freedom was delicious; only she was far from home and the afternoon was on the wane. She kept the pony to his speed. By the base of the hills near to which the road led her, stood a miserable little house. It needed but a look at the place, to decide that the people who lived in it must be also miserable, and probably in more ways than one. Eleanor who had intended asking there for some news of her whereabouts and the roads, changed her mind as she drew near and resolved to pass the house at a gallop. So much for wise resolves. The miserable children who dwelt in the house had been that day making a bonfire for their amusement right on her track. The hot ashes were still there; the pony set his feet in them, reared high, and threw his rider, who had never known the pony do such a thing before and had no reason to expect it of him. Eleanor was thrown clean off on the ground, and fell stunned. She picked herself up after a few minutes, to find no bones broken, the miserable hut close by, and two children and an old crone looking at her. The pony had concluded it a dangerous neighbourhood and departed, shewing a clean pair of heels. Eleanor gathered her dress in her hand and looked at the people who were staring at her. Such faces! "What place is this?" she asked, forcing herself to be bold. The answer was utterly unintelligible. All Eleanor could make out was the hoarsely or thickly put question, "Be you hurted?" "No, thank you--not at all, I believe," she said breathlessly, for she had not got over the shock of her fall. "How far am I from the village of Wiglands?" Again the words that were spoken in reply gave no meaning to her ear. "Boys, will one of you shew me the nearest way there? I will give you something as soon as I get home." The children stared, at her and at each other; but Eleanor was more comprehensible to them than they to her. The old woman said some hoarse words to the children; and then one of them stepped forth and said strangely, "I 'ze go wiz ye." "I'll reward him for it," said Eleanor, nodding to the old grandmother; and set off, very glad to be walking away. She did not breathe freely till a good many yards of distance were between her and the hut, where the crone and the other child still remained watching her. There might be others of the family coming home; and Eleanor walked at a brave pace until she had well left the little hut behind, out of all fear of pursuit. Then she began to feel that she was somewhat shattered by her fall, and getting tired, and she went more gently. But it was a long, long way; the reach of moor seemed endless; for it was a very different thing to go over it on Black Maggie's feet from going over it on her own. Eleanor was exceedingly weary, and still the brown common stretched away on all sides of her; and the distant tuft of vegetation which announced the village of Wiglands, stood afar off, and seemed to be scarcely nearer after miles of walking. Before they reached it Eleanor's feet were dragging after one another in weariest style. She could not possibly go on to the Lodge without stopping to rest. How should she reward and send back her guide? As she was thinking of this, Eleanor saw the smoke curling up from a stray cottage hid among the trees; it was Mrs. Williams's cottage. Her heart sprang with a sudden temptation--doubted, balanced, and resolved. She had excuse enough; she would do a rebellious thing. She would go there and rest. It might give her a chance to see Mr. Rhys and hear him talk; it might not. If the chance came, why she would be very glad of it. Eleanor had no money about her; she hastily detached a gold pencil case from her watch chain, and put it into the ragged creature's hand who had guided her; saw him turn his back, then went with a sort of stealthy joy to the front of Mrs. Williams's cottage, pushed the door open softly and went in. Nobody was there; not a cat; it was all still. An inner door stood ajar; within there was a sound of voices, low and pleasant. Eleanor supposed Mrs. Williams would make her appearance in a minute, and sank down on the first chair that offered; sank even her head in her hands, for very weariness and the very sense of rest and security gained. The chair was one standing by the fire and near the open inner door; the voices came quite plainly through; and the next minute let Eleanor know that one of them was the voice of her little sister Julia; she heard one of Julia's joyous utterances. The other voice belonged to Mr. Rhys. No sound of Mrs. Williams. Eleanor sat still, her head bowed in her hands, and listened. It seemed that Julia was looking at something--or some collection of things. Eleanor could hear the slight rustling of paper handled--then a pause and talk. Julia had a great deal to say. Eleanor presently made out that they were looking at a collection of plants. She felt so tired that she had no inclination to move a single muscle. Mind and body sat still to listen. "And what is that?" she heard Julia say. "Mountain fern." "Isn't it beautiful! O that's as pretty as a feather." "If you saw them growing, dozens of them springing from the same root, you would think them beautiful. Then those brown edgings are black as jet and glossy." "Are those the _thecoe_, Mr. Rhys?" "Yes. The Lastraeas, and all their family, have the fruit in those little round spots, each with its own covering; that is their mark." "It is so funny that plants should have families," said Julia. "Now is this one of the family, Mr. Rhys?" "Certainly; that is a Cystopteris." "It's a dear little thing! Where did you get it, Mr. Rhys?" "I do not remember. They grow pretty nearly all over; you find them on rocks, and walls." "_I_ don't find them," said Julia. "I wish I could. Now what is that?" "Another of the family, but not a Cystopteris. That is the Holly fern. Do you see how stiff and prickly it is? That was a troublesome one to manage. I gathered it on a high mountain in Wales, I think." "Are high mountains good places?" "For the mountain ferns. That is another Lastraea you have now; that is very elegant. That grows on mountains too, but also on many other places; shoots up in elegant tufts almost a yard high. I have seen it very beautiful. When the fruit is ripe, the indusium is something of a lilac colour, spotting the frond in double rows--as you see it there. I have seen these Lastraeas and others, growing in great profusion on a wild place in Devonshire, in the neighbourhood of the rushing torrent of a river. The spray flew up on the rocks and stones along its banks, keeping them moist, and sometimes overflowed them; and there in the vegetable matter that had by little and little collected, there was such a shew of ferns as I have not often seen. Another Lastraea grew, I should think, five feet high; and this one, and the Lady fern. Turn the next sheet--there it is. That is the Lady fern." "How perfectly beautiful!" Julia exclaimed. "Is that a Lastraea too?" Mr. Rhys laughed a little as he answered "No." Until then his voice had kept the quiet even tone of feeble strength. "Why is it called Lady fern?" "I do not know. Perhaps because it is so delicate in its structure--perhaps because it is so tender. It does not bear being broken from its root." "But I think Eleanor is as strong as anybody," said Julia. "Don't you remember how ill she was, only from having wetted her feet, last summer?" said Mr. Rhys with perfect gravity. "Well, what is that?" said Julia, not liking the inference they were coming to. "That is a little fern that loves the wet. It grows by waterfalls--those are its homes. It grows close to the fall, where it will be constantly watered by the spray from it; sometimes this little half-brother it has, the Oak fern, is found there along with it. They are elegant species." "It must be nice to go to the waterfalls and climb up to get them," said Julia. "What do you call these little wet beauties, Mr. Rhys?" "Polypodies." "Polypodies! Now, Mr. Rhys,--O what is this? This is prettiest of all." "Yes, one of the very prettiest. I found that in a cave, a wet cave, by the sea. That is the sort of home it likes." "In Wales?" "In Wales I have found it, and elsewhere; in the south of England; but always by the sea; in places where I have seen a great many other beautiful things." "By the sea, Mr. Rhys? Why I have been there, and I did not see anything but the waves and the sand and the rocks." "You did not know where to look." "Where did you look?" "Under the rocks;--and in them." "_In_ the rocks, sir?" "In their clefts and hollows and caves. In caves which I could only reach in a boat, or by going in at low tide; then I saw things more beautiful than a fairy palace, Julia." "What sort of things?" "Animals--and plants." "Beautiful animals?" "Very beautiful." "Well I wish you would take me with you, Mr. Rhys. I would not mind wetting my feet. I will be a Hard fern--not a Lady fern. Eleanor shall be the lady. O Mr. Rhys, won't you hate to leave England?" "There are plenty of beautiful things where I am going, Julia--if I get well." "But the people are so bad!" "That is why I want to go to them." "But what can you do to them?" "I can tell them of the Lord Jesus, Julia. They have never heard of him; that is why they are so evil." "Maybe they won't believe you, Mr. Rhys." "Maybe they will. But the Lord has commanded me to go, all the same." "How, Mr. Rhys?" He answered in the beautiful words of Paul--"How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?" There was a sorrowful depth in his tones, speaking to himself rather than to his little listener. "Mr. Rhys, they are such dreadfully bad people, they might kill you, and eat you." "Yes." "Are you not afraid?" "No." There is strangely much sometimes expressed, one can hardly say how, in the tone of a single word. So it was with this word, even to the ears of Eleanor in the next room. It was round and sweet, untrembling, with something like a vibration of joy in its low utterance. It was but a word, said in answer to a child's idle question; it pierced like a barbed arrow through all the involutions of another heart, down into the core. It was an accent of strength and quiet and fearless security, though spoken by lips that were very uncertain of their tenure of life. It gave the chord that Eleanor wanted sounded in her own soul; where now there was no harmony at all, but sometimes a jarring clang, and sometimes an echo of fear. "But Mr. Rhys, aren't they very _dreadful_, over there where you want to go?" Julia said. "Very dreadful; more than you can possibly imagine, or than I can, perhaps." "Well I hope you won't go. Mr. Rhys, I think Mrs. Williams stays a great while--it is time the kettle was on for your tea." Eleanor had hardly time to be astonished at this most novel display of careful housewifery on her little sister's part, whom indeed she would have supposed to be ignorant that such a thing as a kettle existed; when Julia came bounding into the outer room to look after the article, or after the old dame who should take charge of it. She stopped short, and Eleanor raised her head. Julia's exclamation was hearty. "Hush!" whispered Eleanor. "What should I hush for? there's nobody here but Mr. Rhys in the other room; and he was saying the other day that he wanted to see you." Back she bounded. "Mr. Rhys, here's Eleanor in the other room, and no Mrs. Williams." Eleanor heard the quiet answer--"Tell your sister, that as I cannot walk out to see her, perhaps she will do me the favour to come in here." There was nothing better, in the circumstances; indeed Eleanor felt she must go in to explain herself; she only waited for Julia's brisk summons--"Eleanor, Mr. Rhys wants to see you!"--and gathering up her habit she walked into the other room as steadily as if she had all the right in the world to be there; bearing herself a little proudly, for a sudden thought of Mr. Carlisle came over her. Mr. Rhys was lying on the couch, as she had seen him before; but she was startled at the paleness of his face, made more startling by the very dark eyebrows and bushy hair. He raised himself on his elbow as she came in, and Eleanor could not refuse to give him her hand. "I ought to apologise for not rising to receive you," he said,--"but you see I cannot help it." "I am very sorry, Mr. Rhys. Are you less strong than you were a few weeks ago?" "I seem to have no strength at all now," he answered with a half laugh. "Will you not sit down? Julia, suppose you coax the fire to burn a little brighter, for your sister's welcome?" "She can do it herself," said Julia. "I am going to see to the fire in the other room." "No, that would be inhospitable," Mr. Rhys said with a smile; "and I do not believe your sister knows how, Julia. She has not learned as many things as you have." Julia gave her friend a very loving look and went at the fire without more words. Eleanor sat under a strange spell. She hardly knew her sister in that look; and there was about the pale pure face that lay on the couch, with its shining eyes, an atmosphere of influence that subdued and enthralled her. It was with an effort that she roused herself to give the intended explanation of her being in that place. Mr. Rhys heard her throughout. "I am very glad you were thrown," he said; "since it has procured me the pleasure of seeing you." "Mr. Carlisle will never let you ride alone again--that is one thing!" said Julia. And having finished the fire and her exclamatory comments together, she ran off into the other room. Her last words had called up a deep flush on Eleanor's face. Mr. Rhys waited till it had passed quite away, then he asked very calmly, and putting the question also with his bright eyes, "How have you been, since I saw you last?" The eyes were bright, not with the specular brightness of many eyes, but with a sort of fulness of light and keenness of intelligent vision. Eleanor knew perfectly well to what they referred. She shrank within herself, cowered, and hesitated. Then made a brave effort and threw back the question. "How have _you_ been, Mr. Rhys?" "I have been well," he said. "You know it is the privilege of the children of God, to glory in tribulations. That is what I am doing." "Have you been so very ill?" asked Eleanor. "My illness gives me no pain," he answered; "it only incapacitates me for doing anything. And at first that was more grievous to me than you can understand. With so much to do, and with my heart in the work, it seemed as if my Master had laid me aside and said, 'You shall do no more; you shall lie there and not speak my name to men any longer.' It gave me great pain at first--I was tempted to rebel; but now I know that patience worketh experience. I thank him for the lessons he has taught me. I am willing to go out and be useful, or to lie here and be comparatively useless,--just as my Lord will!" The slow deliberate utterance, which testified at once of physical weakness and mental power; the absolute repose of the bright face, touched Eleanor profoundly. She sat spell-bound, forgetting her overthrow and her fatigue and everything else; only conscious of her struggling thoughts and cares of the weeks past and of the presence and influence of the one person she knew who had the key to them. "Having so few opportunities," he went on, "you will not be surprised that I hail every one that offers, of speaking in my Mater's name. I know that he has summoned you to his service, Miss Powle--is he your Master yet?" Eleanor pushed her chair round, grating it on the floor, so as to turn her face a little away, and answered, "No." "You have heard his call to you?" Eleanor felt her whole heart convulsed in the struggle to answer or not answer this question. With great difficulty she kept herself outwardly perfectly quiet; and at last said hoarsely, looking away from Mr. Rhys into the fire, "How do you know anything about it?" "Have you yielded obedience to his commands?" he said, disregarding her words. "I do not know what they are--" Eleanor answered. "Have you sought to find them out?" She hesitated, and said "no." Her face was completely turned away from him now; but the tender intonation of the next words thrilled through every nerve of her heart and brain. "Then your head is uncovered yet by that helmet of security which you were anxious about a little time ago?" It was the speech of somebody who saw right into her heart and knew all that was going on there; what was the use of holding out and trying to maintain appearances? Eleanor's head sank; her heart gave way; she burst into tears. Now was her chance, she thought; the ice was broken; she would ask of Mr. Rhys all she wanted to know, for he could tell her. Before another word was spoken, in rushed Julia. "I've got that going," she said; "you shall have some tea directly, Mr. Rhys. I hope Mrs. Williams will stay away till I get through. Now it will take a little while--come here, Eleanor, and look at these beautiful ferns." Eleanor was sitting upright again; she had driven the tears back. She hoped for another chance of speaking, when Julia should go to get her tea ready. In the mean while she moved her seat, as her sister desired her, to look over the ferns. This brought her into the neighbourhood of the couch, where Julia sat on a low bench, turning the great sheets of paper on the floor before her. It brought Eleanor's face into full view, too, she knew; but now she did not care for that. Julia went on rapturously with the ferns, asking information as before; and in Mr. Rhys's answers there was a grave tone of preoccupation which thrilled on Eleanor's ear and kept her own mind to the point where it had been. "Are there ferns out there where you are going if you get well, Mr. Rhys? new ones?" "I have no doubt of it." "Then you will gather them and dry them, won't you?" "I think it is very possible I may." "I wish you wouldn't go! O Mr. Rhys, tell Eleanor about that place; she don't know about it. Tell her what you told me." He did; perhaps to fill up the time and take Eleanor's attention from herself for the moment. He gave a short account of the people in question; a people of fine physical and even fine mental development, for savages; inhabiting a country of great beauty and rich natural resources; but at the same time sunk in the most abject depths of moral debasement. A country where the "works of the devil" had reached their utmost vigour; where men lived but for vile ends, and took the lives of their fellow-men and each other with the utmost ruthlessness and carelessness and horrible cruelty; and more than that, where they dishonoured human life by abusing, and even eating, the forms in which human life had residence. It was a terrible picture Mr. Rhys drew, in a few words; so terrible, that it did take Eleanor's attention from all else for the time. "Is other life safe there?" she asked. "Do the white people who go there feel themselves secure?" "I presume they do not." "Then why go to such a horrible place?" "Why not?" he asked. "The darker they are, the more they want light." "But it is to jeopardize the very life you wish to use for them." Mr. Rhys was silent for a moment, and when he spoke it was only to make a remark about the fern which lay displayed on the floor before Julia. "That Hart's-tongue," said he, "I gathered from a cavern on the sea-coast--where it grew hanging down from the roof,--quantities of it." "In a dark cavern, Mr. Rhys?" said Julia. "Not in a dark part of the cavern. No, it grew only where it could have the light.--Miss Powle, I am of David's mind--'In God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do to me.'" He looked up at Eleanor as he spoke. The slight smile, the look, in Eleanor's mood of mind, were like a coal of fire dropped into her heart. It burned. She said nothing; sat still and looked at the fern on the floor. "But will you not feel _afraid_, Mr. Rhys?" said Julia. "Why no, Julia. I shall have nothing to be afraid of. You forget who will be with me." Julia with that jumped up and ran off to see about her fire and kettle in the other room. Eleanor and Mr. Rhys were left alone. The latter did not speak. Eleanor longed to hear more, and made a great effort. "I do not understand you," she said hoarsely, for in the stir of her feelings she could not command a clear voice. "You say, He will be with you. What do you mean? We cannot see him now. How will he be with you?" She had raised her eyes, and she saw a strange softness and light pass over the face she was looking at. Indefinable, unaccountable, she yet saw it; a shining from the spiritual glory within, which Eleanor recognized, though she had never seen it before. Fire and water were in those bright eyes at once; and Eleanor guessed the latter evidence of emotion was for his ignorant questioner. She had no heart left. By such a flash of revelation the light from one spirit shewed the other its darkness; dimly known to her before; but now, once and forever, she knew where _she_ stood and where _he_ stood, and what the want of her life must be, till she should stand there too. Her face shewed but a little of the work going on with heavings and strugglings in her mind; yet doubtless it was as readable to her companion as his had been to her. She could only hear at the time--afterwards she pondered--the words of his reply. "I cannot shew him to you;--but he will shew himself to you, if you seek him." There was no chance for more words; Julia came in again; and was thereafter bustling in and out, getting her cup of tea ready. Eleanor could not meet her little sister's looks and probable words; she turned hastily from the ferns and the couch and put herself at the window with her back to everybody. There was a wild cry in her heart--"What shall I do! what shall I do!" One thing she must have, or be miserable; how was she to make it her own. As soon as she turned her face from that cottage room and what was in it, she must meet the full blast of opposing currents; unfavourable, adverse, overwhelming. Her light was not strong enough to stand that blast, Eleanor knew; it would be blown out directly;--and she left in darkness. In a desperate sense of this, a desperate resolve to overcome it somehow, a despairing powerlessness to contend, she sat at the window seeing nothing. She was brought to herself at last by Julia's, "Eleanor--Mr. Rhys wants you to take a cup of tea." Eleanor turned round mechanically, took the cup, and changed her place for one near the fire. She never forgot that scene. Julia's part in it gave it a most strange air to Eleanor; so did her own. Julia was moving about, quite at home, preparing cups of tea for everybody, herself included; and waiting upon Mr. Rhys with a steady care and affectionateness which evidently met with an affectionate return. The cottage room with its plain furniture--the little common blue cups in which the tea was served--the fire in the chimney on the coarse iron fire-dogs--the reclining figure on the couch, and her own riding-habit in the middle of the room; were all stereotyped on Eleanor's memory for ever. The tea refreshed her very much. "How are you going to get home, Miss Powle?" asked her host. "Have you sent for a carriage?" "No--I saw nobody to send--I can walk it quite well now," said Eleanor. And feeling that the time was come, she set down her tea-cup and came to bid her host good-bye; though she shrank from doing it. She gave him her hand again, but she had no words to speak. "Good-bye," said he. "I am sorry I am not well enough to come and see you; I would take that liberty." "And so I shall never see him again," thought Eleanor as she went out of the cottage; "and nobody will ever speak any more words to me of what I want to hear; and what will become of me! What chance shall I have very soon--what chance have I now--to attend to these things? to get right? and what chance would all these things have with Mr. Carlisle? I could manage my mother. What will become of me!" Eleanor walked and thought, both hard, till she got past the village; finding herself alone, thought got the better of haste, and she threw herself down under a tree to collect some order and steadiness in her mind if possible before other interests and distractions broke in. She sat with her face buried in her hands a good while. And one conclusion Eleanor's thoughts came to; that there was a thing more needful than other things; and that she would hold that one thing first in her mind, and keep it first in her endeavours, and make all her arrangements accordingly. Eleanor was young and untried, but her mind had a tolerable back-bone of stiffness when once aroused to take action; her conclusion meant something. She rose up, then; looked to see how far down the sun was; and turning to pursue her walk vigorously--found Mr. Carlisle at her side. He was as much surprised as she. "Why Eleanor! what are you doing here?" "Trying to get home. I have been thrown from my pony." "Thrown! where?" "Away on the moor--I don't know where. I never was there before. I am not hurt." "Then how come you here?" "Walked here, sir." "And where are your servants?" "You forget. I am only Eleanor Powle--I do not go with a train after me." But she was obliged to give an account of the whole affair. "You must not go alone in that way again," said he decidedly. "Sit down again." "Look where the sun is. I am going home," said Eleanor. "Sit down. I am going to send for a carriage." Eleanor protested, in vain. Mr. Carlisle sent his groom on to the Lodge with the message, and the heels of the horses were presently clattering in the distance. Eleanor stood still. "I do not want rest," she insisted. "I am ready to walk home, and able. I have been resting." "How long?" "A long while. I went into Mrs. Williams's cottage and rested there. I would rather go on." He put her hand upon his arm and turned towards the Lodge, but permitted her after all to move only at the gentlest of rates. "You will not go out in this way again?" he said; and the words were more an expression of his own will than an enquiry as to hers. "There is no reason why I should not," Eleanor answered. "I do not like that you should be walking over moors and taking shelter in cottages, without protection." "I can protect myself. I know what is due to me." "You must remember what is due to me," he said laughing, and stopping her lips when she would have replied. Eleanor walked along, silenced, and for the moment subdued. The wish was in her heart, to have let Mr. Carlisle know in some degree what bent her spirit was taking; to have given him some hint of what he must expect in her when she became his wife; she could not find how to do it. She could not see the way to begin. So far was Mr. Carlisle from the whole world of religious interests and concerns, that to introduce it to him seemed like bringing opposite poles together. She walked by his side very silent and doubtful. He thought she was tired; put her into the carriage with great tenderness when it came; and at parting from her in the evening desired her to go early to rest. Eleanor was very little likely to do it. The bodily adventures of the day had left little trace, or little that was regarded; the mental journey had been much more lasting in its effects. That night there was a young moon, and Eleanor sat at her window, looking out into the shadowy indistinctness of the outer world, while she tried to resolve the confusion of her mind into something like visible order and definiteness. Two points were clear, and seemed to loom up larger and clearer the longer she thought about them; her supreme need of that which she had not, the faith and deliverance of religion; and the adverse influence and opposition of Mr. Carlisle in all the efforts she might make to secure or maintain it. And under all this lurked a thought that was like a serpent for its unrecognized coming and going and for the sting it left,--a wish that she could put off her marriage. No new thing in one way; Eleanor had never been willing it should be fixed for so early a day; nevertheless she had accepted and submitted to it, and become accustomed to the thought of it. Now repugnance started up anew and with fresh energy. She could hardly understand herself; her thoughts were a great turmoil; they went over and over some of the experiences of the day, with an aimless dwelling upon them; yet Eleanor was in general no dreamer. The words of Mr. Rhys, that had pierced her with a sense of duty and need--the looks, that even in the remembrance wrung her heart with their silent lesson-bearing--the sympathy testified for herself, which intensified all her own emotions,--and in contrast, the very tender and affectionate but supreme manner of Mr. Carlisle, in whose power she felt she was,--the alternation of these images and the thoughts they gave rise to, kept Eleanor at her window, until the young moon went down behind the western horizon and the night was dark with only stars. So dark she felt, and miserable; and over and over and over again her cry of that afternoon was re-echoed,--"What shall I do! what will become of me!" Upon one thing she fixed. That Mr. Carlisle should know that he was not going to find a gay wife in her, but one whose mind was set upon somewhat else and upon another way of life. This would be very distasteful to him; and he should know it. How she would manage to let him know, Eleanor left to circumstances; but she went to bed with that point determined. CHAPTER VIII. IN THE BARN. "It hath been the longest night That e'er I watched, and the most heaviest." Good resolutions are sometimes excellent things, but they are susceptible of overturns. Eleanor's met with one. She was sitting with Mr. Carlisle the very next day, in a disturbed mood of mind; for he and her mother had been laying plans and making dispositions with reference to her approaching marriage; plans and dispositions in which her voice was not asked, and in which matters were carried rapidly forward towards their consummation. Eleanor felt that bands and chains were getting multiplied round her, fastening her more and more in the possession of her captor, while her own mind was preparing what would be considered resistance to the authority thus secured. The sooner she spoke the better; but how to begin? She bent over her embroidery frame with cheeks that gradually grew burning hot. The soft wind that blew in from the open window at her side would not cool them. Mr. Carlisle came and sat down beside her. "What does all this mean?" said he laughingly, drawing his finger softly over Eleanor's rich cheek. "It's hot!" said Eleanor. "Is it? I have the advantage of you. It is the perfection of a day to me." "Eleanor," cried Julia, bounding in through the window, "Mr. Rhys is better to-day. He says so." "Is he?" said Eleanor. "Yes; you know how weak he was yesterday; he is not quite so weak to-day." "Who is Mr. Rhys?" said Mr. Carlisle. "O he is nice! Eleanor says nice rhymes to Rhys. Wasn't my tea nice, Eleanor? We had Miss Broadus to tea this afternoon. We had you yesterday and Miss Broadus to-day. I wonder who will come next." "Is this a sick friend you have been visiting?" said Mr. Carlisle, as Julia ran off, having accomplished the discomfiture of her sister. "No, not at all--only I stopped at Mrs. Williams' cottage to rest yesterday; and he lives there." "You saw him?" "Yes; Julia found me, and I could not help seeing him." "But you took _tea_ there, Eleanor? With whom?" "I took tea with Julia and her sick friend. Why not? She was making a cup of tea for him and gave me one. I was very glad of it. There was no one else in the house." "How is your sister allowed to do such things?" "For a sick friend, Mr. Carlisle? I think it is well anybody's part to do such things." "I think I will forbid embroidery frames at the Priory, if they are to keep me from seeing your eyes," said he, with one arm drawing her back from the frame and with the other hand taking her fingers from it, and looking into her face, but kissing her. "Now tell me, who is this gentleman?" Eleanor was irritated; yet the assumption of authority, calm and proud as it was, had a mixture of tenderness which partly soothed her. The demand however was imperious. Eleanor answered. "He was Alfred's tutor--you have seen him--he has been very ill all summer. He is a sick man, staying in the village." "And what have you to do with such a person?" "Nothing in the world! I stopped there to rest myself, because I was too tired to walk home." He smiled at her kindling indignation, and gave her a kiss by way of forgiveness for it; then went on gravely. "You have been to that cottage before, Eleanor?" "Yes." "How was that?" "I went with Julia when she was carrying some refreshments to her sick friend. I will do that for anybody, Mr. Carlisle." "Say that over again," he said calmly, but with a manner that shewed he would have it. And Eleanor could not resist. "I would do that for anybody, Macintosh," she said gently, laying her hand upon his arm. "No, darling. You shall send nurses and supplies to all the folk in the kingdom--if you will--but you shall pay such honour as this to nobody but me." "Mr. Carlisle," said Eleanor rousing again, "if I am not worthy your trust, I am not fit to do either you or anybody else honour." She had straightened herself up to face him as she said this, but it was mortifying to feel how little she could rouse him. He only drew her back into his arms, folding her close and kissing her again and again. "You are naughty," he said, "but you are good. You are as sweet as a rose, Eleanor. My wife will obey me, in a few things, and she shall command me in all others. Darling, I wish you not to be seen in the village again alone. Let some one attend you, if I am not at hand." He suffered her to return to her embroidery; but though Eleanor's heart beat and her cheek was flushed with contending feelings, she could not find a word to say. Her heart rebelled against the authority held over her; nevertheless it subdued her; she dared not bring her rebellion into open light. She shrank from that; and hid now in her own thoughts all the new revelations she had meant to draw forth for Mr. Carlisle's entertainment. Now was no time. In fact Eleanor's consciousness made her afraid that if she mentioned her religious purposes and uneasiness, this man's acuteness would catch at the connecting link between the new dereliction of duty and the former which had been just rebuked. That would lay her open to imputations and suspicions too dishonouring to be risked, and impossible to disprove, however false. She must hold her tongue for the present; and Eleanor worked on at her embroidery, her fingers pulling at it energetically, while feeling herself much more completely in another's power than it suited her nature to be. Somehow at this time the vision of Rythdale Priory was not the indemnification it had seemed to her before. Eleanor liked Mr. Carlisle, but she did not like to be governed by him; although with an odd inconsistency, it was that very power of government which formed part of his attraction. Certainly women are strange creatures. Meanwhile she tugged on at her work with a hot cheek and a divided mind, and a wisely silent tongue; and M. Carlisle sat by and made himself very busy with her, finding out ways of being both pleasant and useful. Finally he put a stop to the embroidery and engaged Eleanor in a game of chess with him; began to teach her how to play it, and succeeded in getting her thoroughly interested and diverted from her troublesome thoughts. They returned as soon as he left her. "I can never speak to him about my religious feelings," mused Eleanor as she walked slowly to her own room,--"never! I almost think, if I did, he would find means to cheat me out of them, in spite of all my determinations--until it would be too late. What is to become of me? What a double part I shall play now--my heart all one way, my outer life all another. It must be so. I can shew these thoughts to no one. Will they live, shut up in the dark so?" Mr. Rhys's words about "seeking" recurred to her. Eleanor did not know how, and felt strange. "I could follow his prayers, if I heard them," she said to herself;--"I do not know how to set about it. I suppose reading the Bible is good--that and good books." And that Eleanor tried. Good books however were by and by given up; none that she had in the least suited her wants; only the Bible proved both a light and a power to her. It had a great fascination for Eleanor, and it sometimes made her hopeful; at any rate she persevered in reading it, through gloom and cheer; and her mind when she was alone knew much more of the former condition than of the latter. When not alone, she was in a whirl of other occupations and interests. The preparations for her marriage went on diligently; Eleanor saw it and knew it, and would not help though she could not hinder. But she was very far from happy. The style and title of Lady Rythdale had faded in her imagination; other honour and glory, though dimly seen, seemed more desirable to Eleanor now, and seemed endangered by this. She was very uneasy. She struggled between the remaining sense of pride, which sometimes arose to life, and this thought of something better; at other times she felt as if her marriage with Mr. Carlisle would doom her forever to go without any treasure but what an earthly coronet well lined with ermine might symbolize and ensure. Meanwhile weeks flew by; while Eleanor studied the Bible and sought for light in her solitary hours at night, and joined in all Mr. Carlisle's plans of gayety by day. September and October were both gone. November's short days begun. And when the days should be at the shortest--"Then," thought Eleanor, "my fate will be settled. Mr. Carlisle will have me; and I can never disobey him. I cannot now." November reached the middle, and there wanted but little more than a month to the wedding-day. Eleanor sat one morning in her garden parlour, which a mild day made pleasant; working by the glass door. The old thought, "What will become of me!" was in her heart. A shadow darkened the door. Eleanor looked up, fearing to see Mr. Carlisle; it was her little sister Julia. Julia opened the door and came in. "It is nice in the garden, Eleanor," she said. "The chrysanthemums are so beautiful as I never saw them--white and yellow and orange and rose-colour, and a hundred colours. They are beautiful, Eleanor." "Yes." "May I have a great bunch of them to take to Mr. Rhys?" "Have what you like. I thought you used to take them without asking." Julia looked serious. "I wish I could go down to the village to-night, I know"--she said. "_To-night!_ What do you wish that for?" "Because, Mr. Rhys is going to preach; and I do want to go so much; but I can't." "Going to preach!--why is he so well as that?" "He isn't well at all," said Julia,--"not what you would call well. But he says he is well. He is white and weak enough yet; and I don't think that is being well. He can't go to Lily Dale nor to Rythdale; so some of the people are coming to Wiglands." "Where is he going to preach?" "Where do you think? In Mr. Brooks's barn. They won't let him preach at the inn, and he can't have the church; and I _do_ want to see how he can preach in the barn!" Mr. Brooks was a well-to-do farmer, a tenant of the Rythdale estate, living near the road to the old priory and half a mile from the village of Wiglands. A consuming desire seized Eleanor to do as her little sister had said--hear Mr. Rhys preach. The desire was so violent that it half frightened her with the possibility of its fulfilment. She told Julia that it was an absurd wish, and impracticable, and dismissed her; and then her whole mind focussed itself on Mr. Brooks's barn. Eleanor saw nothing else through the morning, whatever she was doing. It was impossible! yet it was a first, last, and only chance, perhaps in her life, of hearing the words of truth so spoken as she knew they would be in that place that night. Besides, she had a craving curiosity to know _how_ they would be spoken. One month more, Eleanor once securely lodged in Rythdale Priory, and her chance of hearing any words whatever spoken in a barn, was over for ever; unless indeed she condescended to become an inspector of agricultural proceedings. Yet she said to herself over and over that she had no chance now; that her being present was a matter of wild impossibility; she said it and re-said it, and with every time a growing consciousness that impossibility should not stop her. At last impossibility shaped itself into a plan. "I am going down to see Jane Lewis, mamma," was Eleanor's announcement at luncheon. "To day, Eleanor?" "Yes, ma'am." "But Mr. Carlisle will be here, and he will not like it." "He will have enough of me by and by, ma'am. I shall may be never have another chance of taking care of Jane. I know she wants to see me, and I am going to-day. And if she wants me very much, I shall stay all night; so you need not send." "What will Mr. Carlisle say to all that?" "He will say nothing to it, if you do not give him an opportunity, mamma. I am going, at all events." "Eleanor, I am afraid you have almost too much independence, for one who is almost a married woman." "Is independence a quality entirely given up, ma'am, when 'the ring is on'?" "Certainly! I thought you knew that. You must make up your mind to it. You are a noble creature, Eleanor; but my comfort is that Mr. Carlisle will know how to manage you. I never could, to my satisfaction. I observe he has brought you in pretty well." Eleanor left the room; and if the tide of her independence could have run higher, her mother's words would have furnished the necessary provocative. Jane Lewis was a poor girl in the village; the daughter of one who had been Eleanor's nurse, and who now old and infirm, and unable to do much for herself or others, watched the declining days of her child without the power to give them much relief. Jane was dying with consumption. The other member of the family was the old father, still more helpless; past work and dependent on another child for all but the house they lived in. That, in earlier days, had been made their own. Eleanor was their best friend, and many a day, and night too, had been a sunbeam of comfort in the poor house. She now, when the day was far enough on its wane, provided herself with a little basket of grapes, ordered her pony, and rode swiftly down to the village; not without attendance this time, though confessing bitterly to herself the truth of her mother's allegations. At the cottage door she took the basket; ordered the pony should come for her next morning at eight o'clock, and went into the cottage; feeling as if she had for a little space turned her back upon troublesome people and things and made herself free. She went in softly, and was garrulously welcomed by her old nurse and her husband. It was so long since they had seen her! and she was going to be such a great lady! and they knew she would not forget them nevertheless. It was not flattery. It was true speech. Eleanor asked for Jane, and with her basket went on into the upper little room where the sick girl lay. There felt, when she had got above the ground floor, as if she was tolerably safe. It was a little low room under the thatch, in which Eleanor now hid herself. A mere large closet of a room, though it boasted of a fireplace, happily. A small lattice under the shelving roof let in what it could of the light of a dying November day. The bed with its sick occupant, two chairs, a little table, and a bit of carpet on the floor, were all the light revealed. Eleanor's welcome here was also most sincere; less talkative, it was yet more glad than that given by the old couple down stairs; a light shone all over the pale face of the sick girl, and the weary eye kindled, at sight of her friend. Extreme neatness was not the characteristic of this little low room, simply for want of able hands to ensure it. Eleanor's first work was to set Jane to eating grapes; her next, to put the place in tidy order. "Lady Rythdale shall be useful once more in her life," she thought. She brushed up the floor, swept the hearth, demolished cobwebs on the walls, and rubbed down the chairs. She had borrowed an apron and cap from old Mrs. Lewis. The sick girl watched her with eager eyes. "I can't bear to see you a doing of that, Miss Eleanor," she exclaimed. "Hush, Jane! Eat your grapes." "You've a kind heart," said the girl sighing; "and it's good when them that has the power has the feelings." "How are your nights now, Jane?" "They're tedious--I lie awake so; and then I get coughing. I am always so glad to see the light come in the mornings! but it's long a coming now. I can't get nobody to hear me at night if I want anything." "Do you often want something?" "Times, I do. Times, I get out of wanting, because I can't have--and times I only want worse." "_What_ do you want, Jane?" "Well, Miss Eleanor,--I conceit I want to see somebody. The nights is very long--and in the dark and by myself--I gets feared." To Eleanor's dismay she perceived Jane was weeping. "What in the world are you afraid of, Jane? I never saw you so before." "'Tisn't of anything in _this_ world, Miss Eleanor," said Jane. Her face was still covered with her hands, and the grapes neglected. Eleanor was utterly confounded. Had Jane caught her feeling? or was this something else? "Are you afraid of spirits, Jane?" "No, Miss Eleanor." "What is it, then? Jane, this is something new. I never saw you feeling so before." "No, ma'am--and I didn't. But there come a gentleman to see me, ma'am." "A gentleman to see you? What gentleman?" "I don't know, Miss Eleanor; only he was tall, and pale-like, and black hair. He asked me if I was ready to die--and I said I didn't know what it was I wanted if I wasn't; and he told me---- Oh, I know I'll never have rest no more!" A burst of weeping followed these words. Eleanor felt as if a thunderbolt had broken at her feet; so terrible to her, in her own mood, was this revelation of a kindred feeling. She stood by the bedside, dismayed, shocked, a little disposed to echo Jane's despairing prophecy in her own case. "Did he say no more to you, Jane?" "Yes, Miss Eleanor, he did; and every word he said made me feel worser. His two eyes was like two swords going through me; and they went through me so softly, ma'am, I couldn't abear it. They killed me." "But, Jane, he did not mean to kill you. What did he say?" "I don't know, Miss Eleanor--he said a many things; but they only made me feel----how I ain't fit----" There was no more talking. The words were broken off by sobs. Eleanor turned aside to the fire-place and began to make up the fire, in a blank confusion and distress; feeling, to use an Arabic phrase, as if the sky had fallen. She could give no comfort; she wanted it herself. The best she could think of, was the suggestion that the gentleman would come again, and that then he would make all things plain. Would he come while Eleanor was there, that afternoon? What a chance! But she remembered it was very unlikely. He was to preach in the evening; he would want to keep all his strength for that. And now the question arose, how should she get to the barn. The first thing was to soothe Jane. Eleanor succeeded in doing that after a while. She made her a cup of tea and a piece of toast, and took some herself; and sat in the darkening light musing how she should do. One good thing was secure. She had not been followed up this afternoon, nor sent for home; both which disagreeables she had feared. Jane dozed, and she thought; and the twilight fell deeper and deeper. There was after all only one way in which Eleanor could accomplish her desire; though she turned the matter all round in her head before she would see it, or determine upon adopting it. No mortal that she knew could be trusted with the secret--if she meant to have it remain a secret: and that at all costs was Eleanor's desire. Julia might have been trusted, but Julia could not have been brought along. Eleanor was alone. She thought, and trembled, and made up her mind. The hour must be waited for when people from the village would be setting forth to go to Brooks' farm. It was dark then, except some light from the stars. Eleanor got out a bonnet of Jane's, which the owner would never use again; a close little straw bonnet; and tied over it a veil she had taken the precaution to bring. Her own hat and mantle she laid away out of sight, and wrapped round her instead a thick camlet cloak of the sick girl's, which enveloped her from head to feet. Pretty good disguise--thought Eleanor to herself. Mr. Carlisle would not find her out in this. But there was no danger of _his_ seeing her. She was all ready to steal out; when she suddenly recollected that she might be missed, and the old people in terror make a hue and cry after her. That would not do. She stripped off the bonnet again and awoke the sleeping girl. "Jane," she said bending over her, "I have somebody else to see--I am going out for a little while. I will be back and spend the night with you. Tell your mother to leave the door open for me, if she wishes to go to bed; and I will look after you. Now go to sleep again." Without waiting for Jane to think about it, Eleanor slipped out, bonnet in hand, and went softly down stairs. The old man was already gone to bed in a little inner chamber; the old mother sat dozing by the fire. Standing behind her Eleanor put on the bonnet, and then gently opening the house door, with one step was in the road. A moment stood still; but the next moment set off with quick, hasty steps. It was damp and dark; the stars were shining indeed, yet they shed but a glimmering and doubtful light upon Eleanor's doubtful proceeding. She knew it was such; her feet trembled and stumbled in her way, though that was as much with the fever of determination as with the hinderings of doubt. There was little occasion for bodily fear. People, she knew, would be going to the preaching, all along the way; she would not be alone either going or coming. Nevertheless it was dark, and she was where she had no business to be; and she hurried along rather nervously till she caught sight of one or two groups before her, evidently bent for the same place with herself. She slackened her footsteps then, so as to keep at a proper distance behind them, and felt that for the present she was secure. Yet, it was a wild, strange walk to Eleanor. Secure from personal harm she might be, and was, no doubt; but who could say what moral consequences might follow her proceeding. What if her mother knew it? what if Mr. Carlisle? Eleanor felt she was doing a very questionable thing; but the desire to do it on her part amounted to a necessity. She must hear these words that would be spoken in the barn to-night. They would be on the subject that of all others interested her, and spoken by the lips that of all others could alone speak to the purpose. So Eleanor felt; so was in some measure for her the truth; and amid all her sense of doubt and danger and inward trembling, there was a wild thrill of delight at accomplishing her object. She would hear--yes, she would hear--what Mr. Rhys had to say to the people that night. Nobody should ever know it; neither he nor others; but if they _did_, she would run all risks rather than be balked. It was a walk never to be forgotten. Alone, though near people that knew not she was near; in the darkness of night; the stars shewing only the black forms of trees and hedgerows, and a line of what could not be called light, where the road ran; keeping in the shadow of the hedge and hurrying along over the undiscerned footway;--it was a novel experience for one who had been all her life so tended and sheltered as she. It was strange and disagreeable. Waymarks did not seem familiar; distances seemed long. Eleanor wished the walk would come to an end. It did at last. The people,--there was a stream of them now pouring along the road, indeed so many that Eleanor was greatly surprised at them,--turned off into a field, within which at a few rods from the road stood the barn in question; at the door of which one or two lamps hung out shewed that something unusual was going on there. Mr. Brooks had several barns, the gables and roofs of which looked like a little settlement in the starlight, not far off; but this particular barn stood alone, and was probably known to the country people from former occasions; for they streamed towards it and filed in without any wavering or question. So Eleanor followed, trembling and wondering at herself; passed the curtain that hung at the door, and went in with the others. The place that received them was a great threshing-floor, of noble proportions, for a threshing-floor. Perhaps Mr. Brooks had an eye to contingencies when he built it. On two sides it was lined with grain, rising in walls of cereal sweetness to a great height; and certainly, if Eleanor had been in many a statelier church, she had never been in one better ventilated or where the air was more fragrantly scented. But a new doubt struck her. Could it be right to hold divine service in such a place? Was this a fit or decorous temple, for uses of such high and awful dignity? The floor was a bare plank floor; footfalls echoed over it. The roof was high indeed; but no architect's groining of beams reminded one that the place was set apart to noble if not sacred purposes. Nothing but common carpenter's joinery was over her head, in the roof of the barn. The heads of wheat ears instead of carved cornices and pendents; and if the lights were dim, which they certainly were, it did not seem at all a religious light. Only at the further end, where a table and chair stood ready for the preacher, some tall wax candles threw a sufficient illumination for all present to see him well. Was that his pulpit? What sort of preaching could possibly be had from it? Eleanor looked round the place. There was no really lighted part of it except about that table and chair. It was impossible for people to see each other well from a little distance off, unless thoroughly well known. Eleanor felt there was very little danger indeed that anybody should recognize her identity, in Jane's bonnet and cloak. That was so much comfort. Another comfort was, that the night was mild. It was not like November. A happy circumstance for everybody there; but most of all for the convalescent preacher, whose appearance Eleanor looked for now with a kind of fearful anxiety. If he should have been hindered from coming, after all! Her heart beat hard. She stood far back behind most of the people, near the door by which she had entered. A few benches and chairs were in the floor, given up to the use of the women and the aged people. Eleanor marvelled much to see that there were some quite old people among the company. The barn was getting very full. "There is a seat yonder," said some one touching her on the elbow. "Won't you have it?" Eleanor shook her head. "You had better," he said kindly; "there's a seat with nobody in it; there's plenty of room up there. Come this way." Eleanor was unwilling to go further forward, yet did not like to trust her voice to speak, nor choose to draw attention to herself in any way. She was needlessly afraid. However, she yielded to the instance of her kind neighbour and followed him among the crowd to the spot he had picked out for her. She would have resisted further, if she had known where this spot was; for it was far forward in the barn, more than half way between the door and the candle-lighted table, and in the very midst of the assembly. There was no help for it now; she could not go back; and Eleanor was thankful for the support the seat gave her. She was trembling all over. A vague queer feeling of her being about something wrong, not merely in the circumstances of her getting there, but in the occasion itself, haunted her with a sort of superstition. Could such an assembly be rightfully gathered for such a purpose in such a place? Could it be right, to speak publicly of sacred things with such an absence of any public recognition of their sacredness? In a bare barn? an unconsecrated building, with no beauty or dignity of observance to give homage to the work and the occasion? Eleanor was a compound of strange feelings; till she suddenly became conscious of a stir in the gathered throng, and then heard on the plank floor a step that she intuitively knew. As the step and the tall figure that it bore passed close by her on the way to the table, an instant sense of quiet and security settled down on her. Nervousness died away. There was one person there now that she knew; the question of his coming was settled, and her coming was not for nothing; and moreover, whatever business he was concerned in was right, in all its parts! She was sure of that. She watched him, with a great bound of exultation in her heart; watched him kneel down for prayer as he reached his place; and wondered, while awe mixed with her wonder, how he could do it, before and amongst all those people as he was; not shut off in a distant chancel alone by himself, but there with everybody crowding upon him. Her wonder had but little space to exercise itself. After a few minutes Mr. Rhys rose and gave out a hymn; and every thought of Eleanor's was concentrated on the business and on the speaker. She knew nothing about hymns except that they were sung in church; all such lyrics were unfamiliar to her, though the music of them was not. It was always stately music, with an organ, in the swell of which the words were lost. There could be no organ in a barn. Instead of that, the whole assembly rose to their feet and struck out together into a sweet air which they sung with a vast deal of spirit. No difficulty about hearing the words now; the music was not at a distance; the words were coming from every lip near Eleanor, and were sung as if they were a personal matter. Perhaps she was in a mood to be easily touched; but the singing did reach her and move her profoundly. "When I can read my title clear To mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes." The sense of this, Eleanor did not thoroughly understand, yet the general spirit of it was not to be mistaken. And the soft repetition of the last line struck her heart sorrowfully. Here was her want breathed out again. "And wipe my weeping eyes.--I'll bid farewell to every fear, and wipe my weeping eyes." Eleanor was perhaps the only one who did not sing; nobody paid better attention. The hymn was followed by a prayer. If the one had touched Eleanor, the other prostrated her in the dust. She heard a child of God speaking to his Father; with a simplicity of utterance, a freedom of access, and a glow of happy affections, evident in every quietly spoken word, that testified to his possession of the heavenly treasures that were on his tongue; and made Eleanor feel humbled and poor with an extreme and bitter sense of want. Her heart felt as empty as a deep well that had gone dry. This man only had ever shewed her what a Christian might be; she saw him standing in a glory of heavenly relationships and privileges and character, that were a sort of transfiguration. And although Eleanor comprehended but very imperfectly wherein this glory might lie, she yet saw the light, and mourned her own darkness. Eleanor's mind went a great way during the minutes of that prayer; according to the strange fashion in which the work of many days is sometimes done in one. She was sorry when it ended; however, every part of the services had a vivid new interest for her. Another hymn, and reading, during which her head was bowed on her breast in still listening; it was curious, how she had forgot all about being in a barn; and then the sermon began. She had to raise up her head when that began; and after a while Eleanor could not bear her veil, and threw it back, trusting that the dim light would secure her from being known. But she felt that she must see as well as hear, this one time. Of all subjects in the world to fall in with Eleanor's mood, the sermon to-night was on _peace_. The peace that the Lord Jesus left as his parting gift to his people; the peace that is not as the world giveth. How the world gives, Mr. Rhys briefly set forth; with one hand, to take away with the other--as a handful of gold, what proves but a clutch of ashes--as the will-o'-the-wisp gives, promise but never possession. Eleanor would not have much regarded these words from any other lips; they accorded with her old theory of disgust with the world. From Mr. Rhys she did regard them, because no word of his fell unheeded by her. But when he went on from that to speak of Christ's gift, and how that is bestowed--his speech was as bitter in her heart as it was sweet in his mouth. The peace he held up to her view,--the joy in which a child of God lives and walks--and dies; the security of every movement, the confidence in every action, the rest in all turmoil, the fearlessness in all danger; the riches in the midst of poverty, the rejoicing even in time of sorrow; the victory over sin and death, wrought in him as well as for him;--Eleanor's heart seemed to die within her, and at the same time started in a struggle for life. Had the words been said coldly, or as matter of speculative belief, or as privilege not actually entered into, it would have been a different thing. Eleanor might have sat back in her chair and listened and sorrowed for herself in outward quiet. But there was unconscious testimony from every tone and look of the speaker that he told the people but of what he knew. The pale face was illumined by a high grave light, that looked like a halo from the unseen world; it was nothing less to Eleanor; and the mouth in its general set so sober, broke occasionally into a smile so sweet, that it straitened Eleanor's heart with its unconscious tale-telling. As the time went on, the speaker began to illustrate his words by instances; instances of the peace which Christians have shewn to be theirs in all sorts of circumstances where the world would have given them none, or would have surely withdrawn the gift once made. In poverty--in pain--in loneliness--in the want of all things--in the close prospect of suffering, and in the presence of death. Wonderful instances they were! glorious to the power of that Redeemer, who had declared, "Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." How the speaker's eye flushed and fired; flushed with tears, and fired with triumph; what a tint rose on the pale cheek, testifying to the exultation he felt; with what tremulous distinctness the words were sometimes given--and heard in the breathless stillness to the furthest corner of the place. It was too much at last. Feeling was wrought too high. Eleanor could not bear it. She bowed her head on her hand to hide the tears that would come, and only struggled to keep her sobs quiet that she might not lose a word. There were other sobs in the assembly that were less well controlled; they were audible; Eleanor could not endure to hear them, for she feared her excitement would become unmanageable. Nevertheless by strong effort she succeeded in keeping perfectly still; though she dared not raise her head again till the last hymn and prayers were over, and the people made a general stir all round her. Then she too rose up and turned her face in the direction whither they were all turning, towards the door. She made her way out with the crowd blindly, conscious that it was all over--that was the prominent thought--and yet that work was done which would never be "over" for her. So conscious of this, that she had no care either of her whereabouts or of her walk home, except in an incidental sort of way. She got out into the starlight, and stepped over the grassy sward of the field in a maze; she hardly felt the ground; it was not till she reached the fence and found herself in the road, that Eleanor really roused up. Then it was necessary to turn in one direction or the other; and Eleanor could not tell which to take. She stood still and tried to collect herself. Which side of the road was the barn? She could not remember; she was completely confused and turned about; and in the starlight she could be sure of no tree or fence or other landmark. She stood still, while the people poured past her and in groups or in pairs took the one direction or the opposite. Part went one way and part went the other, to Wiglands and to Rythdale. Eleanor longed to ask which way somebody was going, but she was afraid of betraying herself. She did not dare. Yet if she took the wrong turning, she might find herself in the Rythdale valley, a great distance from Wiglands, and with a lone road to traverse all the way back again. Her heart beat. What should she do? The people poured past her, dividing off right and left; they would be all scattered soon to their several homes, and she would be left alone. She must do something quickly. Yet she shrank very much from speaking, and still stood by the fence trembling and hesitating. "Are you alone?" said a voice at her shoulder that she knew very well. If a cannon had gone off at her feet, it would not have startled Eleanor more. The tone of the question implied that _she_ was known. She was too startled to answer. The words were repeated. "Are you alone?" Eleanor's "yes" got out, with nothing distinguishable except the last letter. "I have a waggon here," said he. "Come with me." The speaker waited for no answer to the words which were not a request; and acting as decidedly as he had spoken, took hold of Eleanor's arm and led her forward to a little vehicle which had just drawn up. He helped her into it, took his place beside her, and drove away; but he said not another word. It was Mr. Rhys, and Eleanor knew that he had recognized her. She sat in a stupor of confusion and shame. What would he think of her! and what could she make him think? Must she be a bold, wild girl in his estimation for ever? Why would he not speak? He drove on in perfect silence. Eleanor must say something to break it. And it was extremely difficult, and she had to be bold to do that. "I see you recognize me, Mr. Rhys," she said. "I recognized you in the meeting," he answered in perfect gravity. Eleanor felt it. She was checked. She was punished. "Where are you taking me?" she asked after a little more time. "I will take you wherever you tell me you desire." Grave and short. Eleanor could not bear it. "You think very hardly of me, Mr. Rhys," she said; "but I was spending the night at a poor girl's house in the village--she is ill, and I was going to sit up with her--and I knew you were to preach at that place--and--" Eleanor's voice choked and faltered. "And what could prompt you to go alone, Miss Powle?" "I wanted to go--" faltered Eleanor. "I knew it would be my last chance. I felt I must go. And I could go no way but alone." "May I ask what you mean by 'your last chance?'" "My last chance of hearing what I wanted to hear--what I can't help thinking about lately. Mr. Rhys, I am not happy." "Did you understand what you heard to-night?" "In part I did--I understood, Mr. Rhys, that you have something I have not,--and that I want." Eleanor spoke with great emotion. "The Lord bless you!" he said, with a tenderness of tone that broke her down at once. "Trust Jesus, Miss Powle. He can give it to you. He only can. Go to him for what you want, and for understanding of what you do not understand. Trust the Lord! Make your requests known to him, and believe that he will hear your prayers and answer them, and more than fulfil them. Now where shall I set you down?" "Anywhere--" Eleanor said as well as she could. "Here, if you please." "Here is no house. We are just at the entrance of the village." "This is a good place then," said Eleanor. "I do not want anybody to see me." "Miss Powle," said her guardian, and he spoke with such extreme gravity that Eleanor was half frightened,--"did you come without the knowledge of your friends at home?" "Yes, to the place we have come from. Mamma knew I was going to spend the night with a sick girl in the village--she did not know any more." "It was very dangerous!" he said in the same tone. "I knew it. I risked that. I felt I must come." "You did very wrong," said her companion. It hurt her that he should say it, and have cause; but she was so miserable before, that it could be felt only in the dull way in which pain added to pain sometimes makes itself known. She was subdued, humbled, ashamed. She said nothing more, nor did he, until after passing two or three houses they arrived at a spot where the trees and the road were the only village representatives; a clear space, with no house very near, and no person in sight. Mr. Rhys drew up by the side of the road, and helped Eleanor out of the waggon. He said only "Good night," but it was said kindly and sympathizingly, and with the earnest grasp of the hand that Eleanor remembered. He got into the waggon again, but did not drive away as she expected; she found he was walking his horse and keeping abreast of her as she walked. Eleanor hurried on, reached Mrs. Lewis's cottage, paused a second at the door to let him see that she had reached her stopping place, and went in. All still; the embers dying on the hearth, a cricket chirrupping under it. Mrs. Lewis was gone to bed, but had not covered up the fire for fear her young lady might want it. Eleanor did not dare sit down there. She drew the bolt of the house door; then softly went up the stairs to Jane's room. Jane was asleep. Eleanor felt thankful, and moved about like a shadow. She put the brands together in a sort of mechanical way; for she knew she was chilly and needed fire bodily, though her spirit was in a fever. The night had turned raw, and the ride home had been not so cheering mentally as to do away with the physical influence of a cold fog. Eleanor put off bonnet and cloak, softly piled the brands together and coaxed up a flame; and sat down on a low stool on the hearth to spread her hands over it, to catch all the comfort she could. Comfort was not near, however. Jane waked up in a violent fit of coughing; and when that was subdued or died away, as difficult a fit of restlessness was left behind. She was nervous and uneasy; Eleanor had only too much sympathy with both moods, nevertheless she acted the part of a kind and delicate nurse; soothed Jane and ministered to her, even spoke cheerful words; until the poor girl's exhausted mind and body sank away again into slumber, and Eleanor was free to sit down on the hearth and fold her hands. Then she began to think. Not till then. Indeed what she did then at first was not to think, but to recall in musing all the scenes and as far as possible all the words of that evening; with a consciousness behind this all the while that there was hard thinking coming. Eleanor went dreamily over the last few hours, looking in turn at each image so stamped upon her memory; felt over again the sermon, the hymns, the prayers; then suddenly broke from her musings to face this consciousness that was menacing her. Set herself to think in earnest. What was it all about? Eleanor might well have shunned it, might well grasp it in desperation with a sudden inability to put it off any longer. Down in her heart, as strong as the keep of an old castle, and as obstinate-looking, was the feeling--"I do not want to marry Mr. Carlisle." Eleanor did not immediately discern its full outline and proportions, in the dim confusion which filled her heart; but a little steady looking revealed it, revealed it firm and clear and established there. "I do not want to marry him--I will not marry him"--she found the words surging up from this stronghold. Pride and ambition cowering somewhere said, "Not ever? Do you mean, not at all? not ever?"--"Not ever!"--was the uncompromising answer; and Eleanor's head dropped in agony. "Why?" was the next question. And the answer was clear and strong and ready. "I am bent upon another sort of life than his life--I am going another way--I _must_ live for aims and objects which he will hate and thwart and maybe hinder--I _will not_ walk with him in his way--I cannot walk with him in mine--I cannot, oh, I do not wish, to walk with him at all!" Eleanor sat face to face with this blank consciousness, staring at it, and feeling as if the life was gradually ebbing out of her. What was she to do? The different life and temper and character, and even the face, of Mr. Rhys, came up to her as so much nobler, so much better, so much more what a man should be, so much more worthy of being liked. But Eleanor strove to put that image away, as having very truly, she said to herself, nothing to do with the present question. However, she thought she could not marry Mr. Carlisle; and intrenched herself a little while in that position, until the next subject came up for consideration; how she could escape from it? What reason could be assigned? Only this religious one could be given--and it might be, it might well be, that Mr. Carlisle would not on his part consider that reason enough. He would certainly hope to overcome the foundation on which it stood; and if he could not, Eleanor was obliged to confess to herself that she believed he loved her to that degree that he would rather have her a religious wife than not his wife at all. What should Eleanor do? Was she not bound? had she not herself given him claims over her which she had no right to disallow? had he not a right to all her fulfilment of them? Eleanor did not love him as he loved her; she saw that with singular and sudden distinctness; but there again, when she thought of that as a reason for not fulfilling her contract, she was obliged to own that it would be no reason to Mr. Carlisle. He never had had ground to suppose that Eleanor gave him more than she had expressed; but he was entirely content with what he had and his own confidence that he could cultivate it into what he pleased. There was no shaking loose from him in that way. As Eleanor sat on the hearth and looked at the ashes, in reality looking at Mr. Carlisle, her own face grew wan at what she saw there. She could give him no reason for changing their relations to each other, that would make him hold her a bit the less closely, no, nor the less fondly. What could Eleanor do? To go on and be Mr. Carlisle's wife, if necessary; give him all the observance and regard that she could, that she owed him, for having put herself in a false position where she could not give him more;--Eleanor saw nothing else before her. But one thing beside she would do. She would make Mr. Carlisle clearly and fully understand what sort of a woman he must expect in her. She would explain thoroughly what sort of a life she meant to lead. Justly stated, what would that be? Eleanor thought; and found herself determined, heart and soul, to follow the path of life laid before her that evening. Whether "peace" could visit her, in the course that seemed to lie through her future prospects, Eleanor much doubted; but at any rate she would have the rest of a satisfied conscience. She would take the Bible for her rule. Mr. Rhys's God should be her God, and with all she had of power and ability she would serve him. Dim as religious things still were to her vision, one thing was not dim, but shiningly clear; the duty of every creature to live the devoted servant of that Lord to whom he belongs by creation and redemption both. Here Eleanor's heart fixed, if it had a fixed point that tumultuous night; but long before it settled anywhere her thoughts were bathed in bitter tears; in floods of weeping that seemed fit to wash her very heart away. It occurred to Eleanor, if they could, how much trouble would be saved! She saw plenty before her. But there was the gripe of a fear and a wish upon her heart, that overmastered all others. The people had sung a hymn that evening, after the first one; a hymn of Christian gladness and strength, to an air as spirited as the words. Both words and air rang in her mind, through all the multifarious thoughts she was thinking; they floated through and sounded behind them like a strain of the blessed. Eleanor had taken one glance at Mr. Rhys while it was singing; and the remembrance of his face stung her as the sight of an angel might have done. The counter recollection of her own misery in the summer at the time she was ill; the longing want of that security and hope and consequent rest of mind, was vividly with her too. Pushed by fear and desire, Eleanor's resolution was taken. She saw not the way clear, she did not know yet the "wicket-gate" towards which Bunyan's Pilgrim was directed; like him however she resolved to "keep the light in her eye, and run." The fire had died all out; the grey ashes were cold; she was very cold herself, but did not know it. The night had waned away, and a light had sprung in at the window which Eleanor thought must be the dawn. It was not; it was the old moon just risen, and struggling through the fog. But the moon was the herald of dawn; and Eleanor got up from the hearth, feeling old and stiff; as if she had suddenly put on twenty years of age more than she came to the village with. The room was quite too cold for Jane, she remembered; and softly she went up and down for kindling and lighted up the fire again. Till she had done that, she felt grey and stern, like the November morning; but when the fire crackled and sparkled before her, and gave its cheery look and comforting warmth to her chilled senses, some curious sympathy with times that were gone and that she dared not hope to see again, smote Eleanor with a softer sorrow; and she wept a very rain of new tears. These did her good; they washed some of the bitterness out of her; and after that she sat thinking how she should manage; when Mr. Rhys's parting words suddenly recurred to her. A blanker ignorance how they should be followed, can scarcely be imagined, in a person of general sense and knowledge. Nevertheless, she bowed herself on the hearth, surely not more in form than in feeling, and besought of that One whose aid she knew not how to ask, that he would yet give it to her and fulfil all her desires. Eleanor was exhausted then. She sat in a stupor of resting, till the faint illumination of the moon was really replaced by a growing and broadening light of day. The night was gone. CHAPTER IX. IN PERPLEXITIES. "Look, a horse at the door, And little King Charles is snarling; Go back, my lord, across the moor, You are not her darling." Eleanor set out early to go home. She would not wait to be sent for. The walk might set her pulses in motion again perhaps. The fog was breaking away under the sun's rays, but it had left everything wet; the morning was excessively chill. There was no grass in her way however, and Eleanor's thick shoes did not fear the road, nor her feet the three miles of way. The walk was good. It could not be said to be pleasant; yet action of any kind was grateful and helpful. She saw not a creature till she got home. Home struck her with new sorrow, in the sense of the disappointment she was going to bring to so many there. She made her own room without having to speak to anybody; bathed and dressed for breakfast. How grave her face was, this morning! She could not help that. And she felt that it grew graver, when entering the breakfast room she found Mr. Carlisle there. "What have you done to yourself?" said he after they were seated at the breakfast table. "Taken a walk this morning." "Judicious! in this air, which is like a suspended shower-bath! Where did you go?" "On the Wiglands road." "If I had come in time, I should have taken you up before me, and cut short such a proceeding. Mrs. Powle, you do not make use of your authority." "Seems hardly worth while, when it is on the point of expiring," said Mrs. Powle blandly, with a smiling face. "Why Eleanor had to come home," said Julia; "she spent the night in the village. She could not help walking--unless mamma had sent the carriage or something for her." "Spent the night in the village!" said Mr. Carlisle. "Eleanor took it into her head that she must go to take care of a sick girl there--the daughter of her nurse. It is great foolishness, I think, but Eleanor will do it." "It don't agree with her very well," said Julia. "How you do look, Eleanor, this morning!" "She looks very well," said the Squire--"for all I see. Walking won't hurt her." What Mr. Carlisle thought he did not say. When breakfast was over he drew Eleanor off into the library. "How do you do this morning?" said he stopping to look at her. "Not very well." "I came early, to give you a great gallop to the other end of the moor--where you wished to go the other day. You are not fit for it now?" "Hardly." "Did you sit up with that girl last night? "I sat up. She did not want much done for her. My being there was a great comfort to her." "Far too great a comfort. You are a naughty child. Do you fancy, Eleanor, your husband will allow you to do such things?" "I must try to do what is right, Macintosh." "Do you not think it will be right that you should pleasure me in what I ask of you?" he said very gently and with a caressing action which took away the edge of the words. "Yes--in things that are right," said Eleanor, who felt that she owed him all gentleness because of the wrong she had done. "I shall not ask you anything that is not right; but if I should,--the responsibility of your doing wrong will rest on me. Now do you feel inclined to practise obedience a little to day?" "No, not at all," said Eleanor honestly, her blood rousing. "It will be all the better practice. You must go and lie down and rest carefully, and get ready to ride with me this afternoon, if the weather will do. Eh, Eleanor?" "I do not think I shall want to ride to-day." "Kiss me, and say you will do as I bid you." Eleanor obeyed, and went to her room feeling wretched. She must find some way quickly to alter this state of things--if she could alter them. In the mean time she had promised to rest. It was a comfort to lock the door and feel that for hours at any rate she was alone from all the world. But Eleanor's heart fainted. She lay down, and for a long time remained in motionless passive dismay; then nature asserted her rights and she slept. If sleep did not quite "knit up the ravelled sleeve of care" for her, Eleanor yet felt much less ragged when she came out of her slumber. There was some physical force now to meet the mental demand. The first thing demanded was a letter to Mr. Carlisle. It was in vain to think to tell him in spoken words what she wanted him to know; he would cut them short or turn them aside as soon as he perceived their drift, before she could at all possess him with the facts of the case. Eleanor sat down before dressing, to write her letter, so that no call might break her off until it was done. It was a weary, anxious, sorrowful writing; done with some tears and some mute prayers for help; with images constantly starting into her mind that she had to put aside together with the hot drops they called forth. The letter was finished, when Eleanor was informed that Mr. Carlisle waited for her. "To ride, I suppose," she thought. "I will not go." She put on a house dress and went down to the library, where her mother and Mr. Carlisle were together; looking both of them so well pleased! "You are not dressed for riding!" he said, taking her into his arms. "As you see," returned Eleanor. "I have brought a new horse for you. Will you change your dress?" "I think not. I am not equal to anything new." "Have you slept?" "Yes, but I have not eaten; and it takes both to make muscle. I cannot even talk to you till after tea." "Have you had no luncheon?" "I was asleep." "Mrs. Powle," said the gentleman, "you do not take care of my interests here. May I request you to have this want supplied--I am going to take Eleanor a great gallop presently; she must have something first." He put Eleanor in an easy chair as he spoke, and stood looking at her. Probably he saw some unusual lines of thought or care about the face, but it was by no means less fine for that. Mr. Carlisle liked what he saw. Refreshments came; and he poured out chocolate for her and served her with an affectionate supervision that watched every item. But when after a very moderate meal Eleanor's hand was stretched out for another piece of bread, he stopped her. "No," he said; "no more now. Now go and put on your habit." "But I am very hungry," said Eleanor. "No matter--you will forget it in five minutes. Go and put on your habit." Eleanor hesitated; thought that perhaps after all the ride would be the easiest way of passing the afternoon; and went. "Well you do understand the art of command," said Mrs. Powle admiringly. "She would never have done that for me." Mr. Carlisle did not look surprised, nor gratified, nor in fact shew anything whatever in his looks. Unless it were, that the difference of effects produced by himself and his future mother-in-law, was very much a matter of course. He stood before the fire, with no change at all in his clear hazel eyes, until Eleanor appeared. Then they sparkled. Eleanor was for some reason or other particularly lovely in his eyes to-day. The horse he had brought for her was a superb Arabian, shewing nerve and fire in every line of his form and starting muscle, from the tips of the ears down to the long fetlock and beautiful hoof. Shewing fire in the bright eye too. A brown creature, with luxuriant flowing mane and tail. "He is not quite so quiet as Black Maggie," Mr. Carlisle said as he put Eleanor upon his back; "and you must not curb him, Eleanor, or he will run." They went to the moor; and by degrees getting wonted to her fiery charger and letting him display his fine paces and increase his speed, Eleanor found the sensation very inspiriting. Even Black Maggie was not an animal like this; every motion was instinct with life and power, and not a little indication of headstrongness and irritability gave a great additional interest and excitement to the pleasure of managing him. Mr. Carlisle watched her carefully, Eleanor knew; he praised her handling. He himself was mounted on a quiet, powerful creature that did not make much shew. "If this fellow--what is his name?" "Tippoo Sultan." "If he were by any chance to run--would that horse you are riding keep up with him?" "I hope you will not try." "I don't mean it--but I am curious. There, Mr. Carlisle, there is the place where I was thrown." "A villainous looking place. I wish it was mine. How do you like Tippoo?" "Oh, he is delightful!" Mr. Carlisle looked satisfied, as he might; for Eleanor's colour had become brilliant, and her face had changed greatly since setting out. Strength and courage and hope seemed to come to her on Tippoo's back, facing the wind on the moor and gallopping over the wild, free way. They took in part the route Eleanor had followed that day alone, coming back through the village by a still wider circuit. As they rode more moderately along the little street, if it could be called so--the houses were all on one side--Eleanor saw Mr. Rhys standing at Mrs. Lewis's door; he saw her. Involuntarily her bow in return to his salutation was very low. At the same instant Tippoo started, on a run to which all his former gallopping had been a gentle amble. This was not ungentle; the motion had nothing rough; only Eleanor was going in a straight line over the ground at a rate that took away her breath. She had presence of mind not to draw the curb rein, but she felt that she could hardly endure long the sort of progress she was making through the air. It did not seem to be on the ground. Her curiosity was gratified on one point; for after the first instant she found Mr. Carlisle's powerful grey straining close beside her. Nevertheless Tippoo was so entirely in earnest that it was some little time--it seemed a very long one--before the grey could get so close to the brown and so far up with him that Mr. Carlisle could lay his hand upon the thick brown mane of Tippoo and stoop forward to speak to him. As soon as that was done once or twice, Tippoo's speed gradually relaxed; and a perseverance in his master's appeals to his reason and sense of duty, brought the wild creature back to a moderate pace and the air of a civilized horse. Mr. Carlisle transferred his grasp from the mane to Eleanor's hand. "Eleanor, what did you do that for?" "Do what? I did nothing." "You curbed him. You drew the rein, and he considered himself insulted. I told you he would not bear it." "He has had nothing to bear from me. I have not drawn the curb at all, Robert." "I must contradict you. I saw you do it. That started him." Eleanor remained silent and a little pale. Was Mr. Carlisle right? The ride had until then done her a great deal of good; roused up her energies and restored in some degree her spirit; the involuntary race together with the sudden sight of Mr. Rhys, had the effect to bring back all the soberness which for the moment the delight and stir of the exercise had dissipated. She went on pondering various things. Eleanor's letter to Mr. Carlisle was in the pocket of her habit, ready for use; she determined to give it him when he left her that evening; that was one of her subjects of thought. Accordingly he found her very abstracted and cold the rest of the way; grave and uninterested. He fancied she might have been startled by her run on Tippoo's back, though it was not very like her; but he did not know what to fancy. And true it is, that a remembrance of fear had come up to Eleanor after that gallop. _Afraid_ she was not, at the time; but she felt that she had been in a condition of some peril from which her own forces could not have extricated her; that brought up other considerations, and sadly in Eleanor's mind some words of the hymn they had sung last night in the barn floated over among her thoughts: "When I can read my title clear, To mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes." Very simple words; words that to some ears have become trite with repetition; but thoughts that went down into the depths of Eleanor's heart and garrisoned themselves there, beyond the power of any attacks to dislodge. Her gravity and indifference piqued Mr. Carlisle, curiosity and affection both. He spent the evening in trying to overcome them; with very partial success. When he was leaving her, Eleanor drew the letter from her pocket. "What is this?" said he taking it. "Only a letter for you." "From you! The consideration of that must not be postponed." He broke the seal. "Come, sit down again. I will read it here." "Not now! Take it home, Macintosh, and read it there. Let it wait so long." "Why?" "Never mind why. Do! Because I ask you." "I don't believe I can understand it without you beside me," said he smiling, and drawing the letter from its envelope while he looked at her. "But there is everybody here," said Eleanor glancing at another part of the room where the rest of the family were congregated. "I would rather you took it home with you." "It is something that requires serious treatment?" "Yes." "You are a wise little thing," said he, "and I will take your advice." He put the letter in his pocket; then took Eleanor's hand upon his arm and walked her off to the library. Nobody was there; lamplight and firelight were warm and bright. Mr. Carlisle placed his charge in an easy chair by the library table, much to her disappointment; drew another close beside it, and sat down with his arm over the back of hers to read the letter. Thus it ran: "It is right you should know a change which has taken place in me since the time when I first became known to you. I have changed very much, though it is a change perhaps which you will not believe in; yet I feel that it makes me very different from my old self, and alters entirely my views of almost everything. Life and life's affairs--and aims--do not look to me as they looked a few months ago; if indeed I could be said to have taken any view at all of them then. They were little more than names to me, I believe. They are great realities now. "I do not know how to tell you in what this change in me consists, for I doubt you will neither like it nor believe in it. Yet you _must_ believe in it; for I am not the woman I was a little while ago; not the woman you think me now. If I suffered you to go on as you are, in ignorance of it, I should be deceiving you. I have opened my eyes to the fact that this life is not the end of life. I see another beyond,--much more lasting, unknown, strange, perhaps not very distant. The thought of it presses upon me like a cloud. I want to be ready for it--I feel I am not ready--and that before I can be ready, not only my views but my character must be changed. I am determined it shall. For, Mr. Carlisle, there is a Ruler whose government extends over this life and that, whose requisitions I have never met, whose commands I have never obeyed, whom consequently I fear; and until this fear is changed for another feeling I cannot be happy. I will not live the life I have been leading; careless and thoughtless; I will be the servant of this Ruler whom hitherto I have disregarded. Whatever his commands are, those I will follow; at all costs, at any sacrifice; whatever I have or possess shall be used for his service. One thing I desire; to be a true servant of God, and not fear his face in displeasure. To secure that, I will let everything else in the world go. "I wish you to understand this thoroughly. It will draw on consequences that you would not like. It will make me such a woman as you would not, I feel, wish your wife to be. I shall follow a course of life and action that in many things, I know, would be extremely distasteful to you. Yet I must follow them--I can do no other--I dare do no other. I cannot live as I have lived. No, not for any reward or consideration that could be offered me. Nor to avoid any human anger. "I think you would probably choose never to see me at the Priory, rather than to see me there such a woman as I shall be. In that case I shall be very sorry for all the disagreeable consequences which would to you attend the annulling of the contract formed between us. My own part of them I am ready to bear. "ELEANOR POWLE." The letter was read through almost under Eleanor's own eyes. She looked furtively, as she could, to see how Mr. Carlisle took it. He did not seem to take it at all; she could find no change in his face. If the brow slightly bent before her did slightly knit itself in sterner lines than common, she could not be sure of it, bent as it was; and when he looked up, there was no such expression there. He looked as pleasant as possible. "Do you want me to laugh at you?" he said. "That was not the precise object I had in writing," said Eleanor soberly. "I do not suppose it, and yet I feel very much like laughing at you a little. So you think you can make yourself a woman I would not like,--eh, my darling?" He had drawn Eleanor's head down to his shoulder, within easy reach of his lips, but he did not kiss her. His right hand smoothed back the masses of her beautiful hair, and then rested on her cheek while he looked into the face thus held for near inspection; much as one handles a child. The touch was light and caressing, and calm as power too. Eleanor breathed quick. She could not bear it. She forced herself back where she could look at him. "You are taking it lightly, but I mean it very seriously," she said. "I think I could--I think I shall. I did not write you such a letter without very deep reason." He still retained his hold of her, and in his right hand had captured one of hers. This hand he now brought to his lips, kissing and caressing it. "I do not think I understand it yet," he said. "What are you going to do with yourself? Is it your old passion for a monastic life come up again? do you want the old Priory built up, and me for a Father Confessor?" Did he mean ever to loose his hold of the little hand he held so lightly and firmly? Never! Eleanor's head drooped. "What is it, Eleanor?" "It is serious work, Mr. Carlisle; and you will not believe me." "Make me serious too. Tell me a little more definitely what dreadful thing I am to expect. What sort of a woman is my wife going to be?" "Such a one as you would not have, if you knew it;--such a one as you never would have sought, if I had known it myself earlier; I feel sure." Eleanor's colour glowed all over her face and brow; nevertheless she spoke steadily. "Enigmatical!" said Mr. Carlisle. "The only thing I understand is this--and this--" and he kissed alternately her cheek and lips. "_Here_ is my wife--_here_ is what I wish her to be. It will be all right the twenty-first of next month. What will you do after that, Eleanor?" Eleanor was silent, mortified, troubled, silenced. What was the use of trying to explain herself? "What do you want to do, Eleanor? Give all your money to the poor? I believe that is your pet fancy. Is that what you mean to do?" Eleanor's cheeks burnt again. "You know I have very little money to give, Mr. Carlisle. But I have determined to give _myself_." "To me?" "No, no. I mean, to duties and commands higher than any human obligation. And they may, and probably will, oblige me to live in a way that would not please you." "Let us see. What is the novelty?" "I am going to live--it is right I should tell you, whether you will believe me or not,--I am going to live henceforth not for this world but the other." "How?" said he, looking at her with his clear brilliant eyes. "I do not know, in detail. But you know, in the Church service, the pomps and vanities of the world are renounced; whatever that involves, it will find me obedient." "What has put this fancy in your head, Eleanor?" "A sense of danger, first, I think." "A sense of danger! Danger of what?" "Yes. A feeling of being unready for that other life to which I might at any time go;--that other world, I mean. I cannot be happy so." She was agitated; her colour was high; her nerves trembled. "How came this 'sense of danger' into your head? what brought it, or suggested it?" "When I was ill last summer--I felt it then. I have felt it since. I feel my head uncovered to meet the storm that may at any time break upon it. I am going to live, if I can, as people live whom you would laugh at; you would call them fanatics and fools. It is the only way for me to be happy; but you would not like it in one near you." "Go in a black dress, Eleanor?" She was silent. She very nearly burst into tears, but prevented that. "You can't terrify me," said Mr. Carlisle, lazily throwing himself back in his chair. "I don't get up a 'sense of danger' as easily as you do, darling. One look in your face puts all that to flight at once. I am safe. You may do what you like." "You would not say that by and by," said Eleanor. "Would I not?" said he, rousing up and drawing her tenderly but irresistibly to his arms again. "But make proper amends to me for breaking rules to-night, and you shall have _carte blanche_ for this new fancy, Eleanor. How are you going to ask my forgiveness?" "You ought to ask mine--for you will not attend to me." "Contumacious?" said he lightly, touching her lips as if they were a goblet and he were taking sips of the wine;--"then I shall take my own amends. You shall live as you please, darling, only take me along with you." "You will not go." "How do you know?" "Neither your feeling nor your taste agree with it." "What _are_ you going to do!" said he half laughing, holding her fast and looking down into her face. "My little Eleanor! Make yourself a grey nun, or a blue Puritan? Grey becomes you, darling; it makes a duchess of you; and blue is set off by this magnificent brown head of yours. I will answer for my taste in either event; and I think you could bear, and consequently I could, all the other colours in the rainbow. As for your idea, of making yourself a woman that I would not like, I do not think you can compass it. You may try. I will not let you go too far." "You cannot hinder it, Macintosh," said Eleanor in a low voice. "Kiss me!" said he laughingly. Eleanor slowly raised her head from his shoulder and obeyed, so far as a very dainty and shyly given permission went; feeling bitterly that she had brought herself into bonds from which only Mr. Carlisle's hand could release her. She could not break them herself. What possible reason could she assign? And so she was in his power. "Cheeks hot, and hands cold," said Mr. Carlisle to himself as he walked away through the rooms. "I wish the twenty-first were to-morrow!" He stopped in the drawing-room to hold a consultation of some length with Mrs. Powle; in which however he confided to her no more than that the last night's attention to her nurse's daughter had been quite too much for Eleanor, and he should think it extremely injudicious to allow it again. Which Mrs. Powle had no idea of doing. Neither had Eleanor any idea of attempting it. But she spent half that night in heart-ache and in baffled searchings for a path out of her difficulties. What could she do? If Mr. Carlisle _would_ marry her, she saw no help for it; and to disgust him with her would be a difficult matter. For oh, Eleanor knew, that though he would not like a religious wife, he had good reason to trust his own power of regulating any tendency of that sort which might offend him. Once his wife, once let that strong arm have a right to be round her permanently; and Eleanor knew it would be an effectual bar against whatever he wished to keep at a distance. Eleanor was armed with no Christian armour; no helmet or shield of protection had she; all she had was the strength of fear, and the resolute determination to seek until she should find that panoply in which she would be safe and strong. Once married to Mr. Carlisle, and she felt that her determination would be in danger, and her resolution meet another resolution with which it might have hard fighting to do. Ay, and who knew whether hers would overcome! She must not finish this marriage; yet how induce Mr. Carlisle to think of her as she wished? "I declare," said Mrs. Powle coming into her room the next day, "that one night's sitting up, has done the work of a week's illness upon you, Eleanor! Mr. Carlisle is right." "In what?" "He said you must not go again." "I think he is somewhat premature in arranging my movements." "Don't you like it?" said Mrs. Powle laughing a little. "You must learn to submit to that. I am glad there is somebody that can control you, Eleanor, at last. It does me good. It was just a happiness that you never took anything desperate into your head, for your father and you together were more than a match for me; and it's just the same with Julia. But Julia really is growing tame and more reasonable, I think, lately." "Good reason why," thought Eleanor moodily. "But that is a better sort of control she is under." "I am charged with a commission to you, Eleanor." "What is it, ma'am?" "To find out what particular kind of jewels you prefer. I really don't know, so am obliged to ask you--which was not in my commission." "Jewels, mamma!" "Jewels, my lady." "O mamma! don't talk to me of jewels!" "Nor of weddings, I suppose; but really I do not see how things are to be done unless they are to be talked about. For instance, this matter of your liking in jewellery--I think rubies become you, Eleanor; though to be sure there is nothing I like so well as diamonds. What is the matter?" For Eleanor's brown head had gone down on the table before her and her face was hidden in her hands. She slowly raised it at her mother's question. "Mamma, Mr. Carlisle does not know what he is doing!" "Pray what do you mean?" "He thinks he is marrying a person who will be gay and live for and in the world, as he lives--and as he would wish me. Mamma, I will not! I never will. I never shall be what he likes in that respect. I mean to live a religious life." "A religious life! What sort of a life is that?" "It is what you do not like--nor he." "A religious life! Eleanor, you do not suppose Mr. Carlisle would wish his wife to lead an irreligious life?" "Yes--I do." "I should not like you to tell _him_ that," said Mrs. Powle colouring with anger. "How dare you say it? What sort of a religious life do you want to live?" "Such a one as the Bible bids, mamma," Eleanor said in a low voice and drooping her head. "Such a one as the Prayer Book recommends, over and over." "And you think Mr. Carlisle would not like that? What insinuations you are making against us all, Eleanor. For of course, I, your mother, have wished you also to live this irreligious life. We are a set of heathens together. Dr. Cairnes too. He was delighted with it." "It changes nothing, mamma," said Eleanor. "I am resolved to live in a different way; and Mr. Carlisle would not like it; and if he only knew it, he would not wish to marry me; and I cannot make him believe it." "You have tried, have you?" "Yes, I have tried. It was only honest." "Well I did not think you were such a fool, Eleanor! and I am sure he did not. Believe you, you little fool? he knows better. He knows that he will not have had you a week at the Priory before you will be too happy to live what life he pleases. He is just the man to bring you into order. I only wish the wedding-day was to-morrow." Eleanor drew herself up, and her face changed from soft and sorrowful to stubborn. She kept silence. "In this present matter of jewels," said Mrs. Powle returning to the charge, "I suppose I am to tell him that a plain set of jet is as much as you can fancy; or that, as it would be rather uncommon to be married in black, you will take bugles. What he will say I am sure I don't know." "You had better not try, mamma," said Eleanor. "If the words you last said are true, and I should be unable to follow my conscience at Rythdale Priory, then I shall never go there; and in that case the jewels will not be wanted, except for somebody else whose taste neither bugles nor jet would suit." "Now you have got one of your obstinate fits on," said Mrs. Powle, "and I will go. I shall be a better friend to you than to tell Mr. Carlisle a word of all this, which I know will be vanished in another month or two; and if you value your good fortune, Eleanor, I recommend you to keep a wise tongue between your teeth in talking to him. I know one thing--I wish Dr. Cairnes, or the Government, or the Church, or whoever has it in hand, would keep all dissenting fools from coming to Wiglands to preach their pestiferous notions here! and that your father would not bring them to his house! That is what I wish. Will you be reasonable, and give me an answer about the jewels, Eleanor?" "I cannot think about jewels, mamma." Mrs. Powle departed. Eleanor sat with her head bowed in her hands; her mind in dim confusion, through which loomed the one thought, that she must break this marriage. Her mother's words had roused the evil as well as the good of Eleanor's nature; and along with bitter self-reproaches and longings for good, she already by foretaste champed the bit of an authority that she did not love. So, while her mind was in a sea of turmoil, there came suddenly, like a sun-blink upon the confusion, a soft question from her little sister Julia. Neither mother nor daughter had taken notice of her being in the room. The question came strangely soft, for Julia. "Eleanor, do you love Jesus?" Eleanor raised her head in unspeakable astonishment, startled and even shocked, as one is at an unheard-of thing. Julia's face was close beside her, looking wistful and anxious, and tender also. The look struck Eleanor's heart. But she only stared. "Do you?" said Julia wistfully. It wrought the most unaccountable convulsion in Eleanor's mind, this little dove's feather of a question, touching the sore and angry feelings that wrestled there. She flung herself off her chair, and on her knees by the table sobbed dreadfully. Julia stood by, looking as sober as if she had been a ministering angel. Eleanor knew what the question meant--that was all. She had heard Mr. Rhys speak of it; she had heard him speak of it with a quiver on his lip and a flush in his face, which shewed her that there was something in religion that she had never fathomed, nor ever before suspected; there was a hidden region of joy the entrance to which was veiled from her. To Eleanor the thing would have been a mere mystery, but that she had seen it to be a reality; once seen, that was never to be forgotten. And now, in the midst of her struggles of passion and pain, Julia's question came innocently asking whether she were a sharer in that unearthly wonderful joy which seemed to put its possessor beyond the reach of struggles. Eleanor's sobs were the hard sobs of pain. As wisely as if she had really been a ministering angel, her little sister stood by silent; and said not another word until Eleanor had risen and taken her seat again. Nor then either. It was Eleanor that spoke. "What do you know about it, Julia?" "Not much," said the child. "_I_ love the Lord Jesus--that is all,--and I thought, perhaps, from the way you spoke, that you did. Mr. Rhys would be so glad." "He? Glad? what do you mean, Julia?" "I know he would; because I have heard him pray for you a great many times." "No--no," said Eleanor turning away,--"I know nothing but fear. I do not feel anything better. And they want me to think of everything else in the world but this one thing!" "But you will think of it, Eleanor, won't you?" Eleanor was silent and abstracted. Her sister watched her with strange eyes for Julia, anxiously observant. The silence lasted some time. "When does Mr. Rhys--Is he going to preach again, Julia, that you know of?" "I guess not. He was very tired after he preached the other night; he lay on the couch and did not move the whole next day. He is better to-day." "You have seen him this morning?" "O yes. I see him every day; and he teaches me a great many things. But he always prays for you." Eleanor did not wish to keep up the conversation, and it dropped. And after that, things went on their train. It was a very fast train, too; and growing in importance and thickening in its urgency of speed. Every day the preparations converged more nearly towards their great focus, the twenty-first of December. Eleanor felt the whirl of circumstances, felt borne off her feet and carried away with them; and felt it hopelessly. She knew not what to urge that should be considered sufficient reason either by her mother or Mr. Carlisle for even delaying, much less breaking off the match. She was grave and proud, and unsatisfactory, as much as it was in her nature to be, partly on purpose; and Mr. Carlisle was not satisfied, and hurried on things all the more. He kept his temper perfectly, whatever thoughts he had; he rode and walked with Eleanor, when she would go, with the same cool and faultless manner; when she would not, he sometimes let it pass and sometimes made her go; but once or twice he failed in doing this; and recognized the possibility of Eleanor's ability to give him trouble. He knew his own power however; on the whole he liked her quite as well for it. "What is the matter with you, my darling?" he said one day. "You are not like yourself." "I am not happy," said Eleanor. "I told you I had a doubt unsettled upon my mind; and till that doubt is put at rest I cannot be happy; I cannot have peace; you will take no pleasure in me." "Why do you not settle it then?" said Mr. Carlisle, quietly. "Because I have no chance. I have not a moment to think, in this whirl where I am living. If you would put off the twenty-first of next month to the twenty-first of some month in the spring--or summer--I might have a breathing place, and get myself in order. I cannot, now." "You will have time to think, love, when you get to the Priory," Mr. Carlisle observed in the same tone--an absolute tone. "Yes. I know how that would be!" Eleanor answered bitterly. "But I can take no pleasure in anything,--I cannot have any rest or comfort,--as long as I know that if anything happened to me--if death came suddenly--I am utterly unready. I cannot be happy so." "I think I had better send Dr. Cairnes to see you," said Mr. Carlisle. "He is in duty bound to be the family physician in all things spiritual where they need him. But this is morbid, Eleanor. I know how it is. These are only whims, my darling, that will never outlive that day you dread so much." He had drawn her into his arms as he spoke; but in his touch and his kiss Eleanor felt or fancied something masterful, which irritated her. "If I thought that, Mr. Carlisle," she said,--"if I knew it was true,--that day would never come!" Mr. Carlisle's self-control was perfect; so was his tact. He made no answer at all to this speech; only gave Eleanor two or three more of those quiet ownership kisses. No appearance of discomposure in his manner or in his voice when he spoke; still holding her in his arms. "I shall know how to punish you one of these days for this," he said. "You may expect to be laughed at a little, my darling, when you turn penitent. Which will not hinder the moment from coming." And so, dismissing the matter and her with another light touch of her lips, he left her. "Will it be so?" thought Eleanor. "Shall I be so within his control, that I shall even sue to him to forget and pardon this word of my true indignation? Once his wife--once let the twenty-first of December come--and there will be no more help for me. What shall I do?" She was desperate, but she saw no opening. She saw however the next day that Mr. Carlisle was coldly displeased with her. She was afraid to have him remain so; and made conciliations. These were accepted immediately and frankly, but so at the same time as made her feel she had lost ground and given Mr. Carlisle an advantage; every inch of which he knew and took. Nobody had seen the tokens of any part of all this passage of arms; in three days all was just as it had been, except Eleanor's lost ground. And three days more were gone before the twenty-first of December. CHAPTER X. AT LUNCHEON. "And, once wed, So just a man and gentle, could not choose But make my life as smooth as marriage-ring." "Macintosh, do you ever condescend to do such a thing as walk?--take a walk, I mean?" "You may command me," he answered somewhat lazily. "May I? For the walk; but I want further to make a visit in the village." "You may make twenty, if you feel inclined. I will order the horses to meet us there--shall I? or do you not wish to do anything but walk to-day?" "O yes. After my visit is paid, I shall be ready." "But it will be very inconvenient to walk so far in your habit. Can you manage that?" "I expect to enlighten you a good deal as to a woman's power of managing," said Eleanor. "Is that a warning?" said he, making her turn her face towards him. Eleanor gratified him with one of her full mischievous smiles. "Did anybody ever tell you," said he continuing the inspection, "that you were handsome?" "It never was worth anybody's while." "How was that?" "Simply, that he would have gained nothing by it." "Then I suppose I should not, or you think so?" "Nothing in the world. Mr. Carlisle, if you please, I will go and put on my hat." The day was November in a mild mood; pleasant enough for a walk; and so one at least of the two found it. For Eleanor, she was in a divided mood; yet even to her the exercise was grateful, and brought some glow and stir of spirits through the body to the mind. At times, too, now, she almost bent before what seemed her fate, in hopelessness of escaping from it; and at those times she strove to accommodate herself to it, and tried to propitiate her captor. She did this from a twofold motive. She did fear him, and feared to have him anything but pleased with her; half slumbering that feeling lay; another feeling she was keenly conscious of. The love that he had for her; a gift that no woman can receive and be wholly unmoved by it; the affection she herself had allowed him to bestow, in full faith that it would not be thrown away; that stung Eleanor with grief and self-reproach; and made her at times question whether her duty did not lie where she had formally engaged it should. At such times she was very subdued in gentleness and in observance of Mr. Carlisle's pleasure; subdued to a meekness foreign to her natural mood, and which generally, to tell the truth, was accompanied by a very unwonted sedateness of spirits also; something very like the sedateness of despair. She walked now silently the first half of the way; managing her long habit in a way that she knew Mr. Carlisle knew, though he took no open notice of it. The day was quite still, the road footing good. A slight rime hung about the distance, veiled faintly the Rythdale woods, enshrouded the far-off village, as they now and then caught glimpses of it, in its tuft of surrounding trees. Yet near at hand, the air seemed clear and mellow; there was no November chill. It was a brown world, however, through which the two walked; life and freshness all gone from vegetation; the leaves in most cases fallen from the trees, and where they still hung looking as sear and withered as frost and decay could make them. "Do you abhor _all_ compliments?" said Mr. Carlisle, breaking a silence that for some time had been broken only by the quick ring of their footsteps upon the ground. "No, sir." "That is frank; yet I am half afraid to present the one which is on my lips." "Perhaps it is not worth while," said Eleanor, with a gleam of a smile which was very alluring. "You are going to tell me, possibly, that I am a good walker." "I do not know why I should let you silence me. No, I was not going to tell you that you are a good walker; you know it already. The compliment of beauty, that you scorned, was also perhaps no news to you. What I admire in you now, is something you do not know you have--and I do not mean you shall, by my means." Eleanor's glance of amused curiosity, rewarded him. "Are you expecting now, that I shall ask for it?" "No; it would not be like you. You do not ask me for anything--that you can help, Eleanor. I shall have to make myself cunning in inventing situations of need that will drive you to it. It is pleasanter to me than you can imagine, to have your eyes seek mine with a request in them." Eleanor coloured. "There are the fieldfares!" she exclaimed presently. "What is there melancholy in that?" said Mr. Carlisle laughingly. "Nothing. Why?" "You made the announcement as if you found it so." "I was thinking of the time I saw the fieldfares last,--when they were gathering together preparing for their taking flight; and now here they are back again! It seems so little while--and yet it seems a long while too. The summer has gone." "I am glad it has!" said Mr. Carlisle. "And I am glad Autumn has had the discretion to follow it. I make my bow to the fieldfares." "You will not expect me to echo that," said Eleanor. "No. Not now. I will make you do it by and by." He thought a good deal of his power, Eleanor said to herself as she glanced at him; and sighed as she remembered that she did so too. She was afraid to say anything more. It had not been so pleasant a summer to her that she would have wished to live it over again; yet was she very sorry to know it gone, for more reasons than it would do to let Mr. Carlisle see. "You do not believe that?" he said, coming with his brilliant eyes to find her out where her thoughts had plunged her. Eleanor came forth of them immediately and answered. "No more, than that one of those fieldfares, if you should catch it and fasten a leash round its neck, would say it was well done that its time of free flying was over." "My bird shall soar higher from the perch where I will place her, than ever she ventured before." "Ay, and stoop to your lure, Mr. Carlisle!" He laughed at this flash, and took instant tribute of the lips whose sauciness tempted him. "Do you wonder," he said softly, "that I want to have my tassel-gentle on my hand?" Eleanor coloured again, and was wisely silent. "I am afraid you are not ambitious, Eleanor." "Is that such a favourite vice, that you wish I were?" "Vice! It is a virtue, say rather; but not for a woman," he added in a different tone. "No, I do not wish you any more of it, Nellie, than a little education will give." "You are mistaken, though, Macintosh. I am very ambitious," Eleanor said gravely. "Pray in what line? Of being able to govern Tippoo without my help?" "Is it Tippoo that I am to ride to-day?" "Yes. I will give you a lesson. What line does your ambition take, darling?" "I have a great ambition--higher and deeper than you can think--to be a great deal better than myself." She said it lowly and seriously, in a way that sufficiently spoke her earnestness. It was just as well to let Mr. Carlisle know now and then which way her thoughts travelled. She did not look up till the consciousness of his examining eyes upon her made her raise her own. His look was intent and silent, at first grave, and then changing into a very sunny smile with the words-- "My little Saint Eleanor?"-- They were inimitably spoken; it is difficult to say how. The graciousness, and affection, and only a very little tender raillery discernible with them, at once smote and won Eleanor. What could she do to make amends to this man for letting him love her, but to be his wife and give him all the good she could? She answered his smile, and if hers was shy and slight it was also so gentle that Mr. Carlisle was more than content. "If you have no other ambition than that," he said, "then the wise man is proved wrong who said that moderation is the sloth of the soul, as ambition is its activity." "Who said that?" "Rochefoucauld, I believe." "Like him--" said Eleanor. "How is that? wise?" "No indeed; false." "He was a philosopher, and you are not even a student in that school." "He was not a true man; and that I know by the lights he never knew." "He told the time of day by the world's clock, Eleanor. You go by a private sun-dial of your own." "The sun is right, Mr. Carlisle! He was a vile old maligner of human nature." "Where did you learn to know him so well?" said Mr. Carlisle, amused. "You may well ask. I used to study French sentences out of him; because they were in nice little detached bits; and when I came to understand him I judged him accordingly." "By the sun. Few men will stand that, Eleanor. Give an instance." "We are in the village." "I see it." "I told you I wanted to make a visit, Macintosh." "May I go too?" "Why certainly; but I am afraid you will not know what to do with yourself. It is at the house of Mrs. Lewis,--my old nurse." "Do you think I never go into cottages?" said he smiling. Eleanor did not know what to make of him; however, it was plain he would go with her into this one; so she took him in, and then had to tell who he was, and blushed for shame and vexation to see her old nurse's delighted and deep curtseys at the honour done her. She made her escape to see Jane; and leaving Mr. Carlisle to his own devices, gladly shut herself into the little stairway which led up from the kitchen to Jane's room. The door closed behind her, Eleanor let fall the spirit-mask she wore before Mr. Carlisle,--wore consciously for him and half unconsciously for herself,--and her feet went slowly and heavily up the stair. A short stairway it was, and she had short time to linger; she did not linger; she went into Jane's room. Eleanor had not been there since the night of her watch. It was like coming out of the woods upon an open champaign, as she stood by the side of the sick girl. Jane was lying bolstered up, as usual; disease shewed no stay of its ravages since Eleanor had been there last; all that was as it had been. The thin cheek with its feverish hue; the unnaturally bright eyes; the attitude of feebleness. But the mouth was quiet and at rest to-day; and that mysterious region of expression around the eyes had lost all its seams and lines of care and anxiety; and the eyes themselves looked at Eleanor with that calm full simplicity that one sees in an infant's eyes, before care or doubt has ever visited them. Eleanor was silent with surprise, and Jane spoke first. "I am glad to see you, Miss Eleanor." "You are better, Jane, to-day." "I think--I am almost well," said Jane, pausing for breath as she spoke, and smiling at the same time. "What has happened to you since I was here last? You do not look like the same." "Ma'am, I am not the same. The Lord's messenger has come--and I've heard the message--and O, Miss Eleanor, I'm happy!" "What do you mean, Jane?" said Eleanor; though it struck coldly through all her senses what it did mean. "Dear Miss Eleanor," said Jane, looking at her lovingly--"I wish you was as happy as I be!" "What makes you happy?" "O ma'am, because I love Jesus. I love Jesus!" "You must tell me more, Jane. I do not understand you. The other night, when I was here, you were not happy." "Miss Eleanor, I didn't know him then. Since then I've seen how good he is--and how beautiful--and what he has done for me;--and I'm happy!" "Can't you tell me more, Jane? I want to understand it." "Miss Eleanor, it's hard to tell. I'm thinking, one can't tell another--but the Lord must just shew himself." "What has he shewn to you?" said Eleanor gloomily. The girl lifted her eyes with a placid light in them, as she answered, "He has showed me how he loves me--and that he has forgiven me--O how good he is, Miss Eleanor!--and how he will take me home. And now I don't want for to stay--no more now." "You were afraid of dying, the other night, Jane." "That's gone,"--said the girl expressively. "But how did it go?" "I can't say, ma'am. I just saw how Jesus loves me--and I felt I loved him--and then how could I be feared, Miss Eleanor? when all's in his hand." Eleanor stood still, looking at the transformed face before her, and feeling ready to sink on the floor and cry out for very sorrow of heart. Had this poor creature put on the invisible panoply which made her dare to go among the angels, while Eleanor's own hand was empty--could not reach it--could not grasp it? She stood still with a cold brow and dark face. "Jane, I wish you could give me what you have got--so as not to lose it yourself." "Jesus will give it to you, Miss Eleanor," said the girl with a brightening eye and smile. "I know he will." "I do not know of him, Jane, as you do," Eleanor said gravely. "What did you do to gain this knowledge?" "I? I did nought, ma'am--what could I do? I just laid and cried in my bitterness of heart--like the night you was here, ma'am; till the day that Mr. Rhys came again and talked--and prayed--O he prayed!--and my trouble went away and the light came. O Miss Eleanor, if you would hear Mr. Rhys speak! I don't know how;--but if you'd hear him, you'd know all that man can tell." Eleanor stood silent. Jane looked at her with eyes of wistful regard, but panting already from the exertion of talking. "But how are you different to-day, Jane, from what you were the other night?--except in being happy." "Ma'am," said the girl speaking with difficulty, for she was excited,--"then I was blind. Now I see. I ain't different no ways--only I have seen what the Lord has done for me--and I know he loves me--and he's forgiven me my sins. He's forgiven me!--And now I go singing to myself, like, all the day and the night too, 'I love the Lord, and my Lord loves me.'" The water had slowly gathered in Jane's eyes, and the cheek flushed; but her sweet happy regard never varied except to brighten. "Jane, you must talk no more," said Eleanor. "What can I do for you? only tell me that." "Would Miss Eleanor read a bit?" What would become of Mr. Carlisle's patience? Eleanor desperately resolved to let it take care of itself, and sat down to read to Jane at the open page where the girl's look and finger had indicated that she wished her to begin. And the very first words were, "Let not your heart be troubled." Eleanor felt her voice choke; then clearing it with a determined effort she read on to the end of the chapter. But if she had been reading the passage in its original Greek, she herself would hardly have received less intelligence from it. She had a dim perception of the words of love and words of glory of which it is full; she saw that Mr. Rhys's "helmet" was at the beginning of it, and the "peace" he had preached of, at the end of it; yet those words which ever since the day they were spoken have been a bed of rest to every heart that has loved their Author, only straitened Eleanor's heart with a vision of rest afar off. "I must go now, dear Jane," she said as soon as the reading was ended. "What else would you like, that I can do for you?" "I'm thinking I want nothing, Miss Eleanor," said the girl calmly, without moving the eyes which had looked at Eleanor all through the reading. "But--" "But what? speak out." "Mother says you can do anything, ma'am." "Well, go on." "Dolly's in trouble, ma'am." "Dolly? why she was to have been married to that young Earle?" "Yes, ma'am, but--mother'll tell you, Miss Eleanor--it tires me. He has been disappointed of his money, has James; and Dolly, she couldn't lay up none, 'cause of home;--and she's got to go back to service at Tenby; and they don't know when they'll come together now." A fit of coughing punished Jane for the exertion she had made, and put a stop to her communication. Eleanor staid by her till it was over, would not let her say another word, kissed her, and ran down to the lower room in a divided state of spirits. There she learnt from Mrs. Lewis the details of Jane's confused story. The young couple wanted means to furnish a house; the money hoarded for the purpose had been lent by James in some stress of his parents' affairs and could not now be got back again; and the secret hope of the family, Eleanor found, was that James might be advanced to the gamekeeper's place at Rythdale, which they took care to inform her was vacant; and which would put the young man in possession of better wages and enable him to marry at once. Eleanor just heard all this, and hurried out to the gate where Mr. Carlisle was waiting for her. Her interview with Jane had left her with a desperate feeling of being cut off from the peace and light her heart longed for; and yet she was glad to see somebody else happy. She stood by Mr. Carlisle's side in a sort of subdued mood. There also stood Miss Broadus. "Now Eleanor! here you are. Won't you help me? I want you two to come in and take luncheon with us. I shall never get over it if you do--I shall be so pleased. So will Juliana. Now do persuade this gentleman!--will you? We'll have luncheon in a little while--and then you can go on your ride. You'll never do it if you dc not to-day." "It is hardly time, Miss Broadus," said Mr. Carlisle "We must ride some miles before luncheon." "I think it must be very near time," said Miss Broadus "Do, Eleanor, look and tell us what it is. Now you are here, it would be such a good chance. Well, Eleanor? And the horses can wait." "It is half past twelve by me, Miss Broadus. I do not know how it is by the world's clock." "You can not take her word," said Mr. Carlisle, preparing to mount Eleanor. "She goes by an old-fashioned thing, that is always behind the time--or in advance of it." "Well, I declare!" said Miss Broadus. "That beautiful little watch Mr. Powle gave her! Then you will come in after your ride?" If they were near enough at luncheon time, Mr. Carlisle promised that should be done; and leaving Miss Broadus in startled admiration of their horses, the riders set forth. A new ride was promised Eleanor; they struck forward beyond Wiglands, leaving the road to Rythdale on the left hand. Eleanor was busily meditating on the question of making suit to Mr. Carlisle in James Earle's favour; but not as a question to be decided; she had resolved she would not do it, and was thinking rather how very unwilling she should be to do it; sensible at the same time that much power was in her hands to do good and give relief, of many kinds; but fixed in the mind that so long as she had not the absolute right and duty of Mr. Carlisle's wife, she would not assume it. Yet between pride and benevolence Eleanor's ride was likely to be scarce a pleasant one. It was extremely silent, for which Tippoo's behaviour on this occasion gave no excuse. He was as gentle as the day. "What did you find in that cottage to give your thoughts so profound a turn?" said Mr. Carlisle at last. "A sick girl." "Cottages do not seem to agree with you, Eleanor." "That would be unfortunate," said Eleanor rousing up, "for the people in them seem to want me very much." "Do not let that impose on you," said Mr. Carlisle smiling. "Speaking of cottages--two of my cottages at Rythmoor are empty still." "O are they!--" Eleanor exclaimed with sudden life. "What then?" "Is there anybody you mean to put in them, Mr. Carlisle?" "No. Is there anybody you mean to put in them?" "I know just who would like to have one." "Then I know just who shall have it--or I shall know, when you have told me." Did he smile to himself that his bait had taken? He did not smile outwardly. Riding close up to her, he listened with a bright face to the story which Eleanor gave with a brighter. She had a private smile at herself. Where were her scruples now? There was no help for it. "It is one of your--one of the under gardeners at Rythdale; his name is James Earle. I believe he is a good fellow." "We will suppose that. What has he done to enlist your sympathy?" "He wants to marry a sister of this girl I have been to see. They have been long betrothed; and James has been laying up money to set up housekeeping. They were to have been married this autumn,--now;--but James had lent all his earnings to get his old father out of some distress, and they are not forthcoming; and all Dolly's earnings go to support hers." "And what would you like to do for them, Eleanor?" Eleanor coloured now, but she could not go back. "If you think well of Earle, and would like to have him in one of the empty cottages at Rythmoor, I should be glad." "They shall go in, the day we are married; and I wish you would find somebody for the other. Now having made a pair of people happy and established a house, would you like a gallop?" Eleanor's cheeks were hot, and she would very much; but she answered, "One of Tippoo's gallops?"-- "You do not know them yet. You have tried only a mad gallop. Tippoo!" said Mr. Carlisle stooping and striking his riding glove against the horse's shoulder,--"I am going a race with you, do you hear?" His own charger at the same time sprang forward, and Tippoo to match! But such a cradling flight through the air, Eleanor never knew until now. There seemed no exertion; there was no jar; a smooth, swift, arrowy passage over the ground, like what birds take under the clouds. This was the gentlest of gallops, certainly, and yet it was at a rare speed that cleared the miles very fast and left striving grooms in the distance. Eleanor paid no attention to anything but the delight of motion; she did not care where or how far she was carried on such magical hoofs; but indeed the ride was beyond her beat and she did not know the waymarks if she had observed them. A gradual slackening of this pace of delight brought her back to the earth and her senses again. "How was that?" said Mr. Carlisle. "It has done you no harm." "I do not know how it was," said Eleanor, caressing the head and neck of the magnificent animal she rode--"but I think this creature has come out of the Arabian Nights. Tippoo is certainly an enchanted prince." "I'll take care he is not disenchanted, then," said Mr. Carlisle. "That gallop did us some service. Do you know where we are?" "Not in the least." "You will know presently." And accordingly, a few minutes of fast riding brought them to a lodge and a gate. "Is this Rythdale?" said Eleanor, who had noticed the manner of the gate-opener. "Yes, and this entrance is near the house. You will see it in a moment or two." It appeared presently, stately and lovely, on the other side of an extensive lawn; a grove of spruce firs making a beautiful setting for it on one side. The riders passed round the lawn, through a part of the plantations, and came up to the house at the before-mentioned left wing. Mr. Carlisle threw himself off his horse and came to Eleanor. "What now, Macintosh?" "Luncheon." "O, I do not want any luncheon." "I do. And so do you, love. Come!" "Macintosh," said Eleanor, bending down with her hand resting on his shoulder to enforce her request, "I do not want to go in!" "I cannot take you any further without rest and refreshment; and we are too far from Miss Broadus's now. Come, Eleanor!" He took her down, and then observing the discomposed colour of Eleanor's cheek, he went on affectionately, as he was leading her in,--"What is there formidable in it, Nellie? Nothing but my mother and luncheon; and she will be much pleased to see you." Eleanor made no answer; she doubted it; at all events the pleasure would be all on one side. But the reception she got justified Mr. Carlisle. Lady Rythdale was pleased. She was even gracious. She sent Eleanor to her dressing-room to refresh herself, not to change her dress this time; and received her when she came into her presence again with a look that was even benign. Bound, bound,--Eleanor felt it in everything her eye lit upon; she had thought it all over in the dressing-room, while she was putting in order the masses of hair which had been somewhat shaken down by the gallop. She was irritated, and proud, and afraid of displeasing Mr. Carlisle; and above all this and keeping it down, was the sense that she was bound to him. He did love her, if he also loved to command her; and he would do the latter, and it was better not to hinder his doing the other. But higher than this consideration rose the feeling of _right_. She had given him leave to love her; and now it seemed that his love demanded of her all she had, if it was not all he wanted; duty and observance and her own sweet self, if not her heart's absorbing affection. And this would satisfy Mr. Carlisle, Eleanor knew; she could not ease her conscience with the thought that it would not. And here she was in his mother's dressing-room putting up her hair, and down stairs he and his mother were waiting for her; she was almost in the family already. Eleanor put several feelings in bonds, along with the abundant tresses of brown hair which made her hands full, and went down. She looked lovely as she came in; for the pride and irritation and struggling rebellion which had all been at work, were smothered or at least kept under by her subdued feeling, and her brow wore an air of almost shy modesty. She did not see the two faces which were turned towards her as soon as she appeared, though she saw Mr. Carlisle rise. She came forward and stood before Lady Rythdale. The feeling of shyness and of being bound were both rather increased by all she saw and felt around her. The place was a winter parlour or sitting-room, luxuriously hung and furnished with red, which made a rich glow in the air. At one side a glass door revealed a glow of another sort from the hues of tropical flowers gorgeously blooming in a small conservatory; on another side of the room, where Lady Rythdale sat and her son stood, a fire of noble logs softly burned in an ample chimney. All around the evidences of wealth and a certain sort of power were multiplied; not newly there but native; in a style of things very different from Eleanor's own simple household. She stood before the fire, feeling all this without looking up, her eye resting on the exquisite mat of Berlin wool on which Lady Rythdale's foot rested. That lady surveyed her. "So you have come," she said. "Macintosh said he would bring you." Eleanor answered for the moment with tact and temper almost equal to her lover's, "Madam--you know Mr. Carlisle." How satisfied they both looked, she did not see; but she felt it, through every nerve, as Mr. Carlisle took her hands and placed her in a great chair, that she had pleased him thoroughly. He remained standing beside her, leaning on her chair, watching her varying colour no doubt. A few commonplaces followed, and then the talk fell to the mother and son who had some affairs to speak about. Eleanor's eye went to the glass door beyond which the flowers beckoned her; she longed to go to them; but though feeling that bands were all round her which were drawing her and would draw her to be at home in that house, she would not of her own will take one step that way; she would assume nothing, not even the right of a stranger. So she only looked at the distant flowers, and thought, and ceased to hear the conversation she did not understand. But all this while Lady Rythdale was taking note of her. A pause came, and Eleanor became conscious that she was a subject of consideration. "You will have a very pretty wife, Macintosh," said the baroness bluntly and benignly. The rush of colour to her face Eleanor felt as if she could hardly bear. She had much ado not to put up her hands like a child. "You must have mercy on her, mamma," said Mr. Carlisle, walking off to a bookcase. "She has the uncommon grace of modesty." "It is no use," said Lady Rythdale. "She may as well get accustomed to it. Others will tell her, if you do not." There was silence. Eleanor felt displeased. "Is she as good as she is pretty?" enquired Lady Rythdale. "No, ma'am," said Eleanor in a low voice. The baroness laughed. Her son smiled. Eleanor was vexed at herself for speaking. "Mamma, is not Rochefoucauld here somewhere?" "Rochefoucauld? what do you want of him?" "I want to call this lady to account for some of her opinions. Here he is. Now Eleanor," said he tossing the book into her lap and sitting down beside her,--"justify yourself." Eleanor guessed he wanted to draw her out. She was not very ready. She turned over slowly the leaves of the book. Meanwhile Lady Rythdale again engaged her son in conversation which entirely overlooked her; and Eleanor thought her own thoughts; till Mr. Carlisle said with a little tone of triumph, "Well, Eleanor?--" "What is it?" said Lady Rythdale. "Human nature, ma'am; that is the question." "Only Rochefoucauld's exposition of it," said Eleanor. "Well, go on. Prove him false." "But when I have done it by the sun-dial, you will make me wrong by the clock." "Instance! instance!" said Mr. Carlisle laughing. "Take this. 'La magnanimité est assez bien définie par son nom même; néanmoins on pourroit dire que c'est le bon sens de l'orgueil, et la voie la plus noble pour recevoir des louanges.' Could anything be further from the truth than that?" "What is your idea of magnanimity? You do not think 'the good sense of pride' expresses it?" "It is not a matter of calculation at all; and I do not think it is beholden to anything so low as pride for its origin." "I am afraid we should not agree in our estimation of pride," said Mr. Carlisle, amused; "you had better go on to something else. The want of ambition may indicate a deficiency in that quality--or an excess of it. Which, Eleanor?" "Rochefoucauld says, 'La modération est comme la sobriété: on voudroit bien manger davantage, mais on craint de se faire mal.'" "What have you to say against that?" "Nothing. It speaks for itself. And these two sayings alone prove that he had no knowledge of what is really noble in men." "Very few have," said Mr. Carlisle dryly. "But you do not agree with him?" "Not in these two instances. I have a living confutation at my side." "Her accent is not perfect by any means," said Lady Rythdale. "You are right, madam," said Eleanor, with a moment's hesitation and a little colour. "I had good advantages at school, but I did not avail myself of them fully." "I know whose temper is perfect," said Mr. Carlisle, drawing the book from her hand and whispering, "Do you want to see the flowers?" He was not pleased, Eleanor saw; he carried her off to the conservatory and walked about with her there, watching her pleasure. She wished she could have been alone. The flowers were quite a different society from Lady Rythdale's, and drew off her thoughts into a different channel. The roses looked sweetness at her; the Dendrobium shone in purity; myrtles and ferns and some exquisite foreign plants that she knew not by name, were the very prime of elegant refinement and refreshing suggestion. Eleanor plucked a geranium leaf and bruised it and thoughts together under her finger. Mr. Carlisle was called in and for a moment she was left to herself. When he came back his first action was to gather a very superb rose and fasten it in her hair. Eleanor tried to arrest his hand, but he prevented her. "I do not like it, Macintosh. Lady Rythdale does not know me. Do not adorn me here!" "Your appearance here is my affair," said he coolly. "Eleanor, I have a request to make. My mother would like to hear you sing." "Sing! I am afraid I should not please Lady Rythdale." "Will you please me?" Eleanor quitted his hand and went to the door of communication with the red parlour, which was by two or three steps, on which she sat down. Her eyes were on the floor, where the object they encountered was Mr. Carlisle's spurs. That would not do; she buried them in the depths of a wonderful white lily, and so sang the old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence. And so sweet and pure, so natural and wild, was her giving of the wild old song, as if it could have come out of the throat of the flower. The thrill of her voice was as a leaf trembles on its stem. No art there; it was unadulterated nature. A very delicious voice had been spoiled by no master; the soul of the singer rendered the soul of the song. The listeners did both of them, to do them justice, hold their breath till she had done. Then Mr. Carlisle brought her in, to luncheon, in triumph; rose and all. "You have a very remarkable voice, my dear!" said Lady Rythdale. "Do you always sing such melancholy things?" "You must take my mother's compliments, Nellie, as you would olives--it takes a little while to get accustomed to them." Eleanor thought so. "Do not you spoil her with sweet things," said the baroness. "Come here, child--let me look at you. You have certainly as pretty a head of hair as ever I saw. Did you put in that rose?" "No, ma'am," said Eleanor, blushing with somewhat besides pleasure. Much to her amazement, the next thing was Lady Rythdale's taking her in her arms and kissing her. Nor was Eleanor immediately released; not until she had been held and looked over and caressed to the content of the old baroness, and Eleanor's cheeks were in a state of furious protestation. She was dismissed at last with the assurance to Mr. Carlisle that she was "an innocent little thing." "But she is not one of those people who are good because they have not force to be anything else, Macintosh." "I hope not." After this, however, Eleanor was spared further discussion. Luncheon came in; and during the whole discussion of that she was well petted, both by the mother and son. She felt that she could never break the nets that enclosed her; this day thoroughly achieved that conclusion to Eleanor's mind. Yet with a proud sort of mental reservation, she shunned the delicacies that belonged to Rythdale House, and would have made her luncheon with the simplicity of an anchorite on honey and bread, as she might at home. She was very gently overruled, and made to do as she would not at home. Eleanor was not insensible to this sort of petting and care; the charm of it stole over her, even while it made her hopeless. And hopelessness said, she had better make the most of all the good that fell to her lot. To be seated in the heart of Rythdale House and in the heart of its master, involved a worldly lot as fair at least as imagination could picture. Eleanor was made to taste it to-day, all luncheon time, and when after luncheon Mr. Carlisle pleased himself with making his mother and her quarrel over Rochefoucauld; in a leisurely sort of enjoyment that spoke him in no haste to put an end to the day. At last, and not till the afternoon was waning, he ordered the horses. Eleanor was put on Black Maggie and taken home at a gentle pace. "I do not understand," said Eleanor as they passed through the ruins, "why the House is called 'the Priory.' The priory buildings are here." "There too," said Mr. Carlisle. "The oldest foundations are really up there; and part of the superstructure is still hidden within the modern walls. After they had established themselves up there, the monks became possessed of the richer sheltered lands of the valley and moved themselves and their headquarters accordingly." The gloom of the afternoon was already gathering over the old tower of the priory church. The influence of the place and time went to swell the under current of Eleanor's thoughts and bring it nearer to the surface. It would have driven her into silence, but that she did not choose that it should. She met Mr. Carlisle's conversation, all the way, with the sort of subdued gentleness that had been upon her and which the day's work had deepened. Nevertheless, when Eleanor went in at home, and the day's work lay behind her, and Rythdale's master was gone, and all the fascinations the day had presented to her presented themselves anew to her imagination, Eleanor thought with sinking of heart--that what Jane Lewis had was better than all. So she went to bed that night. CHAPTER XI. AT BROMPTON. "Why, and I trust, and I may go too. May I not? What, shall I be appointed hours: as though, belike, I know not what to take and what to leave? Ha!" "Eleanor, what is the matter?" said Julia one day. For Eleanor was found in her room in tears. "Nothing--I am going to ruin only;--that is all." "Going to _what?_ Why Eleanor--what is the matter?" "Nothing--if not that." "Why Eleanor!" said the little one in growing astonishment, for Eleanor's distress was evidently great, and jumping at conclusions with a child's recklessness,--"Eleanor!--don't you want to be married?" "Hush! hush!" exclaimed Eleanor rousing herself up. "How dare you talk so, I did not say anything about being married." "No, but you don't seem glad," said Julia. "Glad! I don't know that I ever shall feel glad again--unless I get insensible--and that would be worse." "Oh Eleanor! what is it? do tell me!" "I have made a mistake, that is all, Julia," her sister said with forced calmness. "I want time to think and to get right, and to be good--then I could be in peace, I think; but I am in such a confusion of everything, I only know I am drifting on like a ship to the rocks. I can't catch my breath." "Don't you want to go to the Priory?" said the little one, in a low, awe-struck voice. "I want something else first," said Eleanor evasively. "I am not ready to go anywhere, or do anything, till I feel better." "I wish you could see Mr. Rhys," said Julia. "He would help you to feel better, I know." Eleanor was silent, shedding tears quietly. "Couldn't you come down and see him, Eleanor?" "Child, how absurdly you talk! Do not speak of Mr. Rhys to me or to any one else--unless you want him sent out of the village." "Why, who would send him?" said Julia. "But he is going without anybody's sending him. He is going as soon as he gets well, and he says that will be very soon." Julia spoke very sorrowfully. "He is well enough to preach again. He is going to preach at Brompton. I wish I could hear him." "When?" "Next Monday evening." "_Monday_ evening?" "Yes." "I shall want to purchase things at Brompton Monday," said Eleanor to herself, her heart leaping up light. "I shall take the carriage and go." "Where will he preach in Brompton, Julia? Is it anything of an extraordinary occasion?" "No. I don't know. O, he will be in the--I don't know! You know what Mr. Rhys is. He is something--he isn't like what we are." "Now if I go to the Methodist Chapel at Brompton," thought Eleanor, "it will raise a storm that will either break me on the rocks, or land me on shore. I will do it. This is my very last chance." She sat before the fire, pondering over her arrangements. Julia nestled up beside her, affectionate but mute, and laid her head caressingly against her sister's arm. Eleanor felt the action, though she took no notice of it. Both remained still for some little time. "What would you like, Julia?" her sister began slowly. "What shall I do to please you, before I leave home? What would you choose I should give you?" "Give _me?_ Are you going to give me anything?" "I would like to please you before I go away--if I knew how. Do you know how I can?" "O Eleanor! Mr. Rhys wants something very much--If I could give it to him!--" "What is it?" "He has nothing to write on--nothing but an old portfolio; and that don't keep his pens and ink; and for travelling, you know, when he goes away, if he had a writing case like yours--wouldn't it be nice? O Eleanor, I thought of that the other day, but I had no money. What do you think?" "Excellent," said Eleanor. "Keep your own counsel, Julia; and you and I will go some day soon, and see what we can find." "Where will you go? to Brompton?" "Of course. There is no other place to go to. But keep your own counsel, Julia." If Julia kept her own counsel, she did not so well know how to keep her sister's; for the very next day, when she was at Mrs. Williams's cottage, the sight of the old portfolio brought up her talk with Eleanor and all that had led to it; and Julia out and spoke. "Mr. Rhys, I don't believe that Eleanor wants to be married and go to Rythdale Priory." Mr. Rhys's first movement was to rise and see that the door of communication with the next room was securely shut; then as he sat down to his writing again he said gravely, "You ought to be very careful how you make such remarks, Julia. You might without knowing it, do great harm. You are probably very much mistaken." "I am careful, Mr. Rhys. I only said it to you." "You had better not say it to me. And I hope you will say it to nobody else." "But I want to speak to somebody," said Julia; "and she was crying in her room yesterday as hard as she could. I do not believe, she wants to go to Rythdale!" Julia spoke the last words with slow enunciation, like an oracle. Mr. Rhys looked up from his writing and smiled at her a little, though he answered very seriously. "You ought to remember, Julia, that there might be many things to trouble your sister on leaving home for the last time, without going to any such extravagant supposition as that she does not want to leave it. Miss Eleanor may have other cause for sorrow, quite unconnected with that." "I know she has, too," said Julia. "I think Eleanor wants to be a Christian." He looked up again with one of his grave keen glances. "What makes you think it, Julia?" "She said she wanted to be good, and that she was not ready for anything till she felt better; and I know _that_ was what she meant. Do you think Mr. Carlisle is good, Mr. Rhys?" "I have hardly an acquaintance with Mr. Carlisle. Pray for your sister, Julia, but do not talk about her; and now let me write." The days rolled on quietly at Ivy Lodge, until Monday came. Eleanor had kept herself in order and given general satisfaction. When Monday came she announced boldly that she was going to give the afternoon of that day to her little sister. It should be spent for Julia's pleasure, and so they two would take the carriage and go to Brompton and be alone. It was a purpose that could not very well be interfered with. Mr. Carlisle grumbled a little, not ill-humouredly, but withdrew opposition; and Mrs. Powle made none. However the day turned very disagreeable by afternoon, and she proposed a postponement. "It is my last chance," said Eleanor. "Julia shall have this afternoon, if I never do it again." So they went. The little one full of joy and anticipation; the elder grave, abstracted, unhappy. The day was gloomy and cloudy and windy. Eleanor looked out upon the driving grey clouds, and wondered if she was driving to her fate, at Brompton. She could not help wishing the sun would shine on her fate, whatever it was; but the chill gloom that enveloped the fields and the roads was all in keeping with the piece of her life she was traversing then. Too much, too much. She could not rouse herself from extreme depression; and Julia, felling it, could only remark over and over that it was "a nasty day." It was better when they got to the town. Brompton was a quaint old town, where comparatively little modernising had come, except in the contents of the shops, and the exteriors of a few buildings. The tower of a very beautiful old church lifted its head above the mass of house-roofs as they drew near the place; in the town the streets were irregular and narrow and of ancient fashion in great part. Here however the gloom of the day was much lost. What light there was, was broken and shadowed by many a jutting out stone in the old mason-work, many, many a recess and projecting house-front or roof or doorway; the broad grey uniformity of dulness that brooded over the open landscape, was not here to be felt. Quaint interest, quaint beauty, the savour of things old and quiet and stable, had a stimulating and a soothing effect too. Eleanor roused up to business, and business gave its usual meed of refreshment and strength. She and Julia had a good shopping time. It was a burden of love with the little one to see that everything about the proposed purchase was precisely and entirely what it should be; and Eleanor seconded her and gave her her heart's content of pleasure; going from shop to shop, patiently looking for all they wanted, till it was found. Julia's joy was complete, and shone in her face. The face of the other grew dark and anxious. They had got into the carriage to go to another shop for some trifle Eleanor wanted. "Julia, would you like to stay and hear Mr. Rhys speak to-night?" "O wouldn't I! But we can't, you know." "I am going to stay." "And going to hear him?" "Yes." "O Eleanor! Does mamma know?" "No." "But she will be frightened, if we are not come home." "Then you can take the carriage home and tell her; and send the little waggon or my pony for me." "Couldn't you send one of the men?" "Yes, and then I should have Mr. Carlisle come after me. No, if I send, you must go." "Wouldn't he like it?" "It is no matter whether he would like it or no. I am going to stay. You can do as you please." "I would like to stay!" said Julia eagerly. "O Eleanor, I want to stay! But mamma would be so frightened. Eleanor, do you think it is right?" "It is right for me," said Eleanor. "It is the only thing I can do. If it displeased all the world, I should stay. You may choose what you will do. If the horses go home, they cannot come back again; the waggon and old Roger, or my pony, would have to come for me--with Thomas." Julia debated, sighed, shewed great anxiety for Eleanor, great difficulty of deciding, but finally concluded even with tears that it would not be _right_ for her to stay. The carriage went home with her and her purchases; Thomas, the old coachman, having answered with surprised alacrity to the question, whether he knew where the Wesleyan chapel in Brompton was. He was to come back for Eleanor and be with the waggon there. Eleanor herself went to spend the intermediate time before the hour of service, and take tea, at the house of a little lawyer in the town whom her father employed, and whose wife she knew would be overjoyed at the honour thus done her. It was not perhaps the best choice of a resting-place that Eleanor could have made; for it was a sure and certain fountain head of gossip; but she was in no mood to care for that just now, and desired above all things, not to take shelter in any house where a message or an emissary from the Lodge or the Priory would be likely to find her; nor in one where her proceedings would be gravely looked into. At Mrs. Pinchbeck's hospitable tea-table she was very secure from both. There was nothing but sweetmeats there! Mrs. Pinchbeck was a lively lady, in a profusion of little fair curls all over her head and a piece of flannel round her throat. She was very voluble, though her voice was very hoarse. Indeed she left nothing untold that there was time to tell. She gave Eleanor an account of all Brompton's doings; of her own; of Mr. Pinchbeck's; and of the doings of young Master Pinchbeck, who was happily in bed, and who she declared, when _not_ in bed was too much for her. Meanwhile Mr. Pinchbeck, who was a black-haired, ordinarily somewhat grim looking man, now with his grimness all gilded in smiles, pressed the sweetmeats; and looked his beaming delight at the occasion. Eleanor felt miserably out of place; even Mrs. Pinchbeck's flannel round her throat helped her to question whether she were not altogether wrong and mistaken in her present undertaking. But though she felt miserable, and even trembled with a sort of speculative doubt that came over her, she did not in the least hesitate in her course. Eleanor was not made of that stuff. Certainly she was where she had no business to be, at Mrs. Pinchbeck's tea-table, and Mr. Pinchbeck had no business to be offering her sweetmeats; but it was a miserable necessity of the straits to which she found herself driven. She must go to the Wesleyan chapel that evening; she would, _coûte que coûte_. _There_ she dared public opinion; the opinion of the Priory and the Lodge. _Here_, she confessed said opinion was right. One good effect of the vocal entertainment to which she was subjected, was that Eleanor herself was not called upon for many words. She listened, and tasted sweetmeats; that was enough, and the Pinchbecks were satisfied. When the time of durance was over, for she was nervously impatient, and the hour of the chapel service was come, Eleanor had not a little difficulty to escape from the offers of attendance and of service which both her host and hostess pressed upon her. If her carriage was to meet her at a little distance, let Mr. Pinchbeck by all means see her into it; and if it was not yet come, at least let her wait where she was while Mr. P. went to make inquiries. Or stay all night! Mrs. Pinchbeck would be delighted. By steady determination Eleanor at last succeeded in getting out of the house and into the street alone. Her heart beat then, fast and hard; it had been giving premonitory starts all the evening. In a very sombre mood of mind, she made her way in the chill wind along the streets, feeling herself a wanderer, every way. The chapel she sought was not far off; lights were blazing there, though the streets were gloomy. Eleanor made a quiet entrance into the warm house, and sat down; feeling as if the crisis of her fate had come. She did not care now about hiding herself; she went straight up the centre aisle and took a seat about half way in the building, at the end of a pew already filled all but that one place. The house was going to be crowded and a great many people were already there, though it was still very early. The warmth after the cold streets, and the silence, and the solitude, after being exposed to Mrs. Pinchbeck's tongue and to her observation, made a lull in Eleanor's mind for a moment. Then, with the waywardness of action which thought and feeling often take in unwonted situations, she began to wonder whether it could be right to be there--not only for her, but for anybody. That large, light, plain apartment, looking not half so stately as the saloon of a country house; could that be a proper place for people to meet for divine service? It was better than a barn, still was that a fit _church?_ The windows blank and staring with white glass; the woodwork unadorned and merely painted; a little stir of feet coming in and garments rustling, the only sound. She missed the full swell of the organ, which itself might have seemed to clothe even bare boards. Nothing of all that; nothing of what she esteemed dignified, or noble, or sacred; a mere business-looking house, with that simple raised platform and little desk--was Eleanor right to be there? Was anybody else? Poor child, she felt wrong every way, there or not there; but these thoughts tormented her. They tormented her only till Mr. Rhys came in. When she saw him, as it had been that evening in the barn, they quieted instantly. To her mind he was a guaranty for the righteousness of all in which he was concerned; different as it might be from all to which she had been accustomed. Such a guaranty, that Eleanor's mind was almost ready to leap to the other conclusion, and account wrong whatever the difference put on another side from him. She watched him now, as he went with a quick step to the pulpit, or platform as she called it, and mounting it, kneeled down beside one of the chairs that stood there. Eleanor was accustomed to that action; she had seen clergymen a million of times come into the pulpit, and always kneel; but it was not like this. Always an ample cushion lay ready for the knees that sank upon it; the step was measured; the movement slow; every line was of grace and propriety; the full-robed form bowed reverently, and the face was buried in a white cloud of cambric. Here, a tall figure, attired only in his ordinary dress, went with quick, decided step up to the place; there dropped upon one knee, hiding his face with his hand; without seeming to care where, and certainly without remembering that there was nothing but an ingrain carpet between his knee and the floor. But Eleanor knew what this man was about; and an instant sense of sacredness and awe stole over her, beyond what any organ-peals or richness of Gothic work had ever brought. Then she rejoiced that she was where she was. To be there, could not be wrong. The house was full and still. The beginning of the service again was the singing; here richer and fuller voiced than it had been in the barn. Somebody else made the prayers; to her sorrow; but then Mr. Rhys rose, and her eye and ear were all for him. She threw back her veil now. She was quite willing that he should see her; quite willing that if he had any message of help or warning for her in the course of his sermon, he should deliver it. He saw her, she knew, immediately. She rather fancied that he saw everybody. It was to be a missionary sermon, Eleanor had understood; but she thought it was a very strange one. The text was, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's." The question was, "What are the Lord's things?" Mr. Rhys seemed to be only talking to the people, as his bright eye went round the house and he went on to answer this question. Or rather to suggest answers. Jacob's offering of devotion and gratitude was a tenth part of his possessions. "And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house; and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee." Mr. Rhys announced this. He did not comment upon it at all. He went on to say, that the commandment given by Moses appointed the same offering. "And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's: it is holy unto the Lord. And if a man will at all redeem ought of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof. And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. He shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he change it; and if he change it at all, then both it and the change thereof shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed." So that it appeared, that the least the Lord would receive as a due offering to him from his people, was a fair and full tenth part of all they possessed. This was required, from those that were only nominally his people. How about those that render to him heart-service? David's declaration, when laying up provision for the building of the temple, was that _all_ was the Lord's. "Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee... O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thy holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own." And God himself, in the fiftieth psalm, claims to be the one sole owner and proprietor, when he says, "Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills." But some people may think, that is a sort of natural and providential right, which the Creator exercises over the works of his hands. Come a little closer. "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts."--So it was declared by his prophet Haggai. And by another of his servants, the Lord told the people that their own prospering in the various goods of this world, would be according to their faithfulness in serving him with them. "Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse; for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." So that it is not grace nor bounty the Lord receives at our hands in such offerings; it is simply _his own_. Then it must be considered that those were the times of the old dispensation; of an expensive system of sacrifices and temple worship; with a great body of the priesthood to be maintained and supplied in all their services and private household wants. We live in changed times, under a different rule. What do the Lord's servants owe him now? The speaker had gone on with the utmost quietness of manner from one of these instances to another; using hardly any gestures; uttering only with slow distinctness and deliberation his sentences one after the other; his face and eye meanwhile commanding the whole assembly. He went on now with the same quietness, perhaps with a little more deliberateness of accentuation, and an additional spark of fire now and then in his glance. There was a widow woman once, who threw into the Lord's treasury two mites, which make a farthing; but it was _all her living_. Again, we read that among the first Christians, "all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need." "The multitude of them that believed were of one heart, and of one soul; neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common." Were these people extravagant? They overwent the judgment of the present day. By what rule shall we try them? Christ's rule is, "Freely ye have received; freely give." What have we received? Friends, "you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." And the judgment of the old Christian church accorded with this; for they said,--"The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." Were they extravagant? But Christ has given us a closer rule to try the question by. He told his disciples, "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, _as I have loved you_." Does any one ask how that was? The Lord tells us in the next breath. It was no theoretical feeling. "_Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends_." "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." Pausing there in his course, with fire and tenderness breaking out in his face and manner, that gave him a kind of seraphic look, the speaker burst forth into a description of the love of Christ, that before long bowed the heads and hearts of his audience as one man. Sobs and whispers and smothered cries, murmured from all parts of the church; the whole assembly was broken down, while the preacher stood like some heavenly messenger and spoke his Master's name. When he ceased, the suppressed noise of sobs was alone to be heard all over the house. He paused a little, and began again very quietly, but with an added tenderness in his voice, "He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked."--"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." He paused again; every one there knew that he was ready to act on the principle he enounced; that he was speaking only of what he had proved; and the heads of the assembly bent lower still. Does any one ask, What shall we do now? there is no temple to be maintained, nor course of sacrifices to be kept up, nor ceremonial worship, nor Levitical body of priests to be supported and fed. What shall we give our lives and our fortunes to now, if we give them? "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Is the gospel dear to you? Is salvation worth having? Think of those who know nothing of it; and then think of Christ's command, "Feed my sheep." They are scattered upon all lands, the sheep that he died for; who shall gather them in? In China they worship a heap of ashes; in India they adore monsters; in Fiji they live to kill and eat one another; in Africa they sit in the darkness of centuries, till almost the spark of humanity is quenched out. "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." But "how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" "O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain: O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!" "The Spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say, come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."---- It was in the midst of the deepest stillness, and in low kept-under tones, that the last words were spoken. And when they ceased, a great hush still remained upon the assembly. It was broken by prayer; sweet, solemn, rapt, such as some there had never heard before; such as some there knew well. When Mr. Rhys had stopped, another began. The whole house was still with tears. There was one bowed heart there, which had divided subjects of consideration; there was one hidden face which had a double motive for being hid. Eleanor had been absorbed in the entrancing interest of the time, listening with moveless eyes, and borne away from all her own subjects of care and difficulty on the swelling tide of thought and emotion which heaved the whole assembly. Till her own head was bent beneath its power, and her tears sought to be covered from view. She did not move from that attitude; until, lifting her head near the close of the sermon, as soon as she could get it up in fact, that she might see as much as possible of those wonderful looks she might never see again; a slight chance turn of her head brought another idea into her mind. A little behind her in the aisle, standing but a pace or two off, was a figure that for one instant made all Eleanor's blood stand still. She could not see it distinctly; she did not see the face of the person at all; it was only the merest glimpse of some outlines, the least line of a coat and vision of an arm and hand resting on a pew door. But if that arm and hand did not belong to somebody she knew, in Eleanor's belief it belonged to nobody living. It was not the colour of cloth nor the cut of a dress; it was the indefinable character of that arm and man's glove, seen with but half an eye. But it made her sure that Mr. Carlisle, in living flesh and blood, stood there, in the Wesleyan chapel though it was. Eleanor cared curiously little about it, after the first start. She felt set free, in the deep high engagement of her thoughts at the time, and the roused and determined state of feeling they had produced. She did not fear Mr. Carlisle. She was quite willing he should have seen her there. It was what she wished, that he should know of her doing. And his neighbourhood in that place did not hinder her full attention and enjoyment of every word that was spoken. It did not check her tears, nor stifle the swelling of her heart under the preaching and under the prayers. Nevertheless Eleanor was conscious of it all the time; and became conscious too that the service would before very long come to a close; and then without doubt that quiet glove would have something to do with her. Eleanor did not reason nor stop to think about it. Her heart was full, full, under the appeals made and the working of conscience with them; conscience and tenderer feelings, which strove together and yet found no rest; and this action the sight of Mr. Carlisle rather intensified. Were her head but covered by that helmet of salvation, under which others lived and walked so royally secure,--and she could bid defiance to any disturbing force that could meet her, she thought, in this world. It was while Eleanor's head was yet bowed, and her heart busy with these struggling feelings, that she heard an invitation given to all people who were not at peace in their hearts and who desired that Christians should pray for them,--to come forward and so signify their wish. Eleanor did not understand what this could mean; and hearing a stir in the church, she looked up, if perhaps her eyes might give her information. To her surprise she saw that numbers of people were leaving their seats, and going forward to what she would have called the chancel rails, where they all knelt down. All these persons, then, were in like condition with her; unhappy in the consciousness of their wants, and not knowing how to supply them. So many! And so many willing openly to confess it. Eleanor's heart moved strangely towards them. And then darted into her head an impulse, quick as lightning and almost as startling, that she should join herself to them and go forward as they were doing. Was not her heart mourning for the very same want that they felt? She had reason enough. No one in that room sought the forgiveness of God and peace with him more earnestly than she, nor with a sorer heart; nor felt more ignorant how to gain it. Together with that another thought, both of them acting with the swiftness and power of a lightning flash, moved Eleanor. Would it not utterly disgust Mr. Carlisle, if she took this step? would he wish to have any more to do with her, after she should have gone forward publicly to ask for prayers in a Wesleyan chapel? It would prove to him at least how far apart they were in all their views and feelings. It would clear her way for her; and the next moment, doing it cunningly that she might not be intercepted, Eleanor Powle slipped out of her seat with a quick movement, just before some one else who was coming up the aisle, and so put that person for that one second of danger between her and the waiting figure whom she knew without looking at. That second was gained, and she went trembling with agitation, yet exultingly, up the aisle and knelt on the low bench where the others were. Mr. Carlisle and escape from him, had been Eleanor's one thought till she got there. But as her knees sank upon the cushion and her head bowed upon the rails, a flood of other feeling swept over her and Mr. Carlisle was forgotten. The sense of what she was committing herself to--of the open stand she was taking as a sinner, and one who desired to be a forgiven sinner,--overwhelmed her; and her heart's great cry for peace and purity broke forth to the exclusion of everything else. In the confusion of Eleanor's mind, she did not know in the least what was going on around her in the church. She did not hear if they were praying or singing. She tried to pray for herself; she knew not what others were doing; till she heard some low whispered words near her. That sound startled her into attention; for she knew the accent of one voice that spoke. The other, if one answered, she could not discern; but she found with a start of mingled fear and pleasure that Mr. Rhys was speaking separately with the persons kneeling around the rails. She had only time to clear her voice from tears, before that same low whisper came beside her. "What is your difficulty?" "Darkness--confusion--I do not see what way to go." "Go _no_ way," said the whisper impressively, "until you see clearly. Then do what is right. That is the first point. You know that Christ is the fountain of light?" "But I see none." "Seek him trustingly, and obediently; and then look for the light to come, as you would for the dawning after a dark night. It is sure, if you will trust the Lord. His going forth is prepared as the morning. It is sure to come, to all that seek him, trust him, and obey him. Seek him in prayer constantly, and in studying your Bible; and what you find to be your duty, do; and the Lord be with you!" He passed away from Eleanor; and presently the whole assembly struck up a hymn. It sounded like a sweet shout of melody at the time; but Eleanor could never recall a note of it afterwards. She knew the service was nearly ended, and that in a few minutes she must quit her kneeling, sheltered position, and go out into the world again. She bent her heart to catch all the sweetness of the place and the time; for strange and confused as she felt, there was nevertheless an atmosphere fragrant with peace about both. The hymn came to an end; the congregation were dismissed, and Eleanor perforce turned her face to go down the aisle again. Her veil was down and she did not look, but she knew without looking just when she reached the spot where Mr. Carlisle stood. He stood there yet; he had only stepped a little aside to let the stream of people go past him; and now as Eleanor came up he assumed his place by her side and put her hand upon his arm as quietly as if he had been waiting there for her by appointment all along. So he led her out to the carriage in waiting for her, helped her into it, and took his place beside her; in silence, but with the utmost gentleness of demeanour. The carriage door was closed, they drove off; Eleanor's evening was over, and she was alone with Mr. Carlisle. CHAPTER XII. AT SUPPER. _Mar_. "Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan." _Sir And_. "O, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog." _Sir Tob_. "What, for being a Puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight?" _Sir And_. "I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good enough." What was to come now; as in darkness and silence the carriage rolled over the road towards Wiglands? Eleanor did not greatly care. She felt set free; outwardly, by her own daring act of separation; inwardly and more effectually perhaps, by the influence of the evening upon her own mind. In her own settled and matured conclusions, she felt that Mr. Carlisle's power over her was gone. It was a little of an annoyance to have him sitting there; nevertheless Eleanor's mind did not trouble itself much with him. Leaning back in the carriage, she gave herself up to the impressions of the scene she had been through. Her companion was quiet and made no demands upon her attention. She recalled over and over the words, and looks, of the sermon;--the swell of the music--it had been like angel's melody; and the soft words which had been so energetic in their whispered strength as she knelt at the railing. She remembered with fresh wonder and admiration, with what effect the Bible words in the first part of the sermon had come upon the audience through that extreme quietness of voice and delivery; and then with what sudden fire and life, as if he had become another man, the speaker had burst out to speak of his Master; and how it had swayed and bent the assembly. It was an entirely new view of Mr. Rhys, and Eleanor could not forget it. In general, as she had always seen him, though perfectly at ease in his manners he was very simple and undemonstrative. She had not guessed there was such might in him. It awed her; it delighted her. To live such a life and to do such work as that man lived for,--that was living indeed! That was noble, high, pure; unlike and O how far above all the manner of lives Eleanor had ever seen before. And such, in so far as the little may resemble the great, such at least so far as in her sphere and abilities and sadly inferior moral qualities it might lie--such in aim and direction at least, her own life should be. What had she to do with Mr. Carlisle? Eleanor never spoke to him during the long drive, forgetting as far as she could, though a little uneasiness grew upon her by degrees, that he was even present. And he did not speak to her, nor remind her of his presence otherwise than by pulling up the glass on her side when the wind blew in too chill. It was _his_ carriage they were in, Eleanor then perceived; and she wanted to ask a question; but on the whole concluded it safe to be still; according to the proverb, _Let sleeping dogs lie_. One other time he drew her shawl round her which she had let slip off. Mr. Carlisle was possessed of large self-control and had great perfection of tact; and he never shewed either more consummately than this night. What he underwent while standing in the aisle of the Chapel, was known to himself; he made it known to nobody else. He was certainly silent during the drive; that shewed him displeased; but every movement was calm as ordinary; his care of Eleanor was the same, in its mixture of gentle observance and authority. He had laid down neither. Eleanor could have wished he had been unable to keep one or the other. Would he keep her too, and everything else that he chose? Nothing is more subduing in its effect upon others, than evident power of self-command. Eleanor could not help feeling it, as she stepped out of the carriage at home, and was led into the house. "Will you give me a few minutes, when you have changed your dress?" her conductor asked. It must come, thought Eleanor, and as well now as ever; and she assented. Mr. Carlisle led her in. Nobody was in waiting but Mrs. Powle; and she waited with devouring anxiety. The Squire and Julia she had carefully disposed of in good time. "Eleanor is tired, Mrs. Powle, and so am I," said Mr. Carlisle. "Will you let us have some supper here, by this fire--and I think Eleanor had better have a cup of tea; as I cannot find out the wine that she likes." And as Eleanor moved away, he added,--"And let me beg you not to keep yourself from your rest any longer--I will take care of my charge; at least I will try." Devoutly hoping that he might succeed to his wishes, and not daring to shew the anxiety he did not move to gratify, Mrs. Powle took the hint of his gentle dismission; ordered the supper and withdrew. Meanwhile Eleanor went to her room, relieved at the quiet entrance that had been secured her, where she had looked for a storm; and a little puzzled what to make of Mr. Carlisle. A little afraid too, if the truth must be known; but she fell back upon Mr. Rhys's words of counsel--"Go no way, till you see clearly; and then do what is right." She took off her bonnet and smoothed her hair; and was about to go down, when she was checked by the remembrance of Mr. Carlisle's words, "when you have changed your dress." She told herself it was absurd; why should she change her dress for that half hour that she would be up; why should she mind that word of intimation; she called herself a fool for it; nevertheless, while saying these things Eleanor did the very thing she scouted at. She put off her riding dress, which the streets of Brompton and the Chapel aisles had seen that day, and changed it for a light grey drapery that fell about her in very graceful folds. She looked very lovely when she reëntered the drawing-room; the medium tint set off her own rich colours, and the laces at throat and wrist were just simple enough to aid the whole effect. Mr. Carlisle was a judge of dress; he was standing before the fire and surveyed her as she came in; and as Eleanor's foot faltered half way in the room, he came forward, took both her hands and led her to the fire, where he set her in a great chair by the supper-table; and then before he let her go, did what he had not meant to do; gave a very frank kiss to the lips that were so rich and pure and so near him. Eleanor's heart had sunk a little at perceiving that her mother was not in the room; and this action was far from reassuring. She would rather Mr. Carlisle had been angry. He was far more difficult to meet in this mood. Meanwhile Mr. Carlisle brought her chair into more convenient neighbourhood to the table, and set a plate before her on which he went on to place whatever he thought fit. "I know what you are wanting," he said;--"but you shall not have a cup of tea unless I see you eat." And Eleanor eat, feeling the need of it, and the necessity of doing something likewise. Mr. Carlisle poured himself out a glass of wine and slowly drank it, watching her. Midway set it down; and himself made and poured out and sugared and creamed a cup of tea which he set beside Eleanor. It was done in the nicest way possible, with a manner that any woman would like to have wait on her. Eleanor tasted, and could not hold her tongue any more. "I did not know this was one of your accomplishments,"--she said without raising her eyes. "For you"--said Mr. Carlisle. "I believe it will never be exercised for anybody else." He slowly finished his wine while he watched her. He eat nothing himself, though Eleanor asked him, till she turned from her plate, and did what she had not done till then but could no longer withhold; let her eyes meet his. "Now," said he throwing himself into an opposite chair,--"I will take a cup of tea, if you will make it for me." Eleanor blushed--what made her?--as she set about performing this office. The tea was cold; she had to make fresh, and wait till it was ready; and she stood by the table watching and preparing it, while Mr. Carlisle sat in his chair observing her. Eleanor's cheeks flushed more and more. There was something about this little piece of domesticity, and her becoming the servitor in her turn, that brought up things she did not wish to think of. But her neighbour liked what she did not like, for he sat as quiet as a mouse until Eleanor's trembling hand offered him the cup. She had to take a step or two for it, but he never stirred to abridge them. Eleanor sat down again, and Mr. Carlisle sipped his tea with an appearance of gratification. "That is a young man of uncommon abilities"--he remarked composedly,--"whom we heard this evening. Do you know who he is, Eleanor?" Eleanor felt as if the sky was falling. "It is Mr. Rhys--Alfred's old tutor--" she answered, in a voice which she felt was dry and embarrassed to the quick ears that heard her. "You have seen him." "I thought I had, somewhere. But that man has power. It is a pity he could not be induced to come into the Church--he would draw better houses than Dr. Cairnes. Do you think we could win him over, Eleanor?" "I believe--I have heard"--said Eleanor, "that he is going away from England. He is going a missionary to some very far away region." She was quite willing Mr. Carlisle should understand this. "Just as well," he answered. "If he would not come into his right place, such a man would only work to draw other persons out of theirs. There is a sort of popular power of speech which wins with the common and uneducated mind. I saw it won upon you, Nellie; how was that?" The light tone, in which a smile seemed but half concealed, disconcerted Eleanor. She was not ashamed, she thought she was not, but she did not know how to answer. "You are a little _tête-montée_," he said. "If I had been a little nearer to you to-night, I would have saved you from taking one step; but I did not fancy that you could be so suddenly wrought upon. Pray how happened you to be in that place to-night?' "I told you," said Eleanor after some hesitation, "that I had an unsatisfied wish of heart which made me uneasy--and you would not believe me." "If you knew how this man could speak, I do not wonder at your wanting to hear him. Did you ever hear him before?" "Yes," said Eleanor, feeling that she was getting in a wrong position before her questioner. "I have heard him once--I wanted to hear him again." "Why did you not tell me your wish, that you might gratify it safely, Eleanor?" "I supposed--if I did--I should lose my chance of gratifying it at all." "You are a real _tête-montée_," he said, standing now before her and taking hold lightly and caressingly of Eleanor's chin as he spoke. "It was well nobody saw you to-night but me. Does my little wife think she can safely gratify many of her wishes without her husband's knowledge?" Eleanor coloured brightly and drew herself back. "That is the very thing," she said; "now you are coming to the point. I told you I had wishes with which yours would not agree, and it was better for you to know it before it was too late." "Too late for what?" "To remedy a great evil." "There is generally a remedy for everything," said Mr. Carlisle coolly; "and this sort of imaginative fervour which is upon you is sure to find a cold bath of its own in good time. My purpose is simply in future, whenever you wish to hear another specimen of the kind of oratory we have listened to this evening, to be with you that I may protect you." "Protect me from what?" "From going too far, further than you know, in your present _exaltée_ state. The Lady of Rythdale must not do anything unworthy of herself, or of me." "What do you mean, Mr. Carlisle?" Eleanor exclaimed with burning cheeks. But he stood before her quite cool, his arms folded, looking down at her. "Do you wish me to speak?" "Certainly! I do." "I will tell you then. It would not accord with my wishes to have my wife grant whispered consultations in public to any man; especially a young man and one of insinuating talents, which this one well may be. I could have shot that man, as he was talking to you to-night, Eleanor." Eleanor put up her hands to her face to hide its colour for a moment. Shame and anger and confusion struggled together. _Had_ she done anything unworthy of her? Others did the same, but they belonged to a different class of persons; had she been where Eleanor Powle, or even Eleanor Carlisle, would be out of place? And then there was the contrasted consciousness, how very pleasant and precious that whispered "consultation" had been to her. Mr. Carlisle stooped and took away her hands from her face, holding them in his own. "Eleanor--had that young man anything to do with those unmanageable wishes you expressed to me?" "So far as his words and example set me upon thinking," said Eleanor. "But there was nothing in what was said to-night that all the world might not hear." She rose, for it was an uncomfortable position in which her hands were held. "All the world did not hear it, you will remember. Eleanor, you are honest, and I am jealous--will you tell me that you have no regard for this young man more than my wife ought to have?" "Mr. Carlisle, I have never asked myself the question!" exclaimed Eleanor with indignant eyes. "If you doubt me, you cannot wish to have anything more to do with me." "Call me Macintosh," said he drawing her within his arm. Eleanor would not. She would have freed herself, but she could not without exerting too much force. She stood silent. "Will you tell me," he said in a gentle changed tone, "what words did pass between you and that young man,--that you said all the world might hear?" Eleanor hesitated. Her head was almost on Mr. Carlisle's shoulder; his lips were almost at her downcast brow; the brilliant hazel eyes were looking with their powerful light into her face. And she was his affianced wife. Was Eleanor free? Had this man, who loved her, no rights? Along with all other feelings, a keen sense of self-reproach stole in again. "Macintosh," she said droopingly, "it was entirely about religious matters--that you would laugh at, but would not understand." "Indulge me--and try me--" he said pressing his lips first on Eleanor's cheek and then on her mouth. She answered in the same tone as before, drooping in his arms as a weary child. "He asked me--as I suppose he asked others--what the difficulties in my mind were,--religious difficulties; and I told him my mind was in confusion and I did not see clearly before me. He advised me to do nothing in the dark, but when I saw duty clear, then to do it. That was what passed." "What did all these difficulties and rules of action refer to?" "Everything, I suppose," said Eleanor drooping more and more inwardly. "And you do not see, my love, what all this tended to?" "I do not see what you mean." "This is artful proselytism, Eleanor. In your brave honesty, in your beautiful enthusiasm, you did not know that the purpose of all this has been, to make a Methodist of Eleanor Powle, and as a necessary preliminary or condition, to break off her promised marriage with me. If that fellow had succeeded, he should have been made to feel my indignation--as it is, I shall let him go." "You are entirely mistaken,--" began Eleanor. "Am I? Have you not been led to doubt whether you could live a right life, and live it with me?" "But would you be willing in everything to let me do as I think right?" "Would I let you? You shall do what you will, my darling, except go to whispering conventicles. Assuredly I will not let you do that. But when you tell me seriously that you think a thing is wrong, I will never put my will in the way of your conscience. Did you think me a Mahometan? Hey?" "No--but--" "But what?" Eleanor only sighed. "I think I have something to forgive to-night, Eleanor,--but it is easy to forgive you." And wrapping both arms round her now, he pressed on brow and lip and cheek kisses that were abundantly reconciled. "My presence just saved you to night. Eleanor--will you promise not to be naughty any more?--Eleanor?--" "I will try," burst out Eleanor,--"O I will try to do what is right! I will try to do what is right!" And in bitter uncertainty what that might be, she gave way under the strain of so many feelings, and the sense of being conquered which oppressed her, and burst into tears. Still held fast, the only hiding-place for her eyes was Mr. Carlisle's breast, and they flowed there bitterly though restrained as much as possible. He hardly wished to restrain them; he would have been willing to stand all night with that soft brown head resting like a child's on him. Nevertheless he called her to order with words and kisses. "Do you know, it is late," he said,--"and you are tired. I must send you off. Eleanor! look up. Look up and kiss me." Eleanor overcame the passion of tears as soon as possible, yet not till a few minutes had passed; and looked up; at least raised her head from its resting-place. Mr. Carlisle whispered, "Kiss me!" How could Eleanor refuse? what could she do? though it was sealing allegiance over again. She was utterly humbled and conquered. But there was a touch of pride to be satisfied first. Laying one hand on Mr. Carlisle's shoulder, so as to push herself a little back where she could look him in the face, with eyes glittering yet, she confronted him; and asked, "Do you doubt me now?" Holding her in both arms, at just that distance, he looked down at her, a smile as calm as brilliant playing all over his face, which spoke perfect content as well as secure possession. But the trust in his eyes was as clear. "No more than I doubt myself," he answered. Pride was laid asleep; and yielding to what seemed her fate, Eleanor gave the required token of fealty--or subjugation--for so it seemed to her. Standing quite still, with bent head and moveless attitude, the slightest smile in the world upon the lips, Mr. Carlisle's whole air said silently that it was not enough. Eleanor yielded again, and once more touched her lips to those of her master. He let her go then; lit her candle and attended her to the foot of the staircase and dismissed her with all care. "I wonder if he is going to stay here himself to-night, and meet me in the morning," thought Eleanor as she went up the stairs. "It does not matter--I will go to sleep and forget everything, for a while." Would she? There was no sleep for Eleanor that night, and she knew it as soon as she reached her room. She set down her candle and then herself in blank despair. What had she done? Nothing at all, The stand she had meant to take at the beginning of the evening, she had been unable even to set foot upon. The bold step by which she had thought to set herself free from Mr. Carlisle, had only laid her more completely at his feet. Eleanor got up and walked the room in agony. What had she done? She was this man's promised wife; she had made her own bonds; it was her own doing; he had a right to her, he had claims upon her, he had given his affection to her. Had _she_ any rights now, inconsistent with his? Must she not fulfil this marriage? And yet, could she do so, feeling as she did? would _that_ be right? For no sooner was Eleanor alone than the subdued cry of her heart broke out again, that it could not be. And that cry grew desperate. Yet this evening's opportunity had all come to nothing. Worse than nothing, for it had laid an additional difficulty in her way. By her window, looking out into the dark night, Eleanor stopped and looked at this difficulty. She drew from its lurking-place in the darkness of her heart the question Mr. Carlisle had suggested, and confronted it steadily. _Had_ "that young man," the preacher of this evening, Eleanor's really best friend, had he anything to do with her "unmanageable wishes?" _Had_ she any regard for him that influenced her mind in this struggle--or that raised the struggle? With fiercely throbbing heart Eleanor looked this question for the first time in the face. "No!" she said to herself,--"no! I have not. I have no such regard for him. How debasing to have such a doubt raised! But I _might_ have--I think that is true--if circumstances put me in the way of it. And I think, seeing him and knowing his superior beauty of character--how superior!--has wakened me up to the consciousness of what I do like, and what I like best; and made me conscious too that I do not love Mr. Carlisle as well as I ought, to be his wife--not as he loves me. _That_ I see now,--too late. Oh, mother, mother! why were you in such a hurry to seal this marriage--when I told you, I told you, I was not ready. But then I did not know any more than that. And now I cannot marry him--and yet I shall--and I do not know but I ought. And yet I cannot." Eleanor walked her floor or stood by her window that live-long night. It was a night of great agony and distracted searching for relief. Where should relief come from? To tell Mr. Carlisle frankly that she did not bear the right kind of love towards him, she knew would be the vainest of expedients. "He can make me do anything--he would say he can make me love him; and so, perhaps, he could--I believe he would--if I had not seen this other man." And then Eleanor drew the contrast between one person and the other; the high, pure, spiritual nobleness of the one, and the social and personal graces and intellectual power of the other, all used for selfish ends. It was a very unprofitable speculation for Eleanor; it left her further than ever from the conclusion, and distressed her bitterly. From her mother she knew sadly there was no help to be had. No consideration, of duty or pleasure, would outweigh with her the loss of a splendid alliance and the scandal of breaking off the preparations for it. The Sphynx would not look out more calmly over the desert waste of all things, than Mrs. Powle's fair face would overview a moral desolation more hopeless and more cheerless, if but the pyramid of her ambition were firmly planted there. And Eleanor's worst trouble after all was her doubt about duty. If Mr. Carlisle had not loved her--but he did love her truly and tenderly, and she, however misled, had given him permission. Could she now withdraw it? Could she do anything but, at whatever risk, go on and meet the obligations she had brought upon herself? Nature cried out strongly that it must not be; but conscience and remorse, aided by circumstances, withstood nature, and said it must be no other way. Eleanor must marry Mr. Carlisle and be as good to him as she could. And Eleanor's whole soul began to rise up stronger and stronger in protest against it, and cry that she never would marry him. The weary long night seemed but as one thought of pain; and when the morning broke, Eleanor felt that she had grown old. CHAPTER XIII. IN DOUBT. "We will have rings, and things, and fine array; And kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday." Eleanor was too sick to go down even to a late breakfast; and a raging headache kept off any inquiries or remonstrances that Mrs. Powle might have made to her if she had been well. Later in the day her little sister Julia came dancing in. "Aren't you going to get up, Eleanor? What's the matter? I am going to open your window. You are all shut up here." Back went the curtain and up went the window; a breath of fresh mild air came sweetly in, and Julia danced back to the bedside. There suddenly sobered herself. "Eleanor, aren't you better? Can't you get up? It is so nice to-day." Julia's fresh, innocent, gay manner, the very light play of her waving hair, not lighter than the childlike heart, were almost too much for her sister. They made Eleanor's heart ache. "Where is everybody?" "Nowhere," said Julia. "I am all the house. Mr. Carlisle went home after breakfast; and mamma and Alfred are gone in the carriage to Brompton; and papa is out somewhere. Are you better, Nellie?" "I shall never be better!" said Eleanor. She turned and hid her face. "Oh why, Eleanor? What makes you say that? What is the matter? I knew yesterday you were not happy." "I am never going to be happy. I hope you will." "I am happy," said Julia. "And you will be. I told Mr. Rhys you were not happy,--and he said you would be by and by." "Julia!" said Eleanor raising herself on her elbow and with a colour spreading all over her face,--"don't talk to Mr. Rhys about me or my concerns! What makes you do such a thing?" "Why I haven't anybody else to talk to," said Julia. "Give me your foot, and I'll put on your stocking. Come! you are going to get up. And besides, he thinks a great deal of you, and we pray for you every day." "Who?" "He does, and I. Come!--give me your foot." "_He, and you!_" said Eleanor. "Yes," said Julia looking up. "We pray for you every day. What's the matter, Eleanor?" Her hand was laid sorrowfully and tenderly on the shoulder of the sister whose face was again hid from her. But at the touch Eleanor raised her head. "You seem a different child, Julia, from what you used to be." "What's the matter, Nellie?"--very tenderly. "I wish I was different too," said Eleanor, springing out of bed; "and I want time to go away by myself and think it out and battle it out, until I know just what is right and am ready to do it; and instead of that, mamma and Mr. Carlisle have arranged--" "Stop and sit down," said Julia taking hold of her; "you look white and black and all colours. Wait and rest, Eleanor." But Eleanor would not till she had tried the refreshment of cold water, and had put her beautiful hair in order; then she sat down in her dressing-gown. Julia had watched and now stood anxiously beside her. "Oh, what _is_ the matter, Eleanor?" "I don't know, Julia. I do not know what is right." "Have you asked God to make you know?" "No," said Eleanor, drooping. "That's what Mr. Rhys always does, so he is never troubled. I will tell you what he says--he says, 'What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.' Then he feels safe, you know." "It is a pity you cannot go to the South Seas with Mr. Rhys. You talk of nothing but him." "I would like to go with him," said Julia simply. "But I have learned how to feel safe too, for I trust in Jesus too; and I know he will teach me right. So he will teach you, Eleanor." Eleanor bowed her head on her hands, and wept and wept; but while she wept, resolutions were taking form in her mind. Mr. Rhys's words came back to her--"Go no way, till you see clear." The renewed thought of that helmet of salvation, and of that heavenly guidance, that she needed and longed for; so supremely, so much above everything else; gradually gained her strength to resolve that she would have them at all hazards. She must have time to seek them and to be sure of her duty; and then, she would do it. She determined she would not see Mr. Carlisle; he would conquer her; she would manage the matter with her mother. Eleanor thought it all over, the opposition and the difficulties, and resolved with the strength of desperation. She had grown old during this night. She had a long interval of quiet before her mother came. "Well, Eleanor! in your dressing-gown yet, and only your hair done! When do you expect to be down stairs? Somebody will be here presently and expect to see you." "Somebody will be disappointed. My head is splitting, mamma." "I should think it would! after yesterday's gambade, What did Mr. Carlisle say to you, I should like to know? I thought you would have offended him past forgiveness. I was relieved beyond all expression this morning, at breakfast, when I saw all was right again. But he told me not to scold you, and I will not talk about it." "Mamma, if you will take off your bonnet and sit down--I will talk to you about something else." Mrs. Powle sat down, took her bonnet in her lap, and pushed her fair curls into place. They were rarely out of place; it was more a form than anything else. Yet Mrs. Powle looked anxious; and her anxiety found natural expression as she said, "I wish the twenty-first was to-morrow!" "That is the thing I wish to speak about. Mamma, that day, the day for my marriage, has been appointed too early--I feel hurried, and not ready. I want to study my own mind and know exactly what I am doing. I am going to ask you to have it put off." "Put it off!--" cried Mrs. Powle. Language contained no other words of equal importance to be spoken in the same breath with those three. "Yes. I want it put off." "Till when, if you please. It might as well be doomsday at once." "Till doomsday, if necessary; but I want it put off. I do not stipulate for so long a time as that," said Eleanor putting her hand to her head. "What day would you name, in lieu of the twenty-first? I should like to know how far your arrangements extend." "I want time to collect my thoughts and be ready for so great a change. I want time to study, and think,--and pray. I shall ask for at least three months." "Three months! Till April! And pray, what has ailed your ladyship not to study and think and pray if you like, all these months that have passed?" "I have no chance. My time is all taken up. I can do nothing, but go round in a whirl--till my head is spinning." "And what will you do in these three months to come? I should like to know all you propose." "I propose to go away from home--somewhere that I can be quiet and alone. Then, if there is no reason against it, I promise to come back and fulfil my engagement with Mr. Carlisle." "Eleanor, you are a fool!" burst out her mother. "You are a fool, or worse. How dare you talk such stuff to me? I can hardly believe you serious, only for your face. Do you suppose I will think for one moment of such a thing as putting off the day?--and if I would, have you any idea that Mr. Carlisle would give _his_ assent to it?!" "If you do not, both you and he, I shall break off the marriage altogether." "I dare you to do it!" said Mrs. Powle. "With the wedding-dresses made, and almost the wedding-cake--every preparation--the whole world to be scandalized and talking at any delay--your family disgraced, and yourself ruined for ever;--and Mr. Carlisle--Eleanor, I think you are crazy! only you sit there with such a wicked face!--" "It is in danger of being wicked," said Eleanor, drawing both her hands over it;--"for I warn you, mother, I am determined. I have been hurried on. I will be hurried no further. I will take poison, before I will be married on the twenty-first! As well lose my soul one way as another. You and Mr. Carlisle must give me time--or I will break the match altogether. I will bear the consequences." "Have you spoken to him of this precious arrangement?" "No," said Eleanor, her manner failing a little.--"You must do it." "I thought so!" said Mrs. Powle. "He knows how to manage you, my young lady! which I never did yet. I will just bring him up here to you--and you will be like a whipped child in three minutes. O you know it. I see it in your face. Eleanor, I am ashamed of you!" "I will not see him up here, mamma." "You will, if you cannot help it. Eleanor I wouldn't try him too far. He is very fond of you--but he will be your husband in a few days; and he is not the sort of man I should like to have displeased with me, if I were you." "He never will, mamma, unless he waits three months for it." "Now I will tell you one thing," said Mrs. Powle rising in great anger--"I can put down my foot too. I am tired of this sort of thing, and I cannot manage you, and I will give you over to one who can. To-day is Tuesday--the twenty-first is exactly one fortnight off. Well my young lady, _I_ will change the day. Next Monday I will give you to Mr. Carlisle, and he will be your master; and I fancy he is not at all afraid to assume the responsibility. He may take you to as quiet a place as he likes; and you may think at your leisure, and more properly than in the way you propose. So, Eleanor, you shall be married o' Monday." Mrs. Powle flourished out with her bonnet in her hand. Eleanor's first movement was to go after her and turn the key in the door securely; then she threw up the window and flung herself on her face on the bed. Her mother was quite capable of doing as she had said, for her fair features covered a not very tender heart. Mr. Carlisle would second her, no doubt, all the more eagerly for the last night's adventures. Could Eleanor make head against those two? And between Tuesday and Monday was very little time to mature plans or organize resistance. Her head felt like splitting now indeed, for very confusion. "Eleanor," said Julia's voice gravely and anxiously, "you will take cold--mayn't I shut the window?" "There's no danger. I am in a fever." "Is your head no better?" "I hardly think I have a head. There is nothing there but pain and snapping." "Poor Eleanor!" said her little sister, standing by the bedside like a powerless guardian angel. "Mr. Carlisle isn't good, if he wouldn't do what you want him." "Do not open the door, Julia, if anybody knocks!" "No. But wouldn't he, Eleanor, if you were to ask him?" Eleanor made no answer. She knew, it needed but a glance at last night's experience to remind her, that she could not make head against Mr. Carlisle. If he came to talk to her about her proposed scheme, all was lost. Suddenly Eleanor threw herself off the bed, and began to dress with precipitation. "Why, are you better, Eleanor?" Julia asked in surprise. "No--but I must go down stairs. Bring me my blue dress, Julia;--and go and get me some geranium leaves--some strong-scented ones. Here--go down the back way." No matter for head-splitting. Eleanor dressed in haste, but with delicate care; in a dress that Mr. Carlisle liked. Its colour suited her, and its simple make shewed her beauty; better than a more furbelowed one. The aromatic geranium leaves were for her head--but with them Julia had brought some of the brilliant red flowers; and fastened on her breast where Eleanor could feel their sweetness, they at the same time made a bright touch of adornment to her figure. She was obliged to sit down then and rest; but as soon as she could she went to the drawing-room. There were as usual several people there besides the family; Dr. Cairnes and Miss Broadus and her sister making part. Entering with a slow quiet movement, most unlike the real hurry of her spirits, Eleanor had time to observe how different persons were placed and to choose her own plan of action. It was to slip silently into a large chair which stood empty at Mr. Carlisle's side, and which favoured her by presenting itself as the nearest attackable point of the circle. It was done with such graceful noiselessness that many did not at the moment notice her; but two persons were quick of vision where she was concerned. Mr. Carlisle bent over her with delight, and though Mrs. Powle's fair curls were not disturbed by any sudden motion of her head, her grey eyes dilated with wonder and curiosity as she listened to a story of Miss Broadus which was fitted to excite neither. Eleanor was beyond her, but she concluded that Mr. Carlisle held the key of this extraordinary docility. Eleanor sat very quiet in her chair, looking lovely, and by degrees using up her geranium leaves; with which she went through a variety of manipulations. They were picked to pieces and rubbed to pieces and their aromatic essence crushed out of them with every kind of formality. Mr. Carlisle finding that she had a headache did not trouble her to talk, and relieved her from attention; any further than his arm or hand mounting guard on her chair constantly gave. For it gathered the broken geranium leaves out of her way and picked them up from her feet. At last his hand came after hers and made it a prisoner. "You have a mood of destructiveness upon you," said he. "See there--you have done to death all the green of your bouquet." "The geranium leaves are good to my head," said Eleanor. "I want some more. Will you go with me to get them?" It gave her heart a shiver, the hold in which her hand lay. Though taken in play, the hold was so very cool and firm. Her hand lay there still, for Mr. Carlisle sat a moment after she spoke, looking at her. "I will go with you--wherever you please," he said; and putting Eleanor's hand on his arm they walked off towards the conservatory. This was at some distance, and opened out of the breakfast room. It was no great matter of a conservatory, only pretty and sweet. Eleanor began slowly to pull geranium leaves. "You are suffering, Eleanor,"--said Mr. Carlisle. "I do not think of it--you need not. Macintosh, I want to ask a favour of you." She turned to him, without raising her eyes, but made the appeal of her whole pretty presence. He drew his arm round her and suspended the business of geranium leaves. "What is it, my darling?" "You know," said Eleanor, "that when the twenty-first of December was fixed upon--for what you wished--it was a more hurried day than I would have chosen, if the choice had been left to me. I wanted more time--but you and my mother said that day, and I agreed to it. Now, my mother has taken a notion to make it still earlier--she wants to cut off a whole week from me--she wants to make it next Monday. Don't join with her! Let me have all the time that was promised me!" Eleanor could not raise her eyes; she enforced her appeal by laying her hand on Mr. Carlisle's arm. He drew her close up to him, held her fast, stooped his head to hers. "What for, Eleanor? Laces and plums can be ready as well Monday as Monday s'ennight." "For myself, Macintosh." "Don't you think of me?" "No!" said Eleanor, "I do not. It is quite enough that you should have your wish after Monday s'ennight--I ought to have it before." He laughed and kissed her. He always liked any shew of spirit in Eleanor. "My darling, what difference does a week make?" "Just the difference of a week; and more than that in my mind. I want it. Grant me this favour, Mackintosh! I ask it of you." Mr. Carlisle seemed to find it amazingly pleasant to have Eleanor sueing to him for favours; for he answered her as much with caresses as with words; both very satisfied. "You try me beyond my strength, Eleanor. Your mother offers to give you to me Monday--Do you think I care so little about this possession that I will not take it a week earlier than I had hoped to have it?" "But the week is mine--it is due to me, Macintosh. No one has a right to take it from me. You may have the power; and I ask you not to use it." "Eleanor, you break my heart. My love, do you know that I have business calling for me in London?--it is calling for me now, urgently. I must carry you up to London at once; and this week that you plead for, I do not know how to give. If I can go the fifteenth instead of the twenty-second, I must. Do you see, Nellie?" he asked very tenderly. Eleanor hardly saw anything; the world and all in it seemed to be in a swimming state before her eyes. Only Mr. Carlisle's "can's" and "must's" obeyed him, she felt sure, as well as everything else. She felt stunned. Holding her on one arm, Mr. Carlisle began to pluck flowers and myrtle sprays and to adorn her hair with them. It was a labour of love; he liked the business and played with it. The beautiful brown masses of hair invited and rewarded attention. "Then my mother has spoken to you?" she said at length. "Yes,"--he said, arranging a spray of heath with white blossoms. "Do you blame me?" Eleanor sought to withdraw herself from his arm, but he detained her. "Where are you going?" "Up stairs--to my room." "Do you forgive me, Eleanor?" he said, looking down at her. "No,--I think I do not." He laughed a little, kissing her downcast face. "I will make you my wife, Monday, Eleanor; and after that I will make you forgive me; and then--my wife shall ask me nothing that she shall not have." Keeping her on his arm, he led her slowly from the conservatory, through the rooms, and up the staircase, to the door of her own apartment. Eleanor tore out the flowers as soon as she was alone, locked her door, meaning at least not to see her mother that night; took off her dress and lay down. Refuge failed her. She was in despair. What could she arrange between Tuesday night and Monday?--short of taking poison, or absconding privately from the house, and so disgracing both herself and her family. Yet Eleanor was in such desperation of feeling that both those expedients occurred to her in the course of the night, although only to be rejected. Worn-out nature must have some rest however; and towards morning she slept. It was late when she opened her eyes. They fell first upon Julia, standing at her bedside. "Are you awake, Eleanor?" "Yes. I wish I could sleep on." "There's news." "News! What sort of news?" said Eleanor, feeling that none concerned her. "It's bad news--and yet--for you--it is good news." "What is it, child? Speak." "Lady Rythdale--she is dead." Eleanor raised herself on her elbow and stared at Julia. "How do you know? how do you know?" she said. "A messenger came to tell us--she died last night. The man came a good while ago, but--" She never finished her sentence; for Eleanor threw herself out of bed, exclaiming, "I am saved! I am saved!"--and went down on her knees by the bedside. It was hardly to pray, for Eleanor scarce knew how to pray; yet that position seemed an embodiment of thanks she could not speak. She kept it a good while, still as death. Julia stood motionless, looking on. "Don't think me wicked," said Eleanor getting up at last. "I am not glad of anything but my own deliverance. Oh, Julia!" "Poor Eleanor!" said her little sister wonderingly. "Then you don't want to be married and go to Rythdale?" "Not Monday!" said Eleanor. "And now I shall not. It is not possible that a wedding and a funeral should be in one house on the same day. I know which they would put off if they could, but they have got to put off the other. O Julia, it is the saving of me!" She caught the little one in her arms and sat with her so, their two heads nestling together, Eleanor's bowed upon her sister's neck. "But Eleanor, will you not marry Mr. Carlisle after all?" "I cannot,--for a good while, child." "But then?" "I shall _never_ be married in a hurry. I have got breathing time--time to think. And I'll use it." "And, O Eleanor! won't you do something else?" "What?" "Won't you be a servant of the Lord?" "I will--if I can find out how," Eleanor answered low. It poured with rain. Eleanor liked it that day, though generally she was no lover of weather that kept her within. A spell of soothing had descended upon her. Life was no longer the rough thing it had seemed to her yesterday. A constant drop of thankfulness at her heart kept all her words and manner sweet with its secret perfume. Eleanor's temper was always as sound as a nut; but there was now a peculiar grace of gentleness and softness in all she did. She was able to go faultlessly through all the scenes of that day and the following days; through her mother's open discomfiture and half expressed disappointment, and Mr. Carlisle's suppressed impatience. His manner was perfect too; his impatience was by no word or look made known; grave, quiet, self-contained, he only allowed his affectionateness towards Eleanor to have full play, and the expression of that was changed. He did not appeal to her for sympathy which perhaps he had a secret knowledge she could not give; but with lofty good breeding and his invariable tact he took it for granted. Eleanor's part was an easy one through those days which passed before Mr. Carlisle's going up to London. He went immediately after the funeral. It was understood, however, between him and Mrs. Powle, that the marriage should be delayed no longer than till some time in the spring. Then, Mr. Carlisle declared, he should carry into effect his original plan of going abroad, and take Eleanor with him. Eleanor heard them talk, and kept silence; letting them arrange it their own way. "For a little while, Eleanor!" were the parting words which Mr. Carlisle's lips left upon hers. And Eleanor turned then to look at what was before her. CHAPTER XIV. AT THE RECTORY. "The earth has lost its power to drag me downward; Its spell is gone; My course is now right upward, and right onward, To yonder throne." She had three months of quiet time. Not more; and they would quickly speed away. What she had to do, she could not do too soon. Eleanor knew it. The soothed feeling of the first few days gave place to a restless mood almost as soon as Mr. Carlisle was gone. Three years seemed more like what she wanted than three months. She felt ignorant, dark, and unhappy; how was she to clear up this moral mist and see how the plan of life lay, without any hand to lead her or help her? There was only one she knew in the world that could; and from any application to him, or even any chance contact with him, Eleanor consciously shrank. _That_ would never do; that must never be heard of her. With all this, she began to dread the disturbing and confusing effects of Mr. Carlisle's visits to the country. He would come; he had said so; and Mrs. Powle kept reminding her of it upon every occasion. Eleanor had been forbidden to ride alone. She did not dare; she took to long lonely walks. It was only out of doors that she felt quite free; in her own room at home, though never so private, her mother would at any time come with distracting subjects of conversation. Eleanor fled to the moor and to the wilds; walked, and rested on the stones, and thought; till she found thinking degenerate into musing; then she started up and went on. She tired herself. She did not find rest. One day she took her course purposely to the ruined priory. It was a long walk; but Eleanor courted long walks. And when she got there, musing, it must be confessed, had a good time. She stepped slowly down the grass-grown nave of the old church, recalling with much bitterness the day of her betrothal there; blaming herself, and blaming her mother more. Yet at any rate that day she had set seal to her own fate; would she be able, and had she a right,--that was the worst question,--to break it now? She wandered on, out of the church, away from the beautiful old ivied tower, which seemed to look down on her with grave reproach from the staidness of years and wisdom; wound about over and among the piles of shapeless ruin and the bits of lichened and moss-grown walls, yet standing here and there; not saying to herself exactly where she was going, but trying if she could find out the way; till she saw a thicket of thorn and holly bushes that she remembered. Yes, the latches too, and the young growth of beech trees. Eleanor plunged through this thicket, as well as she could; it was not easy; and there before her was the clear spot of grass, the angle of the thick old wall, and the deep window that she wanted to see again. All still and lonely and wild. Eleanor went across and took a seat in the window as she had done once before, to rest and think. And then what she thought of, was not the old monks, nor the exquisite fair view out of the window that had belonged to them; though it was a soft December day, and the light was as winning fair on house and hill and tree-top as if it had been a different season of the year. No cloud in the sky, and no dark shadows upon the earth. But Eleanor's thoughts went back to the thunderstorm, and her need then first felt of an inward sunshine that would last in cloudy times. She recalled the talk about the Christian's helmet; with a weary, sorrowful, keen renewal of regret at her own want of it. The words Mr. Rhys had spoken about it at that time she could not very well remember; but well she remembered the impression of them, and the noble, clear calmness of his face and manner. Very unlike all other calmness and nobleness that she had seen. The nobleness of one whose head was covered by that royal basnet; the fearlessness of one whose brows were consciously shaded by it. The simplicity that had nothing to feign or conceal; the poise of manner that came from an established heart and conscience. Eleanor presently caught herself up. What was she thinking about Mr. Rhys for? True, the thought of him was very near the thought of his teaching; nevertheless the one thing concerned her, the other did not. Did it not? Eleanor sighed, and wished she could have a little of his wise guidance; for notwithstanding all she had heard him say, she felt in the dark. In the midst of all this, Eleanor heard somebody humming a scrap of a tune on the other side of the holly bushes. Another instant told her it was a tune she had heard never but once before, and that once in Mr. Brooks's barn. There was besides a little rustling of the thorn bushes. Eleanor could think of but one person coming to that spot of the ruins; and in sudden terror she sprang from the window and rushed round the other corner of the wall. The tune ceased; Eleanor heard no more; but she dared not falter or look back. She was in a thicket on this side too, and in a mass of decayed ruins and rubbish which almost stopped her way. By determination and perseverance, with some knocks and scratches, she at last got free and stopped to breathe and think. Why was she so frightened? Mr. Carlisle. But what should she do now? Suppose she set off to walk home; she might be joined by the person she wished to shun; it was impossible to foresee that he would sit an hour meditating in the old window. Over against Eleanor, a little distance off, only plantations of shrubbery and soft turf between, was the Rector's house. Best go there and take refuge, and then be guided by circumstances. She went accordingly, feeling sorrowful that she should have to run away from the very person whose counsel of all others she most needed. The door was opened to Eleanor by the Rector himself. "Ha! my dear Miss Powle," said the good doctor,--"this is an honour to me. I don't know what you will do now, for my sister is away at Brompton--will you come in and see an old bachelor like myself?" "If you will let me, sir." "I shall be delighted, my dear Miss Eleanor! You were always welcome, ever since you were so high; and now that you are going to occupy so important a position here, I do not know a lady in the neighbourhood that deserves so much consideration as yourself. Come in--come in! How did you get here?" "Taking a long walk, sir. Perhaps you will give me some refreshments." "I shall be delighted. Come in here, and we will have luncheon together in my study--which was never so honoured before; but I think it is the pleasantest place in the house. The other rooms my sister fills with gimcracks, till I cannot turn round there without fear of breaking something, Now my old folios and octavos have tried a fall many a time--and many a one has tried a fall with them--ha! ha!--and no harm to anybody. Sit down there now, Miss Eleanor, and rest. That's what I call a pretty window. You see I am in no danger of forgetting my friend Mr. Carlisle here." Eleanor looked out of the window very steadily; yet she was not refreshing her remembrance of Mr. Carlisle neither. There were glimpses of a tall, alert figure, passing leisurely in and out among the trees and the ruins; finally coming out into full view and walking with brisk step over the greensward till he was out of sight. Eleanor knew it very well, the figure and the quick step; the energy and life in every movement. She heard no more of Dr. Cairnes for some time; though doubtless he was talking, for he had ordered luncheon and now it was served, and he was pressing her to partake of it. Dr. Cairnes' cheese was excellent; his hung beef was of prime quality; and the ale was of a superior brand, and the wine which he poured out for Eleanor was, he assured her, as its sparkling drops fell into the glass, of a purity and flavour "that even his friend Mr. Carlisle would not refuse to close his lips upon." Eleanor felt faint and weary, and she knew Mr. Carlisle's critical accuracy; but she recollected at the same time Mr. Rhys's cool abstinence, and she put the glass of wine away. "_Not?_" said the doctor. "You would prefer a cup of chocolate. Bad taste, Miss Eleanor--wine is better for you, too. Ladies will sup chocolate, I believe; I wonder what they find in it. The thing is, my sister being away to-day, I don't know--" Eleanor begged he would not mind that, nor her; however the chocolate was ordered and in due time brought. "Now that will make you dull," said the doctor,--"sleepy. It does not have, even on you, the reviving, brilliant effect of _this_ beverage." And he put the bright glass of wine to his lips. It was not the first filled. "Before I get dull, dear doctor, I want to talk to you." "Aye?" said the doctor, looking at her over the wine. "You do? What about? Say on, Miss Eleanor. I am yours doubly now, by the past and the future. You may command me." "It is about the present, I wish to talk," said Eleanor. "What is it?" "My mind is not at rest," said Eleanor, laying her hands in her lap, and looking off again towards the ruins with their green and grey silent reminders,--"about religious subjects." "Ah?" said Dr. Cairnes. "How is that, Miss Eleanor? Be a little more explicit with me, will you not." "I will. Dr. Cairnes, I am young now, but by and by decay must come to me, as it has come to that old pile yonder--as it comes to everything. I want security for my head and heart when earthly security fails." Eleanor spoke slowly, looking out as she spoke all the while. "Security!" said the doctor. "But my dear Miss Eleanor, you know the articles of our holy religion?" "Yes,--" she said without stirring her position. "Security is given by them, most amply and abundantly, to every sincere applicant. Your life has been a sheltered one, Miss Eleanor, and a kind one; you can have no very grievous sins to charge yourself with." "I would like to get rid of such as I have," answered Eleanor without moving. "You were baptized in infancy?" "Yes, sir." "You have never been confirmed?" "No, sir." "Every baptized child of the Church, Miss Eleanor, owes it to God, to herself, and the Church, upon arriving at a proper age, to come forward and openly take upon herself--or himself--but I am talking of you,--the vows made for her in her infancy, at her baptism, by her sponsors. Upon doing this, she is received into full membership with the Church and entitled to all its privileges; and undoubtedly security is one of them. That is what you want to do, Miss Eleanor; and I am truly rejoiced that your mind is setting itself to the contemplation of its duties--and responsibilities. In the station you are preparing to occupy, the head of all this neighbourhood--Wiglands and Rythdale both--it is most important, most important, that your example should be altogether blameless and your influence thrown altogether on the right side. That influence, my dear Miss Eleanor, is very great." "Dr. Cairnes, my one single present desire, is to do right and feel safe, myself." "Precisely. And to do right, is the way to feel safe. I will give you a little work, preparatory to the ordinance of confirmation, Miss Eleanor, which I entreat you to study and prayerfully follow. That will relieve all your difficulties, I have no fear. There it is, Miss Eleanor." "Will this rite--will this ordinance," said Eleanor closing her fingers on the book and for the first time looking the doctor straight in the face,--"will it give me that helmet of salvation, of which I have heard?" "Hey? what is that?" said the doctor. "I have heard--and read--of the Christian 'helmet of salvation.' I have seen that a person whose brows are covered by it, goes along fearless, hopeful, and happy, dreading nothing in this life or the next.--Will being confirmed, put this helmet upon my head?--make me fearless and happy too?" "My dear Miss Eleanor, I cannot express how you astonish me. I always have thought you were one of the strongest-hearted persons I knew; and in your circumstances I am sure it was natural--But to your question. The benefit of confirmation, my dear young lady, as well as of every other ordinance of the Church, depends of course on the manner and spirit with which we engage in it. There is confirming and strengthening grace in it undoubtedly for all who come to the ordinance in humble obedience, with prayer and faith, and who truly take upon them their vows." "But, Dr. Cairnes, I might die before I could be confirmed; and I want rest and security now. I do not have it, day nor night. I have not, ever since the time when I was so ill last summer. I want it _now_." "My dear Miss Eleanor, the only way to obtain security and rest, is in doing one's duty. Do your duty now, and it will come. Your conscience has taken up the matter, and will have satisfaction. Give it satisfaction, and rest will come." "How can I give it satisfaction?" said Eleanor sitting up and looking at the doctor. "I feel myself guilty--I know myself exposed to ruin, to death that means death; what can I give to my conscience, to make it be still?" "The Church offers absolution for their sins to all that are truly sorry for them," said the doctor. "Are you penitent on account of your sins, Miss Eleanor?" "Penitent?--I don't know," said Eleanor drooping a little from her upright position. "I feel them, and know them, and wish them away; but if I were penitent, they would be gone, wouldn't they? and they are not gone." "I see how it is," said the doctor. "You have too much leisure to think, and your thoughts are turning in upon themselves and becoming morbid. I think this is undue sensitiveness, my dear Miss Eleanor. The sins we wish away, will never be made a subject of judgment against us. I shall tell my friend Mr. Carlisle that his presence is wanted here, for something more important than the interests of the county. I shall tell him he must not let you think too much. I think he and I together can put you right. In the mean while, you read my little book." "Dr. Cairnes, what I have said to you is said in strict confidence. I do not wish it spoken of, even to my mother." "Of course, of course!" said the doctor. "_That_ is all understood. The Church never reveals her children's secrets. But I shall only give him a little gentle hint, which will be quite sufficient, I have no doubt; and I shall have just the co-operation that I desire." "How excellent your cheese is, Dr. Cairnes." "Ah! you like it," said the doctor. "I am proud. I always purchase my cheese myself--that is one thing I do not leave to my sister. But this one I think is particularly fine. You won't take a half glass of ale with it?--no,--I know Mr. Carlisle does not like ale. But it would be a good sequent of your ride, nevertheless." "I did not ride, sir. I walked." "Walked from Ivy Lodge! All this way to see me, Miss Eleanor?" "No sir--only for a walk, and to see the ruins. Then I was driven to take shelter here." "I am very glad of it! I am very glad of it!" said the doctor. "I have not enjoyed my luncheon so much in a year's time; and you delight me too, my dear Miss Eleanor, by your present dispositions. But walk all the way here! I shall certainly write to Mr. Carlisle." Eleanor's cheeks flushed, and she rose. "Not only all the way here, but all the way back again," said she; "so it is time I bade you good bye." The doctor was very anxious to carry her home in the chaise; Eleanor was more determined that he should not; and determination as usual carried the day. The doctor shook his head as he watched her off. "Are you going to shew this spirit to Mr. Carlisle?" he said. Which remark gave Eleanor an impetus that carried her a third of her way home. During the remaining two thirds she did a good deal of thinking; and arrived at the Lodge with her mind made up. There was no chance of peace and a good time for her, without going away from home. Dr. Cairnes' officiousness would be sure to do something to arouse Mr. Carlisle's watchfulness; and then--"the game will be up," said Eleanor to herself. "Between his being here and the incessant expectation of him, there will be no rest for me. I must get away." She laid her plans. After dinner she slipped away and sought her father in his study. It was called his study, though very little of that character truly belonged to it. More truly it balanced between the two purposes of a smoking-room and an office; for county business was undoubtedly done there; and it was the nook of retirement where the Squire indulged himself in his favoured luxury, the sweet weed. The Squire took it pure, in a pipe; no cigars for him; and filling his pipe Eleanor found him. She lit the pipe for him, and contrary to custom sat down. The Squire puffed away. "I thought you didn't care for this sort of thing, Eleanor," he remarked. "Are you learning not to mind it already? It is just as well! Perhaps your husband will want you to sit with him when he smokes." "I would not do that for any man in the world, papa, except you!" "Ho! Ho!" said the Squire. "Good wives, my dear, do not mind trifles. They had better not, at any rate." "Papa," said Eleanor, whose cheeks were flaming, "do you not think, since a girl must give up her liberty so completely in marrying, that she ought to be allowed a good little taste of it beforehand?" "St. George and the Dragon! I do," said the Squire. "Your mother says it tends to lawlessness--and I say, I don't care. That is not my concern. If a man cannot rule his wife, he had better not have one--that is my opinion; and in your case, my dear, there is no fear. Mr. Carlisle is quite equal to his duties, or I am mistaken in him." Eleanor felt nearly wild under her father's speeches; nevertheless she sat perfectly quiet, only fiery about her cheeks. "Then, papa, to come to the point, don't you think in the little time that remains to me for my own, I might be allowed to do what I please with myself?" "I should say it was a plain case," said the Squire. "Take your pleasure, Nellie; I won't tether you. What do you want to do, child? I take it, you belong to me till you belong to somebody else." "Papa, I want to run away, and make a visit to my aunt Caxton. I shall never have another chance in the world--and I want to go off and be by myself and feel free once more, and have a good time." "Poor little duck!" said her father. "You are a sensible girl, Nellie. Go off; nobody shall hinder you." "Papa, unless you back me, mamma and Mr. Carlisle will not hear of it." "I'd go before he comes down then," said the Squire, knocking the ashes out of his pipe energetically. "St. George! I believe that man half thinks, sometimes, that I am one of his tenantry? The lords of Rythdale always did lord it over everything that came in their way. Now is your only chance, Eleanor; run away, if you're a mind to; Mr. Carlisle is master in his own house, no doubt, but he is not master in mine; and I say, you may go. Do him no harm to be kept on short commons for a little while." With a joyful heart Eleanor went back to the drawing-room, and sat patiently still at some fancy work till Mrs. Powle waked up from a nap. "Mamma, Dr. Cairnes wants me to be confirmed." "Confirmed!"--Mrs. Powle echoed the word, sitting bolt upright in her chair and opening her sleepy eyes wide at her daughter. "Yes. He says I ought to be confirmed. He has given me a book upon confirmation to study." "I wonder what you will do next!" said Mrs. Powle, sinking back. "Well, go on, if you like. Certainly, if you are to be confirmed, it ought to be done before your marriage. I wish anything _would_ confirm you in sober ways." "Mamma, I want to give this subject serious study, if I enter into it; and I cannot do it properly at home. I want to go away for a visit." "Well?" said Mrs. Powle, thinking of some cousins in London. "I want to be alone and quiet and have absolute peace for awhile; and this death of Lady Rythdale makes it possible. I want to go and make a visit to my aunt Caxton." "Caxton!"--Mrs. Powle almost screamed. "Caxton! _There!_ In the mountains of Wales! Eleanor, you are perfectly absurd. It is no use to talk to you." "Mamma, papa sees no objection." "_He_ does not! So you have been speaking to him! Make your own fortunes, Eleanor! I see you ruined already. With what favour do you suppose Mr. Carlisle will look upon such a project? Pray have you asked yourself?" "Yes, ma'am; and I am not going to consult him in the matter." The tea-equipage and the Squire came in together and stopped the conversation. Eleanor took care not to renew it, knowing that her point was gained. She took her father's hint, however, and made her preparations short and sudden. She sent that night a word, telling of her wish, to Mrs. Caxton; and waited but till the answer arrived, waited on thorns, to set off. The Squire looked rather moody the next day after his promise to Eleanor; but he would not withdraw it; and no other hindrance came. Eleanor departed safely, under the protection of old Thomas, the coachman, long a faithful servitor in the family. The journey was only part of the distance by railway; the rest was by posting; and a night had to be spent on the road. Towards evening of the second day, Eleanor began to find herself in what seemed an enchanted region. High mountains, with picturesque bold outlines, rose against the sky; and every step was bringing her deeper and deeper among them, in a rich green meadow valley. The scenery grew only wilder, richer, and lovelier, until the sun sank behind the high western line; and still its loveliness was not lost; while grey shades and duskiness gathered over the mountain sides and gradually melted the meadows and their scattered wood growth into one hue. Then only the wild mountain outline cut against the sky, and sometimes the rushing of a little river, told Eleanor of the varied beauty the evening hid. Little else she could see when the chaise stopped and she got out. Dimly a long, low building stretched before her at the side of the road; the rippling of water sounded softly at a little distance; the fresh mountain air blew in her face; then the house-door opened. CHAPTER XV. IN THE HILLS. "Face to face with the true mountains I stood silently and still, Drawing strength from fancy's dauntings, From the air about the hill, And from Nature's open mercies, and most debonair good will." The house-door opened first to shew a girl in short petticoats and blue jacket holding up a light. Eleanor made towards it, across a narrow strip of courtyard. She saw only the girl, and did not feel certain whether she had come to the right house. For neither Mrs. Caxton nor her home had ever been seen by any of Mr. Powle's children; though she was his own sister. But Mrs. Caxton had married quite out of _Mrs_. Powle's world; and though now a widow, she lived still the mistress of a great cheese farm; quite out of Mrs. Powle's world still. The latter had therefore never encouraged intercourse. Mrs. Caxton was an excellent woman, no doubt, and extremely respectable; still, Ivy Lodge and the cheese farm were further apart in feeling than in geographical miles; and though Mrs. Caxton often invited her brother's children to come and pick butter-cups in her meadows, Mrs. Powle always proved that to gather primroses in Rythdale was a higher employment, and much better for the children's manners, if not for their health. The Squire at this late day had been unaffectedly glad of Eleanor's proposal; avowing himself not ashamed of his sister or his children either. For Eleanor herself, she had no great expectation, except of rural retirement in a place where Mr. Carlisle would not follow her. That was enough. She had heard besides that the country was beautiful, and her aunt well off. As she stepped up now doubtfully to the girl with the light, looking to see whether she were right or wrong, the girl moved a little aside so as to light the entrance, and Eleanor passed on, discerning another figure behind. A good wholesome voice exclaimed, "You are welcome, my dear! It is Eleanor?" and the next instant Mr Powle's daughter found herself taken into one of those warm, gentle, genial embraces, that tell unmistakeably what sort of a heart moves the enfolding arms. It was rest and strength at once; and the lips that kissed her--there is a great deal of character in a kiss--were at once sweet and firm. "You have been all day travelling, my dear. You must be in want of rest." There was that sort of clear strength in the voice, to which one gives, even in the dark, one's confidence. Eleanor's foot fell more firmly on the tiled floor, as she followed her aunt along a passage or two; a little uncertainty in her heart was quieted; she was ready prepared to expect anything pleasant; and as they turned in at a low door, the expectation was met. The door admitted them to a low-ceiled room, also with a tiled floor, large and light. A good wood fire burned in the quaint chimney-piece; before it a table stood prepared for supper. A bit of carpet was laid down under the table and made a spot of extra comfort in the middle of the floor. Dark plain wainscotting, heavy furniture of simplest fashion, little windows well curtained; all nothing to speak of; all joined inexplicably to produce the impression of order, stability and repose, which seized upon Eleanor almost before she had time to observe details. But the mute things in a house have an odd way of telegraphing to a stranger what sort of a spirit dwells in the midst of them. It is always so; and Mrs. Caxton's room assured Eleanor that her first notions of its mistress were not ill-founded. She had opportunity to test and strengthen them now, in the full blaze of lamp and firelight; as her aunt stood before her taking off her bonnet and wrappers and handing them over to another attendant with a candle and a blue jacket. In the low room Mrs. Caxton looked even taller than belonged to her; and she was tall, and of noble full proportions that set off her height. Eleanor thought she had never seen a woman of more dignified presence; the head was set well back on the shoulders, the carriage straight, and the whole moral and physical bearing placid and quiet. Of course the actual movement was easy and fine; for that is with every one a compound of the physical and moral. Scarcely Elizabeth Fry had finer port or figure. The face was good, and strong; the eyes full of intelligence under the thick dark brows; all the lines of the face kind and commanding. A cap of very plain construction covered the abundant hair, which was only a little grey. Nothing else about Mrs. Caxton shewed age. Her dress was simple to quaintness; but, relieved by her magnificent figure, that effect was forgotten, or only remembered as enhancing the other. Eleanor sat down in a great leather chair, where she had been put, and looked on in a sort of charmed state; while her aunt moved about the table, gave quiet orders, made quiet arrangements, and finally took Eleanor's hand and seated her at the tea-table. "Not poppies, nor mandragora" could have had such a power of soothing over Eleanor's spirits. She sat at the table like a fairy princess under a friendly incantation; and the spell was not broken by any word or look on the part of her hostess. No questions of curiosity; no endeavours to find out more of Eleanor than she chose to shew; no surprise expressed at her mid-winter coming; nor so much pleasure as would have the effect of surprise. So naturally and cordially and with as much simplicity her visit was taken, as if it had been a yearly accustomed thing, and one of Mr. Powle's children had not now seen her aunt for the first time. Indeed so rare was the good sense and kindness of this reception, that Eleanor caught herself wondering whether her aunt could already know more of her than she seemed to know; and not caring if she did! Yet it was impossible, for her mother would not tell her story, and her father could not; and Eleanor came round to admiring with fresh admiration this noble-looking, new-found relation, whose manner towards herself inspired her with such confidence and exercised already such a powerful attraction. And _this_ was the mistress of a cheese-farm! Eleanor could not help being moved with a little curiosity on her part. This lady had no children; no near relations; for she was ignored by her brother's family. She lived alone; was she not lonely? Would she not wear misanthropical or weary traces of such a life? None; none were to be seen. Clear placidness dwelt on the brow, that looked as if nothing ever ruffled it; the eye was full of business and command; and the mouth,--its corners told of a fountain of sweetness somewhere in the region of the heart. Eleanor looked, and went back to her cup of tea and her supper with a renewed sense of comfort. The supper was excellent too. It would have belied Mrs. Caxton's look of executive capacity if it had not been. No fault was to be discerned anywhere. The tea-service was extremely plain and inexpensive; such as Mrs. Powle could not have used; that was certain. But then the bread, and the mutton chops, and the butter, and even the tea, were such as Mrs. Powle's china was never privileged to bear. And though Mrs. Caxton left in the background every topic of doubtful agreeableness, the talk flowed steadily with abundance of material and animation, during the whole supper-time. Mrs. Caxton was the chief talker. She had plenty to tell Eleanor of the country and people in the neighbourhood; of things to be seen and things to be done; so that supper moved slowly, and was a refreshment of mind as well as of body. "You are very weary, my dear," said Mrs. Caxton, after the table was cleared away, and the talk had continued through all that time. And Eleanor confessed it. In the calm which was settling down upon her, the strain of hours and days gone by began to be felt. "You shall go to your room presently," said Mrs. Caxton; "and you shall not get up to breakfast with me. That would be too early for you." Eleanor was going to enter a protest, when her aunt turned and gave an order in Welsh to the blue jacket then in the room. And then Eleanor had a surprise. Mrs. Caxton took a seat at a little distance, before a stand with a book; and the door opening again, in poured a stream of blue jackets, three or four, followed by three men and a boy. All ranged themselves on seats round the room, and Mrs. Caxton opened her book and read a chapter in the Bible. Eleanor listened, in mute wonder where this would end. It ended in all kneeling down and Mrs. Caxton offering a prayer. An extempore prayer, which for simplicity, strength, and feeling, answered all Eleanor's sense of what a prayer ought to be; though how a woman could speak it before others and before _men_, filled her with astonishment. But it filled her with humility too, before it was done; and Eleanor rose to her feet with an intense feeling of the difference between her aunt's character and her own; only equalled by her deep gladness at finding herself under the roof where she was. Her aunt then took a candle and lighted her through the tiled passages, up some low wooden stairs, uncarpeted; along more passages; finally into a large low matted chamber, with a row of little lattice windows. Comfort and simplicity were in all its arrangements; a little fire burning for her; Eleanor's trunks in a closet. When Mrs. Caxton had shewed her all that was necessary, she set down her candle on the low mantelshelf, and took Eleanor in her arms. Again those peculiar, gentle firm kisses fell upon her lips. But instead of "good night," Mrs. Caxton's words were, "Do you pray for yourself, Eleanor?" Eleanor dropped her head like a child on the breast before her. "Aunt Caxton, I do not know how!" "Then the Lord Jesus has not a servant in Eleanor Powle?" Eleanor was silent, thoughts struggling. "You have not learned to love him, Eleanor?" "I have only learned to wish to do it, aunt Caxton! I do wish that. It was partly that I might seek it, that I wanted to come here." Then Eleanor heard a deep-spoken, "Praise the Lord!" that seemed to come out from the very heart on which she was leaning. "If you have a mind to seek him, my dear, he is willing that you should find. 'The Lord is good to the soul that seeketh him.'" She kissed Eleanor on the two temples, released her and went down stairs. And Eleanor sat down before her fire, feeling as if she were in a paradise. It was all the more so, from the unlikeness of everything that met her eye, to all she had known before. The chimney-piece at which she was looking as she sat there--it was odd and quaint as possible, to a person accustomed only to the modern fashions of the elegant world; the fire-tongs and shovel would have been surely consigned to the kitchen department at Ivy Lodge. Yet the little blazing fire, framed in by its rows of coloured tiles, looked as cheerfully into Eleanor's face as any blaze that had ever greeted it. All was of a piece with the fireplace. Simple to quaintness, utterly plain and costless, yet with none of the essentials of comfort forgotten or neglected; from the odd little lattice windows to the tiled floor, everything said she was at a great distance from her former life, and Mr. Carlisle. The room looked as if it had been made for Eleanor to settle her two life-questions in it. Accordingly she took them up without delay; but Eleanor's mind that night was like a kaleidoscope. Images of different people and things started up, with wearying perversity of change and combination; and the question, whether she would be a servant of God like her aunt Caxton, was inextricably twisted up with the other question; whether she could escape being the baroness of Rythdale and the wife of Mr. Carlisle. And Eleanor did nothing but tire herself with thinking that night; until the fire was burnt out and she went to bed. Nevertheless she fell asleep with a sense of relief more blissful than she had known for months. She had put a little distance at least between her and her enemies. Eleanor had meant to be early next day, but rest had taken too good hold of her; it was long past early when she opened her eyes. The rays of the morning sun were peeping in through the lattices. Eleanor sprang up and threw open, or rather threw back, one of the windows, for the lattice slid in grooves instead of hanging on hinges. She would never have found out how to open them, but that one lattice stood slightly pushed back already. When it was quite out of her way, Eleanor's breath almost stopped. A view so wild, so picturesque, so rare in its outlines of beauty, she thought she had never seen. Before her, at some distance, beyond a piece of broken ground, rose a bare-looking height of considerable elevation, crowned by an old tower massively constructed, broken, and ivy-grown. The little track of a footpath was visible that wound round the hill; probably going up to the tower. Further beyond, with evidently a deep valley or gorge between, a line of much higher hills swept off to the left; bare also, and moulded to suit a painter of weird scenes, yet most lovely, and all seen now in the fair morning beams which coloured and lighted them and the old tower together. Nothing else. The road indeed by which she had come passed close before Eleanor's window; but trees embowered it, though they had been kept down so as not to hinder this distant view. Eleanor sat a long while spell-bound before the window. A noise disturbed her. It was one of the blue jackets bringing a tray with breakfast. Eleanor eagerly asked if Mrs. Caxton had taken breakfast; but all she got in return was a series of unintelligible sounds; however as the girl pointed to the sun, she concluded that the family breakfast hour was past. Everything strange again! At Ivy Lodge the breakfast hour lasted till the lagging members of the family had all come down; and here there was no family! How could happiness belong to anybody in such circumstances? The prospect within doors, Eleanor suddenly remembered, was yet more interesting than the view without. She eat her breakfast and dressed and went down. But to find the room where she had been the evening before, was more than her powers were equal to. Going from one passage to another, turning and turning back, afraid to open doors to ask somebody; Eleanor was quite bewildered, when she happily was met by her aunt. The morning kiss and greeting renewed in her heart all the peace of last night. "I cannot find my way about in your house, aunt Caxton. It seems a labyrinth." "It will not seem so long. Let me shew you the way out of it." Through one or two more turnings Mrs. Caxton led her niece, and opening a door took her out at the other side, the back of the house, where Eleanor's eyes had not been. Here there was a sort of covered gallery, extending to some length under what was either an upper piazza or the projection of the second story floor. The ground was paved with tiles as usual, and wooden settles stood along the wall, and plain stone pillars supported the roof. But as Eleanor's eyes went out further she caught her aunt's hand in ecstasy. From almost the edge of the covered gallery, a little terraced garden sloped down to the edge of a small river. The house stood on a bank above the river, at a commanding height; and on the river's further shore a rich sweep of meadow and pasture land stretched to the right and left and filled the whole breadth of the valley; on the other side of which, right up from the green fields, rose another line of hills. These were soft, swelling, round-topped hills, very different in their outlines from those in another quarter which Eleanor had been enjoying from her window. It was winter now, and the garden had lost its glory; yet Eleanor could see, for her eye was trained in such matters, that good and excellent care was at home in it; and some delicate things were there for which a slight protection had been thought needful. The river was lost to view immediately at the right; it wound down from the other hand through the rich meadows under a thick embowering bosky growth of trees; and just below the house it was spanned by a rude stone bridge, from which a hedged lane led off on the other side. All along the fences or hedges which enclosed the fields grew also beautiful old trees; the whole landscape was decked with wood growth, though the hills had little or none. All the more the sweet contrast; the rare harmony; the beautiful mingling of soft cultivation with what was wild and picturesque and barren. And the river gurgled on, with a fresh sound that told of its activity; and a very large herd of cows spotted the green turf in some of the meadows on the other side of the stream. "I never saw any place so lovely," exclaimed Eleanor; "never!" "This is my favourite walking place in winter," said Mrs. Caxton; "when I want to walk under shelter, or not to go far from home." "How charming that garden must be when the spring comes!" "Are you fond of gardening?" said Mrs. Caxton. A talk upon the subject followed, in which Eleanor perceived with some increase of respect that her aunt was no ignoramus; nay, that she was familiar with delicacies both in the practice and the subjects of horticulture that were not well known to Eleanor, in spite of her advantages of the Lodge and Rythdale conservatories and gardens both together. In the course of this talk, Eleanor noticed anew all the indications that had pleased her last night; the calm good sense and self-possession; the quiet dignity; the decision; the kindness. And perhaps Mrs. Caxton too made her observations. But this was the mistress of the cheese-farm! A pause fell in their talk at length; probably both had matter for reflection. "Have you settled that question, Eleanor?" said her aunt meaningly. "That question?--O no, aunt Caxton! It is all confusion; and it is all confused with another question." There was more than talk in this evidently, for Eleanor's face had all darkened. Mrs. Caxton answered calmly, "My dear, the first thing I would do, would be to separate them." "Aunty, they are like two wrestlers; I cannot seem to separate them. If I think of the one, I get hold of he other; and if I take up the other, I am obliged to think of the one; and my mind is the fighting ground." "Then the two questions are in reality one?" "No, aunt Caxton--they are not. Only they both press for attention at once." "Which is the most important?" "This one--about which you asked me," Eleanor said, drooping her head a little. "Then decide that to-day, Eleanor." "Aunty, I have decided it--in one way. I am determined what I will be--if I can. Only I do not see how. And before I do see how,--perhaps--the other question may have decided itself; and then--Aunty, I cannot tell you about it to-day. Let me wait a few days; till I know you better and you have time to know me." "Then, as it is desirable you should lose no time, I shall keep you with me, Eleanor. Would you like to-morrow to go through the dairies and see the operation of cheese-making? Did you ever see it?" "Aunt Caxton, I know no more about cheese than that I have eaten it sometimes. I would like to go to-morrow, or to-day; whenever you please." "The work is nearly over for to-day." "Do they make cheese in your dairy every day, aunt Caxton?" "Two every day." "But you must have a great number of cows, ma'am?" "There they are," said her aunt, looking towards the opposite meadows. "We milk between forty and fifty at present; there are about thirty dry." "Seventy or eighty cows!" exclaimed Eleanor. "Why aunt Caxton, you must want the whole valley for their pasturing." "I want no more than I have," said Mrs. Caxton quietly. "You see, those meadows on the other side of the river look rich. It is a very good cheese farm." "How far does it extend, aunty?" "All along, the meadowland, as far as you see." "I do not believe there is a pleasanter or prettier home in all the kingdom!" Eleanor exclaimed. "How charming, aunt Caxton, all this must be in summer, when your garden is in bloom." "There is a way of carrying summer along with us through all the year, Eleanor; do you know that?" "Do you wear the 'helmet' too?" thought Eleanor. "I have no doubt but you do, over that calm brow!" But she only looked wistfully at her aunt, and Mrs. Caxton changed the conversation. She sat down with Eleanor on a settle, for the day was mild and the place sheltered; and talked with her of home and her family. She shewed an affectionate interest in all the details concerning her brother's household and life, but Eleanor admired with still increasing and profound respect, the delicacy which stopped every inquiry at the point where delicacy might wish to withhold the answer. The uprightest self-respect went hand in hand with the gentlest regard and respect for others. To this reserve Eleanor was more communicative than she could have been to another manner; and on some points her hesitancy told as much, perhaps, as her disclosures on other points; so that Mrs. Caxton was left with some general idea, if not more, of the home Eleanor had lived her life in and the various people who had made it what it was. On all things that touched Rythdale Eleanor was silent; and so was Mrs. Caxton. The conversation flowed on to other topics; and the whole day was a gentle entertainment to Eleanor. The perpetual good sense, information, and shrewdness of her hostess was matter of constant surprise and interest. Eleanor had never talked with anybody who talked so well; and she felt obliged unconsciously all the time to produce the best of herself. That is not a disagreeable exercise; and on the whole the day reeled off on silver wheels. It concluded as the former day had done; and in the warm prayer uttered by her aunt, Eleanor could not help feeling there was a pulse of the heart for _her;_ for her darkness and necessities. It sent her to her room touched, and humbled, and reminded; but Eleanor's musings this night were no more fruitful of results than those of last night had been. They resolved themselves into a long waking dream. Mr. Carlisle exercised too much mastery over her imagination, for any other concern to have fair chance till his question was disposed of. Would he come to look for her there? It was just like him; but she had a little hope that her mother's pride would prevent his being furnished with the necessary information. That Eleanor should be sought and found by him on a cheese farm, the mistress of the farm her own near relation, would not probably meet Mrs. Powle's notions of what it was expedient to do or suffer. A slender thread of a hope; but that was all. Supposing he came? Eleanor felt she had no time to lose. She could only deal with Mr. Carlisle at a distance. In his presence, she knew now, she was helpless. But a vague sense of wrong combated all her thoughts of what she wished to do; with a confused and conflicting question of what was right. She wearied herself to tears with her dreaming, and went to bed to aggravate her troubles in actual dreams; in which the impossible came in to help the disagreeable. CHAPTER XVI. AT THE FARM. "What if she be fastened to this fool lord, Dare I bid her abide by her word?" The next morning nevertheless was bright, and Eleanor was early down stairs. And now she found that the day was begun at the farmhouse in the same way in which it was ended. A reverent, sweet, happy committing of all her affairs and her friends to God, in the presence and the company of her household, was Mrs. Caxton's entrance, for her and them, upon the work of the day. Breakfast was short and very early, which it had to be if Eleanor wanted to see the operations of the dairy; and then Mrs. Caxton and she went thither; and then first Eleanor began to have a proper conception of the magnitude and complication of the business her aunt presided over. The dairies were of great extent, stretching along the ground floor of the house, behind and beyond the covered gallery where she and her aunt had held their first long conversation the day before. Tiled floors, as neat as wax; oaken shelves, tubs, vats, baskets, cheese-hoops, presses; all as neat and sweet as it was possible for anything to be, looked like a confusion of affairs to Eleanor's eye. However, the real business done that morning was sufficiently simple; and she found it interesting enough to follow patiently every part of the process through to the end. Several blue jackets were in attendance; some Welsh, some English; each as diligent at her work as if she only had the whole to do. And among them Eleanor noticed how admirably her aunt played the mistress and acted the executive head. Quietly, simply, as her words were spoken, they were nevertheless words that never failed to be instantly obeyed; and the service that was rendered her was given with what seemed the alacrity of affection, as well as the zeal of duty. Eleanor stood by, watching, amused, intent; yet taking in a silent lesson of character all the while, that touched her heart and made her draw a deep breath now and then. The last thing visited was the cheese house, the room where the cheeses were stored for ripening, quite away from all the dairies. Here there was a forest of cheeses; standing on end and lying on shelves, in various stages of maturity. "Two a day!" said Eleanor looking at them. "That makes a wonderful many in the course of the year." "Except Sundays," said Mrs. Caxton. "No cheese is made on Sunday in my dairy, nor any dairywork done, except milking the cows and setting the milk." "I meant except Sundays, of course." "It is not 'of course' here," said Mrs. Caxton. "The common practice in large dairy-farms is to do the same work on the seventh day that is done all the six." "But that is wrong, aunty, it seems to me." "Wrong? Of course it is wrong; but the defence is, that it is necessary. If Sunday's milk is not made at once into cheese, it must wait till Monday; and not only double work must be done then, for Monday will have its own milk, but double sets of everything will be needed; tubs and presses and all. So people think they cannot afford it." "Well, how can they, aunt Caxton? There seems reason in that." "Reason for what?" "Why, I mean, it seems they have some reason for working on the Sabbath--not to lose all that milk. It is one seventh of all they have." Mrs. Caxton replied in a very quiet manner,--"'Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth.'" "But aunt Caxton," said Eleanor a little doubtfully,--"he gives it in the use of means?" "Do you think he blesses the use of means he has forbidden?" Eleanor was silent a moment. "Aunt Caxton, people do get rich so, do they not?" "'The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich,'" said Mrs. Caxton, contentedly,--"'and he addeth no sorrow with it.' That is the sort of riches I like best." Eleanor did not answer; a kind of moisture came up in her eyes, for she felt poor in those riches. "It is mere want of faith, Eleanor, that pleads such a reason," Mrs. Caxton went on. "It is taking the power to get wealth into our own hands. If it is in God's hands, it is just as easy certainly for him to give it to us in the obedient use of means as in the disobedient use of them; and much more likely that he will. Many a man has become poor by his disobedience, for one that has been allowed to prosper awhile in spite of it. If the statistics were made up, men would see. Meanwhile, never anybody trusted the Lord and was confounded." "Then what do you do with the seventh day's milk, aunt Caxton?" "I make butter of it. But I would pour it away down the river, Eleanor, before I would make it an excuse for disobeying God." This was said without any heat, but as the quietest of conclusions. Eleanor stood silent, wondering at her aunt's cheeses and notions together. She was in a new world, surely. Yet a secret feeling of respect was every moment mounting higher. "The principle is universally true, Eleanor, that the safe way in everything is the way of obedience. Consequences are not in our hands. It is only unbelief that would make consequences a reason for going out of the way. 'Trust in the Lord, and keep his way; so shall he exalt thee to inherit the land.' I have had nothing but prosperity, Eleanor, ever since I began the course which my neighbours and servants thought would destroy me." "I wanted to ask you that, aunt Caxton;--how it had been." "But my dear," said Mrs. Caxton, the smile with which she had turned to Eleanor fading into placid gravity again,--"if it had been otherwise, it would have made no difference. I would rather be poor, with my Lord's blessing, than have all the principality without it." Eleanor went away thinking. All this applied to the decision of her own affairs; and perhaps Mrs. Caxton had intended it should. But yet, how should she decide? To do the thing that was right,--Eleanor wished that,--and did not know what it was. Her wishes said one thing, and prayed for freedom. A vague, trammelling sense of engagements entered into and expectations formed and pledges given, at times confused all her ideas; and made her think it might be her duty to go home and finish wittingly what she had begun in ignorance what she was doing. It would be now to sacrifice herself. Was she called upon to do that? What was right? Mrs. Caxton never alluded any further to Eleanor's private affairs; and Eleanor never forgetting them, kept them in the darkness of her own thoughts and did not bring them up to the light and her aunt's eye. Only for this drawback, the days would have passed delightfully. The next day was Sunday. "We have a long drive to church, Eleanor," said her aunt. "How will you go?" "With you, aunty." "I don't know about that; my car has no place for you. Are you a horsewoman?" "O aunty, nothing would be so delightful! if you have anything I can ride. Nothing would be so delightful. I half live in the saddle at home." "You do? Then you shall go errands for me. I will furnish you with a Welsh pony." And this very day Eleanor mounted him to ride to church. Her aunt was in a light car that held but herself and the driver. Another vehicle, a sort of dog cart, followed with some of the servants. The day was mild and pleasant, though not brilliant with sunbeams. It made no matter. Eleanor could not comprehend how more loveliness could have been crowded into the enjoyment of two hours. On her pony she had full freedom for the use of her eyes; the road was excellent, and winding in and out through all the crookedness of the valley they threaded, she took it at all points of view. Nothing could be more varied. The valley itself, rich and wooded, with the little river running its course, marked by a thick embowering of trees; the hills that enclosed the valley taking every form of beauty, sometimes wild and sometimes tame, heathery and barren, rough and rocky, and again rounded and soft. Along these hills came into view numberless dwellings, of various styles and sizes; with once in a while a bold castle breaking forth in proud beauty, or a dismantled ruin telling of pride and beauty that had been. Eleanor had no one to talk to, and she did not want to talk. On horseback, and on a Welsh pony, no Black Maggie or Tippoo, and in these wonderful new strange scenes, she felt free; free from Mr. Carlisle and his image for the moment; and though knowing that her bondage would return, she enjoyed her freedom all the more. The little pony was satisfactory; and as there was no need of taking a gallop to-day, Eleanor had nothing to desire. The ride ended at the loveliest of all picturesque villages; so Eleanor thought; nestled in what seemed the termination of the valley. A little village, with the square tower of the church rising up above the trees; all the houses stood among trees; and the river was crossed by a bridge just above, and tore down a precipice just below; so near that its roar was the constant lullaby of the inhabitants. It was the only sound to-day, rising in Sabbath stillness over the hills. After all this ride, the service in the little church did not disappoint expectation; it was sound, warm and good; and Eleanor mounted her pony and rode home again, almost wishing she could take service with her aunt as a dairymaid forever. All the day was sweet to Eleanor. But at the end of it a thought darted into her mind, with the keenness of an arrow. Mr. Carlisle in a few days more might have learned of her run-away freak and of her hiding-place and have time to come after her. There was a barb to the thought; for Eleanor could not get rid of it. She begged the pony the next day, and the next, and went very long rambling rides; in the luxury of being alone. They would have been most delightful, but for the idea that haunted her, and which made her actually afraid to enter the house on her return home. This state of things was not to be borne much longer. "You have let the pony tire you, Eleanor," Mrs. Caxton remarked. It was the evening of the second day, and the two ladies were sitting in the light of the wood fire. "Ma'am, he could not do that. I live half my life on horseback at home." "Then how am I to understand the long-drawn breaths which I hear from you every now and then?" Mrs. Caxton was twisting up paper lighters. She was rarely without something in her fingers. Eleanor was doing nothing. At her aunt's question she half laughed, and seized one of the strips of paper to work upon. Her laugh changed into a sigh. "Aunt Caxton, do you always find it easy to know what is the right thing to do--in all circumstances?" "I have always infallible counsel that I can take." "You mean the Bible? But the Bible does not tell one everything." "I mean prayer." "Prayer!--But my dear aunt Caxton!--" "What is it, my dear?" "I mean, that one wants an answer to one's perplexing questions." "Mine never fail of an answer," said Mrs. Caxton. "If it is to be found in the Bible, I find it; if not, I go to the Lord, and get it from him." "How, my dear aunt Caxton? How can you have an answer----in that way?" "I ask to be directed--and I always am, Eleanor; always right. What do you think prayer is good for?" "But aunt Caxton!--I never heard of such a thing in my life! Please forgive me." "'If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; _and it shall be given him_.' Did you never hear that, Eleanor?" "Aunty--excuse me,--it is something I know nothing about." "You never had an answer to your own prayers?" "No, ma'am," said Eleanor drooping. "My dear, there may be two reasons for that. Whoever wishes direction from the Lord, must be absolutely willing to follow it, whatever it be--we may not ask counsel of him as we do of our fellow-creatures, bent upon following our own all the while. The Lord knows our hearts, and withholds his answer when we ask so." "How do you know what the answer is, aunty?" "It may be given in various ways. Sometimes circumstances point it out; sometimes attention is directed to a word in the Bible; sometimes, 'thine ears shall hear a voice behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.'" Eleanor did not answer; she thought her aunt was slightly fanatical. "There is another reason for not getting an answer, Eleanor. It is, not believing that an answer will be given." "Aunty, how can one help that?" "By simply looking at what God has promised, and trusting it. 'But let a man ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.'" "Aunt Caxton, I am exactly like such a wave of the sea. And in danger of being broken to pieces like one." "Many a one has been," said Mrs Caxton. But it was tenderly said, not coldly; and the impulse to go on was irresistible. Eleanor changed her seat for one nearer. "Aunt Caxton, I want somebody's help dreadfully." "I see you do." "Do you see it, ma'am?" "I think I have seen it ever since you have been here." "But at the same time, aunty, I do not know how to ask it." "Those are sometimes the neediest eases. But I hope you will find a way, my dear." Eleanor sat silent nevertheless, for some minutes; and then she spoke in a lowered and changed tone. "Aunt Caxton, you know the engagements I am under?" "Yes. I have heard." "What should a woman do--what is it her duty to do--who finds herself in every way bound to fulfil such engagements, except--" "Except what?" "Except her own heart, ma'am," Eleanor said low and ashamed. "My dear, you do not mean that your heart was not in these engagements when you made them?" "I did not know where it was, aunty. It had nothing to do with them." "Where is it now?" "It is not in them, ma'am." "Eleanor, let us speak plainly. Do you mean that you do not love this gentleman whom you have promised to marry?" Eleanor hesitated, covered her face, and hesitated; at last spoke. "Aunt Caxton, I thought I did;--but I know now I do not; not as I think I ought;--I do not as he loves me." Eleanor spoke with burning cheeks, which her aunt could see even in the firelight and though Eleanor's hand endeavoured to shield them. "What made you enter into these engagements, my dear?" "The will and power of two other people, aunt Caxton--and, I am afraid, now, a little ambition of my own was at work in it. And I liked him too. It was not a person that I did not like. But I did not know what I was doing. I liked him, aunt Caxton." "And now it is a question with you whether you will fulfil these engagements?" "Yes ma'am,--because I do not wish to fulfil them. I do not know whether I ought, or ought not." Mrs. Caxton was silent in her turn. "Eleanor,--do you like some one else better?" "Nobody else likes me better, aunt Caxton--there is nothing of that kind--" "Still my question is not answered, Eleanor. Have _you_ more liking for any other person?" "Aunt Caxton--I do not know--I have seen--I do not know how to answer you!" Eleanor said in bitter confusion; then hiding her face she went on--"Just so much as this is true, aunt Caxton,--I have seen, what makes me know that I do not love Mr. Carlisle; not as he loves me." Mrs. Caxton stooped forward, took Eleanor's hands down from her face and kissed her. It was a sad, drooping, pained face, hot with shame. "My child," she said, "your honesty has saved you. I could not have advised you, Eleanor, if you had not been frank with me. Poor child!" Eleanor came down on the floor and hid her face in Mrs. Caxton's lap. Her aunt kept one hand softly resting on her hair while she spoke. She was silent first, and then she spoke very tenderly. "You did not know, at the time you engaged yourself to this gentleman, that you were doing him wrong?" "No, ma'am--I thought rather of wrong to myself." "Why?" "They were in such a hurry, ma'am." "Since then, you have seen what you like better." "Yes, ma'am,"--said Eleanor doubtfully,--"or what I know I _could_ like better, if there was occasion. That is all." "Now the question is, in these circumstances, what is your duty to Mr. Carlisle." Eleanor lifted her head to look into her aunt's face for the decision to come. "The rule of judgment is not far off, Eleanor; it is the golden rule. 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' My dear, take the case of the person you could like best in the world;--would you have such a person marry you if his heart belonged to somebody else?" "Not for the whole world!" said Eleanor raising her head which had fallen again. "But aunt Caxton, that is not my case. My heart is not anybody's." "Put it differently then. Would you marry such a man, if you knew that his mere liking for another was stronger than his love for you?" "I think--I would rather die!" said Eleanor slowly. "Then I think your question is answered." "But aunt Caxton, it is not answered. Mr. Carlisle would not feel so. I know, he would have me marry him, if he knew that my heart was a thousand times another person's--which it is not." "Don't alter the case," said Mrs. Caxton, "except to make it stronger. If he were the right sort of man, he would not have you do so. There is no rule that we should make other people's wishes our standard of right." "But aunt Caxton, I have done Mr. Carlisle grievous wrong. O, I feel that!--" "Yes. What then?" "Am I not bound to make him all the amends in my power?" "Short of doing further wrong. Keep right and wrong always clear, Eleanor. They never mean the same thing." "Aunty, what you must think of me!" "I think of you just now as saved from shipwreck. Many a girl has drifted on in the course you were going, without courage to get out of the current, until she has destroyed herself; and perhaps somebody else." "I do not think I had much courage, aunt Caxton," said Eleanor blushing. "What had you, then?" "It was mainly my horror of marrying that man, after I found I did not love him. And yet, aunt Caxton, I do like him; and I am very, very, very sorry! It has almost seemed to me sometimes that I ought to marry him and give him what I can; and yet, if I were ready, I would rather die." "Is your doubt settled?" "Yes, ma'am,"--said Eleanor sadly. "My dear, you have done wrong,--I judge, somewhat ignorantly,--but mischief can never be mended by mischief. To marry one man, preferring another, is the height of disloyalty to both him and yourself; unless you can lay the whole truth before him; and then, as I think, in most cases it would be the height of folly." "I will write to Mr. Carlisle to-morrow." "And then, Eleanor, what was the other question you came here to settle?" "It is quite a different question, aunty, and yet it was all twisted up with the other." "You can tell it me; it will hardly involve greater confidence," said Mrs. Caxton, bending over and kissing Eleanor's brow which rested upon her knee. "Eleanor, I am very thankful you came to Plassy." The girl rose up and kneeling beside her hid her face in Mrs. Caxton's bosom. "Aunt Caxton, I am so glad! I have wanted just this help so long! and this refuge. Put your arms both round me, and hold me tight." Mrs. Caxton said nothing for a little while. She waited for Eleanor to take her own time and speak. Very still the two were. There were some straining sobs that came from the one and went to the heart of the other; heavy and hard; but with no sound till they were quieted. "Aunt Caxton," said Eleanor at last, "the other question was that one of a refuge." "A heavenly one?" "Yes. I had heard of a 'helmet of salvation'--I wanted it;--but I do not know how to get it." "Do you know what it is?" "Not very clearly. But I have seen it, aunt Caxton;--I know it makes people safe and happy. I want it for myself." "Safe from what?" "From--all that I feared when I was dangerously ill last summer." "What did you fear, Eleanor?" "All the future, aunt Caxton. I was not ready, I knew, to go out of this world. I am no better now." They had not changed their relative positions. Eleanor's face still lay on her aunt's bosom; Mrs. Caxton's arms still enfolded her. "Bless the Lord! there is such a helmet," she said; "but we cannot manufacture it, Eleanor, nor even buy it. If you have it at all, you must take it as a free gift." "How do you mean?" "If you are willing to be a soldier of Christ, he will give you his armour." "Aunt Caxton, I do not understand." "It is only to take the promises of God, my dear, if you will take them obediently. Jesus has declared that 'whosoever believeth on him, hath everlasting life.'" "But I cannot exactly understand what believing in him means. I am very stupid." Eleanor raised her head and looked now in her aunt's face. "Do you understand his work for us?" "I do not know, ma'am." "My dear, it is the work of love that was not willing to let us be miserable. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He gave himself a ransom for all. He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." "Yes, I believe I understand that," said Eleanor wearily. "The only question is, whether we will let him bring us. The question is, whether we are willing to accept this substitution of the innocent One for our guilty selves, and be his obedient children. If we are--if we rely on him and his blood only, and are willing to give up ourselves to him, then the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. No matter though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." "But I do not walk so," said Eleanor. "Do you want to walk so?" "O yes, ma'am! yes!" said Eleanor clasping her hands. "I desire it above all possible things. I want to be such a one." "If you truly desire it, my dear, it is certain that you may have what you want; for the Lord's will is not different. He died for this very thing, that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. There is an open door before you; all things are ready; you have only to plead the promises and enter in. The Lord himself says, Come." "Aunt Caxton, I understand, I think; but I do not feel; not anything but fear,--and desire." "This is the mere statement of truth, my dear; it is like the altar with the wood laid in readiness and the sacrifice--all cold; and till fire falls down from heaven, no incense will arise from earth. But if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." "I am a poor creature, aunt Caxton!" said Eleanor, hiding her face again. And again Mrs. Caxton's arm came tenderly round her. And again Eleanor's tears flowed, this time in a flood. "Certainly you are a poor creature, Eleanor. I am glad you are finding it out. But will you flee to the stronghold, you poor little prisoner of hope?" "I think I am rather the prisoner of fear, aunty." "Hope is a better gaoler, my deal." "But that is the very thing that I want." "The Lord give it you!" They sat a good while in stillness after that, each thinking her own thoughts; or perhaps those of the elder lady took the form of prayers. At last Eleanor raised her head and kissed her aunt's lips earnestly. "How good of you to let me come to Plassy!" she said. "I shall keep you here now. You will not wish to be at home again for some time." "No, ma'am. No indeed I shall not." "What are you going to do about Mr. Carlisle?" "I shall write to-morrow. Or to-night." "And tell him?--" "The plain truth, aunt Caxton. I mean, the truth of the fact, of course. It is very hard!"--said Eleanor sorrowfully. "It is doubtless hard; but it is the least of all the choice of evils you have left yourself. Write to-night,--and here, if you will. If you can without being disturbed by me." "The sight of you will only help me, aunt Caxton. But I did not know the harm I was doing when I entered into all this." "I believe it. Go and write your letter." Eleanor brought her paper-case and sat down at the table. Mrs. Caxton ordered other lights and was mutely busy at her own table. Not a word was spoken for a good while. It was with a strange mixture of pain and bursting gladness that Eleanor wrote the letter which she hoped would set her free. But the gladness was enough to make her sure it ought to be written; and the pain enough to make it a bitter piece of work. The letter was finished, folded, sealed; and with a sigh Eleanor closed her paper-case. "What sort of a clergyman have you at home?" Mrs. Caxton asked. She had not spoken till then. "He is a kind old man--he is a good man," Eleanor said, picking for words; "I like him. He is not a very interesting preacher." "Did you ever hold any talk with him on your thoughts of hope, and fear?" "I could not, ma'am. I have tried; but I could not bring him to the point. He referred me to confirmation and to doing my duty; he did not help me." "It is not a happy circumstance, that his public teaching should raise questions which his private teaching cannot answer." "O it did not!" said Eleanor. "Dr. Cairnes never raised a question in anybody's mind, I am sure; never in mine." "The light that sprung up in your mind then, came you do not know whence?" "Yes, ma'am, I do," said Eleanor with a little difficulty. "It came from the words and teaching of a living example. But in me it seems to be only darkness." Mrs. Caxton said no more, and Eleanor added no more. The servants came in to family prayer; and then they took their candies and bade each other an affectionate good night. And Eleanor slept that night without dreaming. CHAPTER XVII. AT GLANOG. "For something that abode endued With temple-like repose, an air Of life's kind purposes pursued With order'd freedom sweet and fair, A tent pitched in a world not right It seem'd, whose inmates, every one, On tranquil faces, bore the light Of duties beautifully done." How did the days pass after that? In restless anxiety, with Eleanor; in miserable uncertainty and remorse and sorrow. She counted the hours till her despatch could be in Mr. Carlisle's hands; then she figured to herself the pain it would cause him; then she doubted fearfully what the immediate effect would be. It might be, to bring him down to Plassy with the utmost speed of post-horses; and again Eleanor reckoned the stages and estimated the speed at which Mr. Carlisle's postillions could be made to travel, and the time when it would be possible for this storm to burst upon Plassy. That day Eleanor begged the pony and went out. She wandered for hours, among unnumbered, and almost unheeded, beauties of mountain and vale; came home at a late hour, and crept in by a back entrance. No stranger had come; the storm had not burst yet; and Mrs. Caxton was moved to pity all the supper time and hours of the evening, at the state of fear and constraint in which Eleanor evidently dwelt. "My dear, did you like this man?" she said when they were bidding each other good night. "Mr. Carlisle?--yes, very well; if only he had not wanted me to marry him." "But you fear him, Eleanor." "Because, aunt Caxton, he always had a way of making me do just what he wished." "Are you so easily governed, Eleanor, by one whom you do not love? I should not have thought it." "I do not know how it was, aunty. I had begun wrong, in the first place; I was in a false position;--and lately Mr. Carlisle has taken it into his head, very unnecessarily, to be jealous; and I could not move a step without subjecting myself to a false imputation." "Good night, my dear," said her aunt. "If he comes, I will take all imputations on myself." But Mr. Carlisle did not come. Day passed after day; and the intense fear Eleanor had at first felt changed to a somewhat quieter anticipation; though she never came home from a ride without a good deal of circumspection about getting into the house. At last, one day when she was sitting with her aunt the messenger came from the post, and one of those letters was handed to Eleanor that she knew so well; with the proud seal and its crest. Particularly full and well made she thought this seal was; though that was not so very uncommon, and perhaps she was fanciful; but it was a magnificent seal, and the lines of the outer handwriting were very bold and firm. Eleanor's cheeks lost some colour as she opened the envelope, which she did without breaking the bright black wax. Her own letter was all the enclosure. The root of wrong even unconsciously planted, will bear its own proper and bitter fruits; and Eleanor tasted them that day, and the next and the next. She was free; she was secure from even an attempt to draw her back into the bonds she had broken; when Mr. Carlisle's pride had taken up the question there was no danger of his ever relenting or faltering; and pride had thrown back her letter of withdrawal in her face. She was free; but she knew she had given pain, and that more feeling was stung in Mr. Carlisle's heart than his pride. "He will get over it, my dear," said her aunt coolly. But Eleanor shed many tears for a day or two, over the wrong she had done. Letters from Ivy Lodge did not help her. "Home is very disagreeable now," wrote her little sister Julia; "mamma is crying half the day, and the other half she does not feel comfortable--" (a gentle statement of the case.) "And papa is very much vexed, and keeps out of doors the whole time and Alfred with him; and Mr. Rhys is gone away, and I have got nobody. I shouldn't know what to do, if Mr. Rhys had not taught me; but now I can pray. Dear Eleanor, do you pray? I wish you were coming home again, but mamma says you are not coming in a great while; and Mr. Rhys is never coming back. He said so." Mrs. Powle's letter was in strict accordance with Julia's description of matters; desperately angry and mortified. The only comfort was, that in her mortification she desired Eleanor to keep away from home and out of her sight; so Eleanor with a certain rest of heart in spite of all, prepared herself for a long quiet sojourn with her aunt at the cheese-farm of Plassy. Mrs. Caxton composedly assured her that all this vexation would blow over; and Eleanor's own mind was soon fain to lay off its care and content itself in a nest of peace. Mrs. Caxton's house was that, to anybody worthy of enjoying it; and to Eleanor it had all the joy not only of fitness but of novelty. But for a lingering care on the subject of the other question that had occupied her, Eleanor would in a little while have been happier than at any former time in her life. How was it with that question, which had pressed so painfully hard during weeks and months past? now that leisure and opportunity were full and broad to take it up and attend to it. So they were; but with the removal of difficulty came in some degree the relaxing of effort; opportunity bred ease. It was so simple a thing to be good at Plassy, that Eleanor's cry for it became less bitter. Mrs. Caxton's presence, words, and prayers, kept the thought constant alive; yet with more of soothing and hopeful than of exciting influence; and while Eleanor constantly wished she were happy like her, she nevertheless did not fail to be happy in her own way. The aunt and niece were excellently suited to each other, and took abundant delight in each other's company. Eleanor found that what had been defective in her own education was in the way to be supplied and made up to her singularly; here, of all places, on a cheese-farm! So it was. To her accomplishments and materials of knowledge, she now found suddenly superadded, the necessity and the practice of thinking. In Mrs. Caxton's house it was impossible to help it. Judgment, conscience, reason, and good sense, were constantly brought into play; upon things already known and things until then not familiar. In the reading of books, of which they did a good deal; in the daily discussion of the newspaper; in the business of every hour, in the intercourse with every neighbour, Eleanor found herself always stimulated and obliged to look at things from a new point of view; to consider them with new lights; to try them by a new standard. As a living creature, made and put here to live for something, she felt herself now; as in a world where everybody had like trusts to fulfil and was living mindful or forgetful of his trust. How mindful Mrs. Caxton was of hers, Eleanor began every day with increasing admiration to see more and more. To her servants, to her neighbours, with her money and her time and her sympathies, for little present interests and for world-wide and everlasting ones, Mrs. Caxton was ever ready, active, watchful; hands full and head full and heart full. That motive power of her one mind and will, Eleanor gradually found, was the centre and spring of a vast machinery of good, working so quietly and so beneficently as proved it had been in operation a long, long time. It was a daily deep lesson to Eleanor, going deeper and deeper every day. The roots were striking down that would shoot up and bear fruit by and by. Eleanor was a sweet companion to her aunt all those months. In her fresh, young, rich nature, Mrs. Caxton had presently seen the signs of strength, without which no character would have suited her; while Eleanor's temper was of the finest; and her mind went to work vigorously upon whatever was presented for its action. Mrs. Caxton wisely took care to give it an abundance of work; and furthermore employed Eleanor in busy offices of kindness and help to others; as an assistant in some of her own plans and habits of good. Many a ride Eleanor took on the Welsh pony, to see how some sick person was getting on, or to carry supplies to another, or to give instruction to another, or to oversee and direct the progress of matters on which yet another was engaged. This was not new work to her; yet now it was done in the presence at least, if not under the pressure, of a higher motive than she had been accustomed to bring to it. It took in some degree another character. Eleanor was never able to forget now that these people to whom she was ministering had more of the immortal in them than of even the earthly; she was never able to forget it of herself. And busy and happy as the winter was, there often came over her those weary longings for something which she had not yet; the something which made her aunt's course daily so clear and calm and bright. What sort of happiness would be Eleanor's when she got back to Ivy Lodge? She asked herself that question sometimes. Her present happiness was superficial. The spring meanwhile drew near, and signs of it began to be seen and felt, and heard. And one evening Mrs. Caxton got out the plan of her garden, and began to consider in detail its arrangements, with a view to coming operations. It was pleasant to see Mrs. Caxton at this work, and to hear her; she was in her element. Eleanor was much surprised to find not only that her aunt was her own head gardener, but that she had an exquisite knowledge of the business. "This _sulphurea_ I think is dead," remarked Mrs. Caxton. "I must have another. Eleanor--what is the matter?" "Ma'am?" "You are drawing a very long breath, my dear. Where did it come from?" The reserve which Eleanor had all her life practised before other people, had almost from the first given way before her aunt. "From a thought of home, aunt Caxton. I shall not be so happy when I get back there." "The happiness that will not bear transportation, Eleanor, is a very poor article. But they will not want you at home." "I am afraid of it." "Without reason. You will not go home this spring, my dear; trust me. You are mine for a good long time yet." Mrs. Caxton was wiser than Eleanor; as was soon proved. Mrs. Powle wrote, desiring her daughter, whatever she did, not to come home then; nor soon. People would think she was come home for her wedding; and questions innumerable would be asked, the mortification of which would be unbearable. Whereas, if Eleanor kept away, the dismal certainty would by degrees become public, that there was to be no match at all between Rythdale and the Lodge. "Stay away till it all blown over, Eleanor," wrote her mother; "it is the least you can do for your family." And the squire even sent a word of a letter, more kind, but to the same effect. He wanted his bright daughter at home, he said; he missed her; but in the circumstances, perhaps it would be best, if her aunt would be so good as to keep her. Eleanor carried these letters to Mrs. Caxton, with a tear in her eye, and an humbled, pained face. "I told you so," said her aunt. "How could people expect that Mr. Carlisle's marriage would take place three months after the death of his mother? that is what I do not understand." "They arranged it so, and it was given out, I suppose. Everything gets known. He was going abroad in the spring, or immediately after; and meant not to go without me." "Now you are my child, my dear, and shall help me with my roses," said her aunt kissing her, and taking Eleanor in her arms. "Eleanor, is that second question settled yet?" "No, aunt Caxton." "You have not chosen yet which master you will serve,--the world or the Lord?" "O yes, ma'am--I have decided that. I know which I want to be." "But not which you will be." "I mean that, ma'am." "You are not a servant of the Lord now, Eleanor?" "No, aunt Caxton--I don't see how. I am dark." "Christ says, 'He that is not with me is against me.' A question that is undecided, decides itself. Eleanor, decide this question to-night." "To-night, ma'am?" "Yes. I am going to send you to church." "To church! There is no service to-night, aunt Caxton." "Not at the church where you have been--in the village. There is a little church in the valley beyond Mrs. Pynce's cottage. You are going there." "I do not remember any. Why, aunt Caxton, the valley is too narrow there for anything but the road and the brook; the mountains leave no room--hardly room for her house." "You have never been any further. Do you not remember a sharp turn just beyond that place?" "Yes, I do." "You will see the chapel when you get round the turn." The place Mrs. Caxton alluded to, was a wild, secluded, most beautiful valley, the bottom of which as Eleanor said was almost filled up with the road, and the brook which rushed along its course to meet the river; itself almost as large as another river. Where the people could be found to go to a church in such a region, she could not imagine. Heather clothed the hills; fairy cascades leaped down the rocks at every turning, lovely as a dream; the whole scene was wild and lonely. Hardly any human habitations or signs of human action broke the wild reign of nature all the valley through. Eleanor was sure of a charming ride at least, whether there was to be a congregation in the church at the end of it or no; and she prepared herself accordingly. Mrs. Caxton was detained at home; the car did not go; three or four of the household, men and women, went on ponies as Eleanor did. They set off very early, while the light was fair and beautiful yet, for the ride was of some length. It was not on the way to the village; it turned off from the fine high road to a less practised and more uneven track. It was good for horses; and riding in front, a little ahead of her companions, Eleanor had the luxury of being alone. Why had Mrs. Caxton bade her "settle that question" to-night? How could she; when her mind was in so much darkness and confusion on the subject? Yet Eleanor hardly knew specifically what the hindrance was; only it was certain that while she wished and intended to be a Christian, she was no nearer the point, so far as she could see, than she had been months ago. Nay, Eleanor confessed to herself that in the sweet quiet and peace of her aunt's house, and in her own release from pressing trouble, she had rather let all troublesome thoughts slip away from her; so that, though not forgotten, the subject had been less painfully on her mind than through the weeks that went before her coming to Plassy. She had wished for leisure and quiet to attend to it and put that pain to rest for ever; and in leisure and quiet she had suffered pain to go to sleep in a natural way and left all the business of dealing with it to be deferred till the time of its waking. How was all this? Eleanor walked her pony slowly along, and thought. _Then_ she had been freshly under the influence of Mr. Rhys and his preaching; the very remembrance of which, now and here, stirred her like an alarum bell. Ay, and more than that; it wakened the keen longing for that beauty and strength of life which had so shewn her her own poverty. Humbled and sad, Eleanor walked her pony on and on, while each little crystal torrent that came with its sweet clear rush and sparkle down the rocks, tinkled its own little silver bell note in her ears; a note of purity and action. Eleanor had never heard it from them before; now somehow each rushing streamlet, with its bright leap over obstacles and its joyous dash onward in its course, sounded the same note. Nothing could be more lovely than these cascades; every one different from the others, as if to shew how many forms of beauty water could take. Eleanor noticed and heard them every one and the call of every one, and rode on in a pensive mood till Mrs. Pynce's cottage was passed and the turn in the valley just beyond opened up a new scene for her. How lovely! how various! The straitened dell spread out gradually from this point into a comparatively broad valley, bordered with higher hills as it widened in the distance. The light still shewed its entrancing beauty; wooded, and spotted with houses and habitations of all kinds; from the very humble to the very lordly, and from the business factories of to-day, back to the ruined strongholds of the time when war was business. Wide and delicious the view was, as much as it was unexpected; and spring's softened colouring was all over it. Eleanor made a pause of a few seconds as soon as all this burst upon her; her next thought was to look for the church. And it was plain to see; a small dark edifice, in excellent keeping with its situation; because of its colour and its simple structure, which half merged it among the rocks and the hills. "That is the church, John?" Eleanor said to Mrs. Caxton's factotum. "That is it, ma'am. There's been no minister there for a good piece of the year back." "And what place is this?" "There's no _place_, to call it, ma'am. It's the valley of Glanog." Eleanor jumped off her pony and went into the church. She had walked her pony too much; it was late; the service had begun; and Eleanor was taken with a sudden tremor at hearing the voice that was reading the hymn. She had no need to look to see whose it was. She walked up the aisle, seeking a vacant place to sit down, and exceedingly desirous to find it, for she was conscious that she was right under the preacher's eye and observation; but as one never does well what one does in confusion, she overlooked one or two chances that offered, and did not get a seat till she was far forward, in the place of fullest view for both seeing and being seen. And there she sat down, asking herself what should make her tremble so. Why had her aunt Caxton sent her that evening, alone, to hear Mr. Rhys preach? And why not? what was there about it? She was very glad, she knew, to hear him; but there would be no more apathy or languor in her mind now on the subject of that question her aunt had desired her to settle. No more. The very sound of that speaker's voice woke her conscience to a sharp sense of what she had been about all these months since she had heard it last. She bent her head in her hand for a little while, in a rushing of thoughts--or ideas--that prevented her senses from acting; then the words the people were singing around her made their entrance into her ear; an entrance opened by the sweet melody. The words were given very plain. "No room for mirth or trifling here, For worldly hope, or worldly fear, If life so soon is gone; If now the Judge is at the door, And all mankind must stand before Th' inexorable throne! "No matter which my thoughts employ, A moment's misery or joy; But O! when both shall end, Where shall I find my destined place? Shall I my everlasting days With fiends or angels spend?" Eleanor sat cowering before that thought. "Now are we going to have a terrible sermon?" was her inward question. She would not look up. The preliminary services were all over, she found, and the preacher rose and gave out his text. "A glorious high throne from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary." Eleanor could not keep her eyes lowered another second. The well-known deliberate utterance, and a little unconscious indefinable ring of the tones in which the words were spoken, brought her eyes to the speaker's face; and they were never turned away again. "Do we need a sanctuary?"--was the first question the preacher started; and very quietly he went on to discuss that. Very quietly; his manner and his voice were neither in the slightest degree excited; how it was, Eleanor did not know, that as he went on a tide of feeling swept over the assembly. She could see it in the evidences of tears, and she heard it in a deep sough of the breath that went all over the house. The preacher was reaching each one's secret consciousness, and stirring into life that deep hidden want of every heart which every heart knew differently. Some from sorrow; some from sin; some from weariness; some from loneliness; some from the battle of life; some from the struggle with their own hearts; all, from the wrath to come. Nay, Eleanor's own heart was throbbing with the sense that he had reached it and touched it, and knew its condition. How was it, that with those quiet words he had bowed every spirit before him, her own among the number? It is true, that in the very containedness of his tones and words there was an evidence of suppressed power; it flashed out once in a while; and wrought possibly with the more effect from the feeling that it was contained and kept down. However it were, the minds of the assembly were already at a high state of tension, when he passed to the other part of his subject--the consideration of the sanctuary. It was no discourse of regular heads and divisions; it is impossible to report, except as to its effects. The preacher's head and heart were both full, and words had no stint. But in this latter part of his subject, the power which had been so contained was let loose, though still kept within bounds. The eye fired now, and the voice quivered with its charge, as he endeavoured to set before the minds of the people the glorious vision which filled his own; to make known to others the "riches of glory" in which his own soul rested and rejoiced. So evidently, that his hearers half caught at what he would shew them, by the catching of sympathy; and from different parts of the house now there went up a suppressed cry, of want, or of exultation, as the case might be, which it was very thrilling to hear. It was the sense of want and pain in Eleanor's mind; not spoken indeed except by her countenance; but that toned strongly with the notes of feeling that were uttered around her. As from the bottom of a dark abyss into which he had fallen, a person might look up to the bright sky, of which he could see but a little, which yet would give him token of all the firmamental light and beauty up there which he had not. From her darkness Eleanor saw it; saw it in the preacher's face and words; yes, and heard it in many a deep-breathed utterance of gladness or thanksgiving at her side. She had never felt so dark in her life as when she left the church. She rushed away as soon as the service was over, lest any one should speak to her; however she had to wait some time outside the door before John came out. The people all tarried strangely. "Beg pardon, ma'am," said John, "but we was waiting a bit to see the minister." Eleanor rode home fast, through fair moonlight without and great obscurity within her own spirit. She avoided her aunt; she did not want to speak of the meeting; she succeeded in having no talk about it that I night. CHAPTER XVIII. AT MRS. POWLIS'S. "I glanced within a rock's cleft breast, A lonely, safely-sheltered nest. There as successive seasons go, And tides alternate ebb and flow, Full many a wing is trained for flight In heaven's blue field--in heaven's broad light." The next morning at breakfast Eleanor and her aunt were alone as usual. There was no avoiding anything. "Did you have a pleasant evening?" Mrs. Caxton asked. "I had a very pleasant ride, aunt Caxton." "How was the sermon?" "It was--I suppose it was very good; but it was very peculiar." "In what way?" "I don't know, ma'am;--it excited the people very much. They could not keep still." "Do you like preaching better that does not excite people?" Eleanor hesitated. "No, ma'am; but I do not like them to make a noise." "What sort of a noise?" Eleanor paused again, and to her astonishment found her own lip quivering and her eyes watering as she answered,--"It was a noise of weeping and of shouting--not loud shouting; but that is what it was." "I have often known such effects under faithful presenting of the truth," said Mrs. Caxton composedly. "When people's feelings are much moved, it is very natural to give them expression." "For uncultivated people, particularly." "I don't know about the cultivation," said Mrs. Caxton. "Robert Hall's sermons used to leave two thirds of his hearers on their feet. I have seen a man in middle life, a judge in the courts, one of the heads of the community in which he lived, so excited that he could not undo the fastenings of his pew door; and he put his foot on the seat and sprang over into the aisle." "Do you like such things, aunt Caxton?" "I prefer another mode of getting out of church, my dear." "But shouting, or crying out, is what people of refinement would not do, even if they could not open their pew doors." Eleanor was a little sorry the moment she had uttered this speech; her spirits were in a whirl of disorder and uncomfortableness, and she had spoken hastily. Mrs. Caxton answered with great composure. "What do you call those words that you are accustomed to hear, the 'Gloria in Excelsis'?--'Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good will towards men. We praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee, we glorify thee, we give thanks to thee for thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King.'" "What do you call it, aunt Caxton?" "If it is not a shout of joy, I can make nothing of it. Or the one hundred and fiftieth psalm--'O praise God in his holiness; praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him in his noble acts; praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him in the sound of the trumpet; praise him upon the lute and harp. Praise him in the cymbals and dances; praise him upon the strings and pipe. Praise him upon the well tuned cymbals; praise him upon the loud cymbals. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.'--What is that but a shout of praise?" "It never sounded like a shout," said Eleanor. "It did once, I think," said Mrs. Caxton. "When was that, ma'am?" "When Ezra sang it, with the priests and the people to help him, after they were returned from captivity. Then the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off. All the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord." "But aunt Caxton," said Eleanor, who felt herself taken down a little, as a secure talker is apt to be by a manner very composed in his opponent--"it is surely the habit of refined persons in these times not to get excited--or not to express their feelings very publicly?" "A very good habit," said Mrs. Caxton. "Nevertheless I have seen a man--a gentleman--and a man in very high standing, in a public assembly, go white with anger and become absolutely speechless, with the strength of passion, at some offence he had taken." "O such passions, of course, will display themselves sometimes," said Eleanor. "Bad passions often will. They escape control." "I have seen a lady--a lovely and refined lady--faint away at the sudden tidings that a child's life was secure,--whom she had almost given up for lost." "But, dear aunt Caxton! you do not call that a parallel case?" "A parallel case with what?" "Anybody might be excited at such a thing. You would wonder if they were not." "I do not see the justness of your reasoning, Eleanor. A man may turn white with passion, and it is natural; woman may faint with joy at receiving back her child from death; and you are not surprised. But the joy of suddenly seeing eternal life one's own--the joy of knowing that God has forgiven our sins--you think may be borne calmly. I have known people faint under that joy as well." "Aunt Caxton," said Eleanor, her voice growing hoarse, "I do not see how anybody can have it. How can they know their sins are forgiven?" "You may find it in your Bible, Eleanor; did you never see it there? 'The Spirit witnesseth with our spirit, that we are the children of God.'" "But Paul was inspired?" "Yes, thank God!--to declare that dividend of present joy to all shareholders in the stock of eternal life. But doubtless, only faith can take it out." Eleanor sat silent, chewing bitter thoughts. "O this is what these people have!"--she said to herself;--"this is the helmet of salvation! And I am as far from it as ever!" The conversation ended there. Eleanor was miserable all day. She did not explain herself; Mrs. Caxton only saw her preoccupied, moody, and silent. "There is preaching again at Glanog to-night," she said a few days afterwards; "I am not yet quite well enough to go. Do you choose to go, Eleanor?" Eleanor looked down and answered yes. She went; and again, and again, and again. Sundays or week days, Eleanor missed no chance of riding her pony to the little valley church. Mrs. Caxton generally went with her, after the first week; but going in her car she was no hindrance to the thoughtfulness and solitude of the rides on horseback; and Eleanor sometimes wept all the way home, and oftener came with a confused pain in her heart, dull or acute as the case might be. She saw truth that seemed beautiful and glorious to her; she saw it in the faces and lives as well as in the words of others; she longed to share their immunity and the peace she perceived them possessed of; but how to lay hold of it she could not find. She seemed to herself too evil ever to become good; she tried, but her heart seemed as hard as a stone. She prayed, but no relief came. She did not see how she _could_ be saved, while evil had such a hold of her; and to dislodge it she was powerless. Eleanor was in a constant state of uneasiness and distress now. Her usually fine temper was more easily roughened than she had ever known it; the services she had long been accustomed to render to others who needed her, she felt it now very hard to give. She was dissatisfied with herself and very unhappy, and she said to herself that she was unfit to properly minister to anybody else. She became a comparatively silent and ungenial companion to her aunt. Mrs. Caxton perhaps understood her; for she made no remark on this change, seemed to take no notice; was as evenly and tenderly affectionate to her niece as ever before, with perhaps a little added expression of sympathy now and then. She did not even ask an explanation of Eleanor's manner of getting out of church. Eleanor and her aunt, as it happened, always occupied a seat very near the front and almost under the pulpit. It had been Eleanor's custom ever since the first time she came there, to slip out of her seat and make her way down the aisle with eager though quiet haste; leaving her aunt to follow at her leisure; and she was generally mounted and off before Mrs. Caxton reached the front door. During the service always now, Eleanor's eyes were fastened upon the preacher; his often looked at her; he recognized her of course; and Eleanor had a vague fear that if she were not out of the way he would some time or other come down and accost her. It was an unreasoning fear; she gave no account of it to herself; except that her mind was in an unsettled, out-of-order state, that would not bear questioning; and if he came he would be certain to question her. So Eleanor fled and let her aunt do the talking--if any there were. Eleanor never asked and never knew. This went on for some weeks. Spring had burst upon the hills, and the valleys were green in beauty and flushing with flowers; and Eleanor's heart was barren and cold more than she had ever felt it to be. She began to have a most miserable opinion of herself. It happened one night, what rarely happened, that Mr. Rhys had some one in the pulpit with him. Eleanor was sorry; she grudged to have even the closing prayer or hymn given by another voice. But it was so this evening; and when Eleanor rose as usual to make her quick way out of the house, she found that somebody else had been quick. Mr Rhys stood beside her. It was impossible to help speaking. He had clearly come down for the very purpose. He shook hands with Eleanor. "How do you do?" he said. "I am glad to see you here. Is your mind at rest yet?" "No," said Eleanor. However it was, this meeting which she had so shunned, was not entirely unwelcome to her when it came. If anything would make her feel better, or any counsel do her good, se was willing to stand even questioning that might lead to it. Mr. Rhys's questioning on this occasion was not very severe. He only asked her, "Have you ever been to class?" "To what?" said Eleanor. "To a class-meeting. You know what that is?" "Yes,--I know a little. No, I have never been to one." "I should like to see you at mine. We meet at Mrs. Powlis's in the village of Plassy, Wednesday afternoon." "But I could not, Mr. Rhys. It would not be possible for me to say a word before other people; it would not be possible." "I will try not to trouble you with difficult questions. Promise me that you will come. It will not hurt you to hear others speak." Eleanor hesitated. "Will you come and try?" "Yes." "There!" said Eleanor to herself as she rode away,--"now I have got my head in a net, and I am fast. I going to such a place! What business have I there?--" And yet there was a sweet gratification in the hope that somehow this new plan might bring her good. But on the whole Eleanor disliked it excessively, with all the power of mature and cultivation. For though frank enough to those whom she loved, a proud reserve was Eleanor's nature in regard to all others whom she did not love; and the habits of her life were as far as possible at variance with this proposed meeting, in its familiar and social religious character. She could not conceive how people should wish to speak of their intimate feelings before other people. Her own shrank from exposure as morbid flesh shrinks from the touch. However, Wednesday came. "Can I have Powis this afternoon, aunt Caxton?" "Certainly, my dear; no need to ask. Powis is yours. Are you going to Mrs. Pynce?" "No ma'am.--" Eleanor struggled.--"Mr. Rhys has made me promise to go to his class. I do not like to go at all; but I have promised." "You will like to go next time," said Mrs. Caxton quietly. And she said no more than that. "Will I?" thought Eleanor as she rode away. But if there was anything harsh or troubled in her mood of mind, all nature breathed upon it to soften it. The trees were leafing out again; the meadows brilliant with fresh green; the soft spring airs wooing into full blush and beauty the numberless spring flowers; every breath fragrant with new sweetness. Nothing could be lovelier than Eleanor's ride to the village; nothing more soothing to a ruffled condition of thought; and she arrived at Mrs. Powlis's door with an odd kind of latent hopefulness that something good might be in store for her there. Her strange and repugnant feelings returned when she got into the house. She was shewn into a room where several other persons were sitting, and where more kept momently coming in. Greetings passed between these persons, very frank and cordial; they were all at home there and accustomed to each other and to the business; Eleanor alone was strange, unwonted, not in her element. That feeling however changed as soon as Mr. Rhys came in. Where he was, there was at least one person whom she had sympathy, and who had some little degree of sympathy with her. Eleanor's feelings were destined to go through a course of discipline before the meeting was over. It began with some very sweet singing. There were no books; everybody knew the words that were sung, and they burst out like a glad little chorus. Eleanor's lips only were mute. The prayer that followed stirred her very much. It was so simple, so pure, so heavenward in its aspirations, so human in its humbleness, so touching in its sympathies. For they reached _her_, Eleanor knew by one word. And when the prayer was ended, whatever might follow, Eleanor was glad she had come to that class-meeting. But what followed she found to be intensely interesting. In words, some few some many, one after another of the persons present gave an account of his progress or of his standing in the Christian life. Each spoke only when called upon by Mr. Rhys; and each was answered in his turn with a word of counsel or direction or encouragement, as the case seemed to need. Sometimes the answer was in the words of the Bible; but always, whatever it were, it was given, Eleanor felt, with singular appositeness to the interests before him. With great skill too, and with infinite sympathy and tenderness if need called for it; with sympathy invariably. And Eleanor admired the apt readiness and kindness and wisdom with which the answers were framed; so as to suggest without fail the lesson desired to be given, yet so suggest it should be felt by nobody as a imputation or a rebuke. And ever and again the little assembly broke out into a burst of song, a verse or two of some hymn, that started naturally from the last words that had been said. Those bursts of song touched Eleanor. They were so plainly heartfelt, so utterly glad in their utterances, that she had never head the like. No choir, the best trained in the world, could give such an effect with their voices, unless they were also trained and meet to be singers in heaven. One of the choruses pleased Eleanor particularly. It was sung in a wild sweet tune, and with great energy. "There's balm in Gilead, To make the wounded whole. There's power enough in Jesus-- To save a sin-sick soul." It was just after this was finished, that Mr Rhys in his moving about the room, came and stood before Eleanor. He asked her "Do You love Jesus?" It is impossible to express the shame and sorrow which Eleanor answered, "No." "Do you wish to be a Christian?" Eleanor bowed her head. "Do you intend to be one?" Eleanor looked up, surprised at the wore, and answered, "If I can." "Do you think," said he very tenderly, "that you have a right to that '_if_'--when Jesus has said, 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and _I will give you rest?_'" He turned from her, and again struck the notes they had been singing. "There's balm in Gilead To make the wounded whole. There's power enough in Jesus To save a sin-sick soul." The closing prayer followed, which almost broke Eleanor's heart in two; it so dealt with her and for her. While some of those present were afterward exchanging low words and shakes of the hand, she slipped away and mounted her pony. She was in dreadful confusion during the first part of her ride. Half resentful, half broken-hearted. It was the last time, she said to herself, that ever she would be found in a meeting like that. She would never go again; to make herself a mark for people's sympathy and a subject for people's prayers. And yet--surely the human mind seems an inconsistent thing at times,--the thought of that sympathy and those prayers had a touch of sweetness in it, which presently drew a flood of tears from Eleanor's eyes. There was one old man in particular, of venerable appearance, who had given a most dignified testimony of faith and happiness, whose "Amen!" recurred to her. It was uttered at the close of a petition Mr. Rhys had made in her favour; and Eleanor recalled it now with a strange mixture of feelings. Why was she so different from him and from the rest of those good people? She knew her duty; why was it not done? She seemed to herself more hard-hearted and evil than Eleanor would formerly have supposed possible of her; she had never liked herself less than she did during this ride home. Her mind was in a rare turmoil, of humiliation and darkness and sorrow; one thing only was clear; that she never would go to a class-meeting again! And yet it would be wrong to say that she was on the whole sorry she had gone once, or that she really regretted anything that had been done or said. But this once should suffice her. So she went along, dropping tears from her eyes and letting Powis find his way as he pleased; which he was quite competent to do. By degrees her eyes cleared to see how lovely the evening was falling. The air sweet with exhalations from the hedge-rows and meadows, yes and from the more distant hills too; fragrant and balmy. The cattle were going home from the fields; smoke curled up from a hundred chimney tops along the hillsides and the valley bottom; the evening light spread here and there in a broad glow of colour; fair snatches of light were all that in many a place the hills and the bottom could catch. Every turn in the winding valley brought a new combination of wonderful beauty into view; and shadows and light, and flower-fragrance, and lowing cattle along the ways, and wreaths of chimney smoke; all spoke of peace. Could the spell help reaching anybody's heart? It reached Eleanor's; or her mood in some inexplicable way soothed itself down; for when she reached the farmhouse, though she thought of herself in the same humbled forlorn way as ever, her thought of the class-meeting had changed. END OF VOL. I. PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. 
21694	----	THE PRAIRIE CHIEF, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE. CHAPTER ONE. THE ALARM. Whitewing was a Red Indian of the North American prairies. Though not a chief of the highest standing, he was a very great man in the estimation of his tribe, for, besides being possessed of qualities which are highly esteemed among all savages--such as courage, strength, agility, and the like--he was a deep thinker, and held speculative views in regard to the Great Manitou (God), as well as the ordinary affairs of life, which perplexed even the oldest men of his tribe, and induced the younger men to look on him as a profound mystery. Indeed the feelings of the latter towards Whitewing amounted almost to veneration, for while, on the one hand, he was noted as one of the most fearless among the braves, and a daring assailant of that king of the northern wilderness, the grizzly bear, he was, on the other hand, modest and retiring--never boasted of his prowess, disbelieved in the principle of revenge, which to most savages is not only a pleasure but a duty, and refused to decorate his sleeves or leggings with the scalp-locks of his enemies. Indeed he had been known to allow more than one enemy to escape from his hand in time of war when he might easily have killed him. Altogether, Whitewing was a monstrous puzzle to his fellows, and much beloved by many of them. The only ornament which he allowed himself was the white wing of a ptarmigan. Hence his name. This symbol of purity was bound to his forehead by a band of red cloth wrought with the quills of the porcupine. It had been made for him by a dark-eyed girl whose name was an Indian word signifying "light heart." But let it not be supposed that Lightheart's head was like her heart. On the contrary, she had a good sound brain, and, although much given to laughter, jest, and raillery among her female friends, would listen with unflagging patience, and profound solemnity, to her lover's soliloquies in reference to things past, present, and to come. One of the peculiarities of Whitewing was that he did not treat women as mere slaves or inferior creatures. His own mother, a wrinkled, brown old thing resembling a piece of singed shoe-leather, he loved with a tenderness not usual in North American Indians, some tribes of whom have a tendency to forsake their aged ones, and leave them to perish rather than be burdened with them. Whitewing also thought that his betrothed was fit to hold intellectual converse with him, in which idea he was not far wrong. At the time we introduce him to the reader he was on a visit to the Indian camp of Lightheart's tribe in Clearvale, for the purpose of claiming his bride. His own tribe, of which the celebrated old warrior Bald Eagle was chief, dwelt in a valley at a considerable distance from the camp referred to. There were two other visitors at the Indian camp at that time. One was a Wesleyan missionary who had penetrated to that remote region with a longing desire to carry the glad tidings of salvation in Jesus to the red men of the prairie. The other was a nondescript little white trapper, who may be aptly described as a mass of contradictions. He was small in stature, but amazingly strong; ugly, one-eyed, scarred in the face, and misshapen; yet wonderfully attractive, because of a sweet smile, a hearty manner, and a kindly disposition. With the courage of the lion, Little Tim, as he was styled, combined the agility of the monkey and the laziness of the sloth. Strange to say, Tim and Whitewing were bosom friends, although they differed in opinion on most things. "The white man speaks again about Manitou to-day," said the Indian, referring to the missionary's intention to preach, as he and Little Tim concluded their midday meal in the wigwam that had been allotted to them. "It's little I cares for that," replied Tim curtly, as he lighted the pipe with which he always wound up every meal. Of course both men spoke in the Indian language, but that being probably unknown to the reader, we will try to convey in English as nearly as possible the slightly poetical tone of the one and the rough Backwoods' style of the other. "It seems strange to me," returned the Indian, "that my white brother thinks and cares so little about his Manitou. He thinks much of his gun, and his traps, and his skins, and his powder, and his friend, but cares not for Manitou, who gave him all these--all that he possesses." "Look 'ee here, Whitewing," returned the trapper, in his matter-of-fact way, "there's nothing strange about it. I see you, and I see my gun and these other things, and can handle 'em; but I don't know nothin' about Manitou, and I don't see him, so what's the good o' thinkin' about him?" Instead of answering, the red man looked silently and wistfully up into the blue sky, which could be seen through the raised curtain of the wigwam. Then, pointing to the landscape before them, he said in subdued but earnest tones, "I see him in the clouds--in the sun, and moon, and stars; in the prairies and in the mountains; I hear him in the singing waters and in the winds that scatter the leaves, and I feel him here." Whitewing laid his hand on his breast, and looked in his friend's face. "But," he continued sadly, "I do not understand him, he whispers so softly that, though I hear, I cannot comprehend. I wonder why this is so." "Ay, that's just it, Whitewing," said the trapper. "We can't make it out nohow, an' so I just leaves all that sort o' thing to the parsons, and give my mind to the things that I understand." "When Little Tim was a very small boy," said the Indian, after a few minutes' meditation, "did he understand how to trap the beaver and the martin, and how to point the rifle so as to carry death to the grizzly bear?" "Of course not," returned the trapper; "seems to me that that's a foolish question." "But," continued the Indian, "you came to know it at last?" "I should just think I did," returned the trapper, a look of self-satisfied pride crossing his scarred visage as he thought of the celebrity as a hunter to which he had attained. "It took me a goodish while, of course, to circumvent it all, but in time I got to be--well, you know what, an' I'm not fond o' blowin' my own trumpet." "Yes; you came to it at last," repeated Whitewing, "by giving your mind to things that at first you _did not understand_." "Come, come, my friend," said Little Tim, with a laugh; "I'm no match for you in argiment, but, as I said before, I don't understand Manitou, an' I don't see, or feel, or hear him, so it's of no use tryin'." "What my friend knows not, another may tell him," said Whitewing. "The white man says he knows Manitou, and brings a message from him. Three times I have listened to his words. They seem the words of truth. I go again to-day to hear his message." The Indian stood up as he spoke, and the trapper also rose. "Well, well," he said, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "I'll go too, though I'm afeared it won't be o' much use." The sermon which the man of God preached that day to the Indians was neither long nor profound, but it was delivered with the intense earnestness of one who thoroughly believes every word he utters, and feels that life and death may be trembling in the balance with those who listen. It is not our purpose to give this sermon in detail, but merely to show its influence on Whitewing, and how it affected the stirring incidents which followed. Already the good man had preached three times the simple gospel of Jesus to these Indians, and with so much success that some were ready to believe, but others doubted, just as in the days of old. For the benefit of the former, he had this day chosen the text, "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus." Whitewing had been much troubled in spirit. His mind, if very inquiring, was also very sceptical. It was not that he would not--but that he could not-- receive anything unless _convinced_. With a strong thirst after truth, he went to hear that day, but, strange to say, he could not fix his attention. Only one sentence seemed to fasten firmly on his memory: "It is the Spirit that quickeneth." The text itself also made a profound impression on him. The preacher had just concluded, and was about to raise his voice in prayer, when a shout was heard in the distance. It came from a man who was seen running over the prairie towards the camp, with the desperate haste of one who runs for his life. All was at once commotion. The men sprang up, and, while some went out to meet the runner, others seized their weapons. In a few seconds a young man with bloodshot eyes, labouring chest, and streaming brow burst into their midst, with the news that a band of Blackfoot warriors, many hundred strong, was on its way to attack the camp of Bald Eagle; that he was one of that old chief's braves, and was hasting to give his tribe timely warning, but that he had run so far and so fast as to be quite unable to go another step, and had turned aside to borrow a horse, or beg them to send on a fresh messenger. "_I_ will go," said Whitewing, on hearing this; "and my horse is ready." He wasted no more time with words, but ran towards the hollow where his steed had been hobbled, that is, the two front legs tied together so as to admit of moderate freedom without the risk of desertion. He was closely followed by his friend Little Tim, who, knowing well the red man's staid and self-possessed character, was somewhat surprised to see by his flashing eyes and quick breathing that he was unusually excited. "Whitewing is anxious," he said, as they ran together. "The woman whom I love better than life is in Bald Eagle's camp," was the brief reply. "Oho!" thought Little Tim, but he spoke no word, for he knew his friend to be extremely reticent in regard to matters of the heart. For some time he had suspected him of what he styled a weakness in that organ. "Now," thought he, "I know it." "Little Tim will go with me?" asked the Indian, as they turned into the hollow where the horses had been left. "Ay, Whitewing," answered the trapper, with a touch of enthusiasm; "Little Tim will stick to you through thick and thin, as long as--" An exclamation from the Indian at that moment stopped him, for it was discovered that the horses were not there. The place was so open that concealment was not possible. The steeds of both men had somehow got rid of their hobbles and galloped away. A feeling of despair came over the Indian at this discovery. It was quickly followed by a stern resolve. He was famed as being the fleetest and most enduring brave of his tribe. He would _run_ home. Without saying a word to his friend, he tightened his belt, and started off like a hound loosed from the leash. Little Tim ran a few hundred yards after him at top speed, but suddenly pulled up. "Pooh! It's useless," he exclaimed. "I might as well run after a streak o' greased lightnin'. Well, well, women have much to answer for! Who'd iver have thowt to see Whitewing shook off his balance like that? It strikes me I'll sarve him best by lookin' after the nags." While the trapper soliloquised thus he ran back to the camp to get one of the Indian horses, wherewith to go off in search of his own and that of his friend. He found the Indians busy making preparations to ride to the rescue of their Bald Eagle allies; but quick though these sons of the prairie were, they proved too slow for Little Tim, who leaped on the first horse he could lay hold of, and galloped away. Meanwhile Whitewing ran with the fleet, untiring step of a trained runner whose heart is in his work; but the way was long, and as evening advanced even his superior powers began to fail a little. Still he held on, greatly overtaxing his strength. Nothing could have been more injudicious in a prolonged race. He began to suspect that it was unwise, when he came to a stretch of broken ground, which in the distance was traversed by a range of low hills. As he reached these he reduced the pace a little, but while he was clambering up the face of a rather precipitous cliff, the thought of the Blackfoot band and of the much-loved one came into his mind; prudence went to the winds, and in a moment he was on the summit of the cliff, panting vehemently--so much so, indeed, that he felt it absolutely necessary to sit down for a few moments to rest. While resting thus, with his back against a rock, in the attitude of one utterly worn out, part of the missionary's text flashed into his mind: "the race that is set before us." "Surely," he murmured, looking up, "this race is set before me. The object is good. It is my duty as well as my desire." The thought gave an impulse to his feelings; the impulse sent his young blood careering, and, springing up, he continued to run as if the race had only just begun. But ere long the pace again began to tell, producing a sinking of the heart, which tended to increase the evil. Hour after hour had passed without his making any perceptible abatement in the pace, and the night was now closing in. This however mattered not, for the full moon was sailing in a clear sky, ready to relieve guard with the sun. Again the thought recurred that he acted unwisely in thus pressing on beyond his powers, and once more he stopped and sat down. This time the text could not be said to flash into his mind, for while running, it had never left him. He now deliberately set himself to consider it, and the word "patience" arrested his attention. "Let us run with patience," he thought. "I have not been patient. But the white man did not mean this kind of race at all; he said it was the whole race of life. Well, if so, _this_ is part of that race, and it _is_ set before me. Patience! patience! I will try." With childlike simplicity the red man rose and began to run slowly. For some time he kept it up, but as his mind reverted to the object of his race his patience began to ooze out. He could calculate pretty well the rate at which the Blackfoot foes would probably travel, and knowing the exact distance, perceived that it would be impossible for him to reach the camp before them, unless he ran all the way at full speed. The very thought of this induced him to put on a spurt, which broke him down altogether. Stumbling over a piece of rough ground, he fell with such violence that for a moment or two he lay stunned. Soon, however, he was on his legs again, and tried to resume his headlong career, but felt that the attempt was useless. With a deep irrepressible groan, he sank upon the turf. It was in this hour of his extremity that the latter part of the preacher's text came to his mind: "looking unto Jesus." Poor Whitewing looked upwards, as if he half expected to see the Saviour with the bodily eye, and a mist seemed to be creeping over him. He was roused from this semi-conscious state by the clattering of horses' hoofs. The Blackfoot band at once occurred to his mind. Starting up, he hid behind a piece of rock. The sounds drew nearer, and presently he saw horsemen passing him at a considerable distance. How many he could not make out. There seemed to be very few. The thought that it might be his friend the trapper occurred, but if he were to shout, and it should turn out to be foes, not only would his own fate but that of his tribe be sealed. The case was desperate; still, anything was better than remaining helplessly where he was. He uttered a sharp cry. It was responded to at once in the voice of Little Tim, and next moment the faithful trapper galloped towards Whitewing leading his horse by the bridle. "Well, now, this is good luck," cried the trapper, as he rode up. "No," replied the Indian gravely, "it is not _luck_." "Well, as to that, I don't much care what you call it--but get up. Why, what's wrong wi' you?" "The run has been very long, and I pressed forward impatiently, trusting too much to my own strength. Let my friend help me to mount." "Well, now I come to think of it," said the trapper, as he sprang to the ground, "you have come a tremendous way--a most awful long way--in an uncommon short time. A fellow don't think o' that when he's mounted, ye see. There now," he added, resuming his own seat in the saddle, "off we go. But there's no need to overdrive the cattle; we'll be there in good time, I warrant ye, for the nags are both good and fresh." Little Tim spoke the simple truth, for his own horse which he had discovered along with that of his friend some time after parting from him, was a splendid animal, much more powerful and active than the ordinary Indian horses. The steed of Whitewing was a half-wild creature of Spanish descent, from the plains of Mexico. Nothing more was spoken after this. The two horsemen rode steadily on side by side, proceeding with long but not too rapid strides over the ground: now descending into the hollows, or ascending the gentle undulations of the plains; anon turning out and in to avoid the rocks and ruts and rugged places; or sweeping to right or left to keep clear of clumps of stunted wood and thickets, but never for a moment drawing rein until the goal was reached, which happened very shortly before the break of day. The riding was absolute rest to Whitewing, who recovered strength rapidly as they advanced. "There is neither sight nor sound of the foe here," murmured the Indian. "No, all safe!" replied the trapper in a tone of satisfaction, as they cantered to the summit of one of the prairie waves, and beheld the wigwams of Bald Eagle shining peacefully in the moonlight on the plain below. CHAPTER TWO. THE SURPRISE AND COMBAT. How frequently that "slip 'twixt the cup and the lip" is observed in the affairs of this life! Little Tim, the trapper, had barely pronounced the words "All safe," when an appalling yell rent the air, and a cloud of dark forms was seen to rush over the open space that lay between the wigwams of the old chief Bald Eagle and a thicket that grew on its westward side. The Blackfoot band had taken the slumbering Indians completely by surprise, and Whitewing had the mortification of finding that he had arrived just a few minutes too late to warn his friends. Although Bald Eagle was thus caught unprepared, he was not slow to meet the enemy. Before the latter had reached the village, all the fighting men were up, and armed with bows, scalping-knives, and tomahawks. They had even time to rush towards the foe, and thus prevent the fight from commencing in the midst of the village. The world is all too familiar with the scenes that ensued. It is not our purpose to describe them. We detest war, regarding it in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred as unnecessary. Sufficient to say here that the overwhelming numbers of the Blackfoot Indians were too much for their enemies. They soon began to overpower and drive them back towards the wigwams, where the poor women and children were huddled together in terror. Before this point had arrived, however, Whitewing and Little Tim were galloping to the rescue. The former knew at a glance that resistance on the part of his friends would be hopeless. He did not therefore gallop straight down to the field of battle to join them, but, turning sharply aside with his friend, swept along one of the bottoms or hollows between the undulations of the plain, where their motions could not be seen as they sped along. Whitewing looked anxiously at Little Tim, who, observing the look, said:-- "I'm with 'ee, Whitewing, niver fear." "Does my brother know that we ride to death?" asked the Indian in an earnest tone. "Yer brother don't know nothin' o' the sort," replied the trapper, "and, considerin' your natur', I'd have expected ye to think that Manitou might have some hand in the matter." "The white man speaks wisely," returned the chief, accepting the reproof with a humbled look. "We go in His strength." And once again the latter part of the preacher's text seemed to shoot through the Indian's brain like a flash of light--"looking unto Jesus." Whitewing was one of those men who are swift to conceive and prompt in action. Tim knew that he had a plan of some sort in his head, and, having perfect faith in his capacity, forbore to advise him, or even to speak. He merely drew his hunting-knife, and urged his steed to its utmost speed, for every moment of time was precious. The said hunting-knife was one of which Little Tim was peculiarly fond. It had been presented to him by a Mexican general for conspicuous gallantry in saving the life of one of his officers in circumstances of extreme danger. It was unusually long and heavy, and, being double-edged, bore some resemblance to the short, sword of the ancient Romans. "It'll do some execution before I go down," thought Tim, as he regarded the bright blade with an earnest look. But Tim was wrong. The blade was not destined to be tarnished that day. In a very few minutes the two horsemen galloped to the thicket which had concealed the enemy. Entering this they dashed through it as fast as possible until they reached the other side, whence they could see the combatants on the plain beyond. All along they had heard the shouts and yells of battle. For one moment Whitewing drew up to breathe his gallant steed, but the animal was roused by that time, and it was difficult to restrain him. His companion's horse was also nearly unmanageable. "My brother's voice is strong. Let him use it well," said the chief abruptly. "Ay, ay," replied the little trapper, with an intelligent chuckle; "go ahead, my boy. I'll give it out fit to bu'st the bellows." Instantly Whitewing shot from the wood, like the panther rushing on his prey, uttering at the same time the tremendous war-cry of his tribe. Little Tim followed suit with a roar that was all but miraculous in its tone and character, and may be described as a compound of the steam-whistle and the buffalo bull, only with something about it intensely human. It rose high above the din of battle. The combatants heard and paused. The two horsemen were seen careering towards them with furious gesticulations. Red Indians seldom face certain death. The Blackfoot men knew that an attack by only two men would be sheer insanity; the natural conclusion was that they were the leaders of a band just about to emerge from the thicket. They were thus taken in rear. A panic seized them, which was intensified when Little Tim repeated his roar and flourished the instrument of death, which he styled his "little carving-knife." The Blackfeet turned and fled right and left, scattering over the plains individually and in small groups, as being the best way of baffling pursuit. With that sudden access of courage which usually results from the exhibition of fear in a foe, Bald Eagle's men yelled and gave chase. Bald Eagle himself, however, had the wisdom to call them back. At a council of war, hastily summoned on the spot, he said-- "My braves, you are a parcel of fools." Clearing his throat after this plain statement, either for the purpose of collecting his thoughts or giving his young warriors time to weigh and appreciate the compliment, he continued-- "You chase the enemy as thoughtlessly as the north wind chases the leaves in autumn. My wise chief Whitewing, and his friend Leetil Tim-- whose heart is big, and whose voice is bigger, and whose scalping-knife is biggest of all--have come to our rescue _alone_. Whitewing tells me there is no one at their backs. If our foes discover their mistake, they will turn again, and the contempt which they ought to pour on themselves because of their own cowardice they will heap on _our_ heads, and overwhelm us by their numbers--for who can withstand numbers? They will scatter us like small dust before the hurricane. Waugh!" The old man paused for breath, for the recent fight had taken a good deal out of him, and the assembled warriors exclaimed "Waugh!" by which they meant to express entire approval of his sentiments. "Now it is my counsel," he continued, "that as we have been saved by Whitewing, we should all shut our mouths, and hear what Whitewing has got to say." Bald Eagle sat down amid murmurs of applause, and Whitewing arose. There was something unusually gentle in the tone and aspect of the young chief on this occasion. "Our father, the ancient one who has just spoken words of wisdom," he said, stretching forth his right hand, "has told you the truth, yet not quite the truth. He is right when he says that Leetil Tim and I have come to your rescue, but he is wrong when he says we come alone. It is true that there are no men at our backs to help us, but is not Manitou behind us--in front--around? It was Manitou who sent us here, and it was He who gave us the victory." Whitewing paused, and there were some exclamations of approval, but they were not so numerous or so decided as he could have wished, for red men are equally unwilling with white men to attribute their successes directly to their Creator. "And now," he continued, "as Bald Eagle has said, if our foes find out their mistake, they will, without doubt, return. We must therefore take up our goods, our wives, and our little ones, and hasten to meet our brothers of Clearvale, who are even now on their way to help us. Our band is too small to fight the Blackfeet, but united with our friends, and with Manitou on our side for our cause is just, we shall be more than a match, for them. I counsel, then, that we raise the camp without delay." The signs of approval were much more decided at the close of this brief address, and the old chief again rose up. "My braves," he said, "have listened to the words of wisdom. Let each warrior go to his wigwam and get ready. We quit the camp when the sun stands there." He printed to a spot in the sky where the sun would be shining about an hour after daybreak, which was already brightening the eastern sky. As he spoke the dusky warriors seemed to melt from the scene as if by magic, and ere long the whole camp was busy packing up goods, catching horses, fastening on dogs little packages suited to their size and strength, and otherways making preparation for immediate departure. "Follow me," said Whitewing to Little Tim, as he turned like the rest to obey the orders of the old chief. "Ay, it's time to be lookin' after her," said Tim, with something like a wink of one eye, but the Indian was too much occupied with his own thoughts to observe the act or appreciate the allusion. He strode swiftly through the camp. "Well, well," soliloquised the trapper as he followed, "I niver did expect to see Whitewing in this state o' mind. He's or'narily sitch a cool, unexcitable man. Ah! women, you've much to answer for!" Having thus apostrophised the sex, he hurried on in silence, leaving his horse to the care of a youth, who also took charge of Whitewing's steed. Close to the outskirts of the camp stood a wigwam somewhat apart from the rest. It belonged to Whitewing. Only two women were in it at the time the young Indian chief approached. One was a good-looking young girl, whose most striking feature was her large, earnest-looking, dark eyes. The other was a wrinkled old woman, who might have been any age between fifty and a hundred, for a life of exposure and hardship, coupled with a somewhat delicate constitution, had dried her up to such an extent that, when asleep, she might easily have passed for an Egyptian mummy. One redeeming point in the poor old thing was the fact that all the deep wrinkles in her weather-worn and wigwam-smoked visage ran in the lines of kindliness. Her loving character was clearly stamped upon her mahogany countenance, so that he who ran might easily read. With the characteristic reserve of the red man, Whitewing merely gave the two women a slight look of recognition, which was returned with equal quietness by the young woman, but with a marked rippling of the wrinkles on the part of the old. There still remained a touch of anxiety caused by the recent fight on both countenances. It was dispelled, however, by a few words from Whitewing, who directed the younger woman to prepare for instant flight. She acted with prompt, unquestioning obedience, and at the same time the Indian went to work to pack up his goods with all speech. Of course Tim lent efficient aid to tie up the packs and prepare them for slinging on horse and dog. "I say, Whitewing," whispered Tim, touching the chief with his elbow, and glancing at the young woman with approval--for Tim, who was an affectionate fellow and anxious about his friend's welfare, rejoiced to observe that the girl was obedient and prompt as well as pretty--"I say, is that her?" Whitewing looked with a puzzled expression at his friend. "Is that _her_--_the_ girl, you know?" said Little Tim, with a series of looks and nods which were intended to convey worlds of deep meaning. "She is my sister--Brighteyes," replied the Indian quietly, as he continued his work. "Whew!" whistled the trapper. "Well, well," he murmured in an undertone, "you're on the wrong scent this time altogether, Tim. Ye think yerself a mighty deal cliverer than ye are. Niver mind, the one that he says he loves more nor life'll turn up soon enough, no doubt. But I'm real sorry for the old 'un," he added in an undertone, casting a glance of pity on the poor creature, who bent over the little fire in the middle of the tent, and gazed silently yet inquiringly at what was going on. "She'll niver be able to stand a flight like this. The mere joltin' o' the nags 'ud shake her old bones a'most out of her skin. There are some Redskins now, that would leave her to starve, but Whitewing'll niver do that. I know him better. Now then"--aloud--"have ye anything more for me to do?" "Let my brother help Brighteyes to bring up and pack the horses." "Jist so. Come along, Brighteyes." With the quiet promptitude of one who has been born and trained to obey, the Indian girl followed the trapper out of the wigwam. Being left alone with the old woman, some of the young chief's reserve wore off, though he did not descend to familiarity. "Mother," he said, sitting down beside her and speaking loud, for the old creature was rather deaf, "we must fly. The Blackfeet are too strong for us. Are you ready?" "I am always ready to do the bidding of my son," replied this pattern mother. "But sickness has made me old before my time. I have not strength to ride far. Manitou thinks it time for me to die. It is better for Whitewing to leave me and give his care to the young ones." "The young ones can take care of themselves," replied the chief somewhat sternly. "We know not what Manitou thinks. It is our business to live as long as we can. If you cannot ride, mother, I will carry you. Often you have carried me when I could not ride." It is difficult to guess why Whitewing dropped his poetical language, and spoke in this matter-of-fact and sharp manner. Great thoughts had been swelling in his bosom for some time past, and perchance he was affected by the suggestion that the cruel practice of deserting the aged was not altogether unknown in his tribe. It may be that the supposition of his being capable of such cruelty nettled him. At all events, he said nothing more except to tell his mother to be ready to start at once. The old woman herself, who seemed to be relieved that her proposition was not favourably received, began to obey her son's directions by throwing a gay-coloured handkerchief over her head, and tying it under her chin. She then fastened her moccasins more securely on her feet, wrapped a woollen kerchief round her shoulders, and drew a large green blanket around her, strapping it to her person by means of a broad strip of deerskin. Having made these simple preparations for whatever journey lay before her, she warmed her withered old hands over the embers of the wood fire, and awaited her son's pleasure. Meanwhile that son went outside to see the preparations for flight carried into effect. "We're all ready," said Little Tim, whom he met not far from the wigwam. "Horses and dogs down in the hollow; Brighteyes an' a lot o' youngsters lookin' after them. All you want now is to get hold o' her, and be off; an' the sooner the better, for Blackfoot warriors don't take long to get over scares an' find out mistakes. But I'm most troubled about the old woman. She'll niver be able to stand it." To this Whitewing paid little attention. In truth, his mind seemed to be taken up with other thoughts, and his friend was not much surprised, having come, as we have seen, to the conclusion that the Indian was under a temporary spell for which woman was answerable. "Is my horse at hand?" asked Whitewing. "Ay, down by the creek, all ready." "And my brother's horse?" "Ready too, at the same place; but we'll want another good 'un--for _her_, you know," said Tim suggestively. "Let the horses be brought to my wigwam," returned Whitewing, either not understanding or disregarding the last remark. The trapper was slightly puzzled, but, coming to the wise conclusion that his friend knew his own affairs best, and had, no doubt, made all needful preparations, he went off quietly to fetch the horses, while the Indian returned to the wigwam. In a few minutes Little Tim stood before the door, holding the bridles of the two horses. Immediately afterwards a little Indian boy ran up with a third and somewhat superior horse, and halted beside him. "Ha! that's it at last. The horse for _her_," said the trapper to himself with some satisfaction; "I knowed that Whitewing would have everything straight--even though he _is_ in a raither stumped condition just now." As he spoke, Brighteyes ran towards the wigwam, and looked in at the door. Next moment she went to the steed which Little Tim had, in his own mind, set aside for "_her_," and vaulted into the saddle as a young deer might have done, had it taken to riding. Of course Tim was greatly puzzled, and forced to admit a second time that he had over-estimated his own cleverness, and was again off the scent. Before his mind had a chance of being cleared up, the skin curtain of the wigwam was raised, and Whitewing stepped out with a bundle in his arms. He gave it to Little Tim to hold while he mounted his somewhat restive horse, and then the trapper became aware--from certain squeaky sounds, and a pair of eyes that glittered among the folds of the bundle that he held the old woman in his arms! "I say, Whitewing," he said remonstratively, as he handed up the bundle, which the Indian received tenderly in his left arm, "most of the camp has started. In quarter of an hour or so there'll be none left. Don't 'ee think it's about time to look after _her_?" Whitewing looked at the trapper with a perplexed expression--a look which did not quite depart after his friend had mounted, and was riding through the half-deserted camp beside him. "Now, Whitewing," said the trapper, with some decision of tone and manner, "I'm quite as able as you are to carry that old critter. If you'll make her over to me, you'll be better able to look after _her_, you know. Eh?" "My brother speaks strangely to-day," replied the chief. "His words are hidden from his Indian friend. What does he mean by `_her_'?" "Well, well, now, ye are slow," answered Tim; "I wouldn't ha' believed that anything short o' scalpin' could ha' took away yer wits like that. Why, of course I mean the woman ye said was dearer to 'ee than life." "That woman is here," replied the chief gravely, casting a brief glance down at the wrinkled old visage that nestled upon his breast--"my mother." "Whew!" whistled the trapper, opening his eyes very wide indeed. For the third time that day he was constrained to admit that he had been thrown completely off the scent, and that, in regard to cleverness, he was no better than a "squawkin' babby." But Little Tim said never a word. Whatever his thoughts might have been after that, he kept them to himself, and, imitating his Indian brother, maintained profound silence as he galloped between him and Brighteyes over the rolling prairie. CHAPTER THREE. THE MASSACRE AND THE CHASE. The sun was setting when Whitewing and his friend rode into Clearvale. The entrance to the valley was narrow, and for a short distance the road, or Indian track, wound among groups of trees and bushes which effectually concealed the village from their sight. At this point in the ride Little Tim began to recover from the surprise at his own stupidity which had for so long a period of time reduced him to silence. Riding up alongside of Whitewing, who was a little in advance of the party, still bearing his mother in his arms, he accosted him thus-- "I say, Whitewing, the longer I know you, the more of a puzzle you are to me. I thowt I'd got about at the bottom o' all yer notions an' ways by this time, but I find that I'm mistaken." As no question was asked, the red man deemed no reply needful, but the faintest symptom of a smile told the trapper that his remark was understood and appreciated. "One thing that throws me off the scent," continued Little Tim, "is the way you Injins have got o' holdin' yer tongues, so that a feller can't make out what yer minds are after. Why don't you speak? why ain't you more commoonicative?" "The children of the prairie think that wisdom lies in silence," answered Whitewing gravely. "They leave it to their women and white brothers to chatter out all their minds." "Humph! The children o' the prairie ain't complimentary to their white brothers," returned the trapper. "Mayhap yer right. Some of us do talk a leetle too much. It's a way we've got o' lettin' off the steam. I'm afeard I'd bust sometimes if I didn't let my feelin's off through my mouth. But your silent ways are apt to lead fellers off on wrong tracks when there's no need to. Didn't I think, now, that you was after a young woman as ye meant to take for a squaw--and after all it turned out to be your mother!" "My white brother sometimes makes mistakes," quietly remarked the Indian. "True; but your white brother wouldn't have made the mistake if ye had told him who it was you were after when ye set off like a mad grizzly wi' its pups in danger. Didn't I go tearin' after you neck and crop as if I was a boy o' sixteen, in the belief that I was helpin' ye in a love affair?" "It _was_ a love affair," said the Indian quietly. "True, but not the sort o' thing that I thowt it was." "Would you have refused to help me if you had known better?" demanded Whitewing somewhat sharply. "Nay, I won't say that," returned Tim, "for I hold that a woman's a woman, be she old or young, pretty or ugly, an' I'd scorn the man as would refuse to help her in trouble; besides, as the wrinkled old critter _is_ your mother, I've got a sneakin' sort o' fondness for her; but if I'd only known, a deal o' what they call romance would ha' bin took out o' the little spree." "Then it is well that my brother did not know." To this the trapper merely replied, "Humph!" After a few minutes he resumed in a more confidential tone-- "But I say, Whitewing, has it niver entered into your head to take to yourself a wife? A man's always the better of havin' a female companion to consult with an' talk over things, you know, as well as to make his moccasins and leggin's." "Does Little Tim act on his own opinions?" asked the Indian quickly. "Ha! that's a fair slap in the face," said Tim, with a laugh, "but there may be reasons for that, you see. Gals ain't always as willin' as they should be; sometimes they don't know a good man when they see him. Besides, I ain't too old yet, though p'raps some of 'em thinks me raither short for a husband. Come now, don't keep yer old comrade in the dark. Haven't ye got a notion o' some young woman in partikler?" "Yes," replied the Indian gravely. "Jist so; I thowt as much," returned the trapper, with a tone and look of satisfaction. "What may her name be?" "Lightheart." "Ay? Lightheart. A good name--specially if she takes after it, as I've no doubt she do. An' what tribe does--" The trapper stopped abruptly, for at that moment the cavalcade swept out of the thicket into the open valley, and the two friends suddenly beheld the Indian camp, which they had so recently left, reduced to a smoking ruin. It is impossible to describe the consternation of the Indians, who had ridden so far and so fast to join their friends. And how shall we speak of the state of poor Whitewing's feelings? No sound escaped his compressed lips, but a terrible light seemed to gleam from his dark eyes, as, clasping his mother convulsively to his breast with his left arm, he grasped his tomahawk, and urged his horse to its utmost speed. Little Tim was at his side in a moment, with the long dagger flashing in his right hand, while Bald Eagle and his dusky warriors pressed close behind. The women and children were necessarily left in the rear; but Whitewing's sister, Brighteyes, being better mounted than these, kept up with the men of war. The scene that presented itself when they reached the camp was indeed terrible. Many of the wigwams were burned, some of them still burning, and those that had escaped the fire had been torn down and scattered about, while the trodden ground and pools of blood told of the dreadful massacre that had so recently taken place. It was evident that the camp had been surprised, and probably all the men slain, while a very brief examination sufficed to show that such of the women and children as were spared had been carried off into slavery. In every direction outside the camp were found the scalped bodies of the slain, left as they had fallen in unavailing defence of home. The examination of the camp was made in hot haste and profound silence, because instant action had to be taken for the rescue of those who had been carried away, and Indians are at all times careful to restrain and hide their feelings. Only the compressed lip, the heaving bosom, the expanding nostrils, and the scowling eyes told of the fires that raged within. In this emergency Bald Eagle, who was getting old and rather feeble, tacitly gave up the command of the braves to Whitewing. It need scarcely be said that the young chief acted with vigour. He with the trapper having traced the trail of the Blackfoot war-party--evidently a different band from that which had attacked Bald Eagle's camp--and ascertained the direction they had taken, divided his force into two bands, in command of which he placed two of the best chiefs of his tribe. Bald Eagle himself agreed to remain with a small force to protect the women and children. Having made his dispositions and given his orders, Whitewing mounted his horse; and galloped a short distance on the enemy's trail; followed by his faithful friend. Reining up suddenly, he said-- "What does my brother counsel?" "Well, Whitewing, since ye ask, I would advise you to follow yer own devices. You've got a good head on your shoulders, and know what's best." "Manitou knows what is best," said the Indian solemnly. "He directs all. But His ways are very dark. Whitewing cannot understand them." "Still, we must act, you know," suggested the trapper. "Yes, we must act; and I ask counsel of my brother, because it may be that Manitou shall cause wisdom and light to flow from the lips of the white man." "Well, I don't know as to that, Whitewing, but my advice, whatever it's worth, is, that we should try to fall on the reptiles in front and rear at the same time, and that you and I should go out in advance to scout." "Good," said the Indian; "my plan is so arranged." Without another word he gave the rein to his impatient horse, and was about to set off at full speed, when he was arrested by the trapper exclaiming, "Hold on? here's some one coming after us." A rider was seen galloping from the direction of the burned camp. It turned out to be Brighteyes. "What brings my sister?" demanded Whitewing. The girl with downcast look modestly requested leave to accompany them. Her brother sternly refused. "It is not woman's part to fight," he said. "True, but woman sometimes helps the fighter," replied the girl, not venturing to raise her eyes. "Go," returned Whitewing. "Time may not be foolishly wasted. The old ones and the children need thy care." Without a word Brighteyes turned her horse's head towards the camp, and was about to ride humbly away when Little Tim interfered. "Hold on, girl! I say, Whitewing, she's not so far wrong. Many a time has woman rendered good service in warfare. She's well mounted, and might ride back with a message or something o' that sort. You'd better let her come." "She may come," said Whitewing, and next moment he was bounding over the prairie at the full speed of his fiery steed, closely followed by Little Tim and Brighteyes. That same night, at a late hour, a band of savage warriors entered a thicket on the slopes of one of those hills on the western prairies which form what are sometimes termed the spurs of the Rocky Mountains, though there was little sign of the great mountain range itself, which was still distant several days' march from the spot. A group of wearied women and children, some riding, some on foot, accompanied the band. It was that which had so recently destroyed the Indian village. They had pushed on with their prisoners and booty as far and as fast as their jaded horses could go, in order to avoid pursuit--though, having slain all the fighting men, there was little chance of that, except in the case of friends coming to the rescue, which they thought improbable. Still, with the wisdom of savage warriors, they took every precaution to guard against surprise. No fire was lighted in the camp, and sentries were placed all round it to guard them during the few hours they meant to devote to much-needed repose. While these Blackfeet were eating their supper, Whitewing and Little Tim came upon them. Fortunately the sharp and practised eyes and intellects of our two friends were on the alert. So small a matter as a slight wavering in the Blackfoot mind as to the best place for encamping produced an effect on the trail sufficient to be instantly observed. "H'm! they've took it into their heads here," said Little Tim, "that it might be advisable to camp an' feed." Whitewing did not speak at once, but his reining up at the moment his friend broke silence showed that he too had observed the signs. "It's always the way," remarked the trapper with a quiet chuckle as he peered earnestly at the ground which the moon enabled him to see distinctly, "if a band o' men only mention campin' when they're on the march they're sure to waver a bit an' spoil the straight, go-ahead run o' the trail." "One turned aside to examine yonder bluff," said the Indian, pointing to a trail which he saw clearly, although it was undistinguishable to ordinary vision. "Ay, an' the bluff didn't suit," returned Tim, "for here he rejoins his friends, an' they go off agin at the run. No more waverin'. They'd fixed their eyes a good bit ahead, an' made up their minds." "They are in the thicket yonder," said the Indian, pointing to the place referred to. "Jist what I was goin' to remark," observed the trapper. "Now, Whitewing, it behoves us to be cautious. Ay, I see your mind an' mine always jumps togither." This latter remark had reference to the fact that the Indian had leaped off his horse and handed the reins to Brighteyes. Placing his horse also in charge of the Indian girl, Tim said, as the two set off-- "We have to do the rest on fut, an' the last part on our knees." By this the trapper meant that he and his friend would have to creep up to the enemy's camp on hands and knees, but Whitewing, whose mind had been recently so much exercised on religious matters, at once thought of what he had been taught about the importance of prayer, and again the words, "looking unto Jesus," rushed with greater power than ever upon his memory, so that, despite his anxiety as to the fate of his affianced bride and the perilous nature of the enterprise in hand, he kept puzzling his inquiring brain with such difficulties as the absolute dependence of man on the will and leading of God, coupled with the fact of his being required to go into vigorous, decisive, and apparently independent action, trusting entirely to his own resources. "Mystery," thought the red man, as he and his friend walked swiftly along, taking advantage of the shelter afforded by every glade, thicket, or eminence; "all is mystery!" But Whitewing was wrong, as many men in all ages have been on first bending their minds to the consideration of spiritual things. All is _not_ mystery. In the dealings of God with man, much, very much, is mysterious, and by us in this life apparently insoluble; but many things--especially those things that are of vital importance to the soul--are as clear as the sun at noonday. However, our red man was at this time only beginning to run the spiritual race, and, like many others, he was puzzled. But no sign did he show of what was going on within, as he glided along, bending his keen eyes intently on the Blackfoot trail. At last they came to the immediate neighbourhood of the spot where it was rightly conjectured the enemy lay concealed. Here, as Tim had foretold, they went upon their knees, and advanced with the utmost caution. Coming to a grassy eminence they lay flat down and worked their way slowly and painfully to the top. Well was it for them that a few clouds shrouded the moon at that time, for one of the Blackfoot sentinels had been stationed on that grassy eminence, and if Whitewing and the trapper had been less expert in the arts of savage war, they must certainly have been discovered. As it was, they were able to draw off in time and reach another part of the mound where a thick bush effectually concealed them from view. From this point, when the clouds cleared away, the camp could be clearly seen in the vale below. Even the forms of the women and children were distinguishable, but not their faces. "It won't be easy to get at them by surprise," whispered the trapper. "Their position is strong, and they keep a bright lookout; besides, the moon won't be down for some hours yet--not much before daybreak." "Whitewing will take the prey from under their very noses," returned the Indian. "That won't be easy, but I've no doubt you'll try, an' sure, Little Tim's the man to back ye, anyhow." At that moment a slight rustling noise was heard. Looking through the bush, they saw the Blackfoot sentinel approaching. Instantly they sank down into the grass, where they lay so flat and still that it seemed as if they had vanished entirely from the scene. When the sentinel was almost abreast of them, a sound arose from the camp which caused him to stop and listen. It was the sound of song. The missionary--the only _man_ the Blackfoot Indians had not slain-- having finished supper, had gathered some of the women and children round him, and, after an earnest prayer, had begun a hymn of praise. At first the Blackfoot chief was on the point of ordering them to cease, but as the sweet notes arose he seemed to be spell-bound, and remained a silent and motionless listener. The sentinel on the mound also became like a dark statue. He had never heard such tones before. After listening a few minutes in wonder, he walked slowly to the end of the mound nearest to the singers. "Now's our chance, Whitewing," said the trapper, rising from his lair. The Indian made no reply, but descended the slope as carefully as he had ascended it, followed by his friend. In a short time they were back at the spot where the horses had been left in charge of Brighteyes. Whitewing took his sister aside, and for a few minutes they conversed in low tones. "I have arranged it all with Brighteyes," said the Indian, returning to the trapper. "Didn't I tell 'ee," said Tim, with a low laugh, "that women was good at helpin' men in time o' war? Depend upon it that the sex must have a finger in every pie; and, moreover, the pie's not worth much that they haven't got a finger in." To these remarks the young chief vouchsafed no answer, but gravely went about making preparations to carry out his plans. While tying the three horses to three separate trees, so as to be ready for instant flight, he favoured his friend with a few explanations. "It is not possible," he said, "to take more than three just now, for the horses cannot carry more. But these three Brighteyes will rescue from the camp, and we will carry them off. Then we will return with our braves and have all the rest--if Manitou allows." The trapper looked at his friend in surprise. He had never before heard him make use of such an expression as the last. Nevertheless, he made no remark, but while the three were gliding silently over the prairie again towards the Blackfoot camp he kept murmuring to himself: "You're a great puzzle, Whitewing, an' I can't make ye out nohow. Yet I make no doubt yer right. Whativer ye do comes right somehow; but yer a great puzzle--about the greatest puzzle that's comed across my tracks since I was a squallin' little babby-boy!" CHAPTER FOUR. CIRCUMVENTING THE BLACKFEET. On reaching the neighbourhood of the Blackfoot camp, Whitewing, and his companions crept to the top of the eminence which overlooked it, taking care, however, to keep as far away as possible from the sentinel who still watched there. Brighteyes proved herself to be quite as expert as her male companions in advancing like a snake through the long grass, though encumbered with a blanket wrapped round her shoulders. The use of this blanket soon became apparent. As the three lay prone on their faces looking down at the camp, from which the sound of voices still arose in subdued murmurs, the young chief said to his sister-- "Let the signal be a few notes of the song Brighteyes learned from the white preacher. Go." Without a word of reply, the girl began to move gently forward, maintaining her recumbent position as she went, and gradually, as it were, melted away. The moon was still shining brightly, touching every object with pale but effective lights, and covering hillocks and plains with correspondingly dark shadows. In a few minutes Brighteyes had crept past the young sentinel, and lay within sight--almost within ear shot of the camp. Much to her satisfaction she observed that the Indians had not bound their captives. Even the missionary's hands were free. Evidently they thought, and were perhaps justified in thinking, that escape was impossible, for the horses of the party were all gathered together and hobbled, besides being under a strong guard; and what chance could women and children have, out on the plains on foot, against mounted men, expert to follow the faintest trail? As for the white man, he was a man of peace and unarmed, as well as ignorant of warriors' ways. The captives were therefore not only unbound, but left free to move about the camp at will, while some of their captors slept, some fed, and others kept watch. The missionary had just finished singing a hymn, and was about to begin to read a portion of God's Word when one of the women left the group, and wandered accidentally close to the spot where Brighteyes lay. It was Lightheart. "Sister," whispered Brighteyes. The girl stopped abruptly, and bent forward to listen, with intense anxiety depicted on every feature of her pretty brown face. "Sister," repeated Brighteyes, "sink in the grass and wait." Lightheart was too well trained in Indian ways to speak or hesitate. At once, but slowly, she sank down and disappeared. Another moment, and Brighteyes was at her side. "Sister," she said, "Manitou has sent help. Listen. We must be wise and quick." From this point she went on to explain in as few words as possible that three fleet horses were ready close at hand to carry off three of those who had been taken captive, and that she, Lightheart, must be one of the three. "But I cannot, will not, escape," said Lightheart, "while the others and, the white preacher go into slavery." To this Brighteyes replied that arrangements had been made to rescue the whole party, and that she and two others were merely to be, as it were, the firstfruits of the enterprise. Still Lightheart objected; but when her companion added that the plan had been arranged by her affianced husband, she acquiesced at once with Indian-like humility. "I had intended," said Brighteyes, "to enter the Blackfoot camp as if I were one of the captives, and thus make known our plans; but that is not now necessary. Lightheart will carry the news; she is wise, and knows how to act. Whitewing and Leetil Tim are hid on yonder hillock like snakes in the grass. I will return to then, and let Lightheart, when she comes, be careful to avoid the sentinel there--" She stopped short, for at the moment a step was heard near them. It was that of a savage warrior, whose sharp eye had observed Lightheart quit the camp, and who had begun to wonder why she did not return. In another instant Brighteyes flung her blanket round her, whispered to her friend, "Lie close," sprang up, and, brushing swiftly past the warrior with a light laugh--as though amused at having been discovered-- ran into camp, joined the group round the missionary, and sat down. Although much surprised, the captives were too wise to express their feelings. Even the missionary knew enough of Indian tactics to prevent him from committing himself. He calmly continued the reading in which he had been engaged, and the Blackfoot warrior returned to his place, congratulating himself, perhaps, on having interrupted the little plan of one intending runaway. Meanwhile Lightheart, easily understanding her friend's motives, crept in a serpentine fashion to the hillock, where she soon found Whitewing-- to the intense but unexpressed joy of that valiant red man. "Will Leetil Tim go back with Lightheart to the horses and wait, while his brother remains here?" said the young chief. "No, Little Tim _won't_," growled the trapper, in a tone of decision that surprised his red friend. "Brighteyes is in the Blackfoot camp," he continued, in growling explanation. "True," returned the Indian, "but Brighteyes will escape; and even if she fails to do so now, she will be rescued with the others at last." "She will be rescued with _us_, just _now_," returned Little Tim in a tone so emphatic that his friend looked at him with an expression of surprise that was unusually strong for a redskin warrior. Suddenly a gleam of intelligence broke from his black eyes, and with the soft exclamation, "Wah!" he sank flat on the grass again, and remained perfectly still. Brighteyes found that it was not all plain sailing when she had mingled with her friends in the camp. In the first place, the missionary refused absolutely to quit the captives. He would remain with them, he said, and await God's will and leading. In the second place, no third person had been mentioned by her brother, whose chief anxiety had been for his bride and the white man, and it did not seem to Brighteyes creditable to quit the camp after all her risk and trouble without some trophy of her prowess. In this dilemma she put to herself the question, "Whom would Lightheart wish me to rescue?" Now, there were two girls among the captives, one of whom was a bosom friend of Lightheart; the other was a younger sister. To these Brighteyes went, and straightway ordered them to prepare for flight. They were of course quite ready to obey. All the preparation needed was to discard the blankets which Indian women are accustomed to wear as convenient cloaks by day. Thus unhampered, the two girls wandered about the camp, as several of the others had occasionally been doing. Separating from each other, they got into the outskirts in different directions. Meanwhile a hymn had been raised, which facilitated their plans by attracting the attention of the savage warriors. High above the rest, in one prolonged note, the voice of Brighteyes rang out like a silver flute. "There's the signal," said Little Tim, as the sweet note fell on his listening ear. Rising as he spoke, the trapper glided in a stooping posture down the side of the hillock, and round the base of it, until he got immediately behind the youthful sentinel. Then lying down, and creeping towards him with the utmost caution, he succeeded in getting so near that he could almost touch him. With one cat-like bound, Little Tim was on the Indian's back, and had him in his arms, while his broad horny hand covered his mouth, and his powerful forefinger and thumb grasped him viciously by the nose. It was a somewhat curious struggle that ensued. The savage was much bigger than the trapper, but the trapper was much stronger than the savage. Hence the latter made fearful and violent efforts to shake the former off; while the former made not less fearful, though seemingly not quite so violent, efforts to hold on. The red man tried to bite, but Tim's hand was too broad and hard to be bitten. He tried to shake his nose free, but unfortunately his nose was large, and Tim's grip of it was perfect. The savage managed to get just enough of breath through his mouth to prevent absolute suffocation, but nothing more. He had dropped his tomahawk at the first onset, and tried to draw his knife, but Tim's arms were so tight round him that he could not get his hand to his back, where the knife reposed in his belt. In desperation he stooped forward, and tried to throw his enemy over his head; but Tim's legs were wound round him, and no limpet ever embraced a rock with greater tenacity than did Little Tim embrace that Blackfoot brave. Half choking and wholly maddened, the savage suddenly turned heels over head, and fell on Tim with a force that ought to have burst him. But Tim didn't burst! He was much too tough for that. He did not even complain! Rising again, a sudden thought seemed to strike the Indian, for he began to run towards the camp with his foe on his back. But Tim was prepared for that. He untwined one leg, lowered it, and with an adroit twist tripped up the savage, causing him to fall on his face with tremendous violence. Before he could recover, Tim, still covering the mouth and holding tight to the nose, got a knee on the small of the savage's back and squeezed it smaller. At the same time he slid his left hand up to the savage's windpipe, and compressed it. With a violent heave, the Blackfoot sprang up. With a still more violent heave, the trapper flung him down, bumped his head against a convenient stone, and brought the combat to a sudden close. Without a moment's loss of time, Tim gagged and bound his adversary. Then he rose up with a deep inspiration, and wiped his forehead, as he contemplated him. "All this comes o' your desire not to shed human blood, Whitewing," he muttered. "Well, p'raps you're right--what would ha' bin the use o' killin' the poor critturs. But it was a tough job!"--saying which, he lifted the Indian on his broad shoulders, and carried him away. While this fight was thus silently going on, hidden from view of the camp by the hillock, Whitewing crept forward to meet Brighteyes and the two girls, and these, with Lightheart, were eagerly awaiting the trapper. "My brother is strong," said Whitewing, allowing the faintest possible smile to play for a moment on his usually grave face. "Your brother is tough," returned Little Tim, rubbing the back of his head with a rueful look; "an' he's bin bumped about an' tumbled on to that extent that it's a miracle a whole bone is left in his carcass. But lend a hand, lad; we've got no time to waste." Taking the young Blackfoot between them, and followed by the silent girls, they soon reached the thicket where the horses had been left. Here they bound their captive securely to a tree, and gave him a drink of water with a knife pointed at his heart to keep him quiet, after which they re-gagged him. Then Whitewing led Lightheart through the thicket towards his horse, and took her up behind him. Little Tim took charge of Brighteyes. The young sister and the bosom friend mounted the third horse, and thus paired, they all galloped away. But the work that our young chief had cut out for himself that night was only half accomplished. On reaching the rendezvous which he had appointed, he found the braves of his tribe impatiently awaiting him. "My father sees that we have been successful," he said to Bald Eagle, who had been unable to resist the desire to ride out to the rendezvous with the fighting men. "The great Manitou has given us the victory thus far, as the white preacher said he would." "My son is right. Whitewing will be a great warrior when Bald Eagle is in the grave. Go and conquer; I will return to camp with the women." Thus relieved of his charge, Whitewing, who, however, had little desire to achieve the fame prophesied for him, proceeded to fulfil the prophecy to some extent. He divided his force into four bands, with which he galloped off towards the Blackfoot camp. On nearing it, he so arranged that they should attack the camp simultaneously at four opposite points. Little Tim commanded one of the bands, and he resolved in his own mind that his band should be the last to fall on the foe. "Bloodshed _may_ be avoided," he muttered to himself; "an' I hope it will, as Whitewing is so anxious about it. Anyhow, I'll do my best to please him." Accordingly, on reaching his allotted position, Tim halted his men, and bided his time. The moon still shone over prairie and hill, and not a breath of air stirred blade or leaf. All in nature was peace, save in the hearts of savage man. The Blackfoot camp was buried in slumber. Only the sentinels were on the alert. Suddenly one of these--like the war-horse, who is said to scent the battle from afar--pricked his ears, distended his nostrils, and listened. A low, muffled, thunderous sort of pattering on the plain in front. It might be a herd of buffaloes. The sentinel stood transfixed. The humps of buffaloes are large, but they do not usually attain to the size of men! The sentinel clapped his hand to his mouth, and gave vent to a yell which sent the blood spirting through the veins of all, and froze the very marrow in the bones of some! Prompt was the reply and turn-out of the Blackfoot warriors. Well used to war's alarms, there was no quaking in their bosoms. They were well named "braves." But the noise in the camp prevented them from hearing or observing the approach of the enemy on the other side till almost too late. A whoop apprised the chief of the danger. He divided his forces, and lost some of his self-confidence. "Here comes number three," muttered Little Tim, as he observed the third band emerge from a hollow on the left. The Blackfoot chief observed it too, divided his forces again, and lost more of his self-confidence. None of the three bands had as yet reached the camp, but they all came thundering down on it at the same time, and at the same whirlwind pace. "Now for number four," muttered Little Tim. "Come boys, an' at 'em!" he cried, unconsciously paraphrasing the Duke of Wellington's Waterloo speech. At the some time he gave utterance to what he styled a Rocky Mountain trapper's roar, and dashed forward in advance of his men, who, in trying to imitate the roar, intensified and rather complicated their own yell. It was the last touch to the Blackfoot chief, who, losing the small remnant of his self-confidence, literally "sloped" into the long grass, and vanished, leaving his men to still further divide themselves, which they did effectually by scattering right and left like small-shot from a blunderbuss. Great was the terror of the poor captives while this brief but decisive action lasted, for although they knew that the assailants were their friends, they could not be certain of the issue of the combat. Naturally, they crowded round their only male friend, the missionary. "Do not fear," he said, in attempting to calm them; "the good Manitou has sent deliverance. We will trust in Him." The dispersion of their foes and the arrival of friends almost immediately followed these words. But the friends who arrived were few in number at first, for Whitewing had given strict orders as to the treatment of the enemy. In compliance therewith, his men chased them about the prairie in a state of gasping terror; but no weapon was used, and not a man was killed, though they were scattered beyond the possibility of reunion for at least some days to come. Before that eventful night was over the victors were far from the scene of victory on their way home. "It's not a bad style o' fightin'," remarked Little Tim to his friend as they rode away; "lots o' fun and fuss without much damage. Pity we can't do all our fightin' in that fashion." "Waugh!" exclaimed Whitewing; but as he never explained what he meant by "waugh," we must leave it to conjecture. It is probable, however, that he meant assent, for he turned aside in passing to set free the Blackfoot who had been bound to a tree. That red man, having expected death, went off with a lively feeling of surprise, and at top speed, his pace being slightly accelerated by a shot--wide of the mark and at long range--from Little Tim. Three weeks after these events a number of Indians were baptised by our missionary. Among them were the young chief Whitewing and Lightheart, and these two were immediately afterwards united in marriage. Next day the trapper, with much awkwardness and hesitation, requested the missionary to unite him and Brighteyes. The request was complied with, and thenceforward the white man and the red became more inseparable than ever. They hunted and dwelt together--to the ineffable joy of Whitewing's wrinkled old mother, whose youth seemed absolutely to revive under the influence of the high-pressure affection brought to bear on a colony of brown and whitey-brown grand-children by whom she was at last surrounded. The doubts and difficulties of Whitewing were finally cleared away. He not only accepted fully the Gospel for himself, but became anxious to commend it to others as the only real and perfect guide in life and comfort in death. In the prosecution of his plans, he imitated the example of his "white father," roaming the prairie and the mountains far and wide with his friend the trapper, and even venturing to visit some of the lodges of his old foes the Blackfoot Indians, in his desire to run earnestly, yet with patience, the race that had been set before him--"looking unto Jesus." Full twenty years rolled by, during which no record, was kept of the sayings or doings of those whose fortunes we have followed thus far. At the end of that period, however, striking incidents in their career brought the most prominent among them again to the front--as the following chapters will show. CHAPTER FIVE. THE MOUNTAIN FORTRESS. In one of those numerous narrow ravines of the Rocky Mountains which open out into the rolling prairies of the Saskatchewan there stood some years ago a log hut, or block-house, such as the roving hunters of the Far West sometimes erected as temporary homes during the inclement winter of those regions. With a view to render the hut a castle of refuge as well as a home, its builder had perched it close to the edge of a nearly inaccessible cliff overhanging one of those brawling torrents which carry the melting snows of the great rocky range into one of the tributaries of the Saskatchewan river. On what may be called the land side of the hut there was a slight breastwork of logs. It seemed a weak defence truly, yet a resolute man with several guns and ammunition might have easily held it against a considerable band of savages. One fine morning about the time when the leaves of the forest were beginning to put on their gorgeous autumnal tints, a woman might have been seen ascending the zigzag path that led to the hut or fortress. She was young, well formed, and pretty, and wore the Indian costume, yet there was something in her air and carriage, as well as the nut-brown colour of her hair, which told that either her father or her mother had been what the red men term a "pale-face." With a light, bounding step, very different from that of the ordinary Indian squaw, she sprang from rock to rock as if in haste, and, climbing over the breastwork before mentioned, entered the hut. The interior of the little fortress was naturally characteristic of its owner. A leathern capote and leggings hung from a nail in one corner; in another lay a pile of buffalo robes. The rough walls were adorned with antlers of the moose and other deer, from the various branches of which hung several powder-horns, fire-bags, and bullet-pouches. Near the rude fireplace, the chimney of which was plastered outside and in with mud, was a range of six guns, of various patterns and ages, all of which, being well polished and oiled, were evidently quite ready for instant service. Beside them hung an old cavalry sabre. Neither table nor chairs graced the simple mansion; but a large chest at one side served for the former, and doubtless contained the owner's treasures, whatever these might be, while three rough stools, with only nine legs among them, did service for the latter. The action of the young woman on entering was somewhat suggestive of the cause of her haste. Without a moment's delay, she seized a powder-horn and bullet-pouch, and began to charge the guns, some with ball, others with slugs, as fast as she could. There was a cool, quiet celerity in her proceedings which proved that she was accustomed to the handling of such weapons. No one looking upon the scene would have guessed that Softswan, as she was poetically named, was a bride, at that time in the midst of the honeymoon. Yet such was the case. Her husband being the kindliest, stoutest and handsomest fellow in all that region had won her heart and hand, had obtained her parents' consent, had been married in the nearest settlement by a travelling missionary, and had carried off his pretty bride to spend the honeymoon in his mountain fortress. We can scarcely call it his home, however, for it was only, as we have said, a temporary residence--the Rocky Mountains, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle, being his home. While the Indian bride was engaged in charging the firearms, a rifle-shot was heard to echo among the surrounding cliffs. It was followed by a cry, as if some one had been wounded, and then there arose that terrible war-whoop of the red men which, once heard, can never be forgotten, and which inspires even the bravest with feelings of at least anxiety. That Softswan was not free from alarm was pretty evident from the peculiar curl of her pretty eyebrows, but that the sounds did not unnerve her was also obvious from the quiet though prompt way in which she gathered up all the loaded firearms, and bore them swiftly to the breastwork in front of the cabin. Arranging the guns in a row at her side, so as to be handy, the girl selected one, laid it on the parapet, and carefully examined the priming. Having satisfied herself that it was all right, she cocked the piece, and quietly awaited the issue of events. The weapon that Softswan had selected was not picked up at haphazard. It was deliberately chosen as being less deadly than the others, the charge being a few slugs or clippings of lead, which were not so apt to kill as rifle bullets; for Softswan, as her name might suggest was gentle of spirit, and was influenced by none of that thirst for blood and revenge which characterised some of her Indian relatives. After a time the poor girl's anxiety increased, for well she knew that a whoop and a cry such as she had heard were the sure precursors of something worse. Besides, she had seen the footprints of Blackfoot Indians in the valley below, and she knew from their appearance that those who had made them were on the war-path, in which circumstances savages usually dismiss any small amount of tender mercies with which they may have been naturally endowed. "Oh why, why you's not come home, Big Tim?" she exclaimed at last, in broken English. It may be well to explain at once that Big Tim, who was the only son of Little Tim, had such a decided preference for the tongue of his white father, that he had taught it to his bride, and refused to converse with her in any other, though he understood the language of his mother Brighteyes quite as well as English. If Big Tim had heard the pathetic question, he would have flown to the rescue more speedily than any other hunter of the Rocky Mountains, for he was the swiftest runner of them all; but unfortunately he was too far off at that moment to hear; not too far off, however, to hear the shot and cry which had alarmed his bride. From the position which Softswan occupied she could see and command every portion of the zigzag approach to the hut so that no one could reach her without being completely exposed to her fire if she were disposed to dispute the passage. As we have said, the hut stood on a cliff which overhung the torrent that brawled through the gorge, so that she was secure from attack in rear. In a few minutes another rifle-shot was heard, and the war-whoop was repeated, this time much nearer than before. With compressed lips and heightened colour, the solitary girl prepared to defend her castle. Presently she heard footsteps among the thick bushes below, as if of some one running in hot haste. Softswan laid her finger on the trigger, but carefully, for the advancing runner might be her husband. Oh why did he not shout to warn her? The poor girl trembled a little, despite her self-restraint, as she thought of the danger and the necessity for immediate action. Suddenly the bushes on her left moved, and a man, pushing them aside, peeped from among them. He was a savage, in the war-paint and panoply of a Blackfoot brave. The spot to which he had crept was indeed the nearest to the hut that could be reached in that direction, but Softswan knew well that an impassable chasm separated her from the intruder, so she kept well concealed behind the breastwork, and continued to watch him through one of the peep-holes made in it for that purpose. She might have easily shot him, for he was within range, but her nature revolted from doing so, for he seemed to think that the hut was untenanted, and, instead of looking towards her place of concealment, leaned over the cliff so as to get a good view of the lower end of the zigzag track where it entered the woods. Could he be a foe to the approaching Indians, or one of them? thought the poor girl, rendered almost desperate by doubt and indecision. Just then a man burst out of the woods below with a defiant shout, and sprang up the narrow track. It was Big Tim. The savage on the cliff pointed his rifle at him. Indecision, doubt, mercy were instantly swept away, and with the speed of the lightning flash the girl sent her charge of slugs into the savage. He collapsed, rolled over the cliff, and went crashing into the bushes underneath, but instantly sprang up, as if unhurt, and disappeared, just as a dozen of his comrades burst upon the scene from the woods below. The echoing report of the gun and the fall of their companion evidently disconcerted the aim of the savages, for their scattering fire left the bounding Tim untouched. Before they could reload, Softswan sent them a present of another charge of slugs, which, the distance being great, so scattered itself as to embrace nearly the whole party, who thereupon went wounded and howling back into the forest. "Well done, my soft one!" exclaimed Big Tim, as he took a flying leap over the low breastwork, and caught his bride in his arms, for even in that moment of danger he could not help expressing his joy and thankfulness at finding her safe and well, when he had half expected to find her dead and scalped, if he found her at all. Another moment, and he was kneeling at the breastwork, examining the firearms and ready for action. "Fetch the sabre, my soft one," said Big Tim, addressing his bride by the title which he had bestowed on her on his wedding-day. The tone in which he said this struck the girl as being unusually light and joyous, not quite in keeping with the circumstance of being attacked by overwhelming odds; but she was becoming accustomed to the eccentricities of her bold and stalwart husband, and had perfect confidence in him. Without, therefore, expressing surprise by word or look, she obeyed the order. Unsheathing the weapon, the hunter felt its edge with his thumb, and a slight smile played on his features as he said-- "I have good news for the soft one to-day." The soft one looked, but did not say, "Indeed, what is it?" "Yes," continued the youth, sheathing the sabre; "the man with the kind heart and the snowy pinion has come back to the mountains. He will be here before the shadows of the trees grow much longer." "Whitewing?" exclaimed Softswan, with a gleam of pleasure in her bright black eyes. "Just so. The prairie chief has come back to us, and is now a preacher." "Has the pale-face preacher com' vis him?" asked the bride, with a slightly troubled look, for she did not yet feel quite at home in her broken English, and feared that her husband might laugh at her mistakes, though nothing was further from the mind of the stout hunter than to laugh at his pretty bride. He did indeed sometimes indulge the propensity in that strange conventional region "his sleeve," but no owl of the desert was more solemn in countenance than Big Tim when Softswan perpetrated her lingual blunders. "I know not," he replied, as he renewed the priming of one of the guns. "Hist! did you see something move under the willow bush yonder?" The girl shook her head. "A rabbit, no doubt," said the hunter, lowering the rifle which he had raised, and resuming his easy unconcerned attitude, yet keeping his keen eye on the spot with a steadiness that showed his indifference was assumed. "I know not whether the pale-face preacher is with him," he continued. "Those who told me about him could only say that a white man dressed like the crows was travelling a short distance in advance of Whitewing, but whether he was one of his party or not, they could not tell. Indeed it is said that Whitewing has no party with him, that he travels alone. If he does, he is more reckless than ever, seeing that his enemies the Blackfeet are on the war-path just now; but you never know what a half-mad redskin will do, and Whitewing is a queer customer." Big Tim's style of speech was in accordance with his half-caste nature-- sometimes flowing in channels of slightly poetic imagery, like that of his Indian mother; at other times dropping into the very matter-of-fact style of his white sire. "Leetil Tim vill be glad," said Softswan. "Ay, daddy will be pleased. By the way, I wonder what keeps him out so long? I half expected to find him here when I arrived. Indeed, I made sure it was him that tumbled yon Blackfoot off the cliff so smartly. You see, I didn't know you were such a plucky little woman, my soft one, though I might have guessed it, seeing that you possess all the good qualities under the sun; but a man hardly expects his squaw to be great on the war-path, d'ye see?" Softswan neither smiled nor looked pleased at the compliment intended in these words. "Me loves not to draw bloods," she said gravely, with a pensive look on the ground. "Don't let that disturb you, soft one," said her husband, with a quiet laugh. "By the way he jumped after it I guess he has got no more harm than if you'd gin him an overdose o' physic. But them reptiles bein' in these parts makes me raither anxious about daddy. Did he say where he meant to hunt when he went off this morning?" "Yes; Leetil Tim says hims go for hunt near Lipstock Hill." "Just so; Lopstick Hill," returned Tim, correcting her with offhand gravity. "But me hears a shote an' a cry," said the girl, with a suddenly anxious look. "That was from one o' the redskins, whose thigh I barked for sendin' an arrow raither close to my head," said the young man. "But," continued his bride, with increasing anxiety, "the shote an' the cry was long before you comes home. Pr'aps it bees Leetil Tim." "Impossible," said Big Tim quickly; "father must have bin miles away at that time, for Lopsuck Hill is good three hours' walk from here as the crow flies, an' the Blackfeet came from the opposite airt o' the compass." The young hunter's prolonged silence after this, as well as the expression of his face, showed that he was not quite as easy in his mind as his words implied. "Did the cry seem to be far off?" he asked at last quickly. "Not far," returned his wife. Without speaking, Big Tim began to buckle on the cavalry sabre, not in the loosely-swinging cavalry fashion, but closely and firmly to his side, with his broad waistbelt, so that it might not impede his movements. He then selected from the arms a short double-barrelled gun, and, slinging a powder-horn and shot-pouch over his shoulders, prepared to depart. "Now listen, my soft one," he said, on completing his arrangements. "I feel a'most sartin sure that the cry ye heard was _not_ daddy's; nevertheless, the bare possibility o' such a thing makes it my dooty to go an' see if it was the old man. I think the Blackfeet have drawed off to have a palaver, an' won't be back for a bit, so I'll jist slip down the precipice by our secret path; an' if they do come back when I'm away, pepper them well wi' slugs. I'll hear the shots, an' be back to you afore they can git up the hill. But if they should make a determined rush, don't you make too bold a stand agin 'em. Just let fly with the big-bore when they're half-way up the track, an' then slip into the cave. I'll soon meet ye there, an we'll give the reptiles a surprise. Now, you'll be careful, soft one?" Soft one promised to be careful, and Big Tim, entering the hut, passed out at a back door, and descended the cliff to the torrent below by a concealed path which even a climbing monkey might have shuddered to attempt. Meanwhile Softswan, re-arranging and re-examining her firearm, sat down behind the breastwork to guard the fort. The sun was still high in the heavens, illuming a magnificent prospect of hill and dale and virgin forest, and glittering in the lakelets, pools, and rivers, which brightened the scene as far as the distant horizon, where the snow-clad peaks of the Rocky Mountains rose grandly into the azure sky. The girl sat there almost motionless for a long time, exhibiting in her face and figure at once the keen watchfulness of the savage and the endurance of the pale-face. Unlike many girls of her class, she had at one period been brought for a short time under the influence of men who loved the Lord Jesus Christ and esteemed it equally a duty and a privilege to urge others to flee from the wrath to come and accept the Gospel offer of salvation--men who themselves had long before been influenced by the pale-face preacher to whom Softswan had already referred. The seed had, in her case, fallen into good ground, and had brought forth the fruit of an earnest desire to show good-will to all with whom she had to do. It had also aroused in her a hungering and thirsting for more knowledge of God and His ways. It was natural, therefore, as she gazed on the splendid scene spread out before her, that the thoughts of this child of the backwoods should rise to contemplation of the Creator, and become less attentive to inferior matters than circumstances required. She was recalled suddenly to the danger of her position by the appearance of a dark object, which seemed to crawl out of the bushes below, just where the zigzag track entered them. At the first glance it seemed to resemble a bear; a second and more attentive look suggested that it might be a man. Whether bear or man, however, it was equally a foe, at least so thought Softswan, and she raised one of the guns to her shoulder with a promptitude that would have done credit to Big Tim himself. But she did not fire. The natural disinclination to shed blood restrained her--fortunately, as it turned out,--for the crawling object, on reaching the open ground, rose with apparent difficulty and staggered forward a few paces in what seemed to be the form of a drunken man. After one or two ineffectual efforts to ascend the track, the unfortunate being fell and remained a motionless heap upon the ground. CHAPTER SIX. A STRANGE VISITOR. Curious mingling of eagerness, hope, and fear rendered Softswan for some minutes undecided how to act as she gazed at the fallen man. His garb was of a dark uniform grey colour, which she had often heard described, but had not seen until now. That he was wounded she felt quite sure, but she knew that there would be great danger in descending to aid him. Besides, if he were helpless, as he seemed to be, she had not physical strength to lift him, and would expose herself to easy capture if the Blackfeet should be in ambush. Still, the eager and indefinable hope that was in her heart induced the girl to rise with the intention of descending the path, when she observed that the fallen man again moved. Rising on his hands and knees, he crept forward a few paces, and then stopped. Suddenly by a great effort, he raised himself to a kneeling position, clasped his hands, and looked up. The act sufficed to decide the wavering girl. Leaping lightly over the breastwork, she ran swiftly down until she reached the man, who gazed at her in open-mouthed astonishment. He was a white man, and the ghastly pallor of his face, with a few spots of blood on it and on his hands, told that he had been severely wounded. "Manitou seems to have sent an angel of light to me in my extremity," he gasped in the Indian tongue. "Come; me vill help you," answered Softswan, in her broken English, as she stooped and assisted him to rise. No other word was uttered, for even with the girl's assistance it was with the utmost difficulty that the man reached the breastwork of the hut, and when he had succeeded in clambering over it, he lay down and fainted. After Softswan had glanced anxiously in the direction of the forest, and placed one of the guns in a handy position, she proceeded to examine the wounded stranger. Being expert in such matters, she opened his vest, and quickly found a wound near the region of the heart. It was bleeding steadily though not profusely. To stanch this and bind it up was the work of a few minutes. Then she reclosed the vest. In doing so she found something hard in a pocket near the wound. It was a little book, which she gently removed as it might interfere with the bandage. In doing so she observed that the book had been struck by the bullet which it deflected, so as to cause a more deadly wound than might otherwise have been inflicted. She was thus engaged when the patient recovered consciousness, and, seizing her wrist, exclaimed, "Take not the Word from me. It has been my joy and comfort in all my--" He stopped on observing who it was that touched his treasure. "Nay, then," he continued, with a faint smile, as he released his hold; "it can come to no harm in thy keeping, child. For an instant I thought that rougher hands had seized it. But why remove it?" Softswan explained, but, seeing how eager the man was to keep it, she at once returned the little Bible to the inner pocket in which it was carried when not in use. Then running into the hut she quickly returned with a rib of venison and a tin mug of water. The man declined the food, but drained the mug with an air of satisfaction, which showed how much he stood in need of water. Much refreshed, he pulled out the Bible again, and looked earnestly at it. "Strange," he said, in the Indian tongue, turning his eyes on his surgeon-nurse; "often have I heard of men saved from death by bullets being stopped by Bibles, but in my case it would seem as if God had made it a key to unlock the gates of the better land." "Does my white father think he is going to die?" asked the girl in her own tongue, with a look of anxiety. "It may be so," replied the man gently, "for I feel very, _very_ weak. But feelings are deceptive; one cannot trust them. It matters little, however. If I live, it is to work for Jesus. If I die, it is to be with Jesus. But tell me, little one, who art thou whom the Lord has sent to succour me?" "Me is Softswan, daughter of the great chief Bounding Bull," replied the girl, with a look of pride when she mentioned her father, which drew a slight smile from the stranger. "But Softswan has white blood in her veins," he said; "and why does she sometimes speak in the language of the pale-face?" "My mother," returned the girl in a low, sad tone, "was pale-face womans from the Saskatchewan. Me speaks English, for my husban' likes it." "Your husband--what is his name!" "Big Tim." "What!" exclaimed the wounded man with sudden energy, as a flush overspread his pale face; "is he the son of Little Tim, the brother-in-law of Whitewing the prairie chief?" "He is the son of Leetil Tim, an' this be hims house." "Then," exclaimed the stranger, with a pleased look, "I have reached, if not the end of my journey, at least a most important point in it, for I had appointed to meet Whitewing at this very spot, and did not know, when the Blackfoot Indian shot me, that I was so near the hut. It looked like a mere accident my finding the track which leads to it near the spot where I fell, but it is the Lord's doing. Tell me, Softswan, have you never heard Whitewing and Little Tim speak of the pale-face missionary--the Preacher, they used to call me?" "Yes, yes, oftin," answered the girl eagerly. "Me tinks it bees you. Me _very_ glad, an' Leetil Tim he--" Her speech was cut short at this point by a repetition of the appalling war-whoop which had already disturbed the echoes of the gorge more than once that day. Naturally the attention of Softswan had been somewhat distracted by the foregoing conversation, and she had allowed the Indians to burst from the thicket and rush up the track a few paces before she was able to bring the big-bore gun to bear on them. "Slay them not, Softswan," cried the preacher anxiously, as he tried to rise and prevent her firing. "We cannot escape them." He was too late. She had already pressed the trigger, and the roar of the huge gun was reverberating from cliff to cliff like miniature thunder; but his cry had not been too late to produce wavering in the girl's wind, inducing her to take bad aim, so that the handful of slugs with which the piece had been charged went hissing over the assailants' heads instead of killing them. The stupendous hissing and noise, however, had the effect of momentarily arresting the savages, and inducing each man to seek the shelter of the nearest shrub. "Com queek," cried Softswan, seizing the preacher's hand. "You be deaded soon if you not com queek." Feeling the full force of this remark, the wounded man, exerting all his strength, arose, and suffered himself to be led into the hut. Passing quickly out by a door at the back, the preacher and the bride found themselves on a narrow ledge of rock, from one side of which was the precipice down which Big Tim had made his perilous descent. Close to their feet lay a great flat rock or natural slab, two yards beyond which the ledge terminated in a sheer precipice. "No escape here," remarked the preacher sadly, as he looked round. "In my present state I could not venture down such a path even to save my life. But care not for me, Softswan. If you think you can escape, go and--" He stopped, for to his amazement the girl stooped, and with apparent ease raised the ponderous mass of rock above referred to as though it had been a slight wooden trap-door, and disclosed a hole large enough for a man to pass through. The preacher observed that the stone was hinged on a strong iron bar, which was fixed considerably nearer to one side of it than the other. Still, this hinge did not account for the ease with which a mere girl lifted a ponderous mass which two or three men could not have moved without the aid of levers. But there was no time to investigate the mystery of the matter, for another ringing war-whoop told that the Blackfeet, having recovered from their consternation, had summoned courage to renew the assault. "Down queek!" said the girl, looking earnestly into her companion's face, and pointing to the dark hole, where the head of a rude ladder, dimly visible, showed what had to be done. "It does not require much faith to trust and obey such a leader," thought the preacher, as he got upon the ladder, and quickly disappeared in the hole. Softswan lightly followed. As her head was about to disappear, she raised her hand, seized hold of a rough projection on the under surface of the mass of rock, and drew it gently down so as to effectually close the hole, leaving no trace whatever of its existence. While this was going on the Blackfeet were advancing up the narrow pathway with superlative though needless caution, and no small amount of timidity. Each man took advantage of every scrap of cover he could find on the way up, but as the owner of the hut had taken care to remove all cover that was removable, they did not find much, and if the defenders had been there, that little would have been found to be painfully insufficient, for it consisted only of rugged masses and projections of rock, none of which could altogether conceal the figure of a full-grown man. Indeed, it seemed inexplicable that these Indians should have made this assault in broad day, considering that Indians in general are noted for their care of "number one," are particularly unwilling to meet their foes in fair open fight, and seldom if ever venture to storm a place of strength except by surprise and under the cover of night. The explanation lay partly in the fact that they were aware of the advance of friends towards the place, but much more in this, that the party was led by the great chief Rushing River, a man possessed of that daring bulldog courage and reckless contempt of death which is usually more characteristic of white than of red men. When the band had by galvanic darts and rushes gained the last scrap of cover that lay between them and the little fortress, Rushing River gave vent to a whoop which was meant to thrill the defenders with consternation to the very centre of their being, and made a gallant rush, worthy of his name, for the breastwork. Reaching it in gasping haste, he and his braves crouched for one moment at the foot of it, presumably to recover wind and allow the first fire of the defenders to pass over their heads. But no first fire came, and Rushing River rolled his great black eyes upward in astonishment, perhaps thinking that his whoop had thrilled the defenders off the face of the earth altogether! Suspense, they say, is less endurable than actual collision with danger. Probably Rushing River thought it so, for next moment he raised his black head quickly. Finding a hole in the defences, he applied one of his black eyes to it and peeped through. Seeing nothing, he uttered another whoop, and vaulted over like a squirrel, tomahawk in hand, ready to brain anybody or anything. Seeing nobody and nothing in particular, except an open door, he suspected an ambush in that quarter, darted round the corner of the hut to get out of the doorway line of fire, and peeped back. Animated by a similar spirit, his men followed suit. When it became evident that no one meant to come out of the hut Rushing River resolved to go in, and did so with another yell and a flourish of his deadly weapon, but again was he doomed to expend his courage and violence on air, for he possessed too much of natural dignity to expend his wrath on inanimate furniture. Of course one glance sufficed to show that the defenders had flown, and it needed not the practised wit of a savage to perceive that they had retreated through the back door. In his eagerness to catch the foe, the Indian chief sprang after them with such a rush that nothing but a stout willow, which he grasped convulsively, prevented him from going over the precipice headlong--changing, as it were, from a River into a Fall--and ending his career appropriately in the torrent below. When the chief had assembled his followers on the limited surface of the ledge, they all gazed around them for a few seconds in silence. On one side was a sheer precipice. On another side was, if we may so express it, a sheerer precipice rising upward. On the third side was the steep and rugged path, which looked sufficiently dangerous to arrest all save the mad or the desperate. On the fourth side was the hut. Seeing all this at a glance, Rushing River looked mysterious and said, "Ho!" To which his men returned, "How!" "Hi!" and "Hee!" or some other exclamation indicative of bafflement and surprise. Standing on the trap-door rock as on a sort of pulpit, the chief pointed with his finger to the precipitous path, and said solemnly-- "Big Tim has gone down _there_. He has net the wings of the hawk, but he has the spirit of the squirrel, or the legs of the goat." "Or the brains of the fool," suggested a follower, with a few drops of white blood in his veins, which made him what boys call "cheeky." "Of course," continued Rushing River, still more solemnly, and scorning to notice the remark, "of course Rushing River and his braves could follow if they chose. They could do anything. But of what use would it be? As well might we follow the moose-deer when it has got a long start." "Big Tim has got the start, as Rushing River wisely says," remarked the cheeky comrade, "but he is hampered with his squaw, and cannot go fast." "Many pale-faces are hampered by their squaws, and cannot go fast," retorted the chief, by which reply he meant to insinuate that the few drops of white blood in the veins of the cheeky one might yet come through an experience to which a pure Indian would scorn to submit. "But," continued the chief, after a pause to let the stab take full effect, "but Softswan is well known. She is strong as the mountain sheep and fleet as the mustang. She will not hamper Big Tim. Enough! We will let them go, and take possession of their goods." Whatever the chief's followers might have thought about the first part of his speech, there was evidently no difference of opinion as to the latter part. With a series of assenting "Ho's," "How's," "Hi's," and "Hee's," they returned with him into the hut, and began to appropriate the property, commencing with a cold haunch of venison which they discovered in the larder, and to which they did ample justice, sitting in a circle on the floor in the middle of the little room. Leaving them there, we will return to Softswan and her new friend. "The place is very dark," remarked the preacher, groping cautiously about after the trap-door was closed as above described. "Stan' still; I vill strik light," said Softswan. In a few moments sparks were seen flying from flint and steel, and after one or two unsuccessful efforts a piece of tinder was kindled. Then the girl's pretty little nose and lips were seen of a fiery red colour as she blew some dry grass and chips into a flame, and kindled a torch therewith. The light revealed a small natural cavern of rock, not much more than six feet high and ten or twelve wide, but of irregular shape, and extending into obscurity in one direction. The only objects in the cave besides the ladder by which they entered it were a few barrels partially covered with deerskin, an unusually small table, rudely but strongly made, and an enormous mass of rock enclosed in a net of strong rope which hung from an iron hook in the roof. The last object at once revealed the mystery of the trap-door. It formed a ponderous counterpoise attached to the smaller section of the stone slab, and so nearly equalised the weight on the hinge that, as we have seen, Softswan's weak arm was sufficient to turn the scale. The instant the torch flared up the girl stuck it into a crevice in the wall, and quickly grasping the little table, pushed it under the pendent rock. It reached to within half an inch of the mass. Picking up two broad wooden wedges that lay on the floor, she thrust them between the rock and the table, one on either side, so as to cause it to rest entirely on the table, and thus by removing its weight from the iron hook, the slab was rendered nearly immovable. She was anxiously active in these various operations, for already the Indians had entered the hut and their voices could be distinctly heard overhead. "Now," she whispered, with a sigh of relief, "six mans not abil to move the stone, even if he knowed the hole is b'low it." "It is an ingenious device," said the preacher, throwing his exhausted form on a heap of pine branches which lay in a corner. "Who invented it--your husband?" "No; it was Leetil Tim," returned the girl, with a low musical laugh. "Big Tim says hims fadder be great at 'ventions. He 'vent many t'ings. Some's good, some's bad, an' some's funny." The preacher could not forbear smiling at this account of his old friend, in spite of his anxiety lest the Indians who were regaling themselves overhead should discover their retreat. He had begun to put some questions to Softswan in a low voice when he was rendered dumb and his blood seemed to curdle as he heard stumbling footsteps approaching from the dark end of the cavern. Then was heard the sound of some one panting vehemently. Next moment a man leaped into the circle of light, and seized the Indian girl in his arms. "Thank God!" he exclaimed fervently; "not too late! I had thought the reptiles had been too much for thee, soft one. Ah me! I fear that some poor pale-face has--" He stopped abruptly, for at that moment Big Tim's eye fell upon the wounded man. "What!" he exclaimed, hastening to the preacher's side; "you _have_ got here after all?" "Ay, young man, through the goodness of God I have reached this haven of rest. Your words seem to imply that you had half expected to find me, though how you came to know of my case at all is to me a mystery." "My white father," returned Big Tim, referring as much to the preacher's age and pure white hair as to his connection with the white men, "finds mystery where the hunter and the red man see none. I went out a-purpose to see that it was not my daddy the Blackfoot reptiles had shot and soon came across your tracks, which showed me as plain as a book that you was badly wounded. I followed the tracks for a bit, expectin' to find you lyin' dead somewheres, when the whoops of the reptiles turned me back. But tell me, white father, are you not the preacher that my daddy and Whitewing used to know some twenty years agone?" "I am, and fain would I meet with my former friends once more before I die." "You shall meet with them, I doubt not," replied the young hunter, arranging the couch of the wounded man more comfortably. "I see that my soft one has bandaged you up, and she's better than the best o' sawbones at such work. I'll be able to make you more comfortable when we drive the reptiles out o'--" "Call them not reptiles," interrupted the preacher gently. "They are the creatures of God, like ourselves." "It may be so, white father; nevertheless, they are uncommon low, mean, sneakin', savage critters, an' that's all that I've got to do with." "You say truth, Big Tim," returned the preacher, "and that is also all that I have got to do with; but you and I take different methods of correcting the evil." "Every man must walk in the ways to which he was nat'rally born," rejoined the young hunter, with a dark frown, as the sound of revelry in the hut overhead became at the moment much louder; "my way wi' them may not be the best in the world, but you shall see in a few minutes that it is a way which will cause the very marrow of the rep--of the _dear_ critters--to frizzle in their bones." CHAPTER SEVEN. BIG TIM'S METHOD WITH SAVAGES. "I sincerely hope," said the wounded man, with a look of anxiety, "that the plan you speak of does not involve the slaughter of these men." "It does not" replied Big Tim, "though if it did, it would be serving them right, for they would slaughter you and me--ay, and even Softswan there--if they could lay hold of us." "Is it too much to ask the son of my old friend to let me know what his plans are? A knowledge of them would perhaps remove my anxiety, which I feel pressing heavily on me in my present weak condition. Besides, I may be able to counsel you. Although a man of peace, my life has been but too frequently mixed up with scenes of war and bloodshed. In truth, my mission on earth is to teach those principles which, if universally acted on, would put an end to both;--perhaps I should have said, my mission is to point men to that Saviour who is an embodiment of the principles of Love and Peace and Goodwill." For a few seconds the young hunter sat on the floor of the cave in silence, with his hands clasped round his knees, and his eyes cast down as if in meditation. At last a smile played on his features, and he looked at his questioner with a humorous twinkle in his eyes. "Well, my white father," he said, "I see no reason why I should not explain the matter to my daddy's old friend; but I'll have to say my say smartly, for by the stamping and yells o' the rep--o' the Blackfeet overhead, I perceive that they've got hold o' my case-bottle o' rum, an' if I don't stop them they'll pull the old hut down about their ears. "Well, you must know that my daddy left the settlements in his young days," continued Big Tim, "an' took to a rovin' life on the prairies an' mountains, but p'r'aps he told you that long ago. No? Well, he served for some time at a queer sort o' trade--the makin' o' fireworks; them rediklous things they call squibs, crackers, rockets, an' Roman candles, with which the foolish folk o' the settlements blow their money into smoke for the sake o' ticklin' their fancies for a few minutes. "Well, when he came here, of course he had no use for sitch tomfooleries, but once or twice, when he wanted to astonish the natives, he got hold o' some 'pothicary's stuff an' wi' gunpowder an' charcoal concocted some things that well-nigh drove the red men out o' their senses, an' got daddy to be regarded as a great medicine-man. Of course he kep' it secret how he produced the surprisin' fires--an', to say truth, I think from my own experience that if he had tried to explain it to 'em they could have made neither head nor tail o't. For a long time arter that he did nothin' more in that way, till one time when the Blackfeet came an' catched daddy an' me nappin' in this very hut and we barely got off wi' the scalps on our heads by scrambling down the precipice where the reptiles didn't like to follow. When they left the place they took all our odds an' ends wi' them, an' set fire to the hut. Arter they was gone we set to work an' built a noo hut. Then daddy-- who's got an amazin' turn for inventin' things--set to work to concoct suthin' for the reptiles if they should pay us another visit. It was at that time he thought of turnin' this cave to account as a place o' refuge when hard pressed, an' hit on the plan for liftin' the big stone easy, which no doubt you've obsarved." "Yes; Softswan has explained it to me. But what about your plan with the Indians?" said the preacher. "I'm comin' to that," replied the hunter. "Well, daddy set to work an' made a lot o' fireworks--big squibs, an' them sort o' crackers, I forget what you call 'em, that jumps about as if they was not only alive, but possessed with evil spirits--" "I know them--zigzag crackers," said the preacher, somewhat amused. "That's them," cried Big Tim, with an eager look, as if the mere memory of them were exciting. "Well, daddy he fixed up a lot o' the big squibs an' Roman candles round the walls o' the hut in such a way that they all p'inted from ivery corner, above an' below, to the centre of the hut, right in front o' the fireplace, so that their fire should all meet, so to speak, in a focus. Then he chiselled out a lot o' little holes in the stone walls in such a way that they could not be seen, and in every hole he put a zigzag cracker; an' he connected the whole affair--squibs, candles, and crackers--with an instantaneous fuse, the end of which he trained down, through a hole cut in the solid rock, into this here cave; an' there's the end of it right opposite to yer nose." He pointed as he spoke to a part of the wall of the cavern where a small piece of what seemed like white tape projected about half an inch from the stone. "Has it ever been tried?" asked the preacher, who, despite his weak and wounded condition, could hardly restrain a laugh as the young hunter described his father's complicated arrangements. "No, we han't tried it yet, 'cause the reptiles haven't bin here since, but daddy, who's a very thoroughgoin' man, has given the things a complete overhaul once a month ever since--'cept when he was away on long expeditions--so as to make sure the stuff was dry an in workin' order. Now," added the young man, rising and lighting a piece of tinder at the torch on the wall, "it's about time that we should putt it to the test. If things don't go wrong, you'll hear summat koorious overhead before long." He applied a light to the quick-match as he spoke, and awaited the result. In order that the reader may observe that result more clearly, we will transport him to the scene of festivity in the little fortress above. As Big Tim correctly surmised, the savages had discovered the hunter's store of rum just after eating as much venison as they could comfortably consume. Fire-water, as is well known, tells with tremendous effect on the excitable nerves and minds of Indians. In a very few minutes it produced, as in many white men, a tendency to become garrulous. While in this stage the savages began to boast, if possible, more than usual of their prowess in chase and war, and as their potations continued, they were guilty of that undignified act--so rare among red men and so common among whites--of interrupting and contradicting each other. This condition is the sure precursor of the quarrelsome and fighting stage of drunkenness. They had almost reached it, when Rushing River rose to his feet for the purpose of making a speech. Usually the form of the chief was as firm as the rock on which he stood. At this time, however, it swayed very slightly to and fro, and in his eyes--which were usually noted for the intensity of their eagle glance--there was just then an owlish blink as they surveyed the circle of his braves. Indeed Rushing River, as he stood there looking down into the upturned faces, observed--with what feelings we know not--that these braves sometimes exhibited a few of the same owlish blinks in their earnest eyes. "My b-braves," said the chief; and then, evidently forgetting what he intended to say, he put on one of those looks of astonishing solemnity which fire-water alone is capable of producing. "My b-braves," he began again, looking sternly round the almost breathless and expectant circle, "when we left our l-lodges in the m-mountains this morning the sun was rising." He paused, and this being an emphatic truism, was received with an equally emphatic "Ho" of assent. "N-now," continued the chief, with a gentle sway to the right, which he corrected with an abrupt jerk to the left, "n-now, the sun is about to descend, and w-we are _here_!" Feeling that he had made a decided point, he drew himself up and blinked, while his audience gave vent to another "Ho" in tones which expressed the idea--"waiting for more." The comrade, however, whose veins were fired, or chilled, with the few drops of white blood, ventured to assert his independence by ejaculating "Hum!" "Bounding Bull," cried the chief, suddenly shifting ground and glaring, while he breathed hard and showed his teeth, "is a coward. His daughter Softswan is a chicken-hearted squaw; and her husband Big Tim is a skunk--so is Little Tim his father." These remarks, being thoroughly in accord with the sentiments of the braves, were received with a storm of "Ho's," "How's," "Hi's," and "Hee's," which effectually drowned the cheeky one's "Hum's," and greatly encouraged the chief, who thereafter broke forth in a flow of language which was more in keeping with his name. After a few boastful references to the deeds of himself and his forefathers, he went into an elaborate and exaggerated description of the valorous way in which they had that day stormed the fort of their pale-face enemies and driven them out; after which, losing somehow the thread of his discourse, he fell back on an appallingly solemn look, blinked, and sat down. This was the signal for the recurrence of the approving "Ho's" and "Hi's," the gratifying effect of which, however, was slightly marred when silence was restored by a subdued "Hum" from the cheeky comrade. Directing a fierce glance at that presumptuous brave, Rushing River was about to give vent to words which might have led on to the fighting stage, when he was arrested, and, with his men, almost petrified, by a strange fizzing noise which seemed to come from the earth directly below them. Incomprehensible sounds are at all times more calculated to alarm than sounds which we recognise. The report of a rifle, the yell of a foe, could not have produced such an effect on the savages as did that fizzing sound. Each man grasped his tomahawk, but sat still, and turned pale. The fizzing sound was interspersed with one or two cracks, which intensified the alarm, but did not clear up the mystery. If they had only known what to do they would have done it; what danger to face, they would have faced it; but to sit there inactive, with the mysterious sounds increasing, was almost intolerable. Rushing River, of all the band, maintained his character for reckless hardihood. He sat there unblenched and apparently unmoved, though it was plain that he was intensely watchful and ready. But the foe assailed him where least expected. In a little hole right under the very spot on which he sat lay one of the zigzag crackers. Its first crack caused the chief, despite his power of will and early training, to bound up as if an electric battery had discharged him. The second crack sent the eccentric thing into his face. Its third vagary brought it down about his knees. Its fourth sent it into the gaping mouth of the cheeky one. At the same instant the squibs and candles burst forth from all points, pouring their fires on the naked shoulders of the red men with a hiss that the whole serpent race of America might have failed to equal, while the other zigzags went careering about as if the hut were filled with evil spirits. To say that the savages yelled and jumped, and stamped and roared, were but a tame remark. After a series of wild bursts, in sudden and violent confusion which words cannot describe, they rushed in a compact body to the door. Of course they stuck fast. Rushing River went at them like a battering-ram, and tried to force them through, but failed. The cheeky comrade, with a better appreciation of the possibilities of the case, took a short run and a header right over the struggling mass, _a la harlequin_, and came down on his shoulders outside, without breaking his neck. Guessing the state of things by the nature of the sounds, Big Tim removed the table from under the ponderous weight, lifted the re-adjusted trap-door, and, springing up, darted into the hut just in time to bestow a parting kick on the last man that struggled through. Running to the breastwork, he beheld his foes tumbling, rushing, crashing, bounding down the track like maniacs--which indeed they were for the time being--and he succeeded in urging them to even greater exertions by giving utterance to a grand resonant British cheer, which had been taught him by his father, and had indeed been used by him more than once, with signal success, against his Indian foes. Returning to the cavern after the Indians had vanished into their native woods, Big Tim assisted the preacher up the ladder, and, taking him into the hut after the smoke of the fireworks had cleared away, placed him in his own bed. "You resemble your father in face, Big Tim, but not in figure," said the missionary, when he had recovered from the exhaustion caused by his recent efforts and excitement. "My white father says truth," replied the hunter, with slightly humorous glances at his huge limbs. "Daddy is little, but he is strong--uncommon strong." "He used to be so when I knew him," returned the preacher, "and I dare say the twenty years that have passed since then have not changed him much, for he is a good deal younger than I am--about the same age, I should suppose, as my old friend Whitewing." "Yes, that's so," said the hunter; "they're both about five-an'-forty or there-away, though I doubt if either o' them is quite sure about his age. An' they're both beginning to be grizzled about the scalp-locks." "Your father, although somewhat reckless in his disposition," continued the preacher, after a pause, "was a man of earnest mind." "That's a fact, an' no mistake," returned Big Tim, examining a pot of soup which his bride had put on the fire to warm up for their visitor. "I doubt if ever I saw a more arnest-minded man than daddy, especially when he tackles his victuals or gets on the track of a grizzly b'ar." The missionary smiled, in spite of himself, as he explained that the earnestness he referred to was connected rather with the soul and the spiritual world than with this sublunary sphere. "Well, he is arnest about that too," returned the hunter. "He has often told me that he didn't use to trouble his head about such matters long ago, but after that time when he met you on the prairies he had been led to think a deal more about 'em. He's a queer man is daddy, an' putts things to ye in a queer way sometimes. `Timmy,' says he to me once--he calls me Timmy out o' fondness, you know--`Timmy,' says he, `if you comed up to a great thick glass wall, not very easy to see through, wi' a door in it, an' you was told that some day that door would open, an' you'd have to go through an' live on the other side o' that glass wall, you'd be koorious to know the lie o' the land on the other side o' that wall, wouldn't you, and what sort o' customers you'd have to consort wi' there, eh?' "`Yes, daddy,' says I, `you say right, an' I'd be a great fool if I didn't take a good long squint now an' again.' "`Well, Timmy,' says he, `this world is that glass wall, an' death is the door through it, an' the Bible that the preacher gave me long ago is the Book that helps to clear up the glass an' enable us to see through it a little better; an' a Blackfoot bullet or arrow may open the door to you an' me any day, so I'd advise you, lad, to take a good squint now an' again.' An' I've done it, too, Preacher, I've done it, but there's a deal on it that I don't rightly understand." "That I do not wonder at, my young friend; and I hope that if God spares me I may be able to help you a little in this matter. But what of Whitewing? Has he never tried to assist you?" "Tried! He just has; but the chief is too deep for me most times. He seems to have a wonderful grip o' these things himself, an' many a long palaver he has wi' my daddy about 'em. Whitewing does little else, in fact but go about among his people far an' near tellin' them about their lost condition and the Saviour of sinners. He has even ventur'd to visit a tribe o' the Blackfeet, but his great enemy Rushin' River has sworn to scalp him if he gets hold of him, so we've done our best to hold him back--daddy an' me--for it would be of no use preachin' to such a double-dyed villain as Rushin' River." "That is one of the things," returned the preacher, "that you do not quite understand, Big Tim, for it was to such men as he that our Saviour came. Indeed, I have returned to this part of the country for the very purpose of visiting the Blackfoot chief in company with Whitewing." "Both you and Whitewing will be scalped if you do," said the young hunter almost sternly. "I trust not," returned the preacher; "and we hope to induce your father to go with us." "Then daddy will be scalped too," said Big Tim--"an' so will I, for I'm bound to keep daddy company." "It is to be hoped your gloomy expectations will not be realised," returned the preacher. "But tell me, where is your father just now?" "Out hunting, not far off," replied the youth, with an anxious look. "To say truth, I don't feel quite easy about him, for he's bin away longer than usual, or than there's any occasion for. If he doesn't return soon, I'll have to go an' sarch for him." As the hunter spoke the hooting of an owl was distinctly heard outside. The preacher looked up inquiringly, for he was too well acquainted with the ways of Indians not to know that the cry was a signal from a biped without wings. He saw that Big Tim and his bride were both listening intently, with expressions of joyful expectation on their faces. Again the cry was heard, much nearer than before. "Whitewing!" exclaimed the hunter, leaping up and hastening to the door. Softswan did not move, but continued silently to stir the soup in the pot on the fire. Presently many footsteps were heard outside, and the sound of men conversing in low tones. Another moment, and a handsome middle-aged Indian stood in the doorway. With an expression of profound sorrow, he gazed for one moment at the wounded man; then, striding forward, knelt beside him and grasped his hand. "My white father!" he said. "Whitewing!" exclaimed the preacher; "I little expected that our meeting should be like this!" "Is the preacher badly hurt?" asked the Indian in a low voice. "It may be so; I cannot tell. My feelings lead me to--to doubt--I was going to say fear, but I have nothing to fear. `He doeth all things well.' If my work on earth is not done, I shall live; if it is finished, I shall die." CHAPTER EIGHT. NETTING A GRIZZLY BEAR. As it is at all times unwise as well as disagreeable to involve a reader in needless mystery, we may as well explain here that there would have been no mystery at all in Little Tim's prolonged absence from his fortress, if it had not been that he was aware of the intended visit of his chum and brother-in-law, Whitewing, and his old friend the pale-faced missionary, and that he had promised to return on the evening of the day on which he set off to hunt or on the following morning at latest. Moreover, Little Tim was a man of his word, having never within the memory of his oldest friend been known to break it. Thus it came to pass that when three days had passed away, and the sturdy little hunter failed to return, Big Tim and his bride first became surprised and then anxious. The attack on the hut, however, and the events which we have just related, prevented the son from going out in search of the father; but now that the Blackfeet had been effectually repulsed and the fortress relieved by the arrival of Whitewing's party, it was resolved that they should organise a search for the absentee without an hour's delay. "Leetil Tim," said Whitewing decisively, when he was told of his old friend's unaccountable absence, "must be found." "So say I," returned Big Tim. "I hope the Blackfoot reptiles haven't got him. Mayhap he has cut himself with his hatchet. Anyhow, we must go at once. You won't mind our leaving you for a bit?" he added, turning to the missionary; "we will leave enough o' redskins to guard you, and my soft one will see to it that you are comfortable." "Think not of me," replied the preacher. "All will go well, I feel assured." Still further to guard the reader from supposing that there is any mystery connected with the missionary's name or Little Tim's surname, we think it well to state at once that there is absolutely none. In those outlandish regions, and among that primitive people, the forming of names by the mere combination of unmeaning syllables found small favour. They named people according to some striking quality or characteristic. Hence our missionary had been long known among the red men of the West as the Preacher, and, being quite satisfied with that name, he accepted it without making any attempt to bamboozle the children of the woods and prairies with his real name, which was--and is--a matter of no importance whatever. Tim likewise, being short of stature, though very much the reverse of weak or diminutive, had accepted the name of "Little Tim" with a good grace, and made mention of no other; his son naturally becoming "Big Tim" when he outgrew his father. A search expedition having been quickly organised, it left the little fortress at once, and defiled into the thick woods, led by Whitewing and Big Tim. In order that the reader may fully understand the cause of Little Tim's absence, we will take the liberty of pushing on in advance of the search party, and explain a few matters as we go. It has already been shown that our little hunter possessed a natural ingenuity of mind. This quality had, indeed, been noticeable when he was a boy, but it did not develop largely till he became a man. As he grew older his natural ingenuity seemed to become increasingly active, until his thirst for improving on mechanical contrivances and devising something new became almost a passion. Hence he was perpetually occupied in scheming to improve--as he was wont to say--the material condition of the human race, as well as the mental. Among other things, he improved the traps of his Indian friends, and also their dwellings. He invented new traps, and, as we have seen, new methods of defending dwellings, as well as of escaping when defence failed. His name, of course, became well known in the Indian country, and as some of his contrivances proved to be eminently useful, he was regarded far and near as a great medicine-man, who could do whatever he set his mind to. Without laying claim to such unlimited powers, Little Tim was quite content to leave the question of his capacity to scheme and invent as much a matter of uncertainty in the minds of his red friends as it was in his own mind. One day there came to the Indian village, in which he dwelt at the time with his still pretty though matronly wife Brighteyes, one of the agents of a man whose business it was to collect wild animals for the menageries of the United States and elsewhere. Probably this man was an ancestor of Barnum, for he possessed a mind which seemed to be capable of conceiving anything and sticking at nothing. He found a man quite after his own heart when he discovered Little Tim. "I want a grizzly b'ar," he said, on being introduced to the hunter. "There's plenty of 'em in these parts," said Tim, who was whittling a piece of wood at the time. "But I want a full-grown old 'un," said the agent. "Well," remarked Tim, looking up with an inquiring glance for a moment, "I should say there's some thousands, more or less, roamin' about the Rockies, in all stages of oldness--from experienced mammas to great-grandmothers, to say nothin' o' the old gentlemen; but you'll find most of 'em powerful sly an' uncommon hard to kill." "But I don't want to kill 'em; I want one of 'em alive," said the agent. At this Little Tim stopped whittling the bit of stick, and looked hard at the man. "You wants to catch one alive?" he repeated. "_Yes_, that's what's the matter with me exactly. I want it for a show, an' I'm prepared to give a good price for a big one." "How much?" asked the hunter. The stranger bent down and whispered in his ear. Little Tim raised his eyebrows a little, and resumed whittling. "But," said he, after a few moments' vigorous knife-work, "what if I should try, an' fail?" "Then you get nothing." "Won't do," returned the little hunter, with a slow shake of the head. "I'm game to tackle difficulties for love _or_ money, but not for nothin'. You'll have to go to another shop, stranger." "Well, what will you _try_ it for?" asked the agent, who was unwilling to lose his man. "For quarter o' the sum down, to be kep' whether I succeed or fail, the balance to be paid when I hand over the goods." "Well, stranger," returned the agent, with a grim smile, "I don't mind if I agree to that. You seem an honest man." "Sorry I can't return the compliment," said Little Tim, holding out his hand. "So cash down, if you please." The agent laughed, but pulled out a huge leathern bag, and paid the stipulated sum in good undeniable silver dollars. The hunter at once made preparation for his enterprise. Meanwhile the agent took up his abode in the Indian village to await the result. After a night of profound meditation in the solitude of his wigwam, Little Tim set to work and cut up several fresh buffalo hides into long and strong lines with which he made a net of enormous mesh and strength. He arranged it in such a way, with a line run round the circumference, that he could draw it together like a purse. With this gigantic affair on his shoulder, he set off one morning at daybreak into the mountains. He met the agent, who was an early riser, on the threshold of the village. "What! goin' out alone, Little Tim?" he said. "Yes; b'ars don't like company, as a rule." "Don't you think I might help you a bit?" "No, I don't. If you stop where you are, I'll very likely bring the b'ar home to 'ee. If you go with me, it's more than likely the b'ar will take you home to her small family!" "Well, well, have it your own way," returned the agent, laughing. "I always do," replied the hunter, with a grin. Proceeding a day's journey into the mountains, our adventurous hunter discovered the track of a bear, which must, he thought be an uncommonly large one. Selecting a convenient tree, he stuck four slender poles into the ground, under one of its largest branches. Over these he spread his net, arranging the closing rope--or what we may term the purse-string--in such a way that he could pass it over the branch of the tree referred to. This done, he placed a large junk of buffalo-meat directly under the net, and pegged it to the ground. Thereafter Little Tim ascended the tree, crept out on the large limb until he reached the spot where the line had been thrown over it, directly above his net. There, seating himself comfortably among the branches, he proceeded to sup and enjoy himself, despite the unsavoury smell that arose from the half-decayed buffalo-meat below. The limb of the tree was so large and suitable that while a fork of it was wide enough to serve for a table, a branch which grew upwards formed a lean to the hunter's back, and another branch, doubling round most conveniently, formed a rest for his right elbow. At the same time an abrupt curl in the same branch constituted a rest for his gun. Thus he reclined in a natural one-armed rustic chair, with his weapons handy, and a good supper before him. "What could a man wish more?" he muttered to himself, with a contented expression of face, as he fixed a square piece of birch-bark in the fork of the branch, and on this platter arranged his food, commenting thereon as he proceeded: "Roast prairie hen. Capital grub, with a bit o' salt pork, though rather dry an' woodeny-like by itself. Buffalo rib. Nothin' better, hot or cold, except marrow-bones; but then, you see, marrow-bones ain't just parfection unless hot, an' this is bound to be a cold supper. Hunk o' pemmican. A safe stand-by at all times. Don't need no cookin', an' a just proportion o' fat to lean, but doesn't do without appetite to make it go down. Let me be thankful I've got that, anyhow." At this point Little Tim thought it expedient to make the line of his net fast to this limb of the tree. After doing so, he examined the priming of his gun, made a few other needful arrangements, and then gave himself up to the enjoyment of the hour, smiling benignly to the moon, which happened to creep out from behind a mountain peak at the time, as if on purpose to irradiate the scene. "It has always seemed to me," muttered the hunter, as well as a large mouthful of the prairie hen would permit--for he was fond of muttering his thoughts when alone; it felt more sociable, you see, than merely thinking them--"It has always seemed to me that contentment is a grand thing for the human race. Pity we hasn't all got it!" Inserting at this point a mass of the hunk, which proved a little too large for muttering purposes, he paused until the road was partially cleared, and then went on--"Of course I don't mean that lazy sort o' contentment that makes a man feel easy an' comfortable, an' quite indifferent to the woes an' worries of other men so long as his own bread-basket is stuffed full. No, no. I means that sort o' contentment that makes a man feel happy though he hasn't got champagne an' taters, pigeon-pie, lobscouse, plum-duff, mustard an' jam at every blow-out; that sort o' contentment that takes things as they come, an' enjoys 'em without grumpin' an' growlin' 'cause he hasn't got somethin' else." Another hunk here stopping the way, a somewhat longer silence ensued, which would probably have been broken as before by the outpouring of some sage reflections, but for a slight sound which caused the hunter to become what we may style a human petrifaction, with a half-chewed morsel in its open jaws, and its eyes glaring. A few seconds more, and the sound of breaking twigs gave evidence that a visitor drew near. Little Tim bolted the unchewed morsel, hastily sheathed his hunting-knife, laid one hand on the end of his line, and waited. He had not to wait long, for out of the woods there sauntered a grizzly bear of such proportions that the hunter at first thought the moonlight must have deceived him. "Sartinly it's the biggest that I've ever clapped eyes on," he thought but he did not speak or move. So anxious was he not to scare the animal, that he hardly breathed. Bruin seemed to entertain suspicions of some sort, for he sniffed the tainted air once or twice, and looked inquiringly round. Coming to the conclusion, apparently, that his suspicions were groundless, he walked straight up to the lump of buffalo-meat and sniffed it. Not being particular, he tried it with his tongue. "Good!" said the bear--at least if he did not say so, he must have thought so, for next moment he grasped it with his teeth. Finding it tethered hard and fast, he gathered himself together for the purpose of exercising main force. Now was Little Tim's opportunity. Slipping a cord by which the net was suspended to the four stakes, he caused it to descend like a curtain over the bear. It acted most successfully, insomuch that the animal was completely enveloped. Surprised, but obviously not alarmed, Bruin shook his head, sniffed a little, and pawed the part of the net in front of him. The hunter wasted no time. Seeing that the net was all right, he pulled with all his might on the main rope, which partly drew the circumference of the net together. Finding his feet slightly trammelled, the grizzly tried to move off, but of course trod on the net, tripped, and rolled over. In so doing he caught sight of the hunter, who was now enabled to close the mouth of the net-purse completely. Being by that time convinced, apparently, that he was the victim of foul play, the bear lost his temper, and tried to rise. He tripped as before, came down heavily on his side, and hit the back of his head against a stone. This threw him into a violent rage, and he began to bounce. At all times bouncing is ineffectual and silly, even in a grizzly bear. The only result was that he bruised his head and nose, tumbled among stones and stumps, and strained the rope so powerfully that the limb of the tree to which it was attached was violently shaken, and Little Tim was obliged to hold on to avoid being shaken off. Experience teaches bears as well as fools. On discovering that it was useless to bounce, he sat down in a disconsolate manner, poked as much as he could of his nose through one of the meshes, and sniggered at Little Tim, who during these outbursts was naturally in a state of great excitement. Then the bear went to work leisurely to gnaw the mesh close to his mouth. The hunter was not prepared for this. He had counted on the creature struggling with its net till it was in a state of complete exhaustion, when, by means of additional ropes, it could be so wound round and entangled in every limb as to be quite incapable of motion. In this condition it might be slung to a long pole and carried by a sufficient number of men to the small, but immensely strong, cage on wheels which the agent had brought with him. Not only was there the danger of the bear breaking loose and escaping, or rendering it necessary that he should be shot, but there was another risk which Little Tim had failed at first to note. The scene on which he had decided to play out his little game was on the gentle slope of a hill, which terminated in a precipice of considerable height, and each time the bear struggled and rolled over in his network purse, he naturally gravitated towards the precipice, over which he was certain to go if the rope which held him to the tree should snap. The hunter had just become thoroughly alive to this danger when, with a tremendous struggle, the bear burst two of the meshes in rear, and his hind-quarters were free. Little Tim seized his gun, feeling that the crisis had come. He was loath to destroy the creature, and hesitated. Instead of backing out of his prison, as he might easily have done, the bear made use of his free hind legs to make a magnificent bound forward. He was checked, of course, by the rope, but Tim had miscalculated the strength of his materials. A much stronger rope would have broken under the tremendous strain. The line parted like a piece of twine, and the bear, rolling head over heels down the slope, bounded over the precipice, and went hurling out into space like a mighty football! There was silence for a few seconds, then a simultaneous thud and bursting cry that was eminently suggestive. "H'm! It's all over," sighed Little Tim, as he slid down the branch to the ground. And so it was. The bear was effectually killed, and the poor hunter had to return to the Indian village crestfallen. "But hold on, stranger," he said, on meeting the agent; "don't you give way to despair. I said there was lots of 'em in these parts. You come with me up to a hut my son's got in the mountains, an' I'll circumvent a b'ar for you yet. You can't take the cart quite up to the hut but you can git near enough, at a place where there's a Injin' friend o' mine as'll take care of ye." The agent agreed, and thus it came to pass that at the time of which we now write, Little Tim was doing his best to catch a live bear, but, not liking to be laughed at even by his son in the event of failure, he had led him and his bride to suppose that he had merely gone out hunting in the usual way. It was on this expedition that Little Tim had set forth when Whitewing was expected to arrive at Tim's Folly--as the little hut or fortress had come to be named--and it was the anxiety of his friends and kindred at his prolonged absence which resulted, as we have seen, in the formation and departure of a search expedition. CHAPTER NINE. A DARING EXPLOIT. To practised woodsmen like Whitewing and Big Tim it was as easy to follow the track of Little Tim as if his steps had been taken through newly-fallen snow, although very few and slight were the marks left on the green moss and rugged ground over which the hunter had passed. Six picked Indians accompanied the prairie chief, and these marched in single file, each treading in the footsteps of the man in front with the utmost care. At first the party maintained absolute silence. Their way lay for some distance along the margin of the brawling stream which drained the gorge at the entrance of which Tim's Folly stood. The scenery around them was wild and savage in the extreme, for the higher they ascended, the narrower became the gorge, and the masses of rock which had fallen from the frowning cliffs on either side had strewn the lower ground with shapeless blocks, and so impeded the natural flow of the little stream that it became, as it were, a tormented and foaming cataract. At the head of the gorge the party came to a pass or height of land, through which they went with caution, for, although no footsteps of man had thus far been detected by their keen eyes save those of Little Tim, it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that foes might be lurking on the other side of the pass. No one, however, was discovered, and when they emerged at the other end of the pass it was plain that, as Big Tim remarked, the coast was clear, for from their commanding position they could see an immeasurable distance in front of them, over an unencumbered stretch of land. The view from this point was indeed stupendous. The vision seemed to range not only over an almost limitless world of forests, lakes, and rivers--away to where the haze of the horizon seemed to melt with them into space--but beyond that to where the great backbone of the New World rose sharp, clear, and gigantic above the mists of earth, until they reached and mingled with the fleecy clouds of heaven. To judge from their glittering eyes, even the souls of the not very demonstrative Indians were touched by the scene. As for the prairie chief, who had risen to the perceptions of the new life in Christ he halted and stood for some moments as if lost in contemplation. Then, turning to the young hunter at his side, he said softly-- "The works of the Lord are great." "Strange," returned Big Tim, "that you should use the very same words that I've heard my daddy use sometimes when we've come upon a grand view like that." "Not so strange when I tell you," replied Whitewing, "that these are words from the Book of Manitou, and that your father and I learned them together long ago from the preacher who now lies wounded in your hut." "Ay, ay! Daddy didn't tell me that. He's not half so given to serious talk as you are, Whitewing, though I'm free to admit that he does take a fit o' that sort now an' again, and seems raither fond of it. The fact is, I don't quite understand daddy. He puzzles me." "Perhaps Leetil Tim is too much given to fun when he talks with Big Tim," suggested the red chief gravely, but with a slight twinkle in his eyes, which told that he was not quite destitute of Little Tim's weakness--or strength, as the reader chooses. After a brief halt the party descended the slope which led to the elevated valley they had now reached, and, having proceeded a few miles, again came to a halt because the ground had become so rocky that the trail of the hunter was lost. Ordering the young men to spread themselves over the ground, Whitewing went with Big Tim to search over the ridge of a neighbouring eminence. "It is as I expected," he said, coming to a sudden stand, and pointing to a faint mark on the turf. "Leetil Tim has taken the short cut to the Lopstick Hill, but I cannot guess the reason why." Big Tim was down on his knees examining the footprints attentively. "Daddy's futt, an' no mistake," he said, rising slowly. "I'd know the print of his heel among a thousand. He's got a sort o' swagger of his own, an' puts it down with a crash, as if he wanted to leave his mark wherever he goes. I've often tried to cure him o' that, but he's incurable." "I have observed," returned the chief, with, if possible, increased gravity, "that many sons are fond of trying to cure their fathers; also, that they never succeed." Big Tim looked quickly at his companion, and laughed. "Well, well," he said, "the daddies have a good go at us in youth. It's but fair that we should have a turn at _them_ afterwards." A sharp signal from one of the young Indians in the distance interrupted further converse, and drew them away to see what he had discovered. It was obvious enough--the trail of the Blackfoot Indians retiring into the mountains. At first Big Tim's heart sank, for this discovery, coupled with the prolonged absence of his father, suggested the fear that he had been waylaid and murdered. But a further examination led them to think--at least to hope--that the savages had not observed the hunter's trail, owing to his having diverged at a point of the track further down, where the stony nature of the ground rendered trail-finding, as we have seen, rather difficult. Still, there was enough to fill the breasts of both son and friend with anxiety, and to induce them to push on thereafter swiftly and in silence. Let us once again take flight ahead of them, and see what the object of their anxiety is doing. True to his promise to try his best, the dauntless little hunter had proceeded alone, as before, to a part of the mountain region where he knew from past experience that grizzlies were to be easily found. There he made his preparations for a new effort on a different plan. The spot he selected for his enterprise was an open space on a bleak hillside, where the trees were scattered and comparatively small. This latter peculiarity--the smallness of the trees--was, indeed, the only drawback to the place, for few of them were large enough to bear his weight, and afford him a secure protection from his formidable game. At last however, he found one,--not, indeed, quite to his mind, but sufficiently large to enable him to get well out of a bear's reach, for it must be remembered that although some bears climb trees easily, the grizzly bear cannot climb at all. There was a branch on the lower part of the tree which seemed quite beyond the reach of the tallest bear even on tiptoe. Having made his disposition very much as on the former occasion, Little Tim settled himself on this branch, and awaited the result. He did not, however, sit as comfortably as on the previous occasion, for the branch was small and had no fork. Neither did he proceed to sup as formerly, for it was yet too early in the day to indulge in that meal. His plan this time was, not to net, but to lasso the bear; and for that purpose he had provided four powerful ropes made of strips of raw, undressed buffalo hide, plaited, with a running noose on each. "Now," said Little Tim, with a self-satisfied smirk, as he seated himself on the branch and surveyed the four ropes complacently, "it'll puzzle the biggest b'ar in all the Rocky Mountains to break them ropes." Any one acquainted with the strength of the material which Tim began to uncoil would have at once perceived that the lines in question might have held an elephant or a small steamer. "I hope," murmured Tim, struggling with a knot in one of the cords that bound the coils, "I hope I'll be in luck to-day, an' won't have to wait long." Little Tim's hope reached fruition sooner than he had expected--sooner even than he desired--for as he spoke he heard a rustle in the bushes behind him. Looking round quickly, he beheld "the biggest b'ar, out o' sight, that he had iver seen in all his life." So great was his surprise--we would not for a moment call it alarm--that he let slip the four coils of rope, which fell to the ground. Grizzly bears, it must be known, are gifted with insatiable curiosity, and they are not troubled much with the fear of man, or, indeed, of anything else. Hearing the thud of the coils on the ground, this monster grizzly walked up to and smelt them. He was proceeding to taste them, when, happening to cast his little eyes upwards, he beheld Little Tim sitting within a few feet of his head. To rise on his hind legs, and solicit a nearer interview, was the work of a moment. To the poor hunter's alarm, when he stretched his tremendous paws and claws to their utmost he reached to within a foot of the branch. Of course Little Tim knew that he was safe, but he was obliged to draw up his legs and lay out on the branch, which brought his head and eyes horribly near to the nose and projecting tongue of the monster. To make matters worse, Tim had left his gun leaning against the stem of the tree. He had his knife and hatchet in his belt, but these he knew too well were but feeble weapons against such a foe. Besides, his object was not to slay, but to secure. Seeing that there was no possibility of reaching the hunter by means of mere length of limb, and not at that time having acquired the art of building a stone pedestal for elevating purposes, the bear dropped on its four legs and looked round. Perceiving the gun, it went leisurely up and examined it. The examination was brief but effective. It gave the gun only one touch with its paw, but that touch broke the lock and stock and bent the barrel so as to render the weapon useless. Then it returned to the coil of ropes, and, sitting down, began to chew one of them, keeping a serious eye, however, on the branch above. It was a perplexing situation even for a backwoodsman. The branch on which Tim lay was comfortable enough, having many smaller branches and twigs extending from it on either side, so that he did not require to hold on very tightly to maintain his position. But he was fully aware of the endurance and patience of grizzly bears, and knew that, having nothing else to do, this particular Bruin could afford to bide his time. And now the ruling characteristic of Little Tim beset him severely. His head felt like a bombshell of fermenting ingenuity. Every device, mechanical and otherwise, that had ever passed through his brain since childhood, seemed to rush back upon him with irresistible violence in his hopeless effort to conceive some plan by which to escape from his present and pressing difficulty--he would not, even to himself, admit that there was danger. The more hopeless the case appeared to him, the less did reason and common-sense preside over the fermentation. When he saw his gun broken, his first anxiety began. When he reflected on the persistency of grizzlies in watching their foes, his naturally buoyant spirits began to sink and his native recklessness to abate. When he saw the bear begin steadily to devour one of the lines by which he had hoped to capture it, his hopes declined still more; and when he considered the distance he was from his hut, the fact that his provision wallet had been left on the ground along with the gun, and that the branch on which he rested was singularly unfit for a resting-place on which to pass many hours, he became wildly ingenious, and planned to escape, not only by pitching his cap to some distance off so as to distract the bear's attention, and enable him to slip down and run away, but by devising methods of effecting his object by clockwork, fireworks, wings, balloons--in short, by everything that ever has, in the history of design, enabled men to achieve their ends. His first and simplest method, to fling his cap away, was indeed so far successful that it did distract the bear's attention for a moment, but it did not disturb his huge body, for he sat still, chewing his buffalo quid leisurely, and, after a few seconds, looked up at his victim as though to ask, "What d'you mean by that?" When, after several hours, all his attempts had failed, poor Little Tim groaned in spirit, and began to regret his having undertaken the job; but a sense of the humorous, even in that extremity, caused him to give vent to a short laugh as he observed that Bruin had managed to get several feet of the indigestible rope down his throat, and fancied what a surprise it would give him if he were to get hold of the other end of the rope and pull it all out again. At last night descended on the scene, making the situation much more unpleasant, for the darkness tended to deceive the man as to the motions of the brute, and once or twice he almost leaped off the branch under the impression that his foe had somehow grown tall enough to reach him, and was on the point of seizing him with his formidable claws. To add to his troubles, hunger came upon Tim about his usual supper-time, and what was far worse, because much less endurable, sleep put in a powerful claim to attention. Indeed this latter difficulty became so great that hunger, after a time, ceased to trouble him, and all his faculties--even the inventive--were engaged in a tremendous battle with this good old friend, who had so suddenly been converted into an implacable foe. More than once that night did Little Tim, despite his utmost efforts, fall into a momentary sleep, from which each time he awoke with a convulsive start and sharp cry, to the obvious surprise of Bruin, who, being awakened out of a comfortable nap, looked up with a growl inquiringly, and then relapsed. When morning broke, it found the wretched man still clutching his uneasy couch, and blinking like an owl at the bear, which still lay comfortably on the ground below him. Unable to stand it any longer, Tim resolved to have a short nap, even if it should cost him his life. With this end in view, he twined his arms and legs tightly round his branch. The very act reminded him that his worsted waistbelt might be twined round both body and branch, for it was full two yards long. Wondering that it had not occurred to him before, he hastily undid it, lashed himself to the branch as well as he could, and in a moment was sound asleep. This device would have succeeded admirably had not one of his legs slowly dropped so low down as to attract the notice of the bear when it awoke. Rising to its full height on its hind legs, and protruding its tongue to the utmost, it just managed to touch Tim's toe. The touch acted liked an electric spark, awoke him at once, and the leg was drawn promptly up. But Tim had had a nap, and it is wonderful how brief a slumber will suffice to restore the energies of a man in robust health. He unlashed himself. "Good mornin' to 'ee," he said, looking down. "You're there yet, I see." He finished the salutation with a loud yawn, and stretched himself so recklessly that he almost fell off the branch into the embrace of his expectant foe. Then he looked round, and, reason having been restored, hit upon a plan of escape which seemed to him hopeful. We have said that the space he had selected was rather open, but there were scattered over it several large masses of rock, about the size of an ordinary cart, which had fallen from the neighbouring cliffs. Four of these stood in a group at about fifty yards' distance from his tree. "Now, old Caleb," he said, "I'll go in for it, neck or nothin'. You tasted my toes this mornin'. Would you like to try 'em again?" He lowered his foot as he spoke, as far down as he could reach. The bear accepted the invitation at once, rose up, protruded his tongue as before, and just managed to touch the toe. Now it is scarcely needful to say that a strong man leading the life of a hunter in the Rocky Mountains is an athlete. Tim thought no more of swinging himself up into a tree by the muscular power of his arms than you would think of stepping over a narrow ditch. When the bear was standing in its most upright attitude, he suddenly swung down, held on to the branch with his hands, and drove both his feet with such force against the bear's chin that it lost its balance and fell over backwards with an angry growl. At the same moment Tim dropped to the ground, and made for the fallen rocks at a quicker rate than he had ever run before. Bruin scrambled to his feet with amazing agility, looked round, saw the fugitive, and gave chase. Darting past the first rock, it turned, but Little Tim, of course, was not there. He had doubled round the second, and taken refuge behind the third mass of rock. Waiting a moment till the baffled bear went to look behind another rock, he ran straight back again to his tree, hastily gathered up his ropes, and reascended to his branch, where the bear found him again not many minutes later. "Ha! HA! you old rascal!" he shouted, as he fastened the end of a rope firmly to the branch, and gathered in the slack so as to have the running noose handy. "I've got you now. Come, come along; have another taste of my toe!" This invitation was given when the bear stood in his former position under the tree and looked up. Once again it accepted the invitation, and rose to the hunter's toe as a salmon rises to an irresistible fly. "That's it! Now, hold on--just one moment. _There_!" As Tim finished the sentence, he dropped the noose so deftly over the bear's head and paws that it went right down to his waist. This was an unlooked-for piece of good fortune. The utmost the hunter had hoped for was to noose the creature round the neck. Moreover, it was done so quickly that the monster did not seem to fully appreciate what had occurred, but continued to strain and reach up at the toe in an imbecile sort of way. Instead, therefore, of drawing the noose tight, Little Tim dropped a second noose round the monster's neck, and drew that tight. Becoming suddenly alive to its condition, the grizzly made a backward plunge, which drew both ropes tight and nearly strangled it, while the branch on which Tim was perched shook so violently that it was all he could do to hold on. For full half an hour that bear struggled fiercely to free itself, and often did the shaken hunter fear that he had miscalculated the strength of his ropes, but they stood the test well, and, being elastic, acted in some degree like lines of indiarubber. At the end of that time the bear fell prone from exhaustion, which, to do him justice, was more the result of semi-strangulation than exertion. This was what Little Tim had been waiting for and expecting. Quietly but quickly he descended to the ground, but the bear saw him, partially recovered, no doubt under an impulse of rage, and began to rear and plunge again, compelling his foe to run to the fallen rocks for shelter. When Bruin had exhausted himself a second time, Tim ran forward and seized the old net with which he had failed to catch the previous bear, and threw it over his captive. The act of course revived the lively monster, but his struggles now wound him up into such a ravel with the two lines and the net that he was soon unable to get up or jump about, though still able to make the very earth around him tremble with his convulsive heaves. It was at once a fine as well as an awful display of the power of brute force and the strength of raw material! Little Tim would have admired it with philosophic interest if he had not been too busy dancing around the writhing creature in a vain effort to fix his third rope on a hind leg. At last an opportunity offered. A leg burst one of the meshes of the net. Tim deftly slipped the noose over it, and made the line fast to the tree. "Now," said he, wiping the perspiration from his brow, "you're safe, so I'll have a meal." And Little Tim, sitting down on a stone at a respectful distance, applied himself with zest to the cold breakfast of which he stood so very much in need. He was thus occupied when his son with the prairie chief and his party found him. It would take at least another chapter to describe adequately the joy, surprise, laughter, gratulation, and comment which burst from the rescue party on discovering the hunter. We therefore leave it to the reader's imagination. One of the young braves was at once sent off to find the agent and fetch him to the spot with his cage on wheels. The feat, with much difficulty, was accomplished. Bruin was forcibly and very unwillingly thrust into the prison. The balance of the stipulated sum was honourably paid on the spot, and now that bear is--or, if it is not, ought to be--in the Zoological Gardens of New York, London, or Paris, with a printed account of his catching, and a portrait of Little Tim attached to the front of his cage! CHAPTER TEN. SNAKES IN THE GRASS. It was a sad but interesting council that was held in the little fortress of "Tim's Folly" the day following that on which the grizzly bear was captured. The wounded missionary, lying in Big Tim's bed, presided. Beside him, with an expression of profound sorrow on his fine face, sat Whitewing, the prairie chief. Little Tim and his big son sat at his feet. The other Indians were ranged in a semicircle before him. In one sense it was a red man's council, but there were none of the Indian formalities connected with it, for the prairie chief and his followers had long ago renounced the superstitions and some of the practices of their kindred. Softswan was not banished from the council chamber, as if unworthy even to listen to the discussions of the "lords of creation," and no pipe of peace was smoked as a preliminary, but a brief, earnest prayer for guidance was put up by the missionary to the Lord of hosts, and subjects more weighty than are usually broached in the councils of savages were discussed. The preacher's voice was weak, and his countenance pale, but the wonted look of calm confidence was still there. "Whitewing," he said, raising himself on one elbow, "I will speak as God gives me power, but I am very feeble, and feel that the discussion of our plans must be conducted chiefly by yourself and your friends." He paused, and the chief, with the usual dignity of the red man, remained silent, waiting for more. Not so Little Tim. That worthy, although gifted with all the powers of courage and endurance which mark the best of the American savages, was also endowed with the white man's tendency to assert his right to wag his tongue. "Cheer up, sir," he said, in a tone of encouragement, "you mustn't let your spirits go down. A good rest here, an' good grub, wi' Softswan's cookin'--to say nothin' o' her nursin'--will put ye all right before long." "Thanks, Little Tim," returned the missionary, with a smile; "I do cheer up, or rather, God cheers me. Whether I recover or am called home is in His hands; therefore all shall be well. But," he added, turning to the chief, "God has given us brains, hands, materials, and opportunities to work with, therefore must we labour while we can, as if all depended on ourselves. The plans which I had laid out for myself He has seen fit to change, and it now remains for me to point out what I aimed at, so that we may accommodate ourselves to His will. Sure am I that with or without my aid, His work shall be done, and, for the rest--'though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Again he paused, and the Indians uttered that soft "Ho!" of assent with which they were wont to express approval of what was said. "When I left the settlements of the white men," continued the preacher, "my object was twofold: I wished to see Whitewing, and Little Tim, and Brighteyes, and all the other dear friends whom I had known long ago, before the snows of life's winter had settled on my head, but my main object was to visit Rushing River, the Blackfoot chief, and carry the blessed Gospel to his people, and thus, while seeking the salvation of their souls, also bring about a reconciliation between them and their hereditary foe, Bounding Bull." "It's Rushin' River as is the enemy," cried Little Tim, interrupting, for when his feelings were excited he was apt to become regardless of time, place, and persons, and the allusion to his son's wife's father-- of whom he was very fond--had roused him. "Boundin' Bull would have bin reconciled long ago if Rushin' River would have listened to reason, for he is a Christian, though I'm bound to say he's somethin' of a queer one, havin' notions of his own which it's not easy for other folk to understand." "In which respect, daddy," remarked Big Tim, using the English tongue for the moment, and allowing the smallest possible smile to play on his lips, "Bounding Bull is not unlike yourself." "Hold yer tongue, boy, else I'll give you a woppin'," said the father sternly. "Dumb, daddy, dumb," replied the son meekly. It was one of the peculiarities of this father and son that they were fond of expressing their regard for each other by indulging now and then in a little very mild "chaff," and the playful threat to give his son a "woppin'"--which in earlier years he had sometimes done with much effect--was an invariable proof that Little Tim's spirit had been calmed, and his amiability restored. "My white father's intentions are good," said Whitewing, after another pause, "and his faith is strong. It needs strong faith to believe that the man who has shot the preacher shall ever smoke the pipe of peace with Whitewing." "With God all things are possible," returned the missionary. "And you must not allow enmity to rankle in your own breast, Whitewing, because of me. Besides, it was probably one of Rushing River's braves, and not himself, who shot me. In any case they could not have known who I was." "I'm not so sure o' that," said Big Tim. "The Blackfoot reptile has a sharp eye, an' father has told me that you knew him once when you was in these parts twenty years ago." "Yes, I knew him well," returned the preacher, in a low, meditative voice. "He was quite a little boy at the time--not more than ten years of age, I should think, but unusually strong and brave. I met him when travelling alone in the woods, and it so happened that I had the good fortune to save his life by shooting a brown bear which he had wounded, and which was on the point of killing him. I dwelt with him and his people for a time, and pressed him to accept salvation through Jesus, but he refused. The Holy Spirit had not opened his eyes, yet I felt and still feel assured that that time will come. But it has not come yet, if all that I have heard of him be true. You may depend upon it, however, that he did not shoot me knowingly." Both Little and Big Tim by their looks showed that their belief in Rushing River's future reformation was very weak, though they said nothing, and the Indians maintained such imperturbable gravity that their looks gave no indication as to the state of their minds. "My white father's hopes and desires are good," said Whitewing, after another long pause, during which the missionary closed his eyes, and appeared to be resting, and Tim and his son looked gravely at each other, for that rest seemed to them strongly to resemble death. "And now what does my father propose to do?" "My course is clear," answered the wounded man, opening his eyes with a bright, cheerful look. "I cannot move. Here God has placed me, and here I must remain till--till I get well. All the action must be on your part, Whitewing, and that of your friends. But I shall not be idle or useless as long as life and breath are left to enable me to pray." There was another decided note of approval from the Indians, for they had already learned the value of prayer. "The first step I would wish you to take, however," continued the missionary, "is to go and bring to this hut my sweet friend Brighteyes and your own mother, Whitewing, who, you tell me, is still alive." "The loved old one still lives," returned the Indian. "Lives!" interposed Little Tim, with emphasis, "I should think she does, an' flourishes too, though she _has_ shrivelled up a bit since you saw her last. Why, she's so old now that we've changed her name to Live-for-ever. She sleeps like a top, an' feeds like a grampus, an' does little else but laugh at what's goin' on around her. I never did see such a jolly old girl in all my life. Twenty years ago--that time, you remember, when Whitewing carried her off on horseback, when the village was attacked--we all thought she was on her last legs, but, bless you sir, she can still stump about the camp in a tremblin' sort o' way, an' her peepers are every bit as black as those of my own Brighteyes, an' they twinkle a deal more." "Your account of her," returned the preacher, with a little smile, "makes me long to see her again. Indeed, the sight of these two would comfort me greatly whether I live or die. They are not far distant from here, you say?" "Not far. My father's wish shall be gratified," said Whitewing. "After they come we will consult again, and my father will be able to decide what course to pursue in winning over the Blackfeet." Of course the two Tims and all the others were quite willing to follow the lead of the prairie chief, so it was finally arranged that a party should be sent to the camp of the Indians, with whom Brighteyes and Live-for-ever were sojourning at the time--about a long day's march from the little fortress--and bring those women to the hut, that they might once again see and gladden the heart of the man whom they had formerly known as the Preacher. Now, it is a well-ascertained and undoubtable fact that the passion of love animates the bosoms of red men as well as white. It is also a curious coincidence that this passion frequently leads to modifications of action and unexpected, sometimes complicated, results and situations among the red as well as among the white men. Bearing this in mind, the reader will be better able to understand why Rushing River, in making a raid upon his enemies, and while creeping serpent-like through the grass in order to reconnoitre previous to a night attack, came to a sudden stop on beholding a young girl playing with a much younger girl--indeed, a little child--on the outskirts of the camp. It was the old story over again. Love at first sight! And no wonder, for the young girl, though only an Indian, was unusually graceful and pretty, being a daughter of Little Tim and Brighteyes. From the former, Moonlight (as she was named) inherited the free-and-easy yet modest carriage of the pale-face, from the latter a pretty little straight nose and a pair of gorgeous black eyes that seemed to sparkle with a private sunshine of their own. Rushing River, although a good-looking, stalwart man in the prime of life, had never been smitten in this way before. He therefore resolved at once to make the girl his wife. Red men have a peculiar way of settling such matters sometimes, without much regard to the wishes of the lady--especially if she be, as in this case, the daughter of a foe. In pursuance of his purpose, he planned, while lying there like a snake in the grass, to seize and carry off the fair Moonlight by force, instead of killing and scalping the whole of the Indians in Bounding Bull's camp with whom she sojourned. It was not any tender consideration for his foes, we are sorry to say, that induced this change of purpose, but the knowledge that in a night attack bullets and arrows are apt to fly indiscriminately on men, women, and children. He would have carried poor Moonlight off then and there if she had not been too near the camp to permit of his doing so without great risk of discovery. The presence of the little child also increased the risk. He might, indeed, have easily "got rid" of her, but there was a soft spot in that red man's heart which forbade the savage deed--a spot which had been created at that time, long, long ago, when the white preacher had discoursed to him of "righteousness and temperance and judgment to come." Little Skipping Rabbit, as she was called, was the youngest child of Bounding Bull. If Rushing River had known this, he would probably have hardened his heart, and struck at his enemy through the child, but fortunately he did not know it. Retiring cautiously from the scene, the Blackfoot chief determined to bide his time until he should find a good opportunity to pounce upon Moonlight and carry her off quietly. The opportunity came even sooner than he had anticipated. That night, while he was still prowling round the camp, Whitewing accompanied by Little Tim and a band of Indians arrived. Bounding Bull received them with an air of dignified satisfaction. He was a grave, tall Indian, whose manner was not at all suggestive of his name, but warriors in times of peace do not resemble the same men in times of war. Whitewing had been the means of inducing him to accept Christianity, and although he was by no means as "queer" a Christian as Little Tim had described him, he was, at all events, queer enough in the eyes of his enemies and his unbelieving friends to prefer peace or arbitration to war, on the ground that it is written, "If possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." Of course he saw that the "if possible" justified self-defence, and might in some circumstances even warrant aggressive action. Such, at all events, was the opinion he expressed at the solemn palaver which was held after the arrival of his friends. "Whitewing," said he, drawing himself up with flashing eyes and extended hand in the course of the debate, "surely you do not tell me that the Book teaches us to allow our enemies to raid in our lands, to carry off our women and little ones, and to burn our wigwams, while we sit still and wait till they are pleased to take our scalps?" Having put this rather startling question, he subsided as promptly as he had burst forth. "That's a poser!" thought the irreverent Little Tim, who sympathised with Bounding Bull, but he said nothing. "My brother has been well named," replied the uncompromising Whitewing; "he not only bounds upon his foes, but lets his mind bound to foolish conclusions. The Book teaches peace--if possible. If it be not possible, then we cannot avoid war. But how can we know what is possible unless we try? My brother advises that we should go on the war-path at once, and drive the Blackfeet away. Has Bounding Bull tried his best to bring them to reason? has he failed? Does he know that peace is _impossible_?" "Now look here, Whitewing," broke in Little Tim at this point. "It's all very well for you to talk about peace an' what's possible. I'm a Christian man myself, an' there's nobody as would be better pleased than me to see all the redskins in the mountains an' on the prairies at peace wi' one another. But you won't get me to believe that a few soft words are goin' to make Rushin' River all straight. He's the sworn enemy o' Boundin' Bull. Hates him like pison. He hates me like brimstone, an' it's my opinion that if we don't make away wi' him he'll make away wi' us." Whitewing--who was fond of silencing his opponents by quoting Scripture, many passages of which he had learned by heart long ago from his friend the preacher--did not reply for a few seconds. Then, looking earnestly at his brother chief, he said-- "With Manitou all things are possible. A soft answer turns away wrath." Bounding Bull pondered the words. Little Tim gave vent to a doubtful "humph"--not that he doubted the truth of the Word, but that he doubted its applicability on the present occasion. It was finally agreed that the question should not be decided until the whole council had returned to Tim's Folly, and laid the matter before the wounded missionary. Then Little Tim, being freed from the cares of state, went to solace himself with domesticity. Moonlight was Indian enough to know that females might not dare to interrupt the solemn council. She was also white woman enough to scorn the humble gait and ways of her red kindred, and to run eagerly to meet her sire as if she had been an out-and-out white girl. The hunter, as we have said, rather prided himself in keeping up some of the ways of his own race. Among other things, he treated his wife and daughter after the manner of white men--that is, well-behaved white men. When Moonlight saw him coming towards his wigwam, she bounded towards him. Little Tim extended his arms, caught her round the slender waist with his big strong hands, and lifted her as if she had been a child until her face was opposite his own. "Hallo, little beam of light!" he exclaimed, kissing her on each cheek, and then on the point of her tiny nose. "Eyes of mother--heart of sire, Fit to set the world on fire." Tim had become poetical as he grew older, and sometimes tried to throw his flashing thoughts into couplets. He spoke to his daughter in English, and, like Big Tim with his wife, required her to converse with him in that language. "Is mother at home?" "Yes, dear fasser, mosser's at home." "An' how's your little doll Skippin' Rabbit?" "Oh! she well as could be, an' a'most as wild too as rabbits. Runs away from me, so I kin hardly kitch her sometime." Moonlight accompanied this remark with a merry laugh, as she thought of some of the eccentricities of her little companion. Entering the wigwam, Little Tim found Brighteyes engaged with an iron pot, from which arose savoury odours. She had been as lithe and active as Moonlight once, and was still handsome and matronly. The eyes, however, from which she derived her name, still shone with undiminished lustre and benignity. "Bless you, old woman," said the hunter, giving his wife a hearty kiss, "you're as fond o' victuals as ever, I see." "At least my husband is, so I keep the pot boiling," retorted Brighteyes, with a smile, that proved her teeth to be as white as in days of yore. "Right, old girl, right. Your husband is about as good at emptying the pot as he is at filling it. Come, let's have some, while I tell you of a journey that's in store for you." "A long one?" asked the wife. "No, only a day's journey on horseback. You're goin' to meet an old friend." From this point her husband went on to tell about the arrival and wounding of the preacher, and how he had expressed an earnest desire to see her. While they were thus engaged, the prairie chief was similarly employed enlightening his own mother. That kind-hearted bundle of shrivelled-up antiquity was seated on the floor on the one side of a small fire. Her son sat on the opposite side, gazing at her through the smoke, with, for an Indian, an unwonted look of deep affection. "The snows of too many winters are on my head to go on journeys now," she said, in a feeble, quavering voice. "Is it far that my son wants me to go?" "Only one day's ride towards the setting sun, thou dear old one." Thus tenderly had Christianity, coupled with a naturally affectionate disposition, taught the prairie chief to address his mother. "Well, my son, I will go. Wherever Whitewing leads I will follow, for he is led by Manitou. I would go a long way to meet that good man the pale-face preacher." "Then to-morrow at sunrise the old one will be ready, and her son will come for her." So saying, the chief rose, and stalked solemnly out of the wigwam. CHAPTER ELEVEN. THE SNAKES MAKE A DART AND SECURE THEIR VICTIMS. While the things described in the last chapter were going on in the Indian camp, Rushing River was prowling around it, alternately engaged in observation and meditation, for he was involved in complicated difficulties. He had come to that region with a large band of followers for the express purpose of scalping his great enemy Bounding Bull and all his kindred, including any visitors who might chance to be with him at the time. After attacking Tim's Folly, and being driven therefrom by its owner's ingenious fireworks, as already related, the chief had sent away his followers to a distance to hunt, having run short of fresh meat. He retained with himself a dozen of his best warriors, men who could glide with noiseless facility like snakes, or fight with the noisy ferocity of fiends. With these he meant to reconnoitre his enemy's camp, and make arrangements for the final assault when his braves should return with meat--for savages, not less than other men, are dependent very much on full stomachs for fighting capacity. But now a change had come over the spirit of his dream. He had suddenly fallen in love, and that, too, with one of his enemy's women. His love did not, however, extend to the rest of her kindred. Firm as was his resolve to carry off the girl, not less firm was his determination to scalp her family root and branch. As we have said, he hesitated to attack the camp for fear that mischief might befall the girl on whom he had set his heart. Besides, he would require all his men to enable him to make the attack successfully, and these would not, he knew, return to him until the following day. The arrival of Whitewing and Little Tim with their party still further perplexed him. He knew by the council that was immediately called, and the preparations that followed, that news of some importance had been brought by the prairie chief, and that action of some sort was immediately to follow; but of course what it all portended he could not divine, and in his uncertainty he feared that Moonlight--whose name of course he did not at that time know--might be spirited away, and he should never see her again. Really, for a Red Indian, he became quite sentimental on the point and half resolved to collect his dozen warriors, make a neck-or-nothing rush at Bounding Bull, and carry off his scalp and the girl at the same fell swoop. Cooler reflection, however, told him that the feat was beyond even _his_ powers, for he knew well the courage and strength of his foe, and was besides well acquainted with the person and reputation of the prairie chief and Little Tim, both of whom had foiled his plans on former occasions. Greatly perplexed, therefore, and undetermined as to his course of procedure, Rushing River bade his followers remain in their retreat in a dark part of a tangled thicket, while he should advance with one man still further in the direction of the camp to reconnoitre. Having reached an elevated spot as near to the enemy as he dared venture without running the risk of being seen by the sentinels, he flung himself down, and crawled towards a tree, whence he could partially observe what went on below. His companion, a youth named Eaglenose, silently followed his example. This youth was a fine-looking young savage, out on his first war-path, and burning to distinguish himself. Active as a kitten and modest as a girl, he was also quick-witted, and knew when to follow the example of his chief and when to remain inactive--the latter piece of knowledge a comparatively rare gift to the ambitious! After a prolonged gaze, with the result of nothing gained, Rushing River was about to retire from the spot as wise as he went, when his companion uttered the slightest possible hiss. He had heard a sound. Next instant the chief heard it, and smiled grimly. We may remark here in passing that the Blackfoot chief was eccentric in many ways. He prided himself on his contempt for the red man's love for paint and feathers, and invariably went on the war-path unpainted and unadorned. In civilised life he would certainly have been a Radical. How far his objection to paint was influenced by the possession of a manly, handsome countenance, of course we cannot tell. To clear up the mystery of the sound which had thrilled on the sharp ear of Eaglenose, we will return to the Indian camp, where, after the council, a sumptuous feast of venison steaks and marrow-bones was spread in Bounding Bull's wigwam. Moonlight not being one of the party, and having already supped, said to her mother that she was going to find Skipping Rabbit and have a run with her. You see, Moonlight, although full seventeen years of age, was still so much of a child as to delight in a scamper with her little friend, the youngest child of Bounding Bull. "Be careful, my child," said Brighteyes. "Keep within the sentinels; you know that the great Blackfoot is on the war-path." "Mother," said Moonlight, with the spirit of her little father stirring in her breast, "I don't fear Rushing River more than I do the sighing of the wind among the pine-tops. Is not my father here, and Whitewing? And does not Bounding Bull guard our wigwams?" Brighteyes said no more. She was pleased with the thorough confidence her daughter had in her natural protectors, and quietly went on with the moccasin which she was embroidering with the dyed quills of the porcupine for Little Tim. We have said that Moonlight was rather self-willed. She would not indeed absolutely disobey the express commands of her father or mother, but when she had made no promise, she was apt to take her own way, not perceiving that to neglect or to run counter to a parent's known wishes is disobedience. As the night was fine and the moon bright, our self-willed heroine, with her skipping playmate, rambled about the camp until they got so far in the outskirts as to come upon one of the sentinels. The dark-skinned warrior gravely told her to go back. Had she been any other Indian girl, she would have meekly obeyed at once; but being Little Tim's daughter, she was prone to assert the independence of her white blood, and, to say truth, the young braves stood somewhat in awe of her. "The Blackfoot does not make war against women," said Moonlight, with a touch of lofty scorn in her tone. "Is the young warrior afraid that Rushing River will kill and eat us?" "The young warrior fears nothing," answered the sentinel, with a dark frown; "but his chief's orders are that no one is to leave or enter the camp, so Moonlight must go home." "Moonlight will do as she pleases," returned the girl loftily. At the same time, knowing that the man would certainly do his duty, and prevent her from passing the lines, she turned sharply round, and walked away as if about to return to the camp. On getting out of the sentinel's sight, however, she stopped. "Now, Skipping Rabbit," she said, "you and I will teach that fellow something of the art of war. Will you follow me?" "Will the little buffalo follow its mother?" returned the child. "Come, then," said Moonlight, with a slight laugh; "we will go beyond the lines. Do as I do. You are well able to copy the snake." The girl spoke truly. Both she and Skipping Rabbit had amused themselves so often in imitating the actions of the Indian braves that they could equal if not beat them, at least in those accomplishments which required activity and litheness of motion. Throwing herself on her hands and knees, Moonlight crept forward until she came again in sight of the sentinel. Skipping Rabbit followed her trail like a little shadow. Keeping as far from the man as possible without coming under the observation of the next sentinel, they sank into the long grass, and slowly wormed their way forward so noiselessly that they were soon past the lines, and able to rise and look about with caution. The girl had no thought of doing more than getting well out of the camp, and then turning about and walking boldly past the young sentinel, just to show that she had defeated him, but at Skipping Rabbit's suggestion she led the way to a neighbouring knoll just to have one look round before going home. It was on this very knoll that Rushing River and Eaglenose lay, like snakes in the grass. As the girls drew near, chatting in low, soft, musical tones, the two men lay as motionless as fallen trees. When they were within several yards of them the young Indian glanced at his chief, and pointed with his conveniently prominent feature to Skipping Rabbit. A slight nod was the reply. On came the unconscious pair, until they almost trod on the prostrate men. Then, before they could imagine what had occurred, each found herself on the ground with a strong hand over her mouth. It was done so suddenly and effectually that there was no time to utter even the shortest cry. Without removing their hands for an instant from their mouths, the Indians gathered the girls in their left arms as if they had been a couple of sacks or bundles, and carried them swiftly into the forest, the chief leading, and Eaglenose stepping carefully in his footsteps. It was not a romantic or lover-like way of carrying off a bride, but Red Indian notions of chivalry may be supposed to differ from those of the pale-faces. After traversing the woods for several miles they came to the spot where Rushing River had left his men. They were unusually excited by the unexpected capture, and, from their animated gestures and glances during the council of war which was immediately held, it was evident to poor Moonlight that her fate would soon be decided. She and Skipping Rabbit sat cowering together at the foot of the tree where they had been set down. For one moment Moonlight thought of her own lithe and active frame, her powers of running and endurance, and meditated a sudden dash into the woods, but one glance at the agile young brave who had been set to watch her would have induced her to abandon the idea even if the thought of leaving Skipping Rabbit behind had not weighed with her. In a few minutes Rushing River left his men and approached the tree at the foot of which the captives were seated. The moon shone full upon his tall figure, and revealed distinctly every feature of his grave, handsome countenance as he approached. The white spirit of her father stirred within the maiden. Discarding her fears, she rose to meet him with a proud glance, such as was not often seen among Indian girls. Instead of being addressed, however, in the stern voice of command with which a red warrior is apt to speak to an obstreperous squaw, he spoke in a low, soft respectful tone, which seemed to harmonise well with the gravity of his countenance, and thrilled to the heart of Moonlight. She was what is familiarly expressed in the words "done for." Once more we have to record a case of love at first sight. True, the inexperienced girl was not aware of her condition. Indeed, if taxed with it, she would probably have scorned to admit the possibility of her entertaining even mild affection--much less love--for any man of the Blackfoot race. Still, she had an uneasy suspicion that something was wrong, and allowed an undercurrent of feeling to run within her, which, if reduced to language, would have perhaps assumed the form, "Well, but he _is_ so gentle, so respectful, so very unlike all the braves I have ever seen; but I hate him, for all that! Is he not the enemy of my tribe?" Moonlight would not have been a daughter of Little Tim had she given in at once. Indeed, if she had known that the man who spoke to her so pleasantly was the renowned Rushing River--the bitter foe of her father and of Bounding Bull--it is almost certain that the indignant tone and manner which she now assumed would have become genuine. But she did not know this; she only knew from his dress and appearance that the man before her was a Blackfoot, and the knowledge raised the whole Blackfoot race very much in her estimation. "Is the fair-faced maiden," said Rushing River, referring to the girl's comparatively light complexion, "willing to share the wigwam of a Blackfoot chief?" Moonlight received this very decided and unusually civil proposal of marriage with becoming hauteur, for she was still ruffled by the undignified manner in which she had been carried off. "Does the fawn mate with the wolf?" she demanded. "Does the chief suppose that the daughter of Little Tim can willingly enter the lodge of a Blackfoot?" A gleam of surprise and satisfaction for a moment lighted up the grave countenance of the chief. "I knew not," he replied, "that the maiden who has fallen into my hands is a child of the brave little pale-face whose deeds of courage are known all over the mountains and prairies." This complimentary reference to her father went far to soften the maiden's heart, but her sense of outraged dignity required that she should be loyal to herself as well as to her tribe, therefore she sniffed haughtily, but did not reply. "Who is the little one?" asked the chief, pointing to Skipping Rabbit, who, in a state of considerable alarm, had taken refuge behind her friend, and only peeped at her captor. Moonlight paused for a few seconds before answering, uncertain whether it would be wiser to say who she was, or merely to describe her as a child of the tribe. Deciding on the former course, in the hope of impressing the Blackfoot with a sense of his danger, she said-- "Skipping Rabbit is the daughter of Bounding Bull." Then, observing another gleam of surprise and triumph on the chief's face, she added quickly, "and the Blackfoot knows that Bounding Bull and his tribe are very strong, very courageous, and very revengeful. If Moonlight and Skipping Rabbit are not sent home at once, there will be war on the mountains and the plains, for Whitewing, the great chief of the prairies, is just now in the camp of Bounding Bull with his men. Little Tim, as you know, is terrible when his wrath is roused. If war is carried into the hunting-grounds of the Blackfeet, many scalps will be drying in our lodges before the snows of winter begin to descend. If evil befalls Skipping Rabbit or Moonlight, before another moon is passed Rushing River himself, the chicken-hearted chief of the Blackfeet, will be in the dust with his fathers, and his scalp will fringe the leggings of Little Tim." We have given but a feeble translation of this speech, which in the Indian tongue was much more powerful; but we cannot give an adequate idea of the tone and graceful gesticulation of the girl as, with flashing orbs and heightened colour, she delivered it. Yet it seemed to have no effect whatever on the man to whom it was spoken. Without replying to it, he gently, almost courteously, took the maiden's hand, and led her to a spot where his men were stationed. They were all on horseback, ready for an immediate start. Two horses without riders stood in the midst of the group. Leading Moonlight to one of these, Rushing River lifted her by the waist as if she had been a feather, and placed her thereon. Skipping Rabbit he placed in front of Eaglenose. Then, vaulting on to his own steed, he galloped away through the forest, followed closely by the whole band. Now it so happened that about the same hour another band of horsemen started from the camp of Bounding Bull. Under the persuasive eloquence of Little Tim, the chief had made up his mind to set out for the fortress without waiting for daylight. "You see," Tim had said, "we can't tell whether the preacher is goin' to live or die, an' it would be a pity to risk lettin' him miss seein' the old woman and my wife if he _is_ goin' to die; an' if he isn't goin' under this time, why, there's no harm in hurryin' a bit--wi' the moon, too, shinin' like the bottom of a new tin kettle in the sky." The chief had no objections to make. There were plenty of men to guard the camp, even when a few were withdrawn for the trip. As Whitewing was also willing, the order to mount and ride was given at once. The absence of Moonlight and Skipping Rabbit had not at the time been sufficiently prolonged to attract notice. If they had been thought of at all, it is probable they were supposed to be in one or other of the wigwams. As the moon could not be counted on beyond a certain time, haste was necessary, and thus it came to pass that the party set forth without any knowledge of the disappearance of the girls. The "dear old one" was fain to journey like the rest on horseback, but she was so well accustomed to that mode of locomotion that she suffered much less than might have been expected. Besides, her son had taken care to secure for her the quietest, meekest, and most easy-going horse belonging to the tribe--a creature whose natural spirit had been reduced by hardship and age to absolute quiescence, and whose gait had been trained down to something like a hobby-horse amble. Seated astride of this animal, in gentleman fashion, the mother of Whitewing swayed gently to and fro like a partially revived mummy of an amiable type, with her devoted son on one side and Little Tim on the other, to guard against accidents. It chanced that the two parties of horsemen journeyed in nearly opposite directions, so that every hour of the night separated them from each other more and more. It was not until Whitewing's party had proceeded far on their way to Tim's Folly that suspicion began to be aroused and inquiry to be made in the camp. Then, as the two girls were nowhere to be found, the alarm spread; the warriors sallied out, and the trail of the Blackfeet was discovered. It was not, however, until daylight came to their aid that the Indians became fully aware of their loss, and sent out a strong band in pursuit of their enemies, while a messenger was despatched in hot haste to inform Little Tim and Bounding Bull that Moonlight and Skipping Rabbit had been spirited away. CHAPTER TWELVE. THE PURSUIT, FAILURE, DESPAIR. Ever dreaming of the thunderbolt that was about to be launched, Whitewing, Little Tim, Bounding Bull, and the rest of the party arrived at the little fortress in the gorge. They found Big Tim on the _qui vive_, and Brighteyes with Whitewing's mother was soon introduced to the wounded preacher. The meeting of the three was impressive, for not only had they been much attached at the time of the preacher's former visit, but the women were deeply affected by the sad circumstances in which they found their old friend. "Not much changed, I see, Brighteyes," he said, as the two women sat down on the floor beside his couch. "Only a little stouter; just what might have been expected. God has been kind to you--but, indeed, God is kind to all, only some do not see or believe in the kindness. It is equally kindness in Him whether He sends joy or sorrow, adversity or prosperity. If we only saw the end from the beginning, none of us would quarrel with the way. Love has induced Him to lay me low at present. You have another child, I am told, besides Big Tim?" "Yes, a daughter--Moonlight we call her," said Brighteyes, with a pleased look. "Is she here with you?" "No; we left her in the camp." "And my good old friend," he said, turning on his couch, and grasping the withered hand of Whitewing's mother, "how has she prospered in all these years?" The "old one," who was, as we have said, as deaf as a post, wrinkled her visage up into the most indescribable expression of world-embracing benignity, expanded her old lips, displayed her toothless gums, and chuckled. "The dear old one," said her son, "bears the snows of many winters on her head. Her brain could not now be touched by the thunders of Niagara. But the eyes are still bright inlets to her soul." "Bright indeed!" exclaimed the preacher, as he gazed with deep interest at the old face; "wonderful, considering her great age. I trust that these portals may remain unclosed to her latest day on earth." He was still talking to Whitewing about her when a peculiar whistle was heard outside, as of some water-bird. Instantly dead silence fell upon all present, and from the fixed gaze and motionless attitude of each it was evident that they anxiously expected a repetition of the sound. It was not repeated, but a moment later voices were heard outside, then a hurried step, and next instant Big Tim sprang into the room. "A messenger from the camp!" he cried. "Moonlight and Skipping Rabbit have been carried off by Blackfeet." It could easily be seen at that moment how Bounding Bull had acquired his name. From a sitting posture he sprang to his feet at one bound, darted through the doorway of the hut, cleared the low parapet like a deer, and went down the zigzag path in a succession of leaps that might have shamed a kangaroo. Little Tim followed suit almost as vigorously, accompanying his action with a leonine roar. Big Tim was close on his heels. "Guard the fort, my son," gasped Little Tim, as he cut the thong that secured his horse at the bottom of the track; "your mother's life is precious, and Softswan's. If you can quit safely, follow up." Leaping into the saddle, he was next instant on the track of the Indian chief, who had already disappeared. Hurrying back to the hut, Big Tim proceeded to make hasty preparation for the defence of the place, so that he might be able to join his father. He found the prairie chief standing with closed eyes beside the couch of the preacher, who with folded hands and feeble voice was praying to God for help. "Is Whitewing indifferent to the misfortunes of his friends," he said somewhat sharply, "that he stands idly by while the Blackfoot robbers carry off our little ones?" "My son, be not hasty," returned the chief. "Prayer is quite as needful as action. Besides, I know all the land round here--the direction which this youth tells me the enemy have taken, and a short cut over the hills, which will enable you and me to cross the path your father must take, and join him, so that we have plenty of time to make arrangements and talk before we go on the war-path." The cool, calm way in which the chief spoke, and especially the decided manner in which he referred to a short cut and going on the war-path, tended to quiet Big Tim. "But what am I to do?" he said, with a look of perplexity. "There are men enough here, no doubt, to hold the place agin a legion o' Blackfeet, but they have no dependable leader." "Here is a leader on whom you can depend; I know him well," said Whitewing, pointing to the warrior who had brought the news from the camp. "He is a stranger to you, but has been long in my band, and was left by me in the camp to help to guard it in our absence. With him there, I should have thought the stealing of two girls impossible, but he has explained that mystery by telling me that Moonlight crept out of the camp like a serpent, unknown to all, for they found her trail. With Wolf in command and the preacher to give counsel and pray, the women have no cause for fear." Somewhat reassured, though he still felt uneasy at the thought of leaving Softswan behind him, Big Tim went about his preparations for the defence of the fortress and the rescue of his sister. Such preparations never take much time in the backwoods. In half an hour Wolf and his braves were ready for any amount of odds, and Big Tim was following the prairie chief through the intricacies of the mountains. These two made such good use of their time that they were successful in intercepting and joining the war-party, which Bounding Bull, with his friend and ally Little Tim, were leading by forced marches on the trail of the Blackfeet. Rushing River was well aware, however, that such a party would soon be following him. He therefore had advanced likewise by forced marches, because his object was not so much to meet his enemy as to secure his bride. Only let him place her in the safe keeping of his mother with the main body of his tribe, and he would then return on his steps with pleasure, and give battle to his foe. In this object he was successful. After several days' march he handed over Moonlight and Skipping Rabbit to the care of an old woman, whose countenance was suggestive of wrinkled leather, and whose expression was not compatible with sweetness. It was evident to the captives that Rushing River owed his manly bearing and his comparatively gentle manners not to his mother but to the father, whose scalp, alas! hung drying in the smoke of a foeman's wigwam. During the forced march the Blackfoot chief had not once opened his lips to the girl he loved. He simply rode by her side, partly perhaps to prevent any sudden attempt at flight, and certainly to offer assistance when difficulties presented themselves on their pathless journey through the great wilderness. And on all such occasions he offered his aid with such grave and dignified gentleness that poor Moonlight became more and more impressed, though, to do her justice, she fought bravely against her tendency to fall in love with her tribal foe. On reaching home Rushing River, instead of leading his captive to his own wigwam, conducted her, as we have said, to that of his mother. Then, for the first time since the day of the capture, he addressed her with a look of tenderness, which she had never before received except from Little Tim, and, in a minor degree, from her brother. "Moonlight," he said, "till my return you will be well cared for here by my mother--the mother of Rushing River." Having said this, he lifted the leathern door of the lodge and went out instantly. Moonlight had received a terrible shock. Turning quickly to the old woman, she said-- "Was that Rushing River?" "That," replied the old woman, with a look of magnificent pride, "is my son, Rushing River--the brave whose name is known far and wide in the mountains and on the plains; whose enemies tremble and grow pale when they hear of him, and who when they see him become dead--or run away!" Here, then, was a discovery that was almost too much for the unfortunate captive, for this man was the deadly foe of her father and of her brother's father-in-law, Bounding Bull. He was also the sworn enemy of her tribe, and it now became her stern duty, as a true child of the western wilderness, to hate with all her soul the man whom she loved! Under the impulse of her powerful feelings she sat down, covered her face with her little hands, and--no, she did not burst into tears! Had she been a civilised beauty perhaps she might have done so, but she struggled for a considerable time with Spartan-like resolution to crush down the true feelings of her heart. Old Umqua was quite pleased with the effect of her information, ascribing it as she did to a wrong cause, and felt disposed to be friendly with the captive in consequence. "My son has carried you off from the camp of some enemy, I doubt not?" she said, in kindly tones. Moonlight, who had by that time recovered her composure, replied that he had--from the camp of Bounding Bull, whose little daughter he had captured at the same time, and added that she herself was a daughter of Little Tim. It was now Umqua's turn to be surprised. "What is that you tell me?" she exclaimed. "Are you the child of the little pale-face whose name extends from the regions of snow to the lands of the hot sun?" "I am," replied Moonlight, with a look of pride quite equal to and rather more lovely than that of the old woman. "Ha!" exclaimed Umqua, "you are a lucky girl. I see by my son's look and manner that he intends to take you for his wife. I suppose he has gone away just now, for I saw he was in haste, to scalp your father, and your brother, and Bounding Bull, and all his tribe. After that he will come home and take you to his wigwam. Rushing River is very brave and very kind to women. The men laugh at him behind his back--they dare not laugh before his face--and say he is too kind to them; but we women don't agree with that. We know better, and we are fondest of the kind men, for we see that they are not less brave than the others. Yes, you are a lucky girl." Moonlight was not as deeply impressed with her "luck" as the old lady expected, and was on the point of bursting out, after the manner of savages, into a torrent of abuse of the Blackfoot race in general, and of Rushing River in particular, when the thought that she was a captive and at the mercy of the Blackfeet fortunately restrained her. Instead of answering, she cast her eyes on the ground and remained stolidly silent, by which conduct she got credit for undeserved modesty. "Where is the little one of that serpent Bounding Bull?" asked Umqua, after a brief silence. "I know not" replied Moonlight, with a look of anxiety. "When we arrived here Skipping Rabbit was separated from me. She journeyed under the care of a youth. They called him, I think, Eaglenose." "Is Skipping Rabbit the child's name?" "Then Skipping Rabbit will skip more than ever, for Eaglenose is a funny man when not on the war-path, and his mother is a good woman. She does not talk behind your back like other women. You have nothing to fear for Skipping Rabbit. Come with me, we will visit the mother of Eaglenose." As the two moved through the Indian camp, Moonlight noticed that the men were collecting and bridling their horses, cleaning and sharpening their weapons, and making preparations generally for an expedition on a large scale. For a moment a feeling of fear filled her heart as she recalled Umqua's remarks about scalping her kindred; but when she reflected how well able her sturdy little father and big brother and Bounding Bull were to take care of themselves, she smiled internally, and dismissed her fears. Long before they reached Eaglenose's mother's wigwam, Moonlight was surprised to hear the well known voice of Skipping Rabbit shouting in unrestrained peals of merry laughter. On entering, the cause thereof was at once apparent, for there sat Eaglenose beside his mother (whose nose, by the way, was similar to his own) amusing the child with a home-made jumping-jack. Having seen a toy of this kind during one of his visits to the settlements of the pale-faces, the Blackfoot youth had made mental notes of it, and on his return home had constructed a jumping-jack, which rendered him more popular in his tribe--especially with the youngsters--than if he had been a powerful medicine-man or a noted warrior. When Moonlight entered, Skipping Rabbit was standing in front of Eaglenose with clasped hands and glittering eyes, shrieking with delight as the absurd creature of wood threw up its legs and arms, kicked its own head, and all but dislocated its own limbs. Catching sight of her friend, however, she gave vent to another shriek with deeper delight in it, and, bounding towards her, sprang into her arms. Regarding this open display of affection with some surprise, and rightly ascribing it to the influence of white blood in Bounding Bull's camp, Umqua asked Eaglenose's mother if the men were getting ready to go on the war-path. "I know not. Perhaps my son knows." Thus directly referred to, Eaglenose, who was but a young warrior just emancipated from boyhood, and who had yet to win his spurs, rose, and, becoming so grave and owlish that his naturally prominent feature seemed to increase in size, said sententiously-- "It is not for squaws to inquire into the plans of _men_, but as there is no secret in what we are going to do, I may tell you, mother, that women and children have not yet learned to live on grass or air. We go just now to procure fresh meat." So saying, the stripling pitched the jumping-jack into the lap of Skipping Rabbit, and strode out of the lodge with the pomposity of seven chiefs! That night, when the captives were lying side by side in Umqua's wigwam, gazing at the stars through the hole which was left in the top for the egress of the smoke, Moonlight said to her little friend-- "Does the skipping one know that it is Rushing River who has caught us and carried us away?" The skipping one said that she had not known, but, now that she did know, she hated him with all her heart. "So do I," said Moonlight firmly. But Moonlight was wrong, for she hated the man with only a very small portion of her heart, and loved him with all the rest. It was probably some faint recognition of this fact that induced her to add with the intense energy of one who is resolved to walk in the path of duty--"I hate _all_ the Blackfeet!" "So do I," returned the child, and then pausing, slowly added, "except"--and paused again. "Well, who does the skipping one except?" "Eaglenose," replied the skipper promptly. "I can't hate _him_, he is such a very funny brave." After a prolonged silence Moonlight whispered-- "Does Skipping Rabbit sleep?" "No." "Is there not something in the great medicine-book that father speaks so much about which teaches that we should love our enemies?" "I don't know," replied the little one. "Bounding Bull never taught that to _me_." Again there was silence, during which Moonlight hoped in a confused sort of way that the teaching might be true. Before she could come to a conclusion on the perplexing point both she and her little friend were in that mysterious region where the human body usually ceases to be troubled by the human mind. When Bounding Bull and Little Tim found that the Blackfoot chief had escaped them, they experienced what is often termed among Christians a great trial of faith. They did not indeed express their thoughts in language, but they could not quite prevent their looks from betraying their feelings, while in their thoughts they felt sorely tempted to charge God with indifference to their feelings, and even with something like cruelty, in thus permitting the guilty to triumph and the innocent to suffer. The state of mind is not, indeed, unfamiliar to people who are supposed to enjoy higher culture than the inhabitants of the wilderness. Even Whitewing's spirit was depressed for a time, and he could offer no consolation to the bereaved fathers, or find much comfort to himself; yet in the midst of all the mental darkness by which he was at that time surrounded, two sentences which the pale-face missionary had impressed on him gleamed forth now and then, like two flickering stars in a very black sky. The one was, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" the other, "He doeth all things well." But he did not at that time try to point out the light to his companions. Burning with rage, mingled somewhat with despair, the white hunter and the red chief returned home in hot haste, bent on collecting a force of men so strong that they would be enabled to go forth with the absolute certainty of rescuing their children, or of avenging them by sweeping the entire Blackfoot nation, root and branch, off the face of the earth; and adorning the garments of their braves with their scalp-locks for ages to come. It may be easily believed that they did not waste time on the way. Desperate men cannot rest. To halt for a brief space in order to take food and sleep just sufficient to sustain them was all the relaxation they allowed themselves. This was, of course, simply a process of wearing out their strength, but they were very strong men, long inured to hardships, and did not easily wear out. One night they sat round the camp fire, very weary, and in silence. The fire was low and exceedingly small. Indeed, they did not dare to venture on a large one while near the enemy's country, and usually contented themselves with a supper of cold, uncooked pemmican. On this night, however, they were more fatigued than usual--perhaps depression of spirit had much to do with it--so they had kindled a fire and warmed their supper. "What are the thoughts of Bounding Bull?" said Little Tim, at length breaking silence with something like a groan. "Despair," replied the chief, with a dark frown; "and," he added, with a touch of hesitation, "revenge." "Your thoughts are not much different from mine," returned the hunter. "My brothers are not wise," said Whitewing, after another silence. "All that Manitou does to His children is good. I have hope." "I wish my brother could give me some of his hope. What does he rest his hope on?" asked Little Tim. "Long ago," answered the chief, "when Rushing River was a boy, the white preacher spoke to him about his soul and the Saviour. The boy's heart was touched. I saw it; I knew it. The seed has lain long in the ground, but it is sure to grow, for it must have been the Spirit of Manitou that touched him; and will He not finish the work that He begins? That is my hope." The chief's eyes glittered in the firelight while he spoke. His two companions listened with grave attention, but said no word in reply. Yet it was evident, as they lay down for a few hours' rest, that the scowl of revenge and the writing of despair had alike in some measure departed from the brow of each. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE POWERFUL INFLUENCE OF BAD WEAPONS AND OF LOVE. While the bereaved parents were thus hastening by forced marches to their own camp, a band of Blackfeet was riding in another direction in quest of buffalo, for their last supply of fresh meat had been nearly consumed. Along with them they took several women to dry the meat and otherwise prepare it. Among these were poor Moonlight and her friend Skipping Rabbit, also their guardian Umqua. Ever since their arrival in camp Rushing River had not only refrained from speaking to his captives, but had carefully avoided them. Moonlight was pleased at first but at last she began to wonder why he was so shy, and, having utterly failed in her efforts to hate him, she naturally began to feel a little hurt by his apparent indifference. Very different was the conduct of Eaglenose, who also accompanied the hunting expedition. That vivacious youth, breaking through all the customs and peculiarities of Red Indian etiquette, frequently during the journey came and talked with Moonlight, and seemed to take special pleasure in amusing Skipping Rabbit. "Has the skipping one," he said on one occasion, "brought with her the little man that jumps?" by which expression he referred to the jumping-jack. "Yes, he is with the pack-horses. Does Eaglenose want to play with him?" Oh, she was a sly and precocious little rabbit, who had used well her opportunities of association with Little Tim to pick up the ways and manners of the pale-faces--to the surprise and occasional amusement of her red relations, whom she frequently scandalised not a little. Well did she know how sensitive a young Indian brave is as to his dignity, how he scorns to be thought childish, and how he fancies that he looks like a splendid man when he struts with superhuman gravity, just as a white boy does when he puts a cigar between his unfledged lips. She thought she had given a tremendous stab to the dignity of Eaglenose; and so she had, yet it happened that the dignity of Eaglenose escaped, because it was shielded by a buckler of fun so thick that it could not easily be pierced by shafts of ridicule. "Yes; I want to play with him," answered the youth, with perfect gravity, but a twinkle of the eyes that did not escape Skipping Rabbit; "I'm fond of playing with him, because he is your little husband, and I want to make friends with the husband of the skipping one; he is so active, and kicks about his arms and legs so well. Does he ever kick his little squaw? I hope not." "Oh yes, sometimes," returned the child. "He kicked me last night because I said he was so like Eaglenose." "The little husband did well. A wooden chief so grand did not like to be compared to a poor young brave who has only begun to go on the war-path, and has taken no scalps yet." The mention of war-path and scalps had the effect of quieting the poor child's tendency to repartee. She thought of her father and Little Tim, and became suddenly grave. Perceiving and regretting this, the young Indian hastily changed the subject of conversation. "The Blackfeet," he said, "have heard much about the great pale-faced chief called Leetil Tim. Does the skipping one know Leetil Tim?" The skipping one, whose good humour was quite restored at the mere mention of her friend's name, said that she not only knew him, but loved him, and had been taught many things by him. "I suppose he taught you to speak and act like the pale-faced squaws?" said Eaglenose. "I suppose he did," returned the child, with a laugh, "and Moonlight helped him. But perhaps it is also because I have white blood in me. My mother was a pale-face." "That accounts for Skipping Rabbit being so ready to laugh, and so fond of fun," said the youth. "Was the father of Eaglenose a pale-face?" asked the child. "No; why?" "Because Eaglenose is as ready to laugh and as fond of fun as Skipping Rabbit. If his father was not a pale-face, he could not I think, have been very red." What reply the youth would have made to this we cannot tell, for at that moment scouts came in with the news that buffalo had been seen grazing on the plain below. Instantly the bustle of preparation for the chase began. The women were ordered to encamp and get ready to receive the meat. Scouts were sent out in various directions, and the hunters advanced at a gallop. The region through which they were passing at the time was marked by that lovely, undulating, park-like scenery which lies in some parts between the rugged slopes of the mountain range and the level expanse of the great prairies. Its surface was diversified by both kinds of landscape--groups of trees, little knolls, stretches of forest, and occasional cliffs, being mingled with wide stretches of grassy plain, with rivulets here and there to add to the wild beauty of the scene. After a short ride over the level ground the Blackfeet came to a fringe of woodland, on the other side of which they were told by the scouts a herd of buffalo had been seen browsing on a vast sweep of open plain. Riding cautiously through the wood, they came to the edge of it and dismounted, while Rushing River and Eaglenose advanced alone and on foot to reconnoitre. Coming soon to that outer fringe of bushes, beyond which there was no cover, they dropped on hands and knees and went forward in that manner until they reached a spot whence a good view of the buffalo could be obtained. The black eyes of the two Indians glittered, and the red of their bronzed faces deepened with emotion as they gazed. And truly it was a sight well calculated to stir to the very centre men whose chief business of life was the chase, and whose principal duty was to procure food for their women and children, for the whole plain away to the horizon was dotted with groups of those monarchs of the western prairies. They were grazing quietly, as though such things as the rattle of guns, the whiz of arrows, the thunder of horse-hoofs, and the yells of savages had never sounded in their ears. The chief and the young brave exchanged impressive glances, and retired in serpentine fashion from the scene. A few minutes later, and the entire band of horsemen--some with bows and a few with guns--stood at the outmost edge of the bushes that fringed the forest land. Beyond this there was no cover to enable them to approach nearer to the game without being seen, so preparation was made for a sudden dash. The huge rugged creatures on the plain continued to browse peacefully, giving an occasional toss to their enormous manes, raising a head now and then, as if to make sure that all was safe, and then continuing to feed, or giving vent to a soft low of satisfaction. It seemed cruel to disturb so much enjoyment and serenity with the hideous sounds of war. But man's necessities must be met. Until Eden's days return there is no deliverance for the lower animals. Vegetarians may reduce their theories to practice in the cities and among cultivated fields, but vegetarians among the red men of the Far West or the squat men of the Arctic zone, would either have to violate their principles or die. As Rushing River had no principles on the subject, and was not prepared for voluntary death, he gave a signal to his men, and in an instant every horse was elongated, with ears flat nostrils distended, and eyes flashing, while the riders bent low, and mingled their black locks with the flying manes. For a few seconds no sound was heard save the muffled thunder of the hoofs, at which the nearest buffaloes looked up with startled inquiry in their gaze. Another moment, and the danger was appreciated. The mighty host went off with pig-like clumsiness--tails up and manes tossing. Quickly the pace changed to desperate agility as the pursuing savages, unable to restrain themselves, relieved their feelings with terrific yells. As group after group of astonished animals became aware of the attack and joined in the mad flight the thunder on the plains swelled louder and louder, until it became one continuous roar--like the sound of a rushing cataract--a bovine Niagara! At first the buffaloes and the horses seemed well matched, but by degrees the superiority of the latter became obvious, as the savages drew nearer and nearer to the flying mass. Soon a puff or two of smoke, a whistling bullet and a whizzing arrow told that the action had begun. Here and there a black spot struggling on the plain gave stronger evidence. Then the hunters and hunted became mixed up, the shots and whizzing were more frequent, the yells more terrible, and the slaughter tremendous. No fear now that Moonlight, and Skipping Rabbit, and Umqua, and all the rest of them, big and little, would not have plenty of juicy steaks and marrow-bones for many days to come. But all this was not accomplished without some damage to the hunters. Here and there a horse, having put his foot into a badger-hole, was seen to continue his career for a short space like a wheel or a shot hare, while his rider went ahead independently like a bird, and alighted-- anyhow! Such accidents, however, seldom resulted in much damage, red skin being probably tougher than white, and savage bones less brittle than civilised. At all events, nothing very serious occurred until the plain was pretty well strewn with wounded animals. Then it was that Eaglenose, in his wild ambition to become the best hunter of the tribe, as well as the best warrior, singled out an old bull, and gave chase to him. This was wanton as well as foolish, for bulls are dangerous and their meat is tough. What cared Eaglenose for that? The spirit of his fathers was awakened in him (a bad spirit doubtless), and his blood was up. Besides, Rushing River was close alongside of him, and several emulous braves were close behind. Eaglenose carried a bow. Urging his steed to the uttermost he got close up to the bull. Fury was in the creature's little eyes, and madness in its tail. When a buffalo bull cocks its tail with a little bend in the middle thereof, it is time to "look out for squalls." "Does Eaglenose desire to hunt with his fathers in the happy hunting-grounds?" muttered Rushing River. "Eaglenose knows not fear," returned the youth boastfully. As he spoke he bent his bow, and discharged an arrow. He lacked the precision of Robin Hood. The shaft only grazed the bull's shoulder, but that was enough. A Vesuvian explosion seemed to heave in his capacious bosom, and found vent in a furious roar. Round he went like an opera-dancer on one leg, and lowered his shaggy head. The horse's chest went slap against it as might an ocean-billow against a black rock, and the rider, describing a curve with a high trajectory, came heavily down upon his eagle nose. It was an awful crash, and after it the poor youth lay prone for a few minutes with his injured member in the dust--literally, for he had ploughed completely through the superincumbent turf. Fortunately for poor Eaglenose, Rushing River carried a gun, with which he shot the bull through the heart and galloped on. So did the other Indians. They were not going to miss the sport for the sake of helping a fallen comrade to rise. When at last the unfortunate youth raised his head he presented an appearance which would have justified the change of his name to Turkeycocknose, so severe was the effect of his fall. Getting into a sitting posture, the poor fellow at first looked dazed. Then observing something between his eyes that was considerably larger than even he had been accustomed to, he gently raised his hand to his face and touched it. The touch was painful, so he desisted. Then he arose, remounted his steed, which stood close to him, looking stupid after the concussion, and followed the hunt, which by that time was on the horizon. But something worse was in store for another member of the band that day. After killing the buffalo bull, as before described, the chief Rushing River proceeded to reload his gun. Now it must be known that in the days we write of the firearms supplied to the Nor'-west Indians were of very inferior quality. They were single flint-lock guns, with blue-stained barrels of a dangerously brittle character, and red-painted brass-mounted stocks, that gave them the appearance of huge toys. It was a piece of this description which Rushing River carried, and which he proceeded to reload in the usual manner--that is, holding the gun under his left arm, he poured some powder from a horn into his left palm; this he poured from his palm into the gun, and, without wadding or ramming, dropped after the powder a bullet from his mouth, in which magazine he carried several bullets so as to be ready. Then driving the butt of the gun violently against the pommel of the saddle, so as to send the whole charge home and cause the weapon to prime itself, he aimed at the buffalo and fired. Charges thus loosely managed do not always go quite "home." In this case the ball had stuck half-way down, and when the charge exploded the gun burst and carried away the little finger of the chief's left hand. But it did more. A piece of the barrel struck the chief on the head, and he fell from his horse as if he had been shot. This catastrophe brought the hunt to a speedy close. The Indians assembled round their fallen chief with faces graver, if possible, than usual. They bound up his wounds as well as they could, and made a rough-and-ready stretcher out of two poles and a blanket, in which they carried him into camp. During the greater part of the short journey he was nearly if not quite unconscious. When they at length laid him down in his tent, his mother, although obviously anxious, maintained a stern composure peculiar to her race. Not so the captive Moonlight. When she saw the apparently dead form of Rushing River carried into his tent, covered with blood and dust, her partially white spirit was not to be restrained. She uttered a sharp cry, which slightly roused the chief, and, springing to his side, went down on her knees and seized his hand. The action was involuntary and almost momentary. She recovered herself at once, and rose quickly, as grave and apparently as unmoved as the reddest of squaws. But Rushing River had noted the fact, and divined the cause. The girl loved him! A new sensation of almost stern joy filled his heart. He turned over on his side without a look or word to any one, and calmly went to sleep. We have already said, or hinted, that Rushing River was a peculiar savage. He was one of those men--perhaps not so uncommon as we think-- who hold the opinion that women are not made to be mere beasts of burden, makers of moccasins and coats, and menders of leggings, cookers of food, and, generally, the slaves of men. One consequence was that he could not bear the subdued looks and almost cringing gait of the Blackfoot belles, and had remained a bachelor up to the date of our story. He preferred to live with his mother, who, by the way, was also an exception to the ordinary class of squaws. She was rudely intellectual and violently self-assertive, though kind-hearted withal. That night when his mother chanced to be alone in the tent, he held some important conversation with her. Moonlight happened to be absent at a jumping-jack entertainment with Skipping Rabbit in the tent of Eaglenose, the youth himself being the performer in spite of his nose! Most of the other women in the camp were at the place where the buffalo were being cut up and dried and converted into pemmican. "Mother," said Rushing River, who in reality had been more stunned than injured--excepting, of course, the little finger, which was indeed gone past recovery. "My son," said Umqua, looking attentively in the chief's eyes. "The eagle has been brought down at last. Rushing River will be the same man no more. He has been hit in his heart." "I think not, my son," returned Umqua, looking somewhat anxious. "A piece of the bad gun struck the head of Rushing River, but his breast is sound. Perhaps he is yet stunned, and had better sleep again." "I want not sleep, mother," replied the chief in figurative language; "it is not the bursting gun that has wounded me, but a spear of light--a moonbeam." "Moonlight!" exclaimed Umqua, with sudden intelligence. "Even so, mother; Rushing River has at last found a mate in Moonlight." "My son is wise," said Umqua. "I will carry the girl to the camp of mine enemy," continued the chief, "and deliver her to her father." "My son is a fool," said Umqua. "Wise, and a fool! Can that be possible, mother?" returned the chief with a slight smile. "Yes, quite possible," said the woman promptly. "Man can be wise at one time, foolish at another--wise in one act, foolish in another. To take Moonlight to your tent is wise. I love her. She has brains. She is not like the young Blackfoot squaws, who wag their tongues without ceasing when they have nothing to say and never think--brainless ones!-- fools! Their talk is only about each other behind-backs and of feeding." "The old one is hard upon the young ones," said the chief gravely; "not long ago I heard the name of Umqua issue from a wigwam. The voice that spoke was that of the mother of Eaglenose. Rushing River listens not to squaws' tales, but he cannot stop his ears. The words floated to him with the smoke of their fire. They were, `Umqua has been very kind to me.' I heard no more." "The mother of Eaglenose is not such a fool as the rest of them," said Umqua, in a slightly softer tone; "but why does my son talk foolishness about going to the tents of his enemy, and giving up a girl who it is easy to see is good and wise and true, and a hard worker, and _not_ a fool?" "Listen, mother. It is because Moonlight is all that you say, and much more, that I shall send her home. Besides, I have come to know that the pale-face who was shot by one of our braves is the preacher whose words went to my heart when I was a boy. I _must_ see him." "But Bounding Bull and Leetil Tim will certainly kill you." "Leetil Tim is not like the red men," returned the chief; "he does not love revenge. My enemy Bounding Bull hunts with him much, and has taken some of his spirit. I am a red man. I love revenge because my fathers loved it; but there is something within me that is not satisfied with revenge. I will go alone and unarmed. If they kill me, they shall not be able to say that Rushing River was a coward." "My son is weak; his fall has injured him." "Your son is strong, mother. His love for Moonlight has changed him." "If you go you will surely die, my son." "I fear not death, mother. I feel that within me which is stronger than death." CHAPTER FOURTEEN. IN WHICH PLANS, PROSPECTS, LOVE, DANGERS, AND PERPLEXITIES ARE DEALT WITH. Three days after the conversation related in the last chapter, a party on horseback, numbering five persons, left the Blackfoot camp, and, entering one of the patches of forest with which the eastern slopes of the mountains were clothed, trotted smartly away in the direction of the rising sun. The party consisted of Rushing River and his mother, Moonlight, Skipping Rabbit, and Eaglenose. The latter, although still afflicted with a nose the swelled condition of which rendered it out of all proportion to his face, and interfered somewhat with his vision, was sufficiently recovered to travel, and also to indulge his bantering talk with the "skipping one," as he called his little friend. The chief was likewise restored, excepting the stump of the little finger, which was still bandaged. Umqua had been prevailed on to accompany her son, and it is only just to the poor woman to add that she believed herself to be riding to a martyr's doom. The chief however, did not think so, else he would not have asked her to accompany him. Each of the party was mounted on a strong horse, except Skipping Rabbit, who bestrode an active pony more suited to her size. We say bestrode, because it must ever be borne in remembrance that Red India ladies ride like gentlemen--very much, no doubt, to their own comfort. Although Rushing River had resolved to place himself unarmed in the power of his enemy, he had no intention of travelling in that helpless condition in a country where he was liable to meet with foes, not only among men but among beasts. Besides, as he carried but a small supply of provisions, he was dependent on gun and bow for food. Himself, therefore, carried the former weapon, Eaglenose the latter, and both were fully armed with hatchet, tomahawk, and scalping-knife. The path--if such it may be called--which they followed was one which had been naturally formed by wild animals and wandering Indians taking the direction that was least encumbered with obstructions. It was only wide enough for one to pass at a time, but after the first belt of woodland had been traversed, it diverged into a more open country, and finally disappeared, the trees and shrubs admitting of free passage in all directions. While in the narrow track the chief had headed the little band. Then came Moonlight, followed by Umqua and by Skipping Rabbit on her pony, Eaglenose bringing up the rear. On emerging, however, into the open ground, Rushing River drew rein until Moonlight came up alongside of him. Eaglenose, who was quick to profit by example--especially when he liked it--rode up alongside of the skipping one, who welcomed him with a decidedly pale-face smile, which showed that she had two rows of bright little teeth behind her laughing lips. "Is Moonlight glad," said the chief to the girl, after riding beside her for some time in silence, "is Moonlight glad to return to the camp of Bounding Bull?" "Yes, I am glad," replied the girl, choosing rather to answer in the matter-of-fact manner of the pale-faces than in the somewhat imaginative style of the Indians. She could adopt either, according to inclination. There was a long pause, during which no sound was heard save the regular patter of the hoofs on the lawn-like turf as they swept easily out and in among the trees, over the undulations, and down into the hollows, or across the level plains. "Why is Moonlight glad?" asked the chief. "Because father and mother are there, and I love them both." Again there was silence, for Moonlight had replied some what brusquely. The truth is that, although rejoicing in the prospect of again seeing her father and mother, the poor girl had a lurking suspicion that a return to them meant final separation from Rushing River, and--although she was too proud to admit, even to herself, that such a thought affected her in any way--she felt very unhappy in the midst of her rejoicing, and knew not what to make of it. This condition of mind, as the reader knows, is apt to make any one lower than an angel somewhat testy! On coming to a rising ground, up which they had to advance at a walking pace, the chief once more broke silence in a low, soft voice-- "Is not Moonlight sorry to quit the Blackfoot camp?" The girl was taken by surprise, for she had never before heard an Indian--much less a chief--address a squaw in such a tone, or condescend to such a question. A feeling of self-reproach induced her to reply with some warmth-- "Yes, Rushing River, Moonlight is sorry to quit the lodges of her Blackfoot friends. The snow on the mountain-tops is warmed by the sunshine until it melts and flows down to the flowering plains. The heart of Moonlight was cold and hard when it entered the Blackfoot camp, but the sunshine of kindness has melted it, and now that it flows towards the grassy plains of home, Moonlight thinks with tenderness of the past, and will _never_ forget." Rushing River said no more. Perhaps he thought the reply, coupled with the look and tone, was sufficiently satisfactory. At all events, he continued thereafter to ride in profound silence, and, checking his steed almost imperceptibly, allowed his mother to range up on the other side of him. Meanwhile Eaglenose and Skipping Rabbit, being influenced by no considerations of delicacy or anything else, kept up a lively conversation in rear. For Eaglenose, like his chief, had freed himself from some of the trammels of savage etiquette. It would take up too much valuable space to record all the nonsense that these two talked to each other, but a few passages are worthy of notice. "Skipping one," said the youth, after a brief pause, "what are your thoughts doing?" "Swelled-nosed one," replied the child, with a laugh at her own inventive genius, "I was thinking what a big hole you must have made in the ground when you got that fall." "It was not shallow," returned the youth, with assumed gravity. "It was big enough to have buried a rabbit in, even a skipping one." "Would there have been room for a jumping-jack too?" asked the child, with equal gravity; then, without waiting for an answer, she burst into a merry laugh, and asked where they were travelling to. "Has not Moonlight told you?" "No, when I asked her about it yesterday she said she was not quite sure, it would be better not to speak till she knew." "Moonlight is very wise--almost as wise as a man." "Yes, wiser even than some men with swelled noses." It was now the youth's turn to laugh, which he did quite heartily, for an Indian, though with a strong effort to restrain himself. "We are going, I believe," he said, after a few moments' thought, "to visit your father, Bounding Bull. At least the speech of Rushing River led Eaglenose to think so, but our chief does not say all that is in his mind. He is not a squaw--at least, not a skipping one." Instead of retorting, the child looked with sudden anxiety into the countenance of her companion. "Does Rushing River," she asked, with earnest simplicity, "want to have his tongue slit, his eyes poked in, his liver pulled out, and his scalp cut off?" "I think not," replied Eaglenose, with equal simplicity, for although such a speech from such innocent lips may call forth surprise in a civilised reader, it referred, in those regions and times, to possibilities which were only too probable. After a few minutes' thought the child said, with an earnest look in her large and lustrous eyes, "Skipping Rabbit will be glad--very glad--to see her father, but she will be sorry--very sorry--to lose her friends." Having now made it plain that the feelings of both captives had been touched by the kindness of their captors, we will transport them and the reader at once to the neighbourhood of Bounding Bull's camp. Under the same tree on the outskirts which had been the scene of the girls' capture, Rushing River and Eaglenose stood once more with their companions, conversing in whispers. The horses had been concealed a long way in rear, to prevent restiveness or an incidental neigh betraying them. The night was intensely dark and still. The former condition favoured their enterprise, but the latter was unfavourable, as it rendered the risk of detection from any accidental sound much greater. After a few minutes' talk with his male companion, the chief approached the tree where the females stood silently wondering what their captors meant to do, and earnestly hoping that no evil might befall any one. "The time has come," he said, "when Moonlight may help to make peace between those who are at war. She knows well how to creep like the serpent in the grass, and how to speak with her tongue in such a way that the heart of the listener will be softened while his ear is charmed. Let Moonlight creep into the camp, and tell Bounding Bull that his enemy is subdued; that the daughter of Leetil Tim has conquered him; that he wishes for friendship, and is ready to visit his wigwam, and smoke the pipe of peace. But tell not that Rushing River is so near. Say only that Moonlight has been set free; that Manitou of the pale-faces has been whispering in the heart of Rushing River, and he no longer delights in revenge or wishes for the scalp of Bounding Bull. Go secretly, for I would not have the warriors know of your return till you have found out the thoughts of the chief. If the ear of the chief is open and his answer is favourable, let Moonlight sound the chirping of a bird, and Rushing River will enter the camp without weapons, and trust himself to the man who was once his foe. If the answer is unfavourable, let her hoot like the owl three times, and Rushing River will go back to the home of his fathers, and see the pleasant face of Moonlight no more." To say that Moonlight was touched by this speech would give but a feeble description of her feelings. The unusual delicacy of it for an Indian, the straightforward declaration implied in it and the pathetic conclusion, would have greatly flattered her self-esteem, even if it had not touched her heart. Yet no sign did she betray of emotion, save the somewhat rapid heaving of her bosom as she stood with bowed head, awaiting further orders. "Moonlight will find Skipping Rabbit waiting for her here beside this tree. Whether Bounding Bull is for peace or war, Rushing River returns to him his little one. Go, and may the hand of Manitou guide thee." He turned at once and rejoined Eaglenose, who was standing on guard like a statue at no great distance. Moonlight went immediately and softly into the bushes, without pausing to utter a single word to her female companions, and disappeared. Thereupon the chief and his young brave lay down, and, resting there in profound silence, awaited the result with deep but unexpressed anxiety. Well did our heroine know every bush and rock of the country around her. With easy, soundless motion she glided along like a flitting shadow until she gained the line of sentries who guarded the camp. Here, as on a former occasion, she sank into the grass, and advanced with extreme caution. If she had not possessed more than the average capacity of savages for stalking, it would have been quite impossible for her to have eluded the vigilance of the young warriors. As it was, she narrowly escaped discovery, for, just as she was crossing what may he termed the guarded line, one of the sentinels took it into his head to move in her direction. Of course she stopped and lay perfectly flat and still, but so near did the warrior come in passing that his foot absolutely grazed her head. But for the intense darkness of the night she would have inevitably been caught. Creeping swiftly out of the sentinel's way before he returned, she gained the centre of the camp, and in a few minutes was close to her father's wigwam. Finding a little hole in the buffalo-skins of which it was chiefly composed, she peeped in. To her great disappointment, Little Tim was not there, but Brighteyes was, and a youth whom she knew well as one who was about to join the ranks of the men, and go out on his first war-path on the first occasion that offered. Although trained to observe the gravity and reticence of the Indian, this youth was gifted by nature with powers of loquacity which he found it difficult to suppress. Knowing this, Moonlight felt that she dared not trust him with her secret, and was much perplexed how to attract her mother's attention without disturbing him. At last she crept round to the side of the tent where her mother was seated, opposite to the youth. Putting her lips to another small hole which she found there, she whispered "Mother," so softly that Brighteyes did not hear, but went calmly on with her needlework, while the aspirant for Indian honours sent clouds of tobacco from his mouth and nose, and dreamed of awful deeds of daring, which were probably destined to end also in smoke. "Mother!" whispered Moonlight again. The whisper, though very slightly increased, was evidently heard, for the woman became suddenly motionless, and turned slightly pale, while her lustrous eyes gazed at the spot whence the sound had come. "What does Brighteyes see?" asked the Indian youth, expelling a cloud from his lips and also gazing. "I thought I heard--my Moonlight--whisper." A look of grave contempt settled on the youth's visage as he replied-- "When love is strong, the eyes are blind and the ears too open. Brighteyes hears voices in the night air." Having given utterance to this sage opinion with the sententious solemnity of an oracle, or the portentous gravity of "an ass"--as modern slang might put it--the youth resumed his pipe and continued the stupefaction of his brain. The woman was not sorry that her visitor took the matter thus, for she had felt the imprudence of having betrayed any symptom of surprise, whatever the sound might be. When, therefore, another whisper of "Mother!" was heard, instead of looking intelligent, she bestowed some increased attention on her work, yawned sleepily once or twice, and then said-- "Is there not a council being held to-night?" "There is. The warriors are speaking now." "Does not the young brave aspire to raising his voice in council?" "He does," replied the youth, puffing with a look of almost superhuman dignity, "but he may not raise his voice in council till he has been on the war-path." "I should have thought," returned Brighteyes, with the slightest possible raising of her eyebrows, "that a brave who aims so high would find it more pleasant to be near the council tent talking with the other young braves than to sit smoking beside a squaw." The youth took the hint rather indignantly, rose, and strode out of the tent in majestic silence. No sooner was he gone than Moonlight darted in and fell into her mothers arms. There was certainly more of the pale-face than of the red man's spirit in the embrace that followed, but the spirit of the red man soon reasserted itself. "Mother," she said eagerly and impressively, "Rushing River is going to be my husband!" "Child," exclaimed the matron, while her countenance fell, "can the dove mate with the raven? the rabbit with the wolf?" "They can, for all I care or know to the contrary," said Moonlight-- impelled, no doubt, by the spirit of Little Tim. "But" she continued quickly, "I bear a message to Bounding Bull. Where is he?" "Not in the camp, my daughter. He has gone to the block-house to see the preacher." "And father. Is he here?" "No, he has gone with Bounding Bull. There is no chief in the camp just now--only the young braves to guard it." "How well they guard it--when I am here!" said the girl, with a laugh; then, becoming intensely earnest, she told her mother in as few words as possible the object of her visit, concluding with the very pertinent question, "Now, what is to be done?" "You dare not allow Rushing River to enter the camp just now," said Brighteyes. "The young men would certainly kill him." "But I must not send him away," returned the perplexed Moonlight. "If I do, I--I shall never--he will never more return." "Could you not creep out of camp as you crept in and warn him?" "I could, as far as the sentinels are concerned, for they are little better than owls; but it is growing lighter now, and the moon will be up soon--I dare not risk it. If I were caught, would not the braves suspect something, and scour the country round? I know not what to do, yet something _must_ be done at once." For some minutes the mother and daughter were silent, each striving to devise some method of escaping from their difficulty. At last Brighteyes spoke. "I see a way, my child," she said, with more than her wonted solemnity, even when discussing grave matters. "It is full of danger, yet you must take it, for I see that love has taken possession of my Moonlight's heart, and--there is no withstanding love!" She paused thoughtfully for a few moments, and then resumed-- "One of your father's horses is hobbled down in the willow swamp. He put it there because the feeding is good, and has left no one to guard it because the place is not easily found, as you know, and thieves are not likely to think of it as a likely place. What you must do is to go as near our lines as you dare, and give the signal of the owl. Rushing River will understand it, and go away at once. He will not travel fast, for his heart will be heavy, and revenge to him is no longer sweet. That will give you time to cross the camp, creep past the sentinels, run down to the swamp, mount the horse, and go by the short cuts that you know of until you get in front of the party or overtake them. After that you must lead them to the block-house," (Brighteyes never would consent to call it Tim's Folly after she understood the meaning of the name), "and let the chief manage the rest. Go. You have not a moment to lose." She gave her daughter a final embrace, pushed her out of the tent and then sat down with the stoicism of a Red Indian to continue her work and listen intently either for the savage yells which would soon indicate the failure of the enterprise, or the continued silence which would gradually prove its success. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT. Moonlight sauntered through the camp carelessly at first with a blanket over her head after the manner of Indian women; but on approaching the outskirts, nearest to the spot where Rushing River was concealed, she discarded the blanket, sank into the grass like a genuine apparition, and disappeared. After creeping a short way, she ventured to give the three hoots of the owl. An Indian brave, whose eyes were directed sentimentally to the stars, as though he were thinking of his lady-love--or buffalo steaks and marrow-bones--cocked his ears and lowered his gaze to earth, but as nothing more was to be seen or heard, he raised his eyes and thoughts again to love--or marrow-bones. Very different, as may be supposed, was the effect of those three hoots upon Rushing River, as he lay on the grass in perfect silence, listening intently. On hearing the sounds, he sprang up as though an arrow had pierced him, and for a few moments the furious glare of a baffled savage gleamed in his dark eyes, as he laid a hand on his tomahawk; but the action was momentary, and in a short time the look passed away. It was succeeded by a calm aspect and demeanour, which seemed to indicate a man devoid of all feeling--good or bad. "Skipping Rabbit," he said, taking the hand of the child in his, and patting her head, "you are soon to be with your father--and with Moonlight. Rushing River goes back to his people. But the skipping one must not move from this tree till some of her people come to fetch her. There is danger in moving--perfect safety in sitting still." He moved as if about to go, but suddenly turned back and kissed the child. Then he muttered something in a low tone to his companions, and strode into the dark forest. Umqua then advanced and gave the little one a tremendous hug. She was evidently struggling to suppress her feelings, for she could hardly speak as she said-- "I--I _must_ go, dear child. Rushing River commands. Umqua has no choice but to obey." She could say no more, but, after another prolonged hug, ran rapidly away. Hitherto Eaglenose had stood motionless, looking on, with his arms folded. Poor boy! he was engaged in the hardest fight that he had yet experienced in his young life, for had he not for the first time found a congenial playmate--if we may venture to put it so--and was she not being torn from him just as he was beginning to understand her value? He had been trained, however, in a school where contempt of pain and suffering was inculcated more sternly even than among the Spartans of old. "Skipping one," he said, in a low, stern voice, "Eaglenose must leave you, for his chief commands, but he will laugh and sing no more." Even through her tears the skipping one could scarce forbear smiling at the tone in which this was uttered. Fortunately, her face could not be seen. "O yes, you will laugh and sing again," she said, "when your nose is better." "No, that cannot be," returned the youth, who saw--indeed the child intended--nothing humorous in the remark. "No, I will never more laugh, or pull the string of the jumping-jack; but," he added, with sudden animation, as a thought struck him, "Eaglenose will bring the jumping-jack to the camp of Bounding Bull, and put it in the hands of the skipping one, though his scalp should swing for it in the smoke of her father's wigwam." He stooped, took the little face between his hands, and kissed it on both cheeks. "Don't--don't leave me," said the child, beginning to whimper. "The chief commands, and Eaglenose must obey," said the youth. He gently unclasped the little hands, and silently glided into the forest. Meanwhile Moonlight, utterly forgetting amid her anxieties the arrangement about Skipping Rabbit, sauntered back again through the camp till she reached the opposite extremity, which lay nearest to the willow swamp. The lines here were not guarded so carefully, because the nature of the ground rendered that precaution less needful. She therefore managed to pass the sentinels without much difficulty, and found, as she had been told, that one of her father's horses was feeding near the willow swamp. Its two fore-legs were fastened together to prevent it straying, so that she caught it easily. Having provided herself with a strong supple twig, she cut the hobbles, vaulted lightly on the horse's back, and went off at a smart gallop. Moonlight did not quite agree with her mother as to the effect of disappointment on her lover. Although heaviness of heart might possibly induce him to ride slowly, she thought it much more likely that exasperation of spirit would urge him to ride with reckless fury. Therefore she plied her switch vigorously, and, the light increasing as she came to more open ground, she was able to speed swiftly over a wide stretch of country, with which she had been familiar from childhood, in the hope of intercepting the Blackfoot chief. After a couple of hours' hard riding, she came to a narrow pass through which she knew her lover must needs go if he wished to return home by the same path that had led him to the camp of his enemy. Jumping quickly from her steed, she went down on her knees and examined the track. A sigh of relief escaped her, for it was evident that no one had passed there that day towards the west. There was just a bare possibility, however, that the chief had taken another route homeward, but Moonlight tried hard to shut her eyes to that fact, and, being sanguine of temperament she succeeded. Retiring into a thicket, she tied her horse to a tree, and then returned to watch the track. While seated there on a fallen tree, thinking with much satisfaction of some of her recent adventures, she suddenly conceived a little plot, which was more consistent with the character of Skipping Rabbit than herself, and rose at once to put it into execution. With a knife which she carried in her girdle she cut and broke down the underwood at the side of the track, and tramped about so as to make a great many footmarks. Then, between that point and the thicket where her steed was concealed, she walked to and fro several times, cutting and breaking the branches as she went, so as to make a wide trail, and suggest the idea of a hand-to-hand conflict having taken place there. She was enabled to make these arrangements all the more easily that the moon was by that time shining brightly, and revealing objects almost as clearly as if it had been noonday. Returning to the pass, she took off the kerchief with which she usually bound up her luxuriant brown hair, and placed it in the middle of the track, with her knife lying beside it. Having laid this wicked little trap to her satisfaction, she retired to a knoll close at hand, from which she could see her kerchief and knife on the one hand and her horse on the other. Then she concealed herself behind the trunk of a tree. Now it chanced at that very time that four of the young braves of Bounding Bull's camp, who had been sent out to hunt were returning home laden with venison, and they happened to cross the trail of Moonlight at a considerable distance from the pass just mentioned. Few things escape the notice of the red men of the west. On seeing the trail, they flung down their loads, examined the prints of the hoofs, rose up, glared at each other, and then ejaculated "Hough!" "Ho!" "Hi!" "Hee!" respectively. After giving vent to these humorous observations, they fixed the fresh meat in the forks of a tree, and, bending forward, followed up the trail like bloodhounds. Thus it happened that at the very time when Moonlight was preparing her practical joke, or surprise, for Rushing River, these four young braves were looking on with inexpressible astonishment, and preparing something which would indeed be a surprise, but certainly no joke, to herself and to all who might chance to appear upon the scene. With mouths open and eyes stretched to the utmost, these Bounding Bullers--if we may so call them--lay concealed behind a neighbouring mound, and watched the watcher. Their patience was not put to a severe test. Ere long a distant sound was heard. As it drew near it became distinctly like the pattering sound of galloping steeds. The heart of Moonlight beat high, as she drew closer into the shelter of the tree and clasped her hands. So did the hearts of the Bounding Bullers, as they drew closer under the brow of the mound, and fitted arrows to their bows. Moonlight was right in her estimate of the effect of disappointment on her lover. He was evidently letting off superfluous steam through the safety-valve of a furious pace. Presently the cavalcade came sweeping into the pass, and went crashing through it--Rushing River, of course, in advance. No cannon ball was ever stopped more effectually by mountain or precipice than was our Indian chief's career by Moonlight's kerchief and knife. He reined in with such force as to throw his steed on its haunches, like the equestrian statue of Peter the Great; but, unlike the statuesque animal, Rushing River's horse came back to the position of all-fours, and stood transfixed and trembling. Vaulting off, the chief ran to the kerchief, and picked it up. Then he and Eaglenose examined it and the knife carefully, after which they turned to the track through the bushes. But here caution became necessary. There might be an ambuscade. With tomahawk in one hand, and scalping-knife in the other, the chief advanced slowly, step by step, gazing with quick intensity right and left as he went. Eaglenose followed, similarly armed, and even more intensely watchful. Umqua brought up the rear, unarmed, it is true, but with her ten fingers curved and claw-like, as if in readiness for the visage of any possible assailant, for the old woman was strong and pugnacious as well as kindly and intellectual. All this was what some people call "nuts" to Moonlight. It was equally so to the Bounding Bullers, who, although mightily taken by surprise, were fully alive to the fact that here were two men and two women of their hated Blackfoot foes completely at their mercy. They had only to twang their bowstrings and the death-yells of the men would instantly resound in the forest. But burning curiosity as to what it could all mean, and an intense desire to see the play out, restrained them. Soon Rushing River came upon the tied-up horse, and of course astonishment became intensified, for in all his varied experience of savage warfare he had never seen the evidence of a deadly skirmish terminate in a peacefully tied-up horse. While he and his companions were still bending cautiously forward and peering around, the hoot of an owl was heard in the air. Eaglenose looked up with inquiring gaze, but his chief's more practised ear at once understood it. He stood erect, stuck his weapons into his belt, and, with a look of great satisfaction, repeated the cry. Moonlight responded, and at once ran down to him with a merry laugh. Of course there was a good deal of greeting and gratulation, for even Indians become demonstrative at times, and Moonlight had much of importance to tell. But now an unforeseen difficulty came in the way of the bloody-minded Bullers. In the group which had been formed by the friendly evolutions of their foes, the women chanced to have placed themselves exactly between them and the men, thus rendering it difficult to shoot the latter without great risk of injury, if not death, to the former, for none of them felt sufficiently expert to emulate William Tell. In these circumstances it occurred to them, being courageous braves, that four men were more than a match for two, and that therefore it would be safer and equally effective to make a united rush, and brain their enemies as they stood. No sooner conceived than acted on. Dispensing with the usual yell on this occasion, they drew their knives and tomahawks, and made a tremendous rush. But they had reckoned too confidently, and suffered the inevitable disgrace of bafflement that awaits those who underrate the powers of women. So sudden was the onset that Rushing River had not time to draw and properly use his weapons, but old Umqua, with the speed of light, flung herself on hands and knees in front of the leading Buller, who plunged over her, and drove his head against a tree with such force that he remained there prone and motionless. Thus the chief was so far ready with his tomahawk that a hastily-delivered blow sent the flat of it down on the skull of the succeeding savage, and, in sporting language, dropped him. Thus only two opponents were left, of whom Eaglenose choked one and his chief felled the other. In ordinary circumstances the victors would first have stabbed and then scalped their foes, but we have pointed out that the spirit of our chief had been changed. He warned Eaglenose not to kill. With his assistance and that of the women, he bound the conquered braves, and laid them in the middle of the track, so that no one could pass that way without seeing them. Then, addressing the one who seemed to be least stunned, he said-- "Rushing River is no longer at war with Bounding Bull. He will not slay and scalp his young men; but the young men have been hasty, and must suffer for it. When your friends find you and set you free, tell them that it was Rushing River who brought Skipping Rabbit to her father and left her near the camp." "If Rushing River is no longer at war with Bounding Bull," returned the fallen savage sulkily, "how comes it that we have crossed the trail of a war-party of Blackfeet on their way to the block-house of the pale-face?" This question roused both surprise and concern in the Blackfoot chief, but his features betrayed no emotion of any kind, and the only reply he condescended to make was a recommendation to the youth to remember what he had been told. When, however, he had left them and got out of hearing, he halted and said-- "Moonlight has travelled in the region of her father's fort since she was a little child. Will she guide me to it by the shortest road she knows!" The girl of course readily agreed, and, in a few minutes, diverging from the pass, went off in another direction where the ground permitted of their advancing at a swift gallop. We must turn now to another part of those western wilds, not far from the little hut or fortress named. In a secluded dell between two spurs of the great mountain range, a council of war was held on the day of which we write by a party of Blackfoot Indians. This particular band had been absent on the war-path for a considerable time, and, having suffered defeat, were returning home rather crestfallen and without scalps. In passing near the fortress of Little Tim it occurred to them that they might yet retrieve their character by assaulting that stronghold and carrying off the booty that was there, with any scalps that chance might throw in their way. That night the prairie chief, Little and Big Tim, Bounding Bull, and Softswan were sitting in a very disconsolate frame of mind beside their friend the pale-face preacher, whose sunken eye and hollow cheek told of his rapidly approaching end. Besides the prospect of the death of one whom they had known and loved so long, they were almost overwhelmed by despair at the loss of Moonlight and Skipping Rabbit, and their failure to overtake and rescue them, while the difficulty of raising a sufficient number of men at the time to render an attempt upon the Blackfoot stronghold possible with the faintest hope of success still further increased their despair. Even the dying missionary was scarcely able to give them hope or encouragement, for by that time his voice was so weak that he could only utter a word or two at long intervals with difficulty. "The clouds are very dark, my father," said Whitewing. "Very dark," responded his friend, "but on the other side the sun is shining brightly." "Sometimes I find it rather hard to believe it," muttered Little Tim. Bounding Bull did not speak, but the stern look of his brow showed that he shared the feelings of the little hunter. Big Tim was also silent but he glanced at Softswan, and she, as if in reply to his thoughts, said, "He doeth all things well." "Ha!" exclaimed the missionary, with a quick glance of pleased surprise at the girl; "you have learned a good lesson, soft one. Treasure it. `He doeth all things well.' We may think some of them dark, some even wrong, but--`Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?'" Silence again ensued, for they were indeed very low, yet they had by no means reached the lowest point of human misery. While they were sitting there the Blackfoot band, under cover of the night, was softly creeping up the zigzag path. Great events often turn on small points. Rome was saved by the cackling of geese, and Tim's Folly was lost by the slumbering of a goose! The goose in question was a youth, who was so inflated with the miraculous nature of the deeds which he intended to do that he did not give his mind sufficiently to those which at that time had to be done. He was placed as sentinel at the point of the little rampart furthest from the hut and nearest the forest. Instead of standing at his post and gazing steadily at the latter, he sat down and stared dreamily at the future. As might have been expected, the first Blackfoot that raised his head cautiously above the parapet saw the dreamer, tapped his cranium, and rendered him unconscious. Next moment a swarm of black creatures leaped over the wall, burst open the door of the hut and, before the men assembled there could grasp their weapons, overpowered them by sheer weight of numbers. All were immediately bound, except the woman and the dying man. Thus it happened that when Rushing River arrived he found the place already in possession of his own men. "I will go up alone," he said, "to see what they are doing. If they have got the fire-water of the pale-faces they might shoot and kill Moonlight in their mad haste." "If Rushing River wishes to see his men, unseen by them, Moonlight can guide him by a secret way that is known only to her father and her father's friends," said the girl. The chief paused, as if uncertain for a moment how to act. Then he said briefly, "Let Moonlight lead; Rushing River will follow." Without saying a word, the girl conducted her companion round by the river's bed, and up by the secret path into the cavern at the rear of the little fortress. Here Eaglenose and Umqua were bidden to remain, while the girl raised the stone which covered the upper opening of the cave, and led the chief to the back of the hut whence issued the sound of voices, as if raised in anger and mutual recrimination. Placing his eye to a chink in the back door, the Blackfoot chief witnessed a scene which filled him with concern and surprise. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE LAST. The sight witnessed by Rushing River was one which might indeed have stirred the spirit of a mere stranger, much more that of one who was well acquainted with, and more or less interested in, all the actors in the scene. Seated on the floor in a row, with their backs against the wall of the hut, and bound hand and foot were his old enemies Bounding Bull, Little Tim and his big son, and Whitewing, the prairie chief. In a corner lay a man with closed eyes, clasped hands, and a face, the ashy paleness of which indicated the near approach of death, if not its actual presence. In him he at once recognised the preacher, who, years ago, had directed his youthful mind to Jesus, the Saviour of mankind. In front of these stood one of the warriors of his own nation, brandishing a tomahawk, and apparently threatening instant destruction to Little Tim, who, to do him justice, met the scowls and threats of the savage with an unflinching gaze. There was, however, no touch of pride or defiance in Tim's look, but in the frowns of Bounding Bull and Big Tim we feel constrained to say that there were both pride and defiance. Several Blackfoot Indians stood beside the prisoners with knives in their hands, ready at a moment's notice to execute their leader's commands. Rushing River knew that leader to be one of the fiercest and most cruel of his tribe. Softswan was seated at the feet of the missionary, with her face bowed upon her knees. She was not bound, but a savage stood near to watch her. Whitewing's old mother sat or rather crouched, close to her. What had already passed Rushing River of course could only guess. Of what followed his ears and eyes took note. "You look very brave just now," said the Blackfoot leader, "but I will make you change your looks before I take your scalps to dry in the Blackfoot wigwams." "You had better take our lives at once," said Big Tim fiercely, "else we will begin to think that we have had the mischance to fall into the hands of cowardly squaws." "Wah!" exclaimed Bounding Bull, with a nod of assent as he directed a look of scorn at his adversary. "Tush, tush, boy," said Little Tim to his son reprovingly, in an undertone. "It ill becomes a man with white blood in his veins, an' who calls hisself a Christian, to go boastin' like an or'nary savage. I thowt I had thrashed that out of 'ee when ye was a small boy." "Daddy," remonstrated Big Tim, "is not Softswan sittin' there at his marcy?" "No, lad, no. We are at the marcy of the Lord, an' His marcies are everlastin'." A faint smile flickered on the lips of the missionary at that moment, and, opening his eyes, he said solemnly-- "My son, hope thou in God, for thou shalt yet praise Him who is the health of thy countenance and thy God." The savage leader was for the moment startled by the words, uttered in his own language, by one whom he had thought to be dead, but recovering himself quickly, he said-- "Your trust will be vain, for you are now in my power, and I only spare you long enough to tell you that a Blackfoot brave has just met us, who brings us the good news of what our great Blackfoot chief did when he crept into the camp of Bounding Bull and carried away his little daughter from under his very nose, and also the daughter of Leetil Tim. Wah! Did I not say that I would make you change your looks?" The savage was so far right that this reference to their great loss was a terrible stab, and produced considerable change of expression on the faces of the captives; but with a great effort Bounding Bull resumed his look of contempt and said that what was news to the Blackfoot leader was no news to him, and that not many days would pass before his warriors would pay a visit to the Blackfoot nation. "That may be so," retorted the savage, "but they shall not be led by Bounding Bull, for his last hour has come." So saying, the Blackfoot raised his tomahawk, and advanced to the chief, who drew himself up, and returned his glare of hate with a smile of contempt. Softswan sprang up with a shriek, and would have flung herself between them, but was held back by the savage who guarded her. At that moment the back door of the hut flew open, and Rushing River stood in the midst of them. One word from him sent all the savages crestfallen out of the hut. He followed them. Returning alone a few seconds later, he passed the astonished captives, and, kneeling down by the couch of the missionary, said, in tones that were too low to be heard by the others-- "Does my white father remember Rushing River?" The missionary opened his eyes with a puzzled look of inquiry, and gazed at the Indian's face. "Rushing River was but a boy," continued the chief, "when the pale-face preacher came to the camp of the Blackfeet." A gleam of intelligence seemed to shoot from the eyes of the dying man. "Yes, yes," he said faintly; "I remember." "My father," continued the chief, "spoke to Rushing River about his sins--about the Great Manitou; about Jesus, the Saviour of all men, and about the Great Spirit. Rushing River did not believe then--he could not--but the Great Spirit must have been whispering to him since, for he believes _now_." A look of quiet joy settled on the preacher's face while the chief spoke. Rousing himself with an effort, he said, as he turned a glance towards the captives-- "If you truly love Jesus, let these go free." The chief had to bend down to catch the feebly-spoken words. Rising instantly, he drew his knife, went to Little Tim, and cut the thongs that bound him. Then he cut those of Big Tim and Whitewing, and lastly those of Bounding Bull. He had scarcely completed the latter act when his old enemy suddenly snatched the knife out of his hand, caught him by the right arm with a vice-like grasp, and pointed the weapon at his heart. "Bounding Bull," he said fiercely, "knows not the meaning of all this, but he knows that his child is in the Blackfoot camp, and that Rushing River is at his mercy." No effort did Rushing River make to avert the impending blow, but stood perfectly still, and, with a look of simple gravity, said-- "Skipping Rabbit is not in the Blackfoot camp. She is now in the camp of her kindred; and Moonlight," he added, turning a glance on Little Tim, "is safe." "Your face looks truthful and your tone sounds honest, Rushing River," said Little Tim, "but the Blackfeet are clever at deceiving, and the chief is our bitter foe. What surety have we that he is not telling lies? Rushing River knows well he has only to give a signal and his red reptiles will swarm in on us, all unarmed as we are, and take our scalps." "My young men are beyond hearing," returned the chief. "I have sent them away. My breast is open to the knife in the hand of Bounding Bull. I am no longer an enemy, but a follower of Jesus, and the preacher has told us that He is the Prince of peace." At this the prairie chief stepped forward. "Friends," he said, "my heart is glad this day, for I am sure that you may trust the word of Rushing River. Something of his change of mind I have heard of in the course of my wanderings, but I had not been sure that there was truth in the report till now." Still Bounding Bull maintained his grasp on his old foe, and held the knife in readiness, so that if there should be any sudden attempt at rescue, he, at least, should not escape. The two Tims, Little and Big, although moved by Whitewing's remarks, were clearly not quite convinced. They seemed uncertain how to view the matter, and were still hesitating when Rushing River again spoke. "The pale-faces," he said, "do not seem to be so trustful as the red men. I have put myself in your power, yet you do not believe me. Why, then, does not Bounding Bull strike his ancient enemy? His great opportunity has come. His squaws are waiting in his wigwam fur the scalp of Rushing River." For the first time in his life Bounding Bull was rendered incapable of action. In all his extensive experience of Indian warfare he had never been placed in such a predicament. If he had been an out-and-out heathen, he would have known what to do, and would have done it at once--he would have gratified revenge. Had Rushing River been an out-and-out heathen, he never would have given him the chance he now possessed of wreaking his vengeance. Then the thought of Skipping Rabbit filled his heart with tender anxiety, and confused his judgment still more. It was very perplexing! But Rushing River brought the perplexity to an end by saying-- "If you wish for further proof that Rushing River tells no lies, Moonlight will give it. Let her come forward." Little Tim was beginning to think that the Blackfoot chief was, as he expressed it, somewhat "off his head," when Moonlight ran into the room, and seized him with her wonted energy round the neck. "Yes, father, it's all true. I am safe, as you see, and happy." "An' Skippin' Rabbit?" said Little Tim. "Is in her own wigwam by this time." As she spoke in the Indian tongue, Bounding Bull understood her. He at once let go his hold of his old foe. Returning the knife to him, he grasped his right hand after the manner of the pale-faces, and said-- "My brother." By this time Eaglenose and Umqua had appeared upon the scene, and added their testimony to that of their chief. While they were still engaged in explanation, a low wail from Softswan turned their attention to the corner where the preacher lay. The prairie chief glided to the side of his old friend, and kneeled by the couch. The others clustered round in solemn silence. They guessed too surely what had drawn forth the girl's wail. The old man lay, with his thin white locks scattered on the pillow, his hands clasped as if in prayer, and with eyes nearly closed, but the lips moved not. His days of prayer and striving on this earth were over, and his eternity of praise and glory had begun. We might here, appropriately enough, close our record of the prairie chief and the preacher, but we feel loath to leave them without a few parting words, for the good work which the preacher had begun was carried on, not only by Whitewing, but, as far as example went--and that was a long way--by Little and Big Tim and their respective wives, and Bounding Bull, as well as by many of their kindred. After the preacher's remains had been laid in the grave at the foot of a pine-tree in that far western wilderness, Little Tim, with his son and Indian friends, followed Bounding Bull to his camp, where one of the very first persons they saw was Skipping Rabbit engaged in violently agitating the limbs of her jumping-jack, to the ineffable delight of Eaglenose. Soon after, diplomatic negotiations were entered into between the tribe of Bounding Bull and the Blackfeet, resulting in a treaty of peace which bid fair to be a lasting treaty, at least as lasting as most other human treaties ever are. The pipe of peace was solemnly smoked, the war-hatchet was not less solemnly buried, and a feast on a gigantic scale, was much more solemnly held. Another result was that Rushing River and Moonlight were married--not after the simple Indian fashion, but with the assistance of a real pale-faced missionary, who was brought from a distance of nearly three hundred miles, from a pale-face pioneer settlement, for the express purpose of tying that knot along with several other knots of the same kind, and doing what in him lay to establish and strengthen the good work which the old preacher had begun. Years passed away, and a fur-trading establishment was sent into those western regions, which gradually attracted round it a group of Indians, who not only bartered skins with the traders, but kept them constantly supplied with meat. Among the most active hunters of this group were our friends Little and Big Tim, Bounding Bull, Rushing River, and Eaglenose. Sometimes these hunted singly, sometimes in couples, not unfrequently all together, for they were a very sociable band. Whitewing was not one of them, for he devoted himself exclusively to wandering about the mountains and prairies, telling men and women and children of the Saviour of sinners, of righteousness and judgment to come--a self-appointed Red Indian missionary, deriving his authority from the Word of God. But the prairie chief did not forsake his old and well-tried friends. He left a hostage in the little community, a sort of living lodestone, which was sure to bring him back again and again, however far his wanderings might extend. This was a wrinkled specimen of female humanity, which seemed to be absolutely incapable of extinction because of the superhuman warmth of its heart and the intrinsic hilarity of its feelings! Whoever chanced to inquire for Whitewing, whether in summer or in winter, in autumn or in spring, was sure to receive some such answer as the following: "Nobody knows where he is. He wanders here and there and everywhere; but he'll not be absent long, for he always turns up, sooner or later, to see his old mother." Yes, that mummified old mother, that "dear old one," was a sort of planet round which Brighteyes and Softswan and Moonlight and Skipping Rabbit and others, with a host of little Brighteyes and little Softswans, revolved, forming a grand constellation, which the men of the settlement gazed at and followed as the mariners of old followed the Pole star. The mention of Skipping Rabbit reminds us that we have something more to say about her. It so happened that the fur trader who had been sent to establish a post in that region was a good man, and, strange to say, entertained a strong belief that the soul of man was of far greater importance than his body. On the strength of this opinion he gathered the Indians of the neighbourhood around him, and told them that, as he wished to read to them out of the Word of the Great Manitou, he would hold a class twice a week in the fur-store; and, further, that if any of them wished to learn English, and read the Bible of the pale-faces for themselves, he was quite willing to teach them. Well, the very first pupil that came to the English class was Skipping Rabbit, and, curiously enough, the very second was Eaglenose. Now it must be remembered that we have said that years had passed away. Skipping Rabbit was no longer a spoiled, little laughing child, but a tall, graceful, modest girl, just bursting into womanhood. She was still as fond as ever of the jumping-jack, but she slily worked its galvanic limbs for the benefit of little children, not for her own--O dear no! Eaglenose had also grown during these years into a stalwart man, and his chin and lower jaws having developed considerably, his nose was relatively much reduced in appearance. About the same time Brighteyes and Softswan, naturally desiring to become more interesting to their husbands, also joined this class, and they were speedily followed by Moonlight and Bounding Bull. Rushing River also looked in, now and then, in a patronising sort of way, but Whitewing resolutely refused to be troubled with anything when in camp save his mother and his mother-tongue. It will not therefore surprise the reader to be told that Eaglenose and the skipping one, being thus engaged in a common pursuit, were naturally, we may even say unavoidably, thrown a good deal together; and as their philological acquirements extended, they were wont at times to air their English on each other. The lone woods formed a convenient scene for their intercourse. "Kom vis me," said Eaglenose to Skipping Rabbit one day after school. "Var you goes?" asked the girl shyly--yet we might almost say twinklingly. "Don' know. Nowhars. Everywhars. Anywhars." "Kim 'long, den." "Skipping one," said Eaglenose--of course in his own tongue, though he continued the sentence in English--"de lunguish of de pale-fass am diffikilt." "Yes--'most too diffikilt for larn." "Bot Softswan larn him easy." "Bot Softswan have one pale-fass hubsind," replied the girl, breaking into one of her old merry laughs at the trouble they both experienced in communicating through such a "lunguish." "Would the skipping one," said Eaglenose, with a sharp look, "like to have a hubsind?" The skipping one looked at her companion with a startled air, blushed, cast down her eyes, and said nothing. "Come, sit down here," said the Indian, suddenly reverting to his native tongue, as he pointed to the trunk of a fallen tree. The girl suffered herself to be led to the tree, and sat down beside the youth, who retained one of her hands. "Does not the skipping one know," he said earnestly, "that for many moons she has been as the sun in the sky to Eaglenose? When she was a little one, and played with the jumping-jack, her eyes seemed to Eaglenose like the stars, and her voice sounded like the rippling water after it has reached the flowering prairie. When the skipping one laughed, did not the heart of Eaglenose jump? and when she let drops fall from her stars, was not his heart heavy? Afterwards, when she began to think and talk of the Great Manitou, did not the Indian's ears tingle and his heart burn? It is true," continued the youth, with a touch of pathos in his tone which went straight to the girl's heart, "it is true that Eaglenose dwells far below the skipping one. He creeps like the beetle on the ground. She flies like the wild swan among the clouds. Eaglenose is not worthy of her; but love is a strong horse that scorns to stop at difficulties. Skipping Rabbit and Eaglenose have the same thoughts, the same God, the same hopes and desires. They have one heart--why should they not have one wigwam?" Reader, we do not ask you to accept the above declaration as a specimen of Indian love-making. You are probably aware that the red men have a very different and much more prosaic manner of doing things than this. But we have already said that Eaglenose was an eccentric youth; moreover, he was a Christian, and we do not feel bound to account for the conduct or sentiments of people who act under the combined influence of Christianity and eccentricity. When Skipping Rabbit heard the above declaration, she did indeed blush a little. She could not help that, we suppose, but she did not look awkward, or wait for the gentleman to say more, but quietly putting her arm round his neck, she raised her little head and kissed that part of his manly face which lay immediately underneath his eagle nose! Of course he was not shabby enough to retain the kiss. He understood it to be a loan, and returned it immediately with interest--but--surely we have said enough for an intelligent reader! Not many days after that these two were married in the fur-store of the traders. A grand feast and a great dance followed, as a matter of course. It is noteworthy that there was no drink stronger than tea at that merry-making, yet the revellers were wonderfully uproarious and very happy, and it was universally admitted that, exclusive of course of the bride and bridegroom, the happiest couple there were a wrinkled old woman of fabulous age and her amiable son--the Prairie Chief. THE END. 
38061	----	[Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: THEY WENT ON STEP BY STEP, WITH EYES FOR EVERY ROCK AND BUSH (missing from book)] WHITE FIRE BY JOHN OXENHAM WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY G. GRENVILLE MANTON _Adversity doth make men strong, Yet stronger still I count the man Who can sustain prosperity unspoiled And turn it to high uses._ _The white fire of a great enthusiasm is the mightiest force in the world._ TORONTO THE COPP CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED 1905 WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR GOD'S PRISONER RISING FORTUNES A PRINCESS OF VASCOVY OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE JOHN OF GERISAU UNDER THE IRON FLAIL BONDMAN FREE THE VERY SHORT MEMORY OF MR. JOSEPH SCORER BARBE OF GRAND BAYOU A WEAVER OF WEBS HEARTS IN EXILE THE GATE OF THE DESERT TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF James Chalmers GREAT HEART OF NEW GUINEA-- "GREAT HEART THE TEACHER, GREAT HEART THE JOYOUS, GREAT HEART THE FEARLESS, GREAT HEART OF SWEET WHITE FIRE, GREAT HEART THE MARTYR.... _Nor dead, nor sleeping! He lives on, his name Shall kindle many a heart to equal flame. A soul so fiery sweet can never die, But lives, and loves, and works through all eternity._" CONTENTS CHAPTER I MISS INQUISITIVE CHAPTER II THE MAN CHAPTER III THE MAN'S MAN CHAPTER IV A SHAMELESS THING! CHAPTER V LEAP YEAR CHAPTER VI A SUDDEN WIDE HORIZON CHAPTER VII SOME ODD FURNISHINGS AND A HONEYMOON CHAPTER VIII GOING STRONG CHAPTER IX ARMS AND THE MAN CHAPTER X A BLACK OBJECT-LESSON CHAPTER XI TOO LATE CHAPTER XII THE FLAMING SWORD CHAPTER XIII THE MAN'S MAN'S MAN CHAPTER XIV CLIPPING A BLACKBIRD CHAPTER XV WHERE THOU GOEST CHAPTER XVI SAWDUST AND SHAVINGS CHAPTER XVII FIRST FRUITS CHAPTER XVIII SETBACKS CHAPTER XIX FORWARD CHAPTER XX MANY FORMS OF GRACE CHAPTER XXI MIGHT OF RIGHT CHAPTER XXII PAX CHAPTER XXIII THE SCOURGE OF GOD CHAPTER XXIV GAIN OF LOSS CHAPTER XXV THE LIFTING VEIL CHAPTER XXVI THE GENTLE MARTYR CHAPTER XXVII PEACE WITH A SPEAR CHAPTER XXVIII NO THOROUGHFARE CHAPTER XXIX THE ACT OF GOD CHAPTER XXX WIPED OUT CHAPTER XXXI REVERSIONS CHAPTER XXXII FROM THE BEGINNING CHAPTER XXXIII SALT OF THE EARTH ILLUSTRATIONS THEY WENT ON STEP BY STEP, WITH EYES FOR EVERY ROCK AND BUSH (missing from book) . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ WAVED HIS HAND TO HER, AND RECEIVED AN ANSWERING WAVE ONE SIGN OF FLINCHING AND IT IS FINISHED "MY LIFE IS FORFEIT TO THE PAST" "AND HE HAS REALLY HAD THE AUDACITY TO ASK YOU TO MARRY HIM" SHE HAD LONG AND PEREMPTORY INTERVIEWS WITH HER LAWYER BLAIR CALLED FOR THE MATE AND TOLD HIM CURTLY WHAT HE HAD ALREADY TOLD THE CAPTAIN "WE SHALL SEE THEM AGAIN," SAID CAPTAIN CATHIE (missing from book) IT MIGHT BE FOR THE LAST TIME STEPS ON THE ROAD TO SALVATION "HELLO! WHAT'S THIS?" "QUITE HAPPY, JEAN?" ASKED BLAIR PEACE WITH A SPEAR "_MISSIONARIES_! WELL I AM ----!" BLAIR SPRANG UPRIGHT INSTINCTIVELY WAVED HER FAREWELLS FROM THE SHORE CHAPTER I MISS INQUISITIVE She was so dainty a little figure that the bare-armed women in the doors of the lands and closes turned and looked after her with enjoyment untinged even with envy. They scratched their elbows and commented on her points with complacent understanding. "None o' your ten-and-six carriage paid in that lot, I'm thinking, Mrs. O'Neill," said one. "Thrue for ye, Mrs. Macfarlane. Purty as a daisy, she is. It's me that wud like to be on tairms with her maw when she's done with 'em." And a decidedly pretty little figure the small girl made, in her stylishly pleated blue serge, jaunty tam, natty leather belt, and twinkling brown shoes, and her absolute unconsciousness of anything unduly attractive in her appearance. Her determined little face was set strenuously. She looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, beyond a glance now and again for landmarks. And above all, and most inflexibly, she never once looked behind her; for she was bound upon an adventure, and her reward lay on ahead. "Past the cemetery gates," she said to herself. "Up a brae. Past a pond and up a cinder path. That's all right! That must be the woollen mill, and that's the paper-mill, and that splashing white must be the Cut." As she took the cinder path, the gates of the two mills opened, and a flood of hurrying girls came down towards the town, mostly in bunches, laughing and joking, some with linked arms, some few solitary. Then followed boys and men, with dinner in their faces, and an occasional word fired at the girls in front. The girls all fell silent, and resolved themselves into devouring eyes, as the dainty little figure stepped briskly past them. There were spasms of longing among them; they buried them under bursts of wilder laughter. The men and boys glanced at her out of the corners of their eyes, and did not understand why the sky looked bluer and the sunshine brighter than it had done a moment before. She came, presently, to a dividing of the ways, where the roads branched to the two mills, made a short reconnaissance of the flashing chute she had seen from below, then turned to the right, past the paper-mill and the manager's house, past the clump of fir-trees, and came out on a footpath by the side of which the rushing brown waters of the Cut hurried down to the mills and reservoirs. "O-o-o-oh!" said the small girl rapturously, and her face was an unconscious Te Deum. And well it might be, for she had a great appreciation of the beautiful, and she was enjoying her first full glimpse of one of the finest sights in the whole of Great Britain and Ireland and the adjacent Cumbraes. "O-o-oh!" and she sat down to enjoy it. Below her to the right rose the smoke of the town and the ceaseless clangour of the ship-building yards. A movement would have hidden them from her. But she did not move; she neither saw nor heard them. Her eyes were fixed absorbedly on the mighty panorama beyond: the lovely firth, blue as an Italian lake, and all alive with traffic; energetic little river steamers racing with rival toys; slow coasters toiling along like water-beetles; a great black American liner at the Tail of the Bank; the great grey guardship with its trim official lines and hovering launches; and farther out, near the opposite shore, the white sails of yachts flashing in the sun like seabirds' wings. And beyond--the hills, the mighty hills of God. She had known the hills in a general, wholesale way for long enough; but she knew now that she had never known them before. From this lofty vantage point she saw them now for the first time in all their grandeur and beauty, and they overwhelmed her. Such a mighty array of giants: green, rounded hills; rugged brown hills, flushed with the purple of the heather; grey mountain peaks piled fantastically against the unflecked blue sky; bosky glens; dark patches of forest land; and all about them, down below, the silent strength of the sea, lapping the feet of the recumbent giants, creeping up among their sprawling limbs, and cradling the mighty bulks with tender caresses! The girl sat for a long time drinking it all in, to the tune of the swirl and bubble and tinkle of the swift brown water behind her. Then she got up and went on along the path, which disclosed fresh beauties of the larger view at every step. She went on and on, heedless of everything but the wide, vast prospect and her own mighty enjoyment of it. She had some lunch in her pocket; she forgot it. The air was so sweet and strong that she felt no fatigue. She had walked for over an hour in this new heaven of delight, when she came tumbling to earth in truly feminine fashion. The path followed the Cut round the folds and wrinkles of the hillside. At times, on in front, it disappeared into the sky. She was nearing one such sharp turn, when a pair of mighty horns came wavering round it, and behind the horns an evil monster all in black and with baleful eyes. At sight of her it gave an angry bellow and pawed the ground. Alongside her was a small stone erection like an unfinished hut, on a little platform, below which white water trickled down a glen full of ferns and trees. She clasped her hands, gave herself up for lost, and dropped out of the monster's sight behind the one end wall of the hut. Then a boy's voice rang out full and clear-- "Ah, beast! Bos ferocissime! Get out o' that, or I'll do for you. What's taken you to-day, you old villain?" Then followed more forcible argument in the shape of stones, and, with grateful twitches of her clasped hands, the small girl saw her discomfited enemy go crashing down the hillside among the whins and ferns and rolling rocks. The beast was evidently possessed of an unusually perverse disposition that day. It looked up once at the girl behind the wall, and made some spiteful remark, which elicited a dissuasive "Would you?" and another shower of stones from its keeper. Then it went galloping away on the sides of its feet along the steep hillside. The boy, with an exclamation, sprang down after it, and the girl caught sight of him for the first time--a sturdy little figure, with light hair and unlimited energy. He chased the beast with boyish objurgations, which broke out with new vigour when the chase led through a piece of black swamp, with the natural results to the pursuer. He came back presently, hot and muddy, whistling like a blackbird. She was just about to get up and go on, when she heard him jumping down into the little glen below, and she craned over to see what he was about. He scrambled down to a small round natural basin in the rock, threw off his jacket and waistcoat, unbuttoned his flannel shirt, and proceeded to a mighty wash. He seemed to revel in it so exceedingly that the girl sat and watched him with enjoyment. He had no towel, so did not waste any time in drying himself, but allowed the sun and wind to do their duties. Then he came clambering up the slope again. There was a large flat stone in front of the embryo cabin. He came and sat down on it, and remained there so long and so quiet that at last she moved slightly and peeped round to see what he was doing. And what he was doing was so very astonishing that she gave an involuntary gasp of amazement. He was lying flat on his stomach, with a tattered book open in front of him. On the flat slab was a diagram drawn with the chunk of chalk he held in his hand, and he was studying it so intently that he did not hear her till her shadow fell across his work. "Hello! Where did _you_ come from?" and he jumped up and stood staring at her. He was not aware of it, but he was dimly perceptive of the fact that she was very nice-looking. He remembered later--when her face evaded him--that she was very prettily dressed. "From behind there," she said. "That nasty bull frightened me." "He's a stupid beast." And then, suddenly bethinking himself, "Have you been there ever since?" The girl nodded. She liked the look of him. His jacket and trousers were rough and well worn, but his face was wonderfully bright and clean. She did not know when she had seen a boy's face she liked so much. There was such a glow in it, and his blue eyes were so fearless and looked at her so very straight. She did not know very many boys, and did not care much for any of those she did know. They were always either teasing or silly, and always abominably selfish. Somehow this boy did not seem any of those things. "You'd no right to watch a gentleman washing himself." "You're not a gentleman, and I couldn't help myself. At least----" "You're not a lady, and you could have gone away quite well. It's a good thing for you I didn't have a bath in the big pool there. You'd have watched just the same, I suppose, Miss Inquisitive!" "Oh!" she said sharply. "You rude thing! How did you know?" "Know what?" "That! Miss---- what you called me just now." At which he laughed out loud, a great merry laugh that did one good to listen to, and showed a set of sound white teeth and a quick apprehension. "Is that what they call you at home?" he asked, with a mischievous twinkle. "My aunties call me that. Father says 'Want-to-know gets on.'" "He's right," said the boy, with a blaze in the blue eyes. "I like your father better than your aunties. Where were you going when the beast stopped you?" "Right along there," she nodded. "All the way to the Sheils? It's a gey long way for a bit lassie like you." "I'm not a bit lassie. I'm thirteen." "Really! You're young for your age!" She was somewhat doubtful about this remark, but it felt like a compliment, so she let it pass. "What's your name?" she asked. "Kenneth Blair. What's yours?" "Jean Arnot. How old are you?" "I'll be fifteen next July." This was August. "What's that you were drawing? Is it a windmill?" staring intently down at it. "A windmill!"--with unutterable scorn. "And you say you're thirteen! That's Euclid--Prop. 47. It's a thumper too." "I haven't begun Euclid yet," she said meekly, and regarded him with a face full enough of questioning to amply justify her nickname. "Will you please tell me something?" He began to laugh, and she knew that "Miss Inquisitive" was on the tip of his tongue. He only nodded, however. "Do all the herd-boys about here do Euclid?" "I d'n' know. There's nothing to stop them if they want to." "Why do you speak so differently from most other boys? You speak almost as well as I do." A smile flickered in his face for a second, but died out, and he said quietly-- "That's easily told, anyway. My father was schoolmaster at Inverclaver. He taught me." "And does he teach you still? Where is he schoolmaster now?" He looked at her a moment in silence, and then said-- "I don't know. He's dead." "Oh! But he can't be a schoolmaster anywhere if he's dead. I'm so sorry. And of course he can't teach you either." "I don't know," said the boy slowly. "I think sometimes----" But she was off on another scent. "What are you going to be when you grow up?" "Ah!"--with animation. "I'm going to be a big man." "You can't make yourself that. You're not very big now." "I've not done growing yet, and I'm very strong, and I've never been ill in my life. Besides----" "I've just had measles and whooping-cough. That's why I'm here." He nodded, as much as to say, "Yes, that's just the kind of thing girls would have"; and went on, "And then I'm going to be an explorer." "O-o-o-h!" with snapping eyes. "Where?" "I don't know where. Anywhere where nobody's ever been before." She devoured him with hungry appreciation. His face was so very clean, so radiantly bright, and the sparks in his blue eyes kindled answering sparks in her own. For she too possessed a lively imagination, and a spirit many times the size of her body. "But will you be able to? Are you very rich?" "Rich? No, I'm not rich, but I'm not that poor either--not just now. I bought this last week," with a touch of superior pride, as he hauled out a Latin grammar, sixth-hand, but still boasting covers. "When I've finished it I'll feel poor till I get the next. But that's not yet." "Wouldn't you like to be very rich?" "I d'n' know. I never tried it." "My father is very rich." "Is he? And what are you going to do when you grow up?" "Oh, I'm going to be a lady." "Yes, that's about all you can be, I suppose," he nodded, and looked really sorry for her. "I shall be very rich, and I shall do just what I like--except darning and needlework. They're hijjus!" "Hideous," he said, with a touch of pedantic reproof which consorted oddly with his jacket and trousers. "I always say 'hijjus' when it's quite too awful and past words. How would you like to be a manager of one of my father's mills?" "I don't know," he said, regarding her doubtfully. "I'm thinking perhaps I wouldn't make a very good manager. Not yet." Then her hand happened to touch her pocket, which reminded her of her lunch. "Are you hungry?" she asked. "I'll sit down here and you shall have some of my lunch, and you shall tell me the names of all those hills and lochs opposite. Aren't they splendid?" "Ay, they're grand. I've been watching them for a year now." She wrestled her dainty little packet out of her pocket, and sat down on a rock looking out over the wonderful panorama in front. The boy sat down on another rock and hauled out a piece of newspaper in which were wrapped some broken pieces of thick oatcake and some rough fragments of cheese. "Do you like oatcake and cheese?" she asked. "Rather!" "Won't you have some of my sandwiches?" she said politely, but not without anxiety. He looked at the delicate provision, and said stoutly-- "No, thank you. I like this best." And, as the little lady possessed the dainty but vigorous appetite of the fully-restored-to-health-and-got-to-make-up-for-lost-time, and as she was only thirteen, she was not rude enough to press him unduly. "Now tell me the names of all those hills and lochs," she said, and he proceeded to tell her all she wanted to know. "Yon's Dumbarton,"--between bites; "you can see Glasgow some days," and she regarded him doubtfully. "And yon's the Gare Loch. That big fellow with the shoulders is Ben Lomond. The one humped up like this is The Cobbler. That other big one is Ben Ihme. That's Loch Long and a bit of Loch Goil, and yon's Holy Loch and Ben More." When she had eaten her tiny sandwiches, and her two small cookies with jam inside, and her two biscuits, and had learned the names and personal peculiarities of all the hills and lochs, and he had finished the last crumbs of his oatcake and cheese, he convoyed her past the black menace down below, as far as the next stone dyke, and told her how she could shorten her journey by cutting across some fields, and so get down to the Inverkip road, and eventually to Ashton and the "caurs." He watched the sprightly little figure, with the gleaming mane of hair and swinging skirts and twinkling brown shoes, till she reached the next distant corner, waved his hand to her, received an answering wave from her, and turned back to his life--his unruly beasts, his treasured Euclid and Latin grammar, his dreams, his hopes, and ever so much more than he knew. [Illustration: Waved his hand to her, and received an answering wave.] But Prop. 47 was not amenable that afternoon. He smiled at thought of the windmill, and looked up to see her standing before him with her sweet childish face and questioning eyes. He thought much of the winsome little lady, both then and for a long time afterwards. He scanned the winding path by the Cut each day in hopes that she might come again. But she was away home to London, and at last only a memory of her remained, and that growing dimmer and dimmer till it was little more than a sentiment--simply the warm glow of a pleasant impression. And she? Ah, she wrought better than she knew that day. For when she got home from her great adventure, and had been duly scolded by her aunts for undertaking so much, when they had only expected her to go up to the Cut and down again in a couple of hours or so--when she reached home, old Mr. MacTavish, the minister, was there, and he rejoiced in her prattling tongue, and delighted in drawing her out. She enlarged upon the very uncommon herd-laddie she had met up on the Cut,--on his satisfactory looks, his unique cleanliness, his fearlessness in the matter of wild beasts, his understanding, and his aims in life. Her thoughts were full of him, and when Miss Jean Arnot had something on her mind her little world was by way of hearing of it. Old Mr. MacTavish had been a herd-laddie himself in his time. _Suffecit!_ CHAPTER II THE MAN Ten years later Miss Jean Arnot was visiting her aunts in Greenock again. Not but what she had been there many times in between, but this is the only occasion of which we need take note. There had been many changes in these ten years. For one thing, Jean's father was dead, and she was a very wealthy young woman. In many respects she was still very like the little Jean of earlier times. Her face was still the sweet, long oval of her childhood, though the features were more pronounced and matured. But the chief impression it left upon you was still that of eager questioning, a great longing to know, tempered somewhat by years and freedom from all material care. "Want-to-know" was getting on in years--twenty-three, a great age--but there were still mysteries of life which she had not solved, wherein she found matter for surprise at times. But life ran very smoothly and pleasantly with her. She went out a little, and entertained a little in return, travelled much, and was not wanting in good deeds and charity. Her income was about ten times as large as was really good for her, and if she gave munificently she never missed what she gave, so that the recipients were the sole beneficiaries of her giving. She had hosts of friends, phalanxes of admirers; could have had hosts of aspirants to a still closer relationship, but so far would have none of them. She was enjoying herself exceedingly, and fulfilling in their entirety the aspirations of her childhood. She was a lady, she was rich, and she was doing as she liked--and she had not touched a needle since she came into her kingdom. That was the natural rebound, for Aunt Jannet Harvey, a famous needlewoman and housewife herself, had rigorously insisted--so long as she was in power--on her niece learning the minor as well as the major accomplishments of a gentlewoman, such as had obtained during her own long apprenticeship to that high estate. And that is how it came to pass that Miss Jean Arnot, wealthy heiress and society lady, really knew a very great deal more about some things than you would have imagined from the casual sight of her at dance or opera. The moment she was free, and a woman of herself, she relegated the "hijjus" things to what she considered their proper place in the economy of her life, and, later, dug them up out of their dusty corners gratefully, and Aunt Jannet was justified. Aunt Harvey--Aunt Jannet Harvey, to distinguish her from Aunt Lisbeth Harvey--had lived with them and mothered her since her own mother died, when she was a very small child indeed. Aunt Jannet was really her mother's aunt, early widowed and childless, a wise and placid old lady--old, that is, in the eyes of effervescent three-and-twenty--with somewhat rigid ideas of right and wrong, toning slowly, by course of time and easy circumstance, into a tolerant acceptance of things as they came. Her husband had been a professor in Edinburgh, and the society he and she had enjoyed in the modern Athens, thirty years before, was her standard of what society ought to be. She was, however, each year becoming more reconciled to the disparities of the lighter age with which John Arnot's great success in life had forced her into contact. And Jean had been to her as her own daughter would have been, if she had had one, since the day she first took charge of her and began to endeavour to answer some of her questions, and quietly to shelve others for more suitable occasion of discussion. For little Jean Want-to-know had a most active brain and an insatiable curiosity, and never hesitated to ask for fullest details of anything she did not understand; and the wonderings and questionings of such a child have no bounds at times, and are almost impossible of control, either from the inside or the outside. Jean made a point of spending a part of each year in Scotland, wherever else she and Aunt Jannet might wander at other times. On such occasions Aunt Jannet went to Edinburgh and lived again in the past, but in a yearly narrowing circle, so far as the personal element was concerned, and Jean went to Greenock and queened it over her aunts there. She was a great enjoyment, a continuous ripple of excitement, to their ordered household; and since they no longer sat upon her and answered her erstwhile inconvenient questions by gentle snubs and nicknames, the times she spent with them were times of great enjoyment to her also. She rather patronised them, of course, which was perhaps inevitable; for she lived twenty to their one, and, moreover, possessed the means to do it and a will that carried all before it. She insisted, for instance, on paying for her board and lodging, and on a tariff of her own fixing, whenever she came to stay with them, and flatly declined to come on any other condition. They were independent-minded, and declined to be dictated to in such a matter by a small thing whom they had known in frocks with skirts only thirteen inches long. She promptly scandalised them by going to the Tontine and putting up there. Then they gave way, and she had them. After that she was capable of anything, and they submitted to all her whims, which were always pretty and thoughtful ones, and--she assured them, just as they had been wont to assure her in the days of the thirteen-inch frocks--entirely for their own good and happiness. She salved the cicatrice of the Tontine wound by carrying them all off _en masse_ to the Riviera for a month; and Aunt Jean, after whom she was named, gravely suggested the advisability of frequently opposing her ideas, since the outcome was so eminently agreeable. Then she was always making them presents, at which their independency kicked, but in which, nevertheless, they could not but own to enjoyment. But the girl was right, after all. She had much too much, and they had only enough, and that only with clever handling; and they would no more have accepted bald gifts of money than they would have burned down their house and claimed double the value of the furniture. Jean and her visits, and their visits to her, and with her to hitherto unattainable places, were the high lights of their lives. They loved her dearly, rejoiced in her greatly, were proud of her, and wondered much when it would all come to an end in the centering of her thoughts and affections on one sole and--they fervently hoped, but were not without misgivings, because of her wealth and her impulsiveness--worthy man. They made ingenuous little attempts at sounding her on that subject, but she was much too clever for them, and skilfully eluded all approaches which might tend, even remotely, to any self-revelations. That there were no revelations to make only added piquancy to the game, from her point of view, since it kept the aunts in a state of perpetual mystification, and held no pitfalls. Among many other changes she had seen in the last ten years, old Mr. MacTavish had retired long ago, and a younger man occupied his pulpit, and, strange to say, gave satisfaction in it. The Rev. Archibald Fastnet was so exactly the opposite of his predecessor that it might have seemed impossible that where the one had pleased the other should do so. Mr. Fastnet was young, and he believed in--as he put it--making things jump. And he made both things and people jump at times. He was full of enthusiasms which were generally at white heat and--which is more unusual--remained so. The older generation said he kept them on the perpetual "kee-vee" to see what he would do next; the younger people enjoyed him and the service he exacted from them. And on Sundays they all, old and young, always turned out both morning and evening, since it invariably came to pass that, if they missed a service, something happened which made them feel out of the running for the whole of the following week. When Jean Arnot was at Greenock she did as good Greenockians do, and went to church twice every Sunday and one evening in the week as well. The Rev. Archibald never failed to furnish her with a certain amount of quiet amusement, and, apart from other feelings, she always went in expectation and was rarely disappointed. On this particular Sunday morning Mr. Fastnet had prepared a little surprise for his people, which turned out, as his arrangements generally did, a perfect success. It also afforded Jean Arnot the surprise of her life, and she never forgot it. You can forget many things in ten full years. If, for instance, you yourself had met a person informally ten years ago, and spent half an hour with him, just incidentally hearing his name, it is doubtful if you would recall him very distinctly if he presented himself suddenly before you after the ten years had passed. Jean felt a rustle of surprise among her aunts in the pew, and she saw that two men passed up into the pulpit where the Rev. Archibald lorded it alone as a rule. The voluntary ceased, and he stood up, beaming all over, as usual when he had something unusually delectable up his sleeve for them. "Instead of speaking to you myself this morning," he said, "I have asked our friend Mr. Blair to say a few words to us. We all take a fatherly and motherly, and I may say a sisterly and brotherly, interest in Mr. Blair. Perhaps some of us regret that none of us has taken a still nearer and dearer-than-all-otherly interest in him"--at which Fastneticism a smile rippled round. "Our young friend leaves this week to begin his work in the South Seas, where, as you know, he is about to join that valiant bearer of light into outer darkness, John Gerson, in his noble work. You will, I know, appreciate with me this chance--it may be the last chance--of hearing our young standard-bearer's voice before he passes beyond the fringes of the night." Then he came down, and took his seat in a front pew and enjoyed a preacher's holiday. And, after a pause, and very quietly, young Blair rose in the pulpit and gave out the hymn. So far Jean Arnot had been only interested and amused. But the sound of his voice, clear and round and full as an organ tone, made her jump with surprise. He had spoken quite naturally, but there was a ring in it that told of immense possibilities behind, and there was something in it that plucked at some hidden chord of Jean's memory and set it humming as a harp-string responds to a bugle note. She stared at him eagerly. Had she ever by any possibility met him before? She could hardly have forgotten it if she had, she thought. For he was a young man of most striking appearance. Tall, square-shouldered and broad-chested--a commanding figure in truth. It occurred to others besides Jean that if the natives needed more forcible arguments than words for their conversion, here was a likely man for the work. Light-haired and clean-shaven, his face seemed to glow with an inner radiance--a masterful face, and grave. His eyes were wonderfully magnetic; fearless and steadfast, they made you jump as their glance crossed your own. Jean had just jumped, so she knew. Now who was this? Surely she had met him before somewhere. Remember it was ten years since she had seen him, and then only for half an hour, and under very different conditions, and she had never heard his name since. She ordered her brain, or her heart, or whichever of her inner servants it was that held the key, to go find it, and sat gazing at him to give them such light as that might afford. But the clue evaded her till he was near the end of his quiet, forceful talk. He had told them of his hopes, and the plans he and Gerson hoped to carry out--"The grandest man I have ever met, a most noble Christian gentleman," he said, in a burst of enthusiasm. He asked them for their help, their prayers, their sympathetic remembrance, their money--since the work had to be maintained from the outside, and even missionaries must live. He spoke very simply, with no ornate periods or calculated sentences; but his voice was like a trumpet, and his eyes were like stars, and his words were illuminating and full of power, and now and again were flung out white hot from the glowing heart within. Though he spoke for the most part so restrainedly, now and again the brake would slip, and the sweet, white fire of a great, enthusiastic soul would flame through. Perhaps he was a trifle over-confident of success--that is one of youth's glories and pitfalls; but there was no doubt that his whole heart was in his work--that here, for once at all events, a square man had found his own square hole. "It was always the great hope and desire of my boyhood to go out into these unknown lands," he was saying. "Though perhaps at that time the inducement was chiefly the unknown, and the inhabitants, I fear, appealed to me more as possible hindrances than inducements. When I tended my uncle's cattle on the hillsides of the Cut----" And then she knew him, and she sat up with a jerk, and stared at him as though she had only that moment awakened to the fact that he was speaking. And such, to some extent, was the fact. She had been interested and puzzled. Now, in a moment, it was a new man she was looking at and listening to--a new man, but an old friend. And she was sitting on one piece of rock eating cookies, and he was sitting on another munching oatcake and cheese, and he was saying, "I'm going to be an explorer." It was very wonderful--though she remembered that she had recognised him, even then, as a boy of different texture from most other boys. And so he had got what he wanted--the greatest prize a man may win, she supposed: to desire vehemently a certain lofty course in life, and to attain to it. And she? Yes, she remembered. She was going to be rich, and a lady, and do as she liked. Truly hers was but a poor attainment compared with his. She did not hear much more of what he said, though she was gazing fixedly at him all the time. Her mind was away back to the hillside by the Cut, and it was only when they stood up to sing the last hymn that mind and body came together again. Mr. Blair came down to shake hands with his many friends, and most of the people went forward for that purpose, Jean's aunts among them, and she with them; and as they sat at the back they were among the last to reach him. She was shaking hands with him, and the straight blue eyes looking into her own set her heart jumping. "Ah!" said the Rev. Archibald, all one vast beam of satisfaction at the general enjoyment of his little surprise. "Now we have you, Blair. This lady, at all events, you can't claim as an old friend, though I am quite sure she is a well-wisher." Blair still held her hand and looked steadfastly into her eyes. "This is----" began Mr. Fastnet, and was stopped abruptly by a peremptory gesture of Miss Arnot's other hand. "Yes--I think so," said the young man, breaking suddenly into a smile of enjoyable reminiscence, "Miss--Jean--Arnot? Or possibly now Mrs.----?" "Jean Arnot is still good enough for me, Mr. Blair," she said brightly. "How wonderful that you should remember me all these years!" "Why more wonderful than that you should have recognised me, Miss Arnot? We are both a good deal changed since last we met." "Why, what's all this?" said the Rev. Archibald jovially. "I had no idea you knew Miss Arnot, Blair." "We met once, ten years ago, up on the Cut--and had lunch together," said Blair, with a smile. "I was keeping Highland cattle from goring little girls, and Miss Arnot was exploring. We have both travelled far since then." "You much the farthest," she said quietly, "and going still farther. I congratulate you very heartily. It is what you desired then. Do you remember telling me?" "Yes. I am very grateful." Blair's thoughts were full of her. As they went home he quietly led Fastnet on to speak about her, and offered him the best inducement to plentiful speech in the appreciation with which he listened. Fastnet enlarged upon her great wealth and generosity, her cleverness and culture, her independence of thought and deed, and incidentally mentioned that he had seen or heard some rumour of her possible marriage with Lord Charles Castlemaine, second son of the Duke of Munster, but he could not say what truth there was in it. As a matter of fact, Jean Arnot would as soon have thought of marrying the ticket-collector at Monument Station as Lord Charles Castlemaine. The gentleman with the snips at Monument Station is doubtless a most worthy individual, but I know absolutely nothing whatever about him. Jean Arnot knew exactly as much, and one does not, as a rule, marry a man one knows absolutely nothing about, nor--a man about whom one knows considerably more than is to his credit. Jean Arnot knew a good deal about Charles Castlemaine, and there was not the slightest danger of her marrying him. "Is he a good sort?" asked Blair. "Much what dukes' younger sons mostly are, I imagine. The elder brother is not strong, so if it comes off you may perhaps count among your well-wishers a duchess sooner or later." "Miss Arnot's good wishes would weigh more with me than those of all the duchesses in the land," said Blair quietly. "There is something very taking in her face--it is so bright and eager." Then he laughed at his thoughts. "I remember, that day up on the Cut, I quite accidentally hit upon a nickname they used to her at home--Miss Inquisitive--and she flared up at me like a rip-rap. She was always wanting to know, I believe." "She is still," said Fastnet, laughing, "though she must have learned a good deal in all these years. She told me once that she was born curious, and that she was especially curious to know all about what came after this life. She said she thought the thought that she was going to solve that greatest of all puzzles would take away all fear of death when the time came. That was just after I came here. She must have been about fifteen then." Blair's time was very short. He left that afternoon for Edinburgh to spend his last two days with his old friends, Mr. and Mrs. MacTavish. He was to join Mr. Gerson in London on Wednesday and sail on Thursday. Mr. MacTavish had been a father to him from the time he walked along the Cut--the very day after little Jean Arnot's prattle had set him on the boy's track--and found him, prostrate on the flat stone, still wrestling with Prop. 47. He had been just there himself when a small boy, struggling against the retarding clay of a narrow agricultural home. He knew the sturdy independence that would be in the boy; and, in his own full knowledge, went to work warily. The slightest hint of charity, and the shy, proud one would be off. So he never mentioned Jean, met the boy on his own ground as a perfectly new acquaintance, gradually won his confidence and his heart, guided, led, and finally enabled him by his own exertions to obtain a bursary and proceed to college. With that, nothing could keep him back. His heart was in it, his aims were high, and his course was a triumphal progress. He had learned, as a boy, that greatest of lessons--how to learn. The rough experiences of his boyhood on the hillside had given him splendid health and a body that never tired. He was tough as wire, and, among other things, was known at college for that passion for personal cleanliness which, in its earlier days, had helped to introduce him to Jean Arnot on the hillside. He had, quite early--as soon, indeed, as he perceived the possibility of attaining to it--fixed on the mission-field as offering what his soul yearned for. Perhaps at first it was the unknown that drew him. No matter. By degrees the known outrivalled the unknown, the greater absorbed the less, and his heart was fixed on the highest of all high work. In these ten years he had learned mightily. Head, heart, and hand had toiled incessantly, and never felt it toil, since it was only the natural satisfaction of a great heart-craving. Then he had come across Gerson, home on leave for the first time in twenty years. Their hearts and eyes struck sparks the first time they met. "That is a man!" said Gerson, "and I'll have him if I can get him." "That is a saint and a hero!" said Blair. "I'm his man if he'll have me." After that no power on earth could have kept them apart, and on Thursday they were to sail together for the outer fringes. Gerson was busily bidding his friends goodbye. "You may hear of me from time to time. You'll never see me again--this side the veil at all events. We'll hope to meet on the other side," he said heartily, and grudged every day that lay between him and his work. Blair, in telling Mr. and Mrs. MacTavish of his reception at the Greenock church, incidentally mentioned Miss Arnot, but doubted evidently whether they would know anything of her. But the old man laughed gently, and said, in his quiet, old-fashioned, precise way, which was the very antithesis of the Rev. Archibald's jovial utterances: "I will explain to you now, my dear boy, what at the time I deemed wisest to treasure within the repository of my own heart. It was from Miss Jean Arnot that I first heard about you. It was in consequence of her delighted account of her meeting with you, and the Euclid and the Latin grammar, that I sought you out on the hillside and tendered you the helping hand of which you have made such excellent use." "It was Miss Arnot?" said the young man in amazement. "Truly, yes! Though I do not for a moment suppose she knows anything whatever about it. I certainly never told her, and I never told you, because I had been a studious herd-laddie myself, and I knew what shy and hypersensitive colts they are, and the delicacy necessary to their proper handling." "I thank you for telling me now, sir. It is as I would have it." "I believe it would please her to know what you told me, sir," Blair broke out abruptly a little later on, and the old gentleman smiled at the evidence of the track of his thoughts. "I will write and tell her, if you like, if you really think the knowledge would afford her any gratification." "I think it would, sir." And so Jean Arnot received two notes which gave her very deep pleasure. And the shorter one of the two said simply:-- "You will have learned by this time, from my dear old friend and second father, what I myself only learned three days ago--that it was your unconscious hand that set my unconscious feet on the ladder. I rejoice to know that it was so. The knowledge of it would be an additional spur, if any spur were needed. Time may come, however, when the remembrance of your kindness and all it has done for me, unconscious though it was, may nerve me for some critical passage in the life in front, for we are going among perilous peoples. It is not likely we shall ever meet again, but, having learned how this matter stood, I could not leave home without tendering you my most grateful and hearty thanks. "That your life may be a wide, and bright, and beautiful, and happy one will be the prayer of "Yours faithfully, "KENNETH BLAIR." "He is a good man," said Jean thoughtfully, as she folded the letter and put it carefully into a special corner of her desk, and then immediately took it out again and re-read it. "May God go with him also!" She read in the papers next day of his sailing in company with John Gerson, the prophet of the Dark Islands, and was surprised to discover in herself a curious feeling of loss, as though something had gone out of her life. Which, considering all the circumstances of the case, was distinctly odd, you know. She had only met him twice in her life; for ten years she had hardly given him a thought; and yet his going left a little blank in a life which was quite unaccustomed to anything of the kind. But the sudden sight of him in all his quiet strength of attainment, and the knowledge of what it all meant to him, together with this new understanding of how it had all come about, and of the share she herself had unconsciously had in the making of him--well, perhaps after all it was not so odd. For she had felt a sudden glow of participation in his triumph, a sudden sense of increase such as no procurement of her wealth had ever brought her--and now it was as suddenly gone, and a blank remained. She caught herself thinking of him oftener than she had ever thought of any man before, and she said to herself in surprise-- "Goodness gracious me! why does that herd-laddie stick in my brain so?" A quite dispassionate dissector of the emotions and their origins might have come to the conclusion that it was, after all, only a case of the heart performing its natural function of feeding the brain. For the heart is the life. She laughed at herself; but the herd-laddie remained in her thoughts, and one day, before she went south, she actually found herself sitting on that very same piece of rock where she had sat ten years before, and in imagination he sat on the adjacent rock, munching his thick oatcake and broken pieces of cheese. "What a greedy little pig I was!" she said to herself, as she sat leaning forward with her chin in her hand. "But I don't believe he'd have taken a bite from me, however much I'd wanted him to." She looked at the slab where the windmill had been, and at the pool where the gentleman had washed. He looked as if he had been strenuously washing ever since. What a radiant face he had! It did not come from much washing, she knew; but somehow the two things linked themselves in her mind. It was the white fire inside that lit up the outside: a real man--a man to trust infinitely--a man to---- She sat looking out over the mighty panorama of hills and lochs and mountains opposite--"Gare Loch, Loch Goil, Loch Long, Ben Lomond, Ben Ihme, The Cobbler, Holy Loch." She knew most of them still. How the sight of them all brought him back to her! And, in all probability, he would never see them again. "We are going among perilous peoples." Well! he had done very wonderfully; he was fulfilling the highest aspirations of his boyish heart. And she? She was a lady, and very rich, as she had said she would be. And she remembered the touch of scorn with which the herd-laddie had said, "Yes, that's about all you can be, I suppose." Close behind her the swift brown waters of the Cut hurried headlong to the town--one long, unceasing blessing. "Men may come and men may go, but we go on for ever," sang the bubbling waters against the rough rock walls of their narrow way. "Surely I am one of the most useless of God's creatures," said Jean Arnot, as she wandered slowly back towards the paper-mill and home. CHAPTER III THE MAN'S MAN Unflecked blue sky above, with a blazing white sun in it. A mighty mountain peak, with bald summit, seamed sides mantled with greenery, and round its waist, where it sat in the water, a narrow band of gleaming white sand and tufted cocoa-palms, like an Island woman's girdle. A smooth, dark, ruffled mirror of lagoon; and farther out, with gaps here and there, a barrier reef on which the hungry sea chafed and roared in ceaseless thunder. Two white men and a menacing crowd of brown ones. "Ready?" asked the elder of the two men. He was tall and thin, white-haired and grey-bearded, and his eyes shone like stars. His face was bronzed with much sun. There was a glow in it which did not come from the sun, a mighty determination which did not come from mere strength of will, a sweet white soul-fire which had made him a power throughout the islands of the Southern Seas. "I am ready," said the younger man. His face was brown also, but not bronzed. There was a lighter patch of tightened skin above each cheek-bone. His jaw was set so grimly that it looked aggressive. His lips were tightly closed. His eyes were unnaturally wide at the moment. He looked slightly raised--fey, in fact, as a man looks when he and death meet face to face in a narrow way. In front, the crowd of Islanders stood waiting for them at an angle of rock where the white beach curved round into the land. They carried clubs and spears, and swung them restlessly. Behind, on the smooth reflexive swell of the lagoon, a white boat, just pushed off from the shore, rode like a seabird with wings outstretched for swoop or flight. Farther out a waiting schooner, whose white sails shivered softly to a head breeze. "Remember, my son," said the elder man quietly, "one sign of flinching and it is finished. Now let us go." He bared his white head and said softly, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit," and went up towards the dark men like the courteous Christian gentleman he was. The younger man did the same. [Illustration: One sign of flinching and it is finished.] The natives drew back round the rock; the white men followed. The men in the boat watched intently, and then listened and gazed at the angle of the rock. Their orders were to wait. The two men passed out of sight, the elder, quiet and calm, as if going for a stroll in his mission garden, the younger, strung to martyr pitch, ready to endure to the utmost. The islanders retreated foot by foot; the white men followed steadily. Then, suddenly, clubs whirled and spears bristled, and the brown men turned and rolled on the white like a flood, and parted them. The elder man stood and eyed them steadfastly. He had been through it many times before. Death and he had been old friends and fellow-travellers for many a year, and the passing of The Gate was to him but the entrance to a larger life. He spoke to them in words he thought they might understand. For a moment the two men were like two white rocks in a foaming mountain stream. Brown arms, clubs, spears whirled about them. Not one man in ten thousand could have stood it unmoved. The white-haired man was such a one. He stood. The younger man's face broke; the strings had been drawn too tight. He cast one swift glance round. In an instant the silvery crown beside him ran blood, and disappeared. With bent head inside his folded arms the younger man dashed at the throng, and sent the brown men spinning, as he had sent men of a brawnier breed spinning on the football field at home. He burst through them in spite of blows and cuts. He was close up to the wild eddy under which his old friend lay when a well-flung club caught him deftly in the neck and brought him down in a heap. The brown men danced madly, and let their shouts go up. They took the younger man by the heels, and dragged him to where the body of the elder lay, and flung him down on top of it. Then the sailors from the boat burst on them with a yell, and sent them scattering. It was days before he recovered consciousness, weeks before he could lie in a chair on the verandah of the distant mission-house--weak from loss of blood, weaker still in other ways. They tended him lovingly. There were gracious women there who ministered to him like angels. To them he was hero, saint, martyr but once removed. To himself----! He was almost too weak to think about it yet. He was hacked to pieces, and bruised to pulp. When he tried to move, it seemed to him that not one sound inch of flesh was left him. When he tried to think, all the little blood that was left in him rushed up into his head and set it humming and buzzing, and dyed his face crimson under the partly bleached tan. His mind was still in a state of confusion; his thoughts were almost as broken as his body. He remembered facing the bristling brown men. He could see their shaggy heads and twisted faces, their white teeth, their gleaming eyes, and the whirl of their brandished weapons. After that all was blurred, and broke off into sudden darkness. He had a dim remembrance of intense strain and a sudden snap. He groped for the ends of the broken threads, but they were hidden in the outer void. He was still very weak. He accepted gratefully all that was done for him, but for the most part lay in silence. His sufferings were great, but no word of complaint ever passed his lips. If he had permitted himself any such, it would have been that he still lived when his leader died. To all he was a monument of patient resignation. So great was his depression, and so slow his recovery, that it was decided at last to send him home, as the only hope of full recuperation. He acquiesced, as he had done in everything they suggested, but in this matter with evident reluctance. He thought it unlikely he would ever return. His heart had been in the work, but he had been tried and found wanting. The work, he said to himself, was for abler and more faithful hands. So the mission schooner carried him to the nearest port of call, and in due course he was lying in a deck chair carefully swathed in plaids, and the great steamer bore him swiftly homewards. The story of the martyrdom and of his heroic defence of his old friend: how they two had gone up alone to the peaceful assault of an island of the night; how he had fought for his leader till he could fight no longer, and had fallen at last wounded to death across his dead body,--it had all preceded him. The very sailors were proud to have him on board. The officers made much of him in an undemonstrative way. The ladies fluttered round his chair like humming-birds, and loaded him with attentions. And he suffered it all in silence. He was still very weak. How could he turn his sick soul inside out to these strangers, and what good to do so? He had not yet decided what course to take when he got home. He had thought and thought, till he was sick of thinking, sick of himself, sick of life. Ah! why had he not died with the brave old man out there on the shore of the creek behind the rocks? Why had his nerve given way at that supreme moment? Why had this bitter cross been laid upon him? Far better to have died--far easier, at all events. But easier and better run opposite ways as a rule, and have little in common. Should he confess the whole matter, and retire from the field and find some other way of life? Truly he felt no call to any other work. This had been the one desire of his life; he had grown from youth to manhood in the hope of it. He believed he could still be of service when once he got over the effects of his present fall. Should he not rather bury the dead past, with God as only mourner, and start afresh?--to fail once more when the strain came again, he said to himself with exceeding bitterness. He grieved over his lapse as another might grieve over a deliberate crime. But he postponed any final decision as to the future till he should feel stronger in mind and body. There was a noted writer on board, a realist of realists. He sought impressions at first hand. He cultivated the sick man's acquaintance, greatly to his discomfort. "Mr. Blair," he said, sitting down by his side one day, "I would very much like to know just how you felt, and what you thought of, when you were fighting those brown devils. Won't you tell me?" And the sick man roused himself for a moment, and looked at him with that in his eye which the other comprehended not, and said slowly, "I felt like the devil and I thought of the devil," and not another word would he say. And the writer pondered much on the saying, but never got to the bottom of it or knew how true it was. His people met him at the landing-place, the reverend father and the white-haired mother, proud to be known even as the foster-parents of such a son, grateful for one more sight of him in the flesh. How could he break their hearts by telling them what a broken reed their trusted one had proved? They rejoiced over him greatly, and said to one another that as his strength came back the cloud that lay on his spirits would be lifted. Their gentle encomiums stung him like darts. But, by degrees, broken body and broken spirit were healed. Slowly and thoughtfully he made up his mind that the past should be past. He would go out again. He would take his stand in the forefront of the battle in the hope of an honourable death--for he held his life forfeit to the past. Decision brings a certain peace of mind. He was happier than he had been since he leaped out of the white boat on to the shore of the Dark Island that morning--so long ago that it seemed to belong to a previous life. The old people said God-speed to his decision. They had possessed him once again after giving him up for good. It was more than they had ever hoped for. They were thankful. All interested in mission work hailed his decision with enthusiasm. He was common property and too big to be monopolised by any one sect. They had not been able to make one quarter as much of him as they had wished. He had quietly declined to be fêted and lionised. They considered he carried his modesty to too great an extreme. They would have made capital out of him and kindled fresh enthusiasms for the cause by the sight and sound of him. It was with the greatest difficulty that he avoided it all, using the plea of ill-health till his bodily appearance would no longer countenance it. Once his decision was made known, however, they decided to drag him out of his retirement, and by dint of persistent importunity prevailed on him at last to appear at a public meeting. He consented with reluctance, and only because it was represented to him as a matter of duty. As the time drew near he began to fear that he was in for more than he had expected. But he had given his word, and he would not draw back. There were clever men at the head of the movement. Thousands of interested men and women were hungering for a sight of the almost-martyr. They had seen his portrait in the illustrated papers--how joyously the old mother had responded to the many requests for it!--but they wanted to see him with their eyes and hear him with their ears, and the younger folk were to remember all their lives that they had done so. And so, without going into details with him, the leaders of the various societies quietly arranged matters on a generous scale. There were men of imagination among them too, and they prepared a dramatic touch for the meeting which they calculated would make it go with a swing. It went beyond their expectations. When the young missionary stepped on to the platform he stopped short, and for a moment looked almost as fey as he had done when he leaped out of the white boat that morning on the beach of Dark Island. But there must be no drawing back. He had flinched once--never again! The chairman of the meeting was a philanthropic Cabinet Minister. As he welcomed the hero of the hour the great audience rose and waved and shouted. The young man clasped the chairman's welcoming hand as though he were a drowning man, and that hand the one only hope of safety. Then he sank into the chair provided for him, and dropped his face into his hand. All this was torture to him. Why could they not have let him go out quietly to his work, to his death? No bristling mob of savages that ever could confront him was half so appalling to him as that great well-dressed crowd of enthusiastic men and women and children, gathered to do him honour. Honour! And he before God a dishonoured man--a man who had failed when the pinch came. He groaned in his heart, and wished that he had not come. But the chairman was speaking, speaking of him, and what he had done--what he was supposed to have done--in warm, appreciative words and flowing periods, and the audience was as still as a flower-garden on a summer afternoon. In the young man's soul there was a great stillness also, a stillness equal almost to that which had fallen on him when he came out of the shadows and lay in the verandah of the mission house. His eyes wandered unseeingly over those solid banks of faces, all turned on him in eulogy of what he had not done. Those thousands of eyes seemed to pierce his soul. One face caught his attention and held it, the face of a girl sitting in the third row from the front. Even in his agony he recognised it, as how could he help when it had been so constantly with him in his thoughts. The smooth white brow, like a little slab of polished ivory; the level brows; the large dark eyes looking up at him with something akin to reverence--the beautiful eyes with lustrous points in them; the sweet oval of the lower part of the face; the firm little chin and slightly parted lips, emphasising the old inquiring look which he knew so well: it was a face any man might remember with gratitude for the mere sight of it. It was the face he had at once longed for the sight of and feared to meet, since ever the thought of coming home had been suggested to him. And now here it was, more beautiful than even his dreams of it--inquiring, hopeful, trustful. And he must satisfy the inquiry--and dash the hope, and shatter the trust for ever. Oh, it was hard! It was grievously hard! His life laid down then and there would have been a small price to pay for the confirmation of her belief in him. And he must destroy it and still live on! But what was this? The chairman had turned to him in his speech, the flower-garden in front had suddenly become a fluttering snowbank. "Mr. Blair does not happen to belong to that particular section of the Church to which I belong, and which, as the State Church of the realm, retains, and rightly retains, within its own hands the appointment of its own high officers. There are some of us who, as we grow older, and perhaps wiser, regret more and more that any differences should remain among the followers of Christ. We would fain see them done away with. We would cast down all fences and walls of partition, and meet our Christian brothers and sisters on an absolute equality, on the common platform of love and service to the one Master. "This meeting to-night, of many sects with one common object, is one step in the right direction--a great step. And here is another. The necessity for a supreme hand and head in the guidance of the mission enterprises of the Outer Islands is apparent to all. For such a position we require a man of tried courage and endurance, a man who can look death in the face without flinching, a man who holds his own life of small account, and who is ready at any moment to lay it down in the service of the cause he loves. Of such stuff martyrs are made. That the man who has given us such signal proofs of his fidelity and courage should be chosen for so onerous and so honourable a post is a matter of great satisfaction to us all. Mr. Blair, as all the world knows, has proved his fitness in a time of grievous danger and perplexity.--a time which I do not hesitate to say would have tried the nerve of any man to breaking-point, under a strain which might have broken any ordinary man, and small blame to him. But here"--and he laid his hand upon young Blair's shoulder--"we have the one man who did not break down, and it is this man whom we would rejoice to recognise as the first bishop of the Outer Islands. I am authorised to request Mr. Blair's acceptance of this arduous and honourable post, without reference to any question of form or creed. And that request is made, not in the name or on behalf of my own Church only, but in the names and on behalf of all the Churches represented by the missions to the Outer Islands. It is a common point of union. Mr. Blair's acceptance of the post will, perhaps, be one step towards that greater union of the Churches to which we look hopefully forward, and I earnestly hope that he will see fit to accept this joint and unanimous request of the Churches." And he sat down with glowing face amidst thunders of applause. And Kenneth Blair? Oh! why could they not have left him to work out his redemption in quietness and silence? Now it was not possible. Those thousands of eyes burnt into his soul. The words he had listened to pierced him like two-edged swords. Silence was no longer possible. To accept all this, as if it were his rightful due, was to hang a millstone round his neck which would drag him down to perdition. When the tumult died at last into silence, the young man got up and stood and gripped the railing of the platform. His face was white and set. "A man of indomitable will," they said. His eyes burnt with a gloomy fire. "He has seen strange and terrible things," they said. He swayed slightly once or twice before he found his voice. "He has been very near to death," they said. And then he began to speak, quietly, as one who might need all his strength before he was done; but there was a timbre in it, born of outdoor speaking, which carried to the remotest corner, and a thrill in it which found its way to every heart. And, of all that great assembly, the only face he saw with any distinctness was the face of the girl in the third row, with its calm brow and its lustrous up-glance. He spoke to it. He watched it. If he could convince that one face of all that was in him, he felt that it would be well with him. In his emotion he overlooked all formalities. He found his voice at last, and said, "My friends, the words I have just been listening to have been to me as sword-thrusts through the heart." The silence was intense. Every ear and every eye was upon him. He saw only the calm, sweet face of the girl in the third row. "I have a very terrible confession to make to you. Had I known what was intended this evening I should not have been here, but no slightest word of it reached me. My sole desire has been to get back to my work out yonder, and to lay down my life in it. I have been told that I am a man of courage and endurance ... of tried nerve ... of unflinching fidelity. There was a time when I too believed this of myself." He spoke very slowly and with a solemn impressiveness which those who heard it never forgot to the last day of their lives. "But between that and this there is a deep gulf ... and at the bottom of that gulf lies the dead body of my dear friend and chief. His death lies at my door." An almost imperceptible movement ran through the audience, as though a cold breath shook it with a simultaneous chill. The face of the girl in the third row remained steadfastly calm. If anything, it seemed to glow with a deeper intensity of hopeful inquiry. "Say what you will, I believe in you!" it said. "The whole truth of what happened on that dreadful day has never been told. I will confess that I had dared to hope that it might never need to be told--that it might lie between myself and God--that I might be permitted by Him to work out my redemption on the field of my failure, chastened, and perhaps strengthened, by what has passed. For, at a vital moment, when the flinching of an eyelid meant disaster, I ... flinched. "This is what happened. As we went up towards the savages that day, my dear old friend asked me if I was ready. I was ready. I said so. He said, 'Remember, one sign of flinching and it is finished,' and we went up and round the corner. We were going, as I believed, to certain death, and I was ready--at least, and truly, I believed so. When the savages rushed in upon us, the horror of it broke upon me like a deluge. I glanced round to see if there was no possible way of escape for us. But there was no way. My dear old chief's head was crimson already with blood, and he went down among them. I burst through--and I know no more. They tell me my body was found on top of his. It may be so. How it got there I do not know. What I do know is--that at that supreme moment, when I believed myself to be strong, I found myself weak. When I believed myself ready for a martyr's death, I tried to escape by shameful flight. I was weighed and found wanting, and the remembrance of it has seared my heart like molten iron, night and day, since ever I came to myself. Whether we should have won through if I had remained firm, God only knows. But--I flinched and fled. It seems to me now that I would sooner die a hundred such deaths as I fled from then than stand here before you all and confess my default. I can accept no honours. Honours!" with a despairing lift and fall of the hand. "I can accept no position based on so terrible a misconception. All I ask, and I ask it with the deepest humility, is that I may be allowed to go out there again. My life is forfeit to the past. It shall be spent--if it be God's will, it shall be laid down joyfully--in the service to which I believe He called me, and from which I do not believe He has expelled me." [Illustration: "My life is forfeit to the past."] He sat down and covered his face with his hands. There was a momentary silence. The chairman did not quite know what to do. The face of the girl in the third row was ablaze with emotion; the dark eyes were swimming. She glanced restlessly about to see what was going to happen; she looked like springing up herself with flaming words. But another did it. A tall, white-haired man, with a flowing white beard and a face like brown leather, stood up on the platform, and said, in a voice that went straight to all their hearts-- "My friends, we have all heard. Some of us understand, because we have passed through that same dark valley as our young friend. Dare I, in all humility, remind you that a Greater than any shrank from the supreme moment, and prayed, with agonies no man may conceive of, that His bitter cup might pass from Him? I tell you, gentlemen," he cried, in a voice that rang like a trumpet, "that in doing what he has done here this evening our friend has proved himself a man among men. He has said that a hundred savage deaths appear to him less terrible than the confession he has just made. And it is a true saying. Ask your own hearts. I could prove to you that no man can answer absolutely for himself at such a moment; but I will not even argue the point. Our friend has been through the fire. He has been through God's mill. He has been hammered on God's anvil. I tell you that he is true metal. He has proved it here and now. I hold it an honour to grasp his hand and bid him God-speed." He stretched a sinewy, leather-brown hand to Blair, and the young man gripped it with a new light in his face, and the two stood facing one another. Still holding the young man's hand, the old one turned to the front again. "If you agree with me that this is the man we want for the work out there, rise in your seats." His voice had rung like a bugle-call through the outer darknesses of the earth; his name stood but little lower than God's to tens of thousands who dwelt there, and was held in reverence wherever the English language was spoken. That great audience rose to his call as if a mine had exploded beneath it. His eyes shone with the light the black men knew and loved. "Let us pray," he said; and the young man fell to his knees beside his chair and dropped his head into his hands again. CHAPTER IV A SHAMELESS THING! The night that followed that meeting at Queen's Hall was the most tempestuous time Jean Arnot ever passed through. The dramatic events of the meeting had shaken her hidden soul out of its sanctuary. She was thankful to get home intact--so far, at all events, as outward appearances went. She went at once to her own room. She locked herself in, and paced the floor till she could pace no more. She could order her steps, but not her thoughts, and her thoughts took wings and climbed lofty heavens of white-piled clouds, and the white-piled clouds were all rosy-tipped, because the thoughts that scaled them came straight from her heart and were tinged with the rosy gold of her heart's desire. Oh, wonderful! wonderful! The great big soul of him! Was there a nobler man on earth? How easy to have let it pass! to have kept it between God and himself only! to have worked out his redemption in secret! But he could not, because he was a true man--the truest man ever born, and the bravest. Oh the great, big, noble soul of him! To and fro she paced, and, no matter where she looked, his white, set face and blazing eyes looked out at her in that agonised strenuity of appeal which had stirred her so in the hall, stirred her to the depths till she had had difficulty in sitting still. It had seemed to her as though he lost sight of all those straining thousands and spoke only to her--as though they were all nothing, and she the whole world. Had he recognised her, she wondered, or had he perceived, in spite of the disguisement of her steady face, the intensity of her sympathy, and had clung to it as to a one and only hope? And as she paced, and sank down into her chair, which had lost all its ordinary sense of comfort, and started up and paced again, there sprang up in her heart a great golden-glowing purpose--a purpose that trapped her breath and set her gasping when first it peeped out, but which grew like an escaped genie, and filled the world of her thoughts before she knew, and was never to be confined within bounds again. An unheard-of thing! An incredible thing! A shameless thing! Nay, not that--and yet--yes! yes! Shameless indeed, for shameless meant without sense of shame, and no sense of shame had she--glory rather. An unmaidenly thing, then! That without doubt, but not without precedent, and circumstances make laws unto themselves. But, whatever it was or was not, it grew and grew, stronger and stronger, and ever brighter in its glowing, golden rose. As she paced to and fro it seemed to her that her path in life had suddenly flashed out before her on the darkness of the night. It was limned in lines and letters of fire, and they cried to her to follow, follow, follow. And now, as she thought it all out, with tightened lips, and crumpled brow, and eyes that shone, it came home to her, like a revelation, that all her life had been working up to this starry point. She thought long and deeply, and then turned up the light and sat down to her writing-table with a purposeful face. It was done in a moment--a couple of lines. But a single word has changed the destiny of a nation before this. Weighty things, words, at times! Live shells are playthings to them. She folded and addressed her letter, and then pondered the best way over a difficulty. She wrote two more lines and enclosed them with her original letter in a larger envelope, and addressed it, and then she laid her white forehead on the packet for a moment as it lay on the table. And then, like one whose ships are burned, or whose golden bridge is built, she altered the indicator outside her door, so that her maid would call her at seven, and went to bed. Once, before she got to sleep, she smiled to herself and almost laughed out, as she suddenly remembered that it was Leap Year. Then she cooled her burning cheek on the other pillow and went to sleep, and slept soundly, for she had been living at high pressure these last few hours, and the morrow would need all her strength. When the maid brought up her cup of tea in the morning, she handed her the letter which had stood on the table by her bedside all night, with these precise directions: "Tell William"--the groom--"to ride into the city and deliver that letter. The answer he will take to whatever address may be given him." She got up and dressed, and went out for a quick walk in Kensington Gardens. At breakfast Aunt Jannet Harvey commented on her appearance. "Why, child, what a colour you've got! What took you out so early?" "I've been bathing in dew and early sunbeams, auntie." "I couldn't sleep all night for thinking of that young man and his savages. It appears to me that that is a very great man, Jean. If he lives he will do very noble work. It needed a big soul to face that crowd and tell that story as he did it." "Yes," said Jean. She had never discussed Kenneth Blair with Aunt Jannet Harvey, not to the extent of one single word. After breakfast she found it difficult to settle down to any of her usual avocations. She could neither read nor play, and she declined to go out. Aunt Jannet Harvey expressed the opinion that such early rising did not suit her, and Jean confirmed her views by going upstairs to her room and wandering about there at a loose end and doing nothing--nothing but think, think, think. Her maid brought her word that William had returned, having executed his mission in full; and please would Miss Arnot ride in the afternoon? Miss Arnot would neither ride nor drive that afternoon, nor would she require the brougham in the evening. Mary would please ask Mrs. Harvey if she wished to drive in the afternoon. If not, the men's services would not be required. CHAPTER V LEAP YEAR Kenneth Blair received Miss Arnot's note as he sat at breakfast in the pleasant room of the quiet little hotel overlooking the Embankment, where he was staying in company with Mr. and Mrs. MacTavish. He was to them as one come back from the dead, and they grudged every minute he was out of their sight. The incidents of the previous night had been rather wearing on them all, and they were later than usual that morning, and, at that, dallying over an enjoyment that would soon be of the memory only. The rare colour filled his pale face as he read the two lines of Miss Arnot's note, and he read them several times, as though frequent perusal might provoke interpretation. "DEAR MR. BLAIR,-- "I have an urgent wish to speak with you. Will you do me the favour of calling here at 3 p.m. to-day? "Yours sincerely, "JEAN ARNOT." "I wonder what she wants?" he said meditatively, and handed the note to the old people. "I don't think I want to see anybody." "I think you must comply with her request, my boy," said Mr. MacTavish. "She has more than ordinary claims upon your consideration, you know." Blair nodded, and winced involuntarily. It went a good deal deeper than the old man knew, and after last night he did not feel quite himself again yet. He had a morbid dread of hero-worship, and though the outward man was healed and shaping well again, the inner man still felt woefully sore and bruised and humbled. "She was there last night; she sat about three rows from the front," said Mrs. MacTavish. "I wish you could have seen her face while you were speaking, Kenneth. It was like the face of an angel." Kenneth had seen it, and nothing but it, and the thought of it made it none the easier for him to comply with her request. He said quietly: "Well, I'll think about it, and see how I happen to be situated for three o'clock. I have to see Mr. Campbell at eleven in Moorgate Street. If he has any appointments for me, I might be unable to go, in which case I'll send Miss Arnot a wire." But Mr. Campbell knew how short his time was, and so occupied as little of it as possible; and three o'clock found him at Miss Arnot's dainty little house in Knightsbridge, overlooking the Park. He had hesitated--as an intelligent moth might flutter warily just outside the heat radius of a candle-flame--strongly tempted, desirous, but doubtful. For she had occupied much, very much, of his thoughts--too much, he had angrily said to himself at times--since ever he learned the part she had had in the making of him. And quite apart from that, she was so very charming in herself. It could hardly be in the power of any man, he thought, to be much in her company and not have longings for still closer acquaintance and companionship--and such things were not for him. His way lay among the shadows of the outer night, and it must of necessity be, outwardly at all events, a somewhat lonely way. Companions he would doubtless have, and the best of all high company. But home, wife, child--these were not for him. In his mind's eye he saw the white beaches, and towering cliffs, and black bosky gorges of the Dark Islands, and the thunder of the surf was in his ear. And in his heart he said bravely, "My home, my wife, my children!" But his thoughts were never far from her, and now that, in spite of himself, he was to meet her face to face, they gathered head and had their way in spite of him. He had often wondered why she had not married. She was still young, of course; but, after all, twenty-five was not so very young for an unmarried lady of such unusual possessions of mind, body, and estate. She possessed, he could well believe, an independent spirit. Had she not, even at thirteen, told him that one of her aspirations was to do as she liked? He had recognised her instantly, and with a start, the previous night. That was before the drama became exciting. And he had wondered then if she had changed her name since last he saw her, or whether "Jean Arnot was still good enough for her." And what could she possibly want to say to him? Possibly--quite likely--in the excitement of the evening's proceedings she had felt an impulse to do something more for the mission cause than she had done hitherto. That was it, no doubt. Well, they could do with Miss Arnot's assistance. Funds were never too ample for the work that cried aloud to be done. He was evidently expected. The maid led him along the hall, through green baize doors, down a passage, into the library, a beautiful and cosy room such as he had imagined wealthy people might possibly possess, if, in addition to all their other possessions, they possessed a love of books. It overlooked the garden and the Park, and was as bright and secluded a little holy of holies as the most devoted worshipper of the sacred flame might desire. The Island Mission houses were--not exactly geographically perhaps, but in every other attribute and particular--the absolute antipodes and antithesis of this charming little sanctum. The walls were lined with bookcases full of richly bound books, the table was strewn with books and magazines, among which, and queening it over them all, stood a great night-blue bowl of white lilac, filling the room with the perfume of the spring. There was a cheerful little fire of mixed peat and logs on a flat hearth, with brass dogs and chains. A sudden whiff of the peat, as he passed the hearth, carried him in an instant back into his boyhood. He glanced at the bountiful shelves, with the hungry look of the student whose pocket had never at any time been able to keep pace with his appetite. For knowledge of books is good, and possession of books is good, but knowledge and possession combined are still much better. He was standing looking out into the garden whence the lilac had come, when Miss Arnot came quietly in. He turned and bowed. He had made up his mind to hold himself tightly, but her welcoming hand drew forth his own, and carried his first line of defence in a walk-over. "It was good of you to come," she said impulsively, "and I thank you. I know your time is very short, and you must have much to do." "Yes, there is much to do," he said very quietly. "But I am grateful to you for, at all events, affording me another opportunity of thanking you in person----" But she stopped him with a peremptory little hand. How beautiful she was, with her wistful face and commanding little ways! There was even more than usual of strenuous inquiry in those shining eyes of hers. "You are going back on the first of May?" Her speech was more rapid than usual. He saw that she was excited. Probably the remembrance of last night's meeting still held her, he thought. "Yes, on the first of May. And then----I hardly think it likely I shall ever return to England." "But why?" she jerked, in her old, quick, want-to-know way. "Well--you see--I really feel as if I had no right to be here at all. By rights I ought to be lying under a cairn on the beach of Dark Island." "Oh, but that is simply morbid, and the result of your long illness. You will not feel that way long." "I hope not. The work is crying to be done. Perhaps, after all, I shall be able to help it more above ground than below." "Of course you will. Don't you find it dreadfully lonely out there, with none but black people about you?" "They are very fine people, some of them. And the loneliness only nails one the tighter to the work. Besides there are----" "Has it never struck you that you might possibly help it quite as much by remaining here as by going out again?" Oh, Jean! Jean! "Never," he said, with a slight flush. "My work lies there, and I hope to give my life to it, and to give it up for it if need be, as my dear old friend gave his." "But there are others who could do the work just as well, are there not?" "Many, I hope. I hope many will." "And, if I understand aright, Missionary Societies are always short of funds, and the work is hindered, or at all events progresses more slowly, in consequence." "I have my own views as to that," he said quietly. "Won't you tell me what they are? I am greatly interested." "They are not shared by many of my friends, and I do not obtrude them. I believe that the work is God's work, and when He sees fit to provide larger ways and means, larger ways and means will be forthcoming. If we had all the money we wanted, we might lose our heads, and go ahead too fast--scamp the work perhaps, and prove but jerry-builders in the end. One cannot forget that it has taken Christianity eighteen hundred years to arrive at its present position, and that for long periods it lay almost dormant; whereas, if the Founder had deemed it best to accomplish the work at one stroke, He could have done it." "Yes," she said thoughtfully. "I don't think I ever looked at it in that light before. And you are quite determined to go back?" "Quite determined--only too grateful for the chance." "And nothing would keep you here?" "Nothing that I can imagine--except absolute incapacity for the work." "You would not stop even if"--and she bent forward, with hands tightly clasped to prevent them jumping visibly before him, and eyes that shone like stars. God! how beautiful she was!--"if I begged you to do so?" He jumped up hastily. "If you----? If you begged me to--what?" And her bright eyes, fixed intently on his lean face, caught the sudden fierce clench of the teeth inside, which threw the cheek-bones into bolder prominence. She noted it--she could almost hear the grinding of his teeth; and the game was in her hands. She had the advantage of understanding what the game was, while he was completely in the dark. He stood gazing down at her for a moment, and then said more quietly-- "I'm afraid I don't quite understand. Perhaps my illness has dulled my brain somewhat." "No, it hasn't, Mr. Blair. I was asking you in cold blood if you would not stay in England and marry me, and use my money from here for the furtherance of the cause out there." He stared at her still with all his great heart in his eyes--all of it that was not jumping in his throat like a baby rabbit. He gazed down at her for another moment, then bent suddenly before her and took her hand and kissed it, and said huskily and in jerks--between the rabbit-kicks-- "You will think no ill of me--if I go--at once. I dare not stop----" But she had gripped his hand and held it tight, and stood holding him, and her face shone and her eyes. "Then--will you take me with you, Kenneth?" "Take you with me?" Her rings cut into her next fingers under the fierceness of his sudden grip, and she could have sung aloud, for the grip came right from his heart and told his tale to her. "Do you mean it--Jean?" "Surely." And yet he had a doubt. You must bear with him. You see, he had been half inside the gates of death, and--well, the proceeding _was_ distinctly out of the common run of things. "Is it myself--or the work?" he asked almost fiercely. For the thought had flashed across him--and not unnaturally--that this was but one more result of the excitement of the meeting last night. She had been shaken out of her usual discretion and decorum, had probably lain awake all night, and---- But her eyes were steady as stars, and as bright, as she said-- "Both! But yourself first. I liked you the first time we met. I loved you the second. I have never ceased to think about you. Your going away left a blank in my life. After last night I love and trust you more than ever, if that be possible. Last night my way was made clear to me." "Now, glory be to God!" he cried, and kissed the wistful lips that looked as if they had been waiting long for just that seal to the compact. And then he sat down suddenly and covered his face with his hands, as though what was in him was not even for her eyes. She sank down on to a footstool beside his chair, and noticed how white his hand was compared with the great, strong brown hand which had held hers that day in the Greenock church. He was himself again in a moment--or suppose we say he came back from where he had been--and his face was full of the old radiant glow as he raised it to look at her. "It _is_ real, isn't it?" he asked in a light-hearted, boyish way. "I'm real," she said, smiling back at him. "You seem not quite yourself." "Did you ever try to imagine what it would feel like to have every single desire of your heart suddenly granted to you all in a lump?" "I don't think I ever did. It sounds as if it might be too much for one." "It is--almost. And you wonder if it is real and true, or only a vain imagining. Jean, is it true that you care for me?" "No--love you, Ken,--dearly--every inch of you." "And that you are going to marry me?" "If you ask me properly." "Jean, will you marry me and come out with me and share my work?" "I will!" He gazed at her steadfastly, and said softly-- "Thank God! it is true!" He enjoyed that full sunshine of felicity for close on five minutes, and then said more soberly-- "Do you quite understand, dear, all that you are giving up? Life out there----" "It is enough for me at present to realise what I have gained. Can you not understand, dear, that to a woman the time comes when the heart's love of one man is more to her than all the rest of the whole wide world? Life touched its highest with me when you made my fingers bleed a few minutes ago." "I made your----" and he snatched her hands and saw the tiny wounds. "Oh, forgive me! I did not know----" and he kissed them tenderly. "Sweet wounds!" she said. "They told me more than all you have forgotten to tell me--all that I was aching to know." "And you really care for me like that, Jean? For me! Is it possible? I wonder why?" "Perhaps God had something to do with it. It is so very good that it must be from Him." "Yes," he said emphatically. "And now--when are you going to tell me that you care a little for me, and are not just taking me because I threw myself at your head and you could not help yourself?" "Oh, Jean! Jean! you knew--though how I cannot tell. You have been shrined in my heart since that second time we met, but I knew it was hopeless----" "Clever boy! And you hardly knew me then." "I knew your eyes the moment I looked into them, and they have never left me since." "Such common brown eyes! But you didn't know what lay behind them?" "The most beautiful eyes in the world." And by degrees they settled into quiet talk of the future. He still feared she did not fully understand all she was giving up, and conscientiously endeavoured to make it clear to her. She listened to please him, and because it was sweet to hear him, for all his thought in the matter was for her and her well-being. So she let him go on; and when he had exhausted all his arguments, she said quietly-- "It is all nothing and less than nothing, dearest, compared with the rest. Where you go I go. Your work shall be my work, and your people my people, and nothing but death shall part us." And with a heart that seemed like to burst for very fulness of joy in her, he said, "Amen!" CHAPTER VI A SUDDEN WIDE HORIZON "Mr. Blair! The young man who spoke at the meeting the other night? Why, I didn't even know that you knew him, Jean!" said Aunt Jannet Harvey, gazing at her in wide-eyed wonder. "Oh, I've known him since I was thirteen!" "And you never spoke to me about him! Why I don't remember your ever even mentioning his name!" "I don't believe I ever did. We will make up for it now, auntie." "And he has really had the audacity to ask you to marry him?" [Illustration: "And he has really had the audacity to ask you to marry him."] "Yes, auntie,"--very meekly. "And you've said 'yes,' and you're going out with him to the South Seas?" "Yes, auntie." "Well, child, let me tell you what I think about it. I think you might have looked much higher, and fared very much worse. He struck me the other night as a very noble young man indeed, and I wondered then why he hadn't made some woman happy. I believe you will be very happy, Jean, unless those cannibals kill you and eat you." "If they eat us both at the same time I don't care," said Jean boldly. "Yes, I shall be very happy, auntie, for he is the best man in the whole world." "And when do you go?" "Our marriage will make some changes in his plans, of course, and he is seeing the Society people to-day about an extension of leave. We discussed it all yesterday--at least, all that we had time for. He is full of plans--such glorious plans! It is a grand thing to be a man, and to be built on a great big scale, and to have glorious ideas----" "And the means to carry them out! And when did you say you'd be going?" "In about six weeks probably. You see, he wants to buy a steamer for his work among the Islands, and we shall go out in her." "I shall be quite ready," said Aunt Jannet Harvey "I shall want two or three new dresses suitable to the climate----" "You, auntie? You will go too?" "Why, of course, child! You'll need me more than ever out there. Suppose you fell sick. Suppose--oh, I can look ahead farther than you can, perhaps! I can see a hundred ways in which I can be useful to you. And you don't need to fear that I'll be in your way--I'll see to that. But I'll be within reach when I'm wanted; and I've always had a hankering to see those outside parts of the world. It was my dear James's dream too. He was a great botanist, when he had any time to spare from his logic. He'll be glad to think the chance has come to me at last." And so when Blair came back next day from an exciting time in the city, Jean solemnly announced-- "You'll only find out by degrees all you've undertaken, young man. You've got to marry Aunt Jannet Harvey as well." "Polygamy is still practised out there," he said heartily. "As a matter of policy we have to countenance it at times; but we set our faces against it, because it does not work well. If this means that Mrs. Harvey has consented to accompany us----" "Consented? She proposed it, or rather took it for granted, and won't hear a word against it." "Then my heart is lightened of one of its cares, and I am truly grateful to Aunt Jannet"--and Aunt Jannet was his from that moment. "God surely put the thought into your kind heart," he said, as he wrung the capable old hand warmly. "You will be more to Jean out there than words can tell. I thank you with all my heart." "I knew it," said Aunt Jannet, with emphasis. "I wanted to ask you, Mr. Blair----" "Kenneth, surely, now, Aunt Jannet!" "Surely!--Kenneth--what the ladies wear out there." "Well, the native ladies don't wear much, and the ladies of the missions wear much what you would here, if you cared only for use and comfort, and nothing for fashion. They always look very neat and clean"--at which Jean smiled reminiscently. "I see," said Aunt Jannet. "Jean and I will lay our heads together. I think we can live up to that standard, at all events." He had a cup of tea with them, and then ran along to the hotel to bring old Mr. and Mrs. MacTavish over to dinner. And after dinner they sat and talked and talked, and he laid some of his ideas and plans before them, and had only just begun when it was time for the old people to go home to bed. For his plans and ideas were blossoming in the golden sunshine like an orchard kept back by a late spring, and flung suddenly into the quickening warmth of coming summer. He had gone down that morning to see the secretary of the Society which had originally sent him out, and to whom he still felt officially bound, to inform him of the changes in his plans which his marriage would bring about, and to request an extension of leave. There happened to be a full meeting of the committee in session when his name was brought in, and the secretary at once suggested his introduction to the meeting. And so, when Blair was shown into the board-room, expecting to meet Mr. Secretary alone, he found some fifty ladies and gentlemen eagerly awaiting him. The great glad light in his face--the light that Jean Arnot had helped to rekindle--drew all their eyes. They whispered among themselves that the Queen's Hall meeting had done him good after all. Some of them had been fearing the effects of such tremendous emotion on a weakened body. The chairman, the noble head of a house devoted to good deeds, gave him hearty welcome, and said the committee would be delighted to hear any further details he would like to give them of his work or future plans in the Dark Islands. Blair jumped up as the old man sat down. "I came, sir," he said, "on a very definite errand--to ask for a slight extension of my stay here." "It is granted, my dear sir, before you put any limit to it," said the old man cordially. "Every member of this committee feels, I am sure, that the matter may be safely left in your own hands. We know also that you are anxious to get back to your work. I will only express the hope that it is not through any relapse in health that you think it necessary." It certainly did not look like it, as Blair, with a smile that would not be controlled, said-- "I am glad to say it is not a matter touching my health, though one that very intimately affects my happiness and well-being. Since that somewhat trying meeting in Queen's Hall a piece of very great good-fortune has come to me----" "Good indeed to set such a light in his face!" thought they, and hung upon his words. "Miss Arnot has consented to become my wife and to join me in the work out there." "Miss Arnot!--Jean Arnot!"--a buzz of excitement ran round. For Miss Arnot was a personage of importance, known alike for her beauty, her wealth, and her good deeds. Rumour, indeed, had fixed upon Miss Arnot as the mysterious donor for the last two years of a £1,000 note each year for the special benefit and use of the South Sea Mission. And he was going to marry Miss Arnot, and she was going out with him! No wonder there was a light in his face! But he was speaking again. "You will see, sir, at once that this happy circumstance brings about many changes in my plans and hopes. The vista of usefulness which it opens before me--before us, may I say?--is magnified one hundred-fold. Miss Arnot dedicates her fortune, herself, and her enthusiasms to the work. There is a mighty field out there. It is not white to the harvest--it is black as darkest night. By God's help we hope to lift the fringes and let in some rays of His blessed light. I shall have the opportunity of discussing my ideas in detail with your secretary. But broadly speaking, this is how they point. We contemplate purchasing and fitting out a steamer suitable for mission-work among the Islands, and going out in her ourselves. We would like several assistants, married or unmarried--but big men, please! Big heads are good, and big hearts are better, but best of all if they are contained in big bodies. You have no idea what a vast impression a big man makes on those big Islanders compared with a small man. As to the size of the ladies, I would not venture to offer any suggestions. But the men should be--must be--big men. One further matter, sir, and I have done. Those Islanders must come under the protection of the British flag at once. And I want--you will not misunderstand me if I go the length of saying _I must have_--the appointment of Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner, or any position that will give me the official right to deal with certain matters which block our way out there. "The wrongs the people of some of those Outer Islands suffer, from the scum of the earth who prey upon them, to their utter ruin of body, soul, and spirit, are almost incredible. "I could tell you facts--bald, brutal facts--concerning the labour traffic carried on there which would make you shudder and doubt my veracity. But I have seen these things with my own eyes, and heard them with my own ears, and been powerless to stop them. "Now, by God's help, and Miss Arnot's, I will wage war on these doings--hot war--yes, red-hot war with Maxim and Lee-Metford, if necessary"--his voice rang out militantly--"on those who do these dreadful deeds. Those hideous wrongs shall cease, and those poor kinsfolk of ours--God's children as much as we, though they know it not yet--shall have their chance. I would of course prefer to act officially in the matter; but, officially or not, act I shall. "This may seem to you strange talk for a peaceful man. I have a precedent. As long as I tread in the Master's steps I shall not go far wrong." He sat down, and they cheered him to the echo. They had heard many noble men and women speak in that room; but I doubt if they had ever heard words which gripped their hearts as these had done. The news of the approaching marriage of the penniless young missionary to the great heiress, Miss Arnot, spread rapidly and evoked much comment, candid, caustic, congratulatory, from Jean's friends and otherwise. "Clever man, that young sky-pilot!" "Absolutely thrown herself away, my dear, and actually going to live among naked savages!" "Trust the missionary to feather his own nest. Why should he lose sight of No. 1 while saving brother man?" "The missionary man has done himself well. Poor rich Miss Arnot!" "Oh, well, you know, she's twenty-seven if she's a day, and when a girl gets to twenty-seven----! And they say he's exceedingly good-looking. Still, don't you know----" These behind her back. And to her face: "He's simply charming, dear. I envy you--I do indeed! "He's a splendid fellow, Miss Arnot. You will be very happy together." "My dear,"--this from a very old lady, bearing a very old title, whose early married life had been a hideous martyrdom--"you have chosen very wisely. He is a noble Christian gentleman, and he would lay down his life for you. Believe me, dear, compared with what you have got, all the wealth of the world and all its titles are nothing but dust and ashes and misery. I know it!" And everybody else knew that she knew it. And Jean kissed her very tenderly. And Mr. Punch, when he heard of the matter, in his playful little way quoted: "Doän't thou marry for munny, but--goä wheer munny is." CHAPTER VII SOME ODD FURNISHINGS AND A HONEYMOON Aunt Jannet Harvey's wardrobe was rapidly approaching completion. She and Jean had had a busy six weeks. They had neither of them ever been quite so busy in all their lives before, and the curious thing was that it seemed to agree with them mightily, and they, both one and the other, had visibly renewed their youth under the demands made upon them. Aunt Jannet developed new and surprising traits of character every day; and as for Jean, the days were not half long enough for the joy of life that lay in wait for each one as it came. She and Kenneth Blair had been quietly married by special licence a month ago, and the sight of their faces, wherever they had been since, had brought new ideals and new possibilities of life to all who looked upon them--all except the cynics and philosophers of Jean's former world, of course. "Quite so!" said they. "But just wait till the bloom is off the honeymoon, and she finds herself all alone with her little tin god among the savages! Then she'll find out what's what and sigh for the vanished fleshpots and fripperies." But there were no signs of incipient sighing about Mrs. Kenneth Blair at present, anyway. She had always been sweet and charming, with a wistful eagerness in her face that filled you with a desire to do for her any mortal thing she might require at your hands. There was still something of that about her, but it was almost hidden now beneath the radiant happiness which enveloped her. She had urged Blair to a speedy wedding--where no urging whatever was needed--for the delight of spending their last weeks at home, in the house where most of her life had been passed. She had had long and peremptory interviews with her lawyers, making wise provision for all possible eventualities, so far as it was possible to foresee them. It was not till she was half-way across to the other side of the world that the aunties in Greenock, and old Mr. and Mrs. MacTavish, and several other old friends, learned what she had been up to, and then she was well out of their reach. [Illustration: She had long and peremptory interviews with her lawyers.] And every day since, she and her husband had been out in the market-place with open purse and very definite ideas as to their requirements, and the things they had bought were very extraordinary and about as different from the usual purchases of newly-married couples as they possibly could be. _Item_.--One 300-ton auxiliary schooner, built to Class 17 A.1., by Scott & Sons, Greenock; dimensions 143 O.A.; 23-½ ft. beam; 13 ft. draught; 7 ft. headroom, etc. A handsome, roomy boat, stoutly built for comfort and long voyages to the order of a financial magnate, whose health unfortunately broke down before she was quite ready for him, and forced him to seek more genial climatic, and other conditions, in Argentina. Mr. and Mrs. Blair ran up to Greenock to inspect her, found her exactly to their liking, settled the matter in five minutes in the office inside the big gates, christened her the _Torch_ with a hastily procured bottle of champagne, gave orders for the duplication of every piece of machinery she contained; walked out of the big gates ship-owners, and dropped in on the astonished aunties in Brisbane Street and announced that they had come for a cup of tea and to stop one night. They stopped more than one night, however, for after tea Blair walked in to see the Rev. Archibald for a last talk and a pipe of peace. And when the Rev. Archibald recovered wind and wits from the rapid details Blair gave him of the work he was engaged on, he at once offered to find him a crew through some of the members of his church. Blair desired nothing better, and in five minutes the maid of the Manse was skipping through the dripping streets with kilted skirts to summon to instant conference some nearer members who might be able to advise in the matter. He laid his plans before them, told them to a hair the kind of men he required both for officers and crew, and went back to Brisbane Street in due course, comfortably assured in his own mind that within two days the _Torch_ would be fitted with a crew worthy of her and the work for which she was destined. Next day the ship-owners went out for a walk, and did not return till close on tea-time. They had been on their honeymoon trip: past the cemetery gates, up the brae between the brown stone houses, past the pond, up the cinder path, and along that glorious walk, with the swift brown water of the Cut swirling past to its appointed work in mills and town, on the one side; and on the other, across the brimming firth, the everlasting hills, grey and green and purple and black, as the sunshine chased the shadows to their hiding-places in the glens; the full sea welling about their feet, now green, now blue; and the sky overhead bluest blue after the rain, with piles of snowy cloud passing along in solemn silence like a procession of the chariots of God. They did not speak much, hardly a word, but walked hand in hand like a pair of country lovers, till they came to where a flat stone lay alongside the beginnings of a cabin. And there they stopped; and looking into one another's faces by a common impulse, put their arms round one another's necks and kissed, with brimming hearts, and eyes that saw none of the glories around because of the glory within them, which was too much for either sight or sound. The happy tears were running down Jean's cheeks, but they were swallowed up in reminiscent smiles as her husband seated her gently on one projecting rock and himself on the other. "This is my twelfth birthday," he began; and when Miss Inquisitive looked at him out of her sweet brown eyes, still soft from their recent shower, he explained: "To all intents and purposes my life began that day I met you here, though there had been a previous troubled life in which my dear father gave me all he had to give--the desire to learn." "And I am about two years old," she said, smiling; and when she saw that he did not understand, explained: "After meeting you again that second time in the church, when you hardly recognised me----" "I knew you the moment I looked into your eyes." "I came up here the next day--I did not know why, but something drew me, and I came. And I sat down here on this stone, and saw you sitting on that stone munching oatcake and cheese, and thought what a greedy little pig I was not to have made you take some of my sandwiches----" "You couldn't have made me. I wouldn't have touched one for----" "I know. But I ought to have made you, all the same. And then I thought of you as you were now--that is, then, you know--and what a great, big, strong soul and body you had become, and what great things you were going to do, and how you had got your heart's desire. And then I thought of myself, and the little I had done with all my opportunities. And after that you insisted on coming into my thoughts at all times, and I could not get rid of you. And then you sailed, and I knew I should never see you again, and life felt hollow and hopeless. And then I saw in the papers about your being murdered. And then you came home, and--here we are. And oh, Ken! it is almost too good to be true." "Not a bit of it, my dear; it is only just beginning." Then he drew out two parcels from his pockets, and hers contained some neat little sandwiches and cookies with jam inside, and his contained oatcakes and cheese. And, being in a raised mood, she laughed till she cried at his oatcakes and cheese, and then insisted on dividing up equally all round, and vowed that his fare was quite as good as her own. "Of course it is," he said. "I knew that all the time. A boy on the hillsides who can't enjoy oatcakes and cheese would deserve to go empty." When they had eaten, they still sat looking out over the water at the hills and lochs opposite. In all likelihood they would never see that fairest of scenes again, and they could not have too much of it. And after they had sat a long time in silence, Blair, leaning forward with his arms on his knees and his eyes drinking in great draughts of delight, said, suddenly--but slowly, as though the words had to be called, or recalled, from afar, and said them, not to her or for her, but to and for something quite outside them both--said them, in fact, as though he were impelled to say them, and could not help himself-- "The hills of God stand fast and sure." The words described those hills opposite exactly. Then a pause, and presently-- "His mighty promises endure For ever and for evermore." Then he fell silent again, and thoughtful, and presently-- "His Mercy is a boundless sea, For ever flowing, full and free." She saw it there before her just as he saw it. And after another pause-- "Through Time into Eternity." She looked at him quietly and questioningly, but his gaze was fixed absorbedly on the opposite shore. It seemed almost as if he had forgotten her for the moment. She was content to watch him and to listen to him-- "And as the wide blue sky above, Encircling us where'er we move." There it was above them. The chariots had passed away. The sky was unflecked blue-- "So is His all-enfolding Love." Then came a longer pause, and she thought he had ended, but she would not speak. And presently he began again-- "For these, Thy gifts, we thank Thee, Lord! Hills, sea, and sky, take up the word, And thank Thee!--thank Thee!--thank Thee, Lord." He sat still, gazing out intently at the hills and the sea and the sky, and sat so long without a word that at last she spoke. "Whose is that, Ken? Surely he must have sat just here, and seen just that." He turned slowly to her, as though he found it difficult to leave those wonders beyond. "I really do not know, dear.... They seemed to come of their own accord from somewhere. But whether I recalled them from somewhere else, or whether they came hot from the anvil, I do not know. I do not think I ever made a line of poetry in my life. There has been always so much else to be done." "I think you must have made them," she said. Then, in turn, she had her own amusing little monologue. For she began suddenly telling off the lochs and hills, just as he had named them to her that other day--"Loch Goil, Loch Long, Ben More, Ben Lomond, The Cobbler, Ben Ihme, Holy Loch!" "We shall often think of them when the prospect is a very different one," he said quietly. "You never regret all that you are going to leave behind you, Jean?" "Never for one moment, dear. I am taking with me, and going to, so very much more than I leave behind, that my heart is full of gladness," she said. "There is not room for the smallest shadow of a shadow of regret." And they joined hands again and went on along the windings of the path, in and out of the curves and dimples of the mountain's breast, till the bold peaks of Arran rose purple in the distance, and they came to the Sheils Farm. Blair's kinsfolk had long since left the place. He just took a look round the familiar byres and stables, and poked his head into a room whence a fresh-complexioned dairy-maid, in short blue skirts and bare feet, was busily chasing hens. He came out with a reminiscent smile on his face, and they turned down the hill towards Inverkip. He led her by the short cuts his boyish feet had known so well; past the old burying-ground, where the body-snatchers plied their gruesome trade and the village folk sat up night after night to protect their dead; past the gates of Ardgowan to the sea. And so along the shore road, with the waves splashing up among the boulders on one side, and the dark policies on the other, and the great trees meeting overhead; past the sturdy white pillar of the Cloch into Ashton, and so at last home. A honeymoon trip which neither of them ever forgot as long as they lived. "Well, you two," said Aunt Jannet, when they came in. "We began to think you'd given us the slip and gone across the border without saying goodbye." "We've been a long round," said Blair, "about----" "About twelve years," said Jean. "Then you must be starving. We expected you'd come home ravenous, and provided accordingly." "We've been living on the fat of the land," laughed Jean; but they both fell to all the same, and proved beyond doubt that high thought and good living were by no means incompatible. CHAPTER VIII GOING STRONG That same evening a burly, middle-aged man came to the house and requested audience of Mr. Blair. He bore the unmistakable hall-mark, and Kenneth liked the looks of him and the ring of his voice. The two men eyed one another closely as they shook hands. "Mr. Duncan told me you were wanting a captain for your schooner, Mr. Blair. I only heard it half an hour ago, and I've come straight." Blair nodded. "What are your qualifications? It is not everybody's job, you know." "I know all about it, sir. And I think I'm the man for it. My name is Cathie--John Cathie. I sailed my own ship as master for over fifteen years. Quitted the sea three years ago because I'd made enough to live on and the wife wanted me to stop ashore. She died six months ago. I've neither chick nor child, and I want back to the water. When you've spent thirty-five years with live water under your feet, the land comes strange to you!" "Ever been in the South Seas?" "Spent ten years in the Island trade, sir. Know 'em like a book, from the Carolines to the Paumotus; and if you can find a brown man in the whole stretch that has a word against John Cathie I'll--well, you can name your own forfeit." "And the white men?" "Ah--there! Most of 'em all right. Some I'd like to see strung higher than Haman. But that kind's mostly yellow, though some are dirty white." "Know the Dark Islands?" "At a distance. I never landed there. I was only a trader then." "And these men you'd like to see strung up like Haman, only more so, Captain Cathie?" "You know them as well as I do, sir. Kidnappers, black-birders, treacherous devils, scum of the earth. They don't have the times they used to have, but they're not wholly cleared out yet in the outlying groups. I'll be glad to give what time's left me to helping clear them." "You're up to steam?" "Had five years of it." "Any hand with a Long Tom?" "Was gunner's mate for three years on the _Blenheim_ before I got married, and we always carried guns in the Islands," and the bold blue eyes snapped with a touch of puzzlement. "But--I thought it was a missionary cruise you were bound on, Mr. Blair?" "I'm a new kind of missionary, Captain Cathie. The faithful shepherd protects his flock. If the wolves try to steal his lambs, the wolves must take the consequences." "By God, sir, I'm your man!" and the burly one jumped up with a flame in his face, because he could not sit still under the hopes that were in him. "I'm inclined to think you may be," said Blair. "You will understand, Captain Cathie, that the master of our ship will be one of the most important links in the chain. If you will look in about this time to-morrow, you shall hear what we have decided." "Right, sir! I'll be here." He turned back when he had reached the door. "If you should find some better man for captain, put me down for chief mate, Mr. Blair; and if I'm not good enough for that, I'll go before the mast sooner than be left out." Blair had already decided in his own mind, but in a matter of such immense importance he could take no possible risks. His inquiries, however, only confirmed the impression he had formed. When Captain Cathie came hopefully in, the next night, the matter was settled on the spot, and he went away a new man, gripping with feet and hands the rungs of a new ladder. Blair laid his plans fully before him, and, so far as the schooner was concerned, left him to carry them out. Then they were back in London, and the busy days sped past, scarce long enough for all that had to be done in them. It was the necessary business with the Colonial Office that tried him most severely. The Secretary accorded him an interview, received him with gracious warmth, listened with interest to his views, agreed that it would be a good thing for the Dark Islands to be accorded a protectorate until the time was ripe for formal annexation, but---- There were many buts, and they would have driven a less patient and less determined seeker after other men's good to despair. There was Australia; there was France; there was Germany; there was the Opposition; there was that loud-voiced party in the land which screamed at any extension of the Empire's shoes. But upon all and everything Blair quietly brought to bear his unique personal knowledge of the conditions out there, a large common sense, and an inflexible persistence that would admit of no rebuff or turning aside. The minister smilingly accused him of being one-eyed as regards the Dark Islands. "Absolutely!" said Blair quietly--"one-eyed, one-hearted, and one-lived! Body, soul, and spirit I am for the Dark Islands, and I want to do all that man can do. Give me the legal right and a reasonably free hand, and, with God's help, I can do a great work out there. I do not think it need cost you a farthing. I have a revenue to start with of over £10,000 a year, and a considerable capital for initial development purposes. Within five years, with reasonable success, the islands will be self-supporting. But--I must have my foundations sure, or I cannot build as I would." "The matter has already been debated among us, Mr. Blair," said the Secretary. "The Earl of Selsea brought it up and has made it his particular pet project. You seem to have captured his heart, and when he takes a matter of this kind in hand he sticks to it like a bulldog. But you can understand that there are many collateral issues, and we have to consider them all. I understand exactly what you want and why, and I promise you to do my utmost to bring it about. It may be some months before it can be arranged. Meanwhile, no doubt, there is much you can be doing to prepare the ground." "There is much to be done, sir, and I will set to work on the strength of what you say. But the sooner it is definitely settled the better for us all." "A very fine young fellow," said the Secretary to himself, before he turned to another quarter of the globe. "The kind of man I could make splendid use of if I had him to myself." But Kenneth Blair was another Man's man. CHAPTER IX ARMS AND THE MAN The _Torch_ had been brought round from Greenock by Captain Cathie, and was lying in the London Docks close alongside Wapping Basin, an object of interest to all her neighbours. Captain Cathie's clock had gone back at least ten years since he and Kenneth Blair struck hands in the drawing-room of the Aunties' house in Brisbane Street. He was then a fine old specimen of the very best type of retired mariner. Now he was a jovial young sea-dog, bristling with energy, and overflowing with hearty goodwill to humanity at large. He was Kenneth Blair's man to the backbone, and prepared to follow him to the death. Jean delighted in him and he in her. She had taken Aunt Jannet Harvey down to inspect her future home, and the ladies' comments had filled Captain Cathie's cup to the brim and won his heart completely. Jean had asked him endless questions, but not one more than he delighted in answering; and Aunt Jannet Harvey's characteristic summing-up of the whole matter had been, "Child, I feel as if I'd wasted half my life in never having been to sea before. I've always had an idea that I knew something about neatness and comfort and packing, but this"--with a wave of the hand which comprehended the cabin she was standing in, and the _Torch_ generally, and Captain Cathie--"this puts me to shame. I shall never want to live on shore again," and Captain Cathie was repaid for all his labours. With full understanding, and thirty years' experience, and no stinting as regards money, he had laboured to adapt the ladies' rooms to their fullest possible requirements. Their delight in all they saw assured him of his success. A few days later Blair brought down a party of friends to inspect the little ship, foremost among them the Colonial Secretary and the Earl of Selsea, who had both come straight from a Cabinet Council where the Dark Islands had been the rat in the pit. "We're getting on by degrees," said the Secretary in the train, as he lit a cigar to counteract the atmosphere. "It's amazing what an amount of pig-headedness there is in the world," said his friend. "You don't realise it in all its heart-breaking stolidity till you run your own head against it." "That's so. But what can you expect when men like B---- are pitchforked into the positions they occupy? I was at Eton with B---- and at Oxford. He always was a fool and he always will be. He ought to have gone into the Church." "I object! The Church needs the very best men it can get." "Well, then, into the Army. He couldn't have done much mischief in either, and in the Army, at all events, there'd have been some chance of his getting licked into some kind of shape. As it is, I always want to get up and ask him to come outside into the park with me just for ten minutes or so. It was the one argument that used to prevail with him, and I've an idea it would yet. Anyway, it would do _me_ a heap of good. He was born pig-headed and it's grown on him ever since." "If we can once get him to see things as----" "See? B---- never could see anything beyond the side on which his bread was buttered. Some men are born dense, and some grow denser as they grow older. B----'s both. He wants trepanning. Here's Mark Lane, and there's your Angel Gabriel on the pounce for us." Angel Gabriel, in the person of Kenneth Blair, gave them hearty welcome, and piloted them through slums and dockyards till they stood on the deck of the _Torch_, where Jean, and Aunt Jannet Harvey, and Captain Cathie, were already doing the honours to a goodly company. "It is a great enterprise you are bound upon, Mrs. Blair," said the Secretary, as Jean expounded _Torch_ to him. "The grandest work in the world," she said exuberantly. "If you'll only back us up and give us what we want." "Ah! if only it rested with me. But I'm only one." "Oh, come! Where am I?" asked Selsea. "That makes two," acknowledged the Secretary, who would willingly, in the light of Jean's brown eyes, have taken all the credit to himself. "And we'll soon have the rest. As for B----, if he won't toe the line, we'll worry the life out of him," which was a highly improper remark to fall from the lips of a philanthropic nobleman. But then Jean Blair's hopefully eager face and wistful eyes were upon him, and allowances must be made. "I do hope you will," she said earnestly. "What, worry the life out of him?" laughed the Secretary. "H'm--yes,--if he won't toe the line." "Hullo!" said the Secretary, as he entered the deck saloon, an exceedingly comfortable room, fitted in bird's-eye maple with fine woven cane cushions and backs to the seats instead of saddlebags or velvet plush. But it was not at the room itself at which he exclaimed, but at the arm-racks ranged round the walls, empty at present, but full of meaning. "Yes," said Blair quietly. "Winchesters. They're down below with the Maxim. Let me show you something else," and he led the two gentlemen along the deck to a longboat, keel up, on a stand well forward. The boat stood high and was covered with tarpaulin. "Do you care to peep under?" he asked. And the Secretary bent and peeped, and straightened up again with raised eyebrows. "You mean business, evidently, Mr. Blair. That's an odd passenger for a missionary ship." "She throws a 9-lb. shell a mile and a half," said Blair, "and Captain Cathie is an old naval gunner. Yes, we mean business. But this business"--patting the long gun's cover--"only in case of absolute necessity. You quite understand the situation? I hope you have confidence in me?" "I quite understand, and I have perfect confidence. Mr. Blair. I believe for once the right man is in the right place. We will do everything we possibly can to further your views. If we can't get all we want, we can no doubt keep our eyes closed." Their visitors were delighted with all they saw, but all of them did not see everything. Even if one is prepared to tackle one's problems with an iron grip, it is not always highest wisdom to shake one's fist in the face of the world. Blair showed them also the thousand and one other things he was taking out, seeds and germs of civilisation, from which he hoped a mighty harvest, and named many more which he would procure in Australia. He limned his ideas lightly, and gave them even fuller glimpse than he had ever yet done of his ultimate hopes; and, waxing eloquent, held them spellbound at the magnitude of the far-reaching possibilities. And to all, Jean's eloquent face and sparkling eyes played ready chorus, and Lord Selsea and the Secretary went away deeply impressed with what they had seen, and more with what they had heard, and most of all with what they had been made to think and hope. "A very fine young fellow!" said the Secretary, as he neutralised the sulphur again. "Ay!--a man, every inch of him. May he live to see his golden dreams realised!" "I tell you what, Selsea, it's mighty refreshing to come in contact with enthusiasm such as that running in harness with sound common sense." "Big heart and level head--a fine combination!" "I feel as if I'd been a trip on the sea, or up on a mountain top. I wish we could swop B---- for him. Half a dozen of him in a Cabinet now--eh?" "My dear fellow, don't! The contrast is too painful." CHAPTER X A BLACK OBJECT-LESSON "It's a wonderful world!" said Aunt Jannet Harvey, for the four hundred and fourteenth time since, one by one, the Forelands and Dungeness and Beachy Head faded over the quarter as they ran down Channel. "And it gets more and more wonderful the further you go. Jean, my dear, have you ever in your dreams seen anything equal to that?" "Never!" murmured Jean, wide-eyed and breathless, lest the smallest display of the ordinary functions of living should resolve into its natural elements the ethereal vision before them. And yet it was only a tiny South Sea atoll, one of the myriad gleaming gems that deck the bosom of the great southern ocean in clusters, and strings, and ropes, and solitaires, from the Pelews to Pitcairn, of visible beauty indescribable, and in some cases possessed of natural latent treacherousness hardly second thereto. It was still dusky twilight when they three climbed the companion, to taste the sweet of the dawn and watch the perpetual wonder of the coming day. They had learned already to rejoice in the dawnings as the purest and fullest revelations of Nature's exuberant largesse. The sunsets were gorgeous and magnificent beyond compare, but they had in them the elements of dissolution and decay, whereas the pure pearl splendours of the dawn sang full and true of new birth, new hopes, and the deep springs of life and joy. Anxious as he was to get to his life's work, and grudging every moment and every league that lay between it and him, Blair had still felt it a duty to afford Jean every possible enjoyment of travel which the voyage could offer her. She was giving up much, she was going into outer exile for his sake; the chance might never come again. She should see all that was possible before the fringes fell behind them. And so they had come by way of Suez, and touched at Bombay and Ceylon, and then away to Australia and New Zealand, and then a great stretch round the outer skirts of the Australs and Paumotus, with only such stoppages as were absolutely necessary, and then straight for the work that awaited them. "The rest of the Islands we can take by degrees," he said. "They will be our holiday grounds in the years to come. But now I am anxious to know what is going on in the Dark Islands. So very much may be happening behind that black curtain." They were a gay and gallant company on board, not a long face among them. They were going to whatever might await them of strenuous life and heroic endeavour. No single one of them but was ready to lay down his or her life in the cause that lay so close to their hearts, and they found therein reason, not for doubts or fears, but wholly of exaltation. It was a mighty work, and they rejoiced in being chosen for it. Blair had selected for his fellow-workers, from among a host of applicants, two young fellows whose qualifications satisfied him in every respect, and whose special training supplemented the deficiencies in his own. He is the wisest man who best knows what he knows least. The man who knows everything is generally useless at a pinch. Well-equipped as he was in most respects--perfect, indeed, in the eyes of his wife, as was only right and proper--no man had a deeper appreciation of his own limitations than Blair himself. He had the fiery heart for the righting of wrongs, and the clear head and strong hand. But there were things beyond his ken--that is, in their very fullest compass--and in choosing his co-workers he kept these steadily in view. For instance, he had a fair knowledge himself of medicine and rough-and-ready surgery. But he wanted very much more. And so Charles Evans, a Devonshire man, and M.D. and M.S. of London, became his medical right hand. Then he had himself a certain aptitude for languages and dialects. He had picked up the _lingua franca_ of the islands rapidly. But he wanted very much more. Charles Stuart, M.A., of Edinburgh, had made languages the congenial study of a lifetime which ran to nearly twenty-eight years. If any man could reduce phonetic elisions and hiatuses to written and printed symbols, Stuart was that man. Then they were both big athletic fellows, runners and swimmers, great at games of all kinds, and handy with their hands, and they were as keen on letting light into the dark places of the earth as Blair himself. And they had both got married, at Blair's suggestion, and to the great satisfaction of the four people most immediately concerned--Evans, the Devonshire man, marrying Alison Carmichael, daughter of Dr. Carmichael of Edinburgh, and herself a medical student of no mean pretensions, and withal a good-looking, hearty girl, full of energy and spirits; and Stuart, the Scot, had married Mary Coventry, an English girl, daughter of a professor in a Lancashire theological college. She had a great natural aptitude for teaching, and was governessing when Stuart fell in love with her. She had promised to marry him when his circumstances should permit, and was cheerfully facing that very indefinite future when Blair's offer of the coveted post swept all the clouds away, and lifted her to a pinnacle of happiness which she was only becoming accustomed to by degrees. With these four we have not very much to do. They proved most devoted assistants and pleasant and helpful companions throughout. But this is the story of Kenneth and Jean Blair, and if these others receive but slight mention, it is not because their hearts lacked fire or their lives incident, but simply through limitations of space. So the _Torch_ held three happy couples on their honeymoons, and Aunt Jannet Harvey played mother-in-law to them all, and kept the whole ship in high good-humour by her own energetic enjoyment of every smallest item of the day's doings. Captain Cathie, by means of diligent search and stringent inquiry, had secured a crew after his own heart, every man a Clydesman, and some of them he had known since they were boys. They carried a full complement. Besides himself and the mate, there were twenty men all told, stalwarts all, and Blair expected to find use for every man of them. Besides the big white whale-boats at the davits, there were two extra steam-launches in sections in the hold for inter-island work, and there were other reasons why he wanted behind him a thoroughly dependable band of tried white men instead of the usual mixture of Kanakas. Forecasted shadows of those other reasons might have been found in the way in which he set to work, during the long weeks that lay between New Zealand and the Australs, to make marksmen of his peaceful crew. Bottles, hung from the yards, or set afloat on the sea, were their targets, and they most of them became fair shots. And one day Captain Cathie turned a cask overboard and stuck a white flag in it, and when it had floated almost out of sight he trained the long brown steel gun amidships on it, and bent and squinted carefully, and kept them so long in suspense, that the ladies screamed aloud when the gun did at last go off, and the white water flashed up close alongside the white flag. "Within three feet, I should say, captain," said Blair, with the captain's glass at his eye. "Your hand and eye have not lost their cunning." And again and again the smiling captain displayed his prowess. Another day he had the Maxim up and showed the men how to handle it. And cutlass drill became as regular a part of the daily routine as the fifteen-minute service that opened and closed the day. Strange traffic indeed for a ship dedicated to peace and the spreading of the Light! But they all understood the meaning of these things, and the necessities that might arise, and the advisability of being prepared. For the very first Sunday night out from New Zealand, Blair, in that quiet, masterful fashion of his, which carried conviction once and for all into his hearers' souls and admitted of no shadow of a doubt, had taken occasion to explain the why and the wherefore of these apparent incongruities, and none of them ever forgot it. It was a windless evening after a blistering day. The sea was like oil, with a long, slow, unbroken swell that set the little ship rolling in solemn rhythmical fashion which Stuart, the man of tongues, had long since dubbed heroic hexameters. And there, to the little company sitting facing him on deck in the gathering darkness, with an occasional sleepy "moo" from the farmyard in the bows, or the shrill squeakings of discontented piglets, and an admonitory grunt from their over-taxed mother, Blair described some of the things he had seen with his own eyes, and others which he had had direct from his dear old friend and leader, John Gerson, whose experience had been so much vaster than his own. Their hearts boiled at the mere recounting of the things he told them, and not a man or woman of them all but was ready to answer his utmost bidding in the effort to put them down. "Ignorant these islanders are, and degraded, and the victims of horrible superstitions and practices unspeakable," he said, in closing; "but they have common living rights with the rest of us. Until those rights are secured to them, and until they learn that a white face is not necessarily the mask for a black heart, our work is futile. That security, by God's help, we intend to bring to them. If we can do it peacefully, I shall be grateful. If force is necessary, force we shall apply. But remember--we are going, not to punish, but to protect. Christ in righteous anger drove the defilers out of the Temple so that the Temple might be clean. God's Temple is here also. To the extent of our power and opportunity we will cleanse it, and by freeing these simple folk from bodily perils, we will give them the chance to redeem their souls alive." They had swept along on the steady west wind for weeks. Now and again it dropped and left them rolling idly, with listless sails and jerking masts. But it always blew up again in time, and sent them swinging once more on their way, and at times it blew up so strong, and set up such an awkward sea, that their lives were almost battered out of them. Blair, Evans, and Stuart apprenticed themselves to carpenter and engineers, and learned many things they did not know before. The men grew intimate with their rifles and cutlasses, the ladies talked much, read much, and they all took regular lessons in Samoan, as a foundation for the Polynesian tongues generally, from a native teacher who had been sent over to Sydney to meet them at Blair's request. His name was Matti, and he was a pleasing specimen of his kind, intelligent, painstaking, and of infinite good temper, but of a most peaceful, not to say lamb-like, disposition. Among the many other diversions of their long voyage, Evans one day suggested that they should all be vaccinated, and was unmercifully chaffed for the idea. "Isn't that like a young sawbones?" laughed Captain Cathie. "Just because we've got a clean bill, and he's got nothing to do, he's after making work just to keep his hand in." But Evans persisted that they were going they knew not where, and no precautions ought to be omitted. And he talked so learnedly, and with so grave a foreboding, that by degrees they came to think he was perhaps right, and that it might be as well to be on the safe side of possibility. So, one after another, they meekly submitted their arms to the needle, and time came when they were glad of his persistence. "Wonderful!--wonderful!" said Aunt Jannet Harvey once more that morning, in a whisper of concentrated rapture, and the others gazed at the tiny atoll without speaking, lest a breath should destroy it. They had sighted the island the evening before, just a feathery fringe on the rim of the sea; but Captain Cathie was a devout believer in the enchantment of distance till full light of day should disclose possible pitfalls. For in these Southern Seas Nature sometimes gets ahead of the cartographers, and he had no desire to mark new reefs for the next comers with the stark ribs of his ship. But now, in the dim of the dawn, they were wafting slowly towards it, with intent to land there for vegetables and fruit and water, and it grew visibly on their sight like a new-created thing. Until a moment ago it had lain in the shadows. Then the eastern dimness softened, a mere quickening of hidden life, almost imperceptible, felt rather than seen. Then a soft pulsation, a throb from the heart of the coming day. The dimness trembled, a rosy softness diffused itself, and suddenly the background of the sky was filled with colour, palest green and tenderest rose and amber. And these grew and grew and deepened into crimson and gold, with swathes of diaphanous purple as the soft greens strengthened slowly into blue. And as it was above, so it was below, all duplicated in the flawless mirror of the sea. And there, between the upper and the lower glory, lay the enchanted isle gleaming darkly in the broken lights--a ring of feathery coco-palms and bosky undergrowth round an inner lagoon, a placid lake outside it, and outside that, still another protecting ring of reef dotted here and there with tiny feathered islets. A most wonderful and entrancing sight, so fairy-like and fragile that Jean felt it almost dangerous to breathe aloud. Then the sun soared up above the sea-rim, and the atoll solidified and came out in its natural colours of dazzling white beach, and blue lagoons, and greens of every shade, from the tender tints of the budding palms to the cast-iron crests of the grey-boled giants, and the huddled mixture of the undergrowth. It lost in beauty as it gained in strength, but it looked more like solid land and less like a fairy vision, more like possible fruit and vegetables and less like a dissolving view. All the company was on deck by this time, and all eyes were fixed on the island, as Captain Cathie in the bows conned the little ship slowly towards a wide opening in the outer reef, with a vigilant eye for hidden perils. He had told them from the chart that it was the Three-Ringed Island of Atoa, but he had never been there himself and one could not be too cautious. Then in the clear depths below them, as they crept slowly through the water-gate, they could see the wonderful forestry of the branching coral and the gleam of many-coloured shells, and the place was all alive with fishes of every tint and hue, sailing and darting like fragmentary rainbows. But Captain Cathie was staring through his glasses at the distant white beach for signs of occupation, and found none. It was still early, however, and the village might be round the bend of the island. He carried the _Torch_ in as far as he deemed safe, and then, at the word, the anchor plunged and the chain ran merrily out, and the little ship rode at rest for the first time in many days. "Who is for the shore?" cried Blair, in the voice and manner of a jolly schoolboy offering treats. They were all for the shore. After three weeks of continuous sailing the feel of solid ground under one's feet would be a novelty. "Though I expect," said Aunt Jannet Harvey, "it'll be as hard to walk straight at first as it was not to walk crooked on the ship. I've got so used to walking on the sides of my feet, and balancing to the rolling, that I've almost forgotten what it feels like to walk any other way." In ten minutes they were all speeding shorewards in one of the white whale-boats, and when Aunt Jannet Harvey cumbrously made the close acquaintance of the white beach, she found her feet no whit behind those of her younger companions in their eager activity. They all stamped up the crunching coral with merry talk and laughter. Aunt Jannet Harvey stood at the foot of her first really intimate coco-nut tree, and gazed up the slim spire to the great benignant fronds and hanging fruit, with such intention of longing, that Jean, in a convulsion of laughter, cried-- "Do try it, auntie! I'm sure you could manage it if you tried hard." "And if at first you don't succeed, try, try again, Aunt Jannet!" laughed Blair. They left her still gazing, and scattered, Jean and Mary Stuart and Alison Evans diving into the undergrowth after armfuls of greenery and trailing vines, and twittering like escaped birds when, now and again, they came on treasure-trove of scarlet hibiscus blooms glowing on the green like fiery stars--or splashes of blood. The men pressed on at once up the ridge to get a general view of their surroundings, and Captain Cathie, with a couple of his men, pulled slowly down the lagoon in search of the village. He heard the merry calls of the explorers, and wondered at the absence of any sign of life on the island. The very sight of an approaching ship used, in his time, to bring the population to the beach. But things had changed of course since then, and byways had become highways. The white boat jerked slowly along round the bend, and the voices ashore grew less distinct. And suddenly his lips pinched and his brow crumpled, and he gazed ahead with a fixed, angry glare which set his men wondering what they were coming to, and carried their chins to their shoulders unconsciously. A stretch of white beach, a bristle of black posts jutting out of the cleared ground above--that was all. But Cathie's experience read them like three-feet letters on a city hoarding. He threw up one hand and jammed the tiller hard down with the other. "Round with her, boys!" and they were swinging back up the lagoon to get the women aboard again. For there might be sights in the brush along that ridge to shock the souls of men. Blair, Evans, and Stuart, with Matti, the Samoan, and the rest of the boat's crew, climbed the backbone of the island, whose highest point attained an altitude of perhaps thirty feet. They were standing looking across the flawless mirror of the central lagoon, when the Samoan broke out suddenly, "Sirs, I presume advice. Return fortwit to ship. This place is not good," and when they all turned on him in surprise, they found his brown face strained and pallid with fear, his eyes starting, and his nose dilated like a startled stag's. "Why, Matti, what's wrong?" said Blair. The brown man shook his head. "I know not, sirs," and his white teeth chattered so that his chin wagged visibly. "There is evil abroad. It is in the air, in the tree-tops." They looked up for sign of the evil, but saw only the heavy plumes of the coco-palms nodding mournfully in the breeze. Down below the air seemed heavy and somewhat sickly, and so far they had seen no sign of life on the island. "The place seems deserted," said Evans. "We will go on along here a bit further," said Blair, "and if there is nothing more to be seen, we'll turn back I'm afraid it's a poor look-out for fruit and vegetables," and they tramped on in silence, Matti well in the rear, reluctant to go, still more reluctant to be left. And presently the brush thinned, and they came out on the clearing, and Blair stopped abruptly with a face as strained as Matti's, but grimmer and whiter, and Matti, stumbling up to the rear, gave a groan as though to say, "I knew it." "God help us!" said Blair through his teeth, for they had found what Cathie had feared. The blackened posts of the houses stuck up starkly through the sand as though in mute and pitiful appeal. Beneath them were heaps of wind-blown ashes barely covering that which they had mercifully hidden. And among the mounds as they drew near was a sound of rustling and stealthy movement, and here and there monstrous crabs, too gorged to move almost, essayed escape into their temporary burrows. The newcomers stared wide-eyed and horror-stricken. Blair had seen it all before, and the grim white of his face gave place to grim red and black as his heart drummed furiously with righteous indignation. "This is the horror we have come to fight," he said hoarsely. "This is what I told you of. Now you see it with your own eyes. The place has been swept bare by kidnappers. These died in defence of their homes and wives and children. Let us get back. It is no sight for the women." He waved them away, but something caught his eye, and he went forward and bent over it with tight-pinched face for a moment, and then turned abruptly and followed the others. But, even as he turned, a shriek from the lower brush told that it was too late to save the women from some visible knowledge of what had taken place. They turned and ran back along the ridge. Mary Stuart, reaching for a flower, saw at her feet what she took for a fallen coco-nut, and stooped to pick it up, and then screamed aloud and sat down suddenly with a sick, white face. The others hurried up, Alison Evans and Aunt Jannet Harvey reaching her first. "What is it, dear?" asked Aunt Jannet, and then she saw, and sat down heavily beside her. Alison had her nerves under better control. She had seen little dead bodies before, but the sight of a murdered child is a shock to any woman. Her face was white and rigid, but she had her wits about her also. "Take them all away," she whispered fiercely to Aunt Jannet Harvey, and Aunt Jannet, just needing that spur, scrambled up and gripped Mary Stuart by the shoulder and dragged her away as Jean came running up, asking, "What is it? What's the matter?" "Come away, child!--come away! It is a little murdered baby. Alison is seeing to it, but it is quite dead. Let us get away. Here is the boat and Captain Cathie." Everything was changed as the white boat plunged back across the lagoon to the ship. The men's faces were hard and angry, the women's white and pitiful. Alison Evans wept silently now. She had seen more than the others, and that soft little head, crushed in by one murderous blow against the tree, would haunt her dreams for nights to come. The sun shone as brightly as before, but there was something pitiless in his unwinking glare. The sea was as placid and sparkling as before, but there was a fawning treachery in its very smoothness. The palms behind waved their feathers just as before, but now they were funeral plumes. The very oars no longer chirped merrily in the rowlocks, but croaked in a way that got on the women's nerves. And not one of them spoke till they were safe aboard the ship. "Yes," nodded Blair to Cathie's look of interrogation, "we will go on at once," and the anchor chain rattled up hoarsely, and they went slowly and silently on their way, and left the beautiful island to its dead. "I saw it from the water," said Cathie later to Blair, "and turned to get the ladies away, but I was too late. Did you see anything to give you any hint as to who it was, sir?" "Yes. Peruvians, I should say. There was one yellow man among the dead, and they recruit mostly from these outer islands. Before God, captain, I will put a stop to this kind of work, whatever the cost may be." "We're with you, sir, every man of us. See those men's faces!" And grim and determined enough were the men's faces as they went about their work. For those who had seen had told those who had not seen, and the impression was a deep one. That night Blair called them all together, and spoke of the matter in a way that went home and confirmed the spirit that had been roused in them by that holocaust on the island. "It is devil's work, men," he wound up, "and, please God, we'll stop it. Are you with me?" "Ay, ay, sir!" "That we are, sir!" "All the way, sir!" and so on, in tones that left no mistake about it. "You can understand the effect of that kind of work on these islanders. It is not often so clean a sweep is made as the one we saw this morning. And where part are taken and part are left, can you wonder that those who remain hate and fear the very sight of a white face? Have they not reason? It will be our endeavour to stop these raids, and, by protecting the islanders, gradually win them over to better ways. Once we can make them see that we care for them, and think of their welfare and not our own, half the battle is won. On the one side we may have to fight--not our own countrymen, I am glad to say. These raiders come mostly from the west coast of South America, and they go to lengths which the Queenslanders rarely do. And, on the other hand, in our dealings with the natives, we must remember what they have suffered, what reason they have to mistrust us, and we must be very forbearing and longsuffering. On the one side I want you--and I shall need the whole-hearted assistance of every man of you--I want you to be bold as lions, and on the other side as mild as milk. Only so can our work be done, and it is a mighty work." CHAPTER XI TOO LATE Following instructions, Captain Cathie shook out every stitch of canvas the _Torch_ could carry, and laid her course dead for the Dark Islands. They made good way, but their progress still seemed slow to Kenneth Blair; for his fears outstripped the flight of the little ship, and, anxious as he was to reach the Islands, he still almost dreaded the cry that should tell of their sighting, in fear of what he might find there. And grounds for fear were not lacking. The Dark Islands lay some five days distant, east by north--on the line, therefore, of the marauders' way home. From the atoll they had already raided, he judged, from the number of dwellings and general appearances, they might have got some fifty or sixty souls, not more. Their holds would still be far from full. If they had invaded the Dark Islands in similar fashion, it was a stormy reception the next comers might expect. At best it would be a negative welcome, and a matter of slow and cautious approach to their few good graces; but if the islands had been raided, the work would be thrown back for years, and all his hopes with them. He could scarce eat or sleep for thinking of it, and the pricking off of their position each day on the chart, and the calculation of the hours that still intervened between them and full knowledge of how matters lay, were matters of supremest interest and absorbing anxiety. He could settle to none of the ordinary routine, and his evident upsetting, the causes of which they perfectly understood, disturbed them all in like fashion. He spoke little, even to Jean, and she never once, by word or look, expressed anything but the utmost sympathy and confidence in him. He tramped the deck day and night almost, with eager outlook over the waste of waters ahead, and never a look behind unless at the seething bubbles of their long, straight wake, which told of the speed and directness of their flight. Once only, in these days of biting anxiety, he said to her-- "Dearest, I am poor company at present. Can you forgive me? I am on the rack about these poor souls ahead. I cannot help fearing the worst, and it means so very much to us." "I am with you, Ken, heart and soul. We can only pray for the best. If what you fear has happened, all we can do is to do our best to right it." He shook his head unhopefully. The idea had taken possession of him that they would arrive only to find death and desolation and the wild fury of revenge. "Even if it is so," said his comforter, "I can see possibility of good coming out of the evil." "It will throw us back years," he said gloomily. "If your people have been carried off, we will follow them and release them and restore them to their homes"--there were new sparks in his eyes as she spoke like one inspired--"and that will give us the footing it might take years to obtain." He kissed her hand. "You give me new hopes, whatever may have happened. That is what we will attempt if the worst has taken place," and thereafter he brightened up considerably, but relaxed no whit of his anxiety to reach the islands. They swept gallantly along on the northern fringe of the westerly wind, which maintained a propitious amplitude, and just before sunset on the fourth day, the lucent rim where sea met sky was dented with a filmy tooth which the sinking sun drew momentarily into view from the farther distance, and Captain Cathie and Blair pronounced it Kapaa'a, the highest peak in the Dark Islands. There was not much sleep on board that night, the morrow would be so big with events. General opinion among the men ran somehow to a fight. That was, perhaps, the natural tendency of the pent-up feelings of the last few days. An outlet would be grateful, a violent outlet from choice. When a man's feelings suffer maltreatment, the natural man within him develops a violent desire to find relief in kicking, in which last word is comprehended the whole known range of methods of assault, with the exception, of course, of the circumscribed and properly debarred use of the feet. They travelled warily that night, and the first of the dawn showed them the peaks of Kapaa'a, bold and beautiful, dead ahead, and growing bolder and still more beautiful with every graceful roll of the ship. They hung over the sides, every man and woman of them, and eyed their future home with an eagerness which its outward aspect at once amply satisfied and further quickened. For what they could see was grand in its opulence of crag, and cliff, and gorge, and greenery. And the clouds which wreathed the higher summits, and the gauzy films of mist, which floated along the hillsides and hung reluctantly in the tree-tops, gave promise of still daintier beauties in that which they held half hidden. They drew in cautiously to within a mile of the outer reef, and then, not venturing the ship nearer till they should learn how matters stood inside, Blair and Evans, with a crew of ten, eight to pull and two in case of need, and Matti to interpret, shot through one of the openings in the reef on the back of a long blue roller and made straight for the white beach. They carried no visible arms, but each man of the crew had his Winchester between his feet. The lagoon ran up into a spearhead of white sand, between two tall cliffs opposite the widest opening in the reef, as though the constant impact of the outer waves, tempered as it was by the compression of the opening and the subsequent run across the lagoon, had forced the beach inland at that spot. It was helped, however, by a river, which came down between the hills and divided the white sandspear into two equal parts. Here, according to usage and natural proclivity, a village should have stood, but in this case did not. John Gerson had told Blair that other morning, when they came racing up the lagoon in similar brave case, that it lay up the valley near the taro fields. His heart beat painfully as, one by one, he picked up the points which had charted themselves for ever in his memory. There, to the left of the stream, was where they landed. There was the rough scarp of rock round which they had followed the bristling crowd to the death. There his former life had ended in turmoil and darkness, and the new life had begun in twilight dimness and the painful groping after broken threads. And yet, how mercifully he had been guided! The shadowed valley had led, after all, to the fuller life and the mountain-top, and he bowed his head gratefully. The white boat slid gently up the white beach, and so far their keen outlook had seen no sign of hostile life. But experience had taught him that appearances are deceptive, and that sometimes when least is seen most is to be feared. They disembarked cautiously, and stood looking round. The palms about the mouth of the valley waved sombre welcome, or it might be warning. The thick brush below lay still and silent, but bright black eyes by the hundred might be watching them from it. The very lack even of opposition was a menace, and suggestive of trickery and ambush. "We will go round the point," said Blair at last. "And--yes, you must take your guns, men. I would have preferred not, but we don't know how matters stand." So, leaving two in the boat, the rest shouldered their guns, and the little party went forward round the point where Kenneth Blair had been once before in his life, and almost in his death. But no bristling mob confronted them this time. They went on step by step, with eyes for every rock and bush, and ears alert, and every nerve tight strung for the faintest hint of treachery, and Blair's face crumpled somewhat at the menace of the silence and the solitude. Step by step they left the white beach and the friendly sea, and drew in to the blank hostility of the woods. He would a thousand times sooner have been confronted by the visible hostility of the natives. For that which is visible and tangible one may hope to cope with and subdue, but the invisible and intangible contain possibilities beyond the compassing, and the elements of unreasoning fear. On one member of the party these were already having their effect. Perhaps on others also, but not so perceptibly. The knowledge of better things had not, in Matti, effectually eradicated the superstitions of a lifetime. Terrors of which the white men had no conception beat like bats about his soul, the indefinable terrors of bygone ages of horrors and darkness. His face was green. He sweated fears at every faltering step. His eyes bulged crablike in quest of that which he dreaded to find. "Sirs, sirs!" he gasped, in an agonised whisper, "it is not good. I counsel----" "Be quiet," said Blair. "We must see," and they went on warily, expecting the sudden outleap of death at every step. But they saw nothing, heard nothing. That dreadful menacing silence brooded over the place just as it had brooded over the atoll. A flock of gay little paraquets whirred suddenly from the hillside and dived into the bush ahead, and the silence and the spell of it were broken. The paraquets started chattering and quarrelling like a school of sparrows, and Blair's danger-pointed wits suggested to him that they would not behave so if the brush was otherwise tenanted. With a last careful inspection of the hillsides he moved forward, and the rest followed. There was a track through the brush, and the trampled ground showed signs of much traffic. Five minutes more and they had found all they feared. The thicket thinned and widened towards the valley and they were standing once more amid blackened ribs of houses, and heaps of ashes from which thin wisps of smoke still curled lazily. They had arrived too late! CHAPTER XII THE FLAMING SWORD Blair's face was tighter and grimmer than ever as he took it all in, and the faces of the rest were sympathetically hard. But this was no time to stand glooming. The wrong was done. Now to see if it could be righted. He turned and led the way back to the boat, thinking too hard for speech. He knew what had to be done, but there were disquieting items in the programme for which he had been unable to make provision, and which he would gladly have escaped. They would follow the marauders and rescue the victims--that he took as settled. The settlement could hardly be a mild one, and he would fain have spared the women the sight of it; but there was nothing else for it--they could not possibly be left behind. The raiders had doubtless filled their holds here to the last man. But there must be many left. They would be in hiding yet, but presently they would come out of their retreats, full of grief and anger, and it would go hard with the first white faces they encountered. The women must go with them--that was one of his troubles. And the next, supposing they caught these blood-thirsty and body-hungry rascals--and catch them they would, if it took a month's circling round--what were they to do with them when they had them? There would probably be fighting, though the results did not trouble him. What he wanted was to put an end once and for all to this horrible traffic. The only way that suggested itself as adequate and final was to string them up to the yard-arm, every man-jago of them, and whether that might be done with impunity was more than doubtful. The only impunity he desired was for his future work. Morally, he would feel justified. And whether or no, the spirit that was in him would have borne lightly the burden of such a deed, even though its outward results to himself were personally painful and disastrous. It took no more than two minutes after they had scrambled on board to set things in motion. "We are too late," said Blair to the anxious waiters. "We follow at once, captain. They will have filled up here, and will make straight for home. Lay her straight for the Chincha Islands, please, and make all speed possible." Captain Cathie had foreseen the possibility. He set their course due east for the present, and spread his wings again to the last stitch, and they swept away past the other islands, with no more than fleeting glimpses of them in the mellow distance. Then Blair begged them to confer with him in the saloon, and laid his difficulties before them. "I take it for granted we shall catch them," he said. "Certainly," said the captain. "I am distressed at thought of bringing you ladies into contact with bloodshed and violence. But there is no help for it; it would not be safe to leave you behind." "Certainly not," said Aunt Jannet Harvey emphatically. "We would not have been left in any case," said Jean. "Our places are by your sides," and the others quietly endorsed her. "The next thing is this: we shall catch this ship, we shall rescue these islanders, by force if necessary. What are we to do with the crew and the ship?" "Hang them and scuttle her," said Captain Cathie, with decision. "That is one's natural first feeling, and possibly it would be the wisest thing in the end. And yet----" "It is a question if we are justified in going that length," said Charles Evans gravely. Stuart, too, shook his head doubtfully. "Fighting in so good a cause is one thing," he said slowly, "but hanging in cold blood is another." "Exactly," said Blair. "And that is the point of my dilemma." "Do you know what will happen if you let 'em go?" said Cathie brusquely. "I'm afraid I do, captain. And yet--even then---- You mean, of course, that they'll come back in larger force, and with a double incentive--plunder plus revenge." "That's it to a T, sir, and you know it. There'll be no peace and security till they're wiped out. Wipe 'em out at once and completely, and you're all right till a new lot comes along, knowing nothing of these others, except that they never came back. And when the new lot comes we'll tackle them same way. I'm not by nature a bloodthirsty man, but if there's one thing can set me afire, it's this kind of work. I've seen so much of it. They're not men. They're scum of hell--asking your pardon, ladies!" "Speak your mind, captain," said Aunt Jannet Harvey. "No good being mealy-mouthed when it's a question of life and death. I think they should be scuttled." "I've no doubt we all agree as to what we would like to have done, but whether, in our position, we are justified in pronouncing and executing judgment to the extent of death--it is a difficult matter to decide." "If you let one single man of them go, Mr. Blair, you're only breeding future trouble." "I know it, captain. And yet--at times--I have seen the attempt to clear the future of trouble lead only to greater. Is there no alternative?" "There's alternatives," said Cathie gloomily; "but they're only makeshifts--playing with nettles to get stung: you could fling all their arms overboard, and threaten 'em with worse if they come back. And they'll come. You could scuttle the ship and maroon 'em somewhere. You could bring 'em all back here and make 'em work. But there's trouble in it whatever you do, unless you hang 'em out of hand." "I'm afraid there is, and I would dearly like to rid the earth of them; but----" And Evans and Stuart felt as he did. They lacked nothing in courage, but to their minds this matter of essential right went deeper than any mere question of courage or future trouble. Jean, and Alison Evans, and Mary Stuart listened with grave, troubled faces, but ventured no opinion. These were deeper waters than any they had ever sailed on, and they felt rather out of their depths. "Well, we have some little time to think it over," said Blair, at last. "If any illumination comes to any of us, let the rest have the benefit of it. You will get all ready for what we may need to do, captain?" "All's ready, sir. Long Tom's loaded, and the men are keen to square things with these rascals if we can come up with them." "I suppose even these terrible men may have wives and children waiting for them at home," said Jean thoughtfully, as they rose. "Like enough, ma'am," said Cathie--"and so have the brown men." "Men like that have no right to have wives and children," said Aunt Jannet Harvey, with vehemence past grammar. "If they have they'll be better without them. They ought to be scuttled." Nevertheless, Jean's suggestion remained in all their minds. Never was such a bright look-out as the Torchmen kept for the _Blackbirder_, as they dubbed the chase. The rigging was never free from anxious gazers. It looked as though a flight of great birds had lighted on the ship. Jean remarked on it to Aunt Jannet Harvey. "They're fine fellows and all of one mind. See how eager they are to catch her." "Ay, ay!" said Aunt Jannet. "They'll find her if she's to be found," and did not think it necessary to add that, through Captain Cathie, she had offered five pounds to the man who first sighted the other ship. Blair walked the deck strenuously, mostly alone, occasionally with one of the others. And the more he walked and the more he thought, the more averse he became to the idea of hanging. "We're doing right for right's sake in freeing these islanders," he said to Evans and Stuart one time. "If we hang those men I can't help feeling we're doing wrong for right's sake, and there we come to the old Jesuitical practice which we all condemn. We do a wrong in the belief that it will save future trouble. I don't believe we're justified. We've got to do what seems to us right now. The future is in God's hands. If trouble comes, He will show us how to meet it." "That, I think, is highest wisdom," said Stuart. "If the trouble comes, we shall meet it with clear consciences, and clear consciences make stout hearts." "I'm with you," said Evans. "I'd like to see them wiped out as much as Captain Cathie would, but I think we're on a higher plane in doing as you suggest. You feel sure of catching them?" "Hopeful--and determined to do it, if it can be done. They've got at most two days' start. Less, perhaps, for the village was still smoking. They're heavily laden, and we are making good way. We cut into a belt of calms and variables soon, and there we can take to steam. And then--they don't know they're being chased. We do." There was, however, this one element of doubt in the chase: would the raiders carry on due east, in order to get all possible out of the fairly steady westerly winds,--thereby lengthening the distance they had to cover, and having, after all, in the end, to encounter the possibly adverse winds of the coast,--or would they take their chance across the doubtful calm belt and make straight for the Peruvian coast? It was an even question, and the board on which the game had to be played was several thousand miles square. Blair and Cathie discussed the matter in all its bearings. "What would I do if I was them?" summed up the captain. "Well, that would depend too. If I had two or three hundred passengers aboard, and each one worth so much alive and nothing dead, I'd want to get 'em home alive as quick as possible. If I was well stocked with provisions I might carry on with this wind for the coast. If I was anyways short I'd probably try a beat straight for home. If we don't sight them in two days we'll edge up north-east a bit; but I'm pretty sure they'll keep this wind as long as they can, and chances are we'll sight them within twenty-four hours. They're probably not hurrying, and we're making every inch we can." But it was the morning of the third day before the welcome hail from aloft brought every soul on board into the bows, to search for the tiny mote on the horizon on which all their hopes were concentrated. It was a very early bird who had discovered the worm. He had gone up aloft before the dawn, and, as the sun shot up, the rim of the sea was lucent like the edge of a glass plate brimming with water. An almost invisible flaw, a mere film against the light, was enough for the practised eye, and his joyful "Sail ho!" turned the ship upside-down. Captain Cathie swung up alongside the look-out with his glasses, and was presently on deck again beaming contentedly. "That's her right enough," he said. "A brig, and we're raising her fast. You'll see her from below here inside an hour." "When shall we catch her up?" asked Blair anxiously. "Perhaps by three o'clock or so," said Cathie, after a moment's consideration, but added cautiously, "if the wind holds," and, as if resenting his doubt, the sails gave an ominous warning flap. "Right," said the captain, with a determined nod, and set the engineers to work at once to get up steam. "We'd be as well to have it on anyhow, to keep the weather gauge of him when we come up," and presently the screw was churning the merry bubbles up astern, and the chase was rising slowly on the horizon. The brig, however, had held the wind longer than they had. It was mid-afternoon before they got within range of her, and she was still drawing slowly along with sails that bulged and flapped in desultory catspaws. "Shall I send a shot over her, just to show we mean business?" brimmed Cathie. "No shots unless they're absolutely necessary, captain," said Blair. "We'll hail her first. And I think you ladies had better go below. Their answer may be lead." Aunt Jannet was for resisting. "I want to see," said she. "There may be things not for your seeing, Aunt Jannet," said Blair quietly, "and other things besides. Please go with the others and keep them from feeling nervous if you can." So the ladies went below, and we may imagine to what helpful furtherance of patient waiting they betook themselves. CHAPTER XIII THE MAN'S MAN'S MAN The sides of the _Blackbirder_ were lined with sallow, scowling faces, as villainous a crew as ever gathered aboard one disreputable ship since time began. They took in all the points of the trim little craft that nosed quietly up within speaking distance; the British flag, to which they were by nature antipathetic; the long brown gun forward, with its black mouth pointing plumb for every shifty eye of them; the glancing barrels of the Winchesters, and the steady determination of the men who carried them; the covert menace of the whole silent display. Muttered blasphemies rolled along the line of yellow faces, and the rumble of them was heard aboard the _Torch_. "What you want?" shouted a burly figure, standing aft behind the deckhouse. "Your cargo," replied Captain Cathie, patting the breach of his big gun affectionately, and the objurgations aboard the enemy broke out afresh. "What you mean?" "You'd better come aboard here and we'll explain." "You better fetch me." "Very well," said Cathie, with joy in his face. He stooped behind his long gun for a moment, trained it carefully, and instantly its angry bellow filled sea and sky, and sent the women below to their knees. They heard a crash, aloft and below, aboard the _Blackbirder_, and the yells of the men as they scattered to avoid the falling spars. The smoke, drifting lazily away, showed the brig's maintopmast nipped neatly at the crosstrees, and hanging with its yards in a fantastic tangle of ropes to the deck. "That's the first time of asking," shouted Cathie. "Are you coming?" and he bent behind his gun again. "I kom," and they saw the black-a-vised crew set to launching a boat, with vicious side-glances at their oppressor. Presently the dirty boat and its dirty crew lay alongside, and the burly one climbed slowly up the ladder they dropped for him. His small eyes glared viciously out of his bloated cheeks, "like a hunted boar's," said Cathie afterwards. "Now then! You are pirate?" "Not at all--we're missionaries," said Cathie. "Missi----!" and the fat one came within measurable distance of apoplexy. "You've stolen our people. We want them back. Do you understand?" But the _Blackbirder's_ English was limited, and the shock of meeting missionaries of so strange a texture had bemused his wits. Blair begged Stuart to speak to him in Spanish, and the wandering wits came back at sound of it. "Tell him," said Blair, "that the islanders he has kidnapped are our people, and we intend to take them home again." And Stuart put it to him so. "If he makes any resistance we shall overcome it. What does he say?" "He asks how you're going to take them back." "We will see to all that presently. First, he will bring aboard here all the arms they have over yonder," said Blair, and as that sank through Stuart into the other's understanding, the little boar-eyes gleamed more viciously than ever, and the fat body rumbled with volcanic fires. "We will give him half an hour to deliver up the arms. If they are not here then, his other mast will go. He will bring them over himself." The little eyes glared furiously round, but found nothing but grimmest determination in the faces that hemmed him in. Possibly they did not fail to note all the other points bearing on the question. He shambled to the side with a growl in his throat, and got heavily into his boat, and was pulled across to his ship, and immediately they heard the simmering of a hot discussion tipped with sharp flakes of invective. "They don't like it," said Captain Cathie. The minutes passed. Now and again a scowling face turned their way, and shot a venomous white-eyed glance at them, but there were no signs of the arms coming over. "Five minutes more," shouted Cathie at last, bubbling with excitement, and clapping the breech of his gun. "And, my goodness, I hope you'll run it out! I want that other mast," he added softly. "Five minutes more," shouted Stuart in Spanish, so that there should be no misunderstanding. Cathie stood watch in one hand, lanyard in the other, one foot tapping restlessly. He hungered for that other mast, and the lesson its fall would teach the yellow dogs. At last he closed his watch with a snap, stooped to the gun, and with a roar and a rattling crash, and a blasphemous scatteration below, the foretopmast shared the devastation of the mainmast. "Now we have them right as a trivet," said Cathie, "and they'll begin to understand where they are." They understood, and five minutes later the boat shoved off again, bringing the spoils of war, such part of them, at all events, as they chose to surrender--some thirty muskets, as many cutlasses, and half a dozen revolvers. "Now," said Blair, to the downcast captain of the _Blackbirder_, through Stuart, "you will stop here. We shall tow you back to the islands. When your cargo is discharged, you will be at liberty to go. If you ever return on this errand, you will find us waiting for you. Now, captain," to Cathie, and, at a sign from the captain, one of the white whale-boats dropped to the water, and half a dozen men jumped into her, carrying the coil of a stout hawser, which ran out over the stern of the _Torch_ and was secured amidships. The _Torch_ herself swung into line ahead of the other, and the big steel gun swung slowly round till her muzzle grinned threateningly round each side of the mainmast. "Tell those men to get back, Stuart, and say the captain waits with us," and the brig's boat pushed sulkily off. "Now, Stuart, you come with me, and Matti. We will take revolvers, though we shall not need them." Matti shivered into the boat, and Stuart and Blair followed with four Torches carrying Winchesters, and pulled to the brig and climbed up among the truculent crew, every man of which had his knife at his back and hands that itched to get using it. Blair called for the mate and told him curtly what he had already told the captain, and added some special instructions for his own benefit. [Illustration: Blair called for the mate and told him curtly what he had already told the captain.] "First, make fast that hawser!" They did it to the satisfaction of the Torches, and at a call from Blair the _Torch_ started slowly ahead, the hawser tightened, and every solid thrust of the blades in the blue water cut an upward step in the life of the Dark Islands. "Now, understand! There will be a hand on that rope night and day. If there is any tampering with it you will hear from us. This mess"--pointing to the dismantled masts--"you will not touch till we reach the islands. Now I am going to inspect your cargo. How often do you feed them?" "Twice a day." "Some of us will come across each time and see it done. I hold you responsible. If they suffer, you will suffer. Understand? Now lead the way! You"--to Stuart and the four Torches--"please keep your eyes about you while I go below. Matti, you come with me." A grating, through which came a most horrible smell, was hauled up, and the three went down into the inferno, and felt sick before their feet quitted the ladder. For the mate was sick at this unexpected turn of fortune, and Blair and Matti came near to physical sickness with the stench. Blair clung to the side of the ladder and gazed mistily round. There was little light, but the dimness seemed to come not so much from lack of light as from superfluity of nastiness of every possible description and human misery indescribable. The feel of the place was like a hot breath from the pit. It closed silently upon one like the hand of a crawling death. It dimmed the eyes, and choked the throat, and lay like a weight on the heart. To breathe it seemed death, yet three hundred miserables breathed it and lived, and by degrees his eyes discerned them and never lost the sight. A great confused tangle of brown limbs and bodies, many entirely naked, a forest of shock heads, a hypnotising multitude of dark eyes all focussed on him, and all pitted with sparks of light from the opened hatch--mostly men, a few women, no children--short panting breaths, sighs, groans, the dull rattle of chains. "Have they been fed to-day?" gasped Blair, and pointed to his mouth. The mate nodded. Blair went two steps up the ladder and called to Stuart. "Tell them to feed and water these poor things instantly. Now, Matti, ask them in all the tongues you know if there is any headman or chief among them. And say we mean them well." Matti tried them without success in two or three dialects, but at last hit upon one that evoked responsive movements in some of those nearest the light. He felt his way, and at last got a word in answer, the meaning of which he understood. Here a couple of men came down the ladder carrying baskets of what looked like dog-biscuits, which they commenced handing round, one to each prisoner, and the latter sprang to the limits of their tethers for them, and snatched and worried them like dogs that had not been fed for a week. Blair looked at the mate, but the mate looked elsewhere. It took a long time and many renewals to supply them all; but Blair would not move till it was done, nor until every one had had a drink of water. Then the interrupted conversation was resumed. Yes, there was a chief there, and Blair ordered the mate to release the man and bring him forward. He came without eagerness, a tall, brown, well-built man of middle age, with a gloomy, but not absolutely forbidding face, pinched just now, perhaps with hunger, perhaps with despair. Experience had taught him to expect nothing but evil at the hands of white men. But even his dull misery could not but perceive a difference between this clean, white-clad white man and those he had become accustomed to, and he gazed at Blair with a note of sullen inquiry. "You are a chief?" asked Blair, through Matti. "I am a king," he said, answering Blair, and bestowing no look on Matti, who, he perceived, was only a voice. And there was that in his tone and manner which carried conviction in spite of the misery of his condition. "We have come to set you free and to take you back to the island." And when the words beat through Matti's attempt at his dialect and got into his brain, it was as though an electric shock had galvanised him suddenly into new life. "Free?--the island?" he stammered, and stared, still doubting. "All?" he asked. "Yes, all," and he turned and told the news to the rest in quick, clipping words, and after a moment's amazed silence a shout went up, and the fetid hole was filled with a deafening buzz of talk. It was only after anxious consideration of the point that Blair had decided to tell them the good news. He grudged every lost soul there. He would not lose one. There might be some given over to utter despair, and there is no tonic like hope. "You will come with us," said Blair, to the discrowned king. The man looked back into the gloom, and then again at Blair, and spoke eagerly. "He says one of his wives is there," said Matti. "She shall come also." The man pointed her out, the mate released her, and they climbed to the blessed upper air, all a-tremble with eagerness. "Now, understand!" said Blair to the mate, through Stuart, so that all could hear him: "when your cargo is discharged, you will be at liberty to go where you will. If you attempt any treachery, we will blow you to pieces. If you ever return to the Dark Islands, you do so at your own peril," and he saw his guests into the boat and followed them. The woman was young and not uncomely, but subdued and apparently somewhat dazed still at these sudden reverses of fortune. Neither spoke a word as the _Torch_ slowed down for them to come aboard, but the man's eyes roved to and fro in ceaseless questioning, and he seemed to arrive at an intelligent understanding of matters. The long steel gun claimed his attention the moment he reached the deck, and from his instant glance across at the shattered hamper of the brig he evidently associated the two things. Their only visible clothing was a native mat wrapped round the waist and falling nearly to the feet, and the very first thing to do was to cleanse them of the visible results of their 'tween-decks imprisonment. Blair led the man down to the men's bathroom, and turned on the taps and filled the bath before his astonished eyes. He showed him also the use of soap, by washing his own hands, and left him to complete his toilet. He could not, however, forbear listening outside to hear how he got on, and was rewarded at first by a long silence, then by several tentative turnings on and off of the wonderful taps. Then a slight splashing suggested an experiment with the soap; and finally grunts of satisfaction and much wallowing told of savage man's enjoyment of the amenities of civilisation, and the return to his natural cleanliness. When he had had time to wash himself several times over, Blair knocked on the door and went in, and found his guest lying full length under water, with only his brown nose showing, and evidently feeling very much better. He sat up and gurgled some words expressive of his feelings, and was mightily astonished at the sudden disappearance of the water when the plug was pulled up. He wanted to fill the bath again at once to see it run out again, and Blair let him engineer a final sluice for himself. He was a much pleasanter companion after his wash. His fine brown skin shone under the unusual treatment of a towel, and his hair stuck out from his head like a twirling mop. He was about to assume his dirty mat again, but Blair hauled out some clean towels, tied one round him like a loin-cloth, draped another from his hips as he had worn his mat, and threw another over his shoulders, and the man was dressed as he had never been dressed in his life before. The towels happened to have broad red bands along the edges, and moreover had fringes, and their wearer was as proud of them as any Piccadilly dandy of his newest thing in spring suits. Somewhat similar doings had been in course in the ladies' quarters, but, thanks to Aunt Jannet Harvey's very determined, but equally mistaken, good intentions, the results were less happy. Aunt Jannet believed firmly that decency as well as cleanliness were first steps towards godliness, and she was too recent an arrival in the equatorials, and perhaps also too conservative in her own ideas, to understand that decency of attire is after all purely matter of custom. To her, a girl dressed, or undressed, only in a ridi fringe which clung precariously to her hips and fell half-way to her knee, was practically unclothed. She did not know that it was death for a man to touch that scant, precarious garment. Strange anomaly of the cannibal isles--a dangling fringe of smoked coco-nut fibre a more stringent safeguard than the multitudinous garments of civilisation! When Aunt Jannet did learn that fact she thought considerably, and thereafter took a somewhat wider view of things. Meanwhile, in the mistaken goodness of her heart, she had insisted on arraying the newcomer in garments of her own, the most visible of which was a light print dress, in which the poor creature looked almost as uncomfortable as she felt. At sight of her transformation the brown man stared hard, and then grinned vigorously, and the girl hotched and wriggled in disgustful discomfort. She came up to the man and fingered his soft towels wistfully. She spoke to him, and he instantly handed her the one he had over his shoulder. She tore at the neck of her dress with evident intention, and Blair begged Jean to take her away and provide her with what towels she wished. "Well, I never!" began Aunt Jannet remonstratively. "That is a mistake that has wrought infinite mischief, dear Aunt Jannet," he said. "Our work must begin inside, not outside. Meddle as little as possible with manners and customs or you do more harm than good." "My goodness me! It's absolutely indecent for a woman to go about with nothing on but a towel. Don't tell me you allow them to eat one another, Kenneth!" "Well, we break them off that as soon as we can. But in all these matters we have learned that it is highest wisdom to hasten slowly." "Well, I----" But here the brown girl came back, all smiles and modest grace, clad in red-fringed towels like the man, and even Aunt Jannet, in her heart, could find no fault with her appearance. Then Blair called Matti, and, sitting on the deck by the new arrivals, he quietly commenced his approaches towards the conquest of the Dark Islands. Briefly--in the telling, though very much otherwise in the extracting--this was what they learned. The man's name was Ha'o--which he pronounced Hacho, the ch as in loch--and the woman's Nai or Na-ee. He was, he asserted, chief of that one of the Dark Islands which had been raided by the brig. A number of the islanders had been enticed on board with soft words and presents and then suddenly made prisoners. The ship had then apparently sailed, but that same night the village was burnt and he and the rest carried off. It was not easy to make him understand what had induced these other white men to follow and bring them back. If they did really land him on his own island again--of which he was by no means sure--he would be their friend and brother. As for those others--looking venomously at the captain of the brig, who was sitting amidships in gloomy contemplation of the scurviness of fortune--he would ask nothing better than to eat them if the chance offered. "You eat men, then?" asked Blair, through Matti. "Of course. Why not? Properly cooked they are excellent eating"--or words to that effect. And Aunt Jannet Harvey and the other ladies shuddered and wondered, for he did not by any means look the monster his words implied. Blair tried hard to convey to him the idea that they had come from the other side of the world for the sole purpose of helping him and his people; but that was too much for him--he could not comprehend it. He got tired of being questioned out of his depth, and strolled about the ship, examining everything attentively. The long brown steel gun, the revolving screw, the engines, and the smoke pouring out of the funnel claimed his chief attention. During the next few days he hung over the stern watching the revolving blades and the bubbling wake by the hour, with absorbed and puzzled face, and every now and then would lick his hand and hold it up to feel the air. There was little wind, for Captain Cathie had purposely run up into the calm belt to lessen the strain of the towage, but such as there was it was dead against them, and the brown man could not understand it. As to the gliding pistons and smooth-running wheels in the engine-room, they were white men's magic of the most virulent description, and Matti himself understood the business too little to be able to convey any clear idea of the connection between them and the never-resting screw astern. For the rest, both the brown man and the girl found ample grounds for wonder in the farm-yard in the bows--the contemplative cow, the sullen-eyed young bull, the stolid goats, and the rooting piglets and their mother, and the cocks and hens in their coops, and the men's pet cat, which occupied their various bunks in turn, and accepted all their attentions with the utmost complacence and gave nothing in return. But of all the things that set sparks in the girl's wondering eyes, the crowning delight was the piano in the saloon and the little harmonium which was lashed alongside it. She would sit with her ear pressed tight to the frame and her eyes like saucers as long as any one would play for her; and when her own slim brown finger touched one of the white keys and elicited due response she jumped with delight, and would have practised one-finger exercises of her own composition all day and all night. There were other wonders in reserve, but she had enough for the present, and more than enough. "She has an ear for music," said Jean to her husband one night. "She was crouching by me during the singing, and I heard her humming the tune quite nicely." "They are famous singers, some of them," said Blair. "I count a good deal on working up to the citadel through Eargate." The _Blackbirder_ captain was lodged in an empty cabin, and had his meals there. He had ample time for introspective musing, for none cared to associate with him. In the middle of the first night Blair jumped up in a sweat of terror. The idea had suddenly occurred to him that the hostage might make a break for liberty or revenge by setting the ship on fire. He went hastily to the spare cabin and found him snoring comfortably. Nevertheless he sat there all night, and after that the man was never left alone, day or night, till they finally got rid of him. Twice each day some of them, with Matti as interpreter, dropped down to the brig and saw the islanders duly fed and watered, and said a word or two of cheer to them. And day after day the sallow crew scowled across at the quiet ordered life on board the schooner--the pleasant, friendly relations, the morning and evening services on deck--and cursed sparks into its vicious eyes; but ventured no more because of the ever-present Winchesters and the black mouth of Long Tom which gaped hungrily at them whenever they looked that way. Their weighted progress was slow. It was the evening of the sixth day before the distant peaks of the Dark Islands bit up through the setting sun, and on the morning of the seventh day they were steaming slowly for the entrance to the lagoon. Ha'o and Nai had refused to lie down all night. All night long they had hung over the bows, peering into the darkness in a fever of anticipation which left them no words. When the flaming east lit up the giant peak they knew so well, they could scarce contain themselves. Cannibals they were and benighted heathen, but this was home, and there was hope in them and for them. Captain Cathie, with admirable skill, and a couple of his whale-boats, humoured the brig in, stern foremost, since she had no steerage-way on her. He dropped her down the lagoon as close to the white sand spear as he deemed advisable, then bade them drop their anchor and loose the tow-rope, and heaved a sigh of content as his gallant little ship shook herself free of that most undesirable partnership. He took up a position to seaward of the brig, and Blair, and Evans, and Ha'o, with Matti and the usual guard in attendance, went on board of her to discharge cargo. It was a thing to remember, one of the high times of life that stand out in the past when other things have faded. A great shout went up from the chaotic mass of brown men as the white-clad figures came down the ladder and Ha'o shouted the good news to them. He had been across each day with whoever was going, and Blair, watching carefully this corner-stone of his enterprise, had come to think well of him. A thing to remember, indeed, as the brown figures came tumbling up the ladder in batches. They fairly scrambled over one another in their haste, and, after one wild glance round to make sure, flung themselves headlong into the familiar waters, and made straight for the shore, shouting breathlessly as they went, eager only to set foot on that white beach once more. Blair had reckoned on carrying them ashore in the boats, but who would wait for boats when the sparkling water called? That long string of urgently bobbing black heads from brig to shore--first-fruits of victory--_spolia opima_ in very truth--was a sight none of them ever forgot. The Torches laughed aloud with enjoyment. Even the sullen-eyed Blackbirders watched with interest. Ha'o stood among the white men with wonderful self-control. Instinct drew him to the water with the rest, but he would not. Even these few short days on the higher plane had not been without their effect. He had watched ceaselessly. He had seen much that was beyond him. For the first time in his life, he had come across a force greater than his own, which made for good and not for evil. There were stirrings within him which he did not understand, but the first expression of them made for restraint. When the stream of brown bodies ceased pouring out of the hatch, and the last batch had leaped overboard with joyful shouts, Blair and the others climbed down into the empty dimness to make sure that all had gone. They found three lying with starting eyes, too weak to move and fearful that they had been forgotten. These they wrapped in abandoned mats and passed up on deck and lowered into one of the whale-boats. Then a flying visit to the _Torch_ for Nai, and they sped to the shore. It was only when they all stood on the white beach that Ha'o, shaking with excitement barely to be restrained, turned to Blair and, grasping his hand in his own two trembling ones, carried it to his forehead and said some words in a low voice. Blair glanced at Matti for enlightenment. "He says he is your man from this day, and will be to you as a brother," said Matti, and the white hand and the brown gripped firmly on the compact. Then Ha'o turned and walked rapidly towards the village, and they went with him. So Ha'o of Kapaa'a became the Man's man's man. And the first sparks of light for the Dark Islands leaped from the match that set fire to the village thatch ten days before. So good comes out of evil, and no man may safely say this is good and that is ill. For no man knows, save Him Who knows all things; and His ways are so very different from man's ways that wisdom and experience drive one only to the doing with one's might the thing that is in hand, in the faithful hope that He will round the corners and shape the work to its appointed end. CHAPTER XIV CLIPPING A BLACKBIRD Before we proceed to other matters, let us get rid of the _Blackbirder_. She lay like a black blot on the smooth swell of the lagoon, and till we are quit of her the place will not feel clean. Civilisation, as represented by the dismantled brig, was as foul a thing as any the Dark Islands could show--not excepting even the terrors of the feasting-places. For what the dark men did they did in their darkness, and what the yellow men did they did in their light, and condemnation goes with knowledge. And as it was here, so it was elsewhere. Vicious civilisation gashed Nature with a broad red wound and trampled her to earth. Fortunately, in this case there was healing and reparation. But it was not always so. Blair and Cathie had had ample time during the return voyage to arrange their plans, Blair's part in the discussions consisting chiefly of acting as brake to the captain's whirring wheels. For Captain Cathie, honest man, foresaw such certain trouble from letting the raiders go that he would have strained many points to put it out of their power ever to return. But Blair would have none of it. "I haven't a doubt that you are right, captain," he said, "but even these men have got to have their chance. If they do come back, they must take the consequences. We will deal with them then as may seem best." So while Blair and Evans followed Ha'o towards the village, Captain Cathie was busy in his own way. With his long brown gun menacing the brig, he sent his other two boats over in charge of his mate and Stuart, with instructions to deport the yellow men to a tiny crown of rock where the wall of the reef had crept up a few feet higher than elsewhere. It was a precarious lodging at best and uncomfortably damp, for the great ocean rollers broke on the seaward side in ceaseless thunder, and their spray lashed up to heaven, and came crashing over into the lagoon, and the rock was always wet. Captain Cathie jocularly expressed the opinion that the yellow men would be none the worse for a bit washing, for not one of them looked as if he had known soap since he was a kiddie. He sent by Stuart, on his own responsibility, the information that he was going to disinfect their ship, and that if they were not all out of it in ten minutes he would sink it with a shot between wind and water. The yellow men turned green with apprehension, grabbed their meagre belongings under the certain belief that they were leaving their ship for good and all, and did as they were bidden. Then, leaving the captain of the _Blackbirder_ in strict custody, Cathie pulled over to the brig and proceeded to overhaul it with all the enjoyment of a humanitarian highwayman going through his victim's pockets. Every bond and shackle they found was promptly tossed overboard. Every ounce of trade they could find--cloth, beads, knives, and so on, which might still be used for the enticement of unwary natives and the replenishment of a depleted exchequer--was annexed as salve for native wounds. Several rifles and revolvers, which the haste of the previous surrender, or malice prepense, had overlooked, were now included. Every keg of rum they could lay hands on was stove in and emptied into the lagoon, and when the captain was fairly satisfied that he had clipped the _Blackbirder's_ wings, for this voyage at any rate, and, as he jocularly said, had given the yellow men a chance of practising teetotal principles for a spell, though he feared the effect would only be temporary, he returned to the _Torch_ and sent his boats to bring back the prisoners from their damp roosting-place. He explained to the gloomy-faced captain of the _Blackbirder_ what he had done, and why, and sent him back to his ship with instructions to refit as quickly as possible, to take in what water he needed, and to get away without delay, lest the natives should take it into their heads to pay him in their own way for his maltreatment of them. "And tell him, sir," he said to Stuart, "that if I'd had my way I'd have strung every man of them up to the yardarm, and if they ever come back that's what they may expect, and I'll be delighted to have a hand in it." When Blair and the rest came on board, they reported the village still in ruins. No attempt had been made to rebuild it yet, and they had seen no other natives than those who had come ashore from the brig. The atoll men and women had camped in a bunch among the ruined houses, by starting a fire with a borrowed match and proceeding to cook some taro from the adjoining fields. The Dark Island men had scattered among the hills to find their friends and relatives, and to tell them of their wonderful deliverance. Under the compulsion of the grinning long gun the Blackbirders worked hard at their rigging, and the party on the _Torch_ sat and watched them till the shadows chased the red glow of the sunset rapidly up the hills, and work was over for the day. "It is very wonderful," was Blair's summing-up of the whole matter: "good once more comes out of evil. If the arranging of matters had been in our own hands, they could not have fallen more fortunately for us. In the ordinary course of things we might have been years in arriving at the position this catastrophe and its remedying have put us into. Ha'o and Nai will, I think, prove staunch friends. They know we desire nothing but their good. Through them we shall get all the rest by degrees." "All I wish is that we'd hung those yellow blackguards, sir," said Cathie, with lingering regret. "It would only have been right common sense, after all." "Hear, hear!" said Aunt Jannet Harvey. "Well, well," said Blair. "It's generally easier to undo than to do. But our aim is life, not death. We shall have all we can do to put new life into our brown friends, without spending our energies and bruising our consciences by choking the old life out of our yellow enemies." "All the same, sir, we'd have been safer for the future if those rascals were rolling at the bottom of the sea than floating quietly on top of it. If they don't come back here, they'll go somewhere else and play the same game." "I'm afraid they will, captain; but all the same I don't see my way to hanging them. If they come back here, as they quite possibly may----" "Will, sure," said the captain. "Well, if they do it will be our duty to protect the sheep from the wolves." "I'm half hoping they'll try it on," said Cathie. "Yon long gun would make fine play with 'em." In the morning Blair and the other men went ashore again. The ladies begged to go too, but he thought it wiser to wait till they learned the minds of the rest of the islanders. They found the atoll men busily at work running up shelters, and quite content with their new surroundings. This was a place of infinitely wider scope than their own circumscribed island, and they had no desire whatever to go back to it. Knowing how intense the racial hatreds were among the islands, Blair could only hope that Ha'o's influence might suffice for their protection. He was wondering when any of the original inhabitants would turn up again, when he saw a straggling company descending the hill, and at the head of it Ha'o, easily recognisable by his costume of white towels. He waved his hand at sight of them, and quickened his pace. As he drew near they saw that his face was very grim, and he began to speak so rapidly and energetically that Matti could only wait and absorb the sense of it without any attempt at translation. "There is trouble," said Matti, turning to Blair as the other paused for breath. "In his absence, and thinking he was gone for good, his brother has become chief, and he will not give up his place." "And what do the people say?" asked Blair, and Matti put the question. "They are divided. There were some who were never contented, and there are some who always want change, and there are some who stand on one side to see which party is strongest. Those who were with me on the ship stay with me, and there are many others, but Ra'a"--Racha or Raka, his brother--"has also many. It will lead to trouble." This was a quite unexpected development and obstacle. From his slight knowledge of island ways, Blair foresaw that it was a matter that might lead to constant strife. For there is no quarrel so bitter as a family quarrel, and the tribe is but the family on a larger scale. "Come to the ship, Ha'o," he said, "and let us talk it over. Where is Nai?" "She is with her people. She will come when I send for her. My other wives my brother has taken, but I do not want them." "Is he likely to do anything unpleasant at once?" "No; at present everything is----." And with his hands he indicated chaos. The situation was a grave one in some respects, though still far better than it would have been had they landed entire strangers with all their footing to win. It might even contain advantages, for Ha'o and his party would be driven by stress of circumstances still closer to them, and there was material enough to occupy them there for a long time to come. Captain Cathie was for grasping this nettle again in such a way as to neutralise its sting. "If we tackle them at once, Mr. Blair, we can knock the brother out and make things safe, and it'll maybe be the shortest cut in the end, and cost fewest lives. You know what these brown fellows are when they get to loggerheads among themselves. It's just Stewarts and Campbells over again, and no peace till one side or the other goes under." Blair nodded. "I know, captain; but, all the same, we can't begin by killing the men we want to convert. Gentle handling and patience may bring us to the appointed end. It may take longer, but the end, I think, will be the larger." But Captain Cathie shook his head, and Aunt Jannet Harvey shook hers in unison. "Some things are best nipped in the bud," said she, "and it seems to me that Mr. Ha'o has been very badly treated all round." "Well, we've done our best for him, and we'll go on doing it, but we must do it in the way we think wisest." Ha'o himself now struck in through Matti, and his question was the very natural one as to whether the white men, who had done so much for him, would continue to do so, and help him to recover his rights. It took time and patience to explain to him that they would do everything they could without fighting, unless the other side attacked him, in which case they would help him and his people to defend themselves. Ha'o saw no use for the other side except to be killed--and possibly eaten. It was not possible as yet to make clear to him their object in coming to the islands. The root idea was beyond him. He had hoped with their help to smash the opposition out of hand, and was inclined to resent this, as it seemed to him, very lukewarm offer of defensive assistance. Blair, however, was at pains to explain, as far as was possible, that they had come not to fight--at which the brown man's eyes rested appreciatively on the long brown gun--but to teach him and his people better things than fighting, and that they would help him in every possible way--except, as Ha'o's face plainly showed, in this one way, for which he would willingly have foregone all the rest. Blair showed him the tribute exacted from the _Blackbirder_, and told him the things were for himself and those who had been carried off with him, and the black eyes sparkled greedily. Then Blair suggested that the first thing to do was to rebuild the village, and asked him to allot them land where they could build their own houses. At which Ha'o waved his hand regally over Kapaa'a and said, "Choose!" They chose a spot at the head of the white sand spear, with the brush curving round behind, and the little river gurgling alongside. A dozen tall palms swung their crests above, in front lay the placid stretch of the lagoon, and beyond it the reef, and the white jets of foam, and the never-ending thunder of the breaking rollers. By way of setting a good example to the islanders, and no less to impress upon the Blackbirders that they had come to stop, Captain Cathie got out and sent ashore the frames of the houses they had brought with them. One of the little steam-launches was got into working order, and before nightfall was chuffing merrily back and forth with load after load of necessaries, planks and beams and fittings; and what with the work on board the _Blackbirder_, and the traffic between the _Torch_ and the shore, and the doings on the beach, the lagoon of Kapaa'a was livelier than ever it had been since time began. Deadlier it had often been, but this was the beginning of the new life, and the dawn came to the Dark Islands in such commonplace guise as doors and windows, and chairs and tables and bedsteads. By Cathie's advice they built their houses on piles, with roomy platforms under which the fresh sea breezes could blow at will. Every man who could be spared from the ship helped in the building, and the work went on apace. Blair and Evans and Stuart, stripped to shirts and trousers, carried and sawed and hammered with the rest, and spared themselves not at all. The ladies would have come too, but reluctantly obeyed orders, and stopped on board till the political horizon should become somewhat more determined. Ha'o and his people, after watching the small beginnings of a work that was far beyond their understanding, turned to their own business. Blair had a quantity of spades and axes brought ashore, and gave them to Ha'o for his building operations, and the effect on their spirits, as their hands closed on the handles, was magical. They rushed to the woods to try them, and when the white men went along presently to see how they were going on, they found the village already getting into shape. There had evidently been some argument with the atoll men, who had thought to establish themselves on the old site, but they had now drawn off, and were stolidly building shelters a short distance away, and regarding with envious eyes the new tools of the island men. That was soon put right, and a supply of axes for themselves transformed them into an excited, chattering crew, without a grievance in the world. Food was plentiful, the taro swamp was there to their hand, coco-nuts abounded, they had fire and water: what more could any man want, unless it was a slice of brother man to add zest to the feast? And at present both they and brother man were much too busy to give the matter the necessary consideration. It took the _Blackbirder_ three days' hard work to clear away her damaged spars and refit sufficiently for the voyage. Her sulky master suggested a trip ashore to procure some new topmasts. Captain Cathie urged him to go, but expressed doubts as to the probability of his return; and on the morning of the fourth day, the launch having filled their water barrels for them, the _Torch_ got up steam and towed her enemy through the opening in the reef and out to a fair offing, and then cast her off and lay watching till she was hull-down on the eastward horizon. And the very last thing the scowling crew saw--for that time, at all events--was the menacing black mouth of the long gun, and Captain Cathie standing patting its big brown breech affectionately, but in a most unpleasantly meaning way. "Well, thank God we're rid of them at last!" said Aunt Jannet Harvey with fervour, as the brig caught the breeze and drew slowly away. "We shall see them again, ma'am," said Captain Cathie. [Illustration: "We shall see them again," said Captain Cathie (missing from book)] "I wish we'd scuttled them," said Aunt Jannet. CHAPTER XV WHERE THOU GOEST The building operations were progressing apace, and so far they had caught no more than distant glimpses of the malcontents, as they crept cautiously about the hillsides to oversee what was going on below. The proximity of the white men in such force kept them from any expression of what might be in them, and Blair was not without hope that, if he could only get time to develop his plans and demonstrate clearly the advantages of the white alliance, they might still think better of it and come in. Time, however, is what no man can count on. Cautious Captain Cathie, as soon as he had seen the _Blackbirder_ fairly off, proceeded to "bolt the front door," as he said, by running a stout hawser with a kedge at each end across the opening in the lagoon. As this was buried by each incoming roller, it would inevitably overturn any boat running in on the swell, and he felt comparatively safe. Nevertheless, he paced the deck for several nights to make safer still. For the _Torch_ was still the greatest factor in the enterprise, and any accident to her would spell disaster to them all. That first night he was not without his fears of a possible attempt from without. "You never know where you are with rascals like yon, until you've seen 'em hanging for an hour at the end of a rope," said he. "It would be a mighty fine thing for them, and a mighty bad look-out for us, if they crept in and caught us napping." And more than once he stood for minutes at a time listening intently, under the impression that he heard the cries of drowning men above the rhythmic roar of the outer surges, and in the morning he looked eagerly about, but found nothing. He was also somewhat surprised at the complete absence of native canoes, and had visions of such also creeping up in the darkness and carrying his ship by assault. But the canoes had mostly been smashed by the raiders, as a matter of precaution, when they enticed the natives on board, and the rest they had destroyed when they came ashore in the night, and the captain's fears were groundless. The ladies were allowed ashore for a time each day to inspect the progress of their future homes, but they still slept on the schooner. Aunt Jannet Harvey demanded of Blair how long that kind of thing was to go on, as they were all anxious to get to housekeeping again as soon as possible, and Blair could only tell her that they could not hasten developments, but that he hoped each day passed in peace might make for healing. But the peace was suddenly broken. That which had befallen the head of the community had equally struck its tail. Just as Ha'o, supposed to be as good as dead, had been supplanted by Ra'a, so on a smaller scale had most of his companions in misfortune. It was a matter only of degree. The hurt was the same. Yams and taro do not come to maturity in a day. The rescued ones were rebuilding the village on its old site, close to the taro fields. The rebels on the hills and the perchers on the fence wanted their share of the common goods. They ventured down by night, warily and in mortal fear of more than Ha'o and his men, to procure them, and the fat was in the fire. At first it spluttered in hot words. "We want our proper share of taro," said the hillmen, not without reason. "You went away"--which was a provocative way of putting it--"and left us to tend the fields, and now you come back and sit on them." "The fields belong to the community. We are the community. Come back into it and you will share with us. Where are our wives?" was the answer. Some few, such as cared little who ruled so long as their stomachs were filled, did come back, and Nai brought down a number of the women and children, her towel costume and her descriptions of the white men's wonders forming strong inducements to the others. But many stood out, and the arguments developed from words to blows. Ra'a's men came down in force by night to replenish their larders. Ha'o's men resisted. One of the former got his head smashed in by an axe, and the feud was complete. Blair did his best to prevent the rupture, but it was beyond him. Ha'o was, not unnaturally, hot against the usurper and his followers, and it was all the white men could do to persuade him from attempting a _coup-de-force_ for the full rehabilitation of his fortunes. Under Blair's forcible arguments, and a grievous shortage of weapons, he agreed to postpone any active movement till his village was rebuilt. Then, when time lay on his hands, Blair knew that it would be next to impossible to restrain him. He hoped, however, that opportunity might arise which would afford a chance of intervention with some hopes of success. Meanwhile skirmishes went on almost nightly, and there came a time at last when two of Ha'o's men, in repelling an attempt on the taro fields, were speared and their bodies carried off. In the morning Ha'o came up, wearing his grimmest face. "They have killed my men," he said, through Matti. "Now I go to kill them." Blair had been considering the matter ever since the report reached him, and he had made up his mind what to do. To understand Kenneth Blair fully you must bear in mind all that he had gone through, and the effect it could not fail to have upon him. Once in his life, in the face of imminent death, he had flinched and he had never forgiven himself. To all the world outside he could be tender and forbearing. To himself he was harder than iron. He would condone in another what he would never permit in himself. In the intensity of his feeling on this matter even his strong common sense was liable to be thrown somewhat off its centre. His only fear was of himself, and in that fear he was liable to choose the hardest and most dangerous path, lest a smoother one should prove but a pitfall to his duty. In his somewhat morbid dread of doing too little he was constantly in danger of doing too much. He was quite aware of it, and he held himself tightly. But where two ways offered, it was almost inevitable that he should choose the more dangerous and difficult. It was a weakness, perhaps, but, after all, he was only human, and no man is perfect. Just as the soldier on whom has rested an imputation of lack of nerve will, when the chance offers, rush to seemingly certain death in order to wipe off the reproach, so Kenneth Blair. It was the spirit of the Six Hundred at Balaclava over again, save that, indeed, in their case their courage had never been called in question, but only their utility. And so, when Ha'o came up, thirsting for his brother's life, Blair said quietly-- "This matter must be settled without shedding of blood. I will go and see Ra'a, and will do my best to persuade him either to come in or to leave us in peace." "He will kill you," said Ha'o briefly. "I hope not. We shall see." "He hates the white men. The hardest thing he has against me is that I ever had any dealings with those others." "Those men were yellow, I will show him what white men are." "He will kill you," said Ha'o once more. "I hope not," was all the reply he got. When the rest heard of his undertaking they also tried hard to dissuade him from it--all except Jean, who sat silent and thoughtful. "It's risky," said Captain Cathie, with a gloomy shake of the head. "Few good things come without risk, captain--besides, I don't believe it's as risky as you imagine." "It's simply suicidal," said Aunt Jannet Harvey. "It's just throwing yourself away, Kenneth, and spoiling all your great plans, to say nothing of Jean's life." "I shall go too," said Jean quietly. "You, Jean?" said Blair, with a catch in the throat and a sudden weight at the heart. "Yes, dear. If you go, I go. If it is death for you it is death for me in any case, and I would sooner it was together." A terrible temptation this to choose the easier path--on her account. What right had he to drag her life into so great a danger? For imminent danger there was, though he had made light of it. He halted, and she saw it, and understood much of what was in him. "Don't hesitate one moment on my account, Ken. I must go. It is possible my being with you may help. It will show them, at all events, that we mean them no ill." "We are in God's hands," he said quietly, but was visibly disturbed at her insistence. Stuart and Evans also strove with him, but with no better effect. "The peace must be kept, if it is possible," he said. "And this seems to me a possible way to it. I would sooner my wife had stopped behind, but I quite understand her point of view. And--we are as safe there as here." "You've no objection to my firing a blank round or two, Mr. Blair?" asked Captain Cathie. "What's the idea, captain?" "Just to impress them with the fact that we're here behind you, sir. A bang or two from the big gun will maybe have as big an effect as anything you can say to them." "Well, I see no objection. All we want is to keep the peace. The big gun may impress them, as you say." "You wouldn't take a dozen of the men with you, would you sir?" asked the captain insinuatingly. But Blair shook his head at that. "That, I fear, would hardly carry the impression that I want to make. I look on all these people as my parishioners. Sooner or later, please God, they will be. But we must win them, captain; we can't force them." He walked the deck alone that night, long after all but the watch had retired, and thought and thought. And at thought of Jean going into the peril of the morrow the temptation was strong at times to find some other and less dangerous way--for her sake. For himself he would not think twice. For her--ah! for her he would think many times. And, after all, had he the right to persist in his own way, even though he believed it to be the right way, since it meant undoubted danger to her? But he found in such thoughts the visible cloven hoof of avoidance, compounding, cowardice, and resolutely shut down upon them. For her sake he could have wished that she had been content to stay quietly on board, and let him face the danger alone. But duty called him with a clear voice, and go he must, whatever came of it. And so it came that, very early the next morning, Kenneth Blair and his wife Jean set out on a somewhat perilous journey. And with them went Matti, the Samoan. And Matti by no means relished the undertaking, yet compassed a fairly stout face, since it was a matter of duty and a tangible business, with nothing ghostly about it, as yet at all events, though as to what it might presently develop into he had his own very grave doubts. They were surely as peaceful-looking an embassage as ever sought a distrustful enemy. They were all in spotless white, and their only visible weapons, beyond Jean's green-lined white sunshade, were some small bundles containing presents, and a new axe and spade carried by Matti. Blair, indeed, had a revolver in his hip pocket, but it was only there because Jean was there. Had he been alone it would have stayed behind. It was, no doubt, somewhat of an anomaly after his confident "We are as safe there as here" of the previous night. But he was very human, and, as I have said, no more perfect than you or I, though an infinitely finer specimen than either of us. As they quitted the ship, the long gun thundered out over their heads, and the noise of it bellowed up into the hills, and clanged to and fro in the valleys. And when they touched the shore it bellowed again, and went on bellowing at intervals like the threatening little monster it was. Ha'o met them at the landing with some of his people, and shook his head gloomily at their prospects. He offered to accompany them as far as possible; but, as he bitterly said, they had not a spear among them, nothing but the axes Blair had given them, and axes are of little use against spears and poisoned arrows. But Blair would not hear of it. He begged him to keep his people at their work as usual, and went on quietly through the disputed taro fields, up through the yam plantations and banana groves, and stood for a moment to look back over the lagoon, with the shapely little ship at her anchorage, and the bursts of white foam along the reef behind. A puff ball of white smoke fluffed out from her deck as they looked, and the roar of it went past them into the hills. It was not by any means impossible that they looked on it all for the last time. And Kenneth Blair's heart was not light as he took Jean's arm through his own and pressed it close to his side, and felt the trustful pressure of her arm in reply. They understood one another fully. They had said all that needed to be said. In this and in all they were one; and if this meant death, they had no other wish than that it should be together. "You are very brave, Jean." "I am where I would be, and as I would be, Ken. We are in God's hands." "Amen!" he said, and lifted his hat and led her round the shoulder of the hill. They did not know where they might come across Ra'a. "You will find him," Ha'o had said meaningly. So they climbed on and up, through tangled thickets of hibiscus and branching matpandanus, under grey-boled palms, along bare patches of rock, certain that scores of dark eyes were watching them, wondering when and how their journey would end. The hills had echoed many times to the voice of the long gun, when, from a clump of brush in front, a couple of bristling warriors rose suddenly and barred their way. They carried long, thin, venomous spears and heavy bows, and each had a bundle of arrows at his thigh. "Aoha!" said Blair quietly, and they stared grimly, first at him, and then, and longer, at Jean. She sat down on a rock and opened her fan and began to use it with an equanimity which covered a jumping heart. The climb had been somewhat exhausting, her face was radiant with colour and a great wistful expectancy, and her eyes shone like southern stars. She was a goodly sight to any man. To these brown men, who had never in their lives seen anything like her, she must have seemed almost more than human. After an appreciative glance at Matti's axe and spade, they stared at her with stolid insistence. "Tell them we have come to speak with Ra'a. We bring him presents," said Blair to Matti, and a conversation of clips and jerks ensued, and in the result the brown men turned and led the way into the bush. They came at last to a number of houses which had a hasty and temporary look about them, and were surrounded instantly by a buzzing crowd of men, women, and children, Jean again the centre of attraction, and bearing it, as before, with surprising equanimity. They almost mobbed her, and shouted their comments aloud from one to another. Her sunshade, her fan, her dress, her face, her hair, her hands, every bit of her was a new sensation, and they made the most of it. Then sudden silence fell, as a tall man strode through the lane they made before him, and stood in front of the strangers. "You are Ra'a?" asked Blair of him direct. "I am Ra-ch-ch-ch-a!" and his raucous name sounded worse in his own throat than it had ever sounded to them before; and as he said it, so it seemed to fit him. He was tall and well made, evidently younger by some years than Ha'o, but his face was truculent and his eyes quick-glancing and shifty. They rested, however, on Jean, and under other circumstances, and from a civilised man, Blair would have resented the look. "What do you want?" asked Ra'a harshly. And, through Matti, Blair answered him-- "We want peace between you and Ha'o"--and at the very mention of his brother the other scowled--"and between your people and his." "It is you who have made the trouble. Why did you bring him back?" "If it had been you we would have brought you back just the same." "Ha'o is a fool to have dealings with white men." "Those others were not white men, they were yellow. They are not of our tribe. We, too, hate the things they do, and we have come to stop them." "You are all the same. If you hate them, why did you not kill them?" "We do not kill if we can help it. If they come again, we may have to kill them." "Why is that noise?" as the voice of Long Tom bellowed in the hills once more. "It is the voice of my big canoe." "It is only a voice. It does no harm." "When I choose. You saw the other big canoe's masts? It did that with twice speaking." "What do you want?" asked Ra'a once more. "We have come from the other end of the world, where the people are all white, to try and be of use to you." "We do not want you. We do quite well." "There are many things you do not know, many things you have not got. Axes, spades," and he laid them down at the brown man's feet, "and cloth, and beads, and fish-hooks, and knives"; and he opened the bundles and gave them to him, and the black eyes round about snapped greedily. "Very many things we have, and we would share them with you. But we must have peace. If you will make things as they were before, we will share all these among you, and many more. It is far better than killing one another." There was a visible inclination in the crowd towards a share in the good things, and Ra'a saw it and countered quickly. The man was a savage and brutalised, but he did not lack brain. "We do not need your gifts. We can take them--all you have." "You cannot take them. My big canoe could blow you all to pieces. But it has come to fight for you, not against you, and when it has done fighting it will go back and bring many more things for you. But it must be in peace." Ra'a, whatever else he was, was a diplomat. Truculent he was without doubt, treacherous if it served him, and his word was probably of small account; but such things are not unknown in even more accomplished diplomatic circles. He saw the inclination of his people, and that he must go with the tide. "Give us our share of the things and we will be satisfied." "You shall have your share if it is peace. There must be no more killing." "The taro and the yams belong to us also?" "Certainly. We will divide equally. If you will draw a line, we will draw a line, and you and your people will keep to your side, and Ha'o and his people will keep to his side." "We will draw the line and tapu it. When will you send the things?" "When the line is drawn. Will you come and draw it now?" "You will go--and you," he pointed to two of his men. "You will put in tapu sticks and bring back what the white man gives you. Who is the woman?" staring hard at Jean, who had managed to keep an unruffled face in spite of the inquisition to which the women were subjecting her--touching her hands, her face, her hair, and the puzzling appointments of her dainty toilet. She had even induced one mother to let her pat the head of one brown mite, who was mumbling its fingers after reluctant teeth and stared at her with big round eyes. "She is my wife." "What is she wanting?"--a question evidently inspired by Jean's Miss Inquisitive look, which showed strongly at times and was much to the fore under the strain of the present interview. "She is wanting everything," said Blair, with a smile. "It is probably that brown baby at present." "She can have it. Is she hungry?" "I don't think she is hungry, and she would not take the baby from its mother." "Is she white all through?" "White all through," said Blair. "Have you any more in the big canoe?" "They are all married--except one." "I will marry her. How many coco-nuts will you take for her?" and he stared appreciatively at Jean. "We do not sell our women. You would have to ask her yourself." And at last they got away without further compromising Aunt Jannet, and very gratefully they went back by the way they had come, with full, yet lightened hearts. For the way, though it had opened before them, and now, to look back upon, seemed neither very difficult nor very dangerous, had been a perilous one, and one where death might have opened at their feet at any moment. They went in silence with over-full hearts. Blair did not in the slightest delude himself with the idea that he had settled the matter at one stroke. He was quite prepared to find the agreement turn out but a temporary one, but it was a step towards the light to have arrived at any understanding whatever. He was not surprised, also, to find Ha'o anything but satisfied with the arrangement. He would have preferred wiping out Ra'a and the malcontents, and settling the business at once on a sound and final basis. With infinite difficulty Blair succeeded in showing him that those others had rights as well as himself, even though they had wronged him, and tried hard to inspire him with his own hope that matters would eventually work out for the best. Ha'o, however, knew better. "Their hearts are like this," he said, laying his hand on a length of twisted creeper dangling from an adjacent tree. "They are as grasping as a convolvulus for the water. They will take all you will give them, and they will keep the tapu just as long as it suits them." And he said to himself, "But by that time we shall perhaps be ready for them"; while Blair was thinking, "Every approach they allow us to make is a point gained." The taro fields and yam plantations and banana groves were soon roughly divided off in a fair equality, and sticks with plaited palm leaves set up to warn off trespassers from either side. Then, with the idea of impressing them to the utmost, Blair invited the two plenipotentiaries to accompany him on board the big canoe to get the things he was to give them. To this they demurred at first, though obviously desirous, and it was only after much argument among themselves that they at last agreed, and then only on condition that the white woman stopped on shore till they were brought safely back. They stepped gingerly into the steam-launch at last, and eyed her bustling, unaided progress with obvious but well-concealed amazement. They were shown over the ship, the big gun was fired for them at close quarters, they inspected the farmyard and the cat, and they finally went home laden with gifts, and with new impressions enough to set their brains spinning and their tongues wagging for a month to come. And it is not likely that their stories lost anything in the retailing. CHAPTER XVI SAWDUST AND SHAVINGS "Aunt Jannet," said Blair, as they sat in great relief and content discussing the day, when their visitors had left, "we had an offer for you this morning." "An offer?--for me, Kenneth? Whatever do you mean?" "A brown gentleman desires to correspond with a white lady with a view to matrimony. He wanted to know what we would take for you in coco-nuts." "In coco-nuts indeed!" and Aunt Jannet bridled red. "And who was the impudent fellow?" "Our enemy, our host, Mr. Ra'a. Jean made such an impression on him that I fear the brown ladies' noses will be permanently out of joint." "H'mph!" with a snort of disgust. "He'd better keep out of my reach." "I told him he'd have to ask you himself." "I'd like to see him." "A hint to that effect will bring him along hotfoot, I've no doubt. The matter is worth consideration," he said, with an assumption of weightiness. "Royal alliance--union of opposing factions--peace secured--a very good solution of our difficulties. Say, Aunt Jannet! will you sacrifice yourself for the good of the community?" "Get along with you," said Aunt Jannet. "No naked brown cannibals for me." The ice being broken with the factious ones, Blair and Stuart and Evans, with Matti still necessary as interpreter, though they were all rapidly picking up words and phrases of the island tongue, paid Ra'a several visits and did their utmost to strengthen the slim foundations of peace. Ha'o and his people, however, declined any active intercourse with the rebels, and never ceased to warn the white men to be on their guard, asserting that their present amenableness was only assumed and would be thrown off as soon as no more was to be got by it. Blair judged that likely enough, but gave no sign of it, and treated the others as though he believed them in every way worthy of confidence. And Ha'o and his people meanwhile went on steadily replenishing their houses, and constructing the weapons without which they felt but half men and wholly insecure. The mission-houses were completed and furnished. The farmyard was transferred from the bows of the _Torch_ to suitable premises ashore, and what with the discontented bellowings of John Bull--who was always wanting something he hadn't got, though what it was neither he nor any one else could make out--and the mellower remonstrances of his more thoughtful consort, and the satisfied gruntings and squeakings of the delighted piglets and their mother, and the bleating of the goats, and the crowings and cluckings of cocks and hens, and the gabbling of geese in the river pools, the little settlement began to assume a most home-like appearance. The ladies rejoiced in the feel of solid earth once more, and discovered endless delights in the nearer woods and along the beach. Limits, however, had to be placed on their wanderings, till assurance of good intent on the part of the outsiders was made doubly sure or proved entirely worthless. Their nearest neighbours were the atoll community. These, not unnaturally, felt somewhat doubtful as to the permanence of their security among the discordant elements around them, and looked anxiously to the white men for protection. Left alone they would undoubtedly have been slaughtered and eaten out of hand, for human flesh was still the choicest dish where the only other variations from a vegetarian diet were occasional wood-pigeons, paraquets, and an unreliable choice of fish. So far as Ha'o and his people were concerned, the atoll men were safe enough for the present and until cause might arise. They had been bed-fellows in misfortune and had shared a common deliverance, and so they were allowed to work beside the others in the taro swamp and to take their allowance of the fruits of the earth. But there was a spirit of fear and distrust abroad--the fear that walks by night and makes light sleepers in palm-thatched houses, and no man went abroad after dark if he could help it. With no little difficulty Blair succeeded in getting into communication also with the fourth community in the neighbourhood--the sitters on the fence, who were naturally at odds with all the others and would have fared badly but for their numbers, and for the hope each side had of eventually drawing them into their own folds. They were perhaps more dangerous to approach even than Ra'a. For Ra'a was one, and his men obeyed his words. But these outlanders were many, and each man did what seemed right in his own eyes, and kept on terms with his neighbour and the community simply from motives of safety. In going among them, therefore, the risks were multiplied. They took all that was offered, however, and promised anything that was required of them in hopes of more. But, obviously, four more or less distinct communities in one district were at least three too many. It was like having four savage dogs at large in one small back yard, and the proper thing to do was to get some of them to move. Captain Cathie, coasting down the lagoon in the launch, had reported several fine wide valleys opening up into the hills, and Blair determined to try to induce some of the others to move farther down the coast and start fresh settlements there. So far as Cathie had seen--and he was much too cautious to land until he knew more about what he might meet ashore--these valleys seemed unoccupied and capable of profitable occupation. But Ha'o, when the idea was mooted, only shook his head mysteriously, and said they would never go there. No one lived there. No one ever had lived there. Farther down there were scattered communities, but the men rarely came up this way because they had made a practice of eating them whenever they got the chance. Over the mountains also there were villages, exclusive for the same reason. And when Blair suggested the idea to Ra'a and the others, and offered to assist them in laying out taro fields and yam plantations, he was met in the same way. He could get nothing more out of them. The subject was so evidently distasteful that he determined to go and find out for himself, if possible, what the objectionable features were. And so, very early one morning, he set off in one of the whale-boats, with Matti and Stuart and four men, and they pulled quietly along round the great frontlet of the hills till they came to the first opening into the hinterland, some five miles from the settlement. Keeping a sharp look-out, they ran in on a fine white shell beach, and took cautious way up a wide valley from which the hills rolled back in long sweeping slopes, well bushed, and thick with palms. Gay flights of paraquets flashed in and out of the bushes, and the soft crooning of multitudinous wood-pigeons was like the humming of bees in a summer garden. A broad stream flowed through the valley, widening into silvery pools and glittering over broken shallows. "It's an ideal place," said Blair. "What on earth has kept them out of it?" They passed cautiously on through the tangled undergrowth. In front was the sound of falling waters, an intermittent drenching splash, now heard, now lost, as though a raincloud burst and passed and came again; otherwise a wide and perfect silence, which the droning of the doves seemed but to accentuate. Through dense tangles of lemon hibiscus, and crowding paw-paws, and stilted pandanus, and the gleaming boles of the palms, they saw the valley widen into a great arc, and caught glimpses of mighty walls of rock which marked the end of it. And presently they were standing below, and gazing up in awed amazement. In the shadow of the cliff, with their backs to it and their faces to the sea, sat a row of gigantic stone figures, gazing out In solemn silence through the slow-waving tops of the palms, the ephemeral palms which had grown and died in countless generations, and had crept gradually nearer and nearer, since those grim figures first sat down there, with their backs to the cliff and their faces to the sea. So huge were they that the gazers felt themselves pigmies in comparison. Each grave head bent slightly forward as though listening intently for something that should come up from the sea, and the great stone hands were crossed reverently on the massive stone breasts. From the sheer edge of the cliff above leaped streams of sparkling water, which broke in mid-air, and swung to and fro in the breeze like veils of gauze, and swept constantly over the seated figures, and wrapped them in fragmentary rainbows. In their grim everlasting expectancy the great stone gods were very terrible to look upon, even with the eyes of understanding. More than once the gazers found themselves glancing fearfully over their shoulders towards the sea, lest perchance the long-delayed answer to that unspoken questioning might be coming. The sudden confrontation with these mighty relics of a long-vanished civilisation conjured up thoughts which bated their words to whispers. "This accounts for it," said Blair softly. "What an amazing sight in a cannibal island! What do you make of it, Stuart?" Stuart had been eyeing the monster nearest him with keenly critical eyes. "Peruvian, I should say. Of the time of the Incas--or perhaps earlier still. Yes, earlier probably. I see no suns. This is mighty curious, you know. The present natives cannot be descended from them. They are pure Polynesians. And yet"--following out his own train of thought--"I'm not so sure. Ha'o and Nai and some of the others show traces of something more. I have often wondered about it. This may explain. These"--nodding at the silent figures--"or their makers, fled their country, or perhaps got blown across, and founded a new civilisation here. Then the old race ran to seed and got lost among the dark men, and ages afterwards their cousins from the mainland come across to kidnap them." "Odd enough to think of," said Blair, "and likely enough to be true. What were these figures for, do you suppose? Worship?" "Worship, sacrifice. Down in the brush there we shall probably find the remains of their houses." And they did, all overgrown and barely discernible, but ruins without a doubt, and of a city of great buildings. By dint of peeling off the superincumbent growths of the ages they even laid bare a piece of wall, huge squared blocks from which the creeping mosses and lichens had long since eaten out the mortar. "We shall never get them to live here, that's certain," said Blair. "The place is alive with ghosts for them. It would be an uncommonly safe place for a mission-station, if safety were the only thing. But it's too far from the parish. I think we can use it, however," he nodded thoughtfully, with some of his far-reaching schemes in view. "How those little pigs would enjoy those big paw-paws!" They rambled about the valley, charmed with its wealth of fruit and flower, gathered quantities of each as evidences of their visit, and pulled back home. Every one was on fire at once to go and view the wonders of the valley. "To-morrow we will carry over a pair of goats and half a dozen piglets and some geese. They will have rare times there. If they don't burst themselves, they will multiply rapidly. By the time we have educated our friends here to better taste in the matter of eating, the larder will be stocked. It is better for them to hunt pigs and goats than men. And the wilder the pigs and goats the better. They will carry their own sauce with them," said Blair. "It's the very place I've dreamed of since I was six years old," said Aunt Jannet, shedding her years. "Girls! we'll go over to-morrow, with the geese and the goats and the piglets, and have a scramble and a rummage." Which they did, and found even more than the men. For Jean, at cost of a wetting, discovered a narrow entrance behind one of the figures, and inside it a winding stone staircase which led up into its head, and found that through the eyes of the god she could see all that went on below. And one of the things she saw was Aunt Jannet Harvey wandering amazedly in front of the great stone figures; and then in a moment the earth opened and swallowed her up. For the good lady had stepped on a carpet of beautiful green moss, and the carpet gave way beneath her and precipitated her into a chamber of horrors full of skulls and dead men's bones, whence she was extricated with difficulty and in a state of extreme nervous tension by the men from the boat. Aunt Jannet's taste for exploration was dulled somewhat by the incident, and they went back home promising to return another day. The goats, pigs, and geese entered into their new possession with delighted gabblings, bleatings, squeakings, and proved forthwith that they could look after themselves without any outside assistance. Meanwhile, the two nearer-home communities had been taking their first timid steps towards the light, in the very practical shape of elementary lessons in carpentry. The white men's tools, in the skilled hands of the ship's carpenter, appealed strongly to them. Their various uses were speedily grasped--the tools also, unless he kept his eyes about him, as John MacNeil very soon found out. He was inclined to wrath and the bestowal of hard names, but it was simply human nature in its most natural form, and he learned to circumvent them by using only one tool at a time and never letting it out of his hand till he put it back into safety with the others. The driving of nails, especially when they were allowed to do it themselves, marked epochs in their lives and on their thumbs. Screws and hinges were revelations to them, the saw and the plane perpetual wonders, the grindstone an endless delight. Blair watched them quietly, showed them the uses of the various things, let them experiment for themselves, and was satisfied that his sawdust and shavings would blossom into fruit. Their interest was excited, they were taking in new ideas, more in a day than hitherto in a generation; the rest would follow. CHAPTER XVII FIRST FRUITS Aunt Jannet Harvey's ideas of missionary work and methods differed essentially from Kenneth Blair's. She wanted to be up and doing all the time. She was anxious for visible fruit before the seed was fairly into the ground. In spite of the practical common-sense which she brought as a rule to the ordinary affairs of life, she was, in this matter, like a child with its first garden, in danger of retarding by her very anxiety for progress. She was inclined to be for ever hauling up the tiny shoots to see how the roots were getting on. Or, to be more exact still, she was like a child placed suddenly in charge of an overgrown patch with instructions to reduce it to order. And Aunt Jannet's ideas ran to such strenuous loppings and bindings and weedings, that the timid brown women and round-faced, pot-bellied youngsters fled, white-eyed and panting, whenever they caught sight of her. This greatly distressed the good lady, and served only to confirm her views as to the urgent necessity for prompt and radical measures, just as flight from a school-board officer but serves to accentuate the chase. She wanted the women and children clothed and taught and transformed into the outward semblance of civilised beings at once. She wanted a church built, and a school. She wanted to teach the women sewing and decency, and the children their letters and manners. And Blair, with his wider knowledge and experience, had to put his foot down on every suggestion she made, and, gently and good-humouredly as he tried to do it since he knew the warm heart that was at the bottom of it all, found himself in constant collision with her. "Example first, Aunt Jannet," was his constant text, "then precept. It's not the slightest use thinking of a church or a school yet. They'll come all right when we're ready for them. And, really, you must not try to dress any of those women and children again. You'll kill them." "But they are so--so terribly naked, Kenneth." "Of course they are, and so they have been for thousands of years, their forbears at all events, and you might just as well begin giving them poison as insist on clothing them. If you want to kill them, clothe them. If you want them to live, just let them go as they are." "But the men----" "Now you just leave the men to us. If you good ladies will just keep on at your own proper work, and let these big brown children watch you and see the pleasant results, you will be doing the very best thing possible for them. Make friends with them, pick up all the words you can lay hold of, and, in fact, get in touch with them all round as quickly as possible. But we must lead them; we can't drive them." His own example was an inspiration to them all. Evans and Stuart seconded him loyally, and by degrees the ladies, who one and all, Jean included, sympathised considerably with Aunt Jannet in her not unnatural discrimination in favour of clothing, desisted from their well-meant efforts and grew accustomed to the scant attire of their brown friends. They had no lack of personal cleanliness to combat, for which "Thank goodness!" said Aunt Jannet more than once. "If they let you see plenty of skin, it is at all events clean skin. If they'd stop rubbing themselves all over with that nasty rotten coco-nut oil and wear some decent clothes, I wouldn't have a fault to find with them--except in their eating and a few other things." The mission-settlement lay on the left bank of the little river which ran through the spear of white sand at the head of the bay. On the other side of the river the mountains where Ra'a lived rolled up, shoulder on shoulder, till the farther ones were lost to sight. Behind the mission the ground lay level for a space, where the valley came down to the sea, and here were masses of coco-palms and a great tangle of undergrowth, and farther up, past the village, were the disputed taro fields, and the yam and banana plantations. On the mission side of the river, behind the level lands, another great hill flung one rough protecting arm into the sea a quarter of a mile beyond the houses. The great ridge, full of cracks and cavities, as though it had broken in its fall, shot right into the lagoon, and the barrier reef started from its outermost point. On the other side the great waves roared everlastingly up a white shell beach, but landing there was impossible, as no boat built by man could survive the tumult of the surf. This was the island bathing-place, and here, all day long, men, women, and children were slipping and tumbling like seals in the creaming rollers. They shot deftly through the combers before they broke, and away out to sea, then came skimming back stretched flat on their swimming-boards, sitting on them, standing on them, marvels of grace and beauty, with shouts and laughter and life's tide at its fullest. It was their most rational enjoyment, and the finest possible outlet for their activities. It kept them healthy and it kept them clean. It also led to friction between the various factions, just as the taro fields had done. This was the only place available for surf-swimming for many miles on either side. Until the late troubles it had been common to all. Now the nearest dwellers, Ha'o's people and the atoll men, monopolised it, and when the others desired to join the sport they were received with taunts and jibes which came quickly to blows, and Blair had to adopt the _rôle_ of peacemaker once more. Ha'o and his men would have kept the others from the surf, just as they would have kept them from the taro swamps. But Blair would not have it. He reasoned with them, talked to them and at them, in a voluble mixture of Samoan, Kapaa'an, and English, and made them understand what he meant if many of his words were beyond them. In a pow-wow of this kind, when his feelings ran far in advance of his tongue, he could not wait for Matti's plodding interpretation, but dashed at it himself, and surprised and tickled his hearers with his white-hot vehemence. They were mighty arguers and had the advantage of the language, but he brought them to his will by sheer force of insistence. He had right on his side, and he would have them to it also. They grumblingly yielded the shore on certain days of the week, and Blair rejoiced in this further sign of growth and progress. Meanwhile, however, he knew that they were busily at work on the preparation of arguments of a more forceful description, and he had little hope of reaching his ultimate goal without these coming into use. So small a spark might set them all aflame that it was useless attempting to forecast it or to stifle it in advance. All he could do was to endeavour, by every means in his power, to build up among them the new influences which he and his friends represented, so that when the time came they should count as factors in the case. The houses in the village were all more or less laughable imitations of the mission-house, for they were as imitative as monkeys, so long as imitation imposed no restrictions, and at sight of the white men's houses they pulled down their own and began again with these as models. And when they got to boat-building, the canoes of their fathers were no longer good enough for them. Their new boats must follow the lines of the white men's boats also, to Blair's great satisfaction, since it entailed mighty labours, and while they were busy they were safe from outbreaks on side issues. At the mission-station all worked alike; the men breaking up the ground for plants and vegetables, and attending to the live stock, the women doing the housework and cooking. All day long the house was surrounded by an inquisitive throng, which watched keenly and commented fully and frankly on everything it saw, and with whom the busy workers carried on disjointed conversations, and picked up native words in exchange for English ones, amid shouts of laughter at the multitudinous mistakes on either side. Morning and evening the white men held a short service, and the brown men and women caught up the hymn tunes and hummed them lustily, with no slightest idea of what they meant, but with none the less enjoyment. The small harmonium had been brought ashore and was a huge delight, and for a time a mighty mystery to them. Jean played it, and they could not understand why it should sing when she touched the keys and remain mute when they did the same. Then one cunning fellow, by dint of persistent watching, caught sight of her feet moving beneath her dress, and with an excited "Hi!" laid himself flat on his stomach with his nose at her heels, and the mystery was solved. The novel tunes ran in their heads, some even of the incomprehensible words, and it was strange indeed to hear a naked brown man chopping away at a slab of timber and singing lustily, "Kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im law-daw-faw!" Later on they heard that tune amid still stranger surroundings, for the lilt and swing of it captured their fancy, and they were at it morning, noon, and night--building their boats, working in the taro fields, sweeping along on the tops of the rolling combers, sitting outside their houses when the day's work was done. There was a hopeful, homely sound in it, and those who sang with understanding hoped fervently that in time the others might do so too. They were very children, these brown men and women, in their light-heartedness, quarrelsomeness, and lack of restraint. Whatsoever seemed good in their eyes at the moment, that they did, regardless of consequences. Only at times, the innate savagery showed through, and then they were to be feared. Like hot-headed children who had never known restraint, there was no knowing what they would do, except that it would certainly be something unpleasant to the offending one and possibly to the bystanders. They were very magpies, too, in the snapping up of treasure-trove. "We won't call it stealing," said Blair soothingly to John MacNeil, the carpenter, who was complaining for the twentieth time of missing tools. "They don't look on it in that light, you see, John." "Thievin' blayguards!" said John dourly, minus another tool. "We'll teach them better soon. Meanwhile, leave nothing lying about if you can help it, and give them no opportunities. They are so in the habit of picking up anything they want that it's become part of their nature." "Juist thievin' blayguards! I'd clour their heads if I could catch 'em at it, but it'd need eyes all round to be upsides with 'em." And when, now and again, John did catch them at it, and proceeded to clour their heads, they took it quite good-humouredly, and surrendered their prize with a grin, and bore no malice. It was a strange right-about-face in the lives of the ladies, and many a laugh they had over it. "Jean, my dear," said Aunt Jannet one day, when all four of them were busily washing and wringing out clothes at the mouth of the river, "this is a change from Hyde Park, isn't it?" At which, and the incongruity of associations which sprang up in them at her words, they all broke into laughter. Straight in front lay the placid stretch of the lagoon, pulsing softly to the broken influx through the gap in the reef; beyond it, the crisp, white leaping hedge of foam along the reef itself; beyond that, the infinite expanse of sea and sky, and the far-away white line where upper and lower blue met and kissed: on the one side, the bold green shoulders of the mountain, feathered with slow-swinging palms, solemn, mysterious, just a trifle threatening, since Ra'a lived there; on the beach beyond, a mixed company of brown men and white, busy at boat-building, with spasmodic outbreaks of "Kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im!" to the tapping of the hammers: on the other side, the tumbled rocks of the ridge and the ceaseless growl of the surf; behind them the white houses of the mission, the bosky valley, peeps of native houses, sounds of women's voices and children's laughter. "It is certainly a wider outlook," said Jean cheerfully. Then a slim brown and white figure stole up beside them, and became immediately all brown, as Nai loosed her towel vestments and began to wash them in the same way as the white women were doing. "And here is first-fruits," said Jean. "Good morning, Nai." "Mawin," smiled Nai, proud of her accomplishments, and spread her towels to dry in the sun alongside the more complicated garments of civilisation. The _Torch_ was away with Blair and Stuart on a tour of exploration round the island, and possibly to one or two of the neighbouring ones. Blair had been waiting for the opportunity for some time past. Ha'o had told him of communities on the other side of the island, and he was desirous of getting in touch with them as soon as possible. The ladies had wished to go too, but he thought them better at home till he had spied out the land himself. He intended to land at the different villages, and the enterprise might not be without its dangers. Of these he made light, however, and it was with tranquil minds that those ashore waved their farewells in the early dawn, as the _Torch_ slipped from her anchorage and wafted lightly down the lagoon. The times seemed in all ways propitious. Ha'o, indeed, would have preferred that the white men's favours should have been kept all for himself, but Blair was at pains to explain to him that nothing less than the whole island, and if possible all the islands, would satisfy him. In view of what he knew would follow sooner or later, he tried to explain to the brown man that if it were possible to unite the various communities on Kapaa'a under one paramount chief it would be for the great benefit of all. To which Ha'o replied succinctly-- "Then we must kill Ra'a," and rose to the prospect. Ra'a had been quiescent for some time now. There was occasional friction between members of the various factions, but nothing more than was to be expected under the circumstances. They were simply squabbles, resulting in no general disquiet, though symptomatic of the underlying feeling that was abroad. Ha'o, however, never ceased his warnings. Ra'a he said feelingly, was not to be trusted, and the only right and proper thing for the white men to do was to join him in wiping him out, and the sooner the better. And, simply from a political point of view, Blair could not but confess to himself that the weight of evidence was in Ha'o's favour. For Ra'a remained in truculent retirement, and doggedly rejected all efforts at conciliation. Blair had gone up the mountain more than once since that first time, and had done his utmost to win him over. Ra'a accepted all his presents as his rightful due, but gave absolutely nothing in return, not even worthless promises. He was the black cloud on the horizon, and they could only hope that he would remain a cloud and not develop into a storm. Each week that passed strengthened Ha'o's hands. Not only did it give him time to arm and consolidate his own little community, but his numbers were constantly increased by ones and twos, as the dwellers in the hills took note of the advantages enjoyed by those on the shore through their intercourse with the white men, and desired to share in them. Ha'o permitted the return of these prodigals, since it was better to have them under his hand than beyond his reach. He put little faith in them, but had the wisdom to keep his feelings to himself. Blair welcomed them as straws indicative of the current, but Ha'o, better versed in the ways of his race, pushed on his preparations for the conflict which he foresaw these very secessions would sooner or later precipitate. When Blair told him of his impending trip of exploration, and tried to induce him to come with them, Ha'o stated bluntly that he preferred to remain at home. It was not impossible that he had it in his mind that if anything happened in Blair's absence, he would have the freer hand to act as he pleased. For the white men were ever on the side of magnanimity, and magnanimity, where Ra'a was concerned, was to Ha'o simple foolishness. CHAPTER XVIII SETBACKS So the _Torch_ slipped down the lagoon like a picture, and Nai and the other ladies completed their laundry operations, and in due course the red sun dropped into the sea, without the explosive hiss which seemed inevitable, and night fell on the little community as peacefully as usual. Evans conducted their evening service, and the attentive ring of brown men and women round the platform of the house hummed the tunes gaily, echoed the white "Amen" with the gusto of children after a long sermon, and dispersed like big bumble-bees to their homes. Jean could not sleep that night. It was the first time she and Kenneth had been separated, since their marriage, and she felt as lonely as the circumstances demanded. She got up at last and slipped on a dressing-gown, and went out and sat on the platform. The soft lip-lap of the water on the beach, and the distant growl of the surf, were soothing, and she sat looking at the great new stars, with which she was becoming friendly by degrees, and thinking of her husband, and wondering how far he had got, and of the vast change her marriage had made in her life. She had never for one moment regretted it. All her heaven on earth was centred in Kenneth. So long as he remained to her, all the rest was nothing. And before long they would begin to see the fruit of their quiet sowing, the Dark Islands would be dark no longer, and they would be living a quiet, happy life among a new and contented people. It was a grand and glorious work. No, she had no regrets--since she had Kenneth. On her right across the river, as she sat facing the sea, the mountain loomed sombre and menacing--the hill Difficulty. Her thoughts ran back to that trying morning when she and Kenneth faced the hill, and what it held, all alone, not knowing whether they would ever come back alive. Like many another hill on life's highway, its menace had been chiefly in their own fears, and had disappeared on closer acquaintance. How she wished that uncomfortable man Ra'a would go away, or be reconciled to his brother, or do anything that would allow the community to settle down in peace to its new life's work. She knew much of Blair's great hopes and large ideas, and how essential he considered it that the islands should as soon as possible attain to some kind of central government, so that they might unite in opposing an inflexible front to any attempt at interference from the outside. The Dark Islands for the Dark Islanders was his aim and object in life at present, and this truculent savage on the hill there was keeping everything back. She almost had it in her heart to wish Ra'a's speedy and sudden death. Blair had often spoken of the evils that had followed the admission of traders in others of the South Sea Islands--drink, disease, dispossession--and how the communities were ruined before ever they had a chance of better things. Yes, surely, she thought, if Ra'a could meet with some happy accident, which would end him, it would be for the good of the community at large. That was not a thought that would commend itself to Kenneth, she knew, but she could not help thinking it. What a mighty relief it would be if Ha'o walked in some morning, and said, "Ra'a is dead." She felt as if she could almost forgive him if he had done the deed himself. Then she thought she heard, a sound in the gloom of the hillside. She strained into the darkness and listened intently. She heard nothing, but still felt a sense of discomfort. After all, it might quite likely be one of the natives prowling about, though, as a rule, their fear of ghosts and evil spirits kept them indoors after nightfall, and it needed very strong inducement to take them abroad. She was still peering towards the hill with puckered brow, when a curdling, short-cut yell ripped the silence behind, in the direction of the village, and in a moment pandemonium seemed loosed, and the night was alive with horrors--screams and yells and all the turmoil of warfare. That first deadly cry sent Jean flying inside for Aunt Jannet. The good lady met her at the door of her own room with an anxious-- "What in the name of goodness----?" and then Alison Evans and Mary Stuart came tumbling in upon them, and Evans called to them from the ground outside to stop where they were, and they would be all right. It was not in human nature, however, to stand huddled in the dark, asking one another questions which none of them could answer, when the answer was shrieking outside, and they all crept, trembling, to the verandah, and stood silently facing the danger, whatever it might be. They heard Evans quietly ordering his men, and felt safer. And beyond, the shouts and yells waxed and waned and wavered to and fro. Once they thought they were coming in their direction, and their hearts thumped painfully. Then the tumult drifted away again, and at last passed furiously towards the taro fields, and died away on the mountain-side. Then new sounds arose, cries of victory, little less blood-curdling than the shouts of battle, and the ladies crept back into the dark room, assured of their own safety, but with horrible premonitions of what these might portend. Presently the shadowy darkness over by the river resolved itself into a mob of black figures which came towards the mission-houses, leaping and brandishing its newly-fleshed weapons, and shouting at the top of its voice, in horrible incongruity, and the more horrible in that the tune was perfectly correct, "Kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im! Law-daw-faw!" They circled the fence, leaping and shouting and singing, and the men of the yacht inside grasped their weapons to repel an onslaught. But the brown men had had their fill of fighting for that night, and were only there to advertise their victory. Evans said a word or two to them, but learned only that Ra'a had come down from the hill and attacked the village, but that they had been ready for him. They were too excited to be able to give any details yet, and presently they drew off and went shouting and singing home. Jean, with something of a shock, remembered her ill-wishes for Ra'a, and wondered with discomfort, now that the bald possibility faced her so closely, if they had been realised. If they had, she would feel almost as if she had had a hand in his death. Then a native drum began beating in the village, and the ceaseless monotony of its deep, dolorous boom fretted their ears, and set their hearts jumping, and jangled their nerves to the point of agony. They covered their ears with their hands, they stuffed their fingers into them, but the drum beat in through their temples. They clasped their heads tightly to keep them from splitting, but the drum beat in all the same. When it ceased abruptly at last, and they ventured to lift their heads, they saw one another's pale faces in a faint gleam that stole in through the windows. The darkness over the village was pulsing with the glow of great fires, and as they glanced fearfully at one another they knew that the same horrible thought was in all their minds. It was dawn before the noises died away, and Evans came in to them with a grim, grey face. He said nothing, but nodded silently--and their horror was confirmed. Yes, truly, it was a decided change from Kensington and Hyde Park. No soul from the village came near them that day, nor did any of them venture out except Evans, who went along twice during the day to see what was going on, but returned each time with pinched lips and a despondent shake of the head. The following day the brown men were about again, but sluggishly, as though the fight had used up all their energies, or something else had clogged them. It was another two days before they settled down to work, and even then they were not quite as they had been. Ha'o had kept away from them. When Evans came across him at last, he endeavoured to get some particulars of the fight, and gathered that Ra'a had probably watched the departure of the _Torch_, and thought it an opportunity not to be missed. He had crept down in the dark, hoping to surprise the village, and then make easy prey of the mission-houses and their contents. Ha'o had foreseen the possibility of such an attempt. Evans understood him to say that in Ra'a's place it was just what he would have done himself. So he had men on the watch, and the rest slept armed, and instead of a surprise, the hill-men walked into an ambush--and paid. Ra'a himself had escaped, leaving a dozen or so of his men behind. They had eaten them, said Ha'o, in a matter-of-course way. Ra'a had gone farther into the hills, and to follow him would be dangerous. And so to the boat-building once more, and much singing of "Kown 'im! kown 'im! kown 'im!" which sounded more than ever out of place under the circumstances. Nai also put in an appearance that day, and to such an extent does the mind prejudice the eye, that it seemed to Jean and the rest that even she was changed from what she had been. In a word, it was difficult to look upon any of these sleek brown men and women without thinking with disgust of the horrible orgies in which they had been indulging. Their humanity seemed but skin deep, and just below it the wild beast lurked and peeped through the glancing black eyes. Nor was it easy to conceal their feelings entirely, and perhaps Nai's womanly intuition perceived a touch of frost in the atmosphere. She stayed but a short time, and then went quietly away. "I'm sorry," said Jean, with a sense of discomfort; "but really I could not feel towards her quite as usual." "Of course you couldn't--nobody could," said Aunt Jannet briskly. "If I knew how to talk to them, I'd tell them what I think of the whole business. I'd make their ears tingle, I warrant you." "I wish Kenneth was here. He would know just what to do." "He'll tell you, my dear, that it's no good talking to them. You must just go slow, and break them off it by degrees. All the same, it would be a relief to one's mind to give them a right good scolding." "They've been used to it all their lives, you see." "All the worse for them. They ought to be ashamed of themselves." "But that's just what they don't understand. Suppose a brown man came over to England and remonstrated with us for killing and eating beautiful little lambs and graceful cows----" "Fudge, child! Lambs and cows aren't human beings," grunted Aunt Jannet. "They haven't souls." "I don't know that the fact of men having souls makes much difference when it's only a question of their dead bodies being eaten. But I do hope Kenneth can break them off it! It is too horrible! And one can't help thinking of it every time one looks at them. Though I suppose it was just the same before we came." "What they did before we came was not our fault. What they do now is, and the sooner Kenneth puts a stop to it the better," was Aunt Jannet's final word. Matters went on quietly--Evans and the men of the yacht clearing and breaking up ground for trial plantings of various seeds, the brown men busy on their boats to the tune of "Kown 'im!" the women, brown and white, busy on their household duties, the children laughing and screaming--till, on the seventh day, a brown runner came, fresh from the surf behind the ridge, to tell them that the _Torch_ was in sight. And instantly they dropped what they were at, to scramble up the shoulder of the hill and wave their joyful welcome. Not a white man or woman there but felt a new sense of security and hopefulness at sight of her, and it was chiefly because on board of her was the wise head and great heart to which they had all come to look for guidance and inspiration in their work. It was a very joyful meeting when the anchor rattled down, and Blair and Stuart and Captain Cathie jumped ashore from the whale-boat, and the brown men welcomed them, outwardly at all events, with as much gusto as the whites. And great stories Blair and the others had to tell of their doings out beyond. The brown men and women crowded round the platform till late into the night, laughing and chattering with appreciation of the white men's volubility, though they could not understand a word of it all. It had been a most satisfactory trip. They had visited all the six islands of the group, and had landed at various places on each of them. They had found the natives suspicious at first, but amenable to presents and open to their advances when they found nothing ulterior in them. In fact, in several places, when the brown men found them actually going away, without any attempts at kidnapping or otherwise molesting them, they followed in their canoes for long distances begging them to return. "It's a glorious field," said Blair, stretching out his arms energetically as though to gather it all in at once, "if we can only occupy it and fence it round before the degraders come. And we must, for one of those islands given over to the devil would be like a plague spot infecting all the rest." Then they told him of the happenings at home. He was startled at Ra'a's outbreak and at thought of the consequences if it had proved successful. "I hate the thought of coercing him or any one," he said thoughtfully; "but until he either comes in, which I fear is hopeless, or is got rid of in some way, he is going to be a terrible hindrance to our work." "Deport him to yon outer island, Mr. Blair, with such of his people as stick to him," suggested Cathie; "then the rest will have peace." "Easily said, captain, and a good idea; but how?" "It would mean fighting, I suppose," said Cathie briskly, "unless common-sense led him to give in quietly. Sometimes it pays best in the long run to grip your nettle at once and grip it hard." "He'll never give in till he is forced to," said Blair. "Yet I can't see my way to use our force against him. How can we preach peace to these people if we begin by using the sword ourselves?" "If you give the rest peace, it may be better than preaching it," said Aunt Jannet. "I agree with Captain Cathie. There'll be no peace till that man is got rid of. And, for goodness' sake, do stop them eating one another, Kenneth. I haven't enjoyed a meal since, and I can't look at one of them without thinking that a day or two ago he was munching one of his fellows." "We shall break them off it by degrees." "By degrees!--by degrees!" cried Aunt Jannet. "It is too horrible. You ought to go straight to Ha'o and tell him we won't have any more of it." "And suppose he said, as would be very natural, that he'd do as he pleased? What would you do then, Aunt Jannet?" "I'd tell him if he didn't stop it I'd make him, or else we'd all go away and leave him." "Ay, well, you see, we can't make him and we're not going away, so it's no good telling him that. We must use our common sense. These people have eaten human flesh all their lives. It is the greatest treat they can have. If you argued the point with Ha'o, he would probably say that, as between man and pig, man is the cleaner feeder of the two, and therefore must be the better eating. When we have pigs enough, we'll work them on to pork. Until we can get them on to something they like as much, or, better still, get them to feel that man was not meant to be eaten by man, I fear words won't go for much." "And do you mean to say that you'll pass the matter over without a word, Kenneth?" asked Aunt Jannet. "I don't say that, and I don't intend to. But if you imagine, Aunt Jannet, that a cannibal is going to give up his daintiest dish simply for being spoken to, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed." He made his first attempt against cannibalism the next day, and returned from it with a humorous twinkle in his eye. "Well?" asked Aunt Jannet. "Well," said Blair, "Ha'o holds that it can't be wrong for him to eat men when we do the same." "If he'll wait till he sees us doing it, I'll find no fault with him." "I assured him that white people never ate human flesh. And what do you think was his proof that we did? He pointed to some of those corned-beef tins with George Washington's head on the label, and said, 'There!' and nothing I could say would convince him that George Washington did not represent the contents. He is under the impression that we can our people at home for convenience, and carry them about with us in that way. I assured him it was cow, but it was no use. He could not believe anyone would kill such a beautiful animal as a cow simply for food. He said he would give ten men for one cow any day. So there we are, you see. It will be a matter of time. Meanwhile, I suggest peeling George Washington off the rest of those meat tins!" "Well, I never!" said Aunt Jannet. "And Ra'a?" "He is as anxious as you and Captain Cathie to make an end of him; but he acknowledges that it would be dangerous to follow him into the hills, and would certainly mean considerable loss of life, so for the present I have dissuaded him from it." CHAPTER XIX FORWARD This is not a missionary chronicle, but simply a brief record of some of the doings of Jean and Kenneth Blair. It is impossible, therefore, to enter into anything like a detailed account of their work among their chosen people, interesting as that would be. Only the more salient points can be touched upon, such as stood out from the level of hard, plodding, often dry and dreary work, as God's mountain masterpieces stand out in our travel-memories, and remain with us when the long level plains are forgotten. And just as the mountain's grandeur is the record of Nature's strife and endurance, so these salient points in a man's life as a rule mark battle-grounds and commemorate strife--and sometimes victory. Kenneth Blair always found a vast and quite unique enjoyment in the first beginnings of things. I myself have heard him express a whimsically-veiled, but none the less profound, regret that it had not been possible for him to be present at the very first beginning of all, when "in the dim grey dawn of things, earth drew from out the void and rounded to its shape." It was very characteristic of the man, and explains to some extent the whole-hearted delight he found in his work in the Dark Islands. Here, if not a new-created world, was one sunk in nether gloom, to which no glimmer of the light had yet penetrated. As regards things spiritual, it was virgin soil--worse, it was a veritable swamp of heathenism, a quagmire overlaid with the strangling growths and festering remains of ages of superstition, cruelty, and thick darkness. And this in one of the fairest spots on earth. You anti-missioners, who sit at home and mumble platitudes on the needless waste of life and time and money, spent in the effort to lift these outer fringes of the night, how very little you know! They are quite happy as they are, those outer ones, you say. Life comes--and goes--easily with them. They have all they want. Why disturb them? Why introduce upsetting notions? Why open their minds to wants only to fill them at so heavy a cost? The answer is so simple. Would you see any child of yours condemned, for no fault of its own, to sit in outer darkness, if at any cost to yourself you could open the door to the light and warmth you yourself enjoy? Would you refrain from opening the door to a neighbour's child, to a stranger's child, to any child whatsoever, if your hand was on the handle? These others are children also. In spite of their blue skies and crystal seas and waving palms, they are buried in a darkness like unto death. It is for us who rejoice in the light to help them towards it. Our own great inheritance carries with it an inevitable and inalienable obligation. Shirk it we may and do, cancel it we cannot. It was the recognition of this paramount duty, in perhaps somewhat abnormal measure, that made Kenneth Blair what he was. He brought to the work the white fire of a mighty enthusiasm which nothing could damp, and which did one good to look upon. The spur of what he deemed a former lapse urged him at times, perhaps, to extremes in the matter of personal risk; but if any man ever carried the courage of his convictions to their fullest limit, without a thought for himself, that did Kenneth Blair. With it all a simplicity of manner which was never at fault, because it assumed nothing; a natural gaiety and high-heartedness which carried him bravely through many a difficult place, and drew even the brown men to him; and a width of view, with a long forward reach, which might have made a statesman of him, had he not chosen this higher path. To see him at football on the beach with a shrieking crowd of brown boys, himself as much a boy as the nakedest of the lot, was one thing. And to see him pondering, or hear him unfolding to the others, his plans for the Dark Islands, was quite another. He had seen the strange, and in some cases awful, developments of civilisation in some of the other islands. He had pondered them for years, and had studied cause and effect from germ to ultimate issue. They were as warning lights to him. The wonderful chance which placed in his hands the financial lever had awakened mighty hopes in him. In his mind's eye he saw the Dark Islands enlightened, self-governing, self-possessing, self-supporting--a prospect worth any man's life's work. Of the preliminary clearing work, then, we will say little. It was dry and dull and dreary enough at times to provoke Aunt Jannet Harvey to active remonstrance at the apparent inactivity of the propaganda. But the quiet work, confined as it was almost entirely to the presentation of better ways of life by force of example, and the very occasional dropping here and there of a seed of precept, began to show some small signs of fruit at last. Within a very short time Nai's advanced notions in the matter of dress had caught on, and instead of the precarious ridi fringe, towels, or, in default of them, a strip of striped calico, had become the fashionable female attire. Within six months the brown men were going about fully clothed--in a loin cloth. "It's better than nothing," said Aunt Jannet. "It keeps them from looking absolutely indecent anyway, and as for the children it doesn't matter," for the children all flatly refused any attempt to clothe them. Time after time she had made furtive experiments on them, but they all proved abortive. They took her gifts of cloth and so on willingly, but turned them to unexpected and unintended uses. Within six months the children were coming to school--some of them, and irregularly--and were actually, in some cases, beginning to have vague ideas as to why they came. It was not much, but it was in the right direction. Within six months the white men had learned enough of the language to be able, with their additional slight knowledge of Samoan, to understand and make themselves understood--to some extent. And the brown men, in exchange, had acquired a number of English words and had added considerably to their repertoire of hymns--the tunes they picked up marvellously, and the words they chattered like parrots. They had also learned to handle white men's tools with facility, and they still stole them when opportunity offered, though not quite so freely as at first. They had also seen marvellous things come up out of the earth from the white men's plantings, and had learned to what uses they could be put. They had seen wonders of the white men's ingenuity, chief among which was the diversion of a rapid little stream, which from time immemorial had flowed to the sea on the other side of the ridge. By a very simple damming operation, to which the cracks and cavities of the ridge readily lent themselves, the torrent now came down the nearer side, and by means of a water-wheel, of John MacNeil's construction operated a circular saw and various other labour-saving appliances, and then flowed in a sparkling stream through the middle of the mission settlement. The water-wheel and the circular saw were endless enjoyments to the brown men, women, and children, and they would sit watching them by the hour when they could have been more profitably employed about their other affairs. Matters politic had also advanced somewhat. In place of three parties in the close neighbourhood of the station, there were now only two. Ra'a was still at large in the hills, but the leaderless faction had gradually disintegrated, some few joining him, but the larger portion returning by degrees to their allegiance to Ha'o, drawn thereto by the manifest advantages of the white men's friendliness. And Ha'o himself had behaved well. Constant intercourse, even through the misty medium of scarce understood tongues, with men like Blair and Stuart and Evans, could not but have its effect on any man, and on this clear-headed, sharp-witted savage the effects had been very marked. He was naturally intelligent, and, according to his lights, of a most gentlemanly disposition. His understanding developed still more through his observation of the white men and their ways. He recognised their superiority in most things and, as headman of his tribe, was emulous of their accomplishment. He lapsed at lengthening intervals into his natural savageries, but, beyond this, never swerved by a hair's breadth from his loyalty to the men who had restored him to his home. Nai was rejoicing mightily in the possession of a sleek, plump, black-eyed baby, the first son born to Ha'o. His other wives had given him daughters, but since his return to the island, and their tardy return to him, he had declined to have anything to do with any of them beyond seeing that they were fed. Nai's community in his dangers and sufferings had concentrated all his savage affections upon her, and now she had justified him by giving him a son. Blair reposed great faith in these three, and counted on them as corner-stones in the mighty future. The valley of the gods had proved a famous breeding-place. Goats and pigs and ducks abounded there. The brown men had been introduced to roast pig and goat flesh, and found it equal almost to man flesh. But nothing would induce them to go there for it. So, with mighty labours, for the animals were become perfectly wild in their freedom, a number of them were given the run of the island, and the novel excitements of the chase bade fair to afford the brown men full vent for the energies that had hitherto run in the direction of battle and murder and sudden death. Certainly the newcomers played havoc for a time with the taro fields and plantain and banana groves. But this also made for good, since it involved fencing operations on an extensive scale, and steady work tended to keep the devil of idle hands at bay. "The curse of savagery is the lack of employment," was one of Blair's maxims. "They get to fighting simply from having nothing else to do. Get them to work, and it is a mighty step upwards." So, but for Ra'a, the recalcitrant, the reunion of the tribe on this side of the island would have been complete. And this was so essential to Blair's far-reaching plans for its safety and redemption that he spared no pains to bring it about. At risk which could not be estimated, he went up alone into the hills more than once to endeavour to reconcile the insubordinates to the facts of the case. He guaranteed them life, liberty, and equal advantages with the rest if they would return to their allegiance. Failing that, he offered them safe conduct to one of the smaller, thinly-populated islands, with supplies of tools, seeds, and animals, and the assistance of one of his colleagues in turning these to account. But Ra'a would have none of it, and his dominant will so far was strong enough to keep his turbulent crew from breaking away towards the fleshpots. The loosing of the pigs and goats had provided them also with food and sport, and, since collisions between the various hunting parties were not infrequent, life was eminently tolerable, though it lived on the point of death. On these embassies Blair had emphatically declined to take Jean with him, on account of the indefiniteness of the journeying. Ra'a was constantly shifting camp, and each time he had to be sought afresh, with the imminent chance of the seeker meeting death in the quest. Jean dreaded these lonely journeys terribly, but she acquiesced sensibly, and each time bade him farewell in the full knowledge that it might be for the last time. [Illustration: It might be for the last time.] She was, indeed, becoming reconciled to partings as incidental to the missionary life. The _Torch_ was constantly coming and going among the islands now, and sometimes the ladies were allowed to go and sometimes not. Relations with the outlying tribes were progressing satisfactorily. In most cases, after two or three calls with no exhibition of cloven hoofs or ulterior designs on the part of their visitors, the natives welcomed them in the most friendly fashion. In some cases they still held back, and regarded them with suspicion and distrust, but on the whole the tendency was towards confidence and friendship. CHAPTER XX MANY FORMS OF GRACE We have glanced at the higher phases of Kenneth Blair's character, the more homely ones were no less strenuous and striking. Anything less like a saint in daily life one could hardly imagine. In his love of fun and frolic he was a big, clean-hearted schoolboy, full of jokes, and with a laugh that did one good to listen to and was as infectious as the mumps. Out of harness, on the sands or in the sea, with the brown men and boys and his own, or up the hills after pigs and goats, he let himself go with an abandon which only helped to brace the straps when he geared again. He set them to football, cricket, boxing, and fencing, for all of which his foresight had made provision, kite-flying on a scale so gigantic as to set the natives gaping, rowing, swimming--anything and everything that might harmlessly take the place of the excitements their savage natures craved, and which served at the same time to strengthen the bonds between white and brown, he pressed into the service. The boxing-gloves and basket-hilted fencing-sticks became absolute means of grace to the islanders. Here was scope for fighting to any extent, with no ill results. They took to them amazingly, and what was lacking in science was more than made up in zeal. And if these fighting bouts filled specific wants of their own, they also provided no less excellent entertainment for the onlookers. At first they put both gloves and sticks to the primitive service of belabouring their opponents to the utmost capacity of their muscles, and the sight of two stalwart brown men, clad only in boxing-gloves or basket-hilt, pounding away at one another with every ounce that was in them, and with never an attempt at defence, kept the white men in paroxysms of laughter. But punishment even of so comparatively mild a character as that soon led to more advanced ideas, and before long the browns were a match for the whites, and were never tired of the sport. Captain Cathie, when he was not ranging the seas in the _Torch_, put his men through their cutlass drill on the beach as regularly as if the houses behind had been a coastguard instead of a mission-station, and to the brown men this was a sight never to be missed. The measured sweep and clash of the glancing steel fascinated them. Presently they were asking for cutlass drill also, and it was not denied them. Such things might to some seem roundabout steps on the road to salvation--to Kenneth Blair they were very direct and important ones. [Illustration: Steps on the road to salvation.] With these brown men and women he was forbearing and long-suffering to a degree which, in the opinion of some of his friends, passed reasonable bounds. That, perhaps, only went to prove the breadth and depth of his nature. He could flame, however, with the best when occasion called, yet there was a righteousness in his anger which lifted it above the common anger of smaller men. From whatever distant strain they drew, the girls of Kapaa'a were undoubtedly good looking. Physically they were models of sinuous beauty, wild, dark-eyed nymphs, with manes of flower-decked hair and natural graces of action that came of ages of unfettered life and limbs. Their pretty faces and kittenish ways might well play havoc with the hearts--or say the fancies--of hot-blooded young sailormen, and these coquettes of the ridi-fringe were no whit behind their kind in the full appreciation of their powers. Blair saw the danger as soon as he saw the girls. He had a way of looking facts square in the face without any blinking. He talked very straight to his boys, pointing out the cons of the case with the utmost frankness, and exhorting them to caution and restraint in their dealing with the island women. That so few casualties occurred spoke volumes for his moral grip over his men. The danger was very real, for the brown girls' estimation of the attentions of the white men was open and unblushing, and tended to irritation on the part of discarded brown lovers. Captain Cathie, in one of his bluffer moments, bluntly suggested wholesale marriage as a preventive of irregularities, and the starting of a new race on that basis, instancing the Pitcairners as typical resultants. But Blair bade him postpone any such notions until the islanders had at all events attained to some degree of civilisation. "Trained and educated, there is no reason why our island girls should not make excellent wives," said he; "but the time is not ripe yet. Nothing but bitterness and disillusion can come of the mingling of natures so opposite. Meanwhile, if our lads can stand the test they will be all the better for it." Nothing serious happened--outwardly at any rate, though it is not impossible that a good deal went on of which the authorities were not aware--until, one day, one of the men was missing, and no one knew--or at all events would say--what had become of him. Captain Cathie discovered the lapsus when he had his men out for drill on the beach. "Where's Sandy Lean?" he asked. No answer, but covert grins from the rest, and flashes of laughter from the girls who were watching--laughter which evoked a growl from the brown men. "Very well! We'll deal with Sandy afterwards. Fall in, men! 'Tention!" and the drill proceeded. When it was over, the captain questioned two or three of them as to Sandy's probable whereabouts, but got nothing out of them. So he marched over to Blair's quarters, where the four heads of the community were hammering away at the language, Ha'o giving and receiving, and Matti straightening out kinks. "Sandy Lean's away, Mr. Blair, and I can't get track of him," announced the captain. "Ah!" and Blair drummed quietly on the table till the hot anger cooled. "So that's come at last," he said presently. "I'm sorry. The man's a fool, but as he has chosen, so he must lie." He explained the matter to Ha'o, who showed no surprise and still less annoyance. His manner even implied that he looked upon the alliance as an honour to Kapaa'a, and that any other view of it might be popularly resented. "Can you find the man for us?" asked Blair. "What do you want with him?" asked Ha'o. "He must marry the girl." "I will find him," and next day he brought word that the fugitives were camped lightly in the hills, in one of the houses vacated by the dissolved third faction. Blair, Cathie, and Ha'o accordingly set off at once to straighten the matter out, and a couple of hours' climbing brought them to the place. Sandy Lean's old mother in Greenock Vennel would surely not have known him in his present estate. With the bonds and trammels of civilisation he had lightly discarded also its outward and visible tokens. His only clothing was a kilt of white cotton, whereby he was already paying tribute to folly in the clouds of flies and mosquitoes which levied toll on his white skin. In the hope of circumventing them, or with a loverly idea of assimilation to his brown bride, he had smeared himself with mud from the taro fields, and was now a motley pastel in black and red and white. The sound of his voice, droning a comic song, drew them to the house, where he lay flat on his back on a mat. By his side sat the brown girl, doing her best to keep off the flies with a bunch of leaves. "Hoots, lassie, scat 'em!--scat 'em!" he broke out. "They nip like the de'il himsel'. It's the kiss of a cold Scotch mist I'm wantin'." The dusky bride greeted the newcomers with a smile broad enough to typify her happiness and victory. She had proved herself stronger than the white men, and was satisfied with her prize. She had woven a garland of crimson hibiscus into her dark hair and another round her neck, and with her lustrous eyes and gleaming smile she made a very pretty picture. In a playful mood she had also inserted a crimson flower behind each ear of her captive, and when, at her warning word, he sat up suddenly, he looked supremely silly and was aware of it. "So you've made your choice, Lean?" said Blair quietly. And Sandy glowered back at him with defiant confusion, while the flies settled on his shoulders. "You're the first to fall away from us," said Blair, "and it would have been better, I think, if you had waited. However, as you have decided, so it must be. You have no wife at home?" "No, sir." "Very well. Stand up before me with the girl and take her hand." They stood up in their surprise, and he read the marriage service over them, insisting on Sandy's responses and taking the girl's for granted, since there was no possible doubt about her wishes. "Now," he said, when it was over, "she is your wife, and you are at liberty to return to the village. Ha'o will see you married again there according to the island custom, so that the people may understand that you really are married. You have taken yourself off the ship's books, of course, and you will have to support yourself and your wife. I hope you will treat her well. No doubt her relatives will see to it if you do not. It would, I think, be as well for you to keep in touch with the mission, and we will do what we can to help you. You can have tools and seeds. If you get into any trouble, come to me. Now goodbye--and--see you treat that girl well." And they left the newly-married couple to their honeymooning. It was some days before Mr. and Mrs. Sandy descended from the clouds to the humdrum cares of life. Ha'o punctiliously performed over them all the rites and ceremonies observable in marriage on Kapaa'a, and before they were ended the bridegroom began to weary of all the fuss and to long for the easier accommodations of civilised life. But Sandy's troubles were only beginning. With much labour he built for himself and his wife a house of parts, and his wife's relatives expressed themselves highly pleased with it, and immediately quartered themselves there, not simply in very great contentment, but fairly uplifted with their lot. They began to put on airs on the strength of the lofty alliance, and at the same time to put off even such trifling habits of labour and thrift as had hitherto supplied their daily wants without any undue exertion. Sandy remonstrated verbally, and at times otherwise, but custom was against him, and there was no shirking the burden. The other men visited him pretty regularly, and gave him a hand with his planting in their spare time; but in spite of his pretty wife, with her odd, outlandish ways, the sight of his full house offered them no inducements to follow his example. He was a standing warning to the rest, and so was not without his uses. CHAPTER XXI MIGHT OF RIGHT Matters were progressing thus, surely if slowly, when a sudden sharp stroke fell upon them--sudden, but not altogether unlooked for. With the individual as with the nation, peaceful times are growing times; and yet, to both individual and nation, there come times of stress and strife, when the slow upbuilding of the years is put sharply to the test, and, surviving, is the stronger for the strain. Winter's storms provoke the oak to deepest rooting. At times, indeed, too long a period of peaceful growth may lead to over-fatness and deterioration. The nation and the man that waxes over-fat grows lean of soul. But that is a side issue at the moment. The little community on Kapaa'a was too near to its swaddling bands to be in any danger of fatty degeneration. And yet the stressful time that came to it made for good in every way. It had been striking roots and feelers. Well for it that time had been given them to grip the soil before the storm burst. As it was, they only gripped the tighter, and the breaking of the storm cleared the air, and made for more prosperous weather. Captain Cathie, in his capacity of watch-dog, had never for a single moment relaxed his precautions at home, or his keen-eyed vigilance abroad. When he was touring the islands, his glasses swept the horizon continually, with a special eye to the east, which was the threatening quarter. "Those yellow deevils will come back, as sure as we're here," was his constant word. And so the beach was never bare of stacks of neatly-cut wood from away up the valley, and the bunkers of the _Torch_ were always full, and the men were regularly drilled, and Long Tom was ready to speak at a moment's notice. Each day, when the _Torch_ lay at anchor in the lagoon, he took the steam-launch, or, occasionally, one of the whale-boats, by way of exercise for muscles, through the reef, to an offing whence he could obtain wide views of the approaches to the islands. "In there," he would say, "I feel like a man with his back to the wall. It's safe enough, but there's no telling what's behind it." And the wall was quite too high to climb, for the only eastward view from the summit of the hill was of the higher ridge, which ran right across the island, with only one possible passage, and that but a narrow one. They used to mildly chaff the old man about his fears, but he took it all with characteristic good humour. "Ay, ay, all right!" he would say. "Just you wait, and we'll see who laughs last. When they come, it'll be no laughing matter, I'm thinking." "They've probably forgotten all about us by this time, and have found easier pickings elsewhere," said Blair. "That kind doesn't forget in a hurry, and they know they've only got to break us up to get all the pickings here they want," said Cathie stubbornly. And it was thanks to these ceaseless precautions that, when the time came, they were not taken unawares. Cathie had run out in the launch one morning as usual, and presently came plunging back through the passage with a haste that betokened the unusual. "They're coming," he said quietly, as the others met him on the beach. "What, the nightmares?" said Blair, with a keen glance, for the captain was not above a joke. "Ay, the nightmares, sure enough. A brig and two tops'l schooners working up steady from the south-east. They'll carry a heap of men, I'm thinking, and we'll have our hands full." "Right? How soon can they be here, captain?" "Wind's light--a couple of hours, I should say, at soonest." "Our old plans stand?" They had long since discussed the possible campaign, though not very lately. "If they have as many men as I expect, we'll have to change 'em a bit. Unless they're absolute fools, which it's as well not to reckon on, they'll split and strike us more than one side at once. There's easy landing the other side the island." "But a difficult way across." "They don't know that, and they'll trust to luck to get across once they're ashore." "You can keep this side all safe with the _Torch_, I suppose, captain?" "Any quarter this time?" asked Cathie anxiously. "Make quite sure of their intentions first. Then, if they are what we have reason to suspect, hit hard and end it." "I'll keep this side all safe," said Cathie briskly, "and when I've cleared them here, I'll take a run round to the back and wipe 'em up there too." "How many men can you spare us, captain?" "I can do with six besides those below," said Cathie, after a moment's consideration. "Under steam we'll have the weather gauge all the time, and we'll give 'em no chance to board." "That leaves us ten. Give us your ten best, captain, and see that each man has a revolver in addition to his Winchester and cutlass. Better beat up your men at once with the drum, Ha'o. What about Ra'a? Will he rest quiet, or will he take advantage of the matter to attack us, or will he help us?" "He won't help. He may attack. If we are beaten, he is chief," said Ha'o, with a look which implied that the proper thing to do under the circumstances was to wipe out Ra'a forthwith. "Run the ladies across to the Happy Valley at once then, captain, and take Lean and his wife to look after them, if she'll go. Will you send your women and children there too, Ha'o? They would be safe from Ra'a, at all events." But Ha'o, knowing his people, shook his head. "They will not go." And so it proved. Fighting, the women understood, though they did not like it, but spirits they neither understood nor liked, and they would take no risks in such matters. They chose in preference to go up the southern hill, where they could keep a look-out for Ra'a and could scatter if he showed head. The ladies understood the necessities of the case. Their preparations were quickly made, and within the hour they were landed in the Happy Valley, with Sandy Lean, armed to the teeth, to guard them from any stray yellow skins who might get in, an eventuality which was not at all likely. Sandy's wife chose to go with her man, which was a gratifying sign of moral improvement through marriage, and they tried their best to get Nai and her baby boy to go too, but she would not. Captain Cathie saw to the armament of the land contingent, and gave them a strenuous word or two of his own. Then he carried the _Torch_ through the passage in the reef and lay waiting for his prey. Close upon a hundred men answered the call of the drum. They were armed only with fire-hardened wooden spears and clubs, and the axes they had used in more peaceful pursuits. But they had had no fighting for some time past, they were defending their hearths and homes, and with the yellow men keen in their memories, they were aching to be at them. And the little band of heavily-armed whites gave both edge and backbone to their courage and made them formidable. Blair, Stuart, and Evans carried Winchesters and revolvers. "Our cause is a just one," said Blair. "We will defend it by every means in our power. These men's blood is on their own heads." And there was that in all their faces which boded ill for the invaders. The only communication between the east and west sides of the island was over a dip in the central ridge which, from its most prominent feature, they had named One-Tree Pass. On the farther side the slope was gradual and easy. On the mission side the ground was so broken, and the ascent so precipitous, that for all ordinary usage the pass was impracticable. No one ever dreamed of using it unless under most urgent necessity. No more urgent necessity had ever arisen than this present, and One-Tree Pass for once in its life became the active centre of the island. The defending force scrambled up the broken way, and before it reached the pass Long Tom was bellowing angrily behind them, and was answered by another gun which sounded equally loud and defiant. The hill shoulders, however, hid what was going on, and they could only hope that Captain Cathie would be able to hold his own and something more. Blair placed his men among the boulders overlooking the pass, and crept on along the ridge with Ha'o and Evans and Stuart, until they could look out over the long, easy sweep of the hill to the farther sea. Opposite the landing-place lay the two schooners, with boats plying rapidly between them and the shore. The landing had evidently been disputed. The village was in flames and brown figures were creeping cautiously up the hill. The beach was filling rapidly with men from the ships. "It will be a couple of hours before they get here," said Blair, and with instinctive foresight, in view of his greater work, "I wish we could get hold of those brown fellows. If they know that we're fighting their battle, it will pave our way with them later on." He put it to Ha'o, and eventually the latter slipped away down the hillside, none too eagerly, to endeavour to intercept the fugitives and bring them in, if it were possible. There was no difficulty in intercepting them. They were flying for their lives. Bringing them in, however, was quite another matter. They recognised Ha'o, by his speech, as from the other side of the island--hostile therefore, and not to be trusted; and it took all his diplomacy, through the veil of a different dialect, to persuade the first half-dozen to the venture. The sight of Blair, however, reassured them. They recognised him from his calls in the _Torch_, and presently they were off along the hills to bring in their fellows. Altogether about thirty terrified men and women came in. The women were sent on down the valley. The men lay down among the rocks with the defending party. Meanwhile the marauders had completed their landing and had begun their march, like the shadow of a black cloud creeping slowly up the hillside. Before them, urged on by blows from behind, crept two reluctant brown guides with ropes round their necks. There was no fear of the yellow men missing the pass. They toiled upward with stubborn determination, and wasted breath in voluble commination of the length of the way, when they could have employed it more usefully in compassing it. And there was no possible doubt of their intentions. Slaughter and plunder were written all over them, as plain to see as the nature of a hyæna in the cut of its slinking face. Nevertheless, Blair would permit no attack unchallenged. As the bristling crest of the black wave foamed cursing into the level of the pass, he drew cautiously back under cover till the whole should be there. When he struck, he would strike with all his might. This was a nettle to be gripped hard, to be squeezed to pulp and trampled out of sight. The yellow men flung themselves flat and cursed their wind back. And the pass lay blank and bare and open under the glare of the sun. Not a stone rattled, not a shadow moved. The one lone palm seemed cast in brown. In due course, and with the aid of many curses, the marauders got to their feet at last, and came pressing loosely along behind their unwilling guides. They passed unchallenged the place where Blair knelt behind a big rock. Below and on each side, pinched brown faces craned anxiously over restless brown shoulders at him, eager for the word. It was not till the motley crew had passed that he stepped out suddenly from his cover, and stood, a tall white figure, in the sun-glare. "Hola!" he cried. "What are you after?" And instantly such a villainous array of vicious yellow faces was turned on him as he had never before in his life set eyes on. A babble broke out among them. "Dios! It is he!" "It is the fighting padre!" "It is the devil himself!" "Down with him!" "Our turn now, señor missionary!" And one answer to his question which needed no knowledge of bastard Spanish for its translation. A sharp report, and a bullet buzzed past his head. Other guns were rising to correct the insufficiency of the first. "Give it them, boys!" shouted Blair, and before the words were out of his mouth, rocks and fire-pointed spears were raining on them, back and front, and as they tried in vain to face both sides at once, there came the quick crackle of the Winchesters and a ringing cheer from the _Torch_ men at the end of the pass. The yellow men reeled under their flailing. The ground was cumbered with bodies and the air with curses. The momentary panic drove them in upon themselves and bunched them together. But the weak point about the thrown spear as a weapon of offence is the fact that, once hurled, it is gone. The yellow men were an undisciplined mob, Ishmaelites all, accustomed every man to fight for himself and ready to fight at any moment, but their death dealers remained in their hands, and they outnumbered the _Torch_ men by seven to one. The Torches poured in volley after volley. The yellow men tightened their defence and replied in kind; while the brown men danced wildly among the rocks, and hurled stones and clubs, and were shot down like rabbits. Blair's men were falling all round him. The sight was too much for him. He snatched a club from the ground and sprang down the hillside. In a moment the sides of the pass vomited brown men frenzied for the fight. "Kown 'im!--kown 'im!--kown 'im!" they yelled, and hurled themselves on the enemy. The _Torch_ men, reduced in number, fired one more round and came racing in with their cutlasses. The yellow men replied, and then clubbed their guns and thrashed wildly at the advancing tide. Under such conditions, and with the might of right as well as numbers against them, the yellow men gave way and drifted back towards the mouth of the pass, fighting stubbornly all the way. And Kenneth Blair forgot that he was a man of peace. He saw his brown men falling all round him, ripped and bashed and broken, and he dashed into that fight as he had dashed into many a more peaceful one on the football field at home. He saw nothing at the moment but the vicious yellow faces and shaggy heads of the despoilers. He knew nothing but the necessity of demolishing them, and with his unaccustomed club he smote with all his might at every head he could reach, as his forbears long ago struck down the Northmen when they came wading ashore from their beaked ships on the coast of Caledonia. The brown men eyed him with amazement, and yelled with unholy joy at sight of his Berserk fury. The teacher was a man like themselves, and could let himself loose like the rest of them. And Blair thought neither of them nor himself, or of anything whatsoever, save the necessity of ridding the island of the vermin that would pollute it. For once in his life he tasted the wild, mad joy of battle. His red club whirled and fell, and wherever it fell there fell a gap, and in him raged a red fury which nothing could appease or oppose. He would surely have been a terrible sight to himself--his white face set to slaughter, and smeared with blood from a bullet graze on the temple, his white clothes spattered red, his eyes ablaze, and that murderous red club whirling and smashing to the tune that plunged in his veins. At the end of the pass, where it dipped towards the sea, the yellow men broke, and it was over, so far as danger to the island was concerned. But not by any means over as concerned the yellow men. Never yet did enemy break and flee but prudence and restraint fled with him. Cast-iron discipline may leash it in the bulk, but in the individual the lust of death will out and have its way. The wild beast that lurks in every man once roused is ill to curb, and hardest, maybe, in the man not easily provoked. And here was no pretence of discipline. The furies were afoot that day, and death and destruction were rampant. Blair found himself plunging down the hill path after a scattered mob of yellow men. They were too breathless to curse. Their only hope was the sea. The prey was escaping. Terror lent it wings stronger than the fury behind. He hurled his dripping club among them, and one man fell. At one side, among the boulders, he caught a glimpse of Ha'o, all aflame with battle, doing dreadful things with a dripping red axe. So horrible did he look, so utterly inhuman and wholly possessed of the devil, that Blair gasped at the sight. Then he stumbled to a rock and dropped his bursting head into his hands--and came to himself. The pursuit sped on down the hillside. The yells and shouts died away towards the sea. He raised his head at last, and his bloodshot eyes looked heavily after them. "God forgive me!" he gasped. "I have been in hell." He jumped up with the idea of stopping the work he had started. But that was impossible. As well try to stop the mountain snow in its death gallop. The red fury had gone down the hill like an avalanche. Until its force was spent it must run its course. Now that the fire had died out of him he found his legs trembling so that he could hardly walk. He sank down again on his boulder and drew his hand dazedly across his brow, streaking it horribly with fresh smears of blood. He looked round him, at the blue sea, the white surge, the quiet ships. He heard the shouts below. He saw a boat put off from the shore and labour heavily towards one of the ships. "God forgive me!" he groaned once more. "I have been killing men." But the only man he was actually conscious of killing was the one at whom he had hurled his club in his last spasm. And when he got up heavily, and went down to him where he lay in the glare of the sun, he found the man was not dead, and he was glad. He carried him carefully to the partial shelter of a rock, and propped him up, and gave him water from a runlet close by. He drank deeply himself, and washed his hands and face and plunged his head under water. He noticed now for the first time that his white jacket was spattered all over with blood. He tore it off and flung it from him. The reaction which followed his temporary possession left him limp and exhausted, and burdened with a heavy mental load which as yet he made no attempt at lightening. Then he went slowly down the hill, and saw one of the schooners loosing her sails in a hurried and shifty fashion. From that he gathered that some of the invaders had escaped, and he was too unaccustomed a warrior to regret it. The rest, who had followed the pursuit to the shore, were held back by no such considerations however. To them the yellow men were enemies to be smitten hip and thigh, to be destroyed root and branch. When they reached the beach and saw the broken boat-load lumbering towards the schooner, the _Torch_ men and a number of natives flung themselves into one of the other boats and set off after them with the most final intentions. The schooner caught the breeze and began to make way. The _Torch_ men played on her with their Winchesters, a chance shot dropped the helmsman, her head fell off, and she was theirs. Some of the yellow men jumped overboard. For the rest--well, the Torches knew Captain Cathie's views, and the islanders were of a like mind. Blair passed several dead men as he went down the hill, but saw no wounded ones. As he neared the remains of the village he came upon the bodies of the first victims of the invasion, brown men and women and children. He had seen nothing of Evans and Stuart since the fight began. Evans he had placed in command of the Torches; Stuart had been in charge of the opposite side of the pass. The brown men were leaping about the beach inflated with their victory. The _Torch_ men had anchored the one schooner and were now securing the other. A sudden shout along the beach showed him a yellow man fleeing for his life with half a dozen islanders after him. He had been hidden in the bushes till they stumbled upon him. The sight of his twitching face and agonised eyes remained with Blair for many a day. There had been many such eyes and faces up there on the hillside, but he had had no eyes to see them. Now he was himself, and would stop the dreadful work. He ran towards the man to succour him. But succour was the last thing the other looked for in him. His long knife was in his hand. Escape was hopeless, but here was a chance for a blow in return. He flew at Blair like a wild cat, and drove the knife at his neck. Blair swerved instinctively, and it went through his shoulder. The wild cat was on him with gnashing teeth and flaming eyes, snarling, grappling, biting him. They rolled over and over in the sand. Then sinewy brown fingers gripped the other and tore him away, with a mouthful of Blair's shirt between his teeth, and in a moment he lay still. Blair lay still also. The last things he remembered were the horror of that animalised snarling grip, and a dreadful agony in the shoulder as he rolled over in the sand with the knife still sticking in him. When he came to, he found himself the centre of a group of the island men who were looking down on him with troubled faces. They gave a shout when he opened his eyes, and presently he was sitting up showing them how to bind up the wound with strips of his torn shirt. The knife had been pulled out while he lay unconscious--for the sake of the knife. The _Torch_ men came leisurely ashore after securing the schooner and found him so. He had lost blood freely both from head and shoulder, and felt sick and dizzy. They made a stretcher out of a couple of oars and a native mat, and at his request carried him at once up the hill to the pass. He was anxious about the others; he had no recollection of seeing them since the fight began. It seemed to him that since he picked up that club and leaped down into the pass he had seen nothing but vicious yellow faces and evil eyes, and broken heads, and bodies that suddenly crumbled and fell. His mind was relieved by the sight of Evans as soon as they topped the pass. And at distant sight of the stretcher Evans came running up with an anxious face. "Serious?" he asked. "Don't think so. A jag through the arm and a scratch on the face, but I felt sick and couldn't climb the hill. Where's Stuart?" "Back here. Got a bullet through the leg. No bones broken, but he won't walk for a week or two." "Many others wounded?" "Two Torches, half a dozen natives, and a dozen of the yellow men. Frightful blackguards they are too. Makes me wish they'd been killed outright just to look at them." Blair nodded. He could not plead wholly guiltless in that respect. A dozen yellow men on their hands would be an anxiety and a burden. A light affliction, however, compared with what might have been if the invaders had caught them napping. And so they must make the best of it, and be thankful for things as they were. "Now see here, boys," he said, sitting up on the stretcher. "We've had our fight and by God's mercy we've won. I'm afraid we all lost our heads a bit while it was on"--at which, and their recollection of him in the fight, the sailors grinned--"and I think we cannot blame ourselves for that. But these men who are left on our hands are tabu. The islanders will kill them if they get the chance, and we must prevent it. What is done in the hot blood of battle is done. But killing in cold blood is murder. You have all fought valiantly. Don't spoil it by any such doings. And, by the way, Evans, there's another of them lying under a rock to the left of the path over there. You might see to him. I flung my club after a bunch of them and this fellow went down, but he was only stunned." "I'll go and bring him up at once, before the brown fellows come." "No news of Cathie, I suppose. When did his big gun stop?" "Over an hour ago. We've no news. I hope it's all right. I'd have sent down but I'd no one to send." "Which of you boys will go for news?" asked Blair. "I doubt if we can all get down to-night." "That you can't," said Evans. "It'll be a case of go easy for some days for all you hipped ones." All the men volunteered at once. Every one of them was keen to know what had been going on on the other side of the island. "You seem fairly fresh, Irvine. Tell Captain Cathie how we've gone on here, and that casualties are not serious. If he can spare us some more help we can do with it to get the wounded down. Ask him to send word to the ladies also. They will be anxious about us all. And if he can send us something to eat we'll be glad of it. I'm feeling empty after it all." "I'll go after your half-deader," said Evans. "One of you come with me in case he can't walk." But he was back empty-handed in a quarter of an hour. "Gone?" asked Blair, with a pinched face. "He's dead, but you didn't kill him. Some one came after you and split his head with an axe." "Ah!" said Blair gloomily, "these others will fare the same unless we see to it. We'll go to them, Evans, in case any of our brown friends come prowling round." But the brown men were much too busy, and we may drop more of a veil over their proceedings than the night did. Big fires were glowing along the beach before it was dark, and no brown man came up the hill that night. They went along to the temporary hospital Evans had made among the rocks. The beds consisted of the softest patches of ground he could find, and the only furnishings were the patients. He had hastily bandaged their wounds, however, and all, except the yellow men, were fairly cheerful. Stuart, indeed, became almost hilarious at sight of Blair as an invalid also. "I was thinking ill of myself for getting hit," he said; "but since you're in the same boat I feel better." "Glad to be of use," said Blair, "and very thankful things are no worse. They might have been. There were more of them than I expected, and they fought harder than their cause justified." "Even rats will fight in a corner," said Evans. Just before dark Captain Cathie came panting in on them, in the best of spirits and with many rough words for the road. He had half a dozen of his men with him, and they brought an ample supply of food. "Well, captain, how have things gone with you?" "We mustn't complain, sir. He'd brought a gun along as heavy as ours and we had a fine set-to. But with our steam we had the weather hand all the time and just waltzed round him. He did his best to board, but we thought differently." "And how did it end? Where is he now?" Captain Cathie jabbed his finger downwards two or three times in eloquent silence. "Sunk?" "Sunk with all aboard, big gun and all. No more trouble from that quarter. We plugged him more than once below the water-line and we saw he was settling down. But it came sudden at the end." "And you were not able to save any of them?" "We were not"--said Cathie emphatically, and after a moment's pause added--"and what on earth would we have done with 'em if we had?" "We have about a dozen on our hands here--all wounded." "Humph!" grunted Cathie. "We couldn't very well kill them in cold blood, you see." "And what'll you do with 'em, Mr. Blair?" "I don't know yet. We'll have to think that over. Did you send word to the ladies how things had gone all round?" "I went over myself with young Irvine and told 'em all about it. They were all very thankful it was over and no more harm done." "And how is the _Torch_?" "Ah!" said the old man, with an aggrieved shake of the head, "she got it pretty hot; that's why I couldn't get round to wipe out those schooners. Both her masts are down, and she got a shot into the machinery. The men are seeing what they can do to it. The masts we can fit ourselves." "And you've no casualties?" "Some splinter wounds and some bit bruises from the spars. Nothing of consequence, sir." "Well, we're very well through a nasty job, captain, and we've reason to be thankful for it. Now suppose we have something to eat--I'm starving." CHAPTER XXII PAX It took some days to get matters shipshape after the general upheaval of the invasion. For one thing, the brown men were much too busy on the other side of the island to settle down to ordinary work. Most of the women and children had joined them there, the villages were deserted, and there was an intangible something in the mental and moral atmosphere which made for depression. Blair sent Evans over to see Ha'o, and endeavour to bring him back to his right mind. Evans returned downcast, and described what he had seen only to Blair and Stuart. Aunt Jannet, if she had heard, would have had a fit. The ladies were back in their own homes, and the crippled Blackbirds were bottled up in the Happy Valley, under the wardership of Sandy Lean and his wife and a small guard of _Torch_ men. It seemed like desecration of the beautiful spot to use it as a prison, but it was the only place in the island where the yellow men would be reasonably safe from the brown ones. The stars in their courses fought for Joshua. In like manner the strange, stern facts of life fought now for Kenneth Blair. The cloud which had threatened his work with destruction broke in unexpected blessing. The fight in One-Tree Pass was an epoch in the history of Kapaa'a. In the first place it had brought into line--fighting line indeed, but none the less permanent on that account--the various factions in the island, and developed among them a hitherto undreamed-of community of interests. Not by any means for the first time in history, a general menace from without welded into one a diversity of hostile fragments, and discovered to them an unexpected identity of ideas. On a microscopic scale it was, in its results, the Franco-German war over again. The men from the eastern coast, who had borne the first brunt of the invasion, had lost everything, including their headman. But they had found more than they had lost. They had found out that the western men were not necessarily their enemies, and that both they and the white men were ready to fight to the death to save the island from the grip of the yellow men. They fully recognised that without the white men's help the marauders would have had their will, and matters would in all probability have gone very differently. In their way they were grateful, and by no means blind to the advantages of the white alliance. That their gratitude was based in no small degree on a sense of favours to come, in no way lessened its utility as a factor in the solution of political difficulties. They too would share the benefits reaped by the western men from the white men's friendship, and when differences arose amongst them at once as to the choice of a headman, it was the most natural thing in the world to refer the rival claims to Blair, who might reasonably be expected to be without local bias in the matter. The opportunity was too good to be lost. Blair was at pains to make clear to them the great advantages which would accrue from the union of all the communities under one head, and finally they argued the matter out among themselves and agreed to accept Ha'o as chief, with local headmen chosen by him and Blair. They reaped their harvest at once and were content. Their houses were rebuilt, tools were given them, and they were initiated into the mysteries of the new foods and fruits introduced by the white men. A proper road was promised to further communication between the opposite sides of the island, and, so far, the descent of the Blackbirds made for good. In another and quite unexpected direction also the invasion wrought in the direction of Blair's aims. They were all sitting on the verandah of his house one night, watching the lightning play tremulously up and down the western sky, listening to the surf, and discussing matters generally. Captain Cathie, in the little leisure the refitting of the _Torch_ afforded him, was much exercised in his mind as to what was to be done with the prisoners. Aunt Jannet had just expressed the opinion that it was a very great pity they had not all been scuttled. "It does seem a pity you could not have made a clean sweep of them like Captain Cathie did, Kenneth," said she. "Well, you see, we couldn't kill them in cold blood, Aunt Jannet." "And now you've got them alive in cold blood what on earth are you going to do with them?" "I see nothing for it but shipping them off home as soon as they are fit to travel. What do you say, Cathie?" "I suppose there's nothing else for it," said Cathie gloomily. "We don't want them here, and yet I'm loth to turn them loose." "I don't think they'll ever come back, after the reception they had this time." "I don't know that they will, but they'll be at the same game somewhere else. I look on them as I do on mad dogs--best got rid of." "Right!" said Aunt Jannet with emphasis. "The trouble is that men are not dogs, you see----" "That they're not. Dogs are mostly honest and good to look at," said Aunt Jannet again. "We could put them on one of the schooners, and you could convoy them part way home," said Blair to Cathie. "I really don't think we have anything more to fear from them." "I can do all that," said Cathie. "But all the same I'd as lieve they were none of them going home." "Why?" "Well, you never know. If ever they can do us a mischief you may take your davy they'll do it." "I don't really see what they can do, captain." But Cathie only shook his head. Perhaps his ideas were too vague to clothe in words. Just then a shadowy figure slipped out of the darkness under the house, reached up, and rolled something softly along the platform towards them. "Hello! What's this?" said Cathie. [Illustration: "Hello! what's this?"] "A present--for Aunt Jannet, I should say," laughed Blair. "Some dusky admirer bringing tribute." "A thankoffering to the wounded warriors," said Evans. "An unusually fine coco-nut," said Stuart, tipping it with his usable foot. "Carefully wrapped in leaves, too." Captain Cathie picked it up, and began to open the bundle. Evans struck a match, and match and bundle fell suddenly with a dull, dead bump to the floor, and were followed by a quite involuntary and seamanlike oath from the captain. "What is it?" cried the younger ladies in a breath. "Come away!" said Aunt Jannet hastily, and set the example herself. "It's a man's head," said Evans gravely, as he tried to light a lamp. And when the lamp was lit, and the bundle lay open in their midst, they saw that he was right--it was the head of a man. An exclamation burst from Blair as he bent over the ghastly offering, while the others wondered what it might mean. Was it a challenge?--a defiance?--a threat? None of these. "It is the head of Ra'a," said Blair at last. "I wonder who it was that brought it? If we knew that, we might guess what it means." There had been no fighting of late between Ha'o's people and Ra'a's. In fact, the quiescence of the latter during the other troubles had been cause for congratulation. And since then everything had been quiet in the villages--over-quiet, the quietness of repletion. Evans had indeed begun to fear ill results from the over-indulgence of savage appetites. "What do you make of it, captain?" asked Blair at last, as of one more versed than the rest in heathen ways. "Hanged if I know!" said the old man, with a puzzled frown. "I take it, it is a sign of submission on the part of Ra'a's men," said Blair quietly. "Ra'a himself would never have come in of his own accord. His men have wanted to, and so they have brought him." "I shouldn't wonder," said Cathie. "It's just the thing they might do." And in the morning they sent up early for Ha'o, and showed him the message, and asked his opinion. "Kenni is right," he said at last. "They submit." And presently he went boldly up the mountain-side and in due course came back with Ra'a's followers in a straggling tail behind him. He explained afterwards to Blair that Ra'a's men had wanted for a long time past to come in and enjoy all the benefits they saw the others receiving, but Ra'a had held them back, telling them that the whites were only tricking Ha'o and his people and would presently carry them away. They had seen the arrival of the Blackbird ships, had watched the fight at sea, and also that in the pass, and these had convinced them of the good intentions of the white men. Finally they had taken matters into their own hands and settled things their own way. And so the divisions in the island were healed by blood, and that which had seemed like to wreck their hopes turned marvellously to their highest good. CHAPTER XXIII THE SCOURGE OF GOD But there was trouble of a quite unexpected kind brewing. The yellow men in their lives had slain a certain number of the brown. In their deaths they slew still more. The whites had hoped that, with the introduction of new food supplies, the unnatural but deep-rooted native craving for human flesh would have disappeared. The final rites of the battlefield shocked them exceedingly, and words had so far failed to convince Ha'o and his people of the error of their ways. "You eat pig," was Ha'o's blunt argument in reply, "and man is cleaner than pig." There was, however, an argument in preparation for him with which the white men had nothing whatever to do, but which drove home conviction beyond dispute and in the most terrifying fashion. Ever since the fighting, and the subsequent orgies, the villages had been unusually quiet. Even the wholesale submission of Ra'a's men produced little excitement among them. "They are like snakes after a full meal," said Cathie. "They've eaten too much, and it'll take 'em all their time to digest it." Evans, however, had his doubts. He hinted to Blair that he feared an outbreak of sickness, but as yet could form no opinion as to its character. The men had lost all their energy, the women were depressed, the children listless. It was as though the strenuous doings at One-Tree Pass had sucked all the life out of them. And Evans went in and out of the houses with a keen eye for symptoms. It was about a fortnight after the fight that Blair, going up to the village, met him coming hastily from it, and was startled at the sight of his face. "What is it, Evans?" he asked. "It's come--I feared it, but could not be sure--smallpox." "God help us! ... How has it got here?" "I can only imagine," said Evans, with a quick, meaning look at him. "Good God! How very horrible!" "Yes. They'll have a lesson they'll never forget, and many of them will never have the chance to. What about our wives, Blair? Shall we send them away till it is over?" Kenneth Blair's lips pinched tight at the thought of it all, and he walked heavily and in silence. "We are in God's hands," he said at last. "I think it must be left to themselves to decide." "Then they will stop," said Evans decisively. "Yes, they will stop," said Blair. "God grant us a safe deliverance!" "Amen!" said Evans, and they walked in the shadow of the coming death. The ladies received the news with white faces but stout hearts, and did not hesitate one moment. Their place was beside the men. They did not wait to count the cost, though in each one of them was the dull, dread knowledge of what that cost might be. Their duty was to these brown kinsfolk of their adoption, and they were British born. Evans took charge of the defence with all the energy and skill that were in him, and, possessing their souls in God, they all went quietly into the fight, compared with which the battle of One-Tree Pass was veriest child's play. The village was sheltered by the bush and the crowding palms. Every man was taken off the dismantled _Torch_, and set to work building a hospital on the beach, a long, open house of poles and palm-leaves, through which the fresh sea breezes could blow at will. Soft springy couches of palm-leaves were ranged inside, and the simple preparations were complete. Not the smallest of the horrors and perplexities of the situation was the wholesale nature of the seizure. Springing from one identical cause, the results came all together. The hospital was filled before it was finished, and the builders could not keep pace with the demands for accommodation. Not one of Ra'a's people suffered--clear indication of the ghastly origin of the evil. Blair induced them to return for the time being to their village on the hillside, and such of Ha'o's people as showed no signs of infection he camped temporarily on the opposite hill. Every house from which the sick were carried was promptly burned. The brown folk could not understand such radical measures, but they were scared by the sights they saw, and they did as they were told. So suddenly had the catastrophe come upon them, and in so wholesale a fashion, that their thoughts had had no time to travel beyond their own immediate concerns. But when the work was steadily under way Blair bethought him suddenly of their new allies on the east coast, and he begged Captain Cathie to run round in the launch and see how matters were going with them. Cathie returned in due course with a long face and the news that things were just as bad there, and Stuart and his wife promptly offered to go round and carry out the same measures as had been started at the home settlement. They were given half a dozen _Torch_ men, whom they could ill spare. Evans promised to come round as soon as he possibly could, and the launch chuffed gallantly away to the relief of the still more necessitous on the other side of the island. Stuart could still only limp, and would have been better not to attempt even that, but the healing of his own wound was a small thing compared with that which had to be done. As a matter of fact he limped slightly for the rest of his life in consequence--a most honourable limp. Then followed for all of them a time of patient endurance and endless self-sacrifice, which, trying as it was, still wrought mightily for and in them. They went to and fro in that long open shed with quiet set faces, soothing and alleviating as far as these were possible, whispering hope to the hopeless, and insisting inflexibly on the observance of rules in which the only hope lay, rules the meaning of which these brown children could not understand, and which they broke at every opportunity. Death sat grimly down before them and laid siege to them, and the little band of white-faced women and grim-faced men fought him day by day and life by life, losing heavily but refusing to be beaten. They met one another with such cheerfulness as they could muster, and even with quiet strained smiles at times, but ever with keen apprehensive glances for what each feared any day to find in the other. A time for the trying of souls, with none of the glamour and activities of actual warfare, but with perils infinitely more appalling in their insidiousness and impalpability. "Ech, Jean, my dear!" murmured Aunt Jannet Harvey one evening, as she and Jean and Alison Evans met outside for a few full draughts of sweet sea air. "It's terrible, terrible work. You're looking white; child. I wish you were back in London." "I don't," said Jean cheerfully. "We're doing our appointed work, and I feel as if I'd never done anything worth doing at home. Kenneth says he believes this will be a corner-stone in the building up of the island." "Ay, ay! Well, it's good to be able to take a hopeful view of things when they're about as bad as they can be. And I don't see that they could be much worse." "Oh yes, they could," said Jean quickly. "Some of us might have taken it, which would be very much worse. We have to thank Mr. Evans for that, Alison." "Charlie says he thinks we're through the worst," said Alison quietly. "I wish I could see it," said Aunt Jannet. "We have only had three deaths to-day, and most of the others are past the crisis. It's been a terrible clearance. There's that poor little baby crying again. I must go," and they separated to their various duties. It was Nai's baby boy that cried, and it died in its mother's arms that night. She yielded it sorrowfully to those who took away the dead, and returned wearily to her husband's couch to keep the flies off him with a palm branch. Nai herself had been too much occupied with her baby to go with the others across the island after the fight, and she had not developed the disease. The baby had taken it, however, and Nai had nursed him and his father indefatigably, and now the boy was gone just as his father turned the corner, and the little mother was broken-hearted. They comforted her by telling her that Ha'o would live, and she fanned away wearily to the tune of her sobs that would not be kept in. Jean, as she flitted noiselessly to and fro, with cold water for this one and medicine for that, and hopeful words for all, and special ones for Nai, thought now and again of the mighty change her marriage had wrought in her life, but never once regretted what she had done and all she had left. And more than once the dreadful thought came upon her--"Supposing Ken were to take the sickness and die and leave me alone!" Ah, then she felt as though her world would fall to pieces, and she prayed, as she had never prayed in her life before, that he might be spared, or that they might go together. The one thing that wrought itself indelibly into all their memories was the contrast between their hospital work and its setting. Inside the long palm-thatched sheds--the moans and murmurs and restless movements of the sufferers; the ever-fluttering fans which kept off the plague of insects, and alleviated to some extent the pungency of the atmosphere; the irresistible depression induced by the close presence of insidious, crawling death. And outside--the implacable glare of the sunshine; the smooth, slow-heaving, blue mirror of the lagoon; the metronomic roar and long white flashes of the surge on the reef; the palms swinging slowly and solemnly with a sound like the patter of falling rain; and up above, the pale blue sky. Death in its most repulsive form, set in a picture of surpassing beauty, which yet had in it something of pitilessness from the very sharpness of the contrast. These things they never forgot. They held no regular services at these times, for some were always on duty. But there was much prayer among them, and when the watches changed, the one in charge, Blair, Evans, or Cathie, would give his band of helpers a few brave words to carry with them--grateful thanks for perils past, hopeful prayers for safety in the hours to come. For they never knew but what the evil seeds might even then be working in any one of them, and they went with fear in their hearts though their faith and hope were strong, and their faces were tuned to quietness. Evans wore himself thin with his ceaseless toils. As medical director the burden of the fight was on his shoulders, and he divided himself between the stricken camps in proportion to their needs. The going to and fro consumed much time, though he himself maintained that it did him good. But he showed the wear and tear so visibly at last that his wife, who had had a medical training at home, insisted on taking over the east coast hospital herself, and she joined Stuart and his wife there. The epidemic ran its course, the dead were reverently wrapped in their mats, weighted with rocks, and towed out to sea on a small raft, and there committed to the deep. The convalescents began to creep about the beach and show a languid interest in life. Ha'o was among the first to get into the sunshine. While none were neglected, Blair and Jean and Nai had nursed him as though all their lives depended on his recovery. And indeed, to Blair's thinking, very much more than their simple lives depended on Ha'o. He looked on him as the corner-stone of the work on Kapaa'a, and his death would have been a terrible blow to them all. As Jean had said, he had great hopes that this sharp trial might also turn to good. He tackled Ha'o the very first day he judged him well enough for discussion. "This has been a terrible time, Ha'o, my friend. Have you any idea why it came upon you?" "It was your new God sent it, I suppose," said Ha'o gloomily, with the air of a child giving an expected answer with mental reservations of his own. "God permits such things. If men will do wrong they must suffer. That is how they learn to do right. If you want to bang your head against this rock, God won't stop you. But the recollection of what you suffer may stop you doing the same again." "What wrong did we do? You killed the yellow men too." "But we did not eat them. Not one of us has been ill. Not one of Ra'a's people has been ill. They also kept apart." Ha'o looked sombrely out over the lagoon. He was thinking of his boy. "Kenni," he said presently, "I know you do not like us to eat men; but our fathers did so, and their fathers, and never have we had this crawling death before." "Perhaps it was to teach you and your people. See, Ha'o! We want you to take your right place in the world. It was for that we came. It was for that we beat off the yellow men who would have carried you away. We are ready to give our lives to help you. But we must have the foundations firm or we cannot build. You do not build a house on running sand, nor a platform on cracking poles." "What do you want me to do?" "Promise me, here and now, that you will never eat man again, and that you will make it tabu to your people. They will do what you say. They are frightened. God never meant man to be eaten." "How do you know, Kenni?" "He forbade man even to kill man, but of the beasts He has provided He said, 'Kill and eat.'" "You killed the yellow men," he said again. "To save you from them." "Then you did wrong too. Why did the crawling death not touch you?" "It is not right to kill men, yet if a man attacks you, and in defending yourself he gets killed, the blame is his, not yours." "You never tasted man, Kenni, did you?" "No, never," said Blair, with an expression of disgust. "Then you cannot know how good he is. My people think there is nothing equal to man--except woman or child, which are better still. But I will promise you never to eat yellow man again, Kenni." "That is not enough. Unless you will give up eating man of any kind we must go. We have provided other food. You cannot go hungry. The pigs and the goats are all over the island. The paw-paws grow while you sleep. You have taro and bananas, and breadfruit and coco-nuts. You have the chance to become a nation, strong and powerful. You are sole chief on Kapaa'a now. I would have you chief of the other islands also. But if you prefer to eat man I can do nothing for you. It is the foundation of all the rest that you give up eating man." "My little son did not eat of the yellow men, Kenni, but your God took him. Why?" "It was the disease took him. It is the most terrible thing for passing from one to another. Could you stand the thought of your little son being eaten, Ha'o?" "My son? No! I would have died sooner than let him be eaten." "Yet you say other men's babies are good to eat." Ha'o looked at him, and then lay looking out over the lagoon. "See, Ha'o," said Blair at last, "if the thought of your little son will turn you from flesh-eating, he will have done more for Kapaa'a in the short time he lived than you have done in all your life, and we shall remember Ha'o's little son always as the beginning of the better times." The brown man lay thinking a long time and one may not know his thoughts. But at last he said quietly-- "Twice you have saved my life and my people, Kenni. I am your man. You must not go away. For the thought of my little son who is dead I will give up eating man. I will become a nation." "And you will answer for the rest?" "I will answer for the rest. If any man eats man I will kill him." Ha'o kept his word, and so, in the death of his little son, the foundations were laid in Kapaa'a, and the black cloud broke once more in blessing. CHAPTER XXIV GAIN OF LOSS With a clean bill of health, and Ha'o as supreme chief anxious to become a nation, and therefore ready to follow the white men's ideas, matters began to progress rapidly. The first thing to be done, as soon as the men could be spared from hospital work, was to get rid of the Blackbirders. Captain Cathie, vehemently backed up by Aunt Jannet, would even now have made short work of them. "Give 'em a fair trial and string 'em up," was his simple idea of the justice that would meet the case. And "Hear, hear!" said Aunt Jannet with energy. "I really don't think they're likely ever to come back, after the lesson they've had this time," said Blair. "They wouldn't if I had my way," said Cathie grimly. "Vermin like that is best stamped out when it's under your foot." "We stamped pretty hard last time. They'll recognise that the game is not worth the candle." So, in due course, the larger schooner, which was the older and poorer found of the two, was provisioned for the voyage, and the prisoners were brought over from the valley and put on board of her. Blair and Stuart and Cathie awaited them there, and, through Stuart, Blair told them very explicitly what would happen if they ever showed face in those waters again. Then the refitted _Torch_ towed them out to the offing, and bade them make tracks for home, and followed them with dogged restraint for three days to see that they did it, and the island was once more purged of contamination. When the captain got back, Blair laughingly asked him if they had got safely away, and Aunt Jannet eyed him with a spark of hope. "They're gone," said Cathie, with a gloomy nod. "I'd have felt better if they'd gone by the shorter road." "You ought to have scuttled them, captain," said Aunt Jannet. Then followed many busy full days. First the village was rebuilt on a plan Blair had thought out during his hospital watches. The bush between the hills was all cleared away and burnt on the spot, leaving only the palms standing, and on this open space, with the shallow river brawling through the middle, the houses were built. Stereotyped lines, both as to design and location, were purposely avoided, and the result was eminently pleasing. Fresh plantations of taro and bananas were started, pawpaw trees and breadfruit were put in wherever space offered, and a close fence across the valley kept the pigs and goats from intruding. The next great undertaking was the making of a decent road up to One-Tree Pass, for the benefit of the east coast community. And at all these works, brown men and white, Ha'o's people and the late rebels, the atoll men, and the east coasters, high and low without exception, toiled side by side, to the very great promotion of good feeling and mutual understanding. The ladies, meanwhile, fostered among the women and children all such imitative habits as were judged good for them, and after the stress and storm the peaceful times made for growth and enlightenment, and feelings of security and content such as Kapaa'a had never known before. Of direct religious teaching there was no lack, though it still ran more to practice than to precept. Native habits and customs were interfered with as little as possible, save wherein they palpably ran counter to Nature's own laws and made for deterioration rather than uplifting. The white men held their services regularly, and made them as simple as possible so that gleams of the light might penetrate dark hearts but by no means dark understandings. The brown men, at their work in the plantations, along the hillsides after the pigs and goats, and skimming along the combers on the other side of the ridge, chanted merry hymns whose meanings they understood not, but which did them no harm, and were very good to hear. The women learned many things in their own homes and in the mission houses, and the tubby, brown children rollicked nakedly in the school-house, learned games in which they delighted, and some of them were even beginning their ABC. "Charles, my son," said Blair to Evans, as they were all sitting in usual conclave on the verandah one evening, "what do you say to vaccinating the whole community, lock, stock, and barrel? All, I mean, that did not have the plague. There may be some germs of it lurking in hidden corners yet." "I'm willing, if you can bring them to it. I can take them in batches." "I'll speak to Ha'o. He can make them do pretty well anything he pleases. I'm more and more thankful that he was spared to us." "And Nai too," said Jean. "She is a great help. The women do whatever she tells them, and she's as bright as a needle. What do you think she came to ask for to-day, Ken?" "No idea. Not a pair of shoes, I hope." "No--some hairpins! She wanted to do her hair like ours." "The eternal feminine," laughed Blair. "Well?" "I assured her that it looked far nicer hanging loose with flowers stuck in it. But she was so disappointed that I had to give her the pins. You won't recognise the women in a day or two, I expect." Blair explained the vaccination idea to Ha'o, and made it as clear as the limitations of language and understanding of so abstruse a matter permitted. "You would give them a little crawling death to keep them from having it big?" said Ha'o, after much explanation. "Yes, that is what it comes to." "All those who did not have it before?" "Yes." "I will order it. It is right that Ra'a's people should taste it too." Exactly what he told them they never learned, but in due course a batch of stalwart brown men came doubtfully into the compound, and watched Evans with apprehensive, white-eyed glances as he deftly pricked and bound up their arms, and sent them away looking doubtfully at their white bandages, in evident expectation of speedy and unique developments. They were in fine healthy condition and the operation was prosperous. The bandage-wearers regarded them as badges of distinction. They looked upon their inoculation as a ceremonial necessary to full admission to the white alliance, and Blair was at once scandalised and amused by a crowd clamouring round the house next day for similar honours. "Kenni," they cried, "make us Christians too! Prick our arms and give us our badges." So their arms were pricked and they got their badges, and were no longer subject to the taunts of the favoured first batch, which had nearly led to friction in the village the night before. CHAPTER XXV THE LIFTING VEIL Jean, and Alison Evans, and Mary Stuart found the tubby youngsters, and especially the little round, brown babies, irresistibly attractive. Such merry, mischievous little imps the former, and each newcomer such a wonder of soft, sleek, dimpled, black-velvet-eyed brownness, that their hearts went out to them, and the mothers laughed at their doting absorption and cackled strenuously and meaningly among themselves. And Aunt Jannet, never having had any children of her own, knew more about the rights and wrongs of their upbringing than any single mother ever knew in this world before, and had to be restrained by main force at times from putting some of her more strenuous theories into practice. But the good-natured brown women came to understand even Aunt Jannet's peculiarities in time, and to accept her efforts, so far as they accorded with their own ideas, with something like appreciation. For educative purposes the children were, up to a certain age, left entirely to the care of the ladies, and it would have been hard to say whether pupils or teachers enjoyed most the time spent in nominal study in the wide, open schoolroom, or the still merrier jinks on the beach and river bank. If Jean Blair's quondam friends in London could have seen her at play with her naked brown boys and girls on Kapaa'a front--well, in the first place they would not have known her, and when they did they would have renounced her acquaintance at once. For the purpose of opening their little minds to better things than their fathers and mothers had known, she brought herself down to their level, became almost one of themselves, romped and played and danced with them, in the water and out of it, and captured all their hearts. And she enjoyed this partial and temporary reversion to nature as she had never enjoyed life before. The children learned many things without knowing that they were being taught, and Jean herself learned not a little also. Aunt Jannet looked on with surprise, and spasms of doubt at times--it was all so different from her ideas of missionary work. But she had much to occupy her in connection with the other women, and as regards things generally she held an open mind, with a reserve of gentle sarcasm in case these extremely odd ways should turn out worse than she knew her own more precise methods would have done. The men took the older boys in hand and employed ways quite as unconventional and with equally happy results, and the girls of size were well left to the care of Alison Evans and Mary Stuart, whose special training had fitted them excellently for the work. In addition to the extraordinary curriculum of their school, the men were working hard at the new foundations of life in Kapaa'a. It was a beginning of things such as Kenneth Blair's soul delighted in. He was at it night and day, and suffered no whit from all the hard work. For it was better even than recreation, since to all intents and purposes it was creation itself, the bringing of order out of chaos, the evolution of new life. Ha'o, in the large hope of becoming a nation, worked with them hand to hand, and heart to heart. Savage born and all untutored, he was gifted with a sharp wit and a clear understanding, and he was a born ruler of men. He was tall in stature, and his bearing they had noted even in the hold of the _Blackbirder_. Of late his presence had seemed to increase in dignity, possibly from his own large belief in the future, possibly because they viewed him in the light of what they hoped to make him. Whatever it was, his own people noticed it also, and even the last returned prodigals never ventured to cross him. His confidence in the wisdom and good faith of the white men was implicit. When he placed his hand in Blair's, the day they landed, and proclaimed himself his man, and again when they discussed the delicate subject of man-eating after his illness, he meant what he said and stuck to it loyally. Not that he by any means assented at once to every suggestion they made. He could argue like an Old Bailey lawyer, and until a matter was explained to him so that he understood all the ins and outs, and the ultimate end and aim of it, and saw from his own point of view just how it would affect his people and himself, he would have none of it. He would listen politely, follow with the most patient intentness, question till it was clear, argue-bargle occasionally, as Captain Cathie put it, and then,--"Kenni, it is good. It shall be,"--and some new brick was ready for the foundations. They all enjoyed an argument with Ha'o. The turns of his quick mind were so odd and illuminating at times, that, as Evans said, it was actually educational. Stuart especially delighted in him. "He's an absolute revelation," he said, "And I'm more and more certain that there's more than ordinary savage blood in him. It's very queer to think of, you know, Blair. It's a clear case of reversion." "And of evolution." "I wonder now, if, by any conjunction of circumstances, we in Great Britain could ever go back like that." "Impossible. The very suggestion is horrible." "Nothing is impossible," said Evans. "The whole country might be devastated by a pestilence, and the few survivors might lapse into anything." "Unless the whole earth were devastated in the same way, the survivors would have common sense enough to get back to their kind. But all this won't help Kapaa'a boys, so let's get to business." They went very wisely to work, with the wisdom of long deliberation on other men's failures and successes. They imposed no restrictions save such as were absolutely necessary for the general well-being, and even these made for freedom. For the freedom of savagery is bondage worse than slavery. They promulgated through Ha'o simple rules for the protection of life and property, and saw them carried out with the most rigid inflexibility. Any disputes, and there were many, were brought before the chief sitting in judgment on the verandah of his house on certain days, with the white men in attendance to assist his deliberations. At first the _Torch_ men acted as police when necessary, and carried out the orders of the court. But before long certain of the tribesmen, becoming distinguished above their fellows for their sobriety of conduct and general demeanour, were nominated to headships of sections, and did all that was necessary. And Kapaa'a slept of a night, freed for ever from the stealthy terrors of the dark. CHAPTER XXVI THE GENTLE MARTYR All these matters took time, and while their hands and hearts were full of them there came to them certain other little matters which filled both hands and hearts to overflowing. To Kenneth and Jean Blair was born a son, and a month later to Charles and Alison Evans a daughter, and it is doubtful if anything in the history of Kapaa'a had ever stirred the feminine portion of the community to such a pitch of excitement and enthusiasm as did the arrival of these little white strangers. "Now," said the brown women, with deeper lights in their lustrous eyes, as they gazed admiringly on the little pink-and-white squirmers, "you belong to us indeed, since you have borne children among us." And every day they made pilgrimages to the two new shrines, and sat worshipfully, while the unconscious little saints performed their morning ablutions and then lay gazing placidly out of their blue eyes at the sights which no one else could see. Those striking blue eyes--the blue of the sky up above--completed the capture of the dark-eyed ones. There were blue eyes in plenty among the grown-up whites, but never were blue eyes like these, and the dark eyes never tired of gazing at them. Of the rapturous joy of the two mothers, and the deep thankfulness of the fathers, there is no need to speak. For a time the new maternal cares monopolised the former, and the latter went into their island work with new high lights in their faces and with even greater vigour than before. Aunt Harvey exulted in those babies as though she had had not a little to do with bringing them about, and Mary Stuart gloated over them with blushing cheeks and kindling eyes that told their own hopeful stories. Every man of the _Torch_ offered his services as nursemaid to carry them about the beach, and the numbers of small brothers and sisters they had all been in the habit of devoting their early years to was simply marvellous. The christening ceremony--Kenneth Kapaa'a Blair and Alison Kaapa'a Evans--was an occasion of high festival throughout the islands, and Blair, with his life-work always large in his mind, turned it to account. Aunt Harvey was not present at that high ceremony, to her very great regret but more greatly to her honour. And this is how it came about. Intercourse with the other islands had been constantly maintained by the regular visitations of the _Torch_ and the quondam _Blackbird_ schooner--renamed the _Jean Arnot_ and captained by Jim Gregor, first officer of the _Torch_; but, compared with what had been done on Kapaa'a, the advances had been small. Blair had, for a long while past, recognised the fact that the greatest object-lesson he could possibly offer the other chiefs was the sight of what was being done on Kapaa'a. But at the first suggestion of taking them over in the ship to see for themselves, their suspicions were in arms. That was an old trick of the white men's. They had all heard how the brown men were decoyed on board the white men's ships under wonderful promises, and never heard of again. They accepted all he gave them, they listened to all he had to say, but sail away in the big ship they would not. Here was a chance not to be missed. Surely never in this world was there seen a younger pair of missionaries than Master Kenneth Kapaa'a Blair--Kenni-Kenni to the natives--and Miss Alison Kapaa'a Evans--Alivani--when they set out, in their frills and furbelows, to wile the hearts of the brown men and women of the outer islands. Ha'o and Nai went with them, to add their persuasions and the argument of their presence to the rest, and Aunt Jannet went because she knew something untoward would happen to those babies unless her eye was on them. Blair knew it would be no easy matter at best, and it was not. At Kanele, the first island they came to, the largest of the group after Kapaa'a, about thirty miles away, the old chief Maru received them with the heartiest of welcomes, and his old wife and her daughter-in-law and all the other women went into raptures over the blue-eyed babies. But when the subject of the visit was cautiously broached, the old man stiffened at once with his natural suspicion and declined the invitation on the spot, and nothing they could say would persuade him to it. They stayed the night, however, and Ha'o had much talk with the old man's son, a bright stalwart fellow over six feet high whose name was Kahili. In the morning Kahili announced his intention of going with the white men. Whereupon loud lamentations from his father and mother and wife and children, who clung to him wherever they could grip, and expressed their intention of anchoring him to his native soil at cost of their lives. He reasoned with them good-humouredly at first, but finally began to get angry at the exhibition, and the more they tried to dissuade him the more determined was he to go. Then, suddenly, the old chief surprised them all by proposing a bargain. If the white men would leave their grandmother--Aunt Jannet Harvey to wit--as pledge of their honourable intentions, both he and Kahili his son would go in the big ship, and when they returned safe and sound the ship could take the grandmother away. Blair laughed so much over the old fellow's 'cuteness that he came near to dispelling their suspicions. And the matter being explained to Aunt Jannet, without undue insistence upon the maturity of her new dignity, that good lady, with a somewhat forlorn attempt at nonchalance, accepted the offer on the spot, and said she would stop. And what it cost her no man may venture to say, for she had been looking forward to the christening of Jean's boy as a white stone day in her life. "It's for the good of the work, Kenneth, so get away with them before I change my mind," said she, bravely enough. "Oh, Aunt Jannet, I shall miss you so," from Jean, with a suspicion of tears in her voice. "Not a bit, child. You'll have far too much to think of, and I'll be perfectly all right here." "But--you----" for Jean knew all her longing in the matter. "I'll chum up with Mrs. Maru, and we'll be as happy as--h'm"--with a glance at the native houses among the trees--"well, as things in a rug, you know. You shall tell me all about it when I get back. Don't let Ken forget to send for me." She kissed the babies as though she knew in her own mind that she would never set eyes on them again, waved her adieus gallantly from the white shell beach, and when the _Torch_ had swept out of sight round the corner she went up into a thicket of lemon hibiscus, and had it out all by herself there. Then she preened her ruffled plumes, and went down and rated Mrs. Maru for the untidiness of her dwelling-place, till the old lady regretted more than ever the exchange she had made. By degrees, however, Aunt Jannet's natural goodness and masterfulness overcame her disappointment. The two became capital friends, and talked away at one another, on a twenty-five per cent. basis of understanding, which left the most extraordinary views of the other's life on each of their minds. Her self-sacrifice, however, bore excellent fruit. Old Maru and Kahili proved admirable bait for Blair's fishing. Persuaded themselves to a somewhat doubtful step, the step once taken they became most zealous partisans of their new cause. Assured, by the solid fact of Aunt Jannet's temporary residence on Kanele, of their own safety, they laughed to scorn the fears of others as doubtful in the matter as they themselves had originally been. Their assured confidence amounted well-nigh to boastfulness. "Look at us," they said, "we have no mistrust in going with the white men. Put away your fears, and come along." The _Torch_ made a most prosperous collection, and returned to Kapaa'a laden with dusky notables. It would have been difficult to imagine anything less like a Christian martyr than Aunt Jannet Harvey, sitting opposite her hostess on Kanele, conscientiously eating away at the food with which they kept her supplied, wrestling strenuously with the intricacies of the Kanelese dialect, and an object of extreme curiosity to all the other women, and of wonderment to herself. But martyrs are found in the strangest guise, and Aunt Jannet wrought well for Kapaa'a when she consented to stop on Kanele that day. The strangers viewed with amazement the changes in Kapaa'a. They had raided there aforetime, and fought more than one bloody battle on the white beach of the lagoon. For Kapaa'a, the largest of the islands and the richest, had always been an object of envy to the rest, and more than one warrior chief of the outer isles had cast longing eyes upon it, and had planned and schemed till he could attempt its conquest. Now they found it richer and stronger than ever in the white men's alliance. They saw its comfortable homes, and large plantations of strange new grains and fruits. They were introduced to the pleasures of the chase. They ate piglet and wild goat, and found them good. They tasted still deeper of the novel atmosphere of law and order, and found these things also very good. They watched the boys at cricket and football, and the men, brown and white, fencing and boxing as though their lives depended on it, and no harm done. They watched the cutlass drill, and tingled to do likewise. They saw the white men bowl over coco-nuts with their Winchesters at many times the distance they could hurl a spear, and do the same again quicker than they could wink, and for their benefit Long Tom bellowed his loudest, and they heard the roar of him clang to and fro among the hills. They compared the new Kapaa'a boats with their own, and they sat open-mouthed and listened to the last squeals of an ironwood tree from up the valley, as the circular saw cleft it into planks which they could not have imitated with weeks of hardest labour. And--they saw men sleep without weapons by their sides, and without fear. And these things wrought powerfully upon them, and set them thinking. The christening feast of Kenni-Kenni and Alivani was long remembered in the Dark Islands. Aunt Jannet Harvey always professed regret at having missed it, but Kenneth Blair always assured her, with a great light in his face, that in missing it as she had done she had rendered service to the mission which no words could express. Aunt Jannet's exile ran into a longer term than she had expected, and there were many anxious faces and apprehensive hearts in the island villages before the _Torch_ came gliding quietly round the heads, and dropped her passengers at their homes. They all came laden with presents, which already, before they landed, inclined them favourably towards similar trips in the future. But they brought with them also richer invisible freight of new ideas and new hopes, which kept their tongues wagging for weeks afterwards, and set their brains working. For the visit had not by any means been confined to sight-seeing and enjoyment. The white men turned it to fullest account in the clear and definite explanation of their views and hopes for the whole group of islands, offering all an equal share in the new order of things on the sole condition of union and cohesion. The higher matters which lay closest to their hearts were touched on, but only lightly as yet. Blair had no faith in outward conversion born of a hankering after material good things. He had a firm belief in the advantages of hastening slowly. Get the savages out of their savagery, open the dark minds to the lower lights, and the higher would come in good time. He suggested regular meetings of the headmen on Kapaa'a, and the idea was received with acclaim. Kapaa'a was a storehouse of good things. They desired no better than to come there often. And in that he saw the germ of a united nation. Ha'o, as the most advanced among them, would naturally preside. Of Ha'o's loyalty and level-headedness he had no doubt. He was years ahead of the rest already. Blair believed his influence would grow, and in time make itself felt throughout the whole group, and through Ha'o he hoped to win them all to the higher life. If on these highest matters of all he touched as yet but lightly, in others, concerning their material welfare, he gave them some very straight talk, by way of putting them on their guard against that which might come any day. He told them that other white men would come offering to trade with them, to buy their land, to do great things for them, and of such he begged them to beware, and to allow him to deal with them. He told them just what had happened in other places, where grasping white traders had pushed themselves in, bringing in with them drink, disease, and dispossession. He showed them how they, the heads of the communities, were responsible for their people. And he promised them every advantage these other men could offer them without any of the penalties. "What do these traders come for?" he asked them, and answered himself, "To benefit themselves. And what do we come for? To benefit you. The time may be close at hand when you will have to choose between us. As you choose, so will your future be." So the notables went back to their island homes with much to think about, and Aunt Jannet came back from Kanele, and Kenneth Blair and his friends had good reason for high hopes of the future. It was a spring-time of hope for all of them. The work was prospering, and their hearts were full of gladness. "Quite happy, Jean?" asked Blair, as he came up quietly and sat down beside her, where the sweet water ran into the salt, and the small waves of the lagoon creamed softly up the white sand. [Illustration: "Quite happy, Jean?" asked Blair] "Happy, dear? Could any one possibly be happier? Look at that!"--Master Kenni-Kenni rolling gleefully on a white spread at her feet in a state of nudity, and gurgling paroxysms of happiness. "He's a fine little fellow"--and he poked his son playfully in his fat little stomach, provoking fat-creased laughter and dimples and more gurgles. "He's the finest little fellow in the whole world, and he's yours and mine, Ken. God has been very good to us, dear. I sometimes feel as if we had no right to be quite so happy while----" "While?" "One can't help thinking of the poor little souls in the slums and alleys at home. It really doesn't seem right, somehow. If we could only bring them all out here----" "I wish it were possible, but it isn't. Meanwhile, this is our chosen work, and by God's grace it seems like to prosper. I am very grateful that you are content here, dear. After London----" "London! I'd give the whole of London for one curl of Kenni-Kenni's hair. Isn't it beautiful? There never was any silk like it in this world." "Never!" said Blair with conviction. Then Alison Evans and Mary Stuart came across to them, Mary carrying Alivani. "We have come to worship too," said Alison. "I wish you'd order Mary to give me my baby, Mr. Blair. I can hardly get touching her when she's about." "Well, Jean won't let me have hers," laughed Mary in self-defence. "Jean was just valuing the whole of London Town against one curl of that young man's hair. So you see what the whole of him's worth, Mary. Oh yes, you may touch him, if you'll promise not to spoil a hair of his head." Mary laid Alivani down on the white spread by Kenni-Kenni, and the two gurgled and kicked in company, while she knelt over them with absorbed face and happy lights in her eyes. "Jean was wishing she could bring all the poor children in London to kick on the beach here," said Blair. "Yes. I often think how very much better off the children here are," said Alison Evans. "In some respects." "In all respects, I'm inclined to think. Their fathers and mothers almost worship them. Cruelty to children is unheard of. Bodily they are miles ahead----" "And morally and spiritually?" he said, to draw her on. "I have seen children at home, in Glasgow and Edinburgh, almost as benighted as these, and not half so pleasant to deal with. Now, with the chances we are giving them, I think these are infinitely the better off." "Under the new order of things, perhaps. But hitherto you must remember that death dodged life round every corner here, and life broke off very short at times. However, we cannot clean up all the world; but, please God, we'll do our best with this little bit of it. And now," jumping up, "I must get back to work, or your masters will be calling me names. Don't kill those two infants with kindness, Mary." He stood looking down upon them all for a moment, while the women all bent over the wrigglers on the white cloth. "Is it possible that not one of you ever feels a longing for the fleshpots of Egypt?" he asked, with a smile. "Do we ever show any symptoms?" asked Jean. "You certainly do at the moment. You all three look as if you would like to devour those children on the spot," and he went away to grind out dialects with Matti and Ha'o. CHAPTER XXVII PEACE WITH A SPEAR The work progressed favourably but not without occasional set-backs. On Kapaa'a, where its supervision was most constant, the advance was naturally greatest. On the outer islands the brown men and women were effusive in their promises--in expectation of largesse. Like the prodigals of all time, they were always ready to discount future benefits--which they did not very fully understand and considered somewhat problematic--for a trifle on account, which they understood extremely well. But the moment their preceptors' backs were turned, the promises were forgotten in immediate enjoyment of the reward. All this was only what was to be expected, and in no way disconcerted the labourers in the field. Blair would rate the delinquents good-humouredly for their shortcomings, and they would acknowledge them like schoolboys, promise amendment, and break the promise before the _Torch_ had rounded the Head. He felt himself in closer touch with them, however, on each visit, and was satisfied. His plans and hopes were very wide-reaching, and God's temples, natural, physical, or spiritual, do not rise in a day. Occasionally there were more serious lapses, and these had to be dealt with firmly but delicately, so thin were the cords by which he held them. Aia, the smallest island of the group, lay a short five miles beyond Kanele, sacred to the memory of Aunt Jannet Harvey. Aia had a population of about fifty. Kanele three times as many. Blair and Jean and Kenni-Kenni landed on the latter one day, on one of the regular rounds of visitation, and received the usual expectant welcome from old Maru and Kahili and the rest. The women crowded enthusiastically round Jean and her boy, while Blair talked to the men and divided among them the things he had brought. They stopped on shore several hours and were regaled with fruits and coco-nuts. When they got into the boat the whole population lined the beach and waved them farewells. "We really seem to be getting hold of them at last," said Blair, as they rolled along towards the _Torch_. "They are very friendly and seem very glad to see us," said Jean, and they went on to Aia. "Something wrong," said Captain Cathie, as the _Torch_ drew in. The village was not in its usual place. There were no people about. They landed cautiously, Blair and Cathie and half a dozen men, and found the houses in ruins. With added caution they climbed the hill, and in time came upon the villagers lurking in holes and crannies. Their story was simple. The very day after the _Torch's_ last visit, the men of Kanele, headed by Maru and young Kahili, had come over in their canoes and demanded the goods they had received from the white men. These being refused, they proceeded to take them by force. The Aia men were outnumbered and beaten, their village burned, and several of them killed--and eaten. The rest had lived in the fear of death ever since. Blair was a man of wrath that day. His first feeling was the same as Captain Cathie's, in whom the natural man always ran strong. "Well, captain, what do you advise?" he asked. "I'd like to give those Kanele men a right good skelping," said Cathie warmly. "Something they wouldn't forget in a hurry." "So would I, but I'm not sure of the wisdom of it." "Truckling beggars! Sweet as milk when we're there, and playing the devil the minute our back's turned. They need a lesson." "We'll take the night over it. It's a serious matter." They walked the deck far into the night, with the big stars swimming in the smooth black rollers, and the distant roar of the Aia surges, now to port and now to starboard, as they beat gently to and fro in default of anchorage. "In the first place," said Blair, summing up their ideas, "these people are not safe here. Whatever we do or don't do, the Kanele men will take it out of them as soon as we're gone. We must do our best to persuade them to migrate to Kapaa'a. That will be a good thing for them and a good thing for us. As to the Kanele men, the difficulty is that we want to retain our hold on them. This affair only shows how great the need is. And if we take measures against them--any measures almost--we are like to weaken the small hold we have now." "All the same," said Cathie bluntly, "it won't do to let 'em think they can carry on like this and nothing said about it. That'd be fair provoking them to do the same again." "It's difficult to know just what to do," said Blair; and Jean down below, with Kenni-Kenni nestling close in her arms, heard the four feet tramping, tramping, slowly and heavily, to and fro, till she fell asleep. They seemed to be still tramping whenever the _Torch_ gave a sudden kick and woke her. But there was a sense of guardianship in the very sound, and Kenni-Kenni's soft head against her heart was very comforting. In the morning they set to work on the plans they had arrived at overnight. Blair went ashore early, while Cathie prepared for his passengers. It did not need five minutes' talk to show the Aia men how unsafe their position was. It was self-evident. But it took much talk and persuasion to induce them to migrate to Kapaa'a. They saw the advantages. Some of them had been there already and seen for themselves; but the brown men cling to their own bits of coral or volcanic rock as strenuously as Highland crofter to his dripping heather, or Irish peasant to his patch of bog. The women, however, had listened to those marvellous accounts of the unheard-of security of life and property on Kapaa'a, and now they joined forces with Blair and carried the day. By sunset they were all aboard the _Torch_ with such belongings as the Kanele men had left them. The _Torch_ beat to and fro again throughout the night, and not a native closed an eye for the strangeness of it all, and in the early morning Blair was ashore again on Kanele. He had assured Jean there was no danger; but he left Captain Cathie behind--to look after the crowd of brown men and women. He walked boldly up to old Maru's house, and found it still asleep. The old man started up wide awake at his call, and the look on his face was a matrix of Blair's--detected wrong quailing before righteous wrath. "You know what I have come about, Maru," said Blair. "You have done ill by Aia. Why?" "It was the young men. They desired more goods." "Call the young men. I will speak to them." But there was no need to call them. They had seen the _Torch_ and were coming, and coming in expectation of possible trouble, for they all came armed. "Yes, I see you know why I have come back," said Blair, as they thronged about the house. "You have done wrong, and you have got to answer for it. We came here to make life brighter by bringing peace----" "We don't want peace. Fighting is very much better," growled one. "Oh, you are brave men! How many men were there on Aia? Twenty-five at most. And how many of you went over? More than sixty. Oh yes, you like fighting when the others are weak. How will you like it when you are beaten and running for your lives into the hills? You have done ill, and you must answer for it. Maru and Kahili will come with me to Kapaa'a, and we will decide what shall be done." "Not me!" said old Maru, or words to that effect, and drew from its hiding-place one of the axes Blair had given him, and began to swing it gently in his hand. "If you do not come, we shall fetch you. It is for you to say. If we have to fetch you, it will make trouble." Old Maru's axe swung gently to and fro, to and fro, as though hungering to bite, but doubtful. "That would not serve you, Maru," said Blair quietly. "Though you cut me in pieces, the rest would come and you would suffer the more. The old times are past. We have come to give you better times. Peace you shall have, though we have to bring it with club and spear." And just then Long Tom on the yacht bellowed his tremendous note, and the brown men looked round apprehensively. "That is my big canoe speaking," said Blair. "But it is only a warning. It can strike as hard as it talks. Will you save trouble by coming, Maru?" "I will not go." "Then we shall come for you. I am sorry; but the wrong-doing is yours.... Let no man lift his hand, or worse will follow," he said, as a restless movement rustled among them. Then eyeing them steadily, he passed through, not sure at what moment axe or club might fall on his head. But so high was his look that no man, even of those he had passed, found courage for the blow, and he walked down to the beach alone. "I'm mighty glad to see you back whole," said Cathie, as Blair swung up on deck. "I saw their clubs through the glass, and I misdoubted them. They wouldn't come?" "No, they wouldn't come, so I promised to fetch them. Now we'll get on, captain. First to land our passengers on Kapaa'a, and then as we decided last night." Ha'o and the rest were mightily surprised at the size of the _Torch's_ company. But the chief jumped to Blair's views at once. "You will soon become a nation at this rate, Ha'o." "I will deal well with them," said Ha'o. "And now as to the men of Kanele?" "We will make an end of them." "I want them as part of your nation, and dead men are no use. If we go in force enough, I do not think they will fight. But they have broken the peace, and they must have a lesson." "We will teach them with the spear. It will be a lesson for the others also. When shall we start?" "The sooner the better; but first we must see the newcomers housed." That took two days, and then the _Torch_ and the _Jean Arnot_ sailed with larger crews than they were in the habit of carrying. First round the other islands, at each of which Blair and Ha'o landed and had a talk with the headmen and explained their ideas to them. And much hard talking it took, in some cases, to carry their views. But they were set on it, and they prevailed. From each village they enlisted the headman and certain of his followers, from six to ten, according to the population, and in due course came down on Kanele one hundred and fifty brown men and eighteen whites, with Long Tom in reserve, and great hopes that so large a display would suffice without any fighting. All the boats on Kapaa'a had been requisitioned for the debarkation, and it was an imposing flotilla that drew in to Kanele beach that day to bring peace at the point of the spear. And, composed, as the gathering was, of the most discordant elements, it was yet all moulded to one purpose by the strong will of one man, and by the very differences that separated its units one from another. For each component felt itself but a part of the whole, and in a minority which left it no option but to work with the rest. Not a soul was to be seen on shore, but they knew that black eyes watched stealthily from every cover. "Maru! Kahili! We have come for you," shouted Blair. "Here are Ha'o of Kapaa'a, and Ruel of Anape----" and he recited all the names of the head-men. "We will give you till the shadows are smallest to come in. Then be it on your own heads!" and the great company sat down on the beach to pass the time. "Will they come?" asked Blair of Ha'o. "They will come," said Ha'o. "They would have no chance against us, and they are not fools." Blair seized the opportunity for more talk with the leading men from the other islands. He showed them that none were safe if raiding were permitted, not even the strongest, for against the strongest combination might prevail. The only security was in union against illdoers; and he rubbed that lesson into them till they were not likely to forget it. Before the wheeling shadows had shortened the slim black lines of the palms into their spreading crowns, a tumult broke out inland, and as they all stood expectant, a mob, in which were many women, came hurrying along, with old Maru and Kahili on its front like corks on a swelling tide. "It is well," said Blair, as he went to meet them. "You have given us much trouble, but you have saved yourselves more. Do you understand, Maru, and you, Kahili, and all you men and women of Kanele, what this great company means? It means that the old times are gone for ever, and that the better times are come. If there is to be any fighting in future, we of Kapaa'a and the islands round about will have our say in the matter. Take those two to the boats," and at a sign from him a file of Torches led the prisoners away. "There are others among you who prefer war to peace," he said. "I want them also." This caused a hubbub amongst them, and much hot discussion, but at last certain ones were evolved from the crowd, and pushed to the front protesting, and to the number of ten he had them marched down to the boats, amid the wailing of their women. "Now, listen!" cried Blair, waving down their cries with a peremptory hand. "Is it to be peace or war henceforth?" "Peace," wailed the women, and the men stood silent. "Then let the women bring here all the spears and clubs, for you will not need them." This was touching them on the raw, for the brown man's weapons are his dearest possessions. But this was to be a lesson once and for all, and not for the men of Kanele only. "I must have them," said Blair. "If you will not bring them, we must get them ourselves. Which shall it be?" The men stood, stubborn and sulky. Some of the women on the outskirts of the crowd began to trickle away. Then old Maru's wife crept up downcastly from the side of the throng, carrying two long spears and a club, and cast them on the sand at Blair's feet. "It is good, Maruaine," he said gently. "You will not kill our men, Missi?" she asked piteously. "I have come to make your lives happier, Maruaine. I will not hurt a hair of their heads. But they must learn, and this is the first lesson." Kahili's wife followed, and one by one the other women came, with more spears and clubs, till the pile was a goodly one. Then he had a fire kindled beneath them, and the brown men watched its easy lighting with a match with wonder, but twisted uneasily as the weapons were consumed. [Illustration: Peace with a spear.] "Now, listen!" said Blair, when the crackling died down. "Maru and Kahili, and the others we have taken will go with us to Kapaa'a for a time, and will live with us there. We intend them no harm. They will, I hope, learn many things amongst us, and then they will come back and tell you of them. We wish your good, only your good, always your good. But those who do ill, who break the peace, and rob their weaker neighbours, will have to answer to us for it. Ha'o of Kapaa'a has known us now a long time. He will tell you that we mean you well." And Ha'o stood out before them, tall and brown, and said, in a voice that rang above the wash of the surf and the pattering of the palm fronds-- "Kenni is my brother. He has done great things for Kapaa'a. Twice he saved my life, and the lives of my people. Three times he risked his own life, and the lives of his people. His blood has run for us. What Kenni says and does is good. Any man who thinks otherwise I am ready to talk to him," and it was evident to all that Ha'o's talk would be strong, and to the point. Blair said a word or two to him, and he added-- "While Maru and Kahili are living with us, Maru's wife will be your chief. She is a wise woman, and loves peace more than war. Has any one anything to say against it?" No one at the moment desired to say anything against it, whatever they might think or feel. "It is well," said Ha'o. "Let no man speak against it when we are not here. Now you will bring us food, and then we will go home." Two very sober and thoughtful men were Maru and Kahili as Kanele sank into the sea astern. They were treated, however, with every consideration, and Blair was at much pains to explain his ideas to them so far as concerned themselves. For the rest, it was curious to notice how the men of each island kept themselves to themselves. There were differences of dialect, of course, which interfered somewhat with freedom of intercourse, but there were also lifelong memories of bloody feuds which kept them apart. It was a mighty step towards better times to see them there in peaceful toleration of one another's presence. The dividing lines were at once the mark of the past and the sign of the future. A year before they would have been at one another's throats. On Kapaa'a the hostages received the same equal treatment with the rest. They were given houses and tools, and shown how to use them. They joined in the chase, and developed discriminating tastes in the matter of fresh-killed pig and goat cooked in paw-paw leaves. They were neither talked at nor preached at. They were simply allowed to absorb the new atmosphere of law and order, and found it good. And in due time they were returned to their own island new men, with the seeds of still larger knowledge within them. CHAPTER XXVIII NO THOROUGHFARE It would be difficult to tell in words the exaltation of spirit which possessed Kenneth Blair at the brave show the new order of things was making in these Dark Islands of his choice. It was a beginning after his own heart, and he rejoiced in it greatly. I can imagine what he must have looked like as he went about his Master's business--clad always in white from head to foot, and carrying always that high look of his, blazing with enthusiasm and the mighty joy of life, which caught the eye and held it. Kekera--White Fire--the brown men often called him, and he looked it to the life. He felt things growing under his hand, and his heart was full. A beginning of beginnings and visible growth--what more could the soul of man desire? Domestic concerns were prospering also. Mary Stuart had the satisfaction of her heart in a little son, and Kenni-Kenni and Alivani crawled neck and neck races on the white beach together. The schools were full, for the teaching was so sheer a delight that the wriggling brown bodies and glancing black eyes felt a day missed a day lost. If ever learning came without tears it did to these. They were actually beginning to use English words now and again in their talk and play--by way of showing off at first, indeed, but presently as a matter of course. And the larger children, their fathers and mothers, were imbibing new ideas of all kinds at a revolutionary rate. They were even beginning to put theirs into "Kown im!" and to show some knowledge of what the words meant. And so far there had been no further disturbance from the outside; but they were always on the look-out for it, and it came, and in the expected shape. The Dark Islands lie far out of the ordinary track of commerce. For that very reason, when once discovered, they offered unusual inducements to such as found the usual fields too small, and too hot, for their peculiar forms of immorality. The outposts of civilisation, such as it is, have not infrequently been pushed forward by individuals whom civilisation could no longer tolerate in its midst. It was such a one who came out of his way--and incidentally out of the way of some who ardently desired to lay hands on him--to bring the amenities of commerce and civilisation to the Dark Islands. Old Maru, and his son Kahili, and the other hostages to law and order, had returned to their homes full to the brim of new ideas and great intentions, and Blair reposed great hopes in them. He and Cathie, on one of their usual rounds of the islands in the _Torch_, came sailing round Kanele Head one day and were surprised to find a ship at anchor in the bay. "Ah!" broke from them both at the sight. "So that's come," said Cathie. "Bound to sooner or later. Nip it tight, sir, is my advice." He gave some orders to the mate, and they went ashore. A burly individual in sailorly garb came down the beach from Maru's house to meet them. He was stout and evil-faced, with small blue eyes and tangled hay-coloured beard and moustache, and the roll in his walk seemed too pronounced to come entirely from much walking of slippery decks. [Illustration: A burly individual in sailorly garb came down the beach.] "Morning," he said curtly. "Traders?" "No, sir. Missionaries in charge." "Gee-whilikins!" "Yes, very much so," and Blair pulled out his watch. The man needed no investigation. His character was written all over him. "It is now nine o'clock. I will give you till half-past ten to clear out of here. If your anchor is not up by that time you will take the consequences. Understand?" "Say, have you bought this island, mister?" gaped the other. "Yes, from the devil and all his works, so you clear out. It is now two minutes past nine, and you've got eighty-eight minutes left." "Well, I'm----" "You will be if you don't stir your stumps." "And suppos'n I say I'll be hanged if I go." "I should consider it not unlikely. You certainly will if you stay." "Well, I _am_----! Was it _missionaries_ you said?" "That's what I said." "Very well, then," said the invader, pulling himself together, "I'll see you eternally annihilated first." That was not his exact expression, but it is printable and will suffice. "Eighty-six minutes left," said Blair quietly. Captain Cathie waved his hat three times to the _Torch_, and Long Tom's angry bellow rolled up into the hills and lined the side of the trader with curious faces. "_Missionaries_! Well, I _am_----" and he looked at them, and then at the _Torch_ with the cloud of blue-white smoke drifting slowly away from her deck, and then turned and humped his shoulders and went back the way he had come, and Blair and Cathie followed him. They were all fast asleep at Maru's house, and not likely to waken in a hurry, if the empty rum bottles scattered about were anything to go by. There were some opened cases of trade lying about, and the scraps and remnants of a feast--in addition to the inert forms of old Maru and his wife, and Kahili and his wife, and some of their people. "Eighty minutes!" said Blair grimly, as he looked round on this undoing of his work. "Say, mister, couldn't we come to some arrangement?" began the trader. "Certainly! The arrangement is that you up anchor and away inside--seventy-nine minutes," with a glance at his watch. "I guess you'll pay for this 'fore you're done, mister. I'm an American citizen." "Sorry to hear it." "And an American citizen don't stand bein' fired out like this and no reasons given--not by a long sight!" "There are our reasons," said Blair, pointing to the heavy sleepers, "and there are yours," and he pointed to the half-emptied case of rum. "Seventy-eight minutes more!" The American citizen looked him over for a moment but found no hope of amelioration in his face. "Well, I'm----" and he turned to the door and whistled shrilly to his ship, and presently a boat came slouchily across to the shore. "Carry them things aboard," he ordered, and saw it done, and then followed his men into the boat. Then he stood up in the stern and delivered himself luridly on missionaries in general, and on this new kind, as represented by Blair and Cathie, in particular. "You'll hear of me again, my sons, sure as my name's Hartford Crawley. Yes, by thunder, you will, and don't you forget it!" was his valediction with threatening fist, and they could hear him cursing all the way to the ship. Blair and Cathie returned to the _Torch_. At half-past ten Long Tom thundered a reminder to Mr. Crawley that his time was up, and before the echoes died away, the trader's anchor was apeak and his sails were dropping sulkily to the breeze. He headed slowly out to sea, and was surprised to find the _Torch_ do the same. He took a notion towards the south. Long Tom barked angrily at him. He tried a move towards the north. Long Tom barked again. Due west was his course, and they would permit him no other. All day long the _Torch_ followed him like a sheep dog, and at night drew in so close that they could hear Mr. Crawley still swearing at large. Fortunately, the moon was almost at the full, and he had no chance of slipping away in the dark. For three days they dogged him and kept him to his course. Then they ranged up within speaking distance and delivered their final word, "These islands are not open to traders. If you ever return you do so at your peril." Then they turned and laid their course for Kanele. Arbitrary action, undoubtedly, but Kenneth Blair was the last man in the world to shirk what he deemed his duty from any fear of possible after consequences. Maru and the rest were in their right minds when they got back to the island. They were full of excuses and explanations, but Blair said little to them beyond emphasising the fact that these were the men he had warned them against, and that their coming would make for evil times among them. And old Maru, in the keen recollection of the very bad head he had had the day after the trader's supper party was disposed to think he was right. CHAPTER XXIX THE ACT OF GOD A full year of quiet progress left no monumental happenings to record. The islands were rising rapidly out of their original darkness, and the hearts of the workers were as full as their hands. Growth in the homes had necessitated ampler accommodation for scholars and worshippers outside. A church and two school-houses had been built to supply the absolute want, and were in full use. The r and the capital H had got into "Crown Him!" and in some quarters a visible understanding of the meaning of the invocation. Matters all round were progressing favourably. The bodily health of the islands was good, morally and spiritually it was improving. Law and order were striking slow roots into the shaky quagmire of custom and superstition, and Ha'o was in fair way to become a nation. For the headmen of the smaller islands came regularly to Kapaa'a for consultation--and gifts--and his influence over them grew steadily. In all matters economic and politic Blair put Ha'o forward as head and front. For himself, he desired nothing but the good of the people, and he judged it best that the executive power should remain in native hands so long as they continued capable and trustworthy. In these matters Ha'o had justified him to the fullest, and had shown himself an apt, not to say an ambitious, pupil. Feuds were of rarer occurrence, and had even been brought to Kapaa'a for adjustment. Cannibalism was no longer openly indulged in, even in the outer islands, and they were hopeful that its day was past. Evans and his wife had been resident for some months past on Kanele, Charles and Mary Stuart were on Anape, and the _Jean Arnot_ had had a busy time going to and fro between the settlements. The _Torch_, with Captain Cathie on board, had made a voyage to Sydney, carrying letters home, and bringing back supplies and news. That was nearly twelve months ago, and was the only communication they had had with civilisation since they turned their backs on it. Kenneth Blair and Jean and Aunt Jannet Harvey and Captain Cathie were sitting one evening on the platform of the mission house, enjoying the well-earned rest of busy workers. Master Kenni-Kenni was crawling about at their feet in light attire, with a strong band of knitted wool round his sturdy body, to which a thin rope and Aunt Jannet were attached, to keep him from falling overboard. The sun was sinking, red and misty, into a bank of cloud which lay heavily across the western sky, though it still wanted an hour of sunset. The lagoon was sombre red, the spouts of foam on the reef gleamed dusty rose white, the hills behind were dull red bronze and the mouth of the valley was filling with purple shadows. Cathie had been giving them the latest news of the Evanses and Stuarts, whom he had just been visiting in the _Torch_, which, with the _Jean Arnot_, now lay rolling sleepily over their own black shadows in the lagoon. "Well," said Aunt Jannet, as she hauled Kenni-Kenni back from destruction and the edge of the platform, which for the moment was the limit of his ambition, "I've been hot in my life before, but to-day beats everything. It was like an oven." "I had to start the engines to get home," said Cathie. "I came in by the lower entrance and there wasn't a breath of air. But we'll have a change soon, and a big one too if the barometer's anything to go by. I've been getting out double cables and kedges to the rocks for both the ships." "We wondered what you were busy at," said Blair. "You expect a heavy blow?" "You never can tell, and it's best to be on the safe side. We've been uncommonly lucky so far. But when the weather does get its back up here it sometimes gets it pretty high----Hel--lo!" The arm of the hill which ran down into the water hid the seaward view on that side. As Cathie spoke, a trim black vessel, with a thin trail of smoke at its cream-coloured funnel, came silently round the point. They all jumped up at so unusual a sight and stood watching eagerly. "Service ship," said Cathie. "What on earth is she doing here?" At sight of the two ships in the lagoon the stranger slowed down, and then her syren pealed shrilly across the water. "We'd better go and see," said Blair, and the two sprang down off the platform and ran to the whale-boat drawn up on the beach. The _Torch_ men and a crowd of curious natives were already there. "Now, lads, show the navy men how you can row," was the captain's order, and in two minutes the white boat was bounding towards the opening in the reef. It leaped the rollers and presently drew in to the rows of bronzed faces which lined the side of the ship and looked on approvingly. "This is Kapaa'a, I presume?" asked a tall man in a heavily-braided cap. "This is Kapaa'a," said Blair. "And is this Mr. Blair?" "I am Kenneth Blair. This is Captain Cathie." "Come on board, gentlemen." A ladder dropped over the side, and they swung up to the deck. "Can we get inside there, captain?" asked the tall man. "And is there anchorage? I don't much like the look of the weather and the barometer is unusually low." "Yes, sir, it's going to blow, or I'm much mistaken. You can get in all right. There's no bottom to that hole in the reef. But whether you'll be better inside or outside, if it blows hard, I wouldn't like to say. I've kedged both the schooners there, and I think they'll ride it out." "And there's plenty of water and good holding?" "Plenty water to within a couple of hundred yards of the shore. The shelf breaks there. Holding's fair. You'd better kedge same as we've done." "Perhaps you'll con her in for us to what you consider a good position. We shall be here for some time, and it'll be pleasanter inside. You'll excuse me, Mr. Blair, for the moment. We'll have plenty of time to talk when we get ashore," and he went up on to the bridge with Cathie, and the big ship headed for the reef. She went weltering through the passage with the big rollers roaring at her stern, and crept up under lee of the southern ridge. Then the anchor went down with a plunge, and the boats dropped lightly into the water to carry the kedges and cables to the rocks. Blair stood watching observantly. The ship he saw was H.M.S. _Bonita_. He casually asked one of the men, who happened to stand by him for a moment, where they were from, and was told "Australia," and the captain's name was Plantagenet Pym. Captain Pym had seemed a bit stiff in his manner, Blair thought, but that style, he knew, often went with a heavily-braided cap, and he thought no more of it. Presently the two captains came down from the bridge and approached him. "You will permit me to offer you such hospitality as the island affords, captain?" said Blair. The other seemed to hesitate for a moment, then he replied, "Thank you, Mr. Blair, I shall have to be ashore part of the time so I will avail myself of your offer. I will accompany you in five minutes. Can I offer you any refreshment--a glass of wine?" and on their declining this he disappeared below. He was up again inside the five minutes, and with a word or two to his senior lieutenant, descended the ladder into the whale-boat. "Your crew does you credit, captain," he said to Cathie, as the proximity of the uniform braced every man of them to his best. "Picked men, every one of them, sir, and good men all," said Cathie proudly, and every man felt himself a good inch taller. The dull red glow had faded off the hills and out of the sky. The water of the lagoon was the colour of lead, with a sullen heave in it. The jets of foam on the reef looked like the fangs of wolves against the dark sky beyond. There were cold whispers in the air, and the palm-trees on shore shivered audibly. The white mission-houses and buildings gleamed chill white against the dark hill, but yet gave a touch of comfort and civilisation to the scene. The crowding natives were greatly impressed by the sight of Captain Pym. Ha'o underwent the process of presentation with extreme dignity, and then Blair led the captain to his house. "Why--Mr. Pym!" cried Aunt Jannet, who was nearest the steps and so met him first. "It is good of you just to drop in on us in this way," and she shook his hand with a warmth that almost succeeded in infusing the like into his response. "Yes, I've come over six thousand miles to call on you, Mrs. Harvey. And how are you, Mrs. Blair? Still suffering exile with equanimity?" "No exile, no suffering, Captain Pym," said Jean brightly. "We are all enjoying ourselves extremely, I assure you." "Well, I suppose one can bring one's mind to anything." "If it's the right kind of mind, you can," said Aunt Jannet heartily. There was just a touch of implication in her tone and manner that some folks were not the happy possessors of that kind of mind. Captain Pym stiffened back into officiality somewhat. "And you really experience no longings for London again, Mrs. Blair?" he asked, metaphorically turning his back on Aunt Jannet, who magnanimously went inside to see after supper. "Not the very slightest." "Marvellous!" "You see I have here what I had not in London You shall see my boy in the morning. He's the finest little fellow in the world." "Ah! ... I suppose that fills many a want." "He fills our hearts so that there is no room for wants. Are you making a long stay?" "That depends. A few days, at all events." "We shall have heaps of things to show you. All our work here, and there's a wonderful valley down there with great stone gods that date back to about the time of the flood. Some ancient race that used to live here, they say. We will have a picnic there." "If I have time I shall enjoy it." In due course the time came, but Captain Pym enjoyed it less than he had anticipated. "Now, good people, supper's ready, and you'll all catch your deaths if you sit out there any longer," called Aunt Jannet from the doorway. "We have been stewing with the heat all day," she added to Captain Pym, "and now it's gone to the other extreme. I think you must have brought a cold wind with you, captain." "We haven't had a breath all day. It looks like a spell of dirty weather," said the captain. The wind was coming off the sea in cold gusts. A weary half moon was bucketting through a rout of ragged clouds, which sped on over the mountains as if in haste to hide themselves from some unseen pursuer. In the gaps of the hurrying clouds the moon and a few stars shone wanly, and in their dim, ineffective light, the water of the lagoon tossed brokenly like a pan of boiling lead. The flying rags of cloud came from the dark bank in the west into which the sun had dropped. It was spreading upwards. The roar of the reef sounded harsher than usual and full of threatening. There was a strange uncanny look and feeling abroad. "We're certainly in for something," said Captain Cathie, as he stood looking out to sea. "I've never seen it quite like this before. I shall go and sleep aboard the _Torch_"--which did not add to their cheerfulness. "You'll have some supper first, captain?" said Aunt Jannet. "Oh, yes, I'll make sure of some supper. If it's to be a fight I can fight better on a full stomach than an empty one." So they went inside, and found it pleasant to close the door, which was a very unusual thing with them. Captain Pym's manner during supper was still somewhat stiff and formal; but he unbent enough to give them the latest astonishing news of the outside world, the lack of which was the one thing they felt somewhat at times. But it was only when the pipes were alight afterwards that he disclosed himself. "You are wondering, no doubt, what brings me here, Mr. Blair," he said. "Well--yes, somewhat. You are the first visitor we have had." "Not quite. And it is because of those others that I am here." Blair looked at him in surprise. Captain Cathie nodded understandingly, as though in confirmation of his own thoughts. "Certain complaints have been made to the Government concerning some of your doings here, and they have sent me to look into the matter." "I--see. You refer to the kidnappers we put a stopper on----" "That complaint comes from Peru. There is one also from the American government----" "Ah, yes--Mr.--What-was-his-name?--Crawley, was it? He promised we should hear from him. Well, sir, we shall be glad to put our side of the case before you. You shall see what we have done here since we came, and no doubt you will appreciate our desire to safeguard our work in every possible way. We have done no single thing we in any way regret, and we would not hesitate to do the same again if occasion should arise." "Ah," said Captain Pym, with a knowing official nod, "you gentlemen of the cloth, when you get right away from any authority but your own, sometimes go to extremes, and are perhaps tempted to magnify your office somewhat." "That is quite impossible," said Blair quietly. "I consider my office the very highest in the world. As far as in me lies I have worked up to my ideal of it, and shall continue to do so. As to going to extremes, we have simply defended our work from spoliation. That also we shall continue to do." "Hear, hear!" said Aunt Jannet energetically, and Captain Pym frowned officially at the pair of them. "Supposing, Captain Pym," broke in Cathie, by way of lightning conductor, "you had an unarmed tender attached to your ship, and an enemy stole up in the night and carried her off, crew and all, you would consider yourself justified in following and bringing her back, and taking payment out of the other side." "That's the way to put it," said Aunt Jannet. "The cases are not parallel, sir. That would be a _casus belli_, and I should of course do my duty. You have no authority----" "Oh yes, we have," said Blair warmly. "The very highest"--and as Captain Pym did not seem to appreciate that point, he added--"but, apart from that, we have the endorsement of Mr. Annesley, the Colonial Secretary. He and the Earl of Selsea were good enough to take very great interest in our intended work here. I laid all my plans before them, and they approved them. In fact, they spoke of a protectorate." "The Earl of Selsea is dead, and Mr. Annesley retired from office twelve months ago." "Ah, that may account for things. I am very sorry to hear that. However, we don't need the protectorate. Kapaa'a is almost on to its own feet, and can speak for itself." "And what position does Mr. Blair occupy in the government?" asked Pym, with a cynical touch in his voice. "None whatever, sir, and desires none. We have consistently worked through the chief Ha'o, whom you met on the beach. Nothing has been done without his approval. It is his elevation and his people's that we desire, not our own, and I think I may say he is as keen on it as we are." "From all accounts, however, your work has by no means been confined entirely to the spiritual department, Mr. Blair; Long Toms and Winchesters hardly come within the strict bounds of the missionary calling." "The shepherd may use his crook to keep the wolves off his flock. Our crooks consist, as you say, of Winchesters and a Long Tom. If we had not had them we should not be here--nor would our flock. My ideas of missionary duties may strike you as somewhat advanced, Captain Pym, but then, you see, I have the advantage of knowing all the requirements of the case. The very first essential to progress is peace, and you can't procure it with words when you're dealing with elementary facts." "If we'd settled all those elementary facts at the start, as Captain Cathie and I advised, we would have heard no more about them," said Aunt Jannet, with a regretful shake of the head. "It's possible to be too conscientious for this world." "We work for both, you see. I admit that a clean sweep would have saved much trouble. But I couldn't bring myself to hanging them, richly as they deserved it. As to the American citizen, his end and aim was to introduce the drink traffic, and that we won't have at any price. Not even under government orders." Their talk had been so vital that the waxing of the gale outside had passed unnoticed, though the door was jerking at its latch and the windows buzzed like bees. When the discussion came to a pause, Captain Cathie jumped up and went to the window. "I'm off," he said quickly. "If Mrs. Blair will excuse me for to-night, I will go too," said Pym. "If there is risk for the _Torch_ there is risk for the _Bonita_, and I would sooner be on the spot." "I hope there is no danger," said Jean. "We have had many a big storm, but the ships have never suffered." "Barometer's lower than it's ever been since we came here," said Cathie, with a shake of the head; "and I've no doubt Captain Pym feels as I do, that when you don't know what's in the wind it's as well to be where you can find out." "Quite so," said Captain Pym, and Blair went down with them to the boat. They were nearly blown off their feet before they got to it, and the waves that swept up the white beach were such as they had never seen on it before. The rush of the wind in their ears dulled all other sounds. In the spasmodic gleams of the moon through the ragged clouds they could see the rollers sweeping over the barrier reef with unbroken crests, and the usually placid lagoon was in a turmoil. "Can we manage it?" shouted Pym, in Cathie's ear. "Under the lee of the ledge there," shouted Cathie, and pounded on the door of the men's house for his crew. Blair helped them down with the boat, saw them all soaked through before they could get afloat, and then watched them toil away into the lee of the protecting ridge of rocks. "They'll have their own to-do to get there," he said, when he got back to the house. "The waves are coming right in over the reef. I never saw anything like it." "Is this man going to make trouble for us, Ken?" asked Jean anxiously. "Oh, I don't think so. Don't worry about him, dear. He's a bit bumptious and unsympathetic, but I think we can show him that we could have done no less than we did. He doesn't trouble me in the slightest. Whatever he does, our work stands and tells its own tale." In the morning it seemed to the unknowing as though the storm had blown itself out. The wind had fallen, but the sky was heavy; dark grey clouds boiled along close above mud-coloured waves, and the horizon lay just back of the reef. The sun made a faint fight for a show, but looked and felt out of place, and after pushing ghostly fingers through stray holes in the clouds, and peeping at the water below, went into retirement again. The two captains came ashore after breakfast, but when Jean expressed satisfaction at the passing of the storm without any damage, Cathie only shook his head. "Now, Captain Pym," said Blair, as they walked along towards the village, "let me remind you that less than two years ago these people were eating one another, and delighting in it. There has not been a man eaten on Kapaa'a for over twelve months now. Here is the boys' school. That is the girls'. As it is Sunday, they are all in church waiting for us. Perhaps you will stop for the service. It is very short and simple. Then we will go on and show you other evidences of our work." The church was crowded, and when the brown men and women and children sang "Crown Him!" at the full stretch of their lungs, most of their black eyes were fixed on Captain Pym--to his great discomfort--as though they applied the hymn specifically to him, which possibly some of them did. After service Blair conducted him to the village, and on to the plantations and taro fields, and even Captain Pym's official phlegm and preconceived notions had to acknowledge that, for a country three years ago buried in barbarism, the sights he saw were very striking. He did not say much. His feelings were at strife. He had come to condemn, and he found himself forced to admit and admire. The plantations had by degrees crept a considerable way up the valley. The party came back along the shoulder of Ra'a's hill, and as they came towards the open a furious gust of wind carried them almost off their feet. And then they saw the most appalling sight of their lives, and one they never forgot. Out of the dim grey curtain of the west there appeared a monstrous sinuous shape that reached from sky to sea, and came swirling towards the island with an easy voluptuous grace that was full at once of haphazard fortuity and most malign intention. They stood frozen. Blair suddenly gripped Pym by the arm. He could not speak. Behind the first monster came another, and another, and another, all reeling hither and thither like drunken demons, but all making straight for the island. "Good God!" cried Pym, and instinctively put his hands to his mouth to shout a warning to his ship, a shout that could not have carried five inches. Then he commenced to run down the hill as he had never run in his life before. His whole thought was for his ship and his men, Blair's and Cathie's for the people below. Captain Pym reached the beach through a crowd of fugitives making for the hillside. The monsters had been sighted, and panic was afoot. Blair and Cathie rushed down through the village, shouting-- "To the hills!" and sped on. Jean and Aunt Jannet Harvey, busy in the house, had seen nothing. The two men dashed up the steps. Blair seized his boy under one arm, and dragged his wife by the other. Cathie laid hold of Aunt Jannet, and with a gasping word of explanation which only filled the women with fear, and explained nothing, they ran for the southern hill, whose arm ran out into the sea. Only when they had got half-way up it did they dare to turn and look. They saw Pym ramping alone on the beach like a madman. They saw the first of the hideous whirling monsters hop lightly over the swollen reef without a pause and pirouette in the lagoon. Then a blast of smoke whirled from the deck of the _Torch_, and the dull sound of the gun went quickly past them. The monster writhed and broke, and the pendulous head of it swept inland. The ships pitched at their moorings till the kedge cables snapped and they seemed standing on their sterns. The waves of the lagoon churned up to the platforms of the mission-houses. "Good lad! Good lad!" shouted Cathie. Then the other three monsters, as though in answer to the challenge, as though endued with malignant understanding and most devilish determination, bent and swung and reeled over the reef and flung themselves towards the ships. They saw Captain Pym suddenly throw up his hands above his head in a gesture of utter impotence and despair, and then turn and make for the hill. The watchers crouched in a crevice of the hillside and gazed narrow-eyed, and their breaths came quick and short, not from the run but because their hearts were in their throats and choked their breathing. It was a most terrible sight. The powers of all evil--death, destruction, and malignity--against the puny works of man. The three awful whirling shapes danced and swung in the lagoon, showing off all their evil graces. Three ineffectual flashes broke from the gunboat, but they avoided them with an easy swing, as though they understood and were on their guard. They reeled towards one another and seemed to take evil counsel together. Then, as though moved by one mind, they swooped down straight on the ships. "Oh, cruel! cruel!" moaned Jean, clasping her boy to her and hiding her face in him. Captain Cathie groaned as he watched, and then burst into incoherent, and unusual, and most excusable blasphemies. Aunt Jannet and Kenneth Blair stared in dreadful fascination. For one of the whirling monsters reached the ships, picked them up, and smashed them and itself together in one dreadful destruction. When the wild welter settled down and permitted sight, the lagoon was bare save for scattered fragments and struggling figures. Another of the awful things made for the opposite mountain side. They saw it strike and break there. The solid earth crumbled and splashed like mud, and palms and rocks slid down to the sea, while the swollen hanging top of it swung away along the hillside belching ragged torrents as it went. The remaining one went roaring past them like a great wounded beast, and tore up the valley, breaking itself and scattering destruction broadcast. They heard the final crash of it away up among the hills, and a foaming torrent came sweeping down the valley carrying everything before it. All this time the wind was blowing a hurricane, Such palms as were left standing whipped and writhed in vain agonies. Some snapped like carrots and lay still. The rain beat mercilessly on the fearful watchers and bit like whips. Blair bent over his wife and boy to shield them with his body. Aunt Jannet, dishevelled and grey, and haggard, still peered out at the horrors in front. A sound from her, between a gasp and a groan, and a sudden terrified clutch at his arm, brought Blair's face up to the crowning horror. There came a roaring from the sea the like of which was never heard before. A mighty wall of water came rushing on the land to overwhelm it. It leaped high over the ridge of rocks that lay like a protecting arm round the nearer curve of the lagoon. The jets of it went rocketting up to heaven, and the mighty ridged crest bristled like an avalanche. Blair sprang upright instinctively, to face the danger standing, and dug his fingers deep into the cracks of the rocks in front of him. [Illustration: Blair sprang upright instinctively.] The great wave broke on the solid earth with the crash of an earthquake. It was half-way up the hillside, and the opposite hill was suddenly shortened, and stood in the open sea. The valley was a boiling waterway of hideous and inexpressible confusion. "It is the end of the world," gasped Aunt Jannet, and sank down, and looked no more. "My God! My God!" groaned Cathie. "God help us all!" said Blair, and the rain whipped his face till it seemed as hard and set as the neighbouring rocks. They spent the night there in extremest misery, sodden through and through, chilled to the bone, faint with hunger. Even Kenni-Kenni was damp, though two protecting bodies did their best to shelter him. And all night long the only sounds in their ears were the hiss and rush and roar of many waters, as the terrible sea went back to its deeps, and the clouds discharged their ceaseless torrents, and the troubled land got rid of its torment. And over and above the weariness of their bodies, their hearts were sick within them at thought of the destruction of all their work and all their hopes. For whether a soul besides themselves was left alive they knew not. CHAPTER XXX WIPED OUT Jean and Aunt Jannet were dozing fitfully, fairly spent with the strain and misery of it all. Cathie's grey beard was on his chest, but whether he slept Blair could not tell. He himself sat on his rock, chilled to the marrow of his bones, and watched with heavy eyes the slow birth of new life after the deadly horrors of the night. And his heart was as cold as his body. He wrestled manfully with that which was in him, but surely man's faith and courage were rarely put to sorer test. He had striven so hard, and toiled so ceaselessly, at utmost stretch of hand and heart and brain, and here, just as the harvest was ripening, it was all dashed into nothing, as though by the stroke of an angry hand. Oh, it was hard, hard, hard! But he fought out his fight singlehanded, and found himself--where steadfast faith and undaunted courage have always firm footing. And a spark of hope struggled up in him to meet the sun. The beginnings of things had always had a charm for him. And here must be a new beginning. They were back at first principles and the elementary facts of life. But, truly, there is a mighty difference between a beginning and a beginning again, and it calls for the best that is in a man to begin again with the heart with which he began before. The rain ceased towards morning, the wind slackened, and when the sun rose behind the hills the western sky shone opalescent, and the sea below it was a cold, dark blue. The rollers were still of mighty size, but the reef was spouting foam again, and the lagoon was heaving within its usual bounds. But everything else was changed--everything except the bare ridge on which they crouched. The village--gone as though wiped with a sponge off a slate. The mission-houses, schools, church--not a plank left. And somewhere below the smiling face of the lagoon lay all that was left of the ships and the men who had been in them. Not all below, after all, for from his perch he could see the beach strewn with fragments, human and otherwise. Right below him on the hillside, John MacNeil's waterwheel turned busily in fruitless labour, and its bare nakedness and useless fussiness added to the sense of desolation and discomfort. Then the sun topped the hills, and cheered their chilled senses somewhat. Blair and Cathie straightened themselves wearily, but neither dared as yet look into the other's face, lest he should find there only confirmation of his own worst fears. Kenni-Kenni, who had fared better than any of them, and was conscious of nothing more than bodily discomfort, gave a hungry cry which woke response in Cathie's breast. "Let us go down," he said. "Maybe we'll find something to eat," and the two men scrambled down to the level, and walked over the soft mud where the houses had stood, and searched with anxious eyes for something that might stay their more pressing necessities. Blair turned up towards the valley. Cathie, with more prescience, sought the beach, and presently a shout from him brought the two together again. When they met, the captain was carrying the body of a drowned kid under one arm, and a bundle of wood under the other. "Here's breakfast," he said, and did not think it well to mention that he had found the kid lying between the bodies of two dead men, one brown, the other white. The matches in their metal cases were all damp, but a few minutes' exposure to the sun put that right, and they soon had fire, and kid steaks grilling over it on pointed sticks. Then they helped the ladies down and were presently eating, though, in spite of their hunger, each one of them felt like choking at every mouthful. And there was no talk among them, for they were sitting on the grave of their hopes. More than once Jean stopped feeding her boy and glanced questioningly at the men, and then, as they ate stolidly, weighted with their thoughts, she went on with her work. It was only when they had all quite finished, and sat as though dreading what might come next, that she said-- "Are we all that are left, Ken? I thought I heard a cry just now." "Did you, dear? It is possible. There must surely be others. We will go and see," and he and Cathie went off again towards the beach. "How's it up the valley?" asked the captain briefly. "Drowned out." The beach was a pitiful sight. Every step spoke of the catastrophe. Bodies uncountable, white and brown, men, women, and children, pigs and goats, broken coco-nuts, bruised fruit, wreckage from the ships and plantations and houses. "By God! Mr. Blair, I cannot understand it," broke out Cathie in a paroxysm, as he stood over the bodies of two of his men from the _Torch_. "What had we done to deserve this?" "Cathie, Cathie! Come to your senses, man! This is no punishment of God's. Rather let us be thankful we are still alive." "I'd almost as lieve be dead," said Cathie stubbornly. "Ships gone, men gone, everything gone, and all our work undone. Say what you will, Mr. Blair, it's bitter hard." "These," said Blair, raising his hands reverently over the dead at their feet, "have gone home--beyond the reach of storms. The ships can be replaced. If there are any people left, the work can be rebuilt. If they are all gone, they are the better off, and they have gone further than if we had never come here." "It's bitter hard, all the same----" And then a faint, muffled cry reached them, apparently from the ragged hillside whose débris lay all over the beach, and they both ran towards it. The cries were repeated, and led them at last to an out-jutting rock round which the sliding earth had flowed and settled. "Where are you?" cried Blair. "Here!" came from under their feet, and they spied a small hole in the earth, and set to work at once to enlarge it with their hands. Cathie ran down to the beach and came back with some pieces of wood which made the work go quicker. The cries from the inside had ceased, and they worked the harder, and at last they had the hole large enough for Blair to get his head and shoulders in. With his hand he felt the body of a man fallen in a heap, and by great exertions managed to drag it out through the hole. It was the body of Captain Pym, white and senseless. They carried him down to the beach and dashed water in his face, and presently he came to, and lay for a minute looking dazedly up at them. Then he sat up. "I apologise," he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness. "Been dead and buried all night--thought of coming to life again bowled me out. Saw you in the distance, and shouted and shouted--like being in a coffin--just room to stand, but couldn't move, and been holding up that hill all night. My God!" as it all came back on him. "What a horror it has been! Are you the only ones left?" "I hope not," said Blair. "Can you walk? We've got a fire over there and something to eat." "Bit shaky yet," said Pym, as he staggered along on their arms. "Never expected to walk again in this life." "How was it?" "When I saw that devilish thing smash the ships, and the other coming towards me, I made for the hill. I was just under that rock when it broke. It was like being under Niagara, only worse. It jammed me flat and beat the breath out of me. Then the earth came rolling down, and cased me in tight except a hand's space through which I could breathe. I've been seeing those ships go smash every minute since. God! It was awful!" and he hung slackly on their arms and glanced over the placid lagoon. Jean and Aunt Jannet gave him quiet greeting, as one come back from the dead, and hastened to supply his wants. Blair and Cathie set off again up the valley with tight faces. The havoc there was terrible. The cloud-burst and the great wave together had swept it bare. They went some distance up and stood looking round. It seemed incredible that so short a time could have wrought so woful a change. The plantations were gone to the last stick and leaf. The very hillsides were almost cleared of trees. The smiling valley of yesterday was a stark empty pan, with deeply-scored sides and a sheet of shining mud caking slowly at the bottom. "It will make good growing ground," said Blair. "If we'd anything to grow and any one to grow it for," said Cathie gloomily. "We shall find some of them in the hills, I hope. Let us get on." And presently there was a shout up above on the hillside, and there came down, at a pace that risked their necks, Jim Gregor of the _Jean Arnot_ and young Irvine, who was on the _Torch_ when last they heard of him. They whooped with joy and shook hands a dozen times with Blair and Cathie, and were quite incoherent for many minutes. "We're right glad to see you, boys," said Blair, when they calmed down. "Are there any more up there?" "Three more Torches, sir, and half a dozen Bonitas, and about a dozen islanders, men and women, and a couple of children. Have you got anything to eat?" "Yes. Go on to the water-wheel. You'll find food there. Where are these others?" "Right by yon rock. We'll go back with you. Some of them are badly bashed and can't walk without help." So they all climbed up, and came on the forlorn little company crouching by the rock, and gave them new life by the very sight of them. The sailors plucked up heart at once, but the brown men were very subdued and silent. Their eyes were still wide with terror when at last they sat under the southern ridge and ate the food Jean and Aunt Jannet found for them, supplemented by coco-nuts and bruised fruit from the beach. All the men had strange stories to tell. Gregor and Irvine, and some of the others, asserted that when the waterspout struck the ships they were whirled up out of them and dropped into the lagoon some distance away. Then, before they could swim ashore, the great wave caught them and whirled them up into the valley, bruising them all more or less and breaking some. The brown men were mostly sound of limb. They had fled for the hills at the first sight of the spectral dangers outside. "Have you seen signs of any others?" asked Blair. Yes, they thought they had seen moving forms on the further hills, but too far away to distinguish clearly. On which Cathie set them to collecting driftwood from the shore, and piled it on the fire, with wet brush and tangle on top, till the smoke rose in a dense column. "That'll bring them," he said, and in time they came dropping in, in small companies, from their various hiding-places, and last of all came one carrying a woman in his arms. And at sight of him, toiling through the new soft mud where the village had stood, Blair sprang up and ran to meet him. "Thank God, you are left to us, Ha'o!" he cried as they met, but Ha'o was as silent as the rest of his people. "Is Nai hurt? Let me help you." Nai smiled wanly at him as he put his arms under her and took part of the weight, and then her face crumpled with pain. They carried her gently to the fire, and laid her on the soft white sand, and Jean and Aunt Jannet knelt beside her and saw to her wants. Captain Cathie, when he saw the increasing company, had made another visit to their only storehouse, the beach, and came back this time with a young pig and some bananas and coco-nuts, and some carefully-sought-out paw-paw leaves for the benefit of the too-fresh pork. Ha'o was too weary and too hungry for talk, and Blair and Cathie called the militant members of the party to salvage work on the beach. Gruesome work too, and not calculated to raise their spirits even after a full meal, for every few steps brought them to the bodies of those they had known alive and well the day before. These they drew up the sand for burial later. Meanwhile the orders were to save everything they could lay hands on. Where everything had been taken, the smallest find was of value. Fruits and shrubs especially Blair commended to their attention, and he had a couple of dozen paw-paw trees and several rows of bananas planted before sunset. Out of the piles of timber they secured, Cathie and Pym built lean-to shelters among the rocks sufficient for the whole party. With the coco-nuts and broken fruit, and the bodies of several pigs and goats, they had food for several days, if only they could keep it in eatable condition. By the time it was finished they would know more about their actual circumstances. Jean informed her husband that Nai had an arm and leg broken, and he at once sought out slips of wood and strips of garments, and put the broken limbs into splints. Ha'o, after eating, lay thoughtful for a time, and then went down to assist the salvage party. He dragged and carried in silence for some time, but finally gave voice to his thoughts. "Kenni, why has this come upon us?" "You have had storms before, Ha'o." "But never a storm like this one, with whirling devils and waves like rushing mountains." "I have heard of both before in other places, but I never saw them myself till now." "Was it your God sent them, Kenni?" "Only in the same way that He sends everything, Ha'o--light and wind and rain." "Why did He send this when we were doing our best to please Him?" "It came in the ordinary way of things. It was just a bigger storm than usual." "We never had it like this before," said Ha'o, sticking stubbornly to his point. "My people are saying it is your God sent it. If He is that kind of a god we don't want Him." "How do you train your young men, Ha'o? By treating them softly? By petting them, and giving them all things easy and pleasant?" "Nay, we toughen them, so that they may endure." "Exactly! Do you think that God knows less than you? He also wants men who can endure even when the fight goes against them." That seemed to strike him. He went on stolidly hauling and carrying, and at last said, bitterly-- "If He had left my people alive, Kenni, and not broken Nai, I would have thought better of Him." "Let us be grateful for what is left, my friend. Nai will get better. Many of our people are dead, but more are left than we think, perhaps." But Ha'o shook his head gloomily, and went on hauling and carrying, and said no more. CHAPTER XXXI REVERSIONS Captain Pym was in that state of mind in which every man who loses his ship finds himself, and from which his fellow in misfortune, Captain Cathie, was slowly emerging. No slightest blame attached to him in the matter, and he would have no difficulty in proving it. Nevertheless, he was suffering exceedingly. The burden of his thoughts kept sleep far from him, and, after tossing restlessly through the night on a by no means uncomfortable couch of dried palm fronds, he got up very early next morning to give his depressed spirits fresh air and wider space than the confinement of the lean-to afforded them. Blair and Cathie, worn out with hard work and anxieties, were still sleeping soundly. As Pym walked along the beach, he saw with surprise a thin curl of smoke rising behind an angle of the hillside not far from the scene of his coffining. When he came to the angle he stopped transfixed, and then set off at a run to the huts. He caught Blair by the shoulder and roughly shook him awake. "Blair," he cried hoarsely, "your brown devils are eating our men," and Blair and Cathie were on their feet in a moment. Blair was not very greatly surprised, though not a little disturbed. He had seen the upsetting the catastrophe had wrought in Ha'o, the most advanced of all, and he had wondered if the rest would stand the strain. "It's a throw-back," he said, "but it's really not very surprising. Where's Ha'o? Cathie, will you call the men?" He went quickly to the shed Ha'o had built for Nai, and found him there asleep, and was to that extent relieved. He woke him quietly, and told him what was going on. "Food is scarce, and will be scarcer," said Ha'o, when he arrived at an understanding of the matter. "Everything is destroyed." "Better starve than live so," said Blair vehemently. "But everything is not destroyed. We shall live somehow, and this has got to be stopped. Come on!" He picked up a stick of wood from the drift, and set off at a run along the beach. The others armed themselves in like manner and followed him. The brown men sprang up from their feast as they rounded the corner, some of them still gnawing at chunks of flesh in their hands. Blair rushed at them like a blazing bolt. Several of them, for lack of clubs, snatched brands from the fire. He paid no heed to their weapons, but laid about him with his stick with such vigour that they gave way before him, and the others, following his lead with hearty good will, drove the brown men back, and finally put them to the run. "Now," said Blair, as he leaned on his stick, "there is only one thing to be done. Pile all the rough wood you can find on to that fire. Keep out anything that may be useful. We must burn all those bodies. We can't take them out to sea, and if we bury them they'll dig them up." It was obviously the best thing to do, and they set about the gruesome business at once. They made a mighty pile of firing and laid the bodies reverently on it, and covered them with more wood, and more bodies and again more wood, till they had to wait till the pile burned down, because of the height of it and the heat. And their faces were pinched and their breaths shortened, as they carried to the pyre the bodies of those they had lived with in comradeship for so long, and they worked in silence. The only sound that was heard beyond the crackle and fall of the burning wood, as the dense black smoke rolled up into the sky, was the voice of Blair, as he stood to windward and quietly recited portions of the service for the Burial of the Dead from time to time. And surely never did the solemn words sound more weighty and full of meaning. "I am the resurrection and the life.... "Lord, Thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another.... "Thou turnest man to destruction.... "They are even as a sleep: and fade away suddenly like the grass.... "In the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered.... "For we consume away in Thy displeasure.... "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live.... He cometh up and is cut down, like a flower.... "In the midst of life we are in death.... "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.... "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.... For they rest from their labours...." None of them ever forgot that strange and somewhat ghastly service--the hungry lick of the flames, blue and green and yellow and red from the salt and tar, but almost unseen in the beams of the fully-risen sun; the rippling lagoon; the sparkling white beach; the foam-jets on the reef; the great blue sea beyond; the pitiful things the flames consumed; and the rolling clouds of smoke which spread like a pall along the scarred hillside. Aunt Jannet Harvey came hurrying round the corner to see what they were at, and Cathie caught sight of her and sent her hurrying back surprised at his brusqueness. For this was one of the things that may be told but is better not seen. Ha'o had taken no part in these doings. He had no desire for human flesh, but there was a doubtful look on his face, as though he thought the proceedings wasteful and possibly to be regretted later on. The brown men stood in a clump at a distance and watched sullenly all that was done. When the pile died down Blair went over to the chief. "Ha'o," he said, "go and speak to your people. Tell them that things are as they were, and that flesh they shall not eat." "They will starve." "No, they will not starve. We will find them food." Ha'o looked at him doubtfully, but not without expectation. The white men were so wonderful, that it was difficult to say what they could or could not do, and Kenni never lied. Nevertheless, "Where, Kenni?" he asked. "We shall not starve," said Blair emphatically. The brown man looked searchingly at him for a full minute, and then turned and strode away towards the others. CHAPTER XXXII FROM THE BEGINNING "Our brown folk have lost their heads for the time being," said Blair to his wife, as they all stood round the huts. "They have gone off to the hills. It is not very surprising. They will come back all right in time. Captain Cathie, I want you to make a raft and take the ladies and the sick--in fact, all but Gregor and Irvine--to the Happy Valley for a time, till things straighten out a bit. You will, I think, find food there, and the natives won't intrude on you." "And you, Kenneth?" said Jean anxiously. "I am going across to the other side of the island with Ha'o, to see how they fared there. If food is plentiful we will bring some back here for the women and children. They may have been washed out also. If so we must get food from the Valley. We will drop in on you from the upper end, but it is too rough a road for you and the sick men. Will you join us, Captain Pym, or will you go and take care of the ladies?" "Captain Cathie is quite equal to that, I am sure, Mr. Blair. With your permission I will join you." "Can you induce Nai to go with the ladies, Ha'o?" "She will go," said Ha'o tersely. He was in a gloomy frame of mind through all these strange happenings and the defection of his people. "Then the sooner we get to it the better." And under Cathie's directions they all set to work on a raft. Timber and rope were not wanting. "Take all you can, and especially what we can use for boat-building later on," said Blair. "We shall have to get out of our hole ourselves, and that, I think, is the way out." The brown women and children he set to collecting for themselves all the food they could find along the shore. He also gave them some lengths of rope, and bade them untwist it for fishing-lines and then start fishing from the ledge with splinters for hooks. "You will probably find the bottom of the valley scoured out, Cathie," he said; "but there should be both fruit and animals on the hillsides. We may have to replenish the island from there." When the work was well forward, he set out with his little band to cross the island by One-Tree Pass, and found the passage extremely difficult. For the cloud seemed to have finally broken on the saddle of the hills, and in many places the road they had built with such labour and difficulty was washed completely away, and in other places it was buried deep under slides of broken rock. They found their way over the ridge, however, and saw at once that the deluge had wrought heavily on the further side also. The long slope was deeply scored and furrowed, but there were houses and palm-trees still standing down below, and they went on quickly to see how the brown folk had fared. The villagers welcomed them heartily and received their news with amazement. The storm above and the storm below had terrified them. The water had come down the hill in cascades, but the long stretch had dissipated much of its force before it reached them. Then the great wave had swept across the beach and carried away all their boats. Their palms and plantations had suffered heavily, and they had picked up a number of dead pigs and goats, but otherwise there had been no loss of life. They had not overmuch food, but what they had they were quite willing to share with the others who had none. And Blair's heart, still sore over the defection of the western men, was comforted somewhat by their simple kindliness. They stayed the night, and Blair explained more fully the disasters on the other side of the island and the temporary aberration of Ha'o's people, and begged them, if there should be any attempt at raiding, to treat the others as reasonably as might be, remembering what they had gone through. They set off again very early in the morning, carrying such burden of food as was possible on the rough road they had to travel, and reached the huts by the sea before midday. The brown men had taken possession and received them in sulky silence. Blair gave the food to the women and children, and to the men some bits of his mind in his own special way. He acknowledged the direness of the catastrophe, but bade them remember that the white men had suffered equally and yet had not lost their heads or their heart. He told them to be grateful for their lives, and assured them that there was no need for despair. Blair's high spirits in the face of all difficulties, his forethought and far-reaching grip of the necessities of the case, made a deep impression even on Captain Pym's habitual and official phlegm. Under stress of circumstance he found himself under the necessity of rearranging his preconceived ideas. He became decidedly more human, and perhaps more of a man, than he had been for many a year. He sounded Blair as to his hopes and intentions, and they discussed matters freely. In furtherance of them, when they had rested, they all set to work making another raft, and if the _Bonita_ men could have seen their spick and span, stiff and starched captain, hauling and lashing, with his coat off and his trousers up to the knee, it is certain they would not have known him. They paddled their raft across the lagoon to the place where the ships had lain before the storm, and after some searching found where the _Torch_ and _Jean Arnot_ were lying. The great wave had probably washed them inshore but the return had carried them out again. The _Bonita_ had disappeared completely. She had probably been carried over the edge of the shelf and lay in unfathomable depths. They could see the other two dimly through the clear water, with the many-coloured fishes darting in and out of their battered sides and broken raffle, and Captain Pym's face pinched at the sight and at thought of it all. Ha'o was the most expert swimmer of the party, and had long since shown that he could remain under water twice as long as any of the white men. On him therefore the burden of discovery lay, and he appreciated with the rest how much depended on his efforts. They had timber in quantity from the broken boats and ships, but without tools they could turn it all to no account. There were tools below there in the ships. Ha'o was going down to find them. With tools in their hands the door of deliverance would be at all events ajar. "You will most likely find them in the front part of our ship, Ha'o, underneath where the big gun was," Blair told him. "If the gun has fallen through, so much the better. It will help you," and Ha'o nodded, and shot down through the clear water like a brown streak. He was up again presently and hung panting to the raft. The big gun had gone out of sight through the side and bottom of the ship. He would get inside next time. But it took many visits before he discovered anything, and then a ringing cheer went up as he came to the surface with a saw in his hand, and flung it on to the raft. "There are more things, but they are scattered," he told them, when he had got his breath, and next time he took down with him one end of a thin cord they had unravelled out of rope, and presently sent up by it a heavy hammer, and came up himself with a chisel. It took many hours' hard work, but at last they had enough to go on with, and Ha'o lay panting on the raft, while the others paddled it slowly down the lagoon to the Happy Valley. CHAPTER XXXIII SALT OF THE EARTH The effect of the great wave in the Valley had been extraordinary. When last they were there the whole place was a tangle of luxuriant undergrowth, ferns, mosses, lichens, pandanus, hibiscus, paw-paws, with stately palms waving gracefully above. Now the bed of the Valley was bare. The growths and the undergrowths had been torn off and swept away, and the newcomers were led wonderingly through the uncovered ruins of the city built by the men who set up the stone gods--along a wide street paved with stone blocks, which ran up the middle of the Valley with the stream flowing through it; past the foundations of great buildings; into an immense square where the denudation had been less complete. A certain amount of mud had silted down again on to the ruins. Nature was already at work covering up the scar of her latest wound. And the great stone gods sat gazing expectantly out to sea, as they had gazed when the city below still teemed with busy life; as they had gazed through all the long years since, while the ruins of the city slowly disappeared beneath the touch of the healing hand. The first party had found strange quarters in the uncovered basement of a building, which, from its size, had probably been a temple. It was a great quadrangle, and the head of the wide roadway that led from the sea ran right into it, and ended there. The upper end of the enclosure rose ten feet or more above the level, and was composed of great chiselled blocks of stone, and in this were cavernous square openings, the entrances of which now served as houses for these houseless strangers. They had appropriated four adjacent holes, and had made themselves as comfortable as circumstances permitted. The whole place had been covered in with wild growth, but the great wave foaming up the valley had swept it all bare. The apartments were not uncomfortable except in one respect. They ran so far back into the hillside that the ends of them had not yet been discovered. "And," said Aunt Jannet, peering into the shadows which the firelight quickened into ghostly life, "I'm always expecting something will come out, and either frighten us to death or eat us alive." Ha'o stood it for one night, with crumpled face and quick-glancing eyes, but next day he carried up some boards from the beach, and built a tiny lean-to outside for himself and Nai, and they found life more tolerable. Nothing ever came out of those mysterious passages for their undoing. What dark uses they may have served in the bygone times they could only surmise. One passage they followed till it issued in the cliffs behind the stone gods. The others ran straight into the heart of the mountain, with cross cuts leading round towards the city, and the uses they might have been put to in the hands of a priestly oligarchy were apparent. Captain Pym was fired with thoughts of hidden treasure, and spent many odd hours searching for it. Blair laughed at the idea, and begged him to keep it to himself, lest the men should catch the infection, and waste on it valuable time which might be used to much better advantage. "Treasure is unlikely," he said. "If, as we suppose, these pioneers were accidentally blown across, or fled for reasons, they would not be likely to bring much with them." "All the same, they built mightily," argued Pym, and went on with his search. All that he ever found, however, was a few flat beaten plates of gold, and some golden ornaments, of no great value save as curiosities. Captain Cathie reported a fair amount of fruit and palms still standing on the hillsides, and pigs and goats enough to re-stock the island, in time and with protection. Most of the other animals had disappeared completely. "I'll take the men back to-morrow over the hill," said Cathie, in excellent spirits at the prospect of the opening door, "and we'll bring back another raft of timber. With the tools you've got we can make a start anyway, and we can fish up more by degrees. There's timber enough in the lagoon to build a new schooner." "Build us something that will float as far as the Marquesas or Paumotus, and we'll soon have a new schooner, captain. But the first thing I want is to get to Kanele and Anape to see how Evans and Stuart have fared. If they came through pretty well we can get fresh stock from them, both animals and plants." "I've got a lot of paw-paws for you on the beach, and some bananas and plantains. Where will you plant, Mr. Blair?" "For the present in the mud of the old fields. It'll make splendid growing ground. Later on, when we rebuild, we must get higher up. We're not likely to have another deluge just yet, but what has been may be, and we must take all precautions. When your boat is ready, and we've had a trip round the islands, my idea is for you to run across to the Marquesas and buy a schooner there, if you can lay hands on one, and send her back by Gregor for our use while you're away. Then you go on to Sydney and buy a new _Torch_ and everything we need, Long Tom, Winchesters and all"--with a quizzical glance at Pym. "You know just what we want, and you can have all the money you require." Captain Pym listened with surprise. His ideas of missionaries were crystallising rapidly from the solution of scepticism into concrete beliefs and admirations. He was not a man given to admiration of other men, but he recognised in Kenneth Blair a master mind and an indomitable spirit. He said little but thought much. Every one was at work soon after daylight. Cathie produced drowned meat from an adjacent passage way, which he used as cold storage. Jean and Aunt Jannet prepared the morning meal. Blair had planted two rows of paw-paws and a number of bananas before breakfast, and Ha'o had built his lean-to for Nai and brought in some fruit. Then Cathie built a small raft, and in due course Aunt Jannet Harvey was seated on it with many startled exclamations, and wafted herself uncouthly out into the lagoon. She was provided with two fishing lines and a supply of bait, and a rope to the shore lest she should disappear entirely from human ken, and she had instructions to catch all the fish she could for the amplification of the larder. And Blair, when he had made sure of her safety, and turned to go up the valley to cross the hills, could hardly contain himself at sight of her face, in which determination to catch struggled desperately with horror at thought of pulling the hooks out of what she caught. "This is a change from Kensington, Aunt Jannet, isn't it? You're quite sure you won't tumble overboard?" had been his jovial parting word. "I'll t--try not, Kenneth. D--do you think it hurts them much to have the hooks pulled out?" "If you leave them for a few minutes they'll die quite comfortably. Then it won't hurt them. Anyway, you see we need them." So Aunt Jannet pursed her lips valiantly, and cast in the lines he had baited for her, and watched him and Captain Cathie with one eye, while the other waited on her lines in fear and expectation. They waved her an adieu at the turn of the valley, and in her attempt to reply to it she frightened away a swarm of eager nibblers and nearly fell overboard herself. "Yes," she said to herself, "it's a great change from Kensington. But if that child Jean can stand it, I can. And she seems as happy as a lark. That's partly Kenni-Kenni, of course. Oh dear, I've caught something! Whatever am I to do now?" She looked wildly round for assistance, but the men were climbing the hill, laden with provisions for the brown folk. So she tightened her lips and hauled in her line, and at last drew her first fish on to the raft. And then, after a pitiful look at its changing colours, she turned her head away as far as she could, suppressed a strong inclination to throw her victim back into the water, and waited for the poor thing to die comfortably. When Jean and Kenni-Kenni came down to inquire how she was getting on, she was quite herself again. "I've got a dozen or so," she cried. "I hope they are all fit to eat. It's really quite interesting when you get used to it. If you like to try your hand at it, Jean, haul me in and I'll take care of Kenni-Kenni for a bit." The men were back before nightfall, very tired, but rich in timber, and in high spirits at the recovery of more tools, and all with appetites that disposed of Aunt Jannet's fish in a very much shorter time than it had taken that good lady to catch them. Next day they laid the keel of their forlorn hope, and when that ceremony was over, Blair and Ha'o started off again across the hills to the old village, to endeavour to get the brown men to make a start on their own buildings and plantings. Characteristically, they were inclined to lie down under misfortune and let things take their chance, and Blair, characteristically also, stated his intention of stopping there till they got to work. He exhorted them to better heart both by word and example, and Ha'o lent the weight of his authority, and, where that failed, added the still weightier impulsion of physical force. Authority weakens under disaster, but a bold heart and a heavy hand are strong arguments, and, disaster or no disaster, Ha'o had no intention of abating one jot of his seigneurial rights. He was chief still and he let them feel it. "What is the good of planting?" said the brown men. "We shall be dead before the fruit comes." "Oh no, you won't!" said Blair cheerfully. "There is fruit in the Valley and fruit on the other side of One-Tree Pass, but in future you'll have to go and get it for yourselves, and you can have all the fish you want for the catching." "But we don't care for fish every day." "There are many things I don't care for myself, my sons, but when I can't do better I put up with them. You must learn to be men." The actively mutinous spirit, which the opportunity of the day after the storm had kindled in them, had passed with the passing of that which had excited it. It had vanished in the smoke of the funeral pyre, and Blair was grateful, for things might have been very different. Instead of fighting the lethargy of despair they might have had to defend themselves against its fury, and he was well content. He tried hard to get them to come over into the Valley, but that they would not do. They would come to the hill top for such fruits as might be brought there for them, and they would go over One-Tree Pass, but into the valley of the stone gods not one of them would set so much as a toe, and Ha'o himself could not make them. With all hands working heartily and at high pressure,--from Captain Pym, who dropped the last remnants of his starch in the process, to Aunt Jannet who, in the intervals of her other duties, picked oakum as if she had been undergoing a term of imprisonment,--the boat building made famous progress, and four weeks from the day the keel was laid the Kenni-Kenni was launched--prevailed upon, at all events, and apparently much against her will, to quit mother earth and take to the water. And if she looked, as Captain Cathie admitted, something of a cross between a washtub and a patchwork quilt, she was undoubtedly built strong and would stand a good deal of knocking about. As to her sailing qualities, they might have been better and they might have been worse, and, as Cathie said, they had not started out to build a cup-winner--which was perhaps just as well. There was an old candle-nut tree in a corner at the head of the Valley, and they set out to stain the little ship dark red with a decoction of its bark, but as the supply ran short the result was not altogether happy. However, she floated on an even keel and was as tight as a drum, forty feet over all, ten feet beam, decked all over and yawl rigged. Spars and sails they had in plenty from the treasure trove of the beach, and Captain Cathie undertook to take her all the way to Sydney if need be. He also expressed the explicit intention of overhauling the first ship or island he came across for a supply of paint, all of one colour, sufficient to go all round her. Nevertheless, and in spite of her lack in such minor details, their hearts were very full as they lined the beach, with their eyes on the little ship, and in their ears Blair's voice ringing strong and true with gratitude and hope, as he prayed God's blessing on the accomplished work of their hands, and on the work she had still to do. When the ceremony was over, and Blair happened to be standing for a moment alone, Captain Pym came up to him and wrung his hand heartily. "Blair," he said, and his old shipmates on the _Bonita_ would not have known either his voice or the look on his face, "I'm glad I came here. But for my poor fellows who are gone, I could almost say I'm glad I was wrecked here. I have learnt a great deal," and Blair answered him with a cordial grip and a beaming smile. On the morrow, Blair and Pym and Cathie and a crew of six, three Torches, and three Bonitas, took leave of the rest and sailed for Kanele. Jean felt this parting terribly, the little ship looked so small, so uncouth, so unequal to emergencies. But she kept a brave face, and waved her farewells from the shore with a fervent prayer for their safety, and then went quietly about her work, with her own Kenni-Kenni clinging to her skirts, while his namesake carried his father away across the seas to possible dangers, to possible---- Nay, she would have faith in that protecting hand which had brought them through so many difficulties before, and to fear was to doubt. [Illustration: Waved her farewells from the shore.] So her heart sang valiantly, "God's in His heaven, all's well!" and after that first hour her face was calm and hopeful, and she was counting the days to their return. The secret passages of the old temple made capital homes. The men had snatched odd moments from their other labours, and material from their abundant stores, and had boarded off the interior darknesses and ghostly possibilities, and had knocked together some rough tables and stools. They had food enough, though they were all tiring somewhat of fish, fish again, and always fish. Blair had laughingly assured them it was good for the brain, and Aunt Jannet asserted that she was getting so brainy that, unless a change of diet came soon, she would not answer for consequences. But in reality there was very little to complain of. The health of the whole party had been excellent, and Blair's high spirits had permitted no one else's to droop for a moment. Jean had more than once suggested their return to their work among the brown men and women. But, in view of this first trip round the islands, to which he had been looking forward with much eagerness, Blair judged it best for them to remain where they were. "As soon as we're rid of Captain Pym and Cathie and the rest, we'll go back and tackle the work," he said. "The brown folks are getting on all right in the meantime. They're actually beginning to learn how to help themselves." "Jean, my dear," said Aunt Jannet, one day after the _Kenni-Kenni_ sailed, "it's just wonderful the way you stand it all." "Stand it, Aunt Jannet? Why, what do you mean? What is there to stand?" "Why--heaps. Look at your dress, for instance. And when one remembers that you've got £10,000 a year or so!--yes, I say, it's just wonderful." "I've done my best with it, and it's very rude to comment on people's clothes before their faces. Besides, your own is no better, and the needle Captain Cathie made for you out of that fishbone was very much better than mine." "Well, well," laughed Aunt Jannet. "It wasn't your dress I was meaning, child----" "You're getting fish on the brain, dear. Isn't that enough to make any woman happy?" That, of course, was Kenni-Kenni, whose great delight it was at this time to rush through and through the shining stream that babbled across the temple floor, kicking up diamond showers with his pink toes and squealing with delight as the sparkling drops played round him. "Yes, it does one good just to look at him," said Aunt Jannet. "But I do wish you could get him to wear some more clothes. He's----" "Clothes!" said Jean scornfully. "What does a boy like that want with clothes?" Kenni-Kenni was developing rapidly. He had one day thrown a stone at a little black pig which sought his acquaintance. And when the piglet fled Kenni-Kenni came suddenly to the knowledge of his prowess and thereafter became a mighty hunter of small pigs whenever chance offered. He had also, after considerable hesitation, thrown a pebble at one of the stone gods, of which he had hither-to stood in much awe. And as no ill results followed he had become bold and warlike, and thought nothing of challenging the bearded sailormen to mortal combat. And they delighted in him exceedingly, and had promised to teach him to box and to swim as soon as the boat was finished. Nai was getting about again and would soon be as well as ever. The broken arm and leg were mending, and never was invalid more tenderly ministered to, or more grateful to her nurses. It was upon Ha'o that the catastrophe seemed to have had the most lasting effect, and that, after all, was perhaps not unnatural. The country was his, and the people were his, and they had suffered terribly. His faith in Kenneth Blair underwent no visible eclipse, however, and he laboured at the boat-building with the rest. The days passed very slowly for those left behind, and when the limit allowed for the voyage was exceeded by one day, two days, three days, Jean's anxieties began to show head again. "Don't worry, child!" said Aunt Jannet. "That boat has probably proved even slower than they expected. My only wonder was that it would sail at all. Not one of them ever built a boat in his life before, and I'm sure it looked a deal more like a big washtub with a cover on than a ship. They'll turn up all right in time. If they'd been meant to be drowned they'd every chance when all the rest were." And surely enough, on the eleventh day, the _Kenni-Kenni_ came wafting slowly down the lagoon, having come in by the upper entrance and made a short call on the brown men in the old quarters. They were all well and brought a full cargo of news and stock and plants, and Blair himself was in the highest of spirits and hungry to get to work on the new plantations. The other islands had suffered somewhat from the big wave, chiefly in the matter of boats. The news of the dire happenings on Kapaa'a had filled them with amazement. The Evanses and Stuarts, and all their works and belongings, were flourishing mightily. They sent endless condolences to Jean and Aunt Jannet and Nai and Ha'o, and had been for embarking at once to their consolation. But as the _Kenni-Kenni_ was to start on her longer journey as soon as she could be provisioned, that was out of the question, as it would have been impossible for them to get back home again. "Yes," acknowledged Captain Cathie, in reply to a pointed question of Aunt Jannet's respecting the sailorly qualities of his boat, "I'm bound to say she's not exactly what you might call a fast boat. But she's sure, and if you give her wind enough and time enough she gets there all right." They had a busy three days preparing for the long voyage. Captain Cathie reckoned they might make the Marquesas in twelve days with good weather. So they made provision for twenty, out of the stores they had brought from Kanele and Anape. He had borrowed Evans's pocket compass, but vowed he could find his way without it. "If we go west with a touch of south in it we're bound to hit either the Marquesas or Paumotus," he said cheerfully. "You may look for that schooner here in six weeks from to-day--that is, if there's one to be had, and if I can find a trader who'll negotiate the drafts." Jean had been racking her brains as to how they were to get hold of some of the money waiting to be used in London, for all her papers had disappeared in the deluge. But Blair had thought the whole matter out, and had brought over paper and pens and a bottle of ink. And among them they drew up a number of documents which, with Captain Pym's verification of the circumstances, would, they thought, procure for Captain Cathie all the money he needed as soon as he reached Sydney, and possibly before that. And a very busy man would Captain Cathie be, if ever he reached Sydney. For he had to buy a new _Torch_ and a multitudinous cargo; engage new hands--to a limited extent, however, this time, for henceforth they hoped to utilise largely the services of the brown men; and last, but by no means least, to provide, so far as money could do it, adequate recompense for the families of the men whose lives had been given in the service of the Dark Islands. So far as forethought and hard thinking could do it they had attended to everything, and Captain Cathie's programme might have daunted a less valiant man. And so, very early one morning, before the sun had topped the hills behind, though the outer sea danced and sparkled merrily, there was a great leave-taking on the white beach at the mouth of the valley where the old village used to stand. The _Kenni-Kenni_ had brought them all up the day before, with all their belongings, in a couple of trips, and they were among their own brown people once more, ready and anxious to be at their work again. The last hearty handshakes had been given and the last words said. The shallop they had built for use with the larger boat, and which was to be left behind, had just put Captain Pym and Captain Cathie on board. The sails ran up, and the _Kenni-Kenni's_ nose turned determinedly for the passage and the long journey westward. Kenneth Blair and his wife Jean, and Aunt Jannet Harvey stood in the centre of a line of brown folk and waved the farewells and benedictions their voices could no longer carry, and little Kenni-Kenni waved and shouted because the others did. His namesake bobbed and rose to the swell of the passage and was lost to sight behind the spouting jets of the reef. The line of watchers on the beach climbed the hillside behind them, and watched and waved till the white sails alone were visible, till they became a tiny white speck, till they disappeared. Then Kenneth Blair kissed his wife very tenderly, for his heart was very full. And he turned to the brown folk, and said-- "We will ask God's blessing on their journeying, for it means much to us all, and then we will get to our work. Let us pray!" and the brown folk bent their heads. On the little ship, Captain Cathie had given the helm to Jim Gregor, and stood looking back at the peaks of the little land where he had spent so many full days. And to him came Captain Pym, and said-- "That is one of the finest men I ever met, Captain Cathie. I count it a privilege to have known him. He will do great things yet." "Yes, sir," said Cathie quietly, for the parting was still on him. "The brown men call him White Fire, and so he is, and his wife's another, and so is Mrs. Harvey. Salt of the earth, sir, every one of them. If there were more like them the world would be a sight better to live in than it is." The Gresham Press, UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, WOKING AND LONDON. 
33214	----	Transcription notes: p 170. Period added at the end of the first sentence. p xi. Period added after 1892 entry. Both bare-footed and barefooted were in text. This has been retained. Both bread-winner and breadwinner were in text. This has been retained. Both egg-shells and eggshell were in text. This has been retained. Both God-men and god-men were in text. This has been retained. * * * * * The Story of Mary Slessor THE WHITE QUEEN of OKOYONG [Illustration: THE CANOE WAS ATTACKED BY A HUGE HIPPOPOTAMUS] THE STORY OF MARY SLESSOR FOR YOUNG PEOPLE THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG A TRUE STORY OF ADVENTURE HEROISM AND FAITH BY W. P. LIVINGSTONE AUTHOR OF "MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR" ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO ALL GIRLS AND BOYS WHO ARE LOOKING FORWARD AND DREAMING DREAMS "She left all and followed Him." CONTENTS PAGE CHIEF DATES IN MISS SLESSOR'S LIFE xi CHAPTER I Tells how a little girl lived in a lowly home, and played, and dreamed dreams, and how a dark shadow came into her life and made her unhappy; how when she grew older she went into a factory and learned to weave, and how in her spare minutes she taught herself many things, and worked amongst wild boys; and how she was sent to Africa 1 CHAPTER II How our heroine sailed away to a golden land of sunshine across the sea; how she found that under all the beauty there were terrible things which made life a misery to the dark-skinned natives; how she began to fight their evil ideas and ways and to rescue little children from death; how, after losing all her loved ones, she took a little twin-girl to her heart, and how she grew strong and calm and brave 22 CHAPTER III Ma's great adventure: how she went up-river by herself in a canoe and lived in a forest amongst a savage tribe; how she fought their terrible customs and saved many lives; how she built a hut for herself and then a church, and how she took a band of the wild warriors down to the coast and got them to be friends with the people who had always been their sworn enemies 45 CHAPTER IV Stories of how Ma kept an armed mob at bay and saved the lives of a number of men and women; how in answer to a secret warning she tramped a long distance in the dark to stop a war; how she slept by a camp-fire in the heart of the forest, and how she became a British Consul and ruled Okoyong like a Queen 69 CHAPTER V Ma's great love for children; her rescue of outcast twins from death; the story of little Susie, the pet of the household; and something about a new kind of birthday that came oftener than once a year 90 CHAPTER VI How the Queen of Okoyong brought a high British official to talk to the people; how she left her nice home and went to live in a little shed; how she buried a chief at midnight; how she took four black girls to Scotland, and afterwards spent three very lonely years in the forest 105 CHAPTER VII Tells of a country of mystery and a clever tribe who were slave-hunters and cannibals, and how they were fought and defeated by Government soldiers; how Ma went amongst them, sailing through fairyland, and how she began to bring them to the feet of Jesus 120 CHAPTER VIII Ma learns to ride a bicycle and goes pioneering; the Government makes her a Judge again and she rules the people; stories of the Court, and of her last visit to Scotland with a black boy as maid-of-all-work; and something about a beautiful dream which she dreamed when she returned, and a cow and a yellow cat 140 CHAPTER IX Ma goes farther up the Creek and settles in a heathen town in the wilds; she enters into happy friendships with young people in Scotland; has a holiday in a beautiful island, where she makes a secret compact with a lame boy; and is given a Royal Cross for the heroic work she has done 163 CHAPTER X This chapter tells how Ma became a gypsy again and lived on a hill-top, and how after a hard fight she won a new region for Jesus; gives some notes from her diary and letters to little friends at home, and pictures her amongst her treasures 183 CHAPTER XI What happened when the Great War broke out. Ma's last voyage down the Creek; how her life-long dream came true 198 INDEX 207 My life, my all, Lord, I entreat, Take, and use, and make replete With the love and patience sweet That made _Thy_ life so complete. MARY SLESSOR. CHIEF DATES IN MISS SLESSOR'S LIFE YEAR AGE 1848. Born at Gilcomston, Aberdeen, December 2. 1856. Family went to Dundee. 8 1859. Began work in a factory. 11 1876. Appointed by United Presbyterian Church to Calabar as missionary teacher, and sailed. 28 1879. Paid her first visit home. 31 1880. In charge at Old Town. 32 1883. Second visit home with Janie. 35 1885. In Creek Town. 37 1886. Death of her mother and sister (Janie). 38 1888. Entered Okoyong alone. 40 1881. Third visit home with Janie. 43 1892. Made Government Agent in Okoyong. 44 1898. Fourth visit home, with Janie, Alice, Maggie, and Mary. 50 1900. Union of United Presbyterian and Free Churches as United Free Church. 52 1902. Pioneering in Enyong Creek. 54 1903. Started a Mission at Itu. Reached Arochuku. 55 1904. Settled at Itu. 56 1905. Settled at Ikotobong. 57 Appointed Vice-President of Native Court. 1907. Fifth visit home with Dan. 59 Settled at Use. 1908. Began a home for women and girls. 60 1909. Gave up Court work. 61 1910. Began work at Ikpe. 62 1912. Holiday at Grand Canary. 64 1913. Visit to Okoyong. 65 Received Royal Medal. Began work at Odoro Ikpe. 1914. Last illness, August. 65 1915. Died at Use, January 13. 66 Mary Slessor Memorial Home decided on by Women's Foreign Mission Committee. 1916. Issue of Appeal for £5000 for upkeep of Memorial Home and Missionary. THE WHITE QUEEN OF OKOYONG [Illustration: WISHART CHURCH, DUNDEE.] CHAPTER I Tells how a little girl lived in a lowly home, and played, and dreamed dreams, and how a dark shadow came into her life and made her unhappy; how when she grew older she went into a factory and learned to weave, and how in her spare minutes she taught herself many things, and worked amongst wild boys; and how she was sent to Africa. One cold day in December, in the city of Aberdeen, a baby girl was carried by her mother into a church to be enrolled in the Kingdom of Jesus and given a name. As the minister went through the tender and beautiful ceremony the people in the pews looked at the tiny form in her robes of white, and thought of the long years that lay before her and wondered what she would become, because every girl and boy is like a shut casket full of mystery and promise and hope. No one knows what gifts may lie hidden within them, and what great and surprising things they may do when they grow up and go out into the world. The baby was christened "Mary Slessor," and then she was wrapped up carefully again and taken home. Surely no one present ever dreamed how much good little Mary would one day do for Africa. It was not a very fine house into which Mary had been born, for her father, who was a shoemaker, did not earn much money; but her mother, a sweet and gentle woman, worked hard to keep it clean and tidy, and love makes even the poorest place sunshiny and warm. When Mary was able to run about she played a great deal with her brother Robert, who was older than she, but she liked to help her mother too: indeed she seemed to be fonder of doing things for others than for herself. She did not need dolls, for more babies came into the home, and she used to nurse them and dress them and hush them to sleep. She was very good at make-believe, and one of her games was to sit in a corner and pretend that she was keeping school. If you had listened to her you would have found that the pupils she was busy teaching and keeping in order were children with skins as black as coal. The reason was this: Her mother took a great interest in all she heard on Sundays about the dark lands beyond the seas where millions of people had never heard of Jesus. The church to which she belonged, the United Presbyterian Church, had sent out many brave men and women to various parts of the world to fight the evils of heathenism, and a new Mission had just begun amongst a savage race in a wild country called Calabar in West Africa, and every one in Scotland was talking about it and the perils and hardships of the missionaries. Mrs. Slessor used to come home with all the news about the work, and the children would gather about her knees and listen to stories of the strange cruel customs of the natives, and how they killed the twin-babies, until their eyes grew big and round, and their hearts raced with fear, and they snuggled close to her side. Mary was very sorry for these helpless bush-children, and often thought about them, and that was why she made them her play-scholars. She dreamed, too, of going out some day to that terrible land and saving the lives of the twinnies, and sometimes she would look up and say: "Mother, I want to be a missionary and go out and teach the black boys and girls--real ways." Then Robert would retort in the tone that boys often use to their sisters: "But you're only a girl, and girls can't be missionaries. _I'm_ going to be one and you can come out with me, and if you're good I may let you up into my pulpit beside me." Mrs. Slessor was amused at their talk, and well pleased too, for she had a longing that her boy should work abroad in the service of Jesus when he became a man. But that was not to be, for soon afterwards Robert fell ill and died, so Mary became the eldest. A dark shadow, darker than death, gathered over the home. Mr. Slessor learned the habit of taking strong drink and became a slave to it, and he began to spend a large part of his money in the public-house, and his wife and children had not the comfort they ought to have had. Matters became so bad that something had to be done. It was thought that if Mr. Slessor could be got away from the bad companions who led him astray, he might do better. So the home was broken up, and the family journeyed to Dundee, the busy smoky town on the River Tay, where there were many large mills and factories, and here, for a time, they lived in a little house with a bit of garden in front. That garden was at first a delight to Mary, but afterwards she lost her pleasure in it, for her father used to dig in it on Sunday, and make people think he did not love God's Day. She was now old enough to look after the younger children, and very well she did it. Often she took them long walks, climbing the steep streets to see the green fields, or going down to feel the fresh smell of the sea. Sometimes her mother gave her a sixpence, and they went and had a ride on the merry-go-round. It was the custom then for girls and boys to go bare-footed in the summer, and Mary liked it so much that she never afterwards cared to wear shoes and stockings. On Sundays they all trotted away to church, clean and sweet, each with a peppermint to suck during the sermon, and afterwards they went to Sunday School. As a rule Mary was good and obedient, though, like most girls, she sometimes got into trouble. Her hair was reddish then, and her brothers would tease her and call her "Carrots," and she did not like that. She loved a prank too, and was sometimes naughty. Once or twice she played truant from the Sunday School. She was always very vexed afterwards, for she could not bear to see her mother's face when she heard of her wrong-doing--it was so white and sad. The quiet little mother did not punish her: she would draw her instead into a room and kneel down and pray for her. "Oh, mother!" Mary would say, "I would rather you whip me!" But all that soon passed away, for she had been dreaming another dream, a very sweet one, which always set her heart a-longing and a-thrilling, and it now came true and changed her life. It was the biggest thing and the happiest that ever happened to her. She gave her heart to Jesus. Very shyly one night she crept up to her mother, nestled close to her, and laid her head on her knee, and then whispered the wonderful news. "I'll try, mother," she said, "to be a good girl and a comfort to you." Her mother was filled with joy, and both went about for long afterwards singing in their hearts. If only the shadow would lift! [Illustration: THE LITTLE HOUSE-MOTHER.] But it settled down more darkly than ever. We can change the place where we stay and wander far, but it is not so easy to change our habits. Mr. Slessor was now bringing in so little money that his wife was forced to go and work in one of the mills in order to buy food and clothes for the children. Mary became the little house-mother, and how busy her hands and feet were, how early she was up, and how late she tumbled into bed, and how bravely she met all her troubles! Tears might steal into her eyes when she felt faint and hungry, but it was always a bright and smiling face that welcomed the tired mother home at night. Gloomier grew the shadow. More money was needed to keep the home, and Mary, a slim girl of eleven, was the next to go out and become a bread-winner. One morning she went into a big factory and stood in the midst of machines and wheels and whirling belts, and at first was bewildered and a little afraid. But she was only allowed to stay for half a day: the other half she had to go to a school in the works where the girls were taught to read and write and count. She was fond of the reading, but did not like doing the sums: the figures on the board danced before her eyes, and she could not follow the working out of the problems, and sometimes the teacher punished her by making her stand until the lesson was finished. But she was clever with her fingers, and soon knew all about weaving. How proud she was when she ran home with her first week's earnings! She laid them in the lap of her mother, who cried over them and wrapped them up and put them away: she could not, just then, find it in her heart to spend such precious money. By the time she was fourteen Mary was working a large machine and being paid a good wage. But she had to toil very hard for it. She rose at five o'clock in the morning, when the factory whistle blew, and was in the works by six, and, except for two hours off for meals, she was busy at her task until six in the evening. In the warm summer days she did not go home, but carried her dinner with her and ate it sitting beside the loom; and sometimes she went away by herself and walked in the park. Saturday afternoons and Sundays were her own, but they were usually spent in helping her mother. Her dress was coarse and plain, and she wore no pretty ornaments, though she liked them as much as her companions did, for she was learning to put aside all the things she did not really need, and by and by she came not to miss them, and found pleasure instead in making others happy. She would have been quite content if only her father had been different. But there was no hope now of a better time. The shadow became so black that it was like night when there are no stars in the sky. Mrs. Slessor and Mary had a big burden to bear and a grim battle to fight. In their distress they clung to one another, and prayed to Jesus for help and strength, for they, of themselves, could do little. On Saturday nights Mr. Slessor came home late, and treated them unkindly, so that Mary was often forced to go out into the cold streets and wait until he had gone to sleep. As she wandered about she felt very lonely and very miserable, and sometimes sobbed as if her heart would break. When she passed the bright windows of the places where drink was sold, she wondered why people were allowed to ruin men and women in such a way, and she clenched her hands and resolved that when she grew up she would war against this terrible thing which destroyed the peace and happiness of homes. But at last the trouble came to an end. One tragic day Mary stood and looked down with a great awe upon the face of her father lying white and still in death. What she went through in these days made her often sad and downcast, for she had a loving heart, and suffered sorely when any one was rough to her or ill-treated her. But good came out of it too. She was like a white starry flower which grows on the walls and verandahs of houses in the tropics. The hot sunshine is not able to draw perfume from it, but as soon as darkness falls its fragrance scents the air and comes stealing through the open windows and doors. So it was with Mary. She grew sweeter in the darkness of trouble; it was in the shadows of life that she learned to be patient and brave and unselfish. We must not think less, but more, of her for coming out of such a home. It is not always the girls and boys who are highly favoured that grow up to do the best and biggest things in life. Some of the men and women to whom the world owes most had a hard time when they were young. The home life of President Lincoln, who freed millions of slaves in America, was like Mary's, yet his name has become one of the most famous in history. No girl or boy should despair because they are poor or lonely or crushed down in any way; let them fight on, quietly and patiently, and in the end better things and happier times will come. Mrs. Slessor now left the factory, and for a time kept a little shop, in which Mary used to help, especially on Saturday afternoons and nights, when trade was busiest. The girl was still dreaming dreams about the wonderful days that lay before her, but, unlike many others who do the same, she did her best to make hers come true. She wanted to learn things, and she found that books would tell her, and so she was led into the great world of knowledge. The more she read the more she wanted to know. So eager was she that when she left home for her work, she slipped a book into her pocket and glanced at it in the streets. She did not know then about Dr. Livingstone, the African missionary and traveller, but she did exactly what he had done when he was a boy: she propped a book on a corner of the loom in the factory, and read whenever she had a moment to spare. Her companions tell how they used to see her take out a little note-book, put it on the weaver's beam, and jot down her thoughts--she was always writing, they say; sometimes it was poetry, sometimes an essay, sometimes a letter to a friend. But she never neglected her work. How different her lot was from that of most girls of to-day! They have leisure for their lessons, and they learn music and do fancy work and keep house and bake--and how many hate it all! Mary had only a few precious minutes, but she made the most of them. The books she read were not stories, but ones like Milton's _Paradise Lost_ and Carlyle's _Sartor Resartus_, and so deep did she become in them at night that sometimes she forgot everything, and read on and on through the quiet hours, and only came to herself with a start when she heard the warning whistle of the factory in the early morning. She was fond of all good books, but the one she liked most and knew better than any was the Bible. She pored over it so often that she remembered much of it by heart. In the Bible Class she was so quick and so ready to answer questions that Mr. Baxter, her minister, used to say, "Now, Mary Slessor, don't answer any more questions till I bid you." When every one else failed he would turn to her with "Now, Mary," and she always had her reply ready. She was never tired of the story of Jesus, especially as it is told in the Gospel of St. John, for there He appeared to her so kind and winsome and lovable. When she thought of all He did, how He came from His own beautiful heaven to save the world from what is sinful and sad, and how He was made to suffer and at last was put to death, and how His teaching has brought peace and safety and sunshine into the lives of millions of women and girls, she felt she must do something for Him to show her love and thankfulness and devotion. "He says we must do as He did and try to make people better and happier, and so I, too, must do my best and join in the war against all that is evil and unlovely and unrestful in the world." So she thought to herself. She did not say, "I am only a girl, what can I do?" She knew that when a General wanted an army to fight a strong enemy he did not call for officers only, but for soldiers--hosts of them, and especially for those who were young. "I can be a soldier," Mary said humbly. "Dear Lord, I will do what I can--here are my heart and head and hands and feet--use me for anything that I can do." The first thing that she did was to take a class of little girls in the Sunday School, and thus she began to teach others before she was educated herself, but it is not always those who are best trained who can teach best. The heart of Mary was so full of deep true love for Jesus that it caused her face to shine and her eyes to smile and her lips to speak kind words, and that is the sort of learning that wins others to Him. Wishart Church, to which she went, was built over shops, and looked down upon the old Port Gate and upon streets and lanes which were filled at night with big boys and girls who seemed to have no other place to go to, and nothing to do but lounge and swear and fight. Mary felt she would like to do something for them. By and by when a Mission was begun in a little house in Queen Street--there is a brass inscription upon the wall, now, telling about Mary--she went to the superintendent and said, "Will you take me as a teacher?" "Gladly," he said, but she looked so small and frail that he was afraid the work would be too rough for her. What a time she had at first! The boys and girls did not want anybody to bother about them: those who came to the meeting were wild and noisy; those who remained outside threw stones and mud and tried to stop the work. Mary faced them, smiling and unafraid, and dared them to touch her. Some grew ashamed of worrying the brave little teacher, and these she won over to her side. But there were others with sullen eyes and clenched fists who would not give in, and they did their best to make her life a misery. One night a band of the most violent lay in wait for her, and she found herself suddenly in their midst. They hustled and threatened her. "We'll do for you if you don't leave us alone," they cried. She was quaking with fear, but she did not show it. She just breathed a prayer for help, and looked at them with her quiet eyes. "I will not give up," she replied. "You can do what you like." "All right," shouted the leader, a big hulking lad. "Here goes." Out of his pocket he took a lump of lead to which was tied a bit of cord, and began to swing it round her head. The rest of the gang looked on breathless, wondering at the courage of the girl. The lead came nearer and swished past her brow. Pale, calm, unflinching, she stood waiting for the blow that would fell her to the ground. Suddenly the lad jerked away the weapon and let it fall with a crash. "We can't force her, boys," he cried, "she's game." And, like beaten foes, they followed her, and went to the meeting and into her class, and after that there was no more trouble. The boys fell under her spell, grew fond of her, and in their shy way did all they could to help her. On Saturday afternoons she would take them into the country away from the temptations of the streets, and sought to make them gentle and kind and generous. Some of the most wayward amongst them gave their hearts to Jesus, and afterwards grew to be good and useful men. What was it that gave her such an influence over these rude and unruly boys? They did not know. She was not what is called a pretty girl. She was plain and quiet and simple, and she was poorly clad. But she was somehow different from most teachers. Perhaps it was because she loved them so much, for the love that is real and pure and unselfish is the greatest power in the world. [Illustration: ONE OF THE "PENDS" OR "CLOSES" WHERE MARY VISITED THE BOYS IN HER CLASS.] Through the hearts of the boys Mary found her way to their homes in the slums, and paid visits to their mothers and sisters, and saw that life to them was often very hard and wretched. The other Mission workers used to go two and two, but she often went alone. Once she was a long time away, and when she came back she said laughingly: "I've been dining with the Macdonalds in Quarry Pend." "Indeed," said some one, "and did you get a clean plate and spoon?" "Oh, never mind that," replied Mary. "I've got into their house and been asked to come back, and that's all I care about." She always went in the same spirit in which Jesus would have gone. Sometimes she would sit by the fire with the baby on her knees; sometimes she would take tea with the family, drinking out of a broken cup; sometimes she would help the mother to finish a bit of work. And always she cheered up tired and anxious hearts, and left sunshine and peace where there had been only the blackness of despair. No one could be long in her company without feeling better, and not a few of her friends came, through her, to know and love and work for Jesus. "Three weeks after I knew her," says one of her old factory mates, "I became a different girl." How eager and earnest she was! "Oh!" she said to a companion, "I wonder what we would do or dare for Jesus? Would we be burned at the stake? Would we give our lives for His sake?" "She _did_ work hard," says another, "and whatever she did, she did with heart and soul." When the Mission was removed to the rooms under the church, the superintendent said: "We shall need a charwoman to give the place a thorough cleaning." "Nonsense," said Mary; "we will clean it ourselves." "You ladies clean such a dirty hall!" "Ladies!" cried Mary; "we are no ladies, we are just ordinary working folk." Next night Mary and another teacher were found, with sleeves turned up and aprons on, busy with pails of water and brushes scrubbing out the rooms. Like other young people, she had her troubles, big and little, and these she met bravely. Evil-minded persons, jealous of her goodness, sometimes said unkind things about her, but she never paid any heed to them. She always did what she thought was right, and went her own way. On Saturdays she used to put her hair in curlpapers, and her companions teased her a lot about it, and tried to laugh her out of the habit, but she just laughed back. When she and two or three friends met during the meal hour and held a little prayer meeting opposite the factory, the other girls would come and peep in, and one of her companions would be vexed and scold them. "Dinna bother, Janet," she would say quietly, "we needna mind what they do." She was not always serious, but could enjoy fun and frolic with the wildest. Once while walking in the country with a girl she knocked playfully at some cottage doors and ran away. "Oh, Mary," said her friend, "I'm shocked at you!" Mary only laughed, and said, "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men." From one old friend we get a picture of her at this time. "Her face was always shining and happy. With her fresh skin, her short ringlets, and her firm mouth she somehow always made me think of a farmer's daughter coming to market with butter and eggs!" Her life during these years was a training for what she had to do in the future. She must have had an inkling of it, for her dreams now were all of service in the far lands beyond the seas. Through the gloom of the smoky streets she was always seeing visions of tropical rivers and tangled jungle and heathen huts amongst palm trees, and above the noise of the factory she was hearing the cries of the little bush-children; and she longed to leave busy Dundee with its churches and Sunday Schools and go out and help where help was most needed. She did not say anything, for she knew it was her brother John that her mother was anxious to make a missionary. He was a big lad, but very delicate, and there came a time when the doctor said he must leave the cold climate of Scotland or die. He sailed to New Zealand, but it was too late, and he passed away there. His mother grieved again over her lost hopes, and Mary, who was very fond of him, wept bitterly. As she went about her work she repeated the hymn, "Lead, kindly Light," to herself, finding comfort in the last two lines: And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. And then she came back to her dazzling day-dream. Could she not, after all, be the missionary? But she was not educated, and she was the chief breadwinner of the family, and her mother leant upon her so much. How could she manage it? She thought it all out, and at last said, "I _can_ do it. I _will_ do it." She was one of the cleverest weavers in the factory, and she began to do extra work, thus earning a bigger wage and saving more money. She studied very hard. She practised speaking at meetings until she learned how to put her thoughts into clear and simple words. But it was a weary, weary time, for she spent fourteen years within the walls of the factory. Thousands of other girls, of course, were doing the same, and sometimes they got very tired, but had just to go bravely on. In one of her poems Mrs. Browning tells us what it was like: how the revolving wheels seemed to make everything turn too--the heads and hearts of the girls, the walls, the sky seen out of the high windows, even the black flies on the ceiling-- All day, the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, "O ye wheels," (breaking out in a mad moaning) "Stop! be silent for to-day!" But they never did stop, and the girls had only their hopes and dreams to make them patient and brave. One day there flashed through the land a telegram which caused much excitement and sorrow. Africa was then an unknown country, vast and mysterious, and haunted by all the horrors of slavery and heathenism. For a long time there had been tramping through it a white man, a Scotsman, David Livingstone, hero of heroes, who had been gradually finding out the secrets of its lakes and rivers and peoples. Sometimes he was lost for years. The telegram which came told of his lonely death in a hut in the heart of the continent. Every one asked, What is to be done now? who is to take up the work of the great pioneer and help to save the natives from misery and death? Amongst those whose hearts leapt at the call was Mary Slessor. She went to her mother. "Mother," she said, "I am going to offer myself as a missionary. But do not fret. I will be able to give you part of my salary, and that, with the earnings of Susan and Janie, will keep the home in comfort." "My lassie," was the reply, "I'll willingly let you go. You'll make a fine missionary, and I'm sure God will be with you." Some of her friends wondered at her. They knew she was not specially brave; indeed, was not her timidity a joke amongst them? "Why," they said, "she is even afraid of dogs. When she sees one coming down the street she goes into a passage until it is past!" This was true, but they forgot that love can cast out all fear. Tremblingly she waited for the answer to her letter to the Mission Board of the United Presbyterian Church in Edinburgh. When it arrived she rushed to her mother. "I'm accepted! I'm going to Calabar as a teacher." And then, strange to say, she burst into tears. [Illustration: THE HOUSE IN QUEEN STREET, DUNDEE, WHERE MARY SLESSOR FIRST TAUGHT AS A MISSION TEACHER.] So she who had waited so long and so patiently, working within the walls of a factory, weaving the warp and woof in the loom, was now going to one of the wildest parts of Africa to weave there the lives of the people into new and beautiful patterns. [Illustration: DUKE TOWN, WEST AFRICA.] CHAPTER II How our heroine sailed away to a golden land of sunshine across the sea; how she found that under all the beauty there were terrible things which made life a misery to the dark-skinned natives; how she began to fight their evil ideas and ways and to rescue little children from death; how, after losing all her loved ones, she took a little twin-girl to her heart, and how she grew strong and calm and brave. On an autumn morning in 1876 Miss Slessor stood on the deck of the steamer _Ethiopia_ in Liverpool docks and waved good-bye to two companions from Dundee who had gone to see her off. As the vessel cleared the land and moved out into the wide spaces of the waters she, who had always lived in narrow streets, felt as if she were on holiday, and was in as high spirits as any schoolgirl. She could not help being kind and helpful to others, and soon made friends with many of the passengers and crew. One man drew her like a magnet, for he also was a dreamer of dreams. This was Mr. Thomson, an architect from Glasgow, who was filled with the idea that the missionaries in West Africa would do better work and remain out longer if there were some cool place near at hand to which they could go for a rest and change. He had been all over the Coast, and explored the rivers and hills, and had at last found a healthy spot five thousand feet up on the Cameroon Mountains, where he decided to build a home. He had given up his business, and was now on his way out, with his wife and two workmen, to put his dream into shape. Mary's eyes shone as she listened to his tale of love and sacrifice; but, alas! the plan, so beautiful, so full of hope for the missionaries, came to nothing, for he died not long after landing. It was from Mr. Thomson that she learned most about the strange country to which she was going. He told her how it was covered with thick bush and forest; how swift, mud-coloured rivers came out of mysterious lands which had never been seen by white men; how the sun shone like a furnace-fire, and how sudden hurricanes of rain and wind came and swept away huts and uprooted trees. He described the wild animals he had seen--huge hippopotami and crocodiles in the creeks; elephants, leopards, and snakes in the forests; and lovely hued birds that flashed in the sunlight--until her eyes sparkled and her cheeks flushed as they had done in the old days when she listened to the stories told by her mother. [Illustration: FROM DUNDEE TO CALABAR.] Within a week the steamer had passed out of the grey north, and was gliding through a calm sea beneath a blue and sunny sky. By and by Mary was seeking cool corners under the awning, and listening lazily to the swish of the waves from the bows and watching golden sunsets and big bright stars. Sometimes she saw scores of flying-fish hurry-scurrying over the shining surface, and at night the prow of the vessel went flashing through water that sparkled like diamonds. By and by came the hot smell of Africa, long lines of surf rolling on lonely shores, white fortresses that spoke of the old slave days, and little port towns, half-hidden amongst trees, where she got her first glimpses of the natives, and was amused at the din they made as they came off to the steamer, fearless of the sharks that swarmed in the water. It was all strange and unreal to the Scottish weaver-girl. [Illustration] And when, after a month, the vessel came to the Calabar River and steamed through waters crowded with white cranes and pelicans, and past dark mangrove swamps and sand-banks where the crocodiles lay sunning themselves, and islands gay with parrots and monkeys, up to Duke Town, the queer huddle of mud huts amongst the palm trees that was to be her home, she was excited beyond telling. For at last that wonderful dream of hers, which she had cherished through so many long years, had come true, and so wonderful was it that it seemed to be still only a dream and nothing more. Clear above the river and the town, like a lighthouse on a cliff, stood the Mission where "Daddy" and "Mammy" Anderson, two of its famous pioneers, lived, and with them Mary stayed until she knew something about the natives and her work. She felt very happy; she loved the glowing sunshine, the gorgeous sunsets, the white moonlight, the shining river, the flaming blossoms amongst which the humming-birds and butterflies flitted, and all the sights and sounds that were so different from those in Scotland. She was so glad that she used to write poems, and in one of these she sings of the beauty of the land: ... the shimmering, dancing wavelets And the stately, solemn palms, The wild, weird chant of the boatmen And the natives' evening psalms, The noise of myriad insects And the firefly's soft bright sheen, The bush with its thousand terrors And its never-fading green. Her spirits, so long bottled up in Dundee, overflowed, and she did things which amused and sometimes vexed the older and more serious missionaries. She climbed trees and ran races with the black girls and boys, and was so often late at meals that Mrs. Anderson, by way of punishment, left her out nothing to eat. But "Daddy" was fond of the bright-eyed, warm-hearted lassie, and he always hid some bananas and other fruit and passed them to her in secret. There was no factory whistle to warn her in the morning, and sometimes she would start up in the middle of the night and, seeing her room almost as light as midday, would hastily put on her clothes, thinking she had slept in, and run out to ring the first bell, only to find a very quiet world and the great round moon shining in the sky. It was not long before all the light and colour and beauty of the land seemed to fade away, and only the horror of a great darkness remain. She was taken to the homes and yards of the natives in the town and out into the bush, and saw a savage heathenism that astonished and shocked her. She did not think that people could be so wretched and degraded and ignorant. At some of the places the naked children were so afraid of her that they ran away screaming. She herself shrank from the fierce men who thronged round her, but her winning way captured their hearts, and she was soon quite at home with them. When she came back she was very thoughtful, and talked to Mrs. Anderson of the things she had seen. "My lassie," said "Mammy," "you've seen nothing." And she began to tell her of the terrible evils that filled the land with misery and sorrow. "All around us, in the bush and far away into the interior, there are millions of these black people. In every little village there is a Chief or Master, and a few free men and women, but the rest are slaves, and can be sold or flogged or killed at their owner's pleasure. It is all right when they are treated kindly, but think of the kind of men the masters are. All the tribes are wild and cruel and cunning, and pass their days and nights in fighting each other and in dancing and drinking, and there are some that are cannibals and feast on the bodies of those they have slain. Their religion is the fear of spirits, one of blood and sacrifice, in which there is no _love_. When a chief dies, do you know what happens to his wives and slaves? Their heads are cut off and they are buried with him to be his companions in the spirit-land." [Illustration: A POT INTO WHICH TWINS WERE PUT.] Mary shivered. "It must be awful for the children," she said. "Ah, yes, nearly all are slaves, and their masters look upon them as if they were sheep or pigs. They are his wealth. As soon as they are able to walk they begin to carry loads on their heads, and paddle canoes and sweep and clean out the yards. Often they are beaten or branded with a hot iron, or get their ears cut off. They sleep on the ground without any covering. When the girls grow up they are hidden away in the _ufök nkukhö_, or 'house of seclusion,' and made very fat, and then become the slave-wives of the masters or freemen. And the twins! Poor mites. For some reason the people fear them worse than death, and they are not allowed to live; they are killed and crushed into pots and thrown away for leopards to eat. The mother is hounded into the bush, where she must live alone. She, too, is afraid of the twin-babies, and she would murder them if others did not." Mary cried out in hot rage against so cruel a system. "Oh," she said, "I want to fight it; I want to save those innocent babes." "Right, lassie," replied "Mammy," "and we need a hundred more like you to help." Mary jumped to her feet. "The first thing I have to do," she said, "is to learn the language. I can do nothing until I know it well." Efik is the chief tongue spoken in this part of Africa, and so quickly did she pick it up and master it that the people said she was "blessed with an Efik mouth"; and then her old dream came true, and she began to teach the black boys and girls in the day school. There were not many, for the chiefs did not believe in educating them. The bigger ones wore only a red or white shirt, while the wee ones had nothing on at all, and they carried their slates on their heads and their pencils in their woolly hair. In spite of everything they were a happy lot, with bright eyes and nimble feet, and Mary loved them, and those that were mischievous most of all. She also went down to the yards out of which they came, and spoke to their fathers and mothers about Jesus, and begged them to come to the Mission church. When she had been out three years she fell ill, and was home-sick for her mother and friends. Calabar then was like some of the flowers growing in the bush, very pretty but very poisonous. Mary had fever so badly and was so weak that she was glad to be put on board the steamer and taken away. In Scotland the cool winds and the loving care of her mother soon made her strong again. Sometimes she was asked to speak at meetings, but was very shy to face people. One Sunday morning in Edinburgh she went to a children's church. The superintendent asked her to come to the platform, but she would not go. Then he explained to the children who she was, and begged her to tell them something about Calabar. She blushed and refused. A hymn was given out, during which the superintendent pled with her to say a few words. "No, no, I cannot," she replied timidly. He was not to be beaten. "Let us pray," he said. He prayed that Miss Slessor might be able to give them a message. When he finished he appealed to her again. After a pause she rose, and, turning her head half-away, spoke, not about Calabar, but about the free and glad life which children in a Christian land enjoyed, and how grateful they ought to be to Jesus, to whom they owed it all. When she reached Calabar again she was made very happy, for her dream was to be a real missionary, and she found that she was to be in charge of the women's work at Old Town, a place two miles higher up the river, noted for its wickedness. She could now do as she liked, and save more money to send home to her mother and sisters, for they were always first in her thoughts. She lived in a hut built of mud and slips of bamboo, with a roof of palm leaves, wore old clothes, and ate the cheap food of the natives, yam and plantain and fish. Many white persons wondered why she did this, and made remarks, but she did not tell them the reason: she cared less than ever for the laughter and scorn of others. [Illustration: TOWNS IN CALABAR. There are so many winding creeks that the district looks like a jigsaw puzzle.] She soon became a power in the district. The men in the town were selfish and greedy, and would not let the inland natives come with their palm oil and trade with the factories, and fights often took place, and blood was shed. "This will never do," Mary said, and she began to help the country people, allowing them to steal down at night through the Mission ground, and guiding them past the sentries to the beach. The townsmen were angry, but they could not browbeat the brave white woman, and at last they gave in, and so the trading became free. Then she began to oppose the custom of killing twins, and by and by she came to be known as "the Ma who loves babies." "Ma" in the Efik tongue is a title of respect given to women, and ever after she was known to all, white and black, as "Ma Slessor," or "Ma Akamba," the great Ma, or just simply "Ma," and we, too, may use the same name for her. One day a young Scottish trader named Owen came to her with a black baby in his arms. "Ma," he said, "I have found this baby thing lying away in the bush. It's a twin. The other has been killed. It would soon have died if I hadn't picked it up. I knew you'd like it, and so here it is." Ma thanked the young man for his kindly act, and took the child, a bright and attractive girl, to her heart of hearts. "I'll call it Janie," she said, "after my sister." She was delighted one day to hear that the British Consul and the missionaries had at last coaxed the chiefs in the river towns to make a law after their own fashion against twin-murder. This was done through a secret society called Egbo, which was very powerful and ruled the land. Those who belonged to it sent out men with whips and drums, called runners, who were disguised in masks and strange dresses. When they appeared all women and children had to fly indoors. If caught they were flogged. It was these men who came to proclaim the new rules. Ma thus tells about the scene in a letter to Sunday School children in Dundee: Just as it became dark one evening I was sitting in my verandah talking to the children, when we heard the beating of drums and the singing of men coming near. This was strange, because we are on a piece of ground which no one in the town has a right to enter. Taking the wee twin boys in my hands I rushed out, and what do you think I saw? A crowd of men standing outside the fence chanting and swaying their bodies. They were proclaiming that all twins and twin-mothers could now live in the town, and that if any one murdered the twins or harmed the mothers he would be hanged by the neck. If you could have heard the twin-mothers who were there, how they laughed and clapped their hands and shouted, "Sosoño! Sosoño!" ("Thank you! Thank you!"). You will not wonder that amidst all the noise I turned aside and wept tears of joy and thankfulness, for it was a glorious day for Calabar. A few days later the treaties were signed, and at the same time a new King was crowned. Twin-mothers were actually sitting with us on a platform in front of all the people. Such a thing had never been known before. What a scene it was! How can I describe it? There were thousands of Africans, each with a voice equal to ten men at home, and all speaking as loudly as they could. The women were the worst. I asked a chief to stop the noise. "Ma," he said, "how I fit stop them woman mouth?" The Consul told the King that he _must_ have quiet during the reading of the treaties, but the King said helplessly, "How can I do? They be women--best put them away," and many _were_ put away. And the dresses! As some one said of a hat I trimmed, they were "overpowering." The women had crimson silks and satins covered with earrings and brooches and all kinds of finery. The men were in all sorts of uniform with gold and silver lace and jewelled hats and caps. Many naked bodies were covered with beadwork, silks, damask, and even red and green table-cloths trimmed with gold and silver. Their legs were circled with brass and beadwork, and unseen bells that tinkled all the time. The hats were immense affairs with huge feathers of all colours and brooches. The Egbo men were the most gorgeous. Some had large three-cornered hats with long plumes hanging down. Some had crowns, others wore masks of animals with horns, and all were looped round with ever so many skirts and trailed tails a yard or two long with a tuft of feathers at the end. Such splendour is barbaric, but it is imposing in its own place. Well, the people have agreed to do away with many of the bad customs they have that hinder the spread of the Gospel. You must remember that it is the long and faithful teaching of God's word that is bringing the people to a state of mind fit for better things. Now I am sleepy. Good-bye. May God make us all worthy of what He has done for us. The people were good for a time, but soon fell back into the habit of centuries, and did in secret what they used to do openly. Ma saw that the struggle was only just beginning, and she threw herself into it with all her courage and strength. She was always studying her Bible, and learning more of the love and power of Jesus, and so much did she lean on Him that she was growing quite fearless, and would go by herself into the vilest haunts in the town or far out into lonesome villages. Often she took a canoe and went up the river and into the creeks and visited places where no white woman had been before, healing the sick, sitting by the wayside listening to the tales of the people, and talking to them about the Saviour of the world. Sometimes there was so much to say and do that she could not get back the same day, and she slept on straw or leaves in the open air, or on a bundle of rags in an evil-smelling hut. Once she took the house-children and went a long river journey to visit an exiled chief who lived in a district haunted by elephants. They were to start in the morning, but things are done very leisurely in Africa, and it was night before they set off by torchlight. Eyo Honesty VII., the negro king of Creek Town, who was a Christian and always very kind to Ma, had sent a State canoe, brightly painted, with the message: "Ma must not go as a nameless stranger to a strange people, but as a lady and our Mother, and she can use the canoe as long as she pleases." There was a crew of thirty-three men dressed only in loin-cloths. As they dipped the paddles and sped onwards over the quiet water, a drummer drummed his drum, and the crew chanted a song in her praise: Ma, our beautiful beloved mother is on board, Ho, ho, ho! The motion of the canoe was like a cradle, and the song like a mother's crooning, and she fell asleep; and all through the night, amongst these wild black men, she lay in God's keeping like a little child. At dawn they came to a beach and a village, where she was given a mud room in the chief's yard, and here for a whole fortnight she lived in the company of dogs, fowls, rats, lizards, and mosquitoes. Many of the people had never seen a white person, and were afraid to touch her. She was very sorry for them, they were so poor and naked and dirty, and she busied herself making clothes and healing the sick. So many were ill that a canoe had to be sent to the nearest Mission House for another supply of medicines. One day the chief said to her, "Ma, two of my wives have been doing wrong, and they are to get one hundred stripes each on their bare backs. It is the custom." She was horrified. "Why, what have they done?" "They went into a yard that is not their own. Of course," he added, "they are young and thoughtless, they are only sixteen years old, but they must learn." "Oh, but that is a very cruel punishment for young girls." "Ma, it is nothing; we shall also rub salt into the wounds and perhaps cut off their ears. That is the only way to make the women obey us." "No, no, you must not do that," cried Ma. "Bring all the people together for a palaver." The crowd gathered, and the two girls stood in front with sullen faces. Ma spoke to them. "You have done wrong according to your law, and you will have to be punished." At this, smiles broke over the faces of the men; but Ma turned to them swiftly and cried, "You are in the wrong too. Shame on you for making a law that marries girls so early! Why, these are still children who love fun and mischief. Their fault is a small one, and you must not punish them so cruelly." The smiles fled, and the faces grew angry and defiant, and there were mutterings and threats. "Who are you to come and spoil our laws," said some of the big men; "the girls are ours, let us have them." But Ma was firm, and as she was the guest of the village, and worthy of honour, they at length agreed to give a lighter punishment. The girls were handed over to two strong fellows, who flogged them with a whip. Ma heard their screams amidst the shouts and laughter of those who looked on, and was ready to attend to their bleeding bodies when they ran into her room. Then she gave them something which made them sleep and forget their pain and misery. "What can you expect?" said she to herself; "they have never heard of God, they worship human skulls, and they don't know about love and compassion and mercy"--and she did her best to teach them. In the quiet nights, when their work in the fields was over, they came and squatted on the ground, the big men in front, the slaves outside, and she stood beside a little table on which were a Bible and hymn-book and a lamp, and in her sweet and earnest voice told them the story of the gentle Jesus. She could not see anything but the dark mass of their bodies and the gleaming of their eyes, and they sat so still that when she stopped she could only hear the sighing of the wind among the palm tops. It was all very wonderful to them. Sometimes they would ask questions, chiefly about the life after death, which was such a mystery to them, and, when they rose, they slipped away softly to their homes to talk about this strange new religion that was so different from their own. It was the time of storms, and one day when Ma was sitting sewing the sky grew dark, lightning flashed, thunder crashed, and floods fell. The roof of the hut was blown away, and she was drenched to the skin, and for a time was ill with fever and nigh to death. [Illustration: MRS. SLESSOR AND JANIE.] On the way back at night to Old Town another tornado burst, flooding the canoe, and tossing it about like a match-box on the raging waves. The crew lost their wits, and Ma thought they would be upset. But putting aside her own fear for the sake of others, she made the men paddle into the mangrove, where they jumped into the branches like monkeys and held on to the canoe until the danger was passed. All were sitting in water, and Ma was wet through and shaking with ague. She became so ill that when Old Town was reached she had to be carried up to the Mission House. Yet she did not go to bed until she had made hot tea for the children, and tucked them snugly away for the night. Soon afterwards another tornado destroyed her house, and she and the children escaped through the wind and rain to the home of some white traders who were very kind to her. But she was so ill after all she had gone through that she was ordered to Scotland, and had again to be carried on board the steamer. She would not leave Janie behind her, as she was afraid the people would murder her, and so the girl-twin also sailed with her across the sea. Ma soon grew strong in her native air, and one Sunday she went to her old church in Dundee with Janie, and there that morning the little black child was given the name that had been chosen for her. With her black skin and her solemn eyes she was a curious sight to the boys and girls, and they came crowding round and begged to be allowed to hold her for a little. She appeared at many of the meetings to which Ma went, and during the address would sit on the platform munching biscuits, which she was always ready to share with every one near her. One night Ma travelled to Falkirk to speak to a large class of girls taught by Miss Bessie Wilson, a well-known lady in the Church. She had a message that night, and her face shone and her words fell like stirring music on the young hearts before her. Janie was passed round from one to another, and helped to make her story more real. So delighted were the girls with the black baby that they begged to be allowed to give something every month for her support. Perhaps all this had nothing to do with what happened afterwards, but was it not strange that out of that class by and by no fewer than six members gave themselves to the work in Calabar, including Miss Wright and Miss Peacock, two of Ma's dearest friends and best helpers? Ma had a wonderful power of drawing other people to her and of influencing them for good. On this visit one girl, Miss Hogg, was no sooner in her company than she decided to go to Calabar, and she went, and was for many years a much-loved missionary, whose name was familiar to the children of the Church at home. Ma was anxious to be back at her work, but her sister Janie, who was delicate like her brothers, needed all her care, and was at last ordered by the doctor to live in a warmer climate. This set Ma dreaming again. "If only I could take her out to Calabar with me," she mused, "we could live cheaply in a native hut, and it might save her life." But the Mission Board did not think this would be right, and Mary, who had a quick brain as well as a warm heart, at once carried Janie off to Devonshire, that lovely county in the south of England, where she rented a house with a garden and nursed and cared for the invalid. Very sorrowfully she gave up the work in Calabar she loved so much, but she felt that her sister needed her most. Then she brought down her mother, and they lived happily together, and Janie grew strong in the sunshine and fresh air. After a time Ma thought they could be left, and, after getting an old companion down from Dundee to look after them, she went out again to Africa. Her new station was Creek Town, a little farther away, where the missionary was her dear friend Mr. Goldie, the _etubom akamba_, the "big master." Here she lived more plainly than ever, for she needed now to send a larger sum of money in order to keep the home in Devonshire. But she had not long to do this loving service, for first her mother, and then her sister, died. All the rest of the family of seven had now passed away, and Ma was alone in the world. She never quite got over her grief and her longing for them all, and to the end of her life was dreaming a sweet dream of the time when she would meet them again in heaven. With no home-hearts to love she began to lavish her affection on the black children, and was specially fond of Janie, who trotted at her side all day and slept in her bed at night. She was a lively thing, full of fun and tricks, and it was curious that the people should be so afraid of her. They would not touch her even if Ma was there. One day a man came to the Mission House who said he was her father. "Then," said Ma, "you will come and see her." "Oh, no," he replied, with fear in his eyes, "I could not." Ma looked at him with scorn. "What harm can a wee girlie do you?" she asked. "Come along." "Well, I'll look from a distance." "Hoots," she cried, and seizing him by the arm dragged him close to the child, who was alarmed and clung to Ma. "My lassie, this is your father, give him a hug." The child put her arms round the man's neck and he did not mind, and indeed his fierce face grew soft, and he sat down and took her gently on his knee and petted her, and was so delighted with her pretty ways that he would hardly give her up. After that he came often and brought her gifts of food. Thus Ma tried to show the people that there was nothing wrong with twins, and that it was a cruel and senseless thing to kill them. There were other children, both boys and girls, in the home, whom Ma had saved from sickness or death, and these she trained to do housework and bake and go to market, and when their work was done she taught them from their Efik lesson books, and by and by they were able to help her in school and church by looking after all the little things that needed to be done. The oldest was a girl of thirteen, a kind of Cinderella, who was always in the kitchen, but who was very honest and truthful and loved her Ma. Besides these there were always a number of refugees in the yard-rooms outside, a woman, perhaps, who had been ill-used by her masters and had run away, or girls broken in body and mind, who had been brought down from the country to be sold as slaves and whom Ma had rescued, or sick people who came from far distances to get the white woman's medicine to be healed. It was a busy life which Ma lived in and out amongst the huts and villages of the Creek; but she was happy, like all busy people who love their work and are doing good. [Illustration: THE LANDING BEACH AT EKENGE.] CHAPTER III Ma's great adventure: how she went up-river by herself in a canoe and lived in a forest amongst a savage tribe; how she fought their terrible customs and saved many lives; how she built a hut for herself and then a church, and how she took a band of the wild warriors down to the coast and got them to be friends with the people who had always been their sworn enemies. Ma felt that she was not getting to the heart of things. Behind that wall of bush, for hundreds of miles inland, lay a vast region of forest and river into which white men had not yet ventured. It was there that the natives lived almost like wild beasts, and where the most terrible crimes against women and children were done without any one lifting a finger to stop them. It was there that the biggest work for Jesus was to be carried on. "If only I could get amongst these people," she said, "and attack their customs at the root; that is where they must be destroyed." She dreamed of it night and day, and laid her plans. One district lying between two rivers behind Creek Town, called Okoyong, was specially noted for its lawless heathenism. The tribe who lived there was strong, proud, warlike, and had become the terror of the whole country. Every man, woman, and child of them went about armed, and even ate and slept with their guns and swords by their side; they roamed about in bands watching the forest paths, and attacked and captured all whom they met, and sold them as slaves or sent them away to be food for the cannibals. They and the people of the coast were sworn enemies. Ma knew all about them, and was eager to go into their midst to teach them better ways. She pled with the Mission leaders at Duke Town. "I am not afraid," she said; "I am alone now and have nobody to be anxious about me." But the missionaries shook their heads. "No, no, it is too dangerous," they told her. And her friends the traders said, "It is a gun-boat they want, Ma, not a missionary." It was hard for her eager spirit to wait. For fourteen years she had worked in the factory at Dundee, for ten more she had toiled in the towns on the Calabar River, and she was now a grown woman. But God often keeps us at a task far longer than we ourselves think is good for us, for He knows best, and if we are patient to the end He lets us do even more than we had hoped for. So it was with Mary Slessor. She was at last allowed to go. [Illustration: THE OKOYONG DISTRICT.] The Okoyong people, however, would not have her. "We want no missionary, man or woman," they said sullenly. For a whole year messengers went up and down the river, but the tribe remained firm. Then Ma said: "I'll go myself and see them." One hot June day she got the loan of King Eyo's canoe, a hollow tree-trunk twenty feet long, on which there was a little arch of palm leaves to shade her from the sun, and set out up the Calabar River. As she lay back on a pillow she thought how pretty and peaceful the scene was--the calm water gleaming in the light of the sky, the cotton trees and bananas and palms along the banks, the brilliant birds and butterflies flitting about. The only sound was the dip of the paddles and the soft voices of the men singing about their Ma. And then she thought of what might lie before her, of the perils of the forest, and the anger of the blood-thirsty Okoyong, and wondered if she had done right. "We'll have a cup of tea, anyhow," she said to herself, and got out an old paraffin stove, but found that matches had been forgotten. Coming to a farm the canoe swung into a mud-beach, and Ma went ashore, and was happy to find that the owner was a "big" man whom she knew. He gave her some matches, and on they went again. When the tea was ready Ma opened a tin of stewed steak and cut up a loaf of home-made bread. "Boy," she said, "where is the cup?" "No cup, Ma--forgotten." "Bother! now what shall I do?" "I wash out that steak tin, Ma." "Right; if you use what you have you will never want." But alas! the tin slipped out of his hand and sank. Ma was a philosopher. "Ah, well," she said, "it cannot be helped. I'll drink out of the saucer." Ma was really very timid. Just before leaving Devonshire she would not go out on Guy Fawkes' Day, because she shrank from the crowds who were parading the streets; and yet, here she was going alone into an unknown region in Africa to face untamed savages. What made her so courageous was her faith in God. She believed that He wanted her to do this bit of work, and that therefore He would take care of her. She would not carry a weapon of any kind. Even David, when he went out to fight Goliath, had a sling and a stone as well as his faith. Ma was going to fight a much bigger giant, and she took nothing with her but a bright face and a heart full of love and sympathy. She was more like Jesus, who faced His enemies with nothing but the power of His spirit. [Illustration: CANOE BEING MADE OUT OF A TREE-TRUNK.] The paddlers landed her at a strip of beach on the river, and with a fast-beating heart she trudged along the forest path for about four miles until she reached a village called Ekenge. Shouts arose: "Ma has come! Ma has come!" and a crowd rushed forward. To her surprise they seemed pleased to see her. "You are brave to come alone," they said; "that is good." The chief, who was called Edem, was sober, and he would not allow her to go on farther, because the people at the next village were drunk and might harm her. So she stayed the night at Ekenge. "I am not very particular about my bed nowadays," she told a friend, "but as I lay on a few dirty sticks laid across and across and covered with a litter of dirty corn-shells, with plenty of rats and insects, three women and an infant three days old alongside, and over a dozen goats and sheep and cows and countless dogs outside, you don't wonder that I slept little! But I had such a comfortable quiet night in my own heart." Next day all the big men of the district came to see her, and her winsome ways won them over, and they agreed to give her ground for a church and school, and promised that when these were built they would be places of refuge into which hunted people could fly and be safe. She was so happy that she did not mind the rain, which came on and wetted her to the skin as she walked back through the forest to the river. The tide, too, was against the paddlers, so they had to put the canoe into a cove and tie it to a tree for two hours. Ma was cold and shivery, and lay watching the brown crabs fighting in the mud, but she dared not sleep in case a crocodile or snake might make an attack. The men kept very quiet, and sometimes she heard them whisper, "Speak softly and let Ma sleep," or "Don't shake the canoe and wake Ma." When they started again she gradually passed into sleep, and only wakened to see the friendly lamps of Creek Town gleaming like stars through the night. A month or two later she was ready to go and make her home among the Okoyong. The people of Creek Town were alarmed, and tried to make her give up the idea. "Do you think any one will listen to you?" "Do you think they will lay aside their weapons of war for you?" "We shall never see you again." "You are sure to be murdered." Such were some of the things said to her. But she just smiled, and thought how little there was to fear when Jesus was with her. "I am going," she wrote home, "to a new tribe up-country, a fierce, cruel people, and every one tells me they will kill me. But I don't fear any hurt. Only--to combat their savage customs will require courage and firmness on my part." The night before she left she could not sleep for thinking and wondering about all that was before her, and lay listening to the dripping of the rain until daylight. When she heard the negro carriers coming for the packages she rose. It was still wet, and the men were miserable and grumbled and quarrelled amongst themselves until good King Eyo arrived and took them in hand. Seeing how nervous she was he sat down beside her and cheered her up, saying that he would send secret messengers from time to time to find out how she was getting on, and that she was to let him know if ever she needed help. Her courage and smiles came back, and she jumped up, gathered her children together, and walked down to the beach. Amidst the sighs and sobs and farewells of the people she stepped into the canoe. "Good-bye, good-bye," she cried to every one, and the canoe sped into the middle of the stream and was lost in the mist and the rain. [Illustration: "PLUNGED INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE FOREST."] It was night when the landing-beach was reached, and the stars were hidden by rain-clouds. As Ma stepped ashore on the mud-bank and looked into the dark forest and thought of the long journey before her, and the end of it, her heart failed. She might lose her way in that unlit tangle of wood. She would meet wild beasts, the natives might be feasting and drinking and unwilling to receive her. A score of shadowy terrors arose in her imagination. For a moment she wished she could turn back to the safe shelter of her home, but when she thought of Jesus and what He had done for her sake, how He was never afraid, but went forward calm and fearless even to His death on the Cross, she felt ashamed of her weakness, and, calling the children, she plunged stoutly into the black depths of the forest. What a queer procession it was! The biggest boy, eleven years old, went first with a box of bread and tea and sugar on his head, next a laddie of eight with a kettle and pots, then a wee fellow of three sturdily doing his best, but crying as if his heart would break. Janie followed, also sobbing, and lastly the white mother herself carrying Annie, a baby slave-girl, on her shoulder, and singing gaily to cheer the others, but there was often a funny little break in her voice as she heard the scream of the vampire-bat or the stealthy tread and growling of wild animals close at hand. Brushing against dripping branches, stumbling in the black and slippery mud, tired and hungry and wretched, they made their way to Ekenge. When they arrived all was quiet, and no one greeted them. "Strange," said Ma to herself, for a village welcome is always a noisy one. She shouted, and two slaves appeared. "Where is the chief? Where are the people?" she asked. "Gone to the death-feast at Ifako, the next village, Ma." "Then bring me some fire and water." She made tea for the children, undressed them, huddled them naked in a corner to sleep, and sat down in her wet things to wait for the carriers, who were bringing the boxes with food and dry clothes. A messenger arrived, but it was to tell her that the men were too worn out to carry anything that night. She jumped to her feet, and, bareheaded and barefooted, dived into the forest to return to the river. She had not gone far when she heard the pitter-patter of feet. She stopped. "Ma! Ma!" a voice cried. It was the messenger. He loved Ma, and, unhappy at the thought of her tramping along that lonesome trail, he had followed her to keep her company. Together they ran, now tripping and falling, now dashing into a tree, now standing still trembling, as they heard some rushing sound or weird cry. When she came to the beach she waded out to the canoe, lifted the covering, and roused the sleeping natives. They grumbled a good deal, but even these big rough men could not withstand Ma's coaxing, masterful ways, and they had soon the boxes on their heads and were marching merrily in single file along the wet and dark path to Ekenge. She made them put the packages into the hut which Edem, the chief, had allotted to her, a small, dirty place with mud walls, no window, and only an open space for a door. When everything was piled up inside there was hardly room for herself and the children, but she lay down on the boxes, and as it was after midnight, and she was weary and foot-sore, she soon fell into a deep sleep. [Illustration: MA EME ETE.] When the chief and his followers came back from the revels at Ifako they welcomed Ma, for it was an honour for a white woman to live in their midst. But they had no idea of changing their ways of life for her, and went on day and night drinking rum and gin, dancing, and making sacrifices to their jujus or gods. Sometimes the din was so great that Ma never got a wink of sleep. The yard was full of half-naked slave-women, who were always scolding and quarrelling. Some were wicked and hateful, and did not want such a good white Ma to be with them, and tried to force her to leave. But there was one who was kind to her, Eme Ete, a sister of the chief, who had a sad story. One day she told it to Ma. She had been married to a chief who had not treated her well. When he died his followers put the blame on his wives, and they were seized and brought to trial. It was an odd way they had of testing guilt or innocence. As each wife stepped forward the head of a fowl was cut off, and the people watched to see how the body fell. If it lay in a certain way she was innocent; if in another way, she was guilty! How Eme Ete trembled when her turn came! When she knew she was safe she fainted. Eme Ete was big in body and big in heart. To Ma she showed herself gentle and refined, and acted towards her as a white lady would, caring for her comfort, watching over her safety, going to her meetings, and helping her in her work. They grew to be like sisters. Yet Eme Ete was always a little bit of a mystery to Ma. She wanted the people to change their old ways, but she herself would not, and went on with her bush-worship and sacrifices, and never became a Christian. But of all the native women Ma ever met, there was none she loved so well as this motherly heathen soul. In the yard there were also many boys and girls. Ma was fond of children, but these ones were not nice: they stole and lied and made themselves a trouble to everybody. "Oh, dear," she sighed, "what can I do with such bairns?" But she remembered what her Master said, "Suffer little children to come unto Me and forbid them not"; and she gathered them about her, took the wee ones in her arms and nursed them, made clothes for their bodies, and taught them what it was to be clean and sweet and good. When the sick babies died she would not let the people throw them away into the bush, as they usually did, but put them into little boxes on which she laid some flowers, and buried them in a piece of ground that she chose for a cemetery. "Why, Ma," said the natives in wonder, "what is a dead child? You can have hundreds of them." None of the children could read or write, nor, indeed, could any of the older people, and so Ma started schools, which she held in the open air in the shade of the forest trees. At first everybody came, even the grey-headed men and women, and learned A B C in Efik and sang the hymns that Ma taught them. The beautiful birds which flew above their heads must have wondered, for they had only been accustomed to the wild chant of war-songs. And at night the twinkling stars must have twinkled harder when they looked down and saw, not a crowd of people drinking and fighting, but a quiet company, and a white woman standing talking to them in grave sweet tones about holy things. But when Ma spoke about their bad customs they would not listen. "Ma," they would say, "we like you and we want to learn book and wear clothes, but we don't want to put away our old fashions." "Well," replied Ma patiently, "we shall see." And so the battle began. The first time she failed, because she did not know what was happening. A lad had been accused of some fault, and she saw him standing, girt with chains, holding out his arms before a pot of boiling oil. A man took a ladle and dipped it into the burning stuff, which he began to pour over the boy's hands. Ma sprang forward, but was too late; the boy screamed and rolled on the ground in agony. She was very angry, especially when they told her the meaning of the thing. It was a test to show whether the boy was innocent or guilty of the charge brought against him. If he had not been guilty, they said, he would not have suffered. "Oh, you stupid creatures," cried Ma. "Everybody will suffer if you do that to them. Let me try it on you," she said to the man with the ladle, but he rushed off amidst the laughter of the crowd. Next time she did better. A slave was blamed for using witchcraft, and condemned to die. Ma knew he was innocent, and went and stood beside him in front of the armed warriors of the chief, and said: "This man has done no wrong. You must not put him to death." "Ho, ho," they cried, "that is not good speaking. We have said he shall die, and he must die." "No, no; listen," and she tried to reason with them, but they came round her waving their swords and guns, and shouting at the pitch of their voices. She stood in the midst of them as she had stood in the midst of the Dundee roughs, pale, but calm and unafraid. The more angry and excited and threatening they grew the cooler she became. Perhaps it was her wonderful courage which did not fail her even when the swords were flashing about her head, perhaps it was the strange light that shone in her face that awed and quietened them, but the confusion died down and ceased. Then the chiefs agreed for her sake not to kill the man, but they put heavy chains upon his arms and legs, and starved and flogged him until he was a mass of bleeding flesh. Ma felt she had not done much, but it was a beginning. People at a distance heard of her, and one day messengers came from a township many miles away to ask her to visit their chief, who was believed to be dying. "And what will happen if he dies?" asked Ma. "All his wives and slaves will be killed," was the prompt reply. "Then I will come at once," she said. "Ma," put in Chief Edem, "you must not go. They are cruel people and may do you hurt. Then see the rain; all the rivers will be flowing and you cannot cross." But Ma thought of the women who might be murdered, and she went. The rain poured down, and as she fought her way for eight hours through the forest her clothes became soaked and torn, and she threw most of them off and left them. As she trudged with bare head and bare feet through the villages on the way, she looked very ragged and forlorn, and the people gazed at her in wonder. When she reached the township she found the men armed and ready to begin the slaughter, and the women sad and afraid. Although she was wet and cold and feverish she went straight to the hut of the sick chief and nursed him, and gradually brought him back to health, so that there was no more thought of sacrifice and blood. [Illustration: CHIEF EDEM.] Her next trouble was in her own yard. Edem, her chief, was kind to her, but he was also under the power of the old bad ideas and believed in the witch-doctors, cunning fellows who pretended to know the cause of sickness and how to cure it. Falling ill he called in one of these medicine-men, who declared that an enemy had placed a number of things in his body, and made believe to take them out. When Ma came Edem held them up--cartridges, powder, teeth, bones, eggshells, and seeds--and said, "Ma, a dreadful battle has been going on during the night. See what wicked persons have done to me." Her heart sank: she knew what would follow. Sure enough, a number of men and women were seized and chained to posts and condemned to die. Ma set herself to save them. She begged and coaxed the sick man so much on their behalf that at last she wearied him, and he got his followers to carry him secretly away to one of his farms. Ma could only pray, and she prayed that he might get better. By and by strength did return, and the prisoners were released, only one woman being put to death. No sooner was this trial ended than a worse came. A chief whom Ma feared, a very cruel and blood-thirsty man, paid a visit to Edem. He and his followers did nothing but drink, and soon they were mad with the fiery liquor, and the whole village was in a violent uproar. Ma bravely went into the midst of the mob and sought to calm them. She saw that the best thing to do was to get the visitors away, and she hurried them off as quickly as possible, going with them herself in order to prevent bloodshed on the way, for they wanted to fight every one they met. In the forest path they saw some withered plants and leaves on the ground. "Sorcery," they yelled, and fled back in a panic--they thought these things had magic in them and were meant to do them harm. "Let us go to the last village and kill every one in it," they shouted; "they have tried to bewitch us." And they rushed pell-mell along the path flourishing their swords and shouting their terrible war-cries. Ma prayed for swiftness, and ran until she came in front of them, and then, turning, she threw out her arms and breathlessly dared them to pass. It seemed a mad thing to do, but again that something in her face made them stop. They argued with her and then they obeyed her, and went forward by another path. But they began to dance and caper and fight each other, until Ma, with the help of some of the soberer ones, tied the worst to the trees. The others went on, and she did not leave them until they were safe in their own district. On the way back she unloosed the drunken prisoners, who were now in a raging temper, and sent them home with their hands fastened behind their backs. But that was not the end. Next day the cruel chief went to the village that was blamed for laying the things on the path, and although it did not belong to him, but to Edem, he made the people take ordeals, and carried away a young man in handcuffs to put him to death. Ma hastened to the chief. He was rude and rough, and laughed at her, but she tried not to mind, and begged hard for the lad's life. When she returned she found that Edem was getting ready to fight, and she prayed earnestly that the heart of the cruel chief might be softened. It was softened, for news came that the prisoner had been sent home, and so there was peace and not war. Ma began to wonder how long she would be able to live in the midst of such sin and dirt. She had hung a door at the opening of her mud-room, and made a hole in the wall for a window and curtained it with pieces of cloth, but the place was so small that at night she had to lift her boxes outside in order to give herself and the children room to sleep. It was overrun with rats and lizards and beetles and all sorts of biting insects. She could not get away from the squabbling and bad language and rioting of the wives and slaves, and was often tired and ill. It was the thought of Jesus that gave her patience and courage. She remembered how He had left His home above the stars and dwelt on earth amongst men who were unlovely and wicked and cruel, and how He never grumbled or gave in, though life to Him was often bitter and hard. "Shall I not follow my Master," she said, "because my way is not easy and not nice? Yes, I will be His true disciple and be strong and brave." She was longing to be alone sometimes to read her Bible and think and pray in quiet, and one day she started to build a little hut of her own some distance away from the others. First she fixed stout tree-trunks in the ground, and on the tops of these, cross-wise, she laid other pieces. Sticks were then placed between the uprights, and strips of bamboo, beaten until soft, were fastened in and out, just as the threads had been woven in the loom of the Dundee factory. This was the skeleton of the hut, and when Ma looked at it she clapped her hands with delight. "It's like playing a game," she said to the children. The walls were next made by throwing in large lumps of red clay between the sticks. When the clay was dry the surface was rubbed smooth, and then mats of palm leaves were laid on the top and tied down to form the roof. "Now for the furniture," she said. With kneaded lumps of clay she built up a fireplace, and moulded a seat beside it where the cook could sit, then made a sideboard, in which holes were scooped out for cups and bowls and plates, and a long couch, which she meant for herself. All these were beaten hard and polished and darkened with a native dye. The flitting was great fun to the children. So many of the pots and pans and jars were hung on bits of wood on the posts outside that Ma declared the house was like one of the travelling caravans she used to see in Scotland; and so she called it "The Caravan." When everything was finished she stood and looked at it with a twinkle in her eye. "Be it ever so humble," she said gaily, "there's no place like home!" Then they sat down to a merry meal. What did it matter if there was only one dish and no spoons or forks? There was no happier family in all the land that night. Ma was now able to read her Bible in peace and pray to God in quietness and comfort. But outside she had still the goats and fowls and rats and the insects and even the wild things of the forest, and sometimes they came in. One morning when she awoke, she saw on her bed a curious thing, and found that it was the skin of a snake that had stolen in during the night and shed its old clothes as these reptiles sometimes do. So she began to dream of a bigger house with an upstairs, where she could be safer. But first there must be a church. The chief and free men and women helped, and by and by there rose a long roomy shed, complete, except for a door and windows. What a day it was when it was set apart and used for the worship of God--the first church in wild Okoyong! Ma told the people that they could not come to God's house except with clean bodies and clean hearts. Few of them had clean clothes, or clothes at all, and the children never wore any. But Ma had been receiving boxes from Sunday Schools and work-parties in Scotland, and out of these she dressed the women and little ones in pinafores of all colours. How proud and happy they were! But the excitement died into quietness and reverence when they went inside the building, and an awe fell upon them as Ma explained what a church meant, and that God was in their midst. The chiefs rose and said that they would respect the building, that no weapon of war would ever be brought into it, and that all their quarrels would be left outside; and they promised to send their followers to the services and their children to the schools. But like some better people at home these wayward savages could not be good for long. They went back to their evil doings, and were soon away raiding and fighting, leaving only a few women and the children in the village. It was the rum and gin that caused most of the mischief. Every one drank, and often Ma went to bed knowing that there was not one sober person for miles around. The horrible stuff came up from the coast, having been shipped overseas from Christian countries. Ma never ceased to wonder how white men could seek to ruin native people for the sake of money. It made her very angry, and she fought the trade with all her power. "Do you know," she said one day to her chief, "you drink because you have not enough work? We have a rhyme in our country which says, Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do. Why don't you trade with Calabar?" He grinned. "We do trade with Calabar," he said; "we trade in heads." "Well, you must trade in palm oil and food instead. And first you must make peace." "We can't do that, Ma, because Calabar won't come to Okoyong." "Of course not, because they are afraid, and rightly too. Well, if they won't come to you, you must go to them." "But, Ma, we would never come back." "Tuts! I will go with you." She made them go to the river and get a large canoe and fill it with yams and plantains (these were gifts for the Calabar people), and with bags of palm nuts and a barrel of oil (these were to begin trading with). But they knew little about boats, and they loaded it so high that it sank. Another was got, and all was ready, when some of the chiefs drew back and said they would only go if Ma allowed them to take their guns and swords. "No, no," she said, "that would be foolish. We are going in peace and not in war." "Ma, you make women of us! No man goes to a strange place without arms." But she would not yield, and they started. Suddenly she caught sight of some swords hidden under the bags of nuts, and, stooping, she seized them and pitched them out on the bank. "Go on," she cried, and the canoe swept down the river. King Eyo received the trembling chiefs like a Christian gentleman, spoke to them kindly, and showed them over his large house. There was a palaver, and all quarrels between the two peoples were made up, and all evil thoughts of one another vanished, and the men from Okoyong went back astonished and joyful. They began to trade with the coast, and so busy did they become in their fields growing food and making palm oil that they had less time for drinking and fighting, and grew more sober and prosperous. They were very grateful to Ma. "We are not treating her well," they said to one another. "We must build her a better house." [Illustration: MA'S TINY COMPASS.] And they began to erect a large one with upstairs rooms and a verandah, but they could not manage the woodwork. Ma begged the Mission authorities to send up a carpenter to put in the doors and windows, and by and by one came from Scotland, named Mr. Ovens, and appeared at Ekenge with his tools and Tom, a native apprentice, and set to work. Mr. Ovens was bright and cheery, and had a laugh that made everybody else want to laugh; and he made so light of the hard life he had to live that Ma praised God for sending him. Like herself, he spoke the dear Scots tongue, and at night he sang the plaintive songs of their native land until she was ready to echo the words of Tom, "Master, I don't like these songs, they make my heart big and my eyes water." [Illustration: JUDGE SLESSOR IN COURT.] CHAPTER IV Stories of how Ma kept an armed mob at bay and saved the lives of a number of men and women; how in answer to a secret warning she tramped a long distance in the dark to stop a war; how she slept by a camp-fire in the heart of the forest, and how she became a British Consul and ruled Okoyong like a Queen. A low wailing cry, with a note of terror in it, drifted out of the forest into the sunshine of the clearing where Ma was sitting watching the work on the new house. She leapt to her feet, and listened with a far-away look on her face. Next moment she sprang in amongst the trees and disappeared. Mr. Ovens saw that the natives about him were uneasy, and when a messenger came running up and said, "You have to go to Ma and take medicine for an accident," they burst into loud lamentations. On reaching the spot he found that Etim, the son of the chief, a lad about twenty years of age, had been caught by a log which he had been handling, and struck senseless to the ground. "This is not good for us," Ma said, shaking her head. "The people believe that accidents are caused by witchcraft, the witch-doctor will be called in to smell out the guilty ones, and many will suffer." They carried the lad home, and she nursed him day and night, but life ebbed away; and one Sunday morning when all was quiet and beautiful, she heard again that strange wailing sound which told of peril and death. She rushed to the scene. The men were blowing smoke from a lighted palm leaf into the lad's nose, rubbing pepper into his eyes, and shouting into his ears to keep back the spirit. "Silly babies," she could not help saying to herself. "He is dead," cried the chief, and giving the body to Ma he shouted in a terrible voice: "He has been killed by sorcerers, and they must die! Where is the witch-doctor?" The witch-doctor came, an evil-looking man with cunning eyes, and after humming and hawing he blamed the people in a village near the spot where the accident happened. "Off! seize them!" called the chief to his freemen. But a swift foot had secretly carried a warning to the village, and Chief Akpo and his followers had fled. Only a dozen men, and some women and babies who could not run, were captured, and they were loaded with chains and brought to Ekenge and imprisoned in a yard. Ma felt that this was a big affair, and perhaps the turning-point in her life amongst the Okoyong. "If these people are killed," she said, "all my work will be undone. I must prevent it at any cost." And first she went away by herself and knelt down and prayed, and then came back calm and strong. She knew what the natives liked, and hoping to please and soften Edem, she said to him, "I am going to honour your son." From her boxes she brought out fine silk cloth of many colours, shirts and vests and other clothes, and put them on the dead body. The head was shaved and painted yellow, and upon it was wound a turban, and above that a black and scarlet hat with plumes of feathers, and an umbrella. To one hand was tied a stick, and to the other a whip. Last of all a mirror was placed in front of the dead eyes, because the people believed the spirit would see what had been done and be glad. There he sat, the lifeless boy, with all his finery, a sad queer sight. When the people came in they yelled with delight, and danced and called for rum to make merry. Barrel after barrel was brought and emptied, and they began to grow wild, leaping about with swords and guns, and singing their weird tribal songs. "Humph!" said Ma, "my cure seems to be as bad as the disease. Still, they have forgotten the prisoners." These were chained to posts, and expected every minute to have their heads chopped off. They were all very miserable. The babies were crying, and there was a girl of fifteen who clung weeping to her mother, and ran up to any one who came, saying piteously, "Oh, I'll be a slave for life if only you will spare my mother." Ma turned to Mr. Ovens. "We must not leave these poor creatures. You will watch by day, and I will watch by night, and we may save them yet." So time and time about these two sat on guard. They had no weapons, they were alone in the midst of a drunken mob, and yet they had no fear, for they trusted God and believed that He would take care of them. Because they were there, Edem and his brother chiefs did not touch the prisoners. Some days passed. Then one afternoon Ma saw little brown objects lying on a stone. "Eseré beans!" she exclaimed in alarm. These beans grow on a wild vine, and are very poisonous. She knew they were to be crushed and put in water, and given to the prisoners with the idea of finding out who was guilty of the death of Etim. Of course all who drank the water would die, and the people would believe that justice had been done. That was the only kind of justice they knew. [Illustration: THE ESERÉ BEAN.] Ma sought out the chiefs and told them they must not do this wicked thing, and when they put her aside she followed them about and begged and worried them until they became angry. "Let us alone," they cried. "What does it matter? Your God will not let the innocent die." Their followers grew excited, and some of them lost control of themselves and hustled Ma and threatened her. "Make the dead live," they snarled, "and we shall give you the prisoners." Ma's reply was to sit down and look at them with stern eyes. "I will not move from here," she said firmly, "until you set all these poor people free." It was night. Stealthy steps came into the yard. In the darkness Ma saw two men take away one of the mothers. She looked at the woman going to her death, and at the others, who pled with her to remain, for they feared this was a trick to get her away. What should she do? Praying and hoping that she was right, she ran after the mother, and was just in time, for the woman was raising the poisoned water to her lips. "Don't," cried Ma, and giving her a push she said, "Run." In an instant both jumped into the bush and made for Ma's hut. "Quick," Ma cried to Mr. Ovens, "hide this woman." He drew her in and piled up boxes against the door, and Ma ran swiftly back to the yard, where, to her joy, she found the other prisoners still safe. The warriors had been so astonished at what she had done that they had forgotten all about them. Through more weary and exciting days the struggle went on. The chiefs at last said gloomily, "We will set some of the prisoners free and see if Ma will be satisfied." After giving a number a terrible native oath, and making them swear they were not guilty, they handed them over to Ma. "Now," said the freeman, "we will kill the others." "No," said Ma, and dared them to do such a dreadful thing. They stormed and raged at her. "We shall burn down the house and yard." "All right," she retorted. "They are not mine." More prisoners were released, and only three were left. Eme Ete came and knelt before her brother and begged him to set free one of them, a weak and timid creature, and this was done. A man and woman now remained, and Ma was resolved to save both. After a bitter struggle they let the man go, but nothing would make them give up the woman. She was doomed to death. One afternoon Ma was secretly told that the funeral and the murder were to take place that night, and she was sick at heart. But when darkness fell, unknown hands--were they the hands of Eme Ete?--cut the chains that bound the victim to the post, and with her leg irons on she crawled over the roof and found a refuge in Ma's room, from which, later, she fled to the freedom of the bush. So the funeral of the young chief took place, but only a cow was killed and put into the coffin. No human blood was shed. It was the first time in the history of the tribe that such a wonderful thing had happened, and it was due to Ma's heroism and faith. Two of the parties who went to the funeral met in the forest and quarrelled, and a man's head was cut off. War was declared, and there was much fighting before Ma got them to stop and settle the matter by palaver. "Blood for blood," was the verdict; "the murderer must die." It was a custom of the natives that another could suffer in the place of one who was condemned. This man's friends offered his youngest brother, a little child, but the judge would not have him. Then a bigger brother was sent, and accepted. Before he could be killed, however, he escaped. One day Ma heard the sound of singing and joy-guns, and was told that he had been found and put to a cruel death before the eyes of his mother and sister. A day or two afterwards loud screams filled the air. Ma rushed out and saw the women and children fleeing towards her yard. "Egbo! Egbo!" they cried. She listened, and heard the throb-throbbing of a drum. Egbo was a more dreadful thing in Okoyong than in Calabar, for there was no law against it. The men were dressed in leopards' skins and wore hideous masks, and carried long whips with which they flogged all whom they caught, and often killed them. Soon the village was filled with the queer figures, and shots were being fired. The women in the yard trembled in terror, and Ma prayed. By and by the noise died away, and on looking out she found that all had gone. Only one village had been destroyed. In revenge Edem armed his men, and they went after them, and shot down every straggler they came across. Then arose another trouble. The brother of Edem, called Ekpenyong, was accused of slaying the dead lad Etim, and after drinking heavily he said he would take the poison ordeal to prove his innocence. When Ma arrived at his yard the women were clinging to him and trying to seize a bag which he held, and he was striking them fiercely. "He has the beans in the bag, Ma," they cried. She walked through the line of armed men who stood by. "Give me the bag," she said quietly to the chief. "No, Ma, there are only palm nuts and cartridges in it," he mumbled. "Give it to me." He threw it at her feet. She looked in and saw palm nuts and cartridges. Had he spoken the truth? But deep at the bottom she came upon two-score of the poison beans. "I'll keep these," she told him. "You will not! They are mine." "Give them back," shouted the warriors. Ma's heart beat wildly, but she walked down the ranks of the men, saying, "Here they are, take them." They were so amazed at her courage that they let her pass, and she went and hid the beans in her house. During the night Ekpenyong stole off to find more beans. Eme Ete sent Ma a secret message, and she rose and followed him, and coaxed him to take the native oath instead of the ordeal. After all these wild doings the people came back to a better mind, and began to realise how brave and good Ma was; and at night, when she was alone with her bairns, they slipped in, one by one, and called her their great white mother, and thanked her with tears for all her love and devotion. [Illustration: A CHIEF AND HIS CHILDREN.] Edem, too, was softened, and the thought of vengeance left his heart. Ma prevailed upon him to allow the chief who had run away to return. Poor Akpo! His village had been burnt to the ground, and all his goats and fowls and goods were lost. But Edem gave him a new piece of land, and seed for food plants. "Ah, Chief," said Ma, "that is the right way; that is the Jesus way." "Thank you, Ma." And he, too, came and knelt before her, and held her feet and poured out his gratitude for all she had done. "Go on, Ma," he said, "and teach us to do away with the bad old bush fashions. We are weary of them, they bind us like chains, and we need you to help us." These words thrilled Ma with happiness, and were a reward for all she had come through; but they made her humble too, for she knew that unless God had been with her she would not have borne up so long. Now that she was surer of herself and of that wondrous Power behind her, she grew bolder still, and went wherever trouble threatened. No place was too far for her to reach. Natives in distant parts were often surprised to see her walking into their midst when they were starting to fight. Once a secret message came, saying that two tribes, many miles away, were on the warpath. Ma was ill and weak and in bed, but she rose at once. Edem said, "Ma, you are going into a wild beast's den, and will not come out alive." Night fell as she was tramping along, and she was always nervous of the darkness and the mystery of the forest. The animals frightened her. "I prayed," she said, "that God would shut their mouths, and He did." At midnight she reached a village where she hoped to borrow a drum and a freeman to beat it before her as she marched, a sign that one under the protection of Egbo was coming. But the chief, a surly despot, would not see her, and would not give her the drum. "If there is a war," his message said, "a woman is not likely to stop it." Back went her reply. "You think only of the woman. You have forgotten the woman's God. I go without a drum." On she went, and came at last to one of the villages where the trouble was brewing. All was silent and still. Suddenly, out of the darkness swarmed armed men and closed around her and demanded her business. "I have come to stop the war." They jeered at her, such a small, feeble woman, and smiled grimly. "You won't do that," they said. "We shall see. I want to have a palaver and hear the story." "All right, Ma," they replied, humouring her. "Go to sleep until second cock-crow and we shall wake you up and take you with us." But when she was awakened the band were already away on their errand of death. "Run, Ma, run and stop them!" cried the women, who feared what would happen; and she rushed breathlessly up and down steep tracks and through streams until she caught up with the warriors, who were making ready to attack and uttering their wild war whoops. She walked into their midst. "Don't go on like beardless boys," she said in scorn. "Be quiet." Then she went on until she came upon the enemy drawn up in line across the path. "I salute you," said she. There was no reply. Why was this white woman interfering with them at such a moment? "Oho! I see you are gentlemen and have nice manners." They frowned. Things were looking dangerous, but Ma was never at a loss, and she began to smile and joke. Then stepped forward an old man and came and knelt at her feet. "Ma, you know me? You remember you nursed and healed me?" It was the sick chief she had gone to see after she arrived at Ekenge. "Ma," he went on, "we confess that this quarrel is the fault of one of our foolish men, and it is a shame to bring evil on the whole town for one. We beg you to make peace." Ma's heart thrilled with joy, and soon she had a number of men from each side talking over the matter. Often it seemed as if war must come after all, and it needed all her patience to make them agree, but at last it was decided that a fine should be imposed. To her horror this was paid at once in gin, and every one began to drink. She knew they would soon get violent and fight after all, and was almost in despair. But taking off nearly all her clothes, she spread them over the boxes and bottles and dared any one to touch them. Only one glass would she give to each of the head men. So disappointed were the others that they surged round her in anger, but some of the older and wiser men obtained whips and made themselves into a bodyguard to protect her. "If all of you go to your homes and don't fight," she said, "I'll promise to send the stuff after you." They believed her, and trooped away like children. It was night again when, worn out in body and mind, she tramped back through the dark and lonely forest, with crickets whistling and frogs croaking around her, and the little lamps of the fireflies pulsing in and out like the flashes of a lighthouse. But there was a light in her own face that even the fireflies could not outshine. Two years passed, two years of toil and hardship and strain. In the heat and rain, by day and night, Ma was never idle. If she was not tramping through the forest and putting down the customs of the people, she was busy with work about her own door, helping the women to sew and cook, teaching the children in school, preaching on week-days and Sundays, and doctoring all who were ill. It was a marvel she kept at it so long. Perhaps it was because she had such a happy spirit, saw the funny side of things, and laughed at her troubles. She was always ready with a joke, even when lying ill in bed, and missionaries who went to see her usually found her as lively as a girl. At this time she lived in a way that would have killed any other white person. She did not wear a hat or boots or stockings; she went about thinly clad; she ate the coarse food of the natives; and although she was careful about the water she drank she did not filter or boil it, as all white people have to do in the Tropics. It made life simpler and easier, she said, not to bother about such things. How she did it no one knew; the secret lay between her and God. Even she, however, gave in at last. She became so ill that she was taken to Duke Town a wreck and carried on board the steamer and sent home. Janie again went with her, a woolly-headed lassie with velvet skin, and eyes that were always ready to laugh. She was beginning now to think that it would be a fine thing to be a white girl. One night, in a house in Glasgow when she was being bathed, she took the sponge and began to scrub the soles of her feet, which were whiter than the rest of her body. "Why are you doing that, Janie?" she was asked. "Oh, because the white place is getting bigger, and if I scrub perhaps I'll be all white some day!" At this time Ma was dreaming another of her dreams. She wanted to see a place in Calabar where black boys could learn to use their hands as well as their heads, and so be able to become good workmen and teachers, and help to build up their country and make it rich and prosperous. She wrote a long letter to the Church magazine telling about her idea, and it was thought to be so good that the Church did what she asked it to do, and started a school which has grown into the great Hope-Waddell Training Institution, where boys are being taught all sorts of things. Made strong by the home air and the love of new and kind friends, Ma fared forth again to her lonely outpost in the African backwoods. The people of Ekenge were glad to see their white mother back, and confessed that they did not seem able to do without her. They came to her like children with all their troubles and sorrows, and she listened to their stories and advised and comforted them. When they quarrelled they said, "Let us go to Ma," and she heard both sides and told them who was wrong and who was right, and they always went away content. She needed no longer to go to any of the villages round about when a chief died. She just sent a message that there must be no killing. There was a great uproar, but back always came the reply, "We have heard. Our mother has made up her mind. We will obey." They did not know that Ma all the time was in her room kneeling and praying to God. Some mourned over the old ways. "Ah, Ma," they sighed, "you have spoilt all our good fashions. We used to take our people with us when we went to the spirit land; now we must go alone." But she had still to be on the alert, for many of the tribes at a distance from Ekenge had not yet given up their dark practices, and whenever they were bent on anything wicked they plunged deep into the heart of the forest to escape her eyes. One day she heard that a chief had died, and was guided to one of these hidden spots, where she found his free men giving the poison ordeal to a number of prisoners. They thought she would grow tired and go away if they simply sat and waited, but days and nights passed and she remained with them, sleeping on the ground beside a fire. Of the armed men lying around her she was not afraid, but only of the wild beasts that might come creeping up through the darkness and leap upon her. It was not she who became wearied and hungry, but the men themselves, and by and by the prisoners were set free. Eme Ete helped her most. It was she who told her when wrong-doing was being plotted. In the swift way that only natives know about, Eme Ete received news of it. Calling a trusty messenger she gave him a special kind of bottle. "Take that to Ma and ask her to fill it with ibok (medicine)--go quick!" When the messenger arrived at the Mission House and Ma saw the bottle, she knew what it meant. It said to her, "Be ready!" and she would not undress until she heard the cry, "Run, Ma, run!" Once she lay down to rest in her clothes for a whole month before word came, and then she saved the life of a man. Sometimes a quarrel arose so quickly, and the call was so sudden, that she was not ready to go, and so she took a large sheet of paper and wrote anything on it that came to her mind, and after splashing some sealing-wax on it to make it look important, she sent it off by a swift runner. None of the fighting men could read, and by the time they had fingered it and talked over it Ma appeared. She liked best, however, to appeal to the good side of the chiefs, and get them to meet and reason and settle their affairs themselves. She called it the Jesus way; they called it the God-woman way; learned men would call it "the art of self-government." On page 89 a picture is given of one of these palavers. It was in a green glade in the forest four miles away. The chiefs of the two tribes, who sat opposite each other under coloured umbrellas, were dressed in gorgeous clothes and ringed round by armed men. Ma took her place between them and began to knit, for the natives love to talk, and she knew the palaver would be a long one. Besides, she never felt quite so nervous when she knitted. First one spoke and then another, and the long hours passed, and Ma's back began to ache, but still the talking went on, and the excitement rose to fever-heat. Darkness fell with a rush, and torches were lit and threw a weird light on the scene. "Enough!" cried Ma. "Come, let us end." An old chief went over all that had been said, and Ma gave the verdict, which pleased both sides. Then, as was the custom, a warrior from each party stood forward, blood was drawn from their hands and mixed with salt and pepper and corn; and half being given to one man and half to the other, they swallowed their portions at the same moment. This was the terrible blood covenant sealing the peace between tribes, and none ever dared to break it. The sitting had lasted ten hours, and Ma was tired and hungry, but she walked back in the moonlight feeling very happy. So with a love that never wearied, with a patience that never gave in, with a humour that never failed, Ma gradually put down the evil order of things far and near. Year by year she grew in power, and from her house ruled over thousands of people. She was really the Queen of Okoyong. This was a marvellous thing, for at that time all the country belonged to chiefs, and they could do as they liked. By and by a change came, and Britain took charge of the land and placed Consuls in the various districts. When Ma heard of it, she said: "You mustn't send one here. If you do there will be trouble, for my people are proud and fierce, and will fight." "Well, Miss Slessor," the Government replied, "you know them best. Why not do the work yourself?" And she did. She became what Dr. Livingstone had been. He always wore a blue cap with a gold band to show that he was a British Consul. Ma did not wear a hat, but she acted as a Consul, started a native court, and, like Deborah of old, judged the people and guided them about the new laws that were put into force. It was the first time in the history of our Empire that a woman had done such things. The result was all for good. Wild and lawless as the people were, they obeyed Ma, and so the rule of Britain over them began in peace. Ma always bore herself with queenly dignity, but she was really very humble. She only did the work because she thought it was what Jesus wanted her to do. "I am only a poor weak woman," she said, "and not a Queen at all." The officials of the Government knew better; when they went to visit her they were amazed at the power she held over the people, and the deep respect and admiration they felt for her. "She is a miracle," they exclaimed, "this white Queen of Okoyong." [Illustration: AT A PALAVER.] [Illustration: SOME OKOYONG BAIRNS.] CHAPTER V Ma's great love for children; her rescue of outcast twins from death; the story of little Susie, the pet of the household; and something about a new kind of birthday that came oftener than once a year. Ma's house at Ekenge was always like a big nursery. Mothers are much the same all over the world, but in Africa they are very ignorant and thoughtless, and do not know how to care for their children, while they believe so much in the strange customs of the country that things are done to the little ones which seem to us hard-hearted and cruel. It was worse in Ma's days, when most of the people were still slaves. She was always sorriest for the babies, they were so helpless, and the only times she was really angry were when she saw them neglected or starved or made drunk. Then she was like a tigress, and the people fled before her. "Poor wee helpless things," she would say as she picked them up and thought of the way the white babies at home were cared for. She saw in the tiniest babe one for whom Jesus died; and she loved them all, and washed them and nursed them, and sang to them day and night. There was no cradle in the Mission House, but something better. Ma's bed was in the middle of the room, and around it were hammocks slung to the roof, from each of which a cord was hung. In these were placed the babies, and if any one became wakeful during the night and cried, she would pull the string and set its hammock swinging, and soon the little one was slumbering again. Sometimes she had to look after half a dozen or more at once, and two or three hammocks would be going at the same time. With many she had a hard struggle, but never grudged any trouble to make them well. She would come home late after a long day's tramp in the forest, tired and hungry and sleepy, and send Janie to bed and stay up herself and tend the sick and suffering ones. You can fancy her there alone in the mud-house in the forest in the quiet hours of the night, bending over a wasted form, watching the pain in its eyes with tears in her own, giving it medicine, soothing it, and seeking to make it comfy, and beside her the pale dark shape of Death, with its grim smile, waiting for another victim. Ma sometimes won the child from the grave; sometimes she failed, and then she was very sad. But she could not help it. The people believed that sickness was caused by evil spirits, and most of the children that came to her were already dying and beyond her love and skill. When they closed their eyes she dressed them in a pinafore and put them in a box covered with white flowers, and buried them in her children's cemetery. Some women who called at Ma's yard were gossiping about the day's marketing, when one said it was funny that a baby should live after being five days and six nights in the bush. "What's that?" demanded Ma. "What do you mean?" "Nothing, Ma. The girl baby that was thrown away because the mother is dead is still alive, for we heard her crying as we came along this morning." Ma jumped up and went flying to the spot. She found the waif on some waste ground, terribly thin and eaten by insects and crying feebly. Taking her home Ma laid her in a big calabash and brooded over her with tender care, and by and by she recovered, and became healthy and pretty. "The child of wonder," the people called her; but Ma named her Mary, after herself, and she became one of her house-children, and stayed with her until she married. Twins gave Ma the sorest time. The people believed that all sorts of troubles would come to them if these were allowed to live. Ma laughed at them. "Twins are just like other children," she said; "and if only you let them grow up you will see for yourselves that there is no difference. Look at my bonnie Janie--she is a twin." But it was no use. So the only thing for her to do was to save the little mites before they could be murdered. It was Eme Ete who told her when twins came, and when she got the secret message she dropped the work she was doing and made swiftly for the spot. Sometimes they were already dead and thrown away in pots, and the mother driven into the backwoods. If she were in time she took the infants home and nursed them and guarded them from the father and relatives, who usually tried to steal and destroy them. One day she saved twins in her own village, and took them into the Mission House and put them in her bed. The people were alarmed, and said that dreadful things would happen. Chief Edem kept away. "I cannot go any more to my Mother's house," he groaned; "no, never any more." No one spoke to her. Mothers kept their children out of her way. She was sad and sorrowful, but she would not give in, for she knew she was doing right. One of the twins died, but the other grew and waxed strong. The people liked their Ma so much that they, too, were unhappy at the cloud that had fallen between, and at last they began to make friends. "Ma, forgive us," they said humbly. "We have not been taught right. Let your heart warm to us again." So the shadow passed away. What cheered Ma most of all was that the father of the twin carried it home, and took back the mother, which showed that the old stupid notion was beginning to die. [Illustration: IYE.] Another day there was a great uproar. Twins had come to a slave woman, called Iye, about five miles off. Ma met her in the forest carrying the infants in a box on her head, a howling mob of men and women hounding her on. They had destroyed all her property and torn up her clothes. Ma took the box, because no one would touch it, and helped the poor mother along to the Mission House. They could not go by the usual path, as the villagers would not have used it afterwards, so they had to wait in the hot sun until another lane was cut. The boy twin was dead, but the girl was alive, and with care became plump and strong. She was a bonnie child with a fair skin and sweet ways, and she became the pet of the household. Ma called her Susie, after her elder sister, and loved her as much as if she had been her own. Even the mother, after she got well and went away, sometimes came back to see her, and was proud of her good looks. Fourteen months passed. One day Janie went upstairs to put a child to sleep, and asked Mana, one of the girls, to look after Susie, as she was full of play and mischief. Mana took her, and while getting the tea ready, placed a jug of boiling water on the floor for a moment. Susie, babylike, seized it and spilt the water over her bare body. She was dreadfully scalded. Ma was frantic, and for a fortnight scarcely let her out of her arms. Often the child smiled up in her face and held up her wee hand to be kissed. Ma at last carried her down to Creek Town, and woke up the doctor there at midnight in the hope that something more could be done. But the shock and wounds had been too severe, and when Ma got back the bright life of the queen of the household flickered and went out. Ma's grief was pitiful, and made even the people wonder. "See how she loved her," they said one to another. They came and mourned with her, and stood by at the burial. Susie was robed in white, with her own string of beads round her neck, and a white flower in her hand. It was very lonesome for Ma afterwards. "My heart aches for my darling," she wrote. "Oh, the empty place and the silence and the vain longing for the sweet voice and the soft caress and the funny ways. Oh, Susie! Susie!" Her heart went out towards Iye, the slave mother, and by and by she bought her for £10 and made her free, and she remained in the Mission House, a faithful worker, and a great help to Ma and those who came after her. All the stories of Ma's adventures with twins cannot be told, because she had to do with hundreds of them, but this is one which shows what she had often to go through. One afternoon when she was busy teaching in the school, a message was thrown suddenly at her from the door. "Ma! come, twins." "Where?" she asked. "Twelve miles away in the bush, and the mother is very ill." Ma went to the door and looked up. "There is going to be a storm," she said, "and I have a sickly baby to look after and night will soon be here, but--come along, Janie, we'll go." Darkness fell ere they reached the spot, and the stars were hidden behind clouds, and they could hardly see a yard in front. They found the woman lying unconscious on the ground. One of the infants was dead, and Janie dug a hole and buried it. Ma ordered the husband and his slave to make a stretcher, which they did very unwillingly. Then she placed the woman on it and bade them carry her. Still more unwillingly, and grumbling all the time--for they dreaded to touch a twin-mother--they obeyed. Janie lifted the living twin, and all set forth by the light of a piece of fire-stick glowing at the end. This went out, and they stumbled along in the dense darkness. At last they stopped. They had lost themselves. The men laid down their burden and went off to grope for a trail, and Ma and Janie were alone in the eerie forest with the moaning form at their feet. "Oh, Ma, they may not come back," cried Janie. "Well, my lassie, we'll just bide where we are until morning." A shining ghostly thing leapt about in the darkness. Janie's heart went to her mouth. But it was only the men back with a torch made of palm tassel and oil which they had got from a hut. They went on again. When the Mission yard was reached the men were so tired that they fell down and went to sleep at once. Ma, too, was tired, but her work was not done. She got a hammer and nails and some sheets of iron and knocked up a little lean-to, in which she put the woman and nursed her back to consciousness, and fed and comforted her. Then, utterly worn out, she just lay down where she was in her soiled and damp clothes, and fell sound asleep. The baby died next day, and the mother grew worse, and there was no hope. She was sore in spirit as well as in body, and sorrowed for her fate and the loss of her husband's love. Ma soothed her, and told her she was going to a better world, where no one would be angry with her for being a twin-mother. When she passed away the people would not touch or come near her, and so Ma did all that was needful herself, and placed her in a coffin, and then the husband and his slave bore her away and buried her in a lonely spot in the bush. Poor twin-mothers of Africa! Though Ma did not save very many of the twin-children that passed through her hands, she did a great work by making the people realise how foolish and sinful a thing it was to be afraid of them and kill them. The household had grown and grown. We know about Janie and Mary, both trickified and bright little maidens. Then there was Mana, a faithful and affectionate lassie. One day, in her own country, she had gone to the spring for water, and was seized by two men and brought to Okoyong and sold to Eme Ete, who gave her to Ma. Wee Annie was there also, very shy and timid, but a good nurse. Her parents had stolen and eaten a dog in the bush, and there was much trouble, and the mother died, and Annie would have been buried in the grave had not Ma taken her. Six other boys and girls with sad stories also lived in the Mission House, so that Ma often felt she was like the old woman who lived in a shoe, and who had so many children she didn't know what to do. It was not easy for her to keep in stock the food and medicine and clothes that were needed for the family, and sometimes she would run out of things. Once, when she was short of tins of milk, she strapped a baby on her back and tramped down the forest trail to Creek Town, got what she wanted, and patiently tramped back again. Another time she was watching some women who were imprisoned within a stockade and were going to be killed, and as she could not leave the place Janie handed her cups of tea through the fence. Suddenly a tornado came on and flooded the Mission House and soaked all the clothes. Ma herself was wet to the skin. To add to her trouble Janie came and said, "Ma, we have no milk, and the baby is crying for some." "Well, Janie, I'll just have to trot to Creek Town for it. I'll get some dry clothes too. Put the baby in a basket." Slipping out in the darkness, and taking a woman to help to carry the baby, she set forth. They lost their way in the rain, and wandered hither and thither, and only reached the town at the dawning of the day. Ma roused one of the ladies of the Mission, obtained the milk and a change of clothes, and lay down for a little sleep. Hearing that she had come, King Eyo got his canoe ready, and sent her back by the river. Her absence from the stockade had not been noticed, and she was able later to settle the trouble without bloodshed. There were plenty of merry days in the home-life of Ekenge. Wherever girls are gathered together there is sure to be fun and laughter, and Ma had always the heart and will of a girl for jokes and mischief. She could not take her bairns into lighted streets or gay shops, or to places of amusement, for there was none of these things in the bush, but sometimes she gave them a holiday, and a special tea, and gifts. Perhaps, however, the most delightful treat they had was when a box arrived from across the sea. All over Scotland loving hearts were thinking of Ma, and loving hands were working for her; and clothing, books, pictures, and knick-knacks were being collected and packed in boxes and sent out addressed to her in Okoyong. The Sunday School children also had their thoughts on the Mission, and gave their pennies and halfpennies to it just as Ma herself had done when a little girl. About this time they gathered up enough money to build a steel steamer for use on the inland rivers and creeks, and it was now plying up and down, carrying mails and parcels and missionaries. It was called the _David Williamson_, after a minister of the Church who visited Calabar, but the natives named it the _Smoking Canoe_. [Illustration: THE _DAVID WILLIAMSON_.] You can imagine the excitement at the Mission House at Ekenge when a half-naked messenger, his dark body perspiring and glistening in the sun, appeared, and cried: "Ma, the _Smoking Canoe_ is at the beach." "Ho-ho! gifts from Makara land," sang half a dozen throats. "Oh, Ma, when can we go? Let us go now." Ma was as excited as the rest, so off went men, women, and children, streaming along the path to the river, where the _David Williamson_ lay. As the boxes were usually too heavy to be carried, they were opened up on the beach and the contents made into parcels. These the natives balanced on their heads and went off, a long file of them, through the forest to Ekenge. Sometimes it needed a second and a third journey before all the goods were together again. What a delight it was to Ma to open the packages! What cries of rapture came from the children and the people looking on as they saw all the things that were to them so wonderful and beautiful. There were print garments by the dozens, woollen articles, caps, scarves, handkerchiefs, towels, ribbons and braids, thimbles, needles and pins, beads, buttons, reels, spoons, knives, scrap-books, picture-books and cards, texts, pens, and a host of other things. It was almost with awe that the women touched the pretty baby-clothes, and the men clapped their hands as Ma held up a blue or scarlet gown or jacket. The dolls were looked upon as gods, and Ma would not give them away in case they were worshipped: she kept the prettily dressed ones to teach the women and girls how clothes were made and how they were worn. Some common things, which children at home would not value, they treasured. When Janie was handed a penwiper, "Oh, Ma," she said reproachfully, "wipe a dirty pen with that? No, no." And she put it up on the wall as an ornament! One old woman was given a copy of the picture "The Light of the World." "Oh," she cried in joy, "I shall never be lonely any more!" If you had watched Ma closely when she was opening the packages, you would have seen that she was seeking for something with a quick and impatient eye. When at last she found what she wanted she gave a shout of triumph. Tins of home-made toffee and chocolate! They were always there, for every one knew she liked sweets. When at home she used to ask that these might be sent out, because the bush bairns were fond of them, but her friends just laughed in her face. "Miss Slessor," they would say, "you can eat as many as the bairns!" "Of course I can," she confessed. After the children had looked at all the gifts Ma would tell them where they came from, and would kneel down and thank Jesus for putting it into the hearts of the givers in Scotland to care for His forlorn black folk in Africa. Then Ma said, "Away to bed, bairns. But oh, hasn't it been grand? It's just been like a birthday. Many happy returns!" Ma did not give all the things away. A brilliant gown might go to the chief as a gift--and he would sit proudly in Court with it and be admired and envied by all,--or a flannelette garment to some poor and aged woman to keep her warm during the shivery fog season; but as a rule Ma liked the people to work for what they got, or to pay something for them. Thus she taught them to want clothes and other things, and showed them how to get them, and in this way she was a real Empire builder. She used to say that there was no truer or more successful Empire maker than the missionary. [Illustration: OPENING ONE OF THE BOXES FROM SCOTLAND.] [Illustration: MA'S HOUSE AT AKPAP.] CHAPTER VI How the Queen of Okoyong brought a high British official to talk to the people; how she left her nice home and went to live in a little shed; how she buried a chief at midnight; how she took four black girls to Scotland, and afterwards spent three very lonely years in the forest. The tribes in some of the out-of-the-way places were apt to forget that British law was now the law of the land, and go back to the old habits that were so deep-rooted in their nature. Ma often threatened that she would have to make them feel the power that stood behind her. Once, when the land of a widow was stolen, she asked the people whether they would have the case judged by God's law or by the Consul and a gun? After a while they said, "Iko Abasi--God's word." Ma opened her Bible and read: "Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark--that is God's law"; and the land was returned to the woman. Then a chief died, and the blame was laid on one who was innocent. As a tornado was blowing, Ma could not visit the district, but she sent a message: "I'll come and see about it when the rain goes off." "Oh, yes," the people grumbled, "and when she comes she won't allow us to give the prisoners the bean. Let us take away the man and hide him." And they hurried him to a spot deep in the forest beyond her reach. Ma was vexed, and she was ill and tired. "I am not going to hunt for them this time," she said quietly. "They must learn to obey the law, and I will give them a lesson." So she wrote to the Government at Duke Town, asking them to send up some one to deal with the matter, and she took the letter herself to the beach, and dispatched it by a special canoe. Nothing can be hidden in negroland, and the news of what she had done soon reached the disobedient people. They came out of the forest in as great a hurry as they went in, and rushed to the Mission House. "Where is Ma? We want Ma." "Ma," said Janie crossly, "is away for the Consul. I hope he will bring a big gun with him. It's time. You are killing her with your silly ways." They went back sorrowful and alarmed, for a big gun meant ruined homes and crops, and many arrests, and imprisonment down at the coast. When they saw Ma later, they begged her to ask the Consul to come with thoughts of peace and not of war. "Good," she replied, "and we shall have a proper big palaver about all your bad customs." When the Government official with his guard of soldiers arrived, he was amused to find the Queen of Okoyong sitting bareheaded on the roof of her house repairing a leak. She came down, and they had a palaver with the chiefs and people, who promised not to do any more killing at funerals, and not to murder twins. Ma shrugged her shoulders. "They will promise anything," she told the officials. "I'll have to keep a close eye on them all the same." She did; and as they broke their word she brought up the Consul-General himself, Sir Claude Macdonald. He spoke kindly, but firmly, to the chiefs. "The laws are made for your good and safety and peace, and if you do not obey them you will be punished." They agreed to all he said. "Sir, when words are spoken once, we don't mind them; but when they are spoken twice, we obey." Ma also addressed them, telling of the blessings that would follow obedience, and of the quiet and happy days they would enjoy long after she had gone. "Ma! Ma!" they cried in alarm, "you must not leave us! You are our Mother, and we are your children. God must not take you from us until we are able to walk by ourselves." After that things were better, though Ma's life did not grow less hard. Indeed, it was more stirring than ever. For various reasons her people were leaving their huts and building new ones at a place called Akpap, and Ma had to shut up the Mission and go with them. The only house she could find to live in was a little shed like a two-stalled stable, or one of the sheep-houses you see on the Scottish hills, with a mud floor and no windows. But she did not mind. She always thought of her Master, who had not a place to lay His head. So she put her boxes in one end, and in the other she lived and slept with the children. It was a grand play-ground for rats, lizards, ants, beetles, and other jumping and creeping things. At night the rats ran over Ma, and played hide-and-seek in the roof. Once, when Mr. Ovens arrived to do some carpentry work, he went to wash himself in the shed. In the dimness he felt what he thought was a sponge floating in the basin, and saying Ma was surely getting dainty, he used it for his face, only to find that it was a drowned rat! From this lowly hut, as from a palace, Ma continued to rule Okoyong. Soon a strange disease seized her new lot of babies, and four died from it. Then smallpox, that dreadful scourge, swept through the land, and so many of her people were carried off that they lay unburied in their huts. Ma was busy from dawn till dark, and often from dark again till dawn, vaccinating the well ones, and nursing the ill and the dying. To her great grief her old friend, Chief Edem, caught the disease. In spite of his faults, which, after all, were the faults of his African upbringing, he had been very good to her, and she was grateful for all he had done. When she reached his hut at Ekenge there was no one with him, for as soon as a man or a woman was stricken all others fled. She fought the disease through long weary hours, but was not able to save him, and he died in the middle of the night. Tired as she was, and weak from lack of sleep, and alone, she felt that she could not let him lie like that. Going out she got some wood and made a coffin. Then in the darkness she dug a grave and buried him. There was no dancing and drinking and killing as this chief of Okoyong entered the spirit-land, only the faint noises of the forest, and the stillness of the starry sky, and a woman's mute prayer. When all was done she dragged her wearied body back in the cool of the dewy dawn to Akpap. Was it a wonder that she began to lose her strength? Fevers laid her low, and illnesses, due to lack of good food, weakened her. She could scarcely crawl about. Yet she would not give in, and bravely drudged away at her work. At last the other missionaries said, "Ma, if you don't go home, you will die." She did not want to die: she wanted to live, and do much more for Jesus. "If," she said, "a holiday will help me, I will go. But what shall I do with my girls? I cannot leave Janie, Mary, Alice, and Maggie here. If I go I must take them with me." Her friends were astonished. "How can you take four black girls to Scotland, and you so ill, Ma? It is impossible." "God can do impossible things," she replied in simple faith. "He will keep me and take care of them." "What about your clothes?" they asked. "We have none but the old things we have on: the ants have eaten up the rest. But God will provide what we need." Sure enough, when they went to Duke Town a box arrived from a Glasgow church, and in it was all the nice warm clothing they required. It was the same everywhere. Kindness fell on her like sunshine. At Liverpool she handed her purse to a railway porter, and he bought the tickets and fixed them up in a carriage. And at Edinburgh there was a faithful friend, Mrs. M'Crindle, on the platform, waiting to take the whole family to her home in Joppa. "Isn't God good to me?" she often said, with a happy smile. [Illustration: ALICE, MARY, MAGGIE, JANIE.] The four African foundlings were stared at by the rosy-cheeked boys and girls, who, however, were kind to them when they heard their sad stories. None except Janie knew a word of English, but they were all clever, and soon picked it up, and Mary even went to school in Portobello. After a happy time Ma took a house of her own at Seton Mill, where she got a glimpse of the sea, and here they all lived as in Africa, Janie being cook, and Ma going about often bare of foot and bare of head. But life in Scotland is not like what it is in the wilds of the Tropics, and Ma was sometimes found shivering over the fire. So a fairy godmother, in the shape of Miss Adam, a lady of the Church who loved her, carried them off to a lovely village in the south called Bowden, where they stayed all July and August. A little girl named Happy Gray, who was staying with Miss Adam, grew very friendly with the children, and together they wandered through the fields and woods, gathering flowers and raspberries, or climbed the Eildon Hills. They taught Happy how to burst "cape gooseberries" on the back of her hand, and showed her that when they gathered nettles they did not feel any sting. With her they drove to Stitchel Manse, where they ate apple tarts in the summer-house, and also went to St. Mary's Loch, the four black faces being a wonder to all the people in the countryside. After a time Ma left this haunt of peace to go and speak at meetings, for she was a famous person now, and every one was eager to see and hear the wonderful pioneer who lived alone amongst savages. She was very shy, and would not open her mouth if men were listening, and if any one began to praise her she would run away. It was always the work she spoke about, and the need for more women and girls to go out and help. Once in Edinburgh she was coaxed to address a meeting in the Synod Hall. "I dinna ken how I'm to do it," she said to a friend. "You'll pray for me? Where will you sit?" Her friend said, "In the gallery." "I'll look for you, and ken you are praying, and that will help." And, as usual, she spoke well. By and by many students of the Church College came creeping in under the gallery and listened, and she did not seem to mind, but appealed to them too, saying, "There are many students who are ready, and making ready, to serve Jesus, and to tell about Him, and they will be running after fine churches and good manses, but there are multitudes who have never heard of Jesus out yonder. And for His sake will they not come out and work for Him there?" Sometimes she spoke of the good of prayer. "If you are ever inclined to pray for a missionary, do it at once, wherever you are," she said; "perhaps she may be in great peril at the moment. Once I had to deal with a crowd of warlike men in the compound, and I got strength to face them because I felt that some one was praying for me just then." At another meeting, when Mary with her bright happy face was with her, she told the young people how to be real ladies and gentlemen. "It is not," she said, "the wearing of fine clothes, or the possession of great wealth, but having gentle manners and kind consideration for the feelings and happiness of others--not the giving of our money or the denying of ourselves of small luxuries to help the coming of the Kingdom, but the cheerful daily giving of ourselves for the good of others at home and abroad." She was most at home with children, and at her best at the tea-table, or when she curled herself up on the rug in front of the fire. Then came fearsome stories that made them tremble--true stories of what she had seen and done in dark Okoyong. "Oh, mother," the children would say when being tucked in bed, "how can Miss Slessor live alone like that with wild men and wild beasts and everything?" "Ah," was the soft reply, "she does it because she loves Jesus, and wants to help Him. I wonder, now, if you could love Him as much as that?" And the little minds in the little heads that were snuggling down amongst the comfy pillows also wondered. Ma was a puzzle to the grown-ups, too, for they saw that she was not only very shy but very timid. Some small girls had more courage than she. She would not cross a field that had a cow in it: she was nervous in the streets, and usually got some one to take her across from side to side. She had not even the nerve to put up her hand to stop a car: she would take one only if it were standing. She shook when in a boat or sitting behind a fast horse. Why was she afraid in this way? Just because these things happened to herself. In big things, where the cause of Jesus was in danger, or others were to be protected and saved from hurt, she forgot her own feelings, and thought only what was to be done, and was braver and stronger even than men. Her heart was so loving that she was willing to die in the service of Jesus. You remember what He said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." That was her kind of love--the kind which Jesus Himself had for the world, which made Him do so much for us, and which led Him at last to His awful agony on the Cross. She should have stayed a year, but when the winter came on with grey, cold, weeping skies, she and the bairns missed the sunshine and heat. Ah! and she was always thinking of the work to be done in Africa. To her friends who pressed her to stay, she said, "If ye dinna send me back, I'll swim back. Do you no ken that away out there they're dying without Jesus?" So they set sail and spent Christmas Day at sea. What a reception they got at Akpap! "Everything will be right now," the people said, "Ma is back." And once more she became the sovereign lady of Okoyong. The next three years were the loneliest and worst she ever spent in the forest. She was never once down in Calabar, few white persons came to see her, and she had a big battle to fight with ill-health. There was not a day that she did not suffer weakness and pain: for whole nights she never slept, for months she was low with fever, and at times she believed she was going to die. Think what it must have been for her to lie there alone, tended only by her black girls. But she was never in the dumps. Somehow her spirit always managed to conquer her body, and she would struggle up and with a droll smile and a stout heart go on with her work. Nobody knew all she did in those years, for the story is hidden behind a veil of silence; only now and again we get a glimpse of her, lit up for a moment, as by a flash of lightning, and she is always bravely fighting for Jesus and the right, now hurrying to rescue twins and orphans, now sallying out to some village to put down the drinking, now travelling far to save life. [Illustration: MA MENDING THE ROOF ON SUNDAY.] When she was not doing these things she was busy about her own doors. She had now a new house with a room underneath, and here she taught the day-school and held services and Bible classes and preached on Sundays. And there were always the Court and the palavers and the dispensary and the building and repairing and cooking and digging and a hundred and one other duties. So absorbed, indeed, did she get in what she was doing that often, as in the early days at home, she lost count of time. Sometimes she did not know what day of the week it was. Sundays had a habit of getting mixed up with other days. Once she was found holding her services on a Monday thinking it was Sunday, and again on a Sunday she was discovered on the roof hammering away in the belief that it was Monday. She ruled with a firm but kindly hand. The hard and terrible times she had come through had changed her a little. She had still the old sweetness, but she could be stern, and even rough, with the people, and she often spoke to them in a way which a white man would not have dared to do. Those who were brought up to Court for harming women she punished severely. If any chief challenged what she said, she would take off the slipper she had put on as part of her simple Court dress, and slap him over the bare shoulder with it. Yet she was never afraid. She went about alone by day and night, and never carried a weapon. She had no locks on her doors. Once a murderer was caught and nearly torn to pieces by the mob before he was chained and brought to Ma to be judged. She heard the evidence, and ordered him to be sent down to Duke Town for trial. Then she took off his irons, and sent away the guard, and bade him come into the house, where she sat down and talked to him earnestly for a long time. He was a big man, violent and sullen, and he could easily have knocked her down and escaped into the woods. But he listened quietly, and allowed her to lead him to the room below, where she fastened him in for the night. Only once in all the years she spent in Okoyong was she struck, and that was by accident. There was a quarrel and a fight, and she went into the press of excited men to stop them. One of the sticks hit her. A cry of horror arose: "Ma is hurt! Our Ma is hurt!" Both sides at once fell on the wretched man who held the stick, and began to beat him to death. "Stop, stop!" Ma cried. "He did not mean to do it." And it was only by using all her strength and forcing them back that she saved his life. And so the years wore on, and the new century came. "A new century," said Ma, sitting dreaming in her lonely little house. "What will it hold? It will at least hold His loving kindness and care all the way through, and that is enough." For fifteen long patient years Ma gave her life to Okoyong, and she had her reward, for it became a land of peace and order and good will, the bad old customs died away, and the people were slowly but surely becoming the disciples of Jesus. It was a wonderful thing for a white woman to have done alone, but Ma would not take any credit for it; she said it was no power of her own that had won her such a place in the heart of the wild people: it was the power of Jesus working in her and through her. _He_ was the King of Okoyong, and she was only His humble servant-maid. [Illustration: JANIE.] [Illustration: THE LILY-COVERED ENYONG CREEK.] CHAPTER VII Tells of a country of mystery and a clever tribe who were slave-hunters and cannibals, and how they were fought and defeated by Government soldiers; how Ma went amongst them, sailing through fairyland, and how she began to bring them to the feet of Jesus. On some quiet summer day you may have been wandering through a country lane when you suddenly felt a whiff of perfume, fresh and sweet, and wondered where it could have come from. You looked about, but there was nothing save a tangle of green wood. You searched the hedges, and went down to the brown stream below the bridge and along its banks. The fragrance was still scenting the air, now strong, now faint, but you could not find its source. Then suddenly you came upon it--a sweetbriar bush, hidden away in a lonely and lowly spot. Ma Slessor was like this modest briar bush. The influence of her goodness spread far and near, and the fame of her doings reached peoples who lived hundreds of miles away. They said to one another, "Let us go and see this wonderful White Mother"; and they left their villages and travelled through forests and across wide rivers and creeks, risking capture and death at the hands of hostile tribes, to seek her advice and help. Some of these visitors spoke languages Ma did not understand, and they had to talk to one another in signs. Chiefs in districts she had never heard of sent her messages: "Oh, Great White Mother, come and dwell with us, and we will be God-men." Escaped slaves from cannibal regions, who had been doomed to be eaten, fled to her for refuge. All received from her a kind welcome and food, and, best of all, had a talk about the Divine Chief who was to be the real Saviour of Africa. There were other visitors to Okoyong she liked less, slave-dealers from beyond the Cross River, who brought women and girls to sell. A slow fire of rage had long been burning in Ma's heart against this cruel system, and sometimes it burst into fierce flame. She would hear a sound of bitter sobbing, and go out to see a string of naked little girls being driven forwards by a man carrying brass rods on his head--the money which the natives use. She would be so angry that she would shake her fist at the trader and storm at him, but he would only grin and ask her which girl she wanted, and would then describe their good points just as if they had been so many fowls or goats. Sometimes there would be sick ones, or ones suffering from ill-treatment, and these the dealers would leave, and she would nurse them back to health, though she was always very unwilling to let them go again into the awful whirlpool of slave-life. [Illustration] She knew many of the dealers quite well, and often had long talks with them about the mysterious country from which they came. Whitemen had not yet entered into the heart of it, but Ma learnt enough to be sure that it was a far more wicked place even than Okoyong had been. It was called Iboland, and one of the tribes, the Aros, were so cunning and clever that they had become a power over a vast region. It was they who were the slave-stealers, seeking their victims everywhere, and selling them in markets to the traders. One of their best hunting-grounds was Ibibio, the country to the south, where the natives were poor and naked and miserable, and lived in little settlements deep in the forest, because of their fear of the slave raiders. [Illustration: THE WAY INTO THE JUJU GLEN.] The Aros believed that they had a wonderful _chuku_ or juju--which means the god of the Aros--in a rocky gorge down which a stream flowed. At one spot there was a dark ravine and a pool overhung by trees and creepers. Here, amongst the white lilies, swam ugly cat-fish, with fierce-looking eyes, that were held to be sacred, and which it was death to catch. On a little island was a hut, guarded by priests, in which the juju was supposed to live. The people thought it could aid them in time of trouble, and came in great numbers to the shrine to ask advice and get their quarrels made up. Though the priests helped many in this way, they were cunning and greedy, and often acted very cruelly. They took the food and money which the visitors brought, and then said the juju wanted a living offering. So some poor man or woman was taken into the glen blindfolded, and the friends of the victim knew that the sacrifice was made by seeing the blood flowing past lower down. Others who entered never came out again. The priests said they had been seized by the juju, and the blood-red river seemed to show this, but a dye had been thrown in to colour the water. These persons were taken far away in secret, and sold into slavery. Any that were not of much value were slain and eaten in the cannibal feasts. Now that Ma's dream of conquering Okoyong had come true, she was dreaming other dreams, and the most fascinating of these was to go to this terrible cannibal country and put down the evil doings of the natives. She told the slave-dealers about it. "All right, Ma," they said, for they liked her, and admired her courage. "We, who know you, will be glad to welcome you; but we are not sure about the priests--they may kill you." "I will risk that," she said; "as soon as I can get away from here you will see me." In order to find out more about the tribes, she sometimes went far up the Cross River in a canoe, stopping wherever she could get shelter. On one of her journeys, when she had some of the house-children with her, the canoe was attacked by a huge hippopotamus. It rushed at the canoe, and tried to overthrow it. The men thrust their paddles down its throat and beat it, but it kept savagely nosing and gripping the frail vessel. Great was the excitement. Its jaws were snapping, the water was in a whirl of foam, the men were shouting and laying about them with their paddles, the girls were screaming, Ma was sometimes praying and sometimes giving orders. At last the canoe was swung clear, and paddled swiftly away. The story of this adventure is still told in Calabar, and if you ask Dan, one of Ma's children, about it, he will say, "Once, when Ma was travelling in a canoe, she was attacked by hippopotamuses, but when they looked inside the canoe and saw her, they all ran away!" What Ma saw and heard made her all a-quiver to go into these strange lands, but she would not leave the Okoyong people until some one came to take her place. The Mission had no other lady to send, and so she could only watch and pray and wait. Matters became worse. The Aros hated the white rule, and would not submit to it. They tried to prevent the Government opening up their country to order and justice and peace, and would not allow the officials to enter it; they blocked the river so that no white vessel, or native one either, could pass; they went on with their slave-hunting and cannibalism. At last the Government lost patience. "We must teach them a lesson," they said. So a warning went to all the missionaries along the banks of the river to come down to Calabar at once. Ma Slessor did not like the order. "Everything is peaceful in Okoyong," she said. "My people won't fight." The Government said they knew that, but her life was too precious to risk, and they sent a special steamer for her and the children. When she came she found several companies of soldiers, with many quick-firing guns, already moving up the river. They landed in the Aro country, and marched through swamps and attacked the hosts of natives who had gathered to bar their way, and defeated them. Still, the bushmen would not give in, and the soldiers had many a weary time in the trackless forests. At Arochuku they went down the gorge to the juju house, at the door of which they found a white goat starving to death. Many human skulls and cooking-pots lying about told a gruesome tale. The place continued to be the scene of wicked ceremonies, and was at last blown up with dynamite. Ma was sorry she had not gone to Iboland before the soldiers, because she felt that if she had done so she might have saved all the fighting and bloodshed. Now that a way had been blazed into the country, she was more than ever eager and impatient to go. "The Gospel should have been the first to enter," she said; "but since the sword and gun are before us, we must follow at once." [Illustration] So while carrying on the work at Akpap, she began to explore and look out for some place that would do for an outpost. One day she left Akpap, taking with her the slave-girl Mana, who now knew English and her Bible well, and a bright boy called Esien, and tramped to the Cross River, where she boarded a canoe and paddled slowly upstream. By and by she came to another smaller river on the west, which seemed to run far into the interior between Ibo and Ibibio, and there she landed on a beach at the foot of a hill. This was Itu, a famous place, for it was here that one of the greatest slave-markets in West Africa used to be held, and it was down this side river, the Enyong Creek, that the slaves were brought in canoes, to be sold and sent over the country, or shipped abroad to the West Indies or America. "A good place to begin," Ma said; and she landed and climbed up the steep bank to the top, where she had a beautiful view over the shining river and the green land. "Oh, yes," she repeated, "a bonnie place to begin." Once more she lived the gipsy life. She opened a school, made Mana and Esien the teachers, and started to build a church. The people, who had so long trembled in the shadow of slavery, were so pleased that they did all they could to help her, and the children of the village tumbled over one another in their eagerness to "learn book." When she left for Akpap again the chiefs gave her the gift of a black goat, and she tied a piece of string to it and led it to the beach, where the Mission boat picked her up and took her down to the landing-place for Okoyong. She was bareheaded and barefooted, but in high spirits at the success of her trip, and she went away gaily into the forest, leading her goat and singing: Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow! Mana did a wonderful work at Itu: she taught the women and girls to read and sew, held prayers in the chief's yard every night, and preached on Sunday; and just because she loved Jesus, and tried to be like Ma, she soon had hundreds falling under the spell of the new way of life. This humble slave-girl did not fall away like others. She and Esien remained always true disciples of their Lord. "If only some one would come and help me at Akpap," Ma prayed, and her wish was answered, for another brave woman, Miss Wright, one of the Mission agents in Calabar, offered to go up and stay with her, and after that everything was easy, for Ma Slessor loved Ma Wright, and Ma Wright loved Ma Slessor, and both loved the bairns, and the bairns loved both, so that it was a happy company which lived in this African forest clearing. By this time Ma's own special family was complete, and no more members were added, so we can look in upon them and see who they were and what they did. First, of course, came Janie, who was now a big lassie, very kind, and full of sympathy for everybody. She spoke English fluently, and, like Ma, was a constant reader of the Bible; few white boys or girls, indeed, know it so thoroughly as she did. She was Ma's right hand, and could do almost anything, indoor or outdoor, clean, cook, carry a load, build a house, or work in the fields. But she liked working outside best, and, although a twin, had many friends amongst the people. Mary was another good girl, though not so fond of hard work as Janie. She waited upon Ma, and did all her little ploys. Alice was a quiet, solid, plodding little soul, not as bright as Janie or Mary, but faithful in whatever duty she was given to do, and always willing and obedient. Annie had no head at all for her lessons, but was very diligent, and always smiling. Maggie the restless--Ma's name for her was Flibberty-gibbet--was the one who was fond of the babies, always busying herself about them, except when she was in the kitchen cooking a tit-bit for her own little mouth. The baby of the family was Whitie, a twin with dancing eyes, and giving promise of being clever by and by. Then there were the two boys, Dan, a lively little fellow, not clever, but good, who had been brought up by Janie and was a favourite with Ma, and, as is often the case with a boy amongst a lot of sisters, was a little spoiled; and toddling Asoquö, who was so very fond of food that he sometimes stole the cat's milk! In the house at this time was another boy named Impie. Poor Impie! He was deformed and could not use his legs, and the natives had some queer notion about it. He lay all day, so patient, with a smile for everybody; and when, in the evening, Ma Wright took him on her knee until bedtime, his face was a picture of perfect content. He died soon afterwards. All the children were astir before six in the morning. Annie made up the wood fire and boiled water in the kettle for Ma's tea, and Janie or Mary prepared it and brought it in. Then they swept up the yard, and went into the bush to gather firewood or look for herbs to make _efere_ or native soup. At prayers the children squatted on the verandah. They sang a hymn in English, and the bigger ones read verse about, Ma explaining as they went along--for she never hurried through worship no matter how busy she might be. Then she prayed in Efik, and all repeated the Lord's Prayer in English. Prayers were not always at the same time, and sometimes when everybody was out of doors sweeping up or cutting down bush, Ma summoned them to the shade of a palm or cotton or orange tree, and had them there just to teach them that people could worship God anywhere--at their work, as well as in church. "Boys and girls," she used to tell her young friends in Scotland, "should pray at their play or lessons as well as when reading or saying their prayers night and morning. Make a habit of it by looking up and saying a word or two in thought at any time. God is interested in our play and work and everything." Then came lessons for a couple of hours, Ma doctoring patients or holding palavers the while. After breakfast the big lads or children from the village came, and school was held out in the open air under the verandah. This went on until six o'clock, when the evening meal was taken. Prayers were again held on the verandah, and as the refugees in the yard and many of the neighbours came and sat below, the native tongue only was used. There was a hymn, and Ma would tell a simple gospel story, and all would say: "This night I lay me down to sleep." By that time one or two of the little ones were already in slumber-land, and were carried off to bed. On Sunday nights the hymns that children all over the world know were sung, sometimes with choruses which Ma made up herself; and instead of reading, the girls told what they remembered of the sermon. Janie was best at this. Mary and Alice could, at least, say the text, and when it came to Annie's turn she always said: "Nkokop nte Jesus edi eyen Abasi"--"I heard that Jesus is the Son of God." Market-day was an exciting time for the children. The people came crowding in from the villages with all sorts of food and things to sell, such as yams--these are something like large potatoes,--shrimps from the river, oil from the palm-nut, sugar-cane, ground nuts, Indian corn, and fowls. Most of them came to see Ma, many simply to "köm" her, that is, to give her compliments, others to get advice or medicine. They brought little gifts for the children, sugar-cane, oranges and bananas and other fruit, or seed-plants, which they put in their own plots of ground, for they all liked to grow things. It was Ma who taught them to love flowers. She knew a great deal about the wild plants of the forest. One day, when walking with a visitor along the path, he complained of toothache, and by and by she picked a flower and told him to chew it. He did so, and the pain vanished. He plucked another which he thought was the same, and she said, "If you eat that you will be dead in five minutes." Ma taught them many other things--indeed all they knew--and needed to be very patient, for think of the ages of darkness and ignorance that lay behind them! She tried, above all, to get them to hate lying, which is so common in Africa. Her one great and constant bit of advice and warning to them was--"Speak the truth." These pleasant days in the Mission House were soon to end. Ma was now ready to go forward, and only waited to be sure that God was leading her, for she never wanted to go any way but His. One day she trudged the six miles to the Cross River in the hope of catching the Government launch for Itu. It passed when she was resting in a hut, and she had to trudge back the weary miles to Akpap again. "Oh, Ma," said Miss Wright, "I am sorry you missed it." Ma was tired, but only smiled and said, "Never mind, lassie, God did not mean me to go to-day, and He knows best." A week later the launch saw her and picked her up, and on board she found the Military Commander. "Ma," he said, "I'm going as far as Arochuku. Why not come up with me?" "Oh," she thought, "is this what God meant when He turned me back last week?" And although she meant only to go to Itu and had no change of clothing or food, she said, "Yes, I will go." And so she passed Itu and sailed up the Enyong Creek, one of the loveliest little waterways in the world. She had seen many beautiful bits of tropical scenery, but never one so beautiful as this. At first it is broad and open, and here and there she saw a tiny canoe with a man fishing for shrimps, and she was told that electric fish, which gave one a shock, lived in the water. Then it ran through the forest, where it was as still as a lake in the heart of the hills, and dark and green because the branches drooped over it. Through the little arches of foliage she got glimpses of what looked like fairyland beyond. The surface was covered with lilies of dazzling whiteness. Scarcely a sound broke the deep and fragrant silence. Sometimes a kingfisher would rise and fly lazily away, sometimes a troop of monkeys would look down from the branches overhead and chatter, sometimes grey parrots with red tails would scream angrily for a moment at being disturbed. But as Ma lay and enjoyed all the peace and the beauty, she seemed to see other things--she saw canoe-loads of sad-eyed slaves passing down, week after week, year after year, century after century--what terrible misery and despair that lovely creek must have known! And when she landed and walked through the forest trails, the same thought was in her mind--how these paths had been beaten hard by endless files of hopeless slaves--men, women, and little children. "At last," she said thankfully, "the cruel reign of heathendom is over, and peace and kindness and happiness are now coming to this dark land!" She found the villages and towns almost touching one another, and full of people. "Welcome, Ma! we looked for your coming," shouted her old friends, the slave-traders, although they knew well that she would try and stop their evil doings. She found that some native traders from the coast had been telling the people about Jesus, and she called the chiefs and held a palaver and set about starting a school and building a church. It was curious to see not only children but grave men and women squatting on the ground learning A B C! And some of the men were old slave-hunters. "Come back soon, Ma! You are the only one who cares for us," they cried as she left. One day, when coming down the Creek, she was idly watching a snake trying to swim across the quiet water, when bump, bump, her canoe was run into and nearly overturned by another, which shot out from the side. "Sorry, Ma," said the man in it. "I have been waiting for you many days. My master at Akani Obi wants to speak with you." The canoe was turned, and followed by the other into a creek that was fairylike in its tender beauty, and came to a beach where stood a nice-looking, well-dressed native and his wife. They took her into their home, which was furnished like a European one. "I am Onoyom," said the man. "When I was a little slave-boy, one of your white missionaries explored as far as this. All the people fled. I was not afraid, and I took him to the chief. I was punished afterwards. When I grew up I went to the cannibal feasts at Arochuku. My master died, and ten little girls were killed and placed in his grave. I became steward of the House, and ruled as chief. My house was burned down, and my child died. I thought some enemy had done it, and I wanted to murder people. I met a man who had been a teacher, and he said, 'Perhaps God is angry with you.' I said, 'I want to find this God.' He said, 'Go to the White Ma and she will help you.' I took a canoe to find you. I missed you. I left a man to wait, and he has brought you. Now, will you tell me what to do?" As she listened Ma's eyes grew bright with joy. She talked with him and his household, telling them of Jesus and His Gospel, and praying with them, and promised to come and begin a school and church. Then they made her a cup of tea, and went with her to the beach. As her canoe skimmed over the quiet water again, darkness fell, and a rain-storm came on and Ma was drenched, but she did not care; she sang aloud in her blitheness of heart, for after ages of darkness and wickedness the sunlight of God was beginning to shine in the Creek. After that what a life she led! She was always moving up and down the Creek, visiting strange places and camping anywhere. Sometimes she had to sleep in the open air, or in huts on the floor, or in the canoe; sometimes she was caught in tornadoes and soaked to the skin; sometimes she was not able to wash for many days; sometimes she ran out of stores and lived on native plant-food and tea made in old milk tins. She was often ill, full of aches and pains and burning with fever; but even when she was suffering she never lost her happy spirit and her bright laugh. She was like a white spirit fluttering hither and thither, a symbol of the new life that was stirring in the land. The people were rising out of the sleep of centuries, everywhere they were eager to learn, everywhere they cried for teachers and missionaries. "Oh," cried Ma, "if only I could do more, if only I were young again! If only the Church at home would send out scores of men and women. If ..." She did too much, and her frail weak body could not stand it. Sleep forsook her, and that meant loss of nerve. When she thought of the immense work opening up before her, with only herself to do it, she quailed and shrank from the task. In the night she rose and went wandering over the house, and looked down upon the children slumbering in perfect trust and peace. "Surely, surely," she said, "God who takes care of the little ones will take care of me." It was time for her holiday to Scotland, but she could not leave because she was very near death. A long rest revived her, and she rose--to go home? No. The flame that burned in that worn little body leapt up and glowed best in the African forest. Instead of going to Scotland she made up her mind to spend six months wandering about the Creek in her own canoe, visiting the people and opening new Mission stations. "Oh, Ma!" said the other missionaries, "are you wise to do this after all you have gone through? You have worked so hard, and you need a holiday. Go home and rest, and then you will be better able to do what you wish." But no, she would carry out her plan; and so giving up the Court work to be freer to serve her own Master, she set out joyfully on her quest for new toils and triumphs. [Illustration: "MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB!"] [Illustration: MA'S HOUSE AT USE.] CHAPTER VIII Ma learns to ride a bicycle and goes pioneering; the Government makes her a Judge again and she rules the people; stories of the Court, and of her last visit to Scotland with a black boy as maid-of-all-work; and something about a beautiful dream which she dreamed when she returned, and a cow and a yellow cat. Ma settled at Itu in a little mud hut, with a table and chair and a few pots and pans. The girls worked and slept anywhere; the babies, new and old, crawled all over the place like caterpillars, and at night lay on bits of newspaper on the floor. Ma helped in the building of the Mission House and Church, and when they were finished sent for some one to fix up doors and windows. Mr. Chapman, from the Institution, arrived, and was treated as the guest of the people, so that when he made his bed in the middle of the church the young men of the village came, as was their custom, and slept on the floor round him as a guard of honour, and got water and food for him in the morning. Ma was as busy as a bee. She carried on a day-school, preached to four hundred people, taught a Bible Class and a Sunday School, received visitors from dawn till dusk, and explored the forest and made friends with the shy natives. Every now and then she canoed up the Creek as far as Arochuku, and stayed in the villages along the banks. Mud-and-thatch churches began to spring up. Onoyom, however, said he was not going to be satisfied with anything less than the very best House of God, and taking three hundred pounds that he had saved up, he spent it all on a fine building. When the time came to make the pulpit and seats, he said: "We want wood, cut down the juju tree." Now the juju tree is where the god of a village is supposed to live, and his men were horror-struck. "The juju will be angry; he will not let us, he will kill us." "Ma's God is stronger than our juju," was his reply. "Cut it down." They went out and began the work, but the trunk was thick, and after a time they stopped. "See, we cannot cut it." The heathen crowd, standing in a ring watching them, were overjoyed. "Ah, ha!" they cried, "our juju is stronger than Ma's God." Next morning Onoyom took out a party of men who wanted to be disciples of the new faith, and before beginning to hack at the tree they knelt down and prayed that the White Mother's God would prove more powerful than the juju. Then, rising, they attacked it with lusty strokes, and soon it tottered and fell with a mighty crash. It was the turn of Onoyom to rejoice. [Illustration: THE JUJU TREE.] When the Creek churches were ready, missionaries travelled up from Calabar to open them, and were astonished to see the happy, well-clothed people, and the big sums of money they brought. At one place there was a huge pile of brass rods, the value of which was £20. You must remember that these were still heathen people, but they were longing to love and serve the true God. So eager, indeed, were they that they worried Ma until she was almost distracted. Messages came every day like this: "We want to know God: send us even a boy." "We want a White Ma like you to teach us book and washing and sewing." "We have money to pay a teacher, send one." Sometimes she laughed, and sometimes she cried. "What can I do? I am only one poor old woman!" Then she prayed that more missionaries might hear these calls, and come out from Scotland to help. Sometimes another kind of cry came down the Creek. A messenger from Arochuku arrived. "Ma, the bad chiefs are going to thrust the teachers out of the land." Ma was startled. "And what did the teachers say?" she asked. "That the chiefs could put them out of the land, but they could not put them away from God." "Good, and what do the people say?" "That they will die for Jesus." "Why, that is good news!" Ma exclaimed with delight. "Go and tell them to be patient and strong, and all will be well." As there were no missionaries to come up and help her, she went on alone, this time into the great dark forest-land that stretched far to the west of Itu. It was the home of the Ibibios, that naked down-trodden race who had been so long the victims of slave-hunters, "untamed, unwashed, unlovely savages," Ma called them; but it was just because they were so wretched that she pitied them and longed to uplift them. Like Jesus, she wanted to go amongst the worst people rather than amongst the best. The Government were now making a road through the forest, and as she looked at it stretching away so straight and level and broad, she began to dream again. "I will go with the road," she said, "and build a row of schools and churches right across the land." She had troops of friends amongst the white officers, who all admired and liked her, and they, also, urged her to come, and one said she should get a bicycle. "Me on a bicycle!" she said. "An old woman like me!" She had watched their bicycles going up and down the road, and was afraid of them. She said she would not go near them in case they should explode; but one of the officers brought her out a beautiful machine from England, and that cured her. She soon learned to ride, and it became a great help in her work. [Illustration] One day she took Etim, another of her bright scholars, who was only twelve, and set out for a village called Ikotobong, six miles beyond Itu, in a beautiful spot amongst the hills, and started a school and congregation. Etim was the schoolmaster! And right bravely the little fellow wrought; very soon he had a hundred children deep in the first book. The head-teacher at Ikotobong, one of those who learned to love Jesus through her, thus tells the story of her coming: When she walked through the town she saw many idols which we all worshipped, and she pitied us very much. Seeing that the people were sitting in darkness she asked for a dwelling-place. The town's chiefs gave her a very nice little hill in the middle of the town. And from the first day all the people were astonished very much at her wisdom, gentleness, and love, because they had never seen a white person like her before. And amazement fell upon every one in the town concerning all that she told them about God, and pleasure filled their hearts because she lived amongst them. Before she came the people hated one another, and did not sit in love and peace, but when she came to us her good influence and love becalmed us. Though she was an old woman she had to work like a very powerful big man. The Ibibio people wondered and wondered about her in gladness, she was so full of love to every one, and working hard every day for their good. So by all her kind and compassionate work she came to be called _Adiaha Makara_, meaning the eldest daughter of all Europeans, and _Ma Akamba_, meaning great madam. At last God answered Ma's prayers. Three things happened. First, the Church in Scotland, which was now called the United Free Church, resolved to follow her into the wilderness and made Itu into a regular station with a doctor in charge. A hospital, called the Mary Slessor Mission Hospital, was added, and a launch was sent out for the Creek work. "It is just like a fairy-tale," said Ma. "I am so glad for the people." Next a man missionary was sent to Arochuku, and came back with such a glowing story of the numbers of people living there, and their longing for the right way, that he was sent up at once to open a station. Then the Church told Ma that they would place two ladies at Akpap, and she need not return, but remain in the wilds and be a pioneer. The sky of her life, which had been so dark before, now became clear and blue and filled with sunshine. One afternoon a Government officer visited her and said: "Ma, what are we going to do?" The same question was always being put to her. Everybody, from the British officials down to runaway slaves, came to her for counsel and help; few did anything in that part of the country without first talking to her about it. "What is it now?" she asked. "We want a magistrate for this big and important district, and we want a very clever and strong person who will be able to rule the people and see justice done." "Well?" she asked again. "Oh, Ma, don't you see what I'm driving at?" "Fine that," she answered with a twinkle. "You want a very clever and strong man to rule this people, and see justice done, a very worthy aim." "Quite so, and you are the man we want, Ma." "Me? hoots, laddie, the tea must have gone to your head!" "No, Ma, I'm serious. We officers can't do the work; we haven't the language for one thing, and you know it better than the natives themselves; also you know all their ways and tricks; they worship you; you have great power over them; and what a chance to protect the women and punish the men as you like! Think of the twins, Ma!" "Ay," mused Ma, "it might help God's work. I don't like it, but I would do it for His sake." "Thank you, Ma. Your official title will be Vice-President of the Native Court, but of course you will be the real President and do as you like. The salary will be----" "I'll take no salary," she snapped. "I'm not doing it for the Government. I'm doing it for God." By and by the letter from the Government came appointing her, and saying that her salary would be given to the Mission to help on her work. So Ma became again the only woman judge in the Empire. The Court was held in a thatched building at Ikotobong. Ma sat at a small table, and around her were the chiefs getting their first lessons in acting justly and mercifully towards wrongdoers. Often she had to keep them in order. They were very fond of talking, and if they did not hold their tongues she just rose and boxed their ears. She sat long days trying the cases, her only food a cup of tea and a biscuit and a tin of sweets. She needed all her courage to get through, for the stories of sin and cruelty and shame poured into her ears were terrible for a white woman to hear. "We do not know how she does it," the other missionaries said. She could not have done it had it not been that she wanted to save her black sisters and the little children from the misery they suffered. She was like no other judge in the world, because she had no books to guide her in dealing with the cases, nothing but her knowledge of the laws and customs of the people and her own good sense. She knew every nook and cranny of the native mind, and although many lies are told in African Courts, no one ever deceived her. They often tried, but she always found them out, and then they would cower and slink away before her flashing eye. Very difficult questions which puzzled the Government officials had sometimes to be decided, but Ma was never at a loss. Once two tribes laid claim to a piece of land, and a British Commissioner tried for days to find out to whom it belonged, and failed. He was in despair. Ma came, and as usual appealed to the people themselves. "Isn't it the custom for the tribes to whom land belongs to sacrifice to it?" "Yes, Ma." "Can you tell the tribe that has been in the habit of sacrificing to this bit of land?" "Yes, Ma. Our tribe," said one of the big men. "Then it belongs to you." "Quite right, Ma," cried every one, and they went away laughing. The people who came to Court were so ignorant and foolish that Ma sometimes did what no other judge would do; she treated them like naughty children, and gave them a slap or a rap over the knuckles, and lectured them and sent them away. After sullen, fierce-looking men had been fined for some offence, she would take them to the Mission House and feed them and give them work. Then, in the evening, she would gather them together and talk to them about Jesus. [Illustration: THE MBIAM POT.] The oath given to the witnesses was not the British one, but the native one or _mbiam_. A pot or bottle was brought in filled with a secret liquid which had a horrible smell. One of the chiefs dipped a stick into it and put some of the stuff on the tongue, head, arm, and foot of the witnesses, who believed that if they told a lie it would kill them. They often trembled with fear when taking it. Once one died suddenly after giving false evidence, and the people thought it was a judgment upon him. [Illustration: GIVING THE OATH.] Judge Slessor had to look sharply after the native policemen, for they were important men in their own eyes, and often did things they ought not to have done. One went to summon villagers to clean the roads. The children in the Mission school were singing their morning hymn, and he rushed in among them lashing with his whip and shouting, "Come out and clean the roads." The teachers complained, and the policeman was tried before Ma. "You need to be punished," she said, "for you have grown so big that you will soon be knocking your head against the roof." This pleased the people even more than the punishment he got from the jury. The Court became famous in the land, for the people knew that Ma understood them and gave them justice. So much, indeed, did they trust her that they got into the habit of taking their quarrels and troubles first to the Mission House, and there Ma made peace and saved them going to law. Even when she was ill they came and squatted down outside her bedroom window, and the girls took in their stories to her, and she called out to the people and told them what to do. A young man, a slave, wanted to be free, and came to Ma. "I am sorry," she said, "the Court cannot do anything, but--the country lies before you." He took the hint, and bolted out of the district. A huntsman, in search of game, saw a movement amongst the bushes, and cried out, "Any one there?" There was no answer, and he fired. A scream made him rush to the spot, and to his horror he found that he had shot a girl. He carried her to the nearest house, where she died. He was brought up and tried, and acquitted, as he had not meant to harm her. But native law is "life for life," and the people demanded a life for the life that had been taken. The man, in his despair, ran to Ma. Cutting off a lock of his hair, he gave it to her. This meant that all he had was hers, and that the tribe would have to deal with her too. But she knew that if he stayed he would be killed, and told him to fly, which he did. Ma was also going on with her real work, preaching and teaching, training boys and girls to become little missionaries, and carrying the light of the Gospel further and further into the heathen forest. And, as usual, she was dreaming dreams. She now remembered the dream of Mr. Thomson to build a holiday home for the missionaries. She said to herself, "Can I not build a little one for the ladies in Calabar?" Some money came to her, and she sought out a spot on the wooded hills nearer the Creek called Use, and began to put up several mud cottages that might be used for rest-homes. She did most of the work herself, with the aid of Janie and the other girls, sleeping the while on the floor in a hut. One night a lady missionary stayed with her who was anxious to get away early next morning. "All right," said Ma, "I'll set the alarum clock." The visitor looked puzzled, for there were no watches or clocks to be seen. Ma went out to the yard where the fowls were kept and brought in a rooster and tied it near the foot of her bed. At dawn the "alarum" went off; the cock crew, and the sleepers were roused. "Ma," said a Government doctor at last, "you will die if you do not take a rest." And very sorrowfully she replied that it was likely, and so she went home to Scotland, taking Dan and leaving Janie to take care of the other children. Dan, who was only six years old, proved a very handy little man-of-all-work. He soon learned to speak English, and ran her messages, carried her parcels, and even cooked her tit-bits of food. He had a royal time, being loaded with toys and books and sweets, and Ma was anxious that he should not be spoiled. She would often ask those with whom she stayed to allow him to sit on the floor, that he might not forget who he was. He had quick eyes, and saw everything. When he went out in a town with Ma he begged to have the money for the street cars, for, he said, "Gentlemen always pay for the ladies!" But he did not always understand what he saw. At table he thought the sharpening of the carving-knife on the steel was part of the grace before meals! Her friends found Ma much changed. "Oh, Mary," said one, "I didn't know you." "Nae wonder," she said, laughing, "look at my face!" It was dark and withered and wrinkled, though her eyes were as bright and merry as ever and full of changing lights. One day she went to pay a visit to Mrs. Scott, the lady of the manse at Bonkle, in Lanarkshire. They had written to one another for years, but had never met. There were young people there, and all were greatly excited, for the black boy was also expected. Everything that love could think of was done for the comfort of the guest. At last the cab appeared at the bend of the road, and all hurried to the gate. Down jumped Dan smiling, sure of his welcome. Then was helped out a frail and delicate lady, who looked round shyly and brightly answered all the greetings. She walked slowly up the garden path, gazing at the green lawns and the flower-beds and the borders of shady trees, and drinking in the goodness of it all. "All this," she said, "and for me!" She was so weak and ill that she was glad to sink into a cushiony chair placed for her in the sunniest corner of the sunny room. The young girls followed her in. Stretching out her hands towards them, she cried: "Oh! how many of you lassies am I to get?" And, glad to tell, she did get one, Miss Young, who went out to Calabar and became to her like a daughter, and was afterwards picked out by the Church as the one best fitted to carry on the work that lay closest to her heart after she herself was done with it all. It was times like these that made Ma young again. She just wandered quietly about in the woods and meadows, or went and listened to the music practices in the church. She was delighted with the singing, and before leaving thanked the precentor for the pleasure she had got, and he gave her his tuning-fork, which he valued, and she kept it as one of her treasures to the end. Coming out one night after the service, she looked up to the starry sky, and said, "These stars are shining upon my bairns--I wonder how they are"; and once, when "_Peace, perfect peace? with loved ones far away!_" was sung, she said: "I was thinking all the time of my children out there." She missed them more and more as the months went on. One afternoon, when she was sitting down to tea in a house in Perthshire, she begged to be allowed to hold a red-cheeked baby-boy on her knee. "It is more homely," she said, "and I have been so used to them all these years." Then she made up her mind. "I cannot stay longer, I am growing anxious about my children. I am sure they need me." Her friends tried to keep her, but no, she must go. They bade her farewell at one or two large meetings, where her figure, little and fragile, and worn by long toil in the African sun, brought tears to many eyes. The meetings were very solemn ones. As she spoke of the needs of Africa, one who listened said: "It is not Mary Slessor who is speaking, but God." One night before she sailed she was found crying quietly in bed, not because she had no friends, for she had many, but because all her own loved ones were dead, and she was homeless and lonesome. She just wanted her mother to take her into her arms, pat her cheek, and murmur, as she had done long ago, "Good-bye, lassie, and God be with you." Dan did not wish to leave all the delights of his life in Scotland, and although he had mechanical toys and books and sweets to cheer him, he sobbed himself to sleep in the train. So Ma looked her last upon the dear red and grey roofs and green hills of Scotland, for she never saw them again. She went to Use, which now became her home. It was a lonely place amongst trees, near the great new highway. A wonderful road that was. Bordered by giant cotton trees and palms, it ran up and down, over the hills, without touching a village or town. These were all cleverly hidden away in the forest, for the people had not got over their terror of the slave-hunters. Except on market-days the road was very silent, and you met no children on it, for they were afraid of being seized and made slaves. Leopards and wild cats roamed over it at night. At one part a number of rough concrete steps led to the top of the steep bank, from which a narrow path wound up the hillside and ended in a clearing in the bush. Here stood Ma's queer patchwork mud-house, just a shapeless huddle of odd rooms, with a closed-in verandah, the whole covered with sheets of trade-iron, tin from mission-boxes, and lead from tea-chests. It was hard to find the door, the steps of which were of unhewn stones. She began to work harder than ever. What a wonder she was! She did all the tiresome Court business, sometimes sitting eight hours patiently listening to the evidence; she held palavers with chiefs; she went long journeys on foot into the wilderness, going where no white man went. On Sundays she visited and preached at ten or twelve villages, and between times she was toiling about the house, making and mending, nailing up roofs, sawing boards, cutting bush, mudding walls, laying cement. Was it surprising that her hands were rough and hard, and often sore and bleeding? She was seldom well, and always tired, so tired that at night she was not able to take off her clothes, and lay down with them on until she slept a little and was rested, and then she rose and undressed. At times she was on the point of fainting from pain, and only got relief from sleeping-draughts. It was true of her what one of the missionaries said: "God does most of His work here by bodies half-dead, but alive in Christ." She had now, however, hosts of friends, all willing to look after her. Nearly every one, officials, missionaries, traders, and natives, were kind to her. Sir Walter Egerton, the British Governor, and Lady Egerton would send her cases of milk for the children, and the officials pressed upon her the use of their steamers and motor-cars and messengers and workmen. At Ikotobong was Miss Peacock, that girl with the great thoughtful eyes who had listened so eagerly to Ma when she had addressed the class in Falkirk years before. She became one of the many white daughters who hovered about her in the last years and ministered to her. Two missionary homes were open to her in Calabar, those of Mr. and Mrs. Wilkie and Mr. and Mrs. Macgregor, and there she was always made comfortable and happy. Once Government officials found her so ill that they lifted her into the motor-car and took her down to the Mission House at Itu. Something rare and precious was there, a bonnie white child, the daughter of the doctor missionary. During the first few days when Ma was fighting for her life, little Mamie often went to her side and just stood and stroked her hand for a while, and then stole quietly away. When the turn for the better came, she charmed Ma back to health by her winning ways. For hours they swung together in the hammock on the verandah, and laughed and talked and read, their two heads bent over the pages of _Chatterbox_ and _The Adviser_, and over the _Hippopotamus Book_ and _Puddleduck_, and other entrancing stories. Some times they got so absorbed in these that time was forgotten, and "Oh, bother!" they said when the sound of the gong called them to meals. Ma was still a little child at heart. After she returned to Use a new church was opened at Itu, and as she was not able to go down she wrote this letter to Mamie: I may not get to the big function, which will make me rather cross, as I have looked forward to it. Anyhow if I am not there will you pop my collection into the plate for me, like a bonnie lassie? I wish it were multiplied by ten. I wanted you and me to have a loan of that pretty picture-book of your mother's. It has all the blouses and hats and togs that they keep in the store in Edinburgh, and I was just set on our sitting together and picking out a nice coat and hat and pinafore, all of our own choosing, for you to wear in Scotland. Oh! but you may be going to England? Oh well, they are much the same. But here we can't do it, for it will be too late to get them for you to land in. Anyhow ask that dear Mummy of yours to help you to choose, and you will buy them with these "filthy lucre" pennies. Mind, the Bible calls them "filthy lucre," so I am not saying bad words! Now, dear wee blue eyes, my bonnie birdie, are we never to have a play again or a snuggly snug? We shall see, but I shall never forget those days with old Brown and Mittens and the Puddleduck relations, and all your gentle ways and winsome plays. Be Mama's good lassie and help her with all the opening day's work, and you yourself will be the bonniest there. If I am there you will sit beside me! Ma's mind was as restless as her body. She was for ever planning what more she could do for Jesus. Her new dream was a beautiful one, perhaps the best of all. To understand it you must know that the women and girls in West Africa all belonged to households, and were bound, by native law, to obey the heads of these--their masters. The compounds were their only homes. If they became Christians they still had to do what their heathen masters told them. When they were given orders which as true servants of Jesus they could not obey without doing wrong, they were in a fix, for if they left the compounds it was not easy for them to live, as they had no houses in which to stay and no farms where they could work and grow food. Ma had often thought of the problem, and now she made up her mind that the women and girls must be taught simple trades, so that if they had to leave the compounds they would be able to support themselves. And this was her dream. She would start a home for women and girls where she would take in waifs and refugees and other helpless ones, and train them to do things, such as the weaving of baskets, the making of bamboo furniture, shoe-making, and so on. They could also rear fowls and goats and cows, and dig, and grow food-plants and fruit-trees. And best of all, they would learn to be clean and tidy and womanly. Ma was never long in making her dreams begin to take form. She went out one morning to look round the land at Use. Why, Use was the very place for the settlement! She would begin in a small way with just a few cottages and a garden, and gradually make it bigger. She started at once, and soon had many useful trees and plants in the ground, and fowls and goats and a cow in the yard. That cow was a wild one, and a great bother, as it was always breaking out and wandering into the forest. Ma had no tinkling bell, but she tied a tin pail to the beast so that the rattling noise might tell where it was. The stock had to be watched, for wild animals roamed about after dark, and leopards often sprang into the yard in search of prey. One or two rooms at Use were kept for visitors. The doors of these were sealed up with strips of bamboo and mud until they were wanted. Once two lady missionaries arrived, and had to sleep a night before the doors were hung. Not long before a leopard had carried off the cow's calf, and the ladies thought it wise to barricade the hole. Ma looked on smiling, and said: "There will be rats and lizards and centipedes, and maybe a snake, but a leopard would never come in ... even though it did it would just look at you and go away again." "We'll not give it the chance, Ma," said the ladies. "Well, I'll give you the cat: it will scare the rats at any rate." This cat, a big yellow one, had been found, when a kitten, meowing piteously by the side of a bush track, and was taken to the Mission House, where it became a favourite with Ma. It always travelled with her, lying in a canvas bag at the bottom of the canoe, or motor-car, and sometimes she carried it on her shoulder. The night did turn out to be a lively one, for although no leopard came, every other kind of creeping and jumping and flying thing paid the ladies a visit, and there was not much rest for them, nor for the yellow cat, which hunted the rats until the dawn. [Illustration: A WEST AFRICAN LEOPARD.] [Illustration: A STYLE OF HAIRDRESSING.] CHAPTER IX Ma goes farther up the Creek and settles in a heathen town in the wilds; she enters into happy friendships with young people in Scotland; has a holiday in a beautiful island, where she makes a secret compact with a lame boy; and is given a Royal Cross for the heroic work she has done. One day there came out of the unknown a black boy with a number of strange-looking men. "Mökömö Ma," he said, "I salute you. We come to see you. We are from Ikpe. The soldiers and the people fought there and the people fled. I know about you and I told them and they want your help." [Illustration] "Ikpe?" echoed Ma. "Where is that? I never heard of it." "Far up the Creek," he replied vaguely; "two days by canoe. A big town." "But I never knew of trading canoes going there." "No, Ma, they don't allow Calabar men at Ikpe." "Oh, I see, a closed market. Well, what do they wish?" "They want to be god-men and learn book." She talked long with the men, whose cry was "Come yourself, Ma, come back with us." It was known that she was always ready to go anywhere at a moment's notice. "No, not now, I cannot, but I'll come soon"; and having her promise they went away with light hearts. She was growing very, very feeble, and she shrank from entering a new place, where she would have no friends amongst the natives and could see no white faces, but the spirit of adventure still tugged at her heart, and one morning she boarded a canoe and went up the river. It was a wonderful thing, even for her, to lie in the canoe and watch the changing beauty of the Creek. They passed the places she knew, and then came to a region that was strange to her. Hour after hour they sped, pushing through the tangle of water-lilies, watching the fishermen plunging their spears into the mud after fish, passing farms where the green corn was sprouting, and bare landing-beaches where long canoes lay side by side, coasting along stretches of thick jungle where the water was green and the air cool; where lovely flowers and ferns grew on the branches, and monkeys gambolled and swung by their tails; where butterflies and dragon-flies glinted in the sunlight, and snakes slid down old trunks and stole rustling away. Now and again she saw the snout of a hippopotamus, with its beadlike eyes, watching them, and noted that the banks were scored by their massive feet. After they had done eight hours' paddling one of these monsters rose angrily in front and opened its enormous jaws as if it would swallow the canoe and the paddlers and Ma and all. The stream was narrow and darkness was falling, and Ma said, "Well, well, old hippo, we won't dispute your right to turn us aside." The canoe made for the bank, and Ma stayed all night in a dirty little hut swarming with mosquitoes. The chief here had heard of her and the Jesus religion, and was already praying to what was to him the unknown God. "And my people just laugh at me," he said. Ma prayed with him and cheered him and left him happier. In the lovely morning light the canoe went on, until the Creek became like one of these little streams which feed the mills in Scotland. Ma had at last to get out and walk through the bush. She came to Ikpe, a large mud town, very dirty and smelly, where all sorts of tribes mingled, and found that the people wore little or no clothes, that the girls and boys ran about naked, and that all, old and young, seemed more wicked and shameless than any natives she had seen. Only a few welcomed her, and these, having heard of her promise, and knowing that she always kept her word, had begun to build a church, with two rooms at the end for her to live in. It was situated in a circle of tall palm trees among which monkeys romped and chattered. She remained some days, living on native food, and when she left told the people she would come back. Several times she returned, and always the people asked: "Ma, have you come to stay?" "No, not yet." "Oh, Ma, when are you coming?" What could she reply? How could she leave the work at Use? She begged the Church to send up other ladies, but the months passed, and meanwhile two churches were ready in the district, and the people were beseeching her to come. "It's another call," she said, "and I must obey. I'm an old woman and not very fit, but I'll do my best, and I'll carry on the work at Use too. No more idleness for me!" So up and down the Creek she went. The journey always took the best part of two days. A canoe, with ten paddlers, was sent down from Ikpe to the beach near Itu. What a bustle there was at Use before everything was ready! Then the house had to be shut up. This was done by nailing the windows, and building in the doorways with strips of wood and clay. In the afternoon the household set off, Ma sitting in the centre of the canoe on a chair, and the children and babies round her, and the yellow cat in its bag at her feet. When it grew dark they landed at some village and spent the night, and before daybreak at four o'clock they were off again. Ma did not like the bit which was haunted by hippos. "But," she would say, "they haven't touched me yet; they just push up their ugly heads and stare at me." When the sun became strong and they were all hot and tired they went ashore at a clearing, and the paddlers lit a fire and cooked some food, Ma joking all the time to keep everybody happy. Ikpe beach was reached about four in the afternoon, and there was still a long walk before them, and it was a very weary company that lay down to rest. The paddlers were just the wild boys of Ikpe, very good-hearted under all their badness, as Ma told the Sunday School children of Wellington Church, Glasgow: They are ungrudging hard workers too. They paddle the whole day, singing as merrily as if the sun were not beating on them like a blazing fire. When we came up a month ago we had such a heavy load of timber for building purposes that they could hardly get a seat. One chief on the road asked me to put a part of it at his beach as they would never be able to take it up, but the boys sturdily answered, "The canoe is good, let us go on." They pulled eight hours on end without stopping to eat a bite. About seven o'clock we all lay down, after holding worship in the canoe, and didn't they sing! And then the moon began to show through the mist about 3 A. M., and they jumped and pushed off, and then for eight hours pulled and sang and laughed and shouted in their high spirits, wakening the echoes of dreadful-looking places, where mud and ooze hold the crocodile and other creatures. It was the same coming back, and when they all arrived at Use they broke a little hole in the doorway and crept in and threw themselves down on bed and floor until morning. They were often soaked, and Ma sometimes was so tired and ill and racked with pain that she could not leave the canoe, but slept in it all night. "However can you do it?" she was asked. "Oh," she replied cheerily, "I just take a big dose of medicine and wrap myself in a blanket and manage fine." Once when she got back to Use she found that a tornado had damaged the house, and she began to repair it with her own hands. The hard work was too much for her, and she took to her bed and became delirious. Yet she struggled up and went over to the church and sat in a chair and preached. A young missionary, Dr. Hitchcock, had come out to take charge of the medical station at Itu for a time. He had heard of Ma and of her masterful ways, but he was strong too, and not afraid of her, and when he saw her so ill he took her in charge and ordered her firmly to do what he bade her, just as if she had been a child. Poor Ma! She was a child in strength then, and she obeyed him meekly, and he treated her like a mother and she loved him as a son, and under his kind and watchful care she gradually got better. "But you mustn't cycle any more," he said, "you are past that now." So some friends in Scotland sent her out a basket-chair on wheels which the boys and girls pushed, and in this she continued to make her journeys into the forest. [Illustration: THE CHURCH AT IKPE.] A special joy in these lonely days was the love of many girls and boys at home. She told one that she had always a few choice packets of letters lying beside her chair and bed, and took them up as one would take up a book, and read them over and over again. Many were from her little friends. They told her about their schools, their games, their holidays, their pets, and their books--the letters of one boy, she said, were always like a sardine tin, they were so packed full of news--and she sent long replies back, wonderful replies, full of fun and stories and nonsense and good sense. One of the mothers said she was very kind to take such bother. "Why," she wrote, "look at their kindness to me! The darlings, with their perfectly natural stories and their ways of looking at everything out of a child's clear innocent eyes, and the bubbling over of the joys of a healthy life. It is a splendid tonic, and just a holiday to me too, taking me with them to the fields and the picnics and the sails on the lochs. Oh, one can almost feel the cool breeze and hear their shouts. Don't you think for a moment that though I am like a piece of wrinkled parchment my heart is not as young as ever it was, and that I don't prefer children to grown-up folks a thousand times over. I would need to, for they have been my almost sole companions for twenty-five years back. Oh, the girls at home are so bonnie with their colour and their hair and their winsome ways. I just loved to look at and to talk with them when I could. In church and Sunday School they were a thing of beauty and a joy to me all the time. I don't say that I don't love black bairns better and know them better than white ones, for I do. But one must confess to the loveliness of Scottish girls." One of her most loving and diligent little correspondents was Christine Grant Millar Orr, who stayed in Edinburgh, and was, at this time, just thirteen, a clever girl, fond of writing stories and poems, and as good as she was clever. Her fresh young heart went out to the weary and lonely old lady in the African bush who chatted to her so charmingly. "You have a genius for letter-writing," she told Ma. "Your letters are so full of news and yet so full of love and tenderness and your own dear self." Here is a bit from one of Ma's letters to her: What a bonnie morning this is! It will be dark and cold with you. It is half-past six, and I am in the little verandah which is my sanctum. We have had breakfast, but I am not yet able to do any work, as I need an hour or so to get the steam up. So I shall bid you a good-morning, and just wish you could be here to enjoy our bush, and cocoa-nut and oil and wine palms which surround us, all wrapped in a bewitching lovely blue haze from the smoke of the wood fire. Yes, you would even enjoy the pungent smell of the bush smoke, and would think there were few places like Calabar.... But an hour later! Oh, it _will_ be hot! Ma thus tells Christine about the "smokes" season, which lasts from November to February: It is a funny season when the air is so thick with what seems fine sand that you can't see ten yards away, and the throat and back of the nose and the whole head is dry and disagreeable, just like influenza at home. Between these "smokes," which are supposed to come from the Great Sahara Desert, the hot season blazes forth in all its fury, and one feels so languid and feeble, and wonders where one can go for a breath of air or a mouthful of cold water. Then the snow on the moors and the biting winds and the sea waves of your cold land sing their siren songs. No wonder Christine wrote back: How I should love to take you bodily out of African heat and work and give you a long sweet holiday at The Croft, with your face to the greenest field in Scotland, and the great hills and the fresh caller air everywhere. The blossom, white and pink, the laburnum, the heavy masses of hawthorn, the sweet odours of wallflower, the calling of the blackbirds, the mossy lawn, the shady glade with birch trees and wild hyacinths and baby birdies in the hedges, and the glorious warm spring sunshine gliding through the leaves--how you would love them all! Kind hearts at home knew of the longing for a change that sometimes came to Ma, and one of the ladies of the Church, Miss Cook, like a fairy godmother, quietly arranged that she should take a trip to the Canary Islands, and paid all the cost. Ma felt it was a very selfish thing for her to accept when there were others who also needed a rest, but the doctors said: "Ma, if you go you will be able for a lot of work yet." "In that case," she replied, "I'll go." She took Janie with her. It was her first real holiday, for she had nothing to do but bask in the sunshine among the flowers and be petted by everybody, especially by Mr. and Mrs. Edisbury, who managed the hotel at which she stayed. What a time of joy it was! "From the first hour we arrived in fear and trembling," she said, "to the hour we left with a heart full to overflowing, our visit was a delicious vision of every kind of loveliness." [Illustration] She was not long in the hotel before she heard that Mrs. Edisbury had a little lame son, nine years old, named Ratcliffe, who could only walk about on crutches. She could hardly walk herself then, and her tender heart was filled with love and pity and sympathy for the boy. "Oh," she said, "I must see him." She found him in the nursery, a very bright and eager child, and at once they became fast friends. For hours he would sit by her side, his great grey-blue eyes fixed on her face, while she told him thrilling stories of her adventures in wild Africa. Before they parted they had a quiet talk and made a secret bargain. Each was to do something every day only known to themselves; nobody was to be told--not even Ratcliffe's own mother. His face was glowing when they were planning it, and he felt it was splendid to have a secret which one would think about from day to day, but which no other person would know of. His mother and aunt heard that it had been made, and sometimes they teased him to tell, but he just smiled, and nothing ever made him open his lips and speak of it. We shall learn by and by what it was. On board the steamer going back Ma wrote a long letter to Ratcliffe: You were in the land of Nod long before our boat came in, so neither Janie nor myself could go to say good-bye to you. But what do you think your dear daddy did? Just came away with us in the middle of the night, in the dark and the cold, and took us to the boat with all our luggage and stuff, and in the dark found our way for us to the big steamer, and then up the long stair at the ship's side, and brought us into the cabin where I am now sitting, and which has to be our home for the next ten days or so. And your dear mother waited up to say good-bye, and so did your dear aunty, and they sent us off laden with apples and flowers, and, better still, with warm loving wishes and hopes that we should meet again. My heart was glad and thankful, but it was very sore and sorry, and I am afraid I cried a wee bit when Mr. Edisbury went away out into the dark and left us. How happy your dear parents and your auntie made us! and how good it was to meet you. It will ever live as a picture in my heart and memory the times we spent with you, and it was very good for Janie to know you.... We have a crowd on board, and to-day we had a birthday cake to tea, because it is a lady's birthday. As no one ever asks a lady how old she is--you remember us talking about that--well, they put 21 on the icing of the cake, but she is an old lady, and they made her funny presents, a little dolly, and a china pug dog with a tail that keeps wagging after you have touched it, and some beads. It was such fun. There is so little to do on board that every one gets wearied, and wants a bit of fun to pass the hours away.... And now, dear little friend, good-bye. Be good and brave, and hurry putting your pennies in the bank so that you can come to see us and stay a long time. Janie sends her compliments to you and to all, and says, "Do not forget us." So say I. Joyful days in Ratcliffe's life were these when letters arrived from Ma, "bang, bang from the wilds," as she said. In all she spoke of the mysterious secret. "Now, sonny," she would say, "do you remember our little secret treaty? I do, and keep it. There is a telephone and a telegraph, secret, wireless, swift, which never fails, and it carries to Canary _via_ the Kingdom of God." Or this, "Are you remembering our old secret? Dear old sweet-heart, so am I, and I get surer and surer than ever for the BEST. Keep on!" Sometimes Ratcliffe wrote in reply, sometimes his mother or auntie, but always there was a message to say that "the secret was being kept." Ratcliffe liked to hear about the children and their doings and about the teeming life of the forest, "cunning things among insects and beautiful flies and butterflies and small creatures among the bushes glistening like fine stones or flowers," but best of all he loved the snake stories like this: One night in the dark there came up to my ears small screams from below. Janie was jumping about and Annie and she were throwing things, and by the light of the fire it looked awful. Janie laughed back to my screams, "It is a snake, don't come," and she was lashing all she was able with a stick. Annie was making noise, and not much more. I got round in my slow way to the outside. Janie had forced it back till she and Annie and Maggie were all on the outside and could run, but Janie held on, and I threw her a machete and she hacked the things into bits. In the morning the bits were all gone, some other beast had eaten it, and there were only marks. Another day Janie was chasing with the others a horrid thing we call Asawuri. I don't know what it is in scientific English. It makes a long oo-o-oo-o of a note and lives in the bush in a hole. It is bigger than a lizard and marked handsomely like a snake, and has a deadly poison; that's why God has given it the note of warning, I suppose. Janie killed it.... I am always keeping my secret. Are you? Don't slacken! Don't tell. Ma always tried to cheer and help him: I expect you will be at school by this time. Are you? How do you like it? Do the masters give any punishments? I am sure they won't need to do that with you, for you will be doing your best. But it will sometimes be hard to do lessons when it is hot, and you will want to do other things; and let me whisper a secret to you. I, too, am an awful duffer at arithmetic! I simply can't do it. Never mind, I've got on fairly well, and so will you; and now I have only the sums of the boys in the school to bother me, and I never give them harder ones than I can do quickly and explain well myself. You will come out on top some day. All the same, try for all you are worth and catch up. Auntie and mother will help you--that's what aunties and mothers are for, you know. Just you put your arms round auntie's neck and look at her with your bonnie speaking eyes, and you'll see what will happen. Janie can't count at all, she never could, and I had a great pity always for her, and yet what could I do without Janie? She is worth a thousand mathematicians to me and to our people. Ma rejoiced that she was able to do a little more for her beloved Master, and she began to take more care of her health. She did not want to be great or famous, only to walk very quietly from day to day, and do simple things, looking after the needs of her people and fighting the sin and ignorance that marred their lives. So we find her again at Use and Ikpe spending the long hours preaching, teaching, doctoring, building, cementing, painting, varnishing--a very humble and happy woman. She paid a visit to Okoyong, the first since she had left eight years before. The wild old station had become so quiet and peaceful that it was almost like a bit of Scotland, and there was a fine new church. Everybody came to "köm" her, and she could scarcely get her meals for talking about the long ago. She saw Eme Ete and Mana, and Iye the mother of Susie, and Esien, now a leading Christian, and many others; and when she went over to the church she found four hundred people gathered to hear her, the men and boys in the centre, and the women in coloured frocks and head-dresses at the side, while the children sat in rows on the floor. All were clean and tidy, and she thought what a big change it was from the terrible days when the naked villagers were only fond of drink and bloodshed. "Yes," said a church member later to one of the lady missionaries, "even the leopards became less bold and dangerous when Ma came!" She was glad to have a talk with Eme Ete, but sorry to know that she was still a heathen, and sacrificed every day in her yard to a mud white-washed figure of a woman that had egg-shells for eyes. There was also a mud altar on which she laid her offerings of palm-wine, gin, and food, and sometimes she put a fowl or eggs in the lap of the image. Her rooms were full of charms, such as bunches of grass and feathers and bottles. It made Ma very sad. Eme Ete died soon after, and from the roof of her house was hung a great fold of white satin, which is a sign of death in a heathen home, and the doors were shut and the place left to rot and fall to pieces. Though Ma was hidden away in the African forest and thought she was a nobody, there were others who, knowing what she had done, and having been helped by her example, made up their minds that her story should not be left untold. They wrote it out, and by and by it came into the hands of Sir Frederick Lugard, the Governor-General of Nigeria, as the whole country was now called, and he, marvelling at the tale, sent it home so that it might be brought to Royal notice. One day a native runner appeared in the yard at Use with a bundle of letters, amongst which was a large one that looked important. Ma turned it over and wondered what it could be. It was from a very famous and ancient society, the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, which has the King at its head and other Royal persons amongst its officials, begging that she would agree to become one of its Honorary Associates and accept the Silver Cross which it gave to those who were noted for goodness and good work. She looked at her torn dress and her rough hands and her bare feet, and around at the poor little shanty of a house, and chuckled. "Fancy me with a Royal medal!" she said. "What have I done? I dinna deserve anything for doing my duty. I couldna' even have done that unless God had been with me all the time. To Him be all the honour." "But," she added, "it's nice too, for it will let the folk here ken that the King is interested in the work that we are doing." And so, being a loyal subject, she wrote back, saying "Yes." [Illustration: MA'S SILVER CROSS. Now in the Museum of the United Free Church.] Another letter arrived telling her that her election had been approved by King George V., and then came the beautiful diploma. But she had to go down to Duke Town to be given the Cross at a public meeting, and this was a great trial. Everybody, however, was kind and treated her like a princess. While they were praising her she sat with her face buried in her hands, and when she spoke she made it seem as if the honour were done to the Mission and not to herself. A bouquet of roses was handed to her, and when she got home to Use she planted a stem beside the rough-hewn steps, and to her delight it grew and flourished. When she died a cutting from it was planted on her grave. Of course she had to tell Ratcliffe all about the affair. "The Silver Cross," she said, "is a nice thing called a decoration, which one wears on special occasions, and is just like a prize given at school to a boy. You wonder what I got a prize for? So do I! I can't make it out at all. But you see our King is so good and kind, he is always doing nice things, and this is one of them." Ashamed of all that people were saying and writing about her, she hastened up to Use, where she pinned the cross on her breast to show the girls how it looked. By this time Mary and Annie were married and had homes of their own, and Alice and Maggie were at Duke Town learning to wash and iron and cut out and make clothes, and Dan was also at school. Once Dan had a splendid holiday, and Ma tells Ratcliffe about it: Dan has gone up the Cross River with his master to a new country where coal has been found and where tin has been found, and where our wonderful fellow-countrymen are to build a railway which will enter and open up new lands and peoples and treasures, and add to the wealth and greatness of our Empire. The coal will make the biggest changes you can think of. It is like a fairy tale. Just think, if we have coal, we can start to manufacture everything out here, for we have material for almost everything, and all the timber in these endless forests can then be sent over the world. And what crowds of people from Britain and here will be getting employment at the railways and the mines! It is a wonderful old world this, isn't it? We are always hearing that it is played out. Among the men who were opening up the wild country, officials, engineers, and traders, Ma had many dear friends, and she was always praising them up for the work they were doing. "We come of a wonderful race, Ratcliffe," she said. "How proud I am of our countrymen many a time. How brave they are! What knowledge and grit they possess! How doggedly they hold on! How they persevere and win! No wonder a handful of them rule the horde of natives and leave their mark. The native, clever in his own way, just stares and obeys." [Illustration: MEMORIAL TO A DEAD CHIEF.] [Illustration: MA'S HUMBLE HOUSE ON THE HILL: THE LAST SHE BUILT.] CHAPTER X This chapter tells how Ma became a gipsy again and lived on a hill-top, and how after a hard fight she won a new region for Jesus; gives some notes from her diary and letters to little friends at home, and pictures her amongst her treasures. Some distance from Ikpe there is a high hill called Odoro Ikpe, on which the Government has a rest-house. Ma climbed up there one Saturday night. "What a grand view!" she cried, as she looked over the wide plain and breathed in the cool fresh wind with a great content, "I've never been so high before." And then her eyes grew sad. For all that green country was the home of heathenism. The chiefs had shut and bolted the door of their hearts against Jesus, and would not let any teachers or missionaries come in and disturb their ways. Ma had often gone to them in her wheeled chair, fording rivers, crossing swamps, pushing through wet forests, and stood and knocked at their hearts in His name, but in vain. They were afraid that if she came all their old fashions would tumble down about their ears. She was not the one to lose courage. As she sat there on the hill-top, she dreamed that she saw the whole region being won for Jesus, and the people coming to His house clothed and in their right mind. "O God!" she prayed, "old and feeble and unworthy as I am, help me to win them." And there and then she put on her armour and braced herself for battle. "Janie," she said, "we'll stay here until we overcome these chiefs." Janie looked round and grunted. The rest-house had only holes for windows; there was a doorway, but no door; the floor was of dried mud, and there was not even a table or a chair. But Ma could be happy with nothing, she would have been content with bare ground for a bed, and the starry sky for a covering. She did, indeed, find that it was better to sleep in the open air than in the stuffy rest-house, and she lay down every night in the verandah with the cool wind fanning her cheeks. Day after day she called the chiefs and talked with them; she coaxed the little boys and girls, who were timid and sullen, to come and learn A B C; she stood at night in the villages when the women were cooking at their fires and the young people were dancing to the sound of the drum, and spoke to all who would listen of the love of Jesus and His power to free them from sin. And at last, after a weary struggle, her patience and goodness and humour melted the hard hearts, and one by one the chiefs came and said they would allow her to do anything she liked, and they would try to worship her God and learn the new ways. [Illustration] Her heart was full. She went out in the cool of the night and stood gazing over the dim plain. All was silent and still, and the stars were shining more gloriously than she had ever seen them before. Her eyes swept over them, as they often did, and rested on the Southern Cross, the group she loved most of all, because it was the symbol of her dear Lord watching over the dark and sinful world, and her thin worn face was beautiful, for her dream had come true. She went in and sat on the floor, and leant her weary back against the wall of the room, and wrote by the light of a candle stuck in its own grease, telling her friends how happy she was--the happiest woman in all the world. "I can't think," she said, "why God has so highly honoured and trusted me." She was a wreck, her body was a mass of pain, she was growing deaf and blind, she was tired and weak, and oh, so lonely! Yet her heart was bursting with love and gratitude and joy. O wonderful Ma! All this time she was working three stations--Use, Ikpe, and Odoro Ikpe, and going constantly between them. She kept a diary, and every night--often in the middle of the night--she wrote in it the story of the day. And what a story of toil and heroism it is! Here are several sentences from it: Left the beach for Ikpe in the evening, sail in moonlight; reached Ikpe 4 P. M. next day; ran on to a tree; boys thrown into the water. Egbo out all night, screaming and drumming like mad-men till daylight. All drunk. First night in new house. Sorry to leave the wee hut I have enjoyed so much comfort and blessing in. Patients from early morning; man bitten by rat; another by snake. School begun, nearly a hundred scholars. First Christian funeral at Ikpe. Chiefs here by daybreak for palavers. Splendid congregation. People changing for the better. Terrific thunderstorm. School-boys drenched. Got a big fire on in hall, and all sat round the blaze and I gave them a reading lesson. A great reception at Use--thank God for the girls and home. Thank God for sleep! On roof all day, head and neck aching, hands broken and bleeding. Carrying sand, cleaning corn patch, mudding and rubbing walls. Cut my first two roses from the rose bush--lovely, a tender gift from God. After sleepless night found white ants in millions in the drawers. Washed a big washing. Terrific rain storm, no school. Very feeble, scarcely able to stand upright in church. Horrid night with cross child. Lovely letters from dear ones. God is very good to me. Every boy in school clothed to-day for first time. Heaps of sick babies. Full up with work till late at night. Dead tired. Two women murdered on the way from market and their heads taken away. Fever; trying to make a meat safe. Sleepless night, baby screaming every few minutes. Splendid fever-sleep full of dreams. Thank God for daily strength to go on however feeble. Thank God for the girls who got up and got me tea without any bother. Reached Rest House at darkening. A fearful night of misery with mosquitoes and hard filthy ground on which we lay. Rose at first streak of dawn and never was so glad to leave a place. Baby yelled all night. Nothing done, low fever, but a very happy day. Fever, stupor sleep. Lost count of days. Useless after utterly sleepless night. Made such sermons and delivered them all night long. Her friends in Scotland began to call her home, tempting her with visions of rest and peace and lazy days in gardens amongst flowers and all sorts of good and loving things, but though she thought of it with longing and tears, she said she must first build a house on the hill-top of Odoro Ikpe to be ready for a missionary when the Church sent one. After that perhaps.... So she started to put up her last house, and because she was so feeble and her gang of labourers were such idlers and drones, she found it the hardest task she had ever tried to do. "The African works well," she said, "if you are at hand to guide and spur him on, but just leave him and he sits down and talks or sleeps till you come back." So vexed sometimes was she with the men dawdling over their trifling bit of work that she would rise and box their ears, but they just laughed and thought it a fine joke. Ma did not like to do such things: she wrote to one of her little correspondents: "You would have thought your missionary friend was rather hard-hearted, but hard things have to be done and said when one's heart aches to say and do most melting things." Ma had more hope of the children than of the grown-ups, and she tried to get hold of them and teach them. "Though they are black," she told a boy in the Highlands, "they are just as bonnie and nice as if they were white. Indeed the colour does not matter. We are all the same inside our heads and hearts, and the little lads who know about Jesus are trying as hard to be good and brave Christians as you boys who are white." She was specially hopeful about the boys. Once a missionary spoke to her about one who seemed to have no wish to be a Christian, and she replied, "Dinna gie up hope. You dinna ken what is behind him and what he has to fight against. His mother has maybe made him promise not to do it--perhaps made him chop _mbiam_ (take the solemn oath) over it." And after she talked with the boy she said, "He's a fine laddie, and ye'll have him yet." Many boys came to her for help in their troubles, and how patiently she listened to what they had to say, and how wisely and tenderly she spoke to them! She loved them all, and thought about them just as a kind mother would have done. To those who were going to be taught and trained she said, "You must be the leaders of your race and help them to rise, but you can only lead others to Jesus if you follow Him closely yourself." That was always what she was telling her own children: "Keep close to Jesus." "Bairns," she would say, "it's the wee lassie that sits beside her mother at meal-times that gets all the nice bittocks. The one who sits far away and sulks disna ken what she misses. Even the pussy gets more than she does. Keep close to Jesus the Good Shepherd all the way." When the Government took a number of the Ikpe lads to work on the new railway being built to the coal-fields they came to Ma and said they were afraid to go so far. "God will go with you and keep you," she said. "Try and find out some one who preaches the Gospel and keep near him." On the fly-leaf of a Bible she gave one of them, she wrote: _Udö Ekpenyoñ Edikpo._ _Trusting he will hold by the truths of this Holy Book when in the midst of strangers he may be exposed to temptation. Never forget prayer when reading.--Your friend_, M. SLESSOR. "This book," she told Udö, "will be a lamp to you and guide you." These young men returned none the worse for their exile. The boys who wanted to be good had more to put up with than those at home. At Ikpe there was an _mbre_, or play, called _ekang_, and all young men had to join it and pay a fee of £10. Those who would not were fined ten rods, some fish, some leaves called _akan_, and two jars of palm wine, and had to appear in the street and dance backwards to the beat of the drum, and then were flogged and hounded to their homes. This custom Ma put down. Once the chiefs gave orders that all men were to hunt in the bush, and the animals caught were to be sacrificed and eaten in honour of the _Ndems_ in the town. The lads of the Church refused to go to the hunt or to eat of the sacrifice. "Then," said the chiefs, "you will be banished." Word was sent to Ma, who was at Use, and when she came she told the chiefs that no lad must be forced to do anything against his conscience, and from that day to this there has been neither hunt nor sacrifice. [Illustration: A TOWN _NDEM_.] The people sacrificed and ate animals before the _Ndems_, because they believed that it would make the yams on their farms grow big. Ma said God alone gave them such a blessing, and that the children of the Church could no longer follow the custom. It was not long before the custom was stopped. She was very far out of the world, and seldom saw a white face. How glad she was when Mr. Bowes from Calabar appeared. They walked together from Ikpe to Odoro Ikpe. On the road she stopped and helped a woman to lift a very heavy load of palm nuts to her head. Then she went into the compound of an old chief who was ill, found out what was the matter, and arranged to send him medicine. At the entrance were three white chickens with their heads cut off. "It is a sacrifice," she said. "Oh, the pity of it." On going up the steep hill Mr. Bowes wanted to carry a bag she had slung over her shoulder. "Na, na, laddie," she said, "it's my cat and it helps to balance me." Writing to Ratcliffe at this time, she says: I have been without money for nearly a month! What do you think of that? Sometimes, but not very often, we have been hungry because we had not enough money to send to the market to buy food. The workmen make such a hole in my pocket. It is very difficult to get money brought from Calabar, and then the people won't take English money when it does come. They use copper wires, which we buy from the next station. Don't we live a very funny life? Pure gipsies, only we don't steal. "It is sometimes a rather wearying kind of living, the gipsying sort of life," she told Christine; "but while there are no workers to go round we must do this as the second best way of holding on." And then she wonders what her little friend is doing and asks, "Are you going to do something fine in the new year? I trust so. At least you will be good, and To Be is a better verb than To Do in my estimation." She began to remember that Christine was growing up, and did not like the idea. So she says to her: "I shall try and keep you in my heart with all the sweet mystery of girlhood. I should like, for many things, just to keep you among the simple loves and pleasures of home, and not to let you slip over into the womanhood which has such heights and depths that alternately beckon and frighten one. But God's order is the only right one, and you have a claim on Him." "I shall be fifteen this August," Christine replied. "I am rather sorry we are all getting so big. However, there is one comfort, when we grow bigger we will be able to go out into the world and do good things, and perhaps splendid things, and help to make people better and happier--though, of course, we can do that always." That was what Ma liked to hear, and when any of her young friends grew up and married and went out into that world of which Christine spoke, she would send them lovely messages. Here is one to a grand-niece of Mr. and Mrs. Goldie (the pioneer missionaries of Calabar who had been so good to her) when she was about to sail to America: MY DEAR LASSIE--You do not know me, but your parents and all belonging to you are very dear to me, and I have always, from before you were born, loved you all and tried to follow you all. And now God is calling you to live your life and to witness for Him in a strange land; and doubtless you will have fits of home-sickness, and times when you will want those who have hitherto made your world for you, and sometimes your husband will feel the same, for marriage does not--if it be a wholesome and sane one--destroy the old loves, but as one who knows what the leaving home means, I know that you will find your Saviour _near_, and _all-sufficient_ for all times and things. Do you know a good old practice of ours in a strange land has been to sing the 2nd Paraphrase every Saturday night. You tell your husband to try it. At worship every Saturday night you sing that, and though your voices break, you will find it a tonic. You will have all your things packed up and ready and your purchases all made, but as there are always a few small odds and ends, as hairpins and button-hooks, etc., left at the end when you are ready to embark and your boxes not at hand, I enclose a few shillings to have in your pocket for that emergency. I remember Mrs. Goldie having forgotten gloves and safety-pins in Liverpool, and we rushed out of the cab to get them on our way to the steamer! May every blessing go with you, and may your married life be a long and useful and happy one. He who hath hitherto led you will still compass your path.--Yours affectionately, MARY SLESSOR. Ma loved to hear how the girls at home were working for Jesus. How interested she was in all the new things that were being started--the Girls' Auxiliaries, the Study Circles, and Guilds! "The Church," she said, "is wise in winning the young, for they are going to be the mothers of the future and shape the destiny of the nation, and they will be all the wiser and the better mothers and Church members and citizens for what they are doing." Some of her little friends were quite young. There was Dorothy, for instance, who was only five. She sent out Ma a picture-book which she had made herself, and Ma wrote back saying, "I wish I could give you a kiss and say 'Thank you' to your very real self by my very real self, instead of sending you a mere message on paper. But you see I cannot fly over the sea, and you can't come here, so what better can we do?" The letters from home Ma kept, along with other treasures, in an old chest of drawers that she loved because it had been her mother's. If the bairns had been extra good she would gather them about her there after the lamp was lit, and show them everything. The letters were read over and over, and the children knew all about Dorothy's doll that could speak and sleep, and Jim's rocking-horse which Santa Claus had brought, and the new little brother that had come to Mary's home. Then the photographs of Dorothy, and Fay and her brother, and Christine and Happy, and others would be spread out and talked about and admired again. There were also the little gifts sent to her, just trifles, but very precious to her, because some bairn at home had worked at them. "To think of the trouble they took," she would say. And the heather! How Ma loved it! These dry bits of plants brought tears to her eyes and sent her thoughts away across the wide sea to the homeland, and she saw in vision the glint of the sun, and the shadow of the cloud on the purple moors, and felt the scent of the heather and the tang of the salt sea breeze, and heard again the cry of the whaup. "That's the Bonkle heather," she would say; "oh, the kind hearts there." "And that's the Blairgowrie heather and bog myrtle; never a year but it comes, and it is like a call across the sea." One package she opened very tenderly, for it held the wee toys and well-worn books of a little boy who had died. They had been sent out to her from the heart-broken mother. Ma could never look at this beautiful gift without her eyes growing misty with tears. In another corner was a cupboard filled with china and coloured glass, very common, but very rare in Ma's eyes, because they were gifts bought by the bairns at market or factory with their odd pennies and shyly offered to her. She often scolded them well for wasting their money in such a way, but all the same she was proud of these tokens of their love. Then, softened by sweet memories and kind feelings, the family went to evening prayers. The children, squatting on the floor, read verses round, and Ma talked to them simply about higher things, sometimes in Scots, sometimes in Efik, after which they would sing old psalms or hymns, like "Now Israel may say," which was one of Ma's favourites. No books were used, and woe betide the bairn or visitor who did not know the beginning of the next verse! Ma, however, liked the children to learn new hymns, and sometimes they could be heard singing the tuneful ones in the yard or away in the bush or on the road. [Illustration: MASK USED IN NATIVE PLAYS.] [Illustration: MA'S LAST VOYAGE.] CHAPTER XI What happened when the Great War broke out. Ma's last voyage down the Creek; how her life-long dream came true. Now she lies at rest, and dreams no more, but her work goes on. The house at Odoro Ikpe was nearly finished. It was August 1914, and strange stories were being whispered among the natives of a great war in the world of white men beyond the seas. Ma knew how swiftly news travels in Africa, and became anxious but did not show it, and went calmly about her duties. The people grew more and more restless and excited, food became dearer, and no lamp oil could be had. She had to read at night by the light of a wood fire. One day she was sitting in the new house when the mail boy came running up with letters. She took the packet and read of the invasion of Belgium by the Germans, with all the horrors of that terrible time, the coming of Britain into the struggle on the side of right and justice and freedom. "Thank God," she cried, "we are not to blame." But the dreadful news shocked and hurt her so much that she became ill and could not rise. The girls carried her over to the rest-house and put her into her camp-bed, and for many days she was in a raging fever. At last, worn out, she lay in a stupor. Round her stood the house girls and some of the lads of the Mission weeping bitterly. What should they do? They felt they must not let their beloved Ma die alone so far away from her own people. They must take her to Use. So they lifted her in the camp-bed and set out for Ikpe, carrying her gently over the streams and up and down the hills. Next morning they put the bed into the canoe and covered up the shrunken form and the thin withered face. The yellow cat was also put beside her, but the bag slipped open, and it was so frightened that it rushed into the bush and disappeared. It could not be found, and there was not time to wait, for a long journey lay ahead, and so it was lost and never seen again. All day the lads paddled down the beautiful Creek among the water-lilies, and at night they took her ashore at the landing-beach, and she lay in the white moonlight until medicine was got and given to her, and then they carried her over the three miles to Use. Thus she came to the only home she had, never to leave it again. She became a little better, and was able to get up and move about, but all the old fighting spirit had gone, and she was very tender and gentle and sweet. The War troubled her, and she was always thinking of our brave soldiers in the trenches and praying for them. But she felt she could do nothing, and was content to leave everything with God. To a little boy and girl at home she said, "God will work out big things from the War, for there is no waste with Him." And to Christine she wrote, "Every blessing be yours in the year that comes. Though it opens in gloom there is Light on ahead." Yes, for her, too, there was Light ahead. One night she lay dying in her mud-room with its cement floor and iron roof. Miss Peacock was with her and the girls, Janie, Annie, Maggie, Alice, and Whitie. Alice never left her, and slept on a mat beside her bed. Through the long hours they kept watch. Ma was restless and very, very tired, and sometimes begged God to give her rest. Just before dawn death came. God had heard Ma's prayer and given her rest. She had worked hard and faithfully for Africa, and now was to rest until Jesus comes again and on the glorious resurrection morning calls her forth to receive her eternal reward. But her place in Africa would be hard to fill, and the people wept, saying, "Adiaha Makara is dead. What shall we do? How shall we live? Our Mother is dead!" Once more she voyaged down the Cross River to Duke Town, and there she was buried on the Mission hill, all Calabar, young and old, turning out to line the streets and show their deep sorrow. At the head of the grave sat old Mammy Fuller, a coloured woman from Jamaica, a faithful servant of the Mission, who had welcomed Ma when she first arrived, a bright-eyed happy girl, thirty-nine years before, and had loved her ever since. Ma had been fond of her too, and said it was she who ought to have had the Royal Cross. "Do not cry," said Mammy to the women who began to wail. "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." There was sadness in many a little heart when the news went across the ocean that Ma was no more. Ratcliffe missed the letters that used to flash like rays of sunshine into his quiet life. What of that wonderful secret which he had kept so closely locked up in his heart? He was told that it was all right now, and that there would be no harm in telling what it was. It turned out to be very simple, like many bigger mysteries and secrets. Ma and he had agreed to pray every day that he might get better and be able to walk, and he was to be good and always do his best. Ratcliffe has never forgotten that compact he made with Ma. He remembers well how she loved him and prayed for him, and he believes that her prayers will be answered. He is now in Liverpool attending a school, and can go about on crutches with greater ease--sometimes for two and three hours at a time. He can also use his tricycle better, and enjoys a three or four-mile ride. Christine, too, mourned for the loving friend she had never seen, and as she remembered the black children left motherless and alone she felt their sorrow and cried their cry, and put it all into the music of a haunting lament, a beautiful poem, which begins: She who loved us, she who sought us Through the wild untrodden bushlands, Brought us healing, brought us comfort, Brought the sunlight to our darkness, She has gone--the dear white Mother-- Gone into the great Hereafter. Ma's death made her famous. She, who was always hiding herself in life, was written and talked about and praised everywhere. The story of her heroism, devotion, and faith made her known and admired in many homes throughout the world, and so, although she lies in a far-off tropical land with her hands folded in rest and her lips quiet for ever, she is still helping and inspiring boys and girls and older people as she did of old. She was a puzzling person in many ways. Perhaps her dear friend, Mr. Macgregor, describes her best when he says, "She was a whirlwind and an earthquake and a fire and a still small voice, all in one." But what girls and boys should remember is that she was, from her childhood, a dreamer of dreams. Not day-dreams which fade away into nothing. Not dreams of the night which are soon forgotten. But the kind of dreams which grown-up people sometimes call ideals, dreams that have in them the purpose of doing away with all that is evil and ugly, and making the world happier. Many boys and girls dream dreams, but they do nothing more. Their dreams are like the clouds that drift across the summer sky and disappear. Miss Slessor would never have done anything if she had _only_ imagined all her dreams. If a boy only longs to be a good cricketer or swimmer, he will never become one. If a girl only thinks about a prize at school, she will not gain it. If a sculptor or artist only dreams about a beautiful statue or painting, the world will never have the joy of seeing them. We have to set to work and make what we dream about a real and solid thing. That is what the White Queen always did. Her dreams came true because she prayed hard and toiled hard and waited hard and loved hard, yes, and laughed hard, for faith and toil and patience and sympathy and humour are all needed to win success. There was only one of her ideas which did not come to pass--her home for women and girls; and that would have come true also if she had lived a little longer, for it was taking hold of the Church, and money was coming in for it. It was like a bit of weaving which she had not time to complete. Now, young and old, who loved and admired her inside her own Church and elsewhere, have taken up the threads and are finishing it and making it a lasting memorial of her. A number of native buildings and a Mission House are being built, and there, under the clever guidance of her old comrade Miss Young (now Mrs. Arnot), young lives will be trained in all the things that make girlhood and womanhood useful and pure and happy. And there, too, will be a beautiful gateway where tired men and woman and children travelling along the hot roadway may take shelter from the sun, and rest, and find water to quench their thirst, and think, perhaps, of the Great White Mother who spent her life for their good. The church at Ikpe built by Ma was destroyed by a falling palm tree; the house on the hill-top at Odoro Ikpe was blown down by a tornado, and part of the roof carried away into the valley; but her work goes on. Many of the young men she taught are now members of the Church; the services in all the towns are crowded; the schools are full of scholars, and others are being built. "All around," says the Rev. John Rankin, of Arochuku, who looks after them, "there is a desire for schools, but the want of workers hinders more being done. We need a white missionary in the district." Who is going to follow in Ma's footsteps, here and elsewhere? She herself believed that it would be the young people of to-day. "I am glad to know," she said, "that the girls and boys are thinking of us and praying for us, and denying themselves and planning perhaps to come to our help." Yes, the future of Africa, and, indeed, of the whole world of heathenism, lies with the young hearts who are now dreaming dreams of what they are going to do in the days to come. They will, by and by, be the pioneers and workers in the dark lands across the seas. It is to them that Jesus is looking to bring about the time when the whole earth will be filled with His light and love and peace. Every one, of course, cannot work in the Mission field, and you do not require to go there to be a missionary. Wherever you may be, whatever you may do, you can always be a missionary and fight as valiantly as Miss Slessor did against sin and wrong-doing. You may not find your task easy. Our heroine did not find hers easy. You may meet as many difficulties as Christian did on his pilgrim way, and your dreams may be laughed at and scorned, but if you trust Jesus and persevere, you will come out all right in the end. Dream your dreams then, boys and girls, brave ones, lovely ones, but as you grow up be sure and do your best to turn them into realities, for it is only those that come true that are making life better and sweeter and shaping the world into beauty. [Illustration: DAN.] INDEX Adam, Miss, 111 Akpap, 108 Alice, 110, 129, 181, 200 Anderson, Mr. and Mrs., 25, 26, 27 Annie, 53, 99, 130, 176, 181, 200 Arnot, Mrs. (Miss Young), 154, 204 Arochuku, 123, 126, 135, 146 Aros, 122 Bowes, Mr., 192 Box from home, 102 Chapman, Mr., 140 Cook, Miss, 172 Court at Ekenge, 88; at Akpap, 117, 139; at Ikotobong, 148 Creek Town, 42, 95 Dan, 130, 153, 181, 206 _David Williamson_, the, 101 Diary, extracts from, 186 Duke Town, 25 Edem, chief of Ekenge, 54, 59, 60, 71, 76, 79, 93, (death) 109 Edisbury, Mr. and Mrs., 173 Egbo, 33, 34, 76 Egerton, Sir W., 157 Ekenge, 49, 84 Eme Ete, 55, 75, 77, 85, 93, 99, (death) 178 Enyong Creek, 120, 127, 134, 164 Eseré bean, 73, 77 Esien, 127 Fuller, Mammy, 201 Goldie, Mr. and Mrs., letter to grand-niece, 193 Gray, Happy, 111, 195 Hippos, 23, 125, 165, 167 Hogg, Miss, 40 Home for women and children, 160, 204 Hope-Waddell Institution, 84 Ibibio, 122 Ikotobong, 144 Ikpe, 162, 165, 204 Itu, 127 Iye, 94, 96 Janie, 32, 39, 40, 42, 53, 83, 96, 98, 102, 106, 111, (portrait) 119, 129, 153, 176, 177, 200 Janie (sister), 41, 42 King Eyo, 35, 45, 47, 51, 67, 100 Leopards, 156, 161, (picture) 162, 178 Livingstone, Dr., 10, 19, 88 Long juju, 123, 126 Lugard, Sir F., 179 M'Crindle, Mrs., 111 Macdonald, Sir C., 107 Macgregor, Mr. and Mrs., 158, 202 Mamie (Robertson), 158 Mana, 98, 127, 128 Mary, 92, 98, 111, 113, 129, 181 Odoro Ikpe, 183, 204 Oil ordeal, 58 Okoyong, 46, 89, 118, 177 Old Town, 31 Onoyom, chief, 136, 141 Orr, Christine G. M., 170, 192, 193, 195, 202 Ovens, Mr., 68, 69, 108 Peacock, Miss, 41, 158, 200 Ratcliffe (Edisbury), 173-181, 192, 201 Scott, Mrs., Bonkle, 153 Silver Cross, award of, 180 Slessor, Mary, baptism, 1; as a child, 5; conversion, 5; enters factory, 6; father's death, 9; study, 11; teacher in Sunday School, 12; offers for Calabar, 20; leaves for Calabar, 22; poem, 26; first furlough, 29; at Old Town, 31; river journey, 35; second furlough, 40; in Devonshire, 41; at Creek Town, 42; goes to Okoyong, 47; settles at Ekenge, 53; builds a hut, 63; and church, 65; third furlough, 83; Agent for the Government, 88; care of children, 90; removes to Akpap, 108; fourth furlough, 110; adventure with hippo, 125; visits Itu, 127; at Arochuku, 134; settles at Itu, 140; rides a bicycle, 144; at Ikotobong, 144; made Vice-President of Native Court, 147; fifth furlough, 153; goes to Ikpe, 164; visit to Canary Islands, 172; revisits Okoyong, 177; awarded Royal Medal, 180; at Odoro Ikpe, 183; illness and death, 199 Slessor, Mr., 2, 4, 6, 8 Slessor, Mrs., 2, 3, 6, 8, 10, 18, 20, 39, 42 Smallpox, 109 Susie, 95 Thomson, Mr., his scheme, 23, 152 Twins, 28, 32, 43, 93, 94, 96, 98 Use, 140, 152, 156, 161, 167, 199 War, the, 198 Whitie, 130, 200 Wilkie, Mr. and Mrs., 158 Wilson, Miss Bessie, 41 Wishart Church, (picture) 2, 12 Wright, Miss, 41, 129, 133 Young, Miss (Mrs. Arnot), 154, 204 THE END 
6897	----	Al Haines. THE LITTLE SAVAGE BY CAPTAIN MARRYAT THIS IS FAIRY GOLD, BOY; AND 'T WILL PROVE SO. SHAKESPEARE INTRODUCTION There is a reference, in _The Life and Letters of Captain Marryat_ by his daughter Florence Marryat, to "_The Little Savage_, only two chapters of the second volume of which were written by himself." This sentence may be variously interpreted, but most probably implies that Marryat wrote all Part I (of the first edition) and two chapters of Part II, that is--as far as the end of Chapter xxiv. The remaining pages may be the work of his son Frank S. Marryat, who _edited_ the first edition, supplying a brief preface to Part II:-- "I cannot publish this last work of my late father without some prefatory remarks, as, in justice to the public, as well as to himself, I should state, that his lamented decease prevented his concluding the second volume." "The present volume has been for some time at press, but the long-protracted illness of the author delayed its publication." _The Little Savage_ opens well. The picture of a lad, who was born on a desert island--though of English parents--and really deserves to be called a savage, growing up with no other companionship than that of his father's murderer, is boldly conceived and executed with some power. The man Jackson is a thoroughly human ruffian, who naturally detests the boy he has so terribly injured, and bullies him brutally. Under this treatment Frank's animal passions are inevitably aroused, and when the lightning had struck his tyrant blind, he turns upon him with a quiet savagery that is narrated with admirable detachment. This original situation arrests the reader's attention and secures his interest in Frank Henniker's development towards civilisation and virtue. His experience of absolute solitude after Jackson's death serves to bring out his sympathies with animals and flowers; while, on the arrival of Mrs Reichardt, he proves himself a loyal comrade under kind treatment. It is much to be regretted that Marryat did not live to finish his work. R. B. J. _The Little Savage_ originally appeared in 1848-49. Marryat, who was born in 1792, died at Langham, Norfolk, August 9, 1848. The following is the list of his published works:-- Suggestions for the Abolition of the Present System of Impressment in the Naval Service, 1822; The Naval Officer, or Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Frank Mildmay, 1829; The King's Own, 1830; Newton Forster (from the _Metropolitan Magazine_), 1832; Jacob Faithful (from the _Metropolitan Magazine_), 1834; Peter Simple, 1834; The Pacha of Many Tales, 1835; Midshipman Easy (from the _Metropolitan Magazine_), 1836; Japhet in Search of a Father (from the _Metropolitan Magazine_), 1836; The Pirate and The Three Cutters, 1836; A Code of Signals for the Use of Vessels employed in the Merchant Service, 1837; Snarleyyow, or The Dog Fiend, 1837; A Diary in America, with Remarks on its Institutions, 1839; The Phantom Ship, 1839; Poor Jack, 1840; Olla Podrida (articles from the _Metropolitan Magazine_), 1840; Joseph Rushbrook, or The Poacher, 1841; Masterman Ready, or The Wreck of the _Pacific_, 1841; Percival Keene, 1842; Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Texas, 1843; The Settlers in Canada, 1844; The Mission, or Scenes in Africa, 1845; The Privateer's Man, 1846; The Children of the New Forest, 1847; The Little Savage (posthumous), 1848-49; Valerie (posthumous), 1849; Life and Letters, Florence Marryat, 1872. THE LITTLE SAVAGE Chapter I I am about to write a very curious history, as the reader will agree with me when he has read this book. We have more than one narrative of people being cast away upon desolate islands, and being left to their own resources, and no works are perhaps read with more interest; but I believe I am the first instance of a boy being left alone upon an uninhabited island. Such was, however, the case; and now I shall tell my own story. My first recollections are, that I was in company with a man upon this island, and that we walked often along the sea-shore. It was rocky and difficult to climb in many parts, and the man used to drag or pull me over the dangerous places. He was very unkind to me, which may appear strange, as I was the only companion that he had; but he was of a morose and gloomy disposition. He would sit down squatted in the corner of our cabin, and sometimes not speak for hours--or he would remain the whole day looking out at the sea, as if watching for something, but what I never could tell; for if I spoke, he would not reply; and if near to him, I was sure to receive a cuff or a heavy blow. I should imagine that I was about five years old at the time that I first recollect clearly what passed. I may have been younger. I may as well here state what I gathered from him at different times, relative to our being left upon this desolate spot. It was with difficulty that I did so; for, generally speaking, he would throw a stone at me if I asked questions, that is, if I repeatedly asked them after he had refused to answer. It was on one occasion, when he was lying sick, that I gained the information, and that only by refusing to attend him or bring him food and water. He would be very angry, and say, that when he got well again, he would make me smart for it; but I cared not, for I was then getting strong, whilst he was getting weaker every day, and I had no love for him, for he had never shown any to me, but always treated me with great severity. He told me, that about twelve years before (not that I knew what he meant by a year, for I had never heard the term used by him), an English ship (I did not know what a ship was) had been swamped near the island, in a heavy gale, and that seven men and one woman had been saved, and all the other people lost. That the ship had been broken into pieces, and that they had saved nothing--that they had picked up among the rocks pieces of the wood with which it had been made, and had built the cabin in which we lived. That one had died after another, and had been buried (what death or burial meant, I had no idea at the time), and that I had been born on the island; (How was I born? thought I)--that most of them had died before I was two years old; and that then, he and my mother were the only two left besides me. My mother had died a few months afterwards. I was obliged to ask him many questions to understand all this; indeed, I did not understand it till long afterwards, although I had an idea of what he would say. Had I been left with any other person, I should, of course, by conversation, have learnt much; but he never would converse, still less explain. He called me, Boy, and I called him, Master. His inveterate silence was the occasion of my language being composed of very few words; for, except to order me to do this or that, to procure what was required, he never would converse. He did however mutter to himself, and talk in his sleep, and I used to lie awake and listen, that I might gain information; not at first, but when I grew older. He used to cry out in his sleep constantly.--"A judgment, a judgment on me for my sins, my heavy sins--God be merciful!" But what judgment, or what sin was, or what was God, I did not then know, although I mused on words repeated so often. I will now describe the island, and the way in which we lived. The island was very small, perhaps not three miles round; it was of rock, and there was no beach nor landing place, the sea washing its sides with deep water. It was, as I afterwards discovered, one of the group of islands to which the Peruvians despatch vessels every year to collect the guano, or refuse of the sea birds which resort to the islands; but the one on which we were was small, and detached some distance from the others, on which the guano was found in great profusion; so that hitherto it had been neglected, and no vessel had ever come near it. Indeed, the other islands were not to be seen from it except on a very clear day, when they appeared like a cloud or mist on the horizon. The shores of the island were, moreover, so precipitous, that there was no landing place, and the eternal wash of the ocean would have made it almost impossible for a vessel to have taken off a cargo. Such was the island upon which I found myself in company with this man. Our cabin was built of ship-plank and timber, under the shelter of a cliff, about fifty yards from the water; there was a flat of about thirty yards square in front of it, and from the cliff there trickled down a rill of water, which fell into a hole dug out to collect it, and then found its way over the flat to the rocks beneath. The cabin itself was large, and capable of holding many more people than had ever lived in it; but it was not too large, as we had to secure in it our provisions for many months. There were several bed-places level with the floor, which were rendered soft enough to lie on, by being filled with the feathers of birds. Furniture there was none, except two or three old axes, blunted with long use, a tin pannikin, a mess kid and some rude vessels to hold water, cut out of wood. On the summit of the island there was a forest of underwood, and the bushes extended some distance down the ravines which led from the summit to the shore. One of my most arduous tasks was to climb these ravines and collect wood, but fortunately a fire was not often required. The climate was warm all the year round, and there seldom was a fall of rain; when it did fall, it was generally expended on the summit of the island, and did not reach us. At a certain period of the year, the birds came to the island in numberless quantities to breed, and their chief resort was some tolerably level ground--indeed, in many places, it was quite level with the accumulation of guano--which ground was divided from the spot where our cabin was built by a deep ravine. On this spot, which might perhaps contain about twenty acres or more, the sea birds would sit upon their eggs, not four inches apart from each other, and the whole surface of this twenty acres would be completely covered with them. There they would remain from the time of the laying of the eggs, until the young ones were able to leave the nests and fly away with them. At the season when the birds were on the island, all was gaiety, bustle, and noise, but after their departure it was quiet and solitude. I used to long for their arrival, and was delighted with the animation which gladdened the island, the male birds diving in every direction after fish, wheeling and soaring in the air, and uttering loud cries, which were responded to by their mates on the nests. But it was also our harvest time; we seldom touched the old birds, as they were not in flesh, but as soon as the young ones were within a few days of leaving the nests, we were then busy enough. In spite of the screaming and the flapping of their wings in our faces, and the darting their beaks at our eyes, of the old birds, as we robbed them of their progeny, we collected hundreds every day, and bore as heavy a load as we could carry across the ravine to the platform in front of our cabin, where we busied ourselves in skinning them, splitting them, and hanging them out to dry in the sun. The air of the island was so pure that no putrefaction ever took place, and during the last fortnight of the birds coming on the island, we had collected a sufficiency for our support until their return on the following year. As soon as they were quite dry they were packed up in a corner of the cabin for use. These birds were, it may be said, the only produce of the island, with the exception of fish, and the eggs taken at the time of their first making their nests. Fish were to be taken in large quantities. It was sufficient to put a line over the rocks, and it had hardly time to go down a fathom before anything at the end of it was seized. Indeed, our means of taking them were as simple as their voracity was great. Our lines were composed of the sinews of the legs of the man-of-war birds, as I afterwards heard them named; and, as these were only about a foot long, it required a great many of them knotted together to make a line. At the end of the line was a bait fixed over a strong fish-bone, which was fastened to the line by the middle; a half-hitch of the line round one end kept the bone on a parallel with the line until the bait was seized, when the line being taughtened, the half-hitch slipped off and the bone remained crossways in the gullet of the fish, which was drawn up by it. Simple as this contrivance was, it answered as well as the best hook, of which I had never seen one at that time. The fish were so strong and large, that, when I was young, the man would not allow me to attempt to catch them, lest they should pull me into the water; but, as I grew bigger, I could master them. Such was our food from one year's end to the other; we had no variety, except when occasionally we broiled the dried birds or the fish upon the embers, instead of eating them dried by the sun. Our raiment, such as it was, we were also indebted to the feathered tribe for. The birds were skinned with the feathers on, and their skins sewn together with sinews, and a fish-bone by way of a needle. These garments were not very durable, but the climate was so fine that we did not suffer from the cold at any season of the year. I used to make myself a new dress every year when the birds came; but by the time that they returned, I had little left of my last year's suit, the fragments of which might be found among the rocky and steep parts of the ravine where we used to collect firing. Living such a life, with so few wants, and those periodically and easily supplied, hardly varied from one year's end to another, it may easily be imagined that I had but few ideas. I might have had more, if my companion had not been of such a taciturn and morose habit; as it was, I looked at the wide ocean, and the sky, and the sun, moon, and stars, wondering, puzzled, afraid to ask questions, and ending all by sleeping away a large portion of my existence. We had no tools except the old ones, which were useless--no employment of any kind. There was a book, and I asked what it was for and what it was, but I got no answer. It remained upon the shelf, for if I looked at it I was ordered away, and at last I regarded it with a sort of fear, as if it were a kind of incomprehensible animal. The day was passed in idleness and almost silence; perhaps not a dozen sentences were exchanged in the twenty-four hours. My companion always the same, brooding over something which appeared ever to occupy his thoughts, and angry if roused up from his reverie. Chapter II The reader must understand that the foregoing remarks are to be considered as referring to my position and amount of knowledge when I was seven or eight years old. My master, as I called him, was a short square-built man, about sixty years of age, as I afterwards estimated from recollection and comparison. His hair fell down his back in thick clusters and was still of a dark color, and his beard was full two feet long and very bushy; indeed, he was covered with hair, wherever his person was exposed. He was, I should say, very powerful had he had occasion to exert his strength, but with the exception of the time at which we collected the birds, and occasionally going up the ravine to bring down faggots of wood, he seldom moved out of the cabin unless it was to bathe. There was a pool of salt water of about twenty yards square, near the sea, but separated from it by a low ridge of rocks, over which the waves only beat when the sea was rough and the wind on that side of the island. Every morning almost we went down to bathe in that pool, as it was secure from the sharks, which were very numerous. I could swim like a fish as early as I can recollect, but whether I was taught, or learnt myself, I cannot tell. Thus was my life passed away; my duties were trifling; I had little or nothing to employ myself about, for I had no means of employment. I seldom heard the human voice, and became as taciturn as my companion. My amusements were equally confined--looking down into the depths of the ocean, as I lay over the rocky wall which girded the major portion of the island, and watching the motions of the finny tribes below, wondering at the stars during the night season, eating, and sleeping. Thus did I pass away an existence without pleasure and without pain. As for what my thoughts were I can hardly say, my knowledge and my ideas were too confined for me to have any food for thought. I was little better than a beast of the field, that lies down on the pasture after he is filled. There was one great source of interest however, which was, to listen to the sleeping talk of my companion, and I always looked forward to the time when the night fell and we repaired to our beds. I would lie awake for hours, listening to his ejaculations and murmured speech, trying in vain to find out some meaning in what he would say--but I gained little; he talked of "that woman"--appearing to be constantly with other men, and muttering about something he had hidden away. One night, when the moon was shining bright, he sat up in his bed, which, as I have before said, was on the floor of the cabin, and throwing aside the feathers upon which he had been lying, scratched the mould away below them and lifted up a piece of board. After a minute he replaced everything, and lay down again. He evidently was sleeping during the whole time. Here, at last, was something to feed my thoughts with. I had heard him say in his sleep that he had hidden something--this must be the hiding place. What was it? Perhaps I ought here to observe that my feelings towards this man were those of positive dislike, if not hatred; I never had received one kind word or deed from him, that I could recollect. Harsh and unfeeling towards me, evidently looking upon me with ill-will, and only suffering me because I saved him some trouble, and perhaps because he wished to have a living thing for his companion,--his feelings towards me were reciprocated by mine towards him. What age I was at the time my mother died, I know not, but I had some faint recollection of one who treated me with kindness and caresses, and these recollections became more forcible in my dreams, when I saw a figure very different from that of my companion (a female figure) hanging over me or leading me by the hand. How I used to try to continue those dreams, by closing my eyes again after I had woke up! And yet I knew not that they had been brought about by the dim recollection of my infancy; I knew not that the figure that appeared to me was the shadow of my mother; but I loved the dreams because I was treated kindly in them. But a change took place by the hand of Providence. One day, after we had just laid in our yearly provision of sea birds, I was busy arranging the skins of the old birds, on the flat rock, for my annual garment, which was joined together something like a sack, with holes for the head and arms to pass through; when, as I looked to seaward, I saw a large white object on the water. "Look, master," said I, pointing towards it. "A ship, a ship!" cried my companion. "Oh," thought I, "that is a ship; I recollect that he said they came here in a ship." I kept my eyes on her, and she rounded to. "Is she alive?" inquired I. "You're a fool," said the man; "come and help me to pile up this wood that we may make a signal to her. Go and fetch some water and throw on it, that there may be plenty of smoke. Thank God, I may leave this cursed hole at last!" I hardly understood him, but I went for the water and brought it in the mess kid. "I want more wood yet," said he. "Her head is this way, and she will come nearer." "Then she is alive," said I. "Away, fool!" said he, giving me a cuff on the head; "get some more water and throw on the wood." He then went into the cabin to strike a light, which he obtained by a piece of iron and flint, with some fine dry moss for tinder. While he was so employed, my eyes were fixed on the vessel, wondering what it could be. It moved through the water, turned this way and that. "It must be alive," thought I; "is it a fish or a bird?" As I watched the vessel, the sun was going down and there was not more than an hour's daylight. The wind was very light and variable, which accounted for the vessel so often altering her course. My companion came out with his hands full of smoking tinder, and putting it under the wood, was busy blowing it into a flame. The wood was soon set fire to, and the smoke ascended several feet into the air. "They'll see that," said he. "What then, it has eyes? it must be alive. Does it mind the wind?" inquired I, having no answer to my first remark, "for look there, the little clouds are coming up fast," and I pointed to the horizon, where some small clouds were rising up and which were, as I knew from experience and constantly watching the sky, a sign of a short but violent gale, or tornado, of which we usually had one, if not two, at this season of the year. "Yes; confound it," replied my companion, grinding his teeth, "it will blow her off! That's my luck." In the meantime, the smoke ascended in the air and the vessel approached nearer and nearer, until she was within, I suppose, two miles of the island, and then it fell quite calm. My companion threw more water on to increase the smoke, and the vessel now hauling up her courses, I perceived that there were people on board, and while I was arranging my ideas as to what the vessel might be, my companion cried out--"They see us, they see us! there's hope now. Confound it, I've been here long enough. Hurrah for old England!" and he commenced dancing and capering about like a madman. At last he said, "Look out and see if she sends a boat, while I go into the cabin." "What's a boat?" said I. "Out, you fool! tell me if you see anything," "Yes, I do see something," replied I. "Look at the squall coming along the water, it will be here very soon; and see how thick the clouds are getting up: we shall have as much wind and rain as we had the time before last, when the birds came." "Confound it," replied he, "I wish they'd lower a boat, at all events;" and so saying, he went into the cabin, and I perceived that he was busy at his bed-place. My eyes were still fixed upon the squall, as I watched it advancing at a furious speed on the surface of the water; at first it was a deep black line on the horizon, but as it approached the vessel, it changed to white; the surface of the water was still smooth. The clouds were not more than ten degrees above the horizon, although they were thick and opaque--but at this season of the year, these tornadoes, as I may call them, visited us; sometimes we had one, sometimes more, and it was only when these gusts came on that we had any rain below. On board of the vessel--I speak now from my after knowledge--they did not appear to be aware of the danger; the sails were all set and flapping against the masts. At last, I perceived a small object close to the vessel; this I presumed was the boat which my companion looked for. It was like a young vessel close to the old one, but I said nothing; as I was watching and wondering what effect the rising wind would have upon her, for the observations of my companion had made me feel that it was important. After a time, I perceived that the white sails were disappearing, and that the forms of men were very busy, and moving on board, and the boat went back to the side of the vessel. The fact is, they had not perceived the squall until it was too late, for in another moment almost, I saw that the vessel bowed down to the fury of the gale, and after that, the mist was so great that I couldn't see her any more. "Is she sending a boat, boy?" cried my companion. "I can't see her," replied I; "for she is hidden by the wind." As I said this, the tornado reached to where we stood, and threw me off my legs to the entrance of the cabin; and with the wind came down a torrent of rain, which drenched us, and the clouds covered the whole of the firmament, which became dark; the lightning darted in every direction, with peals of thunder which were deafening. I crawled into the cabin, into which the rain beat in great fury and flowed out again in a small river. My companion sat near me, lowering and silent. For two hours the tornado lasted without interruption; the sun had set, and the darkness was opaque. It was impossible to move against the force of the wind and the deluge of water which descended. Speak, we did not, but shut our eyes against the lightning, and held our fingers to our ears to deaden the noise of the thunder, which burst upon us in the most awful manner. My companion groaned at intervals, whether from fear, I know not; I had no fear, for I did not know the danger, or that there was a God to judge the earth. Gradually the fury of the gale abated, the rain was only heavy at intervals, and we could now hear the beating of the waves, as they dashed against the rocks beneath us. The sky also cleared up a little, and we could dimly discern the white foam of the breakers. I crawled out of the cabin, and stood upon the platform in front, straining my eyes to see the vessel. A flash of lightning, for a second, revealed her to me; she was dismasted, rolling in the awful breakers, which bore her down upon the high rocks, not a quarter of a mile from her. "There it is," exclaimed I, as the disappearance of the lightning left me in darkness, more opaque than ever. "She's done for," growled my companion, who, I was not till then aware, stood by my side. "No hopes this time, confound it!" Then he continued for some time to curse and swear awfully, as I afterwards discovered, for I did not then know what was cursing and swearing. "There she is again," said I, as another flash of lightning revealed the position of the vessel. "Yes, and she won't be there long; in five minutes she'll be dashed to atoms, and every soul perish." "What are souls?" inquired I. My companion gave me no reply. "I will go down to the rocks," said I, "and see what goes on." "Go," said he, "and share their fate." Chapter III I left him, and commenced a careful descent of the precipices by which we were surrounded, but, before I had gone fifty paces, another flash of lightning was followed up by a loud shriek, which arrested my steps. Where the noise came from, I could not tell, but I heard my companion calling to me to come back. I obeyed him, and found him standing where I had left him. "You called me, master?" "Yes, I did; take my hand, and lead me to the cabin." I obeyed him, wondering why he asked me so to do. He gained his bed-place, and threw himself down on it. "Bring the kid full of water," said he--"quick!" I brought it, and he bathed his head and face. After a time, he threw himself back upon the bed-place, and groaned heavily. "O God! it's all over with me," said he at last. "I shall live and die in this cursed hole." "What's the matter, master?" said I. He gave me no answer, but lay groaning and occasionally cursing. After a time, he was still, and then I went out again. The tornado was now over, and the stars were to be seen here and there, but still the wind was strong and the wild clouds flew fast. The shores of the island were one mass of foam, which was dashed high in the air and fell upon the black rocks. I looked for the vessel, and could see nothing--the day was evidently dawning, and I sat down and waited its coming. My companion was apparently asleep, for he lay without motion or noise. That some misfortune had happened, I was convinced, but what, I knew not, and I passed a long time in conjecture, dividing my thoughts between him and the vessel. At last the daylight appeared--the weather was moderating fast, although the waves still beat furiously against the rocky shore. I could see nothing of the vessel, and I descended the path, now slippery and insecure from the heavy fall of rain, and went as near to the edge of the rocks as the breaking billows would permit. I walked along, occasionally drenched by the spray, until I arrived where I had last seen the vessel. The waves were dashing and tossing about, as if in sport, fragments of timber, casks, and spars; but that was all I could see, except a mast and rigging, which lay alongside of the rocks, sometimes appearing above them on the summit of the waves, then descending far out of my sight, for I dared not venture near enough to the edge to look over. "Then the vessel is dashed to pieces, as my companion said," thought I. "I wonder how she was made." I remained about an hour on the rocks, and then turned back to the cabin. I found my companion awake, and groaning heavily. "There is no ship," said I, "nothing but pieces of wood floating about." "I know that," replied he; "but what do I care now?" "I thought by your making a smoke, that you did care." "Yes, I did then, but now I am blind, I shall never see a ship or anything else again. God help me! I shall die and rot on this cursed island." "Blind, what is blind?" inquired I. "The lightning has burned out my eyes, and I can see nothing--I cannot help myself--I cannot walk about--I cannot do anything, and I suppose you will leave me here to die like a dog." "Can't you see me?" "No, all is dark, dark as night, and will be as long as I live." And he turned on his bed-place and groaned. "I had hope, I lived in hope--it has kept me alive for many weary years, but now hope is gone, and I care not if I die to-morrow." And then he started up and turned his face towards me, and I saw that there was no light in his eyes. "Bring me some more water, do you hear?" said he, angrily. "Be quick, or I'll make you." But I now fully comprehended his condition, and how powerless he was. My feelings, as I have before said, were anything but cordial towards him, and this renewed violence and threatening manner had its effect. I was now, I suppose, about twelve or thirteen years old--strong and active. I had more than once felt inclined to rebel, and measure my strength against his. Irritated, therefore, at his angry language, I replied-- "Go for the water yourself." "Ah!" sighed he, after a pause of some seconds, "that I might have expected. But let me once get you into my hands, I'll make you remember it." "I care not if I were in your hands," replied I; "I am as strong as you." For I had thought so many a day, and meant to prove it. "Indeed! well, come here, and let us try." "No, no," replied I; "I'm not such a fool as you say I am--not that I'm afraid of you; for I shall have an axe in my hand always ready, and you will not find another." "I wish that I had tossed you over the cliffs when you were a child," said he, bitterly, "instead of nursing you and bringing you up." "Then why have you not been kind to me? As far back as I can remember you have always treated me ill; you have made me work for you; and yet never even spoken kindly to me. I have wanted to know things, and you have never answered my questions, but called me a fool, and told me to hold my tongue. You have made me hate you, and you have often told me how you hated me--you know you have." "It's true, quite true," replied he, as if talking to himself. "I have done all that he says, and I have hated him. But I have had cause. Come here, boy." "No," replied I; "do you come here. You have been master, and I have been boy, long enough. Now I am master and you are boy, and you shall find it so." Having said this, I walked out of the cabin and left him. He cried out, "Don't leave me," but I heeded him not, and sat down at the edge of the fiat ledge of the rock before the cabin. Looking at the white dancing waves, and deep in my own thoughts, I considered a long while how I should behave towards him. I did not wish him to die, as I knew he must if I left him. He could not obtain water from the rill without a great chance of falling over the cliff. In fact, I was now fully aware of his helpless state; to prove it to myself, I rose and shut my own eyes; tried if I could venture to move on such dangerous ground, and I felt sure that I could not. He was then in my power; he could do nothing; he must trust to me for almost everything. I had said, let what would follow, I would be master and he boy; but that could not be, as I must still attend upon him, or he would die. At last the thought came suddenly upon me--I will be master, nevertheless, for now he shall answer me all my questions, tell me all he knows, or he shall starve. He is in my power. He shall now do what I have ever tried to make him do, and he has ever refused. Having thus arranged my plans, I returned to the cabin, and said to him: "Hear what I say--I will be kind to you, and not leave you to starve, if you will do what I ask." "And what is that?" replied he. "For a long while I have asked you many questions, and you have refused to answer them. Instead of telling me what I would know, you have beaten or thrown stones at me, called me names, and threatened me. I now give you your choice--either you shall promise to answer every question that I put to you, or you may live how you can, for I shall leave you to help yourself. If you do as I wish, I will do all I can to help you, but if you will not, thank yourself for what may happen. Recollect, I am master now; so take your choice." "Well," replied he slowly, "it's a judgment upon me, and I must agree to it. I will do what you wish." "Well, then, to begin," said I, "I have often asked you what your name was, and what was mine. I must call you something, and Master I will not, for I am master now. What is your name?" He groaned, ground his teeth, and then said, "Edward Jackson." "Edward Jackson! very well; and my name?" "No, I cannot bear the name. I cannot say it," replied he, angrily. "Be it so," replied I. "Then I leave you." "Will you bring me some water for my eyes? they burn," said he. "No, I will not, nor anything else, unless you tell me my name." "Frank Henniker--and curses on it." "Frank Henniker. Well, now you shall have the water." I went out, filled a kid, and put it by his side, "There is the water, Jackson; if you want anything, call me. I shall be outside." "I have gained the mastery," thought I,--"it will be my turn now. He don't like to answer, but he shall, or he shall starve. Why does he feel so angry at my name? Henniker! what is the meaning of Henniker, I wonder? I will make him tell me. Yes, he shall tell me everything." I may here observe, that as for pity and compassion, I did not know such feelings. I had been so ill-treated, that I only felt that might was right; and this right I determined upon exercising to the utmost. I felt an inconceivable pleasure at the idea of my being the master, and he the boy. I felt the love of power, the pride of superiority. I then revolved in my mind the daily task which I would set him, before he should receive his daily sustenance. He should talk now as much as I pleased, for I was the master. I had been treated as a slave, and I was now fully prepared to play the tyrant. Mercy and compassion I knew not. I had never seen them called forth, and I felt them not. I sat down on the flat rock for some time, and then it occurred to me that I would turn the course of the water which fell into the hole at the edge of the cliff; so that if he crawled there, he would not be able to obtain any. I did so, and emptied the hole. The water was now only to be obtained by climbing up, and it was out of his power to obtain a drop. Food, of course, he could obtain, as the dried birds were all piled up at the farther end of the cabin, and I could not well remove them; but what was food without water? I was turning in my mind what should be the first question to put to him; and I had decided that I would have a full and particular account of how the vessel had been wrecked on the island, and who were my father and mother, and why I was named Henniker--when I was roused by hearing Jackson (as I shall in future call him) crying out, "Boy, boy!" "Boy, indeed," thought I--"no longer boy," and I gave no reply. Again he called, and at last he cried out, "Henniker," but I had been ruffled by his calling me boy, and I would not answer him. At last he fairly screamed my name, and then was silent. After a moment, I perceived that he crawled out of his bed-place, and feeling by the sides of the cabin, contrived on his hands and knees to crawl in the direction of the hole into which the water had previously been received; and I smiled at what I knew would be his disappointment when he arrived there. He did so at last: put his hand to feel the edge of the hole, and then down into it to feel for the water; and when he found that there was none, he cursed bitterly, and I laughed at his vexation. He then felt all the way down where the water had fallen, and found that the course of it had been stopped, and he dared not attempt anything further. He dashed his clenched hand against the rock. "Oh! that I had him in this grasp--if it were but for one moment. I would not care if I died the next." "I do not doubt you," replied I to him, above, "but you have not got me in your hands, and you will not. Go in to bed directly--quick," cried I, throwing a piece of rock at him, which hit him on the head. "Crawl back as fast as you can, you fool, or I'll send another at your head directly. I'll tame you, as you used to say to me." The blow on the head appeared to have confused him; but after a time he crawled back to his bed-place, and threw himself down with a heavy groan. Chapter IV I then went down to the water's edge to see if I could find anything from the wreck, for the water was smooth, and no longer washed over the rocks of the island. Except fragments of wood, I perceived nothing until I arrived at the pool where we were accustomed to bathe; and I found that the sea had thrown into it two articles of large dimensions--one was a cask of the size of a puncheon, which lay in about a foot of water farthest from the seaward; and the other was a seaman's chest. What these things were I did not then know, and I wish the reader to recollect that a great portion of this narrative is compiled from after knowledge. The cask was firm in the sand, and I could not move it. The chest was floating; I hauled it on the rocks without difficulty, and then proceeded to open it. It was some time before I could discover how, for I had never seen a lock, or a hinge in my life; but at last, finding that the lid was the only portion of the chest which yielded, I contrived, with a piece of rock, to break it open. I found in it a quantity of seamen's clothes, upon which I put no value; but some of the articles I immediately comprehended the use of, and they filled me with delight. There were two new tin pannikins, and those would hold water. There were three empty wine bottles, a hammer, a chisel, gimlet, and some other tools, also three or four fishing-lines many fathoms long. But what pleased me most were two knives, one shutting up, with a lanyard sheath to wear round the waist; and the other an American long knife, in a sheath, which is usually worn by them in the belt. Now, three or four years back, Jackson had the remains of a clasp knife--that is, there was about an inch of the blade remaining--and this, as may be supposed, he valued very much; indeed, miserable as the article was, in our destitute state it was invaluable. This knife he had laid on the rock when fishing, and it had been dragged into the sea as his line ran out; and he was for many days inconsolable for its loss. We had used it for cutting open the birds when we skinned them, and, indeed this remains of a knife had been always in request. Since the loss of it, we had had hard work to get the skins off the birds; I therefore well knew the value of these knives, which I immediately secured. The remainder of the articles in the chest, which was quite full, I laid upon the rocks, with the clothes, to dry; of most of them I did not know the use, and consequently did not prize them at the time. It was not until afterwards, when I had taken them to my companion, that I learned their value. I may as well here observe, that amongst these articles were two books, and, from the positive commands of my companion, not to touch the book in the cabin, I looked upon them with a degree of awe, and hesitated upon taking them in my hand; but, at last, I put them out to dry on the rocks, with the rest of the contents of the chest. I felt the knives, the blades were sharp; I put the lanyard of the clasp knife round my neck; the sheath knife, which was a formidable weapon, I made fast round my waist, with a piece of the fishing lines, which I cut off; and I then turned my steps towards the cabin, as night was coming on, though the moon was high in the heavens, and shining brightly. On my return, I found Jackson in his bed-place; he heard me come in, and asked me, in a quiet tone, whether I would bring him some water? I answered, "No, that I would not, for what he had said about me, and what he would do, if he got me into his power. I'll tame you," cried I. "I'm master now, as you shall find." "You may be," replied he, quickly, "but still, that is no reason why you should not let me have some water. Did I ever prevent you from having water?" "You never had to fetch it for me," I rejoined, "or you would not have taken the trouble. What trouble would you take for me, if I were blind now, and not you? I should become of no use to you, and you would leave me to die. You only let me live that you might make me work for you, and beat me cruelly. It's my turn now--you're the boy, and I'm the master." The reader must remember that I did not know the meaning of the word "boy"; my idea of it was, that it was in opposition to "master," and boy, with me, had the same idea as the word "slave." "Be it so," replied he, calmly. "I shall not want water long." There was a quietness about Jackson which made me suspect him, and the consequence was, that although I turned into my bed-place, which was on the ground at the side of the cabin opposite to his, I did not feel inclined to go to sleep, but remained awake, thinking of what had passed. It was towards morning when I heard him move; my face being turned that way, I had no occasion to stir to watch his motions. He crept very softly out of his bed-place towards me, listening, and advancing on his knees, not more than a foot every ten seconds. "You want me in your grasp," thought I, "come along," and I drew my American knife from its sheath, without noise, and awaited his approach, smiling at the surprise he would meet with. I allowed him to come right up to me; he felt the side of my bed, and then passed his right hand over to seize me. I caught his right hand with my left, and passing the knife across his wrist, more than half divided it from his arm. He gave a shriek of surprise and pain, and fell back. "He has a knife," exclaimed he, with surprise, holding his severed wrist with the other hand. "Yes, he has a knife, and more than one," replied I, "and you see that he knows how to use it. Will you come again? or will you believe that I'm master?" "If you have any charity or mercy, kill me at once," said he, as he sat up in the moonlight, in the centre of the floor of the cabin. "Charity and mercy," said I, "what are they? I never heard of them." "Alas! no," replied he, "I have shewed none--it's a judgment on me--a judgment on me for my many sins; Lord, forgive me! First my eyes, now my right hand useless. What next, O Lord of Heaven?" "Why, your other hand next," replied I, "if you try it again." Jackson made no reply. He attempted to crawl back to his bed, but, faint with loss of blood, he dropped senseless on the floor of the cabin. I looked at him, and satisfied that he would make no more attempts upon me, I turned away, and fell fast asleep. In about two hours, I awoke, and looking round, perceived him lying on the floor, where he had fallen the night before. I went to him and examined him--was he asleep, or was he dead? He lay in a pool of blood. I felt him, and he was quite warm. It was a ghastly cut on his wrist, and I thought, if he is dead, he will never tell me what I want to know. I knew that he bound up cuts to stop the blood. I took some feathers from the bed, and put a handful on the wound. After I had done it, I bound his wrist up with a piece of fishing-line I had taken to secure the sheath knife round my waist, and then I went for some water. I poured some down his throat; this revived him, and he opened his eyes. "Where am I?" said he faintly. "Where are you?--why, in the cabin," said I. "Give me some more water." I did so, for I did not wish to kill him. I wanted him to live, and to be in my power. After drinking the water he roused himself, and crawled back to his bed-place. I left him then, and went down to bathe. The reader may exclaim--What a horrid tyrant this boy is--why, he is as bad as his companion. Exactly--I was so--but let the reader reflect that I was made so by education. From the time that I could first remember, I had been tyrannised over; cuffed, kicked, abused and ill-treated. I had never known kindness. Most truly was the question put by me, "Charity and mercy--what are they?" I never heard of them. An American Indian has kind feelings--he is hospitable and generous--yet, educated to inflict, and receive, the severest tortures to and from, his enemies, he does the first with the most savage and vindictive feelings, and submits to the latter with indifference and stoicism. He has, indeed, the kindlier feelings of his nature exercised; still, this changes him not. He has been from earliest infancy brought up to cruelty, and he cannot feel that it is wrong. Now, my position was worse. I had never seen the softer feelings of our nature called into play; I knew nothing but tyranny and oppression, hatred and vengeance. It was therefore not surprising that, when my turn came, I did to others as I had been done by. Jackson had no excuse for his treatment of me, whereas, I had every excuse for retaliation. He did know better, I did not. I followed the ways of the world in the petty microcosm in which I had been placed. I knew not of mercy, of forgiveness, charity, or goodwill. I knew not that there was a God; I only knew that might was right, and the most pleasurable sensation which I felt, was that of anxiety for vengeance, combined with the consciousness of power. After I had bathed, I again examined the chest and its contents. I looked at the books without touching them. "I must know what these mean," thought I, "and I will know." My thirst for knowledge was certainly most remarkable, in a boy of my age; I presume for the simple reason, that we want most what we cannot obtain; and Jackson having invariably refused to enlighten me on any subject, I became most anxious and impatient to satisfy the longing which increased with my growth. Chapter V For three days did Jackson lie on his bed; I supplied him with water, but he did not eat anything. He groaned heavily at times, and talked much to himself, and I heard him ask forgiveness of God, and pardon for his sins. I noted this down for an explanation. On the third day, he said to me, "Henniker, I am very ill. I have a fever coming on, from the wound you have given me. I do not say that I did not deserve it, for I did, and I know that I have treated you ill, and that you must hate me, but the question is, do you wish me to die?" "No," replied I; "I want you to live, and answer all my questions, and you shall do so." "I will do so," replied he. "I have done wrong, and I will make amends. Do you understand me? I mean to say, that I have been very cruel to you, and now I will do all you wish, and answer every question you may put to me, as well as I can." "That is what I want," replied I. "I know it is, but my wound is festering and must be washed and dressed. The feathers make it worse. Will you do this for me?" I thought a little, and recollected that he was still in my power, as he could not obtain water. I replied, "Yes, I will." "The cord hurts it, you must take it off." I fetched the kid of water, and untied the cord, and took away the feathers, which had matted together with the flow of blood, and then I washed the wound carefully. Looking into the wound, my desire of information induced me to say, "What are these little white cords, which are cut through?" "They are the sinews and tendons," replied he, "by which we are enabled to move our hands and fingers; now these are cut through, I shall not have the use of my hand again." "Stop a moment," said I, rising up, "I have just thought of something." I ran down to the point where the chest lay, took a shirt from the rock, and brought it back with me, and tearing it into strips, I bandaged the wound. "Where did you get that linen?" said Jackson. I told him. "And you got the knife there, too," said he, with a sigh. I replied in the affirmative. As soon as I had finished, he told me he was much easier, and said, "I thank you." "What is I thank you?" replied I. "It means that I am grateful for what you have done." "And what is grateful?" inquired I again. "You never said those words to me before." "Alas, no," replied he; "it had been better if I had. I mean that I feel kindly towards you, for having bound up my wound, and would do anything for you if I had the power. It means, that if I had my eyesight, as I had a week ago, and was master, as I then was, that I would not kick nor beat you, but be kind to you. Do you understand me?" "Yes," replied I, "I think I do; and if you tell me all I want to know I shall believe you." "That I will as soon as I am well enough; but now I am too ill--you must wait a day or two, till the fever has left me." Satisfied with Jackson's promise, I tended him carefully, and washed and dressed his wound for the two following days. He said that he felt himself much better, and his language to me was so kind and conciliatory, that I hardly knew what to make of it; but this is certain, that it had a good effect upon me, and gradually the hatred and ill-will that I bore to him wore off, and I found myself handling him tenderly, and anxious not to give him more pain than was necessary, yet without being aware that I was prompted by better feelings. It was on the third morning that he said,-- "I can talk to you now; what do you want to know?" "I want to know the whole story of how we came to this island, who my father and mother were, and why you said that you hated me and my name?" "That," said Jackson, after a silence of a few minutes, "will take some time. I could soon tell it you if it were not for the last question,--why I hated your name? But the history of your father is so mixed up with mine, that I cannot well tell one without the other. I may as well begin with my own history, and that will be telling you both." "Then tell it me," replied I, "and do not tell me what is not true." "No; I will tell you exactly what it was," replied Jackson; "you may as well know it as not.--Your father and I were both born in England, which you know is your country by birth, and you also know that the language we talk is English." "I did not know it. Tell me something about England before you say any more." I will not trouble the reader with Jackson's description of England, or the many questions which I put to him. It was night-fall before he had finished answering, and before I was satisfied with the information imparted. I believe that he was very glad to hold his tongue, for he complained of being tired, and I dressed his wound and wetted the bandage with cold water for him before he went to sleep. I can hardly describe to the reader the effect which this uninterrupted flow of language had upon me; I was excited in a very strange way, and for many nights after could not sleep for hours. I may say here, I did not understand a great proportion of the meaning of the words used by Jackson; but I gathered it from the context, as I could not always be interrupting him. It is astonishing how fast ideas breed ideas, and how a word, the meaning of which I did not understand when it was first used, became by repetition clear and intelligible; not that I always put the right construction on it, but if I did not find it answer when used at another time to my former interpretation of it, I would then ask and obtain an explanation. This did not however occur very often. As for this first night, I was positively almost drunk with words, and remained nearly the whole of it arranging and fixing the new ideas that I had acquired. My feelings towards Jackson also were changed--that is, I no longer felt hatred or ill-will against him. These were swallowed up in the pleasure which he had afforded me, and I looked upon him as a treasure beyond all price,--not but that many old feelings towards him returned at intervals, for they were not so easily disposed of, but still I would not for the world have lost him until I had obtained from him all possible knowledge; and if his wound did not look well when I removed the bandage, I was much more distressed than he was. Indeed, there was every prospect of our ultimately being friends, from our mutual dependence on each other. It was useless on his part, in his present destitute condition, to nourish feelings of animosity against one on whose good offices he was now so wholly dependant, or on my part, against one who was creating for me, I may say, new worlds for imagination and thought to dwell on. On the following morning, Jackson narrated in substance (as near as I can recollect) as follows:-- "I was not intended for a sailor. I was taught at a good school, and when I was ten years old, I was put into a house of business as a clerk, where I remained at the desk all day long, copying into ledgers and day-books, in fact, writing what was required of me. This house was connected with the South American trade." "Where is South America?" said I. "You had better let me tell my story," replied Jackson, "and after I have done, you can ask any questions you like, but if you stop me, it will take a week to finish it; yesterday we lost the whole day." "That's very true," replied I, "then I will do so." "There were two other clerks in the counting-house--the head clerk, whose name was Manvers, and your father, who was in the counting-house but a few months before me. Our master, whose name was Evelyn, was very particular with both your father and myself, scanning our work daily, and finding fault when we deserved it. This occasioned a rivalry between us, which made us both very active, and I received praise quite as often as he did. On Sunday, Mr Evelyn used to ask your father and me to spend the day. We went to church in the forenoon and dined with him. He had a daughter a little younger than we were. She was your mother. Both of us, as we grew up, were very attentive to her, and anxious to be in her good graces. I cannot say which was preferred at first, but I rather think that if anything I was the favourite, during the first two years of our being acquainted with her. I was more lively and a better companion than your father, who was inclined to be grave and thoughtful. We had been about four years in the counting-house, when my mother died--my father had been dead some time before I went into it--and at her death I found my share of her property to amount to about L2500. But I was not yet twenty-one years of age. I could not receive it for another year. Mr Evelyn, who had till then every reason to be satisfied with my conduct, used to joke with me, and say that as soon as I was of age, he would allow me, if I chose it, to put the money in the business, and thus obtain a small share in it--and such was my intention, and I looked forward to bright prospects and the hope of one day being married to your mother, and I have no doubt but such would have been the case, had I still conducted myself properly. But, before I was of age, I made some very bad acquaintances, and soon ran into expenses which I could not afford--and the worst was, that I contracted a habit of sitting up late at night, and drinking to excess, which I never have since got over, which proved my ruin then, and has proved my ruin through life. This little fortune of mine not only gave me consequence, but was the cause of my thinking very highly of myself. I now was more particular in my attentions to Miss Evelyn, and was graciously received by her father; neither had I any reason to complain of my treatment from the young lady. As for your father, he was quite thrown into the back-ground. He had no property nor hope of any, except what he might hereafter secure by his diligence and good conduct; and the attention I received from Mr Evelyn, and also the head clerk, who had an idea that I was to be a partner and consequently would become his superior, made him very melancholy and unhappy--for I believe that then he was quite as much in love with Miss Evelyn as I was myself; and I must tell you, that my love for her was unbounded, and she well deserved it. But all these happy prospects were overthrown by my own folly. As soon as it was known that I had property left to me, I was surrounded by many others who requested to be introduced to me, and my evenings were passed in what I considered very good company, but which proved the very reverse. By degrees I took to gambling, and after a time, lost more money than I could afford to pay. This caused me to have recourse to a Jew, who advanced me loans at a large interest to be repaid at my coming of age. Trying to win back my money, I at last found myself indebted to the Jew for the sum of nearly L1000. The more that I became involved, the more reckless I became. Mr Evelyn perceived that I kept late hours, and looked haggard, as I well might; indeed, my position had now become very awkward. Mr Evelyn knew well the sum that had been left me, and how was I to account to him for the deficiency, if he proposed that I should put it into the business? I should be ruined in his opinion, and he never, I was convinced, would entrust the happiness of his daughter to a young man who had been guilty of such irregularities. At the same time, my love for her nearly amounted to adoration. Never was there a more miserable being than I was for the last six months previous to my coming of age, and to drown my misery I plunged into every excess, and seldom, if ever, went to bed but in a state of intoxication. Scheme after scheme did I propose to enable me to conceal my fault, but I could hit upon nothing. The time approached; I was within a few days of coming of age, when Mr Evelyn sent for me and then spoke to me seriously, saying, that out of regard to the memory of my father, with whom he had been very intimate, he was willing to allow me to embark my little capital in the business, and that he hoped that by my good conduct and application I might soon become a useful partner. I stammered some reply which surprised him; and he asked me to be more explicit. I stated that I considered my capital too small to be of much use in such a business as his, and that I preferred trying some quick method of doubling it; that as soon as I had so done I would accept his offer with gratitude. 'As you please,' replied he coolly; 'but take care, that in risking all, you do not lose all. Of course, you are your own master,' and so saying, he left me, apparently much displeased and mortified. But circumstances occurred, which exposed the whole affair. When in company with my evening companions, I stated my intentions of trying my fortune in the East Indies, not seriously, but talking at random. This came to the ears of the Jew of whom I had borrowed the money; he thought that I intended to leave the kingdom without taking up my bonds, and immediately repaired to Mr Evelyn's counting-house, to communicate with the head clerk, and ascertain if the report was correct, stating also the sums I was indebted to him. The head clerk informed Mr Evelyn, and on the day upon which I became twenty-one years of age, he sent for me into his private room, and, after some remonstrances, to which I replied very haughtily, it ended in my being dismissed. The fact was, that Mr Evelyn had, since his last interview with me, made inquiries, and finding out I had been living a very riotous life, he had determined upon my leaving his service. As soon as my first burst of indignation was over, I felt what I had lost; my attachment to Miss Evelyn was stronger than ever, and I bitterly deplored my folly, but after a time, as usual, I had recourse to the bottle, and to drowning my cares in intemperance. I tried very hard to obtain an interview with Miss Evelyn previous to my quitting the house, but this Mr Evelyn would not permit, and a few days after, sent his daughter away, to reside, for a time with a relation in the country. I embarked my capital in the wine trade, and, could I have restrained myself from drinking, should have been successful, and in a short time might have doubled my property, as I stated to Mr Evelyn; but now, I had become an irreclaimable drunkard, and when that is the case, all hope is over. My affairs soon became deranged, and, at the request of my partner, they were wound up, and I found myself with my capital of L1500 reduced to L1000. With this, I resolved to try my fortune in shipping; I procured a share in a brig, and sailed in her myself. After a time, I was sufficiently expert to take the command of her, and might have succeeded, had not my habit of drinking been so confirmed. When at Ceylon, I fell sick, and was left behind. The brig was lost, and as I had forgotten to insure my portion of her, I was ruined. I struggled long, but in vain--intemperance was my curse, my bane, the millstone at my neck, which dragged me down: I had education, talents, and energy, and at one time, capital, but all were useless; and thus did I sink down, from captain of a vessel to mate, from mate to second mate, until I at last found myself a drunken sailor before the mast. Such is my general history; to-morrow, I will let you know how, and in what way, your father and I met again, and what occurred, up to this present time." But I was too much bewildered and confused with what he had told me, to allow him to proceed, as he proposed. "No, no," replied I. "I now recollect all you have said, although I do not understand. You must first answer my questions, as to the meaning of words I never heard of before. I cannot understand what money is, what gaming is, and a great many more things you have talked about, but I recollect, and can repeat every word that you have said. To-morrow, I will recall it all over, and you shall tell me what I cannot make out; after that, you can go on again." "Very well," replied he, "I don't care how long it takes me to answer your questions, for I am not very anxious to tell all about your father and myself." Chapter VI I can hardly describe to the reader the effect which these conversations with Jackson had upon me at first. If a prisoner were removed from a dark cell, and all at once introduced into a garden full of fruit and flowers, which he never before had an idea were in existence, he could not have been more filled with wonder, surprise, and pleasure. All was novelty and excitement, but, at the same time, to a great degree, above my comprehension. I had neither language nor ideas to meet it, and yet, I did, to a certain degree, comprehend. I saw not clearly, but sometimes as through a mist, at others through a dark fog, and I could discern little. Every day, however, my increased knowledge of language and terms gave me an increased knowledge of ideas. I gained more by context than I did by any other means, and as I was by degrees enlightened, so my thirst for information and knowledge became every day more insatiable. That much that I considered I understood was erroneous, is certain, for mine was a knowledge, as yet, of theory only. I could imagine to myself, as far as the explanation I received, what such an object might be, and, having made up my ideas on the matter, I was content; further knowledge, would however incline me to think, and occasionally to decide, that the idea I had formed was incorrect, and I would alter it. Thus did I flounder about in a sea of uncertainty, but still of exciting interest. If any one who has been educated, and has used his eyes in a civilised country, reads an account of people and things hitherto unknown to him, he can, from the description and from his own general knowledge, form a very correct idea of what the country contains. But then he has used his eyes--he has seen those objects, between which the parallel or the difference has been pointed out. Now I had not that advantage. I had seen nothing but the sea, rocks, and sea-birds, and had but one companion. Here was my great difficulty, which, I may say, was never surmounted, until I had visited and mixed with civilisation and men. The difficulty, however, only increased my ardour. I was naturally of an ingenious mind, I had a remarkable memory, and every increase of knowledge was to me a source of delight. In fact, I had now something to live for, before I had not; and I verily believe, that if Jackson had been by any chance removed from me at this particular time, I should soon have become a lunatic, from the sudden drying up of the well which supplied my inordinate thirst for knowledge. Some days passed before I asked Jackson to continue his narrative, during which we lived in great harmony. Whether it was that he was deceiving me, and commanding his temper till he had an opportunity of revenge, or whether it was that his forlorn and helpless condition had softened him down, I could not say, but he appeared gradually to be forming an attachment to me; I was however on my guard at all times. His wounded wrist had now healed up, but his hand was quite useless, as all the tendons had been severed. I had therefore less to fear from him than before. At my request that he would continue his history, Jackson related as follows:-- "After sailing in vessel after vessel, and generally dismissed after the voyage for my failing of intemperance, I embarked on board a ship bound to Chili, and after having been on the coast for nearly a year, we were about to proceed home with a cargo, when we anchored at Valdivia, previous to our homeward voyage, as we had some few articles to ship at that port. We were again ready for sea, when we heard from the captain, that he had agreed to take two passengers, a gentleman and his wife, who wished to proceed to England. The cabin was cleared out, and every preparation made to receive them on board, and in the evening the boat was sent on shore for the luggage. I went in the boat, as I thought it likely that the gentleman would give the boat's crew something to drink; nor was I wrong--he gave us four dollars, which we spent immediately in one of the ventas, and were all more or less intoxicated. It had been arranged that the luggage should first be carried on board, and after that, we were to return for the passengers, as we were to sail early in the morning. We pulled off with the luggage, but on our arrival on board, I was so drunk, that the captain would not allow me to return in the boat, and I knew nothing of what had passed until I was roused up the next morning to assist in getting the ship under weigh. We had been under weigh two or three hours, and were clearing the land fast, when the gentleman passenger came on neck; I was then coiling down a rope on the quarter-deck, and as he passed by me, I looked at him, and I recognised him immediately as your father. Years had passed--from a stripling he had grown a man, but his face was not to be mistaken. There he was, apparently a gentlemen of property and consideration; and I, what was I? a drunken sailor. All I hoped was, that he would not recognise me. Shortly afterwards he went down again, and returned escorting his wife on deck. Again I took a furtive curious glance, and perceived at once that she was that Miss Evelyn whom I had once so loved, and by my folly had lost. This was madness. As they stood on the deck enjoying the cool sea breeze, for the weather was delightfully fine, the captain came up and joined them. I was so confused at my discovery, that I knew not what I was about, and I presume was doing something very awkwardly; for the captain said to me--'Jackson, what are you about, you drunken hound? I suppose you are not sober yet.' At the mention of my name, your father and mother looked at me, and as I lifted up my head to reply to the captain, they eyed me earnestly, and then spoke to each other in a low tone; after which they interrogated the captain. I could not hear what they said, but I was certain they were talking about me, and that they had suspected, if they had not recognised me. I was ready to sink to the deck, and, at the same time, I felt a hatred of your father enter my heart, of which, during his life, I never could divest myself. It was as I supposed; your father had recognised me, and the following morning he came up to me as I was leaning over the gunwale amidships, and addressed me,--'Jackson,' said he, 'I am sorry to find you in this situation. You must have been very unfortunate to have become so reduced. If you will confide your history to me, perhaps I may, when we arrive in England, be able to assist you, and it really will give me great pleasure.' I cannot say that I replied very cordially. 'Mr Henniker,' said I, 'you have been fortunate by all appearances, and can therefore afford compassion to those who have not been so; but, sir, in our positions, I feel as if pity was in reality a sort of triumph, and an offer of assistance an insult. I am content with my present position, and will at all events not change it by your interference. I earn my bread honestly. You can do no more. Times may change yet. It's a long road that has no turning to it. I wish you a good morning.' So saying, I turned from him, and walked away forward, with my heart full of bitterness and anger. From that hour he never spoke to me or noticed me again, but the captain was more severe upon me, and I ascribed his severity most unjustly to your father. We were about to go round Cape Horn, when the gale from the S.E. came on, which ended in the loss of the vessel. For several days we strove up against it, but at last the vessel, which was old, leaked so much from straining, that we were obliged to bear up and run before it, which we did for several days, the wind and sea continuing without intermission. At last we found ourselves among these islands, and were compelled occasionally to haul to the wind to clear them. This made her leak more and more, until at last she became water logged, and we were forced to abandon her in haste during the night, having no time to take anything with us; we left three men on board, who were down below. By the mercy of Heaven we ran the boat into the opening below, which was the only spot where we could have landed. I think I had better stop now, as I have a good deal to tell you yet." "Do then," replied I; "and now I think of it, I will bring up the chest and all the things which were in it, and you shall tell me what they are." I went down and returned with the clothes and linen. There were eight pair of trousers, nine shirts, besides the one I had torn up to bandage his wounds with, two pair of blue trousers, and two jackets, four white duck frocks, some shoes, and stockings. Jackson felt them one by one with his hands, and told me what they were, and how worn. "Why don't you wear some of them?" inquired I. "If you will give me leave, I will," replied he. "Let me have a duck frock and a pair of trousers." I handed the articles to him, and then went back for the rest which I had left on the rocks. When I returned, with my arms full, I found that he had put them on, and his other clothes were beside him. "I feel more like a Christian now," said he. "A Christian," said I, "what is that?" "I will tell you by-and-bye. It is what I have not been for a long, long while," replied he. "Now, what have you brought this time?" "Here," said I, "what is this?" "This is a roll of duck, to make into frocks and trousers," replied he. "That is bees'-wax." He then explained to me all the tools, sailing-needles, fish-hooks, and fishing-lines, some sheets of writing-paper, and two pens, I had brought up with me. "All these are very valuable," said he, after a pause, "and would have added much to our comfort, if I had not been blind." "There are more things yet," said I; "I will go and fetch them." This time I replaced the remaining articles, and brought up the chest. It was a heavy load to carry up the rocks, and I was out of breath when I arrived and set it down on the cabin-floor. "Now, I have the whole of them," said I. "Now, what is this?" "That is a spy-glass--but, alas! I am blind--but I will show you how to use it, at all events." "Here are two books," said I. "Give them to me," said he, "and let me feel them. This one is a Bible, I am quite sure by its shape, and the other is, I think, a Prayer-book." "What is a Bible, and what is a Prayer-book?" replied I. "The Bible is the Word of God, and the Prayer-book teaches us how to pray to him." "But who is God? I have often heard you say, 'O God!' and 'God damn'--but who is he?" "I will tell you to-night before we go to sleep," replied Jackson, gravely. "Very well, I shall remind you. I have found a little box inside the chest, and it is full of all manner of little things--strings and sinews." "Let me feel them?" I put a bundle into his hand. "These are needles and thread for making and mending clothes--they will be useful bye-and-bye." At last the whole contents of the chest were overhauled and explained: I could not well comprehend the glass bottles, or how they were made, but I put them with the pannikins, and everything else, very carefully into the chest again, and hauled the chest to the farther end of the cabin, out of the way. Before we went to bed that night, Jackson had to explain to me who God was, but as it was only the commencement of several conversations on the subject, I shall not at present trouble the reader with what passed between us. Jackson appeared to be very melancholy after the conversation we had had on religious matters, and was frequently agitated and muttering to himself. Chapter VII I did not on the following day ask him to resume his narrative relative to my father and mother, as I perceived that he avoided it, and I already had so far changed as to have consideration for his feelings. Another point had now taken possession of my mind, which was, whether it were possible to learn to read those books which I had found in the chest, and this was the first question that I put to Jackson when we arose on that morning. "How is it possible?" replied he. "Am I not blind--how can I teach you?" "Is there no way?" replied I, mournfully. "Let me think.--Yes, perhaps there is a way--at all events we will try. You know which book I told you was the Prayer-book?" "Oh yes! the small, thin one." "Yes--fetch it here. Now," said he, when I put it into his hand, "tell me; is there a straight line down the middle of the page of the book, so that the words and letters are on both sides of it?" "Yes, there is," replied I; "in every page, as you call it, there is a black line down the middle, and words and letters (I suppose they are) on both sides." "And among the letters, there are some larger than others, especially at the side nearest to the margin." "I don't know what margin is." "I mean here," replied he, pointing to the margin of the page. "Yes, there are." "Well then, I will open the book as near as I can guess at the Morning service, and you tell me if you can find any part of the writing which appears to begin with a large round letter, like--what shall I say?--the bottom of a pannikin." "There is one on this leaf, quite round." "Very well--now get me a small piece of stick, and make a point to it." I did so, and Jackson swept away a small place on the floor of the cabin. "Now," said he, "there are many other prayers which begin with a round O, as the letter is called; so I must first ascertain if this one is the one I require. If it is, I know it by heart, and by that shall be able to teach you all the letters of the alphabet." "What's an alphabet?" "The alphabet is the number of letters invented to enable us to read and write. There are twenty-six of them. Now look, Frank; is the next letter to O the shape of this?" and he drew with the pointed stick the letter U on the ground. "Yes, it is," replied I. "And the next is like this," continued he, drawing the letter R, after he had smoothed the ground and effaced the U. "Yes," replied I. "Well then, to make sure, I had better go on. OUR is one word, and then there is a little space between; and next you come to an F." "Yes," replied I, looking at what he had drawn and comparing it with the letter in the book. "Then I believe that we are all right, but to make sure, we will go on for a little longer." Jackson then completed the word "Father," and "which art," that followed it, and then he was satisfied. "Now," said he, "out of that prayer I can teach you all the letters, and if you pay attention, you will learn to read." The whole morning was passed in my telling him the different letters, and I very soon knew them all. During the day, the Lord's Prayer was gone through, and as I learnt the words as well as the letters, I could repeat it before night; I read it over to him twenty or thirty times, spelling every word, letter by letter, until I was perfect. This was my first lesson. "Why is it called the Lord's Prayer?" said I. "Because, when our Lord Jesus Christ was asked by His followers in what way they ought to address God, He gave them this prayer to repeat, as being the most proper that they could use." "But who was Jesus Christ?" "He was the Son of God, as I told you yesterday, and at the same time equal with God." "How could he be equal with God, if, as you said yesterday, God sent him down to be killed?" "It was with his own consent that he suffered death; but all this is a mystery which you cannot understand at present." "What's a mystery?" "That which you cannot understand." "Do you understand it yourself?" "No, I do not; I only know that such is the fact, but it is above not only mine, but all men's comprehension. But I tell you honestly that, on these points, I am but a bad teacher; I have paid little attention to them during my life, and as far as religion is concerned, I can only give you the outlines, for I know no more." "But I thought you said, that people were to be punished or rewarded when they died, according as they had lived a bad or good life; and that to live a good life, people must be religious, and obey God's commands." "I did tell you so, and I told you the truth; but I did not tell you that I had led a bad life, as I have done, and that I have neglected to pay obedience to God's word and command." "Then you will be punished when you die, will you not?" "Alas! I fear so, child," replied Jackson, putting his hands up to his forehead and hiding his face. "But there is still time," continued he, after a pause, and "O God of mercy!" exclaimed he, "how shall I escape?" I was about to continue the conversation, but Jackson requested that I would leave him alone for a time. I went out and sat on a rock, watching the stars. "And those, he says, were all made by God,"--"and God made everything," thought I, "and God lives up beyond those stars." I thought for a long while, and was much perplexed. I had never heard anything of God till the night before, and what Jackson had told me was just enough to make me more anxious and curious; but he evidently did not like to talk on the subject. I tried after a time, if I could repeat the Lord's Prayer, and I found that I could, so I knelt down on the rock, and looking up to a bright star, as if I would imagine it was God, I repeated the Lord's Prayer to it, and then I rose up and went to bed. This was the first time that I had ever prayed. I had learnt so much from Jackson, latterly, that I could hardly retain what I had learnt; at all events, I had a very confused recollection in my brain, and my thoughts turned from one subject to another, till there was, for a time, a perfect chaos; by degrees things unravelled themselves, and my ideas became more clear; but still I laboured under that half-comprehension of things, which, in my position, was unavoidable. But now my mind was occupied with one leading object and wish, which was to learn to read. I thought no more of Jackson's history and the account he might give me of my father and mother, and was as willing as he was that it should be deferred for a time. What I required now was to be able to read the books, and to this object my whole mind and attention were given. Three or four hours in the earlier portion of the day, and the same time in the latter, were dedicated to this pursuit, and my attention never tired or flagged. In the course of, I think, about six weeks, I could read, without hesitation, almost any portion of the Bible or Prayer-Book. I required no more teaching from Jackson, who now became an attentive hearer, as I read to him every morning and evening a portion of the Gospel or Liturgy. But I cannot say that I understood many portions which I read, and the questions which I put to Jackson puzzled him not a little, and very often he acknowledged that he could not answer them. As I afterwards discovered this arose from his own imperfect knowledge of the nature of the Christian religion, which, according to his statement to me, might be considered to have been comprised in the following sentence: "If you do good on earth, you will go to heaven and be happy; if you do ill, you will go to hell and be tormented. Christ came down from heaven to teach us what to do, and how to follow his example; and all that we read in the Bible we must believe." This may be considered as the creed imparted to me at that time. I believe that Jackson, like many others, knew no better, and candidly told me what he himself had been taught to believe. But the season for the return of the birds arrived, and our stock of provender was getting low. I was therefore soon obliged to leave my books, and work hard for Jackson and myself. As soon as the young birds were old enough, I set to my task. And now I found how valuable were the knives which I had obtained from the seaman's chest; indeed, in many points I could work much faster. By tying the neck and sleeves of a duck frock, I made a bag, which enabled me to carry the birds more conveniently, and in greater quantities at a time, and with the knives I could skin and prepare a bird in one quarter of the time. With my fishing-lines also, I could hang up more to dry at one time, so that, though without assistance, I had more birds cured in the same time than when Jackson and I were both employed in the labour. The whole affair, however, occupied me from morning to evening for more than three weeks, by which time the major portion of my provender was piled up at the back of the cabin. I did not, however, lose what I had gained in reading, as Jackson would not let me go away in the morning, or retire to my bed in the evening, without my reading to him a portion of the Bible. Indeed, he appeared to be uncomfortable if I did not do so. At last, the work was ended, and then I felt a strong desire return to hear that portion of Jackson's history connected with my father and mother, and I told him so. He did not appear to be pleased with my communication, or at all willing to proceed, but as I pressed him hard and showed some symptoms of resolution and rebellion, he reluctantly resumed his narrative. Chapter VIII "I wish you to understand," said he, "that my unwillingness to go on with my history, proceeds from my being obliged to make known to you the hatred that subsisted between your father and me; but if you will recollect, that we both had, in our early days, been striving to gain the same object--I mean your mother--and also that he had taken, as it were, what I considered to have been my place, in other points--that he had been successful in life, and I had been unfortunate, you must not then be surprised at my hating him as I did." "I understand nothing about your feelings," replied I; "and why he injured you by marrying my mother, I cannot see." "Why I loved her." "Well, suppose you did, I don't know what love is, and therefore cannot understand it, so tell me the story." "Well then, when I left off, I told you that we had ventured to land upon this island by running the boat into the bathing-pond, but in so doing, the boat was beaten to pieces, and was of no use afterwards. We landed, eight persons in all--that is, the captain, your father, the carpenter, mate, and three seamen, besides your mother. We had literally nothing in the boat except three axes, two kids, and the two pannikins, which we have indeed now, but as for provisions or even water we had none of either. Our first object, therefore, was to search the island to obtain water, and this we soon found at the rill which now runs down by the side of the cabin. It was very fortunate for us that we arrived exactly at the time that the birds had come on the island, and had just laid their eggs; if not, we must have perished with hunger, for we had not a fish-hook with us or even a fathom of line. "We collected a quantity of eggs, and made a good meal, although we devoured them raw. While we were running about, or rather climbing about, over the rocks, to find out what chance of subsistence we might have on the island, the captain and your father remained with your mother, who sat down in a sheltered spot near to the bathing-pool. On our return in the evening, the captain called us all together that he might speak to us, and he said that if we would do well we must all act in concert; that it also would be necessary that one should have the command and control of the others; that without such was the case, nothing would go on well;--and he asked us if we did not consider that what he said was true. We all agreed, although I, for one, felt little inclination to do so, but as all the rest said so, I raised no objections. The captain then told us that as we were all of one opinion, the next point, was to decide as to who should have the command--he said, that if it had been on ship-board, he of course would have taken it himself, but now we were on shore he thought that Mr Henniker was a much more competent person than he was, and he therefore proposed that the command should be given to him, and he, for one, would willingly be under his orders. To this proposal, the carpenter and mate immediately agreed, and at last two of the seamen. I was left alone, but I resisted, saying, that I was not going to be ordered about by a landsman, and that if I were to obey orders, it must be from a thorough-bred seaman. The other two sailors were of my way of thinking, I was sure, although they had given their consent, and I hoped that they would join me, which they appeared very much inclined to do. Your father spoke very coolly, modestly, and prudently. He pointed out that he had no wish to take the command, and that he would cheerfully serve under the captain of the vessel, if it would be more satisfactory to all parties that such should be the case. But the captain and the others were positive, saying that they would not have their choice disputed by such a drunken vagabond as I was, and that if I did not like to remain with them, I might go to any part of the island that I chose. This conference ended by my getting in a passion, and saying that I would not be under your father's orders; and I was seizing one of the axes to go off with it, when the captain caught my arm and wrested it from me, stating that the axe was his property, and then telling me that I was welcome to go where I pleased. "I left them, therefore, and went away by myself to where the birds were hatching, as I wished to secure a supply of eggs. When the night closed in, I lay down upon the guano, and felt no cold, for the gale was now over, and the weather was very mild. "The next morning, when I awoke, I found that the sun had been up some time. I looked for the rest of my companions whom I had quitted, and perceived that they were all busily at work. The sea was quite calm; and, when the vessel went down after we left, many articles had floated, and had been washed to the island. Some of the men were busy collecting spars and planks, which were near the rocks, and pushing them along with the boat-hooks to the direction of the bathing pond, where they hauled them over the ridge, and secured them. Your father and mother, with the carpenter, were on this ledge where we now are, having selected it as a proper place for building a shelter, and were apparently very busy. The captain and one of the seamen were carrying up what spars and timber could be collected to where your father was standing with the carpenter. All appeared to be active, and working into each others hands; and I confess that, as I looked on, I envied them, and wished that I had been along with them; but I could not bear the idea of obeying any orders given by your father; and this alone prevented my joining them, and making my excuses for what I had done and said the previous night. I therefore swallowed some more birds' eggs raw, and sat down in the sun, looking at them as they worked. "I soon perceived that the carpenter had commenced operations. The frame of this cabin was, with the assistance of your father, before it was noon, quite complete and put up; and then they all went down to the bathing place, where the boat was lying with her bottom beaten out. They commenced taking her to pieces and saving all the nails; the other men carried up the portions of the boat as they were ripped off, to where the frame of the cabin had been raised. I saw your mother go up with a load in her hand, which I believed to be the nails taken from the boat. In a couple of hours the boat was in pieces and carried up, and then your father and most of the men went up to assist the carpenter. I hardly need tell what they did, as you have the cabin before you. The roof, you see, is mostly built out of the timbers of the boat; and the lower part out of heavier wood; and a very good job they made of it. Before the morning closed in, one of the sides of the cabin was finished; and I saw them light a fire with the chips that had been cut off with the axes, and they then dressed the eggs and birds which they had collected the first day. "There was one thing which I had quite forgotten when I mutinied and left my companions, which was, the necessity of water to drink; and I now perceived that they had taken possession of the spot where the only water had as yet been found. I was suffering very much from thirst towards the close of the day, and I set off up the ravine to ascertain if there was none to be found in that direction. Before night I succeeded in finding some, as you know, for you have often drunk from the spring when you have gone up for firewood. This gave me great encouragement, for I was afraid that the want of water would have driven me to submission. By way of bravado, I tore off, and cut with my knife, as many boughs of the underwood on the ravine as I well could carry, and the next morning I built a sort of wigwam for myself on the guano, to show them that I had a house over my head as well as they had; but I built it farther up to the edge of the cliff, above the guano plain, so that I need not have any communication with those who I knew would come for eggs and birds for their daily sustenance. "Before the night of the following day set in, the cabin was quite finished. "The weather became warmer every day, and I found it very fatiguing to have to climb the ravine two or three times a day to procure a drink of water, for I had nothing to hold water in, and I thought that it would be better that I should take up my quarters in the ravine, and build myself a wigwam among the brushwood close to the water, instead of having to make so many journeys for so necessary an article. I knew that I could carry eggs in my hat and pocket-handkerchief sufficient for two or three days at one trip; so I determined that I would do so; and the next morning I went up the ravine, loaded with eggs, to take up my residence there. In a day or two I had built my hut of boughs, and made it very comfortable. I returned for a fresh supply of eggs on the third day, with a basket I had constructed out of young boughs, and which enabled me to carry a whole week's sustenance. Then I felt quite satisfied, and made up my mind that I would live as a hermit during my sojourn on the island, however long it might be; for I preferred anything to obeying the orders of one whom I detested as I did your father. "It soon was evident, however, how well they had done in selecting your father as their leader. They had fancied that the birds would remain on the island, and that thus they would always be able to procure a supply. Your father, who had lived so long in Chili, knew better, and that in a few weeks they would quit their nesting place. He pointed this out to them, showing them what a mercy it was that they had been cast away just at this time, and how necessary it was to make a provision for the year. But this they could not imagine that it was possible to do without salt to cure the birds with; but he knew how beef was preserved without salt on the continent, and showed them how to dry the birds in the sun. While therefore I was up in the ravine, they were busy collecting and drying them in large quantities, and before the time of the birds leaving they had laid up a sufficient supply. It was he also that invented the fishing lines out of the sinews of the legs of the birds, and your mother who knotted them together. At first, they caught fish with some hooks made of nails, but your father showed them the way to take them without a hook, as you have learnt from me, and which he had been shown by some of the Indians on the continent. Owing to your father, they were well prepared when the birds flew away with their young ones, while I was destitute. Previous to the flight, I had fared but badly, for the eggs contained the young birds half formed, and latterly so completely formed that I could not eat them, and as I had no fire and did not understand drying them, I had no alternative but eating the young birds raw, which was anything but pleasant. I consoled myself, however, with the idea that your father and mother and the rest were faring just as badly as myself, and I looked forward to the time when the birds would begin to lay eggs again, when I resolved to hoard up a much larger supply while they were fresh. But my schemes were all put an end to, for in two days, after a great deal of noise and flying about in circles, all the birds, young and old, took wing, and left me without any means of future subsistence. "This was a horrid discovery, and I was put to my wits' ends. I wandered over the guano place, and, after the third day of their departure, was glad to pick up even a dead bird with which to appease my hunger. At the same time, I wondered how my former companions got on, for I considered that they must be as badly off as I was. I watched them from behind the rocks, but I could perceive no signs of uneasiness. There was your mother sitting quietly on the level by the cabin, and your father or the captain talking with her. I perceived, however, that two of the party were employed fishing off the rocks, and I wondered where they got their fishing-lines, and at last I concluded that it was by catching fish that they supported themselves. This, however, did not help me--I was starving, and starvation will bring down the pride of any man. On the fifth day, I walked down to the rocks, to where one of the seamen was fishing, and having greeted him, I told him that I was starving, and asked for something to eat. "'I cannot help you,' replied he; 'I have no power to give anything away; it is more than I dare do. You must apply to Mr Henniker, who is the governor now. What a foolish fellow you were to mutiny, as you did; see what it has brought you to.' "'Why,' replied I, 'if it were not for fishing, you would not be better off than I am.' "'Oh yes we should be; but we have to thank him for that--without him, I grant, we should not have been. We have plenty of provisions, although we fish to help them out.' "This puzzled me amazingly, but there was no help for it. I could starve no longer, so up I went to the level where your father was standing with the captain, and in a swaggering sort of tone, said that I had come back, and wanted to join my comrades. The captain looked at me, and referred me to your father, who said that he would consult with the rest when they came to dinner, as without their permission he could do nothing, and then they both turned away. In the meantime I was ravenous with hunger, and was made more so by perceiving that two large fish were slowly baking on the embers of the fire, and that your mother was watching them; however, there was no help for it, and I sat down at some little distance, anxiously waiting for the return of the rest of the party, when my fate would be decided. My pride was now brought down so low that I could have submitted to any terms which might have been dictated. In about two hours they were all assembled to dinner, and I remained envying every morsel that they ate, until the repast was finished; when after some consultation, I was ordered to approach--which I did--and your father addressed me: 'Jackson, you deserted us when you might have been very useful, and when our labour was severe; now that we have worked hard, and made ourselves tolerably comfortable, you request to join us, and partake with us of the fruits of our labour and foresight. You have provided nothing, we have--the consequence is that we are in comparative plenty, while you are starving. Now I have taken the opinion of my companions, and they are all agreed, that as you have not assisted when you are wanted, should we now allow you to join us, you will have to work more than the others to make up an equivalent. It is therefore proposed that you shall join us on one condition, which is, that during the year till the birds again visit the island, it will be your task to go up to the ravine every day, and procure the firewood which is required. If you choose to accept these terms, you are permitted to join, always supposing that to all the other rules and regulations which we have laid down for our guidance, you will be subject as well as we are. These are our terms, and you may decide as you think proper.' I hardly need say, that I gladly accepted them, and was still more glad when the remnants of the dinner were placed before me; I was nearly choked, I devoured with such haste until my appetite was appeased. "When this was done, I thought over the conditions which I had accepted, and my blood boiled at the idea that I was to be in a manner the slave to the rest, as I should have to work hard every day. I forgot that it was but justice, and that I was only earning my share of the years' provisions, which I had not assisted to collect. My heart was still more bitter against your father, and I vowed vengeance if ever I had an opportunity, but there was no help for it. Every day I went up with a piece of cord and an axe, cut a large faggot of wood, and brought it down to the cabin. It was hard work, and occupied me from breakfast to dinner-time, and I had no time to lose if I wanted to be back for dinner. The captain always examined the faggot, and ascertained that I had brought down a sufficient supply for the day's consumption." Chapter IX "A year passed away, during which I was thus employed. At last, the birds made their appearance, and after we had laid up our annual provision, I was freed from my task, and had only to share the labour with others. It was now a great source of speculation how long we were likely to remain on the island; every day did we anxiously look out for a vessel, but we could see none, or if seen, they were too far off from the island to permit us to make signals to them. At last we began to give up all hope, and, as hope was abandoned, a settled gloom was perceptible on most of our faces. I believe that others would have now mutinied as well as myself, if they had known what to mutiny about. Your father and mother were the life and soul of the party, inventing amusements, or narrating a touching story in the evenings, so as to beguile the weary time; great respect was paid to your mother, which she certainly deserved; I seldom approached her; she had taken a decided dislike to me, arising, I presume, from my behaviour towards her husband, for now that I was again on a footing with the others, I was as insolent to him as I dared to be, without incurring the penalty attached to insubordination, and I opposed him as much as I could in every proposal that he brought forward--but your father kept his temper, although I lost mine but too often. The first incident which occurred of any consequence, was the loss of two of the men, who had, with your father's permission, taken a week's provisions, with the intention of making a tour round the island, and ascertaining whether any valuable information could be brought back; they were the carpenter and one of the seamen. It appears that during their return, as they were crossing the highest ridge, they, feeling very thirsty, and not finding water, attempted to refresh themselves by eating some berries which they found on a plant. These berries proved to be strong poison, and they returned very ill--after languishing a few days, they both died. "This was an event which roused us up, and broke the monotony of our life; but it was one which was not very agreeable to dwell upon, and yet, at the same time, I felt rather pleasure than annoyance at it--I felt that I was of more consequence, and many other thoughts entered my mind which I shall not now dwell upon. We buried them in the guano, under the first high rock, where, indeed, the others were all subsequently buried. Three more months passed away, when the other seaman was missing. After a search, his trousers were found at the edge of the rock. He had evidently been bathing in the sea, for the day on which he was missed, the water was as smooth as glass. Whether he had seen something floating, which he wished to bring to land, or whether he had ventured for his own amusement, for he was an excellent swimmer, could never be ascertained--any more than whether he had sunk with the cramp, or had been taken down by a shark. He never appeared again, and his real fate is a mystery to this day, and must ever remain so. Thus were we reduced to four men--your father, the captain, the mate, and me. But you must be tired--I will stop now, and tell you the remainder some other time." Although I was not tired, yet, as Jackson appeared to be so, I made no objection to his proposal, and we both went to sleep. While I had read the Bible to Jackson, I had often been puzzled by numbers being mentioned, and never could understand what was meant, that is, I could form no of the quantity represented by seventy or sixty, or whatever it might be. Jackson's answer was, "Oh! it means a great many; I'll explain to you bye-and-bye, but we have nothing to count with, and as I am blind, I must have something in my hand to teach you." I recollected that at the bathing pool there were a great many small shells on the rocks, about the size of a pea; there were live fish in them, and they appeared to crawl on the rocks. I collected a great quantity of these, and brought them up to the cabin, and requested Jackson would teach me to count. This he did, until he came to a thousand, which he said was sufficient. For many days I continued to count up to a hundred, until I was quite perfect, and then Jackson taught me addition and subtraction to a certain degree, by making me add and take away from the shells, and count the accumulation, or the remainder. At last, I could remember what I had gained by manipulation, if I may use the term, but further, I could not go, although addition had, to a degree, made me master of multiplication, and subtraction gave me a good idea of division. This was a new delight to me, and occupied me for three or four weeks. At last I had, as I thought, learned all that he could teach me in his blind state, and I threw away the shells, and sighed for something more. Of a sudden it occurred to me, that I had never looked into the book which still lay upon the shelf in the cabin, and I saw no reason now that I should not; so I mentioned it to Jackson, and asked him why I might not have that book? "To be sure you may," replied he; "but you never asked for it, and I quite forgot it." "But when I asked you before, you were so particular that I should not open it. What was your reason then?" Jackson replied--"I had no reason except that I then disliked you, and I thought that looking into the book would give you pleasure. It belonged to that poor fellow that was drowned; he had left it in the stern-sheets of the boat when we were at Valdivia, and had forgotten it, and we found it there when we landed on the island. Take it down, it will amuse you." I took down the book, and opened it. It was, if I recollect right, called "Mavor's Natural History." At all events, it was a Natural History of Beasts and Birds, with a plate representing each, and a description annexed. It would be impossible for me to convey to the reader my astonishment and delight. I had never seen a picture or drawing in my life. I did not know that such things existed. I was in an ecstasy of delight as I turned over the pages, hardly taking sufficient time to see one object before I hastened on to another. For two or three hours did I thus turn over leaves, without settling upon any one animal; at last my pulse beat more regularly, and I commenced with the Lion. But now what a source of amusement, and what a multitude of questions had to be answered by my companion. He had to tell me all about the countries in which the animals were found; and the description of the animals, with the anecdotes, were a source of much conversation; and, what was more, the foregrounds and backgrounds of the landscapes with which the animals were surrounded produced new ideas. There was a palm-tree, which I explained to Jackson, and inquired about it. This led to more inquiries. The lion himself occupied him and me for a whole afternoon, and it was getting dark when I lay down, with my new treasure by my side. I had read of the lion in the Scriptures, and now I recalled all the passages; and before I slept I thought of the bear which destroyed the children who had mocked Elisha the prophet, and I determined that the first animal I would read about the next morning should be the bear. I think that this book lasted me nearly two months, during which time, except reading a portion every night and morning to Jackson, the Bible and Prayer-book were neglected. Sometimes I thought that the book could not be true; but when I came to the birds, I found those which frequented the island so correctly described, that I had no longer any doubt on the subject. Perhaps what interested me most were the plates in which the barn-door fowls and the peacock were described, as in the background of the first were a cottage and figures, representing the rural scenery of England, my own country; and in the second there was a splendid mansion, and a carriage and four horses driving up to the door. In short, it is impossible to convey to the reader the new ideas which I received from these slight efforts of the draftsman to give effect to his drawing. The engraving was also a matter of much wonder, and required a great deal of explanation from Jackson. This book became my treasure, and it was not till I had read it through and through, so as almost to know it by heart, that at length I returned to my Bible. All this time I had never asked Jackson to go on with his narrative; but now that my curiosity was appeased, I made the request. He appeared, as before, very unwilling; but I was pertinacious, and he was worried into it. "There were but four of us left and your mother, and the mate was in a very bad state of health; he fretted very much, poor fellow, for he had left a young wife in England, and what he appeared to fear most was, that she would be married again before he could get home. It ended in a confirmed liver complaint, which carried him off nine months afterwards; and thus was one more of our companions disposed of. He died very quietly, and gave me his sleeve-buttons and watch to deliver to his wife, if ever I should escape from the island. I fear there is little chance of her ever receiving them." "Where are they?" said I, recollecting how I had seen him lift up the board under his bed-place. "I have them safe," replied Jackson, "and if necessary, will tell you where to find them." This reply satisfied me, and I allowed him to proceed. "We buried him in the guano, by the side of the two others, and now we were but three. It was at this time that your mother was confined and you were born; that is about three months after the death of the mate. We had just finished laying in our stock of birds for the year when she was taken ill, sooner than was expected, and it was supposed that it was occasioned by over-exertion at the time. However, she got up very well without any medical assistance, and your father was much pleased at having a son, for he had been married five years without any prospect of a family. I ought to observe that the loss of our companions, one after another, had had the effect of bringing those that remained much closer together; I was treated with more kindness by both your father and mother, and the captain, and I returned it as well as my feelings would permit me, for I could not altogether get rid of my animosity to your father. However, we became much more confidential, that is certain, and I was now treated as an equal. "Six months passed away and you had become a thriving child, when a melancholy occurrence"--here Jackson covered up his face with his hands and remained for some time silent. "Go on," said I, "Jackson, I know that they all died somehow or another." "Very true," replied he, recovering himself. "Well, your father disappeared. He had gone to the rocks to fish, and when I was sent to bring him home to dinner, he was nowhere to be found. It was supposed that a larger fish than usual had been fast to his line, and that he had been jerked off the rocks into the water and the sharks had taken him. It was a dreadful affair," continued Jackson, again covering his face. "I think," replied I, "that any man in his senses would have allowed the fish to have taken the line rather than have been dragged into the water. I don't think that the supposed manner of his death is at all satisfactory." "Perhaps not," replied Jackson; "his foot may have slipped, who knows? we only could guess; the line was gone as well as he, which made us think what I said. Still we searched everywhere, but without hope; and our search--that is the captain's and mine, for your poor mother remained with you in her arms distracted--was the cause of another disaster--no less than the death of the captain. They say misfortunes never come single, and surely this was an instance of the truth of the proverb." "How did he die?" replied I, gravely, for somehow or other I felt doubts as to the truth of what he was saying. Jackson did not reply till after a pause, when he said-- "He was out with me up the ravine collecting firewood, and he fell over the high cliff. He was so injured that he died in half an hour." "What did you do?" "What did I do--what could I do but go back and break the news to your mother, who was distracted when she heard it; for the captain was her friend, and she could not bear me." "Well go on, pray," said I. "I did all that I could to make your mother comfortable, as there now were but her, you, and I, left on the island. You were then about three years old; but your mother always hated me, and appeared now to hate me more and more. She never recovered the loss of your father to whom she was devotedly attached; she pined away, and after six months she died, leaving you and me only on the island. Now you know the whole history, and pray do not ask me any more about it." Chapter X Jackson threw himself back in his bed-place and was silent. So was I, for I was recalling all that he had told me, and my doubts were raised as to the truth of it. I did not like his hurrying over the latter portion of his narrative in the way which he had done. What he had said about my mother was not satisfactory. I had for some time been gradually drawing towards him, not only shewing, but feeling, for him a great increase of goodwill; but suspicion had entered my mind, and I now began to feel my former animosity towards him renewed. A night's sleep, however, and more reflection, induced me to think that possibly I was judging him too harshly, and as I could not afford to quarrel with him, our intercourse remained as amicable as before, particularly as he became more and more amiable towards me and did everything in his power to interest and amuse me. I was one day reading to him the account of a monkey given in the book of Natural History, in which it is said that that animal is fond of spirits and will intoxicate itself, and Jackson was telling me many anecdotes of monkeys on board of the vessel he had sailed in, when it occurred to me that I had never thought of mentioning to him or of ascertaining the contents of the cask which had been thrown into the bathing-pool with the seaman's chest, and I did so then to Jackson, wondering at its contents and how they were to be got at. Jackson entered into the question warmly, explaining to me how and where to bore holes with a gimlet, and making two spiles for me to stop the holes with. As soon as he had done so, curiosity induced me to go down to the pool where the cask had been lying so long, in about a foot-and-half water. By Jackson's directions I took a pannikin with me, that I might bring him a specimen of the contents of the cask, if they should prove not to be water. I soon bored the hole above and below, following Jackson's directions, and the liquor, which poured out in a small stream into the pannikin, was of a brown colour and very strong in odour, so strong, indeed, as to make me reel as I walked back to the rocks with the pannikin full of it. I then sat down, and after a time tasted it. I thought I had swallowed fire, for I had taken a good mouthful of it. "This cannot be what Jackson called spirits," said I. "No one can drink this--what can it be?" Although I had not swallowed more than a table-spoonful of it, yet, combined with the fumes of the liquor which I had inhaled when drawing it off into the pannikin, the effect was to make my head swim, and I lay down on the rock and shut my eyes to recover myself. It ended in my falling asleep for many hours, for it was not much after noon when I went to the cask, and it was near sunset when I awoke, with an intense pain in my head. It was some time before I could recollect where I was, or what had passed, but the pannikin full of liquor by my side first reminded me; and then perceiving how late it was, and how long I must have slept, I rose up, and taking the pannikin in my hand, I hastened to return to the cabin. As I approached, I heard the voice of Jackson, whose hearing, since his blindness, I had observed, had become peculiarly acute. "Is that you, Frank?" "Yes," replied I. "And what has kept you so long--how you have frightened me. God forgive me, but I thought that I was to be left and abandoned to starvation." "Why should you have thought that?" replied I. "Because I thought that some way or another you must have been killed, and then I must have died, of course. I never was so frightened in my life, the idea of dying here all alone--it was terrible." It occurred to me at the time that the alarm was all for himself, for he did not say a word about how sorry he should have been at any accident happening to me, but I made no remark, simply stating what had occurred, and my conviction that the contents of the cask were not drinkable. "Have you brought any with you?" inquired he, sharply. "Yes, here it is," said I, giving him the pannikin. He smelt it, and raised it to his lips--took about a wine-glassful of it, and then drew his breath. "This is delightful," said he; "the best of old rum, I never tasted so good. How big did you say that the cask was?" I described it as well as I could. "Indeed, then it must be a whole puncheon--that will last a long while." "But do you mean to say that you really like to drink that stuff?" inquired I. "Do I like to drink it? yes, it is good for men, but it's death to little boys. It will kill you. Don't you get fond of it. Now promise me that you will never drink a drop of it. You must not get fond of it, or some sad accident will happen to you." "I don't think you need fear my drinking it," replied I. "I have had one taste, as I told you, and it nearly burnt my mouth. I shan't touch it again." "That's right," replied Jackson, taking another quantity into his mouth. "You are not old enough for it; bye-and-bye, when you are as old as I am, you may drink it, then it will do you good. Now, I'll go to bed, it's time for bed. Bring the pannikin after me and put it by my side. Take care you don't spill any of it." Jackson crawled to his bed, and I followed him with the pannikin, and put it by his side, as he requested, and I returned to my own resting-place, without however having the least inclination to sleep, having slept so long during the day. At first Jackson was quiet, but I heard him occasionally applying to the pannikin, which held, I should say, about three half-pints of liquor. At last he commenced singing a sea song; I was much surprised, as I had never heard him sing before; but I was also much pleased, as it was the first time that I had ever heard anything like melody, for he had a good voice and sang in good tune. As soon as he had finished, I begged him to go on. "Ah!" replied he, with a gay tone I had never heard from him before. "You like songs, do you? my little chap. Well, I'll give you plenty of them. 'Tis a long while since I have sung, but it's a 'poor heart that never rejoiceth.' The time was when no one in company could sing a song as I could, and so I can again, now that I have something to cheer my heart. Yes, here's another for you. I shall rouse them all out by-and-bye, as I get the grog in--no fear of that--you find the stuff, and I'll find songs." I was surprised at first at this unusual mirth; but recollecting what Jackson had told me about his intemperance, I presumed that this mirth which it produced was the cause why he indulged so much in it; and I felt less inclined to blame him. At all events, I was much pleased with the songs that he sang to me one after another for three or four hours, when his voice became thick, and, after some muttering and swearing, he was quite silent, and soon afterwards snored loudly. I remained awake some time longer, and then I also sank into forgetfulness. When I awoke the next morning, I found Jackson still fast asleep. I waited for him for our morning meal; but, as he did not wake, I took mine by myself, and then I walked out to the rock, where I usually sat, and looked round the horizon to see if there was anything in sight. The spy-glass, from having been in sea water, was of no use, and I did not know what to do with it; nor could Jackson instruct me. After I had been out about an hour I returned, and found Jackson still snoring, and I determined to wake him up. I pushed him for some time without success; but, at last he opened his eyes, and said: "My watch already?" "No," said I; "but you have slept so long, that I have waked you up." He paused, as if he did not know my voice, and then said: "But I can't see anything; how's this?" "Why, don't you know that you're blind, Jackson?" replied I, with amazement. "Yes, yes; I recollect now. Is there anything in the pannikin?" "Not a drop," replied I; "why, you must have drunk it all." "Yes, I recollect now. Get me some water, my good boy; for I am dying with thirst." I went for the water; he drank the whole pannikin, and asked for more. "Won't you have something to eat?" said I. "Eat? oh no; I can't eat anything. Give me drink;" and he held out his hand for the pannikin. I perceived how it trembled and shook, and I observed it to him. "Yes," replied he, "that's always the case after a carouse, and I had a good one last night--the first for many a year. But there's plenty more of it. I wish you would get me a little more now, Frank, just to steady me; just about two or three mouthfuls, no more; that is, no more till night-time. Did I make much noise last night?" "You sang several songs," replied I, "with which I was much amused." "I'm glad that you liked them. I used to be considered a good singer in my day; indeed, if I had not been such good company, as they term it, I had not become so fond of drinking. Just go and fetch me about half an inch high of the pannikin, my good fellow, that's all I want now." I went down to the cask, drew of the quantity that he requested, and brought it to him. He drank it off; and, in a few moments, appeared to be quite himself again. He then asked for something to eat, and commenced telling me a variety of stories relative to what he termed jolly parties in his former days; so that the day passed very agreeably. As the night closed in, he said: "Now, Frank, I know you want to hear some more songs; so go down and bring me up a full pannikin, and I will sing you plenty." I complied with his request, for I was anxious to be again amused as I was the night before. The consequence was that this night was, in the early portion of it, but a repetition of the previous one. Jackson took the precaution to get into his bed-place before he commenced drinking; and, as soon as he had taken his second dose, he asked me what sort of songs I liked. My reply naturally was, that I had never heard any one sing but him, and therefore could not say. "What did I sing to you last night?" said he. I replied as well as I could. "Ah," said he, "they were all sea songs; but now I will give you something better." After a little thought, he commenced singing a very beautiful and plaintive one, and certainly much better than he had sung the night before; for he now was sober. The consequence was, that I was still more delighted; and, at my request, he sang several others; but at last his speech became rapid and thick, and he would not sing any more, using some very coarse expressions to me when I asked him. For a time he was silent, and I thought that he was going to sleep, and I was reflecting upon the various effects which the liquor appeared to have upon him, when I heard him talking and muttering, and I listened. "Never mind how I got them," said he; "quite as honestly as other people, Old Moshes. There they are, do you choose to buy them?" Then there was a pause, after which he commenced: "They're as pure diamonds as ever came out of a mine. I know that, so none of your lies, you old Jew. Where did I come by them? that's no concern of yours. The question is, will you give me the price, or will you not? Well, then, I'm off. No, I won't come back, you old thief." Here he swore terribly, and then was silent. After a while he recommenced-- "Who can ever prove that they were Henniker's diamonds?" I started up at the mention of my father's name; I rested with my hands on the floor of the cabin, breathless as to what would come next. "No, no," continued Jackson, "he's dead, and food for fishes--dead men tell no tales--and she's dead, and the captain's dead, all dead--yes, all;" and he gave a bitter groan and was silent. The day was breaking, and I could just see him as he lay; but he said no more, and appeared to breathe heavily. As the sun rose, I got out of my bed-place; and, now that it was broad daylight, I looked at Jackson. He was lying on his back; his brow was covered with large drops of perspiration, and his hands were clenched together. Although asleep, he appeared, by the convulsive twitching of the muscles of his face, to be suffering and in great agony. Occasionally he groaned deeply, and his lips appeared to move, but no sound proceeded from them. I perceived that the pannikin of liquor was not finished, one-third at least having been left. Chapter XI I then went out of the cabin and took my usual seat, and began to reflect upon what I had heard. He had talked about diamonds; now I knew what diamonds were, so far as they were of great value, for I had read of them in the Bible, and Jackson had explained the value of precious stones to me, and had told me of diamonds of very great value indeed. Then he said that they were Henniker's diamonds--he must have meant my father, that was positive. And that no one could prove they were his--this implied that Jackson had no right to them; indeed how could he have? And then I recalled to mind his having a secret hiding place under his bed, where I presumed the diamonds were deposited. I then turned over in my mind what he had told me relative to the death of my father, the captain, and my mother, how confused he was, and how glad he was to get rid of the subject, and how unsatisfactory I thought his account was at the time. After much cogitation, I made up my mind that Jackson had not told me the truth, and that there was a mystery yet to be explained; but how was I to get at it? There was but one way. The liquor made him talk. I would supply him with liquor, and by degrees I would get the truth out of him. At the same time I would not allow him to suppose that he had said anything to commit himself, or that I had any suspicions. How naturally do we fall into treachery and deceit, from the evil in our own hearts, without any assistance or example from the world. How could I have learnt deceit? Isolated as I had been, must it not have been innate? I returned to the cabin, and woke Jackson without much difficulty, since he had not drunk so much as on the previous night. "How are you this morning?" said I. "Not very well; I have had some bad dreams." "Well you sang me some beautiful songs," replied I. "Yes, I recollect," said he; "but I fell asleep at last." "Yes, you refused to sing any more, and went off in a loud snore." Jackson got out of his bed-place, and I gave him his meal. We talked during the whole day about singing, and I hummed the air which had pleased me most. "You have got the air pretty correct," said he; "you must have an ear for music. Have you ever tried to sing?" "No, never; you know I have not." "You might have tried when I was not with you. Try now. I will sing a tune, and then do you repeat it after me." He did so, and I repeated it. "Very good," said he. "Let's try the compass of your voice." He ran up the gamut, and I followed him. "I think you can go higher than I can," said he, "however you go quite high enough, so now I'll give you a singing lesson." Thus were we occupied at intervals during the whole day, for Jackson would not allow me to try my voice too much at first. As the evening fell, he again asked me to fetch some liquor, and as I had three quart wine bottles, as I before mentioned, which I had found in the chest, I took them down to fill, as it would save me many trips, and be more convenient in every respect. I brought them up full, and Jackson stopped them up with some of the rags which I had torn to bind round his wrist, and put them all three in his bed-place. "That will be a much better arrangement," said he, "as now I can pour out the liquor into the pannikin as I want it; besides, I mean to take a little water with it in future. It's not quite so good with water, but it lasts longer, and one don't go to sleep so soon. Well, I little thought that I should have such a comfort sent me after all my sufferings. I don't so much care now about staying here. Go and fetch some water in the pannikin." That night was a repetition of the first. Jackson sang till he was intoxicated, and then fell fast asleep, not talking or saying a word, and I was disappointed, for I remained awake to catch anything he might say. It would be tedious to repeat what took place for about a month;--suffice it to say it was very rarely, during that time, that Jackson said anything in his sleep, or drunken state, and what he did say I could make nothing of. He continued, in the daytime, to give me lessons in singing, and I could now sing several songs very correctly. At night, he returned to his usual habit, and was more or less intoxicated before the night was over. I perceived, however, that this excess had a great effect upon his constitution, and that he had become very pale and haggard. Impatient as I felt to find out the truth, I concealed my feelings towards him (which had certainly very much changed again since the discovery I had made and the suspicions I had formed) and I remained on the best of terms with him, resolving to wait patiently. He had spoken once, and therefore I argued that he would speak again, nor was I wrong in my calculations. One night, after he had finished his usual allowance of liquor, and had composed himself for sleep, I observed that he was unusually restless, changing his position in his bed-place every few minutes, and, at last, he muttered, "Captain James. Well, what of Captain James, eh?" A thought struck me that he might reply to a question. "How did he die?" said I, in a low clear voice. "Die?" replied Jackson, "he fell down the cliff. Yes, he did. You can't say I killed him. No--never put my finger on him." After that, he was silent for some time, and then he recommenced. "She always said that I destroyed them both, but I did not--only one--yes, one, I grant--but I hated him--no, not for his diamonds--no, no--if you said his wife indeed--love and hate." "Then you killed him for love of his wife, and hate of himself?" "Yes, I did. Who are you that have guessed that? Who are you? I'll have your life." As he said this, he started up in his bed-place, awakened by his dream, and probably by my voice, which he had replied to. "Who spoke?" said he. "Frank Henniker, did you speak?" I made no reply, but pretended to be sound asleep, as he still sat up, as if watching me. I feigned a snore. "It could not have been him," muttered Jackson, "he's quite fast. Mercy, what a dream!" He then sank down in his bed-place, and I heard the gurgling noise which told me that he had put the bottle of liquor to his mouth, and was drinking out of it. From the time that the gurgling lasted, he must have taken a great deal. At last, all was quiet again. "So I have discovered it at last," said I, as my blood boiled at what I had heard. "He did murder my father. Shall I kill him while he sleeps?" was the first thought that came into my troubled mind. "No, I won't do that. What then, shall I tax him with it when he is awake, and then kill him?" but I thought, that, as he was blind, and unable to defend himself, it would be cowardly, and I could not do that. What then was I to do? and as I cooled down, I thought of the words of the Bible, that we were to return good for evil; for Jackson, of whom, when I read it, I asked why we were told to do so, had explained it to me, and afterwards when I came to the part which said, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," he had told me that there was punishment for the wicked hereafter, and that was the reason why we were not to obey the Jewish law of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," which I had referred to. This portion of the Bible he had well explained, and certain it is that it prevented my raising my hand against him that night. Still, I remained in a state of great excitement; I felt that it would be impossible for me to be any longer on good terms with him, and I revolved the question in my mind, till at last, worn out by excitement, I fell fast asleep. A short time before daylight, I started up at what I thought was a faint cry, but I listened, and hearing nothing more, I again fell asleep, and it was broad daylight when I arose; my first thoughts were naturally of Jackson, and I looked at where he lay, but he was no longer there--his bed-place was empty. I was astonished, and after a moment's thought, I recollected the cry I had heard in the night, and I ran out of the cabin and looked around me, but I could see nothing of him. I then went to the edge of the flat rock upon which the cabin was built and looked over it; it was about thirty feet from this rock to the one below, and nearly perpendicular. I thought that he must have gone out in the night, when intoxicated with liquor, and have fallen down the precipice; but I did not see him as I peered over. "He must have gone for water," thought I, and I ran to the corner of the rock, where the precipice was much deeper, and looking over, I perceived him lying down below without motion or apparent life. I had, then, judged rightly. I sat down by the side of the pool of water quite overpowered; last night I had been planning how I should destroy him, and now he lay dead before me without my being guilty of the crime. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," were the words that first escaped my lips; and I remained many minutes in deep thought. At last it occurred to me that he might not yet be dead; I ran down the cliff, and, clambering over the rocks, arrived breathless at the spot where Jackson lay. He groaned heavily as I stood by him. "Jackson," said I, kneeling down by him, "are you much hurt?" for all my feelings of animosity had vanished when I perceived his unhappy condition. His lips moved, but he did not utter any sound. At last he said, in a low voice, "Water." I hastened back as fast as I could to the cabin, got a pannikin half full of water, and poured a little rum in it out of the bottle. This journey and my return to him occupied some ten minutes. I put it to his lips, and he seemed to revive. He was a dreadful object to look at. The blood from a cut on his head had poured over his face and beard, which were clotted with gore. How to remove him to the cabin I knew not. It would be hardly possible for me to carry him over the broken rocks which I had climbed to arrive at where he lay; and there was no other way but what was longer, and just as difficult. By degrees he appeared to recover; I gave him more of the contents of the pannikin, and at last he could speak, although with great pain and difficulty. As he did so he put his hand to his side. He was indeed a ghastly object, with his sightless eyeballs, his livid lips, and his face and beard matted with blood. "Do you think you could get to the cabin, if I helped you?" said I. "I shall never get there--let me die where I am," said he. "But the cut on your head is not very deep," replied I. "No, I don't feel it;--but--my side--I bleed inwardly--I am--broken to pieces," said he, pausing and gasping between each word. I looked at his side, and perceived that it was already black and much swollen. I offered him more drink, which he took eagerly, and I then returned for a further supply. I filled two of the wine-bottles with water and a small drop of spirits as before, and went back to where he lay. I found him more recovered, and I had hopes that he might still do well, and I told him so. "No, no," replied he; "I have but a few hours to live--I feel that. Let me die here, and die in peace." He then sank into a sort of stupor, occasioned, I presume, by what I had given him to drink, and remained quite quiet, and breathing heavily. I sat by him waiting till he should rouse up again; for more than an hour I was in a very confused state of mind, as may well be imagined, after what had passed in the night. Chapter XII What I most thought of was obtaining from him, now that he was dying, the full truth as to the deaths of my father and mother. Jackson remained so long in this state of stupor, I feared that he would die before I could interrogate him; but this, as it proved, was not to be the case. I waited another hour, very impatiently I must acknowledge, and then I went to him and asked him how he felt. He replied immediately, and without that difficulty which he appeared before to have experienced. "I am better now--the inward bleeding has stopped; but still I cannot live--my side is broken in, I do not think there is a rib that is not fractured into pieces, and my spine is injured, for I cannot move or feel my legs; but I may live many hours yet, and I thank God for His mercy in allowing me so much time--short indeed to make reparation for so bad a life, but still nothing is impossible with God." "Well, then," replied I, "if you can speak, I wish you would tell me the truth relative to my father's death, and also about the death of others; as for my father I know that you murdered him--for you said so last night in your sleep." After a pause, Jackson replied--"I am glad that I did, and that you have told me so--I wished to make a full confession even to you, for confession is a proof of repentance. I know that you must hate me, and will hate my memory, and I cannot be surprised at it; but look at me now, Frank, and ask your own heart whether I am not more an object of pity than of hatred. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!' and has not His vengeance fallen upon me even in this world? Look at me; here I am, separated from the world that I loved so much, with no chance of ever joining it--possessed of wealth which would but a few months ago have made me happy--now blind, crushed to pieces by an avenging God, in whose presence I must shortly appear to answer for all my wickedness--all my expectations overthrown, all my hopes destroyed, and all my accumulated sins procuring me nothing, but, it may be, eternal condemnation. I ask you again, am I not an object of pity and commiseration?" I could but assent to this, and he proceeded. "I will now tell you the truth. I did tell the truth up to the time of your father and mother's embarkation on board of the brig, up to when the gale of wind came on which occasioned eventually the loss of the ship. Now give me a little drink. "The vessel was so tossed by the storm, and the waves broke over her so continually, that the between-decks were full of water, and as the hatches were kept down, the heat was most oppressive. When it was not my watch I remained below, and looked out for another berth to sleep in. Before the cabin bulkheads on the starboard side, the captain had fitted up a sort of sail-room to contain the spare sails in case we should require them. It was about eight feet square, and the sails were piled up in it, so as to reach within two feet of the deck overhead; though the lower ones were wetted with the water, above they were dry, and I took this berth on the top of the sails as my sleeping place. Now the state-room in which your father and mother slept was on the other side of the cabin bulkhead, and the straining and rolling of the vessel had opened the chinks between the planks, so that I could see a great deal of what was done in the state-room, and could hear every word almost that was spoken by them. I was not aware of this when I selected this place as my berth, but I found it out on the first night, the light of the candle shining through the chinks into the darkness by which I was surrounded outside. Of course, it is when a man is alone with his wife that he talks on confidential subjects; that I knew well, and hoped by listening to be able to make some discovery;--what, I had no idea of; but, with the bad feelings which stimulated me, I determined not to lose an opportunity. It was not till about a week after I had selected this berth, that I made any discovery. I had had the watch from six to eight o'clock, and had gone to bed early. About nine o'clock your father came into the state-room. Your mother was already in bed. As your father undressed, your mother said, 'Does not that belt worry you a great deal, my dear?' "'No,' replied your father, 'I am used to it now; it did when I first put it on, but now I have had it on four days, I do not feel it. I shall keep it on as long as this weather lasts; there is no saying what may happen, and it will not do to be looking for the belt at a moment's warning.' "'Do you think then that we are in danger?' "'No, not particularly so, but the storm is very fierce, and the vessel is old and weak. We may have fine weather in a day or two, or we may not; at all events, when property of value is at stake, and that property not my own, I should feel myself very culpable, if I did not take every precaution.' "'Well--I wish we were safe home again, my dear, and that my father had his diamonds, but we are in the hands of God.' "'Yes, I must trust to Him,' replied your father. "This circumstance induced me to look through one of the chinks of the bulkhead, so that I could see your father, and I perceived that he was unbuckling a belt which was round his body, and which no doubt contained the diamonds referred to. It was of soft leather, and about eight inches wide, sewed lengthways and breadthways in small squares, in which I presumed the diamonds were deposited. After a time your mother spoke again. "'I really think, Henniker, that I ought to wear the belt.' "'Why so, my dear?' "'Because it might be the means of my preservation in case of accident. Suppose now, we were obliged to abandon the vessel and take to the boats; a husband, in his hurry, might forget his wife, but he would not forget his diamonds. If I wore the belt, you would be certain to put me in the boat.' "'That observation of yours would have force with some husbands, and some wives,' retorted your father; 'but as I have a firm belief in the Scriptures, it does not affect me. What do the Proverbs say? "The price of a virtuous woman is far above rubies;" and a good ruby is worth even more in the market than a diamond of the same size.' "'Well, I must comfort myself with that idea,' replied your mother, laughing. "'Supposing we be thrown upon some out-of-the-way place,' said your father, 'I shall then commit the belt to your charge. It might soon be discovered on my person, whereas, on yours, it would stand every chance of being long concealed. I say this because, even in a desert, it would be dangerous to have it known by unscrupulous and unprincipled men that anyone had so much wealth about him.' "'Well,' replied your mother, 'that is also comfortable for me to hear, for you will not leave me behind, because I shall be necessary to conceal your treasure.' "'Yes,' replied your father, laughing, 'there is another chance for you, you see.' "Your father then extinguished the light, and the conversation was not renewed; but I had heard enough. Your father carried a great treasure about his person--wealth, I took it for granted, that if I once could obtain, and return to England, would save me from my present position. My avarice was hereby excited, and thus another passion equally powerful, and equally inciting to evil deeds, was added to the hate which I already had imbibed for your father. But I must leave off now." Jackson drank a little more, and then remained quiet, and as I had had no food that day, I took the opportunity of returning to the cabin, with the promise that I would be back very soon. In half an hour I returned, bringing with me the Bible and Prayer-book, as I thought that he would ask me to read to him after he had made his confession. I found him breathing heavily, and apparently asleep, so I did not wake him. As I looked at him, and recalled to mind his words, "Am not I an object of pity?" I confessed that he was, and then I asked myself the question, Can you forgive him who was the murderer of your father? After some reflection, I thought that I could. Was he not already punished? Had not the murder been already avenged? It was not possible to retain animosity against one so stricken, so broken to pieces, and my heart smote me when I looked at his disabled hand, and felt that I, boy as I was, had had a share in his marring. At last he spoke. "Are you there, Frank?" "Yes," replied I. "I have had a little sleep," said he. "Do you feel easier?" inquired I kindly. "Yes, I feel my side more numbed, and so it will remain till mortification takes place. But let me finish my confession; I wish to relieve my mind, not that I shall die to-night, or perhaps to-morrow, but still I wish it over. Come nearer to me, that I may speak in a lower voice, and then I shall be able to speak longer." I did so, and he proceeded. "You know how we were cast upon this island, and how I behaved at first. When I afterwards took my place with the others, my evil thoughts gradually quitted me, and I gave up all idea of any injury to your father. But this did not last long. The deaths of so many, and at last the captain your father and your mother being the only ones left on the island besides myself, once more excited my cupidity. I thought again of the belt of diamonds, and by what means I should gain possession of it; and the devil suggested to me the murders of the captain and of your father. I had ascertained that your father no longer carried the belt on his person when we all used to bathe at the bathing-pool; it was, therefore, as your father had proposed, in your mother's keeping. Having once made up my mind, I watched every opportunity to put my intentions into execution. It was the custom for one of us to fish every morning, as your mother would not eat the dried birds, if fish could be procured, and I considered that the only chance I had of executing my horrible wish was when your father went to fish off the rocks. We usually did so off the ledge of rocks which divide the bathing-pool from the sea, but I found out another place, where more fish, and of a better quality, were to be taken, which is off the high wall of rocks just below. You know where I mean, I have often sent you to fish there, but I never could go myself since your father's death. Your father took his lines there, and was hauling in a large fish, when I, who had concealed myself close to where he stood, watched the opportunity as he looked over the rock to see if the fish was clear of the water, to come behind him and throw him off into the sea. He could not swim, I knew, and after waiting a minute or two, I looked over and saw his body, just as it sank, after his last struggles. I then hastened away, and my guilty conscience induced me to ascend the ravine, and collect a faggot of firewood to bring home, that no suspicions might be entertained; but my so doing was the very cause of suspicion, as you will afterwards perceive. I returned with the wood, and the captain observed, when I came up to the cabin: "'Why, it's something new for you to collect wood out of your turn, Jackson. Wonders will never cease.' "'The fact is, that I am becoming very amiable,' replied I, hardly knowing what to say, and afraid to look either of them in the face, for your mother, with you on her lap, was standing close by. "'Has my husband caught any fish, do you know, Jackson?' said your mother, 'for it is high time that he came home.' "'How can I tell?' replied I. 'I have been up the ravine for wood.' "'But you were down on the rock two hours ago,' replied your mother, 'for Captain James saw you coming away.' "'That I certainly did,' replied the captain. 'Had he caught any fish when you were with him?' "They must have perceived my confusion when I said, 'Yes, I was on the rocks, but I never went near Henniker, that I'll swear.' "'You must have been near him, even when I saw you,' replied the captain. "'I never looked at him, if I was,' replied I. "'Well, then, one of us had better go down and see what he is about,' said the captain. 'Shall I leave Jackson with you?' "'Yes, yes,' replied your mother, much agitated, 'for I have my forebodings; better leave him here.' "The captain hastened down to the rocks, and in a quarter of an hour returned very much heated, saying, 'He is not there!' "'Not there?' replied I, getting up, for I had seated myself in silence on the rock during the captain's absence: 'that's very odd.' "'It is,' replied the captain. 'Jackson, go and try if you see anything of him, while I attend to Mrs Henniker.' "Your mother, on the captain's return, had bowed her head down to her knees, and covered her face with her hands. I was glad of an excuse to be away, for my heart smote me as I witnessed her condition. "I remained away half-an-hour, and then returned, saying that I could see nothing of your father. "Your mother was in the cabin, and the captain went in to her, while I remained outside with all the feelings of Cain upon my brow. "That was a dreadful day for all parties--no food was taken. Your mother and the captain remained in the cabin, and I dared not, as usual, go in to my own bed-place. I lay all night upon the rocks--sleep I could not; every moment I saw your father's body sinking, as I had seen it in the morning. The next morning the captain came out to me. He was very grave and stern, but he could not accuse me, whatever his suspicions might have been. It was a week before I saw your mother again, for I dared not intrude into her presence; but, finding there was no accusation against me, I recovered my spirits, and returned to the cabin, and things went on as before." Chapter XIII "One thing, however, was evident, that your mother had an aversion--I may say a horror--of me, which she could not conceal. She said nothing, but she never could look at me; and to any question I put, would seldom make reply. Strange to say this treatment of hers produced quite a different effect from what might have been anticipated, and I felt my former love for her revive. Her shrinking from me made me more familiar towards her, and increased her disgust. I assumed a jocose air with her, and at times Captain James considered it his duty to interfere and check me. He was a very powerful man, and in a contest would have proved my master; this I knew, and this knowledge compelled me to be more respectful to your mother in his presence, but when his back was turned I became so disgustingly familiar, that at last your mother requested that whether fishing or collecting wood, instead of going out by turns we should both go, and leave her alone. This I could not well refuse, as Captain James would in all probability have used force if I had not consented, but my hatred to him was in consequence most unbounded. However, an event took place which relieved me from the subjection which I was under, and left me alone with you and your mother. Now I must rest a little. Wait another hour, and you shall know the rest." It was now late in the evening, but there was a bright moon which shone over head, and the broad light and shadow made the rocks around us appear peculiarly wild and rugged. They towered up one above the other till they met the dark blue of the sky in which the stars twinkled but faintly, while the moon sailed through the ether, without a cloud to obscure her radiance. And in this majestic scenery were found but two living beings--a poor boy and a mangled wretch--a murderer--soon to breathe his last, and be summoned before an offended God. As I remained motionless by his side, I felt, as I looked up, a sensation of awe, but not of fear; I thought to myself--"And God made all this and all the world besides, and me and him. The Bible said so:" and my speculation then was as to what God must be, for although I had read the Bible, I had but a confused idea, and had it been asked me, as it was of the man in the chariot by Philip, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" I most certainly should have answered, No. I remained for nearly two hours in this reverie, and at last fell asleep with my back against the rock. I was, however, wakened up by Jackson's voice, when he asked in a low tone for water. "There it is," said I, handing it to him. "Have you called long?" "No," replied he; "I asked but once." "I have been asleep," said I. As soon as he had drunk, he said-- "I will finish now; my side begins to burn." He then proceeded-- "It was about four months after your father's death that Captain James and I went together to the ravine to collect firewood. We passed under the wall of rock, which you know so well, and went through the gap, as we call it, when Captain James left the water-course and walked along the edge of the wall. I followed him; we both of us had our pieces of rope in our hands with which we tied the faggots. Of a sudden his foot slipped, and he rolled down to the edge of the rock, but catching hold of a small bush which had fixed its roots in the rocks, he saved himself when his body was hanging half over the precipice. "'Give me the end of your rope,' said he to me, perfectly collected, although in such danger. "'Yes,' replied I, and I intended so to do, as I perceived that if I refused he could still have saved himself by the bush to which he clung. "But the bush began to loosen and give way, and Captain James perceiving it cried out-- "'Quick, quick, the bush is giving way!' "This assertion of his determined me not to give him the rope. I pretended to be in a great hurry to do so, but entangled it about my legs, and then appeared occupied in clearing it, when he cried again-- "'Quick!'--and hardly had he said the word when the root of the bush snapped, and down he fell below. "I heard the crash as he came to the rock beneath. See the judgment of God--am I not now precisely in his position, lying battered and crushed as he was? After a time I went down to where he lay, and found him expiring. He had just strength to say 'God forgive you,' and then he died. It was murder, for I could have saved him and would not, and yet he prayed to God to forgive me. How much happier should I have felt if he had not said that. His 'God forgive you' rang in my ears for months afterwards. I returned to the cabin, and with a bold air stated to your mother what had happened, for I felt I could say, this time, I did not do the deed. She burst out into frantic exclamations, accusing me of being not only his murderer but the murderer of her husband. I tried all I could do to appease her, but in vain. For many weeks she was in a state of melancholy and despondency, that made me fear for her life; but she had you still to bestow her affections upon, and for your sake she lived. I soon made this discovery. She was now wholly in my power, but I was awed by her looks even, for a time. At last I became bolder, and spoke to her of our becoming man and wife; she turned from me with abhorrence. I then resorted to other means. I prevented her from obtaining food; she would have starved with pleasure, but she could not bear to see you suffer. I will not detail my cruelty and barbarity towards her; suffice to say, it was such that she pined away, and about six months after the death of the captain she died, exhorting me not to injure you, but if ever I had an opportunity, to take you to your grandfather. I could not refuse this demand, made by a woman whom I as certainly killed by slow means as I had your father by a more sudden death. I buried her in the guano, by the side of the others. After her death my life was a torture to me for a long while. I dared not kill you, but I hated you. I had only one consolation, one hope, which occasionally gave me satisfaction; the consolation, if so it could be called, was--that I had possession of the diamonds; the hope--that I should one day see England again. You see me now--are they not all avenged?" I could not but feel the truth of Jackson's last sentence. They were indeed avenged. After a short pause, he said to me-- "Now, Frank, I feel that the mortification in my side is making great progress, and, in a short time I shall be in too great pain to talk to you. I have made a full confession of my crimes; it is all the reparation I can make to you. Now, can you forgive me? for I shall die very miserable if you do not. Just look at me. Can you feel resentment against one in my wretched state? Recollect that you pray to be forgiven as you forgive others. Give me your answer." "I think--yes, I feel that I can forgive you, Jackson," replied I. "I shall soon be left alone on this island, and I am sure I should be much more miserable than I shall be, if I do not forgive you. I do forgive you." "Thanks; you are a good boy, and may God bless you. Is it not nearly daylight?" "Yes, it is. I shall soon be able to read the Bible or Prayer-book to you. I have them both here." "The pain is too severe, and becomes worse every minute. I shall not be able to listen to you now; but I shall have some moments of quiet before I die; and then--" Jackson groaned heavily, and ceased speaking. For many hours he appeared to suffer much agony, which he vented in low groans; the perspiration hung on his forehead in large beads, and his breathing became laborious. The sun rose and had nearly set again before Jackson spoke; at last he asked for some drink. "It is over now," said he faintly. "The pain is subsiding, and death is near at hand. You may read to me now; but, first, while I think of it, let me tell you where you will find your father's property." "I know," replied I; "in your bed-place under the board. I saw you remove it when you did not see me." "True. I have no more to say; it will all be over soon. Read the burial service over me after I am dead; and now, while still above, read me what you think I shall like best; for I cannot collect myself sufficiently to tell you what is most proper. Indeed I hardly know. But I can pray at times. Read on." I did so, and came upon the parable of the prodigal son. "That suits me," said Jackson. "Now let me pray. Pray for me, Frank." "I don't know how," replied I; "you never taught me." "Alas, no!" Jackson was then silent. I saw his pale lips move for some time. I turned away for a few moments; when I came back to him, he was no more! His jaw had fallen; and this being the first time that I had ever faced death, I looked upon the corpse with horror and dismay. After a few minutes I left the body, and sat down on a rock at some distance from it, for I was somewhat afraid to be near to it. On this rock I remained till the sun was sinking below the horizon; when, alarmed at the idea of being there when it was dark, I took up my books and hastened back to the cabin. I was giddy from excitement, and not having tasted food for many hours. As soon as I had eaten, I lay down in my bed-place, intending to reflect upon what I was to do, now that I was alone; but I was in a few moments fast asleep, and did not wake until the sun was high. I arose much refreshed, and, seeing my Bible and Prayer-book close to my bed-place, I recollected my promise to Jackson that I would read the burial service over his body. I found the place in the Prayer-book, for I had read it more than once before; and, having just looked over it, I went with my book to where the body lay. It presented a yet more hideous spectacle than it had the night before. I read the service and closed the book. "What can I do?" thought I. "I cannot bury him in the guano. It will be impossible to carry the body over these rocks." Indeed, if it had been possible, I do not think I could have touched it. I was afraid of it. At last I determined that I would cover it up with the fragments of rocks which lay about in all directions, and I did so. This occupied me about two hours, and then, carrying the bottles with me, I gladly hastened away from the spot, with a resolution never to revisit it. I felt quite a relief when I was once more in the cabin. I was alone, it was true, but I was no longer in contact with the dead. I could not collect my thoughts or analyse my feelings during the remainder of the day. I sat with my head resting on my hand, in the attitude of one thinking; but at the same time my mind was vacant. I once more lay down to sleep, and the following morning I found myself invigorated, and capable of acting as well as thinking. I had a weight upon my spirits which I could not at first account for; but it arose from the feeling that I was now alone, without a soul to speak to or communicate with; my lips must now be closed till I again fell in with some of my fellow-creatures--and was that likely? We had seen some of them perish not far from us, and that was all, during a period of many years. Chapter XIV I was now, by Jackson's account, nearly fourteen years old. During fourteen years but one vessel had been seen by us. It might be fourteen more, or double that time might elapse, before I should again fall in with any of my fellow-creatures. As these thoughts saddened me, I felt how much I would have sacrificed if Jackson had remained alive, were it only for his company; I would have forgiven him anything. I even then felt as if, in the murderer of my father, I had lost a friend. That day I was so unsettled I could not do anything; I tried to read, but I could not; I tried to eat, but my appetite was gone, I sat looking at the ocean as it rolled wave after wave, sometimes wondering whether it would ever bring a fellow-creature to join me; at others I sat, and for hours, in perfect vacuity of thought. The evening closed in; it was dark, and I still remained seated where I was. At last I returned to my bed, almost brokenhearted; but fortunately I was soon asleep, and my sorrows were forgotten. Another morning was gladdened with a brilliant sun, the dark blue ocean was scarcely ruffled by the breeze that swept over it, and I felt my spirits much revived, and my appetite returned. After taking a meal, I remembered what Jackson had told me about the belt with the diamonds, and I went up to his bed-place, and turning out the bird's skins and feathers, I raked up the gravel, which was not more than two inches deep, and came to the board. I lifted it up, and found underneath a hole, about a foot deep, full of various articles. There were the watch and sleeve buttons of the mate, some dollars wrapped in old rags, a tobacco-box, an old pipe, a brooch with hair forming initials, some letters which were signed J. Evelyn, and which I perceived were from my grandfather, and probably taken by Jackson after my mother's death. I say letters, because they were such, as I afterwards found out, but I had not then ever seen a letter, and my first attempt to decipher written hand was useless, although I did manage to make out the signature. There was in the tobacco-box a plain gold wedding-ring, probably my mother's; and there was also a lock of long dark hair, which I presumed was hers also. There were three or four specimens of what I afterwards found out to be gold and silver ores, a silver pencil-case, and a pair of small gold ear-rings. At the bottom of the hole was the belt; it was of soft leather, and I could feel a hard substance in it sewed in every square, which of course I presumed were the diamonds, but I did not cut one of the divisions open to see what was in them. It had on the upper part of it, in very plain writing, "The property of Mr J. Evelyn, 33, Minories, London." I examined all these articles one after another, and having satisfied my curiosity, I replaced them in the hole for a future survey. I covered the hole with the board, and put back the gravel and the feathers into the bed-place. This occupied me about two hours, and then I again took my former position on the rocks, and remained in a state of listless inactivity of body and mind the remainder of that day. This state of prostration lasted for many days--I may say for weeks, before it was altogether removed. I could find no pleasure in my books, which were taken up, and after a few moments laid aside. It was now within a month of the time that the birds should come to the island. I was in no want of them for sustenance; there were plenty left, but I almost loathed the sight of food. The reader may inquire how it was that I knew the exact time of the arrival of the birds? I reply that the only reckoning ever kept by Jackson and me was the arrival of the full moons, and we also made a mark on the rock every time that the moon was at the full. Thirteen moons were the quantity which we reckoned from the time of the birds appearing on the island one year, until their re-appearance the next; and twelve moons had now passed. At length, tired with everything, tired of myself, and I may say, almost tired of life, I one day took it into my head that I would take some provisions with me and a bottle to hold water, and go up the ravine, and cut firewood which should last me a long while; and that I would remain up there for several days, for I hated the sight of the cabin and of all that was near to it. The next day I acted upon this resolution, and slinging my dry provisions on my shoulder, I set off for the ravine. In an hour I had gained it; but not being in a hurry to cut wood, I resolved upon climbing higher up, to see if I could reach the opposite side of the island; that is, at least, get over the brow of the hill, to have a good view of it. I continued to climb until I had gained a smooth grassy spot, which was clear of brushwood; and as I sat down to rest myself, I observed some blue flowers which I had never seen before, indeed I did not know that there was a flower on the island. As I afterwards discovered, they were one of the varieties of Gentianellas. I looked at them, admired them, and felt quite an affection for them; they were very pretty, and they were, as well as myself, alone. Jackson, when I was pointing out the English cottages in the landscapes of "Mavor's Natural History," had told me a great deal about gardening in England, and how wild flowers and trees were transplanted and improved by culture; how roses and other plants were nailed up the walls, as I had observed in the engravings, and how they were watered and kept; and as I sat down looking at the flower, the thought occurred to me, Why should I not take it with me, and keep it for myself? I can water it, and take care of it. I resolved that I would do so, for I already looked upon the plant as a treasure. I took it up carefully with my American knife, leaving sufficient mould about the roots, and then I proceeded to ascend the hill; but before I had gone another hundred yards, I found at least a dozen more of these plants in flower, all finer than the one I had dug up, and three or four others very different from these, which were also quite new to me. I was puzzled what to do; I put down the plants I had dug up and continued my ascent, not having made up my mind. After half-an-hour's climbing, I gained the summit, and could perceive the ocean on the other side, and the other half of the island lying beneath me. It was very grand from the height I stood on, but I observed little difference between one side of the island and the other; all was rugged barren rock as on my side, with the exception of the portion close to me; this had brushwood in the ravine, which appeared to be a sort of cleft through the island. All was silent and solitary; not a bird was to be seen, and nothing that had life could I discover. I was about to return, when I thought I might as well go down the ravine facing me for a little way, and see what there was in it. I did so, and discovered some other plants that I had not seen on my side of the island. There were also some fern trees, and some twining plants running up them, and I thought to myself, Why, these plants are what I saw in the picture of the English cottages, or very like them. I wonder if they would run up my cabin? and then all at once the idea came to me that I would plant some of them round the cabin, and that I would make a garden of flowers, and have plants of my own. The reader can hardly imagine the pleasure that this idea gave me; I sat down to ruminate upon it, and felt quite happy for the time. I now recollected, however, that the cabin was built on the rock, and that plants would only grow in the earth. At first this idea chilled me, as it seemed to destroy all my schemes, but I resolved that I would bring some earth to the rock, and make my garden in that way. I at first thought of the guano, but Jackson had told me that it was only used in small proportions to enrich the soil, and would kill plants if used by itself. After an hour's consideration, during which I called to mind all that Jackson had told me on the subject, I made up my mind I would return to the cabin, and on my return ascertain how low down the ravine I could obtain earth for my garden; I would then carry the earth to the cabin, make a soil ready for the plants and flowers, and then, when all was ready, I would go up the ravine, collect what I could, and make my garden. I did so. I found that I could get soil about one-third of the way up the ravine, a quarter of a mile below where the brushwood grew; and having ascertained that, I returned to the cabin, threw down my provisions which were to have lasted me a week, and as it was late, I decided that I would not commence operations until the following day. I took out of the chest a duck frock, and tying up the sleeves and collar, so as to form a bag of the body of the frock, I set off the next morning to begin my task. That day I contrived to carry to the cabin ten or twelve bags of mould, which I put round it in a border about four feet wide, and about a foot deep. It occupied me a whole week to obtain the quantity of earth necessary to make the bed on each side of the cabin; it was hard work, but it made me cheerful and happy to what I had been before. I found that the best cure for melancholy and solitude was employment, so I thus obtained valuable knowledge as well as the making of my garden. When I had finished carrying the mould, I started off for the ravine with two bags to hold the plants which I might collect, and after a day's toil, I returned with my bags full of small shrubs, besides a bundle of creepers to plant against the sides of the cabin. The following day was occupied in planting everything I had procured. I was sorry to see that the leaves and flowers hung down, but I watered them all before I went to bed. The next morning I was delighted to perceive that they had all recovered and were looking quite fresh. But my garden was not full enough to please me, and I once more went up the ravine, selecting other plants which had no flowers on them, and one or two other shrubs, which I had not before observed. When these were planted and watered, my garden looked very gay and full of plants, and then I discovered the mould came down for want of support at the edges; I therefore went and picked up pieces of rock of sufficient size to make a border and hold up the mould, and now all was complete, and I had nothing to do but to go on watering them daily. This I did, and recollecting what Jackson had said about the guano, I got a bag of it, and put some to each plant. The good effect of this was soon observable, and before the birds came, my garden was in a very flourishing condition. I cannot express to the reader the pleasure I derived from this little garden. I knew every plant and every shrub, and talked to them as if they were companions, while I watered and tended them, which I did every night and morning, and their rapid growth was my delight. I no longer felt my solitude so irksome as I had done. I had something to look after, to interest me, and to love; they were alive as well as I was; they grew, and threw out leaves and flowers; they were grateful for the care I bestowed upon them, and became my companions and friends. I mentioned before that during the latter portion of the time I was with Jackson, he had taught me to sing several songs. Feeling tired, in my solitude, of not hearing the human voice, I found myself at first humming over, and afterwards singing aloud, the various airs I had collected from him. This afforded me much pleasure, and I used to sing half the day. I had no one to listen to me, it is true, but as my fondness for my garden increased, I used to sit down and sing to the flowers and shrubs, and fancy that they listened to me. But my stock of songs was not very large, and at last I had repeated them so often that I became tired of the words. It occurred to me that the Prayer-book had the Psalms of David at the end of it, set to music. I got the book, and as far as the airs that I knew would suit, I sang them all; never were Psalms, probably, sung to such tunes before, but it amused me, and there was no want of variety of language. Every three or four days I would go up the ravine, and search carefully for any new flower or shrub which I had not yet planted in my garden, and when I found one, as I often did, it was a source of great delight. Chapter XV At last the birds came, and I procured some of their eggs, which were a very agreeable change, after living so long upon dried meat. My want of occupation occasioned me also to employ some of my time in fishing, which I seldom had done while Jackson was alive; and this created a variety in my food, to which, for a long while, I had been a stranger. Jackson did not care for fish, as to cook it we were obliged to go up the ravine for wood, and he did not like the trouble. When the birds came, I had recourse to my book on Natural History, to read over again the accounts of the Man-of-War birds, Gannets, and other birds mentioned in it; and there was a vignette of a Chinaman with tame cormorants on a pole, and in the letter-press an account of how they were trained and employed to catch fish for their masters. This gave me the idea that I would have some birds tame, as companions, and, if possible, teach them to catch fish for me; but I knew that I must wait till the young birds were fit to be taken from the nest. I now resolved that during the time the birds were mating, I would go to the ravine and remain there several days, to collect bundles of firewood. The firewood was chiefly cut from a sort of low bush, like the sallow or willow, fit for making baskets, indeed fit for anything better than firewood; however, there were some bushes which were of a harder texture, and which burnt well. It was Jackson who told me that the former were called willow and used for making baskets, and he also shewed me how to tie the faggots up by twisting the sallows together. They were not, however, what Jackson said they were--from after knowledge, I should say that they were a species of Oleander or something of the kind. Having roasted several dozen of eggs quite hard, by way of provision, I set off one morning, and went to the ravine. As Jackson had said before, I had to walk under a wall of rock thirty feet high, and then pass through a water-course to get up to the ravine, which increased the distance to where the shrubs grew, at least half a mile. It was over this wall that the captain fell and was killed, because Jackson would not assist him. I gained the thicket where the bushes grew, and for three days I worked very hard, and had cut down and tied about fifty large faggots, when I thought that I had collected enough to last me for a long while; but I had still to carry them down, and this was a heavy task, as I could not carry more than one at a time. It occurred to me that if I threw my faggots over the wall opposite to where they had been cut down, I should save myself nearly a mile of carriage, as otherwise I had to walk all the way to the water-course which divided the wall of rock, and then walk back again. Indeed, where I cut down the wood was not more than a quarter of a mile from the bathing-pool, and all down hill. I was delighted at this idea, which I wondered had never occurred to Jackson, and I commenced putting it into execution. The top of the wall of rock was slippery from the constant trickling of the water over the surface, but this was only in some places. I carried my faggots down one by one, and threw them over, being careful not to lose my footing in so doing. I had carried all but three or four, and had become careless, when, on heaving one over, my heels were thrown up, and before I could recover myself I slid down the remainder of the ledge and was precipitated down below, a distance of more than thirty feet. I must have remained there many hours insensible, but at last I recovered and found myself lying on the faggots which I had thrown down. It was my falling on the faggots, instead of the hard rock, which had saved my life. I rose as soon as I could collect my scattered senses. I felt very sore and very much shaken, and the blood was running out of my mouth, but there were no bones broken. I was, however, too ill to attempt anything more that day. I walked home at a very slow pace and went to bed. A sound sleep restored me, and in a day or two I was quite recovered. I watered my plants, which I found drooping, as if they had grieved at my being so long away from them, and then I returned to where my faggots had been left; and to lighten my labour I resolved to carry them down to the bathing-pool and stack them up there on the rocks near to it. I mention this for reasons that the reader will comprehend bye-and-bye. This occupied me two days, for I was not inclined, after my fall, to work hard; and very glad was I when the labour was over. The young birds were now hatched, but I had to wait four or five weeks before they were fit to be taken. I began again to find solitude tedious. The flowers in my garden had all bloomed and withered, and there was not so much to interest me. I recommenced reading the Bible, and the narratives in the Old and New Testaments again afforded me pleasure. I hardly need say to the reader that I read the Bible as I would have read any other book--for amusement, and not for instruction. I had learnt little from Jackson--indeed, as regards the true nature of the Christian religion, I may say, nothing at all. I do not believe that he knew anything about it himself. It is true that the precepts in the New Testament struck me, and that I was more interested about Our Saviour than anybody else; but I could not comprehend him, or his mission. In short, I read in darkness; and I may say that I almost knew the Bible by heart without understanding it.--How could I? How many thousands are there who do the same, without having an excuse to offer for their blindness! At last the time for taking the birds arrived, and I had then sufficient employment to keep me from being melancholy. I collected quite as many as we had done when Jackson and I had to be provided for; and with my new knives my labour was comparatively easy. As soon as I had completed my provision, I went back to take the young birds which already I had selected and left for that purpose. It was high time, for I found that when I went to take them they were ready to fly. However, after a good battle with the old birds (for I had taken six young ones--two from each nest, which arrayed a force of six old ones against me, who fought very valiantly in defence of their offspring), I succeeded in carrying them off, but followed by the old birds, who now screamed and darted close to me as they came pursuing me to the cabin. As soon as I got safe back, I took the young birds into the cabin, tying each of them by the leg with a piece of fishing line, and the other end of the line I fastened to some pieces of rock which I had collected ready on the platform outside of the cabin. The old birds continued to persecute me till it was dark, and then they went away, and I, tired with my day's labour, was not sorry to go to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I found the old birds on the platform, in company with the young ones, I presume trying to persuade them to fly away with them; but the lines on their legs prevented that. They did not leave at my approach for some little while; at last they all took wing, and went off to sea; but in the course of a few minutes they returned with some small fish in their mouths, with which they fed their young ones. They continued to do this for the two following days, when there was a general break up, announcing the departure of the main body, which, after much soaring and wheeling in the air, flew off in a northerly direction. The six parent birds, who were with their young ones at the cabin, appeared for some time very uneasy, flying round and round and screaming wildly; at last they soared in the air with loud shrieks, and flew away after the main body, which was still in sight--their love for their young overpowered by their instinctive habits. I was not sorry when they were gone, as I wanted to have my new family all to myself. I went down to the rocks and caught a fish, which was large enough to supply them for three or four days. I fed them with the inside of the fish, and they ate it very heartily. For several days they appeared very uneasy; but gradually they settled, and not only appeared to know me, but to welcome my coming, which was to me a source of great pleasure. I now neglected my flowers for the birds, which were the more animated of the two; and I sat down for hours on the platform with my six companions, who I must own were not over-lively and intelligent, but they were alive, and had eyes. They seldom roused up, unless I brought them fish, of which they had a supply four times a day, and then they would stand on their legs and open their beaks far apart, each waiting for its share. They were a great happiness to me, and I watched their gradual increase of plumage and of size, which was very rapid. I gave them all names out of my Natural History book. One was Lion, then Tiger, Panther, Bear, Horse, and Jackass (at the time that I named them, the last would have been very appropriate to them all); and as I always called them by their names as I fed them, I soon found, to my great joy, that they knew them well enough. This delighted me. I read my books to them by way of amusement; I sang my songs to them; I talked to them; I would even narrate the various histories out of the Bible to them, such as that of Joseph and his brethren, &c., and the stolid air with which the communications were received made me almost imagine they were listened to. After a time, I took the line off the legs of two of them, with the precaution of first cutting their wings, and these two became much more lively, following me into the cabin and generally staying there during the night. As I found that no attempt was made to escape, I let them all loose, after having cut their wings, and they all behaved equally well with the two first to which I had given their liberty. The perfect obedience and good behaviour of my new companions again gave me leisure that was not altogether desirable, as it left a vacuum to fill up. But I returned to my garden. I could do no more at present but water my plants and look at the increased daily growth of the climbers, as they now boldly ascended the sides of the cabin; but I thought it was high time to go up into the ravine and about the island, to see if I could not add to my collection. One morning I set off up the ravine. I was not successful, so I contented myself with carrying, by the long road, those faggots which I had left behind me on the day when I fell over the precipice. This labour I finished, and then returned to the cabin, where I was met by my birds with half-extended wings and open mouths, as if they were very glad to see me, and very hungry into the bargain. I ought to observe that my birds appeared now to separate into pairs, male and female, as their difference of plumage denoted. Lion and Horse were always side by side, as were Jackass and Bear, and Tiger and Panther. I now fed them one by one, calling them by name, to which they immediately responded, and if anyone came who was not called, it was switched for its trouble. The next morning I set off on another voyage of discovery after plants, and this time I resolved upon trying what I could find among the crevices of the rocks, for I had seen at a distance what appeared to me to be a very pretty flower on the ledge of one of the clefts. I did not go up the ravine this time, but commenced climbing the rocks behind where the cabin was built. It was hard work, but I was not easily discouraged, and after a couple of hours I arrived at a level which I had in view when I commenced my labour, and here I was amply rewarded, for I found several plants quite new to me, and a variety of ferns, which I thought very beautiful, although they had no flowers. The scene, from where I stood, was awful and beautiful. I looked down upon the rocks below, and the cabin, which appeared very small, and I thought that I could see my birds like dots upon the platform. It was a bright day and smooth water, I could clearly distinguish the other islands in the distance, and I thought that I saw something like a white speck close to them--perhaps it was a vessel. This made me melancholy, and I could not help asking myself whether I was to remain all my life upon the island, alone, or if there were any chance of my ever being taken off it. As I looked down upon the cabin, I was surprised at the steepness of the rocks which I had climbed, and felt alarmed, as if I never should be able to get back again. But these thoughts were soon chased away. I turned from the seaward, and looked inland. I found that on one side of me there was a chasm between the rocks, the bottom of which was so far down that I could not see it; and on the other side the rock rose up as straight as a wall. My attention was soon diverted by discovering another plant, and I now commenced my task of digging them all up. I obtained, with the ferns, about twenty new varieties, which I made up in a bundle ready for carrying down slung round my neck, for I knew that I should require both hands to descend with. Then I sat down to rest myself a little before I commenced my return, and after I had been seated a few minutes, I thought I would sing a song by way of amusement. Chapter XVI I have before said that, tired of repeating the words of the songs which Jackson had taught me, I had taken those of Psalms in metre, at the end of the Prayer-book, by way of variety; and, as far as metre went, they answered very well, although people would have been surprised to have heard Psalms sung to such quick and varied measure. The Psalm I chose this time was the first--"How blest is he who ne'er consents;" and I began accordingly; but when I came to the end of the line, to my astonishment I heard a plaintive voice, at a distance, repeat after me "con-sents." I looked round. I thought I must have been deceived, so I continued--"By ill advice to walk." This time I could not be mistaken--"to walk" was repeated by the same voice as plainly as possible. I stopped singing, lost in wonder. There must be somebody on the island as well as myself, thought I; for I never had heard an echo before, except when it thundered, and such echoes I had put down as a portion of the thunder. "Who's there?" cried I. "Who's there?" replied the voice. "It's me!" "It's me!" was the answer. I did not know what to make of it. I cried out again and again, and again and again I heard what I said repeated, but no answer to my questions. I thought I was insulted by somebody, and yet, when I listened, the voice that spoke came from the face of the rock on the other side of the chasm, and no one could be there without my seeing them. This made me think that I was mistaken, and that there could not be anybody, but still I could not solve the mystery. At last I became frightened, and as the sun was now setting, I determined to get back to the cabin. I did so, and went down much faster than I had gone up, for as it grew dark I became the more alarmed. The only thing that re-assured me was the softness and plaintiveness of the voice--not like Jackson's, but as of someone who would not think of injuring me. Although I was, generally speaking, quiet and content with my isolated position, yet it was only when I was employed or amused with my favourites. At times, I could not find anything to do, and was overcome by weariness. I would then throw away my books, and remain for hours thinking upon the probability of my ever again seeing a fellow creature; and a fit of melancholy would come over me, which would last many days. I was in one of these moods, when it occurred to me, that, although I had seen the other side of the island from the summit, I had not gone down to the beach to explore it; and I resolved that I would do so, making a trip of three or four days. When my knives had become blunt, Jackson had told me how to sharpen them, by rubbing the blades upon a hard flat piece of rock, wetted with water. This I had found to answer very well, and I now determined I would try and sharpen one of the old axes in the same way, so as to make it serviceable, for I was very much afraid of breaking my knives in cutting down the brushwood, and I knew how much more rapidly it could be done with an axe. I picked out a large stone, suitable for the purpose, and with a kid of water at hand, I set-to to sharpen the axe. It was a long job, but in a day or two I had succeeded admirably, and the axe was in good order. I then thought how I could leave my birds for so many days, as they would require food. At last, I considered that if I caught two large fish and cut them up, they would be sufficient for their sustenance. I did so, and provided with a packet of dried birds for food, tied up in a duck frock, with my Natural History book for amusement, a pannikin to get water in, my axe on my shoulder, and my knives by my side--I first kissed all the birds, and told them to remain quiet and good till I came back--I set off on a bright clear morning on my tour of examination. In a couple of hours I had gained the summit of the island, and prepared for my descent, by sitting down and eating my dinner. I observed that, as before, the water on the other side of the island was quite smooth, compared to what it was on the side where I resided. It was, in fact, from the prevailing winds during the year, the lee side of the island. Having rested myself sufficiently, I commenced my descent, which I accomplished in little less time than it took me to ascend from the other side. As I neared the rocks by the shore, I thought I perceived something occasionally moving about on them. I was not mistaken, for as I came closer, I found that there were several large animals lying on the rocks, and occasionally dropping into the sea close to them. The sight of anything living was to me of great interest. I determined to get nearer, and ascertain what animals they were. At last, by creeping along from rock to rock, I arrived to within forty yards of them. I recollected some animals of the same shape in my book of Natural History, which, fortunately, I had with me in the duck frock, and sitting down behind the rock, I pulled it out, and turned over the pages until I came to a print which exactly answered to their appearance. It was the Seal. Having satisfied myself on that point, I read the history of the animal, and found that it was easily tamed, and very affectionate when taken young, and also might be easily killed by a blow on the nose. These, at least, were for me the two most important pieces of information. It occurred to me that it would be very pleasant to have a young seal for a playmate (for the Gannets, after all, were not very intelligent), and I resolved to obtain one if I could. I put down my duck frock with my provisions behind the rock, and taking my axe in my hand, I cautiously advanced to where the animals lay. There were about twenty of them all together on one rock, but they were all large, and seemed to be about five or six feet long. I could not see a small one anywhere, so I walked in behind the rocks farther to the right, towards another rock, where I saw another batch of them lying. As I neared them, I saw by herself a seal with a young one by her side, not more than two feet long. This was what I wanted. They lay at some distance from the water, upon a low rock. I watched them for some time, and was much amused at the prattling which passed between the old and the young one. I thought that to obtain the young one, I must of course kill the old one, for I perceived that it had large teeth. I considered it advisable to get between them and the water, that they might not escape me, and I contrived so to do before I made my appearance. As soon as the old one perceived me running to them, it gave a shrill cry, and then floundered towards the water; as we came close together, it showed its teeth, and rose upon its flappers to defend itself and its young one, which kept close to its side; but a blow on its nose with the axe rendered it motionless, and apparently dead. Delighted with my success, I seized hold of the young one and took it in my arms, and was carrying it away, when I found myself confronted with the male seal, which, alarmed by the cry of the female, had come to her assistance. It was much larger than the female, with more shaggy hair about the neck and shoulders, and apparently very fierce. I could not pass it, as it was in shore of me, and I had just time to drop the young seal, and leap behind a rock on one side, with my axe all ready. The animal reared itself on the rock to pass over to me, when I saluted it with a blow on the head, which staggered it. I had lost my presence of mind by the creature coming upon me so unexpectedly, and my blow was not well aimed, but before it could recover the first blow, another on its nose tumbled it over, to all appearance lifeless. I then hastened to gain the other side of the rock, where I had left the young seal, and found that it had crept to its mother's body, and was fondling it. I took it in my arms, and retreated to where I had left my duck frock, and throwing everything else out, I put the animal in, and tied up the end, so that it could not escape. I then sat down to recover myself from the excitement occasioned by this first engagement I had ever been in, quite delighted with my newly-acquired treasure. I then thought what I should do. It was now within an hour of dark, and was too late to return to the other side of the island, or I would have done so, as I was anxious to get my seal home. At last I decided that I would go farther from the beach, and take up my quarters for the night. I collected my provision, and with my seal under my arm, I walked away about one hundred yards from the water's edge, and took up a position under a large rock; here I ate my supper, and then untied the line which closed up the frock, and had a parting look at my little friend before I went to sleep. He had struggled a good deal at first, but was now quiet, although he occasionally made attempts to bite me. I coaxed him and fondled him a good deal, and then put him into his bag again, and made him secure, which appeared to annoy him very much, as he was not half as quiet in a bag as he was when I held him in my lap. I then took my book to read over again the history of the seal, and I found that their skins were valuable, and also that they gave a great deal of oil, but I had no use for oil, though I thought that their skins might be very comfortable in my bed-place. I shut my book and lay down to sleep, but I could not obtain any till near daylight, I had been so excited, and was so anxious about my treasure. The sun shining in my eyes woke me up; I found my seal was lying very quiet; I touched him to see that he was not dead, and the cry that he gave assured me to the contrary. I then walked back to where I had left the bodies of the parents. I found on examination that they were both dead, and also that their furs were very beautiful, and I resolved that I would have their skins. But here was a difficulty. If I took off the skins, I could not carry them with me, and I was anxious to get the young one home, lest it should die of hunger, so I decided that I would first take home the young one, give it food and warm it, and then return and skin the old ones. I therefore made my breakfast, and leaving the remainder of my provision in a cleft in the rock, that I might not have the trouble of bringing it again, I set off on my return, and used such diligence that I was back at the cabin by noon. I found my birds all well, and apparently quite satisfied with the provision that I had left them, for they were most of them asleep, and those that were awake did not notice my arrival. "Ah," thought I, "you only like me for what I give you; next time I go away I will leave you hungry, and then when you see me come back, you will all flutter your wings with gladness." I was puzzled where to put my seal so as to keep him safe: at last I decided upon opening the seaman's chest and putting him in that. I did so, and gave him a piece of fish which the birds had not eaten. The little creature devoured it eagerly, and I took my lines and went down to catch some fish for a further supply. In half an hour I returned with two large fish, and I then took the seal out of the chest and fed him again. He ate very heartily; and I was glad to perceive that he appeared much tamer already. I threw some of the insides of the fish to the birds, who were now become of very inferior interest to me. Having fed my animals, I then thought of myself, and, as I took my meal, I arranged that the next morning I would go over to the other side of the island, skin the two seals, and spread out the skins on the rocks to dry, and would leave them there till I had a better opportunity of bringing them to the cabin; at present I could not be away from my new acquaintance, which I wished to make tame and fond of me. Having fed him again in the morning, I put down the lid of the chest, and then started for the lee side of the island. Chapter XVII I arrived early, skinned both the seals, and dragged the skins up from the water-side, though with difficulty, especially that of the large one, to the rock where I had taken up my quarters the night before. Here I spread them out to dry, putting large pieces of rock upon the edges, that they might not be blown away. It was nearly dusk when I had finished, but I set off, and an hour after dark arrived at the cabin; for now that I knew my way so well, I got over the ground twice as fast as I did before. I crawled into my bed-place in the dark, and slept soundly after my fatigue. I awoke the next morning with the plaintive cry of my seal in the chest, and I hastened to get some fish to feed him with. I took him out and fed him; and was astonished how tame the little animal had become already. He remained very quietly with me after he had been fed, nestling close to my side, as if I had been his mother, and even making a half attempt to follow me when I left him. My birds appeared very dull and stupid, and I observed also that they were very dirty, and always rushed to the kid when it was full of water, trying to get into it. This made me think that they required bathing in salt water, and I took one down to the bathing-pool, with a long line to its leg, and put it in. The manner in which the poor creature floundered, and dipped and washed itself, for several minutes, proved my supposition correct; so, after allowing it half an hour for its recreation, I took it back, and went down with the others until they had all indulged in the luxury of a bath; and from that time, as I took them down almost every day, it was astonishing how much brighter and sleeker their plumage became. I remained a week in the cabin, taming my seal, which now was quite fond of me; and one night, as I was going to bed, he crawled into my bed-place, and from that time he was my bed-fellow. At the end of a week I went over to the other side of the island, and contrived to carry up the two skins to the summit. It was a hard day's work. The day afterwards I conveyed them to the cabin, and, as they were quite dry, I put them into my bed-place to lie down upon, as I did not like the smell of the birds' feathers, although I had so long been accustomed to them. And now, what with my seal, my birds, and my garden, and the occupation they gave me, the time passed quickly away, until, by my reckoning, it was nearly the period for the birds to come again. I observed, as the time drew near, that my birds were uneasy. They had paired, as I mentioned before, and when their plumage was complete, it was evident that they had paired male and female, as I had supposed. They had not been tethered for a long while, and appeared to me now very much inclined to fly, especially the male birds. At first I thought that I would cut all their wings, as I was fearful that they would join the other birds on their arrival, but observing that they were so fond of their mates, I resolved to cut the wing of the females only, as I did not think that the male birds would leave them. I did so, and took my chance; for since I had the seal for a companion, I did not care so much for the birds as before. At last the birds came, and took possession of the guano-ground as usual, and I went for fresh eggs; at the same time I found that my females were scratching, as if they would make their nests, and a few days afterwards they began to lay. I then thought that as soon as they had young ones they would wish to go away, so I took the eggs that were laid, to prevent them, but I found that as fast as I took away the eggs they laid more, and this they did for nearly two months, supplying me with fresh eggs long after the wild birds had hatched, and left the island. The male birds, at the time that the females first laid their eggs, tried their wings in short flights in circles, and then flew away out to sea. I thought that they were gone, but I was deceived, for they returned in about a quarter of an hour, each with a fish in its beak, which they laid down before their mates. I was much pleased at this, and I resolved that in future they should supply their own food, which they did; and not their own food only, but enough for the seal and me also when the weather was fine, but when it was rough, they could not obtain any, and then I was obliged to feed them. The way I obtained from them the extra supply of fish was, that when they first went out, I seized, on their return, the fish which they brought, and as often as I did this they would go for more, until the females were fed. But I had one difficulty to contend with, which was, that at the time the birds could not obtain fish, which was when the weather was rough, I could not either, as they would not take the bait. After some cogitation, I decided that I would divide a portion of the bathing-pool farthest from the shore, by a wall of loose rock which the water could flow through, but which the fish could not get out of, and that I would catch fish in the fine weather to feed the seal and the birds when the weather was rough and bad. As soon as I had finished curing my stock of provisions and got it safely housed in the cabin, I set to work to make this wall, which did not take me a very long while, as the water was not more than two feet deep, and the pool about ten yards across. As soon as it was finished, I went out every day, when it was fine, and caught as many fish as I thought I might require, and put them into this portion of the bathing-pool. I found the plan answer well, as the fish lived, but I had great difficulty in getting them out when I wanted them, for they would not take the bait. As my birds were no longer a trouble to me, but rather, on the contrary, a profit, I devoted my whole time to my seal. I required a name for him, and reading in the book of Natural History that a certain lion was called Nero, I thought it a very good name for a seal, and bestowed it on him accordingly, although what Nero meant I had no idea of. The animal was now so tame that he would cry if ever I left him, and would follow me as far as he could down the rocks, but there was one part of the path leading to the bathing-pool which was too difficult for him, and there he would remain crying till I came back. I had more than once taken him down to the bathing-pool to wash him, and he was much pleased when I did. I now resolved that I would clear the path of the rocks, that he might be able to follow me down the whole way, for he had grown so much that I found him too heavy to carry. It occupied me a week before I could roll away and remove the smaller rocks, and knock off others with the axe, but I finished it at last, and was pleased to find that the animal followed me right down and plunged into the water. He had not been down since I had made the wall of rock to keep the fish in, and as soon as he was in, he dived and came out with one of the fish, which he brought to land. "So now," thought I, "I shall know how to get the fish when I want them--I shall bring you down, Nero." I may as well here observe that Nero very soon obeyed orders as faithfully as a dog. I had a little switch, and when he did wrong, I would give him a slight tap on the nose. He would shake his head, show his teeth, and growl, and then come fondly to me. As he used to follow me every day down to the pool, I had to break him off going after the fish when I did not want them taken, and this I accomplished. No one who had not witnessed it, could imagine the affection and docility of this animal, and the love I had for him. He was my companion and playmate during the day, and my bedfellow at night. We were inseparable. It was at the latter portion of the second year of my solitude that a circumstance occurred, that I must now relate. Nero had gone down to the pool with me, and I was standing fishing off the rocks, when he came out of the pool and plunged into the sea, playing all sorts of gambols, and whistling with delight. I did not think anything about it. He plunged and disappeared for a few minutes, and then would come up again close to where my line was, but he disturbed the fish and I could not catch any. To drive him farther off, I pelted him with pieces of rock, one of which hit him very hard, and he dived down. After a time I pulled up my line, and whistling to him to return, although I did not see him, I went away to the cabin, fully expecting that he would soon follow me, for now he could walk (after his fashion) from the cabin to the pool as he pleased. This was early in the morning, and I busied myself with my garden, which was now in great luxuriance, for I had dressed it with guano; but observing about noon that he had not returned, I became uneasy, and went down to the pool to look for him. He was not there, and I looked on the sea, but could not perceive him anywhere. I called and whistled, but it was of no use, and I grew very much alarmed at the idea that my treasure had deserted me. "It could not be because I threw the pieces of rock at him," thought I; "he would not leave me for that." I remained for two or three hours, watching for him, but it was all in vain; there was no seal--no Nero,--my heart sank at the idea of the animal having deserted me, and for the first time in my life, as far as I can recollect, I burst into a flood of tears. For the first time in my life, I may say, I felt truly miserable--my whole heart and affections were set upon this animal, the companion and friend of my solitude, and I felt as if existence were a burden without him. After a while, I retraced my steps to the cabin, but I was miserable, more so than I can express. I could not rest quiet. Two hours before sunset, I went down again to the rocks, and called till I was hoarse. It was all in vain; night closed in, and again I returned to the cabin, and threw myself down in my bed-place in utter despair. "I thought he loved me," said I to myself, "loved me as I loved him; I would not have left him in that way." And my tears burst out anew at the idea that I never should see my poor Nero again. The reader may think that my grief was inordinate and unwarrantable, but let him put himself in my position--a lad of sixteen, alone on a desolate island, with only one companion--true, he was an animal, and could not speak, but he was affectionate; he replied to all my caresses; he was my only companion and friend, the only object that I loved or cared about. He was intelligent, and I thought loved me as much as I loved him, and now he had deserted me, and I had nothing else that I cared about or that cared for me. My tears flowed for more than an hour, till at last I was wearied and fell asleep. Chapter XVIII It was early in the morning, and yet dark, when I felt something touch me. I started up--a low cry of pleasure told me at once that it was Nero, who was by my side. Yes, it was Nero, who had come back, having climbed up again the steep path to the cabin, to return to his master. Need I say that I was overjoyed, that I hugged him as if he had been a human being, that I wept over him, and that in a few minutes afterwards we were asleep together in the same bed-place. Such was the fact, and never was there in my after life, so great a transition from grief to joy. "Oh! now, if you had left me,"--said I to him, the next morning, when I got up; "you naughty seal, to frighten me and make me so unhappy as you did!" Nero appeared quite as happy as I was at our reunion, and was more affectionate than ever. I must now pass over many months in very few words, just stating to the reader what my position was at the end of three years, during which I was alone upon the island. I had now arrived at the age of near seventeen, and was tall and strong for my years. I had left off wearing my dress of the skins of birds, having substituted one of the seaman's shirts, which I had found in the chest. This, however, was the whole of my costume, and although, had it been longer it would have been more correct, still, as I had no other companion but Nero, it was not necessary to be so very particular, as if I had been in society. During these three years, I think I had read the Bible and Prayer-book, and my Natural History book, at least five or six times quite through, and possessing a retentive memory, could almost repeat them by heart; but still I read the Bible as a sealed book, for I did not understand it, having had no one to instruct me, nor any grace bestowed upon me. I read for amusement, and nothing more. My garden was now in a most flourishing condition, the climbing plants had overrun the cabin, so as to completely cover the whole of the roof and every portion of it, and they hung in festoons on each side of the door-way. Many of the plants which I had taken up small, when I moved them, had proved to be trees, and were now waving to the breeze, high above the cabin roof; and everything that I had planted, from continual watering and guano, had grown most luxuriantly. In fact, my cabin was so covered and sheltered, that its original form had totally disappeared, it now looked like an arbour in a clump of trees, and from the rocks by the bathing-pool it had a very picturesque appearance. I had, of course, several times gone up the ravine, and now that my axe had become useful, I had gradually accumulated a large stock of wood down by the bathing-pool, more than I could use for a long while, as I seldom lighted a fire, but the cutting it was employment, and employment was to me a great source of happiness. I had been several times to the other side of the island, and had had more encounters with the seals, of which I killed many, for I found their skins very comfortable and useful in the cabin. I had collected about three dozen of the finest skins, which were more than I required, but I had taken them for the same reason that I had collected the firewood, for the sake of employment, and in this instance, I may add, for the sake of the excitement which the combats with the seals afforded me. I have not narrated any of these conflicts, as I thought that they might weary the reader, I must, however, state what occurred on one occasion, as although ludicrous, it nearly cost me my life. I had attacked a large male seal, with a splendid fur, for I always looked out for the best skinned animals. He was lying on a rock close to the water, and I had gone into the water to cut him off and prevent his escape by plunging in, as he would otherwise have done; but as I aimed the usual blow at his nose, my foot slipped on the wet rock, and I missed the animal, and at the same time fell down on the rock with the axe in my hand. The animal, which was a male of the largest size, seized hold of my shirt (which I then wore) with his teeth, and, plunging with me into the sea, dived down into the deep water. It was fortunate that he had seized my shirt instead of my body, and also that I could swim well. He carried me along with him--the shirt, for a few seconds, drawn over my head, when, disembarrassing myself of the garment, by slipping my head and arms out, I left it in his possession, and regained the surface of the water, almost suffocated. It was fortunate that I did not wear sleeve-buttons; had I had them, I could not have disengaged myself, and must have perished. I climbed the rock again, and turning round, I perceived the seal on the surface, shaking the shirt in great wrath. This was a sad discomfiture, as I lost not only my shirt but my axe, which I dropped when I was dragged into the water; nothing was saved except my knife, which I carried by a lanyard round my neck. Why I mention this circumstance particularly, is, that having felt great inconvenience for want of sleeve-buttons to hold the wristbands of my shirt together, I had thought of making use of those of the mate, which the reader may recollect had been given with his watch into Jackson's care, to take home to his wife; but on second consideration I thought it very possible I might lose them, and decided that the property was in trust, and that I had no right to risk it. This correct feeling on my part, therefore, was probably the saving of my life. I have only now to mention my birds, and of them I can merely say that they went on as before; they bathed constantly, at the right season they laid eggs, the male birds caught fish and brought them to the cabin, and they were just as stupid and uninteresting as they were at first; however, they never left me, nor indeed shewed any intention to leave me, after the first season of the birds returning to the island. They were useful but not very ornamental, and not at all interesting to one who had such an intelligent companion as Nero. Having now brought up my history, in a few words, until the time referred to, I come to the narrative of what occurred to produce a change in my condition. I have said that in the chest there was a spy-glass, but it had been wetted with salt-water, and was useless. Jackson had tried to shew me how to use it, and had shewn me correctly, but the glasses were dimmed by the wet and subsequent evaporation from heat. I had taken out all the glasses and cleaned them, except the field-glass as it is called, but that being composed of two glasses, the water had penetrated between them, and it still remained so dull that nothing could be distinguished through it, at the time that Jackson was shewing me how to use the instrument; it was therefore put on one side as useless. A year afterwards, I took it out, from curiosity, and then I discovered that the moisture between the two glasses had been quite dried up, and that I could see very clearly through it, and after a little practice I could use it as well as anybody else. Still I seldom did use it, as my eyesight was particularly keen, and I did not require it, and as for any vessel coming off the island, I had gradually given up all thoughts of it. It was one evening when the weather was very rough and the sea much agitated, that I thought I saw something unusual on the water, about four miles distant. I supposed at first it might be a spermaceti whale, for numbers used to play round the island at certain seasons, and I used to watch their blowing and their gambols, if I may use the term, and Jackson often told me long stories about the whale fisheries; but a ray of the setting sun made the object appear white, and I ran for the glass, and made out that it was a boat or a very small vessel, with a sail out, and running before the gale right down to the island. I watched it till it was dark with much interest, and with thoughts of various kinds chasing each other; and then I began to consider what was best to do. I knew that in an hour the moon would rise, and as the sky was not cloudy, although the wind and sea were high, I should probably be able to see it again. "But they never can get on shore on this side of the island," thought I, "with so much sea. Yes they might, if they ran for the bathing-pool." After thinking a while, I decided that I would go down to the bathing-pool, and place lighted faggots on the rocks on each side of the entrance, as this would shew them where to run for, and how to get in. I waited a little longer, and then taking my spy-glass and some tinder with me, I went down to the pool, carried two faggots to the rocks on each side, and having set them on fire and taken up others to replace them as soon as they were burnt out, I sat down with my spy-glass to see if I could make out where the boat might be. As the moon rose, I descried her now within a mile of the island, and her head directed towards the beacon lights made by the burning faggots. I threw another faggot on each and went down for a further supply. The gale had increased, and the spray now dashed over the rocks to where the faggots were burning, and threatened to extinguish them, but I put on more wood and kept up a fierce blaze. In a quarter of an hour I could distinguish the boat; it was now close to the island, perhaps three hundred yards distant, steering not directly for the lights, but more along shore. The fact was that they had hauled up, not knowing how they could land until they had observed the two lights clear of each other, and then they understood why they had been made; and a moment afterwards they bore up right for the entrance to the bathing-pool, and came rushing on before the rolling seas. I still trembled for them, as I knew that if the sea receded at the time that they came to the ledge of rocks at the entrance, the boat would be dashed to pieces, although their lives might be saved, but fortunately for them, it was not so--on the contrary, they came in borne up on a huge wave which carried them clear over the ledge, right up to the wall of rock which I had made across the pool, and then the boat grounded. "Hurrah! well done, that," said a voice from the boat. "Lower away the sail, my lads; all's right." The sail was lowered down, and then, by the light of the fire, I discovered that there were several people in the boat. I had been too much excited to say anything; indeed, I did not know what to say. I only felt that I was no more alone, and the reader may imagine my joy and delight. Chapter XIX As soon as the sail was lowered, the men leaped over the sides of the boat into the water, and waded to the rocks. "Who are you?" said one of the men, addressing me, "and how many of you are there here?" "There is no one on the island but myself," replied I; "but I'm so glad that you have come." "Are you? Then perhaps you'll tell us how to get something to eat, my hearty?" replied he. "Oh yes, wait a little, and I'll bring you plenty," replied I. "Well, then, look smart, that's a beauty, for we are hungry enough to eat you, if you can find us nothing better." I was about to go up to the cabin for some birds, when another man called out-- "I say--can you get us any water?" "Oh yes, plenty," replied I. "Well then, I say, Jim, hand us the pail out of the boat." The one addressed did so, and the man put it into my hands, saying, "Bring us that pail, boy, will you?" I hastened up to the cabin, filled the pail full of water, and then went for a quantity of dried birds, with which I hastened down again to the bathing-pool; I found the men had not been idle, they had taken some faggots off the stack and made a large fire under the rocks, and were then busy making a sort of tent with the boat's sails. "Here's the water, and here's some birds," said I, as I came up to them. "Birds! what birds?" said the man who had first spoken to me, and appeared to have control over the rest. He took one up and examined it by the light of the fire, exclaiming, "Queer eating, I expect." "Why, you didn't expect a regular hotel when you landed, did you, mate?" said one of the men. "No, if I had, I would have called for a glass of grog," replied he. "I suspect I might call a long while before I get anyone to bring me one here." As I knew that Jackson called the rum by the name of grog, I said, "There's plenty of grog, if you want any." "Is there, my hearty,--where?" "Why, in that cask that's in the water on the other side of your little ship," replied I. "I can draw you some directly." "What! in that cask? Grog floating about in salt water, that's too bad. Come here all of you--You're in earnest, boy--no joking I hope, or you may repent it." "I'm not joking," said I--"there it is." The man, followed by all the rest, excepting one of the party, waded into the water, and went to the cask of rum. "Take care," said I, "the spiles are in." "So I see--never fear, my hearty--come now all of us." So saying, the whole of them laid hold of the cask by the chains, and lifting it up, they carried it clean out of the water, and placed it on the rocks by the side of the pool. "Hand us the little kid out of the boat, Jim," said the man; "we'll soon see if it's the right stuff." He took out the spiles, drew off some of the liquor, and tasting it, swore it was excellent. It was then handed round, and all the men took some. "We're in luck to-night; we're fallen upon our legs," said the first man. "I say, Jim, put them dried chickens into the pitch-kettle along with some taters out of the bag--they'll make a good mess; and then with this cask of grog to go to, we shan't do badly." "I say, old fellow," said he, turning to me, "you're a regular trump. Who left you on shore to get all ready for us?" "I was born here," replied I. "Born here! well, we'll hear all about that to-morrow--just now, we'll make up for lost time, for we've had nothing to eat or drink since Wednesday morning. Look alive, my lads! get up the hurricane-house. Jim, put the pail of water into the kettle, and send the islander here for another pailful, for grog." The pail was handed to me, and I soon returned with it full, and, as I did not see that they had a pannikin, I brought one down and gave it to them. "You're a fine boy," said the mate; (as I afterwards found out that he was). "And now, I say, where do you hold out? Have you a hut or a cave to live in?" "Yes," replied I; "I have a cabin, but it is not large enough for all of you." "No, no! we don't want to go there--we are very well where we are, alongside of the cask of rum, but you see, my lad, we have a woman here." "A woman!" said I; "I never saw a woman. Where is she?" "There she is, sitting by the fire." I looked round, and perceived that there was one of the party wrapped up in a blanket, and with a wide straw hat on the head, which completely concealed the form from me. The fact is, that the woman looked like a bundle, and remained by the fire quite as inanimate. At my saying that I never saw a woman, the man burst into a loud laugh. "Why, did you not say that you were born on the island, boy?" said the mate at last. "Were you born without a mother?" "I cannot recollect my mother--she died when I was very young; and therefore I said, that I had never seen a woman." "Well, that's explained; but you see, my lad--this is not only a woman, but a very particular sort of a woman; and it will not do for her to remain here after we have had our supper--for after supper, the men may take a drop too much, and not behave themselves; so I asked you about your cabin, that you might take her there to sleep. Can you do that?" "Yes," replied I; "I will take her there, if she wishes to go." "That's all right then, she'll be better there than here, at all events. I say, boy, where did you leave your trousers?" "I never wear any." "Well then, if you have any, I advise you to put them on, for you are quite old enough to be breeched." I remained with them while the supper was cooking, asking all manner of questions, which caused great mirth. The pitch kettle, which was a large iron pot on three short legs, surprised me a good deal, I had never seen such a thing before, or anything put on the fire. I asked what it was, and what it was made of. The potatoes also astonished me, as I had never yet seen an edible root. "Why, where have you been all your life?" said one of the men. "On this island," replied I, very naively. I waded into the water to examine the boat as well as I could by the light of the fire, but I could see little, and was obliged to defer my examination till the next day. Before the supper was cooked and eaten, I did, however, gain the following information. That they were a portion of the crew of a whaler, which had struck on a reef of rocks about seventy miles off, and that they had been obliged to leave her immediately, as she fell on her broadside a few minutes afterwards; that they had left in two boats, but did not know what had become of the other boat, which parted company during the night. The captain and six men were in the other boat, and the mate with six men in the one which had just landed--besides the lady. "What's a lady?" said I. "I mean the woman who sits there; her husband was killed by some of the people of the Sandwich Isles, and she was going home to England. We have a consort, another whaler, who was to have taken our cargo of oil on board, and to have gone to England with that and her own cargo, and the missionary's wife was to have been sent home in her." "What's a missionary?" inquired I. "Well, I don't exactly know; but he is a preacher who goes out to teach the savages." By this time the supper was cooked, and the odour from the pitch kettle was more savoury than anything that I had ever yet smelt. The kettle was lifted off the fire, the contents of it poured into a kid, and after they had given a portion in the small kid to the woman, who still remained huddled up in the blanket by the fire, they all sat round the large kid, and commenced their supper. "Come, boy, and join us," said the mate, "you can't have had your supper; and as you've found one for us, it's hard but you should share it with us." I was not sorry to do as he told me, and I must say that I never enjoyed a repast so much in my life. "I say, boy, have you a good stock of them dried chickens of yours?" said the mate. "Yes, I have a great many, but not enough to last long for so many people." "Well, but we can get more, can't we?" "No!" replied I, "not until the birds come again, and that will not be for these next five moons." "Five moons! what do you mean?" "I mean, five full moons must come, one after another." "Oh, I understand; why then we must not remain on the island." "No," replied I, "we must all go, or we shall starve; I am so glad that you are come, and the sooner you go the better. Will you take Nero with you?" "Who is Nero?" "Nero--my seal--he's very tame." "Well, we'll see about it; at all events," said he, turning to the other men, "we must decide upon something, and that quickly, for we shall starve if we remain here any time." It appeared that they had left the whaler in such a hurry, that they had only had time to throw into the boat two breakers of water, four empty breakers to fill with saltwater for ballast to the boat, and the iron pitch kettle, with a large sack of potatoes. As soon as supper was finished, they went to the cask for the rum, and then the mate said to me-- "Now I'll go and speak to the woman, and you shall take her to sleep in your cabin." During the whole of this time the woman, as the mate called her, had never spoken a word. She had taken her supper, and eaten it in silence, still remaining by the fire, huddled up in the blanket. On the mate speaking to her, she rose up, and I then perceived that she was much taller than I thought she could have been; but her Panama hat still concealed her face altogether. "Now then, my lad," said the mate, "shew the lady where she is to sleep, and then you can join us again if you like." "Will you come with me?" said I, walking away. The woman followed me up the path. When we arrived at the platform opposite the cabin, I recollected Nero, whom I had ordered to stay there till my return. "You won't be afraid of the seal," said I, "will you? he is very good-natured. Nero, come here." It was rather dark as Nero came shuffling up, and I went forward to coax him, for he snarled a little at seeing a stranger. "Have you no light at hand?" said my companion, speaking for the first time in a very soft, yet clear voice. "No, I have not, but I will get some tinder, and make a fire with one of the faggots, and then you will be able to see." "Do so, then, my good lad," replied she. I thought her voice very pleasing. I soon lighted the faggot and enabled her to see Nero (who was now quite quiet) and also the interior of the cabin. She examined the cabin and the bed-places, and then said, "Where do you sleep?" I replied by shewing her my bed-place. "And this," said I, pointing to the one opposite, "was Jackson's, and you can sleep in that. Nero sleeps with me. Here are plenty of seal skins to keep you warm if you are cold. Are your clothes wet?" "No, they are quite dry now," replied she; "if you will get me some seal skins, I will lie down on them, for I am very tired." I spread five or six skins one on the other, in Jackson's bed-place, and then I went out and threw another faggot on the fire, that we might have more light. "Do you want anything else?" said I. "Nothing, I thank you. Are you going to bed now?" "I was meaning to go down again to the men, but now I think of it, I do not like to leave you alone with Nero, as he might bite you. Are you afraid of him?" "No, I'm not much afraid, but still I have no wish to be bitten, and I am not used to sleep with such animals, as you are." "Well then, I'll tell you how we'll manage it. I will take some skins outside, and sleep there. Nero will not leave me, and then you won't be afraid. The weather is clearing up fast, and there's very little wind to what there was--besides, it will be daylight in three or four hours." "As you please," was the reply. Accordingly I took some seal skins out on the platform, and spreading them, I lay down upon them, wishing her good-night, and Nero soon joined me, and we were both fast asleep in a few minutes. Chapter XX Nero, who was an early riser, woke me up at day-break, or I should have slept much longer; for I had been tired out with the fatigue and excitement of the night before. As soon as I was up, I looked into the cabin, and found the woman was fast asleep; her straw hat was off, but she had lain down in her clothes. Her black hair was hanging about her shoulders. Having only seen Jackson with his bushy beard, I had been somewhat surprised when I first saw the men on their landing so comparatively clear of hair on their face; my astonishment at the clear white skin of a woman--and in this instance, it was peculiarly white and pallid--was very great. I also perceived how much more delicate her features were than those of the men; her teeth, too, were very white, and Jackson's were discoloured and bad; I longed to see her eyes, but they were closed. Any other difference I could not perceive, as she had drawn the blanket close up to her chin. "This is then a woman," said I to myself: "yes, and it's very like what I used to see in my dreams." I looked a little longer, and then, hearing Nero coming into the cabin behind me, and afraid that she would awake, I made a hasty retreat. I remained at this part of the cabin considering what I should do. I thought I would light a fire, and go down for a fish to broil on the embers for her breakfast, so I called Nero to come down with me. On arriving at the pool, I found all the seamen fast asleep under the tent they had made with the boat's sails; and they appeared to be much the same as Jackson used to be after he had got drunk the night before; I presumed therefore, that such was their state, and was not far wrong. Nero went into the pool and brought out a fish, as I ordered him, and I then walked to the boat to examine it. This took me half an hour, and I was sorry that none of the men were awake, that so I might ask any questions I wished. I examined the pitch-kettle, and the boat's sails, and the breakers. Breakers are small casks, holding about six to seven gallons of water, and are very handy for boats. I remained about an hour, and then went back to the cabin, carrying a faggot on my shoulder, Nero following with the fish in his mouth. We were met by the woman, who came out of the cabin; she no longer had the blanket round her, for it was a beautiful bright morning, and very warm. "Nero is bringing you your breakfast," said I, "so you ought to like him." "I dare say I shall, if we are to be companions in future," replied she. "Do you want anything?" said I. "Yes, a little water, if you can get me some." I filled the kid from the spring, put it down by her, and then took out the inside of the fish, and fed the birds, who were crowding round me. The woman washed her face and hands, braided up her hair, and then sat down on the rock. In the meantime, I had lighted my faggot, cleaned the fish, and waited till the wood was burnt to ashes before I put the fish on the fire. Having then nothing to do, I thought that reading would amuse the woman, and I went in for the Bible. "Shall I read to you?" said I. "Yes," replied she, with some astonishment in her looks. I read to her the history of Joseph and his brethren, which was my favourite story in the Bible. "Who taught you to read?" said she, as I shut the book, and put the fish on the embers. "Jackson," said I. "He was a good man, was he not?" replied she. I shook my head. "No, not very good," said I, at last. "If you knew all about him, you would say the same; but he taught me to read." "How long have you been on this island?" said she. "I was born on it, but my father and mother are both dead, and Jackson died three years ago--since that I have been quite alone, only Nero with me." She then asked me a great many more questions, and I gave her a short narration of what had passed, and what Jackson had told me; I also informed her how it was I procured food, and how we must soon leave the island, now that we were so many, or the food would not last out till the birds came again. By this time the fish was cooked, and I took it off the fire and put it into the kid, and we sat down to breakfast; in an hour or so, we had become very sociable. I must however now stop a little to describe her. What the men had told me was quite true. She had lost her husband, and was intending to proceed to England. Her name was Reichardt, for her husband was a German, or of German family. She was, as I have since ascertained, about thirty-seven years old, and very tall and elegant; she must have been very handsome when she was younger, but she had suffered much hardship in following her husband as she had done, through all the vicissitudes of his travels. Her face was oval; eyes black and large; and her hair black as the raven's wing; her features were small and regular; her teeth white and good; but her complexion was very pallid, and not a vestige of colour on her cheeks. As I have since thought, it was more like a marble statue than anything I can compare her to. There was a degree of severity in her countenance when she did not smile, and it was seldom that she did. I certainly looked upon her with more awe than regard, for some time after I became acquainted with her; and yet her voice was soft and pleasant, and her manners very amiable; but it must be remembered I had never before seen a woman. After breakfast was over, I proposed going down to where the seamen lay, to see if they were awake, but I told her I thought that they would not be. "I will go with you, as I left a basket with some things of mine in the boat, and it will be as well to bring them up at once." We therefore set off together, I having ordered Nero to stay in the cabin. On our arrival at the pool we found the men still fast asleep; and by her directions I went into the water to the boat, and brought out a basket and a small bundle which she pointed out. "Shall I wake them?" said I. "No, no," replied she; "so long as they sleep, they will be doing no harm. But," said she, "we may as well take some potatoes up with us; fill both these handkerchiefs," continued she, taking two out of the bundle. I did so, and she took one and I the other, and we returned to the cabin. "Are these all the birds that you have for food?" said she, looking at the pile in the cabin. "Yes," replied I. "But what are we to do with the potatoes?" "We can roast them by the fire if we like," said she; "but at present we had better take them into the cabin. Did you plant all these flowers and creepers which grow over the cabin?" "Yes," replied I. "I was alone and had nothing to do, so I thought I would make a garden." "They are very pretty. Now that I am back, you can go down to the men if you please, and tell them, when they wake up, that I wish to have the smallest of the boat's sails, to make a screen of. Tell the mate, he is the most civil." "I will," said I. "Is there anything else?" "Yes, bring up a few more potatoes; they will let you take them if you say that I told you." "Shall I take Nero with me?" "Yes, I do not want his company, for I am a little afraid of him." I called Nero, who came after me, and went down to the pool, when I found that the men had all woke up, and were very busy, some lighting a fire, some washing potatoes, and some trying to catch the fish in the pool. "Oh, here he is. Come, boy, what have you got for our breakfast? We've been trying to catch some of these fish, but they're as quick as eels." "Nero will soon catch you what you want," replied I. "Here, Nero, in." Nero plunged in, and soon brought out a fish, and I then sent him in for another. "Thanks, lad," said the mate; "that will be enough for our breakfast. That seal of yours is a handy fellow, and well trained." While the other men were getting breakfast, one of them went up to Nero, I believe with the intention of making friends with him, but Nero rejected his advances, and showed his sharp teeth, snapping at him several times. The man became angry, and caught up a piece of rock to throw at the seal. He aimed at the animal's nose, and narrowly missed hitting it. Had he done so, he would probably have killed it. This made me very angry, and I told the man not to do so again; upon this, he caught up another, and was about to throw it, when I seized him by the collar with my left hand, and with my right drawing my American knife, I threatened to stab him with it, if he attacked the beast. The man started back, and in so doing, fell over a piece of rock, on his back. This quarrel brought the mate to us, along with two or three of the men. My knife was still lifted up, when the mate said-- "Come, my hearty, no knives, we don't allow them. That's not English. Put it up, no one shall hurt the beast, I promise you. Bob, you fool, why couldn't you leave the animal alone? You forget you are among savages, here." At this, the other men burst out into a laugh. "Yes," observed one; "I can swear, when I get back, that the natives of this island are savages, who eat raw flesh, have seals for playmates, and don't wear clothes enough for common decency." This made them laugh more, and the man who had attacked Nero, and who had got upon his legs again, joined with the others; so all was again good-humour. The men sat down to their breakfast, while I examined the boat again, and afterwards asked many questions, with which they were much amused, every now and then observing, "Well, he is a savage!" After they had breakfasted, I made Nero catch another fish and sent him up to the cabin with it, as I was afraid that the man might do him an injury, and then told the mate that the woman had desired me to bring up some potatoes. "Take them," said he; "but you have nothing to carry them up with. Here, fill the pail, and I will go to the cabin with you." "She told me that I was to ask you for a small boat's sail, to hang up as a screen." "Well, she shall have the boat's mizen. We don't want it. I'll carry it up." The mate threw the sail and yard over his shoulder, and followed me up to the cabin. On our arrival, we found the missionary's wife sitting on the platform, Nero lying not far from her, with the fish beside him. The mate took off his hat, and saluted my new companion, saying, "That he hoped she was comfortable last night." "Yes," replied she, "as much so as I could expect; but I turned this good lad out of his cabin, which I do not wish to do again, and therefore I requested the sail for a screen. Now, John Gough, what do you intend to do?" continued she. The mate replied, "I came up here to see what quantity of provisions the lad might have. By his account, it will not last more than a month, and it will take some time before we can reach where we are likely to fall in with any vessel. Stay here we cannot, for we shall only eat the provision and lose time, therefore, the sooner we are off the better." "If you take all the provision, of course you will take the lad with you?" replied she. "Of course we will." "And my chest, and my seal?" inquired I. "Yes, your chest, certainly, but as for your seal, I do not know what to say to that--he will be starved in the boat, and if you give him his liberty, he will do well enough." "What you say is very true," replied the woman. "I am afraid, boy, that you will have to part with your friend. It will be better for both of you." I made no reply, for it cut me to the heart to think of parting with Nero; but still I had sense enough to perceive that what they said was right. The mate then went into the cabin, and examined the heap of dried birds which I had collected, and having made his calculation, said that there were sufficient for three weeks, but not more. "And when do you think of leaving this island?" inquired the woman. "The day after to-morrow, if I can persuade the men, madam," replied he; "but you know they are not very easy to manage, and very thoughtless, especially now that they have so unexpectedly fallen in with liquor." "That I admit," replied she; "but as they will probably take the liquor in the boat, that will not make so great a difference." "I shall go down and speak to them now they're all sober," replied the mate, "and will let you know in the evening, or to-morrow morning, perhaps, will be better." The mate then saluted her by touching his hat, and left us. Chapter XXI There was one thing which had made a great impression on me in the conversation with the men in the morning. They called me a Savage, and said that I had not sufficient clothes on; and as I observed that they were all dressed in jackets and trousers, which covered them from head to foot, I took it for granted that my shirt, which was all that I wore, was not a sufficient clothing. This had never occurred to me before, nor can the reader be surprised at it. I had been like our first parents in Eden--naked but not ashamed--but now that I had suddenly come in contact with my fellow-men, I felt as if something were amiss. The consequence was, that I went to the chest and got out a pair of white trousers, and put them on. I thought them very uncomfortable and very unnecessary articles, but others wore them, and I felt that I must do so also. They were rather long for me, but I rolled up the bottoms of the legs, as I observed that the seamen did, and then came out on the platform, where the missionary's wife was still seated, looking out upon the waves as they lashed the rocks. She immediately observed the addition that I had made to my dress, and said, "That is a great improvement. Now you look like other people. What is your name? you have not told me." When I had answered the question, I said to her-- "I have brought up more of the potatoes, as you call them; what am I to do with them?" "First tell me, have you any spot that you know about the island where there is mould--that is, earth, like you have in your garden--where we can plant them?" "Yes," replied I, "there is some up there," and I pointed to one-third up the ravine. "I brought all this earth from there, and there is plenty of it; but what is the good of planting them?" "Because," said she, "one of the potatoes planted will, in a very short time, grow, and then it will produce perhaps thirty or forty potatoes at its roots as large as these; they are excellent things for food, and where there is nothing else to be had, may be the means of preserving life." "Well, that may be," replied I, "and if we were going to remain on the island, it would be well to plant them, but as we are going away the day after to-morrow, what's the use of it? I know that they are very nice, for I had some for supper last night." "But are we only to think of ourselves in this world, and not of others?" replied she. "Suppose, two or three years hence, another boat were to be cast away on this island, and not find, as we have, you here, with provisions ready for them, they would starve miserably; whereas, if we plant these potatoes, they may find plenty of food and be saved. Only think how glad your father and mother would have been to have found potatoes on the island when they were thrown on it. We must not live only for ourselves, but we must think and try to do good to others--that is the duty of a Christian." "I think you are very right," replied I, "and a very kind person too. If you wish it I will go and plant the potatoes this day. How am I to plant them?" "They have a shovel in the boat," said she, "for I saw them throwing the water out with it. Go down and get it, and then I will go with you and show you." I went down and the mate gave me the shovel, which I carried up to her. I found her cutting the potatoes into pieces, and she showed me how she cut them, leaving an eye in each piece, and explained the reason for it. I was soon very busy cutting away alongside of her, and before long the pail of potatoes was all ready to be planted. We then walked to the ravine, and she showed me how to use the shovel, and I made the holes. Before noon we had planted all that we had cut, but we had still the two handkerchiefs full that we had at first brought up with us. We returned to the cabin, and I prepared the fish for dinner. After it was on the embers, she wished to have the screen put up beside her bed-place. "Go down to the mate," said she, "and ask him for the hammer and three or four nails. I know they have them in the boat." "I may as well take them down some birds for their dinner," replied I, "for they will want them." "Yes, do so; and then come back to me as soon as you can." The mate gave me the hammer, an article I had never seen before, and five or six nails, with which I returned to the cabin, and nailed up the sail as a screen. "Now you will be able to sleep in your own bed-place to-night," said she. I made no reply, but I could not imagine why I could not have done so the night before, for I had only gone out of the cabin that she might not be frightened by Nero being so close to her. After we had eaten our dinner, she said to me-- "How could you contrive to live on this island, if you had no dried birds?" "How?" replied I; "why, very badly. I might catch fish; but there are times in the year when you can catch no fish, they won't take bait, neither will they when the weather is rough. Besides, I have only two lines, and I might lose them both--then what would become of me? I should starve." "Well, then, you see under all circumstances, it was just as well to plant the potatoes, for other people may come here and be in your position." "Yes, that is true, but we shall not be here long now, and you don't know how glad I am to go. I want to see all the things that I have read about in my books. I want to go to England and look for somebody; but you don't know all that I know; some day I will tell you all--everything. I am so tired of living here by myself--nothing to say--no one to talk to--no one to care for, except Nero, and he can't speak. I can't bear the idea of parting with him though." "Would you rather stay on the island with Nero, than go away without him?" "No," replied I; "go I must, but still I do not like to part with him. He is the only friend that I ever had, that I can remember." "When you have lived longer, and mixed more with the world, my poor boy, you will then find how many sacrifices you will be obliged to make, much more serious than parting with an animal that you are attached to. I suppose you expect to be very happy if ever you get back to England?" "Of course I do; why should I not be?" replied I; "I shall be always happy." The Missionary's wife shook her head. "I fear not. Indeed, I think if you live long enough, you will acknowledge that the happiest of your days were passed on this barren rock." "Jackson said otherwise," replied I. "He was always grieving at being on the island, and not able to get back to England, and he told me so many stories about England, and what is done there, and what a beautiful place it is, that I'm sure I shall like it better than being here, even if I had somebody with me." "Well, you are in the hands of God, and you must put your trust in him. He will do with you as he thinks best for you--that you know, as you read your Bible." "No, I didn't know that," replied I. "God lives beyond the stars, a long way off." "Is that all you have gained by reading your Bible?" inquired she, looking me in the face. "No, not all," replied I; "but I do not understand a great deal that I read, I want some one to tell me. I am so glad you came with the men in the boat, for I never saw a woman before. I used to see somebody in my dreams, and now I know it was a woman. It was my mother, but I have not seen her for a long while now, and I have nobody but Nero." "My poor boy, you have a father in heaven." "Yes," replied I; "I know he is in heaven, and so is my mother, for Jackson said that they were both very good." "I mean your Heavenly Father, God. Do you not say in the Lord's Prayer, 'Our Father which art in heaven.' You must love him." I was about to reply, when John Gough, the mate, came up, and told my companion that he had been speaking to the men, and they had agreed that the day after the next they would, if the weather permitted, leave the island; that they had examined the boat, and found it required very little repair, and that all would be ready the next day. "I hope that they will not overload the boat," said she. "I fear that they will, but I must do all I can to prevent it. The cask of rum was rather an unfortunate discovery, and we had been better without it. Leave it they will not, so we must put out of the boat all that we can possibly do without, for we shall be nine of us, and that will be plenty of weight with the addition of the cask." "You promised to take my chest, you remember," said I. "Yes, I will do so if I possibly can; but recollect, I may not be able to keep my promise--for now that they have the liquor, the men do not obey me as they did before, ma'am," said the mate. "Perhaps he had better take the best of his clothes in a bundle, in case they should refuse to take in the chest; and I must say that, loaded as the boat will be, they will be much to blame if they do not refuse, for the boat is but small for stowage, and there's all the provisions to put in her, which will take up a deal of room." "That is very true," replied the woman. "It will be better to leave the chest here, for I do not think that the boat will hold it. You must not mind your chest, my good boy; it is of no great value." "They take my rum and all my birds, and they ought to take both me and my chest." "Not if it takes up too much room," replied the woman. "You cannot expect it. The wishes of one person must give way to the wishes of many." "Why they would have starved if it had not been for me," replied I, angrily. "That's very true, boy," replied the mate; "but you have to learn yet, that might is right; and recollect that what you did this morning has not made you any great favourite with them." "What was that?" inquired my companion. "Only that he nearly drove his knife through one of the men, that's all," replied the mate; "English sailors ar'n't fond of knives." He then touched his hat, and went down again to the pool, desiring me to follow him with a kid for our share of the supper. I did so, and on my return she asked me why I had drawn my knife upon the seaman, and I narrated how it occurred. She pointed out to me the impropriety of what I had done, asking me whether the Bible did not tell us we were to forgive injuries. "Yes," replied I; "but is it not injuries to ourselves? I did forgive Jackson; but this was to prevent his hurting another." "Another! why you talk of Nero as if the animal was a rational being, and his life of as much consequence as that of a fellow-creature. I do not mean to say but that the man was very wrong, and that you must have felt angry if an animal you were so fond of had been killed; but there is a great difference between the life of an animal and that of a fellow-creature. The animal dies, and there is an end of it; but a man has an immortal soul, which never perishes, and nothing can excuse your taking the life of a man, except in self-defence. Does not the commandment say, 'Thou shalt not kill?'" She then talked to me a long while upon the subject, and fully made me understand that I had been very wrong, and I confessed that I had been so. Chapter XXII I now resolved to speak to her relative to the belt which contained the diamonds; and I was first obliged to narrate to her in a few words what Jackson had told me. She heard me with great interest, now and then asking a question. When I had told her all, I said-- "Now, as they talk of not taking my chest, what shall I do? Shall I wear the belt myself, or shall I put it in the bundle? or will you wear it for me, as my mother would have done, if she had been alive?" She did not reply for some time, at last she said, as if talking to herself, and not to me-- "How unsearchable are thy ways, O God!" Indeed, although I did not feel it at the time, I have afterwards thought, and she told me herself, how great her surprise was at finding in the unshorn little Savage, thus living alone upon a desolate rock, a lad of good birth, and although he did not know it, with a fortune in his charge, which would, in all probability, be ultimately his own. This is certain, that the interest she felt towards me increased every hour, as by degrees I disclosed my history. "Well," replied she, "if you will trust me, I will take charge of your belt. To-morrow we will select out of the chest what will be best to take with you, and then we will arrange as you wish." After about an hour's more conversation, she went into the cabin, and retired behind the screen which had been fixed up, telling me that she did not mind Nero, and that I might go to bed when I pleased. As I was not much inclined to go down to the seamen, I followed her advice and went to bed; but I could not sleep for a long time from the noise which the men made, who were carousing at the bathing-pool. The idea of parting with Nero also lay heavy upon my heart, though the woman had almost satisfied me that as soon as I was gone, the animal would resume its natural habits, and care nothing for me. I was up the next morning early, and went down with Nero to obtain the fish which we required. I left some on the rocks for the seamen's breakfast (for they were all sound asleep), and then returned to the cabin, and prepared for our own. Mrs Reichardt, as I shall now call her, soon came out to me, and when breakfast was over, proposed that we should plant the remainder of the potatoes before we packed up the things in the chest. As soon as they were all cut, we set off to the ravine, and had finished our task before noon, at which time there were but few of the seamen stirring, they had remained up so long the night before, drinking. The mate was one of those who were on their legs, and he asked me if I thought we should have smooth water to launch the boat on the following day. I replied in the affirmative, and went with Mrs Reichardt to the cabin, and putting down the shovel, I hauled my chest out on the platform to select what articles I should take. While we were thus employed, and talking at times, the men came up for the dried birds to take down ready for putting them in the boat on the following day, and in two trips they had cleared out the whole of them. "Have you used all the potatoes you brought up?" said one of the men; "for we shall be short of provisions." Mrs Reichardt replied that we had none left. "Well then," said the man, "the mate says you had better bring down that brute of yours to catch the rest of the fish in the pond, that we may cook them before we start, as they will make two days' meals at least." "Very well," replied I; "I will come down directly." I did so, and Nero, in a quarter of an hour, had landed all the fish, and I then returned with him to the cabin. Mrs R. had selected the best of the clothes, and made them up in a tight bundle, which she sewed up with strong thread. My books she had left out, as well as the spy-glass, and the tools I had, as they might be useful. I asked her whether I should carry them down to the bathing-pool, but she replied that on the morning when we embarked would be quite time enough. I then went to the hole under Jackson's bed-place, and brought out the belt and the few articles that were with it. Mrs R., after having examined them, said that she would take care of them all; the watch and other trinkets she put in her basket, the belt she took to the bed-place, and secreted it. She appeared very silent and thoughtful, and on my asking her whether I should not take down the shovel, and the pail, and hammer, she replied, "No, leave all till we are ready to go to the boat. It will be time enough." Shortly afterwards, the mate brought us up some of the fish which they had cooked for supper, and when we had eaten it we went to bed. "This is the last night we shall sleep together, Nero," said I, kissing my favourite, and the thought brought tears into my eyes. "But it can't be helped." I was however soon fast asleep with my arm round the animal. When I went out the next morning, I found that the weather was beautifully fine, the water smooth, and only rippled by a light breeze. As Mrs R. had not yet made her appearance, I went down to the bathing-pool, where I found all the men up and in full activity. The boat had been emptied out, the oars, masts, and sails, were on the rocks and the men were turning the bows to the seaward in readiness for launching her over the ledge of rocks. The dried birds lay in a heap by the side of the cask of rum, and the fish which had been baked were in a large kid. The six breakers were also piled up together, and the mate and some of the men were disputing as to how many of them should be filled with water. The mate wanted them all filled; the men said that three would be sufficient, as the boat would be so loaded. At last the mate gained his point, and the men each took a breaker, and went up to the cabin for the water. I went with them to fill the breakers, and also to see that they did no mischief, for they appeared very unruly and out of temper; and I was afraid that they would hurt Nero, who was at the cabin, if I was not there to prevent them; but with the exception of examining the cabin, and forcing themselves in upon Mrs Reichardt, they did nothing. When the breakers were full, which took at least half an hour, they did indeed try to catch the birds, and would have wrung their necks, but the males flew away, and the females I put into the bed-place that was screened off in the cabin, and near which Mrs Reichardt was sitting. They all appeared to have a great awe and respect for this woman, and a look from her was more effectual than were any words of the mate. "We don't want you," said one of the men, as they went down to the bathing-pool with the breakers on their shoulders. "Why don't you keep up with the lady? You're quite a lady's man, now you've white trousers on." The others who followed him laughed at this latter remark. "I'm of no use up there, at present," said I; "and I may be down below." The men set down the breakers on the rocks by the pool, and then, under the directions of the mate, prepared to launch the boat over the ledge. The masts of the boat were placed athwartships, under her keel, for her to run upon, and being now quite empty, she was very light. She was what they call a whale-boat, fitted for the whale fishery, pointed at both ends, and steered by an oar; she was not very large, but held seven people comfortably, and she was remarkably well fitted with sails and masts, having two lugs and a mizen. As soon as they were all ready, the men went to the side of the boat, and in a minute she was launched into the sea without injury. The mate said to me, as they brought her broadside to the ledge-- "Now, my lad, we don't want you any more; you may go up to the cabin till we are ready, and then we will send for you and the lady." "Oh! but I can be of use here," replied I; "and I am of none up there." The mate did not reply, and the men then went to the rum cask, and rolled it towards the boat; and when they had it on the ledge, they parbuckled it, as they term it, into the boat with a whale-line that they happened to have, and which was of great length. After the cask of rum was got in amidships, (and it took up a great deal of space, reaching from one gunnel to the other, and standing high above the thwarts) they went for the breakers of water, which they put in, three before and three behind the cask, upon the floor of the boat. "She will be too heavy," said one of the men, "with so much water." "We can easily get rid of it," replied the mate. "If you had said she would be too heavy with so much liquor on board, you had better explained the matter; however, you must have your own ways, I suppose." The next articles that they brought to stow away were the provisions. The kid of fish was put amidships on the breakers, and the dried birds, which they carried down in their arms, were packed up neatly in the stern-sheets. They were soon up to the gunnel, and the mate said, "You had better stow away forward now--there will be little room for the lady as it is." "No, no, stow them all aft," replied one of the men, in a surly tone; "the lady must sit where she can. She's no better than we." "Shall this go in?" said I, pointing to the coil of whale-line, and addressing the mate. "No, no; we must leave that," replied one of the men in the boat; "we shall be wedged enough as it is; and I say, Jim, throw that old saw and the bag of nails out of the boat--we can have no use for them." The masts were then stepped, and the rigging set up to the gunnel of the boat, the yards and sails handed in, and hooked on the halyards ready for hoisting. In fact the boat was now all ready for starting; they had only the iron kettle and two or three other articles to put in. "Shall we have the mizen?" inquired one of the men, pointing to the mast, which lay on the rocks. "No, she steers quite as well without it," replied the mate. "We'll leave it. And now, lads, hand the oars in." They were brought to the boat, but owing to the puncheon of rum in the centre, they could not lie flat, and after a good deal of arguing and disputing, four oars and a boat-hook were lashed to the gunnel outside, and the rest were left on the rocks. At this time there was some consultation between the mate and some of the men--the mate being evidently opposed by the others. I could not hear what it was about, but the mate appeared very angry and very much annoyed. At last he dashed his hat down on the rocks in a great passion, saying, "No good will come of it. Mark my words. No good ever did or ever will. Be it so, you are too many for me; but I tell you again, no good will come of it." The mate then sat down on the rocks by himself, and put his head down on his knees, covering it with his hands. The man with whom he had been disputing went to the others in the boat, and spoke to them in a low tone, looking round at me, to ascertain if I was within hearing. After a minute or two they all separated, and then one of them said to me-- "Now, my lad, we're all ready. Go up to the cabin and bring down your bundle and her basket, and tell the lady we are waiting for her." "There's the shovel," said I, "and the boat's sail--must I bring them down?" "Oh yes, bring them down, and also two or three sealskins for the lady to sit upon." Off I went on my errand, for I was delighted with the idea of leaving the island, and my patience had been almost exhausted at the time they had taken in the stowage of the boat. As I hastened up the path, I heard loud contention, and the mate's voice speaking very angrily, and I stopped for a short time to listen, but the noise ceased, and I went on again. I found Nero on the platform, and I stopped a minute to caress him. "Good bye, my poor Nero, we shall never see one another again," said I. "You must go back to the sea, and catch fish for yourself;" and the tears started in my eyes as I gave the animal a farewell kiss. I then went into the cabin, where I found Mrs Reichardt sitting very quietly. "They are all ready," said I, "and have sent me up for you but I am to bring down the boat's sail and some seal skins for you to sit upon. I can carry both if you can carry my bundle. Have you put the belt on?" "Yes," replied she, "I am quite ready. I will carry the bundle, and the books and spy-glass, as well as my basket; but we must pack them close," added she, "and roll the sail up round the yard, or you will not be able to carry it." We took the sail down, and got it ready for carrying, and I rolled up the two best seal skins, and tied them with a piece of fishing line, and then we were all ready. I shouldered my burden, and Mrs Reichardt took the other articles, as proposed, and we left the cabin to go down the path to the bathing-pool. "Good bye, Nero--good bye, birds--good bye, cabin--and good bye, garden," said I, as I went along the platform; and having so done, and ordered Nero back with a tremulous voice, I turned my head in the direction of the bathing-pool. I stared and then screamed, dropping my burden, as I lifted up my hands in amazement-- "Look!" cried I to my companion. "Look!" repeated I, breathless. She did look, and saw as I did--the boat under all sail, half a mile from the pool, staggering under a fresh breeze, which carried her away at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour. They had left us--they had deserted us. I cried out, like a madman, "Stop! stop! stop!" and then, seeing how useless it was, I dashed myself on the rock, and for a minute or two was insensible. "Oh!" groaned I, at last, as I came to my senses. "Frank Henniker," said a sweet firm voice. I opened my eyes, and saw Mrs Reichardt standing by me. "It is the will of Heaven, and you must submit to it patiently," continued she. "But so cruel, so treacherous!" replied I, looking at the fast-receding boat. "I grant, most cruel, and most treacherous, but we must leave them to the judgment of God. What can they expect from him in the way of mercy when they have shewn none? I tell you candidly, that I think we are better in our present forlorn state upon this rock, than if in that boat. They have taken with them the seeds of discord, of recklessness, and intemperance, in an attempt which requires the greatest prudence, calmness, and unanimity, and I fear there is little chance of their even being rescued from their dangerous position. It is my opinion, and I thought so when I first knew they had found the cask, that liquor would prove their ruin, and I say again, that boat will never arrive at its destination, and they will all perish miserably. It has pleased God that they should leave us here, and depend upon it, it has been so decided for the best." "But," replied I, looking again at the boat, "I was tired of being here--I was so anxious to get off--and now to be left! And they have taken all our provisions, everything, even the fish in the pool. We shall starve." "I hope not," replied she, "and I think not; but we must exert ourselves, and trust to Heaven." But I could not heed her--my heart was bursting. I sobbed, as I sat with my hands covering up my face. "All gone!" cried I. "No one left but you and I." "Yes," replied she, "one more." "Who?" cried I, looking up. "God!--who is with us always." Chapter XXIII I heard what she said, but my head was too confused to weigh the words. I remained silent, where I was. A few seconds elapsed, and she spoke again: "Frank Henniker, rise, and listen to me." "We shall starve," muttered I. As I said this, one of the male birds returned from the sea with a large fish, of which Mrs Reichardt took possession, as she had seen me do, and the gannet flew away again to obtain more. Immediately afterwards, the other two birds returned with fish, which were in a like way secured by my companion. "See how unjust and ungrateful you are," observed she. "Here are the birds feeding us, as the ravens did Elijah in the wilderness, at the very time that you are doubting the goodness and mercy of God. There is a meal for us provided already." "My head! my head!" exclaimed I, "it is bursting, and there is a heavy weight rolling in it--I cannot see anything." And such was the fact: the excitement had brought on a determination of blood to the head, and my senses were rapidly departing. Mrs Reichardt knelt by my side, and perceiving that what I had said was the case, went into the cabin and brought out a cloth, which she wetted with water from the spring, and laid across my forehead and temples. I remained motionless and nearly senseless for half an hour, during which she continued to apply fresh cold water to the cloth, and by degrees I recovered from my stupor. In the meantime, the weather being so fine and the water smooth, the gannets continued to return with the fish they caught, almost all of which were taken from them by my companion, until she had collected more than a dozen fish, from half a pound to a pound weight, which she put away, so that the birds and seal might not devour them. I was still in a half dozing state, when the breathing and cold nose of Nero touched my cheek, and the murmurings of my favourite roused me up, and I opened my eyes. "I am better now," said I to Mrs Reichardt. "How kind you have been!" "Yes, you are better, but still, you must remain quiet. Do you think that you could walk to your bed-place?" "I'll try," replied I, and with her assistance I rose up; but, when I afterwards gained my feet, I should have fallen if she had not supported me; but, assisted by her, I gained my bed and sank down again. She raised my head higher, and then applied the linen cloth and cold water as before. "Try now," said she, "if you cannot go to sleep. When you awake again, I will have some dinner ready for you." I thanked her and shut my eyes. Nero crawled to my bed-place, and with my hand upon his head, I fell asleep, and remained so till near sunset, when I awoke with very little pain in my head, and much refreshed. I found Mrs Reichardt by my side. "You are better now," said she. "Can you eat any dinner? I must make friends with Nero, for he has been disputing my right to come near your bedside, and his teeth are rather formidable. However, I gave him the inside of the fish when I cleaned them, and we are better friends already. There is your dinner." Mrs Reichardt placed before me some of the fish, broiled on the embers, and I ate very heartily. "It is very kind of you," said I, "to be working for me, when I ought to be working for you--but you must not do it again." "Only my share of the work when you are well," replied she; "but my share I always shall do. I cannot be idle, and I am strong enough to do a great deal; but we will talk about that to-morrow morning. You will be quite well by that time, I hope." "Oh! I feel well now," replied I, "only I am very weak." "You must put your trust in God, my poor boy. Do you ever pray to him?" "Yes, I try a little sometimes--but I don't know how. Jackson never taught me that." "Then I will. Shall I pray now for both of us?" "Will God hear you? What was it that you said just before I forgot everything this morning?" "I told you that there was another here besides ourselves, a good and gracious God, who is always with us and always ready to come to our assistance if we call upon him." "You told me God lived beyond the stars." "My poor boy, as if he were a God who was afar off and did not attend to our prayers! Such is not the case. He is with us always in spirit, listening to all our prayers, and reading every secret thought of our hearts." I was silent for some time, thinking upon what she had told me; at last I said-- "Then pray to him." Mrs Reichardt knelt down and prayed in a clear and fervent voice, without hesitation or stop. She prayed for protection and support in our desolate condition, that we might be supplied with all things needful for our sustenance, and have a happy deliverance from our present position. She prayed that we might be contented and resigned until it should please him to rescue us--that we might put our whole trust and confidence in him, and submit without murmuring to whatever might be his will. She prayed for health and strength, for an increase of faith and gratitude towards him for all his mercies. She thanked him for our having been preserved by being left on the desolate rock, instead of having left it in the boat with the seamen. (This surprised me.) And then she prayed for me, entreating that she might be the humble instrument of leading me to my Heavenly Father, and that he would be pleased to pour down upon me his Holy Spirit, so that I might, by faith in Christ, be accepted, and become a child of God and an inheritor of eternal bliss. There was something so novel to me and so beautiful in her fervency of prayer, that the tears came into my eyes, and about a minute after she had finished, I said-- "I now recollect, at least, I think I do--for the memory of it is very confused-that my mother used to kneel down by me and pray just as you have done. Oh, how I wish I had a mother!" "My child," replied she, "promise me that you will be a good and obedient son, and I will be a mother to you." "Will you? Oh! how kind of you. Yes, I will be all you wish; I will work for you day and night if it is necessary. I will do everything, if you will but be my mother." "I will do my duty to you as a mother most strictly," replied she; "so that is agreed upon. Now, you had better go to sleep, if you can." "But I must first ask you a question. Why did you thank God for the seamen having left us here, instead of taking us with them?" "Because the boat was overloaded as it was; because the men, having liquor, would become careless and desperate, and submit to no control; and therefore I think there is little or no chance of their ever arriving anywhere safe, but that they will perish miserably in some way or another. This, I consider, is the probability, unless the Almighty in his mercy should be pleased to come to their assistance, and allow them to fall in with some vessel soon after their departure." "Do you think, then, that God prevented our going with them on purpose that we might not share their fate?" "I do! God regulates everything. Had it been better for us that we should have gone, he would have permitted it; but he willed it otherwise, and we must bow to his will with a full faith, that he orders everything for the best." "And you say that God will give us all that we ask for in our prayers?" "Yes, if we pray fervently and in faith, and ask it in the name of Jesus Christ; that is, he will grant all we pray for, that is good for us, but not what is not good for us; or when we ask anything, we do not know that we are asking what is proper or not--but he does. We may ask what would be hurtful to us, and then, in his love for us, he denies it. For instance, suppose you had been accustomed to pray, you must have prayed God that he would permit you to leave this island in the boat, as you are so anxious to go away; but supposing that boat is lost, as I imagine it will be, surely it would have been a kindness in God, who knew that it would be lost, not to grant your prayer. Is it not so?" "Yes, I see now, thank you; now I will go to sleep--good-night." Chapter XXIV I awoke the next morning quite recovered from my illness of the day before, and was out of the cabin before Mrs Reichardt, who still remained behind the screen which she had put up after I had gone to sleep. It was a beautiful morning, the water was smooth, and merely rippled with a light breeze, and the sun shone bright. I felt well and happy. I lighted a fire to broil the fish for breakfast, as there was a sufficiency left, and then got my fishing-lines ready to catch some larger fish to reinhabit my pond at the bathing pool. Mrs Reichardt came out of the cabin and found me playing with Nero. "Good morning, dear mother," said I, for I felt most kindly towards her. "Good morning, my dear boy," replied she. "Are you quite well?" "Quite well; and I have got my lines all ready, for I have been thinking that until the birds come, we must live on fish altogether, and we can only take them in fine weather like this; so we must not lose such a day." "Certainly not. As soon as we have breakfasted, we will go down and fish. I can fish very well, I am used to it. We must both work now; but first go for your Bible, that we may read a little." I did so, and after she had read a chapter she prayed, and I knelt by her side; then we breakfasted, and as soon as we had breakfasted, we set off to the bathing-pool. "Do you know if they left anything behind them, Frank?" "Yes," replied I, "they left some oars, I believe, and a long line and we have the shovel, and the hammer, and the boat's small sail, up at the cabin." "Well, we shall see very soon," replied she, as we went down the path. When we arrived at the bathing-pool, the first thing that met my eyes made me leap with joy. "Oh! mother! mother! they've left the iron pot; I did so long for it; and as I lay awake this morning, I thought that if I prayed for anything, it would be for the iron pot. I was tired of dried birds, and they ate so different when they were boiled up in the pot with potatoes." "I am equally glad, Frank, for I do not like victuals uncooked; but now let us first see what else they have thrown out of the boat." "Why they have put on shore three of the little casks of water," said I; "they took them all on board." "They have so, I suppose, because the boat was too heavy, and they would not part with the liquor. Foolish men, they will now not have more than six days' water, and will suffer dreadfully." We then looked round the rocks and found that they had left the iron kettle, three breakers, five oars, and a harpoon and staffs; a gang-board, a whale line of 200 fathoms, an old saw, a bag of broad-headed nails, and two large pieces of sheet-iron. "That saw may be very useful to us," said Mrs Reichardt, "especially as you have files in your chest. Indeed, if we want them, we may convert one-half of the saw into knives." "Into knives! How?" "I will shew you; and these pieces of sheet-iron I could use again. You see the sheet-iron was put on to repair any hole which might be made in the boat, and they have thrown it out, as well as the hammer and nails. I wonder at John Gough permitting it." "I heard them quarrelling with him as I came out yesterday to fetch you down; they would not mind what he said." "No, or we should not have been left here," replied she; "John Gough was too good a man to have allowed it, if he could have prevented it. That sheet-iron will be very useful. Do you know what for? to broil fish on, or anything else. We must turn up the corners with the hammer. But now we must lose no more time, but fish all day long, and not think of eating till supper time." Accordingly we threw out our lines, and the fish taking the bait freely, we soon hauled in more than a dozen large fish, which I put into the bathing-pool. "What use can we make of that long line which they have left?" "A good many; but the best use we can make of it, is to turn it into fishing-lines, when we require new ones." "But how can we do that, it is so thick and heavy?" "Yes, but I will show you how to unlay it, and then make it up again. Recollect, Frank, that I have been the wife of a Missionary, and have followed my husband wherever he went; sometimes we have been well off, sometimes as badly off as you and I are now--for a Missionary has to go through great dangers, and great hardships, as you would acknowledge if you ever heard my life, or rather that of my husband." "Won't you tell it to me?" "Yes, perhaps I will, some day or another; but what I wish to point out to you now is, that being his wife, and sharing his danger and privation, I have been often obliged to work hard and to obtain my living as I could. In England, women do little except in the house, but a Missionary's wife is obliged to work with the men, and as a man very often, and therefore learns to do many things of which women in general are ignorant. You understand now?" "Oh yes. I have thought already that you appear to know more than Jackson did." "I should think not; but Jackson was not fond of work I expect, and I am. And now, Frank, you little thought that when you so tardily went to work the other day to plant potatoes for the benefit of any one that might hereafter come to the island, that you were planting for yourself, and would reap the benefit of your own kind act; for if you had not assisted, of course I could not have done it by myself: so true it is, that even in this world you are very often rewarded for a good action." "But are not you always?" "No, my child, you must not expect that; but if not rewarded in this world, you will be rewarded in the next." "I don't understand that." "I suppose that you hardly can, but I will explain all that to you, if God spare my life; but it must be at a more seasonable time." We continued fishing till late in the afternoon, by which time we had taken twenty-eight large fish, about seven to nine pounds' weight; Mrs Reichardt then proposed that we should leave off, as we had already provision for a fortnight. I hauled out one more fish, which she took with her to cook for our supper, and having coiled up my lines, I then commenced, as she had told me to do, carrying up the articles left by the boat's crew at the bathing-pool. The first thing I seized upon was the coveted iron kettle; I was quite overjoyed at the possession of this article, and I had good reason to be. In my other hand I carried the saw and the bag of nails. As soon as I had deposited them at the cabin, I went down again, and before supper was ready I had brought up everything except the three breakers of water, which I left where they were, as we did not want them for present use, whatever we might hereafter. We were both rather tired, and were glad to go to bed after we had taken our supper. Chapter XXV When we met the following morning, my mother, as I shall in future call her, said to me, "This will be a busy day, Frank, for we have a great many arrangements to make in the cabin, so that we may be comfortable. In future the cabin must be kept much more clean and tidy than it is--but that is my business more than yours. Let us get our breakfasts, and then we will begin." "I don't know what you want me to do," replied I; "but I will do it if I can, as soon as you tell me." "My dear boy, a woman requires a portion of the cabin to herself, as it is not the custom for women to live altogether with men. Now, what I wish is, that the hinder part of the cabin, where you used to stow away your dried birds, should be made over to me. We have oars with which we can make a division, and then nail up seal skins, so that I may have that part of the cabin to myself. Now, do you understand what I want?" "Yes, but the oars are longer than the cabin is wide," observed I. "How shall we manage it?" "We have the old saw, and that will do well enough to cut them off, without its being sharpened." "I never saw one used," replied I, "and I don't understand it." "I will soon show you. First, we must measure the width of the cabin. I shall not take away more than one third of it." My mother went into the cabin, and I followed her. With a piece of fishing-line, she took the width of the cabin, and then the height up to the rafters for the door posts. We then went out, and with the saw, which she showed me how to use, and which astonished me very much, when I perceived its effects, the oars were cut up to the proper length. Gimlets I had already from the sea-chest, and nails and hammer we had just obtained from the boat, so that before the forenoon was over, the framework was all ready for nailing on the seal skins. The bag of broad-headed short nails, which had been thrown on the rocks, were excellent for this purpose, and, as I had plenty of skins, the cabin was soon divided off, with a skin between the door-jambs hanging down loose, so that any one might enter. I went inside after it was complete. "But," said I, "you have no light to see what you are about." "Not yet, but I soon will have," replied my mother. "Bring the saw here, Frank. Observe, you must cut through the side of the cabin here, a square hole of this size; three of the planks cut through will be sufficient. Begin here." I did as she directed me, and in the course of half an hour, I had cut out of the south side of the cabin a window about two feet square, which admitted plenty of light. "But won't it make it cold at night?" said I. "We will prevent that," replied she, and she took out a piece of white linen, and with some broad-headed nails, she nailed it up, so as to prevent the air from coming in, although there was still plenty of light. "There," said she, "that is but a coarse job, which I will mend bye-and-bye, but it will do for the present." "Well, it is very nice and comfortable now," said I, looking round it. "Now what shall I bring in?" "Nothing for the bed but seal skins," said she. "I do not like the feathers. The seal skins are stiff at present, but I think we may be able to soften them bye-and-bye. Now, Frank, your chest had better come in here, as it is of no use where it is, and we will make a storeroom of it, to hold all our valuables." "What, the diamonds?" replied I. "My dear boy, we have articles to put into the chest, which, in our present position, are more valuable to us than all the diamonds in the world. Tell me now, yourself, what do you prefer and set most value upon, your belt of diamonds, or the iron kettle?" "The iron kettle, to be sure," replied I. "Exactly so; and there are many things in our possession as valuable as the iron kettle, as you will hereafter acknowledge. Now do you go and get ready some fire for us, and I will finish here by myself. Nero, keep out, sir--you are never to come into this cabin." I went with Nero for a fish and when I returned, I determined that I would use the iron kettle. I put it on with water and boiled the fish, and I thought that it ate better than broiled on the embers, which made it too dry. As we sat at our meal, I said, "Dear mother, what are we to do next?" "To-morrow morning we will put the cabin into better order, and put away all our things instead of leaving them about the platform in this way. Then I will carefully look over all that we have got, and put them away in the chest. I have not yet seen the contents of the chest." The next day it was very cloudy and, rough weather, blowing fresh. After breakfast we set to work. We cleared out the floor of the cabin, which was strewed with all manner of things, for Jackson and I had not been very particular. The whale line was coiled up and put into one corner, and every thing else was brought in and a place found for it. "We must contrive some shelves," said my mother, "that we may put things on them, or else we never can be tidy; and we have not one except that which holds the books. I think we can manage it. We have two oars left besides the boat's yard; we will nail them along the side of the cabin, about a foot or more from it, and then we will cut some of the boat's sail, and nail the canvas from the side of the cabin to the oars, and that will make a sort of shelf which will hold our things." I brought in the oars, they were measured and cut off and nailed up. The canvas was then stretched from the side of the cabin to the oar, and nailed with the broad-headed nails, and made two capital shelves on each side of the cabin, running from one end to the other. "There," said my mother, "that is a good job. Now we will examine the chest and put everything away and in its place." My mother took out all the clothes, and folded them up. When she found the roll of duck which was at the bottom, she said-- "I am glad to find this as I can make a dress for myself much better for this island than this black stuff dress which I now wear, and which I will put by to wear in case we should be taken off the island some of these days, for I must dress like other people when I am again among them. The clothes are sufficient to last you for a long while, but I shall only alter two shirts and two pair of trousers to your present size, as you will grow very fast. How old do you think you are now?" I replied, "About sixteen years old, or perhaps more." "I should think that was about your age." Having examined and folded up every article of clothing in the chest, the tools, spyglass, &c., were put by me on the shelves, and then we examined the box containing the thread, needles, fishhooks, and other articles, such as buttons, &c. "These are valuable," said she; "I have some of my own to put along with them. Go and fetch my basket, I have not yet had time to look into it since I left the ship." "What is there in it?" "Except brushes and combs, I can hardly say. When I travelled about, I always carried my basket, containing those things most requisite for daily use, and in the basket I put everything that I wished to preserve, till I had an opportunity to put it away. When I embarked on board of the whaler, I brought my basket on my arm as usual, but except opening it for my brushes and combs or scissors, I have not examined it for months." "What are brushes and combs and scissors?" "That I will shew you," replied she, opening the lid of the basket. "These are the brushes and combs for cleaning the hair, and these are scissors. Now we will take everything out." The basket did indeed appear to contain a wonderful quantity of things, almost all new to me. There were two brushes, twelve combs, three pair of scissors, a penknife, a little bottle of ink, some pens, a woman's thimble, a piece of wax, a case of needles, thread and silk, a piece of India ink, and a camel's-hair brush, sealing-wax, sticking plaster, a box of pills, some tape and bobbin, paper of pins, a magnifying glass, silver pencil case, some money in a purse, black shoe ribbon, and many other articles which I have forgotten. All I know is that I never was so much interested ever after at any show as I was with the contents of this basket, all of which were explained to me by my mother, as to their uses, and how they were made. There were several little papers at the bottom of the basket which she said were seeds of plants, which she had collected to take to England with her, and that we would plant them here. As she shook the dust out of the basket after it was empty, two or three white things tumbled out, which she asked me to pick up and give to her. "I don't know how they came here," said she, "but three of them are orange-pips which we will sow to-morrow, and the other is a pea, but of what kind I know not, we will sow that also--but I fear it will not come up, as it appears to me to be one of the peas served out to the sailors on board ship, and will be too old to grow. We can but try. Now we will put into the chest, with the other things that you have, what we do not want for present use, and then I can drive a nail into the side of my bedroom and hang my basket on it." "But," said I, "this round glass--what is that for?" "Put it on one side," replied she, "and to-morrow, if it is fine, I will shew you the use of it; but there are some things we have forgotten, which are your belt and the other articles you gave me to take for you when you thought we were to leave the island. They are in the bed-place opposite to yours." I brought them, and she put away the mate's watch and sleeve buttons, and the other trinkets, &c., saying that she would examine the letters and papers at another time. The belt was examined, counting how many of the squares had stones in them, and then, with her scissors, she cut open one of the squares, and took out a white glittering thing like glass as it appeared to me, and looked at it carefully. "I am no great judge of these things," said she, "but still I have picked up some little knowledge. This belt, if it contain all stones like this, must be of considerable value; now I must get out my needle and thread and sew it up again." She did, and put the belt away with the other articles in the chest. "And now," said she, "we have done a good day's work, and it is time to have something to eat." Chapter XXVI I must say that I was much better pleased with the appearance of the cabin, it was so neat and clean to what it had been, and everything was out of the way. The next day was a calm and clear day, and we went down to fish. We were fortunate, and procured almost as many as we had done at the previous fishing--they were all put in the bathing pool as before. When we went up to the cabin, as soon as the fish was put on the fire, under the direction of my mother, I turned up the sides of one of the pieces of sheet iron, so as to make a sort of dish. The other piece I did the same to, only not so high at the sides, as one piece was kept for baking the fish on and the other as a dish to put our dinner upon when cooked. That day we had been too busy with fishing to think of anything else, but on the following I recollected the magnifying glass, and brought it to her. She first showed me the power it had to magnify, with which I was much amused for a time, and she explained as well as she could to me the cause of its having that power, but I could not well understand her; I was more pleased with the effect than cognisant of the cause. Afterwards she sent me to the cabin for some of the dried moss which I used for tinder, and placing the glass so as to concentrate the rays of the sun, to my astonishment I saw the tinder caught fire. It was amazement more than astonishment, and I looked up to see where the fire came from. My mother explained to me, and I, to a certain degree, comprehended, but I was too anxious to have the glass in my own hands and try experiments. I lighted the tinder again-then I burnt my hand--then I singed one of the gannet's heads, and lastly, perceiving that Nero was fast asleep in the sun, I obtained the focus on his cold nose. He started up with a growl, which made me retreat, and I was perfectly satisfied with the result of my experiments. From that time, the fire was, when the sun shone, invariably lighted by the burning-glass, and very useful did I find it. As it was so portable, I always carried it with me, and when I had nothing to do, I magnified, or set fire, according to the humour of the moment. Although I have not mentioned it, not a morning rose, but before breakfast, I read the Scriptures to my mother. "There's so much in that book which I cannot understand," said I, one morning. "I suspect that, living as you have, alone on this island, and having seen nothing of the world," replied my mother, "that there are not many books that you would understand." "But I understand all that is said in the Beast and Bird Book," replied I. "Perhaps you may, or think you do; but, Frank, you must not class the Bible with other books. The other books are the works of man, but the Bible is the word of God. There are many portions of that book which the cleverest men, who have devoted their lives to its study, cannot understand, and which never will be understood as long as this world endures. In many parts the Bible is a sealed book." "But will it never be understood then by anybody?" "There is quite as much of the Bible as is necessary for men to follow its precepts, and this is so clear that anybody may understand it--it contains all that is necessary for salvation; but there are passages, the true meaning of which we cannot explain, and which God, for his own purposes, will not permit us to. But if we do not know them now, we shall probably hereafter, when we have left this world, and our intellects more nearly approach God's." "Well, I don't understand why we should not understand it." "Frank," replied she, "look at that flower just in bloom. Do you understand how it is that that plant keeps alive--grows every year--every year throws out a large blue flower? Why should it do so? why should the flower always be blue? and whence comes that beautiful colour? Can you tell me? You see, you know that it does do so; but can you tell me what makes it do so?" "No." "Look at that bird. You know it is hatched from an egg. How is it that the inside of an egg is changed into a bird? How is it that the bird is covered with feathers, and has the power to fly? Can you explain to me yourself? You can walk about just as you please--you have the power of reasoning, and thinking, and of acting; but by what means is it that you possess that power? Can you tell? You know that is so, but you know no more. You can't tell why or how or what causes produce these effects--can you?" "No." "Well, then, if you are surrounded by all manner of things, living and dead, and see every day things which you cannot explain, or understand, why should you be surprised that, as God has not let you know by what means these effects are produced, that in his written word he should also keep from you that which for good purposes you are not permitted to know. Everything here is by God's will, and that must be sufficient for us. Now do you understand?" "Yes, I see now what you mean, but I never thought about these things before. Tell me some more about the Bible." "Not now. Some day I will give you a history of the Bible, and then you will understand the nature of the book, and why it was written; but not at present. Suppose, as we have nothing particular to do, you tell me all you know about yourself from Jackson, and all that happened while you lived with him. I have heard only part, and I should like to know all." "Very well," replied I. "I will tell you everything, but it will take a long while." "We shall have plenty of time to spare, my dear boy, I fear, before we leave this place; so, never mind time--tell me everything." I commenced my narrative, but I was interrupted. "Have you never been able to call your own mother to your memory?" said she. "I think I can now, since I have seen you, but I could not before. I now can recollect a person dressed like you, kneeling down and praying by my side; and I said before, the figure has appeared in my dreams, and much oftener since you have been here." "And your father?" "I have not the slightest remembrance of him, or anybody else except my mother." I then proceeded, and continued my narrative until it was time to go to bed; but as I was very circumstantial, and was often interrupted by questions, I had not told a quarter of what I had to say. Chapter XXVII Mrs Reichardt had promised to give me a history of the Bible; and one day, when the weather kept us both at home, she thus commenced her narrative:-- "The Bible is a history of God's doings for the salvation of man. It commences with the fall of man by disobedience, and ends with the sacrifice made for his reinstatement. As by one man, Adam, sin came into the world, so by one man, Jesus Christ, was sin and death overcome. If you will refer to the third chapter of Genesis, at the very commencement of the Bible, you will find that at the same time that Adam receives his punishment, a promise is made by the Lord, that the head of the serpent shall hereafter be bruised. The whole of the Bible, from the very commencement, is an announcement of the coming of Christ; so that as soon as the fault had been committed, the Almighty, in his mercy, had provided a remedy. Nothing is unknown or unforeseen by God. "Recollect, Frank, that the Bible contains the history of God's doings, but it does not often tell us why such things were done. It must be sufficient for us to know that such was the will of God; when he thinks proper, he allows us to understand his ways, but to our limited capacities, most of his doings are inscrutable. But, are we to suppose that, because we, in our foolishness, cannot comprehend his reasons, that therefore they must be cavilled at? Do you understand me, Frank?" "Yes," replied I; "I do pretty well." "As I pointed out to you the other day, you see the blade of grass grow, and you see it flower, but how it does so you know not. If then you are surrounded all your life with innumerable things which you see but cannot comprehend--when all nature is a mystery to you--even yourself--how can you expect to understand the dealings of God in other things? When, therefore, you read the Bible, you must read it with faith." "What is faith? I don't quite understand, mother." "Frank, I have often told you of many things that are in England, where you one day hope to go. Now, if when you arrive in England, you find that everything that I have told you is quite true, you will be satisfied that I am worthy of belief." "Yes." "Well, suppose some one were to tell you something relative to any other country, which you could not understand, and you came to me and asked me if such were the case, would you, having found that I told you truth with regard to England, believe that what you had been told of this other country was true, if I positively asserted that it was so?" "Of course I should, mother." "Well, then, Frank, that would be faith; a belief in things not only not seen, but which you cannot understand. But to go on, I mention this because some people are so presumptuous as to ask the why and the wherefore of God's doings, and attempt to argue upon their justice, forgetting that the little reason they have is the gift of God, and that they must be endowed with intellect equal to the Almighty, to enable them to know and perceive that which he decides upon. But if God has not permitted us to understand all his ways, still, wherever we can trace the finger of God, we can always perceive that everything is directed by an all-wise and beneficent hand; and that, although the causes appear simple, the effects produced are extraordinary and wonderful. We shall observe this as we talk over the history of the Jews, in the Bible. But, I repeat, that we must study the whole of the Bible with faith, and not be continually asking ourselves, 'Why was this done?' If you will turn to the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, you will see what the Apostle Paul says on the subject: 'Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?' Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, 'Why hast thou made me thus?' Do you not understand in what spirit the Bible should be read?" "Yes, I do. We must read it as the Word of God, and believe all that we read in it." "Exactly;--now we will proceed. After Adam's fall, the earth became so wicked that God destroyed it, leaving but Noah and his family to re-people it; and as soon as this was done, the Almighty prepared for his original intention for the future salvation of men. He selected Abraham, who was a good man, and who had faith, to be the father of a nation chosen for his own people--that was the Jewish nation. He told him that his seed should multiply as the stars in the heavens, and that all the nations of the earth should be blessed in him; that is, that from his descendants should Christ be born, who should be the salvation of men. Abraham's great-grandchildren were brought into Egypt, to live apart in the land of Goshen. You have read the history of Joseph and his brethren?" "Oh yes; I know that well." "Well, the Almighty wished the Jews should be a nation apart from others, and for that purpose he brought them into Egypt. But observe, Frank, by what simple and natural causes this was effected. It was by a dream of Joseph's, which, when he told them of it, irritated his brothers against him; they sold him as a slave, and he was sent into Egypt. There, having explained the dream of Pharaoh, he was made a ruler over Egypt, and saved that country from the famine which was in every other land. His brothers come down to buy corn, and he recognises them. He sends for his father and all the family, and establishes them in the land of Goshen, as shepherds, apart from the Egyptians. Here they multiplied fast; but after Joseph's elevation they were cruelly treated by the Egyptians, who became afraid of their rapid increase, and eventually the Kings of Egypt gave orders that all the male children of the Jews should be destroyed. It was at this time, when they were so oppressed and cruelly treated by the Egyptians, that God interfered and sent for Moses. Moses, like all the rest of the Jews, knew nothing of the true God, and was difficult to persuade, and it was only by miracles that he was convinced." "Why did God keep the Jews apart from the Egyptians, and have them thrown in bondage?" "Because he wished to prepare them to become his own peculiar people. By their being descended from Abraham, and having never intermarried with other nations, they had become a pure race; by being in bondage and severely treated, they had suffered and become united as a people. They knew no Gods but those worshipped by the Egyptians, and these Gods it was now the intention of the Almighty to confound, and prove to the Jews as worthless. At the same time he worked with his own nation in mystery, for when Moses asked him what God he was to tell his people that he was, the Almighty only replied by these words--_I am_; having no name like all the false Gods worshipped by the Egyptians. He was now about to prove, by his wonderful miracles, the difference between himself and the false Gods." "What are miracles?" "A miracle is doing that which man has no power of doing, proving that the party who does it is superior to man: for instance--to restore a dead man to life is a miracle, as none but God, or those empowered by God could do. Miracles were necessary, therefore, to prove to the Jews that the Almighty was the true God, and were resorted to by him in this instance, as well as in the coming of Our Saviour, when it was also necessary to prove that he was the Son of God. When the Almighty sent Moses to Pharaoh to demand that the Israelites should have permission to sacrifice in the desert, he purposely hardened the heart of Pharaoh that he might refuse the request." "But why did he so?" "Because he wanted to prove to the Israelites that he was the only true God and had Pharaoh consented to their going away, there would have been no opportunity of performing those miracles by which the Israelites were to be delivered, and by which they were to acknowledge him as their God." Mrs Reichardt often renewed this conversation, till I became acquainted with Scriptural History. Chapter XXVIII The following morning, I went with Nero to take a couple of fish out of the pool. As soon as Nero had caught them, he went into the other part of the bathing pool to amuse himself, while I cleaned the fish, which I generally did before I went up to the cabin, giving him the heads and insides for his share, if I did not require any portion for the birds. Nero was full of play that morning, and when I threw the heads to him, as he frolicked in the water, he brought them out to the rocks, but instead of eating them, as usual, he laid them at my feet. I threw them in several times, and he continued to bring them out, and my mother, coming down to me, was watching him. "I think," said she, "you must teach Nero to fetch and carry like a dog--try. Instead of the heads, throw in this piece of wood;" which she now broke off the boat-hook staff. I did so, and Nero brought it out, as he had done the heads of the fish. I patted and coaxed the animal, and tried him again several times with success. "Now," said my mother, "you must accustom him to certain words when you send him for anything. Always say, 'Fetch it, Nero!' and point with your finger." "Why am I to do that, mother?" I asked. "Because the object to be gained is, not that the animal should fetch out what you throw in, but what you send it to bring out which you have not thrown in. Do you understand?" "Yes," replied I. "You mean if there were anything floating near on the sea, I should send him for it." "Exactly. Then Nero would be of some use." "I will soon teach him," replied I; "to-morrow I will send him into the sea after the piece of spar. I've no fear that he will go away now." "I was thinking last night, Frank, whether they had taken the pail with them in the boat." "The pail," said I; "I know where it is, but I quite forgot it. We left it up the ravine the last day we planted the potatoes." "We did so, now I recollect. I will go for it while you get the breakfast ready." We had now been for many weeks on a fish diet, and I must confess that I was tired of it, which was not the case when I lived upon the dried birds during the whole of the year. Why so I cannot tell, but I was soon to learn to relish fish, if I could obtain them. It was not often that the wind blew direct on the shore, but coming from the northward and eastward, it was in a slanting direction, but occasionally, and chiefly about the time of the Equinoxes, the gales came on very heavy from the eastward, and then the wash of the seas upon the rocky coast was tremendous. Such was the case about this time. A fierce gale of wind from the eastward raised a sea which threw the surf and spray high over the loftiest of the rocks, and the violence of the wind bore the spray far inland. The gale had come on in the evening, and my mother and I, when we rose in the morning, were standing on the platform before the cabin, admiring the grandeur of the scene, but without the least idea that it was to be productive of so much misery to ourselves. My mother pointed out to me some passages in the Psalms and Old Testament bearing strongly upon the scene before us; after a time I called Nero, and went down with him to take fish out of the pool for our day's consumption. At that time we had a large supply in the pool--more than ever, I should say. When I arrived at the pool, I found the waves several feet in height rolling in over the ledges, and the pool one mass of foam, the water in it being at least two or three feet higher than usual; still it never occurred to me that there was any mischief done, until I had sent Nero in for the fish, and found that, after floundering and diving for some time, he did not bring out one. My mind misgave me, and I ordered him in again. He remained some time and then returned without a fish, and I was then satisfied that from the rolling in of the waves, and the unusual quantity of the water in the pool, the whole of the fish had escaped, and that we were now without any provisions or means of subsistence, until the weather should settle, and enable us to catch some more. Aghast at the discovery, I ran up to the cabin, and called to my mother, who was in her bedroom. "Oh, mother, all the fish have got out of the pool, and we have nothing to eat. I told you we should be starved." "Take time, Frank, and take breath," replied she, "and then tell me what has happened, to cause this alarm and dismay, that you appear to be in." I explained to her what had happened, and that Nero could not find one fish. "I fear that what you say must be correct," replied she; "but we must put our trust in God. It is his will, and whatever he wills must be right." I cannot say I was Christian enough at the time to acknowledge the truth of her reply, and I answered, "If God is as good and as gracious as you say, will he allow us to starve? Does he know that we are starving?" continued I. "Does he know, Frank?" replied my mother; "what does the Bible say--that not a sparrow falls to the ground without his knowledge; and of how much more worth are you than many sparrows? Shame upon you, Frank!" I was abashed but not satisfied, I therefore replied quietly, "We have nothing to eat, mother." "Granted that we have lost all our fish, Frank, still we are not yet starving; the weather may moderate tomorrow, and we may catch some more, or even if it should not till the day afterwards, we can bear to be two days without food. Let us hope for the best and put our trust in God--let us pray to him and ask him for his assistance. He can rebuke these stormy waters--he can always find means of helping those who put confidence in him, and will send us aid when all hope appears gone. Pray, Frank, as I will do, fervently, and believing that your prayer is heard--pray with faith, and your prayer will be answered." "It is not always so," replied I; "you have told me of many people who have died of starvation." "I grant it, and for all wise purposes they were permitted so to do, but the Almighty had reasons for permitting it, unknown to us, but which you may depend upon it, were good. We cannot fathom his decrees. He may even now decide that such is to be our fate; but if so, depend upon it, Frank, all is right, and what appears to you now as cruel and neglectful of you, would, if the future could be looked into by us, prove to have been an act of mercy." "Do you think, then, that we shall starve?" "I do not--I have too much faith in God's mercy, and I do not think that he would have preserved our lives by preventing the men from taking us into the boat, if we were now to starve. God is not inconsistent; and I feel assured that, forlorn as our present position appears to be, and tried as our faith in him may be, we shall still be preserved, and live to be monuments of his gracious love and kindness." These words of my mother and the implicit confidence which she appeared to have, much revived me. "Well," said I, "I hope you are right, my dear mother, and now I think of it," continued I, brightening up at the idea, "if the worst come to the worst, we can eat the birds; I don't care much for them now, and if I did, you should not starve, mother." "I believe you would not hesitate to sacrifice the birds, Frank, but a greater sacrifice may be demanded of you." "What?" inquired I; and then after a little thought, I said, "You don't mean Nero, mother?" "To tell the truth, I did mean Nero, Frank, for the birds will not be a support for more than a day or two." "I never could kill Nero, mother," replied I gloomily, and walking away into the cabin, I sat down very melancholy at the idea of my favourite being sacrificed; to me it appeared quite horrible, and my mother having referred to it, made her fall very much in my good opinion. Alas! I was indeed young and foolish, and little thought what a change would take place in my feelings. As for the birds, as I really did not care for them, I resolved to kill two of them for our day's meal, and returning to the platform I had laid hold of the two that were there and had seized both by the neck, when my mother asked me what I was going to do. "Kill them, and put them in the pot for our dinner," replied I. "Nay, Frank! you are too hasty. Let us make some little sacrifice, even for the poor birds. We surely can fast one day without very great suffering. To-morrow will be time enough." I dropped the birds from my hand, tacitly consenting to her proposal. It was not, however, for the sake of the birds that I did so, but because one day's respite for the birds would be a day's respite for Nero. "Come," said my mother, "let us go into the cabin and get some work. I will alter some of the clothes for you. What will you do?" "I don't know," replied I, "but I will do whatever you tell me." "Well, then, I perceive that the two fishing-lines are much worn, and they may break very soon, and then we shall be without the means of taking fish, even if the weather is fine, so now we will cut off some of the whale line, and when it is unravelled, I will show you how to lay it up again into fishing line; and, perhaps, instead of altering the clothes, I had better help you, as fishing-lines are now of more consequence to us than anything else." This was an arrangement which I gladly consented to. In a short time the whale line was unravelled, and my mother showed me how to lay it up in three yarns, so as to make a stout fishing line. She assisted, and the time passed away more rapidly than I had expected it would. "You are very clever, mother," said I. "No, my child, I am not, but I certainly do know many things which women in general are not acquainted with; but the reason of this is, I have lived a life of wandering, and occasional hardships. Often left to our own resources, when my husband and I were among strangers, we found the necessity of learning to do many things for ourselves, which those who have money usually employ others to do for them; but I have been in situations where even money was of no use, and had to trust entirely to myself. I have therefore always made it a rule to learn everything that I could; and as I have passed much of my life in sailing over the deep waters, I obtained much useful knowledge from the seamen, and this of laying up fishing lines is one of the arts which they communicated to me. Now, you see, I reap the advantage of it." "Yes," replied I; "and so do I. How lucky it was that you came to this island!" "Lucky for me, do you mean, Frank?" "No, mother! I mean how lucky for me." "I trust that I have been sent here to be useful, Frank, and with that feeling I cheerfully submit to the will of God. He has sent me that I may be useful to you, I do not doubt; and if by my means you are drawn towards him, and, eventually, become one of his children, I shall have fulfilled my mission." "I do not understand you quite, mother." "No, you cannot as yet, but everything in season," replied she, slowly musing; "'First the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear.'" "Mother," said I, "I should like to hear the whole story of your life. You know I have told you all that I know about myself. Now suppose you tell me your history, and that of your husband. You did say that perhaps, one day you would. Do you recollect?" "Yes, I do recollect that I did make a sort of promise, Frank, and I promise you now that some day I will fulfil it; but I am not sure that you will understand or profit by the history now, so much as you may bye-and-bye." "Well, but mother, you can tell me the story twice, and I shall be glad to hear it again, so tell it to me now, to amuse me, and bye-and-bye that I may profit by it." My mother smiled, which she very seldom did, and said-- "Well, Frank, as I know you would at any time give up your dinner to listen to a story, and as you will have no dinner to-day, I think it is but fair that I should consent to your wish. Who shall I begin with--with my husband or with myself?" "Pray begin with your own history," replied I. Chapter XXIX "I am the daughter of a parish clerk in a small market town near the southern coast of England, within a few miles of a large seaport." "What is a parish clerk?" I asked, interrupting my mother at the commencement of her promised narrative. "A parish clerk," she replied, "is a man who is employed in the parish or place to which he belongs, to fulfil certain humble duties in connection with the church or place of worship where the people meet together to worship God." "What does he do there?" I inquired. "He gives out the psalms that are to be sung, leads the congregation in making their responses to the minister appointed to perform the services of the church; has the custody of the registry of births, deaths, and burials of the inhabitants, and the care of the church monuments, and of other property belonging to the building. In some places he also fulfils the duties of bell-ringer and grave-digger; that is to say, by ringing a large bell at the top of the church, he summons the people to their devotions, during their lives, and digs a hole in consecrated ground, surrounding the sacred building, to receive their bodies when dead." I mused on this strange combination of offices, and entertained a notion of the importance of such a functionary, which I afterwards found was completely at variance with the real state of the case. "My father," she resumed, "not only fulfilled all these duties, but contrived to perform the functions of schoolmaster to the parish children." "What are parish children?" I asked eagerly. "I know what children are, as Jackson represented to me that I was the child of my father and mother, but what makes children, parish children?" "They are the children of the poor," Mrs Reichardt replied, "who, not being able to afford them instruction, willingly allow them to be taught at the expense of the people of the parish generally." I thought this a praiseworthy arrangement. I knew nothing of poors-rates, and the system of giving relief to the poor of the parish, so long used in England, afterwards explained to me, but the kindness and wisdom of this plan of instruction became evident to my understanding. I was proceeding to ask other questions, when my mother stopped them by saying, that if I expected her to get through her story, I must let her proceed without further interruption; for many things would be mentioned by her which demanded explanation, for one so completely unaware of their existence as myself, and that it would be impossible to make me thoroughly acquainted with such things within any reasonable time; the proper explanations, she promised, should follow. She then proceeded. "My father, it may be thought, had enough on his hands, but in an obscure country town, it is not unusual for one man to unite the occupations of several, and this was particularly the case with my father, who, in addition to the offices I have enumerated, was the best cattle-doctor and bone-setter within ten miles; and often earned his bread at different kinds of farmer's work, such as thatching, hedging, ditching and the like. Nevertheless, he found time to read his Bible, and bring up his only daughter religiously. This daughter was myself." "What had become of your mother?" I asked, as I thought it strange Mrs Reichardt should only mention one parent. "She had died very soon after my birth," she answered, "and I was left at first to the care of a poor woman, who nursed me; as soon, however, as I could run about, and had exhibited some signs of intelligence, my father began to get so partial to me, that he very reluctantly allowed me to go out of his sight. He took great pains in teaching me what he knew, and though the extent of his acquirements was by no means great, it was sufficient to lay a good foundation, and establish a desire for more comprehensive information, which I sought every available means to obtain. "I remember that at a very early age I exhibited an extraordinary curiosity for a child; constantly asking questions, not only of my father, but of all his friends and visitors, and, as they seemed to consider me a quick and lively child, they took pleasure in satisfying my inquisitive spirit. In this way I gained a great deal of knowledge, and, by observation of what passed around me, a great deal more. "It soon became a source of pride and gratification with my father, to ask me to read the Bible to him. This naturally led to a good many inquiries on my part, and numerous explanations on his. In course of time, I became familiar with all the sacred writings, and knew their spirit and meaning much better than many persons who were more than double my age. "My fondness for such studies, and consequent reputation, attracted the attention of Dr Brightwell, the clergyman of our parish, who had the kindness to let me share the instructions of his children, and still further advanced my education, and still more increased my natural predilection for religious information. By the time I was thirteen, I became quite a prodigy in Christian learning, and was often sent for to the parsonage, to astonish the great people of the neighbourhood, by the facility with which I answered the most puzzling questions that were put to me, respecting the great mysteries of Christianity." Chapter XXX It was about this time that I first became acquainted with an orphan boy, an inmate of the workhouse, who had been left to the care of the parish by the sudden death of his parents, a German clock-maker and his wife, from a malignant fever which had visited the neighbourhood, and taken off a considerable portion of the labouring population. I had been sent on errands from my father, to the master of the workhouse, a severe, sullen man, of whom I had a great dread, and I noticed this child, in consequence of his pale and melancholy countenance, and apparently miserable condition. I observed that no one took any notice of him; and that he was allowed to wander about the great straggling workhouse, among the insane, the idiotic, and the imbecile, without the slightest attention being paid to his going and coming; in short, he lived the wretched life of a workhouse boy. "I see that you are eager to ask what is a workhouse boy," said my mother, "so I will anticipate your question. There is, in the various parishes of the country to which we both belong, a building expressly set apart for the accommodation and support of the destitute and disabled poor. It usually contains inmates of all ages, from the infant just born, to the very aged, whose infirmities shew them to be on the verge of the grave. They are all known to be in a state of helpless poverty, and quite unable to earn a subsistence for themselves. In this building they are clothed and fed; the younger provided with instruction necessary to put them in the way of earning a livelihood; the elders of the community enjoying the consolations of religion, accorded to them by the regular visits of the chaplain." "I suppose," I here observed, "that the people who lived there, were deeply impressed with their good fortune in finding such an asylum?" "As far as I could ever ascertain," Mrs Reichardt replied, "it was exactly the reverse. It was always thought so degrading to enter a workhouse, that the industrious labourer would endure any and every privation rather than live there. An honest hard-working man must be sorely driven indeed, to seek such a shelter in his distress." "That seems strange," I observed. "Why should he object to receive what he so much stands in need of?" "When he thus comes upon the funds of the parish," answered my mother, "he becomes what is called a pauper, and among the English peasantry of the better sort, there is the greatest possible aversion to be ranked with this degraded class. Consequently, the inmates of the workhouses are either those whose infirmities prevent their earning a subsistence, or the idle and the dissolute, who feel none of the honest prejudices of self-dependence, and care only to live from day to day on the coarse and meagre fare afforded them by the charity of their wealthier and more industrious fellow-creatures. "The case of this poor boy I thought very pitiable. I found out that his name was Heinrich Reichardt. He could speak no language but his own, and therefore his wants remained unknown, and his feelings unregarded. He had been brought up with a certain sense of comfort and decency, which was cruelly outraged by the position in which he found himself placed by the sudden death of his parents. I observed that he was often in tears, and his fair features and light hair contrasted remarkably with the squalid faces and matted locks of his companions. His wretchedness never failed to make a deep impression on me. "I brought him little presents, and strove to express my sympathy for his sufferings. He seemed, at first, more surprised than grateful, but I shortly discovered that my attentions gave him unusual pleasure, and he looked upon my visits as his only solace and gratification. "Even at this period I exercised considerable influence over my father, and I managed to interest him in the case of the poor foreign boy to such an extent, that he was induced to take him out of the workhouse, and find him a home under his own roof. He was at first reluctant to burden himself with the bringing up of a child, who, from his foreign language and habits, could be of little use to him in his avocations; but I promised to teach him English, and all other learning of which he stood most in need, and assured my father that in a prodigious short time I would make him a much abler assistant than he was likely to find among the boys of the town. "My father's desire to please me, rather than any faith he reposed in my assertions, led him to allow me to do as I pleased in this affair. I lost no time, therefore, in beginning my course of instruction, and in a few weeks ascertained that I had an apt pupil, who was determined to proceed with his education as fast as circumstances would admit. We were soon able to express our ideas to each other, and in a few months read together the book out of which I had received so many invaluable lessons. "In a short time, I became not less proud of, than partial to, my pupil. I took him through the same studies which I had pursued under the auspices of our clergyman, and was secretly pleased to find, not only that he was singularly quick in imbibing my instructions, but displayed a strong natural taste for those investigations towards which I had shown so marked a bias. "Day after day have we sat together discoursing of the great events recorded in Holy Writ: going over every chapter of its marvellous records, page by page, till the whole was so firmly fixed upon our minds, that we had no necessity during our conversations for referring to the Sacred Book. We found examples we held up to ourselves for imitation; we found incidents we regarded as promises of Divine protection; we found consolation and comfort, as well as exhortation and advice; and, moreover, we found a sort of instruction that led us to select for ourselves duties that apparently tended to bring us nearer to the Great Being whose goodness we had so diligently studied. "My father seemed as much pleased with my successful teaching, as he had been with my successful learning; and when young Reichardt turned out a remarkably handy and intelligent lad, to whose assistance in some of his avocations he could have recourse with perfect confidence in his cleverness and discretion, he grew extremely partial to him. Dr Brightwell also proved his friend, and in a few years, the condition of the friendless workhouse boy was so changed, he could not have been taken for the same person. "He was a boy of a very grateful spirit, and always regarded me with the devotion of a most thankful heart. Often would he contrast the wretchedness of his previous condition, with the happiness he now enjoyed, and express in the warmest terms his obligations to me for the important service I had rendered him in rescuing him from the abject misery of the workhouse. Under these circumstances, it is not extraordinary, that we should learn to regard each other with the liveliest feelings of affection, and while we were still children, endured all the transports and torments which make up the existence of more experienced lovers." "I do not like interrupting you," I here observed, "but I certainly should like to know what is meant by the word lovers?" "I can scarcely explain it to you satisfactorily at present," said Mrs Reichardt, with a smile; "but I have no doubt, before many years have passed over your head--always provided that you escape from this island--you will understand it without requiring any explanation. But I must now leave my story, as many things of much consequence to our future welfare now demand my careful attention." I could not then ascertain from her what was meant by the word whose meaning I had asked. It had very much excited my curiosity, but she left me to attend to her domestic duties, of which she was extremely regardful, and I had no opportunity at that time of eliciting from her the explanation I desired. Chapter XXXI It is impossible for me to overrate the value of Mrs Reichardt's assistance. Indeed had it not been for her, circumstanced as I was at this particular period, I should in all probability have perished. Her exhortations saved me from despair, when our position seemed to have grown quite desperate. But example did more, even, than precept. Her ingenuity in devising expedients, her activity in putting them in force, her unfailing cheerfulness under disappointment, and Christian resignation under privation, produced the best results. I was enabled to bear up against the ill effects of our crippled resources, consequent upon the ill conduct of the sailors of the whaler, and the failure of our fish-pond. She manufactured strong lines for deep sea fishing, and having discovered a shelf of rock, little more than two feet above the sea, to which with a good deal of difficulty I could descend, I took my stand one day on the rock with my lines baited with a piece of one of my feathered favourites, whom dire necessity had at last forced me to destroy. I waited with all the patience of a veteran angler. I knew the water to be very deep, and it lay in a sheltered nook or corner of the rocks about ten feet across; I allowed the line to drop some three or four yards, and not having any float, could only tell I had a bite by feeling a pull at the line, which was wound round my arm. After some time having been passed in this way, my attention was withdrawn from the line, and given to the narrative I had so lately heard--that is to say, though my eyes were still fixed upon the line, I had completely given up my thoughts to the story of the poor German boy, who had been snatched from poverty by the interference of the parish clerk's daughter, and I contrived to speculate on what I should have done under such circumstances, imagining all sorts of extravagances in which I should have indulged, to testify my gratitude to so amiable and benevolent a friend. A singular course of ideal scenes followed each other in quick succession in my mind--as I fancied myself the hero of a similar adventure. I regarded my imaginary benefactress with feelings of such intensity as I had never before experienced; and it seemed that I was to her the exciting object of sentiments of a like nature, the knowledge of which awoke in our hearts the most agreeable sensations. I was rudely disturbed out of this day-dream by finding myself suddenly plunged into the deep water beneath me. The shock was so startling, that some seconds elapsed before I could comprehend my situation; and then it became clear that I must have hooked a fish, that had not only succeeded in pulling me off my balance, but the line by which he was held being round my arm, cutting painfully into the flesh, threatened drowning by keeping me under water. With great difficulty I managed to rise to the surface, and loosened the windings of the line from my limb; then, anxious to retain possession of what from its force must have been a fish well worth some trouble in catching, I held on with both hands, and pulled with all my strength. At first, by main force I was drawn through the water; then when I found the strain slacken, I drew in the line. This manoeuvre was repeated several times, till I succeeded in obtaining a view of what I had caught; or, more properly speaking, of what had caught me. It was merely a glimpse; for the fish, which was a very large one, getting a sight of me within a few yards of him, made some desperate plunges, and again darted off, dragging me along with him, sometimes under the water, and sometimes on the surface. His body was nearly round, and about seven or eight feet long--rather a formidable antagonist for close quarters; nevertheless, I was most eager to get at him, the more so, when I ascertained that his resistance was evidently decreasing. I continued to approach, and at last got near enough to plunge my knife up to the haft in his head, which at once put an end to the struggle. But now another difficulty presented itself. In the ardour of the chase I had been drawn nearly a mile from the island, and I found it impossible to carry back the produce of my sport, exhausted as I was by the efforts I had made in capturing him. I knew I could not swim with such a burthen for the most inconsiderable portion of the distance. My fish therefore must be abandoned. Here was a bountiful supply of food, as soon as placed within reach, rendered totally unavailable. I thought of Mrs Reichardt. I thought how gratified she would have been, could I have brought to her such an excellent addition to our scanty stock of food. Then I thought of her steadfast reliance upon Providence, and what valuable lessons of piety and wisdom she would read me, if she found me depressed by my disappointment. Chapter XXXII As soon as I could disconnect my tackle from the dead fish, I turned my face homewards, and struck out manfully for the shore; luckily I did not observe any sharks. I landed safely without further adventure, and immediately sought my kind friend and companion, whom I found, as usual, industriously employed in endeavouring to secure me additional comforts. If she was not engaged in ordinary women's work, making, mending, cleaning, or improving, in our habitation, she was sure to be found doing something in the immediate neighbourhood, which, though less feminine, shewed no less forethought, prudence, and sagacity. Our garden had prospered wonderfully under her hands. The ground seemed now stocked with various kinds of vegetation, of which I neither knew the value, nor the proper mode of cultivation; and we seemed about to be surrounded with shrubs and plants--many of very pleasing appearance--that must in a short time entirely change the aspect of the place. She heard my adventure with a good deal of interest, only remonstrating with me upon my want of caution, and dwelling upon the fatal consequences that must have ensued to herself, had I been drowned or disabled by falling from the rock, or devoured by the sharks. "You may consider yourself, my dear son," she observed, with serious earnestness, "to have been under the Divine care. Nothing can be clearer than that a wise and kind Providence is continually watching over his creatures when placed in unusual or perilous circumstances. He occasionally affords them manifestations of his favour, to encourage them when engaged in good works. This shews the comprehensive eye of the master of many workmen, who overlooks the labours of his more industrious servants, and indicates to them his regard for their welfare and appreciation of their labours." "But surely," I interposed, "if I had been under the superintendence of the Providence of which you speak, I should not have been obliged to abandon so capital a fish, when I had endured such trouble to capture it, and when its possession was so necessary to our comfort, nay, even to our existence." "The very abandonment of so unwieldy a creature," she replied, "is unanswerable evidence of a Divine interposition in your favour; for had you persisted in your intention of carrying it to the shore, there is but little doubt that its weight would have overpowered you, and that you would have been drowned; and then what would have become of me? A woman left in this desolate spot to her own resources, must soon be forced to give up the struggle for existence, from want of physical strength. Nevertheless, there are numerous instances on record, of women having surmounted hardships which few men could endure. Supported by our Heavenly Father, who is so powerful a protector of the weak, and friend of the helpless, the weakest of our weak sex may triumph over the most intolerable sufferings. I, however, am not over confident of being so supported, and therefore, I think it would be but shewing a proper consideration for your fellow exile, to act in every emergency with as much circumspection and prudence as possible." I promised that for the future I would run no such risks, and added many professions of regard for her safety. They had the desired effect; I pretended to think no more of my disappointment, nevertheless, I found myself constantly dwelling on the size of my lost fish, and lamenting my being obliged to abandon him to his more voracious brethren of the deep. These thoughts so filled my mind that at night I continued to dream over again the whole incident, beginning with my patient angling from the rock, and concluding with my disconsolate swim to shore--and pursued my scaly antagonist quite as determinedly in my sleep as I had done in the deep waters. I rose early after having passed so disturbed a night, and soon made my way to the usual haunt of Nero, whom I discovered in the sea near the rocks making all sorts of strange tumblings and divings, apparently after some dark object that was floating in the water. I called him away, to examine what it was that had so attracted his attention, and my surprise may be imagined when I made out the huge form of my enemy of the preceding day. My shouts and exclamations of joy soon brought Mrs Reichardt to the scene, and when she discovered the shape of this prodigious fish, her surprise seemed scarcely less than my own. How to land him was our first consideration; and after some debate on the ways and means, I got a rope and leaped into the water with it, fastened a noose round his gills, and then swimming back and climbing the rock; we jointly tried to pull him up on to the shore. We hauled and tugged with all our force for a considerable time, but to very little effect; he was too heavy to pull up perpendicularly. At last we managed to drag him to a low piece of rock, and there I divided him into several pieces, which Mrs Reichardt carried away to dry and preserve in some way that she said would make the fish capital eating all the year round. It was very palatable when dressed by her, and as she changed the manner of cooking several times, I never got tired of it. By its flavour, as far as I could judge from subsequent knowledge, the creature was something of the sturgeon kind of fish, but its proper name I never could learn; nor was I ever able to catch another, therefore, I must presume that it was a stranger in those seas. Nevertheless, he proved most acceptable to us both, for we should have fared but ill for some time, had it not been for his providential capture. It was one afternoon, when we had been enjoying a capital meal at the expense of our great friend, that I led the subject to Mrs Reichardt's adventures, subsequently to where she broke off in the story of herself and the poor German boy; and though not without considerable reluctance, I induced her to proceed with her narrative. Chapter XXXIII "Our good minister Dr Brightwell," she commenced, "was a man of considerable scholastic attainments, and he delighted in making a display of them. At one time, he had been master of an extensive grammar school, and now he employed a good deal of his leisure in teaching those boys and girls of the town, who indicated the possession of anything like talent. The overseers used to talk jestingly to my father of the Doctor teaching plough-boys Greek and Latin; and wenches, whose chief employment was stone-picking in the fields, geography and the use of the globes. Even the churchwardens shook their heads, and privately thought the Rector a little out of his seven senses for wasting his learning upon such unprofitable scholars. Nevertheless, he continued his self-imposed task, without meeting any reward beyond the satisfaction of his own conscience. It was not till he added to his pupils myself and young Reichardt, that he felt he was doing his duty with some prospect of advantage. "The spirit of emulation roused both of us to make extraordinary efforts to second our worthy master's endeavours: and this did not, as is usually the case, proceed from rivalry--it arose entirely from a desire of the one to stand well in the estimation of the other. In this way we learned the French and Latin languages, geography, and the usual branches of a superior education: but our bias was more particularly for religious knowledge, and our preceptor encouraged this, till we were almost as good theologians as himself. "While this information was being carefully arranged and digested, there sprung up in our hearts so deep a devotion for each other, that we were miserable when absent and enjoyed no gratification so much as being in each other's society. We knew not then the full power and meaning of this preference, but, as we changed from boy and girl-hood to adult life, our feelings developed themselves into that attachment between the sexes, which from time immemorial has received the name of love." "I think I know what that means, now," said I, as my day-dream, which was so rudely disturbed by my fall into the sea occurred to me. "It would be strange if you did," she replied, "considering that it is quite impossible you should have become acquainted with it." "Yes, I am certain I understand it very well," I rejoined, more confidently, and then added, not without some embarrassment, "If I were placed in the position of Heinrich Reichardt, I am quite sure I should feel towards any young female, who was so kind to me, the deepest regard and affection. I should like to be constantly near her, and should always desire that she should like me better than anyone else." "That is quite as good an explanation of the matter, as I could expect from you," she observed, smiling. "But to return to my story. Our mutual attachment attracted general attention, and was the subject of much observation. But we had no enemies: and when we were met strolling together in the shady lanes, gathering wild flowers, or wandering through the woods in search of wild strawberries, no one thought it necessary to make any remark if we had our arms round each other's waist. My father, if he heard anything about it, did not interfere. Young Reichardt had made himself so useful to him, and shewed himself so remarkably clever in everything he undertook, that the old man loved him as his own son. "It was a settled thing between us, that we were to become man and wife, as soon as we should be permitted. And many were our plans and schemes for the future. Heinrich considered himself to be in the position of Jacob, who served such a long and patient apprenticeship for Rachel; and though he confessed he should not like to wait so long for his wife as the patriarch had been made to do, he acknowledged he would rather serve my father to the full period, than give up all hope of possessing me. "This happy state of things was, however, suddenly put an end to, by Dr Brightwell one day sending for my father. It was a long time before he came back, and when he did, he looked unusually grave and reserved. In an hour or so he communicated to me the result of his long interview with the Rector. The Doctor had resolved to send young Reichardt to a distant place, where many learned men lived together in colleges, for the purpose of further advancing his education, and fitting him for a religious teacher, to which vocation he had long expressed a desire to devote himself. The idea of separation seemed very terrible, but I at last got reconciled to it, in the belief that it would be greatly for Heinrich's advantage, and we parted at last with many tears, many protestations, some fears, but a great many more hopes. "For some days after he had left me, everything seemed so strange, every one seemed so dull, every place seemed so desolate, that I felt as if I had been transported into some dismal scene, where I knew no one, and where there was no one likely to care about me in the slightest degree. My father went about his avocations in a different spirit to what he had so long been used to exhibit; it was evident he missed Heinrich as much as I did, and the villagers stared whenever I passed them--as though my ever going about without Heinrich, was something which they had never anticipated. "In course of time, however, to all appearance, everything and every one went on in their daily course, as though no Heinrich had ever been heard of. My father would sometimes, when overpressed by business, refer to the able assistant he had lost, and now and then I heard a conjecture hazarded by some one or other of his most confidential friends, as to what young Reichardt was doing with himself. My conjectures, and my references to him, were far from being so occasional; there was scarce an hour of the day I did not think of him; but, believing that I should please him most by endeavouring to improve as much as possible during his absence, I did not give myself up to idle reflections respecting the past, or anticipations, equally idle, respecting the future. "My great delight was in hearing from him. At first, his letters expressed only his feelings for me; then he dwelt more largely on his own exertions for preparing himself for the profession he desired to adopt; and after a time, his correspondence was almost entirely composed of expositions of his views of a religious life, and dissertations on various points of doctrine. He evidently was growing more enthusiastic in religion, and less regardful of our attachment. "Yet I entertained no apprehensions or misgivings. I did not think it necessary to consider myself slighted because the thoughts of my future husband were evidently raised more and more above me; the knowledge of this only made me more anxious to raise myself more and more towards the elevation to which his thoughts were so intently directed. "Things went on in this way for two or three years. I never saw him all this time; I heard from him but seldom. He excused his limited correspondence on the plea that his studies left him no time for writing. I never blamed him for this apparent neglect--indeed I rather encouraged it, for my exhortations were always that he should address his time and energies towards the attainment of the object I knew him to have so much at heart--his becoming a minister of our Lord's Gospel. "One day my father came home from the rectory with a troubled countenance. Dr Brightwell was very indignant because Heinrich had joined a religious community that dissented from the Articles of the Church of England. The Doctor had offered to get him employment in the Church, if he would give up his new connections: but the more earnest character of his new faith exerted so much influence over his enthusiastic nature, that he willingly abandoned his bright prospects to become a more humble labourer in a less productive vineyard. "My father, as the clerk of the parish, seemed to think himself bound to share in the indignation of his pastor for this desertion, and Heinrich was severely condemned by him for displaying such ingratitude to his benefactor: I was commanded to think no more of him. "This, however, was not so easy a matter, although our correspondence appeared to have entirely ceased. I knew not where to address a letter to him and was quite unaware of what his future career was now to be." Chapter XXXIV "Time passed on. With all, except myself, Heinrich Reichardt appeared to be forgotten; in the opinion of all, except myself, he had forgotten our house, and all the friends he had once made there. Our good Rector had been removed by death from the post he had so ably filled; and my father being incapacitated by age and infirmity from attending his duties in the church, had his place filled by another. He had saved sufficient to live upon, and had built himself a small cottage at the end of the village, where we lived together in perfect peace, if not in perfect happiness. "I had long grown up to womanhood, and having some abilities, had been employed as one of the teachers of the girls' school, of which I had raised myself to be mistress. I conducted myself so as to win the respect of the chief parochial officers, from more than one of whom I received proposals of marriage: but I never could reconcile myself to the idea of becoming the wife of any man but the long-absent Heinrich, and the new clerk and the overseer were fain to be content with my grateful rejection of their proposals. "I determined to wait patiently till I could learn from Heinrich's own lips that he had abandoned his early friend. I could never get myself to believe in the possibility of his unfaithfulness; and the remembrances of our mutual studies in the Book of Truth seemed always to suggest the impossibility of his acting so completely at variance with the impressions he had thence received. "I was aware that if I had mentioned my hopes of his one day coming to claim me, I should be laughed at by everyone who knew anything of our story--so I said nothing; but continued the more devotedly in my heart to cherish that faith which had so long afforded me support against the overwhelming evidence of prolonged silence and neglect. "There was a congregation of Dissenters in the town, and I had been once or twice prevailed on to join their devotions. One day I heard that proceedings of extraordinary interest would take place at the meeting-house. A minister of great reputation had accepted the situation of Missionary to preach the Gospel to the heathen, and he was visiting the different congregations that lay in his route to the seaport whence he was to embark to the Sandwich Islands. He was expected to address a discourse to the Dissenters of our parish, and I was induced to go and hear him. "The meeting-house was very much crowded, but I contrived to get a seat within a short distance of the speakers, and waited with much interest to behold the man, who, like some of the first preachers, had chosen the perilous task of endeavouring to convert a nation of savage idolaters to the faith of the true Christ. "After a short delay he appeared on a raised platform, and was introduced to this congregation by their minister. I heard nothing of this introduction, though it seemed a long one; I saw nothing of the speaker, though his was a figure which always attracted an attentive audience. I saw only the stranger. In those pale, grave, and serious features then presented to me, I recognised Heinrich Reichardt." "He had come back to you at last," I exclaimed; "I thought he would. After all you had done for the poor German boy, it was impossible that he should grow up to manhood and forget you." "You shall hear," she replied. "For some time my heart beat wildly, and I thought I should be obliged to leave the place, my sensations became so overpowering; but the fear of disturbing the congregation, and of attracting attention towards myself, had such influence over me, that I managed to retain sufficient control over my feelings to remain quiet. Nevertheless, my eyes were upon Heinrich, and my whole heart and soul were exclusively engrossed by him while he continued before me. "Presently he began to speak. As I have just said, I paid no attention to the preliminary proceedings. I know nothing of the manner in which he was introduced to his audience; but when he became the speaker, every word fell upon my ear with a distinctness that seemed quite marvellous to me. "And how could it be otherwise? His tall figure, his melancholy yet expressive features, his earnest manner, and clear and sonorous voice, invested him with all the power and dignity of an Apostle, and when with these attributes were joined those associations of the past with which he was so intimately connected, it is impossible to exaggerate the influence he exercised over me. "He began with a fervent blessing on all who had sought the sanctity of that roof, and his hearers, impressed with the thrilling earnestness of his delivery, became at once hushed into a kind of awe-struck attention. They knelt down, and bowed their heads in prayer. "I appeared to have no power to follow the general example, but remained the only sitter in the entire congregation with my eyes, nay, all my senses, fixed, rivetted upon the preacher. This, of course, attracted his attention. I saw him look towards me with surprise, then he started, his voice hesitated for a moment, but he almost immediately continued his benediction, and, as it seemed to me, with a voice tremulous with emotion. "Then followed a discourse on the object of the preacher in presenting himself there. He described the wonderful goodness of the Creator in continually raising up the most humble instruments of his will to perform the most important offices; in illustration of which he referred to the numerous instances in the Old and New Testaments, where God's preference in this way is so clearly manifested. "He then stated that 'a case had arisen for Divine interposition, equal in necessity to any which had occurred since the first commencement of Christianity.' He explained that 'there were nations still existing in a distant portion of the globe in a state of the wildest barbarism. Ignorant savages were they, with many cruel and idolatrous customs, who were cannibals and murderers, and given up to the worst vices of the heathen. Their abject and pitiable state, he told us, the Lord God had witnessed with Divine commiseration, and had determined that the light of Christian love should shine upon their darkness, and that Almighty wisdom should dissipate their besotted ignorance. "'But who' he asked, 'was to be the ambassador from so stupendous a Power to these barbarous states? Who would venture to be a messenger of peace and comfort to a cruel and savage nation? Was there no man,' he again asked, 'great enough and bold enough to undertake a mission of such vast importance, attended by such terrible risks? "'The Almighty Ruler seeks not for his ministers among the great and bold,' he added, 'as it is written, He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and hath exalted the humble and meek. And it will be peculiarly so on this occasion, for the exaltation is from the humblest origin; so humble it is scarcely possible to imagine so miserable a beginning, in the end attaining distinction so honorable. "'Imagine, if you can, my brethren,' he said, 'in the building set apart in your town for the reception of your destitute poor, a child parentless, friendless, and moneyless, condemned, as it seemed, to perpetual raggedness and intolerable suffering. A ministering angel, under the direction of the Supreme Goodness, took that child by the hand and led it out of the pauper walls that enclosed it, and under its auspices the child grew and flourished, and learned all that was excellent in faith and admirable in practice. "'It was ordained that he should lose sight of his angelic teacher. A dire necessity compelled him to withdraw from that pure and gracious influence. He had to learn in a different school, and prepare himself for heavier tasks. Manhood, with all its severe responsibilities, came upon him. He sought first to render himself competent for some holy undertaking, before he could consider himself worthy again to claim that notice which had made him what he was. Earnestly he strove for the Divine assistance and encouragement; and as his qualifications increased, his estimate of the worthiness necessary for the object he had in view, became more and more exalted. "'At last,' he continued, 'it became known to him that a Missionary was required to explain to the savage people to whom I have already alluded, the principles of Christianity. He was appointed to this sacred trust: and he then determined, before he left this country for the distant one of his ministry, to present himself before that beneficent being who had poured out before him so abundant a measure of Christian virtue; that they might be joined together in the same great vocation, and support each other in the same important trust.' "I heard enough," continued Mrs Reichardt. "All was explained, and I was fully satisfied. The discourse proceeded to identify the speaker with the poor boy who had been preserved for such onerous duties. Then came an appeal to the congregation for their prayers, and such assistance as they could afford, to advance so holy a work as the conversion of the heathen. "I was in such a tumult of pleasant feelings that I retained but a confused recollection of the subsequent events. I only remember that as I was walking home from the meeting, I heard footsteps quickly following; in a few minutes more the voice that had so lately filled my heart to overflowing with happiness, again addressed me. I was too much excited to remain unconcerned on suddenly discovering that Heinrich was so near, and I fell fainting into his arms. "I was carried into a neighbouring cottage, but in a short time was enabled to proceed home. In a week afterwards we were married: a few days more sufficed for the preparations that were required for my destination, and then we proceeded to the port, and embarked on board the ship that was to take us over many thousand miles of sea, to the wild, unknown country that was to be the scene of our mission." Chapter XXXV Mrs Reichardt was obliged to break off her narrative, where it concluded at the end of the last chapter. As I have said, her household duties, being very numerous, and requiring a great deal of attention, took up nearly the whole of her time. The garden now presented a most agreeable appearance, possessing several different kinds of vegetables, and various plants that had been raised from seed. We had succeeded in raising several young orange trees from the pips she had brought in her basket; and they promised to supply us with plenty of their luscious fruit. Even the peas we thought so dry and useless had germinated, and provided us with a welcome addition to our table. I shall never forget the first day she added to our scanty meal of dried fish a dish of smoking potatoes fresh out of the moist earth. After enjoying sufficiently my wonder at their appearance, and delight at their agreeable taste, she informed me of their first introduction into Europe, and their gradual diffusion over the more civilised portions of the globe. I speak of Europe now, because I had learned from my companion, not only a good deal of geography, but had obtained some insight into several other branches of knowledge. In particular, she had told me much interesting information about England, much more than I had learned from Jackson; dwelling upon its leading features, and the most remarkable portions of its history; and I must acknowledge that I felt a secret pride in belonging to so great a country. I considered that I belonged to it, for my father and mother were English, and though I might be called The Little Savage, and be fixed to an obscure island in the great ocean, I felt that my real home was in this great country my mother talked about so glowingly, and that my chief object ought to be to return into the hands of my grandfather the belt that had in so singular a manner come into my possession. I often thought of this great England whose glory had been so widely spread and so durably established, and longed for some means of leaving our present abode, and going in search of its time-honoured shores. But I asked myself how was this desirable object to be effected? We had no means of transporting ourselves from the prison into which we had been accidentally cast. We had nothing resembling a boat on the island, and we had no tools for making one; and even had we been put in possession of such a treasure, we had no means of launching it. The rocky character of the coast made the placing of a boat on the water almost impossible. The expectation of a vessel appearing off the island appeared quite as unreasonable. We had seen no ships for a long time, and those we had observed were a great deal too far off to heed our signals. We had no help for it, but to trust to Providence and bear our present evil patiently. Nevertheless, I took my glass and swept the sea far and wide in search of a ship, but failed to discover anything but a spermaceti whale blowing in the distance, or a shoal of porpoises tumbling over each other nearer the shore, or a colony of seals basking in the sun on the rocks nearest the sea. My disappointment was shared by Nero, who seemed to regard my vexation with a sympathising glance, and even the gannets turned their dull stupid gaze upon me, with an expression as if they deeply commiserated my distress. I had for a long time employed myself in making a shelving descent to the sea, on the most secure part of the rock, intending that it should be a landing place for a boat, in case any ship should come near enough to send one to our rescue. It was a work of great labour, and hatchet and spade equally suffered in my endeavours to effect my object; but at last I contrived to take advantage of a natural fracture in the rock, and a subsequent fall of the cliff, to make a rude kind of inclined plane, rather too steep, and too rough for bad climbers, but extremely convenient for my mother and me, whenever we should be prepared to embark for our distant home. My thoughts were now often directed to the possibility of making on the island some kind of boat that would hold ourselves and sufficient provisions for a voyage to the nearest of the larger islands. I spoke to Mrs Reichardt on the subject, but she dwelt upon the impossibility without either proper tools, or the slightest knowledge of boat-building, of producing a vessel to which we could trust ourselves with any confidence, neither of us knowing anything about its management in the open sea; and then she spoke of the dangers a small boat would meet with, if the water should be rough, or if we should not be able to make the island in any reasonable time. Yet I was not daunted by difficulties, nor dissuaded by discouraging representations. I thought at first of fastening all the loose timber together that had drifted against the rocks, as much in the shape of a boat as I could get it, but on looking over my stock of nails, I found they fell very far short of the proper quantity; consequently that mode of effecting my purpose was abandoned. I then thought of felling a tree and hollowing it out by charring the timber. As yet I had discovered nothing on the island but shrubs. I was quite certain that no tree grew near enough to the sea to be available, and if I should succeed in cutting down a large one and fashioning it as I desired, I had no means of transport. I might possibly make a boat capable of carrying all I wanted to put into it, but as I could neither move the water up to the boat, nor the boat down to the water, for all the service I wanted of it, even if the island contained a tree large enough, I might just as well leave it untouched. Still I would not altogether abandon my favourite project. I thought of the willows that grew on the island, and fancied I could make a framework by twisting them strongly together, and stretching seal skins over them. I laboured at this for several weeks,--exercising all my ingenuity and no slight stock of patience, to create an object with which I was but imperfectly acquainted. I did succeed at last in putting together something in a remote degree resembling the boat that brought part of the whaler's crew to the island and had taken them away, but it was not a quarter the size, and was so light that I could carry it without much difficulty to the landing I had constructed on the cliff. When I came to try its capabilities, I found it terribly lop-sided--it soon began to leak, and in fact it exhibited so many faults, that I was forced to drag it again on shore, and take it to pieces. I called in Mrs Reichardt to my assistance, and though at first she seemed averse to the experiment, she gave me a great deal of information respecting the structure of small boats, and the method of waterproofing leather and other fabrics. I attended carefully to all she said, and commenced re-building with more pretensions to art. I now made a strong frame-work, tolerably sharp at each end, and as nearly as possible resembling a keel at the bottom. I covered this on both sides with pieces of strong cloth saturated with grease from the carcases of birds, and then covered the whole with well-dried seal skins, which I had made impervious to wet. The inside of the boat nearest the water I neatly covered with pieces of dry bark, over which I fixed some boards, which had floated to the island from wrecked ships. Finally I put in some benches to sit on, and then fancied I had done everything that was necessary. I soon got her into the fishing-pool, and was delighted to find that she floated capitally--but I still had a great deal to do. I had made neither oars to propel her through the water, nor sail to carry her through the waves, when rowing was impossible. I remembered the whaler's spare oars and mizen, but they were too large; nevertheless, they served me as models to work upon, and in time I made a rough pair of paddles or oars, which, though rudely fashioned, I hoped would answer the purpose pretty well. The next difficulty was how to use the oars, and I made many awkward attempts before I ascertained the proper method of proceeding. Again my companion, on whom nothing which had once passed before her eyes had passed in vain, shewed me how the boat should be managed. In a short time I could row about the pool with sufficient dexterity to turn the boat in any direction I required, and I then took Nero as a passenger, and he seemed to enjoy the new gratification with a praiseworthy decorum; till, when I was trying to turn the boat round, the movement caused him to attempt to shift his quarters, which he did with so little attention to the build of our vessel, that in one moment she was capsized, and in the next we were swimming about in the pool with our vessel bottom upwards. As she was so light, I soon righted her, and found that she had received no injury, and appeared to be perfectly water-tight. Chapter XXXVI I could not prevail upon Mrs Reichardt to embark in my craft, the fate of my first passenger which she had witnessed from the shore, had deterred her from attempting a voyage under such unpromising circumstances. As soon as I had dried my clothes, I was for making another experiment, and one too of a more hazardous nature. I would not be parted from Nero, but I made him lie at the bottom of the boat, where I could have him under strict control. With him I also took my little flock of gannets, who perched themselves round me, gazing about them with an air of such singular stupidity as they were being propelled through the water, that I could not help bursting out laughing. "Indeed," said Mrs Reichardt, "such a boat's crew and such a boat has never been seen in those seas before. A young savage as captain, a tame seal as boatswain, and a flock of gannets as sailors, certainly made up as curious a set of adventurers as ever floated upon the wide ocean." I was not the least remarkable of the strange group, for I had nothing on but a pair of duck trousers, patched in several places; and my hair, which had grown very long, hung in black wavy masses to my shoulders. My skin was tanned by the sun to a light brown, very different from the complexion of Mrs Reichardt, which had ever been remarkable for its paleness. Indeed she told me I should find some difficulty in establishing my claim to the title of European, but none at all to that of Little Savage, which she often playfully called me. Nevertheless, in this trim, and with these companions, I passed out of the fishing-pool into the sea, with the intention of rowing round the island. Mrs Reichardt waved her hand as I departed on my voyage, having exhorted me to be very careful, as long as I was in hearing; she then turned away, as I thought, to return to the hut. The day was remarkably fine. There was not so much as a cloud on the horizon, and scarcely a ripple on the water: therefore, everything seemed to favour my project, for if there had been anything of a breeze, the beating of the waves against the rock would have been a great obstacle to my pursuing my voyage with either comfort or safety. The water too was so clear, that although it was of great depth, I could distinguish the shells that lay on the sand, and observe various kinds of fish, some of most curious shape, that rushed rapidly beneath the boat as it was urged along. I was delighted with the motion, and with the agreeable appearance of the different novelties that met my gaze. The light boat glided almost imperceptibly through the water at every stroke of the oar. Nero lay as still as if his former lesson had taught him the necessity of remaining motionless; and the gannets now and then expressed their satisfaction by a shrill cry or a rapid fluttering of their wings. In this way, we passed on without any adventure, till I found it necessary for me to row some distance out to sea, to round a projecting rock that stood like a mighty wall before me. I pulled accordingly, and then had a better opportunity of seeing the island than I had ever obtained. I recognised all the favourite places, the ravine, the wood, the hut covered with beautiful creepers, and the garden, full of flowers, looked very agreeable to the eye: but every part seemed to look pleasant, except the great savage rocks which enclosed the island on every side: but even these I thought had an air of grandeur that gave additional effect to the scene. Much to my surprise, I recognised Mrs Reichardt walking rapidly towards a part of the shore, near which I should be obliged to pass. From this I saw that she was intent on watching me from point to point, to know the worst, if any accident should befall me, and be at hand should there be a necessity for rendering assistance. I shouted to her, and she waved her hand in reply. On rounding the headland, my astonishment was extreme on finding my little bark in the midst of a shoal of enormous sharks. If I came in contact with one of them I was lost, for the frail boat would certainly be upset and as Jackson had assured me, if ever I allowed these monsters to come near enough, one snap of their jaws, and there would be an end of the Little Savage. I thought of the warning of Mrs Reichardt, and was inclined to think I had better have taken her advice, and remained in the fishing-pool; nevertheless, I went on as quietly and deliberately as possible, exercising all my skill to keep clear of my unexpected enemies. It was not till I had got into the middle of the shoal that the sharks seemed to be aware there was anything unusual in their neighbourhood, but as soon as they were fully aware of the presence of an intruder, they exhibited the most extraordinary excitement, rushing together in groups, with such rapid motion, that the water became so agitated, I was obliged to exercise all my skill to keep the boat steady on her course. They dived, and rushed to and fro, and jostled each other, as I thought, in anything but an amicable spirit; still, however, keeping at a respectful distance from the boat, for which I was extremely thankful. I urged her on with all my strength, for the purpose of getting away from such unpleasant neighbours; but they were not to be so easily disposed of. They came swimming after the boat, then when within a few yards dived, and in a moment they were before it, as if to bar any further progress. I however pushed on, and they disappeared, but immediately afterwards rose on all sides of me. They were evidently getting more confidence; a fact I ascertained with no slight apprehension, for they began to approach nearer, and their gambols threatened every minute to overwhelm my poor craft, that, light as a cork, bounced up and down the agitated waves, as if quite as much alarmed for our safety as ourselves. The captain was not the only one who began to fear evil; the gannets were very restless, and it was only by strong admonitions I could prevail on Nero to retain his recumbent attitude at my feet; their instinct warned them of approaching danger, and I felt the comfortable assurance that my own rashness had brought me into my present critical position, and that if the menaced destruction did arrive, there was no sort of assistance at hand on which I could rely. Every moment the sharks became more violent in their demonstrations, and more bold in their approaches, and I could scarcely keep the boat going, or prevent the water rushing over her sides. The gannets, having shewn themselves for some minutes uneasy, had at last flown away to the neighbouring rock, and Nero began to growl and snap, as though meditating a forcible release from his prostrate position, to see what mischief was brewing. As I was coaxing him to be quiet, I felt a tremendous blow given to the boat, evidently from beneath, and she rose into the air several yards, scattering Nero and myself, and the oars, in different directions. The noise we made in falling appeared for the instant to have scattered the creatures, for I had struck out for the rock and nearly reached it before a shark made its appearance. Just then I saw a large monster rushing towards me. I thought all was over. He turned to open his great jaws, and in another instant I should have been devoured. At that critical period I saw a second object dart in between me and the shark, and attack the latter fiercely. It was Nero, and it was the last I ever saw of my faithful friend. His timely interposition enabled me to reach a ledge in the cliff, where I was in perfect safety, hanging by some strong seaweed, although my feet nearly touched the water, and I could retain my position only with the greatest difficulty. The whole shoal were presently around me. They a first paid their attentions to the boat and the oars, which they buffeted about till they were driven close to the rock, at a little distance from the place where I had found temporary safety. They left these things unharmed as soon as they caught sight of me, and then their eagerness and violence returned with tenfold fury. They darted towards me in a body, and I was obliged to lift my legs, or I should have had them snapped off by one or other of the twenty gaping jaws that were thrust over each other, in their eagerness to make a mouthful of my limbs. This game was carried on for some minutes of horrible anxiety to me. I fancied that my struggles had loosened the seaweed, and that in a few minutes it must give way, and I should then be fought for and torn to pieces by the ravenous crew beneath. I shouted with all the strength of my lungs to scare them away; but as if they were as well aware that I could not escape them as I was myself, they merely left off their violent efforts to reach my projecting legs, and forming a semi-circle round me, watched with upturned eyes, that seemed to possess a fiendish expression that fascinated and bewildered me, the snapping of the frail hold that supported me upon the rock. In my despair I prayed heartily, but it was rather to commend my soul to my Maker, than with any prospect of being rescued from so imminent and horrible a peril. The eyes of the ravenous monsters below seemed to mock my devotion. I felt the roots of the seaweed giving way: the slightest struggle on my part would I knew only hasten my dissolution, and I resigned myself to my fate. In this awful moment I heard a voice calling out my name. It was Mrs Reichardt on the cliff high above me. I answered with all the eagerness of despair. Then there came a heavy splash into the water, and I heard her implore me to endeavour to make for a small shrub that grew in a hollow of the rock, at a very short distance from the tuft of seaweed that had become so serviceable. I looked down. The sharks had all disappeared; I knew, however, that they would shortly return, and lost not a moment in making an effort to better my position in the manner I had been directed. Mrs Reichardt had thrown a heavy stone into the water among the sharks, the loud splash of which had driven them away. Before they again made their appearance, I had caught a firm hold of the twig, and flung myself up into a position of perfect safety. "Thank God he's safe!" I heard Mrs Reichardt exclaim. The sharks did return, but when they found their anticipated prey had escaped, they swam lazily out to sea. "Are you much hurt, Frank Henniker?" she presently cried out to me. "I have not a scratch," I replied. "Then thank God for your deliverance," she added. I did thank God, and Mrs Reichardt joined with me in prayer, and a more fervent thanksgiving than was ours, it is scarcely possible to imagine. Chapter XXXVII I had several times pressed Mrs Reichardt for the conclusion of her story, but she had always seemed reluctant to resume the subject. It was evidently full of painful incidents, and she shrunk from dwelling upon them. At last, one evening we were sitting together, she working with her needle and I employed upon a net she had taught me how to manufacture, and I again led the conversation to the narrative my companion had left unfinished. She sighed heavily and looked distressed. "It is but natural you should expect this of me, my son," she said; "but you little know the suffering caused by my recalling the melancholy events that I have to detail. However, I have led you to expect the entire relation, and, therefore, I will endeavour to realise your anticipations." I assured her I was ready to wait, whenever it might be agreeable for her to narrate the termination of her interesting history. "It will never be agreeable to me," she replied mournfully; "indeed I would forget it, if I could; but that is impossible. The struggle may as well be made now, as at any time. I will therefore commence by informing you, that during our long voyage to the Sandwich Islands, I found ample opportunity for studying the disposition of my husband. He was much changed since he first left me, but his was still the same grateful nature, full of truth and purity, that had won me towards him when a child. A holy enthusiasm seemed now to exalt him above ordinary humanity. I could scarcely ever get him to talk upon any but religious subjects, and those he treated in so earnest and exalted a manner, that it was impossible to avoid being carried away with his eloquence. "He seemed to feel the greatness of his destination, as though it had raised him to an equality with the adventurous Saints, who established the banner of Christ among the Pagan nations of Europe. He was fond of dilating upon the importance of his mission, and of dwelling on the favour that had been vouchsafed him, in causing him to be selected for so high and responsible a duty. "It was evident that he would rather have been sent to associate with the barbarous people whom he expected to make his converts, than have been raised to the richest Bishopric in England. And yet, with this exultation, there was a spirit of deep melancholy pervading his countenance, as well as his discourses, that seemed to imply a sense of danger. The nimbus of the saint in his eyes was associated with the crown of martyrdom. He seemed to look forward to a fatal termination of his ministry, as the most and proper conclusion of his labours. "His conversation often filled me with dread. His intimations of danger seemed at first very shocking, but, at last, I got more familiar with these terrible suggestions, and regarded them as the distempered fancies of an overworked mind. "In this way our long voyage passed, and we arrived at last at our place of destination. When we had disembarked, the scene that presented itself to me was so strange, that I could almost believe I had passed into a new world. The most luxurious vegetation, of a character I had never seen before--the curious buildings--the singular forms of the natives, and their peculiar costume--excited my wonder to an intense degree. "My husband applied himself diligently to learn the language of the people, whilst I as intently studied their habits and customs. We both made rapid progress. "As soon as I could make myself understood, I endeavoured to make friends with the women, particularly with the wives of the great men, and although I was at first the object of more curiosity than regard, I persisted in my endeavours, and succeeded in establishing with many a good understanding. "I found them ignorant of everything that in civilised countries is considered knowledge--their minds being enveloped in the most deplorable darkness--the only semblance of religion in use amongst them, being a brutal and absurd idolatry. "I often tried to lead them to the consideration of more humanising truths, for the purpose of preparing the way for the inculcation of the great mysteries of our holy religion: but the greater portion of my hearers were incompetent to understand what I seemed so desirous of teaching, and my making them comprehend the principles of Christianity appeared to be a hopeless task. "Yet I continued my pious labours, without allowing my exertions to flag--making myself useful to them and their families in every way I could--attending them when sick--giving them presents when well--and showing them every kindness likely to make a favourable impression on their savage natures. In this way I proceeded doing good, till I found an opportunity of being of service to a young girl, about twelve years of age, who was a younger sister of one of the wives of a great chief. She had sprained her ankle and was in great pain, when I applied the proper remedies and gave her speedy relief. Hooloo, for that was her name, from that moment became warmly attached to me, and finding her of an affectionate and ingenuous disposition, I became extremely desirous of improving upon the good impression I had made. "At the same time my husband sought, by his knowledge of the mechanical arts, and some acquaintance with medicine, to recommend himself to the men. He also met with much difficulty at first, in making his information properly appreciated. He sought to increase their comforts--to introduce agricultural implements of a more useful description, and to lead them generally towards the conveniences and decencies of civilisation. He built himself a house, and planted a garden, and cultivated some land, in which he shewed the superior advantages of what he knew, to what they practised. They seemed to marvel much, but continued to go on in their own way. "He also went amongst them as a physician, and having acquired considerable knowledge of medicine and simple surgery, he was enabled to work some cures in fevers and spear wounds, that in course of time made for him so great a reputation, that many of the leading chiefs sent for him when anything ailed them or their families, and they were so well satisfied with what he did for them, that he began to be looked upon as one who was to be treated with particular respect and honour, by all classes of the natives, from the highest to the lowest. "On one occasion the king required his services. He was suffering from a sort of cholic, for which the native doctors could give him no relief. My husband administered some medicines, and stayed with his Majesty until they had the desired effect, and the result being a complete recovery, seemed so astonishing to all the members of his Sandwich Majesty's court, that the doctor was required to administer the same medicine to every one, from the queen to the humblest of her attendants, though all were apparently in good health. He managed to satisfy them with a small portion only of the mixture, which he was quite certain could do them no harm: and they professed to be wonderfully the better for it." Chapter XXXVIII "His reputation had now grown so great, that whatever he required was readily granted. He first desired to have some children sent him; to learn those things which had enabled him to do so much good, and this having been readily sanctioned, we opened a school for girls and boys, in which we taught the first elements of a civilised education. "Finding we made fair progress in this way, we commenced developing our real object, the inculcation of Christian sentiments. This meeting with no opposition, and Reichardt having established a powerful influence over the entire community, he next proceeded with the parents, and earnestly strove to induce them to embrace the profession of Christianity. "His labours were not entirely unproductive. There began to prevail amongst the islanders, a disposition to hear the wondrous discourses of this stranger, and he was employed, day after day, in explaining to large and attentive audiences, the history of the Christian world, and the observances and doctrine of that faith which had been cemented by the blood of the Redeemer. The new and startling subjects of his discourse, as well as the impressive character of his eloquence, frequently deeply moved his hearers; and at his revelations they would often burst forth into piercing shouts and loud expressions of amazement. "In truth it was a moving scene. The noble figure of the Missionary, with his fine features lighted up with the fire of holy enthusiasm, surrounded by a crowd of dusky savages, armed with spears and war clubs, and partly clothed with feathers, in their features shewing traces of unusual excitement, and every now and then joining in a wild chorus, expressive of their wonder, could not have been witnessed by any Christian, without emotion. "But when the ceremony of Baptism was first performed before them, their amazement was increased a thousandfold. The first member of our flock was Hooloo, whom I had instructed so far, in the principles of our faith, and I had acquired such an influence over her mind, that she readily consented to abandon her idolatrous customs and become a Christian. "After a suitable address to the natives, who had assembled in some thousands to witness the spectacle, in which he explained to them the motive and object of baptism, my husband assisted the girl down a sloping green bank which led to a beautiful stream, and walked with her into the water till he was up to his waist; then, after offering up a long and fervent prayer that this first victory over the false worship of the Devil, might be the forerunner of the entire extirpation of idolatry from the land, he, plunging her into the water, baptised her in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. "All the people were awed to silence while the ceremony proceeded, but when it was over they burst forth into a loud cry, and came down to meet the new Christian and my husband as they came out of the water, and waved over them boughs of trees, and danced and shouted as though in an ecstasy. "We however had not proceeded to this extent, without exciting considerable opposition; our disrespect towards their idols had given great offence to those who were identified with the superstitions of the people, and flourished according as these were supported. Complaints were made too of our teaching a new religion, in opposition to the gods they and their fathers had worshipped, and a powerful party was got together for the purpose of pursuing us to destruction. "My husband was summoned before a council of the great chiefs, to hear the accusations that had been brought against him: and the old idolaters got up and abused him, and threatened him with the punishment of their monstrous gods, for telling lies to the people, and deceiving them with forged tales and strange customs. "They sought all they could, to move the judges against him, by painting the terrible fate that would befall them if they failed to kill the white stranger, who had insulted their gods; and they predicted hosts of calamities that were to happen, in consequence of their having allowed the teller of lies to work so much mischief against them. "My husband then being called upon for his defence, first declared to the judges the attributes of the Deity he worshipped: that he created the vast heavens, the stars, the mountains, the rivers, and the sea; his voice spoke in the thunder, and his eye flashed in the lightning. He then dwelt on his goodness to man, especially to the Sandwich Islanders, whom he had created for the purpose of enjoying the fine country around them and of beholding the beauty of the heavens where he dwelt. Then he referred to the gods they had worshipped, and asked how they were made, and what such senseless things could do for them; commenting on their inability to serve them, in any way, or do them any harm; and went on to speak of the benefits he had been able to confer upon them, through the influence of the all powerful God he worshipped; and asked them if he had ever done them anything but good. Lastly, he promised them innumerable benefits, if they would leave their useless gods, and turn to the only God who had the power to serve them. "It is impossible for me to do justice to the animated manner in which he delivered this discourse. It produced great effect upon the majority of his hearers; but there was a powerful minority it still more strongly influenced against him; and they continued to interrupt him with terrible outcries. "Most of the leading chiefs were against his suffering any harm. They bore in mind the advantages he had conferred, by his skill in medicine, and superior wisdom in various other things, which the people would lose were he put to death. They also remembered the hope he held out of future benefits, which of course they could not expect, if they offered him any violence. "The result was, that my husband was suffered to go harmless from the meeting, to the great disappointment of his enemies, who could scarcely be kept from laying violent hands upon him. The danger he had escaped, unfortunately, did not render him more prudent. Far from it. He believed that he was a chosen instrument of the Most High, to win these savages from the depths of idolatry and Paganism; and continued, on every occasion that presented itself, to endeavour to win souls to God. "The school increased, several of the parents suffered themselves to be baptised, and there was a regular observance of the Lord's Day amongst those who belonged to our little flock. Even many of the islanders, although they did not become Christians, attended our religious services, and spoke well of us. "We brought up the young people to be able to teach their brethren and sisters; and hoped to be able to establish missions in other parts of the island, to which we sometimes made excursions; preaching the inestimable blessings of the gospel to the islanders, and exhorting them to abandon their dark customs and heathen follies. I was not far behind my husband in this good work, and acquired as much influence among the women as he exercised over the men: indeed we were generally looked upon as holy people, who deserved to be treated with veneration and respect." Chapter XXXIX "Things went on in this flourishing way for several years; my husband, deeply impressed with the responsibility of his position, as a chosen servant of God, devoted himself so entirely to the great work he had undertaken, that he often seemed to overlook the claims upon his attention of her he had chosen as his partner, in his struggle against the Powers of Darkness. Sometimes I did not see him for several days; and often when we were together, he was so abstracted, he did not seem aware I was present. Whenever I could get him to speak of himself, he would dilate on the unspeakable felicity that he felt in drawing nearer to the end of his work. I affected not to know to what he alluded; but I always felt that he was referring to the impression he entertained of his own speedy dissolution, which he had taken up when he first embraced this mission. "I tried to get rid of my misgivings by recalling the dangers and difficulties we had triumphantly passed, and referring to the encouraging state of things that existed at the present time; nevertheless, I could not prevent a sinking of the heart, whenever I heard him venture upon the subject; and when he was absent from me, I often experienced an agony of anxiety till his return. I saw, however, no real cause of apprehension, and endeavoured to persuade myself none existed; and very probably I should have succeeded, had not my husband so frequently indulged in references to our separation. "Alas," she exclaimed, mournfully, "he was better informed than I was of the proximity of that Celestial Home, for which he had been so long and zealously preparing himself. He, doubtless, had his intimation from on high, that his translation to the realms of bliss, was no remote consequence of his undertaking the mission he had accepted; and he had familiarised his mind to it as a daily duty, and by his constant references had sought to prepare me for the catastrophe he knew to be inevitable." Here Mrs Reichardt became so sensibly affected, that it was some time before she could proceed with her narrative. She, however, did so at last, yet I could see by the tears that traced each other down her wan cheeks, how much her soul was moved by the terrible details into which she was obliged to enter. "In the midst of our success," she presently resumed, "when we had established a congregation, had baptised hundreds of men, women, and children, had completed a regular place of worship, and an extensive school-house, both of which were fully and regularly attended, some European vessel paid us a short visit, soon after which, that dreadful scourge the small-pox, broke out amongst the people. Both children and adults were seized, and as soon as one died a dozen were attacked. "Soon the greatest alarm pervaded the natives; my husband was implored to stop the pestilence, which power they felt convinced he had in his hands. He did all that was possible for him to do, but that unfortunately was very little. His recommendation of remedial measures was rarely attended with the desired results. Death was very busy. The people died in scores, and the survivors, excited by the vindictive men who had formerly sought his death for disparaging their gods, began not only to fall off rapidly in their regard and reverence for my husband, but murmurs first, and execrations afterwards, and violent menaces subsequently, attended him whenever he appeared. "He preached to them resignation to the Divine Will; but resignation was not a savage virtue. He was indefatigable in his attentions to the sick; but those of whom he was most careful seemed the speediest to die. The popular feeling against him increased every hour; he appeared, however, to defy his fate--walking unconcernedly amongst crowds of infuriated savages brandishing heavy clubs, and threatening him with the points of their sharp spears; but his eye never blinked, and his cheek never blanched, and he walked on his way inwardly praising God, careless of the evil passions that raged around him. "It was on a Sabbath morn--our service had far advanced; we could boast of but a limited congregation, for many had died, some had fled from the pestilence into the interior; others had avoided the place in consequence of the threats of their countrymen. A few children, and two or three women, were all their teacher had to address. "We were engaged in singing a Psalm, when a furious crowd, mad with rage, as it seemed, screaming and yelling in the most frightful manner, and brandishing their weapons as though about to attack an enemy, burst into our little chapel, and seized my husband in the midst of his devotions. "I rushed forward to protect him from the numerous weapons that were aimed at his life, but was dragged back by the hair of my head; and with infuriate cries and gestures, that made them look like demons broke loose from hell, they fell upon him with their clubs and spears. "Reichardt made no resistance, he merely clasped his hands the more firmly, and looked up to Heaven the more devoutly, as he continued the Psalm he had commenced before they entered. This did not delay his fate. "They beat out his brains so close to me, that I was covered with his blood, and I believe I should have shared the same fate, had I not fainted with terror at the horrible scene of which I was a forced spectator. "I learned afterwards that some powerful chief interfered, and I was carried away more dead than alive, in which state I long remained. As soon as I became sufficiently strong to be moved, I took advantage of a whaler calling at the island, homeward bound, to beg a passage. The captain heard my lamentable story, took me on board as soon as he could, and shewed a seaman's sympathy for my sufferings. "I was to have returned to England with him, but off this place we encountered a terrible storm, in which we were obliged to take to the boats, as the only chance of saving our lives. What became of him I know not, as the two boats parted company soon after leaving the wreck. I trust he managed to reach the land in safety, and is now in his own country, enjoying all the comforts that can make life covetable. "What became of that part of the crew that brought me here in the other boat, led by the fires you had lighted, I am in doubt. But I think on quitting the island, crowded as their boat was, and in the state of its crew, it was scarcely possible for them to have made the distant island for which they steered." Chapter XL Mrs Reichardt's story made a sensible impression on me. I no longer wondered at the pallor of her countenance, or the air of melancholy that at first seemed so remarkable; she had suffered most severely, and her sufferings were too recent not to have left their effects upon her frame. I thought a good deal about her narrative, and wondered much that men could be got to leave their comfortable homes, and travel thousands and thousands of miles across the fathomless seas, with the hope of converting a nation of treacherous savages, by whom they were sure to be slaughtered at the first outbreak of ill-feeling. I could not but admire the character of Reichardt--in all his actions he had exhibited a marked nobility of nature. He would not present himself before the woman who had the strongest claims upon his gratitude, till he had obtained a position and a reputation that should, in his opinion, make him worthy of her; and though he had a presentiment of the fate that would overtake him, he fulfilled his duties as a missionary with a holy enthusiasm that made him regard his approaching martyrdom as the greatest of all earthly distinctions. I felt regret that I had not known such a man. I knew how much I had lost in having missed such an example. My having heard this story led me into much private communing with myself respecting religion. I could consider myself little better than a savage, like the brutal Sandwich Islanders; my conduct to Jackson had been only in a degree less inhuman than that these idolaters had shewn to their teacher when he was in their power. I fancied at the time that I served him right, for his villainous conduct to my father, and brutal conduct to me: but God having punished him for his misdeeds, I felt satisfied I had no business to put him to greater torment as satisfaction for my own private injuries. I fancied God might have been angry with me, and had kept me on the island as a punishment for my offences; and I had some conversation with Mrs Reichardt on this point. "Nothing," she observed, "can excuse your ill-feeling towards Jackson; he was a bad man, without a doubt, and he deserved condign punishment for his usage of your parents; but the Divine founder of our religion has urged us to return good for evil." "Yes," I answered readily, "but I should have suffered as bad as my father and mother, had I not prevented his doing me mischief." "You do not know that you were to suffer," she replied. "Jackson, without such terrible punishment as he brought upon himself, might eventually have become contrite, and have restored you to your friends as well as enabled you to obtain your grandfather's property. God frequently performs marvellous things with such humble instruments, for he hath said, 'There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-nine just men.'" "Surely, this is raising the wicked man over the good," I cried. "Not at all," she replied. "The repentant is one gained from the ranks of the great enemy--it is as one that was lost and is found again--it is a soul added to the blessed. Therefore the joy in heaven is abundant at such a conversion. The just are the natural heirs of heaven--their rights are acknowledged without dispute--their claim is at once recognised and allowed, and they receive their portion of eternal joy as a matter of course, without there being any necessity for exciting those demonstrations of satisfaction which hail the advent of a sinner saved." "I don't think such a villain as Jackson would ever go to heaven," I observed. "'Judge not, lest ye be judged,'" she answered; "that is a text that cannot be too often impressed upon persons anxious to condemn to eternal torment all those they believe to be worse than themselves. It is great presumption in us poor creatures of clay, to anticipate the proceedings of the Infinite Wisdom. Let us leave the high prerogative of judgment to the Almighty Power, by whom only it is exercised, and in our opinions of even the worst of our fellow-creatures, let us exercise a comprehensive charity, mingled with a prayer that even at the eleventh hour, they may have turned from the evil of their ways, and embraced the prospect of salvation, which the mercy of their Creator has held out to them." In this and similar conversations, Mrs Reichardt would endeavour to plant in my mind the soundest views of religion; and she spoke so well, and so convincingly, that I had little trouble in understanding her meaning, or in retaining it after it had been uttered. It was not, as I have before stated, to religion only that she led my thoughts, although that certainly was the most frequent subject of our conversation. She sought to instruct me in the various branches of knowledge into which she had acquired some insight, and in this way I picked up as much information respecting grammar, geography, astronomy, writing, arithmetic, history, and morals, as I should have gained had I been at a school, instead of being forced to remain on a desolate island. I need not say that I still desired to leave it. I had long been tired of the place, notwithstanding that from our united exertions, we enjoyed many comforts which we could not have hoped for. Our hut we had metamorphosed into something Mrs Reichardt styled a rustic cottage, which, covered as it was with flowers and creepers, really looked very pretty; and the garden added greatly to its pleasant appearance: for near the house we had transplanted everything that bore a flower that could be found in the island, and had planted some shrubs, that, having been carefully nurtured made rapid growth, and screened the hut from the wind. I had built a sort of out-house for storing potatoes and firewood, and a fowl-house for the gannets, which were now a numerous flock; and had planted a fence round the garden, so that as Mrs Reichardt said, we looked as if we had selected a dwelling in our own beloved England, in the heart of a rural district, instead of our being circumscribed in a little island thousands of miles across the wide seas, from the home of which we were so fond of talking. Although my companion always spoke warmly of the land of her birth, and evidently would have been glad to return to it, she never grieved over her hard fate in being, as it were, a prisoner on a rock, out of reach of friends and kindred; indeed, she used to chide me for being impatient of my detention, and insensible of the blessings I enjoyed. "What temptations are we not free from here?" she would say. "We see nothing of the world; we cannot be contaminated with its vices, or suffer from its follies. The hideous wars--the terrible revolutions--the dreadful visitations of famine and pestilence--are completely unknown to us. Robbery, and murder, and fraud, and the thousand other phases of human wickedness, we altogether escape. There was a time, when men, for the purpose of leading holy lives, abandoned the fair cities in which they had lived in the enjoyment of every luxury, and sought a cave in some distant desert, where, in the lair of some wild beast, with a stone for a pillow, a handful of herbs for a meal, and a cup of water for beveridge, they lived out the remnant of their days in a constant succession of mortifications, prayers, and penitence. "How different," she added, "is our own state. We are as far removed from the sinfulness of the world as any hermit of the desert, whilst we have the enjoyment of comforts to which they were strangers." "But probably," I observed, "these men were penitents, and went into the desert as much to punish their bodies for the transgressions of the flesh, as to acquire by solitary communion, a better knowledge of the spirit than they were likely to obtain in their old haunts." "Some were penitents, no doubt," she answered, "but they, having obtained by their sanctity an extraordinary reputation, induced others, whose lives had been blameless, to follow their example, and in time the desert became colonised with recluses, who rivalled each other in the intensity of their devotions and the extent of their privations." "Would it not have been more commendable," I asked, "if these men had remained in the community to which they belonged, withstanding temptation, and been employed in labour that was creditable to themselves and useful to their country?" "No doubt it would," she replied; "but religion has, unfortunately, too often been the result of impulse rather than conviction; and at the period to which we are referring, it was thought that sinful human nature could only gain the attributes of saintship by neglecting its social duties, and punishing its humanity in the severest manner. Even in more recent times, and at the present day, in Catholic countries, it is customary for individuals of both sexes, to abandon the world of which they might render themselves ornaments, and shut themselves up in buildings constructed expressly to receive them, where they continue to go through a course of devotions and privations till death puts an end to their voluntary imprisonment. "In this modified instance of seclusion," she added, "there are features very different from our own case. We are not forced to impoverish our blood with insufficient diet, or mortify our flesh with various forms of punishment. We do not neglect the worship of God. We offer up daily thanks for his loving care of us, and sing his praises in continual hymns: and instead of wasting the hours of the day in unmeaning penances, we fill up our time in employments that add to our health, comfort, and happiness: and that enable us the better to appreciate the goodness of that Power who is so mindful of our welfare." "Have you no wish then, to leave this island?" I inquired. "I should gladly avail myself of the first opportunity that presented itself for getting safely to England," she replied. "But I would wait patiently the proper time. It is not only useless repining at our prolonged stay here, but it looks like an ungrateful doubting of the power of God to remove us. Be assured that he has not preserved us so long, and through so many dangers, to abandon us when we most require his interposition in our favour." I endeavoured to gather consolation from such representations: but perhaps young people are not so easily reconciled to what they do not like, as are their elders, for I cannot say I succeeded in becoming satisfied with my position. Chapter XLI The perils of my first voyage had deterred me from making a similar experiment; but I recovered my boat, and having further strengthened it, fitted it with what could either be turned into a well or locker: I used to row out a little distance when the sea was free from sharks and fish. But my grand effort in this direction was the completion of a net, which, assisted by Mrs Reichardt, I managed to manufacture. By this time she had gained sufficient confidence to accompany me in my fishing excursions; she would even take the oars whilst I threw out the net, and assisted me in dragging it into the boat. The first time we got such a haul, that I was afraid of the safety of our little craft. The locker was full, and numbers of great fish, as I flung them out of the net, were flapping and leaping about the bottom of the boat. It began to sink lower in the water than was agreeable to either of us, and I found it absolutely necessary to throw back into the sea the greater portion of our catch. We then rowed carefully to land, rejoicing that we had at our command, the means of obtaining an abundant supply of food whenever we desired it. Mrs Reichardt was with me also in our land excursions. Together we had explored every part of the island; our chief object was plants for enriching our garden, and often as we had been in search of novelties, we invariably brought home additions to our collection; and my companion having acquired some knowledge of botany, would explain to me the names, characters, and qualities of the different species, which made our journeys peculiarly interesting. Our appearance often caused considerable amusement to each other; for our respective costumes must have been extremely curious in the eyes of a stranger. Neither wore shoes or stockings--these things we did not possess, and could not procure; we wore leggings and sandals of seal skin to protect us from the thorns and plants of the cacti tribe, among which we were obliged to force our way. My companion wore a conical cap of seal skin, and protected her complexion from the sun, by a rude attempt at an umbrella I had made for her. She had on, on these occasions, a pair of coarse cloth trousers, as her own dress would have been torn to pieces before she had got half a mile through the bush; these were surmounted by a tight spencer she had herself manufactured out of a man's waistcoat, and a dimity petticoat, which buttoned up to her throat, and was fastened in the same way at the wrists. My head was covered with a broad-brimmed hat, made of dry grass, which I had myself platted. I wore a sailor's jacket, much the worse for wear, patched with seal skin, over a pair of duck trousers, similarly repaired. Although our expeditions were perfectly harmless, we did not go without weapons. At the instigation of my companion, I had made myself a good stout bow and plenty of arrows, and had exercised myself so frequently at aiming at a mark, as to have acquired very considerable skill in the use of them. I had now several arrows of hard wood tipped with sharp fish-bones, and some with iron nails, in a kind of pouch behind me; in its sheath before me was my American knife, which I used for taking the plants from the ground. I had a basket made of the long grass of the island, slung around me, which served to contain our treasures; and I carried my bow in my hand. My companion, in addition to her umbrella, bore only a long staff, and a small basket tied round her waist that usually contained a little refreshment; for she would say there was no knowing what might occur to delay our return, and therefore it was better to take our meal with us. And not the least agreeable portion of the day's labour was our repast; for we would seat ourselves in some quiet corner, surrounded by flowers, and shaded by the brushwood from the sun, and there eat our dried fish or pick our birds, and roast our potatoes by means of a fire of dried sticks, and wash down our simple dinner with a flask of pure water--the most refreshing portion of our banquet. I had, as I have just stated, attained a singular degree of skill in the use of the bow and arrow, which, as we had no fire-arms, was often of important service in procuring food on land. I had made another use of my skill--an application of it which afforded me a vast deal of satisfaction. My old enemies the sharks used still to frequent a certain portion of the coast in great numbers, and as soon as I became master of my weapon, I would stand as near to the edge of the rock as was safe, and singling out my victim, aim at his upper fin, which I often found had the effect of ridding the place of that fellow. I bore such an intense hatred to these creatures, for the fright they had put me into during my memorable voyage of discovery, and for the slaughter of my beloved Nero, that I determined to wage incessant war against them, as long as I could manufacture an arrow, or a single shark remained on the coast. As we had so often traversed the island without accident, we dreamt not of danger. We had never met with any kind of animals, except our old friends the seals, who kept near the sea. Of birds, the gannets were generally the sole frequenters of the island; but we had seen, at rare intervals, birds of a totally different character, some of which I had shot. Indeed, during our excursions, I was always on the look out for any stranger of the feathered race, that I might exercise my skill upon him. If he proved eatable, he was sure to be very welcome; and even if he could not be cooked, he afforded me some entertainment, in hearing from Mrs Reichardt his name and habits. We had discovered a natural hollow which lay so low that it was quite hid till we came close to it, when we had to descend a steep declivity covered with shrubs. At the bottom was a soil evidently very productive, for we found trees growing there to a considerable height, that were in marked contrast to the shrubby plants that grew in other parts of the island. We called this spot the Happy Valley, and it became a favourite resting-place. I remember on one of these occasions, we had made our dinner after having been several hours employed in seeking for plants, of which we had procured a good supply, and the remains of our meal lay under a great tree, beneath the spreading branches of which we had been resting ourselves. It was quite on the other side of the island, within about a quarter of a mile from the sea. Abundance of curious plants grew about the place, and Mrs Reichardt had wandered to a little distance to examine all within view. I was peering into the trees and shrubs around to discover a new comer. I had wandered in an opposite direction to that taken by my companion, and was creeping round a clump of shrubs about twenty yards off, in which I detected a chirping noise, when I heard a loud scream. I turned sharply round and beheld Mrs Reichardt, evidently in an agony of terror, running towards me with prodigious swiftness. She had dropped her umbrella and her staff, her cap had fallen from her head, and her long hair, disarranged by her sudden flight, streamed behind her shoulders. At first I did not see anything which could have caused this terrible alarm, but in a few seconds I heard a crushing among a thicket of shrubs from which she was running, as if some heavy weight was being forced through them; and presently there issued a most extraordinary monster. It came forward at a quick pace, its head erect above ten feet, its jaws wide open, from the midst of which there issued a forked tongue which darted in and out with inconceivable rapidity. Its body was very long, and thick as an ordinary tree; it was covered over with bright shining scales that seemed to have different colours, and was propelled along the ground in folds of various sizes, with a length of tail of several yards behind. Its eyes were very bright and fierce. Its appearance certainly accounted for my companion's alarm. "Fly!" she cried in accents of intense terror, as she rushed towards me, "fly, or you are lost!" She then gave a hurried glance behind her, and seeing the formidable monster in full chase, she just had power to reach the spot to which I had advanced, and sunk overpowered with terror, fainting at my feet. My first movement was to step across her body for the purpose of disputing the passage of the monster, and in an erect posture, with my bow drawn tight as I could pull it, I waited a few seconds till I could secure a good aim, for I knew everything depended on my steadiness and resolution. On came my prodigious antagonist, making a terrible hissing as he approached, his eyes flashing, his jaws expanded as if he intended to swallow me at a mouthful, and the enormous folds of his huge body passing like wheels over the ground, crushing the thick plants that came in their way like grass. I must acknowledge that in my heart I felt a strange sinking sensation, but I remembered that our only chance of escape lay in giving the monster a mortal wound, and the imminence of the danger seemed to afford me the resolution I required. He was close behind, and in a direct line with the tree under which we had dined, and I was about twenty yards from it. Directly his head darted round and in front of the tree, making a good mark, I let fly the arrow direct, as I thought, for his eye, hoping, by penetrating his brain, to settle him at once. But as he moved his head at that moment, the arrow went into his open jaws, one of which it penetrated, and going deep into the tree behind, pinned his head close to the bark. As soon as the huge creature found himself hurt, he wound his enormous body round the trunk, and with his desperate exertions swayed the great tree backwards and forwards, as I would have done one of its smallest branches. Fearful that he would liberate himself before I could save my senseless companion, as quick as possible I discharged all my arrows into his body, which took effect in various places. His exertions then became so terrible that I hastily snatched up Mrs Reichardt in my arms, and with a fright that seemed to give me supernatural strength, I ran as fast as I could the shortest way to our hut. Fortunately, before I had gone half a mile, my companion came to her senses, and was able to continue her flight. We got home at last, half dead with fatigue and fright; nevertheless the first thing we did was to barricade all the entrances. We left loop-holes to reconnoitre; and there we sat for hours after our arrival, waiting the monster's approach in fear and trembling. We did not go to sleep that night. We did not, either of us, go out the next day. The next night one watched while the other slept. The second day my courage had so far returned, I wanted to go and look after the constant subject of our conversation. But Mrs Reichardt dissuaded me. She told me it was an enormous python, or serpent of the boa species, that are common on the northern coast of America. Probably it had been brought to the island on a drifted tree, and being so prodigious a reptile, the wounds it had received were not likely to do it much harm, and it would be no doubt lurking about, ready to pounce upon either of us directly we appeared. On the third day, nothing having occurred to increase our alarm, I determined to know the worst; so I got by stealth out of the house, and armed with a fresh bow, a good supply of arrows, a hatchet slung at my side, and my American knife--with my mind made up for another conflict if necessary--I crept stealthily along, with my eyes awake to the slightest motion, and my ears open to the slightest sound, till I approached the scene of my late unequal struggle. I must own I began to draw my breath rather rapidly, and my heart beat more quickly, as I came near the place where I had left my terrible enemy. To my extreme surprise the python had disappeared. There was a tree still standing, though its foliage and branches strewed the ground, and a great portion of its bark was ground to powder. At the base of the trunk was a pool of blood mingled with fragments of bark, broken arrows, leaves, and mould. The reptile had escaped. But where was he? Not altogether without anxiety I began to look for traces of his retreat; and they were easily found. With my arrow ready for immediate flight, I followed a stream of blood that was still visible on the grass, and led from the tree, accompanied by unmistakable marks of the great serpent's progress, in a direct line to the sea. There it disappeared. When I discovered this, I breathed again. There was no doubt if the monster survived the conflict, he was hundreds of miles away, and was not likely to return to a place where he had received so rough a welcome. It may readily be believed I lost no time in taking the agreeable news to my companion. Chapter XLII I had become tired of looking out for a ship. Though day after day, and week after week, I made the most careful scrutiny with my glass, as I have said, it brought no result. I sometimes fancied I saw a vessel appearing in the line of the horizon, and I would pile up faggots and light them, and throw on water to make them smoke, as Jackson had done; but all without avail. Either my vision had deceived me, or my signals had not been observed, or the ship's course did not lie in the direction of the island. We had had storms too on several occasions, but no wreck had been left on our coast. I began to think we were doomed to live out our lives on this rock, and frequently found myself striving very manfully to be resigned to my fate, and for a few days I would cheerfully endeavour to make the best of it. But the increasing desire I felt to get to England, that I might seek out my grandfather, and put him in possession of his diamonds, always prevented this state of things enduring very long. I had obtained from Mrs Reichardt an idea of the value of these stones, and of the importance of their restoration to my relative, and I had often thought of the satisfaction I should enjoy in presenting myself before him, as the restorer of such valuable property, which, no doubt, had long since been given up as lost. But latterly, I thought less of these things; the chance of leaving the island seemed so remote, and the prospect of ever seeing my grandfather so very distant, that I had ceased to take any interest in the contents of the belt. The diamonds seemed to become as valueless as they were useless; a handful of wheat would have been much more desirable. It was now some time since I had seen the belt, or inquired about it. Thus we lived without any incident occurring worth relating--when one day the appearance of the atmosphere indicated a storm, and a very violent hurricane, attended with peals of thunder and lurid flashes of lightning, lasted during the whole of the day and evening. The wind tore up the trees by the roots, blew down our outhouses, made terrible havoc in our garden, and threatened to tumble our hut over our heads. We could not think of going to our beds whilst such a tempest was raging around us, so we sat up, listening to the creaking of the boards, and anticipating every moment that the whole fabric would be blown to pieces. Fortunately, the bark with which I had covered the roof, in a great measure protected us from the rain, which came down in torrents; but every part was not equally impervious, and our discomfort was increased by seeing the water drip through, and form pools on the floor. The thunder still continued at intervals, and was sometimes so loud as to have a most startling effect upon us. My companion knelt down and said her prayers with great fervour, and I joined in them with scarcely less devotion. Indeed it was an awful night, and our position, though under shelter, was not without danger. The incessant flashes of lightning seemed to play round our edifice, as if determined to set it in a blaze; and the dreadful peals of thunder that followed, rolled over our heads, as if about to burst upon the creaking boards that shut us from its fury. I fancied once or twice that I heard during the storm bursts of sound quite different in character from the peals of thunder. They were not so loud, and did not reverberate so much; they seemed to come nearer, and then the difference in sound became very perceptible. "Great God!" exclaimed Mrs Reichardt, starting up from her kneeling posture, "that is a gun from some ship." The wind seemed less boisterous for a few seconds, and the thunder ceased. We listened breathlessly for the loud boom we had just heard, but it was not repeated. In a moment afterwards our ears were startled by the most terrifying combination of screams, shrieks, cries, and wailings I had ever heard. My blood seemed chilled in my veins. "A ship has just struck," whispered my companion, scarcely above her breath. "The Lord have mercy on the crew!" She sank on her knees again in prayer, as if for the poor souls who were struggling in the jaws of death. The wind still howled, and the thunder still roared, but in the fiercest war of the elements, I fancied I could every now and then hear the piercing shrieks sent up to heaven for assistance. I thought once or twice of venturing out, but I remembered the safety of my companion was so completely bound up with my own, that I could not reconcile myself to leaving her; and I was also well aware, that till the terrible fury of the tempest abated, it was impossible for me to be of the slightest service to the people of the wrecked ship, even could I remain unharmed exposed to the violence of the weather. I however awaited with much impatience and intense anxiety till the storm had in some measure spent itself; but this did not occur till sunrise the next morning. The wind fell, the thunder and lightning ceased, the rain was evidently diminishing, and the brightness of the coming day began to burst through the darkest night that had ever visited the island. Mrs Reichardt would not be left behind; it was possible she might be useful, and taking with her a small basket of such things as she imagined might be required, she accompanied me to the rocks nearest the sea. On arriving there, the most extraordinary scene presented itself. The sea was strewed with spars, masts, chests, boats stove in or otherwise injured, casks, empty hen-coops, and innumerable pieces of floating wreck that were continually dashed against the rocks, or were washed ashore, wherever an opening for the sea presented itself. At a little distance lay the remains of a fine ship, her masts gone by the board, her decks open, in fact a complete wreck, over which the sea had but lately been making a clean sweep, carrying overboard everything that could not resist its fury. I could see nothing resembling a human being, though both myself and my companion looked carefully round in the hope of discovering some poor creature, that might need assistance. It appeared, however, as if the people of the ship had taken to their boats, which had been swamped, and most probably all who had ventured into them had been devoured by the sharks. Had the crew remained on board, they would in all probability have been saved; as the vessel had been thrown almost high and dry. As soon as we had satisfied ourselves that no sharks were in the neighbourhood, I launched my little boat, and each taking an oar, we pulled in the direction of the wreck, which we reached in a few minutes. She had heeled over after striking, and the water was quite smooth under her lee. I contrived to climb into the main chains, and from thence on board, and was soon afterwards diligently exploring the ship. I penetrated every place into which I could effect an entrance, marvelling much at the variety of things I beheld. There seemed such an abundance of everything, and of things too quite new to me, that I was bewildered by their novelty and variety. Having discovered a coil of new rope, I hauled it on deck, and soon made fast my little boat to the ship. Then I made a hasty rope ladder which I threw over, and Mrs Reichardt was in a very few minutes standing by my side. Her knowledge was necessary to inform me of the uses of the several strange things I saw, and to select for our own use what was most desirable. She being well acquainted with the interior of a ship, and having explained to me its numerous conveniences, I could not but admire the ingenuity of man, in creating such stupendous machines. The ship having much water in the hold, I was forced to dive into the armoury. It was the first time I had seen such things, and I handled the muskets and pistols with a vast deal of curiosity; as my companion explained to me how they were loaded and fired, I at once saw their advantage over the bow and arrow, and was selecting two or three to carry away, when I hesitated on being assured they would be perfectly useless without ammunition. I might have remained content with my own savage weapons that had already served me so well, had not Mrs Reichardt, in the course of our survey, discovered several tin canisters of powder perfectly uninjured, with abundance of shot and bullets, of which I quickly took possession. From other parts of the vessel we selected bags of grain, barrels of flour, and provisions of various kinds; wearing apparel, boxes of tools, with numerous bottles and jars, with the contents of which I was perfectly unacquainted, though their discovery gave great gratification to my companion. What most excited my wonder, were various kinds of agricultural implements that we found in the hold, and in a short time I was made aware of the proper employment of spades, harrows, ploughs, thrashing-machines, and many other things, of the existence of which I had never before dreamt. We found also quantities of various kinds of seeds and roots, and some sort of twigs growing in pots, which Mrs Reichardt particularly begged me not to leave behind, as they would be of the greatest use to us; and she added that, from various signs, she believed that the ship had been an emigrant vessel going out with settlers, but to what place she could not say. We made no ceremony in breaking open lockers and chests, and every where discovered a variety of things, which, could we transfer to our island, would add greatly to our comfort; but how they were to be got ashore, was a puzzle which neither of us seemed capable of solving. Our little boat would only contain a few of the lighter articles; and as many of these as we could conveniently put together were shortly stowed in her. With this cargo we were about returning, when my companion called my attention to a noise that seemed to come from a distant corner of the vessel, and she laughed and exhibited so much satisfaction that I believed we were close upon some discovery far more important than any we had yet hit upon. We continued to make our way to what seemed to me a very out of the way part of the vessel, led in a great measure by the noises that proceeded from thence. It was so dark here, that we were obliged to get a light, and my companion having procured a ship's lantern, and lighted it by means of a tinderbox, led me to a place where I could discern several animals, most of which were evidently dead. She however ascertained that there were two young calves, three or four sheep, and as many young pigs, still giving very noisy evidence of their existence. She searched about and found some food for them, which they ate with great avidity. The larger animals she told me were cows and horses; but they had fallen down, and gave no signs of life. My companion and myself then entered into a long debate as to how we were to remove the living animals from the dead; and she dwelt very eloquently upon the great advantages that would accrue to us, if we could succeed in transporting to the island the survivors. After giving them a good feed, seeing we could not remove them at present, we descended safely to our boat and gained the shore without any accident. Then having housed our treasures, we were for putting together a raft of the various planks and barrels that were knocking against the rocks, but as I knew this would take a good deal of time, I thought I would inspect the ship's boats, which, bottom upwards, were drifting about within a few yards of us. To our great satisfaction, one I ascertained to be but little injured, and having forced her ashore, with our united exertions we turned her over. In an hour we had made her water-tight, had picked up her oars, and were pulling merrily for the wreck. Chapter XLIII Had the cows or horses been alive, they must have been left behind, for we could not have removed them, but the smaller animals were with comparatively little difficulty got on deck, and they descended with me into the boat. We added a few things that lay handy, and in a few minutes were laughingly driving our four-footed treasures on shore, to the extreme astonishment of the gannets, which seemed as though they would never cease to flap their wings, as their new associates were driven by them. In the same way we removed the most portable of the agricultural implements, bed and bedding, cots, and hammocks, furniture, the framework of a house, preserved provisions of all kinds, a medicine chest, boxes of books, crates of china and glass, all sorts of useful tools, and domestic utensils; in short, in the course of the next two or three weeks, by repeated journeys, we filled every available place we could find with what we had managed to rescue. Then came another terrible storm that lasted two days, after which the wreck having been broken up, was scattered in every direction. I however managed to secure the drift wood, tubs, spars, and chests, which were all got on shore, and proved of the greatest service to me some time afterwards. Numerous as our acquisitions had been in this way, both of us had been infinitely better pleased had we been able to rescue some of the ill-fated crew, to whom they had once belonged. But not one of them could have escaped, and only one body was cast on shore, which was that of a young woman, who lay with her face to the ground, and her wet clothes clinging round her. We turned her carefully over, and I beheld a face that seemed to me wonderfully fair and beautiful. She had escaped the sharks, and had been dead several hours--most probably she had been cast on shore by the waves soon after the ship struck, for she had escaped also the rocks, which, had she been dashed against, would have left fearful signs of their contact on her delicate frame. The sight of her corpse gave me many melancholy thoughts. I thought of the delight she might have caused both of us, had she been saved. What a pleasant companion she might have proved! Indeed, as I looked on her pale cold features, I fancied that she might have reconciled me to ending my existence on the island--ay, even to the abandonment of my favourite scheme of seeking my grandfather to give him back his diamonds. We took her up with as much pity and affection as if she were our nearest and dearest relative, and carried her home and placed her on Mrs Reichardt's bed; and then I laid some planks together, in the shape of what Mrs Reichardt called a coffin--and I dug her a deep grave in the guano. And all the while I found myself crying as I had never cried before, and my heart seemed weary and faint. In solemn silence we carried her to her grave, and read over her the funeral service out of the Prayer-book, kneeling and praying for this nameless creature, whom we had never seen alive, as though she had been our companion for many years; both of us shedding tears for her hapless fate as if we had lost a beloved sister. And when we had filled up her grave and departed, we went home, and passed the most miserable day we had ever had to endure since we had first been cast upon the island. I had now numerous occupations that kept me actively employed. Still I could not for a long time help recalling to mind that pale face that looked so piteously upon me when I first beheld it; and then I would leave off my work, and give myself up to my melancholy thoughts till my attention was called off by some appeal from my companion. I made a kind of monument over the place where she was buried, and planted there the finest flowers we had; and I never passed the spot without a prayer, as if I were approaching holy ground. I must not forget to add, that a few days after the wreck we were agreeably surprised by visitors that, though unexpected, were extremely welcome. I had noticed strange birds wandering about in various parts of the island. On their coming under the notice of my companion, they were immediately recognised as fowls and ducks that had no doubt escaped from the ship. We might now, therefore, constitute ourselves a little colony, of which Mrs Reichardt and myself were the immediate governors, the settlers being a mingled community of calves, sheep, pigs, and poultry, that lived on excellent terms with each other; the quadrupeds having permission to roam where they pleased, and the bipeds being kept within a certain distance of the government house. The old hut had suffered so much from the storm that I determined on building another in a better position, and had recourse to the framework of the house I had taken from the wreck. I had some difficulty in putting the several parts together, but at last succeeded, and a small, but most commodious dwelling was the result. Near it I laid out a new garden, wherein I planted all the orange-trees we had reared, as well as many of the seeds and roots we had brought from the wreck. A little beyond I enclosed a paddock, wherein I planted the twigs we had found in pots, which proved to be fruit trees. When I had done this, I thought of my agricultural implements, and very much desired to make use of a handy plough that was amongst them, when I learned the advantages that might arise from it. At first, I yoked myself to the plough, and Mrs Reichardt held it: this proved such hard and awkward work that I kept projecting all sorts of plans for lessening the labour--the best was that of yoking our calves, and making them pull instead of myself. This was more easily thought of than done. The animals did not prove very apt pupils, but in course of time, with a good deal of patience, and some manoeuvring, I succeeded in making them perform the work they were expected to do. Thus, in building, gardening, planting, and farming, the time flew by quickly, and in the course of the next year the aspect of the place had become quite changed. The guano that enriched the soil made every kind of vegetation thrive with an almost marvellous rapidity and luxuriance. We had a comfortable house, up which a vine was creeping in one place, and a young pear-tree in another. We were supplied with the choicest oranges, and had apples of several kinds. We had abundance of furniture, and an inexhaustible stock of provisions. We had a most gorgeous show of flowers of many different species; our new kitchen garden was full of useful vegetables--young fruit trees were yielding their produce wherever they had been planted--the poultry had more than doubled their number--the calves were taking upon themselves the full dignity of the state of cow and bull--the ewes had numerous lambs--and the pigs had not only grown into excellent pork, but had already produced more than one litter that would be found equally desirable when provisions ran scarce. We had two growing crops, of different kinds of grain, and a large pasture-field fenced round. The Little Savage, at seventeen, had been transformed into a farmer, and the cultivation of the farm and the care of the live stock soon left him no time for indulging in vain longings to leave the island, or useless regrets for the fair creature who, even in death, I had regarded as its greatest ornament. Two years later, still greater improvements, and still greater additions became visible. We were establishing a dairy farm on a small scale, and as our herds and flocks, as well as the pigs and poultry, increased rapidly, we promised in a few years to be the most thriving farmers that had ever lived in that part of the world by the cultivation of the land. Chapter XLIV Although my first experimental voyage had proved so hazardous, now that I was better provided for meeting its perils, I became anxious to make another attempt to circumnavigate the island. The boat that had belonged to the wrecked ship, from the frequent trips I had made in her to and from the shore, I could manage as well as if I had been rowing boats all my life. With the assistance of Mrs Reichardt, who pulled an oar almost as well as myself, we could get her along in very good style, even when heavily laden, and our labours together had taken from her all that timidity which had deterred her from trusting herself with me, when I first ventured from the island. I was, however, very differently circumstanced now, to what I was then. Instead of a frail cockle-shell, that threatened to be capsized by every billow that approached it, and that would scarcely hold two persons comfortably, I was master of a well-built ship's-boat, that would hold half a dozen with ease, and except in very rough weather, was as safe as any place ashore. I had repaired the slight damage its timbers had received, and had made an awning to protect us when rowing from the heat of the sun; I had also raised a sail, which would relieve us of a good deal of labour. When everything was prepared, I urged Mrs Reichardt to accompany me in a voyage round the island; an excursion I hoped would turn out equally pleasant and profitable. I found her very averse to trusting herself farther from shore than was absolutely necessary. She raised all kinds of objections--prominent among which were my want of seamanship for managing a boat in the open sea; the danger that might arise from a sudden squall coming on; her fear of our getting amongst a shoal of sharks, and the risk we ran of driving against a projecting rock; but I overruled them all. I showed her, by taking little trips out to sea, that I could manage the boat either with the sail or the oars, and assured her that by keeping close to the island, we could run ashore before danger could reach us; and that nothing could be easier than our keeping out of the reach of both rocks and sharks. I do not think I quite convinced her that her fears were groundless, but my repeated entreaties, the fineness of the weather, and her dislike to be again left on the island, whilst I was risking my life at sea, prevailed, and she promised to join me in this second experiment. Her forethought, however, was here as fully demonstrated as on other occasions, for she did not suffer the boat to leave the shore till she had provided for any accident that might prevent our return in the anticipated time. A finer day for such a voyage we could not have selected. The sky was without a cloud, and there was just wind enough for the purpose I wanted, without any apprehensions of this being increased. I got up the awning, and spread the sail, and handing Mrs Reichardt to her appointed seat, we bid farewell to our four-footed and two-footed friends ashore, that were gazing at us as if they knew they were parting from their only protectors. I then pushed the boat off, the wind caught the sail, and she glided rapidly through the deep water. I let her proceed in this way about a quarter of a mile from the island, and then tacked; the boat, obedient to the position of the sail, altered her course, and we proceeded at about the same rate for a considerable distance. Mrs Reichardt, notwithstanding her previous fears, could not help feeling the exhilarating effect of this adventurous voyage. We were floating, safely and gracefully, upon the billows, with nothing but sea and sky in every direction but one, where the rugged shores of our island home gave a bold, yet menacing feature to the view. My heart seemed to expand with the majestic prospect before me. Never had mariner, when discovering some prodigious continent, felt a greater degree of exultation than I experienced, when directing my little vessel over the immense wilderness of waters that spread out before me, till it joined the line of the horizon. I sat down by the side of Mrs Reichardt, and allowed the boat to proceed on its course, either as if it required no directing hand, or that its present direction was so agreeable, I felt no inclination to alter it. "I can easily imagine," said I, "the enthusiasm of such men as Columbus, whose discovery of America you were relating to me the other day. The vocation of these early navigators was a glorious one, and, when they had tracked their way over so many thousand miles of pathless water, and found themselves in strange seas, expecting the appearance of land, hitherto unknown to the civilised world, they must have felt the importance of their mission as discoverers." "No doubt, Frank," she replied. "And probably it was this that supported the great man you have just named, in the severe trials he was obliged to endure, on the very eve of the discovery that was to render his name famous to all generations. He had endured intolerable hardships, the ship had been so long without sight of land, that no one thought it worth while to look out for it, and he expected that his crew would mutiny, and insist on returning. At this critical period of his existence, first one indication of land, and then another made itself manifest; the curiosity of the disheartened sailors became excited; hope revived in the breast of their immortal captain; a man was now induced to ascend the main-top, and his joyful cry of land woke up the slumbering spirit of the crew. In this way, a new world was first presented to the attention of the inhabitants of the old." "It appears to me very unjust," I observed, "that so important a discovery should have become known to us, not by the name of its original discoverer, but by that of a subsequent visitor to its shores." "Undoubtedly," said Mrs Reichardt, "it is apparently unfair that Americus Vespucius should obtain an honour which Christopher Columbus alone had deserved. But of the fame which is the natural right of him whose courage and enterprise procured this unrivalled acquisition, no one can deprive him. His gigantic discovery may always be known as America, but the world acknowledges its obligation to Columbus, and knows little beyond the name of his rival." "Were the immediate results of so large an addition to geographical knowledge, as beneficial to the entire human race as they ought to have been?" "I do not think they were. The vast continent then thrown open to the advance of civilisation, may be divided into two portions, the south and the north. The former was inhabited by a harmless effeminate race, who enjoyed many of the refinements of civilisation; their knowledge of the arts, for instance, as shewn to us in the ruins of their cities, was considerable; they possessed extensive buildings in a bold and ornate style of architecture; they made a lavish use of the precious metals, of which the land was extremely rich, and they wore dresses which shewed a certain perfection in the manufacture of textile fabrics, and no slight degree of taste and art in their formation. "The Spaniards, who were led to this part of the continent by a desire to enrich themselves with the gold which the earliest discoverers had found in the new country in considerable quantities, invaded the territories of this peaceful people, and, by their superior knowledge of warlike weapons, and the ignorance of the intentions of their invaders that prevailed amongst the natives of all ranks, by a series of massacres, they were enabled, though comparatively but a small force, to obtain possession of the vast empire that had been established there from time immemorial, and turn it into a Spanish colony. "The blood of this harmless race flowed like water; their great Incas or Emperors were deposed and murdered, their splendid temples plundered of their riches, their nobles and priests tortured to make them change their faith, and the great mass of the people became slaves to their more warlike conquerors. It was in this way the gold of Mexico and Peru enriched the treasury of Spain; but every ingot had the curse of blood upon it, and from that time the Spanish power, then at its height, began to decline in Europe, till it sunk in the scale of nations among the least important. The colonies revolted from the mother country, and became independent states; but the curse that followed the infamous appropriation of the country, seems to cling to the descendants of the first criminals, and neither government nor people prospers; and it is evident that all these independent states must in time be absorbed by a great republic, that has sprung up by peaceable means, as it were at their side, whilst they were content to be colonies." "To what republic do you allude?" "You may remember that I told you that the entire continent was divided into south and north." "Exactly." "The history of the southern portion I have rapidly sketched for you, that of the northern you will find of a totally different character." "Pray let me hear it." "When North America was first discovered, it was found to be inhabited by a race of savages, divided into several tribes. They had no manufactures; they had no knowledge of art or science; they lived in the impenetrable woods in huts, having no pretension to architecture; they went almost entirely naked, were extremely warlike, and fond of hunting, and were known to devour the enemies they killed in battle. "To this barbarous race came a few adventurous men across the stormy Atlantic, from the distant island of England--" "Ah, England!" I exclaimed, "that is the country of my parents--that is the home of my grandfather; let me hear anything you have to say about England." Mrs Reichardt smiled at my animation, but proceeded without making any comment upon what I had said. "England possessed at this period many adventurous spirits, who were ready to dare every danger to obtain for their country a share in the honours which other lands had assumed through the enterprise of their navigators. By such men different portions of the northern continent of America were discovered; the fame of these new lands, their wonderful productiveness and admirable climate, soon spread amongst their countrymen, and from time to time various ships left the English ports with small bands of adventurers, who made what were termed settlements in the country of these savages--not by mercilessly massacring them as the Spaniards had done in the south, and then plundering them of all they possessed, but by purchasing certain districts or pieces of land from the original occupants, which they peacefully cultivated; as their numbers increased, they multiplied their habitations, and obtained by barter of the savages fresh accessions of territory." "The English showed themselves a much more humane people than the Spaniards," I observed. "But did they never come into collision with the wild natives of the country?" "Frequently," Mrs Reichardt replied, "but in some measure this was unavoidable. As new settlers from England landed in the country, they required more land; but the savages were now not inclined to barter; they had become jealous of the strangers, and were desirous of driving them back to their ships before they became too numerous. Acts of hostility were committed by the savages upon the settlers, which were often marked by great brutality: this exasperated the latter, who joined in a warlike association, and notwithstanding their numbers and daring, drove them further and further from their neighbourhood, till either by conquest, treaties, or purchase, the Englishmen or their descendants obtained the greater portion of North America." "Do they still hold possession of it?" I asked. "Up to a recent date, the whole of this vast acquisition was a colony in obedience to the government of England; but a dispute having arisen between the mother country and the colony, a struggle took place, which ended in the latter throwing off all subjection to the laws of England. The extensive provinces joined together in a union of equal privileges and powers, which has since gone by the name of the Government of the United States of North America. This is the great republic to which I just now alluded, that is gradually absorbing the minor Southern States into its--union, and threatens at no very distant date to spread the English language and the English race over the whole continent of America." "Has England then completely lost the country she colonised?" I inquired, feeling more and more interested in the subject. "No, a great portion still remains in her possession," she replied. "The people preserved their allegiance when their neighbours thought proper to rise in revolt, and are now in a state of great prosperity, governed by the laws of England, and supported by her power. The English possessions in North America form an extensive district. It is, however, but an inconsiderable fraction of the vast countries still remaining under the dominion of England. Her territories lie in every quarter of the globe; indeed the sun never sets upon this immense empire--an empire with which the conquests of Alexander, and of Caesar, or the most formidable state that existed in ancient times, cannot for a moment be compared; and when we bear in mind that in all these various climates, and in all these far-distant shores, the flag of our country affords the same protection to the colonist as he would enjoy in his own land, we may entertain some idea of the vast power that government possesses which can make itself respected at so many opposite points from the source whence it emanates." I was so much interested in this description, that I had neglected to notice the rate at which the boat was driving through the water. I now rose with great alacrity to shift the sail, as we had got several miles from the island, and if I did not take care we might be blown out of sight of land. I lost no time in putting her on another tack, but we had not proceeded far in this direction when I found the wind lull, and presently the sail drooped to the mast, and there was a dead calm. It became necessary now to take to our oars, and we were presently pulling with all our strength in the direction of land. This went on for some time till we were both tired, and I was surprised at the little progress we had made. We lay on our oars and took some refreshment, and then pulled with additional vigour; but I began to suspect that we were receding from the land instead of approaching it, and called Mrs Reichardt's attention to the fact of the island diminishing in size notwithstanding the length of time we had been pulling towards it. "Ah, Frank," she said, in a melancholy tone of voice, "I have for some time entertained suspicions that all our strength was being expended in vain. It is very clear that we have got into a current that is every moment taking us farther out to sea, and if a breeze does not soon spring up, we shall lose sight of the island, and then, heaven only knows what will become of us." I shook out the sail, in hopes of its catching sufficient wind to lead us out of the current, but not a breath of air was stirring. We did not possess such a thing as a compass; our provisions were only calculated for a pleasure trip--we had only one small jar of water, and a flask of spirit, a few biscuits, two large cakes, a chicken, and some dried fish. The land was rapidly receding; I could only mark its position with respect to the sun that now was pouring its burning rays upon our little bark. If it had not been for the awning we could not have endured it; the heat was so oppressive. We had been obliged to give over rowing, as much from the fatigue it occasioned, as from the hopelessness of our labour. We now sat with sinking hearts watching the fast retreating land. It had become a point--it diminished to a speck, and as it disappeared from our anxious sight, the sun set in all his glory, and we were drifting at the mercy of the current we knew not where, with nothing but sky and sea all around us. Chapter XLV Vainly I stretched my eyes around the illimitable field of ocean, in hope of discerning some indication of that power whose ships I had been told traversed every sea; but nothing like a vessel was in sight--the mighty waters stretched out like an endless desert on every side. There was no sign of man in all this vast space, except our little boat; and in comparison with this space, how insignificant were the two helpless human beings who sat silent and motionless in that boat awaiting their destiny. The stars came out with marvellous brilliancy. I fancied that I had never seen them appear so bright; but probably the gloominess of my thoughts made them look brighter by contrast. I seemed the centre of a glorious system of worlds revolving above me with a calm and tranquil beauty, that appeared to reproach me for giving way to despair in a scene so lovely. The great mass of water, scarcely moved by a ripple, now appeared lit up with countless fires, and a purplish haze, like a low flame, was visible in every direction. I directed the attention of my companion to this strange appearance. Notwithstanding the intensity of her anxiety, she immediately entered into an explanation of the phenomenon, and attributed it to a peculiarly phosphoric state of the sea, caused by myriads of creatures which possess the quality of the glow-worm, and rising to the surface of the water, made the latter seem as though enveloped in flame. I sat a long time watching the singular appearances that presented themselves whenever I dashed down the oar. It looked as though I was beating fire instead of water, and flame seemed to come from the oar with the drops that fell from it into the sea. In this way hours passed by: we were still floating with the current; the moon and stars were now coldly shining over our heads; the ocean around us was still gleaming with phosphoric fires, when Mrs Reichardt advised me to take some nourishment, and then endeavour to go to sleep, saying she would keep watch and apprise me if anything happened of which it might be advantageous to avail ourselves. The only thing I desired was the appearance of a vessel, or the setting in of a breeze, of which at present not a sign existed. I felt disinclined either to eat or to drink: but I proposed that my companion should make a meal and then go to sleep, as it was much more proper that I should keep watch than herself. The fact was, we were both anxious that the other should be the first to diminish our little stock of food; but as neither would be induced to do this, it was decided that our provisions should be divided into certain portions, which were only to be taken at sunrise and sunset, and that we should during the night relieve each other every three hours in keeping watch, that if we saw land, or a ship, or the wind should spring up, we might consult immediately as to our course. I only succeeded in inducing her to lie down at the bottom of the boat, to obtain a little sleep, previously to her taking my place that I might so rest myself. She first said her usual prayers for the evening, in which I joined, and in a few minutes I was glad to hear by her regular breathing, that she was obtaining that repose of which I was certain she stood greatly in need. I was now the sole observer of the stupendous spectacle that spread out around and above me the most sublime feature in this imposing scene appeared to be the silence which reigned supreme over all. The heavens were as mute as the sea. It looked as if the earth had been engulfed by a second deluge, and all living nature had perished utterly from the face of it. I felt a deep feeling of melancholy stealing over me: and could not forbear reproaching myself for embarking in this hazardous enterprise, and risking a life that I was bound to preserve. What could become of us both I knew not--but I was sensible that if we were not speedily picked up, or made some friendly shore, there existed but little hopes of our surviving many days. I made up my mind that the island we should never see again, and though I had been so anxious for so many years to quit it, now that fate had separated us for ever, I could not console myself for the loss of a home endeared to me by so many recollections. But my great grief was the loss of my grandfather's diamonds. He had now no chance of having them restored to him. If they were found they would become the property of the discoverer; and he would never know how his daughter perished on a rock, and how his grandson was swallowed up by the waters of the great deep. And then I thought of that glorious England I had so long hoped to see, and my heart sunk within me as I gazed out upon the boundless prospect. There was not a voice to murmur consolation, not a hand to offer me assistance. Was I never to see those white cliffs which had been so often described to me, that I could call them to mind as clearly as if they stood in all their pride and beauty before my eyes? How often had I dreamed of approaching the hallowed shores of England--how often had I heard the cheerful voices of her people welcoming the Little Savage to his natural home--how often had I been embraced by my aged grandfather, and received into the happy circle of his friends, with the respect and affection due to his heir. I had dreamed happy dreams, and seen blissful visions; and the result was starvation in an open boat on the illimitable ocean. Mrs Reichardt still slept, and I would not wake her. As long as she was insensible to the dangers of her position she must exist in comparative happiness; to disturb her was to bring her back to a sense of danger and misery, and the recollection that my folly had brought her to this hopeless state. I noticed that a small cloud was making its appearance in the horizon, and almost at the same instant I observed it, I felt a breeze that was just sufficient to flap the sail against the mast. In a few minutes the cloud had greatly increased, and the wind filled the sail. I fancied it blew in a direction contrary to the current; and in the belief that it did so I soon got the boat round, and to my great joy she was presently scudding before the wind at a rate that was sensibly increasing. But the cloud presently began to envelop the heavens, and a thick darkness spread itself like a veil in every direction. The wind blew very fresh, and strained the mast to which the sail had been fixed; and now I began to entertain a new fear: some sudden gust might take the sail and capsize us, or tear it from its fastenings. I would gladly have taken in the sail, but I considered it as rather a hazardous experiment. Mrs Reichardt lay in a position that prevented my getting at it without disturbing her, or running the risk of tipping the boat over, when it would be sure to fill immediately, and sink with us both. Though we could both swim, I felt assured that if we were once in the water, there would remain very little chance of our protracting our lives beyond a few hours. The boat, therefore, continued to run before the wind at a rapid rate, the slight mast creaking, and the sail stretching so tight, I expected every minute that we should be upset. At this moment Mrs Reichardt awoke, and her quick eye immediately took in the full extent of her danger. "We shall be lost," she said hurriedly, "if we do not take in that sail!" I was fully aware of this, but she had seen more of a sailor's perils than I had, and knew better how to meet them. She offered to assist me in taking in the sail, and directing me to be very careful, we proceeded, with the assistance of the awning, to the mast, and after a good deal of labour, and at some risk of being blown into the sea, we succeeded in furling the sail, and unshipping the mast. We were now in quite as much danger from another cause--the surface of the sea, which had been so smooth during the calm, was now so violently agitated by the wind, that the boat kept ascending one great billow only to descend into the trough of another. We often went down almost perpendicularly, and the height seemed every moment increasing; and every time we went thus plunging headlong into the boiling waters, I thought we should be engulfed never to rise; nevertheless, the next minute, up we ascended on the crest of some more fearful wave than any we had hitherto encountered, and down again we plunged in the dark unfathomable abyss that, walled in by foaming mountains of water, appeared yawning to close over us for ever. It was almost entirely dark; we could see only the white foam of the wave over which we were about to pass; save this, it was black below and black above, and impenetrable darkness all around. Mrs Reichardt sat close to me with her hand in mine--she uttered no exclamations of feminine terror--she was more awe-struck than frightened. I believe that she was fully satisfied her last hour had come, for I could hear her murmuring a prayer in which she commended her soul to her Creator. I cannot say that I was in any great degree alarmed--the rapid up and down motion of the boat gave me a sensation of pleasure I had never before experienced. To say the truth, I should have greatly enjoyed being thus at the mercy of the winds and waves, in the midst of a black and stormy night on the trackless ocean, had it not been for my constant thoughts of my companion, and my bitter self-reproaches for having led her into so terrible a danger. I was now, however, called from these reflections, by the necessity of active employment. The boat I found shipped water at every plunge, and if speedy means were not taken to keep the water under, there was little doubt that she would soon fill and go down. I therefore seized the iron kettle we had brought with us to cook our dinner, and began rapidly bailing out the water, which was already over our ankles. We continued to ship water, sometimes more and sometimes less; and Mrs Reichardt, actuated no doubt by the same motives as myself, with a tin pan now assisted me in getting rid of the treacherous element. By our united exertions we kept the water under, and hoped to be able to get rid of the whole of it. About this time it began to rain very heavily, and although the awning protected our heads, so much fell into the boat, that notwithstanding our labours we continued to sit in a pool. We were, however, glad to find that as the rain fell the wind abated, and as the latter subsided, the sea became less violent, and we shipped less water. I was now able by my own exertions to keep the boat tolerably dry, and Mrs Reichardt, ever provident, spread out all the empty vessels she had brought with her to catch the rain, for as she said, we did not know how valuable that water might become in a short time. The rain continued to pour down in a perfect torrent for several hours; at the end of which the sky gradually cleared. The sea, though still rough, presented none of those mountainous waves that a short time before had threatened to annihilate us at every descent, and there was just sufficient breeze to waft us along at a brisk rate with the assistance of our sail. Mrs Reichardt helped me in putting up the mast, and directly we began to feel the breeze, she insisted on my taking some refreshment. It was vitally necessary to both, for our labours had been heavy for several hours. We therefore ate sparingly of our provisions, and washed down our meal with a pannikin of water mingled with a little spirit. Chapter XLVI The morning dawned upon a boundless expanse of sea. The first object that presented itself to my sight was an enormous whale spouting water about a quarter of a mile distant from me; then I observed another, then a third, and subsequently, several more; they presented a singular and picturesque appearance, as one or other of these vast animals was continually throwing up a column of water that caught the rays of the sun, and looked very beautiful in the distance. I looked in vain for land; I looked equally in vain for a ship; there was nothing visible but this shoal of whales, and Mrs Reichardt endeavoured to cheer me by describing the importance of the whale fishery to England, and the perils which the men meet with who pursue the fish for the purpose of wounding them with an iron instrument called a harpoon. I felt much interest in these details; and my companion went into the whole history of a whaling expedition, describing the first discovery of the huge fish from the ship; the pursuit in the boats, and the harpooning of the whale; its struggles after having been wounded; its being towed to the ship's side; the subsequent manufacture of oil from the blubber of the animal, and the preparation of whalebone. In attending to this discourse, I completely forgot that I was being tossed about in the open sea, I knew not where; and where I might be in a short time it would be proved I was equally ignorant: perhaps I should be a corpse floating on the surface of the ocean waiting for a tomb till a shark came that way; perhaps I should be suffering the torments of hunger and thirst; perhaps cast lifeless upon a rock, where my bleached bones would remain the only monument which would then declare that there once existed in these latitudes such a being as the Little Savage. Where now could be the island I, though long so anxious to quit, now was a thousand times more desirous of beholding? I felt that nothing could be more agreeable to me than a glimpse of that wild rocky coast that had so often appeared to me the walls of an intolerable prison. I strained my eyes in vain in every direction; the line of the horizon stretched out uninterrupted by a single break of any kind all around. Where could we be? I often asked myself; but except that we were on the wide ocean, neither myself nor my companion had the slightest idea of our geographical position. We must have been blown a considerable distance during the storm: much farther than the current had taken us from the island. I calculated that we must have passed it by many a mile if we had continued the same course; but the wind had shifted several times, and it might be that we were not so very long a sail from it, could we gain the slightest knowledge of the direction in which it was to be found. But this was hopeless. I felt assured that we must abandon all idea of seeing it again. In the midst of these painful reflections, my companion directed my attention to an object at a very considerable distance, and intimated her impression that it was a ship. Luckily, I had brought my glass with me, and soon was anxiously directing it to the required point. It was a ship: but at so great a distance that it was impossible, as Mrs Reichardt said, for any person on board to distinguish our boat. I would have sailed in that direction, but the wind was contrary: I had, therefore, no alternative but to wait till the ship should approach near enough to make us out; and I passed several hours of the deepest anxiety in watching the course of the distant vessel. She increased in size, so that I could observe that she was a large ship by the unassisted eye; but as we were running before the wind in a totally different direction, there seemed very little chance of our communicating, unless she altered her course. Mrs Reichardt mentioned that signals were made by vessels at a distance to attract each other's attention, and described the various ways in which they communicated the wishes of their respective captains. The only signal I had been in the habit of making was burning quantities of wood on the shore and pouring water on it to make it smoke--this was impossible in our boat. My companion at last suggested that I should tie a table-cloth to the mast; its peculiar whiteness might attract attention. The sail was presently taken in, and the table-cloth spread in its place; but, unfortunately, it soon afterwards came on a dead calm--the breeze died away, and the cloth hung in long folds against the mast. No notice whatever was taken of us. We now took to our oars and pulled in the direction of the ship; but after several hours' hard rowing, our strength had so suffered from our previous fatigues, that we seemed to have made very little distance. In a short time the sun set, and we watched the object of all our hopes with most anxious eyes, till night set in and hid her from our sight. Shortly afterwards a light breeze again sprung up; with renewed hope we gave our sail to the wind, but it bore us in a contrary direction, and when morning dawned we saw no more of the ship. The wind had now again shifted, and bore us briskly along. But where? I had fallen asleep during the preceding night, wearied out with labour and anxiety, and I did not wake till long after daybreak. Mrs Reichardt would not disturb me. In sleep I was insensible to the miseries and dangers of my position. She could not bring herself to disturb a repose that was at once so necessary to mind and body; and I fell into a sweet dream of a new home in that dear England I had prayed so often to see; and bright faces smiled upon me, and voices welcomed me, full of tenderness and affection. I fancied that in one of those faces I recognised my mother, of whose love I had so early been deprived, and that it was paler than all the others, but infinitely more tender and affectionate: then the countenance seemed to grow paler and paler, till it took upon itself the likeness of the fair creature I had buried in the guano, and I thought she embraced me, and her arms were cold as stone, and she pressed her lips to mine, and they gave a chill to my blood that made me shake as with an ague. Suddenly I beheld Jackson with his sightless orbs groping towards me with a knife in his hand, muttering imprecations, and he caught hold of me, and we had a desperate struggle, and he plunged a long knife into my chest, with a loud laugh of derision and malice; and as I felt the blade enter my flesh, I gave a start and jumped up, and alarmed Mrs Reichardt by the wild cry with which I awoke. How strongly was that dream impressed upon my mind; and the features of the different persons who figured in it--how distinctly they were brought before me! My poor mother was as fresh in my recollection as though I had seen her but yesterday, and the sweetness of her looks as she approached me--how I now tried to recall them, and feasted on their memory as though it were a lost blessing. Then the nameless corpse that had been washed from the wreck, how strange it seemed, that after this lapse of time she should appear to me in a dream, as though we had been long attached to each other, and her affections had been through life entirely my own. Poor girl! Perhaps even now some devoted lover mourns her loss; or hopes at no distant date to be able to join her in the new colony, to attain which a cruel destiny had forced her from his arms. Little does he dream of her nameless grave under the guano. Little does he dream that the only colony in which he is likely to join her is that settlement in the great desert of oblivion, over which Death has remained governor from the birth of the world. But the most unpleasant part of the vision was the appearance of Jackson; and it was a long time before I could bring myself to believe that I had not beheld his well known features--that I had not been stabbed by him, and that I was not suffering from the mortal wound he had inflicted. I however at last shook off the delusion, and to Mrs Reichardt's anxious inquiries replied only that I had had a disagreeable dream. In a short time I began to doubt whether the waking was more pleasant than the dreaming--the vast ocean still spread itself before me like a mighty winding sheet, the fair sky, beautiful as it appeared in the rays of the morning sun, I could only regard as a pall--and our little bark was the coffin in which two helpless human beings, though still existing, were waiting interment. "Has God abandoned us?" I asked my companion, "or has He forgotten that two of his creatures are in the deepest peril of their lives, from which He alone can save them?" "Hush! Frank Henniker," exclaimed Mrs Reichardt solemnly; "this is impious. God never abandons those who are worthy of His protection. He will either save them at His own appointed time--or if He think it more desirable, will snatch them from a scene where so many dangers surround them, and place them where there prevails eternal tranquillity, and everlasting bliss. "We should rather rejoice," she added, with increasing seriousness, "that we are thought worthy of being so early taken from a world in which we have met with so many troubles." "But to die in this way," I observed gloomily; "to be left to linger out days of terrible torture, without a hope of relief--I cannot reconcile myself to it." "We must die sooner or later," she said, "and there are many diseases which are fatal after protracted suffering of the most agonising description. These we have been spared. The wretch who lingers in torment, visited by some loathsome disorder, would envy us, could he see the comparatively easy manner in which we are suffered to leave existence. "But I do not myself see the hopelessness of our case," she added. "It is not yet impossible that we may be picked up by a ship, or discover some friendly shore whence we might obtain a passage for England." "I see no prospect of this," said I; "we are apparently out of the track of ships, and if it should be our chance to discover one, the people on board are not likely to observe us. I wish I had never left the island." Mrs Reichardt never reproached me--never so much as reminded me that it was my own fault. She merely added, "It was the will of God." We ate and drank our small rations--my companion always blessing the meal, and offering a thanksgiving for being permitted to enjoy it. I noticed what was left. We had been extremely economical, yet there was barely enough for another day. We determined still further to reduce the trifling portion we allowed ourselves, that we might increase our chance of escape. Chapter XLVII Five days and nights had we been drifting at the mercy of the winds and waves; all our small stock of food had been devoured--though we had hoarded every crumb, as the miser hoards his gold. Even the rain water, as well as the water we had brought with us, we had drained to the last drop. The weather continually alternated from a dead calm to a light breeze: the wind frequently shifted, but I had no strength left to attend to the sail--the boat was abandoned to its own guidance, or rather to that of the wind. When becalmed we lay still--when the breeze sprang up we pursued our course till the sail no longer felt its influence. Five long days and nights--days of intolerable suffering, nights of inexpressible horror. From sunrise to sunset I strained my eyes along the line of the horizon, but nothing but sky and wave ever met my gaze. When it became dark, excited by the deep anxiety I had endured throughout the day, I could not sleep. I fancied I beheld through the darkness monstrous forms mocking and gibbering, and high above them all was reared the head of the enormous python I had combated in the Happy Valley. And he opened his tremendous jaws, as though to swallow me, and displayed fold upon fold of his immense form as if to involve and crush the boat in its mighty involutions. I was always glad when the day dawned, or if the night happened to be fair and starlight; for the spectres vanished when the sun shone, and the tranquil beauty of the stars calmed my soul. I was famishing for want of food--but I suffered most from want of water, for the heat during the day was tremendous, and I became so frantic from thirst, that nothing but the exhortations of Mrs Reichardt would have prevented me from dashing myself into the sea, and drinking my fill of the salt water that looked so tempting and refreshing. My companion sought to encourage me to hope, long after all hope had vanished--then she preached resignation to the Divine Will, and in her own nature gave a practical commentary on her text. I perceived that her voice was getting more and more faint--and that she was becoming hourly more feeble. She was not able to move from her seat, and at last asked me to assist her to lie down at the bottom of the boat. Then I noticed that she prayed fervently, and I could often distinguish my name in these petitions to the throne of Grace. I felt a strange sensation in my head, and my tongue became in my mouth as a dry stick--from this I was relieved by chewing the sleeve of my shirt; but my head grew worse. My eyes too were affected in a strange manner. I continually fancied that I saw ships sailing about at a little distance from me, and I strove to attract their attention by calling to them. My voice was weak and I could create only a kind of half stifled cry. Then I thought I beheld land: fair forests and green pastures spread before me--bright flowers and refreshing fruits grew all around--and I called to my companion to make haste for we were running ashore and should presently be pulling the clustering grapes and should lay ourselves down among the odorous flowers. Mrs Reichardt opened her eyes and gazed at me with a more painful interest. She knew I was haunted by the chimeras created by famine and thirst; but she seemed to have lost all power of speech. She motioned me to join her in prayer; I, however, was too much occupied with the prospect of landing, and paid no attention to her signs. Presently the bright landscape faded away, and I beheld nothing but the wide expanse of water, the circle of which appeared to expand and spread into the sky, and the sky seemed lost and broken up in the water, and for a few minutes they were mixed together in the wildest and strangest confusion. Subsequently to this I must have dropt asleep, for after a while I found myself huddled up in a corner of the boat, and must have fallen there from my seat. I stared about me for some time, unconscious where I was. The bright sun still shone over my head; the everlasting sea still rolled beneath my feet. I looked to the bottom of the boat, and met the upturned gaze of my fellow voyager--the pale face had grown paler, and the expression of the painful eye had become less intelligent. I thought she was as I had seen her in my dream, when she changed from her own likeness to that of the poor drowned girl we buried in the guano. I turned away my gaze--the sight was too painful to look upon. I felt assured that she was dying, and that in a very short space of time, that faithful and affectionate nature I must part from forever. I thought I would make a last effort. Though faint and trembling, burning with fever, and feeling deadly sick, I managed by the support of the awning to crawl to the mast, and embracing it with one arm I raised the glass with the other hand, and looked carefully about. My hand was very unsteady and my eyes seemed dim. I could discern nothing but water. I should have sunk in despair to the bottom of the boat, had I not been attracted at the moment by a singular appearance in the sky. A cloud was approaching of a shape and appearance I had never observed before. I raised the glass again, and after observing this cloud for some time with great attention, I felt assured that what I considered to be long lines of vapour was an immense flock of birds. This discovery interested me--I forgot the intensity of my sufferings in observing the motions of this apparently endless flock. As the first file approached, I looked again, to see if I could make out what they were. God of heaven! They were gannets. I crawled back to my companion as rapidly as my feeble limbs would allow, to inform her of the discovery I had made. Alas! I found that I was unheeded. I could not believe that her fine spirit had fled; no, she moved her hand; but the dull spiritless gaze seemed to warn me that her dissolution was fast approaching. I looked for the spirit flask, and found a few drops were still left there; I poured these into her mouth, and watched the result with the deepest anxiety I had ever known since the day of my birth. In a few minutes I found that she breathed more regularly and distinctly--presently her eyes lost that fixedness which had made them so painful to look upon. Then she recognised me, and took hold of my hand, regarding me with the sweet smile with which I was so familiar. As soon as I found that consciousness had returned, I told her of the great flock of gannets that were evidently wending their way to their customary resting place, and the hope I entertained that if they could be kept in sight, and the wind remained in the same quarter, the boat might be led by them to the place where they laid their eggs. She listened to me with attention, and evidently understood what I said. Her lips moved, and I thought she was returning thanks to God--accepting the flight of the birds as a manifest proof that He was still watching over us. In a few minutes she seemed so much better that she could sit up. I noticed her for some time watching the gannets that now approached in one vast cloud that threatened to shut us out from the sky--she then turned her gaze in an opposite direction, and with a smile of exultation that lit up her wan face as with a glory, stretched her arm out, pointing her hand to a distant portion of the sea. My gaze quickly followed hers, and I fancied I discovered a break in the line of the horizon; but it did not look like a ship. I pointed the glass in that direction, and felt the joyful assurance that we were within sight of land. This additional discovery gave me increased strength: or rather hope now dawning upon us, gave me an impulse I had not felt before. I in my turn became the consoler. I encouraged Mrs Reichardt, with all the arguments of which I was master, to think that we should soon be in safety. She smiled, and something like animation again appeared in her pale features. If I could save her, I felt I should be blessed beyond measure. Such an object was worth striving for; and I did strive. I know not how it was that I gained strength to do what I did on that day; but I felt that I was supported from On High, and as the speck of land that she had first discovered gradually enlarged itself as we approached it, my exertions to secure a speedy rescue for my companion from the jaws of death, continued to increase. The breeze remained fair and we scudded along at a spanking rate, the gannets keeping us company all the way--evidently bound to the same shore. I kept talking to Mrs Reichardt, and endeavouring to raise her spirits with the most cheering description of what we should do when we got ashore, for God would be sure to direct us to some place where we might without difficulty recover our strength. Hitherto she had not spoken, but as soon as we began to distinguish the features of the shore we were approaching she unclosed her lips, and again the same triumphant smile played around them. "Frank Henniker, do you know that rock?" "No!--yes!--can it be possible? O what a gracious Providence has been watching over us!" It was a rock of a remarkable shape that stood a short distance from the fishing-pool. It could not be otherwise, the gannets had led us to their old haunts. We were approaching our island. I looked at my companion--she was praying. I immediately joined with her in thanks-giving for the signal mercy that had been vouchsafed to us, and in little more than an hour had the priceless satisfaction of carrying her from the shore to the cottage, and then we carefully nursed ourselves till we recovered the effects of this dreadful cruise. Chapter XLVIII My numerous pursuits, as I stated in a preceding chapter obliging me to constant occupation, kept me from useless repining about my destiny, in being obliged to live so many years on this far-distant corner of the earth, I had long ceased to look for passing ships--I scarcely ever thought about them, and had given up all speculations about my grandfather's reception of me. I rarely went out to sea, except to fish, and never cared to trouble myself about anything beyond the limited space which had become my inheritance. The reader, then, may judge of my surprise when, one sultry day, I had been busily engaged for several hours cutting down a field of wheat, Mrs Reichardt came running to me with the astounding news that there was a ship off the island, and a boat full of people had just left her, and were rowing towards the rocks. I hastily took the glass she had brought with her, and as soon as I could get to a convenient position, threw myself on the ground on the rock, and reconnoitred through the glass the appearance of the new comers. I soon noticed that a part were well armed, which was not the case with the rest, for they were pinioned in such a manner that they could scarcely move hand or foot. We concealed ourselves by lying our lengths on the grass. As the boat approached, I could discern that the unarmed party belonged to a superior class of men, while many of the others had countenances that did not prepossess me at all in their favour. We lay hid in the long grass, from which we could command a view of our approaching visitors. "I think I understand this," whispered Mrs Reichardt. "There is mischief here." "Had I not better run home and get arms?" I asked. "No," she replied, "you had better not. If we are able to do any good, we must do it by stratagem. Let us watch their movements, and act with great caution." My companion's advice was, I saw, the wisest that could be pursued; and therefore we remained in our hiding places, narrowly observing our visitors as they approached. They entered the fishing-pool, and I could then distinctly not only see but hear them. To my extreme surprise, one of the first men who jumped out of the boat was John Gough, who had brought Mrs Reichardt to the island. He looked older, but I recognised him in a moment, and so did my companion. Her admonitory "Hush!" kept me from betraying the place of our concealment--so great was my astonishment--having long believed him and all his lawless associates to have been lost at sea. He was well armed, and evidently possessed some authority; nevertheless, I thought I could detect an air of concern in his features, as he offered to help one of the captives out of the boat. The latter, however, regarded him with an air of disdain, and, though his hands were tied behind him, leaped ashore without assistance. He was a man of commanding stature, with a well bronzed face, and a look of great energy of character. He wore a band of gold lace round his cap, and had on duck trousers, and a blue jacket and waistcoat. "Come, captain!" exclaimed John Gough, "I bear you no malice. Though you have been rather hard upon us, we won't leave you to starve." "He's a deuced deal better off than he desarves to be," cried a man from the boat, whom I at once recognised as the fellow on whom I had drawn my knife for hurting Nero. "If we had made him walk the plank, as I proposed, I'm blowed if it wouldn't have been much more to the purpose than putting him on this here island, with lots o' prog, and everything calkilated to make him and his domineering officers comfortable for the rest of their days." "Hold your tongue, you mutineering rascal," exclaimed the captain angrily. "A rope's end at the yard-arm will be your deserts before long." "Thank ye kindly, captain," replied the fellow, touching his hat in mockery. "But you must be pleased to remember I ain't caught yet; and we means to have many a jolly cruise in your ship, and get no end o' treasure, before I shall think o' my latter end; and then I means to die like a Christian, and repent o' my sins, and make a much more edifying example than I should exhibit dangling at the end of a rope." The men laughed, the captain muttered something about "pirates and mutineers," but the rest of the officers wisely held their tongues. I now noticed an elderly man of very respectable appearance, who was not pinioned like the rest. His hair was quite white, his complexion very pale, and he looked like one oppressed with deep sorrow and anxiety. He rose from his seat in the boat, and was assisted out by John Gough. "I'm very sorry that we are obliged to leave you here, Mr Evelyn," said Gough, "but you see, sir, we have no alternative. We couldn't keep you with us, for many reasons; and therefore we have been obliged to make you a sharer in the fate of our officers." "And werry painful this is to our feelings, sir, you may believe," said another of the mutineers mockingly. "I'm quite moloncholy as I thinks on it." The men again laughed; but the person so addressed walked to the side of the captain without making any observation. The other captives also left the boat in silence. They were eight in all, but four of them were evidently common seamen by their dress--the others were officers. All were well-made, strong men. "What a precious pretty colony you'll make, my hearties!" exclaimed one of the mutineers, jeeringly, as he helped to land a cask, and some other packages, that they had brought with them. "It's a thousand pities you ain't got no female associates, that you might marry, and settle, and bring up respectable families." "Talking of women," cried the one who had first spoken, "I wonder what became of the one we left here so cleverly when we was wrecked at this here place six years ago." John Gough looked uneasy at this inquiry, as if the recollection was not agreeable to him. "And the Little Savage," continued the fellow, "what was agoing to send his knife into my ribs for summat or other--I forget what. They must have died long ago, I ain't no doubt, as we unfortnitely left 'em nothin' to live upon." "No doubt they died hand in hand, like the Babes in the Wood," said another. I still observed John Gough; he seemed distressed at the turn the conversation had taken. "Now, mates," he said hurriedly, "let us return to the ship. We have done what we came to do." "I votes as we shall go and see arter the Missionary's woman and the Little Savage," cried the fourth. "I should like, somehow, to see whether they be living or not, and a stroll ashore won't do any on us any harm." "I shall remain here till you return," said John Gough; and he threw himself on the grass with his back towards me, and only a few yards from the place in which we were concealed. The rest, after making fast the boat, started off on an exploring expedition, in the direction of the old hut. Chapter XLIX The captives were grouped together, some sitting, and some standing. Not one of them looked dejected at his fate; though I could see by their movements that they were impatient of the bonds that tied them. My attention was most frequently directed to the old gentleman who had been addressed as Mr Evelyn. Notwithstanding the grief expressed in his countenance, it possessed an air of benevolence and kindness of heart that even his settled melancholy did not conceal. I could not understand why, but I felt a deeper interest for this person than for any of the others--a sort of yearning towards him, mingled with a desire to protect him from the malice of his enemies. Almost as soon as they were gone, John Gough beckoned to Mr Evelyn to sit down by his side. Possibly this was done to prevent his assisting his companions to regain their liberty, as he, not being pinioned like the rest, might easily have done, and they might have overpowered their guard before his companions could come to his assistance. But Gough was well armed, and the rest being without weapons of any kind, it was scarcely probable that they would have risked their lives in so desperate an attempt. Mr Evelyn came and quietly sat himself down in the place indicated. I observed him with increasing interest, and singular to relate, the more I gazed on his venerable face, the more strongly I felt assured that I had seen it before. This of course was impossible, nevertheless, the fancy took possession of me, and I experienced a strange sensation of pleasure as I watched the changes his features underwent. "John Gough, I am sorry to see you mixed up in this miserable business," said he, mildly addressing his companion. The other did not answer, and as his back was turned towards me I could not observe the effect the observation had upon him. "The men who have left us I know to be bad men," continued the speaker; "I expect nothing but wickedness from them. But you I am aware have been better brought up. Your responsibility therefore becomes the greater in assisting them in their villainy." "You had better not let them hear you, Mr Evelyn," replied Gough, at last, in something like a surly tone; "I would not answer for the consequences." "Those I do not fear," the other answered. "The results of this transaction can make very little difference to a man on the verge of the grave, who has outlived all his relatives, and has nothing left to fall back upon but the memory of his misfortunes: but to one in the prime of life like yourself, who can boast of friends and relatives who feel an interest in your good name, these results must be serious indeed. What must be the feelings of your respectable father when he learns that you have joined a gang of pirates; how intense must be the grief of your amiable mother when she hears that you have paid the penalty that must sooner or later overtake you for embracing so lawless a life." "Come, Mr Evelyn," exclaimed Gough, though with a tremulousness in his voice that betrayed the state of his feelings, "you have no right to preach to me. I have done as much as I could for you all. The men would have made short work with you, if I had not interposed, and pointed out to them this uninhabited island." "Where it seems you left a poor woman to be starved to death," continued Mr Evelyn. "It was no fault of mine," replied the man; "I did all I could to prevent it." "It would have been more manly if you had remained with her on this rock, and left your cowardly associates to take their selfish course. But you are weak and irresolute, John Gough; too easily persuaded into evil, too slow to follow the impulses of good. The murder of that poor woman is as much your deed as if you had blown her brains out before you abandoned her. Indeed I do not know but what the latter would have been the less criminal." John Gough made no answer. I do not think, however, his mind was quite easy under this accusation, for he seemed restless, and kept playing with his pistols, with his eyes cast down. "Your complicity in this mutiny, too, John Gough, is equally inexcusable," continued Mr Evelyn. "It was your duty to have stood by Captain Manvers and his officers, by which you would have earned their eternal gratitude, and a handsome provision from the owners of the vessel." "It's no use talking of these things now, Mr Evelyn," said Gough, hurriedly. "I have taken my course. It is too late to turn back. Would to God," he added, dashing his hand violently against his brow, "I had had nothing to do with it." "It is never too late, John Gough, to do good," here cried out Mrs Reichardt, as she rose from her place of concealment, as much to my surprise as that of all who could observe her. But nothing could equal the astonishment of Gough when he first caught sight of her features;--he sprang to his feet, leaving his pistols on the ground, and clasping his hands together, exclaimed, "Thank God, she is safe!" "Yes," she replied, approaching him and taking his hand kindly. "By an interposition of Providence, you are saved from the guilt of one murder. In the name of that God who has so signally preserved you against yourself, I command you to abandon your present wicked designs." The man hesitated, but it seemed as if he could not take his gaze from her face, and it was evident that her presence exerted an extraordinary influence over him. In the meantime I had made my appearance on the scene, not less to the astonishment of the lookers-on; and my first act was to take possession of the pair of pistols that Gough had left on the ground; my next to hurry to the group of captives, who had been regarding us, in a state as it were of perfect bewilderment, and with my American knife to cut their bonds. "I will do whatever you think proper," said John Gough. "Believe me I have been reluctantly led into this, and joined the mutiny knowing that I should have been murdered if I did not." "You must endeavour to make what amends are in your power," continued Mrs Reichardt, "by assisting your officers in recovering possession of the ship." "I will gladly assist in whatever they may think feasible," said the man. "But we must first secure the desperate fellows who have just left us, and as we are but poorly provided with weapons, that of itself will be a service of no slight danger. To get possession of the ship I am afraid will be still more hazardous; but you shall find me in the front of every danger." Here Captain Manvers and the others came up to where John Gough and Mrs Reichardt were conversing; he heard Gough's last speech, and he was going to say something, when I interposed by stating that there was no time now for explanations, for in a few minutes the fellows who had gone to the hut would return, and the only way to prepare for them was for the whole party to go to our house, to which Mrs Reichardt would lead them, where they would find plenty of arms and ammunition. In the meantime I would keep watch, and observe their motions, and by firing one of the pistols would signal to them if I was in any danger. Lastly, I recommended that the oars should be removed from the boat, to prevent the mutineers making their escape to the ship. My appearance and discourse attracted general attention. I particularly noticed that Mr Evelyn started as soon as he caught sight of me, and appeared to observe me with singular carefulness; but that, no doubt, arose from my unexpected address, and the strange way in which I had presented myself before him. The Captain approving of my proposal, the whole party, after taking away the boat's oars, moved off rapidly in the direction of the house. I again concealed myself in the grass, and waited the return of the mutineers. They did not remain away long. I could hear them approaching, for they laughed and shouted as they went along loud enough to be heard at a considerable distance. When they began to descend the rocks, they passed so close to me, that I could hear every word that was spoken. "Well, flesh is grass, as the parson says," said Jack; "they must have died sooner or later, if we hadn't parted company with so little ceremony. But, hallo! my eyes and limbs! Where's John Gough? Where's the captain? Where's all on 'em?" It is impossible to express the astonishment of the men on reaching the spot where they had so lately left their prisoners, and discovering that not a trace of them was to be seen. At first they imagined that they had escaped in the boat, but as soon as they saw that the boat was safe, they gave up that idea. Then they fancied John Gough had taken the prisoners to stroll a little distance inland, and they began to shout as loud as their lungs would permit them. Receiving no response, they uttered many strange ejaculations, which I could not then understand, but which I have since learned were profane oaths; and seemed at a loss what to do, whether to wander about the island in search of them, or return to their ship. Only one chanced to be for the former, and the others overruled him, not thinking it was worth their while to take so much trouble as to go rambling about in a strange place. They seemed bent on taking to the boat, when one of them suggested they might get into a scrape if they returned without their companion. They finally resolved on sitting down and waiting his return. Presently, one complained he was very sleepy, as he had been too busy mutineering to turn into his hammock the previous night, and the others acknowledged they also felt an equal want of rest from the same cause. Each began to yawn. They laid themselves at their full length along the grass, and in a short time I could hear by their snoring, as Jackson used to do, that they were asleep. I now crept stealthily towards them on my hands and knees, and they were in such a profound sleep, that I had no difficulty whatever in removing the pistols from their belts. I had just succeeded in this, when I beheld the captain, and John Gough, and Mr Evelyn, and all the rest of them, well armed with guns and pistols, approaching the place where we were. In a few minutes afterwards the mutineers were made prisoners, without their having an opportunity of making the slightest resistance. I was much complimented by the captain for the dexterity with which I had disarmed them; but while I was in conversation with him, it is impossible to express the surprise I felt, on seeing Mr Evelyn suddenly rush towards me from the side of Mrs Reichardt, with whom he had been talking, and, embracing me with the most moving demonstrations of affection, claim me as his grandson. The mystery was soon explained. Mr Evelyn had met so many losses in business as a merchant, that he took the opportunity of a son of his old clerk--who had become a captain of a fine ship, employed in the South American trade--being about to proceed on a trading voyage to that part of the world, to sail in his vessel with a consignment of goods for the South American market. He had also another object, which was to inquire after the fate of his long-lost daughter and son-in-law, of whom he had received no certain intelligence, since the latter took ship with the diamonds he had purchased to return home. The vessel in which they sailed had never been heard of since; and Mr Evelyn had long given up all hopes of seeing either of them again, or the valuable property with which they had been entrusted. On their going to the house, he had asked Mrs Reichardt my name, stating that I so strongly resembled a very dear friend of his, he believed had perished many years ago, that he felt quite an interest in me. The answer he received led to a series of the most earnest inquiries, and Mrs Reichardt satisfied him on every point, showed him all the property that had formerly been in the possession of Mrs Henniker and her husband: related Jackson's story, and convinced him, that though he had lost the daughter for whom he had mourned so long, her representative existed in the Little Savage, who was saving him from the fate for which he had been preserved by the mutineers. I have only to add, that I had the happiness of restoring to my grandfather the diamonds I had obtained from Jackson, which were no doubt very welcome to him, for they not only restored him to affluence, but made him one of the richest merchants upon Change. I was also instrumental in obtaining for the captain the command of his ship, and of restoring discipline amongst the crew. The ringleaders of the mutiny were thrown into irons, and taken home for trial; this resulted in one or two of them being hanged by way of example, and these happened to be the men who so barbarously deserted Mrs Reichardt. She accompanied me to England in Captain Manvers's vessel, for when he heard of the obligations I owed her, my grandfather decided that she should remain with us as long as she lived. We however did not leave the island until we had shown my grandfather, the captain, and his officers, what we had effected during our stay, and every one was surprised that we could have produced a flourishing farm upon a barren rock. I did not fail to show the places where I had had my fight with the python, and where I had been pursued by the sharks, and my narrative of both incidents seemed to astonish my hearers exceedingly. I must not forget to add, that the day before our departure, John Gough came to me privately, and requested my good offices with the captain, that he might be left on the island. He had become a very different character to what he had previously been; and as there could be no question that the repentance he assumed was sincere, I said all I could for him. My recommendation was successful, and I transferred to John Gough all my farm, farming stock, and agricultural implements; moreover, promised to send him whatever he might further require to make his position comfortable. He expressed great gratitude, but desired nothing; only that his family might know that he was well off, and was not likely to return. Perhaps John Gough did not like the risk he ran of being tried for mutiny, or was averse to sailing with his former comrades; but whatever was the cause of his resolution, it is certain that he remained behind when the ship left the island, and may be there to this hour for all I know to the contrary. We made a quick voyage to England, and as my readers will no doubt be glad to hear, the Little Savage landed safely at Plymouth, and was soon cordially welcomed to his grandfather's house in London. THE END. 
28743	----	[Illustration: Twenty white-robed girls in ghost-like procession headed for the Fräulein's room.--Page 189. _Miss Ashton's New Pupil._] MISS ASHTON'S NEW PUPIL A SCHOOL GIRL'S STORY By MRS. S. S. ROBBINS Author of "Hulda Brent's Will," "Paul's Angel," etc., etc. [Illustration] A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER, 52-58 DUANE STREET, NEW YORK. Copyright, 1892, By BRADLEY & WOODRUFF. All Rights Reserved CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Miss Ashton Receives a Letter. 5 II. Marion Enters School. 9 III. Gladys Has a Room-Mate. 16 IV. Settling Down to Work. 22 V. Mrs. Parke's Letter. 27 VI. School Cliques. 33 VII. Aids to Education. 40 VIII. Demosthenic Club. 46 IX. Miss Ashton's Advice. 55 X. Choosing a Profession. 62 XI. Visit of Cousin Abijah. 68 XII. The Tableaux. 73 XIII. Gladys Leaves the Club. 78 XIV. Kate Underwood's Apologies. 84 XV. Miss Ashton's Friday Night. 91 XVI. Storied West Rock. 98 XVII. November Snowstorm. 105 XVIII. The Sleigh-Ride. 112 XIX. Detectives at Work. 120 XX. Repentance. 128 XXI. Accepting a Thanksgiving Invitation. 136 XXII. Aunt Betty's Reception of Her Guest. 143 XXIII. The Academy Girl's Thanksgiving at the Old Homestead. 150 XXIV. Marion's Repentance. 160 XXV. Diphtheria. 167 XXVI. Christmas Coming. 175 XXVII. Christmas in the Academy. 183 XXVIII. Fräulein's Gymnastics. 191 XXIX. Women's Work. 200 XXX. Deceit. 208 XXXI. Marion's Letter from Home. 216 XXXII. Penitent. 223 XXXIII. Spring Vacation. 231 XXXIV. Nemesis. 236 XXXV. Farewell Words. 244 XXXVI. Women's Work. 251 XXXVII. Commencement. 260 MISS ASHTON'S NEW PUPIL. CHAPTER I MISS ASHTON RECEIVES A LETTER. Miss Ashton, principal of the Montrose Academy, established for the higher education of young ladies, sat with a newly arrived letter in her hand, looking with a troubled face over its contents. Letters of this kind were of constant occurrence, but this had in it a different tone from any she had previously received. "It's tender and true," she said to herself. "How sorry I am, I can do nothing for her!" This was the letter:-- DEAR MISS ASHTON,--I have a daughter Marion, now sixteen years old. Developing at this age what we think rather an unusual amount of talent, we are desirous to send her to a good school at the East. We have been at the West twenty years as Home Missionaries. When I tell you that, I need not add that we have been made very happy by being able to save money enough to give Marion at least a year under your kind care, if you can receive her into your school. I think I can safely promise you that she will be faithful and industrious; and I earnestly hope that the lovely Christian character she has sustained at home, may deepen and brighten in the new life which will open to her in the East. May I ask your patience while she is accustoming herself to it; of your kindness I am well assured. Truly yours, E. G. PARKE. "The child of a poor, far western missionary, so different from the class of girls that she will be with here," thought Miss Ashton as she slowly folded the letter. She sat for some time thinking over its contents, then she took her pen, and wrote:-- DEAR MRS. PARKE,--Send your daughter to me. I have great interest in, and sympathy with, all Home Missionary work. I wish I could do something to lighten the expenses she must incur; but this is a chartered institution, and at present all the places to be filled by those who need assistance have been taken. I will, however, bear her in mind; and should she prove a good scholar, exemplary in her behavior, I may be able to render her in the future some acceptable assistance. Wishing you all success in your trying and arduous life, and the help of the great Helper, I am, truly yours, C. S. ASHTON. Miss Ashton did not seal this note; she tossed it upon her desk, meaning to look it over before it was mailed; but she had no time, and, with many misgivings as to what might come of it, she allowed it to go as it was. Her school had never been fuller than it promised to be on the opening of this new year. Through the summer vacation letters had been coming to her from all parts of the country asking to put girls who had finished graded and high school education under her care. Established for many years, the academy had grown from what, in the religious world, was considered a "missionary training-school," and from which many able and faithful women had gone forth to win laurels in the over-ripe harvest fields, to a school better adapted to the wants of the nineteenth century. While it held its religious prestige, it also offered unusual advantages to that important and numerous class of girls who, not wishing a college education, were yet desirous to spend the years that should change them from girls into women in preparation for a future great in its aims, and also great in its results. Miss Ashton, large-hearted and strong-headed, seeing wisely into this future, had succeeded in offering to this class exactly what it had demanded. Ably seconded by an efficient and generous board of trustees, with ample funds, excellent teachers to assist her, a convenient and handsome building in which to hold the school, she had readily made it a success. There were more applications for admittance than she could find room for; indeed, every available corner of the house had been promised when she received Mrs. Parke's letter. Sometimes it happened that a scholar for some unforeseen reason failed to appear; that might make an opening for Marion. She wanted this Western girl; the missionary spirit of olden times came back to her with a warmth and freshness it would have cheered the hearts of the long-absent ones in heathen lands to know. The crowd of scholars began to gather. They came from the north and the south, the east and the west, with a remarkable promptness. On the day for the opening of the term every room was full, and many who had delayed applying for places--taking it for granted there was always a vacancy--were sent disappointed away. There seemed to be positively no spot for Marion; and, in spite of all the cares and perplexities which each day brought her, Miss Ashton could not forget it. It became a positive source of worry to her before she received a letter stating the day on which Marion would arrive. "That's not a good beginning, to be a week after the opening of the term," she thought. "I hope she will bring a good excuse." CHAPTER II. MARION ENTERS SCHOOL. It was a beautiful September twilight when a young girl came timidly into the main entrance of the Young Ladies' Academy at Montrose. Six days and four nights ago she had left her home in Oregon, delayed by the sickness of one of the companions under whose escort she was to come to Massachusetts. Before this journey she had never been more than ten miles from home, and it was a wonderful new world into which the cars so quickly brought her. Mountains, plains, rivers, cities, villages, seemed to fly by her as the train dashed along. She had no time to miss the familiar scenes of her own home. The flat prairie, over whose long reaches gay flowers blossomed, the little villages dotted here and there, with now and then a small, white steeple pointing heavenward,--her father's church among them, with the neat parsonage, so much of which he had built with his own hand, and the dear ones she had left behind her there. To-day she had reached her destination, and a smiling girl had met her at the door and ushered her into the lower corridor of the academy. It was just after tea, an hour given up to social enjoyment, and the corridor was full of young girls, busy and noisy. The stranger shrank back into the recess of the door; she hoped no one would see her: if she could only escape until the principal came, how glad she should be! Little groups kept constantly passing her; many from among them turned their heads and looked at her inquiringly; some smiled and bowed, but no one spoke, until a tall girl who had passed and repassed her a number of times left her party and came to her. "You are our two hundredth!" she said, holding her hand out cordially toward her. "We are glad you have come! Now we are the largest number that have ever been in this school at one time. Shall I take you to Miss Ashton?" Marion held very tight to the hand that was given her as they passed together down through the lines of scholars toward the principal's room. More smiles and cheery nods met her, and now and then she caught "two hundredth" as she passed. A knock at a door was immediately answered by a pleasant "Come in." "Oh, it's you, Dorothy, is it? I'm always glad to see you," said Miss Ashton, rising from the table at which she had been writing. "I've brought you your new pupil," said Dorothy. "And I'm very glad to see her. It is Marion Parke, I presume. You have had a long, hard journey, but you look so well I need not ask how you have borne it." As she was giving Marion this welcome, Miss Ashton, with the quick look by which her long experience had accustomed her to judging something of character, saw in the timid new pupil a very different girl from what in her troubled thoughts of her she had expected her to be. Two large gray eyes from under long, drooping eyelids met hers with an appealing look; lips trembled sensitively as they tried to answer her, and a delicate color came slowly up over the rounded cheeks. "I am very sorry to be late," Marion said with a self-possession that belied the timidity her face expressed; "but sickness of my friends with whom I was to come, detained me." "I had no doubt there was a sufficient reason," Miss Ashton answered kindly. "You are a week behind most of the others, but you can make the time up with diligence. Dorothy, please take Marion to the guest-room for to-night. I will see you later. I am very glad you are here safely. You will have time after tea to write a few lines home. Give my love to your mother, please." Dorothy led the way to the guest-room. It was a pretty room near Miss Ashton's, kept for the convenience of entertaining guests. Dorothy threw open the window-blinds, and Marion saw before her a New England village. In the near distance rose hill upon hill, their sides covered with elegant residences, and what she thought were palaces, crowning their tops. The light of this September twilight covered them with a mantle of gold, lit up the broad river that ran at the base of the hills like a translucent band, turned the tall chimneys of factories in the adjacent city, usually so disfiguring, into minarets, blazing with rich Oriental coloring. "Is it not beautiful?" Dorothy asked, slipping her arm around Marion's waist, and drawing her nearer the window; "we have it always--_always_ to look at, morning, noon, and night, and it is never the same twice. I was born and brought up by the sea, and I've been here three years, yet I love it better and better every day." "I was born and brought up on the prairies." "The land seas," added Dorothy. "How strange they must be! I would like to see the prairies. "The grand thing about this is, it belongs to you all the time you stay here, just as much as if you really owned it; nobody can take it from you; there it is, and there it must remain. That is the reason they built our academy on this high hill, so it should be ours, a part of our education,--'Grow into us,' Miss Ashton says, and it does." While they stood looking at it the twilight deepened; the golden flush faded away. Over hill and river crept the shadows of the night, and out from the adjoining corridor sounded a loud gong, the first one Marion had ever heard. She turned a frightened face toward Dorothy, who said, "Our gong; study hours begin now, so I must go: I shall see you to-morrow." Then she hurried away, and Marion was left alone; but she had hardly gone, before there was a gentle tap upon her door, then it opened, and Miss Benton, one of the teachers, came in. "What, all alone in the dark! That's lonely for a new pupil. Let me light your gas, and then I will take you down to tea; you must be very hungry." Her voice was kind, and her manner gentle. She lighted the gas, then slipped Marion's arm into hers, and took her through the long, bright corridors to the dining-hall. Here, a pleasant-faced matron came to meet her. She gave her a seat at a table, which she told her would be hers permanently, then seated herself by Marion's side and talked to her cheerfully as she ate. It was all so homelike; every one she had met was kind and friendly. It would be her own fault certainly if she were not contented and happy here, Marion thought. Tea over, she tried to find her way alone back to her room, but there were corridors leading to stairs, corridors leading to recitation rooms, corridors leading to a large hall dimly lighted, corridors leading everywhere but where she wanted to go, and, for a wonder, no one to be seen of whom she could ask direction. There was something so ludicrous in the situation, that every now and then Marion burst into a merry little laugh; and after a time one of her laughs was echoed, and, turning, she saw a short, fat little woman with very light hair, and light blue eyes, who came directly to her, holding up two small hands and laughing. "You, new der Mundel," she said; "Two Hundert they call you. What for you hier?" "I've lost my way. I can't find my room," said Marion, still laughing. "What der Raum?" Marion was startled. Was this an insane woman who was walking at large in the corridors? What sort of a jargon was this she was talking to her? Had it been wholly German, or even correct German, Marion would have understood her, at least in part; but this language, what was it? The speaker, much to the amusement of the whole school, used a curious medley of neither English nor German in her attempt to speak the English, seeming to forget the proper use of her own language. Marion answered her now with a half-frightened, "Ma'am?" "You not stand under me? I am your teacher, German. I am Fräulein Sausmann. Berlin I vas born. I teach you der German. Come, tell me, Two Hundert, vere vas your der Raum, vat you call it? Your apart_a_ment, vere you seep?" shutting up her small eyes tight, and leaning her head on one hand, to represent a pillow. "The guest-room," said Marion, now understanding her. "Der guest-room? Oui, oui, Madamoselle. I chap_p_eron you,--come!" Seizing one of Marion's hands, she led her to her room, opening the door, then, standing on the tips of her small feet and kissing her on both cheeks, she said in English, "Good-night," kissed her own hand, and, throwing the kiss toward Marion, disappeared. Marion found her trunk in her room unstrapped, and, tired as she was, began to make preparations for spending the night there. She did not suppose for a moment it was to be permanently hers, but fell asleep wondering what could be next in waiting for her. CHAPTER III. GLADYS HAS A ROOM-MATE. When Dorothy left Marion at the call of the gong for study hours she went at once to her own room. She had two room-mates, both her cousins; one, Gladys Philbrick, was a Florida girl, the only child of a wealthy owner of several orange-groves. She was motherless, and needed a woman's care, and the advantages of a Northern education, so her father sent her to live with relatives in the small seaport town of Rock Cove. The other, Susan Downer, was the child of a sister of Mr. Philbrick; her father followed the sea, and her brother, almost the one boy in Rock Cove who did not look upon a sailor life as the only one worth living, was at the present time a student at the academy at Atherton, only a few miles from Montrose. Dorothy herself was the child of a fisherman--her own mother dead, and she left under the care of a weak stepmother, whose numerous family of small children had made Dorothy's life one of constant hardship. When Mr. Philbrick, in one of his visits to Gladys at the North, became acquainted with this little group of cousins, he had no hesitation--being not only an educated man, but also one of a great heart and generous nature--in making plans for their future education. In carrying these out, he had sent Jerry Downer to Atherton; Gladys, Susan, and Dorothy to Montrose. Her cousins were already busy with their books when Dorothy came into the room; and, careful not to disturb them, she sat quietly down to study her own lessons, but she could not fix her mind upon them. Marion alone down-stairs, homesick, with no one to say a kind word to her, or to tell her about the school, "a stranger in a strange land," she kept repeating to herself; "and such a sweet-looking girl. It's too bad!" Try her best not to, she still found herself watching the hands of the clock. For a wonder she was anxious to have study hours over; she wanted to tell her cousins about Marion. As it proved, they were quite as anxious to hear; for no sooner had the clock struck nine, and the gong struck again for the close, as it had for the opening of study hours, than they shut their books, and Gladys said,-- "Tell us about Two Hundred? What a way you have, Dorothy, of always finding out people who want you!" "She was all alone," said Dorothy, by way of answer; "and she looked so lonely." "Tell us about her," said Susan. "Never mind the lonely; new scholars always are; that's a part of their education, Miss Ashton says. We should have been if we hadn't been all together. What is she like?" "She's lovely," said Dorothy. "She is pretty, and she isn't. Her hair just waves all over her head; and her eyes were blue, and they were hazel, and they were--" "Gray!" put in Gladys. "Yes, I suppose they were gray; but they were all colors, but cat colors, until it grew too dark for me to see her." "We shall like her. I wish she could have a room near us. Her eyes tell true tales." "She can," said Gladys instantly. "She can room with me. I am the only girl in school who hasn't a room-mate. You wait"--and Gladys, without another word, hurried out of the room. She very well knew that after nine Miss Ashton disliked a call unless there was some imperative necessity for it, so she knocked so gently on the closed door that she was hardly heard; and when at last Miss Ashton appeared, she looked so tired, and her smile was so wan, that Gladys, eager as she was, wished she had been more thoughtful; but, in her impulsive way, she blundered out,-- "She can come to me. I'm all alone, you know." "Who can come to you, Gladys?" If it had been any other of her pupils, Miss Ashton would have been surprised; but three years had taught her that this Florida girl was exceptional. "Two Hundred! Dorothy says she is lovely, with big eyes, and lonely"-- "You mean Marion Parke?" "Yes, that's her name. We all call her Two Hundred." "Then you must not call her so any more. It would annoy her." "I never will if you'll please let her come and room with me. It's such a cheerful room, and I'll be ever so nice to her, Miss Ashton; try me, and see." "But, Gladys, you know your father pays me an extra price for your having your room to yourself." "I think, Miss Ashton,"--looking earnestly in Miss Ashton's face,--"he would be ashamed of me if I wasn't willing to share it with her. Please! I'll be as amiable as an angel." Miss Ashton knew the cousins well. She knew, if she excepted Susan, of whom she felt always in doubt, she could hardly have chosen out of her school any girls from whom she would have expected kinder and safer treatment for the new-comer. "How could I have doubted God would provide for this missionary child!" she thought, as she looked down into the earnest face beside her; but she only said,-- "Thank you, Gladys; I will think it over!" and Gladys, not at all sure her offer would be accepted, went back to her room. The next morning, it must be confessed, things looked differently to her from what they had on the previous night. It was such a luxury to have a whole room to herself; to throw her things about "only a little," but that little enough to make it look untidy. She did not exactly wish she had waited until she knew more of Marion, and she tried to excuse her reluctance to herself by the doubt whether she ought not to have consulted her cousins, as their parlor was a room common to them all; but it was too late now, and when she received a little note from Miss Ashton, saying she should send Marion to her directly after breakfast, she made hasty preparations for her reception. The dining-hall was filled with small tables, around which the girls had taken their seats, when Miss Benton came in with Marion. Generally a new-comer was hardly noticed among so many; but the peculiarity of Marion's admittance, rounding their number to the largest the school had ever held, made her a marked character for the time. Every eye was turned upon her as she, wholly unconscious of the attention she attracted, walked quietly behind the teacher to a seat next to Gladys. "Gladys, this is your new room-mate," said Miss Benton. Then she introduced her to the others at the table, and left her. "Grace before meat," whispered Gladys to her as the customary signal for asking a blessing was given. Miss Ashton rose, and every head in the crowded hall was reverently bowed as she prayed. They were the first words of prayer Marion had heard since she knelt by her father's side in the far-away home on the morning of her departure. "The same God here as there!" Among this crowd of strangers this thought came to her with the comfort its realization everywhere, and at all times, brings. Even here, she was not alone. There was a low-toned, pleasant hum of conversation at the table during breakfast; the teacher who presided drew Marion skilfully into it now and then; and she was the centre of a little group as the school went from the hall to the chapel, where a short religious service was every morning conducted. This was under Miss Ashton's special care, and she took great pains to make it the keynote of the school-life for the day. So far in the term, what she said had its bearing on the immediate duties before them; but this morning she had felt the need of meeting the cases of homesickness with which the opening of every new year abounded, and which seemed, to the pupils at least, matters of the greatest and saddest importance. She chose one of the most cheerful hymns in the collection they used, by which to bring the tone of the school into harmony with her remarks; and, after it was sung, she said:-- CHAPTER IV. SETTLING DOWN TO WORK. "If I were to ask, which I am too wise to do,"--here a smile broke out over the faces of her audience--"those among you who are homesick to rise, how many do you suppose I should see upon their feet?" A laugh now, and a good deal of elbow-nudging among the girls. "In the twenty years I have been principal of this academy, I have seen a great deal of this sickness, and I have sympathy with, and pity for it. It has been often told us that the Swiss, away from their Alpine homes, often die of it, but I have never yet found a case that was in the least danger of becoming fatal; so far from it, I might say, that when, since the Comforter sent to us in all our troubles has taken the sickness under his healing care, my most homesick pupils have become my happiest and most contented; so, if I do not seem to suffer with you, my suffering pupils, it is because I have no fear of the result. "I have a prescription to offer you this morning. Love your home--the more the better; but keep a great place in your hearts for your studies. Give us good recitations in the place of tears. _Study_--study cheerfully, earnestly, faithfully, and if this fails to cure you, come and tell me. I shall see I have made a wrong diagnosis of your condition." Another laugh over the room, in which some of the unhappy ones were seen to join. "A few words more. I take it for granted that when a young girl comes to join my school, she comes as a lady. There are qualifications needed to establish one's claim to the title. I shall state them briefly:-- "Kindness to, and thoughtfulness of, others; politeness, even in trifles; courtesy that wins hearts, generosity that makes friends, unselfishness that loves another better than one's self, integrity that commands confidence, neatness which attracts; tastefulness, a true woman's strength; good manners, without which all my list of virtues is in vain; cleanliness next to godliness; and, above all, true godliness that makes the noblest type of woman,--a Christian lady." Then she offered a short, fervent prayer, and the school filed out quietly to the different class-rooms for their morning recitations. She spoke to Marion as she passed her, and Marion knew that the dreaded hour of her examination had come. She followed Miss Ashton to a room set apart for such purposes; and, to her surprise, the first words the principal said to her were,-- "Come and sit down by me, Marion, and tell me all about your home!" "About home!" Marion's heart was very tender this morning, and when she raised her eyes to Miss Ashton, they were full of tears. "I want to learn more of your mother,"--no notice was taken of the tears. "I had such a nice letter from her about your coming, so nice that, though I hadn't even a corner to put you in, I could not resist receiving you; and now you are invited to come into the very rooms where I should have been most satisfied to put you. I will tell you about your future room-mates; I think you will be happy there." Then she told her of the three cousins, dwelling upon their characters generally, leaving Marion to form her particular opinion as she became acquainted with them. What the examination was Marion never could recall. Her father was a college graduate. Her mother had been educated at one of our best New England schools, and her own education had been given her with much care by them both. Miss Ashton found her, with the exception of mathematics, easily prepared to enter her middle class; and the mathematics she had no doubt she could make up. Probably there was not a happier girl among the whole two hundred than Marion when, with a few kind, personal words, Miss Ashton dismissed her. Her past studies approved, and her future so delightfully planned for. Miss Ashton gave her the number of her room in the third corridor, telling her that the same young lady she had seen on the previous night was waiting to receive her. When, after some difficulty, she found her way there, the door was opened by Dorothy, who had been watching for her. "This is our all-together parlor," she said. "Gladys, you know, and Susan,--this is my cousin, Susan Downer. We are glad to have you with us." It was a simple welcome, but it was hearty, and we all know how much that means. Gladys led her to the window. "Come here first," she said, "and look out." It was the same view she had seen from the guest-room the night before, only now it was soft and tender in the light of a half-clouded autumn sun. "My father said, when he saw it, it ought to make us better, nobler, and happier to have this to look at. That was asking a great deal, was not it? because, you see, we get used to it. But there's the sea; you know how the sea looks, never the same twice; because it's still and full of ripples to-day, you don't know but the waves will be tumbling over Judith's Woe to-morrow." "I never saw the ocean," said Marion. "That is one of the great things I have come to the East to see." "Never saw the ocean?" repeated Gladys, looking at Marion as curiously as if she had told her she never saw the sun. "Oh, what a treat you have before you! I almost envy you. This is well enough for a landscape, but the seascapes leave you nothing to desire. Now, come to our room. You are to chum with me, and we will be awful good and kind to each other, won't we?" "How happy I shall be here!" was Marion's answer, as she looked around the rooms. "I wish my mother could see it all!" "I wish she could," said Dorothy kindly. The rooms in this academy building were planned in suites,--a parlor, with two bedrooms opening from it. These accommodated four pupils, unless, as was frequently the case, some parents wished their daughter--as did Gladys's father--to have her sleeping-room to herself. In this case extra payment was made. Marion found her trunk already in Gladys's room, and the work of settling down was quickly and pleasantly done, with the help of her three schoolmates. Lucky Marion! She had certainly, so far, begun her Eastern life under the pleasantest auspices. CHAPTER V. MRS. PARKE'S LETTER. And now commenced Marion's work. She was not quite fitted in higher mathematics, and Miss Palmer, not disposed to be too indulgent in a study where stupid girls tried her patience to its utmost every day of her life, conditioned her without hesitation. Miss Jones found her fully up, even before her class, in Latin and Greek; her father having taken special pains in this part of her education, being himself one of the elect in classical studies when in Yale College. Her words of commendation almost made amends to Marion for Miss Palmer's brief dismissal; almost, not quite, for, in common with nine-tenths of the scholars in the academy, Marion "hated mathematics." Miss Sausmann tried her on the pronunciation of a few German gutturals, then patted her on the shoulder and said,-- "Marrione, you vill do vell; you may koom: I vill be most gladness to 'ave you koom. I vill give unto you one, two, three private lessons. You may koom to-day, at four. The stupid class vill not smile at you; you vill make no mistakens." Then she kissed Marion as affectionately as if she had been a dear old friend, and watched her as she went down the long corridor. Some words she said to herself in German, smiled pleasantly, waved two little hands after the retreating figure, and smiled again, this time with some self-congratulatory shakes of the head. The truth was, though German was an elective study, it was by no means a favorite in the school, and, it may be, Miss Sausmann was not a popular teacher. Broken English, too great an affection for, and estimation of the grandeur of, the Fatherland, joined with a quick temper, do not always make a successful teacher. The girls, moreover, had fallen rather into the habit of making fun of her, and this did not add to her happiness. In Marion she thought she saw a friend, and very welcome she was. The arrangement that put four scholars in one room for study, also was not the wisest on the part of the architect of Montrose Academy. If he had taught school for even one year, he would have found how easy it was for a restless scholar to destroy the quiet so essential to all true work. In Marion's room there was not a stupid or a lazy girl; but they committed their lessons at such different times, and in such different ways, that they often proved the greatest annoyance to each other. One of the first obstacles Marion found as she bent herself to real hard work, was the need of a place where her attention was not continually called from her book to something one of her room-mates was doing or saying. To be sure, it was one of the rules of the school that there should be perfect quiet in the room during study hours, but that was absolutely impossible; and Marion, especially with her mathematics, found herself struggling to keep her thoughts upon her lesson, until she grew so nervous that she could not tell _x_ from _y_, or demonstrate the most common proposition in an intelligible way; and now she found to her surprise a new life-lesson waiting for her to learn, one not in books. So far, her life had all been made easy and sure by the wise parents who had never allowed anything to interfere with their child's best interests; as they had made more and greater sacrifices than she ever knew, to send her East for her education, so nothing that could prepare her for it had been forgotten or neglected. The very opportunities she had craved had been granted her, and she found herself hindered by such trifles as Gladys moving restlessly around the room, her own lessons well learned, lifting up a window curtain and letting a glare of sunshine fall over her book, knocking the corner of the study table, pushing a chair; no matter how trifling the disturbance, it meant a distracted attention, and lost time; or, Susan would fidget in her chair, draw long and loud breaths, push away one book noisily and take up another, fix her eyes steadily on Marion, look as if she were watching the slow progress she made, and wondering at it. Even Dorothy, dear, good Dorothy, was not without her share in the annoyance. If she had any occasion to move about the room, "she creeps as if she knew how it troubles me, and was ashamed of me," thought nervous Marion. In her weekly letters home she gave to her mother an exact account of her daily life, and among the hindrances she found this nervous susceptibility was not omitted. It had never occurred to her that it was a thing under her own control, therefore she was not a little surprised when she received the following letter from her mother:-- "MY DEAR CHILD,--You are not starting right. What your room-mates do, or do not do, is none of your concern. Learn at once what I hoped you had learned, at least in part, before leaving home, to fix your mind upon your lesson, to the shutting out of all else while that is being learned. I know how difficult this will seem to you, with your attention distracted by everything so new about you; _but it can be done_, and it must be if you are to acquire in the only way that will be of any true use to you in the future. Remember that the very first thing you are to do, in truth the end and aim of all education, is to develop and strengthen the powers of your mind. Acquisition is, I had almost written, only useful in so far as it tends to this great result. When you leave school, if your memory is stored with all the facts which the curriculum of your school affords, and you lack in the mental control which makes them at your service, your education has only made your mind a lumber-room, full perhaps to overflowing, but useless for the great needs of life. Now you will wonder what all this has to do with your being made uncomfortable, so that you could not study, by the restlessness of your room-mates. If you begin at once to fix your mind, as I hope you will soon be able to do, on your lesson, you will be delighted to find how little you will be disturbed by anything going on around you, and how soon your ability to concentrate your working powers will increase. "Try it faithfully, my dear one, and write me the result. I want to send you one other help, which I am sure you will enjoy. In your studies, make for yourself as much variety as possible. By _that_, I mean when you are tired of your Latin do not take up your Greek; take your mathematics, or your logic, or your literature,--any study that will give you an entire change. Change is rest; and this is truer even in mental work than in physical. Above all, _do not worry_. Nothing deteriorates the mind like this useless worry. When you have done your best over a lesson, do not weary and weaken yourself by fears of failure in your recitation room. Nothing will insure this failure so certainly as to expect it. Cultivate the feeling that your teacher is your friend, and more ready to help you, if you falter, than to blame you. You think Miss Palmer is hard on you in your mathematics, and don't like you. Avoid personalities. At present, you probably annoy Miss Palmer by your blunders; but that is class work, and I do not doubt a little sharpness on her part is good for you; but, out of the recitation room, you are only 'one of the girls,' and if you come in contact with her, I have no doubt you will find her an agreeable lady. There is a tinge of self-consciousness about this, which I am most anxious for you to avoid. I want you to forget there is such a person in the world as Marion Parke, in your school intercourse; but more of this at another time." Here follows a few pages written of the home-life, which Marion reads with great tears in her eyes. What her mother has written her Marion had heard many times before leaving home, but its practical application now made it seem a different thing. She could not help the thought that if her mother had been in her place, had been surrounded as she was by the new life,--the teachers, the scholars, the routine of everyday,--if she had seen the anxious, pale faces of many of the girls when they came into the recitation room, and the tears that were often furtively wiped away after a failure, she would not have thought it so easy to fix your attention on your lesson, undisturbed by any external thing, or to bend your efforts to the development of your mind, above every other purpose: but, after all, the letter was not without its salutary effect; and coming as it did at the beginning of Marion's school career, will prove of great benefit to her. CHAPTER VI. SCHOOL CLIQUES. The trustees of Montrose Academy had not only chosen a fine site upon which to erect the building, but they had also very wisely bought twenty acres of adjacent land, and laid it out in pretty landscape gardening. There was a grove of fine old trees, that they trimmed and made winding paths where the shade was the deepest and the boughs interlaced their arms most gracefully. They cut a narrow driveway, which proved so inviting that, after a short time, there had to appear the inevitable placard, "Trespassing forbidden." A small brook made its way surging down to the broad river that flowed through the town; this they caused to be dammed, and in a short time they had a pond, over which they built fanciful bridges. The pond was large enough for boats; and these, decked with the school color,--a dainty blue,--were always filled with pretty girls, who handled the light oars, if not with skill, at least with grace, and, as Miss Ashton knew, with perfect safety. During the fine days of the matchless September weather, this grove was the favorite resort of the girls through the hours allotted to exercise; and here Marion, having found a quiet, shaded nook where she could be sure of being alone, brought her book and did some of her best studying. "It's easy enough," she thought with much self-gratulation, "to fix your mind on what you are doing, with nothing to disturb you; but it's a different thing when there are three other minds that won't fix at the same time. I just wish mother would try it." One day, however, when her satisfaction was the most complete over an easily mastered Latin lesson, a laughing face peeped down upon her through her canopy of green leaves, and a voice said,-- "Caught you, Marion Parke! Now I'm going straight in to report you to Miss Ashton, and you'll see what you'll get." "What shall I?" asked Marion, laughing back. "She'll ask you very politely to take a seat by her on the sofa, and then she'll look straight in your eyes and she'll say,-- "'I am very sorry, Marion, to find you so soon after joining my school breaking one of my most important regulations.' (She always says regulations; we don't have any rules here.) 'I had expected better things of you, as you are a minister's daughter, and came from the far West.'" "Is studying your lesson, then, breaking a rule?" "Studying it in exercise hours is an unpardonable sin. Don't you know we are sent out into the open air for rest, change, exercise? You ought to be rowing, walking, playing croquet, tennis, base-ball, football. You've to recruit your shattered energies, instead of winding them up to the highest pitch. We've been watching you, but no one liked to tell you, so I came. I won't tell Miss Ashton this time, if you'll promise me solemnly you'll join our croquet party, and always play on our side! Come; we're waiting for you!" "Wait until I come back," said Marion, rising hastily, and gathering up her books. "I didn't know there was any such a rule--regulation, I mean." Then, half frightened and half amused, she went back to the house, straight to Miss Ashton's room. Miss Ashton was busy, but she met her with a smile. "Miss Ashton," said Marion, "I am very sorry; I didn't know it was against your wishes. I found such a lovely, quiet little nook in the grove, and I've been studying there when Mamie Smythe says I ought to have been exercising." "Then you have done wrong," said Miss Ashton gravely. "I understand that the newness of your work makes your lessons difficult, but there is nothing to be gained by overwork. Come to me at some other time, and I will talk with you more about it. Now go, for the pleasantest thing you can find to do in the way of healthful exercise. There are some fine roses in blossom on the lawn; I wish you would pick me a nice, large bunch for my vase. Look at the poor thing! See how drooping the flowers are!" Mamie Smythe's croquet party waited in vain for Marion's return; but on the beautiful lawn, where the late roses were doing their best to prolong their summer beauty, Marion went from bush to bush, picking the fairest, and conning a lesson which somehow seemed to her to be a postscript to her mother's letter, that was, "Study wisely done was the only true study." The lawn itself, cultured and tasteful, had its share, and by no means a small one, in the work of education. Clusters of ornamental trees, dotted here and there over its soft green, were interspersed with lovely flower-beds, in which were growing not only rare flowers, but the dear old blossoms,--candytuft, narcissus, clove-pinks, jonquils, heart's-ease, daffodils, and many another to which the eyes of some of the young girls turned lovingly, for they knew they were blossoming in their dear home garden. As Marion was going to her room, after taking her roses to Miss Ashton, she found Mamie Smythe waiting for her. "O you poor Marion!" she said, catching Marion by the arm, "I--I hope she didn't scold you; she never does--never; but she looks so hurt. I never would have told on you, and nobody would. We all knew you didn't know; I'm so sorry!" "I told on myself," said Marion, laughing, "and she punished me. Don't you see how broken-hearted I am?" "What _did_ she do to you? Why, Marion Parke, she is always good to those who confess and don't wait to be found out!" "She sent me out to pick her a lovely bunch of roses." "Oh!" said Mamie. Then a small crowd of girls gathered round them, Mamie telling them the story in her own peculiar way, much to their amusement; for Mamie was the baby and the wit of the school, a spoiled child at home, a generous, merry favorite at school, a good scholar when she chose to be, but fonder of fun and mischief than of her books, consequently a trouble to her teachers. She was a classmate of Marion, and for some unaccountable reason, as no two could have been more unlike, had taken a great fancy to her, one of those fancies which are apt to abound in any gathering of young girls. Had Marion returned it with equal ardor, the two, even short as the term had been, would be now inseparable; but Marion had her room-mates for company when her lessons left her any time, and Gladys and Dorothy had already learned to love her. As for Susan, she seemed of little account in their room. She would have said of herself that she "moved in a very different circle," and that was true; even a boarding-school has its cliques, and to one of the largest of these Susan prided herself upon belonging. Just what it consisted of it would be difficult to say, certainly not of the best scholars, for then both Gladys and Dorothy would have been there; not of the wealthiest girls, for then, again, Gladys Philbrick was one of the richest girls in the school; not of the most mischievous, or of idlers, for then Miss Ashton would have found some way of separating them; yet there it was, certain girls clubbing together at all hours and in all places, where any intercourse was allowed, to the exclusion of others: walking together, having spreads in each other's rooms, going to concerts, to meetings, anywhere and everywhere, always together. Miss Ashton, in her twenty years of experience had seen a great deal of this; but she had learned that the best way of dealing with it was to be ignorant of it, unless it interfered in some way with the regular duties of the school. This it had only done occasionally, and then had met with prompt discipline. As several of the leaders had graduated the last Commencement, she had hoped, as she had done many times before, only to be disappointed, that the new year would see less of it; but it had seemed to her already to have assumed more importance than ever, so early in the fall term. She very soon saw Mamie Smythe's devotion to Marion, and knowing how fascinating the girl could make herself when she wished, and how genial was Marion's great Western heart, she expected she would be drawn into the clique. On some accounts she wished she might be, for she had already begun to feel that where Marion was, there would be law and order; but, on the whole, she was pleased to see that her new pupil, while she was rapidly making her way into that most difficult of all positions in a school to fill, that of general favorite, was doing so without choosing any girl for her bosom friend. "She helps me," Miss Ashton thought with much self-gratulation, "for she is not only a winsome, merry girl, but a fine scholar, and already her Christian influence begins to tell." CHAPTER VII. AIDS TO EDUCATION. In the prospectus of Montrose Academy was the following sentence:-- "The design of Montrose Academy is the nurture of Christian women. "To this great object they dedicate the choicest instruction, the noblest personal influences, and the refinements of a cultivated home." It was to carry out this, that religious instruction was made prominent. Not only was the Bible a weekly text-book for careful and critical study, but, in accordance with an established custom of the school, among the distinguished men and women who nearly every week gave lectures or addresses to the young ladies, were to be found those who told them of the religious movements and interests of the day. Not only those of our own country, but those of a broader field, covering all the known world. Returned missionaries, with their pathetic stories of their past life. Heads of the great philanthropic societies, each one with its claim of special and immediate importance. Professors for theological seminaries and from prominent colleges, discussing the prevailing questions that were agitating the public mind. Trained scholars in the scientific world, laden with their rich treasures of research into nature's hidden secrets. Musicians of wide repute, who found an inspiration in the glowing young faces before them, that called from them their choicest and their best. Elocutionists, with their pathetic and humorous readings, always finding a ready response in their delighted audience. These, and many others of notoriety, were brought to the academy; for Miss Ashton had not been slow in learning what is so valuable in modern teaching,--_variety_. If there were fewer prayer-meetings in the corridors among pupils and teachers than in olden times, there was in the school more alertness of mind, a steadier, stronger ability to think, and, consequently, to study, and, therefore, judiciously used, more power to grasp, believe in, and love the great Christianity to whose service the academy was dedicated. Nor was it by these lectures alone that the educational advantages were broadened. The library every year received often large and important additions. It would have been curious to note the difference between the literature selected now, and that chosen years ago. Then a work of fiction would have been considered entirely out of place on the shelves of a library consecrated to religious training. Now the pupils had free access to the best works of the best literary authors of the day, in fiction or otherwise. Monthly magazines and newspapers were spread upon the library table. There was but one thing required, that no book taken out should be injured, and that no reading should interfere with the committal of the lessons. In the art gallery the same growth was readily to be seen. The portraits of the early missionaries who had gone out from the school, and whose names had become sainted in the religious world, still hung there; but the walls were covered now with choice paintings,--donations from the rapidly increasing alumnæ, and from friends of the school. Here the art scholars found much to interest and instruct them, not only in the pictures, but in the models and designs, which had been selected with both taste and skill. There was a cabinet of minerals; but this was by no means a favorite with the pupils, though here and there a diligent student might be seen possibly reading "sermons in the stones," who could tell! There seemed, indeed, nothing to be wanting for the "higher education" for which the institution was designed, but that the pupils should accept and improve the privileges offered them. Marion Parke was not the only one who found herself confused by the sudden wealth of opportunity surrounding her. Other pupils had come from the north and the south, the east and the west, many from homes where few, if any, of the advantages of modern life had been known. That Marion should have appreciated, and to some extent have appropriated, them as readily as she did, is a matter of surprise, unless her educated Eastern parents are remembered, also the amenities of her parsonage home. Certain it is, that watching her as so many did, and as is the common fate of every new pupil, there was not detected any of the "verdancy" which so often stamps and injures the young girl. It was the girl next to her who leaned both elbows on the table, and put her food into a capacious mouth on the blade of her knife. It was the one nearly opposite her that talked with her mouth so full she had difficulty in making herself understood; and another, half-way up the table, to whom Miss Barton, the teacher who presided, had occasion to say, when the girl, having handled several pieces of cake in the cake-basket, chose the largest and the best,-- "Whatever we touch here, Maria, we take." A hard thing for Miss Barton to say, and for the girl to hear; but it must be remembered that this is a training as well as a finishing school, and that there is an old adage with much truth in it, that "manners make the man." It may seem a thing almost unnecessary and unkind to suggest, that even the most brilliant scholarship could not give a girl a high standing in a school of this kind, if it were unaccompanied with the thousand little marks of conduct which attest the lady. Maria, after her rebuke from Miss Barton, left the table in a noisy flood of tears, of course the sympathy of all the girls going with her. Miss Barton was pale, and there were tears in her eyes; but no one noticed her, unless it was to throw toward her disapproving looks. The fact was, that she had spoken to Maria again and again, kindly and in private, about this same piece of ill-manners, and the girl had paid no heed to it. There seemed nothing to be left to her but the public rebuke, which, wounding, might cure. Marion took the whole in wonderingly. Was this, then, considered a part of that education for which purpose what seemed to her such a wealth of treasures had been gathered? Here were lectures, libraries, art galleries, beautiful grounds, excellent teachers, a bevy of happy companions, and yet among them so small a thing as a girl's handling cake at the table, and choosing the largest and the best piece, was made a matter of comment and reproof, and, for the first time since she had been in the academy, had raised a little storm of rebellion on the part of pupils towards a teacher. When she went to her room, Susan had already told the others, who sat at different tables, what had happened. Susan was excited and angry, but Dorothy said quietly,-- "And why should Maria have taken the best bit of cake, even if it had been on the top? I wouldn't." "No: you would have been the last girl in the school to take the best of anything," said Gladys, giving Dorothy a hug and a kiss; "and as for Miss Barton, she's a dear, anyway, and I dare say she feels at this moment twice as bad as Maria." "Sensible girl, am I not, Marion?" seeing Marion come into the room. "Don't you take sides in any such things; you mind what I say! Teachers know what they are doing; and if any of us are reproved, why, the long and short of it is, nine times out of ten we deserve it. It's 'for the improvement of our characters' that everything is done here." "I believe you," said Marion heartily; and, trifling as the event was, she put it with the long array of educational advantages which she had come from the far West to seek. "It requires attention to little as well as great things"--she thought, wisely for a girl of sixteen--"to accomplish the object of this finishing-school." CHAPTER VIII. DEMOSTHENIC CLUB. "Well! what of that! If college boys can have secret societies, and the Faculties, to say the least, wink at them, why can't academy girls? I don't see!" This is what Jenny Barton said one evening to a group of girls out in the pretty grove back of the academy building. There were six of them there. Jenny had culled them from the school, as best fitted for her purpose. She had two brothers in Harvard College, and she had been captivated by their stories of the "Hasty Pudding Club," of which they were both members. "So much fun! such a jolly good time! why not, then, for girls, as well as for boys?" When, after the long summer vacation, Jenny came back to school to establish one of these societies, to be called in after years its founder, and at the present time to be its head, this was the height of her ambition, the one thing that she determined to accomplish. These six girls that in the gloaming of this September night are waiting to hear what she has to say were well chosen. There was Lucy Snow, the one great mischief-maker in the school. No teacher but wished her out of her corridor; in truth, no teacher, not even Miss Ashton, who never shrank from the task of trying to make over spoiled pupils, was glad to see her back at the beginning of a new year. There was Kate Underwood, a brilliant girl, a fine scholar, and the best writer in the school. There was Martha Dodd, whose parents were missionaries at Otaheite; but Martha will never put her foot on missionary ground. There was Sophy Kane, who held her head very high because she was second cousin of Kane, the Arctic explorer, and who talked in a grand manner of what she intended to do in her future. There was Mamie Smythe, "chock-full of fun," the girls said, and was never afraid, teachers or no teachers, rules or no rules, of carrying it out. There was Lilly White, red as a peony, large as a travelling giantess, with hands that had to have gloves made specially to fit them, and feet that couldn't hide themselves even in a number ten boot. She was as good-natured as she was uncouth, and never happier than when she was being made a butt of. These were to be the nucleus around which this society was to be formed; and as they threw themselves down on the bed of pine-leaves which carpeted the old stump of a tree upon which Jenny Barton was seated, they were the most characteristic group that could have been chosen out of the school. Jenny had shown her powers of leadership when she made the selection. The opening sentence of this chapter was what she said in reply to some objection which Kate Underwood had offered. Kate liked to be popular, to be admired and courted for her talents: it was the _secret_ society that would prevent this. This, Jenny Barton understood; and in the long debate that followed she met it well. There should be a public occasion now and then. Did not the Harvard societies give splendid spreads, and have an abundance of good times generally? The society was established, and its name, after a long and warm debate, chosen: "The Demosthenic Club." "For we are going to debate, you know; train for lecturers, public readers, ministers, actresses, lawyers, and whatever needs public speaking," said President Jenny. Vice-President Kate Underwood gave her head an expressive toss, and, if it hadn't been too dark to see her smile, there might have been seen something more than the toss; for while they talked, the long twilight had faded away, the little ripples of the lake by whose side they were sitting had gone to sleep on its quiet bosom. The air was full of the chirrup of innumerable insects; two frogs, creeping up from the water, adding a sonorous bass, and the long, slender pine-leaves chimed into this evening lullaby with their sad, sweet, Æolian notes. But little of all of this did this Demosthenic Club notice as, coming out at length from the darkness of the grove, they saw the sky full of stars, the academy windows blazing with gas-light, and knew study hours had been begun. Not to be in their rooms punctually at that hour was an infringement upon the "regulations" not easily excused, and to begin the formation of their society by incurring the displeasure of their teachers did not promise well for their future. "Take off your boots," whispered Mamie Smythe, as they stood hesitating at the door. In a moment every pair of boots was in the girls' hands, and they were creeping softly through the empty corridors toward their respective rooms. As fate would have it, the only one who reached her room was Lilly White. To be sure, Fräulein Sausmann, the German teacher, heard steps in her corridor, and, opening her door a crack, peeped out. When she saw Lilly White creeping along on the toes of her great feet, her boots, like two boats, held one in each hand, she only smiled, and said to herself, "Oh, Fräulein White! She matters not. She studies no times at all," and shut her door. All the others were taken in the very act; and their shoeless feet, their confession of a guilty conscience, were reported to Miss Ashton. "Seven of the girls! that means a conspiracy of some sort," said this wise teacher. "I must keep an eye upon them." How much any one of this "Demosthenic Club" suspected of their detection by their corridor teachers it would be difficult to say, for, except by a glance, no notice was taken of them at the time. Jenny Barton told the others triumphantly at their next secret session, how she had hidden her shoes behind her, and taken little, mincing steps, so to hide her feet, and imitated the whole performance, much to the amusement of the others. "Ah, but!" said Mamie Smythe, "that wasn't half as good as what I did. When I met Miss Stearns pat in the face, and she looked me through and through with those great goggle eyes of hers, I just said, 'O Miss Stearns, I was so thirsty I couldn't study; I had to go and get a drink of ice-water!' "Then the ugly old thing stared at the boots I had forgotten to hide, as much as to say, 'It was very necessary, in order to go over these uncarpeted floors, to take off your boots, I suppose, Mamie Smythe!' If she had only said so right out, I should have answered,-- "'Why, Miss Stearns, I did it so not to make a noise;' that's true, isn't it, now?" looking round among the laughing girls. "And you ought to have added," put in Kate Underwood, "you didn't want to disturb any one in study hours; that was true, wasn't it?" "Exactly what I would have said; but then, when she only goggle-eyed me, what could a girl do?" "Do? Why, do what I did," said Lucy Snow. "I walked right up to Miss Palmer, she's so ill-natured, and likes so much to have us all hate her, that you can do anything with her, and I said,-- "'Miss Palmer! I know it's study hours, but I ate too much of that berry shortcake for tea, and I went to find the matron, to see if she couldn't give me something to ease the pain.' "'I think' said she (the horrid thing), 'if you would put on your boots, it might alleviate the pain; but for fear it should not--you didn't find the matron, I suppose?' "'No, ma'am,' I said, 'I didn't see her; I had to come away no better than I went.' "'I am very sorry for you; you appear to be in great pain.' "I was doubling up like--like a contortionist," and she smiled, and said,-- "'Come into my room, as you can't find the matron, perhaps I can help you.' "So in I had to go; and, girls, if you can believe it, after fumbling around among her phials, she brought me something in a tumbler. It was half full and looked horrid! I tell you, I shook in my stocking feet, and I began to straighten up, and whimpered,--I could have cried right out, it looked so awful, so _awful_, but I only whimpered,--'I'm better, a good deal, Miss Palmer; I'll go to my room, and if I can't study, I'll go to bed.' "'You must take this first. I don't like to send you away in such severe pain, particularly as you couldn't find the matron, without doing something to help you. You know I am responsible to your parents for your health!' "'My parents never give me any medicine,' I snarled, for I was getting ruxy by this time. "'Perhaps you would have enjoyed better health if they had, and would have been less liable to these sudden attacks of pain,' she said; and, girls, if you can believe it, when I looked up in her face, there she was in a broad grin, holding the tumbler, too, close to my mouth. "'I'm--I'm lots better,' I whimpered. "'I'm glad to hear it,' the ugly old thing said; 'but I must insist on your drinking this at once, or I shall have to take you down to Miss Ashton's room; she is more responsible than I am, and I am sure would not pass any neglect on my part over.' "By this time the tumbler touched my lips, and, girls, I was so sure that she would take me down to Miss Ashton,--and there is no such thing as keeping anything away from her, for you know how she hates what she calls a 'prevarication,'--that I just had my choice, to drink that nasty stuff, or to betray the Demosthenic Club, or to tell a fib, and have my walking-ticket given me, so I opened my mouth wide, and swallowed one swallow, then was going to turn away my head, but Miss Palmer held the tumbler tight to my lips, as I have seen people do to children when they were giving castor oil. I took another, and tried again, but there was the tumbler tighter still, so down with it I went, and--and--she had no mercy; she made me drain it to the last drop; then she put it on the table, and said,-- "'Now, Lucy, you can go to your room; I think you will feel well enough to study your lesson, but if you do not, come back in a half-hour, and I will give you another, and a stronger dose. Put on your boots before you go; you may take cold on the bare floors, in your condition. Good-night.' "She opened her door, and held it open in the politest way until I had passed out, then I heard her laugh--laugh out loud, a real merry, ringing laugh, every note of which said as plainly as words could,-- "'I've caught you now, old lady. How is the pain? Did the medicine help you?' "I tell you, girls, it was the hardest pain I ever had in my life, and I never want another." "Tell us how the medicine tasted," said Lilly White. "Tasted! why, like rhubarb, castor oil, assafoetida, ginger, mustard, epicac, boneset, paregoric, quinine, arsenic, rough on rats, and every other hideous medicine in the pharmacopoeia." "Good enough for you; you oughtn't to have lied," said Martha Dodd, her missionary blood telling for the moment. But the other girls only laughed; the joke on Lucy was a foretaste of the fun which this club was to inaugurate. Now, if Miss Palmer did not report to Miss Ashton, and she break up the whole thing, how splendid it would be! Undaunted, as after a week nothing had been said to them in the way of disapproval, they went on to choose the other members of the club; to appoint times and places for meeting; and to organize in as methodic and high-sounding a manner as their limited experience would allow. CHAPTER IX. MISS ASHTON'S ADVICE. That the formation of such an insignificant thing as this Demosthenic Club should have affected girls like Dorothy Ottley and Marion Parke would have seemed impossible; but it was destined to in ways and times that were beyond their control. When the club was making its selection of members, among those most sought were Marion and Dorothy. Marion, with her cheery, social Western manners, made her way rapidly into one of those favoritisms which are so common in girls' boarding-schools. She always had a pleasant word for every one, and always was ready to do a kind, generous act. She was so pretty, too, and dressed so simply and neatly, that there was nothing to find fault with, even if the girls had not been, as girls are, in truth, as a class, generous, noble, on the alert to see what is good, rather than what is otherwise, in those with whom they live. As for Dorothy, she was the model girl of the school. The teachers trusted and loved her, so did the pupils. No one among them all said how the sea had browned and almost roughened her plain face; how hard work, anxiety, and poor fare had stunted her growth; how carrying the cross children, too big and too heavy, had given a stoop to her delicate shoulders, and knots on her hands, that told too plainly of burdens they were unable to lift. All that the school saw or thought of was the gentle love that was always in the large gray eyes, the kind words that the firm lips never failed to speak, and the steady, straightforward, honorable life of the best scholar. "If we can only get those two," said President Jenny Barton, "our club is made." "They are so good, they'll spoil the fun," said Mamie Smythe. "For shame!" said Martha Dodd. "You don't suppose the daughter of a missionary would join a club of which good girls could not be members!" "Or the cousin of so famous a man as Kane, the Arctic explorer," said Sophy Kane. "Don't dispute, girls; we seem to spend half our time wrangling," and the president knocked, with what she made answer for the speaker's gavel, noisily on the table. "I nominate our vice-president, Miss Underwood, to inform these young ladies of their having been chosen, and to report from them at our next meeting. "Is the nomination accepted?" "Ay! ay!" from the club. In accordance with this request, Kate Underwood had interviewed Marion and Dorothy secretly, and had received from both a positive refusal. "I have no time for secret societies," said Dorothy with a good-natured laugh. "I want twice as many hours for my studies. Thank you, all the same, Kate." "Secret society! what is that?" asked Marion. "What is it secret for? What do you do in it that you don't want to have known? I don't like the secret part of it. My father used to tell me about the secret societies in Yale College, and they were full of boys' scrapes. He nearly got turned out of college for his part in one of them; and if I should get turned out from here, it would break his heart. No, thank you, I'd better not." So, sure that _no_ from them meant no, Kate had reported to the club, and received permission to invite Susan Downer and Gladys Philbrick in their places. "Sue will come of course, and be glad to," the club said. "Really, on the whole, she will be better than Dorothy, for Dorothy always wants to toe the line." Of Gladys, they by no means felt so sure. "She is, and she isn't," Lucy Snow said; "but she has lots of money, and that means splendid spreads." "But she won't--she won't"--Martha Dodd stopped. "Won't what?" asked the president in a most dignified manner. "Won't go through the corridors with her boots in her hands," said Mamie with a rueful face, "and get dosed. She'd stamp right along into Miss Ashton's room, and say,-- "'Miss Ashton, I'm late. Mark me, will you?'" "She will keep us straight, then. I vote for Gladys;" and the first to hold up her hands--both of them--was Missionary Dodd. So Gladys and Susan were invited to become members of the club, and accepted gladly, not knowing their room-mates had declined the same honor. It was in this way that the club was to influence the rooms. October, the regal month, when nature puts on her most precious vestments, dons her crowns of gold, clothes herself in scarlet robes, with girdles of richest browns, has a half-hushed note of sadness in the anthems she sings through the dropping leaves, listens for the farewell of departing birds, and tries in vain to call back to the browning earth the dying flowers. This month was always considered in Montrose Academy the time for settling down to hard work in earnest. Vacation, with its rest and its pleasures, seemed far behind the life of the two hundred young girls who had entered into, and been absorbed by, the present, and who were roused by ambitions for the future. Marion's room-mates went thoroughly into the work required of them. "Your faithfulness during the first six weeks of the term," Miss Ashton had said to them in one of her morning talks, "will determine your standard for the year. Do not any of you think you can be indolent now, and pick up your neglected studies by and by. "You may trust my experience when I tell you that, in the whole number of years since I have been connected with this school, I never knew a pupil who failed in her duties during the first half of the first term of the year, who afterwards did, indeed could, make up the lost opportunities. "It is not only what you lose out of the passing recitation that you can never find again, but, of even more consequence, it is what you lose in forming honest, faithful habits of study. "There are many different ways of studying. I have often tried to make these plain to you. I will repeat them. First, learn to give your whole attention to your lesson; _fix your mind upon it_. This sounds as if it would be an easy thing to do; but, in truth, it is very difficult. I am sorry to say I do not think there are a dozen girls among you who can do this successfully, even after years of training. You can train your body to accomplish wonders, but it is hard to believe that the mind is even more capable of being brought into subjection by the will than the body; and, to do that, to make your mind your servant, is to accomplish the greatest result of your education. Only as far as your study and your general life here do that, are they of any true value to you. "You will ask me how are you to fix your attention when there are so many things going on around you to distract your thoughts? I can only answer, that as our minds are in many respects of different orders, so, no general rule can be given. If you will, each one, faithfully make the attempt, I have no doubt you will succeed, in just the same proportion as you are faithful. "It may be as well, as I consider this the keystone of all good study, that I should leave the other helps and hindrances for some future talk; and it will give me a great deal of pleasure if I can hear from any of you at the end of a week's trial, that you have found yourselves helped by my advice." It speaks well for Miss Ashton's influence over her school that there was not a pupil there who was not moved by what she had said. To be sure, its effect was not equally apparent. There were some who had scant minds to fix, and what nature had been niggardly in bestowing, they had frittered away in a trifling life; but for the earnest girls, those who truly longed to make the most of themselves and to be able to do a worthy work in the life before them, such advice became at once a help. "It sounds like my mother's letter to me," Marion Parke said to Dorothy, as they went together to their room. "She insists that it is not so much the facts we learn, as the help they give us in the use of our minds. I wonder if all educated people think the same?" "All thoroughly educated people I am sure do," answered Dorothy. "Sometimes I feel as if my mind was a musical instrument; and if I didn't know every note in it, the only sounds I should ever hear from it would be discords,"--at which rather Irish comparison, both girls laughed. CHAPTER X. CHOOSING A PROFESSION. There was one peculiarity of Montrose Academy that had been slow to recommend itself to the parents of its pupils. That was the elective system, which was adopted after much controversy on the part of the Board of Trustees. The more conservative insisted that the prosperity of the past had shown the wisdom of keeping strictly to a curriculum that did not allow individual choice of studies. The newer element in the Board were equally sure that to oblige a girl to go through a course of Latin and Greek, of higher mathematics, of logic and geology, who, on leaving school, would never have the slightest use for them, was simply a waste of time. A compromise was made at length, by which, for five years, the elective system should be practised, it being claimed that no shorter time could fairly prove its success or its failure; and during this period certain studies of the old course should be insisted upon. First and foremost the Bible, the others chosen to depend upon the class. The year of Marion's entering the school was the second of the experiment; and, after joining the middle class and having her regular lessons assigned to her, she was not a little surprised, and in truth confused, by Miss Ashton asking her, as if it was a matter of course, "What do you intend to _do_ in the future?" as if she expected her to have her future all mapped out, and was to begin at once her preparation for it. Miss Ashton saw her embarrassment, and helped her by saying,-- "Many of the young ladies come here with very definite plans; for instance, your room-mate Dorothy is fitting for a teacher, and a very fine one she will make! Gladys is making special study of everything pertaining to natural science,--geology, botany, physics, and chemistry. She intends when she goes back to Florida to become an agriculturist. I dare say you have already heard her talk of the wonderful possibilities to be found there. Her father is an enthusiast in the work, and she means to fit herself to be his able assistant. Susan wants to be a banker, and avails herself of every help she can find toward it. "You see our little lame girl Helen! She is to be an artist, and devotes all her spare time to courses in art. She is in the second year, and has made wonderful progress in shading in charcoal from casts and models. She uses paints, both oils and watercolors, but those do not come in our regular course. "If we see any special talent in a pupil in any line, we do not confine ourselves to what we can do for her, but we call in extra help from abroad. "Kate Underwood is to be a lawyer. Mamie Smythe has a new chosen profession for every new year, but as she is an only child, and her mother is wealthy, she will never enter one. "I might go on through perhaps an eighth of the school, and point out to you girls who are studying with an aim. For the greater number, they are content to go on with the regular curriculum; as their only object, and that of their parents for them, seems to be to secure sufficient education to make them pass creditably through the common life of ordinary women. "I thought you might have a definite object in view; and as you are now fairly started in your classes, and, as your teachers tell me, are doing very well, if you had a plan, you could find time to choose such other studies as would help you." This was new to Marion; she asked for time to think it over, which Miss Ashton gladly allowed her. She had in her heart made her choice, but that, with all the other advantages offered, she could do anything except in a general way to help this choice forward, she had never dreamed. Her room-mates noticed how silent and thoughtful she was after her talk with Miss Ashton, and wondered what could be the cause, surely she was too faithful and far too good a scholar for any remissness that would have to be rebuked; but no one asked her a question. It was after two days that Marion wrote her mother, and her letter caused a great surprise in the Western parsonage. This is in part what she wrote:-- "Miss Ashton has asked me what I am to _do_ in the future. It seems they not only give you the regular curriculum, but are ready to allow you elective studies, by which you can fit yourself for your particular future. "I wonder if you will think me a foolish girl when I write you that, if you both approve, I should like to be a doctor! Don't laugh! I have seen so much sickness that there was no really educated physician to relieve, and am, as you have so often called me, 'a regular born nurse,' that the profession, if a profession I am capable of acquiring, seems very tempting to me. There is no hurry in the decision, only please think it over, and write me your advice." It was not long before an answer came:-- "You are quite capable of choosing for yourself; and if you turn naturally to the medical profession, you will have our full approval of your choice." When Marion read this, she felt as if she had grown suddenly many years older. She looked carefully over the list of studies, to see from which she could gain the greatest help, and in a short time after her conversation with Miss Ashton she reported herself as a future M.D. This was not a rare profession for a young girl to choose. Miss Ashton knew that already there were a number with that in view. What she doubted was, whether a quarter of them would ever carry out their intention; and this was one thing which, favoring on the whole as she did the elective system, she could but acknowledge told against it,--the uncertainty which their youth, and the natural tendency of a girl's mind to change, gave. She had known them in one year, or even a shorter time, an enthusiast in one profession, then, becoming tired of it, and sure another was more suited to their abilities, turn to the new choice. One thing, however, was certain: she comforted herself by remembering, that the mental discipline which they had acquired would stay with them, even after the whim of the time had ceased to influence them. There was an immediate effect, however, which Marion's decision had upon her. It interested her in those of her schoolmates who were looking forward to a definite and useful future. She could recall now how often her room-mates had spoken of what they intended to do, but she had only listened to it as she had to what they said about their homes and their friends. How it became known to them that she, too, had made her choice for the future, she wondered over; but it was not long before they began to call her "Dr!" as if she had already earned the title. Nellie Blair Gorham she had from the first of her entering the school taken a deep interest in. The small, deformed, pale girl had a pathos in her whole appearance that touched deeply Marion's sympathies. They were in different classes, and, so far, had come little in contact; but now she felt irresistibly drawn to the art studio during the hours when Helen was there, and, standing near, watched her as she worked. Helen had all the shrinking sensitiveness which her misfortunes and her poverty--for she was poor--would naturally give her. Marion was strong of body, and strong of mind, with a gentle, loving, sympathetic nature speaking from every look and action; the one, the counterpart of the other. Marion made an immediate choice, under Miss Ashton's instruction, of the studies that would help her in the future; and so, with redoubled interest in this school-life, she bent to her work, learning day by day the value of trying to fasten her mind upon that, and that alone. CHAPTER XI. VISIT OF COUSIN ABIJAH. One afternoon when Marion's lessons had proved unusually difficult, her room-mates noisy, and obstacles everywhere, it seemed to the diligent scholar, she answered a tap on her door, to find Etta Lawrence, the girl who waited in the hall to announce visitors, with a face full of amusement. "There's a man down-stairs asking for you, Marion," she said. "He started to follow me up-stairs; and when I showed him into the parlor, and told him I would call you, he said,-- "''Tain't no odds, I can jist as well go up; I ain't afraid of stairs, no way.' I had hard work to make him go into the parlor, and I left him sitting on the edge of a chair, staring around as if he never had seen such a room before." Then Etta burst into a merry laugh, in which all the others but Marion joined: she stood still, looking from one of the girls to another, as if she couldn't imagine what it all meant. "You must go down to the parlor," said Dorothy, seeing her hesitation. "It's some one from out West," added Sue. [Illustration: "Did you wish to see me?" asked Marion, looking inquiringly at the man. Page 69. _Miss Ashton's New Pupil._] "Perhaps it's your father. Hurry! hurry!" said Gladys, thinking how she would hurry if her own father had been there. Thus encouraged, Marion, with heightened color and a rapidly beating heart, followed Etta down into the parlor, and there, still seated on the edge of his chair, twirling an old felt hat rapidly round between two big, red hands, she saw a tall, lean man in a suit of coarse gray clothes. He had grizzly, iron-gray hair, stubby white whiskers, a pale-blue eye, a brown face streaked with red. He sat a little nearer the front edge of his chair as she entered the room, and waited for her to speak. Evidently he was not prepared for the kind of Western girl he saw before him. "Did you wish to see me?" looking inquiringly at him. "Be you Marion Parke?" "Yes." "I am Abijah Jones, your cousin, three times removed; your great-aunt Betty told me to come out here and make a call on you. She's set on seeing you at Thanksgiving, and I guess you'd better humor her, for she took a spite at your father cause he wouldn't farm it, and would have an education; but she allers kind of favored him more than the rest of us, and has allers hankered after him. That's why I'm here." "I'm glad to see you, Cousin Abijah," her Western hospitality coming to her rescue. "Tell me about my Aunt Betty; she is well, I hope." Once launched upon the subject of Aunt Betty, between whom and himself there seemed to have been always a family war, he began to feel entirely at home in his strange surroundings, his voice rising to a pitch that resounded through the large room with a peculiar nasal twang Marion had never heard before. She saw one face after another make its appearance through the half-open door, and she knew very well this unusual visitor was giving a great deal of amusement to those who saw him. Accustomed to see rude characters at the West as she was, never before had Marion met one who seemed to her so utterly oblivious of all common proprieties. She felt sure that if he remained long, the whole school would be made aware of his peculiar presence; and though she struggled hard not to be ashamed of him, and to make his call as pleasant as she could, she was much relieved when she saw Miss Ashton, who, hearing the strident voice, had come to ascertain its source. As a New England woman, she at once recognized the type. Marion could only introduce him as her "Cousin Abijah." "Three times removed," put in Cousin Abijah, without rising from his chair, only twirling his hat a little faster in Miss Ashton's stately presence. She held her hand out to him cordially, and when he put his great brown knotty fist within it, a dull red color came slowly into his seamed face. It was not from any want of self-respect, far from it; he would not have been abashed if Queen Victoria with all her court in full dress had entered the room. A real out-and-out country New Englander knows no peer the wide world over. Seating herself near him, Miss Ashton soon drew him into a pleasant conversation, to which Marion listened in much surprise. Even the man's voice dropped to a lower pitch, and what he said lost the asperity that had made it so disagreeable. After a few minutes, she proposed to him to show him around the building, where she was sure he would find much to interest him, and, what was a very unusual thing for her to do, she went with him herself. A visitor of this kind was rare in the academy. She well knew the amusement he would create, and when they met, as they did often, groups of girls in the corridor, who stared and smiled at her uncouth companion, she silenced them by a look, which they could not fail to understand. Kind Miss Ashton! Marion, as well as Cousin Abijah, will never forget it. "Now, Marion," she said, when they returned to the parlor, "I will excuse you from your next recitation, and you can take your cousin over to the neighboring city. There is a great deal for him to see there, and I will give you a note which will admit you to some of the large factories. "You can go with him to the station, and see him off in the cars. You will come home, I know, safely and punctually." Then, if Cousin Abijah had been the President of the United States she would not have bidden him a more cordial "good-by." Marion, strengthened by Miss Ashton's kindness, invited her cousin before they left to visit her room. She took him through the long corridors, fully conscious that out of many doors curious eyes were peeping at them as they passed, and that smiles, sometimes giggles, followed them. Dorothy and Gladys were both there, and made him pleasantly welcome. He did not admire the view from the window, as Marion expected, for he had had far finer mountain views around him all his life; but he looked curiously at the bric-a-brac and pictures, of which the room was full, and will carry home with him wonderful stories of the Western girl's room. Then came the visit to Pomfret, the inspection of some of the finest mills, and of the pleasantest parts of the manufacturing city; and Marion bade this country cousin good-by, with the hearty hope that his visit had been a pleasant one. CHAPTER XII. THE TABLEAUX. Friday night, the work of the week being ended, was given to the young ladies as a holiday evening, which, within bounds, was entirely at their disposal. No study was required of them, and it was generally occupied by diversions of one kind and another, in which the whole school were at liberty to join. Sometimes it was a dance, the teachers enjoying it as heartily as their pupils; sometimes it was a concert, and generally it was well worth hearing, for this academy was noted for its skilled musicians. Again, it would be a play, even Antigone not being too ambitious for these amateur actors or _tableaux vivants_, which never failed to be amusing. This night was one chosen by the Demosthenic Club for their secret meetings. As its members did not like to lose any of the social fun, these meetings were held so secretly that every one in the building knew of their time and place, much to the annoyance of the club; and no one, so far, not even the club itself, was better informed of what was done and said there than Miss Ashton. It seemed to her a harmless sort of an affair. There was no difference in the scholarship of its members, the sessions were short, no mischief followed them, and if it made the girls contented and happy it was all right. How she came to have this perfect understanding it would be difficult to tell, only she was found, in some unknown and mysterious way, to always have the reins in her own hands, no matter how restive the colts she had to control. The club had grown from the original number of seven, to twelve, the new members having been chosen from among the brightest and most mischievous girls in school. This made Miss Ashton wonder at their uniformly quiet behavior, and increased the vigilance of her watch. About three weeks after the visit of Cousin Abijah, it was announced that a series of tableaux would be given on Friday evening, illustrating a poem written by Miss Kate Underwood. Kate's poetical abilities were well known and greatly admired by the school, even the teachers gave her credit for a knack at humorous sketches rather unusual. She was to be, perhaps, a second John Saxe, possibly an Oliver Wendell Holmes, who could tell? The gift was worth cultivating, particularly as it did not interfere with Kate's soberer and more disciplinary studies. Miss Ashton did not think it necessary to see the poem. It was probably witty, if not wise, and wisdom need not intrude its grave face always into the freedom of the Friday nights; indeed, she rather winked at the performance, as she and her associate principal were to be out of town on that night, and "high fun" in the hall served to keep the girls from any more serious mischief. All the club were pledged to the most profound secrecy as to what the tableaux were to be; and, for a wonder, there were no revelations made, even to the "dear, intimate friend," who was not a member, and who generally shared the most "profound secret," no matter from what source it emanated. After evening prayers, the hall was given to the club, and as every arrangement had been made previously for the decoration of the stage, the work was completed and the doors thrown open at an early hour. The hall was soon filled, and the buzz of expectation began long before the curtain was raised; when it was, it showed an interior of a farm kitchen of the olden times. Clothes-bars had been skilfully placed so as to represent a low ceiling, and from them depended hams wrapped in brown paper coverings, sausages enclosed in cloth bags, herbs tied in bunches and labelled in large letters, "Sage, Camomile, Fennel, Dock, Caraway." There were ears of corn, sweet, Indian, pop, likewise labelled; tomatoes, strung in rows to dry, and strings also of newly sliced apple. Under this motley ceiling the room showed plainly it was the living-room of the house. There was a large cooking-stove that shone so you might have seen your face in it, a row of wash-tubs, leaning bottom side up against the wall, two wooden pails and three tin ones, standing on a shelf over the tubs, and these in close proximity to the only window in the room. Just before this window was a small table with a Bible, a well-worn one, on it, and a pair of steel-bowed spectacles. One yellow wooden chair, and what was called "a settle" near the stove, a large cooking-table, and one more chair, made the furniture of the room. Before this table sat an old woman, dressed in a black petticoat, and a red, short gown that came a little below her waist. She wore a cap that fitted close to her head, made of some black cloth, innocent of bow or frill; from under it, locks of gray hung down about her face and neck. She had a swarthy skin, two small eyes, hidden by a large pair of glasses, a mouth that kept in motion in spite of the necessity of stillness which a tableau is supposed to demand, as if she were reading the letter she held in her hand aloud. The laugh and clapping which this scene called forth had hardly subsided when, from behind a hidden corner of the stage, a sweet, clear voice began to read the descriptive poem. "It's Kate Underwood herself," was whispered from seat to seat. "There's no other girl in school that can read as well as she can." The poem gave a brief description of the kitchen as it appeared on the stage, then a more lengthy one of the old woman, with the contents of the letter she was reading. It was from a niece at a boarding-school, who proposed, in a brief and direct way, to visit this aunt during her coming vacation. The tableau was acted so well, and with such piquancy, that claps and peals of laughter from the audience, and finally calls for "Kate Underwood," who demurely makes her appearance from behind the curtain, drops a stage courtesy, and disappears. The poem had been (this audience constituting the judges) excellent, the very best thing Kate ever wrote; and as for the tableaux, were there ever any before one-half so good? Now, while to almost all in the hall there had been nothing said or done that could injure the feelings of any one, to Marion Parke it seemed an unkind take-off of her cousin during his recent visit to her. Something in the tall, gaunt girl, in her rough, coarse dress, in the grotesque awkwardness of her movements, reminded Marion of Cousin Abijah; and while she had laughed with the others, and had refused to allow her feelings to be hurt, she left the hall uncomfortable and unhappy, wishing he had never come, or that all the school had shown the kind consideration of Miss Ashton; nor was she helped in the least when she heard Susan telling in great glee how the whole plan had come to them after the visit of that uncouth old cousin of Marion Parke. CHAPTER XIII. GLADYS LEAVES THE CLUB. Dorothy was the first to see Marion at the door of their room after the tableaux. She hoped she had not heard what Sue had said, but that she had she could not doubt when she saw the pained expression on Marion's face. In the after discussion of the entertainment, Marion took no part, but went quietly to her bed, with only a brief "good-night." "They have hurt her feelings, and they ought to have been ashamed of themselves," said kind Dorothy to the two members of the club sitting beside her. "Girls, if that is what you mean to do in your Demosthenic Club, I am most thankful I never joined it, and the sooner you both leave it the better." "Grandmarm!" said Sue, her hot temper flashing into her face, "when we want your advice, we will ask it." "What's up, Dody? Whose feelings are hurt, and who ought to be ashamed of themselves?" asked Gladys. "I don't know what you are talking about." "About Marion and the Demosthenic Club!" answered Dorothy briefly. "What for? What has Marion to do with the club?" Dorothy looked straight into Gladys's face for a moment. Whatever other faults Gladys had, she had never, even in trifles, been otherwise than honest and straightforward. There was nothing in her face now but surprise; so Dorothy, much relieved that she was not a partaker in the unkindness, explained to her that, as Susan had just told them, the club had taken Marion's country cousin for a butt, and had made him, with the old aunt,--the knowledge of whom must have come to them from some one in their room,--the characters in the farce; and that Marion, coming into the room just as Susan was telling of it, had heard her; and it had hurt her feelings. Now, strange as it may seem, it was nevertheless true that the club, knowing Gladys well, and how impossible it would be for her to do anything that might injure another, had carefully kept from her any direct participation in it. She knew in a general way what was to be done, but was ignorant of particulars. No sooner had the whole been made known to her, than without a word, though it was after the time when the girls were allowed to leave their rooms, without the slightest effort to move softly, she passed the doors of several teachers, up into another corridor, not stopping until she tapped at Jenny Barton's room. The tap was followed by the muffled sound of scurrying feet, of a table pulled hastily away, of whispers intended to be soft, but in the hurry having a strangely sibilant tone, that made them almost words spoken aloud, to the impatient Gladys. She rapped a second time, a little louder than the first, and the door was opened by Jenny, in her nightdress. The gas in the room was out, and there was no one to be seen. "Why, Gladys Philbrick!" she exclaimed crossly, pulling Gladys hastily in; "you frightened us almost out of our wits. Girls! it's only Gladys!" Out from under the beds and from the closets in the two bedrooms crept one after another the girls of the club. All were there but Susan and Gladys; and they would have been invited, but it was well known that if Gladys broke a rule of the school, she never rested until she had made full confession to one of the teachers. She was not to be trusted in the least; and, of course, Susan could not be invited without her, so the knowledge of the spread which was to succeed the tableaux had been carefully kept from them. No wonder at Jenny's reception of her! Somewhat staggered by this, and by the appearance of the hidden, laughing girls, Gladys stood for a moment staring blankly around her, then she asked, singling Kate Underwood out from among the others,-- "Kate! did you write that poem to make fun of Marion Parke's country cousin?" "Why do you ask?" answered Kate, turning brusquely upon Gladys. "Because, if you did, and if, as Sue says, you got up those tableaux to make fun of him, I think you are the meanest girl in the school; and as for the club--a club that would do such a thing, I wouldn't be a member of a moment longer, not if you would give me a million dollars!" "Well, as we have no million to give you, and wouldn't part with even a copper to have you stay, you can have your name taken off the roll any time," said the president majestically. "All right, it's done then; but my question is not answered. Kate Underwood, did, or did you not, intend to make fun of Marion Parke's cousin?" "When I know by what right you ask me, I will answer you; until then, Gladys Philbrick, will you be kind enough to speak in a lower voice, unless you wish to bring some of the teachers down upon us, or perhaps you will report us to Miss Ashton; I think she has just come in the late train, I heard a carriage stop at the door." "You want to know my right?" answered Gladys, without taking any notice of Kate's taunts. "It's the right of being ashamed to hold a girl up to ridicule for what she couldn't help, and a girl like Marion Parke. I hoped you could say you didn't mean to; but I see you can't." Then Gladys, without another word, left the room, leaving behind her a set of girls who, to say the least, were not in a mood to congratulate themselves on the events of the evening. The spread was hastily put on the table again, but it was eaten by them with sober faces and troubled hearts. "Well," said Sue, as Gladys came noisily into their room, "now I suppose you've made all the girls so mad they will never speak to me again." "I have told them what I think of them," and Gladys looked at Sue askance over her shoulder as she spoke, "and I advise you to quit a club that can be as unkind as this has been to-night." "When I want your advice I will ask it; I advise you to keep it until then. Whom did you see?" "All of them, hiding under beds and in closets." "That means a spread without leave, and we not invited. You're a tell-tale Gladys; they are afraid of you." "Good!" said Gladys with a scornful laugh. "Girls," said a gentle voice from the bedroom door, "don't mind; it's foolish in me I dare say, and--and the tableaux were real funny," and an odd attempt at a laugh ended in a burst of tears. In a moment both of Gladys's arms were around Marion's neck. "You dear, darling old Marion," she said, whimpering herself. "Too much noise in this room!" said Miss Palmer's voice at their door. "I did not expect this, Marion! Dorothy, what does it mean?" "We are going to bed, Miss Palmer," said Dorothy, opening the door immediately. "It was about the tableaux we were talking." "You should have been in bed half an hour ago; I am sorry to be obliged to report you. Let this never happen again. Your room has been in most respects a model room until now." Not a girl spoke, and if Miss Palmer had come again fifteen minutes later, she would have found the gas out and the girls in bed. CHAPTER XIV. KATE UNDERWOOD'S APOLOGIES. The scholars noticed that when Miss Ashton came into the hall a few nights after the Friday evening tableaux she looked very grave. "What's gone wrong? Who has been making trouble? Look at the girls that belong to the Demosthenic Club! I'm glad I am not a member!" These, and various other remarks, passed from one to the other, as Miss Ashton walked through the hall to her seat on the platform. It was the hour for evening prayers. Usually she read a short psalm, but to-night she chose the twelfth chapter of Romans, stopping at the tenth verse, and looking slowly around the school as she repeated,-- "'Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another.'" Then she closed her Bible and repeated these verses:-- "'These things I command you, That you love one another. Let love be without dissimulation. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. By love serve one another. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. And I pray that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than himself. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. "'But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. "'Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.' "I hesitate," said Miss Ashton, after a moment's pause, "to add anything to these expressive and solemn Bible words. They convey in the most forcible way what seems to me the highest good for which we can aim in this life,--the perfection of Christian character. "I presume you all realize in some degree the world we make here by ourselves. Set apart in a great measure from what is going on around us, closely connected in all our interests, we depend upon each other for our happiness, our growth, our well-being. We are helped, or we are hindered, by what in a large sphere might pass us by. Nothing is too small to be of vital importance to us; the aggregate of our influences is made up of trifles. I have said this same thing to you time and time again, and yet I am sorry to find how soon it can be forgotten. If I could impress upon you these tender, beautiful gospel truths I have repeated, I should have had no occasion to detain you to-night. You would all of you have been bearing one another's burdens, instead of laying one upon delicate shoulders. "'Taught of God to love one another.' Do those learn the lesson God teaches who, without, we will say, bearing any ill-will, injure the feelings of others? It may be by unkind words; it may be by an intentional rudeness; it may be by neglect; it may be by a criticism spoken secretly, slyly, circulated wittily, laughed at, but not forgotten. 'The ways that are unlovely;' how numerous they are, and how directly they tend to make hearts ache, and lives unhappy, no words can tell! "Young ladies, if your lives with us sent you out into the world, first in accomplishments, thoroughly grounded in the elements of an education, that after all has only its beginning here, leaders in society, and yet you wanted the nobility of that love which the Bible claims is the fruit of the spirit, we should have to say, we have 'labored in vain, and spent our strength for naught.' I wish I could see among you that tenderness of spirit that would shrink as sensitively from hurting another, as it does from being hurt yourselves. I am looking anxiously for it in this new year. I am looking hopefully for it; you will not disappoint me I am sure." Then she asked them to sing the hymn "Blest be the tie that binds," made a short prayer, and waited before leaving the room for the hall to be cleared. It was well she did; for no sooner had the last girl left the corridor, before Kate Underwood came rushing back to the platform, and catching hold of Miss Ashton's hand said,-- "I didn't do it, I _didn't_ do it, Miss Ashton, to hurt Marion Parke's feelings! I like her so much; I think she is--is, why is about the best girl in the whole school. I only meant--why I meant he was such an old codger it was real funny; I thought it would make a nice tableau, and I never thought Marion would recognize it: I wouldn't have done it for the world!" Then she stopped, looked earnestly in Miss Ashton's face, and asked,-- "Do you believe me, Miss Ashton?" Now, Miss Ashton knew Kate to be a very impulsive girl, doing many foolish, and often wrong things, only sometimes sorry for them, so she did not receive her excited apologies with the consideration which they really deserved. She said, perhaps a little coldly,-- "I am glad you have come to see the matter both more kindly and reasonably, Kate. Yes! I do believe you: I do not doubt you feel all you say; but, Kate, you are so easily tempted by what seems to you fun. I can't make you see, fun that becomes personal in a way to injure the feelings of any one ceases to be fun, becomes cruelty. There is a great deal of that in this school this term. Hardly a day passes but some of the girls come to me crying because their feelings have been wounded, and I am truly grieved to say, you are oftener the cause of it than any other girl. To be both witty and wise is a great gift; to be witty without being wise is a great misfortune; sometimes I think it has been your misfortune. You are not a cruel girl. You are at bottom a kind girl; yet see how you wound! You didn't _mean_ to hurt Marion Parke; you like her, yet you did: you made fun of an old country cousin, whose visit must have been a trial to her. You are two Kates, one thinks only of the fun and the _éclat_ of a witty tableau; the other would have done and said the kindest and the prettiest things to make Marion Parke happy. Which of these Kates do you like best?" Miss Ashton now laid her hand lovingly over the hands of the excited girl, who answered her with her eyes swimming in tears, "Your kind, Miss Ashton." Then she put up her lips for the never-failing kiss, and went quietly away, but not to her own room. There was something truly noble in the girl, after all. She went to Marion's door and, knocking gently, asked if Marion would walk with her to the grove. Much surprised, but pleased, Marion readily consented, and the two went out in the early darkness of an October night alone, the girls whom they met in the corridors staring at them as they passed. [Illustration: Marion turned, threw both arms around Kate's neck, kissing her over and over again.--Page 89.] "Marion!" said Kate, "I ask your pardon a thousand, million times! I never, _never_ meant to hurt your feelings! I forgot everything but the fun I saw in the old farm-scenes, and the new fashionable school-girl out for a vacation; I did truly. I--I don't say it would ever have occurred to me if that cousin of yours hadn't come here, because that wouldn't be true, and I'm as bad as George Washington" (with a little laugh now), "I can't tell a lie; but can say that I never would have written one word of that miserable farce if I had ever dreamed it would have hurt your feelings: will you forgive me?" Marion had listened to this long speech with varying emotions. As we know, she had been wounded by the tableaux, but her feelings had been exaggerated by her room-mates, and if the matter had been dropped at once she would probably soon have forgotten it. Kate's apology filled her with astonishment. How could it ever have come to her knowledge that she had been wounded, and how came she to think it of enough importance to make an apology now. Instead of answering, Marion turned, threw both arms around Kate's neck, kissing her over and over again. Kate, surprised in her turn, returned the kisses with much ardor. It was a girl's forgiveness, and its recognition, without another word. Then they walked down into the grove, their arms around each other's waists, and the belated birds, scurrying to their nests, sang evening songs to them. On the side of the little lake that nestles in the midst of the grove, two petted frogs, grown large and lazy on the sweet things with which their visitors so freely regaled them, heard their steps, hopped up a little nearer to the well-worn path, and saluted them with an unusually loud bass. Whether it was the influence of Miss Ashton's words, or the generous act of apology,--the noblest showing of a noble mind that has erred,--it would be hard to tell; but, certain it is, Kate Underwood had learned a lesson this time which, let us hope, she will never forget. When Marion went back to her room it was quite time for study hours to begin; but her room-mates had so many questions to ask about Kate's object in inviting her out to walk, that a good half-hour passed before they began their lessons. Marion did not feel at liberty to repeat what Kate had said, and so she frankly told them. CHAPTER XV. MISS ASHTON'S FRIDAY NIGHT. Miss Ashton, a little timid from the use made of the liberty she had given for the Friday night entertainments, decided for a time to take the control of them into her own hands, and as something novel, that might be entertaining, she proposed that the school should prepare original papers, to be read aloud, the reading to be followed by "a spread" given by the Faculty. She made no suggestion with regard to the character of the papers to be sent in, other than to say that she knew very well there were some good writers in the school, and she should expect every one to do her best. This proposal was gladly accepted. The girls clapped when she had finished, and some began to stamp noisily, but this a motion of the principal's hand checked. There began at once to be conjectures as to whose piece would be the best. Nine-tenths of the girls agreed it would be Kate Underwood, the other tenth were for Delia Williams, who, when she tried for an honor, seldom failed to secure it; and hadn't she once written a piece on Robert Browning, of which not a scholar could understand a word, but which, it was reported, Miss Ashton said "was excellent, showing rare appreciation of the merits of a great poet"? One thing was certain, there was hardly a girl in school who had not, before going to bed that night, wandered around in her dazed thoughts for some subject upon which she could write in a way that would surprise every one. Lilly White, the dunce of the school, had hers written by the beginning of study hours. It covered three pages of foolscap paper, and had at least the merit of being written on only one side. Among the few books Marion Parke had brought from her Western home, was an old magazine, printed by a Yale College club, and edited by her father when he was a member of the college. This had in it one short story suggested by the West Rock at New Haven. In this rock was a rough cave, and here, tradition said, the regicides Goff and Whalley hid themselves from pursuit, after the murder of Charles I. The story was well told, not holding too rigorously to facts, but at the same time faithful enough to real incidents to make it not only interesting but valuable. These were tender and touching scenes of a wife and a betrothed, who, through dangers of discovery and arrest, carried food and papers to the fugitives. The story had always been a great favorite of Marion's. One day when she felt homesick she had taken it out, read it, and left it on the top of her table, under her Bible. Being very busy afterwards, and consequently the homesickness gone, she did not think of it again; she did not even notice that it had been abstracted from the table and another magazine, similar in appearance, put in its place. If Miss Ashton had foreseen the deep interest the school were taking in the proposed entertainment, she might have hesitated to propose it. The truth was, it took the first place; studies became of secondary importance. "What subjects had been chosen for the pieces? how they were to be treated? how they progressed? how they would be received?" These were the questions asked and answered, often under promise of secrecy, sometimes with an open bravado amusing to see. It was a relief to all the teachers when the Friday night came. The girls in gala dress crowded early into the hall; Miss Ashton and the teachers, also in full dress, followed them soon; and five minutes before the time appointed for the opening of the evening entertainment the hush of expectation made the room almost painfully still. Miss Ashton had requested that the pieces should be sent in to her the previous day. She had been surprised more at their number than their excellence, indeed, there was but one that did not, on the whole, disappoint her; that one delighted her. She intended to read, not the best only, but the poorest, thinking, perhaps, as good a lesson as could come to the careless or the incapable would come from that sure touchstone of the value of any writing,--its public reception. The names were to be concealed; that had been understood from the beginning, yet, with the exception of Kate Underwood, who was more used to the public of their small world than any of the others, there was not a girl there who had not a touch of stage fright, either on her own account, or on that of her "dearest friend." There were essays on friendship, love, generosity, jealousy, integrity, laziness, hope, charity, punctuality, scholarship, meanness. On youth, old age, marriage, courtship, engagement, housekeeping, housework, the happiness of childhood, the sorrows of childhood, truth, falsehood, religion, missionary work, the poor, the duties of the rich, houses of charity, the tariff, the Republican party, the Democratic party, woman's suffrage, which profession was best adapted to a woman, servants, trades' unions, strikes, sewing-women, shop-girls, newspaper boys, street gamins, the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, Queen Victoria and the coming Republican party into the government of England, the bloated aristocracy, American girls as European brides, the cruelty of the Russian government, Catholic religion, Stanley as a hero, Kane's Arctic adventures. Miss Ashton had made a list of these subjects as she looked over the essays, and when she read them aloud, the school burst into a peal of laughter. She said, "I cannot, in our limited time, read all of these to you. I will give you your choice, but first, let me tell you what remains. There are six poems of four and five pages length. The subjects are:-- "The Lost Naiad; Bertram's Lament; Cowper at the Grave of His Mother; A New Thanatopsis; Ode to Silence; Love's Farewell. "I promise you," she said, "you shall have these, if nothing more." A slight approbatory clapping, and she went on:-- "If I am to read you the titles of the stories I have on my desk, it will go far into the alloted time for these exercises; but, as some of you may think they would be the most interesting part, I will give you your choice. Those in favor, please hold up their hands." Almost every girl's hand in school was raised, so Miss Ashton went on:-- "Bob Allen's Resolve; The Old Moss Gatherer; Lady Jane Grey's Adventure; The Brave Engineer; How We didn't Ascend Mt. Blanc; Nancy Todd's Revenge; Little Lady Gabrielle; Sam the Boot-black; Christmas Eve; Thanksgiving at Dunmoore; New Year at Whitty Lodge; Poor Loo Grant; Jenkins, the Mill Owner; Studyhard School; Storied West Rock; Phil, the Hero; How Phebe Won Her Place; Norman McGreggor on his Native Heath; Our Parsonage; How Ben Fought a Prairie Fire; The Sorrows of Mrs. McCarthy. "These are all," and Miss Ashton laughed a merry laugh as she turned over the pile. "I am much obliged to you for your ready and full answer to my proposal. If I am a little disappointed at the literary character of some of the work, I am, as I have said, pleased by your ready response. If I should attempt to read them all, we should be here at a late hour, and lose our spread, so I will give you the poems, as I promised, and as many of the essays and stories as I can crowd into the time previous to nine o'clock." Miss Bent, who was the teacher of elocution, now stepped forward, and out of a pile separated from the larger one of manuscripts took up and read the six poems; then followed, in rapid succession, essays and stories, until at ten minutes before nine, the school having evidently heard all they wished with the spread in prospect, Miss Ashton said,-- "I have reserved the best--by far the best--of all these contributions for the last. Miss Bent will now read to you 'Storied West Rock!'" Miss Bent began immediately, and though the hands of the clock crept on to fifteen minutes past nine, not a girl there watched them; all were intent on the absorbing interest of the story. When it was finished, Miss Bent said, "This is so excellent that I feel fully justified in departing from the promise Miss Ashton made you, that your pieces should not have the name of the writer given; with her leave, it gives me great pleasure to say, this touching and excellently written story was composed by one of our own seniors, Susan Downer." "Three cheers for Susan Downer!" cried Kate Underwood, springing from her seat; and if ever boys in any finishing school gave cheers with greater gusto, they would have been well worth hearing. Even Susan found herself cheering as noisily as the rest, and would not have known it, if Dorothy, her face radiant with delight, had not stopped her. Then followed the spread, "the pleasantest and the best one that was ever given in Montrose Academy," the girls all said. CHAPTER XVI. STORIED WEST ROCK. When Marion Parke went back to her room the night after Miss Ashton's entertainment, she was in a great deal of perturbation. The title of Susan Downer's story, on its announcement, had filled her with surprise, for since her coming to the school she had never before heard West Rock mentioned. When she had asked about it, no one seemed even to have known of it, and that Susan should not only have heard, but been so interested as to choose it for the subject of her story, was a puzzle! But when the story was read, and she found it, in all its details, so exactly like her father's, her surprise changed to a miserable suspicion, of which she was heartily ashamed, but from which she could not escape. Sentence after sentence, event after event, were so familiar to her, nothing was changed but the names of the women who figured in the story. The first thing she did after coming to her room was to take the magazine from under the Bible, and open to the story. There was an ink-blot on the first page, which some one had evidently been trying to remove with the edge of a knife. It must have been done hastily, for the leaf was jagged, and most of the ink left on. This Marion was sure was not there the last time she had opened the magazine; some one had dropped it recently. Who was it? She hastily re-read the story. Yes, she had not been mistaken, Susan Downer's story was the same! Was it possible that two people, her father and Susan, who had never been in New Haven, but might have known about Goff and Whalley from her study of English history, though not about West Rock as her father had seen and described it, could have happened upon the same story? How very, very strange! Marion dropped the magazine as if it was accountable for her perplexity; then she sat and stared at it, until she heard the door opening, when she snatched it up, and hid it away at the bottom of her trunk. It was Dorothy who came into the room; and Marion's first impulse was to go to her and tell her all about it, ask her what she should do, for do something she felt sure she must. Dorothy saw her, and called,-- "Marion! isn't it splendid that Sue wrote such a fine piece? I feel that she is a real honor to our class and to Rock Cove! Her brother Jerry will be so happy when he hears of it." "Why, Marion!" catching sight of Marion's pale face, "what is the matter with you? You look as pale as a ghost. Are you sick?" "No-o," said Marion slowly. "O Dody! Dody!" "Marion! there is something the matter with you. Sit down in this chair. No, lie down on the lounge. No, on your bed. You'd better undress while I go for the matron. I'll be very quick." "Don't go, Dody! Don't go," and Marion caught tight hold of Dorothy's arm, holding her fast. "I'm not sick; I'm frightened." But in spite of her words, indeed more alarmed by them, Dorothy broke away and rushed down to the matron's room, who, fortunately, was out. Then she went for Miss Ashton, but she also had not returned. So Dorothy, unwilling to leave Marion alone any longer, went back to her. While she was gone, Marion had time to resolve what she would do, at least for the present; she would leave Susan in her own time and way to make a full confession, which she tried to persuade herself after a little that she would certainly do. So when Dorothy came back she met her with a smile, told her not to be troubled, that it was the first time in her life such a thing had ever happened, and she hoped it never would again. "But you said you were frightened," insisted Dorothy, "and you looked so pale; what frightened you?" Marion hesitated; to tell any one, even Dorothy, would be to accuse Susan of such a mean deception. No; her resolve so suddenly made was the proper one: she would keep her knowledge of the thing until Susan herself confessed, or assurance was made doubly sure; for suppose, after all, Susan had written the story, how could she have known about it in that magazine? She had never lent it to her; she had never read it to any of her room-mates, or to any one in the school, proud of it as she was. Indeed, the more she thought of it, the more sure she was that she ought to be ashamed of herself for such a suspicion, and, strange as it may seem, the more sure she also was, that almost word by word Susan had stolen the story. "I was frightened at a thought I had, a dreadful thought; I wouldn't have any one know it. Don't ask me, Dody, please don't; let us talk about something else," she said. Then she began to talk rapidly over the events of the evening, not, as Dorothy noticed, mentioning Susan or her success. Dorothy wondered over it, and an unpleasant thought came into her mind. "Can it be that Marion is jealous of Sue, and disappointed and vexed that her piece wasn't taken any more notice of? I'm sure it was an excellent story, 'How Ben Fought a Prairie Fire.'" Marion had read it to her before handing it in, and she had been much interested in it, but it didn't compare with Susan's, and it wasn't like Marion to feel so. She never had shown such a spirit before. Neither Susan nor Gladys came to their room until the last moment allowed for remaining away. Susan was overwhelmed with congratulations on her success. The teacher of rhetoric told her she felt repaid for all the hours she had spent in teaching her, by the skill she had shown in this composition, and if she continued to improve, she saw nothing to prevent her taking her place, by and by, among the best writers in the land. Kate Underwood pretended to be vexed, "having her laurels taken away from her," she said "was not to be borne;" and Delia Williams, the rival of Kate in the estimation of the school, made even more fun than Kate over her own disappointment. Some of the girls made a crown of bright papers and would have put it on Susan's head, but she testily pushed it away. Susan's love of prominence was well known in the school, and even this small rejection of popular applause they wondered over. And when the girls began to cluster around her, and to ask if she had ever been to that West Rock, if there was really such a place, and if all those things she wrote of so beautifully had ever happened? she was silent and sulky; and in the end, crowned with her new honors, at the point in her life she had always longed for, and never before reached, she looked more like a girl who was ashamed of herself, than like one whose vanity and love of praise had for the first time been fully gratified. She dreaded going to her room; she was afraid something to mar her success was waiting for her there. She wished Marion Parke had never come from the West, that Gladys had never been weak enough to take her in for a room-mate. In short, Susan was more unhappy than she had ever been before. Gladys, full of frolic with a large clique of girls in another part of the room, had not given her a thought. To have Susan write so good a story had been the same surprise to her that it was to every one; but the reading was no sooner over, than she had forgotten it, and if the teacher had not told her it was time she went to her room, she would also have forgotten there was any room to go to. When she saw Susan she said, "Come on if you don't want to get reported. I say, Sue, haven't we had a real jolly time?" but much to Susan's relief not a word about "Storied West Rock." Dorothy had been waiting for Susan, and when the gas was out and they were all in bed, she whispered to her,-- "O Sue! I'm so glad for you." Dorothy thought a moment after she heard a sound like a smothered sob, but Susan not answering or moving, she concluded she had fallen quickly asleep, and that was a half snore; so she went to sleep herself, but not without some troubled thoughts about Marion and her unusual behavior. When Marion and Susan met the next morning, Marion noticed that Susan avoided her, never even looked at her; and when Dorothy and Gladys went away to a recitation, leaving them alone, Susan hastily gathered up her books, and going into her bedroom, shut the door. Marion thought this over. To her it looked as if Susan felt guilty and was afraid; but she had determined not to watch her, not even to seem to suspect her. "How should she know that I remember the story?" she thought, "or, indeed, that I have ever so much as read it? I will put it off my mind; I will! I _will!_" But, in spite of her resolutions, Marion could not; and as days went on she took to wondering whether by thus concealing what she knew, she was not making herself a partner in the deception. Susan, not being at once accused by Marion, came slowly but comfortably to the conclusion that she had not even the vaguest suspicion that anything was wrong; still, she sedulously avoided her, and when Dorothy noticed and asked her about it, answered crossly, "She never had liked that girl, and she never should to the longest day of her life." "And Marion certainly does not approve of Susan. How unfortunate!" thought this kind Dorothy. CHAPTER XVII. NOVEMBER SNOWSTORM. When November had fairly begun, the grove was leafless; the boats taken out of the little lake and stored carefully away, to await the return of birds and leaves; the days grown short, dark, and cold; the "constitutionals" matters of dire necessity, but not in the least of pleasure; study assumed new interest, and the worried teachers, relieved for a time of their anxieties over half-learned lessons, began to enjoy their arduous work, finding it really pleasant to teach such bright girls. The girl who made the best recitation was the heroine of the hour, rules were observed more faithfully, a tender spirit went with them into the morning and evening devotions, Faculty meetings became cheerful. This seemed to Miss Ashton one of the most prosperous and successful fall terms she had ever known; she congratulated herself constantly on its benign influences, and often said, "I have fewer black sheep in my flock than I have ever gathered together before." There was one reason for this prosperity which she fully realized. Thanksgiving was not far distant, and on that happy New England festival, the school had a holiday of three or four days. It was a practice to send then to the parents or guardians of the pupils an account of their progress in their studies. The system of marking had not been abandoned in the school; and many a lazy scholar, whom neither intreaties nor scolding seemed to touch, was alarmed at the record which she was to carry home. Such a thing had been known as girls refusing to leave the academy even for Thanksgiving, rather than to face what they knew awaited them with their disappointed parents. But from whatever cause the change had come, it was destined to have a severe shock before the festival day came. Montrose Academy had been purposely built within a few miles of the old and famous school for boys in Atherton. The reasons for this were, the ease with which the best lecturers could be obtained from there in many departments (a competent man finding plenty of time to lecture in both academies), and the general literary atmosphere which a social acquaintance engendered. Of course this social acquaintance was not without its drawbacks, and it had been found necessary for both principals to require written permits for the visits which the boys were inclined to make upon the girls at Montrose. So far, during this term, the boys had been fully occupied by their athletic games; but as the ground became one series of frozen humps, hands grew numb, and feet cold, the interest in them subsided; and yet the love of misrule, so much stronger in a boys' than in a girls' school, grew more active and troublesome. Jerry Downer, a brother of Susan Downer, was a member of this famous school; and it soon became known among a class of boys who studied the Montrose catalogue more faithfully than they did their Livy, that he had a sister there, that she was a lively girl, not too strict in obeying rules, fond of fun, "up to everything," as they described her; so it not infrequently happened that Jerry was invited by a set, with whom at other times he had little to do, to ride over with them to Montrose, he calling on his sister and cousins, while they apparently were waiting for him. In this way Jerry had been quite frequently there, no objection being made by Miss Ashton, as a note from her to the principal of Atherton Academy brought back a flattering account of Jerry as a scholar, and as a boy to be fully trusted. Jerry had improved in every respect since he went to Atherton. He was now a tall, broad-shouldered, active, well-dressed young man, who rang the doorbell of the majestic porch at the Montrose Academy with that unconsciousness which is the perfection of good manners, and which came to him from his simplicity, and went in among the crowd of girls, neither seeing nor thinking of any but those he had come to visit. Susan, in her own selfish way, was proud of him, so he was always sure of a reception that sent him back to his studies ambitiously happy. On the fifteenth of November there fell upon Massachusetts such a snowstorm as the rugged old State never had known before. It piled itself a foot deep on the level ground, heaped up on fence and wall, covered the trees with ermine, until even the tenderest twig had its soft garment; bent telegraph poles as ruthlessly as if communication was the last thing to be cared for, blotted telephoning out of existence, delayed trains all over the north, turned electric and horse cars into nuisances, filled the streets and the railroad stations with impatient grumblers, had only one single redeeming thing, the beauty of its scenery, and a certain weird, uncanny feeling it brought of being suddenly taken out of a familiar world and dropped into one the like of which was never even imagined before. There was one part of the community, however, that looked upon it with great favor. "Now for the jolliest of sleigh-rides!" said a clique of Atherton boys. "Hurra for old Jerry Downer! We'll make him turn out this time!" The roads between the two places were soon well worn, and not two days after the astonished world had waked to its surprise, Samuel Ray's best sleigh was hired, four extra sets of bells promised for the four horses, and a thoroughly organized "spree" was decided upon. It was no use to ask Jerry to help them in any thing contrary to the rules; but through him they might convey to certain girls there the knowledge of their coming, and their plans for the evening. They would give Jerry a note to his sister; she would hand it to Mamie Smythe; and, once in her possession, the whole thing would take care of itself. The bells were taken off from the horses and put carefully away in the bottom of the sleigh before it left the stable; the boys did not have it driven to the dormitories, as it did when they had a licensed ride, but met it at Wilbur's Corner. They had a ready reason for this, and for the absence of the bells when Jerry noticed and inquired about them. It would not do to give him the least occasion to suspect them. It was a beautiful night, with a bright moon making the cold landscape clearer and colder. There wasn't a young heart in either of these two educational towns that would not have leaped with joy over the pleasure of a sleigh-ride then and there. A very merry ride the boys had as soon as they had cleared the thickly settled part of the town, breaking out into college songs, glees, snatches of wild music that the buoyant air caught up and carried on over the long reaches of the ghost-like road before them. Jerry had a fine baritone voice, and he loved music. How he led tune after tune was a marvel and a delight. As they passed solitary farmhouses, where only a light shone from a back kitchen window, the quiet people there would drop their work and listen as the sleigh dashed by. When the party reached Montrose, Jerry was told that "while he was making his visit they would drive on, and if they were not back in time he had better go home by the train, as they knew he would not like to be out late." "And by the way," said Tom Lucas, taking a ticket out of his pocket, "here is a railroad ticket I bought the other day; you'd better use it, old fellow. I shall never want it--that is, if we are not back in time for you." The boys knew Jerry worked hard for every cent he had, and Tom would have felt mean if he had let a ride to which he had invited him be an expense. The first thing he did when Susan came into the room was to give her the note intrusted to him; and Susan, understanding only too well what it meant, delivered it without any delay to Mamie Smythe. Jerry's call was always a treat to his friends; and to-night, Marion coming with them, he had an evening the pleasure of which, in spite of what followed, he did not soon forget. When it came time for him to leave, he saw with surprise that he could only by running catch his train, and, as the boys had not come back for him, he hurried away. He found when he reached Atherton that the study hour had already passed, and, going to his room, he was met with,-- "I say, Jerry; Uncle John don't expect _you_ to go stealing off on sleigh-rides without leave. Give an account of yourself." "The party had leave, and when that is given, Uncle John don't trouble himself to single out every boy, and call him up to ask if he had his permission to go. It's all right." But, in spite of this assertion, Jerry began to have suspicions that, as the boys had failed to come for him to return with them, it might, after all, be not quite in order; and with these doubts he did not find committing his lesson an easy task. CHAPTER XVIII. THE SLEIGH-RIDE. When Susan hurried away from her brother to find Mamie Smythe and give her the note, she knew full well what it probably contained. Jerry had told her he had come over with a party of boys, and had the very best sleigh-ride he had ever had in his life; and when she asked the names of his companions, she recognized some, who, for reasons best known to herself, Miss Ashton had forbidden to be received as visitors to the academy. Mamie Smythe read the note with a heightening color. This was it,-- "Sleigh waiting corner of Bond and Centre Streets. Supper at Bascoms' Hall engaged for a dance. Bring six lively girls! 8 P.M. sharp. SUB ROSA." For a moment Mamie looked doubtingly into Susan's face. She would not have chosen her for one of the "lively girls;" but, now, as Susan knew something was going on, perhaps it would be best to ask her, if--Mamie had conscience enough to dally with this _if_ for a moment; perhaps she might have longer, if there had been time, but as it was now half-past seven, and the time was "eight sharp," and the girls were to be chosen and notified, there was not a moment for parleying, even with so respectable a thing as her conscience, so she showed Susan the note. "Oh, dear! that's too bad!" said Susan, as she finished reading it. "Jerry is here, and he won't go away before eight. What can I do? it would be just splendid!" And the tears actually came into her eyes. "That's a pity!" and Mamie, more relieved than sorry, tried to look regretful. "But don't you tell. Promise me, Susan Downer, let come what may, you won't tell." "I'm no tell-tale, Mamie Smythe, and I'll thank you not even to hint at such a thing. You'll all get expelled, as like as not, and, come to think of it, I'm real glad I'm not to go with you." Before her sentence was finished, Mamie had flown out of the room, and wild with delight over the "fun" before her, she rapidly made her choice among the girls, not giving them time for consideration, but hurrying them with all speed into their best clothes. They crept out, one by one, through different ways. Myra Peters jumped from a window when she heard Miss Palmer's door open, sure that otherwise she would be found. That her dress caught, that for a moment she hung between the moonlit sky and a deep snow-bank, seemed to her of no consequence, so she could escape. She left a bit of her best dress hanging on a hook, but this she did not know until afterwards. The girls met in the street, near the large front gate, where a tall Norway spruce hid them entirely from the front windows of the academy. Certainly they were not a merry group when they came together. All they had to say to each other was in hushed and frightened tones the peril of their escape. When they reached the corner of Bond and Centre Streets there stood the sleigh! How tempting it looked with its warm fur robes, its four gayly caparisoned horses, its driver, slapping his hands together to keep them warm, and the boys coming to meet them with such a merry welcome! Did they forget there was such a thing as consequences? Who can tell? We would not if we could describe any further the occurrences of the evening. It was past twelve when the six girls, tired, frightened, locked out of the house by every door, found themselves--sleigh, horses, bells, boys, all gone--shivering under the back balcony, as forlorn a set of beings as the calm moon shone upon. It was not for some time that Myra Peters remembered the window out of which she had clambered. If that were unlocked here might be an entrance that at this time of night would be wholly unobserved. "But if it is?" asked the most frightened of the girls. "Julia Abbey, you are always croaking," scolded shaking Mamie Smythe. "The next time I ask you to go anywhere, I shall know it!" "I--I hope you never will; it--it don't pay," sobbed Julia. One of the girls had tried the window, found it still unlocked, and had partly raised it. Now the question was, who would be the first one to go in? It was Mamie Smythe who felt the responsibility of the ride, and therefore the necessity of putting on a brave face, and taking whatever consequences followed. "I'll go, girls," she said. "Some of you lift me." Mamie was small and light; it was not a difficult thing to do, as she clung to the window-sill, and in a moment she had disappeared. Then her head came out of the window. "All right, girls," she said in a whisper. "Come quickly, and as soon as you are in go softly right to your rooms. It's still as a mouse here." Now there was a pushing among the girls, not who should venture as before, but who might go. They were too cold and alarmed not to be selfish, and their struggle for precedence delayed them, until Mamie impatiently called the one to come by name. In this way, one after another safely entered, crept to their rooms unheard and unseen, leaving the tell-tale bit of dress hanging on the hook, and forgetting to fasten the window behind them. If they had been all together in one corridor, their pale faces and poor recitations might, at least, have excited the teachers' suspicion that something was wrong; but, as it was, it only seemed to be an event of not very uncommon occurrence that some one should come into the class poorly prepared. It now wanted ten days of Thanksgiving. Only a few of the pupils,--those who had come from Mexico, Texas, Oregon, San Francisco, and other distant places,--but had all their plans made for spending the festival at home; and these, with one exception, were invited away. The school was on the tiptoe of expectation, when, one morning after prayers, Miss Ashton sent for Susan Downer to come to her room. This was the first time such a thing had happened to Susan, and if she had been an innocent girl she would have been elated by it; but, alas, we well know that she was not, so it was with much trepidation that she answered the summons. "Susan," said Miss Ashton kindly, "I am in a good deal of trouble; I thought you might help me. How long is it since your brother came to see you?" What a relief to Susan! Miss Ashton had often inquired about Jerry, and once came into the room to see him, so she answered glibly,-- "Week before last, on Wednesday." "He came in the evening, I believe." "Yes, ma'am: it was a beautiful moonlight night, and a party of boys that were taking a sleigh-ride brought him over." "Did he go back with them?" "I suppose so," said Susan unhesitatingly. Jerry had not told her of his possible return in the cars. "Does your brother know many of the young ladies here?" "He knows his cousins, of course, and Marion Parke, and some of the girls that happened to come into the parlor when he was here, to whom I introduced him." "Can you tell me the names of the girls?" Susan hesitated a moment. What could Miss Ashton want to know for? What could Jerry have done to make her suspect him? All at once the thought of the sleigh-ride flashed upon her, and she colored violently. He had brought the note for Mamie Smythe. The girls had gone on the sleigh-ride. She had heard the whole story from them on their return. Miss Ashton watched the color come and go; then she said quietly,-- "The names of the girls to whom you have introduced him, please." Now, it so happened that these girls were not among the sleighing-party, and after a moment's hesitation Susan named them. "Thank you," Miss Ashton said pleasantly. "That is all now." "All now, _now_," repeated Susan to herself, as she went back to her room. "Is there anything more to come by and by I wonder?" Miss Drake, Susan's teacher in logic, found her a very absent-minded pupil during the next recitation, and gave her the lowest mark for the poorest lesson of the term. In truth, the more Susan thought the matter over, the more troubled she became. Miss Ashton never would have asked those questions without a particular purpose. That she had no suspicions about "Storied West Rock" was plain, for not a question tended that way, but all toward the sleigh-ride; for the first time since it had taken place Susan felt glad that she had not gone. She attached little importance to the giving of the note to Mamie Smythe. How was she to know its contents? She was not in the habit of opening other people's notes. To be sure, her conscience told her, she did know them, and, besides, that troublesome old adage would keep coming back to her, "The partaker is as bad as the thief." Should Miss Ashton put the question point-blank to her, "Susan Downer, did, or did you not, know of the sleigh-ride?" What should she answer? To say she did, would be to bring not only herself, but all the other girls into trouble, perhaps to be the means of their being expelled. To say she knew nothing about it would be to tell a _lie_. Susan dealt plainly enough with herself now, not even to cover it with the more respectable name of falsehood, and it was so hard to escape Miss Ashton if she were once on the track; she _would_ find out, and if she did not expel her too, she would never respect her again. It must be acknowledged, Susan's was a hard place; but she is not the first, and will by no means be the last, to learn that the way of the transgressor is often very, very hard. "I don't care," was Susan's conclusion, after some hours of painful thought. "Thanksgiving is most here, and she'll forget it before we come back." CHAPTER XIX. DETECTIVES AT WORK. Miss Ashton's forgetfulness was not of a kind to be depended upon. Mr. Stanton, the janitor, had come to her a few days after the sleigh-ride to tell her that he had found a back window unlocked; that he was sure he had locked it carefully before going to bed, and that under the window was the print of footsteps. He "kind o' hated," he said, "to be a-telling on the gals, but then, agin, he hadn't been there nigh eighteen years without learning that gals were gals, as well as boys were boys, and weren't allers--not zactly allers--doin' jist right; perhaps it was best to let Miss Ashton know, and then--there now--he hated to do it awfully. If the gals found it out it might set 'em agin him." "Mr. Stanton," said Miss Ashton gravely, "if you had made this discovery and kept it to yourself, you would have lost your place in twenty-four hours. Please show me the window." The snow, for a wonder, remained as it was on the night of the ride, and looking from the window Miss Ashton saw the distinct marks of a number of feet around the bank into which Myra Peters had fallen. She also saw, and took off, the piece torn from her dress. This would surely give her a clew to one of the girls; but, before using it, she would make herself acquainted as far as possible with the time and circumstances when it had occurred. Mr. Stanton could fix the morning when he found the window unlocked, and Miss Ashton remembered that on the previous evening Susan Downer's brother had been there to call. This put a really serious aspect upon the matter. She immediately connected it with the boys from the Atherton Academy. She called a Faculty meeting, hoping some of the teachers had heard the girls go and come, or the sleigh, if indeed it had been a sleigh-ride that tempted them. But none of them had heard the least noise after bedtime, nor even unusual sleigh-bells. If it had not been for the open window, the footprints, and the torn bit of dress, Miss Palmer, who prided herself upon, and made herself unpopular by, her vigilance, would have said it could not have happened; as it was, there was no denying it, and no question that something must be done. Susan Downer's examination had proved so far satisfactory to Miss Ashton, that it had shown her there had been a sleigh-ride given by the Atherton boys; and she said reluctantly to herself, "I am afraid the reliable-looking young man, Jerry Downer, had a hand in it. How strange it is that we can trust young people so little!" Then Miss Ashton felt ashamed of this feeling; for in her long experience she had known a great many true as gold, who had gone out from her training to be burning and shining lights in the world. The quickest way to get at the bottom of the whole, she thought after much deliberation, would be to take the bit of torn dress into the hall, and ask to which young lady it belonged. Accordingly, after morning prayers, she asked the school to stop a few moments, held the piece of cloth up in her hand, and simply said,-- "The owner of it might need it for repairing her dress, and if she would remain after the others left, it would be at her disposal." The majority of the school laughed and chatted merrily about it. Some few came up to see if it could have by any luck belonged to the torn dresses of which not a few hung in their closets. But no one claimed it! Here, then, was a dilemma! It would not be possible to go to every room, and examine the wardrobe of every scholar; besides, now it was known that the bit had been found, and might easily be made to lead to a discovery of the guilty ones, what more natural than that the dress should be hidden away, or sent from the academy building to prevent the possibility of detection! Miss Ashton was disappointed over this failure. She was not much of a detective, and had less reason for being so than falls to the lot of many teachers. She wrote to the principal of the Atherton Academy, inquiring whether he had given leave to a party of his boys to take a sleigh-ride on the night of the twentieth of November. She knew Jerry Downer had been one of them, as he had called on his sister, who was one of her pupils, on that night. She received an immediate answer, saying, "He had not given leave for any sleigh-ride on that night, and was both surprised and sorry that a boy he had always considered so reliable as Jerry Downer should have been among them. He would inquire into the matter at once." And he lost no time; sending for Jerry, he put the question point-blank, his usual straightforward way of dealing with his boys,-- "Did you go on a sleigh-ride the evening of the twentieth of November?" "Yes, sir," said Jerry unhesitatingly. "Did I give you leave to go?" "No, sir; but I supposed the party had asked you, or they would not have gone." "Your supposition was entirely erroneous. My leave had never been asked. Who besides yourself made up the party?" Now Jerry hesitated: he could take the blame of his own going, but it would be mean in him to tell the names of his companions. "Mr.--Uncle John (the principal smiled grimly as he heard this familiar name), I mean Dr. Arkwright," said Jerry, the color browning, instead of reddening his sea-tanned face, "I am very sorry, sir; I thought they had leave; I would not have gone." "Don't _think_ again; _know_, Jerry Downer: that is the only way for a boy that wants to do right. You will tell me, if you please, the names of your companions." "Would that be honorable in me, sir?" asked Jerry, now looking the doctor straight in the eye. A look of doubt passed over the principal's face before he answered, then he said with less austerity,-- "I must find out in some way who among my boys have broken my rules; you can help me more directly than any one else." "Would it be honorable in me?" repeated Jerry. "You are not here to ask questions, but to answer them. Are you going to refuse to help me by giving me the names of the boys?" "I cannot, indeed I cannot; it would be so mean in me. You must punish me any way I deserve, sir; I am willing to bear it; but I cannot tell on the boys." "Very well, Jerry Downer; you are dismissed," and he waved Jerry out of the room. But after Jerry had gone, he went to the window and stood watching him. "That is a generous boy!" he said; "but he has made a mistake. He will see it when he is older and wiser. He will learn that true manhood helps law and order, not even the idea of honor coming before it, noble as it is." Still the difficulty of unravelling the matter remained with him in as much doubt as it did with Miss Ashton; but with both of these excellent principals there was no question but that it must be sifted to the bottom, the delinquents discovered and punished. The time for doing this was short; and should it be necessary to expel a pupil, the coming vacation offered a suitable occasion. Soon after, Miss Ashton, going through the corridor one evening, found two girls in close and excited conversation,--Myra Peters and Julia Dorr. They did not see her at first, so she was quite near enough to them to catch a few words. "You may say what you please," said Julia Dorr. "I'm as sure of it as sure can be; I've sat close by you time and again when you had it on, and if I had been you I would have owned it." "Owned it!" snarled Myra Peters, "will you be kind enough to mind your own business, and let other people's alone, Miss Interferer?" "Well, interferer or not, I've half a mind to go and tell Miss Ashton." "Tell Miss Ashton what?" asked a voice close beside them. The girls turned, to find Miss Ashton there. "Tell Miss Ashton what?" she asked again pleasantly; "I always like to hear good news. What is this about?" Now, nothing had really been farther from Julia's intention than to tell on Myra. She was one of those who had gone up to the desk when Miss Ashton showed the piece of cloth, and had recognized it as like a dress she had seen Myra wear. That there was anything of more importance attached to it than the ability to mend the dress neatly, she did not think, so she answered readily,-- "Why, Miss Ashton, that piece of cloth you showed us was exactly like Myra's dress. I've seen it a hundred times; but she declares she never had a dress like it, and we were quarrelling about it. I wish you would show it to her close up, and see if she don't have to give in." "I will; come to my room, Myra!" and she led the way there, Myra following with a frightened, sullen face. Then she found the piece, and laid it on the table. "Myra," she said, after looking at the girl kindly for a moment, "is this like your dress? Tell me truly; it is much the best thing for you to do." Myra gazed at the cloth for a moment, then burst into a flood of tears. "So you were one of the sleighing-party?" said Miss Ashton quietly. "Will you tell me who were with you?" If Myra had not been taken so entirely by surprise, she might, probably would, have refused to answer, for honor is as dear to girls as to boys; but she sobbed out one name after another, until the six stood confessed. "Thank you," was all Miss Ashton said, then she handed Myra the tell-tale cloth, and added, "You had better put it neatly in the place from which it was torn." She opened her door, and Myra, wiping her eyes, went quickly out and back to her room. Hardly conscious what she was doing, with an impatient desire to get away, she began to pack her trunk. "I will go home, home, home!" she kept repeating to herself. "I never will see one of those girls again. Oh, dear, dear! If I only hadn't gone on that sleigh-ride; that abominable Mamie Smythe is always getting the girls in trouble: I perfectly detest her. What will my father say?" CHAPTER XX. REPENTANCE. It is a common error that to send a girl into a boarding-school to finish her education is to bring her out a model, not only in learning, but in accomplishments and character. Here were two hundred girls, coming from nearly two hundred different families, each one brought up, until she was in her teens, in different ways. Looking over the population of a small village, the most careless observer must see how unlike the homes are; how every grade of morals and manners is represented, and with what telling effect they show themselves in the characters of the young trained under their roofs. It happened often that Montrose Academy was looked upon by anxious parents--who were just discovering, in wilfulness, disobedience, perhaps in matters more serious even than these, the mistakes they had made in the education of their daughters--as a sort of reformatory school, where Miss Ashton took in the erring, and after one or more years sent them out perfect in every good work and way. While Miss Ashton made all inquiries in her power to prevent any undesirable girls from joining her school, she was often imposed upon, sometimes by concealments, and not unseldom by positive falsehoods, but oftener by the parental fondness which could see nothing but good in a spoilt, darling child. It often happened that with just such characters Miss Ashton was very successful, not seldom receiving a girl of a really fine nature which had been distorted by home influences, and sending her away, after years of patient work, with this nature so fully developed and improved that her whole family rose to her standard. Instances of this kind made Miss Ashton careful in her discipline. She well understood that a girl once expelled from a school, no matter how lightly her friends might appear to regard the occurrence, was under a ban, which time and circumstances might remove, but might not. In the case of this sleigh-ride, the disobedience to known and strictly enforced rules made her more anxiety than any case of a similar kind had given her for years. She knew now the names of the girls concerned: they had given her trouble before. Mamie Smythe she had often been on the point of sending home, but she was one of those characters with fine traits, capable of being very good or very bad in her life's work. The mother was a wealthy widow, Mamie her only child. Spoiled by weak and foolish fondness she had been; but her brightness, her lovableness, her cheery, witty, sunshiny ways remained. Evidently, here she was the accountable one; she should be expelled as a lesson to the school, but to expel her meant, _what_? She had wealth, she had position, she would in a few years be able to wield an influence that, in the right direction, would outweigh that of almost any other girl in school. To be sent home, back to that weak mother, with a life of frivolous pleasures before her, what, under these circumstances, was it the wisest and best thing to do? Favoritism for the rich or the poor was not one of Miss Ashton's faults. By this time the whole school knew of the ride, of its discovery, and was holding its breath over the probable consequences. The girls said, "Miss Ashton grew thin and pale from the worry." The feeling of the school, most of whom were tenderly attached to her, was decidedly against those who had troubled her; and if she could have known the true state of the case, when she was neither eating nor sleeping, in her anxiety to do what was right, she would have found that the good for order, discipline, and propriety, which was growing from this evil done, was to exceed any influence she could hope to exert, even from the severest act of just discipline. She was to be helped in a most unexpected way. Two days after her interview with Myra Peters, there was a soft tap on her door, and opening it, there stood Mamie Smythe! Her face, usually covered with smiles, was grave and even sad. "Miss Ashton," she said, without waiting to close the door, "please don't be hard on the other girls. It was all my fault; I was the Eve that tempted them. I know it was wrong; I know it was _dreadful_ wrong! I was worse than Eve; I was the serpent that tempted Eve! They wouldn't a single one of them have gone if it hadn't been for me! Do, please, Miss Ashton, punish me, and not them! They never, never, _never_ would have gone if I hadn't tempted them. Please, please, Miss Ashton! I'll do anything; I'll get extra lessons for a year! I won't have a single spread; I'll be good; you won't know me, Miss Ashton, I'll be so good; and I'll bear any punishment. You may ferule me, as they do in district schools," and she held out a little diamond-ringed hand toward Miss Ashton; "I'll be shut up for a week in a dark closet, and live on bread and water. You may do anything you please with me, only spare them," and she looked so earnestly and imploringly up in Miss Ashton's face, that her heart, in spite of her better judgment, was touched; all she said was,-- "Tell me about it, Mamie." "When Susan gave me the note," began Mamie. Miss Ashton started. "Susan who?" she asked, for Susan Downer had not confessed to any note; indeed, had virtually denied connection with the ride. "Susan Downer, of course; she gave me the note. Her brother brought it to her, and I was wild with joy to have a sleigh-ride. It was such a bright moon, and the sleighing looked so fine, I wanted all day to ask you to let me have a big sleigh, and take the girls out, but I knew you wouldn't." "Yes, I should have," interrupted Miss Ashton. "That's just awful," said Mamie, after a moment's reflection; "and if I'd been brave enough to ask you, nothing of this would have happened. "I hadn't time to think only of the girls--you know them all, Miss Ashton!" "And who were the boys?" asked Miss Ashton, thinking perhaps she might aid the other troubled principal. "The boys! oh, the boys!" and Mamie's face looked truly distressed now. "Please don't ask me, Miss Ashton. I'd cut my tongue out before I'd tell you!" "Very well, go on with your ride." Then Mamie repeated fully and truly all that a girl in the flush of excitement caused by a stolen sleigh-ride could be expected to remember, not palliating one thing, from the supper to the dance, and the clamber in at midnight through the open window. If at some points a little laugh gurgled up from her fun-loving soul, as she told her tale, Miss Ashton understood, and forgave it. "I thank you, Mamie," said she at last; and she stroked the little hand given to her so loyally for the sacrificial feruling, but she turned her eyes away. What Mamie might have read there, she dared not trust to the girl's quick sight; indeed, she hardly dared to trust the feeling that prompted it in herself. There was no use to have another Faculty meeting, and depend upon it for help; she must settle the trouble alone. It was Susan Downer who was next called to the principal's room. She went tremblingly. What was to happen to her now? Miss Ashton knew the girls' names who went on the sleigh-ride, and as yet no one had been punished. Could it be about "Storied West Rock"? How Susan by this time hated its very name, and how much she would have given if she had never known it, she could best have told. "Susan," said Miss Ashton, as with a pale face and downcast eyes the girl stood before her, "when I asked you about your brother's visit to you on the night of the sleigh-ride, you did not tell me of the note he gave you, and you gave to Mamie Smythe. If you had, you would have saved me many troubled hours." "You did not ask me," said Susan promptly. "True. Did you know the contents of the note?" "Mamie asked me to go with them, but I refused. I was afraid you wouldn't like it, and I'd much rather lose a ride any time than displease you;" and Susan, as she said this, looked bravely in Miss Ashton's face. "That's all," the principal said gravely, and Susan, with a lighter heart than that with which she had entered, left the room; but Miss Ashton thought, as she watched the forced smile on the girl's face, "There's one that can't be trusted; what a pity, for she is not without ability!" Then she remembered the story she had read and praised, and wondered over it. Two days before the time for the term to close, Miss Ashton received this note:-- OUR DEAR MISS ASHTON,--We, the undersigned, do regret in sackcloth and ashes our serious misconduct in going away at an improper time, and in an improper manner, on a sleigh-ride, without your consent and approval. We promise, if you will forgive us, and restore us to your trust and affection, that we will never, NEVER be guilty of such a misdemeanor again. That we will try our best faithfully to observe the rules of the school, and endeavor to be good and faithful scholars. Pray forgive and test us! MAMIE SMYTHE, HELEN NORRIS, JANE SOMERS, JULIA ABBEY, MYRA PETERS, ETTA SPRING. Miss Ashton smiled as she read the note. Repentance by the wholesale she had never found very reliable; and in this instance she would have had much more confidence if the girls had come to her, and made a full confession, without waiting to be found out. It was not until after two sleepless nights that she came to the conclusion to give them further trial; and when she called them to her room, one by one, and had a long and faithful talk with them, sending them from her tenderly penitent, she felt sure her course had been a right one. Then she made a short speech to the school, went over briefly what had happened, not in the least sparing the impropriety of the stolen ride, but, on account of the repentance and promises from the girls concerned, she had decided not to expel them now, but to give them a chance to redeem the character they had lost. The school clapped her enthusiastically as she closed. CHAPTER XXI. ACCEPTING A THANKSGIVING INVITATION. A week before Thanksgiving, Marion Parke received this note from her Aunt Betty:-- DEAR NIECE,--If you haven't anywhere else to go, and have money to come with, you can take the cars from Boston up here and spend Thanksgiving Day with us at Belden. Your pa used to think a lot of coming here when he went to college--the great pity he ever went. He might have been well-to-do if he had stuck to farming, but he always hankered after an eddication, and he got it, and nothin' else. Your Cousin Abijah will drive over in his cutter and bring you here. Don't have nothing to do with Isaac Bumps; he'll charge you twenty-five cents, and tell you it's a mile and a half from the station to my house, but it's only a mile, and don't you hear to him, for your Cousin Abijah can't come until after the milking, and if the cows are fractious, it may make him belated. I am your great-aunt, BETSY PARKE. Marion had previously received a letter from her father, saying,-- "If you have an invitation from your Aunt Betty to spend Thanksgiving with her in Belden, by all means accept it. I want you to see the town in which I was born; there is not a mountain or a valley there that does not often cover these flat prairie-lands with their remembered beauty. As they were a part of my boyish life, so are they a part of my man's; and when you come home we can talk of them together. I was not born in the old farmhouse where your aunt now lives, but my father was, and his father, and his father's father, and your Aunt Betty was a kind, loving sister to your grandfather long years ago. "Go, and write me all about the old home, all about the old aunt, and make her forget, if you can, that I would not be a farmer." Before the coming of this letter, Marion had many invitations from her schoolmates to spend Thanksgiving with them at their homes. Her room-mates were very urgent that she should go to Rock Cove; and besides her longing to see that wonderful mysterious thing, the ocean, she had learned so much of their homes during the weeks they had been together, that she almost felt as if she knew all the friends there, and would be sure of a welcome. But her father's letter left her no choice, and a few cordial lines of acceptance went from her to her Aunt Betty by the next mail. Of this decision Miss Ashton heartily approved. And now began in the school the pleasant bustle which precedes this holiday vacation. Recitations were gone through by the hardest. Meals were eaten in indigestible haste; devotional exercises were filled with "wandering thoughts and worldly affections." All through the long corridors and out from the open doors came crowded, eager words of inquiry and consultation. One would have thought who heard them, that these girls had been close prisoners, breaking away from a hard, dull life, instead of what most of them really were, happy girls bound for a frolic. Miss Ashton heard it all without the least injury to her feelings. She had heard it for years, and, in truth, was as glad of her vacation as any of her girls. A journey alone in a new country, with the beauty of the autumn all gone, and the rigors of a New England winter already beginning to show themselves, made Marion, self-reliant as she usually was, not a little timid as she saw the tall academy building lost behind the hills, between which the cars were bearing her on to New Hampshire. A homesick feeling took possession of her, and a dread that she might find Kate Underwood's tableaux a reality when she should reach her old aunt in the mountain-girded farmhouse. Three hours' ride through a bare and uninteresting country brought her to Belden. The day was extremely cold here. The snow, which had seemed to her very deep at Montrose, lay piled up in huge drifts, not a fence nor a shrub to be seen. All around were spurs of the White Mountains, white, literally, as she looked up to them, from their base to their summit. There were great brown trees clinging stiff and frozen to their steep sides; sharp-pointed rocks, raising their great heads here and there from among the trees. Majestic, awful, solemn they looked to this prairie child, as she stood on the cold platform of the little station gazing up at them. A voice said behind her, startling her,-- "You'd better come in, marm. It's what we call a terrible cold day for Thanksgiving week. Come in, and warm you." Marion turned, to see a man in a buffalo overcoat, with whiskers the same color as the fur, eyes that looked the same, a big red nose, a buffalo fur cap pulled well down over his ears, with mittens to match. He stood in an open door, to which he gave a little push, as if to emphasize his invitation. Inside the ladies' room of the station a red-hot stove sent out a cheerful welcome. To this the man added stick after stick of dry pine wood, much to Marion's amusement and comfort, as she watched him. "Come from down South?" he asked, after he had convinced himself of the impossibility of crowding in another. "From the West," said Marion pleasantly. "You don't say so. You ain't Aunt Betty Parke's niece, now, be ye?" "I am Marion Parke. Did you know my father?" "Let me see. Was your father Philip Parke? Phil, we used to call him when he was a boy, the one that would have an eddication, and went a home-missionarying after he got chock-full of books. Aunt Betty, she took it hard. Be he your father?" "Yes," said Marion, laughing; "he is my father." "You don't say so, wull, naow, I'm beat. You don't favor him not a mite; you sarten don't. An' you're here to get an eddication too, be ye?" "Yes; that's what I hope to do. I'm sorry it's so cold here; I should like to walk to my aunt's if it were not." The man gave a chuckle, which Marion did not at all understand, jammed the stove full of wood again, and remarked as he crowded in the last knot,-- "There's your Cousin Abijah; I know his old cowbells a mile off! Better get warm!" Marion was hovering close over the stove when the door opened and Cousin Abijah entered. "There you be," he called out hilariously as he saw her. "Not froze nuther! You're clear grit! I told your Aunt Betty so, and she said 'seein' was believin'.' As soon as I've thawed my hands a mite, we'll be joggin'. Dan, that's the hoss, isn't the safest to drive in the dark." The early twilight was already dropping down over the hills before "the mite of thawing" was done, and then wrapped up in an old blanket shawl Aunt Betty had sent, and covered by two well-worn buffaloes, they started. What a ride it was! Marion will never forget how Dan crawled along up a mountain road, where the path ran between huge snow-drifts, under beetling rocks that looked as if an avalanche might at any moment fall from them and crush horse and riders in the sleigh. Sometimes going under arches of old pine-trees, the arms of which had met and interlocked, long, long years ago; up steep declivities, where the horse seemed almost over their heads, down steep declivities, where they seemed over the horse's head, never meeting any one, only hearing the dull moaning of the wind among the forest trees, and the louder moaning of old Dan, as he toiled painfully along. At last there came an opening that widened until they crossed the mountain spur, and the little village of Belden lay before them. Marion saw a church steeple, a few houses, a sawmill, and great spaces covered with snow. To one of these houses, on the outskirts of the village, Cousin Abijah drove. The house was a two-storied old farmhouse, innocent of paint or blind. There was not a fence round, or a tree near it. On one side was a wooden well-top, with a long arm holding an iron-bound bucket above it, the arm swinging from a huge beam, from which, in its turn, swung two large stones, suspended from the well-sweep by an iron chain. A well-worn foot-path came from a back door to it, and on this path stood a yellow dog, nose in air, and tail beating time on a snow-bank. It was the only living thing to be seen, and Marion's heart sank within her. She was cold, tired, and homesick; and she saw at once that around the small front door, before which Cousin Abijah in his gallantry had stopped, no footstep had left a mark. The snow-bank reached to the handle, clung to it, and as absolutely refused entrance, as did a shrill voice which at once made itself heard, but from whence Marion could not conjecture. It said, however, "Go round to the back door! What's good enough for me, is good enough for them that come to see me!" [Illustration: "I hope I see you well," said a not unkindly voice, as Marion stepped out of the sleigh.--Page 143. _Miss Ashton's New Pupil._] CHAPTER XXII. AUNT BETTY'S RECEPTION OF HER GUEST. When the sleigh stopped before the back door, it was slowly opened, and Marion saw a tall, lank old woman with thin gray hair, small, faded blue eyes, a long, sharp nose, and thin lips, standing in it. "I hope I see you well," said a not unkindly voice, and something like a smile played over the hard old face. A knotty hand was held out toward her, and when she put hers timidly within it, it drew her into a large kitchen, where a cooking-stove, that shone like a mirror, sent out rays of heat even to the open door. It was like Kate Underwood's "Tableau kitchen," yet how different! It had such an air of cleanliness and comfort, that everything, even to the old chairs and tables, the long rows of bright pewter that adorned a swinging shelf, the hams clothed in spotless bags, hanging from the old crane in the big chimney, all had a certain air of refinement which went at once to Marion's heart. Aunt Betty took off one of the lids of the stove, jammed in all the wood it could be made to hold, then moved a straw-bottomed chair, laced and interlaced with twine to keep the broken straw in place, close to the stove, and motioned Marion to sit down in it. Then she stood at a little distance looking at her curiously. "You don't favor the Parkes," she said, after a slow examination. "You look more like your Aunt Jerushy; she was on my mother's side. Your brown hair is hern, and your gray eyes; you feature her too. When you're warm through, you can go up-stairs and lay off your things. I don't have folks staying with me often, but I'm glad to see you." This she said with a certain heartiness that went straight to Marion's heart. She held up her face for a welcoming kiss, and, blushing like a young girl, Aunt Betty, after a quick look around the room, as if to be sure no one saw her, bent down, and kissed for the first time in twenty years. Then Marion followed her up some steep stairs, leading from the kitchen to an unfinished room under the rafters. Here everything again was as neat as wax, but how desolate! An unpainted bedstead of pine wood, holding a round feather-bed covered with a blue-and-white homespun bed-quilt; a strip of rag carpet on a floor grown beautiful from the care bestowed upon it; a small table covered with a homespun linen towel, a Bible in exactly the middle of it; two old yellow chairs, and not another thing. It was lighted by a three-cornered window, which Marion learned afterward, being over the front door, was considered the one choice ornament of the house. In spite of its desolation, its neatness was still a charm to her. It was, as she knew, the family homestead, and that subtile influence, so strong yet so indescribable, seemed to her to brood over the room. Here generation after generation of those whose blood was running now so blithely through her veins had lived, died, and gone out from it. Gently reverent she stood on its threshold. Aunt Betty, looking at her curiously, wondered at her. It had never been warmed excepting from the heat that had come up from the kitchen stove. For the first time in her long life, Aunt Betty found herself wishing there was a chimney and a large air-tight stove in it; it would be fitter for a young girl like this visitor. But Marion had been by no means accustomed to luxuries. She made herself at home at once. She hung her hat upon a nail which was carefully covered with white cloth to prevent its rusting anything, and put her valise, not upon the table with the Bible, or on the clean, blue bed-quilt, but up in a corner by itself. Aunt Betty watched all these movements, every now and then nodding her gray head in silent approval. Then they went back to the kitchen, Marion taking a Greek play with her to read,--one of Euripides. She had promised herself much pleasure during this short vacation in finishing the play which her class were studying at the end of the term. Aunt Betty, walking back and forth around the kitchen, stopped now and then at her elbow, and peeped curiously inside the open leaves. An object of Marion's in taking the book had been to relieve her aunt of any feeling that she must entertain her; if she had been older and wiser she would have seen her mistake. She was trying to puzzle out a line of the chorus, when a voice said close to her ear,-- "Be that a Bible you are readin'?" Marion gave a little start, certainly there was nothing very Scriptural in the play. "No-o-o," she stammered; "it's a Greek play, a--a tragedy." "A tragedy! you don't read none of them wicked things!" severely. "Why, yes, auntie, when they come in the course of my study. It's in Greek!" "Greek! and you're a gal! Your father allers was cracked about it, but this beats all!" Marion failed to see it in just that light, but she said pleasantly, "I'll put it away if it troubles you." A long arm pointed up-stairs, and Marion followed its direction. When she came down, it seemed to Aunt Betty, in spite of her displeasure, that the rays of sunlight that were glimmering so faintly at the head of the stairs came down with her and lighted up the dingy old kitchen. "Now give me something to do," said Marion dancing up to her with one of the prettiest steps she had learned at the academy. "It's Thanksgiving, you know, to-morrow, and we have such lots and lots to do at home; there's pies and puddings and cakes and a big turkey to prepare, and a chicken pie, and nuts to crack, and apples to rub until you can see your face in them." Aunt Betty's mouth and eyes opened as wide as they could for the wrinkles that held them while Marion told of the festival dinner, then she looked down at Marion's feet, and, not satisfied with the glimpse she caught of a pair of little boots, she lifted Marion's dress, then asked,-- "Be you lame?" At first Marion was puzzled, then she remembered how she had danced into the room, so, with a merry peal of laughter, instead of answering, off she went into a series of _pirouettes_ that might have astonished more accustomed eyes than those of her old Aunt Betty. When she had danced herself out of breath she said, "Does that look like being lame? Better set me at work and let me use my feet to some more useful purpose!" So still and stiff Aunt Betty stood that Marion could hardly restrain herself from catching hold of her and whirling her around in a waltz. But fortunately she did not, for the first words her aunt said were,-- "Do you have Satan for a principal at your school, Marion Parke?" "Satan! Why, auntie, we have Miss Ashton, and she's the loveliest Christian lady you ever saw. We girls think she is almost an angel! Do you think it's wicked to dance?" "Sartain I do;" and the shake of Aunt Betty's gray head left no doubt she was in earnest. "Then I'll not dance while I am here," and Marion sat herself down demurely in the nearest chair. Aunt Betty looked at the big clock in the corner of the kitchen. The early dark was already creeping into the room, hiding itself under table and chair, showing the light of the isinglass doors of the cooking-stove with a fitful radiance, making Marion lonely and homesick, for you could hear the clock tick, the room was so still. Then Aunt Betty lighted two yellow tallow candles that stood in iron candlesticks on the mantel-shelf, put up a leaf of the kitchen table, covered it with a clean homespun cloth, put upon it two blue delft plates and cups, a "chunk" of cold boiled pork, a bowl of cider apple-sauce, a loaf of snow-white bread, and a plate of doughnuts. "Come to supper!" she said, and Marion went. How hungry she was, and how good everything, even the cold boiled pork, looked, she will not soon forget! Before they seated themselves, Aunt Betty stood at the back of her chair, and, leaning on its upper round with her eyes fixed on the pork, she said,-- "For all our vittles and other marcies we thank Thee." Marion, when she became aware of what was taking place, bowed her head reverently; but when she raised it she could not conceal the smile that played around her mouth. She did not know this was the same grace which had been said over that table for one hundred and twenty years; yet it made her feel more at home, and she began to chat with her quaint old relative in her pleasant way, telling her of her home, of their daily life there, of the good her father was doing, and how every one loved and respected him. Aunt Betty listened in silence, only now and then uttering a grunt, which, whether it was commendatory or condemnatory, Marion could not tell. It was a long, dull evening that followed. At eight, one of the tallow candles, much to her joy, lighted Marion to her bed. CHAPTER XXIII. THE ACADEMY GIRL'S THANKSGIVING AT THE OLD HOMESTEAD. Marion never knew that shortly after she fell asleep a tall, gaunt woman with a gray-and-white blanket over her shoulders stole softly into her room, holding her candle high above her bed, and standing over, peered down at her. As she gazed, a half-smile crept into her rugged face. "Pretty creatur!" she said aloud; then, with deft and careful fingers she tucked the bed-clothes close around the sleeping girl, smiled broadly, and crept out. The next morning when Marion waked, through the odd little oriel window the late winter light was struggling fitfully in. At first she could not tell where she was: the rafters over her head, the bare white walls that surrounded her, the blue-and-white homespun quilt that covered her, were unlike any thing she had ever seen before. She was on her feet in a moment, half frightened at the dim light. Had another night come? Had she slept over Thanksgiving? When she went to the kitchen, Aunt Betty was there busy over the cooking-stove. She was about making an apology for her lateness, but she was interrupted by,-- "'Taint never too late to pray; you may read the Bible." She pointed without another word to the old family Bible. Marion took it, opened it slowly, waiting to be told where to read. "Thanksgiving," said Aunt Betty briefly. "It's all Thanksgiving my father says. He thinks the Bible was given us to make us happy." "Thirty-fourth Psalm, then," and a quiet look came into the old seamed face. When Marion had read it, her aunt rose from her chair, stepped behind it, tilted it on its front legs, and folding her hands on its top began to pray. Like the grace at table, it was the same old prayer that had gone up from that same old kitchen for one hundred and twenty years. Its quaint simplicity was a marvel to the young girl who listened, but a breath of its devotion reached and touched her heart. Then followed breakfast. Marion wondered, as they two sat at the table alone, how the old aunt could have borne the loneliness for so many long years. To her, on her first Thanksgiving away from her cheerful home, there was something positively uncanny in the silence which settled down over the house; even the old yellow dog, with his nose between his front paws, slept soundly, and the great red rooster that had lighted upon the forked stick that before the back door had held the farm milk-pails for more than a century, instead of calling for his Thanksgiving breakfast, as orthodox New England roosters are expected to do, just flapped his wings lazily, and turned a much becombed head imploringly toward the kitchen window. What was to be done with the long, dull festival day? Marion may be forgiven if she cast many longing thoughts back to the academy, to the pleasant bustle that filled the long corridors, the merry laughs of the girls, the endless chatter, the coming and the going that seemed to her never to cease. She was homesick to see Miss Ashton, her room-mates, and Helen, over whose daily life she had already installed herself as responsible for its comforts and its pleasures, and who, homeless and poor, remained almost by herself in the great empty building. She was not, however, left long in doubt as to the day's occupations. Hardly had the breakfast dishes been put away, when Aunt Betty said,-- "Meetin' begins at ten. We hain't got no bell, and we'll start in season. You can put on your things." The clock said nine; meeting began at ten. Five minutes were all she needed for preparation. Here was time for a few lines at least of that Greek tragedy. She had read one line, when the door opened, and there stood Aunt Betty. "Listen, Aunt Betty!" she said. "Hear how soft these words are." Then she rattled off line after line of the chorus. This is Greek, she said, pausing to take breath. "Listen! I will translate for you." She carried her book to the oriel window, so the light would fall more clearly on its page, and began,-- "Before the mirror's golden round, Curious my braided hair I bound, Adjusted for the night; And now, disrobed, for rest prepared, Sudden tumultuous cries are heard, And shrieks of wild affright. Grecians to Grecians shouting call, 'Now let the haughty city fall; In dust her towers, her rampiers lay, And bear triumphant her rich spoils away.'" "Doesn't that roll along sublimely? Can't you hear the cries and the shouts of the Grecian host?" "I can hear Marion Parke making a fool of herself. Be you, or be you not, goin' to meetin' with me?" "Meeting? Why, of course I am. I wouldn't miss it for anything. I'll be ready in half a minute. Will you?" Aunt Betty, in her short black skirt, her old gray sack, and her heavy shoes, did not make much of a holiday appearance. Something of this crept slowly into her brain as she looked down, so she turned quickly, and went away without another word. Marion gave some girl-like twists to her brown hair, pinned a gay scarlet bow to the neck of her sack, and, looking fresh and pretty as a rosebud, went to the kitchen, where she had to wait some time before Aunt Betty made her appearance. Cousin Abijah had brought the old horse and sleigh round to the back door. Here a long slanting roof ran down to the lintel of the door, and up to the plain cornice snow-drifts lay piled. What a winter scene it was! Marion, never having seen the like before, gazed at it in wondering admiration. When Aunt Betty and Marion started for the village meeting-house, the thermometer was fifteen degrees below zero. Aunt Betty took a rein in each hand, and as soon as the snow-banks bordering the narrow path to the road were safely passed, began a series of jerks at the horse's mouth, which Dan perfectly well understood, too well, indeed, to allow himself to be hurried in the least. "One foot up, and one foot down, That's the way to Lunnon town," laughed Marion when they had gone a few rods. "Klick! Klick!" with more decisive tugs from Dan's mistress; but the "Klicks," as well as the tugs, were of no avail, and Marion, afraid to venture another comment, turned her eyes from the horse to the scenery around her. Notwithstanding the extreme cold, the ride to the little meeting-house Marion will never forget. When she left the farmhouse it seemed to her a short walk would bring her to the foot of the snow-clad mountains; but, to her surprise, when they reached the church they were towering up above the small village like huge sentinels, so still, so grand, that, hardly conscious she was speaking aloud, Marion said,-- "I never knew before what it meant in the Bible where it says, 'The strength of the hills is his also.' Wonderful! wonderful!" "Eh?" asked Aunt Betty, only a dim comprehension of what Marion meant having crept in beneath the big red hood that covered her head. Marion repeated the verse, and to her surprise her aunt answered it with, "'Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying grace! grace unto it.'" Not a word did she offer in explanation; she only twitched the horse's head more emphatically, and did not speak again until she reached the meeting-house door. What a desolate-looking audience-room it was! Up in one corner roared a big iron stove, which, do its best, failed to warm but a few feet of the spaces around it. A gray-bearded minister in his overcoat was reading from the pulpit a hymn, as they went in, and a dozen people, most of them men, were scattered round in the bare pews. They all looked pleased to see an addition to their number, and some nodded to Aunt Betty; all stared at the new-comer. There was no sermon, but a short address, which Marion strove to remember, that she might repeat it to her father, as having come from the old pulpit before which he had worshipped as a boy; but, do her best to be attentive and decorous, her teeth chattered, and the "Amen" was to her the most interesting part of the services. The ride home was even colder than the one to the meeting; for a brisk north-east wind had risen, and came howling down from the mountains in strong, long gusts that betokened a coming storm. Dan obstinately refused to move one foot faster than he chose, and before they reached home they were thoroughly and, indeed, dangerously benumbed with the cold. Little thought had they of Thanksgiving, as they clung to the warm stove and listened to the rising of the wind. It was Marion who first remembered the day, and looked about for some way of keeping it. Poor, pinched, half-frozen Aunt Betty had entirely forgotten it. Now Marion made herself perfectly at home. She found old-fashioned china that would have been held precious in many houses, decorating with it the table in a deft and tasteful way that warmed lonely Aunt Betty's heart, as she watched her, more than the blazing fire could; and while she worked, she talked, or sang little snatches of college songs learned at school, which rippled out in her rich voice with a melody never heard in the old farmhouse before. It was not long before Aunt Betty came to her help, and such a bountiful dinner as she had prepared made Marion wish over and over again that Helen, alone in that large academy building, could have been there to share it with her. "Thanksgiving night!" Marion kept saying this to herself over and over again, as she sat alone with Aunt Betty over the kitchen stove. A little oblong light stand was drawn up between them, holding a small kerosene lamp. Not a book but the Bible, and a copy of the Farmer's Almanac suspended by a string from the corner of the mantel, was to be seen. Marion, having heard so much of the intelligence of the New Hampshire farmers, supposed of course there would be a library in the house, and had brought only her Greek Tragedy with her. This she did not dare open again, so there she sat, Aunt Betty, not having yet entirely recovered from the effects of her cold ride, alternately nodding and rousing herself to a vain effort to keep her eyes open. And all the time the storm was increasing, the wind rocking the house with its rough blasts, until it seemed to utter loud groans, and the sharp cold snapping and cracking the shaking timbers with short volleys of sound like gun-shots. Frightened mice scurried about in the low roof over the kitchen; and rats, lonely rats, seeking company, came to the top of the cellar stairs, pushing the door open with their pointed noses, and blinking in beseechingly with their big round eyes. Marion, who had never heard anything of the kind before, was really frightened. "O Aunt Betty," she said piteously, "do, please, wake up and tell me if there are ghosts here!" Aunt Betty just stared at her; she was wide awake now. "There are such dreadful noises, and such mice, and--and rats!" "Nonsense!" said Aunt Betty, listening. "Don't be a coward! It's only the storm." "It's fearful! What can we do?" "Pop corn!" Marion could not help laughing at the inconsequent answer; but anything was better than the noisy stillness of the last hour, and bringing a large brass warming-pan and some corn, they were soon busy popping the corn. It would have been difficult to say which of the two enjoyed the sport the most. It carried Marion home, where the family were all gathered together before the brisk fire in the cheerful sitting-room. Aunt Betty was young again. Nat and Sam, Bertha and Molly, and little Ruth filled the big, empty kitchen, laughed merrily over the crackling corn, held out small hands to catch it as the cover swung back, pelted each other with it till the spotless floor crunched beneath their dancing feet. It had been long years since they had come home to her before on Thanksgiving night, but here they were now, all evoked by Marion's glad youth. The moment the old clock struck nine, warming-pan, corn, and dishes vanished from sight. A long tallow-dip Aunt Betty held out to Marion, and pointed up-stairs. Marion obeyed; and though all night long the wind howled, the mice and the rats held high carnival, Marion slept soundly, and never knew that Aunt Betty, with her candle held high above her head, made another visit to her bedside, and there, bending her old knees, offered up her simple prayer, asking in much faith and love God's blessing on this new-found niece. CHAPTER XXIV. MARION'S REPENTANCE. No time had been mentioned for the continuance of Marion's visit; and coming as she had from the busy life of the school, where every minute had its allotted task, Thanksgiving week was hardly over before she began to be very homesick. In vain she strove against it, and by every pleasant device in her power tried to make her visit pleasant to her aunt. Even the short November days seemed to her endless, and the evenings had only the early bedtime to make them endurable. On her first coming, she had told Aunt Betty the day the vacation was over, and evidently she was expected to stay until then; but on the morning of the seventh day she became desperate, and for want of any other excuse hit upon one that would be most displeasing to her aunt. "You don't like to have me study my Greek here, Aunt Betty," she said; "and, as I must review it before the term begins, I think I had better go back now." Aunt Betty put her steel-bowed spectacles high up on her nose, and, after looking at her silently for a moment, said,-- "I don't take no stock in your Greek." Marion laughed good-naturedly. "If you only would let me read it to you," she said, "you would like it as well as I do; it's so soft and beautiful." "What's the matter with your Bible? Isn't that good enough for you?" "But, Aunt Betty, you don't understand." But Aunt Betty did understand enough to be very sure she did not want Marion to go, so she turned abruptly on her heel, and hid herself in the depths of the pantry. Marion stood for a moment undecided what to do, then, seeing that if she would go that day she had very little time to lose, she went up-stairs, packed her valise, and the next time she saw her aunt was ready for her journey back. The prospect of a mile walk through the half-broken roads, up steep hills, and down into drifted valleys, would have shown Marion the difficulties had she been a New Englander; but as she was not, her courage did not fail in the least when, without a word more, or any sign of a good-by from Aunt Betty, she opened the door, letting in a cold she was a stranger to, and went out into it. Of that walk she never liked to speak afterwards. Many times she stopped, almost but not quite willing to return; tired, half-frozen, and unhappy that her rest had terminated unpleasantly, yet so very, very homesick that she seemed driven on to the station,--if to reach it were a possibility. Fortunately for her, when she had reached the last half she was overtaken by a man driving an empty wood-cart, who stopped and asked her if she "didn't want a lift?" From what this saved her, no one could ever know. In the mean time, Aunt Betty, with her eyes dimmed--but she did not know it was by tears--had watched her through a slit in a green paper window-shade. Until she left the door, she did not believe she could do so foolish a thing as to attempt the walk to the station on such a morning; but when she saw her step off so courageously down the narrow foot-path, she began to have misgivings. Notwithstanding her tears, the sight seemed to harden instead of soften her heart. "If the gal will go, go she will," she said aloud, with some unforgiving wags of her head. "She's stuck full of obstinacy as her father was afore her." And by this time Marion was hidden from her sight by the deep snow-banks, and she turned from the window into her lonely kitchen with a heavy heart. Marion, safely back in the academy, had, like Aunt Betty, her own troubled thoughts. She found only Helen there among the scholars, and every teacher away but Miss Ashton, who evidently had not expected her back so soon. Regular school duties did not begin until Tuesday of the next week, and now it was only Wednesday night. She might have remained in Belden a day or two longer, and then left with her aunt's approval. What kind of a return had she made to her aunt for her kindness? Marion's room, that she had thought of with so much longing as she sat in the farm kitchen, had lost its charm. She was very willing to believe it was because her room-mates were not there, and the fast falling darkness prevented her from seeing from her window the winter view, which even the grand old mountains that she had left behind her did not make her value less. Self-deception was not one of Marion's faults; she grew so quickly regretful for what had happened, that when Miss Ashton came to her door, troubled by the girl's tired look on her arrival, she found her with red eyes and a swollen face. "Tell me all about it," she said, taking no notice of her tears, but turning up the gas to make the room more cheerful. "What has gone wrong? Wasn't your aunt glad to see you? Are you sick? Fancy I am mother, and tell me the whole story." She took Marion's hand in hers, drew the young girl close to her, and stroked the bonnie brown hair with a loving mother's touch. "It's all my blame," said Marion, her voice trembling as she spoke. "My aunt was as kind as she could be, but it was so lonely, and"--with a smile now--"so noisy there." "Noisy!" repeated Miss Ashton. "Yes, ma'am; there were ghosts and rats and mice; the very house groaned and shook, and the wind came howling down from the mountains, and all the windows rattled." Miss Ashton only laughed; but when Marion went on to tell the story of her leaving the house against her aunt's wishes, she looked very sober. She had no knowledge of Aunt Betty's circumstances, surroundings, or character, but she knew well the nature of country roads during a New England winter. She thought from Marion's own account that her homesickness had made her obstinate and unreasonable, and that her coming away must have been a source of anxiety to her aunt, while she was unable to prevent it. "Marion," she said at last, "didn't you think more of yourself than of your aunt?" "Yes, ma'am," said Marion unhesitatingly. "And to be selfish is always?" "Mean. Don't say another word please, Miss Ashton." "I am sure, Marion, in the future you will be more careful. It is such an easy thing to wound and worry those about whom we should always be thoughtful. If I were you, I would not let a mail go out without carrying a note to your aunt, telling her of your safe arrival here, and of your regrets for what has happened. It's always a noble thing to say 'I'm sorry,' when one has done wrong." The next mail took the following letter:-- MY DEAR AUNT,--I am going to write you to-night, to tell you two things. One is, that I am safely back again at the academy, and the other, that I think it was both inconsiderate and unkind for me to leave you as I did, when I saw you thought I had better stay with you. I am ashamed and grieved that I did not do as you wanted me to. I hope most sincerely you will forgive me and forget it. I cannot easily forgive myself, and I am sure I shall never forget all your kindness to me, or the nice time we had with the bright warming-pan and the crisp pop-corn, or the wonderful mountains all wrapped in their ermine mantles. Please forgive, and love your ashamed niece, MARION PARKE. Aunt Betty's correspondence amounted sometimes to two letters a year, so this penitent letter of Marion's remained in the post-office until the postmaster found a chance to send it to her. By that time, what she had suffered from anxiety had made her unable to cope with the perils of the winter before her, and she often said to the few visitors who came in to see her, "I've dropped a stitch I can never take up again," but never a word of blame for Marion did she speak; indeed, she had come to love the young girl so well, that it is doubtful whether, even in her heart, she harbored one hard thought toward her. The letter finished, Marion's conscience gave her less uneasiness. No thought had she of the suffering her selfish action had occasioned. The visit had, after all, many pleasant memories, and for her only beneficial results. There had come to her from her repentance and Miss Ashton's kind reproof, a lesson, if not new, at least impressive, of the necessity of thinking of others more than of one's self. She could not see her Greek Tragedy without a smile, indeed, she went so far as sometimes to think that its reception in the old kitchen of the farmhouse had given her a greater avidity for its study. On the whole, this winter visit was by no means a lost one; and when Saturday brought more of the scholars back, and the term began, she was fully ready for it. On Sunday morning Nellie, feeling lonely and sick, had come to Marion's room. Marion made a nice bed for her on her sofa, and sat by her side bathing her hot, aching head, now and then reading to her. Toward night she complained of her throat; fearing Miss Ashton would send her to the nurse if she were told of it, she would not let Marion go to her, but begged to stay where she was so piteously that Marion gladly consented, asking leave of the teacher, but not mentioning Nellie's sickness. The consequence was, that the disease progressed rapidly, and when morning came she was too sick even to object to the nurse, who, surprised and bewildered, sent for Miss Ashton at once. Dr. Dawson, the physician of twenty years' academical sickness, being summoned, pronounced it a case of diphtheria, and ordered Nellie's removal to the rooms used as a hospital, and Marion's separation from the rest of the school, as she had been exposed to the same disease. CHAPTER XXV. DIPHTHERIA. On Tuesday the regular exercises of the day were to begin. All day Monday, carriage after carriage came driving up to the academy, depositing their loads of freight,--excited girls full of the freshness and pleasure gathered from their brief holiday. The long corridors were merry with affectionate osculations. Light, happy laughs danced out from rosy lips, and arms were twined and intertwined in the loving clasp of young girls. So much to tell! So much to hear! Miss Ashton, welcoming the coming groups, called it a "Thanksgiving Pandemonium;" but she enjoyed it quite as much as any of the rioters. In the evening, when they were all together in the large parlor, she turned the gathering into a pleasant party, helped to fill it with fun and frolic, and sent even the most homesick to their rooms with smiles instead of tears. Not a word had been said of Nellie Blair's sickness. There is no place where a panic is more easily started and harder to control than in a girls' school; nor is there any cause that will so surely awaken it as a case of diphtheria. Its acute suffering, its often sudden end, its contagiousness, all combine to make it the most dreaded of diseases. Some reason had to be given, of course, for the condition in which Marion's room-mates found their room on their arrival, also for Marion's removal. Miss Ashton had guardedly told them the truth, with the strictest request that they should keep it to themselves; but, in spite of her injunction, that night after the party broke up, there was not a girl in the hall who did not know and who was not alarmed by Nellie's sickness. Anxious groups gathered together in the corridors and discussed it. Some fled to their rooms and wrote hurried notes home, asking for leave to come back at once. The panic had begun, augmented beyond doubt by the excitement consequent on the return. Miss Ashton was besieged by girls, all anxious to know the exact state of the case, and not a few clamoring for leave to go away, even that very night, from the contagion. Had she any less influence over this frightened crowd, or they any less trust in her wisdom and kindness, half of the rooms would have been empty before morning; but, as it was, simply by telling them the truth, that Nellie had diphtheria, but that the doctor said that it was not a malignant case, and that there was not the slightest danger of its spreading, with even ordinary care, she succeeded in so far quieting their fears that they went to their rooms, though, if she had only known it, to discuss with even more excitement than they had shown to her the dreadful possibilities before them. One girl actually stole out at midnight and, hurrying through the cold and darkness, went to the house of a cousin who lived near by, waking and alarming the family in a way that they found hard to forgive, and taking by this exposure so severe a cold that, serious lung symptoms developing, she was sent home, and her academical course ended. The next morning when the school gathered in the chapel, they found Dr. Dawson on the stage. After the preliminary exercises were over, he rose, and said,-- "Young ladies, I understand you have taken fright on account of the case of diphtheria that is occurring here. I am an old man, as you see, and have had a hundred, perhaps five hundred cases as like this as two peas in a pod." (He stopped, expecting a smile at least for his homely comparison, but every face was as sober as if he had come to sound a death-knell.) "Miss Blair _is_ sick, I might say is _very_ sick, but I am not in the least anxious about her, or about any of you. Under ordinary circumstances, and I consider these very ordinary, I think there is not any probability of another case in the house. "Take an old physician's advice. Stay where you are, go promptly and faithfully about your regular duties, don't mention the word diphtheria, and don't think of it. If I were a life-insurance agent, I would insure those of you who obeyed my injunctions for half the premium that I would those who worry over this, or run away. Again I say, go faithfully about your ordinary duties, and all of you" (dropping his voice into solemn tones now) "ask God to be with and protect you, and restore to you your sick companion." Then he took up his hat and marched down through the long, girl-bordered aisle, smiling and nodding to those he knew as he went. On the whole, his speech did little to allay the panic. He had not only allowed that Nellie was _very_ sick, but he had talked about "life-insurance," and asking God for protection. Qualms of fear followed him as he went. Miss Ashton understood the assembly better than the wise physician, and before he had closed the door she regretted that she had asked him to address them. One part of his advice, however, was sound; that regarding to the scholars at once resuming their work, and putting diphtheria out of conversation and mind. If only good advice could or would always be taken, what a different world it would be! Fortunately here, among these two hundred girls, there were leaders both sensible and trusted, who did follow the doctor's advice, went at once about their studies, and ably seconded the exertions of the teachers to resume the usual routine of work. Among the most prominent of these was Dorothy Ottley. She had that indescribable moral power over the girls which comes, and one is tempted to say comes only, from a consistent, faithful, gentle, loving character. She did not draw to herself that impulsive love which is here to-day and gone to-morrow, so common among girls; but if any were sad or sick or in trouble they instinctively sought Dorothy, and they always found in her what they needed. She was plain looking; her sea-browned face, her thin, light hair that wind and wave had bleached, the pathetic look that years of a hard life had stamped upon her, could not conceal, could not even dim, the strong, true soul that looked out of her gray eye, or change the effect of the honest words her lips always spoke. Now, wherever she went, the girls clustered around her, followed her example in prompt attendance on the regular duties, and somehow, no one could have told you just how, felt safer that she was there. Marion, Miss Ashton kept from among them. If she had been exposed to the disease from Nellie's being with her, it might be best not to allow her to mingle with the others; besides, they would shun her, and that Marion would find hard to bear. As it was not known except to her room-mates that she had returned from her vacation, this was easy to do; and so in the pleasant guest-room Marion went on with her studies without a fear of diphtheria, only thinking of, and anxious for, the sick friend. It was Gladys who began the series of attentions that on the second day filled Nellie's room with gifts of flowers, of fruit, of books, even of candy and pretty toys, which the girls had already begun to gather for the coming Christmas. Miss Mason, the trained nurse, was kept busy at certain hours answering the teacher's knock who brought the gifts and the accompanying love,--and Nellie, poor Nellie, struggling with the pain and the uncertainty, was cheered and helped by loving attentions given to her for the first time in her desolate life. Miss Ashton, hearing every hour from the sickroom, shared in the cheer and the help; there was a reward to her in this proof of the tenderness and generosity of that wonderful woman's nature she had made it her life's work to develop and train. Each day there was a bulletin put up in the hall, stating Nellie's condition. It was always cheerful. Miss Ashton wrote,-- "Nellie is cross this morning. Dr. Dawson pronounces it the best symptom he has seen since she was taken sick." "Nellie has asked for a piece of that mince-pie one of you sent her. Nurse says, 'No,' but looks much pleased at the request." "Rejoicing in the hospital! a decided improvement in Nellie." "Nellie teases to sit up." "Nellie lifted onto the sofa! Dressed in my old blue wrapper! Looks white and funny." "Nellie sends her love and thanks to all her kind, kind friends." "Nellie teasing to see Marion Parke." "Nellie pronounced out of danger." "Nellie removed to Mrs. Gaston's, where she will stay until she is strong enough to resume her studies. Sends love and thanks." The next day there were rumors around the school that Marion Parke, who had been missed by this time, and accounted for, was taken sick with diphtheria, and was much worse than Nellie had ever been. Now, of course, the panic began anew; and as many of the girls had written home and obtained leave to return, more than that, commands to do so, as the sick girl's case was contagious, Miss Ashton found all her trouble renewed. She had been besieged with letters from anxious parents, charging her not to trifle with their children's lives, but by all means to send them home at once if there was the least real danger; so now she had no hesitation in letting those go who wished, indeed it was a relief to her to have the number of her school smaller, and the anxiety lessened; but now it was only a scare. Marion did have a sore throat, but it was one which comes often with an ordinary cold, and Dr. Dawson laughed at it, gave her some slight medicines, and scolded Miss Ashton for having separated her so long from the girls. The girls gave her a wide berth, but for this Miss Ashton had prepared her, and Marion was more amused than hurt by it. Before a week had passed, the four room-mates were together in their old rooms, and Marion was made a heroine. All she had done for Nellie was exaggerated, with that generous exaggeration of which girls are so capable. After all, this diphtheritic episode had only been injurious to the school inasmuch as it had broken into the regular routine, and thrown hindrances into the completion of work which was expected to be done before the coming on of the long holiday vacation. That Christmas and New Year's came so soon after Thanksgiving was something for the teachers to deplore; but as they were in no way responsible for it, and as indeed Christmas was a religious holiday, well in keeping with the _animus_ of the institution, they met it heartily, the more so than usual this year, as they hoped, the vacation over, to resume the regular course, both in study and discipline, without any further interruption. CHAPTER XXVI. CHRISTMAS COMING. The Demosthenic Club had received two severe setbacks since its organization. One when Kate Underwood's tableaux fell under Miss Ashton's displeasure on account of the carelessness it had shown in injuring, for fun's sake, the feelings of a schoolmate; the other when members of the club had been guilty of a flagrant breach of the rules, by the stolen sleigh-ride with the Atherton boys. "In spite of it all," Kate Underwood said, "we will just change its name, and go on as if nothing had happened. We are to be now the 'Never Say Die Club.' Vote on it, girls." The new name was adopted by acclamation, and several other votes were carried at the same time, all in favor of law and order, showing how truly these girls had meant to keep the promises they had made in their extremity to Miss Ashton, to be law-abiding members of the school. They held their secret meetings as often and as secretly as their constitution demanded; they discussed all questions that the interests of the times suggested. If they had a spread, it was before study hours, and with unlocked doors. On the whole, Jenny Barton, Kate Underwood, and Mamie Smythe took the lessons they had received into good, honest hearts, and grew, by the many resisted temptations which were born of the secrecy of their club, into better, nobler characters. Miss Ashton, watching them with vigilant eyes, marked the improvement, and showed her value of it by greater confidence in its leading members. There was an important meeting to be held a week before the breaking up for the Christmas vacation. It was to be in Lilly White's room, where, indeed, most of their meetings were held, for Lilly had a room by herself, richly furnished, this being the only inducement her parents could offer her, that made her consent to the fearful ordeal of a few years at school,--to be dull and to be wealthy! Who would desire it for any child? "You understand," said President Jenny Barton, after the meeting was called to order, "that this is to be no common affair. It's to be, well! it's to be a sort of atonement for--well, for those other affairs; and, girls, if we do anything about it, let's do it up handsome. What do you say?" "Do it jist illigant, or let it alone," said Mamie Smythe. "Jist illigant!" repeated one member of the club after another, until the president said,-- "Motioned, and carried. Now for our plan. Keep it a profound secret!" Such a busy place as the academy became now, probably had its counterpart in every girls' boarding-school all over the length and breadth of our land. Where there is good discipline and good scholarship, neither the rules nor the lessons are allowed to be slighted; but as December days shorten, and December cold strengthens, even the most indolent pupil finds herself under a certain stress of occupation which she cannot resist. Shirking can find no place in the recitation-room. Moments that have been idled away now become precious, each one laden with its weight of some loving remembrance to be made for the dear ones at home. Such treasures of delicate silks, laces, plushes, velvets, ribbons, embroideries, card-boards, tassels, cords, gilt in every shape and capable of every use; such pretty gift-books, booklets, cards, afghans, sofa-pillows, head-rests; such wonders of ingenuity in working up places for thermometers, putting them in dust-pans, tying them onto bread-rollers, slipping them behind wonderful clusters of sweet painted flowers; such pen-wipers, such blotters, work-baskets, paper-baskets, bureau coverings, bureau mats! napery of all varieties; and, after all, this enumeration is but the beginning of what in Montrose Academy was hidden in drawers, stowed away in most impossible and impracticable places, yet always ready to the hand for a spare moment. Two hundred girls,--for by this time most of the diphtheritic runaways had returned,--and all, without an exception, were Christmas busy! Christmas crazy! What a changed place it made of the school! Benedictions on the hallowed holiday! If we put aside its religious bearing, think of it only as a time when heart goes out to heart, even the most selfish of us all will remember to show our love in a visible token of affection. If, with all this, we can make our offerings hallowed by a tenderer love and a deeper affection for Him in whose honor the whole world keeps the festival, then, indeed, the day becomes to us the most blessed and beautiful of our lives! Marion Parke saw it as it was kept here in an entirely new way. At her Western home, her father had made it a day of religious observance. Marion had always been leader in trimming their church with the pretty greens which their mild winter spared to them, and on Christmas Sunday they sang Christmas hymns, and listened to a Christmas sermon. On Christmas Eve they had a Christmas-tree, and hung it with such useful gifts as their necessities demanded and a small purse could provide. It was a happy, precious day, simply and heartily kept; but here she was lost in wonder, as she was called from room to room to see the rare and beautiful gifts which, it seemed to her, abounded everywhere. Money to purchase such things for herself to give away she had not, but she watched her room-mates, as they deftly prepared their gifts for their Rock Cove homes, with delight. How busy and happy they were! Sometimes Marion's longing to send something, if only a little remembrance, home brought the tears into her eyes. Gladys was the first to see this and to guess its cause. At once she began to purchase new silks, trimmings of all kinds, booklets, cards, increasing her store, until even her cousins, accustomed as they were to her fitful extravagances, wondered at her. When her drawers, never too orderly, began to assume a chaotic appearance, she said fretfully one morning to Marion Parke, who was looking and laughing at the chaos,-- "I should think, instead of laughing at me, it would be a great deal better natured in you to help me put them into some kind of order. Your drawer isn't half full. Look here! open it, and let me tuck some of these duds in." Marion opened hers, pushed the few things it contained carefully into a corner, and said,-- "You are very welcome to all the room you want. Remember, I am only here on sufferance; it is really all yours." "Nonsense! help me, can't you? I shall pitch them in any way, and you are so tidy!" Help her Marion did, and when the jumbled but valuable contents of the drawer were all transferred, Gladys shut it up with a gleeful laugh. "Oh, how splendid it is," she said, "to have the drawer clean and clear again! Never one of those duds is going back, and you can use them or throw them away; put them in a rag-bag if you want to; I've nothing more to do with them." Then Sue and Dorothy understood what the extravagance meant, but Marion did not; she only stood still, staring at Gladys, wondering what she could have said or done to vex her kind-hearted room-mate. And it was not until hours afterward, when she was alone with Dorothy, and Dorothy told her they were gifts to her, that she knew how rich in Christmas treasures she had suddenly become. And here it is pleasant to tell, that this was only one of Gladys's thoughtful kindnesses. Little bundles of similar gifts were constantly going from her to the doors of the girls whose small means made Christmas presents luxuries in which they could not indulge. Even Gladys's liberal father wondered often over the amount of money which she wished for these holidays; but he trusted her, and in truth felt proud and glad that this only child had a noble, generous nature, which could, and did, think of others more than of herself; for in the account which she always sent him of the expenditure of these moneys, while there were many "give aways," there were few dollars spent on herself. One day, in the regular mail-bag, there came this note to Miss Ashton:-- We, the undersigned, grateful for the undeserved kindnesses with which you have made our repentant days so happy, request the pleasure of your company in the parlor, Tuesday evening, December 22. JENNY BARTON, SOPHY KANE, KATE UNDERWOOD, MAMIE SMYTHE, LUCY SNOW, LILLY WHITE, MARTHA DODD, _and all the members of the "Never Say Die Club."_ "What are those girls up to now?" Miss Ashton said with a pleasant laugh, as she read the invitation, but she accepted it without any delay, and when she was told by Miss Newton, the confidential helper of the whole school in any of their wants, that the parlor had been lent to the secret society for the evening, and no teacher was to be allowed entrance until eight o'clock, she smilingly acquiesced. The club were excused from their recitations that afternoon, and it was amusing to see how much spying there was among the rest of the school to find out what was going on. All that could be seen, however, was the coming in of a big boxed article, unfortunately for the curious, so boxed that no one could even guess what it contained. A general invitation had been given to the whole school, and before the appointed hour for opening the door, groups of girls in full evening dress began to fill the corridor and press close to the door. When, punctual to the appointed moment, it was flung open, a burst of laughter followed. Ranged around a covered object in the middle of the room stood twenty girls, dressed in gray flannel blankets made in the fashion of the penitential robes worn by nuns. They all wore stiff white hoods, with the long capes coming down over their shoulders, and each one carried in her hand a small tin pan filled to the brim with ashes. They stood immovable until Miss Ashton entered the room, when the whole club sank upon their knees, bending their heads until they nearly touched the floor, dexterously placing the tin of ashes upon their backs. No sooner had they assumed this position than a little flag was unfurled from the top of the covered object in the middle of the room, upon which was printed in large letters:-- "FORGIVE, AND ACCEPT." Then the covering was slowly removed by some one hidden beneath it, and there stood an elegant writing-desk, on the front of which were the words:-- "A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO MISS ASHTON THE MERCIFUL FROM HER GRATEFUL NEVER SAY DIE CLUB." CHAPTER XXVII. CHRISTMAS IN THE ACADEMY. Marion, two days before Christmas, was once more left alone in her room. The Rock Cove cousins had given her the most cordial invitation to go home with them for the vacation, but she had declined. In doing so, she had a half-acknowledged feeling that she was to suffer just penance for her misdeeds at Belden, and a dread of what unknown trouble she might meet at Rock Cove. This Eastern world was so different from the whole-hearted, kindly one she had left behind her, that instead of wonting to it, she grew timid, diffident of herself, even among the girls, and shy about venturing abroad. So she made her mind up bravely to stay where she was, and spend her vacation in study. Miss Ashton fully approved; for since Marion's sickness with her cold, she had shown an inclination to cough, and was often hoarse in the morning. A stay by the seaside in winter would be to run a risk. It might be dull for her to remain, but she loved her books, and there was plenty for her to do in order to keep up with her advanced classes; besides, there were twenty of the pupils whose homes were so distant they could not go there, and return, without taking more time than the vacation allowed, so they, also, were to remain, and Marion, though dull, need not be lonely. All the teachers but Fräulein Sausmann were to be absent, and to her care Miss Ashton had to commit the young ladies during the vacation. The wheels of the carriage that took her away from the academy had hardly ceased to be heard by the anxious listeners there, before Marion's door was opened just far enough to admit the Fräulein's good-natured face. Never had her ample head of light hair looked so large, her blue eyes so blue, her nose so _retroussé_, or her thin lips so thin, to Marion, as now. Before she had time to welcome her, the Fräulein said in her high-pitched voice,-- "O Marione! Wir happiness time wir have der Christtag. Wir 'ave der Baum so high," holding up a plump little hand as high as she could reach. "Twenty, thirty das Licht! Christtag presented buful! You 'ave one, sieben, zwölf, four! You come happiness; nicht cry, nicht! nicht! Lachen! so!" and a merry peal of laughter Marion found no trouble in echoing. "You come parlor Christtag night, you see! I, Santa Claus! Merry Christtag. Catch you! Nicht cry! Lachen! Lachen!" She shut the door softly, but Marion heard her laugh as she went down the long corridor, such a merry, contagious laugh, that it carried away with it the loneliness from Marion's room. There was to be a gathering in the parlor then,--der Baum. Twenty, thirty das Licht, and what else? Of one thing Marion felt sure, if she was to receive, one, sieben, zwölf, four presents, she must give some in return, but what, and to whom? She was not long in doubt. Lilly White was among those who remained, and the Fräulein had hardly gone when she made her appearance with four other girls at her door. "Oui, Fräulein Marione! Ab alio expectes, alteri quod feceris. "That's French, Latin, and German. I picked it out of"-- "Don't tell, Lilly White," broke in one of the girls. "See if Marion can translate it." "Come in and let me try," said Marion, laughing. "Oui--yes; Fräulein--Miss Marion; Ab alio expectes, alteri quod feceris--If any one gives you a present, be sure you give one back." "A literal translation," said the same girl. "Miss Jones always said you were her best Latin scholar. Practically, however, it translates,-- "Come with us to Lilly White's room, and we'll show you a thing or two. But we mustn't all go together. If we do, the Fräulein will be popping down on us to be sure no mischief is brewing." "I'll tell you what I will do; I will write in German 'No Admittance' on a big placard, and put it outside my door. What is the German, girls?" "Nicht Zulassung," said one of the girls promptly. "Write it, Lilly, in a big, bold hand." They went together to Lilly's room; and she took a large square of pasteboard, and, without deigning to ask how the words were spelled, she printed in big letters:-- "NOTTZ ULLARSG." "There!" she said, turning it triumphantly for the others to read. Then she hung it on the outside of the door, moved a table to the door, planted a chair upon it, mounted into the chair, and peeped down through the transom to watch for the Fräulein's coming. The others watched her, and all business for the time was suspended. Pretty soon they heard the pattering of the Fräulein's little feet along the corridor, then the sudden halting before their door. Lilly, with a beet-red face, and frantic gestures of two big red hands, motioned them to be still. They heard,-- "N--O--T--T--Z." A significant grunt; then again, "N--O--T--T--Z;" a pause. Again, "N--O--T--T--Z U--L--L--A--R--S--G." "Hindoostanee? No; Indianee: Marione Parkee!" Then a little laugh, followed by,-- "Marione! Marione! Ope die Thur! What you mean, Nottz Ullarsg?" "No admittance," said Lilly White through the transom. "Why, Fräulein, don't you know your own German?" "Know my own German?" repeated the Fräulein slowly. "Know--my--own--German? Nein! Nein! German, Lilly White! Nein Vater Land. "Lilly White, open die Thur, quickest! My own German! Nein! Nein! Nein! "Marione Parke's Indianee!" It was some moments before Lilly, the chair and the table, could be removed from the door, the Fräulein keeping up a series of impatient knockings while she waited. Then Marion, as the one in whom she would feel the greatest confidence, was pushed to the small opening allowed, and told to say,-- "It's Christmas, almost, dear Fräulein. It's secrets here now. We can't let you in." "Indianee?" asked the Fräulein, pointing to the placard. "What you mean, Marione?" "It was meant to mean 'No Admittance' in German, Fräulein." Such funny little shrieks as the Fräulein uttered, no one could understand, not even Marion, who was looking in her face. There were anger and fun and amazement, chasing each other in quick succession, her hands beating time to each feeling, as an instrument utters its music to the touch. To the amazement of all, it ended in the Fräulein shrieking out,-- "Lilly White! You be a--what you call um der thor, narr, dummkopf, fool, idiotte; you know German, nicht! nicht, you idiotte!" In these hard words the little German teacher's anger wholly vanished; pulling down the placard, she tore it in bits, gathered them up in her small white apron, made a sweeping courtesy, and trotted away. As soon as she was fairly out of hearing, the girls began to busy themselves about their Christmas work. Lilly White's room was full of things to be made into pretty gifts for the tree, of which the Fräulein's share was by far the largest. There is a wonderful degree of thoughtfulness among a company of girls. Not one there but knew of Marion's circumstances, and how impossible it would be for her, out of her slender purse, to meet the demands of the occasion. If Gladys Philbrick had generously helped her to prepare the pretty gifts which were on their way to her far-away home, so these girls as generously planned that in the Fräulein's festival she should not find herself in the embarrassing position of being the one who should receive, without making a return. It was beautiful to see the delicacy with which they managed the whole, so that Marion hardly felt how much they gave, and how pleasantly she received. On Christmas morning the whole house was early astir. All up and down the corridors, long before the dim light penetrated into them, white-robed figures flitted noiselessly from door to door. "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" was whispered inside, until a ghost-like procession of some twenty girls headed for the Fräulein's room. This was at the end of the second corridor, and as they approached it not a sound was to be heard from within but the satisfactory one of long and loud snores. It had been agreed on the previous night that not a door should be locked on the inside, and Helen Stratton, "the cute girl," who could do anything she tried to do, was chosen to open this door. This she did so noiselessly, that the whole twenty girls entered the room and surrounded the Fräulein's bed without so much as interrupting a single snore. Then all at once a merry chorus broke out with,-- "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas, Fräulein!" The Fräulein stirred in her bed. Then another shout, louder than the first, and she sat bolt upright. The gas in the hall had been lighted, and stole in through the transom sufficiently to give the ghost-like look the girls sought; but even with this, she was slow in comprehending what was happening. One more shout, and she sprang out of bed, catching the one nearest to her, and giving her a good, hard shaking. "Der Christtag! Der Christtag! Fröhlich Weinacht! Fröhlich; I wishes you 'arpy Christtag! What _you_ call it?" "Merry Christmas!" shouted the girls. "Ah, Ja! Ja! Merrie Christmas! one Merrie Christmas, a t'ousand Merrie Christmas. Now you go dress! Miss Ashton say, 'Fräulein, the young ladies tak cough.' You catched me, I catched you to-nacht. You see! gute nacht! gute nacht!" And like a very small queen, in her pretty nightdress, she waved the girls away, then locked her door; if they had come back only a few minutes later, they would have heard the same musical sounds coming from her bed. But when the day had fairly dawned, it would have been difficult to find a more wide-awake, alert teacher than the Fräulein, or one that could have given a truer and pleasanter Christmas day and night. CHAPTER XXVIII. FRÄULEIN'S GYMNASTICS. "Fräulein, can you have prayers for the young ladies in the small reception-room on Christmas morning?" Miss Ashton asked with much hesitation the day before leaving. "Ja! Ja!" answered the Fräulein, all smiles and nods. "Very well, then, I will give the notice to-night. As Christmas is a religious festival, I shall be glad to have a religious as well as a festival observation of it. As for the matter of going to church, the young-ladies can do as they please; there need be nothing compulsory about it." "I mistand," and the Fräulein congratulated herself on her correct English. "All wrong; nein! nein, all." "Right," said Miss Ashton, laughing. "Oui, Ja! Der Dank! Tanks. I learn Anglais soon. Patientia, Fräulein Ashton. I learn soon, by un by." In compliance with this request, after a hasty Christmas breakfast, the girls assembled in the reception-room, and waited with more curiosity than devotion the coming of the Fräulein. She had not been down to breakfast, and when she made her appearance now, it was as if an odd-shaped swan was waddling into the room. From head to foot she was dressed in a fluffy white stuff, that stood out all over her like snow-feathers. A stifled laugh greeted her, but of this she took no notice; walking slowly to the table that had been prepared for her, she turned a solemn face toward the girls, opened a German prayer-book, and began to read the service for Christmas morning, stopping when she came to the places for the chant, and, motioning to her audience to rise and join her, she sang in sweet tones music familiar to the girls, in which, with the English words they were accustomed to, they all joined. Then down she fell upon her knees, the others following her example, and with her eyes half shut, and her little hands folded reverently upon her prayer-book, she rattled off prayer after prayer with astonishing rapidity. Now, though the young ladies had come in anything but a solemn frame of mind, which the Fräulein's droll appearance was not calculated to change, there was something so devotional, almost solemn, in her rapidly changing expression of face, that they became at once and unconsciously devout. Dropping on their knees, and covering their faces, they joined her "Amens" with hushed voices, and into their susceptible hearts the hallowing influence of the religious festival found ready entrance. They were hardly prepared to see the Fräulein spring lightly upon her feet, to hear a merry laugh ring out, and "Good-morgen! good-morgen!" spoken with the accompaniment of a cloud of white batting, that flew off from her arms and shoulders as she laughed. Queer little Fräulein! but good and kind as she was queer! All day long she worked indefatigably alone in the big parlor. Not one of the girls was allowed even so much as a peep within the doors. The day was a rarely fine one for a New England Christmas. The sun shone out of a cloudless sky; a warm south wind blew gently over the deep snow-drifts; little sparrows hopped delightedly upon the branches of the Norway spruces that grew close to the house, lifted their pretty wings as if to coax the wind and sun, while they chirped their cheerful Christmas carols, stole the late berries from the trees, and twisted their round heads so they could send loving glances up to the bevy of pretty girls that watched and smiled down upon them, as they fed them from their windows. At seven o'clock the gong was sounded, and the young ladies in gala dresses filed into the bright parlor. In the centre of the room was a large tree. Near it stood the Fräulein, smiling and courtesying to each one as she entered. A quaint little figure she was; yet, with all her quaintness, there was enough of dignity to suppress any merriment her appearance might have caused. The number and variety of these gifts was a marvel to them. When they were fairly distributed, the Fräulein lifted the cover of an unopened box, and took from it a gift for every teacher. Good, happy Fräulein! Not a thoughtful word or a kind act from these to you strangers in a strange land, but you have treasured in your homesick heart, and from the Vater Land you bring to them all to-day your grateful recognition of it all! Perhaps the happiest of them was the lame Nellie, who, yet weak and pale from her sickness, had with the Fräulein's consent brought to the Christmas-tree little pictures which she had painted in her convalescence, as gifts to them all. She held tight to Marion's hand. In some way, she could not have told you how, she seemed to herself to have owed to this dear friend the ability to have painted them. It was a little cross she gave Marion, but she had hung on it a wreath of lovely rosebuds, meaning, through them, to convey to Marion how her love had made the cross of her suffering beautiful. As the vacation had commenced on the twenty-third of December, and school did not begin again until the fifth of January, there was quite a time remaining after the excitement of Christmas had passed. The more scholarly and industrious of the girls remaining at the academy at once applied themselves to making up whatever deficiencies had occurred in their studies. Marion found plenty to do, not only for herself, but also for Nellie, whose lessons had necessarily run behind during her illness. The Fräulein found them together over their books much oftener than she thought was for their good. Having been thoroughly educated in the German methods of teaching, she was a firm believer in vacation benefits, also in muscular training, which she considered quite as essential for girls as for boys. In her imperfect English, and also by personal illustration, she had tried, ever since her connection with this school, to awaken the teachers, Miss Ashton in particular, to a greater sense of its importance. To be sure, there was a gymnasium in the building, and a regular teacher, who faithfully put her pupils through the exercises commonly allowed to girls. But these seemed to the Fräulein to be only a beginning of what might be done; so, now, finding herself for a time in sole authority in the school, she at once, as soon as Christmas was over, began to put her girls through what she considered so essential to their health. She made her first attempt upon Marion and Nellie. Finding them both bent nearly double over their books, Nellie very pale, with dark rings under her eyes, and Marion with flushed cheeks and too bright eyes, she at once routed them from their books, made them stand up before her, and said,-- "Now, do"--and her English word failing her, she drew a long breath from the bottom of her chest, and motioned to them to imitate her. Marion, never having attempted anything of the kind before, did so partially, and Nellie could only produce something that sounded like a gurgle in her small throat. The Fräulein shook her head impatiently, and repeated the process over and over again, Marion gaining a little every time, but Nellie soon discouraged and tired. "Bard! bard! nicht right--aushauchen tief--so, thus:" (deep breaths from the Fräulein). Then, seeming suddenly to remember that the girls did not know why she made the request, she tried in an anglicized German, which no one could by any possibility have understood, to explain it to them. She tapped her own head, took up a book, appeared to read it, while she moved the leaves in time with her long inhalations and exhalations. "Bon scholars! long--so!" Then suddenly she said, "Patientia!" and vanished from the room. In a few minutes the corridor was full of noisy girls, who came direct to Marion's room, and in obedience to the Fräulein's directions arranged themselves in a circle. They had only the vaguest idea what they had been called for, but they knew the Fräulein always gave them "a jolly good time," and came willingly. Merry enough they were for the next hour, and much to the Fräulein's surprise, for they were quicker than German girls, they made so much progress that, after the second lesson, a plan that was to tell much in future for the well-being of the academy was fully developed. The Fräulein drew up a paper in German, in which she detailed not only the benefits physically resulting from her system of deep breathing, but also the help it would be in resting the excited nerves with which so many of the young girls came into the recitation-room. Then, before presenting it to Miss Ashton, she roused the enthusiasm of her class by telling them how much she needed their help, as examples of the great good to be derived from her gymnastics. And the result was that they had not only the amusement of the exercises to help them pass the vacation, but also the benefit resulting from it, and the hope that through them it would become a part of the school-life. When Miss Ashton returned, she was not a little surprised at the gain she so quickly recognized, nor was she slow in availing herself of its aid. She had always felt that nothing was more necessary for a good working head than a perfect physical balance, and for that reason she allowed and encouraged a greater amount of amusement, which was relaxation from study, than was common in what is called a finishing school. It was almost the only boast in which she indulged, that, during the twenty years of her care of the academy as principal, she had never had a case of fatal sickness, or, indeed, of any severe enough to excite alarm. During the fall she obliged the girls, as long as the weather would allow, to spend hours every day in the open air, giving them their choice of exercise,--walking, riding, boating, botanizing, geologizing, any and every thing that would bring to them rest and change. In winter there was dancing in the large hall, there were compulsory gymnastics, there were skating on the pond, coasting on the hills back of the academy, or, not so seldom as it might have been supposed would be the case among girls, snowballing in the most approved boy-fashion. Indeed, once upon a time it was reported that, having come out, as she generally made a point of doing whenever any amusement was going on, to witness the sport, a girl more audacious than any of the others ventured to throw a snow-ball in the direction of her august person, and it was received with such a merry laugh, that another followed, and another, and another, until she was as ermine-covered as if she were dressed for a court reception; and not a girl among the laughing crowd but loved her better and respected her more. "My best recitations," she was often heard to say, "come after the best frolics. Give me pupils with steady nerves, bright eyes, and sweet, clear voices, and I will show you a school where they study well, and the deportment is of the best. "I am never so anxious about my girls as when the weather shuts them in-doors, and the cold makes them want to hug the radiators." It was on account of the good common-sense by which this method of regulation was carried on, that the school was sought far and near; to this, in a great measure, it owed its success. The gymnastic teacher already employed was a good one for the old methods; but there was something so inspiring in the Fräulein's enthusiasm on the theory of long breaths, that Miss Ashton made it at once a part of daily practice, and put her in as teacher for those classes. Watching the result of the experiment, it took Miss Ashton but a short time to satisfy herself as to its immediate benefits; and as for the girls themselves, they were so amused and strengthened by the lessons that, after a little practice, it became a favorite diversion, and you would find them often in merry groups, inhaling and exhaling, perhaps not in exact accordance with the Fräulein's rules, but gaining at least in proportion to their enjoyment. As for the Fräulein, a very happy and proud teacher she boastfully declared herself. CHAPTER XXIX. WOMEN'S WORK. The Christmas holidays being over, the young ladies returned slowly, and many of them reluctantly, to the school. A few left for good; some of them on their own account, some at the request of the principal. New pupils took their places, and almost at once the regular routine of work began. Miss Ashton in one of her short morning talks told them, while the past term had been in many respects a satisfactory one, there had been several occurrences which she should be sorry to see repeated. It would not be necessary for her to enumerate them; they were well known to the old pupils, and for the new ones, she sincerely hoped there would be no occasion for them ever to hear of them. There were now some important things, upon strict attendance to which she should insist during the remainder of the year. One was, a more honest observance of the study hours; another, less gossip: perhaps she should be better understood if she said a higher tone of social intercourse. A thing never to be forgotten was, that the school-life was a preparation for the longer one beyond, and that, a preparation for the one that never ends. "Sometimes," she said, dropping into that hushed tone which every girl in the remotest seat from her desk heard so easily, "I think our lives are but the school in which we all have set lessons to learn, set tasks to perform; and our wise Teacher, so patient, so gentle, so loving with us, when the great examination day comes, will hold us strictly accountable for every slighted lesson, for every neglected duty. "If I could only impress upon you to-day how vitally important here and hereafter the faithful discharge of even your smallest duties may be to you, I should know that when our year together is over, and I part from many of you for the last time, I should meet you again as 'crowns of my rejoicing.' "I need hardly say, certainly not to the more intelligent, who would naturally gather information of this kind, how varied and important a woman's work in life has grown to be. You are all more or less familiar with the fact that we have now entrance into the best colleges, both here and abroad. You know how we are educated for every profession, and to what eminence many of us have climbed. You understand fully, that there is not a position in the literary, business, mechanical, or art world in which to-day a woman may not be found working successfully. "You know, too, that where prizes have been offered in academical institutions, no matter for what object, it is by no means an uncommon thing for it to be awarded to a girl. Last week a class of fourteen women were graduated from the law department of the University of the City of New York. It is said to be the first law class exclusively of women that has ever been graduated. "Two female medical graduates have been appointed house surgeons at two English hospitals. A society has been incorporated in New York entitled the 'Colonial Dames of America,' and to be located in New York City. "Its objects are set forth to be, to collect manuscripts, traditions, relics, and mementoes of by-gone days for preservation; to commemorate the history and success of the American Revolution and consequent birth of the republic of the United States; to diffuse healthful and intelligent information with regard to American history, and tending to create a popular interest therein, and to inspire patriotism and love of country; to promote social interest and fellowship among its members, and to inculcate among the young the obligations of patriotism and reverence for the founders of American constitutional liberty. "A number of prominent ladies are included in the list of officers. "In this connection I will read you a short article I found in my morning paper; and here, let me say, there is not a girl in the school who should not in some way manage to spend a half-hour every day in looking over a newspaper. "I have heard intelligent gentlemen complain of the ignorance of women about the ordinary public life. "'They will talk to you,' they say, 'about housekeeping and servants: they grow eloquent over their children, and sometimes their husbands; but take them out of the region of home, and they are dull company.' "The exceptions of those who are up in the literary, political, scientific, and socialistic world is infinitely small, and all--all because they will not take the trouble to make themselves intelligent on the great questions of the day, by reading newspapers." To go on, however, with what women are doing. "The New Women's Propylæum, in Indianapolis, Indiana, is now completed, and was dedicated January 27. "This building bears the distinction of being the first one erected by women not associated as a club or society. Primarily, its use is for purely business purposes, and secondly, with an educational object in view. Six or seven women, with Mrs. May Wright Sewall at the head, have raised the money and carried out the project. It seemed at first to the public generally like a wild scheme, but the women who had the matter in hand knew just what they wanted, and made every effort to carry out their plans successfully. The board of managers is made up of fifteen women. "Mrs. Sewall says, 'The building of the Propylæum has been to all of us a valuable experience. We have been obliged to meet business men, and to familiarize ourselves with business methods, and have thus acquired an education unusual to women. The lot has a frontage of seventy-five feet, and a depth of sixty-seven feet. The building contains twenty-one rooms, there being two stories above an English basement. The lot cost $5,500, and the building complete $22,500, making a total of $28,000; and $2,000 has been put into furniture. The front of the Propylæum is of ashlar and rock-face work, and it is pronounced a very beautiful structure. The women take special pride in the kitchen, which is complete in every respect. In the front basement are two sets of doctors' offices, both of which were rented long ago; one set to Dr. Maria Gates, and the other to Dr. Mary Smith. Dr. Gates is a graduate of the Chicago Medical College, and Dr. Smith of the Michigan University. The latter is physician at the female prison and reformatory. "'The east parlor is rented by the Woman's Club, the Matinée Musicale, the Indianapolis Art Association, and the Contemporary Club, each of which has arranged to meet on such occasions that they will not interfere with each other. The west parlor is rented for physical culture classes, and to the Christian scientists for their Sunday meetings. The assembly hall will be for rent for entertainments.' "This is interesting, as showing what an active, intelligent set of women have done. "Perhaps some day I shall be receiving newspaper notices of even more important and successful work accomplished by some of my pupils. Here is an interesting notice of women as inventors: 'Within the last century, women have entered for the first time in the history of the world as competitors with men in the field of original contrivances. In the last two years and a half they have secured from the government exclusive rights in five hundred machines and other devices. In the line of machinery, pure and simple, the patent-office reports show they have exhibited great inventive capacity. Among remarkable patents of theirs, are patents for electrical lighting, noiseless elevated roads, apparatus for raising sunken vessels, sewing-machine motors, screw propellers, agricultural tools, spinning-machines, locomotive wheels, burglar alarms. "'Quite a sensation has been caused among the clerks in the New York post-office by the entrance of seven young women into the money-order department as clerks during the last month. The girls obtained their positions by surpassing their male competitors at the civil-service examination, and will receive the same pay as male clerks.' "Here is another that will interest the ambitiously literary among you:-- "'Miss Kingsley, daughter of Charles Kingsley, has been awarded the decoration of the French academic palms, with the grade of "officer of the academy," for her valuable writings upon French art.' "There seems, as you will notice from what I have read you, no bounds to what we women not only can do, but in which our success is generously allowed and honorably mentioned; but there are several things to which I may as well call your attention here. "There is not now, there never has been, an honorable achievement, but it has been gained by steady, persevering effort. I think I could pick out from among the young ladies before me, those who in the future will be able to hold positions of trust and usefulness, perhaps renown; they are the girls who are true, honest workers, day in and day out, week in and week out. This honest work never has been, never will be, done where time is frittered away, where rules are broken, where those numberless little deceits which I am grieved to say many a girl who should be far above them sometimes practises; it requires a noble character to do noble work. "I am desirous, particularly so, to impress upon you all to-day, as it is the beginning of our longest, hardest, and most important term of the year, the necessity for every one of you individually doing her best as a scholar, as a lady, and, let me add, what I wish I could feel sure you would strive for beyond all other claims, as a Christian. A true Christian is as good a scholar as her natural abilities allow, a lady she must be everywhere, and at every time. "In closing, I have one request to make of you; you will see, while it does not seem to bear immediately upon what I have been saying, there is a close connection. "I want to turn your attention specially to women's work in this nineteenth century. When you learn in a more extended manner than I have been able to give you this morning, what they have done, what they are doing, and what they expect to do, you will realize more fully your share in the life before you. "In order that you may do this, at some not distant time, we will all meet in the parlor, and I shall expect every one of you to bring to me some account of this work. From two hundred of you, we ought to gather enough to make us not only proud of being women, but ambitious to be among the leaders of our sex." * * * * * Then she dismissed the school. CHAPTER XXX. DECEIT. Miss Ashton's talk had an excellent influence upon the school. Even the wealthy girls felt there was something worth living for but society and fashion. A large proportion of the pupils were from families in moderate circumstances; to them avenues of access to power and influence were opened. To the poor, of whom there were not a few, help in its best sense was offered in ways that faithful diligence would make their own. In just so far as Miss Ashton had made these two things, faithfulness and diligence, the ground-work of all success, she had given the true character to her school; and as the work of the term began with this demand upon the attention of the pupils, there was a fair prospect of its being the best of the year. The holidays had come and gone. Not a room in the large building but bore evidence of its wealth in Christmas gifts. New books covered many of the girls' tables, new pictures hung on their walls; chairs, old and faded, blossomed into new life with their head-rests, their pretty pillows and elaborate scarfs; ribbons of all colors decked lounges, tables, curtains; pen-wipers, lay gracefully by the side of elegant ink-stands, perfume bottles stood on _étagères_, while the numbers of hand-painted toilet articles, articles to be used in spreads, bric-a-brac of all kinds and descriptions, it would have been hard to number. Pretty, tasteful surroundings are as much a part of a girl's true education as the severer curriculum that is offered to her in her studies, and Miss Ashton gave the influences of these Christmas gifts their full value when she weighed the harder work for the teachers which the vacation always brought. To be sure, there came a time at the beginning of the term when the unwise parents were responsible for much bad work. Those of their children who had come back with boxes filled with Christmas luxuries--candies, pies, cakes, boxes of preserved fruits, nuts, raisins, and whatever would tempt them to eat out of time and place--had little chance to do well in the recitation-room until these were disposed of. In truth, even more difficult, more of a hindrance in her school discipline, Miss Ashton often found the parents than their children. She was sometimes obliged to say, "I could have done something with that girl if her mother had let her alone." One fact had established itself in her experience, that almost every girl committed to her care had, in the home estimation of her character, traits which demanded in their treatment different discipline from that given to any of the others. She could have employed a secretary with profit, simply to answer letters relating to these prodigies, and nine out of ten proved to be only girls of the most common stamp, both for intellect and character. Marion had spent her vacation time in a profitable manner. As mathematics was her most difficult study, so she had given her attention almost entirely to it; and even Miss Palmer, who was never good-natured when a pupil was advanced into one of her classes, and by so doing made her extra work, was obliged to confess she was now among her best scholars. Thus encouraged, Marion received an impetus in all her other studies; and, of course, as good scholarship always will, this added to the influence which her sterling moral worth and kindly ways had already given her. There was one dunce in her mathematical class who gave her great annoyance; it was Carrie Smyth, a Southern girl, into whose dull head no figures ever penetrated. There was something really pitiable as she sat, book in hand, trying to puzzle out the simplest problem, and Marion often helped her, until Miss Palmer prohibited it. "I will not allow it," she said decidedly. "If Carrie cannot get her own lessons we ought to know it, and to treat her accordingly. Whatever assistance she needs, I prefer to give her myself." Marion obeyed, and Carrie cried, but the consequences followed at once. Carrie soon learned to copy from Marion's slate whatever she needed, and, as Marion sat next her in the class, this was an easy thing to do; and as Miss Palmer, wisely, seldom asked Carrie any but the simplest questions, well knowing how useless any others would be, she escaped detection until, one day, grown bolder by her escapes, she copied from Marion more openly, Marion seeing her. That this might have happened once, but never would again, Marion felt quite sure; but what was her dismay, when she saw it continue day after day. She was ashamed to let Carrie know of her discovery, as many another noble girl has been under similar circumstances, but she knew well that it could not be allowed, and that to pretend ignorance of the fact was wrong. She moved her seat, but, after staring at her blankly out of her dull eyes, Carrie moved hers to her side, and the class all laughed at this demonstration of affection; but Miss Palmer, who had taught long enough to know that it might mean something but affection, watched them. She had not long to do so before she discovered Carrie's trick, Marion's knowledge of it, and her embarrassment. After recitation, she told them to remain, and when they were alone together she said,-- "Marion Parke! how long have you known that Carrie Smyth copied her sums off your slate?" Poor Marion! She looked at Miss Palmer, then at Carrie; the color came into her face, and the tears into her eyes, but she did not answer a word. Miss Palmer repeated her question with much asperity. Still no answer, but two large tears on Marion's cheeks. "You do not choose to answer me" (a little more gently now): "I shall report your behavior to Miss Ashton. Carrie Smyth, how long have you been copying Marion's sums, instead of doing your own?" "I've--I've never copied them, Miss Palmer," said Carrie, looking Miss Palmer boldly in the face. "Carrie Smyth, I saw you do so!" "I--I never did, never, Miss Palmer. _Never!_" "Go to your room, Carrie Smyth. I am not surprised at your readiness to tell a falsehood; you have been acting one for weeks, and they are all the same, the acted and the spoken, in God's sight. Go to your room and pray; ask God to forgive you." Then she opened a Bible which lay on a table near her, and in very solemn tones read these words, "'But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers'" (glancing off now in a threatening manner at Carrie), "'and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.'" Carrie turned very pale. If Miss Palmer had asked her for the truth again, she would have told it, but she did not; she only motioned the girls from the room, and went herself to see Miss Ashton. Incidents similar to this were not unusual in the school, and Miss Ashton always considered them the most painful and troublesome to deal with. She waited a day or two before taking any notice of it, then she sent for Marion, who went to her room with fear and trembling. "Marion," said Miss Ashton, beckoning to her to come and sit on the sofa beside her, "I am very sorry on your account that this has happened. It would have been better if you had told Miss Palmer as soon as you knew what Carrie was doing; better for her, for of course she was deceiving, and we know what that means; better for Miss Palmer, for she could form no just estimate of Carrie's scholarship, for which she is responsible; and better for you, because, in a certain way, it made you a partaker in the deception." "O Miss Ashton! I could not tell on her; I could not, _I could not!_" exclaimed Marion. "I understand you perfectly," said wise Miss Ashton; "I only want you to see the situation as it is. If you had thought of it, you might have come to me. Everything of that kind I should know, then your responsibility would have ceased, and, without making a class matter of it, I could have influenced Carrie to do right. "Now, if you fully understand me, run back to your lessons, only remember, in whatever perplexity for the future you find yourself, I am the house mother, and you are all my children; you would not have hesitated to tell your mother if you had found any of your brothers or sisters doing wrong, should you?" "No, ma'am; I should have gone to her at once." "And not felt that you were a tell-tale?" "Not for a moment." "Just so, then, it is here; we are all one family, and there is nothing mean in reporting to me, more than to a mother. It's the motive that prompts the telling that gives it its moral character. It is the noblest that can act wisely, and escape the odium of tell-tales; and, my dear Marion, I feel quite sure that for the future I can trust you." Marion went away with a light heart. "Trust me? of course she can," she said to herself; "but I am so sorry for Carrie Smyth." Carrie, in truth, even after listening to the terrible denunciations Miss Palmer had read to her, was to be pitied for her moral as well as mental dulness. She went through the ordeal of her talk with Miss Ashton with far less feeling than Marion had shown; and the only punishment she minded was being put back into the class of beginners, and being told that the next time she was found doing anything of the kind, and told a falsehood about it, she would be expelled from school. This, on the whole, she would have liked, for study was detestable to her, and there was nothing but the ambition of her mother that made it seem necessary in her home surroundings. Both Miss Palmer and Marion were delighted to have her leave the class. Marion kindly kept the reason for her having done so to herself, though many inquiries were made of her by the other scholars. CHAPTER XXXI. MARION'S LETTER FROM HOME. Soon after the first of January, Marion received the following letter from her mother:-- "We have all been made so happy to-day, my dear child, by a letter from Miss Ashton. She writes us how well you have been doing, and how much attached to you she has become. All this we expected as a matter of course, but what delights and satisfies us most, is what she says of your religious influence in the school. We knew we were sending you into an untried life, that would be full of anxieties and temptations. With all the confidence we felt in you, we should hardly, no matter how great the literary advantages offered, have liked to put you where the character of your surroundings would have been less helpful; and to know that you, in your turn, are proving helpful to others, is indeed a great gratification. God bless, strengthen, and keep you, my darling, through this new year, is your loving mother's prayer. "It almost seems to me that we miss you more and more as time goes. Phil counts the weeks now until you come home, and I found the little ones busy doing a long sum on their slates, which, when they brought to me to see if it was right, I saw was to ascertain first, how many days before you came, and then, how many hours. Bennie told me that to-morrow they were to calculate the minutes, and then the seconds. I suppose they have, for I see them studying the clock very often, particularly the minute hand. "So you see how we miss and long for you at home. "Your father is busier than ever. He is truly a workman of whom his Master need not to be ashamed. He keeps well and happy. Deacon Simonds came in last night to ask him to have some extra meetings, as the Methodists were going to have an evangelist here, and might draw away people from his church; but your father said in his gentle way, 'The parish was not too large as yet for him to do all the work required, and if any of his people could be benefited by the evangelist, and should wish to unite with that church, he should wish them Godspeed.' Then the deacon said something about the difficulty of raising the salary, which I minded more than your father. What a good, trusting man he is! Mrs. Hoppen ran in this noon with a large tin pan full of delicious doughnuts she had fried for us, and Hetty Sprague put two pumpkin-pies into my pantry window. Not a day passes but we are cared for in some way. I laugh, for it looks as if they thought now you are gone there was no one left to prepare goodies for the home. Tim Knowles dumped a load of coal into our cellar when your father was away, then came to the kitchen door and said,-- "'Mis' Parke, you tell the parson if he'll keep up the fire of religion in the church, I'll keep it up in his study stove, and it sha'n't cost him a copper cent. We all d'ought to have ways of sarving the Lord, and this 'ere is mine.' Then he hurried away, without giving me a chance to even say 'Thank you.' "Sometimes it seems to me as if our whole parish felt as if you belonged to them, and they had sent you away to school, and were to pay your expenses, they are so wonderfully kind and thoughtful of us. Your sabbath-school class sent you their New Year's gift yesterday; I know you will value it. Old Aunt Cutts is knitting you a pair of blue stockings; the dear old lady is taking so much comfort out of the work, that she has made them large enough for you to put both of your little feet into one; and Kate Sanders brought me her white feather to ask me if, now you had to dress stylish, I didn't think you could make use of it. I thanked her, and told her that you were wearing a hat so small I was sure the feather was too large for it. I think it was quite a relief to her, for that soiled and bedraggled feather is to her still, 'the apple of her eye.' "So, my dear parish child, you have a great burden of responsibility to carry; but your mother knows how easily and how honorably it will be borne." Marion read this letter with a variety of feelings. It had never been the home way to make her religious character a separate and distinct thing. It dominated the whole home-life. Do right, _do right_! She had almost never been told, do not do wrong, but always do right, and this meant simply and only, be a Christian. It was such a noble way to step upward from the beginning; not easy, oh, no, far from that, so often doing wrong in spite of precept and example, so often hesitating, until the delay weakened the power of doing right; yet so often, with hope and prayer to aid her, planting her foot firmly on the upper rung, singing as she went. Since she had been in school her life had been so changed, such different temptations to do wrong, such different helps to do right, that she had thought little of her influence upon her companions. The letter of her mother was almost a shock, as, for the first time, it brought up to her what she felt had been her neglect. All these months here, and what had she ever done or said that would tell for Jesus? Three room-mates; had she ever tried, from the first of her coming among them, to help them into a Christian life? To be sure they had their set times for private devotions, time required by the rules, when every pupil was expected to read her Bible, if nothing more. That they had all done, and Dorothy had "entered into her closet, and shut her door." There could be no doubt that she had prayed to her Father which is in secret, and her Father which seeth in secret had rewarded her openly; for, often, when she came back among them, her face had been so full of sweet peacefulness. "Dorothy's influence has been the one for good, not mine," Marion thought, with that true humility which is a Christian grace. As for Gladys, why she was Gladys, and there was no one like her. So generous and noble, so true and faithful; I must learn of her surely, not she of me; but Susan! It must be confessed, that in the busy days Marion had almost forgotten Susan's dishonesty. She did not like her, often she found it hard to be even patient, much less kind, to her, and Susan was sometimes very trying. She could, and did, say many unkind words, "spites me," Marion said to herself; but generally bore the ill-humor pityingly, feeling sorry for a girl who could do as Susan had done. The fact was, that while Marion did not have Susan's guilt often in her mind, Susan never forgot it when she saw Marion. _Never_ may be too strong a word to use; but Susan was constantly uneasy in Marion's company, often positively unhappy, wishing over and over again she had never heard of "Storied West Rock," especially never, never been tempted to steal that story, and palm it off for her own. Not a day of her life but she expected to be found out, to be disgraced before the school, perhaps to be expelled. Poor Susan! she is reaping now the result of her selfish lifetime ambition to be among the noted ones, to be thought of first, and treated like a heroine! Ambition is a very laudable thing; we should all try to do our best, but never should it lead us into doing selfish, mean, dishonorable things; then it becomes a sin and not a virtue. It was the weakness, nay, something worse, in Susan's character, as we all know, always leading her into trouble, because it was so wholly selfish. If Marion could have reasoned all this out as we can, she would have had fewer compunctions of conscience as she sat holding her mother's letter in her hand, thinking over its contents. It was some time before she could fully enjoy all the items of family news it contained. Then they drew her pleasantly back to the dear home, the small parish, and the life-long friends she had left there. Gladys had been watching her as she read the letter, amused and interested by the different phases of feeling her face showed; when she saw her fold it up, she asked,-- "What's happened, Marion? You've looked as if you had been at a funeral, and then at a wedding, while you were reading it." "I have--almost," and Marion could laugh now. "Let me read you the last part of it; it is so like home." Then Marion read them about the children's sum, and the parishioners' kindness; and Gladys, as she listened, planned how she could help Marion without her ever suspecting from whence the help came, and Dorothy thought what a different home it must be from that she had left at Rock Cove. Marion, instead of studying her next lesson, as it was obviously her duty to do, sat with her book open before her, wondering how she could immediately enter upon a course of conduct that would give her a more enlarged and prominent religious influence. Never once suspecting that this was a way the tempter was taking to lead her from the true self-abnegation which is so vital to a growing Christian character. Single-eyed to God's glory! Miss Ashton in the recitation looked at her inquiringly several times. What could have happened, she wondered, to make Marion blunder so? She was generally prompt, and, considering how much she had to do to keep up with her class, correct; but to-day she seemed distraught, as if her mind were anywhere but upon her recitation. She stopped her after the lesson was finished, and asked her if she were sick; but Marion was well, nor was she, in her preoccupation, aware that Miss Ashton was not pleased. She answered her carelessly, which increased the teacher's uneasiness, and made her ask a little sharply, "What is it, Marion? You did badly in your recitation to-day." "Ma'am!" said Marion, looking at her in surprise. "I said you made a bad recitation," repeated Miss Ashton. "What has happened?" Then the color grew deeper and deeper in Marion's face. "My letter from my mother," she said, "O Miss Ashton, I am so sorry!" "Sorry for what? Is any one sick?" "No, Miss Ashton; but--but--there was so much to think of in it. I am so sorry I did badly." Now Miss Ashton smiled. "If that is all," she said, "I will try to forgive you. Can't you tell me something about your home letter? I like to hear of them." Then Marion poured out her whole heart, thanking her kind teacher simply and winningly for her own kind letter to the Western home, but giving no hint of the seed of evil the letter may have sown. CHAPTER XXXII. PENITENT. Marion's first plan in order to extend her religious influence was to get up a small prayer-meeting in her room. To be sure, the room was shared by three others, and she had never quite gotten over the uncomfortable feeling that she was an intruder, particularly as Susan so often showed hostility to her; but a prayer-meeting surely was a thing no right-minded girl ought to object to. Of Dorothy's approval she had no doubt. Gladys, if she did not wish to stay, would go away without the least hesitation. Susan! What Susan would do, who could tell? Knowing the need she had of a vital change in character, in order to be a Christian, Marion made no attempt to conceal from herself that her conversion alone was an object worth earnest and constant prayer; really the reward for the conquering of any diffidence she might have to overcome in instituting the meeting. It was not an hour after she had decided upon the twelve girls she would invite, before the tempter had her in his power again. She was planning the order of exercises for the meeting, which was as it should be; but it was not as right that she was leaping forward in her thoughts to the criticisms which the girls would make upon the part she should take, the hope that they would admire her fluency and spirituality, and say to her when they were leaving the room,-- "O Marion! how much good you have done us! We shall be grateful to you as long as we live." If any one had told her that here, by this same desire for self-aggrandizement, or, to call it by its more common name of popularity, Susan had fallen, she would have been astonished indeed. Prayer-meetings were by no means uncommon in this academy; but they were under the care of a teacher, and it was not long before the necessity of asking leave for the one in her room occurred to Marion; but here was a difficulty! Would not Miss Ashton ask her questions about this, which she would find difficult to answer; such as, "What made her propose it? What did she expect to accomplish?" If she did ask these, what could she say? There followed another day of poor recitations, and Marion, for almost the first time since she joined the school, was undeniably cross. By night she was sitting on the penitential stool, ashamed, tired, and full of wonder as to what had happened to her. As is not unusual in such cases, she was inclined to blame every one but herself. Miss Palmer had lost her patience with her because she hesitated over a difficult place in her mathematical lesson, and had snapped her up before the class; Anna Dawson had laughed at her blunder, and the whole class had most unkindly smiled. Dorothy had put her arm around her and asked her if she was sick, when she knew there was nothing the matter with her. Even Gladys had stopped scratching with her slate-pencil, looking at her in a way that said as plainly as words could, "What a nervous thing you are, not to bear the scratching of a pencil without wincing;" and as for Susan, tormenting as she had been on other days, she had been angelic in comparison with this. After all, she had too much good common-sense and true religious feeling to sit upon her stool long without beneficial results. It was nearly time for the lights to be put out before she began to see the first thing to be done was the right one; that is always sure. Do the duty nearest to you, then those more distant fall readily into line and are easily met. This was, to see Miss Ashton, no matter how awkward it would be to tell her that the thought of the prayer-meeting was first put into her head by Miss Ashton's letter home; that before, her religious influence had not been a thing of which she had for a moment thought, but that now she wished to make it tell. "I'll go at once," she said to herself. "I won't give it up because I'm a coward. I shall not sleep a wink unless it's settled. Life is short; death may come at any unexpected moment. I should not like to have my Judge ask why I had not done my duty, when, perchance, I, even I, might have been a poor, weak instrument, but still an instrument, in saving a soul." In this spirit Marion went to Miss Ashton's room, quite forgetting the lateness of the hour, and knocked timidly at the door. Miss Ashton, wearied by her day's anxieties, did not approve of these late calls, and only answered them for fear of sickness, so it was some time before she said, "Come in." She was not surprised to see Marion, for Miss Palmer had already reported her failure in the mathematical class; but she said kindly, "What is wrong now, Marion? Have you had another letter from home?" "No, Miss Ashton; it is--it was--I mean, I wanted to ask you if you had any objection to my having a prayer-meeting in my room?" "A prayer-meeting in your room?" repeated Miss Ashton. "Why do you ask it?" This was the question Marion had expected; but now, with Miss Ashton looking straight in her eyes, she hesitated to answer it. "I thought--I hoped," she blundered at last, "that I might do more good,--might, perhaps, save Susan." "I see," and Miss Ashton looked very grave now. "Your mother has told you what I wrote her of your religious influence here, and you wish to increase it; but why Susan particularly?" Now Marion found herself unexpectedly in deep waters. If she attempted to answer this question, what disclosures she would have to make! A tell-tale! A mischief-maker! A character of all others she despised, and so did, she well knew, the whole school. She hung her head, the color coming into her face, and the tears into her eyes. "There is something wrong here," Miss Ashton thought, but she only said,-- "I know Dorothy is a good girl; I am very fond of Gladys; but why do you select Susan as the one in the whole school to be prayed for, or with?" If an equivocation had been natural or easy to Marion, she might have been ready with several now, which perhaps would have satisfied Miss Ashton; but she was a straightforward, honest girl, who never in her whole life had been placed before where she hesitated what to answer; if she had been a culprit to-night, she would hardly have looked more utterly discomfited than standing there trying to look Miss Ashton in the face. "You do not choose to answer me," Miss Ashton said after waiting a moment. "Very well, then, we will go back to the prayer-meetings; I think it would be unwise for you to attempt any such thing. You might at first find a few girls who would be willing to come, but they would soon tire of it, and you would find yourself alone, unless Dorothy's kind heart made her willing to remain. Let me tell you, my dear Marion, the best, in fact the only way for a pupil to exert a strong and lasting religious influence is by living a consistent Christian life. What you _are_ always tells, never what you may appear. If you are truly desirous to exert this influence, you will let your companions see it in your daily walk and conversation. All the prayer-meetings you could have would be useless, if you yourself failed in a Christian grace. "To be kind, loving, gentle, true, faithful in all your duties, great and small, that is what your parents and I hope for in you. I had almost said, and I am sure you will not misunderstand me, I would rather have the influence of good recitations, strict observance of rules, lady-like behavior in all places and at all times, than a prayer-meeting in your room every night in the week. Now it is late; go back, and if you do not wish to tell me what is wrong with Susan, I must be all the more observant of her myself. Good-night." Marion said "Good-night" faintly; certainly this was a very different reception from what she had expected. "She wants me to be perfect," she said to herself fretfully, "and she knows that I never can be; then Susan! What have I done? Oh, dear! dear! I wish I had never thought about a prayer-meeting." So far she had only dimly seen where her motives had been wrong, but she felt their check. Fräulein Sausmann met her on her way to her room. "Why, Marione!" she said, drawing her little self erect, and trying to look very dignified, "I am astonish! I am regret! You am very onright. You am to be gone to Fräulein Ashton next day and say you regret; I determine on it! Marione, you stand-under?" "I have just come from Miss Ashton," said Marion gravely. "You has just come! Very bad. You _schlecht Fräulein_! What you for done?" "Nothing, Fräulein. At least," correcting herself as she remembered Susan, "I hope nothing _schlecht_." "You do not say right, Marione; I shame you German speak so _schlecht_." Then the Fräulein laughed merrily, and standing on the tips of her little toes she kissed Marion on both cheeks. The kisses went right to Marion's heart, cheered and comforted her so her face had a less troubled look as she entered her room. Susan was sitting at the table studying, and the searching glance she gave her made the color rush into Marion's face. "She's gone and told of me, the ugly, mean, old thing," thought Susan. "I knew she would sooner or later. Now I'm in for it!" In vain she tried to fasten her attention on her book again. Over and over the consequences of the disclosure she went with beating heart. "Oh, if I had never, never, never done it!" she said to herself in the helpless, hopeless way that attends a wrong action. The short-lived celebrity the story had given her had all died away, nothing remained but this dreadful regret, and fear of what was to come. When she saw Marion go into her bedroom, she had almost a mind to follow her and confess the truth. Then she thought Marion knew it already, had perhaps told Miss Ashton, and a better thing to do would be to go to Miss Ashton and make the confession; to go at once, this very night, before she had a chance to tell the whole school: perhaps if she did, Miss Ashton would be merciful, would scold and forgive her. She looked at the clock; if she made haste there would be five minutes before they must put their lights out! Once done, what a relief it would be! She darted from the room, not daring to trust a moment's delay; but when she reached the corridor the lights were already turned out. All would soon be darkness, and then none were allowed to leave their rooms. But Susan was desperate now; she knew her way down the long flights of stairs so well that she had no fear: her only thought was to reach Miss Ashton, to confess, to know her punishment, if punishment there were to be. She flitted softly, like a ghost, through the long corridors, down the long stairs; but when she came to Miss Ashton's door her gas was turned out, and that meant she would not open her door again that night. "I'll knock! Perhaps, just perhaps, she will let me in;" but there was no response to Susan's knock. She stood waiting until she shivered with nervous dread from head to foot, then she crept back to her room, and tossed restlessly through a weary night. CHAPTER XXXIII. SPRING VACATION. The bright light of a sunny day has a wonderful influence in quieting fears, and the next morning when Susan waked and found her room cheerful, everything looking natural and pleasant, her first feeling was one of shame for all she had suffered the night before. Nothing was easier now than to make herself believe she had been foolish in her suspicion of Marion; indeed, it was not long before she had made herself almost sure that Marion knew nothing about the stolen story, that she had wronged her in suspecting, even if she did, that she would be mean enough to betray her. For the first time since she copied it, she treated Marion not only kindly but affectionately, much to Marion's surprise, for she knew how near she had come to betraying Susan, and remembered Miss Ashton's saying, "If you do not choose to tell me what is the matter with Susan, I must be all the more observant of her myself." Would she watch her? Could she ever in any way find out about "Storied West Rock"? "At any rate," Marion comforted herself by thinking, "it will not be through me; but I wish I had not said even what I did." She wondered over Susan's advances, and met them coldly, shamefacedly. "If you only knew," she said to herself, "how different you would act!" Very important as these events seem to those particularly engaged, they make little apparent difference in the life of a large school. Marion again made faulty recitations, and again her teachers were troubled by them; but Susan, having in a measure, she could hardly understand how, been thrown off her fears, was unusually brilliant in her classes, winning what she valued so much, words of approbation from her teachers. The school work went on now with much success. The holiday break-up was fairly over. Washington's Birthday was not celebrated other than with an abundance of little hatchets of all designs and colors. Easter was too far away, and the _animus_ of the school was for quiet study. Even the club held meetings less often. The two girls who had been the chief planners of whatever mischief originated from it, Mamie Smythe and Annie Ormond, were on their best behavior, knowing full well that another misdeed, no matter of what character, meant expulsion. Upon these weeks preceding the Easter vacation, Miss Ashton had learned to rely for the best part of the year's work; so uneventfully, with the exception of now and then some slight escapade on the part of the pupils, the term rolled on to its spring rest. Easter came in the early part of April this year, but the season was backward, even snowstorms coming now and then; and fierce winds, more like March than April, forbade any hunting for early flowers, or looking, as so many longing eyes did, for the swelling of the bare branches of the trees, or the first shadowing of the green tassels that waited to show themselves to warm sunbeams. There were no examinations in this school, or marking the grade of scholarship; but for all that, there was never a doubt who were the best scholars, or who would have taken the prizes if any had been given. A week before Easter, Marion received a letter from her Aunt Betty, inviting her to spend the coming recess with her; but she declined it, asking that the visit might be deferred until the long summer vacation, when, as she was probably not to return home, she should be very glad to come. Evidently Aunt Betty had forgotten whatever was unpleasant in the Thanksgiving visit, and to be among the mountains through some of the hot summer weeks seemed to Marion would be pleasant indeed. But when the vacation came, and she found herself with only a few other girls almost alone in the great desolated building, she more than once regretted her decision. A pleasant young teacher of gymnastics, Miss Orne, was left in charge, but she was tired, and more anxious to rest than to amuse the girls, so they were left pretty much to themselves, and passed the ten days of vacation in the best way they could. "Girls will be girls," that was what Miss Ashton said when the pupils who had been at home came back with their summer outfits, and she found the whole attention of the school given for a few days to their examination and comparison. "If I could hear you talk half as much about any branch of study, or your art lessons, as I hear you talk about your new clothes," she said with a pleasant laugh, "I should be delighted; but I suppose nothing seems more important to you now than the fashions, and, on the whole, I don't know but I am glad of it." It was this interest in their many-sided life that gave Miss Ashton her great influence over them. The girls would take articles of apparel to her for her inspection, and find them doubly valuable if they met with her approval. There was one set whose wardrobes were objects of especial interest: those were the graduating class. Next to her bridal dress, there seems to be no other that is thought so much of, not only by the girl, but by her parents. It would be idle, perhaps out of place here, to say how much display and foolish extravagance there is at such a time. Where it can be well afforded, it is of comparatively little importance, but a great deal of heartache might be avoided, if the simplest costume were decided to be the most suitable. Parents whose means have been tried to the utmost to give their child the advantages of the school, who have never hesitated over any labor or self-denial in order to accomplish it, find themselves at last called to confront the question of dollars, hardly earned or saved, squandered on a dress almost worthless for future use, on pain of seeing their child mortified and unhappy because she cannot, on this eventful occasion, look as well as the others. Even Miss Ashton's influence, great as it was, had failed to accomplish any good result in changing this long-established custom; and for reasons best known to themselves, the present senior class had voted in their class meetings to make their graduation day one long to be remembered in the annals of the school. CHAPTER XXXIV. NEMESIS. Until this year this academy had had a salutatory and a valedictory in the same way they did at Atherton Academy, given for the best scholarship as it was there; but as this was considered a finishing school, differing therefore from the boys' school, which was only preparatory for other and higher education, it had been decided to change the graduating exercises to the four best essays, read by their writers, an address by some distinguished orator, music, and the giving of diplomas. All the graduating class were expected to write an essay, the Faculty to judge of their merits, and to choose from among them four of the best. Not only the interest of the class, but of the whole school, was intense on the writing of these essays. The literary merit of the teaching was to be shown by them; and as no graduating class ever comes to its commencement without pride in, and love for its _alma mater_, so it seemed as if the future reputation of the academy must depend upon the way this class acquitted itself. If it had been a boys' school, bets would have run high on the supposed best writers; here there was nothing of the kind, only those who had done well whenever compositions had been read to the school were chosen as girls of especial interest, watched, _fêted_, praised, encouraged, in short, prematurely made heroines of. Among the most conspicuous was Susan Downer. Though so little had been said of late of her success in writing "Storied West Rock," it was now recalled; and, as the weeks flew by before commencement, she was daily, sometimes it seemed to her hourly, reminded of it, and importuned to be sure and do as well now. Poor Susan! She knew how really unable she would be to do anything that would compare with it. Over and over again she made the attempt; but as writing was not one of her natural gifts, and as now, whenever she tried even to choose a subject, the theft came up before her, and she went through the whole, from the first temptation to the last crowned success, she could think of nothing else but the inevitable punishment that somewhere and at some time was waiting for her. There was but one hope she thought left for her, to see her brother Jerry, and tease him into giving her one of his essays, that she might use it as it was if possible, if not, with alterations that would make it suit the occasion. She would tell him that she only wanted to read it and get some hints from it, and once in her possession, she could do as she pleased. When she received his note refusing her invitation to come to the academy, her disappointment and her helplessness may be readily imagined, for she had allowed herself to depend upon him. To write to him for an essay she knew would be useless; he would only laugh, and say,-- "Nonsense! what does Sue want one for?" but if he were with her, he was so kind and good-natured, he would do almost anything she asked. But one thing now remained. Miss Randall, their teacher in rhetoric, who had the charge of the essays, gave subjects to those who wished them; she could apply to her, and perhaps find in the library something to help her. Miss Randall gave her, remembering her former success, and hoping she would do even better now, an historical subject, "The Signal of Paul Revere." "There have not been more than a hundred poems written on the same subject," she said in a little talk she had with Susan; "but if you can write poetry, and succeed, all the better for Montrose Academy. We will send it to the newspaper, and it may be the beginning of making your name famous." What a temptation to a girl like Susan! If--only IF she could find one of those hundred or more poems, find perhaps the whole of them, and make rhymes (easy work that), and be "famous," what a glorious thing it would be! Here was, alas, no repentance, or even fears of doing wrong. It almost seemed as if the new temptation had obliterated memory of the old theft, and she was about to enter upon what she had always longed for, a career of fame. She began to haunt the library, particularly the shelves of American poetry; but there was nothing to be found that had special reference to Paul Revere, not one of "the hundred and more pieces." In this way she wasted a great deal of precious time, until, disappointed and discouraged, she was about asking for another subject, when she came upon a volume of collections of poetry written on the late war, and a sudden thought that this might be made to answer the same purpose unfortunately struck her. She had read this kind of poetry but little; but had enough literary taste to make her choose one of the very best, consequently most popular and well known, for her model. "Model," she said to herself when, delighted, she found how easily she could use it with alterations. No miser was ever made more happy by a bag of gold than she by this discovery. "Famous! famous! An honor to Montrose Academy!" In the end, when her poem was ready for Miss Randall's examination, she read it aloud to her room-mates, and their astonishment and delight over her success they were too generous to withhold. Dorothy had worked very hard on her essay. It was carefully and well done; but Gladys's, short, brilliant, straight to the point, without pause or repetition, was an effort of which an older, more accustomed writer need not have been ashamed. But neither of these, they decided, could hold any comparison with Susan's. It was Marion who, though she did not recognize the poem, could not forget "Storied West Rock," that listened with a troubled face, and only added a few faint words to those of the others' praise. "She is an ugly, jealous old thing!" Susan made herself think, as she watched her narrowly; but then would come the thought, "I wonder if she suspects me?" remembering the story, and a cloud fell instantly over the bright sky of her hopes. But she was not to escape so easily; when she carried her poem to Miss Randall, she only glanced at the heading and down over the neatly written page, without reading a line, then said, "Come to me to-morrow afternoon at three, and we will read and correct it together. I hope you have made a success of it." Susan almost counted the hours until three came; then, proud and happy, she presented herself at Miss Randall's door. The teacher had the poem on a table before her, and by its side a book, the covers of which Susan recognized at once as being the volume from which she had stolen the poem. "Sit down, Susan," said Miss Randall gravely. Then without another word she began to read first a line of Susan's poem, then one from the poem in the book, pausing over the changed words, to substitute the one for the other. In truth, the changes were very few, how few Susan had not realized until they were thus set before her. "This is hardly what might be called a parody," Miss Randall said as she ended, looking gravely into Susan's face. "I suppose you had no idea of passing it off as your own work?" How inevitably one wrong act leads to another! There is an old saying that "one lie takes a hundred to cover it," and it is true. Susan had confidently expected this to pass for her own; but now, without a moment's hesitation, looking Miss Randall fully in the face, with a pleasant smile she said,-- "Oh, no, Miss Randall! I knew you would recognize it; you are too good a teacher of literature not to suppose you would be familiar with such a fine poem as that. I thought if I made a successful parody, it would be better than any poor thing I could write myself." Miss Randall was for a moment staggered. Was the girl telling her the truth, or was it only a readily gotten-up excuse? She waited a moment before she answered, then she said coldly,-- "This will not pass at all. I am sorry you have wasted so much time upon it; you will begin at once upon your essay, and, for fear you will be tempted to use some thoughts not your own, I will change the subject. You will write an essay on 'Truth.' Good-afternoon." "Miss Ashton!" said Miss Randall, presenting herself, a few moments after Susan's departure, in the principal's room. "I am afraid Susan Downer never wrote that excellent story, 'Storied West Rock.' I always have wondered over it, for it was far superior to anything else she has done since she has been in school, and now, I am sure, though she denies it in a very plausible way, that she has copied a poem, with only a few immaterial changes to make it fit her subject, intending to palm it off for her own." Miss Ashton did not answer at once; she was busy thinking. With the other teachers, her surprise had been great at the ability Susan had shown in the story; and now, instantly, she connected this report of Miss Randall's with Marion's embarrassed mention of Susan's name, and her own intention to discover what was wrong. Perhaps Susan had stolen it, and Marion had become acquainted with the theft. It was not impossible, at any rate she must inquire into it, so she said to Miss Randall. A day or two was allowed to pass before any further notice was taken of it, then Miss Ashton had decided to spare Marion, and call Susan directly to her. Susan had word sent to her that she was wanted in the principal's room, and obeyed the summons with a heavy heart. "Susan!" said Miss Ashton, "I am willing to believe that you copied your poem with the innocent intention of passing it off as a parody, and that you really did not know it could not be accepted, but there is one other thing that troubles me. Some time ago you wrote an excellent story called 'Storied West Rock;' was that yours, or another parody?" [Illustration: Susan dropped her head upon her chest, the color surging into her face, and the tears dropping from her eyes; but she did not speak a word.--Page 343. _Miss Ashton's New Pupil._] Susan! Susan! Tell the truth now; tell it at once, simply, honestly. Do not conceal even how you have suffered from it, not even how unkind and cross you have been to Marion. Own it all at once, quickly, without giving the tempter even a chance to tempt you! Don't you know, don't you see, how much your future depends upon it? Susan dropped her head upon her chest, the color surging into her face, and the tears dropping from her eyes; but she did not speak a word. In the silence of the room you could have heard a pin drop. Miss Ashton was answered. When she spoke there was tenderness and deep feeling in her voice. "Will you tell me the truth, Susan?" she said. But Susan did not answer; she only burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing, and after waiting a few moments in vain for it to subside, Miss Ashton added, "You had better go to your room now. I hope you will come soon to me, and tell me the whole truth." Susan rose slowly, lifting her swollen and discolored face up to Miss Ashton with an entreating look the kind principal found it hard to resist; but she did. She held the door open for Susan to pass out, and watched her go down the corridor with a troubled heart. CHAPTER XXXV. FAREWELL WORDS. There was little difficulty when the time came in deciding the four essays to be chosen. Kate Underwood's was in most respects the best, and would take the place usually filled by the valedictory. Dorothy Ottley's was the next strongest, and by far the most thoughtful. To no one's surprise as much as to her own, Gladys Philbrick's was the most brilliant, and Edna Grant's, the best scholar in English literature, the most scholarly. So the important question was settled a week before commencement, and the young ladies were given their choice, either to read their pieces or to speak them. Greatly to the surprise of the teachers they all chose to speak them, and the elocution teacher was at once put to drilling them for the occasion. The choice was pleasantly accepted by the school. Every one of the four were favorites, and whatever disappointment the rejected essayists felt, they kept wisely to themselves. Susan Downer's essay on "Truth" was a miserable failure, and a disgraced future was the only one she could see opening before her. She could not summon courage to make a confession to Miss Ashton; she decided, after hours and hours of troubled and vexatious thought, to be silent, trusting to her speedy removal from the school to silence all further questionings. Such a busy week as this was now at the academy! The mail brought every day piles of letters to teachers and scholars, which must be answered. Invitations were to be sent. All the preliminaries of a great gathering were to be attended to, and both the excitement and the listlessness attendant on a closing year were to be met and combated. It would be interesting if we could tell the story of each individual during this eventful period, but it would fill a whole volume by itself, so we must be contented by telling simply of those with whom we have had the most to do. Miss Ashton tried as far as she could, with so much else to attend to, to have a little personal conversation with every pupil who had been under her care for the year. Sometimes she saw them alone, sometimes she took them in classes, according to the importance of what she had to say. Before talking with Marion she sent the following short letter to her mother:-- MY DEAR MRS. PARKE,--I should esteem it a personal favor if you would allow your daughter Marion to remain with me free from expense to you for another year. She has proved in all regards not only an excellent scholar, but, as I wrote you before, the influence of her lovely Christian character has been of great value to me. I shall be glad to do all I can to help her into the influential and well-balanced future I see before her. You need have no fear that a feeling of indebtedness to me will be a burden to her, delicate as her feelings are. I propose, by putting her at the head of my post-office department, to fully repay myself for all she will receive. This will not interfere with her studies or her needed recreation, but will come at hours she can easily spare. Hoping this will meet with your cordial approbation, Truly yours, A. S. ASHTON. It was not until an answer to this had been received that Miss Ashton sent for Marion to come and see her. Marion had in the mean time a letter from her mother, asking if she wished to remain. To which Marion had answered, "Yes! Yes!" So now all Miss Ashton had to do was to tell Marion how satisfied she was both with her and the arrangement, and Marion to tell her kind teacher of her delight in remaining. Gladys was to return with her father after a pleasant summer spent at Rock Cove, and to her, Miss Ashton had much wise advice to give regarding her future. A motherless child, an indulgent, though wise father, no brothers or sisters, only a crowd of worshipping dependents; probably not to another girl in the whole school was there to come years which would test the character as hers was to be tested. Excellent advice was given; the question was, Would it be followed? For Dorothy there was less doubt. Miss Ashton had already found a school for her, where, excellently well-fitted, she could begin in the fall her career as a teacher. Of her success, only Dorothy felt a doubt. Susan Downer, Miss Ashton had put off seeing until the last, hoping the girl would come herself and confess, if there was anything to confess; but as day after day went by, Susan shunning her when she could, and when she could not, passing her with averted face, Miss Ashton saw she must take the matter into her own hands and settle it one way or other; to ignore was to condone it. It was, therefore, only a few days before the close of the term when Susan, who had grown almost buoyant in her hope of escape, found herself summoned to what she was sure was to be her final trial. "She can't expel me now," she said to herself triumphantly as she went to the room, "and she can't withhold my diploma, for that is for scholarship, and I stand well there, so I'm safe at any rate." Still it was a trembling, pale girl that answered Miss Ashton's "Come in." "I do not want you to leave me uncertain both of your truth and honesty," she said gently. "I have been waiting, hoping you would come to me of yourself, but as you have not, I _demand_ now an answer to my question. Did, or did you not write 'Storied West Rock'?" "I d--i--d." Before she had time to finish the answer, Miss Ashton had said emphatically, "_not_; I know the truth, Susan! I want to spare you the falsehood I see you are about to tell." "I am not going to ask you where you found the story; I only want you to see, and see so plainly that you can never forget it, how small and mean a thing such a deceit, or any deceit, is, and how sure in the end to turn to the injury of the one who commits it. Of all the class that are to leave me, you, Susan Downer, carry away with you my greatest anxiety for your future. God help and save you, you poor child!" Miss Ashton's voice had tears in it as she ceased speaking, and those, more than any words she had spoken, reached and moved the girl before her. "O Miss Ashton! Miss Ashton!" Susan cried, rushing to her, and throwing both arms around her neck. "Do, _do_, _do_, please forgive me? It was Marion Parke's book, and I thought no one would ever know. I've been so sorry. I'd have given worlds, worlds, _worlds_, if I had never seen it! O Miss Ashton, what shall I, shall I do?" "Ask God to forgive you," Miss Ashton said solemnly. "It is another and a greater judge than I that has the power to do so. If I were only sure," but she did not finish her sentence, she only loosened Susan's arms gently from around her neck, then said "good-by" to her, and watched her once more as she went away down the corridor. "And Marion Parke knew it all the time, but would not tell on Susan," she said to herself as she turned back into her room. "Marion is a girl to be depended upon, I am glad she is to stay with me." "Kate Underwood," she said, when Kate's time came for the farewell counsel, taking both of the girl's hands in hers, "I'm proud of you. You have done of late what many older and wiser persons have failed to do,--learned the lesson, which I hope has been learned for your lifetime, that there is no fun in things, however written or spoken, that hurt other's feelings. I have seen you many times thoughtful and tender, when your face was alive with the ridiculous thing you saw or heard. Kate, I feel so much safer to let you go from me now than I should have six, even three months ago. Tell me, will you try not to forget?" "I'll be good as long as I live. I'll never make fun, no, not even of myself," burst out Kate, "though now I'm dying to get before a mirror and see how I must have looked when you thought me so thoughtful. Was it so, Miss Ashton?" and Kate made up a face which a sterner rebuker than her teacher could not have seen without a smile. "There's no use, Kate," she said; "go now, only don't forget." And Kate made a sweeping courtesy and disappeared. With Mamie Smythe she had a long talk, not one word of which did either divulge. In that hour it would be safe to say Mamie learned some life-lessons which it will be hard for her to forget. And so the time passed on. Recitations ceased four days before commencement, and the girls, those even who thought themselves over busy before, found every hour brought a fresh claim upon their time. "Our bee-hive," Miss Ashton called it, and the girls called her the "queen bee," and made many secret plans about the various gifts they were to give her the last night of the term. The ceremony this year was to be a public one, therefore of great importance. CHAPTER XXXVI. WOMEN'S WORK. The night before commencement Miss Ashton had reserved for the reading of notices of woman's work and success. This she did at that time, because she wished her pupils to carry away a full belief not only in their own abilities, but also in the position which, with diligence, these abilities would enable them to reach. The whole school gathered in the hall. Miss Ashton had requested that the notices should be handed in to her a few days previous. Now she said, "Young ladies, I am both surprised and pleased at the readiness and faithfulness with which you have responded to my request. I have here," lifting a pretty, ribbon-tied basket, "at least one hundred different notices! Just think! _one hundred_ instances in which women have tried, and have succeeded in earning not only a respectable, but a successful livelihood. This fact speaks so well for itself, that all remaining for me to do is to read you some of these notices. I must make a selection from among them, and the first one I will read I am sure will interest you:-- "'Mlle. Sarmisa Bileesco, the first woman admitted to the bar in France, is said to have taken the highest rank in a class of five hundred men at the École du Droit, Paris, where she studied after receiving the degree of Bachelor of Letters and Science in Bucharest. She has begun to practise law in the latter city, where her father is a banker.' "Here is another one in the same profession:-- "'Mrs. Tel Sone is a leading lawyer in Japan, and has a large and profitable practice.' "'Miss Jean Gordon of Cincinnati, upon whom will be conferred the degree of Ph.G. at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, has earned the highest average ever attained by any woman graduate of that institution. Out of one hundred and eighty-four graduates of this year, only six obtained the highest rating of "distinguished." Miss Gordon was one of the six. She was the only woman in her class, and had to contend with bright young men.' "Miss Gordon, I think," remarked Miss Ashton, "has a distinguished future before her. "'Female professors and lecturers are to be introduced into the Michigan University at Ann Arbor.' "'Two female medical graduates have been appointed house surgeons at two English hospitals.' "'An Ohio girl discovered a way of transforming a barrel of petroleum into ten thousand cubic feet of gas.' "'Another woman has constructed a machine which will make as many paper bags in a day as thirty men can put together.' "'An invention which you hardly would have expected from a woman, is a war vessel that is susceptible of being converted off-hand into a fort by simply taking it apart.' "'Chicago, March 25. Miss Sophia G. Hayden of Boston wins the one thousand-dollar prize offered for the best design for the woman's buildings of the World's Fair.'" (A sensation among the scholars, which pleased Miss Ashton). "'Miss Lois L. Howe, also of Boston, was second, five hundred dollars, and Miss Laura Hayes of Chicago gets the two hundred and fifty dollars offered for the third best design. "'Miss Hayden is a first-honor graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Miss Howe is from the same institution. Miss Hayes is Mrs. Potter Palmer's private secretary. "'As soon as the awards were made, Miss Hayden was wired to come to Chicago immediately and elaborate her plans. The design is one of marked simplicity. It is in the Italian renaissance style, with colonnades, broken by centre and end pavilions. The structure is to be 200 × 400 feet, and 50 feet to the cornice. There is no dome. The chief feature of ornamentation is the entrance.' "I am glad to tell those of you young ladies who feel symptoms of architectural genius only waiting for development, that year by year this institute is opening its door wider and wider to admit women. This last year the ten who are new members of it were for the first time invited to a class supper, going to it matronized by Mrs. Walker, the wife of the president. "One other thing I want you to remark. These three young ladies, by their ability, and the success which is the fruit only of faithful study, have done more for women's advancement than has been accomplished for years. "A man who is a successful architect occupies an important and proud position; that a woman can do the same is no small help in the struggle she is now making. "I recommend them to you as examples, particularly as I know there are a number among you who will not be content to let graduation from this school end your educational life. "The next I shall read you is a notice of women as journalists:-- "'Let me give you a fact about women as journalists in my own office,' said the editor of one of the largest dailies to me a few days ago. "'Five years ago I employed one woman on my staff, to-day I have over twenty, and the best work which appears in our papers is from the pen of women writers. Of course you cannot give women all sorts of commissions; but if I want a really conscientious piece of work done nowadays, I give it to one of our women. I find absolutely they do their work more thoroughly than do the men.' "Young ladies, it has always been complained of women that, though they are quicker, guided by instincts that act promptly and for the greater part correctly, they are not patient or thorough. Now, as I have told you so often that it must sound trite to you to have me repeat it, it is only patient thoroughness that wins. I am glad to have this editor of one of our largest dailies give this indubitable testimony that we _can_ be thorough if we will. For those of you who neither wish nor expect to continue study any further, I will read the opportunity offered for a bucolic life:-- "'Miss Antoinette Knaggs, a young woman with a good collegiate education, owns and manages a farm of two hundred acres in Ohio. She says she made money last year, and expects to make more this year. "I have tried various ways of farming," she says, "but I find I can get along best when I manage my farm myself. I tried employing a manager, but I found he managed chiefly for himself. Then I sub-let to tenants, and they used up my stock and implements, and the returns were unsatisfactory. So I have taken the management into my own hands, planting such crops as I think best, and I find I am a very good farmer, if I do say it myself.'" "Said the daughter of a New Hampshire farmer to me a few days ago," continued Miss Ashton, "'When my father died my mother took the control of our whole large farm into her own hands. She managed so well that we have sold our farm and moved down to suburban Boston, where we can command the literary advantages she has taught us not only to prize but to love.' The collegiate education fitted Miss Knaggs to be a better, wiser farmer. I hope if it shall be the choice of any of you, you will find yourself abler for your life here." "I am sure we shall," thought a Dakota young lady, whose father's broad ranch covered many a goodly acre, and whose secret wish had always been to own a ranch of her own. "There seems to be no profession now from which a woman is shut out, though we hear of fewer among lawyers than in any other profession. I find only one more among all these notices. 'Fourteen women were graduated from the university of New York Law School last night, among the number being Mrs. George B. McClellan, daughter-in-law of the late General McClellan.' But I well know there have been women associated with their husbands in the law. Women also with their own offices, doing a large and important business. "In England, civil service is open to them; and though it does not correspond of course with our law, still the same strict education is needed for success. "Here is a paper which states the terms on which ladies enter the civil service. "'They enter as second-class clerks, receiving $325 a year, rising by fifteen dollars a year to $400. Here the maximum, which is certainly small, is reached; but there is promotion by merit to clerkships, rising to $550 a year, and a few higher places, which go up to $850. Three lady superintendents each receive up to $2,000, and four assistant superintendents each $1,000. The work is not difficult, and the hours are seven a day. An annual holiday of a month is allowed.' "These wages are no larger than would be paid here for the same services. I know women have no difficulty, if once elected, in filling clerkships and secretaryships, and they even have important places in the treasury department at Washington. A very telling record might be, probably has been, made of their successes there. "In the medical profession we all know how rapidly they have risen to the front. Stories that sound almost fabulous are told of the income some of the most talented receive; and to show the popularity this new movement has attained, it is only necessary to state that at the present day it would be hard to find a town, north, south, east, or west, which has not its woman doctor. The medical colleges have large classes of them; and in Europe names of many American girls, if they do not lead in number, do at least in ability." Here there was a resolute stamping and clapping, which pleased Miss Ashton too much for her to attempt to stop it. "If I had more time I could tell you some wonderful but entirely true stories of difficult surgical operations being performed in foreign hospitals by young American women in so remarkable a way that they excited not only the applause of the fellow-students, but won prizes. "As this is only one of the professions, I must hurry on to the ministry. We all know that in some of our denominations there are numbers of women who occupy the place of settled minister, and do well. On the whole, however, they may be considered more successful as lecturers, Bible-readers, and elocution teachers; and then there is a wide open field to them as actresses and singers; indeed, no public or private way of earning a livelihood or a reputation is denied them. "Teaching always has been theirs, and year after year the profession becomes more and more crowded and the requirements for good teachers more strict. Many of you, young ladies, I find are looking forward to this in your immediate future. I need not here urge upon you the necessity of being well prepared when your day for examination comes. I have held it up before you during all the past year. "This is an incomplete list of the great things which I expect you young ladies of the graduating class to perform. I would not, however, on any account, forget that broad and specially adapted woman's work,--the different philanthropic schemes with which this nineteenth century abounds. "So many are in women's hands; like women's boards of missions, children's hospitals, homes for little wanderers, young women's Christian homes, young women's industrial union, North End missions, Bible-readers, evangelists, flower committees for supplying the sick in charity hospitals, providing excursions for poor children, providing homes in the country for the destitute and orphan children, society of little wanderers, newspaper boys' home, boot-black boys' home. "It is possible for me to name but a small part of them, but those of you who have the means of helping any one of these objects named, or any of the many others, will remember, I hope, that wonderful cup of cold water which, given, shall give to the giver the rich reward. "This will probably be my last opportunity to speak to you alone as my school. Let me thank you heartily for all you have done this year, and some of you for four long years, to make our life together pleasant, and we hope acceptable to our great Taskmaster. I wish you now, for myself and all the other teachers, a pleasant vacation, and a safe return to those of you who are to come back to us." There were many quiet tears shed among the girls, and Miss Ashton's eyes were not quite dry. CHAPTER XXXVII. COMMENCEMENT. Commencement morning rose upon Montrose clear, bright, and hot. Almost with the first dawn of the early day the hum of busy preparation began. Every hour of the previous day and night had brought parents and friends, some from great distances, to attend the celebration. The quiet town swarmed with strangers, all with faces turned toward the large brick building which, standing boldly prominent on its hill, had a welcoming look, as if the roses around it, that filled the air with their delicious fragrance, had blossomed that morning in new and charming beauty. The lawn, plentifully besprinkled with small flower-beds, was elsewhere one broad sheet of velvet green; and the blossoms of every variety and every hue crowded the beds so cheerfully, so merrily, that many parents lingered as they passed them, their hearts warming at the sight of the Eden in which their daughters had lived. Commencement exercises were to be held in the large hall, to which ushers appointed for that purpose took all the visitors before the entrance of the school, so it really made quite an imposing show when Miss Ashton, arm in arm with the president of the Board of Trustees, came slowly in, the gentlemen composing the board following, then the teachers, and after them the pupils in their gay holiday dresses. The senior class, of course the most prominent, coming onto the stage with the other dignitaries. There was nothing of peculiar interest in the exercises that followed. Commencements all over the country are much the same. The four young ladies who were to read their essays acquitted themselves well. Gladys, to her father's great delight, with her soft Southern voice, her sparkling face, and her easy, self-possessed, graceful ways, was the undoubted favorite. A storm of applause followed the reading, and bouquets of flowers fell around her in great profusion. It was the bestowing of the diplomas that attracted the most attention. There was something touching in the gentle smile of the aged president as, calling each member of the class by her name, he spoke a few Latin words and handed her the parchment that made her for life an alumna of Montrose Academy. It was almost as if he had laid his hand on her head in benediction. The pleasant dinner that followed was the next marked event of the day. To this all the school, and as many invited guests as could be accommodated, sat down, and the large hall was full of the cheerful voices of those who had come to congratulate and those who were congratulated. Nothing could have made a more fitting ending to the home-life of the busy year; so many kindly, cheering words spoken, so much of hearty encouragement for the coming year. Pupils and teachers, some of them together for the last time, but hardly among them an exception to the tender affection which bound them together. Susan Downer had been graduated. She held her diploma in her hand as she went off the stage with the others, but she was far from happy. "Miss Ashton is glad to have me go," she thought. "She neither respects nor loves me." No one noticed her dejection. Amidst the general happiness she seemed to herself forgotten, almost shunned. "And I had hoped," she thought, "to make this such a triumphal day!" It would be idle to waste any sympathy on Susan. There is an old adage, "As you make your bed, so must you lie in it." She had done a dishonorable, untrue thing, and had repented only over its consequences. It is very sad but true, that what we have once done, or left undone, said, or not said, can never be recalled. No repentance can efface its memory; no tears can blot it out; and only one, the great, kind Father, can forgive. Susan to the last day of her life will have that act clinging to her. She can never forget it. The moral is obvious, needing no words to make it plainer. Immediately after dinner the school broke up and the departures began. The farewells that were spoken, the tears that were shed, the oft-repeated kisses that were given, it would be difficult to tell. By twilight the large building began to have a desolated look. Miss Ashton, pale and tired, stood bravely in a doorway, kissed and wiped away tears, and silently blessed pupil after pupil in rapid succession. The Rock Cove party considerately made their farewells brief, and taking Marion with them hurried to the evening train that was to carry them home. Then down over the building settled the beautiful June twilight, and the year of study was over. A. L. Burt's Catalogue of Books for Young People by Popular Writers, 52-58 Duane Street, New York BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. By Lewis Carroll. 12mo, cloth, 42 illustrations, price 75 cents. "From first to last, almost without exception, this story is delightfully droll, humorous and illustrated in harmony with the story."--New York Express. Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. By Lewis Carroll. 12mo, cloth, 50 illustrations, price 75 cents. "A delight alike to the young people and their elders, extremely funny both in text and illustrations."--Boston Express. Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe. By Charlotte M. Yonge. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This story is unique among tales intended for children, alike for pleasant instruction, quaintness of humor, gentle pathos, and the subtlety with which lessons moral and otherwise are conveyed to children, and perhaps to their seniors as well."--The Spectator. Joan's Adventures at the North Pole and Elsewhere. By Alice Corkran. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents "Wonderful as the adventures of Joan are, it must be admitted that they are very naturally worked out and very plausibly presented. Altogether this is an excellent story for girls."--Saturday Review. Count Up the Sunny Days: A Story for Girls and Boys. By C. A. Jones. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "An unusually good children's story."--Glasgow Herald. The Dove in the Eagle's Nest. By Charlotte M. Yonge. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Among all the modern writers we believe Miss Yonge first, not in genius, but in this, that she employs her great abilities for a high and noble purpose. We know of few modern writers whose works may be so safely commended as hers."--Cleveland Times. Jan of the Windmill. A Story of the Plains. By Mrs. J. H. Ewing. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Never has Mrs. Ewing published a more charming volume, and that is saying a very great deal. From the first to the last the book overflows with the strange knowledge of child-nature which so rarely survives childhood: and moreover, with inexhaustible quiet humor, which is never anything but innocent and well-bred, never priggish, and never clumsy."--Academy. A Sweet Girl Graduate. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of this popular author's best. The characters are well imagined and drawn. The story moves with plenty of spirit and the interest does not flag until the end too quickly comes."--Providence Journal. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher. A, L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street. New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Six to Sixteen: A Story for Girls. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "There is no doubt as to the good quality and attractiveness of 'Six to Sixteen.' The book is one which would enrich any girl's book shelf."--St. James' Gazette. The Palace Beautiful: A Story for Girls. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "A bright and interesting story. The many admirers of Mrs. L. T. Meade in this country will be delighted with the 'Palace Beautiful' for more reasons than one. It is a charming book for girls."--New York Recorder. A World of Girls: The Story of a School. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of those wholesome stories which it does one good to read. It will afford pure delight to numerous readers. This book should be on every girl's book shelf."--Boston Home Journal. The Lady of the Forest: A Story for Girls. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "This story is written in the author's well-known, fresh and easy style. All girls fond of reading will be charmed by this well-written story. It is told with the author's customary grace and spirit."--Boston Times. At the Back of the North Wind. By George Macdonald. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "A very pretty story, with much of the freshness and vigor of Mr. Macdonald's earlier work.... It is a sweet, earnest, and wholesome fairy story, and the quaint native humor is delightful. A most delightful volume for young readers."--Philadelphia Times. The Water Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby. By Charles Kingsley. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The strength of his work, as well as its peculiar charms, consist in his description of the experiences of a youth with life under water in the luxuriant wealth of which he revels with all the ardor of a poetical nature."--New York Tribune. Our Bessie. By Rosa N. Carey. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of the most entertaining stories of the season, full of vigorous action, and strong in character-painting. Elder girls will be charmed with it, and adults may read its pages with profit."--The Teachers' Aid. Wild Kitty. A Story of Middleton School. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Kitty is a true heroine--warm-hearted, self-sacrificing, and, as all good women nowadays are, largely touched with the enthusiasm of humanity. One of the most attractive gift books of the season."--The Academy. A Young Mutineer. A Story for Girls. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of Mrs. Meade's charming books for girls, narrated in that simple and picturesque style which marks the authoress as one of the first among writers for young people."--The Spectator. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Sue and I. By Mrs. O'Reilly. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "A thoroughly delightful book, full of sound wisdom as well as fun,"--Athenæum. The Princess and the Goblin. A Fairy Story. By George Macdonald. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "If a child once begins this book, it will get so deeply interested in it that when bedtime comes it will altogether forget the moral, and will weary its parents with importunities for just a few minutes more to see how everything ends."--Saturday Review. Pythia's Pupils: A Story of a School. By Eva Hartner. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "This story of the doings of several bright school girls is sure to interest girl readers. Among many good stories for girls this is undoubtedly one of the very best."--Teachers' Aid. A Story of a Short Life. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The book is one we can heartily recommend, for it is not only bright and interesting, but also pure and healthy in tone and teaching."--Courier. The Sleepy King. A Fairy Tale. By Aubrey Hopwood and Seymour Hicks. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Wonderful as the adventures of Bluebell are, it must be admitted that they are very naturally worked out and very plausibly presented. Altogether this is an excellent story for girls."--Saturday Review. Two Little Waifs. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Mrs. Molesworth's delightful story of 'Two Little Waifs' will charm all the small people who find it in their stockings. It relates the adventures of two lovable English children lost in Paris, and is just wonderful enough to pleasantly wring the youthful heart."--New York Tribune. Adventures in Toyland. By Edith King Hall. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "The author is such a bright, cheery writer, that her stories are always acceptable to all who are not confirmed cynics, and her record of the adventures is as entertaining and enjoyable as we might expect."--Boston Courier. Adventures in Wallypug Land. By G. E. Farrow. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "These adventures are simply inimitable, and will delight boys and girls of mature age, as well as their juniors. No happier combination of author and artist than this volume presents could be found to furnish healthy amusement to the young folks. The book is an artistic one in every sense."--Toronto Mail. Fussbudget's Folks. A Story for Young Girls. By Anna F. Burnham. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Mrs. Burnham has a rare gift for composing stories for children. With a light, yet forcible touch, she paints sweet and artless, yet natural and strong, characters."--Congregationalist. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Mixed Pickles. A Story for Girls. By Mrs. E. M. Field. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "It is, in its way, a little classic, of which the real beauty and pathos can hardly be appreciated by young people. It is not too much to say of the story that it is perfect of its kind."--Good Literature. Miss Mouse and Her Boys. A Story for Girls. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Mrs. Molesworth's books are cheery, wholesome, and particularly well adapted to refined life. It is safe to add that she is the best English prose writer for children. A new volume from Mrs. Molesworth is always a treat."--The Beacon. Gilly Flower. A Story for Girls. By the author of "Miss Toosey's Mission." 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Jill is a little guardian angel to three lively brothers who tease and play with her.... Her unconscious goodness brings right thoughts and resolves to several persons who come into contact with her. There is no goodiness in this tale, but its influence is of the best kind."--Literary World. The Chaplet of Pearls; or, The White and Black Ribaumont. By Charlotte M. Yonge. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Full of spirit and life, so well sustained throughout that grown-up readers may enjoy it as much as children. It is one of the best books of the season."--Guardian. Naughty Miss Bunny: Her Tricks and Troubles. By Clara Mulholland. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "The naughty child is positively delightful. Papas should not omit the book from their list of juvenile presents."--Land and Water. Meg's Friend. By Alice Corkran. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of Miss Corkran's charming books for girls, narrated in that simple and picturesque style which marks the authoress as one of the first among writers for young people."--The Spectator. Averil. By Rosa N. Carey. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "A charming story for young folks. Averil is a delightful creature-- piquant, tender, and true--and her varying fortunes are perfectly realistic."--World. Aunt Diana. By Rosa N. Carey. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1,00. "An excellent story, the interest being sustained from first to last. This is, both in its intention and the way the story is told, one of the best books of its kind which has come before us this year."--Saturday Review. Little Sunshine's Holiday: A Picture from Life. By Miss Mulock. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This is a pretty narrative of child life, describing the simple doings and sayings of a very charming and rather precocious child. This is a delightful book for young people."--Gazette. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Esther's Charge. A Story for Girls. By Ellen Everett Green. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "... This is a story showing in a charming way how one little girl's jealousy and bad temper-were conquered; one of the best, most suggestive and improving of the Christmas juveniles."--New York Tribune. Fairy Land of Science. By Arabella B. Buckley, 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "We can highly recommend it; not only for the valuable information it gives on the special subjects to which it is dedicated, but also as a book teaching natural sciences in an interesting way. A fascinating little volume, which will make friends in every household in which there are children."--Daily News. Merle's Crusade. By Rosa N. Carey. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Among the books for young people we have seen nothing more unique than this book. Like all of this author's stories it will please young readers by the very attractive and charming style in which it is written."--Journal. Birdie: A Tale of Child Life. By H. L, Childe-Pemberton. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "The story is quaint and simple, but there is a freshness about it that makes one hear again the ringing laugh and the cheery shout of children at play which charmed his earlier years."--New York Express. The Days of Bruce: A Story from Scottish History. By Grace Aguilar. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00, "There is a delightful freshness, sincerity and vivacity about all of Grace Aguilar's stories which cannot fail to win the interest and admiration of every lover of good reading."--Boston Beacon. Three Bright Girls: A Story of Chance and Mischance. By Annie E. Armstrong. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The charm of the story lies in the cheery helpfulness of spirit developed in the girls by their changed circumstances; while the author finds a pleasant ending to all their happy makeshifts. The story is charmingly told, and the book can be warmly recommended as a present for girls."--Standard. Giannetta: A Girl's Story of Herself. By Rosa Mulholland. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Extremely well told and full of interest. Giannetta is a true heroine--warm-hearted, self-sacrificing, and, as all good women nowadays are, largely touched with enthusiasm of humanity. The illustrations are unusually good. One of the most attractive gift books of the season."--The Academy. Margery Merton's Girlhood. By Alice Corkran. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The experiences of an orphan girl who in infancy is left by her father to the care of an elderly aunt residing near Paris. The accounts of the various persons who have an after influence on the story are singularly vivid. There is a subtle attraction about the book which will make it a great favorite with thoughtful girls."--Saturday Review. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher. A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Under False Colors: A Story from Two Girls' Lives. By Sarah Doudney. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Sarah Doudney has no superior as a writer of high-toned stories--pure in style, original in conception, and with skillfully wrought out plots; but we have seen nothing equal in dramatic energy to this book."--Christian Leader. Down the Snow Stairs: or, From Good-night to Good-morning. By Alice Corkran. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Among all the Christmas volumes which the year has brought to our table this one stands out facile princeps--a gem of the first water, bearing upon every one of its pages the signet mark of genius.... All is told with such simplicity and perfect naturalness that the dream appears to be a solid reality. It is indeed a Little Pilgrim's Progress." --Christian Leader. The Tapestry Room: A Child's Romance. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Mrs. Molesworth is a charming painter of the nature and ways of children; and she has done good service in giving us this charming juvenile which will delight the young people."--Athenæum, London. Little Miss Peggy: Only a Nursery Story. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Mrs. Molesworth's children are finished studies. A joyous earnest spirit pervades her work, and her sympathy is unbounded. She loves them with her whole heart, while she lays bare their little minds, and expresses their foibles, their faults, their virtues, their inward struggles, their conception of duty, and their instinctive knowledge of the right and wrong of things. She knows their characters, she understands their wants, and she desires to help them." Polly: A New Fashioned Girl. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Few authors have achieved a popularity equal to Mrs. Meade as a writer of stories for young girls. Her characters are living beings of flesh and blood, not lay figures of conventional type. Into the trials and crosses, and everyday experiences, the reader enters at once with zest and hearty sympathy. While Mrs. Meade always writes with a high moral purpose, her lessons of life, purity and nobility of character are rather inculcated by example than intruded as sermons. One of a Covey. By the author of "Miss Toosey's Mission." 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Full of spirit and life, so well sustained throughout that grown-up readers may enjoy it as much as children. This 'Covey' consists of the twelve children of a hard-pressed Dr. Partridge out of which is chosen a little girl to be adopted by a spoiled, fine lady. We have rarely read a story for boys and girls with greater pleasure. One of the chief characters would not have disgraced Dickens' pen."--Literary World. The Little Princess of Tower Hill. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This is one of the prettiest books for children published, as pretty as a pond-lily, and quite as fragrant. Nothing could be imagined more attractive to young people than such a combination of fresh pages and fair pictures: and while children will rejoice over it--which is much better than crying for it--it is a book that can be read with pleasure even by older boys and girls."--Boston Advertiser. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Rosy. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. Mrs. Molesworth, considering the quality and quantity of her labors, is the best story-teller for children England has yet known. "This is a very pretty story. The writer knows children, and their ways well. The illustrations are exceedingly well drawn."--Spectator. Esther: A Book for Girls. By Rosa N. Carey. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "She inspires her readers simply by bringing them in contact with the characters, who are in themselves inspiring. Her simple stories are woven in order to give her an opportunity to describe her characters by their own conduct in seasons of trial."--Chicago Times. Sweet Content. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "It seems to me not at all easier to draw a lifelike child than to draw a lifelike man or woman: Shakespeare and Webster were the only two men of their age who could do it with perfect delicacy and success. Our own age is more fortunate, on this single score at least, having a larger and far nobler proportion of female writers; among whom, since the death of George Eliot, there is none left whose touch is so exquisite and masterly, whose love is so thoroughly according to knowledge, whose bright and sweet invention is so fruitful, so truthful, or so delightful as Mrs. Molesworth's."--A. C. Swinbourne. Honor Bright; or, The Four-Leaved Shamrock. By the author of "Miss Toosey's Mission." 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "It requires a special talent to describe the sayings and doings of children, and the author of 'Honor Bright,' 'One of a Covey,' possesses that talent in no small degree. A cheery, sensible, and healthy tale."--The Times. The Cuckoo Clock. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "A beautiful little story. It will be read with delight by every child into whose hands it is placed.... The author deserves all the praise that has been, is, and will be bestowed on 'The Cuckoo Clock.' Children's stories are plentiful, but one like this is not to be met with every day."--Pall Mall Gazette. The Adventures of a Brownie. As Told to my Child. By Miss Mulock. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "The author of this delightful little book leaves it in doubt all through whether there actually is such a creature in existence as a Brownie, but she makes us hope that there might be."--Chicago Standard. Only a Girl: A Tale of Brittany. From the French by C. A. Jones. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "We can thoroughly recommend this brightly written and homely narrative."--Saturday Review. Little Rosebud; or, Things Will Take a Turn. By Beatrice Harraden. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "A most delightful little book... Miss Harraden is so bright, so healthy, and so natural withal that the book ought, as a matter of duty, to be added to every girl's library in the land."--Boston Transcript. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Girl Neighbors; or, The Old Fashion and the New. By Sarah Tytler. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "One of the most effective and quietly humorous of Miss Tytler's stories. 'Girl Neighbors' is a pleasant comedy, not so much of errors as of prejudices got rid of, very healthy, very agreeable, and very well written."--Spectator. The Little Lame Prince and His Traveling Cloak. By Miss Mulock. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "No sweeter--that is the proper word---Christmas story for the little folks could easily be found, and it is as delightful for older readers as well. There is a moral to it which the reader can find out for himself, if he chooses to think."--Cleveland Herald. Little Miss Joy. By Emma Marshall. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "A very pleasant and instructive story, told by a very charming writer in such an attractive way as to win favor among its young readers. The illustrations add to the beauty of the book."--Utica Herald. The House that Grew. A Girl's Story. By Mrs. Molesworth. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This is a very pretty story of English life. Mrs. Molesworth is one of the most popular and charming of English story-writers for children. Her child characters are true to life, always natural and attractive, and her stories are wholesome and interesting."--Indianapolis Journal. The House of Surprises. By L. T. Meade. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "A charming tale of charming children, who are naughty enough to be interesting, and natural enough to be lovable; and very prettily their story is told. The quaintest yet most natural stories of child life. Simply delightful."--Vanity Fair. The Jolly Ten: and their Year of Stories. By Agnes Carr Sage. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. The story of a band of cousins who were accustomed to meet at the "Pinery," with "Aunt Roxy." At her fireside they play merry games, have suppers flavored with innocent fun, and listen to stories--each with its lesson calculated to make the ten not less jolly, but quickly responsive to the calls of duty and to the needs of others. Little Miss Dorothy. The Wonderful Adventures of Two Little People. By Martha James. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This is a charming little juvenile story from the pen of Mrs. James, detailing the various adventures of a couple of young children. Their many adventures are told in a charming manner, and the book will please young girls and boys."--Montreal Star. Pen's Venture. A Story for Girls. By Elvirton Wright. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. Something Pen saw in the condition of the cash girls in a certain store gave her a thought; the thought became a plan; the plan became a venture--Pen's venture. It is amusing, touching, and instructive to read about it. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. FAIRY BOOKS. The Blue Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. Profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "The tales are simply delightful. No amount of description can do them justice. The only way is to read the book through from cover to cover."--Book Review. The Green Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. Profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "The most delightful book of fairy tales, taking form and contents together, ever presented to children."--E. S. Hartland, in Folk-Lore. The Yellow Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. Profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "As a collection of fairy tales to delight children of all ages, it ranks second to none."--Daily Graphic. The Red Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. Profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "A gift-book that will charm any child, and all older folk, who have been fortunate enough to retain their taste for the old nursery stories."--Literary World. Celtic Fairy Tales. Edited by Joseph Jacobs. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "A stock of delightful little narratives gathered chiefly from the Celtic-speaking peasants of Ireland. A perfectly lovely book. And oh! the wonderful pictures inside. Get this book if you can; it is capital, all through."--Pall Mall Budget. English Fairy Tales. Edited by Joseph Jacobs. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The tales are simply delightful. No amount of description can do them justice. The only way is to read the book through from cover to cover. The book is intended to correspond to 'Grimm's Fairy Tales,' and it must be allowed that its pages fairly rival in interest those of that well-known repository of folk-lore."--Morning Herald. Indian Fairy Tales. Edited by Joseph Jacobs. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Mr. Jacobs brings home to us in a clear and intelligible manner the enormous influence which 'Indian Fairy Tales' have had upon European literature of the kind. The present combination will be welcomed not alone by the little ones for whom it is specially combined, but also by children of larger growth and added years."--Daily Telegraph. Household Fairy Tales. By the Brothers Grimm. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "As a collection of fairy tales to delight children of all ages this work ranks second to none."--Daily Graphic. Fairy Tales and Stories. By Hans Christian Andersen. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "If I were asked to select a child's library I should name these three volumes, 'English,' 'Celtic,' and 'Indian Fairy Tales,' with Grimm and Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales."--Independent. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. FAIRY BOOKS. Popular Fairy Tales. By the Brothers Grimm. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "From first to last, almost without exception, these stories are delightful."--Athenæum. Icelandic Fairy Tales. By A. W. Hall. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The most delightful book of fairy tales, taking form and contents together, ever presented to children. The whole collection is dramatic and humorous. A more desirable child's book has not been seen for many a day."--Daily News. Fairy Tales From the Far North. (Norwegian.) By P. C. Asbjornsen. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "If we were asked what present would make a child happiest at Christmastide we think we could with a clear conscience point to Mr. Jacobs' book. It is a dainty and an interesting volume."--Notes and Queries. Cossack Fairy Tales. By R. Nisbet Bain. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "A really valuable and curious selection which will be welcomed by readers of all ages.... The illustrations by Mr. Batten are often clever and irresistibly humorous. A delight alike to the young people and their elders."--Globe. The Golden Fairy Book. By Various Authors. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The most delightful book of its kind that has come in our way for many a day. It is brimful of pretty stories. Retold in a truly delightful manner."--Graphic. The Silver Fairy Book. By Various Authors. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The book is intended to correspond to 'Grimm's Fairy Tales,' and it must be allowed that its pages fairly rival in interest those of the well-known repository of folk-lore. It is a most delightful volume of fairy tales."--Courier. The Brownies, and Other Stories. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Like all the books she has written this one is very charming, and is worth more in the hands of a child than a score of other stories of a more sensational character."--Christian at Work. The Hunting of the Snark. An Agony in Eight Fits. By Lewis Carroll, author of "Alice in Wonderland." 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "This glorious piece of nonsense.... Everybody ought to read it--nearly everybody will--and all who deserve the treat will scream with laughter."--Graphic. Lob Lie-By-the-fire, and Other Tales. By Juliana Horatio Ewing. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price 75 cents. "Mrs. Ewing has written as good a story as her 'Brownies,' and that is saying a great deal. 'Lob Lie-by-the-fire' has humor and pathos, and teaches what is right without making children think they are reading a sermon."--Saturday Review. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. By Right of Conquest; or, With Cortez in Mexico. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by W. S. Stacey. 12mo, cloth olivine edges, price $1.50. "The conquest of Mexico by a small band of resolute men under the magnificent leadership of Cortez is always rightfully ranked among the most romantic and daring exploits in history. 'By Right of Conquest' is the nearest approach to a perfectly successful historical tale that Mr. Henty has yet published."--Academy. For Name and Fame; or, Through Afghan Passes. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth olivine edges, price $1.00. "Not only a rousing story, replete with all the varied forms of excitement of a campaign, but, what is till more useful, an account of a territory and its inhabitants which must for a long time possess a supreme interest for Englishmen, as being the key to our Indian Empire,"--Glasgow Herald. The Bravest of the Brave; or, With Peterborough in Spain. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by H. M. Paget, 12mo cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Mr. Henty never loses sight of the moral purpose of his work--to enforce the doctrine of courage and truth, mercy and loving kindness, as indispensable to the making of a gentleman. Boys will read 'The Bravest of the Brave' with pleasure and profit; of that we are quite sure."--Daily Telegraph. The Cat of Bubastes: A Story of Ancient Egypt. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "The story, from the critical moment of the killing of the sacred cat to the perilous exodus into Asia with which it closes, is very skillfully constructed and full of exciting adventures. It is admirably illustrated."--Saturday Review. Bonnie Prince Charlie: A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Ronald, the hero, is very like the hero of 'Quentin Durward.' The lad's journey across France, and his hairbreadth escapes, makes up as good a narrative of the kind as we have ever read. For freshness of treatment and variety of incident Mr. Henty has surpassed himself."--Spectator. With Clive in India; or, The Beginnings of an Empire. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "He has taken a period of Indian history of the most vital importance, and he has embroidered on the historical facts a story which of itself is deeply interesting. Young people assuredly will be delighted with the volume."--Scotsman. In the Reign of Terror: The Adventures of a Westminster Boy. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by J. Schönberg. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Harry Sandwith, the Westminster boy, may fairly be said to beat Mr. Henty's record. His adventures will delight boys by the audacity and peril they depict. The story is one of Mr. Henty's best."--Saturday Review. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. The Lion of the North: A Tale of Gustavus Adolphus and the Wars of Religion. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by John Schönberg. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "A praiseworthy attempt to interest British youth in the great deeds pf the Scotch Brigade in the wars of Gustavus Adolphus. Mackey, Hepburn, and Munro live again in Mr. Henty's pages, as those deserve to live whose disciplined bands formed really the germ of the modern British army."--Athenæum. The Dragon and the Raven; or, The Days of King Alfred. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by C. J. Staniland. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "In this story the author gives an account of the fierce struggle between Saxon and Dane for supremacy in England, and presents a vivid picture of the misery and ruin to which the country was reduced by the ravages of the sea-wolves. The story is treated in a manner most attractive to the boyish reader."--Athenæum. The Young Carthaginian: A Story of the Times of Hannibal. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by C. J. Staniland. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Well constructed and vividly told. From first to last nothing stays the interest of the narrative. It bears us along as on a stream whose current varies in direction, but never loses its force."--Saturday Review. In Freedom's Cause: A Story of Wallace and Bruce. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "It is written in the author's best style. Full of the wildest and most remarkable achievements, it is a tale of great interest, which a boy, once he has begun it, will not willingly put one side."--The Schoolmaster. With Wolfe in Canada; or, The Winning of a Continent. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "A model of what a boys' story-book should be. Mr. Henty has a great power of infusing into the dead facts of history new life, and as no pains are spared by him to ensure accuracy in historic details, his books supply useful aids to study as well as amusement."--School Guardian. True to the Old Flag: A Tale of the American War of Independence. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Does justice to the pluck and determination of the British soldiers during the unfortunate struggle against American emancipation. The son of an American loyalist, who remains true to our flag, falls among the hostile red-skins in that very Huron country which has been endeared to us by the exploits of Hawkeye and Chingachgook."--The Times. A Final Reckoning: A Tale of Bush Life in Australia. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by W. B. Wollen. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "All boys will read this story with eager and unflagging interest. The episodes are in Mr. Henty's very best vein--graphic, exciting, realistic; and, as in all Mr. Henty's books, the tendency is to the formation of an honorable, manly, and even heroic character."--Birmingham Post. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers, A. L. Burt, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. The Lion of St. Mark: A Tale of Venice in the Fourteenth Century. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Every boy should read 'The Lion of St. Mark.' Mr. Henty has never produced a story more delightful, more wholesome, or more vivacious."--Saturday Review. Facing Death; or, The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "The tale is well written and well illustrated, and there is much reality in the characters. If any father, clergyman, or schoolmaster is on the lookout for a good book to give as a present to a boy who is worth his salt, this is the book we would recommend."--Standard. Maori and Settler: A Story of the New Zealand War. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Alfred Pearse. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "In the adventures among the Maoris, there are many breathless moments in which the odds seem hopelessly against the party, but they succeed in establishing themselves happily in one of the pleasant New Zealand valleys. It is brimful of adventure, of humorous and interesting conversation, and vivid pictures of colonial life."--Schoolmaster. One of the 28th: A Tale of Waterloo. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by W. H. Overend. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Written with Homeric vigor and heroic inspiration. It is graphic, picturesque, and dramatically effective ... shows us Mr. Henty at his best and brightest. The adventures will hold a boy enthralled as he rushes through them with breathless interest 'from cover to cover.'"--Observer. Orange and Green: A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "The narrative is free from the vice of prejudice, and ripples with life as if what is being described were really passing before the eye."--Belfast News-Letter. Through the Fray: A Story of the Luddite Riots. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by H. M. Paget. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Mr. Henty inspires a love and admiration for straightforwardness, truth and courage. This is one of the best of the many good books Mr. Henty has produced, and deserves to be classed with his 'Facing Death.'"--Standard. The Young Midshipman: A Story of the Bombardment of Alexandria. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. A coast fishing lad, by an act of heroism, secures the interest of a shipowner, who places him as an apprentice on board one of his ships. In company with two of his fellow-apprentices he is left behind, at Alexandria, in the hands of the revolted Egyptian troops, and is present through the bombardment and the scenes of riot and bloodshed which accompanied it. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. In Times of Peril. A Tale of India. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "The hero of the story early excites our admiration, and is altogether a fine character such as boys will delight in, whilst the story of the campaign is very graphically told."--St. James's Gazette. The Cornet of Horse: A Tale of Marlborough's Wars. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1. "Mr. Henty not only concocts a thrilling tale, he weaves fact and fiction together with so skillful a hand that the reader cannot help acquiring a just and clear view of that fierce and terrible struggle known as the Crimean War."--Athenæum. The Young Franc-Tireurs: Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "A capital book for boys. It is bright and readable, and full of good sense and manliness. It teaches pluck and patience in adversity, and shows that right living leads to success."--Observer. The Young Colonists: A Story of Life and War in South Africa. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "No boy needs to have any story of Henty's recommended to him, and parents who do not know and buy them for their boys should be ashamed of themselves. Those to whom he is yet unknown could not make a better beginning than with this book." The Young Buglers. A Tale of the Peninsular War. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1. "Mr. Henty is a giant among boys' writers, and his books are sufficiently popular to be sure of a welcome anywhere. In stirring interest, this is quite up to the level of Mr. Henty's former historical tales."--Saturday Review. Sturdy and Strong; or, How George Andrews Made his Way. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo. cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "The history of a hero of everyday life, whose love of truth, clothing of modesty, and innate pluck, carry him, naturally, from poverty to affluence. George Andrews is an example of character with nothing to cavil at, and stands as a good instance of chivalry in domestic life."--The Empire. Among Malay Pirates. A Story of Adventure and Peril. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Incident succeeds incident, and adventure is piled upon adventure, and at the end the reader, be he boy or man, will have experienced breathless enjoyment in a romantic story that must have taught him much at its close."--Army and Navy Gazette. Jack Archer. A Tale of the Crimea. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Mr. Henty not only concocts a thrilling tale, he weaves fact and fiction together with so skillful a hand that the reader cannot help acquiring a just and clear view of that fierce and terrible struggle."--Athenæum. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 58-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. Friends, Though Divided. A Tale of the Civil War. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1. "It has a good plot; it abounds in action; the scenes are equally spirited and realistic, and we can only say we have read it with much pleasure from first to last."--Times. Out on the Pampas; or, The Young Settlers. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "A really noble story, which adult readers will find to the full as satisfying as the boys. Lucky boys! to have such a caterer as Mr. G. A. Henty."--Black and White. The Boy Knight: A Tale of the Crusades. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Of stirring episode there is no lack. The book, with its careful accuracy and its descriptions of all the chief battles, will give many a schoolboy his first real understanding of a very important period of history."--St. James's Gazette. The Wreck of the Golden Fleece. The Story of a North Sea Fisher Boy. By Robert Leighton. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1. A description of life on the wild North-Sea,--the hero being a parson's son who is appreciated on board a Lowestoft fishing lugger. The lad has to suffer many buffets from his shipmates, while the storms and dangers which he braved on board the "North Star" are set forth with minute knowledge and intense power. The wreck of the "Golden Fleece" forms the climax to a thrilling series of desperate mischances. Olaf the Glorious. A Story of the Viking Age. By Robert Leighton. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This story of Olaf the Glorious, King of Norway, opens with the incident of his being found by his uncle living as a bond-slave in Esthonia; then come his adventures as a Viking and his raids upon the coasts of Scotland and England, his victorious battle against the English at Maldon in Essex, his being bought off by Ethelred the Unready, and his conversion to Christianity. He then returns to Pagan Norway, is accepted as king, and converts his people to the Christian faith. To Greenland and the Pole. A story of Adventure in the Arctic Regions, By Gordon Stables. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1. The unfailing fascination of Arctic venturing is presented in this story with new vividness. It deals with skilöbning in the north of Scotland, deer-hunting in Norway, sealing in the Arctic Seas, bear-stalking on the ice-floes, the hardships of a journey across Greenland, and a successful voyage to the back of the North Pole. This is, indeed, a real sea-yarn by a real sailor, and the tone is as bright and wholesome as the adventures are numerous. Yussuf the Guide. A Story of Adventure in Asia Minor. By George Manville Fenn. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This story deals with the stirring incidents in the career of a lad who has been almost given over by the doctors, but who rapidly recovers health and strength in a journey through Asia Minor. The adventures are many, and culminate in the travellers being snowed up for the winter in the mountains, from which they escape while their captors are waiting for the ransom that does not come. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS. Grettir the Outlaw. A Story of Iceland. By S. Baring-Gould. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "This is the boys' book of the year. That is, of course, as much as to say that it will do for men grown as well as juniors. It is told in simple, straightforward English, as all stories should be, and it has a freshness and freedom which make it irresistible."--National Observer. Two Thousand Years Ago. The Adventures of a Roman Boy, By A. J. Church. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Prof. Church has in this story sought to revivify that most interesting period, the last days of the Roman Republic. The book is extremely entertaining as well as useful: there is a wonderful freshness in the Roman scenes and characters."--Times. Nat the Naturalist. A Boy's Adventure in the Eastern Seas. By George Manville Fenn. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1. Nat and his uncle Dick go on a voyage to the remoter islands of the Eastern seas, and their adventures are told in a truthful and vastly interesting fashion. The descriptions of Mr. Ebony, their black comrade, and of the scenes of savage life, are full of genuine humor. The Log of the Flying Fish. A Story of Peril and Adventure. By Harry Collingwood. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1. "This story is full of even more vividly recounted adventures than those which charmed so many boy readers in 'Pirate Island' and 'Congo Rovers.'... There is a thrilling adventure on the precipices of Mount Everest, when the ship floats off and providentially returns by force of gravitation."--Academy. The Congo Rovers. A Story of the Slave Squadron. By Harry Collingwood. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The scene of this tale is laid on the west coast of Africa, and in the lower reaches of the Congo; the characteristic scenery of the great river being delineated with wonderful accuracy. Mr. Collingwood carries us off for another cruise at sea, in 'The Congo Rovers,' and boys will need no pressing to join the daring crew, which seeks adventures and meets with any number of them."--The Times. Boris the Bear Hunter. A Tale of Peter the Great and His Times. By Fred Wishaw. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "This is a capital story. The characters are marked and lifelike, and it is full of incident and adventure."--Standard. Michael Strogoff; or, The Courier of the Czar. By Jules Verne. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The story is full of originality and vigor. The characters are lifelike, there is plenty of stirring incident, the interest is sustained throughout, and every boy will enjoy following the fortunes of the hero."--Journal of Education. Mother Carey's Chicken. Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle. By George Manville Fenn. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Undoubtedly one of the best Mr. Fenn has written. The incidents are of thrilling interest, while the characters are drawn with a care and completeness rarely found in a boy's book."--Literary World. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. 
40640	----	[Illustration] [Illustration: DAVID IN AFRICA] THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR _A ROMANCE_ BY FLORENCE L. BARCLAY AUTHOR OF THE ROSARY, THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE, ETC. NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1911 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 17th Printing BY FLORENCE L. BARCLAY The Rosary The Mistress of Shenstone Through the Postern Gate The Upas Tree The Following of the Star The Broken Halo The Wall of Partition My Heart's Right There This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press, New York * * * * * To MY SON IN THE MINISTRY C. C. B. CONTENTS _GOLD_ CHAPTER PAGE I. THE STILL WATERS OF BRAMBLEDENE 3 II. THE LADY OF MYSTERY 20 III. DAVID STIRS THE STILL WATERS 31 IV. DIANA RIVERS, OF RIVERSCOURT 46 V. THE NOISELESS NAPIER 58 VI. DAVID MAKES FRIENDS WITH "CHAPPIE" 69 VII. THE TOUCH OF POWER 81 VIII. THE TEST OF THE TRUE HERALD 91 IX. UNCLE FALCON'S WILL 95 X. DIANA'S HIGH FENCE 129 XI. THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT 145 XII. SUSPENSE 164 XIII. DAVID'S DECISION 174 XIV. THE EVE OF EPIPHANY 190 XV. THE CODICIL 198 XVI. IN OLD SAINT BOTOLPH'S 211 XVII. DIANA'S READJUSTMENT 222 XVIII. DAVID'S NUNC DIMITTIS 229 XIX. DAVID STUDIES THE SCENERY 239 XX. WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE COMPANY 252 XXI. "ALL ASHORE!" 260 XXII. DIANA WINS 266 XXIII. UNCLE FALCON WINS 275 _FRANKINCENSE_ XXIV. THE HIDDEN LEAVEN 289 XXV. THE PROPERTY OF THE CROWN 296 XXVI. A PILGRIMAGE 309 XXVII. A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE 327 XXVIII. DAVID'S PRONOUNCEMENT 342 XXIX. WHAT DAVID WONDERED 348 XXX. RESURGAM 356 XXXI. "I CAN STAND ALONE" 367 XXXII. THE BLOW FALLS 371 XXXIII. REQUIESCAT IN PACE 376 _MYRRH_ XXXIV. IN THE HOSPITAL OF THE HOLY STAR 385 XXXV. THE LETTER COMES 398 XXXVI. DIANA LEARNS THE TRUTH 404 XXXVII. "GOOD-NIGHT, DAVID" 413 XXXVIII. THE BUNDLE OF MYRRH 420 XXXIX. HOME, BY ANOTHER WAY 424 GOLD CHAPTER I THE STILL WATERS OF BRAMBLEDENE David Rivers closed his Bible suddenly, slipped it into the inner pocket of his coat, and, leaning back in his armchair, relaxed the tension at which he had been sitting while he mentally put his thoughts into terse and forcible phraseology. His evening sermon was ready. The final sentence had silently thrilled into the quiet study, in the very words in which it would presently resound through the half-empty little village church; and David felt as did the young David of old, when he had paused at the brook and chosen five smooth stones for his sling, on his way to meet the mighty champion of the Philistines. David now felt ready to go forward and fight the Goliath of apathy and inattention; the life-long habit of not listening to the voice of the preacher, or giving any heed to the message he brought. The congregation, in this little Hampshire village church where, during the last five weeks, David had acted as locum-tenens, consisted entirely of well-to-do farmers and their families; of labourers, who lounged into church from force of habit, or because, since the public-houses had been closed by law during the hours of divine service, it was the only warmed and lighted place to be found on a Sunday evening; of a few devout old men and women, to whom weekly church-going, while on earth, appeared the only possible preparation for an eternity of Sabbaths in the world to come; and of a fair sprinkling of village lads and lassies, who took more interest in themselves and in each other than in the divine worship in which they were supposed to be taking part. The two churchwardens, stout, florid, and well-to-do, occupied front pews on either side of the centre; Mr. Churchwarden Jones, on the right; Mr. Churchwarden Smith, on the left. Their official position lent them a dignity which they enjoyed to the full, and which overflowed to _Mrs._ Jones and _Mrs._ Smith, seated in state beside them. When, on "collection Sundays," the churchwardens advanced up the chancel together during the final verse of the hymn, and handed the plates to the Rector, their wives experienced a sensation of pride in them which "custom could not stale." They were wont to describe at the Sunday midday dinner or at supper, afterwards, the exact effect of this "procession" up the church, an oft-told tale for which they could always be sure of at least one interested auditor. Mr. Churchwarden Jones bowed when he delivered the plate to the Rector. Mr. Churchwarden Smith did not bow, but kept himself more erect than usual; holding that anything in the nature of a bow, while in the House of God, savoured of popery. This provided the village with a fruitful subject for endless discussion. The congregation was pretty equally divided. One half approved the stately bow of Mr. Churchwarden Jones, and unconsciously bowed themselves, while they disregarded their hymn-books and watched him make it. The other half were for "Smith, and no popery," and also sang of "mystic sweet communion, with those whose rest is won," without giving any thought to the words, while occupied in gazing with approval at Farmer Smith's broad back, and at the uncompromising stiffness of the red neck, appearing above his starched Sunday collar. Mrs. Smith secretly admired Mr. Jones's bow, and felt that her man was missing his chances for a silly idea; but not for worlds would Mrs. Smith have admitted this; no, not even to her especial crony, Miss Pike the milliner, who had once been to Paris, and knew what was what. The venerated Rector, father of his people, always bowed as he received the plates from the two churchwardens. But then, that had nothing whatever to do with the question, his _back_ being to the Table. Besides, the Rector, who had christened, confirmed, married, and buried them, during the last fifty years, could do no wrong. They would as soon have thought of trying to understand his sermons, as of questioning his soundness. "The Rector says," constituted a final judgment, from which there was no appeal. As he slowly and carefully mounted the pulpit stairs, one hand grasping the rail, the other clasping a black silk sermon-case, the hearts of his people went with him. The hearts of his people were with him, as his silvery hair and benign face appeared above the large red velvet cushion on the pulpit desk; and the minds of his people were with him, until he had safely laid his sermon upon the cushion, opened it, and gently flattened the manuscript with both hands; then placed his pocket-handkerchief in the handy receptacle specially intended to contain it, and a lozenge in a prominent position on the desk. But, this well-known routine safely accomplished, they sang a loud amen to the closing verse of "the hymn before the sermon," and gave their minds a holiday, until, at the first words of the ascription, they rose automatically with a loud and joyous clatter to their feet, to emerge in a few moments into the fresh air and sunshine. A perplexing contretemps had once occurred. The Rector's gentle voice had paused in its onward flow. It was not the usual lozenge-pause. Their subconscious minds understood and expected that. But, as a matter of fact, the Rector had, on this particular Sunday, required a second lozenge towards the end of the sermon, and the sentence immediately following this unexpected pause chanced to begin with the words: "And now to enlarge further upon our seventh point." At the first three words the whole congregation rose joyfully to their feet; then had to sit down abashed, while the Rector hurriedly enlarged upon "our seventh point." It was the only point which had as yet penetrated their intelligence. In all subsequent sermons, the Rector carefully avoided, at the beginning of his sentences, the words which had produced a general rising. He would smile benignly to himself, in the seclusion of his study, as he substituted, for fear of accidents, "Let us, my brethren," or "Therefore, belovèd." It never struck the good man, content with his own scholarly presentment of deep theological truths, that the accidental rising was an undoubted evidence of non-attention on the part of his congregation. He continued to mount the pulpit steps, as he had mounted them during the last fifty years; attaining thereby an elevation from which he invariably preached completely over the heads of his people. In this they acquiesced without question. It was their obvious duty to "sit under" a preacher, not to attempt to fathom his meaning; to sit _through_ a sermon, not to endeavour to understand it. So they slumbered, fidgeted, or thought of other things, according to their age or inclination, until the ascription brought them to their feet, the benediction bowed them to their knees, and the first strident blasts of the organ sent them gaily trooping out of church and home to their Sunday dinners, virtuous and content. Into this atmosphere of pious apathy, strode David Rivers; back on sick-leave from the wilds of Central Africa; aflame with zeal for his Lord, certain of the inspiration of his message; accustomed to congregations to whom every thought was news, and every word was life; men, ready and eager to listen and to believe, and willing, when once they had believed, to be buried alive, or tied to a stake, and burned by slow fire, sooner than relinquish or deny the faith he had taught them. But how came this young prophet of fire into the still waters of our Hampshire village? The wilds of the desert, and the rapid rushings of Jordan, are the only suitable setting for John the Baptists in all ages. Nevertheless to Hampshire he came; and it happened thus. Influenza, which is no respecter of persons, attacked the venerated Rector. In the first stress of need, neighbouring clergy came to the rescue. But when six weeks of rest and change were ordered, as the only means of insuring complete recovery, the Rector advertised for a locum-tenens, offering terms which attracted David, just out of hospital, sailing for Central Africa early in the New Year, and wondering how on earth he should scrape together the funds needed for completing his outfit. He applied immediately; and, within twenty-four hours, received a telegram suggesting an interview, and asking him to spend the night at Brambledene Rectory. Here a curious friendship began, and was speedily cemented by mutual attraction. The white-haired old man, overflowing with geniality, punctilious in old-fashioned courtesy, reminded David Rivers of a father, long dead and deeply mourned; while the young enthusiast, with white, worn face, and deep-set shining eyes, struck a long-silent chord in the heart of the easy-going old Rector, seeming to him an embodiment of that which he himself might have been, had he chosen a harder, rougher path, when standing at the cross-roads half a century before. An ideal of his youth, long vanished, returned, and stood before him in David Rivers. It was too late, now, to sigh after a departed ideal. But, as a tribute to its memory, he doubled the remuneration he had offered, left the keys in every bookcase in the library, and recommended David to the most especial care of his faithful housekeeper, Sarah Dolman, with instructions that, should the young man seem tired on Sunday evenings, after the full day's work, the best old sherry might be produced and offered. And here let it be recorded, that David undoubtedly did look worn and tired after the full day's work; but the best old sherry was declined with thanks. The fact that your heart has remained among the wild tribes of Central Africa has a way of making your body very abstemious, and careless of all ordinary creature comforts. Nevertheless, David enjoyed the Rector's large armchair, upholstered in maroon leather, and delighted in the oak-panelled study, with its wealth of valuable books and its atmosphere of scholarly calm and meditation. * * * * * This last Sunday of his ministry at Brambledene chanced to fall on Christmas-eve. Also, for once, it was true Christmas weather. As David walked to church that morning, every branch and twig, every ivy leaf and holly berry, sparkled in the sunshine; the frosty lanes were white and hard, and paved with countless glittering diamonds. An indescribable exhilaration was in the air. Limbs felt light and supple; movement was a pleasure. Church bells, near and far away, pealed joyously. The Christmas spirit was already here. "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given," quoted David, as he swung along the lanes. It was five years since he had had a Christmas in England. Mentally he contrasted this keen frosty brightness, with the mosquito-haunted swamps of the African jungle. This unaccustomed sense of health and vigour brought, by force of contrast, a remembrance of the deathly lassitude and weakness which accompany the malarial fever. But, instantly true to the certainty of his high and holy calling, his soul leapt up crying: "Unto _them_ a Child is born! Unto _them_ a Son is given! And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" * * * * * The little church, on that morning, was bright with holly and heavy with evergreens. The united efforts of the Smith and the Jones families had, during the week, made hundreds of yards of wreathing. On Saturday, all available young men came to help; Miss Pike, whose taste was so excellent, to advise; the school-mistress, a noisy person with more energy than tact, to argue with Miss Pike, and to side with Smiths and Joneses alternately, when any controversial point was under discussion. So a gay party carried the long evergreen wreaths from the parish-room to the church, where already were collected baskets of holly and ivy, yards of scarlet flannel and white cotton-wool; an abundance of tin tacks and hammers; and last, but not least, the Christmas scrolls and banners, which were annually produced from their place of dusty concealment behind the organ; and of which Mrs. Smith remarked, each year, that they were "every bit as good as new, if you put 'em up in a fresh place." During the whole of Saturday afternoon and evening the decorative process had been carried on with so much energy, that when David came out from the vestry, on Sunday morning, he found himself in a scene which was decidedly what the old women from the alms-houses called "Christmassy." His surplice rasped against the holly-leaves, as he made his way into the reading-desk. The homely face of the old gilt clock, on the gallery facing him, was wreathed in yew and holly, and the wreath had slipped slightly on one side, giving the sober old clock an unwontedly rakish appearance, which belied its steady and measured "tick-tick." Also into the bottom of this wreath, beneath which the whole congregation had to pass in and out, Tom Brigg, the doctor's son, a handsome fellow and noted wag, had surreptitiously inserted a piece of mistletoe. This prank of Tom's, known to all the younger members of the congregation, caused so much nudging and whispering and amused glancing at the inebrious-looking clock, that David produced his own watch, wondering if there were any mistake in the hour. His sermon, on this Sunday morning, had seemed to him a failure. His text confronted him in letters of gold on crimson flock: "Emmanuel--God with us"; but not a mind seemed with him as he gave it out, read it twice, slowly and clearly, and then proceeded to explain that this wonderful name, Emmanuel, was never intended to be the world's name for Christ, nor even His people's name for Him. However, at this statement, Mrs. Smith raised her eyebrows and began turning over the leaves of her Bible. Encouraged by this unusual sign of attention, David Rivers leaned over the pulpit and tried to drive into one mind, at least, a thought which had been a discovery to himself the evening before, and was beginning to mean much to him, as every Spirit-given new light on a well-known theme always must mean to the earnest Bible student. "The name Emmanuel," he said, "so freely used in our church decorations at this season, occurs three times only in the Bible; twice in the Old Testament, once in the New; and the New merely quotes the more important of the two passages in the Old. "We can dismiss at once the allusion in Isaiah viii., 8, which merely speaks of Palestine as 'Thy land, O Immanuel,' and confine our attention to the great prophecy of Isaiah vii., 14, quoted in Matthew i., 23: 'Behold a Virgin shall bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.' The Hebrew of this passage reads: 'Thou, O Virgin, shalt call His name Immanuel'; and the Greek of Matthew i. bears the same meaning. I want you to realise that this was His mother's name for the new-born King, for the Babe of Bethlehem, for the little son in the village home at Nazareth. His Presence there meant to that humble pondering heart: '_God_ with us.' "If you want to find _our_ name for Him," continued David, noting that Mrs. Smith, ignoring his two references, still turned the pages of her Bible, "look at the angel's message to Joseph in the 21st verse of Matthew i.: 'Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.' That name is mentioned nine hundred and six times in the Bible. We cannot attempt to look them all out now,"--with an appealing glance at Mrs. Smith's rustling pages--"but let us make sure that we have appropriated to the full the gifts and blessings of that name, 'which is above every name.' It was the watchword of the early church. It is the secret of our peace and power. It will be our password into heaven. "But Emmanuel was His mother's name for Him. As she laid him in the manger, round which the patient cattle snuffed in silent wonder at this new use for the place where heretofore they munched their fodder, it was '_God_ with us' in the stable. "As, seated on the ass, she clasped the infant to her breast through the long hours of that night ride into Egypt, she whispered: 'Emmanuel, Emmanuel! God _with_ us, in our flight and peril.' "In the carpenter's home at Nazareth, where, in the midst of the many trials and vexations of a village life of poverty, He was ever patient, gentle, understanding; subject to His parents, yet giving His mother much cause for pondering, many things to treasure in her heart--often, in adoring tenderness, she would whisper: 'Emmanuel, God with _us_.'" David paused and looked earnestly down the church, longing for some response to the thrill in his own soul. "Ah," he said, slowly and impressively, "if only the boys in your village could be _this_ to their mothers! If their loyal obedience, their gentle, loving chivalry, their thoughtful tenderness, could make it possible for their own mothers to say: 'I see the Christ-life in my little boy. When he is at home, the love of God is here. Truly it is Emmanuel, God with us.'" * * * * * "What did that young man mean," remarked Mrs. Smith at the dinner-table at Appledore Farm, "by trying to take from us the name 'Emmanuel'? Seems to me, if he stays here much longer we shall have no Bible left!" Mr. Churchwarden Smith had been carving the Sunday beef for his numerous family. He had only, that moment, fallen to, upon his own portion. Otherwise Mrs. Smith would not have been allowed to complete her sentence. "I've no patience with these young chaps!" he burst out, as soon as speech was possible. "Undermining the faith of their forefathers; putting our good old English Bible into 'Ebrew and Greek, just to parade their own learning, and confuse the minds of simple folk. 'Higher criticism,' they call it! Jolly low-down impudence, say I!" Mrs. Smith watchfully bided her time. Then: "And popish too," she added, "to talk so much about the mother of our Lord." "I don't think he mentioned _her_, my dear," said Mr. Churchwarden Smith. "Pass the mustard, Johnny." * * * * * Yes, as he thought it over during his lonely luncheon, David felt more and more convinced that his morning sermon had been a failure. He did not know of a little curly-headed boy, whose young widowed mother was at her wit's end as to how to control his wilfulness; but who ran straight to his garret-room after service, and, kneeling beside his frosty window, looked up to the wintry sky and said: "Please God, make me a Manuel to my mother, like Jesus was to His, for Christ's sake, Amen." David did not know of this; nor that, ever after, that cottage home was to be transformed, owing to the living power of his message. So, down in the depths of discouragement, he dubbed his morning sermon a failure. Notwithstanding, he prepared the evening subject with equal care, a spice of enjoyment added, owing to the fact that he would possibly--probably--almost to a certainty--have in the evening congregation a mind able to understand and appreciate each point; a mind of a calibre equal to his own; a soul he was bent on winning. As he closed his Bible, put it into his pocket, and relaxed over the thought that his sermon was complete, he smiled into the glowing wood fire, saying to himself, in glad anticipation: "My Lady of Mystery will undoubtedly be there. Now I wonder if _she_ believes that there were three Wise Men!" CHAPTER II THE LADY OF MYSTERY David thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his short coat, well cut, but inclined to be somewhat threadbare. He crossed his knees, and lay back comfortably in the Rector's big chair. An hour and a half remained before he need start out. It was inexpressibly restful to have his subject, clear cut and complete, safely stowed away in the back of his mind, and to be able to sit quietly in this warmth and comfort, and let his thoughts dwell lightly upon other things, while Christmas snow fell softly, in large flakes, without; and gathering twilight slowly hushed the day to rest. "Yes, undoubtedly my Lady of Mystery will be there," thought David Rivers, "unless this fall of snow keeps her away." He let his memory dwell in detail upon the first time he had seen her. It happened on his second Sunday at Brambledene. The deadening effect of the mental apathy of the congregation had already somewhat damped his enthusiasm. It was so many years since he had preached in English, that, on the first Sunday, he had allowed himself the luxury of writing out his whole sermon. This plan, for various reasons, did not prove successful. Mrs. Churchwarden Jones and Mrs. Churchwarden Smith--good simple souls both, if you found them in their dairies making butter, or superintending the sturdy maids in the farm kitchens--seemed to consider on Sundays that they magnified their husbands' office by the amount of rustle and jingle they contrived to make with their own portly persons during the church services. They kept it up, duet fashion, on either side of the aisle. If Mrs. Jones rustled, Mrs. Smith promptly tinkled. If Mrs. Smith rustled, Mrs. Jones straightway jingled. The first time this happened in the sermon, David looked round, hesitated, lost his place, and suffered agonies of mortification before he found it again. Moreover he soon realised that, with his eyes on the manuscript, he had absolutely no chance of holding the attention of his audience. In the evening he tried notes, but this seemed to him neither one thing nor the other. So on all subsequent Sundays he memorised his sermons as he prepared them, and hardly realised himself how constantly, in their delivery, there flowed from his subconsciousness a depth of thought, clothed in eloquent and appropriate language, which had not as yet been ground in the mill of his conscious mind. On that second Sunday evening, David had entered the reading-desk depressed and discouraged. In the morning he had fallen out with the choir. It was a mixed choir. Large numbers of young Smiths and Joneses sat on either side of the chancel and vied with one another as to which family could outsing the other. This rivalry was resulting in a specially loud and joyful noise in the closing verses of the Benedictus. David, jarred in every nerve, and forgetting for the moment that he was not dealing with his African aborigines, wheeled round in the desk, held up his hand, and said: "Hush!" with the result that he had to declaim the details of John the Baptist's mission, as a tenor solo; and that the organist noisily turned over his music-books during the whole time of the sermon, apparently in a prolonged search for a suitable recessional voluntary. Wishing himself back in his African forests, David began the service, in a chastened voice, on that second Sunday evening. During the singing of the first of the evening psalms the baize-covered door, at the further end of the church, was pushed gently open; a tall figure entered, alone; closed the door noiselessly behind her, and stood for a moment, in hesitating uncertainty, beneath the gallery. Then the old clerk and verger, Jabez Bones, bustled out of his seat, and ushering her up the centre, showed her into a cushioned pew on the pulpit side, rather more than half-way up the church. The congregation awoke to palpable interest, at her advent. The choir infused a tone of excitement into the chant, which, up to that moment, had been woefully flat. Each pew she passed, in the wake of old Jabez, thereafter contained a nudge or a whisper. David's first impression of her, was of an embodiment of silence and softness,--so silently she passed up the church and into the empty pew, moving to the further corner, right against the stout whitewashed pillar. No rustle, no tinkle, marked her progress; only a silent fragrance of violets. And of softness--soft furs, soft velvet, soft hair; and soft grey eyes, beneath the brim of a dark green velvet hat. But his second impression was other than the first. She was looking at him with an expression of amused scrutiny. Her eyes were keen and penetrating; her lips were set in lines of critical independence of judgment; the beautifully moulded chin was firm and white as marble against the soft brown fur. She regarded him steadily for some minutes. Then she looked away, and David became aware, by means of that subconscious intuition, which should be as a sixth sense to all ministers and preachers, that nothing in the service reached her in the very least. Her mind was far away. Whatever her object had been, in entering the little whitewashed church of Brambledene on that Sunday night, it certainly was not worship. But, when he began to preach, he arrested her attention. His opening remark evidently appealed to her. She glanced up at him, quickly, a gleam of amusement and interest in her clear eyes. And afterwards, though she did not lift them again, and partly turned away, leaning against the pillar, so that he could see only the clear-cut whiteness of her perfect profile, he knew that she was listening. From that hour, David's evening sermons were prepared with the more or less conscious idea of reaching the soul of that calm immovable Lady of Mystery. She did not attract him as a woman. Her beauty meant nothing to him. He had long ago faced the fact that his call to Central Africa must mean celibacy. No man worthy of the name would, for his own comfort or delight, allow a woman to share such dangers and privations as those through which he had to pass. And, if five years of that climate had undermined his own magnificent constitution and sent him home a wreck of his former self, surely, had he taken out a wife, it would simply have meant a lonely grave, left behind in the African jungle. So David had faced it out that a missionary's life, in a place where wife and children could not live, must mean celibacy; nor had he the smallest intention of ever swerving from that decision. His devotion to his work filled his heart. His people were his children. Therefore no ordinary element of romance entered into his thoughts concerning the beautiful woman who, on each Sunday evening, leaned against the stone pillar, and showed by a slight flicker of the eyelids or curve of the proud lips, that she heard and appreciated each point in his sermon. How far she agreed, he had no means of knowing. Who she was, and whence she came, he did not attempt to find out. He preferred that she should remain the Lady of Mystery. After her first appearance, when old Jabez bustled into the vestry at the close of the service, he abounded in nods and winks, inarticulate exclamations, and chuckings of his thumb over his shoulder backward toward the church. At length, getting no response from David, he burst forth: "Sakes alive, sir! I'm thinking she ain't bin seen in a place o' wash-up, since she was----" David, half in and half out of his cassock, turned on the old clerk in sudden indignation. "Bones," he said, sternly, "no member of the congregation should ever be discussed in the vestry. Not another word, please. Now give me the entry book." The old man muttered something inaudible about the Rector and young _h_upstarts, and our poor David had made another enemy in Brambledene. He never chanced to see his Lady of Mystery arrive; but, after that first evening, she never failed to be in her place when he came out of the vestry; nor did he ever see her depart, always resisting the temptation to leave the church hurriedly when service was over. So she remained the Lady of Mystery; and now--his last Sunday evening had come; and, as he thought of her, he longed to see a look of faith and joy dawn in her cold sad eyes, as ardently as another man might have longed to see a look of love for himself awaken in them. But David wanted nothing for himself, and a great deal for his Lord. He wanted this beautiful personality, this forceful character, this strong, self-reliant soul; he wanted this obvious wealth, this unmistakable possessor of place and power, for his Master's service, for the Kingdom of his King. No thought of himself came in at all. How should it? He wanted to win her for her own sake; and he wanted to win her for his Lord. He wanted this more persistently and ardently than he had ever desired anything in his life before. He was almost perplexed at the insistence of the thought, and the way in which it never left him. And now--the last chance had come. He rose, and went to the window. Snowflakes were falling gently, few and far between; but the landscape was completely covered by a pure white pall. "Undoubtedly," said David, "my Lady of Mystery will be there, unless this fall of snow keeps her away." He paced up and down the study, repeating stray sentences from his sermon, as they came into his mind. Sarah brought in the lamp, and drew the maroon rep curtains, shutting out the snow and gathering darkness; Sarah, stout, comfortable, and motherly, who--accustomed to the rosy-cheeked plumpness of her easy-going master--looked with undisguised dismay at David's thin worn face, and limbs on which his clothes still hung loosely, giving him an appearance of not belonging to his surroundings, which tried the kind heart and practical mind of the Rector's good housekeeper. "He do give me the creeps, poor young gentleman," she confided to a friend, who had dropped in for tea and a chat. "To see him all shrunk up, so to speak, in Master's big chair; and just where there would be so much of Master, there's naught of him, which makes the chair seem fair empty. And then he looks up and speaks, and his voice is like music, and his eyes shine like stars, and he seems more alive than Master, or anybody else one knows; yet not alive in his poor thin body; but alive because of something burning and shining _h_inside of 'im; something stronger than a body, and more alive than life--oh, _I_ don't know!" concluded Sarah, suddenly alarmed by her own eloquence. "Creepy, I call it," said the friend. "Creepy it is," agreed Sarah. Nevertheless she watched carefully over David's creature comforts, and he owed it to Sarah's insistence, that he weighed nearly a stone heavier when he left Brambledene than on his arrival there. She now brought in tea, temptingly arranged on a tray, poured out his first cup, and stood a minute to watch him drink it, and to exhort him to wrap up well, before going out in this snow. "My last Sunday, Sarah," said David, looking at her with those same deep-set shining eyes. "I sha'n't bother you much longer. I have a service to-morrow--Christmas-day; and must stay over Boxing-day for two weddings. Then I'm off to town; and in a couple of weeks I sail for Central Africa. I wonder how you would like Africa, Sarah. Are you afraid of snakes?" "Don't mention 'em, Mr. Rivers, sir," replied Sarah, in a stage whisper; "nasty evil things! If Eve had been as fearful of 'em as I am, there'd never 'ave been no Fall. You wouldn't catch me staying to talk theology with a serpent. No, not me, sir! It's take to m' heels and run, would have been my way, if I'd 'a lived in Genesis three." David smiled. "A good way, Sarah," he said, "and scriptural. But you forget the attraction of the tree, with its luscious fruit. Poor Eve! The longing of the moment, always seems the great essential. We are apt to forget the long eternity of regret." Sarah sidled respectfully towards the door. "Eat your hot-buttered toast, before it grows cold, sir," she counselled; "and give over thinking about snakes. Dear heart, it's Christmas-eve!" "So it is," said David. "And my sermon is about a star. Right you are, Sarah! I'll 'give over thinking about snakes,' and look higher. There can be no following of the star with our eyes turned earthward.... All right! Don't you worry. I'll eat every bit." CHAPTER III DAVID STIRS THE STILL WATERS As David tramped to church the moon was rising. The fir trees stood, dark and stately, beneath their nodding plumes of feathery snow. The little village church, with its white roof, and brightly lighted windows, looked like a Christmas card. Above its ivy-covered tower, luminous as a lamp in the deep purple sky, shone out one brilliant star. David smiled as he raised his eyes. He was thinking of Sarah and the snakes. "'If I had lived in Genesis three,'" he quoted. "What a delightful way of putting it; as if Genesis were a terrace, and three the number. Good old Sarah! Would she have been more successful in coping with the tempter? Undoubtedly Eve had the artistic temperament, which is always a snare; also she had a woman's instinctive desire to set others right, and to explain. Adam would have seen through the tempter's wilful distortion of the wording of God's command, and would not have been beguiled into an argument with so crafty and insincere an opponent. Poor Eve, in her desire to prove him wrong, to air her own superior knowledge, and to justify her Maker, hurried at once into the trap, and was speedily undone. Here, at the very outset of our history, we have in a nutshell the whole difference between the mentality of the sexes. Where Eve stood arguing and explaining,--laying herself open to a retort which shook her own belief, and undermined her obedience,--Adam would have said: "Liar!" and turned on his heel. Yet if Eve lived nowadays she would be quite sure she could set right all mistakes in our legislature, if only Adam could be induced to let her have a finger in every pie. Having lived in Genesis iii., Adam would know better than to try it!" * * * * * As David reached the old lich-gate, two brilliant lights shone down the road from the opposite direction, and the next moment a motor glided swiftly to the gate, and stopped. A footman sprang down from beside the chauffeur, opened the door, touched a button, and the interior of the car flashed into light. Seated within, half buried in furs, David saw the calm sweet face of his Lady of Mystery. He stood on one side, in the shadow of the gate, and waited. The footman drew out a white fur rug, and threw it over his left arm; then held the door wide. She stepped out, tall and silent. David saw the calm whiteness of her features in the moonlight. She took no more notice of her men, than if they had been machines, but passed straight up the churchyard path, between the yew-tree sentinels, and disappeared into the porch. The footman bundled in the rug, switched off the lights, banged the door, took his place beside the chauffeur, and the large roomy motor glided silently away. Nothing remained save a delicate fragrance of violets under the lich-gate, beneath which she had passed. The whole thing had taken twenty seconds. It seemed to David like the swift happenings of a dream. Nothing was left, to prove its reality, but the elusive scent of violets, and the marks of the huge tyres in the snow. But as David made his way round to the vestry door, he knew his Lady of Mystery was already in her corner beside the stout whitewashed pillar; and he also knew that he had been right, in the surmise which placed her in an environment of luxury and wealth. * * * * * Christmas-eve had produced a larger congregation than usual. The service was as cheerful and noisy as the choir and organist could make it. David's quiet voice seemed only to be heard at rare intervals, like the singing of a thrush in the momentary lull of a storm. The Lady of Mystery looked alternately bored and amused. Her expression was more calmly critical than ever. She had discarded her large velvet hat for a soft toque of silver-grey fur, placed lightly upon her wealth of golden hair. This tended to reveal the classic beauty of her features, yet made her look older, showing up a hardness of expression which had been softened by the green velvet brim. David, who had thought her twenty-five, now began to wonder whether she were not older than himself. Her expression might have credited her with full thirty years' experience of the world. David mounted the pulpit steps to the inspiriting strains of "While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground." Already the inhabitants of Brambledene had had it at their front doors, sung, in season and out of season, by the school-children, in every sort of key and tempo. Now the latter returned joyfully to the charge, sure of arriving at the final verse, without any sudden or violent exhortations to go away. They beat the choir's already rapid rendering; ignored the organist, and rushed on without pause, comma, or breathing space. In the midst of this erratic description of the peaceful scene on Bethlehem's hills on that Christmas night so long ago, David's white earnest face appeared in the pulpit, looking down anxiously upon his congregation. The words of his opening collect brought a sense of peace, though the silence of his long intentional pause after "Let us pray," had at first accentuated the remembrance of the hubbub which had preceded it. David felt that the weird chanting of his African savages, echoing among the trees of their primeval forests, compared favourably, from the point of view both of reverence and of music, with the singing in this English village church. His very soul was jarred. His nerves were all on edge. As he stood silent, while the congregation settled into their seats, looking down he met the grey eyes of his Lady of Mystery. They said: "I am waiting. I have come for this." Instantly the sense of inspiration filled him. With glad assurance he gave out his text. "The gospel according to St. Matthew, the second chapter, the tenth and eleventh verses; 'When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.... And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.'" As soon as the text of a sermon was given out, Mr. Churchwarden Jones in his corner, and Mr. Churchwarden Smith in his, verified it in their Bibles, made sure it was really there, and had been read correctly. Then they closed their Bibles and placed them on the ledges in front of them; took off their glasses, put them noisily into spectacle-cases, stowed these in inner pockets, leant well back, and proceeded to go very unmistakably and emphatically to sleep. David had got into the way of reading his text twice over, slowly, while this performance took place. Now, when he looked up from his Bible, the two churchwardens were in position. Their gold watch-chains, looped upon their ample waistcoats, produced much the same effect as the wreathing with which well-meaning decorators had accentuated the stoutness of the whitewashed pillars. The attention of the congregation was already wandering. David made a desperate effort to hold it. "My friends," he said, "although it is Christmas-eve, I speak to you to-night on the Epiphany subject, because, when the great Feast of Epiphany comes, I shall no longer have the privilege of addressing you. I expect to be on the ocean, on my way to carry the Christmas message of 'Peace on earth, good will toward men,' to the savage tribes of Central Africa." No one looked responsive. No one seemed to care in the least where David Rivers would be on the great Feast of Epiphany. He tried another tack. "Our text deals with the experience of those Wise Men of the East, who, guided by the star, journeyed over the desert in quest of the new-born King. Now, if I were to ask this congregation to tell me how many Wise Men there were, I wonder which of you would answer 'three.'" No one looked in the least interested. What a silly question! What a senseless cause for wonder! Of course they would _all_ answer "three." The youngest infant in the Sunday-school knew that there were three Wise Men. "But why should you say 'three'?" continued David. "We are not told in the Bible how many Wise Men there were. Look and see." The Smith and Jones families made no move. They knew perfectly well that _their_ Bibles said "three." If this young man's Bible omitted to mention the orthodox number, it was only another of many omissions in his new-fangled Bible and unsound preaching. It would be one thing more to report to the Rector, on his return. But his Lady of Mystery leaned forward, took up a Bible which chanced to be beside her, turned rapidly to Matthew ii., bent over it for a moment, then smiled, and laid it down. David knew she had made sure of finding "three," and had not found it. He took courage. She was interested. He launched into his subject. In vivid words, more full of poetry and beauty than he knew, he rapidly painted the scene; the long journey through the eastern desert, with eyes upon the star; the anxious days, when it could not be seen, and the route might so easily be missed; the glad nights when it shone again, luminous, serene, still moving on before. The arrival at Jerusalem, the onward quest to Bethlehem, the finding of the King. Then, the actual story fully dealt with, David turned to application. "My friends," he said, "this earthly life of ours is the desert. Your pilgrimage lies across its ofttimes dreary wastes. But if your journey is to be to any purpose, if life is to be a success and not a failure, its main object must be the finding of the King. His guiding Spirit moves before you as the star. His word is also the heavenly lamp which lights your way. But I want, to-night, to give you a third meaning for the Epiphany star. The star stands for your highest Ideal. Pause a moment, and think.... Have you in your life to-night a heaven-sent Ideal, to which you are always true; which you follow faithfully, and which, as you follow it, leads to the King?" David paused. Mrs. Jones rustled, and Mrs. Smith tinkled, but David heard them not. The Lady of Mystery had lifted her eyes to his, and those beautiful sad eyes said: "I _had_." "They lost sight of the star," said David. "Their hearts were sad, thinking they had lost it forever. But they found it again at Jerusalem--place of God's holy temple and worship. Here--is your Jerusalem. Lift your eyes to-night, higher than the mere church roof, and find again your lost star; see where shines your Ideal--your faith, your hope, your love, your belief in things eternal. 'And when they saw the star they rejoiced.'" David paused. Long lashes veiled the grey eyes. Her hands were folded in her lap, and her eyes were not lifted from them. "When these desert-travellers found the King," continued David, "they opened their treasures and presented unto Him gifts,--gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. I know this is usually taken in relation to Himself, and as being, in a threefold way, typical of His mission: Gold for the King; frankincense for the great High Priest; myrrh for the suffering, dying Saviour, who was to give His life for the redemption of the world. "But I want to take it to-night in another sense. Let these three kinds of gifts emphasise the three kinds of things you have in your life to-day, which you may offer to the King, if your guiding star has led you to His feet. They opened _their_ treasures. I want you to open _your_ treasures, to-night. What are your treasures? Why yourself, and all you possess. "First let us consider the gold." The Lady of Mystery lifted her golden head and looked him full in the face. There was challenge in her eyes. "I do not necessarily mean your money," said David, "though how much more you might all do with that, for the King and for His service, than you are already doing. Ah, if people could realise how greatly gold is needed for His work, they would soon open their treasures and pour it forth! I have told you of my vast parish, out in the unexplored forests, swamps, and jungles of Central Africa. Do you know what I want for my people, there? Think of all you have here--of all you have had, ever since you can remember. Then listen: I want a church; I want schools; I want books; I want a translation of the Bible, and a printing-press to print it with." David's eyes glowed, and he threw grammar to the winds! "I want a comrade to help me, and a steam-launch with which to navigate great lakes and rivers. I want all these things, and I want them for my Master, and for His work. I can give my own life, but it is all I have to give. I have been taking your Rector's place here for six weeks in order to earn twelve guineas, which will enable me to take out a good medicine-chest with which to doctor my people, and to complete my necessary outfit." Mr. Churchwarden Jones was awake by now, and fidgeted uncomfortably. This young man should not have mentioned his stipend, from the pulpit. It was decidedly unsuitable. "Your Rector," continued David, "knowing why I need it, is generously doubling that payment. May God bless him for it, when he takes up again his ministry among you." They were all listening now. David's eyes glowed like hot coals in his thin face. His voice rang through the church. "Ah, friends," he said, "those who have all they need for their comfortable spiritual life, cannot realise the awful, desperate want, in those wild places of the earth. We enjoy quoting what we call a 'gospel text': 'Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.' But too often we pause there, in self-appropriating complacency, forgetting that the whole point of the passage lies in what follows: 'How then shall they call on Him in Whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent?' You must answer all these questions, when you open your treasures at the feet of the King. "But forgive me for intruding my own interests. This is not a missionary sermon."--Here Mrs. Smith nodded, energetically. That was exactly what she had already whispered to Mr. Smith.--"Also 'gold' stands for much besides money. Think of all the golden things in life. The joys, the brightness, the glory of success; all beauty, all gaiety, all golden mirth and laughter. Let all these golden things be so consecrated that, opening your treasures, you can at any moment bring them as offerings to your King. "But the second gift was frankincense." David paused, giving each listener--and at last there were many--time to wonder what in his or her life stood for frankincense. "Frankincense," said David, "is, first of all, your worship. And by worship, I do not necessarily mean public worship in church, important though that be. I mean the constant worship of an adoring heart. 'O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.' Unless your daily life from Monday to Saturday is a life of worship, there will not be much reality in your public worship on Sunday. And then, frankincense stands for all that appertains to the spirit part of you--your ideals, your noblest loves, your finest aspirations. Open your treasures, friends, and bring these to your King. "And, lastly, myrrh." David paused, and a look so calm, so holy, so sublime, passed into his face, that to one who watched him then, and who chanced to know the meaning of that look, his face was as the face of an angel. "The myrrh," he said, "stands for death. Some of us may be called upon definitely to face death, for the King's sake. But _all_ who have lived unto Him in life, can glorify Him in death. 'Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.' We can all at last bring to Him this gift--a gift which, in the bringing, will indeed bring us into His very presence. But, meanwhile, your present offering of myrrh is the death of self; the daily crucifying of the self-life. 'For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him, Who died for them, and rose again.' Your response to that constraining love, your acceptance of that atoning death, your acquiesence in that crucifixion of self, constitute your offering of myrrh. "But myrrh, in the Bible, stands for other things besides death. We must not pause to do so now, but sometime, at your leisure, look out each mention of myrrh. You will find it stands for love--love of the sweetest, tenderest kind; love so complete, that it must bring with it self-abnegation, and a mingling of pain with its bliss. "And you will find it stands for sorrow; not bitterness of woe; but sorrow accepted as the Father's will, and therefore touched with reverent joy. Ah, bring your sorrows as gifts to your King. 'Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.' Bring even these, and lay them at His feet." David closed his Bible, placing it on the cushion, folded his hands upon it, and leaned down from the high pulpit. "My friends," he said,--and those who looked up responsive never forgot the light in his eyes--"I am leaving this dear home land of ours on the day when we shall be keeping the Feast of the Star. My star leads me to a place from which I do not ever expect to return. My offering of myrrh to my King, is a grave in an African forest, and I offer it gladly. "But, may I now say to you, whose faces--after to-morrow--I never expect to see again: Do not lose sight of your star, as you travel across life's desert. Look up, look on; ever, in earnest faith, move forward. Then I can leave with each one in this congregation, as a farewell promise"--he looked at all present; but his eyes met the grey eyes, now swimming in tears, of his Lady of Mystery; met, and held them, with searching solemn gaze, as he uttered his final words-- "Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty; they shall behold the Land that is very far off." CHAPTER IV DIANA RIVERS, OF RIVERSCOURT Perhaps the greatest tribute to David's sermon, was the quiet way in which the good people of Brambledene rose to their feet at its close. _Lead, Kindly Light_ was sung with unusual feeling and reverence. The collection, for Church Expenses, was the largest ever taken in Brambledene Church, within the memory of man. In one of the plates, there was gold. David knew quite well who had put in that sovereign. He sat at the vestry table and fingered it thoughtfully. He had disrobed while the churchwardens counted the money and commented on the unusual amount of the collection, and the remarkable fact of a sovereign in the plate. They left the money in little piles on the red cloth, for David to carry home and lock up in the Rector's safe. He had now to enter his text, and the amount of the collection, in the vestry book. He had glanced down the church as he left the chancel. His Lady of Mystery was still on her knees in the corner near the pillar, her head bowed in her hands. He had seen the top of her grey fur hat, with soft waves of golden hair on either side of it. He took up the pen and entered his text. Then he laid the pen down, and glanced at back records of evening collections for Church Expenses. He did not hurry. He could hear very faintly in the distance the throbbing of a motor, waiting at the lich-gate. He knew exactly how it looked, waiting in the snow; two great acetylene lamps in front; delicate electric bulbs lighting the interior, one in each corner of the roof. He knew just how _she_ would look, as the footman tucked the white fur rug around her. She would lean back, rather bored and impatient, and take no more notice of the man, than if he were a machine. David hated that kind of behaviour toward those who serve. He held that every service, even the smallest, should receive a kindly acknowledgment. He turned the pages of the vestry book. Six shillings and eleven pence. Two and four pence halfpenny. Three and six. Four shillings and nine pence three farthings. Seven and ten pence. And now he was about to enter: "two pounds, eight shillings, and seven pence halfpenny." Even without the gold _she_ had put in, it was a large increase on former offerings. Truly these good people opened their treasures when at last their hearts were touched. David was alone in the vestry. He could hear old Jabez Bones bustling about in the church, putting out the lamps, occasionally knocking down books, and picking them up again; doing in appearance three times as much as he accomplished in reality. David took up the pen. He did not hurry. The rhythmic panting of the engine still reached him, faintly, across the snowy mounds. He did not intend to arrive at the lich-gate until that dream-motor had glided noiselessly out of sight. As he bent over the book to make the entry, the vestry door was pushed softly open. He heard no sound; but a subtle fragrance of violets suddenly surrounded him. David looked up. Framed in the Gothic arch of the narrow doorway, her large grey eyes fixed upon him in unwonted gentleness, stood his Lady of Mystery. David was so completely taken by surprise, that he forgot to rise to his feet. He dropped his pen, but still sat on the high vestry stool, and gazed at her in speechless wonderment. "I have come," said his Lady of Mystery, and her low-pitched voice was full of music; "I have come to bring you my gifts--gold, frankincense, and myrrh." "Not to me," said David. "You must not bring them to me. You must bring them to the King." "I must bring them to you," she said, "because I know no other way. I have sought the Christ, and found HIM not. I had lost my way in the dreary darkness of the desert. To-night you have cleared my sky. Once more I see the shining of the Star. You have shown me that I have these three gifts to offer. But I must bring them to you, David Rivers, because you are the most Christlike man I have ever known, and you stand to me for your King." "I cannot stand for my King," said David, unconscious of the light in his own eyes, or the divine radiance reflected on his face. "I am but His messenger; the voice in the wilderness, crying: 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord.'" The Lady of Mystery moved a step nearer, and laid one hand on the vestry table. She bent toward him. Two wax candles, in brass candle-sticks, stood upon the table, on either side of the vestry book, providing the only illumination. In the light of these, they looked into one another's faces. "You have certainly prepared His way in my heart to-night," she said, "and I believe you are going to make straight for me the tangle of my life. Only, first of all, you must know who I am. Has anybody told you? Do you know?" "Nobody has told me," said David, "and I do not know." "What have you called me, to yourself, all these weeks?" "My Lady of Mystery," answered David, simply; wondering how she knew he had called her anything. She smiled, and there seemed to be twenty wax candles in the vestry, rather than two. "Quite pretty," she said; "but too much like a story-book, to be practically useful." She drew a small purple bag from her muff; took out a card, and laid it on the table in front of him. "You must know who I am," she said, "and where I live; because, you see, I am going to ask you to dinner." She smiled again; and David bent over the card. She marked his involuntary movement of surprise. "Yes," she said, "I am Diana Rivers, of Riverscourt. Had you heard of me before? I suppose we are, in some sort, cousins." But David sat with his eyes bent upon the card before him. Alas, what was happening? His Lady of Mystery had vanished. This tall girl, in furs and velvet, with her brilliant smile, sweet low voice, and assured manner, was the greatest heiress in the county; Master of the Hounds; patron of four livings; notorious for her advanced views and fearless independence; a power and a terror in the whole neighbourhood. His Lady of Mystery who, under his guidance, was to become a meek and lowly follower of the Star! Poor David! He looked so thin and forlorn, for the moment, that Diana felt an amused desire to put him into an armchair, and ply him with champagne. "Of course I have heard of you, Miss Rivers," he said, slowly. "Mr. Goldsworthy told me all about you, during my first evening at the Rectory. He asked me whether we were related." "Dear old thing!" remarked Diana, lightly. "He is my god-father, you know; and I think his anxiety over my spiritual condition is the one thing which keeps him of a size to pass through the pulpit door!" "Don't," said David. She looked at him, with laughter in her eyes. "All right, Cousin David. I did not mean to be flippant. And we _are_ cousins, you know." "I think not," he answered, gravely. "I am of very humble origin; and I never heard of my people claiming kinship with courts of any kind." "Oh, don't be silly!" retorted Diana, drumming on the vestry table, with her firm, gloved fingers; but her tone was so gentle, that it almost held a caress. "Don't be silly, Cousin David. The humblest people live in courts, in London; and all rivers run into the sea! Nothing but the genuine Rivers' pluck could have faced these good folk Sunday after Sunday; and only the fire of the real old Rivers' stock, could have made them sit up and listen to-night. You look just like grandpapa, confounding the Opposition from his seat on the government benches, when you attack Mrs. Smith for turning over the pages of her Bible in that distracting and senseless way. I can fancy myself back in the Ladies' Gallery, longing to cheer. We _must_ claim kinship, Cousin David." "I think not," he repeated firmly. He looked very small, and thin, and miserable, huddled up on the vestry stool. His threadbare clerical jacket seemed several sizes too large for him. "Diana Rivers, of Riverscourt!" Oh, where was his dear Lady of Mystery? If Diana wanted to shake him, she kept the desire well in hand. Her voice grew even deeper; more full of music, more softly gentle. "Well, cousin or no cousin," she said, "I want your advice, and I can't do without your help. Where do you take your Christmas dinner, David Rivers?" "Why, at the Rectory," he answered, looking up. "I have no friends here." Then a gleam of amusement passed over his face: "Sarah says, as it is Christmas, she is 'going to a fowl,'" he said. "I see. And you are planning to eat your fowl in solitary grandeur at the Rectory? Well, _I_ will 'go to a turkey' and a plum-pudding, and, possibly, mince-pies; and you shall dine with me on Christmas night. The idea of a lonely meal on your last--I mean, your _one_ Christmas-day in England!" "You are very kind," said David; "but is not Riverscourt twelve miles from here?" "My chauffeur does it in twenty minutes," replied Diana. "It would be as much as his place is worth to take twenty-one. I will send the motor for you at seven, and we will dine at half past. They can run you back whenever you like. Does your household retire early? Or perhaps you are allowed a latch-key." David smiled. "My household consists of Sarah, Mr. Goldsworthy's faithful housekeeper; and as I usually sit up reading until midnight, she retires early, and trusts me to put out the lamps and to lock up." "Ah, I know Sarah," said Miss Rivers. "A worthy soul. She and I are excellent friends. We hold the same views on women's rights, and we love discussing them. Mere man--even god-papa--dwindles to nothing, when arraigned at the bar of Sarah's intrepid judgment. Very well, then. The motor at seven." But David still hesitated. "You are very kind," he said. "But--you see, we don't have dinner-parties in Central Africa. And since I came home, I have mostly been in hospital. I am afraid I haven't"--he looked down at his short jacket. "I don't even possess a long coat," he said, simply. "Oh don't be tiresome, Cousin David!" cried Miss Rivers. "If I wanted conventional evening dress, I know a dozen men whom I could invite to dinner. I want _you_, not your clothes. If one is greatly interested in a book, does one bother to consider the binding? Bring your mind along, and come prepared to be helpful; for, God knows"--her eyes grew deep and earnest--"God knows I want helping, more than any of your African savages. Come as you are, Cousin David. Come as the Voice in the Wilderness. It is all I ask. Besides, there will only be myself and Chappie; and Chappie doesn't count." She drew off a soft grey glove; then held out to him firm white fingers. He took them in his. They clasped hands silently; and, once more, by the light of the two wax candles, looked searchingly into each other's eyes. Each read there a quiet compact of friendship and of trust. "I will come," said David. She paused with her hand on the door, looking back at him over her shoulder. Her tall head nearly touched the top of the archway. "If you do," she said, "we must consider the question of your church, your schools, your printing-press, and your steamer. So, _au revoir_, to-morrow." She threw him a little reassuring smile, and passed out. The fragrance of violets, the sound of her low voice, the card upon the table, remained. David took up the pen and made the entry in the vestry book: _two pounds, eight shillings, and seven pence halfpenny_. Then he gathered up all the little piles of silver and copper, and put them into his coat pockets; but Diana's sovereign he slipped by itself into one waistcoat pocket, and her card into the other. Then suddenly he realised--poor David--that she had stood beside him during the whole interview, while _he_ had sat on the vestry stool. He sprang to his feet. "Oh I say!" he cried. "Oh--I say!" But there was nothing to say; and no one to whom to say it. Poor David! He sat down again, put his elbows on the table, and dropped his head into his hands. Diana Rivers of Riverscourt! Patron of four livings! Acknowledged leader of the gayest set in the county; known far and wide for her independence of character and advanced views! * * * * * Bones came shuffling up the chancel, rattling the church keys. There was also a sovereign of Diana's in _his_ waistcoat pocket, and he showed no irritation as he locked up the vestry book, and returned David's good-night. "A 'appy Christmas, sir," he said, "an' many of 'em; if they 'ave 'em in them wild parts." * * * * * As David plodded home through the snow, his mind dwelt, with curious persistence, on one question: "Now who on earth is 'Chappie'?" CHAPTER V THE NOISELESS NAPIER "I am morally certain 'Chappie' is a poodle," thought David to himself, at breakfast. "It would be just like her to have a large black poodle, abnormally clever, perfectly clipped, tied up with green ribbons to match her hat, and treated in all respects as a human being; excepting that, of course, his opinion on the cut of her guests' clothes would not matter. 'Chappie does not count,' she said; but I'll be bound he counts a lot, in most respects. I hope Chappie will like me. How does one whistle to a poodle?" David was standing on the hearthrug, practising various seductive ways of whistling to Chappie, when Sarah came in, to clear the breakfast table. Sarah had put a Christmas card on David's plate that morning, and had kept nervously out of the way, while he opened the envelope. The card had evidently been chosen with great care, and an eye to its suitability. A large bunch of forget-me-nots figured in the centre, tied with a lover's knot of blue ribbon. Above this, two embossed hands--Sarah's and David's of course--were clasped. Above these again, flew two turtle-doves. They carried a scroll between them, depending from either beak, bearing in gold lettering, "The Compliments of the Season." At the bottom of the card were two blank lines beginning with "To ----" and "From ----". Sarah had filled in, with much labour, and rather brown ink: To _the Reverant David rivers_ From _Yours rispectfully Sarah_ David, delighted, stood the card in the place of honour on the mantel-piece, in front of the clock. When Sarah came in, he stopped whistling to Chappie, went forward at once and shook hands with her, thanking her warmly for the Christmas card. "The only one I received, Sarah; and I do think it most awfully pretty." Sarah admitted that it _was_ that; explained at great length where she got it, and why she chose it; and described a good many other cards she had nearly bought but eventually rejected in favour of the forget-me-nots, thinking they would "look home-like in them outlandish places," and ensure David's kind remembrance of her. David protested that, card or no card, he would never forget Sarah, and all her thoughtful care of him; and Sarah wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron, and only wished there was more of him to care for. David felt this rather embarrassingly personal, and walked over to the window to throw crumbs to a robin. Then he turned, as Sarah, having folded the cloth, was preparing to leave the room. "Sarah," he said, "I have had an invitation. I am dining out to-night." Sarah's face fell. "Oh, Mr. Rivers, sir! And me going to a chicking, being as it was Christmas!" "Well, Sarah, you see my friend thought it was dull that I should dine by myself on Christmas night. And if you had gone to a chicken, I should indeed be left alone." "Get along, sir!" chuckled Sarah. "You know my meaning. And, if it's Smiths or Joneses, I misdoubt if you'll get so good a dinner----" "It isn't Smiths or Joneses, Sarah. It is Miss Rivers, of Riverscourt. And she has promised me a turkey, and a plum-pudding, and possibly--only I must not count too much on those--possibly, mince-pies!" Sarah's face expanded. "Oh, if it's Miss Diana, sir, you can't do better. There's none like Miss Diana, to my thinking. And we can have the chicking on Boxing-day. And, with your leave, if I'm not wanted, I'm asked out to friends this evening, which I hadn't no intention of mentioning. And Mr. Rivers, sir; mark my words. You can't do better than Miss Diana. We've known her from a babe, master an' me. Folks talk, because she don't hold with getting married, and because she don't do much church-going; but, begging your pardon, sir, I don't hold with either, m'self. Marriage means slaving away, with few thanks and fewer ha'pence; and church-going mostly means, for women-folk, a vieing with one another's bonnets. I don't go to feathers, m'self; always having been well-content with beads. And I pay my respects to Almighty God, at home." "'Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is,'" quoted David. "You forget the injunction of the writer to the Hebrews, Sarah." "That don't hold good for now, Mr. Rivers, sir," replied Sarah, with conviction; "any more than many other _h_epistolic remarks." "They all hold good for now, Sarah," said David, gravely. "Then what about 'let your women keep silence in the churches'? Hark to them rowdy Miss Joneses in the choir!" "They _do_ make a row," admitted David, off his guard. "And 'if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home'?" Sarah was evidently well up in her Bible. "Well, why not?" queried David. "Why not, Mr. Rivers, sir?" repeated Sarah, scornfully. "Why not? Why because stay-at-home husbands ain't likely to be able to teach go-to-church wives! And, even if they did, how about me an' Miss Diana, as has none?" This seemed unanswerable, though it had nothing whatever to do with the point at issue. But David had no suggestions to offer concerning the limitations contingent on the spinsterhood of Sarah and of Miss Diana. It therefore gave Sarah the last word; which, to the female mind, means victory; and she bore away the breakfast cloth in triumph. When she brought in tea that afternoon, she lingered a few minutes, giving the fire a little unnecessary attention, and furtively watching David, as he put salt on his hot-buttered toast. Then she said tentatively: "Mr. Rivers, sir, there are one or two things about Miss Diana you might as well know, before you go over there." "No, thank you, Sarah," said David, with decision. "Whatever Miss Rivers wishes me to know, she will tell me herself. Anything she does not herself tell me, I prefer not to hear from others." Sarah surveyed him; and her look expressed amazement and disapproval. "Well I never!" she exclaimed. "You _are_ different from master! All I hear in the village I tell master while I wait on him at dinner. He says: 'You may as well tell me what you hear, my good Sarah; and then I can judge how to act.'" David smiled. He had already discovered the good Rector's love of gossip. "But you see, Sarah," he said, "being only a _locum tenens_, I do not, fortunately, have to act." "Don't disparage yourself, sir," advised Sarah, still disappointed, almost aggrieved. "And even if folks here _have_ called you so, you won't be that to Miss Diana." "Oh, no," said David, cheerfully. "I do not propose to be a _locum tenens_ to Miss Diana!" * * * * * The motor glided up to the Rectory gate at seven o'clock, to the minute. David saw the flash of the acetylene lamps on his bedroom blind. He ran down the stairs, filled with a delightful sense of holiday-making, and adventure. His one clerical suit was carefully brushed, and Sarah had "pressed it," a mysterious process from which it emerged with a youthful, unwrinkled air, to which it had for long been a stranger. His linen was immaculate. He had shaved with extreme care. He felt so festive, that his lack of conventional evening clothes troubled him no longer. He slipped Sarah's Christmas card into his pocket. He knew Diana would appreciate the pathos and humour of those clasped hands and forget-me-nots. Then he went down the garden path, and entered the motor. The footman arranged the fur rug over his knees, showed him how to switch off the electric lights if he preferred darkness, shut the door, took his seat beside the motionless chauffeur, and instantly they glided away down the lane, and turned into the high road leading to Riversmead. It seemed wonderful to David to be flying along in Diana's sumptuous motor. He had never before been in a powerful noiseless Napier car, and he found it somewhat of an experience. Involuntarily he thought of the time when he had been so deadly weak from African fever, and his people had had somehow to get him to the coast; the rough little cart on wheels they made to hold him and his mattress, and tried to draw him along the apology for a road. But the shaking and bumping had been so absolutely unbearable, that he had eventually had to be slung and carried as far as the river. Even so, there had been the perpetual dread of the agonising jerk if one of his bearers stumbled over a stone, or stepped unexpectedly into a rut. And to all this he was so soon returning. And quite right, too. No man should glide through life on cushioned tyres. For a woman, it was quite otherwise. Her womanhood constituted a sufficient handicap, without any roughness or hardship being allowed to come her way. He liked to know that Diana would always--literally and metaphorically--glide through life in a noiseless Napier. This method of progression need be no hindrance to her following of the star. He looked at his watch. In ten minutes they would reach Riverscourt. He switched off the lights, and at once the flying trees and hedges became visible in the pale moonlight. He enjoyed watching them as they whirled past. The great car bounded silently along the road, sounding a warning note upon the horn, if the distant light of any cart or carriage came in sight ahead of them; but passing it, and speeding on in the snowy darkness, before David had had time to look out and see what manner of vehicle it was. They rushed through little villages, the cottage windows bright with seasonable festivity. In one of them David caught a glimpse of a Christmas-tree, decked with shining candles, and surrounded by the curly heads of happy little children. It was many years since he had seen a Christmas-tree. It brought wistful thoughts of home and boyhood's days. The first Christmas-tree he could remember had yielded to his enraptured hands a wooden popgun, which expelled a cork with great force and a terrifying sound, sufficiently loud to make all grown-up people jump, if it was done exactly behind their heads, when they were unaware of its near vicinity. This effect upon grown-ups, produced by his own popgun, had given him a sense of power which was limitless; until the sudden forcible confiscation of the popgun had set thereto an unexpected limit. He then mentioned it as a flute, and asked for it back; pointing out that its popgun propensities were a mere accident; its real nature was to be a flute. He received it back as a flute, upon condition that it should not immediately accidentally develop again into a popgun. He spent the remainder of that day blowing blissfully into the eight holes punched in the strip of red wood gummed to the side of the popgun. The resultant sounds were melancholy and fitful to a degree; and it is doubtful which was the greater trial to the nerves of the grown-ups, the sudden explosion of the popgun, or the long drawn out piping of the flute. Anyway when his treasure suddenly and unaccountably disappeared, they assisted his tearful search in a half-hearted sort of way, and when eventually his unaided efforts discovered it, carefully concealed in one of their own wardrobes, his infantine faith in the sincerity of adult human nature had received its first rude shock. David lay back in the motor and wondered whether life would ever hold for him a scene so enchanting as that first Christmas-tree, or a gift so priceless as that popgun-flute. The motor sped through the old-world town of Riversmead, scarcely slacking speed, for the streets were clear; all its inhabitants were indoors, merry-making; and the one policeman they passed, saluted. Diana's car was well-known and respected. Then in at great iron gates, standing wide, and up an avenue of stately beeches, coming to sudden pause before the portico of a large stone house, gay with lighted windows. CHAPTER VI DAVID MAKES FRIENDS WITH "CHAPPIE" The door into the great hall opened as David stepped out of the motor. A footman took his overcoat, and he found himself following an elderly butler across the spacious hall toward a door, which he flung open, announcing in confidential tones: "The Reverend David Rivers"; then stood aside, that David might enter. David had already been looking right and left for Chappie; and, even as he walked into the drawing-room, he had a seductive whistle ready in case the poodle came to meet him, before he could reach Diana's friendly hand. But neither Diana nor the poodle were in the drawing-room. Instead, on a large sofa, at right angles with the fireplace, in the midst of heaped up cushions, sat a very plump elderly lady, of haughty mien, clad in claret-coloured velvet, a nodding ornament in her white hair, and much jewellery on her fat neck. She raised a lorgnon, on a long tortoiseshell handle, and looked through it at David as he advanced toward her. There was such awe-inspiring majesty in the action, that David felt certain she must be, at the very least, a duchess. He seemed to be hours in reaching the sofa. It was like one of those long walks taken in dreams, covering miles, yet only advancing yards; and as he walked his clerical jacket grew shorter, and his boots more patently _not_ patent leather. When, at last, he reached the hearthrug--nothing happened. The plump lady had, apparently, no disengaged hand; one held the lorgnon; the other, a large feather fan. "D'y do?" she said, in a rather husky voice. "I conclude you are Diana's missionary." This was an almost impossible remark to answer. David was _not_ Diana's missionary; yet he was, undoubtedly, the missionary Diana had asked to dinner. In his embarrassment he held his warm hands to the blaze of the log-fire, and said: "What a beautiful Christmas-day!" The plump lady ignored the remark. She declined to recognise anything in common between her Christmas-day and David's. "Where is your sphere of work?" she demanded, hoarsely. "Central Africa," replied David, in a meek voice, devoutly wishing himself back there. At that moment the door burst open, by reason of a bump against it, and a black poodle trotted in, identical with the dog of David's imagining, excepting that its tufts were tied up with red ribbon. David whistled joyfully. "Hullo, Chappie!" he said. "Come here, old fellow." The poodle paused, surprised, and looked at him; one fore-paw uplifted. The plump lady made an inarticulate sound, and dropped her lorgnon. But David felt sure of his ground. "Come on, Chappie," he said. "Let's be friends." The poodle trotted up and shook hands. David bent down and patted his beautiful coat. Then Diana herself swept into the room. "A thousand pardons, Cousin David!" she cried. "I should have been down to receive you. But Knox broke all records and did the distance in eighteen minutes!" In a moment her hand was in his; her eyes were dancing with pleasure; her smile enveloped him in an atmosphere of welcoming friendliness. All David's shyness left him. He forgot his terror of the majestic person on the sofa. "Oh, that's all right" he said. "I have been making friends with Chappie." For a moment even Diana looked nonplussed. Then she laughed gaily. "I ought to have been down to introduce you properly," she said. "Let me do so now. Cousin David, this is Mrs. Marmaduke Vane. Chappie dear, may I present to you my cousin, David Rivers?" David never knew why the floor did not open and swallow him up! He looked helplessly at Diana, and hopelessly at the plump lady on the sofa, whose wrathful glance withered him. Diana flew to the rescue. "Now, Chappie dear," she said, "the motor is at the door, and Marie has your fur cloak in the hall. Remember me to the Brackenburys, and don't feel obliged to come away early if you are enjoying the games after dinner. The brougham will call for you at eleven; but James can put up, and come round when you send for him. If I have gone up when you return, we shall meet at breakfast." She helped the plump lady to her feet, and took her to the door. "Good-bye, dear; and have a good time." She closed the door, and came back to David, standing petrified on the hearthrug. "Mrs. Vane is my chaperon," she explained. "That is why I call her 'Chappie.' But--tell me, Cousin David; do you always call elderly ladies by their rather private pet-names, in the first moments of making their acquaintance?" "Heaven help me!" said poor David, ruefully, "I thought 'Chappie' was the poodle." Diana's peals of laughter must have reached the irate lady in the hall. She sank on to the sofa, and buried her golden head in the cushions. "Oh, Cousin David!" she said. "I always knew you were unlike anybody else. Did you see the concentrated fury in Chappie's eye? And shall we improve matters by explaining that you thought she was the poodle? Oh, talk of something else, or I shall suffocate!" "But you said: 'There will only be myself and Chappie; and Chappie doesn't count,'" explained David. "If that was 'Chappie,' she counts a lot. She looked me up and down, until I felt positively cheap; and she asked me whether I was your missionary. I made sure she was a duchess, at the very least." "That only shows how very little experience you have had of duchesses, Cousin David. If Chappie had really been a duchess, she would have made you feel at home in a moment, and I should have found you seated beside her on the sofa talking as happily as if you had known her for years. Chappie has a presence, I admit; and a ducal air; which is partly why I keep her on as chaperon. But she says: 'D'y do,' and looks down her nose at you in that critical manner, because her father was only a doctor in a small provincial town." "My father was a doctor in a little country village," said David, quickly, "yet I hope I don't look down my nose at people." "Ah," said Diana, "but then you are a man, and no foolish friends have told you that you look like a duchess, thus turning your poor head. Chappie is a kind old thing, at heart, and must have attractive qualities of sorts, seeing she has been married no less than three times. She was my governess, years ago, before her first marriage. And when Uncle Falcon died, I had her back as chaperon; partly because she is very poor, and couples with that poverty an inordinate love of creature comforts, which is quite pathetic; partly because she makes an imposing figure-head, yet I can do with her exactly as I like. How would you define a chaperon, Cousin David?" "We don't have them in Central Africa, Miss Rivers." "Well, a chaperon is a person who should be seen and not heard. And she should be seen by the right people; not by those she is chaperoning, but by the tiresome people who think they ought to be chaperoned. My good Chappie satisfactorily fulfils these conditions. She is, to all intents, chaperoning you and me, this evening; yet, in reality, she is dining with friends of hers in Riversmead; thus sparing us the unnecessary restraint of her presence, and the undesirable infliction of her quite mindless conversation." David found himself wondering whether he ought not to have allowed Sarah to tell him "one or two things about Miss Diana," before he adventured over to Riverscourt. At that moment the staid butler opened wide the door, with a murmured sentence about dinner. Diana rose, with a gentle grace and dignity which reminded David of his Lady of Mystery's first progress up Brambledene church; and, laying her hand within his arm, guided him to the dining-room. * * * * * A small round table stood in the centre of the great oak-panelled room. It gleamed with glass and silver, wax candles and snowy linen. The decoration was Parma violets and lilies of the valley. David sat at Diana's right hand, and when she leaned toward him and they talked in low voices, the old man at the distant sideboard could not overhear their conversation. The poodle had followed them to the dining-room, and lay down contentedly in front of the log-fire. Diana was wearing perfectly plain white satin. A Medici collar, embroidered with pearls, rose at the back of her shapely head. She wore violets at her bosom, and a dainty wreath of violets in her hair. Her gown in front was cut square and low, and embroidered with pearls. On the whiteness of her skin, below the beautiful firm neck, sparkled a brilliant diamond star. David hated to see it there; he could hardly have explained why. It rose and fell lightly, with her breathing. When she laughed, it scintillated in the light of the wax candles. It fascinated David--the sparkling star, on the soft flesh. He looked at it, and looked away; but again it drew his unwilling eyes. He tried to master his aversion. Why should not Miss Rivers wear a diamond star? Why should he, David, presume to dislike to see a star so worn? Before they reached the second course, Diana said to the butler: "Send Marie to me." In a few moments her French maid, in simple black attire, with softly braided hair, stood at her elbow. Diana, still talking gaily to David, lifted both arms, unclasped the thin gold chain from about her neck, and handed the pendant to her maid. "_Serrez-moi ça_," she said, carelessly. Then she turned her clear eyes on David. "You prefer it in the sky," she said. "I quite agree with you. A woman's flesh savours too much of the world and the devil, to be a resting-place for stars. It can have no possible connection with ideals." She spoke so bitterly, that David's tender heart rose up in arms. "True, I prefer it in the sky," he said, "and I prefer it not of diamonds. But I do not like to hear you speak so of--of your body. It seems to me too perfectly beautiful to be thus relegated to a lower sphere; not because it is not flesh; but because, though flesh, it clothes a radiant soul. The mortal body is but the garment of the immortal soul. The soul, in mounting, lifts the body with it." "I do not agree with you," said Diana. "I loathe bodies; my own, no less than other people's. And how little we know of our souls. I am afraid I shall shock you, Cousin David, but a favourite theory of mine is: that only a certain number of people have any souls at all. I have always maintained that the heathen have no souls." David's deep eyes gleamed. "The young natives of Uganda," he said, "sooner than give up their new-found faith, sooner than deny the Lord Who had bought them, walked calmly to the stake, and were slowly roasted by fire; their limbs, while they yet lived, being hacked off, one by one, and thrown into the flames. Their holy courage never failed; their last articulate words were utterances of faith and praise. Surely _bodies_ would hardly go through so much, unless _souls_--strong immortal souls--dwelt within them." "True," said Diana, softly. "Cousin David, I apologise. And I wonder how many of us would stand such a soul-test as slow-fire. I can't quite imagine Chappie, seated on a gridiron, singing hymns! Can you?" "We must not judge another," said David, rather stiffly. "Conditions of martyrdom, produced the noble army of martyrs. Why should not Mrs. Vane, if placed in those conditions, rise to the occasion?" "I am certain she would," said Diana. "She would rise quite rapidly,--if the occasion were a gridiron." Much against his will, David burst out laughing. Diana leaned her chin in her hands; her luminous grey eyes observed him, gravely. Little dimples of enjoyment dented either cheek; but her tone was entirely demure. "I hope you are not a prig, Cousin David," she said, gravely. "I have never been considered one," replied David, humbly. "But, if you say so----" "No, no!" cried Diana. "You are not a prig; and I know I am flippant beyond words. Have you found out that I am flippant, Cousin David?" "Yes," he said, gently. "But I have found out something besides that." Her eyes challenged him. "And that is----?" "That you take refuge in flippancy, Miss Rivers, when you want to hide a deeper anxiety and earnestness of soul than you can quite understand, or altogether cope with." "Really? Then you must explain it to me, and cope with it for me. I hope our Christmas dinner has come up to the dinner of Sarah's intentions. Have another pear; or some more nuts? I did not order crackers, because we are both grown up, and we should look so foolish in paper caps; and yet, if we had had them, we could not have resisted putting them on. Don't you know, at children's parties, the way in which grown-ups seize upon the most _outré_ of the coloured head-gear, don them, in a moment of gay abandonment, and--forget them! I can remember now, the delight, after one of the Christmas parties in my childhood, of seeing Chappie go gravely in to say good-night to grandpapa, completely unconscious of a Glengarry bonnet, tilted waggishly on one side, or, on another occasion, of a tall peaked fool's cap, perched on her frizzled 'transformation'. Oh, to be a little child again, each Christmas-day! Yet here am I--twenty-eight! How old are you, Cousin David?... Twenty-nine? Well, I am glad you are not _quite_ thirty. Being in another decade would have been like being in a cassock.... Why a cassock? How dense you are, my reverend cousin! My mildest jokes require explaining. Why because it would have removed you so far away, and I want you quite near this evening, not perched in a distant pulpit! You cannot really help me, unless you fully sympathise and understand. And I am in such sore straits, Cousin David, that I look upon myself as a drowning man--why do we always say 'drowning _man_' as if there never were any drowning women?--about to sink for the third time; and you as the rope, which constitutes my only hope of safety. Let us go to the drawing-room." CHAPTER VII THE TOUCH OF POWER As they passed into the drawing-room, David's eye fell on a grand piano, in black ebony case, to the left of the doorway. "Oh!" said David, and stopped short. "Does that tempt you?" asked Diana. "Yes; I might have known you were full of music. Your sufferings, over the performances of the Brambledene choir, were more patent than you realised." David's fingers were working eagerly. "I so rarely get the chance of a piano," he said. "Like chaperons, we don't have them in Central Africa. I went without all manner of things to be able to afford one in my rooms at college; but, since then--Is it a Bechstein, or what?" "I really do not know," laughed Diana. "It is an article of furniture I do not use. Once a quarter, it lifts up its voice, poor dear, when a sleek person with a key of his own, arrives unexpectedly, asking for a duster, and announcing that he has come to tune it. He usually turns up when I have a luncheon party. Occasionally when Chappie is feeling low, and dwelling on the departed Marmaduke, she feels moved to play 'Home, Sweet Home'; but when Chappie plays 'Home, Sweet Home' you instantly discover that 'there's no place like'--being out; and, be it ever so cheerless, you catch up a hat, and flee! You may carry off the piano to Africa, if you will, Cousin David. And, meanwhile, see how you like it now, while I try to collect my ideas, and consider how best to lay my difficulties before you." She moved across the long room, to the fireplace, drew forward a low chair, turning it so as to face the distant piano. David, tingling with anticipation, opened the instrument with reverent care. "It _is_ a Bechstein," he said; then took his seat; pausing a moment, his hands upon his knees, his dark head bent over the keys. Diana, watching him, laughed in her heart. "What an infant it is, in some ways," she thought. "I do believe he is saying: 'For what we are about to receive'!" But, in another minute her laughter ceased. She was receiving more than she had expected. David had laid his hands upon the keys; and, straightway, the room was filled with music. It did not seem to come from the piano. It did not appear to have any special connection with David. It came chiefly from an unseen purple sky overhead; not the murky darkness of an English winter, but the clear over-arching heavens of the Eastern desert--expansive, vast, fathomless. Beneath it, rode a cavalcade of travellers--anxious, perplexed, uncertain. She could hear the soft thud of the camels' feet upon the sand, and see the slow swaying, back and forth, of the mysterious riders. Suddenly outshone a star,--clear, luminous, divine; so brilliant, so unexpected, that the listener by the fireplace said, "Oh!"--then laid her hand over her trembling lips. But David had forgotten her. His eyes were shining; his thin face, aglow. Now all was peace and certainty. They travelled on. They reached Jerusalem. The minor key of doubt and disappointment crept in again. Then, once more, shone the star. They arrived at Bethlehem. In chords of royal harmony they found the King. _O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!_ Diana's face sank into her clasped hands. The firelight played upon her golden hair. She knew, now, just how far she had wandered from the one true Light; just how poor had been her response to the eternal love which brought the Lord of glory to the manger of Bethlehem; to the village home at Nazareth; to the cross of Calvary. The love of Christ had not constrained her. She had lived for self. Her heart had grown hard and unresponsive. And now, in tenderest, reverent melody, the precious gifts were being offered--gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But, what had _she_ to offer? Her gold could hardly be accepted while she withheld _herself_. Yet how could love awaken in a heart so dead, so filled with worldly scorn and unbelief? The music had changed. It no longer came from unseen skies, or ranged back into past scenes, and ancient history. It centred in David, and the piano. He was playing a theme so simple and so restful, that it stole into Diana's heart, bringing untold hope and comfort. At length, she lifted her head. "What are you playing, now, Cousin David?" She asked, gently. David hushed the air into a whisper, as he answered: "A very simple setting, of my own, to those wonderful words, 'At even, e'er the sun was set.' You know them? The old tune never contented me. It was so apt to drag, and did not lend itself to the crescendo of hope and thankfulness required by the glad certainty that the need of each waiting heart would be fully met, nor to the diminuendo of perfect peace, enfolding each one as they went away. So I composed this simple melody, and I sing it, by myself, out in the African forests most nights, when my day's work is over. But it is a treat to be able to play it here, with full harmonies." "Sing it to me," said Diana, gently. And at once David began to sing, to his own setting, the tender words of the old evening hymn. And this was what he sang: Holy Star "At even ere the sun was set" [Music: _At e-ven ere the sun was set, The sick, O Lord, a-round Thee-lay_; _Oh, in what di-vers pains they met? Oh, with what joy they-went a-way!_ _They went a ... way! A ... men_] 1. At even ere the sun was set, The sick, O Lord, around Thee lay; Oh, in what divers pains they met! Oh, with what joy they went away! 2. Once more 'tis eventide, and we Oppressed with various ills draw near; What if Thy Form we cannot see? We know and feel that Thou art here. 3. O Saviour Christ, our woes dispel; For some are sick, and some are sad; And some have never loved Thee well, And some have lost the love they had; 4. And some have found the world is vain, Yet from the world they break not free; And some have friends who give them pain, Yet have not sought a friend in Thee. 5. And none, O Lord, have perfect rest, For none are wholly free from sin; And they who fain would serve Thee best, Are conscious most of sin within. 6. O Saviour Christ, Thou too art Man; Thou hast been troubled, tempted, tried; Thy kind but searching glance can scan The very wounds that shame would hide. 7. Thy touch has still its ancient power; No word from Thee can fruitless fall; Hear in this solemn evening hour, And in Thy mercy heal us all; O heal us all! The pure tenor voice rose and fell, giving full value to each line. As he reached the words: "And some have never loved Thee well, And some have lost the love they had," Diana's tears fell, silently. It was so true--so true. She had never loved Him well; and she had lost what little faith, what little hope, she had. Presently David's voice arose in glad tones of certainty: "Thy touch has still its ancient power; No word from Thee can fruitless fall; Hear, in this solemn evening hour, And, in Thy mercy, heal us all; Oh, heal us all." The last notes of the quiet Amen, died away. David closed the piano softly; rose, and walked over to the fireplace. He did not look at Diana; he did not speak to her. He knew, instinctively, that a soul in travail was beside him. He left her to his Lord. After a while she whispered: "If only one were worthy. If only one's faith were strong enough to realise, and to believe." "Our worthiness has nothing to do with it," said David, without looking round. "And we need not worry about our faith, so long as--like the tiny mustard seed--it is, however small, a living, growing thing. The whole point lies in the fact of the power of His touch; the changeless truth of His unfailing word; the fathomless ocean of His love and mercy. Look away from self; fix your eyes on Him; and healing comes." A long silence followed David's words. He stood with his back to her, watching the great logs as the flames played round them, and they sank slowly, one by one, into the hot ashes. At last he heard Diana's voice. "Cousin David," she said, "will you give me your blessing?" David Rivers turned. He was young; he was humble; he was very simple in his faith; but he realised the value and responsibility of his priestly office. He knew it had been given him as "a service of gift." He lifted his hands, and as Diana sank to her knees, he laid them reverently upon the golden corona of her hair. One moment of silence. Then David's voice, vibrant with emotion, yet deep, tender, and unfaltering, pronounced the great Triune blessing, granted to desert wanderers of old. "The Lord bless thee and keep thee; The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." And the touch of power which Diana felt upon her heart and life, from that moment onward, was not the touch of David Rivers. CHAPTER VIII THE TEST OF THE TRUE HERALD As David sped back through the starry darkness, he was filled with an exultation such as he had never before experienced. He had always held that every immortal soul was of equal value in the sight of God; and that the bringing into the kingdom of an untutored African savage, was of as much importance, in the Divine estimation, as the conversion of the proudest potentate ruling upon any European throne. But, somehow, he realised now the greatness of the victory which grace had won, in this surrender of Diana to the constraining touch of his Lord and hers. It was one thing to see light dawn, where all had hitherto been darkness; but quite another to see the dispersion of clouds of cynical unbelief, and the surrender of a strong personality to the faith which requires the simple loving obedience of a little child: for, "whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." David leaned back in the motor, totally unconscious of his surroundings, as he realised how great a conquest for his King was this winning of Diana. Her immense wealth, her influence, her position in the county, her undoubted personal charm, would all now be consecrated, and become a power on the side of right. He foresaw a beautiful future before her. The very fact that he himself was so soon leaving England, and would have no personal share in that future, made his joy all the purer because of its absolute selflessness. Like the Baptist of old, standing on the banks of Jordan, he had pointed to the passing Christ, saying: "Behold!" She had beheld; she had followed; she had found Him; and the messenger, who had brought about this meeting, might depart. He was needed no longer. The Voice had done its work. All true heralds of the King rejoice when the souls they have striven to win turn and say: "Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." This test was now David's; and being a true herald, he did not fail before it. When Diana had risen from her knees, she had turned to him and said, gently: "Cousin David, do you mind if I order the motor now? I could not speak or think to-night of other things; and I just feel I want to be alone." During the few moments which intervened before the car was announced, they sat in silence, one on either side of the fireplace. There was a radiance of joy on both young faces, which anyone, entering unexpectedly, would doubtless have put down to a very different cause. Diana was not thinking at all of David; and David was thinking less of Diana than of the Lord Whose presence with them, in that evening hour, had made of it a time of healing and of power. As he rose to go, she put her hand in his. "Cousin David," she said, "more than ever now, I need your counsel and your help. If I send over, just before one o'clock, can you come to luncheon to-morrow, and afterwards we might have the talk which I cannot manage to-night?" David agreed. The weddings at which he had to officiate were at eleven o'clock. "I will be ready," he said, "and I will come. I am afraid my advice is not worth much; but, such as it is, it is altogether at your service." "Good-night, Cousin David," she said, "and God bless you! Doesn't it say somewhere in the Bible: 'They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever'?" David now remembered this farewell remark of Diana's, as he stood for a moment at the Rectory gate, looking upward to the clear frosty sky. But the idea did not suit his mood. "Ah, no, my Lord," he said. "Thou art the bright and morning Star. Why should I want, for myself, any glory or shining? I am content forever to be but a follower of the Star." CHAPTER IX Uncle Falcon's Will Luncheon would have been an awkward affair, owing to David's nervous awe of Mrs. Marmaduke Vane and his extreme trepidation in her presence, had it not been for Diana's tact and vivacity. She took the bull by the horns, explaining David's mistake, and how it was entirely her own fault for being so ambiguous and inconsequent in her speech--"as you have told me from my infancy, dear Chappie"; and she laughed so infectiously over the misunderstanding and over the picture she drew of poor David's dismay and horror, that Mrs. Marmaduke Vane laughed also, and forgave David. "And to add to poor Cousin David's confusion, he had made sure, at first sight, that you were at least a duchess," added Diana tactfully; "and they don't have them in Central Africa; so Cousin David felt very shy. Didn't you, Cousin David?" David admitted that he did; and Mrs. Vane began to like "Diana's missionary." "I have often noticed," pursued Miss Rivers, "that the very people who are the most brazen in the pulpit, who lean over the side and read your thoughts; who make you lift your unwilling eyes to theirs, responsive; who direct the flow of their eloquence full upon any unfortunate person who is venturing at all obviously to disagree--are the very people who are most apt to be shy in private life. You should see my Cousin David fling challenge and proof positive at a narrow-minded lady, with an indignant rustle, and a red feather in her bonnet. I believe her husband is a tenant-farmer of mine. I intend to call, in order to discuss Cousin David's sermons with her. I shall insist upon her showing me the passage in _her_ Bible where it says that there were three Wise Men." Then Diana drew David on to tell of his African congregations, of the weird experiences in those wild regions; of the perils of the jungle, and the deep mystery of the forest. And he made it all sound so fascinating and delightful, that Mrs. Marmaduke Vane became quite expansive, announcing, as she helped herself liberally to _pâté-de-foie-gras_, that she did not wonder people enjoyed being missionaries. "You should volunteer, Chappie dear," said Diana. "I daresay the society sends out ladies. Only--fancy, if you came back as thin as Cousin David!" In the drawing-room, she sent him to the piano; and Mrs. Vane allowed her coffee to grow cold while she listened to David's music, and did not ask Diana to send for more, until David left the music stool. Then Diana reminded her chaperon of an engagement she had at Eversleigh. "The motor is ordered at half-past two, dear; and be sure you stay to tea. Never mind if they don't ask you. Just remain until tea appears. They can but say: '_Must_ you stay? _Can't_ you go?' And they won't do that, because they are inordinately proud of your presence in their abode." Mrs. Vane rose reluctantly, expressing regret that she had unwittingly made this engagement, and murmuring something about an easy postponement by telegram. But Diana was firm. Such a disappointment must not be inflicted upon any family on Boxing-day. It could not be contemplated for a moment. Mrs. Marmaduke Vane took David's hand in both her plump ones, and patted it, kindly. "Good-bye, my dear Mr. Rivers," she said with _empressement_. "And I hope you will have a quite delightful time in Central Africa. And mind," she added archly, "if Diana decides to come out and see you there, _I_ shall accompany her." Honest dismay leapt into David's eyes. "It is no place for women," he said, helplessly. Then looked at Diana. "I assure you, Miss Rivers, it is no place for women." "Never fear, Cousin David," laughed Diana. "You have fired Mrs. Vane with a desire to rough it; but I do not share her ardour, and she could not start without me. Could you, Chappie dear? Good-bye. Have a good time." She turned to the fire, with an air of dismissal, and pushed a log into place with her toe. David opened the door, waited patiently while Mrs. Vane hoarsely whispered final farewell pleasantries; then closed it behind her portly back. When he returned to the hearthrug, Diana was still standing gazing thoughtfully into the fire, one arm on the mantel-piece. "Oh, the irony of it!" she said, without looking up. "She hopes you will have a quite delightful time; and, as a matter of fact, you are going out to die! Cousin David, do you _really_ expect never to return?" "In all probability," said David, "I shall never see England again. They tell me I cannot possibly live through another five years out there. They think two, or at most three, will see me through. Who can tell? I shall be grateful for three." "Do you consider it right, deliberately to sacrifice a young life, and a useful life, by returning to a place which you know must cost that life? Why not seek another sphere?" "Because," said David, quietly, "my call is there. Some one must go; and who better than one who has absolutely no home-ties; none to miss or mourn him, but the people for whom he gives his life? It is all I have to give. I give it gladly." "Let us sit down," said Diana, "just as we sat last night, in those quiet moments before the motor came round. Only now, I can talk--and, oh, Cousin David, I have so much to say! But first I want you to tell me, if you will, all about yourself. Begin at the beginning. Never mind how long it takes. We have the whole afternoon before us, unless you have anything to take you away early." She motioned him to an easy chair, and herself sat on the couch, leaning forward in her favourite attitude, her elbow on her knee, her chin resting in the palm of her hand. Her grey eyes searched his face. The firelight played on her soft hair. "Begin at the beginning, Cousin David," she said. "There is not much to tell of my beginnings," said David, simply. "My parents married late in life. I was their only child--the son of their old age. My home was always a little heaven upon earth. They were not well off; we only had what my father earned by his practice, and village people are apt to be slack about paying a doctor's bills. But they made great efforts to give me the best possible education; and, a generous friend coming to their assistance, I was able to go to Oxford." His eyes glowed. "I wish you could know all that that means," he said; "being able to go to Oxford." "I can imagine what it would mean--to you," said Diana. "While I was at Oxford, I decided to be ordained; and, almost immediately after that decision, the call came. I held a London curacy for one year, but, as soon as I was priested, by special leave from my Bishop, and arrangement with my Vicar, I went out to Africa. During the year I was working in London, I lost both my father and my mother." "Ah, poor boy!" murmured Diana. "Then you had no one." David hesitated. "There was Amy," he said. Diana's eyelids flickered. "Oh, there was 'Amy.' That might mean a good deal. Did 'Amy' want to go out to Central Africa?" "No," said David; "nor would I have dreamed of taking her there. Amy and I had lived in the same village all our lives. We had been babies together. Our mothers had wheeled us out in a double pram. We were just brother and sister, until I went to college; and then we thought we were going to be--more. But, when the call came, I knew it must mean celibacy. No man could take a woman to such places. I knew, if I accepted, I must give up Amy. I dreaded telling her. But, when at last I plucked up courage and told her, Amy did not mind very much, because a gentleman-farmer in the neighbourhood was wanting to marry her. Amy was very pretty. They were married just before I sailed. Amy wanted me to marry them. But I could not do that." Diana looked at the thin sensitive face. "No," she said; "you could not do that." "I thought it best not to correspond during the five years," continued David, "considering what we had been to one another. But when I was invalided home, I looked forward, in the eager sort of way you do when you are very weak, to seeing Amy again. I had no one else. As soon as I could manage the journey, I went down--home; and--and called at Amy's house. I asked for Mrs. Robert Carsdale--Amy's married name. A very masculine noisy lady, whom I had never seen before, walked into the room where I stood awaiting Amy. She had just come in from hunting, and flicked her boot with her hunting-crop as she asked me what I wanted. I said: "I have called to see Mrs. Robert Carsdale." She said: "Well? I am Mrs. Robert Carsdale," and stared at me, in astonishment. "So I asked for Amy. She told me where to--to find Amy, and opened the hall door. Amy had been dead three years. Robert Carsdale had married again. I found Amy's grave, in our little churchyard, quite near my own parents'. Also the grave of her baby boy. It was all that was left of Amy; and, do you know, she had named her little son 'David.'" "Oh, you poor boy!" said Diana. "You poor, poor boy! But, do you know, I think Amy in heaven was better for you, than Amy on earth. I don't hold with marriage. Had you cared very much?" "Yes, I had cared a good deal," replied David, in a low voice; "but as a boy cares, I think. Not as I should imagine a man would care. A man who really cared _could_ not have left her to another man, could he?" "I don't hold with matrimony," said Diana again; and she said it with forceful emphasis. "Nor do I," said David; "and my people out in Africa are all the family I shall ever know. I faced that out, when I accepted the call. No man has a right to allow a woman to face nameless horrors and hardships, or to make a home in a climate where little children cannot live." "Ah, I do so agree with you!" cried Diana. "I once attended a missionary meeting where a returned missionary from India told us how she and her husband had had to send their little daughter home to England when she was seven years old, and had not seen her again until she was sixteen. 'When we returned to England,' she told the meeting, 'I should not have known my daughter had I passed her in the street!' And every one thought it so pathetic, and so devoted. But it seemed to me false pathos, and unpardonable neglect of primary duties. Who could take that mother's place to that little child of seven years old? And, from the age of seven to sixteen, how a girl needs her own mother. What call could come before that first call--her own little child's need of her? And what do you think that missionary-lady's work had been? Managing a school for heathen children! All the time she was giving an account of these children of other people and her work among them, I felt like calling out: 'How about your own?' Cousin David, I didn't put a halfpenny in the plate; and I have hated missionaries ever since!" "That is not quite just," said David. "But I do most certainly agree with you, that first claims should come first. And therefore, a man who feels called to labour where wife and children could not live, must forego these tender ties, and consider himself pledged to celibacy." "It is the better part," said Diana. David made no answer. It had not struck him in that light before. He had always thought he was foregoing an unknown but an undoubted joy. A silence fell between them. He was pondering her last remark; she was considering him, and trying to fathom how much sincerity of conviction, strength of will, and tenacity of purpose, lay behind that gentle manner, and straightforward simplicity of character. Diana was a fearless cross-country rider. She never funked a fence, nor walked a disappointed horse along, in search of a gap or a gate. But before taking a high jump she liked to know what was on the other side. So, while David pondered Diana's last remark, Diana studied David. At length she said: "Do you remember my first appearance at Brambledene church, on a Sunday evening, about five weeks ago?" Yes; David remembered. "I arrived late," said Diana. "I walked up the church to blasts of psalmody from that noisy choir." David smiled. "You were never late again," he said. "Mercy, no!" laughed Diana. "You gave one the impression of being the sort of person who might hold up the entire service, while one unfortunate late-comer hurried abashed into her pew. Are many parsons so acutely conscious of the exact deportment of each member of their congregations?" "I don't know," answered David. "I suppose the keen look-out one has to keep for unexpected and sometimes dangerous happenings, at all gatherings of our poor wild people, has trained one to it. I admit, I would sooner see the glitter of an African spear poised in my direction from behind a tree trunk, than see Mrs. Smith nudge her husband, in obvious disagreement with the most important point in my sermon." "Well," continued Diana, "I came. And what do you think brought me?" David had no suggestion to make as to what had brought Diana. "Why, after you had come down for an interview with my god-father and spent a night at the Rectory, I motored over to see him, just before he went for his cure. He told me all about you; and, among other things, that you were going back knowing that the climate out there could only mean for you a very few years of life; and I came to church because I wanted to see a man whose religion meant more to him than even life itself--I, who rated life and health as highest of all good; most valuable of all possessions. "I came to _see_--wondering, doubting, incredulous. I stayed to _listen_--troubled, conscience-stricken, perplexed. First, I believed in _you_, Cousin David. Then I saw the Christ-life in you. Then I longed to have what you had--to find Him myself. Yesterday, He found me. To-day, I can humbly, trustfully say: 'I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.' I am far from being what I ought to be; my life just now is one tangle of perplexities; but the darkness is over, and the true light now shineth. I hope, from this time onward, to be a follower of the Star." "I thank God," said David Rivers. "And now," continued Diana, after a few moments of happy silence, "I am going to burden you, Cousin David, with a recital of my difficulties; and I am going to ask your advice. Let me tell you my past history, as shortly as possible. "This dear old place is my childhood's home. My earliest recollection is of living here with my mother and my grandfather. My father, Captain Rivers, who was heir to the whole property, died when I was three years old. I barely remember him. The property was entailed on male heirs, and failing my father, it came to a younger brother of my grandfather, a great-uncle of mine, a certain Falcon Rivers, who had fallen out with most of his relations, gone to live in America, and made a large fortune out there. My grandfather and my mother never spoke of Uncle Falcon, and I remember, as a child, having the instinctive feeling that even to think of Uncle Falcon was an insidious form of sin. It therefore had its attractions. I quite often thought of Uncle Falcon! "Toward the close of his life, my grandfather became involved in money difficulties. Much of the estate was mortgaged. I was too young and heedless to understand details, but it all resulted in this: that when my grandfather died, he was unable to leave much provision for my mother, or for me. We had to turn out of Riverscourt; Uncle Falcon was returning to take possession. So we went to live in town, on the merest pittance, and in what, after the luxuries to which I had always been accustomed, appeared to me abject poverty. I was then nineteen. My mother, who had been older than my father, was over fifty. "Then followed two very hard years. Uncle Falcon wrote to my mother; but she refused to see him, or to have any communication with him. She would not show me his letter. We were absolutely cut off from the old home, and all our former surroundings. Once or twice we heard, in roundabout ways, how much Uncle Falcon's wealth was doing for the old place. Mortgages were all paid off; tumbled-down cottages were being rebuilt; the farms were put into proper order, and let to good tenants. American money has a way of being useful, even in proud old England. "Any mention of all this, filled my mother with an extreme bitterness, to which I had not then the key, and which I completely failed to understand. "One morning, at breakfast, she received an envelope, merely containing a thin slip of paper. Her beautiful face--my mother was a very lovely woman--went, as they say in story-books, whiter than the table-cloth. She tore the paper across, and across again, and flung the fragments into the fire. They missed the flames, and fluttered down into the fender. I picked them up, and, right before her, pieced them together. It was a cheque from Uncle Falcon for a thousand pounds. 'Oh, Mamma dear!' I said. I was so tired of running after omnibuses, and pretending we liked potted meat lunches. "She snatched the fragments out of my fingers, and dropped them into the heart of the fire. "'Anyway, it was kind of Uncle Falcon,' I said. "'Do not mention his name,' cried my mother, with white lips; and I experienced once more the fascination of the belief, which had been mine in childhood, that Uncle Falcon, and the Prince of Darkness, were somehow akin. "To cut a long story short, at the end of those two hard years, my mother died. A close friend of ours was matron in the Hospital of the Holy Star--ah, yes, how curious! I had forgotten the name--a beautiful little hospital in the Euston Road, supported by private contributions. She accepted me for training. I found the work interesting, and soon got on. You may have difficulty in believing it, Cousin David, but I make a quite excellent nurse. I studied every branch, passed various exams., looked quite professional in my uniform, and should have been a ward Sister before long--when the letter came, which again changed my whole life. "It was from Uncle Falcon! He had kept himself informed of my movements through our old family lawyer, Mr. Inglestry, who, during those years, had never lost sight of poor mamma, nor of me. I can remember Uncle Falcon's letter, word for word. "'My Dear Niece,' he wrote, 'I am told you are by now a duly qualified hospital nurse. My body is in excellent health, but my brain--which I suppose I have worked pretty strenuously--has partially given way; with the result that my otherwise healthy body is more or less helpless on the right side. My doctor tells me I must have a trained nurse; not in constant attendance--Heaven protect the poor woman, if _that_ were necessary!--but somewhere handy in the house, in case of need. "'Now why should I be tended in my declining years, by a stranger, when my own kith and kin is competent to do it? And why should I bring a stray young woman to this beautiful place, when the girl whose rightful home it is, might feel inclined to return to it? "'I hear from old What's-his-name, that you bear no resemblance whatever to your father, but are the image of what your mother was, at your age. That being the case, if you like to come home, my child, I will make your life as pleasant as I can, for her sake. "'Your affectionate unknown uncle, "'FALCON RIVERS.' "Well--I went. "I arrived in uniform, not sure what my standing was to be in the house, but thankful to be back there, on any terms, and irresistibly attracted by the spell of Uncle Falcon. "Our own old butler opened the door to me. I nearly fell upon his neck. The housekeeper, who had known me from infancy, took me up to my room. They wept and laughed, and seemed to look upon my uniform as one of Miss Diana's pranks--half funny, half naughty. Truth to tell, I did feel dressed up, when I found myself inside the old hall again. "In twenty-four hours, Cousin David, I was installed as the daughter of the house. "Of Uncle Falcon's remarkable personality, there is not time to tell you now. We took to each other at once, and, before long, he felt it right to put away, at my request, the one possible cause of misunderstanding there might have been between us, by telling me the true reason of his alienation from home, and his breach with my grandfather and my parents. "Uncle Falcon was ten years younger than my grandfather. My mother, then a very lovely woman, in the perfection of her beauty, was ten years older than my father, a young subaltern just entering the army. My mother was engaged to Uncle Falcon, who loved her with an intensity of devotion, such as only a nature strong, fiery, rugged as his, could bestow. "During a visit to Riverscourt, shortly before the time appointed for her marriage to Uncle Falcon, then a comparatively poor man with no prospects--my mother met my father. My father fell in love with her, and my mother jilted Uncle Falcon in order to marry the young heir to the house and lands of Riverscourt. Poor mamma! How well I could understand it, remembering her love of luxury, and of all those things which go with an old country place and large estates. Uncle Falcon never spoke to her again, after receiving the letter in which she put an end to their engagement; but he had a furious scene with my grandfather, who had connived at the treachery toward his younger brother; and then horsewhipped the young subaltern, in his father's presence. "Shortly afterwards, he sailed for America, and never returned. "Then--oh, irony of fate! After three years of married life, the young heir died, without a son, and Uncle Falcon stood to inherit Riverscourt, as the last in the entail. "Meanwhile everything he touched had turned to gold, and he only waited my grandfather's decease to return as master to the old home, with the large fortune which would soon restore it to its pristine beauty and grandeur. "How well I could now understand my grandfather's silent fury, and my mother's remorseful bitterness! By her own infidelity, she had made herself the _niece_ of the man whose wife she might have been, and whose wealth, position, and power would all have been laid at her feet. Also, I am inclined to think she had not been long in realising and regretting the treasure she had lost, in the love of the older man. I always knew mamma had few ideals, and no illusions. Many of my own pronounced views on the vital things in life are the product of her disillusionising philosophy. Poor mamma! Oh, Cousin David, I see it hurts you each time I say '_poor_ mamma'! Yet you cannot know what it means, when one's kindest thoughts of one's mother must needs be prefixed by the adjective 'poor.' Yes, I know it is a sad state of things when pity must be called in to soften filial judgment. But then life is full of these sad things, isn't it? Anyway I have found it so. Had my mother left me one single illusion regarding men and marriage, I might not now find myself in the difficult position in which I am placed to-day. "However, for one thing I have always been thankful--one hour when I can remember my mother with admiration and respect: that morning at breakfast, in our humble suburban villa, when she tore up and flung to the flames Uncle Falcon's cheque for a thousand pounds. "A close intimacy, and a deep, though undemonstrative, affection, soon arose between Uncle Falcon and myself. His life-long fidelity to his love for my mother seemed to transfer itself to me, and to be at last content in having found an object. My every wish was met and gratified. He insisted upon allowing me a thousand a year, merely as pocket-money, while still defraying all large expenses for me, himself. Hunters, dogs, everything I could wish, were secured and put at my disposal. His last gift to me was the motor-car which brought you here to-day. "His sense of humour was delightful; his shrewd keen judgment of men and things, instructive and entertaining. But--he had one peculiarity. So sure was he of his own discernment, and so accustomed to bend others to his iron will, that if one held a different view from his and ventured to say so, he could never rest until he had won in the argument and brought one round to his way of thinking. He was never irritable over the point; he kept his temper, and controlled his tongue. But he never rested until he had convinced and defeated a mental opponent. "He and I agreed upon most subjects, but there was one on which we differed; and Uncle Falcon could never bring himself to let it be. In spite of his own hard experience and consequent bachelorhood,--perhaps because of it,--he was an ardent believer in marriage. He held that a woman was not meant to stand alone; that she missed her proper vocation in life if she refused matrimony; and that she attained her full perfection only when the marriage tie had brought her to depend, for her completion and for her happiness, upon her rightful master--man. "On the other hand, I, as you may have discovered, Cousin David, regard the whole idea of marriage with abhorrence. I hold that, as things now stand in this civilization of ours, a woman's one absolute right is her right to herself. She is her own inalienable possession. Why should she give herself up to a man; becoming his chattel, to do with as he pleases? Why should she lose all right over her own person, her own property, her own liberty of action and regulation of circumstance? Why should she change her very name for his? If the two could stand on a platform of absolute independence and equality, the thing might be bearable--for some. It would still be intolerable to me! But, as the law and social usage now stand, marriage is--to the woman--practically slavery; and, therefore, an unspeakable degradation!" Diana's eyes flashed; her colour rose; her firm chin seemed more than ever to be moulded in marble. David, sole representative of the tyrant man, quailed beneath the lash of her indictment. He knew Diana was wrong. He felt he ought to say that marriage was scriptural; and that woman was intended, from the first, to be in subjection to man. But he had not the courage of his convictions; nor could he brook the thought of any man attempting to subjugate this glorious specimen of womanhood, invading her privacy, or in any way presuming to dispute her absolute right over herself. So he shrank into his large armchair, and took refuge in silence. "When I proclaimed my views to Uncle Falcon," continued Diana, "he would hear me to the end, and then say: 'My dear girl, after the manner of most women orators, you mount the platform of your own ignorance, and lay down the law from the depths--or, perhaps I should say, shallows--of your own absolute inexperience. Get married, child, and you will tell a different story.' "Then Uncle Falcon set himself to compass this result, but without success. However profound might be my inexperience, I knew how to keep men at arm's length, thank goodness! But, as the happy years went by, we periodically reverted to our one point of difference. At the close of each discussion, Uncle Falcon used to say: 'I shall win, Diana! Some day you will have to admit that I have won.' His eyes used to gleam beneath his shaggy brows, and I would turn the subject; because I could not give in, yet I felt it was becoming almost a mania with Uncle Falcon. "It was the only thing in which I failed to please him. His pride in my riding, and in anything else I could do, was touching beyond words. He remodelled the kennels, and financed the hunt in our neighbourhood, on condition that I was Master. "One day his speech suddenly became thick and difficult. He sent for Mr. Inglestry, our old family friend and adviser, and was closeted with him for over an hour. "When Mr. Inglestry came out of the library, his face was grave; his manner, worried. "'Go to your uncle, Miss Rivers,' he said. 'He has been exciting himself a good deal, over a matter about which I felt bound to expostulate, and I think he needs attention.' "I went into the library. "Uncle Falcon's eyes were brighter than ever, though his lips twitched. 'I shall win, Diana,' he said. 'Some day you will have to admit that I have won. You will have to say: "Uncle Falcon, you have won."' "I knelt down in front of him. 'No other man will ever win me, dear. So I can say it at once. Uncle Falcon, you have won.' "'Foolish girl!' he said; then looked at me with inexpressible affection. 'I w-want you to be happy,' he said. 'I w-want you to be as h-happy as I would have made Geraldine.' "Geraldine was my mother. "On the following day, Uncle Falcon sent for another lawyer, a young man just opening a practice in Riversmead. He arrived with his clerk, but only spent a very few minutes in the library, and as we have never heard from him since, no transaction of importance can have taken place. Mr. Inglestry had the will and the codicil. "A few nights later, I was summoned to my uncle's room. He neither spoke nor moved again; but his eyes were still bright beneath the bushy eyebrows. He knew me to the end. Those living eyes, in the already dead body, seemed to say: 'Diana, I shall win.' "At dawn, the brave, dauntless soul left the body, which had long clogged it, and launched out into the Unknown. My first conscious prayer was: that he might not there meet either my father or my mother, but some noble kindred spirit, worthy of him. Cousin David, you would have liked Uncle Falcon." "I am sure I should have," said David Rivers. "Go into the library," commanded Diana, "the door opposite the dining-room, and study the portrait of him hanging over the mantel-piece, painted by a famous artist, two years ago." David went. Diana rang, and sent for a glass of water; went to the window, and looked out; crossed to a mirror, and nervously smoothed her abundant hair. Hitherto she had been cantering smoothly over open country. Now she was approaching the leap. She must keep her nerve--or she would find herself riding for a fall. "Did you notice his eyes?" she asked, as David sat down again. "Yes," he answered; "wonderful eyes; bright, as golden amber. You must not be offended--you would not be, if you could know how beautiful they were--but the only eyes I ever saw at all like them, belonged to a _Macacus Cynomolgus_, a little African monkey--who was a great pet of mine." "I quite understand," said Diana. "I know the eyes of that species of monkey. Now, tell me? Did Uncle Falcon's amber eyes say anything to you?" "Yes," said David. "It must have been simply owing to all you have told me. But, the longer I looked at them--the more clearly they said: 'I shall win.'" "Well, now listen," said Diana, "if my history does not weary you. When Mr. Inglestry produced Uncle Falcon's will, he had left everything to me: Riverscourt, the whole estate, the four livings of which he held the patronage, and--his immense fortune. Cousin David, I am so rich that I have not yet learned how to spend my money. I want you to help me. I have indeed the gift of gold to offer to the King. I wish you to have, at once, all you require for the church, the schools, the printing-press, and the boat, of which you spoke. And then, I wish you to have a thousand a year--two, if you need them--for the current expenses of your work, and to enable you to have a colleague. Will you accept this, Cousin David, from a grateful heart, guided by you, led by the Star, and able to-day to offer it to the King?" At first David made no reply. He sat quite silent, his head thrown back, his hands clasping his knee; and Diana knew, as she watched the working of the thin white face, that he was striving to master an emotion such as a man hates to show before a woman. Then he sat up, loosing his knee, and answered very simply: "I accept--for the King and for His work, Miss Rivers; and I accept on behalf of my poor eager waiting people out there. Ah, if you could know how much it means----!" His voice broke. Diana felt the happy tears welling up into her own eyes. "And we will call the church," said David, presently, "the Church of the Holy Star." "Very well," said Diana. "Then that is settled. You have helped me with my first gift, Cousin David. Now you must advise and help me about the second. And, indeed, the possibility of offering the first depends almost entirely upon the advice you give me about the second. You know you said the frankincense meant our ideals--the high and holy things in our lives? Well, my ideals are in sore peril. I want you to advise me as to how to keep them. Listen! There was a codicil to Uncle Falcon's will--a private codicil known only to Mr. Inglestry and myself, and only to be made known a year after his death, to those whom, if I failed to fulfil its conditions, it might then concern. Riverscourt, and all this wealth, are mine, only on condition that I am married, within twelve months of Uncle Falcon's death. He has been dead, eleven." Diana paused. "Good God!" said David Rivers; and it was not a careless exclamation. It was a cry of protest from his very soul. "On condition that you are married!" he said. "And to whom?" "No stipulation was made as to that," replied Diana. "But Uncle Falcon had three men in his mind, all of whom he liked, and each of whom considers himself in love with me: a famous doctor in London, a distinguished cleric in our cathedral town, and a distant cousin, Rupert Rivers, to whom the whole property is to go, if I fail to fulfil the condition." David sat forward, with his elbows on his knees, and rumpled his hair with his hands. Horror and dismay were in his honest eyes. "It is unbelievable!" he said. "That he should really care for you, and wish your happiness, and yet lay this burden upon you after his death. His mind must have been affected when he made that codicil." "So Mr. Inglestry says; but not sufficiently affected to enable us to dispute it. The idea of bending me to matrimony, and of forcing me to admit that it was the better part, had become a monomania with Uncle Falcon." David sat with his head in his hands, his look bent upon the floor. Now that he knew of this cruel condition imposed upon the beautiful girl sitting opposite to him, he could not bring himself to lift his eyes to hers. She should be looked at only with admiration and wonder; and now a depth of pity would be in his eyes. Therefore he kept them lowered. "So," said Diana, "you see how I am placed. If I refuse to fulfil the condition, on the anniversary of Uncle Falcon's death we must tell Rupert Rivers of the codicil; I shall have to hand over everything to him; leave my dear home, and go back to the life of running after omnibuses, and pretending to enjoy potted meat lunches! On the other hand, if--in order to keep my home, my income, all the luxuries I love, my position in the county, and the influence which I now for the first time begin to value for the true reason--I marry one of these men, or one of half a dozen others who would require only the slightest encouragement to propose to me at once, I fail to keep true to my own ideals; I practically barter myself and my liberty, in order to keep the place which is rightfully my own; I sink to the level of the women I have long despised, who marry for money." "You must not do that," said David. "Nay, more; you _could_ not do that. But is not your Cousin Rupert a man whom you might learn to love; a man you could marry for the real reasons?" Diana laughed, bitterly. "Cousin David," she said, "shortly before grandpapa died, I was engaged to Rupert Rivers for a fortnight. At the end of that time I loathed my own body. Young as I was, and scornfully opposed by my mother, I took matters into my own hands, and broke off the engagement." David looked perplexed. "It should not have had that effect upon you," he said, slowly. "I don't know much about it, but it seems to me that a man's love and worship should tend to make a woman reverence her own body, and regard her beauty in a new light, because of his delight in it. I remember--" a sudden flush suffused David's pale cheeks, but he brought forth his reminiscence bravely, for Diana's sake: "I remember kissing Amy's hand the evening before I first went to college, and she wrote and told me that for days afterwards that hand had seemed unlike the other, and whenever she looked at it she remembered that I had kissed it." Diana's laughter was in her eyes. She did not admit it to her voice. She felt very much older, at that moment, than David Rivers. "Oh, you dear boy!" she said. "What can you, with your Amy and your Africans, know of such men as Rupert, or the doctor, or even--even the church dignitary? _You_ would love a woman's soul, and cherish her body because it contained it. _They_ make one feel that nothing else matters much, so long as one is beautiful. And after having been looked at by them for a little while, one feels inclined to smash one's mirror." David lifted quiet eyes to hers. They seemed deep wells of childlike purity; yet there was fire in their calm depths. "When you _are_ so beautiful," he said, simply, "you can't blame a man for thinking so, when he looks at you." Diana laughed, blushing. She was surfeited with compliments; yet this of David's, so unpremeditated, so impersonal, pleased her more than any compliment had ever pleased her. But, in an instant, she was grave again. Momentous issues lay before her. Uncle Falcon had been dead eleven months. "Then would you advise me to marry, and thus retain the property?" she suggested. "God forbid!" cried David. "That you should be compelled to leave here, seems intolerable; but it would be infinitely more intolerable that you should make a loveless marriage. Give up all, if needs must, but--keep your ideals." Diana glanced at him, from beneath half-lifted lids. "That will mean, Cousin David, that you cannot have the money for your church, your school, your printing-press, and your steam-launch; nor the yearly income for current expenses." Now, curiously enough, David had not thought of this. His mind had been completely taken up with the idea of Diana running after omnibuses and lunching cheaply on potted meat. The great disappointment now struck him with full force; but he did not waver for an instant. "How could I build the Church of the Holy Star on the proceeds of your lost ideals?" he said. "If my church is to be built, the money will be found in some other way." "There _is_ another way," said Diana, suddenly. David looked up, surprised at the forceful decision of her tone. "What other way is there?" he asked. Diana rose; walked over to the window and stood looking across the spacious park, at the pale gold of the wintry sunset. She was in full view, at last, of her high fence, and did not yet know what lay beyond it. She headed straight for it; but she rode on the curb. She walked back to the fireplace, and stood confronting him; her superb young figure drawn up to its full height. Her voice was very quiet; her manner, very deliberate, as she answered his question. "I want _you_ to marry me, Cousin David," she said, "on the morning of the day on which you start for Central Africa." CHAPTER X DIANA'S HIGH FENCE David Rivers sprang to his feet, and faced Diana. "I cannot do that," he said. Diana had expected this. She waited a moment, silently; while the atmosphere palpitated with David's intense surprise. Then: "Why not, Cousin David?" she asked quietly. And, as he still stood before her, speechless, "Sit down," she commanded, "and tell me. Why not?" But David stood his ground, and Diana realised, for the first time, that he was slightly taller than herself. "Why not?" he said. "Why not! Why because, even if I wished--I mean, even if you wished--even if we both wished for each other--in that way--Central Africa is no place for a woman. I would never take a woman there!" Diana's face flushed. Her white teeth bit sharply into her lower lip. Her hands clenched themselves suddenly at her sides. The fury of her eyes flashed full into the blank dismay of his. Then, with a mighty effort, she mastered her imperious temper. "My dear Cousin David," she said--and she spoke slowly, seating herself upon the sofa, and carefully arranging the silken cushions to her liking: "You totally mistake my meaning. I gave you credit for more perspicacity. I have not the smallest intention of going to Central Africa, or of ever inflicting my presence, or my companionship, upon you. Surely you and I have made it pretty clear to one another that we are each avowed celibates. But, just because of this--just because we both have everything to gain, and nothing to lose by such an arrangement--just because we so completely understand one another--I can say to you--as frankly as I would say: 'Cousin David, will you oblige me by witnessing my signature to this document?'--'Cousin David, will you oblige me by marrying me on the morning of the day upon which you return to Central Africa?' Do you not see that by doing so, you take no burden upon yourself, yet you free me at once from the desperate plight in which I am placed by Uncle Falcon's codicil? You enable me to give the gold and the frankincense, and you yourself have told me over and over, that you never expect to return to England." David's young face paled and hardened. "I see," he said. "So _I_ am to provide the myrrh! I could not promise to die, for certain, you know. I might pull through, and live, after all; which would be awkward for you." This was the most human remark she had, as yet, heard from David; but the bitterness of his tone brought the tears to Diana's eyes. She had not realised how much her proposal would hurt him. "Dear Cousin David," she said, with extreme gentleness; "God grant indeed that you may live, and spend many years in doing your great work. But you told me you had nothing to bring you back to England, and that you felt you were leaving it now, never to return. It was not _my_ suggestion. And don't you see, that if you help me thus, you will also be helping your poor African people; because it will mean that you can have your church, and your schools, and all the other things you need, and a yearly income for current expenses?" "So these were all bribes," cried David, and his eyes flamed down into hers--"bribes to make me do this thing! And you called them gifts for the King!" Diana flushed. The injustice of this was hard to bear. But the indignant pain in his voice helped her to reply with quiet self-control. "Cousin David, I am sorry you think that of me. It is quite unjust. Had there been no codicil to my uncle's will, every penny I hope to offer for your work would have been gladly, freely, offered. Since I knew that my gold could be useful in helping you to bring light into that darkness, the thought has been one of pure joy. Oh, Cousin David, say 'no' to my request, if you like, but don't wrong me by misjudging the true desire of my heart to bring my gifts, all unworthy though they be. Remember you stand for the Christ to me, Cousin David; and He was never unjust to a woman." David's face softened; but instantly hardened again, as a fresh thought struck him. "Was this plan--this idea--in your mind," he demanded, "on that Sunday night when you first came to Brambledene Church?" Then, as Diana did not answer: "Oh, good heavens!" he cried, vehemently; "say it wasn't! My Lady of Mystery! Say you came to worship, and that all this was an after-thought!" Diana's clear eyes met his. They did not flinch, though her lips trembled. "I cannot lie to you, Cousin David," she said, bravely. "I had heard you were never coming back--it seemed a possible way out--it seemed my last hope. I--I came--to see if you were a man I could trust." David groaned; looked wildly round the room, as if for a way of escape; then sank into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. "I cannot do it, Miss Rivers," he said. "It would be making a mockery of God's most holy ordinance of matrimony--to wed you in the morning, knowing I should leave you forever in the afternoon. How could I promise, in the presence of God, to love, comfort, honour and keep you? The whole thing would be a sacrilege." He lifted a haggard face, looking at her with despairing eyes. Diana smiled softly into them. A moment before, she had expected to see him leave the room and the house, forever. That he should sit down and discuss the matter, even to prove the impossibility of acceding to her request, seemed, in some sort, a hopeful sign. She held his look while she answered. "Dear Cousin David, why should it be a mockery? Let us consider it reasonably. Surely, in the best and highest of senses, it might be really _rather_ true. I know you don't love me; but--you do _like_ me a little, don't you?" "I like you very much indeed," said David, woefully; and then, all of a sudden, they both laughed. The rueful admission had sounded so funny. "Why of course I like you," said David, with conviction; "better than any one else I know. But----" He paused; looked at her, helplessly, and hesitated. "I quite understand," said Diana, quickly. "_Like_ is not _love_; but in many cases 'like' is much better than 'love,' to my thinking. I know a very Christian old person, whom I once heard say: 'We are commanded in the Bible to love the brethren. I always _love_ the brethren, though I cannot always _like_ them.' Now I had much rather you liked me, and didn't love me, Cousin David, than that you loved me, and didn't like me! Wouldn't you? "And remember how St. John began one of his epistles: 'The Elder unto the well belovèd Gaius, whom I love in the truth.' I am sure, if you had occasion to write to me, and began: 'David, unto the well belovèd Diana, whom I love in the truth,' no one could consider it an ordinary love-letter, and yet it would answer the purpose. Wouldn't it, Cousin David?" David laughed again, in spite of his desire to maintain an attitude of tragic protest. And, as he laughed, his face grew less haggard, and his eyes regained their normal expression of steadfast calm. Diana hurried on. "So much for love. Now what comes next? Comfort? Ah, the comfort you would bring into my life! Comfort of body; comfort of mind; the daily, hourly, constant comfort wrought by the solving of this dark problem. And then--'honour.' Why, you can honour a woman as much by your thought of her at a distance, as by any word or action in her presence. Not that I feel worthy of honour from such a man as you, Cousin David. Yet I know you would honour all women, and all women worth anything, would try to deserve it. What comes next? Keep? Oh, what could be a truer form of keeping, than to keep me from a lowering marriage, on the one hand; or from poverty, and all the ups and downs of strenuous London life, on the other; to keep me in the entourage of my childhood's lovely home? It seems to me, Cousin David, that you would be doing more 'keeping' for me than falls to the lot of most men to do for the girls they marry. And, best of all, you would be keeping me true to the purest, highest ideals." David's elbows had found his knees again. He rumpled his hair, despairingly. "Miss Rivers," he said, "I admit the truth of all you say. I would gladly do anything to be--er--useful to you, under these difficult circumstances; anything _right_. But could it be right to go through the solemn marriage service, without having the slightest intention of fulfilling any of the causes for which matrimony was ordained? And could it be right for a man to take upon himself solemn obligations with regard to a woman; and, a few hours later, leave her, never to return?" "It seems to me," said Diana, "that the cause for our marriage would be a more important and vital one than most of those mentioned in the Prayer-book. And, as to the question of leaving me--why, before the Boer war, several friends of mine married their soldiers on the eve of their departure for the front, simply because if they were going out to die, they wished the privilege of being their widows." David's eyes softened. "That was love," he said. "Not in every case. I know a girl who married an old Sir Somebody on the morning of the day his regiment sailed, making sure he would be killed in his first engagement; he offered such a vast, expansive mark for the Boer sharpshooters. She wished to be Lady So-and-So, with a delicate halo of tragic glory, and no encumbrance. But back he came unscathed, and stout as ever--he did not even get enteric! They have lived a cat and dog life, ever since." "Abominable!" said David. "I hate hearing such stories." "Well, are not our motives better? And are they not better than scores of the loveless marriages which are taking place every day?" "Other people's wrong, does not constitute our right," said David, doggedly. "I know that," she answered, with unruffled patience; "but I cannot see any wrong in what we propose to do. We may be absolutely faithful to one another, though continents divide us. I should most probably continue faithful if you were on another planet. We can be a mutual help and comfort the one to the other, by our prayers and constant thought, and by our letters; for surely Cousin David, we should write to one another--occasionally? Is not our friendship worth something?" "It is worth everything," said David, "except wrong doing. Look here!" he exclaimed suddenly, rising to his feet. "I must go right away, by myself, and think this thing over, for twenty-four hours. At the end of that time I shall have arrived at a clear decision in my own mind. Then, if you do not object, and can allow me another day, I will run up to town, and lay the whole matter--of course without mentioning your name--before the man whose judgment I trust more than that of any man I know. If he agrees with me, my own opinion will be confirmed; and if he differs----" "You will still adhere to your own opinion," said Diana, with a wistful little smile. She rang the bell. "I am beginning to know you pretty well, Cousin David.--The dogcart, Rodgers.--Who is this Solon?" "A London physician, who has given me endless care, refusing all fees, because of my work, and because my father was a doctor. Also he gives a more hopeful report than any." "Really? Does he think you will stand the climate after all?" David smiled. "He gives me a possible three years, under favourable circumstances. The other people give me two, perhaps only one." "I think you must tell me his name. He may be my undesirable suitor!" "Hardly," said David. "He has a charming wife of his own, and two little children. But of course I will tell you who he is." David named a name which brought a flush of pleasure to Diana's face. "Why, I know him well. He is honourary consulting physician to our Hospital of the Star, and is constantly called in when we have specially interesting or baffling cases. You couldn't go to a better man. Tell him everything if you like--my name, and all. He is absolutely to be trusted. But--Cousin David--" They heard the horse's hoofs on the drive, and she rose and faced him--"Ah, do remember, how much this means to me! Don't make an abstract case of it, when you consider it alone. Don't dissolve it from its intensely personal connection with you and me. We are so unlike ordinary people. We are both alone in the world. Your work is so much to you. We could make your--your _three_ years so gloriously fruitful. You would leave such a strongly established church behind you, and I would go on supporting it. My home is so much to me; and I am just beginning to understand the influence I possess. Think if, as these four livings become vacant, I can put in really earnest men. Think of the improvements I could make in the condition of the villages. At present I have been able to do so little, because Mr. Inglestry is holding back as much as possible of this year's income, to which I have any way the right, in order to buy me a small annuity when I lose all. For, let me tell you frankly, Cousin David, if you cannot do as I ask, that is what it will mean. I have no intention whatever of selling my body into slavery, or my soul to hopeless degradation, by marrying Rupert Rivers, or any of the others. I lose all, if you say 'no'; and I lose it on the Feast of the Star. At the same time, ah, God knows, I do not want to do wrong! Nor do I want to urge you to do violence to your own conscience. You know that?" David took her hand, holding it very firmly in his. "I know that," he said; "and I think you can trust me, Miss Rivers, not to forget how much it means to us both. If it meant more, there could be no doubt. If it meant less, there would be no question. It is because it means exactly what it does mean, that the situation is so difficult. I believe light will soon come; and when it comes, it will come clearly. I think it will come to me to-night. If so, I need not keep you waiting forty-eight hours. I will go up to town early to-morrow morning, and see Sir Deryck, if possible, in time to catch the 2.35 for Riversmead. Could you be here, alone, at that hour to-morrow?" "I will send to meet the 2.35," said Diana; "and I will be here alone. Good-bye, Cousin David." "Good-bye, Miss Rivers." Diana went into the hall, watched him climb into the dogcart and be driven rapidly away without looking back. Then she entered the library, closed and locked the door, and stood on the hearthrug looking up at the portrait of Falcon Rivers. The amber eyes seemed to twinkle kindly into hers; but they still said: "I shall win, Diana." "Oh, Uncle Falcon," she whispered "was this the way to secure my happiness? Ah, if you could know the loneliness, the pain, the humiliation, the shame! To have had to ask this of any man--even of such a saint as David Rivers. And how cruelly I hurt him, by seeming to build the whole plan upon the certainty of his death." Suddenly she broke down under the prolonged strain of the afternoon's conversation. Kneeling at her uncle's empty chair--where she had so often knelt, looking up into his kind eyes--she buried her face on her arms and wept, and wept, until she could weep no longer. "If only he had cared a little," she whispered between her paroxysms of sobbing; "not enough to make him troublesome; but enough to make him pleased to marry me, on any terms. Why was he so indignant and aghast? It seemed to me quite simple. Well, twenty-four hours of suspense are less trying than forty-eight. But--what will he decide? Oh, what will he decide!... Sorry, but you can't come in, Chappie; I am not visible to any one just now." This in response to a persistent trying of the handle, and knocking at the door.... "Yes, he went some time ago."... "Yes, in the dogcart."... "I wish you would not call him _my_ missionary. I am not a heathen nation!"... "No, he did not propose to me. How silly you are!"... "Oh, I am glad the tea was good. Yes, we will find out where those tea cakes can be had."... "No; he has not once called me 'Diana.'"... "Why, 'Miss Rivers' of course! Chappie, if you don't go away this very moment, I shall take down Uncle Falcon's shot-gun and discharge both barrels through the panel of the door at the exact height at which I know your face must be, on the other side!"... "Of course I can tell by your voice, even had I not heard the plump, that you are now on your knees. I shall blow out the lower panel."... "No, I am not communing with spirits, but _you_ soon will be, if you don't go away!"... "Chappie! In ten seconds, I ring the bell; and when Rodgers answers it, I shall order him to take you by the arm, and lead you upstairs!" As Mrs. Vane rustled indignantly away, and quiet reigned once more, Diana buried her head again in the seat of the chair. She laughed and wept, alternately; then cried bitterly: "Ah, it is so lonely--so lonely! Nobody really cares!" Then, suddenly she remembered that she could pray--pray, with a new right of access, to One Who cared, Whose love was changeless; Whose wisdom was infinite. If _He_ went on before, the way would become clear. Her morning letters lay on the library table From a pile of Christmas cards, she drew out one which held a motto for the swiftly coming year. She breathed it, as a prayer, and her troubled heart grew still. "Dear Christ, move on before! Ah, let me follow where Thy feet have trod; Thus shall I find, 'mid life's perplexities, The Golden Pathway of the Will of God." After that, all was peace. In comparative rest of soul, Diana waited David's answer. CHAPTER XI THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT The fire burned low, in the study grate. The black marble clock on the mantel-piece had struck midnight, more slowly and sonorously than it ever sounded the hour by day. Each stroke had seemed a knell--a requiem to bright hopes and golden prospects; and now it slowly and distinctly ticked out the first hour of a new day. Sarah, and her assistants, had long been sleeping soundly, untroubled by any difficult questions of casuistry. The one solitary watcher beneath the roof of Brambledene Rectory sat huddled up in the Rector's large armchair, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. His little worn Prayer-book had fallen to the floor, unnoticed. He had been reading the marriage service. The Prayer-book lay on its back, at his feet, open at the Burial of the Dead, as if in silent suggestion that that solemn office had an important bearing on the case. The fire burned low; yet David did not bestir himself to give it any attention. The hot embers sank together, in the grate, with that sound of finality which implies no further attempt to keep alight--a sitting-down under adverse circumstances, so characteristic of human nature, and so often caused by the absorbed neglect of others. David had as yet arrived at no definite decision regarding the important question of marriage with Diana. He had reviewed the matter from every possible standpoint. Diana had begged him not to let the question become an impersonal one--not to consider it as an abstract issue. There had been little need for that request. Diana's brilliant personality dominated his whole mental vision, just as the sun, bursting through clouds, illumines a grey scene, touching and gilding the heretofore dull landscape, with unexpected glory. It puzzled David to find that he could not consider his own plans, his most vital interests, as apart from her. The whole future seemed to hinge upon whether she were to be happy or disconsolate; surrounded by the delights of her lovely home, or cast out into the world, alone and comfortless. A readjustment had suddenly taken place in his proportionate view of things. Hitherto, Africa had come first; all else, his own life included, being a mere background. Now--DIANA stepped forth, in golden capitals; and all things else receded, appearing of small importance; all save his sensitive conscientiousness; his unwavering determination to adhere to the right and to shun the wrong. It perplexed David that this should be so. It was an experience so new that it had not as yet found for itself a name, or formulated an explanation. As he sat, wrapt in thought, in the armchair in which he had prepared so many of his evening sermons, she became once more his Lady of Mystery. He reviewed those weeks, realising, for the first time, that the thought of her had never left him; that the desire to win the unawakened soul of her had taken foremost place in his whole ministry at Brambledene. She seemed enfolded in silent shadows, from which her grey eyes looked out at him, sometimes cold, critical, appraising, incredulous; sometimes anxious, appealing, sorrowful; soft, with unshed tears; sad, with unspoken longing. Then--she came to the vestry; and his Lady of Mystery vanished; giving place to Diana Rivers, imperious, vivid, radiating vitality and friendliness; and when he realised that it was little more than forty-eight hours since he had first known her name, he marvelled at the closeness of the intimacy into which she had drawn him. Yet, undoubtedly, the way in which she had dominated his mind from the very first, was now accounted for by the fact that, from the very first, she had planned to involve him in this scheme for the unravelling of her own tangled future. David clenched his hands and battled fiercely with his instinctive anger against Diana in this matter. It tortured him to remember his wistful gladness at the appearance of an obviously unaccustomed worshipper, in the holy place of worship; and later, his sacred joy in the thought that he was just the Voice sent to bring the message; and, having brought it, to pass on unrecognised. Yet, all the while, he had been the tool she intended using to gain her own ends; while the most sacred thing in his whole life, was the fact, which, chancing to become known to her, had led her to pounce upon him as a suitable instrument. As priest and as man, David felt equally outraged. Yet Diana's frank confession had been so noble in its truthfulness, at a moment when a less honourable nature would have been sorely tempted to prevaricate, that David had instantly matched it with a forgiveness equally noble, and now fought back the inclination to retrospective wrath. But the present situation must be faced. She was asking him to do this thing. Could he refuse? Could he leave England knowing he had had it in his power to do her so great a service, to make the whole difference in her future life, to rid her of odious obligations, to right an obvious wrong--and yet, he had refused? Could he sail for Africa, leaving Diana homeless; confronted by hardships of all kinds; perhaps facing untold temptations? The beautiful heiress, in her own ancestral home, could keep Rupert Rivers at arm's length, if she chose. But if Rupert Rivers reigned at Riverscourt; if all she held so dear, and would miss so overwhelmingly, were his; if, under these circumstances, he set himself to win the hospital nurse----? David clenched his cold hands and ground his teeth; then paused amazed, to wonder at himself. Why should it fill him with impotent fury, to contemplate the possibility of any man winning and subjugating Diana? Had she infected him with her own irrational and exaggerated views? The more he thought over it, the more clearly he realised that this thing she asked of him would undoubtedly bring good--infinite good--to herself; to the many dependants on the Riverscourt estate; to the surrounding villages, where, as each living became vacant, she would seek to place earnest men, true preachers of the Word, faithful tenders of the flock. It would bring untold good to his own poor waiting people, in that dark continent, eagerly longing for more light. To all whom his voice could sway, whom her money could benefit, whom their united efforts could reach, this step would mean immeasurable gain. Nobody walked the earth whom it could wrong. He recalled, with unexpected clearness of detail, a lengthy account of Rupert Rivers, given him in that very room by his garrulous host, during the only evening they spent together. At the time it had made no impression upon an intentionally inattentive mind; but now it came up from his subconsciousness, and provided him with important information. If Mr. Goldsworthy's facts were correct, Rupert Rivers already possessed more money than was good for him, and lived the life of a gay spendthrift, having chambers in town, a small shooting-box in Scotland; much of his time being spent abroad, flitting from scene to scene, and from pleasure to pleasure, with absolutely no sense of responsibility, and no regard for the welfare of others. His one redeeming point appeared to be: that he wanted to marry Diana. But that was not to be thought of. Again David's hands clenched, painfully. Why was it such sudden fierce agony to contemplate Diana as the wife of Rupert Rivers? That bewildered question throbbed unanswered into the now chilly room. Yes, undoubtedly, it would mean untold gain to many; loss to none. But no sooner did his mind arrive at the possibility of agreeing to Diana's suggestion, than up rose, and stalked before him, the spectre of mockery; the demon of unreality; the ghastly horror, to the mind of the earnest priest, of having to stand before God's altar, there to utter solemn words, under circumstances which would make of those words a hollow mockery, an impious unreality. The position would be different, had he but a warrant for believing that any conditions could justify him, in the sight of God, in entering into the holy bond of marriage for reasons other than those for which matrimony was ordained. For a moment, a way out of the difficulty had suggested itself, in the registry-office; but he had not harboured the thought for many seconds. An act which could not face the light of God's holy church, most certainly could not stand in the light of the judgment day. * * * * * The Rector's black marble clock struck one. David shivered. One hour had already passed of the day on which he had promised to give Diana his decision; yet, after hours of deliberation, he was no nearer arriving at any definite conclusion. "My God," he prayed, "give me light. Ah, give me a clear unmistakable revelation of Thy will!" * * * * * The hours from one to two, and from two to three, are apt to hold especial terrors for troubled souls--for lonely watchers, keeping vigil. This is the time of earth's completest silence, and the sense of the nearness of the spirit-world seems able to make itself more intimately felt. The cheerful cock has not yet bestirred himself to crow; the dawn has made no rift in the heavy blackness of the sky. The Prince of Darkness invades the world, unhindered. The Hosts of Light stand by, with folded wings; their glittering swords close sheathed. "This is your hour, and the hour of darkness." Murder, robbery, lust, and every form of sin, lift their heads, unafraid. Christian souls, waking, shudder in nameless fear; then whisper: "Keep me, O keep me, King of Kings, Beneath Thine Own almighty wings!" and sleep again, in peace. * * * * * Next comes the coldest hour--the hour before the dawn. This is the hour of passing souls. Death, drawing near, enters unchecked; and, ere the day breaks and busy life begins to stir again, the souls he has come to fetch, pass out with him; and weary watchers close the eyes which will never see another sunrising, and fold the hands whose day's work in the world is over. All life, in this hour, is at its lowest ebb. * * * * * From one to two, David prayed: "Give me light! Oh, my God, give me light!" Evil thoughts, satanic suggestions, diabolic whisperings, swarmed around him, but failed to force an entrance into the guarded garrison of his mind. The clock struck two. * * * * * The study lamp grew dim, flickered spasmodically; and, finally, went out. David reached for matches, and lighted one candle on the table at his elbow. He saw his Prayer-book on the floor, picked it up, and glanced at the open page. "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground----" David smiled. It seemed so simple a solution to all earthly difficulties:--"we therefore commit his body to the ground." It promised peace at the last. Who would read those words, over the forest grave in Central Africa? Would he be borne, feet foremost, down the aisle of the Church of the Holy Star--his church and Diana's--or would he be carried straight from his own hut to the open grave beneath the mighty trees? It would not matter at all to his wasted body, which it was; but, ah, how much it would matter to the people he left behind! "Oh God, give me light--give me light!" * * * * * The clock struck three. The study grate was black. The last red ember had burned itself out. David shuddered. He was too completely lost to outward things to be conscious of the cold; but he shuddered in unison with the many passing souls. Then a sense of peace stole over his spirit. He lifted his head from his hands, leaned back in the Rector's armchair, and fell into a light sleep. He was completely exhausted, in mind and body. "Send me light, my Lord," he murmured for the last time; and fell asleep. * * * * * He did not hear the clock strike four; but, a few moments later, he was awakened by a voice in the silent room, saying, slowly and distinctly, in tones of sublime tenderness: "Son of man!" David, instantly wide awake, started up, and sat listening. The solitary candle failed to illumine the distant corners of the study, but was reflected several times in the glass doors of the book-cases. David pushed back his tumbled hair. "Speak again," he said, in tones of awe and wonder. Then, as his own voice broke the silence, he realised that the voice which had waked him had not stirred the waves of outward sound, but had vibrated on the atmosphere of his inner spirit-chamber, reaching, with intense distinctness, the hearing of his soul. He lay back, and closed his eyes. "Son of man!" said the voice again. This time David did not stir. He listened in calm intentness. "Son of man," said the low tender tones again; "behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke." Then David knew where he was. He sat up, eagerly; drew the candle close to him; took out his pocket-Bible; and, turning to the twenty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, read the whole passage. "Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down. Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men. "So I spake unto the people in the morning; and at even my wife died: and I did in the morning as I was commanded. "And the people said unto me: Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so? Then I answered them, The word of the Lord came unto me saying: Speak unto the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God:... Ezekiel is unto you a sign: according to all that he hath done, shall ye do; and when this cometh, ye shall know that I am the Lord. "Also, thou son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds.... In that day shall thy mouth be opened,... and thou shalt speak ... and thou shalt be a sign unto them; and they shall know that I am the Lord." * * * * * As David read this most touching of all Old Testament stories, his mind was absorbed at first in the tragedy of the simply told, yet vivid picture. The young prophet, standing faithfully at his post, preaching to a stiff-necked, hard-hearted people, though knowing, all the while, how rapidly the shadow of a great sorrow was drawing near unto his own heart and home. The Desire of his eyes--how tenderly that described the young wife who lay dying at home. He who knoweth the hearts of men, knew she was just that to him. Each moment of that ebbing life was precious; yet the young preacher must remain and preach; he must yield to no anguish of anxiety; he must show no sign of woe. Throughout that long hard day, he stood the test. And then--in the grand unvarnished simplicity of Old Testament tragedy--he records quite simply: "And, at even, my wife died; and I did in the morning, as I was commanded." A veil is drawn over the night of anguish, but--"I did in the morning, as I was commanded." David, as he read, felt his soul attune with the soul of that young prophet of long ago. He also had had a long night of conflict and of vigil. He, also, would do in the morning as he was commanded. Then, suddenly--suddenly--he saw light! Here was a marriage tie, close, tender, perfect; broken, apparently for no reason which concerned the couple themselves, for nothing connected with the causes for which matrimony was ordained; broken simply for the sake of others; solely in order that the preacher might himself be the text of his own sermon; standing before the people, bereaved, yet not mourning; stricken suddenly, all unprepared--in order that he might be a living sign to all men who should see and question, of Jehovah's dealings with themselves. David's mind, accustomed to reason by induction, especially on theological points, grasped this at once: that if the marriage tie could be _broken_ by God's direction, for purposes of influence, and for the sake of bringing good to others, it might equally be _formed_ for the same reasons--unselfish, pure, idealistic--without the man and the woman, who for these causes entered into the tie, finding themselves, in so doing, outside the Will or the Word of God. From that moment David never doubted that he might agree to Diana's proposal. To many minds would have come the suggestion that the 20th century differed from ancient times; that the circumstances of the prophet Ezekiel were probably dissimilar, in all essentials, to his own. But David had all his life lived very simply by Bible rules. The revealed Will of God seemed to him to hold good through all the centuries, and to apply to all circumstances, in all times. His case and Diana's was unique; and this one instance which, to him, seemed clearly applicable, at once contented him. He laid his open Bible beside the candle on the table. "I shall say 'Yes,'" he said, aloud. "How pleased she will be." He could see her face, radiant in its fair beauty. "The Desire of thine eyes." What a perfect description of a man's absorbing love for a woman. Two months ago, he would not have understood it; but he remembered now how he used to look forward, all the week, to the first sight, on Sunday evening, of the sweet face and queenly head of his Lady of Mystery, in her corner beside the stone pillar. And on Christmas-eve, when he stood in the snow, under the shadow of the old lich-gate, while the footman flashed up the lights in the interior of the car, and her calm loveliness was revealed among the furs. Then these two days of intimacy had shown him so much of vivid charm in that gay, perfect face, as she laughed and talked, or hushed into gentle earnestness. She had talked for so long--he sitting watching her; he knew all her expressive movements; her ways of turning her head quickly, or of lowering her eyelids, and hiding those soft clear eyes. To-day--this very day--he would see her again; and every anxious cloud would lift, when she heard his decision. Her grateful look would beam upon him. "The Desire of thine eyes." Yes; it was a truly Divine description of a man's---- Suddenly David sprang to his feet. "My God!" he cried; "I love Diana!" The revelation was overwhelming in its suddenness. Having resolved upon a life of celibacy, his mental attitude towards women had never contemplated the possibility of this. He had stepped fearlessly out into this friendship, at the call of her need, and of his duty. And now---- He stood quite still in the chill silence of the dimly lighted study, and faced the fact. "I--love--Diana! And, in two weeks, I am to wed Diana. And a few hours afterwards, I am to leave Diana--for ever! 'Son of man, behold I take away from thee the Desire of thine eyes with a stroke.' To sail for Central Africa; and never to look upon her face again--the face of my own wife. 'And at even my wife died.' But my wife will not die," said David. "Thank God, it is I who bring the offering of myrrh. Because of this that I can do for her, my wife will live, rich, happy, contented, useful. Her home, her wealth, her happy life, will be my gift to her. But--if Diana knew I loved her, she would never accept this service from me." David had been pacing the room. He now stood still, leaning his hands on the table, where glimmered the one candle. "Can I," he said, slowly, asking himself deliberately the question: "Can I carry this thing through, without letting Diana suspect how much more it means to me, than she intends; how much more than it means to her? Can I wed the Desire of mine eyes in the morning, look my last upon her in the afternoon, and leave her, without her knowing that I love her?" He asked himself the question, slowly, deliberately, leaning heavily on the study table. Then he stood erect, his head thrown back, his deep eyes shining, and answered the question with another. "Is there anything a man cannot do for the woman he loves?" said David Rivers. He went to the window, drew back the heavy rep curtains, unbarred the shutters, and looked out. There was, as yet, no sign of dawn, but through the frosty pane, right before him, as a lamp in the purple sky, shone the bright morning star. Cold though he was, stiff from his long night vigil, David threw up the window-sash, that he might see the star shine clearly, undimmed by frosty fronds, traced on the window-pane. He dropped on one knee, folding his arms upon the woodwork of the sill. "My God," he said, looking upward, his eyes on the morning star; "I thank Thee for light; I thank Thee for love; I thank Thee for the guiding star! I thank Thee, that heavenly love and earthly love can meet, in one bright radiant Ideal. I thank Thee that, expecting nothing in return, I love Diana!" CHAPTER XII SUSPENSE "You old flirt!" laughed Diana. "How many more hearts of men do you contemplate capturing, before you shuffle off this mortal coil? Chappie, you are a hardened old sinner! However, I suppose if one had committed matrimony three times already, one would feel able to continue doing so, with impunity, as many more times as circumstances allowed. Did poor old Dr. Dapperly actually propose?" Mrs. Marmaduke Vane smiled complacently, as she put a heaped-up spoonful of whipped cream into her coffee. "He made his meaning very clear, my dear Diana," she whispered hoarsely; "and he held my arm more tightly than was necessary, as he assisted me to the motor. He remarked that the front steps were slippery; but they were not. A liberal supply of gravel had been placed upon them." "Had he been having _much_ champagne?" asked Diana. "Oh, no, I remember! It was tea, not dinner. One does not require to hold on to people's arms tightly when going down steps with a liberal supply of gravel on them, after tea. Chappie dear, congratulations! I think it must be a case." "He made his meaning very clear," repeated Mrs. Vane, helping herself to omelet and mushrooms. "Isn't it rather hard on god-papa?" inquired Diana, her eyes dancing. "I have a great respect for Mr. Goldsworthy," whispered Mrs. Vane, solemnly; "and I should grieve to wound or to disappoint him. But you see--there was Sarah." "Ah, yes," said Diana; "of course; there was Sarah. And Sarah has god-papa well in hand." "She is an impertinent woman," said Mrs. Vane; "and requires keeping in her place." "Oh, what happened?" cried Diana. "Do tell me, Chappie dear!" But Mrs. Vane shook her head, rattling her bangles as she attacked a cold pheasant; and declined to tell "what happened." The morning sun shone brightly in through the oriel window of the pleasant breakfast-room, touching to gold Diana's shining hair, and causing the delicate tracery of frost to vanish quickly from the window-panes. Breakfast-time, that supreme test of health--mental and physical--always found Diana radiant. She delighted in the beginning of each new day. Her vigorous vitality, reinforced by the night's rest, brought her to breakfast in such overflowing spirits, that Mrs. Vane--who suffered from lassitude, and never felt "herself" until after luncheon--would often have found it a trying meal, had she not had the consolations of a bountiful table, and a boundless appetite. On this particular morning, however, a more observant person might have noted a restless anxiety underlying Diana's gaiety. She glanced often at the clock; looked through her pile of letters, but left them all unopened; gazed long and yearningly at the wide expanse of snowy park, and at the leafless arms of ancient spreading trees; drank several cups of strong coffee, and ate next to nothing. This was the day which would decide her fate. Before evening she would know whether this lovely and beloved home would remain hers, or whether she must lose all, and go out to face a life of comparative poverty. If David had taken the nine o'clock train he was now on his way to town, to consult Sir Deryck Brand. What would be Sir Deryck's opinion? She knew him for a man of many ideals, holding particularly exalted views of marriage and of the relation of man to woman. On the other hand, his judgment was clear and well-balanced; he abhorred morbidness of any kind; his view of the question would not be ecclesiastical; and his very genuine friendship for herself would hold a strong brief in her behalf. No two men could be more unlike one another than David Rivers and Deryck Brand. They were the two on earth of whom she held the highest opinion. She trusted both, and knew she might rely implicitly upon the faithful friendship of either. Yet her heart stood still, as she realised that her whole future hung upon the conclusion reached in the conversation to take place, that very morning, between these two men. She could almost see the consulting room in the doctor's house in Wimpole Street; the doctor's calm strong face, as he listened intently to David's statement of the case. There would be violets on the doctor's table; and his finger-tips would meet very exactly, as he leaned back in his revolving chair. David would look very thin and slight, in the large armchair, upholstered in dark green leather, which had contained so many anxious bodies, during the process of unfolding and revealing troubled minds. David would tie himself up in knots, during the conversation. He would cross one thin leg over the other, clasping the uppermost knee with long nervous fingers. The whiteness of his forehead would accentuate the beautiful wavy line of his thick black hair. Sir Deryck would see at once in his eyes that look of the mystic, the enthusiast; and Sir Deryck's commonsense would come down like a sledge-hammer! Ah, God grant it might come down like a sledge-hammer! Yet, if David had made up his mind, it would take more than a sledge-hammer to bend or to break it. Mrs. Vane passed her cup for more coffee, as she concluded a detailed account of all she had had for tea at Eversleigh, the day before. "And really, my dear Diana," she whispered, "if we could find out where to obtain those scones, it would give us just cause to look forward every day, to half-past four o'clock in the afternoon." "We _will_ find out," cried Diana, gaily. "Who would miss hours of daily anticipation for lack of a little judicious pumping of the households of our friends? We have but to instruct my maid to call upon their cook. The thing is as good as done! You may embark upon your pleasurable anticipations, Chappie.... If I were as stout as you, dear, I should take one spoonful of cream, rather than two.... But, as we are anticipating, tell me: What is to become of me, after I have duly been bridesmaid at your wedding? I shall have to advertise for a stately but _plain_ chaperon, who will not be snapped up by all the young sparks of the neighbourhood." Mrs. Marmaduke Vane's many chains and necklets tinkled with the upheaval of her delighted laughter. "Foo-foolish girl!" she whispered, spasmodically. "Why, of course, you must get married, too." "Not I, sir," laughed Diana. "You will not find me importing a lord and master into my own domain. My liberty is too dear unto me. And who but a Rivers, should reign at Riverscourt?" "Marry your cousin, child," whispered Mrs. Vane, hoarsely. "One of your silly objections to marriage is changing your name. Well--marry your cousin, child, and remain Diana Rivers." "Your advice is excellent, dear Chappie. But we must lose no time in laying your proposition before my cousin. He sails for Central Africa in ten days." "Gracious heavens!" cried Mrs. Vane, surprised out of her usual thick whisper. "I do not mean the thin missionary! I mean Rupert!" "Rupert, we have many times discussed and dismissed," said Diana. "The 'thin missionary,' as you very aptly call my cousin David, is quite a new proposition. The idea is excellent and appeals to me. Let us----" The butler stood at her elbow with a telegram on a salver. She took it; opened it, and read it swiftly. "No answer, Rodgers; but I will see Knox in the hall, in five minutes. Let us adjourn, my dear Chappie. I have a full morning before me; and, by your leave, I intend spending it in the seclusion of the library. We shall meet at luncheon." Diana moved swiftly across the hall, and stood in the recess of a bay window overlooking the park. She heard Mrs. Vane go panting and tinkling upstairs, and close the door of her boudoir. Then she drew David's message from the envelope, and read it again. "If convenient kindly send motor for me early this morning. Not going to town. Consultation unnecessary. Have decided." Diana screwed the paper and envelope into two little hard balls, between her strong white fingers. "_Have decided._" Those two words were rock impregnable, when said by David Rivers. No cannon of argument; no shrapnel of tears; no battery of promises or reproaches, would prevail against the stronghold of his will, if David Rivers had decided that he ought to refuse her request. It seemed to her that the words, "Consultation unnecessary," implied an adverse decision; because, had he come round to her view of the matter, he would have wished it confirmed by Sir Deryck's calm judgment; whereas, if he had made up his mind to refuse, owing to conscientious reasons, no contrary opinion, expressed by another, would serve to turn him from his own idea of right. Already Diana seemed to be looking her last, on her childhood's lovely and belovèd home. She turned from the window as her chauffeur stepped into the hall. "Knox," she said, "you will motor immediately to Brambledene, to fetch Mr. Rivers from the Rectory. He wishes to see me on a matter of business. His time is valuable; so do not lose a moment." The automaton in leather livery lifted his hand to his forehead in respectful salute; turned smartly on his heel, and disappeared through a swing-door. Five minutes later, Diana saw her Napier car flying down the avenue. And soon--she would be chasing after omnibuses, in the Euston Road. And grimy men, with no touch to their caps, would give her five dirty coppers for her sixpence; and a grubby ticket, with a hole punched in it. And David Rivers would be in Central Africa, educating savages. And it could have made no possible difference to him, to have stood beside her for a few minutes, in an empty church, and repeated a few words, entailing no after consequences; whereas to her---- Diana's beautiful white teeth bit into her lower lip. She had always been accustomed to men who did her bidding, without any "Why" or "Wherefore." Yet she could not feel angry with David Rivers. He and his Lord were so one in her mind. Whatever they decided must be right. As she crossed the hall, on her way to the staircase, she met the butler. "Rodgers," she said, "Mr. Rivers wishes to see me on business this morning. He will be here in about three quarters of an hour. When he arrives show him into the library, and see that we are not disturbed." Diana mounted the stairs. Every line of carving on the dark oak balustrades was dear and was familiar. The clear wintry sun shone through stained glass windows on the first landing, representing Rivers knights, in silver armour, leaning on their shields. One of these, with a red cross upon his breast, his plumed helmet held in his arm, his close-cropped dark head rising firm and strong above his corselet, was not unlike David Rivers. "Ah," said Diana, "if he had but cared a little! Not enough to make him troublesome; but just enough to make him glad to do this thing for me." CHAPTER XIII DAVID'S DECISION Diana found it quite impossible to await in the library, the return of the motor. She moved restlessly to and fro in her own bedroom, from the windows of which she could see far down the avenue. When at last her car came speeding through the trees, it seemed to her a swiftly approaching Nemesis, a relentless hurrying Fate, which she could neither delay nor avoid. It ran beneath the portico; paused for one moment; then glided away towards the garage. She had not seen David alight; but she knew he must now be in the house. She waited a few moments, then passed slowly down the stairs. Oh, lovely and belovèd home of childhood's days! * * * * * White and cold, yet striving bravely after complete self-control, Diana crossed the hall, and turned the handle of the library door. As she entered, David was standing with his back to her, looking up intently at the portrait of Falcon Rivers. He turned as he heard the door close, and came forward, a casual remark upon his lips, expressing the hope that it had not been inconvenient to send the motor so early--then saw Diana's face. Instantly he took her trembling hands in his, saying gently: "It is all right, Miss Rivers. I can do as you wish. I am quite clear about it, to-day. You must forgive me for not having been able to decide yesterday." Diana drew away her hands and clasped them upon her breast. Her eyes dilated. "David? Oh, David! You will? You will! You will----!" Her voice broke. She gazed at him, helplessly--dumbly. David's eyes, as he looked back into hers, were so calmly tender, that it somehow gave her the feeling of being a little child. His voice was very steadfast and unfaltering. He smiled reassuringly at Diana. "I hope to have the honour and privilege, Miss Rivers," he said, "of marrying you on the morning of the day I sail for Central Africa." Diana swayed, for one second; then recovered, and walked over to the mantel-piece. Not for nothing was she a descendant of those old knights in silver armour, in the window on the staircase. She leaned her arms upon the mantel-piece, and laid her head upon them. She stood thus quite still, and quite silent, fighting for self-control. David, waiting silently behind her, lifted his eyes from that bowed head, with its mass of golden hair, and encountered the keen quizzical look of the portrait above her. "_I shall win_," said Uncle Falcon silently to David, over Diana's bowed head. But David, who knew he was about to defeat Uncle Falcon's purpose utterly, looked back in silent defiance. The amber eyes twinkled beneath their shaggy brows. "_I shall win, young man_," said Uncle Falcon. Presently Diana lifted her head. Her lashes were wet, but the colour had returned to her cheeks. Her lips smiled, and her eyes grew softly bright. "David," she said, "you must think me _such_ a goose! But you can't possibly know what my home means to me; my home and--and everything. Do you know, when I read your telegram saying: 'Consultation unnecessary. Have decided,' I felt quite convinced you had decided that you could not do it; and, oh, David, I have left Riverscourt forever, a hundred times during this terrible hour! Really it would have been kinder to have said: 'I will marry you,' in the telegram." David smiled. "I am afraid that might have caused a good deal of comment at both post-offices," he said. "But I was a thoughtless ass not to have put in a clear indication as to which way the decision had gone." "Hush!" cried Diana, with uplifted finger. "Don't call yourself names, my dear David, before the person who is going to promise to honour and obey you!" Diana's spirits were rising rapidly. "Now sit down and tell me all about it. What made you feel you could do it? Why didn't you need to consult Sir Deryck? Did you come to a decision last night, or this morning? You will keep to it, David?" David sat down in an armchair opposite to Diana, who had flung herself into Uncle Falcon's. The portrait, hanging high above their heads, twinkled down on both of them. "_I shall win_," said Uncle Falcon. David did not "tie himself up in knots" to-day. He sat very still, looking at Diana with those calm steadfast eyes, which made her feel so young and inconsequential, and far removed from him. He looked ill and worn, but happy and at rest; and, as he talked, his face wore an expression she had often noted when, in preaching, he became carried away by his subject; a radiance, as of inner glory shining out; a look as of being detached from the world, and independent of all actual surroundings. "Undoubtedly I shall keep to it, Miss Rivers," he said, "unless, for any reason, you change your mind. And I saw light on the subject this morning." "Oh, then you 'slept on it,' as our old nurses used to say?" David smiled. "I never had an old nurse," he said. "My mother was my nurse." Diana did not notice that her question had been parried. "And what made you feel it right this morning?" she asked. David hesitated. "Light came--through--the Word," he said at last, slowly. "Ha!" cried Diana. "I felt sure you would look for it there. And I sat up nearly all night--I mean until midnight--searching my Bible and Prayer-book. But the only applicable thing I found was: 'I will not fail David.' It would have been more comforting to have found: 'David will not fail _me_!'" David laughed. "We shall not fail each other, Miss Rivers." "Why do you call me 'Miss Rivers'? It is quite absurd to do so, now we are engaged." "I do not call ladies by their Christian names, when I have known them only a few days," said David. "Not when you are going to marry them?" "I have not been going to marry them, before," replied David. "Oh, don't be tiresome, Cousin David! Are you determined to accentuate our unusual circumstances?" David's clear eyes met hers, and held them. "I think they require accentuating," he said, slowly. Diana's eyes fell before his. She felt reproved. She realised that in the reaction of her immense relief, she was taking the whole thing too lightly. "Cousin David," she said, humbly, "indeed I do realise the greatness of this that you are doing for me. It means so much; and yet it means so little. And just because it means so little, and never can mean more, it was difficult to you to feel it right to do it. Is not that so? Do you know, I think it would help me so much, if you would tell me exactly what seemed to you doubtful; and exactly what it was which dispelled that doubt." "My chief difficulty," replied David, speaking very slowly, without looking at Diana--"my chief difficulty was: that I could not consider it right, in the sight of God, to enter into matrimony for reasons other than those for which matrimony was ordained; and to do so, knowing that each distinctly understood that there was never to be any question of fulfilling any of the ordinary conditions and obligations of that sacred tie." David paused. "In fact," he said, after a few moments of deliberation, "we proposed marrying each other for the sake of other people." "Yes," cried Diana, eagerly; "your savages, and my tenantry. We wrong no one; we benefit many. Therefore--it _must_ be right." "Not so," resumed David, gently. "We are never justified in doing wrong in order that good may result. No amount of after good can justify one wrong or crooked action. It seemed to me that, according to the revealed mind and will of God, the only admissible considerations in marriage were those affecting the man and the woman, themselves; that to wed one another, entirely for the sake of benefiting other people, would make of that sacred act an impious unreality, and could not be done by those seeking to live in accordance with the Divine Will." Again David paused. "Well?" breathed Diana, rather wide-eyed and anxious. This undoubted impediment to her wishes, sounded insuperable. David heard the trepidation in her voice, and smiled at her, reassuringly. "Well," he said, "I was guided to a passage in the Word--a wonderful Old Testament story--which proved that, at all events in one case, God Himself had put out of consideration the man and the woman, their personal happiness, their home together, and had dealt with that wedded life in a manner which was solely to benefit a community of people. This one case was enough for me. It furnished the answer to all my questions; set at rest all my doubts. True, the case was unique. But so is ours. Undoubtedly it took place many centuries ago; but were not the Divine Law and Will, in their entirety, revealed in what we call 'olden days'? Biblical manners and customs may vary according to clime, century, or conditions; but Bible ethics are the same from Genesis to Revelation; they never vary throughout the centuries, and are therefore changeless for all time. I stand or fall by the Word of my God, revealed in Eden; just as confidently as I stand or fall by the Word of my God, spoken from the rainbow throne of Revelation; or, as it shall one day be spoken, from the great white throne, which is yet to come. It is the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever. I hold the Bible to be inspired from the first word to the last. Let one line go, and you may as well give up the whole. If men begin to pick and choose, the whole great book is swept into uncertainty. Either it is impregnable rock beneath our feet, or it is mere shifting sand of man's concoction and contrivance; in which case, where can essential certainties be found?" David's eyes shone. His voice rang, clarion clear in its assurance. He had forgotten Diana; he had forgotten himself; he had forgotten the vital question under discussion. Her anxious eyes recalled him. "Ah, where were we? Yes; the Divine ethics are unchangeable. We can say of our God: 'He is the Father of Lights, with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow that is cast by turning.' Therefore there is no shadow in the clear light which came to me last night--from above, I honestly believe. I may be wrong, Miss Rivers; a man can but act according to his conscientious convictions. I am convinced, to-day, that your suggestion is God's will for us, in order that we may be made a greater blessing to many. I believe I was guided to that passage so that it might dispel a doubt, which otherwise would certainly have remained an insurmountable obstacle in the way of the fulfilment of your wishes." "Who were the people?" asked Diana, eagerly. "Where was the passage?" David turned his head, and looked out of the window. He had expected this, but, until Diana actually put the question, he had postponed a definite decision as to what he should answer. He looked at the clear frosty sky. A slight wind was stirring the leafless branches of the beeches. He could see the powdery snow fall from them in glistening showers. He did not wish Diana to read that passage in Ezekiel. It seemed to him, she could not fail to know at once, that _she_ was the desire of his eyes, if she read it. This would dawn on her, as it had dawned on him--a sudden beam of blinding illumination--and there would be an end to any service he might otherwise have rendered her. "I would rather you did not read the passage," he said. "Much of it is not applicable. In fact, it required logical deduction, and reasoning by analogy, in order to arrive at the main point." "And do you not consider me capable of logical deduction, or of reasoning by analogy, Cousin David?" He flushed. "How stupidly I express myself. Of course I did not mean that. But--there are things in the story, Miss Rivers, I do not wish you to see." Diana laughed. "My good Cousin David, it is quite too late to begin shielding me! In fact I never have been the carefully guarded 'young person.' I have read heaps of naughty books, of which, I daresay, you have never even heard!" David winced. "Once more, I must have expressed myself badly," he said. "I will not try again. But you must forgive me if I still decline to give you the passage." "Very well. But I shall hunt until I find it," smiled Diana, in playful defiance. "Did you use a concordance last night, Cousin David? I did. I looked out 'David'--pages and pages of it! I wondered whether you were looking out 'Diana.'" He smiled. "I should only have found 'Diana of the Ephesians,'" he said; "and, though she fell mysteriously from heaven, she was quite unlike my Lady of Mystery." "Who arrived in a motor-car," laughed Diana. "Do you know, when you told me you had called me--that, I thought it quite the most funnily unsuitable name I had ever heard. I realised how the Hunt would roar if they knew." "You see," said David, "the Greek meaning of 'mystery' is: 'What is known only to the initiated.'" "And you were not yet initiated?" suggested Diana. "No," replied David. "The Hunt was not initiated." Diana looked at him keenly. Cousin David was proving less easy to understand than she had imagined. "Let us talk business," she said. "I will send for Mr. Inglestry this afternoon. How immensely relieved he will be! He can manage all legal details for us--the special license, and so forth. Of course we must be married in London; and I should like the wedding to be in St. Botolph's, that dear old church in Bishopsgate; because Saint Botolph is the patron saint of travellers, and that church is one where people go to pray for safe-keeping, before a voyage; or for absent friends who are travelling. I can return there to pray for you, whenever I am in town. So shall it be St. Botolph's, David?" "If you wish it," he said. "You see, we could not have the wedding here or at Brambledene. It would be such a nine days' wonder. We should never get through the crowds of people who would come to gaze at us. I don't intend to make any mystery of it. I shall send a notice of our engagement to the papers. But I shall say of the wedding: 'To take place shortly, owing to the early date already fixed for the departure of the Rev. David Rivers to Central Africa.' Then no one need know the exact day. Chappie and Mr. Inglestry can be our witnesses; and you might get Sir Deryck. What time does the boat start?" "In the afternoon, from Southampton. The special train leaves Waterloo at noon." "Capital!" cried Diana. "We can be married at half-past ten, and drive straight to the station, afterwards. There is sure to be a luncheon-car on the train. We can have our wedding-breakfast _en route_, and I can see you off from Southampton. I have always wanted to see over one of those big liners. I may see you off, mayn't I, Cousin David?" "If you wish," he said, gently. "I can send my own motor down to Southampton the day before, and it will be an easy run back home, from there. We can hire a car for the wedding. Wouldn't that be a good plan?" "Quite a good plan," agreed David. "God-papa shall marry us," said Diana; "and then I can make him leave out anything in the service I don't want to have read." David sat up instantly. "No," he said; "to that I cannot agree. Not one word must be omitted. If we are married according to the prescribed rules of our Church, we must not pick and choose as to what our Church shall say to us, as we humbly stand before her altar. I refuse to go through the service if a word is omitted." Diana's eyes flashed rebellion. "My dear Cousin David, have you read the wedding service?" "I know it by heart," said David Rivers. "Then you must surely know that it would simply make a farce of it, to read the whole, at such a wedding as ours." "Nothing can make a farce of a Church service," said David firmly. "We may make a sham of our own part in it; but every word the Church will say to us, will be right and true." "I _must_ have certain passages omitted," flashed Diana. "Very well," said David, quietly. "Then there can be no wedding." "David, you are unreasonable and obstinate!" David regarded her quietly, and made no answer. Diana's angry flush was suddenly modified by dimples. "Is this what people call finding one's master?" she inquired. "It is fortunate for our peace, dear Cousin, that we part on the wedding-day! I am accustomed to having my own way." David's eyes, as he looked into hers, were sad, yet tender. "The Church will require you, Miss Rivers, to promise to obey. Even your god-father will hardly go on with the ceremony, if you decline to repeat the word. I don't think I am a tyrant, or a particularly domineering person. But if, between the time we leave the church and the sailing of my boat, I should feel it necessary to ask you to do--or not to do--a thing, I shall expect you to obey." "Brute!" cried Diana. "I doubt if I shall venture so far as the station. Just to the church door, we might arrive, without a wrangle!" Then she sprang up, all smiles and sunshine. "Come, my lord and master! An it please you, I hear the luncheon-gong. Also the approach of Chappie, who responds to the call of the gong with a prompt and unhesitating obedience, which is more than wifely! Quick, my dear David, your hand.... Come in, Chappie! We want you to congratulate us! Your advice to me at breakfast appeared so excellent, that I have lost no time in following it. I have promised to marry my Cousin David, before he sails for Central Africa!" CHAPTER XIV THE EVE OF EPIPHANY It was the eve of the wedding-day. Diana lay back in an easy-chair in the sitting-room of the suite she always occupied at the Hotel Metropole, when in town. A cheerful fire blazed in the grate. Every electric light in the room--and there were many--was turned on. Even the little portable lamp on the writing-table, beneath its soft silken shade, illumined its own corner. Diana's present mood required a blaze of light everywhere. The gorgeous colouring, the rapid movement, the continual bustle and rush of life in a huge London hotel, exactly suited her just now; especially as the movement was noiseless, on the thick Persian carpets; and the rush went swiftly up and down, in silently rapid elevators. Within five days of her wedding, Diana had reached a point, when she could no longer stand the old oak staircase; the fatherly deportment of Rodgers; and meals alone with Mrs. Marmaduke Vane. Also David, pleading many pressing engagements in town, came no more to Riverscourt. So Diana had packed her chaperon and her maid into the motor; and flown up to London, to be near David. * * * * * There was, for Diana, a peculiar and indefinable happiness in the days that followed. It was so long since she had had anybody who, in some sort, really belonged to her. David, when once they had met again, proved more amenable to reason than Diana had dared to hope. He allowed himself to be taken about in the motor to his various appointments each day. He let Diana superintend his simple outfit; he even let her supplement it, where she considered necessary. He was certainly very meek, for a tyrant; and very humbly gentle, for a despotic lord and master. When he found Diana's heart was set upon it, he allowed her to pay for the elaborate medicine-chest he was taking out, and spent the money he had earned for this purpose, on the wedding-ring; and on a simple, yet beautiful, guard-ring. This, Diana wore already, upon the third finger of her left hand; a plain gold band, with just one diamond, cut star shape, inset. Round the inside of the ring, David had had engraved the three words: Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Diana, who quickly formed habits, had already got into the way of twisting this ring, with the diamond turned inwards, when anything tried or annoyed her. Rather often, during those few days, the stone was hidden from Mrs. Vane's complacent sight; but when David was with her, it always shone upon her hand. One afternoon, when they were out together, he mentioned, with pleasure, having secured a berth in the cabin he had had on the homeward voyage, on that same ship. "It will seem quite home-like," said David. "You have it to yourself?" inquired Diana. "Oh, no!" replied David. "Two other fellows will share it with me. A state-room all to myself, would be too palatial for a missionary." "But supposing the two other fellows are not the kind of people you like to be cooped up with at close quarters, during a long voyage?" "Oh, one chances that," replied David. "And it is always possible to make the best of the most adverse circumstances." Diana became suddenly anxious to be rid of David. At their next place of call, she arranged to leave him for twenty minutes. No sooner had David disappeared, than Diana ordered her chauffeur to speed to Cockspur Street. She swept into the office of the steamship company, asking for a plan of the boat, the manager of the booking department, the secretary of the company, and the captain of the ship, if he happened to be handy, all in a breath, and in so regal a manner, that she soon found herself in an inner sanctum, and in the presence of a supreme official. While there, after much consultation over a plan of the ship, she sat down and wrote a cheque for so large a sum, that she was bowed out to her motor by the great man, himself. "And mind," said Diana, turning in the doorway, "no mention of my name is to appear. It is to be done 'with the compliments of the Company.'" "Your instructions shall be implicitly obeyed, madam," said the supreme official, with a final bow. "Nice man," remarked Diana to herself, as the motor glided off into the whirl of traffic. "Now that is the kind of person it would be quite possible to marry, and live with, without ructions. No amount of training would ever induce David to bow and implicitly obey instructions." The ready dimples peeped out, as Diana leaned back, enjoying the narrow shaves by which her chauffeur escaped collisions all along Piccadilly. "'Between the time we leave the church, and the sailing of my boat ... I shall expect you to _obey_'," she whispered, in gleeful amusement. "Poor David! I wonder how he will behave between Waterloo and Southampton. And, oh, I wonder how _I_ shall behave! I am inclined to think it might be wise to let Chappie come with us." Diana's eyes danced. It never failed to provide her with infinite amusement, when her chaperon and David got on each other's nerves. "No, I won't do that," she decided, as they flew up Park Lane; "it would be cowardly. And he can't bully me much, in two hours and a half. Poor David!" So the days had passed, and the eve of the wedding had now arrived. David had refused to dine and spend the evening, pleading a promise of long standing to his friend, the doctor. But they had had tea together, an hour before; Mrs. Marmaduke Vane absorbing most of the conversation, and nearly all the tea cake; and David had risen and made his adieux, before Diana could think of any pretext for dismissing her chaperon. She would not now meet David again, until they stood together, on the following morning, at the chancel step of St. Botolph's Church. All preparations were complete; yet Diana was now awaiting something unforeseen and unexpected. David had not left the room ten minutes--Mrs. Vane was still discussing the perfectly appointed teas, the charming roseleaf china, and debating which frock-coated official in the office would be the correct person of whom to make inquiries concerning the particular brand of the marmalade--when the telephone-bell rang sharply; and Diana, going to the mantel-piece, took up the receiver. Mr. Inglestry was speaking from his club. He must see her at once, on a matter of importance. Mr. Ford, of the firm of Ford & Davis, of Riversmead, was with him, having brought up a sealed package to hand over to Miss Rivers in his--Mr. Inglestry's--presence. Would they find her at home and disengaged, if they called, in half an hour's time? "Certainly," said Diana, "I will be here." Adding, as an after-thought, before ringing off: "Mr. Inglestry! Are you there?--No, wait a minute, Central!--Mr. Inglestry! What is it about?" just for the fun of hearing old Inglestry sigh at the other end of the telephone and patiently explain once more that the package was sealed. There was no telephone at Riverscourt, and Diana found endless amusement in a place where she had one in her sitting-room, and one in her bedroom. She loved ringing people up, when Mrs. Vane was present; holding mysterious one-sided conversations, for the express purpose of exciting her chaperon's curiosity to a positively maddening extent. One evening she rang up David, and gave him a bad five minutes. She could say things into the telephone to David, which she could not possibly have said with his grave clear eyes upon her. And David always took you quite seriously, even at the other end of the telephone; which made it all the more amusing; especially with Chappie whispering hoarsely from the sofa; "My _dear_ Diana! What _can_ your Cousin David be saying!" when, as a matter of fact, poor Cousin David was merely gasping inarticulately, unable to make head or tail of Diana's remarks. * * * * * But now Diana waited; a query of perplexity on her brow. Mr. Ford was the young lawyer sent for in haste by Uncle Falcon, shortly before his death. What on earth was in the sealed package? All legal matters had gone forward smoothly, so far, in the experienced hands of Mr. Inglestry. In his presence, David had quietly acquiesced in all Diana wished, and in all Mr. Inglestry arranged. Settlements had been signed; Diana's regal gifts to David's work had been duly put into form and ratified. Only--once or twice, as David's eyes met his, the older man had surprised in them a look of suffering and of tragedy, which perplexed and haunted him. What further development lay before this unexpected solution to all difficulties, arranged so suddenly, at the eleventh hour, by his fair client? The old family lawyer was too wise to ask many questions, yet too shrewd not to foresee possible complications in this strange and unusual marriage. Of one thing, however, he was certain: David Rivers was a man to be trusted. CHAPTER XV THE CODICIL As the gilt clock on the mantel-piece hurriedly struck six, corroborated in the distance by the slow booming of Big Ben, a page boy knocked at Diana's sitting-room door, announcing two gentlemen waiting below, to see Miss Rivers. "Show them up," commanded Diana; and, rising, stood on the hearthrug to receive them. Mr. Inglestry entered, suave and fatherly, as usual; followed by a dark young man, who, hat in hand, looked with nervous admiration at the tall girl in green velvet, standing straight and slim, with her back to the fire. She shook hands with Mr. Inglestry, who presented Mr. Ford, of the firm of Ford & Davis, of Riversmead. "Well?" said Diana. She did not sit down herself, nor did she offer a chair to Mr. Ford, of the firm of Ford & Davis, of Riversmead. A gleam of sudden anger had come into her eyes at sight of the young man. She evidently intended to arrive at once at the reason for this unexpected interview. So Mr. Ford presented a sealed envelope to Diana. "Under private instructions, Miss Rivers," he said, with a somewhat pompous air of importance; "under private instructions, from your uncle, the late Mr. Falcon Rivers, of Riverscourt, I am to deliver this envelope unopened into your hands, in the presence of Mr. Inglestry, on the eve of your marriage; or, should no marriage previously have taken place, on the eve of the anniversary of the death of your late uncle." Diana took the envelope, and read the endorsement in her uncle's characteristic and unmistakable handwriting. "So I see," she said. "And furthermore, if you carry out these instructions, and deliver this envelope at the right time, and in every respect in the manner arranged, payment of fifty guineas is to be made to you, out of the estate, for so doing. Also, I see I am instructed to open this envelope in the presence of Mr. Inglestry alone. Well, you have exactly carried out your instructions, Mr. Ford, and no doubt Mr. Inglestry will see that you receive your fee. Good-evening." "Wait for me downstairs, Ford," said Mr. Inglestry, nervously. "You will find papers in the reading-room. Miss Rivers is naturally anxious to acquaint herself with the contents of this package." Mr. Ford, of the firm of Ford & Davis, of Riversmead, bowed himself out of the room. He afterwards described Miss Rivers, of Riverscourt, as "a haughty young woman; but handsome as they make 'em!" Alone with her old friend and adviser, Diana turned to him, impetuously. "What is the meaning of this?" she inquired, wrath and indignation in her voice. "Why did my uncle instruct that greasy young man to intrude upon me with a sealed letter from himself, a year after his death?" "Open it, my dear; open it and see," counselled Mr. Inglestry, removing his glasses and polishing them with a silk pocket-handkerchief. "Sit down quietly, and open it. And it is not prudent to allude to Mr. Ford as 'greasy,' when the door has barely closed upon him. I cannot conceive what Mr. Ford has done, to bring upon himself your evident displeasure." "Done!" cried Diana. "Why I knew him the moment he entered the room! He had the impudence, the other day, to join the hunt on a hired hack, and to ride in among the hounds, while they were picking up the scent. Of all the undesirable bounders----" "My dear young lady," implored Mr. Inglestry, "do lower your voice. Mr. Ford is probably still upon the--the, ah--mat. He is merely the bearer of your uncle's missive. I do beg of you to turn your thoughts from offences in the hunting-field, and to give your attention to the matter in hand." "Well, shoo him off the mat," said Diana, "and hustle him into the lift! I decline to receive letters from a person who comes into the room heralded by hair-oil.... All right! Don't look so distressed. Sit down in this comfy chair, and we will see what surprise Uncle Falcon has prepared for us. Really, when one comes to think of it, a letter from a person who has been dead a year is a rather wonderful thing to receive." Diana seated herself on the sofa, after pushing forward an armchair for the old lawyer. Then, in the full blaze of the electric light, she opened the sealed envelope, and drew out a letter addressed to herself, in her uncle's own handwriting. A folded paper from within it, fell unheeded on her lap. She read the letter aloud to Mr. Inglestry. As she read her grey eyes widened; her colour came and went; but her voice did not falter. And this was Uncle Falcon's letter: "MY DEAR NIECE: "If Ford does his duty--and most men do their duty for fifty guineas--you will be reading these words either on the eve of your wedding-day, or on the eve of the day on which you will be preparing to leave Riverscourt, and to give up all that which, since my death, has been your own. "Feeling sure that I was right, my dear Diana, in our many arguments, and that I have won in the contest of our wills, I would bet a good deal--if betting is allowed in the other world--that you are reading this on the eve of your wedding-day--am I right, Inglestry, old chap?--having found a man who will soon teach you that wifehood and motherhood and dependence on the stronger sex are a woman's true vocation, and her best chance of real happiness in life. "If so, look up, honestly, and say: 'Uncle Falcon, you have won'; and I hereby forgive Inglestry all his fuss and bluster, and you, the obstinacy of years--and may Heaven bless the wedding-day. "But--ah, there's a 'but' in all things human! Perhaps the world where I shall be, when you are reading these lines, is the only place where buts cease to be, and where all things go straight on to fulfilment. "But--your happiness, my own dear girl, is of too much real importance for me to risk it, on the possible chance of the right man not having turned up; or of you--true Rivers that you are--proving obstinate to the end. "Therefore--enclosed herewith you will find a later codicil than that known to you and Inglestry, duly witnessed by Ford and his clerk, nullifying the other, and leaving you my entire property as stated in my will, subject to no conditions whatsoever. "Thus, my dear Diana, if you are on the eve of preparing to leave Riverscourt, you may unpack your trunks, and stay there, with your uncle's love and blessing. It is all your own. "Or--but knowing you as I do, I hardly think this likely--if you are on the eve of making a marriage which is not one of love, and which is causing you in prospect distress and unhappiness--why, break it off, child, and send the man packing. If he is marrying you for your money, he deserves the lesson; and if he loves you for your splendid self, why he is not much of a man if he has been engaged to such a girl as my niece Diana, without having been able to win her, before the eve of the wedding-day! "Anyway, you now have a free hand, child; and if my whim of testing fate for you with the first codicil, has put you in a tight place, old Inglestry will see you through, and you must forgive your departed uncle, who loves you more than you ever knew, "FALCON RIVERS." Diana dropped the letter, flung herself down on the sofa cushions, and burst into a passion of weeping. Mr. Inglestry, helpless and dismayed, took off his glasses and polished them with his silk pocket-handkerchief; put them on again; leaned forward and patted Diana's shoulder; even ventured to stroke her shining hair, repeating, hurriedly: "It can all be arranged, my dear. I beg of you not to upset yourself. It can all be arranged." Then he picked up the codicil, and examined it carefully. It was correct in every detail. It simply nullified the private codicil, and confirmed the original will. "It can all be arranged, my dear," he repeated, laying a fatherly hand on Diana's heaving shoulder. "Do not upset yourself over this unfortunate marriage complication. I will undertake----" "It is not that!" cried Diana, sitting up, and pushing back her rumpled hair. "Oh, you unimaginative old thing! Can't you understand? All these months it has been so hard to have to think that Uncle Falcon's love for me had really been worth so little, that, in order to prove himself right on one silly point, he could treat me as he did in that cruel codicil. He could not have foreseen the simply miraculous way in which Providence and my Cousin David were coming to my rescue, at the eleventh hour. Otherwise it must have meant, either a hateful marriage, or the loss of home, and money, and everything I hold most dear. But by far the worst loss of all was to lose faith in the truest love I had ever known. In my whole life, no love had ever seemed to me so true, so faithful, so completely to be trusted, as Uncle Falcon's. To have lost my belief in it, was beginning to make of me a hard and a bitter woman. That codicil was costing me more than home and income. And now it turns out to have been merely a test--a risky test, indeed! Think if either of us had told Rupert of it, before the time specified; or if I had been going to marry Rupert or any other worldly-minded man, who would have made endless trouble over being jilted! But--dear old thing! He didn't think of that. He was so sure his plan would lead to my making a happy marriage, notwithstanding my prejudices and my principles. He was wrong, of course. But the main point brought out by this second codicil is: that he really cared. I can forgive him all the rest, now I know that Uncle Falcon loved me too well really to risk spoiling my life." Diana dried her eyes; then raised her head, snuffing the air with the keenness of one of her own splendid hounds. "Oh, Mr. Inglestry," she said; "do go and see if that person is still on the mat! I have been talking at the top of my voice, and I believe I scent hair-oil!" The old lawyer tiptoed to the door, opened it cautiously, and looked up and down the brightly lighted corridor. From the distance came the constant clang of the closing of the elevator gates, and the sharp ting of electric bells. He shut the door, and returned to his seat. Diana was reading the codicil. "I wonder why he called in that Ford creature," she said. "Why did he not intrust this envelope to you?" "My dear," suggested Mr. Inglestry, "knowing my affection for you, knowing how deeply I have your interests at heart, your uncle may have feared that, if I saw you in much perplexity, in great distress of mind over the matter, I might have let fall some hint--have given you some indication----" "Why, of course!" said Diana. "Think how you would have caught it to-day, if you hadn't. You would have been much more afraid of me, on earth, than of Uncle Falcon, in heaven!" Mr. Inglestry lifted his hand in mute protest; then took off his glasses, and polished them. The remarks of Miss Rivers were so apt to be perplexing and unanswerable. "Let us leave that question, my dear young lady," he said. "Your uncle adopted a remarkably shrewd course for attaining the end he desired. Meanwhile, it remains for us to deal with the present situation. I advise that we send immediately for your cousin, David Rivers. Of course this marriage of--of convenience, need not now take place." Diana looked straight at the old lawyer for a few moments, in blank silence. She turned the ring upon her finger, so that the diamond was hidden. Then she said, slowly: "You suggest that we send for David Rivers, and tell him that--this second codicil having turned up--we shall not, after all, require his services: that he may sail for Central Africa to-morrow, without going through the marriage ceremony with me?" "Just so," said Mr. Inglestry, "just so." Something in Diana's eyes arresting further inspiration, he repeated rather nervously: "Just so." "Well, I absolutely decline to do anything of the kind," flashed Diana. "Think of the intolerable humiliation to David! After overcoming his own doubts in the matter; after disposing of his first conscientious scruples; after making up his mind to go through with this for my sake, and being so faithful about it. After all the papers we have signed, and the arrangements we have made! To be sent for, and calmly told his services are no longer required! Besides--though I don't propose to be much to him, I know--I am all he has in the world. He will sail to-morrow feeling that at least there is one person on this earth who belongs to him, and to whom he belongs; one person to whom he can write freely, and who cares to know of his joys or sorrows; his successes or failures. Poor boy! Could I possibly, to avoid a little bother to myself, rob him of this? I--who owe him more than I can ever express? Besides, he could never--after such a slight on my part--accept the money I am giving to his work. In fact, I doubt if he would accept so much, even now, were it not that he believes I owe my whole fortune to the fact of his marriage with me." Diana turned the ring again; and the diamond shone like a star on her hand. "No, Mr. Inglestry," she said, with decision. "The marriage will take place to-morrow, as arranged; and my Cousin David must never know of this new codicil." The lawyer looked doubtful and dissatisfied. "The fact of the codicil remains," he said. "Your whole property is now safely your own, subject to no conditions whatever. You have nothing to gain by this marriage with your cousin; you might--eventually--have serious cause to regret the loss of liberty it will entail. I do not consider that we are justified in allowing the ceremony to take place without informing him of the complete change of circumstances, and acquainting him with the existence of this second codicil." "Very well," said Diana. With a sudden movement, she rose to her feet, whirled round on the hearthrug, tore the codicil to fragments, and flung them into the flames. "There!" she cried, towering over the astonished little lawyer in the large armchair. "Now, no second codicil exists! I can still keep my restored faith in the love of Uncle Falcon; but I shall owe my home, my fortune, and all I possess, to my husband, David Rivers." CHAPTER XVI IN OLD ST. BOTOLPH'S At twenty minutes past ten, on the morning of the Feast of Epiphany, David Rivers stood in the empty church of St Botolph's, Bishopsgate, awaiting his bride. Perhaps no man ever came to his wedding looking less like a bridegroom than did David Rivers. Diana had scorned the suggestion, first mooted by Mrs. Marmaduke Vane, of clerical broadcloth of more fashionable cut, to be worn by David for this one occasion. "Rubbish, my dear Chappie!" had said Diana. "You are just the sort of person who would marry the clothes, without giving much thought to the man inside them. _I_ don't propose to be in white satin; so why should David be in broadcloth? I shall not be crowned with orange-blossom, so why should David go to the expense of an unnecessary topper? He could hardly wear it out, among his savages in Central Africa. They might get hold of it; make of it a fetish; and, eventually, build for it a little shrine, and worship it. An article might then be written for a missionary magazine, entitled: 'The Apotheosis of the silk top-hat of the Rev. David Rivers!' I shall not wear a train, so why should David appear in a long coat. Have a new one for the occasion, David, because undoubtedly this little friend, though dear, is an _old_ friend. But keep to your favourite cut. You would alarm me in tails or clerical skirts, even more than you do already." So David on his wedding morning looked, quite simply, what he really was: the young enthusiast, to whom outward appearance meant little or nothing, just ready to start on his journey to Central Africa. His friend, the doctor, with whom David had spent his last night in England, might, with his frock coat, lavender tie, and buttonhole, easily have been mistaken for the bridegroom, as the two stood together in the chancel of St. Botolph's. "I cannot be your best man, old boy," Sir Deryck had said, "because, years ago, I did, myself, the best thing a man can do. But I will come to your wedding, and see you through, if it is really to take place at half-past ten in the morning, and if I may be off immediately afterwards. You are marrying a splendid girl, old chap. I only wish she were going with you to Ugonduma. Yet, I admit, you are doing the right thing in refusing to let her face the dangers and hardships of such life and travel. Only--David, old man--if you want any married life at all, you must be back within the year. With this unexpected attraction drawing you to England and home, you will hardly keep to your former resolution, or remain for longer in that deadly climate." David had smiled, bravely, and gripped the doctor's hand. "I must see how the work goes on," he said; and prayed to be forgiven the evasion. Mr. Goldsworthy was robing in the vestry, and kept peeping out, in order to make his entry into the chancel just before Diana's arrival. There could not, under the circumstances, be much processioning in connection with this wedding; but, what there was should be dignified, and might as well be effectively timed. Mr. Goldsworthy had passed through some strenuous moments in the vestry with David, over the question of omissions or non-omissions from the wedding service. He knew Diana's point of view; in fact he had received private instructions from his god-daughter to bully David into submission--"just as Sarah bullies you, you know, god-papa." He knew Sarah's methods of bullying, quite well; but felt doubtful about applying them to David. In fact, when the question came up, and the moment for bullying had arrived, he turned his attention to buttoning his cassock, and meekly agreed to David's firmly expressed ultimatum. You cannot button a cassock--a somewhat tight cassock--(why do cassocks display so inconvenient a tendency to grow tighter each week?) and at the same time satisfactorily discuss a difficult ecclesiastical point (why do ecclesiastical points become more and more involved every year?) with a very determined young man. This should be his excuse to Diana for failing to bully David into submission. In his heart of hearts he knew the younger man was right. He himself had grown slack about these matters. It was years since he had repeated the creed of Saint Athanasius. It had a tendency to make him so breathless. When David had recited it on Christmas morning, the congregation had not known where to find it in the prayer-book; and Mr. Churchwarden Smith had written the absent Rector an indignant letter accusing David of popery. He was glad to remember that, in his reply, though feeling very unequal to letter-writing, he had fully justified his locum-tenens. The clock struck the half-hour. Mr. Goldsworthy peeped out again. David and the doctor were walking quietly about in the chancel, examining the quaint oak carvings. At that moment they stood, with their backs to the body of the church, studying the lectern. David did not need to watch for the arrival of Diana. He knew Mrs. Marmaduke Vane was to enter first, with Mr. Inglestry. Diana had told him she should walk up the church alone. As yet, beside the usual church officials, Sarah Dolman was the only person present. Sarah, having a married niece in town, who could put her up for the night, had insisted upon attending the wedding of her dear Miss Diana and that "blessed young gentleman," of whom the worst that could be said, in Sarah's estimation, appeared to be: that it was a pity there was not more of him! She was early at the church, "to get a good place"; and had shifted her seat several times, before David arrived. In fact she tried so many pews, that the careful woman always on duty as verger at St. Botolph's, began to look upon her with suspicion. Sarah had feared she would not succeed in catching David's eye; but David had seen her directly he came into the chancel. He had also noticed, in Sarah's bonnet, the exact counterpart of Mrs. Churchwarden Smith's red feather. He knew at once how much this meant, because Sarah had told him that she only "went to beads." Often, in the lonely times to come, when David chanced to see a gaily plumaged bird, in the great forests of Ugonduma, he thought of Sarah's bonnet, and the red feather worn in honour of his wedding. He now went straight down the church, and shook the good woman by the hand: "Which was beyond m' proudest dreams," Sarah always explained in telling the story afterwards. "Hullo, Sarah! How delightful of you to come; and how nice you look!" Then as he felt Sarah's white cotton glove still warmly clasping his own hand, he remembered the Christmas card. David possessed that priceless knack of always remembering the things people expected him to remember. "Sarah," he said, glancing down at their clasped hands, "you should have brought me a buttonhole of forget-me-nots." Sarah released his hand, and held up an impressive cotton finger. "Ah, Mr. Rivers, sir," she said; "I knew you would say that. But who could 'a' thought that card of mine would ha' bin prophetic!" "Prophetic?" repeated David, quite at a loss. "The turtle-doves," whispered Sarah, with a wink, infinitely romantic and suggestive. Then David understood. He and Diana were the pair of turtle-doves, flying above the forget-me-nots, united by a festoon of ribbon, held in either beak. At first he shook with silent laughter. Good old Sarah, with her prophetic card! He and Diana were the turtle-doves! How it would amuse Diana! Then a sharp pang smote him. Tragedy and comedy moved on either side of David, as he walked back to the chancel. He and Diana were the turtle-doves. Soon after the half-hour, a stir and bustle occurred at the bottom of the church. Mrs. Marmaduke Vane entered, on the arm of Mr. Inglestry. The dapper little lawyer was completely overshadowed by the large and portly person of Diana's chaperon. She tinkled and rustled up the church, all chains, and bangles, and nodding plumes. She seemed to be bowing right and left to the empty pews. Mr. Inglestry put her into the front seat on the left, just below the quaintly carved lectern; then went himself to the vestry for a word with Mr. Goldsworthy. Sarah, from her pew on the opposite side, glared at Mrs. Marmaduke Vane. The glories of her own new bonnet and crimson feather had suffered eclipse. Yet--though the nodding purple plumes opposite seemed to beckon him--she marked, with satisfaction, that David did not even glance in their direction. She--Sarah--had had a hand-shake from the bridegroom. Mrs. Marmaduke Vane, in all her grandeur, had failed to catch his eye. Truth to tell, no sooner did David become aware of the arrival of Diana's chaperon and of her lawyer, who were, he knew, accompanying her, than he ceased to have eyes for any one or anything save for the place where she herself would presently appear. He took up his position alone, at the chancel step, slightly to the right; and, standing sideways to the altar, fixed his eyes upon the distant entrance at the bottom of the church. Suddenly, from the organ-loft above it, where the golden pipes and carved wood casing stand so quaintly on either side of a stained-glass window, there wafted down the softest, sweetest strains of tender harmony. A musician, with the touch and soul of a true artist, was playing a lovely setting of David's own, to "Lead, kindly Light." This was a surprise of Diana's. Diana loved arranging artistic surprises. In his astonishment and delight at hearing so unexpected and so beautiful a rendering of his own theme, David lifted his eyes for a moment to the organ-loft. During that moment the door must have opened and closed without making any sound, for, when he dropped his eyes once more to the entrance, there, at the bottom of the church, pausing--as if uncertain whether to advance or to retreat--was standing his Lady of Mystery. David's heart stood still. He had been watching for Diana--that bewildering compound of sweetness and torment, for whose sake he had undertaken to do this thing--and here was his own dear Lady of Mystery, the personification of softness and of silence, waiting irresolute at the bottom of this great London church, just as she had waited in the little church at Brambledene, on that Sunday evening, seven weeks ago. How far Diana consciously intended to appear thus to David, it would be difficult to say; but she purposely wore in every detail just what she had been wearing on the Sunday evening when he saw her first; and possibly the remembrance of that evening, now also strongly in her own mind, accounted for her seeming once more to be enveloped in that atmosphere of soft, silent detachment from the outer world, which had led David to call her his Lady of Mystery. In a swift flash of self-revelation, David realised, more clearly than before, that he had loved this girl he was now going to marry, ever since he first saw her, standing as she now stood--tall, graceful, irresolute; uncertain whether to advance or to retreat. Down the full length of that dimly lighted church, David's look met the hesitating sweetness of those soft grey eyes; met, and held them. Then--as if the deep earnestness of his gaze drew her to him, she moved slowly and softly up the church to take her place beside him. The fragrance of violets came with her. She seemed wafted to him, in the dim light, by the melody of his own organ music: "Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom; lead Thou me on." David's senses reeled. He turned to the altar, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his Lady of Mystery stood at his side, and the opening words of the marriage service broke the silence of the empty church. CHAPTER XVII DIANA'S READJUSTMENT Diana had waited a minute or two in the motor, in order to allow time for the entrance and seating of Mrs. Vane; also, Mr. Inglestry was to give the signal to the musician at the organ. Even after she had left the motor, and walked down the stone paving, leading from Bishopsgate to the main entrance of St. Botolph's, she paused, watching the sparrows and pigeons at the fountain, in the garden enclosure--now very bare and leafless--opposite the church. Here she waited until she heard the strains of organ music within. Then she pushed open the door, and entered. Once inside, a sudden feeling of awe and hesitancy overwhelmed Diana. There seemed an unusual brooding sense of sanctity about this old church. All light, which entered there, filtered devoutly through some sacred scene, and still bore upon its beams the apostle's halo, the Virgin's robe, or the radiance of transfiguration glory. The shock of contrast, as Diana passed from the noise and whirl of Bishopsgate's busy traffic into this silent waiting atmosphere of stained glass, old oak carving, and the sheen of the distant altar, held her senses for a moment in abeyance. Then she took in every detail: Mr. Goldsworthy peeping from the vestry, catching sight of her, and immediately proceeding within the communion rails, and kneeling at the table; Mrs. Vane and Mr. Inglestry on one side of the church; Sarah and Sir Deryck, in different pews, on the other. Lastly, she saw David, and the place at his side which awaited her; David, looking very slim and youthful, standing with his left hand plunged deep into the pocket of his short coat--a boyish attitude he often unconsciously adopted in moments of nervous strain. Slight and boyish he looked in figure; but the intellectual strength and spiritual power in the thin face had never been more apparent to Diana than at this moment, as he stood with his head slightly thrown back, awaiting her advance. Then a complete mental readjustment came to Diana. How could she go through with this marriage, for which she herself had worked and schemed? It suddenly stood revealed as a thing so much more sacred, so far more holy, so infinitely deeper in its significance, than she had ever realised. She knew, now, why David had felt it impossible, at first, for any reasons save the one paramount cause--the reverent seeking of the Church's sanction and blessing upon the union of two people who needed one another utterly. Had she loved David--had David loved her--she could have moved swiftly to his side, without a shade of hesitancy. As it was, her feet seemed to refuse to carry her one step forward. Then Diana realised that had this ceremony been about to take place in order that the benefits accruing to her under her uncle's will should remain hers, she must, at that moment, have fled back to the motor, bidding the chauffeur drive off--anywhere, anywhere--where she would never see St. Botolph's church again, or look upon the face of David Rivers. But, by the happenings of the previous evening, the conditions were changed--ah, thank God, they were changed! David still thought he was doing this for her; but she knew she was doing it for him. He believed he gave her all. She knew he actually gave her nothing, save this honest desire to give her all. And, in return, she could give him much:--not herself--_that_ he did not want--but much, oh, much! All this passed through Diana's mind, in those few moments of paralysing indecision, while she stood, startled and unnerved, beneath the gallery. Then, as her eyes grew more accustomed to the dim light, David's look reached her--reached her, and called her to his side. And down from the organ-loft wafted the prayer for all uncertain souls: "Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom; lead Thou--lead Thou--lead Thou me on." With this prayer on her lips, and her eyes held by the summons in David's, Diana moved up the church, and took her place at his side. No word of the service penetrated her consciousness, until she heard her god-father's voice inquire, in confidential tones: "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" No one replied. Apparently no one took the responsibility of giving her to David, to whom she did not really give herself. But in the silence of the slight pause following the question, Uncle Falcon's voice said, with startling clearness, in her ear: "_Diana--I have won_." This inarticulate sentence seemed to Diana the clearest thing in the whole of that service. She often wondered afterwards why all actual spoken words had held so little conscious meaning. She could recall the strong clasp of David's hand, and when his voice, steadfast yet quiet, said: "I will," she looked at him and smiled; simply because his voice seemed the only real and natural thing in the whole service. When they walked up the chancel together, and knelt at the altar rail, she raised her eyes to the pictured presentment of the crucified Christ; but there was something too painful to be borne, in the agony of that suffering form as pictured there. "Myrrh!" cried her troubled heart; "myrrh, was _His_ final offering. Must gold and frankincense always culminate in myrrh?" * * * * * In the vestry, Sir Deryck Brand was the first to offer well-expressed congratulations. But, after the signing of the registers, as he took her hand in his in bidding her farewell, he said with quiet emphasis: "I have told your husband, Mrs. Rivers, that he must come home within the year." Diana, at a loss what to answer, turned to David. "Do you hear that, David?" "Yes," said David, gently; "I hear." As they passed out together, her hand resting lightly on David's arm, Diana looked up and saw above the organ gallery, between the golden pipes, the beautiful stained-glass window, representing the Infant Christ brought by His mother to the temple, and taken into the arms of the agèd Simeon. "Oh, look, David," whispered Diana; "I like this window better than the others. It does not give us our Wise Men from the East, but it gives us the new-born King. Do you see Him in the arms of Simeon?" David lifted his eyes; and suddenly she saw the light of a great joy dawn in them. "Yes," he said, "yes. And do you remember what Simeon said?" They had reached the threshold of St. Botolph's. Diana took her hand from his coat sleeve; and, pausing a moment, looked into his face. "What did he say, David?" "Lord, _now_ lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace," replied David, quietly. "And what have you just remembered, David, which has filled your face with glory?" "That this afternoon, I start for Central Africa," replied David Rivers, as he put his bride into the motor. CHAPTER XVIII DAVID'S NUNC DIMITTIS The doctor was responsible for Diana's shyness during the drive from St. Botolph's to Waterloo. He had said: "I have told your husband, Mrs. Rivers." This was unlike Sir Deryck's usual tact. It seemed so impossible that that dream-like service had transformed her from _Miss_ Rivers, into _Mrs._ Rivers; and it was so very much calling "a spade a spade," to speak of David as "your husband." The only thing which as yet stood out clearly to Diana in the whole service, was David's resolute "I will"; and the essential part of David's "I will," in his own mind, and therefore of course in hers, appeared to be: "I will go at once to Central Africa; and I will start for that distant spot in four hours' time!" Diana took herself instantly to task for the pang she had experienced at sight of the sudden flash of intense relief in David's eyes, as he quoted the Nunc Dimittis. That he should "depart" on the wedding-day, had been an indispensable factor in the making of her plan; and, that he should depart "in peace," untroubled by the fact that he was leaving her, was surely a cause for thanksgiving, rather than for regret. Diana, who prided herself upon being far removed from all ordinary feminine weaknesses and failings, now rated herself scornfully for the utter unreasonableness of feeling hurt at David's very obvious relief over the prospect of a speedy departure, now he had faithfully fulfilled the letter of the undertaking between them. He had generously done as she had asked, at the cost of much preliminary heart-searching and perplexity; yet she, whose express stipulation had been that he should go, now grudged the ease with which he was going, and would have had him a little sad--a little sorry. "Oh," cried Diana, giving herself a mental shake, "it is unreasonable; it is odious; it is like an ordinary woman! I don't want the poor boy to stay, so why should I want him to regret going? How perfectly natural that he should be relieved that this complicated time is over; and how glad _I_ ought to be, that whatever else connected with me he has found difficult, at all events he finds it easy to leave me! Any mild regrets would spoil the whole thing, and reduce us to the level of an ordinary couple. Sir Deryck's remark in the vestry was most untactful. No wonder it has had the immediate effect of making us both realise with relief that, excepting in outward seeming, we each leave the church as free as when we entered it." Yet, undoubtedly David _was_ now her husband; and as Diana sat silently beside him, she felt as an experienced fighter might feel, who had handed over all his weapons to the enemy. What advantage would David take, of this new condition of things, during the four hours which remained to him? She felt defenceless. Diana plunged both her hands into her muff. If David took one of them, there was no knowing what might happen next. She remembered the compelling power of his eyes, as they drew her up the church, to take her place at his side. How would she feel, what would she do, if he turned and looked so, at her--now? But David appeared to be quite intent on the sights of London, eagerly looking his last upon each well-known spot. "I am glad this is a hired motor," he said, "and not your own chauffeur. This fellow does not drive so rapidly. One gets a chance to look out of the window. Ah, here is the Bank of England. I have never felt much interest in that. But I like seeing the Royal Exchange, because of the Prince Consort's text on the marble slab, high up in the centre of its façade." They were held up for a moment in the stream of cross-traffic. "My father pointed it out to me when I was a very little chap," continued David. "I really must see it again, for the last time." He leaned forward to look up through the window on her side of the motor. His arm rested for a moment against Diana's knee. "Yes, there it is, in golden letters, on the marble slab! 'The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.' Wasn't it a grand idea? That those words should dominate this wonderful centre of the world's commerce, wealth, and enterprise. As if so great, so mighty, so influential a nation as our own, upon whose glorious flag the sun never sets, is yet humbly proud to look up and inscribe, in letters of gold, upon the very pinnacle of her supremacy: '_The earth is the Lord's!_' All this wealth, all this power; these noble colonies, this world-encircling influence, may be mine; but--'_The earth is the Lord's_.'" David's eyes glowed. "I am glad I have seen it once more. It is not so clear as when, holding tightly to my father's hand, I first looked up and saw it, twenty-two years ago. The letters are tarnished. If I were a rich man, I should like to have them regilt." "You _are_ a rich man," said Diana, smiling, "and it shall be done, David, if private enterprise is allowed the privilege." "Ah, thanks," said David. "That would really please me. You must write and say whether it proved possible. Sometimes when alone, in the utter silence of our great expanse of jungle and forest, I like to picture the rush and rumble, the perpetual movement of this very heart of our grand old London, going on--on--on, all the time. It is my final farewell to it, to-day. Ah, here is the Mansion House. On the day my old dad showed me the Royal Exchange, we also saw the Lord Mayor's show. I remember I was much impressed. I fully intended then to be Lord Mayor, one day! I always used to imagine myself as being every important personage I admired." "You remind me," said Diana, "of a very great man of whom it has been said that he never enjoys a wedding, because he cannot be the bride; and that he hates attending funerals, because he cannot be the corpse." David laughed. "A clever skit on an undoubted trait," he said; "but that trait makes for greatness. All who climb high see themselves at the top of the tree, long before they get there." Then suddenly he remarked: "There won't be any éclat about _my_ funeral. It will be a very simple affair; just a stowing away of the worn-out suit of clothes, under a great giant tree in our silent forests." "Please don't be nasty," said Diana; and, though the words were abrupt, there was such a note of pain in her voice, that David turned and looked at her. There was also pain in her sweet grey eyes. David put out his hand, impulsively, and laid it on Diana's muff. "You must not mind the thought," he said. "We know it has to come; and I want you to get used to it, just as I have done. To me it only seems like a future plan for a quite easy journey; only there's a lot to be done first. Oh, I say! The Thames. May I tell the man to go along the Embankment, and over Westminster Bridge? I should like a last sight of the Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben; and, best of all, of Westminster Abbey." David leaned out of the window, and directed the chauffeur. Diana slipped her hands out of her muff. They passed the royal statue of England's great and belovèd Queen. David leaned forward and saluted. "The memory of the Just is blessèd," he said. "I always like to realise how truly the Royal Psalm applies to our Queen Victoria. 'Thou gavest him a long life; even forever and ever.' She lives on forever in the hearts of her people. This--is true immortality!" Diana removed her gloves, and looked at the bright new wedding-ring, encircling the third finger of her left hand. David glanced at it also, and looked away. "Good-bye, old Metropole!" he said, as they sped past Northumberland Avenue. "We have had some jolly times there. Ah, here is the Abbey! I must set my watch by Big Ben." "Would you like to stop, and go into the Abbey?" suggested Diana. "We have time." "No, I think not," said David. "I made my final adieu to English cathedrals at Winchester, last Monday. And I had such a surprise and pleasure there. Nothing the Abbey could provide would equal it." "What was that?" asked Diana, and her hand stole very near to David's. David folded his arms across his breast, and turned to her with delight in his eyes. "Why, the day before you came to town, I went down to Winchester to say good-bye to some very old friends. Before leaving that beautiful city I went into the cathedral, and there I found--what do you think? A side-chapel called the Chapel of the Epiphany, with a stained-glass window representing the Wise Men opening their treasures and offering their gifts to the Infant Saviour." "Were there three Wise Men?" asked Diana. For some reason, her lips were trembling. David smiled. "Yes, there were three. Mrs. Churchwarden Smith would have considered her opinion triumphantly vindicated. But, do you know, that little chapel was such a holy place. I knelt there and prayed that I might live to see the completion and consecration of our 'Church of the Holy Star.'" Diana drew on her gloves, and slipped her hands back into her muff. "Where did you kneel, David? I will make a pilgrimage to Canterbury, and kneel there too." "It wasn't Canterbury," said David gently. "It was Winchester. I knelt at the altar rail; right in the middle." "I will go there," said Diana. "And I will kneel where you knelt, David." "Do," said David, simply. "That little chapel meant a lot to me." They had turned out of York Road, and plunged into the dark subway leading up to the main station at Waterloo. Diana lifted her muff to her lips, and looked at David over it, with starry eyes. "Shall you remember sometimes, David, when you are so far away, that I am making pilgrimages, and doing these things which you have done?" "Of course I shall," said David. "Why, here we are; with plenty of time to spare." He saw Diana to their reserved compartment in the boat train; then went off to the cloak-room to find his luggage. Before long they were gliding out of Waterloo Station, and David Rivers had looked his last on London; and had bidden a silent farewell to all for which London stands, to the heart of every true-born Englishman. CHAPTER XIX DAVID STUDIES THE SCENERY The railway journey passed with surprising ease and swiftness. David's unusually high spirits were perhaps responsible for this. To Diana it seemed that their positions were suddenly and unaccountably reversed. David led, and she followed. David set the tone of the conversation; and, as he chose that it should be gay and bantering, Diana found it impossible to strike the personal and pathetic note, bordering on the intimate and romantic, which she, somehow, now felt suitable to the occasion. So they had a merry wedding-breakfast in the dining-car; and laughed much over the fact that they had left Mrs. Marmaduke Vane, with two strings to her bow--Diana's godfather, and Diana's lawyer. "Both are old flames of Chappie's," explained Diana. "She will be between two fires. But I am inclined to think Sarah's presence will quench god-papa's ardour. In which case, Mr. Inglestry will carry Chappie off to luncheon, and will probably dance attendance upon her during the remainder of the day. After which, even if he does not actually propose, I shall have to hear the oft-told tale: 'He made his meaning very clear, my dear Diana.' How clever all these old boys must be, to be perpetually 'making their meaning clear' to Chappie, which, I admit, must be a fascinating occupation, and yet remaining triumphantly unwed! Chappie does not return home until to-morrow. David--I shall be quite alone at Riverscourt to-night." "Oh, look at the undulating line of those distant hills!" cried David, polishing the window with his table-napkin. "And the gorse in bloom, on this glorious common. It seems a waste to look for a moment on one's plate, while passing, for the last time, through beautiful England. Even in winter this scenery is lovely, gentle, home-like. I don't want to miss the sight of one cosy farmhouse, leafless orchard, nestling village, or old church tower. All upon which I am now looking, will be memory's treasured picture-gallery to visit eagerly in the long months to come." Apparently there were to be only landscapes in David's picture gallery. Portraits, however lovely, were not admitted. A very lovely face was opposite to him at the little table. A firm white chin rested thoughtfully in the rounded palm of the hand on which gleamed his golden wedding-ring. Soft grey eyes, half-veiled by drooping lids and long dark lashes, looked wistfully, earnestly, at the thin lines of his strong eager face. Diana was striving to imprint upon her memory a portrait of David, which should not fade. But David polished the window at intervals with his table-napkin, and assiduously studied Hampshire orchards, and frost-covered fields and gardens. * * * * * Back in their own compartment, within an hour of Southampton, Diana made a desperate attempt to arrive at a clear understanding about the rapidly approaching future--those two years, possibly three, while they would be husband and wife, yet on different sides of the globe. She was sitting beside David, who occupied the corner seat, facing the engine, on her left. Diana had been seated in the corner opposite to him; but had crossed over, in order to sit beside him; and now asked him, on pretext of being dazzled, to draw down the blinds on his side of the compartment. David complied at once, shutting out the pale wintry sunlight; which, pale though it was, yet made a golden glory of Diana's hair. Thus excluded from his refuge in the leafless orchards, David launched into a graphic description of the difficulties and adventure of African travel. "You see," he was saying, "the jungle grasses grow to such a height that it becomes almost impossible to force one's way through them; and they make equally good cover for wild beasts, or mosquitoes"--when Diana laid her hand upon his coat sleeve. Either the sleeve was thick, or David was dense--or both. The account of African swamps continued, with increased animation. "As soon as the wet season is over, the natives fire the grass all around their villages; and then wild beasts get no cover for close approach; shooting becomes possible, and the women can get down to the river to fetch water, or into the forests to cut firewood. The burning kills millions of mosquitoes, makes it possible to go out in safety, and to shoot game. When the grass is high, mosquitoes are rampant, and game impossible to view. Before the burning was done round my place, last year, I found a hippopotamus in my flower garden, when I came down to breakfast one morning. He had danced a cake-walk among my oleanders, which was a trial, because oleanders bloom gloriously all the year round when once they get a hold." Suddenly Diana turned upon him, took his right hand between both hers, and caught it to her, impulsively. "David," she said, "do you consider it right in our last hour together, completely to ignore the person you have just married?" David's startled face showed very white against the green window-blind. "I--I was not ignoring you," he stammered, "I was telling you about----" "Oh, I know!" cried Diana, uncontrollable pain in her voice, and the look of a wounded leopard in her eyes, "Bother your tall grasses, and your oleanders, and your hippopotamus!" Then more gently, but still holding his hand pressed against her velvet coat: "Oh, don't let's quarrel, David! I don't want to be horrid! But we can't ignore the fact that we were married this morning; and you are wasting the only time left to us, in which to discuss our future." David gently drew away his hand, folded his arms across his breast, leaned back in his corner, and looked at Diana, with that expression of patient tenderness which always had the effect of making her feel absurdly young, and far removed from him. "Have we not said all there is to say about it?" he asked, gently. "No, silly, we have not!" cried Diana, furiously. "Oh, how glad I am that you are going to Central Africa!" David's face whitened to a terrible pallor. "There is nothing new in that," he said, speaking very low. "It has been understood all along." "Oh, David, forgive me," cried Diana. "I did not mean to say anything unkind. But I am so miserable and unhappy; and if you say another word about Hampshire scenery or African travel, I shall either swear and break the windows, or fall upon your shoulder and weep. Either course would involve you in an unpleasant predicament. So, for your own sake, help me, David." David's earnest eyes searched her face. "How can I help you?" he asked, his deep voice vibrating with an intensity which assured Diana of having gained at last his full attention. "What has made you miserable?" "Our wedding-service," replied Diana, with tears in her voice. "It meant so much more than I had ever dreamed it possibly could mean." Then a look leapt into David's eyes such as Diana had never seen in mortal eyes, before. "How?" he said; the one word holding so much of question, of amazement, of hope, of suspense, that its utterance seemed to arrest the train; to stop the beating of both their hearts; to stay the universe a breathing space; while he looked, with a world of agonised hope and yearning, into those sweet grey eyes, brimming over with tears. Perhaps the tears blinded them to the meaning of the look in David's. Anyway, his sudden "How?" bursting as a bomb-shell into the silent railway-carriage, only brought an expression of startled surprise, to add to the trouble in Diana's sweet face. David pulled himself together. "How?" he asked again, more gently; while the train, the hearts, and the universe went on once more. "Oh, I don't know," said Diana, with a little break in her voice. "I think I realised suddenly, how much it might mean between two people who really cared for one another--I mean really _loved_--for we do 'care'; don't we, Cousin David?" "Yes, we do care," said David, gently. "I want you to talk to me about it; because the service was so much more solemn than I had expected; I have never been at any but flippant weddings--what?... Oh, yes, weddings are often 'flippant,' Cousin David. But ours was not. And I am so afraid, after you are gone, it will come back and haunt me. I want you to tell me, quite plainly, how little it _really_ meant; although it seemed to mean so appallingly much." David laid his hand gently on hers, as it lay upon her muff, and the restless working of her fingers ceased. "It meant no more," he said, quietly, "than we intended it should mean. It meant nothing which could cause you distress or trouble. All was quite clear between us, beforehand; was it not? That service meant for you--your home, your fortune, your position in the county, your influence for good; deliverance from undesired suitors; and--I hope--a friend you can trust--though far away--until death takes him--farther." He kept his hand lightly on hers, and Diana's mind grew restful. She laid her other hand over his. She was so afraid he would take it away. "Oh, go on David," she said. "I feel better." "You must not let it haunt you when I am gone," continued David. "You urged me to do this thing, for a given reason; and, when once I felt convinced we were not wrong in doing it, I went through with it, as I had promised you I would. There was nothing in that to frighten or to distress you. We could not help it that the service was so wonderful. That was partly your fault," added David, with a gentle smile, "for providing organ music, and for choosing to impersonate my Lady of Mystery." Diana considered this. Then: "Oh, I am so comforted, Cousin David," she said. "I was so horribly afraid it had--somehow--meant more than I wanted it to mean." "How could it have meant more than you wanted it to mean?" "I don't know. I begin to think Uncle Falcon was right, when he called me ignorant and inexperienced." David laughed. "Oh, you mustn't begin to give in to Uncle Falcon," he said. "And to-day, of all days, when our campaign has succeeded, and we have defeated him. You can go into the library this evening, look Uncle Falcon full in the eyes, and say: 'Uncle Falcon, _I_ have won!'" "Can I?" said Diana, doubtfully. "I am a little bit afraid of Uncle Falcon. I could, if you were there, Cousin David." David tried to withdraw his hand; but the hand lying lightly upon it immediately tightened. "Are you _sure_ I shan't be haunted after you are gone?" asked Diana, with eyes that searched his face. "Not by me," smiled David. "Of course not. But by the service?" "Are any special words troubling you?" he asked, gently. "Goodness, no!" cried Diana. "I realised nothing clearly excepting 'I will,' when you said it. I haven't a ghost of a notion what I promised." "Then if you haven't a ghost--" began David. "Oh, don't joke about it," implored Diana. "I am really in earnest. I was horribly afraid; and I did not know of what. I began to think I should be obliged to ask you to put off, and to go by a later boat." "Why?" "So as to have you here, to tell me it had not meant more than we intended it should mean." Diana took off her large hat, and threw it on to the seat opposite. Then she rested her head against the cushion, close to David's. "Oh, this is so restful," she sighed; "and I am so comforted and happy! Do let's stop arguing." "We are not arguing," said David. "Oh, then let's stop _not_ arguing!" She lifted his hand and her muff together, holding them closer to her. "Let's sit quite still, David, and realise that the whole thing is safely over, and we are none the worse for it; and have got all we wanted in the world." David said nothing. He had stopped "not arguing." * * * * * The train sped onward. A sense of complete calm and rest came over the two who sat silent in their compartment, moving so rapidly toward the moment of inevitable parting. Diana's head was so near to David's that a loose strand of her soft hair blew against his face. She let her muff drop, but still held his hand to her breast. She closed her eyes, sitting so still that David thought she had fallen asleep. At length, without stirring, she said: "We shall write to each other, Cousin David?" "If you wish." "Of course I wish. Will you promise to tell me exactly how you are?" "I never speak, think, or write, about my own health." "Tiresome boy! Do you call this 'obeying' me?" "I did not promise to obey you." "Oh, no; I forgot. How wickedly one-sided the marriage service is! That is one reason why I always declared I never would marry. One law for the man, and another for the woman; and in a civilized country! We might as well be Hottentots! And what a slur on a woman to have to change her name--often for the worse. I knew a Miss Pound who married a Mr. Penny." David did not laugh. He had caught sight of the distant ships on Southampton water. "Everybody made endless puns on the wedding-day," continued Diana. "I should have been in such a rage before the reception was over, had I been the bride, that no one would have dared come near me. It got on her nerves, poor girl; and when some one asked her just as they were starting whether she was going to take care of the Penny and leave the Pounds to take care of themselves, she burst into tears, and drove away, amid showers of rice, weeping! I think Mr. Penny must have felt rather 'cheap'; don't you? Well, anyway, I have kept my own name." "You have taken mine," said David, with his eyes on the masts and funnels. "How funny it will seem to get letters addressed: _Mrs. David Rivers_. If my friends put D only, it might stand for 'Diana.' David--" she turned her head suddenly, without lifting it, and her soft eyes looked full into his dark ones--"David, what shall you call me, when you write? I am no longer _Miss Rivers_, and you can hardly begin your letters: _My dear Mrs. Rivers_! That would be too formal, even for you! At last you will _have_ to call me 'Diana.'" David smiled. "Not necessarily," he said. "In fact, I know how I shall begin my letters; and I shall not call you 'Diana.'" "What then?" she asked; and her lips were very close to his. David sat up, and touched the springs of the window-blind. "I will tell you, as we say good-bye; not before. Look! We are running through Southampton. We shall be at the quay in two minutes." CHAPTER XX WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE COMPANY Diana followed David up the gangway of the big liner, and looked around with intense interest at the floating hotel he was to inhabit during so many days; the vessel which was to bear him away to the land from which he never intended to return. Diana experienced an exhilarating excitement as she and David stepped on board, amid a bustling crowd of other passengers and their friends; the former already beginning to eye one another with interest; the latter, to follow with wistful gaze those from whom they would so soon be parted. Diana had left the train, at the dock station, with very different sensations from those with which she had entered it at Waterloo. She now felt so indescribably happy and at rest; so completely reassured as to the future. David had been so tender and understanding, so perfect in all he had said and done, when once she had succeeded in making him realise how much more their new relationship meant to her, than it did to him. He had so patiently allowed her to hold his hand, during the remainder of the journey. She could feel it still, where she had pressed it against her bosom. It seemed to her that she would always feel it there, in any time of doubt or of difficulty. It must be because of David's essential goodness, that his touch possessed such soothing power. The moment he had laid his hand on hers, she had thought of the last verse of his favourite hymn. Her car, sent down from town the day before, to be in readiness to take her home, awaited her as near the gangway of the steamer as the regulations of the wharf would allow. It was comforting to know that there would not be the need for a train journey, after David's departure. It might have seemed lonely without him. Once safely tucked into her motor, she was at home, no matter how long the run to Riverscourt might chance to be. David caught sight of the car; and she had to stand, an amused spectator, while he ran quickly down to say good-bye to her footman and to her chauffeur. She saw the wooden stiffness of the footman, and the iron impassivity of the chauffeur, subside into humanity, as David shook them each by the hand, with a kindly word of remembrance and farewell. Both automata, for the moment, became men. Diana could see the glow on their faces, as they looked after David. Had he tipped them each a five-pound note, they would have touched their hats, without a change of feature. In the warmth of this farewell, they forgot to touch their hats; but David had touched their hearts, which was better; and their love went with him, as he boarded the steamer. This little episode was so characteristic of David. Diana thought it over, with tender amusement in her eyes, as she followed him up the gangway. Wherever he went he won the hearts of those who served him. He found out their names, their joys and sorrows, their hopes and histories, with astonishing rapidity. "I cannot stand the plan of calling people by their occupation," he used to say. "Like the crude British matron in the French hotel, who addressed the first man she met in a green apron, as 'Bottines!'" So "Boots," "Waiter," and "Ostler," became "Tom," "Dick," and "Harry," to David, wherever he went; and while other people were served by machines, for so much a day, he was hailed by men, and waited on with affection. And he, who never forgot a face, also had the knack of never forgetting the name appertaining to that face, nor the time and circumstance in which he had previously come in contact with it. Diana soon had evidence of this as they boarded the liner, on which David had already travelled. On all sides, impassive faces suddenly brightened into smiles of welcome; and David's "Hullo, Jim!" or "Still on board, Harry?" would be met with: "Glad to see you looking better, Mr. Rivers"; or "We heard you was a-coming, sir." David, who had left love behind, found love awaiting him. Opposite the purser's office, he hesitated, and turned to Diana. "Where would you like to go?" he said. "We have nearly an hour." "I want to see over the whole ship," said Diana. "But first of all, of course, your cabin." David looked pleased, and led the way down to a lower deck, and along a narrow passage, with doors on either side. At number 24 he stopped. "Here we are," he said, cheerfully. Diana entered a small cabin, already choked with luggage. It contained three berths. On two of them were deposited rugs, hand-bags, and men's cloth caps. A lower one was empty. Several portmanteaux blocked the middle of the small room. David followed her in, and looked around. "Hullo!" he said. "Where is my baggage? Apparently it has not turned up. This is my bunk, right enough." "What a squash!" exclaimed Diana. Before David could reply, a steward put his head in at the door. "Well, Martin," said David, "I'm back in my old quarters, you see. I am glad you are still on duty down this passage." The man saluted, and came in with an air of importance. "Glad to see you, sir, I'm sure; and looking a deal better than when you came home, sir. But I'm not to have the pleasure of waiting on you this time, Mr. Rivers. The purser gave orders that I was to hand you this, as soon as you arrived." He handed David a letter, addressed to himself. David tore it open, glanced at it; then turned to Diana, his face aglow with surprise and pleasure. "I say!" he exclaimed. "They ask me to accept better accommodation, 'with the compliments of the company.' Well, I've heard of such a thing happening to actors, public singers, and authors; but this is the first time I have known it happen to a missionary! Where is number 74, Martin?" "On the promenade deck, sir; nicely midship. Allow me to show you." Martin led the way. David, full of excitement, pleasure, and surprise, followed, with Diana. Diana took it very quietly--this astonishing attention of the company's. But her eyes shone like stars. Diana loved seeing people have surprises. Number 74 proved to be a large airy state-room for three; but only one lower berth was made up. David was in sole possession. It contained an easy chair, a wardrobe, a writing table, a movable electric lamp, and was so spacious, that David's baggage, standing in one corner, looked quite lost, and took up practically no room. "A private bathroom is attached, sir," explained Martin, indicating a side door; "and a mate of mine is looking forward to waiting on you, sir. I'm right sorry not to have you in 24, but glad to see you in more roomy quarters, Mr. Rivers." "Oh, I say!" exclaimed David, boyishly, as Martin retired, closing the door. "They've actually given me an eighty guinea state-room, all to myself! Heaven send there's no mistake! 'With the compliments of the company!' Think what that means!" "Will it add very much to your comfort, David?" asked Diana, innocently. "Comfort?" cried David. "Why it's a palace! And just think of being to oneself--and an armchair! Four electric lights in the ceiling"--David turned them all on--"and this jolly little reading lamp to move about. I shall be able to read in my bunk. And two big windows. Oh, I say! I shall feel I ought to invite two other fellows in. It is too sumptuous for a missionary!" "No, you mustn't do that, David," said Diana. "It would be too disappointing to--to the company. Look upon it as an offering of gold and frankincense, and do not rob the giver of the privilege of having offered the gift. Promise me, David." "Of course I promise," he said. "I am too absolutely thankfully grateful, to demur for a moment, about accepting it. Only, it _is_ a bit overwhelming." "Now trot me all over the ship," commanded Diana. "And then let us return here, to say good-bye." CHAPTER XXI "ALL ASHORE!" It had not taken long to see over the liner. Diana had flown about, from dining-saloon to hurricane-deck, in feverish haste to be back in number 74, in order to have a few quiet moments alone with David. They were back there, now; and ten minutes remained before the sounding of the gong, warning friends to leave the ship. "Sit in your easy chair, David," commanded Diana; "I shall like to be able to picture you there." She moved about the room, examining everything; giving little touches here and there. She paused at the berth. "What a queer little place to sleep in!" she said; and laid her hand, for a moment, on the pillow. Then she poured water into one of the tumblers, placed it on the writing table, took the Parma violets from her breast and from her muff, and arranged them in the tumbler. "Put a little pinch of salt into the water, David, when you come up from dinner, and they will soon revive; and serve, for a few days, to remind you of me! I am never without violets; as you may have noticed." She hung up his coat and hat. "I wish I could unpack for you," she said. "This cosy little room makes me feel quite domesticated. I never felt domesticated, before; and I am doubtful whether the feeling would last many minutes. But how jolly it all is! I believe I should love a voyage on a liner. Don't be surprised if I turn up one day, and call on you in Ugonduma." "You must not do that," said David. "What fun it would be to arrive in the little garden, where the hippopotamuses dance their morning cake walk; pass up the path, between the oleanders; ring the bell--I suppose there is a bell?--and send in my card: _Mrs. David Rivers_! Tableau! Poor David! It would be so impossible to say: 'Not at home' in Ugonduma, especially to _Mrs. David Rivers_! The butler--are there butlers?--would be bound to show me in. It would be more astonishing than the hippopotamus! though less destructive to the oleanders! Oh, why am I so flippant!--David, I must see Martin's mate. I want to talk to him about taking proper care of you. Will he come if I ring this bell?... Oh, all right. But I am perfectly certain that while you are finding out how many children he has, and whether they have all had measles, he will fail to notice your most obvious wants." Diana took off her hat, and laid it on the writing table. Then she came and knelt beside the arm of David's chair. "David," she said, "before I go, will you give me your blessing, as you did on the night when you led me to the feet of the King?" David stood up; but he did not lay his hands on that bowed head. "Let us kneel together," he said, "and together let us ask, that our mistakes--if any--may be overruled; that our sins may be forgiven; that we may remain true to our highest ideals; and that--whether in life or by death--we may glorify our King, and be faithful followers of the Star." * * * * * The gong, following closely on the final words of David's prayer, crashed and clanged through the ship; booming out, to all concerned, the knell of inevitable parting. Diana rose in silence, put on her hat, took a final look round the room; then, together, they passed out, and moved toward the gangway, down which the friends of passengers were already hurrying, calling back, as they went, final words of farewell. Near the gangway Diana paused, and turned to David. "You are sure all the dates and addresses you have given me are right?" she said. David smiled. "Quite sure. I would not risk losing one of your letters." "You do care that I should write?" "I count on it," replied David. "And you will write to me?" "Undoubtedly I will." "Quite soon?" "I will begin a letter to-morrow, and tell you whether Martin's mate has any children; and, if so, whether they have had the measles." "It would be more to the point to tell me whether he takes proper care of you. David--I wish you were not going!" A look leapt into David's eyes as of a drowning man sinking for the third and last time, who suddenly sees a rope dangling almost within his reach. "Why?" "I don't know. It seems so far. Are you sure you are quite well? Why are you so ghastly white?" "Quite well," smiled David. "We cannot all have Mrs. Vane's fine colour. Bid her good-bye for me." All who were going, seemed to have gone. The gangway was empty. Passengers crowded to the side of the ship, waving in tearful silence, or gaily shouting last words, to friends lined up on the dock. "All ashore!" shouted the sailor in charge of the gangway, looking at Diana. She moved toward it, slowly; David at her side. "Look here," said David, speaking hurriedly; "I should hate to watch you standing alone in that crowd, while we slowly pull out into mid-stream. Don't do it. Don't wait to see us go. I would so much rather you went straight to your car. It is just within sight. I shall see William arrange the rug, and shut you in. I shall be able to watch you actually safely on your way to Riverscourt; which will be much better than gradually losing sight of you in the midst of a crowd of strange faces. You don't know how long-drawn-out these dock partings are. Will you--will you do as I ask?" "Why of course, I will, David," she said. "It is the only thing you have bidden me do since I promised to obey." Her lips trembled. "I hate saying good-bye, David. And you really look ill. I wish I had insisted on seeing Martin's mate." "I'm all right," said David, with dry lips. "Don't you worry." "All ashore!" remarked the sailor, confidentially, in their direction. Diana placed one foot on the gangway; then turned, and put her hand into David's. "Good-bye, David," said Diana. His deep eyes looked hungrily into her face--one last long earnest look. Then he loosed her hand, and bent over her, as she began to descend the gangway. "Good-bye--_my wife_"--said David Rivers. CHAPTER XXII DIANA WINS The steady hum, and rapid onward rush, of the motor were a physical relief to Diana, after the continuous strain of the happenings of that eventful day. She lay back, watching the flying houses, hedges, trees, and meadows,--and allowed every nerve to relax. She felt so thankful it was all over, and that she was going home--alone. She felt very much as she had felt on her return to Riverscourt after Uncle Falcon's funeral. It had been such a relief then to be returning to a perfectly normal house, where every-day life could be resumed as usual. She had realised with thankfulness that the blinds would be up once more. There would be no hushed and silent room, which must be passed with reverent step, and bated breath, because of the awesome unnaturalness of the Thing which lay within. She had lost Uncle Falcon on the night of his death. The day of the funeral involved no further loss. It simply brought relief from a time of unnatural strain and tension. This shrinking of Life from Death, is the strongest verification of the statement of Holy Scripture, that death came by sin. The redeemed soul in its pure radiance has gone on to fuller life. "The body is dead, because of sin." All that is left behind is "sinful flesh." Death lays a relentless hand on this, claiming it as his due. Change and decay set in; and even the tenderest mourning heart has to welcome the coffin lid, grateful to kind Mother Earth for receiving and hiding that which--once so precious--has now become a burden. Happy they who, standing at the open grave, can appropriate and realise the great resurrection message: "He is not here! He is risen!" Diana shifted her seat in the bounding car, drawing the rugs more closely around her. Why was her mind dwelling thus on death and funerals, on the afternoon of her wedding-day? How wonderful it was that this should actually be her wedding-day; and yet that she should still be Diana Rivers of Riverscourt, returning alone to her own domain, free and unfettered. How well her plan had succeeded; and what an unexpected touch of pure romance had been added thereto, by the fact that, after all, she had, at the last, done for David's sake, that which he thought he was doing for hers. There was a selflessness about the motives of both, in this marriage, which made it fragrant with the sublimest essence of frankincense. Surely only good and blessing could ensue. Diana contemplated with satisfaction the additional prestige and assurance given to her position in the neighbourhood, by the fact that she could now take her place in society as a married woman. How much hateful gossip would be silenced forever; how many insolent expectations would be disappointed; how many prudish criticisms and censorious remarks would have to whisper themselves into shame-faced silence. Diana looked forward with gleeful amusement to answering the astonished questions of her many friends. How perfectly she had vindicated the line she had always taken up. Here she was, safely established, with all a married woman's privileges, and none of her odious obligations. The old frumps, whom it was amusing to shock, would be more shocked than ever; while the younger spirits, who acclaimed her already, would hail her more loudly than ever: "Diana! Victress! Queen!" And all this she undoubtedly owed to David, who had made her his---- Then suddenly she found herself confronted by that which, ever since the motor started, she had been fighting resolutely into her mental background; a quiet retrospection of the moment of her parting with David. Brought face to face with it, by the chance mention of one word, Diana at once--giving up fencing with side issues, past and future--turned and faced this problem of the present. Brave at all times, she was not a coward when alone. She took off her hat, rested her head against the soft springiness of the padded back of her motor; closed her eyes, and pressed both hands tightly against her breast. David had said: "Good-bye, my wife." It was the name he meant to use in all his letters. "Good-bye, _my wife_." * * * * * It now seemed to Diana that the happenings of that whole day had been moving toward that culminating moment, when David's deep tender voice should call her his wife; yet he had not done so, until only a narrow shifting plank, on which her feet already stood, lay between them, and a last earthly farewell. Diana had sped down the gangway; and when her feet touched the wharf she had fled to her car, without looking back; knowing that if she looked back, and saw David's earnest eyes watching her from the top, his boyish figure standing, slim and erect--she would have turned and rushed back up the gangway, caught his hand to her breast, and asked him to say those words again. And, if David had called her his wife again--in that tone which made all things sway and reel around her, and fortune, home, friends, position seem as nothing to the fact that she was _that_ to him--she could never have let go his hand again. They must have remained forever on the same side of the gangway; either she sailing with David to Central Africa, or David returning with her to Riverscourt. Yet she did not want to go to Africa; and she certainly did not want David at Riverscourt! Her whole plan of life was to reign supreme in her own possessions, mistress of her home, mistress of her time, and, most important of all, mistress of herself. Then what was the meaning of this strange disturbance in the hitherto unruffled calm of her inner being? What angel had come down, on lightning wing, to trouble the still waters of her deepest self? Diana was confronted by that most illusive of psychological problems, the solving of the mystery of a woman's heart--and she possessed no key thereto. Her knowledge of the world, her advanced ideas, her indiscriminate reading, had not supplied her with the golden key, which lies in the fact of the utter surrender of a noble woman, to the mighty love, and the infinite need, of a strong, good, man. She had chosen to go home alone. She had preferred this parting of the ways. Then why was it so desperately sweet to recall David's voice saying: "Good-bye, _my wife_"? Why did nothing still this strange aching at her breast, save the remembrance of the touch of his hand, as she had pressed it against her? She would have stopped the motor and bidden her man race back to the wharf, on the chance of having a last sight of David, standing on the deck of the liner, had he not bidden her go at once, without delay; so that, in thus going, she was rendering him the one act of obedience possible, in their brief wedded life. * * * * * The wintry sun soon set behind the Hampshire hills. The primrose of the sky faded into purple twilight; twilight was quickly merged in chilly darkness. The car paused a moment for the kindling of its huge acetylene lamps; then rushed onward, more rapidly than before. Diana sat on in shadow. One touch of a button would have flooded the interior of her motor with light; but she preferred the quiet darkness. In it she could better hear her husband's voice, and see the gleam of his deep earnest eyes. "Good-bye, my wife--my wife--my wife--. Good-bye, my wife!" * * * * * Diana must have fallen asleep. The opening of the door of the motor roused her. William had turned on the lights, lifted out the rug, and stood with it flung over his arm, waiting for her to step out. Half dazed, she took up her hat and smoothed her tumbled hair. She glanced at the seat beside her, almost expecting to see David. Then she remembered, and quickly stepped out of the motor. The great doors of Riverscourt stood wide. A ruddy light from the blazing log fire in the hall, streamed out over the newly fallen snow. Old Rodgers, deferential, yet very consciously paternal, his hands shaking with suppressed excitement, stood just within. The housekeeper, expectant and alert, a bow of white satin ribbon in a prominent position in her cap, waited at the foot of the wide oak staircase. The poodle, his tufts tied up with white ribbon, moved forward to greet his mistress; then advanced gravely into the portico, and inspected the empty motor. The poodle's heart was in the grave of Uncle Falcon. Weddings did not interest him. But the non-arrival of the bridegroom--who had once, with a lack of discrimination quite remarkable, even in a human being, mistaken him for Mrs. Marmaduke Vane--seemed a fact which required verification and investigation. The poodle returned, smiling, from his inspection of the empty interior of the motor. He had not paid much attention to the lengthy discussions in the servants' hall. But this much he knew. Old Rodgers had won his bet. The housekeeper would have to pay. This pleased the poodle, who resented the fact that the housekeeper had first trimmed her own cap, and then tied him up with the remnants;--adding to this obvious slight, a callous disregard of his known preference for green or crimson, where the colour of his bows was concerned. As Diana entered the house, the old clock in the hall began to strike six; distant Westminster chimes sounded from an upper landing; an unseen cuckoo jerked out its note six times, then slammed its door; while the old clock, measured and sonorous, refusing to be either hurried or interrupted, slowly finished its six strokes. Diana flung her cloak to Rodgers, and ordered tea in the library. Then, with a greeting to her housekeeper, she passed upstairs to her own room. Mrs. David Rivers had come home. CHAPTER XXIII UNCLE FALCON WINS Diana dined alone at the little round table in the big dining-room. She wore the white satin gown she had worn on the evening of Christmas-day, when David dined with her. The table decoration was lilies of the valley and Parma violets. After dinner she went to the library, restless and lonely, yet glad to be alone; thankful she had postponed to the morrow, the return of Mrs. Marmaduke Vane. On her writing-table, in a silver frame, stood the photograph of a special chum of hers, a man with whom she frequently played tennis in summer, and rode in winter; a good-looking fellow, with the appearance of an all round sportsman. His gay friendly eyes looked out at her with an air of easy comradeship, as she paused for a moment beside the table. Diana was fond of this portrait of Ronald Ingram. It always stood on her writing-table. But, this evening, she suddenly took it up, and put it, face downwards, into a drawer. It had served to remind her that she possessed no photograph of David. She moved over to the fireplace, tall and lovely, perfectly gowned, surrounded by all the luxury she loved--yet indescribably desolate. She stood, wrapped in thought, warming her hands at the fire; then sank into Uncle Falcon's armchair, in which she had sat while she and David discussed their intended marriage. Did she need a portrait of David? Hardly. He was so vividly pictured in her mental vision. She could see him in the pulpit of the little church at Brambledene--keen, eager, inspired; full of his subject; the dark eyes shining in his thin worn face. She could see him in the vestry, seated on the high stool; boyish, shy; very much taken aback by her unexpected entry. She could see him at the piano in the drawing-room, completely unconscious of his surroundings; enveloped in the music he himself was making. She could see him seated opposite to her in the chair now empty, a look of strange detachment upon his tired face, as with infinite tact and gentleness he explained to her why he felt able, after all, to accede to her request; never departing from his own standpoint in the matter; yet making the thing as easy for her as possible. She could see him in the church of St. Botolph, as he had stood that morning--was it really only that morning?--awaiting her. How strange had been the summons in his eyes, which drew her to his side. Ah, if there had but been _love_ between them, how wonderful a memory would have been that look in David's eyes! She could see him in the railway train--in boyishly high spirits, because nothing now stood between him and his departure for his belovèd sphere of work--seated opposite to her at the little table in the dining-car, rubbing the mist off the windows with his table napkin, and exclaiming over the beauties of the Hampshire hills and villages. "Lord _now_ lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." Poor David! She had certainly interfered with his peace of mind during the fortnight which had preceded their strange wedding. Well, he had departed in peace, and was undoubtedly gone "to be a light to lighten the Gentiles." And what a difference her money would make to the success of his work. And then--she could see him as he bent down to her from the top of the gangway, his dark eyes gazing into hers, and said: "Good-bye, my wife." Surely, for the moment, it had meant something to David to call her his wife? She had never before seen quite such a look in any man's eyes. Was it fancy, or was there a hunger in them, which seemed to match the ache at her own breast? Sentimental fancy on her own part, no doubt; for had not David said of their wedding service: "It meant no more than we intended it should mean"? How odious and impossible a state of things, if she--Diana Rivers--who had proposed this marriage, as a mere business transaction--should now be imagining into it sentiment which she had expressly stipulated should never enter therein. If David knew of it, would she not be forced to bow her head in shame, before his clear honest eyes? No; certainly she needed no photograph of David! * * * * * She glanced at the portrait of Uncle Falcon hanging over the mantel-piece; then looked away at once. She was rather afraid of Uncle Falcon to-night. David had said she was to flaunt her victory in Uncle Falcon's face. She had replied that she might have done so, if _he_ had been going to be with her. David had made no reply; but she had felt him shrink into himself. He had been too honest to express regret to his bride, that his engagements took him elsewhere on his wedding evening; and too kind, to show relief. When she had said: "David, I shall be quite alone at Riverscourt to-night," David had remarked: "Oh, look at the undulating line of those distant hills!" A little gleam of amusement illumined the sad face, resting against the dark leather of Uncle Falcon's big chair; and, as the firelight played upon it, dimples peeped out. Had she looked up, she would have seen a corresponding twinkle in Uncle Falcon's amber eyes. It really was rather funny. David and his table napkin! She knew she had not behaved quite well towards David, who was such a very faithful and very proper person. She felt she should always hate the distant line of undulating hills! If only he had tried to kiss her, and she could have boxed his ears, she would have enjoyed that journey better. But, the next moment, a rush of tears drowned the gleam of fun in those sweet eyes. She had remembered David's face, as he said: "Good-bye, my wife." It seemed sacrilege even to _think_ of boxing his ears! How ill he had looked, during those final minutes on the boat. It made it so terribly easy to picture David's face as it would look when he lay dying--dead. Diana's tears fell silently. She, who scarcely ever wept, now found herself weeping without restraint, in a vague, helpless sort of way; and about nothing--that was the foolish part of it--she was crying about absolutely nothing! "This will never do!" said Diana. "I am being as silly as an _ordinary_ married woman. I must find something sensible to think about." She rose from her chair, stretched her beautiful arms over her head; then walked across to a table to look for a book. Her eye fell upon a concordance, lying where she had left it on that evening of indecision and perplexity. Suddenly she remembered words of David's in his sermon on Christmas-eve. They came back to her as clearly as if they had that moment been spoken. "Myrrh, in the Bible," David had said, "stands for other things besides death. We must not pause to do so now; but, sometime, at your leisure, look out each mention of myrrh. You will find it stands for love--love, of the sweetest, tenderest kind; love so complete, that it must bring with it self-abnegation, and a mingling of pain with its bliss." Yes, David had said this. How suitable that to-night--of all nights--she should do as he had wished. But, first, she went to the window, drew aside the curtains, and looked out. Snow had ceased to fall. The sky was clear and cloudless. There was no moon; but, low on the horizon, shone one brilliant star. It seemed to Diana, that at that very moment, from somewhere out on the ocean, David's eyes were also on that star. It brought him very near. It made his last prayer very real. She leaned her head against the window frame, and watched it silently. "Whether in life or in death," said David's quiet voice, "may we glorify our King, and be faithful followers of the star." Then she drew the curtain close once more, found a Bible, took up the concordance, and went back to Uncle Falcon's chair to do as David had suggested. The first reference to which she turned, chanced to be the thirteenth verse of the first chapter of the Book of Canticles--divinest love-poem ever written. Bending over it, in the firelight, Diana read the opening words. "_A bundle of myrrh is my well-belovèd unto me_----" Then, suddenly, her eyes dilated. She pressed her hands against her breast. Then she bent over, and finished the verse; reading each word slowly, to the very last. * * * * * "David! David! David!" _A bundle of myrrh is my well-belovèd unto me!_ Oh, David, speeding each moment farther and farther away, on life's relentless ocean; hastening to that distant land "that is very far off," from which there is no return! She lay back in the chair; opened her arms wide; then closed them--on nothingness. * * * * * "David! David!" She understood, now. This pain at her breast, this ache of her heart, would never be stilled, until David's dear head rested here where his hand had been pressed. And David had gone from her--forever. "Good-bye, my wife.... It meant no more than we intended it should mean.... Good-bye, my wife." She held her hands clasped to her bosom. She looked, wide-eyed, at the empty chair, opposite. "David," she whispered, "David, come back to me!" It seemed, to her, that David must hear, and must return. This agony of awful loneliness could not endure.... David!... David!... David!... * * * * * At last she rose, leaned her arms upon the marble mantel-piece, and looked up into the searching eyes of the portrait. "Uncle Falcon," she whispered bravely; "Uncle Falcon--_you have won_." The eyes of the old man who had loved her, seemed to look down sadly, sorrowfully, into hers. She had won; and he had won; but there was no triumph in either victory. The only undisputed victor, in that hour, was Love who is lord of all; and even Love fled, with drooping wings, from a desolation which had been brought about by sacrilege at the altar. Diana laid her golden head upon her arms. Its coronet of pride fell from it. She was shaken from head to foot by desperate weeping. David had said: "A love so complete that it must bring with it self-abnegation, and a mingling of pain with its bliss." She had had one glimpse of what the bliss might have been. She was tasting the pain to the full. * * * * * Self stepped forever off the throne of her woman's heart; and Love, undisputed, held full sway. She turned from the fireplace, sank upon the floor beside the chair in which David had sat; then laid her head upon it, clasping her arms around its unresponsive emptiness. "David!... David!... David!" But the distant liner was ploughing steadily through the dark waters. Each moment took him farther from her; nearer to the land from which there is no return. "_Good-bye, my wife._" * * * * * After a while, Diana ceased to call him. She lay very still. No sound broke the silence of the room, save the low shuddering sobs of a breaking heart. But the star in the sky still shone, though heavy curtains veiled it. And David, pacing the hurricane deck, where were no curtains, lifted his eyes to its clear shining; and, in the midst of his own desperate pain, saw in it an emblem of hope, a promise of guidance, a beacon light in this vast desert of utter desolation. * * * * * And midnight brought merciful sleep to both. _Here endeth_ GOLD. FRANKINCENSE CHAPTER XXIV THE HIDDEN LEAVEN Christmas-eve had come round again. The successive changes of each season had passed over Riverscourt;--the awakening of early spring, when earth threw off her pall of snow, and budding life won its annual triumph over the darkening chill of winter;--the bloom and blossom of summer, when all nature lifted up its voice and sang to the sunshine, amid fragrance of flowers and shade of soft green foliage;--the rich fulfilment of autumn, when blossom ripened into fruit, and trees turned to crimson and gold, emblem of the royal wealth of yielded harvest. All this had come, and gone; and now, once more, earth slept 'neath leaden skies; and bare branches forked out, hopeless, over the sodden turf. "Is this the end?" rasped the dead leaves, as the north wind swept them in unresisting herds down the avenue of beeches. "The end! The end!" wailed the north wind. "_The grass withereth, the flower fadeth--_" Then Hope, born of Faith and Experience, cried: "_But the word of our God shall stand forever! While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease._ This is not death, but sleep. When spring sounds the reveillé, life will stir and move again beneath the sod; all nature will respond, and there shall come once more the great awakening; the dismal sentries of darkness and of death may cease to challenge; the troops of light and life march on their way. Again the victory will be with spring." * * * * * During the year, now nearly over, Diana's inner life had reflected each of these transitions, going on around her, in her own park and gardens. In the lonely despairing weeks following her wedding-day, her heart seemed numb and dead; her empty arms stiffened like leafless branches. Her love had awakened, only to find itself entombed. But, with the arrival of David's first letter, there burst upon her winter the glad promise of spring. "My dear wife," wrote David; and, as she read the words, strong possessive arms seemed to enfold her. Though distance divided, she was, unalterably, _that_ to him: "My dear wife." The letter proceeded, in calm friendliness, to give her a full account of his voyage; nothing more; yet with an intimacy of detail, an assurance of her interest, which came as balm to Diana's sore heart. And the letter ended: "Yours ever, David Rivers." Then followed a sweet summer-time of wonderful promise. David's letters reached her by every mail. They always began: "My dear wife"; they always ended: "Yours ever, David Rivers"; they held no word of anything closer or more intimate in their tie, than was in the bond; yet, as Diana shared his hopes and expectations, his difficulties, and their surmounting; as she followed with him along each step in the new development of his work, the materialising of his ideas, the fulfilment of his plans, by means of her gift of gold--it seemed to her that all this was but the promise of spring; that a glad summer must soon come, when David's heart should awaken to a need--not only of her sympathy and of her help, but of _herself_; that, at no distant date, the mail would bring a letter, saying: "My wife, I want you. Come to me!" She forgot that, owing to their unnatural marriage, she was, of all women, the one whom David could not, however much he might desire to do so, attempt to woo and win. She realised her side of the question; yet, womanlike, forgot his. No hint of her need of him was allowed to creep into her letters, even between the lines; yet she eagerly searched David's for some indication that his heart was beginning to turn toward her, in more than friendliness. It seemed to her, that her growing love for him must awaken in him a corresponding love for her. But David's letters continued calm and friendly; and, as his work became more absorbing, they held even less of personal detail, or of intimate allusion to her life at home. Yet this summer-time was one of growth and bloom to Diana, for there blossomed up, between him and herself, by means of constant letters, a wonderful friendship. Their position, the one toward the other, was so unique; and, having no one else with whom to share their inner lives and closest interests, they turned to one another with a completeness which made a diary of their correspondence. The one subject upon which neither dared to be frank, was their love the one for the other. Each was the very soul of honour, and each felt bound by their mutual compact to hide from the other how infinitely more their marriage had meant than they had ever dreamed it could, or intended it should, mean. * * * * * With the awakening of her love for David, Diana passed through agonies of shame at the recollection of the crude, calm way in which she had asked him to marry her. During the long days before the arrival of his first letter, she used, almost every evening, to stand as she had stood that afternoon, facing the empty chair which had then held David; and, whispering the fateful words recall his face of protest; his look of horrified dismay. This was the penance she imposed on her proud spirit; and she would creep upstairs afterwards, her fair head bowed in shame; a beautiful Godiva, who had ridden forth, not to save her townspeople, but to gain her own desired ends. Poor David! How he had leapt up in instant protest: "I cannot do this thing!" Her suggestion to him had not even partaken of the nature of a royal proposal of marriage, when the young man knows that the choice has fallen upon himself, and stands waiting, with ready penknife, to slit the breast of his tightly buttoned tunic, and insert therein the fair white rose of a maiden's proffered love. David's uniform of amazed manhood, had provided no improvised buttonhole for Diana's undesired flower. He had stood before her, dismayed but implacable: "I cannot do this thing!" Poor David, in his shabby jacket, with his thin, worn face, and eyes ablaze. Diana cowered before the Peeping Tom of her own vivid remembrance. But, with the reading of his first letter, the words, "my dear wife," stole around her as protective arms, shielding her from shame, and comforting her in her loneliness, with the fact of how much she had, after all, been able to give him. Yet never--never--must word from her reveal to David that she had given him, unasked, the whole love of her woman's heart. Should he come to need it, and ask for it, he would find it had all along been his. At first, Diana's life had moved along its accustomed lines; with David, and all he was to her, as a sweet central secret, hidden deeply in her heart of hearts. But, before long, she began to experience that which has been beautifully described as "the expulsive power of a new affection." David--like the little leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal--David, working outward, from that inner shrine, leavened her whole life. He had not asked her to give up hunting, or dancing, or any of the gaiety in which she delighted. Yet the more she lived in touch with his strenuous life of earnest self-sacrifice, the less these things attracted her. Diana's friends never found her dull; but they gradually grew to realise that her horizon had widened immeasurably beyond their own; that the focussing points in her field of vision were things totally unseen by themselves; that, in some subtle way, she had developed and grown beyond their comprehension. They loved her still, but they left her. Diana Rivers, of Riverscourt, ceased to be the centre of an admiring crowd. They left her; but she was not conscious of their going. She stood alone; yet did not know that she was lonely. The only leaving of which she was aware, was that David had left her on their wedding-day; the only loneliness, that David never intended to return. Truly, the little leaven had leavened the whole lump. The glitter and the glamour of the kingdoms of this world had passed away. The kingdom of heaven held sway in Diana's heart. But the King of that kingdom, at this period of Diana's life, was David. CHAPTER XXV THE PROPERTY OF THE CROWN The summer passed in perpetual expectation; which, when autumn arrived, seemed ripe for fulfilment. Diana's mind was so absorbed by her love for David, that she scarcely realised how completely she kept it out of her letters; or that his reticence might merely have been a reflection of her own. Also she every now and then relieved her feelings by writing him a complete outpouring. This, often written side by side with her letter for the mail, she would seal up in an envelope addressed to David, and place in a compartment of the sandal-wood box in which she kept all his letters, with a vague idea that some day she herself would be able to place in his hands these unposted missives. One afternoon, just as she was closing both envelopes, callers arrived. They stayed to tea; leaving, only a few minutes before Rodgers came in with the post-bag. Diana stamped her letter, and placed it in the bag. Then spent half an hour looking through some of David's before locking them up with the one she had just written. This was especially full of tenderness and longing; and, though the quick blood mantled her cheek at the recollection of words it contained, her heart felt lightened and relieved. "How foolish I am," she thought; "no wiser than the ordinary married women, whom I used to despise." She took up a little pile of these letters, lying safely in their own compartment in the sandal-wood casket. "They all belong to David," she whispered. "Some day--he will see them." Then something about the address of the one she had just placed with the rest, caught her eye. The writing was hurried, and more like that which she had rapidly finished for posting, while Rodgers waited. She tore it open. _My dear David._ She glanced at the end. Then she sprang up and pealed the bell. _Yours affectionately_, _Diana Rivers_, was in her hand. _Your wife_, _who loves you and longs for you_, had gone to David! Rodgers reported, in an unmoved undertone, that the man with the post-bag had started for Riversmead, on his bicycle, twenty minutes ago. "Order the motor," commanded Diana. "Tell Knox to come round as quickly as possible. I must overtake the post-bag." She placed her letter in a fresh envelope, rapidly addressed, sealed, and stamped it; flew up for a hat and coat, and was downstairs, ready to start, within five minutes of her discovery of the mistake. She paced the hall like a caged lion. Every word she had written stood out in letters of fire. Oh folly, folly, to have let the two letters lie side by side! "It meant no more than we intended it should mean".... _Your wife, who loves you and longs for you._ At last the motor hummed up to the portico. Diana was in it before it drew up. "Overtake Jarvis," she said, and sat back, palpitating. They flew down the avenue, and along the high road. But Jarvis had had nearly half-an-hour's start, and was a dependable man. A little way from the lodge gates they met him returning. "On! To the post-office!" cried Diana. It so happened that a smart, new post-office had lately been opened, in the centre of the little town--a stone building, very official in appearance. Its workings were carried out with great precision and authority. The old postmaster was living up to the grandeur of his new building. Diana walked in, letting the door swing behind her. "Has the Riverscourt bag been emptied yet?" she enquired. "If not, bring it to me, unopened." A clerk went into the sorting-room, and returned in a few minutes with the letter-bag, open and empty. "Has the mail gone?" demanded Diana. No, the mail had not gone. It was due out, in a few minutes. The letters were being sorted. She could hear the double bang-bang of the postmarking. "I wish to see the Postmaster," said Diana. The Postmaster was summoned, and, hurrying out, bowed low before the mistress of Riverscourt. She did not often come, in person, even to the _new_ post-office. Diana knew she had a difficult matter to broach, and realised that she must not be imperious. D. R. might reign at Riverscourt; but E. R. was sovereign of the realm! Her love-letter to David had now become the property of the King; and this courteous little person, bowing before her, was, very consciously, the King's official in Riversmead. Was not E. R. carved with many flourishes on a stone escutcheon on the face of the new post-office? Diana, curbing her impatience, smiled graciously at the Postmaster. "May I have a few words with you, in your private room, Mr. Holdsworth?" she said. Full of pleased importance, the little great man ushered her into his private sanctum, adjoining the sorting-room. A bright fire burned in the grate. The room was new, and not yet papered; and the autumn evening was chill. Diana walked up to the fire, drew off her gloves, and, stooping, warmed her hands at the blaze. Then she turned and faced the Postmaster. "Mr. Holdsworth, I want you to do me a great kindness. An hour ago, I put by mistake into our post-bag, a letter addressed to my husband, which it is most important that he should not receive. It was a mistake. Here is the letter I intended for him. I want you to find the other in the sorting-room, and to get it back for me." The little man stiffened visibly. E. R. seemed writ large all over him. "That is impossible, madam," he said, "absolutely impossible. Once posted, a letter becomes the property of the Crown until it reaches the hands of the addressee. I, as a servant of the King, have to see that all Crown-property is safeguarded. I could not, under any circumstances whatever, return a letter once posted." "But it is my own letter!" exclaimed Diana. "An hour ago it lay on my writing-table, side by side with this one, for which it was mistaken. It is my own property; and I _must_ have it back." "It ceased to be your property, Mrs. Rivers, when it was taken from your private post-bag and placed among other posted letters. Neither you nor I have any further control over it." Diana's imperious temper flashed from her eyes, and flamed into her cheeks. Her first impulse was to fling this little person aside, stride into the sorting-room, and retrieve her letter to David, at any cost. Then a wiser mood prevailed. She came a step nearer, looking down upon him with soft pleading eyes. "Mr. Holdsworth," she said, "you are an official of the Crown, and a faithful one; but, even before that, you are a man. Listen! I shall suffer days and nights of unspeakable anguish of mind, if that letter goes. My husband is out in the far wilds of Central Africa. That letter would mean endless worry and perplexity to him, in the midst of his important work; and also the wrecking of a thing very dear to us both. So strongly do I feel about it, that, if it goes, I shall sail on the same boat, travelling night and day, by the fastest route, in order to intercept it at his very gate! See how I trust you, when I tell you all this!" The Postmaster hesitated. "You could cable him to return it to you unopened," he said. "I could," replied Diana; "but that would involve a mystery and a worry; and I would give my life to shield him from worry. See! Here is the letter intended for this mail, ready stamped and sealed. All I ask you to do, is to substitute this one for the other." She held out the letter, and looked at the Postmaster. His eyes fell before the pleading in hers. He was a Crown official and an Englishman. Had she offered him a hundred pounds to do this thing, he would have shown her out of his office with scant ceremony. But the haughty young lady of Riverscourt, in all her fearless beauty, had looked at him with tears in her grey eyes, and had said: "See how I trust you." He hesitated: his hand moved in the direction of the letter, his fingers working nervously. Diana laid her hand upon his arm, bending towards him. "_Please_," she said. He took the letter. "I will see whether the other is already gone," he mumbled, and disappeared through a side door, into the sorting-room. In a few moments he returned, still holding Diana's letter. His plump face was rather pale, and his hand shook. He laid Diana's letter on the table between them. "I am very sorry, Mrs. Rivers," he said. "I cannot possibly give you back a letter once posted. Were I known to have done such a thing, I should at once be dismissed." Diana paled, and stood very still, considering her next move. "I cannot _give_ you back the letter," said the Postmaster. His eyes met hers; then dropped to the letter lying on the table between them. Then the stars in their courses fought against David, for suddenly Diana understood. This was the letter she wanted, placed within her reach. With a rapid movement she pounced upon it, verified it at a glance; tore it to fragments, and flung them into the flames. "There!" she said. "You did not give it to me, and I have not taken it. It is simply gone--as if it had never been either written or posted." Then she turned to the little fat man near the door, and impulsively held out her hand. "God bless you, my friend!" she said. "I shall never forget what you have done for me this day." "We had best both forget it," whispered the Postmaster, thickly. "If a word of it gets about, I lose my place." "Never you fear!" cried Diana, her buoyancy returning, in her relief and thankfulness. "I trusted you, and you may safely trust me." "Hush," cautioned Mr. Holdsworth, as he opened the door; "we had best both forget." Then, as she passed out: "Your letter was just in time, m'am," he remarked aloud, for the benefit of the clerks in the office. "I placed it in the bag myself." "Thank you," said Diana. "It would have troubled me greatly to have missed this evening's mail. I am much obliged to you, Mr. Holdsworth." * * * * * Leaning back in the motor, on her homeward way, her heart felt sick at the suspense through which she had passed. A reaction set in. The chill of a second winter nipped the bloom of her summer, and the rich fulfilment promised by her golden autumn. The fact that it seemed such an impossible horror that one of her tender love-letters should really reach David, proved to her the fallacy of the consolation she had found in writing them. It placed him far away--and far away forever. He would never know; he would never care; he would never come.... _It meant no more than we intended it should mean_.... _Good-bye, my wife._ * * * * * Tears stole from beneath Diana's closed lids, and rolled silently down her cheeks. _Your wife, who loves you and longs for you!_ But David would never know. It was so true--oh, so true! But David would never know. * * * * * And, away in the African swamps, at that very hour, David, lying in his wooden hut, recovering from one of the short bouts of fever, now becoming so frequent, leaned upon his elbow and drew from beneath his pillow Diana's last letter, which he had been too ill to read when the mail came in; scanned it through eagerly, seeking for some word which might breathe more than mere friendliness; pressed his hot lips against the signature, _yours affectionately_, _Diana Rivers_; then lay back and fought the hopeless consuming longing, which grew as the months passed by, strengthening as he weakened. "I promised it should never mean more than she intended," he said. "She chose me, because she trusted me. I should be a hound, to go back! But oh, my wife--my wife--my wife!" * * * * * "You can serve dinner for me in the library to-night, Rodgers," said Diana. "Tell Mrs. Mallory I shall dine there alone. I am tired. Yes, thank you; I caught the mail." She shivered. "Order fires everywhere, please. The place is like an ice-house. Winter has taken us unawares." She moved wearily across the great silent hall, and slowly mounted the staircase. No light shone through the stained-glass window at the bend of the staircase; the stern outline of Rivers knights stood unrelieved by glow of colour. The knight with the dark bared head, his helmet beneath his arm, more than ever seemed to resemble David; not David in his usual quiet gentleness; but David, standing white and rigid, protesting, in startled dismay: "Why not? Why, because, even if I wished--even if you wished--even if we both wished for each other--in that way, Central Africa is no place for a woman. I would never take a woman there." As she looked at the young knight with the close-cropped dark head, and white face, she remembered her sudden gust of fury against David; and the mighty effort with which she had surmounted it. Her answer came back to her with merciless accuracy; and, turning half way up the second flight of stairs, she faced the shadowy knight, and repeated it in low tones. "My dear Cousin David, you absolutely mistake my meaning. I gave you credit for more perspicacity. I have not the smallest intention of going to Central Africa, or of ever inflicting my presence or my companionship, upon you.... And you yourself have told me, over and over, that you never expect to return to England." Diana's hand tightened upon the balustrade, as she stood looking across at the big window. These were the words she had spoken to David. The bareheaded knight remained immovable; but his face seemed to whiten, and his outline to become more uncompromisingly mail-clad. "David," came the low tender voice from the staircase, "oh, David, I _do_ want you--'in that way'! I would go to Central Africa or anywhere else in the wide world to be with you, David. Send for me, David, or come to me--oh, David, come to me!" The tall slim figure on the staircase leaned towards the shadowy window, holding out appealing arms. A bitter smile seemed to gather on the white face of the steel-clad knight. "_I_ am to provide the myrrh," said David's voice. Diana turned and moved slowly upward. She could hear the log fire in the hall beginning to hiss and crackle. She shivered. "Yes, it is winter," she said; "it is winter again; and it has taken us unawares." CHAPTER XXVI A PILGRIMAGE On the afternoon of Christmas-eve, Diana sat in the library writing to David. She had drawn up a small table close to the fire. The room was cosy, and perfectly quiet, excepting for the leap and crackle of flames among the huge pine logs. Diana dated her letter; then laid aside her pen, and, resting her chin in her hand, read over once again David's Christmas letter, which had reached her that morning. It was very full of the consecration of the Church of the Holy Star, which was to take place before the Feast of Epiphany. It held no allusions to the anniversaries, so soon coming round; the days which, a year ago, had been fraught with happenings of such deep importance to them both. Long after she had reached _Yours ever_, _David Rivers_, Diana sat with bent head, pondering over the closely written sheets, so pregnant with omissions, trying to make up her mind as to whether she should take her cue from David, and ignore the significance of these days; or whether she should act upon her first instinctive impulse, and write freely of them. The firelight flickered on her coils of golden hair, and revealed the fact that her face had lost the rounded contour of that perfect buoyancy of health, which had been hers a year ago. Its thinness, and the purple shadows beneath the eyes, made her look older; but, as she lifted her eyes from the closely written sheets of foreign paper, and gazed, with a wistful little smile, into the fire, there was in them such a depth of chastened tenderness, and in her whole expression so gentle a look of quiet patience--as of a heart keeping long vigil, and not yet within sight of dawn--that the mellowing and softening of the spirit looking forth from it, fully compensated for the thinning and aging of the lovely face. Diana, in her independent radiance, was there no longer; but David's wife took up her pen to write to David, with a look upon her face, which would have brought David to his knees at her feet, could he but have seen it. Uncle Falcon's amber eyes gleamed down upon her. They had never twinkled since her wedding night; but they often shone with a strangely comprehending light. Sometimes they said: "We have both won, Diana;" at other times: "We have both lost;" according to her mood. But always they were kindly; and always they gave her sympathy; and, unfailingly, they understood. The old house rang with the merry voices of children. Notwithstanding the solemn protestations of old Rodgers, they were apparently playing hide-and-seek up and down the oak staircase, along the upper corridors, and in and out of the deep hall cupboards. Diana was not fond of children. An extra loud whoop or bang in her vicinity, did not call up an indulgent smile upon her face; and, at last, when the whole party apparently fell headlong down the stairs together, Diana, with a frown of annoyance, rang the bell and told Rodgers to request Mrs. Mallory to see that there was less roughness in the games. Certainly Diana was not naturally fond of children. Yet during these years in which she was striving to let her whole life be a perpetual offering of frankincense, she filled her house with them, at Christmas, Easter, and mid-summer. They were the children of missionaries; boys and girls at school in England, whose parents in far distant parts of the world, could give them no welcome home in holiday time. They would have had a sad travesty of holidays, at school, had not Diana invited them to Riverscourt, giving them a right royal time, under the gentle supervision of Mrs. Mallory, the young widow of a missionary killed in China, who now lived with Diana, as her companion and secretary. Mrs. Marmaduke Vane had wedded Mr. Inglestry, within three months of Diana's own marriage. As the house grew more quiet, Diana again took up her pen. She could hear Mrs. Mallory shepherding the children along the upper corridors, into a play-room at the further end of the house. For a moment she felt a pang of compunction at having so peremptorily stopped the hide-and-seek; but salved her conscience by the remembrance of the magnificent Christmas-tree, loaded with gifts, standing ready in the ante-room, for the morrow's festivities. Poor little forsaken girls and boys! She had no mother-love to give them. But she gave them what she could--gold, frankincense; in many cases the climate in which their parents lived provided the myrrh, when they had to be told at school of the death, in a far-off land, of a passionately loved and longed-for mother, whose possible home-coming before long, had been the one gleam of light on the grey horizon of a lonely little heart's school-life. Poor desolate little children; orphaned, yet not orphans! Diana laid down her pen, and stretched her hand towards the bell, to send word that the hide-and-seek might go on. Then smiled at her own weakness. Why, even their mothers would have been obliged sometimes to say: "Hush!" If only Diana had known it, their own mothers would have said "Hush!" far more often than she did! She took up her pen, and her surroundings were completely forgotten, as she talked to David. "RIVERSCOURT, Christmas-eve. "MY DEAR DAVID,--How well you timed your Christmas letter. It reached me this morning. So I have it for Christmas-eve, Christmas-day, and Boxing-day--all three important anniversaries to us. Had I but thought of it in time, I might have kept a sheet for each day. Instead of which, in my eagerness for news concerning the Church of the Holy Star, I read your whole long letter through, the very moment I received it. However, it will bear reading twice, or even three times; it is so full of interest. "Indeed I shall be with you in thought at the opening ceremony. I intend to motor over to Winchester, and spend the time in prayer and meditation in your little Chapel of the Epiphany. "It will not by any means be my first pilgrimage there, David. It is the place of all others where I find I can most easily pray for your work. I kneel where you knelt, and look up at the stained glass representation of the Wise Men. It brings back every word of the sermon you preached this day last year. "When you were there, did you happen to notice the window on the left, as you kneel at the rail? It represents the Virgin bending over the Baby Christ. She is holding both His little feet in one of her hands. I can't understand why; but that action seems so extraordinarily to depict the tenderness of her mother-love. I dislike babies myself, exceedingly; yet, ever since I saw that window, I have been pursued by the desire to hold a baby's two little feet in my hand that way, just to see how it feels! I am certain your mother often held your feet so, when you were a wee baby, David; and I am equally certain my mother never held mine. Don't you think tenderness, shown to little children, before they are old enough to know what tenderness means, makes a difference to their whole lives? I am sure I grew up hard-hearted, simply because no demonstration of affection was ever poured out upon me in my infancy. You grew up so sweet and affectionate to every one, simply because your mother lavished love upon you, kissed your curls, and held both your baby feet in one of her tender hands, when you were a tiny wee little kiddie, and knew nothing at all about it! There! Now you have one of my theories of life, thought out as I knelt in your little chapel, meaning to spend the whole time in prayer for your work. "Last time I was there, just as I left the chapel, Even-song was beginning. I slipt quietly down the cathedral and sat at the very bottom of the vast nave. The service was going on away up in the choir, through distant gates. The music seemed to come floating down from heaven. They sang the 'Nunc Dimittis' to Garrett in F. 'Lord,' whispered the angel voices, on gently floating harmony: 'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.' 'Depart in peace,' repeated the silvery trebles, soaring back to heaven! I thought of you; and of how you quoted it, looking up at the picture of Simeon in the temple, as we walked down old St. Botolph's Church. How relieved you were to be off, David; and how glad to go. "I still make pilgrimages to St. Botolph's, when spending any time in town; or when I take a panic over your health, or your many African perils, snakes, poisoned darts, and such like things--not to mention an early hippopotamus, dancing a cake-walk in your front-garden, before breakfast. "The verger is becoming accustomed to my visits. At first she watched me with suspicion, evidently fearing lest I had designs on the cherubs of the lectern, or purposed carving my name upon the altar-rail. When she found my prayer and meditation covered no such sinister intentions, she gave up prowling round, and merely kept an eye on me from her seat at the bottom of the church. Last time I went, I had quite a long talk with her, and found her a most interesting and well-informed person; well up in the history of the old church, and taking a touching pride and delight in it; evidently fulfilling her duties with reverent love and care; not in the perfunctory spirit one finds only too often among church officials. "But, oh David, what a contrast between this refined, well-educated woman, and the extraordinary old caretaker at that church to which you went when you were first ordained! Did I tell you, I made a pilgrimage there? I thought it a beautiful church, and took a quite particular interest in seeing the pulpit, and all the other places in which you performed, for the first time, the sacred functions of your holy office. "But I can't return there, David, or remember it with pleasure, because of the appalling old gnome who haunts it, and calls herself the 'curtiker'. I never saw anything quite so terrifyingly dirty, or so weirdly coming to pieces in every possible place and yet keeping together. And there was no avoiding her. She appeared to be ubiquitous. "When I first entered the church, she was on her knees in the aisle, flopping a very grimy piece of house flannel in and out of a zinc pail, containing what looked like an unpleasant compound of ink and soapsuds. Our acquaintance began by her exhorting me, in a very loud voice, to keep out of the 'pile.' The pail was the very last place into which one would desire to go. So, carefully keeping out of it, and avoiding the flops of the flannel, which landed each time in quite unexpected places, I fled up the church. A moment later, as I walked round the pulpit examining the panels, she popped up in it triumphant, waving a black rag, which I suppose did duty for a duster. Her sudden appearance, in the place where I was picturing you giving out your first text, made me jump nearly out of my skin. Whereupon she said: 'Garn!' and came chuckling down the steps, flapping her black rag on the balustrade. I hadn't a notion what 'garn' meant; but concluded it was cockney for 'go on,' and hurriedly went. "But it was no good dodging round pillars or taking circuitous routes down one aisle and up another, in attempts to avoid her. Wherever I went, she was there before me; always brandishing some fresh implement connected with the process which, in any other hands, might have been church cleaning. So at last I gave up trying to avoid her, and stood my ground bravely, in the hopes of gleaning information from her very remarkable conversation. I say 'bravely,' because she became much more terrifying when she talked. She held her left eye shut, with her left hand, put her face very close to mine, and looked at me out of the right eye. She didn't seem able to talk without looking at me; or to look at me, without holding one eye shut. "I was dining at the Brands' that evening, and happened to say to the man who took me in: 'Do you know how terrifying it is to talk to a person who holds one eye shut, and looks at you with the other?' He wanted to know what I meant; so I showed how my old lady had done it, with head pushed forward, and elbow well up. Everybody else went into fits; but my man turned out to be a rising oculist, and took it quite seriously; declared it must be a bad case of astigmatism; asked the name of the church, and is going off there to examine her eyes and prescribe glasses! "I tell you all this, in case she was a protégé of yours; for she remembers you, David. "I am doubtful as to what manner of reception she will give to my friend the oculist. I felt bound to tell him she would most probably say 'Garn!' and his convulsive amusement, seemed to me disproportionate to the mildness of the joke. Her incomprehensible remarks, and her astonishing cockney make rational conversation with her very difficult. While I was in the church, a mild-looking curate came in, and tried to explain something which was wanted. I could not hear the conversation, but I saw her, at the bottom of the church, holding her eye, and glaring at him. She came back to me, brandishing a dustpan. ''Ear that?' she said. 'Garn! As I always say to 'em: "A nod's as good as a wink to a blind 'orse!'" "Now that sounded like a proverb, and she said it as if it were a very deep pronouncement, which might settle all ecclesiastical difficulties, and solve all parochial problems. But, when one comes to think of it, what on earth does it mean? "Well, David, she remembers you; so I have no doubt whatever that you know all about her; when she became a widow--all caretakers are widows, aren't they? how, and from what cause; the exact number of her children; how many she has buried, and how many are out in the world; what 'carried off' the former, and what are the various occupations of the latter. Not possessing your wonderful faculty for unearthing the family history and inner life of caretakers, I only know, that her favourite conviction is: that a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse; and--that she remembers you. "I felt shy about mentioning you, while I was examining all the places of special interest; but when I reached the door, to which she accompanied me, gaily twirling a moulting feather broom, I turned, and ventured to ask whether she remembered you. She instantly clapped her hand over her eye; but the other gleamed at me, with a concentrated scorn, for asking so needless a question; and with ill-disguised mistrust, as if I were a person who had no business to have even a nodding acquaintance with you. "'It would taike a lot of furgittin' ter furgit _'im_!' she observed, her face threateningly near mine; the whirling feather broom moulting freely over both of us. ''E's the sort of gent as maikes a body remember?' "So now, my dear David, we know why I never forget to write to you by each mail. You are the sort of gent who makes a body remember! "I asked her what she chiefly recollected about you. She stared at me for a minute, with chill disapproval. Then her face illumined, suddenly. ''Is smoile,' she said. "I fled to my motor. I felt suddenly hysterical. She had such quaint black grapes in her bonnet; and you _have_ rather a nice smile you know, David. "Not many smiles come my way, nowadays, excepting Mrs. Mallory's; and they are so very ready-made. You feel you could buy them in Houndsditch, at so much a gross. I know about Houndsditch, because it is exactly opposite St. Botolph's, out of Bishopsgate Street. I tried to have a little friendly conversation with the people who stand in the gutter all along there, selling extraordinary little toys for a penny; also studs and buttonhooks, and bootlaces. They told me they bought them in Houndsditch by the gross. One man very kindly offered to take me to Houndsditch, and show me where they bought them. It was close by; so I went. He walked beside me, talking volubly all the way. He called me 'Lidy,' all the time. It sounded uncomfortably like a sort of pet-name, such as 'Liza or 'Tilda; but I believe it was Bishopsgate for 'Lady', and intended to be very respectful. "The wholesale shop was a marvellous place; so full of little toys, and beads, and scent-bottles, and bootlaces, that you just crowded in amongst them, and wondered whether you would ever get out again. "My very dirty friend, was also very eager, and pushed our way through to the counter. He explained to a salesman that I was a 'lidy' who wanted to 'buoy.' The salesman looked amused; but there seemed no let or hindrance in the way of my 'buoying,' so I bought heaps of queer things, kept samples of each, and gave all the rest to my friend for his stock-in-trade. He was so vociferous in his thanks and praises, and indiscriminate mention of both future states, that I dreaded the walk back to Bishopsgate. But, fortunately, Knox, having seen me cross the road, had had the gumption to follow; so there stood the motor blocking the way in Houndsditch. Into it I fled, and was whirled westward, followed by a final: 'Gawd bless yur, lidy!' from my grateful guide. "These people alarm me so, because I am never sure what they may not be going to say next. When _you_ talk to them, David, you always seem able to hold the conversation. But if _I_ talk to them, almost immediately it is they who are talking to me; while I am nervously trying to find a way to escape from what I fear they are about to say. "But I was telling you of Mrs. Mallory's smiles---- * * * * * "Just as I wrote that, my dear David, Mrs. Mallory appeared at the door, wearing one of them, and inquired whether I was aware that it was nearly eleven o'clock; all the children were asleep, and she was waiting to help me 'do Santa Claus'? "So I had to leave off writing, then and there, and 'do Santa Claus' for my large family, with Mrs. Mallory's help. I began my letter early in the afternoon; and, with only short breaks for tea and dinner, have been writing ever since. Time seems to fly while I sit scribbling to you of all my foolish doings. I only hope they do not bore you, David. If the reading of them amuses you, as much as the writing amuses me, we ought both to be fairly well entertained. "Now I am back in the library, having been round to all the beds, leaving behind at each a fat, mysterious, lumpy, rustling, stocking! Oh, do you remember the feel of it, as one sat up in the dark? One had fallen asleep, after a final fingering of its limp emptiness. One woke--remembered!--sat up--reached out a breathless hand--and lo! it was plump and full--filled to overflowing. Santa Claus had come! "I wish Santa Claus would come to empty hearts! "David you don't know how hard it is to go the round of those little beds upstairs, and see the curly tumbled heads on the pillows; feeling so little oneself about each individual head, yet knowing that each one represents a poor mother, thousands of miles away, who has gone to bed aching for a sight of the tumbled curls on which I look unmoved; who would give anything--anything--to be in my shoes just for that five minutes. "There is a tiny girl here now, we call her 'Little Fairy,' whose mother died eight weeks ago, just as the parents were preparing to return to England. The little one is not to be told until the father arrives, and tells her himself. She thinks both are on the way. She talks very little of the father, who appears to be a somewhat austere man; but every day she says: 'Mummie's tumming home! Mummie's tumming home!' When her little feet begin to dance as she trips across the hall, I know they are dancing to the tune of 'Mummie's tumming home!' Each evening she gives me a soft little cheek to kiss, saying anxiously: 'Not my mouf, Mrs. Rivers; I's keeping that for mummie!' It's breaking me, David. If it goes on much longer I shall have to gather her into my arms, and tell her the truth, myself. "Oh, why--why--why do people do these things in the name of religion; on account of so-called Christian work. "I wish I loved children! Do you think there is something radically wrong with one's whole nature, when one isn't naturally fond of children? * * * * * "Hark! I hear chimes! David, it is Christmas morning! This day last year, you dined with me. Where shall we be this time next year, I wonder? What shall we be doing? "I wish you a happy Christmas, David. "Do you remember Sarah's Christmas card? Yes, of course you do. You never forget such things. Sarah retailed to me the conversation in St. Botolph's about it; all you said to her; all she said to you. So you and I were the turtle-doves! No wonder you 'fair shook with laughin'!' Good old Sarah! I wonder whether she has 'gone to a chicken' for god-papa. Oh, no! I believe I sent him a turkey. "There are the 'waits' under the portico. '_Hark the herald angels sing!_' "I hope they won't wake my sleeping family, or there will be a premature feeling in stockings. These self-same 'waits' woke me at midnight when I was six years old. I felt in my stocking, though I knew I ought not to do so until morning. I drew out something which rattled deliciously in the darkness. A little round box, filled with 'hundreds and thousands.' Do you know those tiny, coloured goodies? I poured them into my eager little palm. I clapped it to my mouth, as I sat up in my cot, in the dark. I shall never forget that first scrunch. They were mixed beads! "Moral.... "No, you will draw a better moral than I. My morals usually work out the wrong way. "I must finish this letter on Boxing-day. Christmas-day will be very full, with a Christmas-tree and all sorts of plans for these little children of other people. "Well the mail does not go until the 26th, and I shall like to have written to you on _our_ three special days--Christmas-eve, Christmas-day, and Boxing-day. "Good-night, David." CHAPTER XXVII A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE "Boxing-day. "Well, my dear David, all our festivities are over, and, having piloted our party safely into the calm waters of Boxing-day afternoon, I am free to retire to the library, and resume my talk with you. "What a wonderful season is Christmas! It seems to represent words entirely delightful. Light, warmth, gifts, open hearts, open hands, goodwill--and, I suppose the children would add: turkey, mince-pies, and plum-pudding. Well, why not? I am by no means ashamed of looking forward to my Christmas turkey; in fact I once mentioned it in a vestry as an alluring prospect, to a stern young man in a cassock! I must have had the courage of my convictions! "No, the fact of the matter is, I was very young then, David; very crude; altogether inexperienced. You would find me older now; mellowed, I hope; matured. Family cares have aged me. "Yesterday, however, being Christmas-day, I threw off my maturity, just as one gleefully leaves off wearing kid gloves at the seaside, and became an infant with the infants. How we romped, and how delightfully silly we were! After the midday Christmas dinner, as we all sat round at dessert, I could see Mrs. Mallory eying me with amazed contempt, because I wore the contents of my cracker--a fine guardsman's helmet, and an eyeglass, which I jerked out, and screwed in again, at intervals, to amuse the children. When I surprised Mrs. Mallory's gaze of pitying scorn, I screwed in the eyeglass for her especial benefit, and looked at her through it, saying: 'Don't I wear it as if to the manner born, Mrs. Mallory?' 'Oh, quite,' said Mrs. Mallory, with an appreciative smile. 'Quite, my dear Mrs. Rivers; quite.' Which was so very 'quite quite,' that nothing remained but for me to fix on my guardsman's helmet more firmly, and salute. "Mrs. Mallory's cracker had produced a jockey cap, in green and yellow, and it would have delighted the children if she had worn it jauntily on her elaborately crimped coiffure. But she insisted upon an exchange with a dear little girl seated next her, who was feeling delightfully grown-up, in a white frilled Marie Antoinette cap, with pink ribbons. This, on Mrs. Mallory's head, except that it was made of paper, was exactly what she might have bought for herself in Bond Street; so she had achieved the conventional, and successfully avoided amusing us by the grotesque. The jockey cap was exactly the same shape as the black velvet one I keep for the little girls to wear when they ride the pony in the park. The disappointment on the face of the small owner of the pretty mob-cap, passed quite unnoticed by Mrs. Mallory. Yet she _adores_ children. I, who only tolerate them, saw it. So did the oldest of the boys--such a nice little fellow. 'I say, Mrs. Rivers,' he said, 'Swapping shouldn't be allowed.' 'Quite right, Rodney,' said I. 'Kiddies, there is to be no swapping!' 'Surely,' remarked Mrs. Mallory, in her shocked voice, 'no one present here, would think of _swapping_?' Rodney said, 'Crikey!' under his breath; and I haven't a notion, to this hour, what meaning the elegant verb 'to swap' holds for Mrs. Mallory. "But here I go again, telling you of all sorts of happenings in our home life, which must seem to you so trivial. I wish I could write a more interesting letter; especially this afternoon, David. This time last year you and I were having our momentous talk. There was certainly nothing trivial about that! I sometimes wish you could know--oh, no matter what! It is useless to dwell perpetually on vain regrets. And as we _are_ on the subject of Mrs. Mallory, David, I want to ask your opinion on a question of conscience which came up between her and myself. "Oh, David, how often I wish you were here to tackle her for me, as you used to tackle poor old Chappie; only the difficulties caused by Chappie's sins, were as nothing, compared with the complications caused by Lucy Mallory's virtues. "She is such a gentle-looking little woman, in trailing widow's weeds; a pink and white complexion, china blue eyes, and masses of flaxen hair elaborately puffed and crimped. She never knows her own mind, for five minutes at a time; is never quite sure on any point, or able to give you a straightforward yes or no. And yet, in some respects, she is the most obstinate person I ever came across. My old donkey, Jeshurun, isn't in it with Mrs. Mallory, when once she puts her dainty foot down, and refuses to budge. Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked, and did everything he shouldn't; but always yielded to the seduction of a carrot. But it is no good waving carrots at Mrs. Mallory. She won't look at them! She reminds me of the deaf adder who stoppeth her ears, lest she should hear the voice of the charmer. And always about such silly little things, that they are not worth a battle. "But the greatest trial of all is, that she has a morbid conscience. "Oh, David! Did you ever have to live with a person who had a morbid conscience? "Now--if it won't bore you--may I just give you an instance of the working of Mrs. Mallory's morbid conscience, and perhaps you will help me, by making a clear pronouncement on the matter. Remember, I only have her here because she is a missionary's widow, left badly off; and not strong enough to undertake school teaching, or any arduous post involving long hours. I have tried to make her feel at home here, and she seems happy. Sometimes she is a really charming companion. "The first evening she was here, she told me she had always been 'a great Bible student.' She spends much time over a very large Bible, which she marks in various coloured inks, and with extraordinary criss-cross lines, which she calls 'railways'. She explained the system to me one day, and showed me a new 'line' she had just made. You started at the top of a page at the word _little_. Then you followed down a blue line, which brought you to a second mention of the word _little_. From there you zigzagged off, still on blue, right across to the opposite page; and there found _little_, again. This was a junction! If you started down a further blue line you arrived at yet a fourth _little_, but if you adventured along a red line, you found _less_. "I had hoped to learn a lot from Mrs. Mallory, when she said she was a _great_ Bible student, because I am so new at Bible study, and have no one to help me. But I confess these railway excursions from _little_ to _little_, and from _little_ to _less_, appear to me somewhat futile! None of the _littles_ had any connection with one another; that is, until Mrs. Mallory's blue railway connected them. She is now making a study of all the Marys of the Bible. She has a system by which she is going to prove that they were all one and the same person. I suggested that this would be an infinite pity; as they all have such beautiful individual characters, and such beautiful individual histories. "'Truth before beauty, my dear Mrs. Rivers,' said Mrs. Mallory. "'Cannot truth and beauty go together?' I inquired. "'No, indeed,' pronounced Mrs. Mallory, firmly. 'Truth is a narrow line; beauty is a snare.' "According to which method of reasoning, my dear David, I ought to have serious misgivings as to whether your Christmas-eve sermon, which changed my whole outlook on life, was true--seeing that it most certainly was beautiful! "Now listen to my little story. "One morning, during this last autumn, Mrs. Mallory received a business letter at breakfast, necessitating an immediate journey to town, for a trying interview. After much weighing of pros and cons, she decided upon a train; and I sent her to the station in the motor. "A sadly worried and distressed little face looked out and bowed a tearful farewell to me, as she departed. I knew she had hoped I should offer to go with her; but it was a lovely October day, and I wanted a morning in the garden, and a ride in the afternoon. It happened to be a very free day for me; and I did not feel at all like wasting the golden sunshine over a day in town, in and out of shops with Mrs. Mallory; watching her examine all the things which she, after all, could not 'feel it quite right to buy.' She never appears to question the rightness of giving tired shop people endless unnecessary labour. I knew she intended combining hours of this kind of negative enjoyment, with her trying interview. "So I turned back into the house, sat down in the sunny bay window of the breakfast room, and took _Times_; thankful that the dear lady had departed by the earliest of the three trains which had been under discussion during the greater part of breakfast. "But my conscience would not let me enjoy my morning paper in peace. I had not read five lines before I knew that it would have been kind to have gone with Mrs. Mallory; I had not read ten, before I knew that it was unkind to have let the poor little soul go alone. She was a widow and worried; and she had mentioned the departed Philip, as a bitterly regretted shield, prop, and mainstay, many times during breakfast. "I looked at the clock. The motor was, of course, gone; and the quarter of an hour it would take to send down to the stables and put in a horse would lose me the train. I could just do it on my bicycle if I got off in four minutes, and rode hard. "Rodgers trotted out my machine, while I rushed up for a hat and gloves. I was wearing the short tweed skirt, Norfolk coat, and stout boots, in which I had intended to tramp about the park and gardens; but there was not time to change. I caught up the first hat I could lay hands on, slipped on a pair of reindeer gloves as I ran downstairs, jumped on to my bicycle, and was half-way down the avenue, before old Rodgers had recovered his breath, temporarily taken by the haste with which he had answered my pealing bell. "By dint of hard riding, I got into the station just in time to fling my bicycle to a porter, and leap into the guard's van of the already moving train. "At the first stop, I went along, and found Mrs. Mallory, alone and melancholy, in an empty compartment. Her surprise and pleasure at sight of me, seemed ample reward. She pressed my hand, in genuine delight and gratitude. "'I couldn't let you go alone,' I said. Then, as I sat down opposite to her, something--it may have been her own dainty best attire--made me suddenly conscious of the shortness of my serviceable skirt, and the roughness of my tweed. 'So I am coming with you, after all,' I added; 'unless you think me too countrified, in this get-up; and will be ashamed to be seen with me in town!' "Mrs. Mallory enveloped me, thick boots and all, in grateful smiles. "'Oh, of _course not_!' she said. '_Dear_ Mrs. Rivers! Of course not! You are quite _too_ kind!' "Now, will you believe it, David? Weeks afterwards she came to me and said there was something she _must_ tell me, as it was hindering her in her prayers, and she could not enjoy 'fully restored communion,' until she had confessed it, and thus relieved her mind. "I thought the dear lady must, at the very least, have forged my signature to a cheque. I sat tight, and told her to proceed. She thereupon reminded me of that October morning, and said that she _had_ thought my clothes countrified, and _had_ felt ashamed to be seen with me in town. "Oh, David, can you understand how it hurt? When one had given up the day, and raced to the station, and done it all to help her in her trouble. It was not so much that she had noticed that which was an obvious fact. It was the pettiness of mind which could dwell on it for weeks, and then wound the friend who had tried to be kind to her, by bringing it up, and explaining it. "I looked at her for a moment, absolutely at a loss what to reply. At last I said: 'I am very sorry, Mrs. Mallory. But had I stopped, on that morning, to change into town clothes, I could not have caught your train.' "'Oh, I know!' she cried, with protesting hands. 'It did not matter at all. It is only that I felt I had not been absolutely truthful.' "Now, David--you, who are by profession a guide of doubting souls, an expounder of problems of casuistry, a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart--will you give me a pronouncement on this question? In itself it may be a small matter; but it serves to illustrate a larger problem. "Which was the greater sin in Mrs. Mallory: to have lapsed for a moment from absolute truthfulness; or, to wound deliberately a friend who had tried to be kind to her? Am I right in saying that such an episode is the outcome of the workings of a morbid conscience? It is but one of many. "I am often tempted to regret my good old Chappie, though she was not a Bible student, had not a halo of fluffy flaxen hair, and never talked, with clasped hands, of the perfections of departed Philips. I am afraid Chappie used to lie with amazing readiness; but always in order to please one, or to say what she considered the right thing. "By the way, Chappie and Mr. Inglestry dined here the other night. Whenever I see them, David, I am reminded of how we laughed in the luncheon-car, on our wedding-day, over having left Chappie at the church, with two strings to her bow. I remember you said: 'Two beaux to her string' more exactly described the situation; a pun for which I should have pinched you, had my spirits on that morning been as exuberant as yours. Poor old Inglestry does not look as well as he used to do. There may be a chance for god-papa, yet! * * * * * "What an epistle! And it seems so full of trivialities, as compared with the deep interest of yours. But it is not given unto us all to build churches. Some of us can only build cottages--humble little four-roomed places, with thatched roof and anxious windows. I try to cultivate a little garden in front of mine, full of fragrant gifts and graces. But, just as I think I have obtained some promise of bloom and beauty, Mrs. Mallory annoys me, or something else goes wrong, and my quick temper, like your early hippopotamus, dances a devastating cake-walk in the garden of my best intentions, and tramples down my oleanders. "Mrs. Mallory spends most of her time building a mausoleum to the memory of the Rev. Philip. Just now, she is gilding the dome. I get so tired of hearing of Philip's perfections. It almost tempts me to retaliate by suddenly beginning to talk about you. It would be good for Mrs. Mallory to realise that she is not the only person in the world who has married a missionary, and lost him. However, in that case, my elaborate parrying of many questions would all be so much time wasted. Besides, she would never understand you and me, and our--friendship. "When the late Philip proposed to her, he held her hand for an hour in blissful silence, after she had murmured 'yes'; then, bent over her and asked whether she took sugar in her tea; because, if she did, they must take some out with them; it was difficult to obtain in the place to which they were going! Philip was evidently a domesticated man. I should have _screamed_, long before the hour of silence was up; and flatly refused to go to any country where I could not buy sugar at a moment's notice! "Oh, David, I must stop! You will consider this flippant. But Uncle Falcon enjoys the joke. He is looking more amused than I have seen him look for many months. He would have liked to see Philip trying to hold my hand. Uncle Falcon's amber eyes are twinkling. "Talking of cottages, I was inspecting the schools the other day, and the children recited 'po-tray' for my benefit. They all remarked together, in a sing-song nasal chant: 'The cottage was a thatched one,' with many additional emphatic though unimportant facts. I suggested, when it was over, that 'The cottage was a _thatched_ one,' might better render the meaning of the poet. But the schoolmaster and his wife regarded me doubtfully; saying, that in the whole of their long experience it had always been: 'The cottage _was_ a thatched one.' I hastily agreed that undoubtedly a long established precedent must never be disregarded; and what _has been_ should ever--in this good conservative land of ours--for that reason, if for no other, continue to be. Then I turned my attention to the drawing and needlework. "How my old set would laugh if they knew how often I spend a morning inspecting the schools. But many things in my daily life now would be incomprehensible to them and, therefore, amusing. "How much depends upon one's point of view. I jumped upon a little lady in the train the other day, travelling up to town for a day's shopping, for saying with a weary sigh and dismal countenance, that she was 'facing Christmas'! Fancy approaching the time of gifts and gladness and thought for others, in such a spirit! I told her the best 'facing' for her to do, would be to 'right about face' and go home to bed, and remain there until Christmas festivities were over! She pulled her furs more closely around her, and tapped my arm with the jewelled pencil-case with which she was writing her list of gifts. 'My dear Diana,' she said, 'you have always been so fatiguingly energetic.' This gave me food for thought. I suppose even the sight of the energy of others is a weariness to easily exhausted people. A favourite remark of Chappie's used to be, that the way I came down to breakfast tired her out for the day. "Well, as I remarked before, I must close this long epistle. I am becoming quite Pauline in my postscripts. As I think of it on its way to you, I shall have cause to recite with compunction: 'The letter _was_--a long one!' "Good-bye, my dear David. "May all best blessings rest upon the Church of the Holy Star, and upon your ministry therein. "Affectionately yours, Diana Rivers." "P.S. Don't you think you might relieve my natural wifely anxiety, by giving me a few details as to your general health? And please remember to answer my question about Mrs. Mallory's conscience." CHAPTER XXVIII DAVID'S PRONOUNCEMENT When David's reply arrived, in due course, he went straight to the point in this matter of Mrs. Mallory's conscience, with a directness which fully satisfied Diana. "It is impossible," wrote David, "to give an opinion as to which was the greater or lesser wrong, when your friend had already advanced so far down a crooked way. Undoubtedly it was a difficult moment for her in the railway carriage, as in all probability her own critical thought gave you the mental suggestion of not being suitably got up for town. But you, in similar circumstances, would have said: 'Why, what does the fact of your clothes being countrified matter, compared to the immense comfort of having you with me. And if all the people we meet, could know how kind you have been and how you raced to the train, they would not give a second thought to what you happen to be wearing.' "But a straightforward answer, such as you would have given, would not be a natural instinct to a mind habitually fencing and hedging, and shifting away from facing facts. "Personally, on the difficult question of confession of wrong-doing, I hold this: that if confession rights a wrong, and is clearly to the advantage of the person to whom it is made, then confession is indeed an obvious duty, which should be faced and performed without delay. "But--if confession is merely the method adopted by a stricken and convicted conscience, for shifting the burden of its own wrong-doing by imparting to another the knowledge of that wrong, especially if that knowledge will cause pain, disappointment, or perplexity to an innocent heart--then I hold it to be both morbid and useless. "Mrs. Mallory did not undo the fact of her lapse from absolute truthfulness by telling you of it, in a way which she must have known would cause you both mortification and pain. She simply added to the sin of untruthfulness, the sins of ingratitude, and of inconsideration for the feelings of another. Had she forged your signature to a cheque, she would have been right to confess it; because confession would have been a necessary step toward restitution. All confession which rights a wrong, is legitimate and essential. Confession which merely lays a burden upon another, is morbid and selfish. The loneliness of a conscience under conviction, bearing in solitude the burden of acute remembrance of past sins, is a part of the punishment those sins deserve. Then--into that loneliness--there comes the comfort of the thought: 'He Who knows all, understands all; and He Who knows and understands already, may be fully told, all.' And, no sooner is that complete confession made, than there breaks the radiance of the promise, shining star-like in the darkness of despair: 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' Mrs. Mallory could thus have got back into the light of restored communion, without ever mentioning the matter to you. "But this kind of mind is so difficult to help, because its lapses are due to a lack of straightforward directness, which would be, to another mind, not an effort, but an instinct. "Such people stand in a chronic state of indecision, at perpetual cross-roads; and are just as likely to take the wrong road, as the right; then, after having travelled far along that road, are pulled up by complications arising, not so much from the predicament of the moment, as from the fact that they vacillated into the wrong path at the crucial time when they stood hesitating. They need Elijah's clarion call to the people of Israel: 'How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him; but, if Baal, then follow him'--honest idolatry being better than vacillating indecision. "This species of mental lameness reminds me of a man I knew at college, who had one leg longer than the other. He was no good at all at racing on the straight; but, round the grass plot in the centre of one of our courts, no one could beat him. He used to put his short leg inside, and his long leg out, and round and round he would sprint, like a lamplighter. People who halt between two opinions always argue in a circle, but never arrive at any definite conclusion. They are no good on the straight. They find themselves back where they originally started. They get no farther. "Mrs. Mallory should take her place in the Pool of Bethesda among the blind, and the halt, and the withered. She should get her eyes opened to a larger outlook on life; her crooked walk made straight; and her withered sensibilities quickened into fresh life. Then she would soon cease to try you with her morbid conscience. "Mrs. Mallory should give up defacing her Bible with the ink of her own ideas or the ideas of others. Human conceptions, however helpful, should not find a permanent place, even in your own individual copy of the Word of God. The particular line of truth they emphasised, may have been the teaching intended for that particular hour of study. But, every time you turn to a passage, you may expect fresh light, and a newly revealed line of thought. If your eye is at once arrested by notes and comments, or even by the underlining of special words, your mind slips into the groove of a past meditation; thus the liberty of fresh light, and the free course of fresh revelation, are checked and impeded. Do not crowd into the sacred _sanctuary_ of the Word, ideas which may most helpfully be garnered in the _classroom_ of your notebook. Remember that the Bible differs from all human literature in this: that it is a living, vital thing--ever new, ever replete with fresh surprises. The living Spirit illumines its every line, the living Word meets you in its pages. As in the glades of Eden, when the mysterious evening wind (_ruach_) stirred the leaves of the trees, making of that hour 'the cool of the day'--you can say, as the wind of the Spirit breathes upon your passage through the Word: 'I hear the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.' Then, passing down its quiet glades, straightway, face to face, you meet your Lord. No unconfessed sin can remain hidden in the light of that meeting. No conscience can continue morbid if illumined, cleansed, adjusted, by habitual study of the Word. * * * * * "There! I have calmly given my view of the matter, as being 'by profession, a guide of doubting souls, an expounder of problems of casuistry,' and all the other excellent things it pleased you to call me. "Now--as a man--allow me the relief of simply stating, that I should dearly like to pound Mrs. Mallory to pulp, for her utter ingratitude to you." * * * * * This sudden explosion on David's part, brought out delighted dimples in Diana's cheeks; and, thereafter, whenever Mrs. Mallory proved trying, she found consolation in whispering to herself: "David--my good, saintly David--would dearly like to pound her to pulp!" CHAPTER XXIX WHAT DAVID WONDERED One more episode, culled from the year's correspondence, shows the intimacy, constantly bordering on the personal, which grew up between David and Diana. He had mentioned in one of his letters, that among a package of illustrated papers which had reached his station, he had found one in which was an excellent photograph of Diana, passing down the steps of the Town Hall, to her motor, after opening a bazaar at Eversleigh. David had written with so much pleasure of this, that Diana, realising he had no portrait of her, and knowing how her heart yearned for one of him, went up to town, and was photographed especially for him. When the portrait arrived, and her own face looked out at her from the silver wrappings, she was startled by its expression. It was not a look she ever saw in her mirror. The depth of tenderness in the eyes, the soft wistfulness of the mouth, were a revelation of her own heart to Diana. She had been thinking of her husband, when the camera unexpectedly opened its eye upon her. The clever artist had sacrificed minor details of arrangement, in order to take her unawares before a photographic expression closed the gates upon the luminous beauty of her soul. Diana hurried the picture back into its wrappings. It had been taken for David. To David it must go; and go immediately, if it were to go at all. If it did not go at once to David, it would go into the fire. It went to David. With it went a letter. "MY DEAR DAVID,--I am much amused that you should have come across a picture of me in an illustrated paper. I did not see it myself; but I gather from your description, that it must have been taken as I was leaving the Town Hall after the function of which I told you in September. Fancy you being able to recognise the motor and the men. I remember having to stand for a minute at the top of the long flight of steps, while some of the members of the committee, who had organised the bazaar, made their adieus. I always hate all the hand-shaking on these occasions. I suppose you would enjoy it, David. To you, each hand would mean an interesting personality behind it. I am afraid to me it only means something unpleasantly hot, and unnecessarily literal in the meaning it gives to 'hand-shake.' Don't you know a certain style of story which says, in crucial moments between the hero and the heroine: 'He wrung her hand and left her?' They always wring your hand--a most painful process--when you open bazaars, but they don't leave you! You are constrained at last to flee to your motor. "'The fellow in the topper'"--Diana paused here to refer to David's letter, then continued writing, a little smile of amusement curving the corners of her mouth,--"The 'good-looking fellow in the topper' who was being 'so very attentive' to me, and 'apparently enjoying himself on the steps,' is our Member. His wife, a charming woman, is a great friend of mine. She should appear just behind us. The mayoress had presented me with the bouquet he was holding for me. I foisted it upon the poor man because, personally, I hate carrying bouquets. I daresay it had the effect in the snapshot of making him look 'a festive chap.' But he was not enjoying himself, any more than I was. We had both just shaken hands with the Mayor! "It seems so funny to think that a reproduction of this scene should have found its way to you in Central Africa; and I am much gratified that you considered it worth framing, and hanging up in your hut. "I am glad you thought me looking so like myself. I don't think I am much given to looking like other people! Unlike a little lady in this neighbourhood who is never herself, but always some one else, and not the same person for many weeks together. It is one of our mild amusements to wonder who she will be next. She had a phase of being me once, with a bunch of _artificial_ violets on her muff! "But, to return to the picture. It has occurred to me that, as you were so pleased with it, you might like a better. It is not right, my dear David, that the only likeness you possess of your wife, should be a snapshot in a penny paper. So, by this mail, I send a proper photograph, taken the other day on purpose for you. Are you not flattered, sir?" The letter then went on to speak of other things; but, before signing her name, Diana drew the photograph once more from its wrappings, and looked at it, shyly, wistfully. She could not help seeing that it was very beautiful. She could not help knowing that her heart was in her eyes. What would they say to David--those tender, yearning eyes? What might they not lead David to say to her? * * * * * At last his answer came. "How kind of you to send me this beautiful large photograph, and very good of you to have had it taken expressly for me. I fear you will think me an ungrateful fellow, if I confess that I still prefer the snapshot, and cannot bring myself to take it from its frame. "This is lovely beyond words, of course; and immensely artistic; but it gives me more the feeling of an extremely beautiful fancy picture. You see, I never saw you look as you are looking in this portrait, whereas the Town Hall picture is you, exactly as I remember you always; tall and gay, and immensely enjoying life, and life's best gifts. "Conscious of ingratitude, I put the portrait up on the wall of my hut; but I could not leave it there; and it is now safely locked away in my desk. "I could not leave it there for two reasons: its effect on myself; and its effect on the natives. "Reason No. 1. Its effect on myself: I could not work, while it was where I could see it. It set me wondering; and a fellow is lost if he once starts wondering, out in the wilds of Central Africa. "Reason No. 2. Its effect on the natives: They all began worshipping it. It became a second goddess fallen from heaven, like unto your namesake at Ephesus. They had seen a Madonna, brought here by an artist travelling through. They took this for a Madonna--and well they might. They asked: Where was the little child? I said: There was no little child. Yet still they worshipped. So I placed it under lock and key." Diana laid her head down on the letter, after reading these words. When she lifted it, the page was blotted with her tears. Sometimes her punishment seemed heavier than she could bear. She took up her pen, and added a postscript to the letter she was just mailing. "Dear David, what did you wonder? Tell me." And David, with white set face, wrote in answer: "I wondered who----" then started up, and tore the sheet to fragments; threw prudence to the winds; went out and beat his way for hours through the swampy jungle, fighting the long grasses, and the evil clinging tendrils of poisonous growths. When he regained his hut, worn out and exhausted, the stars were pricking in golden pin-points through the sky; one planet hung luminous and low on the horizon. David stood in his doorway, trying to gain a little refreshment from the night wind, blowing up from the river. Suddenly he laughed, long and wildly; then caught his breath, in a short dry sob. "My God," he said, "I have so little! Let me keep to the end the one thing in my wife which I possess: my faith in her." Then he passed into the hut, closing the door; groped his way to the rough wooden table; lighted a lamp, and sitting down at his desk, drew Diana's portrait from its silver wrappings; placed it in front of him, and sat long, looking at it intently; his head in his hands. At last he laid his hot mouth on those sweet pictured lips, parted in wistful tenderness, as if offering much to one at whom the grey eyes looked with love unmistakable. Then he laid it away, out of sight, and rewrote his letter. * * * * * "I wondered," he said, "at the great kindness which took so much trouble, only for me." CHAPTER XXX RESURGAM "RIVERSCOURT, "Feast of Epiphany, "MY DEAR DAVID,--A wonderful thing has happened; and I am so glad it happened on the Feast of the Star, which is also--as you will remember--our wedding-day. "I want to tell you of it, David, because it is one of those utterly unexpected, beautiful happenings, which, on the rare occasions when they do occur, make one feel that, after all, nothing is irrevocably hopeless, even in this poor world of ours, where mistakes usually appear to be irretrievable, and where wisdom, bought too dearly and learned too late, can bring forth no fruit save in the mournful land of might-have-beens. "Last year, this day was one of frost and sunshine. This year, the little Hampshire farms and homesteads, all along the railway, cannot have looked either cosy or picturesque; and the distant line of undulating hills must have been completely hidden by fog and mist. It has sleeted, off and on, during the whole morning--a seasonable attempt at snow somewhere up above, frustrated by the unseasonable murky dampness of the earth, below. I wonder how often God's purposes for us, of pure white beauty, are prevented by the murk and mist of our own mental atmosphere. This sounds like moralising, and so it is! I thought it out, in Brambledene church this morning, while god-papa was enjoying himself in the pulpit. "He took for his text: 'They departed into their own country another way.' He displayed a vast amount of geographical information, concerning the various ways by which the three Wise Men--oh, David, there were _three_ all through the sermon; and I felt so wrathful, because Mrs. Smith's back view--I mean _my_ back view of Mrs. Smith--was so smugly complacent, and she nodded her head in approval, every time god-papa said 'three.' I could have hurled my Bible, open at Matthew ii. at god-papa; and an agèd and mouldy copy of Hymns Ancient and Modern, at Mrs. Smith; a performance which would have carried on, in a less helpful way, your particular faculty for making that congregation sit up. This desire on my part will possibly lead you to conclude, my dear David, that your wife was giving way to an unchristian temper. But she was not. She was simply experiencing a wifely pride in your sermons, and a quite justifiable desire that every word they contained should be understood and corroborated. Other ladies have hurled stools in defence of the faith, and thereby taken their place in the annals of history. Why should not your wife hurl a very, _very_ old copy of Ancient and Modern Hymns and Tunes, and thus become famous? "Well, as I was saying, god-papa was being very learnèd as to the probable route by which the Wise Men returned home, though he had already told us it was impossible to be at all certain as to the locality from which they started. This struck me as being so very like the good people who tell us with authoritative detail where we are going, although they know not whence we came. "This thought unhitched my mind from god-papa's rolling chariot of eloquence, which went lumbering on along a highroad of Eastern lore and geographical research, regardless of the fact that my little mental wheel had trundled gaily off on its own, down a side alley. "This tempting glade, my dear David, alluring to a mind perplexed by the dust of god-papa's highway, was an imaginary sermon, preached by _you_, on this self-same text. "I seemed to know just how you would explain all the different routes by which souls reach home; and how sometimes that 'other way' along which they are led is a way other than they would have chosen, and difficult to be understood, until the end makes all things clear. In the course of this eloquent and really helpful sermon of yours, occurred that idea about the snow, which caused me to digress at the beginning of my letter, in order to tell you I had been to Brambledene. "The little church looked very much as it did last year; heavy with evergreen, and gay with flock texts, and banners. The font looked like a stout person, suffering from sore throat. It was carefully swathed in cotton-wool and red flannel. The camphorated oil, one took for granted. I sat in my old corner against the pillar. Sarah was in church. I had a feeling that, somehow, you were connected with the fact of her presence there. We gave each other a smile of sympathy. We both owe much to you, David. "But you will think I am never coming to the point of my letter--the wonderful thing which has happened. I believe I keep postponing it, because it means so much to me; I hardly know how to write it; and yet I am longing to tell you. "Well--after luncheon I felt moved, notwithstanding the weather, to go for a tramp in the park. There are days when I cannot possibly remain within doors. My holiday children were having a romp upstairs, in charge of Mrs. Mallory. "I happened to go out through the hall; and, just as I opened the door, a station fly drove up, and the solitary occupant hurriedly alighted. I should have made good my retreat, leaving this unexpected visitor to be dealt with by Rodgers, had I not caught sight of her face, and been thereby arrested on the spot. It was the sweetest, saddest, most gently lovely face; and she was a young widow, in very deep mourning. "'Is this Riverscourt,' she asked, as I came forward; 'and can I speak, at once, to Mrs. Rivers?' "I brought her in. There was something strangely familiar about the soft eyes and winning smile, though I felt quite sure I had never seen her before. "I placed her on the couch, in the draw room, where you first saw Chappie; and turned my attention to the fire, while she battled with an almost overwhelming emotion. "Then she said: 'Mrs. Rivers, I am a missionary. I have just returned from abroad. I only reached London this morning. My little girl had to be sent on, nearly a year ago. I have just been living for the hour when I should see her again. They tell me, you, in your great kindness, have had her here for the Christmas holidays, and that she is here still. So I came straight on. I hope you will pardon the intrusion.' "'Intrusion!' I cried. 'Why, how could it be an intrusion? If you knew what it means to me when I hear of any of these bereft little boys and girls finding their parents again! But we have at least a dozen children here just now. What is the name of your little girl?' "'Her name is Eileen,' said the gentle voice, 'but we always call her "Little Fairy".' "David, my heart seemed to bound into my throat and stop there! "'Who--who are you?' I exclaimed. "The young widow on the sofa opened her arms with an unconscious gesture of love and longing. "'I am Little Fairy's mummie,' she said simply. "'But--' I cried; and stopped. I suppose my face completed the unfinished sentence. "'Oh, yes,' she said, 'I had forgotten you would know of the telegram. In some inexplicable way it got changed in transit. It was my husband's death it should have announced, not mine. I lost him very suddenly, just as we were almost due to leave for home. I did not wish my children to be told until my return. I wanted to tell them myself.' "I rang the bell, and sent a message to Mrs. Mallory to send Little Fairy at once to the drawing-room. Then I knelt down in front of Fairy's mummie, and took both her trembling hands in mine. It does not come easy to me to be demonstrative, David, but I know the tears were running down my cheeks. "'Oh, you don't know what it has been!' I said. 'To think of you as dead and buried, thousands of miles away; and to hear that baby voice, singing in joyous confidence: "Mummie's tumming home!" And the little mouth kept its kisses so loyally for you. I was told each evening: "Not my mouf,--that's only for Mummie!" I used to think I _must_ tell her. Thank God, I didn't! And now----' "I broke off. Little Fairy's mummie was sobbing on my shoulder. We held each other, and cried together. "'You won't leave her again?' I said. "'Oh, no,' she whispered, 'never, never! I also have two little sons at school in England. _I_ never could feel it right to be parted from the children. It was my husband--who----' "Then we heard a little voice, singing on the stairs. "I ran out to the hall. "That sweet baby, in a white frock and blue sash, was tripping down the staircase. Mrs. Mallory's middle-class instincts had rapidly made her tidy. She looked a little picture as she came, holding by the dark oak banisters. "Mummie's--tumming--home!" proclaimed the joyous voice--a word to each step. She saw me, waiting at the bottom; and threw me a golden smile. "I caught her in my arms. I could n't kiss her; she was not mine to kiss. But I looked into her little face and said: 'Mummie's _come_ home, darling! Mummie's _come_ home!' "Then I ran to the drawing-room. I had meant to put her down at the door. But, David, I couldn't! I carried her in, and put her straight into her mother's arms. I saw the little mouth, so carefully guarded, meet the living, loving lips, which I had pictured as cold and dead. "Then I walked over to the window, and stood looking out at the sleet and drizzle, the leafless branches, the sodden turf, the dank cold deadness of all things without. Ah, what did they matter, with such love, such bliss, such resurrection within! "David, I have always said I did not like children. For years I have derided the sacred obligation of motherhood. I have often declared that nothing would induce me, under any circumstances, to undertake it. At last, by my own act, I have put myself into a position which makes it impossible that that love, that tie, that sweet responsibility, should ever be mine. I don't say, by any means, that I wish for it; but I have felt lately that my former attitude of mind in the matter was wrong, ignorant, sinful. "And--oh, how can I make my meaning plain--it seemed to me that in that moment, when I put that little child into those waiting arms, without kissing her myself--I expiated that mental sin. I shall always have a hungry ache at my heart, because I gave Little Fairy up without kissing her; but that very hunger means conviction, confession, and penance. I shall never have a little child of my own; but I have experienced something of the rapture of motherhood, in sharing in this meeting between my little baby-girl, and the mother I had thought dead. "And now, David, I will tell you a secret. Had the father arrived home, with the awful news, I had meant to ask leave to adopt Little Fairy. But you see I am not intended even to have other people's children for my own. "After a while, as I stood at the window, I heard the mother say: 'Darling, dear father has not come home.' "'Oh,' said Fairy's contented little voice; asking no questions. "'Darling,' insisted the quiet tones of the mother, 'dear father has gone to be with Jesus.' "I looked round. The baby-face was earnest and thoughtful. She lifted great questioning eyes to her mother. "'Oh,' she said. 'Did Jesus want him?' "'Yes,' said the sweet voice, controlling a sudden tremor. 'Jesus wanted him. So we have lost dear father, darling.' "Then Fairy knelt up on her mother's knee, and put both little arms round her mother's neck, with a movement of unspeakable tenderness. "'But we've gotted each uvver, Mummie,' she said. "Oh, David, _we've gotted each other_! It seemed just everything to that little heart. And I believe it was everything to the mother, too. "Now, do you wonder that this has made me feel as if none of earth's happenings, however sad, need be altogether hopeless; no mistake, however great, is wholly irretrievable. "Our own sad hearts may say: 'He has lain in the grave four days already.' But the voice of the Christ can answer: 'Lazarus, come forth!' "Are you not glad this wonderful thing took place on the Feast of the Star? "Affectionately yours, "DIANA RIVERS." * * * * * It so happened that David had a sharp bout of fever soon after the arrival of this letter. His colleague wondered why, in his delirium, he kept on repeating: "When I am dead, she can have a Fairy of her own! She can have a little Fairy, when I am dead!" CHAPTER XXXI "I CAN STAND ALONE" In the early summer following the first anniversary of their wedding-day, Diana's anxiety about David increased. His letters became less regular. Sometimes they were written in pencil, with more or less incoherent apologies for not using ink. The writing was larger than David's usual neat small handwriting; the letters, less firmly formed. After receiving one of these, Diana experimented. She lay upon a couch, raised herself on her left elbow, and wrote a few lines upon paper lying beside her. This produced in her own writing exactly the same variation as she saw in David's. She felt certain that David was having frequent and severe attacks of fever; but he still ignored all questions concerning his own health; or merely answered: "All is well, thank you"; and Diana had cause to fear that this answer was given in the spirit of the Shunammite woman who, when Elisha questioned: "Is it well with the child?" answered: "It is well"; yet her little son lay dead at home. In June, Diana wrote to David's colleague, asking him privately for an exact account of her husband's health. But the colleague was loyal. David answered the letter. As usual, all was well; but it was _not_ well that Diana had tried to learn from some one else a thing which she had reason to suppose David himself did not wish to tell her. He wrote very sternly, and did not veil his displeasure. Womanlike, Diana loved him for it. "Oh, my Boy!" she said, smiling through her tears; "my David, with his thin, white face, tumbled hair, and boyish figure! Sick or well, absent or present, he would always be master. I must try Sir Deryck." But she got nothing out of her friend the doctor, beyond a somewhat stiff reminder that he had told her on her wedding-day that her husband ought to return from Central Africa within the year. Had she really allowed him to go, without exacting a promise that he would do so? He might live through two years of that climate; but his constitution could not possibly stand a third. Her question, as to whether Sir Deryck had received recent news of David's health, remained unanswered. Diana felt annoyed and indignant. A naturally sympathetic man is expected to be unfailingly sympathetic. But the doctor was strong as well as kind. He had been perplexed by the suddenly arranged marriage; surprised at David's reticence over it; and when he realised that David was sailing, without his bride, on the afternoon of his wedding-day, he had been inclined to disapprove altogether. Diana sensed this disapproval in the doctor's letter. It hurt her; but it also stimulated her pride, toward him, and, in a lesser degree, toward David. That which they did not choose to tell her, she would no longer ask. She was acquainted with at least half a dozen women who, under similar circumstances, would have telegraphed for an appointment, rushed up to town, and poured out the whole story to Sir Deryck in his consulting-room. But Diana was not that kind of woman. Her pain made her silent. Her stricken heart called in pride, lest courage should fail. The tragic situation was of her own creating. That which resulted therefrom, she would bear alone. She could not see herself a penitent, in the green leather armchair, in Sir Deryck's consulting-room. A grander woman than she had sat there once, humbled to the very dust, that she might win the crown of love. But Diana's strength was of a weaker calibre. Her escutcheon was also the pure true heart, but its supporters were Courage on the one side, and Pride on the other; her motto: "I can stand alone." So she lived on, calmly, through the summer months, while David's letters grew less and less frequent; and, at last, in October, the blow fell. CHAPTER XXXII THE BLOW FALLS In October, during the second autumn of their married life, the blow fell. A letter came from David; very clear, very concise, very much to the point; written in ink, in his small neat writing. "MY DEAR WIFE--" wrote David, "I hope you will try to understand what I am about to write and not think, for a moment, that I under-value the pleasure and help I have received from our correspondence, during the year and nine months which have elapsed since my departure from England. Your letters have been a greater cheer and blessing than you can possibly know. Also it has been an untold help to be able to write and share with you, all the little details of my interests out here. "I am afraid these undeniable facts will make it seem even stranger to you, that I am now writing to ask that our correspondence should cease. "I daresay you have noticed that my letters lately have been irregular, and often, I am afraid, short and unsatisfactory. The fact is--I have required all my remaining energy for the completion of my work out here. "I want to bid you farewell, my wife, while I still have strength to write hopefully of my present work, and joyously of the future. I will not, now, hide from you, Diana, that my time here is nearly over. Do you remember how I said: 'I cannot _promise_ to die, you know'? I might have promised, with a good grace, after all. "This will be the last letter I shall write; and when you have answered it, _do not write again_. I may be moved from here, any day; and can give you no address. "You must not suppose, my wife, that, owing to the ceasing of our correspondence, you will be left in any uncertainty as to when the merely nominal bond which has bound us together is severed, leaving you completely free. "I have written you a letter, which I carry, sealed and addressed, in the breast pocket of my coat. It bears full instructions that it is to be forwarded to you immediately after my death. A copy of it is also in my despatch-box; so that--in case of anything unforeseen happening to my clothes--the letter would without fail be sent to you, so soon as my belongings came into the hands of our Society. "This letter is not, therefore, my final farewell; so I do not make it anything of a good-bye; though it puts an end to our regular correspondence. And may I ask you to believe that there is a reason for this breaking off of our correspondence; a reason which I cannot feel free to tell you now; but which I have explained fully, in the letter you will receive after my death? If you now find this step somewhat difficult to understand, believe me, that when you have read my other letter, you will at once admit that I could not do otherwise. I would not give your generous heart a moment's pain; even through a misunderstanding. "And now, from the bottom of my heart, may I thank you for all you have done for me and for my work? Any little service I was able to render you, was as nothing compared with all you have so generously done for me, and been to me, since the Feast of Epiphany, nearly two years ago. "Your help has meant simply everything to the work out here. I am able to feel that I shall leave behind me a fully established, flourishing, growing, eager young Church. My colleague is a splendid fellow, keen, earnest, and a good churchman. If you feel able to continue your support, he will be most grateful, and I can vouch for him as did the Jews of old, for the Roman centurion: 'He is worthy, for whom thou shouldest do this thing.' "And, oh, if some day, Diana, you yourself could visit the Church of the Holy Star! Some day; but not yet. "For this brings me to the closing request of my letter. "I cannot but suspect that your kind and generous heart may incline you--as soon as you receive this letter, and know that I am dying--to come out here at once, in order to bid a personal farewell to your friend. "_Do not do so._ Do not leave England until you receive word of my death. I have a reason, which you will understand by and by, for laying special stress upon this request; in fact it is my last wish and command, my wife. (I have not had much opportunity for tyranny, have I?) "How much your sympathy, and gay bright friendship, have meant to me, in this somewhat lonely life, no words can say. "Just now I wrote of the time, so soon coming, when the nominal bond between us would be severed, leaving you completely free. You must not even feel yourself a widow, Diana; because you will not really be one. I have called you my 'wife,' I know; but it has just been a courtesy title. Has n't it? "Yet--may I say it?--I trust and believe the very perfect friendship between us will be a lasting link, which even death cannot sever. And there is a yet closer bond: One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism. This is eternal. "So--I say again as I said, with my hands on your bowed head, on that Christmas night so long ago, before we knew all that was to be between us: "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee; The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." "Good-bye, my wife. "Yours ever, "DAVID RIVERS." CHAPTER XXXIII REQUIESCAT IN PACE Diana sat perfectly still, when she had finished reading David's letter. A year ago she would have flung herself upon her knees, sobbing: "David, David!" But the time for weeping and calling him had long gone by. These deeper depths of anguish neither moaned nor cried out. They just silently turned her to stone. Every vestige of colour had left her face, yet she did not know she was pale. She sat, looking straight before her, and--realising. David was dying; and David did not want her. David was dying in Central Africa; yet his last request was that she should stay in England, until she heard of his death. Every now and then her lips moved. She was repeating, quietly: "The merely nominal bond which has bound us together." And then, with a ghastly face, and eyes which widened with anguish: "I have called you my 'wife,' I know; but it has just been a courtesy title. Hasn't it?" Hasn't it! Oh, David, has it? Was it a courtesy title at the top of the gangway? _Good-bye, my wife._ Was it a courtesy title, when that deep possessive yearning voice rang in her ears for hours afterwards; teaching her at last what love, marriage, and wifehood might really have meant? Was it a courtesy title when his first letter arrived, and the words _my dear wife_ came round her in her shame, like strong protective arms? All this time, had it meant even less to David than she had thought? Often her punishment had seemed greater than she could bear. Often the branding-iron of vain regret had seared her quivering heart. But this--this was indeed the cruel pincers of the Roman torture-chamber at her very breasts! It had been just a courtesy title; and she had hugged it to her, as the one thing which proved that--however little it might ever mean--at least she was more to David than any one else on earth. On earth! How much longer would he be on earth? David, with his boyish figure, and little short coat. Ah! In the pocket of that coat was a letter for her--one more letter; his farewell. And she was not to receive it until it would be too late to send any answer. Oh, David, David! Is all this mere accident, or are you deliberately punishing your wife for the slight she put upon your manhood? She did it in ignorance, David. She mounted the platform of her own ignorance, and spoke out of the depths of her absolute inexperience. Too late to send any answer! Yes; but there was time to answer this one. If she caught to-night's mail, David might yet receive her reply, and learn the truth, before he died. Pride and Courage stepped away, leaving, unsupported, the escutcheon of the pure true heart. She took pen and paper and wrote her last letter to David. * * * * * Even had that letter been sent, so wonderful an outpouring of a woman's pent up love and longing; so desperate a laying bare of her heart's life, could only have been for the eye of the man for whom it was intended. To read it would have been desecration; to print it, sacrilege. But the letter was not sent. Half way through, Diana suddenly remembered that when it reached David he would be ill and weak; perhaps, actually dying. She must not trouble his last moments, with such an outpouring of grief and remorse; of longing and of loneliness. And here we see the mother in Diana, coming to the fore in tender thought for David, even in the midst of her own desperate need to tell him all. Nothing must trouble his peace at the last. The passionate outpouring was flung into a drawer. Diana took fresh paper, and drew it toward her. Courage came back to his place at the right of the escutcheon. Pride stayed away, forever slain. But, in his stead, there stepped to the left, the Madonna with eyes of love; the Infant in her arms. Then Diana--thrusting back her own fierce agony, that David might die in peace--began her final letter. "RIVERSCOURT. "MY DEAR, DEAR DAVID,--I do not need to tell you how deeply I feel your letter; bringing the news it does, about yourself. But of course I understand it perfectly; and you must not worry at all over trying to make any further explanations. I will do exactly as you wish, in every detail. "Of course, I should have come out directly your letter reached me, if you had not asked me not to do so. I long to be with you, David. If you should change your mind, and wish for me, a cable would bring me, by the next boat, and quickest overland route. Otherwise I will remain in England, until I receive your letter. "I cannot stay at Riverscourt. It would be too lonely without any prospect of letters from you. But you remember the Hospital of the Holy Star of which I told you, where I was training when Uncle Falcon wrote for me? I have been there often lately, going up once a week for a day in the out-patients' department; and last week my friend, the matron, told me that the sister in one of the largest wards--my old ward--must, unexpectedly, return home for an indefinite time. This was placing them in somewhat of a difficulty. "I shall now offer to take her place, and go there for three months or so; anyway until after Christmas. But Riverscourt will remain open, and all my letters will be immediately forwarded. "You must not mind my going to the hospital. I shall find it easier to bear my sorrow, while working day and night for others. For, David--oh, David, it _is_ a terrible sorrow! "I must not worry you now, with tales of my own poor heart; but ever since I lost you, David; ever since our wedding-day evening, I have loved you, and longed for you, more, and more, and more. When you called me your wife on the gangway, it revealed to me, suddenly, what it really meant to be your wife. "Oh, my Boy, my Darling, when I lose you, I shall be a widow indeed! But you must not let the thought of my sorrow disturb your last moments. Perhaps, when you reach the Land that is very far off, I shall feel you less far away than in Central Africa. Be near me, sometimes, if you can, David. "I shall go on striving to offer my gifts; though the gold and the frankincense will be overwhelmed by the myrrh. But the Star we have followed together, will still lead me on. And perhaps it will guide me at last to the foot of the shining throne, where my Darling will sit in splendour. And I shall see his look call me to him, as it called in old St. Botolph's; and I shall pass up the aisle of glory, and hear him say: 'Come, my wife.' Then I shall kneel at his feet, and lay my head on his knees. Oh, David, David! "Your own wife, who loves you and longs for you, "DIANA RIVERS." There was much she would have expressed otherwise; there were some things she would have left unsaid; but there was no time to rewrite her letter. So Diana let it go as it was; and it caught the evening mail. But even so, David never saw it; for it arrived, alas, just twenty-four hours too late. _Here endeth_ FRANKINCENSE. MYRRH CHAPTER XXXIV IN THE HOSPITAL OF THE HOLY STAR Once again it was Christmas-eve; but, in the midst of the strenuous life of a busy London hospital, Diana scarcely had leisure to realise the season, or to allow herself the private luxury of dwelling in thought upon the anniversaries which were upon her once more; the three important dates, coming round for the third time. She had fled from a brooding leisure--a leisure in which she dared not await the news of David's death, or the coming of his farewell letter--and she had fled successfully. The Sister of Saint Angela's ward, in the Hospital of the Holy Star, had no time for brooding, and very few moments in which to give a thought to herself or her own sorrows. The needs of others were too all-absorbing. Diana, in the severe simplicity of her uncompromising uniform; Diana, with a stiffly starched white cap, almost concealing her coronet of soft golden hair, bore little outward resemblance to David's sweet Lady of Mystery, who had stood in an attitude of hesitancy at the far end of Brambledene church, on that winter's night two years before. And yet the grey eyes held a gentleness, and the firm white hands a tenderness of touch, unknown to them then. During the two months of her strong, just rule in the ward of Saint Angela, the only people who feared her were those who sought to evade duty, disobey regulations, or feign complaints. The genuine sufferer looked with eager eyes for the approach, towards his bed, of that tall, gracious figure; the passing soul strained back from the Dark Valley to hear the words of hope and cheer spoken, unfalteringly, by that kind voice; the dying hand clung to those strong fingers, while the first black waves passed over, engulfing the outer world. Christmas-eve had been a strenuous day in the ward of Saint Angela. Two ambulance calls, and an operation of great severity, had added to the usual routine of the day's work. It was Diana's last day in charge. The Sister, whose place she had temporarily filled, returned to the hospital at noon, and came on duty at four o'clock. Diana went to her own room at five, with a pleasant sense of freedom from responsibility, and with more leisure to think over her own plans and concerns, than she had known for many weeks. At seven o'clock, Sir Deryck was due, for an important consultation over an obscure brain case which interested him. Until then, she was free. On the following day she intended to return to Riverscourt. Her little room seemed cosy and home-like as she entered it. The curtains were drawn, shutting out the murky fog of the December night. The ceaseless roar of London's busy traffic reached her as a muffled hum, too subdued and continuous to attract immediate notice. A lighted lamp stood on the little writing-table. A bright fire burned in the grate; a kettle sang on the hob. A tea-tray stood in readiness beside her easy chair. Within the circle of the lamplight lay a small pile of letters, just arrived. At sight of these Diana moved quickly forward, glancing through them with swift tension of anxiety. No, it was not among them. Several times each day she passed through this moment of acute suspense. But, not yet had David's letter reached her. Yet, somehow, she had long felt certain that it would come on Christmas-eve: the letter, at sight of which she would know that her husband had reached at last "the Land that is very far off." Moving to the fireplace, she made herself some tea, in the little brown pot, which, from constant use, by day and by night, had become a humble yet unfailing friend. Then she lay back in her chair, with a delightful sense of liberty and leisure, and gave herself up to a quiet hour of retrospective thought. * * * * * It seemed years since that October morning when David's letter had reached her and she had had to face the fact that he was dying, yet did not want her; indeed begged, commanded her, to stay away. In that hour she lost David; lost him more completely than she could ever lose him by death. A loved one lost in life, is lost indeed. She had never been worthy of David. She had tried hard, by a life of perpetual frankincense, to become worthy. But no effort in the present could undo the great wrong of the past. Before the relentless hand of death actually widowed her, her sad heart was widowed by the fact that her husband was dying, yet did not want her with him; that his last weeks were to be undisturbed by letters to, or from, her. Her one joy in the present, her sole hope for the immediate future, had died at that decision. Nothing remained for her but submissive acquiescence, a waiting in stony patience for the final news, and a wistful yearning desire that, while yet in life, David might learn, from her letter, the truth as to her love for himself. If it had reached him in time, it might bring her the consolation of an understanding postscript to that final farewell which was to come to her at last from the breast-pocket of David's coat. Her departure from Riverscourt had been quickly and easily arranged. For once, Mrs. Mallory's plans had worked in conveniently with other people's. On the very evening of the arrival of David's letter, she had sought Diana in the library, and had announced, amid tears and smiles and many incoherent remarks about Philip, her engagement to the curate of a neighbouring parish. For the moment, Diana's astonishment ousted her ready tact. Whatever else Mrs. Mallory might or might not be, Diana had certainly looked upon her as being what Saint Paul described as a "widow indeed." And when Mrs. Mallory went on to explain that, though her own feelings were still uncertain and vague to a degree, dear Philip was so touchingly pleased and happy, Diana rose and stood, with bent brows, on the hearthrug, until Mrs. Mallory finally made it clear that by one of those exceedingly wonderful coincidences in which we may surely trace the finger of an All-wise Providence, the curate's Christian name was also Philip! So the Philip who was so touchingly pleased and happy, was Philip, number two! This was enough for Diana. It was the final straw which broke the back of her much enduring sympathy. She unbent her level brows, smiled her congratulations, and, from that moment, swept Mrs. Mallory completely out of her mind and out of her life. She subsequently signed the cheque for a substantial wedding-present as impersonally as, a moment later, she signed another in payment of her coal merchant's account. Her own widowed spirit rendered it impossible to her ever to give another conscious thought to Mrs. Mallory. * * * * * At first, life in the hospital, with its incessant interest and constant round of important duties, roused her mind to a new line of thought, and wearied her body into sound and dreamless slumber, whenever sleep was to be had. But, before long, the work became routine; her physique adjusted itself to the "on duty" and "off duty" arrangements. Then a terrible loneliness, as regards the present, and blank despair in regard to the future, laid hold of Diana. She seemed to have lost all. She cared no longer for her stately home, her position in the county, all the many advantages for which she had ventured so bold a stake. She had now voluntarily surrendered them; and here she was, back in the hospital, in nurse's uniform, in her small simply furnished room, working hard, in order to escape from leisure. Here she was, in the very position to avoid which she had married David; and, here she was, having married David, learnt to love him, and then--lost him. Her gift of gold seemed worth little or nothing. Her gift of frankincense had ended in heart-broken failure. What was left now, save myrrh--David's gift of myrrh, and her anguish in the fact that he offered it? During this period of blank despair, Diana went one afternoon to a service in a place where many earnest hearts gathered each week for praise, prayer, and Bible study. She went to please a friend, without having personally any special expectation of profit or of enjoyment. The proceedings opened with a hymn--a very short hymn of three verses, which Diana had never before heard. Yet those words, in their inspired simplicity, were to mean more to her than anything had ever as yet meant in her whole life. Before the audience rose to sing, she had time to read the three verses through. "Jesus, stand among us, In Thy risen power; Let this time of worship Be a hallowed hour. "Breathe Thy Holy Spirit Into every heart; Bid the fears and sorrows, From each soul depart. "Thus, with quickened footsteps, We'll pursue our way; Watching for the dawning Of the eternal day." Who can gauge the power of an inspired hymn of prayer? As the simple melody rose and fell, sung by hundreds of believing, expectant hearts, Diana became conscious of an unseen Presence in the midst, overshadowing the personality of the minister, just as in the noble monument to Phillips Brooks, outside his church in the beautiful city of Boston, the mighty tender figure of his Master, standing behind him, overshadows the sculptured form of the great preacher. The Presence of the risen Christ was there; the Power of the risen Christ, then and there, laid hold upon Diana. "Jesus, stand among us, In Thy risen power--" pleaded a great assemblage of believing hearts; and, in very deed, He stood among them; and He drew near in tenderness to the one lonely soul who, more than all others, needed Him. None other human words reached Diana during that "hour of worship." He, Who stood in the midst, dealt with her Himself, in the secret of her own spirit-chamber. She saw the happenings of the past in a new light. First of all, Self had reigned supreme. Then--when the great earthly love had ousted Self--she had placed David upon the throne. Now the true and only King of Love drew near in risen power; and she realised that He was come, in deepest tenderness, to claim the place which should all along have been His own. "Bid the fears and sorrows From each soul depart." "Fear not; I am the First and the Last, and the Living One." Her whole life just now had seemed to be made up of fears and sorrows; but they all vanished in the light of this new revelation: "Christ is all, and in all." Her broken heart arose, and crowned Him King. Her love for David, her anguish over David, were not lessened; but her heart's chief love was given to Him unto Whom it rightfully belonged; and her soul found, at last, its deepest rest and peace. "Thus, with quickened footsteps, We'll pursue our way; Watching for the dawning Of the eternal day." Diana went out, when that hour was over, with footsteps quickened indeed. Hitherto she had been watching, in hopeless foreboding, for news of David's death. Now she was watching, in glad certainty, for the eternal dawn, which should bring her belovèd and herself to kneel together at the foot of the throne. For He Who sat thereon was no longer David, but David's Lord. At last she realised that she too could bring her offering of myrrh. She remembered David's words in that Christmas-eve sermon, so long ago: "Your present offering of myrrh is the death of self, the daily crucifying of the self-life. 'For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge: that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him, Who died for them, and rose again.' Your response to that constraining love; your acceptance of that atoning death; your acquiescence in that crucifixion of self, constitute your offering of myrrh." She understood it now; and she felt strangely, sweetly, one with David. He, in the wilds of Central Africa; she, in a hospital in the heart of London's busy life, were each presenting their offering of myrrh; and God, Who alone can make all things work together for good, had overruled their great mistake, and was guiding them, across life's lonely desert, to the feet of the King. From that hour, Diana's life was one of calm strength and beauty. Her heart still momentarily ceased beating at the arrival of each mail; she still yearned for the assurance that David had received her letter; but the risen power which had touched her life had bestowed upon it a deep inward calm, which nothing could ruffle or remove. Yet this Christmas-eve, so full of recollections, brought with it an almost overwhelming longing for David. As she lay back in her chair, the scene in the vestry rose so clearly before her. She could see him seated on the high stool, little piles of money and the open book in front of him, two wax candles on the table. She could see David's luminous eyes as he said: "I cannot stand for my King. I am but His messenger; the voice in the wilderness crying: Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make His paths straight." Poor David! All unbeknown to himself, she had made him stand for his King. Yet truly he had prepared the way; and now, at last, the King was on the throne. * * * * * Diana roused herself and looked at the clock: five minutes to seven. She rose, and going to the window, drew aside the curtain. The fog had partially lifted; the sky was clearing. Through a forest of chimneys there shone, clear and distinct, one brilliant star. "And when they saw the star they rejoiced," quoted Diana. "Oh, my Boy, are you now beyond the stars, or do you still lift dear tired eyes to watch their shining?" Then she dropped the curtain, left her room, and passed down the flight of stone stairs, to meet Sir Deryck. CHAPTER XXXV THE LETTER COMES As Diana and the great specialist passed through the lower hall the ambulance bell sounded, sharply. They mounted the stairs together. "Ambulance call from Euston Station," shouted the porter, from below. Diana sighed. "That will most likely mean another bad operation to-night," she remarked to Sir Deryck. "These fogs work pitiless havoc among poor fellows on the line. We had a double amputation this afternoon--a plate-layer, with both legs crushed. The worst case I have ever seen. Yet we hope to save him. How little the outside world knows of the awful sights we are suddenly called upon to face, in these places, at all hours of the day and night!" "Does it try your nerve?" asked the doctor, as they paused a moment at the entrance to the ward. Diana smiled, meeting his clear eyes with the steadfast courage of her own. "No," she said. "My hunting-field experiences stand me in good stead. Also, when one is responsible for every preparation which is to ensure success for the surgeon's skill, one has no time to encourage or to contemplate one's own squeamishness." The doctor smiled, comprehendingly. "Hospital life eliminates self," he said. "All life worth living does that," rejoined Diana, and they entered the ward. Half an hour later they stood together near the top of the staircase, talking, in low voices, over the case in which Sir Deryck was interested. They heard, below, the measured tread on the stone floor, of the ambulance men returning with their burden. It was the "call" from Euston Station. The little procession slowly mounted the stairs: two men carrying a stretcher, a nurse preceding, the house surgeon following. Diana rested her hand on the rail, and bent over to look. A slight, unconscious figure lay on the stretcher. The light fell full on the deathly pallor of the worn face. The head moved from side to side, as the bearers mounted the steps. One arm slipped down, and hung limp and helpless. "Steady!" called the house-surgeon, from below. The nurse turned, gently lifted the nerveless hand, and laid it across the breast. Diana, clutching the rail, gazed down speechless at the face, on which lay already the unmistakable shadow of death. Then she turned, seized Sir Deryck's arm, and shook it. "It is David," she said. "Do you hear? Oh, my God, it is David!" The doctor did not answer; but, as the little procession reached the top of the staircase, he stepped forward. "Found unconscious in the Liverpool train," said the house-surgeon. "Seems a bad case; but still alive." The bearers moved towards the ward; but Diana, white and rigid, barred the way. "Not here," she said, and her voice seemed to her to come from miles away. "Not here. Into the private ward." They turned to the left and entered a small quiet room. "It is David," repeated Diana, mechanically. "It is David." They placed the stretcher near the bed, which the nurse was quickly making ready. As if conscious of some unexpected development, all stood away from it, in silence. Diana and the doctor drew near. Their eyes met across the stretcher. "It is David," said Diana. "He has come back to me. Dear God, he has come back to me!" Her grey eyes widened. She gazed at the doctor, in startled unseeing anguish. "Just help me a moment, Mrs. Rivers, will you?" said Sir Deryck's quiet, steady voice. "You and I will place him on the bed; and then, with Dr. Walters's help, we can soon see what to do next. Put your hands so.... That is right. Now, lift carefully. Do not shake him." Together they lifted David's wasted form, and laid it gently on the bed. "Go and open the window," whispered Sir Deryck to Diana. "Stand there a moment or two; then close it again. Do as I tell you, my dear girl. Do it, _for David's sake_." Mechanically, Diana obeyed. She knew that if she wished to keep control over herself, she must not look just yet on that dear dying face; she must not see the thin travel-stained figure. She stood at the open window, and the breath of night air seemed to restore her powers of thought and action. She steadied herself against the window frame, and lifted her eyes. Above the forest of chimney stacks, shone one brilliant star. Her Boy was going quickly--beyond the stars. But he had come back to her first. Suddenly she understood why he had stopped the correspondence. He was on the eve of his brave struggle to reach home. And why he had begged her to remain in England--oh, God, of course! Not because he did not want her, but because he himself was coming home. Oh, David, David! She turned back into the room. Skilful hands were undressing David. Something lay on the floor. Mechanically Diana stooped and picked it up. It was his little short black jacket; the rather threadbare "old friend." Diana gave one loud sudden cry, and put her hand to her throat. Sir Deryck stepped quickly between her and the bed; then led her firmly to the door. "Go to your room," he said. "It is so far better that you should not be here just now. Everything possible shall be done. You know you can confidently leave him to us. David himself would wish you to leave him to us. Sit down and face the situation calmly. He may regain consciousness, and if he does, you must be ready, and you must have yourself well in hand." The doctor put her gently out, through the half-open door. Diana turned, hesitating. "You would call me--if?" "Yes," said the doctor; "I will call you--then." Diana still held David's jacket. She slipped her hand into the breast-pocket, and drew out a sealed envelope. "Sir Deryck," she said, "this is a letter from David to me, which I was to receive after his death. Do you think I may read it now?" The doctor glanced back at the bed. A nurse stood waiting with the hypodermic and the strychnine for which he had asked. The house surgeon, on one knee, had his fingers on David's wrist. He met the question in the doctor's eyes, and shook his head. "Yes, I think you may read it now," said Sir Deryck gently; and closed the door. CHAPTER XXXVI DIANA LEARNS THE TRUTH Diana passed to her room, with the sense of all around her being dream-like and unreal. When the unexpected, beyond all imagining, suddenly takes place in a life, its every-day setting loses reality; its commonplace surroundings become intangible and vague. There seemed no solidity about the stone floors and passages of the hospital; no reality about the ceaseless roar of London traffic without. The only real things to Diana, as she sank into her armchair, were that she held David's coat clasped in her arms; that David's sealed letter was in her hand; that David himself lay, hovering between life and death, just down the corridor. At first she could only clasp his coat to her breast, whispering brokenly: "He has come back to me! David, David! He has come back to me!" Then she realised how all-important it was, in case he suddenly recovered consciousness, that she should know at once what he had said to her in his farewell letter. With an effort she opened it, drew out the closely written sheets, and read it; holding the worn and dusty coat still clasped closely to her. "MY DEAR WIFE,--When you read these lines, I shall have reached the Land from whence there is no return--'the Land that is very far off.' "Very far off; yet not so far as Central Africa. Perhaps, as you are reading, Diana, I shall be nearer to you than we think; nearer, in spirit, than now seems possible. So do not let this farewell letter bring you a sense of loneliness, my wife. If spirits can draw near, and hover round their best belovèd, mine will bend over you, as you read. "Does it startle you, that I should call you this? Be brave, dear heart, and read on; because--as I shall be at last in the Land from whence there is no return--I am going to tell you the whole truth; trusting you to understand, and to forgive. "Oh, my wife, my belovèd! I have loved you from the very first; loved you with my whole being; as any man who loved _you_, would be bound to love. "I did not know it, myself, until after I had made up my mind to do as you wished about our marriage. I had sat up all night, pondering the problem; and at dawn, after I had realised that without transgressing against the Divine Will I could marry you, I suddenly knew--in one revealing flash--that I loved you, my belovèd--_I loved you_. "How I carried the thing through, without letting it be more than you wished, I scarcely know now. It seems to me, looking back upon those days from this great solitude, that it was a task beyond the strength of mortal man. "And it was, Diana. But not beyond the strength of my love for you. If, as you look back upon our wedding, and the hours which followed, and--and the parting, my wife, it seems to you that I pulled it through all right, gauge, by that, the strength of my love. "Oh, that evening of our wedding-day! May I tell you? It is such a relief to be able to tell you, at last. It cannot harm you to learn how deeply you have been loved. It need not sadden you, Diana; because every man is the better for having given his best. "The longing for you, during those first hours, was so terrible. I went down to my cabin--you remember that jolly big cabin, 'with the compliments of the company'--but your violets stood on the table, everything spoke of you; yet your sweet presence was not there; and each revolution of the screw widened the distance between us--the distance which was never to be recrossed. "I tried to pray, but could only groan. I took off my coat; but when I turned to hang it up, I saw my hat, hanging where you had placed it. I slipped on my coat again. I could not stay in this fragrance of violets, and in the desperate sense of loneliness they caused. "I mounted to the hurricane deck, and paced up and down, up and down. For one wild moment I thought I would go off, when the pilot left; hurry back to you, confess all, and throw myself on your mercy--my wife, my wife! "Then I knew I could never be such a hound as to do that. You had chosen me, because you trusted me. You had wedded me, on the distinct understanding that it was to mean nothing of what marriage usually means. I had agreed to this; therefore you were the one woman on the face of God's earth, whom I was bound in honour not to seek to win. "Yet, I wanted you, my wife; and the hunger of that need was such fierce agony. "I went to the side of the ship. Beating my clenched fists on the woodwork, seemed to help a little. Then--I looked over. "We were surging along through the darkness. I could see the white foam on the waves, far down below. "Then--Diana, dare I tell you all?--then the black waters tempted me. I was alone up there. It would mean only one headlong plunge--then silence and oblivion. God forgive me, that in the agony of that moment of Time, I forgot Eternity. "But, lifting my eyes, I looked away from those black waters to where--clear on the horizon--shone a star. "Somehow that star brought you nearer. It was a thing you might be seeing also, on this, our wedding-night. I stood very still and watched it, and it seemed to speak of hope. I prayed to be forgiven the sin of having harboured, even for a moment, that black, cowardly temptation. "Then, all at once, I remembered something. May I tell you, my wife, my wife? It cannot harm you, after I am dead, that I should tell you. I remembered that you had laid your hand for one moment on the pillow in my bunk. At once, I seemed rich beyond compare. _Your_ hand--your own dear hand! "I ran down quickly, and in five minutes I was lying in the dark, the scent of violets all about me, and my head where your dear hand had rested. And then--God gave me sleep. "My wife, I have often had hard times since then; but never so bad as that first night. And, though I have longed for you always, I would not have had less suffering; because, to have suffered less would have been to have loved you less; and to have loved you less would have been unworthy of you, Diana;--of you and of myself. * * * * * "But what an outpouring! And I meant to write entirely of bigger and more vital things, in this last letter. Yet I suppose _I love you_ is the most vital thing of all to me; and, when it came to being able to tell you fully, I felt like writing it all down, exactly as it happened. I think you will understand. "And now about the present. "I can't die, miles away from you! Since death has been coming nearer, a grave out here seems to hold such a horror of loneliness. It would be rest, to lie beneath the ground on which your dear feet tread. Also, I am possessed by a yearning so unutterable to see your face once more, that I doubt if I _can_ die, until I have seen it. "So I am coming back to England, by the quickest route; and, if I live through the journey, I shall get down into the vicinity of Riverscourt somehow, and just once see you drive by. You will not see me, or know that I am near; so I don't break our compact, Diana. It may be a sick man's fancy, to think that I can do it; yet I believe I shall pull it through. So, if this comes into your hands, from an English address, you will know that, most likely, before I died, I had my heart's desire--one sight of your sweet face; and, having had it, I died content. "Ah, what a difference love--the real thing--makes in a man's life! God forgive me, I can't think or write of my work. Everything has now slipped away, save thoughts of you. However, you know all the rest. "I am writing to ask you not to write again, as I shall be coming home--only I daren't give you that, as the reason! And also to beg of you not to leave England. Think what it would be, if I reached there, only to find you gone! "And now about the future, my beloved; _your_ future. "Oh, that picture! You know,--the big one? I can't put on paper all I thought about it; but--it showed me--I knew at once--that somehow, some one had been teaching you--what love means. "Diana, don't misunderstand me! I trust you always, utterly. But we both made a horrible mistake. Our marriage was an unnatural, unlawful thing. It is no fault of yours, if some one--before you knew what was happening--has made you care, in something the way I suddenly found I cared for you. "And I want to say, that this possibility makes me glad to leave you free--absolutely free, my wife. "You must always remember that I want you to have the best, and to know the best. And if some happy man who loves you and is worthy can win you, and fill your dear life with the golden joy of loving--why, God knows, I wouldn't be such a dog in the manger, as to begrudge you that joy, or to wish to stand between. "So don't give me a thought, if it makes you happier to forget me. Only--if you do remember me sometimes--remember that I have loved you, always, from the very first, with a love which would have gladly lived for you, had that been possible; but, not being possible, gladly dies for you, that you--at last--may have the best. "And so, good-bye, my wife. "Yours ever, "DAVID RIVERS." CHAPTER XXXVII "GOOD-NIGHT, DAVID" When Diana had finished reading David's letter, she folded it, replaced it in the envelope; rose, laid aside her uniform, slipping on a grey cashmere wrapper, with soft white silk frills at neck and wrists. Then she passed down the stone corridor, and quietly entered the darkened room where David was lying. A screen was drawn partly round the bed. A nurse sat, silent and watchful, her eyes upon the pillow. She rose, as Diana entered, and came forward quickly. "I am left in charge, Mrs. Rivers," she whispered. "I was to call you at once when I saw the change. The doctors have been gone ten minutes. Sir Deryck expects to return in an hour. He is fetching an antitoxin which he proposes trying, if the patient lives until his return. Dr. Walters thinks it useless to attempt anything further. No more strychnine is to be used." "Thank you," said Diana, gently. "Now you can go into the ward, nurse. I will take charge here. If I want help, I will call. Close the door softly behind you. I wish to be alone." She stood quite still, while the nurse, after a moment's hesitation, left the room. Then she came round to the right side of the bed, knelt down, and drew David into her arms, pillowing his head against her breast. She held him close, resting her cheek upon his tumbled hair, and waited. At length David sighed, and stirred feebly. Then he opened his eyes. "Where--am I?" he asked, in a bewildered voice. "In your wife's arms," said Diana, slowly and clearly. "In--my wife's--arms?" The weak voice, incredulous in its amazed wonder, tore her heart; but she answered, unfaltering: "Yes, David. In your wife's arms. Don't you feel them round you? Don't you feel her heart beating beneath your cheek? You were found unconscious in the train, and they brought you to the Hospital of the Holy Star, where, thank God, I chanced to be. My darling, can you understand what I am saying? Oh, David, try to listen! Don't go, until I have told you. David--I have read your letter; the letter you carried in your breast-pocket. But, oh darling, it has been the same with me as with you! I have loved you and longed for you all the time. Ever since you called me your wife on the boat, ever since our wedding-evening, I have loved you, my Boy, my darling--loved you, and wanted you. David, can you understand?" "Loved--loved _me_?" he said. Then he lay quite still, as if striving to take in so unbelievable a thing. Then he laughed--a little low laugh, half laugh, half sob--a sound unutterably happy, yet piteously weak. And, lifting his wasted hand, he touched her lips; then, for very weakness, let it fall upon her breast. "Tell me--again," whispered David. She told him again; low and tenderly, as a mother might croon to her sick child, Diana told again the story of her love; and, bending over, she saw the radiance of the smile upon that dying face. She knew he understood. "Darling, it was love for you which brought the look you saw in the photograph. There was no other man. There never will be, David." "I want you--to have--the best," whispered David, with effort. "This _is_ the best, my dearest, my own," she answered, firmly. "To hold you in my arms, at last--at last. David, David; they would have been hungry always, if you had not come back. Now they will try to be content." "I wish--" gasped the weak voice, "I wish--I need not----" "Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty," said Diana, bravely. She felt the responsive thrill in him. She knew he was smiling again. "Ah yes," he said. "Yes. In the Land that is very far off. Not so far as--as----" "No, darling. Not so far as Central Africa." "But--no--return," whispered David. "Yet always near, my own, if I keep close to Him. You will be in His presence; and He will keep me close to Him. So we cannot be far apart." He put up his hand again, and touched her lips. She kissed the cold fingers before they dropped, once more, to her breast. "Has our love--helped?" asked David. "Yes," she said. "It brought me to the King. It was the guiding Star." "The King of Love," murmured David. "The King of Love--my Shepherd is. Can you--say it?" Then, controlling her voice for David's sake, Diana repeated, softly: "The King of Love, my Shepherd is, Whose goodness faileth never, I nothing lack, if I am His, And He is mine forever. "In death's dark vale I fear no ill, With Thee, dear Lord, beside me; Thy rod and staff, my comfort still, Thy Cross before, to guide me. "And so, through all the length of days, Thy goodness faileth never; Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise, Within Thy house forever." "Forever!" said David. "Forever! It is not death, but life--everlasting life! This is life eternal--to know Him." After that he lay very still. He seemed sinking gently into unconsciousness. She could hardly hear him breathing. Suddenly he said: "I don't know what it is! It seems to come from your arms, and the pillow--you did put your hand on the pillow, didn't you, Diana?--I feel so rested; and I feel a thing I haven't felt for months. I feel sleepy. Am I going to sleep?" "Yes, darling," she answered, bravely. "You are going to sleep." "Don't let's say 'Good-bye,'" whispered David. "Let's say 'Good-night.'" For a moment Diana could not speak. Her tears fell silently. She prayed he might not feel the heaving of her breast. Then the utter tenderness of her love for him came to the rescue of her breaking heart. "Good-night, David," said Diana, calmly. He did not answer. She feared her response had been made too late. Her arms tightened around him. "Good-night--good-night, my Boy, my own!" "Oh--good-night, my wife," said David. "I thought I was slipping down into the long grasses in the jungle. They ought to cut them. I wish you could see my oleanders." Then he turned in her arms, moving his head restlessly to and fro against her breast, like a very tired little child seeking the softest place on its pillow; then settled down, with a sigh of complete content. Thus David fell asleep. CHAPTER XXXVIII THE BUNDLE OF MYRRH "'If he sleep, he shall do well,'" quoted the doctor, quietly. "Nothing but this could give him a chance of pulling through." Diana looked up, dazed. Sir Deryck was bending over her, scrutinizing closely, in the dim light, the quiet face upon her breast. "Is he alive?" she whispered. The doctor's fingers had found David's pulse. "Alive? Why, yes," he said; "and better than merely alive. He has fallen into a natural sleep. His pulse is steadying and strengthening every moment. If he can but sleep on like this for a couple of hours, we shall be able to give him nourishment when he wakes. Don't move! I can do what has to be done, without disturbing him.... So! that will do. Now tell me. Can you remain as you are for another hour or two?" "All night, if necessary," she whispered. "Good! Then I will place a chair behind the screen, and either a nurse, or Walters, or myself will be there, without fail; so that you can call softly, if you need help or relief." He bent, and looked again closely at the sleeping face. "Poor boy," he whispered, gently. "It seems to me he has, in God's providence, reached, just in time, the only thing that could save him. Keep up heart, Mrs. Rivers. Remember that every moment of contact with your vital force is vitalizing him. It is like pouring blood into empty veins; only a more subtle and mysterious process, and more wonderful in its results. Let your muscles relax, as much as possible. We can prop you with pillows, presently." The doctor went softly out. "All night, if necessary," repeated Diana's happy heart, in an ecstasy of hope and thankfulness. "A bundle of myrrh is my well-belovèd unto me; he shall lie all night--all night--Oh, God, send me strength to kneel on, and hold him!" She could feel the intense life and love which filled her, enveloping him, in his deathly weakness. She bent her whole mind upon imparting to him the outflow of her vitality. The room was very still. Distant clocks struck the hour of midnight. It was Christmas-day! * * * * * From an old church, just behind the hospital, where a midnight carol service was being held, came the sound of an organ, in deep tones of rolling harmony. Then, softened by intervening windows into the semblance of angelic music, rose the voices of the choristers, in the great Christmas hymn: "Hark, the herald angels sing, Glory to the new-born King!" And kneeling there, in those first moments of Christmas morning; kneeling in deepest reverence of praise and adoration, Diana's womanhood awoke, at last, in full perfection. "Glory to the new-born King," the helpless Babe of Bethlehem, pillowed upon a maiden's gentle breast, clasped in a virgin mother's arms; the Babe Whose advent should hallow the birth of mortal infants, for all time; "Born to raise the sons of earth; Born to give them second birth." Diana hardly knew, as she knelt on, listening to the quiet breathing at her bosom, whether the rapture which enfolded her was mostly mother-love, or wifely tenderness. But she knew that her heart beat in unison with the heart of the Virgin Mother in Bethlehem's starlit stable. She had seen, in one revealing ray of eternal light, the true vocation of her womanhood. * * * * * And again the organ pealed forth triumphant chords; while the voices of the distant choir carolled: "Hark, the herald angels sing, Glory to the new-born King." CHAPTER XXXIX HOME, BY ANOTHER WAY Each Feast of Epiphany, Mr. Goldsworthy makes a point of asking David to preach the Epiphany sermon in Brambledene Church. The offertory, on these occasions, is always devoted to the work of the Church of the Holy Star, in Ugonduma. The offertory is always the largest in the whole year; but that may possibly be accounted for by the fact that Diana invariably puts a sovereign into the plate. David smiles as he sees it lying on the vestry table. It calls up many memories. He knows it was dropped into the plate by the hand which has given thousands to the work in Central Africa. He wears on his watch-chain, the golden coin which, on that Christmas-eve so long ago, was Diana's first offering to his work in Ugonduma. When David mounts the pulpit stairs, and appears behind the red velvet cushion, he looks down upon his wife, sitting in the corner near the stout whitewashed pillar, its shape accentuated, as is the annual custom, by heavy wreathings of evergreens. She has become his Lady of Mystery once more; for the love of a noble-hearted woman is a perpetual cause of wonderment to the man upon whom its richness is outpoured; nor does he ever cease to marvel, in his secret heart, that he should be the object upon which such an abandonment of tenderness is lavished. And before the second Epiphany came round, that most wonderful of all moments in a man's life had come to David:--the moment when he first sees a small replica of himself, held tenderly in the arms of the woman he loves; when the spirit of a man new-born, looks out at him from baby eyes; when he shares his wife's love with another; yet loves to share it. Thus, more than ever, on that occasion, was the gracious woman, wrapped in soft furs, seated beside the old stone pillar, his Lady of Mystery. Yet, as she lifted her sweet eyes to his, expectant, they were the faithful, comprehending eyes of his wife, Diana; and they seemed to say: "I am waiting. I have come for this." Instantly the sense of inspiration filled him. With glad assurance, he gave out his text, and read the passage; conscious, as he read it, that he knew more of its full meaning than he had known when he preached upon it from that pulpit, four years before: "When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.... And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts--gold, and frankincense, and myrrh." * * * * * Diana, in her motor, awaited David, outside the old lich-gate. As he sprang in beside her, and the car glided off swiftly over the snow, she turned to him, her grey eyes soft with tender memories. "And when they had offered their gifts, David," she said; "when the gold, and the frankincense, and the myrrh had each been accepted--what then?" "What then?" he answered, as his hand found hers upon her muff, while into his face came the look of complete content she so loved to see: "Why then--they went home, by another way." _Here endeth_ MYRRH. * * * * * MYRTLE REED'S NOVELS May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. [Illustration] _LAVENDER AND OLD LACE._ A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance finds a modern parallel. The story centers round the coming of love to the young people on the staff of a newspaper--and it is one of the prettiest, sweetest and quaintest of old fashioned love stories, * * * a rare book, exquisite in spirit and conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor and spontaneity. _A SPINNER IN THE SUN._ Miss Myrtle Reed may always be depended upon to write a story in which poetry, charm, tenderness and humor are combined into a clever and entertaining book. Her characters are delightful and she always displays a quaint humor of expression and a quiet feeling of pathos which give a touch of active realism to all her writings. In "A Spinner in the Sun" she tells an old-fashioned love story, of a veiled lady who lives in solitude and whose features her neighbors have never seen. There is a mystery at the heart of the book that throws over it the glamour of romance. _THE MASTER'S VIOLIN,_ A love story in a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine "Cremona." He consents to take for his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but not the soul of an artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American and he cannot, with his meagre past, express the love, the passion and the tragedies of life and all its happy phases as can the master who has lived life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his life--a beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart and home, and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons that life has to give--and his soul awakes. Founded on a fact that all artists realize. _Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26TH ST., NEW YORK * * * * * STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER =May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.= [Illustration] _THE HARVESTER._ Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. "The Harvester," David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man, with his sure grip on life, his superb optimism, and his almost miraculous knowledge of nature secrets, it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the Harvester's whole sound, healthy, large outdoor being realizes that this is the highest point of life which has come to him--there begins a romance, troubled and interrupted, yet of the rarest idyllic quality. _FRECKLES._ Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford. Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment. _A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST._ Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda. The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. It is an inspiring story of a life worth while and the rich beauties of the out-of-doors are strewn through all its pages. _AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW._ Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp. Design and decorations by Ralph Fletcher Seymour. The scene of this charming, idyllic love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love; the friendship that gives freely without return, and the love that seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all. _Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26TH ST., NEW YORK * * * * * JOHN FOX, JR'S. STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS =May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.= [Illustration] _THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE._ Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. The "lonesome pine" from which the story takes its name was a tall tree that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the _foot-prints of a girl_. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young engineer a madder chase than "the trail of the lonesome pine." _THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME._ Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as "Kingdom Come." It is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often springs the flower of civilization. "Chad," the "little shepherd" did not know who he was nor whence he came--he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery--a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in the mountains. _A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND._ Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two impetuous young Southerners' fall under the spell of "The Blight's" charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the love making of the mountaineers. Included in this volume is "Hell fer-Sartain" and other stories, some of Mr. Fox's most entertaining Cumberland valley narratives. _Ask for complete free list of G. & D. 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The girl's fancy for a city man interrupts their love and merges the story into an emotional strain where the reader follows the events with rapt attention. GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26TH ST., NEW YORK * * * * * CHARMING BOOKS FOR GIRLS =May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.= _WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE_, By Jean Webster. Illustrated by C. D. Williams. One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been written. It is bright, whimsical and entertaining, lifelike, laughable and thoroughly human. _JUST PATTY_, By Jean Webster. Illustrated by C. M. Relyea. Patty is full of the joy of living, fun-loving, given to ingenious mischief for its own sake, with a disregard for pretty convention which is an unfailing source of joy to her fellows. _THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL_, By Eleanor Gates. With four full page illustrations. This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate children whose early days are passed in the companionship of a governess, seldom seeing either parent, and famishing for natural love and tenderness. A charming play as dramatized by the author. _REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM_, By Kate Douglas Wiggin. One of the most beautiful studies of childhood--Rebecca's artistic, unusual and quaintly charming qualities stand out midst a circle of austere New Englanders. The stage version is making a phenominal dramatic record. _NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA_, By Kate Douglas Wiggin. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. Additional episodes in the girlhood of this delightful heroine that carry Rebecca through various stages to her eighteenth birthday. _REBECCA MARY_, By Annie Hamilton Donnell. Illustrated by Elizabeth Shippen Green. This author possesses the rare gift of portraying all the grotesque little joys and sorrows and scruples of this very small girl with a pathos that is peculiarly genuine and appealing. _EMMY LOU_: Her Book and Heart, By George Madden Martin. Illustrated by Charles Louis Hinton. Emmy Lou is irresistibly lovable, because she is so absolutely real. She is just a bewitchingly innocent, hugable little maid. The book is wonderfully human. _Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26TH ST., NEW YORK 
42164	----	generously made available by the Google Books Library Project (http://books.google.com) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 42164-h.htm or 42164-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42164/42164-h/42164-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42164/42164-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through the the Google Books Library Project. See http://www.google.com/books?id=iHg4AAAAMAAJ Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. [Illustration: ELI JONES.] [Illustration: SYBIL JONES.] ELI AND SIBYL JONES: THEIR LIFE AND WORK. BY RUFUS M. JONES. "Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them Thine." _In Memoriam._ PHILADELPHIA: PORTER & COATES. COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY PORTER & COATES. TO THE SWEET AND SHINING MEMORY OF PLINY EARLE CHASE, WHOSE SCHOLARSHIP AND CHRISTIAN MANHOOD INSPIRED YOUNG MEN TO RICHER AND PURER LIVES, AND WHO AS TEACHER POINTED STUDENTS TO THE GREAT MASTER, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY HIS PUPIL. PREFACE. In our busy and material lives we all need to be reminded at times that there have been and still are among us those who have deadened love of self, whose struggle on earth, far from being to amass any kind of treasures, is to bring before as many human beings as possible the great plan of salvation, the means of elevation from degradation to lofty Christian individuality, and the source of a power and a love which are making all things new in proportion as submission is given thereto. We are not always conscious of the strength exerted around us by seemingly trivial forces, but their work is no less important in the development of the globe than the violent upheavals which overawe us by their stupendous might. So, often, quiet lives extend a wider permanent influence for the welfare of man than do those of men and women who receive the unstinted praise of their contemporaries. ELI and SYBIL JONES have done valuable service, and have lived lives full of teaching to those who wish to enter upon a course of devoted obedience to the same Master. I have prepared this sketch of their lives and work from the love which I feel for them, and in the hope that it will interest and profit others. I am conscious that the stamp of youth is on the work, but I am certain that it has been undertaken and accomplished in the spirit of sincerity. The visit to Liberia was wonderful in many ways, and should have been published after their return, so that their work might have brought forth more decided fruit. The letters from Palestine and Syria were written for the _Friends' Review_ by Eli Jones and Ellen Clare Miller (since Pearson). Extracts have been chosen to give their descriptions of the country and the nature of their work there. The book has been prepared in the midst of other work, and that must in part be the apology for its imperfections. Having as a young man received invaluable help from these two Friends, and feeling that their words and lives have done much to throw light on the true path which broadens into the "highway of holiness," it is my hope that this simple recital may in a measure repay what I owe them and find a place of usefulness in the world. 3d mo. 13, 1889, FRIENDS' SCHOOL, Providence. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE EARLY YEARS, 9 CHAPTER II. AT SCHOOL AND AT HOME, 18 CHAPTER III. MARRIAGE WITH SYBIL JONES, 27 CHAPTER IV. FIRST VISIT, 40 CHAPTER V. EAST, WEST, AND SOUTH, 54 CHAPTER VI. VOYAGE TO LIBERIA, 60 CHAPTER VII. WORK IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND, 108 CHAPTER VIII. NORWAY, GERMANY, AND SWITZERLAND, 127 CHAPTER IX. WINTER IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE, 141 CHAPTER X. IN THE MAINE LEGISLATURE, 160 CHAPTER XI. IN WASHINGTON, 169 CHAPTER XII. MISSION-WORK, 185 CHAPTER XIII. LETTERS FROM SYRIA, 199 CHAPTER XIV. SECOND VISIT TO THE HOLY LAND, 251 CHAPTER XV. SYBIL JONES: HER LIFE-WORK AND DEATH, 268 CHAPTER XVI. ALONE AT HOME, 285 CHAPTER XVII. LATER VISITS TO THE EAST, 292 CHAPTER XVIII. AS A FRIEND, 299 CHAPTER XIX. HIS PLACE AS A WORKER, 307 ELI AND SYBIL JONES. CHAPTER I. _EARLY YEARS._ "Man is the nobler growth our soil supplies, And souls are ripened 'neath our northern skies." The man whose early life was passed in the isolation of primeval forests, and who grew to manhood carrying on an unceasing struggle to turn the rough, uncultivated soil into productive fields, gardens, and pasture-lands, has worked into his life something which no coming generation can inherit or acquire. He has missed the broad culture of the schools and universities, he cannot gain the intellectual skill which long study gives, but he has had a training which lays a foundation for the keenest judgment and for prompt decision in complicated circumstances, and his soul in solitude has taken in truths of God which often escape men lost in the tumultuous world of business and pleasure. The men who were born during the first quarter of a century after our national life began have nearly all been characterized by special traits which will perhaps not appear again in the more developed growth of the nation. It has not astonished us to see a man leave his little cottage after twenty-five years of toil and go through all the grades of honor, reach a position from which he could hardly go higher, and finally depart from a life unspotted, respected by mankind. But in this development there is no chance: he mounts by a law which, if we knew it, is as unvariable as that of gravitation. The powers of the mind and soul seek a field in which they may be put to work at profit. It cannot be uninteresting to follow the course of a man who has shown--at least to those who have known him well--that there was something in him of value to the world. In measuring the worth of any man, we must not be dazzled by the glare of earthly glory, but calmly inquire what he has done that has built itself into other lives, and we must look beyond outward things to see in how far he has been the honored tool of the Supreme Worker. The family of Jones is a large one, and its genealogical table would make a long story. Welsh John succeeded Welsh John, and was called John's son until time wore the name down to Jones. Generation after generation they held their place and did their work among the Welsh hills, until one of them was called upon to steer the Mayflower with its precious load to Plymouth. Eli Jones writes in a letter dated 1st mo. 9th, 1888: "I have been reading Bonvard's _Plymouth and the Pilgrims_, from which I learn that Isaac Robinson, son of the Rev. John Robinson, pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, was an early settler at Plymouth, and that he became a Quaker. Our grandmother Jepson was a Robinson, and, for aught I know, great-great-great-grandniece of this very Isaac Robinson. The captain of the Mayflower was a Jones. With him we claim kindred, and that claim is readily allowed. Now, if our great-great-great-grandsire was the venerable patriarch who led in prayer and gave the memorable parting charge[1] to the Pilgrims, and if his son, our great-great-greatuncle, was, as history relates, a trading man in the colony and a 'convinced Friend,' it is certainly fitting that we should take a lively interest in what occurred among our kin in 1620." [1] John Robinson's charge is as follows: "I charge you, before God end his blessed angels, that ye follow me no further than ye have seen me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word. I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the Reformed churches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go at present no further than the instruments of their reformation. Luther and Calvin were great and shining lights in their times, yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God. I beseech you remember it--'tis an article of your Church covenant--that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written word of God." Much later, after many settlements in different parts of New England had failed, and the Pilgrim and Puritan colonies were in prosperous growth, three brothers bearing the name of Jones came to this continent. One of them found a forest home on the bank of the Androscoggin River, six miles from Brunswick, in the township of Durham and District of Maine. Quite a large number of friends collected here, and a meeting-house was built not far away. There was a large Friends' meeting at Deering, near Portland, and the name of Jones was common among its members. The monthly and quarterly meetings at each place were frequently visited by Friends from the other, necessitating a foot-journey of fully forty miles through almost pathless woods. The house is still standing in which Abel Jones was born. He determined to leave his home and go farther north. He travelled on horseback up the Kennebec River as far as Vassalboro', and then rode ten miles east to the north-eastern end of what is now China Lake, in earlier times often called the "Twelve-mile Pond," because it is twelve miles from Augusta, the State capital. His young bride, Susannah Jepson, rode on horseback from North Berwick, a distance of one hundred and fifteen miles. She was attended by her brother alone, and brought only what a pair of saddlebags could hold. Here in a little house, in the year 1807, their first child was born and named Eli. A letter was at once sent to the young child's grandfather and grandmother at Durham. The letter came to the nearest post-station, twelve miles away, and was taken in charge by an elderly Friend who lived there. He volunteered to start out at once to carry the letter to its destination, thinking it might contain valuable information. As he listened to its contents at the end of his journey he made the significant remark, "Is that all there is in it?" and jogged back home. One's first thought would be that if a child was to be brought up in the Maine woods, it would make very little difference in what part of the State the spot happened to be; but it is not at all so. As a young life is very susceptible to outward scenes and every-day events, we can hardly estimate the moulding influence of little things. The life of the few families in the early history of China would be exceedingly interesting if we only had a graphic sketch from the pen of one of its settlers. Owning the acres they cleared and tilled and the houses in which they dwelt, they called no man master, but they bowed in reverence before their heavenly King and obeyed His commandments. They did their day's work week after week, little thinking that a generation would come which would wish to follow the story of their trials and triumphs, their joys and sorrows; and now almost all that is left us is the inherited strength from their sturdy lives and a few stories of their sufferings. Without doubt, nothing in nature had more influence on the bent of Eli Jones's mind than China Lake and its beautiful shores. A boy placed on the bank of a lake stretching off seven miles becomes inheritor to a domain more vast than the acres of water it contains. He feels that he owns so much of this world's glory, and this feeling of ownership lifts him out of the common, dull round of life. Year by year he owns more in proportion as his soul expands and he sees more of God's work and God's love in the painted sunsets beyond the western shore and in the forests above and below the placid waters. No one who has not experienced it can appreciate the worth of a lake to a boy. It is not simply because he can fish there, or can swim there, or can make a rude boat and so float on its surface. That is its chief worth to the thoughtless boy, but it was not all to the keenly perceptive child who was father to the man Eli Jones. It was his great playmate whom he loved. It was at the same time his teacher, whose "various language" spoke a Father's presence and His love. It is very monotonous toil changing a rough forest to a productive farm, but a youth becomes a familiar friend to stumps, hillocks, and rocks; to him the mounds are Indian graves, the tall stones mark the final resting-places of mighty chiefs, and his imagination fills the round of work with marvellous scenes. Very many, doubtless, see only their work and the fruit of it, but there are a few who see mysteries and learn lessons wherever they are placed, so that monotony is changed to endless variety. Eli Jones was one of those boys who make gain from ethereal things. The spot which Abel Jones chose for his home had many of the characteristics of a scene in Maine. Hills were backed by other hills, and not far in from the lake was a mile-long "horseback."[2] The trees were not pigmies in those days, but giant oaks and pines, "Whose living towers the years conspired to build, Whose giddy tops the morning loved to gild." [2] These ridges are very abundant in Maine, and are supposed to owe their origin to glacial action. There were dense forests of cedar, and the scattered bass-woods made the whole place fragrant in the spring. Never had an axe swung in these solitudes, and the mighty power of the ages was felt as these stout pines met the breeze. It was no small privilege to be canopied with such a tent as their meeting tops made. "Whoso walks in solitude And inhabiteth the wood, Choosing light, wave, rock, and bird Before the money-loving herd,-- Into that forester shall pass, From these companions, power and grace. On him the light of star and moon Shall fall with purer radiance down; All constellations of the sky Shed their virtue through his eye. Him Nature giveth for defence His formidable innocence. The mounting sap, the shells, the sea, All spheres, all stones, his helpers be." China had first been settled in 1774 by a family of Clarks. There were four brothers, two of whom were Friends. They cut the first tree that a white man's axe had ever felled in the township, and began to survey the land for homes. The two Friends chose the eastern and the others the western side of the lake. Life in the midst of the Maine forest implied struggle, and these families were courageous. No report of possible gold-mines or other hidden wealth drew them and those who followed them, but the desire to seek out quiet homes for themselves and their children where the temptations to a life of uselessness would be few. Trials they expected, and they were not spared. It was a hand-to-hand contest with want. At one time a cow was nearly the only valuable possession of the little company, and this was accidentally shot for a deer. The men went often ten miles through the woods, by the aid of "spotted" or "blazed" trees, to get their corn ground. We are told that in one case the mother was forced to put stones, in lieu of potatoes, in the hot ashes to induce her crying hungry children to go to bed until they should be called, and often the potatoes which had been planted were dug up to be eaten. Indians and the wild animals were around them, continually causing fear. In a cove at the south-western shore of the lake is a large heart, called the "Indian's heart," cut in a huge boulder, and in spring nearly covered by water. This marks the encampment of a tribe of Indians naturally friendly to their white neighbors, but exceedingly treacherous. On one occasion they visited the settlers in a body, and while the latter were unsuspiciously entertaining them they threw water on the guns of the white men, and only the darkness of the night saved these from destruction. Gradually one family after another was added to the community, and as they all came for the same purpose, the settlement was composed of strong characters. These farmers had the idea that it should not be the chief aim of those who till the soil to grow rich, or to fill the market with choice vegetables, or to gain an easy livelihood, but rather to send out from their households sons and daughters marked by strength of character and able to do manly and womanly work in the various spheres of the world. Their visible workfield may have seemed narrow and roughly hedged in, but they felt the needs of the future, and did their best to raise a tower of strength in the land by properly training their successors. The horizon which shuts in their real domain expands as the times grow riper. The first Friends' meeting in China was held about 1803, in a private house two and a half miles from the south end of the lake. Abel Jones was married to Susannah Jepson in this house in 1806, and about seven years later a meeting-house was built, to which Eli was taken even before it was wholly finished. This building was heated by a wood-fire under an iron kettle, and in every particular it was plain and rough; but no more sincere praises to the Lord have risen through the arches of marvellously wrought cathedrals than in this forest meeting-house. Eli Jones's grandfather on his mother's side was the first acknowledged minister in this meeting. Eli first heard the gospel preached in this house, and here he saw the occasional visitors from afar. Each year, which added its natural increase to the boy's stature, was marking a no less evident growth of mind and vigor of spirit. His mother taught him that "serving God and keeping His commandments was the whole duty of man." He was shown by the quiet example of both parents that honest work in the right spirit is an essential part of pure and undefiled religion, while the lives of Joseph, Samuel, David, and Daniel were put before him, showing him the justness of God's dealing in the different ages, both in rewarding righteousness and in punishing unrighteousness. Those heroes of faith of the Old Testament made a deep impression on him, as they must on every young person whose mind is not corrupted by the unnatural and impossible fictions of the present day; but the pages which told of Christ's work and words, His life and death, were so fixed in his mind and heart that the great Master early began to shape and strengthen the character of His chosen disciple. CHAPTER II. _AT SCHOOL AND AT HOME._ "My mind, aspire to higher things-- Grow rich in that which never taketh rust." PHILIP SIDNEY. The opportunities for study in China were not enough to satisfy a boy with even a moderately strong desire for knowledge. Books were as rare as in the days before John Gutenberg, and Eli Jones has often said that if he had been asked ten times a day what he most wished for, he would have answered each time, Books. The fact that he longed so to read, and that he was almost entirely confined to the Bible, resulted in his becoming thoroughly familiar with the different parts of that great Book. It furnished him his poetry, his history, and his ethics; it was his reading-book and his spelling-book. Joseph in his coat of many colors and David with his sling were as much acquaintances of his as were the few boys he played with. David's lament for Jonathan and Deborah's song of triumph, the spiritual melody of the Psalms and Isaiah's rapt words, made him feel the power of Hebrew poetry, while the New Testament was helping him to know the manliness and divinity of Christ. What boys acquired in those days was well acquired, and if they did not have as much learning, they often were imbued with a better learning than at the end of the same century. It is certain that Eli had the spirit to learn, and did what he could to lay a proper foundation. While he was still very young he came with his father and mother to live at the south end of the lake, and there was built the house which has been the birthplace and home of so many of the Jones family. During the years of political excitement and fierce war against the mother-country--the years between 1812 and 1815--hardly a rumor of the outside strife had penetrated the long line of unbroken forests. While men were dying daily to force England to respect American rights, and while Europe was united to crush Napoleon, the citizens along China Lake were building brick-kilns to make material for the chimneys of their houses, doing their every-day work without knowing, perhaps, that Bonaparte was in the world, and having no fear that a war-cloud might break over them. Thus the future lover of peace dwelt in peace, and he did not need to learn the horrors of war by experience to hate it. A schoolhouse was built just over the hill north of his home, and thither he went to be taught; but the terms were very short, and the teachers only knew a few first principles, though they faithfully labored to fix these in the minds of their pupils. One teacher, after working two days on a problem in long division, gave the result to Eli Jones, saying, "I know that is right now, but I can't explain it to you or tell you why it is done that way." Eli had an exalted opinion of one of the teachers who held sway in this little house, and has often spoken of him with affection. He spent a whole winter teaching his older pupils to spell ordinary English words correctly, and took Eli through the spelling-book until all the words in it were fixed visibly in his brain, where they have since remained; and in all his teaching since spelling has been one of the branches which was not elective in the course. During the winter of 1827 he had the benefit of the charitable fund at the Friends' School in Providence, R. I. He divided the half year with another scholar, so that he had only three months, but he was prepared to make the most of this opportunity. He took ship-passage from Bath to Providence. The first night after his departure from home his mother passed in walking the floor and worrying for her boy tossed on the sea, as she supposed, but he was quietly sleeping all the while in his berth on the ship, which had anchored in the harbor on account of fog, and sailed the next morning. Friends' School, which had been opened at Portsmouth in 1784, was in its second organization less than ten years old when he came to it, but it was firmly established, and was often visited by its foster-father, the venerable Moses Brown. The institution consisted of one tall, massive brick building looking toward the south, and two lower transverse wings, to which successive additions have been made to meet the needs of the times. In front and rear of the buildings were extensive grounds divided into yards, lawns, and groves of oak and chestnut trees, then in their youth, now majestic with the increase of half a century. Beyond the boundary of the school property, toward the river which Roger Williams had crossed in his search for a peaceful abode, were great forests of ancient maples, oaks, and chestnuts, with hillsides of towering hemlocks, and swamps where the boys, who did not study botany, sought for little beyond the extermination of a marvellous race of black snakes. From the cupola of the middle building was a prospect of wide extent, showing to the new-comers the whole State at a glance, and placing before their eyes the waters of Narragansett Bay. Enoch Breed--called universally "Cousin Enoch"--was at the head of the school as superintendent, while his wife, "Cousin Lydia," was the matron. She was a sweet, lovely lady, and her presence was felt by all in the school. "Cousin Enoch" was not an educator, but he was a kind, fatherly man, a shrewd manager, a good farmer, and an exemplary character. He always wore his broad-brimmed hat, and was never seen outside of his private room with it off; the boys looked upon him as their patriarch, and, indeed, it is said that on one occasion he was asked if he were Methuselah, and dryly answered, "No, I am Enoch." Isaiah Jones taught the mathematics, and was considered a very successful teacher. The other instructors were David Daniels, who taught what Latin was then required; George Jones, Moses Mitchel, Abigail Pierce, and Mary Almy. Reading, spelling, and grammar were the only classes which recited; all the other work of the school was done privately, each student being independent and going as slowly or rapidly as his brain-power and ambition prescribed. Mathematics was the important branch, and each boy copied problems and their solutions into interminable copy-books. The school-room was small and lighted by tin oil lamps on the desks. In this room there were often one hundred and fifty boys: a number of these were appointed as monitors to report all disorderly conduct to the teachers. The meetings were held in the building in an upper chamber, where boys and girls and teachers sat in the same room. These were generally silent meetings, but occasionally William Almy or Doctor Tobey came to give them counsel. Among the schoolmates of Eli Jones were James N. Buffum, since ex-mayor of Lynn, Mass., and Peter Neal, also since ex-mayor of the same city, now on the committee of the school. The latter relates that Eli Jones received the "christening" always given new boys in those days, and his remark on that occasion was characteristic of him. The old students were put in line at night on the play-ground, and among them stood the newcomer. A "dummy" with swollen cheeks came to each boy in turn, and was answered by all, "Um!" until he reached Eli, who, as instructed beforehand, said, "Squirt," when suddenly his face was filled with water. Instead of the attack which the boys expected, Eli quietly remarked, "_That was cleverly done_." Peter Neal remarks that if he had been known as he was a month later, he would have received no christening. His schoolmates relate that he was a good boy, and that he was generally liked. In his youth he was much troubled by an impediment in his speech, and he early resolved to remedy it as much as possible. He was the only one of scholars or teachers in the boarding-school who was accustomed to speak in the Friends' meeting. He had already begun to speak at home, and, notwithstanding the trial which it was to him as a young man, he stood up among the boys and forced his voice to say what was in his heart. Few who heard him on those occasions are alive now, but these few remember how it impressed them to see one who played with them on the campus and sat with them in classes speak so earnestly before them and all the rows of solemn Friends. They respected his message, for his life was pure. He had a dread of the nursery, and resolved to keep out of it, but he was taken with typhoid fever, and after vainly fighting it off at last succumbed to be doctored in the vigorous way of those times. He had a long, hard siege of it, and lost a number of weeks from his brief term; but this short break from his usual life and the intercourse with cultivated teachers and scholars could not fail to leave its impress. It lifted his aspirations and widened somewhat the course of his thoughts, giving an impulse to his future life more valuable than mere knowledge. While it is to be regretted that so short a time was given him for satisfying his longings for a higher education, we rejoice that he knew so well how to school himself and to be a teacher to himself. He was a good mathematician, and his copy-books show that he was no tyro at figures; but he affirms that his drill in the old spelling-book was of far greater worth to him than his higher mathematics. When he reached home from Providence, he found a young brother twenty-one years younger than himself. This was Edwin, the youngest of the family of eleven, and to him fell the homestead and the care of the father, mother, and sister Peace. There is still standing a little red building, about one mile from South China, called the Chadwick Schoolhouse, in which many a man has laid his ABC foundation. Its external and internal appearance would not lead one to suppose that this was a "temple of learning" or any other kind of a temple, but not a few successful men look back to it with a feeling of reverence, and the near presence of a yard where many others of its day tenants of earlier time lie under toppling stones, just carved enough to tell the names and some of the virtues of those beneath, gives somewhat of a sacredness to the little building. It was in this house that Eli first opened his mouth to speak in the assemblies of the people. He was quite young, less than fourteen, when he arose in a meeting in that house and said, "Behold the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him." On their way home his grandfather asked who had spoken in the "body of the meeting," but the grandmother checked her husband with a slight nudge and answered the question by a motion of her finger. A few years ago a very aged man came up to Eli Jones and said, "I remember the first time you ever spoke in meeting, and I know what you said." From this time on he was often heard briefly in religious assemblies, and he was encouraged by older Friends to be faithful in delivering his message when impressed. After his return from Providence School, Eli Jones began to be a definite worker for the bettering of the world, and the seeds he then planted have brought forth the blade and the ear, and now the full corn is in the ear. He and a few others organized a temperance society of which he was the secretary; and many meetings were held in China and the adjoining town. Essays were written and speeches were delivered against the use of intoxicating drinks. This organization was made two years before the Washingtonian movement was started, and its influence in the State was great, aiding undoubtedly the enactment of the "Maine Law" which has made itself felt in all our States and in many of the other countries. The same winter he was one of a small company which met to start a public library. They formed a successful library association. Books soon began to come in, and from that day Eli Jones has not wanted for reading matter. With few exceptions, when absent doing higher work, he has attended the meetings of this association and aided it by his zeal and counsel. It is a matter of interest to notice a young man who had just barely become a full-fledged citizen turning his mind so strongly toward enlightening those near him, and that, too, in a community where he did not have the example of any predecessor to arouse him and spur him on. He was travelling a new road, and building as he went. The secret of it all was that there was something in him which forbade rest and inaction. In early years he saw fully that the part of man which ate and slept was not the important part, but that there was something within him which could span space and time, and which was spoken to by the whisperings of the Spirit of the eternal Ruler. At the present time biographies are within the reach of all boys, and they can see how great men and good men have made their lives complete--how they shaped their course, what goal they set before them, and what lifted them to the mark. In his youth, Eli Jones had almost no possibility of knowing from the record of other lives how best to build in youth. His father was a righteous man, whose actions were living epistles, and his mother was a living, teaching Christian. From both he inherited much and learned much; but "there is a divinity that shapes our ends," and, once in the hands of the great Potter, there is a marvellous shaping of the clay. Biographies, all good books, and directions in the right way are helps, but submission to be trained and then used by the Master Builder, is infinitely more of a help in the making of a right man. Great men of all ages have recognized a power, a daimon, an ecstasy--or, better, a Spirit--inspiring them, urging them to seek truth and beauty, to live lives of truth and beauty and goodness, and to shun as their greatest enemy everything that distorts and ties weights to their flying feet. Everything teaches the man who is to be wise; but most of all the Spirit teaches those who give ear unto Him; and if any one thing has made the life of Eli Jones a success, it is that he listened actively to the voice which said, "Give me thine heart." CHAPTER III. _MARRIAGE WITH SYBIL JONES._ "I see in the world the intellect of man, That sword, the energy his subtle spear, The knowledge which defends him like a shield-- Everywhere; but they make not up, I think, The marvel of a soul like thine." BROWNING. In 1833, Eli Jones was married to Sybil Jones, the daughter of Ephraim and Susannah Jones. Susannah was the daughter of Micajah Dudley, son of Samuel Dudley, a great-grandson of Samuel Dudley of Exeter, N. H., the eldest son of Gov. Thomas Dudley, the pilgrim of Plymouth, said to have been descended from the lineage of the earls of Leicester. Both Sybil Jones's parents and grandparents were Friends, and her grandfather and great-grandfather Dudley were preachers of fine talents and high character. Ephraim Jones was a "noble man" and a strong character. He was often deeply lost in thought, to such an extent that many anecdotes are related of his absent-mindedness which are very amusing. He did not want in vigor of mind, and he was one of the marked men of the town. Some are still alive who remember him as he stood up at quarterly meeting and took his text, "If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" He was a man who left a remembrance behind him, and the strength of his life has not been lost. His wife Susannah lived to the good old age of ninety-four, and was loved by all who saw her. "Grandmother Jewel" was her name in her old age. Eli's mother, who was nearly as old, was also named Susannah, and it was a memorable day for the grandchildren when these two grandmothers talked together of the olden time. "Grandmother Jewel" was very deaf, but otherwise she was a vigorous woman as long as she lived, and, ripe with years and blessed with the fruit of those years, she passed from this world a few months before her daughter. It is told that when Eli Jones visited Sybil Jones with the purpose of asking her to become his life-companion, the latter, not suspecting the weight of his mission, took down the Bible to read a chapter, as was always customary in those days before visitors returned home. On this occasion Sybil Jones opened to the twentieth Psalm, beginning, "The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee, send thee help from the sanctuary and strengthen thee out of Zion; remember all thy offerings and accept all thy burnt-sacrifices; grant thee according to thine own heart, and fulfil all thy counsel." The mission was accomplished successfully, and for forty years the lives of Eli and Sybil Jones were linked together by the bonds of deep and pure love, while their aims, longings, and desires were merged into the one purpose of showing to the world that there is a love which transcends all earthly affection, and that God's love is an unbroken canopy which shelters the races of the round globe. Herein was their love continually made more perfect. I may quote as applicable to them the beautiful words of Izaak Walton, written to express the regard between the saintly George Herbert and his wife: "For the eternal Lover of mankind made them happy in each other's mutual and equal affections and compliance; indeed, so happy that there never was any opposition betwixt them, unless it were a contest which should most incline to a compliance with the other's desires. And though this begot, and continued in them, such a mutual love and joy and content as was no way defective, yet this mutual content and love and joy did receive a daily augumentation by such daily obligingness to each other as still added such new affluences to the former fulness of these divine souls as was only improvable in heaven." Sybil Jones was born at Brunswick, Me., in 1808. Her birthplace was very near the early home of Abel Jones. Only her youngest years were spent here, but she always had a love for her first home, and one of her early poems, written at about the age of twenty-one, speaks of it with fondness. Her early life was spent at Augusta, "which was the birthplace of those deep religious impressions that formed the motive power of a life pre-eminently consecrated to the service of her Redeemer and the human race." She often felt that the sermons and exhortations to which she listened during her early years were not of such a nature as to bring her to a saving knowledge of the sacrifice and love of Christ. Perhaps too little care was taken in those days to fulfil the Lord's command, "Feed my lambs;" and it is possible that our Society would have been more strongly built up if those good men who preached zealously to _edify_ the _Church_ had done so more effectually by taking the little ones by the hand and pointing them to the Source of satisfying life. A good Methodist minister at Augusta spoke kindly to Sybil Jones of her highest welfare, and she was very much helped and instructed by him in the way of life. She came to realize that she must be born again, and she accepted Christ, by whom alone she could become a child of God. Her love for the Methodists became very strong, and it was a most humiliating cross to her to obey her father's will that she should show her Quakerism by wearing a Friend's plain bonnet. There is a true anecdote which may properly be told, since it shows what her will was by nature, as we shall see later what power she had when it was in harmony with God's will. She was to attend China monthly meeting with her father, and he insisted that she should wear the "plain" bonnet. His request conflicted very much with her determination, but it was not possible to move him from his purpose. There was no course which could be taken to avoid wearing it, but she put it on bottom side up, and rode with it so from Augusta to China. But she fortunately saw and felt the simplicity and sincerity of Friends, as well as the spirituality of their faith, and she became firmly fixed in the belief that to be a true Quaker was to be a genuine Christian, a faithful follower of Jesus as he and his apostles marked out the road; and I must believe that if we all looked to the same source for light and guidance, and if we strove as earnestly to walk closely in His footsteps as she did, we should have little need of apologies and defences for our simple faith. In 1824-25 she attended the Friends' School at Providence, and for the next eight years she was engaged in teaching. She felt a deep interest in all that concerned her pupils, and it was the beginning of her efforts to open to the eyes of the young a new world of knowledge, beauty, and truth. One who has taught with a heart in the work will never cease to look upon children with loving eyes; and they were always the especial objects of her regard irrespective of their race or color. While still a teacher her father took her one day to attend Sidney monthly meeting, across the Kennebec River, about twelve miles from China. Lindley M. Hoag, then a young man, was at the meeting. He felt called to deliver a message to some one in the women's meeting, and an opportunity was given him to accomplish his purpose. He went to the women's side of the house and powerfully and clearly set forth the state of mind of some one present, and with prophetic words he pointed out the future course of this young Friend if she should be fully faithful to her inward promptings. Sybil Jones knew that he was laying open her heart, and she was much moved. When her gift as a minister was acknowledged, and she went out to hold meetings, she found Lindley Hoag present at the first one she attended, and for some time it seemed to her that she could not speak before him; but she overcame the feeling and was well favored to speak. This guidance from ministers who were moved to speak to her case, and the power given to her to declare the condition of others, were strikingly illustrated during her whole life. During these years of teaching she was much given to writing, and she not only copied many of the poems of her favorite authors, but she composed numerous poems on various subjects, and wrote short maxims for the rule of her conduct and life. It is very striking and touching to see how she regarded the brevity of life, for almost all that is left of her compositions is tinged with thoughts of death and the grave. One poem is written "To Consumption," and she seems to have been impressed with the feeling that her days were to be few, but she hails with joy the beginning of another life and the freedom from the cares and troubles of this present world. After saying how soon "life's sickly dream" will be over she writes-- "Oh may my future hours be given To peace, to virtue, and to Heaven, My hopes retain immortal birth, My joys ascend above the earth, My steps retrace the path they trod, My heart be fixed alone on God!" While still young she burned most of her prose and poetic compositions, partly because she was so often forced to read them aloud to company, and very little from those years remains. The following short poem may be as interesting as any, as her early wish here expressed was so perfectly fulfilled in the character of her accepted life-companion: "What! shall a face, then, win my heart, Mere symmetry of form? Such thrilling raptures _this_ impart With _love my bosom_ warm? As well might ocean's billow heave When not a wind did rise, As Fancy thus my heart deceive And fix my wandering eyes, No; 'tis the beauty of the soul That could my bosom fire; This would my tenderest thought control, And love and truth inspire." The thoughts expressed in some of her maxims show the bent of her mind, whether they are original or not. For example: "If you are told that another reviles you, do not go about to vindicate yourself, but reply thus: My other faults, I find, are hid from him, else I should have heard of them too;" "Fix your character and keep to it, whether alone or in company;" "No man can hurt you unless you please to let him; then only are you hurt when you think yourself so." Whatever her early attempts may show, Sybil Jones was certainly of a highly poetic nature. Her whole organism was so delicate that musical tones proceeded from her at the slightest touches from within or without. Melodious words came almost unsummoned to her lips as she plead with sinners to come to the waters of life and "drink without money and without price." John Bright told the present writer that it was always a delight to him to listen to her, and that he regarded her as a poet of high degree in her thought and expression. So with her daily duties and her thoughts of life and the future she developed from girlhood to womanhood, and at the age of twenty-five became the wife of Eli Jones. The joy and fruit resulting from their union show unmistakably how fully they were suited for each other, and they gave each other mutual help and inspiration. Their married life was begun at South China upon a farm which has since been divided into a number of smaller ones. The young wife was very careful in her expenditures, and an accurate account of all their expenses and their income was minutely kept by her. The Friends' meeting-house was three miles away at Dirigo. Thither they rode through the long, quiet woods every First and Fifth day to take their places among the rows of Friends waiting upon the Lord. Few houses made with hands have received more devoted worshippers, and few places have been more hallowed by the presence of pure souls met with one purpose, that of honoring the Ruler of the universe and learning from His Holy Spirit. Here, in the presence of sympathizing listeners, the voices of these two young Friends were often heard, and they were early enrolled among the ministers of the Society. The phrase of the early Friends was truly fitting in their case: "Their gifts were acknowledged." The men and women of China meeting made it their greatest endeavor to serve God acceptably in the path of daily duty and self-denial. One by one their beautiful lives have ended; happily, a few of them are yet left as examples, but a Quakerism--or rather a Christianity--which could round and perfect such characters had no earthly origin. China meeting at this time did not abound in powerful ministers, but its members were men and women whose lives were transparent and pure. They were "diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord," and they lived sermons. There has almost always been in this community one or two Hymenæuses and Philetuses who have drawn creeds for their private guidance and who have severely troubled the Friends; but such disturbances have generally resulted in the exaltation of the true faith, and as in the natural world the struggle to overcome hindrances to growth adds strength and vigor, so a wolf in sheep's clothing within the fold increases the vigilance of the spirit and the dependence on the great Shepherd. There were many intricate questions now and then arising for discussion which gave valuable instruction to the young ministers, and they were gradually being prepared for useful service. Those of other denominations who know only of a training in a theological seminary as a fitting for preaching and teaching cannot understand how they were being taught in this remote country village; but "by the Spirit's finer ear" they were hearing truths of life and immortality, and on the Rock they were building characters of gold, silver, precious stones. Eli Jones was a hard-working man, not only doing his farm-work, but at different times owning shares in mills at Albion and in China and assisting in the work of running them. After living a few years at South China he removed to Dirigo and settled on a farm near the Friends' meeting, where he lived until 1886. * * * * * While Eli Jones was in London in 1875 he wrote to Sarah Fobey, a lifelong friend of his beloved wife, for her recollections of their school-days together, and her thoughts as to Sybil Jones's spiritual exercises then and since. She wrote from Montreux, Switzerland, as follows: "My mind is filled with sweet and precious memories of the dear one. She and I met at Friends' School in Providence in 1825. We met as strangers, but a feeling of sympathy which is not easily explained soon drew us together, and our intercourse there was the commencement of one of the most delightful friendships that in all this changing scene grew stronger and brighter with every passing year. I remember her as one of the most studious pupils in the school, always coming to her class with her lessons fully prepared and reciting them in a manner that gained the admiration of her classmates. She had great love for the beautiful, and a keen enjoyment of beautiful language whether poetry or prose, and committing to memory, as she did, with ease, her mind thus early became stored with much that was an enjoyment to her in after years. In our Scripture lessons we made our own selections, hers were always the most beautiful portions of the Bible, often from Isaiah and the Psalms, a long chapter thoroughly committed to memory, and recited in a manner which showed she appreciated the truths it declared. "To her schoolmates she was most kind and affectionate, and by her readiness to assist them in their lessons and in every way to do them good gained their universal love and esteem. "She had a great flow of animal spirits, and entered with warmth and interest into all our innocent pleasures and amusements; but such was her sense of justice and of right that she would never overstep the bounds of order nor disobey the regulations of the school. Of her religious feeling and experience at that time I cannot speak. It was not the custom then, as now in our Society, to speak of conversion or to tell what God had done for our souls; and I had supposed that it was not until after her return home that she gave her heart to Jesus and became fully and entirely a child of His, ready to do His bidding, and desiring above every other consideration to follow Him in the way of His leading. How faithfully she did so, going from place to place, from city to city, from State to State, finally from continent to continent, declaring the unsearchable riches of Christ! One of the most affectionate and loving of mothers, she counted nothing too near or too dear to part with for His blessed name's sake. "How many sinners she has warned! how many inquirers she has pointed to Jesus, the door of hope! how many mourners she has comforted! She faithfully obeyed the injunction, 'Sow ye beside all waters,' and the seed thus sown has taken root, and will continue to bear fruit long after we shall have gone to join the dear ones who earlier than we have entered into their Master's rest. Who can calculate the amount of good that one such life of dedication and devotion has accomplished? It seems to me that a faithful record of it should be an incentive to others to seek to follow her as she followed Christ. To me she was the most remarkable woman I have ever met, and I feel it to have been a peculiar blessing to have known her so long and loved her so well. Now, as I write, 'Memory opens the long vista of buried years,' and my heart travels through them all. I linger around sunny spots, happy hours, days of delight, seasons of sweet spiritual communion, in which she related to me the wonderful dealings of her heavenly Father toward her, and the remarkable manner in which she was often supplied with means to accomplish the service she believed He required of her--how when there seemed no way for her to move He made a way. "She always seemed to me to be so spiritually-minded, and to live so near her Saviour, as to be led and guided in a remarkable manner by Him. I remember her when she opened her prospect to go to Europe for the last time. She rises before me now, as she has often done, as I saw her then. Soon after the meeting of ministers and elders assembled Doctor Tobey arose and said, 'If there is a subject of particular interest and importance to come before the meeting, this seems to be the proper time.' "She had not expected to present it at that sitting, but, as she afterward told me, she said to herself, 'That surely means me.' "She sat a little, while a feeling of great solemnity overspread the meeting. She then arose with the most beautiful and heavenly expression of countenance, her whole soul filled with the engrossing subject, and with a grace and elegance of manner of which she was entirely unconscious told us in beautiful and touching language what she felt called to do in the service of her Lord, gratefully acknowledging His many mercies thus far in her journey of life, and her unshaken confidence and trust in Him for all that was to come. The meeting was greatly moved and she was liberated with entire unity. "How lovely and sweet she was! and, though she lived so many years and did so much good in them all, it always seems to me that she died 'in the midst of her years.' "Oh, we should have liked to keep her longer, the dear one! But He who seeth to the end knew when to close the strife-- 'Knew when to loose the silver cord, To break the golden bowl, And give to her that richest gift, Salvation of the soul.'" CHAPTER IV. _FIRST VISIT._ "He who in glory did on Horeb's height Descend to Moses in the bush of flame, And bade him go and stand in Pharaoh's sight-- Who once to Israel's pious shepherd came, And sent him forth his champion in the fight,-- He within my heart thus spake to me: 'Go forth! Thou shalt on earth my witness be.'" SCHILLER. In the autumn of 1840, Sybil Jones was liberated by her Friends to attend meetings and do religious work in the provinces, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. In this work she was attended by her husband, and they passed through many trying circumstances; but, being sustained from above, they came home bringing sheaves with them and feeling that they had been instruments in God's hand of doing good. A brief account of this journey was kept by Sybil Jones. It has never been published, but is full of interest to all those who love to follow the steps of devoted servants of the Lord. During the first winter of the Revolutionary War, Benedict Arnold and a band of soldiers forced their way over almost insurmountable obstacles through the Maine woods to capture Montreal, Quebec, and the other Canadian strongholds. Historians have followed their track, carefully noting every detail of their march, recording what they suffered and what injuries they inflicted, and that, too, though the expedition failed of its end and many a fair young life was lost in vain. Certainly, we can well afford to follow the pilgrimage of two soldiers of the cross fully as heroic, carrying to those otherwise perishing the news of life and salvation. Sybil Jones was thirty-two years old when she made this visit; she was in delicate health, and obliged to leave her two young children, James Parnell and Narcissa, behind; but her whole soul was in the work, and she writes as she would have done when years had fully developed her. In this and her other diaries there often occur expressions which to the frequent readers of Fox and the early missionary Friends may sound stated and formal, but there is a life pervading the whole which shows conclusively to a thoughtful person that these phrases are not forms, but words clearly expressive of what she felt burning in her heart, and they add to rather than detract from the weight of her account. There is a wonderful depth of meaning and originality in the expressions of Friends which unfortunately is lost sight of by continual use, just as in all language word-metaphors which subtly picture thoughts become cold by use and lose their picturesqueness. In reading the pages recording the earnest labors of long ago let us read in them all that was put there by looking for the feeling and life under the words: "Left home with a certificate from some of my friends to visit some of the British provinces, the 23d of 8th mo., 1840, in company with my husband. He also has a certificate for said service. Being disappointed in a female companion, we had either to resign the prospect of a visit this season or proceed with no other company than our dear friend Daniel Smiley, who, with a minute from his monthly meeting, concluded to accompany us to Nova Scotia. It was a trying case, but, feeling as though the present time was the right time, we informed the committee appointed by the monthly meeting for the purpose of providing us with suitable company, how it was with us. They met with the elders, and informed us of their conclusion, which was that they thought best for us to proceed if it seemed like the right time, as we had informed them. We had to proceed on the prospect of apprehended duty under discouraging circumstances, yet I trust with a humble reliance on Him who hath said, 'I will be a defence unto Israel.' Being favored to resign ourselves to His direction and protection, we felt our only strength to be in Him, feeling, too, the consoling assurance that our dear friends we have left behind will travail in exercises with us for the Truth's honor and our preservation from every hurtful thing. We leave our dear children in the best place we could find.... Above all, we have felt a humble trust that He who never slumbers will keep them; and in remembrance of the blessed promise, that all things shall work together for good to them that love and fear God, I have been enabled under multiplied discouragement to adopt the language, 'Thy will, not mine, be done.' Blessed be His name for ever who has been with me in six troubles, and has given me assurance that He will not forsake even in the seventh if my place is where Mary's was of old. "We attended two meetings the day we left--one in Windsor, the other in Whitefield--which were very trying meetings.... "_Second day, 31st._ Arrived at Joseph Ester's in Calais; had a favored meeting this evening in the Calvinist Baptist meeting-house. The people here are so attached to Friends that they think it a privilege to let us have a house for a meeting. The Baptists claimed the privilege, and we thought best to improve it. After meeting I took cold from the damp air so frequent in this place, and was confined to the house till 9th mo. 4th. Proceeded to an appointment at St. Stephen's (English side), First day, 9th mo. 6th, at two P. M., at the Methodist house, which was a humbling season to the poor creatures, but the eternal truth reigned over all, and I hope the 'blessed Master of assemblies' had the honor, for it was by the might of His power that the tall cedars of Lebanon bowed and the oaks of Bashan bent. Nothing is too great for Him to do for us when our trust is in Him. May it ever be placed there! Second day, 7th, had a meeting at St. Stephen's in a Baptist house; put up at Ruggles's temperance house; felt quite at home here; they were an interesting family. We sat with the family before leaving them, and divine ability was given to speak in the language of encouragement to them, assuring them that a _little_ with the incomparable blessing of a peaceful mind was better than hoards of gold obtained in a way to injure our fellow-creatures. The demoralizing effects of the sale and use of ardent spirits were lamentably felt here. The landlord told us that he was once in the habit of keeping them for travellers and others, but became convinced that it was wrong. It brought him into a close trial, he told us, for this was the chief source of income. He said he prayed to his heavenly Father to direct him what to do, and the answer was that he must carry on the baking business. He accordingly entered into it, and with the assistance of two or three daughters he made a good income. Oh that all would go and do likewise who are in this iniquitous practice, that must surely prove, if persisted in, their condemnation! "_8th._ Parted from several of our dear friends who came to bid us farewell, and proceeded on our journey; came about noon to Oak Bay, parish of St. David's, a small village. Here we paused a little, but proceeded. My mind became distressed for leaving the place without trying to have a meeting, which I kept to myself until we had travelled about two and a half miles, when I was obliged to request our dear friend to turn about; which was crossing to us all, feeling very anxious to get along, having been detained from my ill-health, meetings, etc. beyond our expectations. But on turning toward the place I think we all participated in the reward of peace. We stopped at William Josling's, who met us with tears of joy. Oh may we omit nothing required of us, but be willing to do and suffer His will who will do all things well! This evening had a meeting in the Baptist house. It was a solemn season, and to the honor of truth, I trust. Lodged at William Golding's, who was in a tried state of mind owing to entanglement with the doctrine of predestination. He spoke of the circumstance of Pharaoh where the Lord said, 'For this same purpose I have raised thee up;' also named the passage from the apostle, 'Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?' He said that he considered it as a temptation of the enemy, but at times could hardly keep it out of his mind. As the subjects opened to my mind I endeavored to explain them.... He seemed satisfied, and said he had never had so clear an explanation before. Not feeling clear of the place without trying for another meeting, we accepted the Methodist house, which was kindly offered. A Universalist encountered me after meeting. I endeavored to keep near best help. He became silent, and I think the truth sank deep in his heart. We parted in mutual love and good feeling. He was a member of the legislative council, a man of talents. We called on the Methodist minister and his wife, who received us gladly; we thought them sincere-hearted followers of Christ. Parted under a feeling of holy relationship. Left this place for Tower Hill, in the parish of St. David. Arrived in a lonely-looking place, very desolate, where were a few inhabitants and a schoolhouse. There are few here who reflect, I think, that they must die, and that it is needful to prepare for that solemn event. We left them under serious impression, I think. We called on a woman apparently dying, who said she was not prepared to die; her sins were not forgiven. The family and several neighbors present were in great distress. I felt moved to call her attention to Jesus, who alone could help, reminding her of the penitent thief upon the cross. Surrounding beholders were warned to seek the Lord while in health, and not put it off till a dying bed, as the pains of the feeble body were enough to bear, without the indescribable pains of a wounded conscience. We called again on the sick woman, who seemed a little revived. I felt drawn to impart some words of encouragement, also to supplicate our heavenly Father on behalf of all present. My dear husband imparted some words of encouragement to her. We then left her bedside, where extreme poverty and want were strikingly apparent, with some assurance that she would find forgiveness and go in peace. We proceeded to meeting. A large number of thoughtless mortals were assembled. We had to travail in deep exercises for the awakening of life. Dear husband supplicated for divine aid, which was mercifully granted. Truth finally obtained the victory. It is the Lord's doing and marvellous in our eyes. "_15th._ Had a meeting at Bearing in a schoolhouse at the fourth hour, and one at Mehanas, parish of St Stephen's, at seven--the last a truly contriting season. I proceeded, accompanied by my dear husband, to visit some public-houses and places where liquor is sold, and to visit some serious people. This work of apprehended duty was most humiliating to the poor creature, but cheerful submission clothed my mind with sweet peace. We were treated kindly by all, and all expressed their thankfulness to us for calling, and received civilly what we had to deliver to them, saying they knew the right, but were unwilling to do it. Not feeling clear of these parts without a meeting with the Congregationalists at Calais, though I thought it probable that they would not grant it, I informed our company of it, who encouraged me to attend to the opening. Accordingly, a messenger was despatched, and returned word that they were expecting to meet in the evening for a prayer-meeting, and would cheerfully give up the meeting to us without a single objection. The Lord will make a way where there appears to be no way. In the evening we met with them, and had a good meeting, mutually satisfactory. "_17th._ Sat down at the house where we were staying with the family at meeting hour. Our little number with the family were enough to inherit the Saviour's blessed promise, 'There will I be in the midst of them.' We gave no notice, but two or three neighbors somehow got information and joined our company. At first it was a stripped season. The cloud as big as a man's hand was hardly discernible, but in the Lord's own time He blessed us indeed. His power arose to the contriting of all present. It was truly a refreshing time, in which we could say, 'The Lord is my goodness and fortress, my high tower.' "_18th._ Had a meeting at the Ledge in St. Stephen's at two o'clock. Some of the true wrestling seed were present, who were visited in their low dwelling-place and refreshed with the circulating influence of divine love, which spread even to the skirts of the assembly. I am ready to say, 'The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.' 'He brought me into his banqueting-house, and his banner over us was love.' "_26th, which was First day._ Had a meeting in the city of St. John, in the Methodist chapel in Germania street, at 2 P. M., and one at 6 o'clock in the parish of Portland, in the Methodist house. Several thousand souls met with us this day, and the Lord blessed us abundantly to the refreshing of the weary traveller toward the city of rest. Lodged at the Methodist preacher's, William Temple, who was truly hospitable. On the morning of the 28th went to the steamboat bound to Annapolis, but, it being stormy, the captain deemed it improper to put out to sea. Having our horses and carriage put on board at high tide, and could not get them off until tide served again, we felt some anxiety, fearing we had not done right in this procedure, as the elements seemed against us. We met with a man named Abial L. Brown on board, who kindly asked us to go home with him and remain until the boat should go. We gladly accepted his invitation and went to the house, where the family received us with affection, set some refreshments before us, of which we gladly partook, not having taken any breakfast and having walked some distance in the wet and cold. After being thus refreshed and having warmed ourselves, we felt inclined to assemble the family for a religious opportunity, which was gladly acceded to on their parts. The season was a truly comforting one. Afterward we inquired for a woman who had spoken to us the evening before after meeting and manifested a great desire to have an interview with us. From our description one of the daughters kindly offered to try to find her, though they could not tell her name. She made a successful attempt, and soon came with Elizabeth Girard, as she said her name was. She was a Friend in principle, though belonging to the Methodists. She lamented much the extravagant conformity to the vain fashions of the world, which is at enmity to Christ--said they had sorrowfully departed from the simplicity which marked the members in their rise in Wesleyan days. She spoke of the spiritual worship very clearly as that which was alone acceptable unto God. The storm subsided at about ten o'clock. We left, accompanied by E. G., who went to the steamboat with us. After our imparting some advice to this dear friend, she left. At about one o'clock we left St. John's City, and in twelve hours were across the Bay of Fundy at Annapolis. I was not very seasick; He who holdeth the waters in His hand preserves us yet. Little vital religion is felt in this part of the heritage. The people here have many advantages for a livelihood. The land has a rich soil, and the Annapolis River flowing through it in the midst of an extensive valley, where many of its farms stretch along its banks, the rich products may be borne through the river into the Bay of Fundy to distant parts. Thus was a kind Providence bountifully blessed, but a worldly spirit is prevailing among them. "_14th._ Held a meeting at Granville, and on the 15th went over Young's Mountain. Again not feeling clear, had a meeting in the evening, a memorable season of humbling contrition to most present. A young man named James Van Blarcum, being at this meeting, was convinced of the truth. May the Lord give him strength to suffer for His cause, which will no doubt be the case if he proves faithful!"[3] [3] James Van Blarcum was at work on a house when the notice was given for this meeting. On hearing that a woman would preach, he said he would go and hear what these heretics had to say. It was a revelation to him; his eyes were opened, and the whole course of his life changed. A few years after this he came to China, so that he might know more of Friends and their principles. At first his family were so displeased at his becoming a Quaker that he was forced to leave his home, though he was afterward highly respected by them all. He became a powerful minister in the Society, and was for a number of years connected with Oak Grove Seminary. He was married to Eunice, sister of Eli Jones. Eli and Sybil Jones attended many more meetings in the provinces, among them Annapolis, Wilmot Mount, Wolfville, Falmouth, Pictou, and Truro, making many weary journeys, some days riding as much as forty-three miles to hold a meeting. These long rides were attended with many discomforts, as it was the eleventh month, and the weather extremely raw and cold. The roads were in poor condition, and the mud oftentimes almost impassable. Sybil Jones describes the difficulties encountered in making their way to Truro: "Coming to two roads about noon, we inquired of an innkeeper the direct road to our destination. We followed his directions, found excellent roads, but, being through a thick forest, it was rather lonely. The weather being cloudy, night came on early, without discovering any opening in the dense forest that encompassed us. The thought did not occur that we might be on the wrong road until the horses began to wade very deep in mud. My husband sprang out of the carriage to lead the horses. After proceeding a few steps, the mire growing deeper, he ordered the carriage stopped, and after travelling around some time in the dark he exclaimed that we were on the wrong road--that we had come to the end of a road. Our feelings can better be imagined than described. Strangers in a strange land, in a vast wilderness at the end of our road, and the night being without even starlight, I shall never forget my feelings. We found our carriage was fast in the mire. After unharnessing the horses, which with some difficulty leapt out on hard footing, the men soon pried the carriage out and harnessed to return, while I stood on a dry spot where my dear husband had placed me. I was afraid that we had been directed there for a wicked design, when these words came to me: 'Judah's lion guards the way, and guides the traveller home.' After going back about fifty rods we discovered a light, and, going to it, found that it proceeded from a little hut. The people said that we could get across the woods, to the right road by going a quarter of a mile, and kindly offered to go with us and show us the way. We followed through the roughest road I ever passed. One had to hold the carriage behind to keep it from upsetting. We arrived safe on the road, happy and thankful." They had many "opportunities" in family circles, which they always found refreshing. They met with great kindness, although in many places they were greatly grieved to find that the spirit of the world held sway over the people. In many cases a great controlling power was felt, and they left believers much strengthened in the Lord to cope with the adversary. Owing to the inclemency of the weather they deemed it expedient to return to their homes. The homeward journey was long, and they were often able to get but scanty accommodations; but they ever found the "Lord a covert from the storms," and proved Him to be "as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." They were greatly cheered on retracing their steps to find that the seed scattered on their journey of love had fallen in good ground. The tavern-keeper with whom they had labored so lovingly had given up his sinful business, and was now keeping a strictly temperance house. Indeed, there was now no rum sold in the town. With deep interest and love for the dear people in the field in which they labored, and looking to God to bless their labors, they took their way to the home where were the dear children whom to leave was so hard. It was the beginning of winter before they prepared to return, so that it was impossible for them to use the carriage with which they made the journey, and it was finally decided to put the carriage on runners, and in this way the long return journey was made. Some years later they went over the same ground by carriage on a second visit to the provinces. In one place, as they were driving along through a long wood, they were met in the road by a huge bear, which stood its ground for some time, but finally retreated and allowed the Friends to go on their mission. Soon after this visit Eli Jones felt that it was his duty to go over the meetings of Canada and to speak to the Friends there, both in the different assemblies and by their firesides. His dear wife in the mean time was making a tour through New England, doing the work which was laid upon her. It was a trial for them to be so widely separated, but each was in the proper place. Sybil Jones was brought low with sickness and forced to hasten home. Eli Jones came from his field of service, and called on his friend Daniel Smiley, where he found his wife very ill; but recovery was granted, and they came rejoicing to the family at home. CHAPTER V. _EAST, WEST, AND SOUTH._ "I have always been thinking of the different ways in which Christianity is taught, and whenever I find any way that makes it a wider blessing than any other, I cling to that: I mean to that which takes in the most good of all kinds, and brings in the most people as sharers." After their return from this last visit they passed a few years in quiet work at home, often attending the different quarterly meetings in New England, and generally taking an annual trip to Newport to be present at the yearly meeting, which was occasionally attended by Friends from the West and from Great Britain, bringing thither knowledge of far-off lands where the whitening fields called for more laborers. In 1845 they felt called to go over the meetings of Friends in nearly all parts of the United States, and this and the next year were mostly taken up with that work. Eli Jones has since travelled over this ground many times, and has often visited the different yearly meetings of America, but always with quite different feelings from those which were in their hearts at the first extensive visit. John Wilber had been "disowned" by the Friends only two years before, and his upholders who had separated from the Society were in many of the meetings which they visited. There was a general feeling of sorrow that a second unhappy division should appear in the midst of peaceful neighborhoods and the animosity arising from fruitless argument had weakened the loving spirit and dampened the zealous ardor of many who should have been the unbiased spokesmen of the gospel of Christ. Eli and Sybil Jones endeavored to draw the two parties together into the house of faith and true belief. It is almost impossible in the midst of church differences for any one who is interested to be unprejudiced in his judgment. Bitterness shows itself in the hearts of the most loving. Differences are exaggerated and words are misunderstood for things. The main body are over-eager to win back those they are losing, while they are inflicting deeper wounds by their too hasty blows at what seems the heresy of their opponents, and the latter cherish a feeling of glory in the size of the rent they are making. These two Friends tried sweetly and gently to persuade those differing with them that the ancient Rock was the only foundation for their building. They visited the families of nearly all the meetings and impressed their thoughts on the individual members. If perhaps they accomplished little in cementing the two bodies, they did much to strengthen the weak and to point the unsheltered to a Tower of safety and defence. It may be interesting to follow them in a few extracts from Sybil Jones's journal: "Left home 9th mo., 1845, with a certificate to visit in the love of the gospel the yearly meetings of Ohio, Indiana, Baltimore, and North Carolina. We took passage on the steamer John Marshall from Augusta to Boston, and from there by cars to Lynn, where we attended their quarterly meeting. Friends in this meeting are brought under deep exercise on account of the attendance of a committee from the Separatists and John Wilbur in person. They took full liberty to throw out their sentiments and bore very hard on Friends, all of which Friends were mercifully favored to bear with true Christian patience. After being detained seven hours the meeting adjourned until nine the next morning, at which time they convened without interruption and were greatly refreshed together. "From Lynn we went to New Bedford, where a small meeting of the Wilburites is held, some of whom we called to see and were treated kindly, but were painfully afflicted in spirit under a sense of their alienation from the unity of the Spirit by which we are called. Friends here are not numerous, but upright standard-bearers. In the morning attended Newtown meeting, which was also attended by the Separatists (a few being here). After a time of solemn retirement before the Lord truth rose into dominion and a contriting time it was." They went on by boat to New York, and from there to Philadelphia and Baltimore, where John Meader, Thomas Willis, Richard Carpenter, and others met them to go in their company farther west: "We reached Mount Pleasant the day previous to select meeting, which began the 8th of 9th mo. The spirit of bitterness has made sad havoc here. The four visiting Friends were duly proved in suffering with the suffering. No notice was taken of any certificates on their minutes. The servants of the Lord in attendance were of one heart and one mind, and there were times amid the conflict that the gracious ear, I doubt not, inclined to the fervent petition, 'Lord, save us or we perish.' A calm stole over the troubled waves, and ability was vouchsafed to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ. "The meeting closed on the 12th of the month, and the next morning we proceeded on our way to Cincinnati. We took the steamer New Hampshire, and were more than five days on the Ohio River. The water was low, so that we were often aground some hours. We had a meeting on board with the passengers, and it was crowned by the presence of Him who holds the waters in the hollow of his hand and causeth the mountains to flow down at His presence. We were treated with great kindness and respect. The first part of our passage I noticed some playing cards, which brought me under great exercise, and after carefully examining the subject I thought it my duty before retiring to rest to walk to the table and express my feelings. Asking leave of them, I proceeded to relieve my mind, which was received kindly, and I saw no more card-playing afterward. I felt great peace in taking up this cross. May I always be willing to do His will who leadeth safely and sustaineth the soul amid every conflict! "We arrived in Cincinnati on the 18th. After our arrival I informed a Friend that the subject of visiting families had rested with great weight upon my mind; which he communicated to some of the select members, and it resulted in an opportunity with all of them. I opened the subject before them, and a sweet cementing season of divine approval was graciously afforded. They fully and feelingly united with us and encouraged us to proceed therein." They visited nearly all the families in that region, and felt encouraged in the labor. She writes: "I believe it is the design of the Head of the Church to pour out a rich blessing on this part of His inheritance; indeed, He seems turning His hand upon the little ones, and will, I believe, raise up valiants among the youth, who will publish with the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all His wondrous works." Having done much work in Ohio and Indiana, they came over the Alleghany Mountains, and revisited Baltimore, forming many pleasant acquaintances with the Friends in that city, and holding meeting for public worship, as well as visiting the families for more quiet work. They next turned toward the South, and reached North Carolina in time for the yearly meeting. There was much feeling here in regard to the separation, and an epistle from the Separatists was rejected at this yearly meeting. In regard to the slaves, she writes: "Vital religion is very low. Truth has fallen in the streets, and Equity cannot enter in some places. Here is a suffering seed in many portions of this land of slavery. Friends have borne in meekness a noble testimony against its iniquity, and, though they often feel disheartened at the shadowy prospect, I believe their upright example has had, and will still have, salutary influence. The Lord has inclined His gracious ear to the multiplied cries of the oppressed, and those who suffer for them as being bound with them, and will hasten the blessed day when Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hand unto God and the oppressor shall no more oppress. "There are so many rents and divisions throughout Christendom that many are crying, Who shall show us any good? I earnestly desire that these overturnings and siftings may tend to draw the people to the living eternal Substance, to build on the ancient Foundation of all the holy prophets and apostles. There is great need of more dedication and a stirring up to greater diligence in this land." The work and service in Carolina were carried on in great bodily weakness, and often Sybil Jones was compelled to remain at home while Eli Jones and the Friends with them attended the meetings. At the beginning of the new year they returned to their Maine home to pass a few quiet years before undertaking a still more extensive journey. CHAPTER VI. _VOYAGE TO LIBERIA._ "Be sure they sleep not whom God needs, nor fear Their holding light his charge, when every hour That finds that charge delayed is a new death, * * * * * * * So intimate a tie connects me with our God." BROWNING. There is wonderful harmony in God's work in the different kingdoms and sub-kingdoms of His domain. When His method of working is resisted, there is always harsh conflicting, and finally He removes the obstacle; but wherever we look, so long as there is a submission to His plan, there is never a jar, never a halt on the road to the great end which He has in view, be it in the growth of a tree, in the motion of a world through space, in the maturity of animal or human life, or in the development of spiritual being. But the first rule that must be fulfilled before He can rightly use any of His intelligent creations is that they fully submit themselves to Him to be trained and used. Just as the brook yields strict obedience to the gentle impulse which moves it from its source on through its winding channel to its home in the great ocean of waters, so all who are to be the servants of the Most High must be _willing_ to become the instruments through which He works, and must let Him flow through unhindered. Those whom He will use He prepares just as much, and in a higher sense, as He makes the lily grow--not by any toiling and spinning on its part, but by putting a life within it which animates and builds up the whole structure; and as the lily adorns the spot in which He puts it, so His workmen should beautify the vineyard where He sets them. It is a very marked fact in the lives of the two of whom I am writing that they not only gave themselves up to be prepared by Him who was to use them, but they also waited until He showed them where they should work. There is work everywhere which is waiting to be done, nor does any one do well who idly sits still until he is told just where to begin, but God has His chosen workmen fitted on purpose for a special place, as much as an earthly master-builder, and the time comes to every one when it is imperative for him to hear the order which he is to execute. The Lord spake unto Moses often, and He who made known His ways then has power to tell His will to whom he wishes now, and the proper messenger does not embark before the message comes. I find in the earlier life of Eli and Sybil Jones that their great, absorbing wish was that they might be in full harmony with Him whom they served. They looked up to be taught, and He gave just the right service to enlarge and strengthen their powers, so that they might be prepared for the more difficult undertaking which now presented itself. No one who reads the journal which follows will think they went to Liberia prompted by their own feelings, but the service was evidently _laid upon them_. To understand properly the struggle through which Sybil Jones passed before leaving her home, it will be necessary to picture to ourselves the circumstances surrounding her nearly half a century ago. She had grown to womanhood in a little town in Maine, having exceedingly limited opportunities for obtaining a knowledge of the world and the ways of men and women; she was now the mother of five children, who needed their parents' care; she had just undergone the sorrow of seeing many dear to her pass from earth, while still others of her family were already on deathbeds: and now she was to go from all that earth held dearest to her, perhaps never to see even her own country again. To-day to travel is the ordinary course; fifty years ago it was a rare and momentous event for one to go far from home. It would seem most hazardous to a frail woman to go from Maine to Baltimore, there to embark, not in a steamer with modern conveniences, but in a sailing-packet with rough passengers and still rougher crew, for the west coast of Africa. Let us not wonder as we read her account that she waited long and counselled earnestly with her own heart, for if she should go self-sent only perils insurmountable would be before her, but on God's errands, sent by His command, she knew of nothing to fear. The _Friends' Review_ for 6th mo. 28, 1851, has the following paragraph: "In the meeting of ministers and elders of New England Yearly Meeting on Seventh day, 14th, our dedicated friend Sybil Jones opened a prospect of an extensive religious visit to Great Britain, Ireland, some parts of the continent of Europe, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and some islands on the west coast of Africa and in the West Indies; and her husband, Eli Jones, informed the meeting that he believed it his duty to bear her company in this extensive and arduous engagement. The subject obtained the weighty and feeling consideration of the meeting, and, though Friends were fully sensible to the magnitude and importance of the undertaking and of the apparently inadequate state of her health, such a current of unity with the prospect was experienced that all doubt of its propriety was taken away; and they were accordingly liberated for the service. The sympathy and prayers of their friends will unquestionably follow them." As the most of the following year's work was in Liberia, it may be well to speak briefly of the position and condition of that country. Liberia is a negro republic on the west coast of Africa. Its length along the coast is about three hundred and eighty miles, and its entire area about twenty-four thousand square miles. Sierra Leone, the country to the north of Liberia, was colonized by colored men from Great Britain, assisted by such men as Grenville Sharp, Wilberforce, and Clarkson, the first settlement being made in 1787, and composed partly of negroes who had served in the British army during our Revolutionary War. This and successive colonies were terribly weakened by the death-stroke of the African fever, but they were finally successful; and American philanthropists, who were eager to help an unfortunate race, founded here in 1822 a colony of freedmen who might enjoy the political and social privileges denied to them in the United States. The town of Monrovia was founded and named after James Monroe, then President. They landed in the midst of heathendom, and the first years were years of struggle; but these colored men showed that they could govern themselves. They drew up a constitution much like the American, the first article of which read, "All men are born equally free and independent, and among their natural inherent and inalienable rights are the rights of enjoying and defending life and LIBERTY;" and the fourth section, "There shall be no slavery within this republic." The republic has a President, Senate, House of Representatives, and a judicial department, so that good laws are passed, explained, and enforced. In 1847 the republic declared its independence, and was finally in 1861 recognized by the United States as a sovereign state. The Methodist Church established a mission here in 1833; the Presbyterian Church followed this example, and sent J. B. Penny into the field the same year. The American Episcopal Church was at work in the republic as early as 1836, while the Baptists turned their attention there in 1845, so that it was in fact a "missionary republic." The present population of the republic comprises about 18,000 civilized negroes, chiefly of American origin, and 1,050,000 half-wild natives, who are gradually adopting a settled life and conforming to the habits of their civilized countrymen. Professor David Christy said in a lecture in 1855: "If a colony of colored men, beginning with less than a hundred, and gradually increasing to nine thousand, has in thirty years established an independent republic amidst a savage people, destroyed the slave-trade on six hundred miles of the African coast, put down the heathen temples in one of its largest districts, afforded security to all the missions within its limits, and now casts its shield over three hundred thousand native inhabitants, what may not be done in the next thirty years by colonization and missions combined were sufficient means supplied to call forth all their energies?" It was during this visit to Liberia that Eli Jones first felt his heart fill with zeal for missionary work. One day, going to pay a visit to President Roberts, he found a large band of fierce natives assembled in the President's room to have him arbitrate their quarrel. The dispute being settled peacefully, the President introduced Eli Jones, asking a noble-looking chief if he would like to have this man go with them to talk about God to their tribe. The prompt and earnest answer was, "Yes, and we will build him a house if he will come and stay." At once he saw in mind the needs of these and the thousands of other human beings waiting for some one to bring to them the fuller teaching of the way to a higher Christian civilization, and from that date he was more than ever desirous to be an instrument of help. The following poem was written by Elizabeth Lloyd[4] on the departure of Eli and Sybil Jones for Africa: [4] Afterward Elizabeth Howell. She is the author of the beautiful lines entitled "Milton in his Blindness." THE GOSPEL MESSENGER. "Behold, I will send my messenger." Dedicated to a service high and holy from above; Guided by the inward teaching of a heavenly Father's love, Listening to the soft monitions whispered in her spirit's ear, Answering to the call like Samuel, "Lo, my Father, I am here," Child-like in her meek submission, His appointing to fulfil, Trusting in His strength for safety, she went forth to do His will. Bearing up His "ark of promise," she the weak became the strong, In her heart a hymn of praising, on her lips a triumph song; "Thou hast vanquished, O my Saviour--Thou who bore my sins for me; Sanctify with thy anointing sacrifices made for thee. As of old Thou ledst Thy children, showing them the cloud by day And by night the fiery pillar, so lead me along my way. "If I falter, if my heart be tempted by its doubts and fears, If my eyes, to heaven uplifted, see Thee only through their tears; If the clinging of love's tendrils bind my thoughts to things of earth, And between me and my duty come the dreams of home and hearth,-- Oh have pity on me, Father, and if I should go astray Let Thy angels, Faith and Patience, point me to the narrow way. "Clear before me let the shining of Thy holy light arise, Far behind me cast the shadow of my own poor sacrifice. Can I doubt when I remember how the sea was cleft in twain, And, a wall of waters rising, left a valley in the main That Thy people might pass over on the golden-sanded path, So to sing their song of triumph, safe from the pursuer's wrath? "Can I fear when I remember Thou didst feed them day by day, With thy manna, that like hoarfrost round the tents of Israel lay; In the wilderness wast with them till their tarriance was o'er, Sweetened Marah's bitter fountain, opened Horeb's rock-bound door? Nay, Thy power and might, as ever, all omnipotent shall be: 'Rock of Ages,' what can move me if I lean my soul on Thee?" Where the palms of Afric gather up the tropic heats by day, Where the jerboa and the lion in their evening shadows play, Where the streams are coral-bedded and the mountains gemmed with gold, She is bearing forth a treasure human heart alone may hold-- Oil to pour on troubled spirits, seed to sow in barren place, Soothing balm of consolation, knowledge of anointing grace. "Ethiopia and the islands," far away her mission lies: From the sweet New England homestead underneath her native skies, To Liberia's dark-browed children, Sierra Leone's struggling band, She has messages from heaven, guided by the Father's hand. She is pointing out salvation: "Christ has no partition-wall; We are children of one Father, and His love redeemed us all." Oh, the fettered slave may hear it, sinking 'neath his weight of woe; In the northland, in the southland, streams of gospel love may flow. Not a partial gleam, a star-ray, gilding but a single night, Was God's thought in His creation when He said, "Let there be light;" Not a single soul's redemption when that piercing cry went up, "Eloi lama sabacthani!" ere He drank death's bitter cup. But a world-illuminating flood of radiance was born When the angels sang rejoicing o'er the earth's baptismal morn, And the souls of all created, and the souls of all to be, Are partakers of redemption by that death on Calvary, That divine self-abnegation of the holy Son of man-- Thought sublime in its expansion, theme beyond our finite scan. Oh, the human heart a temple for the Saviour's love may be In all nations, in all climates, on the land or on the sea: Sect or color bars not entrance; only Sin her watch may set, Keeping Him without the portals till with dew his locks are wet; But He ceases not from calling, "Garnish and make clean for me; Drive away the money-changers, in their place let angels be." Through His instruments He calleth, humble tho' they be and weak, That the deaf ears may be opened and the sealed lips may speak, That the maimed may halt no longer, and the blinded eyes may see, And the lepers, healed and cleansed, glorifying God may be. Ignorance and sin are blindness, but as morning after night Is the heart's regeneration when God says, "Let there be light." The following account has been selected from Sybil Jones's journal. It was written to be published soon after their return, but publication was delayed, and now for the first time it is made public. It will show, as few other writings, the emotions and strivings of a sincere seeking soul. Her journals speak little, especially in her earlier visits, of natural surroundings and ordinary events, for her spiritual work seemed so weighty that nothing was allowed to turn her eyes from that: * * * * * SO. CHINA, _12 mo., 1850._ Painful are the baptisms that my poor trembling soul tries to endure patiently. Forgive me, most gracious God, if I dare repine. Death seems again lingering on our borders, and the remnant of a once large family must soon diminish. My worthy father seems drawing near the silent grave, but full of bright hopes of a mansion in the eternal city. Though well knowing that the "Judge of all the earth" will do right, yet sad is the thought that soon we must lose his cheerful society and instructive counsel. Oh that this deep affliction may prove a salutary cup to the soul, though very bitter to the taste! I learn many awful lessons while sitting by his bedside. It is a foretaste of heaven sweetly blended with a hope of reunion around the throne. My soul is weighed down with the prospect of more extended service in the cause of our holy Redeemer, and lingers tremblingly on Jordan's banks. Oh, this Jordan seems awful, but I must descend to its bottom, and may the eternal God be my refuge, and underneath the everlasting arms! The billows overwhelm, and I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. My health is frail and my spirits flag. But amid all, the unchanging Rock is my support. _1st mo., 1851._ With the unity of my friends I performed some errands of love in some portions of our own yearly meetings. I went forth in fear and much weakness, but through abounding mercy the peace of God fills my heart. In the course of this visit I had a very interesting public meeting in Nantucket. My spirit had long lingered around that little island of the sea, and sweet was our communion together in the love and power of truth. Dear father met me joyfully and expressed great thankfulness for being permitted to meet me again below. He said his soul was filled with a Saviour's love, and he longed to go home to his heavenly rest, to join with saints and angels in singing the song of Moses and the Lamb for ever and ever. It was a time of blessed communion. My mind is deeply impressed with the language uttered frequently in my inward ear: "Go offer a sacrifice similar to my servant Abraham's;" which causes great fearfulness to come upon me, and a sense of utter unworthiness and inability for such a momentous work, feeling the least and last of those who name the great Name. _2d mo._ Dear father seems near his eternal joy. He told me to-day that he had been thinking I had a prospect of some service in a distant land, and wished to know if I thought of such a thing. As I had not named it to any one, and felt restrained from speaking of it, I hesitated, but at length opened my feelings, at which he seemed introduced into much sympathy, and desired me to be faithful, and then placed his hands upon me, and poured out a fervent prayer to our Father in heaven on my behalf for His holy presence to go with me, and His almighty power to keep me from all evil. It was a solemn season, for the painful and yet happy thought mingled in this communion that when my frail bark must venture on dangerous seas his would be for ever anchored on the shore of immortal joy. This day I have been summoned to my sainted father's bed of death. He was happy, full of heavenly peace, and, resting his ransomed spirit on his Saviour's breast, there breathed his life sweetly away. Our loss is great, but his gain glorious. _2d mo._ We have conveyed his cherished form to its last resting-place, and Jesus was with us and presided over all. Oh let his name be praised and his matchless goodness be adored. _3d mo._ My dear brother Augustine, whose health has been declining for some years, seems rapidly following father, at which our hearts are so stricken that sorrow's bitter tears, fast falling on a sainted father's grave, are even shared by our dearest brother, on whose cheek flushes the crimson hectic omen of dissolution. The painful thought of the departure of our dear brother, the last earthly prop of the family, seemed agonizing to our hearts. While these afflictive dispensations are meted out, my spirit dwells in the great depths of self-abasedness, and bears upon it too the burden of a Saviour's love to sinners in a far-distant land. Oh fix the trust of my tempest-tossed soul immutably upon the unchanging Rock! To-day I have returned from visiting my sweet brother. He thankfully acknowledges the mercy of being so calm and comfortable, though rapidly hasting to the silent grave. Soon after the Lord saw fit to plunge his soul into deep baptism for its purification. His distress seemed entirely indescribable, but, being encouraged to believe it was a refining process, though thus painful, to prepare him to partake more fully of the joys of God's salvation, his faith seemed strengthened to hope for mercy and deliverance in the Lord's time; which time at last came, and ushered in the dawn of a glorious morning without clouds. His heart was full of songs of joy. His constant theme was the unsearchable riches of Christ. One day when I entered his sick-room, he exclaimed, "Dear sister, I am glad to see thee: I want to tell thee the joy of my soul. I have heard the language, as intelligibly as anything I hear with my outward ear, 'Speak comfortably unto Jerusalem, cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received at the Lord's hand double for all her sin;' and, though I am most unworthy, I believe this is applied to me, for my peace flows like a river." He lived about five weeks from this time, and had indeed no more conflicts; not a doubt or a cloud obstructed the continual shining of the glorious Sun of Righteousness. He often said that he was as full of songs of joy as his poor heart could hold. Deep baptisms abide me, and such a painful sense is given me of my own inability and nothingness that I am ready to shrink from attempting to open the subject to my friends. My poor tempest-tossed soul dwells near the valley and shadow of death. Liberia seems to press upon my mind, but can all this be called for at such weak hands? I have omitted to mention in its place a testimony of my dear brother's to me a short time before his death. In an interview together he thus expressed himself: "Dear sister, I have thought for some time past that the Master had a service for thee in distant lands across the ocean, and I have this to say to thee: _Go_ with thy life in thy hand. It should not concern thee whether thou sees thy native land again or not: heaven is as near there as here. Go and tell the sinner of a Saviour's love; bear the good tidings to lands afar off. I wish you to make timely arrangements, so as to move along quietly." I replied: "Dear brother, I do not wish to repine at my lot, but I have been thinking that thou art soon to be released from the conflict, and that I must remain still longer in the field, and may make some misstep and never reach thy glorious home." To which he replied, looking at me most impressively: "The dear Saviour will never leave thee; He will never leave thee, but when thy work is finished he will bring thee to meet me in heaven." This seemed a renewed evidence that the service was required, but so deep was my sense of frailty and entire inability to do the work that I could not believe that the Master would select me to go on such an important embassy, a service of such vast moment. The evidence had been very clear, but the feeling of unfitness for the work seemed to hedge up the way entirely, and I thought unless some person would come to me and tell me the Lord required it and would fit me for the work, I would not take a step. I thought I could not receive it but from some one clothed with gospel authority; and in looking over this class I selected dear Benjamin Seebohm, who I knew was somewhere in America. I was very much reduced in health, attributable to painful watchings and partings, for I slept little and had little appetite for food. Our monthly meeting day arrived, and, though my health was so frail that I had gotten out to meeting but little for some time, I felt an almost irresistible impression to go. I accordingly went. As I entered the door almost the first person I met was Benjamin Seebohm. I could not have been more surprised at the appearance of any person. In a moment my request rushed into my mind, and thought I, "I am caught now; I have done wrong in asking this sign, and may the Lord forgive me and in mercy overlook this presumption, and not grant the request unless it is His will, in condescension to my low estate." The meeting gathered under a great solemnity. It seemed to me that this weighty service fell upon it, and after a time of very solemn silence dear Benjamin arose and took up an individual case, and so exactly described my feelings and the service that no doubt remained but the Most High had sent him with this message to me. My soul was poured out like water and all my bones shook. I thought all present knew it was I, though not one but my husband had been apprised of it (it having been to me too sacred a thing to speak of). Indeed, I thought I was a spectacle for men and angels, while the thoughts of my heart were revealed before many witnesses and the work of the Lord proclaimed in demonstration of the Spirit and with power. He spoke most cheeringly--explained feelings of poverty as preparatory to this work, that the creature may be laid low in the dust and the blessed Name alone be magnified; said the Lord would abundantly furnish for every good word and work; that he reduced the creature that all dependence on itself might be entirely removed, and our confidence firmly fixed on Himself, who is the eternal foundation of wisdom and knowledge. I did not see Benjamin again until the day after my dear brother's funeral, when he came to our house and lodged. He had a meeting in the place, and precious and heart-searching was his gospel message. He likewise had a sweet opportunity with the mourners at the house of my lamented brother's widow. Long will this beloved Friend and his consoling heavenly testimony be remembered. _5th mo., Seventh day._ To-day is our select meeting, and my trembling spirit is loth to fly, and yet afraid to yield. Who, indeed, can know the agony of my spirit, save "He who rolls the planets in their spheres And counts the lowly mourner's tears?" I thought it best to name my prospect to my two oldest children, a son sixteen and a daughter twelve. The reply of both was, "Go, mother," though their full hearts would hardly allow utterance until tears lent relief. With me words were nearly lost in feeling as I stood on Jordan's bank again to tempt its fearful tide and deeper tread beneath its wave. I had sat down to compose my thoughts for meeting, with my grief-worn mother, by the side of the cradle where lay (all unconscious of the deep pangs that rent our hearts) my dear little Grelet, about ten months old. The rest had all come in and were seated around, when my dear James Parnell, as if fully conscious of what was passing in his mother's heart, took a book and commenced reading the following lines: "FORWARD AND FEAR NOT. "Forward and fear not; the billows may roll, But the power of Jehovah their rage can control. The waves are in anger, but their tumult shall cease; One word of His bidding will hush them to peace. "Forward and fear not; though trials be near, The Lord is thy refuge; whom shouldst thou fear? His staff is thy comfort, thy safeguard His rod; Be sober, be steadfast, and hope in thy God. "Forward and fear not; though false ones deride, The hand of the Highest is with thee to guide; His truth is thy buckler, His love is thy shield; On, then, to the combat--be sure not to yield. "Forward and fear not; be strong in the Lord, In the power of His promise, the trust of His word. Through the sea and the desert thy pathway may tend, But He who has saved thee will save to the end. "Forward and fear not; speed on the way, Why dost thou shrink from thy path in dismay? Thou tread'st but the path that thy Leader hath trod; Then forward and fear not, but trust in thy God." So appropriate and touching were the sentiments that we were brought into tenderness. I have had many fears that the weight of the important visit will not be fully valued by all my dear friends. My earnest prayer has been that they may feel its weight as I have done, if it is of the Lord; if not, that they may see it right to take the burden and release me. I have this day ventured in great fear and much trembling to open my prospect in the select meeting, and, to my trembling admiration, it fell with solemn weight and awfulness upon the assembly. The great Head of His own Church dispensed His holy power and presence and condescended to be a Spirit of judgment to those who sat in judgment, and an entire unity prevailed and cemented our hearts together in the strong bonds of gospel fellowship and love, and the great Name was held in reverence by those about Him. I feel somewhat relieved, and, having cast the burden upon my friends, the return of evening finds me trusting in my Saviour in sweet peace. To-day is our monthly meeting, my health very frail, and my spirit awfully bowed before the Most High. A sense of utter inability to proceed in this momentous subject brings my soul into the dust of death, but "I will look unto the hills from whence cometh my strength." I was unable to attend the first meeting, and in great bodily infirmity went to the last meeting to attend to the business before me. I was strengthened to stand up and to open to my dear friends the service on my mind for the Lord my God in a distant land. It fell with great impressiveness, and yet as the gentle dew, upon the solemn assembly, and all present seemed to have a sweet feeling of unity and sympathy. The mountains indeed flowed down at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob. To-day our quarterly meeting convened, and it was signally owned by the holy Head. In and over the first meeting was a sweet solemnity, which lost none of its sweetness after separation to transact the weighty business of the Church, which to me never seemed more weighty. I was mercifully helped again to spread the important prospect before the Church, which received its full and cordial unity, and many living testimonials were given forth to the power and goodness of Him whose ways are not as our ways. My heart was reverently bowed before Him who makes a way through the roaring billows of discouragement and causeth the mountains to flee away at His presence before the footsteps of His little ones. _6th mo., Newport._ Arrived on the island last evening, and to-day I have to bring my prospect before the Church in its select yearly meeting capacity. While I have not a doubt but the great Master requires me to make the sacrifice of laying the burden upon my friends for their disposal, I feel a fervent desire that we may not be permitted to proceed unless it is the Lord's will. May it please Him in whom are the treasures of wisdom and knowledge to dispense the spirit of wisdom and judgment to the Church, and may the awfulness of the service, with a sense of His dread majesty, power, and holy cementing love, mantle the whole assembly! I took my seat with my friends as a weaned child, passive in His holy hands whose will only I wished to know and do, with great fear upon my spirit. The Lord helped me to declare unto the Church what seemed to be His holy will who declareth unto man what are His thoughts, who maketh the morning darkness and treadeth upon the high places of the earth. The Lord, the God of hosts, is His name. A solemn awe pervaded the assembly, and at the place of prayer each spirit seemed to wait until a door of communication was opened by Him who openeth and none can shut. The mind of the blessed Head through the eternal Spirit was given forth in many living testimonials. Great unity prevailed. The prophetic declaration seemed applicable: "God came from Teman and the Holy One from Mount Paran; His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was filled with His praise." My soul returns unto her rest with songs of joy. The endorsements placed upon our certificates by the select meeting of ministers and elders have been read to-day, which brought the subject again before the meeting, and it proved the calling of a solemn assembly and the charge reposed in the Church. Our beloved Benjamin Seebohm expressed, near the conclusion, that he had never seen the trust of disposing of these weighty affairs better redeemed than in the present instance. The convocation was concluded in reverent, fervent supplication by dear Lindley Murray Hoag, wherein near access was granted to the mercy-seat. We were committed to the holy keeping and safe guidance of the blessed Shepherd when we should be in distant lands across the great deep, and a rich heavenly blessing was implored upon our tender children, whom for Jesus' sake we must leave behind. This evening we had a youth's meeting, which, as it reflected no glory upon the creature, may have brought honor to the Creator. Our yearly meeting was highly blessed with the holy Presence, which continued through its several sittings. On leaving the island the language of my heart was, "Thou, O my Father, hast dealt very graciously with the last and least and most unworthy." But now comes the bitterness of death, to leave all most dear in this life and go with our lives in our hands at the bidding of the blessed Master; but my earnest prayer is that we may be cheerful givers, for the Lord loveth such. Every step thus far has been taken in the ability which He gives us. As He has ordered our steps, so may we be fully His. After reaching home we began making arrangements for embarking. It seemed best to break up the family, as no suitable person could be found to take care of the dear children, and we desired in this thing to be directed by Him who hath called us to His work. Our eldest son intends going to Haverford, a Friends' college in Pennsylvania, with which we are well satisfied. As he is at the tender age of sixteen, we had felt much solicitude as to his place and associates, and this prospect seems favorable, as he will have good company, and dear Marmaduke and Sarah Cope of Philadelphia have most kindly offered to take particular charge of him. Many have been the marks of divine regard to us and ours. We had often thought of Liberia on the western coast of Africa as our first step, but thought we must of necessity go by way of England; but in the midst of our arrangements we received intelligence that the Liberia packet was daily expected from the coast, and would return soon--that it was the safest and most comfortable conveyance, and that it would stop for a few days to two weeks at most of the principal ports on the African coast, so that we could lodge on board every night; which was, with little exception, an entire protection from the acclimating fever so dangerous to the life of a Northerner. We sought in this exigency divine direction, as we must leave so much sooner than we had planned. This brought the final parting so near that heart and flesh seemed to fail, and the dear children seemed much grieved and cast down at this sudden wrench, as it were, of heart from heart in the most tender and endearing relations. Our dear brother Cyrus seemed on the verge of eternity: we had hoped to have seen him quietly at rest ere we left our native land, and to have more time to visit our other beloved relatives. We were brought very low, even into the deeps, before the most high God, and there in fervent supplication raised our hearts to heaven in this our hour of need; and the watchword was, "Gird on thy sword, take thy helmet and march; the Lord hath need of thee now, for the enemy mustereth his host, and my soldiers must be in readiness." Impalpable mountains seemed to intervene, and high and fearful swelled Jordan's deep waves. In this great strait the language was intelligible: "Stand still and see the salvation of God." _7th mo. 14th, Second day._ We received a telegraphic despatch that the ship would sail the 20th, which would occur the next First day. Our time seemed limited indeed. To-day our monthly meeting occurred, and it was the greatest solemnity, I think, ever witnessed there. Then came the pangs of parting; the ties of consanguinity and gospel fellowship were being suddenly and unexpectedly torn asunder; we might meet again, but probably it was a final separation to some present. Our hearts were poured out like water before the Lord and for each other's welfare. Several touching testimonies were given forth--I might safely say as the Spirit gave utterance. Dear James Owen from Indiana delivered a solemn and pathetic message touching the case of our immediate departure. Our prayers were that our departure from those with whom we had so long endeavored to labor faithfully might stimulate them to greater dedication and faithfulness. _17th._ Making arrangements for our expedition, believing it to be a divine opening for us, entirely without our aid or concern. This P. M. we must leave and proceed as far as Vassalboro' to take the cars to-morrow morning. What tongue can tell my soul's anguish as the tears flowed fast from each child's almost bursting heart? Had it not been for the gentle accents of a Saviour's love, "It is I, be not afraid; leave thy children with me," I could not have left them. We took our dear children to the home of dear husband's father, two of whom--viz. Sybil Narcissa and Richard Mott--we intended to take to Providence School. There we must bid adieu to dear brother Cyrus, father and mother, brothers and sisters, and friends who had collected to take their leave. Here we had concluded to leave our little Susan Tabor, about three years and a half old, who would often look in my face and exclaim with a touching look that reached my very heart, "Don't leave me, mother, thy little daughter; I will be a nice little lady; thee won't leave me, will thee?" The strength of Israel was my confidence at that moment. Our dear brother took our hands, and after pronouncing the words, "The Lord be with you!" he whispered the last and sad farewell while all around were weeping. We then took an affectionate leave of all present, and left the sweet scenes of childhood for perhaps many a year. Then proceeded to our friend Daniel Runnel's, where was our Eli Grelet, not quite a year old. My heart yearned over this lovely boy, whom I must cast from me. Then we separated, taking the train for Providence School and dear James Parnell, who was to take us to the cars. We arrived at our esteemed friend Alton Pope's, where many Friends had collected, among whom were the Indiana Friends and dear John D. Lang and wife. We sat down together for a little time, and great tenderness and solemnity prevailed. I have lost two dear brothers and five sisters and an estimable father, but never did such hallowed, solemn, and unearthly feelings steal over my overcharged heart as on this memorable day. We rose early in the morning, and after taking leave of our much-loved friends, Alton and Theodate Pope, hastened to the cars. Dear James seemed more cheerful than I supposed he could be. At length we reached the dépôt, and the painful moment came to bid adieu to our dear child; his bosom swelled with emotion and fast fell the bitter tears. With a full heart I pronounced my last parting blessing: "Dearest boy, farewell; God bless and keep thee! I make this request as though it were my last: give thy heart to thy dear Saviour now in thy youthful days; He will comfort thy heart when we are far away." We arrived at New Bedford the same evening. On our way we paused a few minutes at Portland, met our dear friends R. and Sarah Horton, had a parting opportunity at the dépôt. Next stopped a few minutes at Lynn, and several friends accompanied us to Boston, where we had to wait about an hour, which was very pleasant, as the company of those dear friends was very cheering to us. They brought us several packages of useful and interesting things for our comfort on board of the ship. Our hearts were touched with grateful feelings for their Christian kindness. At New Bedford lives my only sister; her health is so frail it is not probable (should we return) that she will survive till that time. _18th._ This morning we took the cars for Providence. The children seemed to forget their trouble in their interest in new objects. We stopped about four hours in Providence, where we left the children and parted with our friends Joseph and Sybil Estes, who had accompanied us from Vassalboro'. We took our leave of the dear inmates of the Friends' school in a collective capacity--a very solemn season, our two little ones being with them. We bowed before the Most High and commended them to the care of Him whose mercy endures for ever. The dear children, with several others, went with us to the dépôt, where dear Samuel Boice and wife joined us. We gave a farewell glance to all. The dear little ones' faces were bathed in tears. Here it would be proper to say that we received the kindest attention from the superintendents, Silas and Sarah Cornell, and many others. These dear friends exerted themselves to procure some more needful things for us with great interest. Having so little time, and going by the way of Africa, we were lacking in some things which they most kindly supplied. May Heaven's blessings rest upon them! _7th mo. 20th, 1851, Chesapeake Bay, on board Liberia packet._ We arrived in Baltimore about ten o'clock last evening, and found the ship had left the wharf and stood off about eight miles waiting for us, and that we should be expected to be on board this morning. Having taken a solemn and affecting leave of the last familiar face in our native land, we retired to our room, and, though now separated from all most dear, we felt the loving presence of our Saviour. _21st._ Made some arrangements to fit up our little "floating home" to make it as agreeable as possible. Captain and officers very kind, and all seem inclined to try to make us happy. _22d._ Retired to our cabin after breakfast to read a portion of Scripture and to wait upon the Lord. I felt drawn to supplicate the throne of grace for all on board our frail bark, that the God of our lives would keep us in safety and bless and protect our precious children in our absence. Our time is mostly taken up in writing, as the pilot will return at the capes. Dear Eli is engaged a part of the day in teaching the emigrants to read, cipher, etc. We have some interesting conversation with them, and find them as a whole rather intelligent, and even pious. _24th._ Calms and head winds seem to be our daily portion, but the heavenly Pilot holds the ship and the winds in His holy hands. Teaching the emigrants and writing to our friends keep us busy; health comfortable. _26th._ To-day brisk wind; we expect to pass the capes. At six o'clock the pilot-boat came alongside and took off the pilot and a large package of letters. We shall not hear from home or have any means of sending intelligence until we reach Africa. _27th._ We behold another morning in safety. It is First day, but fearful has been the night. We had a thunder-shower with furious winds. The rain fell in torrents and the thunder rolled deep, while the vivid lightning seemed to envelop the ship in liquid fire. Our trembling vessel would dash into ocean's depths apparently, and then rise upon the mountain wave. We were brought to test ourselves whether we were willing to make our graves in the caverns of the deep or gird on the armor for the Lord's battles. To-day we entered the Gulf Stream. We are making ten miles an hour. We are so enfeebled with last night's rolling that we are neither of us able to sit up. The approach of night again fills us with apprehension. The night again stormy. We looked up in that hour of dismay and found an eye to pity and an arm to save. _29th._ Stormy night, exceedingly rough; not safe to stay in our berths. With loss of appetite we are somewhat reduced. Felt somewhat as Noah's weary dove that found no place of rest above the cheerless waters. _30th._ Boisterous weather still, but we are rapidly nearing Africa's distant coast. Our helpless souls hang on Thee. _31st._ Rather more calm. My dear Eli is improving, though still feeble. A number of sweet little birds cheered us to-day, following the ship some distance. I think that they deserve a better name than "Mother Carey's chickens." At eleven o'clock we took our seats in our cabin (it being meeting-day at home) to try and worship Him who remains with them. Our spirits refreshed in blessed communion. At the evening sacrifice we had a fresh assurance of the angel of the Lord's presence. Delightful evening, every sail spread with fair wind. At twelve o'clock, 1360 miles from Cape Henry. We feel our infirmities, but can sing of the Lord's judgement and mercies. _8th mo. 2d._ We have proceeded rapidly since leaving the capes; this is the seventh day since leaving them, and we have gone two thousand miles. Providence has sped us on our way. We find some very interesting persons among the emigrants, with whom we converse freely; we find them engaged to serve their God with diligence and love. _First day._ A most charming morning. At eleven o'clock we sat down in our little meeting. We have felt a very painful exercise since being on board this ship. Our souls have been lifted up to God alone, that He would order our service for Him among the inmates of the ship, and the time, not daring to move (whatever we may suffer with the burden upon our spirits) until the command is given: for this we wait in watchfulness and prayer. After meeting it seemed best to us to try for a meeting, and, no obstacle appearing, at the time appointed nearly all assembled, and the short silence was blessed with His presence who is invisible. With awfulness and fear we ventured to make known our requests, and our dependent souls were made joyful in the house of prayer. Great solemnity pervaded the assembly, and these desperate spirits seemed contrited and made to fear. We were comforted with the spirits of a little band of humble followers of the Lord in this meeting, whom doubtless the Saviour loves. So great was my relief after this meeting that the language of my soul was, "Return unto thy rest, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee." Last night seemed sweet and peaceful. We heard neither oaths nor imprecations, with which our ears had been saluted many painful nights before our meeting. Fearfulness came upon us often when we heard the great Name blasphemed, and such angry threats that we thought there was great danger of their killing each other. A great change is apparent, especially with the captain. May the Ancient of Days be honored for His power! _5th._ This morning the ocean is very smooth, scarcely a breath to ruffle the blue. We have made little progress for two days. A sail has been just in sight since First day P. M. We have been a little suspicious of it. This morning we discovered a small boat approaching; there was considerable conjecture with regard to the business of the little messenger. She came alongside, containing six men, one of whom tremblingly ascended the side of the ship, assisted by a rope. He looked around, apparently with mingled emotions of hope and fear; his first idea must have been that we had a cargo of slaves. He was met with looks of kindness, and informed us that the first mate was ill and that he came to obtain some assistance. It seemed they had been as shy of us as we of them, but at length necessity had driven them to the hazardous attempt. We had a colored physician on board, but he seemed very unwilling to go with them, still fearing that some trick might be played upon us. My husband offered to go with them, for which my heart rejoiced, for I had felt a secret distress for them, and thought we might be becalmed for some good to them. The little boat left the ship, and had not rowed half the distance before a brisk fair wind arose and filled our flagging sails, and away we made for the disturbed vessel, and soon came alongside. The boat returned for medicine, etc. It afforded my dear Eli great satisfaction to give them a little assistance from our small stock of comforts. To nearly all of us it seemed a providential interposition. A strong breeze now wafts us on with thankful hearts, I trust. The ship proved to be a whaler from Provincetown, out seven months. They wished for some books, and we had the pleasure of furnishing them with several interesting books, tracts, and papers, with which they seemed delighted. To-day we take the trade-winds, so that we have a fair prospect of a quick voyage; for this we feel we depend on Him who commands the wind. It seems that all hearts on board try to manifest their kindness and respect. _6th._ Every sail filled with a delightful breeze. Were greatly refreshed together in reading and meditation upon Him who is our only crown of rejoicing in our low estate. Ability was granted to ask a blessing on the dear children. We have a very pleasant company--have not heard a profane word since the meeting. I never saw so great a change in a ship's crew. It is indeed the Lord's doings. Saw a nautilus to-day. It spread its thin sail to catch the rising breeze. The sailors call it a "Portuguese man-of-war." Dear Eli is quite seasick to-day. At eleven o'clock sat down with as many emigrants as could be comfortably seated in our cabin, to try to worship Him who graciously sustains us upon the rolling deep. It proved a season of heavenly communion. _8th mo. 3d, Sixth day_, lat. 33° 53' N., long. 36° W. A school of porpoises played round the ship for some time this morning. They seemed delighted at amusing us, jumping several feet out of the water and darting to and fro. We seemed nearing the shores of such intense interest to most on board, and, though a sea-life is not desirable, I do not feel anxious about reaching Africa. Great and fearful is our responsibility, and dangers seen and unseen are in this untrod path. May the God of our salvation have mercy upon us and direct our every step! _First day, 10th._ Unable to sit up this morning. Dear Eli sat by my birth during meeting-hour, and our hearts were raised in aspiration heavenward. P. M. Able to sit up toward evening, and we concluded that it would be best to try for a meeting, which collected a little after sunset under a clear sky and a full moon, all canvas filled. The moon shed a mild intermingled gleam through the shrouds of our gallant ship, and delightful indeed were our meditations. The silence was at length broken by dear Eli in a feeling testimony to the universality of divine grace. The people were encouraged to forsake their sins and come to Jesus the Saviour of the world. It was a sweet, heavenly season. We felt to tell them that it was not a light thing to be thus remembered by Him who rolls the planets in their spheres. A great change is apparent in all on board. Everything is almost as we could wish, compared with what it was when we came. May we do nothing to diminish the reputation of our beloved Society! The captain says that we are about six hundred miles from the coast of Africa in a straight line. _14th of 8th mo._ Saw a whale to-day: shall pass the tropic of Cancer to-night; chilly. About two days' sail from Cape Verde. _17th._ Cool and pleasant, very different from expectation in a tropical climate. I have been ill to-day; dear Eli somewhat better. It being First day, we were present in spirit with our friends at home in their meeting. Spoke a ship, and the captain and dear Eli took boat and went off to her. She proved to be the St. Paul, bound to Cowes. We sent a few lines home by her. _20th._ A dreadful storm is on the main, and our ship is like a leaf in the winds. Several sails are split, and we may lose all before morning. _21st._ My dear Eli is not able to sit up much, which saddens me. _25th._ But little progress. I do not feel much anxiety but for my dear Eli, who seems failing every day from loss of appetite and want of things to make him comfortable, and for the poor emigrants, many of whom suffer from the same causes. _26th._ This evening there is quite an excitement on board. My Eli discovered land; the captain thinks it may be Grand Cape Mount. The captain just called us on deck and a novel scene presented itself. Our ship seemed gliding through a stream of liquid fire, while each crested wave shed a beautiful silver light amid sparkling gems that bespangled the whole face of the deep. Thinking we might soon reach land, it seemed right to have another opportunity with the emigrants, which we obtained this P. M. We felt an impression that some one present would soon be taken home to rest in Jesus. It proved a satisfactory season, thankfully received by them. _28th._ This morning early we were saluted with the joyful intelligence that we were near Cape Mesurado. We hastened on deck, and once more beheld the "dark green robes of earth," which never seems so lovely as after a sea-voyage. The noble promontory is nearly covered with a thick forest, interwoven with luxuriant vines that hang in rich drapery from the branches of the trees, and the stately palm tree rears its lofty head high in air, like some tall cliff. It was Nature in her chastest charms arrayed. Soon my thoughts were diverted from this deeply interesting scene to one as novel as can well be imagined. The native canoes appeared, manned by natives without clothing. Soon the water seemed almost alive with them, and the air rang with strange sounds. We made ready to go on shore. I cannot describe my feelings at this moment, but, like Peter, I thought that I must call nothing common or unclean that God had cleansed. The captain, dear Eli, and I were soon seated in one of our boats manned by natives, and in a few minutes passed the bar in safety and reached the city of Monrovia, just in rear of the cape, and with grateful emotions set our feet on the shores of Africa. B. V. R. James welcomed us to the shore, and kindly invited us to go to his house and refresh ourselves. We proceeded up a gentle ascent through the city as far as his house--were pleasantly received; took breakfast and dined with them. Called on President Roberts and his wife, who received us cordially; delivered our papers and letters; they kindly invited us to call again and make our home with them if agreeable. Called also at James B. McGill's, a very interesting family, and returned before nightfall to our floating home. It has been a fine day, though in the midst of the rainy season. _29th._ Just returned from shore; had a pleasant day and a delightful walk. Took breakfast at James McGill's, who with his pleasant wife entertained us very cheerfully. Dined with Beverly Wilson, a Methodist minister, who with his wife interested us highly. Visited the Alexander high school, B. V. R. James teacher. It contained seventy scholars, fifty of whom were present. They reflected credit on their competent teacher by their advancement and circumspect demeanor. We thought them as good scholars as those of the same age in America. We imparted some religious instruction and suggested some trifling improvements, with which the pious teacher and pupils seemed pleased. One is our Master, even Christ, and all we are brethren. _30th._ Morning rainy; dear Eli has been ashore; thinks the place increases in interest every time he visits it. He has made two appointments for to-morrow, one at the Methodist and one at the Baptist house. _31st, First day._ Morning rainy, but we thought best to try and meet our appointments. Arrived in time, but got somewhat wet; changed clothes. We felt it to be no ordinary occasion as we passed through the throng to our seats and then mingled in sweet and sacred communion for the first time with dear brethren and sisters in a distant land, for whose souls we had long borne the burden of a dying Saviour's love. The silence was impressive, and the streams of that river that gladdens the heritage of God circulated sweetly through the assembly. The holy fervor of gospel love filled our hearts to the great abasedness of the creature. Ability was given us to show forth that living faith that works by love to the purifying of the heart, and to point out the difference between this saving faith and a dead faith that the world and its spirit will overcome. We were melted together as the heart of one man. The Lord reigned gloriously. At the close of this solemnity the people wished to get our hands, giving demonstrations of great joy at meeting us, and bidding us welcome to their shores with great blessing. Dined at James B. McGill's. Our afternoon meeting was increasingly interesting. We were led to explain the nature of that worship which only can be acceptable to God. Returned to our ship with the testimony sealed upon our heads. Not unto us, but unto Thy great Name, be all the honor. _9th mo. 1st._ Morning rainy; had to remain in the packet; evening more pleasant. Passed our time in writing, reading, etc. _9th mo. 2d, Third day._ Morning rainy; dear E. went ashore. He seems quite improved, which is very cheering. We feel quite at home on board, though far away dwell the hearts bound to us by the tenderest ties. _3d._ We went on shore and called on Sarah Smith, a pious colored woman who keeps a place of refreshment; then called on President Roberts and wife, and had a very interesting conversation on several subjects relative to the interest and welfare of the republic. The President was truly courteous and affable. In his manner there is an elegant simplicity adorned with Christian piety. He said, "I am truly thankful the Lord has sent you here, and for your prayers for us in your native land." His wife's highest ornament is piety, which is sweetly cherished in her gentle heart. After dinner, accompanied by the President and his wife, we repaired to the Presbyterian place of worship (a previous appointment). The house was crowded, but orderly and still. It was given us to deal very plainly with the people. _4th._ Raining; dear E. went on shore and visited a native town, with which he was much interested. I felt the privation of remaining in the ship; I was somewhat impatient at being confined in my cage-like cabin. The deck being very wet, I was somewhat circumscribed, but in settling up the day's accounts I did not feel fully satisfied, and my earnest prayer is that I may keep my mind stayed on the Lord. _5th._ Just returned from shore; have enjoyed the day much. Visited a private school taught by Georgianna Johnson, and suggested some improvements. Called on President Roberts and wife (they being directors of two or more female benevolent societies) to obtain their consent to meet those societies at their own time and place. We met them the following day, and had a very interesting conference. Suggested some improvements, such as ameliorating the condition of those immigrants, many of whom are destitute of employment or not willing to work, who lead a wretched life of indolence and consequently vice. The President said that it was a source of much solicitude to himself; he was fearful of the continuance of this state of things. We suggested a house of industry. This struck him pleasantly as the very antidote needed. Called at George R. Ellis's, who is a magistrate. We were kindly received. _6th._ Went on shore; had a very interesting opportunity with the Ladies' Association (some of the most intelligent females in Liberia). They managed their business in a correct and orderly manner, and by their records and accounts show that they are doing much for suffering humanity here. The emancipated slaves are sent here nearly penniless, except their portion of land, which is an unbroken forest, and six months' provisions, which are exhausted during the process of acclimating. The fever reduces them much. It is the judgment of the most intelligent residents of Liberia that it is best for the immigrants soon after their arrival to take up their farms and work a small portion of each day, clearing their land and planting sweet potatoes, and with the abundance of fruit growing around them they could live comfortably. This has been tried by some, and far less die. With the fever much depends on keeping up the courage; there is but little chance for those who abandon exercise. _7th._ We went on shore at an early hour; took breakfast at Uriah McGill's. Went to a First-day school containing ninety-four children, twenty-five of whom are natives; the latter are not able to read the Bible. At half-past two attended a meeting for the children. The Baptist house, being the largest, was selected, and was well filled; they were orderly and attentive. I trust impressions were made that will never be effaced. _8th._ E. went on shore. In the afternoon he returned with our valued friend James B. McGill and two colored ladies, with their servants, the latter going to Greenville, Sinon county. We left the shores of Monrovia with a comfortable evidence that our labors were acceptable to Him who had sent us forth. We were quite cheered with the prospect of saying that we had personal acquaintances in Liberia. _9th._ Anchored in Bassa Cove. Thank God for the blessings and mercies that have attended us on this embassy of love! _11th._ Came to anchor off Greenville. _13th._ Went on shore and made arrangements for meetings--in the morning at the Baptist house, in the afternoon at the Presbyterian. The Methodist minister cordially invited us to attend the afternoon sitting of the quarterly meeting, saying the meeting should be at our disposal to worship in our own way. We were refreshed in the Lord. _First day, 14th._ Had good meetings. At the Presbyterian house many stood about, not able to get inside. We were blessed together in heavenly places. Dined at Judge Murray's. _Second day, 15th._ Set sail for Cape Palmas; anchored on account of head winds. I fear we cannot visit the town, Settra Kroo. _16th._ We are in sight of Settra Kroo still. May the Lord keep us in safety! _17th._ At anchor off Nasma Kroo; went on shore; called at the only two colonist houses there, then visited the native village. Here a strange scene presented itself: the females were entirely naked, except a small covering about the loins, mothers with their naked infants on their backs, from one month old and upward; lasses with their skin painted indelible black and shining with palm oil, with which they are besmeared, came in crowds and surrounded us, gazing at me, crying, "White mammy;" others ran from us with fear. We gave the mothers some crackers, and soon every one that could get a child (sometimes quite as big as the pretended mother herself) had one packed on her back to get a cracker also. They are a very shrewd people--fine forms and well-proportioned. We visited the queen, who has a separate room in the king's house. He was absent; she received us quite graciously: her body was striped with white paint. We thought best to try for a meeting. The king's house was selected. One of the natives undertook to notify the meeting. He passed on before us, stopping at each house, and very soon the people might be seen running from every point toward the house where they were to have a "God palaver," as they call it. A number gathered. A native named Giando undertook to interpret for us. They were attentive--promised with clamorous acclamation that they would do as we told them. The meeting was relieving, and we have great cause for gratitude. Before we left the village several females had painted their faces white, which made them look ridiculous in the extreme. _18th._ Set sail for Cape Palmas again. Came to anchor after sunset. _19th._ Went on shore; called at Dr. McGill's; they received us pleasantly. He occupies the vacancy made by the lamented death of Governor Rupworm. Dined at F. Burns's, the Methodist minister. We were interested in the information they gave us of the colony and natives. The latter have three villages very compact, and with all the heathen customs, the most disgusting of which is their unclad forms that are seen in every direction, forming a striking contrast to the neat dwellings, decent clothing, and intelligent countenances of the colonists. On the outermost point of this high promontory is a lighthouse, and about it the colonists' houses stand surrounded with fine gardens and the beautiful African fruit trees. Made an appointment at the Methodist house for to-morrow. _20th._ We have not been able to meet our appointment, the swell is so great. We have been somewhat disappointed in not getting to town, but are sure that all is well under the supervision of Him who commands the elements in His own consummate wisdom. _21st, First day._ Beautiful morning; got safely on shore, and had a large meeting in the Methodist house. In the sweet covenant of peace and joy the meeting closed. _22nd._ Got on shore, and rode in a small carriage drawn by natives about two miles into the country, accompanied by Dr. McGill and his amiable wife. Delighted with the scenery. The dwellings of the colonists are comfortable, but most of their farms are uncultivated; very rich soil. We have a strong apology to make for the indolence in Africa: most of the settlers hitherto are emancipated slaves, worn out with hard service in the land of oppression, from which they have been sent after their spirits and strength are wasted by unrequited toil. Then they meet this enervating climate. A number of energetic husbandmen should be sent out with every colony to inspire them. Manual-labor schools would doubtless succeed here, but the present operations must fail to arrive at the happy results anticipated by the philanthropists. _23d._ Went on shore and had a most interesting meeting with the children. Many youthful eyes were bedewed with tears as they heard the glad tidings of a Saviour's love. _24th._ Had a meeting at the Episcopal house. The Lord was with us. We gave books and tracts. _25th._ We were saddened by the conviction that some of us would meet no more on earth. We left Cape Palmas with an additional interest for Africa. We feel that we are only the pioneers--that the Lord will send yet more honorable members of his household to this land. _27th._ Very weak. Came to anchor off Sinon. My E. went on shore, but I thought best to remain, write, and arrange for to-morrow. E. returned wearied, but much delighted with his excursion into the country. _28th._ Went early on shore, and, taking our vessel's boat and crew, proceeded up the Sinon River about two miles to a colonist settlement. Our meeting was well attended and the word was heard with gladness. We walked in a footpath some distance in a smart shower, and were wet and much fatigued. Rested and dried our clothes a little before the meeting. The people more industrious than any we have seen before in Liberia. _30th._ Went on shore; had a meeting in the Baptist house. It was a final parting and a heavenly season. No doubt that we shall have the prayers of these dear people. _10th mo. 3d._ Anchored this P. M. off Bassa. _4th._ Went on shore, but with much difficulty, it being the worst bar on the coast. We proceeded along the coast until we found a place to land in safety. The natives managed with great skill, and as soon as we came near land they sprang into the water and caught me, and in a minute set me down high and dry, seemingly highly gratified, exclaiming "Mammy no wet." We called at a little cabin and got a cup of tea made, and when the rain subsided we proceeded to the town. Beautiful country, covered with orange trees and guava, but farms sadly neglected. I think the plough is needed as much as missionary labors, for without the former the latter cannot accomplish much. P. M. Very rainy; had a ride in a hammock, or rather a substitute for one--a piece of native cloth with the ends fastened together with ropes, and a pole passed through loops; the poles rested on the natives' shoulders. It was placed on the ground for me to step in and lie down, but I begged the privilege of walking, which was refused, as it would injure my health, for the rain was pouring. I did not like it, although I did not get wet. The idea of a bier was constantly presenting itself, together with the fear that it was too great a burden for the poor natives. A terrible storm came up on our way back to the ship, and we nearly lost our lives in the angry waves. _5th, First day._ Had a meeting in the evening on board, as it was very rainy. In retirement this day we could say with the Psalmist, "How precious are thy thoughts unto me!" _7th._ Went ashore and had a meeting at Edina, on the north side of the St. John's River. It proved a memorable solemnity. _8th._ Went on shore and had a meeting on the south side of the St. John's, at Bassa. The blessed Head of the Church was pleased to feed the hungering multitudes through His poor instruments. A number collected to witness our departure, and we took an affectionate leave of them, mingled with sadness, on our final departure from Bassa Cove. Set sail about five o'clock with a brisk wind, which would take us to Monrovia by sunrise, but it soon became calm, and we came to anchor. The Lord knows what is best. _9th._ We are quite anxious as we approach Monrovia, for here we must decide whether to remain in Africa and wait a passage to England (should none offer before the packet leaves), or return to Boston and thence embark to Liverpool. I trust we are resigned to either as the Lord wills. _10th._ Anchored off Cape Mesurado. Dear Eli went on shore and found letters from home. We read them together with much joy, as they contained intelligence that all was well with the dear children and those at home. Boundless is our debt of gratitude. One of the immigrants who was in good health at the time of our last meeting on board is dead. We learned that she died in peace, but was cruelly treated by her husband. _11th._ Went on shore accompanied by the President's wife. I took a bundle of tracts and visited all the sick and infirm, distributing tracts and imparting such messages of gospel love as were given me. _First day, 12th._ Went on shore quite comfortably, although it was wet, and attended a meeting at the Baptist house. Our meetings here have been signally blessed. Truly the Lord's name is great in Zion. _13th._ Rainy, but got on shore, and made calls and distributed tracts. No way opens yet for Sierra Leone. We are wholly dependent on Him who makes a way. _14th._ Called at U. McGill's, J. B. McGill's, Beverley Willson's. I then distributed tracts, and I think that I never saw so much gratitude manifested in any part of the world I ever visited. As I passed their little cots they followed me in numbers; even children joined, holding out their hands begging for a tract. At length all were gone, but a few more on board. _15th._ Dear Eli went up the river St Paul, and visited New Georgia, Upper and Lower Caldwell, Virginia, and Kentucky. I spent the day making calls and giving tracts. _17th._ It is a time of seeking the Lord among the people. The youth are flocking to the Saviour. May a glorious accession be made to the militant Church from Africa! _19th._ Went on shore, and had a meeting at the Methodist house, and it was a solemn occasion, as it was our final meeting. _20th._ Went on shore for the last time, as the ship would sail at three o'clock. Made several calls, one on a sick immigrant from Antigua. Has been sick seven months, reduced to a skeleton; said he had a wife and two children in his native land. As he spoke of them his eyes filled with tears, and "God's will be done!" fell from his trembling lips. I went with some ladies to the highest point of this commanding promontory. Had a fine view of the town and mountains toward the interior. We met many a smiling face and heard many a "Thank you" as we stopped at the little cots to distribute tracts. The Liberians are very anxious to get these little messengers, and read them with interest. We hope they may be a blessing to them. I handed one to an aged woman, who clasped it to her bosom and exclaimed, "The Lord bless you! I will keep it to read while I live, and when I die I will have it put into my coffin." We have left Monrovia, and as the land recedes from view the pangs of separation from many, if not all, are keenly realized, not only by us, but by the group on shore. But as the clouds dispersed around the setting sun his last sweet rays rested upon the rich foliage, and then, veiling his face in a mantle of crimson clouds, withdrew. We leave Africa with sheaves of peace. _21st._ Made little progress to-day. Though our returning in the ship is very unexpected, yet all is peace, and it seems to us to be in the will of Him who brought us in safety across the mighty deep. No way has opened for us to go to Sierra Leone or England. We intend to return to America (if no new opening appears) and embark at Boston for Liverpool. In this way we may see our little ones; which seems almost too great a favor. We have thoughts of stopping at St. Thomas, and thence prosecuting our contemplated visit among the islands, if we can make an arrangement with the captain that will answer and it seems right. _22d._ Delightful weather. This morning in silent waiting before the Lord He gave us to feel His holy presence near, and an assurance that He would still lead us and instruct us. _23d._ The captain concludes to leave us at St. Thomas if we desire it. We had looked toward home, but the prospect seems somewhat like closing up. The will of the Lord be done! Some swallows appeared this morning and flew into the cabin. They lingered about all day. They may be emigrants from cold New England's clime. They brought with them sweet thoughts of scenes and lands far over the blue depths of ocean. _28th._ Clear weather. Think it may be best to abandon the thought of returning home, and stop at St. Thomas, one of the West Indies, and commence our next labors. This seems a favorable opening, for a Northern tour will be too great a change of climate. My health seems greatly improved by a warm climate. _30th, First day._ We sat down for meeting together, it being meeting-day at home. We felt as the disciples journeying toward Emmaus; we felt our hearts warmed and tendered together. _31st._ St. Thomas is in our minds' view, but whether we shall get there or not lies in the bosom of futurity. It will probably take two weeks longer to reach there if the ship touches it. Our daily prayer is to be directed aright. _11th mo. 1st._ Dear Eli is much better, and my health is quite good. The cook is quite sick; I fear he will not recover. He is in great distress both of mind and body. How wise to prepare for such an awful time in health! _2d._ Last evening we read a chapter by the bedside of the distressed sailor. My heart was poured out in prayer. _3d._ We are sailing ten knots an hour toward our native land. The captain does not think, on further reflection, that he can consistently stop at St. Thomas. We had given up to go if the way had been clear, and therefore think the hand of the Lord is in it. He will accept the will for the deed. The cook seems recovering, and truly penitent. He told me that a testimony delivered at our last meeting on board was for him. He has been previously a very profane and wicked man. This is a fresh instance of the mercy and longsuffering of the Lord. _6th._ We are approaching our native land with the sheaves of peace, but feeling still bound to the work, not knowing the things that may await us there. May my whole life be dedicated to His service who has so remarkably blessed my going out and coming in! _20th._ The captain concludes to set his course for Baltimore, hoping to reach Cape Henry before our stores fail. _9th._ About ten o'clock a pilot-boat came alongside and left a pilot. Providence permitting, we may soon set our feet on the wharf at Baltimore. Soon we must bid adieu to our home upon the ocean. We are encouraged with the regular and sober deportment of all on board, and, though our passage has been a protracted one, we do not regret it, while we have beheld with thankfulness the operation of the Lord's hand upon the crew of our brave ship, to which, with its inmates, we shall now bid adieu with emotions of gladness and regret. Oh may all that have sailed together here anchor at last in the kingdom of God! Farewell! * * * * * Soon after their return Eli Jones wrote an article for the _Friends' Review_ setting forth the conditions of this African colony, and recommending that some more work be done to help these enterprising freedmen and the less enlightened native tribes within the republic of Liberia. The article was reprinted, and was read by many. Still later, while at work in North Carolina, he received a call from the president of the African Colonization Society to attend one of their meetings in Washington, which he accordingly did. As he entered the hall where the exercises were being held a gentleman was delivering a discourse in which he endeavored to show the impossibility of an equality between negroes and white men, and consequently the hazardousness of the experiment of allowing them to rule themselves. The chairman then announced that the next speaker was to have been Eli Jones, but that he had not yet seen him. To his surprise, a man rose in the back of the hall, threw off his overcoat, and came to the platform. He gave his name as the one called for, and began to give his knowledge and opinion of Liberian colonization. He took as his text the remark of the former speaker, saying that he as a landowner and tiller of the soil went from Maine to Liberia, where he stood on an equality with the landowners there; but as he came in the presence of President Roberts there was not an equality, since he, the white man, stood below the vigorous, wise, strong-minded colored President of the republic. From that he spoke for an hour feelingly and emphatically on the excellence of the work going on in Africa, at the same time impressing the need of further aid. CHAPTER VII. _WORK IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND._ "Their single aim the purpose to fulfil Of truth from day to day; Simply obedient to its guiding will, They held their pilgrim way. Yet dream not hence the beautiful and old Were wasted on their sight Who in the school of Christ had learned to hold All outward things aright." WHITTIER. Eli and Sybil Jones reached Baltimore in the middle of winter, and experienced the joy of being once more among Friends and in their own loved country. Having been kept and continually supported to accomplish their work, they now were filled with thanksgiving to Him whose pillar of cloud and fire had gone before them by day and by night, and they were prepared in spirit for the still longer journey which was before them. They visited friends and relatives on their way to Maine, and were everywhere joyfully received. Their children had all passed the time of their absence pleasantly, and had gained in mental and physical growth. It was an interesting sight when their townsmen met to welcome them home. One can see them in the monthly meeting, which was held at this time. Many who came but seldom, rode over the hills that day to sit down on the unpainted seats and listen if they did not worship, and an unusually large number were present when the hushed stillness told that meeting had begun. One father and the mothers of the two ministers were there, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts; many who had always known them, and some who had never seen them,--all bowed their heads before the Mighty One, and "Low breathings stole Of a diviner life from soul to soul, Baptizing in one tender thought the whole." Even the cold-hearted felt a warmth steal in, and the low-spirited were exalted in their minds. No one who sat under that silence doubted that the Lord was speaking to "the spirit's finer ear;" and when the seal was broken and the moved lips opened in vocal thanksgiving many hearts rose in harmony. A brief, quiet prayer from a full heart, when the spirit of the whole meeting rises with it, reaches where eye cannot see, and comes not back void. Words are human, but power is divine. We can see Eli Jones rise from his wonted seat and slowly speak his text: "When the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." His companion sees many before her who have grown cold while they have been answering the call from Ethiopia, and sweetly she asks them to whom they will go if they forsake Him who alone has the words of eternal life. Together they sound the alarm and call upon their friends and neighbors to stand firm and quit them like men while they go out again to reap in other vineyards. At the close of this day Sybil Jones could say, "He brought us unto his banqueting-house, and the banner over us was Love." Once more they separated from home-friends and took their little children to West Hill, N. J., the lovely home of Eliza P. Gurney, who had asked that the two youngest boys, Eli Grelet and Richard Mott, might be left with her during their parents' absence.... On First day they attended the meeting at Burlington, and sat in company with Stephen Grelet and Richard Mott, for whom the boys had been named. Stephen Grelet, that great apostle, who had given messages from the King of kings to potentates and princes in all the countries of Europe, who had shown men's equality by holding his finger to the Pope's extended finger, and who was now waiting to be ushered into another and a higher court, addressed them thus: "The Lord has provided for your children in your absence, and thus given striking demonstration of His love to you; and now this testimony is applicable to you, my dear friends: 'I will be with thee whithersoever thou goest, and will guide thee with mine eye, and afterward receive thee into glory;' so go, dear friends, cheerfully, for the Lord will be your all-sufficient Helper." After visiting their other children, at Haverford College and at Providence, they finally sailed from Boston the 31st of 3d mo. on the steamer "Niagara" for Liverpool. A goodly company of Friends from Lynn and elsewhere were on the wharf to wave them adieu. It was an uneventful passage, except that an iceberg was discovered exactly in their course just in time to turn the ship from the danger. Sybil Jones writes of it: "I got on deck while it was in full view, and gazed with wonder and delight upon this magnificent frosty traveller from the frigid North to milder skies. It seemed like an island all of light consolidated into form, or as a cathedral whose stately spires pierced the eternal sunshine. The first rays of the morning sun gave to its pure, spotless whiteness a brilliancy and beauty that seemed almost of heavenly extraction. It reminded us of the infinitely more splendid and soul-ravishing charms of nature's God and heaven's eternal King, of whose mercy it seemed the white-robed harbinger." On their return voyage, the ship, sailing at a rapid rate in a dense fog, found itself almost upon a gigantic iceberg, a mighty pyramid of ice. It seemed to all on board that the ship must be crushed. An infidel who was a fellow-passenger hurried on deck and cried out, "In an hour we shall all be lost, but let us die like philosophers."--"No," said Sybil Jones, rising to her feet; "if we are to meet death, let us do it as Christians." In God's goodness all were spared. They were delighted with their first sight of England, to find such abundant verdure instead of the snow and ice which they left on the hills of New England, and they were more delighted still to find warm hearts waiting for them, among whom was Benjamin Seebohm, who had been a former messenger of good to them. It was nearly time for Dublin yearly meeting to begin, and they crossed over to Ireland to attend it. This was an occasion of great interest, and the two American Friends had weighty service to perform; but Sybil Jones was taken ill with severe irritation of the spine while the meeting was still in session. She finally found relief for that time, and was able to attend some of the meetings. Their friend Mary James Lecky was always ready to attend to their comfort, and they did not want for pleasant homes. Their visit to Balitore is thus described: "We left for Balitore in the comfortable coach of our dear friend Mary J. Lecky. Our route was most pleasant and interesting--beautiful groves, rich fields of waving grain, with herds and flocks scattered over the flowery lawns; stately dwellings and white cottages, with now and then some ancient castle in ruins, wearing a vesture of deep green woven by the evergreen ivy, which flourishes in rich foliage on its time-beaten walls and dilapidated towers. The golden furze may be seen in abundance on hill and dale, and is a lovely ornament to the variegated scene. The hedges that skirt the way are bespangled with yellow and crimson primroses, bluebells, violets, and many other little wild flowers, forming a radiant wreath entwined with the graceful ivy. We admired the scene, and talked much of Erin, the green isle of the ocean. At one o'clock we arrived at Balitore, or, as it is sometimes called, the 'Classic Vale.' Dear Elizabeth Barrington--the 'Princess Elizabeth,' as she is sometimes called--gave us a cordial welcome. The charms of this little village, loveliest of the plain, are sweetly enhanced by the memory of departed worth, talent, genius, virtue and piety which once flourished here."[5] [5] It was at Balitore that Edmund Burke received his early education, at the Friends' school conducted by Richard Shackleton, to whom he often wrote and attributed much of his careful training. Day after day they attended meetings and visited families, though Sybil Jones was in such a state of health that it was merely her will which kept her from bed; she continually spoke of the "frailty of the tabernacle," but the strength of the spirit forced the body to obey and do its part of the work; and as the time drew near for the London yearly meeting they turned thither. Everywhere they directed their eyes a new beauty of landscape, a majesty of mountain, or a charm of antiquity met them; but Sybil Jones was forced to close her eyes on all this outward loveliness, and as as she rode along, reclining on her seat, she comforted herself "in the presence of Him who verily knows what is best for us; health and life, with every other blessing, are in his hand." The meeting began on the 17th of Fifth month, and now for the first time in their lives they were sitting in the parent yearly meeting of the Society of Friends. For more than two hundred years the Friends of Great Britain have annually assembled in London, and the power of these meetings is wonderful. Some of England's greatest minds have sat in silent waiting there, and have raised their voices in regard to the proper ordering of the household of faith, and some of her lowliest sons and daughters have not been hindered from sitting in the same seat with these great lights, and their words have been listened to with equal deference. English conservatism has kept this meeting much as it was in earlier days, while broad ideas and liberal notions have been disseminated, so that no stiff cloak of formalism has settled over the body. The Spirit which giveth life is sought for, but the iron yoke of the letter does not rest upon them. The voices of "just men made perfect" have, in all the generations since George Fox, pleaded from full hearts that the Lord might have here a "peculiar people," separated from the world and satisfied with the one honor of being "fellow-citizens with the saints." Eli and Sybil Jones had many comforting sessions in this meeting, and they not only did the work which was in their hearts for the strengthening of those assembled, but they were themselves made more strong and more useful members of the Church for this work in the harmonious company of united English Friends. The effect of their utterances and the impressiveness of the gathering were beautifully and eloquently described by Elihu Burritt, who was present, and who was afterward associated with Eli Jones in the Peace cause. This passage is from his diary, dated the 21st of fifth month: THE QUAKER MEETING. "LONDON, May 21, 1852. "This has been a day of deep interest. In the morning I went to the meeting of public worship in the Devonshire House, which was filled to the utmost capacity by Friends from every part of the kingdom. As a spectacle no human congregation can surpass it in impressive physiognomy. The immaculate purity of the women's dresses as they sat a mountain multitude of shining ones, arising in long quiet ranks from the floor to the gallery on one side of the house, the grave mountain of sedate and thoughtful men on the other, presented an aspect more suggestive of the assemblies of the New Jerusalem than any earthly congregation I had ever seen. In a brief time the last-comers had found seats or standing-places, and then a deep devotional silence settled down upon the great assembly like an overshadowing presence from heaven. The still, upbreathing prayer of a thousand hearts seemed to ascend like incense, and the communion of the Holy Spirit to descend like a dove, whispering its benediction and touching to sweeter listening serenity those faces so calm with the breath of its wing; and out of the deep silence of this unspoken devotion arose one, with trembling meekness, to unburden the heart of a few brief message-words to which it feared to withhold utterance, lest it should sin against the inspiration that made it burn with them. From another part of the house arose the quavering voice of prayer, short, but full of the earnest emotion of supplication and humble utterance of faith and thanksgiving. Then moments of deeper silence followed, as if all the faculties of the mind and all the senses of the physical being had descended into the soul's inner temple to listen to and wait for the voice of the Spirit of God. How impressive was the heart-worship of those silent moments! There was something solemn beyond description in the spectacle of a thousand persons of all ages so immovable that they seemed scarcely to breathe. The 'Ministers' Gallery' was occupied by a long rank of the teachers, the fathers, and the mothers of the Society from different parts of the country, who seemed to preside over this communion like shepherds sitting down before their quiet flocks by the still waters of salvation. In the centre sat a man and a woman a little past the meridian of life, and apparently strangers in the great congregation. The former had an American look, which was perceptible even to the opposite extremity of the building, and when he slowly arose out of the deep silence his first words confirmed that impression. They were words fitly spoken and solemn, but uttered with such a nasal intonation as I never heard before, even in New England. At first and for a few minutes I felt it doubtful whether the unpleasant influence of this aggravated peculiarity would not prevent his words of exhortation from having salutary effect upon the minds of the listening assembly. But as his words seemed to flow and warm with increasing unction, little by little they cleared up from that nasal cadence and rounded into more oral enunciation. Little by little they strengthened with the power of truth, and the truth made them free and flowing. His whole person, so impassive and unsympathetic at first, entered into the enunciation of these truths with constantly increasing animation, and his address grew more and more impressive to the last. He spoke nearly an hour, and when he sat down and buried his fingers under his broad-brimmed hat, and the congregation settled down into the profound quiet of serene meditation, I doubted whether it would be broken again by the voice of another exhortation. But in the course of a few minutes the form of the woman who sat by his side--and it was his wife--might be perceived in a state of half-suppressed emotion, as if demurring to the inward monitor of the Spirit that bade her arise and speak to such an assembly. It might well have seemed formidable to the nature of a meek and delicate woman. She seemed to struggle involuntarily with the conviction of duty, and to incline her person slightly toward her husband, as if the tried attributes of her heart leaned for strength on the sympathy of his, as well as on the wisdom she waited from above. Then she arose calm, meek, and graceful. Her first words dropped with the sweetest enunciation upon the still congregation, and were heard in every part of the house, though they were uttered in a tone seemingly but little above a whisper. Each succeeding sentence warbled into new beauty and fulness of silvery cadence. The burden of her spirit was the life of religion in the heart as contrasted with its mere language on the tongue, or what it was to be really and truly a disciple of Jesus Christ. Having meekly stated the subject which had occupied her meditations and which she had felt constrained to revive in the hearing of the congregation before her, she said: 'And now, in my simple way and in the brief words which may be given me, let me enter with you into the examination of this question.' At the first word of this sentence she loosed the fastenings of her bonnet, and at the last handed it down to her husband with a grace indescribable. There was something very impressive in the act as well as in the manner in which it was performed, as if she uncovered her head involuntarily in reverence to that vision of divine truth unsealed to her waiting eyes. And in her eyes it seemed to beam with a heavenly light serene, and in her heart to burn with holy inspiration and meekness, and to touch her lips and every gentle movement of her person with an expression eloquent, solemn, beautiful as her words fell upon the rapt assembly from the heaven of tremulous flute-like music with which her voice filled the building. Like a stream welling from Mount Hermon and winding its way to the sea, so flowed the melodious current of her message, now meandering among the unopened flowers of rhymeless poetry, now through green pastures of salvation, where the Good Shepherd was bearing in his bosom the tender lambs of his flock; next it took the force of lofty diction, and fell, as it were, in cascades of silvery eloquence, but solemn, slow, and searching, adown the rocks and ravines of Sinai; then out like a sweet-rolling river of music into the wilderness, where the Prodigal Son, with the husks of his poverty clutched in his lean hands, sat in tearful meditation upon his father's home and his father's love. More than a thousand persons seemed to hold their breath as they listened to that meek, delicate woman, whose lips appeared to be touched to an utterance almost divine. I never saw an assembly so moved, but so subdued into motionless meditation. And the serene and solemn silence deepened to stillness more profound when she ceased speaking. In the midst of these still moments she knelt in prayer. As the first word of her supplication arose the men, who had worn their hats while she spoke to them, reverently uncovered their heads as she kneeled to speak to God. Long and fervent was her supplication. Her clear sweet voice trembled with the burden of the petition with which her soul seemed to ascend into the Holy of holies, and to plead there with Jacob's Father for a blessing upon all encircled within that immediate presence. She arose from her knees, and the great congregation sat down, as it were under the shadow of that prayer to silence more deep and devotional. This lasted a few minutes, when two elders of the Society, seated in the centre of the 'Ministers' Gallery,' shook hands with each other, and were followed by other couples in each direction as a kind of mutual benediction as well as a signal that meeting was terminated.--At this simple sign the whole congregation arose and quietly left the house. Such was the experience of a couple of hours in a Quaker meeting." The last day of the yearly meeting Sybil Jones spoke out her feelings in regard to total abstinence. She was probably the first person who publicly stated to an English audience the necessity of taking such high ground to overcome the evils of intemperance, and, though much sympathy was expressed, there was a deep feeling on the part of some against her expressed views. She writes: "This day has concluded the yearly meeting; my spirit was bound down under a weight of exercise, but divine help came and enabled me to testify the gospel of the grace of God in a way most humiliating to the creature; but some, it may be hoped, were led to examine how far their example of righteousness and temperance had reached to give a check to the crying sin of this nation, that not only their husbands and brothers be influenced by their example, but also their neighbors, and whether there was not something for them to do in this matter, even total abstinence if it may be required. When this was done my peace abounded, and I hope no harm was done. Many dear Friends seemed to feel much sympathy, and a precious solemnity came over us." For weeks after leaving London these "two recruiting-officers labored hard to enlist soldiers for their Captain" through the northern counties of Ireland. Not only Friends and other Protestants came to hear them, but often there were priests present at the meetings, and many Irish Catholics heard them preach the gospel. Sometimes Sybil Jones seemed to be "standing on the verge of eternity," but as the body grew frail it seemed the soul waxed strong and her messages became more impressive. All she saw as they rode from one village to another attracted her attention, and she rejoiced that the Creator had made the earth so fair, while she was brought into great sadness at the poverty and oppression of the unfortunate, and the lack of vital religion which was often found. There was great need of wisdom in telling the whole truth to her mixed audiences, to have it come to them as the one thing they needed to make their unhappy lives happy, and her soul went out in her utterances to their souls and stirred them to believe. There was hardly a town which they visited where error had not been taught and superstitions ruled the hearts of the people, and many who had suffered deep wrongs felt that there was no justice in the earth. To such it was announced, "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart;" but they felt that "nothing short of the omnipotent Arm could deliver these souls from popish thraldom and make them free through the power of Jesus Christ." Mary James Lecky continued to accompany them, and she was an almost indispensable companion, providing for their comfort and safety and opening ways for their service which to them alone would have been closed; and as Sybil Jones was under a daily weight of infirmity, she was a strong arm to lean upon, and encouraged her as a sister when her heart grew weak from the abundance of trial.[6] [6] Mary James Lecky filled her carriage with loaves of bread from the baker's, and as they drove along roads where poverty was everywhere terribly present, she distributed her stores for the bodily needs of the poor suffering peasants, while Sybil Jones earnestly told them of the Bread of life. In the original meaning of the word, "lady" is the _bread-giver_. Did ever two more worthy the name go out to fulfil the duties belonging to that title? A few passages from their journal will tell much of their earnest efforts and ceaseless longings to help this people, and also the difficulties with which they were beset. At Galway, once a famous seaport town on the west coast of Ireland, they write: "_9th mo. 15th._ Called at an early hour upon the vicar, an Episcopal clergyman, D'Arcy, who attended our meeting and kindly invited us to come to his residence and he would take us to the school and make way for any religious service to which we felt called. He received us heartily and entered into the plans we wished to execute. He accompanied us, with his amiable wife, to the asylum for aged females and to the school. We had service for Him who sent us, much to our comfort, and, we may trust, to their edification. The dear children listened with delight and interest to all that was offered, and many appeared tender. They are improving finely and getting a good knowledge of the Scriptures, which may be of lasting benefit to them; but oh the hunger and rags were apparent enough to pain the hardest heart. Our company distributed some relief among them as seemed most prudent; the evil might be wholly remedied by giving them work and a fair compensation. The Irish are not naturally idle; there is abundant proof to the contrary. "_16th, Fifth day._ This morning visited the poor-house and school connected with it; all neat and orderly, good improvement; about thirteen hundred inmates. We had the children collected for religious service, and it was a good time. They were mostly Roman Catholics. They were serious and seemed contrited." "_17th._ Two friends with my Eli called on the Roman priest and informed him of our intention to hold a meeting for the inhabitants; he was civil, but said none of his people would attend." At another time, while they were in the city of Galway, Eli Jones was told that he would be stoned by the Catholics if he attempted to preach. He at once called on the priest, told him that he was an American, and obtained a promise from him that his people should be allowed to come to the meeting that evening. Before a large audience of the most bigoted Roman Catholics he arose to preach the gospel of redeeming love. It was the part of wisdom to gain his hearers, for their souls could not be reached until the barrier of their prejudice was broken down. He began: "A virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace;" "Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women;" "They found Joseph and Mary and the babe." After hearing these passages they were all ready to listen to him, and then, as he says, "I soon left the _mother_ and talked to them of the _child_." "_The 20th, at Conamarra._ People mostly in rags worn to strings, winter near, hunger everywhere; but a better time is coming, we hope. They seem emerging from the shades of superstition and moral darkness, having seen in some degree the light which enlightened the Gentiles and the glory of Israel. May the bright and morning Star shine in its resplendent beauty over this neglected land! May the labors of the faithful ministers of Christ be more abundant and their service for Him be crowned with cheering success! and may the seed sown, though often with weeping, trembling, and much fear, bring forth an hundred-fold! "_21st._ We arrived at Clifden in time for a meeting held in a courthouse. Many sober people came who seemed glad to hear of the way of life, but others, set on by the priests, disturbed the meeting, so that it was not a very comfortable time; but I secretly rejoiced in being counted worthy to suffer for His name's sake who sent us forth." On the 28th Sybil Jones was taken very ill with influenza. They were fortunately at Kilnock, among very kind friends. Here they were kept nearly a month. Eli Jones improved all the time, holding meetings almost continually, while his wife, confined to her room, "was in great peace" and the triumphal anthem was on her lips: "If Thou shouldst call me to resign What most I prize--it ne'er was mine-- I only yield Thee what was Thine; Thy will be done." After six weeks, nearly all of which had been weeks of illness and hence time taken from the work, she writes: "I like to note now and then the fleet footsteps of Time. I perceive he will not stay his rapid course for me, and therefore I most earnestly pray so to number my days and to apply my heart with diligence unto wisdom that each golden hour may bear upward the incense of a grateful, devotional spirit still more and more dedicated to the work and service, of so vast and infinite importance, that my heavenly Father has assigned to His poor, unworthy child, and that the holy discipline of the cross of Christ may nurture and increase every grace of the eternal quickening Spirit of my dear Redeemer. While the truth is indelibly stamped upon my spirit that I can do nothing without Him, I believe 'I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me.' May these afflictions of the shattered citadel, which now confine me to a lonely room and often a sleepless couch, be sanctified to the promotion of righteousness and true holiness in myself and others, that in every dispensation thanksgiving may arise to the blessed name of the Lord!" Near Lisburn she was again a prisoner from sickness for about four weeks, and earnestly she prayed for guidance and strength to bear whatever came for her. "_The 30th of 1st mo., 1853_. I think I have seen, by the light that has never yet deceived me, my path across the Channel to Liverpool--that if I trust in my Saviour alone for bodily and spiritual strength, it will be accomplished and marvellous deliverance wrought. This morning I mentioned my prospect to my dear husband of a speedy release from this place. He seemed doubtful of its practicability with safety to my health. I replied, 'Nothing is impossible with God. I believe He will bring us through this Jordan.' We thought of Third day, as a steamer would sail at 4 P. M., but it did not seem clear, and I was thrown into doubting and fear. After seeking divine direction I felt a blessed trust that on Fifth day we might with safety leave these shores. "_Third day._ My dear Eli mentioned a prospect of a public meeting at Carrickfergus, and this was a confirmation that our plan was right." On Fourth day they held a farewell meeting, and there was much expression of mutual love, and, the Irish Friends gave thanks for the long service which had been performed in their land. For almost a year the gospel had been preached over the island to high and low, to rich and poor. Eli Jones visited, with perhaps one exception, every meeting in Ireland, and met personally some members of nearly every Friend's family on the island. No suffering or other hindrance had kept these two servants from sowing seed in all kinds of soil, and they came from the field believing that their sowing would bring forth fruit after many days. Sybil Jones went to her train on a couch, and was obliged to make the whole journey to Liverpool in the same way, but she was soon at work again at Manchester. Here she rested while Eli Jones visited the surrounding meetings, and the prospect of still more extended work began to appear to them. Certainly, few laborers have gone out in a more determined spirit to overcome all obstacles to carry the gladdest of all news to ears as yet ungladdened by it. They visited the quarterly meetings at York, Leeds, Lancaster, Darlington, and Birmingham, and Sybil Jones rested while Eli attended Dublin yearly meeting. She was visited by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and they had a time of prayer together. There were many interesting incidents connected with their visits at the different cities and the various homes. Joseph Sturge came to talk with them of temperance and slavery, and told them he intended to contribute to the support of New Garden Boarding-school, where some of the children of the South might have the privilege of gaining better knowledge. CHAPTER VIII. _NORWAY, GERMANY, AND SWITZERLAND._ "A voice spake in their ear, And lo! all other voices far and near Died at that whisper full of meanings clear." WHITTIER. Eli and Sybil Jones attended the London yearly meeting of 1853, and were liberated to go to the Continent for gospel work in Norway, Germany, and France. Mary James Lecky was their companion, and was in all respects a most suitable person for this service. Unknown difficulties were before them; new races of people were to be touched through an unknown language; hard journeys were to be made by a feeble, almost invalid woman; still, they turned toward the shores of Norway, believing that He whose finger pointed the way would shield them with His hand. Once more they unquestioningly gave immediate obedience to the word of their great Captain, and they knew His ways well enough to be assured that the result would be the desired one. Joseph Crosfield offered to go as a caretaker for the little party, and he was of great help to them. When they arrived at Liverpool from Ireland, an elderly doctor was called to see Sybil Jones. After examining her trouble carefully, he said, "You know David had it in his heart to build the Lord an house. In his case the will was taken for the work; so it must be in yours. You must stop your work and go south, or go to your home at once." If this doctor had followed his patient, he would have found her in the northern latitude of Norway. The great Physician's order conflicted with that of the doctor, and there could be no doubt which was to be followed. On the 11th of 6th month they embarked on the steamer "Courier" for Christiansand, being joined by James Backhouse and Lindley M. Hoag, making a company of six. The passage was very rough, and all on board were brought low with sea-sickness, but the German Ocean was soon crossed, and they came into port at Christiansand, finding it light enough at midnight to read and write and to see the beautiful Norwegian scenery around them. The western coast of Norway is everywhere indented by arms of the sea called fiords; the coasts are rough and rugged, overhung with crags of rock beaten and worn by the age-long dash of these northern waters. Into these fiords has rushed the ship of many a bold seaman, and the shores are tilled by a hardy race, carrying in their veins the civilized blood of the old Norse warrior. These descendants of Northern mythology rejoice when messengers come to tell the simple way of life and joy through the Saviour, and their boats are ready to bear strangers from one promontory across the fiord to another. They come in crowds to hear of the better way, and yet in many places they have escaped the thraldom of Thor and Odin only to bow their necks to the yoke which the priests make them bear. "There are many flourishing towns and villages pleasantly situated on the fiords, easily accessible by boat. The scenery is grand and picturesque--lofty mountains, verdant lawns, and flowery vales, with now and then a beautiful cascade or mountain-torrent rushing and mingling its snow-white foam with the crystal waters below. Formerly the Friends' meeting was held at Stavanger Fiord, but there were numerous Friends scattered along the coast. "_6th mo. 25, 1853._ This day the Norway yearly meeting commenced at ten o'clock. A deep solemnity came over us. A few words with life and feeling from dear Mary J. Lecky opened the way for L. M. Hoag, who testified the gospel of the grace of God to a deeply interested assembly. In the afternoon we assembled for business, which was conducted under a good influence and very orderly. The subject of addressing King Oscar on account of the suffering of some of the members by the exaction of tithes was discussed and referred to a committee. Two persons were received into membership, and two more applied. The certificates of ministers present were read, after which several lively testimonies were borne and counsel offered, and all ended well." When the yearly meeting was finished the Friends held meetings with the prisoners and visited the different schools, holding meetings also at their hotels and once or twice in a barn. They went as far north as Bergen, where they had remarkable assemblies of people notwithstanding the fact that the priests spread the report that these Quakers were dangerous people and did not believe in God. They were refused permission to visit the prisoners; however, they sent Bibles and tracts to them, not being allowed to distribute them in person. The inhabitants of Bergen were highly displeased at the conduct of the ecclesiastics, and it seemed that many more came to hear the Friends for themselves on account of the unchristian spirit which was manifested toward them, and numbers came to their hotel to be instructed. It was very touching to their tender spirits to see an eagerness for better things so crushed out by so-called teachers. "The flock look up and are not fed." Having done what they could, they returned to Stavanger, and spent much time visiting families and holding public meetings. When they took the boat to leave this place the people wished they would send them more "good bodies" to teach them. They travelled all the way from Stavanger to Christiansand, a distance of ninety-four miles, in an open boat, walking across the isthmuses from one fiord to another and carrying the boat over with them. From Christiansand they went by boat to Christiania, where they had a meeting with the seamen, besides other public meetings, all well attended. Then they prepared to leave Norway for Kiel, Denmark, on their way to Germany, having travelled twelve hundred miles in Norway, mostly by boat, and having held fifty meetings, besides visiting many families; in all of which work they were wonderfully helped with strength, and the Spirit of the Lord was with them. The 16th of 7th month they left Norway, bound for Denmark. They sailed down by Jutland and entered the Cattegat. Along the shores they saw "highly-cultivated fields of grain, white for harvest, shepherds keeping their flocks beside the meandering streams, reposing beneath the shade, while the sheep were feeding in green pastures, which were interspersed with neat red-roofed cottages." They went directly to Minden, where most of the few German Friends live, who, unfortunately, are becoming fewer and fewer. After visiting these families and attending their mid-week meeting, they rode to Oberkirchen in Hesse. "Soon after reaching our hotel," they write, "we were visited by the police, who inquired our business, telling us we could not be allowed to hold any public meetings in the place--that it would be contrary to the law to allow any dissenter from the Lutheran Church to hold a meeting. We informed them we had no such purpose, but came to visit those who had left the public worship and professed with us. They then withdrew, appearing quite ashamed of their business; but after coffee, when we were engaged in prayer, they again appeared, telling us that if we intended to have a public meeting they must request us to leave the place. We told them again our intention, and they took our names and withdrew. We asked our landlord why peaceable American citizens were molested by the police and their business inquired into, assuring him that it was the first time in all our travels in various countries that we had been remanded before the authorities--that many of their countrymen came unmolested to our country and were treated civilly. He replied that the conduct of the police had highly displeased him, and on inquiring into the cause of it he found that the priests had sent them." From Minden, Eli and Sybil Jones went on to Pyrmont, where they attended the "two-months" meeting. They held a public meeting in the Friends' house, and some people of note came to hear them. One, a Russian noble of high birth; Dr. Menke, one of the privy council of the prince of Waldeck, who was said to be one of the most learned men in Prussia; also Frederick Fickenscher, the son of the dean of Nuremberg; besides many Jews, all of whom heard "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified," preached. Eli Jones had some opportunities for conversation with Fickenscher, and he impressed on him the importance of our opinions in regard to war, oaths, and other subjects, and he was urged to accept the gospel in all its fulness. Dr. Menke came to express to them his satisfaction with the meeting, saying that he _had_ thought that the views of Friends were rather _fabulous_, but he was now satisfied that they were evangelical, and he hoped what he had heard would be useful to him. They revisited Minden, and had much service among Friends and others, both publicly and in private. They held a large meeting in the Minden theatre, of which Eli Jones writes: "A full attendance, several clergymen present. Some Friends seemed to doubt the propriety of holding a meeting in a building usually applied to theatrical purposes; but, to my mind, there was a fitness in the place, that we might have an opportunity to speak to a class which we could hardly reach anywhere else." From Minden they journeyed by short stages south, stopping at Düsseldorf, where they visited the schools and charity institution; at Cologne, Bonn, Strasbourg, Basle. In Basle they held a meeting with sixty young men, students at the Basle mission-house, who were looking forward to becoming missionaries in the different parts of the world. A fellow-feeling led them to point these young men to the words of the Lord: "Without me ye can do nothing." They then took a carriage, going as far as the Lake of Geneva. It was so arranged that Sybil Jones could recline, being then far from well. Sybil Jones writes: "_10th mo. 8th._ This morning set off for Geneva by steamboat from Vevay. It being near the head of the lake, our starting-point was delightful, and our trip on the fair blue water interesting amid the grand mountains which encircle the lake. They rise like vast battlements above the clouds in some places. Mont Blanc, the monarch of mountains, was pointed out. We arrived at the ancient, interesting city of Geneva about four o'clock. From our room at the Hôtel du Rhône we have a fine view of the Rhone, which leaves the lake a few yards above and dashes by our windows, washing the basement story with its blue waters, hastening on to mingle with the great Mediterranean. "_9th._ The work never seemed more weighty and watchfulness and prayer more needful. Our company attended a meeting held by Merle d'Aubigné, the author of the _History of the Reformation_. He made a report of the proceedings of the Evangelical Alliance held at Berlin, giving interesting information of the state of feeling existing between the different religious denominations on the Continent, who find themselves more in unison than formerly. "_11th._ Held a large meeting in the Casino. The Lord was with us. Dear Christine Alsop interprets well; indeed, we lack nothing. "_12th._ To-day several serious persons have called, with whom we have had very interesting conversations about the things which appertain to eternal life. A very agreeable person came to offer his thanks for the privilege of the meeting, adding, 'I think it will do good, for I have been examining the Epistle of Paul, and I am certain he did not mean to forbid a woman's preaching the glad tidings of a risen Saviour, but rather counselled the women not to be asking improper questions in their church-meetings nor to exercise authority or teach in the matter of church discipline; for it is plain that holy women of old _did_ prophesy (that is, preach), and that Paul did not attempt to hinder them. He also informed us that a philosophical deist was present last evening whom he had never seen at a religious meeting before, and that he fully expected that he would turn it all into ridicule, but, to his astonishment, he looked serious and said, 'I never heard anything like this; I scarcely know what to say. It was surely an interesting discourse.' So we do indeed see that God sometimes chooses 'the weak things of this world to confound the mighty.' We were informed that many came who were never seen at meetings on ordinary occasions. Attended another meeting at the 'Locale,' which was sweet and refreshing. "_13th._ Some pious persons have called, among them a very devoted _pasteur_ with his daughter, whose name is Lalia. They called just as we were seated for reading the Scriptures, and joined us. During the silence I felt the spirit of supplication, but it seemed not to belong to me to pray vocally, and I said that if any person felt it a duty to pray I hoped that he would be faithful. Unknown to me, the _pasteur_ had just asked C. Alsop in French if there was liberty; she replied in my words. It was a precious season of prayer and praise. In the evening we attended an appointment for youth and children. It was large and solemn, and I reverently trust Christ was preached. "_14th._ The interest of the people in our meetings still increases, and many inquirers come to see us, thanking us for the privilege and asking if there will be more meetings. Jane Bingham and sister, with Maria Ferris, arrived to-day from Montreux, not having heard of our meetings until we had left. They are Friends from England; it was pleasant to meet them. A female superintendent and teacher of young ladies called and took tea, and seemed very devoted to the cause of her Redeemer. She follows this business not for gain to herself, but for gain to others. Her pupils are occupying prominent places, adorned with wisdom and virtue. "_15th._ Robert Fox, son, and daughter arrived to-day and took lodgings with us. Our party numbers twelve. It is pleasant to meet these dear friends while on a tour for their health. We took a short ride this morning in a carriage provided by dear M. J. L. to the country-seat of the Count de Selon, who was an ardent advocate of peace. In the grounds is an obelisk raised over his remains, with interesting inscriptions on the subject of peace. We hope his faithful labors may not be lost. From this beautiful place we had a fine view of Mont Blanc at sunset; which was magnificent. The snows of ages changed to crimson; the beautiful azure lake and the fine city of Geneva lay in loveliness before us. "_16th._ To-day held two precious meetings at our hotel, to which a number of serious people came, and expressed themselves especially pleased with the _silence_, saying that it was needed in these times of commotion. "_17th._ Returned by steamer to Lausanne. Took lodgings at a hotel which is on the spot where Gibbon wrote his celebrated _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. Had meeting of much interest; many _pasteurs_ present. A _pasteur_ full of the spirit of peace informed us that many who had preached against war in Lausanne had suffered imprisonment. The _pasteur_ wished us to go to Lyons and preach two such sermons there, saying that they were needed. He did not understand that we could not preach except we were sent, nor give forth anything but what we receive at the time. "Took steamer for Vevay; dined at the hotel, and in the evening held a meeting in the Casino, after which we rode to Montreux and took lodgings at a _pension_. Next day held a large meeting at the national place of worship called the 'Temple.' It was a solemn and instructive convocation. The forenoon was occupied in a pleasant walk by the lake at the foot of a mountain, on the side of which stands the village and old chapel of Montreux; on the left and before us the ancient castle of Chillon, and the Dent du Midi Mountain covered with snow. On the right lay the lovely lake, on the other side of which rises a majestic range of mountains. I became weary of walking, and we called at a mansion just on the border of the lake. The master is a young Jew, and of a very tender Christian spirit. We had delightful conversation with him on heavenly things. He had attended one of our meetings, and was much struck with our manner of worship. He said that when we began to speak (Christine and myself) he imagined we had composed the discourse and committed it to memory, but soon he perceived the interpreter made a mistake, which rather puzzled him, and another mistake convinced him that she could not have known what I was to say previously. Indeed, he thought it was spoken so rapidly it must come from the heart as it was uttered. He was much edified, and spoke of those solemn truths with great diffidence and tenderness. His name is Samuel Samelson. May Israel's gentle Shepherd lead him to the blessed knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus and enable him to confess Him before men! Our young friend provided me with a donkey, which conveyed me to the residence of the Hustlers, who have resided here some time. They were formerly English Friends, and received us with joy. The wife is in very delicate health. We sat together in sweet heavenly silence, and the language of the Spirit through the poor instrument was encouraging and humbling. Returned on the donkey by a shorter route on the side of the mountain. My heart responded to the music of birds and the smile of Nature. After dining we took a drive to Chillon, the ancient château where Bonnivard was imprisoned on account of his political views for several years. The château stands in the lake. Within it is a range of dungeons below the surface of the water where prisoners of state and the condemned are confined. Across one of the vaults is a beam black with age where the executions took place. It is said two thousand Jews perished here by the hands of enemies. As we viewed these walls and sombre apartments we were struck by a sense of man's inhumanity to man and the rapid flight of events so momentous. How long, O Lord, ere thou takest unto thyself the great power and reignest? "_22d._ Called on a bereaved father and mother who were mourning the death of an only child. We told them of Him who wounds that He may heal. We also visited a widow and her daughter who knew dear Stephen Grelet, and remembered his heart-searching ministry among them. Pasteur Godet was with us a short time. He is a pious, humble Christian from Neufchatel, who has left the honors of the world (he had been tutor of the king of Prussia), a man of learning and talent; which qualities seem sweetly sanctified. At two o'clock P. M. attended a youths' meeting. "_23d._ A meeting was held at the Hustlers', which our party attended, but I was quite ill in bed, but reposing in Him who is my only source of joy. "_24th._ Not able to proceed. Dined in the _salle_, and with a grateful heart was able to return thanks vocally, which seemed to impress the large company with a serious air. After dining, several spoke to us kindly, among whom was a baroness from Sweden, who warmly pressed us to go thither, saying there were many in Sweden who would receive us warmly, and her own house should be at our disposal for a home. Invited the family and boarders to our evening reading. Much tenderness was shown. Many have called on us and expressed their gratitude for our visit and gospel labors among them. We are sweetly united to a living seed in this land. "_25th._ Took our departure from this highly interesting field of labor after an affectionate parting. We took the omnibus to Villeneuve and found the steamer ready. After passing the most magnificent scenery we were soon again at Lausanne. Made arrangements for a meeting next day. "_26th._ In the morning held a meeting with the prisoners in the beautiful prison here. I think it the finest and most comfortable I have ever seen in any land. Our visit was deeply interesting, and the poor girls were nearly all in tears, and seemed truly grateful for the message of love to them. In the evening held a large and favored meeting at the Casino. Our boat was detained by the dense fog, so we were obliged to remain another day, which seemed providential, as a _pasteur_ called and told us of two Moravian schools taught by pasteurs, one of whom had expressed regret at not hearing of our meeting or not seeing us. He offered to accompany us to one of the schools. C. Alsop, our interpreter, had gone to visit an acquaintance, so Mary Millman, a sweet-tempered girl who spoke English well and who accompanied us, acted as interpreter. The kind pasteur received us cordially, and offered to assemble the girls; which was agreeable to us. I think we have seldom known a more heavenly season. The Lord poured out a rich blessing upon us. We returned with songs of praise to our hotel. Have had many calls to-day from Christian brothers and sisters, expressing their interest in our labors among them. A very zealous person called who spoke with much tenderness of J. and M. Yardly, who were instrumental in her conversion. Held a meeting in the evening which was much blest. "_28th._ Set off early this morning to visit the Moravian school for boys, taking the same kind interpreter with us. We received a hearty welcome, and were informed that the boys had just assembled to commence Scripture history, and that if we could feel something good to say to them they would be so glad. Dear E. replied that we came for that purpose. We were soon seated in a pleasant youthful congregation. Some countenances testified that they had been with Jesus. The pasteur read a chapter; solemn silence ensued, then a gentle shower of gospel love descended and the little plants revived. I cannot doubt but there are young men in this institution who will fill important places of usefulness, perhaps ministers of the gospel who will publish the glad tidings to lands remote. Surely such men, fearing God, are much needed in this degenerate age. The pasteur offered a sweet-spirited prayer with tears of gratitude, and we came away. Reached the steamer in good time. We feel much fellowship with many dear friends in Lausanne. Arrived at Geneva, and, concluding to go on to Lyons at once, we had to sacrifice our desires to see the dear friends again." CHAPTER IX. _WINTER IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE._ Before going on to speak of the work of Eli and Sybil Jones among the Friends and other Protestants in the south of France, a brief sketch of the rise and growth of the little branch of our Society there may be in place. The story is full of interest and could be studied to greater length with profit, but only the briefest reference to it is admissible here. Louis XIV. of France decided in 1685 to revoke the "Edict of Nantes," passed in 1598 by Henry of Navarre, granting liberty of worship and repose to all parties in the Church. The revocation was the most cruel order ever issued by any king. It commanded the demolition of all the Protestant chapels that remained standing, and forbade any assembly or worship; all opposing ministers were ordered to leave the kingdom within fifteen days; the schools were closed; all newborn babes were to be baptized by the parish priests; evangelical religionists were forbidden to leave the kingdom, on pain of the galleys for men and confiscation of person and property for women. It is calculated that six hundred thousand Protestants left France during the twenty years following the revocation, while many suffered cruel deaths and many others spent their lives in the galley-ships. The great struggle made against this royal edict was along the Cévenne Mountains in the departments of Lozère, Drôme, Ardèche, Gard, and Hèrault. The Protestants were called Camisards, perhaps from the word _camisarde_, a night-attack, but its origin is unsettled. Many of the ministers in Cévenne had been executed, and enthusiasm was raised to the highest pitch. Deprived of their pastors, men, women, boys, and girls became animated by the spirit of prophecy. "Young girls had celestial visions; the little peasant-lasses poured out their utterances in French, sometimes in the language and with the sublime eloquence of the Bible." They assembled under the name of "Children of God," and marched commanded by two chiefs, Roland and Cavalier. The insurrection was widespread, and for a long time they overcame or evaded the royal troops. "The Lord of hosts is our strength!" said one prophet. "We will intone the battle-psalms, and from the Lozère to the sea Israel shall arise." They are thus pictured by a contemporary sent to deal with them: "They are stark mad on the subject of religion, absolutely intractable on that point; the first little boy or girl that falls a-trembling and declares that the Holy Spirit is speaking to it, all the people believe it, and if God and all his angels were to come and speak to them they would not believe them any more; they walk to execution singing the praises of God and exhorting those present, insomuch that it has been necessary to surround the criminals with drums to prevent the pernicious effect of their speeches." No men and women were ever more in earnest or filled with more zeal, but it was often a misguided zeal and the cause was dishonored by fearful bloodshed. Their camp was named the "Camp of the Eternal," and they marched to battle singing the grand version of the 68th Psalm, "Que Dieu se monte seulement." Among them were many who were sincere, many on whom the Spirit rested, and there was a grand principle animating them. Much that seems so excessive may be excused on the consideration that they were driven to fury by persecution and they bore in their veins the hot blood of a southern race. How the little company of peace-loving Friends came from these _Camisards_, these _Children of God_, has been a question. There is a manuscript still in existence of a letter supposed to have been written by some pastors of Geneva which was received and circulated through the Cévenne. It was an appeal for these struggling brethren to throw away the sword and cease from bloodshed. "It must be the Lord's arm," it goes on to say, "and not yours, which shall put an end to your captivity. Do all you can to obtain the desired object by a holy life, and not by the works of darkness." After receiving this letter there was some abatement from their accustomed acts of cruelty. Among those who claimed the gift of prophecy was a young woman named Lucretia. Her influence over the people excited the jealousy of the leaders. When they attempted to silence her she called out, "Let those who love me follow me." Many followed her, and her house became a place for meetings. From this company, it has been said, the Friends in Congènies are descended. The author has seen a wine-cellar at Fontanés, in the house of Samuel Brun, where these Friends met for many years. The walls were lined on the inside with wine-casks to keep the sound from going out, and Samuel Brun has in his possession a large Bible which for a generation was built into the wall of the building. Everything which has been recorded shows the sincerity and quiet determination of these people to worship God as the New Testament required. Year after year they took their flocks out on the hills or tilled the more gentle slopes of the mountains, and they never forgot to meet in their secluded vault to praise God together for the blessings which He gave them. There was a tower of Constance at Aiguesmontes of terrible repute, but they were undaunted and possessed "the brave old wisdom of sincerity." And this is how they became known to their brother Friends, as is told in a tract compiled by Friends at Manchester, England: "In the struggle for independence in 1776 the American colonies received sympathy and aid from France. There was at that time living at Falmouth a surgeon named Joseph Fox, a member of the Society of Friends, who both by education and conviction regarded war in every shape as forbidden by the gospel. He was part owner of the 'Greyhound' and the 'Brilliant,' two cutters which traded along the Cornish coast. The other owners of the cutters decided to fit them out with license to waylay and capture merchant-vessels of the enemy. Joseph Fox of course protested. Being one alone, his protest was disregarded and the vessels were armed. The war broke out so unexpectedly that many French crafts fell an easy prey to the English cruisers, and the 'Greyhound' and 'Brilliant' succeeded in capturing two valuable merchantmen, together with some small coasting-vessels. Joseph Fox believed it to be his Christian duty to claim his share and hold it in trust to be restored to the rightful owners. In 1783 peace was restored, and the next year Joseph Fox sent his son, Dr. Edward Fox, to Paris to advertise for the owners of the plundered property. A proceeding so unheard of was naturally looked upon with suspicion, and before the doctor could obtain leave to insert his advertisement in the _Gazette_ he had to communicate with the Count de Vergennes, one of the French ministry, who required a formal declaration that his real object was such as it professed to be. Meantime, Joseph Fox died. In consequence of the public notice application was made by numerous parties; all the claims were proved to be well founded, and a chief part of the money was proportionally distributed amongst the owners of the two merchantmen and their cargoes. Those who had been sufferers by the capture made an acknowledgment through the _Gazette_ of this rare act of restitution, stating their desire "to give the publicity which it merits to this trait of generosity and equity, which does honor to the Society of the Quakers and proves their attachment to the principles of peace and unity by which they are distinguished." "Besides the applications for the restored property, Dr. Fox received at the same time a reply of a very different character. It was a letter with this address: 'The Quakers of Congènies-Calvisson to the virtuous Fox.' The writers describe themselves as a little flock of about a hundred persons, and express their joy to hear of the efforts used by the advertiser to fulfil the commands of Christ. They represent themselves as opposed to war on Christian principle, and as being in consequence an object of hatred and contempt to their fellow-citizens, both Catholics and Protestants. Especially do they condemn the wars engaged in by the latter to keep possession of their religious liberties. This letter led to further correspondence and to a journey to London by De Marsillac, one of their community. From his accounts English Friends discovered, to their surprise, that there had existed in the south of France for sixty or seventy years a Christian Church which, besides its testimony against war, held spiritual views regarding worship and the ministry identical with their own." The origin and discovery of these Friends can hardly fail to interest those who are not already familiar with them. They were often visited by Stephen Grelet, who greatly strengthened them and increased their influence. One who has not been among them can hardly realize how this little flock, surrounded on all sides with perils and enemies, rejoice to welcome those who come to bring them strength and cheer. Many leave the country to escape the army, some marry with other Protestants, and the outlook is not encouraging for their continuance as a distinct body; but they have a good history behind them, and should receive every possible support to hold firm for the help of coming generations. When Eli and Sybil Jones went among them it was a time of discouragement, and they both felt that there was a great service for them to do. It is not easy to find just what they did, but we know that for three months they carried on almost ceaseless labor to help and instruct not only the Friends, but all the Protestants and Catholics where it was possible. The pastors with one accord opened their places of worship and approved and welcomed them. There are many now in Nismes and vicinity who speak with great feeling of them, and it is evident that all were deeply impressed by their consecration and earnestness. We need not seek too eagerly for the results of such work, for it is impossible to measure the good done, either in counting those converted or those renewed. Two earnest Christian ministers exert an influence and power in a community which can be no more easily weighed than the ripples on the sea can be counted. SOUTH OF FRANCE. "Set off in the diligence for Lyons, ninety miles distant; fine roads, good accommodation. The grand scenery delighted us, though tinged with autumnal frosts. We did not make ourselves known in Lyons. It was First day, and it was odd and deeply affecting to an American guest to rise on this morning and behold it a market-day, all bustle and tumult. The state of morals is very low on the Continent. "_31st._ Took steamer on the Rhone for Avignon. Met a very interesting missionary from New York going to Rome. We had an interesting conversation on the qualifications of missionaries, their trials, painful separations, etc. Having both known them, we could the more readily enter into sympathy and fellowship. Lodged in a hotel in the dull popish town of Avignon. "_1st of 11th mo._ Set off by rail for Nismes, where we were greeted by our friends. "_2d._ Attended Friends' meeting, and received visits from several members. We were comfortably settled at a hotel near the Friends' school, which we wish to visit when we have leisure from other service. "_3d._ Dear Eli went to Congènies to-day to attend meeting. We have seen dear John Yardly on his return from his Russian mission. He gave us pleasant accounts of the work of the Lord in that land and in Turkey--said he found much openness and many Christian brethren. Some have suffered loss of nearly all things for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ. "_5th._ The two-months' meeting commenced. Great discouragement seems to prevail, and little contending for the faith once delivered to the saints. It is indeed to be lamented that the light burns so dimly that was no doubt kindled by divine love, but for want of watchfulness it gleams but faintly amid surrounding darkness. If those who profess the blessed Name in this land were real converted characters! But, as in ancient time, 'All are not Israel that are of Israel.' Oh may it please the Lord to revive His work in this day! Toward the close life seemed to spring up, and much solemnity prevailed. Meeting for business assembled in the afternoon, and was a refreshing season. We trust some were made to see where they had been straying. The meeting concluded with more religious weight and signs of life, and from the hearts of some arose the song of thanksgiving. Dear John Yardly's company was indeed precious. I like his evangelical spirit and devotion to the gospel of Christ. "_7th._ Attended a meeting at the Methodist house, which was much favored. Spoke from the first of John. My dear husband and our kind helpers, R. and C. Alsop, went to St. Giles for a meeting. "_9th._ We took a walk to an old ruin said to be the temple of Diana. We also went to La Fontaine, where a large volume of water springs from the earth. We also saw a beautiful Corinthian temple--'la Maison Carrée'--said to be eighteen hundred years old. "_11th._ Held a meeting for some serious soldiers who have lately left the Roman Catholic worship. We had a good meeting with them; one of their number spoke very well, at the close of our meeting, on the immediate teaching of the Holy Spirit. This evening went to Congènies by diligence, accompanied by R. and C. Alsop, leaving dear Eli to attend meeting at Nismes." * * * * * After this Eli and Sybil Jones and their kind friends and helpers attended many meetings at Nismes and at neighboring towns, going often to Congènies and Fontanés. Meetings at the latter place seemed especially opened and favored. Also held meetings, much assisted and encouraged by the _pasteurs_, at Calvisson, Cordonion, Aujargues, Aubais, and Vistric, many of which, they had evidence, were singularly blessed by the Master of assemblies. They had many pleasant meetings with the young people, and were helped to utter words of cheer and encouragement to those whose life-work was just beginning. Very frail in body, and at times almost sinking under the felt duty, yet they sought to improve every moment of time, not wishing to make any plans without a direct showing from their heavenly Leader. All places of Protestant worship were open to them, and they often used the large national places of worship called "temples." In Fontanés they held a greatly blessed meeting in the parlor of their friend Daniel Brun. They were always saddened, especially after a meeting at Saint Giles, by the noticeable scarcity of men in meetings. Indeed, they found in their meetings generally in France mostly women and children. One of the morning meetings in the Friends' house at Nismes was a most remarkable instance of the overshadowing of the divine Spirit. The solemnity was most impressive, so that many wept before a word was uttered. Sybil Jones was favored to see the time to rise and testify to the people that a "pure spiritual worship is what is required, and is the highest joy of Christians." The visitors attended meeting at the school supported by Friends in England, and felt it to be a profitable occasion for all present. Sybil Jones's mind was often occupied with deep thoughtfulness of the infinite importance of their mission to this land, and she besought the Lord earnestly that their dependence might be on no other, and that all their labors might be Heaven-directed. It was very cheering to these tired laborers to have persons come to them after meetings to acknowledge that they had been strengthened and to converse on those things which pertain to godliness. They attended a meeting sustained by young men in Nismes for general improvement, reading useful books, etc. They were invited most cordially to come by the young men, who told them that if they wished to speak to them on religious subjects, they would be pleased to hear them. E. and S. Jones felt it a providential opening, and S. Jones was led to speak from the text, "The Lord loveth an early sacrifice." They felt especially moved to thank the Lord for the "way" so wonderfully made for them. They had not had to ask for a place to hold a meeting, but when they felt the impression a place was always offered. This seemed most wonderful to them, as the laws of France forbid an assembly exceeding twenty persons at any place except in a "temple" or consecrated place. Sometimes they had but "crumbs" to hand out to the spiritually hungry, but at other times they had abundant refreshing from the Master's table. They prayed ever that the "creature might be abased" and that whether in "heights or depths" they might wear the entire "armor of faith." On the last day of the year 1853 they were at the home of Lydia Majolier at Congènies. Sybil Jones writes: "This is the close of the second year since I left the land I so dearly love. The retrospect of the whole affords consolatory reflection. With the remembrance of innumerable mercies my poor little sacrifices sink into insignificance. May they be accepted by Him who looks at the heart! If any good has been done, it is the Lord's doings.--Grant, most merciful God, that the year 1854 may all be devoted to Thy service, with more faith and love!" The next two-months' meeting was a season of great encouragement. The meeting for worship was large, and the Master honored it with His life-giving presence. The meeting for business was a blessed season, and all felt that the power of the Lord had been abroad in the land; two members were received and two young men requested to be admitted. At meeting of the school committee it was concluded "to solicit subscriptions from Friends here, and see what amount could be raised, and propose to Friends in England that the school be continued under the care of Justine Paradon as superintendent and Clarence Benoit as teacher, and that a school for boys be opened under the instruction of Jules Paradon, with an assistant. The committee were encouraged to persevere in the work, as the school had already proved a blessing to the youth, and by some changes for the better might be more so." A long rainy period hindered these dear Friends from holding many meetings. They occupied the time when they were confined to the house in writing to America, studying French, etc. At a meeting held in an outlying village at the house of a woman named Ann Mapit all seemed tendered before the Lord. Near the close a woman left and went to her aged father, who had not attended a religious meeting for fifty years, and begged him to go and hear these people, "for they preached as though they would take them all to heaven." The old man came and was quite moved, and spoke highly of the meeting, although he had said on a former occasion, when a meeting was proposed for a Friend, that they "would beat the drums." They saw plainly the wonder-working power of God. On every side they saw evidences of the "shaking" power. In Calvisson the pasteur himself, a kind Christian man, chose to interpret for them, which they thought a great condescension, as it would doubtless expose him to ridicule from some who did not approve of a woman's gift in the ministry. They held a powerful meeting at Congènies, and found that many were there who had not attended a religious meeting before for twenty years. They thought it prudent for a time, being much worn by long service, to rest and try and gain some strength to go on. Eli Jones's health was especially poor. After this short respite they were much refreshed for the work, and attended a meeting at Auvergne numbering fully eight hundred or a thousand people. They appreciated fully the support of the pasteurs, which was so lovingly tendered them. They felt everywhere the disastrous effects of the degraded position of women. Having so much manual labor to perform, they are unfitted for the proper care of their children; consequently, both their minds and bodies are frequently uncared for, and the home, that great training-school, is not rendered as bright and attractive as it should be. This, S. Jones thought, is what makes the French people so volatile and often skeptical. The places of public amusement are often sought in preference to the home. Their work among the soldiers was a wonderful thing. Many came to their meetings, and, laying aside their swords and taking off their caps, sat meekly down to hear the glad tidings of "peace on earth and good-will toward men." A remarkable movement sprang up among them. One of their number said that at one time but three of them met for worship, but lately nine had joined their number, and they felt much encouraged. Many meetings were attended by these soldiers, who seemed to appeal directly to Eli and Sybil Jones's sympathies. They held a meeting at St. Hippolyte with the few Friends there, at the Moravian meeting-house, and were very urgently pressed to hold more meetings in that place. Fears were often felt by their friends that order could not be maintained in their meetings, owing to the novelty of the thing; but they always, even in very large audiences, met with the utmost respect and attention. They went on one occasion to Marseilles, and took a short trip on the Mediterranean, and felt that they gained some strength by the change. Sybil Jones, accompanied by some of her friends and the good pasteur Abausit, who had been such a kind friend and interpreter, went to Montpellier to visit the prison. They were much pleased with the neatness and order of the entire establishment, and met the most courteous treatment from the chaplain and director. There was much tenderness shown by the prisoners. There were in the prison eight hundred Catholic and fourteen Protestant prisoners. They were not allowed to speak to the former, but were enabled to pray earnestly for the other poor souls. They held a very large meeting in the afternoon, and it was to them a precious season. Sybil Jones visited two prisoners in their cells, and pleaded tenderly with them. They then returned to Nismes and held a large meeting. One of the pasteurs told them, in explanation of their kind reception on every hand, that the Society of Friends moved along so prudently, peaceably, and happily that they were received by all as Christian brethren. At a meeting in St. Hippolyte great contrition was felt by a man who had not attended meeting for many years, and would not permit his wife to go, and forbade his sister to enter his house because she was religious. He received his sister after the meeting, and seemed greatly humbled. They felt that the Lord was speaking through his instruments, and were encouraged to go forward. They held many large and much-blessed meetings at Gallargues and Congènies, and visited many to whom they were attracted, as they showed a concern for their souls' welfare. Many came to inquire of them the "way," and they formed many acquaintances and felt a binding interest in the people, whose souls were so precious. When the two-months' meeting again assembled they had renewed cause for encouragement. It was a meeting graciously ordered by the Lord. The meeting for worship on First-day morning was remarkably covered with divine power and goodness, and Eli Jones seemed unusually "clothed upon with gospel unction." The meeting for business admitted into membership a man who had been a Methodist minister, and received requests from twelve others. They were once invited to the home of a good pasteur named Mensard, where they met five other pasteurs, and their conversation was most pleasant concerning the ministry and "things of the kingdom." And now they felt that the burden of souls in the south of France was rolled off, and they were sweetly released for service in other fields. They held a large parting meeting, and many came to take leave, among them a poor soldier in whom they were greatly interested. He had been ordered to Constantinople without the companionship of any of his religious friends. Of this they were not aware, and it was remarkable that they felt impressed to read the ninety-first Psalm, which seemed so suited to his case, and Sybil Jones was wonderfully helped to pray for the poor soldier. The parting with the school-children was an affecting season, and they at last set off, leaving a large group of friends at the hotel-door for whom their hearts reached out in tenderness and love. They went to Avignon, and from there by boat on the Rhone to Lyons. On First day they attended three meetings in that city; where they found an earnest, seeking people. They lodged with a dear friend who was received into membership at the last meeting. He seemed to be exerting a religious influence about him. They enjoyed their intercourse with his interesting family, and M. J. Lecky offered to take their youngest son, Benjamin, to England to obtain a knowledge of the English language; which pleased his parents and he was committed to her care. They spent one day in the great capital, and admired the magnificent and stupendous works of art with which Paris is adorned. Sailed from Havre for Southampton. There they attended one meeting, and thence proceeded to London. They attended Suffolk quarterly meeting. The power of the Lord was felt, especially by the young. Lodged at Richard Dikes Alexander's. In London they lodged at Thomas Norton's, and attended London quarterly meeting. Attended Brighton select meeting, and stayed at Daniel Prior Hack's. They also attended meetings at Croydon and Lewes, and Gloucester quarterly meeting; all of which were honored by the Master's presence. On the 11th of 4th mo. they set off for Plymouth, and soon after sailed for the dear home in America, leaving all their work with the Master, for it was all done in His name. They carried with them sweet memories of the aid and fellowship extended to them by the French pasteurs. They also carried with them numerous written testimonials of the pasteurs' appreciation of their labor of love among them. The following is a letter from the pasteurs and elders of Calvisson expressive of their feeling toward these laborers in the Master's vineyard who had come from a distant land: * * * * * "We, the pasteurs and elders of the church of Calvisson (Gard), declare that we have received the visit of Eli and Sybil Jones, ministers of the Society of Friends. They have held two edifying public meetings in our temple, before a numerous and attentive audience, as well as a special meeting for the children of our schools. Moreover, they have held a pastoral conference at Calvisson (Gard), at which eleven pasteurs of our consistory and the neighboring churches were present. We are happy to thank these dear friends for the evangelical words they have brought to us. Their presence has been for us a means of edification and of encouragement. Their prayers and their exhortations, impressed with great spirituality, have produced deep convictions and been visibly blessed, and have penetrated into the hearts of all those who have had the privilege of hearing them. The interest they have manifested for the salvation of souls and the advancement of the kingdom of God has touched us in a lively manner, and has given us the impression that they do not propose any other end nor any other recompense for their sacrifices and their labors. They have spoken amongst us the words of peace and charity, nor has anything in their discourses wounded any faithful soul, either as regards his faith or his individual opinions. We ask that in an especial manner the divine blessing may attend the spiritual ministry of Mr. and Mrs. Jones. We desire that the dear brother and sister may be instrumental in shedding around them, wherever the Lord may call them, that humble confidence in the wisdom from above that characterizes all their discourses and their lives. May the Father of spirits, who holds our hearts in His hand, grant to their prayers and their efforts the awakening of souls and of consciences! Our Church will always preserve a precious remembrance of these dear friends, and sends them, through us, the expression of its prayers and its gratitude. We declare that we know individually that Eli and Sybil Jones have also visited the greater part of the numerous churches which surround us, and that everywhere their preaching has been heard with the same interest and the same edification. All our brethren have been, like ourselves, moved and charmed by the unction and the grace of their Christian exhortations. In the belief thereof we have given to them the present certificate. "TEMPIE, Pastor-President of the Consistory of Calvisson. "THEODORE ABAUSIT, Pastor. "REANT, Moderator of the Consistory. "C. BERNARY, Treasurer. "CALVISSON (Gard), _March 10, 1854_." CHAPTER X. _IN THE MAINE LEGISLATURE._ "When Christ came into the World peace was sung; and when He went out of the world peace was bequeathed." The first decided action of the Maine Legislature in regard to the sale of intoxicating liquors was taken in the autumn of 1846. Much work had been done during the two preceding years in the towns to arouse the people to the necessity of bringing about an entire revolution, and the temperance organizations worked zealously to base all the structure they built on total abstinence. The foundation truth was laid by Jesus Christ in Judea in words that meant, "If any one of thy passions or appetites causes thee to do wrong, cut it off and cast it from thee." The _necessity_ for total abstinence was vigorously enforced by Eli Jones whenever he spoke. Enough believers in temperance were sent to the Legislature in 1846 to pass a law "to restrict the sale of intoxicating drinks." This was followed in 1851 by an "Act for the suppression of drinking-houses and tippling-shops." This was the well-known "Maine Law," and forbade the manufacture for sale of intoxicating liquors, except cider. Unadulterated cider in quantities of five gallons and upward might be sold. There were thirty-nine other sections directed against liquor-selling, drunkenness, and the habit of drinking in the community. This law accomplished a very beneficial work. One of its great results was to bring the temperance question more emphatically before the other States and nations. At home it made drinking disgraceful and took away to a great extent the temptation from the young men. While in small towns it was nearly a perfect success in closing all shops, in the cities there was not vigilance enough to carry out its purpose, and many felt that more vigor must be used. Three years later, in 1854, the town of China elected Eli Jones by a large majority over two other candidates to represent it in the "House" of the Legislature. It was expected that he would carry to the State capital the views which he unceasingly expressed at home, and that he would agitate a still further reform, or, as he expressed it, "put new teeth into the old law." The choice was wholly unexpected to him, and he was working for the election of his lifelong friend, Ambrose Abbot. He was given a prominent place on the committees, and especially the Committee on Temperance. He worked almost continuously to bring about the desired legislation, but seldom spoke, most of his work being in the committee. This was a memorable winter at Augusta, and many excellent men were there in the different branches of the State government. It was a great opportunity for a true Friend to show to legislators the worth of his principles. Eli Jones was the only man who refused to rise when the governor called upon the united House and Senate to take the oath of office, and he stood alone to give _affirmation_ that he would faithfully perform his work. As was said before, Eli Jones, though earnestly at work for the good of the people of the State, did not address the House. Some members, who knew him intimately and wished to call him to his feet, arranged a plan, not as a personal jest, but as a scheme to gain a speech. In the course of the session the appointment of a major-general to the second division of the Maine militia came in order. In 1838, Maine had undertaken to assert by force of arms her title to a region near the northern boundary claimed both by her and by Canada. There was much mustering of troops at the capital, and fully ten thousand soldiers marched through the deep snow and fierce cold to drive the enemy from Aroostook county. Though they were brave and ready for battle, happily no blood was shed and peace was wisely made; but the "Aroostook War" became famous as a subject of banter and many jokes were made at the expense of its officers. The old nursery rhyme was quoted: "The king of France, with forty thousand men, Marched up the hill and then--marched down again." Primarily for these two reasons, to urge Eli Jones to his feet and to joke the former officers by appointing a Quaker, an avowed peace-advocate, he was chosen unanimously to fill the vacancy in the office of major-general. The nomination was so wholly unexpected that he was at first perplexed at his situation. Much was at stake and wisdom and caution were needed. Having his horse at Augusta, he drove that night to his home at Dirigo, fifteen miles away, chiefly perhaps to discuss his course with his family and the Friends most suitable for counsel. After talking into the night with his brother-in-law, James van Blarcom, he walked the floor alone until the new day was dawning. On arriving again at Augusta he found the occasion far more important than he had anticipated. The news had spread that the Quaker was to speak in regard to his appointment; and the Representatives' Hall was crowded, not only most of the Senate being present, but numbers from the city. The subject of the business was introduced, and Eli Jones, rising, spoke in substance as follows: "Whatever my ambition may have been in times past, my aspirations have never embraced such an office as this as an object of desire. I can assure the House that my election as major-general was an honor wholly unexpected. It is true that when the governor announced to this House the existence of the vacancy, a member privately remarked to me, 'I shall vote for you,' but I replied to him, declining the honor and proposed to return the compliment. "To my mind there is something ominous in this occurrence. I regard it as one of the wonderful developments of the times. Who of us that assembled ten years ago in quiet and retired places to affix our signatures to pledges of abstinence from intoxicating drinks would have believed that in 1855 we should be elected to the seats we now occupy amidst the overwhelming rejoicing of the people, pledged to the support of the Maine Law? Who that at that time had visited the plantations of the South, and seen the slave toiling under the lash of the taskmaster, would have believed that in 1855 the people of the larger portion of this great land would have roused up with a stern determination to subdue the encroachments of the slave-power, and pledge themselves never to cease their labors until the wrongs of slavery should be ameliorated--nay more, till slavery itself should be abolished? Still more wonderful, who would have believed that the State of Maine, that a few years since gloried in an Aroostook expedition, and was noisy with military training and the din of arms, would in 1855 exhibit the spectacle of a peaceable member of the Society of Friends being elected to the post of major-general of a division of the militia, and that too by the Representatives of the people in their legislative capacity? "But I have endeavored to regulate my own conduct by the principle that legislation should not go very far in advance of public sentiment, and it seems to me that this election may possibly be ahead of that sentiment. I submit this suggestion in all candor. It is generally understood that I entertain peculiar views in respect to the policy of war. If, however, I am an exponent of the views of the Legislature on this subject, I will cheerfully undertake to serve the State in the capacity indicated. With much pleasure I should stand before the militia of the second division and give such orders as I think best. The first would be, 'Ground Arms!' The second would be, 'Right about face! beat your swords into ploughshares and your spears into pruning-hooks, and learn war no more!' And I should then dismiss every man to his farm and his merchandise, with an admonition to read daily at his fireside the New Testament and ponder upon its tidings of 'Peace on earth and good-will to men.' "If, on the other hand, it should be determined that my election is a little in advance of the times, I am willing, as a good citizen, to bow to the majesty of law, and, as a member of the Legislature, to consult its dignity and decline the exalted position tendered me by the House; and I will now decline it. With pleasure I will surrender to the House this trust and the honor and retire to private life." This speech was delivered amid interruptions of loud applause, and made a great sensation throughout the State. And not in Maine only; it was commented on in many of the newspapers and appeared in the columns of English journals. Pictures of the fighting Quaker were made, with the order to his troops printed below. It even came out in an African journal; so that what seemed like an unimportant pleasantry on the part of the members of the Legislature gave Eli Jones an opportunity to preach peace to a very extended audience, and his voice was heard far beyond the little State capital. From this time he was regarded with much respect by all the members, and he received encouragement and support in whatever he desired to accomplish. At the close of the session he called to thank the governor for his kindness to him and his help in different ways, and he remarked to the latter that he had been in rather a peculiar place during the winter and had felt somewhat like a "speckled bird." The governor said, "Mr. Jones, what you call being a 'speckled bird' has given you more influence than anything else could possibly have done." Whatever he may have accomplished in other lines during his term of office, he gave powerful testimony in favor of peace and temperance and against the use of oaths, and he went back to his quiet farm in China thoroughly respected by all with whom he had been associated. OAK GROVE SEMINARY. It may be a fitting place to speak of his connection with Oak Grove Seminary, as he was at work for its interests not long after this time. As I have in my possession a letter written by him in regard to the beginning and early days of the school, I will insert it here: "Oak Grove Seminary was started about the year 1850 by John D. Lang, Samuel Taylor, Ebenezer Frye, Alden Sampson, and Alton Pope. They had in view the guarded and religious education of the children of Friends. It was to be a '_select_' school. William H. Hobbie was the first principal. I visited his school and thought him a wonderful teacher. He stood before his class without a book, and seemed to be himself the book. Up to that time I had never seen the like. Franklin Paige, the present publisher of the _Friends' Review_, followed William Hobbie in the principalship. Financially, the undertaking after a while proved a failure, and the school was closed. "At a meeting of the yearly meeting's committee on education, held in China in the autumn of 1856, I advocated an effort being made to open Oak Grove Seminary again. It was opposed by some on the ground that we needed primary schools more than high schools: to that idea my answer was, We must first have high schools to prepare teachers for the primary schools. A meeting of the original proprietors of the seminary was called, and the question put to them, 'Are you willing to have other Friends join you in opening the seminary?' Samuel Taylor replied, 'We want to know first what you will do; we do not want to depend upon a rope of sand.'--'What are the conditions on which we can join you?'--'Do as much as we have; give $2500.' To this Alden Sampson replied, 'It is useless to think of opening the school with $2500; we must have $15,000. If you will raise that amount I will give $1000.' Ebenezer Frye responded as liberally. A committee was appointed to raise the fifteen thousand dollars. Eli Jones, William A. Sampson, Joseph Estes, and Thomas B. Nichols were the chief workers in raising the proposed sum. They were successful. It was nearly all subscribed by six hundred Maine Friends. They constituted an association for the opening and management of Oak Grove Seminary. "In the summer and autumn of 1857 the boarding-house was built. James van Blarcom was chosen principal, and Sarah B. Taber of Albion teacher. It was found that James van Blarcom's engagements would not allow of his occupying the place for one year, consequently Eli Jones took this position for the first year. The school opened in the 12th month, 1857. The season had been wet, and the building and preparation for the school proceeded slowly. Much hard work devolved upon the principal and teachers. The pupils were numerous, and the spring term brought 140. A case of scarlet fever, resulting in the death of a lovely girl, rapidly reduced the number, which has not been reached since. "At the opening of the second year Albert Smiley became principal and James van Blarcom governor and boarding-master. "Albert Smiley was followed by Augustine Jones, and he by Richard M. Jones. "Oak Grove has furnished principals for Friends' School at Providence for nearly a quarter of a century, and to the Penn Charter School of Philadelphia for about thirteen years. Ten or twelve of its pupils have been or are ministers in the Society of Friends; some are to-day leading business-men. "The writer of this notice has been connected with the management of the institution for the last thirty years, sometimes influentially, sometimes wellnigh powerless. As the record has been made, so it will stand. I have rejoiced in the times of its prosperity; I have wept over the ashes of its fine buildings, its library, its geological museum. I now see the second temple rising from the ashes of the first with an unlooked-for splendor. May it long stand for the benefit of our race and the glory of God!" CHAPTER XI. _IN WASHINGTON._ "Follow with reverent steps the great example Of Him whose holy work was 'doing good;' So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple, Each loving life a psalm of gratitude. Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangor Of wild war-music o'er the earth shall cease; Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger, And in its ashes plant the tree of peace." WHITTIER. Sybil Jones was at work in the Southern States during a part of the year 1860, and returned to her Northern home only a few weeks before the attack on Fort Sumter. The sound of war carried sorrow to the hearts of herself and her husband. They were loyal to their country and the great cause of human freedom, but they were loyal also to the Prince of peace. "They prayed for love to lose the chain; 'Twas shorn by battle's axe in twain!" For years they had longed to see the light of freedom break in on the South, but they had hoped no less for the day "when the war-drum should throb no longer" and universal peace should gladden the long watchers for its dawn. Now they saw the oncoming of a most terrible civil war, threatening the life of the nation. They mourned for mothers and fathers who must see their boys go to the field; they thought of the homes shattered for ever; but they did not yet realize that their eldest son was to go forth to return only on his shield--that the son who had urged them to go forward in the work of love in Liberia, their noble son, was to be demanded as a sacrifice. The war was hardly begun when James Parnel Jones resolved to volunteer. President Lincoln's call seemed a call to him. He had been a logical reader of Sumner, and had closely watched the development of slavery, and to his mind the war to save our nationality would necessarily free the slaves. He wrote from the South: "Did I not think this war would loose the slave's chains I would break my sword and go home." That it was hard for him to go when his parents were praying for peace there can be no doubt, but his mind was filled with the thought of saving the life of a nation, and he certainly felt that the path of duty was in that direction. The members of the Society of Friends felt almost universally that they owed allegiance to two fatherlands. "There was a patriotism of the soul whose claim absolved them from the other and terrene fealty," and there was a manifest inconsistency between being members of "Christ's invisible kingdom" and taking arms in support of a dominion measured by acres.[7] Some felt otherwise, and they took upon themselves the hard duty of turning from society and friends to do battle. [7] Whittier thus gives the position which the Society of Friends held: "Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong In the endurance which outwearies wrong, With meek persistence baffling brutal force, And trusting God against the universe; Are doomed to watch a strife we may not share With other weapons than a patriot's prayer; "Yet owning with full hearts and moistened eyes, The awful beauty of self-sacrifice, And wrung by keenest sympathy for all Who give their loved ones for the living wall 'Twixt law and treason." James Parnel came home wounded, but returned to his command before his furlough had expired. He went back with the feeling that the days left him were few: he indistinctly saw what awaited him. In an engagement to carry a strong point held by the enemy at Crystal Springs, near Washington, he was struck by a ball from a sharpshooter. The ball had glanced from a tree and brought him a mortal wound. The two hearts deeply wrung to have their son go into the war at all were pierced at the news of his death. We can hardly conceive their grief for him for whom they had so earnestly prayed and agonized in his absence. Henceforth whoever wore a soldier's uniform had a place in Sybil Jones's heart. Her unspent love went out to all who were suffering on the field and in the hospitals, and she could not rest at home. Obtaining the needful credentials, she took up in a new form the arduous service of her active and consecrated life, bearing the gospel cheer to the wounded and dying in Philadelphia and Washington. She could tell the soldiers of her own son, and so touch their hearts, and her sympathy and love brought joy to many a poor sufferer. The aggregate of her visits shows that she preached and talked to thirty thousand soldiers. To and from the field of her labor, at the dépôts, wherever she saw a uniform, she went to speak gentle words and to bear good news; and only those to whom the balm came can tell the good accomplished. Once more she met a kind reception from all. Soldiers and prisoners welcomed her, and those high in power listened with respect to her messages. She comforted the widow of President Lincoln, and twice stood before his successor, President Johnson, and faithfully warned him to rely on the Ruler of the universe for counsel in guiding the helm of state. She left home in 1st mo., 1865, with a certificate for service. On her way to the field in which she felt called to labor she visited her children in Philadelphia, and attended meeting at Germantown, where she was favored with a gospel message. She also attended Twelfth street meeting and the large quarterly meeting in Arch street, where she was constrained to speak for her Master. She then proceeded to Baltimore, accompanied by Lydia Hawkes of Manchester, Maine. In this city she met her dear husband, who had been separated from her for three months. He was much worn by his labors as distributing agent of the New England Friends. He had distributed to the necessities of the freedmen food, clothing, beds, etc., according to the quantity sent to the mission. He had visited them from hut to hut, administering as well to their spiritual as to their temporal needs. They together attended Baltimore quarterly meeting, and on the 9th of 2d mo. arrived in Washington. Sybil Jones rested a few days, and then commenced the labors for which she was liberated. Her first service was in Judiciary Square. She, with her companion, was taken there in an ambulance, and they were preceded and introduced by their dear friend Jane James, who often gave them like aid. They were pleasantly received, and permission was granted them to perform any religious service. They visited nine wards and had service in the chapel, speaking words of comfort to those confined to their beds. Much seriousness and tenderness was apparent. They also went to the hospital at Armory Square, visited all the wards of the sick and wounded, and had chapel service. It seemed that some were turning to the Lord. Eli Jones went for a short time to Philadelphia to try and gain a little strength, being very weary with his labors among the colored people. The mud was very deep and the work of distributing very hard. Their son, Richard Mott, accompanied his father, having spent the vacation from his studies at Haverford College with his parents at their post of duty. Camp Hospital was also visited. They were taken out in an ambulance by Dr. Upton, who was courteous in every way. The poor wounded ones seemed thankful for the interest exhibited for their souls' welfare. Carm Hospital was visited, and all freedom was given them to point the sick and suffering to the Lamb of God. Many were in tears at the close of service in the chapel. Her own torn mother's heart gave Sybil Jones great earnestness in prayer for the bereaved ones in the far-away homes as she was called upon to attend the funerals of the soldiers. Often more than one coffin stood on a form before them, and the occasion was made a solemn admonition to the survivors to be ready when the Lord should call. One of the meetings was attended by a surgeon who had led a profane and dissolute life. He was reached by the Spirit of God, and in a meeting rose and said, "I have been living for hell; I looked toward it as my home, and fully expected it; but God has had mercy on my soul and pardoned my sins, and I mean to serve Him the rest of my days." Nearly all were in tears. When the service was over the soldiers rushed to his arms weeping with joy. He said to them: "I have treated you badly and sworn at you, but by the grace of God I will never swear again." His conversion had a wonderful effect and was a powerful testimony for the truth. Columbia Hospital was visited. They found a very conscientious, loving superintendent in one of the wards, a lady named O. L. Pomeroy. In this ward they held a most blessed meeting and made an appointment for another. They were obliged to move from their lodgings on account of sickness in the family, and were most kindly received by their good friends William and Jane James. They found it a great privilege to be so cared for. They went to Lincoln Hospital, where were five thousand men. Their ministrations were much blessed: at a later visit they found four hundred more wounded soldiers from City Point. The afflicted men were all broken down with suffering and were ready for the consolation of the gospel. The field indeed seemed white unto the harvest. A lad told them that he had been in the Crimean War, and had served two years in this. He was an Englishman. He showed them a silver medal gained by valor in the former war. Sybil Jones said, "I hope thou art seeking a crown in that higher warfare?" He quickly replied, "I am pressing after it with all my might; I am looking to Jesus as my Captain." She sighed for "universal peace to reign" as she witnessed the untold miseries of cruel war. It was wonderfully touching to hear the bright testimonies of those poor feeble ones who had lain for months on their emaciated backs. Many were passing away. No one could bear to tell one poor dying youth that he could not live, and in all tenderness Sybil Jones said to him, "I think thou cannot get well; what is thy hope?" He replied, "In Jesus I believe; he has forgiven my sins. Tell my father and mother I have gone to heaven." Some seemed insensible of their danger, but were faithfully warned to prepare to meet their God. As these faithful messengers of good tidings saw the terribly mangled brought in, and beheld their patience and tenderness, they were sick at heart and prayed for the terrible tide of war to be stopped. They met with much kindness from Surgeon-general Barnes, who gave Sybil Jones a pass to all the hospitals in the United States, and a special one for the department of the South, with half-fare on Government transports. Sybil Jones was presented to General Auger, the military commander of the District of Columbia. He said that he was much pleased with her mission. He was spoken to concerning the interests of eternity. She was presented to Secretary Stanton and Colonel Harder, and was pleased with their demeanor and readiness to aid her work in every possible way. The Centre Guardhouse was visited and its four hundred inmates lovingly warned to be ready. On 4th mo. 1st, 1865, great excitement was felt in the capital city, as the President was personally directing affairs at Richmond, and the fall of the rebellious city was hourly anticipated. On the morning of the 3d came the joyful intelligence that the Confederate capital had been evacuated, and a great tide of rejoicing swept over the loyal States. Sybil Jones describes the scene in Washington as follows: "I was very fearful the inhabitants would be too full of joy to remember their great Deliverer and give thanks unto His name. We went to Camp Fry, and had to press our way through the throng, often pausing to note the variety of emotions exhibited--all joyful, but neither ridiculous nor profane. A subdued awe seemed to hold in check the lawless and dissipated, and tears of joy suffused the eyes of passers-by. The whistles of the engines, the roar of cannon, the music of the various bands, and the shouts of the multitude, mingled with the prayers, praises, and hallelujahs of the colored people, some down on their knees in the dust of the street, others dancing like David before the ark of the covenant on its return to its place,--all commingled in one mighty jubilant song which I trust was not devoid of the grateful tribute of praise to the great God of heaven and earth. We at length entered the ward of the sick and wounded of two regiments, about two thousand men. As we passed in I said, 'To-day is the nation's jubilee, and we have come to present our thank-offering with you, as you cannot join the street celebration.' A smile and 'Thank you' went round and brightened up the scene. We read a beautiful psalm and bore a testimony to the power and goodness of God, not only in hope of the full and entire emancipation of the slaves, but in disclosing to us to-day, behind the folds of the dark war-cloud, the silver lining of peace. We besought them to come to the Lamb of God, seeing his mercy and loving-kindness had been so great to them as to spare them amid the din of battle when their comrades had fallen all around them." Sybil Jones and her friends visited Seminary Hospital, and found among the wounded a young Friend from Illinois, who was much comforted by hearing the gospel tidings from a member of the Society he loved so well. A sad scene presented itself in Douglas Hospital. There had just arrived three hundred terribly mangled soldiers, some passing away, some in agony with lost limbs. It was an indescribably painful scene, and the one "Physician of value" was recommended to the poor sufferers. They addressed many prisoners of war, deserters from the South, and refugees. They were listened to with seriousness, and many were in tears. On a visit to Stanton Hospital, Sybil Jones met a young man from Maine named Eben Dinsmore. He told her that her son, James Parnel Jones, had been his captain when he first enlisted, and afterward his major. He spoke in the highest terms of his kindness to the men and his unspotted name, and said he heard a soldier of the same regiment say that he was with him from the time he was wounded until his death, and never saw a person die so happy, singing as he passed away. At this time Sybil Jones and friends moved their lodgings, at the kind invitation of their friend Isaac Newton, to make their home with him for a while. On the 15th of 4th mo. came the dreadful news that the good man who had stood so nobly at the head of the nation in this dreadful crisis had gone from works to reward, slain by the hand of the assassin. The great joy was turned into deepest mourning that he who was so endeared to all loyal hearts could not be with them to enjoy the restful time of peace. They held a meeting in the rooms of the Agricultural Department, and were comforted in their great grief by the presence of Him who said to the troubled waves, "Peace, be still." A visit was made to Stone Hospital, and it was found that the suffering ones there had had little religious instruction, but seemed grateful for Christian counsel. One poor fellow, who was dying and felt his lost condition, was entreated to look to the "Lamb of God." A young lady came one day to Isaac Newton's and asked if a Quaker lady who preached was there. She said that some one had been thinking how appropriate it would be to have a Friends' meeting, for the awful stroke inclined them to be silent. Isaac Newton offered his parlors, and Sybil Jones consented. She says in her diary: "We met at seven o'clock, and it was one of the most blessed seasons I have enjoyed in this city. The silence seemed to have healing in its wings and balm to the stricken spirit." Much service was done in Emory Hospital; the poor fellows on their beds were visited one by one, and each was lovingly spoken to. They held meetings at Emory Hospital for the convalescent soldiers, and by all they were most gladly received. Harwood and Finley Hospitals were fields of labor, and in each the gospel message was thankfully received. At first the surgeon in charge said that he never allowed service in the wards where the men were badly wounded or passing away. Sybil Jones said to him, "Doctor, wouldst thou take the responsibility of keeping the gospel from dying men, the suffering soldiers of our country, far from their homes and mothers?"--"No," said he, "but I do not want them disturbed."--She said, "Our services never disturb; we are a quiet people." She then told him that she had a pass to all hospitals in the United States, but would not insist upon entering without his full permission. He then gave it most freely. The service was gladly received, and it seemed like drops of rain on a dry and thirsty land. Sybil Jones felt that she must bear a message of her heavenly Father's love and sympathy to the widow of the lamented President. She had been ill, confined to her bed in the White House, since the fatal stroke. Sybil Jones says of the visit: "All crushed and broken under the heavy stroke, I spoke to her of the heavenly Chastener's love and care, and said that He could bind up the broken heart and give peace. She cordially invited us to come again. Her two sons, one about ten and the other about twenty, were at home, and very affectionate and attentive to their suffering mother, though themselves evidently feeling very deeply the sad event." Sybil Jones felt that she was given a message for Secretary Stanton. She in company with others went to his house in the evening, and, passing a guard of soldiers, was most kindly received by his interesting wife, the Secretary being absent. They spent an hour in pleasant conversation, and then the Secretary came and greeted them kindly. Very soon silence reigned, and Sybil Jones, after asking permission, rose and addressed the Secretary, telling him that as he had been raised up by the Almighty for the important duties of his office, he must dispense justice and judgment in the fear of God, plead the cause of the oppressed, and humbly in all things do the will of the great King, and the eternal God should be his refuge. She told him that, though his life had been sought, the angel of the Lord had guarded him, and if his trust was in Him no harm should befall him. After her remarks the Secretary rose and thanked her most profoundly, and told her that her gospel message was most grateful, and said that he needed the prayers of the people and that his trust was in God. Sybil Jones went again by invitation to call on the President's widow. She was still in bed, much prostrated. The rooms were all lighted as in the days when their master paced through them with the weight of his mission pressing upon him. One lone sentinel guarded the mansion--a strange contrast to the past, when a strong guard was deemed necessary. The desolate lady gave them a sweet welcome, and told them some cheering incidents of her husband's last days. She said that several times during the last day he lived he said, "This is the happiest day of my life." He seemed to feel that the great work was done, and he rejoiced that the cloud which hung over his beloved America had lifted. Sybil Jones then spoke to her cheeringly of the sympathy of Jesus with the sorrowing sisters of Bethany--that in her boys she had a charge to keep for the King. After a season of feeling prayer they parted tenderly. Stone Hospital, a beautiful home for the weary, suffering soldiers, was visited, and a wonderfully convicting season it proved. Sybil Jones was greatly saddened on a visit to the jail by its filthy appearance. Old and young were crowded in together, and the young in crime were by association with the vicious and degraded hastened in their downward course. Feeling that she was called to labor in Alexandria, Sybil Jones went across the river to that place, and found a kind welcome at the temporary home of James P. Barlow, he, with his family, having fled from his own home on account of rebel persecution and confiscation. She had a meeting with the convalescents in the colored hospital, and had most interesting services in Slough Barracks. She also had a large meeting at the Soldiers' Rest, where she addressed thousands of soldiers, all orderly and attentive, while a tear might often be seen tracing down the bronzed cheeks. Wonderful changes were apparent in this place since the abolition of slavery. Slave-pens were appropriated to useful purposes. One was used as a court of justice, where traitors took the oath of allegiance to their country and to the government. Sybil Jones then returned to Washington, and did what she could in the hospitals there, and then, feeling again the call to Alexandria, she returned to that place, and after more service owned and blessed by the Master she left this great field of labor and went once more to her children in Philadelphia, and thence to her own home. On the 16th of 4th mo., in 1866, she again left her home, accompanied as far as Providence by her son Grelet, and bearing a certificate from her friends granting freedom for such service as she was called to perform. She attended meetings at Salem, Lynn, and Burlington, visiting prisons, hospitals, and reformatory institutions. She went to Richmond, Va., and attended the small meeting of Friends there, and with them praised the Lord for bringing them through the bloody rebellion and allowing them once more to assemble under the banner of peace. She attended many meetings here; had a meeting in a penitentiary, where the poor inmates had not heard the gospel sound for five years, since before the dreadful struggle. Many Bibles were distributed and families visited. In a town near Richmond it was thought very doubtful if she could obtain a meeting, as the feeling against the North was so strong. When the Methodist minister was applied to, a young man present exclaimed, "That Quaker lady must have a meeting; she is the mother of my college classmate, Major Jones. She must have a meeting, and we will do our best to get the people out." The meeting was a large one and blessed, and the people expressed their thanks at the close. After much loving service in the prisons and elsewhere, Sybil Jones went once more to Washington, holding meetings and doing all she could to "lift the skirts of darkness." She felt that she had another message to bear to the White House, where now, at the head of affairs of state, was the late President's successor, Andrew Johnson. She had a most touching interview with the President's daughter, the wife of Senator Patterson. They mingled their prayers and tears, and then Sybil Jones was presented to the President. He was surrounded by supplicants, mothers, advocates of right, and artful politicians. While waiting for audience the President's little granddaughter offered to her a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and, drawing her close, Sybil Jones spoke to her of the infinitely more beautiful flowers of heaven. The President courteously gave her permission to speak. She told him her message, and told him that it was in the name of the "King of kings." He thanked her seriously, and many were in tears. It was a most impressive scene. After this, Sybil Jones returned to Maine, but she was not permitted long to enjoy the sweet associations in the home so dear to her. The impression seemed to gather force daily that she must once more cross the ocean. These words came to her often with great emphasis: "Get thee out of thy own country and from among thy own kindred to a land which I shall show thee." Once more she cast her burden upon the meeting, and found, as ever, the sweet sympathy and unity with her call to go forth that were ever accorded her. She was liberated for the service that she felt was hers to perform, and her "peace flowed like a river." Before engaging in the work in Europe, Sybil Jones obtained a certificate from the monthly meeting to visit the prisons and penitentiaries in some of the Southern States. She visited most institutions of that character in many of the large Southern cities, bearing the news of life and salvation to the poor erring ones. Many tracts and Bibles were distributed and much work was done in the vineyard of the Lord. Once more she bore a message to President Johnson. She went to the White House on a reception day for the President's daughter, and passed in with the throng. On every side were seen the glory and parade of this world that will pass away, but, obtaining audience with the President and his daughter, she spoke to them of the pleasures that are eternal. The Lord helped her to declare the truth, and she went away trusting that it would not be "in vain in the Lord." Her whole soul was rejoiced to see the great change that had swept over the South since the shackles of slavery had been removed. Those who had been slaves now stood up men. She felt that there is indeed "a God who judgeth in the earth, and He only worketh wonders." CHAPTER XII. _MISSION-WORK._ "'Tis time New hopes should animate the world, new light Should dawn from new revealings to a race Weighed down so long." BROWNING. There was comparatively little known among Friends about the land of the Bible from personal observation before 1870, and some of the best works on the history, the geography, the manners, and customs of Palestine have been written since that date. The visits of Eli and Sybil Jones to Syria, and the letters which they and their companions, Alfred Lloyd Fox and Ellen Clare Peason (born Miller), wrote from there have done much to bring that country to the careful notice of Friends; and the interest felt in the missions at Brumanna and Ramallah has induced many to study their situations and to become better acquainted with that whole region, incontestably the most important on the globe if we associate with the soil what has transpired there for the benefit of the race. We call it the "Holy Land," and the religious enthusiasts of the Middle Ages felt that it was a profanation for infidels to hold the sepulchre of the Lord and the cities where He taught; so that thousands rose from all Christian lands to win back the captured territory, and blindly gave their lives for what they thought a sacred cause. In those days the Crusades opened the eyes of Europe and showed to the people the civilization and wonders of this Eastern land, and they brought back accounts from the cradle of early civilization which changed the thoughts and ideas of the age. American missionaries began to work in Syria in 1823, not to win the soil from the hands of infidels, but to gain the souls of those living in blindness, ignorance, and sin; and their endeavors have been greatly blessed, although these strongholds yield slowly to the most vigorous assaults. Until the fourth century after Christ feasts were held annually in Syria to commemorate the death of Adonis--or Tammuz, as he was called in Syria--and his birth was celebrated again in the spring. These rites came from the story of Adonis being killed at the sources of the river which bears his name. This stream, which comes down with a swollen current in autumn, carries away much red iron ore; this gives the water a reddish color, which was said to be caused by the blood of Adonis, while in the spring Adonis was supposed to rise from the dead in all his beauty, at which time all gave themselves up to unrestrained joy. It was this mourning for Adonis of which Ezekiel speaks: "He brought me to the door of the Lord's house, and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz" (or Adonis). All the heathen temples were destroyed and the worship stopped by Constantine the Great. At present there are in Syria about one million Mohammedans, two hundred and fifty thousand Maronites, two hundred and thirty-five thousand members of the Greek Church, eighty thousand Roman Catholics, eighty thousand Druses, thirty thousand Jews, but only five thousand Protestants; besides many other kinds of religions. The Maronites are thought by some to have taken their name from Maroon, an abbot who lived near the Orontes in the sixth century. He was considered as a saint by these people, though by the pope he was deemed a heretic. In the time of the Crusades the Maronites joined the Christian army from the West, and so came in contact with the Roman Church. They are divided into four orders--Jesuits, Franciscans, Lazarists, and Capuchins--over whom one patriarch is the governor. The order of the Jesuits, with the influence of the patriarch, has from the first opposed the work of all missionaries, and a heap of stones near the convent of Kanobin marks the spot where a missionary was martyred in 1830 by the will of the Maronite patriarch. The Druses are perhaps the most remarkable people of Syria, and they are, too, the most mysterious. It was formerly thought that they were the descendants of a band of the crusaders who were left behind and finally forgot their land and religion, taking their name from the count of Dreux. There is a more plausible theory which identifies them with some of the tribes introduced into the Palestine by Esarhaddon, the great Assyrian, in the seventh century, B. C. Their name seems to have come from Ismael Darazi, and dates no farther back than the eleventh century A. D. Hakim, one of the caliphs, who reigned in 1019, and who seems from his tyranny and fanaticism to have been a madman, maintained that he had direct intercourse with the Deity, and that he was an incarnation of the divine intelligence. The claim was made known in the mosque at Cairo by Ismael Darazi, whose testimony was hostilely received by the people and he himself compelled to flee; but he at last succeeded in winning over the ignorant inhabitants of Mount Lebanon, whence the origin of this religion. The Druses hold that there is only one God, indefinable, incomprehensible, ineffable, and passionless--that he has made himself known by ten successive incarnations, lastly by Hakim. They believe in the transmigration of souls, and they say that virtuous souls pass into Chinese Druses, but those of the wicked into dogs or camels. These people have a high reputation for hospitality, and especially toward the English or Americans. God, they say, is great and liberal and all men are brothers, though in their bloody massacres they forget this, as Christians sometimes do. The last hundred years have witnessed fearful struggles between the Maronites and Druses, and the rivers have run red--not from the supposed blood of Adonis, but from that of human beings--and many Christians have fallen victims. Another sad fact is the low position which woman holds in Palestine. It is only Christianity that can put her in her true place as man's equal. Those, then, who go to Syria to herald the gospel and plant the seeds of progress in the hearts of these people have as much to contend with as those who go among uncivilized heathen, or perhaps more. Here they are opposed by uncompromising bigotry, by the despotic hand of a mighty ruler, and they must find untold obstacles in a land where the muezzin's voice is heard from a thousand Moslem minarets, with the hate which has ever existed between the two religions, and has not been lessened by the contests around Jerusalem for the possession of the holy sepulchre. But missionaries are peacemakers, and it is well that members of the Society of Friends have been led to do work here--a Society which would proclaim the "truce of God to the whole world for ever;" a Society which would give to woman the nobility for which she was created. We may hope that the hills which witnessed the chorus of angels singing, "Peace on earth, good-will to men," shall look on a community in which this is fulfilled, and, though Jerusalem's altar-fires have gone out, there may a brighter light shine into the hearts of a people worshipping God in spirit and in truth. We can hardly realize that this important land, "the cradle of revelation," is so small that it is only about the size of Wales. "From Dan on the north to Beersheba on the south is a distance of only one hundred and thirty-nine miles, and the paltry breadth of twenty miles from the coast to the Jordan on the north increases slowly to only forty between the shore of the Mediterranean at Gaza and the Dead Sea on the south." To this little country, made great and again humbled, raised up and again degraded, to this people divided into so many religions, Eli and Sybil Jones felt a call to bear the gospel first promulgated from its hills and in its valleys. They were liberated by China monthly meeting, Vassalboro' quarterly meeting, and New England yearly meeting, and embarked from Boston on the 10th of 4th month, 1867. "The last meeting attended by them before leaving their home in Maine was thronged by their townspeople, many of whom had known them through life, and several ministers from other societies from the overflowing of their hearts expressed their desire for the divine blessing upon their labors as ambassadors for Christ. Between our two friends, and upon the same bench, sat their two aged mothers, respectively in their eighty-fourth and eighty-ninth years. The latter arose in the presence of the large assembly, and, referring to the prospect that she should not meet her dear children again in this life, expressed her willingness to give them up for the sake of the Lord. They were attended on board their steamer by a large delegation of Friends from Lynn, Salem, New Bedford, and Providence. Here they mingled in Christian sympathy and in a season of religious fellowship, giving their fellow-passengers the opportunity of witnessing such brotherhood in Christ as used in the olden time to induce the exclamation: 'See how the Quakers love one another!'" Among those who came to bid them adieu and attend their religious exercises were John A. Andrew, governor of Massachusetts, and General Banks. It was especially interesting, as marking a striking contrast to the treatment which the missionary Quakers two hundred years before received at the hands of the Boston officials. John G. Whittier, who at one time had a desire to accompany them, wrote the following beautiful verses for the occasion: "TO ELI AND SYBIL JONES. "As one who watches from the land The lifeboat go to seek and save, And, all too weak to lend a hand, Sends his faint cheer across the wave,-- "So, powerless at my hearth to-day, Unmeet your holy work to share, I can but speed you on your way, Dear friends, with my unworthy prayer. "Go, angel-guided, duty-sent! Our thoughts go with you o'er the foam; Where'er you pitch your pilgrim tent Our hearts shall be and make it home. "And we will watch (if so He wills Who ordereth all things well) your ways Where Zion lifts her olive hills And Jordan ripples with His praise. "Oh! blest to teach where Jesus taught, And walk with Him Gennesaret's strand! But whereso'er His work is wrought, Dear hearts, shall be your Holy Land." Letters from Eli Jones and his companions will be given farther on to show the nature of their work, the places visited, and something of the good accomplished. Many of these letters are exceedingly interesting, and, being written on the spots which they describe, they throw new light on the scenes of the Bible-land. For the present I wish to follow out briefly the part these two Friends have taken in what may be called distinctive mission-work. After being engaged for about a month attending meetings in and about London, mostly among the poor, and doing some work in Scotland, they began their journey, stopping with the Friends in the south of France, embarking from Marseilles for Greece, and thence going pretty directly to Beirut in Syria. They had as companions and helpers that earnest and sweet-spirited Christian, Alfred Lloyd Fox of Falmouth, England, and Ellen Clare Miller of Edinburgh, for whom, as she is still living, words of eulogy are happily not yet in place. They spent some months holding meetings, visiting schools, and doing much quiet work up and down nearly the whole length of Palestine. Sybil Jones being all the time in feeble health, they finally returned to England to spend the summer. Sybil went to Ireland, and Eli held meetings in different parts of England. Meantime, Alfred Fox and Ellen Clare Miller, who had become much interested in the work going on in Palestine, had raised a considerable sum of money to assist the mission-schools and general religious work in the Holy Land, and about seven hundred pounds were collected, some of which was sent to those needing it. As the summer went on, Eli and Sybil Jones each separately, began to feel that they had still further work in the East to do, and the way opened for them to return to the work which they had left unfinished. Ellen Clare Miller again attended them, also Richard Allen and Captain Joseph Pim. What money remained was put into their hands to be spent as they saw fit to promote education and spread the gospel in Syria. While in the neighborhood of Jerusalem they visited Ramallah. There was a boys' school in this place, and here they were met by a young woman who asked that she might be helped to teach a girls' school. Eli Jones asked her if she could teach, to which she answered, yes. After consideration it was decided to take some of the money which had been entrusted to them to start this young woman--Miriam--in the work of educating the girls of the neighborhood. On returning to England at the end of their visit, and reporting what they had done at Ramallah, it was at once accepted by the English Friends, and the little school thus begun was adopted and liberally supported. Ramallah became the seat of the mission and school of the London Friends, and was carefully watched over, built up, and maintained until 1888, when it was decided to be best for American Friends to take it in exchange for their interest in the Brummana mission on Mount Lebanon. It will be called the Eli and Sybil Jones Mission, and the New England Friends are ready zealously to take up and carry on the good work which for eighteen years has received the support of English Friends. During this same visit, while at Beirut in the year 1869, they met Theophilus Waldmeier, who was engaged in the British Syrian schools. He became much interested in the strangers, and desired to learn more of their religious principles. "Their addresses were so powerful and edifying," he writes, "that our hearts were touched, and I began to think that their religious principles must be of a superior nature. I went to the hotel where they lodged and made their acquaintance, and from that time I have believed that the Quaker principles are the right basis for a true spiritual Church. When these dear Friends left the country their blessed influence remained upon my heart, though they had not the slightest idea of it, nor had I any hope of seeing them again." Two years later Theophilus Waldmeier met Stafford Allen, and accompanied him, his son, and Joseph Price to Baalbek, so that they became closely acquainted, and he was invited to come to Stafford Allen's house in London, which he did in 1872, and here he made the acquaintance of Hannah Stafford Allen, Robert and Christine Alsop, and others, and he became more and more familiar with the spiritual views of Friends, and later he joined himself to their Society. He visited the different missions around Mount Lebanon, and he found that there was none at Brummana. It was told him that the inhabitants of Brummana were the greatest thieves and liars in the world. "They are Maronites, Greeks, and Druses, and the evil report of them has filled the country even unto Egypt. Every one is afraid of them. The American missionaries wanted to establish a mission among them, but they were expelled from the place in 1831, and the Bibles and Testaments which they distributed among the people were publicly burned." This showed that here was indeed the spot for a mission, but it would take courage and manly work to establish it. But the order seemed to come to Theophilus Waldmeier, "Go forward;" and on the 9th of the 4th month, 1873, he gave in his resignation to the committee of British Syrian schools, and it was not long before he was settled with his family at Brummana. But, unsupported, he felt he could do little, and he wrote an earnest letter to Hannah Allen for assistance; and this letter was sent to Eli Jones. Hannah Allen sent pecuniary aid to Theophilus Waldmeier for his family. Eli Jones received the letter a little before New England yearly meeting opened, and took it with him to that meeting, not knowing what it would be best to do. Charles F. Coffin attended this yearly meeting, and he made an earnest plea that New England Friends should identify themselves with some mission-work. The subject was taken up and a committee appointed, the names of Eli and Sybil Jones being among the number. Eli Jones at once urged that something be done to help Theophilus Waldmeier, and fifty dollars was raised to be sent to him. Eli Jones was requested to write and find how the religious views of Theophilus agreed with those of Friends, and the answer gave satisfaction to all. American Friends were now ready to take hold of the work on Mount Lebanon, and were anxious to join with English Friends in support of a mission there. Eli Jones wrote to Theophilus Waldmeier: "I am glad to be able to say that our Friends in New as well as in Old England seem much interested in thy work on Mount Lebanon. I think that thyself and dear wife and your helpers may be encouraged to give yourselves to the work of the Lord there, with full trust that your temporal wants will be supplied." After much correspondence it was arranged for English Friends to join those of New England yearly meeting in furnishing funds for the support of the new mission; committees, secretaries, and treasurers were appointed. T. Waldmeier was encouraged to go on with what he had begun, with the certainty that his wants would be supplied. He did so, and the work prospered. He has had much to endure, but he has persevered, and much of the success of Friends' work on Mount Lebanon is due to his faithfulness and courage. English Friends have from the first nobly done their part to support this post of service, and they have shown an untiring interest in it. Eli Jones has felt almost a father's love for this Mount Lebanon mission. He has worked for it, begged for it, and prayed for it. His original fifty dollars, collected from New England Friends, was the first contribution sent to it, at least by Friends, and from that time on he has not ceased to stretch out his hands and heart to help it. He would be the last to claim any honor for the success of either of the missions in Palestine; he is among those who have helped to plant and water, and God himself has given a good increase. In 1876, Eli Jones, Alfred Lloyd Fox, and Henry Newman again visited the Holy Land, and especially the slope of Mount Lebanon. A meeting was held there, and Eli Jones read an epistle from the foreign mission committee appointed by New England yearly meeting, expressing the belief that a meeting should be organized at Brummana. After deliberation a meeting was organized in the usual manner, consisting of six native Christians and the family of T. Waldmeier. During this same visit they started a boys' training-home. The winter was spent in getting the training-home ready to open and putting it on a proper working basis. A house was rented from one of the emirs of Mount Lebanon, in which the boys of the mountain began to be trained. This house and the one occupied by T. Waldmeier were those in which lived the two emirs who gave the order to burn the Bibles and Testaments of the early American missionaries. The spot is still marked near the training-home where these Bibles were burnt, and some of the inhabitants still live there who helped execute the order; so that the children of the men who put fire to the Bible are now being taught on this same spot from this same book. In the spring of 1880 an appeal was made for a girls' training-home at Brummana, T. Waldmeier judging the cost of building and current expenses would be about ninety-five pounds. Not long after Eli Jones wrote: "At our New England yearly meeting thy appeal for a girls' training-home was read, and elicited a ready and remarkable response. Soon after the meeting we found that the subscription had reached eleven hundred dollars. The women Friends of New York yearly meeting also raised two hundred dollars, thus making thirteen hundred dollars in the hands of our treasurer, George Howland, for the purpose of erecting a home for girls on Mount Lebanon." So much money was collected that during the winter Eli Jones in the name of the committee authorized the work to begin, and on the 27th of 10th month, 1882, the new building was completed. Eli Jones, then in his seventy-sixth year, again crossed the water to be present at the dedication of it. Three hundred persons, among them princes and princesses, were there to see and hear the ceremony. Eli Jones read Prov. xxxi., and spoke for an hour and fifteen minutes on the subject of female education. The fifteen girls who were to be educated sat in a semicircle on chairs before Eli Jones, and stood up and sang a hymn at the close of the meeting. Charles M. Jones of Winthrop, Maine, had attended Eli, and they worked for three months to accomplish the transference of the mission into the hands of three English and three American trustees. The management of the work was considerably remodelled during this winter. It is a difficult matter to obtain a perfectly clear title to land in Palestine, and the Friends were obliged to go through eight different courts before the affair was thoroughly settled. The Ramallah Friends' mission was visited, and much was done to encourage the workers there. New England Friends at present are earnest to accomplish much good at Ramallah, and there has been a striking liberality manifested by them in this field. Eli Jones, now in his eighty-second year, can never again visit in the body these two spots which he fondly loves, but he rejoices in his last days that the cause so near his heart is receiving so warm a support, and the advance which has been made prophesies the day when the Syrian wife shall have a woman's voice and a woman's power, and when the marvellous blessing of Christ's immeasurable love shall be felt in the hearts of those who now sit in darkness, though in the land where "the great Light has shined." CHAPTER XIII. _LETTERS FROM SYRIA._ Eli and Sybil Jones were most cordially liberated by Friends for the work in Europe, which was shown them as a field white unto harvest in which they were called to labor. They set sail from Boston in the ship "China," 4th mo. 10th, 1867. They attended Dublin and London yearly meetings, and visited the meetings throughout England, and then carried their labors into Scotland. Of the visit in this country Eli Jones writes to the _Friends' Review_: LONDON, 9th mo. 6, 1867. Having returned to this city again from what has been to us a very pleasant and satisfactory tour throughout parts of Scotland, and especially to those towns where members of our religious Society reside, I take my pen to give a few jottings from my note-book. On the 12th of 8th mo. we left Newcastle-upon-Tyne for Glasgow in Scotland, distant by rail one hundred and twenty-five miles. The day was delightful, and as we passed on at the rate of thirty or more miles per hour we saw much calculated to please and instruct. Crossed the Tweed near its mouth, where the old town of Berwick enjoys a fine outlook upon the German Ocean, and where a halt of a few minutes reminded us that we had really reached the land of Scott and Burns, of Jaffrey and the Barclays, and of others whose names are familiar to the readers of Scottish history. Our course after leaving Berwick lay through extensive fields of ripening corn--or, as we Americans would say, of grain--interspersed with broad belts of potatoes and turnips, the whole indicating careful culture and a higher type of agriculture than I had previously noticed. As we approached Edinburgh there was less land under the plough, and instead green pastures cropped by numerous flocks of sheep, with an occasional sprinkling of other stock. Passing through the last-named city, we noticed the monument erected to the memory of Walter Scott. Its architectural beauty can hardly fail to catch the eye of the traveller. Another hour, through a valley of great fertility, brought us to Linlithgow, the birthplace of Mary queen of Scots. The royal castle is still standing. At the close of the day's travel we found ourselves at Glasgow, and, taking a hurried lunch at the house of William Smeal, were seated in the meeting of ministers and elders at the hour of seven, when visitors and visited were comforted together. _13th._ Were present at the two-months' meeting--a favored season. At a joint meeting following that for worship the ministry of Eliza Wigham was approved. It was instructive to witness the freedom of expression, not only of the aged, but of young men and women, who cheerfully lent their aid to help the Church redeem her "charge" in so important a matter. Attended two meetings in Edinburgh; lodged at the house of William and Jane Miller. The next day, in company with these dear friends and others, went by rail to Aberdeen by way of Stirling, Perth, Dunbar, and Stonehaven. This ancient city of the North, of which Alexander Jaffrey was provost (or mayor), and in whose prisons many of the early Friends were incarcerated for conscience' sake, is in 57° 8' 57" north latitude, and lies upon the river Dee. It is built of gray granite. The houses are from two to four stories high, and present a clean and substantial appearance. A statue of Queen Victoria standing near the centre of the town is much admired. It is of white marble upon a pedestal of red granite highly polished. In the chapel at King's College a structure of the fourteenth century is shown, a pulpit--a relic from an ancient cathedral of the twelfth. Great labor must have been performed by hands no longer active to produce in the solid oak the carved figures and forms seen in this edifice of a bygone age. The other college buildings are of modern date. The general meeting of ministers and elders was held on the 17th. Godfrey Woodhard, William Ball, Thomas Wells, and Sarah Tatham in the ministry were present from England. The latter has been for some weeks our kind companion and caretaker. _10th, First day._ Two meetings for worship were held, both well attended, the latter more numerously than could be accommodated in the house, several remaining near the door; all quiet and attentive. Most Friends present in the ministry took part in the vocal exercises, in which Christ was exalted as the rightful Head of His Church and as the world's only Saviour. The business of the general meeting is the same in character as that of a quarterly meeting. It was held on the 19th of the month, preceded by a meeting for worship. We may trust both were seasons of encouragement to Friends in this land, so remotely situated one from the other and accustomed to meet for worship in comparatively small numbers. While in Aberdeen we visited Barbara Wigham, now nearly ninety-three years of age, a valued minister who seems quietly waiting the pleasure of her Lord to leave her post of watching for a seat among the blessed. How delightful to look upon the ripe corn in the ear ready to be garnered! She is the daughter-in-law of John Wigham, who some years since travelled extensively in America, going as far east as Nova Scotia. Left Aberdeen the morning of the 21st for Stonehaven, sixteen miles distant, where we had arranged for a meeting in the morning. This is a neat little town, nearly two miles from Ury, the ancient home of the Barclays, including the noted Apologist. The present "laird of Ury," John Baird, and his wife, Margaret Baird, kindly showed us about their palace-home and its extensive gardens redolent with fruit and flower, and in other ways continued to make our call a very pleasant one. Among things of special interest was shown a stool of rather clumsy make labelled "Library Stool of Robert Barclay the Apologist." Tradition and facts point to this as the veritable seat of that eminent Christian scholar while writing his unrefuted and as yet unanswered book, _The Apology_. A lengthened walk through field and pasture brought us to the "Sarcophagus" of the Barclay family, located upon an eminence overlooking the estate and its surrounding country, including Stonehaven and parts of the German Ocean. The building is of stone, with recesses in the interior walls containing tablets descriptive of members of the family, from Colonel David Barclay to Robert the Younger, who died in 1854, there being five in a direct line of the name of Robert. A larger tablet contains a synopsis of the history and genealogy of the family, running back many years prior to the time in which the name of Barclay finds a place in the history of Friends. The estate is large. One of its owners during his life cultivated two thousand acres and planted out one thousand five hundred other acres. At the time of our visit its pastures were enlivened by the presence of large herds of horned cattle and a flock of eight hundred ewe sheep, four hundred lambs, a portion of this year's increase having been disposed of previously. Numerous beeches of startling dimensions grace the lawn, and near where stood the old homestead an old yew tree, now in the strength of its power, reminds one that it might have enjoyed, and probably did enjoy, youth contemporaneously with the ancient "laird of Ury" and with his son the Apologist. The present dwelling is one of modern date; its predecessor and the "old Ury meeting-house" were removed to give it place. Our meeting at Stonehaven was a relieving one. The family from Ury attended, and we were glad of their company. Thence we went forward to Glasgow by way of Dundee, accompanied by our kind friend, Robert Smeal, the gifted editor of the _British Friend_. Held large meetings at each of the above-named cities. On the 24th, after a meeting at Kilmarnock, went that night to Edinburgh. Next day and first of the week met Friends and others at their place of worship. Here closed our religious labors in that interesting country, and we came pretty directly to this place, taking in meetings at Carlisle, Manchester, and Birmingham. Affectionately thy friend, ELI JONES. Eli Jones, in a letter dated 9th mo. 26th, thus alludes to service ahead: "We intend to leave London this evening for Paris, and after a few days there and among Friends in the south of France, embark at Marseilles for Greece; call at a few places in that classic land; thence pretty directly to Beirut in Syria, where, if the Lord shall make a way for us to labor in His service, we may spend some weeks in visiting school-missionaries and such others as may be disposed to hear the good news in the land of the Crucified One, and return by way of Jaffa, Alexandria, Cairo, and the island of Malta. We have as companions and helpers in the work our young friends Alfred Lloyd Fox of Falmouth, England, and Ellen Clare Miller of Edinburgh. Much kind interest has been manifested by Friends here in relation to this new field of labor." One of the companions of E. and S. Jones wrote the following account of their labors in the south of France to the _Friends' Review_: "Eli and Sybil Jones and party left London on the 16th for Paris, _viâ_ Folkestone and Boulogne, having letters of introduction from the secretaries of the Turkish Mission, Church Missionary, and Jewish Church Mission societies, and to various persons in the East. We had a smooth, pleasant passage of about two hours, S. J. reclining most of the time, and E. J. and companions remaining on deck watching the disappearing lights on the English coast and then those on the French shore coming into view. We spent the night in Boulogne, going on the next afternoon to Paris. The three following days we spent in Paris. We visited the Exhibition and went to the stand of the Bible Society, where we were greatly interested in the account of the work done during the time of the Exhibition. They have distributed, thus far, 1,800,000 copies of the Scriptures or portions of the Scriptures. Among others, eight hundred priests have received these, so that we cannot but hope that a large amount of good has been effected. While Eli and Sybil Jones were at the stand numbers of people came for the little gratuitous French, German, and Italian Gospels, and seemed much pleased to receive them. Our friends had the pleasure themselves of giving some copies to soldiers and others. The gentlemen at the stand were much interested in E. and S. J.'s mission to the East, and supplied us with Arabic and Turkish portions for distribution there. On First day we attended the Friends' meeting at the Congregational chapel, 23 Rue Royale, at 9 A. M. About forty persons were present, among others L. Mellor and her husband from Philadelphia, whom it was pleasant for E. and S. Jones to meet. The meeting was a memorable and impressive one, ministry and supplication flowing freely. Soon after the Friends' meeting the usual Congregational meeting was held, at which we remained, the pasteur inviting E. and S. Jones to come to his afternoon meeting in the Avenue des Ternes, where they might have an opportunity of addressing those present. We accordingly went, and found a small but serious gathering of English and Americans; the song of the angels on the night of our Saviour's birth was dwelt upon. Next day E. and S. J., having been invited by the secretary of the Evangelical Alliance to be present at the usual service in the Salle �vangélique, we went thither at the appointed time, but were sorry to find on arriving that, though free opportunity was offered for Eli Jones to speak, the committee could not allow Sybil Jones to do so. Under these circumstances Eli Jones declined to take any part in a service which would so distinctly have compromised one of our Society's leading views. On Third day we left Paris for Lyons. E. and S. J. much enjoyed the country with its long lines of poplar trees edging the streams and canals, and vineyards terracing the slopes of Côte d'Or. We slept at Lyons, setting out the following morning for another day's journey to Nismes. Nismes was reached between nine and ten P. M., our Friends less tired than after the journey of the day before, having much enjoyed the scenery. Jules Paradon, who for so many years had been an interpreter for Friends and their kind helper in the south of France, came early to the hotel on the following morning to welcome the Friends back to Nismes. Lydia Majolier and other Friends also called, and an arrangement was made for a meeting to be held at the Free Church the same evening, the pasteur kindly giving up his usual service to E. and S. Jones. A good meeting was held, about one hundred being present. Jules Paradon interpreted the free gospel message and the prayer for France, her rulers, her pasteurs, and her people. Much joy was expressed at seeing E. and S. J. again. Much fruit of their labor here fourteen years ago is evident. There seems much good stirring among the young people who are connected with Friends. Some of those who were at school when E. and S. J. were last here bear marks of their influence. On the 3d we drove to Congènies, about twelve miles from Nismes, through the rich vineyards and oliveyards of the South. There are not many Friends at Nismes, but the little meeting-house was well filled. In the evening a meeting was held, and about ninety present, half of them men. It was an interesting sight to see the men in their working dress and the women--many of whom had been working hard all day--listening so attentively and seriously to the loving and encouraging words spoken to them. Much feeling was shown as they spoke to the Friends after meeting. E. and S. Jones and their party were kindly lodged at the house of George and Lydia Majolier, and the following day were driven to Fontanés to see Friends in that neighborhood. We were hospitably entertained at the house of Daniel Brun, a minister of our Society. A meeting was held in the afternoon, about forty present; L. Majolier interpreted. E. and S. J. addressed words of warning and encouragement to all. Daniel Brun prayed for a blessing upon the seed sown. On First day the meeting convened at 10.30 A. M. at Congènies, many Friends coming from other places, so that the little meeting-house was again filled, J. Paradon having come over to interpret. Sybil Jones dwelt upon the nature of true worship. Eli Jones dwelt earnestly upon woman's part in regenerating and elevating the world, reminding us of what a prominent part she played in the fall, and, on the other hand, both in the Old Testament history, and still more in the New, how many noble women are written about. These were held up as not unattainable examples. A large and very interesting meeting was held at 4 P. M. at Nismes in one of the Protestant places of worship. On Second day E. and S. J. visited two girls' schools for the poorer classes, at both of which they spoke to the children, encouraging them to pray morning and evening for help for the day and forgiveness for what they had done amiss. "On Third day we were at St. Gilles, where we were very kindly entertained at Anna Vally's, where a meeting was held in the afternoon for the few Friends in the place, and in the evening a good meeting was held in the temple. The following day a large meeting was held at Calvisson, six hundred being there, and Pasteur Abausit himself interpreting. On Fifth day a farewell meeting was held with the Friends, thirty or forty in number, at which much tenderness of feeling was shown while S. J. urged and encouraged them to fight for the faith once delivered to the saints. She dwelt earnestly on the need of their forgiving those who had injured them, as they hoped to be forgiven. Many tearful farewells were said and earnest desires expressed for E. and S. J.'s welfare, and for a blessing on the labors of their hands. On Sixth day we left Nismes at noon, reaching Marseilles about 5 P. M., whence we hope to sail this afternoon for Athens, thence to Beirut, where we look to be about the end of the month." * * * * * We give below a letter from Ellen Clare Miller, written on board the steamer "Godavery" to the _Friends' Review_: SMYRNA, 10th mo. 25, 1867. It falls to my lot to give some account of the very interesting visit to Athens of our dear friends Eli and Sybil Jones.... It was a time never to be forgotten. Our account was written from Marseilles, from which port we embarked on Seventh day, 10th mo. 12th, reaching the Piræus on Fifth day morning. We had a safe and pleasant voyage, receiving much kindness from the captain, who seemed a superior man. There was not opportunity for much outward service on board, but earnest desires were felt and loving prayers raised that our tarriance there might be for good to those who sailed with us.... On the 16th the fine ramparts of the rocky, sterile hills of Southern Greece came into view, and all that day we coasted along that most interesting country, with its mountains rising up from the very edge of the sea, here and there a poor little village with its scanty olive trees set in the hollows of the hills, or a solitary house for the shepherd or goatherd. It was past midnight when we sailed into the Piræus, very calm, with beautiful starlight and a very soft air; and so we landed in Greece. We did not know quite what we should do, landing at midnight in a strange country and hearing only a strange tongue, but we were wonderfully provided for in this respect. A Greek gentleman, who was our fellow-passenger returning to Athens, very kindly did for us all that could be done, getting our baggage through the custom-house without detention--which at that late hour was a great relief--and taking us to a comfortable hotel. It is difficult to convey the great interest of our visit to Athens, which should, I think, be confirming to all who go in simple faith where they feel themselves required to go, believing that the way and the work will be opened up before them. Such has been everywhere the openness to receive our dear friends that surely He who put it into their hearts to visit this place, and who when "He putteth forth His own sheep goeth before them," prepared the hearts of the people in a wonderful manner to receive them, and opened the way for their mission among all. It was very interesting next morning to find ourselves opposite the Acropolis with its ancient ruined temples and fortifications, and the less conspicuous but still more interesting little eminence beside it, Mars Hill, from whose rocks, where the council of the Areopagus sat, Paul spoke. On Fifth day, the 17th, Eli Jones and Alfred Lloyd Fox delivered letters of introduction to J. H. Hill, chaplain of the English embassy, who for more than thirty years, with his wife, has been teaching the Greek children. There is a great work going on in Athens in reference to the poor Cretans who have fled from their own islands and taken refuge in Greece. Thousands have come to Athens, where they have been provided with food and clothing, and schools have been opened for the education of their children. We visited five of these--some more than once--where E. and S. Jones had an opportunity of speaking to the children, and often to the poor Cretan women. Some were widows; others had lost their children, others whose husbands and children are still engaged in the war. All had lost their homes and their whole possessions. It was a very affecting sight to see these poor sorrowing creatures thronging to speak to the friends, thanking them for their words of loving sympathy and comfort, and for the help and sympathy sent them from America. At all the schools the message of our dear friends was to point both children and parents to Jesus as the one who is able under all circumstances to give peace and happiness to the soul. The message, which to many was a new one, seemed to go home to their hearts, and seed was sown with fervent prayer which we must believe will be blessed to these poor creatures and to Greece by Him who giveth the increase. Demetrius Z. Sackellarios, editor of _The Star in the East_ and treasurer of the American and Greek fund for the support of the Cretan schools, very kindly and efficiently interpreted on several occasions. He is a Greek by birth, but spent several years in America, and his wife, A. Josephine Sackellarios, is an American lady. There are indeed several Americans in Athens, with whom we had some very delightful intercourse. We spent First day evening with Dr. Hill and his family, and (through the medium of Edward Masson, a Scotchman, and formerly one of the judges of the supreme court of Areopagus) E. and S. Jones had an opportunity of addressing a school at Dr. Hill's house for between twenty and thirty Greek girls of the upper classes. Several were introduced to them from Macedonia, Asia Minor, and many parts of Greece and the islands, besides Athens. An impression seemed to be made that evening which we trust will not soon be forgotten. After visiting another of the schools on First day, where we saw five hundred children taught on the national-school system, and some Cretan women spinning and weaving their native silk, we went to the prison, where Sybil Jones had obtained permission to speak to the prisoners. Leave was granted for all the prisoners, about one hundred and fifty in number, to come into the courtyard, in the centre of which was a large plane tree, under the shadow of which all stood, the poor men forming a large semicircle around S. Jones and D. Sackellarios, her interpreter, and the others. It was a striking scene and a time of great interest. The men were exceedingly attentive, and many were moved while S. J. spoke to them for nearly an hour. She sympathized with them in their present condition. She related some narratives of prisoners who, having found their Saviour in prison, had been filled with joy, and she prayed for them that they too might be brought to Him. The governor of the prison seemed very grateful--said he hoped the words spoken would be blest to the souls of the poor prisoners; and many said it was a day never to be forgotten. It was found that the prisoners had no Bibles, but an arrangement was made that each should be supplied with at least a Gospel. We spent the evening very pleasantly at the house of Dr. Kalopothakes, where we met most of the missionaries, to whom, after the First of Romans had been read, E. and S. J. addressed many words of encouragement, as they did on a similar occasion on Third day morning, when many came to the hotel to take leave, alluding to the refreshment it had been in coming to a strange land to meet with those to whom, as servants of the same blessed Master, they could feel united in one common love and faith, partaking together of the one true communion and speaking together the language of Canaan. All present were deeply affected, and a strong impression was made there as on all other occasions. Some said that the visit of these dear Friends to Athens was just what they had long desired and prayed for--that what they had brought was as a message from the Saviour to encourage them in their work; and D. Sackellarios said that the day of his interpreting for them was the happiest of his life. The same morning E. and S. Jones visited the theological college for the education of young Greek priests. It is under the superintendence of a young Greek, who seems a serious man. He has one or two Friends' books, and is desirous to know something of our Society. S. J. addressed a few words both to him and to the students, encouraging them to give their hearts to the Saviour and to attend to the teaching of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. E. and S. J. also received a visit from the Cretan bishop of Kissaruss to thank them for their visits to the schools and their interest in the Cretan children, and through them to express gratitude to the American people for their help and sympathy. He also asked for the prayers of Americans that Crete might be made free. We sailed from the Piræus 10th mo. 22d, landing at Syra the following morning, where E. and S. J. visited the school for Greek children under the care of F. A. Hildner, a Basle missionary, who has been for thirty-seven years engaged in work on this island. Here, as before, the gospel message was spoken to the children and a cheering visit paid to the missionary. We re-embarked on Fifth day, and after running for some time pretty near the coast we sailed into the beautiful bay on which Smyrna stands. The city looks bright and Eastern with its light-painted, square, flat-roofed houses, among which towers and minarets rise. Behind the city rises a steep bare hill crowned with a mosque and the ruins of an old castle. The mountains rise all round the bay, greener than any we had seen since leaving the south of France, and with olive trees and vineyards round their base. To-day, the 25th, we went on shore, and were driven up and down the narrow, roughly-paved streets of Smyrna, in which we saw many sights reminding us we were in Asia--the trains of laden camels, the veiled Turkish women, the fine large cypress trees shading the graveyards with their painted inscriptions in foreign characters. We visited the deaconesses' home, where fourteen of the sisterhood educate between two hundred and three hundred children, many of the upper class. The establishment is in beautiful order, and a bright and Christian spirit appeared to reign in it. We hope to-morrow to continue the voyage to Beirut. Our dear friends are pretty well, though needing rest. Thine sincerely, ELLEN CLARE MILLER. Ellen Clare Miller writes again in 11th mo. to the _Friends' Review_: BEIRUT, Syria. The account of the journey of our dear friends E. and S. Jones was brought down to the time of our leaving Smyrna. Having now reached Beirut in safety, they wish thee and their friends in America to know as soon as may be of their welfare, and of the pleasant and very interesting voyage which we were favored to make safely and comfortably. Since our arrival here, on Sixth day, the weather has been so broken and stormy that we do indeed feel that there is great cause for thankfulness to Him who holds the winds and waters under His control. We sailed from Smyrna about noon on the 26th, gradually losing sight of the beautiful mountains which rise up on the south-west side of the bay with their fine coloring of gray, pink, green, and purple, which gives such a charm to the hills about this coast. We passed Chios and Samos--Patmos with its great interest as the isle to which the beloved disciple was banished by the emperor Domitian, and where the wonderful visions were revealed to him. The following day, First day, the 27th, we reached Rhodes, and, the steamer stopping for a few hours, we went on shore, going up the steep street where on either hand stand the half-ruined, strongly-built castles and houses once occupied by the Knights of St. John. Over each doorway may still very plainly be seen the various coats-of-arms of the members of the order, the grand master having a larger house and more elaborate escutcheon. We passed a mosque at the time when the congregation were coming out, and saw each man resume his shoes at the door; there were no women. We were allowed to look inside, but not to enter more than a step or two. It was a plain, whitewashed building, with matting, but no seats; texts from the Koran painted here and there upon the walls, and a kind of pulpit from which the Koran is read. There are many Jews and Mohammedans at Rhodes. It was sorrowful to think how many there were who were professing to worship God, but in so mistaken a manner. E. Jones and A. Fox distributed a great many portions of Scripture and tracts in Arabic, Turkish, and Hebrew, as they did all along the coast at our various stopping-places, so sowing much good seed, some of which at least may, we hope, take root and bear fruit. The whole of the following day was spent in coasting along that part of Anatolia formerly called Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia, keeping very near the shore. It was a great privilege to pass near scenes of such interest as those regions through which Paul and his companions passed, and to see the very places on which their eyes must have rested. Cyprus was visible on the right, but too distant from us to obtain much idea of its appearance. Early in the morning of the 29th we found ourselves in the harbor of Mersina, the port of Tarsus, about ten miles from that city, of which Paul was a citizen. This latter place itself we could not see, but we were shown the direction in which it lay among the mountains, and the point where the Cydnus flows into the sea with its cold waters fresh from Taurus, whose snowy tops we plainly saw. The ship remained here till the afternoon, shipping wheat, and we were much interested in seeing a train of one hundred and fifty camels winding down from the direction of Taurus and moving slowly along the shore to discharge their freight at the warehouses upon the quay. We then turned our faces southward, passing not far from Antioch, which, however, cannot be seen from the sea. We stopped a few hours at Latakia, near which rises the cone-shaped Mount Cassius. Soon after passing this we had our first view of one of the spurs of Mount Lebanon, crowned with snow. This grand and extensive range became more and more conspicuous until we reached Tripoli, which lies beautifully at its feet in a fine wide bay. We sailed very near the island of Aradus, the ancient Arvad, opposite to which lies "the entering in of Hamath" so often mentioned in the Bible, the boundary of the Land of Promise, though never of that really possessed by the Israelites. The weather was very fine, but extremely hot, all the time we were on the water. The first day we were in Beirut the sirocco was blowing a hot, enervating wind. Beirut looks beautiful, either from the sea or land. It is built along the shore at the foot of Mount Lebanon. We find several American and English missionaries, many of whose schools we have visited and have been much interested in them; also attended some religious meetings. As it is the rainy season, the Friends are not able to get on quite so fast with their work as might otherwise be the case; but they have been warmly received, and their visit seems to be a very opportune one. Our party are all in usual health. The dear Friends think their health is improved, decidedly so, since they left America. Thine sincerely, ELLEN CLARE MILLER. Another letter from Ellen Clare Miller, from Mount Lebanon in 11th mo., 1867, to the editor of the _Friends' Review_, says: "The last account forwarded to thee of our dear friends E. and S. Jones was brought down to the 12th of this month. The great storms which had prevailed up to that time, severer for the season than had been known for many years, passed away on that day. A remarkably fine rainbow, double and sixty degrees in height, one foot resting on the sea and the other on the base of Lebanon, appeared that evening just before sunset, giving very welcome promise of the return of fine weather. This was very cheering, as the heavy rains had for the time suspended the work of visiting schools, except that of E. B. Thompson, which adjoins M. Mott's house. We are not able yet to give a very clear statistical account of the many schools in Beirut and Lebanon for the education of boys and girls, but there is, indeed, a great work going on through their agency--a work of very widely extended influence. E. B. Thompson has fourteen schools under her influence, some in Beirut, some in the mountains. E. Saleeby, a Syrian, who has spent some time in Scotland and England, and whose efforts are principally supported by subscriptions from the former country, has many more under his care. The American missionaries have stations at Beirut and in several towns in the mountains, and we are at present at a boarding-school for training Syrian girls for teachers, conducted by two young ladies from England, sent out by the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East. They have at present only eighteen girls, on account of their limited means; the school will accommodate thirty, and the education given and the Christian influence extended, here as at other schools which we have seen, are very telling, and are raising the women to a very different position from that which they formerly occupied even among the nominal Christians in the country. The prejudice against their education was very great among all sects, and still exists, from the Mohammedans, who believe that woman has no soul, among the Druses, Maronites, and Catholics, and the somewhat more enlightened Protestants, who are now, through these schools, awaking to the advantage of having their daughters educated. "The people everywhere seem very intelligent, and there seems much openness to receive missionaries from the Society of Friends, whose spiritual teaching is much needed in these parts; and we hope the feet of some may be directed to this Bible land, where the fields are already white unto harvest and the laborers few, and that Friends may see their way to lend funds to carry on this great work of Christian education among the females of the East. There is an innate nobility in them, and a gentleness and warmth of feeling in the women, which, when so developed, produce a fine character. Those who cannot speak English look at us with eyes full of love and interest, and by their expressive gestures convey more than many of our words would do. We became much interested in the girls of E. B. Thompson's principal school, which we frequently visited, Eli Jones taking the Scripture class several times. He found their knowledge of the Bible and their understanding of its truths equal, if not superior, to what we should find in our own schools in America and England. Besides this school, E. and S. J. visited the infant school in connection with it, also three smaller branch schools under E. B. Thompson's direction, and a boys' school conducted by two very superior young men, native teachers, but also under her superintendence. They also went to the Prussian Deaconesses' Institution, where the children receive a good education under Christian influences; then to the school for girls under the care of Dr. Bliss, the American missionary: of this latter a native Syrian and his wife have the immediate superintendence, residing in the house with the boarders. The children everywhere are well instructed in the Bible, and commit a great deal to memory both from the Arabic and English Scriptures. In all the schools the Friends delivered their message, exhorting all to use diligence to advance in their education, that through the instrumentality of her young men and young women Syria may rise among nations, and encouraging them to seek earnestly and prayerfully after a knowledge of Him without knowing whom, with all their learning and knowledge, they cannot be truly great--often kneeling in prayer with the teachers and scholars before leaving the school. They attended also a meeting for the Home Mission Society, where they addressed, through the medium of M. Bosistani, its principal, the college for the education of Syrian young men, as well as the American and E. B. Thompson's school, who were all present. "On Sixth day morning we started for Sook-el-Gharb, a little village twelve miles from Beirut on the side of Lebanon, two thousand feet above the sea, where we intended to remain an hour or two visiting the schools there, and then to continue our journey a little farther to a village which we might make our headquarters while visiting the schools in that neighborhood, it being considered that the mountain-roads would have sufficiently recovered from the effects of the storm to be passable. The wind and the rain had, however, been so much more violent than is usual at this season that the road was much worse than had been expected, the path being in some places washed away by the torrents, which, wearing themselves a rough channel down what had been the road, had thrown up a wall of large loose stones on each side, making the journey in some parts dangerous, and so fatiguing that Sybil Jones was very much exhausted on arriving at Sook, and unable to proceed farther without a rest of two or three days. As much care as possible had been used in getting her up the mountain, riding being the only means of travelling on these steep, rough mountain-roads, with their ascents and descents more precipitous than can be well imagined without being seen; but the shaking and exertion were quite too much for her back, unused to such exercise, and she was confined to bed, suffering much from pain and weakness, until Third day, the 19th, when she was carried in a chair to this place, twenty minutes' ride distant from Sook, by a comparatively level path. The exertion of this so tired her that with great reluctance she had to decide that she must give up the prospect of going farther into the mountains. Eli Jones and A. L. Fox are accordingly visiting the various mountain-schools, while she is remaining at the school in Shumlan. It is a great disappointment and a trial of faith to both the dear Friends that it has thus been ordered so differently from what had been planned; but we cannot but believe that it will be overruled for the best. The ride from Beirut to Sook-el-Gharb is a very interesting one. We halted for some time at a little rude khan at the side of a little stream of clear cold water, where we rested a while under the shade of a fine evergreen oak, and had some refreshments, being offered cakes of the Arab bread, which is very thin and flat and baked of coarse flour, producing the effect of a small sheet of chamois leather; though rather tough, it is sweet and quite edible, and in constant use in this part of the country. They tear off a piece, roll it up, and dip it into their food, instead of using knives and forks; and we were much interested in hearing that it was still the practice in doing honor to another at table to present him with such a piece dipped in the choicest part of the mess, reminding us of our Saviour's gift to Judas. Our view from this village is very fine. We look down on the Mediterranean, ten miles or more distant, but looking in this deceptive atmosphere not more than three or four miles off. Between us and it intervene the terraced sides of Lebanon, laid out in mulberry-gardens or newly sown with wheat. Our stay at Sook, though unintentional, seemed to be in right ordering, for service opened up there. The mistress of the house where we were, E. Saleeby's wife, was dangerously ill, and has since died, and her husband felt the dear Friends' visit one of great comfort and entertained us with much kindness. E. Jones and A. Fox visited the boys' and girls' school there, as well as at Abeih and Bhamdûn, some hours' ride from Sook, E. J. examining the children in Scripture and in other branches, speaking to and praying with them, and distributing English and Arabic books. He also held meetings at Sook and Shumlan in the school-house, attended by the schools and several of the villagers, where the words earnestly spoken were attentively and gladly received. We have heard twice from E. J. and A. L. F. since they left us--good accounts. We were hoping to have seen them back last evening, but they did not appear. We suppose that they must have gone farther than was at first intended." * * * * * The following is a letter from Eli Jones, written to the _Friends' Review_ a few days later than the above letter from E. C. Miller: SYRIA AND PALESTINE. SHUMLAN, 12th, 21st, 1867. My dear Sybil feeling unable to go farther over these almost trackless mountains without time for more rest, it seemed best for her and E. C. Miller to remain at the boarding-school for girls at this place under the care of two English ladies, Lucy Hicks and Mary M. Jacombs, while A. L. Fox and I should proceed in the work. Accordingly, on the 22d of last month we left at eight o'clock in the morning on horseback, attended by an efficient dragoman named Georgius, an interpreter, Ibrahim, and Abdallah and Hassan, muleteers. After a ride of two hours we reached Abeih, and were kindly cared for at the house of Simon Calhoun and wife, American missionaries. He has been many years in this country, and is, we learn, much esteemed by all classes. Our first call was at the school of the Druses. The provost of the school and the teacher of English met us at the gate and gave us a cordial welcome; then led us to an apartment where sweetmeats and coffee in tiny cups, according to the custom of the country, were served. In answer to our question whether the Holy Scriptures were read in the school, the teacher of English assured us that they were read by his class. He is a student from the American school, and will do what he can, I doubt not, in his delicate position to inculcate Christian sentiment among this peculiar people. In the afternoon we visited the boys' and also the girls' school, under the care of the American mission, and were pleased with the advance they have made in their education: we spoke to the children in each school, William Bird interpreting, as he did in the evening, when we met the young men at the Abeih seminary for the education of native teachers. This institution has been in successful operation for the last twenty-five years. Each student is expected to devote from one to two hours each day to the study of the Holy Scriptures. These students may now be met in almost all parts of Syria and in Mesopotamia and Egypt. _Seventh day, 23d._ Rode to Deir-el-Kamr; found lodgings at the school-house, where E. B. Thompson has a small school. After dinner took an hour's ride to Beteddin; called at the palace of Douad Pasha, governor of the pashalic of the Lebanon. The governor was not at home; we were met by some of his subordinate officers, with whom we had interesting discourse. _First day, 24th._ At an early hour we mounted our trusty steeds, and reached Mukhtârah about ten A. M. Riding up to the palace of the great Druse chief, Said Beg Jumplatt, we found the two young princes about to set out on a ride to pass the day with friends in a neighboring town, accompanied by N. Gharzuzee, the tutor of the younger prince, and other officials. They offered us the hospitalities of the house as long as we were disposed, which we accepted, and were soon informed that the princes had given up their anticipated pleasure, saying they preferred to spend the time with us. The elder prince is nearly eighteen years of age, and married; the younger is about thirteen years old, bright and intelligent, and really "the hope of my house." His tutor, N. Gharzuzee, who is a native of Syria, has spent several months in England; he speaks our language well and appears to be an earnest Christian. As Christians we could not fail to feel greatly interested in seeing such a man in so important a position, where he is teaching this young man, destined, so far as we can see, to fill the highest place of influence among this heterodox people--not only sciences and languages, but the pure and unsophisticated doctrines of the Bible. At one P. M. we met the children of the American mission and of E. M. Thompson's schools, with several of the parents. After listening to a very satisfactory examination of the children in the Scriptures, I addressed them, N. Gharzuzee interpreting in an able manner. The meeting was one to which I recur with sincere satisfaction. _25th._ Had our morning reading in Arabic, after which prayer was offered in English, in which strong desires were expressed in the name of Jesus, on behalf of the young princes, for the various members of the household and for Syria. We left after many a cordial shake of the hand and with many a "God bless you!" and "May you return to your own country in peace!" Near one o'clock P. M. we saw in the distance the snow-clad top of Hermon, which we seemed approaching. What thoughts filled our minds--thoughts too big for utterance--as we stood upon "the heights of that goodly mountain Lebanon," and saw the noble cone of Hermon rising majestically toward the meridian sun, while southward near its base lay the division of Naphtali, a portion of the "land of possession," where we hoped to arrive on the following day! "The north and the south, Thou hast created them; Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in Thy name." Passed near a peasant at work with a curious plough drawn by a pair of tiny bullocks. We each took a turn in guiding the plough, and felt a pleasure for the time in occupying a place so often honored by prophets and good men of old in this historic land. About the time of the going down of the sun we reached Jezzin. Weary from the long journey, I lay for a time upon a rug near the fountain while our dragoman went to look for lodgings. During that brief time many a maiden came forth with her pitcher to draw water. What strong evidence this that we are nearing the Bible land! Lodgings were soon announced. On reaching the room intended for our reception we found several members of the family busily engaged in covering the floor with matting, and near the seat of honor a fine carpet was spread. Presently, finding I was weary, a thin mattress--or perhaps, as would be better understood in our country, a thick comfortable--was added as a bed. Here, stretching my weary limbs, I sought needed rest. By the time, however, that we were fairly domiciled a large circle of men came in and engaged in their favorite occupation, smoking. Though the fumes of the pipe have for us no attraction, but rather the contrary, still, finding our neighbors inclined to be social, we strove to make the conversation profitable and if possible edifying. In the course of the evening our kind hostess inquired if we would like water for our feet? On our replying in the affirmative, "a lordly dish" well filled was brought, and we were told all things were ready. Think what must have been our surprise on being told that the young woman standing near had volunteered to wash the strangers' feet! Fearing that our refusal might be misunderstood, we placed them at the disposal of the "little Syrian maid." With what thrilling interest ought we hereafter to read the account of what transpired when He whose blood cleanses from all sin "girded Himself and washed His disciples' feet," saying to them, "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet; for I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done unto you!" The morning of the 26th the priest of the place came in, with whom we had some pleasant intercourse. After breaking our fast we told the family that it was our practice, before proceeding on the journey of the day, to read a portion of Scripture and endeavor to lift up our hearts to God in prayer, and we gave them an invitation to be present. They all remained with us, as did the priest. We need not inquire to what society these people belonged; suffice it to say, they entertained strangers, they washed our feet, they fed the hungry, they bade us go in peace, and refused our money as a recompense. After a ride of two hours we halted at Cafer Huney, a little village on our route, to have our horses' feet examined by a blacksmith and shoes set if needful. While waiting we went to the fountain, where several persons collected. After a time spent in pleasant conversation we spoke to them of the heavenly country and of salvation by Jesus Christ. We left with them copies of our Lord's miracles in Arabic, which they received gladly. One of these rustic villagers, a lame man, offered me his cane as a walking-stick with such hearty good-will, saying he had others at home, that I took it and found it very useful in making the steep descent of Lebanon in the afternoon. Near sunset we reached the foot of the Lebanon range, and then crossed the Litany (named on many maps Leontes) on one of the few bridges to be found in this country. An hour and a half more brought us to the little town of Abbel, toward which we had looked as an Arab village where it might be difficult to find secure and comfortable lodging for the night. Ere we entered all was shrouded in darkness, for the night had set in, but, as it proved, a glad surprise awaited us. In reply to our first inquiry for lodgings we were told that "the American church would be the best place for us to stop at." A little farther on we were accosted by one with whitened locks, who, taking our hands, shook them with both of his with brotherly cordiality, and then with a light led the way to the comfortable house erected within the past year as a place for worship and a school-house by that devoted band of men whose praise is in all the churches in this land--the American missionaries. By the time we had entered several of the brethren had arrived. The house is without seats. Mats were quickly arranged for us; then followed the arrangements for supper. A _canoon_ filled with charcoal with which to heat the water for tea first arrived; then one brought bread, another eggs, a third sugar, and another melons; and _such melons_! worthy the land that produced them. All things being ready, the travellers sit upon the floor about the inviting meal, and while they are busily engaged in satisfying the calls of hunger the company increases; and here our responsibilities widen, for as we have been privileged to partake of their good things for the sustenance of the body, we are in duty bound, as far as may be our power, to meet their spiritual and intellectual wants. I trust this evening, our first in Palestine, was spent to the mutual benefit of all concerned. On the morning of the 27th the school-children and several of the parents came in, to whom we spoke words of encouragement in the pursuit of useful knowledge, and especially that which "maketh wise unto salvation." An hour more brought us to Krhyam, where we met another school. We spoke to them of Him who is the only "Hope of Israel." Again in the saddle, we rode away across the extensive and fertile valley of Marjaiyum. Just before reaching D'Mimas we met William Eddy of New York State, a minister in connection with the American mission. On learning our intentions, he kindly proposed to return to D'Mimas, that he might be with us during our stay; his presence and kind care contributed largely to our comfort. Here we visited another school and met several of the brethren socially. The subject of education, and especially the education of women, was freely discussed. We endeavored to show them that no people can be happy or prosperous while woman holds a degraded position among them, and that it is in vain to look for great men where good and virtuous mothers are not to be found. As we press onward what a view opens before us! One short hour farther we stand upon a rocky knoll near the ancient town of Abel, where Joab claimed Sheba the son of Bichri as a condition of peace. Looking eastward, toward our right are the hills of the ancient Bashan, thickly dotted with oaks, those emblems of strength; toward the left Hermon lifts his head to heaven in solemn and solitary majesty. Not far are the sites where stood Laish, Dan, and Cæsarea Philippi of the Scriptures, which we hope to visit before nightfall, and all around on either hand we have spread out before us one of the great battlefields of the Bible. We spent a short time in the town distributing a few Arabic books, and met with, as far as we could learn, the only school-teacher, who told us he had under his instruction fourteen boys. We tried to give him encouragement in the work, and gave him a copy of the Psalms. Soon after mid-day we reached Tell-el-Kady, "the hill of the judge," the Dan of Scripture. Two things are here worthy of special notice: the fountain of the Jordan and the site of the ancient city of Dan. The Tell is cup-shaped, and bears evidence of being an extinct crater. On an island of rocks in size little more than sufficient to accommodate our party, and beneath the wide-spreading branches of an ancient oak, we took our humble mid-day meal. We had scarcely begun to satisfy our own appetites when a mounted Arab, armed to the teeth, rode up and asked for food, to whom we gladly gave a portion, for, once fed from our store, he becomes an ally, not a foe. Perhaps I ought here to add that on our way to this place from Abel we were accosted by an armed Arab, who demanded "backsheesh" as I rode abreast of him: feeling that we owed him naught but love and good-will, we gave him no money, and were suffered to pass without further molestation. The ruin of the ancient city of Dan is very complete; a few broken walls, fallen stones, and pieces of pottery are all that are left to tell of a people long since passed away. The story of Dan is soon told. Originally an agricultural colony of the Phoenicians, called Lessem or Laish, it was captured by six hundred Danites from the towns of Zorah and Eshtaol. The capture of Laish by the Danites in the north was the fulfilment of Moses's prophetic blessing to the tribe: "Dan is a lion's whelp; he shall leap from Bashan." Deut. xxxiii. 22. Another hour's ride brought us to Banias, standing amid the ruins of the ancient Cæsarea Philippi. The modern village is inhabited by some one hundred persons of the Moslem faith, who live in wretched ignorance and poverty. We lodged at the house of the sheik; a room was assigned us and mats spread. There we stretched our weary limbs, but, as the sequel proved, not so much to sleep as to contemplate upon the fact that we had nearly reached the base of Hermon and the site of Cæsarea Philippi, and upon the record that our Lord, after healing the blind man at Bethsaida, "came into the coast of Cæsarea Philippi"--that not far from this place He made that striking appeal to His disciples: "Whom say ye that I am?" and soon after, taking three of His disciples, "He went up into a mountain, and was transfigured before them." Yes, "I tread where the Twelve in their wayfaring trod, I stand where they stood with the Chosen of God-- Where His message was heard and His lessons were taught, Where the blind were restored and the healing was wrought." The next morning, before leaving, we conversed with a son of the sheik, himself a husband and father, upon the importance of education. He acknowledged his own inability to read, and further said that the children were all needed by their parents to work; and as to woman, her business was to care for the house and meet the wants of men, and if she did not do this well she must be beaten to make her do it. Such is the state of civilization where once stood a great and prosperous city, whose architectural ruins attest the fact that its citizens must have been men of skill and taste. Again in the saddle, we turned our course northward. Near noon we ascended a high elevation, where our dragoman halted and called out, "Look! look!" Facing southward, we looked and saw Hermon on our left standing in majestic greatness, and beyond, far to the south, the waters of the Sea of Galilee. Mid the glare of a noonday sun the little sea seems a molten mass of silvery hue. We have within the scope of our vision a mountain whose name is accepted as a word of beauty, a valley of great natural fertility, and the arena of mighty deeds done by men whose record is found in the "Book of books," and whose God is the Lord. Here young Jordan springs into life and links its destiny with the waters of Merom, and onward the eye stretches to that now placid sheet where in a dark and stormy night the chosen band were troubled, and where a compassionate Saviour allayed their fears. We dined at Rasheiyet,[8] at the house of a native Protestant minister, where we were kindly entertained. He accompanied us to the school of the American mission. We were pleased with what we saw, more especially with the students' knowledge of scriptural history. Several hours more brought us to Hasbeiya; we lodged at the school-house and had our mats spread upon the seats, thus extemporizing a bedstead. Next morning about twenty of the girls came in to meet us, and also two of the female teachers. We spoke of the way of life and salvation, with such words of encouragement as we found in our hearts. A ride of several hours brought us to Rasheyyá el-Wady. We lodged at the house of one Moses, the first person of the place who embraced Protestant views. [8] In tracing out the course of these travels I have used the spelling given in Bradley's _Atlas of the World_. Next day, 1st of 12th mo., held a meeting at the school-house. I felt strengthened, as I trust, to preach "Christ, and Him crucified," as the only way of life and salvation. On the following day at an early hour we passed out of the town by the light of a lantern. At half-past one P. M. we began to ascend Lebanon. At one place near the top we found our path literally strewed with fossils (bivalves); some of these we collected to take home with us. After a journey of nearly fifteen hours we reached Shumlan, our mountain-home, and were glad to find our companions in comfortable health, and I trust a feeling of thankfulness was felt to our heavenly Father for His protecting care so mercifully granted during our separation. Very sincerely, thy friend, ELI JONES. We give below some extracts from letters written to the _Friends' Review_ by Ellen Clare Miller, giving a definite account of the number and working of the schools in Beirut and Lebanon for the education of the young sons and daughters of Syria. E. and S. Jones have visited the greater number of them, and found many different kinds of laborers--Americans, English, Scotch, and Syrian--all doing a good work for the land: "Most of those among the natives who are true Christians, and who are exerting a good influence upon the people here, refer gratefully to the American missionaries as those who were instrumental in bringing them to the truth. The American mission has stations at many places among the mountains, most of which have been visited by Eli Jones and A. L. Fox; and besides those in the north of Syria, which we shall not see, they have three in Sidon and its neighborhood under the care of W. Eddy, which we hope soon to visit. The Syrian Protestant college of which Dr. Bliss is president is an institution where Druses, Maronites, Greeks, Armenians, and Protestants together receive a literary, scientific, and medical training under Protestant influence. E. and S. Jones visited this college last week, when they met twenty-eight of the young men, whom they were invited to address. Eli Jones set before them clearly and forcibly the great power of individual influence possessed by each student, the influence their institution must exert on the land, the measure it was of the power of the country, as no stream can rise higher than its source, and as the fountain is the stream will be. Sybil Jones, as an American mother who knew much of such institutions in her own land, affectionately urged them to work perseveringly and prayerfully in their studies, that each one might leave the world better for his having been in it. It was a very interesting visit; the young men, a fine, intellectual-looking company, listened with great attention, and afterward gathered round the Friends to express their thanks for their kind interest in them. "There is a large girls' school in Beirut, under the immediate care of a Syrian and his wife, but superintended by the wife of Dr. Bliss, Dr. Thompson's wife, and other ladies. This we have visited more than once, when E. and S. Jones have spoken to the children." "Besides the school at Shumlan, which is under the care of the English Society for Promoting Female Education in the East, the schools supported by England are all in the hands of Elizabeth Bowen Thompson, whose work is a very extensive one. Her schools are at present twelve in number--five at villages in the mountains--all (with the exception of one recently opened at Ainzabatté, where an English young lady is stationed) taught by natives who have been trained by E. B. Thompson herself. Her work here began in 1860, when the fearful struggle between the Druses, Maronites, and Mohammedans made so many widows and orphans. These Elizabeth Thompson gathered around her at Beirut, providing for and educating them. Since then the field has gradually opened before her, until she has now seven day-schools in Beirut and its immediate neighborhood, and a normal training-school of upward of sixty boarders. All of these E. and S. J. have visited, many of them frequently." "There are many daughters of Jews and Mohammedans among E. B. Thompson's scholars, and it is very interesting to hear these little girls singing Christian hymns with the others and repeating and listening to passages predicting the coming of the Messiah alike of the Jew and the Christian, and testifying of Jesus as the Christ. E. and S. Jones had a very interesting meeting with about forty of the native teachers and others connected with these British schools. There is a large girls' school, with an orphanage, under the care of the Prussian deaconesses, similar to the one we visited at Smyrna. Here Sybil Jones had an interesting time with the sisters and the children. She also visited the hospital, an establishment in beautiful order, under the care of four of the sisterhood, where, in a large house finely situated near the seashore, the very poor are kindly nursed and cared for. A school for Jewish children, conducted by missionaries sent out by the Jews' society in Scotland, has lately been established in Beirut. To this also the Friends paid a visit, which was spoken of by teachers as very helpful." "We left the terraced sides of Lebanon on the last day of the year, returning to the region of the palm, orange, and prickly pear. The weather has this month been very fine, though broken now and then by one of the fierce, sudden winter storms with their rushing rain and violent thunder and lightning. This wild climate suits Sybil Jones remarkably well; she has been better since returning to Beirut than she remembers to have been before, and she enjoys the riding on donkey-back. Eli Jones is better than when we first landed in Syria, though the bracing air of the mountains suits him better than this more relaxing temperature. We have visited most of the missionaries. Friends and their principles were almost unknown here, but we have been most kindly received, and we hope way has been made for others of our Society who may come to this country. E. and S. Jones one day visited the Beirut prison, into which they were admitted without hesitation, and where they had the pleasure of speaking to about forty poor creatures, and of pointing them to Him who alone has power to break our spiritual fetters." * * * * * Below we give extracts from a letter of Eli Jones to the _Friends' Review_, written from Jaffa in Palestine: "_2d mo. 17th, 1868._ E. C. Miller's health appearing not quite equal to a long journey, and finding it not possible to obtain more than three seats in the diligence for Damascus on the 25th of 1st mo., it was arranged that our young friend should 'stay by the stuff' in Beirut while the other members of our party went forward. Accordingly, at the early hour of two o'clock A. M. we arose, breakfasted at half-past two, and at three took conveyance for the station, and at four precisely, with shawls, wraps, sandwiches, etc., were nicely packed in the coupée of the diligence." "Our ride increased in interest as the young day grew upon us, and by the time the sun had thrown his full blaze of light athwart the western slope of Lebanon the objects seen through the transparent atmosphere of this land presented a most delightful view. Our course was sufficiently tortuous to enable us at times to look down upon Beirut and its surrounding olive- and mulberry-orchards, stately palms, and suburban villages, while beyond lay the Great Sea, dotted here and there with the sail of many a merchant-ship, and then again Sunnin, the highest western point of Lebanon, snow-capped, stood majestically before us clad in the changing hues of early morning." "Reached the summit near ten, and after another hour's ride of almost flying speed we looked down upon the great valley of Buka'a or Coele-Syria, bounded on the east by the Anti-Lebanon, clothed in its snowy vesture, while far to our right Hermon, the imperial monarch of Syrian mountains, was seen, in its appearance fully justifying the appellation sometimes applied to it--that of a silver breastplate." "Just as the darkness of night shut out from our view the fertile valley in which Damascus stood, our last relay of animals was attached to the carriage, consisting of six white horses; and fine specimens they were. A little farther on our attention was arrested by the sound of water on our right, and we were told that it was the Barada River, the Abana of Scripture. 'Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?' The remainder of our journey lay along the fertile valley of this ancient river. It may, with the strictest propriety, be termed a 'river of Damascus,' as it divides the city into two parts and furnishes a liberal supply of water to many of its inhabitants. We found comfortable quarters at the Dimitris' hotel. The proprietor, a Greek, speaks broken English and strives to make the stay of his guests as agreeable as circumstances will admit. "_26th._ Sent our certificates to the missionaries for their perusal. At 12 M. attended the prayer-meeting of the few persons here who speak English. After some singing and prayers, and a rather long theological discussion, liberty was given to others to speak. My dear Sybil availed herself of the opportunity to express the feelings which lay with weight upon her heart. This was done briefly, when she knelt in earnest supplication on behalf of those present and for the spread of the glorious gospel of God our Saviour." "The next day visited two of the schools under the care of the missionaries; strove to encourage teachers and pupils to act well their part. Then went to the home of one of the Bible-women employed by E. B. Thompson to go from house to house and teach such women as desire to read the Bible." "During our stay in the city we had frequently at our morning readings of the Holy Scriptures the company of the Bible-women and a few others, when our hearts were made glad in the Lord."... "A few weeks previous to the abdication of Louis Philippe the French obtained a foothold in Algeria, after a lengthened struggle of fifteen years or more, when Abdel-Kader, the sultan of the Arabs and one of the most remarkable men of his nation, was induced to surrender to the power of the French, on the condition that he might be allowed to retire to a Mohammedan country as a stipendiary exile."... "He is a follower of Mohammed, the founder of Islamism, and has shown his devotion to the teachings of the Koran by a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina and by a lifelong adherence to the religion of his fathers. In 1860 thousands of Christians in the Lebanon and in Damascus were massacred in cold blood, instigated by the deadly hate of the followers of the false Prophet, while hundreds of others, men, women, and children, fled from their pursuers and took refuge in the house and about the premises of Abdel-Kader, who in the exercise of the influence his position gives him, and from the promptings of a kind heart, aided by his trusty followers, shielded the helpless ones from the fury and fanaticism of his co-religionists. Once the mob approached his house and demanded with frantic yells that the Christians within it should be delivered up to them. He, accompanied by a strong body of his followers, went out to confront the yelling crowd. 'Wretches!' he exclaimed, 'is this the way you honor your prophet? May his curse be upon you! Shame on you! shame! You will yet live to repent. You think you may do as you like with the Christians, but the day of retribution will come. The Franks will yet come and turn your mosques into churches. Not a Christian will I give up. _They are my brothers._' The mob withdrew."... "Abdel-Kader[9] was at length enabled to repose. He had rescued _fifteen thousand souls_ belonging to the Eastern churches from death, and worse than death, by his fearless courage, his unwearied activity, and his catholic-minded zeal. All the representatives of the Christian powers then residing at Damascus, without one single exception, had owed their lives to him. Strange and unparalleled destiny! An Arab had thrown his guardian ægis over the outraged majesty of Europe. A descendant of the Prophet had sheltered and protected the (professed) Spouse of Christ. The day previous to our leaving Damascus it seemed right to seek an interview with this noble exile, and from a full heart, in my own name and in behalf of my country and fellow-professors, thank him for his kind and humane interposition, by which, under Providence, so many fellow-beings were rescued from an untimely and a cruel death. Passing up the street upon which the house of the great chief stands, and having Abou Ibrahim for a guide (who, by the way, claims descent from Aaron), we observed Abdel-Kader enter the gateway just before we reached it, where he was standing when we arrived. Our guide having addressed him, he kindly noticed A. L. Fox and myself, and, cordially beckoning us to follow him, led us to a simple reception-room, where, being seated, we had an opportunity of saying what lay nearest to our hearts, and enjoyed the pleasure of feeling that it was kindly taken.[10] While in Damascus we were in the 'street called Straight,' and visited the place indicated by tradition as the house of Judas, where the blind Saul of Tarsus lodged. We were shown the house of Ananias, who was sent to cure the penitent of his blindness, and the place in the wall where the disciples took him by night and let him down in a basket. I am not surprised that the Christian traveller feels some misgivings as to the identity of these places when he remembers that the evidence is mainly traditional. There is, however, scarcely room to doubt that the modern city occupies the site of the Damascus of Scripture, and that the 'street called Straight' is the identical one entered by Saul on that memorable day that gave to the Gentile world a great apostle and to the Christian Church one of its brightest luminaries."... "The conversion of Paul was one of the most momentous events of Scripture history. The fiery zeal of Saul the persecutor was not extinguished--it was sanctified."... [9] From _Life of Abdel-Kader_, by Col. Churchill. [10] Eli Jones spoke his mission in English. Alfred Fox translated it into German, and the Jew gave it to the Arab sultan in his own language. Through the medium of three of the world's great languages the representatives of these three great religions expressed their thoughts to each other, and the burden of the thoughts was love and gratitude. The message being given, refreshments were put before the strangers, and then Abdel-Kader withdrew as a courtesy, so that these visitors might not be constrained to go out backward from his presence--an honor due to him as sultan. "Paul the missionary retained all his former energy, boldness, and determination. In Damascus he first preached 'Christ crucified;' then he went into Arabia, then to Antioch, then through Asia Minor; then he passed the Hellespont to Greece; and then he went a prisoner to Rome, where he preached the gospel though chained to a heathen soldier. The apostle Paul occupies the first place among the New-Testament worthies."... "Damascus is as old as history itself. It has survived generations of cities that have risen up in succession around it and have passed away. While they all lie in ruins, Damascus retains the freshness and vigor of youth."... "Outside of the eastern gate of the city is a leper hospital, which to this day is supposed by the inhabitants to occupy the site of Naaman's house."... "There are in the city about thirty thousand Christians, ten thousand Jews, one hundred thousand Mohammedans, and of Protestant Christians less than one hundred, all counted." "On the 31st of the month we returned to Beirut by diligence. During our stay of five days at Damascus snow had fallen upon the mountains, but not so as materially to retard our progress until we had nearly reached the summit of Lebanon, when, being furnished with a train of twelve animals and four outriders, aided by a strong force of men, we proceeded without much detention, arriving at our comfortable quarters in good time."... "We anticipate leaving in a few days for Jerusalem, should the weather permit and the health of our party prove equal to the effort."... "With love to all who love the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, "ELI JONES." The following are extracts from a letter from Ellen Clare Miller, written a few days after the return of Eli Jones and A. L. Fox from Damascus: "Eli Jones had a meeting at Beirut with some of the young Syrian men of the town, which, though it was a stormy night, was well attended and an interesting time. On First day, the 9th, he had a very good meeting in a suburb of the town at the house of one of the principal men in the neighborhood."... "It was a very interesting group, upward of one hundred being present, some of the turbaned old men leaning forward on their staves with their eyes fixed on Eli Jones while, after the reading of the twelfth of Ecclesiastes from the Arabic Bible, he addressed them through the aid of our kind interpreter, Maalim Saleem, seeking to bring all before him, old and young, to enter into the service of Him whom he had from his youth proved to be a good Master." "On the 7th, Sybil Jones had a meeting with the women connected with E. M. Thompson's school, at which she spoke to them for about an hour of our need of a Saviour."... "Many of these women have learned to read, and they are very anxious that a school should be opened for them where they may be taught to read and sew by a native teacher." ... "She visited also some of the poor women at their own homes and the Bible-women employed by E. M. Thompson, all of whom seemed very ready to receive a visit from one having their best interests at heart, and to listen gladly to the word spoken."... "On Second day evening a meeting was held by Eli and Sybil Jones with the Arabic-speaking congregation at Beirut, who readily responded to the invitation to meet them. Eli Jones addressed them from the words, 'The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.'"... "Sybil Jones followed, urging the necessity of a heart-changing repentance."... "Sybil Jones paid interesting visits to some of the harems at Beirut, the first time we had been inside any of those 'gilded cages,' where the poor women, without the resource of books, for they cannot read, or of work, for they cannot sew, talk, sleep, dream, and smoke life away, without the variety of walking out, for they cannot be trusted abroad, and unable to look out into the world except through a lattice. We went under the care of E. M. Thompson, who obtains ready access." ... "We were driven as near the first house as the carriage could be taken, but on alighting had to ascend a steep, rough, narrow road, crossing a watercourse here and there, then a branch road of steps, then another torrent-path. The roads of ill-governed Syria are deplorable indeed. At last we reached the door of a large but unpretending-looking house, or rather group of houses, for one opened out of another. Here lived four families, related to each other, of the first rank in Beirut, the grandmothers, the wives of the house, girls, and children, in the flowing dress of the East, sitting on the floor by the ashes of the braziers or crouching on the divan, all but the youngest smoking the unfailing nargileh with its long flexible tube. They received us most cordially and affectionately, and seated us by their sides, and through the medium of one of E. M. Thompson's native teachers Sybil Jones spoke to them, and also E. M. Thompson; but it was very difficult to secure the attention of the company for any length of time; they could not refrain from laughing and chatting together. Poor creatures! some of them looked almost devoid of intellect with the long pipe-tubes in their mouths; others were very pretty and seemed quite to appreciate the loss they sustained by being uneducated. Some of the highest Mohammedan families are very anxious that E. M. Thompson should open a school for their elder girls, where they would send them if no man was allowed to look upon them. The desire for education is waking up among them in a remarkable manner." ... "The ladies are all waited upon by dark, white-teethed African female slaves in scanty clothing. Sherbet, coffee, and sweetmeats were handed round, and it is an insult to decline partaking, however many houses we may have visited." ... "Poor creatures! we could not but desire that the true light might enter their dwellings and shine into their hearts." "We sailed from Beirut on the 12th, and came down the coast in the night, passing in the darkness Sidon, Tyre, Mount Carmel, and Cæsarea. After a rather stormy passage we anchored next morning before Jaffa, which rises up from the sea on a round hill, at each side of which is a sandy bay."... "It is difficult by description to give much idea of Jaffa with its steep, narrow, dirty, and muddy lanes, and street-stairs which climb up the hill among the old, dilapidated houses crowded irregularly together."... "Jaffa is very ancient, and, notwithstanding its extreme dirtiness, an interesting place."... "The most interesting place to visit in the town itself is the supposed--and, indeed, well-authenticated--site of the house of Simon the tanner, which stands by the sea-side, rising up above the town-wall. The building now standing is not supposed to be the very one in which Peter lodged, but to have been built on the spot where it stood. In the courtyard is a very ancient well which helps to identify the place, and beside it is a large stone trough of undoubted antiquity, probably used to soak hides in, and partly covered by a large flat stone like a currier's table." "There is mission-work going on at Jaffa; P. Metzler, a German educated at the Basle institution, carries on a mill, with part of the profits of which he supports a girls' day-school."... "Eli Jones with A. L. Fox visited this school the other day, when he spoke to and examined the children, with whose intelligence and answers he was much pleased." "While the Friends were in Damascus I was present at a native wedding, where the honored guests were each furnished with a taper to hold; which had a great interest as a remnant of the going forth with lamps to meet the bridegroom alluded to in the parable of the Ten Virgins. New light too has been thrown on the expression 'heaping coals of fire on his head' by finding that it is customary for the baker when he clears his oven at night to give away the living embers to those who will accept the kindness; and we have met persons in the evening carrying these coals away on their heads in large open braziers. It is remarkable how little the customs of the people have changed within the last two or three thousand years." * * * * * After the above letter was written the Friends went from Jaffa to Jerusalem, thence to Marseilles, having held many meetings and interviews with teachers and scholars in the schools, which are doing a great work toward causing the light of day to dawn upon unfortunate Syria. The following extracts from a letter written by Eli Jones to the _Friends' Review_ from London will state clearly the reasons for their leaving Palestine sooner than was expected: "We are again in this great city, and comfortably quartered at the house of our very kind friends Stafford and Hannah S. Allen, where we are seeking rest and a renewal of strength for further service for our good Master. For more than two months past my dear Sybil has been suffering from an attack of disease, leaving her at times very weak; consequently, we were unable to accomplish fully what we had in view in the Orient, leaving several places in Palestine and in Egypt that we might hasten the time of embarkation at Alexandria in order to bear our invalid to a more favorable climate, as the only thing likely to facilitate a cure. The voyage, with the use of remedies prescribed by the physician on shipboard, arrested the disorder for a time, and we hoped the cure might prove permanent; but the journey by train from Marseilles to Nismes proved too much for the strength of our charge, and the disorder rallied with fresh force and continued for some time, but again yielded to skilful treatment and nursing by our dear friend Lydia Majolier, whose kindness and sympathy, with those of our much-loved friends in the south of France, greatly cheered all our party. Near noon of the 8th we took the train for Paris, and thence to London by way of Boulogne, where we arrived after a journey of thirty-three hours' continuance. Dear S. bore the journey admirably, and we now entertain the hope that a few days of quiet and rest may be of great use, so that we may be able to proceed to Dublin in season for the yearly meeting. Our long sojourn in the East has not been without its trials. Sometimes they seemed to us peculiar, and when we attempted to look into the future it seemed doubtful if not dark. Still, that kind Hand always stretched out to save has gently led the way and shielded us from harm. Blessed be the name of the Lord!"... "A. L. Fox left us last evening for his home, where we now fancy him in the society of wife and child, father and mother, brothers and sisters, to whom he is tenderly attached and by whom he is greatly beloved. Dear E. C. Miller intends to remain until Second or Third day of next week before she leaves to join the home-circle, by whom she will receive a warm welcome, but saddened by the thought that one dear sister waits not on earth to welcome the coming one, but in another and higher scene of existence." CHAPTER XIV. _SECOND VISIT TO THE HOLY LAND._ The cause for which the two Friends came to England before fully accomplishing their work in Syria was the extreme feebleness of Sybil Jones. A change and partial rest seemed imperative. They soon began to labor in Cornwall, and they were gratified to find "Quakerism still vital" in this place where George Fox had sowed the seed exactly two centuries before. Considerable time was spent and much edifying work done at Falmouth, where they were pleased to find so many Friends of high literary and scientific attainments. The small meetings of the neighboring villages received new life from the earnest words and encouraging advice of the travellers. One of their letters describes the visit to a meeting at Come-to-Good in the parish of Kea: "Here is a meeting-house belonging to Friends built more than two hundred years ago. It has a most primitive appearance. The walls are of stone, the abutments of the same material; the roof is thatched with straw. It is in a rural and retired spot. Only one Friend, and he of more than fourscore years, resides in the neighborhood; but the many grassy mounds that press about the door tell of generations that have passed away. The meeting here was one of great interest, and one to which we recur with unfeigned pleasure. He who, we doubt not, has from time to time met his servants here and at that altar of 'unhewn stones,' was now present to bless the waiting ones. In this humble structure George Fox proclaimed the good news with his wonted zeal and with all the energy of a reformer." In the same letter Eli Jones writes with great feeling: "A little farther on we reach the Land's End. Here it stands, a bold promontory, with granite fingers pointing toward the New World. As I climb these mighty bulwarks that have successfully defied the power of Old Ocean through every change of time, and look out upon the unstable waters toward the setting sun, what thoughts of kindred and country fill my breast! Lord of life, great Spirit in the centre of all worlds, bless thou them!" For more than two months they dwelt at Plymouth, during which time Sybil Jones gained strength rapidly, although she was in a very critical condition. A Friend from that city writes of their message there: "I believe there are many in this part of the country who will have reason to bless God in eternity for the visit and gospel labors of Eli and Sybil Jones." Members who had never before opened their lips in public bore testimony that they desired to be on the Lord's side. The southern part of England was faithfully travelled over, and the joys of a "life hid with Christ in God" proclaimed to the people, who everywhere received the messengers and the message gladly. The various meetings of Ireland were again attended. A warm reception was given to the American workers, who were already well known there from their previous efforts, and an earnest and loving spirit seemed to pervade many hearts. As this year (1868) was closing, Eli Jones, with a heart full of love to God for his immeasurable blessings, wrote to one of his friends in the land which he so loved: "As we turn to other households and to our country, and to other countries and peoples, we see everywhere evidences of the superintending care of Him in whom we live and move and have our being. And are we not reminded by divers tokens for good that light is advancing? And may we not accept as true the words of the poet: 'Upon the great dial-plate of ages The light advanced no more recedes'? If this be so, let us bind on our armor, and as the newborn year takes its place as the successor of those that are past, and after it shall have done its full measure of service in the long line of years shall give place to others, who we hope may be blessed in their deed and doing far beyond their progenitors. "On the closing day of the last year I stood with my fellow-travellers upon the western slope of Mount Lebanon, and there reviewed the past and looked prayerfully forward to the incoming year--a year whose history will soon be complete. And what a history! and what a work has been accomplished!--work in which millions have been actors. The citizens of the two great English-speaking nations, Great Britain and the United States, have with unprecedented unanimity at their late elections declared in favor of religious liberty and of political equality. In Spain multitudes seem only waiting to claim for themselves and their countrymen these inalienable rights of all men. "Even in Turkey, where the teachings of the Koran and the False Prophet have dominated so long, see we not bright rays of light here and there amid the darkness? I think we do. The Christian woman with her firman from the sultan is diligently instituting schools where the children of the Jew, the Christian, and the Mohammedan are taught _not_ the _Koran_, but the _page_ written by inspiration of God. "If we turn to Madagascar, that far-off island of the sea, we observe much with which to fill a large page in the history of the year just closing. A queen has reached the throne who looks approvingly upon the workers among her pagan subjects, while thousands press about those who tell the good news of salvation by Jesus Christ, and hear them gladly; while Liberia, India, China, and Japan can each furnish a page that shall tell of light advancing and declare to the world that 'God is love' and the 'Father of us all.'" As the winter passed and Sybil Jones felt new strength come from her partial rest in Great Britain, while her husband continually carried on the work, sometimes alone, sometimes with her help, they each began to feel that there was more work to be done in the East, though neither had spoken to the other in regard to it. The 22d of 2d mo., their prospect having become definite, with the full approval of English Friends they once more embarked for Syria. They spent nearly a week in the south of France, revisiting their many friends there and encouraging them all to continue on in their lives of service to the Master. The meetings were very large, sometimes fully five hundred being present, and they found their work done sixteen years before had left a lasting impression. After a delightful voyage over the blue waters of the Mediterranean they came to Alexandria, where there were many opportunities offered for spreading the news of the way of life through the Saviour. Here and at Cairo there were many who gladly listened to the great truths which they were inspired to preach. There, where Napoleon had told his soldiers that forty centuries looked down upon them from the heights of the Pyramids, these missionaries of love labored to point their hearers to the Ancient of Days, whose habitation is from eternity and which standeth sure. The different mission-schools of Northern Egypt were visited and helped in various ways. Of this work Ellen Clare Miller, again their companion, writes: "The visit to Egypt was altogether of remarkable interest, there being, especially among the native Christians at Alexandria, an interesting and open field for the spread of _spiritual Christianity_, and an earnest longing in the minds of some after a closer _acquaintance with the teaching of the Holy Spirit and His appearing in the soul_." The 16th of 4th mo. they came to the end of their journey, and camped outside the city of Jerusalem. At once they began the work of visiting schools and holding little meetings for all who wished to hear the gospel, not only in Jerusalem, but in all the surrounding villages. As these laborers rose before the groups gathered round them on the very spots where the works of our Master were wrought and where his words were spoken, with the scenes of the greatest historic events stretching out before them, a new power seemed to fill them, and their souls were stirred for the salvation and upbuilding of the people of this Holy Land. No class of its inhabitants was neglected; even the lepers were recipients of their message. Eli Jones visited the community of these unfortunate beings, and tried to induce them to come to the hospital prepared for them, telling them also of Him who came into this world to deliver us from even a worse disease than leprosy. A letter from Eli Jones, written from Burkin, will suffice to give the reader an idea of their travels and a description of some of the places visited. Among others he speaks of Ramallah, where the mission-school was begun during their visit there. The letter was written for the _Friends' Review_: "Tented near this little town, the time of day something past 'high noon' and the heat at 94° in the shade, I take the time to jot down a few thoughts, or perhaps I should say facts, for the perusal of my North American correspondents. Since I last wrote thee we have passed through portions of the ancient country of Egypt, have looked with feelings of admiration and wonder upon her pyramids and hieroglyphics, the former standing out to-day in all their primeval strength to tell of the _greatness_, or perhaps more correctly of the _folly_, of their builders, and the latter as we saw them upon the lasting rock apparently as clearly defined as when fresh from the hand of the recorder. "The Nile, emphatically 'the river of Egypt,' still flows onward to the sea, and in its season annually waters the country, giving abundant fertility to the soil, which if cultivated with skill and care would make the adopted country of Joseph again the granary of the world. We had a very pleasant sail upon this wonderful river, embarking near the spot where floated the ark of bulrushes containing the Hebrew child who in the fulness of time became the leader and deliverer of Israel from their long bondage in the land of the Pharaohs. At the time of our visit the river was spanned by a bridge of boats, thrown across by order of the viceroy on the occasion of the marriage of some members of his family: this circumstance gave us a carriage-ride for several miles where otherwise we must have had recourse to donkeys as a mode of conveyance. "A canal has been constructed extending from the Nile near Cairo to Suez upon the Red Sea; these places are also connected by the railroad; much of the way this runs parallel to the canal. On our way to the latter place we followed the iron horse for five or six hours across the desert of sand which must needs be passed, and which is enlivened only by the moving sails upon the canal, the untiring steeds that bore us on, and those tell-tale wires which, as with loving arms, are embracing not only the seas and fertile lands, but also the desert wilds. An highway (Isa. xi. 16) _is_ here, and shall not _this_ desert yet blossom as a rose? To our party the Red Sea was an object of much interest: as we sailed out upon it we beheld at our right the mountains through whose defiles the Lord's people are supposed to have passed on their approach to the water's edge, where, notwithstanding the hot pursuit of their enemies, they were to hear the assuring language: 'Fear ye not; stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you to-day; for the Egyptians which ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever;' and on our left was the gently-sloping strand where they made their exit from their watery way, and where we subsequently landed, some of our party going a little way into the interior to drink of the waters at the 'well of Moses,' which remaineth unto this day. Let the God of Israel be magnified, and let not His wonderful works be forgotten by the children of men. "During our brief stay in this part of Egypt we had occasionally the opportunity of observing the progress of the work upon the projected ship-canal across the Isthmus of Suez. Of its ultimate completion and success its projectors are very sanguine, and it is equally clear that for the attainment of that end great engineering skill has been displayed and a large expenditure of money been made, and such a measure of unfaltering perseverance and of unflagging determination to overcome opposing difficulties brought into requisition as have been manifested in few other enterprises undertaken by man. "On the 6th of the 5th mo. the male members of our party left for Jericho, travelling the very road, we may suppose, upon which the man was journeying who 'fell among thieves, who stripped him of his raiment and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.' We halted near mid-day under the 'shadow of a great rock,' and not far from the spot made ever memorable and dear to the Christian by one of the most beautiful and instructive parables of our blessed Lord--that of the Good Samaritan. "We found the way rough and in some places difficult, yet there are in several places indications that in the centuries past, perhaps in the days of Roman rule, there was a highway here where the chariots of Jehu and Jabin might have 'rolled harmlessly on.' "Our tents we located near the modern Jericho, which is supposed to occupy the site of Gilgal, the camping-ground of the host commanded by Joshua, and where he did 'pitch those twelve stones which they took out of Jordan' in commemoration of their miraculous passage through the waters. Almost immediately upon reaching this place we put ourselves in communication with the people. Found the entire population Moslem, not one of whom can read, and the evidences of moral degradation, especially among some of the females, were remarkable. It should be said, however, that when we spoke to them of matters of the highest moment, and read to them from the sacred volume, the majority listened with some approach to respectful attention. "In the evening the sheik and some twenty or more of the men of the village responded to an invitation to come to our tent: we read a portion of Scripture and spoke to them of the beneficial effects of education upon a people, and of our individual duties to God. Our remarks were ably seconded by Prof. E. C. Mitchell of Alton, Ill., who kindly united with us in striving to stimulate the inhabitants of Jericho in the way of mental and moral improvement. At the close of the interview they assured us that we were the first persons who had ever offered them a helping hand or spoken to them of a better way than the one they were then pursuing, and added that on the next evening they would tell us whether they would accept our offer to give them a school. At an early hour next morning we were on our way to the Dead Sea, where we enjoyed the luxury of a bath in its bitter and buoyant waters; thence we passed on to the Jordan, to the place where thousands of pilgrims come in commemoration of the passage of the pilgrim band from Egypt under the lead of Joshua, and of the baptism of the world's great Deliverer by John, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled. Here we lunched and duplicated our bath in the Dead Sea: found the current of the river strong and rapid, requiring much care to retain one's position. The water is shoal, but of sufficient depth in places to allow of baptism by immersion. "On our return to Jericho the sheik kindly engaged to convene some of the people in the town, where we met fifty or sixty persons, and among the number several females, who brought their long pipes and engaged in smoking as they took their seats upon the ground. Their faces and breasts were sadly tattooed, and on the whole they presented a spectacle not easily matched short of the Western wilds of America. It is, however, but justice to this country to say that during my long stay here I have nowhere else seen its like. The motley company were addressed by Prof. Mitchell and others of our party, and we cherish the hope that this labor will not be in vain in the Lord, but that in due time fruit may appear. Soon after reaching our tents several of the men called to say that they wished a school for their children, and if we would send a teacher they would gladly receive him. I hope the means may be found to support a school at this place. The good influence would extend rapidly to the towns around. "First day, 9th of the month, some of our party at an early hour in the morning were at Bethany, the town of Mary and Martha, where we collected upon the top of a house such persons as we found at liberty, and read the account of the raising to life of Lazarus, as recorded by the evangelist, after which we trust Jesus Christ was preached as the resurrection and the life. "At half-past two P. M. of the 11th we left Jerusalem on our journey northward, and soon after reached the top of Mount Scopus, where on our right we enjoyed a delightful view of the Dead Sea, the valley of the Jordan near its mouth, and beyond the mountains of Moab, and, turning to review the ground travelled over, we had Jerusalem full in view; and perhaps from no other point is the city seen to greater advantage than from this, unless it be from Olivet. Tradition tells us that Titus, the Roman invader, selected the top of Scopus for his camping-ground, from which he could easily observe much that was transpiring in and around the doomed city. "We now leave, probably for the last time, the city dear to Jew and Greek, to Moslem and Christian, and especially dear to us who have found an open door to preach there Christ, and Him crucified. "Some half hour on our way from Scopus we turned aside a little to look upon the village of Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, the home of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah. Resuming our course, we soon reached 'Gibeah of Saul.' The place is indicated by little more than a conical hill, which lay to our right. On our left and more distant, capping a high eminence, Mizpah was seen. Farther on Ramah was reached, the home of the good Samuel, 'and Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went from year to year in circuits to Bethel and Gilgal and Mizpah, and judged Israel in all those places. And his return was to Ramah, for there was his house, and there he judged Israel, and then he built an altar unto the Lord.' "Reaching Ramallah, some three hours from Jerusalem we found our tent in readiness to receive us. The town occupies an elevated position overlooking the distant plain of Sharon. The air was cool and bracing. 12th, visited a boys' school at Ramallah. In the afternoon some of our party visited one at Jifneh, the Gophna of Josephus. 13th, went to Bethel, distant one and a half hours from our encampment. "On approaching this place, so noted in Scripture records, we observed the remains of a cistern 314 feet by 217 feet, constructed of massive stones; the southern side is entire, the other sides are more or less ruined. A portion of the enclosure is now used as a threshing-floor. Here also is a fountain at which the cattle of Abraham often drank in former days, and at which the maidens of Sarah were wont to fill their pitchers as the Arab maidens do still. "The Bethel of to-day is a miserable Moslem village with a low, uneducated population, amongst whom we were unable to find more than one person who could read. He is the one who calls the people to prayers; to him we gave a tract and the Psalms of David in Arabic. "As we spoke to some of the inhabitants of our great Father in heaven, and of our obligations to serve Him, we were answered with little more than a vacant stare and an expressed wish for backsheesh. What a contrast between these followers of the False Prophet and him who is called the 'father of the faithful,' who here spread his tent and here rendered true homage to the great _I Am!_ and how unlike the patriarch Jacob, who here, beneath heaven's broad canopy, slept, as many an Arab now sleeps, on the bare ground with a stone for his pillow! Here he dreamed of the ladder which reached from earth to heaven, and on which the angels were ascending and descending, and on awakening was so impressed with the holiness and majesty of Jehovah that he exclaimed,'How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God.' And here the cheering promise was given him: 'In thee and all thy _seed_ shall all the families of the earth be blessed; and behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest.' "Here Samuel, worthy of double honor, a prophet of God and a judge in Israel, came on his yearly circuit from Gilgal and Mizpah to hold his court and render righteous judgment between brethren; and thitherward turned the steps of Elijah and Elisha while fulfilling their high commission as servants of God. "And here too came the youthful king Josiah, as foretold by the prophet, and brake down the high-places of Jeroboam, and burned down to the ground the grove that grew up on the hill for the worship of Astarte. "On our return from Bethel we held a meeting at Beeroth--now called Bireh--with a few Christians and Moslems. Our interpreter read the fifth chapter of Matthew, after which I drew their attention to the teaching of the gospel, dwelling at some length upon the words, 'Therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.' They listened with marked attention to all that was said. On leaving we were told that a few years since a difficulty arose from a very slight cause between two families in the town, and, spreading to others, the spirit of strife and revenge grew higher and higher till in their murderous fury forty-four persons lost their lives, and since then the spirit of revenge had shown itself in other ways. Only the night before our meeting valuable fig trees had been destroyed from the same cause, and we were told that some of the parties concerned were present and heard our words of exhortation. "Beeroth was one of the four cities of the Gibeonites, whose curious story the name will at once recall. It is also thought to be the halting-place of Joseph and Mary when they found that the child Jesus was not among their friends and kinsfolk of the party. Ramallah, twenty minutes from Beeroth, is professedly a Christian village, occupying a commanding position from which we get a fine view westward down the mountain-sides of Benjamin and Ephraim, and over the broad plain of Sharon to the Mediterranean. "Toward evening we held a meeting at the Protestant school-room in this town. The crowd of men, women, and children became so dense that nearly every one assumed a standing position, and all seemed very eager to see the strangers, and, as I thought, very curious to hear a woman address a public assembly. My S. J., taking her stand upon a bed in a corner of the room, spoke earnestly and at considerable length upon the way of life and salvation, to which many listened with fixed attention. "_14th._ At the request of S. J., a meeting was appointed for females; many responded, and a satisfactory meeting was held. Meantime, the male members of our party called at the Latin convent. Found the monk at its head with a school of eight or ten boys, which he summarily dismissed upon our entering, assigning as a reason that it was time for them to leave, though it was but ten o'clock in the morning. From the answers which he gave to our numerous inquiries we were induced to think that although he and his associates may not do much to enlighten the people around them, yet that as an individual he is really loyal to the Church of which he is a member, and that he considers salvation very unlikely, if not impossible, apart from conformity to its rules and its traditional observances. "In the evening a meeting was held with males only, in which they were exhorted to prepare to meet their God in peace by repentance toward Him and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and also to a faithful performance of their several duties as husbands, fathers, and brothers, that so the position of women may be elevated in this land and her children prepared for a useful career among men. "I am closing this sheet at Beirut, the 12th of 6th mo.; and as the mail closes very soon, I have only time to add that our party are in good health and look to turning their faces homeward in a few days. "Thy loving and sincere friend, "ELI JONES." It will not be possible to give the further details of the faithful efforts of this little party to promote the highest earthly and eternal welfare of the inhabitants of this once highly favored land. They visited all the spots made sacred by the steps of Him whom they followed, but they went not to satisfy their desire of beholding: they bore tidings of joy to the sorrowful. They pursued their journey as far north as Beirut, preaching in every city and village, and leaving in many places money behind them for the advancement of education. Wholly devoted as they were to the service of the Lord, with great love for all the human souls where they went, and power being given them to tell the story of a mighty Deliverer, the fruit of work must have been very abundant. We do not need to count those converted in such work for the Lord, and even if we could we should still be unable to estimate the value of the seed thrown broadcast over the land, which may long lie dormant and finally bud into new grain. On the 22d of 6th mo. Eli and Sybil Jones, with their companions, E. C. Miller, Joseph Pim, Richard Allen, and T. C. Wakefield, sailed from Beirut for the Occident, stopping on their way at Athens, Marseilles, and Geneva, and reaching London the 10th of 7th mo. Soon after their arrival in England the two American Friends embarked for their home. Sybil Jones's work in the Eastern continent was now complete, and she had the great satisfaction of feeling that she had in every particular obeyed the call of Him whom she served. CHAPTER XV. _SYBIL JONES: HER LIFE-WORK AND DEATH._ "For ever blessed be His name who bore Her blood-washed, white-robed spirit on and on, Through dark, deep waters to the radiant shore, Her warfare ended and the victory won. "Her children, underneath her native skies, Rise in the North, the South, the East, the West: In Europe, Asia, Africa they rise, Her sons and daughters, and pronounce her blessed. "Oh for a zeal like hers, to never tire! Oh for a faith like hers, to follow still The cloud by day, by night the glowing fire, That led her on to do her Father's will!" DELPHINA E. MENDENHALL, "_To Sybil Jones._" After the return from the East a few more days were left for Sybil Jones to tell the same story to men and women nearer her own home. Her frail body had carried her to many shores, and had not given way until she was once more among lifelong friends. She had presented Christianity to Mohammedan women "from the standard of equality of sex in social life, religion, and the ministry of the word." She had entered the "gilded cages" of Eastern harems and "borne the gospel with a sister's love to those unhappy inmates--glad tidings which they had never heard until proclaimed by her lips." With no relaxation of fervor, with no diminution of power, she continued to tell those not living in communion with God that "to be carnally-minded is death," and with the earnestness of one saving drowning men from the depths of the sea she stretched forth her hands and raised her touching voice to save them from a still worse death, the wages of their sins. The series of general meetings which Friends had just begun to hold gave her an opportunity to come before large audiences of all denominations, of the different classes. Many who came were unconverted; many more were in a dangerously lukewarm state; others needed strength and comfort. To one and all she proclaimed the great truth that whosoever liveth unto himself dieth, but "whoso hath the Son hath life;" and to the hearts where sorrow and discouragement and doubt dwelt she spoke of a joy for the world, an encouragement "to press toward the mark for the prize," a faith and belief that overcome. Over those long Maine hills, in the balmy air of autumn, fresh from the yellow grain and mellow fruit, or creaking through the snowdrifts of mid-winter, she and her husband, both with the same thought uppermost, rode to sit down on the high seats of those broad-based, low-eaved Friends' meeting-houses, and to rise again and speak messages of healing inspired by the great Physician. She loved to live, for every day gave her one more chance to call to the unhappy to be made happy. She loved to live, because she enjoyed the beautiful things which God brought daily before her eyes in His book written with His own hand. It was, too, a joy to her to be with her family, to be a mother to her dear children, a wife to her wedded fellow-laborer, and a friend to the many who loved her; but while she loved life she knew enough of our God to be assured that when her "bark sank it would be but to another sea," and that what we call death is but going from a chrysalis life to a fulness of knowledge and a fulness of life. No change that merely freed her of what could die and left her wholly immortal could be terrible to her, and so she had never, in all the days of extreme sickness which she had passed, had other thought than that she was being kept from work. To the very last she pleaded with her wonted earnestness: "I beseech you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God," and she loved to quote the hymn which expressed the aspiration of her soul: "Oh, if _one soul_ I've pleaded with Meets me at God's right hand, My heaven will be two heavens In Immanuel's Land." The thought has often been expressed that as the spiritual life of a man or woman grows, develops, and gains complete mastery, the body gradually takes on a new and deeper beauty; a something which had not formerly existed shines out and hallows the face, and somewhat as the setting sun puts over the clouds a glory which throughout all the long sunshiny day had not been seen, so a brighter gleam comes out from a ripened soul, and it becomes more than ever evident that the inhabitant of the clay house had come "trailing clouds of glory from God who is its home." This was decidedly true with her. The tall, erect, queenly person, the large head, high forehead, deep hazel eyes, the smile which so often played upon the lines of her countenance,--all took a new meaning as the "light which never was on sea or land" shone through them, proving that her "citizenship was in heaven" and that she indeed was "a fellow-citizen of the saints." We know not what is beyond our ken for such as she, but we believe that He who created such a wondrous home for the mortal part has otherwhere a proportionally magnificent domain for that which dieth not. A few hours before she died she exclaimed in the words of the martyr Rutherford: "Oh, well it is for ever, Oh, well for evermore, My nest hung in no forest Of all this death-doomed shore." And on the afternoon of the 4th day of 12th month, 1873, she left the life of toil and struggle for the life of reward. Ellen Congdon of Providence wrote in fitting words: "I have taken comfort in the midst of this great bereavement to the Church militant in thinking of the rejoicing and the welcome as her ransomed spirit took its place among the redeemed of all generations. Yet, far, far beyond even this must have been the holy rapture with which she realized the fulfilment of that gracious promise: 'Thine eyes shall behold the King in His beauty, and thou shalt see the land that is very far off.'" The governor of the State showed his appreciation of the departed one in the following extract from a letter to her son Richard: "Had it been possible I should have been present at the funeral services. I remember your mother from my boyhood, and received the news of her death with profound sorrow. She exemplified the true Christian character in a degree rarely equalled in this life; indeed, she has always appeared to me more in the heavenly than the earthly. In her death the Christian religion has lost one of its brightest ornaments and noblest defenders. Yours is the priceless consolation which the gospel and the remembrance of a life so full of noble deeds afford. Any words of mine would be poor and weak, but I cannot forbear conveying to you and your much-esteemed father, whom I have known and honored for many years, my heartiest sympathy. Yours very truly, "SIDNEY PERHAM." Her funeral, held in the Friends' meeting-house, was attended by a large company of friends, relatives, and neighbors. The citizens of the town came in large numbers to look for the last time on the one whom they loved and reverenced. Harriet Jones, Samuel Taylor, Sarah Tobey, and others spoke feelingly. "All hearts were moved," says one who was present, "as our venerable and highly esteemed friend Eli Jones arose, controlling the feelings of a heart filled with sorrow, and revealed what had heretofore been kept by him--viz. the manifestation of divine power that had attended her mission while they travelled in foreign lands; also the blessing following her labors during the past few months in attending some one hundred and forty meetings, principally in her own State, in which she appeared like a reaper gathering the harvest." It is never well for us to speak over-highly of any one or of the service of any one. Power speaks for itself. We spend no breath of praise on the might of Niagara or the majesty of Mont Blanc. God has made them so that they tell us themselves continually of their grandeur. In like manner, the character and work of his human creatures tell to their generation and the following ones their strength and worth without the aid of man's voice. What Sybil Jones did and said has been felt and has made its impression in the world, and no word which now might be spoken could add to what she really accomplished. For sixty-five years she went about doing what she seemed to have been sent to do. She was under no shackles of creed, but she had a faith which anchored her; she built on a foundation which had already been laid, and she wasted none of her energy seeking answers to unnecessary questions. Her whole heart was in her work, and nothing held her back in her desire to go on herself to perfection and to call others thereto. The power of her spiritual discernment was shown in numerous cases where she told minutely the state and feeling of some before her, and she felt out wonderfully the proper course for her to take. She seemed to grow stronger as she engaged in a new field of work, and not unusually she left her bed of sickness to undertake an arduous journey for an absence of one or two years. She went from Ireland to Norway on a couch, and there endured remarkable hardships, but grew stronger as she worked, and was almost daily before the people for the next six months. She had a striking influence over unprincipled and dangerous men, and she never hesitated to go alone among the greatest outcasts. The swearing sailors on the ship for Liberia grew more gentle as they knew her, and she walked fearlessly into the cell of one of the worst prisoners in the United States: he was touched to tears and blessed the day that brought her to him. As a minister she was especially gifted in exhortation and prayer, but she knew the Bible, and she knew experimentally the meaning of its promises and commandments. Her use of language was remarkable: every thought she wished to express was clothed richly, every truth was made clear to her hearers, and no words were wasted. God gave her a voice, not like Milton's, "whose sound was like the sea," but soft as the wind in the trees and strong to reach the farthest seats. There was a music in it which charmed, and a reserved power and volume which she could use when the occasion called for it. The good people in the south of France still say, "She seemed to us like an angel;" which shows how her earnest tones and kind deeds impressed these simple-hearted people, who saw too few that loved to feed the sheep and the lambs. Her active work in the ministry began with her first visit to the provinces. Between that time and her death she went as a herald through her own land; to Liberia, to England, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and France; to Scotland, Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. Few women, if any, before her had been called to so many and so widely separated peoples. By every race and nation she was kindly received, and she was enabled to speak to them boldly and with such power that the lives of those who heard her were noticeably changed. Standing often where woman never stood before to speak, she lovingly urged the multitudes of ignorant, unsaved hearers to come to the Lord for teaching and salvation. The effect of her live words on those who had heard only formal preaching can hardly be described. When in her most earnest attitude, she was calm in her pleading, avoiding all that was sensational and speaking simply to reach the heart. There has never been a more striking instance of reliance on the divine Voice in the soul. There were numerous occasions in her life when not only all her friends, but skilful physicians, concurred in advising her to rest her exhausted body when she felt work immediately before her. In every case she replied, "I have this work to do now; I cannot take another course;" and in no case was she mistaken. Once at least she went from her own home to the train on a couch, but the results of the visit could leave no one in doubt from whence came the command for her to go forth. Like Madame Guyon, it was her unceasing desire to bring her individual will into full harmony with the will of God, and like her she sought earnestly to distinguish minutely between her own impulses and the promptings of the Spirit of God; not unlike Madame Guyon, she knew her place to be where she could work actively among men for their enlightenment. No small part of her work was with soldiers and prisoners. Following the example of Elizabeth Fry, she went where sin had made the deepest stains. Not only did the inmates of wards and cells become gentler as she talked to them, but they regarded this world and the next from a different standpoint when she had finished speaking to them of the one hope which she had come to bring them. As she understood the New Testament, and as she interpreted the whisperings within her, it seemed clear that the disciple of Christ must devote himself or herself to uplifting a larger or smaller portion of the human race, the radius of influence depending on the number of talents received--that each servant's work might be different, but each one must get into an attitude to _find_ his task, and then all must work to produce fruit for the same harvest-home. The following is quoted from Harriet Beecher Stowe in her _Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands_: "C. had been with Joseph Sturge during the afternoon to a meeting of the Friends, and heard a discourse from Sybil Jones, one of the most popular of their female preachers. Sybil Jones is a native of Brunswick, Maine. She and her husband, being both preachers, have travelled extensively in the prosecution of various philanthropic and religious enterprises. "In the evening Joseph Sturge said that she had expressed a desire to see me. Accordingly, I went with him to call upon her, and found her in the family of two aged Friends, surrounded by a circle of the same denomination. She is a woman of great delicacy of appearance, betokening very frail health. I am told that she is most of her time in a state of extreme suffering from neuralgic complaints. There was a mingled expression of enthusiasm and tenderness in her face which was very interesting. She had had, according to the language of her sect, a concern on her mind for me. To my mind there is something peculiarly interesting about the primitive simplicity and frankness with which the members of this body express themselves. She desired to caution me against the temptations of too much flattery and applause, and against the worldliness which might beset me in London. Her manner of addressing me was like that of one who is commissioned with a message which must be spoken with plainness and sincerity. After this the whole circle knelt, and she offered prayer. I was somewhat painfully impressed with her evident fragility of body compared with the enthusiastic workings of her mind. In the course of the conversation she inquired if I was going to Ireland. I told her yes, that was my intention. She begged that I would visit the western coast, adding, with great feeling, '_It was the miseries which I saw there which have brought my health to the state it is in._' "She had travelled extensively in the Southern States, and had in private conversation been able very fully to bear witness against slavery, and had never been heard with unkindness. The whole incident afforded me matter for reflection. The calling of women to distinct religious vocations, it appears to me, was a part of primitive Christianity; has been one of the most efficient elements of power in the Romish Church; obtained among the Methodists in England; and has in all these cases been productive of great good. The deaconesses whom the apostle mentioned with honor in his epistle, Madame Guyon in the Romish Church, Mrs. Fletcher, Elizabeth Fry, are instances to show how much may be done for mankind by women _who feel themselves impelled to a special religious vocation_. The example of the Quakers is a sufficient proof that acting upon this idea does not produce discord and domestic disorder. No people are more remarkable for quietness and propriety of deportment and for household order and domestic excellence. By the admission of this liberty the world is now and then gifted with a woman like Elizabeth Fry, while the family state loses none of its security and sacredness. No one in our day charges the ladies of the Quaker sect with boldness or indecorum, and they have demonstrated that even public teaching, when performed under the influence of an overpowering devotional spirit, does not interfere with feminine propriety and modesty. The fact is, that the number of women to whom this vocation is given will always be comparatively few: they are, and generally will be, the exceptions, and the majority of the religious world, ancient and modern, has decided that these exceptions are to be treated with reverence." John G. Whittier writes in his poem, the "Meeting:" "Welcome the silence all unbroken, Nor less the words of fitness spoken-- Such golden words as hers for whom Our autumn flowers have just made room, * * * * * Or haply hers whose pilgrim tread Is in the paths where Jesus led; Who dreams her childhood's Sabbath dream By Jordan's willow-shaded stream, And of the hymns or hope and faith Sung by the monks of Nazareth Hears pious echoes in the call To prayer from Moslem minarets fall, Repeating where His works were wrought The lessons that her Master taught-- Of whom an elder Sibyl gave The prophecies of Cumæ's cave." In conclusion, it will be proper to insert the following brief sketch from one who knew her most intimately: "Naturally extremely timid, when duty called her fearlessness was wonderful. With nerves so sensitive that the closing of a door would often startle her, in God's service she looked calmly upon death and danger in every form. Though much and acceptably before the public, the truly feminine graces ever stood forth prominently in her character. With her own hands she often performed the duties of her household, always entertaining much company, not only from neighboring States, but from foreign lands; guided to manhood and womanhood five children, and soothed the last hours of many of her kindred. With a bodily frame very much enfeebled by a complication of diseases, she was constantly being reminded of the uncertainty of her life, and ever lived nearer to heaven than earth. Her mind was frequently absent, and when called back it was found to have wandered after some poor soul who had not yet received the 'good news' which her life was consecrated to publish. So little did she notice the landmarks of this earthly journey that the writer of this can affirm that scenes and places through which she had passed a score of times were ever new and unfamiliar to her absent gaze. When engaged in missionary labors her faith that God would care for her and hers was deep and constant. God's commands were her sole guide of her life; when these reached her she prepared to obey them without a thought of the means. Her invariable remark was, 'I am the King's daughter: the gold and silver are mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.' Before her faith-inspired energy every difficulty vanished. She left the aged and enfeebled mother or the babe at her breast, committing them to the Master in child-like trust. Through all she clung with the relentless grasp of an abiding faith to the promises of her prayer-answering God, and if ever a cloud came over her way she remained on her knees until she saw its 'silver lining.' It may, then, with truth be said of this woman that her leading aim on earth was the winning of souls to Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the staff on which she leaned the faith of Abraham, and prayer her 'vital breath.'" * * * * * There are a few extracts from some of the letters written by Sybil Jones very near the end of her life which will be read with interest, since they set forth the progress of the active religious work which Friends in New England were just beginning at that time, and also give expression to her faith in regard to such work with reference to the necessity of an abiding defence against everything which might hinder permanent blessing. She writes, 1st mo. 31, 1870, to her dear friend S. T.: "I agree with thee that a revival is greatly needed, and that one is really begun and is prospering is cause for grateful songs of thanksgiving and praise to Him who causeth the outgoings of this brighter dawning to rejoice. Let our united prayers go up to the 'throne of God and the Lamb' that upon all the glory there may be a defence. That this glorious visitation will have its temptations we must know, for whenever the Spirit of Christ begins to work for the salvation of souls through the blood of the Lamb, Satan presents himself to defeat by various stratagems, if possible, the blessed work. My faith is, however, that the Most High will protect his own children and his own work, and cause it to prosper and spread abundantly. The bow of promises spans the whole. There is a great awakening in these parts; many old sinners are turning to the Lord and speaking of His great love. Young people too are bringing their early offerings to Him, for which my heart rejoices greatly." _9th, 22d, 1873._ She writes from Oak Grove Seminary in Maine: "My dearest S., I am still here, and have been so ill I thought I might not see my dear sister any more below or reach my dear little home, my earthly tent; but my gracious Lord has led me up from 'the crossing' again thus far, and I rejoice in His will, whatever it may be. I have reached this place on my way home, and hope to be able to go in a few days if the Lord will. "Thou may have heard of the wonderful outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the general meeting in Winthrop. I attended only one session, but I never was more happy. Peace and glory reigned around while poor sinners were coming to Jesus. The gospel full and free and in apostolic simplicity was preached, and great was the company of those who heard it and were moved by its power through the Spirit. "I cannot tell thee much now. I was laid aside with _my Beloved_, and oh the richness and fulness of His love to His weak child! I seemed to enjoy all that was passing in that wonderful tent where three thousand were present on First day. Many from city and country said they never heard such a powerful gospel message before. People are calling in every direction for the Friends to come and hold meetings. Let us be instant in prayer, ready to do our part in the vineyard of the Lord." _4th mo. 20, 1873._ Not many months before her own departure she writes of her mother's death in a letter to S. T., headed "Travellers' Home:" "I have been watching a sweet loving mother to the banks of the stream where all of my own family save my lonely self had passed before. I felt sure she would see the beautiful summer-time on earth no more; of this she too was aware, and made all needful arrangements for the event to her desirable. She appeared more and more angelic in expression and features as the time drew near to leave us. Her prayers and exhortations at the family altar were offered in great self-abasement, but wonderfully beautiful and fervent. The last night was a glorious time to her: though in great suffering, her face appeared so youthful and fair, beaming with such serenity, that all could bear witness to her victory through the blood of the Lamb. Her last sentence only will I mention. Near the close she exclaimed with both cold hands uplifted: 'Glory! glory! glory! I see the angels!' after this only the word 'glory,' faintly uttered could be heard." The last public religious service of this dear Friend was at Windham, Maine, during a general meeting held there. Of this last visit a Friend who was present writes: "First day evening, 11th mo. 3d, 1873, to a crowded house she preached for half an hour from the text, 'If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.' As the meeting was to close, she stood and most impressively repeated a farewell hymn, dwelling upon the lines, 'Farewell, poor sinner.' Pausing, she three times repeated these lines. None of us ever listened to a voice of such melody: it is indescribable--so solemn the message, so full of entreaty the tone. "Her husband attended meeting at Deering on Fourth day following, but she remained in the house. Her messages to individuals in our neighborhood are treasured as coming from one so near the border as to be freighted with heavenly sanctity. "From report of quarterly meeting committee I quote: 'We cannot close this report and do justice to appointment and the precious memory of Sybil Jones (since gone to the eternal rest) without referring to her attendance at the general meeting in company with her husband. It was a great blessing to us to be recipients of this closing labor of her peculiarly devoted life. Many can bear witness to the heavenly expression of her countenance, her calmness, earnestness, yet tenderness of spirit, and the unusual unction which attended her ministrations as she pleaded _with_ and _for_ the erring and labored to restore the waste places of our Zion." CHAPTER XVI. _ALONE AT HOME._ "Nor blame I Death because he bare The use of virtue out of earth: I know translated human worth Will bloom to profit otherwhere."--_In Memoriam._ It need not be told, and it could not, how the loss of his wife affected Eli Jones, already venerable with age. Those only who have borne a like sorrow know the depth of the wound. The strength of his character and the weight of his love were never shown more fully than in the first years of his widowed life. War had taken his first-born, his sons were at their work in the world, his eldest daughter was married, and the youngest daughter alone was still with him. Though sixty-six years of age, he was yet strong, and knew that much more work was before him if his life should be spared. There was no time given him to rest. Not his to question the ways of Providence, but to work while the day lasted. He could turn his face to no field where he was not reminded of her who had diligently stood by his side, and his loneliness gave a new power to his words. As Tennyson of his departed friend, he could say: "Far off thou art, but ever nigh; I have thee still, and I rejoice; I prosper circled by thy voice; I shall not lose thee though I die." For the first few years after the separation he was generally engaged near home. The duties of farm-work filled up the spaces between the monthly, quarterly, and general meetings which he attended. The little black horse that all his townsmen knew so well grew very familiar with the winding roads to Vassalboro', Brooks, St. Albans, Manchester, and other near-lying towns. "Uncle Eli has come" made all who had gathered at the meeting-house rejoice, and, whether the subject was peace, temperance, or salvation, he spoke strong words to stir the listeners. During all his life he has loved to till the soil; trees seem to be near friends of his. Lowell is "Midway to believe A tree among his far progenitors, Such sympathy is his with all the race." Eli Jones hardly claims relationship with the birches, but they are his close friends, and he has had many happy hours working among his trees. Perhaps he never was a farmer such as the editors of agricultural journals would extol, and it is certain that the hilly fields, with here and there a ledge of rock, in his farm at Dirigo would never have allowed him to accumulate wealth, even if his work had been exclusively there; but he felt the nobility of the calling. There was no yoke of bondage to the soil over him, and he got nearer Nature's heart as he planted, as he dug, and as he harvested. Those who exhort to a higher spiritual life can never know too much of the mysteries of animal and plant life; they can never be too conversant with the trials and pains which daily toil brings to those to whom they preach. Paul could touch hearts when he appealed to tentmakers; Peter had an unwonted power when fishermen were before him; and he who holds up hands hardened by hoe and spade will gladly be heard by those who have left the oxen in the furrow to listen to the gospel. Slavery to work narrows the mind, as any slavery does, but diligence in some business will never lessen the depth of a true Christian or weaken the influence of an endowed minister. Eli Jones has always been loved by all the animals in his house and barn, for there is true philosophy in the line, "For Mary loved the lamb, you know." His sheep would come from all corners of the pasture when he came to their feeding-place, and often he took his cane and walked out to give them salt and to learn their ways. Sheep that are loved grow best, and his flock was proof of it. After work he sat under one of the large maples near the house, and while resting, if alone, carefully studied the higher and lower laws of the birds over his head and the insects at his feet. I do not believe he ever knowingly stepped on a worm or beetle, and no life of any kind was ever willingly destroyed by him. He could mow on Fifth day until time for meeting, and then hay-making, and the possibility of showers were out of the realm of his thought, for there was a higher work which needed an undivided mind. Nothing inanimate has interested him more than fossils and geological specimens. He made a large collection of them, and whenever an unusual stone showed itself under his hoe, it was examined. The perfection of the minute shells, and consequently of the long-dead animals that once dwelt in them, deeply impressed him. The variety of trees and flowers which were growing in his garden and grounds astonished those who were acquainted only with the birches, beeches, maples, pines, hemlocks, the ordinary growth of the Maine woods; but he was delighted to see trees of other climes flourish in the hard Northern soil of his fields. His apples, pears, and grapes have reached the heart of many a boy who has wondered why his father has always lived contented with "Bitter Sweets" when "Early Harvests" are so good and easy to raise; and an invitation to spend a day in this garden of the Hesperides was not soon to be forgotten; and in fact it was a day of growth in the boy's better nature. There was something still more gratifying than such an invitation: it was to sit in the "South Meeting-house" when "little David" or Samuel or Joseph was the text. Others might instruct the heads of the meeting, but little eyes, sometimes heavy with sleep, opened and grew larger as the shepherd on the hills of Bethlehem had his arm nerved by the strength of the Lord or as Samuel cried, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." He drew pictures of those far-off scenes until a panorama seemed unrolled and young and old saw the mighty characters of the early dispensation working before them; and it was not long before a new light came over those same hills and new songs filled the air: "Rejoice, for unto you is born, this day, in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." During these days of farm-life Eli was often chosen to fill the different town offices. As "supervisor of schools" he used to hear the geography lessons and make the map look so large and real that the scholars felt that it in fact represented solid earth. Then he was sure to ask the whole school some question which would start a train of new thoughts, and he was not likely to leave the school-house without setting forth in a novel way the need of learning how to spell and the mistake of trying greater fields of work before this one was conquered. It was in the "town-meeting--the old "New England town-meeting"--that he showed his peculiar tact and strength. The men of the town were there to settle the knotty question of "new roads," "improved schools," "care of the poor," and a long list of similar points. It is always a question with boys "how they make Presidents," and it is no less so how they make "selectmen and supervisors;" and on these great days young statesmen were being taught there. The speakers for and against the different articles in the "warrant," stood up on benches and spoke. A moderator was appointed who kept order and decided difficult points. The younger, non-voters, were surprised to hear such eloquence and to see such weighty matters handled by men whom they knew only as great woodcutters or haymakers; but it really seemed to them that another Demosthenes must be in the midst of them when Eli Jones began to argue down the weak schemes and prop up the wise plans for public improvement. At least one listener remembers how one important point was settled. The question had been discussed whether the town should pay up its "war debt" and by taking on itself a double tax for one year throw off the burden of a heavy tax each year to pay interest-money. It had been decided affirmatively, but after the meeting was over and the citizens had gone home and talked with their wives, it began to seem to many that too great a step had been taken, and a call was issued for a new meeting to rescind the vote. There was much feeling, and the signs of a strongly divided camp were evident. The stir indicated that the question was momentous. A plain but strong argument was given to rescind the vote on the ground that it would be wiser to divide the amount and take a number of years to pay it than to impoverish the poor farmers by forcing such a tax upon them at one time. It may have been because the writer was very young and impressible, but the reply seemed to him masterly and worthy of a much greater occasion. Not a word was lost; the answer was brief, and its burden was that it was time to be free from the stigma of this debt, which either those present or their children must pay, and that if every citizen would play the man and do his duty now the debt would be blotted out, and easily. A vote was taken, and by a large majority it was agreed to leave the next generation free from debt by paying it at once; which was done. The work of a man for the bettering of his own town is not unimportant, though it may seem so when we consider the greater fields of usefulness. He who has roused his neighbors and helped them find a better way of educating their sons and daughters has accomplished a work of immense importance. If all the towns and villages were taken care of, the State would soon rest on a sure foundation, and he is a skilful physician who labors to _heal_ the troubles in the towns which supply _life_ to the cities. Eli Jones has always said that the great aim must ever be to get the individual home in a proper condition. It is not possible to show how much he quietly did in the years he spent at Dirigo, but certainly it was time well used, and we need not lament that he was "hemmed in" by county lines. What he did is poorly and briefly recorded here, but it is written imperishably somewhere, not infrequently on the impressible hearts of men. CHAPTER XVII. _LATER VISITS TO THE EAST._ The later visits of Eli Jones to Palestine and their object have already been spoken of. With an accurate knowledge of the land and its customs, as well as of the needs of its people, he was especially adapted to taking a prominent part in directing the work of education there. He has always had a faculty for raising funds, and, having been especially successful in gathering money for building and necessary expenses, the time seemed to have come for opening a boy's training-home on Mount Lebanon. It had seemed best to organize a meeting of the Society of Friends at Brummana, so that he went in 1876 to assist in person the accomplishment of these two designs. He sailed alone to Liverpool, and then with Alfred Lloyd Fox, who had accompanied him on his first visit, and Henry Newman, proceeded to Beirut, and thence to Brummana. They rode on horseback up Lebanon, and not far from Brummana beheld a most touching sight. The children of the school stood at a bend in the road, each carrying a bouquet of flowers, which they held aloft as their aged benefactor approached, and all these _Syrian maidens_ together gave their greeting in English: "Welcome, our dear friends!" This simple, sincere manifestation of affection deeply impressed the venerable messenger of Christ and cheered his heart. It was like the loving welcome from his own children upon nearing his own home. A winter of work was passed pleasantly at the mission and among the natives. In company with Theophilus Waldmeier, the American and English messengers visited Rustin Pasha, the governor of Lebanon, who not only received them courteously and gave them much assistance, but has ever shown himself a good friend of the Friends' mission. Eli Jones has had the good fortune to win the favor of those high in authority, and he has used well his opportunities to impress the dignitaries of those lands. On the way from Joppa to Jerusalem he was in the same hotel with the governor of Palestine. The latter, hearing that a missionary of the Society of Friends was in the house, wished to see him. They met and talked together as friends. The governor showed himself a man of wide culture and liberal views, believing in the elevation of woman as a potent means of civilization, his own daughters being students of science and literature. He had a clear conception of American civilization, and understood the position and history of Friends, showing much interest in their work at Ramallah. As they parted he asked with much feeling that his aged American friend would pray for him and Palestine. Again, in 1882, Eli Jones sailed for England on his way to the Holy Land, to be present at the opening of the girls' training-home and to obtain a legal transference of the mission to the Society of Friends. Charles M. Jones of Winthrop, Me., was his valuable companion. They were met in Liverpool by Alfred Fox, who, though not able to attend them on this journey, went as far as Marseilles to see them well on their way. They landed in Joppa, and soon after their arrival were invited by the Episcopalian clergyman to come to his house to meet and address a little company. They found a large number assembled, and Eli Jones was told that he might address them in English, with the assurance of being perfectly understood; so that here, in that ancient city where Peter was taught to regard as clean all cleansed by God, the walls of division were again taken down and a minister of the Quakers preached the gospel in the English language to an assembly of Episcopalians. On landing at Beirut they visited the American school in that city, and were asked to address the scholars, which they did. After the exercises were over the lady in charge of the school, finding from their conversation that they were Friends, said with much surprise, "I thought you were Presbyterians." They were warmly welcomed at the Mount Lebanon Mission-school, and were occupied there and at the Ramallah mission until the spring of 1883. On their return, Alfred Fox stood on the wharf at Marseilles to greet them. He did not leave them until their steamer sailed from Liverpool, and there waved them a long farewell. His death not long after removed from this world a grand Christian gentleman, the dearest friend of Eli Jones's later life. The fourth journey of the latter to Palestine successfully accomplished, the faithful servant of God returned to the familiar scenes of his own home, not to seek the rest of one who puts the armor off, but to spend the last years which God's goodness had given him in declaring with the zeal of vigorous manhood the business of soldiers commissioned by the Prince of peace. Each year which puts its weight upon him lessens the probability of his re-seeing Lebanon and Jerusalem, but no spot except that which eighty years have made almost sacred to him as home has so many memories and attractions touching his heart. When he went from home bowed with age to undertake his last visit some one said, "I fear thou wilt never come back to us." He replied, "Lebanon's top is as near heaven as my native China is." He has twice visited the missions in person, and each time found work for three or four months. He has always been greatly loved by those for whom the work is being done. Being asked once the reason for his success with these Arabs, he replied, "Because I am of the people. I go down to their condition, but do not stay there; I endeavor to bring them up." They are very strong in their affections, and dislikes as well, and they are exceedingly keen to see their real benefactors. Eli Jones experiences his greatest pleasure taking these children around him and teaching them in his characteristic way, while they love him as a good father. In the answers to his questions he was often surprised by the originality of the little pupils. One day as he was talking to a class of girls he asked where the Jordan rises; immediately came the answer. Again, "Where does it end?"--"In the Dead Sea." "And what becomes of the water, as the Dead Sea has no outlet?" There was a long silence, when a little Arab girl replied, in a simple, beautiful metaphor, "The sun drinks it up." On one occasion he found the children sitting on the floor to be taught; he at once ordered seats for the room, though he was told they would not use them. He replied, "We will see; if you get them from the floor upon good seats, you have raised them so much from their low condition." When he next went to the room he found them proudly sitting on their new seats. One little girl who could speak English came over by his side and said, "We thank you for these seats." When he was about to come back and to separate from them they stood round him with tears in their eyes to wave him a farewell. The questions are often asked, "Is the gain worth the cost? Does the improvement correspond to the outlay and effort?" There is but one answer. These Druse boys and girls are eager to be taught, not only to read and write, but to understand the story and teachings of Christ. They go from the school entirely different persons, and they are wholly unwilling to go back to their unchristian manners of life. They are capable of becoming good scholars, and many of them are ready to teach others. The character of the natives around Mount Lebanon has completely changed, while those being trained are now in a condition to exert an elevating influence on those about them. Mission-work, like all other work, must consent to be tested by its fruits. The work of Friends on Lebanon and at Ramallah will stand this test well. In a letter to his friend S. F. T., Eli Jones writes to express his feeling of loneliness without his wonted companion, and the nature of the work being done in the Holy Land at the time of his third visit there in 1876: BRUMMANA, 1st mo. 8, 1876. While my fellow-travellers and Th. Waldmeier have gone to a distant village to attend to matters of business, I have been left to my own reflections, and I have in an unusual manner missed the sympathy and the words of cheer in times of trial that I was sure to receive from her who has been called up higher before me. Her words were as balm to my troubled breast, but now I plod on alone. My life would be too sad and weary to be borne did I not trust that an Eye of compassion beholds me here even as when in my native land surrounded by loved friends. We left England on the 9th of 11th mo., and spent several days in France attending ten meetings in that country; then embarking at Marseilles for Alexandria, where we spent a few days meeting old acquaintances and attending to what seemed called for. Again we went on board ship, and next day came to Port Said at the mouth of the Suez Canal, the morning after we were in Joppa. Here we visited the institution under the instruction of Jane Arnot, a woman of _great faith_ and of _much works_, who has a school of sixty girls. We found her occupying a new house erected on the very spot where our tent was pitched a few years ago, and where we had a meeting one First day afternoon with the people of Joppa. We reached Beirut the 31st of 12th mo., and the next day came to Brummana, where we received a warm welcome. Hanne Ferach, my little Bethlehem girl, rushed forward and grasped the hand of her old friend with the cordiality of a loving daughter; also several of the citizens came to bid us welcome to their town. All this was unexpected, and, to speak honestly, it moved our hearts and was a delightful ending of a long journey. We are much pleased with the work begun here. On First day our meeting frequently numbers over one hundred, the Bible meeting in the middle of the week over thirty. In the room where I am setting a teachers' meeting is going forward preparatory to the labors to-morrow, which will be the first of the week. Sitting around the table are ten preachers and teachers; two of these are female. Their conversation is all Greek to me, but it is very interesting to see them arming for their work from such an armory. The Sabbath-school numbers sixty, while there are six schools in operation through the week, reaching at least two hundred and thirty children; all these are emphatically Bible-schools. CHAPTER XVIII. _AS A FRIEND._ "Be ye complete in Him." "God's own hand must lay the axe of inward crucifixion unsparingly at the root of the natural life; God in Christ, operating in the person of the Holy Ghost, must be the principle of inward inspiration _moment_ by _moment_, the crucifier of every wrong desire and purpose, the Author of every right and holy purpose, the Light and Life of the soul."--UPHAM. Eli Jones was a birthright member of the Society of Friends, and as far back as there is any record the family had been a Friends' family, so that he inherited an inclination to the manners and views of the Society; and it was as much expected of him that he would make these views his own as it was that he would be a worthy son of his parents and grandparents. Quakerism was the air which a Friend's child breathed seventy-five years ago, and it was a poor child that longed for another atmosphere. It was a startling revelation to a boy that there were people in the world who said _you_ to one person, and it required an explanation. Eli had little opportunity of reading the lives of the Friends of former times, and he had no way of finding out the "philosophy of Quakerism," but his father and mother and the whole circle of his connections had a definite idea of what they believed, and their lives were more teaching than many books would have been. The different meetings were regularly attended by the young members, and they early became accustomed to the ways of doing the necessary business. He learned to respect the body which transacted its business so quietly and orderly, and which had such a loving and successful plan for reaching the state and standing of the different members. The monthly readings of the "Queries" placed each soul in the silent confessional before its Lord, while the general "Answers" gave opportunity for efficient counsel. It was a living Church, and its light shone before men. There were excellent examples of pure Christian character in the Society at China--ministers, elders, and members who would deeply impress the young, who thought of no other course than following in the steps of their predecessors. The quiet strength and sweetness of the best members of the Society, their guilelessness and sincerity, have had great weight in holding young men, and have done what austere teaching could never have done. The call to confess Christ, as they proclaimed it, was also a call to a higher manhood and nobler living. Eli Jones early loved Friends, and his love has continually augmented. He has done his work in the Society, going out on his own various missions each time with its sanction; and he has experienced fully the help which comes from the united and loving support of the Church at home. His life has been widely useful in great measure because he was a Friend, for the work he has done could properly have been done only in Friends' way, and he could never have succeeded under the restrictions of any other church organization. He was qualified to be a Friend minister, but he was not adapted to be one of any other denomination. About forty years ago, as he was beginning to preach, there appeared in New England a new phase of thought. Its centre was at Concord, Mass., and its adherents were called _Transcendentalists_. They held, among other things, that to really know man must have something in him which transcends human knowledge or the knowledge of the senses. In order to know truth a light must shine into man's mind from the Source of light, and who ever would know himself, the world and the Supreme Being must have a God-given teacher in his own breast; but these men maintained that this was a _natural_ endowment of the human mind--a wonderful gift, but given in the _same way_ as memory. The difference between Transcendentalism and Quakerism has been thought slight; it is, however, immense. The Society of Friends has never believed that man by _nature_ has any power or light within him capable of satisfying his longings or of gaining salvation for his soul. While Friends do not lose sight of the facts that Christ the Son of God came to be a perfect ensample for us; that He came to give us life, and to give it more abundantly; that He is the Light of the world; that the true follower of Christ should strive to be Christ-like, to come up to "the full stature of Christ;" and that there can be no compromise with any sin, but a gradual growth in firm character, high manliness, a daily striving for sincerity and purity,--their great theme for the comfort of a lost world has been that there is life in the acceptance of Christ; that there is health through our abiding union in Him, and thenceforth growth and development by virtue of our oneness with Him whose blood cleanses and whose Spirit quickens. Manliness and high morality, necessary graces of the Christian, have been attainable by all nations and all ages to a higher or lower degree. "_Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners_," and all men of every degree are there included. Felt necessary in all ages, foretold in types and by inspired prophets, and heralded by messengers from heaven, at length, in the fulness of time, the Saviour came. He came not to bring a creed or bonds or forms: He came to bring salvation, freedom, spirituality. He came to publish a new kingdom, which could be entered only through Him. He finished His work fully, and, about to depart, He promised to "pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter (strengthener), that He may abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you;" having said before, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and _greater works shall he do; because I go unto my Father_;" "Howbeit, when the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all the truth;" "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Whoever believes the truth of the gospel record to its fullest extent, and actually accepts salvation through Christ, becomes not only a better man, but a new man; he will live henceforth not for this world, but for that which is to come; he will conquer and throw aside all his besetting sins; and he will be a "living epistle" publishing the greatness of the good news to all others: furthermore, no work for his Lord will seem to be too great to be undertaken, for the promise is, "greater things shall ye do; for I go unto my Father." Now, Eli Jones while a young man accepted his Saviour and experienced this new birth, and, seeking first the kingdom of God, he has not ceased to labor for the greatest possible bettering of the world. This, he believed, could be best done by spreading a knowledge of Christ and by endeavoring to bring about a literal fulfilment of His teaching. Christ, the source of life, the source of light, and a perfect example to be followed, has been his theme. Peace, total abstinence, and high education came in course as proper causes for him to uphold. He has always believed in supreme guidance, and before undertaking work has waited until the inward ear heard the voice, and so his going forth has been blessed. His whole life testifies that he has not deceived himself, and that he has not worked for his own material gain. He has always stood against formalism and spoken for spirituality, and he has wished for life to so abound that formality in any way could not exist. He has felt that all Christ's devoted followers must in some way, by life or voice, obey the command given to the first apostles: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature;" and the message which he has carried has always been, "Ye must be born again." The equality of man and woman and the equality of all men and all women, equality of worth before the Creator, has made him earnest to gain for woman her _real rights_, and he has felt the necessity of raising in the social scale all who have been bound down in any degree by the bonds of prejudice. Points of doctrine have been little discussed by him, for he has felt called to live and preach the gospel, the same tidings which Paul went to Macedonia to declare--not to discuss and argue in regard to questions which can be settled only when we enter "the land which is very far off." There are some things which must be clearly fixed, great cardinal truths on which to be wrong is to be wholly wrong; but a broad spiritual interpretation of the whole Bible, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, gives any seeking man enough teaching on necessary points to guide him; and Eli Jones has gladly received in addition all the help he could receive from the _wisdom given_ to other men and women, such as fathers, counsellors, and elders. Penn asked, "How shall I know that a man does not obtrude his own sense upon us as the infallible Spirit?" and he answers, "By the same Spirit." Whatever is said contrary to the Scriptures, though the guidance of the Spirit is professed, must be accounted a delusion.[11] No man regrets more than Eli Jones that there are those who speak their own words as the truth given to them, for words become lifeless whenever the brain is allowed to speak for the Spirit, whenever any one deceives himself and gives his own thoughts for oracles; and he has felt that Friends, of all people, should beware of self-love and self-will, and that the individual members should ever be ready to receive benefit from the counsel of others. Each human being has a special field to till in the great vineyard. He who has climbed a height is more than ever duty bound to reach down hands of help to the weak. The gifts differ, but it is every man's business to find out for what he was sent, and then do the mission--do it "ever in the great Taskmaster's eye;" do it for no reward, but for the truth's sake; and He who sends the workmen into the field will send the basket for their supply. Whether doing quiet work at home or more extensive work abroad, Eli Jones has had one mind--to obey orders; and whenever he has been free to do temporal work for his own support and for his aid in gospel work, he has improved every opportunity, imitating the example of the tentmaker, while Friends have generously furnished the means for him to go out into distant fields. [11] _New England Discipline_, p. 14. He has lived to see a decided change come over the Society in his own section--a change almost universally apparent. In his early manhood came the great separation of the "Hicksites," and he felt keenly the want of harmony in 1840-45, when John Wilber opposed Joseph John Gurney; but he has ever hoped that the small body of spiritually-minded Friends would hold fast to their faith, maintaining harmony throughout, and not provoking or exaggerating differences of opinion. Most who grew old with him have passed away, and some with the belief which saddened their old age that the end of their Society was near. He has continually--and never more than in his old age--believed in the progress of humanity; he has seen in history and in his own life how one generation carries on the truth rejected by the former one; and in his thoughts faith and hope have been united. He trusts that in God's plan there is endless progress, and until something higher and purer and more perfect than Friends' conception of Christ's work and teaching appears the Society will be needed, and there will not be wanting those who hold fast the excellent spiritual truths of Quakerism, and a practical Christianity lived out with daily circumspection in their thoughts and words and deeds. He is impressed, as were the founders of our Society, with the truth that Christianity is both a faith and a corresponding life. The words of his old age have been not less acceptable and effective than those of his early manhood, and he has not changed his message. The earnestness with which he has pleaded for the essentials, the liberality he has shown in regard to non-essentials, and the rounded completeness of his life have given him a wide influence and have made him justly loved; but his strength has always been his calm faith in Jesus Christ. CHAPTER XIX. _HIS PLACE AS A WORKER._ "Quit you like men." The people of a city or country in which is some great natural wonder or some magnificent work of man become so accustomed to its grandeur that only the largest-minded of them continue to appreciate its excellence and gain culture from it. This is not true of men. A man who has the qualifications to instruct and the power to inspire his deemsmen will have renewed power, and will gain a stronger influence over all of them, as age brings matured wisdom. Few greater blessings can come to a community than to have a strong man working like leaven in the midst of it, and few posts of honor are more to be coveted than to be a part of all that is best in one's environment. Eli Jones has decidedly influenced his township, and he has the satisfaction of feeling in his old age that he is without enemies and in possession of a numerous company of friends, the "uncle" of all who know him. He has had the good fortune--or, better, the good judgment--to know just what his place was. He has done each duty, never wishing that he might have found something greater to do, and now his services combined into one whole make a record which men of great fame often fail to gain. One of the best tests of a man's power is his influence over the young. There is a time in early life when there is a longing for real help, when a young person feels groping in the dark for the right road, which he wants, but cannot find. Eli Jones has been at hand to throw, by his counsel and Christian advice, light on the right path, and many a man and woman stands to-day fixed firmly in a good place and on a high road to a better because he spoke a good word or reached out his hand when there was need of just that word or encouragement. His love of education and his fondness for books have made themselves felt. He has been one of the foremost in founding and sustaining two schools--"Oak Grove Seminary" and the "Erskine High School." The latter partly owed its existence to him. He has started and built up a number of libraries, and he has wished to leave coming sons and daughters supplied with a fountain from which to draw. Not a few of the college graduates who have gone out from China received their first impulses to higher aspirations from him, in one way or another. In temperance work he has taken his part. He began to speak for total abstinence as a boy, which has been his theme ever since, and he took active part in securing a majority for the Prohibition amendment in the State of Maine. For many years he was an active member of the "Sons of Temperance," and as Grand Worthy Patriarch of that organization he did much permanent good in the State. In this work he was intimately associated with Ex-Governor Sidney Perham, Neal Dow, John Kimbal of Bangor, D. B. Randal, the aged patriarch of the Methodist Church, and others of the ablest advocates of the Maine law. It was once a law of the State that the selectmen of each town should appoint some suitable man to fill his cellar with various liquors, and whose sole right it should be to sell such articles. For one year Eli Jones was appointed to act as liquor-agent for the town. Strange picture, that of a well-known Quaker minister and prominent advocate of total abstinence holding the office of drink-dispenser to his townsmen! It can be imagined with what feelings the toper would enter his yard, make known his desire, and what words of advice he would receive instead of the foaming glass. It is needless to say that no cellar was stored that year, and during his term of office the community abstained. In 1852, at the time of his first visit to England and Ireland, but few Friends in those countries had heartily espoused the cause of total abstinence. Since that time a great change has taken place. "To hail from Maine is _now_ no discredit to the visitor. _Then_ a specimen from Maine was looked upon with some distrust." It will not be out of place to refer here to his connection with the origin of the "United Kingdom Alliance." Its essential declarations are as follows: "1. That it is neither right nor politic for the state to afford legal protection and sanction to any traffic or system which tends to increase crime, to waste the national resources, to corrupt the social habits, and to destroy the health and lives of the people. 2. That the traffic in intoxicating liquors, as common beverages, is inimical to the true interests of individuals and destructive of the order and welfare of society, and ought therefore to be prohibited. 3. That the history and results of all past legislation in regard to the liquor traffic abundantly prove that it is impossible satisfactorily to _limit_ or _regulate_ a system so essentially mischievous in its tendencies.... 7. That, rising above class, sectarian, or party considerations, all good citizens should combine to procure an enactment prohibiting the sale of intoxicating beverages, as affording most efficient aid in removing the appalling evil of intemperance." This was a union against intemperance on a most uncompromising platform, and its work during the last quarter of a century has been enormous. The simple facts of Eli Jones's connection with this organization are as follows: As he was returning from Dublin yearly meeting to London he found himself in company with Nathaniel Card, a Friend of Manchester, England. Their conversation turned upon temperance, for our friend had not been silent on this subject during his stay in Ireland. Nathaniel Card became much interested, and wished to take an American temperance paper, as well as to have a copy of the Maine prohibitory law. He was given the address of Neal Dow, and a correspondence was opened. About eighteen months after this conversation, Eli Jones being in Manchester, three gentlemen called on him. Nathaniel Card was one of them, who as speaker said, "We are the officers of the British and Foreign Temperance Alliance, and whatever results come from its formation _began_ with our conversation on our return journey from Ireland." Many English Friends have been connected with this organization, and Eli Jones had the opportunity at the time of his later visits to England to attend some of the meetings and to hear the beneficent results of its far-reaching influence. His work for the advancement of peace has been lifelong. He has strained his eyes to catch glimpses of a better era, in which the literal and spiritual teaching of Christ shall be fulfilled in a universal brotherhood of men and nations; and he has lived to see already "a flood of prophesying light." When over eighty years old he was sent as a delegate to the Friends' Peace Conference at Richmond, Indiana, in 1887, and his voice was often heard discussing with younger men and women the wisest course for binding nations into families by bonds of love, so that rust may dull the carnal weapons of war, "And the cobweb be woven across the cannon's throat, To shake its threaded tears in the wind." He has always looked with joy on the advance of the human race, and he has had uncompromising faith in actual and triumphant progress. Nothing has made his crowning years more bright than the thought, ever present with him, that the good is gaining a gradual ascendency, and that man's lot, already a happy one, is becoming more happy. He has seen nations that have sat in darkness rising to stand in the joy-bringing light, and he has trusted the future will bring mature fruit. This buoyant hope has not only made his life joyous, but has pervaded all the messages of his later years, and he has shown that optimism which every true Christian must feel, for his Master "doeth all things well." He felt called above everything else to preach the gospel, but he was sent to preach not only from the text which John the Baptist gave, but also he has "spoken unto men to edification." He has held up the perfect mark, the goal, "a life hid with Christ in God." Every power of man, physical, moral, mental, spiritual, is to be developed and expanded to its fullest extent, and then brought into strict obedience to the will of God. We are not in our place until we yield the same obedience to the celestial laws that we yield to the laws of gravitation. Character--which implies integrity, purity, unselfishness, love, patience, self-forgetfulness, and temperance--means the truth we have received, made our own, and put in action. Hence Eli Jones has spent his life telling all people to seek first of all the kingdom of heaven, which is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost--to give their whole lives and beings to the Lord, and to build up pure Christian characters. The strength and manliness of his life have made his messages weighty, and the clearness of his thought, with his abundance of strong English words forcibly arranged, has caused his speaking on whatever subject to be effective. His speaking has always been from the fulness of his heart and with all the energy of his individuality. Never has he been known to speak weakly or unemphatically. If he had no message, he kept his seat, and if he rose to speak it was because he had something which he deeply felt and which it was important for those present to hear. Of medium height, possessing a very large head, penetrating, earnest eyes, and impressive in his movements, his rising always gained him attention. His voice, which in childhood had been imperfect, grew clearer and more emphatic with use, and by constant attention to careful enunciation he gained the power of distinct expression to such a degree that after having on one occasion found it necessary to speak continuously in the Newport meeting-house for three hours, he was told by those in the farthest galleries that not a word had been lost. In his most earnest appeals he is decidedly eloquent, and many there are who have heard in his vigorous words that call which lifts souls from dreamy thought to action. Not one of his sermons has been put on paper, for he spoke as the words came to his mouth, and reporters were not present; but there was a clearness and connection as marked as was the strength of the individual parts, so that his utterances if printed would be highly valued. If those men do us the greatest service who give us the clearest view of our relation to God and our duty to man, then we owe him gratitude, for he successfully helped feet that were failing to find a surer foothold on the abiding base of the Rock of Ages. Further, he performed the true part of the citizen of a democracy, the part of one who sees the brother and sister mark on every forehead. Every person who hopes and prays for the highest success of the principles of our government will have moments of trial for his faith as he sees the multitudes of responsible citizens who exercise their high privileges in town and State moved by no higher thought than the accomplishment of a selfish aim; he will feel a deeper gloom still when he learns in how many hearts respect for pure men and sacred principles and reverence for the Ruler of men and nations have been obscured by the mists of party schemes and personal self-love. Eli Jones as a Quaker has clearly proclaimed the only basis on which a democracy can build with a reasonable hope of a beautiful and permanent structure. In a nation where every man is a legislator, every man must "Feel within himself the need Of loyalty to better than himself, That shall ennoble him with the _upward_ look;" nor can he be a safe sharer in the rights of government who has not intimate converse with the Voice which calls for an _inward_ look. Through a life of over eighty years he has sought to act at the ballot-box so that the largest number of human beings might feel the good effects of his vote. Again, his life is an interesting example of continuous development. Though beginning early to obey the voice of duty in regard to public speaking, he had reached nearly the age of forty before he was really at work. Year after year since he has seen with clearer vision, and, catching the teaching of the nautilus, he has made "Each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut him from heaven with a dome more vast," and, feeling more truly each year the serious business of a denizen of earth, he has doubled his diligence to quit himself like a man. There has been a deep vein of humor running through his whole life, and the genuine "mother wit" often found in New Englanders has shown itself in him to a marked degree. His answers to difficult questions always come at once, and have a keenness which goes to the marrow of the subject. Those who have listened to his conversation and heard his illustrative anecdotes need no example to call to their mind his native humor, for it has continually shown itself. The uniformity of his disposition should be spoken of. Calm and equable under trying circumstances, he was a strong support to his beloved wife when in feeble health she seemed almost weighed down, and he was especially fitted by this quality for the perplexing difficulties which necessarily beset a laborer in foreign lands. His ripe years have been passed at the foot of China Lake near his boyhood's home, and he has sat in the meeting as a father in the midst of his family. Now and then called forth for short service, he has loved to hasten back and to be at home. At the time I write he is still permitted to dwell among us, and we are fortunate in having before our eyes one who has the weight of many years of experience and wisdom. When riding with him around China Lake one lovely summer day some of us younger members of the party pointed out a church-spire in the distance, and asked him if it was not a beautiful picture--the spire rising from the abundant green of the surrounding trees and pointing to the cloudless blue sky. Slowly he said, "Yes, but it would be better if we knew that all who sit there owned what is above the spire;" and we felt, as we looked at his genial face lighted up as he gazed aloft, that "his citizenship was in heaven" and that "for him to die" would be "gain." There is a domain on earth which only the true servant enters, and there is a realm of which we do not speak definitely that opens its gates to admit those who hear the "Well done!" of the great Master. Blessed indeed is he whose life has been a preparation for the city where no sun is needed, but where the glory of God is the light, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb. * * * * * Transcriber's note: Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error. Some mismatched double quotation marks were left as in the original. 
23140	----	The Death Shot, A Story Retold, by Captain Mayne Reid. ________________________________________________________________________ This was quite a difficult book to transcribe. There were the usual difficulties with this author--his frequent use of words in Spanish, or the Mexican variety of Spanish, of words in French. In addition it must have been something of an experimental writing, for it is generally in the present tense, and there was frequent use made of new words that have not survived in the language. Much, indeed almost all, of the speech is uttered by uneducated persons, so that it needs perseverance, sometimes, to make out what is being said. Probably most of the speakers would not have been able to read, and would not have known how to pronounce the words they uttered. Added to all that the proof-reading, particularly towards the end of the book, left much to be desired, quite common words having letters missing or all jumbled up. Finally, the copy used was in a bad way, not from over-use, but from bad binding. It fell apart completely, and we had to continue the work on a scanner that can only read books that have been reduced to single pages. We do not need to mention the problem usual with cheaply made books of that period, that punctuation marks, especially commas and full-stops, and especially at the corners of the pages, tend to disappear, and some degree of cunning has to be brought to bear to recover them. To illustrate the poor proof-reading, one of the chapters was completely repeated, without any change in the flow of page numbers. This is something I have never before seen, though I have seen chapters completely omitted, without affecting the page-numbers! All that having been said, I would like to think that the author would have been pleased with our version, for certain it is that it is better than the published book, although it is certain there are still some errors in our text. It does make a very nice audiobook, taking almost fifteen hours to read. At the time of writing this I have heard it twice, and enjoyed it thoroughly. After some thought I decided to replace his coy Victorian "G--d", "H--l", "D--n" and "D--d" with their intended words. Doubtless there are some who will not be happy with this, but this book was written 130 years ago, and times have changed. It has been suggested that this book was entirely re-written by the author, this being his final version. Although it is an unusual piece of writing it flows very well, and the author could well have been unhappy about the poor printing. Let us hope that he is looking down upon us with a gleam of pleasure in his eye. As regards the subject matter, it is really very strange. There are murders with no body, murderers on the run with no evidence against them, murdered persons who are perfectly alive and well, Red Indians who are no such thing, a body which is buried and comes to life again, being dug up by a dog, and all the time against a truly beautiful description of the terrain, and a considerable tenderness towards the somewhat strange persons who form the cast of this unusual book. ________________________________________________________________________ THE DEATH SHOT, A STORY RETOLD, BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID. PREFACE. Long time since this hand hath penned a preface. Now only to say, that this romance, as originally published, was written when the author was suffering severe affliction, both physically and mentally--the result of a gun-wound that brought him as near to death as Darke's bullet did Clancy. It may be asked, Why under such strain was the tale written at all? A good reason could be given; but this, private and personal, need not, and should not be intruded on the public. Suffice it to say, that, dissatisfied with the execution of the work, the author has remodelled-- almost rewritten it. It is the same story; but, as he hopes and believes, better told. Great Malvern, September, 1874. PROLOGUE. Plain, treeless, shrubless, smooth as a sleeping sea. Grass upon it; this so short, that the smallest quadruped could not cross over without being seen. Even the crawling reptile would not be concealed among its tufts. Objects are upon it--sufficiently visible to be distinguished at some distance. They are of a character scarce deserving a glance from the passing traveller. He would deem it little worth while to turn his eyes towards a pack of prairie wolves, much less go in chase of them. With vultures soaring above, he might be more disposed to hesitate, and reflect. The foul birds and filthy beasts seen consorting together, would be proof of prey--that some quarry had fallen upon the plain. Perhaps, a stricken stag, a prong-horn antelope, or a wild horse crippled by some mischance due to his headlong nature? Believing it any of these, the traveller would reloosen his rein, and ride onward,--leaving the beasts and birds to their banquet. There is no traveller passing over the prairie in question--no human being upon it. Nothing like life, save the coyotes grouped over the ground, and the buzzards swooping above. They are not unseen by human eye. There is one sees--one who has reason to fear them. Their eager excited movements tell them to be anticipating a repast; at the same time, that they have not yet commenced it. Something appears in their midst. At intervals they approach it: the birds swoopingly from heaven, the beasts crouchingly along the earth. Both go close, almost to touching it; then suddenly withdraw, starting back as in affright! Soon again to return; but only to be frayed as before. And so on, in a series of approaches, and recessions. What can be the thing thus attracting, at the same time repelling them? Surely no common quarry, as the carcase of elk, antelope, or mustang? It seems not a thing that is dead. Nor yet looks it like anything alive. Seen from a distance it resembles a human head. Nearer, the resemblance is stronger. Close up, it becomes complete. Certainly, it _is_ a human head--_the head of a man_! Not much in this to cause surprise--a man's head lying upon a Texan prairie! Nothing, whatever, if scalpless. It would only prove that some ill-starred individual--traveller, trapper, or hunter of wild horses--has been struck down by Comanches; afterwards beheaded, and scalped. But this head--if head it be--is _not_ scalped. It still carries its hair--a fine chevelure, waving and profuse. Nor is it lying upon the ground, as it naturally should, after being severed from the body, and abandoned. On the contrary, it stands erect, and square, as if still on the shoulders from which it has been separated; the neck underneath, the chin just touching the surface. With cheeks pallid, or blood spotted, and eyes closed or glassy, the attitude could not fail to cause surprise. And yet more to note, that there is neither pallor, nor stain on the cheeks; and the eyes are neither shut, nor glassed. On the contrary, they are glancing--glaring--rolling. _By Heavens the head is alive_! No wonder the wolves start back in affright; no wonder the vultures, after stooping low, ply their wings in quick nervous stroke, and soar up again! The odd thing seems to puzzle both beasts and birds; baffles their instinct, and keeps them at bay. Still know they, or seem to believe, 'tis flesh and blood. Sight and scent tell them so. By both they cannot be deceived. And living flesh it must be? A Death's head could neither flash its eyes, nor cause them to revolve in their sockets. Besides, the predatory creatures have other evidence of its being alive. At intervals they see opened a mouth, disclosing two rows of white teeth; from which come cries that, startling, send them afar. These are only put forth, when they approach too threateningly near-- evidently intended to drive them to a distance. They have done so for the greater part of a day. Strange spectacle! The head of a man, without any body; with eyes in it that scintillate and see; a mouth that opens, and shows teeth; a throat from which issue sounds of human intonation; around this object of weird supernatural aspect, a group of wolves, and over it a flock of vultures! Twilight approaching, spreads a purple tint over the prairie. But it brings no change in the attitude of assailed, or assailants. There is still light enough for the latter to perceive the flash of those fiery eyes, whose glances of menace master their voracious instincts, warning them back. On a Texan prairie twilight is short. There are no mountains, or high hills intervening, no obliquity in the sun's diurnal course, to lengthen out the day. When the golden orb sinks below the horizon, a brief crepusculous light succeeds; then darkness, sudden as though a curtain of crape were dropped over the earth. Night descending causes some change in the tableau described. The buzzards, obedient to their customary habit--not nocturnal--take departure from the spot, and wing their way to their usual roosting place. Different do the coyotes. These stay. Night is the time best suited to their ravening instincts. The darkness may give them a better opportunity to assail that thing of spherical shape, which by shouts, and scowling glances, has so long kept them aloof. To their discomfiture, the twilight is succeeded by a magnificent moon, whose silvery effulgence falling over the plain almost equals the light of day. They see the head still erect, the eyes angrily glancing; while in the nocturnal stillness that cry, proceeding from the parted lips, affrights them as ever. And now, that night is on, more than ever does the tableau appear strange--more than ever unlike reality, and more nearly allied to the spectral. For, under the moonlight, shimmering through a film that has spread over the plain, the head seems magnified to the dimensions of the Sphinx; while the coyotes--mere jackals of terrier size--look large as Canadian stags! In truth, a perplexing spectacle--full of wild, weird mystery. Who can explain it? CHAPTER ONE. TWO SORTS OF SLAVE-OWNERS. In the old slave-owning times of the United States--happily now no more--there was much grievance to humanity; proud oppression upon the one side, with sad suffering on the other. It may be true, that the majority of the slave proprietors were humane men; that some of them were even philanthropic in their way, and inclined towards giving to the unholy institution a colour of _patriarchism_. This idea--delusive, as intended to delude--is old as slavery itself; at the same time, modern as Mormonism, where it has had its latest, and coarsest illustration. Though it cannot be denied, that slavery in the States was, comparatively, of a mild type, neither can it be questioned, that among American masters occurred cases of lamentable harshness--even to inhumanity. There were slave-owners who were kind, and slave-owners who were cruel. Not far from the town of Natchez, in the State of Mississippi, lived two planters, whose lives illustrated the extremes of these distinct moral types. Though their estates lay contiguous, their characters were as opposite, as could well be conceived in the scale of manhood and morality. Colonel Archibald Armstrong--a true Southerner of the old Virginian aristocracy, who had entered the Mississippi Valley before the Choctaw Indians evacuated it--was a model of the kind slave-master; while Ephraim Darke--a Massachusetts man, who had moved thither at a much later period--was as fair a specimen of the cruel. Coming from New England, of the purest stock of the Puritans--a people whose descendants have made much sacrifice in the cause of negro emancipation--this about Darke may seem strange. It is, notwithstanding, a common tale; one which no traveller through the Southern States can help hearing. For the Southerner will not fail to tell him, that the hardest task-master to the slave is either one, who has been himself a slave, or descended from the Pilgrim Fathers, whose feet first touched American soil by the side of Plymouth Rock! Having a respect for many traits in the character of these same Pilgrim Fathers, I would fain think the accusation exaggerated--if not altogether untrue--and that Ephraim Darke was an exceptional individual. To accuse _him_ of inhumanity was no exaggeration whatever. Throughout the Mississippi valley there could be nothing more heartless than his treatment of the sable helots, whose luckless lot it was to have him for a master. Around his courts, and in his cotton-fields, the crack of the whip was heard habitually--its thong sharply felt by the victims of his caprice, or malice. The "cowhide" was constantly carried by himself, and his overseer. He had a son, too, who could wield it wickedly as either. None of the three ever went abroad without that pliant, painted, switch--a very emblem of devilish cruelty--in their hands; never returned home, without having used it in the castigation of some unfortunate "darkey," whose evil star had caused him to stray across their track, while riding the rounds of the plantation. A far different discipline was that of Colonel Armstrong; whose slaves seldom went to bed without a prayer poured forth, concluding with: "God bress de good massr;" while the poor whipped bondsmen of his neighbour, their backs oft smarting from the lash, nightly lay down, not always to sleep, but nearly always with curses on their lips--the name of the Devil coupled with that of Ephraim Darke. The old story, of like cause followed by like result, must, alas! be chronicled in this case. The man of the Devil prospered, while he of God came to grief. Armstrong, open-hearted, free-handed, indulging in a too profuse hospitality, lived widely outside the income accruing from the culture of his cotton-fields, and in time became the debtor of Darke, who lived as widely within his. Notwithstanding the proximity of their estates, there was but little intimacy, and less friendship, between the two. The Virginian--scion of an old Scotch family, who had been gentry in the colonial times--felt something akin to contempt for his New England neighbour, whose ancestors had been steerage passengers in the famed "Mayflower." False pride, perhaps, but natural to a citizen of the Old Dominion--of late years brought low enough. Still, not much of this influenced the conduct of Armstrong. For his dislike to Darke he had a better, and more honourable, reason--the bad behaviour of the latter. This, notorious throughout the community, made for the Massachusetts man many enemies; while in the noble mind of the Mississippian it produced positive aversion. Under these circumstances, it may seem strange there should be any intercourse, or relationship, between the two men. But there was--that of debtor and creditor--a lien not always conferring friendship. Notwithstanding his dislike, the proud Southerner had not been above accepting a loan from the despised Northern, which the latter was but too eager to extend. The Massachusetts man had long coveted the Mississippian's fine estate; not alone from its tempting contiguity, but also because it looked like a ripe pear that must soon fall from the tree. With secret satisfaction he had observed the wasteful extravagance of its owner; a satisfaction increased on discovering the latter's impecuniosity. It became joy, almost openly exhibited, on the day when Colonel Armstrong came to him requesting a loan of twenty thousand dollars; which he consented to give, with an alacrity that would have appeared suspicious to any but a borrower. If he gave the money in great _glee_, still greater was that with which he contemplated the mortgage deed taken in exchange. For he knew it to be the first entering of a wedge, that in due time would ensure him possession of the _fee-simple_. All the surer, from a condition in that particular deed: _Foreclosure, without time_. Pressure from other quarters had forced planter Armstrong to accept these terrible terms. As, Darke, before locking it up in his drawer, glanced the document over, his eyes scintillating with the glare of greed triumphant, he said to himself, "This day's work has doubled the area of my acres, and the number of my niggers. Armstrong's land, his slaves, his houses,-- everything he has, will soon be mine!" CHAPTER TWO. A FLAT REFUSAL. Two years have elapsed since Ephraim Darke became the creditor of Archibald Armstrong. Apparently, no great change has taken place in the relationship between the two men, though in reality much. The twenty thousand dollars' loan has been long ago dissipated, and the borrower is once more in need. It would be useless, idle, for him to seek a second mortgage in the same quarter; or in any other, since he can show no collateral. His property has been nearly all hypothecated in the deed to Darke; who perceives his long-cherished dream on the eve of becoming a reality. At any hour he may cause foreclosure, turn Colonel Armstrong out of his estate, and enter upon possession. Why does he not take advantage of the power, with which the legal code of the United States, as that existing all over the world, provides him? There is a reason for his not doing so, wide apart from any motive of mercy, or humanity. Or of friendship either, though something erroneously considered akin to it. Love hinders him from pouncing on the plantation of Archibald Armstrong, and appropriating it! Not love in his own breast, long ago steeled against such a trifling affection. There only avarice has a home; cupidity keeping house, and looking carefully after the expenses. But there is a spendthrift who has also a shelter in Ephraim Darke's heart--one who does much to thwart his designs, oft-times defeating them. As already said, he has a son, by name Richard; better known throughout the settlement as "Dick"--abbreviations of nomenclature being almost universal in the South-Western States. An only son--only child as well--motherless too--she who bore him having been buried long before the Massachusetts man planted his roof-tree in the soil of Mississippi. A hopeful scion he, showing no improvement on the paternal stock. Rather the reverse; for the grasping avarice, supposed to be characteristic of the Yankee, is not improved by admixture with the reckless looseness alleged to be habitual in the Southerner. Both these bad qualities have been developed in Dick Darke, each to its extreme. Never was New Englander more secretive and crafty; never Mississippian more loose, or licentious. Mean in the matter of personal expenditure, he is at the same time of dissipated and disorderly habits; the associate of the poker-playing, and cock-fighting, fraternity of the neighbourhood; one of its wildest spirits, without any of those generous traits oft coupled with such a character. As only son, he is heir-presumptive to all the father's property--slaves and plantation lands; and, being thoroughly in his father's confidence, he is aware of the probability of a proximate reversion to the slaves and plantation lands belonging to Colonel Armstrong. But much as Dick Darke may like money, there is that he likes more, even to covetousness--Colonel Armstrong's daughter. There are two of them-- Helen and Jessie--both grown girls,--motherless too--for the colonel is himself a widower. Jessie, the younger, is bright-haired, of blooming complexion, merry to madness; in spirit, the personification of a romping elf; in physique, a sort of Hebe. Helen, on the other hand, is dark as gipsy, or Jewess; stately as a queen, with the proud grandeur of Juno. Her features of regular classic type, form tall and magnificently moulded, amidst others she appears as a palm rising above the commoner trees of the forest. Ever since her coming out in society, she has been universally esteemed the beauty of the neighbourhood--as belle in the balls of Natchez. It is to her Richard Darke has extended his homage, and surrendered his heart. He is in love with her, as much as his selfish nature will allow-- perhaps the only unselfish passion ever felt by him. His father sanctions, or at all events does not oppose it. For the wicked son holds a wonderful ascendancy over a parent, who has trained him to wickedness equalling his own. With the power of creditor over debtor--a debt of which payment can be demanded at any moment, and not the slightest hope of the latter being able to pay it--the Darkes seem to have the vantage ground, and may dictate their own terms. Helen Armstrong knows nought of the mortgage; no more, of herself being the cause which keeps it from foreclosure. Little does she dream, that her beauty is the sole shield imposed between her father and impending ruin. Possibly if she did, Richard Darke's attentions to her would be received with less slighting indifference. For months he has been paying them, whenever, and wherever, an opportunity has offered--at balls, _barbecues_, and the like. Of late also at her father's house; where the power spoken of gives him not only admission, but polite reception, and hospitable entertainment, at the hands of its owner; while the consciousness of possessing it hinders him from observing, how coldly his assiduities are met by her to whom they are so warmly addressed. He wonders why, too. He knows that Helen Armstrong has many admirers. It could not be otherwise with one so splendidly beautiful, so gracefully gifted. But among them there is none for whom she has shown partiality. He has, himself, conceived a suspicion, that a young man, by name Charles Clancy--son of a decayed Irish gentleman, living near--has found favour in her eyes. Still, it is only a suspicion; and Clancy has gone to Texas the year before--sent, so said, by his father, to look out for a new home. The latter has since died, leaving his widow sole occupant of an humble tenement, with a small holding of land--a roadside tract, on the edge of the Armstrong estate. Rumour runs, that young Clancy is about coming back--indeed, every day expected. That can't matter. The proud planter, Armstrong, is not the man to permit of his daughter marrying a "poor white"--as Richard Darke scornfully styles his supposed rival--much less consent to the so bestowing of her hand. Therefore no danger need be dreaded from that quarter. Whether there need, or not, the suitor of Helen Armstrong at length resolves on bringing the affair to an issue. His love for her has become a strong passion, the stronger for being checked--restrained by her cold, almost scornful behaviour. This may be but coquetry. He hopes, and has a fancy it is. Not without reason. For he is far from being ill-favoured; only in a sense moral, not physical. But this has not prevented him from making many conquests among backwood's belles; even some city celebrities living in Natchez. All know he is rich; or will be, when his father fulfils the last conditions of his will--by dying. So fortified, so flattered, Dick Darke cannot comprehend why Miss Armstrong has not at once surrendered to him. Is it because her haughty disposition hinders her from being too demonstrative? Does she really love him, without giving sign? For months he has been cogitating in this uncertain way; and now determines upon knowing the truth. One morning he mounts his horse; rides across the boundary line between the two plantations, and on to Colonel Armstrong's house. Entering, he requests an interview with the colonel's eldest daughter; obtains it; makes declaration of his love; asks her if she will have him for a husband; and in response receives a chilling negative. As he rides back through the woods, the birds are trilling among the trees. It is their merry morning lay, but it gives him no gladness. There is still ringing in his ears that harsh monosyllable, "_no_." The wild-wood songsters appear to echo it, as if mockingly; the blue jay, and red cardinal, seem scolding him for intrusion on their domain! Having recrossed the boundary between the two plantations, he reins up and looks back. His brow is black with chagrin; his lips white with rancorous rage. It is suppressed no longer. Curses come hissing through his teeth, along with them the words,-- "In less than six weeks these woods will be mine, and hang me, if I don't shoot every bird that has roost in them! Then, Miss Helen Armstrong, you'll not feel in such conceit with yourself. It will be different when you haven't a roof over your head". So good-bye, sweetheart! Good-bye to you. "Now, dad!" he continues, in fancy apostrophising his father, "you can take your own way, as you've been long wanting. Yes, my respected parent; you shall be free to foreclose your mortgage; put in execution; sheriff's officers--anything you like." Angrily grinding his teeth, he plunges the spur into his horse's ribs, and rides on--the short, but bitter, speech still echoing in his ears. CHAPTER THREE. A FOREST POST-OFFICE. From the harsh treatment of slaves sprang a result, little thought of by the inhuman master; though greatly detrimental to his interests. It caused them occasionally to abscond; so making it necessary to insert an advertisement in the county newspaper, offering a reward for the runaway. Thus cruelty proved expensive. In planter Darke's case, however, the cost was partially recouped by the cleverness of his son; who was a noted "nigger-catcher," and kept dogs for the especial purpose. He had a natural _penchant_ for this kind of chase; and, having little else to do, passed a good deal of his time scouring the country in pursuit of his father's advertised runaways. Having caught them, he would claim the "bounty," just as if they belonged to a stranger. Darke, _pere_, paid it without grudge or grumbling--perhaps the only disbursement he ever made in such mood. It was like taking out of one pocket to put into the other. Besides, he was rather proud of his son's acquitting himself so shrewdly. Skirting the two plantations, with others in the same line of settlements, was a cypress swamp. It extended along the edge of the great river, covering an area of many square miles. Besides being a swamp, it was a network of creeksy bayous, and lagoons--often inundated, and only passable by means of skiff or canoe. In most places it was a slough of soft mud, where man might not tread, nor any kind of water-craft make way. Over it, at all times, hung the obscurity of twilight. The solar rays, however bright above, could not penetrate its close canopy of cypress tops, loaded with that strangest of parasitical plants--the _tillandsia usneoides_. This tract of forest offered a safe place of concealment for runaway slaves; and, as such, was it noted throughout the neighbourhood. A "darkey" absconding from any of the contiguous plantations, was as sure to make for the marshy expanse, as would a chased rabbit to its warren. Sombre and gloomy though it was, around its edge lay the favourite scouting-ground of Richard Darke. To him the cypress swamp was a precious preserve--as a coppice to the pheasant shooter, or a scrub-wood to the hunter of foxes. With the difference, that his game was human, and therefore the pursuit more exciting. There were places in its interior to which he had never penetrated-- large tracts unexplored, and where exploration could not be made without great difficulty. But for him to reach them was not necessary. The runaways who sought asylum in the swamp, could not always remain within its gloomy recesses. Food must be obtained beyond its border, or starvation be their fate. For this reason the fugitive required some mode of communicating with the outside world. And usually obtained it, by means of a confederate--some old friend, and fellow-slave, on one of the adjacent plantations--privy to the secret of his hiding-place. On this necessity the negro-catcher most depended; often finding the stalk--or "still-hunt," in backwoods phraseology--more profitable than a pursuit with trained hounds. About a month after his rejection by Miss Armstrong, Richard Darke is out upon a chase; as usual along the edge of the cypress swamp, rather should it be called a search: since he has found no traces of the human game that has tempted him forth. This is a fugitive negro--one of the best field-hands belonging to his father's plantation--who has absented himself, and cannot be recalled. For several weeks "Jupiter"--as the runaway is named--has been missing; and his description, with the reward attached, has appeared in the county newspaper. The planter's son, having a suspicion that he is secreted somewhere in the swamp, has made several excursions thither, in the hope of lighting upon his tracks. But "Jupe" is an astute fellow, and has hitherto contrived to leave no sign, which can in any way contribute to his capture. Dick Darke is returning home, after an unsuccessful day's search, in anything but a cheerful mood. Though not so much from having failed in finding traces of the missing slave. That is only a matter of money; and, as he has plenty, the disappointment can be borne. The thought embittering his spirit relates to another matter. He thinks of his scorned suit, and blighted love prospects. The chagrin caused him by Helen Armstrong's refusal has terribly distressed, and driven him to more reckless courses. He drinks deeper than ever; while in his cups he has been silly enough to let his boon companions become acquainted with his reason for thus running riot, making not much secret, either, of the mean revenge he designs for her who has rejected him. She is to be punished through her father. Colonel Armstrong's indebtedness to Ephraim Darke has become known throughout the settlement--all about the mortgage. Taking into consideration the respective characters of the mortgagor and mortgagee, men shake their heads, and say that Darke will soon own the Armstrong plantation. All the sooner, since the chief obstacle to the fulfilment of his long-cherished design has been his son, and this is now removed. Notwithstanding the near prospect of having his spite gratified, Richard Darke keenly feels his humiliation. He has done so ever since the day of his receiving it; and as determinedly has he been nursing his wrath. He has been still further exasperated by a circumstance which has lately occurred--the return of Charles Clancy from Texas. Someone has told him of Clancy having been seen in company with Helen Armstrong--the two walking the woods _alone_! Such an interview could not have been with her father's consent, but _clandestine_. So much the more aggravating to him--Darke. The thought of it is tearing his heart, as he returns from his fruitless search after the fugitive. He has left the swamp behind, and is continuing on through a tract of woodland, which separates his father's plantation from that of Colonel Armstrong, when he sees something that promises relief to his perturbed spirit. It is a woman, making her way through the woods, coming towards him, from the direction of Armstrong's house. She is not the colonel's daughter--neither one. Nor does Dick Darke suppose it either. Though seen indistinctly under the shadow of the trees, he identifies the approaching form as that of Julia--a mulatto maiden, whose special duty it is to attend upon the young ladies of the Armstrong family, "Thank God for the devil's luck!" he mutters, on making her out. "It's Jupiter's sweetheart; his Juno or Leda, yellow-hided as himself. _No_ doubt she's on her way to keep an appointment with him? No more, that I shall be present at the interview. Two hundred dollars reward for old Jupe, and the fun of giving the damned nigger a good `lamming,' once I lay hand on him. Keep on, Jule, girl! You'll track him up for me, better than the sharpest scented hound in my kennel." While making this soliloquy, the speaker withdraws himself behind a bush; and, concealed by its dense foliage, keeps his eye on the mulatto wench, still wending her way through the thick standing tree trunks. As there is no path, and the girl is evidently going by stealth, he has reason to believe she is on the errand conjectured. Indeed he can have no doubt about her being on the way to an interview with Jupiter; and he is now good as certain of soon discovering, and securing, the runaway who has so long contrived to elude him. After the girl has passed the place of his concealment--which she very soon does--he slips out from behind the bush, and follows her with stealthy tread, still taking care to keep cover between them. Not long before she comes to a stop; under a grand magnolia, whose spreading branches, with their large laurel like leaves, shadow a vast circumference of ground. Darke, who has again taken stand behind a fallen tree, where he has a full view of her movements, watches them with eager eyes. Two hundred dollars at stake--two hundred on his own account--fifteen hundred for his father--Jupe's market value--no wonder at his being all eyes, all ears, on the alert! What is his astonishment, at seeing the girl take a letter from her pocket, and, standing on tiptoe, drop it into a knot-hole in the magnolia! This done, she turns shoulder towards the tree; and, without staying longer under its shadow, glides back along the path by which she has come--evidently going home again! The negro-catcher is not only surprised, but greatly chagrined. He has experienced a double disappointment--the anticipation of earning two hundred dollars, and giving his old slave the lash: both pleasant if realised, but painful the thought in both to be foiled. Still keeping in concealment, he permits Julia to depart, not only unmolested, but unchallenged. There may be some secret in the letter to concern, though it may not console him. In any case, it will soon be his. And it soon is, without imparting consolation. Rather the reverse. Whatever the contents of that epistle, so curiously deposited, Richard Darke, on becoming acquainted with them, reels like a drunken man; and to save himself from falling, seeks support against the trunk of the tree! After a time, recovering, he re-reads the letter, and gazes at a picture--a photograph--also found within the envelope. Then from his lips come words, low-muttered--words of menace, made emphatic by an oath. A man's name is heard among his mutterings, more than once repeated. As Dick Darke, after thrusting letter and picture into his pocket, strides away from the spot, his clenched teeth, with the lurid light scintillating in his eyes, to this man foretell danger--maybe death. CHAPTER FOUR. TWO GOOD GIRLS. The dark cloud, long lowering over Colonel Armstrong and his fortunes, is about to fall. A dialogue with his eldest daughter occurring on the same day--indeed in the same hour--when she refused Richard Darke, shows him to have been but too well aware of the prospect of impending ruin. The disappointed suitor had not long left the presence of the lady, who so laconically denied him, when another appears by her side. A man, too; but no rival of Richard Darke--no lover of Helen Armstrong. The venerable white-haired gentleman, who has taken Darke's place, is her father, the old colonel himself. His air, on entering the room, betrays uneasiness about the errand of the planter's son--a suspicion there is something amiss. He is soon made certain of it, by his daughter unreservedly communicating the object of the interview. He says in rejoinder:-- "I supposed that to be his purpose; though, from his coming at this early hour, I feared something worse." These words bring a shadow over the countenance of her to whom they are addressed, simultaneous with a glance of inquiry from her grand, glistening eyes. First exclaiming, then interrogating, she says:-- "Worse! Feared! Father, what should you be afraid of?" "Never mind, my child; nothing that concerns you. Tell me: in what way did you give him answer?" "In one little word. I simply said _no_." "That little word will, no doubt, be enough. O Heaven! what is to become of us?" "Dear father!" demands the beautiful girl, laying her hand upon his shoulder, with a searching look into his eyes; "why do you speak thus? Are you angry with me for refusing him? Surely you would not wish to see me the wife of Richard Darke?" "You do not love him, Helen?" "Love him! Can you ask? Love that man!" "You would not marry him?" "Would not--could not. I'd prefer death." "Enough; I must submit to my fate." "Fate, father! What may be the meaning of this? There is some secret-- a danger? Trust to me. Let me know all." "I may well do that, since it cannot remain much longer a secret. There _is_ danger, Helen--_the danger of debt_! My estate is mortgaged to the father of this fellow--so much as to put me completely in his power. Everything I possess, land, houses, slaves, may become his at any hour; this day, if he so will it. He is sure to will it now. Your little word `no,' will bring about a big change--the crisis I've been long apprehending. Never mind! Let it come! I must meet it like a man. It is for you, daughter--you and your sister--I grieve. My poor dear girls; what a change there will be in your lives, as your prospects! Poverty, coarse fare, coarse garments to wear, and a log-cabin to live in! Henceforth, this must be your lot. I can hold out hope of no other." "What of all that, father? I, for one, care not; and I'm sure sister will feel the same. But is there no way to--" "Save me from bankruptcy, you'd say? You need not ask that. I have spent many a sleepless night thinking it there was. But no; there is only one--that one. It I have never contemplated, even for an instant, knowing it would not do. I was sure you did not love Richard Darke, and would not consent to marry him. You could not, my child?" Helen Armstrong does not make immediate answer, though there is one ready to leap to her lips. She hesitates giving it, from a thought, that it may add to the weight of unhappiness pressing upon her father's spirit. Mistaking her silence, and perhaps with the spectre of poverty staring him in the face--oft inciting to meanness, even the noblest natures--he repeats the test interrogatory:-- "Tell me, daughter! Could you marry him?" "Speak candidly," he continues, "and take time to reflect before answering. If you think you could not be contented--happy--with Richard Darke for your husband, better it should never be. Consult your own heart, and do not be swayed by me, or my necessities. Say, is the thing impossible?" "I have said. _It is impossible_!" For a moment both remain silent; the father drooping, spiritless, as if struck by a galvanic shock; the daughter looking sorrowful, as though she had given it. She soonest recovering, makes an effort to restore him. "Dear father!" she exclaims, laying her hand upon his shoulder, and gazing tenderly into his eyes; "you speak of a change in our circumstances--of bankruptcy and other ills. Let them come! For myself I care not. Even if the alternative were death, I've told you--I tell you again--I would rather that, than be the wife of Richard Darke." "Then his wife you'll never be! Now, let the subject drop, and the ruin fall! We must prepare for poverty, and Texas!" "Texas, if you will, but not poverty. Nothing of the kind. The wealth of affection will make you feel rich; and in a lowly log-hut, as in this grand house, you'll still have mine." So speaking, the fair girl flings herself upon her father's breast, her hand laid across his forehead, the white fingers soothingly caressing it. The door opens. Another enters the room--another girl, almost fair as she, but brighter, and younger. 'Tis Jessie. "Not only my affection," Helen adds, at sight of the newcomer, "but hers as well. Won't he, sister?" Sister, wondering what it is all about, nevertheless sees something is wanted of her. She has caught the word "affection," at the same time observing an afflicted cast upon her father's countenance. This decides her; and, gliding forward, in another instant she is by his side, clinging to the opposite shoulder, with an arm around his neck. Thus grouped, the three figures compose a family picture expressive of purest love. A pleasing tableau to one who knew nothing of what has thus drawn them together; or knowing it, could truly appreciate. For in the faces of all beams affection, which bespeaks a happy, if not prosperous, future-- without any doubting fear of either poverty, or Texas. CHAPTER FIVE. A PHOTOGRAPH IN THE FOREST. On the third day, after that on which Richard Darke abstracted the letter from the magnolia, a man is seen strolling along the edge of the cypress swamp. The hour is nearly the same, but the individual altogether different. Only in age does he bear any similarity to the planter's son; for he is also a youth of some three or four and twenty. In all else he is unlike Dick Darke, as one man could well be to another. He is of medium size and height, with a figure pleasingly proportioned. His shoulders squarely set, and chest rounded out, tell of great strength; while limbs tersely knit, and a firm elastic tread betoken toughness and activity. Features of smooth, regular outline--the jaws broad, and well balanced; the chin prominent; the nose nearly Grecian-- while eminently handsome, proclaim a noble nature, with courage equal to any demand that may be made upon it. Not less the glance of a blue-grey eye, unquailing as an eagle's. A grand shock of hair, slightly curled, and dark brown in colour, gives the finishing touch to his fine countenance, as the feather to a Tyrolese hat. Dressed in a sort of shooting costume, with jack-boots, and gaiters buttoned above them, he carries a gun; which, as can be seen, is a single-barrelled rifle; while at his heels trots a dog of large size, apparently a cross between stag-hound and mastiff, with a spice of terrier in its composition. Such mongrels are not necessarily curs, but often the best breed for backwoods' sport; where the keenness of scent required to track a deer, needs supplementing by strength and staunchness, when the game chances, as it often does, to be a bear, a wolf, or a panther. The master of this trebly crossed canine is the man whose name rose upon the lips of Richard Darke, after reading the purloined epistle--Charles Clancy. To him was it addressed, and for him intended, as also the photograph found inside. Several days have elapsed since his return from Texas, having come back, as already known, to find himself fatherless. During the interval he has remained much at home--a dutiful son, doing all he can to console a sorrowing mother. Only now and then has he sought relaxation in the chase, of which he is devotedly fond. On this occasion he has come down to the cypress swamp; but, having encountered no game, is going back with an empty bag. He is not in low spirits at his ill success; for he has something to console him--that which gives gladness to his heart--joy almost reaching delirium. She, who has won it, loves him. This she is Helen Armstrong. She has not signified as much, in words; but by ways equally expressive, and quite as convincing. They have met clandestinely, and so corresponded; the knot-hole in the magnolia serving them as a post-box. At first, only phrases of friendship in their conversation; the same in the letters thus surreptitiously exchanged. For despite Clancy's courage among men, he is a coward in the presence of women--in hers more than any. For all this, at their latest interview, he had thrown aside his shyness, and spoken words of love--fervent love, in its last appeal. He had avowed himself wholly hers, and asked her to be wholly his. She declined giving him an answer _viva voce_, but promised it in writing. He will receive it in a letter, to be deposited in the place convened. He feels no offence at her having thus put him off. He believes it to have been but a whim of his sweetheart--the caprice of a woman, who has been so much nattered and admired. He knows, that, like the Anne Hathaway of Shakespeare, Helen Armstrong "hath a way" of her own. For she is a girl of no ordinary character, but one of spirit, free and independent, consonant with the scenes and people that surrounded her youth. So far from being offended at her not giving him an immediate answer, he but admires her the more. Like the proud eagle's mate, she does not condescend to be wooed as the soft cooing dove, nor yield a too easy acquiescence. Still daily, hourly, does he expect the promised response. And twice, sometimes thrice, a day pays visit to the forest post-office. Several days have elapsed since their last interview; and yet he has found no letter lying. Little dreams he, that one has been sent, with a _carte de visite_ enclosed; and less of both being in the possession of his greatest enemy on earth. He is beginning to grow uneasy at the delay, and shape conjectures as to the cause. All the more from knowing, that a great change is soon to take place in the affairs of the Armstrong family. A knowledge which emboldened him to make the proposal he has made. And now, his day's hunting done, he is on his way for the tract of woodland in which stands the sweet trysting tree. He has no thought of stopping, or turning aside; nor would he do so for any small game. But at this moment a deer--a grand antlered stag--comes "loping" along. Before he can bring his gun to bear upon it, the animal is out of sight; having passed behind the thick standing trunks of the cypresses. He restrains his hound, about to spring off on the slot. The stag has not seen him; and, apparently, going unscared, he hopes to stalk, and again get sight of it. He has not proceeded over twenty paces, when a sound fills his ears, as well as the woods around. It is the report of a gun, fired by one who cannot be far off. And not at the retreating stag, but himself! He feels that the bullet has hit him. This, from a stinging sensation in his arm, like the touch of red-hot iron, or a drop of scalding water. He might not know it to be a bullet, but for the crack heard simultaneously--this coming from behind. The wound, fortunately but a slight one, does not disable him; and, like a tiger stung by javelins, he is round in an instant, ready to return the fire. There is no one in sight! As there has been no warning--not a word--he can have no doubt of the intent: some one meaning to murder him! He is sure about its being an attempt to assassinate him, as of the man who has made it. Richard Darke--certain, as if the crack of the gun had been a voice pronouncing the name. Clancy's eyes, flashing angrily, interrogate the forest. The trees stand close, the spaces between shadowy and sombre. For, as said, they are cypresses, and the hour twilight. He can see nothing save the huge trunks, and their lower limbs, garlanded with ghostly _tillandsia_ here and there draping down to the earth. This baffles him, both by its colour and form. The grey gauze-like festoonery, having a resemblance to ascending smoke, hinders him from perceiving that of the discharged gun. He can see none. It must have whiffed up suddenly, and become commingled with the moss? It does not matter much. Neither the twilight obscurity, nor that caused by the overshadowing trees, can prevent his canine companion from discovering the whereabouts of the would-be assassin. On hearing the shot the hound has harked back; and, at some twenty paces off, brought up beside a huge trunk, where it stands fiercely baying, as if at a bear. The tree is buttressed, with "knees" several feet in height rising around. In the dim light, these might easily be mistaken for men. Clancy is soon among them; and sees crouching between two pilasters, the man who meant to murder him--Richard Darke as conjectured. Darke makes no attempt at explanation. Clancy calls for none. His rifle is already cocked; and, soon as seeing his adversary, he raises it to his shoulder, exclaiming:-- "Scoundrel! you've had the first shot. It's my turn now." Darke does not remain inactive, but leaps--forth from his lurking-place, to obtain more freedom for his arms. The buttresses hinder him from having elbow room. He also elevates his gun; but, perceiving it will be too late, instead of taking aim, he lowers the piece again, and dodges behind the tree. The movement, quick and subtle, as a squirrel's bound, saves him. Clancy fires without effect. His ball but pierces through the skirt of Darke's coat, without touching his body. With a wild shout of triumph, the latter advances upon his adversary, whose gun is now empty. His own, a double-barrel, has a bullet still undischarged. Deliberately bringing the piece to his shoulder, and covering the victim he is now sure of, he says derisively,-- "What a devilish poor shot you've made, Mister Charlie Clancy! A sorry marksman--to miss a man scarce six feet from the muzzle of your gun! I shan't miss you. Turn about's fair play. I've had the first, and I'll have the last. Dog! take your _death shot_!" While delivering the dread speech, his finger presses the trigger; the crack comes, with the flash and fiery jet. For some seconds Clancy is invisible, the sulphurous smoke forming a nimbus around him. When it ascends, he is seen prostrate upon the earth; the blood gushing from a wound in his breast, and spurting over his waistcoat. He appears writhing in his death agony. And evidently thinks so himself, from his words spoken in slow, choking utterance,-- "Richard Darke--you have killed--murdered me!" "I meant to do it," is the unpitying response. "O Heavens! You horrid wretch! Why--why--" "Bah! what are you blubbering about? You know why. If not, I shall tell you--_Helen Armstrong_, After all, it isn't jealousy that's made me kill you; only your impudence, to suppose you had a chance with her. You hadn't; she never cared a straw for you. Perhaps, before dying, it may be some consolation for you to know she didn't. I've got the proof. Since it isn't likely you'll ever see herself again, it may give you a pleasure to look at her portrait. Here it is! The sweet girl sent it me this very morning, with her autograph attached, as you see. A capital likeness, isn't it?" The inhuman wretch stooping down, holds the photograph before the eyes of the dying man, gradually growing dim. But only death could hinder them from turning towards that sun-painted picture--the portrait of her who has his heart. He gazes on it lovingly, but not long. For the script underneath claims his attention. In this he recognises her handwriting, well-known to him. Terrible the despair that sweeps through his soul, as he deciphers it:-- "_Helen Armstrong_.--_For him she loves_." The picture is in the possession of Richard Darke. To him have the sweet words been vouchsafed! "A charming creature!" Darke tauntingly continues, kissing the carte, and pouring the venomous speech into his victim's ear. "It's the very counterpart of her sweet self. As I said, she sent it me this morning. Come, Clancy! Before giving up the ghost, tell me what you think of it. Isn't it an excellent likeness?" To the inhuman interrogatory Clancy makes no response--either by word, look, or gesture. His lips are mute, his eyes without light of life, his limbs and body motionless as the mud on which they lie. A short, but profane, speech terminates the terrible episode; four words of most heartless signification:-- "Damn him; he's dead!" CHAPTER SIX. A COON-CHASE INTERRUPTED. Notwithstanding the solitude of the place where the strife, apparently fatal, has occurred, and the slight chances of its being seen, its sounds have been heard. The shots, the excited speeches, and angry exclamations, have reached the ears of one who can well interpret them. This is a coon-hunter. There is no district in the Southern States without its coon-hunter. In most, many of them; but in each, one who is noted. And, notedly, he is a negro. The pastime is too tame, or too humble, to tempt the white man. Sometimes the sons of "poor white trash" take part in it; but it is usually delivered over to the "darkey." In the old times of slavery every plantation could boast of one, or more, of these sable Nimrods; and they are not yet extinct. To them coon-catching is a profit, as well as sport; the skins keeping them in tobacco--and whisky, when addicted to drinking it. The flesh, too, though little esteemed by white palates, is a _bonne-bouche_ to the negro, with whom animal food is a scarce commodity. It often furnishes him with the substance for a savoury roast. The plantation of Ephraim Darke is no exception to the general rule. It, too, has its coon-hunter--a negro named, or nicknamed, "Blue Bill;" the qualifying term bestowed, from a cerulean tinge, that in certain lights appears upon the surface of his sable epidermis. Otherwise he is black as ebony. Blue Bill is a mighty hunter of his kind, passionately fond of the coon-chase--too much, indeed, for his own personal safety. It carries him abroad, when the discipline of the plantation requires him to be at home; and more than once, for so absenting himself, have his shoulders been scored by the "cowskin." Still the punishment has not cured him of his proclivity. Unluckily for Richard Darke, it has not. For on the evening of Clancy's being shot down, as described, Blue Bill chances to be abroad; and, with a small cur, which he has trained to his favourite chase, is scouring the timber near the edge of the cypress swamp. He has "treed" an old he-coon, and is just preparing to ascend to the creature's nest--a cavity in a sycamore high up--when a deer comes dashing by. Soon after a shot startles him. He is more disturbed at the peculiar crack, than by the mere fact of its being the report of a gun. His ear, accustomed to such sounds, tells him the report has proceeded from a fowling-piece, belonging to his young master--just then the last man he would wish to meet. He is away from the "quarter" without "pass," or permission of any kind. His first impulse is, to continue the ascent of the sycamore, and conceal himself among its branches. But his dog, remaining below--that will betray him? While hurriedly reflecting on what he had best do, he hears a second shot. Then a third, coming quickly after; while preceding, and mingling with the reports are men's voices, apparently in mad expostulation. He hears, too, the angry growling of a hound, at intervals barking and baying. "Gorramity!" mutters Blue Bill; "dar's a skrimmage goin' on dar--a _fight_, I reck'n, an' seemin' to be def! Clar enuf who dat fight's between. De fuss shot wa' Mass' Dick's double-barrel; de oder am Charl Clancy rifle. By golly! 'taint safe dis child be seen hya, no how. Whar kin a hide maseff?" Again he glances upward, scanning the sycamore: then down at his dog; and once more to the trunk of the tree. This is embraced by a creeper-- a gigantic grape-vine--up which an ascent may easily be made; so easily, there need be no difficulty in carrying the cur along. It was the ladder he intended using to get at the treed coon. With the fear of his young master coming past--and if so, surely "cow-hiding" him--he feels there is no time to be wasted in vacillation. Nor does he waste any. Without further stay, he flings his arm around the coon-dog: raises the unresisting animal from the earth; and "swarms" up the creeper, like a she-bear carrying her cub. In ten seconds after, he is snugly ensconced in a crotch of the sycamore; screened from observation of any one who may pass underneath, by the profuse foliage of the parasite. Feeling fairly secure, he once more sets himself to listen. And, listening attentively, he hears the same voices as before. But not any longer in angry ejaculation. The tones are tranquil, as though the two men were now quietly conversing. One says but a word or two; the other all. Then the last alone appears to speak, as if in soliloquy, or from the first failing to make response. The sudden transition of tone has in it something strange--a contrast inexplicable. The coon-hunter can tell, that he continuing to talk is his young master, Richard Darke; though he cannot catch, the words, much less make out their meaning. The distance is too great, and the current of sound interrupted by the thick standing trunks of the cypresses. At length, also, the monologue ends; soon after, succeeded by a short exclamatory phrase, in voice louder and more earnest. Then there is silence; so profound, that Blue Bill hears but his own heart, beating in loud sonorous thumps--louder from his ribs being contiguous to the hollow trunk of the tree. CHAPTER SEVEN. MURDER WITHOUT REMORSE. The breathless silence, succeeding Darke's profane speech, is awe-inspiring; death-like, as though every living creature in the forest had been suddenly struck dumb, or dead, too. Unspeakably, incredibly atrocious is the behaviour of the man who has remained master of the ground. During the contest, Dick Darke has shown the cunning of the fox, combined with the fiercer treachery of the tiger; victorious, his conduct seems a combination of the jackal and vulture. Stooping over his fallen foe, to assure himself that the latter no longer lives, he says,-- "Dead, I take it." These are his cool words; after which, as though still in doubt, he bends lower, and listens. At the same time he clutches the handle of his hunting knife, as with the intent to plunge its blade into the body. He sees there is no need. It is breathless, almost bloodless--clearly a corpse! Believing it so, he resumes his erect attitude, exclaiming in louder tone, and with like profanity as before,-- "Yes, dead, damn him!" As the assassin bends over the body of his fallen foe, he shows no sign of contrition, for the cruel deed he has done. No feeling save that of satisfied vengeance; no emotion that resembles remorse. On the contrary, his cold animal eyes continue to sparkle with jealous hate; while his hand has moved mechanically to the hilt of his knife, as though he meant to mutilate the form he has laid lifeless. Its beauty, even in death, seems to embitter his spirit! But soon, a sense of danger comes creeping over him, and fear takes shape in his soul. For, beyond doubt, he has done murder. "No!" he says, in an effort at self-justification. "Nothing of the sort. I've killed him; that's true; but he's had the chance to kill me. They'll see that his gun's discharged; and here's his bullet gone through the skirt of my coat. By thunder, 'twas a close shave!" For a time he stands reflecting--his glance now turned towards the body, now sent searchingly through the trees, as though in dread of some one coming that way. Not much likelihood of this. The spot is one of perfect solitude, as is always a cypress forest. There is no path near, accustomed to be trodden by the traveller. The planter has no business among those great buttressed trunks. The woodman will never assail them with his axe. Only a stalking hunter, or perhaps some runaway slave, is at all likely to stray thither. Again soliloquising, he says,-- "Shall I put a bold face upon it, and confess to having killed him? I can say we met while out hunting; quarrelled, and fought--a fair fight; shot for shot; my luck to have the last. Will that story stand?" A pause in the soliloquy; a glance at the prostrate form; another, which interrogates the scene around, taking in the huge unshapely trunks, their long outstretched limbs, with the pall-like festoonery of Spanish moss; a thought about the loneliness of the place, and its fitness for concealing a dead body. Like the lightning's flashes, all this flits through the mind of the murderer. The result, to divert him from his half-formed resolution-- perceiving its futility. "It won't do," he mutters, his speech indicating the change. "No, that it won't! Better say nothing about what's happened. They're not likely to look for him here..." Again he glances inquiringly around, with a view to secreting the corpse. He has made up his mind to this. A sluggish creak meanders among the trees, some two hundred yards from the spot. At about a like distance below, it discharges itself into the stagnant reservoir of the swamp. Its waters are dark, from the overshadowing of the cypresses, and deep enough for the purpose he is planning. But to carry the body thither will require an effort of strength; and to drag it would be sure to leave traces. In view of this difficulty, he says to himself,-- "I'll let it lie where it is. No one ever comes along hero--not likely. At the same time, I take it, there can be no harm in hiding him a little. So, Charley Clancy, if I have sent you to kingdom come, I shan't leave your bones unburied. Your ghost might haunt me, if I did. To hinder that you shall have interment." In the midst of this horrid mockery, he rests his gun against a tree, and commences dragging the Spanish moss from the branches above. The beard-like parasite comes off in flakes--in armfuls. Half a dozen he flings over the still palpitating corpse; then pitches on top some pieces of dead wood, to prevent any stray breeze from sweeping off the hoary shroud. After strewing other tufts around, to conceal the blood and boot tracks, he rests from his labour, and for a time stands surveying what he has done. At length seeming satisfied, he again grasps hold of his gun; and is about taking departure from the place, when a sound, striking his ear, causes him to start. No wonder, since it seems the voice of one wailing for the dead! At first he is affrighted, fearfully so; but recovers himself on learning the cause. "Only the dog!" he mutters, perceiving Clancy's hound at a distance, among the trees. On its master being shot down, the animal had scampered off--perhaps fearing a similar fate. It had not gone far, and is now returning--by little and little, drawing nearer to the dangerous spot. The creature seems struggling between two instincts--affection for its fallen master, and fear for itself. As Darke's gun is empty, he endeavours to entice the dog within reach of his knife. Despite his coaxing, it will not come! Hastily ramming a cartridge into the right-hand barrel, he aims, and fires. The shot takes effect; the ball passing through the fleshy part of the dog's neck. Only to crease the skin, and draw forth a spurt of blood. The hound hit, and further frightened, gives out a wild howl, and goes off, without sign of return. Equally wild are the words that leap from the lips of Richard Darke, as he stands gazing after. "Great God!" he cries; "I've done an infernal foolish thing. The cur will go home to Clancy's house. That'll tell a tale, sure to set people searching. Ay, and it may run back here, guiding them to the spot. Holy hell!" While speaking, the murderer turns pale. It is the first time for him to experience real fear. In such an out-of-the-way place he has felt confident of concealing the body, and along with it the bloody deed. Then, he had not taken the dog into account, and the odds were in his favour. Now, with the latter adrift, they are heavily against him. It needs no calculation of chances to make this clear. Nor is it any doubt which causes him to stand hesitating. His irresolution springs from uncertainty as to what course he shall pursue. One thing certain--he must not remain there. The hound has gone off howling. It is two miles to the widow Clancy's house; but there is an odd squatter's cabin and clearing between. A dog going in that guise, blood-bedraggled, in full cry of distress, will be sure of being seen-- equally sure to raise an alarm. On the probable, or possible, contingencies Dick Darke does not stand long reflecting. Despite its solitude, the cypress forest is not the place for tranquil thought--at least, not now for him. Far off through the trees he can hear the wail of the wounded Molossian. Is it fancy, or does he also hear human voices? He stays not to be sure. Beside that gory corpse, shrouded though it be, he dares not remain a moment longer. Hastily shouldering his gun, he strikes off through the trees; at first in quick step; then in double; this increasing to a rapid run. He retreats in a direction contrary to that taken by the dog. It is also different from the way leading to his father's house. It forces him still further into the swamp--across sloughs, and through soft mud, where he makes footmarks. Though he has carefully concealed Clancy's corpse, and obliterated all other traces of the strife, in his "scare," he does not think of those he is now making. The murderer is only--cunning before the crime. After it, if he have conscience, or be deficient in coolness, he loses self-possession, and is pretty sure to leave behind something which will furnish a clue for the detective. So is it with Richard Darke. As he retreats from the scene of his diabolical deed, his only thought is to put space between himself and the spot where he has shed innocent blood; to get beyond earshot of those canine cries, that seem commingled with the shouts of men--the voices of avengers! CHAPTER EIGHT. THE COON-HUNTER CAUTIOUS. During the time that Darke is engaged in covering up Clancy's body, and afterwards occupied in the attempt to kill his dog, the coon-hunter, squatted in the sycamore fork, sticks to his seat like "death to a dead nigger." And all the time trembling. Not without reason. For the silence succeeding the short exclamatory speech has not re-assured him. He believes it to be but a lull, denoting some pause in the action, and that one, or both, of the actors is still upon the ground. If only one, it will be his master, whose monologue was last heard. During the stillness, somewhat prolonged, he continues to shape conjectures and put questions to himself, as to what can have been the _fracas_, and its cause. Undoubtedly a "shooting scrape" between Dick Darke and Charles Clancy. But how has it terminated, or is the end yet come? Has one of the combatants been killed, or gone away? Or have both forsaken the spot where they have been trying to spill each other's blood? While thus interrogating himself, a new sound disturbs the tranquillity of the forest--the same, which the assassin at first fancied was the voice of one wailing for his victim. The coon-hunter has no such delusion. Soon as hearing, he recognises the tongue of a stag-hound, knowing it to be Clancy's. He is only astray about its peculiar tone, now quite changed. The animal is neither barking nor baying; nor yet does it yelp as if suffering chastisement. The soft tremulous whine, that comes pealing in prolonged reverberation through the trunks of the cypresses, proclaims distress of a different kind--as of a dog asleep and dreaming! And now, once more a man's voice, his master's. It too changed in tone. No longer in angry exclaim, or quiet conversation, but as if earnestly entreating; the speech evidently not addressed to Clancy, but the hound. Strange all this; and so thinks the coon-hunter. He has but little time to dwell on it, before another sound waking the echoes of the forest, interrupts the current of his reflections. Another shot! This time, as twice before, the broad round boom of a smooth-bore, so different from the short sharp "spang" of a rifle. Thoroughly versed in the distinction--indeed an adept--Blue Bill knows from whose gun the shot has been discharged. It is the double-barrel belonging to Richard Darke. All the more reason for him to hug close to his concealment. And not the less to be careful about the behaviour of his own dog, which he is holding in hard embrace. For hearing the bound, the cur is disposed to give response; would do so but for the muscular fingers of its master closed chokingly around its throat, at intervals detached to give it a cautionary cuff. After the shot the stag-hound continues its lugubrious cries; but again with altered intonation, and less distinctly heard; as though the animal had gone farther off, and were still making away. But now a new noise strikes upon the coon-hunter's ears; one at first slight, but rapidly growing louder. It is the tread of footsteps, accompanied by a swishing among the palmettoes, that form an underwood along the edge of the swamp. Some one is passing through them, advancing towards the tree where he is concealed. More than ever does he tremble on his perch; tighter than ever clutching the throat of his canine companion. For he is sure, that the man whose footsteps speak approach, is his master, or rather his master's son. The sounds seem to indicate great haste--a retreat rapid, headlong, confused. On which the peccant slave bases a hope of escaping observation, and too probable chastisement. Correct in his conjecture, as in the prognostication, in a few seconds after he sees Richard Darke coming between the trees; running as for very life--the more like it that he goes crouchingly; at intervals stopping to look back and listen, with chin almost touching his shoulder! When opposite the sycamore--indeed under it--he makes pause longer than usual. The perspiration stands in beads upon his forehead, pours down his cheeks, over his eyebrows, almost blinding him. He whips a kerchief out of his coat pocket, and wipes it off. While so occupied, he does not perceive that he has let something drop--something white that came out along with the kerchief. Replacing the piece of cambric he hurries on again, leaving it behind; on, on, till the dull thud of his footfall, and the crisp rustling of the stiff fan-like leaves, become both blended with the ordinary noises of the forest. Then, but not before, does Blue Bill think of forsaking the fork. Descending from his irksome seat, he approaches the white thing left lying on the ground--a letter enveloped in the ordinary way. He takes it up, and sees it has been already opened. He thinks not of drawing out the sheet folded inside. It would be no use; since the coon-hunter cannot read. Still, an instinct tells him, the little bit of treasure-trove may some time, and in some way, prove useful. So forecasting, he slips it into his pocket. This done he stands reflecting. No noise to disturb him now. Darke's footsteps have died away in the distance, leaving swamp and cypress forest restored to their habitual stillness. The only sound, Blue Bill hears, is the beating of his own heart, yet loud enough. No longer thinks he of the coon he has succeeded in treeing. The animal, late devoted to certain death, will owe its escape to an accident, and may now repose securely within its cave. Its pursuer has other thoughts--emotions, strong enough to drive coon-hunting clean out of his head. Among these are apprehensions about his own safety. Though unseen by Richard Darke--his presence there unsuspected--he knows that an unlucky chance has placed him in a position of danger. That a sinister deed has been done he is sure. Under the circumstances, how is he to act? Proceed to the place whence the shots came, and ascertain what has actually occurred? At first he thinks of doing this; but surrenders the intention. Affrighted by what is already known to him, he dares not know more. His young master may be a murderer? The way in which he was retreating almost said as much. Is he, Blue Bill, to make himself acquainted with the crime, and bear witness against him who has committed it? As a slave, he knows his testimony will count for little in a court of justice. And as the slave of Ephraim Darke, as little would his life be worth after giving it. The last reflection decides him; and, still carrying the coon-dog under his arm, he parts from the spot, in timid skulking gait, never stopping, not feeling safe, till he finds himself inside the limits of the "negro quarter." CHAPTER NINE. AN ASSASSIN IN RETREAT. Athwart the thick timber, going as one pursued--in a track straight as the underwood will allow--breaking through it like a chased bear--now stumbling over a fallen log, now caught in a trailing grape-vine-- Richard Darke flees from the place where he has laid his rival low. He makes neither stop, nor stay. If so, only for a few instants, just long enough to listen, and if possible learn whether he is being followed. Whether or not, he fancies it; again starting off, with terror in his looks, and trembling in his limbs. The _sangfroid_ he exhibited while bending over the dead body of his victim, and afterwards concealing it, has quite forsaken him now. Then he was confident, there could be no witness of the deed--nothing to connect him with it as the doer. Since, there is a change--the unthought-of presence of the dog having produced it. Or, rather, the thought of the animal having escaped. This, and his own imagination. For more than a mile he keeps on, in headlong reckless rushing. Until fatigue overtaking him, his terror becomes less impulsive, his fancies freer from exaggeration; and, believing himself far enough from the scene of danger, he at length desists from flight, and comes to a dead stop. Sitting down upon a log, he draws forth his pocket-handkerchief, and wipes the sweat from his face. For he is perspiring at every pore, panting, palpitating. He now finds time to reflect; his first reflection being the absurdity of his making such precipitate retreat; his next, its imprudence. "I've been a fool for it," he mutters. "Suppose that some one has seen me? 'Twill only have made things worse. And what have I been running away from? A dead body, and a living dog! Why should I care for either? Even though the adage be true--about a live dog better than a dead lion. Let me hope the hound won't tell a tale upon me. For certain the shot hit him. That's nothing. Who could say what sort of ball, or the kind of gun it came from? No danger in that. I'd be stupid to think there could be. Well, it's all over now, and the question is: what next?" For some minutes he remains upon the log, with the gun resting across his knees, and his head bent over the barrels. He appears engaged in some abstruse calculation. A new thought has sprang up in his mind--a scheme requiring all his intellectual power to elaborate. "I shall keep that tryst," he says, in soliloquy, seeming at length to have settled it. "Yes; I'll meet her under the magnolia. Who can tell what changes may occur in the heart of a woman? In history I had a royal namesake--an English king, with an ugly hump on his shoulders--as he's said himself, `deformed, unfinished, sent into the world scarce half made up,' so that the `dogs barked at _him_,' just as this brute of Clancy's has been doing at me. And this royal Richard, shaped `so lamely and unfashionable,' made court to a woman, whose husband he had just assassinated--more than a woman, a proud queen--and more than wooed, he subdued her. This ought to encourage me; the better that I, Richard Darke, am neither halt, nor hunchbacked. No, nor yet unfashionable, as many a Mississippian girl says, and more than one is ready to swear. "Proud Helen Armstrong may be, and is; proud as England's queen herself. For all that, I've got something to subdue her--a scheme, cunning as that of my royal namesake. May God, or the Devil, grant me like success!" At the moment of giving utterance to the profane prayer, he rises to his feet. Then, taking out his watch, consults it. It is too dark for him to see the dial; but springing open the glass, he gropes against it, feeling for the hands. "Half-past nine," he mutters, after making out the time. "Ten is the hour of her assignation. No chance for me to get home before, and then over to Armstrong's wood-ground. It's more than two miles from here. What matters my going home? Nor any need changing this dress. She won't notice the hole in the skirt. If she do, she wouldn't think of what caused it--above all it's being a bullet. Well, I must be off! It will never do to keep the young lady waiting. If she don't feel disappointed at seeing me, bless her! If she do, I shall curse her! What's passed prepares me for either event. In any case, I shall have satisfaction for the slight she's put upon me. By God I'll get that!" He is moving away, when a thought occurs staying him. He is not quite certain about the exact hour of Helen Armstrong's tryst, conveyed in her letter to Clancy. In the madness of his mind ever since perusing that epistle, no wonder he should confuse circumstances, and forget dates. To make sure, he plunges his hand into the pocket, where he deposited both letter and photograph--after holding the latter before the eyes of his dying foeman, and witnessing the fatal effect. With all his diabolical hardihood, he had been awed by this--so as to thrust the papers into his pocket, hastily, carelessly. They are no longer there! He searches in his other pockets--in all of them, with like result. He examines his bullet-pouch and gamebag. But finds no letter, no photograph, not a scrap of paper, in any! The stolen epistle, its envelope, the enclosed _carte de visite_--all are absent. After ransacking his pockets, turning them inside out, he comes to the conclusion that the precious papers are lost. It startles, and for a moment dismays him. Where are they? He must have let them fall in his hasty retreat through the trees; or left them by the dead body. Shall he go back in search of them? No--no--no! He does not dare to return upon that track. The forest path is too sombre, too solitary, now. By the margin of the dank lagoon, under the ghostly shadow of the cypresses, he might meet the ghost of the man murdered! And why should he go back? After all, there is no need; nothing in the letter which can in any way compromise him. Why should he care to recover it? "It may go to the devil, her picture along! Let both rot where I suppose I must have dropped them--in the mud, or among the palmettoes. No matter where. But it does matter, my being under the magnolia at the right time, to meet her. Then shall I learn my fate--know it, for better, for worse. If the former, I'll continue to believe in the story of Richard Plantagenet; if the latter, Richard Darke won't much care what becomes of him." So ending his strange soliloquy, with a corresponding cast upon his countenance, the assassin rebuttons his coat--thrown open in search for the missing papers. Then, flinging the double-barrelled fowling-piece-- the murder-gun--over his sinister shoulder, he strides off to keep an appointment not made for him, but for the man he has murdered! CHAPTER TEN. THE EVE OF DEPARTURE. The evil day has arrived; the ruin, foreseen, has fallen. The mortgage deed, so long held in menace over the head of Archibald Armstrong--suspended, as it were, by a thread, like the sword of Damocles--is to be put into execution. Darke has demanded immediate payment of the debt, coupled with threat of foreclosure. The demand is a month old, the threat has been carried out, and the foreclosure effected. The thread having been cut, the keen blade of adversity has come down, severing the tie which attached Colonel Armstrong to his property, as it to him. Yesterday, he was owner, reputedly, of one of the finest plantations along the line of the Mississippi river, an hundred able-bodied negroes hoeing cotton in his fields, with fifty more picking it from the pod, and "ginning" the staple clear of seed; to-day, he is but their owner in seeming, Ephraim Darke being this in reality. And in another day the apparent ownership will end: for Darke has given his debtor notice to yield up houses, lands, slaves, plantation-stock--in short, everything he possesses. In vain has Armstrong striven against this adverse fate; in vain made endeavours to avert it. When men are falling, false friends grow falser; even true ones becoming cold. Sinister chance also against him; a time of panic--a crisis in the money-market--as it always is on such occasions, when interest runs high, and _second_ mortgages are sneered at by those who grant loans. As no one--neither friend nor financial speculator--comes to Armstrong's rescue, he has no alternative but submit. Too proud, to make appeal to his inexorable creditor--indeed deeming it idle--he vouchsafes no answer to the notice of foreclosure, beyond saying: "Let it be done." At a later period he gives ear to a proposal, coming from the mortgagee: to put a valuation upon the property, and save the expenses of a public sale, by disposing of it privately to Darke himself. To this he consents; less with a view to the convenience of the last, than because his sensitive nature recoils from the vulgarism of the first. Tell me a more trying test to the delicate sensibilities of a gentleman, or his equanimity, than to see his gate piers pasted over with the black and white show bills of the auctioneer; a strip of stair carpet dangling down from one of his bedroom windows, and a crowd of hungry harpies clustered around his door-stoop; some entering with eyes that express keen concupiscence; others coming out with countenances more beatified, bearing away his Penates--jeering and swearing over them--insulting the Household Gods he has so long held in adoration. Ugh! A hideous, horrid sight--a spectacle of Pandemonium! With a vision of such domestic iconoclasm flitting before his mind--not a dream, but a reality, that will surely arise by letting his estate go to the hammer--Colonel Armstrong accepts Darke's offer to deliver everything over in a lump, and for a lamp sum. The conditions have been some time settled; and Armstrong now knows the worst. Some half-score slaves he reserves; the better terms secured to his creditor by private bargain enabling him to obtain this concession. Several days have elapsed since the settlement came to a conclusion--the interval spent in preparation for the change. A grand one, too; which contemplates, not alone leaving the old home, but the State in which it stands. The fallen man shrinks from further association with those who have witnessed his fall. Not but that he will leave behind many friends, faithful and true. Still to begin life again in their midst-- to be seen humbly struggling at the bottom of the ladder on whose top he once proudly reposed--that would indeed be unendurable. He prefers to carry out the design, he once thought only a dreamy prediction--migrating to Texas. There, he may recommence life with more hopeful energy, and lesser sense of humiliation. The moving day has arrived, or rather the eve preceding it. On the morrow, Colonel Archibald Armstrong is called upon by the exigency of human laws,--oft more cruel, if not more inexorable, than those of Nature--to vacate the home long his. 'Tis night. Darkness has spread its sable pall over forest and field, and broods upon the brighter surface of the stream gliding between--the mighty Mississippi. All are equally obscured--from a thick veil of lead-coloured cloud, at the sun's setting, drawn over the canopy of the sky. Any light seen is that of the fire-flies, engaged in their nocturnal cotillon; while the sounds heard are nightly noises in a Southern States forest, semi-tropical, as the wild creatures who have their home in it. The green _cicada_ chirps continuously, "Katy did-- Katy did;" the _hyladae_, though reptiles, send forth an insect note; while the sonorous "gluck-gluck" of the huge _rana pipiens_ mingles with the melancholy "whoo-whooa" of the great horned owl; which, unseen, sweeps on silent wing through the shadowy aisles of the forest, leading the lone traveller to fancy them peopled by departed spirits in torment from the pains of Purgatory. Not more cheerful are the sounds aloft: for there are such, far above the tops of the tallest trees. There, the nightjar plies its calling, not so blind but that it can see in deepest darkness the smallest moth or midge, that, tired of perching on the heated leaves essays to soar higher. Two sorts of these goatsuckers, utter cries quite distinct; though both expressing aversion to "William." One speaks of him as still alive, mingling pity with its hostile demand: "Whippoor-Will!" The other appears to regard him as dead, and goes against his marital relict, at intervals calling out: "Chuck Will's widow!" Other noises interrupt the stillness of a Mississippian night. High up in heaven the "honk" of a wild gander leading his flock in the shape of an inverted V; at times the more melodious note of a trumpeter swan; or from the top of a tall cottonwood, or cypress, the sharp saw-filing shriek of the white-headed eagle, angered by some stray creature coming too close, and startling it from its slumbers. Below, out of the swamp sedge, rises the mournful cry of the quabird--the American bittern--and from the same, the deep sonorous bellow of that ugliest animal on earth--the alligator. Where fields adjoin the forest--plantation clearings--oft few and far between--there are sounds more cheerful. The song of the slave, his day's work done, sure to be preceded, or followed, by peals of loud jocund laughter; the barking of the house-dog, indicative of a well-watched home; with the lowing of cattle, and other domestic calls that proclaim it worth watching. A galaxy of little lights, in rows like street lamps, indicate the "negro quarter;" while in the foreground a half-dozen windows of larger size, and brighter sheen, show where stands the "big house"--the planter's own dwelling. To that of Colonel Armstrong has come a night of exceptional character, when its lights are seen burning later than usual. The plantation clock has tolled nine, nearly an hour ago. Still light shines through the little windows of the negro cabins, while the larger ones of the "big house" are all aflame. And there are candles being carried to and fro, lighting up a scene of bustling activity: while the clack of voices-- none of them in laughter--is heard commingled with the rattling of chains, and the occasional stroke of a hammer. The forms of men and women, are seen to flit athwart the shining windows, all busy about something. There is no mystery in the matter. It is simply the planter, with his people, occupied in preparation for the morrow's moving. Openly, and without restraint: for, although so near the mid hour of night, it is no midnight flitting. The only individual, who appears to act surreptitiously, is a young girl; who, coming out by the back door of the dwelling, makes away from its walls in gliding gait--at intervals glancing back over her shoulder, as if in fear of being followed, or observed. Her style of dress also indicates a desire to shun observation; for she is cloaked and close hooded. Not enough to ensure disguise, though she may think so. The most stolid slave on all Colonel Armstrong's plantation, could tell at a glance whose figure is enfolded in the shapeless garment, giving it shape. He would at once identify it as that of his master's daughter. For no wrap however loosely flung over it, could hide the queenly form of Helen Armstrong, or conceal the splendid symmetry of her person. Arrayed in the garb of a laundress, she would still look the lady. Perhaps, for the first time in her life she is walking with stealthy step, crouched form, and countenance showing fear. Daughter of a large slave-owner--mistress over many slaves--she is accustomed to an upright attitude, and aristocratic bearing. But she is now on an errand that calls for more than ordinary caution, and would dread being recognised by the humblest slave on her father's estate. Fortunately for her, none see; therefore no one takes note of her movements, or the mode of her apparel. If one did, the last might cause remark. A woman cloaked, with head hooded in a warm summer night, the thermometer at ninety! Notwithstanding the numerous lights, she is not observed as she glides through their crossing coruscations. And beyond, there is but little danger--while passing through the peach orchard, that stretches rearward from the dwelling. Still less, after getting out through a wicket-gate, which communicates with a tract of woodland. For then she is among trees whose trunks stand close, the spaces between buried in deep obscurity--deeper from the night being a dark one. It is not likely so to continue: for, before entering into the timber, she glances up to the sky, and sees that the cloud canopy has broken; here and there stars scintillating in the blue spaces between. While, on the farther edge of the plantation clearing, a brighter belt along the horizon foretells the uprising of the moon. She does not wait for this; but plunges into the shadowy forest, daring its darkness, regardless of its dangers. CHAPTER ELEVEN. UNDER THE TRYSTING TREE. Still stooping in her gait, casting furtive glances to right, to left, before and behind--at intervals stopping to listen--Helen Armstrong continues her nocturnal excursion. Notwithstanding the obscurity, she keeps in a direct course, as if to reach some particular point, and for a particular reason. What this is needs not be told. Only love could lure a young lady out at that late hour, and carry her along a forest path, dark, and not without dangers. And love unsanctioned, unallowed--perhaps forbidden, by some one who has ascendancy over her. Just the first it is which has tempted her forth; while the last, not the cold, has caused her to cloak herself, and go close hooded. If her father but knew of the errand she is on, it could not be executed. And well is she aware of this. For the proud planter is still proud, despite his reverses, still clings to the phantom of social superiority; and if he saw her now, wandering through the woods at an hour near midnight, alone; if he could divine her purpose: to meet a man, who in time past has been rather coldly received at his house--because scarce ranking with his own select circle--had Colonel Armstrong but the gift of clairvoyance, in all probability he would at once suspend the preparations for departure, rush to his rifle, then off through the woods on the track of his erring daughter, with the intent to do a deed sanguinary as that recorded, if not so repulsive. The girl has not far to go--only half a mile or so, from the house, and less than a quarter beyond the zigzag rail fence, which forms a boundary line between the maize fields and primeval forest. Her journey, when completed, will bring her under a tree--a grand magnolia, monarch of the forest surrounding. Well does she know it, as the way thither. Arriving at the tree, she pauses beneath its far-stretching boughs. At the same time tossing back her hood, she shows her face unveiled. She has no fear now. The place is beyond the range of night-strolling negroes. Only one in pursuit of 'possum, or 'coon, would be likely to come that way; a contingency too rare to give her uneasiness. With features set in expectation, she stands. The fire-flies illuminate her countenance--deserving a better light. But seen, even under their pale fitful coruscation, its beauty is beyond question. Her features of gipsy cast--to which the cloak's hood adds characteristic expression-- produce a picture appropriate to its framing--the forest. Only for a few short moments does she remain motionless. Just long enough to get back her breath, spent by some exertion in making her way through the wood--more difficult in the darkness. Strong emotions, too, contribute to the pulsations of her heart. She does not wait for them to be stilled. Facing towards the tree, and standing on tiptoe, she raises her hand aloft, and commences groping against the trunk. The fire-flies flicker over her snow-white fingers, as these stray along the bark, at length resting upon the edge of a dark disc--the knot-hole in the tree. Into this her hand is plunged; then drawn out--empty! At first there is no appearance of disappointment. On the contrary, the phosphoric gleam dimly disclosing her features, rather shows satisfaction--still further evinced by the phrase falling from her lips, with the tone of its utterance. She says, contentedly:--"_He has got it_!" But by the same fitful light, soon after is perceived a change--the slightest expression of chagrin, as she adds, in murmured interrogatory, "Why hasn't he left an answer?" Is she sure he has not? No. But she soon will be. With this determination, she again faces towards the tree; once more inserts her slender fingers; plunges in her white hand up to the wrist-- to the elbow; gropes the cavity all round; then draws out again, this time with an exclamation which tells of something more than disappointment. It is discontent--almost anger. So too a speech succeeding, thus:-- "He might at least have let me know, whether he was coming or not--a word to say, I might expect him. He should have been here before me. It's the hour--past it!" She is not certain--only guessing. She may be mistaken about the time-- perhaps wronging the man. She draws the watch from her waistbelt, and holds the dial up. By the moon, just risen, she can read it. Reflecting the rays, the watch crystal, the gold rings on her fingers, and the jewels gleam joyfully. But there is no joy on her countenance. On the contrary, a mixed expression of sadness and chagrin. For the hands indicate ten minutes after the hour of appointment. There can be no mistake about the time--she herself fixed it. And none in the timepiece. Her watch is not a cheap one. No fabric of Germany, or Geneva; no pedlar's thing from Yankeeland, which as a Southron she would despise; but an article of solid English manufacture, _sun-sure_, like the machine-made watches of "Streeter." In confidence she consults it; saying vexatiously: "Ten minutes after, and he not here! No answer to my note! He must have received it: Surely Jule put it into the tree? Who but he could have taken it out? Oh, this is cruel! He comes not--I shall go home." The cloak is once more closed, the hood drawn over her head. Still she lingers--lingers, and listens. No footstep--no sound to break the solemn stillness--only the chirrup of tree-crickets, and the shrieking of owls. She takes a last look at the dial, sadly, despairingly. The hands indicate full fifteen minutes after the hour she had named--going on to twenty. She restores the watch to its place, beneath her belt, her demeanour assuming a sudden change. Some chagrin still, but no sign of sadness. This is replaced by an air of determination, fixed and stern. The moon's light, with that of the fire-flies, have both a response in flashes brighter than either--sparks from the eyes of an angry woman. For Helen Armstrong is this, now. Drawing her cloak closer around, she commences moving off from the tree. She is not got beyond the canopy of its branches, ere her steps are stayed. A rustling among the dead leaves--a swishing against those that live--a footstep with tread solid and heavy--the footfall of a man! A figure is seen approaching; as yet only indistinctly, but surely that of a man. As surely the man expected? "He's been detained--no doubt by some good cause," she reflects, her spite and sadness departing as he draws near. They are gone, before he can get to her side. But woman-like, she resolves to make a grace of forgiveness, and begins by upbraiding him. "So you're here at last. A wonder you condescended coming at all! There's an old adage `Better late than never.' Perhaps, you think it befits present time and company? And, perhaps, you may be mistaken. Indeed you are, so far as I'm concerned. I've been here long enough, and won't be any longer. Good-night, sir! Good-night!" Her speech is taunting in tone, and bitter in sense. She intends it to be both--only in seeming. But to still further impress a lesson on the lover who has slighted her, she draws closer the mantle, and makes as if moving away. Mistaking her pretence for earnest, the man flings himself across her path--intercepting her. Despite the darkness she can see that his arms are in the air, and stretched towards her, as if appealingly. The attitude speaks apology, regret, contrition--everything to make her relent. She relents; is ready to fling herself upon his breast, and there lie lovingly, forgivingly. But again woman-like, not without a last word of reproach, to make more esteemed her concession, she says:-- "'Tis cruel thus to have tried me. Charles! Charles! why have you done it?" As she utters the interrogatory a cloud comes over her countenance, quicker than ever shadow over sun. Its cause--the countenance of him standing _vis-a-vis_. A change in their relative positions has brought his face full under the moonlight. He is _not_ the man she intended meeting! Who he really is can be gathered from his rejoinder:-- "You are mistaken, Miss Armstrong. My name is not Charles, but Richard. I am _Richard Darke_." CHAPTER TWELVE. THE WRONG MAN. Richard Darke instead of Charles Clancy! Disappointment were far too weak a word to express the pang that shoots through the heart of Helen Armstrong, on discovering the mistake she has made. It is bitter vexation, commingled with a sense of shame. I or her speeches, in feigned reproach, have terribly compromised her. She does not drop to the earth, nor show any sign of it. She is not a woman of the weak fainting sort. No cry comes from her lips--nothing to betray surprise, or even the most ordinary emotion. As Darke stands before her with arms upraised, she simply says,-- "Well, sir; if you _are_ Richard Darke, what then? Your being so matters not to me; and certainly gives you no right thus to intrude upon me. I wish to be alone, and must beg of you to leave me so." The cool firm tone causes him to quail. He had hoped that the surprise of his unexpected appearance--coupled with his knowledge of her clandestine appointment--would do something to subdue, perhaps make her submissive. On the contrary, the thought of the last but stings her to resentment, as he soon perceives. His raised arms drop down, and he is about to step aside, leaving her free to pass. Though not before making an attempt to justify himself; instinct supplying a reason, with hope appended. He does so, saying,-- "If I've intruded, Miss Armstrong, permit me to apologise for it. I assure you it's been altogether an accident. Having heard you are about to leave the neighbourhood--indeed, that you start to-morrow morning--I was on the way to your father's house to say farewell. I'm sorry my coming along here, and chancing to meet you, should lay me open to the charge of intrusion. I shall still more regret, if my presence has spoiled any plans, or interfered with an appointment. Some one else expected, I presume?" For a time she is silent--abashed, while angered, by the impudent interrogatory. Recovering herself, she rejoins,-- "Even were it as you say, sir, by what authority do you question me? I've said I wish to be alone." "Oh, if that's your wish, I must obey, and relieve you of my presence, apparently so disagreeable." Saying this he steps to one side. Then continues,-- "As I've told you, I was on the way to your father's house to take leave of the family. If you're not going immediately home, perhaps I may be the bearer of a message for you?" The irony is evident; but Helen Armstrong is not sensible of it. She does not even think of it. Her only thought is how to get disembarrassed of this man who has appeared at a moment so _mal apropos_. Charles Clancy--for he was the expected one--may have been detained by some cause unknown, a delay still possible of justification. She has a lingering thought he may yet come; and, so thinking, her eye turns towards the forest with a quick, subtle glance. Notwithstanding its subtlety, and the obscurity surrounding them, Darke observes, comprehends it. Without waiting for her rejoinder, he proceeds to say,-- "From the mistake you've just made, Miss Armstrong, I presume you took me for some one bearing the baptismal name of Charles. In these parts I know only one person who carries that cognomen--one Charles Clancy. If it be he you are expecting, I think I can save you the necessity of stopping out in the night air any longer. If you're staying for him you'll be disappointed; he will certainly not come." "What mean you, Mr Darke? Why do you say that?" His words carry weighty significance, and throw the proud girl off her guard. She speaks confusedly, and without reflection. His rejoinder, cunningly conceived, designed with the subtlety of the devil, still further affects her, and painfully. He answers, with assumed nonchalance,-- "Because I know it." "How?" comes the quick, unguarded interrogatory. "Well; I chanced to meet Charley Clancy this morning, and he told me he was going off on a journey. He was just starting when I saw him. Some affair of the heart, I believe; a little love-scrape he's got into with a pretty Creole girl, who lives t'other side of Natchez. By the way, he showed me a photograph of yourself, which he said you had sent him. A very excellent likeness, indeed. Excuse me for telling you, that he and I came near quarrelling about it. He had another photograph--that of his Creole _chere amie_--and would insist that she is more beautiful than you. I may own, Miss Armstrong, you've given me no great reason for standing forth as your champion. Still, I couldn't stand that; and, after questioning Clancy's taste, I plainly told him he was mistaken. I'm ready to repeat the same to him, or any one, who says you are not the most beautiful woman in the State of Mississippi." At the conclusion of his fulsome speech Helen Armstrong cares but little for the proffered championship, and not much for aught else. Her heart is nigh to breaking. She has given her affections to Clancy-- in that last letter written, lavished them. And they have been trifled with--scorned! She, daughter of the erst proudest planter in all Mississippi State, has been slighted for a Creole girl; possibly, one of the "poor white trash" living along the bayous' edge. Full proof she has of his perfidy, or how should Darke know of it? More maddening still, the man so slighting her, has been making boast of it, proclaiming her suppliance and shame, showing her photograph, exulting in the triumph obtained! "O God!" Not in prayer, but angry ejaculation, does the name of the Almighty proceed from her lips. Along with it a scarce-suppressed scream, as, despairingly, she turns her face towards home. Darke sees his opportunity, or thinks so; and again flings himself before her--this time on his knees. "Helen Armstrong!" he exclaims, in an earnestness of passion--if not pure, at least heartfelt and strong--"why should you care for a man who thus mocks you? Here am I, who love you, truly--madly--more than my own life! 'Tis not too late to withdraw the answer you have given me. Gainsay it, and there need be no change--no going to Texas. Your father's home may still be his, and yours. Say you'll be my wife, and everything shall be restored to him--all will yet be well." She is patient to the conclusion of his appeal. Its apparent sincerity stays her; though she cannot tell, or does not think, why. It is a moment of mechanical irresolution. But, soon as ended, again returns the bitterness that has just swept through her soul--torturing her afresh. There is no balm in the words spoken by Dick Darke; on the contrary, they but cause increased rankling. To his appeal she makes answer, as once before she has answered him-- with a single word. But now repeated three times, and in a tone not to be mistaken. On speaking it, she parts from the spot with proud haughty step, and a denying disdainful gesture, which tells him, she is not to be further stayed. Spited, chagrined, angry, in his craven heart he feels also cowed, subdued, crestfallen. So much, he dares not follow her, but remains under the magnolia; from whose hollow trunk seems to reverberate the echo of her last word, in its treble repetition: "_never_--_never_--_never_!" CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE COON-HUNTER AT HOME. Over the fields of Ephraim Darke's plantation a lingering ray of daylight still flickers, as Blue Bill, returning from his abandoned coon-hunt, gets back to the negro quarter. He enters it, with stealthy tread, and looking cautiously around. For he knows that some of his fellow-slaves are aware of his having gone out "a-cooning," and will wonder at his soon return--too soon to pass without observation. If seen by them he may be asked for an explanation, which he is not prepared to give. To avoid being called upon for it, he skulks in among the cabins; still carrying the dog under his arm, lest the latter may take a fancy to go smelling among the utensils of some other darkey's kitchen, and betray his presence in the "quarter." Fortunately for the coon-hunter, the little "shanty" that claims him as its tenant stands at the outward extremity of the row of cabins--nearest the path leading to the plantation woodland. He is therefore enabled to reach, and re-enter it, without any great danger of attracting observation. And as it chances, he is not observed; but gets back into the bosom of his family, no one being a bit the wiser. Blue Bill's domestic circle consists of his wife, Phoebe, and several half-naked little "niggers," who, at his return, tackle on to his legs, and, soon as he sits down, clamber confusedly over his knees. So circumstanced, one would think he should now feel safe, and relieved from further anxiety. Far from it: he has yet a gauntlet to run. His re-appearance so early, unexpected; his empty gamebag; the coon-dog carried under his arm; all have their effect upon Phoebe. She cannot help feeling surprise, accompanied by a keen curiosity. She is not the woman to submit to it in silence. Confronting her dark-skinned lord and master, with arms set akimbo, she says,-- "Bress de Lor', Bill! Wha' for you so soon home? Neider coon nor possum! An' de dog toated arter dat trange fashun! You ain't been gone more'n a hour! Who'd speck see you come back dat a way, empty-handed; nuffin, 'cep your own ole dog! 'Splain it, sah?" Thus confronted, the coon-hunter lets fall his canine companion; which drops with a dump upon the floor. Then seats himself on a stool, but without entering upon the demanded explanation. He only says:-- "Nebba mind, Phoebe, gal; nebba you mind why I'se got home so soon. Dat's nuffin 'trange. I seed de night warn't a gwine to be fav'ble fo' trackin' de coon; so dis nigga konklood he'd leab ole cooney 'lone." "Lookee hya, Bill!" rejoins the sable spouse, laying her hand upon his shoulder, and gazing earnestly into his eyes. "Dat ere ain't de correck explicashun. You's not tellin' me de troof!" The coon-hunter quails under the searching glance, as if in reality a criminal; but still holds back the demanded explanation. He is at a loss what to say. "Da's somethin' mysteerus 'bout dis," continues his better half. "You'se got a seecrit, nigga; I kin tell it by de glint ob yer eye. I nebba see dat look on ye, but I know you ain't yaseff; jess as ye use deseeve me, when you war in sich a way 'bout brown Bet." "Wha you talkin 'bout, Phoebe? Dar's no brown Bet in de case. I swar dar ain't." "Who sayed dar war? No, Bill, dat's all pass. I only spoked ob her 'kase ya look jess now like ye did when Bet used bamboozle ye. What I say now am dat you ain't yaseff. Dar's a cat in de bag, somewha; you better let her out, and confess de whole troof." As Phoebe makes this appeal, her glance rests inquiringly on her husband's countenance, and keenly scrutinises the play of his features. There is not much play to be observed. The coon-hunter is a pure-blooded African, with features immobile as those of the Sphinx. And from his colour nought can be deduced. As already said, it is the depth of its ebon blackness, producing a purplish iridescence over the epidermis, that has gained for him the sobriquet "Blue Bill." Unflinchingly he stands the inquisitorial glance, and for the time Phoebe is foiled. Only until after supper, when the frugality of the meal--made so by the barren chase--has perhaps something to do in melting his heart, and relaxing his tongue. Whether this, or whatever the cause, certain it is, that before going to bed, he unburdens himself to the partner of his joys, by making full confession of what he has heard and seen by the side of the cypress swamp. He tells her, also, of the letter picked up; which, cautiously pulling out of his pocket, he submits to her inspection. Phoebe has once been a family servant--an indoor domestic, and handmaiden to a white mistress. This in the days of youth--the halcyon days of her girlhood, in "Ole Varginny"--before she was transported west, sold to Ephraim Darke, and by him degraded to the lot of an ordinary outdoor slave. But her original owner taught her to read, and her memory still retains a trace of this early education--sufficient for her to decipher the script put into her hands. She first looks at the photograph; as it is the first to come out of the envelope. There can be no mistaking whose likeness it is. A lady too conspicuously beautiful to have escaped notice from the humblest slave in the settlement. The negress spends some seconds gazing upon the portrait, as she does so remarking,-- "How bewful dat young lady!" "You am right 'bout dat, Phoebe. She bewful as any white gal dis nigga ebber sot eyes on. And she good as bewful. I'se sorry she gwine leab dis hya place. Dar's many a darkie 'll miss de dear young lady. An' won't Mass Charl Clancy miss her too! Lor! I most forgot; maybe he no trouble 'bout her now; maybe he's gone dead! Ef dat so, she miss _him_, a no mistake. She cry her eyes out." "You tink dar war something 'tween dem two?" "Tink! I'se shoo ob it, Phoebe. Didn't I see dem boaf down dar in de woodland, when I war out a-coonin. More'n once I seed em togedder. A young white lady an' genl'm don't meet dat way unless dar's a feelin' atween em, any more dan we brack folks. Besides, dis nigga know dey lub one noder--he know fo sartin. Jule, she tell Jupe; and Jupe hab trussed dat same seecret to me. Dey been in lub long time; afore Mass Charl went 'way to Texas. But de great Kurnel Armstrong, he don't know nuffin' 'bout it. Golly! ef he did, he shoo kill Charl Clancy; dat is, if de poor young man ain't dead arready. Le's hope 'tain't so. But, Phoebe, gal, open dat letter, an' see what de lady say. Satin it's been wrote by her. Maybe it trow some light on dis dark subjeck." Phoebe, thus solicited, takes the letter from the envelope. Then spreading it out, and holding it close to the flare of the tallow dip, reads it from beginning to end. It is a task that occupies her some considerable time; for her scholastic acquirements, not very bright at the best, have become dimmed by long disuse. For all, she succeeds in deciphering its contents and interpreting them to Bill; who listens with ears wide open and eyes in staring wonderment. When the reading is at length finished, the two remain for some time silent,--pondering upon the strange circumstances thus revealed to them. Blue Bill is the first to resume speech. He says:-- "Dar's a good deal in dat letter I know'd afore, and dar's odder points as 'pear new to me; but whether de old or de new, 'twon't do for us folk declar a single word o' what de young lady hab wrote in dat ere 'pistle. No, Phoebe, neery word must 'scape de lips ob eider o' us. We muss hide de letter, an' nebba let nob'dy know dar's sich a dockyment in our posseshun. And dar must be nuffin' know'd 'bout dis nigga findin' it. Ef dat sakumstance war to leak out, I needn't warn you what 'ud happen to me. Blue Bill 'ud catch de cowhide,--maybe de punishment ob de pump. So, Phoebe, gal, gi'e me yar word to keep dark, for de case am a dangersome, an a desprit one." The wife can well comprehend the husband's caution, with the necessity of compliance; and the two retire to rest, in the midst of their black olive branches, with a mutual promise to be "mum." CHAPTER FOURTEEN. WHY COMES HE NOT? Helen Armstrong goes to bed, with spiteful thoughts about Charles Clancy. So rancorous she cannot sleep, but turns distractedly on her couch, from time to time changing cheek upon the pillow. At little more than a mile's distance from this chamber of unrest, another woman is also awake, thinking of the same man--not spitefully, but anxiously. It is his mother. As already said, the road running north from Natchez leads past Colonel Armstrong's gate. A traveller, going in the opposite direction--that is towards the city--on clearing the skirts of the plantation, would see, near the road side, a dwelling of very different kind; of humble unpretentious aspect, compared with the grand mansion of the planter. It would be called a cottage, were this name known in the State of Mississippi--which it is not. Still it is not a log-cabin; but a "frame-house," its walls of "weather-boarding," planed and painted, its roof cedar-shingled; a style of architecture occasionally seen in the Southern States, though not so frequently as in the Northern--inhabited by men in moderate circumstances, poorer than planters, but richer, or more gentle, than the "white trash," who live in log-cabins. Planters they are in social rank, though poor; perhaps owning a half-dozen slaves, and cultivating a small tract of cleared ground, from twenty to fifty acres. The frame-house vouches for their respectability; while two or three log structures at back--representing barn, stable, and other outbuildings--tell of land attached. Of this class is the habitation referred to--the home of the widow Clancy. As already known, her widowhood is of recent date. She still wears its emblems upon her person, and carries its sorrow in her heart. Her husband, of good Irish lineage, had found his way to Nashville, the capital city of Tennessee; where, in times long past, many Irish families made settlements. There he had married her, she herself being a native Tennesseean--sprung from the old Carolina pioneer stock, that colonised the state near the end of the eighteenth century--the Robertsons, Hyneses, Hardings, and Bradfords--leaving to their descendants a patent of nobility, or at least a family name deserving respect, and generally obtaining it. In America, as elsewhere, it is not the rule for Irishmen to grow rich; and still more exceptional in the case of Irish gentlemen. When these have wealth their hospitality is too apt to take the place of a spendthrift profuseness, ending in pecuniary embarrassment. So was it with Captain Jack Clancy; who got wealth with his wife, but soon squandered it entertaining his own and his wife's friends. The result, a move to Mississippi, where land was cheaper, and his attenuated fortune would enable him to hold out a little longer. Still, the property he had purchased in Mississippi State was but a poor one; leading him to contemplate a further flit into the rich red lands of North-Eastern Texas, just becoming famous as a field for colonisation. His son Charles sent thither, as said, on a trip of exploration, had spent some months in the Lone Star State, prospecting for the new home; and brought back a report in every way favourable. But the ear, to which it was to have been spoken, could no more hear. On his return, he found himself fatherless; and to the only son there remains only a mother; whose grief, pressing heavily, has almost brought her to the grave. It is one of a long series of reverses which have sorely taxed her fortitude. Another of like heaviness, and the tomb may close over her. Some such presentiment is in the mother's mind, on this very day, as the sun goes down, and she sits in her chamber beside a dim candle, with ear keenly bent to catch the returning footsteps of her son. He has been absent since noon, having gone deer-stalking, as frequently before. She can spare him for this, and pardon his prolonged absence. She knows how fond he is of the chase; has been so from a boy. But, on the present occasion, he is staying beyond his usual time. It is now night; the deer have sought their coverts; and he is not "torch-hunting." Only one thing can she think of to explain the tardiness of his return. The eyes of the widowed mother have been of late more watchful than wont. She has noticed her son's abstracted air, and heard sighs that seemed to come from his inner heart. Who can mistake the signs of love, either in man or woman? Mrs Clancy does not. She sees that Charles has lapsed into this condition. Rumours that seem wafted on the air--signs slight, but significant-- perhaps the whisper of a confidential servant--these have given her assurance of the fact: telling her, at the same time, who has won his affections. Mrs Clancy is neither dissatisfied nor displeased. In all the neighbourhood there is no one she would more wish to have for a daughter-in-law than Helen Armstrong. Not from any thought of the girl's great beauty, or high social standing. Caroline Clancy is herself too well descended to make much of the latter circumstance. It is the reputed noble character of the lady that influences her approval of her son's choice. Thinking of this--remembering her own youth, and the stolen interviews with Charles Clancy's father--oft under the shadow of night--she could not, does not, reflect harshly on the absence of that father's son from home, however long, or late the hour. It is only as the clock strikes twelve, she begins to think seriously about it. Then creeps over her a feeling of uneasiness, soon changing to apprehension. Why should he be staying out so late--after midnight? The same little bird, that brought her tidings of his love-affair, has also told her it is clandestine. Mrs Clancy may not like this. It has the semblance of a slight to her son, as herself--more keenly felt by her in their reduced circumstances. But then, as compensation, arises the retrospect of her own days of courtship carried on in the same way. Still, at that hour the young lady cannot--dares not--be abroad. All the more unlikely, that the Armstrongs are moving off--as all the neighbourhood knows--and intend starting next day, at an early hour. The plantation people will long since have retired to rest; therefore an interview with his sweetheart can scarce be the cause of her son's detention. Something else must be keeping him. What? So run the reflections of the fond mother. At intervals she starts up from her seat, as some sound reaches her; each time gliding to the door, and gazing out--again to go back disappointed. For long periods she remains in the porch, her eye interrogating the road that runs past the cottage-gate; her ear acutely listening for footsteps. Early in the night it has been dark; now there is a brilliant moonlight. But no man, no form moving underneath it. No sound of coming feet; nothing that resembles a footfall. One o'clock, and still silence; to the mother of Charles Clancy become oppressive, as with increased anxiety she watches and waits. At intervals she glances at the little "Connecticut" clock that ticks over the mantel. A pedlar's thing, it may be false, as the men who come south selling "sech." It is the reflection of a Southern woman, hoping her conjecture may be true. But, as she lingers in the porch, and looks at the moving moon, she knows the hour must be late. Certain sounds coming from the forest, and the farther swamp, tell her so. As a backwoods woman she can interpret them. She hears the call of the turkey "gobbler." She knows it means morning. The clock strikes two; still she hears no fall of footstep--sees no son returning! "Where is my Charles? What can be detaining him?" Phrases almost identical with those that fell from the lips of Helen Armstrong, but a few hours before, in a different place, and prompted by a different sentiment--a passion equally strong, equally pure! Both doomed to disappointment, alike bitter and hard to bear. The same in cause, but dissimilar in the impression produced. The sweetheart believing herself slighted, forsaken, left without a lover; the mother tortured with the presentiment, she no longer has a son! When, at a yet later hour--or rather earlier, since it is nigh daybreak--a dog, his coat disordered, comes gliding through the gate, and Mrs Clancy recognises her son's favourite hunting hound, she has still only a presentiment of the terrible truth. But one which to the maternal heart, already filled with foreboding, feels too like certainty. And too much for her strength. Wearied with watching, prostrated by the intensity of her vigil, when the hound crawls up the steps, and under the dim light she sees his bedraggled body--blood as well as mud upon it--the sight produces a climax--a shock apparently fatal. She swoons upon the spot, and is carried inside the house by a female slave--the last left to her. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. A MOONLIGHT MOVING. While the widowed mother, now doubly bereft--stricken down by the blow-- is still in a state of syncope, the faithful negress doing what she can to restore her, there are sounds outside unheard by either. A dull rumble of wheels, as of some heavy vehicle coming along the main road, with the occasional crack of a whip, and the sonorous "wo-ha" of a teamster. Presently, a large "Conestoga" wagon passes the cottage-gate, full freighted with what looks like house furniture, screened under canvas. The vehicle is drawn by a team of four strong mules, driven by a negro; while at the wagon's tail, three or four other darkeys follow afoot. The cortege, of purely southern character, has scarce passed out of sight, and not yet beyond hearing, when another vehicle comes rolling along the road. This, of lighter build, and proceeding at a more rapid rate, is a barouche, drawn by a pair of large Kentucky horses. As the night is warm, and there is no need to spring up the leathern hood--its occupants can all be seen, and their individuality made out. On the box-seat is a black coachman; and by his side a young girl whose tawny complexion, visible in the whiter moonbeams, tells her to be a mulatto. Her face has been seen before, under a certain forest tree--a magnolia-- its owner depositing a letter in the cavity of the trunk. She who sits alongside the driver is "Jule." In the barouche, behind, is a second face that has been seen under the same tree, but with an expression upon it sadder and more disturbed. For of the three who occupy the inside seats one is Helen Armstrong; the others her father, and sister. They are _en route_ for the city of Natchez, the port of departure for their journey south-westward into Texas; just starting away from their old long-loved dwelling, whose gates they have left ajar, its walls desolate behind thorn. The wagon, before, carries the remnant of the planter's property,--all his inexorable creditor allows him to take along. No wonder he sits in the barouche, with bowed head, and chin between his knees, not caring to look back. For the first time in his life he feels truly, terribly humiliated. This, and no flight from creditors, no writ, nor pursuing sheriff, will account for his commencing the journey at so early an hour. To be seen going off in the open daylight would attract spectators around; it may be many sympathisers. But in the hour of adversity his sensitive nature shrinks from the glance of sympathy, as he would dread the stare of exultation, were any disposed to indulge in it. But besides the sentiment, there is another cause for their night moving--an inexorable necessity as to time. The steamboat, which is to take them up Red River, leaves Natchez at sunrise. He must be aboard by daybreak. If the bankrupt planter be thus broken-spirited, his eldest daughter is as much cast down as he, and far more unhappily reflecting. Throughout all that night Helen Armstrong has had no sleep; and now, in the pale moonlight of the morning, her cheeks show white and wan, while a dark shadow broods upon her brow, and her eyes glisten with wild unnatural light, as one in a raging fever. Absorbed in thought, she takes no heed of anything along the road; and scarce makes answer to an occasional observation addressed to her by her sifter, evidently with the intention to cheer her. It has less chance of success, because of Jessie herself being somewhat out of sorts. Even she, habitually merry, is for the time sobered; indeed saddened at the thought of that they are leaving behind, and what may be before them. Possibly, as she looks back at the gate of their grand old home, through which they will never again go, she may be reflecting on the change from their late luxurious life, to the log-cabin and coarse fare, of which her father had forewarned them. If so, the reflection is hers--not Helen's. Different with the latter, and far more bitter the emotion that stirs within her person, scalding her heart. Little cares she what sort of house she is hitherto to dwell in, what she will have to wear, or eat. The scantiest raiment, or coarsest food, can give no discomfort now. She could bear the thought of sheltering under the humblest roof in Texas--ay, think of it with cheerfulness--had Charles Clancy been but true, to share its shelter along with her. He has not, and that is an end of it. Is it? No; not for her, though it may be for him. In the company of his Creole girl he will soon cease to think of her--forget the solemn vows made, and the sweet words spoken, beneath the magnolia--tree, in her retrospect seeming sadder than yew, or cypress. Will she ever forget him? Can she? No; unless in that land, whither her face is set, she find the fabled Lethean stream. Oh! it is bitter-- keenly bitter! It reaches the climax of its bitterness, when the barouche rolling along opens out a vista between the trees, disclosing a cottage--Clancy's. Inside it sleeps the man, who has made her life a misery! Can he sleep, after what he has done? While making this reflection she herself feels, as if never caring to close her eyelids more--except in death! Her emotions are terribly intense, her anguish so overpowering, she can scarce conceal it--indeed does not try, so long as the house is in sight. Perhaps fortunate that her father is absorbed in his own particular sadness. But her sister observes all, guessing--nay, knowing the cause. She says nothing. Such sorrow is too sacred to be intruded on. There are times, when even a sister may not attempt consolation. Jessie is glad when the carriage, gliding on, again enters among trees, and the little cottage of the Clancys, like their own great house, is forever lost to view. Could the eyes of Helen Armstrong, in passing, have penetrated through the walls of that white painted dwelling--could she have rested them upon a bed with a woman laid astretch upon it, apparently dead, or dying--could she have looked on another bed, unoccupied, untouched, and been told how he, its usual occupant, was at that moment lying in the middle of a chill marsh, under the sombre canopy of cypresses--it would have caused a revulsion in her feelings, sudden, painful, and powerful as the shock already received. There would still be sadness in her breast, but no bitterness. The former far easier to endure; she would sooner believe Clancy dead, than think of his traitorous defection. But she is ignorant of all that has occurred; of the sanguinary scene enacted--played out complete--on the edge of the cypress swamp, and the sad one inside the house--still continuing. Aware of the one, or witness of the other, while passing that lone cottage, as with wet eyes she takes a last look at its walls, she would still be shedding tears-- not of spite, but sorrow. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. WHAT HAS BECOME OF CLANCY? The sun is up--the hour ten o'clock, morning. Around the residence of the widow Clancy a crowd of people has collected. They are her nearest neighbours; while those who dwell at a distance are still in the act of assembling. Every few minutes two or three horsemen ride up, carrying long rifles over their shoulders, with powder-horns and bullet-pouches strapped across their breasts. Those already on the ground are similarly armed, and accoutred. The cause of this warlike muster is understood by all. Some hours before, a report has spread throughout the plantations that Charles Clancy is missing from his home, under circumstances to justify suspicion of foul play having befallen him. His mother has sent messengers to and fro; hence the gathering around her house. In the South-Western States, on occasions of this kind, it does not do for any one to show indifference, whatever his station in life. The wealthiest, as well as the poorest, is expected to take part in the administration of backwoods' justice--at times not strictly _en regle_ with the laws of the land. For this reason Mrs Clancy's neighbours, far and near, summoned or not summoned, come to her cottage. Among them Ephraim Darke, and his son Richard. Archibald Armstrong is not there, nor looked for. Most know of his having moved away that same morning. The track of his waggon wheels has been seen upon the road; and, if the boat he is to take passage by, start at the advertised hour, he should now be nigh fifty miles from the spot, and still further departing. No one is thinking of him, or his; since no one dreams of the deposed planter, or his family, having ought to do with the business that brings them together. This is to search for Charles Clancy, still absent from his home. The mother's story has been already told, and only the late comers have to hear it again. In detail she narrates what occurred on the preceding night; how the hound came home wet, and wounded. Confirmatory of her speech, the animal is before their eyes, still in the condition spoken of. They can all see it has been shot--the tear of the bullet being visible on its back, having just cut through the skin. Coupled with its master's absence, this circumstance strengthens the suspicion of something amiss. Another, of less serious suggestion, is a piece of cord knotted around the dog's neck--the loose end looking as though gnawed by teeth, and then broken off with a pluck; as if the animal had been tied up, and succeeded in setting itself free. But why tied? And why has it been shot? These are questions that not anybody can answer. Strange, too, in the hound having reached home at the hour it did. As Clancy went out about the middle of the day, he could not have gone to such a distance for his dog to have been nearly all night getting back. Could he himself have fired the bullet, whose effect is before their eyes? A question almost instantly answered in the negative; by old backwoodsmen among the mustered crowd--hunters who know how to interpret "sign" as surely as Champollion an Egyptian hieroglyph. These having examined the mark on the hound's skin, pronounce the ball that made it to have come from a _smooth-bore, and not a rifle_. It is notorious, that Charles Clancy never carried a smooth-bore, but always a rifled gun. His own dog has not been shot by him. After some time spent in discussing the probabilities and possibilities of the case, it is at length resolved to drop conjecturing, and commence search for the missing man. In the presence of his mother no one speaks of searching for his _dead body_; though there is a general apprehension, that this will be the thing found. She, the mother, most interested of all, has a too true foreboding of it. When the searchers, starting off, in kindly sympathy tell her to be of good cheer, her heart more truly says, she will never see her son again. On leaving the house, the horsemen separate into two distinct parties, and proceed in different directions. With one and the larger, goes Clancy's hound; an old hunter, named Woodley, taking the animal along. He has an idea it may prove serviceable, when thrown on its master's track--supposing this can be discovered. Just as conjectured, the hound does prove of service. Once inside the woods, without even setting nose to the ground, it starts off in a straight run--going so swiftly, the horsemen find it difficult to keep pace with it. It sets them all into a gallop; this continued for quite a couple of miles through timber thick and thin, at length ending upon the edge of the swamp. Only a few have followed the hound thus far, keeping close. The others, straggling behind, come up by twos and threes. The hunter, Woodley, is among the foremost to be in at the death; for _death_ all expect it to prove. They are sure of it, on seeing the stag-hound stop beside something, as it does so loudly baying. Spurring on towards the spot, they expect to behold the dead body of Charles Clancy. They are disappointed. There is no body there--dead or alive. Only a pile of Spanish moss, which appears recently dragged from the trees; then thrown into a heap, and afterwards scattered. The hound has taken stand beside it; and there stays, giving tongue. As the horsemen dismount, and get their eyes closer to the ground, they see something red; which proves to be blood. It is dark crimson, almost black, and coagulated. Still is it blood. From under the edge of the moss-heap protrudes the barrel of a gun. On kicking the loose cover aside, they see it is a rifle--not of the kind common among backwoodsmen. But they have no need to waste conjecture on the gun. Many present identify it as the yager usually carried by Clancy. More of the moss being removed, a hat is uncovered--also Clancy's. Several know it as his--can swear to it. A gun upon the ground, abandoned, discharged as they see; a hat alongside it; blood beside both--there must have been shooting on the spot--some one wounded, if not actually killed? And who but Charles Clancy? The gun is his, the hat too, and his must be the blood. They have no doubt of its being his, no more of his being dead; the only question asked is "Where's his body?" While those first up are mutually exchanging this interrogatory, others, later arriving, also put it in turn. All equally unable to give a satisfactory answer--alike surprised by what they see, and puzzled to explain it. There is one man present who could enlighten them in part, though not altogether--one who comes lagging up with the last. It is Richard Darke. Strange he should be among the stragglers. At starting out he appeared the most zealous of all! Then he was not thinking of the dog; had no idea how direct, and soon, the instinct of the animal would lead them to the spot where he had given Clancy his death shot. The foremost of the searchers have dismounted and are standing grouped around it. He sees them, and would gladly go back, but dares not. Defection now would be damning evidence against him. After all, what has he to fear? They will find a dead body--Clancy's--a corpse with a bullet-hole in the breast. They can't tell who fired the fatal shot-- how could they? There were no witnesses save the trunks of the cypresses, and the dumb brute of a dog--not so dumb but that it now makes the woods resound with its long-drawn continuous whining. If it could but shape this into articulate speech, then he might have to fear. As it is, he need not. Fortified with these reflections, he approaches the spot, by himself made bloody. Trembling, nevertheless, and with cheeks pale. _Not_ strange. He is about being brought face to face with the man he has murdered--with his corpse! Nothing of the kind. There is no murdered man there, no corpse! Only a gun, a hat, and some blotches of crimson! Does Darke rejoice at seeing only this? Judging by his looks, the reverse. Before, he only trembled slightly, with a hue of pallor on his cheeks. Now his lips show white, his eyes sunken in their sockets, while his teeth chatter and his whole frame shivers as if under an ague chill! Luckily for the assassin this tale-telling exhibition occurs under the shadow of the great cypress, whose gloomy obscurity guards against its being observed. But to counteract this little bit of good luck there chances to be present a detective that trusts less to sight, than scent. This is Clancy's dog. As Darke presents himself in the circle of searchers collected around it, the animal perceiving, suddenly springs towards him with the shrill cry of an enraged cat, and the elastic leap of a tiger! But for Simeon Woodley seizing the hound, and holding it back, the throat of Richard Darke would be in danger. It is so, notwithstanding. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Around the blood-stained spot there is a pause; the searchers forming a tableau strikingly significant. They have come up, to the very last lagger; and stand in attitudes expressing astonishment, with glances that speak inquiry. These, not directed to the ground, nor straying through the trees, but fixed upon Dick Darke. Strange the antipathy of the dog, which all observe! For the animal, soon as let loose, repeats its hostile demonstrations, and has to be held off again. Surely it signifies something, and this bearing upon the object of their search? The inference is unavoidable. Darke is well aware their eyes are upon him, as also their thoughts. Fortunate for him, that night-like shadow surrounding. But for it, his blanched lips, and craven cast of countenance, would tell a tale to condemn him at once--perhaps to punishment on the spot. As it if, his scared condition is not unnoticed. It is heard, if not clearly seen. Two or three, standing close to him, can hear his teeth clacking like castanets! His terror is trebly intensified--from a threefold cause. Seeing no body first gave him a shock of surprise; soon followed by superstitious awe; this succeeded by apprehension of another kind. But he had no time to dwell upon it before being set upon by the dog, which drove the more distant danger out of his head. Delivered also from this, his present fear is about those glances regarding him. In the obscurity he cannot read them, but for all that can tell they are sternly inquisitorial. _En revanche_, neither can they read his; and, from this drawing confidence, he recovers his habitual coolness--knowing how much he now needs it. The behaviour of the hound must not pass unspoken of. With a forced laugh, and in a tone of assumed nonchalance, he says: "I can't tell how many scores of times that dog of Clancy's has made at me in the same way. It's never forgiven me since the day I chastised it, when it came after one of our sluts. I'd have killed the cur long ago, but spared it through friendship for its master." An explanation plausible, and cunningly conceived; though not satisfactory to some. Only the unsuspicious are beguiled by it. However, it holds good for the time; and, so regarded, the searchers resume their quest. It is no use for them to remain longer by the moss-heap. There they but see blood; they are looking for a body. To find this they must go farther. One taking up the hat, another the abandoned gun, they scatter off, proceeding in diverse directions. For several hours they go tramping among the trees, peering under the broad fan-like fronds of the saw-palmettoes, groping around the buttressed trunks of the cypresses, sending glances into the shadowed spaces between--in short, searching everywhere. For more than a mile around they quarter the forest, giving it thorough examination. The swamp also, far as the treacherous ooze will allow them to penetrate within its _gloomy_ portals--fit abode of death--place appropriate for the concealment of darkest crime. Notwithstanding their zeal, prompted by sympathising hearts, as by a sense of outraged justice, the day's search proves fruitless--bootless. No body can be found, dead or living; no trace of the missing man. Nothing beyond what they have already obtained--his hat and gun. Dispirited, tired out, hungry, hankering after dinners delayed, as eve approaches they again congregate around the gory spot; and, with a mutual understanding to resume search on the morrow, separate, and set off--each to his own home. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. A BULLET EXTRACTED. Not all of the searching party leave the place. Two remain, staying as by stealth. Some time before the departure of the others, these had slipped aside, and sauntered off several hundred yards, taking their horses along with them. Halting in an out-of-the-way spot, under deepest shadow, and then dismounting, they wait till the crowd shall disperse. To all appearance impatiently, as if they wanted to have the range of the forest to themselves, and for some particular reason. Just this do they, or at least one of them does; making his design known to the other, soon as he believes himself beyond earshot of those from whom they separated. It is the elder that instructs; who, in addition to the horse he is holding, has another animal by his side--a dog. For it is the hunter, Woodley, still in charge of Clancy's hound. The man remaining with him is one of his own kind and calling; younger in years, but, like himself, a professional follower of the chase--by name, Heywood. Giving his reason for the step he is taking, Woodley says, "We kin do nothin' till them greenhorns air gone. Old Dan Boone hisself kedn't take up trail, wi' sich a noisy clanjamfry aroun him. For myself I hain't hardly tried, seein' 'twar no use till they'd clar off out o' the way. And now the darned fools hev' made the thing more diffeequilt, trampin about, an' blottin' out every shadder o' sign, an everything as looks like a futmark. For all, I've tuk notice to somethin' none o' them seed. Soon's the coast is clar we kin go thar, an' gie it a more pertikler examinashun." The younger hunter nods assent, adding a word, signifying readiness to follow his older confrere. For some minutes they remain; until silence restored throughout the forest tells them it is forsaken. Then, leaving their horses behind, with bridles looped around branches--the hound also attached to one of the stirrups--they go back to the place, where the hat and gun were found. They do not stay there; but continue a little farther on, Woodley leading. At some twenty paces distance, the old hunter comes to a halt, stopping by the side of a cypress "knee"; one of those vegetable monstrosities that perplex the botanist--to this hour scientifically unexplained. In shape resembling a ham, with the shank end upwards; indeed so like to this, that the Yankee bacon-curers have been accused, by their southern customers, of covering them with canvas, and selling them for the real article! It may be that the Mississippian backwoodsman, Woodley, could give a better account of these singular excrescences than all the closet scientists in the world. He is not thinking of either science, or his own superior knowledge, while conducting his companion to the side of that "cypress knee." His only thought is to show Heywood something he had espied while passing it in the search; but of which he did not then appear to take notice, and said nothing, so long as surrounded by the other searchers. The time has come to scrutinise it more closely, and ascertain if it be what he suspects it. The "knee" in question is one which could not be palmed off for a porker's ham. Its superior dimensions forbid the counterfeit. As the two hunters halt beside it, its bulk shows bigger than either of their own bodies, while its top is at the height of their heads. Standing in front of it, Woodley points to a break in the bark--a round hole, with edge slightly ragged. The fibre appears freshly cut, and more than cut--encrimsoned! Twenty-four hours may have elapsed, but not many more, since that hole was made. So believe the backwoodsmen, soon as setting their eyes on it. Speaking first, Woodley asks,-- "What d'ye think o' it, Ned?" Heywood, of taciturn habit, does not make immediate answer, but stands silently regarding the perforated spot. His comrade continues:-- "Thar's a blue pill goed in thar', which jedgin' by the size and shape o' the hole must a kum out a biggish gun barrel. An', lookin' at the red stain 'roun' its edge, that pill must a been blood-coated." "Looks like blood, certainly." "_It air blood_--the real red thing itself; the blood o' Charley Clancy. The ball inside thar' has first goed through his body. It's been deadened by something and don't appear to hev penetrated a great way into the timmer, for all o' that bein' soft as sapwood." Drawing out his knife, the old hunter inserts the point of its blade into the hole, probing it. "Jest as I sayed. Hain't entered the hul o' an inch. I kin feel the lead ludged thar'." "Suppose you cut it out, Sime?" "Precisely what I intend doin'. But not in a careless way. I want the surroundin' wood along wi' it. The two thegither will best answer our purpiss. So hyar goes to git 'em thegither." Saying this, he inserts his knife-blade into the bark, and first makes a circular incision around the bullet-hole. Then deepens it, taking care not to touch the ensanguined edge of the orifice, or come near it. The soft vegetable substance yields to his keen steel, almost as easily as if he were slicing a Swedish turnip; and soon he detaches a pear-shaped piece, but bigger than the largest prize "Jargonelle." Holding it in his hand, and apparently testing its ponderosity, he says: "Ned; this chunk o' timmer encloses a bit o' lead as niver kim out o' a rifle. Thar's big eends o' an ounce weight o' metal inside. Only a smooth-bore barrel ked a tuk it; an' from sech it's been dischurged." "You're right about that," responds Heywood, taking hold of the piece of wood, and also trying its weight. "It's a smooth-bore ball--no doubt of it." "Well, then, who carries a smooth-bore through these hyar woods? Who, Ned Heywood?" "I know only one man that does." "Name him! Name the damned rascal!" "Dick Darke." "Ye kin drink afore me, Ned. That's the skunk I war a-thinkin' 'bout, an' hev been all the day. I've seed other sign beside this--the which escaped the eyes o' the others. An' I'm gled it did: for I didn't want Dick Darke to be about when I war follerin' it up. For that reezun I drawed the rest aside--so as none o' 'em shed notice it. By good luck they didn't." "You saw other sign! What, Sime?" "Tracks in the mud, clost in by the edge o' the swamp. They're a good bit from the place whar the poor young fellur's blood's been spilt, an' makin' away from it. I got only a glimp at 'em, but ked see they'd been made by a man runnin'. You bet yur life on't they war made by a pair o' boots I've seen on Dick Darke's feet. It's too gloomsome now to make any thin' out o' them. So let's you an' me come back here by ourselves, at the earliest o' daybreak, afore the people git about. Then we kin gie them tracks a thorrer scrutination. If they don't prove to be Dick Darke's, ye may call Sime Woodley a thick-headed woodchuck." "If we only had one of his boots, so that we might compare it with the tracks." "_If_! Thar's no if. We _shall_ hev one o' his boots--ay, both--I'm boun' to hev 'em." "But how?" "Leave that to me. I've thought o' a plan to git purssession o' the scoundrel's futwear, an' everythin' else belongin' to him that kin throw a ray o' daylight unto this darksome bizness. Come, Ned! Le's go to the widder's house, an' see if we kin say a word to comfort the poor lady--for a lady she air. Belike enough this thing'll be the death o' her. She warn't strong at best, an' she's been a deal weaker since the husban' died. Now the son's goed too--ah! Come along, an' le's show her, she ain't forsook by everybody." With the alacrity of a loyal heart, alike leaning to pity, the young hunter promptly responds to the appeal, saying:-- "I'm with you, Woodley!" The Death Shot--by Captain Mayne Reid CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. "TO THE SHERIFF!" A day of dread, pitiless suspense to the mother of Charles Clancy, while they are abroad searching for her son. Still more terrible the night after their return--not without tidings of the missing man. Such tidings! The too certain assurance of his death--of his murder--with the added mystery of their not having been able to find his body. Only his hat, his gun, his blood! Her grief, hitherto held in check by a still lingering hope, now escapes all trammels, and becomes truly agonising. Her heart seems broken, or breaking. Although without wealth, and therefore with but few friends, in her hour of lamentation she is not left alone. It is never so in the backwoods of the Far West; where, under rough home-wove coats, throb hearts gentle and sympathetic, as ever beat under the finest broadcloth. Among Mrs Clancy's neighbours are many of this kind; chiefly "poor whites,"--as scornfully styled by the prouder planters. Some half-score of them determine to stay by her throughout the night; with a belief their presence may do something to solace her, and a presentiment that ere morning they may be needed for a service yet more solemn. She has retired to her chamber--taken to her bed; she may never leave either alive. As the night chances to be a warm one--indeed stifling hot, the men stay outside, smoking their pipes in the porch, or reclining upon the little grass plot in front of the dwelling, while within, by the bedside of the bereaved widow, are their wives, sisters, and daughters. Needless to say, that the conversation of those without relates exclusively to the occurrences of the day, and the mystery of the murder. For this, they all believe it to have been; though utterly unable to make out, or conjecture a motive. They are equally perplexed about the disappearance of the body; though this adds not much to the mystery. They deem it simply a corollary, and consequence, of the other. He, who did the foul deed, has taken steps to conceal it, and so far succeeded. It remains to be seen whether his astuteness will serve against the search to be resumed on the morrow. Two questions in chief, correlative, occupy them: "Who killed Clancy?" and "What has been the motive for killing him?" To the former, none of them would have thought of answering "Dick Darke,"--that is when starting out on the search near noon. Now that night is on, and they have returned from it, his name is on every lip. At first only in whispers, and guarded insinuations; but gradually pronounced in louder tone, and bolder speech--this approaching accusation. Still the second question remains unanswered:-- "Why should Dick Darke have killed Charley Clancy?" Even put in this familiar form it receives no reply. It is an enigma to which no one present holds the key. For none know aught of a rivalry having existed between the two men--much less a love-jealousy, than which no motive more inciting to murder ever beat in human breast. Darke's partiality for Colonel Armstrong's eldest daughter has been no secret throughout the settlement. He himself, childishly, in his cups, long since made all scandal-mongers acquainted with that. But Clancy, of higher tone, if not more secretive habit, has kept his love-affair to himself; influenced by the additional reason of its being clandestine. Therefore, those, sitting up as company to his afflicted parent, have no knowledge of the tender relations that existed between him and Helen Armstrong, any more than of their being the cause of that disaster for which the widow now weeps. She herself alone knows of them; but, in the first moment of her misfortune, completely prostrated by it, she has not yet communicated aught of this to the sympathetic ears around her. It is a family secret, too sacred for their sympathy; and, with some last lingering pride of superior birth, she keeps it to herself. The time has not come for disclosing it. But it soon will--she knows that. All must needs be told. For, after the first throes of the overwhelming calamity, in which her thoughts alone dwelt on the slain son, they turned towards him suspected as the slayer. In her case with something stronger than suspicion--indeed almost belief, based on her foreknowledge of the circumstances; these not only accounting for the crime, but pointing to the man who must have committed it. As she lies upon her couch, with tears streaming down her cheeks, and sighs heaved from the very bottom of her breast--as she listens to the kind voices vainly essaying to console her--she herself says not a word. Her sorrow is too deep, too absorbing, to find expression in speech. But in her thoughts are two men--before, her distracted fancy two faces--one of a murdered man, the other his murderer--the first her own son, the second that of Ephraim Darke. Notwithstanding ignorance of all these circumstances, the thoughts of her sympathising neighbours--those in council outside--dwell upon Dick Darke; while his name is continuously upon their tongues. His unaccountable conduct during the day--as also the strange behaviour of the hound--is now called up, and commented upon. Why should the dog have made such demonstration? Why bark at him above all the others--selecting him out of the crowd--so resolutely and angrily assailing him? His own explanation, given at the time, appeared lame and unsatisfactory. It looks lamer now, as they sit smoking their pipes, more coolly and closely considering it. While they are thus occupied, the wicket-gate, in front of the cottage, is heard turning upon its hinges, and two men are seen entering the enclosure. As these draw near to the porch, where a tallow dip dimly burns, its light is reflected from the features of Simeon Woodley and Edward Heywood. The hunters are both well-known to all upon the ground; and welcomed, as men likely to make a little less irksome that melancholy midnight watch. If the new-comers cannot contribute cheerfulness, they may something else, as predicted by the expression observed upon their faces, at stepping into the porch. Their demeanour shows them possessed of some knowledge pertinent to the subject under discussion, as also important. Going close to the candle, and summoning the rest around, Woodley draws from the ample pocket of his large, loose coat a bit of wood, bearing resemblance to a pine-apple, or turnip roughly peeled. Holding it to the light, he says: "Come hyar, fellurs! fix yar eyes on this." All do as desired. "Kin any o' ye tell what it air?" the hunter asks. "A bit of tree timber, I take it," answers one. "Looks like a chunk carved out of a cypress knee," adds a second. "It ought," assents Sime, "since that's jest what it air; an' this child air he who curved it out. Ye kin see thar's a hole in the skin-front; which any greenhorn may tell's been made by a bullet: an' he'd be still greener in the horn as kedn't obsarve a tinge o' red roun' thet hole, the which air nothin' more nor less than blood. Now, boys! the bullet's yit inside the wud, for me an' Heywood here tuk care not to extract it till the proper time shed come." "It's come now; let's hev it out!" exclaims Heywood; the others endorsing the demand. "Thet ye shall. Now, fellurs; take partikler notice o' what sort o' _egg_ hez been hatchin' in this nest o' cypress knee." While speaking, Sime draws his large-bladed knife from its sheath; and, resting the piece of wood on the porch bench, splits it open. When cleft, it discloses a thing of rounded form and metallic lustre, dull leaden--a gun-bullet, as all expected. There is not any blood upon it, this having been brushed off in its passage through the fibrous texture of the wood. But it still preserves its spherical shape, perfect as when it issued from the barrel of the gun that discharged, or the mould that made it. Soon as seeing it they all cry out, "A bullet!" several adding, "The ball of a smooth-bore." Then one asks, suggestingly: "Who is there in this neighbourhood that's got a shooting-iron of such sort?" The question is instantly answered by another, though not satisfactorily. "Plenty of smooth-bores about, though nobody as I knows of hunts with them." A third speaks more to the point, saying:-- "Yes; there's one does." "Name him!" is the demand of many voices. "_Dick Darke_!" The statement is confirmed by several others, in succession repeating it. After this succeeds silence--a pause in the proceedings--a lull ominous, not of further speech but, action. Daring its continuance, Woodley replaces the piece of lead in the wood, just as it was before; then laying the two cleft pieces together, and tying them with a string, he returns the chunk to his pocket. This done, he makes a sign to the chiefs of the conclave to follow him as if for further communication. Which they do, drawing off out of the porch, and taking stand upon grass plot below at some paces distant from the dwelling. With heads close together, they converse for a while, _sotto voce_. Not so low, but that a title, the terror of all malefactors, can be heard repeatedly pronounced. And also a name; the same, which, throughout all the evening has been upon their lips, bandied about, spoken of with gritting teeth and brows contracted. Not all of those, who watch with the widow are admitted to this muttering council. Simon Woodley, who presides over it, has his reasons for excluding some. Only men take part in it who can be relied on for an emergency, such as that the hunter has before him. Their conference closed, four of them, as if by agreement with the others, separate from the group, glide out through the wicket-gate, and on to their horses left tied to the roadside rail fence. "Unhitching" these, they climb silently into their saddles, and as silently slip away; only some muttered words passing between them, as they ride along the road. Among these may be heard the name of a man, conjoined to a speech, under the circumstances significant:-- "_Let's straight to the Sheriff_!" CHAPTER NINETEEN. THE "BELLE OF NATCHEZ." While search is still being made for the body of the murdered man, and he suspected of the crime is threatened with a prison cell, she, the innocent cause of it, is being borne far away from the scene of its committal. The steamboat, carrying Colonel Armstrong and his belongings, having left port punctually at the hour advertised, has forsaken the "Father of Waters," entered the Red River of Louisiana, and now, on the second day after, is cleaving the current of this ochre-tinted stream, some fifty miles from its mouth. The boat is the "Belle of Natchez." Singular coincidence of name; since one aboard bears also the distinctive sobriquet. Oft have the young "bloods" of the "City of the Bluffs," while quaffing their sherry cobblers, or champagne, toasted Helen Armstrong, with this appellation added. Taking quality into account, she has a better right to it than the boat. For this, notwithstanding the proud title bestowed upon it, is but a sorry craft; a little "stern-wheel" steamer, such as, in those early days, were oft seen ploughing the bosom of the mighty Mississippi, more often threading the intricate and shallower channels of its tributaries. A single set of paddles, placed where the rudder acts in other vessels, and looking very much like an old-fashioned mill-wheel, supplies the impulsive power--at best giving but poor speed. Nevertheless, a sort of craft with correct excuse, and fair _raison d'etre_; as all know, who navigate narrow rivers, and their still narrower reaches, with trees from each side outstretching, as is the case with many of the streams of Louisiana. Not that the noble Red River can be thus classified; nor in any sense spoken of as a narrow stream. Broad, and deep enough, for the biggest boats to navigate to Natchitoches--the butt of Colonel Armstrong's journey by water. Why the broken planter has taken passage on the little "stern-wheeler" is due to two distinct causes. It suited him as to time, and also expense. On the Mississippi, and its tributaries, a passage in "crack" boats is costly, in proportion to their character for "crackness." The "Belle of Natchez," being without reputation of this kind, carries her passengers at a reasonable rate. But, indeed, something beyond ideas of opportune time, or economy, influenced Colonel Armstrong in selecting her. The same thought which hurried him away from his old home under the shadows of night, has taken him aboard a third-rate river steamboat. Travelling thus obscurely, he hopes to shun encounter with men of his own class; to escape not only observation, but the sympathy he shrinks from. In this hope he is disappointed, and on both horns of his fancied, not to say ridiculous, dilemma. For it so chances, that the "bully" boat, which was to leave Natchez for Natchitoches on the same day with the "Belle," has burst one of her boilers. As a consequence, the smaller steamer has started on her trip, loaded down to the water-line with freight, her state-rooms and cabins crowded with passengers--many of these the best, bluest blood of Mississippi and Louisiana. Whatever of chagrin this _contretemps_ has caused Colonel Armstrong-- and, it may be, the older of his daughters--to the younger it gives gladness. For among the supernumeraries forced to take passage in the stern-wheel steamer, is a man she has met before. Not only met, but danced with; and not only danced but been delighted with; so much, that souvenirs of that night, with its saltative enjoyment, have since oft occupied her thoughts, thrilling her with sweetest reminiscence. He, who has produced this pleasant impression, is a young planter, by name Luis Dupre. A Louisianian by birth, therefore a "Creole." And without any taint of the African; else he would not be a Creole _pur sang_. The English reader seems to need undeceiving about this, constantly, repeatedly. In the Creole, simply so-called, there is no admixture of negro blood. Not a drop of it in the veins of Luis Dupre; else Jessie Armstrong could not have danced with him at a Natchez ball; nor would her father, fallen as he is, permit her to keep company with him on a Red River steamboat. In this case, there is no condescension on the part of the ex-Mississippian planter. He of Louisiana is his equal in social rank, and now his superior in point of wealth, by hundreds, thousands. For Luis Dupre is one of the largest landowners along the line of Red River plantations, while his slaves number several hundred field-hands, and house domestics: the able-bodied of both, without enumerating the aged, the imbecile, and piccaninnies, more costly than profitable. If, in the presence of such a prosperous man, Colonel Armstrong reflects painfully upon his own reduced state, it is different with his daughter Jessie. Into her ear Luis Dupre has whispered sweet words--a speech telling her, that not only are his lands, houses, and slaves at her disposal, but along with them his heart and hand. It is but repeating what he said on the night of the Natchez ball; his impulsive Creole nature having then influenced him to speak as he felt. Now, on the gliding steamboat, he reiterates the proposal, more earnestly pressing for an answer. And he gets it in the affirmative. Before the "Belle of Natchez" has reached fifty miles from the Red River's mouth, Luis Dupre and Jessie Armstrong have mutually confessed affection, clasped hands, let lips meet, and tongues swear, never more to live asunder. That journey commenced upon the Mississippi is to continue throughout life. In their case, there is no fear of aught arising to hinder the consummation of their hopes; no stern parent to stand in the way of their life's happiness. By the death of both father and mother, Luis Dupre has long since been emancipated from parental authority, and is as much his own master as he is of his many slaves. On the other side, Jessie Armstrong is left free to her choice; because she has chosen well. Her father has given ready consent; or at all events said enough to ensure his doing so. The huge "high-pressure" steam craft which ply upon the western rivers of America bear but a very slight resemblance to the black, long, low-- hulled leviathans that plough the briny waste of ocean. The steamboat of the Mississippi more resembles a house, two stories in height, and, not unfrequently, something of a third--abode of mates and pilots. Rounded off at stern, the structure, of oblong oval shape, is universally painted chalk-white; the second, or cabin story, having on each face a row of casement windows, with Venetian shutters, of emerald green. These also serve as outside doors to the state-rooms--each having its own. Inside ones, opposite them, give admission to the main cabin, or "saloon;" which extends longitudinally nearly the whole length of the vessel. Figured glass folding-doors cut it into three compartments; the ladies' cabin aft, the dining saloon amidships, with a third division forward, containing clerk's office and "bar," the last devoted to male passengers for smoking, drinking, and, too often, gambling. A gangway, some three feet in width, runs along the outside facade, forming a balcony to the windows of the state-rooms. It is furnished with a balustrade, called "guard-rail," to prevent careless passengers from stepping overboard. A projection of the roof, yclept "hurricane-deck," serves as an awning to this continuous terrace, shading it from the sun. Two immense twin chimneys--"funnels" as called--tower above all, pouring forth a continuous volume of whitish wood-smoke; while a smaller cylinder--the "scape-pipe"--intermittently vomits a vapour yet whiter, the steam; at each emission with a hoarse belching bark, that can be heard reverberating for leagues along the river. Seen from the bank, as it passes, the Mississippi steamboat looks like a large hotel, or mansion of many windows, set adrift and moving majestically--"walking the water like a thing of life," as it has been poetically described. Some of the larger ones, taking into account their splendid interior decoration, and, along with it their sumptuous table fare, may well merit the name oft bestowed upon them, of "floating palaces." Only in point of size, some inferiority in splendour, and having a stern-wheel instead of side-paddles, does the "Belle of Natchez" differ from other boats seen upon the same waters. As them, she has her large central saloon, with ladies' cabin astern; the flanking rows of state-rooms; the casements with green jalousies; the gangway and guard-rail; the twin funnels, pouring forth their fleecy cloud, and the scape-pipe, coughing in regular repetition. In the evening hour, after the day has cooled down, the balcony outside the state-room windows is a pleasant place to stand, saunter, or sit in. More especially that portion of it contiguous to the stern, and exclusively devoted to lady passengers--with only such of the male sex admitted as can claim relationship, or liens of a like intimate order. On this evening--the first after leaving port--the poop deck of the little steamer is so occupied by several individuals; who stand gazing at the scene that passes like a panorama before their eyes. The hot southern sun has disappeared behind the dark belt of cypress forest, which forms, far and near, the horizon line of Louisiana; while the soft evening breeze, laden with the mixed perfumes of the _liquid ambar_, and _magnolia grandiflora_, is wafted around them, like incense scattered from a censer. Notwithstanding its delights, and loveliness, Nature does not long detain the saunterers outside. Within is a spell more powerful, and to many of them more attractive. It is after dinner hour; the cabin tables have been cleared, and its lamps lit. Under the sheen of brilliant chandeliers the passengers are drawing together in groups, and coteries; some to converse, others to play _ecarte_ or _vingt-un_; here and there a solitary individual burying himself in a book; or a pair, almost as unsocial, engaging in the selfish duality of chess. Three alone linger outside; and of these only two appear to do so with enjoyment. They are some paces apart from the third, who is now left to herself: for it is a woman. Not that they are unacquainted with her, or in any way wishing to be churlish. But, simply, because neither can spare word or thought for any one, save their two sweet selves. It scarce needs telling who is the couple thus mutually engrossed. An easy guess gives Jessie Armstrong and Luis Dupre. The young Creole's handsome features, black eyes, brunette complexion, and dark curly hair have made havoc with the heart of Armstrong's youngest daughter; while, _en revanche_, her contrasting colours of red, blue, and gold have held their own in the amorous encounter. They are in love with one another to their finger tips. As they stand conversing in soft whispers, the eyes of the third individual are turned towards them. This only at intervals, and with nought of jealousy in the glance. For it is Jessie's own sister who gives it. Whatever of that burn in Helen's breast, not these, nor by them, has its torch been kindled. The love that late occupied her heart has been plucked therefrom, leaving it lacerated, and lorn. It was the one love of her life, and now crushed out, can never be rekindled. If she have a thought about her sister's new-sprung happiness, it is only to measure it against her own misery--to contrast its light of joy, with the shadow surrounding herself. But for a short moment, and with transient glance, does she regard them. Aside from any sentiment of envy, their happy communion calls up a reminiscence too painful to be dwelt upon. She remembers how she herself stood talking in that same way, with one she cannot, must not, know more. To escape recalling the painful souvenir, she turns her eyes from the love episode, and lowers them to look upon the river. CHAPTER TWENTY. SAVED BY A SISTER. The boat is slowly forging its course up-stream, its wheel in constant revolution, churning the ochre-coloured water into foam. This, floating behind, dances and simmers upon the surface, forming a wake-way of white tinted with red. In Helen Armstrong's eyes it has the appearance of blood-froth--such being the hue of her thoughts. Contemplating it for a time, not pleasantly, and then, turning round, she perceives that she is alone. The lovers have stepped inside a state-room, or the ladies' cabin, or perhaps gone on to the general saloon, to take part in the sports of the evening. She sees the lights shimmering through the latticed windows, and can hear the hum of voices, all merry. She has no desire to join in that merriment, though many may be wishing her. Inside she would assuredly become the centre of an admiring circle; be addressed in courtly speeches, with phrases of soft flattery. She is aware of this, and keeps away from it. Strange woman! In her present mood the speeches would but weary, the flattery fash her. She prefers solitude; likes better the noise made by the ever-turning wheel. In the tumult of the water there is consonance with that agitating her own bosom. Night is now down; darkness has descended upon forest and river, holding both in its black embrace. Along with it a kindred feeling creeps over her--a thought darker than night, more sombre than forest shadows. It is that which oft prompts to annihilation; a memory of the past, which, making the future unendurable, calls for life to come to an end. The man to whom she has given her heart--its firstlings, as its fulness--a heart from which there can be no second gleanings, and she knows it--he has made light of the offering. A sacrifice grand, as complete; glowing with all the interests of her life. The life, too, of one rarely endowed; a woman of proud spirit, queenly and commanding, beyond air beautiful. She does not think thus of herself, as, leaning over the guard-rail, with eyes mechanically bent upon the wheel, she watches it whipping the water into spray. Her thoughts are not of lofty pride, but low humiliation. Spurned by him at whose feet she has flung herself, so fondly, so rashly--ay, recklessly--surrendering even that which woman deems most dear, and holds back to the ultimate moment of rendition--the word which speaks it! To Charles Clancy she has spoken it. True, only in writing; but still in terms unmistakeable, and with nothing reserved. And how has he treated them? No response--not even denial! Only contemptuous silence, worse than outspoken scorn! No wonder her breast is filled with chagrin, and her brow burning with shame! Both may be ended in an instant. A step over the low rail--a plunge into the red rolling river--a momentary struggle amidst its seething waters--not to preserve life, but destroy it--this, and all will be over! Sadness, jealousy, the pangs of disappointed love--these baleful passions, and all others alike, can be soothed, and set at rest, by one little effort--a leap into oblivion! Her nerves are fast becoming strung to the taking it. The past seems all dark, the future yet darker. For her, life has lost its fascinations, while death is divested of its terrors. Suicide in one so young, so fair, so incomparably lovely; one capable of charming others, no longer to be charmed herself! A thing fearful to reflect upon. And yet is she contemplating it! She stands close to the rail, wavering, irresolute. It is no lingering love of life which causes her to hesitate. Nor yet fear of death, even in the horrid form, she cannot fail to see before her, spring she but over that slight railing. The moon has arisen, and now courses across the blue canopy of sky, in full effulgence, her beams falling bright upon the bosom of the river. At intervals the boat, keeping the deeper channel, is forced close to either bank. Then, as the surging eddies set the floating but stationary logs in motion, the huge saurian asleep on them can be heard giving a grunt of anger for the rude arousing, and pitching over into the current with dull sullen plash. She sees, and hears all this. It should shake her nerves, and cause shivering throughout her frame. It does neither. The despair of life has deadened the dread of death-- even of being devoured by an alligator! Fortunately, at this moment, a gentle hand is laid on her shoulder, and a soft voice sounds in her ear. They are the hand and voice of her sister. Jessie, coming out of her state-room, has glided silently up. She sees Helen prepossessed, sad, and can somewhat divine the cause. But she little suspects, how near things have been to a fatal climax, and dreams not of the diversion her coming has caused. "Sister!" she says, in soothing tone, her arms extended caressingly, "why do you stay out here? The night is chilly; and they say the atmosphere of this Red River country is full of miasma, with fevers and ague to shake the comb out of one's hair! Come with me inside! There's pleasant people in the saloon, and we're going to have a round game at cards--_vingt-un_, or something of the sort. Come!" Helen turns round trembling at the touch, as if she felt herself a criminal, and it was the sheriff's hand laid upon her shoulder! Jessie notices the strange, strong emotion. She could not fail to do so. Attributing it to its remotest cause, long since confided to her, she says:-- "Be a woman, Helen! Be true to yourself, as I know you will; and don't think of him any more. There's a new world, a new life, opening to both of us. Forget the sorrows of the old, as I shall. Pluck Charles Clancy from your heart, and fling every memory, every thought of him, to the winds! I say again, be a woman--be yourself! Bury the past, and think only of the future--_of our father_!" The last words act like a galvanic shock, at the same time soothing as balm. For in the heart of Helen Armstrong they touch a tender chord-- that of filial affection. And it vibrates true to the touch. Flinging her arms around Jessie's neck, she cries:-- "Sister; you have saved me!" CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. SEIZED BY SPECTRAL ARMS. "Sister, you have saved me!" On giving utterance to the ill-understood speech, Helen Armstrong imprints a kiss upon her sister's cheek, at the same time bedewing it with her tears. For she is now weeping--convulsively sobbing. Returning the kiss, Jessie looks not a little perplexed. She can neither comprehend the meaning of the words, nor the strange tone of their utterance. Equally is she at a loss to account for the trembling throughout her sister's frame, continued while their bosoms stay in contact. Helen gives her no time to ask questions. "Go in!" she says, spinning the other round, and pushing her towards the door of the state-room. Then, attuning her voice to cheerfulness, she adds:-- "In, and set the game of _vingt-un_ going. I'll join you by the time you've got the cards shuffled." Jessie, glad to see her sister in spirits unusually gleeful, makes no protest, but glides towards the cabin door. Soon as her back is turned, Helen once more faces round to the river, again taking stand by the guard-rail. The wheel still goes round, its paddles beating the water into bubbles, and casting the crimson-white spray afar over the surface of the stream. But now, she has no thought of flinging herself into the seething swirl, though she means to do so with something else. "Before the game of _vingt-un_ begins," she says in soliloquy, "I've got a pack of cards to be dealt out here--among them a knave." While speaking, she draws forth a bundle of letters--evidently old ones--tied in a bit of blue ribbon. One after another, she drags them free of the fastening--just as if dealing out cards. Each, as it comes clear, is rent right across the middle, and tossed disdainfully into the stream. At the bottom of the packet, after the letters have been all disposed of, is something seeming different. A piece of cardboard--a portrait-- in short, a _carte de visite_. It is the likeness of Charles Clancy, given her on one of those days when he flung himself affectionately at her feet. She does not tear it in twain, as she has the letters; though at first this is nearest her intent. Some thought restraining her, she holds it up in the moon's light, her eyes for a time resting on, and closely scanning it. Painful memories, winters of them, pass through her soul, shown upon her countenance, while she makes scrutiny of the features so indelibly graven upon her heart. She is looking her last upon them--not with a wish to remember, but the hope to forget--of being able to erase that image of him long-loved, wildly worshipped, from the tablets of her memory, at once and for ever. Who can tell what passed through her mind at that impending moment? Who could describe her heart's desolation? Certainly, no writer of romance. Whatever resolve she has arrived at, for a while she appears to hesitate about executing it.-- Then, like an echo heard amidst the rippling waves, return to her ear the words late spoken by her sister-- "Let us think only of the future--_of our father_." The thought decides her; and, stepping out to the extremest limit the guard-rail allows, she flings the photograph upon the paddles of the revolving wheel, as she does so, saying-- "Away, image of one once loved--picture of a man who has proved false! Be crushed, and broken, as he has broken my heart!" The sigh that escapes her, on letting drop the bit of cardboard, more resembles a subdued scream--a stifled cry of anguish, such as could only come from what she has just spoken of--a broken heart. As she turns to re-enter the cabin, she appears ill-prepared for taking part, or pleasure, in a game of cards. And she takes not either. That round of _vingt-un_ is never to be played--at least not with her as one of the players. Still half distraught with the agony through which her soul has passed-- the traces of which she fancies must be observable on her face--before making appearance in the brilliantly-lighted saloon, she passes around the corner of the ladies' cabin, intending to enter her own state-room by the outside door. It is but to spend a moment before her mirror, there to arrange her dress, the plaiting of her hair--perhaps the expression of her face--all things that to men may appear trivial, but to women important--even in the hour of sadness and despair. No blame to them for this. It is but an instinct--the primary care of their lives--the secret spring of their power. In repairing to her toilette, Helen Armstrong is but following the example of her sex. She does not follow it far--not even so far as to get to her looking-glass, or even inside her state-room. Before entering it, she makes stop by the door, and tarries with face turned towards the river's bank. The boat, tacking across stream, has sheered close in shore; so close that the tall forest trees shadow her track--the tips of their branches almost touching the hurricane-deck. They are cypresses, festooned with grey-beard moss, that hangs down like the drapery of a death-bed. She sees one blighted, stretching forth bare limbs, blanched white by the weather, desiccated and jointed like the arms of a skeleton. 'Tis a ghostly sight, and causes her weird thoughts, as under the clear moonbeams the steamer sweeps past the place. It is a relief to her, when the boat, gliding on, gets back into darkness. Only momentary; for there under the shadow of the cypresses, lit up by the flash of the fire-flies, she sees, or fancies it, a face! It is that of a man--him latest in her thoughts--Charles Clancy! It is among the trees high up, on a level with the hurricane-deck. Of course it can be but a fancy? Clancy could not be there, either in the trees, or on the earth. She knows it is but a deception of her senses--an illusive vision--such as occur to clairvoyantes, at times deceiving themselves. Illusion or not, Helen Armstrong has no time to reflect upon it. Ere the face of her false lover fades from view; a pair of arms, black, sinewy, and stiff, seem reaching towards her! More than seem; it is a reality. Before she can stir from the spot, or make effort to avoid them, she feels herself roughly grasped around the waist, and lifted aloft into the air. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. UP AND DOWN. Whatever has lifted Helen Armstrong aloft, for time holds her suspended. Only for a few seconds, during which she sees the boat pass on beneath, and her sister rush out to the stern rail, sending forth a scream responsive to her own. Before she can repeat the piercing cry, the thing grasping her relaxes its hold, letting her go altogether, and she feels herself falling, as from a great height. The sensation of giddiness is succeeded by a shock, which almost deprives her of consciousness. It is but the fall, broken by a plunge into water. Then there is a drumming in her ears, a choking in the throat; in short, the sensation that precedes drowning. Notwithstanding her late suicidal thoughts, the instinctive aversion to death is stronger than her weariness of life, and instinctively does she strive to avert it. No longer crying out; she cannot; her throat is filled with the water of the turbid stream. It stifles, as if a noose were being drawn around her neck, tighter and tighter. She can neither speak nor shout, only plunge and struggle. Fortunately, while falling, the skirt of her dress, spreading as a parachute, lessened the velocity of the descent. This still extended, hinders her from sinking. As she knows not how to swim, it will not sustain her long; itself becoming weighted with the water. Her wild shriek, with that of her sister responding--the latter still continued in terrified repetition--has summoned the passengers from the saloon, a crowd collecting on the stern-guards. "Some one overboard!" is the cry sent all over the vessel. It reaches the ear of the pilot; who instantly rings the stop-bell, causing the paddles to suspend revolution, and bringing the boat to an almost instantaneous stop. The strong current, against which they are contending, makes the movement easy of execution. The shout of, "some one overboard!" is quickly followed by another of more particular significance. "It's a lady!" This announcement intensifies the feeling of regret and alarm. Nowhere in the world more likely to do so, than among the chivalric spirits sure to be passengers on a Mississippian steamboat. Half a dozen voices are heard simultaneously asking, not "who is the lady?" but "where?" while several are seen pulling off their coats, as if preparing to take to the water. Foremost among them is the young Creole, Dupre. He knows who the lady is. Another lady has met him frantically, exclaiming-- "'Tis Helen! She has fallen, or _leaped_ overboard." The ambiguity of expression appears strange; indeed incomprehensible, to Dupre, as to others who overhear it. They attributed it to incoherence, arising from the shock of the unexpected catastrophe. This is its cause, only partially: there is something besides. Confused, half-frenzied, Jessie continues to cry out: "My sister! Save her! save her!" "We'll try; show us where she is," respond several. "Yonder--there--under that tree. She was in its branches above, then dropped down upon the water. I heard the plunge, but did not see her after. She has gone to the bottom. Merciful heavens! O Helen! where are you?" The people are puzzled by these incoherent speeches--both the passengers above, and the boatmen on the under-deck. They stand as if spell-bound. Fortunately, one of the former has retained presence of mind, and along with it coolness. It is the young planter, Dupre. He stays not for the end of her speech, but springing over the guards, swims towards the spot pointed out. "Brave fellow!" is the thought of Jessie Armstrong, admiration for her lover almost making her forget her sister's peril. She stands, as every one else upon the steamer, watching with earnest eyes. Hers are more; they are flashing with feverish excitement, with glances of anxiety--at times the fixed gaze of fear. No wonder at its being so. The moon has sunk to the level of the tree-tops, and the bosom of the river is in dark shadow; darker by the bank where the boat is now drifting. But little chance to distinguish an object in the water--less for one swimming upon its surface. And the river is deep, its current rapid, the "reach" they are in, full of dangerous eddies. In addition, it is a spot infested, as all know--the favourite haunt of that hideous reptile the alligator, with the equally-dreaded gar-fish--the shark of the South-western rivers. All these things are in Jessie Armstrong's thoughts. Amidst these dangers are the two dearest to her on earth; her sister, her lover. Not strange that her apprehension is almost an agony! Meanwhile the steamer's boat has been manned, and set loose as quickly as could be done. It is rowed towards the spot, where the swimmer was last seen; and all eyes are strained upon it--all ears listening to catch any word of cheer. Not long have they to listen. From the shadowed surface comes the shout, "_Saved_!" Then, a rough boatman's voice, saying: "All right! We've got 'em both. Throw us a rope." It is thrown by ready hands, after which is heard the command, "Haul in!" A light, held high upon the steamer, flashes its beams down into, the boat. Lying along its thwarts can be perceived a female form, in a dress once white, now discoloured and dripping. Her head is held up by a man, whose scant garments show similarly stained. It is Helen Armstrong, supported by Dupre. She appears lifeless, and the first sight of her draws anxious exclamations from those standing on the steamer. Her sister gives out an agonised cry; while her father trembles on taking her into his arms, and totters as he carries her to her state-room--believing he bears but a corpse! But no! She breathes; her pulse beats; her lips move in low murmur; her bosom's swell shows sign of returning animation. By good fortune there chances to be a medical man among the passengers; who, after administering restoratives, pronounces her out of danger. The announcement causes universal joy on board the boat--crew and passengers alike sharing it. With one alone remains a thought to sadden. It is Jessie: her heart is sore with the suspicion, that _her sister has attempted suicide_! CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. THE SLEEP OF THE ASSASSIN. On the night after killing Clancy, Richard Darke does not sleep soundly--indeed scarce at all. His wakefulness is not due to remorse; there is no such sentiment in his soul. It comes from two other causes, in themselves totally, diametrically distinct; for the one is fear, the other love. While dwelling on the crime he has committed, he only dreads its consequences to himself; but, reflecting on what led him to commit it, his dread gives place to dire jealousy; and, instead of repentance, spite holds possession of his heart. Not the less bitter, that the man and woman who made him jealous can never meet more. For, at that hour, he knows Charles Clancy to be lying dead in the dank swamp; while, ere dawn of the following day, Helen Armstrong will be starting upon a journey which must take her away from the place, far, and for ever. The only consolation he draws from her departure is, that she, too, will be reflecting spitefully and bitterly as himself. Because of Clancy not having kept his appointment with her; deeming the failure due to the falsehood by himself fabricated--the story of the Creole girl. Withal, it affords him but scant solace. She will be alike gone from him, and he may never behold her again. Her beauty will never belong to his rival; but neither can it be his, even though chance might take him to Texas, or by design he should proceed thither. To what end should he? No more now can he build castles in the air, basing them on the power of creditor over debtor. That bubble has burst, leaving him only the reflection, how illusory it has been. Although, for his nefarious purpose, it has proved weak as a spider's web, it is not likely Colonel Armstrong will ever again submit himself to be so ensnared. Broken men become cautious, and shun taking credit a second time. And yet Richard Darke does not comprehend this. Blinded by passion, he cannot see any impossibility, and already thoughts of future proceedings begin to flit vaguely through his mind. They are too distant to be dwelt upon now. For this night he has enough to occupy heart and brain--keeping both on the rack and stretch, so tensely as to render prolonged sleep impossible. Only for a few seconds at a time does he know the sweet unconsciousness of slumber; then, suddenly starting awake, to be again the prey of galling reflections. Turn to which side he will, rest his head on the pillow as he may, two sounds seem ever ringing in his ears--one, a woman's voice, that speaks the denying word, "Never!"--the other, a dog's bark, which seems persistently to say, "I demand vengeance for my murdered master!" If, in the first night after his nefarious deed, fears and jealous fancies chase one another through the assassin's soul, on the second it is different. Jealousy has no longer a share in his thoughts, fear having full possession of them. And no trifling fear of some far off danger, depending on chances and contingencies, but one real and near, seeming almost certain. The day's doings have gone all against him. The behaviour of Clancy's hound has not only directed suspicion towards him, but given evidence, almost conclusive, of his guilt; as though the barking of the dumb brute were words of truthful testimony, spoken in a witness-box! The affair cannot, will not, be allowed to rest thus. The suspicions of the searchers will take a more definite shape, ending in accusation, if not in the actual deed of his arrest. He feels convinced of this. Therefore, on this second night, it is no common apprehension which keeps him awake, but one of the intensest kind, akin to stark terror. For, added to the fear of his fellow man, there is something besides--a fear of God; or, rather of the Devil. His soul is now disturbed by a dread of the supernatural. He saw Charles Clancy stretched dead, under the cypress--was sure of it, before parting from the spot. Returning to it, what beheld he? To him, more than any other, is the missing body a mystery. It has been perplexing, troubling him, throughout all the afternoon, even when his blood was up, and nerves strung with excitement. Now, at night, in the dark, silent hours, as he dwells ponderingly upon it, it more than perplexes, more than troubles--it awes, horrifies him. In vain he tries to compose himself, by shaping conjectures based on natural causes. Even these could not much benefit him; for, whether Clancy be dead or still living--whether he has walked away from the ground, or been carried from it a corpse--to him, Darke, the danger will be almost equal. Not quite. Better, of course, if Clancy be dead, for then there will be but circumstantial evidence against, and, surely, not sufficient to convict him? Little suspects he, that in the same hour, while he is thus distractedly cogitating, men are weighing evidence he knows not of; or that, in another hour, they will be on the march to make him their prisoner. For all his ignorance of it, he has a presentiment of danger, sprung from the consciousness of his crime. This, and no sentiment of remorse, or repentance, wrings from him the self-interrogation, several times repeated:-- "Why the devil did I do it?" He regrets the deed, not because grieving at its guilt, but the position it has placed him in--one of dread danger, with no advantage derived, nothing to compensate him for the crime. No wonder at his asking, in the name of the Devil, why he has done it! He is being punished for it now; if not through remorse of conscience, by coward craven fear. He feels what other criminals have felt before-- what, be it hoped, they will ever feel--how hard it is to sleep the sleep of the assassin, or lie awake on a murderer's bed. On the last Richard Darke lies; since this night he sleeps not at all. From the hour of retiring to his chamber, till morning's dawn comes creeping through the window, he has never closed eye; or, if so, not in the sweet oblivion of slumber. He is still turning upon his couch, chafing in fretful apprehension, when daylight breaks into his bedroom, and shows its shine upon the floor. It is the soft blue light of a southern morn, which usually enters accompanied by bird music--the songs of the wild forest warblers mingling with domestic voices not so melodious. Among these the harsh "screek" of the guinea-fowl; the more sonorous call of the turkey "gobbler;" the scream of the goose, always as in agony; the merrier cackle of the laying hen, with the still more cheerful note of her lord--Chanticleer. All these sounds hears Dick Darke, the agreeable as the disagreeable. Both are alike to him on this morning, the second after the murder. Far more unpleasant than the last are some other sounds which salute his ear, as he lies listening. Noises which, breaking out abruptly, at once put an end to the singing of the forest birds, and the calling of the farm-yard fowls. They are of two kinds; one, the clattering of horses' hoofs, the other, the clack and clangour of men's voices. Evidently there are several, speaking at the same time, and all in like tone--this of anger, of vengeance! At first they seem at some distance off, but evidently drawing nigh. Soon they are close up to the dwelling, their voices loudly reverberating from its walls. The assassin cannot any longer keep to his couch. Too well knows he what the noise is, his guilty heart guessing it. Springing to his feet, he glides across the room, and approaches the window--cautiously, because in fear. His limbs tremble, as he draws the curtain and looks out. Then almost refusing to support him: for, in the courtyard he sees a half-score of armed horsemen, and hears them angrily discoursing. One at their head he knows to be the Sheriff of the county; beside him his Deputy, and behind a brace of constables. In rear of these, two men he has reason to believe will be his most resolute accusers. He has no time to discriminate; for, soon as entering the enclosure, the horsemen dismount, and make towards the door of the dwelling. In less than sixty seconds after, they knock against that of his sleeping chamber, demanding admission. No use denying them, as its occupant is well aware--not even to ask-- "Who's there?" Instead, he says, in accent tremulous-- "Come in." Instantly after, he sees the door thrown open, and a form filling up its outlines--the stalwart figure of a Mississippi sheriff; who, as he stands upon the threshold, says, in firm voice, with tone of legal authority: "Richard Darke, I arrest you!" "For what?" mechanically demands the culprit, shivering in his shirt. "_For the murder of Charles Clancy_!" CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. THE COON-HUNTER CONSCIENCE-STRICKEN. On the night preceding Richard Darke's arrest, another man, not many rods distant, lies awake, or, at least, loses more than half his customary measure of sleep. This is the coon-hunter. In his case the disturbing cause _is_ conscience; though his crime is comparatively a light one, and should scarce rob him of his rest. It would not, were he a hardened sinner; but Blue Bill is the very reverse; and though, at times, cruel to "coony," he is, in the main, merciful, his breast overflowing with the milk of human kindness. On the night succeeding his spoilt coon-chase, he has slept sound enough, his mind being unburdened by the confession to Phoebe. Besides, he had then no certain knowledge that a murder had been committed, or of any one being even killed. He only knew there were shots, and angry words, resembling a fight between two men; one his young master; the other, as he supposed, Charles Clancy. True, the former, rushing past in such headlong pace, seemed to prove that the affair had a tragical termination. But of this, he, Blue Bill, could only have conjecture; and, hoping the _denouement_ might not be so bad as at first deemed, neither was he so alarmed as to let it interfere with his night's slumbers. In the morning, when, as usual, hoe in hand, he goes abroad to his day's work, no one would suspect him of being the depository of a secret so momentous. He was always noted as the gayest of the working gang--his laugh, the loudest, longest, and merriest, carried across the plantation fields; and on this particular day, it rings with its wonted cheerfulness. Only during the earlier hours. When, at mid-day, a report reaches the place where the slaves are at work, that a man has been murdered--this, Charles Clancy--the coon-hunter, in common with the rest of the gang, throws down his hoe; all uniting in a cry of sympathetic sorrow. For all of them know young "Massr Clancy;" respecting, many of them loving him. He has been accustomed to meet them with pleasant looks, and accost them in kindly words. The tidings produce a painful impression upon them; and from that moment, though their task has to be continued, there is no more cheerfulness in the cotton field. Even their conversation is hushed, or carried on in a subdued tone; the hoes being alone heard, as their steel blades clink against an occasional "donick." But while his fellow-labourers are silent through sorrow, Blue Bill is speechless from another and different cause. They only hear that young Massr Clancy has been killed--murdered, as the report says--while he knows how, when, where, and _by whom_. The knowledge gives him double uneasiness; for while sorrowing as much, perhaps more than any, for Charles Clancy's death, he has fears for his own life, with good reasons for having them. If by any sinister chance Massr Dick should get acquainted with the fact of his having been witness to that rapid retreat among the trees, he, Blue Bill, would be speedily put where his tongue could never give testimony. In full consciousness of his danger, he determines not to commit himself by any voluntary avowal of what he has seen and heard; but to bury the secret in his own breast, as also insist on its being so interred within the bosom of his better half. This day, Phoebe is not in the field along with the working gang; which causes him some anxiety. The coon-hunter can trust his wife's affections, but is not so confident as to her prudence. She may say something in the "quarter" to compromise him. A word--the slightest hint of what has happened--may lead to his being questioned, and confessed; with torture, if the truth be suspected. No wonder that during the rest of the day Blue Bill wears an air of abstraction, and hoes the tobacco plants with a careless hand, often chopping off the leaves. Fortunately for him, his fellow-workers are not in a mood to observe these vagaries, or make inquiry as to the cause. He is rejoiced, when the boom of the evening bell summons them back to the "big house." Once more in the midst of his piccaninnies, with Phoebe by his side, he imparts to her a renewed caution, to "keep dark on dat ere seerous subjeck." At supper, the two talk over the events of the day--Phoebe being the narrator. She tells him of all that has happened--of the search, and such incidents connected with it as have reached the plantation of the Darkes; how both the old and young master took part in it, since having returned home. She adds, of her own observation, that Massr Dick looked "berry scared-like, an' white in de cheeks as a ole she-possum." "Dats jess de way he oughter look," is the husband's response. After which they finish their frugal meal, and once more retire to rest. But on this second night, the terrible secret shared by them, keeps both from sleeping. Neither gets so much as a wink. As morning dawns, they are startled by strange noises in the negro quarter. These are not the usual sounds consequent on the uprising of their fellow-slaves--a chorus of voices, in jest and jocund laughter. On the contrary, it is a din of serious tone, with cries that tell of calamity. When the coon-hunter draws--back his door, and looks forth, he sees there is commotion outside; and is soon told its cause. One of his fellow-bondsmen, coming forward, says:-- "Massr Dick am arrested by de sheriff. Dey've tuk 'im for de murder ob Massr Charl Clancy." The coon-hunter rushes out, and up to the big house. He reaches it in time to see Richard Darke set upon a horse, and conducted away from the place, with a man on each side, guarding him. All know that he goes a prisoner. With a sense of relief, Blue Bill hastens back to his own domicile, where lie communicates what has happened to the wife anxiously waiting. "Phoebe, gal," he adds, in a congratulatory whisper, "dar ain't no longer so much reezun for us to hab fear. I see Sime Woodley mong de men; and dis nigger know dat he'll gub me his purtecshun, whatsomever I do. So I'se jess made up my mind to make a clean bress ob de hul ting, and tell what I heern an' see, besides deliverin' up boaf dat letter an' picter. What's yar view ob de matter? Peak plain, and doan be noways mealy-moufed 'bout it." "My views is den, for de tellin' ob de troof. Ole Eph Darke may flog us till dar ain't a bit o' skin left upon our bare backs. I'll take my share ob de 'sponsibility, an a full half ob de noggin'. Yes, Bill, I'se willin' to do dat. But let de troof be tole--de whole troof, an' nuffin but de troof." "Den it shall be did. Phoebe, you's a darlin'. Kiss me, ole gal. If need be, we'll boaf die togedder." And their two black faces come in contact, as also their bosoms; both beating with a humanity that might shame whiter skins. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. AN UNCEREMONIOUS SEARCH. Arrested, Richard Darke is taken to jail. This not in Natchez, but a place of less note; the Court-house town of the county, within the limits of which lie the Darke and Armstrong plantations. He is there consigned to the custody of Joe Harkness, jailer. But few, who assisted at the arrest, accompany him to the place of imprisonment; only the Deputy, and the brace of constables. The sheriff himself, with the others, does not leave Ephraim Darke's premises, till after having given them a thorough examination, in quest of evidence against the accused. This duty done, without regard to the sensibilities of the owner, who follows them from room to room, now childishly crying--now frantically cursing. Alike disregarded are his tears and oaths. The searchers have no sympathy for him in his hour of affliction. Some even secretly rejoice at it. Ephraim Darke is not a Southerner, _pur sang_; and, though without the slightest taint of abolitionism--indeed the very opposite--he has always been unpopular in the neighbourhood; alike detested by planter and "poor white." Many of both have been his debtors, and felt his iron hand over them, just as Archibald Armstrong. Besides, some of these now around his house were present two days before upon Armstrong's plantation; saw his establishment broken up, his goods and chattels confiscated, his home made desolate. Knowing by whom all this was done, with ill-concealed satisfaction, they now behold the _arcana_ of Ephraim Darke's dwelling exposed to public gaze; himself humiliated, far more than the man he made homeless. With no more ceremony than was shown in making the arrest, do the sheriff and party explore the paternal mansion of him arrested, rudely ransacking it from cellar to garret; the outbuildings as well, even to the grounds and garden. Their search is but poorly rewarded. All they get, likely to throw light on the matter of inquiry, is Richard Darke's double-barrelled gun, with the clothes he wore on the day fatal to Clancy. On these there is no blood; but while they are looking for it, something comes under their eyes, almost equally significant of strife. Through the coat-skirt is a hole, ragged, and recently made. Several pronounce it a bullet-hole; further declaring the ball to have been discharged from a rifle. For certain, a singular discovery! But like all the others that have been made, only serving to perplex them. It is rather in favour of the accused; giving colour to the idea, that between him and Clancy there has been a fight, with shots fired from both sides. The question is, "has it been a fair one?" To negative this, a bit of adjunct evidence is adduced, which goes against the accused. The coat, with the perforated skirt, is _not_ the one worn by him on the day before, when out assisting in the search; while it is that he had on, the day preceding, when Clancy came not home. Ephraim Darke's domestics, on being sternly interrogated, and aside, disclose this fact; unaware how greatly their master may desire them to keep it concealed. Still, it is not much. A man might have many reasons for changing his coat, especially for the dress of two different days. It would be nothing, but for the conjoint circumstance of the shot through the skirt. This makes it significant. Another item of intelligence, of still more suspicious nature, is got out of the domestics, whose stern questioners give them no chance to prevaricate. Indeed, terrified, they do not try. Their young "Massr Dick" had on a different pair of boots the day he went out hunting, from those worn by him, when, yesterday, he went searching. The latter are in the hands of the sheriff, but the former are missing-- cannot be found anywhere, in or about the house! All search for them proves idle. And not strange it should; since one is in the side-pocket of Sime Woodley's surtout, the other having a like lodgment in that of Ned Heywood. The two hunters, "prospecting" apart, found the boots thickly coated with mud, concealed under a brush pile, at the bottom of the peach orchard. Even the sheriff does not know what bulges out the coat-skirts of the two backwoodsmen. Nor is he told there or then. Sime has an object in keeping that secret to himself and his companion; he will only reveal it, when the time comes to make it more available. The affair of the arrest and subsequent action over, the sheriff and his party retire from the plantation of Ephraim Darke, leaving its owner in a state of frenzied bewilderment. They go direct to Mrs Clancy's cottage; not to stay there, but as a starting point, to resume the search for the body of her son, adjourned since yester-eve. They do not tell her of Dick Darke's arrest. She is inside her chamber--on her couch--so prostrated by the calamity already known to her, they fear referring to it. The doctor in attendance tells them, that any further revelation concerning the sad event may prove fatal to her. Again her neighbours, now in greater number, go off to the woods, some afoot, others on horseback. As on the day preceding, they divide into different parties, and scatter in diverse directions. Though not till after all have revisited the ensanguined spot under the cypress, and renewed their scrutiny of the stains. Darker than on the day before, they now look more like ink than blood! The cypress knee, out of which Woodley and Heywood "gouged" the smooth-bore bullet, is also examined, its position noted. Attempts are made to draw inferences therefrom, though with but indifferent success. True, it tells a tale; and, judging by the blood around the bullet-hole, which all of them have seen, a tragic one, though it cannot of itself give the interpretation. A few linger around the place, now tracked and trodden hard by their going and coming feet. The larger number proceeds upon the search, in scattered parties of six or eight each, carrying it for as many miles around. They pole and drag the creek near by, as others at a greater distance; penetrate the swamp as far as possible, or likely that a dead body might be carried for concealment. In its dim recesses they discover no body, living or dead, no trace of human being, nought save the solitude-loving heron, the snake-bird, and scaly alligator. On this second day's quest they observe nothing new, either to throw additional light on the commission of the crime, or assist them in recovering the corpse. It is but an unsatisfactory report to take back to the mother of the missing man. Perhaps better for her she should never receive it? And she never does. Before it can reach her ear, this is beyond hearing sound. The thunder of heaven could not awake Mrs Clancy from the sleep into which she has fallen. For it is no momentary unconsciousness, but the cold insensible slumber of Death. The long-endured agony of ill fortune, the more recent one of widowhood, and, now, this new bereavement of a lost, only son--these accumulated trials have proved too much for her woman's strength, of late fast failing. When, at evening hour, the searchers, on their return, approach the desolated dwelling, they hear sounds within that speak of some terrible disaster. On the night before their ears were saluted by the same, though in tones somewhat different. Then the widow's voice was lifted in lamentation; now it is not heard at all. Whatever of mystery there may be is soon removed. A woman, stepping out upon the porch, and, raising her hand in token of attention, says, in sad solemn voice,-- "_Mrs Clancy is dead_!" CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. TELL-TALE TRACKS. "Mrs Clancy is dead!" The simple, but solemn speech, makes an impression on the assembled backwoodsmen difficult to be described. All deem it a double-murder; her death caused by that of her son. The same blow has killed both. It makes them all the more eager to discover the author of this crime, by its consequence twofold; and now, more than ever, do their thoughts turn towards Dick Darke, and become fixed upon him. As the announcement of Mrs Clancy's death makes complete the events of the day, one might suppose, that after this climax, her neighbours, satisfied nothing more could be done, would return to their own homes. This is not the custom in the backwoods of America, or with any people whose hearts beat true to the better instincts of humanity. It is only in Old world countries, under tyrannical rule, where these have been crushed out, that such selfishness can prevail. Nothing of this around Natchez--not a spark of it in the breasts of those collected about that cottage, in which lies the corpse of a woman. The widow will be waked by men ready to avenge her wrongs. If friendless and forlorn while living, it is different now she is dead. There is not a man among them but would give his horse, his gun, ay, a slice of his land, to restore her to life, or bring back that of her son. Neither being now possible, they can only show their sympathy by the punishment of him who has caused the double desolation. It still needs to know who. After all, it may not be the man arrested and arraigned, though most think it is. But, to be fully convinced, further evidence is wanted; as also a more careful sifting of that already obtained. As on the night before, a council is convened, the place being the bit of green sward, that, lawn-like, extends from the cottage front to the rail fence of the road. But now the number taking part in it is different. Instead of a half-score, there is nearer a half hundred. The news of the second death has been spreading meanwhile, and the added sympathy causes the crowd to increase. In its centre soon forms a ring, an open space, surrounded by men, acknowledged as chief on such occasions. They discuss the points of the case; state such incidents and events as are known; recall all circumstances that can be remembered; and inquire into their connection with motives. It is, in short, a jury, _standing_, not _sitting_, on the trial of a criminal case; and, with still greater difference between them and the ordinary "twelve good men and true," in that, unlike these, they are not mere dummies, with a strong inclination to accept the blandishments of the barrister, or give way to the rulings of the judge, too often wrong. On the contrary, men who, in themselves, combine the functions of all three--judge, jury, and counsel--with this triple power, inspired by a corresponding determination to arrive at the truth. In short it is the court of "Justice Lynch" in session. Every circumstance which has a possible bearing on the case, or can throw light into its dark ambiguity, is called up and considered. The behaviour of the accused himself, coupled with that of the hound, are the strongest points yet appearing against him. Though not the only ones. The bullet extracted from the cypress knee, has been tried in the barrel of his gun, and found to fit exactly. About the other ball, which made the hole through the skirt of his coat, no one can say more than that it came out of a rifle. Every backwoodsman among them can testify to this. A minor point against the accused man is, his having changed his clothes on the two succeeding days; though one stronger and more significant, is the fact that the boots, known to have been worn by him on the former, are still missing and cannot anywhere be found. "Can't they, indeed?" asks Sime Woodley, in response to one, who has just expressed surprise at this. The old hunter has been hitherto holding back; not from any want of will to assist the lynch jury in their investigation, but because, only lately arrived, he has scarce yet entered into the spirit of their proceedings. His grief, on getting the news of Mrs Clancy's death, for a time holds him in restraint. It is a fresh sorrow; since, not only had her son been long his friend, but in like manner her husband and herself. In loyal memory of this friendship, he has been making every effort to bring the murderer to justice; and one just ended accounts for his late arrival at the cottage. As on the day before, he and Heywood have remained behind the other searchers; staying in the woods till all these returned home. Yesterday they were detained by an affair of _bullets_-- to-day it is _boots_. The same that are missing, and about which questions have just been asked, the last by Sime Woodley himself. In answer to it he continues:-- "They not only kin be foun', but hev been. Hyar they air!" Saying this, the hunter pulls a boot out of his pocket, and holds it up before their eyes; Heywood simultaneously exposing another--its fellow! "That's the fut wear ye're in sarch o', I reck'n," pursues Woodley. "'T all eevents it's a pair o' boots belongin' to Dick Darke, an' war worn by him the day afore yesterday. What's more, they left thar marks down on the swamp mud, not a hunderd mile from the spot whar poor Charley Clancy hez got his death shot; an' them tracks war made not a hundred minnits from the time he got it. Now boys! what d'ye think o' the thing?" "Where did you get the boots?" ask several, speaking at the same time. "No matter whar. Ye kin all see we've got 'em. Time enuf to tell o' the whar an' the wharf or when it kums to a trial. Tho lookin' in yur faces, fellurs, I shed say it's kim to somethin' o' that sort now." "_It has_!" responds one of the jury, in a tone of emphatic affirmation. "In that case," pursues the hunter, "me an' Ned Heywood are ready to _gie_ sech evidince as we've got. Both o' us has spent good part o' this arternoon collectin' it; an' now it's at the sarvice o' the court o' Judge Lynch, or any other." "Well then, Woodley!" says a planter of respectability, who by tacit consent is representing the stern terrible judge spoken of. "Suppose the Court to be in session. Tell us all you know." With alacrity Woodley responds to the appeal; giving his experience, along with it his suspicions and conjectures; not simply as a witness, but more like a counsel in the case. It needs not to say, he is against the accused, in his statement of facts, as the deductions he draws from them. For the hunter has long since decided within himself, as to who killed Clancy. Heywood follows him in like manner, though with no new matter. His testimony but corroborates that of his elder confrere. Taken together, or separately, it makes profound impression on the jurors of Judge Lynch; almost influencing them to pronounce an instant verdict, condemnatory of the accused. If so, it will soon be followed by the sentence; this by execution, short and quick, but sternly terrible! CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE. While the Lynchers are still in deliberation, the little clock on the mantel strikes twelve, midnight; of late, not oft a merry hour in the cottage of the Clancys; but this night more than ever sad. Its striking seems the announcement of a crisis. For a time it silences the voices of those conversing. Scarce has the last stroke ceased to vibrate on the still night air, when a voice is heard; one that has not hitherto taken part in the deliberations. It sounds as though coming up from the road gate. "Mass Woodley in da?" are the words spoken interrogatively; the question addressed generally to the group gathered in front of the house. "Yes: he's here," simultaneously answer several. "Kin I peak a wud wif you, Mass Woodley?" again asks the inquirer at the wicket. "Sartinly," says the hunter, separating from the others, and striding off towards the entrance. "I reck'n I know that voice," he adds, on drawing near the gate. "It's Blue Bill, ain't it?" "Hush, Mass' Woodley! For Goramity's sake doan peak out ma name. Not fo' all de worl let dem people hear it. Ef dey do, dis nigger am a dead man, shoo." "Darn it, Bill; what's the matter? Why d'ye talk so mysteerous? Is thar anythin' wrong? Oh! now I think o't, you're out arter time. Never mind 'bout that; I'll not betray you. Say; what hev ye kim for?" "Foller me, Mass Woodley; I tell yer all. I dasent tay hya, less some ob dem folk see me. Les' go little way from de house, into de wood groun' ober yonner; den I tell you wha fotch me out. Dis nigger hab someting say to you, someting berry patickler. Yes, Mass Woodley, berry patickler. 'Tarn a matter ob life an' def." Sime does not stay to hear more; but, lifting the latch, quietly pushes open the gate, and passes out into the road. Then following the negro, who flits like a shadow before him, the two are soon standing among some bushes that form a strip of thicket running along the roadside. "Now, what air it?" asks Woodley of the coon-hunter, with whom he is well acquainted--having often met him in his midnight rambles. "Mass Woodley, you want know who kill Mass Charl Clancy?" "Why, Bill, that's the very thing we're all talkin' 'bout, an' tryin' to find out. In coorse we want to know. But who's to tell us?" "Dis nigger do dat." "Air ye in airnest, Bill?" "So much in earness I ha'n't got no chance get sleep, till I make clean bress ob de seecret. De ole ooman neider. No, Mass Woodley, Phoebe she no let me ress till I do dat same. She say it am de duty ob a Christyun man, an', as ye know, we boaf b'long to de Methodies. Darfore, I now tell ye, de man who kill Charl Clancy was my own massr--de young un-- Dick." "Bill! are you sure o' what ye say?" "So shoo I kin swa it as de troof, de whole troof, an' nuffin but de troof." "But what proof have ye?" "Proof! I moas seed it wif ma own eyes. If I didn't see, I heerd it wif ma ears." "By the 'tarnal! this looks like clar evydince at last. Tell me, Bill, o' all that you seed an' what you heern?" "Ya, Mass Woodley, I tell you ebberyting; all de sarkunistances c'nected wif de case." In ten minutes after, Simeon Woodley is made acquainted with everything the coon-hunter knows; the latter having given him full details of all that occurred on that occasion when his coon-chase was brought to such an unsatisfactory termination. To the backwoodsman it brings no surprise. He has already arrived at a fixed conclusion, and Bill's revelation is in correspondence with it. On hearing it, he but says:-- "While runnin' off, yur master let fall a letter, did he? You picked it up, Bill? Ye've gob it?" "Hya's dat eyedentikil dockyment." The negro hands over the epistle, the photograph inside. "All right, Bill! I reck'n this oughter make things tol'ably clur. Now, what d'ye want me to do for yurself?" "Lor, Mass Woodley, you knows bess. I'se needn't tell ye, dat ef ole Eph'm Darke hear wha dis nigger's been, an' gone, an' dud, de life ob Blue Bill wuldn't be wuth a ole coon-skin--no; not so much as a corn-shuck. I'se get de cowhide ebbery hour ob de day, and de night too. I'se get flog to def, sa'tin shoo." "Yur right thar, I reck'n," rejoins the hunter; then continues, reflectingly, "Yes; you'd be sarved putty saveer, if they war to know on't. Wal, that mustn't be, and won't. So much I kin promise ye, Bill. Yur evydince wouldn't count for nuthin' in a law court, nohow. Tharfor, we won't bring ye forrad; so don't you be skeeart. I guess we shan't wan't no more testymony, as thar ain't like to be any crosskwestenin' lawyers in this case. Now; d'you slip back to yur quarters, and gi'e yurself no furrer consarn. I'll see you don't git into any trouble. May I be damned ef ye do!" With this emphatic promise, the old bear-hunter separates from the less pretentious votary of the chase; as he does so giving the latter a squeeze of the hand, which tells him he may go back in confidence to the negro quarter, and sit, or sleep, by the side of his Phoebe, without fear. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. "TO THE JAIL!" With impatience Judge Lynch and his jurors await the hunter's return. Before his leaving them, they had well-nigh made up their minds to the verdict. All know it will be "Guilty," given unanimously. Woodley's temporary absence will not affect it. Neither the longer time allowed them for deliberation. If this cause change, it will not be to modify, but make more fixed their determination. Still others keep coming up. Like wildfire the news has spread that the mother of the murdered man is herself stricken down. This, acting as a fresh stimulus to sympathy, brings back such of the searchers as had gone home; many starting from beds to which they had betaken themselves after the day's fatigue. It is past midnight, and the crowd collected around the cottage is greater than ever. As one after another arrives upon the ground they step across the threshold, enter the chamber of death, and look upon the corpse, whose pale face seems to make mute appeal to them for justice. After gazing on it for an instant, their anger with difficulty subdued in the solemn presence of death, each comes out muttering a resolve there shall be both justice and vengeance, many loudly vociferating it with the added emphasis of an oath. It does not need what Simeon Woodley has in store to incite them to action. Already are they sufficiently inflamed. The furor of the mob, with its mutually maddening effect, gradually growing upon them, permeating their spirits, has reached the culminating point. Still do they preserve sufficient calmness to wait a little longer, and hear what the hunter may have to say. They take it, he has been called from them on some matter connected with the subject under consideration. At such a time who would dare interrupt their deliberations for any trivial purpose? Although none of them has recognised Blue Bill's voice, they know it to have been that of a negro. This, however, is no reason why he should not have made some communication likely to throw new light on the affair. So, on Woodley's return, once more gathering around him, they demand to hear what it is. He tells all that has been imparted to him; but without making known the name of his informant, or in any way compromising the brave fellow with a black skin, who has risked life itself by making disclosure of the truth. To him the old hunter refers in a slight but significant manner. Comprehending, no one presses for more minute explanation. "He as says all that," Woodley continues, after stating the circumstances communicated by the coon-hunter, "has guv me the letter dropped by Dick Darke; which, as I've tolt, ye, he picked up. Here air the thing itself. Preehaps it may let some new light into the matter; though I guess you'll all agree wi' me, it's clar enough a'ready." They all do agree. A dozen voices have declared, are still declaring that. One now cries out-- "What need to talk any more? Charley Clancy's been killed--he's been murdered. An' Dick Darke's the man that did it!" It is not from any lack of convincing evidence, but rather a feeling of curiosity, that prompts them to call for the reading of the letter, which the hunter now holds conspicuously in his hand. Its contents may have no bearing upon the case. Still it can be no harm to know what they are. "You read it, Henry Spence! You're a scholart, an' I ain't," says Woodley, handing the letter over to a young fellow of learned look--the schoolmaster of the settlement. Spence, stepping close up to the porch--into which some one has carried a candle--and holding the letter before the light, first reads the superscription, which, as he informs them, is in a lady's handwriting. "_To Charley Clancy_" it is. "Charles Clancy!" Half a score voices pronounce the name, all in a similar tone--that of surprise. One interrogates,-- "Was that letter dropped by Dick Darke?" "It was," responds Woodley, to whom the question is addressed. "Have patience, boys!" puts in the planter, who represents Justice Lynch; "don't interrupt till we hear what's in it." They take the hint, and remain silent. But when the envelope is laid open, and a photograph drawn out, showing the portrait of a young lady, recognised by all as a likeness of Helen Armstrong, there is a fresh outburst of exclamations which betoken increased surprise; this stronger still, after Spence reads out the inscript upon the picture: "Helen Armstrong--for him she loves." The letter is addressed to Charles Clancy; to him the photograph must have been sent. A love-affair between Miss Armstrong and the man who has been murdered! A new revelation to all--startling, as pertinent to the case.-- "Go on, Spence! Give us the contents of the letter!" demands an impatient voice. "Yes, give them!" adds another. "I reckon we're on the right track now." The epistle is taken out of the envelope. The schoolmaster, unfolding it, reads aloud:-- "Dear Charles,-- "When we last met under the magnolia, you asked me a question. I told you I would answer it in writing. I now keep my promise, and you will find the answer underneath my own very imperfect image, which I herewith send in closed. Papa has finally fixed the day of our departure from the old home. On Tuesday next we are to set out in search of a new one. Will it ever be as dear as that we are leaving behind? The answer will depend upon--need I say whom? After reading what I have written upon the _carte_, surely you can guess. There, I have confessed all--all woman can, could, or should. In six little words I have made over to you my heart. Accept them as its surrender! "And now, Charles, to speak of things prosaic, as in this hard world we are too oft constrained to do. On Tuesday morning--at a very early hour, I believe--a boat will leave Natchez, bound up the Red River. Upon it we travel, as far as Natchitoches. There to remain for some time, while papa is completing preparations for our farther transport into Texas, I am not certain what part of the `Lone Star' State he will select for our future home. He speaks of a place upon some branch of the Colorado River, said to be a beautiful country; which, you, having been out there, will know all about. In any case, we are to remain for a time, a month or more, in Nachitoches; and there, _Carlos mio_, I need not tell you, there is a post-office for receiving letters, as also for delivering them. Mind, I say for _delivering_ them! Before we leave for the far frontier, where there may be neither post-office nor post, I shall write you full particulars about our intended `location'--with directions how to reach it. Need I be very minute? Or can I promise myself, that your wonderful skill as a `tracker,' of which we've heard, will enable you to discover it? They say Love is blind. I hope, yours will not be so: else you may fail in finding the way to your sweetheart in the wilderness. "How I go on talking, or rather writing, things I intended to say to you at our next meeting tinder the magnolia--our magnolia! Sad thought this, tagged to a pleasant expectation: for it must be our last interview under the dear old tree. Our last anywhere, until we come together again in Texas--perhaps on some prairie where there are no trees. Well; we shall then meet, I hope, never more to part; and in the open daylight, with no need either of night, or tree-shadows to conceal us. I'm sure father, humbled as he now is, will no longer object. Dear Charles, I don't think he would have done so at any time, but for his reverses. They made him think of--never mind what. I shall tell you all under the magnolia. "And now, master mine--this makes you so--be punctual! Monday night, and ten o'clock--the old hour. Remember that the morning after? I shall be gone--long before the wild-wood songsters are singing their `_reveille_' to awake you. Jule will drop this into our tree post-office this evening--Saturday. As you've told me you go there every day, you'll be sure of getting it in time; and once more I may listen to your flattery, as when you quoted the words of the old song, making me promise to come, saying you would `show the night flowers their queen.' "Ah! Charles, how easy to keep that promise! How sweet the flattery was, is, and ever will be, to yours,-- "Helen Armstrong." "And that letter was found on Dick Darke?" questions a voice, as soon as the reading has come to an end. "It war dropped by him," answers Woodley; "and tharfor ye may say it war found on him." "You're sure of that, Simeon Woodley?" "Wal, a man can't be sure o' a thing unless he sees it. I didn't see it myself wi' my own eyes. For all that, I've had proof clar enough to convince me; an' I'm reddy to stan' at the back o' it." "Damn the letter!" exclaims one of the impatient ones, who has already spoken in similar strain; "the picture, too! Don't mistake me, boys. I ain't referrin' eyther to the young lady as wrote it, nor him she wrote to. I only mean that neither letter nor picture are needed to prove what we're all wantin' to know, an' do know. They arn't nor warn't reequired. To my mind, from the fust go off, nothin' ked be clarer than that Charley Clancy has been killed, cepting as to who killed him-- murdered him, if ye will; for that's what's been done. Is there a man on the ground who can't call out the murderer?" The interrogatory is answered by a unanimous negative, followed by the name, "Dick Darke." And along with the answer commences a movement throughout the crowd. A scattering with threats heard--some muttered, some spoken aloud--while men are observed looking to their guns, and striding towards their horses; as they do so, saying sternly,-- "To the jail!" In ten minutes after both men and horses are in motion moving along the road between Clancy's cottage and the county town. They form a phalanx, if not regular in line of march, terribly imposing in aspect. Could Richard Darke, from inside the cell where he is confined, but see that approaching cavalcade, hear the conversation of those who compose it, and witness their angry gesticulations, he would shake in his shoes, with trembling worse than any ague that ever followed fever. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. A SCHEME OF COLONISATION. About two hundred miles from the mouth of Red River--the Red of Louisiana--stands the town of Natchitoches. The name is Indian, and pronounced as if written "Nak-e-tosh." Though never a populous place, it is one of peculiar interest, historically and ethnologically. Dating from the earliest days of French and Spanish colonisation, on the Lower Mississippi, it has at different periods been in possession of both these nations; finally falling to the United States, at the transfer of the Louisiana territory by Napoleon Bonaparte. Hence, around its history is woven much of romantic interest; while from the same cause its population, composed of many various nationalities, with their distinctive physical types and idiosyncracies of custom, offers to the eye of the stranger a picturesqueness unknown to northern towns. Placed on a projecting bluff of the river's bank, its painted wooden houses, of French Creole fashion, with "piazzas" and high-pitched roofs, its trottoirs brick-paved, and shaded by trees of sub-tropical foliage-- among them the odoriferous magnolia, and _melia azedarach_, or "Pride of China,"--these, in places, completely arcading the street--Natchitoches has the orthodox aspect of a _rus in urbe_, or _urbs in rure_, whichever way you wish it. Its porticoes, entwined with parasites, here and there show stretches of trellis, along which meander the cord-like tendrils of bignonias, aristolochias, and orchids, the flowers of which, drooping over windows and doorways, shut out the too garish sunlight, while filling the air with fragrance. Among these whirr tiny humming birds, buzz humble bees almost as big, while butterflies bigger than either lazily flout and flap about on soft, silent wing. Such sights greet you at every turning as you make promenade through the streets of Natchitoches. And there are others equally gratifying. Within these same trellised verandahs, you may observe young girls of graceful mien, elegantly apparelled, lounging on cane rocking-chairs, or perhaps peering coyly through the half-closed jalousies, their eyes invariably dark brown or coal black, the marble forehead above surmounted with a chevelure in hue resembling the plumage of the raven. For most of these demoiselles are descended from the old colonists of the two Latinic races; not a few with some admixture of African, or Indian. The flaxen hair, blue eyes, and blonde complexion of the Northland are only exceptional appearances in the town of Natchitoches. Meet these same young ladies in the street, it is the custom, and _comme il faut_, to take off your hat, and make a bow. Every man who claims to be a gentleman does this deference; while every woman, with a white skin, expects it. On whichever side the privilege may be supposed to lie, it is certainly denied to none. The humblest shop clerk or artisan--even the dray-driver--may thus make obeisance to the proudest and daintiest damsel who treads the trottoirs of Natchitoches. It gives no right of converse, nor the slightest claim to acquaintanceship. A mere formality of politeness; and to presume carrying it further would not only be deemed a rudeness, but instantly, perhaps very seriously, resented. Such is the polished town to which the Belle of Natchez has brought Colonel Armstrong, with his belongings, and from which he intends taking final departure for Texas. The "Lone Star State" lies a little beyond-- the Sabine River forming the boundary line. But from earliest time of Texan settlement on the north-eastern side, Natchitoches has been the place of ultimate outfit and departure. Here the ex-Mississippian planter has made halt, and purposes to remain for a much longer time than originally intended. For a far grander scheme of migration, than that he started out with, is now in his mind. Born upon the Belle of Natchez, it has been gradually developing itself during the remainder of the voyage, and is now complete--at least as to general design. It has not originated with Archibald Armstrong himself, but one, whom he is soon to call son-in-law. The young Creole, Dupre, entranced with love, has nevertheless not permitted its delirium to destroy all ideas of other kind. Rather has it re-inspired him with one already conceived, but which, for some time, has been in abeyance. He, too, has been casting thoughts towards Texas, with a view to migrating thither. Of late travelling in Europe--more particularly in France--with some of whose noblest families he holds relationship, he has there been smitten with a grand idea, dictated by a spirit of ambition. In Louisiana he is only a planter among planters and though a rich one, is still not satisfied, either with the number of his negroes, or the area of his acres. In Texas, where land is comparatively low priced, he has conceived a project of colonisation, on an extended scale--in short, the founding a sort of Transatlantic _seigneurie_. For some months has this ambitious dream been brooding in his brain; and now, meeting the Mississippian planter aboard the boat and learning the latter's intentions, this, and the more tender _liens_ late established between, them, have determined Louis Dupre to make his dream a reality, and become one of the migrating party. He will sell his Louisiana houses and lands, but not his slaves. These can be taken to Texas. Scarce necessary to say, that, on thus declaring himself, he becomes the real chief of the proposed settlement. Whether showing conspicuously in front, or remaining obscurely in the rear, the capitalist controls all; and Dupre is this. Still, though virtually the controlling spirit, apparently the power remains in the hands of Colonel Armstrong. The young Creole wishes it to appear so. He has no jealousy of him, who is soon to be his second father. Besides, there is another and substantial reason why Colonel Armstrong should assume the chieftainship of the purposed expedition. Though reduced in circumstances, the ex-Mississippian planter is held in high respect. His character commands it; while his name, known throughout all the South-west, will be sure to draw around, and rally under his standard, some of those strong stalwart men of the backwoods, equally apt with axe and rifle, without whom no settlement on the far frontier of Texas would stand a chance of either security, or success. For it is to the far frontier they purpose going, where land can be got at government prices, and where they intend to purchase it not by the acre, but in square miles--in leagues. Such is Dupre's design, easy of execution with the capital he can command after disposing of his Red River plantation. And within a week after his arrival in Natchitoches, he has disposed of it; signed the deed of delivery, and received the money. An immense sum, notwithstanding the sacrifice of a sale requiring quick despatch. On the transfer being completed, the Creole holds in hand a cash capital of $200,000; in those days sufficient not only for the purchase of a large tract of territory, but enough to make the dream of a seignorial estate appear a possible reality. Not much of the future is he reflecting upon now. If, at times, he cast a chance thought towards it, it may be to picture to himself how his blonde beauty will look as lady _suzeraine_--_chatelaine_ of the castle to be erected in Texas. In his fancy, no doubt, he figures her as the handsomest creature that ever carried keys at her belt. If these fancies of the future are sweet, the facts of the present are even more so. Daring their sojourn in Natchitoches the life of Louis Dupre and Jessie Armstrong is almost a continuous chapter of amorous converse and dalliance; left hands mutually clasped, right ones around waists, or playing with curls and tresses; lips at intervals meeting in a touch that intoxicates the soul--the delicious drunkenness of love, from which no one need ever wish to get sober. CHAPTER THIRTY. NEWS FROM NATCHEZ. While thus pleasantly pass the days with Colonel Armstrong's younger daughter, to the elder they are drear and dark. No love lights up the path of _her_ life, no sun shines upon it; nothing save shadow and clouds. More than a week has elapsed since their arrival in Natchitoches, and for much of this time has she been left alone. Love, reputed a generous passion, is of all the most selfish. Kind to its own chosen, to others it can be cruel; often is, when the open exhibition of its fervid zeal recalls the cold neglect, it may be, making their misery. Not that Jessie Armstrong is insensible to the sufferings of her sister. On the contrary, she feels for--all that sister can--on occasions tries to comfort her, by words such as she has already spoken, beseeching her to forget--to pluck the poison from out her heart. Easy to counsel thus, for one in whose heart there is no poison; instead a honeyed sweetness, almost seraphic. She, who this enjoys can ill understand the opposite; and, Jessie, benighted with her own bliss, gives less thought to the unhappiness of Helen. Even less than she might, were it more known to her. For the proud elder sister keeps her sorrow to herself, eschewing sympathy, and scarce ever recurring to the past. On her side the younger rarely refers to it. She knows it would cause pain. Though once a reference to it has given pleasure to herself; when Helen explained to her the mystery of that midnight plunge into the river. This, shortly after its occurrence; soon as she herself came to a clear comprehension of it. It was no mystery after all. The face seen among the cypress tops was but the fancy of an overwrought brain; while the spectral arms were the forking tines of a branch, which, catching upon the boat, in rebound had caught Helen Armstrong, first raising her aloft, then letting her drop out of their innocent, but withal dangerous, embrace. An explanation more pleasing to Jessie than she cared to let Helen know; since it gave the assurance that her sister had no thought of self-destruction. She is further comforted by the reflection, that Helen has no need to repine, and the hope it may not be for long. Some other and truer lover will replace the lost false one, and she will soon forget his falsehood. So reasons the happy heart. Indeed, judging by what she sees, Jessie Armstrong may well come to this conclusion. Already around her sister circle new suitors; a host seeking her hand. Among them the best blood of which the neighbourhood can boast. There are planters, lawyers, members of the State Assembly--one of the General Congress--and military men, young officers stationed at Fort Jessup, higher up the river; who, forsaking the lonely post, occasionally come down on a day's furlough to enjoy the delights of town life, and dip a little into its dissipations. Before Helen Armstrong has been two weeks in Natchitoches she becomes, what for over two years she has been in Natchez--its _belle_. The "bloods" toast her at the drinking bar, and talk of her over the billiard table. Some of them too much for their safety, since already two or three duels have occurred on her account--fortunately without fatal termination. Not that she has given any of them cause to stand forth as her champion; for not one can boast of having been favoured even with a smile. On the contrary, she has met their approaches if not frowningly, at least with denying indifference. All suspect there is _un ver_--_rongeur_--a worm eating at her heart; that she suffers from a passion of the past. This does not dismay her Natchitoches adorers, nor hinder them from continuing their adoration. On the contrary it deepens it; her indifference only attracting them, her very coldness setting their hot southern hearts aflame, maddening them all the more. She is not unconscious of the admiration thus excited. If she were, she would not be woman. But also, because being a true woman, she has no care for, and does not accept it. Instead of oft showing herself in society to receive homage and hear flattering speeches, she stays almost constantly within her chamber--a little sitting-room in the hotel, appropriated to herself and sister. For reasons already known, she is often deprived of her sister's company; having to content herself with that of her mulatto maid. A companion who can well sympathise; for Jule, like herself, has a canker at the heart. The "yellow girl" on leaving Mississippi State has also left a lover behind. True, not one who has proved false--far from it. But one who every day, every hour of his life, is in danger of losing it. Jupe she supposes to be still safe, within the recesses of the cypress swamp, but cannot tell how long his security may continue. If taken, she may never see him more, and can only think of his receiving some terrible chastisement. But she is sustained by the reflection, that her Jupiter is a brave fellow, and crafty as courageous; by the hope he will yet get away from that horrid hiding-place, and rejoin her, in a land where the dogs of Dick Darke can no more scent or assail him. Whatever may be the fate of the fugitive, she is sure of his devotion to herself; and this hinders her from despairing. She is almost as much alarmed about her young mistress whom she sees grieving, day by day evidently sinking under some secret sorrow. To her it is not much of a secret. She more than guesses at the cause; in truth, knows it, as it is known to that mistress herself. For the wench can read; and made the messenger of that correspondence carried on clandestinely, strange, if, herself a woman, she should not surmise many things beyond what could be gleaned from the superscription on the exchanged epistles. She has surmised; but, like her mistress, something wide away from the reality. No wonder at her being surprised at what she sees in a Natchez newspaper--brought to the hotel from a boat just arrived at Natchitoches--something concerning Charles Clancy, very different from that suspected of him. She stays not to consider what impression it may produce on the mind of the young lady. Unpleasant no doubt; but a woman's instinct whispers the maid, it will not be worse than the agony her mistress is now enduring. Entering the chamber, where the latter is alone, she places the paper in her hands, saying: "Missy Helen, here's a newspaper from Natchez, brought by a boat just arrived. There's something in it, I think, will be news to you--sad too." Helen Armstrong stretches forth her hand, and takes hold of the sheet. Her fingers tremble, closing upon it; her whole frame, as she searches through its columns. At the same time her eyes glow, burn, almost blaze, with a wild unnatural light--an expression telling of jealousy roused, rekindled, in a last spurt of desperation. Among the marriage notices she expects to see that of Charles Clancy with a Creole girl, whose name is unknown to her. It will be the latest chapter, climax and culminating point, of his perfidy! Who could describe the sudden revulsion of thought; what pen depict the horror that sweeps through her soul; or pencil portray the expression of her countenance, as, with eyes glaring aghast, she rests them on a large type heading, in which is the name "Charles Clancy?" For, the paragraph underneath tells not of his _marriage_, but his _murder_! Not the climax of his perfidy, as expected, but of her suffering. Her bosom late burning with indignant jealousy, is now the prey of a very different passion. Letting the paper fall to the floor, she sinks back into her chair, her heart audibly beating--threatening to beat no more. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. SPECTRES IN THE STREET. Colonel Armstrong is staying at the "Planters' House," the chief hotel in the town of Natchitoches. Not a very grand establishment, nevertheless. Compared with such a princely hostelry as the "Langham" of London, it would be as a peasant's hut to a palace. Withal, in every way comfortable; and what it may lack in architectural style is made up in natural adornment; a fine effect, produced by trees surrounding and o'ershading it. A hotel of the true Southern States type: weather-board walls, painted chalk-white, with green Venetian shutters to the windows; a raised verandah--the "piazza"--running all around it; a portion of this usually occupied by gentlemen in white linen coats, sky-blue "cottonade" pants, and Panama hats, who drink mint-juleps all day long; while another portion, furnished with cane rocking-chairs, presents a certain air of exclusiveness, which tells of its being tabooed to the sterner sex, or more particularly meant for ladies. A pleasant snuggery this, giving a good view of the street, while its privacy is secured by a trellis, which extends between the supporting pillars, clustered with Virginia creepers and other plants trained to such service. A row of grand magnolias stands along the brick banquette in front, their broad glabrous leaves effectually fending off the sun; while at the ladies' end two large Persian lilacs, rivalling the indigenous tree both in the beauty of their leaves and the fragrance of their flowers, waft delicious odours into the windows of the chambers adjacent, ever open. Orange-trees grow contiguous, and so close to the verandah rail, that one leaning over may pluck either their ripe golden globes, or white wax-like blossoms in all stages of expansion; these beautiful evergreens bearing fruit and flower at the same time. A pleasant place at all hours this open air boudoir; and none more enjoyable than at night, just after sunset. For then the hot atmosphere has cooled down, and the soft southern breeze coming up from the bosom of the river, stirs the leaves of the lilacs into gentle rustling, and shakes their flower-spikes, scattering sweet incense around. Then the light from street lamps and house windows, gleaming through the foliage, mingles with that of the fire-flies crossing and scintillating like sparks in a pyrotechnic display. Then the tree-crickets have commenced their continuous trill, a sound by no means disagreeable; if it were, there is compensation in the song of the mock-bird, that, perched upon the top of some tall tree, makes the night cheerful with its ever-changing notes. Sometimes there are other sounds in this shady retreat, still more congenial to the ears of those who hear them. Oft is it tenanted by dark-eyed demoiselles, and their Creole cavaliers, who converse in the low whisperings of love, to them far sweeter than song of thrush, or note of nightingale--words speaking the surrender of a heart, with others signifying its acceptance. To-night there is nothing of this within the vine-trellised verandah; for only two individuals occupy it, both ladies. By the light from street lamps and open casements, from moonbeams shining through the lilac leaves, from fire-flies hovering and shooting about, it can be seen that both are young, and both beautiful. Of two different types, dark and fair: for they are the two daughters of Archibald Armstrong. As said, they are alone, nor man nor woman near. There have been others of both sexes, but all have gone inside; most to retire for the night, now getting late. Colonel Armstrong is not in the hotel, nor Dupre. Both are abroad on the business of their colonising scheme. About this everything has been arranged, even to selection of the place. A Texan land speculator, who holds a large "grant" upon the San Saba river, opportunely chances to be in Natchitoches at the time. It is a tract of territory surrounding, and formerly belonging to, an old mission by the monks, long ago abandoned. Dupre has purchased it; and all now remaining to be done is to complete the make-up of the migrating party, and start off to take possession. Busied with these preparations, the young Creole, and his future father-in-law, are out to a later hour than usual, which accounts for the ladies being left alone. Otherwise, one, at least, would not be long left to herself. If within the hotel, Dupre would certainly be by the side of his Jessie. The girls are together, standing by the baluster rail, with eyes bent upon the street. They have been conversing, but have ceased. As usual, the younger has been trying to cheer the elder, still sad, though now from a far different cause. The pain at her heart is no longer that of jealousy, but pure grief, with an admixture of remorse. The Natchez newspaper has caused this change; what she read there, clearing Clancy of all treason, leaving herself guilty for having suspected him. But, oh! such an _eclaircissement_! Obtained at the expense of a life dear to her as her own--dearer now she knows he is dead! The newspaper has furnished but a meagre account of the murder. It bears date but two days subsequent, and must have been issued subsequent to Mrs Clancy's death, as it speaks of this event having occurred. It would be out at an early hour that same morning. In epitome its account is: that a man is missing, supposed to be murdered; by name, Charles Clancy. That search is being made for his body, not yet found. That the son of a well-known planter, Ephraim Darke, himself called Richard, has been arrested on suspicion, and lodged in the county jail; and, just as the paper is going to press, it has received the additional intelligence, that the mother of the murdered man has succumbed to the shock, and followed her unfortunate son to the "bourne from which no traveller returns." The report is in the flowery phraseology usually indulged, in by the south-western journals. It is accompanied by comments and conjectures as to the motive of the crime. Among these Helen Armstrong has read her own name, with the contents of that letter addressed to Clancy, but proved to have been in the possession of Darke. Though given only in epitome--for the editor confesses not to have seen the epistle, but only had account of it from him who furnished the report--still to Helen Armstrong is the thing painfully compromising. All the world will now know the relations that existed between her and Charles Clancy. What would she care were he alive? And what need she, now he is dead? She does not care--no. It is not this that afflicts her. Could she but bring him to life again, she would laugh the world to scorn, brave the frowns of her father, to prove herself a true woman by becoming the wife of him her heart had chosen for a husband. "It cannot be; he is dead--gone--lost for ever!" So run her reflections, as she stands in silence by her sister's side, their conversation for the time suspended. Oppressed by their painfulness, she retires a seep, and sinks down into one of the chairs; not to escape the bitter thoughts--for she cannot--but to brood on them alone. Jessie remains with hands rested on the rail, gazing down into the street. She is looking for her Luis, who should now soon be returning to the hotel. People are passing, some in leisurely promenade, others in hurried step, telling of early habits and a desire to get home. One catching her eye, causes her to tremble; one for whom she has a feeling of fear, or rather repulsion. A man of large stature is seen loitering under the shadow of a tree, and looking at her as though he would devour her. Even in his figure there is an expression of sinister and slouching brutality. Still more on his face, visible by the light of a lamp which beams over the entrance door of the hotel. The young girl does not stay to scrutinise it; but shrinking back, cowers by the side of her sister. "What's the matter, Jess?" asks Helen, observing her frayed aspect, and in turn becoming the supporter. "You've seen something to vex you? something of--Luis?" "No--no, Helen. Not him." "Who then?" "Oh, sister! A man fearful to look at. A great rough fellow, ugly enough to frighten any one. I've met him several times when out walking, and every time it's made me shudder." "Has he been rude to you?" "Not exactly rude, though something like it. He stares at me in a strange way. And such horrid eyes! They're hollow, gowlish like an alligator's. I'd half a mind to tell father, or Luis, about it; but I know Luis would go wild, and want to kill the big brute. I saw him just now, standing on the side-walk close by. No doubt he's there still." "Let me have a look at those alligator eyes." The fearless elder sister, defiant from very despair, steps out to the rail, and leaning over, looks along the street. She sees men passing; but no one who answers to the description given. There is one standing under a tree, but not in the place of which Jessie has spoken; he is on the opposite side of the street. Neither is he a man of large size, but rather short and slight. He is in shadow, however, and she cannot be sure of this. At the moment he moves off, and his gait attracts her attention; then his figure, and, finally, his face, as the last comes under the lamp-light. They attract and fix it, sending a cold shiver through her frame. It was a fancy her thinking she saw Charles Clancy among the tree-tops. Is it a like delusion, that now shows her his assassin in the streets of Natchitoches? No; it cannot be! It is a reality; assuredly the man moving off is _Richard Darke_! She has it on her tongue to cry "murderer!" and raise a "hue and cry;" but cannot. She feels paralysed, fascinated; and stands speechless, not stirring, scarce breathing. Thus, till the assassin is out of sight. Then she totters back to the side of her sister, to tell in trembling accents, how she, too, had been frayed by a _spectre in the street_! CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. THE "CHOCTAW CHIEF." "You'll excuse me, stranger, for interruptin' you in the readin' o' your newspaper. I like to see men in the way o' acquirin' knowledge. But we're all of us here goin' to licker up. Won't you join?" The invitation, brusquely, if not uncourteously, extended, comes from a man of middle age, in height at least six feet three, without reckoning the thick soles of his bull-skin boots--the tops of which rise several inches above the knee. A personage, rawboned, and of rough exterior, wearing a red blanket-coat; his trousers tucked into the aforesaid boots; with a leather belt buckled around his waist, under the coat, but over the haft of a bowie-knife, alongside which peeps out the butt of a Colt's revolving pistol. In correspondence with his clothing and equipment, he shows a cut-throat countenance, typical of the State Penitentiary; cheeks bloated as from excessive indulgence in drink; eyes watery and somewhat bloodshot; lips thick and sensual; with a nose set obliquely, looking as if it had received hard treatment in some pugilistic encounter. His hair is of a yellowish clay colour, lighter in tint upon the eyebrows. There is none either on his lips or jaws, nor yet upon his thick hog-like throat; which looks as if some day it may need something stiffer than a beard to protect it from the hemp of the hangman. He, to whom the invitation has been extended, is of quite a different appearance. In age a little over half that of the individual who has addressed him; complexion dark and cadaverous; the cheeks hollow and haggard, as from sleepless anxiety; the upper lip showing two elongated bluish blotches--the stub of moustaches recently removed; the eyes coal black, with sinister glances sent in suspicious furtiveness from under a broad hat-brim pulled low down over the brow; the figure fairly shaped, but with garments coarse and clumsily fitting, too ample both for body and limbs, as if intended to conceal rather than show them to advantage. A practised detective, after scanning this individual, taking note of his habiliments, with the hat and his manner of wearing it, would pronounce him a person dressed in disguise--this, for some good reason, adopted. A suspicion of the kind appears to be in the mind of the rough Hercules, who has invited him to "licker up;" though _he_ is no detective. "Thank you," rejoins the young fellow, lowering the newspaper to his knee, and raising the rim of his hat, as little as possible; "I've just had a drain. I hope you'll excuse me." "Damned if we do! Not this time, stranger. The rule o' this tavern is, that all in its bar takes a smile thegither--leastwise on first meeting. So, say what's the name o' yer tipple." "Oh! in that case I'm agreeable," assents the newspaper reader, laying aside his reluctance, and along with it the paper--at the same time rising to his feet. Then, stepping up to the bar, he adds, in a tone of apparent frankness: "Phil Quantrell ain't the man to back out where there's glasses going. But, gentlemen, as I'm the stranger in this crowd, I hope you'll let me pay for the drinks." The men thus addressed as "gentlemen" are seven or eight in number; not one of whom, from outward seeming, could lay claim to the epithet. So far as this goes, they are all of a sort with the brutal-looking bully in the blanket-coat who commenced the conversation. Did Phil Quantrell address them as "blackguards," he would be much nearer the mark. Villainous scoundrels they appear, every one of them, though of different degrees, judging by their countenances, and with like variety in their costumes. "No--no!" respond several, determined to show themselves gentlemen in generosity. "No stranger can stand treat here. You must drink with us, Mr Quantrell." "This score's mine!" proclaims the first spokesman, in an authoritative voice. "After that anybody as likes may stand treat. Come, Johnny! trot out the stuff. Brandy smash for me." The bar-keeper thus appealed to--as repulsive-looking as any of the party upon whom he is called to wait--with that dexterity peculiar to his craft, soon furnishes the counter with bottles and decanters containing several sorts of liquors. After which he arranges a row of tumblers alongside, corresponding to the number of those designing to drink. And soon they are all drinking; each the mixture most agreeable to his palate. It is a scene of every-day occurrence, every hour, almost every minute, in a hotel bar-room of the Southern United States; the only peculiarity in this case being, that the Natchitoches tavern in which it takes place is very different from the ordinary village inn, or roadside hotel. It stands upon the outskirts of the town, in a suburb known as the "Indian quarter;" sometimes also called "Spanish town"--both name having reference to the fact, that some queer little shanties around are inhabited by pure-blooded Indians and half-breeds, with poor whites of Spanish extraction--these last the degenerate descendants of heroic soldiers who originally established the settlement. The tavern itself, bearing an old weather-washed swing-sign, on which is depicted an Indian in full war-paint, is known as the "Choctaw Chief," and is kept by a man supposed to be a Mexican, but who may be anything else; having for his bar-keeper the afore-mentioned "Johnny," a personage supposed to be an Irishman, though of like dubious nationality as his employer. The Choctaw Chief takes in travellers; giving them bed, board, and lodging, without asking them any questions, beyond a demand of payment before they have either eaten or slept under its roof. It usually has a goodly number, and of a peculiar kind--strange both in aspect and manners--no one knowing whence they come, or whither bent when taking their departure. As the house stands out of the ordinary path of town promenaders, in an outskirt scarce ever visited by respectable people, no one cares to inquire into the character of its guests, or aught else relating to it. To those who chance to stray in its direction, it is known as a sort of cheap hostelry, that gives shelter to all sorts of odd customers-- hunters, trappers, small Indian traders, returned from an expedition on the prairies; along with these, such travellers as are without the means to stop at the more pretentious inns of the village; or, having the means, prefer, for reasons of their own, to put up at the Choctaw Chief. Such is the reputation of the hostelry, before whose drinking bar stands Phil Quantrell--so calling himself--with the men to whose boon companionship he has been so unceremoniously introduced; as declared by his introducer, according to the custom of the establishment. The first drinks swallowed, Quantrell calls for another round; and then a third is ordered, by some one else, who pays, or promises to pay for it. A fourth "smile" is insisted upon by another some one who announces himself ready to stand treat; all the liquor, up to this time consumed, being either cheap brandy or "rot-gut" whisky. Quantrell, now pleasantly convivial, and acting under the generous impulse the drink has produced, sings out "Champagne!" a wine which the poorest tavern in the Southern States, even the Choctaw Chief, can plentifully supply. After this the choice vintage of France, or its gooseberry counterfeit, flows feebly; Johnny with gleeful alacrity stripping off the leaden capsules, twisting the wires, and letting pop the corks. For the stranger guest has taken a wallet from his pocket, which all can perceive to be "chock full" of gold "eagles," some reflecting upon, but saying nothing about, the singular contrast between this plethoric purse, and the coarse coat out of whose pocket it is pulled. After all, not much in this. Within the wooden walls of the Choctaw Chief there have been seen many contrasts quite as curious. Neither its hybrid landlord, nor his bar-keeper, nor its guests are addicted to take note--or, at all events make remarks upon--circumstances which elsewhere would seem singular. Still, is there one among the roystering crowd who does note this; as also other acts done, and sayings spoken, by Phil Quantrell in his cups. It is the Colossus who has introduced him to the jovial company, and who still sticks to him as chaperon. Some of this man's associates, who appear on familiar footing, called him "Jim Borlasse;" others, less free, address him as "Mister Borlasse;" while still others, at intervals, and as if by a slip of the tongue, give him the title "Captain." Jim, Mister, or Captain Borlasse-- whichever designation he deserve--throughout the whole debauch, keeps his bloodshot eyes bent upon their new acquaintance, noting his every movement. His ears, too, are strained to catch every word Quantrell utters, weighing its import. For all he neither says nor does aught to tell of his being thus attentive to the stranger--at first his guest, but now a spendthrift host to himself and his party. While the champagne is being freely quaffed, of course there is much conversation, and on many subjects. But one is special; seeming more than all others to engross the attention of the roysterers under the roof of the Choctaw Chief. It is a murder that has been committed in the State of Mississippi, near the town of Natchez; an account of which has just appeared in the local journal of Natchitoches. The paper is lying on the bar-room table; and all of them, who can read, have already made themselves acquainted with the particulars of the crime. Those, whose scholarship does not extend so far, have learnt them at secondhand from their better-educated associates. The murdered man is called Clancy--Charles Clancy--while the murderer, or he under suspicion of being so, is named Richard Darke, the son of Ephraim Darke, a rich Mississippi planter. The paper gives further details: that the body of the murdered man has not been found, before the time of its going to press; though the evidence collected leaves no doubt of a foul deed having been done; adding, that Darke, the man accused of it, after being arrested and lodged in the county jail, has managed to make his escape--this through connivance with his jailer, who has also disappeared from the place. Just in time, pursues the report, to save the culprit's neck from a rope, made ready for him by the executioners of Justice Lynch, a party of whom had burst open the doors of the prison, only to find it untenanted. The paper likewise mentions the motive for the committal of the crime--at least as conjectured; giving the name of a young lady, Miss Helen Armstrong, and speaking of a letter, with her picture, found upon the suspected assassin. It winds up by saying, that no doubt both prisoner and jailer have G.T.T.--"Gone to Texas"--a phrase of frequent use in the Southern States, applied to fugitives from justice. Then follows the copy of a proclamation from the State authorities, offering a reward of two thousand dollars for the apprehension of Richard Darke, and five hundred for Joe Harkness--this being the name of the conniving prison-keeper. While the murder is being canvassed and discussed by the _bon-vivants_ in the bar-room of the Choctaw Chief--a subject that seems to have a strange fascination for them--Borlasse, who has become elevated with the alcohol, though usually a man of taciturn habit, breaks out with an asseveration, which causes surprise to all, even his intimate associates. "Damn the luck!" he vociferates, bringing his fist down upon the counter till the decanters dance at the concussion; "I'd 'a given a hundred dollars to 'a been in the place o' that fellow Darke, whoever he is!" "Why?" interrogate several of his confreres, in tones that express the different degrees of their familiarity with him questioned, "Why, Jim?" "Why, Mr Borlasse?" "Why, Captain?" "Why?" echoes the man of many titles, again striking the counter, and causing decanters and glasses to jingle. "Why? Because that Clancy-- that same Clancy--is the skunk that, before a packed jury, half o' them yellar-bellied Mexikins, in the town of Nacogdoches, swore I stealed a horse from him. Not only swore it, but war believed; an' got me--me, Jim Borlasse--tied for twenty-four hours to a post, and whipped into the bargain. Yes, boys, whipped! An' by a damned Mexikin nigger, under the orders o' one o' their constables, they call algazeels. I've got the mark o' them lashes on me now, and can show them, if any o' ye hev a doubt about it. I ain't 'shamed to show 'em to _you_ fellows; as ye've all got something o' the same, I guess. But I'm burnin' mad to think that Charley Clancy's escaped clear o' the vengeance I'd sworn again him. I know'd he was comin' back to Texas, him and his. That's what took him out thar, when I met him at Nacogdoches. I've been waitin' and watchin' till he shed stray this way. Now, it appears, somebody has spoilt my plans--somebody o' the name Richard Darke. An', while I envy this Dick Darke, I say damn him for doin' it!" "Damn Dick Darke! Damn him for doin' it!" they shout, till the walls re-echo their ribald blasphemy. The drinking debauch is continued till a late hour, Quantrell paying shot for the whole party. Maudlin as most of them have become, they still wonder that a man so shabbily dressed can command so much cash and coin. Some of them are not a little perplexed by it. Borlasse is less so than any of his fellow-tipplers. He has noted certain circumstances that give him a clue to the explanation; one, especially, which seems to make everything clear. As the stranger, calling himself Phil Quantrell, stands holding his glass in hand, his handkerchief employed to wipe the wine from his lips, and carelessly returned to his pocket, slips out, and fails upon the floor. Borlasse stooping, picks it up, but without restoring it to its owner. Instead, he retires to one side; and, unobserved, makes himself acquainted with a name embroidered on its corner. When, at a later hour, the two sit together, drinking a last good-night draught, Borlasse places his lips close to the stranger's ear, whispering as if it were Satan himself who spoke, "_Your name is not Philip Quantrell: 'tis Richard Darke_!" CHAPTER THIRTY THREE. THE MURDERER UNMASKED. A rattlesnake sounding its harsh "skirr" under the chair on which the stranger is sitting could not cause him to start up more abruptly than he does, when Borlasse says:-- "_Your name is not Philip Quantrell: 'tis Richard Darke_!" He first half rises to his feet, then sits down again; all the while trembling in such fashion, that the wine goes over the edge of his glass, sprinkling the sanded floor. Fortunately for him, all the others have retired to their beds, it being now a very late hour of the night--near midnight. The drinking "saloon" of the Choctaw Chief is quite emptied of its guests. Even Johnny, the bar-keeper, has gone kitchen-wards to look after his supper. Only Borlasse witnesses the effect of his own speech; which, though but whispered, has proved so impressive. The speaker, on his side, shows no surprise. Throughout all the evening he has been taking the measure of his man, and has arrived at a clear comprehension of the case. He now knows he is in the company of Charles Clancy's assassin. The disguise which Darke has adopted--the mere shaving off moustaches and donning a dress of home-wove "cottonade"--the common wear of the Louisiana Creole--with slouch hat to correspond, is too flimsy to deceive Captain Jim Borlasse, himself accustomed to metamorphoses more ingenious, it is nothing new for him to meet a murderer fleeing from the scene of his crime--stealthily, disguisedly making way towards that boundary line, between the United States and Texas--the limit of executive justice. "Come, Quantrell!" he says, raising his arm in a gesture of reassurance, "don't waste the wine in that ridikelous fashion. You and me are alone, and I reckin we understand one another. If not, we soon will--the sooner by your puttin' on no nonsensical airs, but confessin' the clar and candid truth. First, then, answer me this questyun: Air you, or air you not, Richard Darke? If ye air, don't be afeerd to say so. No humbuggery! Thar's no need for't. An' it won't do for Jim Borlasse." The stranger, trembling, hesitates to make reply. Only for a moment. He sees it will be of no use denying his identity. The man who has questioned him--of giant size and formidable aspect-- notwithstanding the copious draughts he has swallowed, appears cool as a tombstone, and stern as an Inquisitor. The bloodshot eyes look upon him with a leer that seems to say: "Tell me a lie, and I'm your enemy." At the same time those eyes speak of friendship; such as may exist between two scoundrels equally steeped in crime. The murderer of Charles Clancy--now for many days and nights wandering the earth, a fugitive from foiled justice, taking untrodden paths, hiding in holes and corners, at length seeking shelter under the roof of the Choctaw Chief, because of its repute, sees he has reached a haven of safety. The volunteered confessions of Borlasse--the tale of his hostility to Clancy, and its cause--inspire him with confidence about any revelations he may make in return. Beyond all doubt his new acquaintance stands in mud, deep as himself. Without further hesitation, he says--"I _am_ Richard Darke." "All right!" is the rejoinder. "And now, Mr Darke, let me tell you, I like your manly way of answerin' the question I've put ye. Same time, I may as well remark, 'twould 'a been all one if ye'd sayed _no_! This child hain't been hidin' half o' his life, 'count o' some little mistakes made at the beginnin' of it, not to know when a man's got into a sim'lar fix. First day you showed your face inside the Choctaw Chief I seed thar war something amiss; tho', in course, I couldn't gie the thing a name, much less know 'thar that ugly word which begins with a M. This evenin', I acknowledge, I war a bit put out--seein' you round thar by the planter's, spyin' after one of them Armstrong girls; which of them I needn't say." Darke starts, saying mechanically, "You saw me?" "In coorse I did--bein' there myself, on a like lay." "Well?" interrogates the other, feigning coolness. "Well; that, as I've said, some leetle bamboozled me. From your looks and ways since you first came hyar, I guessed that the something wrong must be different from a love-scrape. Sartint, a man stayin' at the Choctaw Chief, and sporting the cheap rig as you've got on, wan't likely to be aspirin' to sech dainty damsels as them. You'll give in, yourself, it looked a leetle queer; didn't it?" "I don't know that it did," is the reply, pronounced doggedly, and in an assumed tone of devil-may-care-ishness. "You don't! Well, I thought so, up to the time o' gettin' back to the tavern hyar--not many minutes afore my meetin' and askin' you to jine us in drinks. If you've any curiosity to know what changed my mind, I'll tell ye." "What?" asks Darke, scarcely reflecting on his words. "That ere newspaper you war readin' when I gave you the invite. I read it _afore_ you did, and had ciphered out the whole thing. Puttin' six and six thegither, I could easy make the dozen. The same bein', that one of the young ladies stayin' at the hotel is the Miss Helen Armstrong spoke of in the paper; and the man I observed watchin' her is Richard Darke, who killed Charles Clancy--_yourself_!" "I--I am--I won't--I don't deny it to you, Mr Borlasse. I am Richard Darke. I did kill Charles Clancy; though I protest against its being said I _murdered_ him." "Never mind that. Between friends, as I suppose we can now call ourselves, there need be no nice distinguishin' of tarms. Murder or manslaughter, it's all the same, when a man has a motive sech as yourn. An' when he's druv out o' the pale of what they call society, an' hunted from the settlements, he's not like to lose the respect of them who's been sarved the same way. Your bein' Richard Darke an' havin' killed Charles Clancy, in no ways makes you an enemy o' Jim Borlasse--except in your havin' robbed me of a revenge I'd sworn to take myself. Let that go now. I ain't angry, but only envious o' you, for havin' the satisfaction of sendin' the skunk to kingdom come, without givin' me the chance. An' now, Mister Darke, what do you intend doin'?" The question comes upon the assassin with a sobering effect. His copious potations have hitherto kept him from reflecting. Despite the thieve's confidence with which Borlasse has inspired him, this reference to his future brings up its darkness, with its dangers; and he pauses before making response. Without waiting for it, his questioner continues: "If you've got no fixed plan of action, and will listen to the advice of a friend, I'd advise you to become _one o' us_." "One of you! What does that mean, Mr Borlasse?" "Well, I can't tell you here," answers Borlasse, in a subdued tone. "Desarted as this bar-room appear to be, it's got ears for all that. I see that curse, Johnny, sneakin' about, pretendin' to be lookin' after his supper. If he knew as much about you as I do, you'd be in limbo afore you ked get into your bed. I needn't tell you thar's a reward offered; for you seed that yourself in the newspaper. Two thousand dollars for you, an' five hundred dollars for the fellow as I've seed about along wi' you, and who I'd already figured up as bein' jailer Joe Harkness. Johnny, an' a good many more, would be glad to go halves with me, for tellin' them only half of what I now know. _I_ ain't goin' to betray you. I've my reasons for not. After what's been said I reckon you can trust me?" "I can," rejoins the assassin, heaving a sigh of relief. "All right, then," resumes Borlasse; "we understand one another. But it won't do to stay palaverin hyar any longer. Let's go up to my bedroom. We'll be safe there; and I've got a bottle of whisky, the best stuff for a nightcap. Over that we can talk things straight, without any one havin' the chance to set them crooked. Come along!" Darke, without protest, accepts the invitation. He dares not do otherwise. It sounds more like a command. The man extending it has now full control over him; can deliver him to justice--have him dragged to a jail. CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR. "WILL YOU BE ONE OF US?" Once inside his sleeping apartment, Borlasse shuts the door, points out a chair to his invited guest, and plants himself upon another. With the promised bottle of whisky between them, he resumes speech. "I've asked you, Quantrell, to be one o' us. I've done it for your own good, as you ought to know without my tellin' ye. Well; you asked me in return what that means?" "Yes, I did," rejoins Darke, speaking without purpose. "It means, then," continues Borlasse, taking a gulp out of his glass, "that me, an' the others you've been drinking with, air as good a set of fellows as ever lived. That we're a cheerful party, you've seen for yourself. What's passed this night ain't nowheres to the merry times we spend upon the prairies out in Texas--for it's in Texas we live." "May I ask, Mr Borlasse, what business you follow?" "Well; when we're engaged in regular business, it's mostly horse-catchin'. We rope wild horses, _mustangs_, as they're called; an' sometimes them that ain't jest so wild. We bring 'em into the settlements for sale. For which reason we pass by the name of _mustangers_. Between whiles, when business isn't very brisk, we spend our time in some of the Texas towns--them what's well in to'rds the Rio Grande, whar there's a good sprinklin' of Mexikins in the population. We've some rare times among the Mexikin girls, I kin assure you. You'll take Jim Borlasse's word for that, won't you?" "I have no cause to doubt it." "Well, I needn't say more, need I? I know, Quantrell, you're fond of a pretty face yourself, with sloe-black eyes in it. You'll see them among the Mexikin saynoritas, to your heart's content. Enough o' 'em, maybe, to make you forget the pair as war late glancin' at you out of the hotel gallery." "Glancing at me?" exclaims Darke, showing surprise, not unmixed with alarm. "Glancing at ye; strait custrut; them same eyes as inspired ye to do that little bit of shootin', wi' Charley Clancy for a target." "You think she _saw_ me?" asks the assassin, with increasing uneasiness. "Think! I'm sure of it. More than saw--she recognised ye. I could tell that from the way she shot back into the shadow. Did ye not notice it yourself?" "No," rejoins Darke, the monosyllable issuing mechanically from his lips, while a shiver runs through his frame. His questioner, observing these signs, continues,-- "T'ike my advice, and come with us fellows to Texas. Before you're long there, the Mexikin girls will make you stop moping about Miss Armstrong. After the first _fandango_ you've been at, you won't care a straw for her. Believe me, you'll soon forget her." "Never!" exclaims Darke, in the fervour of his passion--thwarted though it has been--forgetting the danger he is in. "If that's your detarmination," returns Borlasse, "an' you've made up your mind to keep that sweetheart in sight, you won't be likely to live long. As sure as you're sittin' thar, afore breakfast time to-morrow mornin' the town of Naketosh 'll be too hot to hold ye." Darke starts from his chair, as if _it_ had become too hot. "Keep cool, Quantrell!" counsels the Texan. "No need for ye to be scared at what I'm sayin'. Thar's no great danger jest yet. There might be, if you were in that chair, or this room, eight hours later. I won't be myself, not one. For I may as well tell ye, that Jim Borlasse, same's yourself, has reasons for shiftin' quarters from the Choctaw Chief. And so, too, some o' the fellows we've been drinkin' with. We'll all be out o' this a good hour afore sun-up. Take a friend's advice, and make tracks along wi' us. Will you?" Darke still hesitates to give an affirmative answer. His love for Helen Armstrong--wild, wanton passion though it be--is the controlling influence of his life. It has influenced him to follow her thus far, almost as much as the hope of escaping punishment for his crime. And though knowing, that the officers of justice are after him, he clings to the spot where she is staying, with that fascination which keeps the fox by the kennel holding the hounds. The thought of leaving her behind-- perhaps never to see her again--is more repugnant than the spectre of a scaffold! The Texan guesses the reason of his irresolution. More than this, he knows he has the means to put an end to it. A word will be sufficient; or, at most, a single speech. He puts it thus-- "If you're detarmined to stick by the apron-strings o' Miss Armstrong, you'll not do that by staying here in Naketosh. Your best place, to be _near her_, will be along _with me_." "How so, Mr Borlasse?" questions Darke, his eyes opening to a new light. "Why do you say that?" "You ought to know, without my tellin' you--a man of your 'cuteness, Quantrell! You say you can never forget the older of that pair o' girls. I believe you; and will be candid, too, in sayin', no more is Jim Borlasse like to forget the younger. I thought nothin' could 'a fetched that soft feelin' over me. 'Twant likely, after what I've gone through in my time. But she's done it--them blue eyes of hers; hanged if they hain't! Then, do you suppose that I'm going to run away from, and lose sight o' her and them? _No_; not till I've had her within these arms, and tears out o' them same peepers droppin' on my cheeks. That is, if she take it in the weepin' way." "I don't understand," stammers Darke. "You will in time," rejoins the ruffian; "that is, if you become one o' us, and go where we're a-goin'. Enough now for you to be told that, _there you will find your sweetheart_!" Without waiting to watch the effect of his last words, the tempter continues-- "Now, Phil Quantrell, or Dick Darke, as in confidence I may call ye, are you willin' to be one o' us?" "I am." "Good! That's settled. An' your comrade, Harkness; I take it, he'll go, too, when told o' the danger of staying behind; not that he appears o' much account, anyway. Still, among us _mustangers_, the more the merrier; and, sometimes we need numbers to help in the surroundin' o' the horses. He'll go along, won't he?" "Anywhere, with me." "Well, then, you'd better step into his bedroom, and roust him up. Both of ye must be ready at once. Slip out to the stable, an' see to the saddles of your horses. You needn't trouble about settlin' the tavern bill. That's all scored to me; we kin fix the proportions of it afterward. Now, Quantrell, look sharp; in twenty minutes, time, I expect to find you an' Harkness in the saddle, where you'll see ten o' us others the same." Saying this, the Texan strides out into the corridor, Darke preceding him. In the dimly-lighted passage they part company, Borlasse opening door after door of several bedrooms, ranged on both sides of it; into each, speaking a word, which, though only in whisper, seems to awake a sleeper as if a cannon were discharged close to his ears. Then succeeds a general shuffling, as of men hastily putting on coats and boots, with an occasional grunt of discontent at slumber disturbed; but neither talking nor angry protest. Soon, one after another, is seen issuing forth from his sleeping apartment, skulking along the corridor, out through the entrance door at back, and on towards the stable. Presently, they fetch their horses forth, saddled and bridled. Then, leaping upon their backs, ride silently off under the shadow of the trees; Borlasse at their head, Quantrell by his side, Harkness among those behind. Almost instantly they are in the thick forest which comes close up to the suburbs of Natchitoches; the Choctaw Chief standing among trees never planted by the hand of man. The wholesale departure appearing surreptitious, is not unobserved. Both the tavern Boniface and his bar-keeper witness it, standing in the door as their guests go off; the landlord chuckling at the large pile of glittering coins left behind; Johnny scratching his carroty poll, and saying,-- "Be japers! they intind clearin' that fellow Quantrell out. He won't long be throubled wid that shinin' stuff as seems burnin' the bottom out av his pocket. I wudn't be surrprized if they putt both him an' 'tother fool past tillin' tales afore ayther sees sun. Will, boss, it's no bizness av ours." With this self-consolatory remark, to which the "boss" assents, Johnny proceeds to shut and lock the tavern door. Soon after the windows of the Choctaw Chief show lightless, its interior silent, the moonbeams shining upon its shingled roof peacefully and innocently, as though it had never sheltered robber, and drunken talk or ribald blasphemy been heard under it. So, till morning's dawn; till daylight; till the sun is o'ertopping the trees. Then is it surrounded by angry men; its wooden walls re-echoing their demand for admittance. They are the local authorities of the district; the sheriff of Natchitoches with his _posse_ of constables, and a crowd of people accompanying. Among them are Colonel Armstrong and the Creole, Dupre; these instigating the movement; indeed, directing it. Ah knew, from yesterday's newspaper, of the murder committed near Natchez, as also of the murderer having broken jail. Only this morning have they learnt that the escaped criminal has been seen in the streets of their town. From an early hour they have been scouring these in search of him; and, at length, reached the Choctaw Chief--the place where he should be found, if found at all. On its doors being opened, they discover traces of him. No man named Darke has been there, but one calling himself Quantrell, with another, who went by the name of Walsh. As, in this case, neither the landlord nor bar-keeper have any interest in screening that particular pair of their late guests, they make no attempt to do so; but, on the contrary, tell all they know about them; adding, how both went away with a number of other gentlemen, who paid their tavern bills, and took departure at an early hour of the morning. The description of the other "gentlemen" is not so particularly given, because not so specially called for. In that of Quantrell and Walsh, Colonel Armstrong, without difficulty, identifies Richard Darke and the jailer, Joe Harkness. He, sheriff, constables, crowd, stand with countenances expressing defeat--disappointment. They have reached the Choctaw Chief a little too late. They know nothing of Borlasse, or how he has baffled them. They but believe, that, for the second time, the assassin of Charles Clancy has eluded the grasp of justice. CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. A GHOST GOING ITS ROUNDS. It is nearly a month since the day of Clancy's death; still the excitement caused by it, though to some extent subsided, has not died out. Curiosity and speculation are kept alive by the fact of the body not having been found. For it has not. Search has been made everywhere for miles around. Field and forest, creeks, ponds, swamp, and river, have all been traversed and interrogated, in vain. All have refused to surrender up the dead. That Clancy is dead no one has a doubt. To say nothing of the blood spilt beside his abandoned hat and gun, with the other circumstances attendant, there is testimony of a moral nature, to many quite as convincing. Alive he would long since have returned home, at thought of what his mother must be suffering. He was just the man to do that, as all who knew him are aware. Even wounded and crippled, if able to crawl, it would be to the side of the only woman at such a crisis he should care for. Though it is now known that he cared for another, no one entertains a thought of his having gone off after _her_. It would not be in keeping with his character, any more than with the incidents and events that have conspired to make the mystery. Days pass, and it still remains one. The sun rises and sets, without throwing any light upon it. Conjecture can do nothing to clear it up; and search, over and over unsuccessful, is at length abandoned. If people still speculate upon how the body of the murdered man has been disposed of, there is no speculation as to who was his murderer, or how the latter made escape. The treason of the jail-keeper explains this--itself accounted for by Ephraim Darke having on the previous day paid a visit to his son in the cell, and left with him a key that ere now has opened many a prison door. Joe Harkness, a weak-witted fellow, long suspected of faithlessness, was not the man to resist the temptation with which his palm had been touched. Since that day some changes have taken place in the settlement. The plantation late Armstrong's has passed into the hands of a new proprietor--Darke having disposed of it--while the cottage of the Clancys, now ownerless, stays untenanted. Unfurnished too: for the bailiff has been there, and a bill of sale, which covered its scant plenishing, farm-stock, implements and utensils, has swept all away. For a single day there was a stir about the place, with noise corresponding, when the chattels were being disposed of by public auction. Then the household gods of the decayed Irish gentleman were knocked down to the highest bidder, and scattered throughout the district. Rare books, pictures, and other articles, telling of refined taste, with some slight remnants of _bijouterie_, were carried off to log-cabins, there to be esteemed in proportion to the prices paid for them. In fine, the Clancy cottage, stripped of everything, has been left untenanted. Lone as to the situation in which it stands, it is yet lonelier in its desolation. Even the dog, that did such service in pointing out the criminality of him who caused all the ruin, no longer guards its enclosures, or cheers them with his familiar bark. The faithful animal, adopted by Simeon Woodley, has found a home in the cabin of the hunter. It is midnight; an hour still and voiceless in Northern climes, but not so in the Southern. Far from it in the State of Mississippi. There the sun's excessive heat keeps Nature alert and alive, even at night, and in days of December. Though night, it is not December, but a date nearer Spring. February is written on the heading of letters, and this, a Spring month on the Lower Mississippi, has commenced making its imprint on the forest trees. Their buds have already burst, some showing leaves fully expanded, others of still earlier habit bedecked with blossoms. Birds, too, awaking from a short winter's silence, pour forth their amorous lays, filling glade and grove with music, that does not end with the day; for the mock-bird, taking up the strain, carries it on through the hours of night; so well counterfeiting the notes of his fellow-songsters, one might fancy them awake--still singing. Not so melodious are other voices disturbing the stillness of the Southern night. Quite the opposite are the croaking of frogs, the screeching of owls, the jerking call of tree-crickets, and the bellowing of the alligator. Still, the ear accustomed to such sounds is not jarred by them. They are but the bass notes, needed to complete the symphony of Nature's concert. In the midst of this melange,--the hour, as already stated, midnight--a man, or something bearing man's semblance, is seen gliding along the edge of the cypress swamp, not far from the place where Charles Clancy fell. After skirting the mud-flat for a time, the figure--whether ghost or human--turns face toward the tract of lighter woodland, extending between the thick timber and cleared ground of the plantations. Having traversed this, the nocturnal wayfarer comes within sight of the deserted cottage, late occupied by the Clancys. The moonlight, falling upon his face, shows it to be white. Also, that his cheeks are pallid, with eyes hollow and sunken, as from sickness-- some malady long-endured, and not yet cured. As he strides over fallen logs, or climbs fences stretching athwart his course, his tottering step tells of a frame enfeebled. When at length clear of the woods, and within sight of the untenanted dwelling, he stops, and for a time remains contemplating it. That he is aware of its being unoccupied is evident, from the glance with which he regards it. His familiarity with the place is equally evident. On entering the cottage grounds, which he soon after does, through, some shrubbery at the back, he takes the path leading up to the house, without appearing to have any doubt about its being the right one. For all this he makes approach with caution, looking suspiciously around--either actually afraid, or not desiring to be observed. There is little likelihood of his being so. At that hour all in the settlement should be asleep. The house stands remote, more than a mile from its nearest neighbour. It is empty; has been stripped of its furniture, of everything. What should any one be doing there? What is _he_ doing there? A question which would suggest itself to one seeing him; with interest added on making note of his movements. There is no one to do either; and he continues on to the house, making for its back door, where there is a porch, as also a covered way, leading to a log-cabin--the kitchen. Even as within the porch, he tries the handle of the door which at a touch goes open. There is no lock, or if there was, it has not been thought worth while to turn the key in it. There are no burglars in the backwoods. If there were, nothing in that house need tempt them. Its nocturnal visitor enters under its roof. The ring of his footsteps, though he still treads cautiously, gives out a sad, solemn sound. It is in unison with the sighs that come, deep-drawn, from his breast; at times so sonorous as to be audible all over the house. He passes from room to room. There are not many--only five of them. In each he remains a few moments, gazing dismally around. But in one--that which was the widow's sleeping chamber--he tarries a longer time; regarding a particular spot--the place formerly occupied by a bed. Then a sigh, louder than any that has preceded it, succeeded by the words, low-muttered:-- "There she must have breathed her last!" After this speech, more sighing, accompanied by still surer signs of sorrow--sobs and weeping. As the moonbeams, pouring in through the open window, fall upon his face, their pale silvery light sparkles upon tears, streaming from hollow eyes, chasing one another down emaciated cheeks. After surrendering himself some minutes to what appears a very agony of grief, he turns out of the sleeping chamber; passes through the narrow hall-way; and on into the porch. Not now the back one, but that facing front to the road. On the other side of this is an open tract of ground, half cleared, half woodland; the former sterile, the latter scraggy. It seems to belong to no one, as if not worth claiming, or cultivating. It has been, in fact, an appanage of Colonel Armstrong's estate, who had granted it to the public as the site for a schoolhouse, and a common burying-ground--free to all desiring to be instructed, or needing to be interred. The schoolhouse has disappeared, but the cemetery is still there--only distinguishable from the surrounding _terrain_ by some oblong elevations, having the well-known configuration of graves. There are in all about a score of them; some having a plain head-board--a piece of painted plank, with letters rudely limned, recording the name and age of him or her resting underneath. Time and the weather have turned most of them greyish, with dates decayed, and names scarcely legible. But there is one upon which the paint shows fresh and white; in the clear moonlight gleaming like a meteor. He who has explored the deserted dwelling, stands for a while with eyes directed on this recently erected memorial. Then, stepping down from the porch, he passes through the wicket-gate; crosses the road; and goes straight towards it, as though a hand beckoned him thither. When close up, he sees it to be by a grave upon which the herbage has not yet grown. The night is a cold one--chill for that Southern clime. The dew upon the withered grass of the grave turf is almost congealed into hoar frost, adding to its ghostly aspect. The lettering upon the head-board is in shadow, the moon being on the opposite side. But stooping forward, so as to bring his eyes close to the slab, he is enabled to decipher the inscription. It is the simplest form of memento--only a name, with the date of death-- "Caroline Clancy, Died January 18--" After reading it, a fresh sob bursts from his bosom, new tears start from his eyes, and he flings himself down upon the grave. Disregarding the dew, thinking nought of the night's dullness, he stretches his arms over the cold turf, embracing it as though it were the warm body of one beloved! For several minutes he remains in this attitude. Then, suddenly rising erect, as if impelled by some strong purpose, there comes from his lips, poured forth in wild passionate accent, the speeches:-- "Mother! dear mother! I am still living! I am here! And you, dead! No more to know--no more hear me! O God!" They are the words of one frantic with grief, scarce knowing what he says. Presently, sober reason seems to assert itself, and he again resumes speech; but now with voice, expression of features, attitude, everything so changed, that no one, seeing him the moment before, would believe it the same man. Upon his countenance sternness has replaced sorrow; the soft lines have become rigid; the melancholy glance is gone, replaced by one that tells of determination--of vengeance. Once more he glances down at the grave; then up to the sky, till the moon, coursing across high heaven, falls full upon his face. With his body slightly leaning backward, the arms along his sides, stiffly extended, the hands closed in convulsive clutch, he cries out:-- "By the heavens above--by the shade of my murdered mother, who lies beneath--I swear not to know rest, never more seek contentment, till I've punished her murderer! Night and day--through summer and winter-- shall I search for him. Yes; search till I've found and chastised this man, this monster, who has brought blight on me, death to my mother, and desolation to our house! Ah! think not you can escape me! Texas, whither I know you have gone, will not be large enough to hold, nor its wilderness wide enough to screen you from my vengeance. If not found there, I shall follow you to the end of the earth--to the end of the earth, Richard Darke!" "Charley Clancy!" He turns as if a shot had struck him. He sees a man standing within six paces of the spot. "Sime Woodsy!" CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. "SHE IS TRUE--STILL TRUE!" The men who thus mutually pronounce each other's names are they who bear them. For it is, in truth, Charles Clancy who stands by the grave, and Simeon Woodley who has saluted him. The surprise is all upon the side of Sime, and something more. He beholds a man all supposed to be dead, apparently returned from the tomb! Sees him in a place appropriate to resurrection, in the centre of a burying-ground, by the side of a recently made grave! The backwoodsman is not above believing in spiritual existences, and for an instant he is under a spell of the supernatural. It passes off on his perceiving that real flesh and blood is before him--Charles Clancy himself, and not his wraith. He reaches this conclusion the sooner from having all along entertained a doubt about Clancy being dead. Despite the many circumstances pointing to, almost proving, his death, Woodley was never quite convinced of it. No one has taken so much trouble, or made so many efforts, to clear up the mystery. He has been foremost in the attempt to get punishment for the guilty man, as in the search for the body of his victim; both of which failed, to his great humiliation; his grief too, for he sincerely lamented his lost friend. Friends they were of no common kind. Not only had they oft hunted in company, but been together in Texas during Clancy's visit to the Lone Star State; together at Nacogdoches, where Borlasse received chastisement for stealing the horse; together saw the thief tied to the stake, Woodley being one of the stern jury who sentenced him to be whipped, and saw to the sentence being carried into execution. The hunter had been to Natchez for the disposal of some pelts and deer-meat, a week's produce of his gun. Returning at a late hour, he must needs pass the cottage of the Clancys, his own humble domicile lying beyond. At sight of the deserted dwelling a painful throb passed through his heart, as he recalled the sad fate of those who once occupied it. Making an effort to forget the gloomy record, he was riding on, when a figure flitting across the road arrested his attention. The clear moonlight showed the figure to be that of a man, and one whose movements betrayed absence of mind, if not actual aberration. With the instinct habitual to the hunter Woodley at once tightened rein, coming to a stop under the shadow of the roadside trees. Sitting in his saddle he watched the midnight wanderer, whose eccentric movements continued to cause him surprise. He saw the latter walk on to the little woodland cemetery, take stand by the side of a grave, bending forward as if to read the epitaph on its painted slab. Soon after kneeling down as in prayer, then throwing himself prostrate along the earth. Woodley well knew the grave thus venerated. For he had himself assisted in digging and smoothing down the turf that covered it. He had also been instrumental in erecting the frail tablet that stood over. Who was this man, in the chill, silent hour of midnight, flinging himself upon it in sorrow or adoration? With a feeling far different from curiosity, the hunter slipped out of his saddle, and leaving his horse behind, cautiously approached the spot. As the man upon the grave was too much absorbed with his own thoughts, he got close up without being observed; so close as to hear that strange adjuration, and see a face he never expected to look upon again. Despite the features, pale and marked with emaciation, the hollow cheeks, and sunken but glaring eyeballs, he recognised the countenance of Charles Clancy; soon as he did so, mechanically calling out his name. Hearing his own pronounced, in response, Sime again exclaims, "Charley Clancy!" adding the interrogatory, "Is it yurself or yur shader?" Then, becoming assured, he throws open his arms, and closes them around his old hunting associate. Joy, at seeing the latter still alive, expels every trace of supernatural thought, and he gives way--to exuberant congratulation. On Clancy's side the only return is a faint smile, with a few confused words, that seem to speak more of sadness than satisfaction. The expression upon his face is rather or chagrin, as if sorry at the encounter having occurred. His words are proof of it. "Simeon Woodley," he says, "I should have been happy to meet you at any other time, but not now." "Why, Clancy!" returns the hunter, supremely astonished at the coldness with which his warm advances have been received. "Surely you know I'm yur friend?" "Right well I know it." "Wal, then, believin' you to be dead--tho' I for one never felt sure o't--still thinking it might be--didn't I do all my possible to git justice done for ye?" "You did. I've heard all--everything that has happened. Too much I've heard. O God! look there! Her grave--my murdered mother!" "That's true. It killed the poor lady, sure enough." "Yes; _he_ killed her." "I needn't axe who you refar to. I heerd you mention the name as I got up. We all know that Dick Darke has done whatever hez been done. We hed him put in prison, but the skunk got away from us, by the bribin' o' another skunk like hisself. The two went off thegither, an' no word's ever been since heerd 'bout eyther. I guess they've put for Texas, whar every scoundrel goes nowadays. Wal, Lordy! I'm so glad to see ye still alive. Won't ye tell me how it's all kim about?" "In time I shall--not now." "But why are ye displeezed at meetin' me--me that mayent be the grandest, but saitinly one o' the truest an' fastest o' yur friends?" "I believe you are, Woodley--am sure of it. And, now that I think more of the matter, I'm not sorry at having met you. Rather am I glad of it; for I feel that I can depend upon you. Sime, will you go with me to Texas?" "To Texas, or anywhars. In coorse I will. An' I reck'n we'll hev a good chance o' meetin' Dick Darke thar, an' then--" "Meet him!" exclaimed Clancy, without waiting for the backwoodsman to finish his speech, "I'm sure of meeting him. I know the spot where. Ah, Simeon Woodley! 'tis a wicked world! Murderer as that man is, or supposed to be, there's a woman gone to Texas who will welcome him-- receive him with open arms; lovingly entwine them around his neck. O God!" "What woman air ye talkin' o', Clancy?" "Her who has been the cause of all--Helen Armstrong." "Wal; ye speak the truth partwise--but only partwise. Thar' can be no doubt o' Miss Armstrong's being the innercent cause of most o' what's been did. But as to her hevin' a likin' for Dick Darke, or puttin' them soft white arms o' hern willingly or lovingly aroun' his neck, thar you're clar off the trail--a million miles off o' it. That ere gurl hates the very sight o' the man, as Sime Woodley hev' good reason to know. An' I know, too, that she's nuts on another man--leastwise has been afore all this happened, and I reck'n still continue to be. Weemen--that air, weemen o' her kidney--ain't so changeable as people supposes. 'Bout Miss Helen Armstrong hevin' once been inclined to'ardst this other man, an' ready to freeze to him, I hev' the proof in my pocket." "The proof! What are you speaking of?" "A dookyment, Charley Clancy, that shed hev reached you long ago, seein' that it's got your name on it. Thar's both a letter and a pictur'. To examine 'em, we must have a clarer light than what's unner this tree, or kin be got out o' that 'ere moon. S'pose we adjern to my shanty. Thar we kin set the logs a-bleezin'. When they throw thar glint on the bit o' paper I've spoke about, I'll take long odds you won't be so down in the mouth. Come along, Charley Clancy! Ye've had a durned dodrotted deal both o' sufferin' an' sorrow. Be cheered! Sime Woodley's got somethin' thet's likely to put ye straight upright on your pins. It's only a bit o' pasteboard an' a sheet o' paper--both inside what in Natcheez they calls a enwelope. Come wi' me to the ole cabin, an' thar you kin take a squint at 'em." Clancy's heart is too full to make rejoinder. The words of Woodley have inspired him with new hope. Health, long doubtful, seems suddenly restored to him. The colour comes back to his cheeks; and, as he follows the hunter to his hut, his stride exhibits all its old vigour and elasticity. When the burning logs are kicked into a blaze; when by its light he reads Helen Armstrong's letter, and looks upon her photograph--on that sweet inscript intended for himself--he cries out in ecstasy,-- "Thank heaven! she is true--still true!" No longer looks he the sad despairing invalid, but the lover--strong, proud, triumphant. CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN. THE HOME OF THE HUNTED SLAVE. Throughout all these days where has Clancy been? Dead, and come to life again? Or, but half killed and recovered? Where the while hidden? And why? Questions that in quick succession occur to Simeon Woodley meeting him by his mother's grave. Not all put then or there; but afterwards on the hunter's own hearth, as the two sit before the blazing logs, by whose light Clancy has read the letter so cheering him. Then Woodley asks them, and impatiently awaits the answers. The reader may be asking the same questions, and in like manner expecting reply. He shall have it, as Woodley, not in a word or at once, but in a series of incidents, for the narration of which it is necessary to return upon time; as also to introduce a personage hitherto known but by repute--the fugitive slave, Jupiter. "Jupe" is of the colour called "light mulatto," closely approximating to that of newly tanned leather. His features are naturally of a pleasing expression; only now and then showing fierce, when he reflects on a terrible flogging, and general ill treatment experienced, at the hands of the cruel master from whom he has absconded. He is still but a young fellow, with face beardless; only two darkish streaks of down along the upper lip. But the absence of virile sign upon his cheeks has full compensation in a thick shock covering his crown, where the hair of Shem struggles for supremacy with the wool of Ham, and so successfully, as to result in a profusion of curls of which Apollo might be proud. The god of Beauty need not want a better form or face; nor he of Strength a set of sinews tougher, or limbs more tersely knit. Young though he may be, Jupe has performed feats of Herculean strength, requiring courage as well. No wonder at his having won Jule! A free fearless spirit he: somewhat wild, though not heart-wicked; a good deal given to nocturnal excursions to neighbouring plantations; hence the infliction of the lash, which has finally caused his absconding from that of Ephraim Darke. A merry jovial fellow he has been--would be still--but for the cloud of danger that hangs over him; dark as the den in which he has found a hiding-place. This is in the very heart and centre of the cypress swamp, as also in the heart and hollow of a cypress tree. No dead log, but a living growing trunk, which stands on a little eyot, not immediately surrounded by water, but marsh and mud. There is water beyond, on every side, extending more than a mile, with trees standing in and shadowing its stagnant surface. On the little islet Nature has provided a home for the hunted fugitive-- an asylum where he is safe from pursuit--beyond the scent of savage hounds, and the trailing of men almost as savage as they; for the place cannot be approached by water-craft, and is equally unapproachable by land. Even a dog could not make way through the quagmire of mud, stretching immediately around it to a distance of several hundred yards. If one tried, it would soon be snapped up by the great saurian, master of this darksome domain. Still is there a way to traverse the treacherous ground, for one knowing it, as does Darke's runaway slave. Here, again, has Nature intervened, lending her beneficent aid to the oppressed fleeing from oppression. The elements in their anger, spoken by tempest and tornado, have laid prostrate several trees, whose trunks, lying along the ooze, lap one another, and form a continuous causeway. Where there chances to be a break, human ingenuity has supplied the connecting link, making it as much as possible to look like Nature's own handiwork; though it is that of Jupiter himself. The hollow tree has given him a house ready built, with walls strong as any constructed by human hands, and a roof to shelter him from the rain. If no better than the lair of a wild beast, still is it snug and safe. The winds may blow above, the thunder rattle, and the lightning flash; but below, under the close canopy of leaves and thickly-woven parasites, he but hears the first in soft sighings, the second in distant reverberation, and sees the last only in faint phosphoric gleams. Far brighter the sparkle of insects that nightly play around the door of his dwelling. A month has elapsed since the day when, incensed at the flogging received--this cruel as causeless--he ran away, resolved to risk everything, life itself, rather than longer endure the tyrannous treatment of the Darkes. Though suspected of having taken refuge in the swamp, and there repeatedly sought for, throughout all this time he has contrived to baffle search. Nor has he either starved or suffered, except from solitude. Naturally of a social disposition, this has been irksome to him. Otherwise, he has comforts enough. Though rude his domicile, and remote from a market, it is sufficiently furnished and provided. The Spanish moss makes a soft couch, on which he can peacefully repose. And for food he need not be hard up, nor has he been for a single day. If it come to that, he can easily entrap an alligator, and make a meal off the tenderest part of its tail; this yielding a steak which, if not equal to best beef, is at all events eatable. But Jupe has never been driven to diet on alligator meat too much of musky flavour. His usual fare is roast pork, with now and then broiled ham and chicken; failing which, a _fricassee_ of 'coon or a _barbecue_ of 'possum. No lack of bread besides--maize bread--in its various bakings of "pone", "hoe cake," and "dodger." Sometimes, too, he indulges in "Virginia biscuit," of sweetest and whitest flour. The question is called up, Whence gets he such good things? The 'coon and 'possum may be accounted for, these being wild game of the woods, which he can procure by capture; but the other viands are domestic, and could only be obtained from a plantation. And from one they are obtained--that of Ephraim Darke! How? Does Jupiter himself steal them? Not likely. The theft would be attended with too much danger. To attempt it would be to risk not only his liberty, but his life. He does not speculate on such rashness, feeling sure his larder will be plentifully supplied, as it has hitherto been-- by a friend. Who is he? A question scarce requiring answer. It almost responds to itself, saying, "Blue Bill." Yes; the man who has kept the fugitive in provisions--the faithful friend and confederate--is no other than the coon-hunter. Something more than bread and meat has Blue Bill brought to the swamp's edge, there storing them in a safe place of deposit, mutually agreed upon. Oft, as he starts forth "a-cooning," may he be observed with something swelling out his coat-pockets, seemingly carried with circumspection. Were they at such times searched, they would be found to contain a gourd of corn whisky, and beside it a plug of tobacco. But no one searches them; no one can guess at their contents--except Phoebe. To her the little matter of commissariat has necessarily been made known, by repeated drafts on her meat-safe, and calls upon her culinary skill. She has no jealous suspicion as to why her scanty store is thus almost daily depleted--no thought of its being for Brown Bet. She knows it is for "poor Jupe," and approves, instead of making protest. CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT. AN EXCURSION BY CANOE. On that day when Dick Darke way-laid Charles Clancy, almost the same hour in which the strife is taking place between them, the fugitive slave is standing by the side of his hollow tree, on the bit of dry land around its roots. His air and bearing indicate intention not to stay there long. Ever and anon he casts a glance upward, as if endeavouring to make out the time of day. A thing not easily done in that sombre spot. For he can see no sun, and only knows there is such by a faint reflection of its light scarce penetrating through the close canopy of foliage overhead. Still, this gradually growing fainter, tells him that evening is at hand. Twilight is the hour he is waiting for, or rather some twenty minutes preceding it. For, to a minute he knows how long it will take him to reach the edge of the swamp, at a certain point to which he contemplates proceeding. It is the place of deposit for the stores he receives from the coon-hunter. On this particular evening he expects something besides provender, and is more than usually anxious about it. Mental, not bodily food, is what he is craving. He hopes to get tidings of her, whose image is engraven upon his heart--his yellow girl, Jule. For under his coarse cotton shirt, and saddle-coloured skin, Jupe's breast burns with a love pure and passionate, as it could, be were the skin white, and the shirt finest linen. He knows of all that is taking place in the plantations; is aware of what has been done by Ephraim Darke in the matter of the mortgage, and what is about to be done by Colonel Armstrong. The coon-hunter has kept him posted up in everything--facts and fancies, rumours and realities. One of the last, and latest, is the intention of the Armstrongs to remove from the neighbourhood. He has already heard of this, as also their destination. It might not so much concern him, but for the implied supposition that his sweetheart will be going along with them. In fact, he feels sure of it; an assurance that, so far from causing regret, rather gives him gladness. It promises a happier future for all. Jupe, too, has had thoughts about Texas. Not that the Lone Star State is at all a safe asylum for such as he; but upon its wild borderland there may be a chance for him to escape the bondage of civilisation, by alliance with the savage! Even this idea of a freedom far off, difficult of realisation, and if realised not so delectable, has nevertheless been flitting before the mind of the mulatto. Any life but that of a slave! His purpose, modified by late events and occurrences, is likely to be altogether changed by them. His Jule will be going to Texas, along with her master and young mistresses. In the hope of rejoining her, he will go there too--as soon as he can escape to the swamp. On this evening he expects later news, with a more particular account of what is about to be done. Blue Bill is to bring them, and direct from Jule, whom the coon-hunter has promised to see. Moreover, Jupe has a hope of being able to see her himself, previous to departure; and to arrange an interview, through the intervention of his friend, is the matter now most on his mind. No wonder, then, his scanning the sky, or its faint reflection, with glances that speak impatience. At length, becoming satisfied it must be near night, he starts off from the eyot, and makes way along the causeway furnished by the trunks of the fallen trees. This serves him only for some two hundred yards, ending on the edge of deep water, beyond which the logs lie submerged. The last of them showing above, is the wreck of a grand forest giant, with branches undecayed, and still carrying the parasite of Spanish moss in profusion. This hanging down in streamers, scatters over the surface and dips underneath, like the tails of white horses wading knee-deep. In its midst appears something, which would escape the eye of one passing carelessly by. On close scrutiny it is seen to be a craft of rude construction--a log with the heart wood removed--in short, a canoe of the kind called "dug-out." No surprise to the runaway slave seeing it there; no more at its seeming to have been placed in concealment. It is his own property, by himself secreted. Gliding down through the moss-bedecked branches, he steps into it; and, after balancing himself aboard, dips his paddle into the water, and sets the dug-out adrift. A way for a while through thick standing trunks that require many tortuous turnings to avoid them. At length a creek is reached, a _bayou_ with scarce any current; along which the canoe-man continues his course, propelling the craft up-stream. He has made way for something more than a mile, when a noise reaches his ear, causing him to suspend stroke, with a suddenness that shows alarm. It is only the barking of a dog; but to him no sound could be more significant--more indicative of danger. On its repetition, which almost instantly occurs, he plucks his paddle out of the water, leaving the dug-out to drift. On his head is a wool hat of the cheap fabric supplied by the Penitentiaries of the Southern States, chiefly for negro wear. Tilting it to one side, he bends low, and listens. Certainly a dog giving tongue--but in tone strange, unintelligible. It is a hound's bay, but not as on slot, or chase. It is a howl, or plaintive whine, as if the animal were tied up, or being chastised! After listening to it for some time--for it is nearly continuous--the mulatto makes remark to himself. "There's no danger in the growl of that dog. I know it nearly as well as my own voice. It's the deer-hound that belong to young Masser Clancy. He's no slave-catcher." Re-assured he again dips his blade, and pushes on as before. But now on the alert, he rows with increased caution, and more noiselessly than ever. So slight is the plash of his paddle, it does not hinder him from noting every sound--the slightest that stirs among the cypresses. The only one heard is the hound's voice, still in whining, wailing note. "Lor!" he exclaims once more, staying his stroke, and giving way to conjectures, "what can be the matter with the poor brute? There must be something amiss to make it cry; out in that strain. Hope 'taint no mischance happened its young masser, the best man about all these parts. Come what will, I'll go to the ground, an' see." A few more strokes carries the canoe on to the place, where its owner has been accustomed to moor it, for meeting Blue Bill; and where on this evening, as on others, he has arranged his interview with the coon-hunter. A huge sycamore, standing half on land, half in the water, with long outstretching roots laid bare by the wash of the current, affords him a safe point of debarkation. For on these his footsteps will leave no trace, and his craft can be stowed in concealment. It chances to be near the spot where the dog is still giving tongue-- apparently not more than two hundred yards off. Drawing the dug-out in between the roots of the sycamore, and there roping it fast, the mulatto mounts upon the bank. Then after standing some seconds to listen, he goes gliding off through the trees. If cautious while making approach by water, he is even more so on the land; so long being away from it, he there feels less at home. Guided by the yelps of the animal, that reach him in quick repetition, he has no difficulty about the direction--no need for aught save caution. The knowledge that he may be endangering his liberty--his life--stimulates him to observe this. Treading as if on eggs, he glides from trunk to trunk; for a time sheltering behind each, till assured he can reach another without being seen. He at length arrives at one, in rear of which he remains for a more prolonged period. For he now sees the dog--as conjectured, Clancy's deer-hound. The animal is standing, or rather crouching, beside a heap of moss, ever and anon raising its head and howling, till the forest is filled with the plaintive refrain. For what is it lamenting? What can the creature mean? Interrogatives which the mulatto puts to himself; for there is none else to whom he may address them. No man near--at least none in sight. No living thing, save the hound itself. Is there anything dead? Question of a different kind which now occurs, causing him to stick closer than ever to his cover behind the tree. Still there is nought to give him a clue to the strange behaviour of the hound. Had he been there half-an-hour sooner, he need not now be racking his brain with conjectures. For he would have witnessed the strife, with all the incidents succeeding, and already known to the reader--with others not yet related, in which the hound was itself sole actor. For the animal, after being struck by Darke's bullet, did not go directly home. There could be no home where its master was not; and it knew he would not be there. In the heart of the faithful creature, while retreating, affection got the better of its fears; and once more turning, it trotted back to the scene of the tragedy. This time not hindered from approaching the spot; the assassin--as he supposed himself--having wound up his cruel work, and hurriedly made away. Despite the shroud thrown over its master's body, the dog soon discovered it--dead, no doubt the animal believed, while tearing aside the moss with claws and teeth, and afterwards with warm tongue licking the cold face. Believing it still, as crouched beside the seeming corpse it continues its plaintive lamentation, which yet perplexes the runaway, while alarming him. Not for long does he listen to it. There is no one in sight, therefore no one to be feared. Certainly not Charles Clancy, nor his dog. With confidence thus restored, he forsakes his place of concealment, and strides on to the spot where the hound has couched itself. At his approach the animal starts up with an angry growl, and advances to meet him. Then, as if in the mulatto recognising a friend of its master, it suddenly changes tone, bounding towards and fawning upon him. After answering its caresses, Jupe continues on till up to the side of the moss pile. Protruding from it he sees a human head, with face turned towards him--the lips apart, livid, and bloodless; the teeth clenched; the eyes fixed and filmy. And beneath the half-scattered heap he knows there is a body; believes it to be dead. He has no other thought, than that he is standing beside a corpse. CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. IS IT A CORPSE? "Surely Charl Clancy!" exclaims the mulatto as soon as setting eyes on the face. "Dead--shot--murdered!" For a time he stands aghast, with arms upraised, and eyes staring wildly. Then, as if struck by something in the appearance of the corpse, he mutteringly interrogates: "Is he sure gone dead?" To convince himself he kneels down beside the body, having cleared away the loose coverlet still partially shrouding it. He sees the blood, and the wound from which it is yet welling. He places his hand over the heart with a hope it may still be beating. Surely it is! Or is he mistaken? The pulse should be a better test; and he proceeds to feel it, taking the smooth white wrist between his rough brown fingers. "It beats! I do believe it does!" are his words, spoken hopefully. For some time he retains his grasp of the wrist. To make more sure, he tries the artery at different points, with a touch as tender, as if holding in his hand the life of an infant. He becomes certain that the heart throbs; that there is yet breath in the body. What next? What is he to do? Hasten to the settlement, and summon a doctor? He dares not do this; nor seek assistance of any kind. To show himself to a white man would be to go back into hated bondage--to the slavery from which he has so lately, and at risk of life, escaped. It would be an act of grand generosity--a self-sacrifice--more than man, more than human being is capable of. Could a poor runaway slave be expected to make it? Some sacrifice he intends making, as may be gathered from his muttered words: "Breath in his body, or no breath, it won't do to leave it lyin' here. Poor young gen'leman! The best of them all about these parts. What would Miss Helen say if she see him now? What will she say when she hear o' it? I wonder who's done it? No, I don't--not a bit. There's only one likely. From what Jule told me, I thought 't would come to this, some day. Wish I could a been about to warn him. Well, it's too late now. The Devil has got the upper hand, as seem always the way. Ah! what 'll become o' Miss Armstrong? She loved him, sure as I love Jule, or Jule me." For a time he stands considering what he ought to do. The dread spectacle has driven out of his mind all thoughts of his appointment with Blue Bell; just as what preceded hindered the coon-hunter from keeping it with him. For the latter, terrified, has taken departure from the dangerous place, and is now hastening homeward. Only for a short while does the mulatto remain hesitating. His eyes are upon the form at his feet. He sees warm blood still oozing from the wound, and knows, or hopes, Clancy is not dead. Something must be done immediately. "Dead or alive," he mutters. "I mustn't, shan't leave him here. The wolves would soon make bare bones of him, and the carrion crows peck that handsome face of his. They shan't either get at him. No. He's did me a kindness more'n once, it's my turn now. Slave, mulatto, nigger, as they call me, I'll show them that under a coloured skin there can be gratitude, as much as under a white one--may be more. Show them! What am I talkin' 'bout? There's nobody to see. Good thing for me there isn't. But there might be, if I stand shilly-shallying here. I mustn't a minute longer." Bracing himself for an effort, he opens his arms, and stoops as to take up the body. Just then the hound, for some time silent, again gives out its mournful monotone--continuing the dirge the runaway had interrupted. Suddenly he rises erect, and glances around, a new fear showing upon his face. For he perceives a new danger in the presence of the dog. "What's to be done with it?" he asks himself. "I daren't take it along. 'Twould be sure some day make a noise, and guide the nigger-hunters to my nest--I mustn't risk that. To leave the dog here may be worse still. It'll sure follow me toatin away its master, an' if it didn't take to the water an' swim after 'twould know where the dug-out lay, an' might show them the place. I shan't make any tracks; for all that they'd suspect somethin', down the creek, an' come that way sarchin'. 'Twont do take the dog--'twont do to leave it--what _will_ do?" The series of reflections, and questions, runs rapidly as thought itself. And to the last, quick as thought, comes an answer--a plan which promises a solution of the difficulty. He thinks of killing the dog--cutting its throat with his knife. Only for an instant is the murderous intent in his mind. In the next he changes it, saying: "I can't do that--no; the poor brute so 'fectionate an' faithful! 'Twould be downright cruel. A'most the same as murderin' a man. I wont do it." Another pause spent in considering; another plan soon suggesting itself. "Ah!" he exclaims, with air showing satisfied, "I have it now. That'll be just the thing." The "thing" thus approved of, is to tie the hound to a tree, and so leave it. First to get hold of it. For this he turns towards the animal, and commences coaxing it nearer. "Come up, ole fella. You aint afeerd o' me. I'm Jupe, your master's friend, ye know. There's a good dog! Come now; come!" The deer-hound, not afraid, does not flee him; and soon he has his hands upon it. Pulling a piece of cord out of his pocket, he continues to apostrophise it, saying: "Stand still, good dog! Steady, and let me slip this round your neck. Don't be skeeart. I'm not goin' to hang you--only to keep you quiet a bit." The animal makes no resistance; but yields to the manipulation, believing it to be by a friendly hand, and for its good. In a trice the cord is knotted around its neck; and the mulatto looks out for a tree to which he may attach it. A thought now strikes him, another step calling for caution. It will not do to let the dog see him go off, or know the direction he takes; for some one will be sure to come in search of Clancy, and set the hound loose. Still, time will likely elapse; the scent will be cold, as far as the creek's edge, and cannot be lifted. With the water beyond there will be no danger. The runaway, glancing around, espies a palmetto brake; these forming a sort of underwood in the cypress forest, their fan-shaped leaves growing on stalks that rise directly out of the earth to a height of three or four feet, covering the ground with a _chevaux de frise_ of deepest green, but hirsute and spinous as hedgehogs. The very place for his purpose. So mutters he to himself, as he conducts the dog towards it. Still thinking the same, after he has tied the animal to a palmetto shank near the middle of the brake, and there left it. He goes off, regardless of its convulsive struggles to set itself free, with accompanying yelps, by which the betrayed quadruped seems to protest against such unexpected as ill-deserved, captivity. Not five minutes time has all this action occupied. In less than five more a second chapter is complete, by the carrying of Clancy's body--it may be his corpse--to the creek, and laying it along the bottom of the canoe. Notwithstanding the weight of his burden, the mulatto, a man of uncommon strength, takes care to make no footmarks along the forest path, or at the point of embarkation. The ground, thickly strewn with the leaves of the deciduous _taxodium_, does not betray a trace, any more than if he were treading on thrashed straw. Undoing the slip-knot of his painter, he shoves the canoe clear of its entanglement among the roots of the tree. Then plying his paddle, directs its course down stream, silently as he ascended, but with look more troubled, and air intensely solemnal. This continuing, while he again shoulders the insensible form, and carries it along the causeway of logs, until he has laid it upon soft moss within the cavity of the cypress--his own couch. Then, once more taking Clancy's wrist between his fingers, and placing his ear opposite the heart, he feels the pulse of the first, and listens for the beatings of the last. A ray of joy illuminates his countenance, as both respond to his examination. It grows brighter, on perceiving a muscular movement of the limbs, late rigid and seemingly inanimate, a light in the eyes looking like life; above all, words from the lips so long mute. Words low-murmured, but still distinguishable; telling him a tale, at the same time giving its interpretation. That in this hour of his unconsciousness Clancy should in his speech couple the names of Richard Darke and Helen Armstrong is a fact strangely significant, he does the same for many days, in his delirious ravings; amid which the mulatto, tenderly nursing him, gets the clue to most of what has happened. Clearer when his patient, at length restored to consciousness, confides everything to the faithful fellow who has so befriended him. Every circumstance he ought to know, at the same time imparting secrecy. This, so closely kept, that even Blue Bill, while himself disclosing many an item, of news exciting the settlement, is not entrusted with one the most interesting, and which would have answered the questions on every tongue:--"What has become of Charles Clancy?" and "Where is his body?" Clancy still in it, living and breathing, has his reasons for keeping the fact concealed. He has succeeded in doing so till this night; till encountering Simeon Woodley by the side of his mother's tomb. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ And now on Woodley's own hearth, after all has been explained, Clancy once more returns to speak of the purpose he has but half communicated to the hunter. "You say, Sime, I can depend upon you to stand by me?" "Ye may stake yur life on that. Had you iver reezun to misdoubt me?" "No--never." "But, Charley, ye hain't tolt me why ye appeared a bit displeezed at meetin' me the night. That war a mystery to me." "There was nothing in it, Sime. Only that I didn't care to meet, or be seen by, any one till I should be strong enough to carry out my purpose. It would, in all probability, be defeated were the world to know I am still alive. That secret I shall expect you to keep." "You kin trust to me for that; an' yur plans too. Don't be afeerd to confide them to Sime Woodley. Maybe he may help ye to gettin' 'em ship-shape." Clancy is gratified at this offer of aid. For he knows that in the backwoodsman he will find his best ally; that besides his friendship tested and proved, he is the very man to be with him in the work he has cut out for himself--a purpose which has engrossed his thoughts ever since consciousness came back after his long dream of delirium. It is that so solemnly proclaimed, as he stood in the cemetery, with no thought of any one overhearing him. He had then three distinct passions impelling him to the stern threat-- three reasons, any of them sufficient to ensure his keeping it. First, his own wrongs. True the attempt at assassinating him had failed; still the criminality remained the same. But the second had succeeded. His mother's corpse was under the cold sod at his feet, her blood calling to him for vengeance. And still another passion prompted him to seek it-- perhaps the darkest of all, jealousy in its direst shape, the sting from a love promised but unbestowed. For the coon-hunter had never told Jupe of Helen Armstrong's letter. Perhaps, engrossed with other cares, he had forgotten it; or, supposing the circumstance known to all, had not thought it worth communicating. Clancy, therefore, up to that hour, believed his sweetheart not only false to himself, but having favoured his rival. The bitter delusion, now removed, does not in any way alter his determination. That is fixed beyond change, as he tells Simeon Woodley while declaring it. He will proceed to Texas in quest of the assassin-- there kill him. "The poor old place!" he says, pointing to the cottage as he passes it on return to the swamp. "No more mine! Empty--every stick sold out of it, I've heard. Well, let them go! I go to Texas." "An' I with ye. To Texas, or anywhars, in a cause like your'n, Clancy. Sime Woodley wouldn't desarve the name o' man, to hang back on a trail like that. But, say! don't ye think we'd be more likely o' findin' the game by stayin' hyar? Ef ye make it known that you're still alive, then thar ain't been no murder done, an' Dick Darke 'll be sure to kum home agin." "If he came what could I do? Shoot him down like a dog, as he thought he had me? That would make _me_ a murderer, with good chance of being hanged for it. In Texas it is different. There, if I can meet him--. But we only lose time in talking. You say, Woodley, you'll go with me?" "In course I've said it, and I'll do as I've sayed. There's no backin' out in this child. Besides, I war jest thinkin' o' a return to Texas, afore I seed you. An' thar's another 'll go along wi' us; that's young Ned Heywood, a friend o' your'n most as much as myself. Ned's wantin' bad to steer torst the Lone Star State. So, thar'll be three o' us on the trail o' Dick Darke." "There will be _four_ of us." "Four! Who's the t'other, may I axe?" "A man I've sworn to take to Texas along with me. A brave, noble man, though his skin be--. But never mind now. I'll tell you all about it by-and-by. Meanwhile we must get ready. There's not a moment to lose. A single day wasted, and I may be too late to settle scores with Richard Darke. There's some one else in danger from him--" Here Clancy's utterance becomes indistinct, as if his voice were stifled by strong emotion. "Some one else!" echoes Sime, interrupting; "who mout ye mean, Clancy?" "Her." "That air's Helen Armstrong. I don't see how she kin be in any danger from Dick Darke. Thet ere gurl hev courage enuf to take care o' herself, an' the spirit too. Besides, she'll hev about her purtectors a plenty." "There can be no safety against an assassin. Who should know that better than I? Woodley, that man's wicked enough for anything." "Then, let's straight to Texas!" CHAPTER FORTY. "ACROSS THE SABINE." At the time when Texas was an independent Republic, and not, as now, a State of the Federal Union, the phrase, "Across the Sabine" was one of noted signification. Its significance lay in the fact, that fugitives from States' justice, once over the Sabine, felt themselves safe; extradition laws being somewhat loose in the letter, and more so in the spirit, at any attempt made to carry them into execution. As a consequence, the fleeing malefactor could breathe freely--even the murderer imagine the weight of guilt lifted from off his soul--the moment his foot touched Texan soil. On a morning of early spring--the season when settlers most affect migration to the Lone Star State--a party of horsemen is seen crossing the boundary river, with faces turned toward Texas. The place where they are making passage is not the usual emigrants' crossing--on the old Spanish military road between Natchitoches and Nacogdoches,--but several miles above, at a point where the stream is, at certain seasons, fordable. From the Louisiana side this ford is approached through a tract of heavy timber, mostly pine forest, along a trail little used by travellers, still less by those who enter Texas with honest intent, or leave Louisiana with unblemished reputations. That these horsemen belong not to either category can be told at a glance. They have no waggons, nor other wheeled vehicles, to give them the semblance of emigrants; no baggage to embarrass them on their march. Without it, they might be explorers, land speculators, surveyors, or hunters. But no. They have not the look of persons who pursue any of these callings; no semblance of aught honest or honourable. In all there are twelve of them; among them not a face but speaks of the Penitentiary--not one which does not brighten up, and show more cheerful, as the hooves of their horses strike the Texan bank of the Sabine. While on the _terrain_ of Louisiana, they have been riding fast and hard--silent, and with pent-up thoughts, as though pursuers were after. Once on the Texan side all seem relieved, as if conscious of having at length reached a haven of safety. Then he who appears leader of the party, reining up his horse, breaks silence, saying-- "Boys! I reckon we may take a spell o' rest here. We're now in Texas, whar freemen needn't feel afeard. If thar's been any fools followin' us, I guess they'll take care to keep on t'other side o' the river. Tharfor, let's dismount and have a bit o' breakfast under the shadder o' these trees. After we've done that, we can talk about what shed be our next move. For my part, I feel sleepy as a 'possum. That ar licker o' Naketosh allers knocks me up for a day or two. This time, our young friend Quantrell here, has given us a double dose, the which I for one won't get over in a week." It is scarcely necessary to say the speaker is Jim Borlasse, and those spoken to his drinking companions in the Choctaw Chief. To a man, they all make affirmative response. Like himself, they too are fatigued--dead done up by being all night in the saddle,--to say nought about the debilitating effects of their debauch, and riding rapidly with beard upon the shoulder, under the apprehension that a sheriff and posse may be coming on behind. For, during the period of their sojourn in Natchitoches, nearly every one of them has committed some crime that renders him amenable to the laws. It may be wondered how such roughs could carry on and escape observation, much more, punishment. But at the time Natchitoches was a true frontier town, and almost every day witnessed the arrival and departure of characters "queer" as to dress and discipline--the trappers and prairie traders. Like the sailor in port, when paid off and with full pockets--making every effort to deplete them--so is the trapper during his stay at a fort, or settlement. He does things that seem odd, are odd, to the extreme of eccentricity. Among such the late guests of the Choctaw Chief would not, and did not, attract particular attention. Not much was said or thought of them, till after they were gone; and then but by those who had been victimised, resignedly abandoning claims and losses with the laconic remark, "The scoundrels have G.T.T." It was supposed the assassin of Charles Clancy had gone with them; but this, affecting the authorities more than the general public, was left to the former to deal with; and in a land of many like affairs, soon ceased to be spoken of. Borlasse's visit to Natchitoches had not been for mere pleasure. It was business that took him thither--to concoct a scheme of villainy such as might be supposed unknown among Anglo-Saxon people, and practised only by those of Latinic descent, on the southern side of the Rio Grande. But robbery is not confined to any race; and on the borderland of Texas may be encountered brigandage as rife and ruthless as among the mountains of the Sierra Morena, or the defiles of the Appenines. That the Texan bandit has succeeded in arranging everything to his satisfaction may be learnt from his hilarious demeanour, with the speech now addressed to his associates:-- "Boys!" he says, calling them around after they have finished eating, and are ready to ride on, "We've got a big thing before us--one that'll beat horse-ropin' all to shucks. Most o' ye, I reckin, know what I mean; 'ceptin', perhaps, our friends here, who've just joined us." The speaker looks towards Phil Quantrell _alias_ Dick Darke, and another, named Walsh, whom he knows to be Joe Harkness, ex-jailer. After glancing from one to the other, he continues-- "I'll take charge o' tellin' _them_ in good time; an', I think, can answer for their standin' by us in the bizness. Thar's fifty thousand dollars, clar cash, at the bottom of it; besides sundries in the trinket line. The question then is, whether we'd best wait till this nice assortment of property gets conveyed to the place intended for its destination, or make a try to pick it up on the way. What say ye, fellers? Let every man speak his opinion; then I'll give mine." "You're sure o' whar they're goin', capting?" asks one of his following. "You know the place?" "Better'n I know the spot we're now camped on. Ye needn't let that trouble ye. An' most all o' ye know it yourselves. As good luck has it, 'taint over twenty mile from our old stampin' groun' o' last year. Thar, if we let em' alone, everythin' air sure to be lodged 'ithin less'n a month from now. Thar, we'll find the specie, trinkets, an' other fixins not forgetting the petticoats--sure as eggs is eggs. To some o' ye it may appear only a question o' time and patience. I'm sorry to tell ye it may turn out somethin' more." "Why d'ye say that, capting? What's the use o' waitin' till they get there?" CHAPTER FORTY ONE. A REPENTANT SINNER. Nearly three weeks after Borlasse and his brigands crossed the Sabine, a second party is seen travelling towards the same river through the forests of Louisiana, with faces set for the same fording-place. In number they are but a third of that composing the band of Borlasse; as there are only four of them. Three are on horseback, the fourth bestriding a mule. The three horsemen are white; the mule-rider a mulatto. The last is a little behind; the distance, as also a certain air of deference--to say nothing of his coloured skin--proclaiming him a servant, or slave. Still further rearward, and seemingly careful to keep beyond reach of the hybrid's heels, is a large dog--a deer-hound. The individuals of this second cavalcade will be easily identified, as also the dog that accompanies it. The three whites are Charles Clancy, Simeon Woodley, and Ned Heywood; he with the tawny complexion Jupiter; while the hound is Clancy's--the same he had with him when shot down by Richard Darke. Strange they too should be travelling, as if under an apprehension of being pursued! Yet seems it so, judging from the rapid pace at which they ride, and there anxious glances occasionally cast behind. It is so; though for very different reasons from those that affected the freebooters. None of the white men has reason to fear for himself--only for the fugitive slave whom they are assisting to escape from slavery. Partly on this account are they taking the route, described as rarely travelled by honest men. But not altogether. Another reason has influenced their selection of it while in Natchitoches they too have put up at the Choctaw Chief; their plans requiring that privacy which an obscure hostelry affords. To have been seen with Jupiter at the Planter's House might have been for some Mississippian planter to remember, and identify, him as the absconded slave of Ephraim Darke. A _contretemps_ less likely to occur at the Choctaw Chief, and there stayed they. It would have been Woodley's choice anyhow; the hunter having frequently before made this house his home; there meeting many others of his kind and calling. On this occasion his sojourn in it has been short; only long enough for him and his travelling companions to procure a mount for their journey into Texas. And while thus occupied they have learnt something, which determined them as to the route they should take. Not the direct road for Nacogdoches by which Colonel Armstrong and his emigrants have gone, some ten days before; but a trail taken by another party that had been staying at the Choctaw Chief, and left Natchitoches at an earlier period--that they are now on. Of this party Woodley has received information, sufficiently minute for him to identify more than one of the personages composing it. Johnny has given him the clue. For the Hibernian innkeeper, with his national habit of wagging a free tongue, has besides a sort of liking for Sime, as an antipathy towards Sime's old enemy, Jim Borlasse. The consequence of which has been a tale told in confidence to the hunter, about the twelve men late sojourning at the Choctaw Chief, that was kept back from the Sheriff on the morning after their departure. The result being, that in choice of a route to Texas, Woodley has chosen that by which they are now travelling. For he knows--has told Clancy--that by it has gone Jim Borlasse, and along with him Richard Darke. The last is enough for Clancy. He is making towards Texas with two distinct aims, the motives diametrically opposite. One is to comfort the woman he loves, the other to kill the man he hates. For both he is eagerly impatient; but he has vowed that the last shall be first--sworn it upon the grave of his mother. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Having reached the river, and crossed it, Clancy and his travelling companions, just as Borlasse and his, seek relaxation under the shade of the trees. Perhaps, not quite so easy in their minds. For the murderer, on entering Texas, may feel less anxiety than he who has with him a runaway slave! Still in that solitary place--on a path rarely trodden--there is no great danger; and knowing this, they dismount and make their bivouac _sans souci_. The spot chosen is the same as was occupied by Borlasse and his band. Near the bank of the river is a spreading tree, underneath which a log affords sitting accommodation for at least a score of men. Seated on this, smoking his pipe, after a refection of corn-bread and bacon, Sime Woodley unburdens himself of some secrets he obtained in the Choctaw Chief, which up to this time he has kept back from the others. "Boys!" he begins, addressing himself to Clancy and Heywood, the mulatto still keeping respectfully apart. "We're now on a spot, whar less'n two weeks agone, sot or stud, two o' the darndest scoundrels as iver made futmark on Texan soil. _You_ know one o' 'em, Ned Heywood, but not the tother. Charley Clancy hev akwaintance wi' both, an' a ugly reccoleckshun o' them inter the bargain." The hunter pauses in his speech, takes a whiff or two from his pipe, then resumes:-- "They've been hyar sure. From what thet fox, Johnny, tolt me, they must a tuk this trail. An' as they hed to make quick tracks arter leavin' Naketosh, they'd be tired on gettin' this fur, an' good as sartin to lay up a bit. Look! thar's the ashes o' thar fire, whar I 'spose they cooked somethin'. Thar hain't been a critter crossed the river since the big rain, else we'd a seed tracks along the way. For they started jest the day afore the rain; and that ere fire hez been put out by it. Ye kin tell by them chunks showin' only half consoomed. Yis, by the Eturnal! Roun' the bleeze o' them sticks has sot seven, eight, nine, or may be a dozen, o' the darndest cut-throats as ever crossed the Sabine; an' that's sayin' a goodish deal. Two o' them I kin swar to bein' so; an' the rest may be counted the same from their kumpny--that kumpny bein' Jim Borlasse an' Dick Darke." After thus delivering himself, the hunter remains apparently reflecting, not on what he has said, but what they ought to do. Clancy has been all the while silent, brooding with clouded brow--only now and then showing a faint smile as the hound comes up, and licks his outstretched hand. Heywood has nothing to say; while Jupiter is not expected to take any part in the conversation. For a time they all seem under a spell of lethargy--the lassitude of fatigue. They have ridden a long way, and need rest. They might go to sleep alongside the log, but none of them thinks of doing so, least of all Clancy. There is that in his breast forbidding sleep, and he is but too glad when Woodley's next words arouse him from the torpid repose to which he has been yielding. These are:-- "Now we've struck thar trail, what, boys, d'ye think we'd best do?" Neither of the two replying, the hunter continues:-- "To the best of my opeenyun, our plan will be to put straight on to whar Planter Armstrong intends settin' up his sticks. I know the place 'most as well as the public squar o' Natchez. This chile intends jeinin' the ole kurnel, anyhow. As for you, Charley Clancy, we know whar ye want to go, an' the game ye intend trackin' up. Wal; ef you'll put trust in what Sime Woodley say, he sez this: ye'll find that game in the neighbourhood o' Helen Armstrong;--nigh to her as it dar' ventur'." The final words have an inflammatory effect upon Clancy. He springs up from the log, and strides over the ground, with a wild look and strangely excited air. He seems impatient to be back in his saddle. "In coorse," resumes Woodley, "we'll foller the trail o' Borlasse an' his lot. It air sure to lead to the same place. What they're arter 'tain't eezy to tell. Some deviltry, for sartin. They purtend to make thar livin' by ropin' wild horses? I guess he gits more by takin' them as air tame;--as you, Clancy, hev reezun to know. I hain't a doubt he'd do wuss than that, ef opportunity offered. Thar's been more'n one case o' highway robbery out thar in West Texas, on emigrant people goin' that way; an' I don't know a likelier than Borlasse to a had a hand in't. Ef Kurnel Armstrong's party wan't so strong as 'tis, an' the kurnel hisself a old campayner, I mout hev my fears for 'em. I reckin they're safe enuf. Borlasse an' his fellurs won't dar tech them. Johnny sez thar war but ten or twelve in all. Still, tho' they moutn't openly attack the waggon train, thar's jest a chance o' their hangin' on its skirts, an' stealin' somethin' from it. Ye heerd in Naketosh o' a young Creole planter, by name Dupray, who's goed wi' Armstrong, an's tuk a big count o' dollars along. Jest the bait to temp Jim Borlasse; an' as for Dick Darke, thar's somethin' else to temp him. So--" "Woodley!" exclaims Clancy, without waiting for the hunter to conclude; "we must be off from here. For God's sake let us go!" His comrades, divining the cause of Clancy's impatience, make no attempt to restrain him. They have rested and sufficiently refreshed themselves. There is no reason for their remaining any longer on the ground. Rising simultaneously, each unhitches his horse, and stands by the stirrup, taking in the slack of his reins. Before they can spring into their saddles, the deer-hound darts off from their midst--as he does so giving out a growl. The stroke of a hoof tells them of some one approaching, and the next moment a horseman is seen through the trees. Apparently undaunted, he comes on towards their camp ground; but when near enough to have fair view of their faces, he suddenly reins up, and shows signs of a desire to retreat. If this be his intention, it is too late. Before he can wrench round his horse a rifle is levelled, its barrel bearing upon his body; while a voice sounds threateningly in his ears, in clear tone, pronouncing the words,-- "Keep yur ground, Joe Harkness! Don't attempt retreetin'. If ye do, I'll send a bullet through ye sure as my name's Sime Woodley." The threat is sufficient. Harkness--for it is he--ceases tugging upon his rein, and permits his horse to stand still. Then, at a second command from Woodley, accompanied by; a similar menace, he urges the animal into action, and moves on towards their bivouac. In less than sixty seconds after, he is in their midst, dismounted and down upon his knees, piteously appealing to them to spare his life. The ex-jailor's story is soon told, and that without any reservation. The man who has connived at Richard Darke's escape, and made money by the connivance, is now more than repentant for his dereliction of duty. For he has not only been bullied by Borlasse's band, but stripped of his ill-gotten gains. Still more, beaten, and otherwise so roughly handled that he has been long trying to get quit of their company. Having stolen away from their camp--while the robbers were asleep--he is now returning along the trail they had taken into Texas, on his way back to the States, with not much left him, except a very sorry horse and a sorrowing heart. His captors soon discover that, with his sorrow, there is an admixture of spite against his late associates. Against Darke in particular, who has proved ungrateful for the great service done him. All this does Harkness communicate to them, and something besides. Something that sets Clancy well-nigh crazed, and makes almost as much impression upon his fellow-travellers. After hearing it they bound instantly to their saddles, and spur away from the spot; Harkness, as commanded, following at their horses' heels. This he does without daring to disobey; trotting after, in company with the dog, seemingly less cur than himself. They have no fear of his falling back. Woodley's rifle, whose barrel has been already borne upon him, can be again brought to the level in an instant of time. The thought holds him secure, as if a trail-rope attached him to the tail of the hunter's horse. CHAPTER FORTY TWO. THE PRAIRIE CARAVAN. Picture in imagination meadows, on which scythe of mower has never cut sward, nor haymaker set foot; meadows loaded with such luxuriance of vegetation--lush, tall grass--that tons of hay might be garnered off a single acre; meadows of such extent, that in speaking of them you may not use the word acres, but miles, even this but faintly conveying the idea of their immensity; in fancy summon up such a scene, and you will have before you what is a reality in Texas. In seeming these plains have no boundary save the sky--no limit nearer than the horizon. And since to the eye of the traveller this keeps continually changing, he may well believe them without limit at all, and fancy himself moving in the midst of a green sea, boundless as ocean itself, his horse the boat on which he has embarked. In places this extended surface presents a somewhat monotonous aspect, though it is not so everywhere. Here and there it is pleasantly interspersed with trees, some standing solitary, but mostly in groves, copses, or belts; these looking, for all the world, like islands in the ocean. So perfect is the resemblance, that this very name has been given them, by men of Norman and Saxon race; whose ancestors, after crossing the Atlantic, carried into the colonies many ideas of the mariner, with much of his nomenclature. To them the isolated groves are "islands;" larger tracts of timber, seen afar, "land;" narrow spaces between, "straits;" and indentations along their edges "bays." To carry the analogy further, the herds of buffalo, with bodies half buried in the tall grass, may be likened to "schools" of whales; the wild horses to porpoises at play; the deer to dolphins; and the fleet antelopes to flying-fish. Completing the figure, we have the vultures that soar above, performing the part of predatory sea-gulls; the eagle representing the rarer frigate-bird, or albatross. In the midst of this verdant expanse, less than a quarter of a century ago, man was rarely met; still more rarely civilised man; and rarer yet his dwelling-place. If at times a human being appeared among the prairie groves, he was not there as a sojourner--only a traveller, passing from place to place. The herds of cattle, with shaggy frontlets and humped shoulders--the droves of horses, long-tailed and with full flowing manes--the proud antlered stags, and prong-horned antelopes, were not his. He had no control over them. The turf he trod was free to them for pasture, as to him for passage; and, as he made way through their midst, his presence scarce affrighted them. He and his might boast of being "war's arbiter's," and lords of the great ocean. They were not lords of that emerald sea stretching between the Sabine River and the Rio Grande. Civilised man had as yet but shown himself upon its shores. Since then he has entered upon, and scratched a portion of its surface; though not much, compared with its immensity. There are still grand expanses of the Texan prairie unfurrowed by the ploughshare of the colonist--almost untrodden by the foot of the explorer. Even at this hour, the traveller may journey for days on grass-grown plains, amidst groves of timber, without seeing tower, steeple, or so much as a chimney rising above the tree-tops. If he perceive a solitary smoke, curling skyward, he knows that it is over the camp-fire of some one like himself--a wayfarer. And it may be above the bivouac of those he would do well to shun. For upon the green surface of the prairie, as upon the blue expanse of the ocean, all men met with are not honest. There be land-sharks as well as water-sharks--prairie pirates as corsairs of the sea. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ No spectacle more picturesque, nor yet more pleasing, than that of an emigrant caravan _en route_ over the plains. The huge waggons--"prairie ships," as oft, and not inaptly, named--with their white canvass tilts, typifying spread sails, aligned and moving along one after the other, like a _corps d'armee_ on march by columns; a group of horsemen ahead, representing its vanguard; others on the flanks, and still another party riding behind, to look after strays and stragglers, the rear-guard. Usually a herd of cattle along--steers for the plough, young bullocks to supply beef for consumption on the journey, milch kine to give comfort to the children and colour to the tea and coffee--among them an old bull or two, to propagate the species on reaching the projected settlement. Not unfrequently a drove of pigs, or flock of sheep, with coops containing ducks, geese, turkeys, Guinea-fowl--perhaps a screaming peacock, but certainly Chanticleer and his harem. A train of Texan settlers has its peculiarities, though now not so marked as in the times of which we write. Then a noted feature was the negro--his _status_ a slave. He would be seen afoot, toiling on at the tails of the waggons, not in silence or despondingly, as if the march were a forced one. Footsore he might be, in his cheap "brogans" of Penitentiary fabric, and sore aweary of the way, but never sad. On the contrary, ever hilarious, exchanging jests with his fellow-pedestrians, or a word with Dinah in the wagon, jibing the teamsters, mocking the mule-drivers, sending his cachinations in sonorous ring along the moving line; himself far more mirthful than his master--more enjoying the march. Strange it is, but true, that a lifetime of bondage does not stifle merriment in the heart of the Ethiopian. Grace of God to the sons of Ham--merciful compensation for mercies endured by them from the day Canaan was cursed, as it were a doom from the dawning of creation! Just such a train as described is that commanded by Colonel Armstrong, _en route_ towards Western Texas. Starting from Natchitoches some twenty days ago, it has reached the Colorado river, crossed it, and is now wending its way towards the San Saba, a tributary of the former stream. It is one of the largest caravans that has yet passed over the prairies of Texas, counting between twenty and thirty "Conestoga" wagons, with several "carrioles" and vehicles of varied kind. Full fifty horsemen ride in its front, on its flank, and rear; while five times the number of pedestrians, men with black or yellow skins, keep pace with it. A proportionate number of women and children are carried in the wagons, their dusky faces peeping out from under the tilts, in contrast with the colour of the rain-bleached canvass; while other women and children of white complexion ride in the vehicles with springs. In one of the latter--a barouche of the American build--travel two young ladies, distinguished by particular attentions. Half a dozen horsemen hover around their carriage, acting as its escort, each apparently anxious to exchange words with them. With one they can talk, jest, laugh, chatter as much as they like; but the other repels them. For the soul of the former is full of joy; that of the latter steeped in sadness. Superfluous to say, they are Jessie and Helen Armstrong. And needless to tell why the one is gay, the other grave. Since we last saw them in the hotel of Natchitoches, no change has taken place in their hearts or their hopes. The younger of the two, Jessie, is still an expectant bride, certain soon to be a wife; and with this certainty rejoices in the future. Helen, with no such expectation, no wish for it, feeling as one widowed, grieves over the past. The former sees her lover by her side living and loving, constantly, caressingly; the latter can but think of hers as something afar off--a dream--a dread vision--a cold corpse--herself the cause of it! Colonel Armstrong's eldest daughter is indeed sad--a prey to repining. Her heart, after receiving so many shocks, has almost succumbed to that the supremest, most painful suffering that can afflict humanity--the malady of _melancholia_. The word conveys but a faint idea of the suffering itself. Only they who have known it--fortunately but few--can comprehend the terror, the wan, wasting misery, endured by those whose nerves have given way under some terrible stroke of misfortune. 'Tis the story of a broken heart. Byron has told us "the heart may break and brokenly live on." In this her hour of unhappiness, Helen Armstrong would not and could not believe him. It may seem strange that Jessie is still only a bride to be. But no. She remembers the promise made to her father--to share with him a home in Texas, however humble it might be. All the same, now that she knows it will be splendid; knowing, too, it is to be shared by another-- her Louis. He is still but her _fiancee_; but his troth is plighted, his truthfulness beyond suspicion. They are all but man and wife; which they will be soon as the new home is reached. The goal of their journey is to be the culminating point of Jessie's joy--the climax of her life's happiness. CHAPTER FORTY THREE. THE HAND OF GOD. Scarce any stream of South-Western Texas but runs between bluffs. There is a valley or "bottom-land," only a little elevated above the water's surface, and often submerged during inundations,--beyond this the bluffs. The valley may be a mile or more in width, in some places ten, at others contracted, till the opposing cliffs are scarce a pistol-shot apart. And of these there are frequently two or three tiers, or terraces, receding backward from the river, the crest of the last and outmost being but the edge of an upland plain, which is often sterile and treeless. Any timber upon it is stunted, and of those species to which a dry soil is congenial. Mezquite, juniper, and "black-jack" oaks grow in groves or spinneys; while standing apart may be observed the arborescent jucca--the "dragon-tree" of the Western world, towering above an underwood unlike any other, composed of _cactaceae_ in all the varieties of cereus, cactus, and echinocactus. Altogether unlike is the bottom-land bordering upon the river. There the vegetation is lush and luxuriant, showing a growth of large forest timber--the trees set thickly, and matted with many parasites, that look like cables coiling around and keeping them together. These timbered tracts are not continuous, but show stretches of open between,--here little glades filled with flowers, there grand meadows overgrown with grass--so tall that the horseman riding through it has his shoulders swept by the spikes, which shed their pollen upon his coat. Just such a bottom-land is that of the San Saba, near the river's mouth; where, after meandering many a score of miles from its source in the Llano Estacado, it espouses the Colorado--gliding softly, like a shy bride, into the embrace of the larger and stronger-flowing stream. For a moment departing from the field of romance, and treading upon the domain of history--or it may be but legend--a word about this Colorado river may interest the reader. Possibly, probably, almost lor certain, there is no province in all Spanish America without its "Rio Colorado." The geographer could count some scores of rivers so named--point them out on any map. They are seen in every latitude, trending in all directions, from the great Colorado of _canon_ celebrity in the north to another far south, which cuts a deep groove through the plains of Patagonia. All these streams have been so designated from the hue of their waters--muddy, with a pronounced tinge of red: this from the ochreous earth through which they have coursed, holding it in suspension. In the Texan Colorado there is nothing of this; on the contrary, it is a clear water stream. A circumstance that may seem strange, till the explanation be given--which is, that the name is a _misnomer_. In other words, the Texan river now bearing the designation Colorado is not that so-called by the Spaniards, but their Rio Brazos; while the present Brazos is their Rio Colorado--a true red-tinted stream. The exchange of names is due to an error of the American map-makers, unacquainted with the Spanish tongue. Giving the Colorado its true name of Brazos, or more correctly "Brazos de Dios" ("The Arms of God"), the origin of this singular title for a stream presents us with a history, or legend, alike singular. As all know, Texas was first colonised by Spaniards, or Spanish Mexicans, on what might be termed the "militant missionary system." Monks were sent into the province, cross in hand, with soldiers at their back, bearing the sword. Establishments were formed in different parts of the country; San Antonio de Bejar being the ecclesiastical centre, as also the political capital. Around these the aborigines were collected, and after a fashion converted to Christianity. With the christianising process, however, there were other motives mixed up, having very little to do either with morality or religion. Comfortable subsistence, with the accumulation of wealth by the missionaries themselves, was in most instances the lure which attracted them to Texas, tempting them to risk their lives in the so-called conversion of the heathen. The mission-houses were in the monasterial style, many of them on a grand scale--mansions in fact, with roomy refectories, and kitchens to correspond; snug sitting and sleeping-chambers; well-paved courts and spacious gardens attached. Outside the main building, sometimes forming part of it, was a church, or _capilla_; near by the _presidio_, or barrack for their military protectors; and beyond, the _rancheria_, or village of huts, the homes of the new-made neophytes. No great difficulty had the fathers in thus handsomely housing themselves. The converts did all the work, willingly, for the sake and in the name of the "Holy Faith," into which they had been recently inducted. Nor did their toil end with the erection of the mission-buildings. It was only transferred to a more layical kind; to the herding of cattle, and tillage of the surrounding land; this continued throughout their whole lives--not for their own benefit, but to enrich those idle and lazy friars, in many cases men of the most profligate character. It was, in fact, a system of slavery, based upon and sustained by religious fanaticism. The result as might be expected--failure and far worse. Instead of civilising the aborigines of America, it has but brutalised them the more--by eradicating from their hearts whatever of savage virtue they had, and implanting in its place a debasing bigotry and superstition. Most American writers, who speak of these missionary establishments, have formed an erroneous estimate of them. And, what is worse, have given it to the world. Many of these writers are, or were, officers in the United States army, deputed to explore the wild territories in which the missions existed. Having received their education in Roman Catholic seminaries, they have been inducted into taking a too lenient view of the doings of the "old Spanish padres;" hence their testimony so favourable to the system. The facts are all against them; these showing it a scheme of _villeinage_, more oppressive than the European serfdom of the Middle Ages. The issue is sufficient proof of this. For it was falling to pieces, long before the Anglo-Saxon race entered into possession of the territory where it once flourished. The missions are now in a state of decadence, their buildings fast falling into decay; while the red man, disgusted at the attempt to enslave, under the clock of christianising him, has returned to his idolatry, as to his savage life. Several of these _misiones_ were established on the San Saba river; one of which for a considerable period enjoyed a prosperous existence, and numbered among its neophytes many Indians of the Lipan and Comanche tribes. But the tyranny of their monkish teachers by exactions of tenths and almost continuous toil--themselves living in luxurious ease, and without much regard to that continence they inculcated--at length provoked the suffering serfs to revolt. In which they were aided by those Indians who had remained unconverted, and still heretically roamed around the environs. The consequence was that, on a certain day when the hunters of the _mision_ were abroad, and the soldiers of the _presidio_ alike absent on some expedition, a band of the outside idolaters, in league with the discontented converts, entered the mission-building, with arms concealed under their ample cloaks of buffalo skin. After prowling about for a while in an insolent manner, they at length, at a given signal from their chief, attacked the proselytising _padres_, with those who adhered to them; tomahawked and scalped all who came in their way. Only one monk escaped--a man of great repute in those early times of Texas. Stealing off at the commencement of the massacre, he succeeded in making his way down the valley of the San Saba, to its confluence with the Colorado. But to reach an asylum of safety it was necessary for him to cross the latter stream; in which unfortunately there was a freshet, its current so swollen that neither man nor horse could ford it. The _padre_ stood upon its bank, looking covetously across, and listening in terror to the sounds behind; these being the war-cries of the pursuing Comanches. For a moment the monk believed himself lost. But just then the arm of God was stretched forth to save him. This done in a fashion somewhat difficult to give credence to, though easy enough for believers in Holy Faith. It was a mere miracle; not stranger, or more apocryphal, than we hear of at this day in France, Spain, or Italy. The only singularity about the Texan tale is the fact of its not being original; for it is a pure piracy from Sacred Writ--that passage of it which relates to the crossing of the Red Sea by Moses and his Israelites. The Spanish monk stood on the river's bank, his eyes fixed despairingly on its deep rapid-running current, which he knew he could not cross without danger of being drowned. Just at this crisis he saw the waters separate; the current suddenly stayed, and the pebbly bed showing dry as a shingle! Tucking his gown under his girdle, he struck into the channel; and, no doubt, making good time--though the legend does not speak of this--he succeeded in planting his sandalled feet, dry shod, on the opposite shore! So far the Texan story closely corresponds with the Mosaic. Beyond, the incidents as related, are slightly different. Pharaoh's following host was overwhelmed by the closing waters. The pursuing Comanches did not so much as enter the charmed stream; which, with channel filled up, as before, was running rapidly on. They were found next morning upon the bank where they had arrived in pursuit, all dead, all lying at full stretch along the sward, their heads turned in the same direction, like trees struck down by a tornado! Only the Omnipotent could have done this. No mortal hand could make such a _coup_. Hence the name which the Spaniards bestowed upon the present Colorado, _Brazos de Dios_--the "Hand of God." Hence also the history, or rather fable, intended to awe the minds of the rebellious redskins, and restore them to Christanity, or serfdom. Which it did not; since from that day the _misiones_ of San Saba remained abandoned, running into ruin. It is to one of these forsaken establishments Colonel Armstrong is conducting his colony; his future son-in-law having purchased the large tract of territory attached to it. To that spot, where more than a century ago the monks made halt, with cross borne conspicuously in one hand, and sword carried surreptitiously in the other, there is now approaching a new invasion--that of axe and rifle--neither ostentatiously paraded, but neither insidiously concealed. CHAPTER FORTY FOUR. A CLOUD ON THE CLIFFS. After a long toilsome journey through Eastern Texas, the emigrant train has reached the San Saba, and is working its way up-stream. Slowly, for the bottom-land is in some places heavily timbered, and the road requires clearing for the waggons. The caravan has entered the valley on the left, or northern, bank of the river, while its point of destination is the southern; but a few miles above its confluence with the Colorado is a ford, by which the right side may be reached at low water. Luckily it is now at its lowest, and the waggons are got across without accident, or any great difficulty. Once on the southern side, there is nothing to obstruct or further delay them. Some ten miles above is the abandoned mission-house, which they expect to reach that day, before going down of the sun. With perhaps one exception, the emigrants are all happy, most of them in exuberant spirits. They are nearing a new home, having long ago left the old one behind; left also a thousand cankering cares,--many of them more than half a life spent in struggles and disappointments. In the untried field before them there is hope; it may be success and splendour; a prospect like the renewing of life's lease, the younger to find fresh joys, the older to grow young again. For weeks has the San Saba mission-house been the theme of their thoughts, and topic of discourse. They will re-people the deserted dwelling, restore it to its pristine splendour; bring its long neglected fields under tillage--out of them make fortunes by the cultivation of cotton. There is no cloud to darken the horizon of their hopes. The toilsome journey is nearly at an end, and rejoicingly they hail its termination. Whether their train of white tilted wagons winds its way under shadowing trees, or across sunlit glades, there is heard along its line only joyous speech and loud hilarious laughter. So go they on, regardless about the future, or only thinking of it as full of bright promise. Little do they dream how it may be affected by something seen upon the cliffs above, though not seen by them. At the point they have now reached, the bottom-land is several miles wide, with its bordering of grim bluffs rising on either flank, and running far as eye can see. On the left side, that they have just forsaken, not upon the river's bank, but the cliff far back, is a cloud. No darkness of the sky, or concentration of unsubstantial vapour. But a gathering on the earth, and of men; who, but for their being on horseback, might be mistaken for devils. In Satan's history the horse has no part; though, strange to say, Satan's sons are those who most affect friendship for the noble animal. Of the horsemen seen hovering above the San Saba there are in all twenty; most of them mounted upon mustangs, the native steed of Texas, though two or three bestride larger and better stock, the breed of the States. All appear Indians, or if there be white man among them, he must have been sun-tanned beyond anything commonly seen. In addition to their tint of burnt umber, they are all garishly painted; their faces escutcheoned with chalk-white, charcoal-black, and vermillion-red. Of their bodies not much can be seen. Blankets of blue and scarlet, or buffalo robes, shroud their shoulders; while buckskin breeches and leggings wrap their lower limbs; mocassins encasing their feet. In addition to its dress, they wear the usual Indian adornments. Stained eagle-plumes stand tuft-like out of their raven-black hair, which, in trailing tresses, sweeps back over the hips of their horses; while strings of peccaries' teeth and claws of the grizzly bear fall over their breasts in bountiful profusion. It is true, they are not in correct fighting costume. Nor would their toilet betoken them on the "war-trail." But the Texan Indian does not always dress warrior-fashion, when he goes forth upon a predatory excursion. More rarely when on a mere pilfering maraud, directed against some frontier settlement, or travelling party of whites. On such occasions he does not intend fighting, but rather shuns it. And, as thieving is more congenial to him, he can steal as cleverly and adroitly in a buckskin hunting-shirt, as with bare arms. The Indians in question number too few for a war party. At the same time, their being without women is evidence they are on no errand of peace. But for the arms carried, they might be mistaken for hunters. They have spears and guns, some of them "bowie" knives and pistols; while the Indian hunter still believes in the efficacy of the silent arrow. In their armour, and equipment there are other peculiarities the ordinary traveller might not comprehend, but which to the eye of an old prairie man would be regarded as suspicious. Such an one would at once pronounce them a band of _prairie pirates_, and of the most dangerous kind to be encountered in all the territory of Texas. Whoever they may be, and whatever their design, their behaviour is certainly singular. Both by their looks and gestures it can be told they are watching the waggon train, and interested in its every movement; as also taking care not to be themselves observed by those belonging to it. To avoid this they keep back from the crest of the escarpment; so far, it would not be possible to see them from any part of the bottom-land below. One of their number, afoot, goes closer to the cliff's edge, evidently sent there by the others as a sort of moving vidette. Screened by the cedars that form its _criniere_, he commands a view of the river valley below, without danger of being himself seen from it. At short intervals he passes back a pace or two, and gesticulates to the others. Then returning to the cliff's edge, he continues on as before. These movements, apparently eccentric, are nevertheless of grave import. The man who makes them, with those to whom they are made, must be watching the travellers with the intention of waylaying them. Afar off are the waggons, just distinguishable as such by their white canvas tilts--the latter in contrast with the surface of vivid green over which they are progressing. Slowly crawling along, they bear similitude to a string of gigantic _termites_ bent on some industrial excursion. Still the forms of mounted men--at least forty in number, can be distinguished. Some riding in front of the train, some in its rear, and others alongside of it. No wonder the twenty savage men, who pursue the parallel line along the cliff, are taking care not to approach it too nearly. One would suppose that from such a strong travelling party their chance of obtaining plunder would seem to them but slight. And yet they do not appear to think so. For as the caravan train tardily toils on up the bottom-land, they too move along the upper plain at a like rate of speed, their scout keeping the waggons in sight, at intervals, as before, admonishing them of every movement. And they still continue watching the emigrant train until the sun sinks low--almost to the horizon. Then they halt upon a spot thickly beset with cedar trees--a sort of promontory projecting over the river valley. On its opposite side they can see the waggons still slowly creeping along, though now not all in motion. Those in the lead have stopped; the others doing likewise, as, successively, they arrive at the same place. This in front of a large building, just discernible in the distance, its outlines with difficulty traceable under the fast gathering gloom of the twilight. But the savages who survey it from the bluff have seen that building before, and know all about it; know it to be one of the abandoned _misiones_ of San Saba; as, also, why those vehicles are now coming to a stop before its walls. While watching these, but few words are exchanged between them, and only in an under tone. Much or loud talk would not be in keeping with their Indian character. Still enough passes in their muttered speeches-- observable also in the expression of their features--for any one hearing the first, or seeing the last, to predict danger to the colony of Colonel Armstrong. If looks count for aught, or words can be relied on the chances seem as if the old San Saba mission-house, long in ruins, may remain so yet longer. CHAPTER FORTY FIVE. A SUSPICIOUS SURVEILLANCE. The ancient monastery, erst the abode of Spanish monks, now become the dwelling-place of the ci-devant Mississippi planter, calls for a word of description. It stands on the right side of the river, several hundred yards from the bank, on a platform slightly elevated above the general level of the surrounding _terrain_. The site has been chosen with an eye to the pleasant and picturesque-- that keen look-out towards temporal enjoyment, which at all times, and in all countries, has characterised these spiritual teachers of the heathen. Its elevated position gives it command of a fine prospect, at the same time securing it against the danger of inundation, when the river is in flood. In architectural style the mission-building itself does not much differ from that of most Mexican country houses--called _haciendas_. Usually a grand quadrangular structure, with an uncovered court in the centre, the _patio_; around which runs a gallery or corridor, communicating with the doors of the different apartments. But few windows face outside; such as there are being casements, unglazed, but protected by a _grille_ of iron bars set vertically--the _reja_. In the centre of its front _facade_ is a double door, of gaol-like aspect, giving admittance to the passage-way, called _saguan_; this of sufficient capacity to admit a waggon with its load, intended for those grand old coaches that lumbered along our own highways in the days of Dick Turpin, and in which Sir Charles Grandison used luxuriously to ride. Vehicles of the exact size, and pattern, may be seen to this day crawling along the country roads of modern Mexico--relics of a grandeur long since gone. The _patio_ is paved with stone flags, or tesselated tiles; and, where a head of water can be had, a fountain plays in the centre, surrounded by orange-trees, or other evergreens, with flowering-plants in pots. To rearward of this inner court, a second passage-way gives entrance to another, and larger, if not so sumptuously arrayed; this devoted to stables, store-rooms, and other domestic offices. Still farther back is the _huerta_, or garden. That attached to the ancient monastery is an enclosure of several acres in extent, surrounded by a high wall of _adobes_; made to look still higher from being crested with a palisade of the organ cactus. Filled with fruit trees and flowering shrubs, these once carefully cultivated, but for long neglected, now cover the walks in wild luxuriance. Under their shade, silently treading with sandalled feet, or reclining on rustic benches, the Texan friars used to spend their idle hours, quite as pleasantly as their British brethren of Tintern and Tewkesbury. Oft have the walls of the San Saba mission-house echoed their "ha, ha!" as they quaffed the choicest vintage of Xeres, and laughed at jests ribald as any ever perpetrated in a pot-house. Not heard, however, by the converted heathen under their care; nor intended to be. For them there were dwellings apart; a collection of rude hovels, styled the _rancheria_. These were screened from view by a thick grove of evergreen trees; the _padres_ not relishing a too close contact with their half-naked neophytes, who were but their _peons_--in short their slaves. In point of fact, it was the feudal system of the Old World transported to the New; with the exception that the manorial lords were monks, and the _villeins_ savage men. And the pretence at proselytising, with its mongrel mixture of Christianity and superstition, did not make this Transatlantic _villeinage_ a whit less irksome to endure. Proof, that the red-skinned serfs required the iron hand of control is found in the _presidio_, or soldier's barrack-- standing close by--its ruin overlooking those of the _rancheria_. They who had been conquered by the Cross, still needed the sword to keep them in subjection, which, as we have seen, it finally failed to do. Several of the huts still standing, and in a tolerable state of repair, have supplied shelter to the new settlers; most of whom have taken up their abode in them. They are only to serve as temporary residences, until better homes can be built. There is no time for this now. The spring is on, and the cotton-seed must be got into the ground, to the neglect of everything else. Colonel Armstrong himself, with his daughters and domestics, occupies the old mission-building, which also gives lodgment to Luis Dupre and his belongings. For the young planter is now looked upon as a member of the Armstrong family, and it wants but a word from one in holy orders to make him really so. And such an one has come out with the colonists. The marriage ceremony is but deferred until the cotton-seed be safe under the soil. Then there will be a day of jubilee, such as has never been seen upon the San Saba; a _fiesta_, which in splendour will eclipse anything the Spanish monks, celebrated for such exhibitions, have ever got up, or attempted. But "business before pleasure" is the adage of the hour; and, after a day or two given to rest, with the arrangement of household affairs, the real work of colonising commences. The little painted ploughs, transported from the States, are set to soiling their paint, by turning up the fertile clod of the San Saba valley, which has so long lain fallow; while the seed of the cotton-plant is scattered far and wide over hundreds--ay, thousands of acres. Around the ancient mission is inaugurated a new life, with scenes of industry, stirring as those presided over by the _padres_. Is it sure of being as prosperous, or more likely to be permanent? One confining his view to the valley--regarding only the vigorous activity there displayed--would answer this question in the affirmative. But he who looks farther off--raising his eyes to the bluff on the opposite side of the river, fixing them on that spot where the Indians made halt--would hesitate before thus prognosticating. In the dusky cohort he might suspect some danger threatening the new settlement. True, the savages are no longer there. After seeing the waggons one after another becoming stationary, like vultures deprived of a carrion repast, they moved away. But not far. Only about five miles, to a grove of timber standing back upon the plain, where they have made a more permanent camp. Two alone are left upon the cliff's edge; evidently to act as videttes. They keep watch night and day, one always remaining awake. Especially during the night hours do they appear on the alert--with eyes bent on the far off mission-buildings--watching the window-lights that steadily shine, and the torches that flit to and fro. Watching for something not yet seen. What can it be? And what is the design of these painted savages, who look more like demons than men? Is it to attack the new colony, plunder, and destroy it? Regarding their numbers, this would seem absurd. They are in all only twenty; while the colonists count at least fifty fighting men. No common men either; but most of them accustomed to the use of arms; many backwoodsmen, born borderers, staunch as steel. Against such, twenty Indians--though the picked warriors of the warlike Comanche tribe--would stand no chance in fair open fight. But they may not mean this; and their intent be only stealing? Or they may be but a pioneer party--the vanguard of a greater force? In any case, their behaviour is singularly suspicious. Such manoeuvring can mean no good, but may be fraught with evil to Colonel Armstrong and his colonists. For several successive days is this surveillance maintained, and still nothing seems to come of it. The party of savages remains encamped in the timber at back; while the two sentinels keep their place upon the promontory; though now and then going and coming, as before. But on a certain night they forsake their post altogether, as if their object has been attained, and there is no need to keep watch any more. On this same night, a man might be seen issuing out of the mission-building, and making away from its walls. He is not seen, nevertheless. For it is the hour of midnight, and all have retired to rest--the whole household seemingly wrapt in profoundest slumber. Moreover, the man slips out stealthily, through the backdoor; thence across the second courtyard, and along a narrow passage leading into the garden. Having reached this, he keeps on down the centre walk, and over the wall at bottom, through which there chances to be a breach. All these mysterious movements are in keeping with the appearance of the man. For his countenance shows cunning of no ordinary kind. At first glance, and under the moonlight, he might be mistaken for a mulatto. But, though coloured, he is not of this kind. His tawny skin shows a tinge of red, which tells of Indian, rather than African blood. He is, in truth, a _mestizo_--half Spaniard or Mexican, the other half being the aboriginal race of America. It is a breed not always evil-disposed, still less frequently ill-featured; and, so far as looks go, the individual in question might claim to be called handsome. He has a plenteous profusion of dark curly hair, framing a countenance by no means common. A face of oval form, regular features, the nose and chin markedly prominent, a pair of coal black eyes, with a well-defined crescent over each. Between his lips are teeth, sound and of ivory whiteness, seeming whiter in contrast with a pair of jet black moustaches. Taking his features singly, any of them might be pronounced comely. And yet the _tout ensemble_ is not pleasing. Despite physical beauty, there is something in the man's face that appears repulsive, and causes shrinking in the heart of the beholder. Chiefly is it his eyes that seem to produce this effect; their glance inspiring fear, such as one feels while being gazed at by an adder. Not always can this sinister look be observed. For the _mestizo_, when face to face with his superiors, has the habit of holding his eyes averted--cast down, as if conscious of having committed crime, or an intention to commit it. Most with whom he comes in contact are impressed with the idea, that he either has sinned, or intends sinning; so all are chary of giving him confidence. No--not all. There is one exception: one man who has trusted, and still continues to trust him--the young planter, Dupre. So far, that he has made him his man of confidence--head-servant over all the household. For it need scarce be told, that the real master of the house is he who rendered it habitable, by filling it with furniture and giving it a staff of servants. Colonel Armstrong is but its head through courtesy due to age, and the respect shown to a future father-in-law. Why the Creole puts such trust in Fernand--the _mestizo's_ name--no one can clearly comprehend. For he is not one of those domestics, whose integrity has been tested by long years of service. On the contrary, Dupre has never set eyes on him, till just before leaving Nachitoches. While organising the expedition, the half-blood had presented himself, and offered to act as its guide--professing acquaintance with that section of Texas whither the colony was to be conducted. But long before reaching their destination, Dupre had promoted him to a higher and more lucrative post--in short, made him his "major-domo." Colonel Armstrong does not object. He has not the right. Still less, anybody else. Outsiders only wonder and shake their heads; saying, in whispers, that the thing is strange, and adding, "No good can come of it." Could any of them observe the _mestizo_ at this midnight hour, skulking away from the house; could they follow and watch his further movements, they might indulge in something more than a surmise about his fidelity; indeed, be convinced he is a traitor. After getting about half-a-mile from the mission walls, he makes stop on the edge of attract of timber lying between--its outer edge, open towards the river's bank, and the bluffs beyond. There, crouching down by the side of a flat stone, he pours some gunpowder upon it, from a horn taken out of his pocket. This done, he draws forth a box of lucifer matches; scrapes one across the stone, and sets the powder ablaze. It flashes up in bright glare, illumining the darkness around. A second, time he repeats this manoeuvre; a third, and a fourth; and on, till, for the tenth time, powder has been burnt. Then turning away from the spot, he makes back towards the dwelling-house, entering it by the way he went out, and stealthily as before. No one within its walls has been witness to the pyrotechnic display. For all, it has not been unobserved. The Indian videttes, stationed on the far-off bluff, see it. See, and furthermore, seem to accept it as a signal--a cue for action. What but this could have caused them to spring upon the backs of their horses, forsake their post of observation, and gallop off to the bivouac of their comrades; which they do, soon as noting that the tenth flash is not followed by another? Surely must it be a signal, and preconcerted? In the life of the prairie savage fire plays a conspicuous part. It is his telegraph, by which he can communicate with far off friends, telling them where an enemy is, and how or when he should be "struck." A single spark, or smoke, has in it much of meaning. A flash may mean more; but ten following in succession were alphabet enough to tell a tale of no common kind--one, it may be, predicting death. CHAPTER FORTY SIX. A SUSPECTED SERVANT. Now fairly inaugurated, the new colony gives promise of a great success; and the colonists are congratulating themselves. None more than their chief, Colonel Armstrong. His leaving Mississippi has been a lucky move; so far all has gone well; and if the future but respond to its promise, his star, long waning, will be once more in the ascendant. There is but one thought to darken this bright dream: the condition of his eldest daughter. Where all others are rejoicing, there is no gladness for her. Sombre melancholy seems to have taken possession of her spirit, its shadow almost continuously seated on her brow. Her eyes tell of mental anguish, which, affecting her heart, is also making inroad on her health. Already the roses have gone out of her cheeks, leaving only lilies; the pale flowers foretelling an early tomb. The distressing symptoms do not escape the fond father's observation. Indeed he knows all about them, now knowing their cause. Only through the Natchez newspapers was he first made aware of that secret correspondence between his daughter and Clancy. But since she has confessed all--how her heart went with her words; is still true to what she then said. The last an avowal not needed: her pallid cheeks proclaiming it. The frank confession, instead of enraging her father, but gives him regret, and along with it self-reproach. But for his aristocratic pride, with some admixture of cupidity, he would have permitted Clancy's addresses to his daughter. With an open honourable courtship, the end might have been different--perhaps less disastrous. It could not have been more. He can now only hope, that time, the great soother of suffering hearts, may bring balm to hers. New scenes in Texas, with thoughts arising therefrom, may throw oblivion over the past. And perchance a new lover may cause the lost one to be less painfully remembered. Several aspirants have already presented themselves; more than one of the younger members of the colony having accompanied it, with no view of making fortunes by the cultivation of cotton, but solely to be beside Helen Armstrong. Her suitors one and all will be disappointed. She to whom they sue is not an ordinary woman; nor her affections of the fickle kind. Like the eagle's mate, deprived of her proud lord, she will live all her after life in lone solitude--or die. She has lost her lover, or thinks so, believing Clancy dead; but the love still burns within her bosom, and will, so long as her life may last. Colonel Armstrong soon begins to see this, and despairs of the roses ever again returning to the cheeks of his elder daughter. It would, no doubt, be different were the blighted heart that of his younger. With her the Spanish proverb, "_un clavo saca otro clavo_," might have meaning. By good fortune, Jessie needs no nail to drive out another. Her natural exuberance of spirits grown to greater joy from the hopes that now halo her young life, is flung over the future of all. Some compensation for her sister's sadness--something to cheer their common father. There is also the excitement attendant on the industries of the hour--the cares of the cotton-planting, with speculations about the success of the crop--these, with a hundred like thoughts and things, hinder him from so frequently recurring to, or so long dwelling on, that which can but cruelly distress. It is the night succeeding that in which the mestizo made his private pyrotechnic display; and Colonel Armstrong with his future son-in-law is seated in the former refectory of the mission, which they have converted into a decent dining-room. They are not alone, or, as in French phraseology better expressed, _chez eux memes_. Six or seven of their fellow-colonists of the better class share the saloon with them--these being guests whom they have invited to dinner. The meal is over, the hour touching ten, the ladies have retired from the table, only the gentlemen remain, drinking choice claret, which Dupre, a sort of Transatlantic Lucullus, has brought with him from his Louisiana wine bins. Armstrong himself, being of Scotch ancestry, has the national preference for whisky punch; and a tumbler of this beverage--the best in the world--stands on the table before him. His glass has been filled three times, and is as often emptied. It need not be said, at this moment he is not sad. After three tumblers of whisky toddy no man can help being hilarious; and so is it with Colonel Armstrong. Seated at the head of his dining-table, the steaming punch before him, he converses with his guests, gay as the gayest. For a time their conversation is on general topics; but at length changes to one more particular. Something said has directed their attention to a man, who waited upon them at table, now no longer in the room. The individual thus honoured is Dupre's confidential servant Fernand; who, as already said, is house-steward, butler, _factotum_ of affairs generally. As is usual with such grand dignitaries, he has withdrawn simultaneously with the removal of the tablecloth, leaving a deputy to look to the decanting of the wine. Therefore, there is nothing remarkable in his disappearance; nor would aught be observed about it, but for a remark made by one of the guests during the course of conversation. A young surgeon, who has cast in his lot with the new colony, is he who starts the topic, thus introducing it:-- "Friend Dupre, where did you get that fellow Fernand? I don't remember having seen him on your Louisiana plantation." "I picked him up in Natchitoches while we were organising. You know I lost my old major-domo last fall by the yellow fever. It took him off while we were down in New Orleans. Fernand, however, is his superior in every sense; can keep plantation accounts, wait at table, drive a carriage, or help in a hunt. He's a fellow of wonderful versatility; in short, a genius. And what is rare in such a combination of talents, he is devoted to his duties--a very slave to them." "What breed may your admirable Crichton be?" asks another of the guests, adding: "He looks a cross between Spaniard and Indian." "Just what he is," answers the young planter; "at least says so. By his own account his father was a Spaniard, or rather a Mexican, and his mother an Indian of the Seminole tribe. His real name is Fernandez; but for convenience I've dropped the final syllable." "It's a bad sort of mixture, that between Spaniard and Seminole, and not improved by the Spaniard being a Mexican," remarks he who made the inquiry. "I don't like his looks," observes a third speaker. Then all around the table wait to hear what Wharton, the young surgeon, has to say. For it is evident, from his way of introducing the subject, he either knows or suspects something prejudicial to the character of the major-domo. Instead of going on to explain, he puts a second interrogatory-- "May I ask, M. Dupre, whether you had any character with him?" "No, indeed," admits the master. "He came to me just before we left Natchitoches asking for an engagement. He professed to know all about Texas, and offered to act as a guide. As I had engaged guides, I didn't want him for that when he said any other place would do. Seeing him to be a smart sort of fellow, which he certainly has proved, I engaged him to look after my baggage. Since, I've found him useful in other ways, and have given him full charge of everything--even to entrusting him with the care of my modest money chest." "In doing that," rejoins the surgeon, "I should say you've acted somewhat imprudently. Excuse me, M. Dupre, for making the observation." "Oh, certainly," is the planter's frank reply. "But why do you say so, Mr Wharton? Have you any reason to suspect his honesty?" "I have; more than one." "Indeed! Let us hear them all." "Well; in the first place I don't like the look of the man, nor ever did since the day of our starting. Since I never set eyes on him before, I could have had no impression to prejudice me against him. I admit that, judging by physiognomy, any one may be mistaken; and I shouldn't have allowed myself to be led by that. In this case, however, a circumstance has contributed to shaping my judgment; in fact, deciding me in the opinion, that your fellow Fernand is not only dishonest, but something worse than a thief." "Worse than a thief!" is the simultaneous echo from all sides of the table, succeeded by a universal demand for explanation. "Your words have a weighty sound, doctor," is Colonel Armstrong's way of putting it. "We are anxious to hear what they mean." "Well," responds Wharton, "you shall know why I've spoken them, and what's led me to suspect this fellow Fernand. You can draw your own conclusions, from the premises I put before you. Last night at a late hour--near midnight--I took a fancy into my head to have a stroll towards the river. Lighting a weed, I started out. I can't say exactly how far I may have gone; but I know that the cigar--a long `Henry Clay'--was burnt to the end before I thought of turning back. As I was about doing so, I heard a sound, easily made out to be the footsteps of a man, treading the firm prairie turf. As it chanced just then, I was under a pecan-tree that screened me with its shadow; and I kept my ground without making any noise. "Shortly after, I saw the man whose footfall I had heard, and recognised him as M. Dupre's head-servant. He was coming up the valley, toward the house here, as if returning from some excursion. I mightn't have thought much of that, but for noticing, as he passed me, that he didn't walk erect or on the path, but crouchingly, among the trees skirting it. "Throwing away the stump of my cigar, I set out after him, treading stealthily as he. Instead of entering by the front, he went round the garden, all the way to its rear; where suddenly I lost sight of him. On arriving at the spot where he had disappeared, I saw there was a break in the wall. Through that, of course, he must have passed, and entered the mission-building at the back. Now, what are we to make of all this?" "What do you make of it, doctor?" asks Dupre. "Give us your own deductions!" "To say the truth, I don't know what deductions to draw, I confess myself at fault; and cannot account for the fellow's movements; though I take you'll all acknowledge they were odd. As I've said, M. Dupre, I didn't from the first like your man of versatile talents; and I'm now more than ever distrustful of him. Still I profess myself unable to guess what he was after last night. Can any of you, gentlemen?" No one can. The singular behaviour of Dupre's servant is a puzzle to all present. At the same time, under the circumstances, it has a serious aspect. Were there any neighbouring settlement, the man might be supposed returning from a visit to it; entering stealthily, from being out late, and under fear of rebuke from his master. As there are no such neighbours, this theory cannot be entertained. On the other hand, there has been no report of Indians having been seen in proximity to the place. If there had, the mestizo's conduct might be accounted for, upon an hypothesis that would certainly cause apprehension to those discussing it. But no savages have been seen, or heard of; and it is known that the Southern Comanches--the only Indians likely to be there encountered--are in treaty of peace with the Texan Government. Therefore, the nocturnal excursion of the half-blood could not be connected with anything of this kind. His singular, and seemingly eccentric, behaviour, remains an unsolved problem to the guests around the table; and the subject is eventually dropped their conversation changing to other and pleasanter themes. CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN. OPPOSITE EMBLEMS. Pleasure has not been the sole purpose for which Colonel Armstrong is giving his little dinner party, else there would have been ladies invited along with the gentlemen. It is rather a re-union to talk over the affairs of the colony; hence the only ladies present were the daughters of the host. And, for the same reason, these have retired from the table at an early hour, betaking themselves to the _sala_ of the old monastery, their sitting and drawing-room. This, though an ample apartment, is anything but a pleasant one; never much affected by the monks, who in their post-prandial hours, preferred sticking to the refectory. A hasty attempt has been made to modernise it; but the light furniture of French Creole fabric, brought along from Louisiana, ill accords with its heavy style of architecture, while its decayed walls and ceilings _lezardee_, give it a gloomy dismal look, all the more from the large room being but dimly lit up. As it is not a drawing-room party, the ladies expect that for a long while, if not all evening, they will be left alone in it. For a time they scarce know how to employ themselves. With Helen, amusement is out of the question. She has flung herself into a _fauteuil_, and sits in pensive attitude; of late, alas! become habitual to her. Jessie, taking up her guitar, commences a song, the first that occurs to her, which chances to be "Lucy Neal," a negro melody, at the time much in vogue on the plantations of the South. She has chosen the pathetic strain without thought of the effect it may produce upon her sister. Observing it to be painful she abruptly breaks off, and with a sweep of her fingers across the guitar strings, changes to the merrier refrain of "Old Dan Tucker." Helen, touched by the delicate consideration, rewards it with a faint smile. Then, Jessie rattles on through a _melange_ of negro ministrelsy, all of the light comical kind, her only thought being to chase away her sister's despondency. Still is she unsuccessful. Her merry voice, her laughter, and the cheerful tinkle of the guitar strings, are all exerted in vain. The sounds so little in consonance with Helen's thoughts seem sorely out of place in that gloomy apartment; whose walls, though they once echoed the laughter of roystering friars, have, no doubt, also heard the sighs of many a poor _peon_ suffering chastisement for disobedience, or apostacy. At length perceiving how idle are her efforts, the younger sister lays aside her guitar, at the same time starting to her feet, and saying:--"Come, Helen! suppose we go outside for a stroll? That will be more agreeable than moping in this gloomsome cavern. There's a beautiful moonlight, and we ought to enjoy it." "If you wish, I have no objections. Where do you intend strolling to?" "Say the garden. We can take a turn along its walks, though they are a little weedy. A queer weird place it is--looks as if it might be haunted. I shouldn't wonder if we met a ghost in it--some of the old monks; or it might be one of their victims. 'Tis said they were very cruel, and killed people--ay, tortured them. Only think of the savage monsters! True, the ones that were here, as I've heard, got killed themselves in the end--that's some satisfaction. But it's all the more reason for their ghosts being about. If we should meet one, what would you do?" "That would depend on how he behaved himself." "You're not afraid of ghosts, Helen! I know you're not." "I was when a child. Now I fear neither the living nor the dead. I can dare both, having nought to make me care for life--" "Come on!" cries Jessie, interrupting the melancholy train of reflection, "Let us to the garden. If we meet a monk in hood and cowl, I shall certainly--" "Do what?" "Run back into the house fast as feet can carry me. Come along!" Keeping up the jocular bravado, the younger sister leads the way out. Arm-in-arm the two cross the _patio_, then the outer courtyard, and on through a narrow passage communicating with the walled enclosure at back; once a grand garden under careful cultivation, still grand in its neglect. After entering it, the sisters make stop, and for a while stand surveying the scene. The moon at full, coursing through a cloudless sky, flings her soft light upon gorgeous flowers with corollas but half-closed, in the sultry southern night giving out their fragrance as by day. The senses of sight and smell are not the only ones gratified; that of hearing is also charmed with the song of the _czentzontle_, the Mexican nightingale. One of these birds perched upon a branch, and pouring forth its love-lay in loud passionate strain, breaks off at sight of them. Only for a short interval is it silent; then resuming its lay, as if convinced it has nought to fear from such fair intruders. Its song is not strange to their ears, though there are some notes they have not hitherto heard. It is their own mocking-bird of the States, introducing into its mimic minstrelsy certain variations, the imitations of sounds peculiar to Texas. After having listened to it for a short while, the girls move on down the centre walk, now under the shadow of trees, anon emerging into the moonlight; which shimmering on their white evening robes, and reflecting the sparkle of their jewellery, produces a pretty effect. The garden ground slopes gently backward; and about half-way between the house and the bottom wall is, or has been, a fountain. The basin is still there, and with water in it, trickling over its edge. But the jet no longer plays, and the mason-work shows greatly dilapidated. So also the seats and statues around, some of the latter yet standing, others broken off, and lying alongside their pedestals. Arriving at this spot, the sisters again stop, and for a time stand contemplating the ruins; the younger making a remark, suggested by a thought of their grandeur gone. "Fountains, statues, seats under shade trees, every luxury to be got out of a garden! What Sybarites the Holy Fathers must have been!" "Truly so," assents Helen. "They seem to have made themselves quite comfortable; and whatever their morals, it must be admitted they displayed good taste in landscape gardening, with an eye on good living as well. They must have been very fond of fruit, and a variety of it-- judging by the many sorts of trees they've planted." "So much the better for us," gleefully replies Jessie. "We shall have the benefit of their industry, when the fruit season comes round. Won't it be a grand thing when we get the walks gravelled, these statues restored, and that fountain once more in full play. Luis has promised me it shall be done, soon as the cotton crop is in. Oh! it will be a Paradise of a place!" "I like it better as it is." "You do. Why?" "Ah! that _you_ cannot understand. You do not know--I hope never will-- what it is to live only in the past. This place has had a past, like myself, once smiling; and now like me all desolation." "O sister! do not speak so. It pains me--indeed it does. Besides your words only go half-way. As you say, it's had a smiling past, and's going to have a smiling future. And so will you sis. I'm determined to have it all laid out anew, in as good style as it ever was--better. Luis shall do it--must, _when he marries, me_--if not before." To the pretty bit of bantering Helen's only answer is a sigh, with a sadder expression, as from some fresh pang shooting through her heart. It is even this; for, once again, she cannot help contrasting her own poor position with the proud one attained by her sister. She knows that Dupre is in reality master of all around, as Jessie will be mistress, she herself little better than their dependant. No wonder the thought should cause her humiliation, or that, with a spirit imperious as her's, she should feel it acutely. Still, in her crushed heart there is no envy at her sister's good fortune. Could Charles Clancy come to life again, now she knows him true--were he but there to share with her the humblest hut in Texas, all the splendours, all the grandeurs of earth, could not add to that happiness, nor give one emotion more. After her enthusiastic outburst, to which there has been no rejoinder, Jessie continues on toward the bottom of the garden, giving way to pleasant fancies, dreams of future designs, with her fan playfully striking at the flowers as she passes them. In silence Helen follows; and no word is exchanged between them till they reach the lower end; when Jessie, turning round, the two are face to face. The place, where they have stopped is another opening with seats and statues, admitting the moonlight. By its bright beam the younger sister sees anguish depicted on the countenance of the older. With a thought that her last words have caused or contributed to this, she is about to add others that may remove it. But before she can speak, Helen makes a gesture that holds her silent. Near the spot where they are standing two trees overshadow the walk, their boughs meeting across it. Both are emblematic--one symbolising the most joyous hour of existence, the other its saddest. They are an orange, and a cypress. The former is in bloom, as it always is; the latter only in leaf, without a blossom on its branches. Helen, stepping between them, and extending an arm to each, plucks from the one a sprig, from the other a flower. Raising the orange blossom between her white fingers, more attenuated than of yore, she plants it amid Jessie's golden tresses. At the same time she sets the cypress sprig behind the plaits of her own raven hair; as she does so, saying:-- "That for you, sister--this for me. We are now decked as befits us--as we shall both soon be--_you for the bridal, I for the tomb_!" The words, seeming but too prophetic, pierce Jessie's heart as arrow with poisoned barb. In an instant, her joy is gone, sunk into the sorrow of her sister. Herself sinking upon that sister's bosom, with arms around her neck, and tears falling thick and fast over her swan-white shoulders. Never more than now has her heart overflowed with compassion, for never as now has Helen appeared to suffer so acutely. As she stood, holding in one hand the symbol of bright happy life, in the other the dark emblem of death, she looked the very personification of sorrow. With her magnificent outline of form, and splendid features, all the more marked in their melancholy, she might have passed for its divinity. The ancient sculptors would have given much for such a model, to mould the statue of Despair. CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT. A BLANK DAY. On the frontier every settlement has its professional hunter. Often several, seldom less than two or three; their _metier_ being to supply the settlers with meat and game--venison, the standing dish--now and then bear hams, much relished--and, when the place is upon prairie-land, the flesh of the antelope and buffalo. The wild turkey, too--grandest of all game birds--is on the professional hunter's list for the larder; the lynx and panther he will kill for their pelts; but squirrels, racoons, rabbits, and other such "varmints," he disdains to meddle with, leaving them to the amateur sportsman, and the darkey. Usually the professional votary of Saint Hubert is of solitary habit, and prefers stalking alone. There are some, however, of more social inclining, who hunt in couples; one of the pair being almost universal a veteran, the other a young man--as in the case of Sime Woodley and Ned Heywood. By the inequality of age the danger of professional jealousy is avoided; the younger looking up to his senior, and treating him with the deference due to greater knowledge and experience. Just such a brace of professionals has come out with the Armstrong colony--their names, Alec Hawkins and Cris Tucker--the former an old bear-hunter, who has slain his hundreds; the latter, though an excellent marksman, in the art of _venerie_ but a tyro compared with his partner. Since their arrival on the San Saba, they have kept the settlement plentifully supplied in meat; chiefly venison of the black-tailed deer, with which the bottom-land abounds. Turkeys, too, in any quantity; these noble birds thriving in the congenial climate of Texas, with its nuts and berry-bearing trees. But there is a yet nobler game, to the hunting of which Hawkins and his younger associate aspire; both being eager to add it to the list of their trophies. It is that which has tempted many an English Nimrod to take three thousand miles of sea voyage across the Atlantic, and by land nearly as many more--the buffalo. Hawkins and Tucker, though having quartered the river bottom, for ten miles above and below the mission-building, have as yet come across none of these grand quadrupeds, nor seen "sign" of them. This day, when Armstrong has his dinner party, the hunters bethink themselves of ascending to the upper plain, in the hope of there finding the game so much desired. The place promising best is on the opposite side of the valley, to reach which the river must be crossed. There are two fords at nearly equal distances from the old mission-house, one about ten miles above, the other as many below. By the latter the waggons came over, and it is the one chosen by the hunters. Crossing it, they continue on to the bluffs rising beyond, and ascend these through a lateral ravine, the channel of a watercourse--which affords a practicable pass to the plain. On reaching its summit they behold a steppe to all appearance; illimitable, almost as sterile as Saara itself. Treeless save a skirting of dwarf cedars along the cliff's edge, with here and there a _motte_ of black-jack oaks, a cluster of cactus plants, or a solitary yucca of the arborescent species--the _palmilla_ of the Mexicans. Withal, not an unlikely place to encounter the cattle with; hunched backs, and shaggy shoulders. None are in sight; but hoping they soon will be the hunters launch out upon the plain. Till near night they scout around, but without seeing any buffalo. The descending sun warns them it is time to return home; and, facing for the bluff, they ride back towards it. Some three or four hundred yards from the summit of the pass is a _motte_ of black-jacks, the trees standing close, in full leaf, and looking shady. As it is more than fifteen miles to the mission, and they have not eaten since morning, they resolve to make halt, and have a sneck. The black-jack grove is right in their way, its shade invites them, for the sun is still sultry. Soon they are in it, their horses tied to trees, and their haversacks summoned to disgorge. Some corn-bread and bacon is all these contain; but, no better refection needs a prairie hunter, nor cares for, so long he has a little distilled corn-juice to wash it down, with a pipe of tobacco to follow. They have eaten, drunk, and are making ready to smoke, when an object upon the plain attracts their attention. Only a cloud of dust, and far off--on the edge of the horizon. For all that a sign significant. It may be a "gang" of buffaloes, the thing they have been all day vainly searching for. Thrusting the pipes back into their pouches, they grasp their guns, with eyes eagerly scanning the dust-cloud. At first dim, it gradually becomes darker. For a whiff of wind has blown the "stoor" aside, disclosing not a drove of buffaloes, but instead a troop of horses, at the same time showing them to have riders on their backs, as the hunters can perceive Indians. Also that the troop is coming towards them, and advancing at such rapid pace, that in less than twenty minutes after being descried, it is close to the clump of black-jacks. Fortunately for Alec Hawkins and Oris Tucker, the Indian horsemen have no intention to halt there, or rest themselves under the shadow of the copse. To all appearance they are riding in hot haste, and with a purpose which carries them straight towards the pass. They do not even stop on arrival at its--summit; but dash down the ravine, disappearing suddenly as though they had dropped into a trap! It is some time before the two hunters have recovered from their surprise, and can compare notes about what they have seen, with conjectures as to its bearing. They have witnessed a spectacle sufficiently alarming,--a band of fierce-looking savages, armed with spear and tomahawk--some carrying guns--all plumed and painted, all alike terrible in aspect. Quick the apparition has passed before their eyes, as suddenly disappearing. The haste in which the Indians rode down the ravine tells of their being bent on some fore-arranged purpose that calls for early execution. It may be murder, or only plunder; and the men may be Comanches--as in every likelihood they are. "They're a ugly-looking lot," says Hawkins, after seeing them file past. "If there were a hundred, instead o' twenty, I'd predict some danger to our new settlement. They appear to be going that way--at all events they are bound for the river bottom, and the lower crossing. We must follow them, Oris, an' see if we can make out what's their game. The red devils mayn't mean downright robbery, but like enough they intend stealin'. Hitch up, and let's after em'." In a trice the two hunters are in their saddles; and proceeding to the summit of the pass, look down at the valley below. Not carelessly, but cautiously. Hawkins is an old campaigner, has fought Indians before, and knows how to deal with them. Keeping himself and horse under cover of the cedars, after instructing his comrade to do the same, he reconnoitres the bottom-land, before attempting to descend to it. As expected, he sees the Indians making for the ford. At the point between the San Saba, and either of its bluffs is a breadth of some four miles, part open meadow land, the other part, contiguous to the river overgrown with heavy timber. Into this the red horsemen are riding, as the two hunters reach the summit of the pass, the latter arriving just in time to see their last files disappear among the trees. It is their cue to descend also, which they do, without further delay. Hastening down the ravine and on to the river ford, they discover that the Indians have crossed it. The tracks of their horses are on both banks. Beyond, the hunters cannot tell which way they have taken. For though still only twilight it is dark as night under the thick standing trees; and he keenest eye could not discover a trail. Thus thrown off, they have no choice but continue on to the settlement. Beaching this at a rather late hour, they do not enter the mission-building nor yet any of the huts of the _rancheria_. Their own residence is a tent, standing in the grove between; and to it they betake themselves. Once under canvass their first thought is supper, and they set about cooking it. Though they have brought back no buffalo meat a twenty pound turkey "gobbler" has been all day dangling at the horn of Hawkins' saddle--enough for a plentiful repast. Oris, who acts as cook, sets to plucking the bird, while Hawkins commences kindling a fire outside the tent. But before the fagots are ablaze, the old hunter, all along abstracted, becomes fidgetty, as if troubled with the reflection of having neglected some duty he ought to have done. Abruptly breaking off, and pitching aside the sticks, he says:--"This wont do, Cris, nohow. I've got a notion in my head there's something not right about them Indyens. I must up to the house an' tell the Colonel. You go on, and get the gobbler roasted. I'll be back by the time its ready." "All right," rejoins Tucker, continuing to make the feathers fly. "Don't stay if you expect any share of this bird. I'm hungry enough to eat the whole of it myself." "You needn't fear for my stayin'. I'm just as sharp set as yourself." So saying, Hawkins strides out of the tent, leaving his comrade to continue the preparations for their repast. From the hunter's tent, the house is approached by a narrow path, nearly all the way running through timber. While gliding silently along it, Hawkins comes suddenly to a stop. "Seems to me I heard a cry," he mutters to himself; "seems, too, as 'twar a woman's voice." After listening awhile, without hearing it repeated, he adds: "I reckon, 'twar only the skirl o' them tree-crickets. The warm night makes 'em chirp their loudest." Listening a little longer, he becomes convinced it was but the crickets he heard, and keeps on to the house. CHAPTER FORTY NINE. WAITING THE WORD. To all appearance Fernand's fireworks are about to bear fruit, this likely to be bitter. As the sky, darker after the lightning's flash, a cloud is collecting over the new settlement, which threatens to sweep down upon it in a rain storm of ruin. What but they could have caused this cloud; or, at all events, given a cue for the time of its bursting. It appears in the shape of a cohort of dusky horsemen, painted and plumed. No need to say, they are the same that were seen by Hawkins and Tucker. Having crossed the river at its lower ford, where so far the hunters saw their tracks, there losing them, the savages continued on. Not by the main road leading to the mission, but along a path which deflects from it soon after leaving the river's bank. A narrower trace, indeed the continuation of that they had been following all along--the transverse route across the bottom-land from bluff to bluff, on both sides ascending to the steppe. But though they came down on one side, they went not up on the other. Instead, having reached the nether bluff, they turned sharp along its base, by another and still narrower trace, which they knew would take them up to the mission-building. A route tortuous, the path beset with many obstacles; hence their having spent several hours in passing from the ford to the mission-house, though the distance between is barely ten miles. No doubt they have good reason for submitting to the irksome delay caused by the difficult track, as also for the cautious manner in which they have been coming along it. Otherwise, they would certainly have chosen the direct road running nearer the river's bank. While Colonel Armstrong, and his friends, are enjoying themselves in the refectory of the ancient mission-house, in the midst of their laughing hilarity, the painted cavaliers have been making approach, and are now halted, within less than half-a-mile from its walls. In such fashion as shows, they do not intend a long stay in their stopping place. Not a saddle is removed, or girth untightened; while the bridles, remaining on their horses' heads, are but used as halters to attach them to the trees. The men have dismounted, but not to form camp, or make bivouac. They kindle no fires, nor seem caring to cook, or eat. They drink, however; several of them taking flasks from their saddle pouches, and holding them to their heads bottom upward. Nothing strange in this. The Texan Indian, whether Comanche, Kiowa, or Lipan, likes his fire-water as much as a white man, and as constantly carries it along with him. The only peculiarity about these is that, while quaffing, they do not talk in the Indian tongue, but English of the Texan idiom, with all its wild swearing! The place where they have halted is a bit of glade-ground, nearly circular in shape, only half-encompassed by timber, the other half being an embayment of the bluffs, twin to those on the opposite side of the river bottom. It is shaded three-quarters across by the cliff, the moon being behind this. The other quarter, on the side of the trees, is brilliantly lit up by her beams, showing the timber thick and close along its edge, to all appearance impassable as the _facade_ of rugged rock frowning from the opposite concave of the enclosed circle. Communicating with this are but two paths possible for man or horse, and for either only in single file. One enters the glade coming up the river bottom along the base of the bluff; the other debouches at the opposite end, still following the cliff's foot. By the former the Indians have entered; but by the latter it is evident they intend going out, as their eyes are from time to time turned towards it, and their gestures directed that way. Still they make no movement for resuming their march, but stand in gathered groups, one central and larger than the rest. In its midst is a man by nearly the head taller than those around him: their chief to a certainty. His authority seems acknowledged by all who address him, if not with deference, in tone and speech telling they but wait for his commands, and are willing to obey them. He, himself, appears waiting for something, or somebody else, before he can issue them, his glance continually turning towards the point where the path leads out upwards. Impatiently, too, as ever and anon he pulls out a watch and consults it as, to the time. Odd to see a savage so engaged; above all possessed of a repeater! Still the Indians of to-day are different from those of days past, and have learnt many of the white man's ways--even to wearing watches. The man in question seems to know all about it; and has his reasons for being particular as to the hour. He is evidently acting upon a preconcerted plan, with the time fixed and fore-arranged. And evident also that ten is the hour awaited; for, while in the act of examining his dial, the old mission clock, restored to striking, tolls just so many times; and, before the boom of its cracked bell has ceased rolling in broken reverberation through the trees, he thrusts the watch hurriedly into his fob. Then stands in expectant attitude, with eyes upon the embouchure of the upper path, scanning it more eagerly than ever. There is a strange coincidence between the strokes of the clock and the flashes of Fernanda powder--both numbering the same. Though not strange to the leader of the savage troop. He knows what it is-- comprehends the significance of the signal--for signal it has been. A dread one, too, foreboding danger to innocent people. One who could behold this savage band, scrutinise the faces of those composing it, witness the fierce wicked flashes from their eyes, just as the clock is striking, would send up a prayer for the safety of Colonel Armstrong and his colonists. If further informed as to who the savages are, the prayer would sure be succeeded by the reflection--"Heaven help his daughters! If God guard not, a fearful fate will be theirs--a destiny worse than death!" CHAPTER FIFTY. AN UNCANNY SKULKER. Still within the garden are the young girls--still standing under the shadow of the two trees that furnished the contrasting symbols,-- unconscious of danger near. Helen's speech, suggesting such painful sequence, has touched her sister to the quick, soon as spoken, afflicting also herself; and for a time they remain with entwined arms and cheeks touching--their tears flowing together. But Jessie's sobs are the louder, her grief greater than that she has been endeavouring to assuage. Helen perceiving it, rises to the occasion; and, as oft before, in turn becomes the comforter; their happiness and misery like scales vibrating on the beam. "Don't cry so, Jess. Be a good girl, now. You're a little simpleton, and I a big one. 'Twas very wrong of me to say what I did. Be it forgotten, and let's hope we may yet both be happy." "Oh, if I could but think that!" "Think it, then. You _are_ happy, and I--shall try to be. Who knows what time may do--that and Texas? Now, my little Niobe, dry up your tears. Mine are all gone, and I feel in first rate spirits. I do indeed." She is not sincere in what she says, and but counterfeits cheerfulness to restore that of her sister. She has well-nigh succeeded, when a third personage appears upon the scene, causing a sudden change in their thoughts, turning these into a new and very different channel. He whose appearance produces such effect--for it is a man--seems wholly unconscious of the influence he has exerted; indeed, is so. When first observed, he is coming down the central walk; which, though wide, is partially shadowed by trees. And in their shadow he keeps, clinging to it, as if desirous to shun observation. His step declares it; not bold this, nor regardless, but skulking, with tread catlike; while every now and then he casts a backward glance, as if in fear of some one being behind. Just that which hinders him from seeing those who are in front. The girls are still standing together, with hands joined--luckily on one of the side-walks, and like himself in shadow--though very near to having separated, and one, at least, rushing out into the light at first sound of his footstep. For to Jessie it gave joy, supposing it that of her Luis. Naturally expecting him to join her, she was almost sure of its being he. Only for an instant. The tread was too light for a man marching with honest intent, and the step too shuffling to be that of the young planter. So whispered Helen. Soon they see it is not he, but his major-domo. Both are annoyed, some little irritated, at being thus intruded upon. At such a time, in the midst of sacred emotions, all the more by a man they both instinctively dislike. For Fernand is not a favourite with either. Then the idea occurs, he may be coming to seek them, sent with some message from the house, and if so, they can excuse him. Concluding his errand to be this, they await it, in silence. They are quite mistaken, and soon perceive it. An honest messenger would not be moving as he. While passing the open ground by the ruined waterworks, the moon falls full upon his face, which wears an expression anything but innocent, as they can both see. Besides, his gestures also betray guilt; for he is skulking, and casting glances back. "What can it mean?" whispers Jessie into Helen's ear; who replies by placing a finger on her lips, and drawing her sister into deeper shadow. Silent both stand, not stirring, scarce breathing. One seeing, might easily mistake them for statues--a Juno and a Venus. Fortunately Fernand does not see, else he might scrutinise them more closely. He is too much absorbed about his own affair, whatever it be, to think of any one loitering there at that time of the night. Where the main garden-walk meets the one going along the bottom, is another open space, smaller than that around the fountain, still sufficient to let in the light of the moon. Here also have been seats and statues; the latter lying shattered, as if hashed to the earth by the hand of some ruthless iconoclast. Just opposite, is a breach in the wall; the mud bricks, crumbled into clods forming a _talus_ on each face of it. Arriving at this, the _mestizo_ makes stop. Only for an instant, long enough to give a last glance up the garden. Apparently satisfied, that he is not followed nor observed, he scrambles up the slope and down on the opposite side, where he is lost to the view of the sisters; who both stand wondering--the younger sensibly trembling. "What on earth is the fellow after?" asks Helen, whose speech comes first. "What, indeed?" echoes Jessie. "A question, sister, you should be better able to answer than I. He is the trusted servant of M. Dupre; and he, I take it, has told you all about him." "Not a word has he. He knows that I don't like the man, and never did from the first. I've intimated as much to him more than once." "That ought to have got Master Fernand his discharge. Your Luis will surely not keep him, if he knows it's disagreeable to you?" "Well, perhaps he wouldn't if I were to put it in that way. I haven't done so yet. I only hinted that the man wasn't altogether to my liking; especially made so much of as Luis makes of him. You must know, dear Helen, my future lord and master is of a very trusting nature; far too much, I fear, for some of the people now around him. He has been brought up like all Creoles, without thought for the morrow. A sprinkling of Yankee cuteness wouldn't do him any harm. As for this fellow, he has insinuated himself into Luis's confidence in some way that appears quite mysterious. It even puzzles our father; though he's said nothing much about it. So far he appears satisfied, because the man has proved capable, and, I believe, very useful to them in their affairs. For my part I've been mystified by him all along, and not less now. I wonder what he can be after. Can you not give a guess?" "Not the slightest; unless it be theft. Do you think it's that?" "I declare I don't know." "Is there anything he could be carrying off from the house, with the intention of secreting it outside? Some of your Luis's gold for instance, or the pretty jewels he has given you?" "My jewels! No; they are safe in their case; locked up in my room, of which I've the key with me. As for Luis's gold, he hasn't much of that. All the money he possesses--quite fifty thousand dollars, I believe--is in silver. I wondered at his bringing it out here in that heavy shape, for it made a whole waggon-load of itself. He's told me the reason, however; which is, that among Indians and others out here on the frontier, gold is not thought so much of as silver." "It can't be silver Fernand is stealing--if theft it be. He would look more loaded, and couldn't have gone so lightly over that wall." "Indeed, as you say, he went skipping over it like a grasshopper." "Rather say gliding like a snake. I never saw a man whose movements more resembled the Devil in serpent shape--except one." The thought of this one, who is Richard Darke, causes Helen Armstrong to suspend speech; at the same time evoking a sigh to the memory of another one--Charles Clancy. "Shall we return into the house?" asks Jessie, after a pause. "For what purpose?" "To tell Luis of what we've seen; to warn him about Fernand." "If we did the warning would be unheeded. I fear Monsieur Dupre will remain unconvinced of any intended treachery in his trusted servant, until something unpleasant occur; it may be something disastrous. After all, you and I, Jess, have only our suspicions, and may be wronging the fellow. Suppose we stay a little longer, and see what comes of it. No doubt, he'll soon return from his mysterious promenade, and by remaining, we may find out what he's been after. Shall we wait for him? You're not afraid, are you?" "A little, I confess. Do you know, Helen, this Fernand gives me the same sort of feeling I had at meeting that big fellow in the streets of Natchitoches. At times he glares at me just in the same way. And yet the two are so different." "Well, since no harm came of your Nachitoches bogie, it's to be hoped there won't any from this one. If you have any fear to stay, let us go in. Only my curiosity is greatly excited by what we've seen, and I'd like to know the end of it. If we don't discover anything, it can do no harm. And if we do--say; shall we go, or try?" "I'm not afraid now. You make me brave, sister. Besides, we may find out something Luis ought to know." "Then let us stay." Having resolved to await the coming back of the half-blood, and watch his further movements, the sisters bethink them of seeking a safer place for observation; one where there will be less danger of being themselves seen. It is to Helen the idea occurs. "On his return," she says, "he might stray along this way, and not go up the centre walk. Therefore we had better conceal ourselves more effectually. I wonder he didn't see us while passing out. No doubt he would have done so, but for looking so anxiously behind, and going at such a rapid rate. Coming back he may not be so hurried; and should he sight us, then an end to our chance of finding out what he's up to. Where's the best place to play spy on him?" The two look in different directions, in search of an appropriate spot. There can be no difficulty in finding such. The shrubbery, long unpruned, grows luxuriantly everywhere, screening the _facade_ of the wall along its whole length. Near by is an arbour of evergreens, thickly overgrown with a trellis of trailing plants. They know of this shady retreat; have been in it before that night. Now, although the moon is shining brightly, its interior, arcaded over by dense foliage, is in dark shadow--dark as a cavern. Once inside it, eye cannot see them from without. "The very place," whispers Helen; and they commence moving towards it. To reach the arbour it is necessary for them to return to the main walk, and pass the place where the bottom wall is broken down; a ruin evidently caused by rude intruders, doubtless the same savages who made the mission desolate. The talus extending to the path, with its fringe of further scattered clods, requires them to step carefully so as to avoid stumbling. They go hand in hand, mutually supporting one another. Their white gossamer dresses, floating lightly around them as they glide silently along, give them a resemblance to sylphs, or wood-nymphs, all the more as they emerge into the moonlight. To complete the sylvan picture, it seems necessary there should be satyrs, or wood-demons, as well. And such in reality there are, not a great way off. These, or something closely resembling them. No satyrs could show in more grotesque guise than the forms at that moment moving up to the wall, on its opposite side. Gliding on, the sisters have arrived before the gap. Some instinct, perhaps curiosity, tempts them to take a look through it, into the shadowy forest beyond; and for some time, as under a spell of fascination, they stand gazing into its dark, mysterious depths. They see nought save the sparkle of fire-flies; and hear nothing but the usual noises of the Southern night, to which they have been from infancy accustomed. But as they are about moving on again, a sound salutes their ear-- distinguishable as a footstep. Irregular and scrambling, as of one stepping among the broken bricks. Simultaneously a man is seen making his way over the wall. "Fernand!" No use for them now to attempt concealment; no good can come of it. He has seen them. Nor does he any longer seem desirous of shunning observation. On the contrary, leaping down from the rampart, he comes straight towards them; in an instant presenting himself face to face, not with the nimble air of a servant, but the demeanour of one who feels himself master, and intend to play tyrant. With the moon shining full upon his tawny face, they can distinguish the play of its features. No look of humility, nor sign of subservience there. Instead, a bold, bullying expression, eyes emitting a lurid light, lips set in a satanic smile, between them teeth gleaming like a tiger's! He does not speak a word. Indeed, he has not time; for Helen Armstrong anticipates him. The proud girl, indignant at what she sees, too fearless to be frightened, at once commences chiding him. In words bold and brave, so much that, if alone, the scoundrel might quail under their castigation. But he is not alone, nor does he allow her to continue. Instead, he cries out, interrupting, his speech not addressed to her, but some one behind:-- "Bring hither the serapes! Quick, or--" He himself is not permitted to finish what he intended saying; or, if so, his last words are unheard; drowned by a confused noise of rushing and rumbling, while the gap in the garden wall is suddenly closed, as if by enchantment. It is at first filled by a dark mass, seemingly compact, but soon separating into distinct forms. The sisters, startled, terrified, have but time to give out one wild cry--a shriek. Before either can utter a second, brawny arms embrace them; blinds are thrown over their faces; and, half stifled, they feel themselves lifted from their feet, and borne rudely and rapidly away! CHAPTER FIFTY ONE. LOCKED IN. At that same moment, when the red Sabines are carrying off his daughters, Colonel Armstrong is engaged, with his fellow-colonists, in discussing a question of great interest to all. The topic is sugar--the point, whether it will be profitable to cultivate it in their new colony. That the cane can be grown there all know. Both soil and climate are suitable. The only question is, will the produce pay, sugar being a bulky article in proportion to its price, and costly in transport through a territory without railroads, or steam communication. While the discussion is at its height a new guest enters the room; who, soon as inside, makes a speech, which not only terminates the talk about sugar, but drives all thought of it out of their minds. A speech of only four words, but these of startling significance: "_There are Indians about_!" 'Tis Hawkins who speaks, having entered without invitation, confident the nature of his news will hold him clear of being deemed an intruder. And it does. At the word "Indians," all around the table spring up from their seats, and stand breathlessly expectant of what the hunter has further to communicate. For, by his serious air, they are certain there must be something more. Colonel Armstrong alone asks, the old soldier showing the presence of mind that befits an occasion of surprise. "Indians about? Why do you say that, Hawkins? What reason have you to think so?" "The best o' reasons, colonel. I've seed them myself, and so's Cris Tucker along with me." "Where?" "Well, there's a longish story to tell. If you'll have patience, I'll make it short as possible." "Go on!--tell it!" The hunter responds to the demand; and without wasting words in detail, gives an epitome of his day's doings, in company with Cris Tucker. After describing the savage troop, as first seen on the upper plain, how he and his comrade followed them across the river bottom, then over the ford, and there lost their trail, he concludes his account, saying: "Where they went afterward, or air now, 'taint possible for me to tell. All I can say is, what I've sayed already: _there are Indians about_." Of itself enough to cause anxiety in the minds of the assembled planters; which it does, to a man making them keenly apprehensive of danger. All the more from its being their first alarm of the kind. For, while travelling through Eastern Texas, where the settlements are thick, and of old standing, the savages had not evens been thought of. There was no chance of seeing any there. Only, on drawing nigh to the Colorado, were Indians likely to be encountered; though it did not necessarily follow that the encounter should be hostile. On the contrary, it ought to be friendly; since a treaty of peace had for some time been existing between the Comanches and Texans. For all this, Colonel Armstrong, well acquainted with the character of the red men, in war as in peace, had not relied altogether on their pacific promises. He knew that such contracts only bind the savage so long as convenient to him, to be broken whenever they become irksome. Moreover, a rumour had reached the emigrants that, although the great Comanche nation was itself keeping the treaty, there were several smaller independent tribes accustomed to make "maraud" upon the frontier settlements, chiefly to steal horses, or whatever chanced in their way. For this reason, after entering the territory where such pillagers might be expected, the old soldier had conducted his expedition as if passing through an enemy's country. The waggons had been regularly _corralled_, and night guards kept--both camp sentinels and outlying pickets. These rules had been observed up to the hour of arrival at their destination. Then, as the people got settled down in their respective domiciles, and nothing was heard of any Indians in that district, the discipline had been relaxed--in fact, abandoned. The colonists, numbering over fifty white men--to say nothing of several hundred negro slaves--deemed themselves strong enough to repel any ordinary assault from savages. They now considered themselves at home; and, with the confidence thus inspired, had ceased to speculate, on being molested by Indian enemies, or any others. For this reason the suspicious movements of Dupre's half-breed servant, as reported by the young surgeon, had failed to make more than a passing impression on those around the dining-table; many of them treating it as an eccentricity. Now, after hearing Hawkins, they think differently. It presents a serious aspect, is, in truth, alarmingly suggestive of treason. The half-blood inside the house may be in correspondence with full-blooded Indians outside, for some scheme of thieving or burglary. The thought of either is sufficient to excite Colonel Armstrong's guests, and all are on foot ready to take action. "Dupre, call in your half-breed!" says the Colonel, directing it. "Let us hear what the fellow has to say for himself." "Tell Fernand to come hither," commands the Creole, addressing himself to one of the negro lads waiting at table. "Tell him to come instantly!" The boy hastens off to execute the order; and is several minutes before making re-appearance. During the interval, they continue to discuss the circumstances that have so suddenly turned up; questioning Hawkins, and receiving from him minuter details of what he and his comrade have seen. The additional matter made known but excites them the more, further intensifying their apprehensions. They're at their keenest, as the darkey re-enters the room with the announcement that Fernand is not to be found! "What do you mean, boy?" thunders Dupre, in a voice that well-nigh takes away the young negro's wits. "Is he not in the house?" "Dat's jess what he aint, Mass Looey. De Spanish Indyin's no whar inside dis buildin'. We hab sarch all oba de place; call out his name in de store-rooms, an' de coatyard, an' de cattle closure--ebbery wha we tink of. We shout loud nuf for him to hyeer, ef he war anywha 'bout. He haint gib no answer. Sartin shoo he no inside o' dis 'tablishment." The young planter shows dismay. So also the others, in greater or less degree, according to the light in which each views the matter. For now on the minds of all is an impression, a presentiment, that there is danger at the bottom of Fernand's doings--how near they know not. At any other time his absence would be a circumstance not worth noting. He might be supposed on a visit to some of the huts appropriated to the humbler families of the colonist fraternity. Or engaged outside with a mulatto "wench," of whom there are several, belonging to Dupre's extensive slave-gang, far from ill-favoured. Fernand is rather a handsome fellow, and given to gaiety; which, under ordinary circumstances, would account for his absenting himself from the house, and neglecting his duties as its head-servant. But after what the young surgeon has seen--above all the report just brought in by Hawkins--his conduct will not convey this trivial interpretation. All in the room regard it in a more serious light--think the _mestizo_ is a traitor. Having come to this general conclusion, they turn towards the table, to take a last drink, before initiating action. Just as they get their glasses in hand, the refectory door is once more opened; this time with a hurried violence that causes them to start, as though a bombshell had rolled into the room. Facing towards it, they see it is only the negro boy, who had gone out again, re-entering. But now with fear depicted on his face, and wild terror gleaming from his eyes; the latter awry in their sockets, with little beside the whites seen! Their own alarm is not much less than his, on hearing what he has to say. His words are,-- "Oh, Mass Kurnel! Mass Looey! Gemmen all! De place am full ob Indyin sabbages! Dar outside in de coatyard, more'n a thousan' ob um; an' murderin' ebbery body!" At the dread tidings, glasses drop from the hands holding them, flung down in fear, or fury. Then all, as one man, make for the door, still standing open as in his scare the negro lad left it. Before they can reach it, his words are too fully confirmed. Outside they see painted faces, heads covered with black hanging hair, and plumes bristling above. Only a glimpse they get of these, indistinct through the obscurity. But if transitory, not the less terrible--not less like a tableau in some horrid dream--a glance into hell itself. The sight brings them to a stand; though, but for an instant. Then, they rush on towards the doorway, regardless of what may await them outside. Outside they are not permitted to pass. Before they can reach the door, it is shut to with a loud clash; while another but slighter sound tells of a key turning in the wards, shooting a bolt into its keeper. "Locked in, by God!" exclaims Hawkins, the rest involuntarily echoing his wild words; which are succeeded by a cry of rage as from one throat, though all have voice in it. Then silence, as if they were suddenly struck dumb. For several moments they remain paralysed, gazing in one another's faces in mute despairing astonishment. No one thinks of asking explanation, or giving it. As by instinct, all realise the situation--a surprise, an Indian attack. No longer the future danger they have been deeming probable, but its dread present reality! Short while do they stand irresolute. Hawkins, a man of herculean strength, dashes himself against the door, in hopes of heaving it from its hinges. Others add their efforts. All idle. The door is of stout timber--oaken--massive as that of a jail; and, opening inward, can only be forced along with its posts and lintels.--These are set in the thick wall, embedded, firm as the masonry itself. They rush to the windows, in hope of getting egress there. Equally to be disappointed, baffled. The strong, iron bar resist every effort to break or dislodge them. Though weakened with decaying rust, they are yet strong enough to sustain the shock of shoulders, and the tug of arms. "Trapped, by the Eternal!" despairingly exclaims the hunter. "Yes, gentlemen, we're caged to a certainty." They need not telling. All are now aware of it--too well. They see themselves shut in--helplessly, hopelessly imprisoned. Impossible to describe their thoughts, or depict their looks, in that anguished hour. No pen, or pencil, could do justice to either. Outside are their dear ones; near, but far away from any hope of help, as if twenty miles lay between. And what is being done to them? No one asks--none likes to tempt the answer; all guessing what it would be, dreading to hear it spoken. Never did men suffer emotions more painfully intense, passions more heartfelt and harrowing; not even the prisoners of Cawnpore, or the Black Hole of Calcutta. They are in darkness now--have been from the moment of the door being closed. For, expecting to be fired at from the outside, they had suddenly extinguished the lights. They wonder there has been no shooting, aware that the Comanches carry fire-arms. But as yet there has been no report, either of pistol, or gun! They hear only voices--which they can distinguish as those of the house-Servants--male and female--all negroes or mulattoes. There are shrieks, intermingled with speeches, the last in accent of piteous appealing; there is moaning and groaning. But where are the shouts of the assailants? Where the Indian yell--the dread slogan of the savage? Not a stave of it is heard--nought that resembles a warwhoop of Comanches! And soon is nothing heard. For the shrieks of the domestics have ceased, their cries coming suddenly, abruptly to an end, as if stifled by blows bringing death. Inside the room is a death-like stillness; outside the same. CHAPTER FIFTY TWO. MASSACRE WITHOUT MERCY. Pass to the scene outside, than which none more tragical in the history of Texan colonisation. _No_ need to tell who the Indians are that have shown their faces at the dining-room door, shutting and locking it. They are those seen by Hawkins and Tucker--the same Dupre's traitorous servant has conducted through the gap in the garden wall; whence, after making seizure of the girls, they continued on to the house, the half-blood at their head. Under his guidance they passed through the cattle corral, and into the inner court. Till entering this they were not observed. Then the negro lad, sent in search of Fernand, seeing them, rushed back for the refectory. With all his haste, as already known, too late in giving the alarm. Half-a-dozen of the foremost, following, were at the dining-room door almost soon as he, while others proceeding to the front entrance, closed the great gate, to prevent any one escaping that way. In the courtyard ensues a scene, horrible to behold. The domestics frightened, screaming, rushing to and fro, are struck down with tomahawks, impaled upon spears, or hacked and stabbed with long-bladed knives. At least a half-score of these unhappy creatures fall in the fearful slaughter. Indiscriminate as to age or sex: for men, women, and children are among its victims. Their shrieks, and piteous appeals, are alike disregarded. One after another they are struck, or hewn down, like saplings by the _machete_. A scene of red carnage, resembling a _saturnalia_ of demons, doing murder! Short as terrible; in less than ten minutes after its commencement it is all over. The victims have succumbed, their bleeding bodies lie along the pavement. Only those domestics have escaped, who preserved enough presence of mind to get inside rooms, and barricade the doors behind them. They are not followed; for despite the red murder already done, the action ensuing, tells of only robbery intended. This evident from the way the savages now go to work. Instead of attempting to reach those they have imprisoned within the dining-room, they place two of their number to stand guard by its door; another pair going on to the gate entrance. These steps taken, the rest, with Fernand still conducting, hurry along the corridor, towards a room which opens at one of its angles. It is the chamber Dupre has chosen for his sleeping apartment, and where he has deposited his treasure. Inside it his cash, at least fifty thousand dollars, most of it in silver, packed in stout boxes. Fernand carries the key, which he inserts into its lock. The door flies open, and the half-blood enters, closely followed by those who appear all Indians. They go in with the eagerness of tigers springing upon prey, or more like the stealthiness of cats. Soon they come out again, each bearing a box, of diminutive size, but weight sufficient to test his strength. Laying these down, they re-enter the room, and return from it similarly loaded. And so they go and come, carrying out the little boxes, until nearly a score are deposited upon the pavement of the courtyard. The abstraction of the specie completed, the sentries set by the dining-room door, as also those sent to guard the entrance-gate, are called off; and the band becomes reunited by the treasure, as vultures around a carcass. Some words are exchanged in undertone. Then each, laying hold of a box--there is one each for nearly all of them--and poising it upon his shoulders, strides off out of the courtyard. Silently, and in single file, they pass across the cattle corral, on into the garden, down the central walk, and out through the gap by which they came in. Then on to the glade where they have left their horses. These they remount, after balancing the boxes upon their saddle-bows, and there securing them with trail-ropes. Soon as in the saddle they move silently, but quickly away; the half-blood going along with them. He, too, has a horse, the best in the troop--taken from the stable of the master he has so basely betrayed, so pitilessly plundered. And that master at the moment nearly mad! Raging frantically around the room where they are left confined, nearly all the others frantic as he. For scarce any of them who has not like reason. In the darkness groping, confusedly straying over the floor, stunned and stupified, they reel like drunken men; as they come in contact tremblingly interrogating one another as to what can have occurred. By the silence outside it would seem as if everybody were murdered, massacred--coloured servants within the house, colonists without--all! And what of Colonel Armstrong's own daughters? To their father it is a period of dread suspense--an agony indescribable. Much longer continued it would drive him mad. Perhaps he is saved from insanity by anger--by thoughts of vengeance, and the hope of living to accomplish it. While mutually interrogating, one starts the suggestion that the whole affair may be a _travestie_--a freak of the younger, and more frolicksome members of the colonist fraternity. Notwithstanding its improbability, the idea takes, and is entertained, as drowning men catch at straws. Only for an instant. The thing is too serious, affecting personages of too much importance, to be so trifled with. There are none in the settlement who would dare attempt such practical joking with its chief-- the stern old soldier, Armstrong. Besides, the sounds heard outside were not those of mirth, mocking its opposite. The shouts and shrieks had the true ring of terror, and the accents of despair. No. It could not be anything of a merrymaking, but what they at first supposed it--a tragedy. Their rage returns, and they think only of revenge. As before, but to feel their impotence. The door, again tried, with all their united strength, refuses to stir from its hinges. As easily might they move the walls. The window railings alike resist their efforts; and they at length leave off, despairingly scattering through the room. One alone remains, clinging to the window bars. It is Hawkins. He stays not with any hope of being able to wrench them off. He has already tested the strength of his arms, and found it insufficient. It is that of his lungs he now is determined to exert, and does so, shouting at the highest pitch of his voice. Not that he thinks there is any chance of its being heard at the _rancheria_, nearly a half-mile off, with a grove of thick timber intervening. Besides, at that late hour the settlers will be asleep. But in the grove between, and nearer, he knows there is a tent; and inside it a man who will be awake, if not dead--his comrade, Cris Tucker. In the hope Cris may still be in the land of the living, Hawkins leans against the window bars and, projecting his face outward, as far as the jawbones will allow, he gives utterance to a series of shouts, interlarded with exclamations, that in the ears of a sober Puritan would have sounded terribly profane. CHAPTER FIFTY THREE. A HORRID SPECTACLE. On a log outside the tent sits Cris Tucker, with the fire before him, kindled for cooking the turkey. The bird is upon a spit suspended above the blaze. A fat young "gobbler," it runs grease at every pore, causing the fire to flare up. Literally is it being broiled by its own grease, and is now well-nigh done brown. Perceiving this, Tucker runs his eyes inquiringly along the path leading towards the mission, at the same time setting his ears to listen. What can be keeping his comrade, who promised so soon to be back? "Promises are like pie-crust," says Cris in soliloquy; "Old Hawk aint keeping his, and I guess aint goin' to. I heard they war to have a big dine up there the night. So I suppose the colonel's axed him in for a glass o' his whiskey punch. Hawk's jest the one to take it--a dozen, if they insist. Well, there's no reason I should wait supper any longer. I'm 'most famished as it is. Besides, that bird's gettin' burnt." Rising up from the log, he takes the turkey off the spit, and carries it inside the tent. Then dishing, he sets it upon the table; the dish a large platter of split wood rudely whittled into oblong oval shape, the table a stump with top horizontally hewn, over which the tent has been erected. Placing a "pone" of corn-bread, and some salt alongside, he sits down; though not yet to commence eating. As certainly his comrade should now soon be back, he will give him ten minutes' grace. The position is agreeable, at the same time having its drawbacks. The odour pervading the tent is delicious; still there is the sense of taste to be satisfied, and that of smell but provokes it. The savoury aroma of the roast turkey is keenly appetising, and Cris can't hold out much longer. Time passes, and no sign of Hawkins returning. Tucker's position becomes intolerable; the bird is getting cold, its juices drying up, the repast will be spoilt. Besides, his comrade has not kept faith with him. In all probability he has eaten supper at the house, and at that moment is enjoying a jorum of whisky punch, quite forgetful of him. Tucker. Cris can stand it no longer; and, drawing out his knife, he takes the turkey by the leg, and cuts a large slice from its breast. This eaten, another slice of breast is severed and swallowed. Then a wing is carved off, and lastly a leg, which he polishes to the smoothness of a drumstick.-- The young hunter, now no longer ravenous, proceeds more leisurely, and completes his repast by tranquilly chewing up the gizzard, and after it the liver--the last a tit-bit upon the prairies, as in a Strasburg _pate_. Washing all down with a gourd of whisky and water, he lights his pipe; and, seated by the mangled remains of the gobbler, commences smoking. For a time the inhaled nicotine holds him tranquil; though not without wondering why his comrade is so long in patting in an appearance. When over two hours have elapsed, his wonder becomes changed to anxiety. Not strange it should, recalling the reason why he has been left alone. This increasing to keen apprehension, he can no longer stay within the tent. He will go up to the house, and find out what is detaining Hawkins. Donning his skin cap, and stepping out into the open air, he starts off towards the mission-building. Less than ten minutes' walking brings him to its walls, by their main front entrance. There he pauses, surprised at the stillness surrounding the place. It is profound, unnatural. For some moments he remains in front of the massive pile, looking at it, and listening. Still no sound, within or without. True, it is time for the inmates to be a-bed. But if so, where is Hawkins? He may be drinking, but surely not sleeping within! In any case, Cris deems it his duty to look him up; and with this intent determines to enter. He is not on terms of social equality with those who occupy the mission; still, under the circumstances, he cannot be considered intruding. He sees that the great door is closed, but the wicket is ajar; presumptive proof of Hawkins being inside. There are no lights in the front windows, but, as Cris knows, those of the dining-room open backward. Hesitating no longer, he steps under the arched portal, passes on through the _saguan_, and once more emerges into moonlight within the _patio_. There, suddenly stopping, he stands aghast. For he beholds a sight that almost causes his hair to crisp up, and raise the cap from his head. Down into the hollow quadrangle--enclosed on every side, except that towards heaven--the moonbeams are falling in full effulgence. By their light he sees forms lying along the pavement in every possible position. They are human bodies--men and boys, among them some whose drapery declares them to be women. They are black, brown, or yellow; but all spotted and spattered with red--with blood! Fresh, but fast freezing in the chill night air, it is already darkened, almost to the hue of ink. The hunter turns faint, sick, as he contemplates this hecatomb of corpses. A spectacle far more fearful than any ever witnessed upon battle-field. There men lie in death from wounds given, as received under the grand, if delusive, idea of glory. Those Cris Tucker sees must have been struck down by the hand of the assassin! For a time he stands gazing upon them, scarce knowing what to do. His first impulse is to turn back, rush out of the courtyard, and away altogether from the place. But a thought--a loyal thought or instinct, stays him. Where is Hawkins? His body may be among the rest--Cris is almost sure it will be found there--and affection for his friend prompts him to seek for it. There may still be breath in it--a spark of departing life, capable of being called back. With this hope, however faint, he commences searching among the corpses. The spectacle, that has sickened, makes his step feeble. He staggers as he passes among the prostrate forms, at times compelled to stride over them. He examines one after another, bending low down to each--lower where they lie in shadow, and it is more difficult to distinguish their features. Going the round of the courtyard, he completes the scrutiny of all. Living or dead, Hawkins is not among them. Nor is there the body of any white man, or woman. The stricken victims are of every age, and both sexes. But all, male as female, are negroes or mulattoes--the slaves of the establishment. Many of them he recognises; knows them to be the house-servants. Where are their masters? Where everybody? What terrible tragedy has occurred to leave such traces behind? The traces of murder--of wholesale slaughter! Who have been the murderers, and where are they now? Where is Hawkins? To the young hunter these self-asked interrogatories occur in quick succession; along with the last a sound reaching his ears which causes him to start, and stand listening acutely for its repetition. It seemed a human voice, as of a man in mortal agony shouting for succour. Faint, as if far off, away at the back of the building. Continuing to listen, Tucker hears it again, this time recognising the voice of Hawkins. He does not stay to conjecture why his comrade should be calling in accents of appeal. That they are so is enough for him to hasten to his aid. Clearly the cry comes from outside; and, soon as assured of this, Tucker turns that way, leaps lightly over the dead bodies, glides on along the saguan, and through the open wicket. Outside he stops, and again listens, waiting for the voice to direct him, which it does. As before he hears it, shouting for help, now sure it is Hawkins who calls. And sure, also, that the cries come from the eastern side of the building. Towards this Tucker rushes, around the angle of the wall, breaking through the bushes like a chased bear. Nor does he again stop till he is under a window, from which the shouts appear to proceed. Looking up he sees a face, with cheeks pressing distractedly against the bars; at the same time hearing himself hailed in a familiar voice. "Is't you, Cris Tucker? Thank the Almighty it is!" "Sartin it's me," Hawkins. "What does it all mean?" "Mean? That's more'n I can tell; or any o' us inside here; though there's big ends o' a dozen. We're shut up, locked in, as ye see. Who's done it you ought to know, bein' outside. Han't you seen the Indians?" "I've seen no Indians; but their work I take it. There's a ugly sight round t'other side." "What sight, Oris? Never mind--don't stay to talk. Go back, and get something to break open the door of this room. Quick, comrade, quick!" Without stayin' for further exchange of speech, the young hunter hurries back into the _patio_ as rapidly as he had quitted it; and laying hold of a heavy beam, brings it like a battering-ram, against the dining-room door. Massive as this is, and strongly hung upon its hinges, it yields to his strength. When at length laid open, and those inside released, they look upon a spectacle that sends a thrill of horror through their hearts. In the courtyard lie ten corpses, all told. True they are but the dead bodies of slaves--to some beholding them scarce accounted as human beings. Though pitied, they are passed over without delay; the thoughts, as the glances, of their masters going beyond, in keen apprehension for the fate of those nearer and dearer. Escaped from their imprisonment, they rush to and fro, like maniacs let out of a madhouse. Giving to the dead bodies only a passing glance, then going on in fear of finding others by which they will surely stay; all the time talking, interrogating, wildly gesticulating, now questioning Oris Tucker, now one another; in the confusion of voices, some heard inquiring for their wives, some their sisters or sweethearts, all with like eagerness; hopefully believing their dear ones still alive, or despairingly thinking them dead; fearing they may find them with gashed throats and bleeding breasts, like those lying along the flagstones at their feet. The spectacle before their eyes, appalling though it be, is nought to that conjured up in their apprehensions. What they see may be but a forecast, a faint symbol, of what ere long they may be compelled to look upon. And amid the many voices shouting for wife, sister, or sweetheart, none so loud, or sad, as that of Colonel Armstrong calling for his daughters. CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR. RIDING DOUBLE. With Colonel Armstrong's voice in tone of heartrending anguish, goes up that of Dupre calling the names "Helen! Jessie!" Neither gets response. They on whom they call cannot hear. They are too far off; though nearer, it would be all the same; for both are at the moment hooded like hawks. The serapes thrown over their heads are still on them, corded around their necks, so closely as to hinder hearing, almost stifle their breathing. Since their seizure nearly an hour has elapsed, and they are scarce yet recovered from the first shock of surprise, so terrible as to have stupified them. No wonder! What they saw before being blinded, with the rough treatment received, were enough to deprive them of their senses. From the chaos of thought, as from a dread dream, both are now gradually recovering. But, alas! only to reflect on new fears--on the dark future before them. Captive to such captors--red ruthless savages, whose naked arms, already around, have held them in brawny embrace--carried away from home, from all they hold dear, into a captivity seeming hopeless as horrid--to the western woman especially repulsive, by songs sung over her cradle, and tales told throughout her years of childhood--tales of Indian atrocity. The memory of these now recurring, with the reality itself, not strange that for a time their thoughts, as their senses, are almost paralysed. Slowly they awake to a consciousness of their situation. They remember what occurred at the moment of their being made captive; how in the clear moonlight they stood face to face with Fernand, listened to his impertinent speeches, saw the savages surrounding them; then, suddenly blinded and seeing no more, felt themselves seized, lifted from their feet, carried off, hoisted a little higher, set upon the backs of horses, and there tied, each to a man already mounted. All these incidents they remember, as one recalls the fleeting phantasmagoria of a dream. But that they were real, and not fanciful, they now too surely know; for the hoods are over their heads, the horses underneath; and the savages to whom they were strapped still there, their bodies in repulsive contact with their own! That there are only two men, and as many horses, can be told by the hoof-strokes rebounding from the turf; the same sounds proclaiming it a forest path through thick timber, at intervals emerging into open ground, and again entering among trees. For over an hour this continues; during all the while not a word being exchanged between the two horsemen, or if so, not heard by their captives. Possibly they may communicate with one another by signs or whispers; as for most part the horses have been abreast, going in single file only where the path is narrow. At length a halt; of such continuance, as to make the captives suppose they have arrived at some place where they are to pass the remainder of the night. Or it may be but an obstruction; this probable from their hearing a sound, easily understood--the ripple of running water. They have arrived upon the bank of a river. The San Saba, of course; it cannot be any other. Whether or not, 'tis the same to them. On the banks of the San Saba they are now no safer, than if it were the remotest stream in all the territory of Texas. Whatever be the river whose waters they can hear coursing past, their guards, now halted upon its bank, have drawn their horses' heads together, and carry on a conversation. It seems in a strange tongue; but of this the captives cannot be sure, for it is in low tone--almost a whisper--the words indistinguishable amid the rush of the river's current. If heard, it is not likely they would understand. The two men are Indians, and will talk in the Indian tongue. For this same reason they need have no fear of freely conversing with one another, since the savages will be equally unable to comprehend what they say. To Helen this thought first presents itself; soon as it does, leading her to call, though timidly and in subdued tone, "Jess!" She is answered in the same way, Jessie saying, "Helen, I hear you." "I only wanted to say a word to cheer you. Have courage. Keep up your heart. It looks dark now; but something may may arise up to save us." CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE. TIRED TRAVELLERS. The lower crossing of the San Saba, so frequently referred to, calls for topographical description. At this point the stream, several hundred yards wide, courses in smooth, tranquil current, between banks wooded to the water's edge. The trees are chiefly cottonwoods, with oak, elm, tulip, wild China, and pecan interspersed; also the _magnolia grandiflora_; in short, such a forest as may be seen in many parts of the Southern States. On both sides of the river, and for some distance up and down, this timbered tract is close and continuous, extending nearly a mile back from the banks; where its selvedge of thinner growth becomes broken into glades, some of them resembling flower gardens, others dense thickets of the _arundo gigantea_, in the language of the country, "cane-brakes." Beyond this, the bottom-land is open meadow, a sea of green waving grass--the _gramma_ of the Mexicans--which, without tree or bush, sweeps in to the base of the bluffs. On each side of the crossing the river is approached by a path, or rather an avenue-like opening in the timber, which shows signs of having been felled; doubtless, done by the former proprietors of the mission, or more like, the soldiers who served its garrison; a road made for military purposes, running between the _presidio_ itself and the town of San Antonio de Bejar. Though again partially overgrown, it is sufficiently clear to permit the passage of wheeled vehicles, having been kept open by roving wild horses, with occasionally some that are tamed and ridden--by Indians on raid. On its northern side the river is approached by two distinct trails, which unite before entering the wooded tract--their point of union being just at its edge. One is the main road coming from the Colorado; the other only an Indian trace, leading direct to the bluffs and the high land above them. It was by the former that Colonel Armstrong's train came up the valley, while the latter was the route taken by Hawkins and Tucker in their bootless excursion after buffalo. On the same evening, when the hunters, returning from their unsuccessful search, repassed the ford, only at a later hour, a party of horsemen is seen approaching it--not by the transverse trace, but the main up-river road. In all there are five of them; four upon horseback, the fifth riding a mule. It is the same party we have seen crossing the Sabine-- Clancy and his comrades--the dog still attached to it, the ex-jailer added. They are travelling in haste--have been ever since entering the territory of Texas. Evidence of this in their steeds showing jaded, themselves fatigued. Further proof of it in the fact of their being now close to the San Saba ford, within less than a week after Armstrong's party passing over, while more than two behind it at starting from the Sabine. There has been nothing to delay them along the route--no difficulty in finding it. The wheels of the loaded waggons, denting deep in the turf, have left a trail, which Woodley for one could take up on the darkest hour of the darkest night that ever shadowed a Texan prairie. It is night now, about two hours after sundown, as coming up the river road they enter the timber, and approach the crossing place. When within about fifty yards of the ford at a spot where the path widens, they pull up, Woodley and Clancy riding a little apart from the others, as if to hold consultation whether they shall proceed across the stream, or stay where they are for the night. Clancy wishes to go forward, but Woodley objects, urging fatigue, and saying:-- "It can't make much diff'rence now, whether we git up thar the night, or take it leezyurly in the cool o' the mornin'. Since you say ye don't intend showin' yourself 'bout the mission buildin', it'll be all the better makin' halt hyar. We kin steal nearer; an' seelect a campin' place at the skreek o' day jest afore sun-up. Arter thet me an' Ned 'll enter the settlement, an' see how things stand." "Perhaps you're right," responds Clancy, "If you think it better for us to halt here, I shan't object; though I've an idea we ought to go on. It may appear very absurd to you, Sime, but there's something on my mind--a sort of foreboding." "Forebodin' o' what?" "In truth I can't tell what or why. Yet I can't get it out of my head that there's some danger hanging over--" He interrupts himself, holding back the name--Helen Armstrong. For it is over her he fancies danger may be impending. No new fancy either; but one that has been afflicting him all along, and urging him so impatiently onward. Not that he has learnt anything new since leaving the Sabine. On its banks the ex-jailer discharged his conscience in full, by confessing all he could. At most not much; since his late associates, seeing the foolish fellow he was, had never made him sharer in their greatest secret. Still he had heard and reported enough to give Clancy good reason for uneasiness. "I kin guess who you're alludin' to," rejoins Woodley, without waiting for the other to finish, "an' ef so, yur forebodin', as ye call it, air only a foolish notion, an' nothin' more. Take Sime Woodley's word for it, ye'll find things up the river all right." "I hope so." "Ye may be sure o't. Kalklate, ye don't know Planter Armstrong 's well's I do, tho' I admit ye may hev a better knowledge o' one that bears the name. As for the ole kurnel hisself, this chile's kampayned wi' him in the Cherokee wars, an' kin say for sartin he aint a-goin' to sleep 'ithout keepin' one o' his peepers skinned. Beside, his party air too strong, an' the men composin' it too exparienced, to be tuk by surprise, or attacked by any enemy out on these purayras, whether red Injuns or white pirates. Ef thar air danger it'll come arter they've settled down, an' growed unsurspishus. Then thar mout be a chance o' circumventin' them. But then we'll be thar to purvent it. No fear o' our arrivin' too late. We'll get up to the ole mission long afore noon the morrow, whar ye'll find, what ye've been so long trackin' arter, soun' an' safe. Trust Sime Woodley for that." The comforting words tranquillise Clancy's fears, at the same time checking his impatience. Still is he reluctant to stay, and shows it by his answer. "Sime, I'd rather we went on." "Wal, ef ye so weesh it, on let's go. Your the chief of this party an' kin command. For myself I'm only thinkin' or them poor, tired critters." The hunter points to the horses, that for the last hour have been dragging their limbs along like bees honey-laden. "To say nothin' o' ourselves," he adds, "though for my part I'm riddy to keep on to the Rio Grand, if you insist on goin' thar." Notwithstanding his professed willingness, there is something in the tone of Sime's speech which contradicts it--just a _soupcon_ of vexation. Perceiving it, Clancy makes rejoinder with the delicacy becoming a gentleman. Though against his will and better judgment, his habitual belief in, and reliance on Woodley's wisdom, puts an end to his opposition; and in fine yielding, he says:-- "Very well; we shall stay. After all, it can't make much difference. A truce to my presentiments. I've often had such before, that came to nothing. Hoping it may be the same now, we'll spend our night this side the river." "All right," responds the backwoodsman. "An' since it's decided we're to stay, I see no reezun why we shedn't make ourselves as comfortable as may be unner the circumstances. As it so chances, I know this hyar San Saba bottom 'most as well as that o' our ole Massissip. An' ef my mem'ry don't mistake, thar's a spot not far from hyar that'll jest suit for us to camp in. Foller me; I'll find it." Saying this, he kicks his heels against the ribs of his horse, and compels the tired steed once more into reluctant motion, the rest riding after in silence. CHAPTER FIFTY SIX. SPECTRAL EQUESTRIANS. But a short distance from where the travellers made stop, a side trace leads to the left, parallel to the direction of the river. Into this Woodley strikes, conducting the others. It is so narrow they cannot go abreast, but in single file. After proceeding thus for some fifty yards, they reach a spot where the path widens, debouching upon an open space--a sort of terrace that overhangs the channel of the stream, separated from it by a fringe of low trees and bushes. Pointing to it, Sime says:-- "This chile hev slep on that spread o' grass, some'at like six yeern ago, wi' nothin' to disturb his rest 'ceptin the skeeters. Them same seems nasty bad now. Let's hope we'll git through the night 'ithout bein' clar eat up by 'em. An', talkin' o' eatin', I reckin we'll all be the better o' a bit supper. Arter thet we kin squat down an' surrender to Morpheus." The meal suggested is speedily prepared, and, soon as despatched, the "squatting" follows. In less than twenty minutes after forsaking the saddle, all are astretch along the ground, their horses "hitched" to trees, themselves seemingly buried in slumber--bound in its oblivious embrace. There is one, however, still awake--Clancy. He has slept but little any night since entering the territory of! Texas. On this he sleeps not at all--never closes eye--cannot. On the contrary, he turns restlessly on his grassy couch, fairly writhing with the presentiment he has spoken of, still upon him, and not to be cast off. There are those who believe in dreams, in the reality of visions that appear to the slumbering senses. To Clancy's, awake, on this night, there seems a horrid realism, almost a certainty, of some dread danger. And too certain it is. If endowed with the faculty of clairvoyance, he would know it to be so--would witness a series of incidents at that moment occurring up the river--scarce ten miles from the spot where he is lying--scenes that would cause him to start suddenly to his feet, rush for his horse, and ride off, calling upon his companions to follow. Then, plunging into the river without fear of the ford, he would gallop on towards the San Saba mission, as if the house were in names, and he only had the power to extinguish them. Not gifted with second-sight, he does not perceive the tragedy there being enacted. He is only impressed with a prescience of some evil, which keeps him wide awake, while the others around are asleep; soundly, as he can tell by their snoring. Woodley alone sleeps lightly; the hunter habituated, as he himself phrases it, "allers to do the possum bizness, wi' one eye open." He has heard Clancy's repeated shiftings and turnings, coupled with involuntary exclamations, as of a man murmuring in his dreams. One of these, louder than the rest, at length startling, causes Woodley to enquire what his comrade wants; and what is the matter with him. "Oh, nothing," replies Clancy; "only that I can't sleep--that's all." "Can't sleep! Wharfore can't ye? Sure ye oughter be able by this time. Ye've had furteeg enuf to put you in the way o' slumberin' soun' as a hummin' top." "I can't to-night, Sime." "Preehaps ye've swallered somethin', as don't sit well on your stummuk! Or, it may be, the klimat o' this hyar destrict. Sartin it do feel a leetle dampish, 'count o' the river fog; tho', as a general thing, the San Sabre bottom air 'counted one o' the healthiest spots in Texas. S'pose ye take a pull out o' this ole gourd o' myen. It's the best Monongaheely, an' for a seedimentary o' the narves thar ain't it's eequal to be foun' in any drug-shop. I'll bet my bottom dollar on thet. Take a suck, Charley, and see what it'll do for ye." "It would have no effect. I know it wouldn't. It isn't nervousness that keeps me awake--something quite different." "Oh!" grunts the old hunter, in a tone that tells of comprehension. "Something quite diff'rent? I reck'n I kin guess what thet somethin' air--the same as keeps other young fellurs awake--thinkin' o' thar sweethearts. Once't in the arms o' Morpheous, ye'll forgit all about your gurl. Foller my deevice; put some o' this physic inside yur skin, an' you'll be asleep in the shakin' o' a goat's tail." The dialogue comes to a close by Clancy taking the prescribed physic. After which he wraps his blanket around him, and once more essays to sleep. As before, he is unsuccessful. Although for a while tranquil and courting slumber, it will not come. He again tosses about; and at length rises to his feet, his hound starting up at the same time. Woodley, once more awakened, perceives that the potion has failed of effect, and counsels his trying it again. "No," objects Clancy; "'tis no use. The strongest soporific in the world wouldn't give me sleep this night. I tell you, Sime, I have a fear upon me." "Fear o' what?" "_That we'll be too late_." The last words, spoken solemnly, tell of apprehension keenly felt-- whether false, or prophetic. "That air's all nonsense," rejoins Woodley, wishing to reason his comrade out of what he deems an idle fancy. "The height o' nonsense. Wheesh!" The final exclamation, uttered in an altered tone, is accompanied by a start--the hunter suddenly raising his head from the saddle on which it rests. Nor has the act any relation to his previous speeches. It comes from his hearing a sound, or fancying he hears one. At the same instant, the hound pricks up its ears, giving utterance to a low growl. "What is't, I wonder?" interrogates Woodley, in a whisper, placing himself in a kneeling posture, his eyes sharply set upon the dog. Again the animal jerks its ears, growling as before. "Take clutch on the critter, Charley! Don't let it gie tongue." Clancy lays hold of the hound, and draws it against his knees, by speech and gesture admonishing it to remain silent. The well-trained animal sees what is wanted; and, crouching down by its master's feet, ceases making demonstration. Meanwhile Woodley has laid himself flat along the earth, with ear close to the turf. There is a sound, sure enough; though not what he supposed he had heard just before. That was like a human voice--some one laughing a long way off. It might be the "too-who-ha" of the owl, or the bark of a prairie wolf. The noise now reaching his ears is less ambiguous, and he has no difficulty in determining its character. It is that of water violently agitated--churned, as by the hooves of horses. Clancy, standing erect, hears it, too. The backwoodsman does not remain much longer prostrate; only a second to assure himself whence the sound proceeds. It is from the ford. The dog looked that way, on first starting up; and still keeps sniffing in the same direction. Woodley is now on his feet, and the two men standing close together, intently listen. They have no need to listen long; for their eyes are above the tops of the bushes that border the river's bank, and they see what is disturbing the water. Two horses are crossing the stream. They have just got clear of the timber's shadow on the opposite side, and are making towards mid-water. Clancy and Woodley, viewing them from higher ground, can perceive their forms, in _silhouette_, against the shining surface. Nor have they any difficulty in making out that they are mounted. What puzzles them is the manner. Their riders do not appear to be anything human! The horses have the true equine outline; but they upon their backs seem monsters, not men; their bodies of unnatural breadth, each with two heads rising above it! There is a haze overhanging the river, as gauze thrown over a piece of silver plate. It is that white filmy mist which enlarges objects beyond their natural size, producing the mystery of _mirage_. By its magnifying effect the horses, as their riders, appear of gigantic dimensions; the former seeming Mastodons, the latter Titans bestriding them! Both appear beings not of Earth, but creatures of some weird wonder-world--existences not known to our planet, or only in ages past! CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN. PLANNING A CAPTURE. Speechless with surprise, the two men stand gazing at the odd apparition; with something more than surprise, a supernatural feeling, not unmingled with fear. Such strange unearthly sight were enough to beget this in the stoutest hearts; and, though none stouter than theirs, for a time both are awed by it. Only so long as the spectral equestrians were within the shadow of the trees on the opposite side. But soon as arriving at mid-stream the mystery is at an end; like most others, simple when understood. Their forms, outlined against the moonlit surface of the water, show a very natural phenomenon--two horses carrying double. Woodley is the first to announce it, though Clancy has made the discovery at the same instant of time. "Injuns!" says the backwoodsman, speaking in a whisper. "Two astride o' each critter. Injuns, for sure. See the feathers stickin' up out o' their skulls! Them on the krupper look like squaws; though that's kewrous too. Out on these Texas parayras the Injun weemen hez generally a hoss to theirselves, an' kin ride 'most as well as the men. What seem queerier still is thar bein' only two kupple; but maybe there's more comin' on ahint. An' yet thar don't appear to be. I don't see stime o' anythin' on tother side the river. Kin you?" "No. I think there's but the two. They'd be looking back if there were others behind. What ought we to do with them?" "What every white man oughter do meetin' Injuns out hyar--gie 'em a wide berth: that's the best way." "It may not in this case; I don't think it is." "Why?" "On my word, I scarce know. And yet I have an idea we ought to have a word with them. Likely they've been up to the settlement and will be able to tell us something of things there. As you know, Sime, I'm anxious to hear about--" "I know all that. Wal, ef you're so inclined, let it be as ye say. We kin eezy stop 'em, an' hear what they've got to say for theirselves. By good luck, we've the devantage o' 'em. They're bound to kum 'long the big trail. Tharfor, ef we throw ourselves on it, we'll intercep' an' take 'em as in a trap. Jess afore we turned in hyar, I noticed a spot whar we kin ambuskade." "Let us do so; but what about these?" Clancy points to the other three, still seemingly asleep. "Hadn't we better awake them? At all events, Heywood: we may need him." "For that matter, no. Thar's but two buck Injuns. The does wont count for much in a skrimmage. Ef they show thar teeth I reckin we two air good for uglier odds than that. Howsomever, it'll be no harm to hev Ned. We kin roust him up, lettin' Harkness an' the mulattar lie. Ye'es; on second thinkin' it'll be as well to hev him along. Ned! Ned!" The summons is not spoken aloud, but in a whisper, Woodley stooping down till his lips touch Heywood's ear. The young hunter hearing him, starts, then sits up, and finally gets upon his feet, rubbing his eyes while erecting himself. He sees at once why he has been awakened. A glance cast upon the river shows him the strangely ridden horses; still visible though just entering the tree-shadow on its nether bank. In a few hurried words Woodley makes known their intention; and for some seconds the three stand in consultation, all having hold of their rifles. They do not deem it necessary to rouse either the ex-jailer or Jupiter. It is not advisable, in view of the time that would be wasted. Besides, any noise, now, might reach the ears of the Indians, who, if alarmed, could still retreat to the opposite side, and so escape. Woodley, at first indifferent about their capture, has now entered into the spirit of it. It is just possible some information may be thus obtained, of service to their future designs. At all events, there can be no harm in knowing why the redskins are travelling at such an untimely hour. "As a gen'ral rule," he says, "Tair best let Injuns go thar own way when thar's a big crowd thegitter. When thar aint, as it chances hyar, it may be wisest to hev a leetle palaver wi' them. They're putty sure to a been arter some diviltry anyhow. 'S like 's not this lot's been a pilferin' somethin' from the new settlement, and air in the act o' toatin' off thar plunder. Ef arter gruppin' 'em, we find it aint so, we kin let go again, an' no dammidge done. But first, let's examine 'em, an' see." "Our horses?" suggests Heywood, "oughtn't we to take them along?" "No need," answers Woodley. "Contrarywise, they'd only hamper us. If the redskins make to rush past, we kin eezy shoot down thar animals, an' so stop 'em. Wi' thar squaws along, they ain't like to make any resistance. Besides, arter all, they may be some sort that's friendly to the whites. Ef so, 'twould be a pity to kill the critters. We kin capter 'em without sheddin' thar blood." "Not a drop of it," enjoins Clancy, in a tone of authority. "No, comrades. I've entered Texas to spill blood, but not that of the innocent--not that of Indians. When it comes to killing I shall see before me--. No matter; you know whom I mean." "I guess we do," answers Woodley. "We both o' us understand your feelins, Charley Clancy; ay, an' respect 'em. But let's look sharp. Whilst we stan' palaverin the Injuns may slip past. They've arready reech'd the bank, an'--Quick, kum along!" The three are about starting off, when a fourth figure appears standing erect. It is Jupiter. A life of long suffering has made the mulatto a light sleeper, and he has been awake all the time they were talking. Though they spoke only in whispers, he has heard enough to suspect something about to be done, in which there may be danger to Clancy. The slave, now free, would lay down his life for the man who has manumitted him. Coming up, he requests to be taken along, and permitted to share their exploit, however perilous. As there can be no great objection, his request is granted, and he is joined to the party. But this necessitates a pause, for something to be considered. What is to be done with the ex-jailer? Though not strictly treated as a prisoner, still all along they have been keeping him under surveillance. Certainly, there was something strange in his making back for the States, in view of what he might there expect to meet for his misdemeanour; and, considering this, they have never been sure whether he may not still be in league with the outlaws, and prove twice traitor. Now that they are approaching the spot where events may be expected, more than ever is it thought necessary to keep an eye on him. It will not do to leave him alone, with their horses. What then? While thus hesitating, Woodley cuts the Gordian knot by stepping straight to where Harkness lies, grasping the collar of his coat, and rudely arousing him out of his slumber, by a jerk that brings him erect upon his feet. Then, without waiting word of remonstrance from the astonished man, Sime hisses into his ear:-- "Kum along, Joe Harkness! Keep close arter us, an' don't ask any questyuns. Thar, Jupe; you take charge o' him!" At this, he gives Harkness a shove which sends him staggering into the arms of the mulatto. The latter, drawing a long stiletto-like knife, brandishes it before the ex-jailer's eyes, as he does so, saying: "Mass Harkness; keep on afore me; I foller. If you try leave the track look-out. This blade sure go 'tween your back ribs." The shining steel, with the sheen of Jupiter's teeth set in stern determination, is enough to hold Harkness honest, whatever his intent. He makes no resistance, but, trembling, turns along the path. Once out of the glade, they fall into single file, the narrow trace making this necessary; Woodley in the lead; Clancy second, holding his hound in leash; Heywood third; Harkness fourth; Jupiter with bared knife-blade bringing up the rear. Never marched troop having behind it a more inexorable file-closer, or one more determined on doing his duty. CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT. ACROSS THE FORD. No need to tell who are the strange equestrians seen coming across the river; nor to say, that those on the croup are not Indian women, but white ones--captives. The reader already knows they are Helen and Jessie Armstrong. Had Charles Clancy or Sime Woodley but suspected this at the time, they would not have waited for Heywood, or stood dallying about the duplicity of Harkness. Instead, they would have rushed right on to the river, caring little what chances might be against them. Having no suspicion of its being ought save two travelling redskins, accompanied by their squaws, they acted otherwise. The captives themselves know they are not in charge of Indians. After hearing that horrid laughter they are no longer in doubt. It came from the throats of white men: for only such could have understood the speeches that called it forth. This discovery affords them no gratification, but the opposite. Instead of feeling safer in the custody of civilised men, the thought of it but intensifies their fears. From the red savage, _pur sang_, they might look for some compassion; from the white one they need not expect a spark of it. And neither does; both have alike lost heart and sunk into deepest dejection. Never crossed Acheron two spirits more despairing--less hopeful of happiness beyond. They are silent now. To exchange speech would only be to tempt a fresh peal of that diabolical laughter yet ringing in their ears. Therefore, they do not speak a word--have not since, nor have their captors. They, too, remain mute, for to converse, and be heard, would necessitate shouting. The horses are now wading knee-deep, and the water, in continuous agitation, makes a tumultuous noise; its cold drops dashed back, clouting against the blankets in which the forms of the captives are enfolded. Though silent, these are busy with conjectures. Each has her own about the man who is beside her. Jessie thinks she is sharing the saddle with the traitor, Fernand. She trembles at recalling his glances from time to time cast upon her--ill-understood then, too well now. And now in his power, soon to be in his arms! Oh, heavens--it is horror.-- Something like this she exclaims, the wild words wrung from her in her anguish. They are drowned by the surging noise. Almost at the same instant, Helen gives out an ejaculation. She, too, is tortured with a terrible suspicion about him whose body touches her own. She suspects him to be one worse than traitor; is almost sure he is an assassin! If so, what will be her fate? Reflecting on it, no wonder she cries out in agony, appealing to heaven--to God! Suddenly there is silence, the commotion in the water having ceased. The hoofs strike upon soft sand, and soon after with firmer rebound from the bank. For a length or two the horses strain upward; and again on level ground are halted, side by side and close together. The man who has charge of Helen, speaking to the other, says:-- "You'd better go ahead, Bill. I aint sure about the bye-path to the big tree. I've forgotten where it strikes off. You know, don't you?" "Yes, lootenant; I guess I kin find where it forks." No thought of Indians now--nor with Jessie any longer a fear of Fernand. By his speech, the man addressed as Bill cannot be the half-blood. It is something almost to reassure her. But for Helen--the other voice! Though speaking in undertone, and as if with some attempt at disguise, she is sure of having heard it before; then with distrust, as now with loathing. She hears it again, commanding:--"Lead on!" Bill does not instantly obey, but says in rejoinder:-- "Skuse me, lootenant, but it seems a useless thing our goin' up to the oak. I know the Cap' sayed we were to wait for them under it. Why cant we just as well stay heer? 'Taint like they'll be long now. They wont dally a minute, I know, after they've clutched the shiners, an' I guess they got 'em most as soon as we'd secured these pair o' petticoats. Besides they'll come quicker than we've done, seeing as they're more like to be pursooed. It's a ugly bit o' track 'tween here an' the big tree, both sides thorny bramble that'll tear the duds off our backs, to say nothin' o' the skin from our faces. In my opinion we oughter stay where we air till the rest jeins us." "No," responds the lieutenant, in tone more authoritative, "We mustn't remain here. Besides, we cant tell what may have happened to them. Suppose they have to fight for it, and get forced to take the upper crossing. In that case--" The speaker makes pause, as if perceiving a dilemma. "In that case," interpolates the unwilling Bill, "we'd best not stop heer at all, but put straight for head-quarters on the creek. How d'ye incline to that way of it?" "Something in what you say," answers the lieutenant. Then adding, after a pause, "It isn't likely they'll meet any obstruction. The half-breed Indian said he had arranged everything clear as clock-work. They're safe sure to come this way, and 'twont do for us to go on without them. Besides, there's a reason you appear not to think of. Neither you nor I know the trail across the upper plain. We might get strayed there, and if so, we'd better be in hell?" After the profane utterance succeeds a short interval of silence, both men apparently cogitating. The lieutenant is the first to resume. "Bosley," he says, speaking in a sage tone, and for the first time addressing the subordinate by his family name. "On the prairies, as elsewhere, one should always be true to a trust, and keep it when one can. If there were time, I could tell you a curious story of one who tried but couldn't. It's generally the wisest way, and I think it's that for us now. We might make a mess of it by changing from the programme understood--which was for us to wait under the oak. Besides I've got a reason of my own for being there a bit--something you can't understand, and don't need telling about. And time's precious too; so spin ahead, and find the path." "All right," rejoins the other, in a tone of assumed resignation. "Stayin' or goin's jest the same to me. For that matter I might like the first way best. I kin tell ye I'm precious tired toatin this burden at my back, beauty though she be; an' by remainin' heer I'll get the sooner relieved. When Cap' comes he'll be wantin' to take her off my hands; to the which I'll make him welcome as the flowers o' May." With his poetical wind-up, the reluctant robber sets his horse in motion, and leads on. Not far along the main road. When a few yards from the ford, he faces towards a trail on his left, which under the shadow is with difficulty discernible. For all this, he strikes into it with the confidence of one well acquainted with the way. Along it they advance between thick standing trees, the path arcaded over by leafy branches appearing as dark as a tunnel. As the horses move on, the boughs, bent forward by their breasts, swish back in rebound, striking against the legs of their riders; while higher up the hanging _llianas_, many of them beset with spines, threaten to tear the skin from their faces. Fortunately for the captives, theirs are protected by the close-woven serapes. Though little care they now: thorns lacerating their cheeks were but trivial pain, compared to the torture in their souls. They utter no complaint, neither speaking a word. Despair has stricken them dumb; for, moving along that darksome path, they feel as martyrs being conducted to stake or scaffold. CHAPTER FIFTY NINE. A FOILED AMBUSCADE. Almost at the same instant the double-mounted steeds are turning off the main road, Woodley and those with him enter upon it; only at a point further away from the ford. Delayed, first in considering what should be done with Harkness, and afterwards by the necessity of going slowly, as well as noiselessly along the narrow trace, they have arrived upon the road's edge just in time to be too late. As yet they are not aware of this, though Woodley has his apprehensions; these becoming convictions, after he has stood for a time listening, and hears no sound, save that of the water, which comes in hoarse hiss between the trees, almost deafening the ear. For at this point the stream, shallowing, runs in rapid current over a pebbly bed, here and there breaking into crests. Woodley's fear has been, that before he and his companions reach the road, the Indians might get past. If so, the chances of taking them will be diminished perhaps gone altogether. For, on horseback, they would have an advantage over those following afoot; and their capture could only be effected by the most skilful stalking, as such travellers have the habit of looking behind. The question is--Have they passed the place, where it was intended to waylay them? "I don't think they hev," says Woodley, answering it. "They have hardly hed time. Besides 'tain't nat'ral they'd ride strait on, jest arter kimmin' acrosst the river. It's a longish wade, wi' a good deal o' work for the horses. More like they've pulled up on reachin' the bank, an' air thar breathin' the critters a bit." None of the others offering an opinion, he adds-- "Thur's a eezy way to make sure, an' the safest, too. Ef they've good by hyar, they can't yet be very far off. Ridin' as they air they won't think o' proceedin' at a fast pace. Therefore, let's take a scout 'long the road outwards. Ef they're on it, we'll soon sight 'em, or we may konklude they're behind on the bank o' the river. They're bound to pass this way, ef they hain't arready. So we'll eyther overtake, or meet 'em when returnin', or what mout be better'n both, ketch 'em a campin' by the water's edge. In any case our surest way air first to follow up the road. Ef that prove a failure, we kin 'bout face, an' back to the river." "Why need we all go?" asks Heywood. "Supposing the rest of you stay here, while I scout up the road, and see whether they've gone along it." "What ud be the use o' that?" demands Sime. "S'posin' ye did, an' sighted 'em, ye ain't goin' to make thar capture all o' yourself. Look at the time lost whiles ye air trottin' back hyar to tell us. By then, they'd get out into the clear moonlight, whar ther'd be no chance o' our comin' up to them without thar spyin' us. No, Ned: your idee won't do. What do you think, Charley?" "That your plan seems best. You're sure there's no other way for them to pass out from the river?" "This chile don't know o' any, ceptin' this trace we've ourselves kum off o'." "Then, clearly, our best plan is first to try along the road--all together." "Let's on, then!" urges Woodley. "Thar's no time to waste. While we stan' talkin' hyar, them redskins may ride to the jumpin'-off place o' creashun." So saying, the hunter turns face to the right, and goes off at a run, the others moving in like manner behind him. After proceeding some two or three hundred yards, they arrive at a place where the trees, standing apart, leave an open space between. There a saddle-like hollow intersects the road, traversing it from side to side. It is the channel of a rivulet when raining; but now nearly dry, its bed a mortar of soft mud. They had crossed it coming in towards the river, but without taking any notice of it, further than the necessity of guiding their tired steeds to guard against their stumbling. It was then in darkness, the twilight just past, and the moon not risen. Now that she is up in mid heaven, it is flooded by her light, so that the slightest mark in the mud can be clearly distinguished. Running their eyes over its surface, they observe tracks they have not been looking for, and more than they have reason to expect. Signs to cause them surprise, if not actual alarm. Conspicuous are two deep parallel ruts, which they know have been made by the wheels of the emigrant wagons. A shower of rain, since fallen, has not obliterated them; only washed off their sharp angles, having done the same with the tracks of the mule teams between, and those of the half hundred horses ridden alongside, as also the hoof-marks of the horned cattle driven after. It is not any of these that gives them concern. But other tracks more recent, made since the ram--in fact, since the sun lose that same morning--made by horses going towards the river, and with riders on their backs. Over twenty in all, without counting their own; some of them shod, but most without iron on the hoof. To the eyes of Sime Woodley--to Clancy's as well--these facts declare themselves at a single glance; and they only dwell upon further deductions. But not yet. For while scanning the slough they see two sets of horse tracks going in the opposite direction--outward from the river. Shod horses, too; their hoof-prints stamped deep in the mud, as if both had been heavily mounted. This is a matter more immediate. The redskins, riding double, have gone past. If they are to be overtaken, nor a moment must be spent thinking of aught else. Clancy has risen erect, ready to rush on after them. So Heywood and the rest. But not Woodley, who, still stooping over the slough, seems unsatisfied. And soon he makes a remark, which not only restrains the others, but causes an entire change in their intention. "They aint fresh," he says, speaking of the tracks last looked at. "Thet is, they hain't been made 'ithin the hour. Tharfor, it can't be them as hev jest crossed the stream. Take a squint at 'em, Charley." Clancy, thus called upon, lowering his eyes, again looks at the tracks. Not for long. A glance gives him evidence that Woodley is right. The horses which made these outgoing tracks cannot be the same seen coming across. And now, the others being more carefully scrutinised, these same two are discovered among them, with the convexity of the hoof turned towards the river! In all this there is strangeness, though it is not the time to inquire into it. That must be left till later. Their only thought now is, where are the Indians; for they have certainly not come on along the road. "Boys!" says Woodley, "we've been makin' a big roundabout 'ithout gainin' a great deal by it. Sartin them redskins hev stopped at the river, an' thar mean squatting for the remainder o' this night. That'll suit our purpiss to a teetotum. We kin capter 'em in thar camp eezier than on the backs o' thar critters. So, let's go right on an' grup 'em!" With this he turns, and runs back along the road, the others keeping close after. In ten minutes more they are on the river's bank, where it declined to the crossing. They see no Indians there--no human creatures of any kind--nor yet any horses! CHAPTER SIXTY. "THE LIVE-OAK." At a pace necessarily slow, from the narrowness of the path and its numerous obstructions, the painted robbers, with their captives, have continued on; reaching their destination about the time Clancy and his comrades turned back along the ford road. From this they are now not more than three hundred yards distant, halted in the place spoken of as a rendezvous. A singular spot it is--one of those wild forest scenes by which nature oft surprises and delights her straying worshipper. It is a glade of circular shape, with a colossal tree standing in its centre,--a live-oak with trunk full forty feet in girth, and branches spreading like a banyan. Though an evergreen, but little of its own foliage can be seen, only here and there a parcel of leaves at the extremity of a protruding twig; all the rest, great limbs and lesser branches, shrouded under Spanish moss, this in the moonlight showing white as flax. Its depending garlands, stirred by the night breeze, sway to and fro, like ghosts moving in a minuet; when still, appearing as the water of a cataract suddenly frozen in its fall, its spray converted into hoar frost, the jets to gigantic icicles. In their midst towers the supporting stem, thick and black, its bark gnarled and corrugated as the skin of an alligator. This grim Titan of the forest, o'ertopping the other trees like a giant among men, stands alone, as though it had commanded them to keep their distance. And they seem to obey. Nearer than thirty yards to it none grow, nor so much as an underwood. It were easy to fancy it their monarch, and them not daring to intrude upon the domain it has set apart for itself. With the moon now in the zenith, its shadow extends equally on all sides of its huge trunk, darkening half the surface of the glade--the other half in light, forming an illuminated ring around it. There could be no mistaking it for other than the "big tree," referred to in the dialogue between the two robbers; and that they recognise it as such is evident by their action. Soon as sighting it, they head straight towards its stem, and halting, slip down out of their saddles, having undone the cords by which the captives were attached to them. When dismounted, the lieutenant, drawing Bosley a step or two apart, says:-- "You stay here, Bill, and keep your prisoner company. I want a word with mine before our fellows come up, and as it's of a private nature, I'm going to take her to the other side of the tree." The direction is given in tone so low the captives cannot hear it; at the same time authoritatively, to secure Bill's obedience. He has no intention of refusing it. On the contrary, he responds with alacrity:--"All right. I understand." This spoken as if implying consent to some sinister purpose on the part of his superior. Without further words, the lieutenant lays hold of his horse's rein, and leads the animal round to the other side of the live-oak, his captive still in the saddle. Thus separated, the two men are not only out of each other's sight, but beyond the chance of exchanging speech. Between them is the buttressed trunk many yards in breadth, dark and frowning as the battlements of a fortress. Besides, the air is filled with noises, the skirling of tree-crickets, and other sounds of animated nature that disturb the tranquillity of the southern night. They could only communicate with one another by shouting at the highest pitch of their voices. Just now they have no need, and each proceeds to act for himself. Bosley, soon as left alone with his captive, bethinks him what he had best do with her. He knows he must treat her tenderly, even respectfully. He has had commands to this effect from one he dare not disobey. Before starting, his chief gave him instructions, to be carried out or disregarded at peril of his life. He has no intention to disobey them--indeed, no inclination. A stern old sinner, his weakness is not woman--perhaps for this very reason selected for the delicate duty now intrusted to him. Instead of paying court to his fair captive, or presuming to hold speech with her, he only thinks how he can best discharge it to the satisfaction of his superior. No need to keep her any longer on the horse. She must be fatigued; the attitude is irksome, and he may get blamed; for not releasing her from it. Thus reflecting, he flings his arms around her, draws her down, and lays her gently along the earth. Having so disposed of her, he pulls out his pipe, lights it, and commences smoking, apparently without, further thought of the form at his feet. That spoil is not for him. But there is another, upon which he has set his mind. One altogether different from woman. It is Dupre's treasure, of which he is to have his share; and he speculates how much it will come to on partition. He longs to feast his eyes with a sight of the shining silver of which there has been so much talk among the robbers; and grand expectations excited; its value as I usual exaggerated. Pondering upon it, he neither looks at his captive, nor thinks of her. His glances are toward the river ford, which he sees not, but I hears; listening amid the water's monotone for the plunging of horses hoofs. Impatiently, too, as between the puffs from his pipe, he ever and anon utters a grunt of discontent at the special duty imposed upon him, which may hinder him from getting his full share of the spoils. Unlike is the behaviour of him on the other side of the oak. He, too, has dismounted his captive, and laid her along the ground. But not to stand idly over. Instead, he leaves her, and walks away from the spot, having attached his horse to the trunk of the tree, by hooking the bridle-rein over a piece of projecting bark. He has no fear that she will make her escape, or attempt it. Before parting he has taken precautions against that, by lashing her limbs together. All this without saying a word--not even giving utterance to an exclamation! In like silence he leaves her, turning his face toward the river, and striking along a trace that conducts to it. Though several hundred yards from the ford, the bank is close by; for the path by which they approached the glade has been parallel to the trend of the stream. The live-oak overlooks it, with only a bordering of bushes between. Through this runs a narrow trace made by wild animals, the forest denizens that frequent the adjacent timber, going down to their drinking place. Parting the branches, that would sweep the plumed tiara from his head, the lieutenant glides along it, not stealthily, but with confidence, and as if familiar with the way. Once through the thicket, he sees the river broad and bright before him: its clear tranquil current in contrast with the dark and stormy passions agitating his own heart. He is not thinking of this, nor is there any sentiment in his soul, as he pauses by the side of the stream. He has sought it for a most prosaic purpose--to wash his face. For this he has brought with him a piece of soap and a rag of cotton cloth, taken out of a haversack carried on the pommel of his saddle. Stepping down the slope, he stoops to perform his ablutions. In that water-mirror many a fierce ugly face has been reflected but never one fiercer or uglier than his, under its garish panoply of paint. Nor is it improved, when this, sponged off shows the skin to be white; on the contrary, the sinister passions that play upon his features would better become the complexion of the savage. Having completed his lavatory task, he throws soap and rag into the river; then, turning, strides back up the bank. At its summit he stops to readjust his plumed head-dress, as he does so, saying in soliloquy:-- "I'll give her a surprise, such as she hasn't had since leaving the States. I'd bet odds she'll be more frightened at my face now, than when she saw it in the old garden. She didn't recognise it then; she will now. And now for her torture, and my triumph: for the revenge I've determined to take. Won't it be sweet!" At the close of his exultant speech, he dives into the dark path, and gliding along it, soon re-enters the glade. He perceives no change, for there has been none. Going on to her from whom he had separated, he again places himself by her recumbent form, and stands gazing upon, gloating over it, like a panther whose prey lies disabled at its feet, to be devoured at leisure. Only an instant stays he in this attitude; then stooping till his head almost touches hers, he hisses into her ear:-- "So, Helen, at length and at last, I have you in my power, at my mercy, sure, safe, as ever cat had mouse! Oh! it is sweet--sweet--sweet!" She has no uncertainty now. The man exclaiming sweet, is he who has caused all her life's bitterness. The voice, no longer disguised, is that of Richard Darke! CHAPTER SIXTY ONE. A RUFFIAN TRIUMPHANT. Wild thoughts has Helen Armstrong, thus apostrophised, with not a word to say in return. She knows it would be idle; but without this, her very indignation holds her dumb--that and despair. For a time he, too, is silent, as if surrendering his soul to delightful exultation. Soon he resumes speech in changed tone, and interrogatively:--"Do you know who's talking to you? Or must I tell you, Nell? You'll excuse familiarity in an old friend, won't you?" Receiving no response, he continues, in the same sneering style: "Yes, an old friend, I say it; one you should well remember, though it's some time since we met, and a good way from here. To assist your recollection, let me recall an incident occurring at our last interview. Perhaps 'twill be enough to name the place and time? Wall, it was under a magnolia, in the State of Mississippi; time ten o'clock of night, moonlight, if I rightly remember, as now. It matters not the day of the month being different, or any other trivial circumstance, so long as the serious ones are so. And they are, thank God for it! Beneath the magnolia I knelt at your feet, under this tree, which is a live-oak, you lie at mine." He pauses, but not expecting reply. The woman, so tortured speaks not; neither stirs she. The only _motion_ visible throughout her frame is the swell and fall of her bosom--tumultuously beating. He who stands, over well knows it is throbbing in pain. But no compassion has he for that; on the contrary, it gives gratification; again drawing from him the exultant exclamation--"Sweet--sweet!" After another interval of silence, he continues, banteringly as before: "So, fair Helen, you perceive how circumstances have changed between us, and I hope you'll have the sense to suit yourself to the change. Beneath the Mississippian tree you denied me: here under the Texan, you'll not be so inexorable--will you?" Still no response. "Well; if you won't vouchsafe an answer, I must be content to go without it; remembering the old saw--`Silence consents.' Perhaps, ere long your tongue will untie itself; when you've got over grieving for him who's gone--your great favourite, Charley Clancy. I take it, you've heard of his death; and possibly a report, that some one killed him. Both stories are true; and, telling you so, I may add, no one knows better than myself; since 'twas I sent the gentleman to kingdom come--Richard Darke." On making the fearful confession, and in boastful emphasis, he bends lower to observe its effect. Not in her face, still covered with the serape, but her form, in which he can perceive a tremor from head to foot. She shudders, and not strange, as she thinks:-- "He murdered _him_. He may intend the same with _me_. I care not now." Again the voice of the self-accused assassin: "You know me now?" She is silent as ever, and once more motionless; the convulsive spasm having passed. Even the beating of her heart seems stilled. Is she dead? Has his fell speech slain her? In reality it would appear so. "Ah, well;" he says, "you won't recognise me? Perhaps you will after seeing my face. Sight is the sharpest of the senses, and the most reliable. You shall no longer be deprived of it. Let me take you to the light." Lifting, he carries her out to where the moonbeams meet the tree's shadow, and there lays her along. Then dropping to his knees, he draws out something that glistens. Two months before he stooped over the prostrate form of her lover, holding a photograph before his eyes--her own portrait. In her's he is about to brandish a knife! One seeing him in this attitude would suppose he intended burying its blade in her breast. Instead, he slits open the serape in front of her face, tossing the severed edges back beyond her cheeks. Her features exposed to the light, show wan and woeful; withal, lovely as ever; piquant in their pale beauty, like those of some rebellious nun hating the hood, discontented with cloister and convent. As she sees him stooping beside, with blade uplifted, she feels sure he designs killing her. But she neither shrinks, nor shudders now. She even wishes him to end her agony with a blow. Were the knife in her own hand, she would herself give it. It is not his intention to harm her that way. Words are the weapons by which he intends torturing her. With these he will lacerate her heart to its core. For he is thinking of the time when he threw himself at her feet, and poured forth his soul in passionate entreaty, only to have his passion spurned, and his pride humiliated. It is her turn to suffer humiliation, and he has determined she shall. Recalling his own, every spark of pity, every pulsation of manhood, is extinguished within him. The cup of his scorned love has become a chalice filled with the passion of vengeance. Sheathing the knife, he says: "I've been longing for a good look at you. Now that I've got it, I should say you're pretty as ever, only paler. That will come right, and the roses return to your cheeks, in this recuperative climate of Texas; especially in the place where I intend taking you. But you hav'nt yet looked at my face. It's just had a washing for your sake. Come give it a glance! I want you to admire it, though it may not be quite so handsome as that of Charley Clancy." She averts her eyes, instinctively closing them. "Oh, well, you won't? Never mind, now. There's a time coming when you'll not be so coy, and when I shan't any longer kneel supplicating you. For know, Nell, you're completely in my power, and I can command, do with you what I will. I don't intend any harm, nor mean to be at all unkind. It'll be your own fault if you force me to harshness. And knowing that, why shouldn't there be truce between us? What's the use of fretting about Clancy? He's dead as a door nail, and your lamenting won't bring him to life again. Better take things as they are, and cheer up. If you've lost one sweetheart, there's another left, who loves you more than ever did he. I do, Helen Armstrong; by God, I do!" The ruffian gives emphasis to his profane assertion, by bending before her, and laying his hand upon his heart. Neither his speech nor attitude moves her. She lies as ever, still, silent. Wrapped in the Mexican blanket--whose pattern of Aztec design bears striking resemblance to the hieroglyphs of Egypt--this closed and corded round her figure, she might easily be mistaken for a mummy, one of Pharaoh's daughters taken out of the sarcophagus in which for centuries she has slept. Alone, the face with its soft white skin, negatives the comparison: though it appears bloodless, too. The eyes tell nought; their lids are closed, the long dark lashes alone showing in crescent curves. With difficulty could one tell whether she be asleep, or dead. Richard Darke does not suppose she is either; and, incensed at receiving no reply, again apostrophises her in tone more spiteful than ever. He has lost control of his temper, and now talks unfeelingly, brutally, profanely. "Damn you!" he cries. "Keep your tongue in your teeth, if you like. Ere long I'll find a way to make it wag; when we're man and wife, as we shall soon be--after a fashion. A good one, too, practised here upon the prairies of Texas. Just the place for a bridal, such as ours is to be. The nuptial knot tied, according to canons of our own choice, needing no sanction of church, or palaver of priests, to make it binding." The ruffian pauses in his ribald speech. Not that he has yet sated his vengeance, for he intends continuing the torture of his victim unable to resist. He has driven the arrow deep into her heart, and leaves it to rankle there. For a time he is silent, as if enjoying his triumph--the expression on his countenance truly satanic. It is seen suddenly to change, apprehension taking its place, succeeded by fear. The cause: sounds coming from the other side of the tree; human voices! Not those of Bosley, or his captive; but of strange men speaking excitedly! Quick parting from his captive, and gliding up to the trunk, he looks cautiously around it. In the shadow he sees several figures clustering around Bosley and his horse; then hears names pronounced, one which chills the blood within his veins--almost freezing it. He stands transfixed; cowering as one detected in an act of crime, and by a strong hand held in the attitude in which caught! Only for a short while thus; then, starting up, he rushes to regain his horse, jerks the bridle from the back, and drags the animal in the direction of his captive. Tossing her upon the pommel of the saddle, he springs into it. But she too has heard names, and now makes herself heard, shouting, "Help--help!" CHAPTER SIXTY TWO. "HELP! HELP!" Baulked in their attempt to ambuscade the supposed Indians, Clancy and his companions thought not of abandoning the search for them. On the contrary, they continued it with renewed eagerness, their interest excited by the unexplained disappearance of the party. And they have succeeded in finding it, for it is they who surround Bosley, having surprised him unsuspectingly puffing away at his pipe. How they made approach, remains to be told. On reaching the river's bank, and there seeing nought of the strange equestrians, their first feeling was profound astonishment. On Woodley's part, also, some relapse to a belief in the supernatural; Heywood, to a certain degree, sharing it. "Odd it air!" mutters Sime, with an ominous shake of the head. "Tarnashun odd! Whar kin they hev been, an' whar hev they goed?" "Maybe back, across the river?" suggests Heywood. "Unpossible. Thar ain't time. They'd be wadin' now, an' we'd see 'em. No. They're on this side yit, if anywhar on airth; the last bein' the doubtful." "Supposin' they've taken the trace we came by? They might while we were up the road." "By the jumpin' Jeehosofat!" exclaims Woodley, startled by this second suggestion, "I never thought o' that. If they hev, thar's our horses, an' things. Let's back to camp quick as legs kin take us." "Stay!" interposes Clancy, whose senses are not confused by any unearthly fancies. "I don't think they could have gone that way. There may be a trail up the bank, and they've taken it. There must be, Sime. I never knew a stream without one." "Ef there be, it's beyont this child's knowledge. I hain't noticed neery one. Still, as you say, sech is usooal, ef only a way for the wild beasts. We kin try for it." "Let us first make sure whether they came out here at all. We didn't watch them quite in to the shore." Saying this, Clancy steps down to the water's edge, the others with him. They have no occasion to stoop. Standing erect they can see hoof-marks, conspicuous, freshly made, filled with water that has fallen from the fetlocks. Turning, they easily trace them up the shelving bank; but not so easily along the road, though certain they continue that way. It is black as pitch beneath the shadowing trees. Withal, Woodley is not to be thus baffled. His skill as a tracker is proverbial among men of his calling; moreover, he is chagrined at their ill success so far; and, but for there being no time, the ex-jailer, its cause, would catch it. He does in an occasional curse, which might be accompanied by a cuff, did he not keep well out of the backwoodsman's way. Dropping on all fours, Sime feels for hoof-prints of the horses that have just crossed, groping in darkness. He can distinguish them from all others by their being wet. And so does, gaining ground, bit by bit, surely if slowly. But Clancy has conceived a more expeditious plan, which he makes known, saying: "No need taking all that trouble, Sime. You may be the best trailer in Texas; and no doubt you are, for a biped: still here's one can beat you." "Who?" asks the backwoodsman, rising erect, "show me the man." "No man," interrupts the other with a smile. "For our purpose something better. There stands your competitor." "You're right; I didn't think o' the dog. He'll do it like a breeze. Put him on, Charley!" "Come, Brasfort!" says Clancy, apostrophising the hound, while lengthening the leash, and setting the animal on the slot. "You tell us where the redskin riders have gone." The intelligent creature well understands what is wanted, and with nose to the ground goes instantly off. But for the check string it would soon outstrip them for its eager action tells it has caught scent of a trail. At first lifting it along the ford road, but only for a few yards. Then abruptly turning left, the dog is about to strike into the timber, when the hand of the master restrains it. The instinct of the animal is no longer needed. They perceive the embouchure of a path, that looks like the entrance to a cave, dark and forbidding as the back door of a jail. But surely a trace leading in among the trees, which the plumed horsemen have taken. After a second or two spent in arranging the order of march, they also take it, Clancy now assuming command. They proceed with caution greater than ever; more slowly too, because along a path, dark, narrow, unknown, shaggy with thorns. They have to grope every inch of their way; all the while in surprise at the Indians having chosen it. There must be a reason, though none of them can think what it is. They are not long left to conjectures. A light before their eyes throws light upon the enigma that has been baffling their brains. There is a break in the timber, where the moonbeams fall free to the earth. Gliding on, silently, with undiminished caution, they arrive on the edge of an opening, and there make stop, but inside the underwood that skirts it. Clancy and Woodley stand side by side, crouchingly; and in this attitude interrogate the ground before them. They see the great tree, with its white shroud above, and deep obscurity beneath--the moonlit ring around it. But at first nothing more, save the fire-flies scintillating in its shadow. After a time, their eyes becoming accustomed to the cross light, they see something besides; a group of figures close in to the tree's trunk, apparently composed of horses and men. They can make out but one of each, but they take it there are two, with two women as well. While scanning the group, they observe a light larger and redder than that emitted by the winged insects. Steadier too; for it moves not from its place. They might not know it to be the coal upon a tobacco pipe, but for the smell of the burning "weed" wafted their way. Sniffing it, Sime says: "That's the lot, sure; tho' thar appears but the half o't. I kin only make out one hoss, an' one man, wi' suthin' astreetch long the groun-- one o' the squaws in coorse. The skunk on his feet air smokin'. Strange they hain't lit a fire! True 'tain't needed 'ceptin' for the cookin' o' thar supper. Maybe they've hed it, an' only kim hyar to get a spell o' sleep. But ef thet's thar idee why shed yon 'un be stannin' up. Wal; I guess, he's doin' sentry bizness, the which air allers needcessary out hyar. How shell we act, Charley? Rush right up an' tackle 'em? That's your way, I take it." "It is--why not?" "Because thar's a better--leastwise a surer to prevent spillin' thar blood. Ye say, you don't want that?" "On no account. If I thought there was a likelihood of it, I'd go straight back to our camp, and leave them alone. They may be harmless creatures, on some innocent errand. If it prove so, we musn't molest them." "Wal; I'm willin', for thet," rejoins Woodley, adding a reservation, "Ef they resist, how are we to help it? We must eyther kill, or be kilt." There is reason in this, and Clancy perceives it. While he is cogitating what course to take, Woodley, resuming speech, points it out. "'Thar's no use for us to harm a hair on thar beads, supposin' them to be innercent. For all thet, we shed make sure, an' take preecaushin in case o' them cuttin' up ugly. It air allers the best way wi redskins." "How do you propose, Sime?" "To surround 'em. Injuns, whether it be bucks or squaws, air slickery as eels. It's good sixty yurds to whar they're squatted yonner. Ef we push strait torst 'em, they'll see us crossin' that bit o' moonshine, an' be inter the timmer like greased lightnin' through the branches o' a gooseberry bush. Tho' out o' thar seddles now, an' some o' 'em streetched 'long the airth, apparently sleepin', they'd be up an' off in the shakin' o' a goat's tail. Tharefor, say I, let's surround 'em." "If you think that the better way," rejoins Clancy, "let us. But it will take time, and call for the greatest caution. To get around the glade, without their seeing us, we must keep well within the timber. Through that underwood it won't be easy. On second thoughts, Sime, I'm inclined to chance it the other way. They can't possibly escape us. If they do take to their horses, they couldn't gallop off beyond reach of our rifles. We can easily shoot their animals down. Besides, remember there's two to get mounted on each. We may as well run right up, and determine the thing at once. I see no difficulty." "Wheesht!" exclaims Woodley, just as Clancy ceases speaking. "What is it? Do you hear anything, Sime?" "Don't you, Charley?" Clancy sets himself to listen, but at first hears nothing, save the usual sounds of the forest, of which it is now full. A spring night, a sultry one, the tree-crickets are in shrillest cry, the owls and goatsuckers joining in the chorus. But in the midst of its continuous strain there is surely a sound, not animal, but human? Surely the voice of a man? After a time, Clancy can distinguish it. One is talking, in tone not loud, but with an accent which appears to be that of boasting or triumph. And the voice is not like an Indian's, while exclamations, at intervals uttered, are certainly such as could only proceed from the lips of a white man. All this is strange, and causes astonishment to the travellers--to Clancy something more. But before he has time to reflect upon, or form conjectures about it, he hears that which compels him to cast aside every restraint of prudence; and springing forward, he signals the others to follow him. They do, without a word; and in less than twenty seconds' time, they have entered the shadowed circle, and surrounded the group at which they have been so long gazing. Only three figures after all! A man, a horse, with what may be woman, but looks less like one living than dead! The man, Indian to all appearance, thus taken by surprise, plucks the pipe from between his teeth. It is struck out of his hand, the sparks flying from it, as Woodley on one side and Heywood the other, clutching, drag him toward the light. When the moon shines on it, they behold a face which both have seen before. Under its coating of charcoal and chalk they might not recognise it, but for the man making himself known by speech, which secures his identification. For he, too, sees a familiar face, that of Simeon Woodley; and under the impression he is himself recognised, mechanically pronounces the backwoodsman's name. "Bill Bosley!" shouts the astonished Sime, "Good Lord! Painted Injun! What's this for? Some devil's doings ye're arter as ye allers war. Explain it, Bill! Tell the truth 'ithout preevaricashun. Ef ye lie, I'll split your thrapple like I wud a water-millyun." "Sime Woodley! Ned Heywood! Joe Harkness!" gaspingly ejaculates the man, as in turn the three faces appear before him. "God Almighty! what's it mean?" "We'll answer that when we've heern _your_ story. Quick, tell it." "I can't; your chokin' me. For God's sake, Heywood, take your hand off my throat. O Sime! sure you don't intend killin' me?--ye won't, ye won't." "That depends--" "But I aint to blame. Afore heaven, I swear I aint. You know that, Harkness? You heard me protest against their ugly doin's more than once. In this business, now, I'm only actin' under the captin's order. He sent me 'long with the lootenant to take care of--" "The lieutenant!" interrupts Clancy. "What name?" "Phil Quantrell, we call him; though I guess he's got another--" "Where is he?" inquires Clancy, tortured with a terrible suspicion. "He went t'other side the tree, takin' the young lady along." At that moment comes a cry from behind the oak--a woman's voice calling "Help! help!" Clancy stays not to hear more, but rushes off with the air of a man struck with sudden phrenzy! On turning the trunk, he sees other forms, a horse with man mounted, a woman before him he endeavours to restrain, who, struggling, thirsts for succour. It is nigh, though near being too late. But for a fortunate circumstance, it would be. The horse, headed towards the forest, is urged in that direction. But, frayed by the conflict on his back, he refuses to advance; instead, jibbing and rearing, he returns under the tree. Clancy, with rifle raised, is about to shoot the animal down. But at thought of danger to her calling "help!" he lowers his piece; and rushing in, lays hold of the bridle-rein. This instantly let go, to receive in his arms the woman, released from the ruffian's grasp, who would otherwise fall heavily to the earth. The horse, disembarrassed, now obeying the rein, shoots out from under the oak, and headed across the moonlit belt makes straight for the timber beyond. In the struggle Clancy has let go his gun, and now vainly gropes for it in the darkness. But two others are behind, with barrels that bear upon the retreating horseman. In an instant all would be over with him, but for Clancy himself; who, rushing between, strikes up the muzzles, crying:-- "Don't shoot, Sime! Hold your fire, Heywood! His life belongs to me!" Strange forbearance; to the backwoodsmen, incomprehensible! But they obey; and again Richard Darke escapes chastisement for two great crimes he intended, but by good fortune failed to accomplish. CHAPTER SIXTY THREE. AN OATH TO BE KEPT. No pen could portray the feelings of Helen Armstrong, on recognising her rescuer. Charles Clancy alive! Is she dreaming? Or is it indeed he whose arms are around, folding her in firm but tender embrace? Under the moonbeams, that seem to have suddenly become brighter, she beholds the manly form and noble features of him she believed dead, his cheeks showing the hue of health, his eyes late glaring in angry excitement, now glowing with the softer light of love. Yes: it is indeed her lover long mourned, living, breathing, beautiful as ever! She asks not if he be still true, that doubt has been long since dissipated. It needs not his presence there, nor what he has just done, to reassure her. For a time she asks no questions; neither he. Both are too absorbed with sweet thoughts to care for words. Speech could not heighten their happiness, in the midst of caresses and kisses. On his side there is no backwardness now; on hers no coyness, no mock modesty. They come together not as at their last interview, timid sweethearts, but lovers emboldened by betrothal. For she knows, that he proposed to her; as he, that her acceptance was sent, and miscarried. It has reached him nevertheless; he has it upon his person now--both the letter and portrait. About the last are his first words. Drawing it out, and holding it up to the light, he asks playfully: "Helen; was it meant fo' me?" "No," she evasively answers, "it was meant for me." "Oh! the likeness, yes; but the inscript--these pleasant words written underneath?" "Put it back into; our pocket, Charles. And now tell me all. Am I dreaming? Or is it indeed reality?" No wonder she should so exclaim. Never was transformation quicker, or more complete. But a few seconds before she was, as it were, in the clutches of the devil; now an angel is by her side, a seraph with soft wings to shelter, and strong arms to protect her. She feels as one, who, long lingering at the door of death, has health suddenly and miraculously restored, with the prospect of a prolonged and happy life. Clancy replies, by again flinging his arms around, and rapturously kissing her: perhaps thinking it the best answer he can give. If that be not reality, what is? Jessie has now joined them, and after exchanged congratulations, there succeed mutual inquiries and explanations. Clancy has commenced giving a brief account of what has occurred to himself, when he is interrupted by a rough, but kindly voice; that of Sime, saying:-- "Ye kin tell them all that at some other time, Charley; thar aint a minnit to be throwed away now." Then drawing Clancy aside, speaking so as not to be heard by the others. "Thar's danger in dallyin' hyar. I've jest been puttin' thet jail bird, Bosley, through a bit o' catechism; an' from what he's told me the sooner we git out o' hyar the better. Who d'ye spose is at the bottom o' all this? I needn't ask ye; ye're boun to guess. I kin see the ugly brute's name bulgin' out yur cheeks." "Borlasse!" "In course it's he. Bosley's confessed all. Ked'nt well help it, wi' my bowie threetenin' to make a red stream run out o' him. The gang-- thar's twenty o' 'em all counted--goed up to the Mission to plunder it-- a sort o' burglarious expedishun; Borlasse hevin' a understandin' wi' a treetur that's inside--a sort o' sarvint to the Creole, Dupray, who only late engaged him. Wal; it seems they grupped the gurls, as they war makin' for the house--chanced on 'em outside in the garden. Bosley an' the other hev toated 'em this far, an' war wait in for the rest to come on wi' the stolen goods. They may be hyar at any minnit; an', wi' Jim Borlasse at thar head, I needn't tell ye what that means. Four o' us agin twenty--for we can't count on Harkness--it's ugly odds. We'd hev no show, howsomever. It 'ud end in their again grabbin' these pretty critters, an' 's like 's not end our own lives." Clancy needs no further speech to convince him of the danger. After what has occurred, an encounter with the robbers would, indeed, be disastrous. Richard Darke, leagued with Jim Borlasse, a noted pirate of the prairies; their diabolical plans disclosed, and only defeated by the merest accident of circumstances. "You're right, Sime. We mustn't be caught by the scoundrels. As you say, that would be the end of everything. How are we to avoid them?" "By streakin' out o' hyar quick as possible." "Do you propose our taking to the timber, and lying hid till they go past?" "No. Our better plan 'll be to go on to the Mission, an' get thar soon's we kin." "But we may meet them in the teeth?" "We must, ef we take the main road up tother side--pretty sure to meet 'em. We shan't be sech fools. I've thought o' all that, an' a way to get clear of the scrape." "What way?" "That road we kim in by, ye see, leads on'ard up the bank this side. I reckin' it goes to the upper crossin', the which air several miles above the buildin's. We kin take it, an' foller it without any fear o' encounterin' them beauties. I've sent Jupe and Harkness to bring up the hosses. Ned's tother side the tree in charge o' Bosley." "You've arranged it right. Nothing could be better. Take the trail up this side. I can trust you for seeing them safe into their father's arms--if he still live." Woodley wonders at this speech. He is about to ask explanation, when Clancy adds, pointing to the elder sister-- "I want a word with her before parting. While you are getting ready the horses--" "Before partin'!" interrupts Sime with increased surprise, "Surely you mean goin' along wi' us?" "No, I don't." "But why, Charley?" "Well, I've something to detain me here." "What somethin'?" "You ought to know without my telling you." "Dog-goned ef I do." "Richard Darke, then." "But he's goed off; ye don't intend follerin' him?" "I do--to the death. If ever I had a fixed determination in my life, 'tis that." "Wal, but you won't go all by yerself! Ye'll want some o' us wi' ye?" "No." "Not me, nor Ned?" "Neither. You'll both be needed to take care of them." Clancy nods towards the sisters, adding:-- "You'll have your hands full enough with Bosley and Harkness. Both will need looking after--and carefully. Jupe I'll take with me." Woodley remonstrates, pointing out the danger of the course his comrade intends pursuing. He only yields as Clancy rejoins, in a tone of determination, almost command:-- "You must do as I tell you, Sime; go on to the Mission, and take them with you. As for me, I've a strong reason for remaining behind by myself; a silly sentiment some might call it, though I don't think you would." "What is't? Let's hear it, an' I'll gie ye my opeenyun strait an' square." "Simply, that in this whole matter from first to last, I've een making mistakes. So many, it's just possible my courage may be called in question; or; if not that, my ability. Now, do you understand me?" "Darned ef I do." "Well; a man must do something to prove himself worthy of the name; at least one deed during his lifetime. There's one I've got to do--must do it, before I can think of anything else." "That is?" "_Kill Richard Darke_, As you know, I've sworn it, and nothing shall come between me and my oath. No, Sime, not even she who stands yonder; though I can't tell how it pains me to separate from her, now." "Good Lord! that will be a painful partin'! Poor gurl! I reckin her heart's been nigh broke arready. She hasn't the peach colour she used to hev. It's clean faded out o' her cheeks, an' what your goin' to do now aint the way to bring it back agin." "I cannot help it, Sime. I hear my mother calling me. Go, now! I wish it; I insist upon it!" Saying this, he turns towards Helen Armstrong to speak a word, which he knows will be sad as was ever breathed into the ear of woman. CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR. A WILD FAREWELL. On Clancy and the hunter becoming engaged in their serious deliberation, the sisters also exchange thoughts that are troubled. The first bright flash of joy at their release from captivity, with Helen's added gratification, is once more clouded over, as they think of what may have befallen their father. Now, knowing who the miscreants are, their hearts are heavy with apprehension. Jessie may, perhaps, feel it the more, having most cause--for her dread is of a double nature. There is her affianced, as well as her father! But for Helen there is also another agony in store, soon to be suffered. Little thinks she, as Clancy coming up takes her hand, that the light of gladness, which so suddenly shone into her heart, is to be with like suddenness extinguished; and that he who gave is about to take it away. Gently leading her apart, and leaving Jessie to be comforted by Sime, he says-- "Dearest! we've arranged everything for your being taken back to the Mission. The brave backwoodsmen, Woodley and Heywood, will be your escort. Under their protection you'll have nothing to fear. Either would lay down his life for you or your sister. Nor need you be uneasy about your father. From what this fellow, Bosley, says, the ruffians only meant robbery, and if they have not been resisted it will end in that only. Have courage, and be cheered; you'll find your father as you left him." "And you?" she asks in surprise. "Do you not go with us?" He hesitates to make answer, fearing the effect. But it must be made; and he at length rejoins, appealingly: "Helen! I hope you won't be aggrieved, or blame me for hat I am going to do." "What?" "Leave you." "Leave me!" she exclaims, her eyes interrogating his in wild bewilderment. "Only for a time, love; a very short while." "But why any time? Charles; you are surely jesting with me?" "No, indeed. I am in earnest. Never more in my life, and never more wishing I were not. Alas! it is inevitable!" "Inevitable! I do not understand. What do you mean?" With her eyes fixed oh his, in earnest gaze, she anxiously awaits his answer. "Helen Armstrong!" he says, speaking in a tone of solemnity that sounds strange, almost harsh despite its gentleness; "you are to me the dearest thing on earth. I need not tell you that, for surely you know it. Without you I should not value life, nor care to live one hour longer. To say I love you, with all my heart and soul, were but to repeat the assurance I've already given you. Ah! now more than ever, if that were possible; now that I know how true you've been, and what you've suffered for my sake. But there's another--one far away from here, who claims a share of my affections--" She makes a movement interrupting him, her eyes kindling up with an indescribable light, her bosom rising and falling as though stirred by some terrible emotion. Perceiving her agitation, though without suspecting its cause, he continues: "If this night more than ever I love you, this night greater than ever is my affection for her. The sight of that man, with the thought I've again permitted him to escape, is fresh cause of reproach--a new cry from the ground, commanding me to avenge my murdered mother." Helen Armstrong, relieved, again breathes freely. Strange, but natural; in consonance with human passions. For it was jealousy that for the moment held sway in her thoughts. Ashamed of the suspicion, now known to be unworthy, she makes an effort to conceal it, saying in calm tone-- "We have heard of your mother's death." "Of her murder," says Clancy, sternly, and through set teeth. "Yes; my poor mother was murdered by the man who has just gone off. He won't go far, before I overtake him. I've sworn over her grave, she shall be avenged; his blood will atone for her's. I've tracked him here, shall track him on; never stop, till I stand over him, as he once stood over me, thinking--. But I won't tell you more. Enough, for you to know why I'm now leaving you. I must--I must!" Half distracted, she rejoins:-- "You love your mother's memory more than you love me!" Without thought the reproach escapes--wrung from her in her agony. Soon as made, she regrets, and would recall it. For she sees the painful effect it has produced. He anticipates her, saying:-- "You wrong me, Helen, in word, as in thought. Such could not be. The two are different. You should know that. As I tell you, I've sworn to avenge my mother's death--sworn it over her grave. Is that not an oath to be kept? I ask--I appeal to you!" Her hand, that has still been keeping hold of his, closes upon it with firmer grasp, while her eyes become fixed upon him in look more relying than ever. The selfishness of her own passion shrinks before the sacredness of that inspiring him, and quick passes away. With her love is now mingled admiration. Yielding to it, she exclaims: "Go--go! Get the retribution you seek. Perhaps 'tis right. God shielding you, you'll succeed, and come back to me, true as you've been to your mother. If not, I shall soon be dead." "If not, you may know I am. Only death can hinder my return. And now, for a while, farewell!" Farewell! And so soon. Oh! it is afflicting! So far she has borne herself with the firmness derived from a strong, self-sustaining nature. But hearing this word--wildest of all--she can hold out no longer. Her strength gives way, and flinging herself on his breast, she pours forth a torrent of tears. "Come, Helen!" he says, kissing them from her cheeks, "be brave, and don't fear for me. I know my man, and the work cut out for me. By sheer carelessness I've twice let him have his triumph over me. But he won't the third time. When we next meet 'twill be the last hour of his life. Something whispers this--perhaps the spirit of my mother? Keep up your courage, sweet! Go back with Sime, who'll see you safe into your father's arms. When there, you can offer up a prayer for my safety, and if you like, one for the salvation of Dick Darke's soul. For sure as I stand here, ere another sun has set it will go to its God." With these solemn words the scene ends, only one other exchanged between them--the wild "Farewell!" This in haste, for at the moment Woodley comes forward, exclaiming:-- "Be quick, Charley! We must git away from hyar instanter. A minuit more in this gleed, an' some o' us may niver leave it alive." Jupiter and Harkness have brought up the horses, and are holding them in readiness. Soon they are mounted, Heywood taking Jessie on his croup, Helen having a horse to herself--that late belonging to Bosley--while the latter is compelled to share the saddle with Harkness. Heywood leads off; the suspected men ordered to keep close after; while Woodley reserves the rear-guard to himself and his rifle. Before parting, he spurs alongside Clancy, and holds out his hand, saying:-- "Gi'e me a squeeze o' yur claws, Charley. May the Almighty stan' your frien' and keep you out o' Ole Nick's clutches. Don't hev' any dubiousness 'bout us. Tho' we shed kum across Satan hisself wi' all his hellniferous host, Sime Woodley 'll take care o' them sweet gurls, or go to grass trying." With this characteristic wind-up, he puts the spur to his horse, and closes upon the rest already parted from the spot. Alone remain under the live-oak, Clancy and the mulatto, with horse, hound, and mule. Varied the emotions in Clancy's mind, as he stands looking after; but all dark as clouds coursing across a winter's sky. For they are all doubts and fears; that most felt finding expression in the desponding soliloquy. "I may never see her again!" As the departing cavalcade is about to enter among the trees, and the floating drapery of her dress is soon to pass out of sight, he half repents his determination, and is almost inclined to forego it. But the white skirt disappears, and the dark thought returning, becomes fixed as before. Then, facing towards Jupiter, he directs:-- "Mount your mule, Jupe. We've only one more journey to make; I hope a short one. At its end we'll meet your old master, and you'll see him get what he deserves--his _death shot_!" CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE. FOR THE RENDEZVOUS. Stillness is again restored around the crossing of the San Saba, so far as it has been disturbed by the sound of human voices. Nature has resumed her reign, and only the wild creatures of her kingdom can be heard calling, in tones that tell not of strife. But for a short while does this tranquillity continue. Soon once more upon the river's bank resound rough voices, and rude boisterous laughter, as a band of mounted men coming from the Mission side, spur their horses down into its channel, and head to go straight across. While under the shadow of the fringing timber, no one could tell who these merry riders are; and, even after they have advanced into the open moonlight, it would be difficult to identify them. Seeing their plumed heads with their parti-coloured complexions, a stranger would set them down as Indians; while a Texan might particularise their tribe, calling them Comanches. But one who is no stranger to them--the reader--knows they are not Indians of any kind, but savages who would show skins of a tripe colour, were the pigment sponged off. For it is the band of Borlasse. They have brought their booty thus far, _en route_ for their rendezvous. Gleeful they are, one and all. Before them on their saddle-bows, or behind on the croups, are the boxes of silver coin; enough, as they know, to give them a grand spree in the town of San Antonio, whither they intend proceeding in due time. But first for their lair, where the spoil is to be partitioned, and a change made in their toilet; there to cast off the costume of the savage, and resume the garb of civilisation. Riding in twos across the river, on reaching its bank they make halt. There is barely room for all on the bit of open ground by the embouchure of the ford road; and they get clumped into a dense crowd--in its midst their chief, Borlasse, conspicuous from his great bulk of body. "Boys!" he says, soon as all have gained the summit of the slope, and gathered around him, "it ain't no use for all o' us going to where I told Quantrell an' Bosley to wait. The approach to the oak air a bit awkward; therefore, me an' Luke Chisholm 'll slip up thar, whiles the rest o' ye stay hyar till we come back. You needn't get out of your saddles. We won't be many minutes, for we mustn't. They'll be a stirrin' at the Mission, though not like to come after us so quick, seeing the traces we've left behind. That'll be a caution to them, I take it. And from what our friend here says," Borlasse nods to the half-blood, Fernand, who is seen seated on horseback beside him, "the settlers can't muster over forty fightin' men. Calculatin' there's a whole tribe o' us Comanches, they'll be too scared to start out all of a suddint. Besides, they'll not find that back trail by the bluff so easy. I don't think they can before mornin'. Still 'twont do to hang about hyar long. Once we get across the upper plain we're safe. They'll never set eyes on these Indyins after. Come, Luke! let you an' me go on to the oak, and pick up the stragglers. An' boys! see ye behave yourselves till we come back. Don't start nail, or raise lid, from any o' them boxes. If there's a dollar missin', I'll know it; an' by the Eternal--well, I guess, you understan' Jim Borlasse's way wi' treeturs." Leaving this to be surmised, the robber chief spurs out from their midst, with the man he has selected to accompany him; the rest, as enjoined, remaining. Soon he turns into the up-river trace, which none of those who have already travelled it, knew as well as he. Despite his greater size, neither its thorns, nor narrowness, hinders him from riding rapidly along it. He is familiar with its every turn and obstruction, as is also Chisholm. Both have been to the big oak before, time after time; have bivouacked, slept under it, and beside booty. Approaching it now for a different purpose, they are doomed to disappointment. There is no sign of creature beneath its shade--horse, man, or woman! Where is Quantrell? Where Bosley? What has become of them, and their captives? They are not under the oak, or anywhere around it. They are nowhere! The surprise of the robber chief instantly changes to anger. For a suspicion flashes across his mind, that his late appointed lieutenant has played false to him. He knows that Richard Darke has only been one of his band by the exigency of sinister circumstances; knows, also, of the other, and stronger lien that has kept Clancy's assassin attached to their confederacy--his love for Helen Armstrong. Now that he has her--the sister too--why may he not have taken both off, intending henceforth to cut all connection with the prairie pirates? Bosley would be no bar. The subordinate might remain faithful, and to the death; still Quantrell could kill him. It is all possible, probable; and Borlasse, now better acquainted with the character of Richard Darke, can believe it so. Convinced of his lieutenant's treachery, he rages around the tree like a tiger deprived of its prey. Little cares he what has become of Darke himself, or Helen Armstrong. It is Jessie he misses; madly loving her in his course carnal fashion. He had hoped to have her in his arms, to carry her on to the rendezvous, to make her his wife in the same way as Darke threatened to do with her sister. Fortunately for both, the sky has become clouded, and the moon is invisible; otherwise he might see that the ground has been trodden by a half-dozen horses, and discover the direction these have taken. Though Simeon Woodley, with his party, is now a good distance off, it would still be possible to overtake them, the robbers being well mounted and better knowing the way. Woe to Helen and Jessie Armstrong were the moon shining, as when they parted from that spot! Neither Borlasse nor his confederate have a thought that any one has been under the oak, save Quantrell, Bosley, and the captives. How could they? And now they think not that these have been there; for, calling their names aloud, they get no response. Little do the two freebooters dream of the series of exciting incidents that in quick succession, and so recently, have occurred in that now silent spot. They have no suspicion of aught, save that Bosley has betrayed his trust, Phil Quantrell instigating him, and that both have forsaken the band, taking the captives along. At thought of their treachery Borlasse's fury goes beyond bounds, and he stamps and storms. To restrain him, Chisholm says, suggestingly, "Like as not, Cap', they're gone on to head-quarters. I guess, when we get there we'll find the whole four." "You think so?" "I'm good as sure of it. What else could they do, or would they? Quantrell darn't go back to the States, with that thing you spoke of hangin' over him. Nor is he like to show himself in any o' the settlements of Texas. And what could the two do by themselves out on the wild prairie?" "True; I reckon you're about right, Luke. In any case we musn't waste more time here. It's getting well on to morning and by the earliest glint of day the settlers 'll take trail after us. We must on to the upper plain." At this he heads his horse back into the narrow trail; and, hurrying along it, rejoins his followers by the ford. Soon as reaching them, he gives the command for immediate march; promptly obeyed, since every robber in the ruck has pleasant anticipation of what is before, with ugly recollection of what is, and fears of what may be, behind him. CHAPTER SIXTY SIX. A SCOUTING PARTY. Throughout all this time, the scene of wild terror, and frenzied excitement, continues to rage around the Mission. Its walls, while echoing voices of lamentation, reverberate also the shouts of revenge. It is some time ere the colonists can realise the full extent of the catastrophe, or be sure it is at an end. The gentlemen, who dined with Colonel Armstrong, rushing back to their own homes in fearful anticipation, there find everything, as they left it; except that their families and fellow settlers are asleep. For all this, the fear does not leave their hearts. If their houses are not aflame, as they expected to see them--if their wives and children are not butchered in cold blood--they know not how soon this may be. The Indians--for Indians they still believe them--would not have attacked so strong a settlement, unless in force sufficient to destroy it. The ruin, incomplete, may still be impending. True, the interlude of inaction is difficult to understand; only intelligible, on the supposition that the savages are awaiting an accession to their strength, before they assault the _rancheria_. They may at the moment be surrounding it? Under this apprehension, the settlers are hastily, and by loud shouts, summoned from their beds. Responding to the rude arousal, they are soon out of them, and abroad; the women and children frantically screaming; the men more calm; some of them accustomed to such surprises, issuing forth armed, and ready for action. Soon all are similarly prepared, each with gun, pistol, and knife borne upon his person. After hearing the tale of horror brought from the Mission-building, they hold hasty council as to what they should do. Fear for their own firesides restrains them from starting off; and some time elapse before they feel assured that the _rancheria_ will not be attacked, and need defending. Meanwhile, they despatch messengers to the Mission; who, approaching it cautiously, find no change there. Colonel Armstrong is still roaming distractedly around, searching for his daughters, Dupre by his side, Hawkins and Tucker assisting in the search. The girls not found, and the frantic father settling down to the conviction that they are gone--lost to him forever! Oh! the cruel torture of the truth thus forced upon him! His children carried off captive, that were enough. But to such captivity! To be the associates of savages, their slaves, their worse than slaves--ah! a destiny compared with which death were desirable. So reasons the paternal heart in this supreme moment of its affliction. Alike, distressed is he, bereaved of his all but bride. The young Creole is well-nigh beside himself. Never has he known such bitter thoughts; the bitterest of all--a remembrance of something said to him by his betrothed that very day. A word slight but significant, relating to the half-blood, Fernand; a hint of some familiarity in the man's behaviour towards her, not absolute boldness, but presumption: for Jessie did not tell all. Still enough to be now vividly recalled to Dupre's memory, with all that exaggeration the circumstances are calculated to suggest to his fancy and fears. Yes; his trusted servant has betrayed him, and never did master more repent a trust, or suffer greater pain by its betrayal. The serpent he warmed has turned and stung him, with sting so venomous as to leave little of life. Within and around the Mission-building are other wailing voices, besides those of its owners. Many of the domestics have like cause for lamentation, some even more. Among the massacred, still stretched in their gore, one stoops over a sister; another sees his child; a wife weeps by the side of her husband, her hot tears mingling with his yet warm blood; while brother bends down to gaze into the eyes of brother, which, glassy and sightless, cannot reciprocate the sorrowing glance! It is not the time to give way to wild grief. The occasion calls for action, quick, immediate. Colonel Armstrong commands it; Dupre urges it. Soon as their first throes of surprise and terror have subsided, despair is replaced by anger, and their thoughts turn upon retaliation. All is clear now. Those living at the _rancheria_ have not been molested. The savages have carried off Dupre's silver. Despoiled of his far more precious treasure, what recks he of that? Only as telling that the object of the attacking party was robbery more than murder; though they have done both. Still it is certain, that, having achieved their end, they are gone off with no intention to renew the carnage of which all can see such sanguinary traces. Thus reasoning, the next thought is pursuit. As yet the other settlers are at the _rancheria_, clinging to their own hearths, in fear of a fresh attack, only a few having come up to the Mission, to be shocked at what they see there. But enough for Dupre's purpose; which receives the sanction of Colonel Armstrong, as also that of the hunters, Hawkins and Tucker. It is decided not to wait till all can be ready; but for a select party to start off at once, in the capacity of scouts; these to take up the trail of the savages, and send back their report to those coming after. To this Colonel Armstrong not only gives consent, but deems it the most prudent course, and likeliest to secure success. Despite his anxious impatience, the strategy of the old soldier tells him, that careless haste may defeat its chances. In fine, a scouting party is dispatched, Hawkins at its head as guide, the Creole commanding. Armstrong himself remains behind, to organise the main body of settlers getting ready for pursuit. CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN. A STRAYING TRAVELLER. A man on horseback making his way through a wood. Not on road, or trodden path, or trace of any kind. For it is a tract of virgin forest, in which settler's axe has never sounded, rarely traversed by ridden horse; still more rarely by pedestrian. He, now passing through it, rides as fast as the thick standing trunks, and tangle of undergrowth will allow. The darkness also obstructs him; for it is night. Withal he advances rapidly, though cautiously; at intervals glancing back, at longer ones, delaying to listen, with chin upon his shoulder. His behaviour shows fear; so, too, his face. Here and there the moonbeams shining through breaks in the foliage, reveal upon his features bewilderment, as well as terror. By their light he is guiding his course, though he does not seem sure of it. The only thing appearing certain is, that he fears something behind, and is fleeing from it. Once he pauses, longer than usual; and, holding his horse in check, sits listening attentively. While thus halted, he hears a noise, which he knows to be the ripple of a river. It seems oddly to affect him, calling forth an exclamation, which shows he is dissatisfied with the sound. "Am I never to get away from it? I've been over an hour straying about here, and there's the thing still--not a quarter of a mile off, and timber thick as ever. I thought that last shoot would have taken me out of it. I must have turned somewhere. No help for it, but try again." Making a half-face round, he heads his horse in a direction opposite to that from which comes the sound of the water. He has done so repeatedly, as oft straying back towards the stream. It is evident he has no wish to go any nearer; but a strong desire to get away from it. This time he is successful. The new direction followed a half-mile further shows him clear sky ahead, and in a few minutes more he is at the forest's outmost edge. Before him stretches an expanse of plain altogether treeless, but clothed with tall grass, whose culms stirred by the night breeze, and silvered by the moonbeams, sway to and fro, like the soft tremulous wavelets of a tropic sea; myriads of fire-flies prinkling among the spikes, and emitting a gleam, as phosphorescent _medusae_, make the resemblance complete. The retreating horseman has no such comparison in his thoughts, nor any time to contemplate Nature. The troubled expression in his eyes, tells he is in no mood for it. His glance is not given to the grass, nor the brilliant "lightning bugs," but to a dark belt discernible beyond, apparently a tract of timber, similar to that he has just traversed. More carefully scrutinised, it is seen to be rocks, not trees; in short a continuous line of cliff, forming the boundary of the bottom-land. He viewing it, well knows what it is, and intends proceeding on to it. He only stays to take bearings for a particular place, at which he evidently aims. His muttered words specify the point. "The gulch must be to the right. I've gone up-river all the while. Confound the crooked luck! It may throw me behind them going back; and how am I to find my way over the big plain! If I get strayed there--Ha! I see the pass now; yon sharp shoulder of rock--its there." Once more setting his horse in motion, he makes for the point thus identified. Not now in zig-zags, or slowly--as when working his way through the timber--but in a straight tail-on-end gallop, fast as the animal can go. And now under the bright moonbeams it may be time to take a closer survey of the hastening horseman. In garb he is Indian, from the mocassins on his feet to the fillet of stained feathers surmounting his head. But the colour of his skin contradicts the idea of his being an aboriginal. His face shows white, but with some smut upon it, like that of a chimney-sweep negligently cleansed. And his features are Caucasian, not ill-favoured, except in their sinister expression; for they are the features of Richard Darke. Knowing it is he, it will be equally understood that the San Saba is the stream whose sough is so dissonant in his ears, as also, why he is so anxious to put a wide space between himself and its waters. On its bank he has heard a name, and caught sight of him bearing it--the man of all others he has most fear. The backwoodsman who tracked him in the forests of Mississippi, now trailing him upon the prairies of Texas, Simeon Woodley ever pursuing him! If in terror he has been retreating through the trees, not less does he glide over the open ground. Though going in a gallop, every now and then, as before, he keeps slewing round in the saddle and gazing back with apprehensiveness, in fear he may see forms issuing from the timber's edge, and coming on after. None appear, however; and, at length, arriving by the bluffs base, he draws up under its shadow, darker now, for clouds are beginning to dapple the sky, making the moon's light intermittent. Again, he appears uncertain about the direction he should take; and seated in his saddle, looks inquiringly along the facade of the cliff, scrutinising its outline. Not long before his scrutiny is rewarded. A dark disc of triangular shape, the apex inverted, proclaims a break in the escarpment. It is the embouchure of a ravine, in short the pass he has been searching for, the same already known to the reader. Straight towards it he rides, with the confidence of one who has climbed it before. In like manner he enters between its grim jaws, and spurs his horse up the slope under the shadow of rocks overhanging right and left. He is some twenty minutes in reaching its summit, on the edge of the upland plain. There he emerges into moonlight; for Luna has again looked out. Seated in his saddle he takes a survey of the bottom-land below. Afar off, he can distinguish the dark belt of timber, fringing the river on both sides, with here and there a reach of water between, glistening in the moon's soft light like molten silver. His eyes rest not on this, but stray over the open meadow, land in quest of something there. There is nothing to fix his glance, and he now feels safe, for the first time since starting on that prolonged retreat. Drawing a free breath he says, soliloquising:-- "No good my going farther now. Besides I don't know the trail, not a foot farther. No help for it but stay here till Borlasse and the boys come up. They can't be much longer, unless they've had a fight to detain them; which I don't think at all likely, after what the half-blood told us. In any case some of them will be this way. Great God! To think of Sime Woodley being here! And after me, sure, for the killing of Clancy! Heywood, too, and Harkness along with them! How is that, I wonder? Can they have met my old jailer on the way, and brought him back to help in tracing me? What the devil does it all mean? It looks as if the very Fates were conspiring for my destruction. "And who the fellow that laid hold of my horse? So like Clancy! I could swear 'twas he, if I wasn't sure of having settled him. If ever gun-bullet gave a man his quietus, mine did him. The breath was out of his body before I left him. "Sime Woodley's after me, sure! Damn the ugly brute of a backwoodsman! He seems to have been created for the special purpose of pursuing me? "And she in my power, to let her so slackly go again! I may never have another such chance. She'll get safe back to the settlements, there to make mock of me! What a simpleton I've been to let her go alive! I should have driven my knife into her. Why didn't I do it? Ach!" As he utters the harsh exclamation there is blackness on his brow, and chagrin in his glance; a look, such as Satan may have cast back at Paradise on being expelled from it. With assumed resignation, he continues:-- "No good my grieving over it now. Regrets won't get her back. There may be another opportunity yet. If I live there shall be, though it cost me all my life to bring it about." Another pause spent reflecting what he ought to do next. He has still some fear of being followed by Sime Woodley. Endeavouring to dismiss it, he mutters:-- "'Tisn't at all likely they'd find the way up here. They appeared to be afoot. I saw no horses. They might have them for all that. But they can't tell which way I took through the timber, and anyhow couldn't track me till after daylight. Before then Borlasse will certainly be along. Just possible he may come across Woodley and his lot. They'll be sure to make for the Mission, and take the road up t'other side. A good chance of our fellows encountering them, unless that begging fool, Bosley, has let all out. Maybe they killed him on the spot? I didn't hear the end of it, and hope they have." With this barbarous reflection he discontinues his soliloquy, bethinking himself, how he may best pass the time till his comrades come on. At first he designs alighting, and lying down: for he has been many hours in the saddle, and feels fatigued. But just as he is about to dismount, it occurs to him the place is not a proper one. Around the summit of the pass, the plain is without a stick of timber, not even a bush to give shade or concealment, and of this last he now begins to recognise the need. For, all at once, he recalls a conversation with Borlasse, in which mention was made of Sime Woodley; the robber telling of his having been in Texas before, and out upon the San Saba--the very place where now seen! Therefore, the backwoodsman will be acquainted with the locality, and may strike for the trail he has himself taken. He remembers Sime's reputation as a tracker; he no longer feels safe. In the confusion of his senses, his fancy exaggerates his fears, and he almost dreads to look back across the bottom-land. Thus apprehensive, he turns his eyes towards the plain, in search of a better place for his temporary bivouac, or at all events a safer one. He sees it. To the right, and some two or three hundred yards off is a _motte_ of timber, standing solitary on the otherwise treeless expanse. It is the grove of black-jacks, where Hawkins and Tucker halted that same afternoon. "The very place!" says Richard Darke to himself, after scrutinising it. "There I'll be safe every way; can see without being seen. It commands a view of the pass, and, if the moon keep clear, I'll be able to tell who comes up, whether friends or foes." Saying this, he makes for the _motte_. Reaching it, he dismounts, and, drawing the rein over his horse's head, leads the animal in among the trees. At a short distance from the grove's edge is a glade. In this he makes stop, and secures the horse, by looping the bridle around a branch. He has a tin canteen hanging over the horn of his saddle, which he lifts off. It is a large one,--capable of holding a half-gallon. It is three parts full, not of water, but of whisky. The fourth part he has drunk during the day, and earlier hours of the night, to give him courage for the part he had to play. He now drinks to drown his chagrin at having played it so badly. Cursing his crooked luck, as he calls it, he takes a swig of the whisky, and then steps back to the place where he entered among the black-jacks. There taking stand, he awaits the coming of his confederates. He keeps his eyes upon the summit of the pass. They cannot come up without his seeing them, much less go on over the plain. They must arrive soon, else he will not be able to see them. For he has brought the canteen along, and, raising it repeatedly to his lips, his sight is becoming obscured, the equilibrium of his body endangered. As the vessel grows lighter, so does his head; while his limbs refuse to support the weight of his body, which oscillates from side to side. At length, with an indistinct perception of inability to sustain himself erect, and a belief he would feel better in a recumbent attitude, he gropes his way back to the glade, where, staggering about for a while, he at length settles down, dead drunk. In ten seconds he is asleep, in slumber so profound, that a cannon shot--even the voice of Simeon Woodley--would scarce awake him. CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT. "BRASFORT." "Brasfort has caught scent!" The speech comes from one of two men making their way through a wood, the same across which Richard Darke has just retreated. But they are not retreating as he; on the contrary pursuing, himself the object of their pursuit. For they two men are Charles Clancy, and Jupiter. They are mounted, Clancy on his horse--a splendid animal--the mulatto astride the mule. The hound is with them, not now trotting idly after, but in front, with nose to the earth. They are on Darke's trail. The animal has just struck, and is following it, though not fast. For a strap around its neck, with a cord attached, and held in Clancy's hand, keeps it in check, while another buckled about its jaws hinders it from giving tongue. Both precautions show Clancy's determination to take pains with the game he is pursuing, and not again give it a chance to get away. Twice has his mother's murderer escaped him. It will not be so a third time. They are trailing in darkness, else he would not need assistance from the dog. For it is only a short while since his separation from the party that went on to the Mission. Soon as getting into their saddles, Clancy and his faithful follower struck into the timber, at the point where Darke was seen to enter, and they are now fairly on his tracks. In the obscurity they cannot see them; but the behaviour of the hound tells they are there. "Yes; Brasfort's on it now," says Clancy, calling the animal by a name long ago bestowed upon it. "He's on it strong, Jupe. I can tell by the way he tugs upon the string." "All right, Masser Charle. Give him plenty head. Let him well out. Guess we can keep up with him. An' the sooner we overtake the nigger whipper, the better it be for us, an' the worser for him. Pity you let him go. If you'd 'lowed Mass Woodley to shoot down his hoss--" "Never mind about that. You'll see himself shot down ere long, or--" "Or what, masser?" "Me!" "Lor forbid! If I ever see that, there's another goes down long side you; either the slave-catcher or the slave." "Thanks, my brave fellow! I know you mean it. But now to our work; and let us be silent. He may not have gone far, and's still skulking in this tract of timber. If so, he stands a chance to hear us. Speak only in a whisper." Thus instructed, Jupe makes a gesture to signify compliance; Clancy turning his attention to the hound. By this, Brasfort is all eagerness, as can be told by the quick vibration of his tail, and spasmodic action of the body. A sound also proceeds from his lips, an attempt at baying; which, but for the confining muzzle would make the forest echoes ring around. Stopped by this his note can be heard only a short distance off, not far enough for them to have any fear. If they but get so near the man they are in chase of, they will surely overtake him. In confidence the trackers keep on; but obstructed by the close standing trunks, with thick underwood between, they make but slow progress. They are more than an hour in getting across the timbered tract; a distance that should not have taken quarter the time. At length, arriving on its edge, they make stop; Clancy drawing back the dog. Looking across the plain he sees that, which tells him the instinct of the animal will be no longer needed--at least for a time. The moon, shining upon the meadow grass, shows a list differently shaded; where the tall culms have been bent down and crushed by the hoof of some heavy quadruped, that has made its way amidst them. And recently too, as Clancy, skilled in tracking, can tell; knowing, also, it is the track of Dick Darke's horse. "You see it?" he says, pointing to the lighter shaded line. "That's the assassin's trail. He's gone out here, and straight across the bottom. He's made for the bluff yonder. From this he's been putting his animal to speed; gone in a gallop, as the stretch between the tracks show. He may go that way, or any other, 'twill make no difference in the end. He fancies himself clever, but for all his cleverness he'll not escape me now." "I hope not, Masser Charle; an' don't think he will; don't see how he can." "He can't." For some time Clancy is silent, apparently absorbed in serious reflection. At length, he says to his follower:-- "Jupe, my boy, in your time you have suffered much yourself, and should know something of what it is to feel vengeful. But not a vengeance like mine. That you can't understand, and perhaps may think me cruel." "You, Masser Charle!" "I don't remember ever having done a harsh thing in my life, or hurt to anyone not deserving it." "I am sure you never did, masser." "My dealing with this man may seem an exception. For sure as I live, I'll kill him, or he shall kill me." "There'd be no cruelty in that. He deserve die, if ever man did." "He shall. I've sworn it--you know when and where. My poor mother sent to an untimely grave! Her spirit seems now speaking to me--urging me to keep my oath. Let us on!" They spur out into the moonlight, and off over the open plain, the hound no longer in the lead. His nose is not needed now. The slot of Darke's galloping horse is so conspicuous they can clearly see it, though going fast as did he. Half an hour at this rapid pace, and they are again under shadow. It is that of the bluff, so dark they can no longer make out the hoof-marks of the retreating horseman. For a time they are stayed, while once more leashing the hound, and setting it upon the scent. Brasfort lifts it with renewed spirit; and, keeping in advance, conducts them to an opening in the wall of rock. It is the entrance to a gorge going upward. They can perceive a trodden path, upon which are the hoof-prints of many horses, apparently an hundred of them. Clancy dismounts to examine them. He takes note, that they are of horses unshod; though there are some with the iron on. Most of them are fresh, among others of older date. Those recently made have the convexity of the hoof turned towards the river. Whoever rode these horses came down the gorge, and kept on for the crossing. He has no doubt, but that they are the same, whose tracks were observed in the slough, and at the ford--now known to have been made by the freebooters. As these have come down the glen, in all likelihood they will go up it in return. The thought should deter him from proceeding farther in that direction. But it does not. He is urged on by his oath--by a determination to keep it at all cost. He fancies Darke cannot be far ahead, and trusts to overtaking, and settling the affair, before his confederates come up. Reflecting thus, he enters the ravine, and commences ascending its slope, Jupiter and Brasfort following. On reaching the upland plain, they have a different light around, from that below on the bottom-land. The moon is clouded over, but her silvery sheen is replaced by a gloaming of grey. There are streaks of bluish colour, rose tinted, along the horizon's edge. It is the dawn, for day is just breaking. At first Clancy is gratified by a sight, so oft gladdening hearts. Daylight will assist him in his search. Soon, he thinks otherwise. Sweeping his eyes over the upland plain, he sees it is sterile and treeless. A thin skirting of timber runs along the bluff edge; but elsewhere all is open, except a solitary grove at no great distance off. The rendezvous of the robbers would not be there, but more likely on the other side of the arid expanse. Noting a trail which leads outwards, he suspects the pursued man to have taken it. But to follow in full daylight may not only defeat all chance of overtaking him, but expose them to the danger of capture by the freebooters coming in behind. Clancy casts his eye across the plain, then back towards the bottom-land. He begins to repent his imprudence in having ventured up the pass. But now to descend might be more dangerous than to stay. There is danger either way, and in every direction. So thinking, he says: "I fear, Jupe, we've been going too fast, and it may be too far. If we encounter these desperadoes, I needn't tell you we'll be in trouble. What ought we to do, think you?" "Well Masser Charle, I don't jest know. I'se a stranger on these Texas prairies. If 'twar in a Massissip swamp, I might be better able to advise. Hyar I'se all in a quandairy." "If we go back we may meet them in the teeth. Besides, I shan't--can't now. I must keep on, till I've set eyes on Dick Darke." "Well, Masser Charle, s'pose we lie hid durin' the day, an' track him after night? The ole dog sure take up the scent for good twenty-four hours to come. There's a bunch of trees out yonner, that'll give us a hidin' place; an' if the thieves go past this way, we sure see 'em. They no see us there." "But if they go past, it will be all over. I could have little hope of finding him alone. Along with them he would--" Clancy speaks as if in soliloquy. Abruptly changing tone, he continues:-- "No, Jupe; we must go on, now. I'll take the risk, if you're not afraid to follow me." "Masser Charle, I ain't afraid. I'se told you I follow you anywhere--to death if you need me die. I'se tell you that over again." "And again thanks, my faithful friend! We won't talk of death, till we've come up with Dick Darke. Then you shall see it one way or other. He, or I, hasn't many hours to live. Come, Brasfort! you're wanted once more." Saying this, he lets the hound ahead, still keeping hold of the cord. Before long, Brasfort shows signs that he has again caught scent. His ears crisp up, while his whole body quivers along the spinal column from neck to tail. There is a streak of the bloodhound in the animal; and never did dog of this kind make after a man, who more deserved hunting by a hound. CHAPTER SIXTY NINE. SHADOWS BEHIND. When once more upon the trail of the man he intends killing, Clancy keeps on after his hound, with eager eyes watching every movement of the animal. That Brasfort is dead upon the scent can be told by his excited action, and earnest whimpering. All at once he is checked up, his master drawing him back with sudden abruptness. The dog appears surprised at first, so does Jupiter. The latter, looking round, discovers the cause: something which moves upon the plain, already observed by Clancy. Not clearly seen, for it is still dark. "What goes yonder?" he asks, eagerly scanning it, with hands over his eyes. "It don't go, Masser Charle, whatever it is. Dat thing 'pears comin'." "You're right. It is moving in this direction. A dust-cloud; something made it. Ah! horses! Are there men on their backs? No. Bah! it's but a drove of mustangs. I came near taking them for Comanches; not that we need care. Just now the red gentry chance to be tied by a treaty, and are not likely to harm us. We've more to fear from fellows with white skins. Yes, the wild horses are heading our way; scouring along as if all the Indians in Texas were after them. What does that signify? Something, I take it." Jupiter cannot say. He is, as he has confessed, inexperienced upon the prairies, ill understanding their "sign." However well acquainted with the craft of the forest, up in everything pertaining to timber, upon the treeless plains of Texas, an old prairie man would sneeringly pronounce him a "greenhorn." Clancy, knowing this, scarce expects reply; or, if so, with little hope of explanation. He does not wait for it, having himself discovered why the wild horses are going at such a rate. Besides the dust stirred up by their hooves, is another cloud rising in the sky beyond. The black belt just looming along the horizon proclaims the approach of a "norther." The scared horses are heading southward, in the hope to escape it. They come in full career towards the spot where the two have pulled up-- along a line parallel to the trend of the cliff, at some distance from its edge. Neighing, snorting, with tossed manes, and streaming tails, they tear past, and are soon wide away on the other side. Clancy keeping horse and hound in check, waits till they are out of sight. Then sets Brasfort back upon the scent, from which he so unceremoniously jerked him. Though without dent of hoof on the dry parched grass, the hound easily retakes it, straining on as before. But he is soon at fault, losing it. They have come upon the tracks of the mustangs, these having spoiled the scent--killed it. Clancy, halting, sits dissatisfied in the saddle; Jupiter sharing his dissatisfaction. What are they to do now? The mulatto suggests crossing the ground trodden by the mustangs, and trying on the other side. To this Clancy consents. It is the only course that seems rational. Again moving forward, they pass over the beaten turf; and, letting Brasfort alone, look to him. The hound strikes ahead, quartering. Not long till the vibration of his tail tells he is once more on the scent. Now stiffer than ever, and leading in a straight line. He goes direct for the copse of timber, which is now only a very short distance off. Again Clancy draws the dog in, at the same time reining up his horse. Jupe has done the same with his mule; and both bend their eyes upon the copse--the grove of black-jack oaks--scanning it with glances of inquiry. If Clancy but knew what is within, how in a glade near its centre, is the man they are seeking, he would no longer tarry for Brasfort's trailing, but letting go the leash altogether, and leaping from his horse, rush in among the trees, and bring to a speedy reckoning him, to whom he owes so much misery. Richard Darke dreams not of the danger so near him. He is in a deep sleep--the dreamless, helpless slumber of intoxication. But a like near danger threatens Clancy himself, of which he is unconscious. With face towards the copse, and eyes eagerly scrutinising it, he thinks not of looking behind. By the way his hound still behaves, there must be something within the grove. What can it be? He does not ask the question. He suspects--is, indeed, almost certain--his enemy is that something. Muttering to the mulatto, who has come close alongside, he says:-- "I shouldn't wonder, Jupe, if we've reached our journey's end. Look at Brasfort! See how he strains! There's man or beast among those black-jacks--both I take it." "Looks like, masser." "Yes; I think we'll there find what we're searching for. Strange, too, his making no show. I can't see sign of a movement." "No more I." "Asleep, perhaps? It won't do for us to go any nearer, till sure. He's had the advantage of me too often before. I can't afford giving it again. Ha! what's that?" The dog has suddenly slewed round, and sniffs in the opposite direction. Clancy and Jupe, turning at the same time, see that which draws their thoughts from Richard Darke, driving him altogether out of their minds. Their faces are turned towards the east, where the Aurora reddens the sky, and against its bright background several horsemen are seen _en silhouette_, their number each instant increasing. Some are already visible from crown to hoof; others show only to the shoulders; while the heads of others can just be distinguished surmounting the crest of the cliff. In the spectacle there is no mystery, nor anything that needs explanation. Too well does Charles Clancy comprehend. A troop of mounted men approaching up the pass, to all appearance Indians, returning spoil-laden from a raid on some frontier settlement. But in reality white men, outlawed desperadoes, the band of Jim Borlasse, long notorious throughout South-Western Texas. One by one, they ascend _en echelon_, as fiends through a stage-trap in some theatric scene, showing faces quite as satanic. Each, on arriving at the summit, rides into line alongside their leader, already up and halted. And on they come, till nineteen can be counted upon the plain. Clancy does not care to count them. There could be nothing gained by that. He sees there are enough to make resistance idle. To attempt it were madness. And must he submit? There seems no alternative. There is for all that; one he is aware of--flight. His horse is strong and swift. For both these qualities originally chosen, and later designed to be used for a special purpose--pursuit. Is the noble animal now to be tried in a way never intended--retreat? Although that dark frowning phalanx, at the summit of the pass, would seem to answer "yes," Clancy determines "no." Of himself he could still escape--and easily. In a stretch over that smooth plain, not a horse in their troop would stand the slightest chance to come up with him, and he could soon leave all out of sight. But then, he must needs also leave behind the faithful retainer, from whose lips has just issued a declaration of readiness to follow him to the death. He cannot, will not; and if he thinks of flight, it is instinctively, and but for an instant; the thought abandoned as he turns towards the mulatto, and gives a glance at the mule. On his horse he could yet ride away from the robbers, but the slow-footed hybrid bars all hope for Jupiter. The absconding slave were certain to be caught, now; and slave or free, the colour of his skin would ensure him cruel treatment from the lawless crew. But what better himself taken? How can he protect poor Jupe, his own freedom--his life--equally imperilled? For he has no doubt but that Borlasse will remember, and recognise, him. It is barely twelve months since he stood beside that whipping-post in the town of Nacogdoches, and saw the ruffian receive chastisement for the stealing of his horse--the same he is now sitting upon. No fear of the horse-thief having forgotten that episode of his life. He can have no doubt but that Borlasse will retaliate; that this will be his first thought, soon as seeing him. It needs not for the robber chief to know what has occurred by the big oak; that Bosley is a prisoner, Quantrell a fugitive, their prisoners released, and on their way back to the Mission. It is not likely he does know, as yet. But too likely he will soon learn. For Darke will be turning up ere long, and everything will be made clear. Then to the old anger of Borlasse for the affair of the scourging, will be added new rage, while that of Darke himself will be desperate. In truth, the prospect is appalling; and Charles Clancy, almost as much as ever in his life, feels that life in peril. Could he look into the courtyard of the San Saba Mission, and see what is there, he might think it even more so. Without that, there is sufficient to shake his resolution about standing his ground; enough to make him spur away from the spot, and leave Jupiter to his fate. "No--never!" he mentally exclaims, closing all reflection. "As a coward I could not live. If I must die, it shall be bravely. Fear not, Jupe! We stand or fall together!" CHAPTER SEVENTY. SURROUNDED AND DISARMED. Borlasse, riding at the head of his band, has been the first to arrive at the upper end of the gorge. Perceiving some figures upon the plain, he supposes them to be Quantrell and Bosley with the captives. For his face is toward the west, where the sky is still night-shadowed, and he can but indistinctly trace the outlines of horses and men. As their number corresponds to that of his missing comrades, he has no thought of its being other than they. How could he, as none other are likely to be encountered there? Congratulating himself on his suspicions of the lieutenant's defection proving unfounded, and that he will now clutch the prize long coveted, he gives his horse the spur, and rides gaily out of the gorge. Not till then does he perceive that the men before him are in civilised costume, and that but one is on horseback, the other bestriding a mule. And they have no captives, the only other thing seen beside them being a dog! They are not Quantrell and Bosley! "Who can they be?" he asks of Chisholm, who has closed up behind him. "Hanged if I know, cap. Judgin' by their toggery, they must be whites; though 'gainst that dark sky one can't make sure about the colour of their hides. A big dog with them. A couple of trappers I take it; or, more likely, Mexican mustangers." "Not at all likely, Luke. There's none o' them 'bout here--at least I've not heard of any since we came this side the Colorado. Cannot be that. I wonder who--" "No use wonderin', cap. We can soon settle the point by questioning them. As there's but the two, they'll have to tell who they are, or take the consequences." By this, the other robbers have come up out of the ravine. Halted in a row, abreast, they also scan the two figures in front, interrogating one another as to who and what they are. All are alike surprised at men there, mounted or afoot; more especially white men, as by their garb they must be. But they have no apprehension at the encounter, seeing there are so few. The chief, acting on Chisholm's suggestion, moves confidently forward, the others, in like confidence, following. In less than sixty seconds they are up to the spot occupied by Clancy and Jupiter. Borlasse can scarce believe his eyes; and rubs them to make sure they are not deceiving him. If not they, something else has been--a newspaper report, and a tale told by one confessing himself a murderer, boastfully proclaiming it. And now, before him is the murdered man, on horseback, firmly seated in the saddle, apparently in perfect health! The desperado is speechless with astonishment--only muttering to himself:--"What the devil's this?" Were the question addressed to his, comrades, they could not answer it; though none of them share his astonishment, or can tell what is causing it. All they know is that two men are in their midst, one white, the other a mulatto, but who either is they have not the slightest idea. They see that the white man is a handsome young fellow--evidently a gentleman--bestriding a steed which some of them already regard with covetous glances; while he on the mule has the bearing of a body-servant. None of them has ever met or seen Clancy before, nor yet the fugitive slave. Their leader alone knows the first, too much of him, though nothing of the last. But no matter about the man of yellow skin. He with the white one is his chief concern. Recovering from his first surprise, he turns his thoughts towards solving the enigma. He is not long before reaching its solution. He remembers that the newspaper report said: "the body of the murdered man has not been found." Ergo, Charles Clancy hasn't been killed after all; for there he is, alive, and life-like as any man among them; mounted upon a steed which Jim Borlasse remembers well--as well as he does his master. To forget the animal would be a lapse of memory altogether unnatural. There are weals on the robber's back,--a souvenir of chastisement received for stealing that horse,--scars cicatrised, but never to be effaced. Deeper still than the brand on his body has sunk the record into his soul. He was more than disappointed--enraged--on hearing that Richard Darke had robbed him of a premeditated vengeance. For he knew Clancy was again returning to Texas, and intended taking it on his return. Now, discovering he has not been forestalled, seeing his prosecutor there, unexpectedly in his power, the glance he gives to him is less like that of man than demon. His followers take note that there is a strangeness in his manner, but refrain from questioning him about it. He seems in one of his moods, when they know it is not safe to intrude upon, or trifle with him. In his belt he carries a "Colt," which more than once has silenced a too free-speaking subordinate. Having surrounded the two strangers, in obedience to his gesture, they await further instructions how to deal with them. His first impulse is to make himself known to Clancy; then indulge in an ebullition of triumph over his prisoner. Put a thought restraining him, he resolves to preserve his incognito a little longer. Under his Indian travestie he fancies Clancy cannot, and has not, recognised him. Nor is it likely he would have done so, but for the foreknowledge obtained through Bosley. Even now only by his greater bulk is the robber chief distinguishable among his subordinates, all their faces being alike fantastically disfigured. Drawing back behind his followers, he whispers some words to Chisholm, instructing him what is to be done, as also to take direction of it. "Give up yer guns!" commands the latter, addressing himself to the strangers. "Why should we?" asks Clancy. "We want no cross-questionin', Mister. 'Tain't the place for sech, nor the time, as you'll soon larn. Give up yer guns! Right quick, or you'll have them taken from ye, in a way you won't like." Clancy still hesitates, glancing hastily around the ring of mounted men. He is mad at having permitted himself to be taken prisoner, for he knows he is this. He regrets not having galloped off while there was yet time. It is too late now. There is not a break in the enfilading circle through which he might make a dash. Even if there were, what chance ultimately to escape? None whatever. A score of guns and pistols are around him, ready to be discharged should he attempt to stir from the spot. Some of them are levelled, their barrels bearing upon him. It would be instant death, and madness in him to seek it so. He but says:-- "What have we done, that you should disarm us? You appear to be Indians, yet talk the white man's tongue. In any case, and whoever you are, we have no quarrel with you. Why should you wish to make us prisoners?" "We don't do anything of the sort. That would be wastin' wishes. You're our pris'ners already." It is Chisholm who thus facetiously speaks, adding in sterner tone:-- "Let go yer guns, or, by God! we'll shoot you out of your saddles. Boys! in upon 'em, and take their weepuns away!" At the command several of the robbers spring their horses forward, and, closing upon Clancy, seize him from all sides; others serving Jupiter the same. Both see that resistance were worse than folly--sheer insanity--and that there is no alternative but submit. Their arms are wrested from them, though they are allowed to retain possession of their animals. That is, they are left in their saddles-- compelled to stay in them by ropes rove around their ankles, attaching them to the stirrup-leathers. Whatever punishment awaits them, that is not the place where they are to suffer it. For, soon as getting their prisoners secured, the band is again formed into files, its leader ordering it to continue the march, so unexpectedly, and to him satisfactorily, interrupted. CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE. A PATHLESS PLAIN. The plain across which the freebooters are now journeying, on return to what they call their "rendyvoo," is one of a kind common in South-western Texas. An arid steppe, or table-land, by the Mexicans termed _mesa_; for the most part treeless, or only with such arborescence as characterises the American desert. "Mezquite," a name bestowed on several trees of the acacia kind, "black-jack," a dwarfed species of oak, with _Prosopis_, _Fouquiera_, and other spinous shrubs, are here and there found in thickets called "chapparals," interspersed with the more succulent vegetation of _cactus_ and _agave_, as also the _yucca_, or dragon-tree of the Western Hemisphere. In this particular section of it almost every tree and plant carries thorns. Even certain grasses are armed with prickly spurs, and sting the hand that touches them; while the reptiles crawling among them are of the most venomous species; scorpions and centipedes, with snakes having ossified tails, and a frog furnished with horns! The last, however, though vulgarly believed to be a batrachian, is in reality a lizard--the _Agama cornuta_. This plain, extending over thirty miles from east to west, and twice the distance in a longitudinal direction, has on one side the valley of the San Saba, on the other certain creeks tributary to the Colorado. On one of these the prairie pirates have a home, or haunt, to which they retire only on particular occasions, and for special purposes. Under circumstances of this kind they are now _en route_ for it. Its locality has been selected with an eye to safety, which it serves to perfection. A marauding party pursued from the lower settlements of the Colorado, by turning up the valley of the San Saba, and then taking across the intermediate plain, would be sure to throw the pursuers off their tracks, since on the table-land none are left throughout long stretches where even the iron heel of a horse makes no dent in the dry turf, nor leaves the slightest imprint. At one place in particular, just after striking this plain from the San Saba side, there is a broad belt, altogether without vegetation or soil upon its surface, the ground being covered with what the trappers call "cut-rock," presenting the appearance of a freshly macadamised road. Extending for more than a mile in width, and ten times as much lengthways, it is a tract no traveller would care to enter on who has any solicitude about the hooves of his horse. But just for this reason is it in every respect suitable to the prairie pirates. They may cross it empty-handed, and recross laden with spoil, without the pursuers being able to discover whence they came, or whither they have gone. Several times has this happened; settlers having come up the Colorado in pursuit of a marauding party--supposed to be Comanche Indians--tracked them into the San Saba bottom-land, and on over the bluff--there to lose their trail, and retire disheartened from the pursuit. Across this stony stretch proceed the freebooters, leaving no more trace behind, than one would walking on a shingled sea-beach. On its opposite edge they make stop to take bearings. For although they have more than once passed that way before, it is a route which always requires to be traversed with caution. To get strayed on the inhospitable steppe would be attended with danger, and might result in death. In clear weather, to those acquainted with the trail, there is little chance of losing it. For midway between the water courses runs a ridge, bisecting the steppe in a longitudinal direction; and on the crest of this is a tree, which can be seen from afar off on either side. The ridge is of no great elevation, and would scarce be observable but for the general level from which it rises, a mere comb upon the plain, such as is known northward by the term _coteau de prairie_--a title bestowed by trappers of French descent. The tree stands solitary, beside a tiny spring, which bubbles out between its roots. This, trickling off, soon sinks into the desert sand, disappearing within a few yards of the spot where it has burst forth. In such situation both tree and fountain are strange; though the one will account for the other, the former being due to the latter. But still another agency is needed to explain the existence of the tree. For it is a "cottonwood"--a species not found elsewhere upon the same plain; its seed no doubt transported thither by some straying bird. Dropped by the side of the spring in soil congenial, it has sprouted up, nourished, and become a tall tree. Conspicuous for long leagues around, it serves the prairie pirates as a finger-post to direct them across the steppe; for by chance it stands right on their route. It is visible from the edge of the pebble-strewn tract, but only when there is a cloudless sky and shining sun. Now, the one is clouded, the other unseen, and the tree cannot be distinguished. For some minutes the robbers remain halted, but without dismounting. Seated in the saddle, they strain their eyes along the horizon to the west. The Fates favour them; as in this world is too often the case with wicked men, notwithstanding many saws to the contrary. The sun shoots from behind a cloud, scattering his golden gleams broad and bright over the surface of the plain. Only for an instant, but enough to show the cottonwood standing solitary on the crest of the ridge. "Thank the Lord for that glimp o' light!" exclaims Borlasse, catching sight of the tree, "Now, boys; we see our beacon, an' let's straight to it. When we've got thar I'll show ye a bit of sport as 'll make ye laugh till there wont be a whole rib left in your bodies, nor a button on your coats--if ye had coats on." With this absurd premonition he presses on--his scattered troop reforming, and following. CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO. THE PRAIRIE STOCKS. Silent is Clancy, sullen as a tiger just captured and encaged. As the moments pass, and he listens to the lawless speech of his captors, more than ever is he vexed with himself for having so tamely submitted to be taken. Though as yet no special inhumanity has been shown him, he knows there will ere long. Coarse jests bandied between the robbers, whispered innuendoes, forewarn him of some fearful punishment about to be put upon him. Only its nature remains unknown. He does not think they intend killing him outright. He has overheard one of his guards muttering to the other, that such is not the chiefs intention, adding some words which make the assurance little consolatory. "Worse than death" is the fragment of a sentence borne ominously to his ears. Worse than death! Is it to be torture? During all this time Borlasse has not declared himself, or given token of having recognised his prisoner. But Clancy can tell he has done so. He saw it in the Satanic glance of his eye as they first came face to face. Since, the robber has studiously kept away from him, riding at the head of the line, the prisoners having place in its centre. On arrival at the underwood, all dismount; but only to slake their thirst, as that of their horses. The spring is unapproachable by the animals; and leathern buckets are called into requisition. With these, and other marching apparatus, the freebooters are provided. While one by one the horses are being watered, Borlasse draws off to some distance, beckoning Chisholm to follow him; and for a time the two seem engaged in earnest dialogue, as if in discussion. The chief promised his followers a spectacle,--a "bit of sport," as he facetiously termed it. Clancy has been forecasting torture, but in his worst fear of it could not conceive any so terrible as that in store for him. It is in truth a cruelty inconceivable, worthy a savage, or Satan himself. Made known to Chisholm, though hardened this outlaw's heart, he at first shrinks from assisting in its execution--even venturing to remonstrate. But Borlasse is inexorable. He has no feelings of compassion for the man who was once the cause of his being made to wince under the whip. His vengeance is implacable; and will only be satisfied by seeing Clancy suffer all that flesh can. By devilish ingenuity he has contrived a scheme to this intent, and will carry it out regardless of consequences. So says he, in answer to the somewhat mild remonstrance of his subordinate. "Well, cap," rejoins the latter, yielding, "if you're determined to have it that way, why, have it. But let it be a leetle privater than you've spoke o'. By makin' it a public spectacle, an' lettin' all our fellars into your feelins, some o' 'em mightn't be so much amused. An some might get to blabbin' about it afterwards, in such a way as to breed trouble. The originality an' curiousness o' the thing would be sure to 'tract attention, an' the report o't would run through all Texas, like a prairie on fire. 'Twould never sleep as long's there's a soger left in the land; and sure as shootin' we'd have the Rangers and Regulators hot after us. Tharfore, if you insist on the bit o' interment, take my advice, and let the ceremony be confined to a few friends as can be trusted wi' a secret." For some seconds Borlasse is silent, pondering upon what Chisholm has said. Then responds:-- "Guess you're about right, Luke. I'll do as you suggest. Best way will be to send the boys on ahead. There's three can stay with us we can trust--Watts, Stocker, and Driscoll. They'll be enough to do the grave-digging. The rest can go on to the rendezvous. Comrades!" he adds, moving back towards his men, who have just finished watering their horses, "I spoke o' some sport I intended givin' you here. On second thinkin' it'll be better defarred till we get to head-quarters. So into your saddles and ride on thar--takin' the yeller fellow along wi' ye. The other I'll look after myself. You, Luke Chisholm, stay; with Watts, Stocker, and Driscoll. I've got a reason for remaining here a little longer. We'll soon be after, like enough overtake ye 'fore you can reach the creek. If not, keep on to camp without us. An', boys; once more I warn ye about openin' them boxes. I know what's in them to a dollar. Fernand! you'll see to that." The half-blood, of taciturn habit, nods assent, Borlasse adding:-- "Now, you damned rascals! jump into your saddles and be off. Take the nigger along. Leave the white gentleman in better company, as befits him." With a yell of laughter at the coarse sally, the freebooters spring upon their horses. Then, separating Clancy from Jupe, they ride off, taking the latter. On the ground are left only the chief, Chisholm, and the trio chosen to assist at some ceremony, mysteriously spoken of as an "interment." After all it is not to be there. On reflection, Borlasse deems the place not befitting. The grave he is about to dig must not be disturbed, nor the body he intends burying disinterred. Though white traveller never passes that solitary tree, red ones sometimes seek relaxation under its shade. Just possible a party of Comanches may come along; and though savages, their hearts might still be humane enough to frustrate the nefarious scheme of a white man more savage than they. To guard against such contingency Borlasse has bethought him of some change in his programme, which he makes known to Chisholm, saying:-- "I won't bury him here, Luke. Some strayin' redskin might come along, and help him to resurrection. By God! he shan't have that, till he hears Gabriel's trumpet. To make sure we must plant him in a safer place." "Can we find safer, cap?" "Certainly we can." "But whar?" "Anywhare out o' sight of here. We shall take him to some distance off, so's they can't see him from the spring. Up yonder'll do." He points to a part of the plain northward, adding:-- "It's all alike which way, so long's we go far enough." "All right!" rejoins Chisholm, who has surrendered his scruples about the cruelty of what they intend doing, and only thinks of its being done without danger. "Boys!" shouts Borlasse to the men in charge of Clancy, "bring on your prisoner! We're going to make a leetle deflection from the course--a bit o' a pleasure trip--only a short un." So saying, he starts off in a northerly direction, nearly at right angles to that they have been hitherto travelling. After proceeding about a mile, the brigand chief, still riding with Chisholm in the advance, comes to a halt, calling back to the others to do the same--also directing them to dismount their prisoner. Clancy is unceremoniously jerked out of his saddle; and, after having his arms pinioned, and limbs lashed together, laid prostrate along the earth. This leaves them free for the infernal task, they are now instructed to perform. One only, Watts, stays with the prisoner; the other two, at the chiefs command, coming on to where he and Chisholm have halted. Then all four cluster around a spot he points out, giving directions what they are to do. With the point of his spear Borlasse traces a circle upon the turf, some twenty inches in diameter; then tells them to dig inside it. Stocker and Driscoll draw their tomahawks, and commence hacking at the ground; which, though hard, yields to the harder steel of hatchets manufactured for the cutting of skulls. As they make mould, it is removed by Chisholm with the broad blade of his Comanche spear. As all prairie men are accustomed to making _caches_, they are expert at this; and soon sink a shaft that would do credit to the "crowing" of a South African Bosjesman. It is a cylinder full five feet in depth, with a diameter of less than two. Up to this time its purpose has not been declared to either Stocker, or Driscoll, though both have their conjectures. They guess it to be the grave of him who is lying along the earth--his living tomb! At length, deeming it deep enough, Borlasse commands them to leave off work, adding, as he points to the prisoner: "Now, plant your saplin'! If it don't grow there it ought to." The cold-blooded jest extorts a smile from the others, as they proceed to execute the diabolical order. And they do it without show of hesitation--rather with alacrity. Not one of the five has a spark of compassion in his breast--not one whose soul is unstained with blood. Clancy is dragged forward, and plunged feet foremost into the cavity. Standing upright, his chin is only an inch or two above the surface of the ground. A portion of the loose earth is pushed in, and packed around him, the ruffians trampling it firm. What remains they kick and scatter aside; the monster, with horrible mockery, telling them to make a "neat job of it." During all this time Brasfort has been making wild demonstrations, struggling to free himself, as if to rescue his master. For he is also bound, tied to the stirrup of one of the robber's horses. But the behaviour of the faithful animal, instead of stirring them to compassion, only adds to their fiendish mirth. The interment complete, Borlasse makes a sign to the rest to retire; then, placing himself in front, with arms akimbo, stands looking Clancy straight in the face. No pen could paint that glance. It can only be likened to that of Lucifer. For a while he speaks not, but in silence exults over his victim. Then, bending down and tossing back his plumed bonnet, he asks, "D'ye know me, Charley Clancy?" Receiving no reply, he continues, "I'll lay a hundred dollars to one, ye will, after I've told ye a bit o' a story, the which relates to a circumstance as happened jest twelve months ago. The scene o' that affair was in the public square o' Nacodosh, whar a man was tied to a post an--" "Whipped at it, as he deserved." "Ha!" exclaims Borlasse, surprised, partly at being recognised, but as much by the daring avowal. "You do remember that little matter? And me too?" "Perfectly; so you may spare yourself the narration. You are Jim Borlasse, the biggest brute and most thorough scoundrel in Texas." "Curse you!" cries the ruffian enraged, poising his spear till its point almost touches Clancy's head, "I feel like driving this through your skull." "Do so!" is the defiant and desperate rejoinder. It is what Clancy desires. He has no hope of life now. He wishes death to come at once, and relieve him from the long agony he will otherwise have to endure. Quick catching this to be his reason, Borlasse restrains himself, and tosses up the spear, saying:-- "No, Mister; ye don't die that eesy way--not if I know it. You and yours kept me two days tied like a martyr to the stake, to say nothin' of what came after. So to make up for't I'll give you a spell o' confinement that'll last a leetle longer. You shall stay as ye are, till the buzzarts peck out your eyes, an' the wolves peel the skin from your skull--ay, till the worms go crawlin' through your flesh. How'll ye like that, Charley Clancy?" "There's no wolf or vulture on the prairies of Texas ugly as yourself. Dastardly dog!" "Ah! you'd like to get me angry? But you can't. I'm cool as a cowkumber--aint I? Your dander's up, I can see. Keep it down. No good your gettin' excited. I s'pose you'd like me to spit in your face. Well, here goes to obleege ye." At this he stoops down, and does as said. After perpetrating the outrage, he adds:-- "Why don't ye take out your handkercher an' wipe it off. It's a pity to see such a handsome fellow wi' his face in that fashion. Ha! ha! ha!" His four confederates, standing apart, spectators of the scene, echo his fiendish laughter. "Well, well, my proud gentleman;" he resumes, "to let a man spit in your face without resentin' it! I never expected to see you sunk so low. Humiliated up to the neck--to the chin! Ha! ha! ha!" Again rings out the brutal cachinnation, chorused by his four followers. In like manner the monster continues to taunt his helpless victim; so long, one might fancy his spite would be spent, his vengeance sated. But no--not yet. There is still another arrow in his quiver--a last shaft to be shot--which he knows will carry a sting keener than any yet sent. When his men have remounted, and are ready to ride off, he returns to Clancy, and, stooping, hisses into his ear:-- "Like enough you'll be a goodish while alone here, an' tharfore left to your reflections. Afore partin' company, let me say somethin' that may comfort you. _Dick Darke's got your girl; 'bout this time has her in his arms_!" CHAPTER SEVENTY THREE. HELPLESS AND HOPELESS. "O God!" Charles Clancy thus calls upon his Maker. Hitherto sustained by indignation, now that the tormentor has left him, the horror of his situation, striking into his soul in all its dread reality, wrings from him the prayerful apostrophe. A groan follows, as his glance goes searching over the plain. For there is nothing to gladden it. His view commands the half of a circle--a great circle such as surrounds you upon the sea; though not as seen from the deck of a ship, but by one lying along the thwarts of a boat, or afloat upon a raft. The robbers have ridden out of sight, and he knows they will not return. They have left him to die a lingering death, almost as if entombed alive. Perhaps better he were enclosed in a coffin; for then his sufferings would sooner end. He has not the slightest hope of being succoured. There is no likelihood of human creature coming that way. It is a sterile waste, without game to tempt the hunter, and though a trail runs across it, Borlasse, with fiendish forethought, has placed him so far from this, that no one travelling along it could possibly see him. He can just descry the lone cottonwood afar off, outlined against the horizon like a ship at sea. It is the only tree in sight; elsewhere not even a bush to break the drear monotony of the desert. He thinks of Simeon Woodley, Ned Heywood, and those who may pursue the plunderers of the settlement. But with hopes too faint to be worth entertaining. For he has been witness to the precautions taken by the robbers to blind their trail, and knows that the most skilled tracker cannot discover it. Chance alone could guide the pursuit in that direction, if pursuit there is to be. But even this is doubtful. For Colonel Armstrong having recovered his daughters, and only some silver stolen, the settlers may be loath to take after the thieves, or postpone following them to some future time. Clancy has no knowledge of the sanguinary drama that has been enacted at the Mission, else he would not reason thus. Ignorant of it, he can only be sure, that Sime Woodley and Ned Heywood will come in quest of, but without much likelihood of their finding them. No doubt they will search for days, weeks, months, if need be; and in time, but too late, discover--what? His head-- "Ha!" His painful reflections are interrupted by that which but intensifies their painfulness: a shadow he sees flitting across the plain. His eyes do not follow it, but, directed upward, go in search of the thing which is causing it. "A vulture!" The foul bird is soaring aloft, its black body and broad expanded wings outlined against the azure sky. For this is again clear, the clouds and threatening storm having drifted off without bursting. And now, while with woe in his look he watches the swooping bird, well knowing the sinister significance of its flight, he sees another, and another, and yet another, till the firmament seems filled with them. Again he groans out, "O God!" A new agony threatens, a new horror is upon him. Vain the attempt to depict his feelings, as he regards the movements of the vultures. They are as those of one swimming in the sea amidst sharks. For, although the birds do not yet fly towards him, he knows they will soon be there. He sees them sailing in spiral curves, descending at each gyration, slowly but surely stooping lower, and coming nearer. He can hear the swish of their wings, like the sough of an approaching storm, with now and then a raucous utterance from their throats--the signal of some leader directing the preliminaries of the attack, soon to take place. At length they are so close, he can see the ruff around their naked necks, bristled up; the skin reddened as with rage, and their beaks, stained with bloody flesh of some other banquet, getting ready to feast upon his. Soon he will feel them striking against his skull, pecking out his eyes. O, heavens! can horror be felt further? Not by him. It adds not to his, when he perceives that the birds threatening to assail him will be assisted by beasts. For he now sees this. Mingling with the shadows flitting over the earth, are things more substantial--the bodies of wolves. As with the vultures, at first only one; then two or three; their number at each instant increasing, till a whole pack of the predatory brutes have gathered upon the ground. Less silent than their winged allies--their competitors, if it come to a repast. For the coyote is a noisy creature, and those now assembling around Clancy's head--a sight strange to them--give out their triple bark, with its prolonged whine, in sound so lugubrious, that, instead of preparing for attack, one might fancy them wailing a defeat. Clancy has often heard that cry, and well comprehends its meaning. It seems his death-dirge. While listening to it no wonder he again calls upon God--invokes Heaven to help him! CHAPTER SEVENTY FOUR. COYOTE CREEK. A stream coursing through a canoned channel whose banks rise three hundred feet above its bed. They are twin cliffs that front one another, their _facades_ not half so far apart. Rough with projecting points of rock, and scarred by water erosion, they look like angry giants with grim visages frowning mutual defiance. In places they approach, almost to touching; then, diverging, sweep round the opposite sides of an ellipse; again closing like the curved handles of callipers. Through the spaces thus opened the water makes its way, now rushing in hoarse torrent, anon gently meandering through meadows, whose vivid verdure, contrasting with the sombre colour of the enclosing cliffs, gives the semblance of landscape pictures set in rustic frame. The traveller who attempts to follow the course of the stream in question will have to keep upon the cliffs above: for no nearer can he approach its deeply-indented channel. And here he will see only the sterile treeless plain; or, if trees meet his eye, they will be such as but strengthen the impression of sterility--some scrambling mezquite bushes, clumps of cactaceae, perhaps the spheroidal form of a melocactus, or yucca, with its tufts of rigid leaves--the latter resembling bunches of bayonets rising above the musket "stacks" on a military parade ground. He will have no view of the lush vegetation that enlivens the valley a hundred yards below the hoofs of his horse. He will not even get a glimpse of the stream itself; unless by going close to the edge of the precipice, and craning his neck over. And to do this, he must needs diverge from his route to avoid the transverse rivulets, each trickling down the bed of its own deep-cut channel. There are many such streams in South-Western Texas; but the one here described is that called _Arroyo de Coyote_--Anglice, "Coyote Creek"--a tributary of the Colorado. In part it forms the western boundary of the table-land, already known to the reader, in part intersecting it. Approaching it from the San Saba side, there is a stretch of twenty miles, where its channel cannot be reached, except by a single lateral ravine leading down to it at right angles, the entrance to which is concealed by a thick chapparal of thorny mezquite trees. Elsewhere, the traveller may arrive on the bluff's brow, but cannot go down to the stream's edge. He may see it far below, coursing among trees of every shade of green, from clearest emerald to darkest olive, here in straight reaches, there sinuous as a gliding snake. Birds of brilliant plumage flit about through the foliage upon its banks, some disporting themselves in its pellucid wave; some making the valley vocal with their melodious warblings, and others filling it with harsh, stridulous cries. Burning with thirst, and faint from fatigue, he will fix his gaze on the glistening water, to be tortured as Tantalus, and descry the cool shade, without being able to rest his weary limbs beneath it. But rare the traveller, who ever strays to the bluffs bounding Coyote Creek: rarer still, those who have occasion to descend to the bottom-land through which it meanders. Some have, nevertheless, as evinced by human sign observable upon the stream's bank, just below where the lateral ravine leads down. There the cliffs diverging, and again coming near, enclose a valley of ovoidal shape, for the most part overgrown with pecan-trees. On one side of it is a thick umbrageous grove, within which several tents are seen standing. They are of rude description, partly covered by the skins of animals, partly scraps of old canvas, here and there eked out with a bit of blanket, or a cast coat. No one would mistake them for the tents of ordinary travellers, while they are equally unlike the wigwams of the nomadic aboriginal. To whom, then, do they appertain? Were their owners present, there need be no difficulty in answering the question. But they are not. Neither outside, nor within, is soul to be seen. Nor anywhere near. No human form appears about the place; no voice of man, woman, or child, reverberates through the valley. Yet is there every evidence of recent occupation. In an open central space, are the ashes of a huge fire still hot, with fagots half-burnt, and scarce ceased smoking; while within the tents are implements, utensils, and provisions--bottles and jars of liquor left uncorked, with stores of tobacco unconsumed. What better proof that they are only temporarily deserted, and not abandoned? Certainly their owners, whether white men or Indians, intend returning to them. It need scarce be told who these are. Enough to say, that Coyote Creek is the head-quarters of the prairie pirates, who assaulted the San Saba settlement. Just as the sun is beginning to decline towards the western horizon, those of them sent on ahead arrive at their rendezvous; the chief, with Chisholm and the other three, not yet having come up. On entering the encampment, they relieve their horses of the precious loads. Then unsaddling, turn them into a "corral" rudely constructed among the trees. A set of bars, serving as a gate, secures the animals against straying. This simple stable duty done, the men betake themselves to the tents, re-kindle the fire, and commence culinary operations. By this, all are hungry enough, and they have the wherewithal to satisfy their appetites. There are skilful hunters among them, and the proceeds of a chase, that came off before starting out on their less innocent errand, are seen hanging from the trees, in the shape of bear's hams and haunches of venison. These taken down, are spitted, and soon frizzling in the fire's blaze; while the robbers gather around, knives in hand, each intending to carve for himself. As they are about to commence their Homeric repast, Borlasse and the others ride up. Dismounting and striding in among the tents, the chief glances inquiringly around, his glance soon changing to disappointment. What he looks for is not there! "Quantrell and Bosley," he asks, "ain't they got here?" "No, capting," answers one. "They hain't showed yet." "And you've seen nothin' of them?" "Nary thing." His eyes light up with angry suspicion. Again doubts he the fidelity of Darke, or rather is he now certain that the lieutenant is a traitor. Uttering a fearful oath, he steps inside his tent, taking Chisholm along with him. "What can it mean, Luke?" he asks, pouring out a glass of brandy, and gulping it down. "Hanged if I can tell, cap. It looks like you was right in supposin' they're gin us the slip. Still it's queery too, whar they could a goed, and wharf ore they should." "There's nothing so strange about the wherefore; that's clear enough to me. I suspected Richard Darke, _alias_ Phil Quantrell, would play me false some day, though I didn't expect it so soon. He don't want his beauty brought here, lest some of the boys might be takin' a fancy to her. That's one reason, but not all. There's another--to a man like him 'most as strong. He's rich, leastaways his dad is, an' he can get as much out o' the old 'un as he wants,--will have it all in time. He guesses I intended squeezin' him; an' thar he was about right, for I did. I'd lay odds that's the main thing has moved him to cut clear o' us." "A darned mean trick if it is. You gied him protection when he was chased by the sheriffs, an' now--" "Now, he won't need it; though he don't know that; can't, I think. If he but knew he ain't after all a murderer! See here, Luke; he may turn up yet. An' if so, for the life o' ye, ye mustn't tell him who it was we dibbled into the ground up thar. I took care not to let any of them hear his name. You're the only one as knows it." "Ye can trust me, cap. The word Clancy won't pass through my teeth, till you gie me leave to speak it." "Ha!" exclaims Borlasse, suddenly struck with an apprehension. "I never thought of the mulatto. He may have let it out?" "He mayn't, however!" "If not, he shan't now. I'll take care he don't have the chance." "How are ye to help it? You don't intend killin' him?" "Not yet; thar's a golden _egg_ in that goose. His silence can be secured without resortin' to that. He must be kep' separate from the others." "But some o' them 'll have to look after him, or he may cut away from us." "Fernandez will do that. I can trust him with Clancy's name,--with anything. Slip out, Luke, and see if they've got it among them. If they have, it's all up, so far as that game goes. If not, I'll fix things safe, so that when we've spent Monsheer Dupre's silver, we may still draw cheques on the bank of San Antonio, signed Ephraim Darke." Chisholm obeying, brings back a satisfactory report. "The boys know nothin' o' Clancy's name, nor how we disposed o' him. In coorse, Watts, Stocker, an' Driscoll, haint sayed anything 'bout that. They've told the rest we let him go, not carin' to keep him; and that you only wanted the yellow fellow to wait on ye." "Good! Go again, and fetch Fernandez here." Chisholm once more turns out of the tent, soon after re-entering it, the half-blood behind him. "Nandy," says Borlasse; calling the latter by a name mutually understood. "I want you to take charge of that mulatto, and keep him under your eye. You musn't let any of the boys come nigh enough to hold speech wi' him. You go, Luke, and give them orders they're not to." Chisholm retires. "And, Nandy, if the nigger mentions any name--it may be that of his master--mind you it's not to be repeated to any one. You understand me?" "I do, _capitan_." "All serene. I know I can depend on ye. Now, to your duty." Without another word, the taciturn mestizo glides out of the tent, leaving Borlasse alone. Speaking to himself, he says:-- "If Quantrell's turned traitor, thar's not a corner in Texas whar he'll be safe from my vengeance. I'll sarve the whelp as I've done 'tother,-- a hound nobler than he. An' for sweet Jessie Armstrong, he'll have strong arms that can keep her out o' mine. By heavens! I'll hug her yet. If not, hell may take me!" Thus blasphemously delivering himself, he clutches at the bottle of brandy, pours out a fresh glass, and drinking it at a gulp, sits down to reflect on the next step to be taken. CHAPTER SEVENTY FIVE. A TRANSFORMATION. Night has spread its sable pall over the desert plain, darker in the deep chasm through which runs Coyote Creek. There is light enough in the encampment of the prairie pirates; for the great fire kindled for cooking their dinners still burns, a constant supply of resinous pine-knots keeping up the blaze, which illuminates a large circle around. By its side nearly a score of men are seated in groups, some playing cards, others idly carousing. No one would suppose them the same seen there but a few hours before; since there is not the semblance of Indian among them. Instead, they are all white men, and wearing the garb of civilisation; though scarce two are costumed alike. There are coats of Kentucky jeans, of home-wove copperas stripe, of blanket-cloth in the three colours, red, blue, and green; there are blouses of brown linen, and buckskin dyed with dogwood ooze; there are Creole jackets of Attakapas "cottonade," and Mexican ones of cotton velveteen. Alike varied is the head, leg, and foot-wear. There are hats of every shape and pattern; pantaloons of many a cut and material, most of them tucked into boots with legs of different lengths, from ankle to mid-thigh. Only in the under garment is there anything like uniformity; nine out of ten wearing shirts of scarlet flannel--the fashion of the frontier. A stranger entering the camp now, would suppose its occupants to be a party of hunters; one acquainted with the customs of South-Western Texas, might pronounce them _mustangers_--men who make their living by the taking and taming of wild horses. And if those around the fire were questioned about their calling, such would be the answer.--In their tents are all the paraphernalia used in this pursuit; lassoes for catching the horses; halters and hobbles for confining them; bits for breaking, and the like; while close by is a "corral" in which to keep the animals when caught. All counterfeit! There is not a real mustanger among these men, nor one who is not a robber; scarce one who could lay his hand upon his heart, and say he has not, some time or other in his life, committed murder! For though changed in appearance, since last seen, they are the same who entered the camp laden with Luis Dupre's money--fresh from the massacre of his slaves. The transformation took place soon as they snatched a hasty meal. Then all hurried down to the creek, provided with pieces of soap; and plunging in, washed the paint from their hands, arms, and faces. The Indian costume has not only been cast aside, but secreted, with all its equipments. If the encampment were searched now, no stained feathers would be found; no beads or belts of wampum; no breech-clouts, bows, or quivers; no tomahawks or spears. All have been "cached" in a cave among the rocks; there to remain till needed for some future maraud, or massacre. Around their camp-fire the freebooters are in full tide of enjoyment. The dollars have been divided, and each has his thousands. Those at the cards are not contented, but are craving more. They will be richer, or poorer. And soon; playing "poker" at fifty dollars an "ante." Gamesters and lookers on alike smoke, drink, and make merry. They have no fear now, not the slightest apprehension. If pursued, the pursuers cannot find the way to Coyote creek. If they did, what would they see there? Certainly not the red-skinned savages, who plundered the San Saba mission, but a party of innocent horse hunters, all Texans. The only one resembling an Indian among them is the half-breed--Fernand. But he is also so metamorphosed, that his late master could not recognise him. The others have changed from red men to white; in reverse, he has become to all appearance a pure-blooded aboriginal. Confident in their security, because ignorant of what has taken place under the live-oak, they little dream that one of their confederates is in a situation, where he will be forced to tell a tale sure to thwart their well-constructed scheme, casting it down as a house of cards. Equally are they unaware of the revelation which their own prisoner, the mulatto, could make. They suppose him and his master to be but two travellers encountered by accident, having no connection with the San Saba settlers. Borlasse is better informed about this, though not knowing all. He believes Clancy to have been _en route_ for the new settlement, but without having reached it. He will never reach it now. In hope of getting a clearer insight into many things still clouded, while his followers are engaged at their games, he seeks the tent to which Jupiter has been consigned, and where he is now under the surveillance of the half-blood, Fernand. Ordering the mestizo to retire, he puts the prisoner through a course of cross-questioning. The mulatto is a man of no ordinary intelligence. He had the misfortune to be born a slave, with the blood of a freeman in his veins; which, stirring him to discontent with his ignoble lot, at length forced him to become a fugitive. With a subtlety partly instinctive, but strengthened by many an act of injustice, he divines the object of the robber captain's visit. Not much does the latter make of him, question as he may. Jupe knows nothing of any Phil Quantrell, or any Richard Darke. He is the slave of the young gentleman who has been separated from him. He makes no attempt to conceal his master's name, knowing that Borlasse is already acquainted with Clancy, and must have recognised him. They were on their way to join the colony of Colonel Armstrong, with a party from the States. They came up from the Colorado the night before, camping in the San Saba bottom, where he believes them to be still. Early in the morning, his master left the camp for a hunt, and the hound had tracked a bear up the gully. That was why they were on the upper plain; they were trying for the track of the bear, when taken. The mulatto has no great liking for his master, from whom he has had many a severe flogging. In proof he tells the robber chief to turn up his shirt, and see how his back has been scored by the cowhide. Borlasse--does so; and sure enough there are the scars, somewhat similar to those he carries himself. If not pity, the sight begets a sort of coarse sympathy, such as the convict feels for his fellow; an emotion due to the freemasonry of crime. Jupiter takes care to strengthen it, by harping on the cruelty of his master--more than hinting that he would like to leave him, if any other would but buy him. Indeed he'd be willing to run away, if he saw the chance. "Don't trouble yerself 'bout that," says the bandit, 'as the interview comes near its end, "maybe, I'll buy ye myself. At all events, Mister Clancy ain't likely to flog you any more. How'd ye like _me_ for yer master?" "I'd be right glad, boss." "Are ye up to takin' care of horses?" "That's just what Masser Clancy kept me for." "Well; he's gone on to the settlement without you. As he's left you behind that careless way, ye can stay with us, an' look after my horse. It's the same ye've been accustomed to. I swopped with your master 'fore we parted company." Jupe is aware that Clancy's splendid steed is in the camp. Through a chink in the tent he saw the horse ridden in, Borlasse on his back; wondering why his master was not along, and what they had done with him. He has no faith in the tale told him, but a fear it is far otherwise. It will not do to show this, and concealing his anxiety, he rejoins:-- "All right, masser. I try do my best. Only hope you not a gwine where we come cross Masser Clancy. If he see me, he sure have me back, and then I'se get the cowhide right smart. He flog me dreadful." "You're in no danger. I'll take care he never sets eye on you again. "Here, Nandy!" he says to the mestizo, summoned back. "You can remove them ropes from your prisoner. Give him somethin' to eat and drink. Treat him as ye would one o' ourselves. He's to be that from this time forrard. Spread a buffler skin, an' get him a bit o' blanket for his bed. Same time, for safety's sake, keep an eye on him." The caution is spoken _sotto voce_, so that the prisoner may not hear it. After which, Borlasse leaves the two together, congratulating himself on the good speculation he will make, not by keeping Jupe to groom his horse, but selling him as a slave to the first man met willing to purchase him. In the fine able-bodied mulatto, he sees a thousand dollars cash--soon as he can come across a cotton-planter. CHAPTER SEVENTY SIX. MESTIZO AND MULATTO. While their chief has been interrogating his prisoner, the robbers around the fire have gone on with their poker-playing, and whisky drinking. Borlasse joining in the debauch, orders brandy to be brought out of his tent, and distributed freely around. He drinks deeply himself; in part to celebrate the occasion of such a grand stroke of business done, but as much to drown his disappointment at the captives not yet having come in.--The alcohol has its effect; and ere long rekindles a hope, which Chisholm strengthens, saying, all will yet be well, and the missing ones turn up, if not that night, on the morrow. Somewhat relieved by this expectation, Borlasse enters into the spirit of the hour, and becomes jovial and boisterous as any of his subordinates. The cards are tossed aside, the play abandoned; instead, coarse stories are told, and songs sung, fit only for the ears of such a God-forsaken crew. The saturnalia is brought to a close, when all become so intoxicated they can neither tell story nor sing song. Then some stagger to their tents, others dropping over where they sit, and falling fast asleep. By midnight there is not a man of them awake, and the camp is silent, save here and there a drunken snore disturbing its stillness. The great central fire, around which some remain lying astretch, burns on, but no longer blazes. There is no one to tend it with the pitchy pine-knots. Inside the tents also, the lights are extinguished--all except one. This, the rude skin sheiling which shelters the mestizo and mulatto. The two half-bloods, of different strain, are yet awake, and sitting up. They are also drinking, hobnobbing with one another. Fernand has supplied the liquor freely and without stint. Pretending to fraternise with the new confederate, he has filled the latter's glass at least a half-score of times, doing the same with his own. Both have emptied them with like rapidity, and yet neither seems at all overcome. Each thinks the other the hardest case at a drinking bout he has ever come across; wondering he is not dead drunk, though knowing why he is himself sober. The Spanish moss plucked from the adjacent trees, and littering the tent floor, could tell--if it had the power of speech. Jupiter has had many a whiskey spree in the woods of Mississippi, but never has he encountered a _convive_ who could stand so much of it, and still keep his tongue and seat. What can it mean? Is the mestizo's stomach made of steel? While perplexed, and despairing of being able to get Fernand intoxicated, an explanation suggests itself. His fellow tippler may be shamming, as himself? Pretending to look out of the tent, he twists his eyes away so far, that, from the front, little else than their whites can be seen. But enough of the retina is uncovered to receive an impression from behind; this showing the mestizo tilting his cup, and spilling its contents among the moss! He now knows he is being watched, as well as guarded. And of his vigilant sentinel there seems but one way to disembarrass himself. As the thought of it flits across his brain, his eyes flash with a feverish light, such as when one intends attacking by stealth, and with the determination to kill. For he must either kill the man by his side, or give up what is to himself worth more than such a life--his own liberty. It may be his beloved master yet lives, and there is a chance to succour him. If dead, he will find his body, and give it burial. He remembers the promise that morning mutually declared between them--to stand and fall together--he will keep his part of it. If Clancy has fallen, others will go down too; in the end, if need be, himself. But not till he has taken, or tried to take, a terrible and bloody vengeance. To this he has bound himself, by an oath sworn in the secret recesses of his heart. Its prelude is nigh, and the death of the Indian half-breed is to initiate it. For the fugitive slave knows the part this vile caitiff has played, and will not scruple to kill him; the less that it is now an inexorable necessity. He but waits for the opportunity--has been seeking it for some time. It offers at length. Turning suddenly, and detecting the mestizo in his act of deception, he asks laughingly why he should practice such a trick. Then stooping forward, as if to verify it, his right arm is seen to lunge out with something that glitters in his hand. It is the blade of a bowie-knife. In an instant the arm is drawn back, the glittering gone off the blade, obliterated by blood! For it has been between the ribs, and through the heart of the mestizo; who, slipping from his seat, falls to the floor, without even a groan! Grasping Clancy's gun, which chances to be in the tent, and then blowing out the light, the mulatto moves off, leaving but a dead body behind him. Once outside, he looks cautiously around the encampment, scanning the tents and the ground adjacent to them. He sees the big fire still red, but not flaming. He can make out the forms of men lying around it--all of them, for him fortunately, asleep. Stepping, as if on eggs, and keeping as much as possible in shadow, he threads his way through the tents until he is quite clear of the encampment. But he does not go directly off. Instead, he makes a circuit to the other side, where Brasfort is tied to a tree. A cut of his red blade releases the hound, that follows him in silence, as if knowing it necessary. Then on to the corral where the horses are penned up. Arriving at the fence he finds the bars, and there stopping, speaks some words in undertone, but loud enough to be heard by the animals inside. As if it were a cabalistic speech, one separates from the rest, and comes towards him. It is the steed of Clancy. Protruding its soft muzzle over the rail, it is stroked by the mulatto's hand, which soon after has hold of the forelock. Fortunately the saddles are close by, astride the fence, with the bridles hanging to the branches of a tree. Jupiter easily recognises those he is in search of, and soon has the horse caparisoned. At length he leads the animal not mounting till he is well away from the camp. Then, climbing cautiously into the saddle, he continues on, Brasfort after; man, horse, and hound, making no more noise, than if all three were but shadows. CHAPTER SEVENTY SEVEN. A STRAYED TRAVELLER. Pale, trembling, with teeth chattering, Richard Darke awakes from his drunken slumber. He sees his horse tied to the tree, as he left him, but making violent efforts to get loose. For coyotes have come skulking around the copse, and their cry agitates the animal. It is this that has awakened the sleeper. He starts to his feet in fear, though not of the wolves. Their proximity has nought to do with the shudder which passes through his frame. It comes from an apprehension he has overslept himself, and that, meanwhile, his confederates have passed the place. It is broad daylight, with a bright sun in the sky; though this he cannot see through the thick foliage intervening. But his watch will tell him the time. He takes it out and glances at the dial. The hands appear not to move! He holds it to his ear, but hears no ticking. Now, he remembers having neglected to wind it up the night before. It has run down! Hastily returning it to his pocket, he makes for open ground, where he may get a view of the sun. By its height above the horizon, as far as he can judge it should be about nine of the morning. This point, as he supposes, settled, does not remove his apprehension, on the contrary but increases it. The returning marauders would not likely be delayed so late? In all probability they have passed. How is he to be assured? A thought strikes him: he will step out upon the plain, and see if he can discern their tracks. He does so, keeping on to the summit of the pass. There he finds evidence to confirm his fears. The loose turf around the head of the gorge is torn and trampled by the hoofs of many horses, all going off over the plain. The robbers have returned to their rendezvous! Hastening back to his horse, he prepares to start after. Leading the animal to the edge of the copse, he is confronted by what sends a fresh thrill of fear through his heart. The sun is before his face, but not as when he last looked at it. Instead of having risen higher, it is now nearer the horizon! "Great God!" he exclaims, as the truth breaks upon him. "It's setting, not rising; evening 'stead of morning!" Shading his eye with spread palm, he gazes at the golden orb, in look bewildered. Not long, till assured, the sun is sinking, and night nigh. The deduction drawn is full of sinister sequence. More than one starts up in his mind to dismay him. He is little acquainted with the trail to Coyote Creek, and may be unable to find it. Moreover, the robbers are certain of being pursued, and Sime Woodley will be one of the pursuers; Bosley forced to conduct them, far as he can. The outraged settlers may at any moment appear coming up the pass! He glances apprehensively towards it, then across the plain. His face is now towards the sun, whose lower limb just touches the horizon, the red round orb appearing across the smooth surface, as over that of a tranquil sea. He regards it, to direct his course. He knows that the camping place on Coyote Creek is due west from where he is. And at length, having resolved, he sets his foot in the stirrup, vaults into the saddle, and spurs off, leaving the black-jack grove behind him. He does not proceed far, before becoming uncertain as to his course. The sun goes down, leaving heaven's firmament in darkness, with only some last lingering rays along its western edge. These grow fainter and fainter, till scarce any difference can be noted around the horizon's ring. He now rides in doubt, guessing the direction. Scanning the stars he searches for the Polar constellation. But a mist has meanwhile sprung up over the plain, and, creeping across the northern sky, concealed it. In the midst of his perplexity, the moon appears; and taking bearings by this, he once more makes westward. But there are cumulus clouds in the sky; and these, ever and anon drifting over the moon's disc, compel him to pull up till they pass. At length he is favoured with a prolonged interval of light, during which he puts his animal to its best speed, and advances many miles in what he supposes to be the right direction. As yet he has encountered no living creature, nor object of any kind. He is in hopes to get sight of the solitary tree; for beyond it the trail to Coyote Creek is easily taken. While scanning the moonlit expanse he descries a group of figures; apparently quadrupeds, though of what species he cannot tell. They appear too large for wolves, and yet are not like wild horses, deer, or buffaloes. On drawing nearer, he discovers them to be but coyotes; the film, refracting the moon's light, having deceived him as to their size. What can they be doing out there? Perhaps collected around some animal they have hunted down, and killed--possibly a prong-horn antelope? It is not with any purpose he approaches them. He only does so because they are in the line of his route. But before reaching the spot where they are assembled, he sees something to excite his curiosity, at the same time, baffling all conjecture what it can be. On his coming closer, the jackals scatter apart, exposing it to view; then, loping off, leave it behind them. Whatever it be, it is evidently the lure that has brought the predatory beasts together. It is not the dead body of deer, antelope, or animal of any kind; but a thing of rounded shape, set upon a short shank, or stem. "What the devil is it?" he asks himself, first pausing, and then spurring on towards it. "Looks lor all the world like a man's head!" At that moment, the moon emitting one of her brightest beams, shows the object still clearer, causing him to add in exclamation, "By heavens, it is a head!" Another instant and he sees a face, which sends the blood back to his heart, almost freezing it in his veins. Horror stricken he reins up, dragging his horse upon the haunches; and in this attitude remains, his eyes rolling as though they would start from their sockets. Then, shouting the words, "Great God, Clancy!" followed by a wild shriek, he wrenches the horse around, and mechanically spurs into desperate speed. In his headlong flight he hears a cry, which comes as from out the earth--his own name pronounced, and after it, the word "murderer!" CHAPTER SEVENTY EIGHT. HOURS OF AGONY. Out of the earth literally arose that cry, so affrighting Richard Darke; since it came from Charles Clancy. Throughout the live-long day, on to the mid hours of night, has he been enduring agony unspeakable. Alone with but the companionship of hostile creatures--wolves that threaten to gnaw the skin from his skull, and vultures ready to tear his eyes out of their sockets. Why has he not gone mad? There are moments when it comes too near this, when his reason is well-nigh unseated. But manfully he struggles against it; thoughtfully, with reliance on Him, whose name he has repeated and prayerfully invoked. And God, in His mercy, sends something to sustain him--a remembrance. In his most despairing hour he recalls one circumstance seeming favourable, and which in the confusion of thought, consequent on such a succession of scenes, had escaped him. He now remembers the other man found along with Darke under the live-oak. Bosley will be able to guide a pursuing party, and with Woodley controlling, will be forced to do it. He can lead them direct to the rendezvous of the robbers; where Clancy can have no fear but that they will settle things satisfactorily. There learning what has been done to himself, they would lose no time in coming after him. This train of conjecture, rational enough, restores his hopes, and again he believes there is a chance of his receiving succour. About time is he chiefly apprehensive. They may come too late? He will do all he can to keep up; hold out as long as life itself may last. So resolved, he makes renewed efforts to fight off the wolves, and frighten the vultures. Fortunately for him the former are but coyotes, the latter turkey buzzards both cowardly creatures, timid as hares, except when the quarry is helpless. They must not know he is this; and to deceive them he shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and shouts at the highest pitch of his voice. But only at intervals, when they appear too threateningly near. He knows the necessity of economising his cries and gestures. By too frequent repetition they might cease to avail him. Throughout the day he has the double enemy to deal with. But night disembarrasses him of the birds, leaving only the beasts. He derives little benefit from the change; for the coyotes, but jackals in daylight, at night become wolves, emboldened by the darkness. Besides, they have been too long gazing at the strange thing, and listening to the shouts which have proceeded from it, without receiving hurt or harm, to fear it as before. The time has come for attack. Blending their unearthly notes into one grand chorus they close around, finally resolved to assault it. And, again, Clancy calls upon God--upon Heaven, to help him. His prayer is heard; for what he sees seems an answer to it. The moon is low down, her disc directly before his face, and upon the plain between a shadow is projected, reaching to his chin. At the same time, he sees what is making it--a man upon horseback! Simultaneously, he hears a sound--the trampling of hoofs upon the hard turf. The coyotes catching it, too, are scared, changing from their attitude of attack, and dropping tails to the ground. As the shadow darkening over them tells that the horseman is drawing nigh, they scatter off in retreat. Clancy utters an ejaculation of joy. He is about to hail the approaching Norseman, when a doubt restrains him. "Who can it be?" he asks himself with mingled hope and apprehension. "Woodley would not be coming in that way, alone? If not some of the settlers, at least Heywood would be along with him? Besides, there is scarce time for them to have reached the Mission and returned. It cannot be either. Jupiter? Has he escaped from the custody of the outlawed crew?" Clancy is accustomed to seeing the mulatto upon a mule. This man rides a horse, and otherwise looks not like Jupiter. It is not he. Who, then? During all this time the horseman is drawing nearer, though slowly. When first heard, the tramp told him to be going at a gallop; but he has slackened speed, and now makes approach, apparently with caution, as if reconnoitring. He has descried the jackals, and comes to see what they are gathered about. These having retreated, Clancy can perceive that the eyes of the stranger are fixed upon his own head, and that he is evidently puzzled to make out what it is. For a moment the man makes stop, then moves on, coming closer and closer. With the moon behind his back, his face is in shadow, and cannot be seen by Clancy. But it is not needed for his identification. The dress and figure are sufficient. Cut sharply against the sky is the figure of a plumed savage; a sham one Clancy knows, with a thrill of fresh despair, recognising Richard Darke. It will soon be all over with him now; in another instant his hopes, doubts, fears, will be alike ended, with his life. He has no thought but that Darke, since last seen, has been in communication with Borlasse; and from him learning all, has, returned for the life he failed to take before. Meanwhile the plumed horseman continues to approach, till within less than a length of his horse. Then drawing bridle with a jerk, suddenly comes to a stop. Clancy can see, that he is struck with astonishment-- his features, now near enough to be distinguished, wearing a bewildered look. Then hears his own name called out, a shriek succeeding; the horse wheeled round, and away, as if Satan had hold of his tail! For a long time is heard the tramp of the retreating horse going in full fast gallop--gradually less distinct--at length dying away in the distance. CHAPTER SEVENTY NINE. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR. To Clancy there is nothing strange in Darke's sudden and terrified departure. With the quickness of thought itself, he comprehends its cause. In their encounter under the live-oak, in shadow and silence, his old rival has not recognised him. Nor can he since have seen Borlasse, or any of the band. Why he is behind them, Clancy cannot surmise; though he has a suspicion of the truth. Certainly Darke came not there by any design, but only chance-conducted. Had it been otherwise, he would not have gone off in such wild affright. All this Clancy intuitively perceives, on the instant of his turning to retreat. And partly to make this more sure, though also stirred by indignation he cannot restrain, he eends forth that shout, causing the scared wretch to flee faster and farther. Now that he is gone, Clancy is again left to his reflections, but little less gloomy than before. From only one does he derive satisfaction. The robber chief must have lied. Helen Armstrong has not been in the arms of Richard Darke.--He may hope she has reached her home in safety. All else is as ever, and soon likely to be worse. For he feels as one who has only had a respite, believing it will be but short. Darke will soon recover from his scare. For he will now go to the rendezvous, and there, getting an explanation of what has caused it, come back to glut his delayed vengeance, more terrible from long accumulation. Will the wolves wait for him? "Ha! there they are again!" So exclaims the wretched man, as he sees them once more making approach. And now they draw nigh with increased audacity, their ravenous instincts but strengthened by the check. The enemy late dreaded has not molested them, but gone off, leaving their prey unprotected. They are again free to assail, and this time will surely devour it. Once more their melancholy whine breaks the stillness of the night, as they come loping up one after another. Soon all are re-assembled round the strange thing, which through their fears has long defied them. More familiar, they fear it less now. Renewing their hostile demonstration, they circle about it, gliding from side to side in _chassez-croissez_, as through the mazes of a cotillon. With forms magnified under the moonlight, they look like werewolves dancing around a "Death's Head,"--their long-drawn lugubrious wails making appropriate music to the measure! Horror for him who hears, hearing it without hope. Of this not a ray left now, its last lingering spark extinguished, and before him but the darkness of death in all its dread certainty--a death horrible, appalling! Putting forth all his moral strength, exerting it to the utmost, he tries to resign himself to the inevitable. In vain. Life is too sweet to be so surrendered. He cannot calmly resign it, and again instinctively makes an effort to fright off his hideous assailants. His eyes rolling, scintillating in their sockets-- his lips moving--his cries sent from between them--are all to no purpose now. The coyotes come nearer and nearer. They are within three feet of his face. He can see their wolfish eyes, the white serrature of their teeth, the red panting tongues; can feel their fetid breath blown against his brow. Their jaws are agape. Each instant he expects them to close around his skull! Why did he shout, sending Darke away? He regrets having done it. Better his head to have been crushed or cleft by a tomahawk, killing him at once, than torn while still alive, gnawed, mumbled over, by those frightful fangs threatening so near! The thought stifles reflection. It is of itself excruciating torture. He cannot bear it much longer. No man could, however strong, however firm his faith in the Almighty. Even yet he has not lost this. The teachings of early life, the precepts inculcated by a pious mother, stand him in stead now. And though sure he must die, and wants death to come quickly, he nevertheless tries to meet it resignedly, mentally exclaiming:-- "Mother! Father! I come. Soon shall I join you. Helen, my love! Oh, how I have wronged you in thus throwing my life away! God forgive--" His regrets are interrupted, as if by God Himself. He has been heard by the All-Merciful, the Omnipotent; for seemingly no other hand could now succour him. While the prayerful thoughts are still passing through his mind, the wolves suddenly cease their attack, and he sees them retiring with closed jaws and fallen tails! Not hastily, but slow and skulkingly; ceding the ground inch by inch, as though reluctant to leave it. What can it mean? Casting his eyes outward, he sees nothing to explain the behaviour of the brutes, nor account for their changed demeanour. He listens, all ears, expecting to hear the hoof-stroke of a horse--the same he late saw reined up in front of him, with Richard Darke upon his back. The ruffian is returning sooner than anticipated. There is no such sound. Instead, one softer, which, but for the hollow cretaceous rock underlying the plain and acting as a conductor, would not be conveyed to his ears. It is a pattering as of some animal's paws, going in rapid gait. He cannot imagine what sort of creature it may be; in truth he has no time to think, before hearing the sound close behind his head, the animal approaching from that direction. Soon after he feels a hot breath strike against his brow, with something still warmer touching his cheek. It is the tongue of a dog! "Brasfort!" Brasfort it is, cowering before his face, filling his ears with a soft whimpering, sweet as any speech ever heard. For he has seen the jackals retreat, and knows they will not return. His strong stag-hound is more than a match for the whole pack of cowardly creatures. As easily as it has scattered, can it destroy them. Clancy's first feeling is one of mingled pleasure and surprise. For he fancies himself succoured, released from his earth-bound prison, so near to have been his grave. The glad emotion is alas! short-lived; departing as he perceives it to be only a fancy, and his perilous situation, but little changed or improved. For what can the dog do for him? True he may keep off the coyotes, but that will not save his life. Death must come all the same. A little later, and in less horrid shape, but it must come. Hunger, thirst, one or both will bring it, surely if slowly. "My brave Brasfort! faithful fellow!" he says apostrophising the hound; "You cannot protect me from them. But how have you got here?" The question is succeeded by a train of conjecture, as follows:-- "They took the dog with them. I saw one lead him away. They've let him loose, and he has scented back on the trail? That's it. Oh! if Jupiter were but with him! No fear of their letting him off--no." During all this time Brasfort has continued his caresses, fondling his master's head, affectionately as a mother her child. Again Clancy speaks, apostrophising the animal. "Dear old dog! you're but come to see me die. Well; it's something to have you here--like a friend beside the death-bed. And you'll stay with me long as life holds out, and protect me from those skulking creatures? I know you will. Ah! You won't need to stand sentry long. I feel growing fainter. When all's over you can go. I shall never see her more; but some one may find, and take you there. She'll care for, and reward you for this fidelity." The soliloquy is brought to a close, by the hound suddenly changing attitude. All at once it has ceased its fond demonstrations, and stands as if about to make an attack upon its master's head! Very different the intent. Yielding to a simple canine instinct, from the strain of terrier in its blood, it commences scratching up the earth around his neck! For Clancy a fresh surprise, as before mingled with pleasure. For the hound's instinctive action shows him a chance of getting relieved, by means he had never himself thought of. He continues talking to the animal, encouraging it by speeches it can comprehend. On it scrapes, tearing up the clods, and casting them in showers behind. Despite the firmness with which the earth is packed, the hound soon makes a hollow around its master's neck, exposing his shoulder--the right one--above the surface. A little more mould removed, and his arm will be free. With that his whole body can be extricated by himself. Stirred by the pleasant anticipation, he continues speaking encouragement to the dog. But Brasfort needs it not, working away in silence and with determined earnestness, as if knowing that time was an element of success. Clancy begins to congratulate himself on escape, is almost sure of it, when a sound breaks upon his ear, bringing back all his apprehensions. Again the hoof-stroke of a horse! Richard Darke is returning! "Too late, Brasfort!" says his master, apostrophising him in speech almost mechanical, "Too late your help. Soon you'll see me die." CHAPTER EIGHTY. A RESURRECTIONIST. "Surely the end has come!" So reflects Clancy, as with keen apprehension he listens to the tread of the approaching horseman. For to a certainty he approaches, the dull distant thud of hooves gradually growing more distinct. Nor has he any doubt of its being the same steed late reined up in front of him, the fresh score of whose calkers are there within a few feet of his face. The direction whence comes the sound, is of itself significant; that in which Darke went off. It is he returning--can be no other. Yes; surely his end has come--the last hour of his life. And so near being saved! Ten minutes more, and Brasfort would have disinterred him. Turning his eyes downward, he can see the cavity enlarged, and getting larger. For the dog continues to drag out the earth, as if not hearing, or disregarding the hoof-stroke. Already its paws are within a few inches of his elbow. Is it possible for him to wrench out his arm! With it free he might do something to defend himself. And the great stag-hound will help him. With hope half resuscitated, he makes an effort to extricate the arm, heaving his shoulder upward. In vain.--It is held as in a vice, or the clasp of a giant. There is _no_ alternative--he must submit to his fate. And such a fate! Once more he will see the sole enemy of his life, his mother's murderer, standing triumphant over him; will hear his taunting speeches--almost a repetition of the scene under the cypress! And to think that in all his encounters with this man, he has been unsuccessful; too late--ever too late! The thought is of itself a torture. Strange the slowness with which Darke draws nigh! Can he still be in dread of the unearthly? No, or he would not be there. It may be that sure of his victim, he but delays the last blow, scheming some new horror before he strike it? The tramp of the horse tells him to be going at a walk; unsteady too, as if his rider were not certain about the way, but seeking it. Can this be so? Has he not yet seen the head and hound? The moon must be on his back, since it is behind Clancy's own. It may be that Brasfort--a new figure in the oft changing tableau--stays his advance. Possibly the unexplained presence of the animal has given him a surprise, and hence he approaches with caution? All at once, the hoof-stroke ceases to be heard, and stillness reigns around. _No_ sound save that made by the claws of the dog, that continues its task with unabated assiduity--not yet having taken any notice of the footsteps it can scarce fail to hear. Its master cannot help thinking this strange. Brasfort is not wont to be thus unwatchful. And of all men Richard Darke should be the last to approach him unawares. What may it mean? While thus interrogating himself, Clancy again hears the "tramp-tramp," the horse no longer in a walk, but with pace quickened to a trot. And still Brasfort keeps on scraping! Only when a shadow darkens over, does he desist; the horseman being now close behind Clancy's head, with his image reflected in front. But instead of rushing at him with savage growl, as he certainly would were it Richard Darke Brasfort but raises his snout, and wags his tail, giving utterance to a note of friendly salutation! Clancy's astonishment is extreme, changing to joy, when the horseman after making the circuit of his head, comes to a halt before his face. In the broad bright moonlight he beholds, not his direst foe, but his faithful servitor. There upon his own horse, with his own gun in hand, sits one who causes him mechanically to exclaim-- "Jupiter!" adding, "Heaven has heard my prayer!" "An' myen," says Jupiter, soon as somewhat recovered from his astonishment at what he sees; "Yes, Masser Charle; I'se been prayin' for you ever since they part us, though never 'spected see you 'live 'gain. But Lor' o' mercy, masser! what dis mean? I'se see nothin' but you head! Wharever is you body? What have dem rascally ruffins been an' done to ye?" "As you see--buried me alive." "Better that than bury you dead. You sure, masser," he asks, slipping down from the saddle, and placing himself _vis-a-vis_ with the face so strangely situated. "You sure you ain't wounded, nor otherways hurt?" "Not that I know of. I only feel a little bruised and faint-like; but I think I've received no serious injury. I'm now suffering from thirst, more than aught else." "That won't be for long. Lucky I'se foun' you ole canteen on the saddle, an' filled it 'fore I left the creek. I'se got somethin' besides 'll take the faintness 'way from you; a drop o' corn-juice, I had from that Spanish Indyin they call the half-blood. Not much blood in him now. Here 'tis, Masser Charle." While speaking, he has produced a gourd, in which something gurgles. Its smell, when the stopper is taken out, tells it to be whiskey. Inserting the neck between his master's lips, he pours some of the spirit down his throat; and then, turning to the horse near by, he lifts from off the saddle-horn a larger gourd--the canteen, containing water. In a few seconds, not only is Clancy's thirst satisfied, but he feels his strength restored, and all faintness passed away. "Up to de chin I declar'!" says Jupiter, now more particularly taking note of his situation, "Sure enough, all but buried 'live. An' Brasfort been a tryin' to dig ye out! Geehorum! Aint that cunnin' o' the ole dog? He have prove himself a faithful critter." "Like yourself, Jupe. But say! How have you escaped from the robbers? Brought my horse and gun too! Tell me all!" "Not so fass, Masser Charle. It's something o' a longish story, an' a bit strangeish too. You'll be better out o' that fix afore hearin' it. Though your ears aint stopped, yez not in a position to lissen patient or comfortable. First let me finish what Brasfort's begun, and get out the balance o' your body." Saying this, the mulatto sets himself to the task proposed. Upon his knees with knife in hand, he loosens the earth around Clancy's breast and shoulders, cutting it carefully, then clawing it out. The hound helps him, dashing in whenever it sees a chance, with its paws scattering the clods to rear. The animal seems jealous of Jupiter's interference, half angry at not having all the credit to itself. Between them the work progresses, and the body of their common master will soon be disinterred. All the while, Clancy and the mulatto continue to talk, mutually communicating their experiences since parting. Those of the former, though fearful, are neither many nor varied, and require but few words. What Jupiter now sees gives him a clue to nearly all. His own narrative covers a greater variety of events, and needs more time for telling than can now be conveniently spared. Instead of details, therefore, he but recounts the leading incidents in brief epitome--to be more particularly dwelt upon afterwards, as opportunity will allow. He relates, how, after leaving the lone cottonwood, he was taken on across the plain to a creek called Coyote, where the robbers have a camping place. This slightly touched upon, he tells of his own treatment; of his being carried into a tent at first, but little looked after, because thought secure, from their having him tightly tied. Through a slit in the skin cover he saw them kindle a fire and commence cooking. Soon after came the chief, riding Clancy's horse, with Chisholm and the other three. Seeing the horse, he supposed it all over with his master. Then the feast, _al fresco_, succeeded by the transformation scene--the red robbers becoming white ones--to all of which he was witness. After that the card-playing by the camp fire, during which the chief came to his tent, and did what he could to draw him. In this part of his narration, the mulatto with modest naivete, hints of his own adroitness; how he threw his inquisitor off the scent, and became at length disembarrassed of him. He is even more reticent about an incident, soon after succeeding, but referred to it at an early part of his explanation. On the blade of his knife, before beginning to dig, Clancy observing some blotches of crimson, asks what it is. "Only a little blood, Masser Charle," is the answer. "Whose?" "You'll hear afore I get to the end. Nuf now to say it's the blood of a bad man." Clancy does not press him further, knowing he will be told all in due time. Still, is he impatient, wondering whether it be the blood of Jim Borlasse, or Richard Darke; for he supposes it either one or the other. He hopes it may be the former, and fears its being the latter. Even yet, in his hour of uncertainty, late helpless, and still with only a half hope of being able to keep his oath, he would not for all the world Dick Darke's blood should be shed by other hand than his own! He is mentally relieved, long before Jupiter reaches the end of his narration. The blood upon the blade, now clean scoured off, was not that of Richard Darke. For the mulatto tells him of that tragical scene within the tent, speaking of it without the slightest remorse. The incidents succeeding he leaves for a future occasion; how he stole out the horse, and with Brasfort's help, was enabled to return upon the trail as far as the cottonwood; thence on, the hound hurriedly leading, at length leaving him behind. But before coming to this, he has completed his task, and laying hold of his master's shoulders, he draws him out of the ground, as a gardener would a gigantic carrot. Once more on the earth's surface stands Clancy, free of body, unfettered in limb, strong in his sworn resolve, determined as ever to keep it. CHAPTER EIGHTY ONE. THE VOICE OF VENGEANCE. Never did man believe himself nigher death, or experience greater satisfaction at being saved from it, than Charles Clancy. For upon his life so near lost, and as if miraculously preserved, depend issues dear to him as that life itself. And these, too, may reach a successful termination; some thing whispers him they will. But though grateful to God for the timely succour just received, and on Him still reliant, he does not ask God for guidance in what he intends now. Rather, shuns he the thought, as though fearing the All-Merciful might not be with him. For he is still determined on vengeance, which alone belongs to the Lord. Of himself, he is strong enough to take it; and feels so, after being refreshed by another drink of the whiskey. The spirit of the alcohol, acting on his own, reinvigorates, and makes him ready for immediate action. He but stays to think what may be his safest course, as the surest and swiftest. His repeated repulses, while making more cautious, have done nought to daunt, or drive him from his original purpose. Recalling his latest interview with Helen Armstrong, and what he then said, he dares not swerve from it. To go back leaving it undone, were a humiliation no lover would like to confess to his sweetheart. But he has no thought of going back, and only hesitates, reflecting on the steps necessary to ensure success. He now knows why Darke retreated in such wild affright. Some speeches passing between the robbers, overheard by Jupiter, and by him reported, enable Clancy to grasp the situation. As he had conjectured, Darke was straying, and by chance came that way. No wonder at the way he went. It is not an hour since he fled from the spot, and in all likelihood he is still straying. If so, he cannot be a great way off; but, far or near, Brasfort can find him. It is but a question of whether he can be overtaken before reaching the rendezvous. For the only danger of which Clancy has dread, or allows himself to dwell upon, is from the other robbers. Even of these he feels not much fear. But for the mulatto and his mule, he would never have allowed them to lay hand on him. And now with his splendid horse once more by his side, the saddle awaiting him, he knows he will be safe from any pursuit by mounted men, as a bird upon the wing. For the safety of his faithful follower he has already conceived measures. Jupiter is to make his way back to the San Saba, and wait for him at their old camp, near the crossing. Failing to come, he is to proceed on to the settlement, and there take his chances of a reception. Though the fugitive slave may be recognised, under Sime Woodley's protection he will be safe, and with Helen Armstrong's patronage, sure of hospitable entertainment. With all this mentally arranged, though not yet communicated to Jupe, Clancy gives a look to his gun to assure himself it is in good order; another to the caparison of his horse; and, satisfied with both, he at length leaps into the saddle. The mulatto has been regarding his movements with uneasiness. There is that in them which forewarns him of still another separation. He is soon made aware of it, by the instructions given him, in accordance with the plan sketched cat. On Clancy telling him, he is to return to the San Saba alone, with the reasons why he should do so, he listens in pained surprise. "Sure you don't intend leavin' me, Masser Charle?" "I do--I must." "But whar you goin' youself?" "Where God guides--it may be His avenging angel. Yes, Jupe; I'm off again, on that scoundrel's track. This shall be my last trial. If it turn out as hitherto, you may never see me more--you, nor any one else. Failing, I shan't care to face human kind, much less her I love. Ah! I'll more dread meeting my mother--her death unavenged. Bah! There's no fear, one way or the other. So don't you have any uneasiness about the result; but do as I've directed. Make back to the river, and wait there at the crossing. Brasfort goes with me; and when you see us again, I'll have a spare horse to carry you on to our journey's end; that whose shoes made those scratches--just now, I take it, between the legs of Dick Darke." "Dear masser," rejoins Jupiter, in earnest protest. "Why need ye go worryin' after that man now? You'll have plenty opportunities any day. He aint likely to leave Texas, long's that young lady stays in it. Besides, them cut-throats at the creek, sure come after me. They'll be this way soon's they find me gone, an' set their eyes on that streak o' red colour I left ahind me in the tent. Take my advice, Masser Charle, an' let's both slip out o' thar way, by pushin' straight for the settlement." "No settlement, till I've settled with him! He can't have got far away yet. Good, Brasfort! you'll do your best to help me find him?" The hound gives a low growl, and rollicks around the legs of the horse, seeming to say:-- "Set me on the scent; I'll show you." Something more than instinct appears to inspire the Molossian. Though weeks have elapsed since in the cypress swamp it made savage demonstrations against Darke, when taking up his trail through the San Saba bottom it behaved as if actuated by the old malice, remembering the smell of the man! And now conducted beyond the place trodden by Borlasse and the others, soon as outside the confusion of scents, and catching his fresher one, it sends forth a cry strangely intoned, altogether unlike its ordinary bay while trailing a stag. It is the deep sonorous note of the sleuth-hound on slot of human game; such as oft, in the times of Spanish American colonisation, struck terror to the heart of the hunted aboriginal. As already said, Brasfort has a strain of the bloodhound in him; enough to make danger for Richard Darke. Under the live-oak the hound would have pulled him from his saddle, torn him to pieces on the spot, but for Jupiter, to whom it was consigned, holding it hard back. Clancy neither intends, nor desires, it to do so now. All he wants with it, is to bring him face to face with his hated foeman. That done, the rest he will do himself. Everything decided and settled, he hastily takes leave of Jupiter, and starts off along the trail, Brasfort leading. Both are soon far away. On the wide waste the mulatto stands alone, looking after--half reproachfully for being left behind--regretting his master's rashness-- painfully apprehensive he may never see him more. CHAPTER EIGHTY TWO. A MAN NEARLY MAD. "Am I still drunk? Am I dreaming?" So Richard Darke interrogates himself, retreating from the strangest apparition human eyes ever saw. A head without any body, not lying as after careless decapitation, but as though still upon shoulders, the eyes glancing and rolling, the lips moving, speaking--the whole thing alive! The head, too, of one he supposes himself to have assassinated, and for which he is a felon and fugitive. No wonder he doubts the evidence of his senses, and at first deems it fancy--an illusion from dream or drink. But a suspicion also sweeps through his soul, which, more painfully impressing, causes him to add still another interrogatory: "Am I mad?" He shakes his head and rubs his eyes, to assure himself he is awake, sober, and sane. He is all three; though he might well wish himself drunk or dreaming--for, so scared is he, there is in reality a danger of his senses forsaking him. He tries to account for the queer thing, but cannot. Who could, circumstanced as he? From that day when he stooped over Clancy, holding Helen Armstrong's photograph before his face, and saw his eyes film over in sightless gaze, the sure forerunner of death, he has ever believed him dead. No rumour has reached him to the contrary--no newspaper paragraph, from which he might draw his deductions, as Borlasse has done. True, he observed some resemblance to Clancy in the man who surprised him under the live-oak; but, recalling that scene under the cypress, how could he have a thought of its being he? He could not, cannot, does not yet. But what about the head? How is he to account for that? And the cries sent after him--still ringing in his ears--his own name, with the added accusation he himself believes true, the brand, "murderer!" "Am I indeed mad?" he again asks himself, riding on recklessly, without giving guidance to his horse. His trembling hand can scarce retain hold of the rein; and the animal, uncontrolled, is left to take its course-- only, it must not stop or stay. Every time it shows sign of lagging, he kicks mechanically against its ribs, urging it on, on, anywhere away from that dread damnable apparition. It is some time before he recovers sufficient coolness to reflect--then only with vague comprehensiveness; nothing clear save the fact that he has completely lost himself, and his way. To go on were mere guesswork. True, the moon tells him the west, the direction of Coyote creek. But westward he will not go, dreading to again encounter that ghostly thing; for he thinks it was there he saw it. Better pull up, and await the surer guidance of the sun, with its light, less mystical. So deciding, he slips out of the saddle; and letting his horse out on the trail-rope, lays himself down. Regardless of the animal's needs, he leaves all its caparison on, even to the bitt between its teeth. What cares he for its comforts, or for aught else, thinking of that horrible head? He makes no endeavour to snatch a wink of sleep, of which he has had enough; but lies cogitating on the series of strange incidents and sights which have late occurred to him, but chiefly the last, so painfully perplexing. He can think of nothing to account for a phenomenon so abnormal, so outside all laws of nature. While vainly endeavouring to solve the dread enigma, a sound strikes upon his ear, abruptly bringing his conjectures to a close. It is a dull thumping, still faint and far off; but distinguishable as the tramp of a horse. Starting to his feet, he looks in the direction whence it proceeds. As expected, he sees a horse; and something more, a man upon its back, both coming towards him. Could it, perchance, be Bosley? Impossible! He was their prisoner under the live-oak. They would never let him go. Far more like it is Woodley--the terrible backwoodsman, as ever after him? Whoever it be, his guilty soul tells him the person approaching can be no friend of his, but an enemy, a pursuer. And it may be another phantom! Earthly fears, with unearthly fancies, alike urging him to flight, he stays not to make sure whether it be ghost or human; but, hastily taking up his trail-rope, springs to the back of his horse, and again goes off in wild terrified retreat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ It scarce needs telling, that the horseman who has disturbed Richard Darke's uncomfortable reflections is Charles Clancy. Less than an hour has elapsed since his starting on the trail, which he has followed fast; the fresh scent enabling Brasfort to take it up in a run. From the way it zigzagged, and circled about, Clancy could tell the tracked steed had been going without guidance, as also guess the reason. The rider, fleeing in affright, has given no heed to direction. All this the pursuer knows to be in his favour; showing that the pursued man has not gone to Coyote creek, but will still be on the steppe, possibly astray, and perhaps not far off. Though himself making quick time, he is not carelessly pursuing; on the contrary taking every precaution to ensure success. He knows that on the hard turf his horse's tread can be heard to a great distance; and to hinder this he has put the animal to a "pace"--a gait peculiar to Texas and the South-Western States. This, combining speed with silence, has carried him on quickly as in a canter. The hound he has once more muzzled, though not holding it in leash; and the two have gone gliding along silent as spectres. At each turn of the trail, he directs looks of inquiry ahead. One is at length rewarded. He is facing the moon, whose disc almost touches the horizon, when alongside it he perceives something dark upon the plain, distinguishable as the figure of a horse. It is stationary with head to the ground, as if grazing, though by the uneven outline of its back it bears something like a saddle. Continuing to scrutinise, he sees it is this; and, moreover, makes out the form of a man, or what resembles one, lying along the earth near by. These observations take only an instant of time; and, while making them he has halted, and by a word, spoken low, called his hound off the trail. The well-trained animal obeying, turns back, and stands by his side waiting. The riderless horse, with the dismounted rider, are still a good way off, more than half a mile. At that distance he could not distinguish them, but for the position of the moon, favouring his view. Around her rim the luminous sky makes more conspicuous the dark forms interposed between. He can have no doubt as to what they are. If he had, it is soon solved. For while yet gazing upon them--not in conjecture, but as to how he may best make approach--he perceives the tableau suddenly change. The horse tosses up its head, while the man starts upon his feet. In an instant they are together, and the rider in his saddle. And now Clancy is quite sure: for the figure of the horseman, outlined against the background of moonlit sky, clear-edged as a medallion, shows the feathered circlet surmounting his head. To all appearance a red savage, in reality a white one--Richard Darke. Clancy stays not to think further. If he did he would lose distance. For soon as in the saddle, Darke goes off in full headlong gallop. In like gait follows the avenger, forsaking the cautious pace, and no longer caring for silence. Still there is no noise, save that of the hammering hooves, now and then a clink, as their iron shoeing strikes a stone. Otherwise silent, pursuer and pursued. But with very different reflections; the former terrified, half-frenzied, seeking to escape from whom he knows not; the latter, cool, courageous, trying to overtake one he knows too well. Clancy pursues but with one thought, to punish the murderer of his mother. And sure he will succeed now. Already is the space shortened between them, growing less with every leap of his horse. A few strides more and Richard Darke will be within range of his rifle. Letting drop the reins, he takes firmer grasp on his gun. His horse needs no guidance, but goes on as before, still gaining. He is now within a hundred lengths of the retreating foe, but still too far off for a sure shot. Besides, the moon is in front, her light dazzling his eyes, the man he intends to take aim at going direct for her disc, as if with the design to ride into it. While he delays, calculating the distance, suddenly the moon becomes obscured, the chased horseman simultaneously disappearing from his sight! CHAPTER EIGHTY THREE. AT LENGTH THE "DEATH SHOT." Scarce for an instant is Clancy puzzled by the sudden disappearance of him pursued. That is accounted for by the simplest of causes; a large rock rising above the level of the plain, a loose boulder, whose breadth interposing, covers the disc of the moon. A slight change of direction has brought it between; Darke having deflected from his course, and struck towards it. Never did hunted fox, close pressed by hounds, make more eagerly for cover, or seek it so despairingly as he. He has long ago been aware that the pursuer is gaining upon him. At each anxious glance cast over his shoulder, he sees the distance decreased, while the tramp of the horse behind sounds clearer and closer. He is in doubt what to do. Every moment he may hear the report of a gun, and have a bullet into his back. He knows not the instant he may be shot out of his saddle. Shall he turn upon the pursuer, make stand, and meet him face to face? He dares not. The dread of the unearthly is still upon him. It may be the Devil! The silence, too, awes him. The pursuing horseman has not yet hailed-- has not spoken word, or uttered exclamation. Were it not for the heavy tread of the hoof he might well believe him a spectre. If Darke only knew who it is, he would fear him as much, or more. Knowing not, he continues his flight, doubting, distracted. He has but one clear thought, the instinct common to all chased creatures--to make for some shelter. A copse, a tree, even were it but a bush, anything to conceal him from the pursuer's sight--from the shot he expects soon to be sent after him. Ha! what is that upon the plain? A rock! And large enough to screen both him and his horse. The very thing! Instinctively he perceives his advantage. Behind the rock he can make stand, and without hesitation he heads his horse for it. It is a slight change from his former direction, and he loses a little ground; but recovers it by increased speed. For encouraged by the hope of getting under shelter, he makes a last spurt, urging his animal to the utmost. He is soon within the shadow of the rock, still riding towards it. It is just then that Clancy loses sight of him, as of the moon. But he is now also near enough to distinguish the huge stone; and, while scanning its outlines, he sees the chased horseman turn around it, so rapidly, and at such distance, he withholds his shot, fearing it may fail. Between pursued and pursuer the chances have changed; and as the latter reins up to consider what he should do, he sees something glisten above the boulder, clearly distinguishable as the barrel of a gun. At the same instant a voice salutes him, saying:-- "I don't know who, or what you are. But I warn you to come no nearer. If you do, I'll send a bullet--Great God!" With the profane exclamation, the speaker suddenly interrupts himself, his voice having changed from its tone of menace to trembling. For the moonlight is full upon the face of him threatened; he can trace every feature distinctly. It is the same he late saw on the sun ice of the plain! It can be no dream, nor freak of fancy. Clancy is still alive; or if dead he, Darke, is looking upon his wraith! To his unfinished speech he receives instant rejoinder:-- "You don't know who I am? Learn then! I'm the man you tried to assassinate in a Mississippian forest--Charles Clancy--who means to kill you, fairer fashion, here on this Texan plain. Dick Darke! if you have a prayer to say, say it soon; for sure as you stand behind that rock, I intend taking your life." The threat is spoken in a calm, determined tone, as if surely to be kept. All the more terrible to Richard Darke, who cannot yet realise the fact of Clancy's being alive. But that stern summons must have come from mortal lips, and the form before him is no spirit, but living flesh and blood. Terror-stricken, appalled, shaking as with an ague, the gun almost drops from his grasp. But with a last desperate resolve, and effort mechanical, scarce knowing what he does, he raises the piece to his shoulder, and fires. Clancy sees the flash, the jet, the white smoke puffing skyward; then hears the crack. He has no fear, knowing himself at a safe distance. For at this has he halted. He does not attempt to return the fire, nor rashly rush on. Darke carries a double-barrelled gun, and has still a bullet left. Besides, he has the advantage of position, the protecting rampart, the moon behind his back, and in the eyes of his assailant, everything in favour of the assailed. Though chafing in angry impatience, with the thirst of vengeance unappeased, Clancy restrains himself, measuring the ground with his eyes, and planning how he may dislodge his skulking antagonist. Must he lay siege to him, and stay there till-- A low yelp interrupts his cogitations. Looking down he sees Brasfort by his side. In the long trial of speed between the two horses, the hound had dropped behind. The halt has enabled it to get up, just in time to be of service to its master, who has suddenly conceived a plan for employing it. Leaping from his saddle, he lays holds of the muzzle strap, quickly unbuckling it. As though divining the reason, the dog dashes on for the rock; soon as its jaws are released, giving out a fierce angry growl. Darke sees it approaching in the clear moonlight, can distinguish its markings, remembers them. Clancy's stag-hound! Surely Nemesis, with all hell's hosts, are let loose on him! He recalls how the animal once set upon him. Its hostility then is nought to that now. For it has reached the rock, turned it, and open-mouthed, springs at him like a panther. In vain he endeavours to avoid it, and still keep under cover. While shunning its teeth, he has also to think of Clancy's gun. He cannot guard against both, if either. For the dog has caught hold of his right leg, and fixed its fangs in the flesh. He tries to beat it off, striking with the butt of his gun. To no purpose now. For his horse, excited by the attack, and madly prancing, has parted from the rock, exposing him to the aim of the pursuer, who has, meanwhile, rushed up within rifle range. Clancy sees his advantage, and raises his gun, quick as for the shooting of a snipe. The crack comes; and, simultaneous with it, Richard Darke is seen to drop out of his saddle, and fall face foremost on the plain-- his horse, with a wild neigh, bolting away from him. The fallen man makes no attempt to rise, nor movement of any kind, save a convulsive tremor through his frame; the last throe of parting life, which precedes the settled stillness of death. For surely is he dead. Clancy, dismounting, advances towards the spot; hastily, to hinder the dog from tearing him, which the enraged animal seems determined to do. Chiding it off, he bends over the prostrate body, which he perceives has ceased to breathe. A sort of curiosity, some impulse irresistible, prompts him to look for the place where his bullet struck. In the heart, as he can see by the red stream still flowing forth! "Just where he hit me! After all, not strange--no coincidence; I aimed at him there." For a time he stands gazing down at the dead man's face. Silently, without taunt or recrimination. On his own there is no sign of savage triumph, no fiendish exultation. Far from his thoughts to insult, or outrage the dead. Justice has had requital, and vengeance been appeased. It is neither his rival in love, nor his mortal enemy, who now lies at his feet; but a breathless body, a lump of senseless clay, all the passions late inspiring it, good and bad, gone to be balanced elsewhere. As he stands regarding Darke's features, in their death pallor showing livid by the moon's mystic light, a cast of sadness comes over his own, and he says in subdued soliloquy:-- "Painful to think I have taken a man's life--even his! I wish it could have been otherwise. It could not--I was compelled to it. And surely God will forgive me, for ridding the world of such a wretch?" Then raising himself to an erect attitude, with eyes upturned to heaven--as when in the cemetery over his mother's grave, he made that solemn vow--remembering it, he now adds in like solemnal tone-- "_I've kept my oath. Mother; thou art avenged_!" CHAPTER EIGHTY FOUR. THE SCOUT'S REPORT. While these tragic incidents are occurring on Coyote Creek and the plain between, others almost as exciting but of less sanguinary character, take place in the valley of the San Saba. As the morning sun lights up the ancient Mission-house, its walls still reverberate wailing cries, mingled with notes of preparation for the pursuit. Then follows a forenoon of painful suspense, _no_ word yet from the scouters sent out. Colonel Armstrong, and the principal men of the settlement, have ascended to the _azotea_ to obtain a better view; and there remain gazing down the valley in feverish impatience. Just as the sun reaches meridian their wistful glances are rewarded; but by a sight which little relieves their anxiety; on the contrary, increasing it. A horseman emerging from the timber, which skirts the river's bank, comes on towards the Mission-building. He is alone, and riding at top speed--both circumstances having sinister significance. Has the scouting party been cut off, and he only escaped to tell the tale? Is it Dupre, Hawkins, or who? He is yet too far off to be identified. As he draws nearer, Colonel Armstrong through a telescope makes him out to be Cris Tucker. Why should the young hunter be coming back alone? After a mutual interchange of questions and conjectures, they leave off talking, and silently stand, breathlessly, awaiting his arrival. Soon as he is within hailing distance, several unable to restrain themselves, call out, inquiring the news. "Not bad, gentlemen! Rayther good than otherways," shouts back Oris. His response lifts a load from their hearts, and in calmer mood they await further information. In a short time the scout presents himself before Colonel Armstrong, around whom the others cluster, all alike eager to hear the report. For they are still under anxiety about the character of the despoilers, having as yet no reason to think them other than Indians. Nor does Tucker's account contradict this idea; though one thing he has to tell begets a suspicion to the contrary. Rapidly and briefly as possible the young hunter gives details of what has happened to Dupre's party, up to the time of his separating from it; first making their minds easy by assuring them it was then safe. They were delayed a long time in getting upon the trail of the robbers, from these having taken a bye-path leading along the base of the bluff. At length having found the route of their retreat, they followed it over the lower ford, and there saw sign to convince them that the Indians-- still supposing them such--had gone on across the bottom, and in all probability up the bluff beyond--thus identifying them with the band which the hunters had seen and tracked down. Indeed no one doubted this, nor could. But, while the scouters were examining the return tracks, they came upon others less intelligible--in short, perplexing. There were the hoof-marks of four horses and a mule--all shod; first seen upon a side trace leading from the main ford road. Striking into and following it for a few hundred yards, they came upon a place where men had encamped and stayed for some time--perhaps slept. The grass bent down showed where their bodies had been astretch. And these men must have been white. Fragments of biscuit, with other debris of eatables, not known to Indians, were evidence of this. Returning from the abandoned bivouac, with the intention to ride straight back to the Mission, the scouters came upon another side trace leading out on the opposite side of the ford road, and up the river. On this they again saw the tracks of the shod horses and mule; among them the foot-prints of a large dog. Taking this second trace it conducted them to a glade, with a grand tree, a live-oak, standing in its centre. The sign told of the party having stopped there also. While occupied in examining their traces, and much mystified by them, they picked up an article, which, instead of making matters clearer, tended to mystify them more--a wig! Of all things in the world this in such a place! Still, not so strange either, seeing it was the counterfeit of an Indian _chevelure_--the hair long and black, taken from the tail of a horse. For all, it had never belonged to, or covered, a red man's skull--since it was that worn by Bosley, and torn from his head when Woodley and Heywood were stripping him for examination. The scouters, of course, could not know of this; and, while inspecting the queer waif, wondering what it could mean, two others were taken up: one a sprig of cypress, the other an orange blossom; both showing as if but lately plucked, and alike out of place there. Dupre, with some slight botanic knowledge, knew that no orange-tree grew near, nor yet any cypress. But he remembered having observed both in the Mission-garden, into which the girls had been last seen going. Without being able to guess why they should have brought sprig or flower along, he was sure they had themselves been under the live-oak. Where were they now? In answer, Hawkins had cried: "Gone this way! Here's the tracks of the shod horses leading up-stream, this side. Let's follow them!" So they had done, after despatching Tucker with the report. It is so far satisfactory, better than any one expected; and inspires Colonel Armstrong with a feeling akin to hope. Something seems to whisper him his lost children will be recovered. Long ere the sun has set over the valley of the San Saba his heart is filled, and thrilled, with joy indescribable. For his daughters are by his side, their arms around his neck, tenderly, lovingly entwining it, as on that day when told they must forsake their stately Mississippian home for a hovel in Texas. All have reached the Mission; for the scouting party having overtaken that of Woodley, came in along with it. No, not all, two are still missing--Clancy and Jupiter. About the latter Woodley has made no one the wiser; though he tells Clancy's strange experience, which, while astounding his auditory, fills them with keen apprehension for the young man's fate. Keenest is that in the breast of Helen Armstrong. Herself saved, she is now all the more solicitous about the safety of her lover. Her looks bespeak more than anxiety--anguish. But there is that being done to hinder her from despairing. The pursuers are rapidly getting ready to start out, and with zeal unabated. For, although circumstances have changed by the recovery of the captives, there is sufficient motive for pursuit--the lost treasure to be re-taken--the outlaws chastised--Clancy's life to be saved, or his death avenged. Woodley's words have fired them afresh, and they are impatient to set forth. Their impatience reaches its climax, when Colonel Armstrong, with head uncovered, his white hair blown up by the evening breeze, addresses them, saying:-- "Fellow citizens! We have to thank the Almighty that our dear ones have escaped a great danger. But while grateful to God, let us remember there is a man also deserving gratitude. A brave young man, we all believed dead--murdered. He is still alive, let us hope so. Simeon Woodley has told us of the danger he is now in--death if he fall into the hands of these desperate outlaws. Friends, and fellow citizens! I need not appeal to you on behalf of this noble youth. I know you are all of one mind with myself, that come what will, cost what it may, Charles Clancy must be saved." The enthusiastic shout, sent up in response to the old soldier's speech, tells that the pursuit will be at least energetic and earnest. Helen Armstrong, standing retired, looks more hopeful now. And with her hope is mingled pride, at the popularity of him to whom she has given heart, and promised hand. Something more to make her happy; she now knows that, in the bestowing of both, she will have the approval of her father. CHAPTER EIGHTY FIVE. A CHANGE OF PROGRAMME. On the far frontier of Texas, still unsettled by civilised man, no chanticleer gives note of the dawn. Instead, the _meleagris_ salutes the sunrise with a cry equally high-toned, and quite as home-like. For the gobbling of the wild turkey-cock is scarcely distinguishable from that of his domesticated brother of the farm-yard. A gang of these great birds has roosted in the pecan grove, close to where the prairie pirates are encamped. At daylight's approach, they fly up to the tops of the trees; the males, as is their wont in the spring months of the year, mutually sounding their sonorous challenge. It awakes the robbers from the slumber succeeding their drunken debauch; their chief first of any. Coming forth from his tent, he calls upon the others to get up--ordering several horses to be saddled. He designs despatching a party to the upper plain, in search of Quantrell and Bosley, not yet come to camp. He wants another word with the mulatto; and steps towards the tent, where he supposes the man to be. At its entrance he sees blood--inside a dead body! His cry, less of sorrow than anger, brings his followers around. One after another peering into the tent, they see what is there. There is no question about how the thing occurred. It is clear to all. Their prisoner has killed his guard; as they say, assassinated him. Has the assassin escaped? They scatter in search of him, by twos and threes, rushing from tent to tent. Some proceed to the corral, there to see that the bars are down, and the horses out. These are discovered in a strip of meadow near by, one only missing. It is that the chief had seized from their white prisoner, and appropriated. The yellow one has replevined it! The ghastly spectacle in the tent gives them no horror. They are too hardened for that. But it makes them feel, notwithstanding; first anger, soon succeeded by apprehension. The dullest brute in the band has some perception of danger as its consequence. Hitherto their security has depended on keeping up their incognito by disguises, and the secrecy of their camping place. Here is a prisoner escaped, who knows all; can tell about their travesties; guide a pursuing party to the spot! They must remain no longer there. Borlasse recognising the necessity for a change of programme, summons his following around him. "Boys!" he says, "I needn't point out to ye that this ugly business puts us in a bit o' a fix. We've got to clear out o' hyar right quick. I reckon our best way 'll be to make tracks for San Antone, an' thar scatter. Even then, we won't be too safe, if yellow skin turns up to tell his story about us. Lucky a nigger's testymony don't count for much in a Texan court; an' thar's still a chance to make it count for nothin' by our knocking him on the head." All look surprised, their glances interrogating "How?" "I see you don't understan' me," pursues Borlasse in explanation. "It's easy enough; but we must mount at once, an' make after him. He won't so readily find his way acrosst the cut-rock plain. An' I tell yez, boys, it's our only chance." There are dissenting voices. Some urge the danger of going back that way. They may meet the outraged settlers. "No fear of them yet," argues the chief, "but there will be if the nigger meets them. We needn't go on to the San Saba. If we don't overtake him 'fore reachin' the cottonwood, we'll hev' to let him slide. Then we can hurry back hyar, an' go down the creek to the Colorado." The course counselled, seeming best, is decided on. Hastily saddling their horses, and stowing the plunder in a place where it will be safe till their return, they mount, and start off for the upper plain. Silence again reigns around the deserted camp; no human voice there--no sound, save the calling of the wild turkeys, that cannot awake that ghastly sleeper. At the same hour, almost the very moment, when Borlasse and his freebooters, ascending from Coyote Creek, set foot on the table plain, a party of mounted men, coming up from the San Saba bottom, strikes it on the opposite edge. It is scarce necessary to say that these are the pursuing settlers. Dupre at their head. Hardly have they struck out into the sterile waste, before getting bewildered, with neither trace nor track to give them a clue to the direction. But they have with them a surer guide than the foot-prints of men, or the hoof-marks of horses-- their prisoner Bill Bosley. To save his life, the wretch told all about his late associates and is now conducting the pursuers to Coyote Creek. Withal, he is not sure of the way; and halts hesitatingly. Woodley mistaking his uncertainty for reluctance, puts a pistol to his head, saying:-- "Bill Bosley! altho' I don't make estimate o' yur life as more account than that o' a cat, it may be, I spose, precious to yurself. An' ye kin only save it by takin' us strait to whar ye say Jim Borlasse an' his beauties air. Show sign o' preevarication, or go a yurd's length out o' the right track, an'--wal, I won't shoot ye, as I'm threetenin'. That 'ud be a death too good for sech as you. But I promise ye'll get yer neck streetched on the nearest tree; an' if no tree turn up, I'll tie ye to the tail o' my horse, an' hang ye that way. So, take yur choice. If ye want to chaw any more corn, don't 'tempt playin' possum." "I hain't no thought of it," protests Bosley, "indeed I hain't, Sime. I'm only puzzled 'bout the trail from here. Tho' I've been accrost this plain several times, I never took much notice, bein' with the others, I only know there's a tree stands by itself. If we can reach that, the road's easier beyont. I think it's out yonnerways." He points in particular direction. "Wal, we'll try that way," says Sime, adding: "Ef yer story don't prove strait, there'll come a crik in yur neck, soon's it's diskivered to be crooked. So waste no more words, but strike for the timmer ye speak o'." The alacrity with which Bosley obeys tells he is sincere. Proof of his sincerity is soon after obtained in the tree itself being observed. Far off they descry it outlined against the clear sky, solitary as a ship at sea. "Yonner it air, sure enuf!" says Woodley first sighting it. "I reck'n the skunk's tellin' us the truth, 'bout that stick o' timber being a finger-post. Tharfor, no more dilly-dallying but on to't quick as our critters can take us. Thar's a man's life in danger; one that's dear to me, as I reckon he'd be to all o' ye, ef ye knowed him, same's I do. Ye heerd what the old kurnel sayed, as we war startin' out: _cost what it mout, Charley Clancy air to be saved_. So put the prod to your critters, an' let's on!" Saying this, the hunter spurs his horse to its best speed; and soon all are going at full gallop in straight course for the cottonwood. CHAPTER EIGHTY SIX. ALONE WITH THE DEAD. Beside the body of his fallen foe stands Charles Clancy, but with no intention there to tarry long. The companionship of the dead is ever painful, whether it be friend or enemy. With the latter, alone, it may appal. Something of this creeps over his spirit while standing there; for he has now no strong passion to sustain him, not even anger. After a few moments, he turns his back on the corpse, calling Brasfort away from it. The dog yet shows hostility; and, if permitted, would mutilate the lifeless remains. Its fierce canine instinct has no generous impulse, and is only restrained by scolding and threats. The sun is beginning to show above the horizon, and Clancy perceives Darke's horse tearing about over the plain. He is reminded of his promise made to Jupiter. The animal does not go clear off, but keeps circling round, as if it desired to come back again; the presence of the other horse attracting, and giving it confidence. Clancy calls to it, gesticulating in a friendly manner, and uttering exclamations of encouragement. By little and little, it draws nearer, till at length its muzzle is in contact with that of his own steed; and, seizing the bridle, he secures it. Casting a last look at the corpse, he turns to the horses, intending to take departure from the spot. So little time has been spent in the pursuit, and the short conflict succeeding, it occurs to him he may overtake Jupiter, before the latter has reached the San Saba. Scanning around to get bearings, his eye is attracted to an object, now familiar--the lone cottonwood. It is not much over two miles off. On Darke's trail he must have ridden at least leagues. Its crooked course, however, explains the tree's proximity. The circles and zig-zags have brought both pursued and pursuer nigh back to the starting point. Since the cottonwood is there, he cannot be so far from the other place, he has such reason to remember; and, again running his eye around, he looks for it. He sees it not, as there is nothing now to be seen, except some scattered mould undistinguishable at a distance. Instead, the rising sun lights up the figure of a man, afoot, and more than a mile off. Not standing still, but in motion; as he can see, moving towards himself. It is Jupiter! Thus concluding, he is about to mount and meet him, when stayed by a strange reflection. "I'll let Jupe have a look at his old master," he mutters to himself. "He too had old scores to settle with him--many a one recorded upon his skin. It may give him satisfaction to know how the thing has ended." Meanwhile the mulatto--for it is he--comes on; at first slowly, and with evident caution in his approach. Soon he is seen to quicken his step, changing it to a run; at length arriving at the rock, breathless as one who reaches the end of a race. The sight which meets him there gives him but slight surprise. He has been prepared for it. In answer to Clancy's inquiry, he briefly explains his presence upon the spot. Disobedient to the instructions given him, instead of proceeding towards the San Saba bottom, he had remained upon the steppe. Not stationary, but following his master as fast as he could, and keeping him in view so long as the distance allowed. Two things were in his favour--the clear moonlight and Darke's trail doubling back upon itself. For all, he had at length lost sight of the tracking horseman, but not till he had caught a glimpse of him tracked, fleeing before. It was the straight tail-on-end chase that took both beyond reach of his vision. Noting the direction, he still went hastening after, soon to hear a sound which told him the chase had come to a termination, and strife commenced. This was the report of a gun, its full, round boom proclaiming it a smooth-bore fowling-piece. Remembering that his old master always carried this--his new one never--it must be the former who fired the shot. And, as for a long while no other answered it, he was in despair, believing the latter killed. Then reached his ear the angry bay of the bloodhound, with mens' voices intermingled; ending all the dear, sharp crack of a rifle; which, from the stillness that succeeded continuing, he knew to be the last shot. "An' it war the last, as I can see," he says, winding up his account, and turning towards the corpse. "Ah! you've gi'n him what he thought he'd guv you--his _death shot_!" "Yes, Jupe. He's got it at last; and strange enough in the very place where he hit me. You see where my bullet has struck him?" The mulatto, stooping down over Darke's body, examines the wound, still dripping blood. "You're right, Masser Charle; it's in de adzack spot. Well, that is curious. Seems like your gun war guided by de hand of that avengin' angel you spoke o'." Having thus delivered himself, the fugitive slave becomes silent and thoughtful, for a time, bending over the body of his once cruel master, now no more caring for his cruelty, or in fear of being chastised by him. With what strange reflections must that spectacle inspire him! The outstretched arms lying helpless along the earth--the claw-like fingers now stiff and nerveless--he may be thinking how they once clutched a cowhide, vigorously laying it on his own back, leaving those terrible scars. "Come, Jupe!" says Clancy, rousing him from his reverie; "we must mount, and be off." Soon they are in their saddles, ready to start; but stay yet a little longer. For something has to be considered. It is necessary for them to make sure about their route. They must take precautions against getting strayed, as also another and still greater danger. Jupiter's escape from the robbers' den, with the deed that facilitated it, will by this have been discovered. It is more than probable he will be pursued; indeed almost certain. And the pursuers will come that way; at any moment they may appear. This is the dark side of the picture presented to Clancy's imagination, as he turns his eyes towards the west. Facing in the opposite direction his fancy summons up one brighter. For there lies the San Saba Mission-house, within whose walls he will find Helen Armstrong. He has now no doubt that she has reached home in safety; knows, too, that her father still lives. For the mulatto has learnt as much from the outlaws. While _en route_ to Coyote Creek, and during his sojourn there, he overheard them speak about the massacre of the slaves, as also the immunity extended to their masters, with the reason for it. It is glad tidings to Clancy, His betrothed, restored to her father's arms, will not the less affectionately open her own to receive him. The long night of their sorrowing has passed; the morn of their joy comes; its daylight is already dawning. He will have a welcome, sweet as ever met man. "What's that out yonner?" exclaims Jupiter, pointing west. Clancy's rapture is interrupted--his bright dream dissipated--suddenly, as when a cloud drifts over the disc of the sun. And it is the sun which causes the change, or rather the reflection of its rays from something seen afar off, over the plain. Several points sparkle, appearing and disappearing through a semi-opaque mass, whose dun colour shows it to be dust. Experienced in prairie-sign he can interpret this; and does easily, but with a heaviness at his heart. The things that sparkle are guns, pistols, knives, belt-buckles, bitts, and stirrups; while that through which they intermittingly shine is the stoor tossed up by the hooves of horses. It is a body of mounted men in march across the steppe. Continuing to scan the dust-cloud, he perceives inside it a darker nucleus, evidently horses and men, though he is unable to trace the individual forms, or make out their number. No mattes for that; there is enough to identify them without. They are coming from the side of the Colorado--from Coyote Creek. Beyond doubt the desperadoes! CHAPTER EIGHTY SEVEN. HOSTILE COHORTS. Perfectly sure that the band is that of Borlasse, which he almost instantly is, Clancy draws his horse behind the rock, directing Jupiter to do likewise. Thus screened, they can command a view of the horsemen, without danger of being themselves seen. For greater security both dismount; the mulatto holding the horses, while his master sets himself to observe the movements of the approaching troop. Is it approaching? Yes; but not direct for the rock. Its head is towards the tree, and the robbers are evidently making to reach this. As already said, the topography of the place is peculiar; the lone cottonwood standing on the crest of a _couteau de prairie_, whose sides slope east and west. It resembles the roof of a house, but with gentler declination. Similarly situated on the summit of the ridge, is the boulder, but with nearly a league's length between it and the tree. Soon as assured that the horsemen are heading for the latter, Clancy breathes freer breath. But without being satisfied he is safe. He knows they will not stay there; and where next? He reflects what might have been his fate were he still in the _prairie stocks_. Borlasse will be sure to pay that place a visit. Not finding the victim of his cruelty, he will seek elsewhere. Will it occur to him to come on to the rock? Clancy so interrogates, with more coolness, and less fear, than may be imagined. His horse is beside him, and Jupiter has another. The mulatto is no longer encumbered by a mule. Darke's steed is known to be a swift one, and not likely to be outrun by any of the robber troop. If chased, some of them might overtake it, but not all, or not at the same time. There will be less danger from their following in detail, and thus Clancy less fears them. For he knows that his yellow-skinned comrade is strong as courageous; a match for any three ordinary men. And both are now well armed--Darke's double-barrel, as his horse, having reverted to Jupiter. Besides, as good luck has it, there are pistols found in the holsters, to say nothing of that long-bladed, and late blood-stained, knife. In a chase they will have a fair chance to escape; and, if it come to a fight, can make a good one. While he is thus speculating upon the probabilities of the outlaws coming on to the rock, and what may be the upshot afterwards, Clancy's ear is again saluted by a cry from his companion. But this time in tone very different: for it is jubilant, joyous. Turning, he sees Jupiter standing with face to the east, and pointing in that direction. To what? Another cloud of dust, that prinkles with sparkling points; another mounted troop moving across the plain! And also making for the tree, which, equi-distant between the two, seems to be the beacon of both. Quick as he reached the conclusion about the first band being that of Borlasse, does he decide as to that of the second. It is surely the pursuing colonists, and as sure with Sime Woodley at their head. Both cohorts are advancing at a like rate of speed, neither riding rapidly. They have been so, but now, climbing the acclivity, they have quieted their horses to a walk. The pace though slow, continued, will in time bring them together. A collision seems inevitable. His glance gladdens as he measures the strength of the two parties. The former not only in greater number, but with God on their side; while the latter will be doing battle under the banner of the Devil. About the issue of such encounter he has no anxiety. He is only apprehensive it may not come off. Something may arise to warn the outlaws, and give them a chance to shun it. As yet neither party has a thought of the other's proximity or approach. They cannot, with the ridge between. Still is there that, which should make them suspicious of something. Above each band are buzzards--a large flock. They flout the air in sportive flight, their instinct admonishing them that the two parties are hostile, and likely to spill each other's blood. About the two sets of birds what will both sides be saying? For, high in heaven, both must long since have observed them. From their presence what conjectures will they draw? So Clancy questions, answering himself: "Borlasse will suppose the flock afar to be hovering over my head; while Woodley may believe the other one above my dead body!" Strange as it may appear, just thus, and at the same instant, are the two leaders interpreting the sign! And well for the result Clancy desires; since it causes neither to command halt or make delay. On the contrary impels them forward more impetuously. Perceiving this, he mechanically mutters: Thank the Lord! They must meet now! Curbing his impatience, as he best can, he continues to watch the mutually approaching parties. At the head of the colonists he now sees Sime Woodley, recognises him by his horse--a brindled "clay-bank," with stripes like a zebra. Would that he could communicate with his old comrade, and give him word, or sign of warning. He dares not do either. To stir an inch from behind the rock, would expose him to the view of the robbers, who might still turn and retreat. With heart beating audibly, blood, coursing quick through his veins, he watches and waits, timing the crisis. It must come soon. The two flocks of vultures have met in mid-air, and mingle their sweeping gyrations. They croak in mutual congratulation, anticipating a splendid repast. Clancy counts the moments. They cannot be many. The heads of the horsemen already align with the tufts of grass growing topmost on the ridge. Their brows are above it; their eyes. They have sighted each other! A halt on both sides; horses hurriedly reined in; no shouts; only a word of caution from the respective leaders of the troops, each calling back to his own. Then an interval of silence, disturbed by the shrill screams of the horses, challenging from troop to troop, seemingly hostile as their riders. In another instant both have broken halt, and are going in gallop over the plain; not towards each other, but one pursuing, the other pursued. The robbers are in retreat! Clancy had not waited for this; his cue came before, soon as they caught sight of one another. Then, vaulting into his saddle, and calling Jupiter to follow, he was off. Riding at top speed, cleaving the air, till it whistles past his ears, with eyes strained forward, he sees the changed attitude of the troops. He reflects not on it; all his thoughts becoming engrossed, all his energies bent, upon taking part in the pursuit, and still more in the fight he hopes will follow. He presses on in a diagonal line between pursued and pursuers. His splendid steed now shows its good qualities, and gladly he sees he is gaining upon both. With like gladness that they are nearing one another, the short-striding mustangs being no match for the long legged American horses. As yet not a shot has been fired. The distance is still too great for the range of rifles, and backwoodsmen do not idly waste ammunition. The only sounds heard are the trampling of the hooves, and the occasional neigh of a horse. The riders are all silent, in both troops alike--one in the mute eagerness of flight, the other with the stern earnestness of pursuit. And now puffs of smoke arise over each, with jets of flame projected outward. Shots, at first dropping and single, then in thick rattling fusillade. Along with them cries of encouragement, mingled with shouts of defiance. Then a wild "hurrah," the charging cheers the colonists close upon the outlaws. Clancy rides straight for the fray. In front he sees the plain shrouded in dense sulphureous mist, at intervals illumined by yellow flashes. Another spurt, and, passing through the thin outer strata of smoke, he is in the thick of the conflict--among men on horseback grappling other mounted men, endeavouring to drag them out of the saddle--some afoot, fighting in pairs, firing pistols, or with naked knives, hewing away at one another! He sees that the fight is nigh finished, and the robbers routed. Some are dismounted, on their knees crying "quarter," and piteously appealing for mercy. Where is Sime Woodley? Has his old comrade been killed? Half frantic with this fear, he rashes distractedly over the ground, calling out the backwoodsman's name. He is answered by another--by Ned Heywood, who staggers to his side, bleeding, his face blackened with powder. "You are wounded, Heywood?" "Yes; or I wouldn't be here." "Why?" "Because Sime--" "Where is he?" "Went that way in chase o' a big brute of a fellow. I've jest spied them passin' through the smoke. For God's sake, after! Sime may stand in need o' ye." Clancy stays not to hear more, but again urges his horse to speed, with head in the direction indicated. Darting on, he is soon out into the clear atmosphere; there to see two horsemen going off over the plain, pursued and pursuer. In the former he recognises Borlasse, while the latter is Woodley. Both are upon strong, swift, horses; but better mounted than either, he soon gains upon them. The backwoodsman is nearing the brigand. Clancy sees this with satisfaction, though not without anxiety. He knows Jim Borlasse is an antagonist not to be despised. Driven to desperation, he will fight like a grizzly bear. Woodley will need all his strength, courage, and strategy. Eager to assist his old comrade, he presses onward; but, before he can come up, they have closed, and are at it. Not in combat, paces apart, with rifles or pistols. Not a shot is being exchanged between them. Instead, they are close together, have clutched one another, and are fighting, hand to hand, with _bowies_! It commenced on horseback, but at the first grip both came to the ground, dragging each other down. Now the fight continues on foot, each with his bared blade hacking and hewing at the other. A dread spectacle these two gigantic gladiators engaged in mortal strife! All the more in its silence. Neither utters shout, or speaks word. They are too intent upon killing. The only sound heard is their hoarse breathing as they pant to recover it--each holding the other's arm to hinder the fatal stroke. Clancy's heart beats apprehensively for the issue; and with rifle cocked, he rides on to send a bullet through Borlasse. It is not needed. No gun is to give the _coup de grace_ to the chief of the prairie pirates. For, the blade of a bowie-knife has passed between his ribs, laying him lifeless along the earth. "You, Charley Clancy!" says Sime, in joyful surprise at seeing his friend still safe. "Thank the Lord for it! But who'd a thought o' meeting ye in the middle of the skrimmage! And in time to stan' by me hed that been needful. But whar hev ye come from? Dropt out o' the clouds? An' what o' Dick Darke? I'd most forgot that leetle matter. Have ye seed him?" "I have." "Wal; what's happened? Hev ye did anythin' to him?" "The same as you have done to _him_," answers Clancy, pointing to the body of Borlasse. "Good for you! I know'd it 'ud end that way. I say'd so to that sweet critter, when I war leevin' her at the Mission." "You left her there--safe?" "Wal, I left her in her father's arums, whar I reckon she'll be safe enough. But whar's Jupe?" "He's here--somewhere behind." "All right! That accounts for the hul party. Now let's back, and see what's chanced to the rest o' this ruffin crew. So, Jim Borlasse, good bye!" With this odd leave taking, he turns away, wipes the blood from his bowie, returns it to its sheath, and once more climbing into his saddle, rides off to rejoin the victorious colonists. On the ground where the engagement took place, a sad spectacle is presented. The smoke has drifted away, disclosing the corpses of the slain--horses as well as men. All the freebooters have fallen, and now lie astretch as they fell to stab or shot; some on their backs, others with face downward, or doubled sideways, but all dead, gashed, and gory--not a wounded man among them! For the colonists, recalling that parallel spectacle in the Mission courtyard, have given loose rein to the _lex talionis_, and exacted a terrible retribution. Nor have they themselves got off unscathed. The desperadoes being refused quarter, fought it out to the bitter end; killing several of the settlers, and wounding many more; among the latter two known to us-- Heywood and Dupre. By good fortune, neither badly, and both to recover from their wounds; the young Creole also recovering his stolen treasure, found secreted at the camp on Coyote creek. Our tale might here close; for it is scarce necessary to record what came afterwards. The reader will guess, and correctly, that Dupre became the husband of Jessie, and Helen the wife of Clancy; both marriages being celebrated at the same time, and both with full consent and approval of the only living parent--Colonel Armstrong. And on the same day, though at a different hour, a third couple was made man and wife; Jupe getting spliced to his Jule, from whom he had been so long cruelly kept apart. It is some years since then, and changes have taken place in the colony. As yet none to be regretted, but the reverse. A Court-House town has sprung up on the site of the ancient Mission, the centre of a district of plantations--the largest of them belonging to Luis Dupre; while one almost as extensive, and equally as flourishing, has Charles Clancy for owner. On the latter live Jupe and Jule; Jupe overseer, Jule at the head of the domestic department; while on the former reside two other personages presented in this tale, it is hoped with interest attached to them. They are Blue Bill, and his Phoebe; not living alone, but in the midst of a numerous progeny of piccaninnies. How the coon-hunter comes to be there requires explanation. A word will be sufficient. Ephraim Darke stricken down by the disgrace brought upon him, has gone to his grave; and at the breaking up of his slave establishment, Blue Bill, with all his belongings, was purchased by Dupre, and transported to his present home. This not by any accident, but designedly; as a reward for his truthfulness, with the courage he displayed in declaring it. Between the two plantations, lying contiguous, Colonel Armstrong comes and goes, scarce knowing which is his proper place of residence. In both he has a bedroom, and a table profusely spread, with the warmest of welcomes. In the town itself is a market, plentifully supplied with provisions, especially big game--bear-meat, and venison. Not strange, considering that it is catered for by four of the most skilful hunters in Texas; their names, Woodley, Heywood, Hawkins, and Tucker. When off duty these worthies may be seen sauntering through the streets, and relating the experiences of their latest hunting expedition. But there is one tale, which Sime, the oldest of the quartette, has told over and over--yet never tires telling. Need I say, it is the "Death Shot?" THE END. 
8906	----	MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR PIONEER MISSIONARY BY W. P. LIVINGSTONE PREFATORY NOTE _Life for most people is governed by authority and convention, but behind these there lies always the mystery of human nature, uncertain and elusive, and apt now and again to go off at a tangent and disturb the smooth working of organised routine. Some man or woman will appear who departs from the normal order of procedure, who follows ideals rather than rules, and whose methods are irregular, and often, in the eyes of onlookers, unwise. They may be poor or frail, and in their own estimation of no account, yet it is often they who are used for the accomplishment--of important ends. Such a one was Mary Slessor._ _Towards the end of her days she was urged to write her autobiography, but was surprised at the proposal, and asked what she had done to merit the distinction of being put in a book. She was so humble-minded that she could not discern any special virtue in her life of self-sacrifice and heroism; and she disliked publicity and was shamed by praise. When the matter was pressed upon her in view of the inspiration which a narrative of her experiences and adventures would be for others, she began to consider whether it might not be a duty, she never shrank from any duty however unpleasant. Her belief was that argument and theory had no effect in arousing interest in missionary enterprise; that the only means of setting the heart on fire the magnetism of personal touch and example; and she indicated that if account of her service would help to stimulate and strengthen the faith of the supporters of the work, she would be prepared to supply the material. She died before the intention could be carried further, but from many sources, and chiefly from her own letters, it has been possible to piece together the main facts of her wonderful career._ _One, however, has no hope of giving an adequate picture of her complex nature, so full of contrasts and opposites. She was a woman of affairs, with a wide and catholic outlook upon humanity, and yet she was a shy solitary walking alone in puritan simplicity and childlike faith. Few ham possessed such moral and physical courage, or exercised such imperious power over savage peoples, yet on trivial occasions she was abjectly timid and afraid, A sufferer from chronic malarial affection, and a martyr to pains her days were filled in with unremitting toil. Overflowing with love and tender feeling, she could be stern and exacting. Shrewd, practical, and matter of fact, she believed that sentiment was a gift of God, and frankly indulged in it. Living always in the midst of dense spiritual darkness, and often depressed and worried, she maintained unimpaired a sense of humour and laughter. Strong and tenacious of will, she admitted the right of others to oppose her. These are but illustrations of the perpetual play of light and shade in her character which made her difficult to understand. Many could not see her greatness for what they called her eccentricities, forgetting, or perhaps being unaware of, what she had passed through, experiences such as no other woman had undergone, which explained much that seemed unusual in her conduct. But when her life is viewed as a whole, and in the light of what she achieved, all these angles and oddities fall away, and she stands out, a woman of unique and inspiring personality, and one of the most heroic figures of the age._ _Some have said that she was in a sense a miracle, and not, therefore, for ordinary people to emulate. Such an estimate she would have stoutly repudiated. It is true that she began life with the gift of a strong character, but many possess that and yet come to nothing. She had, on the other hand, disadvantages and obstacles that few have to encounter. It was by surrender, dedication, and unwearied devotion that she grew into her power of attainment, and all can adventure on the same path. It was love for Christ that made her what she was, and there is no limit set in that direction. Such opportunity as she had, lies before the lowliest disciples; even out of the commonplace Love can carve heroines. "There is nothing small or trivial," she once said, "for God is ready to take every act and motive and work through them to the formation of character and the development of holy and useful lives that will convey grace to the world." It was so in her case, and hence the value of her example, and the warrant for telling the story of her life so that others may be influenced to follow aims as noble, and to strive, if not always in the same manner, at least with a like courage, and in the same patient and indomitable spirit. W.P.L._ CONTENTS FIRST PHASE A SCOTTISH FACTORY GIRL CHAPTER I. SAVED BY FEAR CHAPTER II. IN THE WEAVING-SHED CHAPTER III. MISERY CHAPTER IV. TAMING THE ROUGHS CHAPTER V. SELF-CULTURE CHAPTER VI. A TRAGIC LAND CHAPTER VII. THE THREE MARYS SECOND PHASE WORK AND ADVENTURE AT THE BASE CHAPTER I. THE BREATH OF THE TROPICS CHAPTER II. FIRST IMPRESSIONS CHAPTER III. IN THE UNDERWORLD CHAPTER IV. THE PULL OF HOME CHAPTER V. AT THE SEAT OF SATAN CHAPTER VI. IN ELEPHANT COUNTRY CHAPTER VII. WITH BACK TO THE WALL CHAPTER VIII. BEREFT CHAPTER IX. THE SORROWS OF CREEK TOWN CHAPTER X. THE FULNESS OF THE TIME THIRD PHASE THE CONQUEST OF OKOYONG CHAPTER I. A TRIBE OF TERRORISTS CHAPTER II. IN THE ROYAL CANOE CHAPTER III. THE ADVENTURE OF TAKING POSSESSION CHAPTER IV. FACING AN ANGBY MOB CHAPTER V. LIFE IN THE HAREM CHAPTER VI. STRANGE DOINGS CHAPTER VII. FIGHTING A GRIM FOE CHAPTER VIII. THE POWER OF WITCHCRAFT CHAPTER IX. SORCERY IN THE PATH CHAPTER X. HOW HOUSE AND HALL WERE BUILT CHAPTER XI. A PALAVER AT THE PALACE CHAPTER XII. THE SCOTTISH CARPENTER CHAPTER XIII. HER GREATEST BATTLE AND VICTORY CHAPTER XIV. THE AFTERMATH CHAPTER XV. THE SWEET AND THE STRONG CHAPTER XVI. WAR IN THE GATES CHAPTER XVII. AMONG THE CHURCHES CHAPTER XVIII. LOVE OF LOVER CHAPTER XIX. A LETTER AND ITS RESULT CHAPTER XX. THE BLOOD COVENANT CHAPTER XXI. "RUN, MA! RUN!" CHAPTER XXII. A GOVERNMENT AGENT CHAPTER XXIII. "ECCENTRICITIES," SPADE-WORK, AND DAY-DREAMS CHAPTER XXIV. MAIDEN-MOTHER AND ANGEL-CHILD CHAPTER XXV. MARY KINGSLEY'S VISIT CHAPTER XXVI. AN ALL-NIGHT JOURNEY CHAPTER XXVII. AKOM: A FIRST-FRUIT CHAPTER XXVIII. THE BOX FROM HOME CHAPTER XXIX. AN APPEAL TO THE CONSUL CHAPTER XXX. AFTER SEVEN YEARS CHAPTER XXXI. THE PASSING OF THE CHIEFS CHAPTER XXXII. CLOTHED BY FAITH CHAPTER XXXIII. THE SHY SPEAKER CHAPTER XXXIV. ISOLATION 1. A MOTHER IN ISRAEL 2. THE CARES OF A HOUSEHOLD CHAPTER XXXV. EXILED TO CREEK TOWN CHAPTER XXXVI. PICTURES AND IMPRESSIONS CHAPTER XXXVII. A NIGHT IN THE BUSH CHAPTER XXXVIII. WITH LOVING-KINDNESS CROWNED FOURTH PHASE THE ROMANCE OF THE ENYONG CREEK CHAPTER I. THE REIGN OF THE LONG JUJU CHAPTER II. PLANTING A BASE CHAPTER III. ON TO AROCHUKU CHAPTER IV. A SLAVE-GIRL'S TRIUMPH CHAPTER V. A BUSH FURLOUGH CHAPTER VI. BEGINNINGS CHAPTER VII. MOVING INLAND CHAPTER VIII. THE PROBLEM OF THE WOMEN CHAPTER IX. A CHRISTMAS PARTY CHAPTER X. MUTINOUS CHAPTER XI. ON THE BENCH CHAPTER XII. A VISITOR'S NOTES CHAPTER XIII. A REST-HOME CHAPTER XIV. SCOTLAND: THE LAST FAREWELL CHAPTER XV. GROWING WEATHER CHAPTER XVI. "THE PITY OF IT" CHAPTER XVII. THE SETTLEMENT BEGUN CHAPTER XVIII. A SCOTTISH GUEST CHAPTER XIX. A MOTOR CAR ROMANCE CHAPTER XX. STRUCK DOWN FIFTH PHASE ONWARD STILL CHAPTER I. IN HEATHEN DEEPS CHAPTER II. "REAL LIFE" CHAPTER III. THE AUTOCRATIC DOCTOR CHAPTER IV. GOD'S WONDERFUL PALAVER CHAPTER V. WEAK BUT STRONG CHAPTER VI. HER FIRST HOLIDAY CHAPTER VII. INJURED CHAPTER VIII. FRIENDSHIPS WITH OFFICIALS CHAPTER IX. POWER THBOUGH PRAYER CHAPTER X. BIBLE STUDENT CHAPTER XI. BACK TO THE OLD HAUNTS CHAPTER XII. ROYAL RECOGNITION CHAPTER XIII. BATTLE FOR A LIFE CHAPTER XIV. A VISION OF THE NIGHT CHAPTER XV. STORMING THE CITADELS CHAPTER XVI. CLARION CALLS CHAPTER XVII. LOVE-LETTERS CHAPTER XVIII. A LONELY FIGURE CHAPTER XIX. WHEN THE GREAT WAR CAME CHAPTER XX. THE TIME OF THE SINGING OF BIRDS CHAPTER XXI. TRIBUTE AND TREASURE CHAPTER XXII. SEEN AND UNSEEN CHAPTER XXIII. THE ALABASTER BOX ILLUSTRATIONS Mary M. Slessor Calabar Mission Field in 1876 Miss Slessor and some of the People of Ekenge Calabar Chief of the Present Day Calabar Sword King Eyo's State Canoe The First Church in Okoyong--at Ifako Miss Slessor's Mission House at Ekenge "Ma's" Quarters at Akpap The Tragedy of Twins The Okoyong Household in Scotland Native Court in Okoyong Calabar Mission Map of the Present Day A Glimpse of the Enyong Creek Itu, showing the Beach where the Slave-market was held Court House at Ikotobong "Ma," with the Material for the Native Oath at her Feet Administering the Native Oath to a Witness The Government Motor Car Miss Slessor's Heathen Friend, Ma Eme One of Miss Slessor's Bibles Miss Slessor's Silver Cross The House on the Hill-top at Odoro Ikpe The Last Photograph of the Household FIRST PHASE 1848-1876. Age 1-28. A SCOTTISH FACTORY GIRL _"It was the dream of my girlhood to be a missionary to Calabar_." I. SAVED BY FEAR When the founding of the Calabar Mission on the West Coast of Africa was creating a stir throughout Scotland, there came into a lowly home in Aberdeen a life that was to be known far and wide in connection with the enterprise. On December 2, 1848, Mary Mitchell Slessor was born in Gilcomston, a suburb of the city. Her father, Robert Slessor, belonged to Buchan, and was a shoemaker. Her mother, who came from Old Meldrum, was an only child, and had been brought up in a home of refinement and piety. She is described by those who knew her as a sweet-faced woman, patient, gentle, and retiring, with a deeply religious disposition, but without any special feature of character, such as one would have expected to find in the mother of so uncommon a daughter. It was from her, however, that Mary got her soft voice and loving heart. Mary was the second of seven children. Of her infancy and girlhood little is known. Her own earliest recollections were associated with the name of Calabar. Mrs. Slessor was a member of Belmont Street United Presbyterian Church, and was deeply interested in the adventure going forward in that foreign field. "I had," said Mary, "my missionary enthusiasm for Calabar in particular from her--she knew from its inception all that was to be known of its history." Both she and her elder brother Robert heard much talk of it in the home, and the latter used to announce that he was going to be a missionary when he was a man. So great a career was, of course, out of the reach of girls, but he consoled Mary by promising to take her with him into the pulpit. Often Mary played at keeping school; and it is interesting to note that the imaginary scholars she taught and admonished were always black. Robert did not survive these years, and Mary became the eldest. Dark days came. Mr. Slessor unhappily drifted into habits of intemperance and lost his situation, and when he suggested removing to Dundee, then coming to the front as an industrial town and promising opportunities for the employment of young people, his wife consented, although it was hard for her to part from old friends and associations. But she hoped that in a strange city, where the past was unknown, her husband might begin life afresh and succeed. The family went south in 1859, and entered on a period of struggle and hardship. The money realised by the sale of the furniture melted away, and the new house was bare and comfortless, Mr. Slessor continued his occupation as a shoemaker, and then became a labourer in one of the mills. The youngest child, Janie, was born in Dundee. All the family were delicate, and it was not long before Mary was left with only two sisters and a brother--Susan, John, and Janie. Mrs. Slessor's fragility prevented her battling successfully with trial and misfortune, but no children could have been trained with more scrupulous care. "I owe a great debt of gratitude to my sainted mother," said Mary, long afterwards. Especially was she solicitous for their religious well- being. On coming to Dundee she had connected herself with Wishart Church in the east end of the Cowgate, a modest building, above a series of shops near the Port Gate from the parapets of which George Wishart preached during the plague of 1544. Here the children were sent to the regular services--with a drop of perfume on their handkerchiefs and gloves and a peppermint in their pockets for sermon-time--and also attended the Sunday School. Mary's own recollection of herself at this period was that she was "a wild lassie." She would often go back in thought to these days, and incidents would flash into memory that half amused and half shamed her. Some of her escapades she would describe with whimsical zest, and trivial as they were they served to show that, even then, her native wit and resource were always ready to hand. But very early the Change came. An old widow, living in a room in the back lands, used to watch the children running about the doors, and in her anxiety for their welfare sought to gather some of the girls together and talk to them, young as they were, about the matters that concerned their souls. One afternoon in winter they had come out of the cold and darkness into the glow of her fire, and were sitting listening to her description of the dangers that beset all who neglected salvation. "Do ye see that fire?" she exclaimed suddenly. "If ye were to put your hand into the lowes it would be gey sair. It would burn ye. But if ye dinna repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ your soul will burn in the lowin' bleezin' fire for ever and ever!" The words went like arrows to Mary's heart; she could not get the vision of eternal torment out of her mind: it banished sleep, and she came to the conclusion that it would be best for her to make her peace with God. She "repented and believed." It was hell-fire that drove her into the Kingdom, she would sometimes say. But once there she found it to be a Kingdom of love and tenderness and mercy, and never throughout her career did she seek to bring any one into it, as she had come, by the process of shock and fear. II. IN THE WEAVING-SHED The time came when Mrs. Slessor herself was compelled to enter one of the factories in order to maintain the home, and many of the cares and worries of a household fell upon Mary. But at eleven she, too, was sent out to begin to earn a livelihood. In the textile works of Messrs. Baxter Brothers & Company she became what was known as a half-timer, one who wrought half the day and went to the school in connection with the works the other half. When she was put on full time she attended the school held at night. Shortly afterward she entered Rashiewell factory to learn weaving under the supervision of her mother. After trying the conditions in two other works she returned, about the age of fourteen, to Baxter's, where she soon became an expert and well-paid worker. Her designation was a "weaver" or "factory girl," not a "mill- girl," this term locally being restricted to spinners in the mills. When she handed her first earnings to her mother the latter wept over them, and put them away as too sacred to use. But her wage was indispensable for the support of the home, and eventually she became its chief mainstay. Life in the great factory in which she was but a unit amongst thousands was hard and monotonous. The hours of the workers were from six A.M. to six P.M., with one hour for breakfast and one for dinner. Mary was stationed in a room or shed, which has very much the same appearance to-day. Now as then the belts are whirring, the looms are moving, the girls are handling the shuttles, and the air is filled with a din so continuous and intense that speech is well-nigh impossible. Mary had to be up every morning at five o'clock, as she helped in the work of the home before going out, while similar duties claimed her at night. Though naturally bright and refined in disposition she was at this time almost wholly uneducated. From the factory schools she had brought only a meagre knowledge of reading and arithmetic, and she had read little save the books obtained from the library of the Sunday School. But her mind was opening, she was becoming conscious of the outer world and all its interests and wonders, and she was eager to know and understand. In order to study she began to steal time from sleep. She carried a book with her to the mill, and, like David Livingstone at Blantyre, laid it on the loom and glanced at it in her free moments. So anxious was she to learn that she read on her way to and from the factory. It was not a royal road, that thoroughfare of grim streets, but it led her into many a shining region. Her only source of outside interest was the Church. From the Sunday School she passed into the Bible Class, where her attendance was never perfunctory, for she enjoyed the teaching and extracted all she could out of it. She would carry home the statements that arrested and puzzled her, and refer them to her mother, who, however, did not always find it easy to satisfy her. "Is baptism necessary for salvation, mother?" was one of her questions. "Well," her mother replied, "it says that he that repents and is baptized shall be saved; but it does not say that he that repents and is not baptized shall be damned." Some of her mother's sayings at this time she never forgot. "When one duty jostles another, one is not a duty," she was once told. And again, "Thank God for what you receive: thank God for what you do not receive: thank God for the sins you are delivered from; and thank God for the sins that you know nothing at all about, and are never tempted to commit." Mary was a favourite with her classmates. There was something about her even then which drew others to her. One, the daughter of an elder, tells how, though much younger, she was attracted to her by her goodness and her kind ways, and how she would often go early to meet her in order to enjoy her company to the class. III. MISERY The explanation of much in Mary Slessor's character lies in these early years, and she cannot be fully understood unless the unhappy circumstances in her home are taken into account. She was usually reticent regarding her father, but once she wrote and published under her own name what is known to be the story of this painful period of her girlhood. There is no need to reproduce it, but some reference to the facts is necessary if only to show how bravely she battled against hardship and difficulties even then. The weakness of Mr. Slessor was not cured by the change in his surroundings. All the endearments of his wife and daughter were powerless to save the man whose heart was tender enough when he was sober, but whose moral sensibilities continued to be sapped by his indulgence in drink. Every penny he could lay hands upon was spent in this way, and the mother was often reduced to sore straits to feed and clothe the children. Not infrequently Mary had to perform a duty repugnant to her sensitive nature. She would leave the factory after her long toil, and run home, pick up a parcel which her mother had prepared, and fly like a hunted thing along the shadiest and quietest streets, making many a turning in order to avoid her friends, to the nearest pawnbroker's. Then with sufficient money for the week's requirements she would hurry back with a thankful heart, and answer the mother's anxious, questioning eyes with a glad light in her own. A kiss would be her reward, and she would be sent out to pay the more pressing bills. There was one night of terror in every week. On Saturday, after the other children were in bed, the mother and daughter sat sewing or knitting in silence through long hours, waiting in sickening apprehension for the sound of uncertain footsteps on the stairs. Now and again they prayed to quieten their hearts. Yet they longed for his coming. When he appeared he would throw into the fire the supper they had stinted themselves to provide for him. Sometimes Mary was forced out into the streets where she wandered in the dark, alone, sobbing out her misery. All the efforts of wife and daughter were directed towards hiding the skeleton in the house. The fear of exposure before the neighbours, the dread lest Mary's church friends should come to know the secret, made the two sad souls pinch and struggle and suffer with endless patience. None of the other children was aware of the long vigils that were spent. The fact that the family was never disgraced in public was attributed to prayer. The mother prayed, the daughter prayed, ceaselessly, with utter simplicity of belief, and they were never once left stranded or put to shame. Their faith not only saved them from despair, it made them happy in the intervals of their distress. Few brighter or more hopeful families gathered in church from Sunday to Sunday. Nevertheless these days left their mark upon Mary for life. She was at the plastic age, she was gentle and sensitive and loving, and what she passed through hurt and saddened her spirit. To the end it was the only memory that had power to send a shaft of bitterness across the sweetness of her nature. It added to her shyness and to her reluctance to appear in public and speak, which was afterwards so much commented upon, for always at the back of her mind was the consciousness of that dark and wretched time. The reaction on her character, however, was not all evil; suffering in the innocent has its compensations. It deepened her sympathy and pity for others. It made her the fierce champion of little children, and the refuge of the weak and oppressed. It prepared her also for the task of combating the trade in spirits on the West Coast, and for dealing with the drunken tribes amongst whom she came to dwell. Her experience then was, indeed, the beginning of her training for the work she had to accomplish in the future.... The father died, and the strain was removed, and Mary became the chief support of the home. Those who knew her then state that her life was one long act of self-denial; all her own inclinations and interests were surrendered for the sake of the family, and she was content with bare necessaries so long as they were provided for. IV. TAMING THE ROUGHS In her church work she continued to find the little distraction from toil which gave life its savour. She began to attend the Sabbath Morning Fellowship and week-night prayer meetings. She also taught a class of "lovable lassies" in the Sabbath School--"I had the impudence of ignorance then in special degree surely" was her mature comment on this--and became a distributor of the _Monthly Visitor_. Despite the weary hours in the factory, and a long walk to and from the church, she was never absent from any of the services or meetings. "We would as soon have thought of going to the moon as of being absent from a service," she wrote shortly before she died. "And we throve very well on it too. How often, when lying awake at night, my time for thinking, do I go back to those wonderful days!" She owed much to her association with the Church, but more to her Bible. Once a girl asked her for something to read, and she handed her the Book saying, "Take that; it has made me a changed lassie." The study of it was less a duty than a joy; it was like reading a message addressed specially to herself, containing news of surpassing personal interest and import. God was very real to her. To think that behind all the strain and struggle and show of the world there was a Personality, not a thought or a dream, not something she could not tell what, in spaces she knew not where, but One who was actual and close to her, overflowing with love and compassion, and ready to listen to her, and to heal and guide and strengthen her--it was marvellous. She wished to know all He had to tell her, in order that she might rule her conduct according to His will. Most of all it was the story of Christ that she pored over and thought about. His Divine majesty, the beauty and grace of His life, the pathos of His death on the Cross, affected her inexpressibly. But it was His love, so strong, so tender, so pitiful, that won her heart and devotion and filled her with a happiness and peace that suffused her inner life like sunshine. In return she loved Him with a love so intense that it was often a pain. She felt that she could not do enough for one who had done so much for her. As the years passed she surrendered herself more and more to His influence, and was ready for any duty she was called upon to do for Him, no matter how humble or exacting it might be. It was this passion of love and gratitude, this abandonment of self, this longing for service, that carried her into her life-work. Wishart Church stood in the midst of slums. Pends, or arched passages, led from the Cowgate into tall tenements with outside spiral stairs which opened upon a maze of landings and homes. Out of these sunless rookeries tides of young life poured by night and day, and spread over the neighbouring streets in undisciplined freedom. Mary's heart often ached for these boys and girls, whom she loved in spite of all their roughness; and when a mission was determined on, and a room was taken at 6 Queen Street--a small side thoroughfare nearly opposite Quarry Pend, one of the worst of the alleys--she volunteered as a teacher. And so began a second period of stem training which was to serve her well in the years to come. The wilder spirits made sport of the meetings and endeavoured to wreck them. "That little room," she wrote, "was full of romantic experiences." There was danger outside when the staff separated, and she recalled how several of the older men surrounded the "smaller individuals" when they faced the storm. One of these was Mr. J. H. Smith, who became her warm friend and counsellor. As the mission developed, a shop under the church at the side of Wishart Pend was taken and the meetings transferred to it, she having charge of classes for boys and girls both on Sundays and week-nights. Open-air work was at that time dangerous, but she and a few others attempted it: they were opposed by roughs and pelted with mud. There was one gang that was resolved to break up the mission with which she had come to be identified. One night they closed in about her on the street. The leader carried a leaden weight at the end of a piece of cord, and swung it threateningly round her head. She stood her ground. Nearer and nearer the missile came. It shaved her brow. She never winced. The weight crashed to the ground. "She's game, boys," he exclaimed. To show their appreciation of her spirit they went in a body to the meeting. There her bright eyes, her sympathy, and her firmness shaped them into order and attention.... On the wall of one of her bush houses in West Africa there used to hang a photograph of a man and his wife and family. The man was the lad who had swung the lead. On attaining a good position he had sent her the photograph in grateful remembrance of what had been the turning-point in his life.... Another lad, a bully, used to stand outside the hall with a whip in hand driving the young fellows into "Mary Slessor's meeting," but refusing to go in himself. One day the girl weaver faced him. "If we changed places what would happen?" she asked, and he replied, "I would get this whip across my back." She turned her back. "I'll bear it for you if you'll go in," she said. "Would you really bear that for me?" "Yes, and far more--go on, I mean it." He threw down the whip and followed her in, and gave himself the same day to Christ. Even then she was unconventional in her methods and was criticised for it. She had a passion for the countryside, and often on Saturday afternoons she would take her class of lads away out to the green fields, regardless of social canons. By and by a new field of work was opened up when a number of progressive minds in the city formed Victoria Street United Presbyterian congregation, not far from her familiar haunts. In connection with the movement a mission service for the young was started on Sunday mornings under the presidency of Mr. James Logic, of Tay Square Church, and to him Mary offered her services as a monitor. Mr. Logie soon noticed the capacity of the young assistant and won her confidence and regard. Like most people she was unconscious at the moment of the unseen forces moulding her life, but she came in after days to realise the wise ordering of this friendship. Mr. Logie became interested in her work and ideals, and sought to promote her interests in every way. She came to trust Mm implicitly--"He is the best earthly friend I have," she wrote-and he guided her thenceforward in all her money affairs. She was as successful with the lads at this service as she had been elsewhere. Before the meeting she would flit through the dark passages in the tenements and knock, and rouse them up from sleep, and plead with them to turn out to it. Her influence over them was extraordinary, They adored her and gave her shy allegiance, and the result was seen in changed habits and transformed lives. It was the same in the houses she visited. She went there not as one who was superior to the inmates, but as one of themselves. In the most natural way she would sit down by the fire and nurse a child, or take a cup of tea at the table. Her sympathy, her delicate tact, her cheery counsel won many a woman's heart and braced her for higher endeavour. It was the same in the factory; her influence told on the workers about her; some she strengthened, others she won over to Christ, and these created an atmosphere which was felt throughout the building. And yet what was she? Only a working girl, plain in appearance and in dress, diffident and self-effacing. "But," says one whom she used to take down as a boy to the mission and place beside her as she taught, "she possessed something we could not grasp, something indefinable." It was the glow of the spirit of Christ which lit up her inner life and shone in her face, and which, unknown even to herself, was then and afterwards the source of her distinction and her power. V. SELF-CULTURE For fourteen years, and these the freshest and fairest years of her life, she toiled in the factory for ten hours each full day, while she also gave faithful service in the mission. And yet she continued to find time for the sedulous culture of her mind. She was always borrowing books and extracting what was best in them. Not all were profitable. One was _The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul_ by Philip Doddridge, a volume much pondered then in Scottish homes. A friend who noticed that she was somewhat cast down said to her, "Why, Mary, what's the matter? You look very glum." "I canna do it," she replied. "Canna do what?" "I canna meditate, and Doddridge says it is necessary for the soul. If I try to meditate my mind just goes a' roads." "Well, never mind meditation," her friend said. "Go and work, for that's what God means us to do," and she followed his advice. Of her introduction to the fields of higher literature we have one reminiscence. Her spirit was so eager, she read so much and so quickly, that a friend sought to test her by lending her _Sartor Resartus_. She carried it home, and when next he met her he asked quizzically how she had got on with Carlyle. "It is grand!" she replied. "I sat up reading it, and was so interested that I did not know what the time was, until I heard the factory bells calling me to work in the morning!" There was no restraining her after that. She broadened and deepened in thought and outlook, and gradually acquired the art of expressing herself, both in speech and writing, in language that was deft, lucid, and vigorous, Her style was formed insensibly from her constant reading of the Bible, and had then a grave dignity and balance unlike the more picturesque, if looser, touch of later years. The papers that were read from her at the Fellowship Association were marked by a felicity of phrase as well as an insight and spiritual fervour unusual in a girl. Her alertness of intellect often astonished those who heard her engaged in argument with the agnostics and freethinkers whom she encountered in the course of her visiting. She spoke simply, but with a directness and sincerity that arrested attention. Often asked to address meetings in other parts of Dundee, she shrank from the ordeal. On one occasion a friend went with her, but she could not be persuaded to go on the platform. She sat in the middle of the hall and had a quiet talk on the words, "The common people heard Him gladly." "And," writes her friend, "the common people heard her gladly, and crowded round her and pleaded that she should come again." VI. A TRAGIC LAND There was never a time when Mary was not interested in foreign missions. The story of Calabar had impressed her imagination when a child, and all through the years her eyes had been fixed on the great struggle going on between the forces of light and darkness in the sphere of heathenism. The United Presbyterian Church in which she was brought up placed the work abroad in the forefront of its activity; it had missions in India, China, Jamaica, Calabar, and Kaffraria; and reports of the operations were given month by month in its _Missionary Record_, and read in practically all the homes of its members. It was pioneer work, and the missionaries were perpetually in the midst of adventure and peril. Their letters and narratives were eagerly looked for; they gave to people who had never travelled visions of strange lands; they brought to them the scent and colour of the Orient and the tropics; and they introduced into the quietude of orderly homes the din of the bazaar and harem and kraal. These men and women in the far outposts became heroic figures to the Church, and whenever they returned on furlough the people thronged to their meetings to see for themselves the actors in such amazing happenings, and to hear from their own lips the story of their difficulties and triumphs. Mrs. Slessor never missed hearing those who came to Dundee, and once she was so much moved by an address from the Rev. William Anderson as to the needs of Old Calabar that she longed to dedicate her son John to the work. He was a gentle lad, much loved by Mary. Apprenticed to a blacksmith, his health began to fail, and a change of climate became imperative. He emigrated to New Zealand, but died a week after landing. His mother felt the blow to her hopes even more than his death. To Mary the event was a bitter grief, and it turned her thoughts more directly to the foreign field. Could she fill her brother's place? Would it be possible for her ever to become a missionary? The idea floated for a time through her mind, unformed and unconfessed, until it gradually resolved itself into a definite purpose. Sometimes she thought of Kaffraria, with its red-blanketed people, but it was always Calabar to which she came back: it had from the first captivated her imagination, as it for good reason captivated the imagination of the Church. The founding of the Mission had been a romance. It was not from Scotland that the impulse came but from Jamaica in the West Indies. The slave population of that colony had been brought from the West Coast, and chiefly from the Calabar region, and although ground remorselessly in the mill of plantation life they had never forgotten their old home. When emancipation came and they settled down in freedom under the direction and care of the missionaries their thoughts went over the ocean to their fatherland, and they longed to see it also enjoy the blessings which the Gospel had brought to them. The agents of the Scottish Missionary Society and of the United Secession Church, who, together, formed the Jamaica Presbytery, talked over the matter, and resolved to take action; and eight of their number dedicated themselves for the service if called upon. A society was formed, and a fund was established to which the people contributed liberally. But the officials at home were cold; they deprecated so uncertain a venture in a pestilential climate. The Presbytery, undaunted, persevered with its preparations, and chose the Rev. Hope M. Waddell to be the first agent of the Society. It is a far cry from Jamaica to Calabar, but a link of communication was provided in a remarkable way. Many years previously a slaver had been wrecked in the neighbourhood of Calabar. The surgeon on board was a young medical man named Ferguson, and he and the crew were treated with kindness by the natives. After a time they were able by another slaver to sail for the West Indies, whence Dr. Ferguson returned home. He became surgeon on a trader between Liverpool and Jamaica, making several voyages, and becoming well known in the colony. Settling down in Liverpool he experienced a spiritual change and became a Christian. He was interested to hear of the movement in Jamaica, and remembering with gratitude the friendliness shown him by the Calabar natives he undertook to find out whether they would accept a mission. This he did through captains of the trading vessels to whom he was hospitable. In 1848 a memorial from the local king and seven chiefs was sent to him, offering ground and a welcome to any missionaries who might care to come, This settled the matter. Mr. Waddell sailed from Jamaica for Scotland to promote and organise the undertaking. Happily the Secession Church adopted the Calabar scheme, and after securing funds and a ship--one of the first subscriptions, it is interesting to note, was £1000 from Dr. Ferguson--Mr. Waddell, with several assistants sailed in 1846, and after many difficulties, which he conquered with indomitable spirit and patience, founded the Mission. In the following year it was taken over by the United Presbyterian Church, which had been formed by the union of the United Secession and Relief Churches. In no part of the foreign field were conditions more formidable. Calabar exhibited the worst side of nature and of man. While much of it was beautiful, it was one of the most unhealthy spots in the world-- sickness, disease, and swift death attacking the Europeans who ventured there. The natives were considered to be the most degraded of any in Africa. They were, in reality, the slum-dwellers of negro-land. From time immemorial their race had occupied the equatorial region of the continent, a people without a history, with only a past of confused movement, oppression, and terror. They seem to have been visited by adventurous navigators of galleys before the Christian era, but the world in general knew nothing of them. On the land side they were shut in without hope of expansion. When they endeavoured to move up to the drier Sahara and Soudanese regions they were met and pressed back by the outposts of the higher civilisations of Egypt and Arabia, who preyed upon them, crushed them, enslaved them in vast numbers. And just as the coloured folk of American cities are kept in the low-lying and least desirable localities, and as the humbler classes in European towns find a home in east-end tenements, so all that was weakest and poorest in the negro race gravitated to the jungle areas and the poisonous swamps of the coast, where, hemmed in by the pathless sea, they existed in unbroken isolation for ages. It was not until the fifteenth century that the explorations of the Portuguese opened up the coast. Then, to the horrors of the internal slave-trade was added the horror of the traffic for the markets of the West Indies and America. Calabar provided the slavers with their richest freight, the lands behind were decimated and desolated, and scenes of tragedy and suffering unspeakable were enacted on land and sea. Yet for 400 years Europeans never penetrated more than a few miles inland. Away in the far interior of the continent great kingdoms were known to exist, but all the vast coastal region was a mystery of rivers, swamps, and forests inhabited by savage negroes and wild beasts. It is not surprising that when the missionaries arrived in Calabar they found the natives to have been demoralised and degraded by the long period of lawlessness and rapine through which they had passed. They characterised them in a way that was appalling: many seemed indeed to have difficulty in selecting words expressive enough for their purpose. "Bloody," "savage," "crafty," "cruel," "treacherous," "sensual," "devilish," "thievish," "cannibals," "fetish-worshippers," "murderers," were a few of the epithets applied to them by men accustomed to observe closely and to weigh their words. Not an attractive people to work amongst. Neither must the dwellers of the earth have appeared to Christ when He looked down from heaven ere He took His place in their midst. And Mary Slessor shrank from nothing which she thought her Master would have done: she rather welcomed the hardest tasks, and considered it an honour and privilege to be given them to do. She was not blind to the conditions at home. Often when at the Mission she realised how great was the need of the slums, with their problems of poverty and irreligion and misery. But the people there were within sight of church spires and within hearing of church bells, and there were many workers as capable as she: whilst down in the slums of Africa there were millions who knew no more of the redemptive power of Christ than did the beasts of the field. She was too intelligent a student of the New Testament not to know that Christ meant His disciples to spread His Gospel throughout the world, and too honest not to realise that the command was laid upon every one who loved Him in spirit and in truth. It was therefore with a quiet and assured mind that she went forward to the realisation of the dream. She told no one: she shrank even from mentioning the matter to her mother, but patiently prepared for the coming change. In the factory she took charge of two 60-inch looms, hard work for a young woman, but she needed the money, and she never thought of toil if her object could be gained. Early in 1874 the news of the death of Dr. Livingstone stirred the land: it was followed by a wave of missionary enthusiasm; and the call for workers for the dark continent thrilled many a heart. It thrilled Mary Slessor into action. She reviewed the situation. Her sisters were now in good situations, and she saw her way to continue her share in the support of the home. What this loyal determination implied she did not guess then, but it was to have a large share in shaping her life. Broaching the subject to her mother she obtained a glad consent. One or two of her church friends were lukewarm; others, like Mr. Logic and Mr. Smith, encouraged her. The former, who was deeply interested in foreign missions and soon afterwards became a member of the Foreign Mission Committee, promised to look after her affairs during her sojourn abroad. In May 1875 she offered her services to the Foreign Mission Board. Her heart was set on Calabar, but so eager was she to be accepted that she said she would be willing to go to any other field. Women agents had long been engaged in Calabar. The first, Miss Miller, had gone out with Mr. Waddell in l849-she became the "Mammy" Sutherland who did such noble service-and they were playing an ever more important part, and were stated to be both "economical and effective." Requests had just been made for additions to the staff. The application was, therefore, opportune. Her personality, and the accounts given of her character and work, made such an impression on the officials that they reported favourably to the Board, and she was accepted as a teacher for Calabar and told to continue her studies in Dundee. In December it was decided to bring her to Edinburgh, at the expense of the Board, for three months, for special preparation.... The night before she left Dundee, in March 1876, she stood, a tearful figure, at the mouth of the "close" where she lived. "Good-bye," she said to a friend, and then passionately, "Pray for me!" VII. THE THREE MARYS A stranger in Edinburgh, Mary Slessor turned instinctively to Darling's Temperance Hotel, which was then, and is still, looked upon as a home by travellers from all parts of the globe. The Darlings, who were associated with all good work, were then taking part in the revival movement of Messrs. Moody and Sankey, and the two daughters, Bella and Jane, were solo-singers at the meetings. The humble Dundee girl had heard of their powers, and she entered the hotel as if it were a shrine. Feeling very lonely and very shy, she attended the little gathering for worship which is held every evening, and was comforted and strengthened. She found a lodging in the home of Mr. Robert Martin, a city missionary, connected with Bristo Street congregation, and formed a friendship for Ms daughter Mary. By her she was taken to visit a companion, Mary Doig, who lived in the south side. The three became intimates, and shortly afterward Miss Slessor went to live with the Doigs, and remained with them during her stay in the city. It was a happy event for her. Warm-hearted and sympathetic, they treated her as one of the family. A daughter who was married, Mrs. M'Crindle, also met her, and a lifelong affection sprang up between the two. In later days it was to Mrs. M'Crindle's house the tired missionary first came on her furloughs. Though she attended the Normal School in the Canongate, she was not enrolled as a regular student, and her name does not appear on the books; but a memory of her presence lingers like a sweet fragrance, and she appears to have been a power for good. One who was a student with her says: "She had a most gracious and winning personality, and impressed the students by her courage in going to what was called 'the white man's grave.' Her reply to questioners was that Calabar was the post of danger, and was therefore the post of honour. Few would volunteer for service there, hence she wished to go, for it was there the Master needed her. The beauty of her character showed itself in her face, and I have rarely seen one which showed so plainly that the love of God dwelt within. It was always associated in my mind with that of Miss Angelica Fraser; a heavenly radiance seemed to emanate from both." Her leisure hours were given up to miscellaneous mission work in the city. Mary Doig and Mary Martin were both connected with Bristo Street congregation, and worked in the mission at Cowan's Close, Crosscauseway, and they naturally took Mary Slessor with them. Another intimate friendship was formed with Miss Paxton, a worker in connection with South Gray's Close Mission in the High Street. Miss Paxton was standing at the entrance to the close one Sunday, after a meeting, when Miss Slessor passed up with a Mr. Bishop, who afterwards became the printer at Calabar. Mr. Bishop introduced her. "You want some one to help you?" he said; "you cannot do better than take Miss Slessor." The two were kindred spirits, and Mary was soon at home among Miss Paxton's classes. Her first address to the women stands out clearly in the memory of her friend, and is interesting as indicating her standpoint then and throughout her life. It was on the question, "What shall I do with Jesus?" She told them that Christ was standing before them as surely as He stood before Pilate; and very earnestly she went on, "Dear women, you must do something with Him: you must reject Him or you must accept Him. What are you going to do?" She gave them no vision of hell- fire: she spoke to their reason and judgment, putting the great issue before them as a simple proposition, clear as light, inexorable as logic, and left them to decide for themselves. Her two companions soon came under her influence. Their culture, piety, and practical gifts seemed to mark them out for missionaries, and as a result of her persuasion they offered themselves to the Foreign Mission Committee of the Church, and were accepted for China. In July the Committee satisfied itself with regard to Miss Slessor's proficiency, and decided to send her out at once to Calabar. Her salary was fixed at £60. Before sailing for their different stations the three Marys, as they came to be known, attended many meetings together, and were a source of interest to the Church. Miss Slessor was now twenty-eight years of age, a type of nature peculiarly characteristic of Scotland, the result of its godly motherhood, the severe discipline of its social conditions, its stern toil, its warm church life, its missionary enthusiasm. Mature in mind and body, she retained the freshness of girlhood, was vivacious and sympathetic, and, while aglow with spirituality, was very human and likeable, with a heart as tender and wistful as a child's. What specially distinguished her, says one who knew her well, were her humility and the width and depth of her love. With diffidence, but in high hope, she went forward to weave the pattern of her service in the Mission Field.... She sailed on August 5, 1876. Two Dundee companions went with her to Liverpool. At the docks they saw going on board the steamer Ethiopia, by which she was to travel, a large number of casks of spirits for the West Coast. "Scores of casks!" she exclaimed ruefully, "and only one missionary!" SECOND PHASE 1876-1888. Age 28-40. WORK AND ADVENTURE AT THE BASE _"I am passing through the lights and shadows of life_." I. THE BREATH OF THE TROPICS There is a glamour like the glamour of the dawn about one's first voyage to the tropics; and as the _Ethiopia_ passed out of the grey atmosphere of England into the spring belt of the world, and then into a region where the days were a glory of sunshine and colour and the nights balmy and serene, Miss Slessor, so long confined within the bare walls of a factory, found the experience a pure delight in spite of a sense of loneliness that sometimes stole over her. Her chief grievance was that Sunday was kept like other days. Trained in the habits of a religious Scottish home it seemed to her extraordinary that no service should be held. "My very heart and flesh cried out for the courts of God's house," she wrote. Some of the crew comforted her by saying that there was always a Sabbath in Calabar. It was not until the headland of Cape Verde was sighted and passed, and she saw in succession stretches of green banks, white sands upon which the surf beat, and long grey levels of mangrove, that she began to realise the presence of Africa. From the shore came hot whiffs of that indescribable smell so subtly suggestive of a tropical land; while the names of the districts--the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast, the Slave Coast--conjured up the old days of adventure, blood-red with deeds of cruelty and shame. This Gulf of Guinea was the heart of the slave trade: more vessels loaded up here with their black cargo than at any other port of the continent, and the Bight of Biafra, on which Calabar is situated, was ever the busiest spot. Mangrove forests, unequalled anywhere for immensity and gloom, fringe the entire sweep of the Gulf. Rooted in slime, malodorous and malarious, they form a putrescent paradise for all manner of loathly creatures. Out of the blue waters of the Atlantic the _Ethiopia_ ran, on Saturday, September 11, into the mud-coloured estuary of the Cross and Calabar Rivers. On the left lay the flat delta of the Niger, ahead stretched the landscape of mangrove as far as the eye could range; to the south- east rose the vast bulk of the Cameroon Mountains. With what interest Mary gazed on the scene one can imagine. Somewhere at the back of these swamps was the spot where she was to settle and work. That it was near the coast she knew, for all that more distant land was unexplored and unknown: most of what was within sight, indeed, was still outside the pale of civilisation; through the bush and along the creeks and lagoons moved nude people, most of whom had never seen a white face. It might well seem an amazing thing to her, in view of the fact that there had been commerce with the coast for centuries. Vessels had plied to it for slaves, spices, gold dust, ivory, and palm oil; traders mingled with the people, and spoke their tongue; and yet it remained a land of mystery. There were many reasons for this. The country was owned by no European Power. Britain regarded it--somewhat unwillingly at first--as a sphere of influence, but had no footing in it, and no control over the people. These were divided into many tribes and sections of tribes, each speaking a different tongue, and each perpetually at war with its neighbour. The necessities of trade fostered a certain intercourse; there was neutral ground where transactions took place, and products for the traders filtered down to the people at the coast who acted as middlemen. These, for obvious reasons, objected to the white men going inland--they would get into touch with the tribes, their authority would be undermined and their business ruined, and as they controlled the avenues of approach and were masters in their own house their veto could not be disregarded. In any case a journey up-river was full of peril. Every bend brought one to a new tribe, alert, suspicious, threatening. For Europeans it was a foodless country, in which they had to face hunger, fever, and death. Even the missionaries had only been feeling their way very slowly: they explored and planted out stations here and there, as permission was obtained from the chiefs, but their main efforts were directed to the task of establishing a strong base at the coast. The estuary is about twelve miles in breadth, its banks are lined by mangrove, and here and there its surface is broken by islands. From these, as the steamer passed, parrots flew in flocks. From the sandbanks and mudbanks alligators slid into the water with a splash. Occasionally a shrimp-fisher in his canoe was seen. Higher up were the ruins of the barracoons, where the slaves were penned while waiting for shipment. Some fifty miles from the sea the steamer swung round to the east and entered the Calabar River; the swamps gave place to clay cliffs thick with undergrowth and trees, and far ahead a cluster of houses came into view--this, Mary knew, was Old Town. Then the hulks in the stream, used as stores and homes by the traders, appeared, and the steamer anchored opposite Duke Town. It lay on the right among swamps in a receding hollow of the cliff: a collection of mud-dwellings thatched with palm leaf, slovenly and sordid, and broiling in the hot rays of a brilliant sun. It was the scene she had often endeavoured to picture in her mind. There was the hill where into the bush the dead bodies of natives used to be cast to become the food of wild beasts, now crowned with the Mission buildings. What memories had already gathered about these! What experiences lay behind the men and women who lived there! What a land was this she had chosen to make her dwelling-place--a land formless, mysterious, terrible, ruled by witchcraft and the terrorism of secret societies; where the skull was worshipped and blood-sacrifices were offered to jujus; where guilt was decided by ordeal of poison and boiling oil; where scores of people were murdered when a chief died, and his wives decked themselves in finery and were strangled to keep him company in the spirit-land; where men and women were bound and left to perish by the water-side to placate the god of shrimps; where the alligators were satiated with feeding on human flesh; where twins were done to death, and the mother banished to the bush; where semi- nakedness was compulsory, and girls were sent to farms to be fattened for marriage. A land, also, of disease and fever and white graves. There, too, lay her own future, as dark and unknown as the land, full of hard work, she knew, full, it might be of danger and trial and sorrow.... But the boats of the traders and the missionaries came off, the canoes of the natives swarmed around, the whole town seemed to be on the water. With eyes that were bright and expectant Mary stepped from the Mission boat and set foot on African soil. II. FIRST IMPRESSIONS The young missionary-teacher was delighted with the novelty and wonders of her surroundings. She revelled in the sunshine, the warmth, the luxuriant beauty, and began to doubt whether the climate was so deadly after all: some of the missionaries told her that much of the illness was due to the lack of proper care, and there was even one who said he preferred Calabar to Scotland. She was impressed with the Mission. The organisation of church and school, the regular routine of life, the large attendance at the services, the demeanour of the Christians, the quiet and persistent aggressive work going on, satisfied her sense of the fitness of things and made her glad and hopeful. To hear the chime of Sabbath bells; to listen to the natives singing, in their own tongue, the hymns associated with her home life, the Sabbath school and the social meeting; and to watch one of them give an address with eloquence and power, was a revelation. She went to a congregational meeting at Creek Town and heard King Eyo Honesty VII. speaking, and so many were present, and the feeling was so hearty and united that it might have served as a model for the home churches. She was attracted by the King; a sincere kindly Christian man, she found him to be. When she told him that her mother was much interested in him, he was so pleased that he wrote Mrs. Slessor, and the two corresponded--he a negro King in Africa and she an obscure woman in Scotland, drawn to each other across 4000 miles of sea by the influence of the Gospel. It was true that the results of thirty years' work in Calabar did not seem large. The number of members in all the congregations was 174, though the attendances at the services each Sunday was over a thousand. The staff, however, had never been very large; of Europeans at this time there were four ordained missionaries, four men teachers, and four women teachers, and of natives one ordained missionary and eighteen agents; and efforts were confined to Duke Town, Old Town, Creek Town, Ikunetu, and Ikorofiong--all on the banks of the rivers or creeks--with several out-stations. Her work at first was simple: it was to teach in the day-school on Mission Hill and visit in the yards, both on week-days and Sundays. Not until the strangeness of things had worn off a little did she begin to see below the surface and discover the difficulties of the situation. What assisted the process was a tour of the stations, which it was thought well she should make in order to become acquainted with the conditions. In the out-districts she came into contact with the raw heathen, and felt herself down at the very foundations of humanity. Most of the journeying was through the bush: there were long and fatiguing marches, and much climbing and jumping and wading to do, in which she had the help of three Kroo boys, but being active in body and buoyant in spirit, she enjoyed it thoroughly. A white "Ma" was so curious a sight in some of the districts that the children would run away, screaming with fright, and the women would crowd round her talking, gesticulating, and fingering, so that the chiefs had to drive them off with a whip. She was a little startled by these demonstrations, but was told the people were merely wishing to make friends with her, and she soon overcame her nervousness. Her first meeting was held while she was with one of the native agents, John Baillie, and took place in the shade of a large tree beside a devil-house built for a dead man's spirit, and stocked with food. After the agent had spoken in Efik he turned to her and said, "Have you anything to say to them?" She looked at the dark throng, degraded, ignorant, superstitious. All eyes were fixed on her. For once she found it difficult to speak. Asking Mr. Baillie to read John v. 1-24, she tried to arrange her thoughts, but seemed to grow more helpless. When she began, the words came, and very simply, very earnestly--the agent interpreting--she spoke of their need of healing and saving, of which they must be conscious through their dissatisfaction with this life, the promptings of their higher natures, the experience of suffering and sorrow, and the dark future beyond death, and, asking the question, "Wilt thou be made whole?" pointed the way to peace. As she observed and assimilated, she came to hold a clearer view of the people and the problems confronting the missionaries. She realised that the raw negroes, though savage enough, were not destitute of religious beliefs: their "theology," indeed, seemed somewhat too complicated for comprehension. Nor were their lives unregulated by principles and laws; they were ruled by canons and conventions as powerful as those of Europe, as merciless as the caste code of India; their social life was rooted in a tangle of relationships and customs as intricate as any in the world. The basis of the community was the House, at the head of which was a Master or Chief, independent and autocratic within his own limited domain, which consisted merely of a cluster of mud-huts in the bush. In this compound or yard, or "town" as it was sometimes called, lived connected families. Each chief had numerous wives and slaves, over whom he exercised absolute control. The slaves enjoyed considerable freedom, many occupying good positions and paying tribute, but they could be sold or killed at the will of their master. All belonging to a House were under its protection, and once outside that protection they were pariahs, subject to no law, and at the mercy of Egbo. This secret society was composed of select and graded classes initiated according to certain rites. Its agents were Egbo-runners, supposed to represent a supernatural being in the bush, who came suddenly out, masked and dressed in fantastic garb, and with a long whip rushed about and committed excesses. At these times all women were obliged to hide, for if found they would be flogged and stripped of their clothing. Egbo, however, had a certain power for good, and was often evoked in aid of law and order. Naturally it was the divorcing of superfluous wives, and the freeing of slaves that formed the greatest difficulty for the missionaries--it meant nothing less than breaking up a social system developed and fortified by long centuries of custom. Thus early Miss Slessor came to see that it was the duty of the missionary to bring about a new set of conditions in which it would be possible for the converts to live, and the thought influenced her whole after-career. The district of Calabar afforded a striking object-lesson of what could be achieved. There was no central native government, and the British consular jurisdiction was of the most shadowy character. So far there had been but the quiet pressure of a moral and spiritual agency at work, but under its influence the people had become habituated to the orderly ways of civilisation, and were living in peace and amity. It was admitted by the officials that the agreements which they concluded with the chiefs had only been rendered possible by the teaching of the missionaries: and later it was largely upon the same sure and solid foundations that British authority was to build. So, she realised, it was not a case where one could say, "Let there be light," and light would shine. The work of the Mission was like building a lighthouse stone by stone, layer by layer, with infinite toil and infinite patience. Yet she often found it hard to restrain her eagerness. "It is difficult to wait," she said. One text, however, kept repeating itself--"Learn of Me." "Christ never was in a hurry," she wrote. "There was no rushing forward, no anticipating, no fretting over what might be, Every day's duties were done as every day brought them, and the rest was left with God. 'He that believeth shall not make haste.'" And in that spirit she worked. Her better knowledge of the position made her resolve to acquire a thorough mastery of the language in order to enter completely into the life and thought of the natives. Interpretation she had already found to be untrustworthy, and she was told the tale of a native who, translating an address on the rich man and Lazarus, remarked, in an aside to the audience, that for himself he would prefer to be the rich man! Efik was the tongue of Calabar and of trade and commerce, and was understood more or less over a wide tract of country. She learnt it by ear, and from the people, rather than from the book, and soon picked up enough to take a larger share in the varied work of the Mission. Life had a piquancy in these days when she lived with the Andersons on Mission Hill. "Daddy" Anderson was a veteran of the Mission, but it was "Mammy" Anderson with whom she came into closest relation. Of strong individuality, she ruled the town from the Mission House, and the chiefs were fain to do her bidding. At first Mary stood somewhat in awe of her. One of the duties assigned to her was to ring, before dawn, the first bell for the day to call the faithful to morning prayer. There were no alarm clocks then, and occasionally she overslept, and the rebuke she received from Mrs. Anderson made her cheeks burn. Sometimes she would wake with a start to find her room flooded with light. Half- dazed with sleep and shamed at her remissness she would hurry out to ring the bell, only to discover that it was not dawn but the light of the moon that was making the world so bright. At one time when doing duty in Old Town she had to walk along a narrow native track through the bush. To let off the high spirits that had been bottled up in the Mission House she would climb any tree that took her fancy. She affirmed that she had climbed every tree worthy of the name between Duke Town and Old Town. Sometimes her fun made her late for meals, and Mrs. Anderson would warn her that if she offended again she would go without food. She did offend, and then Mr. Anderson would smuggle biscuits and bananas to her, with, she was confident, the connivance of his wife. She had a warm affection for all the members of the Mission staff, but for none more than for "Mammy" Anderson. There was one of the humbler inmates of the Mission who watched with affectionate interest the young missionary with the soft voice and dancing eyes. This was Mrs. Fuller, a coloured woman who had come over from Jamaica in 1858 with the Rev. Mr. Robb and Mrs. Robb as a nurse, and married and remained after they left to be a help and comfort to many. She remembered the day when the slaves were emancipated in the West Indies. A kindly, happy, unselfish soul, she never spoke ill of any one. Somebody said to her, "Mammy, I believe you would say a good word about the devil himself." "Well," she replied, "at any rate he minds his own business." "Dear old Mammy Fuller," Miss Slessor called her, little dreaming that Mammy would live to throw flowers into her grave. III. IN THE UNDERWORLD In the hush of a beautiful Sunday morning the new missionary begins what she calls the commonplace work of the day. Looking out some illustrated texts she sends a few with a kindly message to all the big men, reminding them that Mr. Anderson expects them at service. Then she sets out for the town, and few people escape her keen eye and persuasive words. "Why are you not going to God's House?" she asks a man who is sitting at the door of his hut. Close by are the remains of a devil-house. He rocks himself and replies, "If your heart was vexed would you go any place? Would you not rather sit at home and nurse your sorrow?" Mary learns that his only child has died and has been buried in the house, and according to custom the family is sitting in filth, squalor, and drunkenness. She talks to him of the resurrection, and he becomes interested, and takes her into a room where the mother is sitting with bowed head over the grave, the form of which can be seen distinctly under a blue cloth that covers the ground. A bunch of dirty muslin is hanging from the ceiling. It is a dismal scene. She reads part of John xi., and speaks about life and death and the beyond. "Well," remarked the man, "if God took the child I don't care so much-- but to think an enemy bewitched it!" To the mother she says, "Do you not find comfort in these words?" "No," is the sullen reply. "Why should I find comfort when my child is gone?" Mary pats her on the head, and tells her how her own mother has found comfort in the thought of the reunion hereafter. The woman is touched and weeps: the mother-heart is much the same all the world over. A few slave-girls are all she finds in the next yard, the other inmates having gone to work at the farms; but she speaks to them and they listen respectfully. Another yard is crowded with women, some eating, some sleeping, some dressing each other's hair, some lounging half- naked on the ground gossiping--a picture of sheer animalism. Her advent creates a welcome diversion, and they are willing to listen: it helps to pass the time. They take her into an inner yard where a fine-looking young woman is being fattened for her future husband. She flouts the message, and is spoken to sternly and left half-crestfallen, half- defiant. It is scenes like this which convince Mary that the women are the greatest problem in the Mission Field. She does not wonder that the men are as they are. If they are to be reached more must be done for the women, and a prayer goes up that the Church at home may realise the situation. Farther on is a heathen house. The master is dead: the mistress is an old woman, hardened and repulsive, the embodiment of all that is evil, who is counting coppers in a room filled with bush, skulls, sacrifices, and charms. A number of half-starved cowed women and girls covered with dirt and sores are quarrelling over a pipe. The shrill voice and long arms of the mistress settle the matter, and make them fly helter- skelter. They call on Mary to speak, and after many interruptions she subdues and controls them, and leaves them, for the moment, impressed. She arrives at a district which the lady agents have long worked. The women are cleanly, pleasant, and industrious, but polished hypocrites, always ready to protest with smooth tongue and honeyed words that they are eager to be "god-women," but never taking the first step forwards. Mary, who is learning to be sarcastic, on occasion, gives them a bit of her mind and goes away heart-sick. But she is cheered at the next yard, where she has a large and attentive audience. In the poorest part she comes upon a group of men selling rum. At the sight of the "white Ma" they put the stuff away and beg her to stay. They are quiet until she denounces the sale of the liquor; then one interrupts: "What for white man bring them rum suppose them rum no be good? He be god-man bring the rum--then what for god-man talk so?" What can she answer? It is a vile fluid this trade spirit, yet the country is deluged with it, and it leaves behind it disaster and demoralisation and ruined homes. Mary feels bitter against the civilised countries that seek profit from the moral devastation of humanity. She cannot answer the man. A husband brings his woebegone wife who has lost five children. Can "Ma" not give her some medicine? She again speaks of the resurrection. A crowd gathers and listens breathlessly. When she says that even the twin-children are safe with God, and that they will yet confront their murderers, the people start, shrug their shoulders, and with looks of terror slink one by one away. She visits many of the hovels, which are little better than ruins. Pools of filth send out pestilential odours. There is starvation in every pinched face and misery in every sunken eye. Covered with sores the inmates lie huddled together and clamour only for food. One old woman says: "I have prayed and prayed till there is no breath left in me. God does not answer. He does not care." "To whom do you pray?" "I don't know, but I call Him God. I tell Him I have no friend. I say 'You see me. I am sick. I am hungry. I am good. I don't steal. I don't keep bread from any one. I don't kill. I don't speak with my mouth when my heart is far away. Have mercy upon me.'" Mary talks to her lovingly and earnestly, and when she leaves, the heart of the wretched woman is quietened and grateful. It is afternoon, and time for the Efik service at four o'clock, and Mary, a little tired with the heat and the strain, turns and makes for Mission Hill. IV. THE PULL OF HOME It was not long before she had to revise her opinion of the climate. Nature was beautiful, but beneath its fair appearance lurked influences that were cruel and pitiless. "Calabar needs a brave heart and a stout body," she wrote; "not that I have very much of the former, but I have felt the need for it often when sick and lonely." Both the dry and rainy seasons had their drawbacks, but she especially disliked the former-which lasted from December to March-because of the "smokes" or harmattan, a haze composed of fine dust blown from the great African desert, that withered her up and sucked out all the energy she possessed. She was frequently attacked by fever, and laid aside, and on one occasion was at the point of death. But she never lost her confidence in God. Once she thought she had. It was during an illness when she was only semi-conscious, but on recovering the clearness of her mind she realised that she had given herself into His keeping and need not fear, and a sense of comfort and peace stole over her. So many attacks weakened her constitution and made her think oftener of home. She began to have a longing to look again upon loved faces, to have grey skies overhead, and to feel the tang of the clean cool air on her cheek, "I want my home and my mother," she confessed. It was home- sickness, and there is only one cure for that. It comes, however, to pass. It is not so overpowering after the first home-going, and it grows less importunate after each visit. One finds after a short absence that things in the old environment are, somehow, not the same; that there has ceased to be a niche which one can fill; that one has a fresh point of view; and as time goes on and the roots of life go deeper into the soil of the new country, the realisation comes that it is in the homeland where one is homeless, and in the land of exile where one is at home. But at first the pull of the old associations is irresistible; and so when her furlough was due, Mary flew to Scotland as a wandered bird flies wing-weary back to its nest. She left Calabar in June 1879 and proceeded straight to Dundee. During her stay she removed her mother and sisters to Downfield, a village on the outskirts of the city, and was happy in the knowledge that all was well with them. Friends who listened to her graphic account of Calabar tell that even then she spoke of her desire to go up country into the unworked fields, and especially to the Okoyong district, but "Daddy" Anderson was opposed to the idea. Before returning, she wrote the Foreign Mission Committee and begged to be sent to a station other than Duke Town, though she loyally added that she would do whatever was thought best. She sailed with the Rev. Hugh Goldie, one of the veteran pioneers of the Mission, and Mrs. Goldie, and on arrival at Calabar, in October 1880, found to her joy that she was to be in charge of Old Town, and that she was a real missionary at last. V. AT THE SEAT OF SATAN The first sight she saw on entering her new sphere was a human skull hung on a pole at the entrance to the town. In Old Town and the smaller stations of Qua, Akim, and Ikot Ansa, lying back in the tribal district of Ekoi, the people were amongst the most degraded in Calabar. It was a difficult field, but she entered upon it with zest. Although under the supervision of Duke Town, she was practically her own mistress, and could carry out her own ideas and methods. This was important for her, for, to her chagrin, she had found that boarding was expensive in Calabar, and as she had to leave a large portion of her salary at home for the support of her mother and sisters, she could not afford to live as the other lady agents did. She had to economise in every direction, and took to subsisting wholly on native food. It was in this way she acquired those simple, Spartan-like habits which accompanied her through life. Her colleagues attributed her desire for isolation and native ways to natural inclination, not dreaming that they were a matter of compulsion, for she was too loyal to her home and too proud of spirit to reveal the reason for her action. One drawback of the situation was the dilapidated state of the house. It was built of wattle and mud, had a mat roof and a whitewashed interior. She did not, however, mind its condition; she was so absorbed in the work that personal comfort was a matter of indifference to her. Her household consisted of a young woman and several boys and girls, with whose training she took endless pains, and who helped her and accompanied her to her meetings. School work made large drafts on her time at Old Town, Qua, and Akim. Young and old came as scholars. At Qua the chief man of the place after the king sat on a bench with little children, and along with them repeated the Sunday School lessons. He set them an example, for he was never absent. But to preach the love of Christ was her passion. With every visitor who called to give compliments, with every passer-by who came out of curiosity to see what the white woman and her house were like, with all who brought a dispute to settle, she had talk about the Saviour of the world. Sunday was a day of special effort in this direction. She would set out early for Qua, where two boys carrying a bell slung on a pole summoned the people to service. One of the chiefs would fix the benches and arrange the audience, which usually numbered from 80 to 100, She would go on to Akim or Ikot Ansa, where a similar meeting was held. On the way she would visit sick folk, or call in at farms, have friendly conversation with master and dependants, and give a brief address and prayer. By mid-day she would be back at Old Town, where she conducted a large Sunday School. In the evening a regular church service was held, attended by almost the entire community. This, to her, was the meeting of the week. It took place in the yard of the chief. At one side stood a table, covered with a white cloth, on which were a primitive lamp and a Bible. The darkness, the rows of dusky faces just revealed by the flickering light, the strained attention, the visible emotion made up a strange picture. At the end came hearty "good-nights," and she would be escorted home by a procession of lantern-bearers. Such service, incessant and loving, began to tell. The behaviour of the people improved; the god of the town was banished; the chiefs went the length of saying that their laws and customs were clearly at variance with God's fashions. Mr. Anderson reported to the Church at home that she was "doing nobly." When two deputies went out and inspected the Mission in 1881-82, they were much impressed by her energy and devotion. "Her labours are manifold," they stated, "but she sustains them cheerfully--she enjoys the unreserved friendship and confidence of the people, and has much influence over them." This they attributed partly to the singular ease with which she spoke the language. Learning that she preferred her present manner of life to being associated with another white person--they were unaware, like others, of the real reason which governed her--they recommended that she should be allowed to continue her solitary course. It was at Old Town that she came first into close contact with the more sinister aspects of mission work, and obtained that training and experience in dealing with the natives and native problems which led her into the larger responsibilities of the future. Despite the influence of the missionaries and the British Consul, many of the worst heathen iniquities were being practised. A short time previously the Consul had made a strong effort to get the chiefs to enforce the laws regarding twin-murder, human sacrifice, the stripping and flogging of women by Egbo-runners, and other offences, and an agreement had been reached; but no treaty, no Egbo proclamation could root out the customs of centuries, and they continued to be followed, in secret in the towns and openly in the country districts. The evil of twin-murder had a terrible fascination for her. A woman who gave birth to twins was regarded with horror. The belief was that the father of one of the infants was an evil spirit, and that the mother had been guilty of a great sin; one at least of the children was believed to be a monster, and as they were never seen by outsiders or allowed to live, no one could disprove the fact. They were seized, their backs were broken, and they were crushed into a calabash or water-pot and taken out--not by the doorway, but by a hole broken in the back wall, which was at once built up--and thrown into the bush, where they were left to be eaten by insects and wild beasts. Sometimes they would be placed alive into the pots. As for the mother, she was driven outside the bounds of decent society and compelled to live alone in the bush. In such circumstances there was only one thing for the missionaries to do. As soon as twins were born they sought to obtain possession of them, and gave them the security and care of the Mission House. Some of the Mission compounds were alive with babies. It was no use taking the mother along with them. She believed she must be accursed, for otherwise she would never be in such a position. First one and then the other child would die, and she would make her escape and fly to the bush. Mary realised that the system was the outcome of superstition and fear, and she could even see how, from the native point of view, it was essential for the safety of the House, but her heart was hot against it; nothing, indeed, roused her so fiercely as the senseless cruelty of putting these innocent babes to death, and she joined in the campaign with fearless energy. She could also understand why the natives threw away infants whose slave-mother died. No slave had time to bring up another woman's child. If she did undertake the task, it would only be hers during childhood; after that it became the property of the master. The chances of a slave-child surviving were not good enough for a free woman to try the experiment, and as life in any case was of little value, it was considered best that the infant should be put out of the way. The need of special service in these directions made her suggest to the Foreign Mission Committee that one of the woman agents should be set apart to take care of the children that were rescued. It was impossible, she said, for one to do school or other work, and attend to them as well. "If such a crowd of twins should come to her as I have to manage, she would require to devote her whole time to them." More and more also she was convinced of the necessity of women's work among the women in the farming districts, and she pressed the matter upon the Committee. She was in line with the old chief who remarked that "them women be the best man for the Mission." Another evil which violated her sense of justice and right, and against which she took up arms, was the trade attitude of the Calabar people. Although they had settled on the coast only by grace of the Ekois, they endeavoured to monopolise all dealings with the Europeans and prevent the inland tribes from doing business direct with the factories. Often the up-river men would make their way down stealthily, but if caught they were slain or mutilated, and a bitter vendetta would ensue. She recognised that it would only be by the tribes coming to know and respect each other, and by the adoption of unrestricted trade with the stores that the full reward of industry could be secured. She accordingly took up the cause of the inland tribes. When Efik was at war with Qua, sentries were posted at all the paths to the factories, but the people came to her by night, and she would lead them down the track running through the Mission property. At the factory next to the Mission beach they would deliver their palm oil or kernels, and take back the goods for which they had bartered them. In this way she helped to open up the country. It was not, perhaps, mission work in the ordinary sense any more than much of Dr. Livingstone's work was missionary work, but it was an effort to break down the conditions that perpetuated wrong and dispeace, and to introduce the forces of righteousness and goodwill. In all this work she had the sympathy of the traders, who showed her much kindness. She was a missionary after their own heart. VI. IN ELEPHANT COUNTRY The spirit of the pioneer would not allow her to be content with the routine of village work. She began to go afield, and made trips of exploration along the river. The people found her different from other missionaries; she would enter their townships as one of themselves, show them in a moment that she was mistress of their thought and ways, and get right into their confidence. Always carrying medicine, she attended the sick, and so many maimed and diseased crowded to her that often she would lose the tide twice over. In her opinion no preaching surpassed these patient, intimate interviews on the banks of the river and by the wayside, when she listened to tales of suffering and sorrow and gave sympathy and practical help. Sometimes she remained away for nights at a time, and on these occasions her only accommodation was a mud hut and her only bed a bundle of filthy rags. A larger venture was made at the instance of a chief named Okon, a political refugee whom she knew. He had settled at a spot on the western bank of the estuary, then called Ibaka, now James Town, and had long urged her to pay the place a visit. It was only some thirty miles away, but thirty miles to the African is more than two hundred to a European, and Old Town was in a state of excitement for days before she left. Nine A.M. was the hour fixed for departure, but Mary knew local ways, and forenoon found her calmly cooking the dinner. The house was crowded with visitors begging her to be careful, and threatening vengeance if anything happened to their "Ma." At 6 P.M. came word that all was ready, and, followed by a retinue comprising half the population, she made her way to the beach. Women who were not ordinarily permitted to be viewed by the public eye waited at every yard to embrace hers and to charge all concerned to look well alter her comfort. A State canoe sent by the King lay at the water-side. It had been repainted for the occasion in the gayest of colours, while thoughtful hands had erected a little arch of matting to seclude her from the paddlers and afford protection from the dew, and had arranged some rice-bags as a couch. The pathos of the tribute touched her, and with a smile and a word of thanks she stepped into her place and settled the four house-children about the feet of the paddlers. More hours were lost in one way or another. Darkness fell, and only the red gleam of the torches lit up the scene. Alligators and snakes haunted the spot, but she had no fear so long as the clamour of the crowd continued. At last, "Sio udeñ!" The command was answered by the "dip-dip" of thirty-three paddles, and the canoe glided into the middle of the river and sped onwards. In her crib she tried to read by the light of a candle, while the paddlers extemporised songs in her honour, assigning to her all the virtues under the sun-- _Ma, our beautiful, beloved mother, is on board, Ho! Ho! Ho_! The gentle movement, the monotonous "tom-tom-tum" of the drummer, and the voice of the steersman, became mingled in a dreamy jumble, and she slept through the night as soundly as on a bed of down. Ten hours' paddling brought the craft to its destination, and at dawn she was carried ashore over golden sand and under great trees, and deposited in the chief's compound amongst goats, dogs, and fowls. She and the children were given the master's room--which always opens out into the women's yard--and as it possessed no door a piece of calico was hung up as a screen. The days were tolerable, but the nights were such as even she, inured to African conditions, found almost unbearable. It was the etiquette of the country that all the wives should sit as close to the white woman as was compatible with her idea of comfort, and as the aim of each was to be fatter than the other, and they all perspired freely, and there was no ventilation, it required all her courage to outlast the ordeal. Lizards, too, played among the matting of the roof, and sent down showers of dust, while rats performed hop, skip, and jump over the sleepers. Crowds began to pour in from a wide area. Many of the people had never looked upon a white woman, and she had to submit to being handled and examined in order to prove that she was flesh and blood like themselves. Doubtful men and women were forcibly dragged to her by laughing companions and made to touch her skin. At meal times she was on exhibition to a favoured few, who watched how she ate and drank, and then described the operations to the others outside. Day by day she prescribed and bandaged, cut out garments, superintended washing, and initiated women into the secrets of starching and ironing. Day by day she held a morning and evening service, and it was with difficulty that she prevented the one from merging into the other. On Sabbath the yard became strangely quiet: all connected with it were clothed and clean, and in a corner stood a table with a white cloth and upon it a Bible and hymn-book. As the fierce-looking, noisy men from a distance entered they stopped involuntarily and a hush fell upon them. Many heard the story of Christ for the first time, and never had she a more appreciative audience. In the evening the throng was so great that her voice could barely reach them all, and at the end they came up to her and with deep feeling wished her good-night and then vanished quietly into the darkness. The people would not allow her to walk out much on account of the presence of wild beasts. Elephants were numerous--it was because of the destruction they had wrought on the farms that fishing had become the main support of the township. Early one morning a commotion broke out: a boa constrictor had been seen during the night, and bands of men armed with clubs, cutlasses, and muskets set off, yelling, to hunt the monster. Whenever she moved out she was followed by all the men, women, and children. On every side she saw skulls, rudely carved images, peace-offerings of food to hungry spirits, and other evidences of debased fetishism, while cases of witchcraft and poisoning were frequent. One day she noticed a tornado brewing on the Cameroon heights, and kept indoors. While sitting sewing the storm burst. The wind seized the village, lifting fences, canoes, trees, and buildings; lightning played and crackled about the hut; the thunder pealed overhead; and rain fell in floods. Then a column of flame leapt from the sky to earth, and a terrific crash deafened the cowering people. Accustomed as she was to tornadoes Mary was afraid. The slaves came rushing into the yard, shrieking, and at the same moment the roof of her hut was swept away, and she was beaten to the ground by the violence of the rain. In the light of the vivid flashes she groped her way through the water, now up to her ankles, and from her boxes obtained all the wraps she possessed. To keep up the spirits of the children she started a hymn, "Oh, come let us sing." Amidst the roar of the elements they caught the tune, and gradually their terror was subdued. When the torrent ceased she was in a high fever. She dosed herself with quinine, and as the shadow of death is never very far away in Africa she made all arrangements in case the end should come. But her temperature fell, and in two days she was herself again. There was a morning when her greetings were responded to with such gravity that she knew something serious had occurred. During the night two of the young wives of a chief had broken the strictest law in Efik, had left the women's yard and entered one where a boy was sleeping, and as nothing can be hidden in a slave community their husband knew at once. The culprits were called out, and with them two other girls, who were aware of the escapade, but did not tell. The chief, and the men of position in his compound and district, sat in judgment upon them, and decided that each must receive one hundred stripes. Mary sought out Okon and talked the matter over. "Ma," he said, "it be proper big palaver, but if you say we must not flog we must listen to you as our mother and our guest. But they will say that God's word be no good if it destroy the power of the law to punish evildoers." He agreed, however, to delay the punishment, and to bring the judges and the people together in a palaver at mid-day. When all were assembled she addressed the girls: "You have brought much shame on us by your folly and by abusing your master's confidence while the yard is in our possession. Though God's word teaches men to be merciful, it does not countenance or pass over sin, and I cannot shelter you from punishment. You have knowingly and deliberately brought it on yourselves. Ask God to keep you in the future so that your conduct may not be a reproach to yourselves and the word of God which you know." Many were the grunts of satisfaction from the people, and the faces of the big men cleared as they heard their verdict being endorsed, while darker and more defiant grew the looks of the girls. With a swift movement she turned to the gathering: "Ay, but you are really to blame. It is your system of polygamy which is a disgrace to you and a cruel injustice to these helpless women. Girls like these, sixteen years old, are not beyond the age of fun and frolic. To confine them as you do is a shame and a blot on your manhood: obedience such as you command is not worth the having." Frowns greeted this denunciation, and the old men muttered: "When the punishment is severe, neither slave nor wife dare disobey: the old fashions are better than the new." Much heated discussion followed, but at last she succeeded in getting the punishment reduced to the infliction of ten stripes and nothing more. She had gone as far as she dared. Under ordinary circumstances salt would have been rubbed into the wounds, and mutilation or dismemberment would have followed. She thanked the men, enjoined the wives and slaves to show their gratitude by a willing and true service, and went to prepare alleviations for the victims. Through the shouting and laughing of the operators and onlookers she heard piercing screams, as strong arms plied the alligator hide, and one by one the girls came running into her, bleeding and quivering in the agony of pain. By and by the opiate did its work and all sank into uneasy slumber. Fourteen days went by, and it was time for the return journey. The same noise and excitement and delay occurred, and it was afternoon ere the canoe left the beach. The evening meal, a mess of yam and herbs, cooked in palm oil, which had been carried on board smoking hot from the fire and was served in the pot, had scarcely been disposed of when the splendour of the sunset and afterglow was swept aside by a mass of angry cloud, and the moaning of the wind fell threateningly on the ear. "A stormy night ahead," said Mary apprehensively to Okon, who gave a long look upward and steered for the lee of an island. The sky blackened, thunder growled, and the water began to lift. The first rush of wind gripped the canoe and whirled it round, while the crew, hissing through their set teeth, pulled their hardest. In vain. They got out of hand, and there was uproar and craven fear. Sharing in the panic the master was powerless. At the sight of others in peril Mary threw aside her own nervousness and anxiety and took command. In a few moments order was restored and the boat was brought close to the tangle of bush, and the men, springing up like monkeys into the branches, held on to the canoe, which was now being dashed up and down like a straw. Mary sat with the water up to her knees, the children lashed to her by a waterproof, their heads hidden in her lap. Lightning, thunder, rain, and wave combined to make one of the grandest displays of the earth's forces she had ever witnessed. As quickly as it came the storm passed, and to the strains of a hymn which she started the journey was resumed. She was shaking with ague, and in order to put some heat into her the chief came and sat down on one side, while his big wife sat on the other. As her temperature rose, the paddlers grew alarmed, and pulled as they had never done in their lives. Dawn was stealing over the land when Old Town was reached, and as "Ma" was hardly a fit sight for critical eyes, she was carried up by a bush path to the Mission House. Ill as she was, her first care was to make a fire to obtain hot tea for the children and to tuck them away comfortably for the night. Then she tottered to her bed, to rise some days later, a wreck of her former self, but smiling and cheerful as usual.... Towards the close of the year 1882 a tornado swept over Old Town and damaged the house to such an extent that she had to make a hasty escape and take refuge in a factory. The Presbytery brought her to Duke Town, but she became so ill as a result of her strenuous life and her experience in the storm, that she was ordered home, and left in April 1888. She was so frail that she was carried on board, and it was considered doubtful whether she would outlive the voyage. With her was a girl-twin she had rescued. She had saved both, a boy and girl, but whilst she was absent from the house for a little, the relatives came, and, by false pretences, obtained possession of the boy, and killed him. She was determined that the girl should live and grow up to confute their fears, and she would not incur the risk of leaving her behind. VII. WITH BACK TO THE WALL Many strange experiences came to Mary Slessor in her life, but it is doubtful whether any adventure equalled that which she was now to go through in the quiet places of home, or whether any period of her career was so crowded with emotion and called for higher courage and resource. She remained for the greater part of the time with her mother and sisters at Downfield, seeing few people, and nursing the little black twin, who was baptized in Wishart Sunday School, and called Janie, after her sister. One of her earliest visits was to her friends the Doigs in the south side of Edinburgh, and here again her life touched and influenced another life. There was in connection with Bristo Street Church a girl named Jessie F. Hogg, who worked in the mission at Cowan's Close where the "two Marys" had formerly taught. She had heard much about Mary Slessor, and when, one Sunday, a lady friend remarked that she was going to visit the missionary, Miss Hogg declared she would give much to meet her. "Then come with me," said the lady, "I will leave you at the foot of the stair, and if you are to come up I will call you." She was invited up, and was not five minutes in Mary's presence before the latter said, "And what are you doing at home? What is hindering you from going to the mission field?" "There is nothing to hinder me," was the reply. "Then come: there is a good work waiting for you to do." Miss Hogg applied to the Foreign Mission Committee and was accepted, received some medical training, and was in Calabar before Mary herself returned. The anticipations of the latter were fulfilled. For thirteen years, with quiet heroism, Miss Hogg did a great work as one of the "Mothers of the Mission": her name was a household word, both in Calabar and at home: and when, through ill-health, she retired, she left a memory that is still cherished by the natives. There were few of the missionaries then who loved and understood Mary better, and whom Mary loved so well. Mary's ideas of the qualities needed for work among the ignorant and degraded may be gathered from a letter which she wrote at this time to a friend in Dundee: Nothing, I believe, will ever touch or raise fallen ones except sympathy. They shrink from self-righteousness which would stoop to them, and they hate patronage and pity. Of sympathy and patience they stand in need. They also need refinement, for the humble classes respect it, and they are sharper at detecting the want of it than many of those above them in the social scale. I am not a believer in the craze for "ticket-of-leave men" and "converted prize-fighters" to preach to the poor and the outcast. I think the more of real refinement and beauty and education that enter into all Christian work, the more real success and lasting, wide-reaching results of a Christian and elevating nature will follow. Vulgarity and ignorance can never in themselves lay hold on the uneducated classes, or on any class, though God often shows us how He can dispense with man's help altogether. Then there is need for knowledge in such a work, knowledge of the Bible as a whole, not merely of the special passages which are adapted for evangelistic services. They know all the set phrases belonging to special services and open-sir meetings. They want teaching, and they will respect nothing else. I am pained often at home that there is so little of depth, and of God's word, in the speeches and addresses I hear. It seems as if they thought anything will do for children, and that any kind of talk about coming to Christ, and believing on Christ, will feed and nourish immortal souls. In January 1884 she informed the Foreign Mission Committee that her health was re-established and that she was ready to return, and in accordance with her own desire it was arranged to make the house habitable at Old Town and send her back there. Meanwhile she had begun to address meetings in connection with the missionary organisations of congregations, and at these her simple but vivid style, the human interest of her story, and the living illustration she presented in the shape of Janie, made so great an impression that the ladies of Glasgow besought the Committee to retain her for a time in order that she might go through the country and give her account of the work to quiet gatherings of women, young and old. The suggestion was acted upon, and for some months she was engaged in itinerating. It was not in the line of her inclination. She was very shy, and had a humbling consciousness of her defects, and to appear in public was an ordeal. It was often a sheer impossibility for her to open her lips when men were present, and she would make it a condition that none should be in her audience. When some distinguished minister or Church leader had been requisitioned to preside, a situation was created as embarrassing to him as to her. She did not, however, seem to mind if the disturbing factor was out of sight, and the difficulty was usually overcome by placing the chairman somewhere behind. These meetings taxed her strength more than the work in Africa, and she began to long for release. In December the Committee gave her permission to return, but, as conditions in the field had changed, decided to send her in the meantime to Creek Town to assist Miss Johnstone, who was not in good health. Within a few weeks a situation developed which altered her plans. The severe weather had told on the delicate constitution of her youngest sister Janie, a quiet, timid girl, but bright and intelligent, and somewhat akin to herself in mind and manner; and it was made clear that only a change to a milder climate would save her life. Mary was torn with apprehension. She had a heart that was bigger than her body, and she loved her own people with passionate intensity, and was ready for any further sacrifice for their sake. Never bold on her own behalf, she would dare anything for others. Thinking out the problem how best she could reconcile her affection for her sister and her duty to the Mission, she fell upon a plan which she would have shrunk from proposing had she alone been concerned. If she could take the invalid out with her to Creek Town, and if they were allowed to dwell by themselves, the life of her sister would not only be prolonged, but she herself would be able to continue, by living native fashion, to pay her share of the expenses at home. To the Committee, accordingly, she wrote early in 1885, stating that she would not feel free to go to Creek Town unless she were permitted to take her sister with her, and unless she were allowed, instead of boarding with any of the Mission agents, to build a small mud house for their accommodation. The Committee received the proposal with a certain mild astonishment. It had many a problem to solve in its administration of the affairs of the Missions, but its difficulties were always increased when it came into contact with that incalculable element, human nature. It could not be supposed to know all the personal and private circumstances that influenced the attitude of the missionaries: it could only judge from the surface facts placed before it; and as a rule it decided wisely, and was never lacking in the spirit of kindness and generosity. But even if the members had known of that fluttering heart in Dundee, they could not, in the best interests of the Mission, have acquiesced in her scheme, and it was probably well, also, for Mary that it was gently but firmly put aside. For her the way out was found in the recommendation of an Exeter lady whom she had met, who advised her to take her sister to Devonshire. She seized on the idea, and forthwith wrote a letter stating that she felt it to be her duty to remove the invalid to the South of England, where she hoped her health would be restored, and asking whether in the event of her own way being cleared she would be allowed to return to Calabar, or whether she was to consider herself finally separated from the Mission. Nothing could have been more sympathetic than the reply of the Board. It regretted her family afflictions, said it would be glad to have the offer of her services again in the future, and in consideration of her work continued her home allowance till the end of April. Meanwhile Mary had, in her swift fashion, carried off her sister, and her answer came from Devonshire. She thanked the Committee for its consideration, but, with the independence which always characterised her, accepted the allowance only up to the end of February. Thus voluntarily, and from a sense of duty, but with a sore heart, she cut herself adrift, for the time being, from the service of the Church. As the climate of Devonshire seemed to suit her sister, they went to Topsham, where a house was secured with the help of a Mr. Ellis, a deacon in the Congregational Church, to whom she was introduced. It was soon furnished, and then her mother was brought down, and for all her toil and self-sacrifice she was rewarded by seeing a steady improvement in the condition of the invalid, and the quiet happiness of both. The place proved too relaxing for her own health, and she was never free from headaches, but she was not one to allow indisposition to interfere with her service for the Master. In the Congregational Church her winning ways made many friends, and she was soon taking an active part in the meetings and addressing large gatherings on her work in Calabar. And then another event occurred which further complicated the situation. Her sister Susan in Scotland went to pay a visit to Mrs. M'Crindle, and died suddenly on entering her house. Mary had now the full responsibility for the home and its upkeep; she was earning nothing, and she had her mother and sister and the African baby to provide and care for. Happily the invalid continued to improve, and as it was imperative for Mary to be back at work, it was decided that she should apply for reinstatement. She told her mother of her desire to go up-country, and asked whether she would allow her to do so if the opportunity came. "You are my child, given to me by God," was the reply, "and I have given you back to Him. When He needs you and where He sends you, there I would have you be." Mary never forgot these brave words, which were a comfort to her throughout her life. On applying to the Foreign Mission Committee stating that she was willing, if it saw fit, to go back at once, she was gladly reinstated, and Calabar was consulted regarding her location. As there was some talk of a forward movement it was resolved to leave the matter over, and send her in the meantime to Creek Town. Her friends in Topsham assured her that they would look well after her mother and sister, but all the arrangements she had made for the smooth working of the household collapsed a month before she was booked to sail. Her mother suddenly failed and took to her bed. Mary grew desperate with strain and anxiety, and like a wild creature at bay turned this way and that for an avenue of escape. In her agony of mind she went to Him who had never failed her yet, and He gave her guidance. Next day a letter was on its way to Dundee to an old factory friend, asking if she would come and take charge of the household. A strange mingling of pathos and dignity, a passionate love and solicitude, marked the appeal, which, happily, evoked a ready assent. Not less moving in its way was the practical letter she sent to her friend, with long and minute directions as to travelling; there was not a detail forgotten, the mention of which might contribute to her ease and comfort. Her friend arrived a few days before her departure. On Guy Fawkes' Day Mary wished to take her to a church meeting to introduce her to some acquaintances, but was too afraid to venture out among the roughs--she who was soon to face alone some of the most savage crowds in Africa! On the sea the past months receded and became like an uneasy dream. She was content simply to lie In her chair on deck and rest her tired mind and body. On arriving it was pleasant to receive a warm welcome from all the Mission friends, and still more pleasant to find that there had been talk of her going to Ikunetu to attempt to obtain a footing among the wild people of Okoyong. VIII. BEREFT Despite her happiness in being back at the work she loved, there was an underlying current of anxiety in her life. Her thoughts dwelt on the invalids at home; she wearied for letters; she trembled before the arrival of the mails; even her dreams influenced her. But she would not allow herself to grow morbid. Every morning she went to the houses in the Mission before breakfast to have a chat and cheer up the inmates. On New Year's Eve, fearing the adoption of European customs by the natives, and wishing to forestall them, she invited all the young men who were Christians to a prayer-meeting from eleven o'clock till midnight. They then went up and serenaded Mr. and Mrs. Luke, two new missionaries, whose subsequent pioneer work up-river was a record of toil and heroism. Mr. Luke entered into the spirit of the innovation. He gave out the 2nd Paraphrase and read the 90th Psalm. Prayer was uttered, and the company separated, singing the evening hymn in Efik. Next morning, the first of the year 1886, she arose early and wrote a letter, overflowing with love and tenderness and cheer, to her mother and sister. It was finished on the third, on the arrival of the home mail. She was at tea with Mrs. Luke before going to a meeting in the church, when the letters came. "I was hardly able to wait for mine," she wrote; "and then I rushed to my room and behaved like a silly body, as if it had been bad news. It brought you all so clearly before me. At church I sat beside the King and cried quietly into my wrap all the evening," The last words in her letter were, "Tell me all your troubles, and be sure you take care of yourselves." She never received a reply. Mrs. Slessor had died suddenly and peacefully at the turn of the year. She had been nursed by loving hands, whilst her medical attendant and the minister of the Congregational Church, and his wife, showed her much kindness. Three months later Janie also passed away, and was laid beside her mother in Topsham cemetery, the deacons and members of the church and many friends attending and showing honour to one whom they had learned to love for her own sake as well as for her sister's. Mary was inconsolable. "I, who all my life have been caring and planning and living for them, am left, as it were, stranded and alone." A sense of desolation and loneliness unsupportable swept over her. After all the sorrow that had crowded upon her she felt no desire to do anything. "There is no one to write and tell all my stories and troubles and nonsense to." One solace remained. "Heaven is now nearer to me than Britain, and no one will be anxious about me if I go up- country." It was characteristic of her that the same night she heard of her mother's death she conducted her regular prayer-meeting: she felt that her mother would have wished her to do so, and she went through the service with a breaking heart, none knowing what had happened. She wrote hungrily for all details of the last hours, and specified the keepsakes she wished to have. "I would like something to look at," was her repeated cry. To her friend who had taken charge of the home she was for ever grateful. In the midst of her grief she was thoughtful for her welfare and attended to the minutest details, even repaying the sixpences expended for the postage of her letters to Calabar. All admirers of Mary Slessor will honour this lowly Scotswoman who came to her help in the day of her greatest need, and who quietly and efficiently fulfilled her task.... So the home life, the source of warmth and sweetness and sympathy, was closed down and she turned to face the future alone. IX. THE SORROWS OF CREEK TOWN Again three Marys were in close association--Miss Mary Edgerley, Miss Mary Johnstone, and Miss Mary Slessor. During the year, however, the two former proceeded home on furlough, and the last was left in entire charge of the women's side of the work at Creek Town. It was the final stage of her training for the larger responsibilities that awaited her. There was at first little in the situation to beguile her spirits. It was a bad season of rain and want, and she was seldom out of the abodes of sickness and death. So great was the destitution that she lived on rice and sauce, in order to feed the hungry. And never had she suffered so much from fever as she did now in Creek Town. Her duties lay in the Day School, Sunday School, Bible Class, and Infant Class, but, as usual, the more personal aspect of the work engaged her chief energies. The training of her household, which, as she was occupying a part of Mr. Goldie's house and had less accommodation, was a small one then, took much of her time and thought and wit. First in her affections came Janie, now a big and strong girl of four years, and as wild as a boy, who kept her in constant hot- water. She was a link with the home that had been, and Mary regarded her as specially her own: she shared her bed and her meals, and even her thoughts, for she would talk to her about those who had gone. The child's memory of Britain soon faded, but she never ceased to pray for "all in Scotland who remember us." She was made more of than was good for her, but was always brought to her level outside of Creek Town. Mary had heard that both her parents were dead, but one day the father appeared at the Mission House. She asked him to come and look at his child. He shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Let me look from a distance." Mary seized him and drew him towards the child, who was trembling with terror. In response to a command in Efik the girl threw her arms around his neck, and his face relaxed and became almost beautiful. When he looked into her eyes, and she hid her head on his breast, the victory was complete. He set her upon his knee and would scarcely give her up. Although he lived a long way off he returned every other day with his new wife and a gift of food. Next came a girl of six years, whose father was a Christian. She also was full of tricks, and, with Janie, was enough for one house. But there was also Okin, a boy of about eight, whose mother was a slave with no voice in his upbringing, but whose mistress wished him to be trained up for God, a mischievous fellow whose new clothes lasted usually about a week, but willing and affectionate and, on the whole, good; and another boy of ten called Ekim, a son of the King of Old Town, whose mother gave him to Mary when she first went out. On her departure for Scotland he had gone back to his heathen home and its fashions, but returned to her when she settled in Creek Town. He was truthful, warm-hearted, and clever, and as a free boy and heir to a responsible position the moulding of his character gave her much thought and care. The last was Inyang, a girl of thirteen, but bigger than Mary herself, possessing no brains, but for faithfulness, truthfulness, honesty, and industry without a peer. She hated to dress or to leave the kitchen, but she washed, baked, and did the housework without assistance, and was kind to the children. These constituted her inner circle, but she was always taking in and caring for derelict children. At this time there were several in the house or yard. Two were twins five months old, whom she had found lying on the ground discarded and forlorn, and who had developed into beautiful children. Their father was a drunken parasite, with a number of wives, whom he battered and beat in turn. Another castaway came to her in a wretched state. The father had stolen a dog, and the mother had helped him to eat it. The owner threw down a native charm at their door, and the woman sickened and died, and as all believed that the medicine had killed her no one would touch the child. The woman's mistress was a daughter of old King Eyo, and a friend of Mary, and she sent the infant, dirty and starved, to the Mission House with her compliments. Mary washed and fed it and nursed it back to decent life, but on sending to the mistress a request that one of the slave women might care for it, she got the reply, "Let it die." She let it live. In the mornings, while busy with her household, there were perpetual interruptions. Sick folk came to have their ailments diagnosed and prescribed for. Some of the diseases she attended to were of the most loathsome type, but that made no difference in her compassionate care. Hungry people came to her to be fed, those in trouble visited her to obtain advice and help, disputes were referred to her to be settled. When all these cases had been dealt with she would go her round of the yards, the inmates of which had come to look upon her as a mother. She would sit down and chat with them and discuss their homes, children, marketing, illness, or whatever subject interested them, sometimes scolding them, but always leading them to the only things that mattered. "If I told you what I have seen and known of human sorrow during the past months you would weep till your heart ached," she wrote to a friend. Some of her experiences she could not tell; they revealed such depths of depravity and horror that the actions of the wild beasts of the bush were tame in comparison. At Creek Town, as elsewhere, it was not easy to tabulate what had been achieved, as the fact that women could not make open confession without incurring the gravest penalties kept the missionaries ignorant of the effect of their work. But Mary saw behind the veil; she knew quiet women whose souls looked out of their eyes, and who were more in touch with the unseen than they dared tell; women who prayed and communed with God even while condemned to heathen practices. There was one blind woman whom she placed far before herself in the Christian race: She is so poor that she has not one farthing in the world but what she gets from us--not a creature to do a thing for her, her house all open to rain and sun, and into which the cows rush at times--but blind Mary is our one living, bright, clear light. Her voice is ever set to music, a miracle to the people here, who only know how to groan and grumble at the best. She is ever praising the Lord for some wonderful manifestation of mercy and love, and her testimony to her Saviour is not a shabby one. The other day I heard the King say that she was the only visible witness among the Church members in the town, but he added, "She is a proper one." Far advanced in spiritual knowledge and experience, she knows the deep things of God. That old hut is like a heaven here to more than me. "Pray for us here" was the appeal in all her letters to Scotland at this time. "Pray in a business-like fashion, earnestly, definitely, statedly." For herself she found a friend in King Eyo, to whom she could go at any time and relate her troubles and receive sympathy and support. She, in turn, was often in his State room advising him regarding the private and complicated affairs of his little kingdom and his relations with the British Government. He honoured her in various ways, but to her the dumb affection of a slave woman whom she had saved was more than all the favours which others, high in the social scale, sought to show her. X. THE FULNESS OF THE TIME The question of her future location received much consideration. The needs of the stations on the Cross River, the highway into the interior, were urgent, and it was thought by some that the interests of the Mission called for her presence there, but her mind could not be turned from the direction in which she believed she could do the best work. She was essentially a pioneer. Her thoughts were for ever going forward, looking past the limitations and the hopes of others, into the fields beyond teeming with populations as yet unreached. She was of the order of spirits to which Dr. Livingstone belonged. Like him she said, "I am ready to go anywhere, provided it be forward." From the districts inland came reports of atrocity and wrong: accusations of witchcraft, the ordeal of the poison bean, the shooting of slaves, and the destruction of infants; and she felt the impelling call to go and attack these evils. It was not that she did not recognise the value of base-work, of order and organisation and routine. The fact that she spent twelve years in patient and loyal service at Duke Town, Old Town, and Creek Town demonstrates how important she considered these to be. But they had been years of training meant to perfect her powers before she went forward on her own path to realise the vision given her from above, and they were now ended. For her the fulness of the time had come, and with it the way opened up. The local Mission Committee decided, in October 1886, to send her into the district of Okoyong, and informed the authorities in Scotland of the fact, carefully adding that this was in line with her own desire. A change had just been made in the relation of the women on the staff of the Mission to the administration at home. The Zenana Scheme of the Church had been constituted as a distinct department of the Foreign Mission operations in 1881, and having appealed to the women of the congregations, had proved a success. It was now thought expedient that the Calabar lady agents should be brought into the scheme, and accordingly, in May 1886, they became responsible to the Zenana Committee, and through them to the Foreign Mission Board. The Zenana Committee recommended that the arrangement regarding Mary should be carried out, and the Foreign Mission Board agreed. THIRD PHASE 1888-1902. Age 40-54. THE CONQUEST OF OKOYONG "_I am going to a new tribe up-country, a fierce, cruel people, and every one tells me that they will kill me. But I don't fear any hurt- only to combat their savage customs will require courage and firmness on my part._" I. A TRIBE OF TERRORISTS Some time in the dim past a raiding force had swept down from the mountains to the east of Calabar, entered the triangle of dense forest- land formed by the junction of the Cross and Calabar Hirers, fought and defeated the Ibibios who dwelt there, and taken possession of the territory. They were of the tribe of Okoyong believed to be an outpost, probably the most westerly outpost, of the Bantu race of Central and South Africa, who had thrust themselves forward like a wedge into negro-land. Physically they were of a higher type than the people of Calabar. They were taller and more muscular, their nose was higher, the mouth and chin were firmer, their eye was more fearless and piercing, and their general bearing contrasted strongly with that of the supine negro of the coast. To their superior bodily development they added the worst qualities of heathenism: there was not a phase of African devilry in which they did not indulge. They were openly addicted to witchcraft and the sacrifice of animals. They were utterly lawless and contemptuous of authority. Among themselves slave-stealing, plunder of property, theft of every kind, went on indiscriminately. To survive in the struggle of life a man required to possess wives and children and slaves--in the abundance of these lay his power. But if, through incompetence or sickness or misfortune, he failed he was regarded as the lawful prey of the chief nearest him. To weaken the House of a neighbour was as clear a duty as to strengthen one's own. Oppression and outrage were of common occurrence. So suspicious were they even of each other that the chiefs and their retainers lived in isolated clearings with armed scouts constantly on the watch on all the pathways, and they ate and worked with their weapons ready to their hands. Even Egbo law with all its power was often resisted by the slaves and women regardless of the consequences. No free Egbo man would submit to be dictated to by the Egbo drum sent by another. A fine might be imposed, but he would sit unsubdued and sullen, and then obtain his revenge by seizing or murdering some passing victim. But all combined in a common enmity against other tribes, and the region was enclosed with a fence of terrorism as impenetrable as a ring of steel. The Calabar people were hated because of the favoured position they enjoyed on the coast, and their wealth and power; and a state of chronic war existed with them. Each sought to outrival the other in the number of heads captured or the number of slaves stolen or harboured, and naturally there was no end to the fighting. All efforts to bring them together in the interests of trade had been in vain. Even British authority was defied, and messages from the Consul were ignored or treated with contempt. They had their own idea of justice and judicial methods, and trials by ordeal formed the test of innocence or guilt, the two commonest being by burning oil and poison. In the one case a pot was filled with palm oil which was brought to the boil. The stuff was poured over the hands of the prisoner, and if the skin became blistered he was adjudged to be guilty and punished. In the other case the eséré bean--the product of a vine--was pounded and mixed with water and drunk: if the body ejected the poison it was a sign of innocence. This method was the surest and least troublesome--for the investigation, sentence, and punishment were carried out simultaneously--unless the witch-doctor had been influenced, which sometimes happened, for there were various means of manipulating the test. These tests were applied when it was desired to discover a thief, or when a village wanted to know whose spirit dwelt in the leopard that slew a goat, or when a chief wished to prove that his wife was faithful to him in her heart, but chiefly in cases of sickness or death. They believed that sickness was unnatural, and that death never occurred except from extreme old age. When a freeman became ill or died, sorcery would be alleged. The witchdoctor would be called in, and he would name one individual after another, and all, bond and free, were chained and tried, and there would be much grim merriment as the victims writhed in agony and their heads were chopped off. The skulls would be kept in the family as trophies. Occasionally the relations of the victims would be powerful enough to take exception to the summary procedure and seek redress by force of arms, and a vendetta would reign for years. If a man or woman were blamed for some evil deed an appeal could be made to the law of substitution, and a sufficient number of slaves could be furnished as would be equivalent for themselves, and these would be killed in their stead. The eldest son of a free House, for instance, would be spared by the sacrifice of the life of a younger brother. The fact that a man's position in the spirit-world was determined by his rank and wealth in this one, demanded the sacrifice of much life when chiefs died. A few months before Miss Slessor went up amongst them a chief of moderate means died, and with him were buried eight slave men, eight slave women, ten girls, ten boys, and four free wives. These were in addition to the men and women who died as a result of taking the poison ordeal. Even when death was due to natural decay the retinue provided was the same. After her settlement she made careful enquiry, and found that the number of lives sacrificed annually at the instance of this custom could not have averaged fewer than 150 within a radius of twenty miles, while the same number must have died from ordeals and decapitation on charges of causing sickness. To these had to be added the number killed in the constant warfare. Infanticide was also responsible for much destruction of life. Twin murder was practised with an even fiercer zeal than it had been in Calabar. Child life in general was of little value. It was significant of the state of the district that gin, guns, and chains were practically the only articles of commerce that entered it. Gin or rum was in every home. It was given to every babe: all work was paid for in it: every fine and debt could be redeemed with it: every visitor had to be treated to it: every one drank it, and many drank it all the time. Quarrels were the outcome of it. Then the guns came into play. After that the chains and padlocks. Women were often the worst where drink was concerned, There were certain bands formed of those born in the same year who were allowed freer action than others: they could handle gun and sword, and were used for patrol and fighting purposes, and were so powerful that they compelled concessions from Egbo. They exacted fines for breach of their rules, and feasted and drank and danced for days and nights at a time at the expense of the offenders. Such lawlessness and degradation at the very doors had long caused the Calabar Presbytery much thought. Efforts had been made to enter the district both from the Cross and the Calabar Rivers. In one of his tours of exploration Mr. Edgerley was seized, with the object of being held for a ransom of rum, and it was only with difficulty that he escaped. Others were received less violently, though every member of the tribe was going about with guns on full cock. Asked why, they said, "Inside or outside, speaking, eating, or sleeping, we must have them ready for use. We trust no man." When they learned of the new laws in Calabar their amazement was unbounded. "Killing for witchcraft prohibited!" they exclaimed. "What steps have been taken to prevent witchcraft from killing?" "Widows not compelled to sit for more than a month in seclusion and filth!--outrageous!" "Twins and their mothers taken to Duke Town--horrible! Has no calamity happened?" Very little result was achieved from these tours of observation. A Calabar teacher was ultimately induced to settle amongst them, but after a shooting affray was compelled to fly for his life. Missionaries, however, are never daunted by difficulties, nor do they acquiesce in defeat. Ever, like their Master, they stand at the door and knock. Once again the challenge was taken up, and this time by a woman. So difficult was the position, that the negotiations for Miss Slessor's settlement lasted a year. Three times parties from the Mission went up, she accompanying them, only to find the people--every man, woman, and child--armed and sullen, and disinclined to promise anything. "I had often a lump in my throat," she wrote, "and my courage repeatedly threatened to take wings and fly away--though nobody guessed it!" At last, in June 1888, in spite of her fears, she resolved to go up and make final arrangements for her sojourn. II. IN THE ROYAL CANOE She went up the river in state. Ever ready to do her a kindness, King Eyo had provided her with the Royal canoe, a hollow tree-trunk twenty feet long, and she lay in comfort under the cool cover of a framework of palm leaves, freshly lopped from the tree, and shut off from the crew by a gaudy curtain. Beneath was a piece of Brussels carpet, and about her were arranged no fewer than six pillows, for the well-to-do natives of Calabar made larger and more skilful use of these than the Europeans. The scene was one of quiet beauty; there was a clear sky and a windless air; the banks of the river--high and dense masses of vegetation-- glowed with colour; the broad sweep of water was like a sheet of molten silver and shimmered and eddied to the play of the gleaming paddles. As they moved easily and swiftly along, the paddlemen, dressed in loin- cloth and singlet, improvised blithe song in her praise. Strange and primitive as were the conditions, she felt she would not have exchanged them for all the luxuries of civilisation. She needed sustenance, for there was trying work before her, and this a paraffin stove, a pot of tea, a tin of stewed steak, and a loaf of home-made bread gave her. Wise mental preparation also she needed, for there were elements of uncertainty and danger in the situation. The Okoyong might be on the war-path: her paddlers were their sworn enemies: a tactless word or act might ruin the expedition. As the canoe glided along the river she communed with God, and in the end left the issue with Him. "Man," she thought, "can do nothing with such a people." Arriving at the landing beach she made her way by a forest track to a village of mud huts called Ekenge, four miles inland. Her reception was a noisy one; men, women, and children thronged about her, and called her "Mother," and seemed pleased at her courage at coming alone. The chief, Edem, one of the aristocrats of Okoyong, was sober, but his neighbour at Ifako, two miles farther on, whom she wished to meet, was unfit for human company, and she was not allowed to proceed. She stayed the night at Ekenge, where she gathered the King's boys about her to hold family worship. The crowd of semi-naked people standing curiously watching the proceedings exclaimed in wonder as they heard the words repeated in unison: "God so loved the world," and so on. At ten o'clock the women were still holding her fast in talk. One, the chiefs sister, called Ma Eme, attracted her. "I think," she said, "she will be my friend, and be an attentive hearer of the Gospel." Wearied at last with the strain she was forced to retire into the hut set apart for her. A shot next morning startled the village. Two women on going outside had been fired at from the bush. In a moment every man had his gun and sword and was searching for the assailant. Mary went with one of the parties, but to find any one in such a labyrinth was impossible, and the task was given up. Going to Ifako she interviewed the chiefs. The charm of her personality, her frankness, her fearlessness, won them over, and they promised her ground for a schoolhouse. Would, she asked, the same privilege be extended to it as to the Mission buildings in Calabar? Would it be a place of refuge for criminals, those charged with witchcraft, or those liable to be killed for the dead, until their case could be taken into consideration? They assented. And the house she would build for herself--would it also be a harbour of refuge? Again they assented. She thanked them and promptly went and chose two sites, one at Ekenge and one at Ifako, about twenty to thirty minutes' walk apart, according to the state of the track, in order that the benefits of the concession might operate over as wide an area as possible. She foresaw, however, that as they were an agricultural and shifting people, and spread over a large extent of territory, she would require to be constantly travelling, and to sleep as often in her hammock as in her bed. Rejoicing over the improved prospects, she set out on the return journey to Creek Town. It was the rainy season, and ere long the canoe ran into a deluge and she was soaked. Then the tide was so strong that they had to lie in a cove for two hours. The carcase of a huge snake drifted past, followed by a human body. She was on the outlook for alligators, but only saw crowds of crabs on the rotten tree-stumps and black mud fighting as fiercely as the Okoyong people. She was too watchful to sleep, but she heard the boys say softly, "Don't shake the canoe and wake Ma," or "Speak lower and let Ma sleep." When they were once more out on the river she slumbered, and awoke to find the lights of Creek Town shining through the darkness. When her friends saw her packing her belongings they looked at her in wonder and pity. They said she was going on a forlorn hope, and that no power on earth could subdue the Okoyong save a Consul and a gunboat. But she smiled and went on with her preparations. King Eyo again offered his canoe and paddlers and a number of bearers for her baggage. By Friday evening, August 3, 1888, all was ready, and she lay down to rest but not to sleep. On the morrow she would enter on the great adventure of her life, and the strangeness of it, the seriousness of it, the possibilities it might hold for her, kept her awake and thoughtful throughout the night. III. THE ADVENTURE OF TAKING POSSESSION The dawn came to Creek Town grey and wet. The rain fell in torrents, and the negroes, moving about with the packages, grumbled and quarrelled. Wearied and unrefreshed after her sleepless night, Mary was not in the best of spirits, and she was glad to see King Eyo, who had come to supervise the loading and packing of the canoe: his kind eyes, cheery smile, and sympathetic words did her good, and her courage revived. Few of the natives wished her God-speed. One young man said with a sob in his voice, "I will constantly pray for you, but you are courting death." Not great faith for a Christian perhaps, but her own faith at the moment was not so strong that she could afford to cast a stone at him. As the hours wore on, the air of depression became general, and when the party was about to start Mr. Goldie suddenly decided to send one of the Mission staff to accompany her on the journey. Mr. Bishop, the printer, who was standing by, volunteered, and there and then stepped into the canoe. Mary and her retinue of five children stowed themselves into a corner, the paddlers pushed off, and the canoe swept up the river and disappeared in the rain. The light was fading ere they reached the landing beach for Ekenge, and there was yet the journey of four miles through the dripping forest to be overtaken. It was decided that she should go on ahead with the children in order to get them food and put them to sleep, and that Mr. Bishop and one or two men should follow with dry clothes, cooking utensils, and the door and window needed for the hut, whilst the carriers would come on later with the loads. As Mary faced the forest, now dark and mysterious, and filled with the noises of night, a feeling of helplessness and fear came over her. What unseen perils might she not meet? What would she find at the end? How would she be received on this occasion? Would the natives be fighting or drinking or dancing? Her heart played the coward; she felt a desire to turn and flee. But she remembered that never in her life had God failed her, not once had there been cause to doubt the reality of His guidance and care. Still the shrinking was there; she could not even move her lips in prayer; she could only look up and utter inwardly one appealing word, "Father!" Surely no stranger procession had footed it through the African forest. First came a boy, about eleven years of age, tired and afraid, a box containing tea, sugar, and bread upon his head, his garments, soaked with the rain, clinging to his body, his feet slipping in the black mud. Behind him was another boy, eight years old, in tears, bearing a kettle and pots. With these a little fellow of three, weeping loudly, tried hard to keep up, and close at his heels trotted a maiden of five, also shaken with sobs. Their white mother formed the rear. On one arm was slung a bundle, and astride her shoulders sat a baby girl, no light burden, so that she had to pull herself along with the aid of branches and twigs. She was singing nonsense--snatches to lighten the way for the little ones, but the tears were perilously near her own eyes. Had ever such a company marched out against the entrenched forces of evil? Surely God had made a mistake in going to Okoyong in such a guise? And yet He often chooses the weakest things of this world to confound and defeat the mighty. The village was reached at last, but instead of the noise and confusion that form a bush welcome there was absolute stillness. Mary called out and two slaves appeared. They stated that the chief's mother at Ifako had died that morning, and all the people had gone to the carnival. One obtained fire and a little water, while the other made off to carry the news that the white woman had arrived. She undressed the children and hushed them to sleep, and sat in her wet garments and waited. When Mr. Bishop appeared it was to say that the men were exhausted and refused to bring up anything that night. A woman of weaker fibre and feebler faith would have been in despair: Mary acted with her usual decision. The glow of the fire was cheerful and the singing of the kettle tempting, but the morrow was Sunday, there was no food, the children were naked, and she herself wet to the skin. She gave one of the lads who had arrived with Mr. Bishop a lantern, and despatched him to the beach with a peremptory message that the mea must come at once and bring what they could. But knowing their character she asked Mr. Bishop to collect some of the slaves who had been left to watch the farms, and send them after her as carriers, and then, bootless and hatless, she plunged back into the forest. She had not gone far before one of the other lads came running after her to keep her company; a touch of chivalry which, pleased and comforted her. So dense was the darkness that she often lost sight of her companion's white clothes, and was constantly stumbling and falling. The shrilling of the insects, the pulsation of the fire-flies, the screams of the night-birds and the flapping of their wings, the cries of wild animals, the rush of dark objects, the falling of decayed branches all intensified the weirdness and mystery of the forest gloom. Even the echo of their own voices as they called aloud to frighten the beasts of prey struck on their ears with peculiar strangeness. By and by came an answer to their cries, and a glimmer of light showed in the darkness. It was the lad with the lantern. As she had surmised, he had failed in his mission. She moved swiftly to the river, splashed into the water, and, reaching the canoe, threw back the cover under which the men were sleeping, and routed them out, dazed and shamefaced. So skilful, however, was she in managing these dusky giants that in a short time, weary as they were, they were working good-humouredly at the boxes. With the assistance of the slaves who came on the scene they transferred what was needed to Ekenge, and by midnight she felt that the worst was over. Sunday did not find her in more cheerful mood. Her tired limbs refused to move, and wounds she had been unconscious of in the excitement of the journey made themselves felt, while her feet were in such a state that for six weeks afterwards she was unable to wear boots. Whether it was the persistent rain and the mud and the weariness and the squalid surroundings, or the fact that the tribe she had come to civilise and evangelise were given over to the service of the devil, or that her faith had weakened, or whether it was all of these together, her first Sunday in Okoyong was one of the saddest she ever experienced. More than once she was on the verge of tears. And yet she was eager to begin work. Prudence, however, held her back from visiting the scene of debauchery at Ifako. A few women had come home with fractious babies, or to procure more food for the revellers, and gathering these about her she held a little service, telling them in her simple and direct way the story of the Christ who came from the Unseen to make their lives sweeter and happier. It was the first faint gleam of a better day for Okoyong. IV. FACING AN ANGRY MOB The room allotted to Mary was one of those in the women's yard or harem of Edem the chief, and had been previously used by a free wife, who had left its mud floor and mud walls in a filthy state. At one entrance she caused a door to be hung, while a hole was made in the wall and a window frame fitted in. The work was rude and gaps yawned round the sides, but she ensured sufficient privacy by draping them with bedcovers. The absence of the villagers at Ifako gave her time to complete the work, and with her own hands she filled in the spaces with mud. She also cleared a portion of the ground set apart for her and circled it with a fence, and within this did her washing. But soon there were calls upon her. "_He took a little child and set him in the midst_." Her work began with a child. In a fight between Okoyong and Calabar a man of Ekenge had been beheaded. His head was recovered and sent home, thus removing the disgrace, but his wife did not survive the shock, and left a baby girl, which was now brought to Mary. It had been fed on a little water, palm oil, and cane juice, and looked less like an infant than a half- boiled chicken. Its appearance provoked mirth in the yard, but she stooped down and lifted it and took it to her heart, resolving to give it a double share of the care and comfort of which it had been defrauded. As she carried it about in her arms, or sat with it in her lap, she was regarded with a kind of amused astonishment. But the old grandmother came and blessed her. At first the child rallied to the new treatment: it grew human-like: sometimes Mary thought it looked bonnie: but in a few days it drooped and died. The bodies of children were usually placed anywhere in the earth near the huts or under the bush by the wayside, but she dressed the tiny form in white and laid it in a provision box and covered it with flowers. A native carried the box to a spot which she had reserved in her ground: here a grave was dug, and she stood beside it and prayed. The grandmother knelt at her feet, sobbing. Looking on at a distance, curious and scornful, were the revellers from Ifako; they had heard of the proceedings, and had come to witness the white woman's "witchcraft." All that they said in effect when they saw the good box and the white robe was, "Why this waste?" And so the work in Okoyong was consecrated by the death and Christian burial of a little child. When the people came crowding back from the devil-making they sought out a young lad who had detached himself from the orgies and remained in the village, where he had been very attentive to Mary. They accused him of deserting their ancient customs. She saw him standing in their midst near a pot of oil which was being heated over a fire, and noticed the chief, in front going through some movements and the lad holding out his arms, but was unaware of what was taking place until she saw a man seize a ladle, plunge it into the boiling oil, and advance to the boy. In a moment the truth flashed upon her and she darted forward, but was too late. The stuff was poured over the lad's hands, and he shuddered in agony. It was doubtful whether her intervention at that early period would have done any good. They were following the law of the country, and if she had managed to prevent the act they would probably have resorted to the ordeal thereafter in secret; and her object was to show them a better way. Immediately after this the men of the village left on an expedition of revenge against a number of mourners with whom they had quarrelled. A week of rioting followed. Then a freeman died in the neighbourhood, and once more the village was deserted. Mary, meanwhile, moved hither and thither, making friends with the women, healing the sick, tending the children, and doing any little service that came in her way. The return to normal conditions brought her into active conflict with the powers of evil. The mistress of a harem in the vicinity bought a good-looking young woman whom the master coveted, and she became a slave-wife. She appeared sullen and unhappy. One afternoon Mary saw her mudding a house that was being built for a new free-born wife, and spoke to her kindly in passing. A few minutes later the girl made her way to one of her master's farms, and sat down in the hut of a slave. The latter was alarmed, knowing well what the consequences would be, but she refused to move. The man went off to his work, and she walked into the forest and hanged herself. Next morning the slave was brought in heavily ironed, and at a palaver the master and his relatives decreed he must die; they had been degraded by being associated in this way with a common slave. Mary, who was present, protested against the injustice of the sentence; the man, she argued, had done no wrong; it was not his fault that the girl had gone to his hut. "But," was the reply, "he has used sorcery and put the thought into the girl's mind, and the witch-doctor has pronounced him guilty." She persisted. The crowd became angry and excited; they surged round her demanding why a stranger who was there on sufferance should interfere with the dignity and power of free-born people, and clamoured for the instant death of the prisoner. Threats were shouted, guns and swords were waved, and the position grew critical, but she stood her ground, quiet and cool and patient. Her tact, her good humour, that spiritual force which seemed to emanate from her in times of peril, at last prevailed. The noise and confusion calmed down, and ultimately it was decided to spare the man's life. She had won her first victory. But the victim was loaded with chains, placed in the women's yard, starved, and then flogged, and his body cruelly cut in order to exorcise the powers of sorcery that were in him. When Mary went to him he was a bruised and bleeding heap of flesh lying unconscious by the post to which he was fastened. The women in the yard were sitting about indifferent to his plight. V. LIFE IN HAREM For many weeks she was an inmate of the harem, a witness of its degraded intimacies, enduring the pollution of its moral and physical atmosphere, with no other support than hallowed memories and the companionship of her Bible. Her room was next that of the chief and his head wife: the quarters of five lesser wives were close by; other wives whose work and huts were at the farms shared the yard with the slaves, visitors, and children; two cows--small native animals that do not produce milk--occupied the apartment on the other side of the partition; goats, fowls, cats, rats, cockroaches, and centipedes were everywhere. In her own room the three boys slept behind an erection of boxes and furniture, and the two girls shared her portion. Every night her belongings had to be taken outside in order to provide sufficient accommodation for them all, and as it was the wet season they had usually to undergo a process of drying in the sun each day before being replaced. There was a ceaseless coming and going in the yard, a perpetual chattering of raucous voices. The wives were always bickering and scolding, the tongue of one of them going day and night, her chief butt being a naked and sickly slave, who was for ever being flogged. There was no sleep for Mary when this woman had any grievance, real or imaginary, on her mind. Both wives and visitors conceived it their duty to sit and entertain their white guest. To an African woman the idea of loneliness is terrible, and good manners made it incumbent that as large a gathering as possible should keep a stranger company. All is implied in the word "home," its sacredness and freedom, its privacy, lies outside the knowledge and experience of polygamists. Kind and neighbourly as the women were, they could not understand the desire of Mary to be sometimes by herself. She needed silence and solitude; her spirit craved for communion with her Father, and she longed for a place in which to pour out her heart aloud to Him. As often as politeness permitted, she fled to the ground reserved for her, but they followed her there, and in desperation she would take a machete and hack at the bush, praying the while, so that her voice was lost in the noise she made. One woman of mark was Eme Ete--Ma Eme as she was usually called--a sister of the master, the same who had attracted her attention on the previous visit. She was the widow of a big chief, and had just returned from the ceremonies in connection with her husband's death, where she had undergone a terrible ordeal. All his wives lay under suspicion, and each brought to the place of trial a white fowl, and from the way in which it fluttered after its head was cut off the judgment was pronounced. The strain was such that when the witch-doctor announced Ma Eme free from guilt she fainted. Big-boned and big-featured, she had been fattened to immensity. One day Mary pointed to some marks on her arms and said, "White people have marks like these," showing the vaccination cicatrice on her own arm. Ma Eme simply said, "These are the marks of the teeth of my husband." In that land a man could do as he liked with his free-born wife--bite her, beat her, kill her, and nobody cared. When consorting with the others Ma Eme had the coarse tone common to all, but as she spoke to Mary or the children her voice softened and her instincts and manners were refined and gentle. A mother to every one, she scolded, encouraged, and advised in turn, and when the chief was drunk or peevish she was always between him and his wives as intercessor and peacemaker. She watched over Mary, brought her food, looked after her comfort, and helped her in every way, and did it with the delicacy and reserve of a well-bred lady. Unknown to all she constituted herself Mary's ally, becoming a sort of secret intelligence department, and, at the risk of her life, keeping her informed of all the underground doings of the tribe. "A noble woman," Mary called her, "according to her lights and knowledge." The wives appeared to have less liberty than the slaves. How carefully guarded their position was by unwritten law Mary had reason to know. A girl-wife employed a slave-man to do work for a day. His master unexpectedly sent for him, and he asked the girl for the food which was part of his wage. She at first declined; her husband was absent, and it was against the law of the harem, but as he insisted she yielded and handed him a piece of yam. When this became known she was seized, bound, and condemned to undergo the ordeal of the burning oil. It was an occasion for feasting and merriment, and as the fun progressed the cords were gradually tightened until she screamed piteously with the pain. Mary went and faced the crowd and pled for her release. There was the usual uproar, but she succeeded in carrying off the victim, who was kept chained to her verandah until the dancing and rioting ended with the dawn. Conditions in the harem were not favourable to child life. The mothers were ignorant and superstitious, and there was no discipline or training. Infants were often given intoxicating drink in order that fun might be made of their antics and foolish talk. As they grew up they learned nothing but what was vile. The slave children became thieves-- they had to steal in order to live. But if caught they would be chained to a post and starved or branded with fire-sticks. They became deceitful--they had to lie in order to gain favour. In this they simply followed the instinctive impulses of their nature and of the lower nature about them. As the insects mimicked inanimate objects to escape injury or death, so they simulated the truth to save themselves a beating or mutilation. The free-born children did not require to steal, but lying was in the air like a contagion, and none could avoid its influence. Of the older boys and girls Mary wrote: "They are such a pest to every one that it is almost impossible to love them." Yet with a divine pity she gathered them to her and mothered them. Her earlier observations of the character of the African women were confirmed by her sojourn in the harem. Hard and callous, as a result of centuries of bush law and outrage, their patience and self-repression under the most terrible indignities were to her a marvel. They were not devoid of fine feeling, and beneath the surface of their nature the flow of affection and pity often ran pure and sweet. On one occasion a large number of prisoners were chained previous to undergoing the ordeal of the poison bean. There were mothers with infants in their arms, who throughout a hot day lay on the ground in torture and terror. At dusk the guards left them for a time, and seizing the chance a few of the older women stole tremblingly towards them with water, which they gave to the children and divided the remainder among the mothers. Anticipating such an opportunity Mary had had some rice cooked, and this also the women smuggled to the prisoners. Had they been discovered their lives would have been forfeited. Bands of women of the special class already described came from a distance to see the white "Ma," always more or less under the influence of drink; loose in speech, and destitute of modesty, these Amazons made her angry. They would appear at night and demand admittance to the yard in the hope of obtaining rum and other good things from the wealthy white woman. When barred out they threatened reprisals. The chief, who never allowed his wives to go out of the yard to dance even with his own relatives, stood on guard all night before his guest's room, and it was only after sunrise, when all were astir, that they were admitted. Haggard after their night's debauch, they presented a sorry sight, their bare bodies painted and decked with beads, coloured wools, and scraps of red and yellow silk, and many with babies at their side. Mary regarded them with pity, but all they could extract from her was disapproval and rebuke, and they left with threats to make her position untenable. Some of the scenes she witnessed in the harem cannot be described. "Had I not felt my Saviour close beside me," she said, "I would have lost my reason." When at home the memory of these would make her wince and flush with indignation and shame. She had no patience with people who expounded the theory of the innocence of man outside the pale of civilisation--she would tell them to go and live for a month in a West African harem. VI. STRANGE DOINGS The sound of native voices chanting came through the brooding stillness of the hot afternoon. With the wild war-song of Okoyong the forest familiar, but words were strange and wonderful; _Jesus the Son of God came down to earth He came to save us from our sins. He was born poor that He might feel for us. Wicked men killed Him and hanged Him on a tree, He rose and went to heaven to prepare a place for us_.... They were sung with a tremendous force, and as each voice fell into the part which suited it, the result was a harmony that thrilled the heart of the white woman who listened. It was Mary Slessor's day school. For a people possessing no written language, no literature, no knowledge beyond that handed down from father to son, the first step towards right living, apart from the preaching of the Gospel, is education. Schools go hand in hand with churches in missionary effort. Mary began hers before she had the buildings in which to teach, one at Ekenge and the other at Ifako. The latter was held in the afternoon in order that she might be back in her yard by sunset. The schoolroom was the verandah of a house by the wayside; the seats were pieces of firewood; the equipment an alphabet card hung on one of the posts. At first the entire population turned out and conned the letters, but as novelty wore off and the men and women returned to their work the attendance dropped to thirty. Good progress was made, and ere long the dark-skinned pupils were spelling out words of one and two syllables. The lesson ended with a scripture lesson, a short prayer, and the singing of the sentences she taught. The last was so much enjoyed that it was often dark before she could get away. The school at Ekenge was held in the outer yard of the chief's house in the evening, when all the wives and slaves were at leisure. Men and women, old and young, bond and free, crowded and hustled into the yard, amidst much noise and fun. After a lesson on the alphabet and the multiplication-table she conducted worship. It was a weird scene--the white woman, slim and slight, standing bareheaded and barefooted beside a little table on which were a lamp and the Book; in front, squatting on the ground, the mass of half-naked people as dark as the night, their shining faces here and there catching the gleam of the light; the earnest singing that drowned the voices of the forest, and the strange hush that fell, as in grave sweet tones the speaker prayed to what was to them the Unknown God. The tale of such doings was carried to every corner of Okoyong, and invitations began to arrive from chiefs in other parts. Some, who were known as "the terror of Calabar," came personally to ask her to visit their villages, and all laid down their arms at the entrance to her yard before entering into her presence. But her own chief warned her against acting too hastily, and she would probably have followed his advice and sought to strengthen her position at Ekenge and Ifako had the matter not been taken out of her hands. VII. FIGHTING A GRIM FOE The principal wife of a harem in close neighbourhood to Mary went to pay a visit to her son and daughter at a village in the vicinity of the Cross River, some eight hours distant from Ekenge. She found the chief so near death that the head man and the people were waiting outside, ready for the event. Hastening into the harem she spoke of the power of the white "Ma" at Ekenge. Had she not cured her grandchild who had bees very ill? Had she not saved many others? Let them send for her and the chief would not die. Her advice was acted upon, and a deputation was despatched with a bottle and four rods--about the value of a shilling-- to secure Mary's aid. She was called to the private room of her chief, where she found the messengers. "What is the matter with him?" she asked. As no one knew she decided to go and see for herself. Edem and Ma Eme objected--the length of the journey, the deep streams to be crossed, the heavy rains, made the task impossible. "I am going to get ready," was her reply. Finding her immovable, the chief turned with a face of gloom to the deputation and sent, them back with a demand for an escort of freewomen and armed men. Mary imagined he was merely endeavouring to mark time until the death took place: in reality he saw the district given over to violence and murder, and she in the midst and her life imperilled. She passed a sleepless night. Was she right, after all, in taking so great a risk? She laid the matter where she laid all her problems, and came to the conclusion that she was. With the morning appeared the guard of women, who intimated that the armed men would join them outside the village. The rain was falling as they set out later came down in torrents, continuous, and pitiless. Her boots were soon abandoned; then her stockings; next her umbrella, broken in battle with the vegetation, was thrown aside. Bit by bit her clothes, too heavy to be endured, were transferred to the calabashes carried by the women on their heads, and in the lightest of garments she struggled on through the steaming bush. Three hours of trudging brought her to a market-place where, in the clearing atmosphere, hundreds of natives were gathering. They gazed at her in amazement. Feeling humiliated at her appearance, she slunk shyly and swiftly through their midst and went on, wondering if she had "lost face" and their respect. Afterwards she learnt that the self-denial and courage which that walk in the rain exhibited had done more than anything else to win their hearts. Others, however, were not so well- disposed. At one town the old chief was anything but courtly, and only with reluctance allowed her to pass. When she reached the sick man's village and looked into the grim expectant faces of the armed crowd, she felt as if she were walking into a den of wild beasts. At any moment the signal might be given, and the slaughter of the retinue for the spirit-land begin. The women, silent and fear-stricken, carried off her wet clothes to dry. She was cold and feverish, but went straight to the patient and tended him as well as she could. Then she turned to the pile of odds and ends of garments which had been collected for her, and looked at them with a shudder. But there was no alternative, and, arraying herself in the rags, she went forth to meet the critical gaze of the crowd. The medicine she had brought had proved insufficient, and more must be obtained; many lives, she knew, depended upon it. To go back to Ekenge was out of the question. Was there, she asked the people about her, a way to Ikorofiong? The Rev. Alexander Cruickshank was stationed there, and he would supply what was needed. They confessed that there was a road to the river and a canoe could be got to cross, but they dared not go there, they would never come back, they would be seized and killed. Some one told her that a Calabar man, whose mother was an Okoyong woman and who came to trade, was living in his canoe not far off. "Seek him," said she. He was found, but would not land until assured that it was a white woman who wanted him. Mary prevailed upon him to undertake the journey; and he returned with all she required and more. With the thoughtfulness and kindliness of pioneer missionaries Mr. and Mrs. Cruickshank sent over tea and sugar and other comforts and, what she valued not less, a letter of cheer and sympathy. Hot with fever, racked with headache, she brewed the tea in a basin, and it seemed to her a royal feast. The world of friends had drawn nearer, she felt less lonely, her spirits revived. The patient drew back from the valley of death, regained consciousness, and gathered strength; and the women looking on in wonder, became obedient and reliable nurses; the freemen thought no more of sacrifice and blood; the whole community had visions of peace; they expressed a wish to make terms with Calabar and to trade with the Europeans and learn "book." She was engaged all day in answering questions. Morning and evening she held a simple service, and seldom had a more reverent audience. Much worn out, she left them at last with regret, promising to be always their mother, to try and secure a teacher, and to come again and see them. Her faith and fearlessness had been justified, and she had her reward, for from that time forward Okoyong was free to her. VIII. THE POWER OF WITCHCRAFT The belief in witchcraft dominated the lives of the people like a dark shadow more menacing than the shadow of death. Taking advantage of their superstition and fear the witch-doctors--some of the cunningest rogues the world has produced--held them in abject bondage, and Mary was constantly at battle with the results of their handiwork. The chief of Ekenge was lying ill. Since she had taken up residence in his yard he had treated her with consideration, and guarded her interests and well-being, and now came the opportunity to reciprocate his kindness. She found him suffering from an abscess in his back, and gave herself up to the task of nursing and curing him. All was going well, when one morning, as she entered with his tea and bread, she saw a living fowl impaled on a stick. Scattered about were palm branches and eggs, and round the neck and limbs of the patient were placed various charms. The brightness of her greeting died away. Edem was suspiciously voluble and frank, flattered the goodness and ability of the white people, but said they could not understand the malignity of the black man's heart. "Ma, it has been made known to us that some one is to blame for this sickness, and here is proof of it--all these have been taken out of my back." He held out a parcel which, on opening, she found to contain shot, powder, teeth, bones, seeds, egg-shells, and other odds and ends. On seeing the collection the natives standing around shook with terror, and frantically denounced the wickedness of the persons who had sought to compass the death of the chief. Mary's heart sank, she knew what the accusation meant. At once, before her eyes, men and women were singled out, and seized and chained and fastened to posts in the yard. Remonstrance, rebuke, argument were in vain. The chief at last became irritated with her importunity, and ordered his retainers to carry him to one of his farms, whither he was accompanied by his wives, those of note belonging to his house, and the prisoners. He forbade "Ma" to follow, and enjoined secrecy upon all, in order that no tales might be carried back to her. But she had her own means of obtaining intelligence of what was going on, and she heard that many others were being chained, as they were denounced by the witch-doctors. The chief became worse, and stronger measures were decided on: all the suspected must die. Mary was powerless to do more than send a message of stern warning. Days of suspense and prayer followed. On the last night of the year she was lying awake thinking of the old days and the old friends, her heart homesick, and the hot tears in her eyes, when the sound of voices and the flash of a lantern made her start up. It was a deputation from the farm. They had learnt that the native pastor, the Rev. Esien Ukpabio, at Adiabo--the first native convert in Calabar --was skilled in this form of disease, and would "Ma" give them a letter asking him to come over and see the chief? The letter was quickly given, and she returned to her rest and her memories. When the native pastor asked what was the matter, the reply was that "Some one's soul was troubling the chief." "In that case," he said, "I can do nothing," and no persuasion or bribe could move him from his position. His sister, however, thought it might be well for her to go and see what she could do, and he consented. Under her care the abscess broke and the chief recovered, and all the prisoners were released with the exception of one woman, who was put to death. Aware of the uncanny way in which his guest heard of things the chief sent his son to forestall any tale-bearer. "No one has been injured," she was assured. "Only one worthless slave woman has been sold to the Inokon." As it was the custom to dispose of slaves who were criminals and incorrigible to this cannibal section of the Aros for food at their high feasts the story was plausible, but she knew better, and when the son added that the three children of the victim had been "quite agreeable," she thought of the misery she had witnessed on their faces. She pretended to believe the message, however, for to have shown knowledge of the murder would have been to condemn scores to the poison ordeal, in order that her informant might be discovered. When the chief was convalescent it was announced by drum that he would emerge on a certain day from his filth--for the natives do not wash during illness--and that gifts would be received. His wives and friends and slaves brought rum, rods, clothes, goats, and fowls, and there ensued a week of drinking, dancing, and fighting, worse than Mary had yet seen. In the midst of it all she moved, helpless and lonely, and somewhat sad, yet not without faith in a better time, IX. SORCERY IN THE PATH A more extraordinary instance of superstition occurred soon after. A chief in the vicinity, noted far and wide for his ferocity, intimated that he was coming to Ekenge on a visit. It meant trouble for the women, and she prayed earnestly that he might be deterred from his purpose. But he duly appeared, and throwing all her anxiety upon God, she faced him calm and unafraid. Days and nights of wild licence followed, accompanied by an outcrop of disputes, most of which were brought to her to settle. One morning she found the guest drunk to excess, but determined to return at once to his village. His freemen and slaves were beyond control, and soon the place was in an uproar: swords were drawn, guns were fired, the excitement reached fever heat. With a courage that seemed reckless she hustled them into order and hurried them off and accompanied them for the protection of the villages through which they must pass. She was able to prevent more drink being supplied to them, and all went well until, at one point on the bush track, they came upon a plantain sucker stuck in the ground, and, lying about, a cocoanut shell, palm leaves, and nuts. The fierce warriors who had been challenging each other and every one they came across to fight to the death, were paralysed at the sight of the rubbish, and turning with a yell of terror rushed back the way they had come. Mary sought forcibly to restrain them, but, frantic with fright, they eluded her grasp, and ran shrieking towards the last town they had passed to wreak vengeance on the sorcerers. She ran with them, praying for swiftness and strength: she passed them one by one, and breathlessly threw herself into the middle of the path, and dared them to advance. She felt she was almost as mad as they were, but she relied on a Power Who had never failed her, and He did not fail her now. Her audacity awed them: they stopped, protested, argued, and gradually their hot anger, resentment, and fear died down, and eventually they retraced their steps. She took up the "medicine" they dreaded, and pitched it into the bush, ironically invoking the sorcery to pass into her body if it wanted a victim. But nobody could persuade them to proceed that way, and they made a long detour. Unfortunately drink was smuggled to the band, and fighting began. She induced the more sober to assist her to tie a few of the desperadoes to trees. Leaving these, the company went on dancing, brandishing arms, embracing each other, and committing such folly that she felt that she could bear it no longer. As the swift twilight fell she called her few followers and returned, releasing on the way the delinquents bound to the trees, but sending them homewards with their hands fastened behind their backs. On passing the scene of the sorcery she picked up the plantain sucker, laughingly remarking that she would plant it in her yard, and give the witchcraft it possessed an opportunity of proving its powers. Nothing is hidden in an African community, news travels swiftly. Next morning came a messenger from the chief she had escorted home. It had been a terrible night, he said; the native doctor had come to his master and had taken teeth, shot, hair, seeds, fish-bones, salt, and what not, out of his leg, If they had been left in the body they would have killed him. It was the plantain sucker that was to blame, and his master demanded it back. Mary read the menace in the request: the plant was to be used as evidence against some victim. Argument and sarcasm alike failed, and she was obliged to hand it over, Edem was standing by. "That," he grimly remarked, "means the death of some one." On the arrival of the sucker native oaths were administered to all in the village accused of the sorcery, ordeals of various kinds were imposed on young and old, slave and free, and the life-blood of a man was demanded by way of settlement of the matter. Strong in their innocence the people resisted the claim, but by guile the chief's myrmidons caught and handcuffed a fine-looking young man belonging to one of the best families and dragged him into hiding. Any attempt to effect a rescue would have meant his murder, and in their dilemma the people thought of the white "Ma" and sent and begged her to come and plead with the chief for the life and liberty of the prisoner. She had never a more unpleasant task, for she detested the callous savage, but there was nothing else to do; and she went depending less upon herself than upon God. She walked tremblingly into the man's presence, but her fear soon passed into disgust and indignation. He was the personification of brutality, selfishness, and cowardice. Laughing at her entreaties he told her to bring the villagers and let them fight it out. She pointed out that neither he nor his House had suffered by what had happened; that the accused people had taken every oath and ordeal prescribed by their laws; and that his procedure was therefore unjust and unlawful, "It is due to your presence alone that I escaped," he retorted; "they murdered, me in intention if not in fact." His head wile backed him up, and both became so rude and offensive to Mary that it took all her grace to keep her temper and her ground. As she would not leave the house the chief said he would, and walked out, remarking that he was going to his farm on business. Swallowing her pride she followed him and begged him humbly as an act of clemency to free the young man. He turned, elated at her suppliant attitude, laughed loudly, and said that no violence would be used until all his demands had been complied with. She returned to her yard, and days of strain followed. The situation developed into a quarrel between the truculent chief and Edem, and every man went armed, women crept about in fear, scouts arrived hourly with the latest tidings. Her life was a long prayer.... One day the young man was set free, without reason or apology being given or condition exacted, and told to go to his people. With his safety all desire for revenge was stilled, and matters resumed their normal course. The heart of Mary once more overflowed with gratitude and joy. X. HOW HOUSE AND HALL WERE BUILT She was impatient to have a house of her own, but the natives were slow to come to her assistance. They thought the haste she exhibited was undignified, and smiled compassionately upon her. There was no hurry-- there never is in Africa. If she would but wait all would be well. When argument failed, they went off and left her to cut down the bush and dig out the roots herself. Lounging about in the village they commiserated a Mother who was so strongheaded and wilful, and consoled themselves with the thought of the work they would do when once they began. She could make no progress, and there was nothing for it but to tend the sick, receive visitors, mend the rags of the village, cut out clothing for those who developed a desire for it, and look after her family of bairns. One day, however, the spirit moved the people and they flocked to the ground. She constituted herself architect, clerk of works, and chief labourer. Her idea was to construct a number of small mud-huts and sheds, which would eventually form the back buildings of the Mission House proper. Four tree-trunks with forked tops were driven into the ground, and upon them were laid other logs. Bamboos, crossed and recrossed, and covered with palm mats, formed the roof and verandah. Upright sticks, interlaced and daubed with red clay, made the walls. Two rooms, each eleven feet by six with a shaded verandah, thus came into existence. Then a shed was added to each end, making three sides of a square. Fires were kept blazing day and night, in order to dry the material and to smoke it as a protection against vermin. Drains were dug and the surrounding bush cleared. In one of the rooms she put a fireplace of red clay, and close to it a sideboard and dresser of the same material. Holes were cut out for bowls, cups, and other dishes, and rubbed with a stone until the surface was smooth. The top had a cornice to keep the plates from falling off, and was polished with a native black dye. Her next achievement was a mud-sofa where she could recline, and a seat near the fireside where the cook could sit and attend to her duties. In the other room she deposited her boxes, books, and furniture. Hanging upon the posts were pots and pans and jugs, and her alphabet and reading-sheets. In front stood her sewing-machine, rusty and useless after its exposure in the damp air. There also at night was a small organ, which during the day occupied her bed. Such was the "caravan," as Mary called it, which was her dwelling for a year: a wonderful house it seemed to the people of Okoyong, who regarded it with astonishment and awe. To herself it was a delight. Never had the building of a home been watched with such loving interest. And when it was finished no palace held a merrier family. At meals all sat round one pot, spoons were a luxury none required, and never had food tasted so sweet. There were drawbacks--all the cows, goats, and fowls in the neighbourhood, for instance, seemed to think the little open yard was the finest rendezvous in the village. Her next thought was for the church and schoolhouse. A mistress of missionary strategy, she wished to build this at Ifako, in order that she might control a larger area, but the chiefs for long showed no interest in the matter. One morning, however, an Ifako boy sought her with the message, "My master wants you." She thought the command somewhat peremptory, but went. To her surprise she found the ground cleared; posts, sticks, and mud ready, and the chiefs waiting her orders. She designed a hall thirty feet by twenty-five, with two rooms at the end for her own use, in case storm or sickness or palaver should prevent her going home. Work was started; and not a single slave was employed in the carrying of the material or in the construction. King Eyo sent the mats, some thousands in number, for the roof, and free women carried them the four miles from the beach, plastered the walls, moulded the mud-seats, beat the floor, and cleared up, and all cheerfully, and without thought of reward. Doors and windows were still awanting, but she asked for the services of a carpenter from Calabar to do this bit of work; and meanwhile the humble building, the first ever erected for the worship of God in Okoyong, was formally opened. It was a day of days for the people. Mary had prepared them for it, and all appeared in their new Sunday attire, which, in many cases, consisted of nothing more than a clean skin. But the contents of various Mission boxes had been kept for the occasion, and the children, after being washed, were decked for the first time in garments of many shapes and colour--"the wearing of a garment," said Mary, "never fails to create self-respect." It was a radiant and excited company that gathered in the hall. There was perhaps little depth in their emotion, but she regarded the event as a step towards better things. Her idea was to separate the day from the rest, and to make it a means of bringing about cleanliness and personal dignity, while it also imposed upon the people a little of that discipline which they so much needed. The chiefs were present, and they voluntarily made the promise before all that the house would be kept sacred to God and His service, that the slave-women and children would be sent to it for instruction, that no weapon of warfare would be carried into it, and that it would be a sanctuary for those who fled to it for refuge. Services and day school were now held regularly in the hall. The latter was well attended, all the pupils showing eagerness to learn "book," and many making rapid progress. The larger Mission House, which Mary intended to occupy the space in front of the yard at Ekenge, was a stiffer problem for the people, and for a time they hung back from the attempt to build it. XI. A PALAYER AT THE PALACE Perhaps the greatest obstacle to Christian truth and progress was not superstition or custom, but drink. She had seen something of the traffic in rum and gin at the coast, but she was amazed at what went on in Okoyong. All in the community, old and young, drank, and often she lay down to rest at night knowing that not a sober man and hardly a sober woman was within miles of her. When the villagers came home from a drunken bout the chief men would rouse her up and demand why she had not risen to receive them. At all hours of the day and night they would stagger into the hut, and lie down and fall asleep. Her power, then, was not strong enough to prevent them--but the time came. The spirit came up from Calabar and was the chief article of trade. When a supply arrived processions of girls carrying demijohns trooped in from all quarters, as if they were going to the spring for water. At the funeral of one big man seven casks of liquor were consumed, in addition to that bought in small quantities by the poorer classes. A refugee of good birth and conduct remarked to Mary once that he had been three days in the yard and had not tasted the white man's rum. "Three days!" she replied, "and you think that long!" "Ma," he said, in evident astonishment, "three whole days! I have never passed a day without drinking since I was a boy." She fought this evil with all her energy and skill. Her persuasion so wrought on the chiefs that on several occasions they agreed to put away the drink at palavers, with the result that those who had come from a distance departed, sober and in peace, to the wonderment of all around. She saw that the people were tempted and fell because of their idleness and isolation; for they still maintained their aloofness from all their neighbours, and there was yet no free communication with Calabar. If a missionary happened to pay her a visit he would be stopped on the forest track by sentries who, after satisfying themselves as to his identity, "cooeed" to other watchers farther on. Dr. Livingstone believed that the opening up of Central Africa to trade would help to stamp out the slave traffic, and in the same way she was convinced that more legitimate commerce and the development of wants among the people would to some extent undermine the power of drink. All the ordinary trade she had seen done so far was the sale of five shillings' worth of handkerchiefs and a sixpenny looking-glass. She urged the chiefs to take the initiative, and was never tired of showing them her possessions, in order to incite within them a desire to own similar articles. They were greatly taken with the glass windows and doors, and one determined to procure wood and "shut himself in." Her clock, sewing-machine, and organ were always a source of wonder, and people came from far and near to see them. The women quickly became envious of her household goods, and she could have sold her bedcovers, curtains, meat-safe, bedstead, chest of drawers, and other objects a score of times. More promising still was their desire to have clean dresses like their "Ma," and she spent a large portion of her time cutting out and shaping the long simple garment that served to hide their nakedness. She also sent down to Calabar and asked some of the native trading people whom she knew to come up with cloth, pots, and dishes, and other useful articles, guaranteeing them her protection; but so great was their fear of the Okoyong warriors and so poor their faith in her power, that they refused point blank--they would as soon have thought of going-to the moon. "Well," said Mary, "if they won't come to us we must go to them." She had been seeking to familiarise the minds of the chiefs with the idea of settling their disputes by means of arbitration instead of by fighting, and had been cherishing the hope that she might persuade some of them to proceed to Creek Town and discuss the subject with King Eyo. She now proposed to the King that he should invite them to a palaver at his house, and at the same time she would endeavour to have some produce sent down direct to the traders. The King had never ceased to take an interest in her work: he frequently sent up special messengers to enquire if all was well, and always reminded her that he was willing to be of service to the Okoyong people. A grandson of the first King Eyo also sent men occasionally, with instructions to do anything they could for the white Mother, and to bring down her messages to Calabar. Such kindly thought often took the edge off her loneliness. The King at once sent the invitation, and, trusting more in the word of Mary than in that of the King, all the chiefs in her neighbourhood accepted the offer and an expedition to Creek Town was organised. A canoe was obtained, and heaped with yams and plantains, gifts for the King, and with bags of palm-kernels and a barrel of oil, the first instalment of trade with the Europeans. Alas! the natives know nothing about a load-line, and as the tide rose the canoe sank. It was not an unmixed pleasure setting out with men who were ignorant of the management of canoes, but another day was fixed and another canoe was found. The whole of Okoyong seemed to be at the beach, and every man, woman, and child was uttering counsel and heartening the intrepid voyagers. Several of the chiefs drew back and disappeared, and of the half-dozen who remained only two could be persuaded to embark when they learnt that guns and swords must be left behind. "Ma, you make women of us! Did ever a man go to a strange place without his arms?" "Ma" was inexorable. She sat down and waited, and after a two hours' palaver swords were ungirt and handed with the guns to the women. Those who still declined to go were received back with rejoicing, and farewells were made with those who went, amidst wailings and tears. A start was made, but the craft proved to be ill-balanced, and the cargo had to be shifted. As this was being done she detected a number of swords hidden below the bags of kernels. Her eyes flashed, and the people scattered out of the way as she pitched the arms out on the beach. With a meekness that was amusing the men scrambled into their places and the canoe shot into the river, Mary taking a paddle and wielding it with the best of the men. The journey was made through dense darkness and drizzling rain, and occupied twelve hours. But she was rewarded by the result. Nothing could exceed the kindness of King Eyo. He bore himself as a Christian gentleman, listened courteously to the passionate and foolish speech of the Okoyong representatives, reminded the supercilious Calabar chiefs that the Gospel which had made them what they were had only just been taken to Okoyong, and in giving the verdict which went against them, he gently made it the finding of righteousness, according to the laws of God. When all had been settled he asked Mary to take the chiefs over his palace, and invited them to a meeting in the church in the evening, where he spoke words of cheer and counsel from the words, "To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." This experience made a great impression upon the chiefs: they left with a profound reverence for the King and a determination to abide by his decisions in the future, whilst Mary had added much to her dignity and position. This was proved the morning after they returned to Ekenge. She was awakened by a confused noise, and on looking out was astonished to find several chiefs directing slaves, who were working with building material. "What is the matter?" she asked in wonder. Instead of answering her one of the chiefs who had accompanied her to Calabar turned to the crowd and, in a burst of eloquence, described all he had seen at Creek Town, how the Europeans lived, and how King Eyo and every chief and gentleman had treated their Mother as a person superior to them, and given her all honour. They in Okoyong must now treat her as befitted her rank and station, and must build her a proper house to live in, Mary was hard put to it to preserve her gravity. Soon afterwards a young slave, for whom she had often pled, began to wash his hands in some dirty water in a dish outside: his master ran at him with a whip, and it was all she could do to prevent him being lashed. Opening out again and again he called the lad a fool for daring to touch a dish used by their Great White Mother. But what was more important than all was the fact that the way had at last been opened up for trade relations with Calabar. The people began to make oil and buy and sell kernels, and to send the produce down the river direct to the factories. As she had foreseen, they had now less time for palavers, and less inclination for useless drinking, and still more useless quarrelling and fighting. XII. THE SCOTTISH CARPENTER The story of the settlement in Okoyong and of the building of the hut and hall was related by Miss Slessor in the _Missionary Record_ of the Church for March 1889. The hall she described as "a beautiful building, though neither doors nor windows are yet put in, as we are waiting for a carpenter. And," she added, "if there were only a house built, any other agent could come and take up the work if I fail." In the same number of the _Record_ there appeared an appeal by the Foreign Mission Committee for "a practical carpenter, with an interest in Christian work," for Calabar. There happened to be in Edinburgh at this time a carpenter named Mr. Charles Ovens, belonging to the Free Church, who was keenly interested in foreign missions. As a boy he had wished to be a missionary, but believing that only ministers could hold such a post he relinquished the idea. He was an experienced tradesman of the fine old type, a Scot of Scots, with the happy knack of looking on the bright side of things. Having been in America on a prolonged visit he was about to return there, and had gone to say good-bye to an old lady friend, a United Presbyterian. The latter remarked to him, "I see Miss Slessor wants a man to put in her doors and windows--why don't you go to Calabar?" He had never heard of Miss Slessor, but the suggestion struck him as good, and he straightway saw the Foreign Mission Secretary, and then went and changed the address on his baggage. He left in May, and on his arrival in Calabar was sent up to finish the work Mary had begun. All his speech at Duke Town was of America and its wonders, but when he returned some months later he could talk of nothing but Okoyong. He found Mary attired in a simple dress, without hat or shoes, dining at a table in the yard in the company of goats and hens. She sprang up with delight on hearing the Scots tongue, and welcomed him warmly. The conditions were most primitive, and his room was only eight feet long and five feet wide, but he possessed much of her Spartan spirit. Although ignorant of the native language he was of great assistance to her during his stay, while his humour and irresistible laugh lightened many a weary day. As he worked he sang "auld Scots sangs," like the "Rowan Tree" and "The Auld Hoose." When she heard the latter tears came into her eyes at the memories it recalled. Even Tom, his native assistant, was affected. "I don't like these songs," he said, "they make my heart big and my eyes water!" The Mission House had progressed well under Mary's superintendence. She had aimed at making it equal to any at the big stations, and had planned an "upstairs" building with a verandah six feet above the ground, and a kitchen and dispensary. She had mudded the walls, and the mat roof was being tied on, and now that Mr. Ovens was at work all was promising well, when an event occurred which put a stop to operations for months. XIII. HER GREATEST BATTLE AND VICTORY One morning, when nature was as lovely as a dream, Mr. Ovens was working at the new house, and Miss Slessor was sitting on the verandah watching him. Suddenly, from far away in the forest, there came a strange, eerie sound. Ever on the alert for danger, Mary rose and listened. "There is something wrong," she exclaimed. For a moment she stood in the tense attitude of a hunter seeking to locate the quarry, and then, swiftly moving into the forest, vanished from sight. Mr. Ovens sent Tom, his boy, off after her to find out what was the matter. He returned with a message that there had been an accident, and that Mr. Ovens was to come at once and bring restoratives. As the ominous news became known to the natives standing around a look of fear came into their faces. Mr. Ovens found her sitting beside the unconscious body of a young man. "It is Etim, the eldest son of our chief, Edem," she explained. "He was about to be married, and had been building a house. He came here to lift and bring a tree; when handling the log it slipped and struck him on the back of the neck, and paralysis has ensued." He glanced at her face as if surprised at its gravity. She divined what he thought, and speaking out of her intimate knowledge of the people and their ways she said, "There's going to be trouble; no death of a violent character comes apart from witchcraft.... Can you make some sort of a litter to carry him?" Divesting himself of part of his clothing, and obtaining some strong sticks, he made a rough stretcher, on which the inert form was laid conveyed to Ekenge. For a fortnight Mary tended the patient in his mother's house, hoping against hope that he would recover, and that the crisis she dreaded would be averted, but he was beyond human help. One Sunday morning he lay dying, and the news sent a spasm of terror throughout the district. Hearing the sound of wailing Mary rushed to the yard and found the lad being held up, some natives blowing smoke into his nostrils, some rubbing ground pepper into his eyes, others pressing Ms mouth open, and his uncle, Ekpenyong, shouting into his ears. Such treatment naturally hastened the end. When life was fled, the chief dropped the body into her arms and shouted, "Sorcerers have killed and they must die. Bring the witch-doctor." At the words every man and woman disappeared, leaving only the mother, who, in an agony of grief, cast herself down beside the body. When the medicine-man arrived he laid the blame of the tragedy upon a certain village, to which the armed freemen at once marched. They seized over a dozen men and women, the others escaping into the forest, and after sacking all the houses returned with the prisoners loaded with chains, and fastened them to posts in the yard, which had only one entrance. Anxious to pacify the rage of the chiefs, father and uncle, Mary undertook to do honour to the dead lad by dressing him in the style befitting his rank. Fine silk cloth was wound round his body, shirts and vests were put on, over these went a suit of clothes which she had made for his father, the head was shaved into patterns and painted yellow, and round it was wound a silk turban, all being crowned with a tall black and scarlet hat with plumes of brilliant feathers. Thus attired the body was carried out into a booth in the women's yard, where it was fastened, seated in an arm-chair, under a large umbrella. To the hands were tied the whip and silver-headed stick that denoted his position, while a mirror was arranged in front of him, in order that he might enjoy the reflection of his grandeur. Beside him was a table, upon which were set out all the treasures of the house, including the skulls taken in war, and a few candles begged from Mary. When the people were admitted and saw the weird spectacle they became frenzied with delight, danced and capered, and started on a course of drinking and wantonness. "You'll have to stop all work," Mary said to Mr. Ovens, who felt as if he were moving in some grotesque fantasy of sleep; "this is going to be a serious business. We can't leave these prisoners for a moment. I'll watch beside them all night and you'll take the day." And time and time about in that filthy yard, through the heat of the day and the chill of the night, these two brave souls kept guard opposite the wretched band of prisoners, with the half-naked people, armed with guns and machetes, dancing drinking about them. As one barrel of rum was finished another was brought in, and the supply seemed endless. The days went by, and Mr. Ovens lost patience, and declared he would go and get a chisel and hammer and free the prisoners at all costs. "Na, na," replied Mary wisely, "we'll have a little more patience." One day she went to Mr. Ovens and said, "They want a coffin." "They'll have to make one," he retorted. "I think you'd better do it," she rejoined; "the boy's father has some wood of his own, of which he was going to make a door like mine, and he is willing to use it for the purpose." They proceeded to the yard to obtain measurements, and as they entered Mary caught sight of some eséré beans lying on the pounding stone. She shivered. What could she do! She returned to her hut. Prayer had been her solace and strength during all these days and nights, and now with passionate entreaty she beseeched God for guidance and help in the struggle that was to come. When she rose from her knees her fear had vanished, and she was tranquil and confident. Reaching the yard she took the two brother chiefs aside, and told them that there must be no sacrifice of life. They did not deny that the poison ordeal was about to take place, but they argued that only those guilty of causing the death would suffer. She did not reply, but went to the door of the compound and sat down: from there she was determined not to move until the issue was decided. The chiefs were angry. To have a white woman-- and such a woman--amongst them was good, but she must not interfere with their customs and laws. The mother of the dead lad became violent. Even the slaves were openly hostile and threatening. The crowd; maddened by drink, ran wildly about, flourishing their guns and swords. "Raise our master from the dead," they cried, "and you shall have the prisoners." Night fell. Mr. Ovens gathered up the children and put them to bed. Mary scribbled a note to Duke Town and gave it to the two native assistant carpenters, and directed them in English to steal in the darkness to the beach and make their way down the river. There was distraction within the yard as well as without. Three of the women were mothers with babies, who were crying incessantly from hunger and fear. Another, who had chains round her neck and bare limbs, had an only daughter about fifteen years of age, who was a cousin of the dead lad, and the betrothed wife of his father. The girl clung to her mother, weeping piteously. Sometimes she would come and clasp "Ma's" feet, beseeching her to help her, or waylay the chiefs, and offer herself in servitude for life in exchange for her mother's freedom. Mr. Ovens had gone to the hut, and Mary was keeping vigil when a stir warned her of danger. Several men came and unlocked the chains on one of the women--a mother--and ordered her to the front of the corpse to take the bean. Mary was in a dilemma. Was it a ruse to get her out of the yard? If she followed, would they bar the entrance and wreak their vengeance on the others who remained? "Do not go," they cried, and gazed at her pleadingly. But she could not see a woman walk straight to death. One swift appeal to God and she was after the woman. The table was covered with a white cloth, and upon it stood a glass of water containing the poison. As the victim was in the act of lifting the glass she touched her on the shoulder and whispered, "_'Ifehe!_" (run). She gave a quick glance of intelligence into the compelling eyes and off both bounded, and were in the bush before any one realised they were gone. They reached the hut. "Quick," Mary cried to Mr. Ovens, "take the woman and hide her." In a moment he had drawn her in and locked the door, and Mary flew back to the yard. "Where is she?" the prisoners cried. "Safe in my house," she answered. They were amazed. She herself wondered at her immunity from harm. It might be that the natives were stupefied with drink--but she thought of her prayer. Finding that she was not to be moved, the chiefs endeavoured to cajole and deceive her. "God will not let anybody die of the bean if they are not guilty," they said. They released two of the prisoners, substituting imbiam, the native oath, for the poison ordeal, and later, five others. She still stood firm, and two more obtained their freedom. There they stopped. "We have done more for you than we have ever done for any one, and we will die before we go further." Three remained. One woman, with a baby, they would not release. "Akpo, the chief of her house, escaped into the bush, and the fact of his flight proves his guilt," they argued; "we cannot ransom her." The other two, a freeman and the woman named Inyam with the daughter, were relatives of the bereaved mother, and also specially implicated, and they were seized and led away. Mary hesitated to follow, but hoping that the girl might be able to keep her informed of what was going on she decided to remain with the woman with the infant. Another dawn brought visitors from a distance, who only added to the rioting and her perplexity. They told her that Egbo was coming, and advised her to fly to Calabar. She replied that he could come and play the fool as much as he pleased, but she would not desert her post. The father stormed and threatened, and declared he would burn down the house. "You are welcome," she said, "it is not mine." In a blazing passion he cried that the woman would die. So terrified and exhausted was the victim that she begged "Ma" to give in. At this point Ma Eme came to the rescue: kneeling to her brother she besought him to allow Mary to have the prisoner in the meantime--she could be chained to the verandah of the hut, and could not possibly escape with such a weight of irons. Mary caught at the plan, and declared that she would give a fair hearing to the charges against the house which she represented. To her infinite surprise the chiefs gave in. "But," said they, "if she is sent out of the way to Calabar, you pay a heavy fine, and leave here for ever." Fearing they would repent, she hastily called for the keys to unlock the chain, but the slaves pretended ignorance, said they could not find them, and denounced the liberation of the murderers. Patience and firmness again succeeded, the keys were produced, the locks were opened. Mary gathered up the long folds of chain, and Ma Eme, also trembling with eagerness, pushed them out in order that they might escape the crowd. They ran through the scrub to the hut, and here the mother and child were housed in a large packing-case, while a barricade was put up to make the position more secure. During the afternoon two of the Calabar missionaries arrived, and added the weight of their influence to Mary's, giving a magic-lantern exhibition in the open, and in other ways endeavouring to lend prestige to the funeral, in order to compensate for the lack of human sacrifice. A quieter night followed, though the vigil was unbroken. In the morning the father of the dead lad called her aside, and in a long harangue justified his desire to do his son honour by giving him a retinue in the spirit-land. Then calling to his retainers he ordered them to bring the freeman. Dragging him forward, limping and dazed, he presented him formally to "Ma," saying, "This further act of clemency must satisfy you. The woman who is left must take the poison: you cannot object--she will recover if she is innocent." She thanked him warmly, but renewed her entreaties for the release of the woman also. The chief turned away in anger and disgust, and the battle went on. As the missionaries were obliged to return to Calabar she and Mr. Ovens were again left alone. All day she followed the chief, coaxing and pleading. Sometimes he ignored her; sometimes he brusquely showed his annoyance; sometimes he looked at her in pity, as if he thought she were crazed. But he gave her no hope. When a whisper came to her ears that the burial would take place that night in the house of the chief she was heart-sick with dread. Late in the evening, as she was busy with her household, she heard a faint cry at the barricade: "Ma, Ma, make haste, let me in." Noiselessly she pulled aside the planks, and Inyam, heavily ironed, crawled on her hands and knees into the room. Her story was that she had managed by friction to cut one of the links of the chain which bound her, and had escaped by climbing the roof. Mary looked at the thick chain hanging about her, and guessed whose were the kindly black hands that had given her aid, but she kept her thought to herself. The last of the prisoners was now safe, the funeral in the house of the chief had taken place, and only a cow had been placed in the coffin, and her joy was great. But her troubles were not over. A party of natives coming to the funeral met another party returning drunk with excitement and rum. Recalling some old quarrel the latter killed one of the men they met, cut off his head, and carried it away as a trophy. Fighting became general between the factions, and many were seriously wounded. One afternoon the village went suddenly mad with panic. All the women and children and all the men without arms rushed frantically about. Mothers clutched their babies, wives and slaves seized what belongings they could carry, children screamed and held on to the first person they met. They had heard sounds that heralded the advance of the dreaded Egbo. Then, by a common impulse, all rushed for the protection of the white woman's yard. She pulled down the barricade, packed as many children and women into her room as it could hold, and ordered the others into the bush at the back. The women were almost insane with terror, and the manacled prisoner begged to be killed. As the beating of the drum and the shouting of the mob drew near Mary trembled, but again prayer restored her to calm. Even when the village was invaded and shouting began, she was without fear. And, strange to say, the mob remained but a short time, and not a shot went home. They had set fire to every house in the village from which the prisoners had been taken, and wrecked another and burned the stock alive. As no powerful chief submitted to Egbo sent out by another House, Edem's village also ran amok, and for over a week the population haunted the forest, shooting down indiscriminately every man and woman who passed. It was not until much blood had been shed that the various bands became tired of the struggle and returned to their dwellings. For three weeks the prisoners were kept in the hut, and then "Ma's" pressure on the chiefs succeeded, and the chained woman was released on condition that if her chief Akpo were caught he would take the poison ordeal, whilst Inyam, taking advantage of all the people being drunk one night, stole out into the forest and escaped. What became of her Mary never knew, until one day, months after, when travelling, she passed a number of huts in the bush, and was accosted by name and found herself face to face with the refugee. This was the longest and severest strain to which she was subjected; it was her worst encounter with the passions of the natives, her greatest conflict with the most terrible of their customs, and she came out of it victorious. For the first time in the dark history of the tribe the death and funeral of one of the rank of a chief had occurred without the sacrifice of life. In some mysterious way she had been able to subdue these wild people and bend them to her will. Her fame went far and wide throughout Okoyong and beyond into regions still unexplored, and many thought of her with a kind of awe as one possessing superhuman power. There were, indeed, some amongst those who knew her who had a lurking suspicion that she was more than woman. XIV. THE AFTERMATH Various incidents came as an aftermath to these happenings. One afternoon the women came running to "Ma" saying that the elder chief, Ekpenyong, was bent on taking the poison ordeal. When she reached his yard she found him in a fury, shouting and threatening, the women remonstrating, the slaves weeping. It was some time ere she could learn the cause of the uproar. A man from a neighbouring village had been about whispering that Ekpenyong had slain his nephew, in order that his own son might absorb the inheritance. Ekpenyong was determined to undergo the test, and in accordance with native law, which gave the right to a freeman to call others of equal rank to share the trial with him, he demanded that his brother Edem--who it was alleged had instigated the man to make the accusation--should also take the poison. When Mary had grasped the situation she ridiculed the attitude of the chief, scolded him unmercifully, and at last secured his promise not to carry out his threat. As a guarantee of his good faith she claimed possession of the eséré beans. He denied that he had any. With the help of his womenkind she made a secret search, and found eleven beans at the bottom of a basket, which she conveyed in the darkness to her hut. As more beans could not be obtained until the morning she felt that all was well for the night. Shouting, however, made her run back. Mad with drink the chief was clinging to a bag which the women were endeavouring to seize. He was hitting out at them with his heavy hand, and most of them were bleeding. "There is poison in that bag," they cried. "No, Ma, only my palm-nuts and cartridges." Quietly, firmly, persistently, she demanded the bag. He threw it at her. Opening it she found palm-nuts and cartridges. For a moment she looked foolish, but diving deeper she pulled out no fewer than forty of the deadly beans. "I'll take the liberty of keeping these," she said coolly, but with a swiftly beating heart. "No, no," he shouted, and his followers joined him in protest. Outwardly calm she walked between the lines of armed men, ironically bidding them take the bag from her. But their hands were held, and she passed safely through, reached her hut, handed the beans to Mr. Ovens, and returned to the scene to pacify the crowd. Next morning she learnt to her consternation that Ekpenyong had risen stealthily during the night and gone off on his errand of death. Fortunately a chief some miles off detained him by force until she arrived. She stuck resolutely to him, and as all the more powerful chiefs came over to her side from sheer admiration of her pluck, he had eventually to abandon his purpose. After taking the native oath he betook himself to another part of the forest, where he built up a new settlement. One more episode remained to round off the sequence of events. The murderer of the young man in the funeral party was the oldest son of a House noted for bloody deeds, and the act roused the slumbering fury of its neighbours. War was declared and fighting began. Mary interfered and pressed for arbitration, and both sides at last acceded to her request, and asked her to conduct the palaver. Aware that the man was a triple murderer and the penalty death, she shrank from the duty, and begged them to put the matter into the hands of a Calabar chief. This they did, and went to Ikunetu on the Cross River, where "blood for blood" was the verdict. Fines and death by substitution of slaves were offered and refused; the youngest son, a mere baby, was sent in atonement and rejected; then the second son, a lad of twenty, was despatched, and it was agreed that his death would redeem his brother. Mary's distress was acute, especially as she had declined to act as judge, but she was relieved on learning that the prisoner had escaped, and was being sheltered by one of the slave-traders across the river. She wished to get him into her own yard, but the weeping mother said it was too dangerously near home. One morning, early, she heard the sound of rapid firing, and in alarm she sent messengers to enquire the cause. The lad had been betrayed, brought back, filled with gin, and amidst discharge of guns, beating of drums, singing and dancing, had been strangled and hung in the presence of his mother and sister. These two alone mourned the dead, the others were glad that the matter had been so easily settled, and for a week the loafers and drunkards in the district held high carnival. As time passed and the heat of the persecution cooled, Mary made tentative proposals that Akpo, the escaped chief, and his family, should be allowed to return. "I will go and fetch them myself if their safety be guaranteed," she said. Edem, the father of the dead lad, replied, "Very well, Ma, you can say that all thought of vengeance is gone from our heart, and if he wishes to come to his own village or live in your home or go anywhere in Okoyong he is at liberty to do so." But trust is rare in Africa, and suspicion dies hard, and Akpo could not bring himself to believe that Edem wished him well, and he elected to remain where he was. Again she paid the exile a visit, taking with her an elderly man, who was betrothed to his daughter, but he could not overcome his fears. In his heart he and his friends were incredulous that the chiefs of Okoyong would listen to a woman. A third time the patient Mary went to him, and succeeded in bringing him and his son back with her, the women remaining behind until a new house could be built. The home-coming was fall of pathos. House, farm, clothing, seed-corn, yams, goats, fowls, all had vanished. But as the chief stood amidst the familiar surroundings his gloom and silence fell away, and he knelt and clasped "Ma's" feet, and with eyes filled with tears vowed that he and his house would be under yoke to her for ever, and that they would never rebel against any commands she gave or do anything contrary to her wishes. Most people, white and black, occasionally felt disposed to dispute her rulings, and more than once her will and that of the chief clashed, but he stood to his word, and there was no family in the district who gave her message a more loyal hearing. Edem acted nobly. He not only arranged for the housing of the two men, but gave them a piece of ground and seed for food plants. When she went to tell him all had been done, he simply said, "Thank you, Ma." But in the evening he came alone to her, knelt and held her feet, and thanked her again and again for her wonderful love and courage, for her action, in forbidding them to take life at his son's death, and for all the peaceful ways which she was introducing. "We are all weary of the old customs," he said, "but no single person or House among us has power to break them off, because they are part of the Egbo system." And one by one, secretly and unknown to each other, the free people came to her and thanked her gratefully for the state of safety she was bringing about, and charged her to keep a stout heart and to go forward and do away with all the old fashions, the end of which was always death. XV. THE SWEET AND THE STRONG Meanwhile the Mission House had evolved into what was in her eyes a thing of beauty. She could at any rate boast that it was the finest dwelling in Okoyong, and it was a happy day when she removed "upstairs." Nor was the house all that was accomplished during these troublous times. Mr. Goldie had made her a gift of a canoe; but without a boathouse it was exposed to rain and ants and thieves, and she planned a shelter at the beach that would do both for it and for herself. Ma Eme brought her people to the spot, the men cut down trees and erected the framework, and the women dug the mud and filled in the walls, and Mr. Ovens made a door and provided a padlock. Thus, in the course of a short time, she had built a hut; a good house with accommodation for children, servants, and visitors; a dispensary; a church; and a double-roomed boathouse. All the native labour had been given cheerfully and without idea of money, but from time to time she distributed amongst the workers a few gifts from the Mission boxes, or a goat or a bag of rice. In addition to her house at Ekenge she had a room in several of the villages, where she put up on her journeys; and it was characteristic of her that she secured these not for her own convenience but for the sake of the people, in order that they might feel that they were being looked after. It was, indeed, for the people she lived. Mr. Ovens states that she was at their beck and call day and night; she taught in the schools, preached in the church, and, as he puts it, "washed the wee bairnies herself," and dressed the most loathsome diseases, all with tenderness and gay humour. "I never saw a frown on her face," he says. She was always ready for anything and equal to any emergency. "One morning," he recalls, "she came to me. 'Twins,' she said, 'and we have to go.' When we arrived at the spot we found that the bairns had been murdered by the grandmother, and the mother was lying on the bare ground in a hut some distance away. Miss Slessor sent her a bed and pillow, and told her husband to be kind to her. The man took her back into the house-- such a thing had never been known before." It was at this time that the plump and pretty infant referred to by Miss Kingsley in her _Travels in West Africa_ was saved. The mother died a few days after the birth, and as there was a quarrel between her family and that of the father the child was thrown into the bush by the side of the road leading to the market, and lay there for five days and six nights. This particular market is held every ninth day, and on the succeeding market-day, some women from the village by the side of Miss Slessor's house happened to pass along the path and heard the child feebly crying: they came into Miss Slessor's yard in the evening, and sat chatting over the day's shopping, and casually mentioned in the way of conversation that they had heard the child crying, and that it was rather remarkable that it should be still alive. Needless to say Miss Slessor was off, and had that waif home. It was truly in an awful state, but just alive. In a marvellous way it had been left by leopards and snakes, with which this bit of forest abounds, and, more marvellous still, the driver ants had not scented it. Other ants had considerably eaten into it one way and another; nose, eyes, etc., were swarming with them and flies; the cartilage of the nose and part of the upper lip had been absolutely eaten into, but in spite of this she is now one of the prettiest black children I have ever seen, which is saying a good deal, for negro children are very pretty with their round faces, their large mouths not yet coarsened by heavy lips, their beautifully-shaped flat little ears, and their immense melancholy deer-like eyes, and above these charms they possess that of being fairly quiet. This child is not an object of terror, like the twin children; it was just thrown away because no one would be bothered to rear it--but when Miss Slessor had had all the trouble of it the natives had no objection to pet and play with it, calling it "the child of wonder," because of its survival. This child was named Mary after the house mother, and completed the number of those who for long constituted the inner circle of the family. The others were Janie, Alice--a rescued twin of "royal" blood, and Annie--the child of the woman who took a native oath to prove that she did not help her husband to eat a stolen dog. These four were to grow up and become a comfort to their white "Mother," and will reappear from time to time in the course of the story. Another helper in the house at this time was Mana, a faithful girl, who had been caught by two men when going home from a spring, and brought to Okoyong and sold to Ma Erne. Other children there were, all with more or less tragic histories, and all were looked after and trained and loved. But Mary could be as stern and strong as her native granite when combating evil. Mr. Ovens saw her repeatedly thrust brawny negroes away from the drink, taking them round the neck, and throwing them back to the ground. An intoxicated man, carrying a loaded gun, once came to see her. She ordered him to put the weapon in a corner of the verandah. He declined. She went up, wrested the gun from him, placed it in a corner, and defied him to touch it. He went away, and came back every day for a week before she gave it up. Another man came to her for medicine, and after he had described his symptoms she brought a bottle of castor oil and told him to open his mouth. Fearful that it might be some sort of witchcraft, he demurred. "Ma" simply gave him a smart box on the ear and repeated the order, whereupon he meekly took the stuff and went ruefully away. About this time, also, she went and prevented two tribes from fighting: although her heart was beating wildly she stood between them and made each pile their guns on opposite sides of her, until the heaps were five feet high. On another occasion she stopped and impounded a canoe-load of machetes that were going up-river to be used in a war. Mr. Ovens was struck by her mental power and wide outlook. Despite her incessant preoccupation with matters about her she never ceased the cultivation of intellectual interests. She was a loving student of the Bible, a wide and discriminating reader, and she followed with a brooding mind the development of world affairs throughout the world. Before his work was finished Mr. Ovens began to suffer from the exposure, and she nursed him day and night through a serious illness. When he returned to Duke Town she missed his cheery company; her isolation and loneliness seemed intensified, and she was only sustained by her faith in the efficacy of prayer and by her communion with the Father, "My one great consolation and rest," she wrote, "is in prayer." So invariably was she comforted: so invariably was she preserved from harm and hurt, that her reliance upon a higher strength became an instinctive habit. It conquered her natural nervousness and apprehension. She had frequently to take journeys through the forest with the leopards swarming around her. "I did not use to believe the story of Daniel in the lions dens" she often said, "until I had to take some of these awful marches, and then I knew it was true, and that it was written for my comfort. Many a time I walked along praying, 'O God of Daniel shut their mouths,' and He did." If she happened to be travelling with bearers or paddlers, she would make them sing and keep them singing; "And, _Etubom_" (Sir, Chief, or White Man), she would say, when telling her experiences, "ye ken what like their singing is-- it would frighten any decent respectable leopard." And yet in some things she was as timid as a child. When travelling in the Mission steam-launch she would bury her head in her hands and cry out in fear if the engine gave a screech or if the vessel bumped on a sandbank. She was in terror all the time she was on board. It was not possible for her to go on expending so much nervous force without a breakdown, and as attacks of fever were coming with increasing frequency she began to think of her furlough. The difficulty was to fill her place. In 1890 Mr. Goldie reported that only she or a man could fill it; no native agent could go from. Calabar on account of tribal unfriendliness. But she thought otherwise. "No person connected with me need fear to come to Okoyong, or suffer from lack of hospitality." Okoyong was a very different place from what it had been in 1888. There was greater order and security, and much less drinking among the younger people, many of whom were at school; none dared to use the slightest freedom with, her; they might come as far as the verandah but no farther. The people were becoming ashamed of their superstition, and were ready to inform her secretly when palavers and sacrifices were in contemplation. Chiefs came voluntarily and requested her to sit in the seat of judgment and adjudge their disputes. The tribe, as a whole, was also working better, and developing a regular trade with the Europeans. The problem was solved by another woman with a stout heart, who voluntarily agreed to occupy the station during her absence. This was Miss Dunlop. The Home Board were anxious as to her safety, and recommended frequent communications with her; and later, Miss Hutton, who had just arrived from Scotland, was appointed to keep her company. When Miss Dunlop went up before "Ma" left, she was met by what she thought was a crowd of peaceful, cheerful--people, eager only to greet her and to help her. She modified her opinion later: a "wild and lawless class," she called them, "boasting of their wildness," and who came to the services drunk. When she spoke of God's love they would say, "Yes, Ma Slessor tell us that plenty times." But she bravely held the fort. XVI. WAR IN THE GATES At the last moment she was busy packing when messengers arrived from a far-off township with intelligence that a young freeman had accidentally shot his hand while hunting, and a request that she would come to him with medicine. She was weak and ill: she was expecting tidings of the steamer; she was beset with visitors from all parts who had come to bid her farewell. Telling them what to do, and asking them to let her know only if serious symptoms set in, she gave them what was needed. Almost immediately came secret news that the man had died, that his brother had wounded one of the chiefs, and that all the warriors of the latter had been ordered to prepare for fighting on the morrow. She never knew how this message had come or who had brought it. She made up her mind to proceed to the spot, but the chief people about her opposed the idea. They pointed to her weakness, and the probability of her missing the steamer. They enlarged on the savage character of those concerned. "They own no authority"; "They will insult you in their drunken rage"; "The bush will be full of armed men, and they will fire indiscriminately;" "The darkness will prevent them recognising you." But they could not prevail upon her to relinquish what she thought was a duty to those who had sought her aid. She, however, compromised by consenting to take two armed attendants with lanterns, and to call at a chief's place some eight miles distant, and secure a freeman to beat the Egbo drum before her, thus letting the people in the fighting area know that a free protected person was coming. She reached their village about midnight. The chief was reported to be at his farm, and she was urged to lie down until the morning, She suspected that he was not many yards away, and she persuaded a messenger to carry an urgent request to him for an escort and drum. The reply was in the language of diplomacy all the world over: "I have heard of no war, but will enquire regarding it in the morning. If, in the event of there being war, you persist in going on you prove your ignorance of the people, who from all time have been a war-loving people, are not likely to be helped by a woman." This put her on her mettle. "In measuring the woman's power," she responded, "you have evidently forgotten to take into account the woman's God." She decided to go on. The people were astonished, not so much at her folly in risking her life as in daring to disobey the despot, who held their fate in the hollow of his hand. Somewhat chilled by her unsympathetic reception she started, without much enthusiasm, on her journey, but with her faith in God as strong as ever. Reaching the first town belonging to the belligerents she found it so silent and dark that she began to imagine the chief was right, and she had come on a wild-goose chase. She crept quietly up to the house of an old freewoman whose granddaughter had once lived with her: there was a cautious movement within and a whispered, "Who's there?" She had barely answered, when she was surrounded by a band of armed men, whose dark bodies were like shadows in the night. In a few moments they were joined by scores of others, and the greatest confusion prevailed. She was asked what her business was and who were her informants, but ultimately the chiefs permitted her to remain, and the women saw to her comfort. After conferring together the chiefs thanked her for coming at such discomfort to herself, and promised that no fighting, so far as they were concerned, would take place until she heard the whole story. "All the same," they averred, "we must fight to wipe out the disgrace that has been put on us-see here are men badly wounded. Now, Ma, go to bed, and we shall wake you at cock-crow, and you can accompany us." This meant an hour's rest, which she urgently needed. At second cock- crow she was called, but before she was steady on her feet they were off and away down the steep hillside and through the stream at the foot like a herd of wild goats. The women were at every house. "Run, Ma!" they cried. Run! Was she not running as fast as her weak and breathless state allowed her? But she soon lost sight of the warriors, and could only fall back upon prayer. A hundred yards from the village of the enemy she came upon the band in the bush making preparations for attack: the war-fever was at its height, and the air resounded with wild yells. Walking quietly forward she addressed them as one would speak to schoolboys, telling them to hold their peace and behave like men and not like fools. Passing on to the village she encountered a solid wall of armed men. Giving them greeting, she got no reply. The silence was ominous. Twitting them on their perfect manners she went up to them, and was about to force a passage. Then a strange thing happened. From out of the sullen line of dark-skinned warriors there stepped an old man, who came and knelt at her feet. "Ma, we thank you for coming. We admit the wounding of the chief, but it was the act of one man and not the fault of the town. We beg you to use your influence with the injured party in the interests of peace." It was the chief whom she had travelled in the rain to see and heal when she first came to Okoyong. Her act of self-sacrifice and courage had borne fruit after many days. She was so thankful that her impulse was to run back to their opponents in the forest and arrange matters there and then; but she restrained herself, and, instead, purposely told the men with an air of authority to remain where they were while her wants were attended to. "I am not going to starve while you fight," she said, "and meanwhile you can find a comfortable seat In the bush where I can confer with the two sides; choose two or three men of good address and good judgment for the purpose." They obeyed her like children. When the two deputies from the other side came forward, two chiefs laid down their arms and went and knelt before them and held their feet saying it was foolish and unjust to punish the whole district for the action of a drunken boy, begging them to place the matter before the White Ma, and expressing their willingness to pay whatever fine might be imposed. She, too, knelt and begged that magnanimity might be shown, and that arbitration might be substituted for war. So novel a proposal was not agreed to at once. The next few hours witnessed scenes of wild excitement, rising sometimes to frenzy. Bands of men kept advancing from both sides and joining in the palaver, and every arrival increased the indignation and the resolution to abide by the old, manlier way of war. She was well-nigh worn out, but her wonderful patience and tact, coupled with her knowledge of all the outs and ins of their character, again won her the victory. It was agreed that a fine should settle the quarrel, and one was imposed which she thought exorbitant In the extreme, but the delinquents accepted it, and promptly paid part in trade gin. Here was another peril. As the boxes and demijohns were brought forward and put down the mob began to grow excited at the thought of the drink. She foresaw trouble and disaster, but though her voice was now too feeble to be heard in the babel of sound, she was not yet at the end of her resources. Divesting herself of as many of her garments as was possible, she threw them over the stuff, thus giving it the protection of her own body, according to Egbo law. It was a custom for providers of spirits which might have been tampered with on the way from the boat, to taste the liquor in order to prove that neither sorcery nor poison had been placed in it, and every man wanted to be the taster on this occasion. As soon as the test had been applied, every man on the other side likewise demanded the gin, and for a time it seemed as if all had gone mad. Mary seized the one glass which they held, and as each bottle was opened she dealt out to the older and chief men one glass only, resolutely refusing to give more, and placed the bottle under the cover of her garments. No one dared to touch the stuff. There was some jostling around her, but a few of the men constituted themselves into a bodyguard, and by whip and drum kept the mob off. Amidst much tumult and grumbling and laughter at her sallies she got them to agree to leave the spirit in her charge on her declaring that she would be surety for it arriving in their several villages in good time, and untampered with. She made them promise to go straight home and remain at peace during her furlough (a promise that was loyally kept); but there was one party she was obliged to accompany for a mile or two. They had--declared that they were ashamed to return "like women," without having fought. They begged her to allow them to have a "small scrap," in order to prove they were not cowards. Not till they were safely past the danger zone did she leave them. She remained till night at the village. The feeling was still too disturbed to permit of a regular service, but she spoke to them quietly of Christ as a Saviour: and then ordering all to their rest she set out, tired as she was, on her lonely tramp through the long miles of forest path. She found her baggage had gone, and that messengers had arrived to take her down to Duke Town. XVII. AMONG THE CHURCHES Arriving in England la January 1891 with Janie, who proved a great comfort and help, she went straight to Topsham to view the graves of her mother and sister. She was anxious to spend as much of her furlough as possible amongst the scenes and with the friends associated with her loved ones, and she secured and furnished a house. It possessed a fine garden, and there, with the little black girl, she passed a quiet and restful time until the autumn, when she went to Scotland, making her headquarters at the home of her friend, Mrs. M'Crindle, now at Joppa. For many months she was engaged on the deputation work which missionaries on furlough undertake for the stimulation of the home congregations. She had less liking than ever for addressing meetings, but she did not shirk the duty. "It is a trial to speak," she said; "but He has asked me to, and it is an honour to be allowed to testify for Him in any way, and I wish to do it cheerfully." She wanted also to persuade the women in the Church to give themselves up more whole- heartedly to Christ, and to consecrate themselves to His cause. No trouble was too great if it served that purpose. As a halo of romance was beginning to gather about her she was in great request; wherever she went the interest of the meeting centred in her, and her visits were often followed by the formation of a Zenana Mission Committee. Not always, however, did she satisfy expectations. She would talk freely at the manse tea-table, especially if children were present, and be led on to give vivid pictures of her life in the bush, so that the company would be still sitting entranced when the bell rang for the meeting. Then a rush would be made to the hall, where impatient people would be waiting to be thrilled by stories of heroic service. And what they heard was an evangelistic address! The minister would look disappointed, feeling that he could have done as well himself. But she sometimes deprecated surface interest, and said that if the heart was right and the life consecrated, mission work would be well supported without any adventitious aid. After addressing a meeting at Slateford near Edinburgh she was on the way to the station when a woman who had been in the audience took Janie and kissed her and pressed some money into her hand. Next day the minister received a letter inscribed: _"For the lady who gave Janie the money and the kiss on the way to the station.-M. M. Slessor."_ Enclosed was a photograph of Janie and a letter in which she wrote: MY DEAR FRIEND--For such I must call you. Such a true womanly Christian spirit as you showed yesterday is one of the fruits of our holy Christianity--I thank you for loving and kissing the child--God bless you, my dear sister. I may yet see you in the flesh. I will if I go back to Slateford. But I may be sure of meeting you in the Father's house when the shadows flee away and the everlasting glory has dawned. The recipient kept the photograph and letter and still treasures them as mementoes of one of whom she never ceased to think and for whom she always prayed. It was in such ways that she knit hearts to her. She made many friends in the manses and in the homes of the members of the Church, and greatly increased the interest in her work in Calabar, with the result that after she returned a larger stream of correspondence and Mission boxes began to flow to Okoyong. XVIII. LOVE OF LOVER Aware of her singleness of mind and aim in the service of Christ, and her whole-hearted devotion to the interests of the people of Okoyong, it came as a surprise to her friends to learn that she was engaged to be married. The hidden romance was disclosed at a meeting of the Mission Board in September. The suitor for her hand was Mr. Charles W. Morrison, one of the teachers on the Mission staff, a young man from Kirkintilloch, Scotland, then in his twenty-fifth year. His career at home had been a successful one; he had been an active Christian worker, and when he applied to the Board for an appointment in Calabar he was accepted at once and sent out to Duke Town. He was a man of fine feeling, with a distinct literary gift. On the few occasions that he had seen Mary he was attracted by the brilliant, unconventional little woman, and when she was ill was very attentive and kind to her. Before she left on furlough they had become engaged on the understanding that he would come and live at Okoyong. She made it clear to the Board that she had pledged her word to her people not to leave them, and that she would not, even for her personal happiness, break her promise, Mr. Morrison, she believed, would make a very good missionary, and they would be able to relieve each other, as she would remain at Okoyong when he was at home. The Board took time to consider the proposal, and meanwhile Mary received the congratulations of her friends. Her replies indicate that there was no uncertainty in her own mind on the subject: I lay it all in God's hands, and will take from Him whatever He sees best for His work in Okoyong. My life was laid on His altar for that people long ago, and I would not take one jot or tittle of it back. If it be for His glory and the advantage of His cause there to let another join in it I will be grateful. If not I will still try to be grateful, as He knows best. Both were a little doubtful as to the action of the Board, and Mr. Morrison asked her whether, in the event of a refusal, she would consent to return to Duke Town, Such a project, however, she would not entertain: "It is out of the question," she explained to a friend. "1 would never take the idea into consideration, I could not leave my work for such a reason. To leave a field like Okoyong without a worker and go to one of ten or a dozen where the people have an open Bible and plenty of privilege! It is absurd. If God does not send him up here then he must do his work and I must do mine where we have been placed. If he does not come I must ask the Committee to give me some one, for it is impossible for me to work the station alone." The Board, seemingly, were not sure of the wisdom of the arrangement, and their decision was a qualified refusal. The work which Mr. Morrison was doing at Duke Town, they said, was important, and they could not sanction his transference to Okoyong until full provision was made for carrying it on effectively and to the satisfaction of the Calabar Committee. When Mary was told the result she merely said, "What the Lord ordains is right," and, apparently, dismissed the subject from her mind. Mr. Morrison was, shortly afterwards, compelled to return to Scotland on account of his health. A medical specialist advised him against resuming work in Calabar, and he offered for service in Kaffraria, but there was no opening in that field, and to the regret and disappointment of the Committee, who regarded him as an able and valued worker, he resigned. He went later to America and was living in a hut among the balsam woods of North Carolina when a fire took place in which his much-treasured literary papers were consumed. The loss affected him greatly, and hastened his death, which occurred shortly afterwards. Amongst the few treasured books which Mary left at the end were battered copies of _Eugene Aram_ and _Sketches by Boz._ On the fly-leaf of one in her handwriting are the letters: _C. W. M. M. M. S._ On the other are signatures in their respective hands: _C. MORRISON. M. M. SLESSOR._ Love of mother and sister had been lost to her long since, and now love of lover and husband was denied, and again she turned her face, alone, towards the future. _Yes, without cheer of sister or of daughter, Yes, without stay of father or of son, Lone on the land and homeless on the water, Pass I in patience till my work be done._ XIX. A LETTER AND ITS RESULT A sharp attack of influenza followed by bronchitis cut short her engagements. During her convalescence she one day took up the Missionary Record, and read a letter by the Rev. James Luke entitled "An Appeal for Lay Missionaries for Old Calabar." Like her own writing it had a touch of style and originality, and her comment was "Splendid!" But there was one incidental statement with which she did not agree. Mr. Luke called for two more artisan missionaries--"not to teach the trades; we haven't sufficient men for that, even were Calabar ripe for such instruction." As the result of her own observation and experience she had often felt that something ought to be done to develop the industrial capabilities of the natives. The subject had not been lost sight of by the missionaries and the Mission Board, and the latter had sought, by sending out competent artisans, to attend not only to the work required in connection with the Mission but to train some of the native youths in the various departments of labour. There had, however, been no attempt to establish the work on organised lines, and the remark which Mr. Luke made induced her to place the whole matter before the Church. She penned a long letter, the writing of which so exhausted her that she scarcely knew whether or not the words were rightly spelled. It went to Dr. George Robson, then beginning his long and honourable editorship of the _Record_, and appeared in the next issue under the signature of "One of the Zenana Staff." It was a letter which displayed all the qualities of missionary statesmanship, was clear, logical, and vigorous in style, and glowed with restrained enthusiasm. She pointed out that it was necessary to help the natives to become an industrial people as well as to Christianise them, and she combated the idea that they were not capable of being taught trades; their weak point no doubt was their want of staying power, their lack of persistence in the face of difficulties, but this could be accounted for by their history; their only rule and mode of life hitherto having been "force of circumstance," The question of training them, however, was too large a problem for the unaided missionary, too large even for the Mission Board; it was a matter for the whole Church to take up. "Let the science of the evangelisation of the nations occupy the attention of our sermons, our congregations, our conferences, and our Church literature, and we will soon have more workers, more wealth, more life, as well as new methods." So earnest an appeal caused some stir in official circles. The Mission Committee took up the subject, and after interviewing the missionaries who were at home at the time, including herself, referred to Calabar for information. As she had no further connection with the matter the outcome may be briefly noted here. The Calabar Committee were favourable to any scheme of industrial training, and the local Government also expressed their willingness to assist. After the Rev. Dr. Laws, of Livingstonia, and the Rev. W. Risk Thomson, had gone out and reported on the situation and outlook, the proposal rapidly took shape, and the Hope Waddell Training Institute--thus called after the founder of the Mission--came into being, and was soon performing for West Africa the same valuable service that Lovedale and Blythswood were doing for South Africa. She never took any credit for her part in promoting the undertaking, and never made a single reference to it in her letters. She was content to see it realised.... Medical advice sent her down to Devon to recruit. She did not complain or worry about the readjustment of her plans. "We alter things for the good of our children," she said, "and God does the same to us." With Janie she left for Calabar in February 1892, the Congregational Church at Topsham bidding her farewell at a public meeting convened in her honour. XX. THE BLOOD COVENANT It was strange, even for her, to pass from the trim, well-ordered life of Britain into the midst of West African heathenism,--to find waiting for her in her yard two refugees who, being charged with witchcraft, had been condemned to be sold and killed and preserved as food,--to be interviewed by a slave woman who had been bought by an Okoyong chief as one of his many wives, after having been the wife of other two men, one of whom had been disposed of to the cannibal tribe, whilst her boy had been carried to Calabar in bondage. Such were the conditions into which she was once more plunged. The majority of the people admired and trusted hers and gave her implicit obedience, but there were some who avoided and feared her, and sought to undermine her authority and perpetuate the old customs. Her own chiefs remained staunch, and Ma Erne, although a heathen, continued to be her truest friend and best ally. It was to her that Mary was still mainly indebted for news of what was going on. If there was any devilry afoot she would send a certain bottle to the Mission House with a request for medicine. It was a secret warning that she was to be ready to act at a moment's notice. As a result of these hints she was able to prevent many a terrible crime. On one occasion, when the natives were seeking to compass a man's death, she lay down without undressing for a month of nights, ready to set out, and the first night she took off her clothes and endeavoured to obtain a good sleep she was called. And just as she was she set out for the scene. The chiefs began to think it was useless to hoodwink or browbeat the wonderful woman who seemed to know their inmost thoughts and all their hidden plans. Sometimes, when she received the intimation that a palaver was beginning, and that a fight was imminent, she would not be ready, and would resort to stratagem: she would seize a large sheet of paper and scribble some words--any words--upon it and add some splashes of sealing--wax to make it look important. This she would despatch by a swift runner to the chiefs, and by the time they had discussed the mysterious official--looking document, which none of them, could read, she would come on the scene and allay the excitement and settle the dispute. One of her favourite devices during palavers was to knit. She fancied that the act kept her from being nervous, as well as from showing fear, while the sight of the knitting going quietly and steadily on, in the midst of uproar, helped to calm the excitement. She used to say that it was only during these long palavers that she could get some knitting done. We can well believe this when we are told by an official that on one occasion she stayed knitting and listening the whole of one day and night, until the opposing powers became hungry, and retired without a fight. The story of one of these knitting palavers must suffice. Shortly after she returned she wished to settle an important dispute that had been going on for a time between two sections of the Okoyong people. Three years before, a gathering such as she summoned would have been impossible--they would have laid down "medicine" and fought. She trembled to go, and longed for some of the Calabar missionaries to come up and accompany her. But God gave her peace. After a sleepless night she started with her knitting material, and reaching the clearing in the forest passed alone through the guards of armed men. Every chief was there, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow,--thanks chiefly to Mission boxes,--each sitting under a huge umbrella of blue and red and yellow silk, with from twenty to fifty of his men forming a cordon about him, all with guns loaded and swords hanging from their sides. The sky was sober and grey, and the magnificent foliage overhead made the atmosphere cool and sweet. A chair was placed for her beside the oldest chief, in the centre, with the one party on the right and the other on the left. But first she moved from one group to the other, drawing laughter as she went with her jokes and by-play, and trying to lessen the tension that all experienced. Then she took her seat, started her knitting, and the business began. A word from her was sufficient to check any outburst of feeling, but she only spoke now and then, in order to elicit information or to make clear a bit of evidence. Time was nothing to these men, and, accustomed to one square meal a day, they did not mind a long sitting; but Mary knew what backache and chill and hunger were and she was often tempted to tell them to keep to the point, but it would have been of no avail. Night fell, torches were lit, the voices waxed louder, the excitement spread, until Mary felt that matters were getting out of hand, and brought the issue to a head. An old chief summed up, and did so with rare tact and patience and good humour. She gathered up the main points and gave her verdict, which was unanimously adopted with ringing cheers. A native oath had now to be taken to ratify the agreement, and the necessary materials were sent for--a razor, corn, salt, pepper, and rum. A freeman from, each side was called forward, and after divesting themselves of all superfluous clothing they knelt at her feet and clasped each other's fingers. Another made an incision with the razor on the back of their hands, and when the blood had flowed a little salt, pepper, and corn were laid upon the wounds. Then out of courtesy to "Ma," they asked her to say a prayer. But she always witnessed the oath under protest, recognising that they knew no better way, and she would not comply with their request, though she offered no objection to one of the chiefs praying. After the terrible oath formula had been repeated, the two men sucked up the blood-saturated ingredients and swallowed them, and the covenant was ratified. Relieved from the strain, the whole assemblage became suddenly smitten with the spirit of fun. The proceedings were over before midnight, and after a tea hours' sitting Mary began her homeward journey of four miles, tired and hungry, but happy. XXI. "RUN, MA! RUN!" Her letters at this time bear witness to the strenuous character of the life she led. They often begin with a description of household events: then a break will occur: the next entry starts with "It is many days since I had to leave off here," and then follows an account of some sudden journey and adventure. Another interruption will take place, caused by some long palaver or rescue: and the end will be a remark such as this: "So, you see, life here, as at home, is just a record of small duties which occupy the time, and task the strength without much to show for it." Here are some incidents which reveal to us the nature of what she deemed her "commonplace" work: 1. _A Forest Vigil_ "Run, run, Ma! there is something going on!" was the significant message. "Where?" She was told, and went straight off. A chief had died, and the people were administering the poison ordeal at a spot deep in the forest, in order to avoid her interference. She arrived before the proceedings began, and for four days and four nights she remained there constantly on the watch. Her clothes were never off--and only those who have lived in tropical lands know what this means. All the rest she allowed herself was a short half-slumber, as she lay upon some plantain fronds. The men would not leave the spot, hoping to tire her out, and at night they lit fires to keep off the wild beasts of prey, and slept about her. In these long hours she was often afraid, not of the armed men, but of the wild creatures of the bush that came creeping up, and with sombre eyes stared at her for a moment ere they slunk away from the flames. Such courage and endurance could not be withstood,--in the end the people gave in and life was saved. 2. _Egbo_ She was sitting quietly in the house, thinking she was alone, when a stealthy step behind made her look round: it was a woman, followed by others all crowding in as smoothly as tigers. "Run, Ma! run!" they said. The words were no sooner spoken than Mary was down the stair and out in the open "square," where she found a number of men pulling about and frightening the slaves and women. She seized hold of one fellow and locked him in her yard, and the act brought quiet. The mob turned out to be Egbo from a far-off town, come to sue for a debt due by a widow, who had already given up everything to liquidate it. She knew the people, had been kind to them, and had induced them to trade with Calabar. She at once ordered them out of the place, and made them restore the property they had seized, and in a short time the matter was settled, 3. _Robbers_ One day she was busy standing on a box plastering a wall when the warning cry came, "Run, Ma! run!" The villagers had gone off with their arms and were fighting a band of plunderers, who had stolen two slave- girls and two slave-men from Ma Eme's farm. Washing the mud off her hands and face she ran to the scene, and all next day, Sunday, she was sitting in the midst of a drinking mob trying to keep down their passions, and succeeded at last in finding a pacific solution. 4. Twins Again the cry, "Run, Ma! run!" this time from two boys. It was a case of twins born of a Calabar mother, who had come to Okoyong after trade began. The father and his womenkind were furious, and the mother lay deserted and alone. Mary took the two babies into her lap, and as they were Calabar twins sent word to the elder chief. The answer she received was "Ahem!" But the messenger added, "A big lady said, 'Why don't you take the twins to Calabar?'" She next sent to the younger chief, and asked him to come and confer with her at a distance. After two hours' weary waiting the reply was, "I am not coming, what should I come for? Should I tell my Mother what to do? Let her do what she sees fit." "Well," said Mary, "as one chief says, 'Ahem' and the other gives no command, I shall take the children by a back road to my own house, and during the night the mother can follow, and we will see how things turn round." On being told that she had brought twins to the house Edem groaned and said, "Then I cannot go to my Mother's house any more. Are they upstairs?" "Yes," said the messenger, "and they are in her own bed." He groaned again, "No, no, I cannot ever go any more." Mary went to his yard to see a sick baby, whom she had nursed back from death's door after the witch-doctors had done their best with their charms and medicine, but the mother held the child tightly in her arms and said, "Ma, you shall not touch her!" She turned away, her heart sore. On the Sunday rain fell all day, and she could not leave one of the children who was ill, but in the late evening she took two lanterns and went to the roadside and held a short service with the few prepared to come, and who huddled together in the rain. But none of them guessed how near to tears the speaker was. She felt the alienation from her people keenly; it was the greatest trial that had come to her, but she was resolved not to give in. One of the twins died, and some days later Edem offered her a present of yams, but she declined the gift, as it might be mistaken for a bribe to her conscience. He remonstrated, but she remained firm, although it cost her much. Gradually, however, he and his House showed contrition, and the shadow passed away. Then a chief from another village came, also with a present of yams. Going on his knees he held her feet and begged her not to give up the child. "You are our Mother; and a woman has proved stronger than all the men of the tribe: we will be able to believe in all you ask us by and by, but have patience with us." When he was gone a message came: "A chief from a distance wants to see you; come for a little." This man was from a turbulent part of Okoyong and given to fighting and plundering. "I live in my house as ever I did," was her spirited reply; "and if any one wishes to see me I am here." She felt pretty sure of her ground, though she could not help trembling for the result. The strangers arrived, and Edem with them, and chairs and mats were placed for them in the court. To her surprise she was asked for her advice, and the visitor went away convinced that the new ways were better than the old. The elder chief, Ekpenyong, next sent and begged for forgiveness. "The Mother cannot keep a strong heart against her son. Are you not the hope and strength and counsellor of my life? Forgive me, for it was foolishness, I have not been taught from my youth, and have never seen a twin." Thus good came out of the trial, and the bonds that bound her to the people were strengthened. What was still more remarkable than the attitude of the chiefs was the fact that the husband took the twin- mother and the surviving child home. 5. _The Poison Bean_ A slave woman of importance who occupied a position of trust died suddenly. When her master was told he flew into a passion and despatched a messenger to Mary with the rude intimation that "somebody hereabouts knew how to kill people." She returned a curt reply, and he sent an apology. The next development was the appearance of some chiefs and a crowd of armed men in her yard. With them was a young man, not a favourite of hers, to whom they attributed the woman's death. She questioned him, and he asserted that he had not seen the woman for months, and knew nothing of the supposed witchcraft; but he would take the poison bean, and, he added vindictively, if he did not die he would see that they paid for the outrage. She sent a message by the chiefs to the owner of the woman to dissuade him from inflicting the extreme test. There was the usual period of uproar, and on her part the usual recourse to prayer, and then back came the chiefs with the astonishing reply: "I have heard. I understand that the Mother is determined in her way. What can I do but submit." Instead of death the sequel was a feast, a goat was killed, drink procured, and dancing was indulged in all night. Next day the young man went home to his aged mother. 6. _Runaway Slaves_ One day when she was baking, a man and his wife, slaves of a chief in the neighbourhood, came to the door of the Mission House, and after giving compliments squatted down with the air of people who had come to stay. "Well, what is the matter?" she asked. She knew the woman had a child, which could not have been left at home. A long tale was told. The woman had been in the field all morning hoeing grass: as the sun rose she and her child grew hungry and she went home to cook some food. As she was doing so her master, who was not a favourite either with bond or free, unexpectedly appeared, and angrily ordered her back to her work. She protested that she needed food, but, brandishing a sword, he frightened her into flight. Her husband, a palm-oil worker, heard the noise, and came on the scene, stopped her, and told her to return and take the food. "What does it matter?" he remarked, "we are his; he can kill us if he likes; we have nothing to live for." The master, enraged, seized a gun and fired at the man, but missed. Taking hold of the screaming child he declared he would kill it and went off. It was a simple case, but required delicate handling. She sent one of her girls to the chief with the message that his slaves were in her yard, and that as they were householders and elderly people and parents, she hoped there would be no palaver, and that he would take them back. "I will come to-morrow," was the reply. The runaways slept in the yard and held something of the nature of a reception, the other slaves coming and condoling with them as the poor do with each other all the world over. It was like a scene from _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. One moment the company would encourage them cheerily, urging them to have patience, then came a string of doleful tales, then a gush of warm sympathy, and next a burst of laughter, followed by a shower of tears. Next day their master did not appear, and they went to work on the station grounds. The woman was fretting for her child, and Mana, one of the girls, was sent with another message, to the effect that if he could not come himself he must, for the woman's sake, send on the babe. The messenger brought back the news that he was on his way, but was tipsy, and breathing out dire threats against everybody. When Mary heard that three of his wives were with him, and that her own chief had joined the party, her mind was at ease. His first act was to lie down at her feet. "Ma," he said, "you are the owner not only of my head but of all my house and my possessions. These wretched slaves did well to come to you"--and so forth. She sent for a chair and a palaver of several hours began. The master sometimes lost control of himself and charged the slave with being full of sorcery and responsible for all the deaths of recent years. Shaking his fist in the man's face he cried: "If it wasn't for the reign of the white woman I would cut you in two! The white woman is your salvation." The slave biased with passion, but Mary entreated him to be calm. She set the matter in the best light. Both had been angry and behaved as angry people usually do, saying and doing things which in their saner moods they would have avoided. Alternately scolding and beseeching, and throwing in a few jokes occasionally, she at last said both must go home, the master to restrain himself, and the slaves to work faithfully and not to provoke him, as he had troubles of which they were unaware. Thus with wise words she pacified them, and when she had given them a few presents they went off in great good humour. The slaves found that during their absence thieves had stolen their goats and fowls, but the return of the child compensated for the loss, and in their gratitude they sent "Ma" a gift of food. 7. _Spoilt Fashions_ A woman was seized on the assumption that she was concerned in the death of a girl, and Mary watched day and night until the burial was over. A goat was killed and placed in the grave, along with cloth, dishes, pots, salt, a lamp, a lantern, and a tin case of cooked food. But her presence prevented any one being murdered to bear the dead company. "Ma!" said a freeman reproachfully, "you have spoiled our fashions. Before you came, a person took his people with him: now one must go alone like this poor girl; you have confused Okoyong too much." The woman who was seized was allowed to take the native oath, praying that if she had a hand in the girl's death _mbiam_ should eat her and corrupt her body until she died. 8. _The Cost_ Mr. W. T. Weir, who had joined the Mission staff, paid her a visit one day, and they were enjoying a cup of tea when she suddenly became alert and said, "There's something wrong, they will be here in a moment." The words were hardly spoken when they heard the pit-pat of bare feet running towards the house. A number of natives appeared, and placing their hands on the floor shouted, "Ma! come! come! come!" She said to her guest, "Come on." They reached a large compound filled with people excitedly shouting and gesticulating. On one side of the yard lay a girl on a mud slab who seemed to be ill, and opposite was her mother, in appearance a fiend incarnate. It appeared that the girl, the daughter of an old chief, had taken a fainting fit, and the mother, who had once been a refugee in "Ma's" yard, was blaming people for taking her life. Mr. Weir examined the girl, and said there was nothing much wrong, but she was terribly excited with the noise. Mary at once said, "I'll get quietness," and springing into the middle of the compound she seemed to exert her utmost will-power, and, crying in the native manner, "_Soi, wara do_" (Shoo, go out there!), pointed to the door. In a moment, men, women, and children, including the staid old chief of the village, and the girl's mother, struggled with each other to get out of the compound. The scene reminded Mr. Weir of nothing so much as a lot of sheep being hurried through a gate by a dog. She then came to where he stood. She was trembling from head to foot, and as she sat down she remarked, "I am done for this day." The girl was taken over to the Mission House, and under her care made a quick recovery.... Never in all her dealings with the tribes was she molested in any way. Once only, in a compound brawl, in which she intervened, was she struck, but the native who wielded the stick had touched her accidentally. The cry immediately went up that "Ma" was hurt, and both sides fell on the wretched man, and would have killed him had she not gone to the rescue. XXII. A GOVERNMENT AGENT In these years far-reaching changes were taking place in regard to the political status and destiny of the country. Hitherto the British Government had exercised only a nominal influence over the coast districts. A consul was stationed at Duke Towns but he had no means of exercising authority, and the tribes higher up the Cross River would war upon one another, block the navigation, and murder at will. In 1889 the Imperial Government took steps to arrange for an efficient administration, and despite difficulties incidental to the absence of a central native authority succeeded in obtaining the sanction of the principal chiefs to the establishment of a protectorate--the Niger Coast Protectorate. In 1891 Sir Claude Macdonald, who had carried out the negotiations, was appointed Consul--General. No man was better fitted to lay the foundations of British authority in so backward a territory. The period of transition from native to civilised rule brought to the surface many delicate and perplexing problems requiring tact, skill, and unwearied patience, but the task was successfully accomplished, though not without an occasional display of force. It was a special cause of thankfulness to the missionaries that Sir Claude was in full sympathy with their work, and co-operated with them in every scheme for the benefit of the people. When he was promoted to Pekin, the Foreign Mission Board in Scotland expressed their sense of the value of his efforts in promoting the welfare of the native population. Sir Claude appointed vice-consuls for the various districts, and was proposing to send some one to Okoyong. Miss Slessor knew that her people were not ready for the sudden introduction of new laws, and that there would be trouble if an outside official came in to impose them. Sir Claude took her point of view, and recognising her unique position and influence, empowered her to do all that was necessary, and to organise and supervise a native court. He then left her very much to herself, with the result that the inevitable changes were felt least of all in Okoyong, where they were made through a woman whom the chiefs and people implicitly trusted. Her position was akin to that of a consular agent, and she conducted all the public affairs of the tribe. She presided at the native court. Cases would be referred to her from Duke Town, and she would travel over Okoyong to try these, taking with her the consular messenger, who carried back her decision to headquarters for official signature. Crowds of the natives also visited her to consult her regarding the readjustment and co-ordination of their customs with the new laws, and she was able to settle these matters so quietly that little was heard of her achievements. Although she rendered great service in this way, creating public opinion, establishing just laws, and protecting the poor, it was a work she did not like, and she only accepted it because she thought it in line with her allegiance to Christ. Her duties brought her in contact with the officials of the country. Government men came to see her, and were not only amazed at her political influence, but charmed with her original qualities. One of these, Mr. T. D. Maxwell, for whom she had a great regard--"a dear laddie" she called him--writes: What sort of woman I expected to see I hardly know; certainly not what I did. A little frail old lady with a lace or lace-like shawl over her head and shoulders (that must, I think, have been a concession to a stranger, for I never saw the thing again), swaying herself in a rocking-chair and crooning to a black baby in her arms. I remember being struck--most unreasonably--by the very strong Scottish accent. Her welcome was everything kind and cordial. I had had a long march, it was an appallingly hot day, and she insisted on complete rest before we proceeded to the business of the Court. It was held just below her house. Her compound was full of litigants, witnesses, and onlookers, and it was impressive to see how deep was the respect with which she was treated by them all. She was again in her rocking-chair surrounded by several ladies-and babies-in-waiting, nursing another infant. Suddenly she jumped up with an angry growl: her shawl fell off, the baby was hurriedly transferred to some one qualified to hold it, and with a few trenchant words she made for the door where a hulking, overdressed native stood. In a moment she seized him by the scruff of the neck, boxed his ears, and hustled him out into the yard, telling him quite explicitly what he might expect if he came back again without her consent. I watched him and his followers slink away very crestfallen. Then, as suddenly as it had arisen the tornado subsided, and (lace shawl, baby, and all) she was again gently swaying in her chair. The man was a local monarch of sorts, who had been impudent to her, and she had forbidden him to come near her house again until he had not only apologised but done some prescribed penance. Under the pretext of calling on me he had defied her orders--and that was the result. I have had a good deal of experience of Nigerian Courts of various kinds, but have never met one which better deserves to be termed a Court of Justice than that over which she presided. The litigants emphatically got justice--sometimes, perhaps, like Shylock, "more than they desired"--and it was essential justice unhampered by legal technicalities. One decision I recall--I have often subsequently wished that I could follow it as a precedent. A sued B for a small debt. B admitted owing the money, and the Court (that is "Ma") ordered him to pay accordingly: but she added, "A is a rascal. He treats his mother shamefully, he neglects his children, only the other day he beat one of his wives with quite unnecessary vehemence, yes and she was B's sister too, his farm is a disgrace, he seldom washes, and then there was the palaver about C's goat a month ago. Oh, of course A didn't steal it, he was found not guilty wasn't he?--all the same the affair was never satisfactorily cleared up, and he did look unusually sleek just about then. On the other hand, B was thrifty and respectable, so before B paid the amount due he would give A a good sound caning in the presence of everybody." XXIII. "ECCENTRICITIES," SPADE-WORK, AND DAY-DREAMS Does it seem as if we were watching the career of a woman of hard, self-reliant, and masculine character, capable of living by herself and preferring it, and unconscious of the natural weakness of her sex? In reality Mary was a winsome soul, womanly in all her ways, tremulous with feeling and sympathy, loving love and companionship, and not unacquainted with nervousness and fear. When people saw, or heard of her, toiling with her hands they were apt to imagine that she possessed a constitution of iron, never realising that her life was one long martyrdom. She was seldom free from illness and pain. Whether her methods of life were partly responsible for this cannot be stated. In any case, she seemed able to do things that would have proved fatal to other people. She never used mosquito-netting, which is considered to be indispensable for the security of health in the tropics. She never wore a hat, which seems a miracle to those who know the strength of the sun in these regions. Her hair she kept cut close, partly because it was a cleanlier fashion, and partly because it was less trouble to look after. Shoes and stockings, also, she never wore, although jiggers and snakes and poisonous plants were common in the bush pathways. Mr. James Lindsay, who was the engineer of the Mission at this time, says, "I walked many miles with her through the bush, and only once did I know her to be troubled with her feet. She had been to Duke Town, attending Presbytery, and made some small concession to the conventions by wearing a pair of knitted woollen slippers. On returning to Okoyong through the bush, small twigs and sticks penetrated the wool and pricked her feet. With an expression of disgust she took the slippers off and threw them into the bush. That was the only time I saw her other than barefoot." She never boiled or filtered the water she drank, two precautions which Europeans do not omit without suffering. She ate native food, and was not particular when meals were served. Breakfast might be at seven one morning and at ten the next; dinner might be an hour or two late; but this was, of course, mainly due to the constant calls upon her time, for she was often afoot most of the night, and her days were frequently taken up with long palavers. These habits, so seemingly eccentric to people lapped In the civilised order of things, grown naturally out of the circumstances into which she had been forced In pursuit of the task she had set herself. She had deliberately given up everything for her Master, and she accepted all the consequences that the renunciation, involved. What she did was for Him and as she was not her own and had taken Him at His word and believed that He would care for her if she kept in line with His will, she went forward without fear, knowing that she might, through inadvertence, incur suffering, but willing to bear it for His sake and His cause. Her faith devotion led her into strange situations, and these shaped the character of her outward life and habits. She shed many conventions, simply because it was necessary in order to carry out the will of Christ. She knew there were some people like the official who saw her pushing a canoe down to the river and preferred not to know her; but she was always sustained by the knowledge that she was acting in her Master's spirit. She found in her New Testament that He ignored the opinion of the world, and she was never afraid to follow where He led. "What," says Mr. Lindsay, "she lost in outward respectability she more than gained in mobility and usefulness. She kept herself untrammelled in the matter of dress that she might be ready for any emergency. In of a sudden call in the night to some distant village where twin children had been thrown out or a bloody quarrel was imminent, she was literally ready to leave at a moment's notice." The one thing essential to her was her work, and anything that hampered her freedom of action was dropped. Not that she was thoughtlessly reckless of her health. She frequently wrote about the need of conserving her strength, and stated that she was taking all due care. She apologised for reading her Bible in bed on Sunday mornings; it gave her a rest, she said, before she began her day's work. As her Sunday began at 5.30 A.M. and ended at 7 P.M., and during the greater part of that time she was walking, preaching, and teaching, she might well allow herself the indulgence. It may be noted that she sometimes misplaced Sunday. "I lost it a fortnight ago," she wrote, "and kept it on a Saturday. Never mind, God would hear all the prayers and answer them all the same." On another occasion she was discovered on a Sunday on the roof of the house executing repairs, thinking it was Monday. Mr. Ovens relates that once when he went up on a Monday to do some work he found her holding a service. She was glad to see him; "but what," said she, "is Duke Town coming to when its carpenter travels on the Sabbath Day?" "Sabbath Day!" he echoed. "It's Monday." "Monday! why, I thought it was Sabbath. Well, we'll have to keep it as Sabbath now." "Na, na," he replied, "it's no Sabbath wi' me. I canna afford two Sabbaths in a week." "Ah, we must though," she said; adding in a whisper, "I was whitewashing the rooms yesterday." Realising that he must "save her face," he took part in the service and started his work next morning. In one of Mr. Goldie's letters to a friend at this time there is a delightful touch. "I am at Okoyong," he wrote, "and am not sure of the date." Her womanly sympathy and tenderness were never better exhibited than in her relations with her dark sisters about her. She entered into their lives as few have been able to do. She treated them as human beings, saw the romance and tragedy in their patient lives, wept over their trials, and rejoiced in their joys. There was one little idyll of harem life which she liked to tell. Some slave-dealers arrived at Ekenge, and among their "bargains" was a young and handsome girl, whom Edem bought for one of his chief men. Ma Erne, who heard of the transaction but paid no attention to it, had a respectable slave-woman at one of her farms whom she ordered to come and live in her own yard. The woman obeyed somewhat unwillingly, and in the village began to grumble to others about her enforced removal. The new slave-girl was cooking her master's food when she heard the voice. As she listened memories were stirred within her and she ran out and gazed at the woman, then went nearer and stared closely into her face. The woman demanded what she was looking at. The girl screamed and caught her round the neck and uttered a word in a strange language. It was the name of the woman, who, in turn, stared at the girl. When the latter called out her own name the two embraced and held each other in a grip of iron. The daughter had found a mother who had been stolen many years before. Both went into the yard and sat on the ground discussing their experiences and receiving the warm congratulations of the other women in the village. There was trouble at the time in the district, and Mary had occasion to see Ma Eme after midnight. She found the two sitting beside some burning logs, with Ma Eme on the other side, all three talking over the mystery of life and its pain and parting and sorrow. She squatted down beside them, and gradually the girl told her story. How she had prayed to the great God for some one to capture her so that she might have a chance of finding her mother when the traders went to Calabar. She believed that among the crowds at Duke Town she would see her face, and when they left there she almost lost hope. But "Ma" craved the companionship of her kind, and she enjoyed going down to Duke Town to the various meetings, and seeing the ladies of the Mission. She would not leave the children behind, and as the whole family would descend unexpectedly on a member of the Mission staff, some embarrassing situations occurred. One missionary, a bachelor, was preparing to turn in about 10 P.M. when he heard people crowding up the stairs of the verandahs and a babel of voices. It was "Ma" and all her boys and girls and babies come to lodge with him for a week. Fortunately he knew his guests, and, as he surmised, they were content with the floor. When the household grew, and she could not leave the children so often, she would sometimes walk with them to Adiabo on the Calabar River, taking provisions with her, and there, halfway, would meet and picnic with the Calabar lady agents. It was about this time that the sense of her loneliness grew upon her to such, an extent that she could not sleep at nights, "I feel dreadfully lonely," she wrote, "and want a helper, and I have made up my mind to ask the Committee at next meeting for a companion." But when she went to Duke Town and realised the depleted state of the Mission caused by illness and death, and the manner in which the staff was overworked, she could not find the heart to prefer her request, and instead she thanked God for being able to hold on. She added her appeal to the other requests for workers that were so constantly sent home then, and her idea of the kind of woman most suited for the Calabar field is of interest: ... Consecrated, affectionate women who are not afraid of work or of filth of any kind, moral or material. Women who can nurse a baby or teach a child to wash and comb as well as to read and write, women who can tactfully smooth over a roughness and for Christ's sake bear a snub, and take any place which may open. Women who can take everything to Jesus and there get strength to smile and persevere and pull on under any circumstances. If they can play Beethoven and paint and draw and speak French and German so much the better, but we can want all these latter accomplishments if they have only a loving heart, willing hands, and common sense. Surely such women are not out of our reach. There are thousands of them in our churches, and our home churches have no monopoly of privilege in choosing to keep them. Spare us a few. Induce them to come forward. If there be the call from the Holy Spirit do not let mere accomplishments be a _sine qua non_. Help them to come forward. Take them to your own homes and let them have the benefit of all the conversation and refinement and beauty which fill these, and so gently lead them out of their timidity and accustom them to society that they may meet out in the world, and hand them on to us. Up in a station like mine they want to teach the first principles of everything, and they need to help in times of trouble in the home or in the town palaver. They will not need fine English, for there is none to admire it. No one knows other than native languages, and I would gladly hail any warm-hearted woman from any sphere if she would come to me. I cannot pretend to work this station: the school work is simply a scramble at the thing, mostly by the girls of the house. I can't overtake it. It is because I am not doing it efficiently that I am grieved. On her visits to Calabar she was an object of much interest. One who knew her then says: "She had the power of attracting young men, and she had great influence with them. Whether they were in Mission work, or traders, or government men, they were sure to be attracted by her vigorous character and by the large-hearted, understanding way she would talk to them or listen to their talk of their work or other interests. She loved to stir them to do great things." It was sometimes remarked by visitors that her surroundings had not the spick-and-span appearance which usually characterises a Scottish Mission station. She had, nevertheless, a real appreciation of order and beauty, and liked to have everything clean and tidy about her. How to accomplish this was her daily problem, and perhaps only those who have lived in tropical lands can understand the position. The difficulty there is not how to make things grow, but how to prevent them growing. She waged as fierce and incessant a war with vegetation as she did with man, but it proved too much for her strength. "I think," she wrote, "if I left alone some of the outdoor work, even it the place did go to bush and dirt, I would not be so tired, and I could do more otherwise. But I can't help it. I must put my hands in wherever there is work to be done." The task had not become easier for her, for the new trade with Calabar had brought about a demand for Okoyong yams, and the people were so busy planting at their farms that she was unable to hire labour. The bush would creep up swiftly and stealthily to the edge of the dwellings and become a covering for beasts of prey, and, then she and her girls would sally out and cut it down and burn it and dig out the roots. And in its place would be planted corn and cocos and yams and other products, the children each having a plot to tend. A private pathway to the spring which she had constructed in order that the girls might not mix with the village women and hear their talk had also to be kept clear. It was hard work in the hot sunshine, and she and her bairns literally watered the soil with their perspiration. But no tears were shed at the work save those caused by merry jokes and laughter. She often surveyed the scene with pride, revelling in the wild beauty of form and colour, the brilliancy of the flowering trees, the tender green of the yams on their supports, the starry jasmine with its keen perfume. She loved flowers, and taught her scholars to bring them to school. They had never been conscious of these before, and the fact that they began to appreciate them was, she considered, a step forward in their educational development. Often she longed for the power to bring out thousands of the slum people from the cities at home to enjoy the open life, and to work the rich lands. Not that she used the word "slum"; it seemed to reflect on the poor, many of whom she regarded as the heroes and heroines of God; in her humility she believed that many of them would have been far ahead of her if they had had the same advantages. One of her day-dreams was to inherit a fortune and to spend it all on the poor. "If only"-- but she would check herself and say, "Mary Slessor! as if God does not know what to give and how to give it, and as if He did not love and think for all these poor creatures who are so mercilessly pushed aside in the race of life." XXIV. MAIDEN-MOTHER AND ANGEL-CHILD Of all the tasks to which she put her hand the sweetest as well as the saddest was the care of the babes of the bush. Her house was the refuge of little children: sickly ones that were left with her to nurse and return; discarded ones that were taken to her; outcast ones that she rescued from injury and death. So many came, received names, were described in her letters, and then passed out of sight, that her friends in Scotland were unable to keep abreast of her efforts in this direction. They arrived in all stages of sickness, but usually the last. With many a broken body she had never a chance, but with marvellous patience and tenderness she washed them and nursed them and loved them and fought the dark shadow that was ever ready to hover over the tiny forms. Night after night she would sit up watching a face that was wasted and twisted with pain, or walk to and fro crooning snatches of song to soothe a restless mite in her arms. Sometimes a hammock was slung up beside her into which they were placed, so that if they awoke during the night she could touch it with her foot and swing them to sleep again. More than once, when the supply of condensed milk ran out, she strapped her latest baby to her body and tramped the long miles to Creek Town through the bush, and returned next day with the child and the tins. The children that were brought back to health and strength and restored to their parents it was always a pang to part with. She wished she could have kept them and trained them up away from the degraded influences of their homes. Those who died she dressed and placed among flowers in a box, held a service over them, and buried them in a little cemetery, which by and by became full of tiny graves. She mourned over them as if they had been blood of her blood. Mr. Ovens used to say to her, "Never mind, lassie, you'll get plenty mair"--and indeed there were always plenty, Of all the African children that passed through her hands none endeared itself so much to her as Susie, her first Okoyong twin. The mother, Iye, was a slave from Bende, light in colour and handsome, and was the property of one of the big women, who treated her with kindness and consideration. When the twins arrived all was changed. Miss Kingsley, who arrived at Ekenge the same day on a visit to Mary, thus describes the scene: She was subjected to torrents of virulent abuse, her things were torn from her, her English china basins, possessions she valued most highly, were smashed, her clothes were torn, and she was driven out as an unclean thing. Had it not been for the fear of incurring Miss Slessor's anger, she would, at this point have been killed with her children, and the bodies thrown into the bush. As it was, she was hounded out of the village. The rest of her possessions were jammed into an empty gin-case and cast to her. No one would touch her, as they might not touch to kill. Miss Slessor had heard of the twins' arrival and had started off, barefooted and bareheaded, at that pace she can go down a bush path. By the time she had gone four miles she met the procession, the woman coming to her, and all the rest of the village yelling and howling behind her. On the top of her head was the gin-case, into which the children had been stuffed, on the top of them the woman's big brass skillet, and on the top of that her two market calabashes. Needless to say, on arriving Miss Slessor took charge of affairs, relieving the unfortunate, weak, staggering woman from her load and carrying it herself, for no one else would touch it, or anything belonging to those awful twin things, and they started back together to Miss Slessor's house in the forest-clearing, saved by that tact which, coupled with her courage, has given Miss Slessor an influence and a power among the negroes unmatched in its way by that of any other white. She did not take the twins and their mother down the village path to her own house, for though, had she done so, the people of Okoyong would not have prevented her, yet so polluted would the path have been and so dangerous to pass down, that they would have been compelled to cut another, no light task in that bit of forest, I assure you. So Miss Slessor stood waiting in the broiling sun, in the hot season's height, while a path was being cut to enable her just to get through to her own grounds. The natives worked away hard, knowing that it saved the polluting of a long stretch of market road, and when it was finished Miss Slessor went to her own house by it, and attended with all kindness, promptness, and skill to the woman and children. I arrived in the middle of this affair for my first meeting with Miss Slessor, and things at Okoyong were rather crowded, one way and another, that afternoon. All the attention one of the children wanted--the boy, for there were a boy and a girl--was burying, for the people who had crammed them into the box had utterly smashed the child's head. The other child was alive, and is still a member of that household of rescued children, all of whom owe their lives to Miss Slessor. The natives would not touch it, and only approached it after some days, and then only when it was held by Miss Slessor or me. If either of us wanted to do or get something, and we handed over the bundle to one of the house children to hold, there was a stampede of men and women off the verandah, out of the yard, and over the fence, if need be, that was exceedingly comic, but most convincing as to the reality of the terror and horror in which they held the thing. Even its own mother could not be trusted with the child; she would have killed it. She never betrayed the slightest desire to have it with her, and after a few days' nursing and feeding up she was anxious to go back to her mistress, who, being an enlightened woman, was willing to have her if she came without the child. The woman's own lamentations were pathetic. She would sit for hours singing or rather mourning out a kind of dirge over herself: "Yesterday I was a woman, now I am a horror, a thing all people ran from. Yesterday they would eat with me, now they spit on me. Yesterday they would talk to me with sweet mouth, and now they greet me only with curses and execrations. They have smashed my basin, they have torn my clothes," so on, and so on. There was no complaint against the people for doing these things, only a bitter sense of injury against some superhuman power that had sent this withering curse of twins down on her, The surviving infant, Susie, was not commonplace in feature like the other black children; she was not in reality a negress, but fair, shapely, and clean-skinned, with a nose like a white child's and a sweet mouth--a mouth which Miss Kingsley called the "button-hole." Every one loved her, and she was queen of the household. When she was fourteen months old Miss Slessor one day went to the dispensary and left her in charge of Mana, who put down a jug of boiling water on the floor beside her. Susie thought it a plaything, and, seizing it, pulled it over upon herself. Instead of calling for "Ma" Mana ran with the child to the bathroom and poured cold water over the wounds. For thirteen days and nights she was never out of Mary's hands. Fortunately Miss Murray, a lady agent who, at her own request, had been stationed at Okoyong for a time, and whose companionship she valued, helped her greatly. "She was like a sister to me," she wrote. Thinking more might be done by a medical man she started off with the child in her arms, arrived at Creek Town at midnight, and woke up the doctor, who, however, said he could not do more than she had done. She returned at once to Ekenge, and again watched the suffering babe by day and night. In the darkness and silence, when all were asleep, she would hear the faint words, "Mem, Mem, Mem!"--the child's name for her--and the wee hand would be held up for her to kiss. Early one Sunday morning she passed away in her arms. Robed in a pinafore, with her beads and a sash, and a flower in her hand, she looked "like an angel child." The event caused a strange stir in Okoyong. None of the villagers went to their farms or market while the child was hovering on the brink of death, and when she passed away they came and mourned with "Ma." She was buried in the cemetery where so many other hapless waifs were already at rest. In her anguish Mary could not conduct the service, but sat at the window and looked out while Miss Murray bravely took her place. The people, respectful and sad, gathered round the grave--the grave of a twin!--and one of the women, a leader in heathenism, praised the white Mother's God for the child, and prayed that they might all have her hope in the Beyond. "Surely," was Mary's comment, "they all felt the vast difference between their burials with all their drink and madness, and ours so full of quiet hope and expectant faith." The slave-mother had often come to visit her, and had actually got to love the child, and when it died she was heartbroken. "Ma," she said, "don't cry. I have done this. God hates me. I shall go away and not bring any more evil on you." With that she went back to her hut in the bush. "If I were a wealthy woman," said "Ma," "I would buy her; but I cannot afford it, so we must do our best to cheer her up." Although she objected to buying slave-women, even to restore them to freedom, on account of the wrong impression it left on the native mind, she made an exception in the case of Iye, and not long afterwards she was able to purchase her liberty for £10, and she became an inmate of the Mission House, Miss Slessor's intention being to train her so that she might be useful to any lady who lived at the station during her absences in Scotland. To the natives Iye was an outcast, and had "no character." "_Etubom_," Mary said to Mr. Ovens, "If a slave-dealer came round I would not get £6 for her." "Why?" said he. "She has no character." "But he would buy her and take her up country." "What for?" "To feed her for chop!"... For some time she suffered physically from the shock she had received. No mother could have grieved more bitterly over the loss of a beloved child. "My heart aches for my darling," she wrote. "Oh the empty place, and the silence and the vain longing for the sweet voice and the soft caress and the funny ways. Oh, Susie, Susie!" XXV. MARY KINGSLEY'S VISIT Miss Kingsley paid her visit to the West Coast in 1893. Like all who travelled in West Africa, she heard of the woman missionary who lived alone among the wild Okoyong, and made a point of going up to see her. Miss Slessor welcomed so capable and earnest a worker, "She gave me," says Miss Kingsley, "some of the pleasantest days of my life." In some respects these two brilliant women were much akin, though they were poles asunder in regard to their outlook on spiritual verities. They had long discussions on religious subjects, and would sit up late beating over such questions as the immortality of the soul. Miss Kingsley was profoundly impressed. "I would give anything to possess your beliefs," she said wistfully, "but I can't, I can't; when God made me He must have left out the part that one believes with." Nevertheless Miss Slessor said that for all her beliefs and unbeliefs she was one of the most truly Christian women she had ever met. On her return to England Miss Kingsley spoke often of her in terms of affection and admiration, and acknowledged to friends that she had done her much spiritual good. Mary, on her part, poured into her possession all her treasures of knowledge concerning the fetish ideas and practices of the natives, and probably none knew more about these matters than she. Most missionaries confess that they never get to the back of the negro mind, and one who worked in a neighbouring field once said that after nineteen years' careful study he had yet to master the intricacies of native superstition. The information that Mary supplied was therefore of great value, and much of it was utilised in Miss Kingsley's books. In _Travels in West Africa_ she gives the following considered view of the missionary: This very wonderful lady has been eighteen years in Calabar; for the last six or seven living entirely alone, as far as white folks go, in a clearing in the forest near to one of the principal villages of the Okoyong district, and ruling as a veritable white chief over the entire district. Her great abilities, both physical and intellectual, have given her among the savage tribe a unique position, and won her, from white and black who know her, a profound esteem. Her knowledge of the native, his language, his ways of thought, his diseases, his difficulties, and all that is his, is extraordinary, and the amount of good she has done, no man can fully estimate. Okoyong, when she went there alone--living in the native houses while she built, with the assistance of the natives, her present house--was a district regarded with fear by the Duke and Creek Town natives, and practically unknown to Europeans. It was given, as most of the surrounding districts still are, to killing at funerals, ordeal by poison, and perpetual internecine wars. Many of these evil customs she has stamped out, and Okoyong rarely gives trouble to its nominal rulers, the Consuls, in Old Calabar, and trade passes freely through it down to the seaports. This instance of what one white can do would give many important lessons in West Coast administration and development. Only the sort of man Miss Slessor represents is rare. There are but few who have the same power of resisting the malarial climate, and of acquiring the language and an insight into the negro mind, so perhaps after all it is no great wonder that Miss Slessor stands alone, as she certainly does. With all her robust ability Miss Kingsley's mental range was curiously narrow. She wrote strongly against Protestant missionary aims and methods in West Africa, her views being entirely opposed to those of the White Woman of Okoyong, who had a much greater right to speak on the subject. But the latter, nevertheless, loved her, and when the news of her death came, some years later, she was plunged into grief. "The world held not many so brave and so noble," she wrote. "Life feels very cold and seems grey and sunless." Hearing of a proposed memorial to the intrepid traveller she sent a guinea as her mite towards it. XXVI. AN ALL-NIGHT JOURNEY An outburst of fighting had taken place amongst the factions around Ekenge. Women were the cause of it, and a number had been herded into a stockade near the Mission House, where a band of men were proceeding to murder them. Mary came on the scene and held them at bay. All day she stood there and all night, her girls handing her from time to time a cup of tea through the poles of the enclosure. Next night matters had become quieter, a tornado of rain and wind having eased the situation, but she was soaked, whilst the mats of the Mission House had blown up and the interior had been flooded, so that both the girls and herself needed dry garments. Then the condensed milk was nearly done, she was told, and the baby she was nursing would suffer without it. Both clothing and milk could only be procured from Calabar, and as she had no messenger to despatch there, she resolved to go herself. After dark she stole out of the stockade, placed the child in a basket, secured a woman as guide, and with a lantern started out to walk through the bush to Creek Town. She reached Adiabo on the Calabar River about half-past ten, obtained a cup of tea from the native pastor, and pushed on. Her guide lost the way, a deluge of rain fell, and they wandered aimlessly for a time through the dripping forest, before again striking the track. Creek Town was reached at four o'clock in the morning. She knocked up Miss Johnstone, who sent her to bed for an hour, and sought for some tins of milk. As soon as two had been procured Mary was eager to be off. Miss Johnstone gave her some changes of clothing, and King Eyo put his canoe and a strong crew at her disposal, and she was soon speeding up-river. On her arrival she found to her satisfaction that her absence had not been discovered, and she was able eventually to restore peace without the shedding of blood. Two days later a canoe which came down-river to Duke Town brought word that she was ill with dysentery. Dr. Laws of Livingstonia, who was then visiting the Mission as a deputy, happened to be at Creek Town and was asked to go and see her with Mr. Manson, one of the industrial staff, as guide. Their canoe was nearly swamped by rain, and they had to change their clothing when they arrived. She was soon up and through to the hall to provide hospitality for her guests, supporting herself by the table the while. A peremptory order came from Dr. Laws to return to bed at once. She gave him a long curious look, and then without a word went and lay down. He noticed that his companion appeared both astonished and amused, and it was not until he returned to Calabar, and heard Mr. Manson telling how "Ma" Slessor had been taken in charge for once, that he realised how bold he had been. Dr. Laws thought that few women, or even men, could have stood the isolation that she endured. XXVII. AKOM: A FIRST-FRUIT Although force of circumstances made her the instrument of law and order her chief aim was to win the people to Christ, and all her efforts were directed to that end. It was for souls she was always hungering, and the lack of conversions was her greatest sorrow. Nevertheless she was making progress. The people were becoming familiar with the name of God and Christ and the principles underlying the Gospel, and there were many who leant more to the new way than to the old, whilst some in their hearts believed. The boys that were being trained at school and service were perhaps the most cheering element in the situation, and upon them she set her hopes. It was wonderful that she achieved what she did in view of the conditions that prevailed. How difficult it was for a native to break away from habits and customs ingrained in them through centuries of repetition may be gathered from the story of Akom, a freewoman, one of the most self-righteous of the big ladies of the district. She had been betrothed, when a year old, to a young and powerful chief, and had been brought up in the harem and was a zealous upholder of all superstitious practices. On her lord's death she escaped the poison ordeal, and was active in placing wives and slaves into the grave. By and by Ekpenyong made her his wife and mistress of the harem, and for twenty years she held undisputed sway. When Edem's son was killed by the falling of a log it will be remembered that Ekpenyong was blamed for the event and retired to the bush. Not long afterwards a young chief there fell sick, and the witch- doctor on consulting his oracle declared that he saw Akom and her son dancing the whole night long, and gaily piercing the sick man with knives and spears. Akom was charged with sorcery, and asked to take the poison ordeal. Her friends advised her to flee, and she and her son disappeared during the night and took refuge in Umon, where the people gave them the protection of their _ibritam_ or juju. "Ma" was in Scotland at the time. When she returned Ekpenyong begged her to interfere and have his wife brought back. This she managed to do after Akom had taken _mbiam_--the strongest and most dreaded of native oaths, which included the drinking of blood shed from the wrist. The woman came to see her, but stood outside. "What?" exclaimed "Ma," "you cannot come within my gate?" "No," was the reply; "you had a twin- mother once living in the yard, and I cannot come in lest I touch the place she touched," Those who took the _mbiam_ oath, believed that they would die if they came in contact in any way with a twin-mother. "Ma" pretended to be hurt, and said, "If my house is polluted you had better go home, as I do not receive visitors on the road." After a time Akom ventured in, and she was kind to her and gave her an order for mats, at the making of which she was an adept. She then came regularly and listened intently to "Ma's" teaching, although she said nothing. By and by she began to remark on the purity of the Gospel religion and show increased reverence at the services. Twins came, and she mastered her fear and went into the house. But alas! a mysterious pain straightway developed in her foot, and this surely was _mbiam_ punishing her; and when a skin disease followed, her faith nearly failed her, and she wailed and mourned in despair. "Ma" spoke strongly to her; and at last she rose and said, "I am a fool; my God, my Father, listen not to my foolishness. Kill me if Thou wilt, but do not leave me." The disease was checked, and a native medicine effected a cure. But she stood out against any sacrifice, saying very sensibly, "My Father owns the bush and gives us the knowledge of the medicine, and as the Master knows what He has made He knows also how to bless it apart from any outsider." Ekpenyong all this while had ignored his wife, expecting that the _mbiam_ would do its work. He looked grimly on, and when she injured her foot against a root he believed the end had arrived. All the people watched the struggle between the white woman's prayers and the _mbiam's_ power, and when the wound healed they were nonplussed, but quaintly explained the miracle by saying that their Mother was different from other white people, and so had prevailed. Akom grew in grace despite her surroundings, and found strength in her contact with Christ. An amazing thing to her was that the man who had accused her of witchcraft came and made friends with her. "Ma," she said, "see what God has wrought. The man who demanded my life comes to tell me his affairs! I sometimes wanted to take revenge, but I have got it from God, and His revenge is of a sweeter kind than that of the Consul." It was cases like this that coloured Miss Slessor's life with joy. Sometimes, too, she was unexpectedly cheered by evidence of the fruit of her work in past days. In 1894 a lad, an old scholar of hers in Duke Town, turned up in the village. He had made good use of his education, and wherever he went, on farm and on beach, he held worship and got the people to listen. It was not surprising that she regarded the boys as her most hopeful agents, although she was always very careful in choosing them as teachers for bush schools; she thought it belittled the message to send those who were not thoroughly fit for the work. XXVIII. THE BOX FROM HOME The most joyous break in the domestic life at Ekenge, both for the house-mother and the children, was caused by the arrival of boxes of gifts from Scotland. So many congregations and Sunday Schools had become interested in her and her work that there was a continuous stream of packages to Okoyong. "I am ashamed at receiving so much," she would say. Her own friends also remembered her; and on one occasion she wrote to a lady who had sent a personal contribution, "It seems like a box from a whole congregation, not from an individual." She was specially delighted with the articles that came from the children of the Church, and many a letter she wrote in return to the scholars in Sunday Schools. None knew better how to thank them. She would give them a picture of the landing of the boxes at Duke Town, and the journey up the Calabar River in the canoe or in the steamer _David Williamson_--which they had themselves subscribed for and supplied--to the beach, and of the excitement when the engineer came over, perhaps with visitors, to announce the arrival. "White people come, Ma!" The cry by day or night always roused the household. One girl ran to make up the fire and put on the kettle, another placed the spare room in order, a third took the hand parcels and wraps, and "Ma" herself welcomed the guests with a Scottish word or two, and a warm hand-clasp. They would give her home letters, but these she would lay aside until she was more at leisure. Then a whisper would go round that there were goods at the beach, and every man, woman, and child about the place would be eager to be off to bring them up. But the boxes would be too large and heavy to be borne on heads through the forest, and they would be opened and the contents made up into packages, with which the carriers marched off in single file. Depositing them at the house they would return for more until all were safely conveyed. Then the articles would be exposed amidst cries of wonder and delight, and the house become like a bazaar. Sometimes there would be a mix-up of articles, but the loving messages pinned on to each would clear up the confusion. Mary dearly loved to linger over each gift and spin a little history into it, and she would pray with a full heart, "Lord Jesus thou knowest the giver and the love and the prayers and the self-denial. Bless and accept and use all for Thy glory and for the good of these poor straying ignorant children, and repay all a thousandfold." She was careful in her allocation of the gifts amongst the people in order that they might not be regarded as a bribe to ensure good behaviour or attendance at the services. She would not even give them as payment for work done, as this, she thought, put the service on a commercial basis and made them look again for an equivalent gain. Pictures and texts, like dolls, were somewhat of a problem, as there was a danger of the people worshipping them. But they liked to beautify their squalid huts with them, and she regarded them as an educative and civilising agency not to be despised. Also to a certain extent they gave an indication of those who had sympathy with the new ideas, and were sometimes a silent confession of a break with heathenism. To one old woman, the first Christian, was given a copy of "The Light of the World." Holding it reverently she exclaimed, "Oh! I shall never be lonely any more. I can't read the Book, but I can sit or lie and look at my Lord, and we can speak together. Oh, my Saviour, keep me till I see you up yonder!" It was explained that the picture was an allegory, and the woman understood; but she simply saw Christ in all the fervour of her newborn love and faith, and Mary trusted to keep her right by daily teaching. Some of the articles found odd uses. A dress would be given to a girl who was entering into seclusion for fattening; a dressing-gown would go to the chief who was a member of the native Court, and he would wear it when trying cases, to the admiration of the people; a white shirt would be presented to another chief, and he would don it like a State robe when paying "Ma" a formal visit. Blouses she retained, since no native women wore them. The pretty baby-clothes were a source of wonder to the people--they were speechless at the idea of infants wearing such priceless things. It must be confessed that there was something for which "Ma" always searched when a box from her own friends arrived. Like the children she was fond of sweets, and there would be a shriek of delight from more than juvenile lips when the well-known tins and bottles were discovered in some corner where they had been designedly hidden. XXIX. AN APPEAL TO THE CONSUL "Religious missions have worked persistently and well, and pointed out to the people the evil of their cruelties and wrongdoing, but there comes a time when their efforts need backing up by the strong arm of the law of civilisation and right." Sir Claude Macdonald wrote this in the autumn of 1894. Perhaps he had in mind the case of Okoyong. For in that year Miss Slessor came to the conclusion that it was time to invoke the great power which lay behind her in order to put a stop to the practice of killing on charges of witchcraft. She was busy with a twin-murder case when word suddenly arrived that a man was being blamed for causing his master's death, and that a palaver was going on. She sent some of the children at once to say that when her household had retired she would walk over in the moonlight. But a tornado came on, and the rain poured all night. As soon as it cleared she despatched a message: "Don't do anything till I come--I will come when the bush is drier." On receiving this the accuser rose: "Am I not to give him any ordeal till Ma comes? I will not be able to do it then! She won't be willing. Unlock his chains and take him to Okat Ikan, where he will be beyond her reach." Seizing the man his henchmen hurried him off, and the chief followed with a grunt of satisfaction at having outwitted the White Mother. When she heard of the manoeuvre she determined not to go wandering aimlessly in the bush in search of the party. She resolved to do what she had never done before, send down to the Consulate at Duke Town and seek the assistance of the Government not only to rescue this particular victim, but to end the evil throughout the length and breadth of Okoyong. The house-girls became aware of her intention, and the news that "Ma's" patience, so often and so sorely tried, was at last exhausted, and that she was going to adopt stronger measures, spread swiftly through the villages. In order not to involve any native in the transaction she was the bearer of her own communication to the beach, and she was not long gone on her walk through the forest when the people concerned arrived breathlessly at the Mission House to beg her to forgive them for going beyond her voice. "Ma is away," announced the children, "and you cannot reach her now." Sadder and wiser they returned to their village, for they feared the Consul, who was associated in their minds with big guns and burnt towns. She returned late at night, wearied with the journey, yet was up early in the morning again and walked six miles in intense heat to a palaver, carrying a couple of babies. When she arrived she was at the point of fainting. The next night the slave who had been carried off succeeded in breaking the lock of his chains and escaped to the Mission House. In his baffled rage his master chained all who belonged to him, but fear of the impending visit of the Consul made him reflect, and he sent word later to "Ma" to ask her forgiveness, and to say that all the people had been freed. He asked her to go down to Duke Town and make the Consul come "in peace and not in war." She did so, taking the refugee with her. The Consul adopted her view of the situation, and arranged to visit the district and hold a conference. To this she invited all the chiefs, telling them to free their minds of fear, and preparing them for the subjects that would be dealt with. It was Mr. Moor, the Vice-Consul, who came, and he brought a small guard of honour which paraded in the village, and gave Okoyong a greater thrill than it had yet experienced. Mr. Moor found "Ma" on the roof of her house repairing the mats which had been leaking, but she was not in the least perturbed, and received him with perfect composure. He was very patient and kind with the chiefs, but sought to impress upon them the necessity for some improvement in their habits. Already Mary had been much impressed with the new stamp of Government official under Sir Claude Macdonald, and this representative of the class she thought one of the best. As a result of the conference the chiefs promised to abstain from killing at funerals, and to allow "Ma" to have an opportunity of saving twins and caring for them in a special hut. She gave thanks to God; but she knew the African nature, and did not relax her vigilance. A month after the Consul's visit a kinsman of the above chief, older and much more wealthy, died suddenly. "We trembled for their promise to the Consul," she wrote, "but we left them to themselves, believing that it was better to trust them to a great extent, and instead of going and staying with them to watch, we sent our compliments and gifts, and told them we expected they would remember their treaty and the consequences of any breach of faith. After all was over not a slave or vassal was missing, and though there were not wanting idle tongues let loose by the unlimited supply of strong drink, and brawlings, and determinations to take the poison of their own accord in order to prove their innocence, not one person has died as the direct result of the dread event." Mrs. Weir once spent a week-end at Okoyong, and accompanied her to a village two or three miles away where she was in the habit of going to conduct a service. When they arrived they found that the head of a house had died, and was being buried, according to custom, inside the house. They were taken to the place and saw the dead man's possessions --his pipe, snuff-box, powder-flask, and other articles--placed in the grave in order that they might be useful to him in the other world. Mrs. Weir could not help wondering at their superstition after all the teaching that they had been given. She said nothing; but Mary, with her keen intuition, read her thoughts and said. "You will be thinking they are not very different yet, but when I came to Okoyong, do you think I would have seen men and women moving freely about like this? They would have all been refugees in the bush, and those who had been caught would have been in chains, waiting to be put to death, so that their spirits might accompany the chief." Towards the end of the year she had what she called one of her descents into the valley of the shadow, and was removed to Duke Town. "Daddy" Anderson, who had retired, but had come out again to Calabar on a visit, walked over to see her; he said very little, but just sat and held her hand. He, himself, was passing into the shadow, but not to return. She was with him at the last, and did her best to comfort him. "Dear Daddy Anderson!" she wrote; "Calabar seems a strange land to me now. All the friends are strangers to the old order. The Calabar of my girlhood is among the things of the past." Her scepticism regarding the promise of the people was justified, for the killing of twins went on as usual; and in the following year she brought up Sir Claude Macdonald himself to renew the covenant. Sir Claude was all kindness and courtesy, assuring the chiefs that he did not come to take their country, but to guide them into a proper way of governing it, that all, bond and free, might dwell in safety and peace. What he insisted on was their recognition of the claims of justice and humanity. The spokesman, an old greyheaded man, said they wished to retire, in order to consult together. On returning he naively excused their conduct by stating that when they only heard words once they thought the matter unworthy of their consideration, but when they were repeated, they thought there must be something in them, and so they would obey the requirements of the Government this time. As regards twins, they were doubtful, "We are not sure that no evil will happen to us if we obey you; we have our fear, but we will try." They would not, however, consent to keep them in their own homes, and again Mary said that if they would notify her of the births she would be responsible for their welfare. She had been acting as interpreter, and as the palaver lasted from early morning until after dark she was much fatigued. Her last words were to encourage the chiefs to keep their pledge, and they would enjoy the benefits when she might be no more with them. The very suggestion of farewell alarmed them. "God cannot take you away from your children," they exclaimed, "until they are able to walk by themselves." XXX. AFTER SEVEN YEARS Africa is slow to change: the centuries roll over it, leaving scarcely a trace of their passing: the years come and go, and the people remain the same: all effort seems in vain. Could one weak woman affect the conditions even in a small district of the mighty continent? It had been uphill work for her. At first there had been only a dogged response to the message she had brought. When some impression had been made she found that it soon disappeared. In ordinary life the people were volatile, quick as fire to resent, and as quick to forgive and forget, and they were the same in regard to higher things. They went into rapture over the Gospel, prayed aloud, clasped their hands, shed tears, and then went back to their drinking, sacrificing, and quarrelling. They kept to all the old ways, in case they might miss the right one. "Yes, Ma," they would say, "that is right for you; but you and we are different." But she never lost hope. "There is not much progress to report," she was accustomed to say, "and yet very much to thank God for, and to lead us to take courage." She was quite content to go on bringing rays of sunshine into the dark lives of the people, and securing for the children better conditions than their fathers had. "After all," she would say, "it comes back to this, Christ sent me to preach the Gospel, and He will look after results." She was always much comforted by the thought of something she had heard the Rev. Dr. Beatt, of her old church in Aberdeen, say in a sermon: she could recall nothing but the heads, and one of these was, "_Between the sower and the reaper stands the Husbandman._" But results there were of a most important kind, and it is time to take stock of them. Fortunately she was induced at this time to jot down some impressions of her work, and these, which were never published, give the best idea of the remarkable change which had been wrought in the life and habits of Okoyong. It will be noticed that she does not use the pronoun "I." Whenever she gave a statement of her work she always wrote "we," as if she were a co-worker with a Higher Power. "In these days of high pressure," she says, "men demand large profits and quick returns in every department of our commercial and national life, and these must be served up with the definiteness and precision of statistics. This abnormal and feverish haste has entered to some extent into our religious work, and is felt more or less in all the pulses of our Church. Whatever may be the reasons for such a course in regard to worldly callings, its methods and standards are utterly foreign to the laws of Christ's kingdom, and can only result in distortions and miscalculations when applied to His work. While thanking God for every evidence of life and growth, we shrink from reducing the throes of spiritual life, the development and workings of the conscience, or the impulse and trend toward God and righteousness, to any given number of figures on a table. Hence it is with the greatest reluctance that we endeavour to sum up some tangible proof of the power of God's Word among our heathen neighbours. While to our shame and confusion of face it has not been what it might, and would have been had we been more faithful and kept more in line with the will and spirit of God, it has to the praise of the glory of His grace proved stronger than sin and Satan. "We do not attempt to give in numbers those who are nominally Christian. Women, lads, girls, and a few men profess to have placed themselves in God's hands. All the children within reach are sent to the school without stipulation. One lady of free birth and good position has borne persecution for Christ's sake. We speak with diffidence; for as no ordained minister has ever been resident or available for more than a short visit, no observance of the ordinances of Baptism or the Lord's Supper have been held and we have not had the usual definite offers of persons as candidates for Church membership, We have just kept on sowing the seed of the Word, believing that when God's time comes to gather them into the visible Church there will be some among us ready to participate in the privilege and honour. "Of results as affecting the condition and conduct of our people generally, it is more easy to speak. Raiding, plundering, the stealing of slaves, have almost entirely ceased. Any person from any place can come now for trade of pleasure, and stay wherever they choose, their persons and property being as safe as in Calabar. For fully a year we have heard of nothing like violence from even the most backward of our people. They have thanked me for restraining them in the past, and begged me to be their consul, as they neither wished black man nor white man to be their king. It would be impossible, apart from a belief in God's particular and personal providence in answer to prayer, to account for the ready obedience and submission to our judgment which was accorded to us. It seemed sometimes to be almost miraculous that hordes of armed, drunken, passion-swayed men should give heed and chivalrous homage to a woman, and one who had neither wealth nor outward display of any kind to produce the slightest sentiment in her favour. But such was the case, and we do not recollect one instance of insubordination. "As their intercourse with the white men increased through trade or otherwise, they found that to submit to his authority did not mean loss of liberty but the opposite, and gradually their objections cleared away, till in 1894 they formally met and bound themselves to some extent by treaty with the Consul. Again, later, our considerate, patient, tactful Governor, Sir Claude Macdonald, met them, and at that interview the last objection was removed, and they promised unconditional surrender of the old laws which were based on unrighteousness and cruelty, and cordial acceptance of the just and, as they called it, 'clean' code which he proffered them in return, Since then he has proclaimed them a free people in every respect among neighbouring tribes, and so, placing them on their honour, so to speak, has made out of the roughest material a lot of self-respecting men who conduct their business in a fashion from which Europeans might take lessons. Of course they need superintendence and watching, for their ideas are not so nicely balanced as ours in regard to the shades and degrees of right and wrong, but as compared with their former ideas and practice they are far away ahead of what we expected. "No tribe was formerly so feared because of their utter disregard of human life, but human life is now safe. No chief ever died without the sacrifice of many lives, but this custom has now ceased. Only last month the man who, for age, wealth, and general influence, exceeded all the other chiefs in Okoyong, died from the effects of cold caught three months before. We trembled, as they are at some distance from us, and every drop of European drink which could be bought from all the towns around was bought at once, and canoes were sent from every hamlet with all the produce at command to Duke Town for some more, and all was consumed before the people dispersed from the funeral. But the only death resulting has been that of a man, who, on being blamed by the witch-doctors, went and hanged himself because the chiefs in attendance--drunk as they were--refused to give him the poison ordeal. Some chiefs, gathered for palaver at our house on the day of his death, in commenting on the wonderful change said, 'Ma, you white people are God Almighty. No other power could have done this.' "With regard to infanticide and twin-murder we can speak hopefully. It will doubtless take some time to develop in them the spirit of self- sacrifice to the extent of nursing the vital spark for the mere love of God and humanity among the body of the people. The ideals of those emerging from heathenism are almost necessarily low. What the foreigner does is all very well for the foreigner, but the force of habit or something more subtle evidently excuses the practice of the virtue among themselves. Of course there are exceptions. All the evidence goes to show that something more tangible than sentiment or principle determines the conduct of the multitude, even among those avowedly Christian. But with all this there has dawned on them the fact that life is worth saving, even at the risk of one's own: and though chiefs and subjects alike, less than two years ago, refused to hear of the saving of twins, we have already their promise and the first instalment of their fidelity to their promise in the persons of two baby girls aged six and five months respectively, who have already won the hearts of some of our neighbours and the love of all the school children. Seven women have literally touched them, and all the people, including the most practical of the chiefs, come to the house and hold their palavers in full view of where the children are being nursed. One chief who, with fierce gesticulations, some years ago protested that we must draw the line at twins, and that they should never be brought to light in his lifetime, brought one of his children who was very ill, two months ago, and laid it on our knee alongside the twin already there, saying with a sob in his voice, 'There! they are all yours, living or dying, they are all yours. Do what you like with mine.' "Drinking, especially among the women, is on the decrease. The old bands of roving women who came to us at first are now only a memory and a name. The women still drink, but it is at home where the husband can keep them in check. In our immediate neighbourhood it is an extremely rare thing to see a woman intoxicated, even on feast days and at funerals. None of the women who frequent our house ever taste it at all, but they still keep it for sale and give it to visitors. Indeed it is the only thing which commands a ready sale and brings ready money, and their excuse is just that of many of the Church members at home, that those who want it will get it elsewhere, and perhaps in greater measure. But we have noted a decided stand being taken by several of the young mothers who have been our friends and scholars against its being given by husbands or visitors to their children. We have also thankfully noted for long that on our making an appearance anywhere there is a run made to hide the bottles, and the chief indignantly threatens any slave who brings it into our presence. "All this points to an improvement in the condition of the people generally. They are eager for education. Instead of the apathy and incredulous laugh which the mention of the Word formerly brought, the cry from all parts is for teachers; and there is a disposition to be friendly to any one who will help them towards a higher plane of living. But it brings vividly before us the failures and weaknesses in our work; for instance, the desultoriness of our teaching, which of necessity stultifies the results that under better conditions would be sure to follow. School teaching has been carried on under great difficulties owing to the scattered population, the family quarrels which made it formerly a risk to walk alone, the fear of sorcery and of the evil spirits which are supposed to dwell in the forest, the denseness of the forest itself, which makes it dangerous for children to go from one place to another without an armed escort, the withdrawing of girls when they have just been able to read in order to go to their seclusion and fattening, and the consequent drafting of them to great distances to their husbands' farms, the irregular attendance of boys who accompany their masters wherever they go, and who take the place of postmen and news-agents-general to the country. "There have been difficulties on our own side--the distances consume time and strength, the multifarious claims made on the Mission House, the household itself which is usually a large one having in addition to servants those who are training for future usefulness in special spheres--as the Mission House has been until quite lately the only means of getting such training--and having usually one or more of the rescued victims of heathen customs. The Dispensary work calls also for much time and strength, nursing often having to accompany the medicine; the very ignorance and superstition of the patients and their friends making the task doubly trying. Then one must be ever at hand to hear the plaint of and to shelter and reconcile the runaway slave or wife or the threatened victim of oppression and superstition. Visitors are to be received, and all the bothersome and, to European notions, stupid details of native etiquette are to be observed if we are to win the favour and confidence of the people. "Moreover we must be both able and willing to help ourselves in regard to the wear and tear in our dwelling and station buildings. We must make and keep in repair buildings, fences, drainage, etc., and all amid surroundings in which the climate and its forces are leagued against us. "Add to all this the cares of housekeeping when there is no baker supply, no butcher supply, no water supply, no gas supply, no coal supply, no laundry supply, no trained-servant supply, nor untrained either for that matter, except when some native can and will lend you a slave to help you or when you can buy one--which, under ordinary circumstances is a very doubtful practice, as, though in buying the person you are literally freeing him, the natives are apt to misinterpret the motive, and unless you are very fortunate in your purchase, the slave may bring you into conflict with the powers that be, owing to their law which recognises no freedom except that conferred by birth. After all this is seen to day by day, where is the time and strength for comprehensive and consecutive work of a more directly evangelistic and teaching type?--specially when the latter is manned year by year by the magnificent total of one individual. Is it fair to expect results under such circumstances?" XXXI. THE PASSING OF THE CHIEFS In the year 1896 Miss Slessor realised that she was no longer in the centre of her people. Like all agricultural populations addicted to primitive methods of cultivation, they had gradually moved on to richer lands elsewhere. Even Ma Erne had gone to a farm some distance away. A market had been opened at a place called Akpap, farther inland and nearer the Cross River, and farms and villages had grown up around it, and she saw that it would be necessary to follow the population there. The Calabar Committee--a Committee had succeeded the Presbytery--was at first doubtful of the wisdom of transferring the station, largely owing to the remoteness and inaccessibility of the new site, the nearest landing-place being six miles away, at Ikunetu on the Cross River. There was some advantage in this, however, for the Mission launch was constantly moving up and down the waterway. The voyage was between low, bush-covered banks broken by vistas of cool green inlets, with here a tall palm tree or bunch of feathery bamboos, and there a cluster of huts, while canoes were frequently passed laden with hogsheads of palm oil for the factory, or a little dug-out containing a solitary fisher. The track from Ikunetu to Akpap was the ordinary shady bush path, bordered by palms, bananas, orange trees, ferns, and orchids, but in the wet season it was overgrown with thick grass, higher than one's head, which made a guide necessary, since one trail in the African forest looks exactly like another. After some consideration it was decided to sanction the change, and to build a good Mission House with a beach shed at Ikunetu. Long before the house was built, however, and even before it was begun, Mary installed herself at Akpap, in conditions similar to those of her first year at Ekenge. Her home consisted of a small shed of two divisions, without windows or floor, into which she and the children and the furniture were packed. And from this humble abode, as from a palace, she ruled Okoyong with all the dignity and power of a queen. Never had her days been so busy or her nights so broken and sleepless. No quarrel, tribal or domestic, no question of difficulty of any kind, was settled other than in the Mission hut. Sometimes the strain was almost greater than she could bear. There was much sickness among the children, and an infectious native disease, introduced by a new baby, caused the death of four. Matters were not mended by an epidemic of small-pox, which swept over the country and carried off hundreds of the people. For hours every day she was employed in vaccinating all who came to her. Mr. Alexander, who was the engineer of the Mission at this time--the natives called him _etúbom ubom nsuñikañ_ "captain of the smoking canoe"--remembers arriving when her supply of lymph had run out, and of assisting her with a penknife from the arms of those who had already been inoculated. The outbreak was severe at Ekenge, and she went over and converted her old house into a hospital. The people who were attacked flocked to it, but all who could fled from the plague-stricken scene, and she was unable to secure any one to nurse the patients or bury them when they died. She was saddened by the loss of many friends. Ekpenyong was seized and succumbed, and she committed his body to the earth. Then Edem, her own chief, caught the infection, and she braced herself to save him. She could not forget his kindness and consideration for her throughout all these years, and she fought for his life day and night, tending him with the utmost solicitude and patience. It was in vain. He passed away in the middle of the night. She was alone, but with her own hands she fashioned a coffin and placed him into it, and with her own hands she dug a grave and buried him. Then turning from the ghostly spot with its melancholy community of dead and dying, she tramped through the dark and dew-sodden forest to Akpap, where, utterly exhausted, she threw herself on her bed as the land was whitening before the dawn. Towards the village that day two white men made their way,--Mr. Ovens, who was coming to build a Mission House, and Mr. Alexander who had brought him up. When they arrived at the little shed it was eleven o'clock in the forenoon. All was quiet. "Something wrong," remarked Mr. Alexander, and they moved quickly to the hut. A weak voice answered their knock and call, and on gaining entrance they found "Ma" tired and heavy-eyed. "I had only just now fallen asleep," she confessed. But it was not for some time that they learned where she had been and what she had done. When, two days later, Mr. Alexander went over to bring some material from the old house, he found it full of corpses and not a soul to be seen. The place was never fit for habitation again, and gradually it was engulfed in bush and vanished from the face of the earth. Conditions were the same far and wide, and her heart was full of pity for the helpless people, "Heartrending accounts," she wrote, "come from up-country, where the people, panic-stricken, are fleeing and leaving the dead and dying in their houses, only to be stricken down themselves in the bush. They have no helper up there, and know of no Saviour. I am just thinking that perhaps the reason God has taken my four bairns is that I may be free to go up and help them. If the brethren say that I should go I shall." It is not surprising that these events had a depressing effect upon her; she said she had no heart for anything. It was an unusual note to come from her, and indicated that her strength was waning. The presence of Mr. Ovens was a help; his sense of humour seasoned the days, and he made light of difficulty and trial, though he was far from comfortable. One of the divisions in the shed had been turned over to him, she and her children crowding into the other. The place was infested by ants and lizards, and all night the rats used his body as a springboard to reach the roof. There was always one scene in the strange household which touched him with a feeling of pathos and reverence--family worship in the evening. A light from a small lamp illumined the interior. Miss Slessor sat on the mud-floor with her back resting on the wall. Squatting before her in a half-circle were the girls and boys of the house. Behind these were ranged a number of baskets filled with twin babies. "Ma" spoke and prayed very simply and naturally. Then a hymn of her own composition was sung in Efik to the tune of "Rothesay Bay," she accompanying it with a tambourine. If the attention of the girls wandered she would lean forward and tap them on the head with the instrument. One human solace never failed her--the letters from home. How eagerly she longed for them! How they lifted her out of her surroundings and chased away for a time the moral miasma that surrounded her and often seemed to choke her as if it were physical. Some one wrote about the Synod meetings. "It is easy to be good," she said, "with all the holy and helpful influences about you. Fancy a crowd of Christians that fill the Synod Hall! It makes me envious to read about it. Away up here among heathenism, working away with the twos and the threes and the tens, one almost forgets that there are crowds who would die for Christ. But, with all their imperfections, there are, and we are not in a losing cause at all. I am seldom in Duke Town or Creek Town, and hear little in the way of sermons, and have little of the outward help you have. But Christ is here and the Holy Spirit, and if I am seldom in a triumphant or ecstatic mood I am always satisfied and happy in His love." Her furlough was overdue, but there was a difficulty in filling her place, and she would not leave the people alone. Meanwhile she kept "drudging away" as well as she could from dawn till dark. People were coming to her now from far-off spots, many from across the river from unknown regions who had never seen a white person before, drawn to her by the fame of her goodness and power. At first they sat outside, and would not cook or eat or drink inside the compound because of the twins, but by and by they gained courage and mixed with the household. The majority of these people were neither bright nor good-looking, but she only saw souls that were precious in the sight of her Master. In one of her letters she describes what was the daily scene: "Four at my feet listening; five boys outside getting a reading-lesson from Janie; a man lying on the ground who has run away from his master and is taking refuge until I get him forgiven; an old chief with a girl who has a bad ulcer; a woman begging for my intervention with her husband; a nice girl with heavy leglets from her knee to the ankles, with pieces of cloth wrapped round to prevent the skin being cut, whom I am teaching; and three for vaccination." On the last night of the year she wrote: "My bairns have been made happy and myself glad by a handsome Christmas box from the Consul- General and Colonel Boisragon of our Consular staff. They were up with a party, and spent the greater part of three days with me, trying to do good among my people: and they have sent dolls and sweets and fruit and biscuits, and many useful things for the house, and a carpenter to mend my stair, and plane and rehang my doors. He is here now doing odds and ends about the house, so I feel quite cheered up. He (the Consul) must have gone to a steamer and got all these things for us, for there are no such things for sale here, and it shows how much interested he is in mission work. It is seldom, comparatively, that Government officials care for these things." XXXII. CLOTHED BY FAITH As Mr. Ovens was at Akpap engaged on the new Mission House the Calabar Committee decided to send her home in 1898 whether they could supply the station or not. "It will be rather trying to get back to the home kind of life and language," she said; "but I shall just want a place to hide in: away from conventionalities and all the paraphernalia of civilisation." Her chief problem was the disposal of the children, whom she dreaded to leave under native influences. There were so few missionaries in the field then that it was difficult to find homes for them. She settled two babies, some of her girls, and the former slave- woman with a lady agent. The rest she made up her mind to take with her. It was a daring thing to do, but doing daring things was her normal habit. She justified herself to a friend by saying that Janie was now a big girl and a great help. Mary was five years old and able to fend for herself; Alice was about three and fairly independent, and Maggie was sixteen months, and could sit about and be easily amused. The next problem was how to equip both herself and her retinue for the voyage. Her wardrobe had been gradually deplenished in the bush, and during her illnesses ants had eaten up all that remained. She and the children had nothing but the old garments they had on. But she was not dismayed: in the simplicity of her faith she believed that the Master knew her difficulty, and would come to her aid and provide all her needs. And she was not disappointed. When at Duke Town, preparatory to departure, a box from Renfield Street Church, Glasgow, arrived for her, and she went down to the beach and opened it to see if it contained anything she might require. And everything she required was there, including many knitted and woollen articles--a most uncommon circumstance. There was also a shawl--"I do not know what I should have done without that on the voyage," she said. The ladies of the Mission took the cloth and flannelette and soon had the whole party fitted out. In acknowledging the box she begged the givers not to be vexed at what she had done: the articles had been used in the service of Christ as much as if they had been distributed in Okoyong. She was so far spent that she was carried on board. On the voyage she received much kindness, and believing that God was behind it all she accepted everything as from Him and was very grateful. Her simple faith in the goodness of her kind was shown by the fact that the telegram she despatched on arriving at Liverpool to Mrs. M'Crindle, Joppa, was the first intimation that lady received that she was coming. And at the railway station she confidingly handed her purse to the porter, asking him to take it and buy the tickets, Mrs. M'Crindle met her at the Waverley Station, Edinburgh. There was the usual bustle on the arrival of a train from the South. The sight of a little black girl being handed down from the carriage caused a mild stir, when another came the interest increased, when a third dropped down a crowd gathered, when a fourth stepped out the cabmen and porters forgot their fares and stared, wondering who the slight, foreign-looking lady could be who had brought so strange a family. XXXIII. THE SHY SPEAKER Eagerly looked for after her heroic service in Okoyong she received a warm welcome from her friends in the United Presbyterian Church. For some weeks she lived at Joppa, and then anxious to be independent she took a small house near at hand, where she and Janie managed the work and cooking. It was not a very comfortable _ménage_, and Miss Adam, one of the "chief women" of the Church and Convener of the Zenana Mission Committee, made arrangements for her and the children staying at Bowden, St. Boswells. Here, looking down upon a beautiful expanse of historic border country, she spent a quiet and restful time. As her vitality and spirits came back she began to address meetings, and found that the interest in her work had deepened and extended. She was, if anything, shyer than ever, and would not speak before men. At a drawing-room gathering in Glasgow the husband of the lady of the house and two well-known ministers were present. She rose to give an address, but no words came. Turning to the men she said, "Will the gentlemen kindly go away?" The lady of the house said it would be a great disappointment to them not to hear her, "Then," she replied, "will they kindly go and sit where I cannot see them?" When she began to speak she seemed to forget her diffidence, and she held the little audience spell-bound. At a Stirling meeting a gentleman slipped in. After a slight pause she said, "If the gentleman in the meeting would hide behind the lady in front of him I would be more at my ease." On another occasion she fled from the platform when called on to speak, and it was only with difficulty that she was brought back. When people began to praise her she slipped out and remained away until they had finished. "She was a most gentle-looking lady," writes one who heard her then, "rather below the average height, a complexion like yellow parchment, and short lank brown hair: a most pleasing expression and winning smile, and when she spoke I thought I had never heard such a musical voice." She went to her home-city, Aberdeen, and addressed a meeting in Belmont Street Church, which her mother had attended; and of her power of speech the Rev. Dr. Beatt, the minister, who was in the chair, says: "It was characterised by a simple diction, a tearful sympathy, a restrained passion, and a pleading love for her people, which made it difficult to listen to her without deep emotion." At one meeting in Glasgow she spent an hour shaking hands. "What a lot of love there is in the world after all," she said gratefully. She received such a reception at a meeting in Edinburgh that she broke down. Recovering herself she earnestly denied that her work was more remarkable than that of any other missionary in Calabar: "They all work as hard or harder than I do." She went on to plead for an ordained missionary for Okoyong. "I feel that my work there is done, I can teach them no more. I would like to go farther inland and make a home among a tribe of cannibals." Many a stirring appeal she made for workers. "If missions are a failure," she said, "it is our failure and not God's. If we only prayed and had more faith what a difference it would make! In Calabar we are going back every day. For years we have been going back. The China Inland Mission keep on asking for men, men, men, and they get what they want and more than we get. We keep calling for money, money, money, and we get money--of great value in its place--but not the men and the women. Where are they? When Sir Herbert Kitchener, going out to conquer the Soudan required help, thousands of the brightest of our young men were ready. Where are the soldiers of the Cross? In a recent war in Africa in a region with the same climate and the same malarial swamp as Calabar there were hundreds of officers and men offering their services, and a Royal Prince went out. But the banner of the Cross goes a-begging. Why should the Queen have good soldiers and not the King of Kings?" Her nervous timidity was often curiously exhibited. She was, for instance, afraid of crowds, and she would never cross a city street alone; and once, when she was proceeding to a village meeting she would not take a short cut through a field because there was a cow in it. Yet she was never lacking in high courage when the need arose. At a meeting in Edinburgh several addresses had been delivered, and the collection was announced. As is often the case the audience drew a sigh of relief, relaxed attention, and made a stir in changing positions. Some began to whisper and to carry on a conversation with those sitting near them. She stood the situation as long as she could, then rose, and spoke, regardless of all the dignitaries about her, and rebuked the audience for their want of reverence. Were they not presenting their offerings to the Lord? Was that not as much an act of worship as singing and praying? How then could they behave in such a thoughtless and unbecoming manner? There was something of scorn in her voice as she contrasted the way in which the Calabar converts presented their offerings with that of the well-educated Edinburgh audience. When she sat down it was amidst profound silence. "That is a brave woman," was the thought of many. With her bairns she left towards the end of the year (1898), Miss Adam accompanying them to Liverpool to see them safely on board. A more notable person than she realised, she was sought out by a special representative of Reuter's Agency and interviewed. Her story of the superstitious practices connected with the birth of twins in West Africa had the element of horror which makes good "copy," and most of the newspapers in the kingdom next day gave a long description of these customs and of her work of rescue. Incidentally she stated that up to that time she had saved fifty-one twins from destruction. She thought nothing of this talk with the reporter, never mentioning it to any one, and was unaware of the wide publicity accorded to her remarks. She spent Christmas on board the steamer. Again every one was kind to her, the officers and stewards vying with each other in showing her attention. All along the coast she was well known, and invitations came from officials at Government headquarters, but these she modestly declined. She was interested in all things that interested others, and would discuss engineering and railway extension and trade prices and the last new book as readily as mission work and policy. The children she kept in the background, as she had done in Scotland, and would not allow them to be spoiled. On arrival in Calabar they were much made of, and it was only the experienced Janie who did not like the process. XXXIV. ISOLATION An exceptionally trying experience followed. Arrangements had been made by the Committee in Scotland for the better staffing of the station, but these broke down, and for the next three years she worked alone, her isolation only being relieved by an occasional visit from the lady missionaries in Calabar. During that long period she fought, single- handed, a double battle in the depths of the forest. She was incessantly at war with the evils that were still rife about her, and she had to struggle against long spells of low fever and sleeplessness. And right bravely did she engage in the task, conquering her ill-health by sheer will-power, and gaining an ever greater personal ascendancy over the people. 1. A Mother in Israel The gradual pacification of Okoyong brought about by her influence and authority increased rather than diminished her work. As the people settled down to orderly occupations and trade the land became valuable, and disputes were constantly cropping up regarding ownerships and boundaries. There was much underground palavering, of which no one knew but herself, which kept her always on the strain. She had to mother the whole tribe, and it took all her patience and tact to prevent them reverting to their old violent practices. A Government official of that time, who had to enquire into a number of cases over which there had been correspondence with her, says, "I stayed with 'Ma' and had my first lesson in how to deal with natives. It did not require very long for even a 'fresher' to see what a power in the land she was. All came to her in any kind of trouble. As an interpreter she made every palaver an easy one to settle, by the fact that she could represent to each side accurately what the other party wished to convey." Her fame had gone still farther, and people were now coming from places a hundred miles distant to see the wonderful person who was ruling the land and doing away with all the evil fashions. And what did they see? A powerful Sultana sitting in a palace with an army at her command? No. Only a weak woman in a lowly house surrounded by a number of helpless children. But they, too, came under her mysterious spell. They told her of all the troubles that perplexed their lives, and she gave them advice and helped them. In one week she had deputations from four different tribes, each with a tale of wrong and oppression. Innocent people fled to her to escape the fate decreed by the witch-doctor: guilty people sheltered with her, knowing that they were sure at least of nothing worse than justice. She welcomed them all, and to all she spoke of the Saviour, and strove to bring them to His feet. And none went away without carrying some of the fragrance of that knowledge, and in remote districts unvisited by the white man it lingered for years, so that when missionaries went there later on they would come across a man or a woman who said, "Oh, I know all about Jesus, the White Mother once told me." She was so interested in these strangers that the desire came to know more about them and their surroundings, and she made numerous trips up the Cross River by Mission steamer and canoe and visited the townships on the banks. On one of these journeys she felt for the first time that death was at her side. A dispute had arisen between Okoyong and Umon, and the Umon people, strong in the belief that she would mete out justice even against her own tribe, begged her to come and decide the quarrel. It was a long day's journey for the best walkers, "but," said she, "if they can do it in a day, so can I." A well-manned canoe was, however, sent for her, and she proceeded in it with some of the twin- children. They were speeding down a narrow creek leading into the river, a man standing with his paddle at the bow to negotiate the canoe past the logs and trees, when a hippopotamus, which was attended by its young, rose immediately in front and attacked it savagely. The man at the bow instantly thrust the paddle into the gaping mouth, and shoved the canoe violently to one side. Mary seized some large tin basins with covers, which the natives used for holding cooked food, and placed them outside in front of the part where the children were sitting, and where the infuriated hippopotamus was trying to grip and upset the canoe. These curious weapons succeeded in baffling the monster. Several times it made a rush and failed. The shouting, the snapping of the jaws, the whirling of the paddles, the cries of the children--"_O Abasi ibom Ete nyaña nyin mbok O!_" ("O God, Father, please save us, Oh!")--almost unnerved her. The hippo at last made for the stern, where some of the paddlers beat it off and kept it at bay long enough to enable the others to turn the canoe and rush it out of its reach. But she could not now afford to be long away from her station, for the utmost vigilance was required to combat the evils around her. In spite of British laws and gunboats twin-murder continued in secret. She noticed, however, that where the people came within the influence of the Mission their fears gradually disappeared. What pleased her was that women to whom she had been kind voluntarily brought in twins to her that would otherwise have been killed. One day she and Mr. Alexander were sitting at breakfast when a woman walked in, and without remark placed a large calabash on the table. Mary thought it was a dish of native food and said, "You have come too late, we have just finished." Still the woman was silent. Mary opened the calabash and found that it contained two twin boys. There were other promising signs. The mother of a twin baby who was saved came to the Mission House and lived there, working at the farm during the day. One master took a twin and the mother home. All his other wives at once gathered up their children and left him, but he remained firm. As the woman had been a neighbour of "Ma's" at Ekenge, it is probable that her influence had told on her then. But the outstanding event in this direction was that a twin boy was taken home by his parents, who were determined to keep him. The affair made a great stir, but she told all the chiefs that she would stand by the parents, and if they dared to say a word or trace any calamity to the family she would "make palaver." They were grimly silent, but could not dispute her word. She believed that their attitude was only due to fear, which would die away if a stand were made. Her work in school and Bible Class was beginning to tell. Six of the best boys of free birth and good standing whom she was training were now Christians, and working in the villages around. Two, sons of the most powerful chiefs in the district, took the reading and another was the speaker. It was not much to boast of perhaps. "I feel the smallness of the returns" she said, "but is the labour lost? A thousand times No!" 2. _The Cares of a Household_ Her most trying fight during these years was with ill-health. She was now occupying the new house, which she pronounced "lovely," but it was hotter than any she had lived in, and she often sighed for "her lowly mud-hut" again. At one time she was three months in bed, and recovery was always a slow and weary process. The people were afraid she would have to go to Scotland and came and assisted her in every way, while her boy scholars maintained the services. But often she would struggle up and conduct the Sunday meetings herself, although it meant a sleepless night. "I am ashamed to confess," she wrote, "that our poor wee services here take as much out of me as the great meetings at home did." To fill in the wakeful hours she would rise in the middle of the night, light a candle, and answer a batch of correspondence. There were friends to whom she did not require to write often: "Ours is like the life above, we do not need to tell; we can go on loving and praying, but this is a rare thing in the world." Others were not so considerate. Some of her letters at this period are marked "Midnight," "3 A.M.," "Just before dawn," and so on. But more often she was unable to sit up, and was too tired to write, and lay thinking of her last visit home, and particularly of her sojourn at Bowden; "I never had such a time; I live everything all over again during these sleepless nights; it grips me more than my real home life of long ago." She never grumbled to her correspondents, even when in the grip of nervous debility. Her letters are filled with loving enquiries about people, especially young people, at home. She kept them all in mind, followed their lives with interest, and was always anxious to know if they had consecrated themselves to the service of Christ. "Life is so great and so grand," she would write, and "eternity is so real and so terrible in its issues. Surely my lads out here are not to take the crown from my boys at home." Now and again, however, a strain of sadness is perceptible in her letters, perhaps due to the state of her health and her isolation, as well as the outlook abroad, which was then unrestful. "All is dark," she said, "except above. Calvary stands safe and sure." Often she wondered what worldlings did in the midst of all their entanglements and the mysteries of life and death without some higher hope and strength. "Life apart from Christ," she would say, "is a dreadful gift." Her own future loomed uncertain, and the thought of the children began to weigh upon her mind: "It is not likely I shall ever go home again. I feel as if I did not want to. How could I leave the bairns in this dreadful land? Who would mother them in this sink of iniquity?" And soon afterwards she wrote: "I do not think I could bear the parting with my children again. If I be spared a few years more I shall have a bit of land and build a wee house of my own near one of the principal stations, and just stay out my days there with my bairns and lie down among them. They need a mother's care and a mother's love more than ever as they grow up among heathen people, and I could do a little, through them, for the dark homes and hearts around, and it would be a house and home for them when I am gone, where the missionaries could be near them." Janie, the faithful, unselfish soul who had been with her from babyhood, was at last married. "Her husband," she said, "is my best scholar, and if his social standing is not the highest, he is a real companion to her and to my bairns, who worship him." The ceremony was performed by "Ma," and the entry, in Efik, in a tiny marriage register runs as follows:-- _December 21, 1899. Janie Annan took oath before Obon (chief), Okon Ekpo, and Erne Ete, that she will marry Akibo Eyo alone, Akibo also took oath that he will marry Jane alone. They went to the farm with Eme Ete. M.M.S._ The break in the family life gave her much more to do, but Janie--or Jean as she was now more often called--still clung to her, and spent much time at the Mission House attending to the babies as before, her husband not objecting to her handling the twins, and even allowing her to take one home to her house during the day. But difficulty and disappointment came, as they so often do in Africa, and once more Jean became an inmate of the household, in which she was to remain to the end. One day a baby arrived whose mother had died after giving it birth, and she took it and made it her special child. This was Dan MacArthur Slessor--called after a home friend of the Mission--a black boy who was to become almost as well known in Scotland as Jean herself. By and by with returning strength the house-mother was able to resume her old strenuous ways from cock-crow till star-shine. The cares of her household never grew fewer. "Housekeeping in the bush," she would remark, "means so much more as well as so much less than in Scotland. There are no 'at homes,' no drawing-room ornaments to dust, no starched dresses, but on the other hand there are no butchers or bakers or nurses or washerwomen, and so I have to keep my shoulder to the wheel both indoors and out of doors." There were defects in the situation; she did not need other people to tell her that; she was often overwhelmed with the multitude of her duties, at her wits' end to manage all the children. "I have only three girls at present," she writes, "and I have nine babies, and what with the washing and the school and the palavers and the visitors, you may be sure there are no drones in this house." Sometimes she would stand in a state of pretended distraction and repeat-- _"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, She had so many children she didn't know what to do."_ She was not a housewife in the real sense, although she knew domestic economy with the best, and there were days when she arose in her might and introduced order and tidiness, but matters soon fell back into the normal conditions. She was always quite candid about her deficiencies. "I have not an elaborate system or method of work; it is just everything as it comes. I am afraid my mind is not a trained machine. It only works as it chooses." Yet no family of white children could have been more cared for or loved. She endeavoured to make Sunday a specially pleasant day for them, and tea then was always a happy function. All sat at a big table in the hall--Jean, Mana, Annie, Mary, Alice, and Maggie, with bunches of small boys and girls on the floor. It was then that boxes of delicacies from home were opened and devoured. How grateful she was to all her friends! "The gifts," she would write, "are veiled in a mist of love, real Scottish love, reticent but deep and strong, full of pathos and prayer; the dear love inspired in our strong rugged Scots character by the Holy Ghost and moulded by our beloved Presbyterianism of the olden time; love that does not forget with the passing years." Two years after she returned she related cheerfully that she was still wearing the dress that had been given to her on furlough as her best on the occasions when Government officials called upon her. She saw pathos in these gifts, but none of that deeper pathos which lay in her own life. She saw nothing to grieve about in her own position, but only in the empty houses along the Cross River. She was not anxious about herself, but desperately anxious about the extension of Roman Catholic influence in Calabar. "To think," she exclaimed, "that all our blood and treasure, love and sacrifice and prayer, should have been given to make a place for them." From her house in the bush she had been eagerly watching the sweep of that great movement which culminated in 1900 in the union of the United Presbyterian and Free Churches of Scotland. She loved the blue banner of the United Presbyterian Church, and one of her constant admonitions to the younger generation was to carry on the grand old traditions. At first she had been inclined to favour a kind of fraternal federation, each denomination keeping its distinctive principles, but she came to believe in the transfusion of the two streams of spiritual life. "We must not forget," she wrote, "that the Free Church people were met at the Disruption by an empty exchequer and a confusion and blank that taxed all their energies. It took them such hard work in those days to get churches and homes for themselves that they got a bias that way, and the outlook to the 'other sheep' may not have been so wide as that of our forefathers. These used the little prayer-houses and humble meeting-places for prayer and preaching: they were men nursed in persecution and contempt and poverty, and they reaped God's compensations in a detachment from the world, and in the grit and spirituality and faith and unity which stress and persecution breed. And we have inherited it all, and it is our contribution to the Church life of to-day." Her hope was that the Union might create a new and enlarged interest in the foreign field and fill up the ranks in Calabar; but she was to be disappointed in this, and she often expressed the view that the Mission to which she had given her heart and life had been swallowed up, and had somehow lost its individuality.... Into the United Free Church the United Presbyterians brought thirty- eight women missionaries and one hundred and eighty-five women agents, and the Free Church brought sixty European women missionaries and ten Eurasians, and nearly four hundred native women agents, making, on the women's side of the work alone, a total missionary staff in round numbers of one hundred European workers assisted by nearly six hundred local agents, and all these were now put under a new body, the Women's Foreign Mission Committee, composed of some of the most gifted and consecrated minds of the Church. XXXV. EXILED TO CREEK TOWN A dramatic public event which vitally affected her own life and the course of the mission enterprise brought her seclusion to an end. The story belongs more to the next phase of her career, but may be briefly noticed here. With the extension of British influence into the interior of the continent the form of Government had undergone another development. Two protectorates were formed, Northern and Southern Nigeria, and Sir Ralph Moor was appointed High Commissioner of the latter. The same policy of pacifying and "cleaning up" the country continued; but there were still large stretches practically untouched by the agents of the Government, including the territory lying between the Cross River and the Niger, in the upper part of which slave-raiding and trading went on as it had done for centuries. The Aros, a powerful tribe who controlled the juju worship, were the people responsible for this evil. They would not submit to the new conditions, continued to make war on peaceable tribes, and indulged in human sacrifices, blocked the trade routes, and resisted the authority of the Government. One officer was only able to penetrate fifteen miles west of the Cross River, not without perilous experiences, and then was obliged to beat a rapid retreat to escape being killed and eaten. The Government was very patient and conciliatory; but it became absolutely necessary at last to despatch a small expedition, and a field force was organised at Calabar for the purpose. Dr. Rattray of the Mission staff was attached to it as medical officer. The Aros did not wait for the advance; they raided a village only fifteen miles from Ikorofiong, and, as a precaution, all the missionaries upriver were ordered down to Duke and Creek Towns. Okoyong was unmoved by these matters, "Ma" Slessor's authority was supreme, but while the Government believed that all would be well, they thought it better that she should also come to Calabar until the trouble was over. Very much against her will she complied. They sent up a special convoy for her, and treated her with all consideration. They even offered to build a house at Creek Town for her and her large family; but she did not wish to become too closely identified with the Government, and declined their kindly assistance. She found accommodation in part of the hospital, where, however, she had no privacy, and was not very comfortable. It was the first time she had been in Calabar since her arrival three years before, and she was not happy. She was never otherwise than ill, and she longed to get away from the crowd and "the bright, the terribly bright sky." The children also were unwell. But there were compensations. The Okoyong people kept steady during the unrest, and remained true to their Queen. They came down to see her, brought all their disputes for her to settle, and loaded her with gifts of food, which were very acceptable, as prices had risen. Her lads kept on the services, and the people attended regularly. She heard good news of the twins, which the mothers had taken in order to relieve her; they were in four different homes in four different districts, and nothing had been said by the people. One of her oldest friends, the wife of a big chief, a wealthy leisured woman, bore twins. She instantly wrote to the chief telling him to put her into a canoe and send her down to Creek Town. "I am sorry for her," she said, "but we cannot make different laws for the rich and for the poor, and yet one may press too far with a chief, and incite rebellion. After all we are foreigners, and they own the country, so I always try to make the law fit in, while we adjust things between us." A campaign of three months sufficed to break the power of the Aros, but long before that she was wearying to be back in Okoyong. At last she appealed to the Commissioner. He asked her to wait until a certain movement of troops was completed. Smilingly she replied that she would be off at the first opportunity--and she went. Her enforced sojourn in Creek Town was followed by the best results. New missionaries had come out in whom she became interested. The one to whom she owed most was the Rev. A. W. Wilkie, B.D., who soon afterwards married a daughter of Dr. George Robson, the Editor of the _Missionary Record_. With these two she formed a friendship which was to prove one of the joys of her life. Mr. Wilkie understood her from the first; his keen insight enabled him to explore a character that was growing ever more complex, and he possessed that quality of understanding sympathy to which alone her sensitive nature responded. She enjoyed meeting these young workers who had come to carry on the traditions of the Mission; she liked them because of their eagerness and energy and their desire to do things. All her knowledge was at their disposal, and she would tell them of the golden days of the past and describe the characteristics and superstitions of the people as well as speak of the higher things of life. Some of them thought her the most fascinating woman they had ever met. "Her talks," they declared, "are better than medicine." Many a wise bit of counsel she passed on to her sister missionaries. "She gave me at the very beginning of life in Calabar," says one, "a piece of advice that I have never forgotten, and which has comforted me over and over again. I was saying that in a place like Duke Town it was so difficult to know exactly what to do, and she said, '_Do?_ lassie, _do?_ You've not got to do, you've just got to _be_, and the doing will follow.'" "Make a bold stand for purity of speech and charity of judgment," she told another, "and let none of the froth that rises to the top of the life around you vex or disturb your peace." Many acknowledged that they had their lives enriched, their faith strengthened, and their work helped by contact with her. XXXVI. PICTURES AND IMPRESSIONS The younger missionaries began to frequent Akpap, and from the accounts of their visits we obtain some unstudied and vivid pictures of "Ma" and her household. This slight woman with the shrunk and colourless skin, the remarkable deep-set eyes, and the Scots tongue, so poor in the gifts of the world, so rich in the qualities of the spirit, made a deep impression upon them, although it is a question whether they ever fully understood all she was and did. They lived in the European atmosphere, she in the native; they noticed only superficial aspects, she moved deep beneath the surface amongst conditions of which they were only dimly aware. "We walk for five or six miles along the pleasant bush path," writes one, "and as we near the big trees and the clearing round the Mission House, children's voices cry, 'Ma is coming,' and a sweet, somewhat strident voice inquires, 'What Ma? Jean put the kettle on, Jean put the kettle on.' 'And we'll all have tea,' sings out my friend. 'How are you, Ma?' for we have reached the verandah, and 'Ma,' eagerly hospitable, is giving us a royal welcome." She was usually found barefooted and bareheaded, with a twin-baby in her arms and a swarm of children about her, or on the roof nailing down the sheet-iron which a tornado had shifted, or holding a palaver from the verandah, or sitting in Court, but always busy. "No one can have much time for rest here," was the verdict of one missionary after a short stay. "Her power," wrote another, "is amazing; she is really Queen of the whole of Okoyong district. The High Commissioner and his staff leave the administration of it in her hands. It is wonderful to see the grip she has of the most intricate native and political questions of the country. The people tell me she knows their language better than they do themselves, and that they appeal to her on their own customs and laws. She has done a magnificent work, and the people have a deeper reverence for her than you can imagine. When they speak of her their tones change. One thing I noticed, she never allowed a native to sit in her presence. She keeps them all at a respectful distance, although when they are ill, sometimes with the most loathsome diseases, she will nurse them; and she never shakes hands with them. She told the High Commissioner to do so with some--but for herself, never! When I asked her the reason she looked at me and said simply, 'I live alone.'" The reference to her command of the language bears out what all competent observers have stated. Some missionaries retain their accent even after long service and speak as foreigners, but she had all the vocabulary, the idioms, the inflections, the guttural sounds, the interjections, and sarcasms, as well as the quick characteristic gestures that belong only to the natives. "She excelled even the natives themselves in their own tongue," says Mr. Luke. "She could play with it and make the people smile; she could cut with it and make them wince; she could pour spates of indignation until they cried out, '_Ekem!_ Enough, Ma!' and she could croon with it and make the twins she saved happy, and she could sing with it softly to comfort and cheer." One visitor who accompanied a missionary friend found her haranguing a crowd who had arrived to palaver. She stopped now and again and spoke to the visitors in broad Scots. "Well," said the missionary afterwards, "what do you think of her?" "I would not like her to catch me stealing her chickens!" was the reply. One of the qualities which astonished her guests was her utter fearlessness. There were no locks on her mission doors. She went everywhere, condemning chiefs, fining them, divorcing them; and came home to her bairns to be a child with them, and to romp and sing to them queer little chants of her own composition. One story of these days her visitors carried away. A murder had been committed, and the slayer was pursued by the people, who intended to follow out their custom and torture him. He was seized and chained. Straining to break loose, his eyes almost bursting from their sockets, he cried, "Beware! You may kill me, but my spirit will come back and spoil you. Ay, it will not be you, the slaves, but you, the chiefs, that will suffer. Beware! I will come if you do not take me to Ma's house." He was taken to "Ma," who on hearing the evidence ordered him to be conveyed to Duke Town. Then she loosed him from his chains and sat down with him alone in the house for the whole afternoon. The doors and windows were open, and all he had to do was to strike her down and fly. But she showed no fear. At night he was again chained and placed in the prayer-room or store-room underneath until the guard arrived. During the night he managed to slip off his chains and was free to escape into the bush. When she went into the room in the morning with food and called him, there was no sound or reply. It was dark in the place, but she entered and moved around to find the prisoner. At the back of the door she came into contact with his swinging body. He had taken off his loin-cloth and hanged himself. Her visitors noticed, almost with wonders her devotion to her children and the little morsels of humanity that came pouring in upon her. Miss Welsh, LL.A., thus describes the household: "Jean, the ever-cheerful and willing helper; Annie the drawer of water and hewer of wood, kind willing worker; Mary the smart, handsome favourite; Alice the stolid dependable little body, and Maggie the fusionless, Dannie the imp, and Asoquö who looked with his big innocent eyes a wee angel, and who yet was in constant trouble, chiefly for insisting on sharing the cat's meals. Then there were the babies--a lovely wee twin-girl, whom their mother was nursing, a poor wee boy almost skin and bone lying cradled in a box. Behind the house in a rough shelter was another twin-mother caring none too kindly for her surviving child." Another writes, "I never saw anything more beautiful than her devotion to these black children. She had a poor sick boy in her arms all the time, and nursed him while walking up and down directing the girls. He died at 11.30 and she slept with him in her arms all night. Next morning he was put in a small milk packing-case, and the children dug a grave and buried it and held a service." And here we have the scene at evening prayers: "We began with an Efik hymn of her own, which she repeated line by line, while the little ones chanted it with a weird intonation. They then sang the whole to the tune _French_. She tested their memory of the morning lesson, and gave them a homely but powerful address, interrupting herself once to tell us how hydrophobia had broken out a few days before, and how she had held one poor lad of ten in her arms until he died. She prayed, and the children bowed down their heads till they rested upon the ground. They next chanted the 'Amen,' and half-chanted the Lord's Prayer, and finished with what she called 'one of the new fanciful English hymns-- 'If I come to Jesus.' Then very simply and sweetly she commended us all to the Father's love and care." Long talks, often prolonged into the night, would follow. "How Ma talked," says Miss Welsh, "and what a privilege it was to listen, what an experience, and what an education! How she made the past vivid as she lived it over again--the days of her girlhood--her mischievous pranks, her love of fun, her early days in Calabar, tales of the old worthies, tales of herself, and her own life, of her early pioneering, of loved ones at home, of kind letters whose messages of cheer she would share, of comfort and help from God's word--from the passage of the day's reading, of new lessons learned, of new light revealed. I can still hear her, still listen with the old fascination, still enjoy her wild indignations, still marvel at her amazing personality, her extraordinary vitality and energy, still feel as I have ever felt her God-given power to draw one nearer to the Lord she loved so well." When her guests departed she would walk with them a long way, her feet bare, her head uncovered. "No," said a missionary, "I would not like to see other ladies do that, but I would not care to see her different. It is easy to give a false impression of her. She is not unwomanly. She is eccentric if you like, but she is gentle of heart, with a beautiful simplicity of nature, I join in the reverence which the natives show her." XXXVII. A NIGHT IN THE BUSH Miss Slessor began to feel that her days in Okoyong were drawing to a close. Her part of the work there was done. The district was civilised, and all that the station required was organisation in detail and steady development. But she was not one to rest in any circumstances in which she was placed. She abated nothing of her devotion in the interests of the peoples and although her strength did not now allow her to take long journeys on foot she never hesitated to answer the call upon her sympathy and courage. She had more than one adventure in these days, but she had passed through so many hard experiences that she made light of them, regarding them as mere incidents in the day's work. One afternoon, while she was in school, there appeared before her a young man of the superior class of slaves, who said his wife had given birth to twins in the bush more than twelve miles away. All the people had deserted her, a tornado was brewing--would she come and help? "Ma" thought of her brood of children, and one a sickly baby, but turning them over to the slave twin-mother she had bought, and leaving food with her in her hut, she committed the whole twelve to Providence and set out with Jean. The young man led them at a breathless pace. "If only you could _dion_ the rain-cloud," he cried back. "I am praying that God may keep it back," was all Mary could jerk out. The way seemed endless, and the shadows of night fell swiftly about them, but at last they arrived near the spot and were joined by the mistress of the slave and an old naked woman. They found the mother lying on the ground surrounded by charms. "Ma" pushed these away with her foot. The night was pitch dark, there were occasional raindrops, and the woman was delirious. She ordered the husband and his slave-man to make a stretcher. They regarded the idea with horror, and pleaded that they could never carry her, their belief doubtless being that they would die if they touched the unclean burden. All begged "Ma" to leave the woman to her fate, but she turned upon them with a voice of scorn, and such was her power that the men hastily set to and constructed a rough stretcher of branches and leaves, and even helped to place the woman upon it. Before leaving, a sad little ceremony had to take place. One of the infants was dead, and Jean took her machete and dug a little cavity in the ground, and upon some soft leaves the child was laid and covered up. She then lifted the other twin, the men raised the stretcher, and the party set off, a fire-stick, red at the point, and twirled to maintain the glow, dimly showing them the way. The rain kept off, but it was so dark that "Ma" had to keep hold of the hem of Jean's dress in order not to lose her. The latter stumbled and fell, bringing down Mary also. "Where are you?" each cried, and then a hand or a foot was held out and gripped. Sometimes the men dropped to their knees, but the jolting brought no cry from the unconscious form they were carrying. By and by they drew up in the utter solitude, and had to confess they were lost. The men left to grope for signs of the path and the two women were alone. Jean grew depressed, not on her own account but on "Ma's," for she knew that she was utterly exhausted, and could not hold out much longer. "What if they desert us?" she said. "Well," replied Mary, trying to appear as if fatigue and fear and wild beasts had no existence, "we shall just stay here until the morning." Jean's response was something like a grunt. One of the men returned. "Can't find a road," he grumbled, and disappeared again. What was that? A firefly? No, a light. The other man had discovered a hut, and had procured a lighted palm tassel dipped in oil. Poor as it was the light served to show the way until the path was reached. After sore toil they gained the Mission yard. The men laid the stretcher in an open shed and, overcome with their exertions, threw themselves down anywhere and went asleep. But there was no rest yet for Mary. Securing some old doors and sheets of iron she patched up a room for the woman, In which she could pass the night. The children were awakened and crawled out of Iye's hut into the yard crying in sleepy misery. Jean and Annie carried them to the Mission House and put them to bed, and brought back some hot food for the patient, who was constantly moaning, "Cold, cold; give me a fire." Not till she was fed and soothed did Mary give in. She could not summon sufficient strength to go upstairs, but lay down on the floor where she was, with her clothes on, and all the dirt of the journey upon her, and slept till daybreak. The baby died next day, and the mother hovered at the point of death. Mary strove hard to save her, but the result was doubtful from the first. None in the yard would give any help save Jean; the woman was a social leper, and all sat at a safe distance, dumb or blaspheming. Conscious at the end, the poor girl cried piteously to her husband not to reproach her. "It is not my fault," she said, "I did not mean to insult you." "Ma" placed her hand on her hot brow calming her, and prayed that she might find an entrance into a better world than the one which had treated her so badly. When she passed away she thrust aside the leper woman whom her people sent to assist her, and washed the body herself and dressed her so that for once a twin-mother was honoured in her death. She was placed in a coffin of corrugated iron, strengthened with bamboo splints, and beside her were put the spoons and pot and dish and other things which she had used. Her husband and his slave bore her away into the bush, and there at a desolate spot, where no one was likely to live or plant or build, they left her and stole from the place in terror. XXXVIII. WITH LOVING-KINDNESS CROWNED On the fifteenth anniversary of that notable Sunday in 1888 when Mary settled at Ekenge, the first communion service in Okoyong was held. It crowned her service there, and put a seal upon the wonderful work she had accomplished for civilisation and for Christ. Alone, she had done in Okoyong what it had taken a whole Mission to do in Calabar. The old order of heathenism had been broken up, the business of life was no longer fighting and killing, women were free from outrage and the death menace, slaves had begun to realise that they were human beings with human rights, industry and trade were established, peace reigned. Above all, people were openly living the Christian life, and many lads were actively engaged in Church work. No congregation had been formally organised, but the readiness of the young people to join the Church was brought to the notice of the Rev. W. T. Weir, who was stationed at Creek Town, with the result that he was appointed to go up and conduct the necessary services. On the Saturday night in August corresponding to the one when she arrived, a preparatory service was held in the hall beneath the Mission House, and in the presence of the people seven young Christians were received into the Church by baptism. More were coming forward, but the fears of their friends succeeded in preventing them. "Wait and see," they urged, "until we know what the thing is." Some of the parents anxiously asked "Ma" whether the ceremony was in any way connected with _mbiam_. On Sunday came a great throng, which filled the hall and overflowed into the grounds, many sitting on native stools and chairs, and even on gin-boxes. Before the communion service she presented eleven of the children, including six she had rescued, for baptism. It was a quiet and beautiful day, with the hush that comes with God's rest-day all the world over. As the company gathered to the first Memorial Table in Okoyong, she thought of all the years that lay behind, and was greatly moved. In the stillness the old Scottish Psalm tunes rose thrilling with the gratitude and praise of a new-born people. After the bread and wine had been partaken of, thanks were returned by the singing of the 103rd Psalm to the tune _Stroudwater_. When the third and fourth verses were being sung-- _Kprukpru muquañkpõ ke ima | All thine iniquities who doth Enye adahado; | Most graciously forgive: Anam udöñõ okure, | Who thy diseases all and pains Ye ndutukhö fo. | Doth heal, and thee relieve. Enye onïm fi ke uwem, | Who doth redeem thy life, that thou Osio ka mkpa; | To death may'st not go down; Onyuñ odori fi eti | Who thee with loving-kindness doth Mfön y'aqua ima_. | And tender mercies crown-- She seemed to be lost In a trance of thought, her face had a far-away look, and tears stood in her eyes. She was thinking of the greatness of God's love that could win even the oppressed people of dark Okoyong. She could not let the assembly break up without saying a few words. Now that they had the beginnings of a congregation they must, she said, build a church large enough for all who cared to come. And she pled with those who had been received to remain true to the faith. "Okoyong now looks to you more than to me for proof of the power of the Gospel." In the quiet of the evening in the Mission House, she seemed to dwell in the past. Long she spoke of what the conditions had been fifteen years before, and of the changes that had come since. But her joy was in those who had been brought to confess Christ, and she was glad to think that, after all, the work had not been a failure. And all the glory she gave to her Father who had so marvellously helped her. For a moment also her fancy turned to the future. She would be no longer there, but she knew the work would go on from strength to strength, and her eyes shone as she saw in vision the gradual ingathering of the people, and her beloved Okoyong at last fair and redeemed. FOURTH PHASE 1902-1910. Age 54-62. THE ROMANCE OF THE ENYONG CREEK# _"I feel drawn on and on by the magnetism of this land of dense darkness and mysterious weird forest."_ I. THE REIGN OF THE LONG JUJU Again had come the fulness of the time, and again Mary Slessor, at an age when most women begin to think of taking their ease, went forward to a new and great work for Christ and civilisation. Kind eyes and loving hands beckoned to her from Scotland to come and rest, but she gazed into the interior, towards vast regions as yet unentered, and saw there the gleam of the Divine light leading her on, and she turned with a happy sigh to follow it. In this case there was no sharp division between the old and new spheres of service. For ten years she had been brooding over the conditions in the territory on the west side of the Cross River, so near at hand, so constantly skirted by missionaries, traders, and officials as they sailed up-river, and yet so unknown, and so full of the worst abominations of heathenism. Just above Calabar the Cross River bends back upon itself, and here at the point of the elbow the Enyong Creek runs inland into the heart of the territory towards the Niger. At its mouth on high ground stands the township of Itu, of sinister reputation in the history of the West Coast. For there on the broad beach at the foot of the cliff was held & market which for centuries supplied Calabar and the New World with slaves. Down through the forest paths, down the quiet waters of the Creek, countless victims of man's cupidity had poured, had been huddled together there, had been inspected, appraised, and sold, and then had been scattered to compounds throughout the country or shipped across the sea. And there still a market, was held, and along the upper borders of the Creek human sacrifice and cannibalism were practised. Only recently a chief had died, and sixty slave people had been killed and eaten. One day twenty-five were set in a row with their hands tied behind them, and a man came and with a knife chopped off their heads. It is a strange irony that this old slave creek, the scene of so much misery and anguish, is one of the prettiest waterways in West Africa. It is narrow and still and winding, and great tropical trees covered with the delicate tracery of creepers line the banks, their branches sometimes interlacing above, while the undergrowth is rich in foliage and blossom. Lovely orchids and ferns grow in the hollows of the boughs and old trunks that have fallen; but the glory of the Creek is its water-lilies, which cover the surface everywhere, so that a boat has often to cut its way through their mass. On either hand, side-creeks can be seen twisting among the trees and running deeper into the heart of the forest. The silence of the primeval solitude is unbroken save when a canoe passes, and then a startled alligator will slip into the water, monkeys will scurry chattering from branch to branch, parrots will fly screaming away, blue kingfishers and wild ducks will disappear from their perch, and yellow palm birds will gleam for a moment as they flit through the sunlight. The Creek is beautiful at all times, but in the early morning when the air is cool and the light is misty and the vistas are veiled in dimness, the scene is one of fairy-like enchantment. Above the Creek all the country between the Cross River and the Niger up to near Lokoja in Northern Nigeria, was occupied by the Ibo tribe, numbering about four millions, of a fairly high racial type, who were dominated by the Aros clan dwelling in some twenty or thirty towns situated close together in the district of Arochuku ("God of the Aros"). A remarkable and mysterious people, the Aros were light- coloured, intelligent, subtle, and cunning. More intellectual and commercial than warlike, they developed two lines of activity--trade and religion--and made each serve the other. Their chief commodity was slaves. Each town controlled certain slave routes, and each had a definite sphere of influence which extended over a wide tract of territory. When slaves were scarce they engaged mercenaries to raid villages and capture them. But they had usually a supply from the Long Juju situated in a secret, well-guarded gorge. The fame of this fetish was like that of the Delphic oracle of old; it spread over the country, and people came far distances to make sacrifices at its shrine, and consult the priests on all possible subjects. These priests were men chosen by the various towns, who were raised to a semi-sacred status in the eyes of the people. Enormous fees and fines were imposed, but the majority who entered the spot never left it alive; they were either sacrificed and eaten, or sold into slavery. The shrine was built in the middle of a stream, which was alive with ugly fish with glaring eyes that were regarded as sacred. When the friends of the man who had entered saw the water running red, they believed that the Juju had devoured him. In reality some red material had been cast in, and the man would be sent as a slave to a remote part of the country. The priests despatched their emissaries far and wide; they settled in townships, swore blood brotherhood with the chiefs, and took part in local affairs. They planted farms, and traded and acquired enormous power. When disputes arose they got the matter sent for adjustment to the town in Aro within whose sphere of influence they lived, or to the Long Juju. In this way they acted as agents of the slave system. Other men took round the slaves on definite routes. Their usual plan was to leave one on approval, obtaining on their own part so much on each, or a slave of lower value. When the trader returned the bargain would be completed. The usual price of a new slave was 200 or 300 rods and a bad slave. So widespread was the net east by the Aros, and so powerful their influence, that if a chief living a full week's journey to the north were asked, "What road is that?" he would say, "The road to Aro." All roads in the country led to Aro. A few years before this a party of eight hundred natives had proceeded from the territories about the Niger to consult the Long Juju on various matters. They were led by a circuitous route to Arochuku, and housed in a village. Batches of from ten to twenty were regularly taken away, ostensibly to the Juju, but were either sacrificed or sold into servitude, only a miserable remnant of 130 succeeding in reaching the hands of Government officials. Of a totally different type were the people living to the south of the Creek, called the Ibibios. They were one of the poorest races in Africa, both morally and physically, a result largely due to centuries of fear and oppression. Ibibio was the chief raiding-ground of the head-hunters, and the people lived in small isolated huts and villages deep in the forest, in order to lessen the risk of capture. In demeanour they were cowed and sullen, gliding past one furtively and swiftly, as if afraid; in language and life they were untruthful and filthy. The women, who wore no clothing save a small piece of native cloth made of palm fibre, were mere beasts of burden. All the young people went naked. Most unpromising material they seemed. Yet they never ceased to draw out the sympathy and hope of the White Mother of Okoyong; there was no people, she believed, who could not be recreated. She knew a great deal about the Aros and their slave system, more, probably, than any other white person in the country. Indeed few had any knowledge of them. "What is sad about the Aro Expedition," wrote Mr. Luke, one of the Cross River pioneers, "is that nearly all the town names in connection with it are unknown to those of us who thought we had a passable knowledge of Old Calabar. I never heard of the Aros, of Bende, or of Arochuku. It is somewhat humiliating that after over fifty years' work as a mission, the district on the right bank should be so little known to us." Mary had first-hand acquaintance with the people. Refugees came to her from both Ibo and Ibibio with stories of cruelty and wrong and oppression; chiefs from both regions sought her out for advice and guidance; slave-dealers from Arochuku and Bende, with their human wares, called at Ekenge and Akpap, and with many of these she was friendly, and learned from them the secrets of their trade. She told them frankly that she was coming some day to their country, and they gave her a cordial invitation, but hinted that it might not be quite safe. It was not the danger that prevented her. She would have gone before, but the difficulty was providing for Okoyong when she was absent. She would not leave her people unless they were cared for by competent hands. She asked for two ladies to be sent in order that she might be free to carry out her idea of visiting the Aro country, but none could be spared, and so she had, perforce, to wait. It was not easy, but she loyally submitted. "The test of a real good missionary," she wrote, "is this waiting, silent, seemingly useless time. So many who can distinguish themselves at home, missing the excitement and the results, get discontented, morose, cynical, and depreciate everything. Everything, however seemingly secular and small, is God's work for the moment, and worthy of our very best endeavour. To such, a mission house, even in its humdrum days, is a magnificent opportunity of service. In a home like mine a woman can find infinite happiness and satisfaction. It is an exhilaration of constant joy--I cannot fancy anything to surpass it on earth." Then came the military expedition to break up the slave system and the false gods of Aro. The troops were moved into Arochuku by way of the Creek, and the forces of civilisation encountered the warriors of barbarism in the swamps and bush that edge the waterway. When the troops entered the towns they found juju-houses everywhere, and in almost every home were rude images smeared with the blood of sacrifice. The dreaded Long Juju was discovered in a gloomy defile about a mile from Arochuku. The path to it wound a tortuous way through dense bush, with others constantly leading off on both sides, evidently intended to puzzle the uninitiated. A watch-tower was passed where sentinels had been posted. At the bottom of the valley, between high rocky banks clothed with ferns and creepers, ran a stream which widened out into a pool covered with water-lilies. In the dim light was seen a small island, and upon it a rude shelter surrounded by a fence of gun- barrels. Lying about were gin-bottles, cooking-pots, and human skulls, the witness of past orgies. At the entrance was a white goat starving to death. Most of the chiefs had never seen-a white man, and when Sir Ralph Moor went up to hold a palaver, their interest was intense. They sat on the ground in a semicircle in the shade of a giant cotton tree, suspicious and hostile, listening to the terms of the Government, which included disarmament, the suppression of the juju-worship, and the prohibition of the buying, pawning, and selling of slaves. After much palaver these were agreed to. Over two thousand five hundred war-guns were surrendered, but sacrifices continued--and still to some extent go on in secret in the depths of the forest. Much work also had still to be done before Government rule was generally accepted. Throughout the whole time occupied by the expedition, but more particularly in the later stages, the important chiefs kept continually in touch with "Ma" Slessor, and one official states that it was to her influence more than all the force and power of the Government emissaries that the final settlement of the country was due.... It is interesting to speculate what might have been the course of events had she been able to carry out her plan before the punitive expedition was called for. Mr. Wilkie goes so far as to say that "had she been settled in the Aro country it is doubtful whether an armed expedition would have been necessary, and it is at least possible that the suppression of the slave-trade would have been achieved by the peaceable means of the Gospel." Primitive peoples often bend more quickly before Christ than break before might of arms. II. PLANTING A BASE A large tract of new territory was now open to outside influences. Who was to be the first to settle in it--official, trader, or missionary? Mary studied the situation again in the light of the new conditions, obtaining information first-hand from officials and natives. There were two stations on the west of the Cross River--Ikorofiong, which, however, was really an Efik trading town, and higher up, Unwana, which was a back-water and unfit for a base for inland work. Tentative efforts had been made from time to time to secure a footing elsewhere, but had come to nothing, and the policy of the Mission had been to continue up-river as being the line of least resistance. Her conviction was that extension, for the present at least, should take place not up the river, where the stations were cut off from the base during the dry season, but laterally across the country between the Cross River and the Niger. There were, she saw, three strategetic factors which dominated the situation--the Enyong Creek giving admission to the new territory, Itu at its mouth, and Arochuku, the religious and political centre of the Ibos. The central position of Itu impressed her; it commanded the three contiguous regions and peoples--the Ibo, Ibibio, and Efik, and her plan was to seize and hold it as a base, then one of the towns of Arochuku as the threshold of Iboland, and, if possible, Bende. Her views did not commend themselves to all her colleagues in Calabar, but how wise, how far-seeing, how statesmanlike was her policy the later history of the Mission proves. She felt she could do nothing until help was obtained for Akpap. Fortunately there was one lady missionary in Calabar who had the courage to prefer Okoyong to quieter stations-Miss Wright of the Girls' Institute, who asked the local Committee to send her there as assistant to Miss Slessor; and although the Committee approved, the matter was referred to the Women's Committee at home. As there seemed no prospect of anything being done, she began to move quietly along her own lines. Her school lads were now old enough and educated enough to be used as advance agents, and her hope lay in these. In January 1903 she left Akpap with two boys, Esien and Effiom, and one of her girls, Mana, and canoed to Itu, and planted them there to teach school and hold services. Esien took the chief part in the latter, whilst Effiom led the singing. Mana's work was the teaching of the girls. A few weeks later she found that the results had exceeded all her dreams. The chief said he was too old to change his ways, but the younger ones could learn the new ideas--anyway God had made him, and so was bound to look after him whatever sins he committed. But the children were eager to learn, and made apt scholars, and the people crowded to the services until there was no more room for them. She went up again and selected a site on the top of the hill with a magnificent view and built a school, speeding the work with her own hands, and set the willing people to construct a church, with two rooms for herself at the end. When one of her fellow-missionaries, Dr. Rattray, heard of this he wrote: "Bravo! Uganda was evangelised by this means, and the teachers there could only read the gospels and could not write or count; the Mission understood its business to be to spread the Gospel, and all who could read taught others and spread the news. Perhaps we educate the people too much, and make them think that education is religion." When in February she heard that the Roman Catholics were intending to settle at Bende her heart was heavy. "The thought that all that is holiest in the Church, should have been shed to create an opening for that corrupt body makes me ill. And not even a station opened or the hope of one! Oh, if I were able to go or send even a few of my bairns just to take hold. The country is far from being at rest, but if the Roman Catholics can go so can I.... There is a great future for Nigeria; if only I were young again and had money!" She wrote to Dr. Adam, a Government friend in Bende, a soldier of the Church as well as a servant of the King, and he supplied her with all the information she needed. Bende, he said, was not the place it was supposed to be; the population numbered from two to four thousand; it was not likely to become a trading centre; whilst the overland transport was a disadvantage. The journey was by launch to Itu, by steel canoe up the Enyong Creek, thence by foot or hammock to Arochuku and Bende. He stated that Bishop Johnston of the Church Missionary Society was already in Bende prospecting. When she received his letter she said to herself, "Shall I go?" She did not wish to compromise the mission in any way, and proposed to go about the matter quietly, at her own expense. She would travel if necessary in a hammock, as she was not so sure of herself as of old, and would find rest at wayside huts, and she would take Iye to act as interpreter where the women did not know Efik. "I would do what I like, and would come back to my work rested and refreshed. But--I want God to send me." What was influencing her also was the conviction that the end had come for her at Akpap. Again she had the consciousness that it was time for the station to be taken over by an ordained missionary, who would build up a congregation. "I shall not say that I shall leave my home without a pang, but I know that I can do work which new folk cannot do, and my days of service are closing in, and I cannot build up a church in the way a minister can." She believed that in the special conditions of West Africa women were better than men for beginning work in the interior. And she still retained her faith in the home-trained domesticated type--girls who had brothers and sisters and had learned to give and take and find duty in doing common things, rather than those turned out by the training schools, who were, she thought, apt to be too artificial and full of theories. Her ideal of a man missionary was Dr. Rattray, who was a good carpenter and shoemaker and general handy-man,--"far better accomplishments than a college education for the African field." She did not, of course, depreciate culture, so long as practical qualities of heart and hand went with it. The proposal regarding Miss Wright going to Akpap having been agreed to, she began to look forward to her advent as an event that would determine the future. Seldom has one been so eagerly watched for; for months it was nothing but "When Miss Wright comes," "Wait till Miss Wright comes," so on. For days before she appeared the household were in excited mood, every morning fresh flowers were placed in her bedroom, the boys and girls kept themselves dressed and ready to receive her. When she did arrive it made all the difference that was hoped. She was a capable, unselfish, plucky girl; she knew the language, and was experienced in the ways of the people. Very quietly she slipped into the method of the house, taking the school and dispensary off "Ma's" hands, and looking after the babies with the same pitying sympathy. The girls became quite at home with her, in the long nights she would sing to them, recalling the times in the bush when Mr. Ovens used to entertain them. "She is a right sisterly helpmate," wrote Mary, "and a real help and comfort in every way. Things go as smoothly as on a summer's day, and I don't know how I got on alone. It seems too good to be true." III. On To Arochuku On a morning of June 1908 she left Akpap for Itu, tramping the forest path to Ikunetu in order to pick up the Government launch on its weekly journey to the garrisons up-river. The Government, as usual, gave her every facility for carrying on her new work, granted her free passages, took charge of her packages and letters, placed their Rest Houses at her disposal, and told her to ask for whatever she wanted. She did not care to trouble them unduly, but was very grateful for their consideration. On arriving at Ikunetu she went into the teacher's house to rest, charging the boys to call her as soon as they sighted the launch. They did not notice it until it was too late for her to signal, and it passed onwards and out of sight. But she was not put out; her faith was always strong in the guiding hand of God; and she turned and tramped back the same long road. When she reached the Mission House tired and weary, she assured Miss Wright that all was well--God had not meant her to travel that day, and she must have been kept back for some purpose. Next week she set out again, and when she joined the launch at Ikunetu, Colonel Montanaro, the Commander of the Forces, was on board on his way up to Arochuku. In the course of their conversation he gave her a pressing invitation to go there, and to accept his escort. She was almost startled by what seemed so direct a leading. But she was not prepared for a longer journey; she had no change of clothing or supply of food. She thought and prayed over the matter all the way. "Here is the challenge to enter that region of unbroken gloom and despair," she mused. "If it is not entered now, the Roman Catholics will come in, and the key position to the whole territory will be taken out of our hands, and only the coast tribes be left to the Mission. If I go now we shall be the first in the field, and it will not be discourteous to the Roman Catholics--as it would be if we came in afterwards." Before the end of the journey she consented to go. When she arrived at Arochuku she found herself in the old slave centre of the Aros, a densely populated district, some 80,000 people living within a radius of a few square miles. It was a strange experience to walk over these roads that had been trodden for centuries by countless feet on their way to the pens of the coast and the horrors of the "middle passage," and latterly to the Efik slave-market, and to gaze on the spot where the secret iniquities of the Long Juju had taken place; stranger still to receive a welcome from the men who had been responsible for these evils. The chiefs and traders, many of whom she knew, were delighted with her courage and touched by her self- sacrifice, and promised to do all they could to assist her work. Making arrangements to come up later and start a school, she left, profoundly thankful for the privilege she had been granted, and praying that the Church at home would have a vision of the grand opportunity opening up before it. The officials of the Church, of course, knew of the opportunity, but the members at large were not interested. Dr. Robson, as Convener of the Calabar Sub-Committee, pointed out how the situation was practically a crisis--no ground had been broken west of the Cross River, no teachers had been sent to the east. For a quarter of a century the supply of men had not sufficed for the existing needs of the Mission, and extension had been impossible. The givings of the Church for foreign missions had been far below the urgent requirements. Either, he said, the staff and income must be largely increased, or they would have to step aside and invite others to divide the field with them. No adequate response was made to this and similar appeals, and the lonely pioneer was forced onwards upon her solitary path. A short time afterwards she went back to Arochuku, taking two lads, and a school was opened in the palaver shed of Amasu, one of the towns nearest the Creek, A hundred children crowded into the building along with women and men, and not a few of the old slavers, and the scholars were soon well on in the first book. In one village which she visited she found a young trader who had brought news of the Christ religion from the Niger, and was anxious to introduce a church and teacher. When she left the district again, the people came to the landing-beach and cried after her, "Don't be long in coming back, Ma! If you don't care for us, who will care for us?" As her canoe was paddled down the creek, she lay back enjoying the beauty of the scene. The water was as smooth as a mirror, and like a mirror reflected the delicate tracery of the overhanging foliage; bright birds sailed hither and thither, gorgeous butterflies flitted about, and brilliant blossoms coloured the banks. She had passed in succession two snakes attempting to cross the stream, and was watching the efforts of a third when a small canoe shot out from behind a clump of bushes and bumped into her craft. She apologised to the man in it, but standing cap in hand he said, "I meant it, Ma; I have been waiting for you; my master at Akani Obio sent me to waylay you and bring you to his house." Taking a letter from his cap he handed it to her. The canoe was turned and entered a still creek, a picture of delicate loveliness, with multitudes of lilies and other aquatic plants, which made her feel as if she were moving through an exquisite dream. A shingly beach, evidently a busy trading-place, was reached, and there stood a young man and young woman, handsome and well-dressed, who assisted her to land. They led her into a good house and into a pretty room with concrete floor, a European bedstead, clean and dainty, with mosquito curtains and all the appointments that indicated people of taste. The man was Onoyom Iya Nya, a born statesman, the only one in the district who had not been disarmed by the Government, and the one who had been chosen President of the Native Court, and was shaping well as a wise and enlightened ruler. It was a moving story that Mary heard from his lips, while his wife stood by and listened. It went back to 1875 when he was a boy. One day a white man appeared in the Creek, and all the people decamped and hid. He, alone, stayed on the beach, and in response to a request from the white man, offered to lead him to the chief's house. During the palaver that ensued he lingered by, an absorbed listener. When the white man left he was tried by the heads of the town and severely punished for having acted as guide. The stranger was the Rev. Dr. Robb, one of the ablest missionaries in the Mission, then stationed at Ikorofiong. The boy never forgot the incident. But he grew up a heathen, and went to the cannibal feasts at Arochuku. When his father died, ten little girls were slaughtered, and five of the bodies were placed beneath the corpse, and five above, that they might occupy the position of wives in the spirit world. He married, but misfortune seemed to dog him. His house was burned down, and then his child died. Seeking for the man who had wrought these things by witchcraft, in order to murder him, he met a native who had once been a Mission teacher in Calabar, but who had fallen into evil ways and was now homeless and a drunkard. "How do you know," the latter said, "that it is not the God of the white man that is angry with you? He is all-powerful." "Where can I find this God!" the chief queried. "I am not worthy to say, but go to the white Ma at Itu, and she will tell you." "I will go," was the reply. He took a canoe and watched for Mary on the Creek, but missed her. In his impatience he engaged the old teacher, who had still his Bible, to come and read _Iko Abasi_ to him. Again he sent for "Ma," but she had gone on to Arochuku. Then he kept a man on the look-out in the Creek, and it was he who had intercepted her. "And now," he said, "will you show me what to do?" As he told the story several big, fattened ladies had come in, and a number of children and dependants. She prayed with them, sent for the teacher's Bible, and talked with them long and earnestly. The chief's wife made her a cup of tea, and she left, promising to come later and see what she could do to develop a station. The detour had made her late, and the canoe ran into a sudden storm of wind and rain, but her heart was jubilant, and kept singing and praying all the way to Itu. For God was good, and He was leading her, and that was perfect happiness. IV. A SLAVE-GIRL'S TRIUMPH The problem was how to follow up so promising a beginning. It occupied her thoughts day and night, but she came to the conclusion that she could not conscientiously leave Miss Wright alone at Akpap. The station was too isolated for her, and if she became ill it might be weeks before any one knew. An alternative was to remain herself at Akpap, and allow Miss Wright to go to Itu, where she would be in touch with the Mission, and could canoe down to Calabar if anything went wrong. The plan she liked best was to hand the station over to a minister, so that both she and Miss Wright could establish themselves at Itu and work the Creek between them. As the months went by and she paid flying visits to the infant causes at Itu and Amasu, she became more and more convinced of the magnificent opportunity lying to the Church's hand in these regions. At Itu the congregation had grown to one of over three hundred intelligent and well-dressed people meeting in a church built by themselves. In August at Amasu she found a school of sixty-eight on a wet day, and of these thirty-eight could read the first book. That they had been brought under discipline was shown by the fact that as she entered all rose silently and simultaneously, as if they had been years instead of weeks at school. The same month witnessed an event which gave her unbounded happiness. Jean, and Mana the slave-girl, Iye the twin-mother of Susie, Akom the first-fruit of Ekenge, and Esien the teacher at Itu, were baptized, and sat down at the communion-table. Many others were there, and joined in spirit in the celebration, but owing to difficult native complications could not take the step, and Mary never cared to force matters. Esien's mother had been very unwilling for her son to come under Christian influence, and now she was not only present, but actually sat beside two twin-mothers. Akom's face was transfigured. Jean's adopted child, Dan, was also baptized on the occasion, and it was a great and solemn joy to Mary to see her oldest bairn give him to God, and promise to bring him up in His fear. In October she was at Itu watching the building of the house for herself and teacher, and nothing delighted her more than the way in which the women worked along with the men. "I wish Crockett had been here to gather the shafts and sparks of wit and satire that flew with as much zest as ever obtained in a Galloway byre or market fairin'. It is such a treat to me, for no intercourse is permitted between the sexes in Okoyong, except that of the family, and then it is strained and unnatural, but here they were daffin' and lauchin' as in Scotland. How wholesome are God's own laws of freedom and simplicity." The house was to, have six rooms--three for herself, one for Miss Wright or other lady missionary, one for Mana, and one for Esien and Effiom. "I'm afraid that is too much for you," she said, thinking of the mats which were not easy to obtain. "It's not too much, Ma; nothing can be too much. We will do it." One woman came and insisted on washing her feet in hot water. She had to give in, and as she sat down the woman said, "Ma, I've been so frightened you would take our teacher away because we are so unworthy. I think I could not live again in darkness. I pray all the time. I lay my basket down and just pray on the road." This woman sometimes prayed in the meetings, and electrified the audience, and she had begun to have devotions in her own home, though her husband laughed at her. There were many others of the same type, and it was a black slave-girl who had been the one behind it all. Mana taught and nursed and trained them, quietly and modestly, as a mother might. It was an inspiration to Mary to see her; as she looked upon such results she cried, "Oh! if only the Church knew. If only it would back us up." To her friends she wrote, "Prayer can do anything; let us try its power." Returning to Akpap with two of the girls and some small children, she was caught in a tornado and made her way over the six miles of bush- road through pelting rain. The darkness was lit up by almost continuous lightning, but they lost their way, and she had at last to commandeer an old native to lead them. Such experiences were now part of her ordinary life again. On her trips up and down the Creek she was constantly drifting into strange situations, and being reduced to sleeping on mud floors, or on straw in the open, drinking tea made in empty milk tins, and subsisting for days on yam and oranges. And always she was treated by the natives with as much gallantry and courtesy as if she were a queen, and always she was singing in her heart psalms of thanksgiving and gratitude. But she was not able as formerly to resist the effects of such exposure, and was often weary, and her weariness brought nervousness and lack of sleep. At times she was afraid of the unknown future opening out before her, and appalled when she thought of all the details of labour, supplies, and management that were coming upon her shoulders. In the dark she would rise and cry, "Calm me, O God, and keep me calm." Then she would go and look at the sleeping children and comfort herself with the sight. "Surely," she would say, "I have more reason to trust God than childhood has after all the way He has led me." V. A BUSH FURLOUGH She at last determined to give up her furlough in Scotland, now drawing near, and spend the time instead in prospecting in the new country. All her hopes and aims were expressed in a definite and formal way in the following document, which she sent to be read at the November meeting of the Committee--now the Mission Council--at Calabar: I think it is an open secret that for many years the workers here have felt that our methods and modes were very far from adequate to overtake the needs of our immense field, and, as the opportunities multiply and the needs grow more clamant, the question grows in importance and gravity. The fact that only by stated consecutive work can a church be evolved and built up, and a pagan nation be moulded into a Christian people, cannot be gainsaid, and yet there is an essential need for something between, something more mobile and flexible than ordinary congregational work and methods. The scattered broken units into which our African populations are divided, their various _jujus_ and _mbiams_ and superstitions which segregate even the houses of any common village, make it necessary for us to do more than merely pay an occasional visit, even if that visit results in a church or a school being built. Many plans suggest themselves. Church members organised into bands of two or three or four to itinerate for a week over local neighbourhoods; native teachers spending a given number of days in each month in the outlying parts of their districts; trading members of the church undertaking service in any humble capacity on up-river trading stations--in these and many other ways the gaps might be bridged and a chain of personal interest and living sympathy link on the raw heathen to the church centres, and the first rays of gospel light be conveyed and communication be opened without the material expense which the opening of new stations involves. For instance, I have spent a Sabbath at Umon, and ever so many Efik traders, men and women, joined in the congregational worship, reading from Bibles and hymn-books which had been locked in their boxes; but either timidity or some other cause kept them silent when there was no one to lead. Could not a beginning be made for those, either by initiating such a service or organising those who were trading at any place so that evening worship or some such simple way of bringing gospel truth before the minds of the heathen could go on continuously? The same holds good of Itu and other places. For the last decade the nearer reaches of the river on which we ply have occupied a great deal of my thoughts, but from various causes no sort of supervision at all adequate suggested itself. So there has been little definite work accomplished. A few readers at Odot, desultory teaching at Eki and the back of Itu, and Umon, covers it all, I fear. With Miss Wright's coming, opportunities, not of our personal seeking, have forced themselves on us, and though we have done the best we could with the materials at hand, all seems so little and incomplete that the following proposal or petition or request or whatever you may term it, has been prepared, and that from no mere impulse of the moment but after careful, prayerful consideration. I may say here that Miss Wright is fully in sympathy with it, and it is from both of us. By the 2nd January 1904 I shall have been out five years, and so my furlough would then be due, but as I have not the slightest intention of going to Britain--I am thankful to say I do not feel any necessity for so doing--I propose to ask leave from the station for six months, during which time I should, in a very easy way, try to keep up an informal system of itinerating between Okoyong and Amasu. Already I have seen a church and a dwelling-house built at Itu, and a school and a couple of rooms at Amasu. I have visited several towns of Enyong in the Creek, and have found good enough accommodation, as there are semi- European houses available and open for a lodging. I shall find my own canoe and crew, and shall stay at any given place any length of time which the circumstances suggests so as not to tax my own strength, and members of my own family shall help in the elementary teaching in the schools. From our home here we should thus superintend the small school at Idot, and start in a small way work at Eki, and reside mostly at Itu as the base, working the Creek where the Enyon towns are on the way to the farther base at Amasu, reside there or itinerate from there among the Aro people in an easy way, and back again by Creek and Itu home. What I have to ask of you is that in order to do this a lady be sent out to be with Miss Wright. The latter is perfectly capable of attending to the station; the school and dispensary work are already in her hands, and with some one to help her I have not the slightest hesitation in leaving her in charge. Both ladies could co-operate in the travelling as choice or circumstances pointed, and as Miss Wright has had a large share in the formation and equipment of the Itu and Aro stations it would be very natural that she should take such a part in developing them as might suggest itself to her. The three of us, I have no doubt, could dovetail the details of the work so that no part should suffer, nor should any special strain be put on our health. We should like this to take shape by the end of the year, as the people will be more get-at-able in their villages in such a visitation kind of way than in the ordinary church methods during the dry season. All work in towns is slack then, and village and visitation work have their proper value. In proposing this I know I am going in the very face of what seems to be the only possible way of dividing our stations. My own desire is to have a missionary with his wife and a native teacher take over Okoyong, congregate the educated, and at least nominal Christian part of our community, and build up a church in the ordinary way. He has more than he can undertake to work upon in Okoyong alone, and he has endless scope for extension up between the rivers toward Ugep and Edi-Iba. It may be out of my province to speak of anything outside my own station, but in as far as I know I am voicing the opinion of the missionaries who are now working up Higher. I may say that if we are to compass the peoples that lie at our hands, such as Itu, Enyong, Umon, and those who may be reached all the year round, we ought to have Itu manned as a proper European station. All and each of these peoples can be reached and worked from Itu. Then as a natural and strategic point in the business conduct of our Mission, Itu is incomparable. It was not without reason that it was the slave mart, and that it became the Government base for all work both for north and flank. The gateway to the Aros and the Ibibios, holding the Enyong, and being just a day's journey from what must ever be our base, namely the seaport of the ocean steamers, having waterway all the year round and a good beach front, it is the natural point, I think, at which our up and down river work should converge. But I am willing to change, and Miss Wright is willing to change, any plan of ours in order to let any larger undertaking make way if it should be proposed. This communication was considered, and various proposals made, but the finding of the Council was that they were unable to accept the whole responsibility of the scheme, and that the matter should be forwarded to the Women's Committee in Scotland, and Miss Slessor asked to wait their decision. The question of further development was, however, discussed, and the unanimous opinion was that Itu should be adopted as a medical station in view of extension into the Aro country. Miss Slessor was not discouraged. She next asked Mr. Wilkie to come and see the nature of the ground for himself, and the possibilities it held; and the result was a New Year trip up the Creek, the party consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Wilkie, Miss Wright, and herself. She was far from well--far more unwell than even Miss Wright was aware of--but she, nevertheless, resolved to go, and was conveyed to Ikunetu in a hammock. At Itu they camped at the church and house, neither of which was yet finished, the doors being temporary erections, and the windows being screened by grass mats. Mrs. Wilkie's camp-bed occupied one end of the church, Miss Wright's the centre, whilst at the other end Miss Slessor's native sofa was placed with mats round it for the children. Mr. Wilkie found a resting-place in one of the native houses in the town. Military operations were still progressing, and there was a camp of soldiers at the foot of the hill, whose presence terrified the people, and they besought the missionaries to remain for their protection until the men moved on, and this they did. Colonel Montanaro, who arrived later, called on the ladies, and had a long talk with Mary, to whom he expressed his delight at the result of his invitation to Arochuku. "These men," she wrote, "are held by invisible but strong bands to what is good, though outsiders do not see it." On the way up the Creek they were obliged to pass the night at Akani Obio, where Chief Onoyom came down to the beach and escorted them to his house, and gave them all the room they required, two courts lit up by European lamps, and new mats. His fine face and courteous manners made the same impression on the strangers as they had done on Miss Slessor. It was found that the native teacher had been doing his best, but the chief was keen for all the advantages of a station, and was relying upon "Ma's" word to assist him. Next morning they again took to the canoe, but the water became so shallow that they had to land and tramp six miles to Amasu, passing the trenches where the natives sought to ambush the punitive force. New roads were being constructed everywhere, and barracks had been erected on a wind-swept hill in the neighbourhood. The church was built near the Creek, and was still incomplete. As there was no house they camped in the church as best they could, Mrs. Wilkie sleeping on a mud seat. The district, including the scene of the Long Juju, was inspected, and the people interviewed, and the party returned as they had come. They stopped at several villages, in one of which an old chief brought out a box containing Bibles and a _Pilgrim's Progress_ and reading-books. "I had a son," he said, "I was fond of him, and he was anxious to learn book and God palavers, and I bought these books and got some one to teach him, and was looking forward to my boy becoming a great man and teaching the people good ways, but two moons ago he died, and I have no more heart for anything.... I want God," he continued fiercely, "and you won't leave me till I find Him." "Oh, father," replied Mary, "God is here. He is waiting for you." The chief found God, and became a Christian. VI. BEGINNINGS Miss Slessor's indomitable spirit never gave in, but her body sometimes did. She had been suffering much these past months from weakening ailments brought on as the result of exposure and lack of nourishing food, and she finally collapsed and was again far down in the dark valley. But kind hands ministered to her and nursed her back to health. "I rose," she said, "a mere wreck of what I was, and that was not much at the best. My hair is silvered enough to please any one now, and I am nervous and easily knocked up, and so rheumatic that I cannot get up or down without pain." She was gladdened by the news that the Mission Council had given her permission to make her proposed tour, and was not troubled by the condition that she must not commit the Mission to extension. The Council thought that in view of her illness she ought rather to go home, and offered to provide for the work at Akpap and care for her children until she returned. But the burden of the Creek lay sore on her mind, and as Miss Wright's furlough was also due, she wished to be near Akpap in case of need. She informed the Council that if she could be relieved she would begin her tour at once. When Miss Wright left she gave more into the hands of Jean, who, she said, was as good as any white servant; her right hand and her left. When the matter once more came up at the Council it was decided to send up two ladies to Akpap, and she was at last free to carry out her desire. She looked forward to the enterprise with mingled feelings. "It seems strange," she said, "to be starting with a family on a gipsy life in a canoe, but God will take care of us. Whether I shall find His place for me up-river or whether I shall come back to my own people again, I do not know. He knows, and that is enough." Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this new forward movement was that she was going at her own expense, backed by the private liberality of friends in Scotland, and assisted by native girls and boys, who received nothing from her but their board. She never asked the Mission to defray any of the expenditure which she incurred, and the building was accomplished by herself and household, with the free labour of the people. All that the opening up of the Enyong Creek to the Gospel cost the Mission was her salary--which was now £100 per annum. She spent scarcely anything of this on her own personal wants. "I have no object on earth," she wrote at this time, "but to get my food and raiment, which are of the plainest, and to bring up my bairns." A certain amount was reserved at home by Mr. Logie, who all these years had managed her affairs, and even this she was always encroaching upon. Whenever she saw an appeal in the Press for any good object she would write to him and request him to send a contribution. There were many matters to be attended to before she left Akpap, and she went down to Duke Town to hand over the business of the native Court, and buy material for the buildings in the Creek. It was the first time for many years that she had been on Mission Hill, and she greatly enjoyed her stay with the Wilkies, in whose home she was able to find quietness and comfort. The old people who knew the early pioneers of the Mission flocked to see her, and her sojourn was one long reception. A "command" invitation also came from the Commissioner, but this she had the temerity to decline, saying that she was not visiting. It is doubtful whether she had the attire fit for the occasion. He, however, came to see her, and was charmed with her personality. It was on this visit that she brought another of the younger missionaries under her spell--the Rev. J. K. Macgregor, B.D., Principal of the Hope Waddell Institute. After his first meeting he wrote: "A slim figure, of middle height, fine eyes full of power, she is no ordinary woman. It was wonderful to sit and listen to her talking, for she is most fascinating, and besides being a humorist is a mine of information on mission history and Efik custom." Mr. and Mrs. Macgregor grew into intimate friends, and their home, like that of the Wilkies', thereafter became a haven of healing and rest. She reached her base, Itu, with her family, in July, her health still enfeebled, but her spirit burning like a pure fire, and established herself in a house that was still unfinished. "What a picture it presented," writes a Government doctor who visited her then. "A native hut with a few of the barest necessities of furniture. She was sitting on a chair rocking a tiny baby, while five others were quietly sleeping wrapped up in bits of brown paper and newspapers in other parts of the room. How she managed to look after all these children, and to do the colossal work she did my comprehension." The joy of the people at her advent boundless. Her bairns had done wonders; the congregation numbered 350, all devout, intelligent people. "To-day," she wrote, "as the custom is after the lesson, the bairns each took a part in prayer, and before we rose a boy started 'Come, Holy Spirit, come.' We sang it through on our knees." But calls came every day from other regions. A deputation from the interior of Ibibio pled, "Give us even a boy!" Another brought a message from a chief in the Creek; "It is not book that I want; it is God!" The chief of Akani Obio again came. "Ma," he said, "we have £3 in hand for a teacher, and some of the boys are finished with the books Mr. Wilkie gave us and are at a standstill." And, most pathetic of all, one night, late, while she was reading by the light of a candle, a blaze of light shone through the cracks of the house, and fifteen young men from Okoyong appeared before her to say that the young ladies who had come to Akpap had already gone, and they were left without a "Ma." She sent them to a shelter for the night, and spent the hours in prayer, "Oh Britain," she exclaimed, "surfeited with privilege! tired of Sabbath and Church, would that you could send over to us what you are throwing away!" Invited to the Mission Council in November 1904, she went, this being her first attendance for six years, and gave what the minutes call a "graphic and interesting account" of what had been accomplished. In Itu a church and teacher's house had been built; and there were regular Sabbath services and a catechumens' class, with forty candidates, and a day-school was conducted. At Amasu, Arochuku, a good school was built, and ground had been given by the chiefs. There were also the beginnings of congregations and buildings at four points in the Creek, at Okpo, Akani Obio, Odot, and Asang. The work, she said, had not yet reached a stage when she could conscientiously leave it; but she hoped before departing to see established such a native, self-supporting agency under the control of the Mission as would guarantee a continuance of the enterprise. The Council received her report with thankfulness, and gave her permission to continue for other six months on the same condition as before--that no expense to the Mission should be involved in what she undertook. Many months of strenuous upbuilding followed, constantly interrupted by petty illnesses of a depressing kind. The house at Itu was completed, she herself laying down a cement floor, and Jean whitewashing the walls. Cement underfoot for many reasons was preferred, one being that it was impervious to ants. If these pests obtained hold of a house it was difficult to drive them out, and many a night her entire family was up waging battle with them. In connection with her supplies of cement she was once picked up at Ikunetu by some of her colleagues, who remarked on the number of trunks which accompanied her. "You are surely richer than usual in household gear," they said. "Household gear!" she echoed; "these are filled with cement--I had nothing else to bring it in!" Once in Scotland a lady asked her if she had had any lessons in making cement. "No," she replied; "I just stir it like porridge; turn it out, smooth it with a stick, and all the time keep praying, 'Lord, here's the cement if to Thy glory, set it,' and it has never once gone wrong." A picture of the days at this time is supplied by Miss Welsh: "We visited the women in their homes--we had evening prayers in such yards as the owners were willing to allow them. From morning till night 'Ma' was busy--often far into the night. One brought a story of an unjust divorce, another was sick; one brought a primer for a reading-lesson, another was accused of debt and wished 'Ma' to vouch for his innocence; another had, he declared, been cheated in a land case. All found a ready listener, a friendly adviser and helper, though not all found their protestations of innocence believed in, and none went away without hearing of the salvation God had prepared for them." The Okoyong people continued to come to her with their troubles. "They seem to think," she says, "that no one can settle their affairs but this old lady." Rescues of twin-children were also going on all this time. She could not now rush off, as she used to do, when the news arrived, but she sent Jean flying to the spot, and the infants would be seized and the excited people held in check until she came on the scene. "One more woman spoilt," she would say, "and another home broken up." Nothing gave her greater joy than the rapid development going on at Akani Obio. Chief Onoyom had never swerved from his determination to Christianise his people, and, although knowing practically nothing of the white man's religion, had already started to build a church, using for the purpose £800 which he had saved. At first he planned a native building, but reflecting that if he were constructing a house for himself it would be of iron, he felt he could not do less for God. He therefore decided to put up as fine a structure as he could, with walls of iron and cement floor and a bell-tower. To make the seats and pulpit he had the courage to use a magnificent tree which was regarded as the principal juju of the town. The story goes that the people declared the juju would never permit it to be cut down. "God is stronger than juju," said Onoyom, and went out with a following to attack it. They did not succeed the first day, and the people were jubilant. Next morning they returned and knelt down and prayed that God would show Himself stronger than juju, and then, hacking at the trunk with increased vigour, they soon brought it to earth. That the people might have no excuse for absenting themselves from the services during the wet season, Onoyom also erected a bridge over the Creek for their use. To the dedication of the building came a reverent, well-dressed assembly. The chief himself was attired in a black suit, with black silk necktie and soft felt hat. He provided food for the entire gathering, but would not allow anything stronger than palm wine to be drunk. Very shyly he came up to "Ma" and offered her a handful of money, asking her to buy provisions for herself, as he did not know what kind she liked. Two short years before, the place and people had been known only to traders. Up in Arochuku similar progress was being made. Her first long stay there, spent in a hut without furniture--with not even a chair to sit on--was a happy and strenuous one. She was busily engaged in erecting a schoolhouse with two rooms at the back. "Little did I dream," she wrote, "that I would mud walls and hang doors again. But the Creek is at the back door, and we have bathing in the sunshine, and it is a delightful holiday." The earlier meetings were held in the open; the chiefs sat on improvised seats, the principal women, clothed and unclothed, squatted on skins or mats on the ground, lads and children stood about, the townspeople kept well back amongst the protecting foliage. In the centre, in the shade of a giant tree, was a table covered with a fine white cloth, and upon it a Bible and a native primer. Here she stood to conduct the service, so strange to the savage people. As she began, there was a stir at the side and a big chief, one of the principal traders to Okoyong in former days, moved into the circle, along with his head wife. He was followed by another and his children, and then others appeared, until she had a great audience. She could scarcely command her voice. To gain time she asked a chief to begin with prayer in the Ibo tongue. All knelt. A hymn followed; there was not the least semblance of a tune, all joining in anyhow, but sweeter music she never heard. The ten commandments were translated, sentence by sentence, by a chief, as were also the lessons and the address. Another hymn was sung, then came a prayer by an old man, and another by a woman, and the meeting closed with all repeating the Lord's Prayer. It was the same at other towns and villages along the Creek. Churches or schools were going up and congregations being formed. The notable thing was that women were taking a prominent part in the meetings; this, no doubt, was due to the fact that the pioneer missionary was a woman. And the cry from all the districts was for women and not men--"A White Ma to teach our women book and washing and machine." In July Mr. Macgregor was able to visit the infant stations, and was greatly impressed. To him the journey up Creek was a new experience. As the canoe pushed its way through the water-lilies the Institute boys sang Scottish Psalms to the tunes _Invocation_ and _St. George's_ much to Mary's delight. "It's a long time since I heard these," she exclaimed. "It puts me in a fine key for Sabbath." At Asang she translated Mr. Macgregor's sermon to a gathering of 300 people. "Her interpretation," he says, "was most dramatic; she gave the address far more force in Efik than it had in English. It was magnificent. And how the people listened!" He had the opportunity here of seeing how deftly she handled a "bad" native. "Don't come to God's house." she ended; "God has no need of the likes of you with your deceit and craft. He can get on quite well without you--though you can't get on without God. Ay, you have that lesson to learn yet." At Arochuku it happened to be Egbo day, and the place was astir with naked people, who came and stared at them as they ate. One man, who was dressed in a hat, a loincloth, and a walking-stick, sat in a corner and received a lecture from "Ma," which lasted the whole meal. They explored the district, saw the tree where criminals were hanged after terrible torture, the old juju-house with its quaint carving and relics of sacrifices, the new palaver-shed of beaten mud, and the great slave- road into the interior. At one spot she stopped and exclaimed, "That was the road to the devil." It was the path to the Long Juju of bloody memory. They returned by the new road through the _Ikot Mbiam_, the accursed bush into which the sick and dying slaves were flung when their days of useful service were over. At first the people would not use this road; but now the land was laid out in farms and cultivations, a tribute to the influence of British rule. On the voyage down there were frequent showers in the Creek, and Mary sat with a waterproof over her head and shoulders, a strange figure, but with a face glowing with spirit. When the end was in sight she proposed that they should sing the Doxology, and, none offering to accompany her, she sang it herself-twice.... In the quiet of the tropic nights she read the books and magazines and papers which friends sent her, and in this way kept abreast of world affairs. Her favourite journals were _The British Weekly, The Christian, The Life of Faith_, and _The Westminster Gazette_. Her _Record_ she read from cover to cover. It was with painful interest that she followed at this time the developments of the great Church crisis in the homeland. "It tears my heart," she wrote, "to see our beloved Church dragged in and through the mire of public opinion." But she had faith that good would issue out of it all. A keen politician, she thirsted for election telegrams during periods of parliamentary transition. But in all times of public unrest and excitement she fell back on the thought that God was on His throne and all was well. VII. MOVING INLAND Ibo or Ibibio--which was it to be? Both regions were calling to her, and both attracted her. As the result of an arrangement with the Church Missionary Society the administrative districts adjoining the Cross River were recognised as the sphere of the United Free Church Mission. "Now that this is settled," she wrote, "I shall try to take a firmer hold in Arochuku. The church there is almost finished. My heart bleeds for the people, but the Spirit has not yet suffered me to go." The dark masses behind her at Itu drew her sympathies even more, simply because they were lower in the scale of humanity. "It is a huge country, and if I go in I can only touch an infinitesimal part of it. But it would be criminal to monopolise the rights of occupation and not be able to occupy." Her line of advance was practically determined by the Government. Even with military operations still going on a marvellous change was being effected in the condition of Ibibio. The country was being rapidly opened up, roads were being pushed forward, and courts established; the stir and the promise of new life was pulsating from end to end of the land. To her hut at Itu came Government and trade experts, consulting her on all manner of subjects, and obtaining information which no other one could supply. The natives, on the other hand, came to her enquiring as to the meaning of the white man's movements, and she was able to reassure them and keep their confidence unshaken in the beneficial character of the changes. She made rapid reconnaissances inland, and these set her planning extension. Even the officials urged her to enter. They pointed to the road. "Get a bicycle, Ma," they said, "and come as far as you can--we will soon have a motor car service for you," Motors in Ibibio? The idea to her was incredible, but in a few months it was realised. "Come on to Ikot Okpene," wrote the officer at that distant centre--"the road is going right through, and you will be the first here." She thought of these men and their privations and their enthusiasm for Empire. "Oh," she said, "if we would do as much for Christ!" She, at any rate, would not be found lagging, and in the middle of the year 1905 she sallied forth, taking with her a boy of twelve years named Etim, who read English well, and, at a place called Ikotobong, some five and a half miles inland, she formed a school and the nucleus of a congregation. "I trust," she said, "that it will be the first of a chain of stations stretching across the country. The old chief is pleased. He told me that the future, the mystery of things, was too much for him, and that he would welcome the light. The people are to give Etim food, and I will give him 5s. a month for his mother out of my store." The lad proved an excellent teacher and disciplinarian, and gathered a school of half a hundred children about him. Soon she was again in the thick of building operations, and for a time was too busy even to write. Slowly but surely Ikotobong became another centre of order and light. The officials who ran in upon her from time to time said it was like coming on a bit of Britain, and the Governor who called one day declared that the place was already too civilised for her. Much to her joy there was a forward movement also on the part of the Church. The Mission Council had not put aside its decision to make Itu a medical base, and had been pressing the matter upon the Foreign Mission Committee in Scotland, which also recognised the value of her pioneer work and the necessity of following it up and placing it upon a proper basis. It was finally agreed to carry out the suggestion. Dr. Robertson from Creek Town was transferred to Itu to take oversight of the work on the Creek, a new mission house and a hospital were planned, and a motor launch for the Creek journeys was decided on. For the launch the students of New College, Edinburgh, made themselves responsible, and they succeeded in raising a sum of nearly £400 for the purpose. The hospital and dispensary and their equipment were provided by Mr. A. Kemp, a member of Braid United Free Church, Edinburgh, an admirer of Miss Slessor's work, and at his suggestion it was called the Mary Slessor Mission Hospital. When the news came to her she wrote: "It seems like a fairy tale. I don't know what to say. I can just look up into the blue sky and say, 'Even so, Father; in good and ill, let me live and be worthy of it all.' It is a grand gift, and I am so glad for my people." Thus relieved of Itu she established herself at Ikotobong. But she was again eager to press forwards, and wished to plant a station some fifteen miles farther on. It was a pace faster than the Church could go. It had neither the workers nor the means to cope with all the opportunities she was creating. It is a striking picture this, of the restless little woman ever forging her way into the wilderness and dragging a great Church behind her. She had been amused at the idea of riding a bicycle, but she would have tried to fly if she could thereby have advanced the cause of Christ, and when Mr. Charles Partridge, the District Commissioner of Ikot Ekpene, presented her with a new machine of the latest pattern, direct from England, she at once started to learn. "Fancy," she wrote, "an old woman like me on a cycle! The new road makes it easy to ride, and I'm running up and down and taking a new bit in a village two miles off. It has done me all the good in the world, and I will soon be able to overtake more work. I wonder what the Andersons and the Goldies and the Edgerleys will say when they see that we can cycle twenty miles in the bush!" The Commissioner had also brought out a phonograph with him, and she was asked to speak into it. She recited In Efik the story of the Prodigal Son, and when the words came forth again, the natives were electrified, "Does not that open up possibilities," she said, "for carrying the Gospel messages into the bush?" Her work of patient love and faith on the Creek saw fruit towards the end of the year (1905), when the two churches at Akani Obio and Asang were opened. A special meeting of Presbytery was held in the district, and eight members were present at the ceremonies. At Akani Obio the Rev. John Rankin accepted the key from Chief Onoyom in the name of the Presbytery, and handed it to Miss Slessor, who inserted it in the lock and opened the door. There was an atmosphere of intense devotion, and Mr. Weir preached from the text, "This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." The collection was over £5. Boarding their canoe again the party proceeded to Asang, and were met by crowds of people. Flags floated everywhere, and they passed under an arch of welcome. When the new native church, larger even than that at Akani Obio, came into sight, surrounded by well-dressed men and women and children, words failed the visitors from Calabar. Again Mary opened the door, and again the building was unable to hold the audience. Mr. Rankin preached from "To you is the word of this salvation sent." The collection was watched with astonishment by the visitors. It was piled up before the minister on the table, and bundle after bundle of rods followed one another, coming from those outside as well as those inside, until the amount reached £20--a remarkable sum from a people who were still heathen, but who were eager to know and learn about God and the right way of life. The visitors looked at one another. "It is wonderful," they said. "Surely it is of God." "Ma" was pleased but not surprised; she knew how the people were crying for the light, and how willing they were to give and serve. After the meeting the people would not depart, and she and Mr. Weir addressed them outside. On the party returning to Akani Obio an evening service was held, "and," wrote one of them, "the night closed down on as happy a group of missionaries as one could imagine," "It was grand," said another; "the best apologetic for Christianity I ever saw." Some weeks later the church at Okpo, where Jean had been teaching the women and girls, was opened in the view of hundreds of the people, who contributed a collection of £7. Not all the natives regarded these strange doings with equanimity. At Akani Obio some of the chiefs were so alarmed that they left the town in the belief that misfortune would come upon them on account of the church. But when they saw the people throwing away their charms and flocking to the services and no harm befalling them, they returned. They were very angry when Onoyom put away his wives--he made ample provision for them--and took back as his one consort a twin-mother whom he had discarded. By and by came a fine baby boy to be the light of his home. Akani Obio became a prohibition town, and on Sundays a white flag was flown to indicate that no trading was allowed on God's day. VIII. THE PROBLEM OF THE WOMEN One of the most baffling of West African problems is the problem of the women. There is no place for them outside the harem; they are dependent on the social system of the country, and helpless when cast adrift from it; they have no proper status in the community, being simply the creatures of man to be exploited and degraded--his labourer, his drudge, the carrier of his kernels and oil, the boiler of his nuts. A girl-child, if not betrothed by her guardian, lacks the protection of the law. She can, if not attached to some man, be insulted or injured with impunity. There was no subject which had given Mary so much thought, and she had long come to the conclusion that it was the economic question which lay at the root of the evil. It seemed clear that until they were capable of supporting themselves, and subsisting independently of men, they would continue in their servility and degradation, a prey to the worst practices of the bush, and a strong conservative force against the introduction of higher and purer methods of existence. Enlightened women frankly told Miss Slessor that they despaired of ever becoming free from the toils of tradition and custom, and that there seemed no better destiny for them than the life of the harem and the ways of sin. It was a serious outlook for those who became Christians,--about whom she was most concerned,--and she could not leave the matter alone. Her active mind was always moving amongst the conditions around her, considering them, seeing beyond them, and suggesting lines of improvement and advance; and in this case she saw that she would have to show how women could be rendered independent of the ties of a House, In Calabar Christian women supported themselves by dressmaking, and much of their work was sent up-country, and she did not wish to take the bread out of their mouths. Gradually there came to her the idea of establishing a home in some populous country centre, where she could place her girls and any twin-mothers, waifs, or strays, or any Christian unable to find a livelihood outside the harem, and where they could support themselves by farm and industrial work. A girls' school could also be attached to it. Two principles were laid down as essential for such an institution: it must be based on the land, and it must be self-supporting--she did not believe in homes maintained from without. All native women understood something of cultivation and the raising of small stock, and their efforts could be chiefly engaged in that direction, as well as in washing and laundrying, baking, basket-making, weaving, shoemaking, and so forth. Machinery of a simple character run by water-power could be added when necessary. In view of the uncertainty of her own future, and the opening up of the country, she wisely held back from deciding on a site until she knew more about the routes of the Government roads and the possible developments of districts. She wanted virgin land and good water-power, but she also desired what was still more important--a ready and sufficient market for the products. In her journeys into the interior of Ibibio she was constantly prospecting with the home in mind, and once a chief who thought he had found a suitable site took her into a region of more utter solitude than she had ever experienced in all her wanderings, where a path had to be cut for her through the matted vegetation. Not one of her guides would open his lips; while they feared the wild beasts and reptiles, they feared still more the spirits of the forest, and they remained silent in case speech might betray them to these invisible presences. Being a European she could not, according to the law of the land, buy ground, but she proposed to acquire it in the name of Jean and the other girls, and then give the Mission a perpetual interest in it. In a report of her work on the Creek, which Miss Adam induced her to write at this time, in the shape of a personal letter to herself, and which appeared in the _Record_, and was characterised by masterly breadth of outlook and clear insight into the conditions of the country, she made a reference to the project, saying: "The expenditure of money is not in question--I am guarded against that by the express command of the Committee. I shall only expend my own, or what my personal friends give me." IX. A CHRISTMAS PARTY With the few white men in the district she was very friendly. They were chiefly on the Government staff, and included the surveyors on the new road. Most of them were public-school men, and some, she thought, were almost too fine for the work. "Life," she said, "is infinitely harder for these men than for the missionary. But they never complain. They work very cheerfully in depressing surroundings, living in squalid huts, and undergoing many privations, doing their bit for civilisation and the Empire. And they are all somebody's bairns." She won them by her sympathy, entering into their lives, appreciating their difficulties and temptations, and acting towards them as a wise mother would. Her age, she said, gave her a chance others in the Mission had not, and she sought in the most tactful way to lead them to a consideration of the highest things. Christmastide as a rule came and went in the bush without notice, except for a strange tightening of the heart, and a renewal of old memories. But this year, 1905, the spirit of the day seemed to fall upon these lonely white folk, and they forgathered at Ikotobong, and spent it in something like the home fashion. In a lowly shed, which had no front wall, and where the seats were of mud, no fewer than eight men--officials, engineers, and traders from far and near--sat down to dinner. "They could have gone elsewhere," wrote "Ma," "but they came and held an innocently happy day with an old woman, whose day for entertaining and pleasing is over." There was no lack of Christmas fare. An officer of high standing had received his usual plum-pudding from home, but as he was leaving on furlough, he sent it to "Ma"; a cake had come from Miss Wright, "the dear lassie at Okoyong," and shortbread had arrived from Scotland, But there was not a drop of intoxicating drink on the table. After dinner the old home songs and hymns full of memories and associations were sung, often tremulously, for each had loved ones of whom he thought. Jean, who had secured a canoe and come from Okpo, and the other children, were present, and they sang an Efik hymn; and although Mary was the only Scot present the proceedings were rounded off with "Auld Long Syne." "I just lay back and enjoyed it all," she wrote, "It is fifteen years since I spent a Christmas like it. Wasn't it good of my Father to give me such a treat? I was the happiest woman in the Mission that night! If I could only win these men for Christ-- that would be the best reward for their kindness." Next day they sent her a Christmas card on a huge sheet of surveying-paper, with their names in the centre. Miss Wright, along with Miss Amess, a new colleague, arrived on the 80th on a visit, and three of the Public Works officials spent the evening with them. Mary began to talk as if it were the last night of the year. "Oh," said one of the men, "we have another day in which to repent, Ma." "Have we?" she replied. "I thought it was the last night-- and I've been confessing my sins of the past year! I'll have to do it all over again." These officials asked the ladies to dine with them on New Year's night, the form of invitation being-- "_The Disgraces three desire the company of the Graces three to dinner this evening at seven o'clock. Lanterns and hammocks at 10 P.M. R.S.V.P_." In reply "Ma" wrote some humorous verses. The dinner was given in the same native shed as before. As the table-boy passed the soup, one of the men made as if to begin. "Ma," who was sitting beside him, put her hand on his and said, "No, you don't, my boy, until the blessing is asked," and then she said grace. After dinner the bairns, who had been sitting at the door in the light of a big fire, were brought in, and prayers were conducted by Mary. On that occasion, when Miss Amess was bidding her "Good-bye," she said to her, "Lassie, keep up your pluck." These men were very much afraid of the least appearance of cant, but they would do anything for "Ma"; and when, a few days later, in order to give an object-lesson to the natives, she proposed an English service, they agreed, and one of them read the lessons, and another led the singing. A short time before white men were unknown to the district. X. MUTINOUS She was, under official ruling, to return to Akpap in April 1906, and she was now reminded of the fact. She was in great distress, and inclined to be mutinous. "There is an impelling power behind me, and I dare not look backward," she said. "Even if it cost me my connection with the Church of my heart's love, I feel I must go forward." And again, "I am not enthusiastic over Church methods. I would not mind cutting the rope and going adrift with my bairns, and I can earn our bite and something more." She had thoughts of taking a post under Government, or, with the help of her girls, opening a store. In a letter to the Rev. William Stevenson, the Secretary of the Women's Foreign Mission Committee, she pointed out how her settlement at Itu had justified itself, and referred to the rapid development of the country:-- In all this how plainly God has been leading me. I had not a thought of such things in my lifetime, nor, indeed, in the next generation, and yet my steps have been led, apart from any plan of mine, right to the line of God's planning for the country. First Itu, then the Creek, then back from Aro, where I had set my heart, to a solitary wilderness of the most forbidding description, where the silence of the bush had never been broken, and here before three months are past there are miles of road, and miles and miles more all surveyed and being worked upon by gangs of men from everywhere, and free labour is being created and accepted as quickly as even a novelist could imagine. And the minutes says "I am to return to Akpap in April!" Okoyong and its people are very dear to me. No place on earth now is quite as dear, but to leave these hordes of untamed, unwashed, unlovely savages and withdraw the little sunlight that has begun to flicker out over its darkness! I dare not think of it. Whether the Church permits it or not, I feel I must stay here and even go on farther as the roads are made. I cannot walk now, nor dare I do anything to trifle with my health, which is very queer now and then, but if the roads are all the easy gradient of those already made I can get four wheels made and set a box on them, and the children can draw me about.... With such facts pressing on me at every point you will understand my saying _I dare not go back_. I shall rather take the risk of finding my own chop if the Mission do not see their way to go on. But if they see their way to meet the new needs and requirements, I shall do all in my power to further them without extra expense to the Church. "This," she characteristically added, "is not for publication; it is for digestion." There had never, of course, been any intention on the part of the Church to draw back from the task of evangelising the new regions. But the various bodies responsible for the work were stewards of the money contributed for foreign missions, and they had to proceed in this particular part of the field according to their resources. Both men and means were limited, and had to be adjusted to the needs, not in an impulsive and haphazard way, but with the utmost care and forethought. All connected with the Mission were as eager for extension as she was, but they desired it to be undertaken on thorough and business-like lines. The difference between them and her was one of method; she, all afire with energy and enthusiasm, would have gone on in faith; they, more prudent and calculating, wished to be sure of each step before they advanced another. To her great relief she was permitted to have her way. When it was seen that she was bent on pressing forward, it was decided to set her free from ordinary trammels and allow her to act in future as a pioneer missionary. It was a remarkable position, one not without its difficulties and dangers, and one naturally that could not become common. But Mary Slessor was an exceptional woman, and it was to the honour of the Church that it at last realised the line of her genius, and in spite of being sometimes at variance with her policy, permitted her to follow her Master in her own fashion. Her faith in the people and their own ability to support the work was proved more than once. It was a plucky thing for these men and women to become Christians, since it meant the entire recasting of their lives. Yet this is what was now being often witnessed. One event at Akani Obio was to her a "foretaste of heaven"--the baptism of the chief and his slave-wife and baby, a score of her people, and sixteen young boys and girls, including one of the lads who had assisted to paddle the canoe on the day when the Creek was first entered. She was ill, and was carried to and from the town in sharp pain and much discomfort, but she forgot her body in the rare pleasure she experienced at the sight of so many giving themselves to Christ. She had to hide her face on the communion-table. "Over forty sat down in the afternoon to remember our Lord's death 'till He come.' It cannot go back this work of His. Akani Obio is now linked on to Calvary." She thought of those rejoicing above. "I am sure our Lord will never keep it from my mother." The news from Arochuku was also cheering, although the messages told of persecution of the Infant Church by the chiefs, who threatened to expel the teachers if they spoiled the old fashions. "And what did you say to that?" she enquired. "We replied, 'You can put us out of our country, but you cannot put us away from God.'" "And the women?" "They said they would die for Jesus Christ." She was anxious to visit Arochuku again, but there had been exceptional rains, and the Creek had risen beyond its usual height and flooded the villages. Akani Obio suffered greatly, the church being inundated. The chief was downcast, and in his simplicity of faith thought God was punishing him, and searched his heart to find the cause, until "Ma" comforted him. He determined to rebuild the church on higher ground, and this intention he carried out later. About a mile further up the Creek he chose a good site, and erected a new town called Obufa Obio, the first to be laid out on a regular plan. The main street is about forty yards wide, and in the middle of it is the chief's house, with the church close by. The side streets are about ten yards wide. All the houses have lamps hanging in front, and these are lit in the evenings, The boys have a large football field to themselves. Chief Onoyom, who is one of the elders of session, continues to exercise a powerful influence for good throughout the Creek. One incident of the floods greatly saddened Mary. A native family were sleeping in their hut, but above the waters. The mother woke suddenly at the sound of something splashing about below. Thinking it was some wild animal, she seized a machete and hacked at it. Her husband also obtained his sword and joined in. When lights came, the mangled form of the baby, who had fallen from the bed, was seen in the red water. Distracted at having murdered her child, the mother threw herself into the Creek and was drowned. So convinced was Mary of the importance of Arochuku, and so anxious to have a recognised station there, that she offered to build a house free of expense to the Mission, if two agents could be sent up. This brought the whole matter of extension to a definite issue, and a forward movement was unanimously agreed on by the Council--the ladies being specially anxious for this--any developments to take place by the way of the Enyong Creek. A committee was appointed to visit Arochuku and to confer with Mary. Two ladies were actually appointed by the Council, one being Miss Martha Peacock, who was afterwards to be so closely allied with her. When these matters came before the Foreign Mission Committee in Scotland, a resolution was passed, which it is well to give in full: 1. That they recognise the general principle, that, in all ordinary circumstances the Women's Foreign Mission should not make the first advance into new territory, but follow the lead of the Foreign Mission Committee, the function of the former being to supply the necessary complement to the work of the latter. 2. That, however, in view of (_a_) the earnest desire of the people of the district in question to receive Christian teaching, and their willingness to help in providing it; (_b_) the fact that the region has been claimed by the United Free Church as within the sphere of its operations, and has had that claim acknowledged by the Church Missionary Society; (_c_) the steps which have already been taken by Miss Slessor, and what she is further prepared to do: they regard it as not only highly desirable, but the duty of the Church to occupy the region in question as soon as it is possible. 3. That in view, on the other hand, of the present condition of their funds, which are overtaxed by the already existing work, the Committee deeply regret that it is beyond their means to add two new members to the staff, as the Council requests, and that, therefore, the sending of two new agents to Arochuku must be meantime delayed. 4. That the Committee, however, approve of the acceptance by the Mission Council of Miss Slessor's generous offer to build the house, but recommend the Council to consider whether the execution of the work should not be delayed till there is a nearer prospect of new agents being supplied. They further return thanks to Miss Slessor for her generosity, and record their warm appreciation of her brave pioneer work; and they express the earnest hope that the Church, by larger liberality, may soon enable them to make the advance which has been so well prepared. Meanwhile the Rev. John Rankln had been given a roving commission in order to ascertain the best location for the future station, and he came back from a tour in Ibo and Ibibio and fired the Council with the tale of what he had seen, and the wonderful possibilities of this great and populous region. "Close to Arochuku within a circle, the diameter of which is less than three miles, there are," he said, "nineteen large towns. I visited sixteen of these, each of which is larger than Creek Town, The people are a stalwart race, far in advance of Efik. The majority are very anxious for help. A section is strongly opposed, even to the point of persecution of those who are under the influence of Miss Slessor, and others have already begun to try to live in 'God's fashion.' This opposition seems to be one of the most hopeful signs, as proving that there will be at least no indifference. The head chief of all the Aros, who was the chief formerly in control of the 'long juju' is one of those most favourable. He has already announced to the other chiefs his intention to rule in God's ways. He has been the most keen in asking the missionary to come. A new church will be built, and he offers to build a house for any missionary who will come." With something like enthusiasm the Committee set apart Mr. Rankin himself to take up the work at Arochuku, and accepted the responsibility of sending him at once.... Thus Arochuku, like Itu, passed into the control of the Foreign Mission Committee, and became one of their stations and the centre of further developments, and thus Miss Slessor's long period of anxiety regarding its position and future was at an end. XI. ON THE BENCH Recognising that "Ma" had an influence with the natives, which it was impossible to abrogate, the Government decided to invest her with the powers of a magistrate. The native courts of Nigeria consist of a number of leading chiefs in each district, who take turns to try cases between native and native. The District Commissioner is _ex-officio_ president of those within his sphere, and each court is composed of a permanent vice-president and three chiefs. Before leaving Itu she was asked informally whether she would consent to take the superintendence of Court affairs in the district, as she had done in Okoyong, but on a recognised basis. If she agreed, the Court would be transferred to Ikotobong to suit her convenience and safeguard her strength. She was pleased that the Government thought her worthy of the position, and was favourable to the idea. Already she was by common consent the chief arbiter in all disputes, and wielded unique power, but she thought that if she were also the official agent of the Government she might increase the range of her usefulness. Her aim was to help the poor and the oppressed, and specially to protect her own downtrodden sex and secure their rights, and to educate the people up to the Christian standard of conduct; and such an appointment would give her additional advantage and authority. "It will be a good chance," she said, "to preach the Gospel, and to create confidence and inspire hope in these poor wretches, who fear white and black man alike; while it will neither hamper my work nor restrict my liberty." On stating that she would do the work she was told that a salary was attached to the post, but she declared that nothing would induce her to accept it, "I'm born and bred, and am in every fibre of my being, a voluntary." The formal offer came in May 1905, in the shape of this letter: 1. I am directed by His Excellency the High Commissioner to enquire whether you would accept office as a Member of Itu Native Court with the status of permanent Vice-President. His Excellency is desirous of securing the advantage of your experience and intimate knowledge of native affairs and sympathetic interest in the welfare of the villagers, and understands that you would not be averse to place your service at the disposal of the Government. 2. It is proposed to assign you a nominal salary of one pound a year, and to hand you the balance--forty-seven pounds per annum--for use in forwarding your Mission work. 3. It is proposed to transfer Itu Court to Ikotobong. She thanked the Government for the honour and for the confidence reposed in her, and said she was willing to give her services for the good of the people in any way, but she declined to accept any remuneration. She took over the books in October, acting then and often afterwards, as clerk, and carrying through all the tedious clerical duties. It was strange and terrible, but to her not unfamiliar work. She came face to face with the worst side of a low-down savage people, and dealt with the queerest of queer cases. One of the first was a murder charge in which a woman was involved. Women were indeed at the bottom of almost every mischief and palaver in the country. With marriage was mixed up poisoning, sacrifice, exactions, oaths, debts, and cruelty unspeakable. Mary was often sick with the loathing of it all. "God help these poor helpless women!" she wrote. "What a crowd of people I have had to-day, and how debased! They are just like brutes in regard to women. I have had a murder, an eséré case, a suicide, a man for branding his slave- wife all over her face and body; a man with a gun who has shot four persons--it is all horrible!" Here are three specimen charges, and the results, in her own writing:-- FOR IMPRISONMENT O. I. Found guilty of brawling in market and taking by force 8 rods from a woman's basket. One month's hard labour. P. B. Chasing a girl into the bush with intent to injure. One month's hard labour. U. A. (a) Seizing a woman in the market. (b) Chaining her for 14 days by neck and wrists. Throwing _mbiam_ with intent to kill should she reveal it to white man. Sentenced to six months' hard labour, and to be sent back on expiry of sentence to pay costs. She had the right of inflicting punishment up to six months' imprisonment, but often, instead of administering the law, she administered justice by giving the prisoner a blow on the side of the head! The oath taken was usually the heathen mbiam. For this were needed a skull and a vile concoction in a bottle, that was kept outside the Court House on account of the smell. After a witness had promised to speak the truth, one of the members of the Court would take some of the stuff and draw it across his tongue and over his face, and touch his legs and arms. It was believed that if he spoke falsely he would die. After Miss Slessor took up her duties, a heathen native, who had clearly borne false witness, dropped down dead on leaving the Court, with the result that _mbiam_ was in high repute for a time in the district. Although three local chiefs sat by her side on the "bench," and the jury behind her, she ruled supreme. "I have seen her get up," says a Government official of that time, "and box the ears of a chief because he continued to interrupt after being warned to be quiet. The act caused the greatest amusement to the other chiefs." They often writhed under her new edicts regarding women, but they always acquiesced in her judgment. For not providing water for twin-mothers, she fined a town £3. Miss Amess tells of a poor woman wishing a divorce from her scamp of a husband. The "Court" evidently thought she had sufficient cause, and there and then granted the request, and asked her colleague to witness the act. The woman was triumphant, feeling very important at having two white people on her side, while the man stood trembling, as "Ma" expressed her candid opinion of him. In the Government report for 1907 it was stated that a number of summonses had been issued by the District Commissioner against husbands of twin-bearing women for desertion and support, and in every case the husbands agreed to take the women back, the sequel being that other women in the same plight were also received again into their families. "The result," says the report, "is a sign of the civilising influence worked through the Court by that admirable lady, Miss Slessor." Some of her methods were not of the accepted judicial character. She would try a batch of men for an offence, lecture them, and then impose a fine. Finding they had no money she would take them up to the house and give them work to earn the amount, and feed them well. Needless to say they went back to their homes her devoted admirers. Her excuse for such irregular procedure was, that while they were working she could talk to them, and exercise an influence that might prove abiding in their lives. This was the motive animating all her actions in the Court. "When 'Ma' Slessor presided," it was said, "her Master was beside her, and His spirit guided her." The Court was popular, for the natives had their tales heard at first hand, and not through an interpreter. "Ma's" complete mastery of their tongue, customs, habits, and very nature, gave her, of course, an exceptional advantage. One District Commissioner spent three days in trying a single case, hearing innumerable witnesses, without coming within sight of the truth. In despair he sought her aid, and she settled the whole dispute to the satisfaction of every one by asking two simple questions. It was impossible for any native to deceive her. A Government doctor had occasion to interview a chief through an interpreter. She was standing by. As the chief spoke she suddenly broke in, and the man simply crumpled up before her. The doctor afterwards asked her what the chief had done. "He told a lie, and I reprimanded him--but I cannot understand how he could possibly expect me not to know." Again and again she reverted to the matter. "To think he could have expected to deceive _me_!" Another official tells how a tall, well-built, muscular chief cowered before her. "Having no knowledge of the language, I could not tell what it was all about, but plainly the man looked as if his very soul had been laid bare, and as though he wished the earth would open and swallow him. She combined most happily kindliness and severity, and indeed I cannot imagine any native trying to take advantage of her kindness and of her great-hearted love for the people. This is the more remarkable to any one with intimate personal acquaintance with the native, and of his readiness to regard kindness as weakness or softness, and his endeavour to exploit it to the utmost." All this Court business added to her toil, as a constant stream of people came to her at the Mission House in connection with their cases. She did not, however, see them all. It became her practice to sit in a room writing at her desk or reading, and send the girls to obtain the salient features of the story. They knew how to question, and what facts to take to her, and she sent them back with directions as to what should be done. When she was ill and feeble she extended this practice to other palavers. People still came from great distances to secure her ruling on some knotty dispute, and having had their statements conveyed to her, she would either give the reply through the girls, or speak out of the open window, and the deputation would depart satisfied, and act on her advice. Her correspondence also increased in volume, and she received many a curious communication. The natives would sometimes be puzzled how to address her, and to make absolutely sure they would send their letters to "Madam, Mr., Miss, Slessor." XII. A VISITOR'S NOTES A pleasant glimpse of her at this time is given in some notes by Miss Amess. On Miss Wright going home--she shortly afterwards married Dr. Rattray of the Mission staff, both subsequently settling in England-- Miss Amess was not permitted to stay alone in Okoyong, and she asked to be associated with Miss Slessor at Ikotobong. It was a happy arrangement for the latter. "What a relief it is," she wrote, "to have some one to lean on and share the responsibility of the bairns. Miss Amess is so sane and capable and helpful, and is always on the watch to do what is to be done--a dear consecrated lassie." Miss Amess says: When I went to Calabar I heard a great deal about Miss Slessor, and naturally I wished to see her. She had been so courageous that I imagined she must be somewhat masculine, with a very commanding appearance, but I was pleasantly disappointed when I found she was a true woman, with a heart full of motherly affection. Her welcome was the heartiest I received. Her originality, brightness, and almost girlish spirit fascinated me. One could not be long in her company without enjoying a right hearty laugh. As her semi-native house was just finished, and she always did with the minimum of furniture and culinary articles, the Council authorised me to take a filter, dishes, and cooking utensils from Akpap, and I had also provision cases and personal luggage. I was not sure of what "Ma" would say about sixteen loads arriving, because there were no wardrobes or presses, and one had just to live in one's boxes. When "Ma" saw the filter she said, "Ye maun a' hae yer filters noo-a-days. Filters werna created; they were an after-thocht." She quite approved of my having it all the same. Mail day was always a red-letter day. We only got letters fortnightly then. She was always interested in my home news and told me hers, so that we had generally a very happy hour together. Then the papers would be read and their contents discussed. To be with her was an education. She had such a complete grasp of all that was going on in the world. One day after studying Efik for two hours she said to me, "Lassie, you have had enough of that to-day, go away and read a novel for a short time." She was very childlike with her bairns and dearly loved them. One night I had to share her bed, and during the night felt her clapping me on the shoulder. I think she had been so used with black babies that this was the force of habit, for she was amused when I told her of it in the morning. There was no routine with "Ma." One never knew what she would be doing. One hour she might be having a political discussion with a District Commissioner, the next supervising the building of a house, and later on judging native palavers. Late one evening I heard a good deal of talking and also the sound of working. I went in to see what was doing and there was "Ma" making cement and the bairns spreading it on the floor with their hands in candle light. The whole scene at so late an hour was too much for my gravity. When at prayers with her children she would sometimes play a tambourine at the singing, and if the bairns were half asleep it struck their curly heads instead of her elbow. Her outstanding characteristic was her great sympathy, which enabled her to get into touch with the highest and the lowest. Once while cycling together we met the Provincial Commissioner. After salutations and some conversation with him she finished up by saying, "Good-bye, and see and be a guid laddie!" While out walking one Sabbath we came across several booths where the natives who were making the Government road were living. She began chatting with them, and then told them the Parable of the Lost Sheep. She told everything in a graphic way, and with a perfect knowledge of the vernacular, and they followed her with reverence and intense interest all through. To most of them, if not to all, that would be the first time they had heard of a God of Love. She had really two personalities. In the morning one would hear evildoers getting hotly lectured for their "fashions," and in the evening when all was quiet she lifted one up to the very heights regarding the things of the Kingdom. She always had a wonderful vision of what the power of the Gospel could make of the most degraded, though bound by the strongest chains of superstition and heathenism. One might enter her house feeling pessimistic, but one always left it an optimist. XIII. A REST-HOME A touch of romance seemed to be connected with all her work. The next idea she sought to develop was a Rest-House or week-end, holiday, or convalescent home, where the ladies of the Mission, when out of spirits, or run down in health, could reside and recuperate without the fear of being a trouble or expense to others. In a tropical country, where a change and rest is so often essential to white workers, such a quiet accessible resort would, she thought, prove a blessing. But there was no money for the purpose. One day, however, she received a cheque for £20. Years before, in Okoyong, Dr. Dutton of the Tropical School of Medicine had stayed with her for scientific study. He went on to the Congo, and there succumbed. On going over his papers, his family found her letters, and in recognition of her kindness and interest, sent her a gift of £20. Thinking of a way of spending the money which would have pleased her friend, she determined to apply it to the building of her Rest-House. The site for such a resort required to be near the Creek, and she discovered one on high land at Use between Ikotobong and Itu, and two miles from the landing-beach. The road here winds round hills from which beautiful views are obtained. On this side one sees far into Ibo beyond Arochuku, on that the vision is of Itu and the country behind it, while on the west the palm-covered plain rises into the highlands of Ikot Ekpene. It is one of the fairest of landscapes, but is the haunt of leopards and other wild beasts, and after rain the roadway is often covered with the marks of their feet. The ground was cleared, and building operations begun, the plan worked out being a small semi-European cottage and native yard. Other cottages would follow. Before long, however, the feeling grew that Ikotobong should be taken over by the Women's Foreign Mission Committee, and she foresaw that Use would require to be her own headquarters. Towards the end of the year Miss E, M'Kinney, one of the lady agents, called at Use, and found her living in a single room, and sleeping on a mattress placed upon a sheet of corrugated iron. As the visitor had to leave early in the morning, and there were no clocks in the hut, "Ma" adopted the novel device of tying a rooster to her bed. The plan succeeded; at first cock-crow the sleepers were aroused from their slumbers. It was not so much a rest-house for others that was needed, as a rest for herself. She was gradually coming to the end of her strength. Throughout the year 1906 she suffered from diarrhoea, boils, and other weakening complaints, and the Government doctor at last frankly told her that if she wished to live and work another day, she must go home at once. Her answer to his fiat was to rally in a wonderful way. "It looks," she said, "as if God has forbidden my going. Does this appear as if He could not do without me? Oh, dear me, poor old lady, how little you can do! But I can at least keep a door open." It was, however, only a respite. By the beginning of 1907 she could not walk half-a-dozen steps, her limbs refused to move, and she needed to be carried about. It was obvious, even to herself, that she must go home. Home! the very word brought tears to her eyes. The passion for the old land and "kent" faces, and the graves of her beloved, grew with her failing power. A home picture made her heart leap and long. "Oh, the dear homeland," she cried, "shall I really be there and worship in its churches again! How I long for a wee look at a winter landscape, to feel the cold wind, and see the frost in the cart-ruts, to hear the ring of shoes on the hard frozen ground, to see the glare of the shops, and the hurrying scurrying crowd, to take a back seat in a church, and hear without a care of my own the congregation singing, and hear how they preach and pray and rest their souls in the hush and solemnity." She arranged to leave in May, and set about putting her household affairs in order. The safeguarding of the children gave her much solicitude. For Jean and the older girls she trembled. "They must be left in charge of the babies, with only God to protect them." Dan, now six years old, she took with her as a help to fetch and carry. Her departure and journey were made wonderfully easy by the kindness of Government officials, who vied with each other in taking care of her and making her comfortable. One of her friends, Mr. Gray, packed for her, stored her furniture, conveyed her to Duke Town, and asked his sister in Edinburgh to meet her. Mr. Middleton, of Lagos, wrote to say he was going home, and would wait for her in order to "convoy her safely through all the foreign countries between Lagos and the other side of the Tweed." "Now there," she wrote to the Wilkies--"Doth Job serve God for nought?" Very grateful she was for all the attention. "God must repay these men," she said, "for I cannot. He will not forget they did it to a child of His, unworthy though she is." After the voyage she wrote: "Mr. Middleton has faithfully and very tenderly carried out all his promises. Had I been his mother, he could not have been more attentive or kind." XIV. SCOTLAND: THE LAST FAREWELL A telegram to Mrs. M'Crindle at Joppa informed her that her friend had arrived at Liverpool and was on the way to Edinburgh. She met the train, and saw an old wrinkled lady huddled in a corner of a carriage. Could that be Miss Slessor? With a pitying hand she helped her out and conveyed her, with Dan, to the comfort of her home. But soon letters, postcards, invitations, parcels began flowing in. "This correspondence," she wrote, "is overwhelming. I cannot keep pace with it." There was no end to the kindness which people showered upon her. Gifts of flowers, clothes, and money for herself and her work, and toys for Dan were her daily portion. "It is a wonderful service this," she said, "which makes the heart leap to do His will, and it is all unknown to the nearest neighbour or the dearest friend, but it keeps the Kingdom of Heaven coming every day anew on the earth." One £5 was slipped into her hand for her bairns. "My bairns don't require it," she replied, "and won't get it either, but it is put aside, till I see the Board, as the nest-egg of my Home for Girls and Women in Calabar. If I can get them to give the woman or women, I shall give half of my salary to help hers, and will give the house and find the servants, and I can find the passage money from personal friends. Pray that the Board may dare to go on in faith, and take up this work." Between spells of colds and fevers she visited friends. At Bowden again she had the exquisite experience of enjoying utter rest and happiness. A pleasant stay was at Stanley, with the family of Miss Amess, who was also at home, and with whom she rose early in the morning and went out cycling. She cycled also with Miss Logie at Newport, but was very timid on the road. If she saw a dog in front she would dismount, and remount after she had passed it. She went over to Dundee and roamed through her former haunts with an old factory companion, looking wistfully at the scenes of her girlhood. "I have been gladdened," she wrote to an English friend, "at finding many of those I taught in young days walking in the fear and love of God, and many are heads of families who are a strength and ornament to the Church of Christ. About thirty-five or thirty-eight years ago three ladies and myself began to work in a dreadful district-one became a district nurse, one worked among the fallen women and the prisons of our cities, and one has been at home working quietly--and we all met in good health and had such a day together. We went up the old roads and talked of all God had done for us and for the people, and again dedicated ourselves to Him. It was probably the last time we shall meet down here, but we were glad in the hope of eternity." She had not been in Scotland since the Union of the Churches, and one of her first duties was to call upon Mr. Stevenson, the Secretary of the Women's Foreign Mission Committee, and his assistant, Miss Crawford. She had a high sense of the value of the work going on at headquarters, and always maintained that the task of organising at home was much harder than service in the field. But she had a natural aversion to officialdom, and anticipated the interviews with dread. She pictured two cold, unsympathetic individuals--a conception afterwards recalled with amusement. What the reality was may be gathered from a letter she wrote later to Mr. Stevenson: "I have never felt much at home with our new conditions, and feared the result of the Union in its detail, though I most heartily approved of it in theory and fact. No! I shall not be afraid of you. Both Miss Crawford and yourself have been a revelation to me, and I am ashamed of my former fancies and fears, and I shall ever think of, and pray for the secretaries with a very warm and thankful heart." There was an element of humour in her meeting with Miss Crawford. The two women, somewhat nervous, stood on opposite sides of the office door. She, without, was afraid to enter, shrinking from the task of facing the unknown personage within--a woman who had been in India and written a book, and was sure to be masculine and hard! She, within, of gentle face and soft speech, leant timidly on her desk, nerving herself for the coming shock, for the famous pioneer missionary was sure to be "difficult" and aggressive. When Mary entered they glanced at one another, looked into each other's eyes, and with a sigh of relief smiled and straightway fell in love. When Mary gave her affection she gave it with a passionate abandon, and Miss Crawford was taken into the inmost sanctuary of her heart. "You have been one of God's most precious gifts to me on this furlough," she said later. In her humility Miss Crawford spoke about not being worthy to tie her shoe. "Dear daughter of the King," exclaimed the missionary, "why do you say that? If you knew me as God does! Never say that kind of thing again!" The ordeal of meeting the Women's Foreign Mission Committee was also a disillusionment. Her friend, Dr. Robson, was in the chair, and his opening prayer was an inspiration, and lifted the proceedings to the highest level. Nothing could have been kinder than her reception, which delighted her greatly. "There was such a sympathetic hearing for Calabar, especially from the old Free Church section, who are as eager for the Mission as the old United Presbyterians." A conference was held with her in regard to the position of Ikotobong, and her heart was gladdened by the decision to take over the station and place two lady missionaries there, Miss Peacock and Miss Reid. At another conference with a sub-committee she discussed the matter of the Settlement, gave an outline of her plans, and intimated that already two ladies had offered £100 each to start the enterprise, while other sums were also on hand. The sub-committee was much impressed with the sense of both the necessity and promise of the scheme, and recommended the Women's Committee to express general approval of it, and earnest sympathy with the end in view, and to authorise her to take the necessary steps on her return for the selection of a suitable site, the preparation of plans, and estimates of the cost of the ground, buildings, and agents, in order that the whole scheme might be submitted through the Mission Council, at the earliest practicable date, for sanction. The general Committee unanimously and cordially adopted this recommendation. It was expected that she would address many meetings throughout the country during her furlough to interest people in her work and projects, but she astonished every one by intimating that she was leaving for Calabar in October, although she had only been a few months at home. In her eyes friends saw a look of sorrow, and said to one another that the burden of the work was lying upon her heart. But few knew the secret of her sadness. To some who remonstrated she said, "My heart yearns for my bairns--they are more to me than myself." The truth was that a story about Jean had been set afloat by a native and had reached her in letters, and she could hardly contain herself until she had found out the meaning of it. At all costs she must get back. Even her pilgrimage to the graves of her dear ones in Devon must be given up. Much against her will and pleading she was tied down to give at least three addresses in the great towns, but with her whole being unhinged by the shadow that overhung her, she had little mind for public speaking. Her old nervousness in the face of an audience returned with tenfold force. "I am trembling for the meetings," she wrote, "but surely God will help me. It is His own cause." And again, "I am suffering tortures of fear, and yet why is it that I cannot rest in Him? If He sends me work, surely He will help me to deliver His message, and to do it for His glory. He never failed me before. If He be glorified that is all, whether I be considered able or not." She never prepared a set speech, and when she was going up to the Edinburgh meeting with Mrs. M'Crindle, she turned to her and said, "What am I to say?" "Just open your lips and let God speak," replied her friend. She was greatly pleased with the answer, and on that occasion she never spoke better. Dr. Robson presided, and Mrs. Duncan M'Laren, in bidding her farewell on behalf of the audience, said, "There are times when it needs God-given vision to see the guiding hand. We feel that our friend has this heavenly vision, and that she has not been disobedient to it. We all feel humbled when we hear what she and her brave colleagues have done. In God's keeping we may safely leave her." At the meeting in Glasgow the feeling was even more tense and emotional, and a hush came over the audience as the plain little woman made her appeal, and told them that in all probability she would never again be back. At the benediction she stood, a pathetic figure, her head drooping, her whole attitude one of utter weariness. On the eve of her departure she was staying with friends. At night they went into her room and found her weeping quietly in bed. They tried to comfort her, and she said half-whimsically that she had been overcome by the feeling that she was homeless and without kith and kin la her own country. "I'm a poor solitary with only memories." "But you have troops of friends--you have us all--we all love you." "Yes, I ken, and I am grateful," she replied, "but"--wistfully--"it's just that I've none of my ain folk to say good-bye to." She was very tired when she left, "I'm hardly myself in this country," she said. "It has too many things, and it is always in such a hurry. I lose my head." Again kind hands eased her way, and settled her on the steamer. Dan was inconsolable, and wept to be taken back to Joppa. The voyage gave her a new lease of life. The quietness and peace and meditation, the warm sunshine and the breezes, the loveliness of the sky and sea, rested and healed her. This, despite the conduct of some wild passengers bound for the gold-mines. One day she rose and left the table by way of protest, but in the end they bade her a kindly good- bye, and listened to her advice. At Lagos the Governor sent off his aide-de-camp with greetings, and a case of milk for the children. Mr. Grey also appeared and escorted her to Calabar. "Am I not a privileged and happy woman?" she wrote to his sister. The same note of gratitude filled a letter which she wrote on board to Dr. Robson, asking him to put a few lines in the _Record_ thanking every one for their kindness, as it was impossible to answer all the letters she had received. The letter itself was inserted, and we give the concluding paragraph: To all who have received me into their homes, and given me a share of what are the most sacred things of earth, I give heartfelt thanks. What the Bethany house must have been to our Lord, no one can better appreciate than the missionary coming home to a strange place, homeless. I thank all those who have rested me, and nursed me back to health and strength, and who have nerved me for future service by the sweet ministries and hallowing influences of their home life. To the members of the Mission Board for their courtesy, their confidence, and sympathetic helpfulness, I owe much gratitude. And not only for services which can be tabulated, but for the whole atmosphere of sympathy which has surrounded me; for the hand-clasps which have spoken volumes; for the looks of love which have beamed from eyes soft with feeling; for the prayer which has upheld and guided in days gone by, and on which I count for strength in days to come; for all I pray that God may say to each giving, sympathetic heart, "Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto Me." She was praying all the while for her bairn. On her arrival, as fast as boat would take her, she sped up to Use. The chiefs and people came crowding to welcome her, bringing lavish gifts of food-yams and salt and fish and fowl. There were even fifty yams, and a goat from the back of Okoyong. Dan with his English clothes was the centre of admiration, and grave greybeards sat and listened to the ticking of his watch, and played with his toy train.... To her unspeakable relief she found the story about Jean to be a native lie. She was too grateful to be angry. XV. GROWING WEATHER The short furlough in Scotland, broken by so much movement and excitement, had done little permanent good. She was tired when she began her work, and there came a long series of "up and down" days which handicapped her activity, yet she continued her duties with a resolution that was unquenched and unquenchable. "Things are humdrum," she wrote, "just like this growing weather of ours, rainy and cloudy, with a blink here and there. We know the brightness would scorch and destroy if it were constant; still the bursts of glory that come between the clouds are a rich provision for our frail and sensitive lives." Her conception of achievement was a little out of the common. One day she sat in court for eight hours; other two hours were spent with the clerk making out warrants; afterwards she had to find tasks to employ some labour; then she went out at dusk and attended a birth case all night, returning at dawn. Whole days were occupied with palavers, many of the people coming such long distances that she had to provide sleeping accommodation for them. Old chiefs would pay her visits and stay for hours. "It is a great tax," she remarked, "but it pays even if it tires." Sundays were her busiest days; she went far afield preaching, and had usually from six to twelve meetings in villages and by the wayside. Often on these excursions she came across natives who had made the journey to Okoyong to consult her in the old days. The situation was now reversed, for people from Okoyong came to her. One day after a ten hours' sitting in Court she went home to find about fifty natives from the hinterland of that district waiting with their usual tributes of food and a peck of troubles for her to straighten out. It was after midnight before there was quiet and sleep for her. Her heart went out to these great-limbed, straight-nosed, sons of the aboriginal forest, and she determined to cross the river and visit them. She spent three days fixing up all their domestic and social affairs, and making a few proclamations, and diligently sowing the seeds of the Gospel. When she left she had with her four boys and a girl as wild and undisciplined as mountain goats, who were added to her household to undergo the process of taming, training, and educating ere they were sent back. In what she called her spare time she was engaged in the endless task of repairing and extending her forlorn little shanties. There was always something on hand, and she worked as hard as the children, nailing up corrugated iron, sawing boards, cementing floors, or cutting bush. Jean, the ever-willing and cheerful, was practically in charge of the house, keeping the babies, looking after their mothers, and teaching the little ones in the school. Up to this period she had never received more than her board, and "Ma" felt it was time to acknowledge her services, and she therefore began to pay her 1s. per week. Now and again in her letters there came the ominous words, "I'm tired, tired." On the last night of the year she was sitting up writing. "I'm tired," she said, "and have a few things to do. My mother went home eighteen years ago on the passage of the old year, so it is rather lonely to-night with so many memories. The bairns are all asleep. But He hath not failed, and He is all-sufficient." She was often so wearied that she could not sit up straight. She was too exhausted to take off her clothes and brush her hair until she had obtained what she called her "first rest." Then she rose and finished her undressing. She would begin a letter and not be able to finish it. The ladies nearest her, Miss Peacock and Miss Reid at Ikotobong, redoubled their attentions. Miss Reid she said was "a bonnie lassie, tenderly kind to me." What Miss Peacock was to her no one but herself knew. She was a keen judge of character, though generous, almost extravagant in her appreciation of those she loved, and Miss Peacock has justified her estimate and her praise. "Sterling as a Christian, splendid as a woman, whole-hearted as a missionary, capable as a teacher, she is one after my own heart," she wrote. "She is very good and kind to me, and a tower of strength. I am proud of her and the great work she is doing." Miss Peacock began the habit about this time of cycling down on Saturday afternoons and spending a few hours with her, and Mary looked forward to these visits with the greatest zest. The friends at home were also ceaseless in their kindness. They scrutinised every letter she sent, and were frequently able to read between the lines and anticipate and supply her needs,--much to her surprise. "Have I been grumbling?" she would enquire. "You make me ashamed. I am better off than thousands who give their money to support me." A carpet arrived. "And oh," she writes, "what a difference it has made to our comfort. You have no idea of the transformation! The mud and cement were transformed at once into something as artistic as the 'boards' of the bungalow, and the coziness was simply beyond belief. It did not look a bit hot, and it was so soothing to the bare feet, and I need not say it was a wonder to the natives, who can't understand a white man stepping on a cloth--and such a cloth!" On another occasion a bed was sent out to her, and she wrote: "I've been jumping my tired body up and down on it just to get the beautiful swing, and to feel that I am lying level. I'm tired and I'm happy and I'm half-ashamed at my own luxury." And next morning, "What a lovely sleep I've had!" The Macgregors made their first visit to Use in 1908, and on arrival found "Ma" sitting with a morsel of infant in her lap. She was dressed in a print overall with low neck; it was tied at the middle with a sash, and she was without stockings or shoes. On the Sunday she set out early on foot on her customary round, carrying two roasted corn-cobs as her day's rations, whilst Mr. Macgregor took the service at Ikotobong. He was tired after his one effort, but when he returned in the evening he discovered her preaching at Use Church-her tenth meeting for the day, and her tour had not been so extensive as usual. At six o'clock next morning people had already arrived with palavers. One woman wanted a husband. "Ma" looked at her with those shrewd eyes that read people through and through, and then began in Scots, "It's bad eneuch being a marriage registrar, without being a matrimonial agent forby. _Eke mi'o!_ Mr. Macgregor, send up any o' your laddies that's wanting wives." Then she went into Efik that made the woman wince, and pointed out that she had come to the wrong place. She watched with interest the progress of the Creek stations, although they were out of her hands. There were now at Okpo forty members in full communion, and the contributions for the year amounted to £48: 3: 3. At Akani Obio, where there were forty-five members in full communion, the total contributions amounted to £98: 11: 4. And at Asang, where there were one hundred and fifteen members, the contributions amounted to £146: 68. At those three stations the total expenses were fully met, and there was a large surplus. Where four years ago there was no church member and no offering, there were now two hundred members, and contributions amounting in all to £287. So the Kingdom of her Lord grew. XVI. "THE PITY OF IT" One experience of 1908, when she was down at Duke Town attending the Council meetings, is worth noting. Though she liked the bush better she was always interested in watching the movements there. "It is a great cheer to me," she said, "to meet all the young folks, and to be with them in their enthusiasm and optimism, and this vast hive of industry, the Hope Waddell Institution, with its swarm of young men and boys, gives me the highest hopes for the future of the Church and the nation now in their infancy. Mr. Macgregor is a perfect Principal, sane, self- restrained, and tactful, but I would not be in his place for millions." The town was a very different place from that which she first saw in 1876. It was now a flourishing seaport, with many fine streets and buildings. The swamp had been drained. There was a fully-equipped native hospital, and a magnificent church in the centre of the town, and the Europeans enjoyed most of the conveniences and even the luxuries of civilisation. On this occasion an invitation came from the High Commissioner to dine at Government House, and meet a certain woman writer of books. She would not hear of it. She had no clothes for such a function, and she did not wish to be lionised. The Macgregors, with whom she was staying, advised her to go; they thought it would do her good. She consented at last, but when she left in a hammock, which had been specially sent for her, there was the light of battle in her eyes. Mr. Macgregor knew that look and laughed; there was no doubt she was going to enjoy herself; she had still the heart of a school-girl, and greatly loved a prank. When she returned, her face was full of mischief. "Ay," she said, "I met your lady writer, and I made her greet four times and she gied me half a sovereign for my bairns!" Under the title of "But yet the pity of it," the authoress gave an account of the meeting in the _Morning Post_, in a way which excited laughter and derision in the Calabar bush. It was in the pathetic strain: "I am not given to admiring missionary enterprise," she wrote. "The enthusiasm which seems to so many magnificent seems to me but a meddling in other people's business; the money that is poured out, so much bread and light and air and happiness filched from the smitten children at home. "But this missionary conquered me if she did not convert me. "She was a woman close on sixty, with a heavily-lined face, and a skin from which the freshness and bloom had long, long ago departed; but there was fire in her old eyes still, tired though they looked; there was sweetness and firmness about her lined mouth. Heaven knows who had dressed her. She wore a skimpy tweed skirt and a cheap nun's veiling blouse, and on her iron-grey hair was perched rakishly a forlorn broken picture-hat of faded green, chiffon with a knot of bright red ribbon to give the bizarre touch of colour she had learned to admire among her surroundings. "'Ye'll excuse my hands,' she said, and she held them out. "They were hardened and roughened by work, work in the past, and they were just now bleeding from work finished but now; the skin of the palms was gone, the nails were worn to the quick; that they were painful there could be no doubt, but she only apologised for their appearance." "Ma" is thus made to tell the incident of the witness dying suddenly after attending the court at Ikotobong: "'If you put _mbiam_ on a man and he swears falsely he dies. Oh, he does. I ken it. I've seen it mysel'. There was a man brought up before me in the court and he was charged wi' stealing some plantains. He said he had naught to do with them, so I put _mbiam_ on him, an' still he said he had naught to do wi' them, so I sent him down to Calabar. An' see now. As he was going he stopped the policeman an' laid himself down, because he was sick. An' he died. He died there. I put _mbiam_ on him, an' he knew he had stolen them and died.' "There was pity in her face for the man she had killed with his own lie, but only pity, no regret." So well was she succeeding with her mystification that she went on to talk of the hard lot of women and "the puir bairns," and then comes the conclusion: "'My time's been wasted. The puir bairns. They'd be better dead.' "Her scarred hands fumbled with her dress, her tired eyes looked out into the blazing tropical sunshine, her lips quivered as she summed up her life's work. 'Failed, failed,' she cried. All that she had hoped, all that she had prayed for, nothing for herself had she ever sought except the power to help these children, and she felt that she had not helped them. They would be better dead.... "But the Commissioner did not think she had failed. Is the victory always to the strong? "'She has influence and weight,' he said 'she can go where no white man dare go. She can sway the people when we cannot sway them. Because of her they are not so hard on the twins and their mothers as they used to be. No, she has not failed.'" And so with a reference to Thermopylae, and the Coliseum and Smithfield, the lady litterateur places her in the ranks of the immortal martyrs of the world. XVII. THE SETTLEMENT BEGUN This was one of the waiting periods in Mary Slessor's life, which tried her patience and affected her spirits. The mist had fallen upon her path, and the direction was dim and uncertain. She had received what she thought was a call from a distant region up-country, but if she settled far away, what would become of her home for women and girls? She had no clear leading, and she wished the way to be made so plain that there could be no possibility of mistake. Friends were sending her money, and the Government were urging her to start the Settlement, and promising to take all the products that were grown. "The District Commissioner was here to-day," she wrote. "He wonders how he can help me, has had orders from the Governor to assist me in any way, but the Pillar does not move. I have building material lying here, and have a £10 note from a friend at home for any material I want, but there is no leading towards anything yet.... I am longing for an outlet, but I can't move without guidance." She would not hurry--the matter was not in her hands. God, she was assured, was "softly, softly," working towards a natural solution, and as she was only His instrument, she could afford to wait His time. One night the mist on the path lifted a little, and next day she walked over the land at Use, and there and then fixed the site for the undertaking. There was ample room for all the cultivations that would be required, and plenty of material for building and fencing, and good surface water. Already she had three cottages built, including the one she occupied, and these would make a beginning. She at once set about obtaining legal possession, and with the permission and help of Government she secured the land in the name of the girls. The Council agreed with her that it was most advisable to develop industries which the people had not yet undertaken, such as basket-making, the weaving of cocoanut fibre, and cane and bamboo work. When asked if she would agree to remain at Use for one year to establish the Settlement and put it in working order with the assistance of one or two agents, she would not commit herself. She rather shrank from the idea of a large institution; it ought, in her view, to begin in a simple and natural way by bringing in a few people, instructing them, and then getting them to teach others. And there were other regions calling to her. When reminded that a large sum of money was on hand for the project, she said it was not all intended for this special purpose; much of it was for extension; and she pointed to the needs of the region up the Cross River, stating that she was willing to have the funds used for providing agents there. Nothing more definite was decided, and meanwhile she went on quietly with the beginnings of things. She planted fruit trees sent up by the Government,--mangoes, guavas, pawpaws, bananas, plantains, avocado pears, as well as pineapples, and other produce, and began to think of rubber and cocoa. She also started to accumulate stock, though the leopards were a constant menace. She had even a cow, which she bought from a man to prevent him going to prison for debt--and often wished she had not, for it caused infinite trouble, and the natives went in terror of it. Although it had a pail attached to it by a rope, it was often lost, and the whole town were out at nights searching for it. It would run away with the whole household hanging on, and so little respect did it pay to dignitaries, that on one occasion it ran off with the Mother of the Mission and the Principal of the Hope Waddell Institute, who had been pressed into the humble service of leading it home. "Ma Slessor's coo" became quite famous in the Mission. It was characteristic of her that she did not want her name to be put to anything, and she thought the Settlement should be called after Mrs. Anderson or Mrs. Goldie, who did so much for women and girls. XVIII. A SCOTTISH GUEST During the year 1909 she continued to fight a battle with ill-health. She was compelled to give up much of her outdoor work, for an oppressive sense of heart-weakness made her afraid to cross deep streams and climb the hills. Sometimes she used her cycle, but only when she could obtain one of the girls or lads to run alongside and assist her up the ascents. Boils, an old enemy, tortured her again; she was covered with them from head to foot, and was one mass of pain. "Only sleeping draughts," she said, "keep me from going off my head." As the months went on she became feeble almost to fainting point, and had given up hope of betterment. A note of sadness crept into her letters. "I cannot write," she told a friend at home, "but there is no change in the heart's affection, except that it grows stronger and perhaps a little more wistful as the days go by and life gets more uncertain." She was anxious to recover sufficiently before March, to do honour to two deputies who had been appointed by the home Church to visit the Mission, and who were expected then, and if possible to return to Scotland with them. But she scarcely anticipated holding out so long. Jean, unfortunately, was not with her. It had been discovered that she had long been suffering in silence from an internal complaint, and the medical men now advised an operation. "Ma" was opposed to this, and left her for a time at Duke Town for a change and treatment, which did her much good. It was sheer will-power that gained her a little strength to face the ordeal of the official visit. She determined to make no change whatever in the course of her daily life, and she was afraid the deputies might not find things to their liking and be disappointed. They were the Rev. James Adamson, M.A., B.Sc., of Bonnington, Leith, and the Rev. John Lindsay, M.A., Bathgate, who was accompanied by Mrs. Lindsay. They entered the Creek one market day, when it was crowded with canoes, and the landing-beach--one for the missionaries had just been constructed at Okopedi--was swarming with people, amongst whom the arrival of the strangers caused the greatest excitement. On bicycles the party proceeded uphill to Use. Mr. Adamson went on ahead, and at a spot where a few rough steps were cut in the steep bank he saw a boy standing, He called out, "Ma Slessor?" The boy signed to Mm to come--it was a short cut to the house. Clambering up the bank and making his way through the bush, Mr. Adamson came upon a little native hut. Miss Slessor advanced to meet him. "Come awa in, laddie, oot o' the heat," was her greeting. When the Lindsays arrived it was also her chief concern to get them into the shade. Mr. Adamson was her guest, whilst the Lindsays went on to Ikotobong. His room--an erection built out from the house--had mud walls and a mat roof, and was furnished with a camp-bed, a box for dressing-table and another for a washstand, and for company he had abundance of spiders and beetles and lizards. He proved a delightful guest. "He is a dear laddie," wrote Mary; "all the bairns are in love with him, and so am I!" While he was with her a woman came to the yard with twins. She had been driven out of her house and town, and had come several miles to "Ma" for shelter. Her husband and her father were with her--which denoted some advance--and the three were crouched on the ground, a picture of misery. The twins were lying in a basket and had not been touched. Mr. Adamson helped "Ma" to attend to them, and she felt as proud of him as of a son when she saw him sitting down beside the weeping mother and gently trying to comfort her. She gave the parents some food and a hut to sleep in, and made the man promise to stay until the morning. Neither would, however, look at the twins, and they were given over to the girls. A service was held at which Mr. Lindsay was also present, and about a hundred people attended. "Take our compliments to the people of your country," the latter said to the deputies, "and tell them that our need is great, and that we are in darkness and waiting for the light." What astonished the natives was to see the white visitors standing up courteously when spoken to by black men. From the meeting the party cycled to the little wattle-and-thatch Court House at Ikotobong, Miss Slessor being pushed by Dan up the hills. She took her seat at the table in the simplest possible attire. Before her was a tin of toffee, her only refreshment, with the exception of a cup of tea, during a long sitting. The jury, composed of the older and more responsible men in the various villages, occupied a raised platform behind. In front was a bamboo railing, which formed the dock; at the side another railing marked the witness-box. Several cases were heard, the witnesses giving their evidence with volubility and abundant gesture, and the judge, jury, and clerk retiring to a little shed at the back to discuss the verdicts. One was that of a man who, under the influence of trade gin, had hacked his wife with a machete, because she had insulted his dignity by accidentally stumbling against him. Such a case always aroused "Ma's" ire, and she wished a severe punishment awarded. The jury were very unwilling. The headman started by laying down as a fundamental principle that men had a perfect right to do whatever they liked with their wives; otherwise they would become unmanageable. But in deference to the white woman's peculiar views they would go the length of admitting that perhaps the husband had gone a little too far in the use of his instrument. He had not done anything to merit a severe sentence, but in view of the prejudices of the "Court," they would send him to prison for a short term. Suddenly the "toot" of the Government motor-car was heard, and in a moment jury, witnesses, prisoners, and policemen rushed out of the building to catch a glimpse of the "new steamer" that ran on the road. Then back they drifted, and the proceedings went on. Mr. Adamson appreciated the service which Miss Slessor was accomplishing by her work in the Court. She told him she did not care for it; "the moral atmosphere of a native court is so bad," she declared, "that I would never go near one were it not that I want the people to get justice." But he saw the exceptional opportunity she possessed of dispensing gospel as well as law. "As a rule," he says, "her decision is accompanied by some sound words of Christian counsel." He left Use with a profound admiration both for herself and Miss Peacock. "Words," he wrote in the _Record_, "cannot describe the value of the work that is being done by these heroic women." There was no improvement in her health as the months went on, and another severe illness caused by blood-poisoning shattered her nerves. The Wilkies spared no labour or love to heal and strengthen her. "Once more," she wrote, "I believe I owe my life to them." She felt that the time had come to relinquish her court work, and accordingly in November she sent in her resignation. The Commissioner of the Eastern Province wrote in reply: DEAR MISS SLESSOR--I have been informed of your decision to resign the Vice-Presidentship of the Ikotobong Native Court by the District Commissioner, Ikot Ekpene, which I note with great regret, and take this opportunity of thanking you for the assistance you have in the past given the Government, and of expressing my deep appreciation of the services you have rendered to the country during the period you have held the office which you have now relinquished.--Believe me, Yours very sincerely, W. FOSBERY. She slipped out of the work very quietly, and was glad to be free of a tie which hindered her from moving onward on her King's more pressing business. XIX. A MOTOR CAR ROMANCE The Government motor car, which now ran up and down the road into the interior, was the cause of several changes in the household of Use. In charge of it at first was a white chauffeur, who, curiously enough, was a member of Wellington Street Church in Glasgow, which now supported Miss Slessor, and with him was a native assistant, a young well- educated Anglican, who came from Lagos. When the car made its appearance Dan was so fascinated with it that he could scarcely keep off the road, and he now struck up an acquaintance with the native driver, which brought him many a rapturous hour. "Ma," who did not then know the lad, was in terror for the safety of his body and his morals, and so despatched him as a pupil to the Institute at Duke Town to be under the care of Mr. Macgregor. But David, the driver, had done more than capture Dan; he had captured the heart of one of the girls--Mary. Annie was already happily married, and she and her husband were preparing to join the Church; but Mary was not disposed to follow her example, although she had two suitors, one in Okoyong, and one in Ibibio. "Why can't I stay at home with you?" she said to "Ma." "I don't want to go anywhere." But the Lagos lad succeeded where others had failed, and "Ma," giving her consent, they were married, before the District Commissioner in Court. David went back to his work, and his wife to the Mission House, for "Ma" would not allow him to take her home until the Church ceremony had been performed. Mr. Cruickshank appeared one day before he was expected, and before the wedding-gown was quite ready, but a note was sent to David, and he cycled down in his black suit. Miss Annie M'Minn, then at Ikotobong, came and dressed the bride, the children put on white frocks, and there was a quaint and picturesque wedding. There was also, of course, a breakfast. It was given in the verandah of the hut. David was early on the scene arranging tables and forms, and Miss Peacock and Miss M'Minn laid and decorated them, a conspicuous object being a bunch of heather from Scotland. Jean and the bride cooked the breakfast. By 11 o'clock the company had assembled. At the head sat an aged Mohammedan in white robes and turban, a friend of David's family. A number of his co-religionists had come to the district, and some even attended "Ma's" services. This particular man greatly admired her. "Only God can make you such a mother and helper to everybody," he had said at his first interview, and on leaving he had taken her hand and bent over and kissed it, and with tears in his eyes invoked a blessing upon her. Few expressions of respect from white men had touched her more, though she was half-afraid her feeling was scarcely orthodox. Then came the bride and bridegroom and "Ma's" clerk. At the next table sat another of David's friends--an interpreter--and a lad from the bride's house, headman on the road Department; David's next-door neighbours, a man and his wife; and eight headmen over the road labourers. Outside were the school children, who were fed by Jean with Calabar chop, sweets, and biscuits. After the breakfast the Mohammedan came indoors to Miss Slessor and made a speech. "I knew David's mother before he was born," he said, "and I praise God he was led here for a wife." David came forward, "Mother," he said, "you won't let us go without prayer?" and down he knelt, and she committed the couple to God, A pie and cake, which the Ikotobong ladies had baked, were presented, along with a motor cap, silk handkerchief, ribbon, and scissors. One of "Ma's" presents was a sewing-machine. Then she walked down to see them off, supported in her weakness by the Mohammedan, When the pair arrived at their home, the latter stood on the doorstep praying for them as they entered on their new life. It was only a bamboo shanty run up by the Government, but it was a home, and not, like all others, a room in a compound, and family worship was conducted in it in English. Good news came from it as time went on. The bride was sometimes seen driving in the motor car. "She was here this morning," writes the house-mother, "full of importance as she passed to market. She had biscuits for the children, a new water- jar and a bunch of fine bananas for me, and the whole house were round her full of questions and fun, and you would think she had become a heroine, just because she was married two months ago. She is very happy and proud of her husband." "Ma" watched over her with jealous care, and when in due time a baby arrived, she was as delighted as if it had been of her own blood. XX. STRUCK DOWN The hot, dry season was always a trial to Miss Slessor; it shrivelled her up, and reduced her energy, and she panted for the cooling rains. This year it affected her more than ever. The harmattan was like an Edinburgh "haar," though it was not cold except between midnight and daybreak; the air was thick with fine sand dust, and often she could not see three yards away. She longed for a "wee blink of home," and a home Sabbath. "But though the tears are coming at the thought, you are not to think for one moment that I would take the offer if it were given me! A thousand times no! I feel too grateful to God for His wonderful condescension in letting me have the privilege of ministering to those around me here." How the interest of the spiritual aspects of her work submerged the afflictions of her body was seen when the first baptismal service and communion at Use took place. With her dread of the spectacular she did not make the event known, but the little native church was crowded, men and women squatting on the floor, and the mothers with babies on the verandah. Mr. Cruickshank conducted the service. Mary took a "creepie" stool--her mother's footstool of old--and sat down by the young communicants to help them and show them what to do. "David," she wrote, "had bought a bottle of wine for his wedding, but of course it was never opened, and he said to me, 'Keep it, Ma, it may be useful yet.' So it was drawn for our first communion well-watered. The glass sugar- dish on a teaplate was the baptismal font, but it was all transfigured and glorified by the Light which never shone on hill or lake or even on human face, and some of us saw the King in His beauty--and not far off. Bear with me in my joy; this sounds small in comparison with home events, but it is only a very short time since this place was dark and degraded and drunken and besotted." The glow and exaltation of the service lingered with her for weeks, and her letters are full of sprightliness and wit. She told of a visit from Lady Egerton--"a true woman"--and of the Christmas gift from their Excellencies--a case of milk; and of the present of a new cycle sent from England from "her old chief" Mr. Partridge, to replace the old one which he thought must be worn out by this time. The wonders of aviation were engrossing the world then, and she merrily imagined a descent upon her some afternoon of her friends from Scotland, and discussed the capabilities of her tea-caddy. Well on into the next year she was busy with regular station work, teaching, training, preaching, building up the congregation, and acting as Mother to her people and to many more. Then in the midst of her strenuous activity she was suddenly and swiftly struck down by what she termed "one of the funniest illnesses" she ever had. The children were alarmed, and sent word to David. He informed the white officers, and they rushed in a motor car down to Use and removed her to Itu, where she was nursed back to life by Mrs. Robertson. "I shall never forget the kindness and the tenderness and the skill which have encompassed me, and I shall ever remember Dr. Robertson and his devoted wife, and ask God to remember them for their goodness. Dr. Robertson brought me out of the valley of the shadows and when I was convalescent he lifted me up in his strong arms and took me to see the church and garden and anywhere I wished, just as he might have done to his own mother." Her friends in Calabar also did everything they could for her, the Hon. Mr. Bedwell, the Provincial Commissioner, sending up ice and English chicken and other delicacies in a special launch. The little daughter of the missionaries was a source of great delight to her who loved all children. She was a very winsome girl, and had won the hearts of the natives, who regarded her with not a little awe. She was the only white child they had seen, and were not sure whether she was not a spirit. "Ma" and she had good times together, playing and make-believing. "Maimie and I," she wrote, "have been having the dolls out for a drive, and we have just given them their bread and milk and put them to bed!" When she was convalescent the Macgregors insisted on her coming down to Duke Town for a change, and the Government placed the fast and comfortable _Maple Leaf_ at their disposal. She protested, saying she could not put herself on a brother and sister whose lives were so strenuous, but they would take no refusal. They turned their dining- room into a bedroom for her convenience, and here she talked and read the newspapers and the latest new books and her Bible, and wrote long letters to her friends. "I am doing nothing but eating," she told her children, "and am growing fat and shedding my buttons all over the place." But underneath all her gaiety and high spirits she felt profoundly grateful for the wonderful goodness and mercy God had made to pass before her, and the perfect peace He had given her. "Here I am," she said, "being spoiled anew in an atmosphere not merely of tender love, but of literary and cultured Christian grace and winsomeness, and it has been as perfect a fortnight as ever I spent." She had literally to run away from the kind attentions of the Government officials and doctors, and a swift Government launch again conveyed her up-river. Jean, who had long since returned, had bravely held the fort for the five Sabbaths she had been absent, and David and his wife had been there to protect her, and the work, therefore, had been kept going. After each breakdown she seemed to feel that she must make up for lost time, and she planned an advance towards Ikot Ekpene, being anxious to secure that point and the intervening area for her church. On her bicycle she made a series of pioneer trips into the bush, here and there selecting sites for schools, interviewing chiefs about twin- mothers, and generally preparing the way for further operations. About twelve miles' distant, or half-way to Ikot Ekpene, where there was a camp, she met some forty chiefs and arranged for ground for a school and the beginning of the work, and for a hut for herself at the back of the native prison, where, she thought, she would have some influence over the warders. As she was never able to establish this station, its history may be rounded off here. Early in the year 1911 she brought the matter before the Calabar Council, which agreed to build a house at Ibiacu out of the extension fund, and later she went in a hammock to complete the arrangement, accompanied by Miss Welsh, who, as "Ma" phrased it, "fitted into bush life like a glove," and who occupied and developed the station. This young missionary lives alone, looks after the children, has a clever pen and clever hands, and Is following very much on the lines of the great "Ma." To the chagrin of the latter, Ikot Ekpene was taken over by the Primitive Methodist Mission before she could secure it, but she consoled herself with the thought that it did not matter who did the Master's works so long as it done.... Then her path, which had been so long hidden, cleared, and she saw it stretching out plain and straight before her. FIFTH PHASE l9l0-January 1915. Age 62-66. ONWARD STILL "_It is a dark and difficult land, and I am old and weak--but happy_." I. IN HEATHEN DEEPS The new sphere to which Miss Slessor felt she was called, had been occupying her attention for some time. During one of the minor military expeditions into the interior, the troops were suddenly attacked by a tribe who fled at the first experience of disciplined firing. A lad who had been used by the soldiers was persuaded by some of their number to conduct them to the great White Mother for her advice and help. When they appeared at Use, she and they talked long and earnestly, and they returned consoled and hopeful. Some time afterwards the guide came down on his own account, bringing a few other lads with him. Her influence was such that they wished to become God-men, and they returned to begin the first Christian movement in one of the most degraded regions of Nigeria. She knew nothing of the place save that it was away up in the north- west, on one of the higher reaches of the Enyong Creek, and a two days' journey for her by water. The lads lived at a town called Ikpe, an old slave centre, that had been in league with Aro, and the focus of the trade of a wide and populous area. It was a "closed" market, no Calabar trader being allowed to enter. On her return from Scotland the young men again appeared, saying that there were forty others ready to become Christians, begging her to come up, and offering to send down a canoe. She disliked all water journeys, and even on the quiet creek was usually in a state of inward trepidation. But nothing could separate her from her duty, and she responded to the call. For eight hours she was paddled along the beautiful windings of the Creek; then a huge hippopotamus was encountered, and frightened her into landing for the night on the Ibibio side, where she put up in a wretched hut reeking with filth and mosquitoes. Here the Chief was reaching out for the Gospel, holding prayers in his house, and trying to keep Sabbath, though not a soul could read, and the people were laughing at him. As the Creek made a bend she left the canoe and trudged through the bush to Ikpe. She found the town larger and more prosperous than she had anticipated, with four different races mingling in the market, but the darkness was terrible, and the wickedness shameless, even the children being foul-mouthed and abandoned. The younger and more progressive men gave her a warm welcome, but the older chiefs were sulky--"Poor old heathen souls," she remarked, "they have good reason to be, with all they have to hope from tumbling down about their ears." The would-be Christians had begun to erect a small church, with two rooms for her at the end. That they were in earnest was proved by their attitude. She had eager and reverent audiences, and once, on going unexpectedly into a yard, she found two lads on their knees praying to the white man's God. She made a survey of the district, and came to the conclusion that Ikpe was another strategic point, the key to several different tribes, which it would be well to secure for the Church, and she made up her mind to come and live in the two rooms, and work inland and backwards towards Arochuku. There was the Settlement to consider, but that, she thought, she could manage to carry on along with the occupation of Ikpe. Her bright and eager spirit did not reckon with the frailties of the body. When she returned, she entered on a long period of weakness. Now and again deputations came down to her. Once a score of young men appeared, and before stating their business said, "Let us pray." She made another visit, saw the beginnings of the church at Ikpe, and another at Nkanga on the Creek bank, three miles below Ikpe, and, what affected her more, heard rumours of a possible occupation by the Roman Catholics. "I must come," she said to herself. On one journey she was accompanied by Miss Peacock, who rose still more highly in her regard on account of the resolute way in which she braved the awful smells in the villages. On another, Mr. and Mrs. Macgregor shared the hardships of the trip with her. When these two arrived at the landing-beach for Use, a note was put into their hands from "Ma," to the effect that she had not been able to obtain a canoe, and they had better come to the house until she saw what the Lord meant by it. They remained at Use some days, "Ma" suffering from fever, but refusing to postpone the trip, saying that if she had faith she would be able to go. They were to start early one morning, but her guests sought to keep her in sleep until it was too late. They succeeded until 1 A.M., when she awoke, gave directions about packing, and rose. "What do you think of her?" they asked of Jean. "She is often like that, and gets better on the road," she replied, which was true. As "Ma" herself said, "I begin every day, almost every journey in pain, and in such tiredness that I am sure I can't go on, and whenever I begin, the strength comes, and it increases." The party left at 3.15 in the moonlight, and soon afterwards were in a canoe. For hours they paddled, past men with two-pronged fish-spears fishing, by long stretches of water-lilies of dazzling whiteness, by farms where the fresh green corn was beginning to sprout, by extensive reaches of jungle where brilliant birds flitted, and parrots chattered, and monkeys swung from branch to branch by a bridge of hands. They stopped for lunch, and Mr. Macgregor was interested in watching her methods with the people. A chief wished to see the Principal, and said he was anxious to place two more boys with him in the Institute. She told Mr. Macgregor to say he would see him after they had eaten. The business-like Principal thought this a waste of time, but she held that he must not cheapen himself--if he made food of more importance than the education of their boys they would think him dignified and respect him. And she was right. By and by they came to a tortuous channel as narrow as a mill-dam, and it was with difficulty that the canoe was punted through. They swept on under trees, hung with orchids, where dragon-flies flashed in and out of the sunlight. This was the country of the hippos, and the banks were scored by their massive feet; it was also, as they found to their cost, the haunt of ibots, a fly with a poisonous bite. After passing over a series of shallows they reached Ikpe beach towards dark, and camped in the unfinished church, "Ma" in the "vestry," and the Macgregors inside the building. Mr. Macgregor had seen much of Nigeria, but he had never witnessed such degradation as he found existing here. The girls went without any clothing, except a string of beads, and the married women wore only a narrow strip of cloth. He had again a lesson in native manners. Paying ceremonial visits to the chiefs, they sat and looked at the ground, and yawned repeatedly, and after a time left. To him the yawning seemed rude, but "Ma" said it was the correct thing, and when the chiefs returned the calls he knew that, as usual, she was right. One of the questions that the chiefs asked was, "Is this the man you have brought to stay and teach us?" "Ma" turned to the Principal with a wry face. "Well," she said in English, "I like that. They'll need to be content wi' something less than a B.D. for a wee while--till they get started at any rate." She informed them who Mr. Macgregor was, and the great work he was doing in Calabar, and that in the goodness of his heart he had come up to see the position of things in the town. "Ma"--incredulously--"do you mean that this is not the man who is to come and lead us out of darkness?" "No, he is not the man-yet." "Ma"--reproachfully--"you always say wait. We have waited two years, and again you come to us and say wait. When are you coming to us?" There was nothing for it but to put them off once more. But she improved the occasion by extolling the Institute, with the result that when they left, two boys were taken to the canoe and consigned to Mr. Macgregor's care, one decently clad in a singlet and loin-cloth, and the other with only a single bead hanging at the throat. Mr. Macgregor went exploring on his own account, and came across a Government Rest House perched on the brow of a cliff, with a magnificent view over the plain. Here he noticed that the people were particularly opposed to white men. One of the villages "Ma" had labelled "dangerous," and he learnt that when the Court messengers appeared, they were promptly seized, beaten, and cast out. This, it is interesting to note, came to be the scene of "Ma's" last exploits. He rejoined the ladies at Nkanga, where the little native church had been completed. They held the opening service. The Principal had no jacket; his shirt was torn, his boots bore traces of the streams and mud through which he had passed. Miss Slessor wore the lightest of garments. It was one of the strangest opening ceremonies in the history of Missions, but they worshipped God from the heart, and "Ma" seemed lifted out of herself, and to be inspired, as she told the people what the church there in their midst meant, and the way they should use it for their highest good. The Macgregors left her at Arochuku, and she continued down-creek. She had been upheld by her indomitable spirit throughout the journey, but now collapsed, and was so ill that she had to spend the night in the canoe. In the darkness she was awakened by one of the babies crying, but was so weak that she could not move. The girls were sound asleep, and could not hear her. Exerting her willpower, she rolled over to the child, whose head had become wedged between a box and the footboard of the canoe, and was being slowly killed. In the early dawn the journey was resumed to Okopedi beach, and thence she crawled over the weary miles to Use. II. "REAL LIFE" "I must go. I am in honour bound to go." It was her constant cry. She heard that services were being held regularly at Ikpe on Sundays and week-days, and yet no one knew more than the merest rudiments of Christian truth; none could read. A teacher had gone from Asang, but he was himself only at the stage of the first standard in the schools, and could impart but the crudest instruction. They were groping for the light, and worshipping what to most of them was still the Unknown God, and yet were already able to withstand persecution. The pathos of the situation broke her down. "Why," she cried, "cannot the Church send two ladies there? Why don't they use the money on hand for the purpose? If the wherewithal should fail at the end of two years, let them take my salary, I shall only be too glad to live on native food with my bairns." Once more she went up, and once more she stood ashamed before their reproaches. She could not hold out any longer. "I am coming," she said decisively. She was not well--she was never well now--she had bad nights, was always "tired out," "too tired for anything," yet she went forward to the new life with unshakeable fortitude. In a short time she was back with fifty sheets of corrugated iron and other material for the house. "I am committed now," she wrote. "No more idleness for me. I am entering in the dark as to how and where and when. How I am to manage I do not know, but my mind is at perfect peace about it, and I am not afraid. God will carry it through. The Pillar leads." She did not care much for the situation that had been granted; it was low-lying, and she was anxious to conserve her health for the work's sake, but she had faith that she would be taken care of. Palm trees bordered the site on three sides, and amidst these the monkeys loved to romp. "These palms," she said, "are my first joy in the morning when the dawn comes up, pearly grey in the mist and fine rain, fresh and cool and beautiful." She lived in two rooms at the back of the church, with a bit of ground fenced off for kitchen, and her furniture consisted of a camp-bed and a few dishes. But she was chiefly out of doors, for she had as many as two hundred and fifty people engaged in cutting bush, levelling, and stumping. Despite the discomfort and worry incidental to such conditions, she was quite happy. The natives as a whole were hostile to white people; they wanted neither them nor their religion; but there was nothing martial or predatory about "Ma," and her very helplessness protected her. And there was that in her blood which made her face the conflict with zest; it always braced her to meet the dark forces of hell, and conquer them with the simple power of the Gospel. Her fearlessness was as marked as ever. One Sunday, during service, there was an uproar in the market. She went out and found a mob fighting with sticks and swords, a woman bleeding, and her husband wounded and at bay. She seized the man's wrist and compelled quiet, and soon settled the matter by palaver. On another occasion the Government sent native agents with police escort to vaccinate the people, as small-pox was rife. They resented the white man's "juju," and there was much excitement. The conduct of the agents enraged the crowd, guns appeared, and bloodshed was imminent, when an appeal was made to "Ma." She succeeded in calming the rising passions, and in reassuring the people as to the purpose of the inoculation. "This poor frail woman," she said, "is the broken reed on which they lean. Isn't it strange? I'm glad anyhow that I'm of use in protecting the helpless." The people said if she would perform the operation they would agree, and she sent to Bende for lymph, and was busy for days. It was a difficult task, the people were suspicious, and she had to banter and joke and coax when she herself was at fainting point. Apart from this she doctored men and women for the worst diseases, nursed the sickly babies, and generally acted her old part of a "mother in Israel." "It is a real life I am living now," she wrote, "not all preaching and holding meetings, but rather a life and an atmosphere which the people can touch and live in and be made willing to believe in when the higher truths are brought before them. In many things it is a most prosaic life, dirt and dust and noise and silliness and sin in every form, but full, too, of the kindliness and homeliness and dependence of children who are not averse to be disciplined and taught, and who understand and love just as we do. The excitements and surprises and novel situations would not, however, need to be continuous, as they wear and fray the body, and fret the spirit and rob one of sleep and restfulness of soul." Use was still her headquarters, and she often traversed the long stretch of Creek, though the journey always left her terribly exhausted. On one occasion, when she had arrived at Use racked with pain, she was asked how she could ever endure it. "Oh," she said, "I just had to take as big a dose of laudanum as I dared, and wrap myself up in a blanket, and lie in the bottom of the canoe all the time, and managed fine." She often met adventures by the way. Once, after thirteen hours in the canoe, she arrived at Okopedi beach late in the evening, along with Maggie and Whitie and a big boy baby. Stowing the baggage in the beach house they started in the dark for Use, "Ma" carrying a box with five fowls and some odds and ends, and Maggie, who was ill, the baby. When they reached the house they found they had no matches and were afraid of snakes, but she was so tired that she lay down as she was on a bed piled high with clothes, the others on the floor, the baby crying itself to sleep. At cock-crow fire was obtained from the village, and a cup of tea made her herself again, and ready for the inevitable palavers. Again, she went up to Ikpe with supplies by night; the water had risen, she had to lie flat to escape the overhanging branches, and finally the canoe ran into a submerged tree and three of the paddle boys were pitched into the water. Not long afterwards she left Ikpe at 6.30 A.M., was in the canoe all night, and reached the landing-beach at 5.30 on Christmas morning with the usual motherless baby. On this occasion she received a message, "Ekereki said I was to tell you that his mother is asleep"--referring to the death of one of the first members of the congregation, a gentle and superior woman for whom she had a great regard. The wording of the message made her realise how soon the Gospel had the power of changing even the language of a people. Some time previously Annie's two-year-old boy had died, and the question of a Christian burial-place had been considered by the congregation. Heathen adults were buried in the house and the children under the doorstep. It seemed cruel to leave bodies out in the cold earth, but of their own volition the members secured a piece of ground and laid the child there; and now this woman was placed by his side, the first adult to obtain a Christian burial in that part of Ibibio. On New Year's eve she was down with fever, and was very weak, but, she wrote, "My heart is singing all the time to Him Whose love and tender mercy crown all the days." In the middle of the night she was obliged to rise. "My 'first-feet' were driver ants, thousands and thousands of them, pouring in on every side, and dropping from the roof. We had two hours' hard work to clear them out." III. THE AUTOCRATIC DOCTOR Returning from Ikpe on one occasion in 1911, she found that a tornado had played havoc with the Use house, and immediately set to, and with her own hands repaired it. The strain was too great for her enfeebled frame, and symptoms of heart weakness developed. She had nights of high fever and delirium, and yet so great was her power of will, that she would rise next day and teach and work, while on Sundays she took the services, although she was unable to stand. "I had a grand day," she would say, "notwithstanding intense weakness." Dr. Robertson of Itu had gone home on furlough, and there came to take his place, Dr. Hitchcock, a young, eager, clear-headed man, as masterful in his quiet way as "Ma." He had proposed going to China in the service of the Church, but agreed meanwhile to put in a year at Itu. She watched him for a time with growing admiration, and saw the curiosity of the natives turn rapidly to confidence, then to appreciation, then to blind devotion and worship. When she looked at the great crowds flocking day after day to the dispensary and hospital, she thought of the scene of old when the poor and the halt and the maimed gathered round Christ. "A rare man," she said, "a rare Christian, a rare doctor. A physician for soul and body. I am beginning to love him like a son." And like a son he treated her. Although he had scarcely a minute to spare from his work, he ran up every second day to Use to study her. He believed that she was not being nourished. That there were grounds for his suspicions her own diary records. There was money for her in Duke Town, she had often cheques lying beside her, but it was not always easy to obtain ready cash, and sometimes she ran short. On June 14 she wrote: _Market Morning_.--Have only 3d. in cash in the house; sent it with 2 Ikpats (the first Efik schoolbook) and New Testament to buy food, and sold all 3 books for 6d. Got 5 small yams, oil, and shrimps, with pepper and a few small fresh fish. It was on the following morning as early as six o'clock that the doctor called to examine her again. His decision was that she was not to go to Ikpe, she was not to cycle, she was to lie down as much as possible. She laughed, and on the Sunday went to church and conducted two services; but she almost collapsed, and when the doctor came next day he ordered her to take to her bed, and not go to any more meetings until she obtained his permission. Mary had at last met her equal in resolution. "He is very strict," she confessed, "but he is a dear man. Thank God for him." A trip to Ikpe which she had planned for the Macgregors had to be cancelled, and they decided to go to Use instead, and aid and abet the doctor in his care of her. She got up to receive them, and then wrote, "The doctor has sent me back to bed under a more stringent rule than ever. Very stern. I dare not rise." "You must eat meat twice a day," the doctor said. "I'm not a meat eater, doctor," she rejoined. His reply was to send over a fowl from Itu with instructions as to its cooking. "Why did you send that fowl, doctor?" she asked next day, "Because it could not come itself," was all the satisfaction she got. It was not the first fowl that came from Itu--the next came cooked-- while the Macgregors telegraphed to Duke Town for their entire stock. "What a trouble you dear folk take," she sighed. "You will have to go to Duke Town for a change," suggested the doctor one day. "Na, na," she replied; "I've all my plans laid, and I cannot draw a salary and not do what I can." "You have done so well in the past," remarked Mr. Macgregor, "that you need not have any qualms about that." "I've been paid for all I've done," was her retort. But the doctor insisted, and the very thought of leaving the station and the household work unattended to, put her in a fever. "Of course," she said, "to the doctor my health is the only thing, but I can't get rest for body while my mind is torn about things. He is vexed, and I am vexed at vexing him." Not satisfied with the progress she was making, the doctor transferred her to Use, where she was under his constant observation. "Life is hardly worth living," she complained, "but I'm doing what I can to help him to help me, so that I can be fit again for another spell of work." That was her one desire, to be well enough to go back to the bush. A messenger from Ikpe came down to find out when she was returning. "Seven weeks," was the doctor's firm reply. "I may run up sooner than that," was hers. "I'm quite well, if he would only believe it." But it was well on towards the end of the year before she was, in her own words, out of the clutches of the "dearest and cleverest and most autocratic Mission doctor that ever lived." She literally ran away, and was up at Ikpe at once, exultant at having the privilege of ministering again to the needs of the people. There was a throng at the beach to welcome her. She was soon as busy as she had ever been, though she was usually carried now to and from church and other meetings. Jean she placed at Nkanga as teacher and evangelist, the people giving her 1s. per week and her food, and "Ma" providing her clothes. It was astonishing to her to see how she had developed. An insatiable reader, she would place a book open anywhere in order that she might obtain a glimpse of the words in passing, reminding "Ma" of her own device in the Dundee weaving-shed. Her knowledge of the Bible was so thorough and correct that the latter considered her the best Efik teacher she knew. Soon she gathered about her some two hundred men and women from the upper Enyong farms, who were greatly pleased with her preaching. She came over to Ikpe for Christmas, the first the household had spent in that savage land, and there was a service in the church, which was decorated with palms and wreaths of ferns. Mary told the story of Bethlehem, and the scholar lads, of their own accord, marched through the town singing hymns.... About this time Miss Slessor rendered important service to the Mission by her testimony before an Imperial Government Commission, which had been sent out to Investigate the effects of the import, sale, and consumption of alcoholic liquor in Southern Nigeria. She provided very convincing evidence of the demoralisation caused through drink, but with keen intuition she felt that little would come of the "palaver," and she was right. IV. GOD'S WONDERFUL PALAVER Her attitude to money was as unconventional as her attitude to most things. It had no place in her interests; she never thought of it except as a means of helping her to carry out her projects. "How I wish we could do without it!" she often used to say. "I have no head for it, or for business." Her salary she counted as Church money, and never spent a penny of it on herself except for bare living, and until the last years the girls received nothing but food and their clothes, "You say," she wrote to one giver, "that you would like me to spend the money on my personal comfort. Dear friend, I need nothing. My every want is met and supplied without my asking." Her belief was thus expressed: "What is money to God? The difficult thing is to make men and women. Money lies all about us in the world, and He can turn it on to our path as easily as He sends a shower of rain." Her faith was justified in a marvellous way, for throughout all these years and onwards to the end she obtained all she needed, and that was not little. She required funds for extension, for building, for furniture, for teachers' wages, for medicines, for the schooling of her children, and many other purposes, and yet she was never in want. Nothing came from her people, for she would not accept collections at first, not wishing to give them the impression that the Gospel was in any way connected with money. It came from friends, known and unknown, at home and abroad, who were interested in her and in her brave and lonely struggle. There was scarcely a mail that did not bring her a cheque or bank-draft or Post-Office order. "It often happens," she said once, "that when the purse is empty, immediately comes a new instalment. God is superbly kind in the matter of money. I do not know how to thank Him. It is just wonderful how we ever fail in our trust for a moment." On one occasion, when she was a little anxious, she cried, "Shame on you, Mary Slessor, after all you know of Him!" Her attitude towards all this giving was one of curious detachment. She looked upon herself as an instrument carrying out the wishes of the people at home who supplied the means, and she gave them the honour of what was accomplished. Their gifts justified her going forward in the work; each fresh £10 note she took as a sign to advance another stage, so that, in one sense, she felt her Church was backing up her efforts. As she regarded herself as being owned by the Church, all the money she received was devoted exclusively to its service; even donations from outside sources she would not use for personal needs. One day she received a letter from the Governor conveying to her, with the "deep thanks of the Government," a gift of £25 to herself, in recognition of her work. The letter she valued more than the money, which she would only accept as a contribution towards her home for women. All the sums were handed over to Mr. Wilkie or Mr. Macgregor, who banked them at Duke Town, and they formed a general fund upon which she drew when necessary. She looked upon this fund as belonging to the Mission Council, to be used for extension purposes either up the Cross River or the Enyong Creek, or for the Home for Women and Girls when the scheme matured, and she never sought to have control of it. Mr. Wilkie was always afraid that she was not just to herself, and she had sometimes to restrain him from sending more than she required. It was the same later when Mr. Hart, C.A., had charge of the accounts. This explains why, on more than one occasion, she was reduced to borrowing or selling books in order to obtain food for herself and her household. There was money in abundance at Duke Town, but she would not ask it for private necessities. Sometimes also she was so remote from civilisation that she was unable to cash a cheque or draft in time to meet her wants. Many a hidden romance lay behind these gifts that came to her--the romance of love and sacrifice and devotion to Christ. One day there arrived a sum of £50, accompanied by a charming letter. Long she looked at both with wonder and tears. Her thoughts went back to the Edinburgh days, when she was a girl, on the eve of leaving for Calabar. One of her friends then was a Biblewoman, who was very good to her. Always on her furloughs she had gone to see her in the humble home in which she lay an invalid, or as Mary expressed it, "lingering at the gate of the city." She thought she must now be dependent upon others, for she was old and frail. And yet here she had sent out £50 to help on her work. If there was romance in the giving, there was pathos in the spending. Acknowledging sums she was bidden expend upon herself, she would go into detail as to her purchases--a new Efik Bible to replace her old tattered copy, the hire of three boys to carry her over the streams, seed coco yams for the girls' plots, a basin and ewer for her guest- room--"I can't," she said, "ask visitors to wash in a pail,"--a lamp, and so on. She sought to explain and extenuate the spending of every penny. "Is that extravagant?" "Is that too selfish?" she anxiously asked. After enumerating a number of things which she intended to buy for Ikpe house, she said, "Does that seem too prosaic? But it will clarify your views of Mission work, and make them more practical and real, for, you see, the missionary cannot go about like Adam and Eve, and the natives must be taught cleanliness and order, and be civilised as well as Christianised." Her own small financial affairs had been in the hands of her old friend Mr. Logic, Dundee, whose death in 1910 sent her into silence and darkness for weeks. He had been like a father to her; to him, indeed, she chiefly owed the realisation of her dream to be a missionary. She did not know for a time how she stood, and as her purse was nearly empty, she was growing anxious, when a small amount arrived from a friend, to whom she wrote: "I have been praying for a fortnight for money to come from somewhere, as I have been living on 7s. given to the children by a merchant here who is a great friend of our household. So your gift is a direct answer to prayer. '_Before they call I will answer_.'" She applied to Mr. Slight, another tried friend, who had been Treasurer of the United Presbyterian Church, and took a warm personal interest in all the missionaries, and after the Union was the accountant of the United Free Church. He made matters simple and clear to her understanding and set her fears at rest--she had no debts of any kind save debts of gratitude. Mr. Slight's death in 1912 again made her feel orphaned. "I had no idea how much I leant on him till he was removed, and it seems now that my last link with the old Church has snapped. What he has done for me through a score of years I can never acknowledge warmly enough." In later years her affairs at home were managed by Miss Adam. Congregations continued to send her boxes of goods, whilst her own friends were unceasing in their thought for her. "I should never mention a want," she told them, "because you just take it up and bear the burden yourselves, and it makes me ashamed. Here are all my needs in clothing for the children and myself anticipated, and here are luxuries of food and good things, and all steeped and folded in the most delicate and tender sympathy and love. Surely no one has so many mercies as I have." She saw few pretty things, and had never the opportunity of looking into a shop window, so that the arrival of these boxes was an occasion of much pleasurable excitement to her and to the girls. Her only trouble was that she could not hand on some of the food to others; "When you have a good thing, or read a good thing, or see a humorous thing, and can't share it, it is worse than having to bear a trial alone." She was particularly grateful for a box of Christmas goods that came in 1911. She had been much upset by the local food, and she ate nothing but shortbread and bun for a week, and that made her better! The people about her, too, were kind. Women would bring her presents of produce; one, for instance, gave her fifteen large yams and a half- crown bag of rice, and a large quantity of shrimps. "You are a stranger in these markets," she said, "and the children may be hungry." V. WEAK BUT STRONG She met with a severe disappointment early in 1912. The Calabar Council was willing to send two ladies to Ikpe, but thought it right to obtain a medical report on the site which had been given for the house. This was unfavourable; the Creek overflowed its banks for four hundred paces on one side and thirty on the other, and the surroundings of the house would be muddy and damp. She would not, however, acquiesce in the judgment thus passed, and remained on, and prosecuted the work as usual. The Council was very anxious for her to take a furlough, and her friends, personal and official, in Scotland were also urging her to come for a rest. She had now never an hour of real health or strength, and was growing deaf, and felt like "a spluttering candle," and she began to think it would be the wisest thing to do. As the idea took definite shape in her mind, she looked forward with zest to the renewal of old friendships. "We shall have our fill of talk and the silences which are the music of friendship." The East Coast of Scotland was now barred to her by medical opinion, but she had visions of the lonely hills of the south, and of Yarrow, and all that Border country where she had spent so many happy days, and would go there, away from the crowds and the rush. Discerning a note of pity in the letters from Scotland, she bade her friends not to waste their sympathy upon her. "I am just surrounded with love," she wrote. It was to the children she referred. "I wake up in the early dusk of the dawn and call them, and before I can see to take my Bible, the hot cup of tea is there, and a kiddie to kiss me 'Good-morning' and ask, 'Ma, did you sleep?'" It was not wonderful that she loved those black girls. They had been with her from their birth. She had nursed them and brought them up and taught them all they knew, and they had been faithful to her with the faithfulness which is one of the most remarkable traits in the African nature. Mary could never abide the superior folk who referred slightingly to them because of their black skin, and she was too proud to justify her feelings towards them. Alice, the "princess," had now grown into a fine womanly girl, quiet and steady and thoughtful. One night in the dark she crept to "Ma's" side and shyly told her that some months before she had given her heart to Christ. It was a moment of rare joy. As neither Alice nor Maggie was betrothed-though often sought after-and they had no legal protector against insult, she decided to send them for training to the Edgerley Memorial School, where they would be under the influence and care of Miss Young, another capable agent whom she had led to become a missionary and with whom she had a very close and tender friendship. She regarded her as an ideal worker, for she had been thoroughly trained in domestic science. "I would have liked that sort of training better than the Normal training I got at Moray House," she said. Meanwhile, as she was forbidden to cycle, her thoughts harked back to her old plan of a "box on wheels." She had never been reconciled to a hammock. "I feel a brute in it, it seems so selfish to be lying there, while four boys sweat like beasts of burden. To push a little carriage is like skilled labour and no degradation." She, therefore, wrote to Miss Adam, whom she called the "joint-pastor" of her people, to send out a catalogue of "these things." Miss Adam was, however, unwell, and the ladles of Wellington Street Church, Glasgow, hearing of the request, promptly despatched what was called a Cape cart, a kind of basket-chair, capable of being wheeled by two boys or girls. The gift sent her whole being thrilling with gratitude, as well as with shame for being so unworthy of so much kindness, but her comfort was that it was for God's work, and she took it as from Him. The vehicle proved a success, but the success proved the undoing of her furlough. "Instead of going home as I had planned, in order to get strength for a wider range of work, I shall stay on and enjoy the privilege of going over ground impossible for my poor limbs." On one of the first drives she had, she went in search of a site for a new and larger church which she had determined to build., and was gathering material for, at Use, and then she planned to go to Ikpe via Ikot Ekpene by the new Government road, opening up out-stations wherever she could get a village to listen to the message. Her aim, indeed, was nothing less than to plant the whole Ibibio territory with a network of schools and churches. She seemed to grow more wonderful the older and frailer she became. The spurt lasted for a time, but again the terrible weakness troubled her, and she had to conduct household affairs from a couch. School work was carried through on the verandah, and when she spoke in the church she was borne there and back. She came to see that only a real change would do her permanent good, and that it would be true economy to take a trip home, even for the sake of the voyage, which, much as she feared the sea, always invigorated her. What made her hesitate now was the depleted condition of the Mission. "We were never so short-handed before," she said, "and I can do what others cannot do, what, indeed, medical opinion would not allow them to try. No one meddles with me, and I can slip along and do my work with less expenditure of strength than any," Had there been some one to fill her place she would have gone, but she was very reluctant to shut the doors of the stations for so long a period. How she regarded the idea may be gathered from a letter to a friend who had given her some domestic news:-- These little glimpses, like pictures, of home and the old country, of family ties and love, make me long for just one long summer day in the midst, if only as an onlooker, and for the touch of loving hands and a bit of family worship in our own tongue, and maybe a Sabbath service thrown in with a psalm and an old-fashioned tune, and then I should feel ready for a long spell of work. But I should fret if it were to take me from this, my own real life and home and bairns. This life is full, the other lies at the back quiescent, and is a precious possession to muse on during the night or in the long evening hours when I'm too tired to sleep and the light is not good enough to read or sew, or mostly when I'm not well and the doldrums come very near. But I should choose this life if I had to begin again; only I should try to live it to better purpose. Another respite or two carried her into the middle of the year, when her opportunity of a furlough was lost. She said she would have to hold on now for another winter--or go up higher. In September she completed thirty-six years as a missionary, and took humorous stock of herself: "I'm lame and feeble and foolish; the wrinkles are wonderful-no concertina is so wonderfully folded and convulated. I'm a wee, wee wifie, verra little buikit--but I grip on well, none the less." "Ay," said an old doctor friend to her, "you are a strong woman, 'Ma.' You ought to have been dead by ordinary rule long ago--any one else would." VI. HER FIRST HOLIDAY Anxiety as to her health deepened both in Calabar and Scotland, and pressure was brought upon her to take a rest. One of her lady friends on the Women's Foreign Mission Committee, Miss Cook, appreciated her fear of the home winter, and wrote asking her to take a holiday to the Canary Islands, and begged the kindness at her hands of being allowed to pay the expense. "I believe," she said, "in taking care of the Lord's servant. I am afraid you do not fully realise how valuable you are to us all, the Church at home, and the Church In Nigeria." The offer, so delicately put, brought tears to Mary's eyes, and it made her wonder whether after all she was safeguarding her health enough in the interests of the Church. As soon as the matter became a duty, she gave it careful consideration, resolving to abstain from going up to Ikpe, and to go down to Duke Town instead, where she would consult the Wilkies and the Macgregors. But she would not dream of the cost of any change being borne by Miss Cook, and she asked Miss Adam to find out if her funds would allow of her taking a trip. There was no difficulty regarding clothing. Among the Mission boxes she had received was one full of warm material, and she surmised that God was on the side of a holiday. Her friends at Calabar did not hesitate a moment; they wanted her off at once. She went to consult her old friend, Dr. Adam, the senior medical officer, that "burning and shining light," as she called him, who first showed her through the Hospital, where she spoke with loving entreaty to every patient she passed, and left many in tears. After a thorough examination, he earnestly besought her to take the next boat to Grand Canary. Still she shrank from the prospect. It was a selfish thing to do; there were others more in need of a holiday than she, it was a piece of extravagance, it would involve closing up the stations. And yet might it not be meant? Might it not be of the nature of a good investment? Might she not be able for better work? Might it not do away with the necessity for a furlough in the following year? She decided to go. It was arranged that Jean should accompany her, and that she should put up at the Hotel Santa Catalina, Las Palmas. Letters from Government officials were sent to smooth the way there for her. Miss Young and others prepared her outfit, and made her, as she said, "wise-like and decent,"--she, the while, holding daily receptions, for she was now regarded as one of the West African sights, and every one came to call upon her. Mr. Wilkie managed the financial side, and gave the cash-box to the Captain. When she transhipped at Forcados. it was handed to the other Captain, and he on arrival at the Islands passed it on to the manager of the hotel. On board she was carried up and down to meals, and received the utmost kindness from officers and passengers alike. The Captain said he was prouder to have shaken hands with her than if she had been King George. The season at Grand Canary had not begun, and there were very few visitors at the hotel. Those who were there saw a frail nervous old lady, followed by a black girl who was too shy to raise her eyes. "We were certainly a frightened pair," Mary afterwards confessed. But the management attended to her as if she were a princess. "What love is wrapped round me!" she wrote. "All are kind,-- the manager's family, the doctor's family, and the visitors. It is simply wonderful. I can't say anything else." The first days were spent in the grounds, drinking in the pure air, watching the changing sea and sky, and admiring the brilliant vegetation. The English flowers, roses and geraniums and Michaelmas daisies and mignonette, were a continual joy, whilst the crimson clouds piled above the sapphire sea often made her think of the "city of pure gold." Later, she was able to ascend the hill at the back, and "there" she says, "I sat and knitted and crocheted and sewed and worked through the Bible all the day long, fanned by the sea-breeze and warmed by the sun, and the good housekeeper sent up lunch and tea to save my walking, and in the silence and beauty and peace I communed with God. He is so near and so dear. Oh, if I only get another day in which to work! I hope it will be more full of earnestness and blessing than the past." It was her first real holiday, but she felt it had been worth waiting a lifetime for. There was something infinitely pathetic in her ecstasy of enjoyment and the gratitude for the simple pleasures that came to her. Only one thread of anxiety ran through her days, the thought of the appalling expense she was incurring, for she had made up her mind that the cost was to be paid out of her own slender funds. A lady in the hotel, with whom she formed an intimate and lasting friendship, and who saw much of her, gives this impression of her character: She made many friends, her loving sympathy, her simplicity, her keen interest in all around her, her sense of humour and love of fun endearing her to all. The entire negation of self which she evinced was remarkable, as well as her childlike faith and devotion to her Master and to His service. A lady was heard to say, "Well, after talking to Miss Slessor I am converted to foreign missions," Her mind was ever upon her work and her children, and she used often to say she was idling, there was so much to be done, and so little time in which to do it. Of all the people I have met she impressed me the most as the perfect embodiment of the Christian life, Jean waited upon her mother-mistress with a patient and thoughtful devotion which was a wonder to those who saw it. She wore her Calabar frock and bandana, and had she not been a very sane person, her head would have been turned, for she was a favourite with every one, and was given as many ribbons as would serve her all her life. But she was as shy the day she left as when she arrived. The departure came in the middle of the night. A general and his aide- de-camp and a merchant each offered to convoy her to the ship, and pleaded that they had conveyances, but the manager of the hotel would not hear of it, saw her himself safely into her cabin, and placed the cash-box once more into the Captain's hands. It was the same steamer by which she had travelled to the Islands, so that she felt at home. On board also was Dr. Hitchcock, on his way out again to take up work at Uburu, a large market town in the far north amongst a strangely interesting tribe. How she envied him, young and strong and enthusiastic, entering on such glorious pioneer work! At Accra the Governor of the Gold Coast, a stranger to her, sent off to the steamer a bouquet of flowers, with an expression of his homage and best wishes for a renewal of her health. When she arrived at Duke Town Dr. Adam again examined her, assisted by Professor Leiper of the London School of Tropical Medicine, and the verdict was: "Good for many years-if you only take care." She was given written directions as to the care of her health, and these she regarded with a rueful face. "Life will hardly be worth living now," she said. "But for the work's sake I must obey. God wants us to be efficient, and we cannot be so except by living decently and taking care of the wonderful body He has given us." She turned up her Bible and found the verse she had marked as a "promise" before leaving: "_But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the spirit that dwelleth in you_." She saw now that this meant something besides the Resurrection, for the voyage, the climate, the food, and the rest had worked in her a miracle, and she realised more than ever what prayer and faith could do for the body as well as for the spirit. There was a lesson in it, too, she thought, for the Church. She had had a month at sea, and a month in the Islands, with the best of care and food, and no furlough had ever done her more good. She felt that a visit to Scotland would not have rested her so much. There was the bustle and excitement and movement and speaking-of all the bugbears of a furlough, she said, speaking at meetings was the chief. If only the hard deputy work at home could be eliminated from the missionaries' programme, they would have a happier and a better time. But here the personal equation obscured her judgment. For to abandon the system would be to do away with the intimate touch and association by which interest in the Mission Field is so largely maintained. To many missionaries, also, the duty of telling to the congregations up and down the country the story of their work is one of the chief pleasures of their furlough. Laden with chemical foods, medicines, and advice, she returned to Use to find that the entire cost of the trip had been defrayed by Miss Cook, who wrote: "I am only sorry that I did not beg you to stay longer in order to reap more benefit. Come home next year; we all want to see you." VII. INJURED But a furlough home was far from her thoughts. She rejoiced in her new strength, and set herself with grim determination to redeem the time. She was now doing double work, carrying on all the activities of the settled station at Use, and establishing her pioneer centre at Ikpe. During the next two years she travelled between the two points, sometimes using the canoe, but more often now the Government motor car, which ran round by Ikot Ekpene and dropped her at the terminus, five miles from Ikpe. David was the driver, and she had thus always the opportunity of seeing Mary, his wife, who lived at Ikot Ekpene. At Use the work had gone on as usual; there had been no backsliding, and the services and classes had been kept up by the people themselves; and she proceeded with the building of the new church, which was erected under her superintendence and without any outside help. When she was at Ikpe she placed Annie's husband--they were both now members of the Church--in charge, and he conducted the services, but Miss Peacock, whom Mary styled her "Bishop," gave general supervision. On one of her early journeys up to Ikpe she met with a slight accident, a pellet of mud striking one of her eyes. The people were alarmed at the result, and would have gone off at once to the District Commissioner had she not restrained them. Some native workmen passing his station later mentioned the incident, and within a few minutes the officer had a mounted messenger speeding along the tract to Ikpe, with an urgent order to the people to get her conveyed in the Cape cart to the nearest point on the road, where he would have a motor car waiting. Next morning, although it was market day, the members of the church left everything and took her to the spot indicated. Here were the District Commissioner and a doctor, with eye-shade and medicine and every comfort, and with the utmost despatch she was taken round the Government road to Use. The hurt was followed by erysipelas, and she was blind for a fortnight and suffered acute pain and heavy fever; but very shame at being ill after so fine a holiday made her get up although the eye was swollen and "sulky," and she was soon in the midst of her work at Ikpe as if nothing had happened. Building, cementing, painting, varnishing, teaching, healing, and preaching filled in the days. A visitor found her once at 10 A.M. finishing school in a shed. She continued it in the afternoon. Then she visited the yards of the people, and they crowded round her and brought her gifts of food. Later she leant against a fallen tree trunk and talked to one and another. In the gathering dusk she sat on a small stool and attended to the sick and dressed their sores. After dinner some men and lads arrived carrying lamps, and she held her catechumens' class--a very earnest and prayerful gathering. The burden of the untouched region around her vexed her mind. Sometimes she was depressed about it all, and said she would need to fill her letters with nonsense, for "it would not bear writing." Time and again she sought to impress her friends with the needs of the situation: "The last time I was at school I counted eight hundred women and girls running past in eager competition to secure the best places at the fishing-grounds where the men had been working all the morning, and these are but a fraction of our womankind. But what can I do with supervision of the school and church and dispensary and household?" She did not pretend that she worked her station properly, and she pointed out how necessary settled, steady, persevering teaching was. "These infant churches," she said, "need so much to be instructed. The adults are illiterate, and the young need systematic teaching of the Bible. They are an emotional people, and are fain to keep to speaking and singing and long prayers, and the sterner practical side of Christianity is set aside. They are children in everything that matters, and when we have led them to Christ we are apt to forget how much more they need in order to make a strong, upright, ethical character on which to build a nation. Then we need a literature, and this, too, is the work of the Church. What ails it? _Is it not forgetting that God can't give His best till we have given ours?"_ With all its bustle it was a very lonely and isolated life she led. There was no mail delivery, and she had to depend mainly on the kindness of Government officials to forward her correspondence. "I have been here seven weeks," she wrote on one occasion, "without one scrap from the outside--letter or paper--nothing to read but the old advertisement sheets of papers lining the press and the boxes. If you wish for the names of hotels or boarding-houses In any part of Europe-- send to me. I have them all on my tongue's end." It was a red-letter day when a stray white visitor entered the district, for there would be tea and a talk, and a bundle of newspapers would be left--one never forgets another in this way in the bush. She was amused to receive a note from Scotland asking her to hand on a message to Dr. Hitchcock at Uburu. "Do you know?" she replied, "you are nearer him than I am--the quickest way for me to send it is via Britain!" Life was not without its menace from wild beasts, the forest being full of them, and the doors had always to be closed and fastened at night to keep them out. Snakes were prevalent, and prowled about the building, and many a fight Jean and the others had with the intruders. VIII. FRIENDSHIPS WITH OFFICIALS Throughout these years, as always, "Ma" Slessor's relations with the Government officials were of the most friendly nature, It was remarkable that although she was essentially feminine and religious, and although she was engaged in Mission work, she attracted men of all types of character. Much of this power was due to her intense sympathy, which enabled her to get close to minds that would otherwise have been shut to her. What she wrote of another applies to herself: What a strange thing is sympathy! Undefinable, untranslatable, and yet the most real thing and the greatest power in human life! How strangely our souls leap out to some other soul without our choosing or knowing the why. The man or woman who has this subtle gift of sympathy and magnetism of soul possesses the most precious thing on earth. Hence it is rare. So few could be trusted with such a delicate, sensitive, Godlike power and hold it unsullied that God seems to be hampered for want of means for its expression. Is that the reason that He made His Son a "Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief"? Most of these men had no interest in missions, and some did not believe in them. "The more I see of mission work in West Africa the less I like it," said one frankly to her. "Give me the genuine bushman, who respects his ancestral deities and his chief and himself.... But if all missionaries were like you!" None of these men belonged to her own Church; three of her favourites were Roman Catholics. Her introductions to some were of the most informal character. One day a stranger appeared and found her busy on the roof of the house. "Well," she said, eyeing him critically, "what do you want?" He stood, hat in hand. "Please, Ma'am," he replied meekly, "I'm your new District Commissioner--but I can't help it!" She was delighted, and took him into the inner circle at once. As frequent changes took place in the staff, the number whose acquaintance she made gradually increased, until she became known and talked of in all the colonies on the West Coast and even in other parts of the world. The official view of her work and character differed little from any other. Says one who knew her long and well: I suppose that a pluckier woman has rarely existed. Her life-work she carried out with immeasurable courage and capacity. Her strength of character was extraordinary, and her life was one of absolute unselfishness. She commanded the respect and confidence of all parties, and for years I would have personally trusted to her judgment on native matters in preference to all others. Shrewd, quick-witted, sympathetic, yet down on any one who presumed, she would with wonderful patience hear all sides equally. Her judgment was prompt, sometimes severe, but always just. She would speak much of her work to those who, she knew, took an interest in it, but very rarely of herself. Another writes: My first impression of her was that she was a lady of great strength of mind and sound common sense. Also that for one who had lived so many years in the bush wilds she was very well read and up-to-date on all subjects. Mr. T. D. Maxwell, who knew her in Okoyong days and to the end, says: I am sure that her own Church never had a more loyal adherent, but her outlook on this life--and the next--was never narrow. Her religion was above religions--certainly above religious differences, I have often heard her speak of the faiths and rituals of others, but never without the deepest interest and sympathy. She was young to the end; young in her enthusiasm, her sympathy, her boundless energy, her never-failing sense of humour, her gift of repartee, her ability always to strike the apt--even the corrosive--epithet. A visit to her was, to use one of her own phrases, "like a breath o' caller air to a weary body"--and in West Africa that means incomparably more than it can at Home. It was a peculiarly affectionate relation that existed between her and many of those men whom she regarded as "the strength and the glory of Britain." A witty member of the Mission once said they were given over to "Mariolatry"--an allusion to her first name. They never were near without visiting her, and often made long journeys for the privilege of a talk. They were delighted with her sense of humour, and teased her as well as lionised her. Half the fun of a visit to her was taking her unawares, and they often threatened to bring their cameras and "snapshot" her on sight, "Ma," they would write before calling, "get your shoes on, we are coming to tea!" They wrote her about their work and ambitions and worries as if she were a mother or sister, and discussed the political and racial problems of the country as if she were a colleague, always with a delicate deference to her experience and knowledge, sometimes veiled in light banter. "I am at your feet, Ma," said one, "and your wisdom is that of Solomon." They often twitted her about being able to twist them round her little finger: "You break our hearts, and get your own way shockingly." On one occasion she received a grave and formal Government typewritten communication about land, which ended in this way: I have the honour to be, Madam, _and affectionate_ Your obedient servant. When they left the Colony they kept up the friendship. Many were bad correspondents, yet from the remotest parts of the world they wrote letters, as long as her own, full of kind enquiries about her work and the bairns, and begging for a reply. On her part she wrote them racy and informative letters; and she also got into touch with their mothers, sisters, and wives at home, who welcomed her news of the absent ones, and were good to her in turn. One lady she delighted by praising her husband. "Naturally," the lady replied, "I agree with you, and you are welcome to court and woo him as much as you like!" A high official brought out his wife, and she wrote Mary from a desire to make her husband's friends hers also. She ended in the usual way, but he added, "She sends her kindest regards--_I_ send my love!" The nature of some of the friendships formed at home through officials may be surmised from an order she gave for a silver gift, value £5, to be sent to the first-born child of one of her "chums." It went to the mother, and the inscription was "From one whom his father has helped." Very notable was the kindness shown by the Government to her as woman and missionary. Instructions were issued that she was to be allowed to use any and every conveyance belonging to them in the Colony, on any road or river, and that every help was to be afforded to her. Workmen were lent to her to execute repairs on her houses. Individual members sought opportunities to be kind to her. She was taken her first motor- car drive by a Commissioner. The highest officials did not think it beneath them to buy feeding-bottles and forward them on by express messenger. They sent her gifts of books, magazines, and papers--one forwarded _The Times_ for years--and at Christmas there would come plum puddings, crackers, and sweets. One dark, showery night the Governor of Southern Nigeria, Sir W. Egerton, and several officials appeared at her house to greet her, and left a case of milk, two cakes, and boxes of chocolates and crystallised fruit. "The Governor is a Scotsman," she wrote, "and must be sympathetic to mission work, or else why did he come with his retinue and all to a mud house and see me at that cost to his comfort and time on a wet night?" Lord Egerton was charmed with her. Replying to some remark of his she said, "Hoots, my dear laddie--I mean Sir!" It was the great anxiety of her official friends that she should not outlive her powers: her influence generally was so great that to them the thought of this was distressing. They were always very solicitous about her health, writing to her frequently to say that she should take life more easily, "Take care of yourself, Ma--as much as you can." "Don't be so ridiculously unselfish." "Learn a little selfishness--it will do you all the good in the world," was the advice showered upon her. When she had the Court work she was often urged to take a month's holiday. On hearing of her intention to go to Ikpe one wrote, "Dear Lady, I hate the idea of your going so far into the bush. Don't go. There are plenty of men willing and eager to be of service to you, but away up there you are far away from help or care." Another warned her against the people; "But," he added, "we know you will go in spite of it--and conquer!" Latterly they became more importunate. "Do be careful," one wrote. "Do take quinine and sleep under a net and drink filtered water." Her custom of going hatless into the blazing sunshine was long a sore point, and when they failed to persuade her of the danger, they resorted to scheming. "We know why you do it," they said artfully. "You know you have pretty hair and like to display it uncovered, imagining that it gets its golden glint from the sun. Oh, vanity of vanities! Fancy a nice, quiet missionary being so vain!" Certainly no argument could have sent her more quickly to the milliner's. IX. POWER THROUGH PRAYER The power which enabled Mary Slessor to live so intensely, to triumph over physical weakness, and to face the dangers of the African bush, and gave her the magnetic personality that captivated the hearts of white and black alike, was derived from her intimate and constant contact with the Unseen, and the means of that contact were prayer and the Bible. She had an implicit belief in the reality of prayer, simply because she had tested its efficacy every day of her life, and had never found it to fail. When her old friend, Mr. Smith of Dundee, asked for her testimony to include in his book, _Our Faithful God: Answers to Prayer_, she wrote: My life is one long daily, hourly, record of answered prayer. For physical health, for mental overstrain, for guidance given marvellously, for errors and dangers averted, for enmity to the Gospel subdued, for food provided at the exact hour needed, for everything that goes to make up life and my poor service, I can testify with a full and often wonder-stricken awe that I believe God answers prayer. I know God answers prayer. I have proved during long decades while alone, as far as man's help and presence are concerned, that God answers prayer. Cavilings, logical or physical, are of no avail to me. It is the very atmosphere in which I live and breathe and have my being, and it makes life glad and free and a million times worth living. I can give no other testimony. I am sitting alone here on a log among a company of natives. My children, whose very lives are a testimony that God answers prayer, are working round me. Natives are crowding past on the bush road to attend palavers, and I am at perfect peace, far from my own countrymen and conditions, because I know God answers prayer. Food is scarce just now. We live from hand to mouth. We have not more than will be our breakfast to-day, but I know we shall be fed, for God answers prayer. She realised that prayer was hedged round by conditions, and that everything depended upon the nature of the correspondence between earth and heaven. She likened the process to a wireless message, saying, "We can only obtain God's best by fitness of receiving power. Without receivers fitted and kept in order the air may tingle and thrill with the message, but it will not reach my spirit and consciousness." And she knew equally well that all prayer was not worthy of being answered. Those who were disappointed she would ask to look intelligently at first causes as well as regretfully at second causes. To one who said he had prayed without avail, she wrote: "You thought God was to hear and answer you by making everything straight and pleasant--not so are nations or churches or men and women born; not so is character made. God is answering your prayer in His way." And to another who was in similar mood she wrote: "I know what it is to pray long years and never get the answer--I had to pray for my father. But I know my heavenly Father so well that I can leave it with Him for the lower fatherhood." In this as in other things she had to confess that she herself often failed. "I am a poor exponent of faith," she would say. "I ought to have full faith in our Father that He will do everything, but I am ashamed of myself, for I want to 'see,' and that sends faith out of court. I never felt more in sympathy with that old afflicted father before in his prayer, 'Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief'--every syllable suits me." She had absolute faith in intercession, "Prayer," she said, "is the greatest power God has put into our hands for service--praying is harder work than doing, at least I find it so, but the dynamic lies that way to advance the Kingdom." She believed that some of her official friends, the Empire-builders, were kept straight in this way: "The bands that mothers and sisters weave by prayer and precept are the strongest in the world." There was nothing she asked her friends more often at home to do than to pray for the Mission and the workers. "Don't stop praying for us," she pleaded, and her injunctions were sometimes pathetic in their personal application: "Pray that the power of Christ may rest on me, that He may never be disappointed in me or find me disobedient to the heavenly vision when He shows the way, pray that I may make no false moves, but that the spirit will say, 'Go here and go there,'" She was always convinced that it was the prayers of the people in Scotland that carried her on and made the work possible. "It is so customary to put aside those who, like myself, are old-fashioned and unable for the burden and heat of the day; but in my case it is care and love and forbearance all the way through; and all this I trace back to the great amount of prayer which has ever followed me, to the quality more than the quantity of that intercession. Prayer-waves pulsate from Britain all through Calabar." To one who had always prayed for her she also wrote: "I have always said that I have no idea how and why God has carried me over so many funny and hard places, and made these hordes of people submit to me, or why the Government should have given me the privilege of a magistrate among them, except in answer to prayer made at home for me. It is all beyond my comprehension. The only way I can explain it is on the ground that I have been prayed for more than most. Pray on, dear one-the power lies that way." She also urged prayer for the Mission Committees, Home and Foreign--"We expect them to do so much and to do it so well, and yet we withhold the means by which alone they can do it." Almost invariably, when acknowledging money, she would beg the donors to follow up their gifts by prayer for workers. "Now," she would say, "let us ask God earnestly and constantly for the greater gift of men and women to fill all these vacant posts." She used to pray much for her friends in all their circumstances, asking for many things for them that they desired, but eventually her petition came to be, "Lord give them Thy best and it shall suffice them and me." Her religion was a religion of the heart, and her communion with her Father was of the most natural, most childlike character. No rule or habit guided her. She just spoke to Him as a child to her Father when she needed help and strength, or when her heart was filled with joy and gratitude, at any time, in any place. He was so real to her, so near, that her words were almost of the nature of conversation. There was no formality, no self-conscious or stereotyped diction, only the simplest language from a quiet and humble heart. It is told of her that when in Scotland, after a tiresome journey, she sat down at the tea-table alone, and, lifting her eyes, said, "Thank ye, Faither--ye ken I'm tired," in the most ordinary way, as if she had been addressing her friends. On another occasion, in the country, she lost her spectacles while coming from a meeting in the dark. Snow lay on the ground, and there seemed little hope of recovering them. She could not do without them, and she prayed simply and directly: "O Father, give me back my spectacles." Early next morning the milk-boy saw something glistening in the snow, and she had the spectacles in time to read her Bible. A lady asked her how she obtained such intimacy with God. "Ah, woman," she said, "when I am out there in the bush I have often no other one to speak to but my Father, and I just talk to Him." It was in that way she kept herself in tune with the highest. Sometimes, when there had been laughing and frivolous conversation before a meeting, she lost "grip," and was vexed and restless and dumb. But a little communion with her Father would put matters right. Once, oppressed by a similar mood, she foresaw complete failure, but the minister who presided, as if conscious of her attitude, prayed in such a way as to lift the burden from her heart, and she was given not only a calm spirit but also an eloquent tongue. How natural it was for her to pray is evidenced by an incident at one of the ladies' committee meetings at Duke Town. Speaking of it she said, "All the ladies were laughing and daffin' over something of a picturesque sort, when it struck me we ought to be praying rather, and I just said so, and at once the whole lot jumped up, and we went into the nearest room and were closeted with our Master for a bit." Sometimes in the Mission House she would call the children to prayer at odd hours, and Jean would remonstrate and say, "Ma, the time is long past." "Jean," she would reply, "the gate of heaven is never shut." She said she wished to teach them that they could pray anywhere and at any time, and not only in the church. "_We are not really apart," she once wrote to a friend in Scotland, "_for you can touch God direct by prayer, and so can I_." X. BIBLE STUDENT She had always been an earnest and intelligent student of the Bible, and to her it grew more wonderful every day. She believed that the spread of the Book was the simplest and most natural and direct way of preaching the Gospel and keeping it pure. Her own reading of it was mainly accomplished in the early morning. As soon as there was light enough--which was usually about 5.30--she took a fine pen and her Bible and turned to the book she was studying in the Old or New Testament. She underlined the governing words and sentences as she went along in her endeavour to grasp the meaning of the writer and the course of his argument; word by word, sentence by sentence, she patiently followed his thought. Sometimes it would be three days before she completed a chapter, but she would not leave it until she had some kind of idea as to its purpose. She was her own commentator, and on the margin she noted the truths she had learned, the lessons she had received, her opinions about the sentiment expressed, or the character described. If her expositions were not according to the ordinary canons of exegesis, they had the merit of being simple, fresh, and unconventional. Her language was as candid, often as pungent, as her remarks in conversation, its very frankness and force indicating how real to her were the life and conditions she was studying. When one Bible was finished she began another, and repeated the process, for she found that new thoughts came as the years went by. On one occasion we find her interested in a recent translation, reading it to discover whether it gave any clearer construction of the more difficult passages. Such sedulous study had its effect upon her character and life; she was interpenetrated with the spirit of the Book; it gave her direction in all her affairs--in her difficult palavers she would remark, "Let us see what the Bible says on this point "--it inspired her with hope, faith, and, and courage. Often after an hour or two of meditation over it she felt no desire for ordinary literature, all other books seeming tame and tasteless after its pages. Some of the later Bibles she used are in existence, and bear testimony to the thoroughness of her methods. Almost every page is a mass of interlineations and notes. As one turns them over, phrases here and there catch the eye, arresting in thought and epigrammatic in form; such for instance as these: _God is never behind time. If you play with temptation do not expect God will deliver you. A gracious woman has gracious friendships. No gift or genius or position can keep us safe or free from sin. Nature is under fixed and fine laws, but it cannot meet the need of man. We must see and know Christ before we can teach. Good is good, but it is not enough; it must be God. The secret of all failure is disobedience, Unspiritual man cannot stand success. There is no escape from the reflex action of sin; broken law will have its revenge, Sin is loss for time and eternity, The smallest things are as absolutely necessary as the great things. An arm of flesh never brings power. Half the world's sorrow comes from the unwisdom of parents. Obedience brings health, Blessed the man and woman who is able to serve cheerfully in the second rank--a big test, What they were weary of was the punishment, not the sin that brought it. Slavery never pays; the slave is spoiled as a man, and the master not less so. It were worth while to die, if thereby a soul could be born again._ She was deeply interested in the earlier books, for the reason that the moral and social conditions depicted there were analogous to those she had to deal with in Calabar. Every now and then we come across such remarks as these: "a Calabar palaver," "a chapter of Calabar history," "a picture of Calabar outside the gospel area," "this happens in Okoyong every day." Her own experience helped her to understand the story of these primitive civilisations, and her annotations on this part of the Bible have always the sharpest point. To the sentence, "The Lord watch between me and thee," she appends, "Beautiful sentiment, but a _mbiam_ oath of fear." Jacob she terms in one place a "selfish beggar." Of Jael she says, "Not a womanly woman, a sorry story; would God not have showed her a better way if she had asked?" and of part of Deborah's song she remarks, "Fine poetry, poor morality." Her opinion of Jezebel is thus expressed: "A vain, heartless woman; one of the most revolting stories in history, and she might have been such a queen! A good woman is the most beautiful thing on earth, but a bad woman is a source of corruption.... Had only her soul been clean, dogs might have been welcome to her body." The book of Job was always well studied. She had a great admiration for the "upright, wealthy, greatly-feared, and respected sheikh," and little or none for the "typical philosophers," who came, Calabar fashion, and sought to comfort him in his day of trial. Job was not, in her view, rebellious; "his plaint was a relief to his own spirit, and an appeal for sympathy." On chapter ix. she writes, "The atmosphere is clearing; the clouds are scattering, glimpses of sunshine, of starlight, and beauty; the spirit swings back on its pivot and begins to see God." Farther on, "Right, Job--turn to God I Leave it to Him-- the fit of depression will pass when you have sounded the depths, and profit will follow." On chapter xviii. her comment is, "Such is the friendship of the world"; on chapter xx., "How very sure the fool is in his explanations of God's ways"; on chapter xxvii., "The ultimate values of life shall be fixed not by wealth but by character"; on chapter xxviii., "A very mine of gems and precious things--exquisitely lovely thoughts and language. Poetry like this in the earliest ages of the world!" Of Elihu's contentions in chapter xxxiv., "A good many truths, but served up with bitter herbs, not with love": on chapter xxxvii., "Beautiful poetry, but a very bleak and barren picture of God; hard, arbitrary, selfish, self-centred, striking terror into His works, and compelling obedience and service. Nature cannot reveal Him, Elihu!" On the next chapter, "The God of nature turns the picture, and behold it is no more destruction and blind force, but beneficence and gracious design and beauty,"--and so on to the end, when we read, "The voice of humanity demands some such judgment and relief from the mysteries and trials and misrepresentations of this life. The poem rings true to the cry of the spirit of man. Is there a modern drama in any language to come near to this ancient production?" The New Testament was brooded over and absorbed with a care and thoroughness which must have made every line and every thought familiar to her. St. John was her favourite book. A few specimens of her remarks may be given: "_When the people saw that Jesus was not there ... they took shipping and came ... seeking for Jesus_." "The secret of our failures in winning men; they don't find Him with us." "_The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came and tempted Him that He would, show them a sign from Heaven_." "Man's cry for the moon! What does a sign prove? Is God known by magic?" "_And the people asked Him saying, What shall we do then? ... 'He that hath two coats let him impart to him that hath none_.'" "By love serve." "_And He said unto them, When I sent you without purse and scrip and shoes lacked you anything_?" "No, Lord, never was lack with Thee!" "_And her parents were astonished, but He charged them that they should tell no man what He had done_." "Life will tell. Speech will end in chatter." These illustrations, picked out at random, will serve to indicate what an intimate companion she made of her Bible, and with what loving patience and insight she studied it for the illumination and deepening of her spiritual life. XI. BACK TO THE OLD HAUNTS Eight years had passed since she had left Akpap, and she had never been back, although she had paid flying visits to the hinterland. Miss Amess, with whom her friendship had grown close, was in charge, being minister, doctor, dispenser, teacher, and mentor to the people, and with her was Miss Ramsay. They had built a new church, which was almost ready, and Miss Amess determined to bring "Ma" over and have the Macgregors to meet her. "Ma" could not resist the temptation to revisit the scenes of her greatest adventures, and went in July 1913, taking the children with her, except Mary, and ordering the others at Calabar, including the two youngest, Whitie and Asuquö, who were also natives of the district, to join her. Her arrival caused much excitement, and her stay was one long reception. All day the Mission House was like a market; from far and near the people came to _köm_ their Mother. She could scarcely be got to come to meals. On the first day when she was called, she said, "These are my meat to-day," and then she told those about her what Christ had said to His disciples after His conversation with the woman of Samaria. Such love as the ladies saw on both sides they had not thought possible between missionary and native. She seemed to remember the names of most of the people, and all the details of their family histories. One after another came forward and talked and revived stories of the old times. But she seemed vexed to see so many who were interested in her, and with no concern for the things of God, and with these she pled earnestly to come to church and give themselves to the Saviour. Two notable figures were Mana, and the mother of Susie, Iye. The children were a source of astonishment to all. These healthy, happy, handsome young people, the babies that had been cast away or despised--it was wonderful! They gazed upon them in a kind of awe. A few of the older and women held aloof from the twins, but not in any offensive way, and the general disposition was to ignore the stain on their birth. There was a touching meeting with Ma Eme, who could not conceal her affection and joy at seeing her old "Ma" again. Much to Mary's sorrow she was still a heathen, and a very zealous one, as she sacrificed daily to the spirits in the crudest way, with food and blood, in abasement and fear. So strong was superstition rooted in her nature that she would not touch the twins, although she confessed it was marvellous that they had grown up. The two women, bound by so strange a friendship, talked long about the old days. It was, "Do you remember this?" "Do you remember that?" and then would follow reminiscences of the killing time when they worked hand in hand in secret for the preservation of life. Nothing that "Ma" could say would induce Ma Eme to throw off her allegiance to her African beliefs, and at the end of a long day she left, the same kind, high-bred, mysterious heathen woman that she had always been. She died shortly after. "My dear old friend and almost sister," said Mary, "she made the saving of life so often possible in the early days, It is sad that she did not come out for Christ. She could have been the honoured leader of God's work had she risen to it. I cannot fancy Okoyong without her. She made a foolish choice, and yet God cannot forget all she was to me, and all she helped me to do in those dark and bloody days." A service was arranged, but the throng who wished to hear "Ma" was so great that it had to be held in the unfinished church, and thus Mary had the joy of being at the first service. Over four hundred well- dressed natives were present, the largest number ever in a church in Okoyong, She thought of the wild old days, and contrasted them with the present scene. "Truly," she said to herself, "one soweth and another reapeth." She spoke for half an hour, giving a strong, inspiring talk on the duties of those who are believers to the world around them. With her usual thought for others she sat down and wrote to her old comrade, Miss Wright (Mrs. Rattray), in England, giving her the details of her visit, and accounts of the people. "This house," she said, "is full of memories of you, and you are not forgotten." She described with pride and hope the way in which the ladies were conducting the station, and praised them in her usual generous manner. After she left, it seemed to them that they had greater influence among the people than ever. XII. ROYAL RECOGNITION The friends who had known her long were noticing that a new softness and graciousness were stealing into her life. She never grew commonplace, and was original as ever, but her character was mellowing, and her love and humility becoming even more marked. "Love will overcome all," was her belief, and love, for her, included all the qualities of the Christian faith--simplicity, kindness, patience, charity, selflessness, confidence, hope. In herself she was conscious of many faults. "I don't half live up to the ideal missionary life," she said, with a sigh. "It is not easier to be a saint here than at home. We are very human, and not goody-goody at all." Often she was deep in the valley of humiliation over hasty words spoken and opportunities of service let slip. But she was saved from depression by her sense of humour. She laughed and dared the devil. Of one who had just come out she wrote: "She is very serious, and will take life and work more in the sense of tasks than of a glad free life ... we want one to laugh, to hitch on to the yoke, and joke over all that we don't like." She also became less uncompromising in her views. "My opinions," she acknowledged, "may not just suit every one, and it is possible other people may be right and I far wrong.... But although we differ amongst ourselves, and some things differentiate our work, we are all in full friendship and sympathy with one another." It was not possible for self-abnegation to go farther than it did in her case. She was unable to see that she had done anything out of the common. "I have lived my life very quietly and in a very natural and humble way," she would say, and all the credit of her work was given to God. "It isn't Mary Slessor doing anything, but Something outside of her altogether uses her as her small ability allows." She did not say "my plan," or "my scheme"--if she did she checked herself and said, "What God wants me to do." And she always paid generous tribute to her girls, who, she said, did more than she did, though no one counted it to them. She was distressed to receive letters praising her. One who saw her go out from Scotland to her life-work, and had lovingly followed her career ever since, wrote saying that her reward would be a starry crown in the glory land, and her reply was, "_What would I do with starry crowns except to cast them at His feet?_" Nothing illustrated this feature so notably as an event which occurred shortly after her visit to Akpap. Two years previously a few of her friends in Calabar, official and missionary, had talked over the possibility of securing some public recognition of her unique service. Mr. Macgregor wrote an account of her life-work for the Government, but it was not until Sir Frederick Lugard arrived as Governor-General of the united provinces of Northern and Southern Nigeria that action was taken. He was so struck by the heroic record placed before him that he at once sent home a strong recommendation to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that Mary's services should be brought to Royal notice. The Secretary of State was equally impressed, and laid the matter before the Chapter-General of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England, of which the King is Sovereign Head, and the Duke of Connaught Grand Prior. This was done, and she was selected for admission. When she received the august-looking document asking her to accept the honour, she said to herself, "Now, who has done this? Who am I, and what is my distinction that I should have it?" She was in a quandary how to answer, but eventually complied with the request, thinking that would be the end of it. Shortly afterwards came a letter stating that "her selection had received the sanction and approval of His Most Gracious Majesty King George V." The Chapter-General, it was stated, elected her "with particular satisfaction" to the grade of Honorary Associate. This honour is only conferred on persons professing the Christian faith, who are eminently distinguished for philanthropy, or who have specially devoted their exertions or professional skill in aid of the objects of the Order. The Badge of an Honorary Associate is a Maltese Cross in silver, embellished at the four principal angles with a lion passant guardant and a unicorn passant alternately. It is worn by women on the left shoulder, attached to a black watered riband tied in a bow. "Ma" kept the matter a secret, even after she had received the diploma, but the silver Badge came through the Colonial Office to the Commissioner at Duke Town, and the honour being made public, her friends schemed to get her down to a formal presentation. It was a difficult problem, but it was solved by a letter being sent stating that the decoration had arrived, that, of course, she would not care to have it given to her surreptitiously, and that her duty was to come to Calabar for it. A telegraph form, ready for dispatch, and bearing the one word "Coming," was enclosed. They knew she would get agitated, and have no peace until the telegram was out of her hands. Their surmise was correct. She sent the message and committed herself to the ordeal. She was not elated at the prospect of appearing at a Government function; neither was she perturbed, and she went about her duties as usual. Miss Gilmour, one of the new lady agents, tells how on the eve of her departure she gathered the bairns for family worship, and in a simple and beautiful way read to them the story of the Good Shepherd and the sheep that followed. Then, as an illustration, she took the story of Peter's denial of our Lord, and showed that Peter sinned because he followed "afar off." "Eh, bairns," she said, "it's the wee lassie that sits beside her mother at meal times that gets all the nice bittocks. The one who sits far away and sulks disna ken what she misses. Even the pussy gets more than she does. Keep close to Jesus the Good Shepherd all the way." A Government launch was sent to bring her down, an honour she felt as much as the bestowal of the insignia, and as she walked up to the Macgregors' house--the Wilkies were in Scotland--there were many who were struck by the dignity of her appearance, dressed though she was in an old but clean cotton dress, straw hat, and list shoes. On the Saturday afternoon she went to an "At Home" at the Barracks, where she was lionised in a quiet way. She attended a cricket match--she was an advocate of all games, and believed they were excellent civilising agencies--and also witnessed a sham fight, where the "enemy" dressed themselves up as "savage warriors" and attacked the Barrack Hill. She was much impressed, and kept saying to her old friend the Hon. Horace Bedwell, the Provincial Commissioner, "That's just splendid. Look how the officers lead them." On Sunday she spoke for three-quarters of an hour to the boys in the Institute in Efik, and no boys could have listened more intently. On Monday night she was at Government House at dinner. The presentation took place in the Goldie Memorial Hall on Wednesday, Mr. Macgregor presiding. All the Europeans who could leave business gathered to do her honour. The boys of the Training Institute and the girls of the Edgerley Memorial School were also in the hall. Had it not been that Mr. Bedwell and Mrs. Bedwell were beside her, and that it was the former who made the presentation, she would have felt more nervous. As it was, she sat with her head buried in her hands. Mr. Bedwell spoke of her unique work and influence, and of her genius for friendship in a way that overcame her. She could not at first find words to reply. She turned to the children, and in Efik told them to be faithful to the Government, for at bottom it was Christian, and, as the silver Badge proved, friendly to missions. Self was thus entirely effaced in her interpretation of the act; she made it appear to be the recognition by the Government of the work of the Mission, and suggested that it might have been awarded to any member of the staff. Having recovered her courage she spoke in English, saying that she did not understand why she had been chosen for the distinction, when others deserved it more. In a closing passage of simple beauty, she gave God the honour and praise for all she had been able to accomplish. What had impressed her at the sham fight was that the officer was always in front leading and guiding his men. "If I have done anything in my life it has been easy because the Master has gone before." Forty Europeans came to tea at the Macgregors', and "Ma" was brilliant and entertaining. On Thursday her hosts convoyed her back to Use. Mrs. Bedwell had presented her with a bouquet of flowers, and she had taken out the roses--of which she was passionately fond--and placed them in water. On her arrival she carefully planted one of the stems, and to her great joy it grew and flourished in front of her hut. "Don't think," she wrote home, "that there is any difference in my designation. I am Mary Mitchell Slessor, nothing more and none other than the unworthy, unprofitable, but most willing, servant of the King of Kings. May this be an incentive to work, and to be better than ever I have been in the past." At home the honour was made known chiefly through the _Record_ of the Church, in which Mr. Macgregor gave some account of her romantic career. He stipulated that this should be anonymous, for "Ma," he feared, would never forgive him if she knew that he had been connected with it. She gained a repute that was akin to fame. Congratulations from all parts of the world were showered upon her. Sir Frederick Lugard sent his "hearty and sincere congratulations, and his appreciation of this well-earned reward for her life of heroic self- sacrifice." In confusion of heart she escaped to Ikpe. "I shall never look the world in the face again until all this blarney and publicity is over," she said. "I feel so glad that I can hide here quietly where no one knows about newspapers and _Records_, and do my small portion of work out of sight." For a time she was kept busy replying to the correspondence that the event evoked, and to all she made the same modest reply, that she saw in the honour "God's goodness to the Mission and her fellow-labourers, who were levelling and building and consolidating the work on every side. It is a token that He means to encourage them in the midst of their discouraging circumstances." XIII. BATTLE FOR A LIFE Each new kindness shown her was an incentive to harder service. She threw herself again into work with an extraordinary keenness. Dissatisfied with what she was doing at Ikpe, she moved in all directions in her "box on wheels," prospecting for new spheres of usefulness, fording rivers, crossing swamps, climbing hills, pushing through bush, traversing roads that were unsafe and where by the law people had to go in couples, and often putting up at villages six or ten miles distant. She saw crowds of people, and hundreds of women and children in every street, but no light; not even a desire for it, though here and there she found a disciple or two. She met with more opposition from the chiefs than she had done in all her experience. They would not hear of "God fashions," and would not permit teachers to enter their districts or churches to be built; they forbade all meetings for worship. She braced herself, body and mind, for the fight. She spent days in palaver, but they would not give in. She insisted that at least the right of the disciples to meet and worship in their own homes must be recognised. When the chiefs saw her face, set with iron resolution, they were afraid, wavered, and agreed. They then became quite friendly. "We don't object to schools," they admitted. "We want our children to learn to read and write, but we want no interference with our fashions. If houses of God are built, we shall all die, and we are dying fast enough." "I shall never give you teachers without the Gospel," she declared. "If you don't take the one, you won't have the other. But I'm going to bring both. I shall put up a shed on the roadside, and hold services there whenever I get a chance." "All right, Ma," they said with something like admiration. "Come yourself, but don't send boys." And then she remembered. "How can this poor tabernacle do it, even with six lads to push and pull and carry the cart through the streams? But I have opened the way, and that is something." In Ikpe itself the currents of heathenism ran deep and strong, and she found progress as difficult as in Okoyong. But she solved all the problems in the same fearless way as she had done there. Unlike those in other centres, the women and girls of the town took no interest in the work, and would not come forward, and she knew there was no hope for the community unless she secured their sympathy and attachment to the cause. At first a few girls had ventured to sit by themselves in church. Then some village accident made the chiefs believe that their juju was angry because the girls had forsaken their sacrifices and deserted the heathen plays, and they placed pressure on them to return. Some were flogged and made to pray before a clay-pot with an egg in it, and all were forced out on the moonlight nights to take part in the plays. "If they don't do that," demanded the chiefs, "how can they have children for us?" The girls lost courage and forsook the church, but she did not blame them. "Poor things, they are as timid as hares, and have never had a choice of what to do until I came. But the chiefs--I will be hard on them!" One day she gathered all those who were faithful to the church laws, and interviewed the chiefs. The spokesman for her party urged that the antagonism that had been shown should cease; he agreed that any one who broke the ordinary laws should be punished, but no girl or young man should be compelled to sacrifice or pray to idols, or be ostracised or fined for fearing God. The words were received with scornful looks and laughs, the chiefs being hardly able to restrain themselves, but they had a wholesome fear of "Ma," and were never outwardly disrespectful in her presence. They looked at her. She kept a severe and solemn face, and they were a little nonplussed. "Ma, have you heard?" they asked, "Am I not here?" she replied. Taking the gift of rods that had been offered, the chiefs retired. When they returned they said: "Ma, we hear. Let the present of rods lie, we accept of it, and we promise that we will respect God's laws, in regard to the joining in our sacrifices; and in regard to the Sabbath, we shall respect it and leave our work; but we will _not_ join in the confusions of the church, that we cannot do." "God will doubtless be immensely pleased and benefited by your wondrous condescension," said she with good-humoured sarcasm, and they laughed heartily and tried to be friendly, but Mary airily told her people to rise and go. Fearing she was not pleased, the chiefs made to accompany her. "I'm going round to see a woman in the next street," said Mary pointedly. They stopped dead at once. Here was the "confusion" they referred to, for the woman was a twin-mother. It was the old weary battle over again, Her patience and persistence eventually won a victory for the girls. They were allowed to return to church, but the line was drawn at the day-school. The chiefs said girls were meant to work and mother the babies, and not to learn "book." Even the boys who attended, each burdened with an infant to justify the waste of time, were not allowed to bring a baby girl. If the baby of the home was a girl, he looked after her there and his place was vacant. Mary began to think of teaching the girls apart from the boys, when one day several girls marched in; she courted them with all the skill she possessed, and gradually one or two chiefs brought their daughters, who returned with dresses from the Mission box, and that ended the opposition. But there was no end to the struggle over twins. Time and again she had to send the girls to bring babes to the Mission House, and many a stirring night she had, she sleeping with them in her bed, whilst outside stealthy forms watched for a chance to free the town from the defilement of their presence. The first that survived was a boy. The husband, angry and sullen, was for murdering it and putting the mother into a hole in the swamp. She faced him with the old flash in her eye, and made him take oath not to hurt or kill the child. He even promised to permit it to live, for which magnanimity she bowed ironically to the ground, an act that put his courage at once to flight. She had come to realise that it was not good to take twins from their mother, and she insisted on the child being kept in the home. Jean was sent to stay and sleep with the woman, and as she had, on occasion, as caustic a tongue as "Ma," the man had not a very agreeable time. It was decided later to bring the woman and child to the hut, and there, beneath her verandah, they rigged up a little lean-to, where they were housed, Jean sleeping with them at night and keeping a watchful eye on the mother. "It is really," said "Ma," "far braver and kinder of her to live with that heathen woman with her fretting habits than it is for her to go out in the dark and fight with snakes. Jean has as many faults as myself, but she is a darling, none the less, and a treasure." All going well, they went on Sunday to church and left the mother. When they returned they found she had broken the baby's thigh and given him some poisonous stuff. With care the boy recovered, but they redoubled their precautions, hoping that when the parents saw how handsome and healthy and normal the little fellow was, they would consent to keep him. "Ma" was due at Use, but she would not leave Ikpe until she had conquered. Another month passed, and she was running out of provisions, including tea. To be without tea was a tremendous deprivation. She thought of the big fragrant package that had been sent out as a gift, and was lying fifty miles away but un-get-at-able, and felt far from saintly as she resorted to the infusion of old leaves. One Sunday evening there was a shout. A canoe had arrived, and in it was a box. With sudden prescience Jean flew for a hammer and chisel and broke it open, and sure enough inside was the tea from Use. Mary marvelled, and with all the young folk round her stood and thanked God, the Lord of the Sabbath, for His goodness. The beverage had never tasted so sweet and invigorating. Though her thrifty Scottish nature rejoiced that she had been able to save a little, she confessed that she would never be a miser where tea was concerned, Whenever she received a package she invariably sent a share to old Mammy Fuller at Duke Town. "Mammy," she told a home friend, "has lived a holy and consecrated life here for fifty years, and is perhaps the best-loved woman in Duke Town. Uncle Tom in the old cabin is a child in the knowledge of God to Mammy. So we all love to share anything with her, and she especially loves a cup of tea." The parents of the twin were at last persuaded to take the big happy child home and provide for it. Four days later they sent for Jean, who returned, carrying a weak, pinched form that had death written on its face. It succumbed shortly afterwards--and that was the end of "Ma's" strenuous fight and Jean's ten weeks' toil by night and day. XIV. A VISION OF THE NIGHT She was down at Use for Christmastide with all her children about her, and was very happy at seeing the consummation of her efforts to build a new church. The opening took place on Christmas Day, "A bonnie kirk it is," she wrote. "Mr. Cruickshank officiated, and was at his very best. Miss Peacock, my dear comrade and her young helper Miss Cooper--a fine lassie--came and spent the whole day, so we had a grand time, the biggest Christmas I've ever had in Calabar. Three tall flag-poles with trade-cloth flags in the most flaming colours hung over the village from point to point embracing the old and the new churches. The people provided a plain breakfast in their several homes for over eighty of our visitors, who therefore stayed over the forenoon. It made our Christian population look fairly formidable, and certainly very reputable as a force for uplifting and regenerating society. It looks but yesterday that they were a horde of the most unlikely and unresponsive people one could approach, and yet the Gospel has made of them already something to prove that it is the power of God unto salvation to a people and to an individual every and anywhere." It was to her "one of the reddest of red-letter days," such a day as only comes at rare intervals, and she fell into the snare, as she said, "of being carried away with it," with the result that at night she was down with fever. This kept recurring every alternate night. It was the harmattan season, in which she always wilted like some delicate flower in the sun, and she grew so limp and fragile that she could not sit up. She felt that she would be compelled to go home in the summer with the Macgregors, but the idea frightened her, chiefly because of the stir that had been caused by the honour she had received. "I dare not appear at home after all this publicity," she said. "I simply could not face the music." As she recovered a little she superintended the work of the girls outside, and was amused at the way her advice was now received. "Jean and Annie do not hesitate to set it aside quietly in their superior way; it often works out better than mine, truth to tell-- though I say it does so by accident!" This was a different house-mother from the one who ruled years before. In one of her fever nights, tossing in semi-delirium, she had a vision. She had been following the Chapman-Alexander Mission in Glasgow with keen interest, and in the long watches her excited brain continued to dwell on the meetings. She dreamt, or imagined, that out of gratitude for what had been accomplished, two young Glasgow engineers had taken a six months' holiday, and come out with their motor car to Calabar. They spent their days running up and down the Government Road through Ibibio, singing and giving evangelistic addresses, she interpreting, the girls, who were packed into the cars, doing the catering and cooking, and the Government Rest Houses providing the lodging. "What a night it was!" she wrote. "The bairns were afraid, for I was babbling more than usual, but to me it was as real as if it had all happened. We ran backwards and forwards between Itu and Ikpe, spending alternate Sundays with the Churches, and taking Miss Peacock to her outstations, and visiting Miss Welsh, It was magnificent." The vision did not pass away; she took it as a sign from God; and out of it in the morning she formulated a scheme which one day she hoped would be realised. "It is strange," she said, "that it has never dawned on us before. Here is the Government making use of the motor car to do its work. Why should not the Church do the same when the roads are here? It would permit one man to do the work of three, it would save strength, and make for efficiency. The reason why I have been able to go farther than my colleagues, is that I have had the privilege of using Government conveyances by land and water; to have a car and a mechanic missionary would be supplying us with a grand opportunity for multiplied service." She expatiated on the matter in letters to her friends at home, and the longer she thought of the idea, the more it fired her imagination. Within a few days she was flying over the ground in the Government car on her way to Ikpe--with many a "ca' canny" to the driver--and her experience brought the conviction that the proposal was a good one. It might be too novel a plan for the Church to take up officially, but she thought wealthy men in Scotland might materialise her vision as a thank-offering. XV. STORMING THE CITADELS The Government road went as far as Odoro Ikpe, where a Rest House, used as a shelter by officials on the march or on judging tours, and the one seen by Mr. Macgregor, had been built on the brow of a hill above the township. It was Saturday when she arrived here, and she climbed the ascent, taking over an hour to do it, and was captivated by the situation. It had the widest outlook of any spot she had seen; she seemed to be on the very roof of the world. A vast extent of bush stretched out before her, unbroken save by the white road winding down the hill, and instead of the stifling stillness of the plains, a soft breeze blew and cooled the atmosphere. It was five miles from Ikpe, and the centre of a number of populous towns. For months past she had been praying for an entrance into these closed haunts of heathenism, and as she sat down in the lonely little Rest House, she made up her mind not to move a step further until she had come to grips with the chiefs. Knowing that the Government would not object, she took possession of the building. It had a doorway but no door; the windows were holes in the wall high up under the eaves; the floor was of mud, and there was no furniture of any kind. But these things were of no consequence to the gipsy-missionary. She slept on a camp-bed borrowed from Miss Peacock, the girls lay on the mud floor among the lizards, and some pots and pans were obtained from the people until she could procure her own from Ikpe. The commissariat department was run on the simplest scale. A tin of fat, some salt and pepper, tea, and sugar, and roasted plantain for bread, formed the principal constituents of the frugal meals. Their clothes were taken off piece by piece as each could be spared, and washed in a pail from the little prison yard. "Ma's" calico gown went through the process in the forenoon, was dried on the fence in the hot sun, and donned in the afternoon, in order, as she humorously put it, to be ready for "visitors and tea." In her eyes it was a sort of glorified picnic. She did not pity the girls; she thought such an experience was better for them as African citizens and missionaries than a secondary education. From this high centre as from a fort, she began to bombard the towns in the neighbourhood. Next day she summoned some disciples from a place called Ndot, and service was held in the yard. Then the lads pushed her chair out to Ibam, two miles distant, where she met the headman and his followers. These were an arrogant, powerful sept--not Ibibios--who had been allies of the slavers of Aros, and were disliked and suspected by all. She told them that she wanted the question of Gospel entrance settled. They looked at her indulgently. "We have no objection to you coming, Ma," said the chief. "And the saving of twins, and the right of twin-mothers to live as women and not as unclean beasts in the bush?" she asked. "No, no, we will not have it. Our town will spoil." After much talk they said, "Go home, Ma, and we shall discuss it and see you again"--the native way of ending a matter. Her next discussion was with the town of Odoro Ikpe itself. The old chief was urbane, and gave her every honour. Bringing out a plate with _3_s. upon it, he said, "Take that to buy food while staying here, as we have no market yet." She took the money, kissed it, put her hands on his head, and thanked him, calling him "father," but requested him to take it and buy chop for the children, and she would eat with him another day. The old man went away and returned with some yams, which he asked her to cook and eat. As they talked he gradually lost his fear, and then she asked him bluntly about his attitude to the Gospel. He and his big men told her frankly what their difficulties were, and these she demolished one by one. After two hours' fencing and arguing the tension gave way to a hearty laugh, and the old chief said, with a sweep of his hand toward the crowd: "Well, Ma, there they are, take them and teach them what you like--and you, young men, go and build a house for book." "No!" cried "Ma," "we don't begin or end either with a house. We begin and end with God in our hearts." A young man came forward, and without removing a quaint hat he wore, said, "Ma, we can't take God's word if you bring twins and twin-mothers into our town." It was out at last. Instead of arguing, "Ma" looked at him as witheringly as she could and replied; "I speak with men and people worthy of me, and not with a puny bush-boy such as you have shown by your manners you are." Off came the hat, and then "Ma" spoke to him in such a way that the crowd were fain to cry: "Ma, forgive! forgive! he does not know any better." There was no more after that about twins, and when she left she felt that progress had been made. Striking while the iron was hot she sent to Ikpe for school books, and going into the highways and byways, she began to coax the lads to come and learn. They stood aloof, half-afraid and half-scornful, and would not respond. Then she adopted a flank movement, and began to speak to them about the rubber and cocoa which the Government were planting in the district, and tried to awaken their interest and ambitions by telling them how the world was moving outside their home circle. Gradually the sullenness gave way, and they began to ask questions and to chat. She took the alphabet card, but they shied at the strange- looking thing, and would not speak. One little fellow who had been at Ikpe, and knew more than the others, began tremblingly, "A--B--," and she and Alice who was with her, joined in until one after another surrendered, and before long all were shouting the letters. By the end of the week the lads were coming every spare hour for lessons, and would scarcely give her time to eat. The Ikpe disciples had ruefully watched this development, and at last went to her: "Ma, we are glad you have got a footing out here, but are you forsaking us?" Her heart ached at the words, and although now reduced to coming and going in her Cape cart, she determined to give them every alternate week when she was not at Use. Thus from now onwards she was keeping three centres going by her own efforts. After a week at Ikpe in fulfilment of her promise, she returned to Odoro Ikpe to hold the first Sabbath service. A play was being enacted in the town, and scores of naked young men and women were dancing to the compelling throb of the drum. But some Ikpe and Ndot lads came to support the service, and their presence helped the local sympathisers to come forward. It was very simple; she said it would have seemed babyish to Europeans, but it was an epoch to the natives. Another meeting was held in the afternoon; and at night in the dark square, lit only by the light of the fires where the women were cooking their meal, she stood, and again proclaimed, with passionate earnestness, the love of God and the power of Christ to save and uplift. It was, no doubt, a day of small things, but she knew from long experience that small things were not to be despised. A month later, when she was at Ikpe holding the services, she was astonished to see thirty of the Odoro Ikpe lads marching into church. They had grown so interested, that they had come the five miles to hear her speak. The Ikpe people at once rose and gave the strangers their seats, finding a place for themselves on the floor. It was pathetic to see their earnest faces and their ignorance as to what they should do during the service, which was more elaborate than they had been accustomed to. Having brought some food they cooked it at the house and remained all day. On her return to Odoro Ikpe the chiefs appeared one morning, and asked her to come out at once and survey the land, and choose a site for a station. Her heart leapt at the significance of the request. She happened to be in her night attire, but as it might have been full Court dress for all they knew, she went and tramped over the land and chose what she believed would be the best situation in the Mission. It was on the brow of a hill overlooking a magnificent stretch of country, across which a cool breeze blew all the time. She immediately planned a house--one of six rooms--three living rooms above and stores and hall and girls' rooms below, with a roof of corrugated iron for security against wind and insects, and prepared to go down to Use to buy the material. There was one town still holding out, Ibam (where she had been told to "go home and they would think about it"), and she prayed that it, too, might accept the new conditions. On the Sunday before she left for Use, while she was conducting service, six strange men came in and waited until all had gone. "We are from Ibam," they said. "Come at once, Ma, and we will build a place to worship God, and will hear and obey." She was so uplifted that she seemed to live on air for the next few days. The villagers of Ibam gave up their best yard to her, and, crowds came to the meetings. All the citadels of heathenism in the district had now been stormed. Sitting one night on the floor of the Rest House, her aching back leaning against the mud wall, a candle, stuck in its own grease, giving her light, she wrote to her friends in Scotland, telling them that she was the happiest and most grateful woman in the world. XVI. CLARION CALLS The discovery of coal up in the interior at Udi brought a new interest into her life, for her far-seeing mind at once realised all the possibilities it contained. She believed it would revolutionise the conditions of West Africa. And when a railway was projected and begun from Port Harcourt, west of Calabar, to Udi, and there was talk of an extension to Itu, she sought to make her friends at home grasp the full significance of the development. That railway would become the highway to the interior, and Calabar would cease to be so important a port. Great stretches of rich oil-palm country would be opened up and exploited. She urged the need for more men and women to work amongst the rank heathenism that would soon collect and fester in the new industrial and commercial centres. Up there also was the menace of Mohammedanism. "Shall the Cross or the Crescent be first?" she cried. "We need men and women, oh, we need them!" She had been saddened by the closing of stations for furloughs, and the apathy of the Church at home. We are lower in numbers in Calabar than ever--fewer, if you except the artisans in the Institute, than in the old days before the doors were opened! Surely there is something very far wrong with our Church, the largest in Scotland. Where are the men? Are there no heroes in the making among us? No hearts beating high with the enthusiasm of the Gospel? Men smile nowadays at the old-fashioned idea of sin and hell and broken law and a perishing world, but these made men, men of purpose, of power and achievement, and self-denying devotion to the highest ideals earth has known. We have really no workers to meet all this opened country, and our Church, to be honest, should stand back and give it to some one else. But oh! I cannot think of that. Not that, Lord! For how could we meet the Goldies, the Edgerleys, the Waddells, the Andersons? How can our Church look at Christ who has given us the privilege of making Calabar history, and say to Him, "Take it back. Give It to another?" She had been deeply interested In the great World's Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910, and had contrasted it with State diplomacy and dreadnoughts, but was disappointed that so little practical result had followed. "After all," she said, "it is not committees and organisations from without that is to bring the revival, and to send the Gospel to the heathen at home and abroad, but the living spirit of God working from within the heart." All this made her more than ever convinced of the value of her own policy. She believed in the roughest methods for a raw country like Nigeria. Too much civilisation and concentration was bad, both for the work and the natives. There should be, she thought, an office of itinerating or travelling missionary permanently attached to the Mission. It would have its drawbacks, as, she recognised, all pioneer work had, but it would also pay well. She was not sure whether the missionaries did right in remaining closely to their stations, and believed that short regular expeditions into the interior would not only keep them in better health, but give them a closer knowledge of the people. Not much teaching could be given in this way, but their confidence would be won, and the way would be prepared for further advance. Her hope lay in women workers; they made better pioneers than men, and as they were under no suspicion of being connected with the Government, their presence was unobjectionable to the natives. They could move into new spheres and do the spade-work; enter the homes, win a hearing, guide the people in quiet ways, and live a simple and natural life amongst them. When confidence had been secured, men missionaries could enter and train and develop, and build up congregations in the ordinary manner. Even then she did not see why elaborate churches should be erected. She was always so afraid to put anything forward save Christ, that she was quite satisfied with her little "mud kirks." The raw heathen knew nothing of the Church as white people understood it. To give them a costly building was to give them a foreign thing in which they would worship a foreign God. To let them worship in an environment of their own setting meant, she believed, a more real apprehension of spiritual truth. The money they were trained to give, she would spend, not on buildings so much as on pioneer work among the tribes. So, too, with the Mission houses. She thought these should be as simple as possible, and semi-native in style; such, she believed, to be the driest and most healthy. In any case disease could come into a house costing £200, as into one costing £20, and "there was such a thing as God's providence." Still, she recognised the importance of preserving the health of newcomers, and admitted that her ideas might not apply to them. "It would be wrong," she said, "to insist on mud-huts for a nervous or æsthetic person." It was much the same feeling that ran through her objection to the natives suddenly transforming themselves into Europeans. Her views in this respect differed a good deal from those of her co-workers. One Sunday, after a special service, a number of women who had arrayed themselves in cheap European finery, boots and stockings and all, called upon her. She sat on a chair, her back to them, and merely threw them an occasional word with an angry jerk of her head. They were very upset, and at last one of them ventured to ask what was the matter. "Matter!" she exclaimed, and then spoke to them in a way which brought them all back in the afternoon clothed more appropriately. On all these questions she thought simply and naturally, and not in terms of scientific theory and over-elaborated system. She believed that the world was burdened and paralysed by conventional methods. But she did not undervalue the æsthetic side of existence. "So many think that we missionaries live a sort of glorified glamour of a life, and have no right to think of any of the little refinements and elegancies which rest and sooth tired and overstrained nerves--certainly coarseness and ugliness do not help the Christian life, and ugly things are not as a rule cheaper than beautiful ones." Her conviction was that a woman worth her salt could make any kind of house beautiful. At the same time she believed--and proved it in her own life--that the spirit- filled woman was to a great extent independent of all accessories. What always vexed her was to think of thousands of girls at home living a purposeless life, spending their time in fashionable wintering- places, and undergoing the strenuous toil of conventional amusement. "Why," she asked, "could they not come out here and stay a month or six months doing light work, helping with the children, cheering the staff? What a wealth of interest it would introduce into their lives!" She declared it would be better than stoning windows, for she had no patience with the policy of the women who sought in blind destruction the solution of political and social evils. "I'm for votes for women, but I would prove my right to it by keeping law and helping others to keep it. God-like motherhood is the finest sphere for women, and the way to the redemption of the world." Many a clarion call she sent to her sisters across the waters: "Don't grow up a nervous old maid! Gird yourself for the battle outside somewhere, and keep your heart young. Give up your whole being to create music everywhere, in the light places and in the dark places, and your life will make melody. I'm a witness to the perfect joy and satisfaction of a single life--with a tail of human tag-rag hanging on. It is rare! It is as exhilarating as an aeroplane or a dirigible or whatever they are that are always trying to get up and are always coming down!... Mine has been such a joyous service," she wrote again. "God has been good to me, letting me serve Him in this humble way. I cannot thank Him enough for the honour He conferred upon me when He sent me to the Dark Continent." Over and over again she put this idea of foreign service before her friends at home. Some were afraid of a rush of cranks who would not obey rules and so forth. She laughed the idea to scorn. "I wish I could believe in a crush--but there are sensible men and women enough in the Church who would be as law-abiding here as at home." XVII. LOVE-LETTEBS During the course of her career Miss Slessor wrote numberless letters, many of them productions of six, ten, twelve, and fourteen pages, closely penned in spidery writing, which she called her "hieroglyphic style." She had the gift, which more women than men possess, of expressing her ideas on paper in as affluent and graceful a way as in conversation. Her letters indeed were long monologues, the spontaneous outpouring of an active and clever mind. She sat down and talked vivaciously of everything about her, not of public affairs, because she knew people at home would not understand about these, but of her children, the natives, her journeys, her ailments, the services, the palavers, all as simply and naturally and as fully as if she were addressing an interested listener. But it was essential that her correspondent should be in sympathy with her. She could never write a formal letter; she could not even compose a business letter in the ordinary way. Neither could she write to order, nor give an official report of her work. The prospect of appearing in print paralysed her. It was always the heart and not the mind of her correspondent that she addressed. What appeared from time to time in the _Record_ and in the _Women's Missionary Magazine_, were mainly extracts from private letters, and they derived all their charm and colour from the fact that they were meant for friends who loved and understood her. In the same way she would be chilled by receiving a coldly expressed letter. "I wish you hadn't said _Dear Madam_," she told a lady at home. "I'm just an insignificant, wee, auld wifey that you would never address in that way if you knew me. I'll put the _Madam_ aside, and drag up my chair close to you and the girls you write for, and we'll have a chat by the fireside." She could not help writing; it was the main outlet for her loving nature, so much repressed in the loneliness of the bush. Had she not possessed so big and so ardent a heart, she would have written less. Into her letters she poured all the wealth of her affection; they were in the real sense love-letters; and her magic gift of sympathy made them always prized by the recipients. She had no home people of her own, and she pressed her nearest friends to make her "one of the family." "If," she would say, "you would let me share in any disappointments or troubles, I would feel more worthy of your love--I will tell you some of mine as a counter-irritant!" Many followed her behest with good result. "I'm cross this morning," wrote a young missionary at the beginning of a long letter, "and I know it is all my own fault, but I am sure that writing to you will put me in a better temper. When things go wrong, there is nothing like a talk with you.... Now I must stop, the letter has worked the cure." Her letters of counsel to her colleagues when they were in difficulties with their work were helpful and inspiring to the highest degree. On occasions of trial or sorrow she always knew the right word to say. How delicately, for instance, would she try to take the edge off the grief of bereaved friends by describing the arrival of the spirit in heaven, and the glad welcome that would be got there from those who had gone before. "Heaven is just a meeting and a homing of our real selves. God will never make us into new personalities. Everlasting life--take that word _life_ and turn it over and over and press it and try to measure it, and see what it will yield. It is a magnificent idea which comprises everything that heart can yearn after." On another occasion she wrote, "I do not like that petition in the Prayer Book, _From sudden death, good Lord deliver us_. I never could pray it. It is surely far better to see Him at once without pain of parting or physical debility. Why should we not be like the apostle in his confident outburst of praise and assurance, 'For I am persuaded...'?" Again: "Don't talk about the cold hand of death--it is the hand of Christ." It was not surprising that her correspondence became greater at last than she could manage. The pile of unanswered communications was like a millstone round her neck, and in these latter days she began to violate an old rule and snatch time from the hours of night. Headings such as "10 P.M.," "Midnight," "8.45 A.M.," became frequent, yet she would give love's full measure to every correspondent, and there was seldom sign of undue strain. "If my pen is in a hurry," she would say, "my heart is not." When she was ill and unable to write, she would simply lie in bed and speak to her Father about it all. There was a number of friends to whom she wrote regularly, and whose relations to her may be judged from the manner in which they began their letters. "My lady of Grace," "My beloved missionary," "Dearest sister," were some of the phrases used. But her nature demanded at least one confidante to whom she could lay bare her inmost thoughts. She needed a safety-valve, a city of refuge, a heart and mind with whom there would be no reservations, and Providence provided her with a kind of confessor from whom she obtained all the understanding and sympathy and love she craved for. This was Miss Adam, who, while occasionally differing from her in minor matters of policy, never, during the fifteen years of their friendship, once failed her. What she was to the lonely missionary no one can know. Mary said she knew without being told what was in her heart, and "how sweet," she added, "it is to be understood and have love reading between the lines." Month by month she sent to Bowden the intimate story of her doings, her troubles, hopes, and fears, and joys, and received in return wise and tender counsel and encouragement and practical help. She kept the letters under her pillow and read and reread them. Never self-centred or self-sufficient, she depended upon the letters that came from home to a greater extent than many of her friends suspected. She needed the inflow of love into her own life, and she valued the letters that brought her cheer and stimulus and inspiration. Once she was travelling on foot, and had four miles of hill-road to go, and was feeling very weary and depressed at the magnitude of the work and her own weakness, when a letter was handed to her. It was the only one by that mail, but it was enough. She sat down, and in the quiet of the bush she opened it, and as she read all the tiredness fled, the heat was forgotten, the road was easy, and she went blithely up the hill. Outside the circle of her friends many people wrote to her from Scotland, and some from England, Canada, and America. Boys and girls whom she had never seen sent her letters telling her of their cats and dogs, of football, and lessons and school. With her replies sometimes went a snake skin, a brass tray, a miniature paddle, or other curio. But it was the letter, rather than the gift, that was enjoyed. As one girl wrote; "You are away out helping the poor black kiddies and people, and just as busy doing good as possible, and yet you've time to send a letter home to a little Scottish girl, a letter fragrant with everything lovely and good, that makes one try harder than ever to do right, and that fills one's heart with beautiful helpful thoughts." To her own bairns, wherever they were, she wrote letters full of household news and gentle advice. To Dan at the Institute she wrote regularly--very pleased she was when she heard he had been at lectures on bacteria and understood them!--and when Alice and Maggie were inmates of the Edgerley Memorial School she kept in the closest touch with them. Here is a specimen of her letters, written chiefly in Efik, and addressed apparently to Alice: MY PRECIOUS CHILDREN--I am thinking a lot about you, for you will soon be losing our dear Miss Young; and while I am sorry for myself I am sorrier for you and Calabar. How are you all? and have you been good? and are you all trying to serve and please Jesus your Lord? Whitie has gone to sleep. She has been making sand and yöñö-ing my bedroom, the bit that you did not finish. Janie has yöñö-d the high bits, so Whitie is very tired. Janie has gone to stay all night with the twin-mother and her baby in the town where Effiom used to live long ago. One baby was dead, but she is keeping the other, and the chief says, "Ma, you are our mother, but what you have done will be the death of us." But I tell them just to die. The mother almost died. One child was born dead, and Janie and I stayed all night there. Mary is at Ikot Ekpene. We saw her as we passed in the motor. The whole town came to-day and put splendid beams in the verandah both in front and behind, swept all behind, and put on a corrugated iron roof, did the porch and various other things, and the safe. Good-bye. Are you well? We are well, through God's goodness. Are you coming soon for holidays? My heart is hungry to see you and to touch your hands. Greetings to Ma Fuller. Greet Ma Wilkie and Mr. Wilkie for me. Greet each other. All we greet you. With much love to Maggie, Dan, Asuquö,--I am, in all my prayers, your mother, M. Slessor. The girls and Dan also wrote regularly to her in Efik--such letters as this: I am pleased to send this little letter to you. Are you well? I am fairly well through the goodness of God. Why have you delayed to send us a letter? Perhaps you are too busy to write, but we are coming home in a fortnight. If you hear we are on the way come quickly out when you hear the voices of the people from the beach, because you know it will be us. Greet Whitie, Janie, Annie and all, and accept greeting from your loving child MAGGIE. After her death there was found at Use a bundle of papers, evidently much treasured, labelled "My children's letters." XVIII. A LONELY FIGURE She returned to Use, but only remained long enough to arrange for the material for the house at Odoro Ikpe. Of the special difficulties that would beset her on this occasion, she was quite aware. The timber supply on the ground was scarce, transport would be expensive, there was no local skilled labour, and she was unable to work with her own hands, while it was not easy to procure carriers and other work-people, since the Government, with the consent of the chiefs, were taking batches of men from each village for the coalfields and railway, a measure she approved, as it prevented the worst elements in the community drifting there. But nothing ever discouraged her, and she returned at the end of April and embarked once more, and for the last time, on building operations. Friends kept tempting her to come to Scotland. Her friend Miss Young was now Mrs. Arnot, wife of the Rev. David Arnot, M.A., Blairgowrie, and from her came a pressing invitation to make her home at the manse. "I will meet you at Liverpool," Mrs. Arnot wrote, "and bring you straight here, where you will rest and be nursed back to health again." It was proposed that Alice should come with her, and be left at Blairgowrie while Mary visited her friends. She was delighted, and wrote gaily that when she did come she "would not be a week-end visitor or a tea visitor, but a barnacle. It is, however, all too alluring. One only thing can overtop it, and that is duty as put into my hands by my King." Then she paints a picture of the piles of timber and corrugated iron about her for the building of a house, "for the happy and privileged man or woman who shall take up the work of salvage," and of Ikpe waiting patiently, and the towns surrendering on all sides, and adds, "Put yourself in my place, and with an accession of strength given since I camped up here, how could you do other than I have done? I verily thought to be with the Macgregors, but this came and the strength has come with it, and there must be no more moving till the house is up, when I hope and pray some one will come to it. What a glorious privilege it all is! I can't think why God has so highly honoured and trusted me." She entered on a period of toil and tribulation which proved to be one of the most trying and exacting in her life. The house itself was a simple matter. Large posts were inserted in the ground, and split bamboos were placed between; cross pieces were tied on with strips of the oil-palm tree, and then clay was prepared and pounded in. But fifty men and lads were employed, and she had never handled so lazy, so greedy, so inefficient a gang. Compelled to supervise them constantly, she often had to sit in the fierce sunshine for eight hours at a time; then with face unwashed and morning wrapper still on she would go and conduct school. If she went to Ikpe for a day, all the work done required to be gone over again. Sometimes she lost all patience, and resorted to a little "muscular Christianity," which caused huge amusement, but always had the desired effect. But she was very philosophical over it. "It is all part of the heathen character, and, as Mrs. Anderson used to say, 'Well, Daddy, if they were Christians there would have been no need for you and me here.'" Jean often became very wroth, and demanded of the people if "Ma" was not to obtain time to eat, and if they wanted to kill her? Annie and her husband had been placed at Nkanga, and Jean now managed the household affairs. The faithful girl had her own difficulties in the way of catering, for on account of the isolation money frequently ran done, and she could not obtain the commonest necessities to feed her "Ma." An empty purse always worried Mary, but it was a special trial to her independent and sensitive spirit at this period, for she was in debt to the skilled carpenter who had been engaged, and to the labourers, and was compelled to undergo the humiliation of borrowing. On one occasion she obtained a loan of 5s. from one of her rare visitors, a Government doctor, a Scot and a Presbyterian, who was investigating tropical diseases, and who, finding her in the Rest House, had contentedly settled down with his microscopes in the Court House shed. After working all day in the bush he spent many evenings with her, and she was much impressed by his upright character, and his kindness and courtesy to the natives, and said matters would be very different in Africa if all civil and military men were of the same stamp. The only other two visitors she had at this time were Mr. Bowes, the printer at Duke Town, and Mr. Hart, the accountant, the latter bringing her all the money she needed. By the end of July the house was roughly built, and she was able to mount up to the top rooms by means of a "hen" ladder, and there on the loose, unsteady boards she sat tending her last motherless baby, and feeling uplifted into a new and restful atmosphere. A pathetic picture she made, sitting gazing over the wide African plain. She had never been more isolated, never felt more alone. So lonely 'twas, that God Himself Scarce seemed there to be. She was without assistance, her body was broken and pitifully weak, and yet with dauntless spirit and quenchless faith she looked hopefully to the future, when those infant stations about her would be occupied by consecrated men and women. XIX. When the Great War Came Into the African bush, the home of many things that white men cannot understand, there was stealing a troubled sense of mystery. The air was electric with expectation and alarm. Impalpable influences seemed fighting the feeble old woman on the lonely hill-top. She was worried by transport difficulties. What the causes were she did not know, but the material did not come, and as she was paying the carpenter a high wage she was compelled to dismiss him. What work there was to do she attempted to accomplish with her own thin, worn hands. In the early days of August the natives began to whisper to each other strange stories about fighting going on in the big white world beyond the seas. News came from Calabar that the European firms had ceased to buy produce: canoes which went down river for rice and kerosene, returned again with their cargoes of nuts and oil. She wondered what was happening. Then excited natives came to her in a panic, with tales of a mad Europe and of Britain fighting Germany. She pooh-poohed the rumours and outwardly appeared calm and unafraid in order to reassure them, but the silence and the suspense were unbearable. On the 13th she received letters and heard of the outbreak of the war. All the possibilities involved in that tremendous event came crowding upon her mind, the immense suffering and sorrow, and, not least to her, the peril to Calabar. Nigeria was conterminous with the Cameroons, and she knew the Germans well enough to anticipate trouble. The cost of articles, too, she realised, would go up, and as she had little food in the house she at once sent to the market for supplies. Already prices were doubled. Her kerosene oil gave out, and she had to resort to lighted firewood to read at prayers. She went on bravely with the routine duties of the station--Dan, who was now with her, helping in the school--but she longed impatiently for news, "Oh, for a telegram," she would cry, "even a boy bawling in the street!" The officer at Ikot Ekpene, knowing her anxiety, sent over the latest intelligence, but she half suspected that he kept back the worst. The worst came in her first war mail which arrived when she was sitting superintending operations at the house. She read why Britain had entered the conflict and exclaimed, "Thank God! our nation is not the aggressor." Then came the story of the invasion of Belgium and the reverses of the Allies. Shocked and sad she essayed to rise, but was unable to move. The girls ran to her aid and lifted her up, but she could not stand. Exerting her will-power and praying for strength she directed the girls to carry her over to the Rest House and put her to bed. Ague came on, and in half an hour she was in a raging fever which lasted, with scarcely an interval, for a fortnight. She struggled on amidst increasing difficulties and worries, the horrors of the war with her night and day. Her old enemy, diarrhoea, returned, and she steadily weakened and seemed entering the valley of the shadow. She did not fear death, but the thought of passing away alone in the bush troubled her, for her skull might be seized and be worshipped as a powerful juju by the people. At last she lay in a stupor as if beyond help. It was a scene which suggested the final act in Dr. Livingstone's life. The girls were crying. The church lads stood alarmed and awed. Then they raised her in her camp-bed and marched with her the five miles to Ikpe. Next morning they lifted the bed into a canoe and placed her under a tarpaulin and paddled her down the Creek. They landed at Okopedi beach, where she lay in the roadway in the moonlight, scarcely breathing. The agent of a trading-house brought restoratives and sent for Dr. Wood, then at Itu, who accompanied her to Use and waited the night as he feared she would not recover. All through the hours her mind was occupied with the war and the soldiers in the trenches. Next day she was a little better, but would not hear of going to Itu to be cared for there. To her Use was home where the children could minister to her, but realising her lack of strength she sent a message to Miss Peacock asking her to come over. Miss Peacock said to her fellow-worker, "Ma must be very ill before she would send for any one," and she cycled to Use at once. Mary confided to her that it might be the end, and "Oh," she exclaimed, "if only the war were over and my children safe in the Kingdom, how gladly would I go!" She called the bairns to her and told them what to do in the event of her death. Like all natives in the presence of serious illness they were greatly upset and wept bitterly, but as the disorder passed they began to think that she would get better, and went about their duties, Jean to her marketing, and Alice to the care of the house, with Whitie to help, while Maggie looked after the baby. The shadow of the war continued to darken her heart. She agonised for the cause which her native land had taken up, and many a cry went up to God on its behalf in the hour of trial. Miss Peacock remained several nights, and returned to Ikotobong with a strong presentiment that "Ma" was not to be long with them, and she and Miss Couper arranged to keep in touch with her as closely as possible. As she plodded on towards strength and as better news arrived about the war situation she began to be more like herself and take up her old duties. For a time she lay in the verandah on a deck chair; and then went to the church, conducted the Sunday services, but was obliged to sit all the time and lean her body against the communion-table. Yet in the midst of her weakness and suffering she had always a bright laugh and a word of encouragement for others. Reluctantly she came to the conclusion that nothing would heal her but a voyage home and as she was longing for a few more hours--it was not years now--of work she made up her mind to face it, and to include in her furlough a visit to the graves of her mother and sister at Exeter. The difficulty of the east wind in Scotland was overcome by a proposal from Mrs. Arnot, who in the mystery of things, had suddenly been bereft of her husband, that she would take a small house where they could live together in quiet. "I shall meet you," that lady wrote, "and make a home for you and care for you if God puts it into your heart to come." The wonderful kindness of the offer brought tears to her eyes and she consented with a great content. Her plan was to return to Odoro Ikpe, complete the house, and leave for Scotland early in the spring; and she asked Miss Adam to send her a hat and boots and other articles which civilisation demanded. Her only regret was at leaving her people and specially those at Ikpe. "It is ten years since I first took them on, and they have never got a teacher yet. It is bitterly hard!" Miss Peacock and Miss Couper noticed, however, that the old recuperative power which had always surprised them was gone, and one day she said that she had been overhauling her desk and tearing up letters in case anything should happen. The tragedy of the war came home personally to her. Two of her official friends, Commander G. Gray and Lieutenant H. A. Child, C.M.G., were serving in the Navy and were both drowned by the capsizing of a whaler when crossing the bar at the entrance to the Nyong River. "They were my oldest and most intimate friends here, capable, sane Empire-builders," and she sorrowed for them with a great sorrow. Sometimes her old fighting spirit was roused by the news of the deeds of the enemy. "Oh if I were thirty years younger, and if I were a man! ... We must not have peace until Germany licks the dust and is undeceived and stricken once for all." Her comments brought out the fact that she had followed European events very closely during the past thirty years, whilst her letters to her faint-hearted friends in Scotland showed her usual insight: God does not mean you and me to carry the burden, and German soldiers are flesh and blood and must give out by-and-by, and they cannot create new armies, and with long-drawn out lines of battle on East and West they can't send an army that could invade Britain. They could harass, that's all, and our women are not Belgians; they would fight even German soldiers. Yes! they would stand up to William the Execrated. Moreover, Zeppelins can do a lot of hurt, but they can't take London; and Ostend and Antwerp are no nearer Britain for any kind of air attack than Berlin is, and above all our perspective is doubtless better than yours--any one can see that to try and take towns and to fight in streets filled with civilians has not a pennyworth of military value. It is a sheer waste of energy and life which should have been utilised on the armies and strongholds of a country. Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp, even Paris, had they got it, would be a mere blare of trumpets, a flash in the pan, a spectacular show, and if they took Edinburgh or London or Aberdeen, it would be the same, they would still have to reckon with a nation or nations. It has all been a mistake for their own downfall, and they will clear out of Belgium poorer than they entered it. Haven't the East Indians done nobly? Bravo our Allies! She had now fallen into calmer mood. "Miss Slessor," she would say severely to herself, "why do you worry? Is God not fit to take care of His own universe and purpose? We are not guilty of any aggression or lust of conquest, and we can trust Him to bring us through. He is not to be turned aside from the working out of His purpose by any War Lord." She always fell back on the thought, "The Lord reigneth" as on a soft pillow and rested there. Writing one morning at 6 o'clock she described the beauty of the dawn and the earth refreshed and cooled and the hope and the mystery of a new day opening out, and contrasted it with the darkness and cold and fog experienced by the army and navy. "God is always in the world," she said; "the sunshine will break out and light will triumph." And she did not ignore the deeper issues, "May our nation be sent from its pleasures to its knees, and the Church be awed and brought back to Him." On Christmas Day a service was held at which she intimated the opening of the subscription list for the Prince of Wales' Fund. She did not like to speak of war among Christian nations to natives; but it was current history, and she made the best explanation she could, though she was glad to turn their thoughts to the day of National Intercession on the following Sabbath. Dan acted as interpreter in the evening to Mr. Hart, who gave an address. To a friend she wrote: There will be few merry Christmasses in Europe this year. But, thank God, there will be a more profound sense of all Christ came to be and do for mankind, and a closer union and communion between Him and His people, through the sadness and insufficiency of earthly good. He will Himself draw near, and will fill empty chairs in lonely homes and hearts, and make His people--aye--and thousands who have not sought Him in prosperity--to know that here and now He is the Resurrection and the Life, that he that believeth in Him shall never die. On New Year's Day Miss Peacock and Miss Couper went to spend the afternoon with her, and the former writes: According to old-time customs I had made her her favourite plum-pudding and sent it over with a message that we meant to come to tea on New Year's Day. On our arrival the tea-table was set, and the plum-pudding with a rose out of the garden stuck on the top was on the table. Miss Slessor was as happy as a girl, and said she had to exercise self- control to keep from tasting the pudding before we arrived. And we had a merry meal. Then, when we left, she had to escort us to the end of the road. A new tenderness seemed to have come into her life, and with regard to those with whom she differed, she seemed to go out of her way to say the kindest things possible. She spoke to me of something she had written which she had torn up and said, "I wonder I could have been so hard." It was not difficult to see the last touches of the Master's hand to the life He had been moulding for so many years. XX. THE TIME OF THE SINGING OF BIRDS At the turn of the year her thoughts were again with her mother who had passed away then, twenty-nine years before. She was feeling very weak, but read and wrote as usual. Her last letter to Miss Adam told, amongst other things, of the previous day's service and how Annie's little girl would run about the church and point to her and call to her--"I can't say 'Don't bring her' for there should be room enough for the babies in our Father's house." Her closing words to her old friend were, "God be with you till we meet again." Even in her feeble state she was always thinking of others. David had taken his wife to Lagos, and her vivid imagination conjured up all the dangers of the voyage, and she was anxious for their safety. In the same letter in which she speaks of them, written on the 5th, she pours out sympathy and comfort to a lady friend in Edinburgh whose two sons had joined the Forces. My heart bleeds for you, my dear, dear friend, but God's love gave the mother heart its love and its yearning over its treasures, so He will know how to honour and care for the mother, and how to comfort her and keep her treasures for her. Just keep hold on Him, dear one, and put your boys into His hand, as you did when they were babies. He is able to keep them safe in the most difficult and dangerous situations. I am constantly praying with you, and with others of my friends, who, just as you, are giving up their dearest and most precious at the call of Duty. God can enrich them and you and all the anxious and exposed ones even through the terrible fires. In God's governance not one precious thing can ever be lost. On Friday the 8th she sat on a deck-chair in the little garden outside the door enjoying the sunshine, for the harmattan wind was cold, and writing some letters. The last she penned was to Mrs. Arnot, in which she said she was better though "a wee shade weaker than usual." It was never finished, and was found, later, on her pad. The final words were: "I can't say definitely whether I shall yet come in March--if I be spared till then ..." In the afternoon there was a recurrence of fever. Alice tended her unceasingly, seldom leaving her bedside, and stretching herself, when in need of rest, on a mat beside the bed. She was a great comfort to Mary. On Sunday spirit again dominated body; she struggled up, went over to the church, and conducted service. Next day she was suffering acutely from diarrhoea and vomiting, and one of the girls went to Ikotobong and summoned Miss Peacock, who immediately cycled over. "I got a messenger," says Miss Peacock, "and sent him to Itu stating the symptoms, and asking Dr. Robertson to come and see her. All the afternoon the vomiting and diarrhoea continued until Dr. Robertson arrived. He had secured some ice at one of the factories, and gave her some medicine, and both the diarrhoea and vomiting were stopped. All the afternoon there had been a great restlessness and weariness, and unless to ask for something she seldom spoke. Her mails were brought into the room by one of the girls, but she took no notice of them. She was moved from her bed on to her chair, and back again several times, but did not seem to be able to rest anywhere; then she would give a great cry of weariness as if she were wearied unto death. "As the evening wore on she became quieter, but had a great thirst, and begged that a little bit of the ice might be put into her mouth. She had a very quiet night, without any recurrence of the former symptoms, and I thought she was somewhat better, until the morning revealed how exhausted she was. The old restlessness began again, and I got a lad from the school to take a message over to Itu to Dr. Robertson. My report was that Miss Slessor had had a quiet night, but was suffering from extreme exhaustion. The doctor sent over some medicine with instructions, and she seemed again to be able to lie quietly. Once when I was attending to her she said, 'Ma, it's no use,' and again she prayed, 'O _Abasi, sana mi yok_' ('O God release me'). As I fed her with milk or chicken soup, she would sometimes sign to me, or just say 'Ma.' A lonely feeling came into my heart, and as I had to send a message to Ikotobong, I asked Miss Couper to cycle over in the afternoon. She stayed all the afternoon, and when she left Miss Slessor was still quiet, and her pulse was fairly good. This was the 12th. "The girls--Janie, Annie, Maggie, Alice, and Whitie--were all with me, and we made our arrangements for the night-watch. It was not a grand room with costly furnishings; the walls were of reddish-brown mud, very roughly built; the floor was of cement, with a rug here and there, and the roof corrugated iron. Besides the bed, washhand-stand, and a chair or two, there was a chest of drawers which had belonged to her mother, and in which was found all that was needed for the last service. Her greatness was never in her surroundings, for she paid little attention to these, but in the hidden life which we caught glimpses of now and then when she forgot herself and revealed what was in her mind with regard to the things that count. "As the hours wore on, several times she signed to us to turn her, and we noticed that her breathing was becoming more difficult. It was a very dark night, and the natives were sound asleep in their houses, but I sent off two of the girls to rouse two men to go to Itu; and we waited anxiously the coming of the doctor. A strange uneasiness seemed to come upon us. All the girls were round the bedside, and now and then one or two would begin to weep. The clock had been forgotten, and we did not know the time. A cock crew, and one of the girls said, 'Day must be dawning,' but when I drew aside the curtain there was nothing but pitch darkness. It was not nearly daybreak, and we felt that the death-angel was drawing very near. Several times a change passed over the dear face, and the girls burst out into wild weeping; they knew only too well the sign of the dread visitor. They wished to rush away, but I told them they must stay, and together we watched until at 3.30 God took her to Himself. There was no great struggle at the end; just a gradual diminishing of the forces of nature, and Ma Akamba, 'The Great Mother,' entered into the presence of the King." And so the long life of toil was over. "The time of the singing of birds," she used to say, "is where Christ is." For her, now, the winter was past, the rain was over and gone, the time of the singing of birds had come.... When the girls realised that she was gone, they gave way to their grief, and lamented their position in the world. "My mother is dead--my mother is dead--we shall be counted as slaves now that our mother is dead." The sound of the weeping reached the town and roused the inhabitants from their slumbers. Men and women came to the house and mingled their tears with those of the household. They sat about on the steps, went into the bedroom and gazed sorrowfully on the white still face of her whom they regarded as a mother and friend. As the news was passed on, people came from Itu and the district round, to see in death her who had been _Eka kpukpru owo_, "Everybody's Mother." As soon as Mr. Wilkie received the telegram announcing the end, he obtained a launch and sent it up with the Rev. W. M. Christie, B.A., who, Mr. Macgregor being at home, was in charge of the Institute. While it was on the way an English and an Efik service were being held at Itu. The launch arrived at 5.30 P.M., the coffin was placed on board, and the return voyage begun. It was midnight ere Duke Town was reached, and the body rested at Government Beach until dawn. There the mourners gathered. Government officials, merchants, and missionaries, were all there. The boys of the Institute were drawn up on the beach, policemen were posted in the streets, and the pupils of Duke Town school continued the line to the cemetery. All flags flew at half-mast, and the town was hushed and still. Great crowds watched the procession, which moved along in silence. The coffin was draped with the Union Jack, and was carried shoulder high by the boat boys, who wore black singlets and mourning loin-cloths, but no caps. At the cemetery on Mission Hill stood a throng of natives. Old Mammy Fuller who had loved Mary so much, sat alone at the top of the grave. When the procession was approaching she heard some women beginning to wail, and at once rose. "_Kutua oh, kutua oh_," she said. "Do not cry, do not cry. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Ma was a great blessing." A short and simple service was conducted by Mr. Wilkie and Mr. Rankin, and some of the native members led the singing of "_When the day of toil is done_," and "_Asleep in Jesus_." The coffin was lowered by eight of the teachers of Duke Town School, and lilies and other flowers were thrown upon it. Mammy Fuller uttered a grateful sigh. "Safe," she murmured. One or two women wept quietly, but otherwise there was absolute silence, and those who know the natives will understand the restraint which they imposed upon themselves. Upon the grave were placed crosses of purple bougainvillea and white and pink frangipanni, and in the earth was planted a slip from the rose bush at Use, that it might grow and be symbolic of the fragrance and purity and beauty of her life. "Ma," said Mammy Fuller to Mrs. Wilkie when all was over, "I don't know when I enjoyed anything so much; I have been just near heaven all the time." XXI. TRIBUTE AND TREASURE Many tributes were paid to the dead pioneer. As soon as Sir Frederick Lugard, the Governor-General of Nigeria, heard of the event he telegraphed to Mr. Wilkie: "It is with the deepest regret that I learn of the death of Miss Slessor. Her death is a great loss to Nigeria." And later came the formal black-bordered notice in the Government _Gazette_:-- It is with the deepest regret that His Excellency the Governor-General has to announce the death at Itu, on 18th January, of Miss Mary Mitchell Slessor, Honorary Associate of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England. For thirty-nine years, with brief and infrequent visits to England, Miss Slessor has laboured among the people of the Eastern Provinces in the south of Nigeria. By her enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, and greatness of character she has earned the devotion of thousands of the natives among whom she worked, and the love and esteem of all Europeans, irrespective of class or creed, with whom she came in contact. She has died, as she herself wished, on the scene of her labours, but her memory will live long in the hearts of her friends, Native and European, in Nigeria. Testimony regarding her qualities and work was given in Scotland by the Mission Committees of the United Free Church, by officials, missionaries, and others who knew her, and by the Press, whilst from many parts of the world came notices of her career which indicated how widely known she had been. The appreciation which would perhaps have pleased her most was a poem written by a Scottish girl, fifteen years of age, with whom she had carried on a charming correspondence-- Christine G. M. Orr, daughter of Sheriff Orr, Edinburgh. She would, doubtless, have had it included in any notice of her work, and here, therefore, it is given: THE LAMENT OF HER AFRICAN CHILDREN She who loved us, she who sought us Through the wild untrodden bushlands, Brought us healing, brought us comfort, Brought the sunlight to our darkness, She has gone--the dear white Mother-- Gone into the great Hereafter. Never more on rapid waters Shall she dip her flashing paddle, Nor again the dry leaves rustle 'Neath her footstep in the forest, Never more shall we behold her Eager, dauntless on her journeyings. Now the children miss their teacher, And the women mourn their helper; And the sick, the weak, the outcast Long that she once more might touch them, Long to hear her speaking comfort, Long to feel her strong hand soothing. Much in loneliness and danger, Fevered oft, beset with trouble, Still she strove for us, her children; Taught us of the great good Spirit, He who dwells beyond the sunrise; Showed to us the love He bears us, By her own dear loving-kindness; Told us not to fear the spirits, Evil spirits in the shadows, For our Father-God is watching, Watching through the cloudless daytime, Watching at the silent midnight, So that nothing harms His people; Taught us how to love each other, How to care for little children With a tenderness we knew not, How, with courtesy and honour, To respect the gentle women, Nor despise them for their weakness, But, as wives and mothers, love them. Thus she taught, and thus she laboured; Living, spent herself to help us, Dying, found her rest among us. Let the dry, harsh winds blow softer And the river's song fall lower, While the forest sways and murmurs In the mystery of evening, And the lonely bush lies silent, Silent with a mighty sorrow. Oh! our mother--she who loved us, She who lost herself in service, She who lightened all our darkness, She has left us, and we mourn her With a lonely, aching sorrow. May the great good Spirit hear us, Hear us in our grief and save us, Compass us with His protection Till, through suffering and shadow, We with weary feet have journeyed And again our mother greets us In the Land beyond the sunrise. Both the Calabar Council and the Women's Foreign Mission Committee in Scotland felt that the most fitting memorial to her would be the continuation of her work, and arrangements were accordingly made for the appointment and supervision of teachers and evangelists at Use, Ikpe, and Odoro Ikpe, and for the care of the children. It was also decided to realise her settlement scheme and call it "The Mary Slessor Home for Women and Girls," with a memorial missionary in charge, and later an appeal for a capital sum of £5000 for the purpose was issued. It would have pleased Mary to know that the lady chosen for the position of memorial missionary was her old colleague Mrs. Arnot. She had worked hard and waited long for the accomplishment of this idea, and she may yet, from above, see of the travail of her soul and be satisfied.... By and by her more special possessions were collected and sent home. If she had been an ordinary woman one might have expected to see a collection of the things that a lady likes to gather about her; the dainty trinkets and souvenirs, the jewellery and knicknacks that have pleasant associations connected with them. When the little box arrived it was filled less with these than with pathos and tears. It held merely a few much-faded articles, one or two Bibles, a hymn-book (the gift of some twin-mother at home), an old-fashioned scent-bottle, a pebble brooch, hair bracelet, two old lockets, and her mother's ring-- all these were evidently relics of the early days--a compass, and a fountain pen. But there also came a large packet of letters, those received during her last years, which revealed where her treasures on earth were stored--in a multitude of hearts whose love she had won. They were from men in Nigeria--Government officials, missionaries, and merchants-- from men and women in many lands, from the mothers and sisters of the "boys" to whom she had been kind, from Church officials, from children --all overflowing with affection and admiration and love. She had often called herself a "rich woman." One learned from these letters the reason why. XXII. SEEN AND UNSEEN Miss Slessor had a sure consciousness of her limitations, and knew she was nothing but a forerunner, who opened up the way and made it possible for others to come in and take up the work on normal lines. Both in the sphere of mission exploration and in the region of ideas she possessed the qualities of the pioneer,--imagination, daring, patience,--and like all idealists she met with opposition. It was not, however, the broad policy she originated that was criticised, so much as matters of detail, and no doubt there was sometimes justification for this. She admitted that she had no gifts as an organiser, and when she engaged in constructive work it was because there was no one else to do it. What she accomplished, therefore, cannot be measured only by the visible results of her own handiwork. The Hope Waddell Institute was the outcome of her suggestions, and from it has gone out a host of lads to teach in schools throughout the country, and to influence the lives of thousands of others. She laid the foundations of civilised order in Okoyong, upon which regular church and school life has now been successfully built. When she unlocked the Enyong Creek, some were amused at the little kirks and huts she constructed in the bush, and asked what they were worth--just a few posts plastered with mud, and a sheet or two of corrugated iron. But they represented a spiritual force and influence far beyond their material value. They were erected with her life-blood, they embodied her love for her Master and for the people, they were outposts, the first dim lights in the darkness of a dark land, they stood for Christ Himself and His Cross. And to-day there exist throughout the district nearly fifty churches and schools in which the work is being carried on carefully and methodically by trained minds. The membership numbers nearly 1500, and there is a large body of candidates and enquirers and over 2000 scholars. The remarkable progress being made in self-support may be gathered from the following figures taken from the accounts of the five Creek congregations for 1914: Members Income Cash in bank Itu . . . . 109 £113 9 4 £97 13 6 Okpo . . . . 101 76 7 7 62 16 8 Asang . . . . 428 184 17 10 865 13 6 Obufa Obio (Chief Onoyom) . . . 118 118 16 10 736 19 4 Ntan Obu . . . 111 83 11 9 204 1 2 All these churches and others that she began are spreading the Gospel not only by direct effort, but also by means of their members as they trade up and down the country. One cannot estimate the value of her general influence on the natives; it extended over an area of more than 2000 square miles, from all parts of which they came to seek her help and advice, whilst her fame reached even to Northern Nigeria, where she was spoken of as the "good White Ma who lived alone." To West Africans, a woman is simply a chattel to be used for pleasure and gain, but she gave them a new conception of womanhood, and gained their reverence and confidence and obedience. Although she came to upset all their ideas and customs, which represented home and habit and life itself to them, they loved her and would not let the wind blow on her. She thus made it easy for other women agents to live and work amongst them; probably there is no similar mission field where these can dwell in such freedom and safety. And through her womanhood she gave them some idea of the power and beauty of the religion which could make that womanhood possible. Her influence will not cease, for in the African bush, where there are no daily newspapers to crowd out events impressions, and tradition is tenacious, she will be remembered in hut and harem and by forest camp fire, and each generation will hand down to the next the story of the Great White Mother who lived and toiled for their good. Upon the Mission staff her example acted like a tonic. Her tireless energy, her courage, her enthusiasm, were infectious and stimulating, to the highest degree, and stirred many to action. Such an inspiring force is a valuable asset in a tropical land, where everything tends to languor and inertia. And in Scotland her influence was also very great. Round her name and work gathered a romance which deepened and widened interest in the missionary enterprise of the Church. Her career demonstrates how important is the personal touch and tie in sustaining and increasing the attraction of the work abroad. By the spell of her personality she was able to draw support not only from large numbers of people within her own Church, but from many outside who had little thought or for missions. It was because she not a mere name on a list, but a warm, living, inspiring, human presence. For while she was great as a pioneer and worker, she was equally great as a woman. XXIII. THE ALABASTER Box But the interest in Nigeria on the part of the home people as a whole was never enough for Miss Slessor. It was largely an interest in herself and her work, and she wanted rather the larger vision which would realise the possibilities of that great field, and endeavour to conquer it for the Master. The general indifference on the subject was a deep disappointment to her. But it had always been so. The story of Calabar is one of the most thrilling in the history of missions, yet through it also there runs an undercurrent of tragedy-- the tragedy of unseized opportunities and unfulfilled hopes. As one reads, he can fancy that he is standing by a forest at night listening to the sound that the wind brings of a strange conflict between a few brave spirits, and legions of wild and evil forces, with incessant cries for help. From the first days of the Mission, urgent appeals for more workers have constantly been made; there is scarcely a year that the men and women on the spot have not pressed its urgent needs upon the home Church, but never once has there been an adequate response. To-day, as always, the staff is pitifully small. To minister to the needs of the many millions within the area assigned to the Church, there are only eighteen European missionaries, three medical missionaries, and thirteen women agents, apart from the wives of the married missionaries. In Duke Town and Okoyong, on the Cross River and the Enyong Creek, and far up at Uburu, the city of the salt lakes, all the stations are undermanned, and the medical men are overwhelmed by the thousands of patients who flock to them to be healed. What Mary Slessor did, other women are doing in the same spirit of selflessness and courage, but with the same sense of powerlessness to overtake what is required. The number of these women agents does not appreciably increase, for, while fresh appointments are continuously being made, there are usually more changes amongst them than amongst the men missionaries, on account of resignations from ill-health or marriage. Yet in Nigeria women have unlimited opportunities for the employment of their special gifts. The remarkable feature of the situation is that the Mission is face to face with an open door. It is not a question of sitting down in the midst of a religiously difficult and even hostile community as in India or China, and waiting patiently for admission to the hearts of the people, but of entering in and taking possession. The natives everywhere are clamouring for teachers and missionaries, education, enlightenment, and they are clamouring in vain. The peril is that under the new conditions governing the country, they will be lost to the Christian Church. With freer intercommunication, Islam is spreading south. All Mohammedans are missionaries, and their religion has peculiar attractions for the natives. Already they are trading in the principal towns, and in Arochuku a Mullah is sitting, smiling and expectant, and ingratiating himself with the people. Here the position should be strengthened; it is, as Miss Slessor knew, the master-key to the Ibo territory, for if the Aros are Christianised, they will carry the evangel with them over a wide tract of country. Miss Slessor's life shadowed by the consciousness of how little had been done, as well as by the immensity of what was still to do. Making every allowance for the initial difficulties that had to be overcome, and the long process of preparing the soil, the net result of seventy years' effort seemed to her inadequate. There is only a Christian community of 10,800, and a communion-roll of 3412, and the districts contiguous to the coast have alone been occupied, whilst no real impression has been made on the interior. Over the vast, sun-smitten land she wept, as her Master wept over the great city of old, and she did what she could--no woman could have done more--to redeem its people, and sought, year in, year out, to make the Church rise to the height of its wonderful opportunity--in vain. She knew, however, that the presentation of startling facts and figures alone would never rouse it to action; these might touch the conscience for a moment, but the only thing that would awaken interest and keep it active and militant would be a revival of love for Christ in the hearts of the people; and it was for this she prayed and agonised most of all. For with it would come a more sympathetic imagination, a warmer faith, greater courage to go forward and do the seemingly impossible and foolish thing. It would, she knew, change the aims and ideals of her sisters, so many of them moving in a narrow world of self, and thrill them with a desire to take part in the saving and uplifting of the world. There would be no need then to make appeals, for volunteers would come forward in abundance for the hardest posts, and consecrated workers would fill up the ranks in Nigeria and in all the Mission Fields of the Church. She knew, because it was so in her case. Love for Christ made her a missionary. Like that other Mary who was with Him on earth, her love constrained her to offer Him her best, and very gladly she took the alabaster box of her life and broke it and gave the precious ointment of her service to Him and His cause. Many influences move men and women to beautiful and gallant deeds, but what Mary Slessor was, and what she did, affords one more proof that the greatest of these is Love. THE END